The Gospel of Matthew Century?
"As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your
coming and of the close of the age?" And Jesus answered them, "Take heed that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name,
saying, 'I am the Christ', and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed;
for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be
famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the sufferings. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and
put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name's skae. And then many will fall away, and betray one another, and hate
one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead you astray. And because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold.
But he who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as a testimony
to all all nations; and then the end will come." - Matthew 24:3-14
"For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if
those days had not been shortened, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. Then if any
one says to you, 'Lo, here is the Christ' or "There the Christ is', do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show
great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." - Matthew 24:21-4
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days the Sun will be darkened, and the Moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall
from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken; then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then all the tribes of
the Earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory; and he will send out his
angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." - Matthew 24:32
"But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven,
nor the Son, but the Father only. As were the days of Noah, so will be
the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood
they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until
the day when Noah entered the ark, and they did not know until the flood
came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man."
- Matthew 24:36-9
"Rejoice then, O heaven and you that dwell therein. But woe to you, O
earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath,
because he knows that his time is short." - Revelation 12:12
Dead people don't read history, they are history, and living people
don't read history, they make history? There are more people alive
than ever before, history speeds up, and there is a history explosion?
One day history will happen far faster than anybody can study it?
Having a little trouble falling asleep these days? Are your debts
becoming nightmares? With your degree you can go places, but there's
nowhere to go but here? Is life all just a test? Is fact fiction and
fiction fact? Do you get the personal attention you deserve? Do your
crime scenes get investigated in time? What are the closing costs and
fees? Way, or no way? Don't get it? You just did? Call what
toll-free number? You can build a deck, go to Bora Bora, and the rate
is? Is there only One Mortgage? Will civilization flower, wax, wane,
flounder, flip-flop, belly flop, or end just like that, poof? Is the
West getting overrun with gays, lesbians, race-mixers, neo-pagans,
barbarians, and going the way of Roam Rome Rome? Is the last cent.
where humans are their own boss? Is this cent. the End of Time, or
just the beginning? The end of time for the world, or just the old
world of churches, priesthoods, Bible believers and/or Millennium Fever
(MF) itself, after a 2K-year mind-lock? How can we all go on like
this for another millennium?
The seven-layer-crunch-wrap knowledge economy is born, but does it remain a lawless frontier, get tamed, become the tool of Big Brother,
or think outside the bun? World government is inevitable, as is a single world language? But just when when when and how how how?
Genetic engineering comes to a gut-check time? Humans will not be able to move off the Earth for tens, hundreds or thousand of years? Do we
learn to get along or die, mutate, get saved, or stay unrepentant sinners and turn into bird food in Jehovah's long-promised black is
black I want my baby back Armageddon while only a tiny remnant survive to go back to Eden and be with Christ? Will man make himself obsolete
with his creations or become the master of creation? Will artificial intelligence find its limit, break out of its box, or kills its father
and marry its mudder? Will computer virtual reality technology permit the line between fact and fiction to be blurred so completely that news
and even history can be manufactured by the govt.? Or what what what? Will equality finally arrive, racial, sexual, social, or anything else,
or egalitarianism be considered tried and failed, and discarded in favor of alpha, beta, gamma and delta classes of people in a Brave New World
with No Whining signs posted? Will robots that relieve us of the need for manual work ever arrive, and what will their arrival do for or to
us? Will the future pop. be monoracial, multiracial, or amalgamated into an earthrace that gets along with everybody and views the former
"races" on Internet history sites? Will political power continue to remain concentrated in a few hands? Will electronic democracy arrive,
and, if so, will republics be replaced by mobocracies, and politicians become day traders priding themselves on great speed and quality
service? If there is global cannibalism, who will get eaten first, and who will have real shoes and who have trick shoes and who will call
goodbye shoes? I'm scared of the whole thing? You know how hard the whole airport thing is for me? Stay tuned by staying alive?
| Country | Leader | From | To | |
| United States of America | William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (1946-) | Jan. 20, 1993 | Jan. 20, 2001 |  |
| United Kingdom | Tony Blair (1953-) | May 2, 1997 | June 27, 2007 |  |
| United Kingdom | Queen Elizabeth II (1926-) | Feb. 6, 1952 |  |
|
| Russia | Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (1952-) | Dec. 31, 1999 | May 7, 2008 | |
| People's Republic of China | Jiang Zemin (1926-) | 1989 | 2002 |  |
| Canada | Jean Chrétien (1934-) | Nov. 4, 1993 | Dec. 12, 2003 |  |
| France | Jacques Chirac (1932-) | May 17, 1995 | May 16, 2007 |  |
| Germany | Gerhard Schroeder (Schröder) (1944-) | Oct. 27, 1998 | Nov. 22, 2005 |  |
| Spain | King Juan Carlos I (1938-) | Nov. 22, 1975 | June 19, 2014 |  |
| Mexico | Ernesto Zedillo (1951-) | Dec. 1, 1994 | Nov. 30, 2000 |  |
| Israel | Ehud Barak (1942-) | July 6, 1999 | Mar. 7, 2001 |  |
| Egypt | Hosni Mubarak (1928-) | Oct. 14, 1981 |  |
|
| Iraq | Saddam Hussein (1937-2006) | July 16, 1979 | Apr. 9, 2003 |  |
| Papacy | John Paul II (1920-2005) | Oct. 16, 1978 | Apr. 2, 2005 |  |
| U.N. | Kofi Atta Annan of Ghana (1938-) | Jan. 1, 1997 | Dec. 31, 2006 |  |
2000 Doomsday Clock: 9 min. to midnight. Chinese Year: Golden Dragon (Feb. 5) (lunar year 4698) (Jewish year 5760) - the Century of the Dragon? Time Man of the Year: George W. Bush (1946-); next time 2004. This is the U.N. Internat. Year for the Culture of Peace, also the World Mathematical Year. Generation Alpha consists of people born in 2000-2025. Up to 262M were killed by govts. in the 20th cent., usually after gun confiscation. World pop.: 6.2B (vs. 1.65B in 1900), with 800M in the Americas (13%) (South Am. 520M, North Am. 316M), 700M in Europe (12%), 800M in Africa (13%), 31M in Oceania, and 3.67B in Asia (60%) (twice as much as the others put together); that's approx. 100M * (8 + 7 + 8 + 37) = 100M * 60; approx. 150K people die each day; approx. 100B people have been born since Creation - people are so fickle? Rural pop. in the U.S. is 16% of total pop. (vs. 72% in 1910); the percentage of the U.S. labor force engaged in agriculture (farms) drops to a new low of 2.1% this year. The Earth enters the Anthropocene epoch of geological history, the first period of geological time shaped by a single species, characterized by the 6th largest mass extinction in Earth's history? The Earth's spin abruptly turns E and speeds up 2x to 17cm (17 in.) a year, moving toward the British Isles instead of Hudson Bay; in 2016 it is traced to lost water in Eurasia from climate change. U.S. utilities begin a new push to build coal-fired electric power plants, with 150 projects under planning or construction by spring 2007; meanwhile the U.N. IPCC-led global warming lobby plots the total shutdown of all plants around the world. In 2000-3 the Federal Reserve lowers the federal fund rate from 6.5% to 1%, causing an easy credit financial boom. In this decade U.S. pop. grows 9.7%; the Twenty-Second (22nd) (2000) U.S. Census reports the U.S. pop. as 281,421,906 (13.2% increase) (79.6 per sq. mi.) (13.2% increase since 1990); white pop. is 75.1%, the lowest in history since the first Census in 1790 (80.7%); birth/death rate per thousand 14.4/8.5; Detroit and Philadelphia are the only top-10 U.S. cities in pop. to lose pop. since 1990. Avg. life expectancy in developed countries has increased from 47 years in 1900 to 76 years (U.S.: 74.3 males, 79.7 females); in undeveloped countries almost 6M children die every year from starvation (James T. Morris, exec dir. World Food Programme). Pop. of China: 1.285B (official); 1.3B-1.5B (actual)? Pop. of India: 1B, incl. 220M vegetarians, most of any country. Pop.: Indonesia: 214M; Brazil: 182M; Russia: 145M; Bangladesh: 140M; Japan: 127M; Nigeria: 117M; Germany: 82M; Vietnam: 81M; Egypt: 74M; Iran: 68M; Turkey: 67M; Britain: 60M; France: 59M; Italy: 57M: South Korea: 47M; Spain: 40M; Poland: 38M; Canada: 31.5M; Iraq: 24M; Saudi Arabia: 24M; North Korea: 22M; Taiwan: 22M; Singapore: 4.5M. Pop. of Africa: 800M, but avg. per-capita income exceeds $1.5K in only six of the 48 sub-Saharan countries - don't say it? Pop. of Mexico: 97.5M; since 1991 11.3M immigrants entered the U.S. legally, but they are accompanied by 8.4M illegal immigrants, after which the number of new illegal immigrants average 800K a year in 2000-2004 and 500K a year in 2005-2008; after 9/11 (2001) the destination changes away from Calif., N.Y. and N.Y. to Ga., Ore., Colo., N.C. and Iowa.; many inner city libraries switch to books in Spanish; the U.S. spends $90B by 2010 for border security. Pop. of Israel: 6.5M, incl. 5.4M Jews - and the whole world's fate depends on this tiny elite's Bermuda shorts? Over 80% of world long distance voice and data traffic is carried by 25M km (15M mi.) of fiber optics cable. The first decade in which the U.S. employs more govt. workers than manufacturing workers; industrial production declines during this decade for the first time since the 1930s, along with GDP and number of jobs, while a $6.2T deficit in traded goods is compiled ($3.8T in manufactured goods). This is the warmest decade on record (until ?), according to NASA; 2009 is the 2nd warmest year since 1880, when modern temp measurements began to be taken, and 2005 is the warmest year, with the other hottest recorded years occurring since 1998. This is the safest decade so far in U.S. aviation (until ?), with 153 fatalities, 1 death per 50M commercial flight passengers. Between this Dec. and Dec. 2010 Mich. loses 48% of its manufacturing jobs. Late in the year the U.K. begins a stealth mass immigration policy to promote multi-culturalism; too bad, the Labour govt. foists it on the pop. to "rub the Right's nose in diversity", which is not revealed until Oct. 2009 after a points-based system is introduced in Feb. 2008. Since its advent, the wonderful doctrine of Marxism (powered by the pseudo-science of Darwinian evolution) has spawned states (Soviet Union, Red China, etc.) that have killed over 130M of its own people in peacetime? This year global overnutrition exceeds undernutrition for the first time in history (by 200M people), according to the U.N. Global sea levels have risen 8 in. in the past cent.; Mexico City is sinking 6-8 in. a year; Iceland grows wider by 1.5 acres a year. The U.S. illegal drug market is estimated at $150B a year, with 40M Americans believed to use drugs, and 6M addicts. The U.S. produces 6M barrels of petroleum a day, with proven reserves of 21B barrels, down from 39B in 1970, while Saudi Arabia has 262B and Venezuela has 73B. By this year automation has caused the number of coal miners to plummet in the U.K. to about 13K from 1.2M in 1978, and in the U.S. from 700K in 1924 to 82K; coal accounts for 43% of annual global carbon emissions (2.7B tons), and supplies 26% of the world's energy needs (40% oil, 24% natural gas); China gets 75% of its electricity from coal-fired plants, India 60%, U.S. and Germany 50%; Australia is the world's largest coal exporter, supplying almost one-third. The U.S. consumes 93 kilowatt-hours of power per capita per year, equal to 2K gal. of oil; declining energy quality leads to a U.S. recession by the end of the decade? By this year about 125K tons of gold have been mined worldwide, 90% during the last 150 years; South Africa produces 50% (2K tons a year); the U.S. is #2, and Australia is #3 (300 tons); 80% of it is used for jewelry, and 200 tons goes into electronics manufacture; 25% of all gold ever mined is held in ingot forms; the U.S. has the most gold in its banks, but India has the most total gold (counting jewelry); a solid cube 15 in. on a side weighs one ton. By this year the Ganges (Ganga) River in N India, fed by the Himalaya Mts. flows through 29 cities with a pop. over 100K, 23 with a pop. of 50K-100K, and 48 more towns. The Shadow Banking System, incl. hedge funds, money market funds, and structured investment vehicles begins growing dramatically until the 2008 recession. A poll of seniors at 56 top U.S. colleges by the Am. Council of Trustees and Alumni reveals a woeful ignorance of U.S. history, with only 25% being familiar with Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, 29% knowing what Reconstruction was, 52% familiar with Washington's 1796 Farewell Address, and only 22% knowing where the phrase "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people" comes from (Lincoln's 1863 Gettsbyurg Address); meanwhile 99% can identify Beavis and Butthead, and 98% recognize Snoop Doggy Dog; this causes U.S. Sen. (D-W. Va.) Robert Byrd to slip an amendment into Title X providing $50M for the Teaching Am. History Program of the U.S. Dept. of Education; too bad, it turns into an $800M a year boondoggle by 2009 for supporting high school and college level history teachers, and college students till don't know U.S. history, not to mention world history - enter TLW to the rescue, I wish? This year once-starving India goes from an example for U.S. kids made to finish their plates in the 1960s to a net exporter of grain, and soon Americans become worried as their jobs are outsourced to their highly educated English-speaking dirt-cheap workforce. The Earth has warmed about 1.4 deg. F in the last cent., accelerating during the last four decades. Global CO2 levels measured at Niwot Ridge, Colo. reach 375 ppm, up over 30% from pre-industrial levels of 275; the levels continue to rise by 1 ppm per year. Despite vaunted advances in medicine, there are 2M yearly deaths from diarrhea (4B cases), 1M deaths from malaria (300M cases), 500K deaths from measles (30M cases), 2M deaths of children under age 5 from pneumonia, 1.5M deaths from TB, not to mention, ahem, HIV/AIDS. By this year 1.1K famous or semi-famous people have claimed to be Christ since 1900. The century starts out with the major issue of Ecapitalism vs. Ecommunism up for grabs, as massive capital is infused into Web dot com companies, while the unpoliceable structure of the Internet makes it hard for owners of any type of intellectual property to protect their rights and earn money for their work; meanwhile others initiate massive eprojects where anonymous or nearly anonymous people literally give their work away for free, incl. OpenSource and Wikipedia, threatening the traditional publishing market, incl. books, newspapers, music, TV, movies and software; will the result be a reinvention of capitalism in the E-world, or will Ecommunism win, and if so, will the result be good, bad, or indifferent? - stay tuned? On Jan. 1 Wisconsin defeats Stanford by 17-9 to win the 2000 Rose Bowl. On Jan. 1 (Sat.) (4:00 a.m.) the Millennium is first celebrated by the Chatham Islands 800 km E of New Zealand with a major internat. ceremony linking all nations on Earth. On Jan. 1 global fears of the Y2K Computer Bug, date-wraparound glitches that could immobilize or destroy the world prove groundless after many software firms rake in big bucks supposedly programming preventatives; as much as $100B was spent in the U.S. to fix it; meanwhile the millennium celebrations go on as scheduled worldwide. On Jan. 3-10 Israel and Syria hold inconclusive peace talks. On Jan. 3 elections in Croatia unseat the ruling HDZ party with an alliance of Social Dems. and the Social Liberal Party, and Social Dem. Party leader Ivica Racan (1944-2007) becomes PM #7 on Jan. 31 (until Dec. 23, 2003), going on to soften nationalism and ease human rights restrictions; on Feb. 7 moderate Stjepan "Stipe" Mesic (1934-) defeats Vlatko Pavletic in a runoff election for pres., and Mesic succeeds the late Franko Tudman, immediately inviting the 300K exiled Serbs to return to Croatia. On Jan. 5-8 the Kuala Lumpur Al-Qaida Summit is held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, attended by several high-level al-Qaida members (Soviet Afghan war veterans) incl. Walid (Waleed) Muhammad Salih bin Roshayed bin Attash (1979-) (Osama bin Laden's errand boy), Khalid Muhammad Abdallah al-Mihdhar (1975-2001), Nawaf Muhammed Salim al-Hazmi (1976-2001), and Ramzi bin al-Shibh (al-Shaibah) (1972-), hosted in his hotel room by U.S.-educated Malaysian microbiologist (anthrax researcher) Yazid Sufaat (1964-) (member of Jemaah Islamiyah), where they plan the Oct. 12 attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen along with the 9/11 attacks; al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi go on to hijack Am. Airlines Flight 77 and crash it into the Pentagon; Kuala Lumpur is home to the twin Petronas towers; Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso (1974-2012) misses the meeting and meets with some of them later in Bangkok, Thailand; meanwhile U.S. intel informs Pres. Clinton of an airplane hijack plot scheduled for Mar.-Aug., but it "was disregarded because nobody believed that Osama bin Laden or the Taliban could carry out such an operation." On Jan. 9 Malcolm in the Middle debuts on Fox Network for 151 episodes (until May 14, 2006), showing that white is still pretty much right in the U.S., starring Francisco Frankie Muniz (Muńiz) IV (1985-) as genius boy Malcolm, who hates taking classes for Krelboynes (gifted children), and Jane Frances Kaczmarek (1955-) and Bryan Lee Cranston (1956-) as his parents Lois and Hal, who are always catching him with his hand in the cookie jar, with the catchy theme song Boss of Me by They Might Be Giants. On Jan. 10 America Online (AOL) announces an agreement to buy Time Warner for (say again?) $162B, becoming the largest corporate merger so far (until ?). On Jan. 11 the armed wing of Islamic Salvation Front concludes its negotiations with the Algerian govt. for an amnesty and disbands. On Jan. 11 the trawler Solway Harvester sinks off the Isle of Man. On Jan. 12 after New York City-born Israeli rep Ronald Steven Lauder (1944-) (son of cosmetics magnate Estee Lauder) (appointed by outgoing PM Benjamin Netanyahu) and Syrian pres. (since Mar. 12, 1971) Hafez al-Assad (1930-2000) produce the draft "Treaty of Peace Between Israel and Syria" based on land (the Golan Heights) for peace, peace negotiations between Israeli PM Ehud Barak and Syrian foreign minister Farouk al-Shara are held in Shepherdstown, W. Va.; too bad, they fall through when al-Assad dies on June 10. On Jan. 12 Britain announces that its military will conform with the practice of other Euro countries and end the ban on openly gay men and women serving in the armed forces - blew it and licked it jokes here, now let's talk bathrooms? Police power vs. fleeing people, the New Millennium Look for the U.S.? On Jan. 12 the increasingly something U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Illinois v. Wardlow that police are justified in conducting a stop-and-frisk search on anyone who arouses their suspicion merely by fleeing from them, reversing the Ill. Supreme Court - would make sense if they are black not white like me, moo, moo? Make that police power federal while we're at it? On Jan. 12 after a Fla. judge rules that 6-y.-o. Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez (1994-) may stay, U.S. atty.-gen. Janet Reno announces that the case is a federal not state matter and intervenes, saying that the INS may return him to his father Juan Miguel Gonzales in Cuba, causing the latter to come to Washington, D.C., while a U.S. district court orders the kid to remain pending a hearing; on Apr. 22 after his great uncle in Miami promises to turn Elian over to his father but reneges, the saga culminates in his forcible armed seizure from a home in Miami's Little Havana on TV by assault rifle-toting feds, who take 3 min. in a predawn raid, but split the nation, at least diverting minds from Millennium Fever for awhile; future atty.-gen. Eric Holder is involved with the seizure; on June 28 Elian returns to Cuba with his father after the lame comparisons with Waco and Ruby Ridge, plus a demonstration in Miami on May 6 in favor of Reno's actions cause opinion to swing against the Castro-hating Little Havana refugees, weakening their clout and causing talk of normalizing U.S.-Cuban relations; Elian's daddy goes on to get a seat in the Cuban nat. assembly, and Fidel Castro gives the family a spacious house - leave the U.S. to go to a Latin country, whom are they kidding? On Jan. 13 Serbian paramilitary leader Zeljko Raznatovic (AKA Arkan) (b. 1952) (wanted on war crimes charges) is shot in the left eye by masked gunman Dobrosav Gavric (b. 1976) in the lobby of Belgrade's Intercontinental Hotel and killed along with his business mgr. Milenko Mandic and police inspector Dragan Garic; his wife and children are unharmed; Gavric is wounded by bodyguard Zvonko Mateovic. On Jan. 14 a U.N. tribunal sentences five Bosnian Croats to up to 25 years for the 1993 killing of 100+ Bosnian Muslims in a Bosnian village. On Jan. 16 in Sacramento, Calif., a commercial truck carrying evaporated milk is driven into the State Capitol bldg., killing the driver - is his name Harvey Milk? On Jan. 16 a runoff in Chile results in Socialist Party candidate Ricardo Froilan (Froilán) Lagos Escobar (1938-) defeatig right-wing candidate Joaquin Jose Lavin (José Lavín) Santiago (1953-), becoming Chile's first Socialist pres. since Allende in 1973; he is sworn-in on Mar. 11 (until Mar. 11, 2006); meanwhile on May 24 Chile ends Augusto Pinochet's immunity, clearing the way for trial on murder and torture charges. On Jan. 16 Muhammad (Mohammed) Badie (1943-) becomes supreme leader (gen. guide) (chmn.) #8 of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (until ?); on Apr. 28, 2014 he is sentenced along with 682 Muslim Brotherhood supporters to death, which is reduced on Sept. 15, 2014 to life, then changed to death on Apr. 11, 2015 along with 13 other senior members; on Aug. 22, 2015 he receives a 6th life sentence, followed by a 7th on May 8, 2017. On Jan. 18 former German chancellor Helmut Kohl resigns as honorary chmn. of the opposition Christian Dem. Party after being accused by the party leadership of "violating his duties" in refusing to reveal who gave him $1M+ while in office. On Jan. 18 Russian forces enter the Chechnyan capital of Grozny, kicking out rebel forces, who continue guerrilla raids; on Feb. 14 the Russian authorities order Grozny residents to leave and seal off the city; too bad, both sides have nuclear weapons and threaten to use them, creating worlwide anxiety. On Jan. 18 (9:48 a.m.) the strange 15-ft. Tagish Lake Meteorite impacts the Earth in Canada between Yukon Territory and British Columbia; in Aug. 2001 the first opal-like crystals from space are found in it. On Jan. 18 TLW celebrates his 47th birthday with the usual T-bone steak, cabernet wine, and chocolate cake. On Jan. 20 the Dot-Com Bubble causes the Dow to reach an all-time high of 11,722.98 before losing nearly 1K points in two weeks. On Jan. 20 Turkish foreign minister Isma'il Cem and Greek foreign minister George Papandreou meet in Ankara, becoming the first visit by a Greek foreign minister to Turkey in 38 years; the talks end with an accord for economic cooperation and promises of peace in Cyprus; on Feb. 8 pres. (since Mar. 10, 1995) Constantinos "Kostis" Stephanopoulos (1926-2016) is reelected for a 2nd 5-year term as pres. of Greece (until Mar. 12, 2005). On Jan. 22 George W. Bush and Al Gore (whom Bush calls "Ozone Man") win the Iowa caucuses to take the lead in the U.S. pres. race. On Jan. 24 fundamentalist Christian Burmese Karen guerrillas of "God's Army", led by cigar-smoking 12-y.-o. twins Johnny and Luther Htoo (1988-) seize a Thai hospital in Ratchaburi 75 mi. W of Bangkok near the Burmese border, taking about 700-800 patients and staff hostage; Thai security forces rescue the hostages after a 22-hour standoff, but dozens of insurgent groups in Burma fight on. On Jan. 25-30 the First World Social Forum is held in Porto Alegre, Brazil to promote the alternative globalization movement AKA global justice movement, AKA anti-Capitalist Communism-Socialism. On Jan. 26 Japan's Education Ministry announces the formation of a panel of experts to devise measures for improving English teaching methods after PM Keizo Obuchi proposes making English Japan's official second language to keep up with the Internet age. On Jan. 27 Pres. Clinton gives his last 2000 State of the Union Address - his private or his public one? On Jan. 27 Hany Mawla (1973-) becomes the first Muslim on the superior court in N.J., also the youngest. On Jan. 29 delegates from more than 130 countries in Montreal sign an Internat. Biosafety Treaty, regulating internat. trade in genetically modified "Frankenfood" products, incl. grains; meanwhile on Apr. 5 the U.S. Nat. Academy of Sciences issues a report urging caution concerning growing and using genetically engineered food, but concluding that nothing being sold currently poses any actual threat - jack up my corn? On Jan. 30 Super Bowl XXXIV (34) is held in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga.; the St. Louis Rams (formerly L.A. Rams) (NFC) (coach Dick Vermeil) defeat the Tennessee Titans (formerly Houston Oilers) (AFC) 23-16 after "The Tackle", where Titans QB (#9) Steve LaTreal "Air" McNair (1973-2009) throws a complete pass to wide receiver Kevin Tyree Dyson (1975-) (#87), and Rams linebacker (#52) Michael Anthony "Mike" Jones (1969-) tackles him 1 yard short of the goal line (despite Dyson stretching out his right arm in vain), stopping a game-tying score as time expires, causing Vermeil to weep; former grocery bagger Rams QB (#13) Kurtis Eugene "Kurt" Warner (1971-) (who led the NFL in passing in the regular season) is the MVP. On Jan. 30 a Kenya Airways Flight 431 (Airbus A310) crashes en route from Abidjan, Ivory Coast into the Atlantic, killing 169 of 179. On Jan. 31 Alaska Airlines Flight 261 carrying 88 passengers and crew crashes mysteriously into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Point Mugu, Calif. NW of Los Angeles, killing all aboard - at least they got to watch the Super Bowl first? On Jan. 31 Ill. Repub. gov. (1999-2003) George Homer Ryan (1934-) announces a moratorium on executions in his state after 13 wrongfully condemned inmates have been exonerated since 1977 after 12 were executed, and half of the 260 capital cases in the state had been reversed on appeal; in Feb. a Gallup poll finds that 66% of Americans support capital punishment, down from 80% in 1994; too bad, on Apr. 17, 2006 a federal jury in Chicago finds him guilty of racketeering conspiracy, fraud, and tax charges, making him the 3rd Ill. gov. in three decades to be convicted of federal felony charges in Al Capone Town. On Jan. 31 British physician (gen. practitioner) Dr. Harold Frederick Shipman (1946-2004) AKA "Doctor Death", "the Angel of Death" is convicted of 15 counts of murder and given a "whole life tariff", becoming the first British physician convicted of murdering his patents; he is suspected of killing as many as 297 people, all patients, in 1995-8; on Jan. 13, 2004 he hang himself in his cell in HM Prison Wakefield in West Yorkshire; on Jan. 27, 2005 the Ł21M Shipman Inquiry Report is pub., concluding that he probably murdered 250+, 80% of them women, usually by injecting diamorphine into them then falsifying their medical records. In Jan. a Tokyo conference downplays the atrocities committed by Japanese troops during their occupation of China, and declares that the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 is a "myth", causing an internat. outcry joined by Japanese historians and the Chinese govt. - coverups only work for the winners' side? In Jan. a new subway opens in Athens after seven years of construction under the scrutiny of 50 Greek govt. archeologists, who have bee sifting debris for artifacts - pass them stone penii? On Feb. 1 rebels flee the Chechen capital of Grozny after weeks of intense bombardment, later regrouping in the mountains for a multi-year guerrilla campaign against the Russians. On Feb. 1 Al Gore wins the N.H. Dem. primary, and Vietnam war hero John Sidney McCain III (1936-) of Ariz. wins the Repub. primary, causing Gary Bauer to withdraw from the race on Feb. 4, followed by Steve Forbes on Feb. 10. On Feb. 2-13 violence breaks out between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in "model Yugoslavian city" Mitrovica, Kosovo, only this time it's the minority Christian Serb pop. that flees from Muslim Albanian attacks in the midst of U.N. peacekeeping forces. On Feb. 3 in Austria the center-right People's Party forms a coalition with the far-right Freedom Party, led by xenophobe Joerg (Jörg) Haider (1950-2008) (known for pro-Nazi statements since 1990), sparking internat. protest, beginning right, er, in Vienna, and causing talk of ousting Austria from the EU; in late Feb. after hundreds of thousands of Austrians march in protest against him, Haider resigns as head of the Freedom Party, but retains his post as gov. of the S province of Carinthia (until Oct. 11, 2008), causing most member nations of the EU to lift sanctions on Sept. 12, and the 14 nations (incl. Israel and the U.S.) that had cut off bilateral diplomatic relations to restore contact; the problem of Croatians, Bosnians, and other E Europeans immigrating since the early 1990s and taking jobs away from Austrians keeps his party afloat. On Feb. 6 after purchasing a $1.7M 5-bedroom colonial home in Chappaqua, N.Y. in Sept. 1999 to qualify, ballsy U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton officially enters the N.Y. Senate race as a Dem. On Feb. 6 hijackers seize an Afghan plane, releasing the hostages in Stansted, England on Feb. 12. On Feb. 6 Tarja Halonen (1943-) is elected as the first female pres. of Finland, taking office on Mar. 1 (until Mar. 1, 2012); U.S. TV host Conan O'Brien (1963-) later makes hay of his resemblance to her. On Feb. 7 Yugoslav defense minister (since 1993) Pavle Bulatovic (1948-) is shot dead by unidentified gunmen while dining at a Zagreb soccer club. On Feb. 11 the IRA misses a disarmament deadline, causing the British on Feb. 15 to suspend the new North Ireland Assembly, created in 1999 as part of the U.K.'s historic devolution program; it is reinstated on June 4 after Sinn Fein agrees to disarm. On Feb. 11 Russia's commercial creditors agree in Frankfurt to restructure $31.8B of its external debt after effectively writing off about half of it, exchanging $22.2B in Soviet-era debt and $6.8B in Russian state debt for new 30-year Russian Federation Eurobonds, clearing the way for Moscow to reenter internat. money markets for the first time since Aug. 1998. On Feb. 11 a bomb explodes in front of a Barclay's Bank across from the New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street, injuring dozens. On Feb. 11 JetBlue Airways Corp. of Queens, Long Island, N.Y., founded by Sao Paulo, Brazil-born Salt Lake City Southwest Airlines exec (Mormon) David G. Neeleman (1959-), who obtains slots at Kennedy Airport for his 162-seat A320 planes begins operation, operating 12 hours per day on routes averaging 1K mi. (San Juan, Puerto Rico, Long Beach, Calif., etc.), and showing a profit almost immediately. On Feb. 13 the comic strip "Peanuts" makes its final appearance after 50 years (begun 1950) after cartoonist Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz (b. 1922) dies of colon cancer in his Santa Rosa, Calif. home on Feb. 12, having decided it should die with him. On Feb. 14 the worst tornadoes to hit SW Ga. since 1936 hit early in the morning, killing 22, injuring hundreds, destroying several poultry farms. Let's start the Black Century with the Ultimate White Handouts? On Feb. 15 crocodile-like Zimbabwe dictator-pres. (since Dec. 22, 1987) Robert Gabriel Mugape, er, Mugabe (1924-), who claims he was told as a child that God picked him to be a great leader holds a referendum on a draft constitution to increase his power and give his govt. a mandate to seize white-owned land without compensation; since whites number only about 70K out of a total pop. of 12.5M, yet dominate the nation's agriculture, this vote is a no-brainer, but Mugabe's opponents win nearly 55% of the vote; on June 25 Mugabe wins a narrow V in the pres. election, and the opposition Movement for Dem. Change (MDC) wins 25 seats in parliament to Mugabe's 62, despite his strong-arm tactics; mandate or not, Mugabe begins seizing white-owned farms and giving them to black political allies with no background in farming, causing the entire country's farming economy to collapse and the country, once Africa's breadbasket, to begin starving and need handouts, which is compounded by the U.S. Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act of 2001 (Dec. 21, 2001), which enacts a credit freeze, reducing the country's trade surplus from $322M in 2001 to -$18M in 2002, with inflation reaching 12,875% in 2007; meanwhile anybody who tries to protest is savagely beaten, incl. chief opposition leader Morgan Richard Tsvangirai (1952-), who ends up with a fractured skull; the other African leaders keep a code of silence about the Mugging Ape's regime, and by 2013 all white-owned farms in Zimbabwe are kaput, but the country's large reserves of platinum and uranium along with the Marange Diamond Field (largest in the world) help stay Mugabe in power. On Feb. 17 meat cutters at Wal-Mart's in Jacksonville, Tex. vote to join an independent labor union, causing Wal-mart to fire them all and switch to a supplier of pre-packaged meat, resulting in awful meat? On Feb. 17 the U.N. Security Council votes 14-0-1 (China) for Resolution 1290 to admit Tuvalu; on Oct. 31 it adopts Resolution 1326 without vote to admit the Federal Repub. of Yugoslavia, which in 2003 becomes Serbia and Montenegro, which become separate in 2006. On Feb. 24 after Iraq refuses him entry, Pope John Paul II makes a "virtual pilgrimage" of Old Testament prophet Abraham's city of Ur, using props and videotape, then travels for real to Egypt, where he visits the place believed by many to be the Biblical Mount Sinai, then goes to Bethlehem and Jerusalem in an effort to reconcile all three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam); too bad, when he visits a Palestinian refugee camp on the West Bank to deplore the plight of the residents, and expresses empathy in English for the hardships of refugee life, his remarks are not translated into Arabic. On Feb. 25 investors wise up about the software-only trick mirror Internet dot.com cos., causing a stock plunge, and signalling the end of the Internet stock boom; in Apr. the U.S. stock market experiences a minor (25-30%) crash. On Feb. 26 reformists win control of the Iranian parliament for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Rev., and Iranian pro-reform pres. Mohammad Khatami wins overwhelming support for his programs, even though supreme asahollah leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has kept many moderate and reform candidates from running on grounds that they are not Islamic enough; meanwhile Iranian youth rebel against the theocratic regime by going American, surfing the Net and learning how to do Western infidel sex, drugs, and rock & roll. On Feb. 26 Pope John Paul II vists Mount Sinai in Egypt - to look for the rest of the 70 Commandments? On Feb. 29 a 6-y.-o. boy shoots and kills his 6-y.-o. classmate Kayla Renee Rolland at Theo J. Buell Elementary School in Mount Morris Township, Mich. using a Smith and Wesson .32-cal. handgun; he is too young to be charged, but gun control advocates take up the case, and on Mar. 17 Smith and Wesson (now owned by an English co.) agrees to limit the manufacture and distribution of handguns for fear of more lawsuits, and promises to install smart gun technology within three years to allow only authorized users to fire them. On Feb. 29 (night) Tenterfield, N.S.W., Australia-born woman Katherine Mary Knight (1955-) stabs to death her partner John Charles Thomas Price in Aberdeen, N.S.W. then hangs his skin on a meat hook and cooks his head and other body parts with the intention of feeding them to his children; on Nov. 8, 2001 she receives the first life sentence for a woman in Australian history. In Feb. cybervandals stage a massive denial of service campaign on the Internet, blocking access to Amazon.com, eBay, Yahoo! et al. In Feb. world oil prices reach $30 a barrel as OPEC countries restrict output, rising to $34 in early Mar., up from $11 at the end of 1998; on Mar. 27 OPEC ministers (except Iran) agree to increase production by 1.2M barrels a day, then Iran caves in too, and by May the price has fallen back to $30, double the 1999 price; too bad, on Aug. 25 it's back up to $35 per barrel, causing commercial users to force the French govt. to reduce taxes on gasoline, while PM Tony Blair refuses to lower British taxes, causing protesters to blockade refineries, bringing Britain to a near standstill by Sept.; Spanish truckdrivers join the protest in mid-Sept. In Feb. U.S. FDA guidelines take effect permitting dietary supplements to make gen. "structure/function" claims (e.g., "supports the immune system"), but barring claims or implications that a product will cure a specific malady. On Mar. 1 Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak repeals an Ottoman-era law making it a crime for a woman to run away from an abusive husband, and gives women equal rights to divorce, becoming the only country except Tunisia where they can divorce without the husband's consent, while the hubbys get auto-divorces at will under the Muslim Sharia. On Mar. 1 Finland proclaims a new constitution. On Mar. 2 former Swedish foreign affairs minister (1978-9) Hans Martin Blix (1928-) becomes exec chmn. of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) (until June 2003), going on in 2002 to search Iraq unsuccessfully for WMDs. On Mar. 7 the Panel on U.N. Peace Operations is convened under chmn. Lakhdar Brahimi (1934-) of Algeria, going on to pub. the Brahimi Report on Aug. 21, noting that there is still no standing U.N. army or police force, calling on the U.N. to focus more on intel, with the soundbytes: "Tell the Security Council what it needs to know, not what it wants to hear", and not to send peacekeepers where there is no peace to keep; on Nov. 13 the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 1327, recalling Resolution 1318 and attempting to implement the Brahimi Report. On Mar. 8 Danish politician Geert Wilders gives a Speech to the British House of Lords warning in vain that the entire continent of Europe is about to be swallowed by Islam, and quoting Turkish PM Erbakan and Libyan dictator Daffy Gaddafi in support. On Mar. 8 two Tokyo Metro trains have a sideswipe collision, killing five. On Mar. 9 the FBI arrests Iranian-born U.S. art dealer and art forgery suspect Ely Sakhai (1952-) in New York City; in 2005 he gets 41 mo. in priz and a $12.5M fine. On Mar. 9 the Center-Liberal coalition govt. in Norway loses a confidence vote called by the Labor Party over its opposition to gas-powered electrical plants; on Sept. 4-14 motorists blockade oil terminals in an effort to cut gasoline taxes, which at 70% cause Norwegian gasoline to be among the highest priced in the world. On Mar. 10 Pres. Clinton writes a message to Bassam Estwani, chmn. of Dar al-Hijrah Mosque, toying with the idea of a visit, but later declining; it soon becomes home to Anwar al-Awlaki. On Mar. 10 the NASDAQ Composite Index reaches an all-time high of 5,133 after having doubled in a year, becoming the peak of the Dot.Com Mania as it falls by 9% within a week and dips below 2K within a year. On Mar. 12 Pope John Paul II apologizes for the Church's past sins, incl. mistreatment of Jews, heretics, women, and aborigines - are they entitled to reparations? On Mar. 14 the Fowler Report is presented to to the U.N. by a team of investigators led by Canadian U.N. ambassador (since Jan. 1995) Robert R. Fowler (1944-), detailing the financing of UNITA blood or conflict diamonds via sale on the internat. market, causing the U.N. Gen. Assembly in Dec. to adopt U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution 55/56, AKA the Kimblerley Process Certification Scheme to certify rough diamonds as not financing a rebel or other violent group, requiring a special certificate. On Mar. 14 Stephen King becomes the first best-selling author to offer a novel, Riding the Bullet in ebook form on the Web; it is downloaded 400K in the first 24 hours, free on some Web sites, $2.50 on others, and he pulls the plug at 500K; in July he offers the thriller The Plant on the Web, but one chapter at a time at $1 per on his Web site StephenKing.com. On Mar. 17 over 500 members of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments, a local religious cult founded by Joseph Kibwetere (Kibweteere) (b. 1932) are burnt to death in a church in Kanungu, Uganda (200 mi. SW of Kampala); hundreds more corpses are discovered later, and by late Mar. the body count reaches 914, becoming the largest religious mass suicide-murder since the 1978 Jonestown Massacre in Guyana. On Mar. 18 Chen Shui-bian (1951-) is elected pres. of the Repub. of China (ROC) (Taiwan) with 39% of the vote in a 3-way race, ousting the Nationalist govt. in power since 1949; he is sworn in on May 20, saying he won't "let Taiwan become another Hong Kong or Macao", but stopping short of declaring independence, making the U.S. itchy. On Mar. 19 U.S. pres. Clinton arrives in New Delhi for a state visit. On Mar. 20 former Black Panther H. Rap Brown, now known as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (1943-) is captured after a gun battle in Atlanta, Ga. which kills a sheriff's deputy. On Mar. 20-July 16 the Philippines govt. battles the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front; on Sept. 16 the govt. begins an assault on the Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrilla group after it takes 21 internat. tourists hostage on Jolo Island and demands recognition as fighting for an independent Islamic state, plus fishing rights and money; too bad, Pres. Joseph Estrada fails to rescue the hostages, causing his public support to tank. On Mar. 21 Pope John Paul II begins the first official visit by a Roman Catholic pontiff to Israel. On Mar. 21 the U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. that the FDA has never received authority from Congress to regulate tobacco products, and rejects 1995 FDA rules to restrict marketing of cigarettes to children and teenagers along with the Clinton admin. anti-smoking initiative. On Mar. 23 Pasteur Bizimungu resigns, and on Mar. 24 vice-pres. Paul Kagame (1957) becomes pres. #6 of Rwanda (until ?), the first Tutsi pres. On Mar. 25 Muslim economist Rustam Nurgaliyevich Minnikhanov (1957-) becomes pres. #2 of Tatarstan (until ?). On Mar. 26 former KGB lt. col. (judo expert) (raised in a crowded apt.) Vladimir Putin (1952-) is elected pres. of Russia (until ?) with 53% of the vote vs. 30% for Communist Party leader Gennadi A. Zyuganov; he increases oil and gas prices to boost the Russian economy, enabling the govt. to resume payment of salaries and pensions, making him look good to the people. On Mar. 26 the Kingdome in Seattle is demolished to make way for Qwest Field. On Mar. 26 the 72nd Academy Awards in Los Angeles awards the best picture Oscar for 1999 to American Beauty, along with best dir. to Sam Mendes, and best actor to Kevin Spacey; best actress goes to Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry, best supporting actor to Michael Caine for The Cider House Rules, and best supporting actress to Angelina Jolie for Girl Interrupted. On Mar. 27 nat. assembly elections are held in Iraq, and surprise, the Ba'th (Nat. Progressive Front) candidates all win, since only they are allowed to run; Saddam Hussein decides to switch from the U.S. dollar to the Euro, pissing-off U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney and leading to the opinion that it's time for a regime change in Iraq? On Mar. 27 French PM Lionel Jospin replaces four of his Socialist cabinet ministers to quiet criticism; on Sept. 4 protests begin over rising fuel prices, with truckers and motorists blockading refineries and service stations; the protests spread throughout Europe; on Sept. 24 a nat. referendum in which only 30% of the electorate particiates reduces the term of the pres. from 7 to 5 years. On Mar. 28 a school bus in Murray County, Ga. on the Tenn.-Ga. state line gets hit by a CSX freight train, killing three children. In Mar. South Korea holds peace talks in Geneva along with secret meetings with several Western powers. In Mar. CIA agent (1982-2005) Gary Berntsen is sent to Afghanistan to capture a senior al-Qaida leader; too bad, the mission is called off, pissing-off Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, who says that the U.S. is "not serious"; after 9/11 he returns with a new mission to eliminate al-Qaida completely, only to be backstabbed by the Pakistan ISI. In Mar. the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. reaches a record 10,923.55, then plummets 617.78 points (5.7%) to 10,305.77 on Apr. 14, its largest point drop so far, after news of a 0.7% increase in the U.S. Consumer Price Index for Mar.; meanwhile the NASDAQ tops 5K on Mar. 10 then plunges 355.49 points (9.7%) to 3,321.29 on Apr. 14, another record drop; the Dow closes on Dec. 31 at 10,786.84, down 6.2% from its Dec. 31, 1999 value of 11,497.12; the NASDAQ closes on Dec. 31 at 2,470.52, down 54% from its peak and 39.3% for the year - what's good for Microsoft is good for the country, I hope not? In Mar. Ford Motor Co. agrees to buy Land Rover from BMW for $2.7B, and Jaguar for another $2.5B, and on Apr. 14 announces that it will pay its shareholders a record $10B special dividend; on May 11 Ford chmn. William Clay Ford Jr. (1958-) admits that the SUVs on which his co. has made so much money cause serious safety and environmental problems, but vows to reduce tailpipe emissions, boost fuel economy, and make them less dangerous in crashes with ordinary cars; Ford sells both divs. off in Mar. 2008 to Tata for $2B. On Apr. 1 Japanese PM Keizo Obuchi (b. 1937) suffers a stroke and falls into a coma, and on Apr. 5 gaffe-prone Liberal Dem. Party secy.-gen. Yoshiro Mori (1937-) becomes PM #85 of Japan (until Apr. 26, 2001); Obuchi dies on May 14, and Mori goes on to put his foot in his mouth by calling Japan "a divine country with an emperor at its center", recalling the racist official state Shintoism of the past, and causing his cabinet's approval rating to fall to 19%. On Apr. 1 (U.S. Census Day) most census questions are delivered to U.S. citizens in official envelopes. On Apr. 1 Abdoulaye Wade (1926-) of the Dem. Party of Senegal becomes pres. #3 of Senegal (until ?). Could this be the end of some kind of era? On Apr. 3 U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson (1937-) finds that Microsoft Corp. violated the U.S. Sherman Antitrust Act by its predatory behavior aimed at maintaining a monopoly for its "let's crash again" beautiful-disaster Windoze (Windows) operating system by keeping an "oppressive thumb" on competitors and seeking to tie its almost-as-cruddy Internet Explorer Web browser to it as "part of a larger campaign to quash innovation", urging litigants to appeal directly to the Supreme Court in order to expedite his punishment; on Apr. 28 the U.S. Dept. of Justice and 17 state attys. gen. ask Jackson to break Microsoft into two parts with serious curbs on their activities, although the computer users don't seem to care much either way; Bill Gates calls the proposal "radical" and totally denies wrongdoing, but finally yields a bit on May 10, proposing some minor limitations on its dealings with computer makers, which the Justice Dept. complains on May 16 are not enough, causing Jackson to order the breakup on June 8, and the Supreme Court to refuse to hear the case in Sept.; meanwhile once solid gold Microsoft stocks go on a downhill slide from just over $90 a share to $70 on June 7, adding to the dot com stock bust - time to roll out the baksheesh and buy the govt., start 'er up? On Apr. 3 Haitian broadcast journalist Jean Dominique (b. 1930) is gunned down in Port-au-Prince as he arrives at radio station Haiti-Inter to deliver the 7 a.m. morning news; he recently accused the nat. election board of planning to sabotage upcoming polls, and attacked a local pharmaceutical co. whose cough syrup was blamed for the deaths of 60 kids - hmm, I'll take what's behind curtain #1? On Apr. 4 local elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina give Vs to nationalist parties, causing NATO to continue postponing troop reductions. On Apr. 4 Russia launches Soyuz TM-30, the last human spaceflight to the Mir space station, carrying cosmonauts Sergei Viktorovich Zalyotin (1962-) and Aleksandr (Alexander) Yuriyevich "Sasha" Kaleri (1956-); it returns on June 16; on Oct. 31 Soyuz TM-31 blasts off to the Internat. Space Station, carrying cosmonauts Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko (1962-), Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev (Krikalyov) (1958-), and William McMichael Shepherd (1949-) of the U.S.; Soyuz TM-31 returns next May 6 with Talgat Musabayev, Yuri Baturin, and Dennis Tito. On Apr. 6 Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, chief minister of Assam, India releases a statement claiming Pakistan Interservices Intel (ISI) of fostering an Islamist militancy; it proves to be unfounded until ?. On Apr. 8 a controversial U.S. Osprey plane crashes, killing 19 U.S. Marines. On Apr. 9 nat. elections in Greece give the PASOK Party 158 of 300 seats in Parliament, becoming the first Greek party to win a majority in three consecutive elections; its main rival the New Democracy Party wins 125 seats; Costas Simitas remains PM of Greece. On Apr. 9 a new B&W version of Fail Safe debuts on CBS-TV, with intro. by Walter Cronkite, starring Richard Dreyfuss as the U.S. pres., Noah Wyle as his translator, George Clooney as Col. Jack Grady, and Harvey Keitel as Brig. Gen. Warren A. "Blackie" Black. Der Freiheit Der Sprache Still Sucks Egg Yolk in Europe? On Apr. 11 British historian David Irving (1938-) (known for the soundbyte "More women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz") loses his libel suit against Penguin Books and U.S. author Deborah Lipstadt (1947-) over her 1994 work Denying the Holocaust, and his reputation as a Holocaust-denying historian is supposedly trashed, and hers ascendant; on Feb. 20, 2006 he is sentenced to three years in priz in Vienna under a 1992 law for two speeches in 1989 denying the Holy Holocaust, despite a last minute contrite flip-flop "confession" to avoid the full 10-year sentence; in 1992 he had been fined $6K by a judge in Germany; he is released on probation on Dec. 20 after serving 13 mo. and flies back to London to his wife Bente Hogh - shut up, and that settles it? In mid-Apr. world finance ministers gather in Washington, D.C. for meetings of the IMF and World Bank, and demonstrators block traffic to protest their selling out to the multinational cos. On Apr. 16 sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah of Selangor dies after a 55-year reign, longest since prince Franz Joseph II of Liechtenstein, leaving Thai king Rama IX as the longest reigning monarch on Earth (since 1950). On Apr. 17 Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin (1943-), a direct descendant of Muhammad the Prophet becomes raja of Perlis. On Apr. 19 an Air Philippines Boeing 737-200 en route from Manila to Davao City crashes into a coconut grove, killing all 131 aboard. On Apr. 19 Italian PM Massimo D'Alema resigns, and is replaced by former Socialist Party member Giuliano Amato (1938-), who forms a center-left coalition, but it falters, and on Sept. 26 he resigns, and is replaced by Francesco Rutelli (1954-), mayor of Rome, becoming the 58th Italian govt. since WWII. On Apr. 25 Vt. approves civil same-sex unions. On Apr. 25 Pres. Clinton signs Public Law 10-185, which permits police to use a "complaint" to seize private property on a "theory" that it is involved in a criminal offense, with the private owner having the burden of proof of innocence in court to retrieve it; in 2011 the statute is used to seize $1.8B in property, paying police depts. a bounty of $445M; actually this law makes it more difficult to seize private property before criminal trial, but easier after a conviction? On Apr. 26 a strike by the Workers Confederation in Bolivia combined with a plan for water rate increases spark riots in Bolivia, which are quickly suppressed by pres. Hugo Banzaer Suarez. On Apr. 28-30 the Millennium March on Washington in suport of LGBT rights in Washington, D.C. is attended by 200K-1M, and incl. the Equality Rocks Concert, featuring Melissa Etheridge, k.d. lang, George Michael, Pet Shop Boys, and Garth Brooks. In Apr. Jordan becomes a member of the World Trade Org. (WTO), and on Oct. 24 signs a free trade agreement with the U.S., becoming the first ever signed by the U.S. with an Arab nation. In Apr. rebel RUF forces in Sierra Leone under Foday Saybana Sankoh (1937-2003) refuse to demobilize, and kill seven Zambian and Kenyan U.N. peacekeepers on May 3, then take 500 more hostage on May 6; on May 8 demonstrators attack Sankoh's compound in Freetown, losing 19 but causing him to flee, and on May 17 he is ratted out while hiding in his abandoned house, shot in the leg and handed over to the govt. In Apr. British authorities accuse former Sotheby's chmn. Adolph Alfred Taubman (1924-) and former Christie's chmn. Sir Anthony Tennant of conspiring in the early 1990s to limit competition by fixing commissions charged to buyers and sellers; Taubman pleads guilty in Oct. - who do you think you are, Microsoft? In Apr. after U.S. Sen. (R-Minn.) (1995-2001) Rodney Dwight "Rod" Grams (1948-2013) introduces a bill on Oct. 21, 1997, the U.S. Treasury issues its first $100M worth of gold-tinted copper-brass-manganese Sacagawea Dollar Coins, circulating them through Wal-Mart stores and in 5K lucky boxes of Cheerios brand breakfast cereal; Lubbock, Tex.-born sculptor Glenna Maxey Goodacre (1939-) uses Shoshone student Randy'L He-Dow (Bannock "close to ground") Teton (1976-) (pr. "HEE-tho") as a model for the Shoshone guide's face; they tarnish easily, and soon turn into collector's items as nobody wants to circulate the suckers that are too small to seem like dollars? On May 3 New York archbishop John Cardinal O'Connor (b. 1920) dies of brain cancer at his Manhattan residence after a 16-year term in which he defended the poor and working class among the 2.37M Catholics in his archdiocese, while fighting to keep them breeding like rabbits free of abortion and homosexuality; he is succeeded by Bridgeport, Conn., bishop Edward Michael Egan (1932-), who carries on his views. On May 3 a rare 7-way celestial conjunction of the Sun, Moon, and all the planets from Mercury to Jupiter occurs on the New Moon. I'm bringing sexy back, go heavy go with it? On May 4 the U.S. Nat. Park Service begins a "prescribed burn" at the Bandolier Nat. Monument, which is caught by high winds and sweeps past firebreaks on May 11, destroying tens of thousands of acres of woodland and hundreds of homes and threatening Los Alamos Nuclear Labs, freaking environmentalists. On May 5 a rare grand conjunction of the five naked eye planets plus the Sun and Moon occurs. On May 6 the IRA offers to open its secret weapons arsenal to internat. inspection, raising hopes for peace in Ulster; too bad, paramilitary orgs. on both sides continue the violence, drug dealing and protection rackets. On May 8 Mich. swimming-pool installation co. owner Larry Ross (1953-) wins half of a record $363M lottery jackpot, netting $61M after taxes; he bought the ticket with change left after buying a hot dog with a $100 bill in a Detroit suburb at the suggestion of wife Nancy. On May 9 a jury in Baton Rouge, La. 4-term Dem. gov. (1972-80, 1984-8, 1992-6) Edwin Washington Edwards (1927-) guilty on 17 of 26 counts of fraud and conspiracy after a 4-mo. trial, with a possible life sentence; he was tried in 1985 and 1986 but not convicted, but this time U.S. atty. (also a Dem.) Eddie Jack Jordan Jr. (1952-) wins, claiming to end the cynicism in La. politics; in 2002 he is sentenced to 10 years, and begins his sentence in Oct. 2002. On May 16 judge Ahmet Necdet Sezer (1941-) becomes pres. #10 of the Repub. of Turkey (until Aug. 28, 2007), going on to back secularism and ban women wearing veils from official receptions, while pardoning 202 leftist militants. On May 31 Survivor debuts on CBS-TV (until ?), with 16 strangers marooned on a Malaysian island vying to win $1M by being the one to "outwit, outplay, outlast" the other dopes, while suffering horrible primitive living conditions and humiliation under the eye of a camera (good editing though?); after it becomes the top-rated U.S. TV series for the season, it spawns a boom in Reality Shows (until ?); they steal their motto from the 1952 film "Blackbeard the Pirate", which contains the line "When he closes on her, he'll find himself outgunned, outfought, outwitted"?; on Aug. 23 gay white nudist Richard Hatch (1961-) wins in front of 50M viewers despite being the most manipulative and unlikeable, making the show more popular? On May 10 the U.S. FDA approves saline breast implants as long as their high risk of complications are warned of by physicians. On May 11 Russian troops wearing ski masks and carrying machine guns raid the Moscow offices of Media-Most, Russia's biggest media co. and the most outspoken critic of Pres. Putin and his Kremlin cronies; former PM Sergei Kiriyenko calls the raid "a public act of intimidation", and even Communist Party leader Gennadi A. Zyuganov says "it looks disgusting" - Putin on the blitz? On May 16 leftist Dominican Rev. Party opposition leader Hipolito Mejia (1941-), an agronomist and businessman is elected pres. of the Dominican Repub., ousting the ruling pro-privatization Dominican Liberation Party; he is sworn-in on Aug. 16 (until Aug. 16, 2004). On May 16 UPI is acquired by News World Communications Inc., controlled by Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon, causing correspondent (since 1943) Helen Thomas to resign on May 17, calling it "a bridge too far"; in July she joins Hearst Newspapers as a columnist, and loses her front row seat at pres. news conferences (since 1961), along with the first question and the ending "Thank you, Mr. President", saying "They don't like me... I ask too many questions". On May 17 the Serbian govt. seizes control of the main opposition TV station in Belgrade, accusing it of advocating an uprising against Slobodan Milosevic, causing 20K demonstrators to take to the streets, chanting "Slobodan, save Serbia, kill yourself" and "To The Hague, Slobodan, to The Hague!" On May 17 the U.S. African Growth and Opportunity Act is signed by Pres. Clinton, becoming the biggest U.S. trade measure since the 1994 World Trade Org.; the U.S. unilaterally lowers tariffs for a number of African goods and eliminates import quotas for African textiles made with native or U.S. material (sweaters woven in Africa from Asian or European yarn are still covered by U.S. quotas) - another white handout to the blacks, hoping they won't want to move in? Your choices just got a whole lot younger? On May 18 after a controversy during the 2000 pres. preimary, the S.C. Legislature passes the South Carolina Heritage Act of 2000, ordering the Confederate Stars and Bars battle flag removed from its Sandlapper capitol dome after 138 years (1862), and after the Johnny Rebs get over their shock it is removed on July 1, becoming the last Confed. state to do it; never fear, a smaller square version is put next to the Confederate Soldiers' Memorial on the N side of the Capitol in front of the main entry, but after yet more NAACP protests it is removed also, er, it is left flying while an African-American History Monument is unveiled on Mar. 26, 2001; meanwhile on Aug. 8 fortune intervenes, as the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which in 1864 became the first sub to sink an enemy vessel is raised from the ocean off sandlapping Charleston, S.C. after 136 years - 9 years till Pres. Barack Obama? On May 18 Boo.com collapses in London after 6 mo. from lack of funds. On May 18-19 a coup is attempted in Paraguay against the govt. of Gonzalez Macchi. On May 19 permanent occupation of the Internat. Space Station (ISS) begins. On May 19 businessman George Speight (AKA Ilikimi Naitini) (1957-) stages a coup in Fiji. On May 19 South Korean PM Park Tae-joon (1927-) resigns soon after taking office after a financial scandal is revealed. On May 23 Israeli troops unilaterally withdraw from S Lebanon to the border after 22 years of occupation, and PM Ehud Barak announces "The 18-year tragedy is over", referring to the 1982 Israeli invasion that took over the "buffer zone" to protect N Israel from attacks by Hezbollah guerrillas, who now ride through the zone in triumph, claiming that they chased the Israelis out and that their withdrawal was "slinking and servile"; call him smart or dumb, but in 2001 after leaving office Netanyahu visits a home in Ofra in the West Bank to pay condolences to the family of an Israeli man killed by Palestinians, and admits that he was fooling Pres. Clinton by making token withdrawals from the West Bank per the Oslo Accords while actually entrenching the occupation, which doesn't come out until 2010, after he becomes PM again on Mar. 31, 2009. On May 25 the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict is adopted by the U.N. Gen. Assembly by a 263-54 vote, requiring parties to ensure that children under age 18 are not forcefully recruited into their armed forces and do not take part in hostilities; it comes into force on Feb. 12, 2002; by Feb. 2018 180 states sign it, with 13 states signing but not ratifying it; the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography is adopted by the U.N. Gen. Assembly, coming into force on Jan. 18, 2002; by Feb. 2018 183 states sign it, with nine states signing but not ratifying it. On May 26 13-y.-o. honor student Nathaniel Brazill (1987-) kills his English teacher Barry Grunow on the last day of classes in Lake Worth, Fla. for preventing him from talking with two girls in his classroom; he receives a 28-year sentence - preventing him from talking to girls until he's too old to enjoy it, and likes men better anyway? On May 28 volcanic Mt. Cameroon erupts. Fu on you, Fujimori? On May 29 Alberto Fujimori (1938-) wins election to a 3rd pres. term in Peru despite a constitutional prohibition against it after opposition leader Alejandro Toledo (1946-) raises a stink about a rigged election and starts an election boycott; in Sept. opposition leader Luis Fernando Olivera "Popy" Vega (1958-) shows evidence on TV that Fujimori's security chief Vladimiro Montesinos (1945-) bribed a congressman, and on Sept. 16 Fujimori announces that he is firing Montesinos and calling for immediate new elections, then on Sept. 19 stalls and postpones them until summer 2001; Montesinos flees to Panama on Sept. 24, then Fujimori moves the elections up to Mar., while Montesinos sneaks back in; on Nov. 17 Fujimori flees to Japan and sends a letter announcing his resignation, after which congress rules on Nov. 21 that he is "morally unfit" to continue after 10 years of corrupt dictatorship, and selects centrist party leader Valentin Paniagua Corazao (1936-2006) as interim pres.; on Aug. 28, 2003 a govt. report reveals that his govt. troops, peasant milita, and Shining Path Maoist rebels combined have killed more than 69K, 75% of them Quechua-speaking Indians (54% Shining Path, 46% govt.); on Nov. 7, 2005 Fujimori is arrested in Santiago, Chile as he tries to return to Peru to run for re-election after five years of exile in Japan despite an internat. arrest warrant and a congressional ruling barring him from public office until 2011, and is extradited to Peru on 21 charges of abuse of power, corruption and massacres, all because he had 30% support in a 2004 voter poll. On May 29 former Indonesian pres. Suharto is placed under house arrest and charged with corruption and abuse of power. In May New York City mayor Rudolf Giuliani announces that he has prostate cancer and will not be a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, causing Repubs. to nominate Long Island rep. Enrico Anthony "Rick" Lazio (1958-); meanwhile Dems. nominate First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, another women's first; too bad he snubs Gianelli's Sausage Stand at the State Fair in Syracuse, N.Y., saying he is "so-so on the sausage sandwiches", will Bill and Hillary enthusiastically chow down, hurting his campaign, even coming up in his failed 2010 run for N.Y. gov. In May the RateBeer Web site is founded by Bill Buchanan to rate beers, reaching 4.5M ratings of 200K beers from 16K breweries; the #1 beer in the world is Westvleteren 12 from Westvleteren Brewery in Belgium. On June 1 Tex. Gov. George W. Bush finally pardons a 78-y.-o. death row inmate after letting 130 executions go undisturbed. On June 1 Mt. Etna on Sicily erupts. On June 1-Oct. 31 Expo 2000 is held in Hanover, Germany; the official song is Schon (Schön) ist die Welt by Nina Hagen. On June 4 (Sun.) after seeing "Star Wars", a fan mistakenly sits on a 16th. cent. Ming Dynasty chair (1368-1644) purchased in 1996 for $453K, causing it to break in three places; he isn't hurt and they decide not to hold him liable. On June 6 Ferenc Madl (1931-2011) is elected pres. #2 of the Repub. of Hungary by the parliament, and is sworn-in on Aug. 4 (until Aug. 5, 2005). On June 6 the Nat. D-Day Museum in New Orleans, La. opens, expanding into the Nat. WWII Museum in 2008. If you're looking for a noble profession try law? On June 7 U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson in Washington, D.C. orders the breakup of Microsoft Corp., saying that it "has proved untrustworthy in the past" and doesn't appear to accept his ruling that it has broadly violated U.S. antitrust laws, saying "There is credible evidence in the record to suggest that Microsoft, convinced of its innocence, continues to do business as it has in the past and may yet do to other markets what it has already done" to dominate operating systems and Internet software; he breaks Microsoft into two separate competing cos. (for at least 10 years), one for its Windows op. system and the other for its computer application software (Microsoft Office, Access, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc.) and Internet businesses (Internet Explorer browser, etc.); Microsoft appeals, calling the ruling "an unwarranted and unjustified intrusion into the software marketplace", while the govt. seeks an immediate review by the U.S. Supreme Court - heavily armed and heading north on Main Street? On June 7 Israeli PM Ehud Barak's govt. is thrown into tumult when the Knesset approves a bill to break up the govt. and stage new elections just as Barak is preparing for final peace talks with the Palestinians for the summer. On June 7 a suicide bomber in Colombo, Sri Lanka ruins the first-ever War Heroes Day, killing cabinet minister C.V. Gooneratne and 20 others. On June 9 the U.S. House of Reps. votes 279-136 (incl. 65 Dems.) to phase out the federal estate (inheritance) tax, even though only 2% of Americans die with estates large enough ($675K for an individual, $1.3M for a family-owned farm); a Dem. proposal to keep it for estates of $4M or more is defeated 222-196; too bad, Pres. Clinton vetoes it on Aug. 31. On June 10 Hafez al-Assad (b. 1930) dies of a heart attack in Damascus after 31 years in power (since 1969), and on July 10 his British-trained opthalmologist son Bashar al-Assad (1965-) succeeds him as pres. (dictator but nice?) of Syria (until ?), being promptly promoted from col. to lt. gen.; the Damascus Spring of intense political-social debate begins until the govt. suppresses it in fall 2001, arresting dissident economist Aref Dalila (1943-) and sentencing him to 10 years for calling for freedom of expression and an end to govt. monopolies; he is released on Aug. 10, 2008. On June 10 eight guards at Corcoran State Prison in Calif. are acquitted of civil rights violations for allegedly staging gladiator-style fights among inmates. On June 11 local elections in Montenegro give a majority of posts to pro-independence candidates. On June 11 New York City's annual Puerto Rican Day parade ends with an ugly incident in Central Park, where 10 amateur videotapes show as many as 50 drunken black, white, and Hispanic youths spraying women with water, ripping off their clothes, and groping and fondling them while police stand by ogling them and shrug off demands to intervene; after a stink is raised, police identify many of the perps from the tapes and make arrests, and try to coverup their inaction by blaming a shortage of radios - they weren't afraid, right? On June 13 attempted papal assassin Mehmet Ali Agca is pardoned. On June 13-15 South Korean pres. Kim Dae-jung meets with North Korean pres. Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, becoming their first meeting; they hold a banquet, singing "Our Wish Is Unification"; on June 19 the U.S. eases trade sanctions against North Korea; on Oct. 13 Dae-jung is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, although Japan and China don't relish the prospect of a reunited Korea; Jong-il was just having fun? On June 14 after the spot market for energy begins operating in Apr. and prices rise significantly in May, the Calif. Electricity Crisis begins when 97K cusotmers in the San Francisco Bay area suffer a blackout duromg a heat wave, after which San Diego Gas & Electric alleges manipulation of the markets in Aug., followed by several hundred thousand customers blacked-out next Jan. 17-18, 1.5M next Mar. 19-20, and 167K next May 7-8 after Calif. Gov. Gray Davis declares a state of emergency next Jan. 17, and Pacific Gas & Energy Co. files for bankruptcy in Apr.; next Sept. energy prices normalize, after which Enron files for bankruptcy in Dec., and is blamed for manipulating energy prices; Calif. Gov. Gray Davis ends the state of emergency on Nov. 13, 2003. On June 14 the Jehovah's Witnesses relax their automatic disfellowshipping policy on members who receive a blood transfusion - a billion-dollar real estate empire is theirs to lose when the wrongful death lawsuits start rolling in? On June 15 the presidents of North and South Korea sign a historic Korean Peace Accord after 50 years of anything but. On June 15 King Abdullah II of Jordan accuses Israel of trying to block Jordan from developing a peaceful nuclear energy program; Israel denies it. On June 15 the MIR space station is switched off. On June 17 a 6.5 earthquake rocks S Iceland on its nat. day after 88 years of quiescence; another occurs on June 21. On June 19 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 6-3 in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe to declare the practice of student-initiated and student-led prayer at public high school football games unconstitutional because it could be really initiated by the govt. officials behind the scenes; John Paul Stevens for the majority writes "Regardless of whether one considers a sporting event an appropriate occasion for solemnity, the use of an invocation to foster such solemnity is impermissible when, in actuality, it constitutes prayer sponsored by the school"; Rehnquist dissents, stating that the court's opinion "bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life"; Scalia and Thomas also dissent. On June 20 the British find 58 bodies of illegal Asian immigrants suffocated in a Dutch truck. On June 21 the Scottish parliament votes 99-17 to scrap Section 28, a law preventing the promotion of homosexuality - men wearing skirts jokes here? On June 22 17-y.-o. Eric Michael Clark (1983-) shoots Flagstaff, Ariz. police officer Jeff Moritz after being pulled over for playing loud rap music, later claiming he thought he was killing a "space alien"; he is found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life, then appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. On June 22 a Wuhan Airlines Y7-100 en route from Enshi to Wuhan that is forced to circle for 30 mi. due to thunderstorms crashes near Sitai, China, killing all 40 passengers and four crew plus seven on the ground. On June 24 the Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act is passed, making Canada the first country to incorporate the Rome Statue of the Internat. Criminal Court into its nat. laws. On June 25 the U.S. Navy resumes shelling exercises at Vieques Island in Puerto Rico. On June 26 Hillary Clinton's "closest friend", political science prof. Diane Divers Blair (b. 1938), wife of futures trader Jim Blair, chief counsel at Tyson Foods Inc. during Cattlegate dies, leaving the Hillary Papers, incl. correspondence, diaries, interviews, strategy memos, and accounts of conversations with the Clintons from the mid-1970s, which are donated to the U. of Ark.; they are closed to the public until Mar. 9, 2010. On June 26 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 5-4 in Apprendi v. N.J. that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial as forced on, er, incorporated against the states via the 14th Amendment prohibits judges from enhancing criminal sentences beyond statutory maximums based on facts other than those decided by the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. On June 28 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 6-3 in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale that a private org. is allowed under certain criteria to exclude people from membership based on sexual orientation through their First Amendment right to freedom of association in spite of state anti-discrimination laws. On June 28 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 5-4 in Stenberg v. Carhart ito invalidate a Neb. law outlawing partial-birth abortions as violating the Due Process Clause because it didn't allow exception for the health of the woman; Justice Antonin Scalia dissents, with the soundbyte: "I am optimistic enough to believe that, one day, Stenberg v. Carhart will be assigned its rightful place in the history of this Court's jurisprudence beside Korematsu and Dred Scott. The method of killing a human child... proscribed by this statute is so horrible that the most clinical description of it evokes a shudder of revulsion." On June 28 U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 6-3 in Mitchell v. Helms that loans can be made to religious schools for computers and other secular instructional equipment - if Al-Qaida can have it? On June 30 the U.S. claims that Iraq resumed its missile program. On June 30 the Roskilde Tragedy at the Roskilde Festival near Copenhagen, Denmark sees fans riot during a performance by the group Pearl Jam, killing nine and injuring 26. In June Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador sign a free trade agreement with Mexico. In June the World Bank agrees to loan Chad $200M to build a $3.7B oil pipeline to Cameroon, to be paid by estimated oil revenues of $80M a year over the next 30 years; to quiet fears of you know what, the World Bank forces Chad to agree to spend 80% of the revenues on social services, becoming a world first; too bad, by 2005 Transparency Internat. lists Hanging Chad as the world's most corrupt country, and in 2006 dictator Idriss Deby proves it by reneging on his deal and using the money to finance his military to keep his grip, causing the loan to be suspended and Chad's bank accounts to be frozen. In June the Cotonou Agreement is signed in Cotonou, Benin, replacing the Lome IV Convention of 1989-99, and set to run for 20 years as the cornerstone of European trade with the 71 developing ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) nations. In June George Richard "Rick" Wagoner Jr. (1953-) becomes CEO of GM (until Mar. 29, 2009). In June Toronto, Canada-based Naked News debuts on the Internet, featuring naked female reporters. In the summer intense wildfires roast the U.S. West. In the summer the U.S. military intelligence unit Able Danger identifies Mohammed Atta and three other 9/11 hijackers as likely members of an Al-Qaida cell operating in the U.S., and recommends that the info. be shared with the FBI, but the recommendation is rejected; he was an imposter, as proved by his father claiming that he is still alive a year after 9/11? On July 2 6'7" cowboy-boot-loving former Coca-Cola exec Vicente Fox Quesada (1942-) of the Nat. Action Party (PAN) is elected pres. of Mexico, defeating PRI candidate Francisco Labastida Ochoa Magana (AKA Memo) (1942-) by a landslide, becoming the first defeat for the ruling PRI Party since 1929, although PAN fails to win a majority in the chamber of deputies or senate; on Dec. 1 he is sworn-in (until Nov. 30, 2006), becoming the first peaceful transfer of power in Mexico's history, and the largest internal transformation since the 1910 Mexican Rev.; he did it even though PAN's link to the Roman Catholic Church and his 1996 proposal to privatize state oil co. Pemex made him a lot of enemies. On July 6 U.S. gen. Tommy Ray Franks (1945-) succeeds Gen. Anthony Zinny as cmdr. of the U.S. Central Command (until July 7, 2003), overseeing a 25-country region incl. the Middle East, and going on to lead the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. On July 10 a leaking petroleum pipeline explodes in S Nigeria, killing 250 villagers who were scavenging gasoline. On July 11-25 the 2000 Camp David Summit between Pres. Clinton, Yasir Arafat, and Ehud Barak sees Barak propose turning 92% of the West Bank into a Palestinian state, with Palestinian sovereignty over the Christian and Muslim quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem, but no agreement is reached after Arafat utters the soundbyte that the PLO's demands for sovereignty in East Jerusalem "not only refer to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Temple Mount mosques, and the Armenian quarter, but it is Jerusalem in its entirety, entirety, entirety", incl. the Western Wall, which he calls the Al-Buraq Wall, insisting that there never had been any Jewish temples on the Temple Mount; after the talks fail, Arafat responds by pumping up local violence, since all along all he wanted was the destruction of Israel, not the creation of a Palestinian state?; on Aug. 9, 2001 Robert Malley (1963-), special asst. to Pres. Clinton for Arab-Israeli Affairs, and Hussein Agha pub. Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors, which blames Barak not Arafat for the failure of the summit; Malley later becomes a favorite adviser of Pres. Obama - home depot, you can do it, we can help? On July 14 Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi gives an interview to NPR's "Morning Edition", uttering the soundbyte: "The more you maintain settlements in the West Bank, the more areas of friction you have... You are creating not only a situation of volatility, you are creating an apartheid system: two sets of people on the same land subject to two sets of law, with Israeli extraterritoriality in the West Bank." On July 14 a Fla. jury rules that big tobacco cos. are guilty of racketeering and fraud for deliberately deceiving the public about the effects of smoking, and must pay a shocking $145B to settle hundreds of thousands of health claims; their appeal is denied on May 22, 2009, and they must quit using labels such as "light", "mild", or "low tar" on their packaging; the cos. incl. Philip Morris, Altria, R.J. Reynolds, Brown and Williamson, British Am. Tobacco., and Lorillard Tobacco (acquired in 1971 by Loews Corp. of theater fame); Liggett Group was excluded from the ruling because it came clean and fessed up in the 1990s. On July 15 PM Sheikh Hasina completes her 5-year term as PM of Bangladesh, becoming the first leader to do so since independence in 1974, and former chief justice (2000-1) Latifur Rahman (1936-) becomes interim chief adviser of Bangladesh (until Oct. 10, 2001). In mid-July Canadian press lord Kenneth R. Thomson (1923-2006) sells his 49 U.S. newspapers for $2.44B to invest in electronic info. services, acquiring rights to database content so he can charge Internet users - if only surfers paid for info? On July 17 a consortium of corps. in Germany awards 10B DM to victims of the Nazi slave labor program. On July 18 Alex Salmond resigns as leader of the Scottish Nat. Party. On July 18 in England police launch a murder investigation after the body of a girl found near Pulborough, Sussex is confirmed to be that of Sarah Evelyn Isobel Payne (1992-2000), who was reported missing on July 1; on July 22 News of the World urges its readers to sign a petition for Sarah's Law, giving parents the right to know whether a convicted pedophile is living in their area; on Aug. 3 rioting erupts on the Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England in a block of flats allegedly housing a convicted you know what. On July 19 a fire in a nursing home in Costa Rica kills 17 of 14 patients. On July 20 the British Terrorism Act of 2000 is passed, superseding the 1989 Prevention of Terrorism and 1996 North Ireland Emergency Provisions Act with more permanent powers, resulting in 750 arrests and 22 convictions by Oct. 2005. On July 21 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin meets with North Korean pres. Kim Jong-il, and the latter pledges to discontinue his long-range missile program in exchange for help in sending satellites into space - thank you for being stupid? On July 21 former U.S. Sen. (R-Mo.) John C. Danforth, special council for a team of 38 investigators and 16 attys. releases the Danforth Report on Waco, clearing U.S. atty.-gen. Janet Reno and the FBI of any wrongdoing in connection with the deaths of 76 Branch Davidians at Waco, Tex. in Apr. 1993 after a 10-mo. investigation, and claims there was no conspiracy or coverup, concluding "The blame rests squarely on the shoulders of David Koresh" - or, dead men tell no tales? On July 21-23 the 26th Annual G-8 Summit is held, discussing AIDS, the "digital divide", and how to halve world poverty by 2015. On July 25 Air France Flight 4590, a supersonic Concorde crashes into a hotel in Gonesse outside Paris just after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle Airport, killing all 109 aboard and four in the hotel after a titanium strip that fell from a Continental jet that took off earlier slashes a tire and does other damage during takeoff, causing all Concorde flights to be suspended and Air France to sue Continental Airlines; in 2005 France begins prosecuting Henri Perrier, father of the Concorde program for manslaughter and involuntary injury. On July 26 U.S. District judge Marilyn Hall Petel (1938-) rules in A&M Records Inc. v. Napster Inc. that Web-based Napster Inc. (founded 1999) has been violating copyrights of record cos., publishers and artists by distributing their songs free over the Internet; since the order doesn't take effect until July 29, guess what millions of Internet users rush to do, while lucky Napster gets another judge to issue a stay long enough for it to sign a deal on Oct. 31 with German media giant Bertelsmann that will let it charge a fee for its service and distribute part of it as royalties to record cos., inaugurating a new age for music. On July 27 Resolution 1310 is approved by the U.N., confirming that Israel has "withdrawn its forces from Lebanon in accordance with Resolution 425". On July 27 the U.S. Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, protecting prisoners who wish to worship, and giving churches a way to avoid burdensome zoning law restrictions; too bad, when Obama becomes U.S. pres. the Dept. of Justice begins using it to force mosque construction against community wishes. On July 29 Hollywood star Brad Pitt marries Hollywood star Jennifer Joanna Aniston (1969-), becoming known as Branifer; Jeff Buckley's music is used at their wedding; the public thinks they're the ideal married couple and should live happily together forever, but it only lasts until 2005. On July 30 Hugo Chavez is reelected as pres. of Venezuela with 59% of the vote (until ?). On July 31 CanWest Global Communications, founded by Liberal Social Dem. Israel Harold "Izzy" Asper (1932-2003) announces in Montreal that it is buying Hollinger Internat. from Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour (1944-) for $2.36B, giving it control of around 100 newspapers plus the Web site Canada.com; Black retains ownership of the Chicago Sun-Times, London Daily Telegraph and Jerusalem Post plus 50% of the Toronto-based National Post; Asper and his sons Leonard and David are known for making editors of their papers support Israel and PM Chretien, and for running U.S. sitcoms on their TV stations; too bad, Black is convicted in 2007 on U.S. charges of mail and wire fraud and gets 78 mo. - Jewish media conspiracy jokes here? On July 31-Aug. 3 the 2000 Repub. Nat. Convention in Philadelphia, Penn. selects Tex. gov. George Walker Bush for pres. and Dick Cheney for vice-pres.; Bush calls himself a "compassionate conservative", who will be "united, not a divider", and proposes privatizing Social Security; Cheney started out supervising Bush's search for VP, then decided he was the best man for the job; on Aug. 14-17 the 2000 Dem. Nat. Convention in Los Angeles, Calif. selects vice-pres. Al Gore for pres. and Conn. Sen. (since 1989) Joseph Isadore Lieberman (1942-) (who calls himself "Joementum") for vice-pres., becoming the first Jewish candidate for the job; Lieberman was the first U.S. Sen. to speak out against Clinton's immorality in 1998; in debates with Gore, Bush issues the soundbyte "I just don't think it's the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, 'We do it this way, so should you'... If we're an arrogant nation they'll resent us. I don't think our troops ought to be used for what's called nation building." - change your mind later? In July Stockwell Burt Day Jr. (1950-) of the new (Jan.) right-wing Canadian Alliance Party becomes leader of the Canadian opposition, becoming known for his evangelical Bible-thumping Creationist views and opposition to rights for you guessed it and gun registration, and promises to reduce taxes, but is defeated on Nov. 27 after a 36-day "snap election" by Liberal Party PM Jean Chretien in a landslide V for a 3rd 5-year term after he preempts Day by announcing the largest tax cut in Canadian history. In July Yusuf Islam (1948-), the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens is deported back to Britain hours after arriving from Jerusalem, the Israeli govt. claiming that he had donated tens of thousands of dollars to Hamas during a 1988 visit; he denies it, but apparently ends up on the U.S. no-fly list. In July voters in Ivory Coast overwhelmingly approve a draft constitution, which permits only those of "pure Ivoirian" stock (99-44/100 pure?) to run for pres., excluding 40% of the pop., who are illegal immigrants, mainly Muslims from Burkina Faso; in Oct. dictator Gen. Robert Guei is defeated by civilian opposition leader (non-Muslim) Laurent Gbagbo (1945-), but both claim a V, causing a popular rising which causes Guei to flee the country, and on Oct. 26 Gbagbo becomes pres. (until Apr. 11, 2011), although supporters of another opposition leader Alassane Dramane Ouattara (1942-) (a Muslim whose parents illegally immigrated from Burkina Faso) are angry because he was exluded from the election for not having pure Ivory blood, and after bloody protests he is finally granted full citizenship in June, 2002. In July the Four Dan Actresses are coined by the Guangzhou Daily, the four most bankable mainland Chinese actresses, incl. Xu Jinglei (1974-), Zhou Xun (1974-), Zhao Wei (1976-), and Zhang Ziyi (1979). On Aug. 3 notorious 50-something Indian Robin Hood bandit Koose Muniswamy Veerappan (1952-2004), known for slaughtering elephants for their ivory and killing dozens of police kidnaps 72-y.-o. film star Rajkumar (1929-2006) at his country house near the village of Gajanur in Tamil Nadu along with two of his associates, and demands the release of 50 comrades from prison; he releases Rajkumar on Nov. 14 and is finally killed by police in 2004. On Aug. 5 Pres. Clinton vetoes legislation that would have eliminated the "marriage penalty", which in some cases requires married couples to pay higher federal income taxes than single persons earning the same amount, causing Repubs. to vow to use his veto against the candidacy of vice-pres. Al Gore; Clinton explains that the measure favors the rich, who are the bad guys, so that's why he vetoed it, but then explains that they will actually benefit more from lowering the nat. debt, and hence now they're the good guys and that's why he vetoed it. On Aug. 9 the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. begins a year-long recall of 6.5M radial 15 in. ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires which were original equipment on Ford Explorers and were linked to sudden tread explosions; all were made at their Decatur, Ill. plant; Ford had previously recalled the tires in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela; on Sept. 28 Ford announces that it will equip its Explorer SUVs with Michelin tires and negotiate with other makers to provide tires for various Ford models. On Aug. 12 the 5-y.-o. Russian sub Kursk (K-141) sinks in the 300-ft.-deep Barents Sea, killing all 118 aboard after the Russians stall in accepting British and Norwegian rescue offers, and blame it on the lack of pressurized escape chambers, hurting the prestige of new Russian pres. Vladimir Putin. On Aug. 12 Hillary holds the Hollywood Farewell Gala Salute to Pres. William Jefferson Clinton in Los Angeles, Calif., featuring performers incl. Cher, raising her over $1M; too bad, she is accused of understating the fundraiser's costs, and accepting donations from convicted felon Peter Franklin Paul (1948-), former partner of "Spider-Man" creator Stan Lee, raising allegations that he is trying to get her hubby Bill Clinton to pardon him; after several years of legal wrangling she slithers out of it snakey clean. On Aug. 14 Tsar Nicholas II and several members of his family are canonized by the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. On Aug. 14 the animated TV series Dora the Explorer debuts on Nickelodeon cable TV network (until ?), about a bilingual Latina, who helps viewers learn both English and Spanish, featuring the voice of Caitlin Sanchez (1996-), who in 2010 sues them, claiming they cheated her out of royalties. On Aug. 14 the quiz show The Weakest Link debuts on BBC-TV for 1,693 episodes (until Mar. 31, 2012), hosted by Anne Josephine Robinson (1944-). On Aug. 15-18 dozens of North and South Korean families are reunited in Seoul. On Aug. 27 1,772-ft. Ostankino Tower in Moscow catches fire, killing three. On Aug. 28 the U.S. Nat. Institutes of Health (NIH) rules issues rules permitting federally financed researchers to work on human embryonic stem cells under strict regulations, pissing-off right-to-lifers, although privately funded stem-cell research has been going on for years. In Aug. U.S. Pres. Clinton delivers $1.3B in aid to help Colombia fight drug traffickers, incl. combat helis and military training - he read "Clear and Present Danger"? In Aug. an investigative commission in Uruguay begins looking into the disappearances of 160 people during the military dictatorship of 1973-84 - get your shovels? In Aug. exiled minister Abdulkassim Salat Hassan (1941-) is elected pres. of Somalia in a peace conference in Djibouti; he returns to Mogadishu in Oct., but Mohammad Farah Aidid's son Hussein doesn't recognize his election, and his power is limited to the city. On Sept. 2 Pres. Clinton gives orders to release 1M barrels a day for 30 days from the U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve to help needy Americans in cold weather; meanwhile OPEC celebrates its 40th anniv. in a meeting in Caracas at the end of Sept., and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela calls for higher oil prices to force developed countries to aid less developed ones like his, but Saudi Arabia counters by offering to increase production to keep prices affordable. On Sept. 3 Pope John Paul II beatifies pope (1958-63) John XXIII (1881-1963); too bad, he also sneaks in pope (1846-78) Pius IX (1792-1878) (the one who started the dogma of Papal Infallibility and worked against democracy), to the outrage of many, incl. the Jewish Anti-Defense League (ADL), who won't let anybody forget that he was responsible for the abduction and forced Catholicization of a 6-y.-o. Jewish child in 1858. On Sept. 4 Iraq violates Saudi airspace with its planes for the first time in 10 years in an obvious attempt to provoke a U.S. response. On Sept. 5 Mark Bailey is sentenced to 10 years of probation and ordered to attend twice-weekly counseling for sending threatening letters to actress Brooke Shields. On Sept. 6 the Taliban captures the Northern Alliance HQ of Taloqan, Afghanistan, and on Sept. 7 requests the U.N. to recognize it as the official Afghan govt.; the U.N. Security Council responds on Dec. 19 by voting 13-0-2 (China, Malaysia) for Resolution 1333 to recall all resolutions on Afghanistan, tighten diplomatic sanctions, and impose an arms embargo, repeating its demands for extradition of Osama bin Laden - french me a fry, bring me a nut, kashmir me, I won't comply? On Sept. 6 Bofors, the last wholly Swedish-owned arms manufacturer is sold to United Defense of the U.S. On Sept. 6-8 the Millennium Summit is held at the U.N. in New York City by 150 world leaders from 188 member states in the largest-ever gathering of heads of states of govt. (until ?); on Sept. 7 the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 1318, endorsing the U.N. Millennium Declaration, which is endorsed by the U.N. Gen. Assembly on Sept. 8, stressing the observance of internat. human rights and humanitarian laws under the U.N. Charter and other treaties, citing the ancient Olympic Truce; - spare seat for JC, or Socrates? On Sept. 7-14 in Britain protests over the cost of gasoline blockade refineries. On Sept. 8 Albania officially joins the World Trade Org. (WTO). On Sept. 10 Cats folds after 7.4K performances. On Sept. 13 Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, AKA the "Atom Spy" is freed after 9 mo. in priz after he pleads guilty to one of 59 felony charges. On Sept. 15-Oct. 1 the XXVII (27th) Summer Olympic Games ("the Complete Olympics" - NBC-TV) are held in Sydney, Australia on the 200th anniv. of the city's namesake Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney (1733-1800), with 10K athletes from 199 countries, plus 21K journalists; Aussie singer Olivia Newton-John sings in the opening ceremonies; the Peacock Network (NBC) airs 441.5 hours of coverage, incl. 162.5 hours of medal air time; the U.S. wins 97 medals (39 gold), the Russians 88 (32 gold), the Chinese 59 (28 gold); Australian aborigine runner Cathy Freeman (1973-) wins the 400m sprint, pleasing the crowd; Marion Jones (1975-) of the U.S. wins three golds and two bronzes; too bad, on Oct. 8, 2007 she returns them after admitting to steroid use; U.S. wrestler Rulon Gardner (1971-) upsets "Russian Bear" Alexander Karelin (1967-), who had gone undefeated in internat. competition since 1987; Australian swimmer Ian James "Thorpedo" "Thorpey" Thorpe (1982-) wins three gold and two silver medals, becoming the most successful athlete of the games; Anthony Lee "Tony" Ervin (1981-), the first African-Am. to make the U.S. swimming team wins gold in the 50m freestyle, and silver in the 4x100 freestyle relay. On Sept. 16 Ukrainian journalist Georgiy Ruslanovich Gongadze (b. 1969) is last seen alive; on Nov. 28 Ukrainian politician Oleksander Oleksandrovich Moroz (1944-) touches off the Cassette Scandal, publicly accusing pres. Leonid Kuchma of involvement in his murder. On Sept. 19 a Cuban Antonov An-2 is hijacked after takeoff from Pinar del Rio, and crashes into the sea W of Cuba - don't ask don't tell? On Sept. 20 the 6-year Whitewater investigation of the Cleaner than Clorox Clintons ends with no indictments - and a loud flush? On Sept. 22 gay Rutgers U. student Tyler Clementi (b. 1992) jumps to his death from the George Washington Bridge after a sexual encounter with a man in his dorm room is streamed on the Internet by his roommate Dharun Ravi and hallmate Molly Wei. On Sept. 23 Burmese democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is again placed under house arrest by the Burmese govt.; on Dec. 7 U.S. Pres. Clinton awards her the Pres. Medal of Freedom. On Sept. 23 the long-lost villa and love nest of the first cent. Roman poet Ovid (-43 to 17) is discovered on the banks of the Tiber river not far from the Milvian Bridge in Rome. On Sept. 24 Swiss voters reject a plan to limit the number of foreigners in Switzerland to 18% of the pop., becoming the 4th referendum of its kind since 1970 to fail. On Sept. 24 Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein receives a special copy of the Quran written in his own blood, commissioned in 1997 to thank Allah for having escaped unharmed from "a life full of dangers, during which I lost a lot of blood". On Sept. 24-28 after 12 years of rule by Slobodan Milosevic, during which the per capita income has slid by 90% and inflation has gone out of control, elections in Yugoslavia give a V to opposition leader (law prof.) Vojislav Kostunica (1944-), (pr. coast-oo-NEET-suh) but Milosevic denies the results, claiming only a 48% mandate for his opponent, and scheduling an Oct. 8 runoff election, causing a nationwide uprising, with workers going on strike and 1M protesters storming Belgrade, which his pigs fight with tear gas, while stupidly letting them take over the state broadcasting offices and set fire to the parliament bldg.; on Oct. 5 the supreme court declares Kostunica the winner, and after his pigs tell him to stuff it, on Oct. 7 Slobby Dan resigns, and Kostunica is sworn-in as pres., causing the U.S. and EU to begin lifting economic sanctions; on Oct. 28 elections in Kosovo give a V to moderates in municipal posts and to the reformist Dem. League of Kosovo (LDK) in parliament. On Sept. 26 Danish voters reject the Euro by 53.1% as it falls to new lows, despite a vigorous campaign by PM Nyrup Rasmussen, who claims that clinging to the kroner will isolate it from the European Community. On Sept. 26 the "grime bucket" Greek Express Samina Ferry sinks off the coast of the island of Paros, killing 80 of 500 passengers. On Sept. 26 15K protest globalization in Prague, Czech. during the IMF and World Bank summits. On Sept. 28 the U.S. FDA approves the French abortion pill Mifepristone (Mifeprex), AKA RU-486 for use as an abortifacient (goo for up to 49 days after beginning of last menstrual cycle) after giving conditional approval in 1996; in Nov. physicians begin prescribing the pills under strict regs; on Aug. 24, 2006 approval is given to Barr Pharmaceuticals to sell the morning-after-pill (Plan B) (quadruple dose of the birth control pill) to women over 18 without a prescription. On Sept. 28 Israeli hardliner leader Ariel Sharon visits Al-Aqsa Mosque (Sharam al Sharif) (Harem esh-Sharif) (Jewish Temple Mount) with 1K security police in an unannounced political stunt, pissing-off Palestinians, who stone him, then start the Al-Aqsa Intifada (Oslo War), resulting in 5K killed, incl. Israeli soldiers Yossi Avrahami and Vadim Nurzhitz lynched in Ramallah on Oct. 12, after which their bodies are tossed to the crowds, who tear them apart and eat their organs, causing Israeli retaliatory strikes; on Oct. 16-17 Pres. Clinton, Ehud Barak, and Yassir Arafat meet in Sharm El-Sheik seaside resort in Egypt and agree to stop the violence, but Arafat can't deliver, and violence continues; the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades are founded, which is funded by Fatah as they commit dozens of suicide bombings, led by Zakara Muhammad Abdelrahman Zubeidi (Zubaidi) (1976-), who had an affair with Jewish Israeli Tali Fahima (1976-), who was imprisoned in 2005 for her contacts with him, and released in Jan. 2007, after which in mid-2007 he renounced militancy and went into theater, causing her to call him a "whore of the Shin Bet security service", after which she converted to Islam in June 2010. On Sept. 28 Tanya Rider (1933-) is found in her Honda Element near Renton, Wash. after she slid off the road and sat there injured and immobilized for eight days while zillions of cars drive by. On Sept. 28 the video New Trends in Arab Anti-Semitism was presented to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, cataloging the horrible anti-Semitism in the Muslim world. On Sept. 29 the Long Kesh (Maze) Prison in Northern Ireland is closed. On Sept. 30 (3:00 p.m.) (Rosh Hashanah) the Muhammad al-Durrah Incident (Hoax) allegedly happens, after which French TV network France 2 runs a tape dubbed by French Jewish activist Charles Enderlin (1945-) accusing Israeli forces of killing 12-y.-o. Palestinian boy Mohammed al-Dura (1988-) while cowering in his father's arms at the Netzarim Junction S of Gaza City, becoming a cause celebre for Palestinians and helping fuel the Second Intifada; it is later revealed as a staged hoax by French Jewish media analyst Philippe Karsenty (1966-), causing him to be successfully sued for defamation by the network even though the Israeli govt., which initially accepts responsibility reverses its stand in Sept. 2007; the boy was never killed, or was killed by Palestinians by accident or for propaganda purposes? In Sept. Chase Manhattan pays $36B for the 139-y.-o. J.P. Morgan investment banking house, and changes its name to J. P. Morgan Chase. On Oct. 2 demonstrators take over the state-controlled TV station in Belgrade, Serbia. On Oct. 2 Britain finally begins enforcing their 1998 Human Rights Act after Scotland beats them to it earlier in the year. On Oct. 5 beleaguered Serbian pres. Slobodan Milosevic leaves office after the withdrawal of Russian support. On Oct. 5 Amy Sherman-Palladino's comedy-drama series Gilmore Girls debuts on the WB for 153 episodes (until May 15, 2007 after switching to the CW in 2006), set in everybody-loves-it Stars Hollow, Conn. (based on Washington, Conn.) 30 min. from Hartford, Conn., starring Lauren Helen Graham (1967-) as single mother Lorelai Gilmore, and Kimberly Alexis Bledel (1981-) as her daughter Lorelai (Rory); Melissa Ann McCarthy (1970-) plays Sookie St. James. On Oct. 6 the last Mini Cooper is produced in Longbridge, England. On Oct. 6 the procedural forensics crime TV drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation debuts on CBS-TV for 337 episodes (until Sept. 27, 2015), starring William Louis Petersen (1953-) as Gil Grissom, head of a Las Vegas, Nev. police unit that incl. Mary Marg Helgenberger (1958-) (as Catherine Willows), George Coleman Eads III (1967-) (Nick Stokes), Gary Dourdan (Gary Robert Durdin) (1966-) (as Warrick Brown), Jorja-An "Jorja" Fox (1968-) (as Sara Sidle), and Paul Guilfoyle (1949-) (as Capt. James "Jim" Brass), solving crimes from grisly evidence; the series finale is titled "Immortality"; too bad, its violence and sexual content pisses-off the Parents Television Council, and its inaccurate portrayal of CSI work pisses-off real investigators, which doesn't keep the show from building an audience of 73.8M viewers in 2009. On Oct. 7 grand duke (since 1964) Jean retires, and his eldest son Henri (1955-) becomes grand duke of Luxembourg (until ?). On Oct. 7 The District debuts on CBS-TV for 89 episodes (until May 1, 2004), starring Craig T. Nelson as former New York City deputy police commissioner Jack Maple, Lynn Thigpen as Ella Mae Farmer, David O'Hara as detective Danny McGregor, and Roger Aaron Brown as deputy chief Joe Noland. On Oct. 8 That's Life debuts on CBS-TV (until Jan. 26, 2003), starring "Who wants to be a millionaire the old fashioned way?" Ellen Burstyn, Heather Paige Kent, and Paul Sorvino. On Oct. 9 the cable TV Food Network, owned by Shaw Media and Scripps Networks Interactive, based in Toronto, Canada debuts (until ?), replacing Fine Living Network (founded 2002). On Oct. 10 the U.S. Permanent Normalized Trade with China Act is signed by Pres. Clinton, endorsing permanent normalized trade status for the People's Repub. of China (PRC), paving the way for its entry into the World Trade Org. (WTO), pissing-off U.S. labor unions but tickling multinational cos. pink; the Senate approved it on Sept. 9 by 83-15 after adding provisions to safeguard sacred cow Taiwan and protect the low-paid Chinese workers. On Oct. 11 a 250M gal. coal sludge spill by Martin County Coal Co. in W. Va. buries lawns more than 6 ft. deep in black slurry, kills fish, and contaminates drinking water, becoming a greater environmental disaster than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. On Oct. 12 (11:18 a.m.) (Thur.) suicide bombers in an explosives-laden boat ram the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole while refueling in Aden, Yemen, blowing a 40'x60' hole in the port side and killing 17 U.S. sailors and injuring 39; it is later pinned on Al-Qaida; in 2002 UAE arrests suspected Saudi-born mastermind Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (1965-) and turns him over to the U.S.; in Mar. 2007 Walid bin Attash (1979-) confesses to planning the attack along with the two 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, and claims torture by U.S. interrogators; in 2003 Pat Roberts, chmn. of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee tells the CIA they have no objections to detroying videotapes of brutal interrogations, which only comes out on Feb. 22, 2010; too bad, by late 2009 every man arrested or convicted in connection with the attack is either pardoned or escapes from prison; between now and 2010 the U.S. State Dept. awards 1,011 special "diversity visas" allowing Yemenis to immigrate to the U.S. - did it just get hot in here? On Oct. 21 15 Arab leaders convene in Cairo, Egypt for their first summit in four years; after talk of not breaking ties with Israel, the Libyan delegation walks out. On Oct. 22 The Mainichi Shinbun newspaper exposes Japanese archeologist Shinichi Fujimura (1950-) as a fraud after a smoking gun photo is taken showing him burying artifacts, embarrassing Japanese archeologists who had based their treatises on his findings. On Oct. 23 Madeleine Albright holds talks with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il. On Oct. 23 Sunni Muslim former PM (1992-8) Rafik Baha El Deen Hariri (1944-2005) becomes PM #43 of Lebanon (until Oct. 20, 2004). On Oct. 23 Glasgow-born Michael John Martin (1945-) of the Labour Party becomes speaker of the British House of Commons (until June 21, 2009). On Oct. 26 the New York Yankees (AL) (mgr. Joe Torre) defeat the New York Mets (NL) (mgr. Bobby Valentine) 4-1 to win the Ninety-Sixth (96th) "Subway" World Series, making three straight for the Yankees, four in five years, and their 26th WS title. On Oct. 26 Pakistani authorities announce the finding of an ancient mummy of a Persian princess in the province of Balochistan; Iran, Pakistan, and the Taliban all claim the mummy until Pakistan announces it is a forgery on Apr. 17, 2001. On Oct. 27 the U.S. Drug Addiction Treatment Act, sponsored by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) is signed by Pres. Clinton, treating heroin addiction as a disease, and backing use of methadone alternatives buprenorphine (a partial opiate producing minimum mood alteration) and buprenorphine-naloxone (ditto with an opiate blocker), which go on to win FDA approval in Sept. 2002; now the longtime horrible sin is in the same category as diabetes and hypertension? On Oct. 30 Kyrgyzstan pres. Askar Akayev wins reelection with 75% of the vote in an election marred by allegations of fraud and corruption, and the country's claim to be the "centerpiece of central Asian democracy" is kaput? On Oct. 31 Singapore Airlines Flight 006 collides with construction equipment in the Chiang Kai-Shek Interat. Airport, killing 83. On Oct. 31 the U.N. Security Council unanimously approves Resolution 1325, calling for the adoption of a gender perspective incl. the special needs of women and girls during repatriation, resettlement, rehabilitation, reintegration, and post-conflict reconstruction, becoming their first resolution requiring parties in a conflict to respect women's rights. On Nov. 1 the U.N. Gen. Assembly unanimously approves Yugoslavia's application for U.N. membership. On Nov. 1 New York City MCC prison guard Louis Pepe (1947-) is ambushed in the cell of al-Qaida top aide Mamdouh Mahmud Salim and his cellmate, who stick a sharpened comb in his eye, blinding him and causing brain damage, dig a cross on his chest, then try to rape him before he is rescued. On Nov. 2 Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik (1975-) of Russia defeats world champ (since 1985) Garry Kasparov 8.5-6.5 (2-0 wins, 13 draws) to become world chess champ #14 (until 2007) at the Brain Games in London; meanwhile the discredited FIDE org. holds a rival championship. On Nov. 2 a Soyuz spacecraft carrying one U.S. and two Russian astronauts docks at the 80-ton $60 Internat. Space Station (ISS) 240 mi. above Earth to begin a 4-mo. mission to expand the leaky rat trap outpost. On Nov. 2 the pilot of a Singapore Airlines Boeing 747 uses the wrong runway for his takeoff from Taiwan in heavy rain and wind, hits construction materials and crashes, killing 82, although he survives; the runway lights are later blamed. On Nov. 3 widespread flooding occurs throughout England and Wales after days of heavy rain. On Nov. 4 Pres. Clinton vetoes an intelligence authorization bill containing a British Official Secrets Act-like provision making it a felony to leak govt. secrets, with prison terms of up to 3 years and fines of up to $1K, calling the wording "overbroad and may unnecessarily chill legitimate activities that are at the heart of a democracy". On Nov. 6 the U.S. Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act is signed by Pres. Clinton after clearing Congress in record time, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimating in Mar. that more than 380K subcutaneous injuries from contaminated sharps occur each year among U.S. health profs., and up to 800K worldwide, subjecting them to the risk of contracting HIV and hepatitis-C; the real reason is lobbying by Becton Dickinson & Co. of N.J., which has spent $500M developing "safety-engineered needles" that cost over twice as much as ordinary hypos? Can't prove it, but Bush stole the election? "George Bush" is an anagram for "He bugs Gore"? On Nov. 7 after $3B spent over four years on campaigning, the 2000 U.S. Pres. Election is the closest in decades, with the electoral vote so close (Gore 267, Bush 246, with 270 needed to win) on election night that Florida's 25 are fated to decide the winner; Tim Russert of NBC-TV introduces red-blue color-coding to electoral maps, with Repubs. colored red and Dems. blue, reversing the longstanding pattern of red for radicals and leftists and blue for conservative bluebloods; too bad, the use of a "butterfly ballot" confuses many voters, putting the nation on hold as Bush's slim lead in Fla. leads to an automatic recount, while a con game begins with the "hanging chad" problem (see the year 667 C.E.) with its butterfly ballots, and on Nov. 11 the Repubs. file a federal suit to block manual recount which might change Bush's lead to a Gore lead, forcing the election to be decided by the Repub.-controlled courts; Dems. force a manual recount in four counties, but it goes too slow, allowing millionaire Repub. Fla. secy. of state Katherine Harris (1957-) (whose beauty queen makeup becomes the butt of jokes on late-night TV) to set a Nov. 14 deadline for the recount, but she is overruled on Nov. 21 by the Fla. Supreme Court, which extends it to Nov. 26, on which day Harris (in her 15 min. of fame) certifies her boss, er, Bush as the winner by a 537-vote margin out of 6M votes cast, giving Fla.'s 25 electoral votes to Bush, along with the most interesting job in the world; on Nov. 22 Bush appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court to have the Fla. counting stopped in Bush v. Gore, argued by future U.S. solicitor gen. (2001-4) Theodore Bevry "Ted" Olson (1940-), which on Dec. 4 remands the case to the Fla. Supreme Court, headed by chief justice (since 1994) Charles T. Wells (1939-), which on Dec. 8 orders the recount to resume and to be completed by Dec. 10, since an 1887 federal law permits electors to be certified on Dec. 12 in time for the convening of the electoral college on Dec. 18; too bad, on Dec. 9 the U.S. Supreme Court votes 5-4 on partisan lines to order the recount stopped for lack of an objective standard after allowing audio recording of arguments before the justices for the first time ever (still forbidding cameras to see the fat wallets they're sitting on?); on Dec. 12 they rule 5-4 that the recount is unconstitutional, with chief justice Rehnquist sending an unsigned ruling at 10 p.m. to stop, giving Fla.'s electoral votes to Bush; dissenter John Paul Stevens issues the soundbyte: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law"; on Dec. 13 Bore, er, Gore, trying to think of the nation and not foul it up with indecision any longer issues the soundbyte: "While I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it"; thanks to the Court, er, People, Texas Gov. George Walker Bush (1946-) and Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney (1941-) win over Dem. candidates Albert Arnold "Al" Gore Jr. (1948-) and Conn. Sen. Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman (1942-); Gore carries the West Coast (Calif., Wash.), the Upper Midwest (Iowa, Ill., Mich., Minn.), the Northeast (N.J., N.Y., Penn., Washington D.C.), and all of New England except N.H.; Bush carries the small-state "heartland"; 19K "unmarked" ballots are discarded in heavily Dem. Palm Beach County, throwing the election to Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush's bro'?; Ralph Nader of the Green Party (who claims that the two main parties are the same, so don't vote for either one, vote for him) gets 97K votes (3%), incl. enough votes to have given Gore N.H. and Fla., making him the winner, and pissing him off, along with many of Nader's own Nader's Raiders, esp. in retrospect; to add insult to injury, Bush officially receives 50,456,062 popular votes (47.9%) and 271 electoral votes to Gore's 50,996,582 popular (48.4%) and 266 electoral votes, becoming the 4th time (1824, 1876, 1888) that the winner of the popular vote loses the election; the voter participation rate is a bored 50.7%; Mo. has now picked the winner in 11 straight pres. elections, Ohio, Tenn. and Ky. in 10, La. and Ark. in 8; like with John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), a competent but uninspiring vice-pres. succeeds a charismatic pres., is defeated after one term by a liberal Southerner, then lives to see his near namesake son become pres. despite losing the popular vote to a populist from Tenn.; shell-shocked loser Abraham, er, AAG (Al A. Gore) begins growing a beard in Valencia, Spain; Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-) becomes the first First Lady to run for and be elected to office (U.S. Dem. Sen. from N.Y.) (until ?), winning 55% of the vote; the Repubs. gain control of the White House, enjoying their first long run of govt. since the 1920s, and retain their narrow majority in the House of Reps., while Dems. secure 50 of the 100 U.S. Senate seats; meanwhile the slow decline in executive power is reversed bigtime since the Repubs. had the money and the packed judiciary ready to throw behind a Repub. pres. all the time? On Nov. 7 a criminal gang raids the Millennium Dome in London to steal the Millennium Star Diamond, but police surveillance catches them in the act. On Nov. 8 Amani Abeid Karume (1948-), son of former pres. (1964-72) Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume becomes pres. of Zanzibar (until ?). On Nov. 11 a cable car fire in an alpine tunnel in Kaprun, Austria kills 155 skiers and snowboarders. On Nov. 12-14 the 9th Islamic Summit Conference is held in Doha, Qatar, with over 4K participants from 55 member states, with the theme "Al-Aqsa Intifada". On Nov. 13 Philippine pres. (since 1998) Joseph Estrada is impeached for receiving gambling payoffs - a cupcake is a cupcake, right? On Nov. 15 the new state of Jharkhand in India is proclaimed, carving out the S Chhota Nagpur area from Bihar. On Nov. 16 Pres. Clinton becomes the first sitting U.S. pres. to visit Vietnam - where's the pretty boy sushi? On Nov. 17 a catastrophic landslide in Log pod Mangartom in NW Slovenia kills seven, and causes millions in damage, becoming one of Slovenia's worst disasters in a cent. On Nov. 25 the global warming talks at The Hague Conference meltdown over whether there is global warming, and whether it's anthropogenic (human-caused). On Nov. 25 Vienna unveils the Austrian Holocaust Memorial in the Judenplatz, designed by English sculptor Rachel Whiteread (1963-) to look like an inside-out library; Austrian Roman Catholic cardinal-archbishop (of Vienna) Christoph Schoenborn (1945-) acknowledges the Church's "culpability in the persecution of Jews" before and during the Nazi era. On Nov. 26 former Haitian pres. (1991, 1994-6) Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1953-) is relected after his Lavalas Party wins 17 of 18 senate seats at stake and 80% of the house seats in an election boycotted by all major parties and many of the 4M registered voters, with the U.S., EU and Canada refusing to monitor the elections; he takes office next Feb. 7 (until Feb. 29, 2004). On Nov. 27 Jean Chretien is re-elected as PM Canada, and his Liberal Party increases its majority in the House of Commons. On Nov. 28 the Netherlands becomes the first nation to legalize assisted suicide - just nuke the whole country and create some prime beachfront property for Germany? On Nov. 29 Gregory III Laham (1933-) becomes the Melkite Greek patriarch of Antioch (until ?), going on to stink himself up with statements that attacks on Christians in the Levant are part of a Zionist plot to discredit Islam. On Nov. 30 mad cow disease causes a big scare in Europe. In Nov. Neb. passes a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage; a federal judge strikes it down on 5-13-2005. In Nov. Janez Drnovsek is voted out of office after 8 years, and replaced by more conservative Andrej Bajuk (1943-) as PM of Slovenia (until 2004). In Nov. France talks Saddam Hussein of Iraq into defying the U.S. petrodollar hegemony and sell oil for food in euros instead of dollars - the real reason for the Mar. 2003 invasion? In Nov. after 10 years the U.S. govt. finishes chemical weapons disposal on 3.2K-acre Johnston (Kalama) Island (Atoll) 860 mi. SW of Honolulu, Hawaii (claimed by the U.S. since Mar. 19, 1858), turning it into a wildlife preserve. In Nov. the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Admin. (OSHA) issues a rule intended to protect employees from repetitive stress injuries (RSI), and estimates that compliance will cost industry only $4.5B the first year, although industry estimates place the cost as high as $125.8B the first year and $886.6B over 10 years. On Dec. 1 Priyanka Chopra (1982-) of India wins the Miss World Pageant in the Millennium Dome in London, going on to become one of India's top actresses. On Dec. 3 (Sun.) the Church of England adopts Common Worship, replacing the 1980 Alternative Service Book. On Dec. 4 Pres. Clinton issues Executive Order 13178 creating the 99.5K-sq.-mi. Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Coral Reef Reserve, protecting the coral reefs, atolls, submerged lagoons and marine life in an area as large as Fla.; the new reserve contains 70% of U.S. coral reefs; a public comment period begins in 2002, and Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle declares parts of it a state marine refuge in 2005, after which on June 15, 2006 Pres. George W. Bush signs Proclamation 8031, designating it a nat. monument. On Dec. 8 activists defend Operation Payback, which launched "hacktivist" attacks on MasterCArd to defend WikiLeaks. On Dec. 12 the U.N. (Palermo) Convention against Transnational Organized Crime is passed, with three supplementary Palermo Protocols covering trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants, and trafficking in firearms, effective Sept. 29, 2003; by June 2016 it is adopted by 187 parties incl. 182 U.N. member states, the EU, the Vatican, the State of Palestine, and Cook Islands; members that have not ratified it incl. Iran, Japan, Repub. of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Palau, and Tuvalu. On Dec. 12 after dating bi porn star Tony Ward in 1990-1, followed by Vanilla Ice, Dennis Rodman, fitness trainer Carlos Leon, and Andy Bird (who tells all to the newspapers in 2000), Kabbalah-practicing Am. #1 female pop star Madonna Louise Ciccone (1958-) marries English "Sherlock Holmes", "Snatch", "Revolver" actor-writer-producer-dir. Guy Stuart Ritchie (1968-) (whose son Rocco she bore in Aug. 2000, then had baptized in a Presbyterian Church) in Skibo Castle in Dornoch, Scotland (until Dec. 2008); her daughter Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon (b. 1996) leads the procession. On Dec. 12 Amtrak's first Acela Express train leaves Union Station in Washington, D.C., arriving in Boston, Mass. in 6 hours 43 min., 12 min. behind schedule; billed as able to go 150 mph and shorten the ride between Washington and New York City by 15 min., it is held to 70-90 mph by the law of N.Y. and Conn., and can only achieve full speed on the 18-mi. stretch in R.I., and is still slower than France's Grande Vitesse, although it weighs half as much. On Dec. 12 GM announces that it will phase-out its Oldsmobile make within five years - not your father's Oldsmobile? On Dec. 13 the Texas Seven (Joseph Christopher Garcia, Randy Ethan Halprin, Larry James Harper, Patrick Henry Murphy Jr., Donald Keith Newbury, George Angel Rivas Jr., and Michael Anthony Rodriguez) escape from prison in Kenedy, Tex., and begin a crime spree, robbing a sports store in Irving, Tex. on Dec. 24 and killing rookie police officer Aubrey Hawkins (b. 1971); they are not apprehended until Jan. 21 in an RV park in Woodland, Colo. posing as Christian missionaries after a segment on the TV show "America's Most Wanted"; Larry James Harper commits suicide to avoid capture; on Apr. 23-24 the last two are apprehended at a Holiday Inn in Colorado Springs, Colo.; all are convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Tex. On Dec. 14 Dante Michael Siou is convicted of stalking actress Gwyneth Paltrow and sent to a high-security mental facility after a judge finds him insane - applesauce for brains? On Dec. 16 Bronx-born "55% Republican" Colin Powell is appointed secy. of state by pres.-elect Bush, becoming the first black to hold the position - good move to quiet all the grumbling by disenfranchised black Fla. Dem. voters? On Dec. 20 Pres. Clinton pocket-vetoes the Bankruptcy Reform Act, a cruel law written by credit card cos. and banks that would have made it far more difficult for debtors to obtain bankruptcy protection; never fear, they have big lobbying bucks available, and go on to get it passed under Pres. Bush. On Dec. 21 Pres. Clinton signs the U.S. Commodities Futures Modernization Act, backed by Alan Greenspan, which relegalizes bucket shops and stock market derivatives (side bets by people not owning stock), setting the Stock Market up for the 2008 Liquidity Crisis; "Basically, that law made pure bets, for the first time in Anglo-Saxon legal history, enforceable in court. I always joke that if Congress decided to legalize murder, they'd call the legislation the Homocide Modernization Act." (Lynn Stout) On Dec. 21 after George W. Bush resigns to become U.S. pres., Haskell, Tex.-born James Richard "Rick" Perry (1950-) becomes Repub. Tex. gov. #47 (until Jan. 20, 2015), becoming the longest-serving Tex. gov. (until ?). On Dec. 26 computer software tester Michael McDermott (1958-) (whose portrait bears a striking resemblance to "Rubeus Hagrid in Harry Potter" actor Robbie Coltrane (1950-)?) goes berserk at a Wakefield, Mass., Internet co. and kills seven co-workers with a semiautomatic rifle and shotgun. On Dec. 28 Montgomery Ward announces it's going out of business after 128 years, filing bankruptcy and closing its 250 stores and dismissing 28K employees. On Dec. 29 Israeli PM (since 1999) Ehud Barak resigns. On Dec. 29 Wichita, Kan.-born, Colo.-raised Gale Ann Norton (1954-), Colo's first female atty.-gen. (1991-9) and failed U.S. Repub. Sen. candidate (1996) is nominated by pres.-elect Bush for U.S. secy. of the interior. On Dec. 30 the Rizal Day Bombings see a series of bombs explode in several places in Manila, Philippines within a span of a few hours, killing 22 and injuring 100. On Dec. 30 the Clintons buy a $2.85M 5-bedroom colonial-style brick home on Whitehaven St. near Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., designating their Chappaqua, N.Y. home as their primary residence. On Dec. 31 the Millennium Dome in London closes its doors one year after opening - too bad, wait till next millennium On Dec. 31 Saddam Hussein presides over a military parade in Baghdad, dressed in a suit, tie and hat, and fires a rifle with one hand like "The Rifleman", which becomes his image-making move to gun-proud Americans? - like challenging cowboy Bush to a gunfight? Motiur Rahman Nazami (1943-) becomes leader of the far-right Islamist Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami Party (until ?). U.S. Sen. (D-Hawaii) (1990-2013) Daniel Kahikina Akaka (1924-) (first U.S. Sen of Native Hawaiian ancestry) proposes the retro racial separatist (caca?) Akaka Bill (Native Hawaiian Govt. Reorg. Act), providing for federal recognition of Native Hawaiians similar to an Indian tribe, while prohibiting them from benefits available to federally-recognized Indian tribes incl. gaming, despite setting a precedent that could balkanize the U.S., and lack of support by Hawaiians; it doesn't pass until ?. The Durban AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa brings attention to the high costs of AIDS drugs and the need for whites, er, govts. to treat poor (black) people in Africa and elsewhere, proposing an internat. fund for the triple cocktail, but doctors counter that it would be too difficult to administer in rural Africa because of inaccessibility; meanwhile U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms of N.C. (AKA "Dr. No") battles against AIDS funding, saying, "I've never heard anybody suggest to the homosexuals: Stop what you're doing". Al-Awda (Palestinian Right to Return Coalition) is founded. Oil is discovered in Kazakhstan's portion of the Caspian Sea, where it has 1.2K mi. of coastline, becoming the largest oil find in 30 years. Netherlands legalizes prostitution, allowing hos to own windows in Amsterdam's Red Light District and pay taxes on their earnings; it also legalizes same-sex marriage. Pres. Bush signs a proclamation establishing 328K-acre Giant Sequoia Nat. Monument, home to 38 sequoia groves containing two-thirds of all sequoias, the world's largest trees, which can grow up to 270 ft. tall and 30 ft. in diam. Pierce's Disease is first discovered on grapevines in the U.S. Malaria deaths in the U.S. climb from a low of 1 in 1977 to 423 this year. Ever-increasing bacterial antibiotic resistance is causing concern in the medical community. The U.S. govt. begins providing billions of dollars to Colombia to spray its drug fields; the tactic backfires when growers begin invading nat. parks (Sierra Macarena et al.), which can't be sprayed because of protected plant species. Balding "pompad-over"-coiffed (poofy squirrel-do) Donald Trump considers a pres. bid with the Progressive Party, the switches to the Reform Party, losing to Pat Buchanan. 95-y.-o. Stanley Kunitz (1905-) becomes the 10th poet laureate of the U.S. - safe choice in case he doesn't work out? Louis Farrakhan and Imam W.D. Mohammed reconcile and call for unity among their groups. Colo. voters approve a constitutional amendment (Article XVIII) legalizing medical marijuana. A group of U.S. menswear retailers and manufactures start Dress-Up Thursdays to encourage employees to dump casual for business attire - the Clinton days are over, dudes? Starbucks opens an outlet in China's Forbidden City, causing a movement to get rid of it for messing up its image. The Nature Conservancy buys the uncolonized island of Palmyra, 960 mi. SW of Honolulu for $30M from the Fullard-Leos family. Fertility rates in European nations have been falling since 1970, and now Italy's is the lowest (1.2) in the world, so low that in 30-40 years the pop. could decrease by one-third. Vietnam opens the Vietnam Stock Exchange in Ho Chi Minh City, listing two cos. and two bonds; in 2005 it expands to Hanoi, and by 2006 trades 26 stocks and funds with a total capitalization of $3.5B. Beginning this year "ethnic plastic surgery" becomes popular in the U.S., with Asians getting their eyes fixed to look more Caucasian, blacks getting their noses fixed to look more Caucasian, etc.; a few white women get their booties implanted to look more bootylicious and black? The Millennium Seed Bank Project is begun by the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England to provide an insurance policy against extinction of plants in the wild. The U.S. bison (buffalo) pop. reaches 300K,, up from 20-30 in 1900 as bison ranches proliferate in the Great Plains states. The U.S.-Canada Atlantic salmon pop. falls to 350K, down from 1.5M in 1970; Aqua Bounty Farms applies to the U.S. FDA for permission to market genetically modified salmon that grow to market size in 18 instead of the usual 36 mo., causing critics to call them "Frankenfish" and worry about them escaping into the wild. The homosexual issue causes mass defections in the Episcopal Church, with six parishes leaving for the new homo-free Anglican Mission in the Americas by next year - different Easters, different Easter eggs? After trying since the late 1980s to get it introduced into Congress in vain, Harvey Francis Barnard (1941-2005) releases his NESARA (Nat. Economic Security and Recovery Act) proposal on the Internet, proposing to replace the income tax with a nat. sales tax, abolish compound interest on secured loans, and return to a bimetallic currency to reduce inflation to 0% and stabilize the economy, after which "Dove of Oneness" Shaini Candace Goodwin (1947-2010), former student of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment claims that the bill was passed in a secret Congressional session in Mar. 2000 and signed by Pres. Clinton, set to be implemented at 10 a.m. on 9/11/2001, and that all the computers and data were stored on the 2nd floor of the WTC and destroyed in the 9/11 attacks ordered by Pres. George W. Bush, who starts the Iraq War as a distraction; according to her, the bill actually passed cancels all personal debts, abolishes the IRS, declares world peace, and mandates new pres. and congressional elections, and is being covered-up by the govt. Elizabeth Taylor is made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II; "I have been a broad all my life and dame just automatically came next" (to Larry King). The New York Times carries the headline "Fed Head Not Dead", referring to little-seen Federal Reserve chmn. Alan Greenspan. Penetration of PCs in the U.S. exceeds half of all households. Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy frets about possible dangers of nanotechnology in the Apr. issue of Wired mag. William Leonard Pickard (1945-) and Clyde Apperson (1955-) are arrested for running an LSD lab in an Atlas-E missile silo near Wamego, Kans., receiving long sentences, after which worldwide availability of LSD allegedly drops 90%. In this decade the Grasseater Gen. of Japanese males, who live with their mothers, wear makeup and tight-fitting clothes, and want no part of the corporate rat race of their fathers flourishes. Los Angeles 5'10" native Tyra Banks (1973-) hits the runways of Europe, becoming the first African-Am. model on the covers of both Sports Illustrated and GQ; she is named by GQ as their woman of the year. "Big Easy", "Sea of Love" actress Ellen Barkin (1954-) marries billionaire Revlon chmn. Ron Perelman (1943-) (ends 2006) - what destoyed her teeth and ruined her style, a marriage made in plastic card heaven? The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) in Palestine are set up by former Fatah member Jamal Abu Samhadana (1963-2006) (famous for the soundbyte "Jews are our enemy - I will pull the trigger whenever required"), with funding from Hezbollah to engage in terrorist and rocket attack; on June 8, 2006 he is assassinated by the Israelis. The U.S. suffers a record 52 shark attacks this year; 30 in 2004, 38 in 2005; world total in 2005 is 58, only four being fatal. Since the British prefer ale to beer, there are only about 500 breweries in the U.K., but thanks to the microbrewing rev. that number grows to 1,285 in 2015. Apollo Carreon Quiboloy (1950-) of the Philippines claims to be Jesus Christ, and busily recruits followers. The Great Gazoo is added to the cast of characters in Flintstones vitamins. SpongeBob SquarePants, created by Steven Hillenburg (1961-) makes his debut on the Nickelodeon cable TV channel, becoming a gay vehicle as rumors fly. The Rock's Backpages online library is founded by British journalist Barney Hoskyns (1959-). The $100K Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize is founded by Scott Griffin (1938-), becoming Canada's most generous poetry award; in 2010 it is doubled to $200K Canadian. Greg Glassman and Lauren Glassman found CrossFit Inc. to promote a gen. fitness exercise program, which is adopted by 6K+ gyms by 2013; in 2007 the first CrossFit Games are held, which is won by Rich Froning Jr. (1987-), who is awarded the title "Fittest Man on Earth". Bill Clinton games the George J. Mitchell Scholarship Fund (founded by Trina Vargo, a broker of the talks leading to the 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement in Ireland) to get Chelsea Clinton's beau Jeremy Kane into an elite college. The lionfish pop. off the Atlantic coast of Fla. (native to the W Pacific Ocean) (first reported in the mid-1980s) becomes numerous, going on to spread N through the E seaboard, and S through the Gulf of Mexico (until ?). Divine Interventions, a co. offering Jackhammer Jesus and other holy dildos opens on the Web. The 77K-ton 14-story cruise ship Ocean Princess goes into service in Feb. for the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. subsidiary Princess Cruises; it can accommodate 1,950 passengers in style and comfort, and has sonar to detect icebergs. Fortinet Inc. is founded by brothers Ken and Michael Xie to provide security firewalls; too bad, it gets into discrimination against sites based on their political content under the guise of protecting customers from discrimination, not just white supremacist sites but popular smart anti-Islamic sites incl. Bare Naked Islam. Original Gourmet Food Co. in Salem, N.H. is founded to manufacture gourmet lollipops. Sports: On Jan. 4 self-made Jewish-Am. billionaire (founder of Broadcast.com) Mark Cuban (1958-) buys the NBA Dallas Mavericks from H. Ross Perot Jr. for $285M; turning it arund from a 40% to a 69% winning percentage by 2010. On Jan. 9 Orlando, Fla. resident Tiger Woods wins the Mercedes Championship in Kapalua, Hawaii, matching Ben Hogan's 1945 11-streak, then wins the AT&T Pebble Beach Nat. Pro-Am. on Feb. 7, matching Hogan's 1948 record of six straight tour victories; too bad, on Feb. 13 he loses to Philip Albert "Phil" Mickelson (1970-) in La Jolla, Calif., and Mickelson goes on to win the Masters on Apr. 9, with Woods coming in 5th; Woods then wins the 100th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, Calif. on June 18 by a record 15 strokes (his 12-under-par 272 total is also a record), becoming the first player to win back-to-back PGAs since the 1930s and to win all three major titles in one year since Ben Hogan in 1953. On Feb. 20 the 2000 (42nd) Daytona 500 is won by Dale Jarrett (3rd win); Dave Marcis fails to qualify for the first time since 1968. On Mar. 30 the 2000 America's Cup is retained by Team New Zealand in Black Magic near Auckland after Prada Challenge 2000 loses 0-5. On Apr. 17 Ubaldo Jimenez (1984-) pitches the first-ever no-hitter for the Colorado Rockies against the Atlanta Braves; on Apr. 20 Rockies pres. Keli McGregor (b. 1963) is found dead in a Salt Lake City, Utah hotel room. On May 28 the 2000 (84th) Indianapolis 500 is won by rival CART champion Juan Pablo Montoya Roldan (1975-) of Colombia, becoming the rookie to win since Graham Hill in 1966. On May 29 Randy Velarde (1962-) (2B) of the Oakland A's makes an unassisted triple play against the New York Yankees, becoming the 11th in ML history. On May 30-June 10 the 2000 Stanley Cup Finals see the New Jersey Devils defeat the Dallas Stars 4-2 in double OT, becoming their 2nd win; MVP is Devils defenceman Ronald Scott Stevens (1964-); after the 1999-2000 season the Roger Crozier Saving Grace Award, named for goalie (1960-77) Roger Allan Crozier (1942-96) is established by the NHL for the goaltender with the best save percentage during the regular season after playing 25+ games; the first award goes to Ed Belfour of the Dallas Stars; the last award (2006-7 season) goes to Niklas Backstrom of the Minnesota Wild. On June 7-19 the 2000 NBA Finals sees the Los Angeles Lakers (coach Phil Jackson) defeat the Indiana Pacers (coach Larry Bird) 4-2; on June 14 the Lakers defeat the Pacers 120-118 in OT to win Game 4, with Shaquille O'Neal scoring 36 points and 21 rebounds, and teammate Kobe Bryant scoring 28 points; on June 16 (Game 5) the Pacers rout the Lakers 120-87; on June 19 the Lakers capture their first title since 1988 in Game 6; Shaquille O'Neal of the Lakers is MVP; Bryant misses most of Game 2 and all of Game 3 because of an ailing left ankle. On June 8 undefeated 3-10 favorite Big Brown (2005-) becomes the first Triple Crown hopeful to finish last at the Belmont Stakes after winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes handily (winner 38-to-1 Da' Tara); it is later discovered that one of his shoes became bent soon after the start. On July 2 France defeats Italy 2-1 to win Euro 2000 with a golden goal. On June 26-July 9 the 2000 (114th) Wimbledon Championship sees Pete Sampras defeat Pat Rafter to win his 4th straight (last) Wimbledon single's title and 7th men's singles title; Venus Williams defeats Lindsay Davenport to win the women's singles title, becoming the first of five Wimbledon titles. On July 14-23 the 2000 U.S. Olympics Track & Field Trials in Sacramento, Calif. are the best-attended track trials in U.S. history (until ?); drugstore athletes Marion Jones and Michael Johnson emerge as stars. On July 23 Lance Armstrong wins France's Tour de France for a 2nd straight year. On Aug. 28-Sept. 10 the 2000 U.S. Open of Tennis sees defending champ Andre Agassi upset in the 2nd round by Amaud Clement, and defending champ Serena Williams upset in the quarter-finals by Lindsay Davenport, who loses in the final round to her older sister Venus Williams (1980-) of the U.S.; Marat Safin (1980-) easily defeats Sampras to become the first Russian U.S. Open singles winner. On Oct. 5 Dante Hall of the Kansas City Chiefs scores a 93-yard punt return for a TD against the Denver Broncos at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. On Oct. 7 the Columbus Blue Jackets of Ohio play their first game as an NHL expansion team, becoming the city's first major league franchise since 1938 (the Columbus Athletic Supply of the Nat. Basketball League, later NBA). Yankees 3rd baseman Alexander Emmanuel "Alex" "A-Rod" Rodriguez (1975-) signs a 10-year, $252M deal, making him ML baseball's highest-paid player; if you add endorsements, Tiger Wood is the best paid athlete of all, making $112M this year. Penn State U. coach (English lit. major) Joe "Mount Joe Pa" Paterno (1927-), winner of two nat. championships begins a decline, ending in a 4-7 2004 season amid off-field incidents On Dec. 16 the day after Shaquille O'Neal's graduation (after he left early in 1992 after three years, then returned to fulfill a vow), LSU retires his jersey #33. The John Mackey Award for college football's most outstanding tight end is established; the first winner is Tim Stratton of Purdue U. The 3-day Weber Cup, named after Dick Weber is established as the 10-pin bowling equivalent of golf's Ryder Cup; the first tournament sees Team USA defeat Team Europe 18-11. The Prof. Bowlers Assoc. (PBA) (founded 1958) is purchased by former Microsoft execs Chris Peters, Rob Glaser, and Mike Slade, who move the co. HQ to Seattle, Wash. Pfizer's Viagra sponsors NASCAR driver Mike Bliss (#27) for Eel River Racing, switching next year to Mark Martin (#6) of Roush Racing, who finishes 2nd in points in 2002 and 4th in 2004 and 2005. Architecture: On May 12 the Tate Modern (Museum) opens in Southark, London across the Thames River from St. Paul's Cathedral in the former Bankside Power Plant after a $200M renovation by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog (1950-) and Pierre de Meuron (1950-); the old Tate Museum upriver is renamed Tate Britain and continues to display Gainsboroughs and Turners, while the 12-story-high lobby of the Tate Modern features modernist crap, er, art incl. the gigantic steel sculptures I Do, I Undo, and I Redo by spider-loving French sculptor Louise Josephine Bourgeois (1911-2010). On June 10 the 1,066-ft. (325m) Millennium Bridge in London, England (begun in 1998) between Southwark Bridge and Blackfiars Bridge near St. Paul's Cathedral and the Tate Modern Gallery opens, designed by modernist sculptor Sir Anthony Alfred Caro (1924-2013), the Arup Group, and Foster and Partners, becoming the first pedestrian crossing over the Thames River in C London for over a cent.; too bad, it soon becomes known as the Wobbly Bridge after it begins shaking under the traffic, and on June 13 it is shut down for almost two years to fix it, reopening in 2002. On July 1 25,738 ft. (7,845m) Oresund Bridge across the Oresund Strait between Sweden and Denmark opens, becoming the longest combo road-rail bridge in Europe, connecting Copenhagen and Malmo; sometimes the drivers get wet. The $4.3B 928-ft.-high 12,828-ft.-long Akashi Kaikyo Bridge opens, connecting Kobe and Awaji-shima Island in Japan, becoming the world's longest spanning suspension bridge (until ?); it is specially built to withstand earthquakes and 180 mph winds. The $800M cyberpunk Sony Center at the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, Germany opens, designed by German-Am. architect Helmut Jahn (1940-). The "blobitecture" Experience Music Project in Seattle, Wash., founded by Paul Allen of Microsoft opens, exploring pop music and sci-fi. The colorful Hundertwasser Bldg., AKA the Waldspirale (Wooden Spiral) in Darmstadt (begun 1998) is finished by Austrian architect Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser (1928-2000), with 105 apts. and onion domes. Nobel Prizes: Peace: Kim Dae-jung (1925-2009) (South Korea) [Sunshine Policy]; Lit.: Gao Xingjian (1940-) (China); Physics: Zhores Ivanovich Alferov (1930-) (Russia) and Herbert Kroemer (1928-) (U.S.) [heterostructures], and Jack St. Clair Kilby (1923-2005) (U.S.) [microchip tech.]; Chem: Alan Jay Heeger (1936-) (U.S.), Alan Graham MacDiarmid (1927-2007) (U.S.), and Hideki Shirakawa (1936-) (Japan) [conductive polymers]; Arvid Carlsson (1923-) (Sweden), Paul Greengard (1925-) (U.S.), and Eric Richard Kandel (1929-) (U.S.) [signal transduction in the nervous system]; Economics: James Joseph Heckman (1944-) (U.S.) [statistical analysis of household and individual behavior] and Daniel Little McFadden (1937-) (U.S.) [theory and methods for analyzing discrete choice]. Inventions: On Jan. 1 Baidu search engine is founded in Beijing, China by Robin Li (Li Yanhong) (1968-) and Eric Xu Yong (1964-), going on to become the 2nd largest search engine on Earth, with a 76% market share in the Chinese market; in Dec. 2007 it becomes the first Chinese co. to be listed in the NASDAQ-100. On Feb. 14 the NASA Shoemaker Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft becomes the first to orbit an asteroid, 433 Eros. On May 3 San Antonio, Tex. computer pioneer Datapoint files for bankruptcy. On May 4 young Philippine hackers launch the Love Bug (I Love You) Virus, which by displaying the message "I love you" and invites the recipient to call up an attachment, which sends itself to everyone on their Web mailing list then trashes and shuts down the recipient's computer, spreading to Asia, Europe, and the Americas, paralyzing communications; 70% of Germany's computers are infected; the British House of Commons shuts down its e-mail to stop the virus, and govt. offices in Washington, D.C. are infected; total damage is as high as $10B (e-bucks?). On June 19 the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Duron low-priced x86-compatible microprocessor is released (until 2004). On Feb. 17 Microsoft releases Windows 2000 (W2K), followed on Sept. 14 by Windows Me (Millennium Ed.) - works like a giant screw going into the ground? In Mar. IBM announces that it will make all of its software and hardware work seamlessly with the free "open source" Linux computer operating system (introduced in 1993) in hopes of undermining the monopoly of Microsoft's Windows and Sun Microsystem's Solaris operating systems. On Apr. 3 IBM announces a polymer-based low-k dielectric for reducing crosstalk in microprocessors, boosting speed and performance by as much as 30%. In early Apr. the 20-vol. Oxford English Dictionary (OED) goes online as part of a 10-year $55M overhaul to add 600K new words and revise older entries; the paper ed. costs $550 and up per year, but the online vers. continues to be free. In 2000 Intel Corp. releases the Pentium 4 chip, which has 42M transistors, compared to 24M in the Pentium III (1999), 7.5M in the Pentium II (1997), and 3.1M in the Pentium chip (1993); it is discontinued in 2008. The Bluetooth Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) and Bluetooth General Packet Radio System (GPRS) are developed, launching the wireless era of PCs. The pi4-workerbot is released, featuring finger-tip sensitivity. In Oct. Toppan Printing Co. Ltd. produces a 2x1.5x1 cm 16-page ed. of the book titled The Twelve Horary Signs - Chinese Zodiac, becoming the smallest book yet printed. On Nov. 14 Netscape Navigator 6.0 is launched after two years of open source development, creating a stable Mozilla Web browser; too bad, after being Microsoft-monopolized out of biz, vers. 9 becomes kaput on Feb. 1, 2008 - can I have it like that, you got it like that? Herbert Allen of Tex. invents the Rabbit Corkscrew, with 31 separate parts. Science: Low-cost (less than $100) DNA testing kits become available to the consumer from Family Tree DNA, causing a fad to discover family ancestry and distant family members; by 2019 the DNA testing cos. have 26M DNA profiles available, half from the U.S. On Jan. 14 studies using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory reveal that the pervasive X-ray background of the Universe is caused by black holes near the centers of most galaxies. In spring 2000 the Internat. Hydrographic Org. defines the Southern (Antarctic) (Austral) Ocean (20.327M sq km) as all water below 60 deg. S, making it the 4th biggest of the five oceans after the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian, and bigger than the Arctic. On Mar. 25 the U.S. launches IMAGE (Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration, becoming the first satellite dedicated to completely imaging Earth's magnetosphere. On Apr. 6 a very bright fireball with a magnitude of -17 (brighter than the full Moon) is observed, thought to have been made by a 660 lb. (300 kg) meteor; on July 14 the 3.86 lb. (1.75 kg) Neuschwantstein Meteorite fragment is recovered near and named for the famous German Neuschwanstein Castle. On May 1 the Am. Academy of Pediatrics issues its first guidelines for diagnosing ADD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder) to prevent overmedication of youngsters who are merely rowdy with Ritalin. On May 9 an internat. team led by Harry Ostrer of NYU pub. an article in Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Science reporting that Jews and Arabs have been found to be genetically identical. On June 26 (Mon.) at the White House Francis Sellers Collins (1950-), dir. of the Human Genome Project, and John Craig Venter (1946-), pres. of Celera Genomics Corp announce their separate First Drafts of the Human Genome, the epoch-making first sequencing (deciphering) of 95%-97% of the human genome, expected to revolutionize medicine, just in time for the 50th anniv. of the pub. of the double helix work by James D. Watson and Francis Crick, taking only 13 of 15 expected years, declaring that the human genome has 3.1B "letters" (chemical bases); Pres. Clinton calls it "the most wondrous map ever produced", comparing the HGP to the Manhattan and Apollo projects; the program has come in underbudget, and involved 1.6K scientists, and adding the religious soundbyte: "Today, we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift" after being put up to it be Collins, a theist; Collins and Venter continue their war to be the first to finish the sequencing; by the end of the decade a genome can be sequenced in a week; meanwhile insurance cos. and govt. agencies line up to find ways to get and use genetic makeups, while every Tom, Dick and Harry with a computer rushes to patent genes after roping them off like in the Okla. Land Rush? In June the U.S. Nat. Research Council concludes that Earth's surface temp is rising as a part of global warming, but that the lower atmosphere is not affected at this time. On Sept. 3 the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Cerro Paranal, Chile begins operation, consisting of four 8.2m (323 in.) mirrors, each with its own name (Antu, Kueyen, Melipal, and Yepun); they initially operate independently, but are linked with interferometry in 2001. On Sept. 6 Breanna Lynn Bartlett-Stewart is stillborn to Scott Stewart and Lisa Bartlett in Paragould, Ark., becoming the first stillbirth to be resolved by the Kleihauer-Betke Blood Test; the publicity causes a movement for a Stillbirth Remembrance Day for the 26K stillborns each year in the U.S. On Sept. 12 Miss Waldron's Red Colobus Monkey of West Africa becomes the first primate species to officially become extinct in this millennium as biologists give up their search; it becomes the first large primate to go extinct since 1800; the Pyrenean ibex wild mountain goat is declared extinct; in 2009 it is resurrected via cloning; the 2000 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals and Plants lists 24% of mammals, 12% of birds, 30% of fishes, and 20% of amphibians on Earth as globally threatened with extinction. On Sept. 15 after Am. biologist Steven Austad is quoted in Scientific American as saying: "The first 150-year old person is probably alive right now", he and Am. aging expert Stuart Jay Olshansky (1954-) make their Big Lifespan Bet, putting $150 each into an investment fund, with the money and interest to go to the winner on Jan. 1, 2150 if he is of sound mind; they later stake another $150 each. On Oct. 9 the NASA High Energy Transient Explorer (HETE) II is launched by the U.S. in conjunction with France, Japan, and Italy to observe, report, and help locate gamma-ray bursters while it also surveys X-ray sources across the Universe. The superheavy synthetic radioactive element Livermorium (Lv) (#116) is discovered by the Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab in Calif.; the name is adopted by IUPAC on May 30, 2012. Indian astrophysicist Abhas Mitra announces Eternally Collapsing Objects (ECOs) as an alternative to Black Holes. Scientists at the Dubna Inst. in Russia create element #116. After being hired by Bell Labs in 1997, German physicist Jan Hendrik Schoen (Schön) (1970-) begins pub. a series of papers proclaiming breakthroughs in semiconductor physics, receiving the Braunschweig Prize and other prizes before being exposed as a fraud in 2002, causing a scandal about the adequacy of peer review. The sunken ancient Egyptian port city of Thonis-Herakleion is discovered 7 km off the Egyptian shore in Aboukir Bay by an internat. mission led by Moroccan-born French archeologist Franck Goddio (1947-). Am. paleontologist John R. "Jack" Horner (1946-) of the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont. and his team discover five separate T-Rexes, increasing the world collection by 35% - which makes you wonder about what? Leonid Khriachtchev (1959-), Markku Rasanen et al. of the U. of Helsinki in Finland report the first known stable compound of the inert noble gas argon, Argon Fluorohydride (HArF) by shining UV light on frozen argon containing a small amount of hydrogen fluoride, proving that it's not really so inert. David R. Liu et al. at Harvard U. develop a method for producing specific organic compounds using single-stranded DNA as a catalyst; by 2003 they develop 65 related compounds with 65 different template DNA strands. Michael C. Malin (1950-) and Kenneth S. Edgett (1965-) of the U.S. pub. geologic evidence that liquid water has changed the surface of Mars, creating gullies on steep slopes. Michael R. Rampino et al. of New York U. find evidence that Earth's largest mass extinction, known as the Late Permian, occurred during a period of less than 8K years about 250M ago, killing 95% of all species in the oceans; Luann Becker of the U. of Washington in Seattle analyzes sediments at the Permian-Triassic Boundary and concludes that they had an extraterrestrial source, implying that the extinction was caused by a comet or asteroid impact. The first Molecular Map of the Ribosome (the cell's essential protein factory) is completed by ?. Jorg Richstein of the U. of Giessen in Germany uses a computer to verify to 1 in 400T the 1742 Christian Goldbach Conjecture that every even number greater than 2 is the sum of two primes - two more years I'll be done with school and making history because of you? An internat. team of biologists sequences the genome of a flowering plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, becoming the first flowering plant all of whose genes have been found. J. Craig Venter et al. pub. almost the entire genome of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. The potential first human ancestors to journey out of Africa are found in the Repub. of Georgia by C. Reid Ferring, Carl C. Swisher III et al. - Margaret Mitchell would call that poetic justice? Chemists at the Naval Research Lab. in Washington, D.C. produce samples of Octanitrocubane, a long-sought hydrocarbon derivative expected to be the most powerful non-nuclear explosive. A bigger fungus than the one in Crystal Falls, Mich. (2.2K acres in size) is discovered in E Ore. The first FDA-approved robot surgery, the removal of a gallbladder is performed in Richmond, Va. using the $1M da Vinci Surgical System by Intuitive Surgical; by 2012 3.1K units worldwide conduct 200K surgeries/year. Researchers from the U. of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, report that transplants of insulin-producing cells from cadavers into persons with Type I diabetes free patients from the need for insulin injections, although they must use immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives - hook them up to a lightning machine and they'll turn into Frankensteins? French scientists report success in relieving babies of severe immune disorder (hereditary lack of T cells) through the use of gene therapy that infuses working copies of marrow stem cells into their bones; some recipients later develop a form of leukemia. Prize dairy cow Lauduc Broker Mandy, EX-95 2E, the first clone ever sold at a public auction is purchased for $82K at the 2000 World Dairy Expo. Richard Montgomery of the U. of Calif. Santa Cruz and Alain Chenciner of France produce an exact solution to the Three-Body Problem for Equal Masses, showing that they can orbit each other in a figure-8 pattern where each body in turn passes between the other two. Results from the 1998 BOOMERANG (Balloon Observations of Millimetric Extragalactic Radiation and Geophysical) experiment study of cosmic background radiation (CBR) reveal that the Universe is flat, not curved. The 100m x 100m Green Bank Radio Telescope, built to replace one that mysteriously collapsed in 1988 begins operation, becoming the world's largest fully steerable dish radio telescope. AMANDA (Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array) begins a large-scale conceptual test at the South Pole with nine strings of 302 photomultipliers, each buried from 1.3km-2.4km (4265-7875 ft.) deep in the ice to detect Cerenkov light radiation from muons produced by collision with high-energy neutrinos. The Cluster Mission sees Russia launch Cluster II and Salsa/Samba for the European Space Agency (ESA) on July 16, followed by Rumba/Tango on Aug. 9, which on Sept. 1 begin coordinated orbits to maintain stations at the vertices of a pyramid while orbiting in order to study interactions of Earth's magnetic field with the solar wind. Physicists at the DONUT (Direct Observation of NU Tau) detector announce they have obtained the first direct evidence of the elusive Tau Nneutrino, all four of them (the other flavors are electron and muon neutrinos); meanwhile researchers in Japan announce a shortfall in the number of muon neutrinos beamed from their Japanese Accelerator Facility (KEK) at the Super-Kamiokande Neutrino Telescope; 40 muon neutrinos were detected, 13 short of the expected number, with the missing ones presumed to have changed flavor. The Italian Nat. Research Council in Florence and the NEC Research Inst. in Princeton demonstrate that interference patterns can propagate faster than the speed of light. Nonfiction: Peter Ackroyd (1949-), London: The Biography. Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin, The Five Ages of the Universe; claims that we now understand the complete life story of the Universe from beginning to end. Mortimer Adler (1902-2001), How to Think About the Great Ideas: From the Great Books of Western Civilization; ed. Max Weismann. Francesco Alberoni (1929-), The Sources of Dreams (My Theories and My Life) (essays). Stephen Edward Ambrose (1936-2002), Nothing Like It in the World. Jonathan Ames (1964-), What's Not to Love? The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Writer. Christopher Peter Andersen (1949-), The Day John Died; John F. Kennedy Jr.; George and Laura: Portrait of an American Marriage. Karen Armstrong (1944-), Islam: A Short History; claims it's not violent and backward; The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Lance Armstrong (1971-) (with Sally Jenkins), It's Not About the Bike (autobio.). Judyth Vary Baker, Me & Lee: How I Came to Know, Love and Lose Lee Harvey Oswald (Sept. 16); claims that he was trying to prevent JFK's assassination. Ian Graeme Barbour (1923-), When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners?. John D. Barrow (1952-), The Book of Nothing: Vacuums, Voids, and the Latest Ideas About the Origins of the Universe. Jacques Barzun (1907-2012), From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present; NYT bestseller, covering Western cultural history since 1500; "Arguably the best thinking man's bedside book ever written" (Peter Green, Times Lit. Supplement); his magnum opus - enjoy the ride from sugarland? Brandon Bays 1953-), The Journey: A Road Map to the Soul; bestseller in the U.K. The Beatles, The Beatles Anthology (Oct.) - the closest thing you'll get to a reunion tour? Lerone Bennett Jr. (1928-2018), Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream (Feb. 1); claims that the Great Emancipator was a white racist; "[The] basic idea of the book is simple: Everything you think you know about Lincoln and race is wrong. Every schoolchild, for example, knows the story of 'the great emancipator' who freed Negroes with a stroke of the pen out of the goodness of his heart. The real Lincoln... was a conservative politician who said repeatedly that he believed in white supremacy. Not only that: He opposed the basic principle of the Emancipation Proclamation until his death and was literally forced - Count Adam Gurowski said he was literally whipped - 'into the glory of having issued the Emancipation Proclamation,' which Lincoln drafted in such a way that it did not in and of itself free a single slave"; dissed by most historians. Pierre Berton (1920-2004), Welcome to the 21st Century: More Absurdities from Our Time. Herbert P. Bix (1939-), Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan; claims he played an active role in bringing his country into WWII. Harold Bloom (1930-), How to Read and Why; in the new world where kiddies thinking reading means Harry Potter, hard works like Shakespeare are never read, and infinite info. is available free on the Internet, but no knowledge, is the traditional publishing biz doomed, and with it the author who tries to make a living by writing and influencing literate people with written words, and does that mean that we are headed towards a new Paradise or a new kind of Dark Ages? Howard Bloom (1943-), The Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century. Anthony Bourdain (1956-), Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly (Aug.); a NYT bestseller, making him a celeb.. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. James Bradley (1954-) (with Ron Powers), Flags Of Our Fathers; stories of the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima. Michael Brenson, Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress, and the Place of Visual Arts in America; the wonderful Nat. Endowment for the Arts, founded 1965. Douglas Brinkley (1960-), Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, 1968-1976; Rosa Parks. David S. Broder (1929-), Democracy Derailed: Initiative Campaigns and the Power of Money. David Brooks (1961-), Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There; coins the term "bobo" (bourgeois bohemian), the affluent 90s info. age descendants of the yuppies. Harry Browne (1933-2006), The Great Libertarian Offer. Sylvia Browne (with Lindsay Harrison), Life On the Other Side. Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-), The Geostrategic Triad: Living with China, Europe, and Russia; how the U.S. must balance the Eurasian power triangles of U.S.-Japan-China and U.S.-Europe-Russia. Peter Burke (1937-), A Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot, followed in 2012 by A Social History of Knowledge Vol. 2: From the Encyclopedie to Wikipedia (2012). Augusten Burroughs (1965-), Running With Scissors (autobio.). Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: How the Internet Is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember (Sept.). James P. Carroll (1943-), Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews - A History; how the Nazi Holocaust really began with Constantine I the Great in 312; basis of a 2007 film. Stephen L. Carter, God's Name in Vain: How Religion Should and Should Not Be Involved in Politics; disses Pres. G.W. Bush's faith-based initiative - get the biggest selection and best savings? Deepak Chopra (1946-), Life After Death: The Burden of Proof; the "artificial boundary that separates the living from the departed" - but the place smells like rat droppings? Cherie Clark (1945-), After Sorrow Comes Joy: One Woman's Struggle to Bring Hope to Thousands of Children in Vietnam and India (autobio.). Andrei Codrescu (1946-), The Devil Never Sleeps and Other Essays. Richard A. Cohen (1952-), Coming Out Straight; claims to treat the "same-sex attachment disorder" of homosexuality with "bioenergetics", incl. smashing a tennis racket into a pillow while shouting the name of the person eliciting painful childhood memories, and cuddling to establish healthy non-sexual bonding. David Cope (1941-), New Directions in Music, 7th ed.; The Algorithmic Composer. Richard Ben Cramer (1950-), Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life; his image was fiction, but his "Louisville Slugger" ranked only second to the "big schtick" of Milton Berle? John C. Culver and John Hyde, American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace; U.S. agriculture secy. (1933-40) and vice-pres. (1941-5) Henry Agard Wallace (1888-1965), founder of Pioneer Hi-Bred Corp. Ram Dass (1931-), Still Here: Embracing Aging, Changing and Dying. Samuel R. Delany (1942-), 1984: Selected Letters. Cory Doctorow (1971-) and Karl Schroder (1962-), The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Science Fiction. Earl Doherty (1941-), The Jesus Puzzle; claims that the Apostle Paul never heard of the gospels or the gospel Jesus, who was made-up after his death from his own cloth, explaining the puzzle of why they took so long to write and why nobody outside the movement ever mentions Jesus in secular writings. Dinesh D'Souza (1961-), The Virtue of Prosperity. John Edward (1969-), What If God Were the Sun? Encyclopedia of Folklore of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (12 vols.) (June) (Belgium); financed by your gas purchases, er, Prince Khaled bin Sultan. Dave Eggers (1971-), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; a memoir about raising his orphaned brother. Albert Ellis (1913-2007), How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything: Yes, Anything. Albert Ellis (1913-2007) and Ted Crawford, Making Intimate Connections: Seven Guidelines for Great Relationships and Better Communication. Albert Ellis (1913-2007) and Marcia Grad Powers, The Secret of Overcoming Verbal Abuse: Getting Off the Emotional Roller Coaster and Regaining Control of Your Life. Joseph John Ellis (1943-), Founding Fathers: The Revolutionary Generation (Pulitzer Prize); George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr in the decade after the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Pepe Escobar, Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; globalization is creating "stans" at war with each other, an undeclared global civil war AKA the Liquid War? Susan Estrich (1952-), Sex & Power; women's lib has levelled off without achieving true equality, but they now have enough power to finish the job but won't do it? Khaled Abou El Fadl (1963-), The Place of Tolerance in Islam; Pres. George W. Bush's commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Internat. Religious Freedom. Susan C. Faludi (1959-), Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man; most U.S. men now have little power, hence are unhappy and violence-prone, but shouldn't blame it on feminists, illegal aliens, or affirmative action? Niall Ferguson (1964), The Pity of War (Mar. 3); argues that Britain was as much to blame for the start of WWI as Germany, and that had it sacrificed Belgium and its Belgian waffles to them, the 1917 Bolshevik Rev. could have been prevented, Germany would have created a stable united European state, and Britain could have remained a superpower, ruling the seas while Germany ruled the continent; in other words, the white Euro race would have avoided suicide by working together to rule da world; moreover, there was little enthusiasm for the war in Britain in 1914, while at the end the war was prolonged not by clever manipulation of the media, but by British soldiers' pleasure in combat; he also claims that it wasn't the severity but the leniency of the conditions imposed on Germany at Versailles in 1919 that led inexorably to World War II, and that they should have collected more reparations to keep them from rearming to prevent another mass suicide; on Jan. 29, 1914 he gives an interview to BBC History Mag., in which he claims that Britain could have lived with a German V in WWI, and should have stayed out of it, calling their hasty unprepared intervention "the biggest error in modern history"; "Creating an army more or less from scratch and then sending it into combat against the Germans was a recipe for disastrous losses. And if one asks whether this was the best way for Britain to deal with the challenge posed by imperial Germany, my answer is no"; "Even if Germany had defeated France and Russia, it would have had a pretty massive challenge on its hands trying to run the new German-dominated Europe and would have remained significantly weaker than the British empire in naval and financial terms. Given the resources that Britain had available in 1914, a better strategy would have been to wait and deal with the German challenge later when Britain could respond on its own terms, taking advantage of its much greater naval and financial capability"; "The cost, let me emphasise, of the first world war to Britain was catastrophic, and it left the British empire at the end of it all in a much weakened state... It had accumulated a vast debt, the cost of which really limited Britain's military capability throughout the interwar period. Then there was the manpower loss – not just all those aristocratic officers, but the many, many, many skilled workers who died or were permanently incapacitated in the war"; "Arguments about honour of course resonate today as they resonated in 1914, but you can pay too high a price for upholding the notion of honour, and I think in the end Britain did." James Henry Fetzer (1940-), Murder in Dealey Plaza: What We Know Now That We Didn't Know Then. David Finkel, The Good Soldiers (Sept. 15); the true story of Bush's Iraq surge. Norman G. Finkelstein (1953-), The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (London); how the U.S. Jewish establishment exploits the Holocause, er, Holocaust for political-financial gain and the promotion of Israel, corrupting history and Jewish culture; too bad, in 2007 Jewish Havard U. prof. Alan Dershowitz gets his tenure at DePaul U. denied, causing him to resign on Sept. 5, 2007; in 2008 he is officially banned from entry into Israel, moving to Sakarya U. in Turkey. Frances FitzGerald (1940-), Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars, and the End of the Cold War; disses the idea of defending the U.S. from ICBMs - with a half-caf decaf from Sonic? Antony Flew (1923-), Merely Mortal? Stephen Fox (1938-), Uncivil Liberties: Italian Americans Under Siege During World War II; America's Invisible Gulag: A Biography of German American Internment and Exclusion in World War II: Memory and History; replaced by "Fear Itself: Inside the FBI Roundup of German Americans During World War II". Jo Freeman (1945-), A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics. Aaron L. Friedberg, In the Shadow of the Garrison State: America's Anti-Statism and Its Cold War Grand Strategy. Marilyn French (1929-2009), Introduction: Almost Touching the Skies; Women's History of the World. Oded Galor (1956-) and David N. Weil, Population, Technology, and Growth: From the Malthusian Regime to the Demographic Transition and Beyond (Sept.). Jim Garrison (1951-), Civilization and the Transformation of Power. Barbara Garson (1941-), Money Makes the World Go Around: One Investor Tracks Her Cash Through the Global Economy, From Brooklyn to Bangkok and Back. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1950-), The African American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Century. Sir Martin Gilbert (1936-2015), Never Again: A History of the Holocaust. Mark Girouard (1931-), Life in the French Country House. Malcolm Gladwell (1963-), The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference; sells 2M copies; coins the term "tipping point" for "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point", "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable"; examples incl. the popularity of Hush Puppies in the mid-1990s and the drop in the New York City crime rate in the late 1990s; the Law of the Few attributes the success of a social epidemic to connectors (Paul Revere), mavens (info. specialists), and salesmen (Peter Jennings). Adam Gopnik (1956-), Paris to the Moon; his visit to Paris for "The New Yorker" from 1995-2000, where he finds that Frogs aren't obsessed with physical fitness like North Americans. Mary Catherine Gordon (1949-), Seeing Through Places: Reflections on Geography and Identity. Amit Goswami, Science and Spirituality: A Quantum Integration. David Gould, Q School Confidential: Inside Golf's Cruelest Tournament; the PGA Tournament Training and Qualifying Program (founded 1965). Marshall Govindan, Kriya Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the Siddhas. Robert Ranke Graves (1895-1985), Some Speculations on Literature, History, and Religion (posth.); ed. Patrick Quinn. Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002), The Lying Stones of Marrakech (essays). Ian Green, Print and Protestantism in Early Modern England. Raven Grimassi (1951-), The Encyclopedia of Wicca and Witchcraft. Stanislav Grof (1931-), Psychology of the Future: Lessions from Modern Consciousness Research. Hans Thomas Hakl, Unknown Sources: National Socialism and the Occult; tr. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (1953-2012). Victor Davis Hanson (1953-), The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer. Andrew Harvey (1952-), The Return of the Mother; The Way of Passion: A Celebration of Rumi. Richie Havens (1941-) (with Steve Davidowitz), They Can't Hide Us Anymore (autobio.). Shirley Hazzard (1931-), Greene on Capri: A Memoir. David Horovitz (1962-), A Little Too Close to God: The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel David Joel Horowitz (1939-), The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits; The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America's Future. Michael Ignatieff (1947-), The Rights Revolution and Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond. Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin, America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s. Molly Ivins (1944-2007) (with Lou Dubose), Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush. Susan Jacoby (1945-), Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Past. P.D. James (1920-), Time to Be in Earnest (autobio.). Randall Jarrell (1914-65), No Other Book: Selected Essays (posth). Philip Jenkins (1952-), Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History. Chalmers Ashby Johnson (1931-), Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire; the CIA's fear that its 1953 operation to overthrow Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran might cause some blowback back home has come true with 9/11?; rev. in 2004. Dwayne Johnson (1972-) and Joe Layden, The Rock Says... (autobio.); NYT bestseller. Joyce Johnson (1935-), Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in letters, 1957-1958. George Frost Kennan (1904-2005), An American Family: The Kennans, the First Three Generations; his dirt-poor Scottish family that emigrated in the early 18th cent. to Conn. and Mass; "The epitome of the backcountry family of the most remote northern fringes of New England life." Daniel Keyes (1927-), Algernon, Charlie and I: A Writer's Journey. Dean H. King, Patrick O'Brian: A Life Revealed (Mar. 15). Joyce King, Hate Crime: The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas; the 1998 James Byrd Jr. incident. Stephen King (1947-), On Writing; how a job as a high school janitor where he saw tampon dispensers in the girls' bathroom inspired his breakthrough book "Carrie"; a collision with the windshield of a Dodge Caravan while walking down a country road in the summer of 1999 interrupted its composition? Jonathan Kozol (1936-), Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope. Karen V. Kukil (ed.), The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. Maxine Kumin (1925-), Always Beginning: Essays on a Life in Poetry. Gavin Lambert (1924-2005), Mainly About Lindsay Anderson (autobio.). Bruce B. Lawrence, Shattering the Myth: Islam Beyond Violence (Apr. 10); claims that Islam is not monolithic or violent - if you're a Muslim? Nigella Lawson (1960-), How to Be a Domestic Goddess; bestseller; in 2006 she hosts Nigella Feasts on Food Network, going on to sell 3M cookbooks. Jane Leavy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy. Larry Levis (1946-96), The Gazer Within (posth.). David Levering Lewis (1936-), W.E.B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963 (Pulitzer Prize); first to win Pulitzer Prizes for back-to-back vols. (1994). Bernard Lewis (1916-), A Middle East Mosaic: Fragments of Life, Letters and History. Robert Jay Lifton (1926-), Destroying the World to Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence, and the New Global Terrorism (Sept. 1). James Lovelock (1919-), Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist (autobio.). Gene Lyons and Joe Conason, The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton. Manning Marable (1950-2011), Let Nobody Turn Us Around. Mark Matousek (1957-), The Boy He Left Behind: A Man's Search for His Lost Father. Malachy McCourt (1931-), Singing My Him Song (autobio.). William S. McFeely (1930-), Proximity to Death; his opinions about the death penalty. A.B. McKillop of Carleton U., The Spinster & the Prophet: Florence Deeks, H.G. Wells, and the Mystery of the Purloined Past; bolsters her claims that H.G. Wells plagiarized her ms. to write "The Outline of History" (1920). Ian McLagan (1945-2014), All the Rage: A Riotous Romp Through Rock & Roll History (autobio.). J.R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth Century World; "Economic thought did not adjust to the changed conditions it helped to create; thereby it continued to legitimate, and indeed indirectly to cause, massive and rapid ecological change. The overarching priority of economic growth was easily the most important idea of the twentieth century." James Alan McPherson (1943-), A Region No Home (essays). George Monbiot (1963-), Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain. Tim Moore (1964-), Continental Drifter: Taking the Low Road with the First Grand Tourist; retraces the steps of Englishman Thomas Coryat's 1608 tour of Europe, where he discovered the table fork - I'd rather be 1900? Robin Morgan (1941-), Saturday's Child: A Memoir. Sir John Mortimer (1923-2009), The Summer of a Dormouse: A Year of Growing Old Disgracefully (autobio.). George Lachmann Mosse (1918-98), Confronting History (autobio.) (posth.). Albert Murray (1916-), Trading Twelves; correspondence with his friend Ralph Ellison. David Nasaw (1945-), The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst. Mark Nepo (1951-), The Book of Awakening; Opra Winfrey selects it in 2010 as one of her Ultimate Favorite Things, making it a #1 NYT bestseller. Jack Newfield (1938-2004), Somebody's Gotta Tell It (autobio.); "Pick an issue. Study it. Figure out who the decision makers you want to influence are. Name the guilty men. Make alliances with experts. Combine activism with the writing. Create a constituency for reform. And don't stop till you have achieved some progress. This is what I mean by the Joe Frazier method. Keep coming forward. Be relentless. Don't stop moving your hands. Break the other guy's will." John Julius Norwich (1929-), Shakespeare's Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages, 1337-1485. Robert D. Novak (1931-2009), Completing the Revolution: A Vision for Victory in 2000 - didn't mention stealing it via the courts? Mancur Olson (1932-98), Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships; the three types of govt. are tyranny, anarchy and democracy, with anarchy creating roving bandits, and tyranny creating stationary bandits who end up fostering some law and order and economic prosperity to get their cut, ending up paving the way for democracy. Stewart O'Nan (1961-), The Circus Fire. Peter S. Onuf (1945-), Jefferson's Empire: The Language of American Nationhood (Mar. 29). Bill O'Reilly (1949-), The O'Reilly Factor: The Good, the Bad, & the Completely Ridiculous in American Life; bestseller; Rush Limbaugh clone admires RFK, opposes the death penalty, and favors gun control and marijuana decriminalization. Stephen O'Shea, The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars. Cynthia Ozick (1928-), Quarrel and Quandary (essays). Abraham Pais (1918-2000), The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery. Michael Parenti (1933-), To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia. James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, The Dynamics of Social Change in Latin America. Nathaniel Philbrick (1956-), In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex (July); (Pulitzer Prize); the famous 1820 sinking. Walter Clarkson Pitman III (1931-) and William B.F. Ryan, Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About the Event that Changed History; did the Great Flood of the shores of the Black Sea in 5600 B.C.E. inspire the Noah's Ark story? Sidney Poitier (1927-), The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography. Kenneth Pomeranz (1958-), The Great Divergence: China, Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy; attempts to explain the Industrial Rev. in Europe as the product of coal and exports to the New World. Roy Porter (1946-2002), Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (The Untold Story of the British Enlightenment). Samantha Power (1970-) (ed.), Realizing Human Rights; Moving from Inspiration to Impact. Reynolds Price (1933-), Feasting the Heart (essays); Learning a Trade: A Craftsman's Notebooks, 1955-1997. Robert David Putnam (1941-), Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community; strengthens his 1995 thesis. Diane Ravitch (1938-), City Schools: Lessons from New York; Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform. Andrew Roberts (1963-), The House of Windsor. Gerard Roland (1954-), Transition and Economics: Politics, Markets and Firms (Mar. 1); about Transition Economics, the shift from a centrally-planned to a free market economy. Murray Newton Rothbard (1926-95), Irrepressible Rothbard: The Rothbard-Rockwell Report Essays of Murray N. Rothbard (posth.). Michael Ryan (1946-), A Difficult Grace: On Poet, Poetry, and Writing. Abdul Saleeb, Answering Islam: The Crescent in Light of the Cross. Simon Schama (1945-), A History of Britain (3 vols.) (2000-2); basis of a 15-episode BBC-TV series that debuts on Sept. 30, 2000-June 18, 2002. Paul Scheffer, Multicultural Drama (Jan. 29); claims that multiculturalism has failed in the Netherlands, causing a firestorm of controversy. Orville Hickok Schell (1940-), Virtual Tibet: Searching for Shangri-La from the Himalayas to Hollywood. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. (1917-2007), A Life in the Twentieth Century: Innocent Beginnings, 1917-1950 (autobio.). Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism. Pete Seibert (1924-2002), Vail: Triumph of a Dream. Martin Seligman (1942-) and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-), Positive Psychology: An Introduction. Robert J. Shiller (1946-), Irrational Exuberance (Mar.); warns that the U.S. stock market had become a bubble, which happens in Mar., making him a hero; 2nd ed. in 2005. Steve Silberger, The Phenomenon of the Jews. Peter Singer (1946-), Writings on an Ethical Life. Huston Smith (with Jeffery Paine), Tales of Wonder: Adventures Chasing the Divine. Robert Sneden, Eye of the Storm: A Civil War Odyssey; the memoirs of Union Pvt. Robert Knox Sneden (d. 1918), found in 1994. Robert Sobel (1931-99), The Pursuit of Wealth: The Incredible Story of Money Throughout the Ages of Wealth; AMEX: A History of the American Stock Exchange; Thomas Watson Sr.: IBM and the Computer Revolution; The Great Boom 1950-2000: How a Generation of Americans Created the World's Most Prosperous Society (posth.). George Soros (1930-) and Mark Amadeus Notturno, Science and the Open Society: The Future of Karl Popper's Philosophy. Victor J. Stenger (1935-), Timeless Reality: Symmetry, Simplicity, and Multiple Universes. Jerry Stiller (1927-) and Anne Meara (1929), Married to Laughter: A Love Story Featuring Anne Meara (autobio.). Robert B. Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. Mark Strand (1934-), The Weather of Words: Poetic Invention. Michael Sturmer (1938-), The German Empire, 1870-1918) (Nov. 14). Cass R. Sunstein (1954-), Behavioral Law and Economics. Kenneth R. Timmerman (1953-), Selling Out America: The American Spectator Investigations. Jeffrey Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down a President; the Clinton sex scandals. Donald Trump (1946-), The America We Deserve (Jan.); a political manifesto in answer to critics who accuse him of running for pres. only for publicity, coming out as a moderate populist and outlining his dream of a country sans "racism, discrimination against women, or discrimination against people based on sexual orientation"; "The greatest threat to the American Dream is the idea that dreamers need close government scrutiny and control. Job one for us is to make sure the public sector does a limited job, and no more"; he predicts 9/11 and theorizes that it will be Osama bin Laden, with the soundbytes: "I am really convinced we're in danger of the sort of terrorist attacks that will make the bombing of the Trade Center look like kids playing with firecrackers. No sensible analyst rejects this possibility, and plenty of them, like me, are not wondering if but when it will happen"; “It’s time to get down to the hard business of preparing for what I believe is the real possibility that somewhere, sometime, a weapon of mass destruction will be carried into a major American city and detonated"; "One day we're told that a shadowy figure with no fixed address named Osama bin-Laden is public enemy number one, and U.S. jetfighters lay waste to this camp in Afghanistan. He escapes back under some rock, and a few news cycles later it's on to a new enemy and new crisis." Max Velmans, Understanding Consciousness; presents his theory of Reflexive Monism, that the Universe is psycho-physical. Doreen Virtue (1958-), Angel Visions; followed by "Angel Visions II" (2001). Rebecca Walker (1969-), Black, White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self; daughter of writer Alice Walker (1944-). Michael Walzer (1935-) et al. (eds.), The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. I: Authority. Ibn Warraq (1946-), The Quest for the Historical Muhammad. Benjamin J. Wattenberg (1933-), Theodore Caplow, and Louis Hicks, The First Measured Century: An Illustrated Guide to Trends in America 1900-2000. Jonathan Wells (1942-), Icons of Evolution: Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution Is Wrong. Cornel West (1953-) and Henry Louis Gates Jr., The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Century; W.E.B. Du Bois et al. Stuart Wilde (1946-), Sixth Sense: Including the Secrets of the Etheric Subtle Body. Garry Wills (1934-), Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit; criticizes Pope Pius IX. Fred Alan Wolf (1934-), Mind into Matter: A New Alchemy of Science and Spirit. Howard Zinn (1922-2010), Howard Zinn on History; Howard Zinn on War. Art: Chuck Close (1940-), Self-Portrait (2000-1). Lucian Freud (1922-), Queen Elizabeth II (2000-2001); unflattering and gives her a 5 o'clock shadow? Sam Gilliam (1933-), Journey Home. Tsehai Johnson (1966-), Twelve Dildos on Hooks (ceramic). Brice Marden (1938-),The Propitious Garden of Plane Image Series; "The most profound abstract painter of the past four decades" (Peter Schjeldahl). Roberto Matta (1911-2002), N'ou's Autres. Larry Rivers (1923-2002), Rockwell's Artist on the Run; his interpretation of Norman Rockwell's 1930 "Girl Running with Wet Canvas". James Rosenquist (1933-), The Stowaway Peers Out at the Speed of Light. Music: 98 Degrees, Revelation (album #3) (last album) (Sept. 26) (#2 in the U.S.); incl. Give Me Just One Night (Una Noche). AC/DC, Stiff Upper Lip (album #15) (Feb. 28); incl. Stiff Upper Lip, Safe in New York City, Satellite Blues. Ryan Adams (1974-), Heartbreaker (album). Todo Buenos Aires (ballet); tango variations. Queens of the Stone Age, Rated R (album #2) (June 6) (#54 in the U.K.); Mark Lanegan on vocals; incl. The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret (#31 in the U.K.), Feel Good Hit of the Summer, Monsters in the Parasol, I Think I Lost My Headache (w/Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees). Christina Aguilera (1980-), Mi Reflejo (album #2) (Sept. 12); sells 3.5M copies; incl. Pero Me Acuerdo De Ti, Falsas Esperanzas; My Kind of Christmas (album #3) (Oct. 24); sells 3M copies; incl. Christmas Time. a-ha, Minor Earth Major Sky (album #6) (July 17) (2M copies worldwide); incl. Minor Earth Major Sky. Dead or Alive, Fragile (album #7). Allman Brothers Band, Peakin' at the Beacon (album) (Nov. 14); recorded at the Beacon Theatre in New York City in Mar. America, Highway: 30 Years of America (album) (July). The Presidents of the United States of America, Lump (album) (Jan. 1); Freaked Out and Small (album #3) (Sept. 12); incl. Jupiter, Tiny Explosions, Last Girl on Earth. Apocalyptica, Cult (album #3) (Sept. 28); incl. Path, Romance, Pray! Joseph Arthur (1971-), Come to Where I'm From (album #2) (Apr. 11); incl. In the Sun, Chemical. Erykah Badu (1971-), Mama's Gun (album); incl. Bag Lady. Buju Banton (1973-), Unchained Spirit (album #6) (Aug. 22). Limp Bizkit, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (album #3) (Oct. 17); anus and semen?; sells 12M copies; incl. My Generation, Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle), Take a Look Around (theme song of M:I2), Boiler, My Way. Bjork (1965-), Selmasongs: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack Dancer in the Dark (album) (Sept. 18). Blink-182, The Mark, Tom and Travis Show (The Enema Strikes Back!) (album) (Nov. 7); incl. Man Overboard (#2 in the U.S.). Moody Blues, Hall of Fame (album) (Aug. 8). Joe Bonamassa (1977-), A New Day Yesterday (album) (debut) (Oct. 24); named after the 1969 Jethro Tull classic; incl. Miss You, Hate You, Cradle Rock. Backstreet Boys, For the Fans (album) (Aug. 28); Black & Blue (album #4) (Nov. 21) (#1 in the U.S., #13 in the U.K.) (9M copies); incl. Shape of My Heart, The Call, More Than That. Billy Bragg (1957-), Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (album #2) (May 30); vol. I in 1998. Toni Braxton (1967-), The Heat (album) (Apr. 25); incl. He Wasn't Man Enough, Just Be a Man About It, Spanish Guitar. Neko Case (1970-) and Her Boyfriends, Furnace Room Lullaby (album #2) (Feb. 22). Alice in Chains, Live (album) (Dec. 5). Tracy Chapman (1964-), Telling Stories (album #5) (Feb. 15); incl. Telling Stories. Kenny Chesney (1968-), Greatest Hits (album). Dixie Chicks, Fly (album). Michael Colgrass (1932-), Crossworlds. Judy Collins (1939-), All on a Wintry Night (album #29); Judy Collins Live at Wolf Trap (album #30). Sean "Diddy" Combs (1969-), Last Train to Paris (album #5) (Dec. 13) (#7 in the U.S.); incl. Angels, Hello Good Morning (w/T.l., Rick Ross), Loving You No More, Coming Home. Cracker, Garage d'Or (album #5) (Apr. 4); incl. Euro-Trash Girl. King Crimson, Heavy ConstruKction (album). Black Crowes, Live at the Greek (with Jimmy Page) (album); By Your Side (album); a flop? John LaChinna and George C. Wolfe, The Wild Party (musical) (Apr. 13) (Virginia Theater, New York); stars Mandy Patinkin, Toni Collette, Eartha Kitt. Coldplay, Parachutes (album) (debut) (July 10) (9M copies); from London, England, incl. Christopher Anthony John "Chris" Martin (1977-) (vocals), Guy Berryman (1977-) (bass), Jon Buckland (1977-) (guitar), and Will Champion (1978-) (drums); incl. Don't Panic, Shiver, Trouble, Yellow. Alice Cooper (1948-), Brutal Planet (album #21). Motley Crue, New Tattoo (album #8) (July 11); first with drummer Randy Castillo; incl. Hell on High Heels (#13 in the U.S.). The Cure, Bloodflowers (album # 11) (Feb. 15); incl. Out of This World, Maybe Someday. Death Cab for Cutie, We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes (album #2) (Mar. 21); incl. 405, Company Calls Epilogue; The Forbidden Love EP (Oct. 24). Dagda, Hibernia (album); incl. Criost Liom, Home Again in Eireann, Mise Liom Fein. Steely Dan, Two Against Nature (album) (Feb. 29); first since 1980; incl. Gaslighting Abbie, Cousin Dupree, Janie Runaway. D'Angelo (1974-), Voodoo (album); incl. Left & Right, Untitled (How Does It Feel). Craig Ashley David (1981-), Born To Do It (album) (debut) (Aug. 20); incl. Rewind, Fill Me In, Woman Trouble (with Robbie Craig), 7 Days, Walking Away, Rendezvous. Green Day, Warning (album #6) (Oct. 3) (#4 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.) (3M copies); incl. Minority, Warning, Waiting, Macy's Day Parade. Grateful Dead, Dick's Picks Vol. 16 (album) (Mar.); recorded on Nov. 8, 1969 in San Francisco; Dick's Picks Vol. 17 (album) (Apr.); recorded on Sept. 15, 1991 in Boston; Dick's Picks Vol. 18 (album) (June); recorded on Feb. 3-5, 1978; View from the Vault, Vol. 1 (album) (June); Dick's Picks Vol. 19 (album) (Oct. 23); recorded on Oct. 19, 1973 in Oklahoma City; Ladies and Gentlemen... the Grateful Dead (4-CD set) (Oct.); recorded on Apr. 25-29, 1971 at the Fillmore East in New York City. Deftones, White Pony (album #3) (June 20) (best-selling; first with Frank Delgado; incl. Digital Bath, Elite, Change (in the House of Flies). Disturbed, The Sickness (album) (debut) (#29 in the U.S., #102 in the U.K.) (4M copies in the U.S.); features a sales-getting Parental advisory label; formerly Brawl; from Chicago, Ill., incl. David Michael Draiman (1973-) (vocals) (bald), Dan Donegan (1968-) (guitar), Steve "Fuzz" Kmak (1970-)/Marty O'Brien/John Moyer (bass), and Mike Wengren (1971-) (drums); incl. Voices, The Game, Stupify, and Down With the Sickness. Snoop Dogg (1971-), The Last Meal (album #5) (Dec. 19) (1M copies); last with No Limit Records. Dokken, Live from the Sun (album) (Apr. 18). Doobie Brothers, Sibling Rivalry (album #12) (Oct. 3). No Doubt, Return of Saturn (album #4) (Apr. 11); incl. Ex-Girlfriend, Simple Kind of Life, Bathwater, New. Duran Duran, Pop Trash (album #10) (June 19). Finger Eleven, The Greyest of Blue Skies (album #3) (July 25); brings them into the mainstream; incl. First Time, Drag You Down, Stay and Drown, Sick of It All. Alton Ellis (1938-2008), Change My Mind (album). Eminem (1972-), The Marshall Mathers LP (album); his real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III; sells 1.76M copies the first week; incl. The Way I Am, Stan, The Real Slim Shady; implies that Christian Arguilera gave head to Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit and Carson Daly, and says of his discoverer "Dr. Dre's dead, he's locked in my basement"; the success of a Gen-Zed white guy who acts black and spouts their anti-establishment homophobic misogynist pro-violence lyrics to a large white audience makes him the 21st cent. Elvis? Enya (1961-), A Day Without Rain (album #6) (Nov. 21); incl. Wild Child, Only Time; becomes the theme song for the 9/11 victims. Sunny Day Real Estate, The Rising Tide (album #4) (June 20); incl. Rain Song. Gloria Estefan (1957-), Alma Caribena (Caribeńa) (album #9) (May 11); incl. No Me Dejes de Querer. Better Than Ezra, Artifakt (album). Faithless, Back to Mine (album) (Oct. 16). Violent Femmes, Freak Magnet (album). Elysian Fields, Queen of the Meadow (album #2); Bend Your Mind (EP). Fishbone, Fishbone and the Familyhood Nextperience Present: The Psychotic Friends Nuttwerx (album #6) (Mar. 21). Carlisle Floyd (1926-), Cold Sassy Tree (opera). Fuel, Something Like Human (album #2) (Sept. 19) (#17 in the U.S.) (2M copies); incl. Hemorrhage (in My Hands) (#30 in the U.S.). Nelly Furtado (1978-), Whoa, Nelly! (album) (debut) (Oct. 24) (#24 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.) (6M copies); incl. I'm Like a Bird, Turn Off the Light, On the Radio (Remember the Days), Party's Just Begun (Again), Trynna Finda Way, Hey, Man! Secret Garden, Dreamcatcher (album). Billy Gilman (1988-), One Voice (album) (June 20) (debut); Classic Christmas (album); youngest singer to reach #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart (until ?). Indigo Girls, Retrospective (album). Spice Girls, Forever (album #3) (last album) (Nov. 6) (#2 in the U.K.) (5M copies); incl. Goodbye (#1 in the U.K.), Holler (#1 in the U.S.). Lamb of God, New American Gospel (album #2) (Sept. 26); incl. In the Absence of the Sacred. Godsmack, Awake (album #2) (Oct. 31) (#5 in the U.S.) (2M copies in the U.S.); incl. Vampires, Greed, Sick of Life, Awake, (the last two are used by the U.S. Navy in commercials). Guano Apes, Don't Give Me Names (album #2) (May 2) (100K copies); incl. Big in Japan (by Alphaville), No Speech, Living in a Lie, Dodel (Dödel) Up. Merle Haggard (1937-), I I Could Only Fly (album); his comeback. Nina Hagen (1955-), Return of the Mother (album #12) (Mar. 28). Roy Harper (1941-), The Green Man (album #20). Emmylou Harris (1947-), Red Dirt Girl (album). P.J. Harvey (1969-), Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (album #6) (Oct. 23) (#42 in the U.S., #23 in the U.K.); incl. This Is Love, Good Fortune, This Mess We're In (w/Thom Yorke), A Place Called Home, One Line, Beautiful Feeling. Jeff Healey (1966-2008), Get Me Some (album). Her Space Holiday, Home Is Where You Hang Yourelf (album). Janis Ian (1951-), God and the FBI (album); how the feds bugged her Jewish leftist parents. David Ippolito, It's Just Us (album #4). Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens), A is for Allah (album). LL Cool J (1968-), G.O.A.T. (album) ("greatest of all time"); incl. Back Where I Belong (featuring Ja Rule). Pearl Jam, Binaural (album #6) (May 16) (#2 in the U.S., #5 in the U.K.), incl. Nothing As It Seems (#49 in the U.S., #22 in the U.K.). Jamelia (1981-), Drama (album) (debut) (June 26); incl. I Do, Money (first top-5 U.K.hit), Boy Next Door. Jay-Z (1969-), The Dynasty: Roc La Familia (album #5) (Oct. 31); sells 2M copies; incl. I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me, Change the Game (with Beanie Sigel and Memphis Bleek). We Were Promised Jetpacks, The Last Place You'll Look (EP); incl. A Far Cry, The Walls Are Wearing Thin. Elton John (1947-), The Round to El Dorado Soundtrack (album) (Mar. 14); Elton John One Night Only - The Greatest Hits (album) (Nov. 21). Bon Jovi, Crush (album #7) (June 13) (#9 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (11M copies worldwide); incl. It's My Life, Say It Isn't So, Thank You for Loving Me. Juanes (1972-), Fijate Bien (album) (debut). R. Kelly (1967-), TP-2.com (album #4) (Nov. 7) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. The Greatest Sex, Strip for You, I Wish, Fiesta (w/Jay-Z), Feelin' On Your Booty. Ghostface Killah, Supreme Clientele (album) (Jan.). Diana Krall (1964-), When I Look in Your Eyes (album). Chiaki Kuriyama (1984-), Meteor's Tears (Ryuusei no Namida). Barenaked Ladies, Maroon (album #5) (Sept. 12) (#5 in the U.S., #1 in Canada); incl. Pinch Me (#15 in the U.S.), Too Little Too Late (#86 in the U.S.), Falling for the First Time. k.d. lang (1961-), Invincible Summer (album #4) (June 20). Ludacris (1977-), Incognegro (album) (debut); sells 50K copies from the trunk of his car; Back for the First Time (album) (Oct. 17) (#4 in the U.S. (3.1M copies); incl. What's Your Fantasy (w/Shawnna), Southern Hospitality (w/Pharrell). Rage Against the Machine, Renegades (album #4) (last) (Dec. 5). Madonna (1958-), Music (album #8) (Sept. 19) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (15M copies); incl. Music, Don't Tell Me, What It Feels Like for Girl. Iron Maiden, Brave New World (album #12) (May 30); lead singer Bruce Dickinson and guitarist Adrian Smith return; incl. The Wicker Man, Out of the Silent Planet. Miriam Makeba (1932-), Homeland (album). Marilyn Manson, Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) (album #4) (Nov. 14); flops initially because it is meant as a reply to being blamed for the Apr. 20, 1999 Columbine H.S. Massacre, then goes on to sell 9M copies; incl. Disposable Teens, The Fight Song, The Nobodies. Bruno Mars (1985-), Doo-Wops & Hooligans (album) (debut) (Oct. 4); incl. Just the Way You Are (#1 in the U.S.), Grenade (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.), The Lazy Song. Ricky Martin (1971-), Sound Loaded (album #6) (Nov. 14) (8M copies); incl. Nobody Wants to Be Lonely, She Bangs; Chinese-Am. college student William Hung (1983-) performs it off-key on Am. Idol's 3rd season in early 2004, and is so bad he's good, becoming a cult hero. Paul McCartney (1942-), Liverpool Sound Collage (album) (Aug. 21); incl. Free Now (w/Super Furry Animals). Tim McGraw (1967-), Greatest Hits (album); sells 6M copies. Baha Men, Who Let the Dogs Out? (July 25) (#40 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); becomes popular for sporting events. Kylie Minogue (1968-), Light Years (album #7) (Sept. 25) (#2 in the U.K., #1 in Australia); incl. Spinning Around, On a Night Like This, Please Stay, Your Disco Needs You. Joni Mitchell (1943-), Both Sides Now (album #17) (Feb. 8). Van Morrison (1945-), The Skiffle Sessions - Live in Belfast 1998 (album) (Jan. 18); You Win Again (album #28) (Oct. 3). Motorhead, We Are Motorhead (Motörhead) (album #15) (May 16); incl. God Save the Queen (by the Sex Pistols). Modest Mouse, Building Nothing Out of Something (album) (Jan. 18); The Moon & Antarctica (album #3) (June 13) (#120 in the U.S.); title from the film "Blade Runner"; incl. Third Planet, Gravity Rides Everything, Dark Center of the Universe. Dropkick Murphy and The Business, Mob Mentality (album) (May 9). Anne Murray (1945-), What a Wonderful World. Vomito Negro, Musical Art Conjunct of Sound (album #12). Nelly (1974-), Country Grammar (album) (debut) (June 27) (#3 in the U.S.) (8.5M copies); incl. Country Grammar (Hot Shit) (#7 in the U.S.), E.I., Ride Wit Me (w/St. Lunatics) (#3 in the U.S.), Batter Up (w/St. Lunatics). The New Pornographers, Mass Romantic (album) (debut) (Nov. 21); from Vancouver, B.C., incl. Blaine Thurier, Todd Fancey, Neko Case, Carl Newman, Kurt Dahle, Kahtryn Calder, and John Collins; incl. Mass Romantic, Letter from an Occupant. Nickelback, The State (album #2) (Mar. 7) (1M copies); incl. Leader of Men, Old Enough, Breathe, Worthy to Say. Yannick Noah (1960-), Yannick Noah (album #2). Nonpoint, Statement (album) (debut) (Oct. 10) (#166 in the U.S.) (released by MCA Records); from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., incl. Elias Soriano (vocals), KB (bass), Zach Broderick (guitar), and Robb Rivera (drums); incl. Endure, What A Day. 'N Sync (*NSYNC), No Strings Attached (album #2) (Mar. 21); sells a record 1.1M copies in its first day and 2.41M copies in its 1st week, and goes on to sell over 100K copies a week for 26 straight weeks, causing Rolling Stone to call them "the biggest band in the world" next year; another V for boy band impresario Lou Pearlman of Backstreet Boys fame, and the end of the era of the "music hit"?; incl. No Strings Attached. Gary Numan (1958-), Pure (album #15) (Nov. 7). Laura Nyro (1947-97), Time and Love: The Essential Masters (album) (posth.) (Oct. 10); Live at Mountain Stage (album) (posth.) (Oct. 17). Oasis, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants (album #4) (Feb. 28) (#1 in the U.K.); incl. Go Let It Out, Who Feels Love?, Sunday Morning Call, Where Did It All Go Wrong?, Fuckin' in the Bushes. Indian Ocean, Kandisa (album #3) (Mar.); their breakthrough album; incl. Kandisa, Khajuraho, Kaun. Sinead O'Connor (1966-), Faith and Courage (album #5) (June 13). Blue October, Consent to Treatment (album #2) (Aug. 15); incl. Retarded Disfigured Clown. The Offspring, Conspiracy of One (album #6) (Nov. 14); incl. Want You Bad. Midnight Oil, The Real Thing (album) (July 8); incl. The Real Thing. OutKast, Stankonia (album). Pantera, Reinventing the Steel (album #9) (Mar. 14) (#4 ini the U.S.); incl. Revolution Is My Name (#28 in the U.S.), Goddamn Electric, I'll Cast a Shadow. Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory (album) (debut) (Oct. 24) (#2 in the U.S.) (10M copies) (best-selling album of the decade); from Agoura Hills, Calif., incl. Chester Charles Bennington (1976-2017) (vocals), Michael Kenji "Mike" Shinoda (1977-), Bradford Phillip "Brad" Delson (1977-), Joseph "Joe" "Mr." Hahn (1977-) (turntables), Rob Bourson, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, and Mark Wakefield; incl. Crawling, One Step Closer, Paper Cut, In the End. Black Eyed Peas, Bridging the Gap (album #2) (Sept. 26); incl. Request Line (with Macy gray). Phoenix, United (album) (debut) (June 8); from Versailles, France, incl. Thomas Mars, Deck D'Arcy, Christian Mazzalai, and Laurent Brancowitz; incl. Too Young. Pink (P!ink) (Alecia Beth Moore) (1979-), Can't Take Me Home (album) (debut) (Apr. 4) (#26 in the U.S.) (5M copies); incl. There You Go, Most Girls, You Make Me Sick. Placebo, Black Market Music (album #3) (Oct. 9); incl. Taste in Men, Slave to the Wage, Special K, Black-Eyed, Blue American. The Posies, In Case You Don't Feel Like Plugging In (album); At Least, At Last (album). Insane Clown Posse, Bizzar (album) (Oct. 31); Bizaar (album) (Oct. 31). Manic Street Preachers, The Masses Against the Classes (Jan. 10) (#1 in the U.K.). Dead Prez, Hip Hop. Radiohead, Kid A (album #4) (Oct. 2) (#1 in the U.S.). (Rolling Stone Mag. #1 album of the decade); incl. The National Anthem, Optimistic, Idioteque. Gerry Rafferty (1947-2011), Another World (album #9). Raspberries, Refreshed (album #5); first album since 1974. Ratt, Infestation (Apr. 20) (#30 in the U.S.); first album since 1999; first with guitarist Carlos Cavazo (1957-); incl. Best Of Me, Eat Me Up Alive. Juno Reactor, Shango (album #5) (Oct. 9); incl. Pistolero, Masters of the Universe. Lou Reed (1942-), Ecstasy (album #18) (Apr. 4); incl. Ecstasy; Paranoia Key of E. Lionel Richie (1949-), Renaissance (album #6) (Oct. 16). Kid Rock (1971-), History of Rock (album). Kenny Rogers, Buy Me a Rose; #1 selling country song by a singer over age 60 since 1944. Sade (1959-), Lovers Rock (album #5) (Nov. 14) (#3 in the U.S., #28 in the U.K. (4M copies); incl. By Your Side, King of Sorrow. Pharoah Sanders (1940-), Spirits (album). Scorpions, Moment of Glory (album #12) (Aug. 29); they play with the Berlin Philharmonic; incl. Moment of Glory (official anthem of EXPO 2000). Primal Scream, XTRMNTR (album #6) (Jan. 31); incl. Kill All Hippies, Swastika Eyes. Belle and Sebastian, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant (album #4) (June 6). Pete Seeger (1919-2014), American Folk, Game and Activity Songs (album). Shaggy (1968-), Hot Shot (album); incl. It Wasn't Me (with RikRok); Angel (with Rayvon). Carly Simon (1945-), The Bedroom Tapes (album) (May 16). Paul Simon (1941-), You're the One. Sissel, All Good Things (album) (Nov.). Lynyrd Skynyrd, Christmas Time Again (album #10). Sleater-Kinney, All Hands on the Bad One (album #5) (May 2); incl. All Hands on the Bad One. Fatboy Slim (1963-), Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars (album #3) (Nov. 6); title from the Oscar Wilde quote "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" by Lady Darlington in "Lady Windemere's Fan"; incl. Weapon of Choice (video stars Christopher Walken), Talking 'bout My Baby, Star 69 ("They know what is what, but they don't know what is what, they just strut, what the fuck?"), Sunset (Bird of Prey), Ya Mama. Patti Smith (1946-), Gung Ho (album #8) (Mar. 21); incl. Glitter in Their Eyes, New Party (official song for the 2000 Ralph Nader pres. campaign). Black Label Society, Stronger Than Death (album #2) (Apr. 18); incl. Counterfeit God. Collective Soul, Blender (album #5) (Oct. 10) (#22 in the U.S.); last with Atlantic Records; incl. Why, Pt. 2. Britney Spears (1981-), Oops!... I Did It Again (album). Jimmie Spheeris (1949-84), Spheeris (album) (posth.); finished hours before he was killed by a drunk driver in Santa Monica, Calif. Lewis Spratlan, Life is a Dream, Opera in Three Acts: Act II, Concert Version (Pulitzer Prize). Status Quo, Under the Influence (album #24) (Apr.). Steps, Buzz (album #3) (Oct. 25) (#4 in the U.K.); incl. Stomp (#1 in the U.K.), It's the Way You Make Me Feel (#2 in the U.K.). Ray Stevens (1939-), Osama - Yo' Mama (album); incl. Osama - Yo' Mama. Al Stewart (1945-), Down in the Cellar (album #16); about wine. Stratovarius, Infinite (album #8) (Feb. 28); incl. Hunting High and Low, A Million Light Years Away; 14 Diamonds (album) Sept. 19). The White Stripes, De Stijl (album #2) (June 20); incl. Hello Operator, Death Letter. Sugarbabes, One Touch (album) (debut) (Nov. 27) (#26 in the U.K.); from England, incl. Siobhan Emma Donaghy (1984-) (leaves in Aug. 2001), Mutya Buena (1985-) (leaves in Dec. 2005), and Keisha Kerreece Fayeanne Buchanan (1984-) (leaves in Sept. 2009); eventually changes to Heidi India Range (1983-), Amelle Berrabah (1984-), and Jade Almarie Louise Ewen (1988-); incl. Overload (#6 in the U.K.), New Year, Run for Cover, Soul Sound. Within Temptation, Mother Earth (album #2) (Dec. 4); incl. Mother Earth, Our Farewell, Ice Queen, Never-Ending Story. Suicidal Tendencies, Free Your Soul and Save My Mind (album #8) (Sept. 12); incl. Pop Songs. Therion, Deggial (album #12) (Jan. 31); incl. Eternal Return; The Early Chapters of Revelation (3-CD set) (Nov. 27). Melanie Thornton (1967-2001), Love How You Love Me (Nov. 6). Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, BTNHResurrection (album #4) (Feb. 29); incl. Resurrection (Paper, Paper), Change the World. TLC, FanMail (album). Randy Travis (1959-), Inspirational Journey (album). Matchbox Twenty, Mad Season (album #2) (May 23) (#3 in the U.S., #31 in the U.K.)); incl. Mad Season, Bent (#1 in the U.S.), If You're Gone (#4 in the U.S.). U2, All That You Can't Leave Behind (album #10) (Oct. 30) (#3 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (12M copies); incl. Beautiful Day, Walk On, Elevation, Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of. Six Feet Under, Graveyard Classics (album) (Oct. 24); incl. TNT (by AC/DC). Various Artists, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack (Dec. 5) (#1 country) (#1 in the U.S.) (7.8M copies); produced by T-Bone Burnett; features Harry McClintock, Norman Blake, Emmylou Harris, John Hartford, the Stanley Brothers, the Fairfield Four, Alison Krauss et al., rekindling interest in bluegrass; incl. O Death by Dr. Ralph Stanley, I'll Fly Away by Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch, and Man of Constant Sorrow and Keep on the Sunny Side by The Whites, winning 2001 Grammy album of the year. Wallflowers, Breach (album) (Oct. 10); incl. Sleepwalker, Letters from the Wasteland, Hand Me Down, Babybird. Westlife, Coast to Coast (album #2) (Nov. 6) (#1 in the U.K.) (1.5M copies in the U.K.); incl. Against All Odds (by Phil Collins) (w/Mariah Carey) (#1 in the U.K.), My Love (#1 in the U.K.), What Makes A Man (#2 in the U.K.). Whigfield (1970-), Whigfield III (album #3). Wilco, Mermaid Avenue, Vol. II (album) (May 30). Wisin and Yandel, Los Reyes del Nuevo Milenio (album) (debut) (July 18); from Puerto Rico, incl. Yandel (Llandel Veguilla Malave Salazar) (1977-) and Wisin (Juan Luis Morena Luna) (1978). Wu-Tang Clan, The W (album #3) (Nov. 21) (#5 in the U.S.); incl. Gravel Pit. XTC, Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2) (album #13) (last album) (May 23). Trisha Yearwood (1964-), Real Live Woman (album). Lil' Zane (1982-), Young World: The Future (album) (debut) (Aug. 22); incl. Callin' Me (w/112). Movies: Allan A. Goldstein's 2001: A Space Travesty (Oct. 31) stars Leslie Nielsen as Marshal Richard "Dick" Dixon, who travels to Moon Base Vegan to investigate the cloning of the U.S. pres. Alexander Payne's About Schmidt (Dec. 13), based on the 1996 novel by Louis Begley stars Jack Nicholson as insurance actuary Warren R. Schmidt, in Omaha, Neb., who retires and decides to sponsor foster child Ndugu Umbo in Tanzania while his own life fades to black. Spike Jonze's Adaptation (Dec. 6), based on the 1998 nonfiction book "The Orchid Thief" by Susan Orlean stars Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, and Chris Cooper in a yarn about a S Fla. orchid fanatic who tries to clone the rare orchid Ghost Orchid and write a Hollywood script about it. Des McAnuff's The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle (June 30) stars Jason Alexander, Rene Russo, and Robert De Niro lamely attempting to bring back the lame cartoon TV show. Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (Sept. 13) (Columbia Pictures) stars Patrick Fugit (1982-) as 15-y.-o. William Miller, who gets to accompany rock band Stllwater and write a story for Rolling Stone mag.; also stars Billy Crudup (as Russell Hammond), Frances McDormand (as Elaine Miller), and Kate Hudson (as Penny Lane), who marries almost-famous Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes; f irst drama to have an authorized Led Zeppelin tune on its soundtrack after comedy "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (1982); best film of 2000 according to Roger Ebert; does $47M box office on a $60M budget. Mary Harron's American Psycho (Jan. 21) (Lionsgate Films), based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel stars Welsh-born English actor Christian Bale as New York City investment banking exec and psycho axe murderer Patrick Bateman, and Reese Witherspoon as his babe Evelyn Williams; "I am simply not there"; does $34.3M box office on a $7M budget. Noreaga Productions' The Arrivals is a multi-part flick by Muslims who try to prove that all prophets incl. Jesus (Isa) and especially Muhammad are from God and that Jesus Christ will return to help the Mahdi (Muslim Messiah) save true Muslims from the Antichrist Dajjal, along with evil Zionism and its Illuminati system, while the deceived Christians will call the Mahdi the Antichrist and fight him - can't wait until it happens for real, not? Chris D'Arienzo's Barry Munday (Mar. 13), based on the novel "Life is a Strange Place" by Frank Turner Hollon stars Patrick Wilson, who has his testicles removed after an attack and then finds himself accused of knocking up Jennifer Farley (Chloe Sevigny), whom he can't remember sleeping with; Judy Greer plays Jennifer's polar opposite sister Ginger. Roger Christian's Battlefield Earth (May 12), based on the 1982 L. Ron Hubbard novel is a Dutch angle stinker starring John Travolta as Terl the Psychlo, Barry Pepper as human Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, and Forest Whitaker as Psychlo Ker; grosses $29.7M on a $44M budget; "One of the worst films ever made." Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale (Dec. 16) (Toei Co.) debuts, based on the 1996 novel by Koushun Takami is about a future Japan called the Repub. of Greater East Asia where each h.s. class is forced to bloodily fight to the last student, popularizing the term "battle royale"; banned in several countries, making it more popular?; makes a fan of Quentin Tarantino; does $26M box office on a $4.5M budget; followed by "Battle Royale II: Requiem" (2003). Danny Boyle's The Beach (Feb. 11), based on the 1996 novel by Alex Garland stars Leonardo DiCaprio as 24-y.-o. Am. man Richard, who obtains a map of a paradise in the Gulf of Thailand, and finds it, only to discover that it has mucho problems incl. sharks and AK-47-toting native marijuana farmers; Tilda Swinton plays leader Sal; does $144.1M box office on a $50M budget. Julian Schnabel's Before Night Falls (Jan. 26) stars Javier Bardem as Cuban poet Reinaldo Renas (1943-90). Christopher Guest's Best in Show (Sept. 29). is a mockumentary about a top dog show. Ben Younger's Boiler Room stars Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Ben Affleck et al. in a flick about high-pressure telephone con artists. Robert Iscove's Boys and Girls (June 16) (Miramax Films) stars Claire Forlani as Jennifer Burrows, and Freddie Prince Jr. as Ryan Walker, who meet at age 12, then again later in life, falling in love; "Opposites attack"; does $25.8M box office on a $35M budget. Robert Zemeckis' Cast Away (Dec. 22) (ImageMovers) (Playtone) (20th Cent. Fox) (DreamWorks Pictures), filmed on Monuriki Island in the Mamanuca Islands of Fiji stars Tom Hanks as marooned FedEx employee Chuck Noland, who plays Robinson Crusoe with a volleyball named Wilson for 1.5K days, then returns to the civilized world to find his wife Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt) married to another man; brings in $429.6M worldwide on a $90M budget; #2 movie of 2000 ($234M U.S. and $429.6M worldwide box office on a $90M budget). Lasse Hallstrom's Chocolat (Jan. 5) (Miramax Films), based on the 1999 Joanne Harris novel stars Juliette Binoche as young single mother Vianna Richer in the French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes, who opens La Chocolaterie Maya during Lent, pissing-off the mayor Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina); also stars Victoire Thivisol as Vianne's daughter Anouk, Judi Dench as Armande Voizin, Carrie-Anne Moss as Armande's daughtger Caroline Clairmont, Lena Olin as Josephine, and Johnny Depp as Traveller Roux; does $152.7M box office on a $25M budget. Rod Lurie's The Contender (Oct. 13) (DreamWorks) is a political drama starring Jeff Bridges as Dem. U.S. Pres. jackson Evans, Christian Slater as Dem. Del. Rep. Reginald Webster, Gary Oldman as Repub. Ill. Rep. Sheldon Runyon, Joan Allen as Repub.-turned-Dem. Ohio Sen. Laine Billings Hanson, who's been nominated for vice-pres. to break the glass ceiling; "Sometimes you can assassinate a leader without firing a shot." David McNally's Coyote Ugly (Aug. 4) (Touchstone Pictures), produced by Jerry Bruckheimer based on the 1997 Elizabeth M. Gilbert story stars Piper Perabo as cute innocent struggling songwriter Violet "Jersey" Sanford, who makes ends meet at the Coyote Ugly stripper saloon while trying to fool her daddy Billene (John Goodman) and courting Aussie hunk Kevin O'Donnell (Adam Garcia); Tyra Banks plays Zoe; Maria Bello plays owner Lil; Izabello Miko plays Cammie; does $114M box office on a $45M budget. Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo Hu Cang Long) (July 6) (Production Asia) (Sony Pictures) stars Yun-Fat Chow (Taiwan) and Michelle Yeoh (Malaysia), and introduces Beijing-born Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi (1979-) on wires; it goes on to become the top-grossing foreign language film to date ($213.5M on a $17M budget); Zhang later approaches Steven Spielberg about starring in his "Memoirs of a Geisha", giving him the only line in English she knew: "Hire me!" Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (May 17) (Angel Films) stars Icelandic singer Bjork as blind Czech immigrant to Wash. State Selma Jezkova, who is convicted of murder and sings in the gallows, Catherine Deneuve as her friend Kathy Cvalda (Czech. "chubby"), Peter Stormae as her beau Jeff, David Morse as town policeman Bill Houston, and Cara Seymour as his wife Linda; Joel Grey plays Oldrich Novy; Siobhan Fallon plays prison guard Brenda; does $45.6M box office on a $12.5M budget. Steven Soderbergh's Erin Brockovich (Mar. 17) (Universal Pictures) stars Julia Roberts as a govt. whistleblower who "brought a small town to its feet and a huge corporation to its knees" by helping atty. Edward L. Masry (Albert Finney) sue Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) (Poison the Ground and Evade Justice?) in Hinkley, Calif. and win a record judgment; does $256M box office on a $51M budget; her first Oscar nod was for "Steel Magnolias", but who remembers?; "I just went out there and performed sexual favors. Six hundred and thirty-four blow jobs in five days. I'm really quite tired." James Wong's Final Destination (Mar. 17) (Hard Eight Pictures) (New Line Cinema) debuts, starring Devon Sawa as h.s. student Alex Browning, who boards Volee Airlines Flight 180 with his classmates for a senior trip to Paris, and is plagued by premonitions that the plane will explode in mid-air and kill everybody aboard, starting a fight that gets him and several others removed before takeoff, after which the plane explodes on takeoff, killing all remaining passengers, causing the FBI to suspect Alex; meanwhile the survivors all meet their deaths so that Death can even the score; does $112.9M box office on a $23M budget, spawning sequels incl. "Final Destination 2" (2003), "Final Destination 3" (2006), "The Final Destination" (2009), and "Final Destination 5" (2011). Gus Van Sant's Finding Forrester (Dec. 19) stars Sean Connery as William Forrester, a famous writer who takes black writing talent Rob Brown (Jamal Wallace) under his wing to assuage white guilt? Ridley Scott's Gladiator (May 5), based on the 1958 Daniel P. Mannix novel "Those About to Die" stars Russell Crowe as Roman Gen. Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is on the wrong side after Marcus Arelius dies in 180 C.E., ends up a lowly gladiator, and overcomes his chicken limbs to outfight every gladiator in Rome incl. a chained tiger, while emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) quakes in his purple toga, waiting for the inevitable overthrow attempt while doing what emperors do; #2 movie of 2000 ($216M U.S. and $460.5M global box office on a $103M budget); Connie Nielsen plays Commodus' scheming sister Lucilla, whom he has the hots for; animal trainer Randy Miller (1965-) wins the first-ever World Stunt Academy Award for his work with the "ferocious tigers" as Crowe's stunt double; too bad, on Apr. 22, 2008 his cousin Stephan Miller (1969-2008) is mauled to death by 700-lb. grizzly bear Rocky. James Ivory's and Ismail Merchant's The Golden Bowl (Sept. 13) (Lionsgate), based on the 1904 Henry James novel stars Jeremy Northam as Italian Prince Amerigo, who marries Maggie (Kate Beckinsale), daughter of U.S. billionaire Adam Verver (Nick Nolte), even though he really wants poor looker Charlotte Stant (Uma Thurman), but is hooked up by Maggie with her daddy; James Fox plays English col. Bob Assingham, and Anjelica Huston plays Fanny Assingham; does $5.7M box office on a $15M budget - meet Bob and Fanny Assingham? Dominic Sena's Gone in Sixty Seconds (June 9) stars Nicolas Cage as L.A. car thief Memphis Raines, who must steal 50 exotic cars in one night to save his brother Kip (Giovanni Ribisi) from Russian mob boss Raymond Calitri (Christopher Eccleston); also stars T.J. Cross as Mirror Man, and Angelina Jolie as Sara "Sway" Wayland; features the Moby song Flower ("Bring sally up/ And bring sally down/ Lift and squat/ Gotta tear the ground"). Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (Jan. 24), based on the Shakespeare play set in the modern surveillance society stars Ethan Hawke as film student Hamlet, Kyle MacLachlan as Denmark Corp. CEO Claudius, and Julia Stiles as Ophelia; does $2M box office. Stephen Frears' High Fidelity (Mar. 31) stars John Cusack as Rob, a record store owner who recounts his top five breakups. Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man (Aug. 4) (Columbia Pictures), based on the 1897 H.G. Wells novel "The Invisible Man" stars Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Cane, a scientist who uses his serum to become invisible then slowly goes insane; also stars Elisabeth Shue as Dr. Linda McKay, and Josh Brolin as Dr. Matthew "Matt" Kensington; does $190.2M box office on a $95M budget. Ron Howard's How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Nov. 8) (Imagine Entertainment) (Universal Pictures), based on the 1957 Dr. Seuss children's book and narrated by Anthony Hopkins stars Jim Carrey as the Grinch, Taylor Momsen as Cindy Lou Who, and Jeffrey Tambor as Mayor Augustus May Who; Josh Ryan Evans plays the boy Grinch; does $345.1M box office on a $123M budget (#6 film of 2000). Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha's Ice Age (Mar. 15) is an animated flick set in 16K B.C.E., when animals could talk but humans couldn't; features the voices of John Leguizamo as Sid, Denis Leary as Diego, and Jack Black as Zeke. Hugh Hudson's I Dreamed of Africa (May 5), based on the book by Kuki Gallmann stars Kim Basinger as Kuki Gallmann, who survives a car crash, marries Paolo Gallmann (Vincent Perez), and moves to Kenya to start a cattle ranch, then leaves her alone for long periods to hunt and fish so she can face storms, lions, snakes, poachers and African tribes. Robert Redford's The Legend of Bagger Vance (Nov. 3), based on the 1995 book by Steven Pressfield stars Matt Damon as local Savannah, Ga. golf hero Rannulph Junuh (Matt Damon), who got messed up by WWI and lost his babe Adele Invergorden (Charlize Theron), until the Depression causes her to arrange a 1931 money match with him, Walter Hagen (Bruce Gill), and Bobby Jones (Joel Gretsch); too bad, he's lost his game, until mysterious caddy Bagger Vance (Will Smith) shows up; Jack Lemmon's final film; the whole thing is really about the Bhagavad Gita, with Vance as Bhagavan and Damon as Arunja? Volker Schlondorff's The Legend of Rita (Sept. 14) (Die Stille nach dem Schuss) stars Bibiana Beglau as a radical West German terrorist who tries to quit and settle in East Germany. Steven Brill's Little Nicky (Nov. 10) is an Adam Sandler vehicle, playing one of the three sons of Satan (Harvey Keitel) while accompanied by a talking bulldog and falling for mortal Patricia Arquette - snow's anywhere it's high? Amy Heckerling's Loser (July 21) stars Jason Biggs as a you know what, who gets the girl Dora Diamond (Mena Suvari). Gina Prince-Blythewood's Love & Basketball (Apr. 21), produced by Spike Lee is her dir. debut. Dominic Anciano and Ray Burdis' Love, Honour and Obey (Apr. 7) stars Johnny Lee Miller as a courier who asks his school friend Jude Law to help get him into the North London mob run by his uncle Ray Winstone, and ends up in a war with the South London mob. Sally Potter's The Man Who Cried (Sept. 22) stars Christina Ricci, who travels from Russia to the U.S. in search of her lost father Oleg Yankovsky, and falls for a gypsy on horseback. Robert De Niro's Meet the Parents (Oct. 6) stars Ben Stiller as male nurse Gaylord "Greg" Focker, who has to get through his fiance Dina's (Blythe Danner) nutty parents to marry her, esp. Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro); they get around censors by proving that there are really people named Focker in the phone book?; #7 movie of 2000 ($166M). Christopher Nolan's Memento (Oct. 11), based on the story "Memento Mori" by his brother Jonathan Nolan begins at the end and tells the story of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) backwards, about a hunt for the man who killed his wife Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss) by a man who can't remember things so he writes them on his skin. The Farrelly Brothers' Me, Myself & Irene (June 23) stars Jim Carrey as nice guy cop Charlie Baileygates with a bad multiple personality disorder that turns him into Hank Evans; Renee Zellweger stars as his babe Irne P. Waters; Tony Cox stars as a hilarious black midget limo driver with a genius IQ. George Tillman Jr.'s Men of Honor (Nov. 10) tells the true story of Carl Brashear, the U.S. Navy's first black master diver in 1949, who has to get through Master Chief Sunday (Robert De Niro), who suprisingly turns into his best friend and advocate in a racist-but-forced-to-reform org. Donald Petrie's Miss Congeniality (Dec. 22) is a Sandra Bullock vehicle, as tomboy FBI agent Gracie Hart, who turns Eliza Doolittle with Michael Caine to go undercover at a beauty pageant, where dir. Candice Bergen and over-the-hill self-parodying TV host William Shatner provide a fakey conspiracy plot while she gets the guy, fellow FBI agent Benjamin Bratt; "Unpolished. Unkempt. Unleashed. Undercover." John Woo's Mission: Impossible II (M:i-2) (May 24) stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt again; #3 movie of 2000 ($215M). Brian De Palma's Mission to Mars (Mar. 10) stars Gary Sinise, Tom Robbins, Don Cheadle, Jerry O'Connell, and Connie Nielsen, who have a bad trip there followed by an alien-boosted one back. Joel Coen's and Ethan Coen's O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Dec. 22) (Touchstone Pictures), based on Homer's poem "The Odyssey", set in 1937 Mississippi and satirizing the 1941 Preston Sturges flick "Sullivan's Travels" stars George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson as escaped chained cons Everett Ulysses McGill, Pete Hogwallop, and Delmar O'Donnell, who are looking for a buried $1.2M bank heist loot before a flood washes it away, while singing with the Soggy Bottom Boys; John Goodman plays 1-eyed Bible salesman Daniel "Big Dan" Teague (Polyphemus), and Holly Hunter plays Penny (Penelope). Roland Emmerich's The Patriot (June 30) stars Mel Gibson as S.C. farmer Benjamin Martin, who votes against S.C. joining the Am. Rev. only to see his son Gabriel (Heath Ledger) join the rebels, bringing down mean British Col. William Tavington (Jason Isaacs) down on him hard enough to turn rebel himself, becoming known as the Ghost; Joely Richardson plays his sister-in-law Charlotte; Tom Wilkinson plays Lord Cornwallis. Wolfgang Petersen's The Perfect Storm (June 30), based on the book by Sebastian Junger about the fall 1991 North Atlantic incident with the Andrea Gail stars George Clooney as Bill Tyne, Mark Wahlberg as Bobby Shatford, Diane Lane as Christina Cotter, and John C. Reilly as Dale "Murph" Murphy; #6 movie of 2000 ($183M). David Twohy's Pitch Black (Feb. 18) stars Vin Diesel as dangerous con Richard B. Riddick, whose prison spaceship crashes on a desert planet, allowing him to escape until he sees the survivors attacked by alien creatures, causing him to turn hero; followed by "The Chronicles of Riddick" (2004). Steve Purcell's The Queens of Comedy (Jan. 27) stars Adele Givens, Laura Hayes, Mo'Nique and Sommore as black comedians playing themselves. Philip Kaufman's Quills (Dec. 15) stars Geoffrey Rush as the Marquis de Sade. Anthony Hoffman's Red Planet (Nov. 10) (Village Roadshow Pictures) (Warner Bros.) stars Carrie-Anne Moss as sex tease astronaut Cmdr. Kate Bowman going to terraforming Mars with Robby Gallagher (Val Kilmer), Lt. Ted Santen (Benjamin Bratt), Dr. Quinn Burchenal (Tom Sizemore), Dr. Bud Chantilas (Terence Stamp), and Chip Pettengil (Simon Baker), where a robot named AMEE goes badass on them and the lunatics take over the asylum; does $33.5M box office on an $80M budget. Howard Deutch's The Replacements (Aug. 11) about replacement players during an NFL strike who only have to win 3 of 4 to go to the playoffs stars Keanu Reeves as QB Shane Falco, Gene Hackman as the coach Jimmy McGinty, and Brooke Langton (real-life cheerleader for the Washington Sentinels) as Falco's cheerleader babe Annabelle Farrell. Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream (Oct. 27), based on the 1978 novel by Hubert Selby Jr. stars Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans, and Jennifer Connolly in an exploration of addiction; does $7.4M box office on a $4.5M budget; the first film by Thousands Words film co. William Friedkin's Rules of Engagement (Mar. 31) stars Tommy Lee Jones as Col. Hayes "Hodge" Hodges, who has to defend Marine Col. Terry L. Childers (Samuel L. Jackson) for ordering his troops to fire on civilians who stormed a U.S. embassy in some Muslim country, showing even Muslim girls wielding guns against infidels to make him look good. Keenen Ivory Wayans' Scary Movie (July 7) is a parady of 1990s films; #9 movie of 2000 ($157M in the U.S., grossing $278M worldwide on a $19M budget, becoming the highest-grossing film dir. by an African-Am. until ?; spawns sequels "Scary Movie 2" (2001) ("We lied"), "Scary Movie 3" (2003), Scary Movie 4 (2006); "No mercy. No shame. No sequel." Jonathan Glazer's Sexy Beast (Sept. 13) (Film Four) (Fox Searchlight Pictures) star Ray Winstone as safecracker Gary "Gal" Dove, who is released from priz after nine years and moves to Spain with his new ex-ho wife DeeDee Dove (Amanda Redman) to enjoy the retired life, only to be followed by London underworld recruiter Don Logan (Ben Kingsley), who drags him back into the mess along with crime lord Teddy Bass (Ian McShane) and bisexual banker Harry (James Fox); does Ł31.76M box office on a Ł4.M budget; Glazer's dir. debut. Guy Ritchie's Snatch (Aug. 23) (SKA Films) (Columbia Pictures) (Screen Gems) is an attempt to channel Quentin Tarantino with a Cockney accent, complete with an intricate double plot featuring numerous ironic plot twists, starring Benicio del Toro as gambler-thief Franky "Four-Fingers", who steals an 86-carat diamond in Antwerp and goes to London to see fence Doug "the Head" on behalf of New York City gangster Abraham Denovitz (Dennis Farina); meanwhile boxing promoter Turkish talks gangster Brick Top into putting boxer Gorgeous George in a match with One Punch Mickey "Pikey" O'Neill (Brad Pitt), who is paid to throw the fight but KOs his opponent with one punch; also Rade Serbedzija as arms dealer Boris "the Blade" Yurinov, and Vinnie Jones as bounty hunter Bullet-Tooth Tony; "Now, dicks have drive and clarity of vision, but they are not clever. They smell pussy and they want a piece of the action. And you thought you smelled some good old pussy, and have brought your two little mincey faggot balls along for a good old time. But you've got your parties muddled up. There's no pussy here, just a dose that'll make you wish you were born a woman. Like a prick, you are having second thoughts. You are shrinking, and your two little balls are shrinking with you. And the fact that you've got 'Replica' written down the side of your guns"; does $83.6M box office on a $10M budget. Maggie Greenwald's Songcatcher (Jan. 25) (Lionsgate Pictures) stars Janet McTeer as early 1900s Am. musicologist Lily Penleric (based on folklorist Olive Dame Campbell), who visits the Appalachians to collect folk songs, hooking up with stud musician Tom Bledsoe (Aidan Quinn); Steve Sutherland plays English folklorist Cecil Sharp; soundtrack features Fair and Tender Ladies by Rosanne Cash, Pretty Saro by Iris DeMent, Barbara Allen by Emmy Rossum, Barbara Allen by Emmylou Harris, Mary of the Wild Moor by Sara Evans, Wind and Rain by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and The Cuckoo Bird by Deana Carter, Conversation with Death by Hazel Dickens; does $3M box office on a $1.8M budget. Clint Eastwood's Space Cowboys (Aug. 4) stars Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and James Garner as old fart NASA engineers called back for one last space mission to rescue an obsolete Russian satellite that only they can understand, after which it is revealed that they really don't but just want an excuse to go into space after their original astronaut hopes as part of Air Force project DAEDALUS were ruined in 1958 by the creation of NASA and its apenauts. Roger Donaldson's Thirteen Days (Dec. 25) (Beacon Pictures) (New Line Cinema), based on "The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis" by Ernest May and Philip Zelikow stars Bruce Greenwood as Pres. Kennedy, Steven Culp as his brother Bobby, Dylan Baker as U.S. defense secy. Robert McNamara, and Kevin Costner as JFK's political adviser Kenneth Patrick "Kenny" O'Donnell; does $66.6M box office on an $80M budget. Corey Yuen's The Transporter (Oct. 11) stars Jason Statham as Frank Martin, a man whose job is to deliver packages without asking questions. Andre van Heerden's Tribulation (Jan. 14) stars Gary Busey as cop Tom Canboro, Margot Kidder as his sister Eileen, Joseph Ziegler and as his brother Calvin, who experience the End of Days complete with Antichrist Franco Maclousso (Nick Mancuso); Howie Mandel plays Tom's crazy brother-in-law Jason Quincy. Anh Hung Tran's The Vertical Ray of Sun (May 24) is a plotless visual feast about the Vietnamese summer. Robert Zemeckis' What Lies Beneath (July 21) stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford as a couple with a haunted house on their hands. Nancy Meyers' What Women Want (Dec. 15) stars hunk Mel Gibson as ad agency star Nick Marshall, who has an accident that lets him magically read women's minds, and uses it to steal the ideas of his new boss Darcy McGuire (Helen Hunt) and have perfect sex with Lola (Marisa Tomei); Alan Alda plays Dan Wanamaker; Bette Midler plays Gibson's pot-smoking therapist, who utters the soundbyte "You know, Freud died at age 83 still asking one question: What do women want?"; #5 movie of 2000 ($183M on a $70M budget). Marek Kanievska's Where the Money Is (May 31) stars Paul Newman, Linda Fiorentino, and Dermot Mulroney in a plot about a mobster faking a stroke to get out of priz, being found out by the nurse and her hubby, and planning a heist with them. Kathryn Bigelow's The Weight of Water (Sept. 90 (Lions Gate Films), based on the 1997 Anita Shreve notel stars Catherine McCormack as newspaper photographer Jean Janes, Sean Penn as her poet hubby Thomas, Josh Lucas as his brother Rich, and Elizabeth Hurley as his teasing topless girlfriend Adaline, who take their yacht to Smuttynose Island in the Gulf of Maine to investigate the 1873 Smuttynose murders of two immigrant women by Louis Wagner (Ciaran Hands), and come upon the truth about lone survivor Maren Hontvedt (Sarah Polley); big bomb, doing only $322K box office on a $16M budget. Bryan Singer's X-Men (July 14), based on the Marvel Comics series about a world where there's two kinds of people, normal and mutant, stars Patrick Stewart as X-Men leader Prof. Charles Xavier, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, James Marsden as Cyclops, Halle Berry as Storm, Anna Paquin as Rogue, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique, and Ian McKellen and Ray Park as bad guys Magneto and Toad; #8 movie of 2000 ($157M). James Gray's The Yards (Oct. 12) (Miramax Films), about the commuter rail yards in Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn where contractors sabotage each other's work for the Transit Authority stars Mark Wahlberg as new parolee Leo Handler, Ellen Burstyn as his mother Val, Charlize Theron as his cousin Erica, Joaquin Phoenix as her beau Willie Gutierrez, and James Caan as Erica' stepfather Frank Olchin does $889K box office on a $24M budget. Edward Yang's Yi Yi (A One and a Two) (Sept. 20) stars Wu Nienjen and Jonathan Chang as members of a family in Taipei who ask life's hard questions. Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count on Me (Nov. 16) stars Laura Linney as a single mom living in the Catskills, Matthew Broderick as her beau, and Mark Ruffalo as her wayward half-brother, who helps her son Rudy (Rory Culkin) come to terms. Plays: Peter Ackroyd (1949-), The Mystery of Charles Dickens (first play). David Auburn (1970-), Proof (Walter Kerr Theatre, New York) (Oct. 24) (917 perf.) (Pulitzer Prize); stars Mary-Louise Parker, Ben Shankman, and Larry Bryggman in a play about math whizzes Robert Llewelyn, his daughter Catherine, and his ex-student Harold "Hal" Dobbs at the U. of Chicago chasing a revolutionary new proof about prime numbers; filmed in 2005. Alan Ayckbourn (1939-), Virtual Reality; Whenever. The Pet Shop Boys and Jonathon Harvey, Closer to Heaven (musical) (May 31) (Arts Theatre, London). Howard Brenton (1942-), Kit's Play (Jerwood Theatre). Howard Brenton (1942-) and Tariq Ali (1943-), Snogging Ken (Almeida Theatre). Charles Busch (1954-), The Tale of the Allergist's Wife (Ethel Barrymore Theater, New York) (Nov. 2); stars Linda Lavin, Tony Roberts, and Michele Lee. Caryl Churchill (1938-), Far Away (Nov. 30) (Donmar Theatre, London); Harper, Joan, and Todd. Timothy Findley (1930-2002), Elizabeth Rex (Stratford Festival, Canada); Queen Elizabeth I hooks up with actor Ned Lownscroft, who specializes in women's roles, with Liz uttering the gag-me-with-a-spoon soundbyte "If you will teach me how to be a woman, I'll teach you how to be a man"; stars Diane D'Aquila and Brent Carver. Maria Irene Fornes (1930-), Letters from Cuba. Michael Frayn (1933-), Plays: Three. Christopher Fry (1907-2005), A Ringing of Bells (last play) (Bedford Modern School). Pam Gems (1925-), Garibaldi, Si! Rebecca Gilman, Boy Gets Girl (Goodman Theatre, Chicago); a blind date turns into a nightmare. Simon Gray (1936-2008), Japes (Mercury Theatre, London). John Guare (1938-), Lydie Breeze (May 15) (New York); stars Elizabeth Marvel, Boris McGiver, Bill Camp, Matt Servito, and Joanna P. Adler. Stephen Adly Guirgis, Jesus Hopped The 'A' Train (New York); dir. by Philip Seymour Hoffman. Davie Hare (1947-), My Zinc Bed (Sept. 14) (Royal Court Theatre, London); stars Steven Mackintosh, Tom Wilkinson, and Julia Ormond in a play about drug addiction and the need for love. Beth Henley (1952-), Family Week. Dusty Hughes, Helpless (Donmare Warehouse, London) (Mar. 2); the landslide victory of Tony Blair in 1997. Elton John (1947-), David Henry Hwang (1957-), Tim Rice (1944-), Linda Woolverton, and Robert Falls (1954-), Aida (The Timeless Love Story) (musical) (Mar. 23) (Palace Theatre, New York) (1,852 perf.); based on the 1871 Verdi opera, and a children's storybook version by Leontyne Price, acquired by the Walt Disney Co. in 1994 and originally intended for an animated feature film; stars Heather Headley (1974-) as Aida, Adam Pascal as Radames, and Shere Rene Scott as Amneris; features the song Written in the Stars, sung by Elton John and LeAnn Rimes (#2 in the U.S.). Charlotte Jones, In Flame (Bush Theatre, London). Arthur Kopit (1937-), Y2K. James Lapine (1949-), The Moment When. Torgny Lindgren, Light (Oct. 31) (Almeida Theatre, London). David Lindsay-Abaire, Wonder of the World (Theatre Club, Manhattan); stars Sarah Jessica Parker as a wife who leaves her husband and takes a bus to Niagara Falls. Brian Lipson, A Large Attendance in the Antechamber (Melbourne); about English eugenics founder Francis Galton. David Mamet (1947-), State and Main; S&M? Donald Margulies, Dinner with Friends (Pulitzer Prize). Frank McGuinness (1953-), Greta Garbo Came to Donegal (Tricycle Thetre, London). Mark Medoff (1940-), Tommy J and Sallyh. Charles L. Mee, Big Love (Louisville, Ky.); based on Aeschylus' "The Supplicants". Jason Miller (1939-2001), Barrymore's Ghost. Gary Mitchell, Force of Change (Nov. 8) (Royal Court Theatre, London). Jimmy Murphy, The Kings of the Kilburn High Road (Garter Lane Theatre, Waterford, Ireland). Richard Nelson, Madame Melville (Vaudeville Theatre, London); student Carl (Macaulay Culkin) hooks with with teacher Claudie (Irene Jacob). Nick Nicholas and Andrew Strader, Hamlet Prince of Denmark: The Restored Klingon Version (Feb.); yes, Shakespeare reaches the Klingon Empire ;) Joe Penhall, Blue/Orange (Nat. Theatre, London) (Apr.); stars Bill Nighy, Andrew Lincoln, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Austin Pendleton, Orson's Shadow (Steppenwolf Theate, Chicago) (Jan.); about Orson Welles; runs off-Broadway in 2005 for 349 perf. Harold Pinter (1930-2008), Remembrance of Things Past (Nat. Theatre, London) (Nov. 23); based on the 7-vol. Marcel Proust novel. Yasmina Reza, Conversations after a Burial (Sept. 13) (Almeida Theatre, London); stars Claire Bloom; trans. from the French by Christopher Hampton. Claudia Shear, Dirty Blonde (Helen Hayes Theater, New York) (May 1) (352 perf.); about Mae West. Donald R. Seawell brings the Royal Shakespeare Co.'s 10-hour epic Trojan War cycle Tantalus to Denver, Colo. with $8M of his own money, becoming the largest theater project in history; in 2002 Queen Elizabeth II confers the Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire on him, and RSC pres. Prince Charles congratulates him. Judith Thompson, Perfect Pie (Tarragon Theatre, Toronto). Derek Walcott (1930-), Walker and the Ghost Dance. Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006), Old Money (Nov. 9) (Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, New York); stars John Cullum, Mary Beth Hurt. Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948-) and Ben Elton, Beautiful Game (musical) (Cambridge Theatre, London) (Sept. 26). Guo Wejing, Diana Liao and Xu Ying, Poet Li Bai (opera) (July 6) (Central City Opera, Colo.); the Tang poet and his muse Poetry tussle with two competing muses who take on the bodily forms of Moon and Wine. Nick Whitby, To the Green Fields Beyond (Sept. 25) (Donmar Theatre, London); a WWI tank crew. Hugh Whitemore (1936-), God Only Knows (Nov.) (Vaudeville Theatre, London); stars Derek Jacobi. Timothy Williams and Andrew Sabiston (1965-), Napoleon the Musical (musical) (Shaftesbury Theatre, London) (Nov. 22). David Williamson (1942-), Up for Grabs; the sex-drenched dot com boomb internat. art market of the 1990s; the London West End version stars Madonna, guaranteeing a flop? August Wilson (1945-2005), Jitney (Sept. 19) (Union Square Theater, New York). David Henry Wilson (1937-), People in Cages. Lanford Wilson (1937-), Book of Days. Robert Wilson (1941-) and Tzimon Barto, Hot Water. Robert Wilson (1941-) and Lou Reed (1942-), POEtry. Poetry: John Ash (1948-), The Anatolikon. Andrei Codrescu (1946-), Selected Poetry. Billy Collins (1941-), Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes. Stephen Dunn (1939-), Different Hours. George Fetherling (1949-), Madagasca. Jorie Graham (1950-), Swarm. Thom Gunn (1929-2004), Boss Cupid. Marilyn Hacker (1942-), Squares and Courtyards. Michael S. Harper (1938-), Songlinesin Michaeltree: New and Collected Poems. Seamus Heaney (1939-), Beowulf: A New Translation; modern retelling. Carolyn Kizer (1925-), Pro Femina. Bill Knott (1940-), Laugh at the End of the World: Collected Comic Poems 1969-1999. Ted Kooser (1939-), Winter Morning Walks: One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison. Stanley Jasspon Kunitz (1905-2006), Collected Poems; becomes U.S. poet laureate in Oct. Denise Levertov (1923-97), The Great Unknowing: Last Poems (posth.). Larry Levis (1946-96), The Selected Levis (posth.). Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), To It. Mary Oliver (1935-), The Leaf and the Cloud: A Poem. Grace Paley (1922-2007), Begin Again: Collected Poems. Robert Pinsky (1940-), Jersey Rain. Stanley Plumly (1939-), Now That My Father Lies Down Beside Me: New and Selected Poems, 1970-2000. Kathleen Raine (1908-2003), Collected Poems. Sonia Sanchez (1934-), Shake Loose My Skin. Peter Dale Scott (1929-), Mending the Darkness: A Poem for the Year 2000. Dave Smith (1942-), The Wick of Memory: New and Selected Poems, 1970-2000. Gerald Stern (1925-), Last Blue. Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012), Moment. Henry S. Taylor (1942-), Brief Candles: 101 Clerihews. Donald Michael Thomas (1935-), Flight and Smoke. Judith Viorst (1931-), Suddenly Sixty; incl. "It's Harder to be Frisky Over Sixty". Derek Walcott (1930-), Tiepolo's Hound. Richard Wilbur (1921-2007), Mayflies: New Poems and Translations (Apr. 4); incl. "A Barred Owl", "At Moorditch"; "Crows' Nest", "The Pleasing, Anxious Being"; "For C." ("A passion joined to courtesy and art/ Which has the quality of something made/ Like a good fiddle, like the rose's scent,/ Like a rows window or the firmament"); Mayflies; "Watching those lifelong dancers of a day/ As night closed, I felt myself alone/ In a life too much my own./ More mortal in my separateness than they - / Unless, I thought, I had been called to be/ Not fly or star/ But one whose task is joyfully to see/ How fair the fiats of the caller are." Charles Kenneth Williams, Misgivings: My Father, My Mother, Myself. Charles Wright (1935-), Negative Blue. Jay Wright (1934-), Transfigurations: Collected Poems. Novels: Alice Adams (1926-99), After the War (posth.); 11th and last novel. Isabel Allende (1942-), Portrait in Sepia. Poul Anderson (1926-2001), Genesis. Kate Atkinson (1951-), Emotionally Weird. Margaret Atwood (1939-), The Blind Assassin (Booker Prize) (Hammett Prize); sisters Iris and Laura Chase of Southern Ont. and their sci-fi novelist friend Alex Thomas. Louis Auchincloss (1917-), Her Infinite Variety; a career woman in the early 20th cent. Trezza Azzopardi, The Hiding Place (first novel. Richard Bach (1936-), Out of My Mind. J.G. Ballard (1930-2009), Super-Cannes; sequel to "Cocaine Night" (1998). Super-Cannes. Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing; Jane Rosenthal. Russell Banks (1940-), The Angel on the Roof (short stories). Muriel Barbery (1969-), Une Gourmandise (first novel); English trans. "Gourmet Rhapsody" pub. in 2009. Julian Barnes (1946-), Love, Etc. Frederick Barthelme (1943-), The Law of Averages (short stories). Ann Beattie (1947-), Perfect Recall (short stories). Madison Smartt Bell, Master of the Crossroads; Toussaint L'Ouverture. Saul Bellow (1915-2005), Ravelstein; Abe Ravelstein AKA Allan Bloom. Wendell Berry (1934-), Jayber Crow. Maeve Binchy (1940-), Scarlet Feather. Marie-Claire Blais (1939-), The Exile and the Sacred Travellers. T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948-), A Friend of the Earth. Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933-), Where You Belong. David Jay Brown, Virus: The Alien Strain (May 9); a kissing-transmitted hallucinogenic virus unleashed by twisted ETs. Dan Brown (1964-), Angels and Demons; about how the Illuminati are real and out ta getchya, introducing Harvard U. prof. Robert Langdon; filmed in 2009. Rita Mae Brown (1944-), Loose Lips; Outfoxed; Sister Jane Arnold and her fox hunting club in Va. James Lee Burke (1936-), Purple Cane Road. Augusten Burroughs (1965-), Sellevision (first novel). Robert Olen Butler (1945-), Mr. Spaceman. Meg Cabot (1967-), The Princess Diaries (Oct.); first in a series; Mia Thermopolis; filmed in 2001 by Garry Marshall. Paul Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang. John le Carre (1931-), The Constant Gardener. Michael Chabon (1963-), The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Pulitzer Prize). Tracy Chevalier (1962-), Girl with a Pearl Earring; the 1665 Rembrandt painting. Deepak Chopra (1946-), The Angel is Near. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-), Before I Say Good-Bye. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-) and Carol Higgins Clark (1956-), The Christmas Thief. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (1940-), Ghosts in the Street (Fantômes dans la Rue); about Renault. Paul Coelho (1947-), The Devil and Miss Prym. Jackie Collins (1937-), Lethal Seduction; Madison Castelli. Evan S. Connell Jr. (1924-), Deus Lo Volt. Robin Cook (1940-), Abduction. Catherine Cookson (1906-98), A House Divided; Rosie of the River (posth.). Stephen Coonts (1946-), Hong Kong; Rear Adm. Jake Grafton #8. Mitch Cullin (1968-), Branches (verse novel); Tideland. Claire Davis, Winter Range (first novel). Kate DiCamillo (1964-), Because of Winn-Dixie. E.L. Doctorow (1931-), City of God. Roddy Doyle (1958-), The Dead Republic; #3 in the Last Roundup Trilogy (begun 1999). David Ebershoff, The Danish Girl; about Lili Elbe, one of the first to undergo sex reassignment surgery, Danish girl Gerda Wegener, and her wife Greta Waud from Pasadena, Calif. filmed in 2015. Howard Fast (1914-2003), Greenwich. Penelope Fitzgerald (1916-2000), The Means of Escape (short stories). Ken Follett (1949-), Code to Zero. Nicolas Freeling (1927-2003), The Janeites. Esther Freud (1963-), The Wild. Cornelia Funke (1958-), The Thief Lord; NYT bestseller. Alan Furst (1941-), Kingdom of Shadows; Night Soldiers #6. Barry Gifford (1946-), Wyoming. Elizabeth M. Gilbert (1969-), Stern Men. Bee Season. Rebecca Goldstein (1950-), Properties of Light. Joe Gores (1931-), Stakeout on Page Street and Other DKA Files. Lauren Groff (1978-), The Monsters of Templeton (first novel). Jane Hamilton (1957-), Disobedience. Peter Handke (1942-), Crossing the Sierra de Gredos. Everette Lynn Harris (1955-2009), Abide With Me; Not a Day Goes By; Money Can't Buy Me Love. Jim Harrison (1937-), The Beast God Forgot to Invent. Ken Haruf, Where You Once Belonged. Joseph Heller (1923-99), Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (posth.) (last novel); semi-autobio. novel about old fart writer Eugene Pota, who tries to write a final novel. George V. Higgins (1939-99), At End of Day (posth.). Alice Hoffman (1952-), The River King. Nick Hornby (ed.), Speaking with the Angel (short stories); proceeds donated to TreeHouse for autistic children in London. Michel Houellebecq (1958-), Lanzarote; Platform (Platforme). Josephine Humphreys (1945-), Nowhere Else on Earth. Raj Kamal Jha (1965-), The Blue Bedspread (first novel); brother-sister incest. Ha Jin (1956-), The Bridegroom (short stories). Molly Jong-Fast (1978-), Normal Girl (first novel); daughter of Erica Jong. Denis Johnson (1949-), The Name of the World. Kaylie Jones (1960-), Celeste Ascending (Apr.); Celeste deals with alcoholism. Ismail Kadare (1936-), Spring Flowers, Spring Frost. Thomas Keneally (1935-), Bettany's Book. Elias Khoury (1948-), Ra'ihat al-Sabun. Stephen King (1947-), Riding the Bullet (Mar. 14); The Plant (July). Matthew Kneale (1960-), English Passengers; in 1857 Rev. Geoffrey Wilson sets out for Tasmania to locate the Garden of Eden and prove Darwin's theory of evolution false - did you ever study Blackjack? Milan Kundera (1929-), Ignorance. Anne Lamott (1954-), Blue Shoe. Jeffrey Lent, In the Fall (first novel). Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), Pagan Babies. Jonathan Lethem (1964-), This Shape We're In. Yiyun Li, The Vagrants (first novel); 28-y.-o. counterrevolutionary Gu Shan is set for execution on Mar. 21, 1979. Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-), The Feast of the Goat. Steve Martin (1945-), Shopgirl (first novel) (Oct. 11); Vt.-raised Mirabelle Buttersfield sells expensive evening gloves at Nieman Marcus in Beverly Hill chases Seattle millionaire Ray Porter while being chased by slacker Jeremy; filmed in 2005. Armistead Jones Maupin Jr. (1944-), The Night Listener; roman a clef based about NYC gay radio host Gabriel Noone and an abused 14-y.-o. teenager, based on the real life story of Anthony Godby Johnson, author of the hoax book "A Rock and a Hard Place: One Boy's Triumphant Story"; filmed in 2006 starring Robin Williams. Colleen McCullough (1937-), Morgan's Run (Aug. 31); an English prisoner in an 18th cent. penal colony on Norfolk Island, Australia. Ian McEwan (1948-), Atonement; 13-y.-o. fledgling playwright Briony Tallis gets jealous of her older sister Cecilia and accuses her beau Robbie Turner of a crime he didn't commit, messing up all their lives; filmed in 2007. Larry McMurtry (1936-), Boone's Lick. Stanley Middleton (1919-2009), Small Change. Elsa Morante (1912-85), Forgotten Stories (posth.). David Morrell (1943-), Burnt Sienna. Mary McGarry Morris (1943-), Fiona Range. Joyce Carol Oates (1938-), Blonde; the inner life of Norma Jean Baker AKA Marilyn Monroe (1926-62). Edna O'Brien (1930-), In the Forest; Michen O'Kane. Michael Ondaatje (1943-), Anil's Ghost; Anil Tissera in the the 1980s-90s Sri Lankan war. Robert Brown Parker (1932-2010), Perish Twice; Sunny Randall #2; Hugger Mugger; Spenser #27. James Patterson (1947-), Along Came a Spider. Jayne Anne Phillips (1952-), MotherKind. Jodi Picoult (1966-), Plain Truth. Mark Jude Poirier, Goats; "Girls, ganga and goat-trekking"; filmed in 2011. Stanley Pottinger, A Slow Burning. Richard Powers (1957-), Plowing the Dark. Steven Pressfield (1943-), Tides of War: A Novel of Alcibiades and the Pelopponesian War. Francine Prose (1947-), Blue Angel; satire of PC Puritanism on campus. Philip Pullman (1946-), The Amber Spyglass; #3 of the Dark Materials trilogy. James Purdy (1914-2009), Moe's Villa and Other Stories. Mario Puzo (1920-99), Omerta; #4 and last in the Godfather saga. Anne Rice (1941-), Merrick; #7 in the Vampire Chronicles; vampires Louis, Lestat, and David meet witch Merrick Mayfair. Angelo Rinaldi (1940-), Tout ce que je Sais de Marie. Harold Robbins (1916-97), The Secret (posth.). Philip Roth (1933-2018), The Human Stain (May); bestseller about 65-y.-o. Nathan Zuckerman observing retired classics prof. Coleman Silk in 1998 during the Monica Lewinsky affair and PC-think in the Academy; filmed in 2003. J.K. Rowling (1965-), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (July 8); record U.S. first printing of 3.8M copies; causes the New York Times Book Review to set up a children's book bestseller list on July 16 to shunt her off? Willy Russell (1947-), The Wrong Boy (first novel); 19-y.-o. Raymond Marks from Manchester writes to his hero Morrissey. Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950), The Outlaws of Falkensteig (short stories) (posth.). Boualem Sansal (1949-), L'Enfant fou de l'Arbre Creux. Karl Schroeder (1962-), Ventus. Jeffrey Shaara (1952-), Gone for Soldiers; the U.S.-Mexican War of 1847-8. Jeffrey Shaara (1952-) and Michael Shaara (1928-88) (posth.), The Last Full Measure David Shannon, The Rain Came Down and How Georgie Radbourn Saved Baseball. Anne Rivers Siddons (1936-), Nora, Nora. Daniel Silva, The Kill Artist; art restoration slash secret agent Gabriel Allon. Dan Simmons (1948-), Darwin's Blade. Mona Simpson (1957-), Off Keck Road; three Midwest women. Jane Smiley (1949-), Horse Heaven. Zadie Smith (1975-), White Teeth (first novel); the racially-mixed new white-isn't-right England. Lemony Snicket (1970-), The Wide Window, The Miserable Mill, and The Austere Academy; illustrations by Bret Helquist. Susan Sontag (1933-2004), In America; 19th cent. Polish actress Helena Modjeska. Gary Soto (1952-), Nickel and Dime; Baseball in April. Muriel Spark (1918-2006), Aiding and Abetting. Nicholas Sparks (1965-), The Rescue (Sept.). Danielle Steel (1947-), The Wedding; The House on Hope Street; Journey. Neal Town Stephenson (1959-), Quicksilver; #1 in the Baroque Cycle. Ronald Sukenick (1932-2004), Narralogue: Truth in Fiction. Manil Suri, The Death of Vishnu. Donald Michael Thomas (1935-), Charlotte. Omar Tyree, For the Love of Money. Gore Vidal (1925-2012), The Golden Age; 7th and last in his Empire series. Richard Vinen, A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century. Alan Wall, The School of Night; the Shakespeare authorship controversy. James Welch (1940-2003), The Heartsong of Charging Elk. Fay Weldon (1931-), Rhode Island Blues. Paul West (1930-), Cheops: A Cupboard for the Sun. Edmund White (1940-), The Married Man; gay-themed. T.L. Winslow (TLW) (1953-), Falling Off Point Mugu (how an airplane crash convolves with the crash of the mighty U.S.); Baby Boom Morticians (the ultimate end of U.S. Baby Boomers); Salvation Day: The Immortality Device (the truth about the Shroud of Turin); Rock and Roll Corerunner (the face of war in the 22nd cent.); The Ice Cream Man (an Am. ice cream truck driver's big summer). John Updike (1932-2009), Gertrude and Claudius; a prequel to Shakespeare's "Hamlet". Stuart Woods, L.A. Woods; NYT bestseller about ex-cop atty. Stone Barrington in Sin City L.A. Births: Am. "Make Me (Cry)", "Stay Together" singer-actress Noah Lindsey Cyrus on Jan. 8 in Nashville, Tenn.; daughter of Billy Ray Cyrus (1961-); sister of Trace Cyrus (1989-) and Miley Cyrus (1992-). Am. "Russell in Up" actor Jordan Nagai on Feb. 5 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Zoey in Black-ish" actress (black) Yara Sayeh Shahidi on Feb. 10 in Minneapolis, Minn.; Iranian father, African-Am. mother; sister of Sayeed Shahidi (2003-); grows up in Calif. English "Bethany Britney Platt" in Coronation Street" actresses Amy and Emily Walton on Mar. 15. Canadian "Liesel Meminger in The Book Thief" actress Sophie Nelisse (Nélisse) on Mar. 27 in Windsor, Ont.; of French-Canadian descent; grows up in Montreal, Quebec. Am. soprano Jacqueline Marie "Jackie" Evancho on Apr. 9 in Pittsburgh, Penn. Am. 5'2" snowboarder Chloe Kim on Apr. 23 in Long Beach, Calif.; grows up in Torrance, Calif. South Korean immigrant parents. Am. environmental activist Xiuhtezcatl (pr. shu-TEZ-caht) Martinez (Roske-Martinez) on May 9. Canadian 5'7" tennis player (first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title, 2019) Bianca Vanessa Andreescu on June 16 in Mississauga, Ont. Am. 5'5" Olympic slopestyle snowboarder Redmond "Red Boy" Gerard on June 29 in Westlake, Ohio; first U.S. gold medalist in the 2018 Winter Olympics; first Olympic gold medalist born after 2000. Am. 6'7" basketball forward (New Orleans Pelicans #1, 2019-) Zion Lateef Williamson on July 6 in Salisbury, N.C.; educated at Duke U. Am. singer-songwriter Maya Bond on Aug. 5 in Osaka, Japan. Spanish royal brat (Roman Catholic) Victoria Federica de Todos los Santos de Marichalar y de Borbon (Borbón) on Sept. 9 in Madrid; granddaughter of Juan Carlos I of Spain; sister of Don Felipe de Marichalar y Borbon (1998-) and Pablo Urdangarin y de Borbon (2000-). Spanish royal brat Pablo Nicolas Urdangarin y de Borbon on Dec. 6 in Madrid; son of Infanta Cristina (1965-); grandson of Juan Carlos I of Spain. Saudi princess Salma bint Al Abdullah II on Sept. 26 in Amman, Jordan; daughter of Abdullah (1921-) and Queen Rania of Jordan. Am. transgender LGBT rights activist (black) Jazz Jennings on Oct. 6 in ?; born male. Deaths: Austrian actress ("Austria's first movie star") Liane Haid (b. 1895) on Nov. 28 in Bern, Switzerland. Am. thoroughbred owner-breeder Fred W. Hooper (b. 1897) on Aug. 4 in Ocala, Fla. (heart attack). Am. "You Are My Sunshine" singer-songwriter Jimmie Davis (b. 1899) on Nov. 5 - sunshine really worked? Am. Disney cartoonist Carl Barks (b. 1901) on Aug. 25 in Grants Pass, Ore. Ukrainian-born Am. constitutional scholar Raoul Berger (b. 1901). English romance novelist Dame Barbara Cartland (b. 1901) on May 21 in Hertfordshire; sold 750M-2B copies of 723 books in 36 languages, and leaves 160 unedited mss. at her 400-acre estate Camfield Place. Australian physicist Sir Mark Oliphant (b. 1901) on July 14 in Canberra. French film dir. Claude Autant-Lara (b. 1901) on Feb. 5 in Antibes, Alpes-Maritimes: "If a film does not have venom, it is worthless." French environmentalist Theodore Andre Monod (b. 1902) on Nov. 22 in Versailles. Tunisian pres. #1 (1957-87) Habib Bourguiba (b. 1903) on Apr. 6 in Monastir. Japanese empress Kojun (b. 1903) on June 16 in Fukiage Omiya Palace, Chiyoda, Tokyo. English medieval historian Sir Steven Runciman (b. 1903) on Nov. 1 in Radway, Warwickshire. Am. Washington Post ed. James Russell Wiggins (b. 1903) on Nov. 19 in Brooklin, Maine. English actor-singer Sir John Gielgud (b. 1904) on on May 21-22 in Wotton Underwood, Buckinghamshire. French physicist Louis Neel (b. 1904) on Nov. 17; 1970 Nobel Physics Prize. Italian composer-alpinist Toni Ortelli (b. 1904) on Mar. 3 in Schio. Am. film dir. Edward Bernds (b. 1905) on May 20 in Van Nuys, Calif. English novelist Anthony Powell (b. 1905) on Mar. 28 in Somerset. Am. dancer Elvera Sanchez Davis (b. 1905) on Sept. 2 in New York City. Lebanese PM (1952, 1953, 1960-1, 1970-3) Saeb Salam (b. 1905) on Jan. 21 in Geneva, Switzerland (exile) (heart attack). Am. celeb John Coolidge (b. 1906) on May 31 in Lebanon, N.H.; son of U.S. pres. Calvin Coolidge. Vietnamese PM (1955-87) Pham Van Dong (b. 1906) on Apr. 29 in Hanoi. Canadian-born Am. nuclear physicist Walter H. Zinn (b. 1906) on Feb. 14 in Clearwater, Fla. Am. writer L. Sprague de Camp (b. 1907) on Nov. 6 in Plano, Tex. English physician-entomologist Sir Cyril Astley Clarke (b. 1907) on Nov. 22. Am. Masters golf course architect Robert Trent Jones (b. 1907) on June 14 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; designed 350 courses in 45 states and 36 countries. East German Stasi spymaster Erich Mielke (b. 1907) on May 21 in Berlin. French novelist-diplomat Roger Peyrefitte (b. 1907) on Nov. 5; dies after copping out and receiving last rites. Austrian actress Paula Wessely (b. 1907) on May 11. U.S. Rep. (D-Okla.) (1947-77) Carl Albert (b. 1908) on Feb. 4 in McAlester, Okla. Romanian-born British WWII spymaster Vera Atkins (b. 1908) on June 24 in Hastings, Sussex. Am. sportswear designer Bonnie Cashin (b. 1908) on Feb. 3 in New York City. German-born French photographer Gisele Freund (b. 1908) on Mar. 31 in Paris. Am. novelist-ed. William Keepers Maxwell Jr. (b. 1908) on July 31 in New York City. Russian-born Am. singer Irra Petina (b. 1908) on Jan. 19 in Austin, Tex. Am. philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908) on Dec. 25 in Boston, Mass. Danish pianist-comedian Victor Borge (b. 1909) on Dec. 23 in Greenwich, Conn. Dutch Casimir Effect physicist Hendrik Casimir (b. 1909) on May 4 in Heeze. English archbishop of Canterbury (1974-) Donald Coggan (b. 1909) on May 17. Am. actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (b. 1909) on May 7 in New York City. Japanese WWII sub cmdr. Mochitsura Hashimoto (b. 1909) on Oct. 25 in Kyoto. Greek PM #70 (1973) Spyros Markezinis (b. 1909) on Jan. 4 in Athens. South African De Beers gold-diamond magnate Harry F. Oppenheimer (b. 1909) on Aug. 19 in Johannesburg. Am. "Love Story" songwriter Carl Sigman (b. 1909) on Sept. 26 in Manhasset, N.Y. Am. actress Claire Trevor (b. 1909) on Apr. 8 in Newport Beach, Calif. Am. journalism pioneer Robert Trout (b. 1909) on Nov. 14 in New York City. Am. Communist Party leader Gus Hall (b. 1910) on Oct. 13 in New York City; ran for U.S. pres. 4x, and served 8 years in priz - no deathbed repentance for moi? Am. entomologist Edward F. Knipling (b. 1910) on Mar. 17 in Arlington, Va. Danish queen consort (1947-72) Ingrid of Sweden (b. 1910) on Nov. 7 in Copenhagen. British children's writer Diana Ross (b. 1910) on May 4. Indian politician Chidambaram Subramaniam (b. 1910) on Nov. 7. Am. Columbia U. "NYT vs. Sullivan" law prof. Herbert Wechsler (b. 1910) on Apr. 26 in New York City. German Auschwitz Camp adjutant Karl-Friedrich Hocker (b. 1911) on Jan. 30 in Lubbecke. Am. composer Alan Hovhaness (b. 1911) on June 21; composed 70+ symphonies and 500+ total works. Am. "hillbilly songwriter" Zeke Manners (b. 1911) on Oct. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. stage producer David Merrick (b. 1911) on Apr. 25/26 in London. Polish "The Pianist" pianist-composer Wladyslaw Szpilman (b. 1911) on July 6 in Warsaw. Am. anthropologist Sherwood Washburn (b. 1911) on Apr. 16 in Berkeley, Calif. German-born Am. biochemist Konrad Emil Bloch (b. 1912) on Oct. 15 in Lexington, Mass.; 1964 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. environmentalist David Brower (b. 1912) on Nov. 5 in Berkeley, Calif. Am. "Gary Moore Show" TV personality Durward Kirby (b. 1912) on Mar. 15 in Ft. Myers, Fla. German gymnast Albert Schwarzmann (b. 1912) on Mar. 11 in Goslar. Am. playwright Samuel A. Taylor (b. 1912) on May 26 in Blue Hills, Maine (heart failure). Am. mobster Anthony "Tony Ducks" Corallo (b. 1913) on Aug. 23 in Springfield, Mo.; dies in prison. Am. composer Vivian Fine (b. 1913) on Mar. 20 in Bennington, Vt. Austrian-born Am. "Samson and Delilah" actress-inventor Hedy Lamarr (b. 1913) on Jan. 18-19 in Altamonte Springs (near Orlando), Fla.: "Any girl can be glamorous; all you have to do is stand still and look stupid"; "Films have a certain place in a certain time period; technology is forever"; "It is easier for women to succeed in business, the arts and politics in America than in Europe." Am. "The Rainmaker" playwright N. Richard Nash (b. 1913) on Dec. 11 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. actress Eugenia Rawls (b. 1913) on Nov. 8 in Denver, Colo. Am. poet Karl Shapiro (b. 1913) on May 14 in New York City. Welsh poet Ronald Stuart Thomas (b. 1913) on Sept. 25. German U-boat capt. Hans-Dietrich von Tiesenhausen (b. 1913) on Aug. 17 in Vancouver, Canada. Am. actress Loretta Young (b. 1913) on Aug. 12 in Los Angeles, Calif. English "Obi-Wan Kenobe" actor Sir Alec Guinness (b. 1914) on Aug. 3 in Midhurst, West Sussex (liver cancer). Am. bandleader Tex Beneke (b. 1914) on May 30 in Costa Mesa, Calif. Am. NBA exec Haskell Cohen (b. 1914) on June 28 in Fort Lee, N.J. Am. psychologist Bertram Forer (b. 1914) on Apr. 6. Polish-Am. WWII hero Jan Karski (b. 1914) on July 13 in Washington, D.C. Am. "The Tennessee Waltz" singer'songwriter Pee Wee King (b. 1914) on Mar. 7 in Louisville, Ky. Am. singer Bob Lido (b. 1914) on Aug. 9 (stroke). English "Master and Commander" novelist Patrick O'Brian (b. 1914) on Jan. 2 in Dublin. Am. auto racer Lee Petty (b. 1914) on Apr. 5. Am. children's writer Beatrice Schenk de Regniers (b. 1914) on Mar. 1 in Washington, D.C. Am. Olympic track and field athlete Mack Robinson (b. 1914) on Mar. 12 in Pasadena, Calif. Am. country musician Cliff Bruner (b. 1915) on Aug. 25 in Texas City, Tex. Am. tennis player Don Budge (b. 1915) on Jan. 26 in Scranton, Penn. (auto accident on Dec. 14). Egyptian Gen. Mohamed Fawzi (b. 1915) on Feb. ? in Heliopolis, Cairo. French archeologist Antoine Guillaumont (b. 1915) on Aug. 25. Am. football end Larry Kelley (b. 1915) on June 27 in Highstown, N.J. (suicide); sold his 1936 Heisman Trophy at auction 6 mo. earlier for $328,100. Am. screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. (b. 1915) on Nov. 1 in New York City; last surviving member of the 1947 Hollywood Ten. English soccer player Sir Stanley Matthews (b. 1915) on Feb. 23 in Stoke-on-Trent. English actor Hugh Paddick (b. 1915) on Nov. 11 in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. Am. Native Am. activist Helen Peterson (b. 1915) on July 10 in Vancouver, Wash. Am. statistician John Tukey (b. 1915) on July 26 in New Brunswick, N.J. (heart attack). English Mensa co-founder Lancelot Ware (b. 1915) on Aug. 15 in Surrey. Italian writer Giorgio Bassani (b. 1916) on Apr. 13 in Ferrara. English writer Penelope Fitzgerald (b. 1916) on Apr. 28. Am. actor-artist George Montgomery (b. 1916) on Dec. 12 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Am. CIA spy Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (b. 1916) on June 8. Am. actress Fran Ryan (b. 1916) on Jan. 15 in Burbank, Calif. English meteorologist John Sawyer (b. 1916) on Sept. 19. Spanish playwright Antonio Buero Vallejo (b. 1916) on Apr. 20 in Madrid. Am. children's book illustrator Leonard Weisgard (b. 1916) on Jan. 14 in Glumso, Denmark. Am. poet Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917) on Dec. 3 in Chicago, Ill. Am. foreign affairs adviser (JFK, LBJ) Bill Bundy (b. 1917). U.S. ambassador Arthur Henry Davis Jr. (b. 1917) on Nov. 24 in Vienna, Va. Am. writer Sebastian de Grazia (b. 1917) on Dec. 31 in Princeton, N.J. Canadian Silicon Valley pioneer Richard Hodgson (b. 1917) on Mar. 4 in Barbados (auto accident). Am. gay novelist-activist William Dale Jennings (b. 1917) on May 11. English artist Anthony Robert Klitz (b. 1917) on Sept. 19 in Dublin. Mexican ballet choreographer Amalia Hernandez (b. 1917) on Nov. 5 in Mexico City. Am. painter Jacob Lawrence (b. 1917) on June 9. Am. TV producer John Newland (b. 1917) on Jan. 10 in Los Angeles, Calif. (stroke). English "George Banks in Mary Poppins" actor David Tomlinson (b. 1917) on June 24 in Westminster, London. Am. bandleader Si Zentner (b. 1917) on Jan. 31 in Las Vegas, Nev. Canadian hockey hall-of-fame player Sid Abel (b. 1918) on Feb. 8 in Farmington Hills, Mich. Dutch crystallographer Herman Bijvoet (b. 1918) on Mar. 29 in Niewengen. Italian-born Am. flamenco dancer Jose Greco (b. 1918) on Dec. 31 in Lancaster, Penn. (heart failure). Dutch-born Am. physicist Abraham Pais (b. 1918) on July 28 in Copenhagen. Am. "Peter Gunn" actor Craig Stevens (b. 1918) on May 10 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). English Lava Lamp inventor Edward Craven Walker (b. 1918) on Aug. 15 in London. Am. jazz dancer-choreographer Peter Gennaro (b. 1919) on Sept. 28 in New York City. French writer Jacques Laurent (b. 1919) on Dec. 28 in Paris. Am. folk singer Ed McCurdy (b. 1919) on Mar. 23 Am. physicist William Aaron Nierenberg (b. 1919) on Sept. 10. Am. economist William N. Parker (b. 1919) on Apr. 29. Am. "Joey in Stalag 17" actor Robinson Stone (b. 1919) on May 11 in New York City. Canadian PM (1968-79, 1980-4) Pierre Elliott Trudeau (b. 1919) on Sept. 28. Am. physicist Joseph Weber (b. 1919) on Sept. 30 in Pittsburgh, Penn. (cancer). Am. food critic Craig Claiborne (b. 1920) on Jan. 22 in New York City. English "The Joy of Sex" physician Alex Comfort (b. 1920) on Mar. 26 near London - present company excepted? Hungarian-born Australian-Am. economist John Harsanyi (b. 1920) on Aug. 9 in Berkeley, Calif.; 1994 Nobel Economics Prize. German-born Am. "Col. Klink in Hogan's Heroes" actor Werner Klemperer (b. 1920) on Dec. 6 in New York City (cancer). Am. hall-of-fame baseball player-mgr. Bob Lemon (b. 1920) on Jan. 11 in Long Beach, Calif. Am. actor Walter Matthau (b. 1920) on July 1 in Santa Monica, Calif. (heart attack). Am. New York archbishop-cardinal (1984-2000) John O'Connor (b. 1920) on May 3 in Manhattan, N.Y. (brain cancer). Zimbabwe politician Ndabaningi Sithold (b. 1920) on Dec. 12 in Philadelphia, Penn. Am. adm. Elmo Zumwalt (b. 1920) on Jan. 2 in Durham, N.C. (lung cancer). Am. "Sgt. Whipple in Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." actor Buck Young (b. 1920) on Feb. 9 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. comedian Steve Allen (b. 1921) on Oct. 30 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart attack). Am. Broadway producer Alexander H. Cohen (b. 1920) on Apr. 22 in New York City; produced 101 Broadway shows. French "San-Antonio" crime novelist Frederic Dard (b. 1921) on June 6 in Bonnefontaine; pub. almost 300 books. Am. boxer Beau Jack (b. 1921) on Feb. 9. Am. liberal Repub. New York City mayor #103 (1966-73) John Lindsay (b. 1921) on Dec. 19 in Hilton Head Island, S.C. (pneumonia). Am. Nicholas Brothers tap dancer Harold Nicholas (b. 1921) on July 3 in New York (heart). Am. newpaper pub. James Cline Quayle (b. 1921) on July 7 in Sun City West, Ariz.; father of vice-pres. Dan Quayle. Canadian hockey player Maurice Richard (b. 1921) on May 27 in Montreal, Quebec; first non-politician honored with a state funeral in Quebec. English archbishop (of Canterbury) Robert Runcie (b. 1921) on July 11; officiated at the wedding of Prince Charles and Diana. Trinidadian calypsonian Lord Kitchener (b. 1922) on Feb. 11 in Champs Fleur; buried in Arima. French flautist Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal (b. 1922) on May 20 in Paris. Am. actor Jason Robards Jr. (b. 1922) on Dec. 27 in Bridgeport, Conn. (cancer). Am. "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles M. Schulz (b. 1922) on Feb. 12 in Santa Rosa, Calif. (colon cancer): "There is a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker." Czech Olympic runner Emil Zatopek (b. 1922) on Nov. 22 in Prague; dies from cancer contracted from working in a uranium mine as punishment for joining the 1968 Prague Spring. Am. sculptor and graphic artist Leonard Baskin (b. 1922) on June 3 in Northampton, Mass. (kidney disease). French screenwriter Leonardo Benvenuti (b. 1923) on Nov. 2 in Rome (heart attack). English Mini Cooper motorcar designer John Cooper (b. 1923) on Dec. 24 in Worthing, West Sussex (cancer). British political broadcaster Sir Robin Day (b. 1923) on Aug. 6. Argentine coronary bypass surgery pioneer Rene Favaloro (b. 1923) on July 29 in Buenos Aires (suicide). Am. "2nd Lt. Gil Hanley in Combat!" actor Rick Jason (b. 1923) on Oct. 16 in Moorpark, Calif. Trinidadian calypso songwriter Lord Kitchener (b. 1923) on Feb. 11 in Port of Spain. U.S. atty.-gen. #68 (1972-3) Richard Gordon Kleindienst (b. 1923) on Feb. 3 in Prescott, Ariz. (lung cancer). Irish-born British mystery writer Patricia Moyes (d. 1923) on Aug. 2 in Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands. Am. "The Mambo Kings" drummer-bandleader Tito Puente (b. 1923) on May 31 in New York City (heart failure); recorded almost 120 albums; the govt. of Puerto Rico declares three days of mourning. Am. physicist John Hamilton Reynolds (b. 1923) on Nov. 4 in Berkeley, Calif. Ukrainian-born Am. historian Adam Bruno Ulam (b. 1923) on Mar. 28 in Cambridge, Mass. (lung cancer). Am. "High Aldwin in Willow", "Gwildor in Masters of the Universe" 3'9" actor Billy Barty (b. 1924) on Dec. 23 in Glendale, Calif. (heart failure); no, he wasn't in "The Wizard of Oz" (1939). Am. poet Edgar Bowers (b. 1924) on Feb. 4 in San Francisco, Calif. Welsh computer scientist (co-inventor of packet switching) Donald Watts Davies (b. 1924) on May 28. Am. football player Lou Groza (b. 1924). Am. Dallas Cowboys football coach Tom Landry (b. 1924) on Feb. 12 in Dallas, Tex. (leukemia). Am. filmmaker Lionel Rogosin (b. 1924) on Dec. 8 in Los Angeles, Calif. French film dir. Claude Sautet (b. 1924) on July 22 in Paris (cancer). Dutch holistic writer Jack Schwarz (b. 1924) on Nov. 26. Am. painter George Segal (b. 1924) on June 9 in South Brunswick, N.J. (cancer). Japanese PM #74 (1987-9) Noboru Takeshita (b. 1924) on June 19 in Tokyo - he tooka his last shita? Am. poet Edgar Bowers (b. 1925) on Feb. 3 in San Francisco, Calif. (non-Hodgkins lymphoma). Am. "The Chocolate War" novelist Robert Cormier (b. 1925) on Nov. 2 in Boston, Mass. Am. E.F. Hutton CEO (1970-87) Robert M. Fomon (b. 1925) on May 31 in Palm Beach, Fla. (heart attack). Am. illustrator Edward St. John Gorey (b. 1925) on Apr. 15 in Yarmouth Port, Mass. Am. journalist Carl Thomas Rowan (b. 1925) on Sept. 23 in Washington, D.C. Am. actress-dancer Gwen Verdon (b. 1925) on Oct. 18 in Woodstock, Vt. Pakistani actress-singer Noor Jehan (b. 1926) on Dec. 23 in Karachi. Am. "Dr. Zhivago" singer-actress Julie London (b. 1926) on Oct. 18 in Encino, Calif. (stroke in 1995). Am. actress Jean Peters (b. 1926) on Oct. 13 in Carlsbad, Calif.: "My life with Howard Hughes was and shall remain a matter on which I will have no comment." Am. "Hercules" actor Steve Reeves (b. 1926) on May 1 in Escondido, Calif. (lymphoma). Russian opthalmologist Syavoslav Fyodorov (b. 1927) on June 2 in Moscow. English physics teacher Geoffrey E. Perry (b. 1927) on Jan. 18 in Bude. Canadian "Count Baltar in Battlestar Galactica" actor John Colicos (b. 1928) on Mar. 6 in Toronto, Ont. (heart attack). Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser (b. 1928) on Feb. 19; dies aboard the QEII. Am. "The Coasters" singer Will "Dub" Jones (b. 1928) on Jan. 16 in Long Beach, Calif. (diabetes). Am. "Livia in The Sopranos" actress Nancy Marchand (b. 1928) on June 18 in Stratford, Conn. (lung cancer). Am. football QB Tobin Rote (b. 1928) on June 27 in Saginaw, Mich. (heart attack). French film dir. Roger Vadim (b. 1928) on Feb. 11 in Paris (cancer). Austrian bass-baritone Walter Berry (b. 1929) on Oct. 27. French food critic Henri Gault (b. 1929) on July 9. Am. singer Jalacy "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins (b. 1929) on Feb. 12. Am. actor John Milford (b. 1929) on Aug. 14 in Santa Monica, Calif. Am. wrestling commentator Gordon Solie (b. 1929) on July 27. Am. radar scientist Peter Swerling (b. 1929) on Aug. 25 in Southern Calif. (cancer). Syrian pres. (1969-2000) Hafez al-Assad (b. 1930) on June 10 in Damascus (heart attack). Belgian-born Am. futurist FM-2030 (b. 1930) on July 8 in Scottsdale, Ariz. (pancreatic cancer); placed in cryonic suspension. Zambian PM (1978-81) Daniel Lisulo (b. 1930) on Aug. 21 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Bahamian PM (1967-92) Lynden O. Pindling (b. 1930) on Aug. 26 in Nassau (prostate cancer). English cricketer Brian Statham (b. 1930) on June 10 in Stockport, Cheshire. Am. jazz musician Nat Adderley (b. 1931) on Jan. 2 in Lakeland, Fla. (diabetes). Am. actor Richard Mulligan (b. 1932) on Sept. 26 in Los Angeles, Calif. (colon cancer). English-born Canadian biochemist Michael Smith (b. 1932) on Oct. 4 in Vancouver, B.C. (cancer); 1993 Nobel Chem. Prize. Soviet cosmonaut Yevgeny Khrunov (b. 1933) on May 19 in Moscow (heart attack). English crime boss Reginald Kray (b. 1933) on Oct. 1 in Norwich. Italian PM (1983-7) Bettino Craxi (b. 1934) on Jan. 19 in Hammamet, Tunisia (exile) (heart attack). Am. "Peggy Fair in Mannix" actress Gail Fisher (b. 1935) on Dec. 2 in Culver City, Calif.; first black actress to have a speaking part on a nat. U.S. TV ad (for All brand detergent). Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov (b. 1935) on Sept. 20 in Moscow. English evolutionary biologist William Donald Hamilton (b. 1936) on Mar. 7 in Oxford (malaria); fatally bitten by a mosquito in the DRC while seeking evidence to support his theory that the AIDS epidemic can be traced to contaminated polio vaccines; leaves money in his will to have his body taken to Brazil to be eaten by Coprophanaeus beetles, after which "I will buzz in the dusk like a huge bumble bee" (not carried out) - survival of the fittest joke here? Scottish politician Donald Dewar (b. 1937) on Oct. 11. Am. songwriter Jack Nitzsche (b. 1937) on Aug. 25 in Hollywood, Calif. (heart attack). Japanese PM (1998-2000) Keizo Obuchi (b. 1937) on May 14 (stroke). Am. sci-fi novelist John Thomas Sladek (b. 1937) on Mar. 10 in Minn. (pulmonary fibrosis). Am. "Disco Lady" singer Johnnie Taylor (b. 1937) on May 31 in Dallas, Tex. Am. "Maj. Frank Burns in M*A*S*H" actor Larry Linville (b. 1939) on Apr. 10 in New York City (cancer). Am. actor Lawrence Linville (b. 1940) on Apr. 10 in New York City. Am. R&B singer Bobby Sheen (b. 1941) on Nov. 23 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pneumonia). German-born English singer Heinz Burt (b. 1942) on Apr. 7 in Weston, Hampshire. English punk rock vocalist Ian Drury (b. 1942) on Mar. 27 in Hampstead, London (colorectal cancer). Am. rocker David "Lonesome Dave" Peverett (b. 1943) on Feb. 7 (cancer). Am. "Billie Jo in Petticoat Junction" actress Meredith MacRae (b. 1944) on July 14 in Manhattan Beach, Calif. (brain cancer). Am. "Jean", "Good Morning Starshine" singer Oliver (b. 1945) on Feb. 13 (cancer). Am. pychonaut-writer Terence McKenna (b. 1946) on Apr. 3 in San Rafael, Calif. (brain cancer). Japanese smart gell biophysicist Toyoichi Tanaka (b. 1946) on May 20 in Wellesley, Mass. (heart attack while playing tennis). Canadian illusionist Doug Henning (b. 1947) on Feb. 7 in Los Angeles, Calif. (liver cancer). Am. rocker Benjamin Orr (b. 1947) (The Cars) on Oct. 3 Atlanta, Ga. (pancreatic cancer). Am. environmentalist Marc Reisner (b. 1949) on July 21 in San Anselmo, Calif. (cancer). Am. "Ernest P. Worrell" actor Jim Varney (b. 1949) on Feb. 10 in White House, Tenn. (lung cancer). Irish motorcyclist Joey Dunlop (b. 1952) on July 2 in Tallinn, Estonia (motorcycle crash). Serbian crime boss Arkan (Zelijko Raznatovic) (b. 1952) on Jan. 15 in Belgrade (assassinated by Dobrosav Gavric). Am. "Turn the Beat Around" singer-actress Vicki Sue Robinson (b. 1954) on Apr. 27 in Wilton, Conn. (cancer). Am. Herbalife founder Mark R. Hughes (b. 1956) on May 21 in Malibu, Calif. (OD of alcohol and Doxepin). Israeli singer Ofra Haza (b. 1957) on Feb. 23 in Ramat Gan(AIDS) (from her husband?). English singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl (b. 1959) on Dec. 18 off Cozumel, Mexico; killed by a speedboat racing through water reserved for swimmers. Am. musician Dennis Danell (Social Distortion) (b. 1961) on Feb. 29. Am. NASCAR auto racer Tony Roper (b. 1964) on Oct. 13 (racing crash). Israeli rabbi Binyamin Ze'ev Kahane (b. 1966) on Dec. 31 near Ofra (assassinated). Am. wrestler Yokozuna (Rodney Anoa'i) (b. 1966) on Oct. 22. Am. football player Derrick Thomas, American football player (b. 1967) on Feb. 8. Ukrainian journalist Georgiy R. Gongadze (b. 1969) on Sept. 16 (murdered?). Am. NASCAR auto racer Kenny Irwin (b. 1969) on July 7. Am. 700 lb. rapper Big Pun (b. 1971) on Feb. 7 in White Plains, N.Y. (heart attack). Am. cyclist Nicole Reinhart (b. 1976) on Sept. 17 in Arlington, Mass. (bicycle accident). Am. auto racer Adam Petty (b. 1980) on May 12 in N.H. (auto crash).
2001 Doomsday Clock: 9 min. to midnight. Time Man of the Year: Rudolph Giuliani (1944-). This is the U.N. Internat. Year of Volunteers. Chinese Year: White (Golden) Snake (Year 4699) (Jan. 24) - Clinton is back? World pop.: China 1.27B, India 1.03B, U.S. 285M, Indonesia 206M, Brazil 172M, Pakistan 145M, Russia 144M, Bangladesh 134M, Japan 127M, Nigeria 127M, Mexico 100M. India belatedly decides to renounce its British colonial past by renaming its West Bengal city of Calcutta to Kolkata. 390K (0.9%) in England list their religion as Jedi. At the Labour Party Conference on Oct. 2, British PM Tony Blair utters the soundbyte: "The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world"; meanwhile the African Economic Miracle begins, with GDP growing at 4.9%/year, reaching $1.6T in 2008. A billion isn't what it used to be, or, It's good to be a rich Republican in America? By the end of this year there are 497 world billionaires, down from 551 in 2000; 7K U.S. households have an income of $10M or higher, and pay less income tax than people making $400K; people earning $60K pay a larger share of their income in taxes than families making $25M; corporations pay only 16% of all U.S. federal taxes, compared to 60% in the 1950s. The prcentage of leftist faculty members at U.S. campuses begins to skyrocket, growing to 60^ by 2016. By the end of the year there are 445M people online worldwide, of which 119M (27%) are in the U.S. The U.N. World Pop. Report warns of disaster ahead if pop. growth cannot be controlled. In the last 35 cents. there have been only 227 years without some kind of war going on somewhere on Earth; 160M died in wars in the 20th cent. U.S. trade deficit: $389B. On Jan. 1 Washington defeats Purdue by 34-24 to win the 2001 Rose Bowl. On Jan. 1 Canada's new shotgun and rifle licensing law goes into effect, along with new warning labels on cigarettes - what, warning labels on shotguns didn't work? On Jan. 1 a car bomb wounds at least 40 people in Netanya, Israel. On Jan. 1 a fire in a cafe in Volendam, Netherlands kills 12 and injures 200. On Jan. 1 the Georgian-registered cargo ship Pati, carrying illegal immigrants wrecks off the coast of Turkey, killing 6. By Jan. 1, 2001 approx. 5% of the world's adult pop. are active Internet users; the total business-consumer commerce done on the Internet reaches $26B, up from $8B in 1998. On Jan. 2 Pres. Clinton meets with Yasser Arafat, and on Jan. 3 Arafat accepts "with reservations" a proposed peace settlement. On Jan. 2 pres.-elect George W. Bush chooses Mich. Sen. (since 1995) Edward Spencer Abraham (1952-) as energy secy. (until 2005), Linda Chavez (1947-) as labor secy. (first Hispanic female member of the U.S. cabinet) (until Jan. 9), and Dem. Norman Yoshio Mineta (1931-) (Clinton's commerce secy. since last July, the first Asian-Am. to serve in a pres. cabinet) (who lived in a Japanese internment camp in Wyo. in WWII, and became the first Asian-Am. mayor of San Jose, Calif. in 1971-5) as transportation secy. (until 2006), the only Dem. in Bush's cabinet. On Jan. 2 Ryaas Rasyid, admin. reform minister of Indonesia resigns in frustration over govt. inertia. On Jan. 3 in Prague 100K people gather in Wenceslas Square to support striking TV journalists. On Jan. 3 four Indian soldiers and two civilians are killed at the Pakistan-India border post of Arhayee Mandi. On Jan. 3 in Spain a commuter train hits a van near Lorca, killing 12 Ecuadoran farm workers. On Jan. 3 in Tanzania six armed men attack a ferry with 50 passengers in Lake Tanganyika, shooting three then making the male passengers jump into the lake, where dozens drown. On Jan. 3 in Turkey suicide bomber Gulteki Koc kills himself and two others in a police station in Istanbul. On Jan. 3 Framingham, Mass.-born Calif. state senator (1997-2000) Adam Bennett Schiff (1960-) becomes a Dem. U.S. rep. for Calif. (until ?), based in the Los Angeles area, going on to introduce House Resolution 106 on Oct. 11, 2007 recognizing the Armenian genocide, followed by a campaign finance reform amendment, and legislation to force the FAA to curb heli noise in Los Angeles County; in 2007 he joins the House Foreign Affairs Committee, working up to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; in 2014 Nancy Pelosi appoints him to the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which he turns into an investigation blocking committee?; in 2018 he goes on to become a thorn in Donald Trump's side with the fake news Russia-Trump investigation, causing Pres. Trump to call him "Sleazy Adam Schiff". On Jan. 3 the weekly Top 20 Countdown debuts on CMT (until Nov. 30, 2012); on May 28 the daily CMT Most Wanted Live debuts on CMT (until Apr. 3, 2004), broadcasting live from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tenn. On Jan. 4 in Indonesia rival villages clash on Lombok, killing nine; seven more are killed in North Sulawesi in fighting between rival villages. On Jan. 4 it is reported that Russia had moved nuclear warheads into storage areas at its Kaliningrad naval base over the past year; Russian authorities call the report a dangerous joke. On Jan. 4 in Sri Lanka the defense ministry announces that the 2000 civil war left 3,753 people dead, incl. 87 civilians. On Jan. 5 Pres. Clinton bans roads and most logging in 58.5M acres of federal forests in 38 states - what do we do with all these wanigans? On Jan. 5 U.S. Repub. agrees to share power in the Senate with Dems. on committees. On Jan. 5 India test-flies its first locally-developed jet fighter. On Jan. 6 the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church of Am. inaugurate an alliance to share clergy, churches and missionary work. On Jan. 6 in Somalia Rahanwein Resistance Army gunmen attack govt. forces escorting officials, killing nine near the village of Teiglow. On Jan. 6 in South Africa it is reported that cholera had recently sickened some 13K people in KwaZulu-Natal, killing at least 53. On Jan. 6 in Thailand telecom magnate Thaksin Shinawatra (1949-) and his Thais Love Thais (Thai Rak Thai) party wins 248 of 500 lower parliament seats in the election, and he becomes PM (until 2006). On Jan. 7 Pres. Clinton tells the people of Israel, "There is no choice for you but to divide this land into two states for two people". On Jan. 7 500 Turkish troops push 100 mi. into N Iraq in response to a call for help from the PUK, which is fighting the PKK; 10K Turkish troops have entered N Iraq since Dec. 20. On Jan. 7 in the Ivory Coast mutinous soldiers attack the broadcasting facilities and offices of the state TV and radio in Abidjan in a failed coup attempt. On Jan. 7 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin on the Ritz pledges to pay all of its Soviet-era internat. debts. On Jan. 8 Donna Bailey, paralyzed from a Ford Explorer rollover crash settles her lawsuit with Ford and Firestone for $20M along with the disclosure of internal memos and reports on tire safety and rollover issues. On Jan. 8 the Taliban orders the death penalty for anyone who converts from Islam to a different religion in Afghanistan; the same day they massacre 300 unarmed Shiite Hazaras in Yakaolang - pissing the Shiite out of Iran? On Jan. 8 it is reported that Britain is culling 20K-30K older cows per week in the mad cow crisis and that it will take two years to catch up with the backlog for rendering their remains to powder. On Jan. 8 Ken Burns' documentary miniseries Jazz debuts on PBS-TV for 10 episodes (until Jan. 31, 2001), chronicling the history of Am. jazz. On Jan. 9 Bush labor secy. nominee Linda Chavez (1947-) withdraws following reports that she housed an illegal immigrant and possibly paid her for house chores; on Jan. 11 Bush chooses Elaine Chao (1953-) (former head of the Peace Corps and United Way) as U.S. labor secy.; he also chooses Robert Bruce Zoellick (1953-) to be the U.S. trade rep. On Jan. 9 the U.S. Supreme Court limits the reach of federal law to protect wetlands. On Jan. 10 America Online (AOL) buys Time Warner for $106B, creating the world's largest media co.; the FCC approves the sale on Jan. 11; too bad, the rise of Google and loss of customers shrinks its stock worth from $20B in 2005 to $2B-$3B by 2009, incl. $1B invested in it by Google in 2005. On Jan. 10 China sends rats into orbit aboard its "sacred ship" Shenzhou II, powered by a Long March rocket; it returns on Jan. 16. On Jan. 10 Colombian soldiers rescue 56 hostages held by ELN guerrillas outside Barbosa. On Jan. 10 German chancellor Helmut Schroeder creates a new super-ministry for food, agriculture and consumer protection to combat mad cow disease. On Jan. 11 Unisys, Dell and Microsoft announce an agreement to jointly create an electronic voting system. On Jan. 11 the Chinese media report at least 27 people dead from a New Year's Day blizzard in inner Mongolia. On Jan. 11 Jiri Hodac resigns as the chief of public TV in the Czech Repub. as over 50K protesters demonstrate in Wenceslas Square for guarantees of politically independent TV. On Jan. 11 Israeli and Palestinian high-level peace talks resume as Israel lifts the blockade of the West Bank towns of Qalqilyah and Jenin and reopens the Palestinian airport in Gaza, along with travel from the West Bank to Jordan and from Gaza to Egypt; too bad, on June 24 Palestinian militants fire three homemade rockets into S Israel, causing Israel to reclose the border crossings into Gaza. On Jan. 13 a 7.6 earthquake near San Salvador, El Salvador kills 700 and causes $1B damage. On Jan. 13 the Palestine Authority executes two Palestinians convicted of collaborating with Israel, the first ever - it started with that Mogen David wine? On Jan. 14 Pres. Sampaio wins reelection in Portugal. On Jan. 14 news reports surface that power generators in Calif. are suspected of shutting down power plants to sell higher-priced natural gas, causing power shortages and high prices; on Jan. 17 Calif. Gov. Davis declares a state of emergency and orders the Dept. of Water Resources to buy and sell electricity. On Jan. 16 Dem. Repub. of Congo (DRC) pres. (since May 17, 1997) Laurent-Desire Kabila (b. 1939) is assassinated by one of his bodyguards, who is suspected of working for Rwanda, and is succeeded on Jan. 17 by his son Joseph Kabila Kabange (1971-) (until Jan. 24, 2019), becoming the first dem.-elected pres. of Congo; in 2011 he is elected for a 2nd term. On Jan. 16 Ecuadoran tanker Jessica runs aground on San Cristobal Island in the Galapagos Islands and begins leaking diesel - Charles Darwin rolls over in his grave? On Jan. 16 25-.y.-o. Palestinian terrorist (secular Muslim) Amna Jawad Ali Muna (1976-) lures horny 16-y.-o. Israeli Jew Ofir Rahum (b. 1984) to his death near Ramallah via an Internet cafe; she is released in the 2011 Gilad Shalit POW swap. On Jan. 17 the British House of Commons votes 387-174 to ban fox hunting; after loud protests they reverse themselves on Dec. 3, 2002, while tightening controls - men? Speaking of fox hunting? On Jan. 18 Rev. Jesse Jackson acknowledges that he fathered a daughter in 1999 after an extramarital affair with Karin Stanford, former head of the Rainbow/PUSH Washington office. On Jan. 18 Barack Obama gives an interview to Chicago Public Radio, where he openly discusses his desire to redistribute wealth, i.e., take it from those who earned or inherited it and hand it to those who didn't, praising the Supreme Court for being activist toward civil rights for blacks, then complaining "The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, as least as it's been interpreted, and Warren Court interpreted in the same way that, generally, the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties, says what the states can't do to you, says what the federal government can't do to you, but it doesn't say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn't shifted."; he adds "Maybe I'm showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor. I'm not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn't structured that way."; his solution is ground-up community organizing? Speaking of fox hunting? On Jan. 19 Pres. Clinton admits that he misled prosecutors about his relationship with aide Monica Lewinsky, and strikes a deal with independent counsel Robert Ray to accept a 5-year suspension of his Ark. law license and pay a $25K fine. On Jan. 19. Pres. Clinton lifts U.S. economic sanctions against Yugoslavia. On Jan. 19 the U.S. and Israel sign an agreement to phase out economic aid by 2008; half the aid will be replaced by military aid, and $80M is pledged separately to a U.N. relief agency for Palestinian refugees. On Jan. 19 U.N. sanctions against Afghanistan begin following a 30-day deadline for the handover of Osama bin Laden by the Taliban; meanwhile Afghanistan has its worst drought in 30 years. On Jan. 19 Belgium agrees to decriminalize marijuana use. On Jan. 19 Indonesia extends a truce in Banda Aceh Province after talks with separatists in Switzerland; the province launches a new Sharia police that becomes very unpopular. On Jan. 19 in Mexico Joaquin Guzman Loera, AKA El Chapo (Sp. "shorty") (1954-) escapes from the maximum-security prison in Jalisco state; 78 people are implicated in helping him, incl. prison dir. Leonardo Beltran. On Jan. 19 Pres. Clinton agrees to a 5-year suspension of his Ark. law license, and resigns from the U.S. Supreme Court bar. I'm calling from the White House - can you get me free tickets to the Super Bowl? On Jan. 20 in his final hours in office Pres. Clinton issues 36 commutations and 140 pardons for billionaire fugitive Jewish financier Marc (Marcell David) Rich (Reich) (1934-2013), Susan McDougal, Patricia Hearst, Henry Cisneros, John Deutch, his brother Roger Clinton et al., causing the Pardongate mini-scandal; it is later revealed that Hillary Clinton's younger brother (failed Georgian hazelnut importer) Hugh Edwin "Hughie" Rodham (1950-) received $400K to help two felons, cocaine dealer Carlos Anibal Vignali and tax dodger (Gero Vita Internat. founder) Almon Glenn Braswell (1943-2006) win clemency; after leaving office, Bill Clinton becomes one of the most successful world leaders to transition to private life, with his counselor (since 1995) Douglas J. "Doug" Band (1972-) helping him in 2005 to found the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) as a project of the William J. Clinton Foundation, which goes on to raise $46B for 1.2K philanthropic projects impacting 200M in 150 countries by the end of the decade, by which time thanks to books, speaking fees, etc. the Clantoon Gang is Oprah rich, raking in $108M before taxes by 2008, even after taking $190K worth of china, flatware, rugs, TVs, sofas et al. with them when they leave the White House, after which they announce that they will return $28K in gifts and pay $86K. An actor yes, but a chimp in the White House? On Jan. 20 New Haven, Conn.-born pickup truck-riding Tex. ranch owner, oilman, Yale and Harvard grad., F-102 pilot, and former Texas gov. George Walker "Dubya" Bush (1946-) (Secret Service codename: Tumbler/Trailblazer) becomes the 43rd U.S. pres. (until Jan. 20, 2009) in the 63rd U.S. Pres. Inauguration in Washington, D.C. (2nd pres. son after J.Q. Adams to win the White House, and first pres. with an MBA degree), only this one goes two terms and becomes one of the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history; the first monkey pres.?; has and his daddy George H.W. Bush have a striking resemblance to British Queen Elizabeth II and/or Prince Charles?; Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney (1941-) (Secret Service codename: Angler) (whom Bush calls "Big Time") becomes the 46th U.S. vice-pres. (until 2009), the 2nd born in Neb. (first Gerald Ford); the inaug. theme is "Celebrating America's Spirit Together"; the 3rd time that the U.S. has six living presidents (Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr.); Bush is sworn-in on the same Bible used by the last "George" to be president, George Washington; First Lady is Laura Lane Welch Bush (1946-) (Secret Service codename: Tempo) (a smoker until her hubby was elected gov. of Texas?); First Dog is Scottish terrier Miss Beazley (2004-14) (father named Clinton); Lawrence Ari Fleischer (1960-) becomes White House press secy. #24 (until July 15, 2003); John David Ashcroft (1942-) (former member of the "Singing Senators" with Larry Craig et al.) becomes U.S. atty.-gen. #79 (until Feb. 3, 2005); on Jan. 22 Stephen John Hadley (1947-) becomes deputy U.S. nat. security adviser (until Jan. 26, 2005); Donald Henry Rumsfeld (1932-) becomes U.S. defense secy. #21 (until Dec. 18, 2006), the oldest (69), and earlier the youngest (43) (#13 under Pres. Ford in 1975-7). The second time since 1986 that people power has pushed a man out of the presidency in Manila and put a woman in On Jan. 20 as tens of thousands united by cell phone messages march on his residence, Philippine Pres. Joseph Estrada steps down, and vice-pres. (of the Lakas-Christian Muslim Dem. Party) Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (1947-), daughter of former pres. (1961-5) Diosdado Macapagal succeeds him as Philippines pres. #14 (until June 30, 2010). On Jan. 20 nine miners are killed and 15 injured in a gas explosion in the Donetsk coal region of Ukraine. On Jan. 22 Pres. Bush bans U.S. funding for overseas abortion counseling. On Jan. 22 police in Colorado Springs, Colo. catch four escaped Tex. convicts, while a 5th commits suicide; two more are caught two days later. On Jan. 22 in Britain the House of Lords pass legislation that effectively legalizes the creation of cloned human embryos. On Jan. 22 Japanese economics minister Fukushiro Nukaga resigns after a bribery scandal, and is succeeded by Taro Aso (1940-) (tear a hole in your what?), who becomes known for colorful comments, such as that he'd like to make Japan a place where rich Jews would like to live, that one day info. technology will replace paper with "floppies", and that Japan is the only country in the world with "one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture, and one race". On Jan. 22 Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin puts his domestic security agency in charge of the war effort in Chechnya - friendships never go out of style? On Jan. 22-27 Israel and Palestine officials meet in Taba, Egypt, but fail to reach a peace accord after Palestine Nat. Council chmn. Salim Za'anun says in Feb. that the PLO Covenant calling for Israel's destruction has never been changed, and in Mar. Faysal al-Husseini utters the soundbyte: "We may lose or win, but our eyes will continue to aspire to the strategic goal, namely, to Palestine from the river to the sea." On Jan. 23 U.S. energy secy. Spencer Abraham extends two federal emergency orders forcing suppliers to continue selling electricity and natural gas to Calif., which holds an auction on Jan. 24 for long-term electricity contracts. On Jan. 23 in China five people believed to be members of Falun Gong set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square; one dies. On Jan. 23 in Egypt Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are suspended after Palestinian gunmen execute two Israelis (alleged Shin Bet security agents) in Tulkarem. On Jan. 25 RUTACA Airlines Flight 225 (DC-3) crashes, killing all 24 aboard. On Jan. 26 a 7.9 earthquake hits the vegetarian-dominated Indian state of Gujarat, killing 30K. On Jan. 26 the 198-ft. vessel Pamyat Merkuriya sinks in the Black Sea, killing 14. On Jan. 26 a U.N. panel criticizes Saudi Arabia for discriminating against women, harassing minors, and inflicting medieval punishments such as flogging and stoning. On Jan. 26 black teenager Benjamin Hermansen is stabbed to death in Holmlia, Norway; five Neo-Nazi Bootboys are arrested for it. On Jan. 27 Bill Gates pledges $100M for an AIDS vaccine - he must not have AIDS himself or it would have been $100 billion? On Jan. 27 (19:37 EST) the Okla. State U. Cowboys Basketball Team Plane Crash sees their Beechcraft Super King Air 200 crash in a field in a snowstorm en route home from Jefferson County Airport near Stasburg, Colo. 40 mi. E of Denver carrying two players and six broadcasters and coaching staff, killing 10 incl. the pilot and co-pilot, causing a memorial titled "Remember the Ten" to be erected in the Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Okla. On Jan. 27 riot police prevent 1K protesters from reaching the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. On Jan. 27 the Iran news agency reports that three intel agents were sentenced to death and 12 others to life in prison for their roles in murdering dissident writers and intellectuals. On Jan. 27 federal agents unearth the bones of Austin, Tex.-based Am. Atheists leader Madalyn Murray O'Hair (b. 1924), her son Jon Garth Murray, and granddaughter Robin Murray O'Hair (all missing since 1995) at a 5K-acre S Tex. ranch in Camp Wood, Tex.; O'Hair's office mgr. David Roland Waters (1947-2003) receives 60 years for embezzlement, then makes an agreement with prosecutors to lead investigators to the bones, which are charred and buried about 2.5 ft. down near a grove of live oaks. On Jan. 28 Super Bowl XXXV (35) is held in Raymond Jones Stadium in Tampa, Fla.; NFL turf consultant George Toma (1929-) deploys inflatable snakes on the field when it is seeded 2 weeks earlier; the Baltimore Ravens (AFC) defeat the N.Y. Giants (NFC) 34-7 as three TDs are scored in a 36-sec. span in the 3rd quarter, starting with Ravens DB Duane Starks intercepting a Kerry Collins pass and returning it 49 yards for a TD, then Ron Dixon of the Giants running back the ensuing kickoff 97 yards, then Baltimore's Jermaine Lewis countering with an 84-yard kickoff return; Ravens LB (#52) Raymond Anthony "Ray" Lewis (1975-) is MVP. On Jan. 28 Pope John Paul II names five new cardinals and reveals the identities of two others from the former Soviet Union. On Jan. 28 weekend clashes in Zanzibar (Tanzania) kill at least 37 people as protesters demand new elections. On Jan. 29 born-again Baptist Pres. Bush signs an executive order creating a new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. On Jan. 29 110 Afghan refugees freeze to death in camps near the W city of Herat. On Jan. 29 Judge Juan Guzman of Chile issues the first indictment of Chilean dictator Gen. August Pinochet on human rights charges; too bad, his claim of poor health keeps him from being tried - that's some bad cough, nucklehead? On Jan. 29 in Indonesia 10K protesters march in Jakarta over corruption scandals involving Pres. Wahid. On Jan. 29 demonstrators in Turin, Italy (the city where dogs must be walked three times a day?) clash with police following an agreement between France and Italy to establish a $10B high-speed rail line between Turin and Lyon. On Jan. 30 17K teachers, hospital workers and police march in Paris to demand pay increases. On Jan. 30 Turkish MP Mehmet Fevzi Sihanlioglu is beaten by fellow lawmakers in the Grand Nat. Assembly and dies of a heart attack. On Jan. 30-31 in the Netherlands a Scottish court convicts Libyan intel officer Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi of murder in the 1998 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 and sentences him to life; a 2nd Libyan, Al-Amin Khalifa Fahima is acquitted, and Muammar Gaddafi claims that al-Megrahi is innocent. On Jan. 31 the U.S. Senate 75-24 confirms Gale Norton as the first female interior secy. (until 2006). In Jan. Canadian foreign affairs minister John Manley offers to second an Apr. 2000 offer from Canadian PM Jean Chrétien to resettle supposedly oppressed Palestinians in Canada, but PLO spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman rejects them, with the soundbyte: "We reject any kind of settlement of refugees in Arab countries, or in Canada", after which Manley is burned in effigy near the West Bank city of Nablus, and Hussum Khader, head of the largest Palestinian Fatah militia in Nablus utters the soundbyte: "If Canada is serious about resettlement you could expect military attacks in Ottawa or Montreal." In Jan.-Feb. more earthquakes ravage El Salvador, and over 1K die, and 1M are left homeless. In Jan. the Honduran Committee for the Defence of Human Rights charges that over 1K street children were murdered the previous year by death squads backed by police in Honduras, despite civilian rule. In Jan. an estimated 32M pilgrims attend the Hindu Kumbh festival in India. In early Feb. foot and mouth disease breaks out at Burnside farm, Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, England; by Feb. 25 most of Britain has been declared contaminated and millions of head of cattle and sheep are destroyed in an effort to control it; crisis levels are reached by Mar. 23. On Feb. 6 right-winger (alleged war criminal) Ariel Sharon (1928-) of the Likud Party wins the election, and on Mar. 7 becomes PM of Israel (until Jan. 4, 2006). On Feb. 6 Philippine Labor Party leader (former Communist) Filemon "Ka Popoy" Lagman (b. 1953) is assassinated in Quezon City. On Feb. 6 Miami, Fla. businessman Konstaninos "Gus" Boulis (b. 1949), founder of the Miami Subs sandwich chain is shot to death in his car a few mo. after selling a fleet of casino boats (SunCruz Casinos) in Sept. 2000 to prominent Washington lobbyist Jack Off, er, Jack Abramoff (1959-) and his partner Adam Kidan, who are indicted in Aug. 2005 on federal fraud charges in the purchase; in Sept. 2005 Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello (1938-), Anthony "Little Tony" Ferrari (1947-), and James "Pudgy" Fiorillo (1977-) are arrested for the murder; on Mar. 29, 2006 Abramoff is sentenced to 5 years 10 mo.; on Sept. 4, 2008 he gets four more years for his corruption scheme on Capitol Hill, calling himself "a broken man". On Feb. 7 to prevent the city of Greenwood Village from annexing it, the city of Centennial, Colo. is formed from portions of unincorporated Arapahoe County, with its 100K pop. making it the largest incorporation in U.S. history (until ?); incorporated on a promise to keep city taxes at 1%, it grows to 2.5% by 2017. On Feb. 9 the submarine USS Greenville collides with and sinks the Ehime Maru, a Japanese high school fishing training boat in Oahu, Hawaii, killing nine and causing an internat. incident. On Feb. 16 a bus convoy carrying 250 Orthodox Christian Serbs to a religious ceremony in Kosovo is bombed in Podujevo as it crosses the Serbian border by Muslim Albanian extremists, killing seven and injuring 40+, causing cries of more ethnic cleansing, this time by the Muslims. Who can you trust? On Feb. 18 veteran white straight-laced FBI agent (Roman Catholic Opus Dei member who attends Mass daily and likes Internet porn) Robert Philip Hanssen (1944-) is arrested at Foxstone Park near his home in Vienna, Va. for spying for the Russians (for 22 years) after a massive spy hunt, and on Feb. 20 he is charged with spying; FBI dir. (since Sept. 1, 1993) Louis Freeh resigns on May 1 (effective June 25), and is replaced by Thomas J. Pickard (1950-) (both born on Jan. 6, 1950?) as acting dir. for 71 days on June 25-Sept. 4; on July 6 Hanssen pleads guilty to 15 counts of espionage in exchange for 15 life sentences without parole, and ends up in the Federal Supermax Prison in Florence, Colo., becoming the worst U.S. intel disaster in history (until ?). On Feb. 25 Am. business prof. Li Shaomin (1957-) is detained in Beijing and acused of spying for Taiwan along with five other Chinese scholars; on July 14 he is convicted and expelled one day after Beijing is awarded the 2008 Olympic Games. On Feb. 26 a U.N. tribunal convicts Bosnians Dario Kordic and Mario Cerkez of war crimes against Muslim civilians during the Bosnian War. On Feb. 27 Pres. George W. Bush delivers his (first) 2001 State of the Union Address, issuing a Spanish soundbyte "Juntos podemos" (together we can). In Feb. the Muslim Alliance of North Am. (MANA) is founded by African-Am. Muslim converts Siraj Wahhaj (Arab. "bright light") (Jeffrey Kearse) (1950-) and Ihsan Bagby, with the help of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) (1943-); its goal is establishing Sharia in the U.S. On Mar. 4 "The X-Files" spinoff The Lone Gunmen debuts on Fox Network for 13 episodes (until June 1); episode #1 is about Scenario 12D, a U.S. govt. conspiracy to hijack a 727 airliner and fly it into the WTC then blame it on terrorists to gain support for a profitable war. On Mar. 5 15-y.-o. Charles Andrew "Andy" Williams (1986-) kills two students and wounds 13 others at Santana High School in Santee, Calif. near San Diego; he is sentenced to 50 years to life. On Mar. 7 Gen. Ariel Sharon (1928-2014) of the Likud Party becomes PM #11 of Israel (until Apr. 14, 2006). On Mar. 9 after placing ads looking for "a well-built 18 to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed", German cannibal Arwin Meiwes (1961-), AKA the Rotenburg Cannibal and the Butcher Master kills and eats Bernd Jurgen Brande, starting with his penis, recording it on videotape, and ends up convicted of manslaughter on Jan. 30, 2004 and sentenced to 8.5 years in priz, with cannibalism having no criminal statute against it, then retried and convicted on May 10, 2006 of murder and given a life sentence; he becomes a vegetarian in priz - to paraphrase Justice Stewart, I can't define cannibalism but I know it when I see it? On Mar. 11 U.S. astronauts Jim Voss (1949-) and Susan Jane Helms (1958-) spend 8 hr. 56 min. in a spacewalk, attempting to make room on the Internat. Space Station (ISS) for the 5-ton Italian Leonardo cargo module, becoming the longest spacewalk to date. On Mar. 13 a judge dismisses a lawsuit against dir. Oliver Stone claiming that his movie Natural Born Killers caused a young couple's violent crime spree (the first product liability lawsuit against a Hollywood movie); the appeal is dismissed on June 6, 2002. On Mar. 15 ethnic Albanians riot in Macedonia. On Mar. 21 the Taliban blows up the two 1,500-y.-o. Buddhas of Bamyan, one 125 ft. (world's tallest) and the other 115 ft. in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, 143 mi. NW of Kabul (on the ancient Silk Road); the region was once a center of Buddhism but now has 400K Persian-speaking education-loving mostly Shiite Hazaras, which the Taliban has been persecuting since 1996. On Mar. 23 after Russia takes out a $200M insurance policy against possible damages, Russia's 100-ton Mir space station ends its 15-year orbit around the Earth with a fiery plunge into the South Pacific. On Mar. 25 the 73rd Academy Awards are held in Los Angeles, and 242 films are eligible for consideration; the best picture Oscar for 2000 goes to DreamWorks and Universal for the much-computer-pumped Gladiator, along with the best actor award to Russell Crowe (as well-known Roman historical figure Maximus Decius Meridius, chicken legs and all?); best actress goes to Julia Roberts for Erin Brockovich, best dir. to Steven Soderbergh, and best supporting actor to Benicio Del Toro for Traffic, and best supporting actress to Marcia Gay Harden for Pollock. On Mar. 30 Pres. Bush, who pooh-poohs global warming abandons the Kyoto Protocol, pissing-off European leaders; not that China and India want to comply with it either, giving him a good excuse? In Mar. dictator-pres. Mathieu Kerekou (b. 1933) defeats former pres. Nicephore Soglo (b. 1934) again in elections. In Mar. Lao People's Rev. Party leader Bounnhang Vorachith (1937-) becomes PM dictator of Louse, er, Laos (until June 8, 2006) - who gives a chith? In Mar. an oil pipeline to transport oil from the Tengiz fields of Kazakhstan to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk opens. In Mar. the Black Spring (Kabylie) in Algeria sees violent demonstrations by Kabyle Berber activists against the govt., followed by the creation of the Mouvement pour l'Autonomie de la Kabylie (MAK), with aim of ending the Islamist regime and replacing it with a U.S.-style dem. repub.; co-founder Ferhat Mehenni (1951-) is a Kabyle Algerian Berber musician-politician who is becoming the Joan Baez of Algeria - in a country saturated with Islam, he's probably just whistling Dixie? On Apr. 2 a Chinese F-8 fighter jet collides with a U.S. EP-3 recon aircraft over internat. waters off China, causing an incident when the damaged U.S. plane is forced to land on the Chinese island of Hainan; the 24 crew members are detained for 11 days until the U.S. issues a formal statement of regret. On Apr. 2 at 9:51 p.m. GMT the largest solar flare recorded to date occurs. On Apr. 4 Palestinian activist Juliano Mer-Khamis (b. 1958), founder of the Freedom Theatre is assassinated in the Jenin refugee camp by another Palestinian. On Apr. 7 a white police officer shoots unarmed but fleeing black man Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati, Ohio, setting off race riots for several days. On Apr. 11 Ellis Park Stadium Disaster in Johannesburg, South Africa sees fans of the Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates stampede, killing 43. On Apr. 26 Junichiro Koizumi (1942-) becomes PM #86 of Japan (until Sept. 26, 2006); an "Elvis maniac", his brother Masaya once ran the Elvis fan club in Yokohoma and helped erect an Elvis statue in Tokyo in 1987. On Apr. 28 the Russians launch Soyuz TM-32, carrying cosmonauts Talgat Amangeldyuly Musabayev (1951-), Yuri Mikhailovich Baturin (1949-), and U.S. millionaire Dennis Anthony Tito (1940-), who pays $20M to become the first space tourist, visiting the ISS; on Oct. 21 Soyuz TM-33 blasts off, carrying cosmonauts Viktor Mikhailovich Afansyev (1948-), Claude Haignere (Haigneré) (1957-) of France, and Konstantin Mirovich Kozeyev (1967-); Soyuz TM-32 returns on Oct. 31 carrying Viktor Afanasyev, Claudie Haignere, and Konstantin Kozeyev; Soyuz TM-33 returns next May 5 with Yuri Gidzenko, Roberto Vittori, and Mark Shuttleworth. On Apr. 30 the Mitchell Report by U.S. Sen. (D-Maine) (Senate majority leader in 1989-95) George John Mitchell Jr. (1933-), who was sent to study Arab violence in Palestine to get the peace process back on track after the 2000 Camp David Summit recommends a cessation of all violence a full-scale effort by the Palestinian Authority to prevent terrorism, a freeze on Israeli settlement activity, and resumption of negotiations; neither the Israelis nor Palestinians implement his recommendations, and on Jan. 22, 2009 Mitchell is named special envoy for the Middle East. On Apr. 30 bodacious chic Chandra Ann Levy (b. 1977) mysteriously disappears in Washington, D.C. after leaving a health club near her apt.; on July 5 her aunt tattles on her romantic affair with Calif. Dem. Rep. Gary Adrian Condit (1948-), and his nervous actions end up ruining his career; meanwhile on May 22, 2002 her skeletal remains are found in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., and on Apr. 22, 2009 El Salvadoran illegal immigrant Ingmar A. Guandique (1982-), who had been convicted of assaulting two other women in the park is charged with her murder, and convicted on Nov. 22, 2010 and sentenced to 60 years in prison; in June 2015 he is granted a new trial, and on July 28, 2016 prosecutors drop the case in exchange for deportation. In Apr. Al-Qaida operative (British convert to Islam) Dhiren Barot (1971-) shoots grainy camcorder pics of the World Trade Center, Wall St. and Broad St., with the sound of a mimicked explosion in the background, then splices it into a copy of the movie "Die Hard With a Vengeance"; on Nov. 7, 2006 he is sentenced to life priz in a British court. In Apr. the Lackawanna (Buffalo) Six, a group of Yemeni-Ams. from Lackawanna, N.Y. go to train in terrorist methods in Afghanistan, and briefly meet with Osama bin Laden; after they return they are arrested in Sept. 2002 and forced to plead guilty to providing material support to al-Qaida under the threat of being declared enemy combatants, and convicted in Dec. 2003; in J uly 2009 it is revealed that vice.-pres. Dick Cheney et al. argued to Pres. Bush that they should be arrested by the military not civilian law enforcement. In Apr. the Internat. Museum of Muslim Cultures in Jackson, Miss. is founded, becoming the first Islamic history museum in the U.S. On May 1 former KKK man Thomas E. Blanton Jr. is convicted of the 1963 murder of four black girls in Birmingham, Ala. On May 6 Pope John Paul II becomes the first Roman pope to enter a mosque, in Damascus, Syria, where he says that religious conviction is never a justification for violence - what planet is he from? On May 8 Jewish teenies Yaakov "Koby" Mandell and Yosef Ishrahan are brutally murdered outside the Tekoa settlement in the West Bank, with their blood smeared on the walls of a cave; since Mandell was a U.S. citizen, causing the Koby Mandell Act to be passed in 2004, establishing the Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism to pursue terrorists who attack U.S. citizens in foreign countries; it should be applied to halt aid to the Palestinian Authority because Mahmoud Abbas allegedly paid for the murder of Am.-Israeli athlete David Berger at the 1972 Munich Olympics? On May 9 a stampede at a soccer match in Accra, Ghana kills 126, becoming Africa's worst soccer disaster. On May 12 the Hamas and Fatah factions in Gaza begin a week of infighting, killing 50, while Hamas launches 4K+ rockets into Israel, causing Israeli airstrikes in retaliation; on May 18 a Palestinian suicide bomber kills five and wounds more than 100 in a Netanya shopping mall, causing Israeli warplanes to retaliate by bombing the West Bank as well as Gaza Strip; and on May 19 the Gaza factions reach a truce to take on the common foe as Israel launches its fifth day of airstrikes, showing their style by mutually releasing captives after shooting them in the legs. On May 15 the CSX 888 (Crazy Eights) Incident in Ohio sees runaway locomotive #888 run 66 mi. for two hours up to 51 S from Walbridge (near Toledo) to Kenton until a crew in another locomotive catches up to it and couples to it; filmed in 2010 as "Unstoppable" starring Denzel Washington. On May 21 the Earth Liberation Front burns the Center for Urban Horticulture at the U. of Wash., causing $1.5M-$4.1M in damages; five are arrested, of which four plead guilty and the 5th commits suicide in prison while awaiting trial. On May 21 the TV series Xena: Warrior Princess (debuted Sept. 4, 1995) comes to a end after six seasons of Xena being riddled with arrows, decapitated, hanged, and cremated; producer-husband Rob Tapert hints that resurrection is possible for reunion specials. On May 21 $9.99-$22.99 Bratz fashion dolls are introduced by ex-Mattel employee Carter Bryant, starting with four 10-in. models, Yasmin, Cloe, Jade, and Sasha, followed in 2015 by Raya, featuring almond-shaped eyes, eyeshadow, and lush glossy lips; starting out slow, they sell $2B in 2005, capturing 40% of the fashion doll market vs. 60% for Barbie; the ad slogan is: "The girls with a passion for fashion!"; too bad, in Dec. 2006 the Nat. Labor Committee announces that factory workers in China churn them out for only 17 cents a doll while working 94.5 hours/week at 50 cents/hour. On May 23 after losing five fingers a year earlier, 16-y.-o. Sherpa Temba Tsheri (1985-) becomes the youngest person to climb Mount Everest (until ?). On May 25 U.S. Vt. Rep. James Merrill "Jim" Jeffords (1934-) switches political parties from Repub. to Dem., throwing control of the U.S. Senate to the Dems. on June 6 by a super-slim 50-49-1 majority; "I have changed my party label but I have not changed my beliefs" - like two big snakes wrestling? On May 26 the Africa Union (AU) is founded in Addis Ababa to replace the Org. of African Unity (OAU) (founded on May 25, 1963), growing to 54 members, every African country except Morocco. On May 29 four followers of Osama bin Laden (1957-2011) are found guilty of charges stemming from the 1988 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. On May 31 the Eurasia Party is founded by Russian Communist activist Alexander (Aleksandr) Dugin (1962-) to head an "anti-American revolution" by hooking up with China, Islam, and anti-Am. forces in W Europe, Africa, and Latin Am.; it is registered next June 21; Vladimir Putin becomes a supporter? In May Texas Gov. (2000-) Rick Perry (1950-) signs the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, which former gov. George W. Bush had refused to sign; on Apr. 3 it is introduced into the U.S. House of Reps. by Rep. John Conyers. In May Adnan Gulshair Muhammad el-Shukrijumah (El'Shukri-jumah)(d. 2014) disappears from his home in Miramar, Fla. after receiving flight training with the 9/11 hijackers, going on to groom himself to become the next Mohamed Atta; in July he is charged by the U.S. govt. with masterminding a bomb plot to attack three New York City subways along with a shopping center in Manchester, England; his sister is Aidah el-Shukri AKA Umm Taibah (Mother of Taibah). On June 1 the Dolphinarium Discotheque Massacre in Tel Aviv, Israel sees a Hamas terrorist suicide bomber detonate outside the nightclub, killing 21 incl. 16 teenagers, most girls, whose families had recently immigrated from the former Soviet Union. On June 1 (9:00 p.m. local time) the Nepalese Royal Family Massacre in the royal palace in Kathmandu, Nepal sees Prince Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev (b. 1971) named king after he shoots most (10) of his family to death at a royal dinner in Bhaktapur Palace in Kathmandu, incl. his father King Birendra and mother Queen Aishwarya, then then tries to commit suicide but botches it and only ends up in a coma; too bad, he dies anyway on June 4, and his uncle Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev (1947-) becomes the last king of Nepal (until May 28, 2008). On June 3 a bomb set by Harkat-ul-Jihad Al-Islami Islamists at a Christian church during Mass in Baniarchar Village in Gopalgani District, Bangladesh (62 mi. S of Dhaka) kills 10 and maims dozens; until 2010 a dispute with another Christian group is suspected. On June 3 the drama series Six Feet Under debuts on HBO for 63 episodes (until Aug. 21, 2005), about the Fisher family of LA, who run a funeral home, with an ensemble cast incl. Peter William Krause as dir. Nathaniel Samuel "Nate" Fisher Jr., and Michael Carlyle Hall (1971-) as his brother David Fisher. On June 4 anti-Fujimori leader Alejandro Celestino Toledo Manrique (1946-) wins the pres. election in Peru over moderate former pres. Alan Garcia, and is sworn-in on July 28 as pres. #46 of Peru (until July 28, 2006). On June 6 the Summer of the Shark begins with a shark attack on 8-y.-o. Jessie Arbogast in Santa Rose Island, followed by 76 more attacks and five deaths, turning into sensationalist publicity after a July 4 weekend attack on 8-y.-o. Jessie Arbogast, ending with the 9/11 attacks; in 2000 there were 85 attacks and 12 deaths, but no big publicity. On June 6 former pres. Bill Clinton (1946-), with no worries any more except between his legs starts spending the summer hanging out at sporting events, starting with the French Open on June 6, where he watches Andre Agassi in a semifinal, then the Belmont Stakes on June 9 with Hillary, calling it "the fairest test in the Triple Crown", then the NBA playoffs on June 10, then the Wimbledon on July 7, sitting next to Margaret Thatcher; a trip to Argentina causes him to miss the July 10 All-Star baseball game; he usually picks up his binoculars only when the cheerleaders come out? On June 7 Pres. Bush signs the 2001 U.S. Tax Cut Bill, cutting taxes by $1.35T over 11 years, the largest tax cut in 20 years, exacerbating the systematic return of income inequality; it also phases out the estate tax, but expires at the end of 2010 - after 9/11 and the U.S.-Iraq War, you can kiss that money goodbye twice over? A poodle wins the Westminster Kennel Show again? On June 8 "the art of leadership is saying no not yes" PM (since May 2, 1997) Tony Blair (1953-) becomes the first Labour Party PM of Great Britain to be reelected to a full term of office; too bad, he later can't say no to backing Bush's history-challenged decision to blitzkrieg Iraq, becoming known as "Bush's poodle", dragging him down with an Albatross around his neck and aging him at jet speed as Iraq goes bad, worse, and worser? On June 8 Iranian pres. (since 1997) Mohammad Khatani is reelected in a landslide (until Aug. 2, 2005). On June 11 Timothy McVeigh (b. 1968) is executed at the federal penitentiary in Terra Haute, Ind. On June 111 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 5-4 in Kyllo v. U.S. to prohibit the use of a FLIR (forward looking infrared) thermal imaging device by police on a home without a warrant. On June 12 Pres. Bush announces in Madrid his intention of building a U.S. Ballistic Missile Shield; on June 18 Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin warns that any such attempt would cause Russia to upgrade its strategic arsenal with multiple warheads - this ain't like a pillow fight, Pootie-Poot? On June 12 Bozo the Clown tapes his last show in Chicago, Ill., ending his career which began in 1946. On June 16 a U.S.-Russian summit is held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, becoming the first meeting between U.S. pres. George W. Bush and Russian pres. Vladimir Putin, after which Bush utters the soundbyte: "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straight forward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul. He's a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country and I appreciate very much the frank dialogue and that's the beginning of a very constructive relationship"; Putin warns Pres. Bush and Condi Rice of a coming attack on their homeland, which they pooh-pooh; in her 2011 memoir "No Higher Honour", Rice writes the soundbyte about the meeting: "Putin suddenly raised the problem of Pakistan. He excoriated the Pervez Musharraf regime for its support of extremists and for the connections of the Pakistani army and intelligence services to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Those extremists were all being funded by Saudi Arabia, he said, and it was only a matter of time until it resulted in a major catastrophe... Putin, though, was right. The Taliban and al-Qaida were time bombs that would explode on September 11, 2001... I was taken aback by Putin's alarm and vehemence." On June 19 Syria evacuates Beirut after decades of occupation. On June 19 thousands receive payment from the $4.5B German fund for Nazi-era slavery after years of legal squabbling. The Devil Made Me Do It Defense is alive and well in Bush's Bible-thumping Texas? On June 20 Andrea Yates (nee Andrea Pia Kennedy) (1964-) of Houston, Tex. drowns her five children (6-mo.-o. Mary, 2-y.-o. Luke, 3-y.-o. Paul, 5-y.-o. John and 7-y.-o. Noah) in the bathtub; in 2002 she is found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to life, but an appeal court throws out the conviction because of erroneous testimony from a prosecution pshrink, and a new trial results in her acquittal on July 26, 2006 on grounds of insanity, and she is committed to Vernon State Mental Hospital, moving to a low security mental hospital in Kerrville, Tex. in Jan. 2007; she had told psychiatrists that she was ordered by Satan to kill them. On June 24 Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech at the Jewish Agency Assembly Plenary Meeting in Israel, saying that the Palestinians are to blame for the conflict in the Middle East, not Israel, which only acts in self-defense, and calling for a war on terrorism. On June 28 the U.S. Appeals Court overrules the breakup of the Microsoft monopoly and rebukes District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson; concessions are announced by Microsoft on July 12; on Sept. 6 the Bush admin. announces that it will no longer seek the breakup of the Microsoft monopoly - who got paid-off? On June 29 "Butcher of the Balkans", former Yugoslav pres. Slobodan Milosevic is imprisoned at The Hague to await a war crimes trial for presiding over four wars costing 250K lives. On June 30 U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney receives a pacemaker and defibrillator to remedy his abormal heart rate; all plans for succeeding Bush in 2008 are kaput. In June the Anglican Mission in Am. holds a nat. ordinary of clergy, led by conservative primates from Singapore and Rwanda, causing the archbishop of Canterbury to warn that they are causing disunity in the church. In June Taliban leader Mullah Omar gives an interview to journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave in which he says that Osama bin Laden had given a written pledge to him not to use his base in Afghanistan to launch any attacks against the U.S.; the 9/11 attack starts a split? On July 1 the Internat. Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague is established; it prosecutes only Africans until ? On July 3 a Russian airliner crashes in Siberia, killing 143. On July 5 Pres. Bush selects Robert Swan Mueller III (1944-) to head the troubled FBI; the next day former FBI agent Robert P. Hanssen pleads guilty to passing secrets to the Russians, avoiding the death penalty; on July 17 a check reveals the loss or theft of hundreds of firearms and laptop computers at the FBI; on Sept. 4 Mueller is sworn-in as FBI dir. #12 (until ?); Thomas J. Pickard retires from the FBI in Nov. - do I get a week to get settled in? On July 10 four firefighters fighting the Thirtymile Fire are trapped in the Chewuch River Canyon near Winthrop, Wash., and die when the blaze sweeps over them as they set up fire shelters on a rocky slope; in Dec. 2006 their boss Ellreese N. Daniels is charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter by federal prosecutors for failing to order them out of harm's way, but ends up pleading guilty to two misdemeanors on Apr. 29, 2008 after firefighters get pissed-off at the implications. On July 13 Beijing, China (pop. 17M) is awarded the 2008 XXIX Summer Olympic Games - a new event is announced, tank spanking? On July 13 11K-ft. Mt. Etna in NE Sicily erupts, and again on July 26, the worst since 1992. On July 13 the computer worm Code Red hits the Internet, exploiting one of the zillion flaws in Microsoft software to spread, becoming the first network worm; actually, the flaw had a software patch available, but many sysops hadn't installed it yet, so give these good Samaritans a hand? On July 16 Russia and China sign a 21-year friendship treaty uniting them in their opposition to the proposed U.S. missile shield. On July 23 178 nations (sans the U.S.) reach an agreement on climate, rescuing but diluting the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. On July 23 Megawati (Sans. "she who had a rain cloud [when she was born]") Sukarnoputri (1947-), daughter of former pres. Sukarno becomes the first female pres. of Indonesia (until Oct. 20, 2004), also the first pres. born after independence. On July 24 Simeon Borisov Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1937-) becomes PM #48 of Bulgaria (until Aug. 17, 2005), the only living person to have held the title of tsar (Simeon II in 1943-6). On July 25 Alexander Emerich "Alex" Jones (1974-) predicts 9/11 on his TV show? On July 26 China releases U.S.-based female scholar Gao Zhan (1960-), who had been sentenced to ten years on trumped-up espionage charges. On July 31 John Milo Reese hijacks a plan at Fla. Keys Marathon Airport, claiming to have a plan to kidnap Fidel Castro by delivering a pizza to him; after crashing on a Cuban beach, he is returned to the U.S. and sentenced to 6 mo. In July retired U.S. Army Reserve Col. George Trofimoff (1927-), the highest ranking U.S. military officer ever accused of spying is convicted in Tampa, Fla. of spying for the Soviets between 1969-94 from an Army interrogation center in Nuremberg, Germany, receiving a life sentence. In July the 2001 Paris Embassy Attack Plot sees 36-y.-o. French Algerian Djamel Beghal (1965-) arrested at Dubai Internat. Airport en route to Europe, then confess to the details, causing a French govt. inquiry to begin on Sept. 10; on Sept. 13 four more men are arrested in Rotterdam, along with two more in Brussels, and several more on Sept. 21, incl. Algerians Mohammed Berkous and Kamel Daoudi (1974-); on Mar. 16, 2005 six French Algerian men are convicted. In July several al-Qaida members are arrested by Yemeni police near the U.S. embassy in Sana'a, Yemen while planning the murder of the ambassador. In July the New York Port Authority, which decided to privatize it in 1998, leases the World Trade Center (WTC) to Silverstein Properties. On Aug. 1 the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act is first introduced in the U.S. Senate; it passes in ?. On Aug. 1 the U.S. House of Reps. votes to ban all human cloning; on Aug. 9 Pres. Bush says he will allow federal funding of stem cell research on existing stem cell lines, but not permit any new ones to be created; he also announces creation of the President's Council on Bioethics; one of his unofficial advisers is Canadian-born Lutheran-turned-Roman Catholic priest Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009), whom he calls "Father Richard". On Aug. 1 335-lb. black Minn. Vikings offensive lineman Korey Damont Stringer (b. 1974) collapses at training camp in Mankato, Minn., then dies in the hospital of heart failure caused by heatstroke - three miles of toilet paper saved? On Aug. 6 Pres. Bush receives a pres. brief titled Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S. - receives but not reads? On Aug. 9 (2 p.m.) a Hamas suicide bombing at the busy Sbarro Restaurant in Jerusalem,, killing 15 and injuring 130; the bomber is Ezziddin Al-Masri; Jordanian driver Ahlam Tamimi (1981-), gets 16 life sentences, and is released in the Oct. 2011 Gilad Shalit POW exchange; co-conspirator Mohammad Daghlas is also released. On Aug. 10 Space Shuttle Discovery is launched on its record 30th mission (since 1984), delivering the NASA Leonardo Multi-Purpose Logistics Module and a new crew to the Internat. Space Station (ISS). On Aug. 13 a peace agreement is signed between the Macedonian govt. and rebels, ending 6 mo. of fighting. On Aug. 14 elderly couple hijacks a plane to Cuba, but it crashes in the sea off the coast of Fla. and they drown. On Aug. 16 Zacarias Moussaoui (1968-) is arrested on an immigration violations (overstaying a 90-day U.S. visa) outside a hotel in Eagen, Minn.; FBI special agent Harry Samit breaks the news to his superiors that the Muslim jihad raghead had purchased flight simulator lessons, but they ignore him, and on Sept. 10 barely grant his request to deport him to France so that his belongings can be searched by French authorities. On Aug. 22 the U.S. budget surplus dwindles, causing Bush's tax cut to be singled out as retro. On Aug. 31-Sept. 8 the World Conference Against Racism (Durban I) in Durban, South Africa issues a Report on the Slave Trade, calling slavery a "crime against humanity" and demanding apologies and reparations; it recognizes Islamophobia (not Islamophilia?) as a form of prejudice; too bad, under chmn. Mary Robinson of Ireland it goes on to condemn Israel for racism and apartheid, causing the U.S. to walk out, with U.S. state secy. Colin Powell uttering the soundbyte: "I know that you do not combat racism by conferences that produce declarations containing hateful language, some of which is a throwback to the days of Zionism equals racism, or supports the idea that we have made too much of the Holocaust, or suggests that apartheid exists in Israel, or that singles out only one country in the world, Israel, for censure and abuse"; too bad, in Nov. 2010 Pres. Obama awards Robinson the Medal of Freedom. In Aug. dem. elections are held in East Timor; the U.N. promises to hand over the reins of power to the new dem. govt. on Feb. 20, 2002. In Aug. France's highest court issues a ruling that a boy born after his mother contracted German measles had a right not to be born - put me back in? In late Aug. the family of Abdulaziz al-Hijji flees their 3.3K sq. ft. home in Sarasota, Fla. sans furniture, later being found to have "many connections to individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001". On Sept. 1 Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud (Turki al-Faisal) (1945-), son of the late King Faisal suddenly resigns as the Saudis' spymaster after 24 years; this action later makes him suspect of knowing of the 9/11 plot, but he pays off, er, is cleared and goes on to become Saudi ambassador to the U.S. On Sept. 1 the U.S. Postal Service issues its first Muslim Eid Stamp. On Sept. 2 Am. journalist Eric S. Margolis (1947-) utters the soundbyte: "America's strategic and economic interests in the Mideast and Muslim world are being threatened by the agony in Palestine, which inevitably invites terrorist attacks against US citizens and property." On Sept. 7 559,493 people in 2,171 schools all over the U.K. begin jumping up and down at precisely 11:00 a.m. for 1 min. to celebrate the launch of U.K. Science Year; the number of participants is raised to 569,069 when disabled pupils drop objects on the ground or hit it with their fists. On Sept. 9 Afghan anti-Taliban Northern Alliance Group leader ("the Lion of Panjshir") Ahmad Shah Massoud (b. 1953) is assassinated in Takhar Province by two Tunisian-born Belgian al-Qaida members incl. Abdessatar Dahmane (Dahmane Abd al-Sattar) (-2011), who pose as journalists, and are promptly killed; Dahmane's Moroccan-born Belgian wife Malika El Aroud (1959-) marries Tunisian-born al-Qaida member Moez Garsalloui (1967-); in June 2007 they are convicted in Switzerland of running a number of al-Qaida propaganda Web sites. On Sept. 9 Walla Walla, Wash.-born Muslim convert Hamza Yusuf Hanson (1960-) (formerly Mark Hanson), 1996 founder of Zaytuna Inst. in Berkeley, Calif. utters the soundbyte: "This country (America) unfortunately has a great, a great tribulation coming to it, and much of it is already here, yet people are too illiterate to read the writing on the wall", which gets him investigated by the FBI after 9/11. On Sept. 9-10 British maj. Charles Ingram (1965-) wins the million-pound question on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", after which he is accused of cheating by having his wife Diana cough at the correct answer (about the word "googol"), and later convicted, ruining his life. On Sept. 10 Qatar native Khalid Rashid Ali al-Mari (al-Muri) (al-Murri) (1975-), along with his wife and five children move to Peoria, Ill.; in Dec. he is arrested by the feds as a suspected enemy combatant on U.S. soil, and they claim to find credit card numbers on his laptop computer along with evidence linking him to Al-Qaida, moving him out of the criminal justice system into indefinite military detention, causing a federal court action alleging violation of his civil rights. A freebie for Al-Qaida? On Sept. 10 Joseph P. "Joe" Nacchio (1949-), CEO of Colo.-based communication co. Qwest (1997-2002) announces plans to cut 4K jobs after admitting that earnings for the year are expected to be $500M less than he had previously claimed; after the overstated revenue proves to be $2.5B and Nacchio makes $101M from massive stock sales, he is fired next June, and after the stock dips to a low of $.99 a share he ends up getting criminally charged by the U.S. govt.; if he had only waited one day to make his announcement, he could have slithered free by blaming it all on Al-Qaida? On Sept. 10 U.S. defense secy. Donald Rumsfield mentions in a press conference that $2.3T in transactions cannot be tracked through the antiquated equipment in the Pentagon; this is later twisted as a revelation that $2.5T in cash is mysteriously missing, and that the 9/11 attacks were done to divert an investigation. On Sept. 10 (the eve of 9/11) according to FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, the CIA maintains "intimate relations" with Osama bin Laden for operations in C Asia, incl. Xingjiang, China; he visited the U.S. under the alias Tim Osman?; it's just a folk myth?
2001-Pt. 2 On Sept. 11, 2001 (Tues.) Pres. George W. Bush is targeted in an assassination plot by al-Qaida On Sept. 11 (Tues.) the New York Times pub. a story about ex-Weatherman radical William Charles "Bill" Ayers (1944-), quoting him as saying "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." On Sept. 11 (Tues.) the 9/11 Attacks see the New York City skyline changed after 19 lowdown cowardly stinking crazed Satan-controlled Muslim raghead jihad terrorist scumbags (incl. 15 Saudis) hijack four U.S. commercial airliners and take over the unprotected cabins, using flying lessons given them in the U.S. to steer and crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City (dedicated in Apr. 1973), and also the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.; Am. Airlines Flight 11 (Boeing 767) from Boston to Los Angeles hits the North Tower at 8:46:26 a.m. with a direct hit that disables all the elevators; actor Tony Perkins' wife Berinthia "Berry" Berenson-Perkins (b. 1948) is on Flight 11; United Airlines Flight 175 (Boeing 767) from Boston to Los Angeles hits the South Tower at 9:02:54 a.m. at an angle, permitting people to escape; Flight 175 has a mysterious pod attached to the undercarriage, indicating that the whole show is really being run by the govt. and the plane was unmanned and remotely-controlled?; Am. Airlines Flight 77 from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles hits the SW face of the Pentagon at 9:43 a.m. on the 60th anniv. of its groundbreaking; it was really a U.S.-launched missile, and was covered-up?; Pres. Bush had a meeting scheduled with affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood after he arrived back at the White House; Pres. Bush first informs the nation of "an apparent terrorist attack on our country" at 9:30 from the school; at 9:45 a.m. the FAA grounds all civilian domestic and internat. flights to-from the U.S., although an El Al (Boeing 747) flight is allowed to take from JFK Airport to Tel Aviv at 4:11 p.m.; commercial flights resume on Sept. 13, followed by private flights on Sept. 14; on Sept. 20 a flight containing Bin Laden family members is allowed to leave the U.S., carrying four Americans; on Sept. 11 NBC-TV commentator Tom Brokaw answers a speculation by Matt Laurer with "This is war. This is a declaration and execution of an attack on the United States", later chanting "War! War!"; "When I saw the second airplane hit, I knew jihad has come to America" (Nonie Darwish); the South Tower implodes at 9:59:04 a.m., followed by the North Tower at 10:28:31 a.m., after the jet fuel ignites tons of paper, which causes internal temps as high as 2K F; Pres. Bush is informed of the South Tower crash at 9:07 a.m. by White House chief of staff (2001-6) Andrew Hill "Andy" Card Jr. (1947-) while visiting with 2nd grade (mainly black) students at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla., and turns red, but stays with the kids, reading aloud from the children's story The Pet Goat (by Siegfried Engelmann and Elaine C. Bruner) with them; British-born former U.S. Army officer Cyril Richard "Rick" Rescoria (b. 1939), vice-pres. of security at Morgan Stanley (scheduled for retirement at year's end) dies after helping 2.7K coworkers to safety; after rushing in to help not knowing about the impending collapse; 343 firefighters die in the Twin Towers, and firefighter (Argentine native) Sergio Gabrial Villanueva (b. 1968) becomes a hero; Hollywood actor Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi (1957-) (a former NYC firefighter) quietly returns to Engine Co. 55 and works 12-hour shifts, trying to avoid publicity; two Port Authority of N.Y. and N.J. police officers survive the towers' collapse and are rescued from the rubble after 22 hours; 300K are evacuated by boat in lower Manhattan after hundreds of craft answer a Coast Guard call for help "From All Available Boats" and converge on the West Side; meanwhile United Air Lines Flight 93 from Newark, N.J. to San Francisco, Calif. carrying 37 passengers and seven crew is hijacked by Beirut, Lebanon-born pilot (al-Qaida member) Ziad Samir Jarrah (1975-2001) and three Saudi Arabia-born muscle men Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Nami (1977-2001), Ahmed Ibrahim al-Haznawi (1980-2001), and Saeed Abdallah Ali Sulayman al-Ghamdi (1979-2001), crashing at 10:03 a.m. near Shanksville in Somerset County, Penn. (60 mi. SE of Pittsburgh and 150 mi. NW of Washington, D.C.) after the 33 all-American passengers are first cowed by a fake body bomb then fight back against the four ragheads instead of cowering like sheep, and kick the surprised terrorists butts, although too late to prevent the crash; Flight 93 passenger Todd Morgan Beamer (b. 1968) becomes a U.S. hero when he quarterbacks the makeshift anti-raghead team with the all-American words "Let's roll!", which are heard on his cellphone; his sad-proud wife Lisa later founds the charity Heroic Choices; the Flight 93 Nat. Memorial is established on Sept. 24, 2002, and dedicated on Sept. 10, 2011; 2,976 are killed in the 9/11 attacks, incl. 2,605 in New York City (215 blacks incl. 136 men and 79 women), 125 at the Pentagon (incl. 55 military personnel), and 246 on the four planes, with 24 listed as missing, becoming the most Americans lost on U.S. soil since the Sept. 17, 1862 Battle of Antietam, and the greatest single-day civilian loss of life in the U.S. since the May 31, 1889 Johnstown Penn. Flood; Time mag. pub. a 9/11 tragedy issue with a cover photo by Lyle Owerko; many Palestinians openly celebrate the attackon the Great Satan U.S.; Iraqi pres. Saddam Hussein utters the soundbyte: "The American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity"; the govts. of Cuba, Iran, Libya, and North Korea join a worldwide chorus denouncing the attacks; Arab leaders denouncing the attacks incl. King Hussein of Jordan, Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak, and Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri; some Muslims around the world express sympathy for the 9/11 victims, incl. a moment of silence at a World Cup match between Bahrain and Iran on Sept. 14, and a candlelight vigil by Palestinians in Jerusalem on Sept. 15 along with another in Tehran; on Sept. 14 Ireland holds a nat. day of mourning, becoming the only country other than the U.S. and Israel to do so; the Taliban in Afghanistan condemns the attacks but denies that Osama bin Laden is behind them; bin Laden also denies involvement, claiming that there is a govt. within the govt. of the U.S. that wants to turn the 21st cent. into a cent. of conflict between Islam and Christianity, suggesting U.S. Jews and intel agencies, but later admits responsibility in an Oct. 29, 2004 video; the mastermind was mechanical engineering-trained Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (1964-); the economic repercussions cost the U.S. economy $1T (same as Bush's June 7 tax cut); 40K workers work at "The Pile" at Ground Zero for the next 8 mo., removing 1M tons of rubble, and 69% of them later develop permanent lung problems known as "WTC Cough"; NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson films the smoking WTC from space; New York Fire Dept. chaplain (Roman Catholic Franciscan friar) Father Mychal (Michael) Fallon Judge (b. 1933) dies at the WTC, becoming the "Saint of 9/11" ("God is going to make the headlines some day rather than the Devil, so don't give up"); St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church at 130 Liberty St. is destroyed, and the govt. stalls in rebuilding it until ?; St. Paul's Chapel at 209 Broadway facing Church St. opposite the E side of the WTC, where new U.S. pres. #1 George Washington prayed after his first inauguration on Apr. 30, 1789 is not harmed, and the syacmore tree in its courtyard becomes known as the 9/11 Sycamore, with a memorial later built for it (Isaiah 9:10); at 8:30 p.m. Pres. Bush gives a great Red-Blooded Am. Cowboy Speech from the White House, with the soundbyte "Make no mistake about it, the U.S. will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts"; the U.S. launches into a new kind of war, the Global War on Terror (Terrorism) (ends ?); Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaida org. are immediately suspected and become the world's most-wanted criminals, despite of a lack of hard evidence; Egyptian-born 9/11 ringleader ("Emir of the WTC Attack") Mohamed Mohamed Atta (b. 1968) (Mohamed Attacker?) (who created the jihad cell in Hamburg, Germany in the late 1990s, incl. three of the four pilots) is found to have met in Prague with an Iraqi spy, throwing suspicions on Saddam Hussein, and New York City-born U.S. nat. security adviser Richard N. Perle (1941-) allegedly either blames the 9/11 attack on Iraq or wants retaliation to incl. them; Pres. Bush activates the "shadow govt." of 75-150 top officials working 90-day shifts in underground bunkers on the East Coast; the Five Dancing Israelis incident starts with a woman named Maria claiming to see a white van with five men in it filming the burning Twin Towers, allegedly with shouts of joy, who are alleged to be Israeli Mossad agents, although they are interviewed and deny dancing etc., causing conspiracy theorists to claim 9/11 was a Mossad operation; New York City Mayor Rudolph William Louis "Rudy" Giuliani (1944-) leads the city in a heroic manner after the attacks, earning the title "America's Mayor", and calling the deaths "worse than anyone could bear"; "Vanity Fair" ed. Graydon Carter comments "I think it's the end of the age of irony"; British Queen Elizabeth II comments "Grief is the price we pay for love"; Russian pres. Vladimir Putin orders a massive expansion of intel-gathering efforts in North Am. and W Europe; a folded $20 U.S. bill shows the Twin Towers burning?; Algerian-born British airline pilot Lotfi Raissi becomes the first person accused of participating in the 9/11 attack, and is held for five mo. in Belmarsh hi-security prison in London, then put through nine years of hell until being cleared on Apr. 23, 2010; the 20-ft. Ground Zero Cross, a fortuitous configuration of fallen I-beams draws memorial messages and becomes a religious monument; Alicia Esteve Head, who is in Spain on 9/11 arrives in the U.S. in 2003 and pretends to be 9/11 Twin Towers survivor Tania Head, becoming er, head of the survivors' network until she is exposed in 2007, becoming the subject of the 2012 book The Woman Who Wasn't There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception by Robin Gaby Fisher; ; meanwhile by 2003 a joke translation of Quran 9:11 begins circulating: "For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah and lo, while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced, for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah; and there was peace"; later conspiracy theorists begin exposing the 9/11 attacks as really perpetrated by the U.S. govt. to give them a pretext to destroy the last bastions of the Bill of Rights in the name of homeland security and give them a coverstory to invade the Middle East at will to secure oil, and point to a giant 9/11 conspiracy and coverup, incl. the framing of Muslim terrorists, who allegedly could never have accurately flown the airliners into the WTC, the fact that no fighters were scrambled to accept any of them, the fact that Osama bin Laden et al. were originally trained by the U.S., the problem that eight of those named on the FBI's list of 19 names later turn up alive and well living in different countries, and the evidences of the deliberate demolition of WTC Bldg. 7, which hadn't been struck by an airplane; later civil engineers prove WTC Bldg. 7 was in free-fall for 2.5 sec., pointing to planted explosives; others claim to rebut conspiracy allegations; did the U.S. govt murder its own people to make a power grab, then stage a coverup, stay tuned?; in Aug. 2009 a group of law enforcement officers and others who participated in the 9/11 rescue and cleanup develop immune system cancer and other health problems; by 2010 3K WTC survivors are still experienced long-term PTSD; on Mar. 11, 2010 they reach a $657.5M settlement; Saudi princess Haifa bint Faisal, wife of U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Prince Bandar bin Sultan is later discovered to have donated money via a conduit to two of the 9/11 hijackers; the CIA is plagued by guilt and panic amid rumors of a coming 2nd wave of attacks, with some analysts working around the clock with their children sleeping on the floor, causing them to get the White House to authorize enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs) incl. waterboarding, sensory deprivation, and prolonged stress positions. The massive attack on the U.S. Bill of Rights doesn't take long to begin, starting with patsy Arab-Americans? On Sept. 11 Pakistani-born Muslim Am. New York City police cadet Mohammad Salman Hamdani (b. 1978) sees the smoke coming from the WTC and rushes to aid the victims, and is reported missing, causing him to be suspected of being involved in the attack, after which Congress declares him a hero, although he is omitted from the 9/11 memorial list of first responders because he was only a cadet. On Sept. 11 Egyptian-born Am. radiologist Basem M.F. Hussein (1965-) is arrested and his apt. searched by police after the property mgr. calls claiming to see Arabic lit., an airplane flight manual, a CD jacket showing an exploding airplane and chemical residue; after he proves that the CD was a flight simulator game, that it did not depict an exploding airplane, that the Arabic lit. was the Quran, and the chemical residue household dust, a federal jury in Pittsburgh awards him $850K in compensatory and $1.6M in punitive damages on Sept. 23, 2005; on Nov. 3 the U.S. govt. agrees to pay $1.26M to five Muslim men detained for months without charges - send the check to Osama? On Sept. 11 Detroit, Mich. restaurant owner Noureddine "Dean" Hachem is accused of his waiters cheering 9/11, which he denies; while he is suing for defamation, he is indicted for running an internat. auto theft ring, with the money being funneled to Hezbollah; he is convicted and imprisoned. Us Americans, we're living longer than ever? He wants to start World War III? On Sept. 11, 2001 (9/11) after watching the 9/11 news on TV and getting freaked, T.L. Winslow (TLW) (1953-) of Denver, Colo. shelves his numerous other careers as computer programmer, engineer, fiction writer et al., and begins full-time work on T.L. Winslow's Great Track of Time, placing it on the World Wide Web on his Web site www.tlwinslow.com, where it first becomes accessible on Google on Oct. 29, until it receives over 100K hits and takes too much time and expense, pulling the plug in May 2003 and continuing to work on it for pub. by traditional channels, then putting it back up in Aug. 2013 after searching in vain for an agent, publisher, or investor to help it reach the millions, only to get far fewer hits because of the gaming of the search engines by millions of spam sites, which put his site at the bottom of the list; done totally outside academia, the smug closed establishment gives him no credit, reputation, or even notice until ?, allowing him to totally take over the field of history and launch the Historyscoping Rev. on his little ole desktop PC connected to the Internet with an iffy personal income and iffy living conditions, with increasing medical problems rendering him unable to even work at part-time jobs, ending up on govt. assistance; by the time his students storm the Bastille and become the establishment, he's ??? years old?; if you build it they will come? On Sept. 11 despite the 9/11 attacks, the Doomsday Clock is kept at 9 min. before midnight. On Sept. 11 Saudi Arabian-born ex-Muslim Brigitte Gabriel founds the Am. Congress for Truth to inform Americans about the threat of radical Islam, becoming the largest such org. in the U.S.
2001-Pt. 3 On Sept. 12 the Dow Jones Index drops by 7.12%. On Sept. 12 Pres. Bush stages a photo opp with members of the Nat. Security Team, issuing the soundbyte: "The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war." On Sept. 12 the NATO allies vote in favor of the Washington Treaty's first-ever invocation of the Article 5 collecive defense guarantee. On Sept. 12 the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 1368, condemning the 9/11 attacks and expressing readiness to take the necessary steps to respond to terrorism, recognizing the right of individual and collective self-defense. On Sept. 13 Pres. Bush meets with Saudi Prince Bandar on the Truman Balcony at the White House. On Sept. 13 Buckingham Palace plays The Star-Spangled Banner for the first time ever during the Changing of the Guard (until ?) to please 5K Am. bystanders. On Sept. 13 Tunisian-born German soccer player Nizar Trabelsi (1970-) is arrested for working with Osama bin Laden to stage a suicide attack at a U.S. military installation in Europe. On Sept. 13 the Parisian daily Le Monde pub. an editorial with the title: "We Are All Americans" (Nous sommes tous Americains), with the soundbyte: "How can we not feel, as we have in the gravest moments of our history, but profoundly in solidarity with this people and this country, the United States, with whom we are so close and to whom we owe our liberty, and therefore our solidarity." On Sept. 14 the U.S. House of Reps. votes to authorize a military response to the 9/11 attack; the only dissenting vote is Barbara Jean Lee (1946-) (D-Wyo.); Kyrgyzstan permits multi-nat. troops from the U.S. and seven other nations to be stationed to fight against the Taliban. On Sept. 14 Pres. Bush gives a Bullhorn Speech at Ground Zero on the ruins of the World Trade Center, which many see as characterizing his first term with his lackadaisical response to the nat. emergency; his take on Shakespeare's Henry IV's St. Crispin's Day Speech (Henry IV, Act IV, Scene iii.18-67)? On Sept. 15 white supremacist self-declared "Arab slayer" Mark Stroman (1970-) gets revenge for 9/11 by gunning down Muslim Pakistani immigrant Waqar Hasan (b. 1945) in a Dallas convenience store, and shooting Muslim Bangladeshi immigrant Rais Bhuiyan in the face, blinding one eye, which doesn't stop him from IDing him in court; later Bhuiyan starts a campaign to save him from execution. On Sept. 15 Am. Sikh Balbir Singh Sodhi is shot 5x in the back and murdered at the corner of the Mesa Star Chevron gas station in Ariz. by Frank Roque, who shoots at and misses a Lebanese-Am. clerk at another gas station, then drives to his old home (occupied by an Arab family) and fires several more shots; he receives a death sentence, which is reduced to life. On Sept. 15 in The New Yorker, New York activist Susan Sontag (1933-2004) puts in her two cents worth on the 9/11 attack: "Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?" On Sept. 15 four loaded barges and a tugboat strike the Queen Isabella Causeway, the only bridge to South Padre Island, Tex., killing eight. On Sept. 16 Osama bin Laden denies involvement in the 9/11 attacks, saying: "I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons"; on Sept. 28 he adds "I have already said that I am not involved in the September 11 attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other human beings as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of battle... The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself, the people who are a part of the U.S. system but are dissenting against it, or those who are working for some other system, persons who want to make the present century a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity so that their own civilization, nation, country, or ideology can survive. They may be anyone, from Russia to Israel and from India to Serbia. In the U.S. itself, there are dozens of well-organized and well-equipped groups capable of causing large-scale destruction. Then you cannot forget the American Jews, who have been annoyed with President Bush ever since the Florida elections and who want to avenge him... Then there are intelligence agencies in the U.S., which require billions of dollars worth of funds from Congress and the government every year... They needed an enemy... Is it not that there exists a government within the government in the United Sates? That secret government must be asked who carried out the attacks"; on Dec. 26 he adds that the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan is "a vicious campaign based on mere suspicion". On Sept. 16 Philly-born ex-Muslim black minister Rev. Jeremiah Alvesta "Jerry" Wright Jr. (1941-) of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Ill. gives his Chickens Come Home to Roost speech, quoting U.S. ambassador to Iraq (1977-80) Edward L. Peck, who told Fox News "We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought back into our own front yards: America's chickens are coming home to roost", then pointing out that Malcolm X originally said the chickens statement; too bad, when Barack Obama runs for U.S. pres. in 2008, Wright's speech is dug up and quoted out of context to make him into the originator. On Sept. 17 Pres. George W. Bush gives a Speech on Islam at a mosque in Washington, D.C., telling Am. Muslims that they should feel safe, with the soundbyte "Islam is peace." On Sept. 18 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists Act (Public Law 107-40), giving the U.S. pres. broad open-ended authority to use military force on the streets of the U.S. under the excuse of protecting citizens from terrorists - such a law might be great to use to round-up Muslims, but it could also be used by a Muslim-controlled pres. to round up non-Muslims, I've already got my bags packed? On Sept. 18 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists Act (AUMF) (Public Law 107-40), invoking the U.S. War Powers Resolution to authorize U.S. armed forces to be used against those who "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the 9/11 attacks with all "necessary and appropriate force"; in 2013 after it is revealed that the act might stay in effect for decades, and could be used by a Muslim-controlled U.S. pres. against non-Muslim citizens, Sen. Angus King utters the soundbyte: "You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution today." On Sept. 18 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. Nat. Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS), requiring special registration for thousands of Arab and Muslim men in an attempt to uncover immigration violations and terror links; it is discontinued in Apr. 2011 after 84K voluntarily register and 14K are deported; meanwhile the Belgium-based SWIFT European Bank Transfer Consortium gives U.S. authorities access to Euro financial data to track terrorists, which is kept secret until 2006, angering Euro legislators, who seek to restrict the data sharing for privacy reasons. On Sept. 18 a letter containing anthrax spores is mailed to NBC-TV in New York City, starting a nationwide anthrax scare, esp. after more are sent to various govt. officials; on Oct. 5 several die after handling letters; U.S. bioweapons expert Dr. Steven Jay Hatfill (1953-) is identified by the U.S. govt. as a "person of interest", and suffers FBI raids and persecution until he is belatedly cleared in 2008 in favor of fellow scientist Bruce Ivins (1946-2008) - hat fill equals envelope fill until heads you lose brucellosis I vins? On Sept. 19 after being appointed by Pres. George W. Bush in Feb. and being ratified by the Senate on Sept. 15, London, England-born diplomat John Dimitri Negroponte (1939-) (U.S. ambassador to Mexico, 1989-93) becomes U.S. U.N. ambassador #23 (until June 23, 2004), after which on June 29 he succeeds L. Paul Bremer as U.S. ambassador to Iraq (until Mar. 17, 2005) before becoming dir. #1 of nat. intelligence on Apr. 21, 2005 (until Feb. 13, 2007), controlling a $40B budget. On Sept. 20 U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark meets with U.S. defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld in the Pentagon, and is told that the decision has been made to go to war with Iraq. On Sept. 22 the U.S. lifts its sanctions on India and Pakistan (in place since May, 1998); Japan follows suit on Oct. 26. On Sept. 23 Pres. Bush signs Executive Order 13224, freezing assets of 27 U.S. entities alleged connected to terrorism, incl. the Global Relief Foundation, Benevolence Internat. Foundation, and Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development; on Dec. 8, 2011 the convictions of the five jihadists behind the foundation are upheld the U.S. Court of Appeals. On Sept. 24 Calif. artists R.J. Waldron, Eric Noda, and Thomas Hanley paint a 35-ft. U.S.flag on a concrete wall near I-680 in Sunol, Calif. about 40 mi. SE of San Francisco; in 2010 Caltrans removes it after declaring it graffiti. Yoo-hoo, peek-a-boo, I see you? On Sept. 25 the Yoo Memorandum by Korean-Am. U.S. asst. atty.-gen. John Choon Yoo (1967-) contends that "the Constitution vests the President with the plenary authority, as Commander-in-Chief and the sole organ of the Nation in its foreign relations, to use military force abroad", and that Congress cannot "place any limits on the President's determinations as to any terrorist threat, the amount of military force to be used in response, or the method, timing, and nature of the response", incl. torture, bitch-slapping and drugging al-Qaida POWs; by 2005 autopsies of POWs dying in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan list strangulation, asphyxiation, and blunt force injuries as causes of death; the memo is not released to the public until Apr. 1, 2008. On Sept. 26 after efforts by conservative backer Grover Glenn Norquist (1956-), Pres. Bush meets with 15 Muslim leaders at the White House who allegedly reject terrorism, although many are suspect of supporting it against Israel; after telling the press that real Islam doesn't support al-Qaida's doctrines, Bush utters the soundbyte "The teachings of Islam are teachings of peace and good"; on Apr. 2, 2005 Norquist marries Kuwaiti-born Palestinian Muslim Samah Alrayyes, who works for the U.S. Agency for Internat. Development (USAID) as an Arab and Muslim outreach specialist; after some Muslims who befriended Norquist end up indicted for terrorist activities, incl. Abdurahman Alamoudi, Norquist still doesn't drop his support for the Islam as religion of peace cause (until ?). On Sept. 26 (9/11 + 5 = bad omen?) Star Trek: Enterprise debuts on UPN-TV for 98 episodes (until May 13, 2005), starring Scott Stewart Bakula (1954-) as Capt. Jonathan Archer of Earth's first Warp 5 starship Enterprise in the year 2151, his father having designed the engine, Jolene Blalock (1975-) as Vulcan T'Pol, Connor Trinneer (1969-) as aquaphobic chief engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker III, Dominic Keating (1962-) as armory officer Malcolm Reed, Linda Park (1978-) as communications officer Hosi Sato, John Billingsley (1960-) as chief medical officer Dr. Phlox, and Anthony T. Montgomery (197-1) as helmsman Ensign Travis Mayweather. On Sept. 28 after a 5-min. meeting, the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 1373, responding to 9/11 by calling on all member states to ratify all existing internat. conventions on terrorism, share intel, and restrict immigration, establishing a terrorism committee to monitor compliance; too bad, the term "terrorism" isn't defined, and only al-Qaida and the Taliban are put on the sanctions list. On Sept. 28 Pres. George W. Bush utters the soundbyte: "There are thousands of Muslims who proudly call themselves Americans, and they know what I know, that the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion" - but only for other Muslims? On Sept. 29 Am. actress Sharon Stone (1958-) has a brain aneurysm at age 43, later making a full recovery - if Ahnuld couldn't take her? On Sept. 30 the J.J. Abrams action-spy series Alias debuts on ABC-TV for 105 episodes (until May 22, 2006), starring Jennifer Anne Garner (1972-) as CIA agent Sydney Bristow, who poses as an operative for the SD-6 global criminal org., and struggles to hide her career from her family and friends while tracking down artifacts created by Renaissance-era genius Milo Rambaldi (1444-96). In Sept. the Tipton Three, three 20-something British Muslims who went to Afghanistan on a lark and attended a wedding cross into Pakistan, eventually getting arrested in the company of Taliban fighters, and end up in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where they are interrogated and mistreated, finally being released in 2004 with no apologies. On Oct. 1 Mademoiselle mag. announces that it will cease pub. after 66 years, citing a weak advertising climate caused by 9/11. On Oct. 1, 2001 the sitcom According to Jim debuts on ABC-TV for 182 episodes (until June 2, 2009), starring James Adam "Jim" Belushi (1954-) (brother of the late John Belush) as James "Jim" Orenthal, a lovable surburban father of three who likes blues music, the Chicago Bears, Chicago Cubs, Chicago Bulls, and Chicago Blackhawks, and gets into trouble continually because of his laziness. On Oct. 2 the medical comedy series Scrubs debuts on NBC-TV for 182 episodes (until Mar. 17, 2010), set at Sacred Heart Teaching Hospital and based on the daydreams of Dr. John "J.D." Dorian, played by Zachary Israel "Zach" Braff (1975-). On Oct. 3 According to Jim debuts on ABC-TV for 182 episodes (until June 2, 2009), starring James Adam "Jim" Belushi (1954-) as surbuban blues fan father of fiveJames "Jim" Orenthal (no last name), whose laziness causes the humor. On Oct. 6 the Society of Prof. Journalists in Seattle, Wash. pub. the PC "Diversity Guidelines", incl. portraying "Muslims, Arabs, Middle Eastern and South Asian Americans in the richness of their diverse experiences", and not using "inflammatory" language. The Bush Empire Strikes Back? On Oct. 7 (anniv. of the 1777 2nd Battle of Saratoga, the 1780 Battle of King's Mountain, and the 1918 Relief of the Lost Battalion) after the Taliban refuses to hand over Osama bin Laden, citing lack of evidence despite admitting to harboring a fugitive from justice, the first U.S. military counterattack against Osama bin Laden begins, with a massive daily bombing campaign against Taliban and al-Qaida terrorist camps in Afghanistan, aided by the CIA's elite Special Activities Div. and British forces, overthrowing Taliban control of Afghanistan with minimal U.S. force loss and no conventional military forces; the U.S. communicates with anti-Taliban Iran before and after the invasion for the 1st time since the 1985-6 Iran-Contra Affair; on Oct. 14 the Taliban offers to discuss handling bin Laden over to a neutral country, but maintains the evidence requirement, and is rejected; on Nov. 12 (night) the Taliban retreats S from Kabul, and by Nov. 13 they withdraw Jalalabad, followed by their last city stronghold of Kandahar in early Dec; on Nov. 15 they release eight Western aid workers after 3 mo. in captivity; the horrible Sharia imposed by the Taliban in Afghanistan relaxes, only to begin to rebound in 2003, with police looking the other way; meanwhile Am. philosopher Noam Chomsky later calls the Afghan invasion "one of the most immoral acts in modern history". On Oct. 8 Pres. Bush creates the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, with former (1995-2001) Penn. gov. Thomas Joseph "Tom" Ridge (1945-) as acting dir. (until Jan. 24, 2003), becoming the biggest federal govt. reorg. since the 1940s, subsuming every govt. agency from the Secret Service to the Coast Guard in an effort to protect the "critical infrastructure"; they set up the Web site Ready.gov for the public, with the motto "Prepare. Plan. Stay Informed"; too bad, by 2010 the intel apparatus balloons to 1,271 govt. orgs. and 1,931 private cos. working in 10K locations around the U.S., with 854K granted top secret security clearances, becoming a secret govt. that could threaten the freedom of its own people; by 2010 its surface yearly budget is $75B, which doesn't incl. domestic counter-terrorism and military programs. On Oct. 9 Pres. Bush's approval rating reaches a high of 92%. On Oct. 9 New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani announces that the city is rejecting a $10M donation for disaster relief from Saudi prince Al-Walid bin Talal after he suggests that U.S. policies in the Middle East contributed to the 9/11 attacks with a note telling the city to "reexamine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance to the Palestinian cause", and "must address some of the issues that led to such a criminal attack", causing Giuliani to reply "I entirely reject that statement. There is no moral equivalent for this act. There is no justification for it. The people who did it lost any right to ask for justification for it when they slaughtered 4,000 or 5,000 innocent people"; Talal goes on to donate money for Islamic centers at U.S. univs., which are gratefully accepted by liberal academia, and embarrass other Saudi royals with claims that his Lebanese heritage puts him in a position for negotiations, along with his obscene flaunting of his wealth incl. a private Boeing 747. On Oct. 10 former PM (1991-6) Khaleda Zia (1945-), wife of assassinated pres. Zia ur-Rahman becomes PM #12 of Bangladesh (until Oct. 29, 2006). On Oct. 16 Smallville debuts on The WB for 218 episodes (until May 13, 2011), based on the DC Comics Superman char., starring Thomas John Patrick "Tom" Welling (1977-) as teenie Clark Kent growing up in Smallville, Kan. - just what America needs right after 9/11? On Oct. 19/20 violence in the West Bank sees eight Palestinians killed and 12 wounded; on Oct. 20 (night) an Israeli heli fire two missiles at a bldg. in Bathlehem after spotting armed Palestinians on the roof, wounding eight, five criticaly. On Oct. 23 the IRA announces that it has begun to dismantle its weapons arsenal. On Oct. 24 the U.S. House by 357-66 passes the U.S. Patriot Act (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act) "to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world"; it passes the U.S. Senate on Oct. 25 by 98-1; it incl. a sunset provision under which 15 of the law's provisions expire at the end of 2005; Pres. George W. Bush signs it on Oct. 26; a controversial provision allows govt. access to library and bookstore records, causing fears that it could let them target innocent patriots as terrorists based on what books they check out or buy; in 2010 the FBI is revealed to improperly open investigations into Greenpeace and other anti-war and animal rights groups after 9/11. On Oct. 28 Muslim gunmen with AK-47s attack a Protestant church in Bahawalpur, Punjab, killing 16 and injuring six. In Oct. the Palestinians begin firing Qassam steel artillery rockets (range 3 mi.) into Israeli settlements, followed on Feb. 10, 2002 by Israel itself, incl. the S Israeli city of Sderot on Mar. 5, with some reaching the far edge of Ashkelon; 1K rockets are launched in 2006, 1.75K in 2008, killing 22 Israelis by 2010. As the U.S. zeroes in on Osama bin Laden, he turns into the new Elvis, sans sightings in Vegas? In Oct. Tayseer Alouni of Al Jazeera interviews Osama bin Laden, becoming the last reputable person who claims to see him until ?; after this only audio and video tapes emanating by somebody claiming to be him come from somewhere, some showing him with a short broad nose, others with a Semitic aquiline nose; a Dec. 2001 video shows him wearing golden rings, which goes against Wahhabi customs. In Oct. Yemeni-born Muslim imam Anwar al-Awlaki (1971-) of the Dar al-Hijrah (Land of Migration) Mosque in Great Falls, Fairfax County, Va., where two 9/11 terrorists worshipped (who atended a luncheon at the Pentagon months after 9/11) is interviewed by Nat. Geographic, claiming that Muslims aren't radical or violent, with the soundbytes "We came here to build, not to destroy" and "We are the bridge between Americans and one billion Muslims worldwide." In Oct. Ahmad Sa'adat (Saadat) (Sadat) (1953-) becomes secy.-gen. of the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) (until ?); on Oct. 17 right-wing Israeli tourism minister Gen. Rehavam "Gandhi" Ze'evi (b. 1926) is assassinated in the Jerusalem Hyatt Hotel by the PFLP, and Sa'adat is blamed, causing him to take refuge in Yassir Arafat's PLO HQ in Muqata, causing Israel to siege it until an agreement between the U.S. and U.K. causes him to be handed over, after which he is tried then sentenced to 30 years in prison on Dec. 25, 2008, and imprisoned despite internat. pressure; in Dec. 2007 PFLP member Hamdi Quran confesses in court to the assassination, and is sentenced to life in prison; PFLP members Basel al-Asmar, Majdi Rahima Rimawi, and Ahad Olma are sentenced to 30-80 years. On Nov. 1 Pres. Bush signs Executive Order 13233, limiting access to the records of former U.S. presidents; it is partially struck down by the court in Oct. 2007, and pres. Barack Obama revokes it on Jan. 21, 2009. On Nov. 4 the Arizona Diamondbacks (NL) (mgr. Bob Brenly) defeat the New York Yankees (AL) (mgr. Joe Torre) 4-3 to win the Ninety-Seventh (97th) World Series when Luis Gonzalez' broken-bat single caps a 2-run 9th inning in Game 7; Pres. Bush throws the first pitch in Game 3, becoming the first U.S. pres. to visit Yankee Stadium during a WS; in Game 4 Lee Greenwood sings "God Bless the USA". On Nov. 6 taking advantage of the 9/11 buzz, 24 debuts on Fox Network for 204 episodes (until July 14, 2014), a 24-episode series in which each episode represents one hour in the day of the life of definitely-no-007 U.S. Counter Terrorist Unit agent Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland (1966-), who fights terrorism and govt. bureaucracy; Dennis Dexter Haysbert (1954-) plays black U.S. pres. David Palmer, who gets assassinated and replaced by his equally black brother Wayne Palmer, played by D.B. (David Bryan) Woodside (1969-). On Nov. 8 King Abdullah II of Jordan gives a Speech on 9/11 to the British Parliament, promising support in the war against terrorism, and saying that Jordan recognizes Israel's right to exist but wants a 2-state solution with the right of return of displaced Palestinians. On Nov. 10 Colo.-born writer and LSD pioneer Ken Kesey (b. 1935), the link man between the 1950s Beat Generation and the 1960s Hippies Generation dies; "I was too young to be a beatnik and too old to be a hippie" - high to the end? On Nov. 10 Osama bin Laden poses for a photo with his adviser-successor Ayman al-Zawahri, which becomes famous. On Nov. 12 Am. Airlines Flight 587 plunges into a residential neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., killing 260 plus five on the ground - American Airlines, first into the Towers and first into the hood? On Nov. 13 Pres. Bush issues a Pres. Military Order on Detention, Treatment and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism, ordering captured al-Qaida terrorists to be tried by special military commissions, free of the restrictions imposed by the civilian courts; the Taliban is lumped in with al-Qaida; the military prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is established; initially a bunch of cages called Camp X-Ray, Halliburton gets a $155M contract to construct new facilities called Camp Delta, opened on Apr. 28, 2002. On Nov. 14 Pres. Bush issues the first ever U.S. Pres. Ramadan Greeting, going with his Islam history ignoramus attempts to define Islam as a religion of peace, along with prohibiting a person's religion from being used in airport security and encouraging more Saudi students to study in the U.S.; he even adds a Quran to the White House library. On Nov. 22 Pope John Paul II becomes the first pope to send an e-mail apology over the Internet for injustices committed by Roman Catholic clergy in Pacific nations against aborigines. On Nov. 26 opposition candidate Ricardo Rodolfo Maduro Joest (1946-) (a Roman Catholic of Jewish descent) beats Liberal party candidate Rafael Pineda Ponce to become pres. of scandal-rocked Honduras next Jan. 27 (until Jan. 27, 2006), which has a 1-term law for presidents. On Nov. 27 Afghan factions create a post-Taliban govt. On Nov. 27 Liberal Party leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen (1953-) becomes PM #24 of Denmark (until Apr. 5, 2009), leading a center-right coalition with the Conservative People's Party, going on to limit immigration, freeze tax rates, and other "biggest reforms in 30 years". On Nov. 29 George Harrison (b. 1943) becomes the second Beatle to bite the dust and not make it to 64 when he dies of cancer in Los Angeles, Calif.; in July he had released a statement asking fans not to worry about reports that he was still battling it. On Nov. 30 Salt Lake City, Utah-born "Green River Killer" Gary Leon Ridgway (1949-) is arrested while leaving the Kenton truck factory in Renton, Wash. for murdering four women; he is convicted of 49 murders of women and girls in Wash. State in the 1980s-1990s, mainly hos and runaways, strangling them and dumping their bodies in wilderness areas in King County, often returning to have sex with them. In Nov. John Howard wins a 3rd term as PM of Australia (since 1996) as a result of his tough policy against illegal immigration, imprisoning refugees from Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq in camps, and rerouting boat people to camps in Papua New Guinea and Naura ("the Pacific solution"). In Nov. the Transportation Security Admin. (TSA) is established by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security to screen passengers at airports; by the end of 2009 it spends $40B on aviation security, and still can't stop the 2009 Xmas Underwear Bomber? In Nov. an Italian woman has the first delivery of two simultaneous pregnancies, followed by #2 3 mo. later, becoming the first case of superfecundation in human medical history? In Nov. Pres. Bush signs an executive order making non-citizens serving in the U.S. military on active duty eligible for citizenship; on Nov. 13 he signs another executive order giving the U.S. intel community extensive orders to go after terrorists - jump the border, go to Iraq, lose a leg, get your papers? In Nov. the World Trade Org. (WTO) (founded 1994) holds its Doha Round in Doha, Qatar, with 141 nations meeting to discuss reduction of tarrifs and other world trade issues (ends ?). In Nov. the city council of Esperantina, Brazil passes a law making May 9 official Orgasm Day, to fight premature ejaculation - shouldn't it have been June 9? On Dec. 1 converted Muslim U.S. citizen John Philip Walker Lindh (1981-) ("the American Taliban") is captured in Aghanistan among Taliban forces and charged with conspiracy to kill Americans outside the U.S., and gets a 20-year sentence after agreeing to a plea bargain; he later goes by name Abu Sulayman Al-Irlandi ("the Irishman"); on Dec. 9 Kandahar, the last Taliban-controlled city falls, causing a Quetta Shura (leadership council) to be formed by the top Taliban leadership in the Balochistan province of Pakistan; Osama bin Laden remains at large as the Raghead Robin Hood of Fractured Medieval Space Age Islam; the U.S. blows its chance to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora ("Black Cave") (50 mi. SE of Kabul at the W edge of the tribal areas) in Dec., after which he ends up in Abbattobad, Pakistan. Enron execs are caught laying, cheating and skilling? On Dec. 2 Houston, Tex.-based energy-trading co. Enron Corp. (originally called Enteron until they discovered it means "intestine"), known for making large contributions to both nat. political parties and being real close to the oil-co.-loving Bush admin. announces that it is filing for bankruptcy; with assets of $63B and 11K employees, it is the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, and leaves the employees in the lurch even though the execs cash out $500M in stock while lying to Wall St. about the corpse, er, corp.'s health; the corp. HQ in Houston, Tex. is sold for $55.5M; the accounting firm of Arthur Anderson is later convicted of obstructing justice in an SEC investigation; the Creative Accounting Scandal is left to be mopped-up by Congress with the 2002 U.S. McCain-Feingold Act (campaign financing bill) and the 2002 U.S. Corporate Responsibility Act; 16 Enron execs plead guilty to criminal charges, and on July 7, 2004 Ph.D. (Economics) founder (CEO in 1982-2002) Kenneth Lee "Ken" Lay (1942-2006) and CEO (Feb. 12-Aug. 14, 2001) Jeffrey Keith "Jeff" Skilling (1953-) are charged with conspiracy and fraud (7 counts for Lay, 31 for Skilling, incl. insider trading); after spending $30M on their defense, their 2006 trial results on May 25 in 6 guilty counts for Lay (165 years possible) and 19 for Skilling (185 years possible); in a separate trial, Lay is found guilty on four counts of personal banking fraud; 3 mo. before his sentencing date he has a heart attack (coronary artery disease) and dies in his Pabst Ranch 20 mi. from Aspen, Colo. on July 5, 2006; too bad, on June 25, 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court guts the Honest Services Law (making it a crime "to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services"), one of the favorite tools of federal prosecutors for pursuing corrupt politicians corp. execs, casting doubt on the convictions. On Dec. 3 Israel confines Yasser Arafat to the West Bank town of Ramallah, condemns the Palestinian Authority as a "terror-supporting entity", then shows its logic by bombing Palestinian areas. On Dec. 4 the Richardson, Tex.-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (originally Occupied Land Fund) (founded 1989), largest Muslim charity in the U.S. is shut down by the Bush admin. as an enemy of the state and terrorist group, accusing it of funneling money to Hamas, with the Treasury Dept. freezing its assets; on Nov. 24, 2008 five HLF leaders are convicted on 108 counts, and given 15-65 year sentences. On Dec. 6 Newfoundland and Labrador becomes Canada's 10th province - perfect for a year that goes to the dogs? On Dec. 9 the Taliban govt. in Afghanistan collapses after 2 mo. of bomging by the U.S. combined with ground fighting by Northern Alliance troops; on Dec. 22 Hamid Karzai (1957-) is sworn-in as interim Afghan pres. On Dec. 12 Pres. Bush informs Congress of his decision to withdraw from the 1972 ABM Treaty; Congress allows it to lapse 6 mo. later on 6-13-2002. On Dec. 12 female genital mutiliation of minors is outlawed in Kenya. On Dec. 13 five gunmen attack the Indian Parliament, leaving 14 dead; the Pakistanis are blamed, and war looms; on Dec. 30 Pakistani authorities arrest militant Islamic Army of the Pure leader Hafiz Mohammed Saeed in an effort to avert war. On Dec. 13 Osama bin Laden (b. 1957) is killed, and his death is revealed in newspapers in Pakistan on Dec. 15, but the U.S. govt. covers it up to keep the war on Iraq and Afghanistan going?; the Bush family and the bin Laden family have been business partners since the 1990s? On Dec. 15 French intel officer Pierre-Henri Bunel (1952-) is convicted by a military tribunal for passing documents to Serbian col. Jovan Milanovic on future air strike sites, receiving a 5-year sentence; he is freed in the spring of 2002, claiming in 2004 that al-Qaida is a fictional org. created by Western intel, with the soundbyte: "The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al-Qaida, and any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the Devil only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the U.S. war on terrorism are only interested in making money." On Dec. 15 the Leaning Tower of Pisa is reopened after the leaning problem is partially rectified. On Dec. 19 millions try to find a message for their own troubles in the theater release of The Lord of the Rings, Part 1: The Fellowship of the Ring; lucky producer Saul Zaentz (1921-), who acquired the screen rights to LOTR in 1976 to produce an animated version, ends up collecting at least $168M after the trilogy grosses $2.9B; the book itself is repub. by Houghton Mifflin (hardback) and Del Rey/Ballantine (paperback), making the New York Times bestseller list. On Dec. 20 Pres. Fernando De La Rua of Argentina resigns after a week of riots over the poor economy. On Dec. 22 Bromley, London-born "Shoe Bomber" Richard Colvin Reid (1973-) (Muslim convert) is subdued by passengers aboard American Airlines Flight 63 en route from Paris to Miami when he attempts to detonate a shoe bomb containing blasting cap explosive PETN with matches; it lands safely in Boston; claiming he could have done the job right with a lighter, all lighters are banned on flights (until Aug. 4, 2007), causing 22K a day to be confiscated, costing $4M a year to dispose of. On Dec. 24 after a record snowless Nov., Buffalo, N.Y. is pounded by a record-breaking snowstorm. In Dec. the NYSE reaches a record high just 90 days after 9/11. In Dec. Iran begins supporting the insurgency of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In Dec. the Bush admin. orders the assets of the Holy Land Foundation (largest Muslim charity in the U.S.) seized for allegedly funding Hamas. In Dec. the Internat. Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), established by the govt. of Canada pub. the report The Responsibility to Protect (R2P), defining a new concept justifying "humanitarian intervention" in states that are unwilling or unable to stop genocide, massive killings or other massive human rights violations. In Dec. Shiite Muslim Iranian pres. #4 (1989-97) Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1934-) (richest person in Iran) gives a speech containing the doomsday soundbyte: "If one day the Islamic world [acquires nuclear weapons], then the imperialists' strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality. Jews shall expect to be once again scattered and wandering around the globe the day when this appendix is extracted from the region and the Muslim world." In Dec. the Muslim Canadian Congress is founded in Toronto by liberal Pakistani-born Muslim Tarek Fatah (1949-) to lobby Muslims for "separation of religion and state in all matters of public policy", going on to oppose imposition of Sharia and support same-sex marriage laws; on Aug. 20, 2006 several members split to form the Canadian Muslim Union. In Dec. Gov. Ahnuld is hospitalized with several broken ribs after a motorcycle accident. Kyrgyzstan Pres. Askar Akayev jails vice-pres. Felix Sharshenbayevich Kulov (1948-) for challenging him for the presidency. U.S. Rep. (D-Ohio) (since 1985) James Anthony Traficant Jr. (1941-) is indicted on racketeering charges, convicted and sentenced to eight years - with a name that sounds like Santo Trafficante, he was an easy V? Young Frenchman Herve (Hervé) Djamel Loiseau (b. 1973), member of the Tablighi Jamaat (Islamic Preaching Party) is killed fleeing the U.S. bombardment of Tora Bora in Afghanistan 50 mi. SE of Kabul. Canadian PM Jean Chretian announces that he will not seek a 4th term after his conflict with finance minister Paul Martin weakens the Liberal Party. In Burundi a peace plan incl. power sharing between Hutus and Tutsis begins, with a transitional govt. led by Tuttsi pres. Pierre Buyoya (until 2003). In Nigeria, more than a dozen northern states have by now introduced Islamic law, much to the chagrin of the Nigerian govt. and its large Christian pop.; bloody riots against U.S. involvement in Afghanistan compound the problem and by fall the country of 121M is on the verge of civil war. Dictator Idriss Deby is reelected in Chad - home of Little Deby Snack Cakes? Who Fidels while Rome burns? Cuban #2 Raul Castro, younger brother of Fidel and head of the armed forces grants a rare interview early in the year, and encourages the U.S. to make peace with Cuba while Fidel is still alive, saying that later, when he takes power, "it will be more difficult". China joins the World Trade Org. (WTO); the U.S. begins losing an avg. of 50K manufacturing jobs to it per month (until ?). U.S. ambassador Carlos Pasqual is declared persona non grata in Ukraine. The Defense of Freedom Medal is instituted by the U.S. after 9/11 as a civilian version of the Purple Heart. Search for Internat. Terrorist Entities Intelligence Group is founded by Iraqi-born Jew Rita Katz to monitor Muslim intel to prevent another 9/11. The Internat. Solidarity Movement (ISM) is founded by Palestinian activist Ghassan Andoni (1956-) et al. to encourage nonviolent protests against the Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Swedish-born Muslim-turned-Christian Ergun Michael/Mehmet "Butch" Caner (1966-) (Turkish father, Swedish mother) uses 9/11 to raise his stock with Am. Baptists, becoming pres. of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary (founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell) in 2005, tripling student enrollment; he's really a stealth Muslim jihadist? Rand Corp. convenes Transition 2001, a panel of 54 bipartisan U.S. leaders in foreign and defense policy to forge an agreement on the central tenets of U.S. nat. security policy and offer recommendations to new U.S. pres. George W. Bush. Pres. Bush requires all West Wing staffers to wear suits and ties, dumping the jeans and T-shirts worn during the Clinton admin. Canada legalizes medical marijuana for the terminally and chronically ill. The salary of the U.S. pres. is raised from $200K to $400K plus a $50K non-taxable expense allowance. The Red Cross raises a record $1.1B to aid victims of the 9/11 attacks, but stinks itself up when it reserves $200M to "prepare for future crises", causing pres. Bernadine Healy to resign, and the money to be returned to the Sept. 11 Liberty Fund. Chevron and Texaco merge to form the 2nd largest oil co. in the U.S. Hewlett-Packard (HP) acquires Compaq in an effort to compete against Dell Computer; HP CEO Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (1954-) is ousted on Feb. 9, 2005 after nearly six years, and the merger is declared a disaster. William Clay "Bill" Ford Jr. (1957-), great-grandson of founder Henry Ford becomes CEO of Ford Motor Co., turning it from losing $5.45B this year to a profit of $3.5B in 2004. Rev. Billy Graham receives an honorary British knighthood. Intel Corp. coins the term "patent trolls" after being sued for defamation for calling some of them "patent extortionists"; meanwhile patent infrigement suits double from 1988 to 2.4K, many by companies consisting of little more than a few trolls, er, lawyers who purchased patents out of bankruptcies. Over 4M U.S. 25-to-34-year-olds live still with parents. A survey finds that 30% of gay black men in the U.S. from ages 23-29 are infected with HIV; nearly 50% of all gay men in their 20s engage in unprotected anal "bareback" sex - there's nothing wrong with it? This year the European Union graduates more scientists and engineers than the U.S., and Asia about as many as the U.S.; only 61% of the U.S. degrees are awarded to U.S.-born students, down from 77% in 1966. The Earth will be visited this year by the Muons of Planet Myton from the Pleiades, according to the Unarius Academy of Science in El Cajon, Calif. - maybe their spaceship broke down? The nonpartisan William J. Clinton Foundation is founded by ex-U.S. pres. Bill Clinton "to alleviate poverty, improve global health, strengthen economies, and protect the environment"; it turns into a criminal racket to enrich Bill and Hillary in return for handing out govt. favors? Iraqi nutcase Saddam Hussein's directorate of gen. security reports to him that the TV series "Pokemon" is an Israeli plot to contaminate the minds of Iraqi youths, and that the title is Hebrew for "I'm Jewish"; meanwhile a committee of Saudi clerics issue a fatwa against the Pokeman card game for gambling and polytheism; in 2016 they reissue it for the viral mobile game Pokemon Go. The Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism (FAIR) is founded in London, England. After 9/11, the Interfaith Amigos, incl. Pastor Don Mackenzie, Rabbi Ted Falcon, and Sheikh Jamal Rahman are formed for interfaith understanding. Monaco Princess Caroline's hubby Prince Ernst August of Hanover (1954-) is fined by a German court for kicking a paparazzi in the butt and beating the owner of a hotel in Kenya. French novelist Michel Houellebecq (1956-) gives an interview in which he calls Islam "the stupidest religion", and is hauled into court for inciting racial hatred, but charges are dismissed. Post-Adjudication Risk Management (PARM) program to give heightened security scrutiny to employees who were born oversees or have relatives or friends there. The mainly Muslim Students for Justice in Palestine is founded at UCB in Calif., spawning chapters across the U.S. Am. journalist Alison Weir founds If Americans Knew to tell the story of the alleged coverup of Israeli atrocities. After 9/11 a large segment of the reading public seemingly gives up on fiction, flocking to nonfiction works, esp. about Islam, the Middle East, Iraq, and U.S. politics. Verasun Energy is founded, becoming a leading supplier of ethanol - a poor long-range idea of using food for fuel, which can force agonizing choices? Information gets cheaper and cheaper, but knowledge still is worth what you pay for it? The Dot-Com Boom (Bubble) (begun 1997) falls on its face, with thousands of cos. (little more than air and a Web site) going under; meanwhile on Jan. 15 winner site Wikipedia is founded by Ala.-born Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (1966-) and Wash.-born Lawrence Mark "Larry" Sanger (1968-) as a user-generated encyclopedia with articles of varying quality contributed by anon. volunteers, reaching 1M articles in English by Mar. 2006; too bad, there is little control of the contributors or content, those who are talked about in the articles have a habit of sneaking in and fluffing the wording, and since contributors aren't paid, it threatens to kill the literary market, all causing a nightmare in QA; in Nov. 2005 a wave of controversy is caused by the discovery that someone had rewritten their article on Tenn. pub. John Siegenthaler Sr., allleging that he had been implicated in the Kennedy assassinations; in Dec. 2005 Nature pub. an article comparing it to Encyclopaedia Britannica, finding it to be nearly as accurate, causing the latter to shoot back in Mar. 2006 that their article is wrong and full of inaccuracies; in 2007 Sanger says "It has bothered me that I helped to get a project started that people are misusing", announcing plans for a new online encyclopedia called Citizendium (launched on Mar. 25, 2007), adding "gentle expert oversight" and requiring contributors to ID themselves, which slowly grinds to a crawl; meanwhile the poorly-designed source code is propagated throughout the Internet, causing alternative user-content products to spring up; too bad, Wiki cedes too much power to editors, who accumulate special privileges then hijack Wiki pages and actively keep them from improvement, incl. the Laura Branigan bio. page, which for years was taken over by a clique of editors who knowingly promulgated a false birthdate of 1957 for her instead of the real one of 1952 to please their fan club, cutting off access to any editors who tried to correct it, while the top mgt. did nothing - no more encyclopedia salesmen at our doors? The German Bernacer (Germán Bernácer) Prize is established to recognize economic research by European economists under age 40. John Hopkins U. begins pub. the World Shakespeare Bibliography Online, covering the years 1961-2009, containing 120K+ annotated entries. The Web site You're the Man Now Dog is founded by Max Goldberg, named after a line by Sean Connery from the 2000 film "Finding Forrester". Conservative Peter Gordon MacKay (1965-) of Nova Scotia is voted Canada's sexiest MP by the Ottawa Hill Times for the first of seven times in a row; in 2006 rumors fly that he has a crush on Condoleezza Rice. The Apollo Alliance is founded by the far-left Tides Center under Dan Carol to work for green jobs and a green economy, which goes on to help create the U.S. Am. Recovery and Revinestment Act of 2009 (Obama Stimulus). The militant Islamist group Boko Haram ("West Education is Forbidden or a Sin") is founded in Kanamma, N Nigeria by Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf (1970-2009), who is known for believing that the Earth is flat. Palestinian-born British Muslim Azzam (Azam) Tamimi (1955-) calls the U.S. War on Terror in response to 9/11 a war on Islam that will backfire; he also says that Palestinians will never accept a permanent state of Israel and that the U.S. or Germany should let the Jews set up one on their territory instead. The start of the big breeders vs. retirees war of the 21st cent.? The Zickert Case begins in the cul-de-sac development of Highlands Ranch, Colo. (S of Denver), where two retirees go nuts with all the kids playing roller hockey in their cul-de-sac, and install surveillance cameras in an effort to get the sheriff's dept. to prosecute them, causing pro-hockey residents to successfully counter by lobbying county commissioners to designate their block a "play street" in 2003. Actress Anne Heche breaks up with lezzie lover Ellen DeGeneres and goes on to marry male cameraman Coleman "Coley" Laffoon (1973-), bearing two children before leaving him in 2006 for James Tupper (1965-), her co-star on ABC-TV's Men in Trees. Vonage (Voice-Over-Net-Age) is founded in Jan. in Edison, N.J. to provide telephone service via a broadband connection, with the trademark "The Broadband Phone Company", later changed to "Sounds Good" and "Crazy Generous". Creative Commons in San Francisco, Calif. is founded by Lawrence Lessig (1961-), releasing its first Creative Commons Licenses in Dec. 2002 in an attempt to allow a lessing, er, lower the leasing, er, permit authors of creative works to provide them to the public on the Internet without losing all their rights - your what, tin roof busted? Avante-garde German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen utters the soundbyte that the events of 9/11 are "the greatest work of art imaginable for the whole cosmos". French Parisian philosopher Jean Baudrillard pub. the essay "The Spirit of Terrorism" in the Nov. issue of Le Monde, about 9/11, with the soundbyte that the U.S. is an "unbearable power" that elicits violent reactions around the world, and that the "terrorist imagination... inhabits us all... It was almost they who did it, but we who wanted it." The 18th cent. Ground Zero Mystery Ship is unearthed in the remains of the WTC. Canadian Web site Ashley Madison starts up to provide an online dating service for adulterers, with the motto "Life is short. Have an affair", reaching 39M customers by 2015. Australian Web site Abby Winters starts up, showing a future where every young woman is a happy guilt-free uninhibited naked active lesbian; are thousands of years of male supremacist religious control really about over?; when will Australian schools for girls start teaching them girl-girl sex as part of the curriculum?; men are how far from becoming obsolete, stay tuned while putting your quarters in the slot? - a new meaning to Down Under? Architecture: The World Trade Center is extensively remodeled by a Saudi co. :) On Jan. 10 after a fight by the Nat. Org. on Disability a bronze lifesize Statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt In A Wheelchair, by Robert Graham (first statue showing a world leader in a wheelchair) is dedicated in Washington, D.C. by Pres. Clinton; an example of a govt. coverup, only two photos of him in a wheelchair exist? On June 28 the 9-story 8.5M DM Gehry Tower in Hanover, Germany opens, featuring a prominent twist in its outer facade and a ferroconcrete core. Sports: On Feb. 18 the 2001 (43rd) Daytona 500 is won by Michael Curtis Waltrip (1963-), brother of Darrell Waltrip; Dale Earnhardt Jr. comes in 2nd, and Rusty Wallace comes in 3rd; on lap 173 Robby Gordon hits Ward Burton, causing an 18-car wreck that flips Tony Stewart's car down the backstretch; on lap 200 1998 winner Dale Earnhardt Sr. loses control of his car and collides head-on with the wall, killing him, becoming the 4th NASCAR driver to be killed in 9 mo. since Adam Petty in May 2000, causing a fan outcry resulting in safety improvements. On Mar. 6 Shaquille O'Neal scores 61 points at the Staples Center in Los Angeles against the Clippers. On Apr. 2 Tiger Woods wins his 4th consecutive pro golf major, becoming the first to win the grand slam of golf. On Apr. 8 African-Am. pitcher Carsten Charles "CC" Sabathia (1980-) becomes the first baseball player born in the 1980s to make a ML debut, for the Cleveland Indians. In Apr. the NFL bans players from wearing Do-rags and bandanas underneath their helmets except for medical reasons. In Apr. after league bowling (which peaked in the 1980s at 80% of their business) drops, AMF Bowling Inc. of Richmond, Va., owner of 500 bowling centers with 18K employees files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, causing it to turn to Customer Relationship Mgt. (CRM) software from Applix Inc. of Westboro, Mass. to cut costs, helping them survive long enough for Code Hennessey and Simmons Capital of Chicago, Ill. to buy them in 2004 for $670M; in 2005 they merge with Italian-based Qubica Worldwide to form QubicaAMF Worldwide, selling the rights to their bowling balls in 2007 to 900 Global; too bad, in Nov. 2012 after league bowling tanks at 20%, they file for bankruptcy again, merging in 2013 with New York City-based upscale (no league bowling) co. Bowlmor (Strike Holdings LLC) (founded 1997), giving a combined 7.5K employees, 276 bowling centers, and $450M in annual revenue, attempting to revive league bowling, growing to 315 centers by 2015, with an avg. of 40 lanes per center compared to the U.S. avg. of 21 lanes. On May 26-June 9 the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals sees the Colorado Avalanche defeat the New Jersey Devils 4-3, becoming their 2nd win; the first Finals since 1989 where #1 seeds meet; former Boston Bruins star (#77) (1979-2000) Raymond Jean "Ray" Bourque (1960-) of the Avalanche wins his only Stanley Cup in his final NHL game; MVP is Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy. On May 27 the 2001 (85th) Indianapolis 500 is won by rookie Helio Castroneves (1975-) of Brazil. On June 18 6'11" Kwame James Brown (1982-) of Glynn Academy in Brunswick, Ga. is drafted by the Washington Wizards (#5), becoming the first high schooler to be drafted #1 overall in the NBA draft. On June 6-15 the 2001 NBA Finals sees the Los Angeles Lakers (coach Phil Jackson) defeat the Philadelphia 76ers (coach Larry Brown) by 4-1; the 76ers take game 1 107-101 in OT; Shaquille O'Neal of the Lakers is MVP. On Aug. 7 the Chicago Cubs defeat the Colo. Rockies 5-4; in the bottom of the 6th inning, plate umpire Angel Hernandez calls 3rd baseman Ron Coomer out in a play at home plate, after which Chicago Bears defensive lineman Steve Mongo McMichael takes the microphone in the 7th inning stretch, uttering the soundbyte: "Don't worry, I'll have some speaks with that home plate umpire after the game", causing him to become the first "entertainer" ejected from an MLB game (until ?), and the first ejected for his words rather than actions (until ?) On Sept. 17 ML play resumes; Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully gives a pre-game speech at Dodger Stadium; Jack Buck gives a moving speech and poem; the Colorado Choir sings the Nat. Anthem in Coors Field; the Nat. Anthem and "God Bless America" are added to the 7th inning stretch at Comiskey Park; the Nat. Anthem is sung by the Lindsey Wilson College Singers in Cinergy Field; on Sept. 21 Shea Stadium holds a 9/11 Remembrance Spectacular, featuring Diana Ross singing "God Bless America", Marc Anthony signing the Nat. Anthem, and the NYPD Pipers and USMC Battalion playing Irish bagpipes; in the 8th inning a homer by Mike Piazza gives the Yankees a 3-2 lead; on Sept. 25 Irish Tenor Ronan Tynan sings God Bless America in a patriotic tribute to the heroes of 9/11. On Oct. 7 drug-assisted left fielder Barry Bonds (1964-) of the San Francisco Giants hits his 73rd homer, setting the single-season record and breaking Mark McGwire's 3-y.-o. drug-assisted record - yawn? On Oct. 21 Denver Broncos (NFL) offensive tackle Matt Lepsis puts a cut (below the knee) block on San Diego Chargers defensive end (and former Bronco) Maa Tunavasa, ending his playing career; NFL Players Assoc. pres. Gene Upshaw calls on the league to ban cut blocks, but he is ignored, and Broncos and other teams' offensive linemen continue to break defensive linemens' legs so their teams can score more points. On Nov. 3 after being traded from the Portland Trail Blazers, 6'8" shooting guard Steven Delano "Steve" Smith (1969-) (#8) of the San Antonio Spurs ties the NBA record for most 3-pointers in a game without a miss, going 8 for 8 and finishing with 36 points in a 106-90 win over the Portland Trail Blazers. On Nov. 16 the 8-team NBA Development League (NBA D-League) (NBDL) plays its first game at the BI-LO Center in Greenville, S.C., with the Greenville Groove hosting the North Charleston Lowgators; in 2005 it expands to 15 teams, becoming a true minor league farm system for the NBA; in 2014 it expands to 18 teams; by then 33% of NBA players Cal Ripken Jr. retires from ML baseball after 21 seasons. The first World Rafting Championships held in North Am. are held in W. Va., which attracts more than 250K whitewater tourists each year. Va.-born Michael Dwayne Vick (1980-) leaves Virginia Tech after his sophomore year, and is drafted #1 overall by the Atlanta Falcons, who sign him to a $135M multi-year contract, biggest in NFL history (ends 2008); he makes his NFL debut on Sept. 9 in San Francisco, Calif., leading the Falcons to a 24-16 win. Slamball, invented by Mason Gordon and played on four trampolines plays its first exhibition series in Los Angeles, Calif., featuring the Los Angeles Rumble vs. the Chicago Mob, debuting in 2002 on the Nat. Network (Spike TV) with a 6-team league incl. draft pick #1 Robert Wilson, with former NBA All-Star player Reggie Theus as commentator; the league dissolves in 2003, then reopens for one more season in 2008. Nobel Prizes: Peace: United Nations (U.N.) and Kofi Atta Annan (1938-) (Ghana) ["for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world"]; Lit.: Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul (1932-) (U.K.); Physics: Wolfgang Ketterle (1957-) (Germany), Eric Allin Cornell (1961-) and Carl Edwin Wieman (1951-) (U.S.) [Bose-Einstein condensate]; Chem.: William Standish Knowles (1917-2012) (U.S.) and Ryoji Noyori (1938-) (Japan) [chirally catalyzed hydrogenation reactions], and Karl Barry Sharpless (1941-) (U.S.) [chirally catalyzed oxidation reactions]; Medicine: Leland Harrison "Lee" Hartwell (1939-) (U.S.), Sir Richard Timothy "Tim" Hunt (1943-) (U.K.), and Sir Paul Maxime Nurse (1949-) (U.K.) [cell cycle]; Economics: George Arthur Akerlof (1940-) (U.S.), Andrew Michael Spence (1943-) (U.S.), and Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (1943-) (U.S.) [assymetric info.]; in 2009 Stiglitz calls for a new global currency. Inventions: By this year the avg. desktop PC has 29GB of storage, and the laptop has 17.5 GB. In Jan. the Apple Titanium PowerBook laptop is released, with a 15.2-in.-wide screen display, 400 MHz PowerPC processor, 128MB of RAM, and 10GB hard drive, all for $2,599, launching a rev. for widescreen laptops for the masses. On June 11 Google Earth is released by Keyhole Inc. in Mountain View, Calif., partially funded by the CIA; in 2004 it is acquired by Google, giving Internet users a way to view the Earth in enormous detail for free, revolutionizing the Internet; in 2006 they add historical maps, and in 2008 they add an ancient Roman layer. In June Intel Corp. releases the 64-bit Itanium chip, which has a staggering 220M transistors. On Aug. 24 Microsoft releases the Microsoft XP (Whistler) Operating System. On Nov. 10 Apple releases the iPod personal MP3 player, with 5GB Ram, "1,000 songs in your pocket", backed by digital music downloading service iTunes (announced on Jan. 9), changing the lifestyles of millions, and selling 67M units in 5 years, with 1.5B songs downloaded from their Web site; the 10 billionth song is downloaded on Feb. 24, 2010. On Dec. 2 the 12.5 mph 24 mi. range Segway Human/Personal Transporter (HT/PT) (original names Ginger and IT) a revolutionary new personal gyroscooter is unveiled by Am. inventor Dean L. Kamen (1951-), son of a comic book illustrator; in 2009 Jimi Heselden (1938-2010) of Britain buys him out, then is killed when his out-of-control Segway drives over a cliff - add a seat and a parachute? On Dec. 19 the VeriChip, a rice grain-sized chip that can be injected under a human's skin is announced; the FDA later announces that it won't regulate it. On Dec. 31 the world's first practical Magnetic Refrigerator is announced by scientists at Ames Lab. Science: On Jan. 10 astronomers report the discovery of a giant planetlike object more than 17x the size of Jupiter orbiting a Sun-like star in the constellation Serpens, 123 l.y. away - the Serpens people are coming? On Jan. 11 researchers in Ore. announce the first genetically altered primate, a rhesus monkey named ANDi, having a jellyfish gene for fluorescence spliced into its DNA - it glows in the dark? On Jan. 26 scientists announce that they have decoded the Rice Genome, which becomes the first major crop plant to have its genome decoded. In Apr. Cosmos 1, a solar-sail vehicle with eight sails, funded by Carl Sagan's widow Ann Druyan et al. is launched from a sub in the Barents Sea atop a Russian ICBM, where it deploys its wings at 260 mi. alt. then returns to Earth. On July 3 AbioCor, the first self-contained artificial heart is implanted in 59-y.-o. Robert L. Tools (1942-2001) in Louisville, Ky.; he dies on Nov. 30 after 151 days. On Sept. 7 the first remote surgery (telesurgery) is completed by French surgeon Jacques Marescaux (1948-) in New York City, who performs a cholecystectomy on a 68-y.-o. female patient in Strasbourg, France over redundant fiberoptic lines provided by France Telecom, using a $975K ZEUS Robotic Surgical System by Computer Motion. On Sept. 22 the Deep Space 1 unmanned spacecraft (launched Oct. 24, 1998) images 5-mi.-long Comet Borrelly, which reflects only 3% of the sunlight received by its surface (10% as much as Earth reflects). In Oct. fertility researchers Jerry Hall and Yang-Ling Feng announce a method for parthogenesis, a way for women to have female babies without the need for sperm, making an all-female society possible in principle - isn't Jack in jail? In Nov. scientists announce the first cloned primate, a rhesus monkey - does this one glow too? On Nov. 25 Advanced Cell Technology of Mass. announces that it has cloned the first human, even though the experiment was stopped in the embryo stage (it also involved parthenogenesis?); on Nov. 26 the Raelian org. Clonaid (run by followers of Raelian Movement founder Claude Vorilhon) announces that it had cloned embryos before them. On Nov. 27 scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope announce the detection of the first star other than the Sun with an orbiting planet with a gas atmosphere, in the constellation Pegasus 150 l.y. away from Earth. On Nov. 28 the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory discovers a black hole 14x the mass of the Sun about 40K l.y. from Earth, becoming the heaviest discovered to date - does that make it our brother? Guillermo Gonzales of the U.S. pub. a theory that the Solar System is in the Galactic Habitable Zone, a narrow ring on the midplane of the Milky Way that is the only region where the conditions for life can exist; further, that the Earth is in an ideal place for the discovery of natural laws and the structure of the Milky Way Galaxy and the Universe. South African physicist Neil Geoffrey Turok (1958-) of Cambridge U. and Paul Joseph Steinhardt (1952-) of Princeton U. propose the Cyclic Model of the Universe, AKA the Ekpyrotic Universe (Gk. "conflagration"), in which it was created by the cyclical trillion-year collision of two Universes that were attracted toward each other by the leaking of gravity out of one of them; the past is filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolution of new Universes, and we're just lucky to be in this one?; instead of a Big Bang, there is a Big Bounce. In 2001 the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is pub., summarizing the predominant scientific opinion on climate change, concluding that the global avg. surface temp has risen 0.6C +/-0.2 C since the late 19th cent., and 0.17C/decade in 1971-2001, with the soundbyte: "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" esp. greenhouse gases methane and CO2, predicting a temp increase of 1.4C-5.8C between 1990 an 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions continue, accompanied by sea level rise and an increase in some types of extreme weather, becoming more negative as warming increases; it also incl. the soundbyte: "The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible"; leaders of the IPCC Working Group incl. chmn. Sir Robert Tony Watson (1948-), co-chmn. Welsh evangelical Christian scientist Sir John Theodore Houghton (1931-) and Sir John Francis Brake Mitchell (1948-) of Hadley Centre (lead author of the Second Assessment Report); in May a joint statement of support is issued by the science academies of Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, and U.K.: "We recognise the IPCC as the world's most reliable source of information on climate change and its causes, and we endorse its method of achieving consensus"; critics incl. Am. atmospheric physicist Richard Siegmund Lindzen (1940-), lead author of Ch. 7 "Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks", who calls it "climate alarmism", uttering the soundbyte: "Why do we need to deconstruct global warming? Simply because it has been an issue that has been routinely treated with misinformation and sophistry abetted by constant repetition, institutional endorsements, and widespread ignorance even (perhaps especially) among the educated.... To a great extent, global warming has been merely a device for implementing broader agendas"; another critic is English-born Am. physicist Freeman John Dyson (1923-), who acknowledges that CO2 drives global warming but doubts that existing climate simulation models are accurate enough "to describe the real world we live in", pointing in 2009 out that "What has happened in the past 10 years is that the discrepancies between what's observed and what's predicted have become much stronger. It's clear now the models are wrong, but it wasn't so clear 10 years ago", suggesting that China and India should choose to burn coal and get rich instead of staying poor, noting that "the main effect of carbon dioxide... is to make the planet greender, feeding the growth of green plans of al kinds, increasing the fertility of farms and fields and fields", suggesting that planting 1T trees could remove all excess CO2 in the atmosphere. By this year astronomers have discovered 30 suspected black holes in space, but the evidence remains circumstantial. British scientists discover that sheep have the ability to remember and recognize up to 50 faces, incl. their shepherd's; could this prove they have consciousness? - ask a Scot? The rare marine bacterium Lomaiviticin Aglycon is discovered to have anti-cancer properties. Nonfiction: Francesco Alberoni (1929-), Hope. Stephen E. Ambrose, The Wild Blue. Susan Athey (1970-) and Kyle Bagwell (1961-), Optimal Collusion with Private Information; exposes how open auctions with a lenient dispute mechanism can result in legal disputes followed by settlements that are rife with collusion, e.g., when winners share a portion of their spoils with losers who cooperate with them in the bidding, recommending the use of sealed bids, which is widely adopted; in 2007 Athey becomes the first female winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, going on to become the chief economist for Microsoft Corp. Andrew G. Atkeson, Rethinking Multiple Equilibria in Macroeconomic Modeling: Comment; proves that when a theory of prices is introduced, a multiplicity of equilibria may return. William "Bill" Ayers (1944-), Fugitive Days: A Memoir (Sept. 10); Weatherman org. co-founder and hubby of Bernardine Dohrn reminisces about the good old days before going straight and working with Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley to reform the city's schools, not apologizing for the bombs and violence; an interview with the New York Times is printed right after 9/11, making for a great historic coincidence, with Ayers being showed a photo of him stepping on a U.S. flag, and replying "What a country - it makes me want to puke", adding "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Ihsan Bagby, The Mosque in America: A National Portrait. James Bamford (1946-), Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. Amiri Baraka (1934-2014), Somebody Blew Up America; "Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed/ Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers/ To stay home that day/ Why did [Ariel] Sharon stay away?/... Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion/ And cracking they sides at the notion"; blames the Israelis for 9/11, getting the ADL on his case, after which N.J. gov. Jim McGreevey tries to remove him from his post as poet laureate of N.J., finally abolishing the title, which his hometown of Newark counters by naming him poet laureate of their public schools. Gary S. Becker (1930-) and Kevin M. Murphy (1958-), Social Economics: Market Behavior in a Social Environment; incl. the social environment and standard goods and services in extended utility functions, allowing analysis of how the social environment is determined by the interactions of individuals. Daniel J. Benor (1941-), Spiritual Healing: Scientific Validation of a Healing Revolution (2 vols.) (2001, 2004). Ben Bernanke (1953-) and Mark Gertler (1951-), Should Central Banks Respond to Movements in Asset Prices?; argues that the Federal Reserve should limit its policies to targeting inflation and price stability while avoiding the more aggressive approach of managing asset price bubbles such as the Dot-Com Bubble of 1997-2000. Michael R. Beschloss (1955-), Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965; he wanted them to be sealed until 2023; sequel to "Taking Charge" (1997). Christiane Bird, Neither East Nor West: One Woman's Journey through the Islamic Republic of Iran. Franz Bludorf and Graznya Fosar, Vernetzte Intelligenz; summarizes the results of Russian biophysicist Pyotr Garjajev, who claims that the 90% called "junk DNA" might explain clairvoyance, intuition, auras et al., claiming that DNA is a "biological Internet". David Bodanis, E=MC2: A Biography of the World's Most Famous Equation. Anthony Bourdain (1956-), A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal (Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines); NYT bestseller; on ? A Cook's Tour debuts on Food Network for 35 episodes (until ?, 2002). Tom Brown Jr. (1950-), Grandfather: A Native American's Lifelong Search for Truth and Harmony with Nature. Tom Brown Jr. (1950-), and William Owen, The Search. James MacGregor Burns (1918-2014) and Susan Dunn, The Three Roosevelts: Patrician Leaders Who Transformed America; Theodore, Franklin, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Thomas Cahill (1940-), Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus. Vincent J. Cannato, The Ungovernable City; New York City mayor (1966-73) John Lindsay. Dolores Cannon (1931-), The Convoluted Universe (4 vols.) (2001, 2005, 2008, 2012). Norman F. Cantor (1929-2004), In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World It Made; NYT bestseller. George Carlin (1937-2008), Napalm and Silly Putty. James Carroll (1943-), Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews - A History; disses the claim that Christian anti-Semitism caused the Holocaust. Jimmy Carter (1924-), An Hour Before Daylight: Memoirs of a Rural Boyhood. Warren Christopher, Chances of a Lifetime. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-), Kitchen Privileges, A Memoir. David Cope (1941-), Virtual Music: Computer Synthesis of Musical Style. Andrei Codrescu (1946-), An Involuntary Genius in America's Shoes (And What Happened Afterwards). Evan S. Connell Jr. (1924-), The Aztec Treasure House: New and Selected Essays. Theodore Dalrymple (1949-), Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass. David Brion Davis (1927-), Challenging the Boundaries of Slavery. Ahmet Davutoglu (1959-), Strategic Depth; calls for an expanded role for Turkey in world affairs incl. membership in the EU, and predicts a belt of Sunni Muslim Brotherhood-ruled regimes in Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, and Libya that will be subservient to the emerging Turkish Empire; too bad, Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad doesn't roll over, and Egypt ousts the Muslim Brotherhood. Eliot Deutsch, Persons and Valuable Worlds. William G. Dever, What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did they Know It? Joan Didion (1934-), Political Fictions. Carl Djerassi (1923-), This Man's Pill: Reflections on the 50th Birthday of the Pill; developer of Enovid (approved 1960) tells all. Peter Ferdinand Drucker (1909-2005) and Peter Senge, Leading in a Time of Change: What It Will Take to Lead Tomorrow. Betty Jean Eadie (1942-), Embraced by the Light: Prayers and Devotions for Daily Living (Oct. 25). William Easterly (1957-), The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (July 1); disses foreign aid to Third World countries esp. debt relief for failing to produce sustainable growth. John Edward (1969-), Crossing Over: The Stories Behind the Stories; a shameless psychic fraud is glad to sell it to you? Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-), Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America; bestseller on the low-wage working poor segment of the U.S. after she took a series of service jobs incognito; those who wear WWJD (What would Jesus do) bracelets are lousy tippers? Albert Ellis (1913-2007), Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better: Profound Self-Help Therapy for Your Emotions; Overcoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and Behaviors: New Directions for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Albert Ellis (1913-2007) et al., Counseling and Psychotherapy with Religious Persons: A Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Approach. Jason Epstein (1928-), Book Business: Publishing Past, Present and Future. Khaled Abou El Fadl (1963-), Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law. Oriana Fallaci (1929-2006), The Rage and the Pride (La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio) (Dec.); sells 1.5M copies; expose of Islam as out to destroy the West while Westerners wallow in apathy. Don Edward Fehrenbacher (1920-97) (ed. Ward M. Mcafee), The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government's Relations to Slavery (posth.) (last book); argues against the view that the U.S. Constitution was a pro-slavery document, and shows how Pres. Lincoln's approach to emancipation quickly evolved into a "Republican revolution" that ended the anomaly of the U.S. as a "slaveholding republic". Charles H. Ferguson, High Stakes, No Prisoners: A Winner's Tale of Greed and Glory in the Internet Wars (Jan.). Niall Ferguson (1964-), The Cash Nexus: Money and Power in the Modern World, 1700-2000; argues that the saying "money makes the world go 'round" is wrong because it's all about non-economic motivations in the end, incl. sex, violence, and power. George Fetherling (1949-), The Book of Assassins. Robert Finch (1943-), Death of a Hornet and Other Cape Cod Essays. Antwone Fisher (1959-), Finding Fish (autobio.); after he becomes a security guard at Sony Pictures Studios, his story turns on producer Todd Black. Frances FitzGerald (1940-) and Mary Cross, Vietnam: Spirits of the Earth (Nov. 9); lush picture book of modern Vietnam. Thomas Fleming, The New Dealers' War: FDR and the War Within World War II. George P. Fletcher, Our Secret Constitution: How Lincoln Redefined American Democracy; how the 1787 U.S. Constitution was subverted by the U.S. Civil War into a "second constitution". Antony Flew (1923-), Equality in Liberty and Justice. Mick Foley (1965-), Foley Is Good: And the Real World is Faker than Wrestling; sequel to "Have a Nice Day!". Charles Henri Ford (1913-2002), Water From a Bucket: A Diary, 1948-1957. Paula Fox (1923-), Borrowed Finery (autobio.); the writer grandmother of Courtney Love (1964-). Sir Martin Gilbert (1936-2015), From the Ends of the Earth: The Jews in the Twentieth Century. Francoise Giroud (1916-2003), Profession Journaliste (autobio.); One Can't Be Happy all the Time. Bernard Goldberg (1945-), Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News; CBS News reporter who was fired for mentioning the existence of liberal bias in the media in 1996; duh, U.S. Jews are not a monolithic bloc? Albert Goldman (1927-94), Freakshow: Misadventures in the Counterculture, 1959-1971 (essays) (posth.). Annette Gordon-Reed (1958-), Vernon Can Read!; a memoir of civil rights activist Vernon Jordan, which he co-wrote. Amit Goswami, Physics of the Soul: The Quantum Book of Living, Dying, Reincarnation and Immortality. Simon Gray (1936-2008), Enter a Fox (autobio.). Pyotr Garjajev does research into DNA, discovering that the 90% called "junk DNA" might explain clairvoyance, intuition, auras et al., claiming that DNA is a Biological Internet, Robert Greene (1959-) and Joost Elffers, The Art of Seduction. Steven Macon Greer (1955-), Disclosure: Military and Government Witnesses Reveal the Greatest Secrets in Modern History. David Halberstam (1934-2007), War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals; how Clinton liked domestic issues and the economy and didn't like to commit the U.S. abroad. Victor Davis Hanson (1953-), Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age. Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western People (Why the West Has Won: Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam); traces the military dominance of Western civilization to the ancient Greeks and their consensual govt. and individualism after they kicked the weak effeminate Asiatic Persians' butts, although he never 'gets' why the Romans kicked their butts? Stephen Hawking (1942-), The Universe in a Nutshell - proof that modern cosmology has gone nuts? Julie Hecht, Was This Man a Genius? Talks With Andy Kaufman. Arthur Herman, How the Scots Invented the World. Don Hewitt (1922-2009), Tell Me a Story: 50 Years and 60 Minutes in Television (autobio.). Laura Hillenbrand (1967-), Seabiscuit: An American Legend. Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011), The Trial of Henry Kissinger; accuses him of being a war criminal. Philip Hoare (1958-), Spike Island: The Memory of a Military Hospital. Noel Ignatiev, The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness (essays). Jonathan Israel (1946-), Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750; claims that Baruch Spinoza is the backbone of the Radical Euro Enlightenment, which led to the modern liberal-dem. state. Philip Jenkins (1952-), Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the Internet. Haynes Johnson (1931-), The Best of Times: America in the Clinton Years. J.D.F. Jones, Teller of Many Tales: The Lives of Laurens van der Post; disses Prince Charles' mentor for knocking up a 14-y.-o. girl in 1952. Sebastian Junger (1962-), Fire; his Nov. 2000 visit to Afghanistan. Ward Just (1935-), Lowell Limpett and Two Stories. Ryszard Kapuscinski (1932-2007), The Shadow of the Sun; his experiences in Africa since 1957. Bill Kaysing (1922-2005), Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon? (Feb. 15). Morton Keller (1929-) and P. Keller, Making Harvard Modern. David I. Kertzer (1948-), The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism; claims that several popes actively contributed to the rise of Euro anti-Semitism leading to the Holocaust, generating a firestorm of controversy. Jamaica Kincaid (1949-), My Garden (May 15). Dean H. King, In Search of Patrick O'Brian; "Master and Commander" author Patrick O'Brian (1914-2000). Nancy Koehn (1959-), Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers' Trust from Wedgwood to Dell. Deborah Copaken Kogan, Shutterbabe: Adventures in Love and War. Wendy Kopp (1967-), One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach for America and What I Learned Along the Way. Paul Krugman (1953-), Anthony J. Venables (1953-), and Fujita Masahisa (1943-), The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions, and International Trade; which becomes a std. work on the New Economic Geography. Joseph Levine, Purple Haze: The Puzzle of Consciousness. Bernard Lewis (1916-), The Muslim Discovery of Europe; Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Hebrew Poems. Michael Lewis (1960-), Next: The Future Just Happened. Life Magazine, One Nation: America Remembers September 11, 2001. David Limbaugh (1952-), Absolute Power: The Legacy of Corruption in the Clinton-Reno Justice Department (Mar.). Seymour Martin Lipset (1922-2006), It Didn't Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States - wait till Obama has his shot? Penelope Lively (1933-), A House Unlocked. Dave Longaberger (1934-99), Longaberger; made a fortune in handcrafted maple wood baskets and turned philanthropist. Graham Lord (1943-), Arthur Lowe. Margaret MacMillan (1943-), Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War (Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World); asks the question: Was the Great War "an unmitigated catastrophe in a sea of mud", or "about something", concluding: "It is condescending and wrong to think they were hoodwinked"; in Jan. 2014 she warns that WWI can happen again, with the soundbyte: "While history does not repeat itself precisely, the Middle East today bears a worrying resemblance to the Balkans then." William Manchester (1922-2004), No End Save Victory: Perspectives on World War II. Harvey Mansfield Jr. (1932-), A Student's Guide to Political Philosophy. Peter Mayle (1939-), French Lessons: Adventures with Knife, Fork and Corkscrew. David McCullough (1933-), John Adams (May 22) (Pulitzer Prize); "The problem with Adams is that most Americans know nothing about him." Larry McMurtry (1936-), Sacagawea's Nickname (essays). Louis Menand (1952-), The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (Pulitzer Prize) (Parkman Prize); the main figures in the philosophy of Pragmatism incl. William James, John Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Olive Wendell Holmes J. Gavin Menzies (1937-), 1421: The Year China Discovered The World (America); retired British sub cmdr. claims that Chinese Adm. Zheng He discovered America but that evil Mandarins covered it up. Jack Miles (1942-), Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God; God becomes human not to establish justice in this world but to defer it to the world to come? Nancy Milford (1938-), Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay [1892-1950]. Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, and William J. Broad, Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War. Ray Monk, Bertrand Russell: 1921-1970, The Ghost of Madness. Eric Henry Monkkonen (1942-2005), Murder in New York City; documents New York City's eternally higher violence than Euro cities using a database of 1.7K cases over 200 years, concluding that most murderers are men, and that murders are most often committed in the heat of passion after an argument; "Usually, the motives are the need to assert manliness, power or territory." Raymond Moody (1944-) and Dianne Arcangel, Life After Loss: Conquering Grief and Finding Hope. Sheridan Morley (1941-2007), John Gielgud: The Authorized Biography; British actor Sir John Gielgud (1904-2000). Edmund Morris (1940-), Theodore Rex; sequel to "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" (1979). Joseph Murray (1919-2012), Surgery of the Soul: Reflections on a Curious Career (autobio.). Paul J. Nahin, Time Machines: Time Travel in Physics, Metaphysics and Science - now you can feel dry and confident even when nobody else does? Thomas H. Naylor, John de Graaf, and David Wann, Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic. "A painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more." John Nichols (1940-), An American Child Supreme: The Education of a Liberation Ecologist (June 9). Jerri Nielsen (with Maryanne Vollers), Ice Bound: A Doctor's Incredible Battle for Survival. Christiane Northrup, The Wisdom of Menopause. Robert Nozick (1938-2002), Invariances. Robert G. Ogg, Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor; "Seaman Z", first mentioned in John Toland's 1982 book "Day of Infamy" tells all about helping the U.S. Navy track the Japanese fleet all the way to Pearl Harbor, thus FDR knew about the attack in advance and let it happen to bulldog the U.S. into WWII. Bill O'Reilly (1949-), The No-Spin Zone: Confrontations with the Powerful and Famous in America. Peter S. Onuf (1945-) and Leonard Sadosky, Jeffersonian America (Oct. 18); tries to explain the persistent orientation of the early U.S. towards the Atlantic coast and W frontier. Suze Orman (1951-), The Road to Wealth. P.J. O'Rourke (1947-), The CEO of the Sofa. Malika Oufkir, Stolen Lives; daughter of Moroccan Gen. Mohammed Oufkir, adopted by King Mohammed V at age 5, lives a fairy tale life until her daddy attempts to assassinate the king in Aug. 1972. Robert Pastor (1947-), Towards a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New; blueprint for a North Am. Union, with new Amero currency. James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, Globalization Unmasked: Imperialism in the 21st Century. Katha Pollitt (1949-), Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics and Culture. Roy Porter (1946-2002), Bodies Politic: Disease, Death, and Doctors in Britain, 1650-1900. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (Mar. 1). John Rawls (1921-2002), Justice as Fairness: A Restatement. Bob Reiss (1951-), The Coming Storm: Extreme Weather and Our Terrifying Future (Sept. 5); attempts to freak-out readers with climate alarmism; "Bob Reiss shows how a series of freakish and colossally destructive weather events awakened... people to... a changing climate" (Eugene Linden); "The layman's guide to global warming... fair, urgent and deeply unsettling" (Ted Conover) - good timing on the publication date? Andrew Roberts (1963-), Napoleon and Wellington: The Battle of Waterloo - And the Great Comanders Who Fought It. Sir Ken Robinson (1950-), Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative. Barry Rubin, The Transformation of Palestinian Politics: From Revolution to State-Building (Nov. 30). Oliver Wolf Sacks (1933-), Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (autobio.). William A. Schabas (1950-), Cambodia: Was It Really Genocide? Susan Schulten, The Geographical Imagination in America, 1880-1950. Maria Shriver (1955-), What's Wrong With Timmy?. Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archeology's New vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts; claims that there's no archeological evidence to substantiate the stories in the Hebrew Bible, and that the stories themselves were created in the 7th cent. B.C.E.; David and Solomon were "tribal chieftains ruling from a small hill town, with a modest palace and royal shrine". Peter Singer (1946-) and Helga Kuhse, Unsactivying Human Life: Essays on Ethics. Mark Skousen (1947-), The Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of the Great Thinkers; 2nd ed. 2009. Andrew Solomon (1963-), The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression (Pulitzer Prize); his daddy Howard Solomon runs Forest Labs, known for selling anti-depressants, and guess what, he advocates their use. George Soros (1930-), Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism. Gary Soto (1952-), The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy (autobio.). Craig Stanford, The Hunting Apes: Meat Eating and the Origins of Human Behavior. George Steiner (1929-), Grammars of Creation (autobio.). Cass R. Sunstein (1954-), Designing Democracy: What Constitutions Do; The Vote: Bush, Gore & the Supreme Court. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960-), Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets; why people mistake blind luck for skill and tend to explain random outcomes as if they were non-random; pt. 1 of "Incerto", incl. "The Black Swan" (2007), "The Bed of Procrustes" (2010), "Antifragile" (2012), "Skin in the Game" (2018). Emmanuel Todd (1951-), After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order; known for predicting the fall of the Soviet Union in 1976, he predicts the fall of the U.S. as the sole superpower, and the emergence of a multipolar world incl. Europe, Japan, and Russia. Jeffrey Toobin, Too Close to Call: The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election. Ike Turner (1931-2007), Takin' Back My Name (autobio.); "Sure, I've slapped Tina... There have been times when I punched her to the ground without thinking. But I have never beat her." Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958-), Holy Wars: An Astrophysicist Ponders the God Question (Skeptical Inquirer, Sept. 2001). Michael Walzer (1935-), Exilic Politics in the Hebrew Bible; War, Politics, and Morality. Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006), Shiksa Goddess (essays). Brian Weiss (1944-), Messages from the Masters: Tapping into the Power of Love (Apr. 1). Jack Welch (with John A. Byrne), Jack: Straight from the Gut. John Edgar Wideman (1941-), Hoop Roots: Basketball, Race and Love (autobio.). Ken Wilber (1949-), A Theory of Everything: An Integral Vision for Business, Politics, Science, and Spirituality. Brian Glyn Williams, The Crimean Tatars: The Diaspora Experience and the Forging of a Nation (first book). Alan Wolfe, Moral Freedom: The Search for Virtue in a World of Choice; "The day of shared moral standards is gone. Never in history has there been more a sense that people can't rely on traditions and institutions to guide them, morally." Robert Wright (1957-), Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny; biological and cultural evolution are shaped and directed by God, er, "non-zero-sumness". Bat Ye'or, Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide; the mass migration of intolerant Muslims to Europe and the big problems it's causing. Philip D. Zelikow (1954-), American Military Strategy: Memos to a President. Tukufu Zuberi (1959-), Thicker Than Blood: An Essay on How Racial Statistics Lie. Art: Eve Marie Drewelowe, Swinging Saplings. Pamela Joseph, Decades of Influence (2001-6); used cutting boards adorned with wood-burned facsimiles of vintage images of magic acts? Steve Martin (1945-), Kindly Lent Their Owner: The Private Collection of Steve Martin. Philip Pearlstein (1924-), Two Nude Females with Luna Park Lion. Larry Rivers (1923-2002), Fashion Model Seated. Music: 311, From Chaos (album #6) (June 19) (#10 in the U.S.); incl. You Wouldn't Believe, I'll Be Here Awhile, Amber. Aaliyah (1979-2001), Aaliyah (album #3) (last album) (July 17) (#1 in the U.S., #5 in the U.K.); she dies on Aug. 25, boosting sales to 13M copies; incl. We Need a Resolution (w/Timbaland), Rock the Boat, More Than a Woman, I Refuse, I Care 4 U. Ryan Adams (1974-), Gold (album); incl. New York, New York; the video is shot on Sept. 7, 2001 with the WTC Twin Towers in the background, and is played on MTV following the attacks. Aerosmith, Just Push Play (album #13) (Mar. 9) (#2 in the U.S., #7 in the U.K.); incl. Just Push Play, Jaded, Fly Away from Here. Afroman (1974-), Because I Got High; "I was gonna pay my child suport, but then I got high... I was gonna eat your pussy too, but then I got high, now I'm jackin' off and I know why, because I got high, because I got high, because I got high"; big hit, featured on the Howard Stern Show - welcome to the NWO? Christina Aguilera (1980-), Just Be Free (album) (Aug. 21); incl. Just Be Free. Amon Amarth, The Crusher (album #3) (May 8); incl. A Fury Divine, The Sound of Eight Hooves. America, The Complete Greatest Hits (album) (Aug.); its 17 top 100 singles since 1971. Dead or Alive, Unbreakable (album). Tori Amos (1963-), Strange Little Girls (album #6) (Sept. 18) (#4 in the U.S., #16 in the U.K.); incl. Strange Little Girl, 97 Bonnie and Clyde (by Eminem), Happiness is a Warm Gun (by the Beatles) (#4 in the U.S.). India.Arie (1975-), Acoustic Soul (album) (debut) (Mar. 27) (#10 in the U.S.) (5M copies); incl. Video, Brown Skin, Strength, Courage and Wisdom, Ready for Love. Marcia Ball (1949-), Presumed Innocent (album). Beatallica, A Garage Dayz Nite (EP) (debut); from the U.S., incl. Jaymz Lennfield, Grg Hammetson, Krk Hammetson, Kliff McBurtney, and Ringo Larz; incl. A Garage Dayz Nite, Sgt. Hetfield's Motorbreath Pub Band, The Thing That Should Not Let It Be. Beck (1970-), Midnite Vultures. Bjork (1965-), Vespertine (album #5) (Aug. 27); wears the swan dress designed by Marjan Pejoski that she wore at the 2001 Academy Awards on the cover; incl. Hidden Place, Cocoon, Pagan Poetry. Mary J. Blige (1971-), No More Drama (album #5) (Aug. 28) (#2 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.); sells 6.5M copies (incl. 3.2M in the U.S.); incl. No More Drama (#15 in the U.S., #9 in the U.K.), Family Affair (#1 in the U.S., #8 in the U.K.), Rainy Dayz (w/Ja Rule) (#12 in the U.S., #17 in the U.K.). Blink-182, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (album #4) (June 12) (#1 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.) (4.5M copies); incl. The Rock Show (#71 in the U.S.), Stay Together for the Kids, First Date, Anthem Part Two. Backstreet Boys, The Hits - Chapter One (album) (Oct. 30) (3.5M copies); incl. Drowning (#4 in the U.K.). Michelle Branch (1983-), The Spirit Room (album) (debut) (Aug. 14) (#28 in the U.S.) (4M copies); incl. Everywhere (#12 in the U.S.) (used in Chase Bank commercials), All You Wanted (#6 in the U.S.), Goodbye to You (#21 in the U.S.), You Get Me (theme song for MTV reality series "Sorority Life"). Garth Brooks (1962-), Scarecrow (album #10) (Nov. 13); calls it his final album. Buckcherry, Time Bomb (album #2) (Mar. 27); incl. Ridin'. Echo and the Bunnymen, Flowers (album #9) (Feb. 16) (#56 in the U.S.); incl. It's Alright, Make Me Shine. Bush, Golden State (album #4) (Oct. 23); last with Nigel Pulsford and Dave Parsons; last album until 2011; incl. The People That We Love, Headful of Ghosts, Inflatable. Cake, Comfort Eagle (album #4) (July 21) (#13 in the U.S.) (500K copies); incl. Short Skirt/Long Jacket ("I want a girl with a mind like a diamond./ I want a girl who knows what's best./ I want a girl with shoes that cut and eyes that burn like cigarettes./ I want a girl with the right allocation, who's fast, and thorough, and sharp as a tack"). Mariah Carey (1970-), Glitter Soundtrack (album) (Sept. 11) (#7 in the U.S., #10 in the U.K.) (3M copies); her only release on Virgin; Greatest Hits (double album) (Dec. 4). Fallin'. Patrick Cassidy, Vide Cor Meum (See My Heart); based on Dante's "La Vita Nuova" ch. 3, sonnet "A ciascun'alma presa"; used in the film "Hannibal" (2001) and the film "Kingdom of Heaven" (2005). Peter Cetera (1944-), Another Perfect World (album #7) (Mar. 27); incl. Perfect World, It's Only Love (by John Lennon and Paul McCartney). Alice in Chains, Greatest Hits (album). Tracy Chapman (1964-), Collection (album). Cher (1946-), Living Proof (album) (Nov. 19); sells 8M; incl. Living Proof, The Music's No Good Without You. Leonard Cohen (1934-), Ten New Songs (album) (Oct. 9); incl. Boogie Street, In My Secret Life. Shawn Colvin (1956-), Whole New You (album #5) (Mar. 27). Sean Combs (Diddy and the Bad Boy Family) (1969-), The Saga Continues... (album #3) (July 10) (#2 in the U.S.); incl. The Saga Continues. Harry Connick Jr. (1967-), Songs I Heard (album). Coolio (1963-), Coolio.com (album) (Apr. 18); Fantastic Voyage (album) (July 17). Alice Cooper (1948-), Dragontown (album #22). John Corigliano (1938-), Symphony No. 2 for String Orchestra (Pulitzer Prize). Elvis Costello (1954-), The Very Best of Elvis Costello (album) (Sept. 21). Elvis Costello (1954-) and Anne Sofie von Otter (1955-), For the Stars (album) (Apr. 10); incl. For No One, Like an Angel Passing Through My Room. The Cranberries, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee (album #5) (Oct. 22) (1.3M copies); incl. Analyse. Creed, Weathered (album #3) (Nov. 20) ((#22 in the U.S.) (6M copies); first with bassist Mark Tremonti; incl. Weathered, + My Sacrifice, Bullets, One Last Breath, Hide, Don't Stop Dancing; they disband in 2004-2009. King Crimson, Vrooom Vrooom (album) (Nov. 13). Black Crowes, Lions (album); incl. Lickin, Soul Singing. Death Cab for Cutie, The Photo Album (album #3) (Oct. 9); incl. A Movie Script Ending, We Laugh Indoors, I Was a Kaleidoscope. Dagda, Barbarian (album). The Damned, Grave Disorder (album #9) (Aug. 21); incl. W (about the 2002 U.S. election), Absinthe. Goo Goo Dolls, What I Learned About Ego, Opinion, Art & Commerce (album) (July 17). System of a Down, Toxicity (album #2) (Sept. 4); released a week before 9/11, it sells 6M copies; incl. Chop Suey!, Toxicity, Aerials. D12, Devil's Night (album); the Dirty Dozen, led by Eminem; incl. Purple Pills, Shit On You, Fight Music. Grateful Dead, Dick's Picks Vol. 20 (album) (Jan. 23); recorded in Sept., 1971; Dick's Picks Vol. 21 (album) (Mar. 20); recorded on Nov. 1, 1985 in Richmond, Va.; Dick's Picks Vol. 22 (album) (June); recorded on Feb. 23-24, 1968 in Kings Beach, Calif.; View from the Vault, Vol. 2 (3-CD set) (June); Nightfall of Diamonds (double album) (Sept. 25); recorded on Oct. 16, 1989 at Meadowlands Arena in N.J.; Dick's Picks Vol. 23 (album) (Oct.); recorded on Sept. 17, 1972 in Baltimore, Md. No Doubt, Rock Steady (album #5) (Dec. 11); incl. Hey Baby, Hella Good, Underneath It All, Running. Dr. Dre (1965-), Bitch Please II (album). As I Lay Dying, Beneath the Encasing of Ashes (album) (debut) (June 12); from San Diego, Calif., incl. 6'3 Christian Tim Lambesis (1980-) (vocals), Nick Hipa (guitar), Phil Sgrosso (guitar), Josh Gilbert (bass), and Jordan Mancino (drums); incl. Beneath the Encasing of Ashes. Bob Dylan (1941-), Love and Theft (album #31) (Sept. 11); incl. Mississippi, Bye and Bye, High Water (for Charley Patton). Alton Ellis (1938-2008), More Alton Ellis (album); Live with Aspo: Workin' on a Groovy Thing (album). Melissa Etheridge (1961-), Skin (album) (July 10); incl. I Want to Be in Love. Eve (1978-), Scorpion (album #2) (Mar. 6); incl. Who's That Girl?, Let Me Blow Your Mind (with Gwen Stefani). Better Than Ezra, Closer (album #5) (Aug. 7) (#110 in the U.S.); incl. Extra Ordinary (with DJ Swamp), A Lifetime. Fear Factory, Digimortal (album #5) (last album) (Apr. 24); incl. Linchpin. Faithless, Outrospective (album) (June 18); incl. We Come 1, One Step Too Far, Muhammad Ali, Tarantula; The Bedroom Sessions (album) (Aug.). Kool and the Gang, Gangland (album #23) (Aug. 28). Garbage, Beautiful Garbage (beautifulgarbage) (album #3) (Sept. 27); bad timing kills it?; incl. Androgyny. Jerry Garcia Band, Don't Let Go (album #4) (Jan. 23); Shining Star (album #5) (Mar. 21); incl. Shining Star. Bee Gees, This Is Where I Came In (album #20) (Apr. 24); final album with Maurice Gibb; incl. This Is Where I Came In, Wedding Day; Their Greatest Hits: The Record (album #21) (Nov. 12). Debbie Gibson (1970-), M.Y.O.B. (album #7) (Mar.). The Go-Go's God Bless the Go-Go's (album #4) (May 15) (#57 in the U.S.); first album since 1984; incl. Unforgiven, Automatic Rainy Day. Macy Gray (1967-), The Id (album) (Sept. 17); released a week after 9/11, it flops in the U.S. but does good in the U.K.; incl. Sweet Baby, Sexual Revolution. 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, Bastard Life or Clarity (album #2) (Sept. 18); incl. Sail Those Same Oceans, Things Have Got to Change. Nina Hagen (1955-), The Return of the Mother (album) (Feb.); Total Eclipse/Die Schwarze Witwe (with Marc Almond). Herbie Hancock (1940-), Future2Future (album #42). Her Space Holiday, Manic Expressive (album). Hoobastank, Hoobastank (album) (Nov. 20) (debut); from Agoura Hills, Calif., incl. Douglas Robb (vocals), Dan Estrin (guitar), Chriss Hesse (drums), and Markku Lappalainen (bass); incl. Crawling in the Dark, Running Away, Remember Me. Incubus, Morning View (albm #4) (Oct. 23) (#2 in the U.S.) (3.6M copies); incl. Wish You Were Here (#2 in the U.S.), Warning (#3 in the U.S.), Nice to Know You (#9 in the U.S.), Circles (#31 in the U.S.). Isley Brothers, Eternal (album); incl. Contagious (w/R. Kelly). Janet Jackson (1966-), All for You (album #7) (Apr. 24) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (9M copies, incl. 3M in the U.S.); incl. Doesn't Really Matter, All for You, Someone to Call My Lover, Son of a Gun (I Betcha Think This Song Is About You) (w/Missy Elliott), Come On Get Up, Would You Mind (eliminated from a clean version of the album). Michael Jackson (1958-2009), Invincible (album #10) (last album) (Oct. 30) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (13M copies) (first original release since 1991); incl. You Rock My World, Cry, Butterflies. Millie Jackson (1944-), Not for Church Folk! (album #25). Mick Jagger (1943-), Goddess in the Doorway (album #4) (Nov. 19); Jamiroquai, A Funk Odyssey (album #5) (Sept. 3); incl. Little L, Corner of the Earth, Love Foolosophy, Main Vein. Jay-Z (1969-), The Blueprint (album #6) (Sept. 11); sells 2M copies; incl. Takeover, Girls, Girls, Girls, Jigga That Nigga. Flotsam and Jetsam, My God (album #8) (May 22). Jimmy Eat World, Bleed American (album #4) (July 18); their breakthrough album; bad timing causes them to change the title to Jimmy Eat World, and the title track to "Salt Sweat Sugar" after 9/11); incl. Bleed American, The Middle, Sweetness, A Praise Chorus. Elton John (1947-), Songs from the West Coast (album #27) (Oct. 1); incl. American Triangle, Birds, This Train Doesn't Stop There Anymore. Jack Hody Johnson (1975-), Brushfire Fairytales (album) (debut) (Feb. 1) (1M copies); incl. Flake, Drink the Water. Richard Joo, Fantasies and Delusions (album); classical piano music written by Billy Joel. Journey, Arrival (album) (Apr. 3); first with Steve Augeri replacing Steve Perry, and Deen Castronovo replacing Steve Smith. Alicia Keys (1981-), Songs in A Minor (album) (debut) (June 5) (#1 in the U.S., #6 in the U.K.) (12M copies); incl. Fallin', A Woman's Worth, How Come You Don't Call Me, Girlfriend. Rilo Kiley, Take-Offs and Landings (album #2) (July 3); incl. Science vs. Romance. Korn, All Mixed Up (album). Diana Krall (1964-), The Look of Love; Diana Krall - Live in Paris (album); incl. Just the Way You Are, A Case of You. Alison Krauss and the Union Station, O Brother, Where Art Thou? (album). k.d. lang (1961-), Live by Request (album) (Aug. 14). Cyndi Lauper (1953-), Shine; not released until May 3, 2004; incl. Shine. Human League, Secrets (album) (Aug. 6); incl. All I Ever Wanted, Love Me Madly? Julian Lennon (1963-), Everything Changes (album #6). Huey Lewis (1950-) and the News, Plan B (album #8) (May 1). Murphy's Law, The Party's Over (album #8) (May 22). Jennifer Lopez (1969-), J.Lo (album #2) (Jan. 23) (#1 in the U.S.) (8M copies); incl. Love Don't Cost a Thing (#3 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.), Play, Ain't It Funny (w/Ja Rule), I'm Real (w/Ja Rule). Ludacris (1977-), Word of Mouf (album #2) (Nov. 27) (#3 in the U.S.) (3.6M copies); incl. Rollout (My Business), Area Codes, Move Bitch, Saturday (Ooh Ooh!) (w/Sleepy Brown). Yo-Yo Ma, Vivaldi's Cello (album). Madonna (1958-), GHV2 (album) (Nov. 12) (#7 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.) (7M copies). Bob Marley (1945-81) and the Wailers, One Love: The Very Best of Bob Marley & the Wailers (album). Dave Matthews Band, Everyday (album). Maxwell (1973-), Now (album #3) (Aug. 14). John Mayer (1977-), Room for Squares (album) (debut) (June 5/Sept. 18) (#9 in the U.S.) (4.3M copies); incl. Your Body is a Wonderland, No Such Thing, Why Georgia. Paul McCartney (1942-), Wingspan: Hits and History (album) (May 7); Driving Rain (album #12) (Nov. 12) (#26 in the U.S., #46 in the U.K.); first after hooking up with Heather Mills; incl. From a Lover to a Friend. Reba McEntire (1955-), Greatest Hits Vol. 3: I'm a Survivor (album #27) (Oct. 23); incl. I'm a Survivor (theme from her sitcom "Reba"). Tim McGraw (1967-), Set This Circus Down (album) (Apr.); incl. Grown Men Don't Cry, Angry All the Time, The Cowboy in Me, Unbroken. Megadeth, The World Needs a Hero (album #9) (May 15) (#16 in the U.S.); last with Jimmy DeGrasso; incl. Moto Psycho, Return to Hangar. John Mellencamp (1951-), Cuttin' Heads (album). Natalie Merchant (1963-), Motherland (album #3) (Nov. 13); incl. This House is On Fire, Just Can't Last. Kylie Minogue (1968-), Fever (album #8) (Oct. 1) (#3 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K., #1 in Australia); incl. Can't Get You Out of My Head (#7 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.), In Your Eyes (#3 in the U.K.), Love At First Sight (#23 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.), Come Into My World (#91 in the U.S., #8 in the U.K.). Depeche Mode, Exciter (album #10) (May 14); incl. Dream On, I Feel Loved, Freelove, Goodnight Lovers. Moonspell, Darkness and Hope (album #5); incl. Nocturna. Modest Mouse, Sad Sappy Sucker (Chokin on a Mouthful of Lost Thoughts) (album) (Apr. 24); incl. Birds vs. Worms; Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks (EP) (Sept. 25). Smash Mouth, Smash Mouth (album #3) (Nov. 27); new drummer Michael Urbano (1960-); incl. Holiday In My Head, Pacific Coast Party. Puddle of Mudd, Come Clean (Aug. 28) (5M copies); produced by Fred Durst; from Kansas City, Mo.; incl. Wesley Reid Scantlin (vocals), Paul James Phillips (guitar), Douglas John Ardito (bass), and Greg David Upchurch (drums); incl. Control, Blurry, Drift and Die, She Hates Me. Dropkick Murphys, Sing Loud, Sing Proud! (album #3) (Feb. 6); last with Rick Barton and first with James Lynch of The Ducky Boys; incl. Rocky Road to Dublin. The National, The National (album) (debut) (Oct. 30); from Brooklyn, N.Y.; incl. Matt Berninger (1971-) (vocals), Aaron Dessner (piano), Bryce Dessner (guitar), Scott Devendorf (bass), Bryan Devendorf (drums), and Padma Newsome (keyboard). Nickelback, Silver Side Up (album #3) (Sept. 11) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (10M copies); incl. How You Remind Me (#1 in the U.S.), Too Bad, Never Again, Woke Up This Morning. 'N Sync (*NSYNC), Celebrity (album #3) (last album) (July 24) (#1 in the U.S.); #2 in 1st week sales (1,879,955 copies) after their first album; sells 10M copies worldwide; incl. Pop, Girlfriend, Gone. Laura Nyro (1947-97), Angel in the Dark (album #10) (last album) (posth.). New Order, Get Ready (album #7) (Aug. 27) (#41 in the U.S., #6 in the U.K.); first album since 1993; cover features German actress Nicolette Krebitz; incl. Crystal, 60 Miles an Hour, Someone Like You. Ozzy Osbourne (1948-), Down to Earth (album) (Oct. 21). Brad Paisley (1972-), Part II (album) (May 29); incl. Two People Fell in Love, Wrapped Around, I'm Gonna Miss Her (The Fishin' Song), I Wish You'd Stay. Katy Perry (1984-), Katy Hudson (album) (debut) (Oct. 23); Christian music. Stone Temple Pilots, Shangri-La Dee Da (album #5) (June 19); incl. Days of the Week, Hollywood Bitch; next album in 2010. Pink (1979-), M!ssundaztood (album #2) (Oct. 9) (#6 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.) (13M copies); incl. Get the Party Started (#10 in the U.S.), Don't Let Me Get Me (#8 in the U.S.), Just Like a Pill (#10 in the U.S.), Family Portrait (#20 in the U.S.). Jean-Luc Ponty (1942-), Life Enigma (album). Iggy Pop (1947-), Beat 'Em Up (album) (June 18). Manic Street Preachers, Know Your Enemy (album #6) (Mar. 19) (#2 in the U.K.); incl. Found That Soul, So Why So Sad, Ocean Spray, Let Robeson Sing. Prince (1958-), The Rainbow Children (album) (Nov. 20); first album after his conversion to the Jehovah's Witnesses; incl. "Rainbow Children", "The Work, Pt. 1"; One Nite Alone (album); incl. A Case of U. Deep Purple, Time Time Around: Live in Tokyo (album). Faster Pussycat, Between the Valley of the Ultra Pussy (album) (May 15). Queensryche, Live Evolution (album) (Sept. 25). Radiohead, Amnesiac (album #5) (June 4); incl. I Might Be Wrong, Pyramid Song, Knives Out. Rammstein, Mutter (album #3) (Apr. 2); incl. Mutter (Mother), Mein Herz Brennt (My Heart Burns), Links 2-3-4, Sonne; Ich Will (I Want) (Sept. 10); released the day before 9/11, the music video ends up getting banned in the U.S. by many stations, making it more popular? Eddi Reader (1959-), Simple Soul (album #5); Driftwood (album #6). R.E.M., Reveal (album #12) (May 14); incl. Imitation of Life, I'll Take the Rain, All the Way to Reno (You're Gonna Be a Star). Busta Rhymes (1972-), Genesis (album #5) (Nov. 27) (#11 in the U.S.); incl. Break Ya Neck. Kid Rock (1971-), Cocky (album). Roxette, Room Service (album) (Apr. 3); incl. The Centre of the Heart. Run-D.M.C., Crown Royal (album #7) (last album) (Apr. 3). Scorpions, Acoustica (album #13) (May 14). Shakira (1977-), Laundry Service (album #3) (Nov. 13) (#3 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); sells 13M copies, making her the #1 Colombian artist of all time; incl. Underneath Your Clothes (#9 in the U.S.), Objection (Tango), The One. Duncan Sheik, Phantom Moon (album). Jessica Simpson (1980-), Irresistible (album #2) (May 25) (#6 in the U.S., #103 in the U.K.) ("Mariah Carey meets Britney Spears" - Simpson); incl. Irresistible, A Little Bit. Slayer, God Hates Us All (album #9) (Sept. 11) (#28 in the U.S.); last with Ralph Bostaph; incl. Disciple. Black Label Society, Alcohol Fueled Brewtality Live!! +5 (album) (Jan. 16). Britney Spears (1981-), Britney (album) (Nov.). Chicks on Speed, Chick On Speed Will Save Us All (album) (debut); founded in 1997 in Munich, Germany; incl. Melissa Logan, Kisi Moorse, and Alex Murray-Leslie; incl. Warm Leatherette, Glamour Girl, The Floating Pyramid Over Frankfurt That The Taxi Driver Saw When He Was Landing, Kaltes Klares Wasser, Euro Trash Girl; preceded by the unofficial album "The Unreleases" (2000), and followed by the unofficial album "The rereleases of The Un-Releases" (2000). Regina Spektor (1980-), 11:11: (album) (debut) (July 9). Spiderbait, The Flight of Wally Funk (album #5) (Oct. 1); incl. Four on the Floor, Outta My Head. Staind, Break the Cycle (album #3) (May 22) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (7M copies); incl. Fade, Outside, It's Been Awhile, For You. Steps, Gold: Greatest Hits (album #4) (Oct. 15) (#1 in the U.K.); incl. Chain Reaction (by Diana Ross) (#2 in the U.K.), Words Are Not Enough (#5 in the U.K.). Rod Stewart (1945-), Human (album #19) (Mar. 12); incl. Run Back Into Your Arms, I Can't Deny It, Don't Come Around Here; The Story So Far: The Very Best of Rod Stewart (double album) (Nov. 13). Stratovarius, Intermission (album) (June 26). White Stripes, White Blood Cells (album #3) (July 3); their breakthrough; sells 500K copies; incl. Fell in Love with a Girl, Hotel Yorba, Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground, We're Going to Be Friends. The Strokes, Is This It (album) (debut) (July 30) (#33 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); from New York City, incl. Julian Fernando Casablancas (1978-) (vocals), Nicholas "Nick" Valensi (1981-) (guitar), Albert Hammond Jr. (1980-) (guitar), Nikolai Fraiture (1978-) (bass), and Fabrizio Moretti (1980-) (drums); Rolling Stone mag.'s #2 album of the decade; incl. Hard to Explain (#27 in the U.S., #16 in the U.K.), Last Nite (#5 in the U.S., #14 in the U.K.), Someday (#17 in the U.S., #27 in the U.K.). Supertramp, Is Everybody Listening? (album) (Nov. 6); recorded at Hammersmith Odeon, London on Mar. 9, 1975. Plain White T's, Come on Over (album) (debut); Tom Higgenson, Dave Tirio, Mike Retondo, De'Mar Hamilton, Tim Lopez. Testament, First Strike Still Deadly (album #9) (Oct. 23). Therion, Secret of the Runes (album #13) (Oct. 8); Bells of Doom (album). Melanie Thornton (1967-2001), Ready to Fly (album) (solo debut) (May 7); incl. Heartbeat (Apr. 9); Makin' Oooh Oooh (Talking About Love) (Sept. 3); Wonderful Dream (Holidays are Coming) (Nov. 26); too bad, she dies in a plane crash in Switzerland. Seven Mary Three, The Economy of Sound (album #5) (June 5) (#178 in the U.S.); incl. Wait, Sleepwalking. Tool, Lateralus (album #3) (May 15) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. Lateralus, Schism, Parabola. Train, Drops of Jupiter (album #2) (Mar. 27) (#6 in the U.S.); incl. Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me), She's on Fire, Something More. Cheap Trick, Silver (album). Shania Twain (1965-), The Complete Limelight Sessions (album) (Oct. 23). Six Feet Under, True Carnage (album #4) (Aug. 7); incl. The Day the Dead Walked, One Bullet Left, Sick and Twisted. Usher (1978-), 8701 (album #3) (Aug. 7) (#4 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (8M copies); incl. Pop Ya Collar, U Remind Me, U Got It Bad, U Don't Have to Call, U-Turn. Vangelis (1943-), Mythodea: Music for the NASA Mission: 2001 Mars Odyssey (album). Suzanne Vega (1959-), Songs in Red and Gray (album #6) (Sept. 25); last with A&M Records. En Vogue, Masterpiece Theatre (album) (May 23); incl. Riddle. Jennifer Warnes (1947-), The Well (album #8). Warrant, Under the Influence (album #6); incl. Face, Subhuman. Weezer, Weezer (Green Album) (album #3) (May 15) (#4 in the U.S., #31 in the U.K.); incl. Hash Pipe (#21 in the U.K.), Island in the Sun (#31 in the U.K.), Photograph. Westlife, World of Our Own (album #3) (Nov. 12); incl. Queen of My Heart (#1 in the U.K.), World of Our Own (#1 in the U.K.), Bop Bop Baby (#5 in the U.K., Uptown Girl (by Billy Joel) (#1 in the U.K.). Wisin and Yandel, De Nuevos a Viejos (album #2) (Jan. 1). Chely Wright (1970-), Never Love You Enough (album #5) (Sept. 25); incl. Never Love You Enough, Jezebel. Wu-Tang Clan, Iron Flag (album #4) (Dec. 18) (#32 in the U.S.). Trisha Yearwood (1964-), Inside Out (album). Yes, Magnification (album #17) (Sept. 11); incl. Magnification. Rob Zombie (1965-), The Sinister Urge (album); incl. Never Gonna Stop (The Red Red Kroovy). Movies: Steve Beck's Thirteen (THIR13EN) Ghosts (Oct. 26) (Dark Castle Entertainment) (Warner Bros. Pictures), a remake of the 1960 William Castle film stars F. Murray Abraham as ghost hunter Cyrus Kriticos, Matthew Lillard as his asst. Dennis Rafkin, and Tony Shalhoub as Cyrus' nephew Arthur Kriticos, who inherits his father's haunted mansion, where he gets trapped with 13 you know whats along with his daughter Kathy (Shannon Elizabeth); does $68.4M box office on a $42M budget. Ronny Yu's The 51st State (Formula 51) (Dec. 7) (Momentum Pictures) (Alliance Atlantis) stars Samuel L. Jackson as Am. chemist Elmo McElroy, who invents the hot new drug POS 51 and tries to score a once-in-a-lifetime drug deal in Liverpool until things go wrong; Meat Loaf plays drug lord The Lizard; does $14.4M box office on a $27M budget. Charles Shyer's The Affair of the Necklace (Nov. 30) stars Hilary Swank as Jeanne St. Remy de Valois, Jonathan Pryce as Cardinal Louis de Rohan, Adrien Brody as Count Nicolas de la Motte, and Joely Richardson as Marie Antoinette in a dramatization of the 1785 Diamond Necklace Affair. Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence (June 29) (Amblin Entertainment) (Warner Bros.), based on the story "Super-Toys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss stars Haley Joel Osment as David, a boy android uniquely programmed with the ability to love; also stars Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, Brendan Gleeson, and William Hurt; dedicated to Stanley Kubrick; does $235.9M box office on a $100M budget. David Frankel's and Tom Hanks' Band of Brothers (Sept. 9-Nov. 4), a TV miniseries about Easy Co. of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Div. based on the 1992 book by Stephen Ambrose debuts in Normandy on guess what, June 6, followed by Sept. 9 in the U.S. - bad timing? Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind (Dec. 21) (Imagine Entertainment) (Universal Pictures), based on the 1998 book by Sylvia Nasar stars Russell Crowe as schizophrenic Princeton U. mathematician John Nash, who marries student Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) and fakes it for years until he is found out, which doesn't stop him from winning the 1994 Nobel Econ. Prize for helping invent game theory; features Ed Harris as imaginary secret agent William Parcher, Paul Bettany as imaginary friend Charles Herman; does $313M box office on a $58M budget; "Perhaps it is good to have a beautiful mind, but a greater gift is to discover a beautiful heart." John Moore's Behind Enemy Lines (Nov. 31) stars Owen Wilson as Navy aviator Lt. Chris Burnett, who is shot down behind you know what, and is rescued by Adm. Leslie McMahon Reigart (Gene Hackman). Ted Demme's Blow (Apr. 6), based on a true story stars Johnny Depp as George Jung, a Calif. surfer boy who founded the U.S. cocaine market in the 1970s without seemingly realizing how dangerous it was. Jonas McCord's The Body (Jan. 5) stars Antonio Banderas as a Roman Catholic priest sent by the Vatican to investigate a tomb discovered in Jerusalem by pretty starlet, er, archeologist (Olivia Williams) that contains the bones of a crucified man behind a clay wall in a rich man's tomb; told to prove it isn't Jesus Christ, he ends up proving it is, while the Vatican plots (with Israeli govt. help) to blow it all up; after Palestinian terrorists steal the bones, there is a hilarious scene where the leader runs around with Jesus-in-a-bag as Israeli commandos close in. Sharon Maguire's Bridget Jones's Diary (Apr. 13) (Universal Pictures), based on the 1996 Helen Fielding novel stars Renee Zellweger as 32-y.-o. single Jones (who gains 20 lbs. for the role), Colin Firth as her boss Daniel Cleaver, and Hugh Grant as Mark Darcy, whom Bridget overhears telling his mother that she is "a verbally incontinent spinster who smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and dresses like her mother", causing her to try to turn her life around, starting a you know what and discovering that he's her "true love"; does $282M box office on a $25M budget. Blair Hayes' Bubble Boy (Aug. 24) stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Jimmy Livingston, a boy born without an immune system who lives in a plastic bubble. Lawrence Guterman's Cats and Dogs (July 4) from Warner Brothers is flick about the secret cat-dog war, using real cats and dogs. Peter Bogdanovich's The Cat's Meow (Aug. 3) (Lionsgate), based on the book by Steven Peros about the mysterious death of film dir. Thomas H. Ince (Cary Elwes) in Nov. 1924 aboard the yacht of William Randolph Hearst (Edward Herrmann) features Kirsten Dunst as Hearst's babe Marion Davies, Eddie Izzard as Charlie Chaplin, and Jennifer Tilly as Louella Parsons, who witnesses Hearst do it and blackmails him into a lifetime syndication contract for her gossip column; does $3.6M box office on a $7M budget. Woody Allen's The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (Aug. 24) (DreamWorks Pictures) is a screwball comedy set in Oct. 1940 starring Allen (after Tom Hanks and Jack Nicholson turn it down) as aging nerdy New York City insurance investigator C.W. Biggs of North Coast Fidelity and Casualty Insurance Co., who is hypnotized at the Rainbow Room along with efficiency expert Betty Ann Fitzgerald (Helen Hunt) by Voltan (David Ogden Stiers), who implants codewords in their minds that allow him to use them to stage jewel robberies and not remember it; Charlize Theron plays Laura Kensington; Dan Aykroyd plays Briggs' boss and Betty's lover Chris Magruder; Wallace Shawn plays George Bond; Elizabeth Berkley plays Jill; a 1940s film noir in color instead of B&W?; the set bldg. was too expensive, making retakes too expensive?; Allen's worst movie?; features the song "In a Persian Market" by Wilbur de Paris; does $18.9M box office on a $33M budget. Guillermo del Toro's The Devil's Backbone (Apr. 20) (El Espinazo del Diablo) (Canal+ Espana) (Sony Pictures Classics), produced by Pedro Almodovar is a Gothic horror film set in 1939 Spain, starring Federico Luppi and Marisa Paredes as orphanage operators Casares and Carmen, which is a front to hide gold for the Repub. loyalists, which is haunted by the ghost of the child Santi; does $6.5M box office on a $4.5M budget; followed by "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006). Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko (Jan. 19) stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a suburban Va. teenie who is visited by giant rabbit Frank and told that the world will end in 28 days 6 hours 42 min. 12 sec., and finds that a jet engine has crashed into his bedroom; Maggie Gyllenhaal plays his sister Elizabeth. Jean-Jacques Annaud's Enemy at the Gates (Mar. 16) stars Jude Law as Soviet top sniper Vassily Zaitsev at Stalingrad in WWII, who is targeted by Nazi sniper Maj. Konig (Ed Harris), while Tania Chernova (Rachel Weisz) keeps Vassily warm; Bob Hoskins plays Nikita Khrushchev, and Joseph Fiennes plays Vassily's political commissar comrade, who publicizes him for the war effort. Eric Hannah's Extreme Days (Mar. 5) stars Dante Basco, Ryan Browning, A.J. Buckley, and Derek Hamilton as lifelong buddies who take a road trip. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's The Fabulous Life of Amelie Poulain (Apr. 25) stars Audrey Tautou in a flick about how cool Parisian life is, like cracking creme brulee with a teaspoon and trying to guess that 15 couples in Paris are having an orgasm at a given moment? Rob Cohen's The Fast and the Furious (June 22) (Universal Pictures) is a brainless but fascinating street hot rod flick starring Vin Diesel as truck hijacker and street racer Dominic Toretto, and Paul Walker as undercover LAPD cop Brian O'Conner; Michelle Rodriguez plays Diesel's babe Leticia "Letty" Ortiza; "I owe you a 10-sec. car"; does $207.3M box office on a $38M budget; spawns sequels incl. "2 Fast 2 Furious" (2003), "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" (2006), "Fast & Furious" (2009), "Fast Five" (2011), "Fast & Furious 6" (2013), "Furious 7" (2015), "The Fate of the Furious" (2017). The Hughes Brothers' From Hell (Oct. 19) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the Alan Moore graphic novel by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell about the Jack the Ripper murders in 1888 London stars Johnny Depp as Inspector Frederick Abberline, and Heather Graham as young ho Mary Kelly; does $75M box office on a $35M budget. Terry Zwigoff's Ghost World (Oct. 18) stars Thora Birch as Enid and Scarlett Johansson as Rebecca, two high school grads who play a mean prank on middle-aged geek Seymour (Steve Buscemi). Vondie Curtis-Hall's Glitter (Sept. 11) stars Mariah Carey as mixed race nightclub singer Billie Frank, really herself. Chris Columbus' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Nov. 4) (Warner Bros.), based on the 1997 J.K. Rowling novel is a box office smash with the kiddie set; stars Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, John Cleese as Nearly Headless Nick, Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid, Warwick Davis as Filius Flitwick, Richard Griffiths as Vernon Dursley, Richard Harris as Albus Dumbledore, Ian Hart as Quirinus Quirrell, John Hurt as Mr. Ollivander, Alan Rickman (after Tim Roth turns it down for "Planet of the Apes") as Severus Snape, Fiona Shaw as Petunia Dursley, Maggie Smith as Minerva McGonagall, and Julie Walters as Molly Weasley; the #1 movie of 2001 ($318M U.S. and $974.8M worldwide box office on a $125M budget; followed by "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" (2002), "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" (2004), "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (2005), "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007), "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" (2009), and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (2010/2011). Robert Altman's Gosford Park (Nov. 7) (Shepperton Studios) (Capitol Films) (USA Films), is an Agathie Christie-style whodunit set in 1932 in a wealthy English estate, written by Julian Fellowes, starring Maggie Smith, Kelly Macdonald, Jeremy Northam, Bob Balaban, Ryan Philippe, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Michael Gambon; music by Patrick Doyle; does $87.8M box office on a $19.8M budget. Ridley Scott's Hannibal (Feb. 9) (Dino De Laurentiis Co.) (Scott Free Productions) (MGM) (Universal Pictures), based on the 1999 Thomas Harris novel (sequel to the 1991 film "The Silence of the Lambs"), written by David Mamet and Steven Zaillian stars Anthony Hopkins as big brain serial killer Hannibal Lecter, Jullian Moore as FBI agent Clarice Starling, unrecognizable Gary Oldman as self-disfigured millionaire Mason Verger, Ray Liotta as Justice Dept. official Paul Krendler, and Giancarlo Giannini as Italian cop Rinaldo Pazzi; features the song Vide Cor Meum (See My Heart) by Irish composer Patrick Cassidy; does $351.6M box office on a $87M budget; bon appetit? John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch (July 27), "an anatomically incorrect rock odyssey" stars the dir. as Hedwig slash Hansel Robinson, a transsexual punk rocker from East Berlin who tours the U.S. as she tells her life story about her botched operation "with a scar running down it like a sideways grimace on an eyeless face" - no, I don't want to look? Winrich Kolbe's Ice Planet stars Wes Studi as Cmdr. Noah Trager of the Earth military base on Io, which is under attack by the ET Zedoni, causing him and his space cadets to escape on the Magellan research vessel to a you know what in an unknown part of the Universe; in 2005 a pilot is released for a TV series starring Michael Ironside. Gary Fleder's Impostor (Dec. 4), based on a 1953 short story by Philip K. Dick debuts stars Gary Sinise, Madeleine Stowe, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Tony Shalhoub, about an attack on Earth in 2079 by aliens from Alpha Centauri, who send replicants to infiltrate the Earth govt.; does $8M box office on a $40M budget. Todd Field's In the Bedroom (Jan. 11) stars Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek as Maine couple Matt and Ruth Fowler, whose son Frank (Nick Stahl) dates older single mother Natalie Strout (Marisa Tomei), whose ex-hubby Richard (William Mapother) doesn't like it. Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love (Feb. 26) stars Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung as apt. house neighbors in Hong Kong who hook up. Werner Herzog's Invincible, based on the life of Polish Jewish strongman Zishe Breitbart in Nazi Germany stars real-life strongman Jouko Ahola, and Tim Roth as clairvoyant Erik Jan Hanussen. Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Aug. 24) stars Jason Mewes as Jay, and Kevin Smith as Bob, who decide to wreck the movie adaptation of their comic "Bluntman and Chronic". Victor Salva's Jeepers Creepers (Aug. 31) (Am. Zoetrope) (United Artists) stars Jonathan Breck as the mysterious winged black Creeper, who sleeps for 23 years then feeds for 23 days on people; does $59.2M box office, spawning sequels incl. "Jeepers Creepers 2" (2003), "Jeepers Creepers 3" (2017). John A. Davis' Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (Dec. 21) is an animated flick starring the voice of Debi Derryberry as Jimmy Isaac Neutron, who builds an interstellar space fleet to rescue abducted adults from aliens. Joe Johnston's Jurassic Park III (July 18) stars Sam Neill as Dr. Alan Grant, who is hornswaggled by Paul and Amanda Kirby (William H. Macy and Tea Leoni) into going to dinosaur-plagued Isla Sorna to find their lost son; #9 movie of 2001 ($180M). Iain Softley's K-PAX (Oct. 26), based on the novel by Gene Brewer stars Kevin Spacey as Robert Porter, a man claiming to be Prot, an ET from Lyra, causing him to be committed to the Psychiatric Inst. of Manhattan, where Dr. Mark Powell (Jeff Bridges) attempts to cure him, while he wins over the other inmates with a promise to take one of them with him on July 27; "Be prepared for anything." James Mangold's Kate and Leopold (Dec. 25) stars Huge Actman, er, Hugh Jackman as Prince Leopold, 3rd Duke of Albany, who accidentally follows time traveler Stuart Besser (Liev Schreiber) to 2001 from 1876, and falls in love with New York City career girl Kate McKay (Meg Ryan); does $76M box office on a $48M budget. Ray Lawrence's Lantana (July 8) stars Anthony LaPaglia, Geoffrey Rush, and Barbara Hershey in a tale of adultery and an unsolved murder in Sydney. Robert Luketic's Legally Blonde (July 13), based on the Amanda Brown novel is a vehicle for Reese Witherspoon, who cheerleads her way into Harvard Law School to become a Supreme Court justice, er, to get back her boyfriend. Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Dec. 19), based on the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy does a good job of bring it alive after decades of failed attempts, starring Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins, Sean Astin as Sam Gangee, Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Christopher Lee as Saruman, and Sean Bean as Boromir; #2 movie of 2001 ($315M). Lea Pool's Lost and Delirious (July 20), based on the Susan Swan novel stars Piper Perabo as Pauline "Paulie" Oster, and Jessica Pare as Victoria "Tori" Moller, who get into lezzy sex at a posh boarding school. George Hickenlooper's The Man From Elysian Fields (Sept. 13) stars Andy Garcia, Mick Jagger, James Colburn, Julianna Margulies, and Olivia Williams in a flick about a writer who proves his own statement that great novels are really suicide notes by joining a male escort service to pay the bills and meeting a dying Ernest Hemingway clone, who asks him to co-write his last big novel. Joel Coen's B&W The Man Who Wasn't There (May 13) (Working Title Films) (Gramercy Pictures) is a crime noir set in 1949 starring Billy Bob Thornton as barber Ed Crane, who gets sold on a screen to invest in the newfangled dry-cleaning biz and ends up losing his wife Doris (Frances McDormand) and going to death row after his expensive shyster lawyer Freddy Riedenschneider (Tony Shalhoub) leaves him defenseless; last film distributed by Gramercy Pictures until 2015; does $18.9M box office on a $20M budget. Brian Trenchard-Smith's Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 (Sept. 21) stars Michael York and Michael Biehn in a flick about the Apocalypse - good timing? Marc Forster's Monster's Ball (Nov. 11) (Lions Gate Films) stars Billy Bob Thornton as prison guard Hank Grotowski, son of racist Buck (Peter Boyle), who falls in love with brown sugar Leticia Musgrove (Halle Berry), wife of death row inmate Lawrence (Sean "P. Diddy" Combs), and questions his upbringing; does $44.9M box office on a $4M budget. Pete Docter's and David Silverman's computer-animated film Monsters, Inc. (Nov. 2) from Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios is the first animated feature film to reach the $100M gross mark at the U.S. box office, just nine days after its release; #4 movie of 2001 ($256M). David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. (Oct. 12) stars Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Justin Theroux, Ann Miller, and Den Hedaya in a surrealistic flick about a female amnesiac searching for her identity in LA and getting into a lesbian affair. Stephen Sommers' The Mummy Returns (May 4) stars Brendan Fraser as Richard "Rick" O'Connell, who takes on the mummy of high priest Imhotel (Arnold Vosloo); #6 movie of 2001 ($202M). David Atkins' Novocaine (Nov. 23) stars Steve Martin as dentist Frank Sangster, who becomes a murder suspect after patient Laura Dern seduces him into prescribing drugs for her. Tim Blake Nelson's O (Aug. 31) debuts after being held for two years because of the Apr. 1999 Columbine H.S. Massacre; based on Shakespeare's "Othello"; stars Mekhi Phifer as black h.s. basketball star Odin James (OJ), Julia Stiles as white dean's daughter Desi, and Josh Hartnett as the coach's steroid-addicted son Hugo; does $19.2M box office. Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven (Dec. 7), a remake of the 1960 film stars George Clooney as Danny Ocean, whose team incl. Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), Frank Catton (Bernie Mac), and Virgil Malloy (Casey Affleck); #8 movie of 2001 ($180M). Alejandro Amenabar's The Others (Aug. 10) (Warner Sogefilms), partly based on Henry James' 1898 haunted house horror novella "The Turn of the Screw" stars Nicole Kidman as Grace Stewart who looks after her two photosensitive children Anne and Nicholas in 1945 Channel Islands, and Fionnula Flanagan as old servant Bertha Mills; does $209.9M box office on a $17M budget. Michael Bay's Pearl Harbor (May 21) (Touchstone Pictures), produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and written by Randall Wallace intertwines a silly unbelievable love story a la Titanic between Ben Affleck (Capt. Rafe McCawley) and Kate Beckinsale (Nurse Lt. Evelyn Johnson McCawley) with the big sneak attack; Alec Baldwin almost saves it with critics as Lt. Col. James Doolittle, which doesn't stop it from being a box office smash; #7 movie of 2001 ($199M box office U.S. and $449.2M worldwide on a $140M budget). Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes (July 27) (The Zanuck Co.) (20th Cent. Fox), a remake of the 1968 movie stars Mark Wahlberg as human Capt. Leo Davidson, Tim Roth as chimp Gen. Thade, Michael Clarke Duncan as gorilla Col. Attar, and Helena Bonham Carter as chimp Ari; does $362M box office on a $100M budget; #10 movie of 2001 ($180M); the ending actually precludes a sequel? Sean Penn's The Pledge (Jan. 19), based on a 1958 novel by Friedrich Durrenmatt and the 1958 film "It Happened in Broad Daylight" stars Jack Nicholson as retired police det. Jerry Black, who tries to find a serial pedophile child murderer using his babe Lori's (Robin Wright Penn) daughter Chrissy; the killer has a porcupine hanger in his car, the only clue. Ed Harris' Pollock (May 18) stars Ed Harris as splash-artist Jackson Pollock. Louis C.K.'s blaxploitation comedy flick Pootie Tang (June 29) stars Chris Rock as a ghetto folk hero and ladies' man with a 95-cent Piggly Wiggly magic belt; a dud at the box office, it later becomes a comedy cult classic. Anne Hathaway's The Princess Diaries (Aug. 3) stars Julie Andrews as the queen of Genovia, and Mandy Moore as a U.S. cheerleader who becomes her princess after much tutoring. Erik Skjoldbjaerg's Prozac Nation (Sept. 8), based on the Elizabeth Wurtzel novel stars Christina Ricci as a woman struggling with depressing during her freshman year at Harvard; after its world debut in Toronto, it is released in Norway in 2003, and ends up on Starz! channel in Mar. 2005. Penny Marshall's Riding in Cars with Boys (Oct. 19) stars Drew Barrymore as a single mother who aspires to be a writer, drops a son at age 15, then goes through a failed marriage with the druggie dad. Stephen Herek's Rock Star (Sept. 7) stars Mark Wahlberg as Chris "Izzy" Cole, who becomes a you know what. Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (Dec. 14) about an estranged family of child prodigies who reunite over a terminal illness stars Gene Hackman as Royal (daddy), Anjelica Huston as Etheline (mommy), Ben Stiller as Chas (math genius), Gwyneth Paltrow as Margot (adopted) (budding Shakespeare), and Luke Wilson as Richie (tennis prodigy); does $71.4M box office on a $21M budget. Brett Ratner's Rush Hour 2 (Aug. 3) stars Jackie Chan as Chief Inspector Lee, and Chris Tucker as Det. James Carter; #5 movie of 2001 ($226M). Dennis Dugan's Saving Silverman (Feb. 9) stars Steven Zahn and Jack Black as a pair of buddies conspiring to save their best friend Darren Silverman (Jason Biggs) from marrying the wrong woman... was that Amanda Peet or Amanda Detmer? Frank Oz's The Score (July 13) stars Robert De Niro as an aging thief who is talked into one last heist by young Edward Norton, and ends it with a double twist. Billy Morrissette's Scotland, PA (Jan. 22) based on Shakespeare's "Macbeth" set in 1975 Duncan's Cafe in Penn. stars James LeGros as Joe "Mac" McBeth, Maura Tierney as Path McBeth, Christopher Walken as Lt. Ernie McDuff, James Rebhorn as cafe owner Norm Duncan, and Kevin Corrigan as fry cook Anthony "Banko" Banconi; features songs by Bad Company. Andrew Adamson's and Vicky Jenson's Shrek (May 18), based on the book by William Steig is a giant animated hit, starring the voice of Mike Myers as big green ogre Shrek, Eddie Murphy as Donkey, Cameron Diaz as Princes Fiona, and John Lithgow as evil Lord Farquaad; #3 movie of 2001 ($268M). Dominic Sena'a Swordfish (June 8) stars John Travolta as renegade counter-terrorist Gabriel Shear, and Hugh Jackman as the world's greatest hacker Stanley Jobson; Halley Berry plays Ginger Knowles; Sam Shepard plays Sen. James Reisman; claims that Thomas Jefferson personally shot somebody on the White House lawn for treason. Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (Dec. 14) stars Gene Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum, patriarch of an eccentric dysfunctional family of failed child prodigies, incl. Chas (Ben Stiller), Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow), and Richie (Luke Wilson), who fakes cancer to effect a family reunion; Anjelica Houston plays Royal's ex-wife Etheline; written by Owen Wilson, who plays Eli Cash; Bill Murray plays writer Raleigh St. Clair. John Boorman's The Tailor of Panama (Feb. 11) (Columbia Pictures), based on the 1996 John Le Carre spy novel stars Pierce Brosnan as MI6 spy Andrew "Andy" Osnard, Geoffrey Rush as tailor Harold "Harry" Pendel, and Jamie Lee Curtis as his wife Louisa in an absurd plot about the days when the Panama Canal changed hands, but not really, Pendel made it all up; does $28M box office on a $21M budget. Maria Ripoll's Tortilla Soup (June 9) stars Hector Elizondo et al. in a yarn that tries to stimulate your appetite. Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (Jan. 5), an ensemble cast flick about the DEA vs. the drug lords of Tijuana stars Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, who get engaged during filming; he plays a conservative federal judge who becomes the drug czar while his lily-white wayward daughter Erika ("What is this like, free base?") Christensen becomes a coke-shooting ho pumped by black pushers; co-stars Benicio Del Toro as Javier Rodriguez Rodriguez, an honest Mexican cop caught in the corruption, and Don Cheadle as honest federal agent Montel Gordon, who loses his partner Luis Guzman to U.S. drug lord Steven Bauer. Antoine Fuqua's Training Day (Oct. 5) stars Denzel Washington as corrupt cop Alonzo, who breaks in rookie cop Jake (Ethan Hawke), introducing him to theft, murder, and coverup, which he decides he didn't sign up for. Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky (Dec. 14) stars Tom Cruise as David Aames, who finds life turning into an 1872 Monet painting with Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz, only to discover it's all a software-driven "lucid dream". Sara Sugarman's Very Annie Mary (May 25) stars Rachel Griffith as a Welsh opera singer whose tyrannical father Jonathan Pryce keeps her down until he suffers a stroke. DJ Pooh's The Wash (Nov. 14) stars Dr. Dre, Anthony Albano, Tic et al. in a black car wash flick. Adam Shanksman's The Wedding Planner (Jan. 26) stars Jennifer Lopez as Mary Fiore the you know what. David Wain's Wet Hot American Summer (July 27), about Aug. 18, 1981, the last day of Camp Firewood summer camp in Waterville, Maine stars Janeane Garofalo, David Hyde Pierce, and Michael Showalter, and is the film debut of Bradley Cooper; does only $295K box office on a $1.8M budget, but becomes a cult hit. Leszek Burzynski's Wooly Boys stars Peter Fonda as N.D. sheep rancher A.J. "Stoney" Stoneman, who visits the big city and gets in an adventure with his teenage computer whiz grandson Charles (Joseph Mazzello). Ben Stiller's Zoolander (Sept. 28) stars Stiller as Derek Zoolander, a clueless fashion model brainwashed to kill the PM of Malaysia. Plays: Trey Anthony, Da Kink in My Hair (Toronto); Novelette, owner of Letty's Hair Salon. David Auburn, Proof (Pulitzer Prize). Alan Ayckbourn (1939-), Damsels in Distress; a trilogy, incl. GamePlan; FlatSpin; RulePlay. Glen Berger, Underneath the Lintel; the Libraran tries to trace who returned a book that is 113 years overdue. Wendell Berry (1934-), Sonata at Payne Hollow. Mel Brooks (1926-) and Thomas Meehan (1929-), The Producers (musical) (St. James Theatre, New York) (Apr. 19) (2,502 perf.); based on the 1968 film, starrings Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick; on May 7 it is nominated for a record 15 Tony Awards, and later wins 12, beating the previous record of 10 for Hello, Dolly! in 1964. Per Olov Enquist (1934-), Lewi's Journey (Lewis Resa). Amy Freed, The Beard of Avon (Costa Mesa, Calif.); William Shakespeare hikes out on his wife Anne Hathaway, goes to London, meets Edward de Vere, and agrees to be his front. Jeremy Gable, A Mile a Minute. John Guare (1938-), Chaucer in Rome. Christopher Hampton (1946-) and Don Black, Dracula, The Musical. David Henry Hwang (1957-), Jade Flowerpots and Bound Feet (Joseph Papp Theater, New York) (Nov. 5); a white woman passes herself off as black to sell a book. Ha Jin (1956-), Wreckage. Charlotte Jones, Humble Boy (Nat. Theatre, London) (Aug. 9). Ward Just (1935-), Lowell Limpett. Matani Koki, Vamp Show (Parco Theatre, Tokyo); based on the 1997 German musical "Tanz der Vampire". Tony Kushner (1956-), Homebody/Kabul (Dec. 19) (New York). Suzan-Lori Parks (1963-), Topdog/Underdog (Pulitzer Prize) (New York); black bro's Lincoln and Booth, played by Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright. Hamish McColl, Sean Foley, and Eddie Braben, The Play What I Wrote. Anne Nelson, The Guys (Flea Theater, New York) (Dec. 4); reporter Joan (played by Sigourney Weaver) helps FDNY capt. Nick (Bill Murray) write obits for fallen firefighters from 9/11. Peter Parnell (1963-), QED (Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles); about physicist Richard Feynman, played by Alan Alda. Sarah Phelps, Modern Dance for Beginners (June 5). David Rabe (1940-), The Dog Problem (Atlantic Theater, New York) (May 6). Charles Ross, One Man Star Wars Trilogy (Toronto) (Jan.) Ruben Santiago-Hudson (1956-), Lackawanna Blues (Joseph Papp Theater, New York) (Apr. 14); autobio. play starring the author as 20 different chars. from his past; features Miss Rachel AKA Nanny. John Patrick Shanley (1950-), Cellini; how Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini made "Perseus with the Head of Medusa". Neil Simon (1927-), 45 Seconds from Broadway (Richard Rodgers Theater, New York) (Nov. 11) (73 perf.); Manhattan's Edison Hotel, home to struggling theater people. Simon Stephens (1971-), Herons; 14-y.-o. aimless teenie Billy. Tom Stoppard (1937-), The Coast of Utopia; trilogy about a group of friends during the reign of Nicholas I of Russia, incl. Mikhail Bakunin, Ivan Turgenev, Vissarion Belinsky, and Alexander Herzen. Elaine Stritch (1926-), Elaine Stritch at Liberty (Public Theater, New York) (Feb. 21). Melanie Tait (1980-), The Vegemite Tales (Curtain's Up, London). Michael Weller (1942-), What the Night is For (Comedy Theatre, London); stars Gillian Anderson and Roger Allam. Robert Wilson (1941-), Persephone. Petr Zelenka (1967-), Tales of Common Insanity (Prague). Poetry: Elizabeth Alexander (1962-), Antebellum Dream Book. Nanni Balestrini (1935-), Elettra, Operapoesia. Robert Bly (1926-), The Night Abraham Called to the Stars. Billy Collins (1941-), Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems. Robert Creeley (1926-2005), Just in Time: Poems 1984-1994. Michael Crummey (1965-), Emergency Roadside Assistance. Edward Dorn (1929-99), Chemo Sabe (posth.). Mark Doty (1944-), Source. Norman Dubie (1945-), The Mercy Seat: Collected and New Poems, 1967-2001. Alan Dugan (1923-2003), Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry. Stephen Dunn (1939-), Different Hours (Pulitzer Prize). Thomas Sayers Ellis, The Genuine Negro Hero. Seamus Heaney (1939-), Electric Light. Anthony Hecht (1923-2004), The Darkness and the Light: Poems; "Like the elderly and frail/ Who've lasted through the night,/ Cold brows and silent lips,/ For whom the rising light Entails their own eclipse,/ Brightening as they fail." Carolyn Kizer (1925-), Cool, Calm & Collected: Poems 1960-2000). Maxine Kumin (1925-), The Long Marriage. W.S. Merwin (1927-), The Pupil. Robert Pinsky (1940-), Samurai Song. Sonia Sanchez (1934-), Ash; Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam. Charles Simic (1938-), Night Picnic. Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012), Rhymes for Big Kids. C.K. Williams (1936-), Love about Love. Novels: Catherine Aird (1930-), Little Knell. Isabel Allende (1942-), Portrait in Sepia. Poul Anderson (1926-2001), Mother of Kings. Michael Andrew, A Trial of Innocents. Gilad Atzmon (1963-), A Guide to the Perplexed (first novel); Israel is replaced by a Palestinian state in 2012 after "the unthinking Chosen" who "cling to clods of earth that don't belong to them" are defeated, and their propaganda that "argues that the Holocaust is invoked as a kind of reflexive propaganda designed to shield the Zionist state from responsibility for any transgression against Palestinians" exploded. Beryl Bainbridge (1934-), According to Queeney; Samuel Johnson as told by Queeney Thrale. Clive Barker (1952-), Coldheart Canyon: A Hollywood Ghost Story; Tortured Souls. Pat Barker (1943-), Border Crossing. Marie-Claire Blais (1939-), Dans la Foudre et la Lumiere (Thunder and Light). Christian Book (Bök) (1966-), Eunoia; univocalic novel where each chapter uses only a single vowel. Pierre Bourgeade (1927-2009), L'Eternel Mirage; En Avant Les Singes!; Gab Save the Di. Kay Boyle (1902-92), Process (posth.); written in 1925. T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948-), After the Plague (short stories). Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933-), The Triumph of Katie Byrne. Ann Brashares (1967-), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants; best friends Lena Kaligaris, Tibby Rollins, Bridget Vreeland, and Carmen Lowell spend their first summer apart when a pair of magical jeans comes into their lives; first in a series. Anita Brookner (1928-), The Bay of Angels. Geraldine Brooks (1955-), Year of Wonders. James Lee Burke (1936-), Bitterroot; Billy Bob Holland #3. Pat Cadigan (1953-), Dervish is Digital; sequel to "Tea from an Empty Cup" (1998). John le Carre (1931-), The Constant Gardener; British diplomat Justin Quayle of Nairobi, Kenya discovers that his activist wife Tessa was killed, and searches for the reason, uncoveing an internat. conspiracy; filmed in 2005. Raymond Carver (1938-58), Call If You Need Me (posth.) (short stories). Tom Clancy (1947-), The Bear and the Dragon. Alison Clement, Pretty Is as Pretty Does (first novel). Harlan Coben, Tell No One. Paul Coelho (1947-), Fathers, Sons and Grandsons. Jackie Collins (1937-), Hollywood Wives: The New Generation. Michael Connelly, Void Moon. Robin Cook (1940-), Shock. Stephen Coonts (1946-), America; Rear Adm. Jake Grafton #9. Robert Cormier (1925-2000), The Rag and Bone Shop (posth.); 7-y.-o. Alicia Bartlett is murdered with a rock, and 12-y.-o. Jason Dorrant is the suspect. Jim Crace (1946-), The Devil's Larder. Justin Cronin, Mary and O'Neil. Michael Crummey (1965-), River Thieves (first novel). Mitch Cullin, The Cosmology of Bing. Clive Cussler (1931-), Valhalla Rising; Dirk Pitt #16. Marie Darrieussecq (1969-), A Brief Stay with the Living; gets into the heads of a family of four. Don DeLillo (1936-), The Body Artist; a woman uses Zen to heal from the death of her husband. Helen DeWitt (1958-), The Last Samurai. Kate DiCamillo, The Tiger Rising. Jude Devereaux (1947-), The Summerhouse. Margaret Drabble (1939-), The Peppered Moth; Bessle's pigmentation changes according to the environment. Mark Dunn (1956-), Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipogrammatic Epistolary Fable. Tony Earley, Jim the Boy (June); Jim Glass grows up in the 1930s in the shade of three kindly uncles, his widowed mother, and Aliceville, in the hills of N.C. Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickled and Dimed. James Ellroy (1948-), The Cold Six Thousand; American Underworld Trilogy #2. Leif Enger, Peace Like a River. Louise Erdrich (1954-), The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse; "Is there a good piano in hell?" Nicholas Evans, The Smoke Jumper; Julia Bishop, Ed Tully, and the tragedy on the Snake River in Mont. Sebastian Faulks (1953-), On Green Dolphin Street; title comes from the 1947 movie and theme song. Ken Follett (1949-), Jackdaws. Richard Ford (1944-), A Multitude of Sins. Frederick Forsyth (1938-), The Veteran (short stories). Jonathan Franzen (1959-), The Corrections; bestseller; Prof. Chip Lambert gets caught sleeping with a student and is fired, then tries to cover it up to his parents Alfred and Enid at a Christmas party. Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012), The Years with Laura Diaz. Alan Glynn (1960-), The Dark Fields (Limitless) (first novel); smart drug MDT-48 turns NYC writer Eddie Spinola into a flawed genius; filmed in 2011 starring Bradley Cooper. Herbert Gold (1924-), Haiti - Best Nightmare on Earth. Paul A. Gompers and Josh Lerner, The Money of Invention: How Venture Capital Creates New Wealth. Allegra Goodman (1967-), Paradise Park. Philippa Gregory (1954-), The Other Boleyn Girl; bestseller about Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne Boleyn; filmed in 2008; #1 in the Tudor Court Series. Barry Hannah (1942-), Yonder Stands Your Orphan; title taken from Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Russell Hoban (1925-), Amaryllis Night and Day. Alice Hoffman (1952-), Aquamarine; Blue Diary. Nick Hornby (1957-), How to Be Good. Michel Houellebecq (1956-), Platform; 40-y.-o. male arts administrator Michel Renault tells about his romance, along with sex tourism, and disses Islam. Susan Isaacs (1943-), Long Time No See. P.D. James (1920-), Death in Holy Orders; Adam Dalgliesh #11. Ha Jin (1956-), The Crazed. Quincy Jones (1933-) and Peggy Lipton Jones (1946-), Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones. Stephen King (1947-), Dreamcatcher; written in longhand? Sophie Kinsella, Confessions of a Shopaholic; Becky Bloomwood; instant chick lit hit? Dean Koontz (1945-), From the Corner of His Eye. William Kowalski (1970-), Somewhere South of Here. Pascal Laine (1942-), Demiers Jours Avant Fermeture. Dominique Lapierre (1931-) and Javier Moro, Five Past Midnight in Bhopal (Il Etait Minuit Cinq a Bhopal). Brad Leithauser (1953-), A Few Corrections. Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), Fire in the Hole. Elinor Lipman (1950-), The Dearly Departed. Gregory Maguire (1954-), Lost (Oct. 2); Am. writer Winifred Rudge travels to London to visit distant cousin John Comestor, who is a relative of the man who inspired Charles Dicken's char. Ebenezer Scrooge, and discovers that he has vanished and his apt. is haunted. Paule Marshall (1929-), The Fisher King. Yann Martel (1963-), Life of Pi (Sept.); based on "Max and the Cats" by Moacyr Scliar; Indian Pondicherry boy Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel, son of a zookeeper survives 227 days in the Pacific Ocean in a 26-ft. lifeboat with a zebra, orangutan, hyena, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, who eats the other animals, then flees to the jungle when they reach the coast of Mexico; the story will make you believe in God?; filmed in 2012 by Ang Lee. Francine Matthews (Stephanie Barron, author of the Jane Austen mysteries), Cutout. Terry McMillan (1951-), A Day Late and a Dollar Short; or, how bad it is to be an African-Am. family? Sue Miller (1943-), The World Below. Anchee Min (1957-), Becoming Madame Mao. Willie Morris (1934-99), Taps (posth.) (last novel); 16-y.-o. narrator Swayze Barksdale of Fisk's Landing, Miss. at the start of the Korean War. Sir John Mortimer (1923-2009), Rumpole Rests His Case. Nicholas Mosley (1923-), The Hesperides Tree. Alice Munro (1931-), Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (short stories) V.S. Naipaul (1932-), Half a Life: Searching for Identity in Limbo; William Somerset Chandran Naipaul asks "Why is my middle name Somerset?" John Nichols (1940-), The Voice of the Butterfly. Francois Nourissier (1927-), A Defaut de Genie Joyce Carol Oates (1938-), Middle Age: A Romance. Stewart O'Nan (1961-), Everyday People. Peter Orner, Esther Stories (short stories). Chuck Palahniuk (1962-), Choke; Victor makes a living by pretending to choke in expensive restaurants, attends sex addict support groups hoping to get laid, and visits his Alzheimer's-stricken mother pretending to be different people to find out how she really feels about him, but makes up for it by also pretending to be the person that did people wrong and promising to make up for it. Orhan Pamuk (1952-), My Name is Red. Christopher Paolini (1983-), Eragon (first novel); first in Inheritance trilogy ("Eldest", "Brisingr"); filmed in 2006. Sara Paretsky (1947-), Total Recall; V.I. Warshawski #10. Robert Brown Parker (1932-2010), Gunman's Rhapsody; Potshot; Spenser #28; Death in Paradise; Jesse Stone #3. James Patterson (1947-), Violets Are Blue. Jodi Picoult (1966-), Salem Falls; Jack St. Bride; a ripoff of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"? Anne Rice (1941-), Blood and Gold; #8 in the Vampire Chronicles; Marius de Romanus and Thorne. Thomas E. Ricks (1955-), A Soldier's Duty (first novel). Rick Riordan, The Devil Went Down to Austin. Alain Robbe-Grillet (1922-2008), La Reprise. Philip Roth (1933-), The Dying Animal (May). Richard Russo (1949-), Empire Falls (Pulitzer Prize). Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950), The Camisade and Other Stories of the French Revolution (posth.). Jose Saramago (1922-2010), The Cave (A Caverna). David Schickler (1969-), Kissing in Manhattan (first novel); interlocking stories about residents of the Preemption apt. bldg. in Manhattan's Upper West Side. Jeffrey Shaara (1952-), Rise to Rebellion; 1770-6 Am. Robert Shapiro, Misconception; O.J.'s atty. turns novelist? Sidney Sheldon (1917-2007), The Sky is Falling (July 1); anchorwoman Dana Evans. Anita Shreve (1946-), The Last Time They Met. Alan Sillitoe (1928-2010), Birthday. Claude Simon (1913-2005), Le Tramway (The Trolley). Gary Soto (1952-), Poetry Lover. Elizabeth Spencer (1921-), The Southern Woman (short stories). Nicholas Sparks (1965-), A Bend in the Road (Sept.). Dana Spiotta, Lightning Field (first novel). Danielle Steel (1947-), Lone Eagle; Leap of Faith; The Kiss. Whitley Strieber (1945-), The Last Vampire. Amy Tan (1952-), The Bonesetter's Daughter (Feb.); Ruth Young loses her voice for the 9th time in nine years. Whitney Terrell, The Huntsman (first novel). Anne Tyler (1941-), Back When We Were Grownups; a middle-aged woman widowed at 26; "Once upon a time there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person." Jeff VanderMeer (1968-), City of Saints and Madmen: The Book of Amergris. Salley Vickers, Miss Garnet's Angel. Fay Weldon (1931-), The Bulgari Connection. Irvine Welsh (1958-), Glue. Thomas Wharton, Salamander (May). Stephen White (1951-), The Program; Kirsten's hubby is hit by drug lord Ernesto Castro and enters the federal Witness Security (Protection) Program, which is the deadliest place of all? Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days. Jack Williamson, Terraforming Earth; by the writer who coined the word "terraforming" in his Seetee stories in the 1940s. T.L. Winslow (TLW) (1953-), Salvation Day II: The Fire of Michael. Births: Am. "Bruce Wayne in Gotham" actor (Jewish) David Mazouz on Feb. 19 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Bad Guy", "Wish You Were Gay", "Bury a Friend", "When the Party's Over" singer-songwriter (female) (vegan) Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell on Dec. 18 in Los Angeles, Calif.; of Scottish and Irish descent; grows up in Highland Park, L.A. Deaths: Italian mountain climber Count Ardito Desio (b. 1897) on Dec. 12 in Rome. Irish-born British Royal Ballet founder (1931) Dame Ninette de Valois (b. 1898) on Mar. 8 in Barnes, London. German Gen. Wilhelm Mohnke (b. 1911) on Aug. 6 in Hamburg. Am. Great Books program founder Mortimer Adler (b. 1902) on June 28 in Palo Calto, Calif. Am. Dem. politician Mike Mansfield (b. 1903) on Oct. 5. Hungarian violinist Zoltan Szekely (b. 1903) on Oct. 5 in Canada. Am. psychologist Ernest Hilgard (b. 1904) on Oct. 22 in Palo Alto, Calif. Am. actress Peggy Converse (b. 1905) on Mar. 2 in Los Angeles, Calif. English-born Am. New York City mayor #104 (1974-7) Abraham Beame (b. 1906) on Feb. 10 in New York City (open heart surgery). English composer David Heneker (b. 1906) on Jan. 30 in Wales. Am. author-aviator Anne Morrow Lindbergh (b. 1906). Indian novelist R.K. Narayan (b. 1906) on May 13 in Madras (Chennai). Senegalese pres. #1 (1960-80) Leopold Sedar Senghor (b. 1906) on Dec. 20 in Verson, France. Am. "What's My Line?" TV panelist Arlene Francis (b. 1907) on May 31 in San Francisco, Calif. Am. writer-artist Tom Lea (b. 1907) on Jan. 29 in El Paso, Tex. Am. bowler Joe Norris (b. 1907) on Feb. 19 in San Diego, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. Harvard U. pres. #24 (1953-71) Nathan Marsh Pusey (b. 1907) on Nov. 14. Australian #1 cricketer Sir Donald George Bradman (b. 1908) on Feb. 25 in Adelaide. Am. "Sangaree" novelist Frank Slaughter (b. 1908) on May 17; sold 60M copies. French-Polish "Foundling of the Louvre" painter Balthus (b. 1909) on Feb. 18 in Rossiniere, Switzerland; dies where had taken to calling himself "Comte de Rola". Polish "House of Dolls" writer Yehiel De-Nur (b. 1909) on July 17 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Am. engraver Frank Gasparro (b. 1909) on Sept. 29. Austrian-born British art historian Sir Ernst Gombrich (b. 1909) on Nov. 3 in London. English actor Jack Gwillim (b. 1909) on July 2 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. actress Ann Sothern (b. 1909) on Mar. 15 in Ketchum, Idaho. Am. writer Eudora Welty (b. 1909) on July 23: "Out of love you can speak with straight fury." Am. "Peg Riley in The Life of Riley" actress Rosemary DeCamp (b. 1910) on Feb. 20 in Newport Beach, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. cartoonist Bill Hanna (b. 1910) on Mar. 22 in North Hollywood, Calif. Austrian Christian Conservative politician Josef Klaus (b. 1910) on July 26 in Vienna. Chinese economist ("Father of Taiwan's Economic Miracle") Li Kwoh-Ting (b. 1910) on May 31. Am. St. Louis U. pres. (1949-74) Rev. Paul Clark Reinert (b. 1910) on July 22 in St. Louis, Mo. Am. animated film producer John Sutherland (b. 1910) on Feb. 17 in Van Nuys, Calif. English conservative Christian leader Mary Whitehouse (b. 1910) on Nov. 23 in Colchester, Essex. Am. Creationist physicist Thomas G. Barnes (b. 1911) on Oct. 21 in El Paso, Tex. English historian and oenophile Sir John Plumb (b. 1911) on Oct. 21; spent his entire academic career at Christ's College, Cambridge U. Am. labor leader Leonard Woodcock (b. 1911) on Jan. 16 in Ann Arbor, Mich. English surgeon Sir Michael Woodruff (b. 1911) on Mar. 10 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Brazilian novelist Jorge Amado (b. 1912) on Aug. 6 in Salvador. English newspaper publisher David Astor (b. 1912) on Dec. 7 in London. Am. actor-comedian Foster Brooks (b. 1912) on Dec. 20 in Encino, Calif. (heart failure). Am. "Sentimental Journey" bandleader Les Brown Sr. (b. 1912) on Jan. 4. Am. singer Perry Como (b. 1912) on May 12 in Jupiter Inlet Colony, Fla. Am. Roy Roger's wife (1947-98) Dale Evans (b. 1912) on Feb. 7 in Apple Valley, Calif. (heart failure). Swedish-born German actress Kristina Soderbaum (b. 1912) on Feb. 12 in Hitzacker, Germany. French "Lili" actor Jean-Pierre Aumont (b. 1911) on Jan. 30 in Gassin (heart attack). Am. psychic Ruth Montgomery (b. 1912) on June 10. English historian Sir Richard William Southern (b. 1912) on Feb. 6 in Oxford. English "The Seekers" producer George H. Brown (b. 1913) on Jan. 3 in New York City; father of Tina Brown (1953-) after he divorced wife (1941-53) Maureen O'Hara (1920-). Am. radio-TV producer John Guedel (b. 1913) on Dec. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. Hewlett-Packard co-founder William Redington Hewlett (b. 1913) on Jan. 12 in Palo Alto, Calif. Am. producer-dir. Stanley Kramer (b. 1913) on Feb. 19 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. Slim Jim meat snack inventor Adolph Levis (b. 1913) on Mar. 20. Am. harmonica player Larry Adler (b. 1914) on Aug. 7. Portuguese pres. #15 (1974-6) Gen. Francisco da Costa Gomes (b. 1914) on July 31 in Lisbon. Polish lit. critic Jan Kott (b. 1914) on Dec. 23 in Santa Monica, Calif. German Luftwaffe Gen. Dietrich Peltz (b. 1914) on Aug. 10 in Munich. French "La Mer" (Beyond the Sea) "chanson francais" singer Charles Trenet (b. 1914) in Creteil. Am. "Uncle Martin in My Favorite Martian" actor Ray Walston (b. 1914) on Jan. 1 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (lupus); first celeb to die in the 21st cent. Am. chef Justin Wilson (b. 1914) on Sept. 5 in Baton Rouge, La. Russian-born Jewish Zionist activist Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook) (b. 1915) on Aug. 18 in Tel Aviv, Israel. Finnish "Moomins" artist-novelist Tove Jansson (b. 1915) on June 27 in Helsinki. South Korean Hyundai founder Chung Ju-yung (b. 1915) on Mar. 21 in Seoul. Am. neuroscientist John Cunningham Lilly (b. 1915) on Sept. 30 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Que Sera, Sera" songwriter Jay Livingston (b. 1915) on Oct. 17 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Masters and Johnson" sex researcher William H. Masters (b. 1915) on Feb. 16 in Tucson, Ariz. Am. jazz musician Flip Phillips (b. 1915) on Aug. 17 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Am. physicist Clifford Shull (b. 1915) on Mar. 31; 1994 Nobel Physics Prize. English "Doctor" dir. Ralph Philip Thomas (b. 1915) on Mar. 17 in London. Am. pole vaulter Dutch Warmerdam (b. 1915) on Nov. 13 in Fresno, Calif. (Alzheimer's). Am. "Buchanan Rides Alone" dir. Budd Boetticher (b. 1916) on Nov. 29 in Ramona, Calif. English spiritualist Rosemary Brown (b. 1916) on Nov. 16. Am. psychologist Lee Cronbach (b. 1916) on Oct. 1. Canadian hockey hall-of-fame player Woody Dumart (b. 1916) on Oct. 19 in Boston, Mass. Kiwi anthropologist Derek Freeman (b. 1916) on July 6 in Canberra, Australia (heart failure). Mexican "Zorba the Greek" actor Anthony Quinn (b. 1916) on June 3. Am. Calvinist theologian Rousas John Rushdoony (b. 1916) on Feb. 8 in Vallecito, Calif. Am. father of information theory Claude Shannon (b. 1916) on Feb. 24. Am. economist-psychologist (pioneer in AI) Herbert Alexander Simon (b. 1916) on Feb. 9 in Pittsburgh, Penn.; 1978 Nobel Econ. Prize. Am. mob boss Tony Giacalone (b. 1919) on Feb. 23 in Detroit, Mich. (heart failure). Am. athlete-announcer Marty Glickman (b. 1917) on Jan. 3. Am. Washington Post pub. Katharine Graham (b. 1917) on July 17. Am. blues musician John Lee Hooker (b. 1917) on June 21. Am. "The Harrad Experiment" novelist Robert Henry Rimmer (b. 1917) on Aug. 1 in Quincy, Mass. Am. movie producer Samuel Z. Arkoff (b. 1918) on Sept. 16 in Burbank, Calif. Canadian physicist Bertram Brockhouse (b. 1918) on Oct. 13 in Hamilton, Ont.; 1994 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. "The Law and Mrs. Jones" screenwriter Sy Gomberg (b. 1918) on Feb. 11 in Brentwood, Calif. (heart attack). Am. jazz impresario Norman Granz (b. 1918) on Nov. 22 in Geneva, Switzerland. Am. comedian Imogene Coca (b. 1918) on June 2 in Westport, Conn. (Alzheimer's). Am. baseball player-mgr. William Rigney (b. 1918) on Feb. 20 in Walnut Creek, Calif. Am. chemist Donald J. Cram (b. 1919) on June 17 in Palm Desert, Calif.; 1987 Nobel Chem. Prize. Am. actress Kathleen Freeman (b. 1919) on Aug. 23 in New York City (lung cancer). Am. actress Eileen Heckart (b. 1919) on Dec. 31 in Norwalk, Conn. (lung cancer). Am. "Cliff's Notes" publisher Cliff Hillegass (b. 1919). Am. movie critic Pauline Kael (b. 1919) on Sept. 3 in Great Barrington, Mass.: "What this generation was bred to at television's knees was not wisdom, but cynicism." Dutch physicist Dirk Polder (b. 1919) on Mar. 18 in Iran. Dutch PM #36 (1971-3) Barend Willem Biesheuvel (b. 1920) on Apr. 29 in Haarlem. Am. country musician Billy Byrd (b. 1920) on Aug. 7 in Nashville, Tenn. Am. "Dennis the Menace" cartoonist Hank Ketcham (b. 1920) on June 1 in Carmel, Calif. Austrian ecologist Otto Buchsbaum (b. 1920) on Aug. 5. Russian climatologist Mikhail Budyko (b. 1920) on Dec. 10 in St. Petersburg. German-born Am. composer-songwriter Albert Hague (b. 1920) on Nov. 12 in Marina del Rey, Calif. (cancer). Am. jazzman John Aaron Lewis (b. 1920) on Mar. 29 in New York City (prostate cancer). Am. spymaster-columnist Cord Meyer (b. 1920) on Mar. 13 (cancer). Ukrainian-born Am. violinist Isaac Stern (b. 1920) on Sept. 22 in New York City. French Club Med founder Gilbert Trigano (b. 1920) on Feb. 4 in Paris. Am. journalist Rowland Evans Jr. (b. 1921) on Mar. 23 (cancer). English Manchester Baby mathematician Tom Kilburn (b. 1921) on Jan. 17 in Manchester (abdominal surgery). Am. composer-arranger Arturo "Chico" O'Farrill (b. 1921) on June 27 in New York City. Welsh singer Harry Secombe (b. 1921) on Apr. 11 in Surrey, England (prostate cancer). Am. oceanographer Robert E. Stevenson (b. 1921) on Aug. 12 in Kauai, Hawaii (cancer). Soviet physicist Nikolai G. Basov (b. 1922) on July 1; 1964 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. journalist Edith Efron (b. 1922) on Apr. 20. English "Mr. Belvedere" actor Christopher Hewitt (b. 1922) on Aug. 3 in Los Angeles, Calif. (diabetes). Am. civil rights leader Rev. Leon Sullivan (b. 1922) on Apr. 24 in Scottsdale, Ariz. (leukemia). Am. sci-fi writer Gordon R. Dickson (b. 1923) on Jan. 31. Am. New Thought writer Stuart Grayson (b. 1923) on July 12 in New York City. South Vietnamese pres. (1965-75) Nguyen Van Thieu (b. 1923) on Sept. 29 in Foxborough, Mass.: "You ran away and left us to do the job that you could not do"; "To live without freedom is to have already died." Irish-Am. actor-producer Charles B. FitzSimons (b. 1924) on Feb. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. (liver failure); brother of Maureen O'Hara (1920-). Am. "Archie Bunker" actor Carroll O'Connor (b. 1924) on July 21. English art critic Anthony David Bernard Sylvester (b. 1924) on June 19 in London. Am. "Mister Roberts", "Save the Tiger" actor ("the white-collar Job") Jack Lemmon (b. 1925) on June 28 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). Am. journalist Carl Rowan (b. 1925). Am. "narrator in To Kill a Mockingbird" actress Kim Stanley (b. 1925) on Aug. 20 in Santa Fe, N.M. (uterine cancer). Am. poet Archie Randolph Ammons (b. 1926) on Feb. 25. Am. sci-fi writer Poul Anderson (b. 1926) on July 31 in Orinda, Calif. (cancer). Canadian playwright John Herbert Brundage (b. 1926) on June 22 in Toronto, Ont. Am. sociologist Richard A. Cloward (b. 1926) on Aug. 20. English singer Ronnie Hilton (b. 1926) on Feb. 21 in Hailsham, East Sussex. English poet Elizabeth Jennings (b. 1926) on Oct. 26 in Oxford. Am. "A Separate Peace" novelist John Knowles (b. 1926) on Nov. 30. English actor Reginald Marsh (b. 1926) on Feb. 9 in Ryde, Isle of Wight. English "Sleuth", "The Wicker Man" playwright-novelist Anthony Shaffer (b. 1926) on Nov. 6. Israeli right-wing politician Gen. Rehavam Ze'evi (b. 1926) on Oct. 17 in Hadassah Medical Center (assassinated by the PFLP and Hamdi Quran). Am. mob boss Constenze Valenti (b. 1926) on Feb. 23 in Victor, N.Y. Am. "On the Wings of a Dove" country songwriter Bob Ferguson (b. 1927) on July 22 in Jackson, Miss. (cancer). Am. "Whiplash" jazz composer Hank Levy (b. 1927) on Sept. 18 in Parkville, Md. Am. "The Bourne Identity" thriller novelist Robert Ludlum (b. 1927) on Mar. 12 in Naples, Fla. (subdural hematoma); sold 290M+ copies of 25 thriller novels. Am. Hindu guru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami (b. 1927) on Nov. 12 in Kapaa, Hawaii. Am. basketball coach Al McGuire (B. 1928) on Jan. 26 in Milwaukee, Wisc. English-born Irish Provisional IRA leader Sean Mac Stiofain (b. 1928) on Mya 18 in Navan, County Meath. Am. "Agatha Chumley in Magnum, P.I." actress Gillian Dobb (b. 1929) on Mar. 31 in Lancaster, Penn. Am. "Serpico" writer Peter Maas (b. 1929) on Aug. 23 in New York City. Am. country musician Grady Martin (b. 1929) on Dec. 3 in Lewisburg, Tenn. Am. beatnik poet Gregory Corso (b. 1930) on Jan. 17. Am. basketball player Walter Dukes (b. 1930) on Feb. ? in Detroit, Mich.; found dead in his apt. on Mar. 14. Am. "Grady Wilson in Sanford and Son" actor Whitman Mayo (b. 1930) on May 22 in Atlanta, Ga. Am. basketball player-coach Larry Costello (b. 1931) on Dec. 13 in Fort Myers, Fla. Am. pool player "Fast" Eddie Parker (b. 1931) on Feb. 2 in Brownsville Tex. (heart attack); dies at the U.S. Classic Billiard Eight-Ball Showdown. Canadian writer Mordecai Richler (b. 1931) on July 3 in Montreal. Am. sportswriter Dick Schaap (b. 1931) on Dec. 21 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. novelist Don Berry (b. 1932). Am. "Pete McCoy in Adventures in Paradise" actor-writer Gardner McKay (b. 1932) on Nov. 21 in Honolulu, Hawaii (prostate cancer). Am. trash talk TV host Morton Downey Jr. (b. 1933) on Mar. 12 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "The Oracle in The Matrix" actress Gloria Foster (b. 1933) on Sept. 29 in New York City (diabetes). Polish-born Israeli chemist-writer Israel Shahak (b. 1933) on July 2 in Jerusalem (diabetes). Dutch "cosmic bushwhacker" writer Johan Henri Quanjer (b. 1934) on Feb. 13. Am. sports journalist Dick Schaap (b. 1934) on Dec. 21 in New York City. Am. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" writer Ken Kesey (b. 1935) on Nov. 10 in Eugene, Ore. Am. Bob Dylan's tour mgr. Victor Maymudes (b. 1935) on Jan. 27 in Santa Monica, Calif. (cerebral aneurysm). Am. "Mama and Papas" singer John Phillips (b. 1935) on Mar. 18 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. basketball player Guy Rodgers (b. 1935) on Feb. 19 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. serial murderer Henry Lee Lucas (b. 1936) on Mar. 12 in Huntsville, Tex. (heart failure). Am. folk singer-songwriter Fred Neil (b. 1936) on July 7 in Summerland Key, Fla. Am. "voice of Garfield" actor Lorenzo Music (b. 1937) on Aug. 4 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). Am. bowling star Earl Anthony (b. 1938) on Aug. 14 in New Berlin, Wisc. Am. "The Bad News Bears", "Fletch", "The Candidate" dir. Michael Ritchie (b. 1938) on Apr. 16 in New York City; purchased Marilyn Monroe's Brentwood suicide cottage in 1994 for $995K. Am. guitarist John Fahey (b. 1939) on Feb. 22 in Salem, Ore. Dem. Repub. of Congo (DRC) pres. (1997-2001) Laurent-Desire Kabila (b. 1939) on Jan. 16 in Kinshasha; assassinated by bodyguard Rashidi Muzele, who is killed while attempting to flee; he works for Rwanda? Am. "Father Karras in The Exorcist" actor-playwright Jason Miller (b. 1939) on May 13 in Scranton, Penn. (heart attack). Am. economist Sherwin Rosen (b. 1938) on Mar. 17 in South Side, Chicago, Ill. Am. baseball hall-of-fame player Willie Stargell (b. 1940) on Apr. 9 in Wilmington, N.C.; 475 homers and 1,540 RBI. Am. folk musician Sandy Bull (b. 1941) on Apr. 11 in Nashville, Tenn. (lung cancer). Am. environmental scientist Donella Meadows (b. 1941) on Feb. 20 in Hanover, N.H. Bavarian-born Am. car sunroof creator Heinz Prechter (b. 1942) on July 6 in Grosse Ile, Mich. (suicide by hanging). Am. conspiracy theorist Bill Cooper (b. 1943) on Nov. 5 in Eagar, Ariz. (KIA). English ex-Beatle George Harrison (b. 1943) on Nov. 29 (cancer). Am. actress Deborah Walley (b. 1943) on May 10 in Sedona, Ariz. (esophageal cancer). Am. singer Mimi Baez Farina (b. 1945) on July 18 in Mill Valley, Calif. (cancer). Afghan anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud (b. 1953) on Sept. 9 in Takhar Province (assassinated). Am. photographer Berry Berenson (b. 1948) on Sept. 11 (killed in AA Flight 11). Am. "Modern Art of Chinese Cooking" chef Barbara Tropp (b. 1948) on Oct. 26 (ovarian cancer). Am. "gay biker in Village People" singer Glenn M. Hughes (b. 1950) on Mar. 4 in New York City (pneumonia from AIDS). Am. football player Harvey Banks Martin (b. 1950) on Dec. 24 (pancreatic cancer). Am. race car driver Dale Earnhardt Sr. (b. 1951) on Feb. 18 (killed in race). Czech rocker Milan Hlavsa (b. 1951) on Jan. 5 (lung cancer). Am. "An American Family" singer-writer Lance Loud (b. 1951) on Dec. 21 in Los Angeles, Calif. (AIDS). British "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" author Douglas Adams (b. 1952) on May 12. Philippine rev. socialist leader Filemon Lagman (b. 1953) on Feb. 6 in Quezon City (assassinated). Am. "Mary Bradford in Eight is Enough" actress Lani O'Grady (b. 1954) on Sept. 25 in Valencia, Calif. (OD). Am. Robert Blake's wife (since 2001) Bonnie Lee Bakley (b. 1956) on May 4 in Studio City, Calif. (murdered). Am. "Run-D.M.C." hip hop artist Jam-Master Jay (b. 1965) on Oct. 30 in Jamaica, Queens, N.Y. Am. "Sweet Dreams", "Be My Lover" singer Melanie Thornton (b. 1967) on Nov. 24 in Zurich, Switzerland (plane crash). Am. terrorist Timothy McVeigh (b. 1968) on June 11 in Terra Haute, Ind. (executed); his last meal is 2 pints of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Am. intern Chandra Ann Levy (b. 1977) on May ? in Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C. (murdered). Am. singer Aaliyah (b. 1979) on Aug. 25 in Marsh Harbour, Abaco Island, Bahamas (plane crash) - the musician's curse?
2002 Doomsday Clock: 7 min. to midnight - back to the 1947 start level? Chinese Year: Black Horse (Feb. 12) (lunar year 4699). Time Persons of the Year: The Whistleblowers (Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley, Sherron Watkins). This is the U.N. Internat. Year for Cultural Heritage, Ecotourism, and Mountains - cultural sabotage, terrorism, and mountainous catastrophes? The Dawn of the Digital Age sees digital storage capacity overtake analog. Between 1998 and this year the U.S. Nat. Climate Data Center lists 17 weather-related events doing over $1B in damage each. The U.S. admits 1M legal immigrants this year; 422 of them settle in Mont. There are no commercial airline fatalities in the U.S. this year. By this year there are 7 scientific researchers or engineers per 1K pop. in the U.S.; in China there are only 0.6. On Jan. 1 11-0 Miami defeats 11-1 Nebraska by 37-14 to win the 2002 Rose Bowl. On Jan. 1 the eurodollar (euro) replaces nat. currencies in a dozen countries of Europe (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain) as 15B euro banknotes and 50B euro coins (with a value of over 664B euros) are put into circulation, becoming the largest currency introduction in history. On Jan. 1 Boston, Mass.-born billionaire Jewish Dem.-turned-Repub. financier Michael Rubens "Mike" Bloomberg (1942-) becomes mayor #108 of New York City (until Dec. 31, 2013), succeeding 9/11 hero mayor Rudy Giuliani. On Jan. 1 the U.N. strengthens its 1996 Habitat Agenda by creating a full-fledged U.N. program. On Jan. 1 Nancy Sonnenfeld, wife of Kurt Sonnenfeld (1963-), a videographer for the U.S. Federal Emergency Mgt. Agency (FEMA), who took footage of the ruins of the WTC in 2001 is shot to death in Congress Park, Colo.; he is charged with her murder, then the charges are dismissed in June after a suicide note is found; too bad, after he moves to Argentina and releases a demo tape of Ground Zero to the press, he is arrested again on the allegation that jail inmates came forward claiming he confessed in jail, causing him to seek asylum in Argentina, bcoming a poster boy for conspiracy theorists after he claims the U.S. govt. is framing him because he has video evidence that they knew in advance about 9/11 and took precautions to preserve "certain things that the authorities there considered irreplaceable or invaluable... For example, certain things were missing that could only have been removed with a truck. Yet after the first plane hit... everything in Manhattan collapsed and no one could have gotten near the towers to do that." On Jan. 2 Eduardo Alberto Duhalde (1941-) (whose portrait bears a striking resemblance to actor Joe Pesci (1943-)?) becomes pres. #53 of Argentina (until May 25, 2003). On Jan. 2 Levy Patrick Mwanawasa (1948-2008), hand-picked successor of Frederick Chiluba is sworn-in as pres. #3 of Zambia (until Aug. 19, 2008) among allegations of fraud, but in June he accuses his former boss of stealing millions while in office, and gets him arrested and charged next Feb.; meanwhile, despite looming famine he refuses to accept food donations, calling them "poison" - me wanna watch ya white honkeys? On Jan. 3 the Israelis capture Karine-A, a Palestine Authority-owned freighter loaded with 50 tons of weapons incl. rockets in the Red Sea; after Yasser Arafat lies to Pres. Bush that he had nothing to do with it, and is found out, Bush refuses to have anything to do with him again? On Jan. 11 the U.S. begins putting Taliban and Al-Qaida prisoners in a special maximum security prison in Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo), Cuba (until ?). On Jan. 15 Britain is declared free of hoof and mouth disease after 10M head of livestock have been destroyed. On Jan. 15 11-term U.S. Rep. (D-Calif.) (since June 2, 1987) Nancy Patricia Pelosi (nee D'Alesandro) (1940-) from San Francisco, Calif. becomes the first woman to lead a major party in Congress after being elected as the House minority whip (until Jan. 3, 2003); her father Thomas Ludwig John D'Alesandro Jr. (1903-87) was a Md. rep. for 10 years (1939-47), and 3-term mayor #39 of Baltimore (1947-59). On Jan. 16 a graduate student kills a dean, a prof. and a student at the Appalachian School of Law in Va. On Jan. 17 Warwick, R.I.-born U.S. fighter pilot (guaranteed future gen.) col. Martha Elizabeth McSally (196-), the first U.S. woman to fly in combat since the 1991 lifting of prohibitions sues the U.S. Defense Dept. for making her dress in degrading Muslim garb when off-duty in Saudi Arabia; too bad, after failing to make gen., she retires on May 6, 2010, and becomes a U.S. Repub. rep. from Ariz. on Jan. 3, 2015 (until ?). On Jan. 18 Israel confines Yasser Arafat to a Ramallah office complex, like a rat in a cage. On Jan. 18 defrocked priest John J. Geoghan (1935-2003), after being accused of sex abuse by 130+ people in his 30-year career is convicted of child molestation for grabbing a 10-y.-o. boy's butt in a swimming pool, and the Church's role in the coverup causes nat. outrage in the U.S., and leads to the fall of Boston archbishop Bernard Cardinal Law; on Aug. 23, 2003 Geoghan is stomped and strangled to death in his cell by white supremacist Joseph Druce and another inmate; Druce was given life without parole earlier for killing a man for making a sexual pass at him - good choice of cellmates? On Jan. 23 U.S. Wall Street Journal reporter (a Jew) Daniel Pearl (b. 1963) is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, then confirmed dead in Pakistan on Feb. 21 (killed on Feb. 1, and found in a shallow grave cut into 10 pieces) after a massive manhunt by Pakistan authorities is sparked by the personal intervention of U.S. secy. of state Colin Powell; four Islamic militants are later convicted; suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (1964-) is not charged, but on Mar. 10, 2007 he boasts of beheading the Zionist Mossad-CIA spy at a military hearing in Guantanamo Bay, uttering the soundbyte: "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl in the city of Karachi, Pakistan... There are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head"; he then spoils the juicy confession by claiming credit for 30 other attacks and plots, some of which never occurred; a grisly video showing Khalid saving himself by using a knife on an infidel is uploaded to the Internet to show the wonderful work Islam is doing for the butcher profession?; the FBI tries unsuccessfully to get the video banned from the Internet, just making it more popular? On Jan. 24 Kenneth L. Lay, chmn of the bankrupt Enron Corp. resigns after the the co. comes under federal investigation for financial hanky-panky. On Jan. 25 White House counsel Alberto Gonzales signs a memorandum which states that the "new paradigm" of the new war on terror "renders obsolete" the Geneva Conventions' "strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions". On Jan. 27 the first known female suicide bomber in the Middle East kills one and wounds 150 in Jerusalem in a long string of Palestinian suicide bombings going on this year. On Jan. 29 (9:15 p.m.) Pres Bush delivers his first 2002 State of the Union Address, addressing the effects of the 9/11 attacks and his plans to prevent future attacks, calling Iran, Iraq, and North Korea the "Axis of Evil", using the term "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD), and saying that the war on terrorism is "just beginning". On Jan. 30 Japan closes its last coal mine, and begins importing coal (until ?). On Jan. 31 the Larsen B Ice Shelf in the Antarctic begins disintegrating, eventually collapsing into the Weddell Sea, becoming the largest series of Larsen Ice Shelf losses in decades. In Jan. a high-level intel assessment by the Bush admin. concludes that the sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq was "unlikely" because of a host of obstacles; this report doesn't stop Pres. Bush from claiming that it happened in his 2003 State of the Union Address. In Jan. Philip Morris changes its stinking name to the less recognizable Altira after the investment co. Altira Group unsuccessfully sues them - alternate irritant? In Jan. Operation Gibraltar to uncover an al-Qaida plot in Morocco to attack NATO warships in Gibraltar results in several arrests. On Feb. 3 (after NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue cancels a week's slate of games after 9/11, pushing the season back) Super Bowl XXXVI (36) is held in New Orleans, La.; the halftime show features U2; the underdog New England Patriots (AFC) (coach Bill Belichick) defeat the St. Louis Rams (NFC) (coach Mike Martz) (QB Kurt Warner) by 20-17 for their first SB title, capped by a 48-yard field goal by 6'0" Adam Matthew "Mr. Clutch" Vinatieri (1972-) (#4) as time expires; 2nd-year Patriots QB (#12) (6th round draft pick, who replaced Drew Bledsoe after an injury) Thomas Edward "Tom Terrific" Brady Jr. (1977-) is MVP. On Feb. 3 a video tape is released showing popular 35-y.-o. black R&B singer R. (Robert Sylvester) Kelly (1967-) having sex with a 14-y.-o. daughter of an associate and urinating on her, causing him to be indicted on 21 counts of child porno; his atty. files 20 motions to delay the trial, which begins on May 9, 2007, and results in acquittal on June 13, 2008. On Feb. 4 Father Jose Mantero becomes the first gay priest to come out in Spain - don't hand me the host until you wash your fingers? On Feb. 6 Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her 50th anniv. as monarch of Great Britain - and she'll never let funny-ears get it? On Feb. 12 the trial of Slobodan Milosevic on charges of crimes against humanity opens at The Hague. On Feb. 12 an Iran Airtour Tu-154 crashes in the mountains of W Iran near Khorramabad, killing all 119 aboard; on Sept. 1, 2006 another of their planes crashes in Mashhad in NE Iran, killing 29 of 148 aboard. On Feb. 13 mixed-up Am. Muslim John Walker Lindh is charged with supporting terrorism. On Feb. 14 the emirate of Bahrain becomes a kingdom, with emir (since Mar. 6, 1999) Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa (1950-) as king #1 (until ?). On Feb. 20 a gas cooking cylinder explodes on a crowded passenger train near Ayyat, Egypt, killing 361, becoming Egypt's worst train disaster (until ?). On Feb. 22 Angolan Christian rebel leader and founder of UNITA, Dr. Jonas Mahleiro Savimbi (1934-) is assassinated by govt. forces. On Feb. 22 the Sri Lankan govt. and the Tamil Tigers sign a ceasefire agreement. On Feb. 26 Saudi crown prince Abdullah (1924-) offers full normalization with all Arab nations if Israel will withdraw completely from the West Bank and Gaza; Pres. Bush welcomes the offer; the Arab League approves the plan on Mar. 28. On Feb. 26 masked Muslim gunmen attack the Shiite Shah-i-Najaf Mosque in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, killing 11. On Feb. 27 the U.K. approves human cloning - after all, they already cloned Paul McCartney? On Feb. 28 Indian Muslim extremists set fire to a train of Hindus near Godhra returning from the Ayodhya holy site, where a Muslim mosque had been destroyed by Hindu extremists in 1992 in order to build a Hindu temple, killing 58; by Mar. 3 three days of Hindu-Muslim violence leave 400 dead in W India's Gujarat state, the home state of nonviolence advocate Mahatma Gandhi. In Feb. the investment banking co. of Lehman Brothers in New York City reinstates "business-appropriate" clothing; casual wear continues to be prevalent in the U.S. workplace, but men start to abandon the "dot-bomb" image of relaxed dress. In Feb. the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (originally the U.S. Global Change Research Program) is established under the U.S. Global Change Research Act of 1990 to coordinate and integrate research on global warming, issuing 21 Synthesis and Assessment Products (SAPs), along with three Nat. Climate Assessment Reports starting in 2000, followed by 2009 and 2014. On Mar. 2 Operation Anaconda, designed to mop-up remaining Taliban forces in E Afghanistan is launched, killing 500 of 1K Taliban fighters, and later declared a success by U.S. officials. On Mar. 3 Switzerland finally votes to join the U.N., becoming member #191: in June it follows with an overwhelming vote to end their 66-y.-o. Roman Catholic-inspired anti-abortion law. On Mar. 6 the Monica Lewinsky case against ex-pres. Clinton is dropped by independent counsel Robert William Ray (1960-) - who blew it? On Mar. 10 relatives of strongman Gen. Ne Win are accused of plotting to overthrow the govt. of Burma and sacked; "illegal use of a modem" is punishable by 15 years in prison in this after-shave country. On Mar. 12 the crime drama series The Shield debuts on FX Network for 88 episodes (until Nov. 25, 2008), based on the 1990s LAPD Rampart CRASH Scandal, set in the Farmington district of LA ("The Farm), where a converted church called "the Barn" is used as the HQ of the corrupt 4-man anti-gang Strike Team, led by Vic Mackey, played by bald actor Michael Charles Chiklis (1963-); its success attracts film stars Glenn Close (season 4) and Forest Whitaker (seasons 5-6). On Mar. 13 Pres. Robert Mugabwe wins reelection in Zimbabwe over challenger Morgan Richard Tsvangirai in a rigged election. On Mar. 13 Pres. Bush utters the soundbyte "I don't know where Osama is, I really don't care, it's not that important, it's not our priority." On Mar. 13 (Wed.) Court TV airs its first original movie Guilt by Association, starring Mercedes Ruehl, about the injustice of the U.S. mandatory minimum sentencing laws. On Mar. 14 the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen is indicted on a single count of obstruction of justice in the destruction of documents related to the Enron case; it is convicted on June 15. On Mar. 17 two Lashkar-e-Jhangvi members bomb the Internat. Protestant Church in Islamabad, Pakistan during a church service, killing five and injuring 40. On Mar. 21 Pope John Paul II sends a letter to priests lamenting the pedophile sex scandals stinking up the Church's name around the world; on Apr. 15 he summons U.S. Catholic bishops to Rome to discuss the problem of priestly pedophilia - pass the latest issue of Playchoirboy? On Mar. 21 Calif. atty. Marjorie Knoller is found guilty of implied-malice second-degree murder in the Jan. 26, 2001 mauling death of college lacrosse coach Diane Alexis Whipple (1968-2001) in San Francisco, Calif. by her two big Presa Canario dogs, becoming an unprecedented verdict; she was present during the attack, while her atty. hubby Robert Noel wasn't; the dogs were owned by imprisoned Aryan Brotherhood leader Paul Schneider, adding implied malice to the prosecution?; on June 17 an appeals judge reduces the conviction to manslaughter. On Mar. 24 the 74th Academy Awards in Los Angeles are hosted by Whoopi Goldberg (2nd time), who opens dressed in feathers and dangling from the roof of the Kodiak Theatre on a gold swing; 248 films are eligible for consideration; the best picture Oscar for 2001 goes to A Beautiful Mind (starring the previous year's best actor winner Russell Crowe), along with best dir. to Ron Howard, and best supporting actress to Jennifer Connelly; Denzel Washington (1954-) and Halle Berry (1966-) make Oscar history by becoming the first African-Ams. to win simultaneous best actor and actress awards for Training Day and Monster's Ball, respectively; Berry becomes the first African-Am. best actress winner (until ?), and knows it, breaking the 45-sec. speech limit, going for over 4 min.; best supporting actor goes to Jim Broadbent for Iris; a new category, best animated feature is added, won by Shrek; efforts to lobby-in a best stunt coordinator award are still ineffective. On Mar. 25 a 6.1 earthquake in the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan kills 1K and leaves several thousand homeless; it was secretly caused by the U.S. using earthquake weapon technology? On Mar. 27 the U.S. McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 prohibits nat. political parties in the U.S. from accepting "soft money" (large, unlimited contributions), and raises the amount of "hard money" that individuals can contribute directly to federal candidates from $1K to $2K; the bill had been blocked in Congress in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2001; on June 26, 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court by 5-4 strikes down the Millionaire Amendment. On Mar. 27 the Passover Massacre suicide bombing at the Park Hotel in Netanya, Israel by Hamas kills 30 and injures 140 Israeli civilians; on Mar. 28 after New York Times journalist (Jewish) Thomas Friedman (1953-) meets with Saudi crown pince Abdullah in Feb. and urges him to make peace, the 2002 Arab League Summit is held in Beirut, Lebanon; it is not attended by PLO leader Yasser Arafat because the Israelis keep him under house arrest in Ramallah; the Arab (Saudi) Peace Initiative is proposed, calling for normalizing relations between the Arab world and Israel after a complete withdrawal from the occupied territories incl. East Jerusalem, and a "just settlement" of the Palestinian refugee problem based on U.N. Resolution 194; too bad, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon calls it a "non-starter" because it would replace U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, which call for bilateral negotiations, and the Palestinian Authority is split, and it hangs in the air until ?; on Mar. 29 never-forgiving Israel mounts Operation Defensive Wall (Shield) in the West Bank (ends May 3), arresting Palestinian leaders and imprisoning Yasser Arafat (whom they declare an enemy) in his Mukata Compound in Ramallah; an atrocity is alleged at the Jenin refugee camp; militants take over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem; Arafat is released; meanwhile between Mar. 29 and Apr. 21 14 Muslim suicide bombers kill dozens of Israeli civilians and wound hundreds more; on Apr. 14 Marwan Barghouti is arrested for terrorism and murder, protesting his innocence and claiming that Israeli courts have no jurisdiction, and is convicted on May 20, 2004 of three terrorist attacks that killed five, receiving five life sentences plus 40 years, after which there are internat. calls for his release. In Mar. the All Dulles Area Muslim Society in Herndon, Va. is raided by federal agents, who find the "Grove Street Addresses" of 100 interlocking Muslim orgs. that they accuse of providing material support for terrorism; after the raid, the mosque's imam Mohammed Magid hosts a community meeting attended by extremists, which doesn't get him banned but actually invited to speak at Ronald Reagan's 2004 funeral; he later is pushed as an example of moderate Islam by the Obama admin. In Mar. the Davis-Besse Nuclear Reactor in Ohio comes close to a catastrophic meltdown due to corrosion problems; 430 nuclear reactors around the world supply about 16% of world electricity. In Mar. Pres. Bush asks Oprah Winfrey to head a delegation of feminists to Afghanistan to help women reenter society; she declines, citing her show schedule, causing the delegation to be cancelled. On Apr. 1 after becoming the first country to legalize same-sex marriage (2000), the Netherlands becomes the world's first country to legalize euthanasia; on May 16 Belgium becomes #2. On Apr. 2 Israel PM Arien Sharon calls for the exile of Yaser Arafat. On Apr. 2-May 10 the Siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem sees Israeli defense forces siege dozens of Palestinian militants after occupying Bethlehem as part of Operation Defensive Shield who hold the 200 monks hostage, finally giving up and being deported to the Gaza Strip and Europe. On Apr. 4 the Angolan govt. and UNITA rebels sign a ceasefire, ending 30 years of civil war. On Apr. 4 the FBI gives a judge a document which reveals "many connections" between a Saudi family and "individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001", who own a house in Sarasota, Fla. visited by the hijackers, then gets it classified for nat. security reasons until 2013. On Apr. 11 the Internat. Criminal Court (ICC), created by the Rome Treaty of 1998 wins U.N. ratification, with the U.S. refusing to go along; on July 1 it opens its doors in The Hague to hear cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide; it only prosecutes Africans until ? On Apr. 11 a suicide bomber blallahs (detonates) a truck at a crowded synagogue on the island of Djerba, Tunisia, killing 18; the first terrorist attack since 9/11? On Apr. 12 Venezuelan pres. Hugo Chavez resigns after violent protests, and is succeeded by Pedro Carmona Estanga (1941-), but returns to power on Apr. 14. On Apr. 14 the world was supposed to end one-half second before midnight (Israel time), according to prophet Mike Keller. On Apr. 15 (Mon.) a Nat. Solidarity Rally for Israel is held in Washington, D.C., organized by Jewish leader Malcolm Hoenlein (1942-), and attended by thousands; Elie Wiesel utters the soundbyte: "There is no sacred cause that justifies suicide bombings." On Apr. 15 an Air China 767 crashes in a residential area near the airport in Pusan, South Korea in dense fog, killing 128 of 155 passengers and 11 crew. On Apr. 16 the U.S. Supreme Court by 6-3 rules that the 1996 U.S. Child Pornography Prevention Act is too broad, striking down two provisions and permitting computer-generated simulation of child sex by real adults or fictional children, with Anthony M. Kennedy writing the soundbyte: "Congress may pass valid laws to protect children from abuse, and it has. The prospect of crime, however, by itself does not justify laws suppressing protected speech"; the stark differences in philosophies between liberals and conservatives over victimless crime laws are laid bare with this as well as their revulsion at burning replicas of govt. flags owned by private citizens? On Apr. 17 two U.S. pilot drop a 500 lb. bomb near Kandahar, Afghanistan where Canadians are conducting a live fire exercise, killing four, becoming the first friendly fire deaths of Canadians in Afghanistan. On Apr. 18 the British High Court allows pharmacies to dispense the morning-after pill without a doctor's prescription. On Apr. 23 the "last year of the dark cycle, a time of returning negative karma" ends according to Elizabeth Clare Prophet. On Apr. 25 Russia launches Soyuz TM-34, carrying cosmonauts Yuri Pavlovich Gidzenko (1962-), Roberto Vittori (1964-) of Italy, and white South African software millionaire Mark Richard Shuttleworth (1973-), who becomes the 2nd space tourist and 1st (white) African in space after he pays $20M for the privilege; on Oct. 30 Soyuz TMA-1 blasts off, carrying cosmonauts Sergei Viktorovich Zalyotin (1962-), Frank, Viscount De Winne (1961-) of Belgium (2nd Belgian in space), and Yuri Valentinovich Lonchakov (1965-); Soyuz TM-34 returns on Nov. 10 with Sergei Zalyotin, Frank De Winne, and Yuri Lonchakov; Soyuz TMA-1 returns next May 4 with Mikolai Budarin, Kenneth Bowersox, and Donald Pettit. On Apr. 26 Mexican-born Boston archbishop (since 1984) Cardinal Bernard Francis Law (1931-), under pressure to resign over the sexual abuse scandal rocking the U.S. Roman Catholic Church, reports that he is taking a position at the Vatican in June so he can avoid giving a deposition in a lawsuit against his archdiocese; on Dec. 13 he resigns; Law's aide Sister Catherine E. Mulkerrin (1936-2008) is instrumental in exposing the abuse- the more the Church changes, the more it says the same? It's April again, and the school rage shooters are back? On Apr. 26 19-y.-o. Robert Steinhauser (Steinhäuser) (b. 1982) shoots and kills 13 teachers, two students and a policeman before killing himself at the Gutenberg Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany. On Apr. 29 U.S. Pres. Bush and Vice-pres. Cheney meet with the Sept. 11 Commission behind closed doors - ? In Apr. Dutch PM Wim Kok resigns after a report is released concluding that Dutch U.N. troops failed to prevent a massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serbs in a U.N. safe haven near Srebrenica in 1995, saying "The internat. community is big and anonymous. We are taking the consequences of the internat. community's failure in Srebrenica". In Apr. U.S. gen. Tommy Franks flies into Britain for top secret talks about an invasion of Iraq with defense secy. (1999-2005) Geoffrey William "Geoff" Hoon (1953-) 11 mo. before the real invasion, which doesn't become public until Oct. 2010. On May 5 tainted right-wing French pres. (since May 17, 1995) Jacques Rene Chirac (1932-) wins reelection in a landslide victory over far-right candidate Marion Anne Perrine "Marine" Le Pen (1968-) in France; the winning election slogan: "Vote for the Crook, not the Fascist"; Chirac survives an assassination attempt by far-right wannabe-Jackal student Maxime Brunerie on July 14 at the Paris Bastille Day Parade, who shoots at him; meanwhile his wife (since 1956) Bernadette Therese Marie Chirac (1933-) keeps asking her playboy hubby's chaffeur, "Where is he tonight?" On May 6 gay anti-Islamic anti-immigration right-wing populist Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn (b. 1948) is assassinated by animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf nine days before nat. elections in which he was expected to lead one of the country's largest parties, becoming the first assassination in the Netherlands since 1672; Volkert is sentenced to 18 years in prison; on May 16 the Christian Dems. return to power in the Netherlands, with Jan Pieter (Peter) Balkenende Jr. (1956-) becoming PM on July 22 (until Oct. 14, 2010) and forming a coalition with Fortuyn's party and going on to form four cabinets. On May 6 Burmese dem. leader Aunt, er, Aung San Suu Kyi (1945-) is released from house arrest after 19 mo. by the repressive military-run govt. On May 6 fervent Christian Marc Ravalomanana (1949-) becomes pres. #4 of Madagascar (until ?). On May 7 a China Northern MD82 en route from Beijing crashes 20km (12.5 mi.) off the coast of Dalian, China, killing all 103 passengers and nine crew. On May 7 Muslim religious scholar Ghulam Murtaza Malik is killed along with his driver and a policeman in Iqbal, Lahore by two gunmen. On May 8 Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Puerto Rican descent Muslim convert Jose Padilla (Abdullah al-Muhajir) (1970-) is arrested in Chicago, Ill. and tdeclared an illegal enemy combatant on June 9 by Pres. Bush for allegedly aiding a radioactive dirty bomb attack on the U.S.; after pressure from civil liberties groups, that charge is dropped and he is transferred to a Miami, Fla. jail on criminal conspiracy charges; he is found guilty on Aug. 16, 2007 by a federal jury, then sentenced on Jan. 22, 2008 to 208 mo. (17 years 4 mo.) in priz, which is increased to 21 years. On May 9 the U.S. Dept. of Education reveals that more than half of U.S. high school seniors do not even have a basic grasp of their own country's history - somebody ought to write a better textbook? On May 10 UPS columnist Georgie Anne Geyer (1935-) pub. a column in the Chicago Tribune titled "Now Isn't the Time for Bush League Movies", claiming that Israeli PM Ariel Sharon told his cabinet "I control America", which is later proved to come from Palestinian press but otherwise unconfirmed, causing a CT retraction. On May 13 the U.S. and Russia sign a landmark START III Agreement to cut their nuclear arsenals by up to two-thirds over the next 10 years. On May 13 the presidents of Russia and Kazakhstan sign an agreement dividing three major Caspian Sea oil and natural gas fields. In May Mohammad Zahir Shah (1914-), former Pashtun king of Afghanistan who abdicated in 1973 returns from exile; meanwhile U.S.-backed interim leader Hamid Karzai (also a Pashtun) gains popular support, plus grudging acceptance from former Northern Alliance leaders, who are Tajik. On May 19 Ahmad Tejan Kabbah wins reelection as pres. of Sierra Leone in a landslide over Ernest Karoma. On May 20 East Timor (modern-day pop. 1.1M) gains independence from Indonesia, becoming a brand new nation; on May 23 the U.N. Security Council adopts Resolution 1414 without vote to admit East Timor. On May 20-30 U.S. treasury secy. Paul O'Neill and U2 singer Bono visit Africa together to tsk tsk about all the problems. On May 21 Australian scientists announce the first biologically-engineered instant wheat that doesn't have to be milled before being eaten. On May 21 Kashmiri leader Abdul Ghani Lone is assassinated. On May 21 FBI atty. Coleen Rowley writes a letter to the FBI dir. criticizing the FBI for thwarting anti-terrorist efforts. On May 25 a China Airlines Boeing 747 crashes into the Taiwan Strait, killing 225. On May 25 a train accident in Muama, Mozambique kills 192 and injures dozens. On May 26 Harvard-educated law-and-order candidate Alvaro Uribe Velez (1952-) is elected, and on Aug. 7 he is sworn-in as pres. #39 of Colombia (until Aug. 7, 2010); on leaving office he becomes vice-chmn. fo the U.N. panel investigating the Gaza Freedom Flotilla raid. On May 28 Russia does the formerly unthinkable and officially becomes NATO's ally as a "junior partner". In May U. of Wisc. student Lucas John "Luke" Helder (1981-) decides to plant pipe bombs in mailboxes across the U.S. in a smiley face shape, planting 18 bombs over 3.2K mi. in his black Honda Accord while wearing a Kurt Cobain t-shirt until he is caught; six are injured in in Neb., Colo., Tex., Ill., and Iowa; in Apr. 2004 he is found incompetent to stand trial and incarcerated in the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minn. In May Rosie O'Donnell gives up her daytime TV show (begun 1996), announcing that she's a lesbian and wants time to raise four children with her lez partner Kelli Carpenter - if you can imagine it, they'll create a TV show for it? On June 2 The Wire debuts on HBO for 60 episodes (until Mar. 9, 2008), created by police reporter David Simon and set in Baltimore, Md., portraying the drug scene through the eyes of the drug dealers and law enforcement, using unknown mainly black actors and real-life Baltimore figures for realism. On June 8 after winning elections handily, Amadou Toumani Toure (Touré) (1948-) becomes pres. of Mali (until Mar. 22, 2012). On June 8-July 2 the Hayman Fire devastates parts of the Colo. Front Range, destroying 138K acres, incl. 133 homes and 466 bldgs., and causing 8K to be evacuated; it misses Denver but fills the sky with smoke; U.S. Forest Service worker Terry Lynn Barton (1964-) is later convicted and spends six years in federal prison in Ft. Worth, Tex., claiming she was burning papers outlining a separation agreement with her ex in a campground fire ring and it sparked out of control. On June 11 ex-Beatle Paul McCartney (b. 1942) marries Heather Anne Mills (1968-) (an anti-mine vegetarian activist who lost part of her left leg in 1993 after being hit by a police motorbike) at Castle Leslie in Glaslough, Ireland; they separate on May 17, 2006, then divorce on Feb. 18, 2008. On June 11 (Tue.) American Idol, based on the British show "Pop Idol" debuts on Fox-TV for 555 episodes (until Apr. 7, 2016), going on to save sagging pop music sales and generate megabucks for its founders Simon Fuller (1960-) and Simon Philip Cowell (1959-); judges incl. Paula Julie Abdul (1962-) and Randy Darius Jackson (1956-); Ryan John Seacrest (1974-) becomes host in 2002; all the marketable stars are women until ?. On June 13 interim leader Hamid Karzai is elected pres. of Afghanistan (until ?). On June 13 the U.S. abandons its 31-y.-o. ABM treaty. On June 14 a Nat. Conference of U.S. Bishops recommends zero tolerance for priests who abuse children; on Oct. 18 the Vatican calls for them to soften their hard, sticky stand. On June 15 the Social Dems. retain power in the Czech Repub., and on July 15 Vladimir Spidla becomes PM of Czech. Repub. (untl Aug. 4, 2004). On June 15 Hollywood actors Charlie Sheen (1965-) and Denise Richards (1971-) marry; in Mar. 2005 after having son Sam J Sheen (2004-) she files for divorce while pregnant with his child Lola Rose Sheen (2005-), claiming he's still hot for hookers, then lures Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi away from Heather Locklear. One June 16 Israel is begun of the Fence, a 217-mile-long barrier between Israel and the West Bank. On June 20 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 6-3 in Atkins v. Va. that the U.S. Constitution bars the execution of mentally retarded (intellectually disabled) offenders, but permits states to define who is and is not intellectually disabled; Justice Antonin Scalia dissents, writing that it would not have been considered cruel and unusual punishment to execute a midly mentally retarded convict in 1791, and that the Court had failed to find any nat. consensus against the practice. On June 21-23 the first Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is held in Manchester, Tenn. On June 24 the first sperm bank for lesbians is launched in the U.K. - baggies, not bags? On June 24 Pres. Bush delivers his Speech on the Israeli-Palestinian Settlement, calling for a democratic Palestinian state run by new leadership, anybody but Yasser Arafat, but only after they abandon terror and implement democratic reforms, causing First Lady Barbara Bush to refer to her hubby as the "first Jewish president"; it incl. the soundbyte: "It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians to live in squalor and occupation. And the current situation offers no prospect that life will improve. Israeli citizens will continue to be victimized by terrorists, and so Israel will continue to defend herself. In the situation the Palestinian people will grow more and more miserable. My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet, at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope. Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born." On June 24 a train accident near Msagali, Tanzania kills 200. On June 26 a U.S. appeals court shocks the nation with a ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance cannot be recited in public schools because it contains the phrase "one nation under God". On June 27 former Pres. Clinton receives a multicolored bracelet as a gift from Colombian children, and vows to never take it off, to remind him "that the oldest democracy in Latin America now has 35% of its land under the control of narco-traffickers and terrorists"; during his Sept. 2004 heart surgery, doctors tape over it. On June 27 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 5-4 in Board of Education v. Earls that public schools may engage in random mandatory drug testing for students participating in extracurricular activities, extending the ruling in Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton (1995). On June 27 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 5-4 in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris that school tuition vouchers do not violate the Establishment Clause. In June Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio is fired, and Dick Notebaert (1948-) replaces him (until June, 2007), changing the slogan from "Ride the Light" to "Spirit of Service", and releasing it from bankruptcy, cutting its $26B debt in half. This summer is marked by extreme weather worldwide, incl. floods in Europe and Asia, and a widespread drought in the U.S., sparking massive wildfires in the Am. West; a week-long flood in Tex. causes Canyon Lake to spill over into the Guadalupe Valley, carving a new canyon in three days - giving Creationists a magic moment? On July 1 a Russian passenger airliner collides over S Germany with a Boeing 757 cargo plane, killing all 71 aboard both planes. On July 4 Egyptian-Am. Muslim limo driver Hesham Mohamed Hadayet (b. 1961) opens fire on two Israelis at an El Al ticket counter at LAX, killing them and wounding four others before a security guard kills him; the U.S. concludes that he did it to influence U.S. govt. policy in favor of the Palestinians, making him a terrorist. On July 5 Beantown's "Splendid Splinter" Ted Williams (b. 1918) dies; later it is revealed that his body was sent by his relatives to Alcor for cryonics storage. On July 9 the African Union (AU) (UA) is established as a successor to the Org. of African Unity (OAU), with 53 African member states incl. Libya; the HQ is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In July an Iranian court gives Mohammed Khordadian a 10-year suspended prison sentence for dancing in public in Calif., and giving Iranian traditional dance lessons; the charge is "enticing and inciting the nation's youth to corruption"; TV footage had been sent to Iran, and his videos had been sold there. On July 10 the U.S. Congress votes to arm airline pilots. On July 20 Alex Sanchez becomes the first Mexican illegal immigrant granted political asylum in the U.S., after which he founds Homies Unidos to work to prevent violence in Latin Am. gangs; too bad, in June 2009 Sanchez is indicted on federal RICO charges after they accuse him of using the group as a cover, causing Latino groups to call it a frameup and govt. repression of pro-immigrant activists. On July 12 Pres. Bush announces the first U.S. budget deficit in four years. On July 12 Andy Breckman's comedy-drama mystery series Monk debuts on USA Network for 125 episodes (until Dec. 4, 2009), starring Anthony Marcus "Tony" Shaloub (1953-) as OCD-suffering ex-cop detective Adrian Monk in San Francisco, Calif., and ("Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs") Frank Theodore "Ted" Levine (1957-) as Capt. Leland Stottlemeyer; in seasons 1-3 Elizabeth Natalie "Bitty" Schram (1968-) plays Monk's asst. Sharona Fleming, followed by Traylor Elizabeth Howard (1966-) as Sharon Carter. On July 15 John Walker Lindh pleads guilty to avoid a death sentence. On July 16 the IRA issues an apology to the families of civilians killed during 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland. On July 21 WorldCom files the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, declaring assets of $107B; on July 31 WorldCom execs Scott D. Sullivan (1962-) and David Myers (1958-) are charged with fraud for overstating revenue by $3.8B; on Mar. 15, 2005 CEO Bernard John "Bernie" Ebbers (1941-) is found guilty of orchestrating a record $11B fraud; Sullivan gets 5 years, and Myers gets a year and a day. On July 22 Denver, Colo.-born Muslim convert Earnest James Ujaama (James Thompson) (1966-) of Seattle, Wash. is arrested at his grandmother's home in Denver, Colo.; in Apr. 2003 he pleads guilty to conspiring to deliver computer software and cash to Taliban officials in Afghanistan, and receives two years in prison; he allegedly wanted to establish a terrorist training camp on a ranch near Bly, Oregon. On July 24 the U.N. Security Council adopts Resolution 1426 without vote to admit Switzerland. On July 25 after a July 10 speech by Pres. Bush on corporate malfeasance, Congress passes the U.S. Corporate Responsibility Act, defining stiff penalties for corporate execs who commit fraud; on July 30 Pres. Bush sign the U.S. Sarbanes-Oxley Act, requiring CEOs to personally certify their books, with a possible criminal penalty of 20 years in prison - that'll stop the problem, right Bernie Madoff? On July 27 Canadian-born Pakistani descent Muslim Omar Ahmed Khadr (1986-) is captured after a 4-hour firefight in Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan after killing U.S. soldiers, becoming the youngest inmate at Gitmo, and getting latched onto by the U.N. and Western liberals as a child soldier, resulting in the Obama admin. accepting a plea bargain in Oct. 2010 that lets him walk in as little as a year. On July 28 nine coal miners trapped in the flooded Quecreek Mine in Somerset, Penn. are rescued after 77 hours underground. On July 30 Rwanda and Congo end their 4-y.-o. African World War (begun 1998) that involved the armies of six nations, after 2.5M are killed; Rwanda promises to withdraw its 35K troops from the Congolese border, and Congo agrees to disarm thousands of Hutu militiamen. On July 31 in Mexico City Pope John Paul II canonizes St. Juan Diego (1474-1548), the Church's first Indian saint. In July Luis Grass Rodriguez attempts to reach Fla. in a seagoing 1951 Chevy pickup, but is sent back to Cuba; he tries again next Feb. On Aug. 2 Taiwan Pres. Chen Shui-bian says that his country is separate from China, despite the latter's insistence that it will never be independent from the mainland. On Aug. 4 millionaire former pres. Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (1930-) again becomes pres. of poor landlocked Bolivia (until 2003). On Aug. 6 U.S. security experts speak at a panel hosted by the Nixon Center and the Center for Immigration studies, and claim that the millions of illegal Mexican aliens in the U.S. endanger nat. security by creating a demand for false ID documents and smuggling networks that could potentially assist terrorists. On Aug. 8 white farmers in Zimbabwe are ordered to leave their property so that dictator-pres. Robert Mugabwe can hand them to his black friends, who don't know how to run them, resulting in mass famine. On Aug. 9 Muslims throw a grenade into a chapel owned by a Christian hospital in Taxila in N Punjab (15 mi. W of Islamabad), Pakistan, killing four women, incl. two nurses and a paramedic, and wounding 25 men and women. On Aug. 9 Am. actor Charleston Heston announces that he is suffering from Alzheimer's and is retiring from public life; he dies in 2008 - Ben-Who? On Aug. 15 13 days after the Hollywood film Signs debuts in theaters the most elaborate crop circle yet is reported by Crabwood Farm House near Winchester, Hampshire, U.K., consisting of a picture of an extraterrestrial and what appears to be a CD-ROM with raised dots indicating "let's talk" type info.? On Aug. 15 thieves rob the Charles Dickens Museum in Bloomsbury in broad daylight, stealing first eds. of his work A Christmas Carol. On Aug. 17 a U.S. District Court rules that tobacco cos. can no longer use terms such as "low tar", "light", "ultra light", "mild" or "natural" beginning on Jan. 1, 2007. On Aug. 16 Palestinian terrorist (Fatah or Abu Nadal Org. founder) Abu Nidal (Sabri Khalil al-Banna) dies of 1-4 gunshot wounds, allegedly by suicide, but maybe by orders of Saddam Hussein. On Aug. 19 an Islamic appeal court in Nigeria approves a stoning sentence for Amina Lawal (1973-) for having extramarital sex, while the father of her child is not prosecuted, causing an internat. outcry, and several contestants to pull out of the Miss World beauty contest in Nigeria; on Sept. 23, 2003 her conviction is overturned after her lawyers argue that a 5-year interval between conception and pregnancy is possible. On Aug. 21 the cable TV Fine Living Network, owned by Scripps Network Interactive debuts (until May 31 2010), based in Los Angeles, Calif., moving in 2005 to Knoxville, Tenn. In Aug. an Iranian opposition group reveals the existence of an Iranian gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, Iran; the Iranian govt. claims that they only want to build nuclear power plants over the next 20 years to give them 6GW of electric power. In Aug. a Muslim group in Denmark puts out a $30K bounty for the murder of several prominent Danish Jews; Denmark has 200K Muslim immigrants and only 6K Jews. On Sept. 5 a car bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan kills 30 and wounds 167. On Sept. 8 U.S. nat. security adviser Condoleezza Rice (1954-) tells Wolf Blitzer: "There will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he [Saddam Hussein] can acquire nuclear weapons, but we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud"; on Sept. 10 she tells reporters that "We do know that [Saddam Hussein] is actively pursuing a nuclear weapon." On Sept. 9 scientifically-trained Driss Jettou (1945-) becomes PM of Morocco (until Sept. 19, 2007). On Sept. 11 the U.S. Congress meets in the restored Federal Hall in New York City to commemorate 9/11. On Sept. 12 Pres. Bush gives an Address to the U.N., hinting loudly that it's time for a regime change in Iraq. On Sept. 12 Tyco Internat. Corp. execs Leo Dennis Kozlowski (1946-) (CEO) and Mark H. Swartz (CFO) are indicted for a "cookie-jar reserve" stock fraud scheme. On Sept. 17 U.S. interior secy. Gale Norton is found guilty of four counts of civil contempt by a federal judge who held she committed "a fraud on the court" by withholding evidence in a dispute over trust accounts for Amerindians; she gets the ruling overturned on appeal. On Sept. 17 after an earlier version by Colin Powell's senior aide Richard Haass is rejected by Condoleezza Rice as not "bold" enough, U. of Va. prof. Philip D. Zelikow (1954-) releases Overview of U.S. Nat. Security Strategy Following 9/11; on Nov. 27 the Nat. Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission) is set up "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks", incl. responses and preparedness, comprised of five Dems. and five Repubs., chaired by N.J. gov. Thomas Kean (ends Aug. 21, 2004); Zelikow is appointed exec dir., uttering the soundbyte "Why should Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I'll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990 - it's the threat against Israel." On Sept. 19 a military coup in Ivory Coast by former pres. Gen. Robert Guei fails, and Guei is killed, but fighting continues until next July. On Sept. 20 Joss Whedon's space Western Firefly debuts on Fox-TV for 14 episodes (until Dec. 20), set in the year 2517 after the renegade crew of Firefly-class spaceship Serenity arrive in a new star system; "Nine people looking into the blackness of space and seeing nine different things"; filmed in 2005 as "Serenity". On Sept. 22 Gov. Gray Davis of Calif. signs the first state law in the U.S. backing stem cell research, which the Bush admin. placed federal funding restrictions on in 2001 after caving-in to the Roman Catholic Church and evangelicals. On Sept. 24-25 the Akshardham Temple Attack in Gandhinagar in Gujarat state in W India sees the temple stormed by heavily armed Islamic terrorists, killing 29 and wounding 79 of 600 devotees, incl. 1 policeman and 1 commando. On Sept. 25 Muslim gunmen attack the Christian Inst. for Peace and Justice welfare org. in Karachi, Pakistan, killing six and injuring four. On Sept. 26 the police procedural drama series Without a Trace debuts on CBS-TV for 160 episodes (until May 19, 2009), about the Missing Persons Unit (MPU) of the FBI in New York City, starring Australian actor Anthony M. LaPaglia (1959-) as Jack Malone, and Australian actress Poppy Montgomery (Poppy Petal Emma Elizabeth Deveraux Donahue) (1972-) as Samantha Spade. On Sept. 30 a dockworker strike on the W coast of the U.S. over possible replacement by robots begins, bringing back shades of the Luddities. In Sept. Pres. Bush announces the Bush Doctrine of pre-emption in support of democracy - his ancestor George Washington rolls over in his grave? In Sept. the 1.1K-mi. Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan Pipeline through oil-rich trillionaire Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey begins. In Sept. Pres. Bush's top economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey shocks the press with the revelation that the cost of the Iraq War might reach $200B, causing other aides to rebuke him and Bush to fire him 3 mo. later and replace him on Dec. 12 with Stephen Friedman (1937-); by 2006 the war actually costs over $300B? On Oct. 1 the U.S. Northern Command is established at Peterson Air Force Base in Colo. Springs, Colo. to set a min. std. for U.S. military bases, with security levels ranging from normal to alpha to delta, being initially set at alpha. On Oct. 2 French oil tanker Limburg is attacked by al-Qaida with an explosives-laden boat in the Gulf of Aden, killing one sailor and causing the ship to spill 100K barrels of oil, causing the main Yemen port of Aden to be avoided by internat. shipping for several mo. On Oct. 2 after preliminary shootings on Feb. 16-Sept. 26, the Beltway (D.C.) Snipers, Baltimore, Md.-born U.S. Army vet (Nation of Islam convert) John Allen Muhammad (1960-2009) and his Muslim-convert "son", Kingston-Jamaica-born Am. teenager Lee Boyd (John Lee) Malvo (1985-) begin terrorizing the U.S. East Coast from their blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice sedan, finally being arrested on Oct. 24 at a W Md. rest stop after killing 17 and injuring 10 in gas stations and parking lots with sniper rifles as part of a jihad; on May 23, 2006 Malvo testifies in a 2nd trial in Rockville, Md. that Muhammad had plans to used the $10M federal govt. ransom to set up a Canadian terrorist training camp for 140 homeless black kids, and planned to kill six random people a day for 30 days and then kill kids and pigs, er, police with explosives in Baltimore, then blow up the funeral of the police officer(s); after the Oct. 9 shooting of Dean Myers in Manassas, Va., Muhammad gets upset that the quota is not being met?; Malvo is sentenced to six consecutive life sentences without parole, and Muhammad to death; on Nov. 10, 2009 Muhammad is executed by lethal injection at Greensville Correctional Center in Va. On Oct. 2 the anti-war group Code Pink: Women for Peace is founded by Jodie Evans (1954-), who goes on to introduce Barack Obama to the liberal Hollyweird community that provides seed money for his pres. run. On Oct. 3 the case of John M.J. Madey v. Duke U. is decided by the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, ending the 170-y.-o. practice of allowing scientists to freely borrow patented technologies for limited use in basic research not aimed at commercial use. On Oct. 6 British Conservative Party chair Theresa May gives a speech to a party conference in Bournemouth about rebuilding it. On Oct. 7 Pres. Bush requests the U.S. Senate to give him sweeping military authority to go after Sodamn Insane, saying "We know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy: the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade"; he adds "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses.... Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." On Oct. 9 Vt. Sen. Bernie Sanders gives a Speech on Iraq on a nearly empty U.S. Senate floor, accurately predicting that a U.S. invasion "could be extremely expensive" and could result in "uninended consequences" incl. a civil war, takeover by Islamist extremists, and increased danger to Israel. On Oct. 9 after 12 years on death row, Rochester, Mich.-born Aileen Carol Wuornos (nee Pittman) (b. 1956), a prostitute who killed seven johns in 1989-90 and claimed self-defense becomes the 3rd woman to be executed in Fla., predicting that she will somehow come back?; filmed in 2003 as "Monster" starring Charlize Theron - the wuornos turns? On Oct. 9 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. reaches its lowest point since 9/11, closing at 7,286.27, and trading as low as 7,181.47 the next day before beginning a slow climb back. On Oct. 10 U.S. Sen. (D-N.Y.) Hillary Clinton gives a speech on the Senate floor, with the soundbyte: "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists incl. Al Qaeda members, though there is apparently no evidence of his involvement in the terrible events of September 11, 2001. It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons. Should he succeed in that endeavor, he could alter the political and security landscape of the Middle East, which as we know all too well affects American security"; on Oct. 11 the U.S. Senate votes 77-23 to pass the U.S. Iraq War Resolution, giving Pres. Bush sweeping authority to use military force in Iraq; he signs it on Oct. 16; her vote later comes back to haunt Hillary in the 2008 pres. campaign - and this bird you cannot change, Lord knows, I cant change, bye, bye, baby it's been a sweet love? On Oct. 10 Anwar al-Awlaki (1971-2011) arrives in the U.S. on Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 35 from Riyadh, and is detained by U.S. authorities on a 2002 arrest warrant for passport fraud, but after the Saudis pull strings, Denver U.S. atty. David M. Gaouette gets the arrest warrant canceled, outraging the Joint Terrorism Task Force in San Diego, Calif., and he soon leaves the U.S. for Yemen, after which the U.S. loses track of him, and he goes radical, preaching the destruction of the infidel U.S.; in 2008 he issues a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill U.S. soldiers in Iraq, followed in Jan. 2009 by the manifesto "44 Ways to Support Jihad". On Oct. 12 a bomb rocks two nightclubs in Kuta, Bali, killing 202, many of them foreign tourists, and injuring 209, becoming the 2nd terrorist attack since 9/11; it is later pinned on Islamic terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, and on Nov. 8, 2008 Indonesia executes three for it. On Oct. 12 the first Freethought Day is celebrated in Sacramento in commemoration of the end of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. On Oct. 14 the Northern Ireland govt. is suspended in protest of a suspected IRA spy ring. On Oct. 15 Paris-born former Am. ImClone exec Samuel D. "Sam" Waksal (1947-) (son of Holocaust survivor parents) pleads guilty to charges of fraud and perjury. On Oct. 15 a Soyuz-U carrying the E.S.A. Foton-M1 satellite explodes on launch in Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Arkhangelsk Oblast 500 mi. N of Moscow (120 mi. S of Arkhangelsk), killing one. On Oct. 16 North Korea admits to developing nukes, pissing-off da world. In Oct. 19-27 the Anaheim Angels ("Halos") (AL), mgr. Michael Lorri "Mike" Scioscia (1958-) (former catcher for the Dodgers) defeat the San Francisco Giants (NL), mgr. Johnnie B. "Dusty" Baker Jr. (1949-) by 4-3 in the 2002 (98th) World Series; first appearance for the Angels in 42 years; Baker becomes the 2nd black WS team mgr. (first 1992). On Oct. 21 the U.S. Sudan Peace Act, sponsored by Colo. rep. (R-Colo.) (1999-2009) Tom Tancredo (1945-) is passed 359-8 by the House of Reps. and unanimously by the Senate, saying "A viable, comprehensive, and internationally sponsored peace process, protected from manipulation, presents the best chance for a permanent resolution of the war, protection of human rights, and a self-sustaining Sudan"; in 2009 the U.S. aids South Sudanese independence with $1B in annual aid. On Oct. 23 dozens of Chechen rebels storm a theater in Moscow and take 800 hostages, holding them for days until an early morning raid by Russian special forces troops on Oct. 26 kills most of the rebels (41) plus 129 hostages. On Oct. 25 liberal U.S. Sen. (D-Minn.) (since Jan. 3, 1991) Paul David Wellstone (b. 1944) is killed in a plane crash in N Minn. 11 days before the election. On Oct. 27 despite worrying U.S. politicos, Henry Hyde (chmn. of the House Internat. Relations Committee) saying that "Castro, Chavez and Lula da Silva could constitute an axis of evil in the Americas", Luiz Inacio (Inácio) Lula da Silva (1945-) (AKA Lula) is elected to a 4-year term, and is sworn in next Jan. 1 (until Jan. 1, 2011), going on to become one of Time mag.s 100 most influential people in the world in 2010, leaving a legacy of Lulism On Oct. 28 (8:30 a.m.) a U. of Ariz. College of Nursing student kills three profs. and himself. On Oct. 29 in response to the 2000 U.S. pres. election hanging chad scandal, Pres. Bush signs the U.S. Help America Vote Act, which offers states money to get new voting machines in the hope of making counting votes easier. On Oct. 30 Mt. Etna erupts again. On Oct. 30 midlevel Am. pop stars Jessica Simpson (1980-) (a self-proclaimed virgin) and Nick Lachey (1973-) (98 Degrees) are married, and become Hollywood superstars on MTV's Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica for the next three seasons (Aug. 19, 2003 - Mar. 30, 2005) (41 episodes), chronicling their lives in a new Calif. home, and showing dippy-blonde Simpson confusing Chicken of the Sea brand tuna with, er, chicken, and refusing Buffalo wings because "I don't eat buffalo"; they announce their separation on Nov. 23, 2005 right after the Dec.-Jan. issue of Teen People, in which they deny breakup rumors, and the Oct. 17 issue of US Weekly, which carries the headline "Split!", with the soundbyte "This is the mutual decision of two people with an enormous amount of respect and admiration for each other." In Oct. a Roman Catholic-Protestant admin. for Northern Ireland falls apart after exposure of longtime Sinn Fein official Denis Martin Donaldson (1950-2006) as a spy on the payroll of the British secret service. In Oct. liberal R.I. Sen. (1999-2007) Lincoln Davenport Chafee (1953-) (pr. CHAY-fee) becomes the only Repub. senator to vote against the Bush admin.; he later endorses Barack Obama's use of force in Iraq. In Oct. the Portland Seven terrorist ring of Muslims is arrested by the FBI before they can join al-Qaida in Afghanistan. In Oct. a Nat. Intelligence Estimate provided to Pres. Bush by the State Dept. says that "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions", and that "Most agencies assess that Baghdad started reconstituting its nuclear program about the time inspectors departed - Dec. 1998"; "If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapon during this decade"; also, Iraq has "expanded its chemical and biological infrastructure under the cover of civilian production", and renewed production of mustard and sarin gas, and that Iraqi missiles might threaten the "U.S. homeland". On Nov. 1 federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly hands the monopolistic Microsoft Corp. an enormous victory, endorsing nearly all of its antitrust settlement with the Justice Dept. and rejecting harsher penalties sought by nine states, leaving the monopoly free to fester - creating a Dark Ages for the software industry, which is why TLW quit? On Nov. 4 the CIA kills six Al-Qaida members in Yemen. On Nov. 5 the 2002 U.S. Midterm Election gives the Repubs. control of both houses of Congress, reversing a trend going back to 1952 for the party of 1st-term presidents to lose seats in Congress in the midterm election. On Nov. 6 the clergy-controlled Iranian govt. arrests Hashem Aghajari and sentences him to death for preaching a Muslim form of Protestantism and Humanism - too late for a Luther in that hole? On Nov. 8 the U.N. Security Council unanimously approves Resolution 1441, ordering Saddam Hussein to surrender all WMD and permit U.N. weapons inspectors or face "serious consequences" incl. war; on Nov. 9 the Pentagon announces that it is planning to send a force of up to 250K troops to Iraq; the Iraqi Parliament unanimously rejects the resolution on Nov. 12, but reverses itself and accepts the U.N. resolution on Nov. 13, permitting weapons inspectors into the country on Nov. 18. On Nov. 10 the the Fox Network TV series Futurama debuts the episode Crimes of the Hot, spoofing the topic of global warming, featuring guest star Al Gore as his own preserved head in a jar; despite how ridiculous it makes the subject, the environmentalists take it seriously, nominating it for an Environmental Media Award, and losing to the "I Never Promised You an Organic Garden" episode of King of the Hill; Gore's daughter Kristin is one of the writers. On Nov. 11 a Cuban An-2 aircraft is hijacked to Key West, Fla. On Nov. 12 a sudden rash of tornadoes kills dozens in at least six U.S. states. On Nov. 13 U.N. secy.-gen. Kofi Annan gives a speech at the U. of Md., denouncing Israel for expropriating Arab land, denouncing Israel for expropriating Arab land and calling for it to give up nearly all of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 and live side-by-side with a fairy tale peaceful Palestinian state; on the same day prominent Israeli rabbi Rav Leor says that Jewish law supports the annihilation of all non-Jews in Israel; on the same day Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak calls for the U.N. to require Israel as well as Iraq to surrender all WMDs and submit to U.N. weapons inspection. On Nov. 14 Jiang Zemin retires as Chinese gen. secy., and on Nov. 15 Hu Jintao (1942-) is appointed gen. secy. of the Communist Party of China (until ?); some believe he will be the one to bring political liberty to darkest China, but instead he turns out to be more authoritarian than Jiang Zemin? On Nov. 19 the Transportation Security Admin. (TSA) takes over airport screening in the U.S.; by the end of 2005 it confiscates more than 30M prohibited items from carry-on bags, almost all of them irrelevant? On Nov. 20 pop superstar Michael Jackson (1958-2009) briefly dangles his newborn son Prince Michael II (AKA Blanket) over a 4th-story balcony railing in his hotel room in the Hotel Adlon Berlin with one arm, playing into the hands of the media, causing him to apologize, calling it "a terrible mistake". On Nov. 20-23 Muslim-Christian riots rock Nigeria after the Miss World beauty pageant moves from Abuja, Nigeria to London, and Lagos newspaper This Day suggests that the prophet Muhammad would have approved of it, causing it to deny responsibility. On Nov. 22 the U.S. EPA relaxes the U.S. Clean Air Act. On Nov. 23 the blog Metaphysical Elders is founded, launching the Mormon Blogosphere, incl. Inquiry (Aug. 19, 2003), Mormon Momma (Jan. 1, 2003), and Times & Seasons: An Onymous Mormon Blog, founded in 2003 by Nathan Bryan "Nate" Oman (1975-), who becomes known as "the Godfather of the Mormon Bloggernacle" after Kaimi Wenger pub. "The Nameless Mormon Blogosphere" on Mar. 23, 2004, causing Christopher Bradford to suggest the name "Bloggernacle". On Nov. 25 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. Homeland Security Act, establishing the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) with 170K employees consolidated from 22 federal agencies, and a $40B budget, headed by dir. #1 Thomas Joseph "Tom" Ridge (1945-) (Jan. 24, 2003 to Feb. 1, 2005), a monumental reorg. of the U.S. govt. that has Christian Millennium Feverists tsk-tsking; the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is changed to the more PC U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). On Nov. 27 Saddam Hussein relents under a U.N. threat of "serious consequences" and allows U.N. weapons experts back into Iraq. On Nov. 28 a suicide bomber destroys an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, killing 13, becoming the 3rd terrorist attack since 9/11. On Nov. 30 Toronto-born child Jeffrey Baldwin (b. 1997) dies of septic shock after years of mistreatment by his grandparents Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman, who had been given custody after his parents were accused of abuse, causing a change in Canadian child custody laws. In Nov. two SA-7 shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles narrowly miss an Israeli passenger jet after takeoff from Mombasa, Kenya, stirring fears that pump up the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security's Counter-Man Portable Air Defense Systems program, based on a laser mounted on planes that can disrupt the seeker sensor. In Nov. Pope John Paul II declares 16th cent. martyr Thomas More (1478-1535) of England the patron saint of politicians for sticking to Catholicism and not bowing to attempts to make him kiss heretical king Henry VIII's fat butt. In Nov. the first cases of the killer pneumonia virus SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) surface in Guangdong Province, China, but officials cover it up for months before it infects 8,098 in 26 countries, killing 774, then mysteriously dies out by the end of 2003; in 2005 the Chinese horseshoe bat is identified as the carrier of the coronavirus family; bats also carry the Nipah and Hendra viruses, which cause encephalitis and respiratory disease; the Chinese mag. Caijing (founded 1998) pushes the govt. into action by aggressive reporting; too bad, founder Hu Shuli departs in Nov. 2009. In Nov. the 12K-delegate World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia adjourns after failing to wrest control of the Internet from U.S.-based private ICANN (Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers) (established 1988); they agree to meet next year. In Nov. Iranian student activist Amir-Abbas Fakhravar (1975-) is sentenced to eight years in notorious Evin Prison for pub. the article "This Place Is Not A Ditch", which criticizes Ayatollah Khameini; after years of white torture he is freed and arrives in the U.S. from Dubai in Apr. 2006, meeting with Pres. Bush et al.; his friends inside and outside Iran go on to lead the 2009 Iranian demonstrations. On Dec. 1 Worlds AIDS Day raises awareness that 40M people around the world are infected with AIDS (HIV), of which 5M new cases were reported in the past year; 3.1M died in the past year. On Dec. 2 noted Welsh-born gay-friendly bearded poet Rowan Douglas Williams (1950-) becomes archbishop #104 of Canterbury, England (until Dec. 31, 2012), his intellectual credentials contrasting with the working-class background of his predecessor George Carey in an obvious attempt to keep some intellectuals in the Anglican Church; he is pro-life but against teaching creationism in schools. On Dec. 5 incoming Senate majority leader Chester Trent Lott Sr. (1941-) spoils the party for the Repubs. by putting his foot in his mouth with racist comments at the 100th birthday celebration of J. Strom Thurmond that the U.S. "wouldn't have had all these problems over the years" if he had won the 1948 pres. election (he was a segregationist at the time); on Dec. 20 after the PC police come out in force, he resigns as majority leader; the remarks are first reported by a blogger on the Internet, scooping the major media; Thurmond's retirement speech incl. the immortal soundbyte: "I love all of you, and especially your wives"; on Dec. 23 Tenn. surgeon Bill Frist(1952-) is unanimously elected as the new Repub. Senate majority leader, taking office on Jan. 3 (until Jan. 3, 2007). On Dec. 6 10 Palestinians, incl. two U.N. employees are killed by Israeli forces in a Gaza Strip refugee camp as they search for a fugitive militant. On Dec. 6 the animated series Codename: Kids Next Door, created by Tom Warburton debuts on Cartoon Network for 78 episodes (until Jan. 21, 2008), about five kids (Numbuh 1, Numbuh 2, etc.) operating from a hi-tech treehouse fighting bad guys with advanced 2x4 technology. On Dec. 9 United Airlines files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, becoming the largest-ever by an airline (until ?) - it's time to fly? On Dec. 20, 2002 as a reaction to the Taliban's destruction of Buddha statues in Bamiyan, Afghanistan in 2001 the 57th Session of the U.N. Gen. Assembly adopts U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution 57/249, proclaiming the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, to be held each May 21 to promote diversity and harmonious living. On Dec. 22 PM (since 1992) Janez Drnovsek (1950-2008) becomes pres. #2 of Slovenia (until Dec. 23, 2007). On Dec. 25 authorities launch a massive search for La Loma, Calif. resident Laci Denise Peterson (nee Rocha) (b. 1975), an 8-mo.-pregnant woman who disappeared while allegedly walking her dog in N Calif. on Christmas Eve. On Dec. 27 the U.S.-backed Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement to build a $7.6B natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through S Afghanistan into Pakistan and India is signed by Turkmenistan and Afghanistan; too bad, the Taliban takes over S Afghanistan, causing the plan to be stalled. On Dec. 29 after an indecisive election, Natasa Micic (1965-) of the Dem. Party of Serbia becomes acting pres. of Serbia (until Jan. 27, 2004), going on to renege on calling another election within 60 days, then using the assassination of Zoran Dindic on Mar. 12, 2003 as an excuse to declare a state of emergency until May, then stalling until the next Feb. - you had me at indecisive? On Dec. 30 after a landslide V (62%), former vice-pres. (1978-88) Mwai Kibaki (Emilio Stanley) (1931-), 1991 founder of the Dem. Party (DP), who affiliated with several other parties to form the Nat. Alliance Party of Kenya (NAK), then allies that with the Liberal Dem. Party (DP) to form the Nat. Rainbow Coalition (NARC) becomes pres. #3 of Kenya (until Apr. 9, 2013). In Dec. Egyptian diplomat Osama Al-Baz (1930-2013) responds to the Egyptian TV series Horseman without a Horse by pub. a series of articles in Al Ahram denouncing anti-Semitism. In Dec. former Green Beret bodyguard-nurse Ted Maher (1958-) is sentenced to 10 years in Monaco for causing the fire and smoke-inhalation death on Dec. 3, 1999 in his Monaco penthouse apt. of billionaire Syrian Brazilian Jewish banker Edmond Safra (1932-99), who had Parkinson's disease, claiming he only set a small fire in a wastebasket so it would trigger the alarm and he could rescue to score browning points with him; he is convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison; Safra's widow Lily inherits $4B; on Jan. 22, 2003 Maher escapes and is captured in Nice in seven hours, and tried in 2005 on escape charges, receiving 9 more mo.; in Oct. 2007 he is released after serving eight years. After Pres. Bush becomes the first Repub. pres. in decades to focus on education (his librarian wife Laura pushing him on?), and promising to fight the "soft bigotry of low expectations", the U.S. Education Reform (No Child Left Behind) Act is passed by Congress, mandating annual nat. testing of students in grades 3-8 in reading and math on a single standardized test starting in the 2005-6 school year, setting a 12-year timetable for closing the chronic gaps among students of different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, and increasing funding for schools in poverty areas; in practice nobody improves scores and nothing is achieved but waste of time and money? Pres. Bush signs a 10-year $173.5B farm bill, AKA The Great Pig-Out which lavishes taxpayer subsidies on wealthy growers in S.D., Iowa, Mo. et al.; since 1995 more than two-thirds of subsidies go to 10% of farms; next year 129 farms each receive a subsidy of over $1M, while the bottom 80% of farms receive an avg. of $1,789. The center-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party is founded in France by merging the Gaullist-conservative Rally for the Repub., the conservative-liberal Liberal Dem. Party, the Christian Dems. of the centrist Union for French Democracy (UDF), the liberal Radical Party, and the centrist Popular Party for French Democracy, combining the four major French political traditions. After motorized drills proliferate, causing the water table to drop too far, Yemen outlaws them, which only causes them to proliferate more. Pakistan-born scientist Ashraf Choudhary (1949-) of the Labour Party becomes the first Muslim MP in New Zealand (until ?). The term "freedom deficit" is coined by a group of Arab scholars for the 2002 UNDP Arab Human Development Report. The New York Times pub. a 2K-page U.S. Army Report on POW Torture and Abuse at Bagram Prison (AKA Bagram Collection Point) in Afghanistan, detailing the beating deaths of two civilian Afghan POWs in 2002; seven soldiers are charged. Harvard U. economist Jeffrey David Sachs (1954-) becomes dir. (until 2006) of the U.N. Millennium Project Development Goals, which consists of eight internat.-sanctioned objectives to reduce extreme poverty, hunger, and disease by 2015. The Nigerian Email Scam (419 Fraud) flourishes during this decade, bringing in $950M in 2006 alone, with the scammer "yahoozies" calling the stupid white American marks "mugus" (big fools); the Yahoozee Song becomes a Nigerian hit; it takes until Oct. 2009 for Project Eagle Claw in Nigeria to actually shut down Web sites and make arrests; after all, by then nobody is biting? The U.S. Senate approves the storage of radioactive waste inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain Site, which is slated to open in 2010. The CIA establishes a secret prison at Stare Kiejkuty 180km N of Warsaw, Poland (until 2005), allegedly torturing prisoners. The European Brain Council (EBC) is founded in Brussels, Belgium. The biennial Fischer Black Prize is established for the best contributions to the theory and practice of finance by an economist under age 40; the first award goes to Indian-born Raghuram Govinda Rajan (1963-) in 2003. The Inst. for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany awards the first IZA Prize in Labor Economics to Polish-born Am. economist Jacob Mincer (1922-2006) of Columbia U.; in 2010 it awards the prize to Francine Dee Blau (1946-) of Cornell U. (first woman). Thanks to the Internet, the percentage of U.S. mothers of infants who work outside the home drops to 55% from a record 59% in 1998, becoming the first decline since 1976. Billionaire Marvin Davis attempts to buy the assets of Vivendi Universal, incl. Universal Studios for $15B, but the offer is rejected. Walt Disney Co., owner of ABC courts David Letterman to move his late night show from CBS, replacing their Nightline, but he declines out of respect for the professionalism of back-stabbed Ted Koppel (1940-), known for his interviews with Miss Piggy? Lisa Marie Presley has a 108-day marriage to actor Nicolas Cage; her first hubby was bass player Danny Keough (1988), with whom she had two children; #2 was Michael Jackson (1994-6); she aborted an engagement to Hawaiian musician John Oszajca in ?. After actor Jon Voight and his estranged daughter Angelina Jolie (who blames him for cheating on her mother Marcheline Bertrand) had been reconciled for 2 years, he blows it by telling a TV interviewer that she has "serious emotional problems"; she legally drops her surname Voight. The first No Pants Day is held in New York City, where particpants take off their pants in a subway car and try to act normal. Israel was supposed to be nuked sometime this year, according to Net Prophet Sollog. Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) (originally the Indian Muslim Council - USA) is founded in the U.S. The Nat. Iranian-Am. Council is founded in Washington, D.C. by Iranian-born Zoroastrian Trita Parsi (1974-). America West pilots Thomas Cloyd and Christopher Hughes are arrested for operating a jetliner while intoxicated; on July 21, 2005 Hughes receives 2.5 years and a $5K fine, plus 1.5 years of community service. The Colombian Regulation and Risk Assessment Committee (CRER) is established to investigate threats to journalists and others from drug cartels. The 2002 Arab Human Development Report is pub., caliming that only about 300 books are trans. each year into Arab for 400M people; in 2010 it's still only 3K. An epidemic of coral bleaching caused by high sea temps hits the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. The Hessell-Tiltman Prize is established by the English PEN for the best work of nonfiction history for the period up to and incl. WWII, with lit. merit more important than academic value; the first award goes to Margaret Olwen MacMillan (1943-) for Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War (Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World) (2001). The Russian Tea Room in New York City (founded 1927) closes on July 28 after declaring bankruptcy; it reopens on Nov. 1, 2006. Am. photographer Richard Avedon (1923-2004) is proclaimed "world's most famous photographer" by The New York Times. After Will Young wins the British show Pop Idol, American Idol, created by Simon Fuller debuts on Fox TV network, making "mean" British judge Simon Phillip "Utterly Horrendous" Cowell (1959-) a zillionaire, and launches the singing career of first winner Kelly Brianne Clarkson (1982-) of Tex.; Justin Guarini (Justin Eldrin Bell) (1978-) is runner-up. The Sound of Music is first shown on TV in Austria; it has never been shown in theaters there; it is performed on stage in 2005. A 1933 U.S. Double Eagle coin is auctioned off by Sotheby's for $7.59M, the highest price ever paid for a coin; believed to have once been owned by King Farouk of Egypt, the dealer is forced to split the proceeds with the U.S. Mint. The CIA sends a veteran officer to assist the NYPD in setting up spying programs on Muslims, which later pisses-off the Muslim community. As a response to g, U.S. Navy ships begin flying flags with the 17th cent. motto "Don't Tread on Me". The original 76-y.-o. Hass avocado plant (planted in 1926) dies in La Havre Heights, Calif. Restaurant mag. is founded in the U.K. by William Reed Business Media (until ?), reaching a circ. of 16.6K in 2011-12, becoming known for its annual World's 50 Best Restaurants list, based on the votes of 837 experts; the top restaurant (2002-6, 2009) is elBulli (French bulldogs) in Roses, Catalonia, Spain (founded 1961; closes on July 30, 2011), followed by in 2010-11, 2012, 2014 by Noma (Danish "nordisk" + "mad" = Nordic food) in Copenhagen, Denmark, founded in 2003 by Copenhagen-born chef Rene (René) Redzepi (1977-) and Nykobing Falster-born chef Claus Meyer (1963-), who together in 2004 found New Nordic (Danish) Cuisine. Joseph Frederick is suspended from his high school in Juneau, Alaska for 10 days for displaying a banner reading "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" across the street from the school as the Winter Olympics torch relay passes, causing him to sue for violating his free speech rights; after the case makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court, and U.S. Dept. of Justice atty. Edwin Kneedler backs the gestapo, er, school principal Deborah More and school suptd. Peggy Cowan, the latter saying that "This is an important question about how the First Amendment applies to pro-drug messages in an educational setting" (setting?), the court rules ?-? that ?. The first annual Tribeca Film Festival, founded in response to 9/11 by actor Robert De Niro, his producer Jane Rosenthal, and her hubby Craig Hatkoff opens in the neighborhood N of the WTC, featuring heartwarming comedies incl. About a Boy; by 2006 it takes on 9/11 itself, starting with United 93, then moves to post-9/11 issues incl. Iraq and Afghanistan; in 2009 it moves to Doha, Qatar. Kyrgyzstan permits the U.S. to build a large airbase outside the capital city of Bishkek (formerly Frunze). The New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society begins managing the S Mondulkiri province of Cambodia, formerly home of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and by 2007 brings back 42 threatened species in the new Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area, incl. the black-shanked douc, gaur horned cattle, muntjac deer, banteng ox, wild pig, tigers, elephants, ibises, vultures, eagles, Germain's peacock-pheasants, and hornbills. Am. "sexiest astrophysicist alive" Neil deGrasse Tyson coins the term "Manhattanhenge" to describe the two days each year (May 28, July 12/13) in which the evening sun aligns with the E-W cross streets of Manhattan. John McCain of Ariz. becomes the first U.S. Sen. to host Saturday Night Live. This is That Productions is founded in New York City by Anne Caey, Ted Hope, and Diana Victor, going on to release 16 films in its first sisx years, incl. "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" (2004). N.D. becomes the 50th U.S. state to produce its own wine. The last Camaro Z28 rolls off the assembly line, a bright rally red convertible. True Religion Brand Jeans debuts in Los Angeles, Calif. in the winter, becoming a hit with Hollyweird stars; by 2010 it has 900 boutiques and stores in 50 countries. Green Flash Brewing Co. is founded in Vista, Calif. by Mike and Lisa Hinkley to specialize in India Pale Ales, hiring brewmaster Chuck Silva in 2004 and moving in June 2011 to San Diego, Calif., expanding in Mar. 2013 to Virginia Beach, Va., producing 100K barrels/year, becoming the 41st largest craft brewery in the U.S. Two Buck Chuck (Charles Shaw brand) Calif. wines are introduced by Trader Joe's grocery stores in Calif. at $1.99/bottle, going on to sell 800M bottles. Sports: On Jan. 6 (final game of the 2001 season) Giants defensive end (#92) (1993-2007) Michael Anthony Strahan (1971-) gets a half-sack on Green Bay Packers QB Brett Favre for a season record 22.5 sacks (until ?); too bad, many believe that Favre laid down for his friend with the Packers ahead by nine points, haunting him for life? On Feb. 8-24 the XIX (19th) Winter Olympic Games are held in Salt Lake City, Utah, with 2,399 athletes (1,513 men, 886 women) from 78 nations competing in 78 events in seven sports; the U.S. wins a record 34 medals, and Germany a record 35; the indoor Peaks Ice Arena in Provo, Utah is used as an ice hockey practice venue; Canada, led by half-white half-black Jarome Athur-Leigh Adekunle Tig Junior Elvis Iginla (Yoruba "big tree") (1977-) wins the men's hockey gold medal, followed by the U.S., Russia and Sweden (tie); Iginla joins the Dallas Stars in 1995, becoming capt. of the Calgary Flames, setting a team record for goals, points, and games played, scoring 50 goals in two separate seasons, and 30 goals in 11 straight seasons; on Feb. 19 Ala.-born U.S. bobsledder Vonetta Flowers (1973-) becomes the first black athlete to win a gold medal at a Winter Olympic Games; Seattle-born short-track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno (1982-) wins gold in the 1.5Km when judges disqualify South Korean Dong-Sung Kim; America's most popular figure skater Michelle Kwan (1980-) ends up with a silver behind surprise winner Sarah Elizabeth Hughes (1985-) of the U.S. - first Tara, then Sarah? On Feb. 17 the 2002 (44th) Daytona 500 is won by John Edward "Ward" Burton III (1961-), brother of Jeff Burton; rookie Jimmie Johnson wins the pole, and fellow rookie Kevin Harvick qualifies 2nd, becoming the first time the field is led by two rookies; the last race for Dave Marcis. On Feb. 25 Venus Williams (1980-) becomes the first black U.S. pro tennis player to be ranked #1 since Arthur Ashe in 1975. On Apr. 1 Maryland U. defeats Indiana U. 64-52 to win the NCAA basketball championship. On May 26 Helio Castroneves (1975-) of Brazil wins the 2002 (86th) Indianapolis 500, his 2nd straight win, first time since Al Unser in 1971. On June 2 the Sacramento Kings lose 112-106 to the Los Angeles Lakers in OT of Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, becoming the best season Sacramento fans have seen to date. On June 4-13 the 2002 Stanley Cup Finals see the Detroit Red Wings defeat the Carolina Hurricanes 4-1; MVP is 6'1" Swedish-born defenceman Erik Nicklas Lidström (1970-), becoming the first European player named playoffs MVP. On June 5-12 the 2002 NBA Finals sees the Los Angeles Lakers (coach Phil Jackson) defeat the New Jersey Nets (coach Byron Scott) by 4-0; Shaquille O'Neal of the Lakers is MVP. On June 8 the Mike Tyson-Lennox Lewis Bout in Memphis, Tenn. sees Tyson KOd in round 8 in front of a bevy of gay-lesbian Tyson fans. On June 26 7'6" Yao Ming (1980-), who played for the Shanghai Sharks for five seasons (MVP of the Chinese Basketball Assoc. in 2000-1 and played center for the Chinese Nat. Team at the FIBA World Championships is drafted by the Houston Rockets of the NBA, coming to Houston in Oct., becoming the first #1 overall pick to never college ball in the U.S. On Aug. 9 outfielder Barry Lamar Bonds (1964-) of the San Francisco Giants hits his 600th homer, becoming the 4th player in ML history to do it (Hank Aaron was the last in 1971). On Sept. 8 the "Texas Super Bowl" (Paul Tagliabue) sees the new NFL Houston Texans defeat the Dallas Cowboys 19-10, becoming the 2nd expansion team to start 1-0 after the 1961 Vikings (against the Bears). On Sept. 11 all ML baseball ballparks observe a moment of silence to honor the victims of 9/11; starting this year the patriotic song "God Bless America" is performed at ML All-Star Games and playoff games, as well as Opening Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, and Sept. 11. On Nov. 25 New York City-born Yale U. grad Theo Nathaniel Epstein (1973-) becomes the youngest GM in MLB history when he is hired by the Boston Red Sox at age 28, going on to help them win their first WS championship in 86 years in 2004, and another in 2007; on Oct. 21, 2011 he becomes pres. of the Chicago Cubs, who win their first WS championship in 108 years in 2016, causing him to be picked #1 for Fortune mag.'s 2017 World's Greatest Leaders List. The 17th FIFA World Cup of Soccer. Pratyush Buddiga (1989-) wins the 74th Scripps Nat. Spelling Bee with "prospicience" (foresight), becoming the 7th winner from Colo. Se Ri Pak (1977-) of South Korea becomes the youngest woman to win four golf majors. After the New York Yankees defeat them in the 2001 postseason, and they lose star players Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Jason Isringhausen to free agency, Oakland Athletics gen. mgr. (since 1998) William Lamar "Billy" Beane III (1962-) tries the new Sabermetrics (coined by Bill James after the Society for Am. Baseball Research) approach to player scouting, which selects them based on on-base percentage (OBP) rather than scout evaluations, hiring submarine pitcher Chad Bradford, aging outfielder David Justice, and injured 1B player Scott Hatteberg, trading away Carlos Pena to make room for him; after winning 19 in a row, they lead the Kansas City Royals by 11-0 after inning 3, only to see them tie the score at 11-11 until Hatteberg homers, making it 20 in a row; too bad, after sweeping the Minnesota Twins in the playoffs, they are swept by the Detroit Tigers in the AL Championship Series, but the other ML teams see the light and scramble to adopt his system, causing the Boston Red Sox to offer him a record $12.5M salary to become their gen. mgr., which he turns down, after which the Red Sox wins the 2004 World Series; the A's reach the playoffs 5x in eight seasons, with winning records each year. Architecture: 9/11 or no 9/11, they're not taking away Yankee football? On May 11 $325M Gillette Stadium in Foxborough (near Boston), Mass. opens on May 11 as the new home of the NFL New England Patriots; on July 28 $430M Qwest Field in Seattle, Wash. opens as the new home of the NFL Seattle Seahawks; in June 2011 it becomes CenturyLink Field; on Aug. 24 $352M Reliant Stadium in Houston, Tex. opens as the new home of the NFL Houston Texans; on Mar. 19, 2014 it is renamed the NRG Stadium after Reliant Energy's parent co. NRG Energy; on Aug. 24 $500M Ford Field in Detroit, Mich. opens as the new home of the NFL Detroit Lions. The 1,503-ft.-long 315-ft.-high 23-ft.-wide arch Alqueva Dam in S Portugal (begun 1995) is completed, damming the Guadiana River and creating the largest reservoir in W Europe (97 sq. mi.); it reaches full level in 2010. Nobel Prizes: Peace: James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr. (1924-) (U.S.) [for his work "to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development"]; Lit.: Imre Kertesz (Kertész) (1929-) (Hungary); Physics: Raymond Davis Jr. (1914-2006) (U.S.) and Masatoshi Koshiba (1926-) (Japan) [detection of cosmic neutrinos], and Riccardo Giacconi (1931-) (U.S.) [X-ray astronomy]; Chem.: John Bennett Fenn (1917-2010) (U.S.) [electrospray ionization technique] and Koichi Tanaka (1959-) (Japan) [mass spectrometry of biological macromolecules], Kurt Wuthrich (Wüthrich) (1938-) (Switzerland) [3-D structure of biological macromolecules]; Med.: Sydney Brenner (1927-2019) (South Africa), and Sir John Edward Sulston (1942-) (U.K.), and Howard Robert Horvitz (1947-) (U.S.) [use of roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans for genetic analysis]; Econ.: Daniel Kahneman (1934-) (Israel) [Prospect Theory], and Vernon Lomax Smith (1927-) (U.S.) [empirical economic analysis]. Inventions: On May 4 the NASA Boeing Aqua (EOS PM-1) satellite is launched from Vanderberg AFB, settling into a Sun-synchronous orbit with several other satellites to measure water on the Earth's surface and atmosphere, becoming the 2nd major component of the Earth Observing System (EOS) after Terra (EOS AM-1) (launched in 1999) (clouds, water, ice, land surface, carbon monoxide, aerosols) and Aura (EOS CH-1) (launched July 15, 2004) (climate, air quality, ozone layer). In June Space X (Space Exploration Technologies Corp.) is founded in Hawthorne, Calif. by PayPal and Tesla Motors billionaire Elon Musk to send spacecraft to Mars and colonize it, going on to develop the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 reusable launch vehicles, and the Dragon spacecraft; in 2008 the Falcon 1 becomes the first privately-funded liquid-propelled rocket to reach Earth orbit. In June NASA scientists test Indian-born Sun-Gazer (Breatharian) Hira Ratan Manek (Hirachand) (HRM) (1937-) of Winter Fark, Fla., who claims he lived only on liquids and sunlight for eight years, verifying that he survived 130 days on water plus one hour of staring at the sun at sunset, claiming to "eat through his eyes"; sun-gazers make several startling claims about the sunlight enlarging their pineal glands and curing diseases; too bad, HRM is later caught eating, lying, then admitting it. On Sept. 20 the Tor (The Onion Router) anonymity network is released, becoming a favorite avenue of the Dark Web. On Dec. 28 LinkedIn business-employment-oriented social networking Web site is founded in Mountain View, Calif. by Reid Garrett Hoffman (1967-) and partners from PayPal and Socialnet.com, launching on May 5 and reaching 106M active members by Apr. 2017 after being acquired by Microsoft on Dec. 8, 2016 for $26.6B; "When I graduated from Stanford my plan was to become a professor and public intellectual. That is not about quoting Kant. It's about holding up a lens to society and asking 'who are we?' and 'who should we be, as individuals and a society?' But I realised academics write books that 50 or 60 people read and I wanted more impact." (Hoffman) The U.S. FDA approves the atypical antipsychotic drug Aripiprazole (brand name Ability), developed by Otsuka of Japan for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder; sales reach $6.9B in 2013. The Cadillac CTS mid-size luxury line is introduced, designed by Wayne K. Cherry (1937-) and Kip Wasenko. After going on a surfing trip to Australia and wanting an affordable action camera system, GoPro Inc. (originally Woodman Labs Inc.) is founded by Nicholas D. "Nick" Woodman (1974-) to manufacture action cameras. The Roomba autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner, designed by Helen Greiner et al. is introduced by iRobot, selling 10M units by Feb. 2014. The $299 TiVo Series 2 is released, with a 60GB hard drive that records 60 hours of video; prices later slide to $149. Science: In Feb. researchers in Texas announce that they are the first to successfully clone a domestic cat. The Mar. 21 issue of Nature reports the discovery in China of Lisoceratops, a dog-sized horned dinosaur that may be a cousin to the Triceratops. In Apr. the Earth Simulator supercomputer in Kanagawa, Japan achieves a computing speed of 35.61 teraflops, over 5x as fast as IBM's ASCI White at Lawrence Livermore Labs. On May 28 NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft discovers enormous quantities of ice on Mars. As of July 1 1B personal computers (PCs) have been sold worldwide. In July scientists at Australian Nat. U. prove that the Second Law of Thermodynamics can be violated by nanomachines? In July scientists at the State U. of New York build a polio virus in the lab using public gene databases, becoming the first known infectious agent manufactured in a lab from scratch. In July French anthropologist Michel Brunet announces the discovery in Chad of a 6-7 M-y.-o. skull of a flat-faced hominid nicknamed Toumai ("hope of life"). In Aug. Swedish biologist Svante Paabo (Päabo) (1955-) pub. the discovery of the FOXP2 "language gene". In Aug. researchers report new evidence confirming the existence of ancient bacteria on Mars. In Aug. the first functioning penis (of a rabbit) is grown in a lab from cells at Harvard Medical School - the first artificial playboy bunny? In the fall the world's first carbon nanotube factory opens in Tokyo. In the fall the Rosetta Project produces its first Rosetta disk containing 1.4K of the world's 7K languages on a 3-in. nickel disk for future preservation. On Oct. 9 scientists at the Joint Inst. for Nuclear Research (JINR) and Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab announce the discovery of the new element (a halogen) Ununoctium (Uuo) (#118). On Dec. 26 Clonaid announces the birth of 7 lb. Eve, the world's first cloned baby human. Michael Hall improves the Heisenberg quantum uncertainty relation to an equation rather than an inequality. Manhattan, N.Y.-born psychiatrist William S. Breitbart (1951-) develops Meaning-Centered Therapy for patients near the end of life, letting them rely on their spiritual beliefs. The Human Genome Project pub. its first major analysis of blood samples from 52 world pops. converted into 1K cell lines, showing that the subjects' genomes fall into five major clusters corresponding to their continent of origin and therefore their race, and that all coalesce to a single root ancestral pop. that began to migrate from NE Africa 50K years ago. The synthetic unstable radioactive chemical element Oganesson (Og) (#118) is discovered at the Joint Inst. for Nuclear Research (JINR) near Moscow by a joint team of Am. and Russian scientists, named after nuclear physicist Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian (1933-). The Yukagir Mammoth is discovered in the permafrost in Siberia; its head is still covered with skin and tufts of hair. Textile expert Mechthild Flury-Lemberg claims that the Shroud of Turin has a herringbone weave common in the 1st cent. C.E. Middle East. Scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Inst. discover mouthless worms who live in dead whale skeletons and feed off bacteria who eat their bones, causing biologists to create the new species Osedax, (Lat. "bone-eating") and theorize that they existed before whales and fed on dino bones; males live inside the bodies of the females, never developing past the larval stage. Mary Leitao proposes the name Morgellons Disease (Syndrome) for the infectious condition characterized by finding fibers on or under the skin along with skin lesions. Nonfiction: Peter Ackroyd (1949-), Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination. Francesco Alberoni (1929-), The Art of Commanding. Maya Angelou (1928-), A Song Flung Up to Heaven (autobio.). Jonathan Ames (1964-), My Less Than Secret Life: A Diary, Fiction, Essays. Jose Arguelles (1939-2011), Time and the Technosphere: The Law of Time in Human Affairs; proposes a 13-moon 28-day calendar to "get the human race back on course". Karen Armstrong (1944-), Faith After September 11. Isaac Asimov (1920-92), It's Been a Good Life (autobio.) (posth.); ed. by Janet Asimov. Rick Atkinson (1952-), An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943 (Pulitzer Prize); Liberation Trilogy #1. Lisa Beamer (with Ken Abraham), Let's Roll!. Ian Graeme Barbour (1923-), Nature, Human Nature, and God. Francis Beckwith, Carl Mosser, and Paul Owen (eds.), The New Mormon Challenge (Feb. 26); claims that the LDS Church has turned into a slick proselytizing machine making 300K converts/year, threatening to become the first world religion since Islam (265M members by 2080), and that its scholars have achieved academic respectability, attempting to meet them head-on with new research and scholarship challenging their doctrines and making the case for historical Christianity. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror (Oct. 1); U.S. Nat. Security Council dirs. of counterterrorism claim that Osama bin Laden isn't at the root of Muslim terrorism but merely a branch; they sign the book contract before 9/11? Ira Berlin (1941-), Generations of Captivity: A History of Slaves in the United States. Michael R. Beschloss (1955-), The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941-1945; bestseller. Jeremy Black, The World in the Twentieth Century. William Bloom (1948-), Feeling Safe: How to Be Strong and Positive in a Changing World (Oct. 24). Richard Blow, American Son. Asa Briggs (1921-) and Peter Burke (1937-), A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet. Douglas Brinkley (1960-) and Stephen Ambrose (1936-2002), The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation. David Brock (1962-), Blinded by the Right. Peter Brown (1935-), Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire. Ergun Caner (1966-) and Emil Caner, Unveiling Islam: An Insider's Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs. Norman F. Cantor (1929-2004), Inventing Norman Cantor: Confessions of a Medievalist (autobio.); laments the transformation of U.S. academia in the 2nd half of the 20th cent. from British-style humanism to French postmodernism. Fritjof Capra (1939-), The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living. Philip Caputo (1941-), Ghosts of Tsavo: Stalking the Mythic Lions of East Africa; Means of Escape: A War Correspondent's Memoir of Life and Death in Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Vietnam. Robert Allan Caro (1935-), Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson (Pulitzer Prize). Gerald Celente (1946-), What Zizi Gave Honeyboy: A True Story About Love, Wisdom, and the Soul of America. Ha-Joon Chang (1963-), Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (Sept. 1); claims that developed countries climb to the top then you know what to keep developing countries down. Phyllis Chesler (1940-), Woman's Inhumanity to Woman; Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism's Holy Site; the 1989 lawsuit by Women of the Wall to allow women to pray at the Wailing Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem. Tom Clancy (1947-2013), Carl Stiner, and Tony Koltz, Shadow Warriors: Inside the Special Forces. Kurt Cobain (1967-94), Journals (posth.). Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik, The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s. Andrew Cooke, On His Majesty's Secret Service: Sidney Reilly; incl. a report by Grigory Fedulyev claiming he was one of four men who shot Reilly in the woods near Moscow on Nov. 5, 1925. Tony Cornell (1924-2010), Investigating the Paranormal (June); his magnum opus after 50 years of research, which finds that it's mostly bunk; "I take the view that the most nonsensical aspect of much of the physical phenomena in the seance room is the implicit notion that the discarnate resort to such ludicrous, absurd, and facile physical effects to prove that there is life after death. If, as claimed, life in the next world is more advanced than that on earth, one might be forgiven to expect proof of a more intelligent type than what appears acceptable to both the dead and the living, night after night, in the seance room. The shaking of tables and banging of tambourines, the creation of cold breezes and touches, trumpets cavorting and prancing about the room banging the heads of the sitters, and all the other antics that go on in the dark say little for the proficiency of the alleged discarnate visitors. If the "spirits" have been capable of such a momentous feat as surviving bodily death transcending time and manipulating matter in this world while existing in another dimension of time and space – why do they not materialize in the seance room something really worth the effort?" Patricia Cornwell (1956-), Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed; claims he's sicko violent artist Walter Sickert (1860-1942). Ann Coulter (1961-), Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right. Richard Ben Cramer (1950-), What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now? A Remembrance. Clive Cussler (1931-), The Sea Hunters II: Diving the World's Seas for Famous Shipwrecks. William Dalrymple, White Mughals. Raymond Fredric Dasmann (1919-2002), Called by the Wild. Vince Deloria Jr. (1933-2005), Evolution, Creationism, and Other Modern Myths: A Critical Inquiry. Thomas Michael Disch (1940-2008), The Castle of Perseverance: Job Opportunities in Contemporary Poetry. Arthur J. Dommen, The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans: Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (Jan. 1); history of Vietnam since 1858. Michael Drosnin, The Bible Code II; claims that ETs left the code in a steel obelisk buried near the Dead Sea. Peter Ferdinand Drucker (1909-2005), a href="http://google.com">Managing in the Next Society. Dinesh D'Souza (1961-), Letters to a Young Conservative. Daniel Ellsberg (1931-), Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. Steven Emerson (1953-), American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us. Joseph Epstein (1937-), Snobbery: The American Version. Michael J. Fox (1961-), Lucky Man: A Memoir (autobio). Jonathan Franzen (1959-), How to Be Alone (essays); incl. Perchance to Dream: In the Age of Images a Reason to Write Novels (first pub. in Harper's Mag., Apr. 1996). Marilyn French (1929-2009), From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women (3 vols.). Francis Fukuyama (1952-), Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution; calls Transhumanism the world's most dangerous idea. John Lewis Gaddis (1941-), Philip H. Gordon, Ernest R. May, and Jonathan Rosenberg (eds.), The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past. Peter Gay (1923-2015), Schnitlzer's Century; a definitive work on the social history of the 19th cent. from the defeat of Napoleon to 1914. Elizabeth M. Gilbert (1969-), The Last American Man; naturalist Eustace Conway (1961-). Sir Martin Gilbert (1936-2015), The Twentieth Century: A Short History; Letters to Auntie Fori: The 5,000-Year History of the Jewish People and Their Faith; The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust. Rudolph W. Giuliani (1944-) (with Ken Kurson), Leadership. Edward Glaeser and Andrei Schleifer, The Curley Effect; about 4x (1914-50) Boston mayor James Michael Curley, known for "increasing the relative size of one's political base through distortionary, wealth-reducing policies"; "Counterintuitively, making a city poorer leads to political success for the engineers of that impoverishment." (Forbes mag.) - Obama got the message? Daniel Goldhagen (1959-), A Moral Reckoning. Ernst Gombrich (1909-2001), The Preference for the Primitive: Episodes in the History of Western Taste and Art (May 16) (posth.). Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (1953-2012), Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. Jan Goodwin, Price of Honor: Muslim Women Lift the Veil of Silence on the Islamic World (Dec. 31). Annette Gordon-Reed (1958-), Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History. Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002), I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History (10th and last vol. of essays from Nat. History mag. since 1977); The Structure of Evolutionary Theory; his magnum opus, explaining his theory of punctuated evolution, which claims that there are long stretches where evolution doesn't happen, followed by short stages where it pops in and out while we're not looking, like a stage magician?; pisses-off many evolutionists, who want to believe it's a natural law that's happening all the time, and not another set of black holes on the GTT. Norman Arthur Graebner (1915-2010), A Twentieth-Century Odyssey: Memoir of a Life in Academe (autobio.). David Halberstam (1934-2007), Firehouse: New Insights into Unimaginable Loss. Graham Hancock (1950-) and Santha Faiia, Fingerprints of the Gods: The Quest Continues. Peter Handke (1942-), Spoken and Written: About Books, Images and Films 1992-2000. Victor Davis Hanson (1953-), An Autumn of War: What America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism. Jim Harrison (1937-), Off to the Side: A Memoir. Riaz Hassan, Faithlines: Muslim Conceptions of Islam and Society; concludes that Muslim states with Islamic govts. end up with little trust in religious leaders, and that it is best to keep faithlines separate from "the faultlines of the political terrain"; "You can have power or trust, but not both." Stephen Hawking (1942-) et al., The Future of Spacetime; essays on time travel. David R. Hawkins (1927-2012), Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior; pushes Applied Kinesiology (AK), a pseudo-science claiming that the extended arm can be used as a lie detector with a dowsing maneuver applied by the tester, and in addition a spiritual scale of absolute truth can be based on it, with Christ maxing the scale out at 1000, which some criticize as threatening to found a new fundamentalist cult, esp. when Hawkins rates himself at 999.8; rev. ed. pub. on May 15, 2012. Patricia Heaton (1958-), Motherhood and Hollywood: How to Get a Job Like Mine (autobio.). Chris Hedges (1956-), War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (Sept. 3); "The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years." Carolyn Heilbrun (1926-), When Men Were the Only Models We Had (autobio.). Michel Henry (1922-2002), Paroles du Christ. Arthur Herman, How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It (Sept. 24); James Watt, Adam Smith, Andrew Carnegie, Arthur Conan Doyle, William "Braveheart" Wallace, James Bond - like I've been telling you for years? Dorothy Hewett (1923-2002), The Empty Room (autobio.) (posth.). Edward Hoagland (1932-), Compass Points. Benjamin Hoff (1946-), The House on the Point. Randall G. Holcombe, From Liberty to Democracy: The Transformation of American Government. David Joel Horowitz (1939-), How to Beat the Democrats and Other Subversive Ideas; Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations for Slavery. A.E. Hotchner (1920-), The Day I Fired Alan Ladd and Other World War II Adventures. Tristram Hunt (1974-), The English Civil War at First Hand (first book). Sherman A. Jackson, On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's Faysal al-Tafriqa. Michael F. Jacobson, Restaurant Confidential (May 6). Philip Jenkins (1952-), The Next Christendom: The Rise of Global Christianity. David Cay Johnston (1948-), Pefectly Legal - The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super-Rich - and Cheat Everyone Else. Efraim Karsh (1953-), The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988; The Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Palestine War 1948. Michael T. Kaufman, Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire. Sir John Keegan (1934-), Winston Churchill. Martin Kramer (1954-), Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America; Western Arab scholars are apologists for radical Islam not purveyors of knowledge about Islam that "came under a take-no-prisoners assault, which rejected the idea of objective standards, disguised the vice of politicization as the virtue of commitment, and replaced proficiency with ideology", pushing the Marxist narrative of Western colonial and imperial crimes. Matthias Kuentzel, Jihad and Jew Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11; how the Nazis propagandized Arabs in the 1930s-40s to become more rabid anti-Semites with a sophisticated theory of a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world and destroy Islam, tracing from Hassan Al-Banna and Haj Amin al-Husseini to Sayyid Qutb, al-Qaida, and the Hamburg Cell. Stanley I. Kutler (ed.), Dictionary of Am. History (10 vols.). Jean-Jacques Laffont (1947-2004) and David Martimort, The Theory of Incentives: The Principal-Agent Model; discusses the Principal-Agent Problem. Wally Lamb (1950-), Couldn't Keep It To Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters. Frances Moore Lappe (1944-), Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet. Joseph E. LeDoux (1949-), Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are. Derek Leebaert, The Fifty-Year Wound: The True Price of America's Cold War Victory. Mel Levine, A Mind at a Time. Bernard Lewis (1916-), What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response (Jan.); used as the main intellectual ammo by the Bush admin. to justify invading Iraq, AKA the Lewis Doctrine (an attempt to impose the secular Muslim Kemal Ataturk model), which doesn't help Bush's image in the Middle East because Lewis is a Zionist Jew. Hal Lindsey (1929-), The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad (July); are Islamic fundamentalists an aberrant group or the true followers of 7th cent. prophet Muhmmad? Michelle Malkin (1970-), Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces. Thomas Mallon, Mrs. Paine's Garage and the Murder of John F. Kennedy. Peter Mandler (1958-), History and National Life (Dec.); denies that history is only about finding out who we are and where we come from, and is less directly "useful", but also richer than that. Manning Marable (1950-2011) et al., Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle. Ali al-Amin Mazrui (1933-), Africanity Redefined: Collected Essays (2 vols.); The Titan of Tanzania: Julius K. Nyere's Legacy; Black Reparations in the Era of Globalization. John McPhee (1931-), The Founding Fish. John McEnroe (with James Kaplan), You Cannot Be Serious. Gavin Menzies, 1421: The Year China Discovered Amerca; bestseller claiming that Chinese adm. Zheng He beat Columbus to it, visiting Cuba and Rhode Island. Fergus Millar (1935-), The Roman Republic in Political Thought; claims that the early rather than late Roman Repub. most influenced later political thought; Rome, the Greek World, and the East (essays) (3 vols.); ed. by Hannah M. Cotton and Guy M. Rogers; how Greco-Roman culture impacted the peoples of the E Mediterranean, influencing the development of Christianity, Rabbinical Judaism, and Islam. Eric Henry Monkkonen (1942-2005), Crime, Justice, History (essays). Michael Moore (1954-), Stupid White Men. Edmund Sears Morgan (1916-2013), Benjamin Franklin; NYT bestseller; explodes the myth of "a comfortable old gentleman staring out at the world over his half-glasses with benevolent comprehension of everything in it", revealing his true mindset; "With a wisdom about himself that comes only to the great of heart, Franklin knew how to value himself and what he did without mistaking himself for something more than one man among many. His special brand of self-respect required him to honor his fellow men and women no less than himself." Richard Ward Morris (1939-2003), The Big Questions: Probing the Promise and Limits of Science. Arnold A. Offner, Another Such Victory; the revisionist school of the historiography of Truman's foreign policy. Michael B. Oren (1955-), Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (first book). Michael Parenti (1933-), The Terrorism Trap: September 11 and Beyond. Joseph Chilton Pearce (1926-), The Crack in the Cosmic Egg: New Constructs of Mind and Reality; The Biology of Transcendence: A Blueprint of the Human Spirit; "Culture is the enemy of biology." Carlota Perez (1939-), Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages; claims techno-economic paradigm shifts in five past technological revolutions; "So during this period, financial capital generates a powerful magnet to attract investment into the new areas, hence accelerating the hold of the paradigm on what becomes the 'new economy'... In a world of capital gains, real estate bubbles and foreign adventures with money, all notion of the real value of anything is lost. Uncontrollable asset inflation sets in while debt mounts at a reckless rhythm; much of it to enter the casino." Ralph Peters (1952-), Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World. Kevin Phillips (1940-), Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich. Daniel Pinchbeck (1966-), Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism. Steven Pinker (1954-), The Blank State: The Modern Denial of Human Nature; bestseller arguing against tabula rasa models of the social sciences, claiming that human behavior is shaped by Darwinian evolution. Robert Pinsky (1940-), Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry. Daniel Pipes (1949-), Militant Islam Reaches America; In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power; Muslim Immigrants in the United States; Harvard-educated pro-Israel Jewish historian, who warned about al-Qaida planning attacks on the U.S. 4 mo. before 9/11 begins piping on the Muslim threat to the U.S., claiming that Saudia Arabia is a "rival" to the U.S. and should be sued by 9/11 families for compensation, advocating that Muslims in U.S. govt. positions be treated as security risks, and asserting that U.S. mosques are militant breeding grounds; he later backs the U.S. Iraq War, claiming that winning it will reduce not increase terrorism, and also claims that Barack Obama is an apostate Muslim subject to execution; meanwhile he founds the Web site Campus Watch, causing a filibuster in the U.S. Senate led by Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) against his nomination by Pres. Bush to the board of the U.S. Inst. of Peace. Roy Porter (1946-2002), Madness: A Brief History. Samantha Power (1970-), "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide (Pulitzer Prize); argues for interentionism in cases of genocide. Susan Powter (1958-), The Politics of Stupid. Reg Presley (1941-), Wild Things They Don't Tell Us (Oct.); frontman for The Troggs is into crop circle research. Dennis Michael Quinn (1944-), Elder Statesman: A Biography of J. Reuben Clark. Janice G. Raymond (1943-), Sex Trafficking in the United States: Links Between International and Domestic Sex Industries. Howard Rheingold (1947-), Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution (Oct. 15). Richard Rhodes (1937-), Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust. Richard Rodriguez (1944-), Brown: The Last Discovery of America (autobio.). David M. Rohl (1950-), The Lost Testament: From Eden to Exile - The Epic History of the People of the Bible. John Ross (1938-2011), Mexico in Focus: A Guide to the People, Politics, and Culture; The War Against Oblivion: The Zapatista Chronicles. Barry Rubin (1950-2014), Istanbul Intrigues; The Tragedy of the Middle East; Islamic Fundamentalism in Egyptian Politics. Peter Russell (1946-), From Science to God: A Physicist's Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness. Kamal Salibi (1929-2011), A Bird on an Oak Tree. Michael Savage (1942-), The Savage Nation. Ilyasah Shabazz (1962-), Growing Up X: A Memoir by the Daughter of Malcolm X (autobio.); daughter #3 of Malcolm X (1925-65). Anthony Shaffer (1926-2001), So What Did You Expect? (autobio.) (posth.). Peter Singer (1946-), One World: The Ethics of Globalization. Zecharia Sitchin (1920-2010), The Lost Book of Eniki: Memoirs and Prophecies of an Extraterrestrial God; humans were genetically engineered by the Annunaki from Planet X? Quentin Skinner (1940-), Visions of Politics (3 vols.). Jane Idleman Smith and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection. George Soros (1930-), George Soros on Globalization. Thomas Sowell (1930-), A Personal Odyssey; Controversial Essays; The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late. Robert Spencer (1962-), The Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades); "Am I calling for a war between Christianity and Islam? Certainly not. What I am calling for is a general recognition that we are already in a war. …What we are fighting today is not precisely a 'war on terror'. Terror is a tactic, not an opponent. To wage a 'war on terror' is like waging a 'war on bombs': it focuses on a tool of the enemy rather than the enemy itself. A refusal to identify the enemy is extremely dangerous"; Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith (Nov. 25); how the Western PC mantra about Muslim terrorists being "fundamentalists" is moose hockey because the goal of Islam has always been the absolute domination of the world, along with the belief that "anyone who renounces Islam deserves to die", plus "the fundamental cause of jihad is to terminate Paganism", therefore "this would mean that jihad must continue as long as there are unbelievers". Joseph Stiglitz (1943-), Globalization and Its Discontents; blames the IMF for funding developing economics which don't develop. Harry G. Summers Jr. (1932-99), On Strategy: The Vietnam War in Context (posth.). Cass R. Sunstein (1954-), The Cost-Benefit State; Risk and Reason; Republic.com; Free Markets and Social Justice. Terry Teachout, The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken. Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, "Actually, President Bush was quite right to reject the Kyoto protocol... Kyoto was an anti-growth, anti-capitalist, anti-American project which no American leader alert to his country's national interests could have supported." (Ch. 11) Marlo Thomas (1937-) (ed.), The Right Words at the Right Time; 108 famous people tell about the words that changed their lives. Kenneth R. Timmerman (1953-), Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson; bestseller (200K copies) accusing Rev. Jesse Jackson of criminal connections and extortion of businesses. Colm Toibin (1955-), Love in a Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodovar - dark as in beso negro? Tevi Troy (1967-), Intellectuals and the American Presidency: Philosophers, Jesters, or Technicians?. Charlotte A. Twight, Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control Over the Lives of Ordinary Americans. United Nations, World Atlas of Biodiversity. Joseph Wambaugh (1937-), Fire Lover: A True Story; Los Angeles "Pillow Pyro" arsonist John Leonard Orr (1949-). Ibn Warraq (1946-) (ed.), What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text and Commentary. Rick Warren (1954-), The Purpose-Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For?; a 40-day plan; the Five Purposes: You Were Planned for God's Pleasure, You Were Formed for God's Family, You Were Created to Become Like Christ, You Were Shaped for Serving God, You Were Made for a Mission; the five Global Goliaths: spiritual emptiness, egocentric leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic disease, illiteracy/poor education. Brian Weiss (1944-), Mirrors of Time: Using Regression for Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Healing (Feb. 1). Fay Weldon (1931-), Auto de Fay (autobio.). Stuart Wilde (1946-) and Brook Claussen, Wilde Unplugged: A Dictionary of Life. Oliver Eaton Williamson (1932-), The Theory of the Firm as Governance Structure: From Choice to Contract. Garry Wills (1934-), Why I Am a Catholic; Mr. Jefferson's University; James Madison. Andrew Norman Wilson (1950-), The Victorians; sells 150K copies. Edward Osborne Wilson (1929-), The Future of Life. Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007), TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution; the Tsarist Occupation Govt. of the U.S., beginning with George H.W. Bush. Rosalind Wiseman, Queen Bees and Wannabees: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence; basis of the 2004 movie "Mean Girls". Fred Alan Wolf (1934-), Matter into Feeling: A New Alchemy of Science and Spirit. Stephen Wolfram (1959-), A New Kind of Science (May 14); claims that simple digital programs not equations are needed to do science because the Universe is ultimately digital - a resounding thud is heard? Bob Woodward (1943-), Bush At War: Inside the Bush White House. Toby Young (1963-), How to Lose Friends & Alienate People: A Memoir; "England's heterosexual Truman Capote" and his 5-year attempt to make a career in the U.S. at Vanity Fair and Hollyweird. Cecily von Ziegesar (1970-), Gossip Girl; first in a series about girls at a fancy Manhattan prep school. Howard Zinn (1922-2010), Terrorism and War. Zondervan Pub. House (a div. of Harper-Collins), Today's New International Version Bible; an update to the 1978 New International Version, with 50K changes made by 15 Biblical scholars; in Jan. 2005 Rolling Stone mag. rejects an ad for it, but reverses itself in the face of criticism. Art: Lucian Freud (1922-), Naked Portrait of Pregnant Supermodel Kate Moss; auctioned for $6.5M at Christie's Internat. in London in Feb. 2005. Andy Goldsworthy (1956-), Townhead Burn, Dumfriesshire, 25 November 2002 (photographs). Roberto Matta (1911-2002), Post History Chicken Flowers; La Dulce Acqua Vita; La Source du Calme (last work). Sigmar Polke (1941-), The Hunt for the Taliban and Al-Qaida. Daniel Richter (1962-), Dog Planet; 9' x 11.5'. Music: Ryan Adams (1974-), Demolition (album). Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf (album #3) (Aug. 27)(#17 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.) (986K copies); Dave Grohl plays drums; incl. Go With the Flow (#116 in the U.S., #21 in the U.K.), No One Knows (#51 in the U.S., #15 in the U.K.), First It Giveth (#33 in the U.K.). Christina Aguilera (1980-), Stripped (album #4) (Oct. 26) (#2 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.) (10M copies); criticized for being too dirty, making it more popular?; incl. Impossible (w/Alicia Keys), Dirrty (w/Reggie "Redman" Noble) (#1 in the U.K.), Beautiful (#2 in the U.S.) ("one of the best pop sings ever written" - Simon Cowell"). a-ha, Lifelines (album #7) (Apr. 2); sells 1.5M copies; incl. Lifelines, Forever Not Yours, Did Anyone Approach You? Gregg Allman (1947-), No Stranger to the Dark: The Best of Gregg Allman (album). Amon Amarth, Versus the World (album #4) (Nov. 18); incl. Versus the World, Across the Rainbow Bridge, Thousand Years of Oppression. America, Holiday Harmony (album #15) (Oct. 1); their first Xmas album; The Grand Cayman Concert (album) (Nov. 9); performed in the home of former bandmate Dan Peek by the duo of Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell. Tori Amos (1963-), Scarlet's Walk (album #7) (Oct. 28) (#7 in the U.S., #26 in the U.K.); incl. A Sorta Fairytale (#11 in the U.S., #41 in the U.K.). India.Arie (1975-), Voyage to India (album #2) (Sept. 24) (#6 in the U.S., #82 in the U.K.); sells 2M copies; incl. Little Things, Can I Walk With You, The Truth, Get It Together. Joseph Arthur (1971-), Redemption's Son (album #3) (Nov. 26); incl. Redemption's Son, Honey and the Moon. Ashanti (1980-), Ashanti (album) (debut) (Apr. 2) (#1 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.) (6M copies, incl. 3M in the U.S., and a record 503K in its 1st week); incl. Foolish (#1 in the U.S.), Happy (w/Ja Rule) (#8 in the U.S.), Baby (#15 in the U.S.), Unfoolish (w/Biggie), Dreams; first female with three top-10 Billboard Hot 100 songs. John David Ashcroft (1942-), Let the Eagle Soar; by U.S. atty.-gen. #79 (2001-5). Audioslave, Audioslave (album) (debut) (3M copies); composed of former members of Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine, incl. Chris Cornell (lead vocals, guitar), Tom Morello (guitar), Tim Commerford (bass), Brad Wilks (drums); incl. Like a Stone, Cochise, Show Me How to Live, I Am the Highway, What You Are. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Will the Circle Be Unbroken Vol. 3 (album #3); first in 1972, 2nd in 1989. Beck (1970-), Sea Change (album). Belle and Sebastian, Storytelling (album #5) (June 3). Tony Bennett (1926-) and k.d. lang (1961-), A Wonderful World (labum, er, album) (Nov. 2); incl. La Vie en Rose, Exactly Like You, What a Wonderful World. Joe Bonamassa (1977-), So, It's Like That (album #2) (Aug. 13); incl. Pain and Sorrow. Boston, Corporate America (album #5) (Aug. 27). David Bowie (1947-), Heathen (album) (June 11); incl. Heathen, Slow Burn, Afraid, A Better Future. Pet Shop Boys, Release (album) (Apr. 1); sells 800K copies; incl. Home and Dry, I Get Along, London. Billy Bragg (1957-) and The Blokes, England, Half-English (album #6) (Mar. 5); against xenophobia in England; incl. St. Monday, Take Down the Union Jack (#22 in the U.K.). Laura Branigan (1952-2004), The Essentials: Laura Branigan (album). Henry Brant (1913-2008), Ice Field (Pulitzer Prize). Toni Braxton (1967-), More Than a Woman (album) (Nov.); incl. Hit the Freeway (w/Loon). Jackson Browne (1948-), The Naked Ride Home (album #2) (#36 in the U.S.) (Sept. 24); incl. The Night Inside Me. Jimmy Buffett (1946-), Far Side of the World (album #25) (Mar. 19). Chris de Burgh (1948-), Timing is Everything (album #13) (Oct. 8); incl. Timing is Everything. The Caesars, Jerk It Out; AKA Caesars Palace, Twelve Caesars; from Sweden, incl. Joakim Ĺhlund, César Vidal, David Lindquist, and Nino Keller. Cam'ron (1974-), Come Home with Me (album); incl. Oh Boy and Hey Ma. Mariah Carey (1970-), Charmbracelet (album #9) (Dec. 3); 1st album on the Island Records label; incl. Through the Rain, Boy (I Need You), The One. Vanessa Carlton (1980-), Be Not Nobody (album) (debut); incl. A Thousand Miles. Neko Case (1970-) and Her Boyfriends, Blacklisted (album #3) (Aug. 20). Soft Cell, Cruelty Without Beauty (album #4) (Oct. 8); last album in 1984. Tracy Chapman (1964-), Let It Rain (album #6) (Oct. 15) (#25 in th4e U.S.); incl. Let It Rain. Kenny Chesney (1968-), No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems (album) (Apr. 23); incl. No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems, Young, The Good Stuff. Dixie Chicks, Home (album #3); incl. White Trash Wedding, Top of the World. Biffy Clyro, Blackened Sky (album) (debut) (Mar. 10) (#78 in the U.K.); formerly Screwfish; from Kilmarnock, Scotland, incl. Simon Alexander Neil (1979-) (vocals), James Roberto Johnston (1980-) (bass) and twin brother Ben Hamilton Johnston (1980-) (drums); incl. 27, 57, Justboy, Joy Discovery Invention. Joe Cocker (1944-2014), Respect Yourself (album #18) (July 16). Coldplay, A Rush of Blood to the Head (album #2) (Aug. 26) (#5 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); sells 13M copies; incl. Clocks, God Put a Smile Upon Your Face, In My Place, The Scientist. Phil Collins (1951-), Testify (album) (Nov. 12); incl. Can't Stop Living You. Coolio (1963-), El Cool Magnifico (album #4) (Oct. 15); a flop. Elvis Costello (1954-), When I Was Cruel (album #20) (Apr. 23). Elvis Costello (1954-) and the Imposters, Cruel Smile (Oct. 1). Cracker, Forever (album #6) (Jan. 29); incl. Shine. King Crimson, Ladies of the Road (album) (Nov. 12). Counting Crows, Hard Candy (album #4) (June 7) (#5 in the U.S., #9 in the U.K.); incl. Hard Candy, American Girls (#24 in the U.S., #33 in the U.K.) Big Yellow Taxi (w/Vanessa Carlton) (hidden track) (#16 in the U.K.). Death Cab for Cutie, The Stability EP (album) (Feb. 19); last with drummer Michael Schorr. Craig Ashley David (1981-), Slicker Than Your Average (album) (Nov. 19); incl. Slicker Than Your Average, Rise & Fall (with Sting). The Grateful Dead, Dick's Picks Vol. 24 (album) (Feb. 11); recorded on Mar. 23, 1974 in Daly City, Calif.; Dick's Picks Vol. 25 (album) (July 20); recorded on May 10-11, 1978; View from the Vault, Vol. 3 (album) (Aug.); Dick's Picks Vol. 26 (album) (Oct.); recorded on Apr. 26-27, 1969. Celine Dion (1968-), A New Day Has Come (album #7) (Mar. 22); first album of original material since 1999; incl. A New Day Has Come. Disturbed, Believe (album #2) (Sept. 17, 2002) (#1 in the U.S., #41 in the U.K.); incl. Prayer, Remember, Liberate. Snoop Dogg (1971-), Paid the Cost to Be da Boss (album #6) (Nov. 26) (1.3M copies); incl. From the Chuuuch to da Palace (w/Pharrell), Beautiful (w/Pharrell). Dokken, Long Way Home (album #8) (Apr. 23). Goo Goo Dolls, Gutterflower (album #7) (Apr. 9) (#4 in the U.S.); incl. Here Is Gone (#3 in the U.S.), Big Machine, Sympathy. System of a Down, Steal This Album! (album #3) (Nov. 26); incl. Innervision, F**k the System. 3 Doors Down, Away from the Sun (album #2) (Nov. 12) (4M copies); incl. Here Without You, When I'm Gone, Sarah Yellin'. Hilary Duff (1987-), Santa Claus Lane (album) (debut) (Oct. 15) (#154 in the U.S.). Eminem (1972-), The Eminem Show (album) (June); best-selling album of 2002; sells 1M copies in its first week, getting criticized for its overuse of the word "motherfucker"; incl. Without Me; 8 Mile Soundtrack (album); incl. Lose Yourself; "Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity/ To seize everything you ever wanted - One moment/ Would you capture it or just let it slip?/... You can do anything you set your mind to, man." Public Enemy, Revolverlution (album #8) (July 23) (#110 in the U.S.). Eve (1978-), Eve-Olution (album #3) (Aug. 27); incl. Gangsta Lovin' (w/Alicia Keys). Marianne Faithfull (1946-), Kissin' Time (album); incl. Sex With Strangers (video co-stars Kate Moss). Foo Fighters, One by One (album #4) (Oct.); incl. All My Life, Times Like These, Low, Have It All. Filter, The Amalgamut (album #3) (July 30); incl. Where Do We Go From Here, and The Only Way (Is the Wrong Way). Fishbone, Fishbone and the Familyhood Nextperience Present: The Friendliest Psychosis of All (EP) (Feb. 19); Live at the Temple Bar and More (first live album) (June 18). Maroon 5, Songs About Jane (album) (debut) (June 25) (#6 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (2.7M copies); formerly Kara's Flowers; title refers to Adam Levine's ex-girlfriend Jane Herman; from Los Angeles, incl. Adam Noah Levine (1979-) (vocals), James Burgon Valentine (1978-) (guitar), Jesse Royal Carmichael (1979-) (keyboards), Michael Allen Madden (1979-) (bass), Ryan Michael Dusick (1977-)/ Matt Flynn (1970-) (drums); incl. This Love, Harder to Breathe, She Will Be Loved. Kenny G (1956-), Paradise (album #10); Wishes: A Holiday Album (album #11). Indigo Girls, Become You (album #8) (Mar. 12). Herbie Hancock (1940-), Directions in Music: Live at Massey. George Harrison (1943-2001), Brainwashed (album) (last album) (posth.) (Nov. 18) (#18 in the U.S., #29 in the U.K.); incl. Brainwashed, Any Road, Stuck Inside a Cloud. Heather Headley (1974-), This Is Who I Am (album) debut); incl. He Is, I Wish I Wasn't. Faith Hill (1967-), Cry (album); all pop no country?; incl. Cry, Baby You Belong. Whitney Houston (1963-2012), Just Whitney (album); her first dud, despite a $100M contract with Arista/BMG in Aug. 2001. David Ippolito, Crazy on the Same Day (album #5). LL Cool J (1968-), 10 (10th album); incl. Paradise (featuring Amerie), Luv U Better, All I Have (w/ Jennifer Lopez). Pearl Jam, Riot Act (album #7) (Nov. 12) (#5 in the U.S., #34 in the U.S.); last on Epic Records; incl. I Am Mine (#43 in the U.S., #26 in the U.K.). Jay-Z (1969-), The Blueprint 2: The Gift and the Curse (album #7) (Nov. 12); incl. 03 Bonnie & Clyde, Hovi Baby, Excuse Me Miss. Norah Jones (1979-), Come Away with Me (album) (debut) (Feb. 26) (#1 in the U.S.); sells 20M copies (#2 behind "The Beatles"); incl. Don't Know Why, Feelin' the Same Way, Come Away with Me, and Turn Me On. Journey, Red 13 (album) (Nov. 26). Bon Jovi, Bounce (album #8) (Oct. 8) (#2 in the U.S. and U.K.); incl. Bounce, Everyday, Misunderstood, All About Lovin' You. Juanes, Un Dia Normal (album #2) (May 21); incl. A Dios le Pido. Toby Keith (1961-), Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue: the Angry American (July); reaction to 9/11. R. Kelly (1967-) and Jay-Z (1969-), The Best of Both Worlds (album) (Mar. 19); incl. The Best of Both Worlds. The Black Keys, The Big Come Up (album) (debut) (May 20); from Akron, Ohio, incl. Dan Auerbach (vocals, guitar), and Patrick Carney (drums); incl. Leavin' Trunk, She Said, She Said, I'll Be Your Man (theme song for the HBO series "Hung"). Rilo Kiley, The Execution of All Things (album #2) (Oct. 1); incl. The Execution of All Things. Korn, Untouchables (album #5) (June 11) (#2 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.); incl. Here to Stay (#4 in the U.S.), Thoughtless (#6 in the U.S.), Alone I Break (#19 in the U.S.). Avril Lavigne (1984-), Let Go (album) (debut) (Apr. 13) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (17M copies); incl. Complicated, Sk8er Boi, I'm With You, Losing Grip. Human League, The Golden Hour of the Future (album) (Oct. 20). Def Leppard, X (album #8) (July 30); incl. Now. Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (album #10) (July 15); incl. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1, Flight Test, Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell, Do You Realize? (in Apr. 2009 a resolution to make it the Okla. state song is narrowly defeated in the Okla. legislature). Jennifer Lopez (1969-), This Is Me... Then (album #3) (Nov. 19) (#6 in the U.S.) (6M copies); incl. Jenny from the Block (w/Styles P and Jadakiss), All I Have (w/LL Cool J) (#1 in the U.S.), I'm Glad, Baby I Love U!. Iron Maiden, Rock in Rio (album) (Mar. 25); Edward the Great (album) (Nov. 5). Dave Matthews Band, Busted Stuff (album). Paul McCartney (1942-), Back in the U.S. (double album) (Nov. 11). Tim McGraw (1967-), Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors (album); incl. Real Good Man, She's My Kind of Rain. Megadeth, Rude Awakening (Mar. 19); the band breaks up, then reforms in 2004 with only Dave Mustaine remaining; Still, Alive... and Well? (album) (Sept. 10); what do you want written on your tombstone? Joni Mitchell (1943-), Travelogue (double album #18). Moby, 18 (album with 18 tracks); incl. We Are All Made of Stars. Van Morrison (1945-), Down the Road (#29) (May 14). Alanis Morissette (1974-), Under Rug Swept (album) (Feb.); incl. Hands Clean, So Unsexy, Precious Illusions. Motorhead, Hammered (album #16) (Apr. 9); incl. The Game (written by Jim Johnson as entrance theme for WWE wrestler Triple H). Mountain, Mystic Fire (album). Michael Martin Murphey (1945-), Cowboy Christmas III (album #25). Graham Nash (1942-), Songs for Survivors (album #5) (July 30); incl. Dirty Little Secret. Naughty by Nature, IIcons (album #6) (Mar. 5) (#15 in the U.S); incl. Feels Good (Don't Worry Bout a Thing). Vomito Negro, Fireball (album #13). Nelly (1974-), Nellyville (album #2) (June 25) (#1 in the U.S.) (6M copies); incl. Hot in Herre ("It's gettin' hot in here/ So take off all your clothes"), Work It (w/ Justin Timberlake), Dilemma (w/Kelly Rowland), Air Force Ones (w/ the St. Lunatics), Pimp Juice. Nena, 99 Luftballon; new version. Olivia Newton-John (1948-), Two. Nonpoint, Development (album #2) (June 25) (#52 in the U.S.); incl. Circles. Oasis, Heathen Chemistry (album #5) (July 1) (#23 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); last with Alan White; incl. The Hindu Times, Stop Crying Your Heart Out, Little By Little/ She Is Love, Songbird. Sinead O'Connor (1966-), Sean-Nos Nua (album #6) (Oct. 8); "New Old Style" in Gaelic; incl. My Singing Bird, Peggy Gordon, My Lagan Love. Midnight Oil, Capricornia (album #14) (Feb. 19) (last before disbanding). Ozzy Osbourne (1948-), Live at Budokan (album) (June 25). Red Hot Chili Peppers, By the Way (album #8) (July 9) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); sells 10M copies; incl. By the Way (#34 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.), The Zephyr Song (#49 in the U.S., #11 in the U.K.), Can't Stop (#57 in the U.S., #15 in the U.S.), Dosed, Universally Speaking. Tom Petty (1950-) and the Heartbreakers, The Last DJ (album) (Oct. 8); disses the music industry for Britney, er, greed; incl. The Last DJ. Phantom Planet, The Guest (album #2) (June 5); incl. California (theme song for "The O.C."). Jean-Luc Ponty (1942-), Live at Semper Opera (album). Insane Clown Posse, The Wraith: Shangri-La (Nov. 5) (album); incl. Homies. Manic Street Preachers, Forever Delayed (album #7) (Oct. 28); incl. Motown Junk, Suicide Is Painless (theme from "M*A*S*H"), The Masses Against the Classes (#1 in the U.K.). Pretenders, Loose Screw (album #8) (Nov. 12). Bonnie Raitt (1949-), Silver Lining (album #14) (Apr. 9). Rammstein, Feuer Frei (Fire At Will) (Oct. 14); from the movie "xXx"; their live performances feature flamethrower masks. Steve Reich (1936-), Dance Patterns. Busta Rhymes (1972-), It Ain't Safe No More... (album #6) (Nov. 26). Lionel Richie (1949-), Encore (first live album) (Nov. 26). LeAnn Rimes (1982-), Twisted Angel (album); incl. Twisted Angel. My Chemical Romance, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (album) (debut) (July 23); from Jersey City, N.J., incl. Gerard Arthur Way (1977-) (vocals), Mikey Way (bass), Frank Anthony Thomas Iero Jr. (1981-) (guitar), and Ray Toro (guitar); incl. I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, Skylines and Turnstiles (response to 9/11); Like Phantoms, Forever (EP) (Aug.); incl. Vampires Will Never Hurt You. Rush, Vapor Trails (album #17) (May 14); incl. One Little Victory. Black Sabbath, Past Lives (album) (Aug. 20); incl. Tomorrow's Dream, Children of the Grave. Sade (1959-), Lovers Live (album) (Feb. 5). Primal Scream, Evil Heat (album #7) (Aug. 5); incl. Rise (Bomb the Pentagon) (name changed after 9/11), A Scanner Darkly (after the Philip K. Dick novel). Mr. Scruff (1972-), Heavyweight Rib Ticklers (album #2) (Feb. 11); Trouser Jazz (Sept. 16). Pete Seeger (1919-2014), American Favorite Ballads (5 vols.) (2002-7). Seether, Disclaimer (album) (debut) (Aug.); from South Africa, incl. Shaun Morgan, Dale Stewart, and John Humphrey; incl. Fine Again, Driven Under, Gasoline. Sepultura, Under A Pale Grey Sky (album) (Sept. 24); record on Dec. 16, 1996 at Brixton, Academy, London, the night that founder Max Cavalera quit. Duncan Sheik, Daylight (album); incl. On a High. Michelle Shocked (1962-), Deep Natural (album). Trombone Shorty (1986-), Trombone Shorty's Swinging' Gate (album) (debut). Jessica Simpson (1980-), This Is the Remix (album) (July 2) (300K copies). Sleater-Kinney, One Beat (album #6) (Aug. 20) (#107 in the U.S.); incl. One Beat, Light Rail Coyote, Step Aside. Black Label Society, 1919 Eternal (album #3) (Mar. 5); incl. Life, Birth, Blood, Doom, America the Beautiful. Regina Spektor (1980-), Songs (album #2) (Feb. 25). Ringo Starr (1940-), King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Ringo & His New All-Star Band (album) (Aug. 6). Status Quo, Heavy Traffic (album #25) (Sept.). Steps, The Last Dance (album #5) (last album) (Nov. 25) (#57 in the U.K.). Rod Stewart (1945-), It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook (album) (Oct. 22). The Rolling Stones, Forty Licks (double album) (Sept. 30). Suede, A New Morning (album #5) (Sept. 30) (last album); incl. Positivity, Obsessions (#29 in the U.K.). Sugarbabes, Angels with Dirty Faces (album #2) (Aug. 26) (#2 in the U.K.); incl. Angels with Dirty Faces, Freak Like Me, Round Round, Stronger (#10 in the U.K.), Shape. Supertramp, Slow Motion (album #13) (last album) (Apr. 23). Nada Surf, Let's Go (album #3) (Sept. 17) (#31 in the U.S.); incl. Inside of Love (#73 in the U.K.), Neither Heaven Nor Space, Blonde on Blonde. Plain White T's, Stop (album). James Taylor (1948-), October Road (album #15) (Aug. 13); incl. October Road. Therion, Live in Midgard (first live album). Melanie Thornton (1967-2001), In Your Life (Nov. 25) (posth.). Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Thug World Order (album #5) (Oct. 29); incl. Get Up & Get It, Money, Money, Home (w/Phil Collins). Justin Timberlake (1981-), Justified (album) (debut) (Nov. 1) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); sells 10M copies; incl. Like I Love You, Cry Me a River (about his breakup with Britney Spears), Rock Your Body, Senorita. Tonic, Head on Straight (album #3) (Sept. 24); incl. Take Me As I Am. Randy Travis (1959-), Rise and Shine (album) (Oct. 15); incl. Three Wooden Crosses. Jethro Tull, Living with the Past (album) (Apr. 30). Shania Twain (1965-), Up! (album #4) (Nov. 18) (#1 country) (#1 in the U.S.) (20M copies); incl. Up! (#12 country) (#63 in the U.S.), I'm Gonna Getcha Good! (#7 country) (#34 in the U.S.), She's Not Just a Pretty Face (#9 country) (#56 in the U.S.), Forever and for Always (#14 country) (#57 in the U.S.). Matchbox Twenty, More Than You Think You Are (album #3) (Nov. 19) (#6 in the U.S., #31 in the U.K.); incl. Unwell (#3 in the U.S.), Bright Lights (#15 in the U.S.), Disease (#21 in the U.S.). Keith Urban (1967-), Somebody Like You. Wallflowers, Red Letter Days (album #4) (Nov. 5) (#32 in the U.S.); incl. When You're On Top. Weezer, Maladroit (album #4) (May 14) (#3 in the U.S., #16 in the U.K.); first with bassist Scott Shiner replacing Mikey Welsh; incl. Dope Nose, Keep Fishin, Slob. Kevin Welch (1955-), Millionaire (album #5). Westlife, Unbreakable: The Greatest Hits Volume 1 (album #4) (Nov. 11) (#1 in the U.K.) (1.4M copies). Whigfield (1970-), Whigfield 4 (album #4). Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (album #4) (Apr. 23); sells 500K copies; Rolling Stone mag.'s #3 album of the decade; incl. Kamera, War on War, Ashes of American Flags. Charles Wuorinen (1938-), Lepton. Alexander Yelin, A Man Like Putin; manly Vladimir Putin's theme song; "I want a man like Putin, who's full of strength/ I want a man like Putin, who doesn't drink/ I want a man like Putin, who won't make me sad." Frank Zappa (1940-93), FZ:OZ (album) (posth.) (Aug. 16); a concert in Sydney on Jan. 20, 1976. Movies: 28 Days Later (Nov. 1) (DNA Films) (U.K. Film Council) (Fox Searchlight Pictures), about a post-apocalyptic world where a zombie-making virus has spread becomes a hit and reinvigorates the zombie horror film genre; "Day 1: Explosion; Day 3: Infection; Day 8: Epidemic; Day 15: Evacuation: Day 20: Devastation"; does $85M box office on an $8M budget; followed by "28 Days Later" (2007). Ronny U's The 51st State (Oct. 18) stars Samuel L. Jackson as Am. chemist Elmo McElroy, who creates a new drug "guaranteed to take you to the 51st state", and gets into a bad scene in England; Emily Mortimer plays his white English ex-girlfriend Dakota Parker. Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile (Nov. 8) stars Eminem as white trash rapper Jimmy "B-Rabbit" Smith, who lives on the wrong side Detroit's 8 Mile Rd. with his trailer trash mom Stephanie (Kim Basinger) (who complains to him that her beau isn't going down on her) and porks his babe Alex (Brittany Murphy) while trying to win a rapping contest and get a big contract; De'Angelo Wilson stands out as DJ Iz. Spike Lee's 25th Hour (Dec. 16), based on the novel by David Benioff stars Edward Norton as New York drug dealer Montgomery Brogan, who has 24 hours before starting a 7-year jail sentence; also stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as Jacob Elinsky, Barry Pepper as Frank Slaughtery, and Rosario Dawson as Naturelle Riviera. Mark Mylod's Ali G Indahouse (Nov. 11) stars British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, becoming the first of a comedy trilogy, followed by "Borat" in 2006 and "Bruno" in 2009. Harold Ramis' Analyze That (Dec. 6) is a sequel to the Robert de Niro and Billy Crystal hit. Jay Roach's Austin Powers in Goldmember (July 26) reprises the Mike Myers roles, with Beyonce Knowles as Foxxy Cleopatra, and Myers as Powers, Dr. Evil, Fat Bastard, and Goldmember; #7 movie of 2002 ($213M). Paul Schrader's Auto Focus (Sept. 8), based on the Robert Graysmith book stars Greg Kinnear as "Hogan's Heroes" actor Bob Crane, and Willem Dafoe as his friend John Carpenter, ending with Crane's unsolved murder in a motel room in Scottsdale, Ariz. in 1978. Tim Story's Barbershop (Sept. 13), written by Mark Brown stars Ice Cube as Calvin Palmer, Anthony Anderson as J.D., Cedric the Entertainer as Eddie, Sean Patrick Thomas as Jimmy James, Eve as Terri Jones, and Troy Garrity as Isaac Rosenberg in a day in a South Side Chicago barbershop. Shawn Levy's Big Fat Liar (Feb. 8) stars Frankie Muniz as Jason Shepard, a boy whose essay gets turned into a Hollywood flick by producer Marty Wolf (Paul Giamatti) without his knowledge, causing him to come collecting. Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down (Jan. 18), filmed in the Moroccan city of Sale stars Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore, Eric Bana et al., about the 1993 U.S. Mogadishu fiasco when 123 elite U.S. soldiers got trapped and ate their motto "Leave No Man Behind". John Stockwell's Blue Crush (Aug. 16) (Imagine Entertainment) (Universal Pictures) debuts, based on the article "Life's Swell" by Susan Orlean, starring Kate Bosworth as hotel maid Anne Marie, who likes to surf Oahu's North Shore, hooking up with football player Matt Tollman (Matthew Davis) and Eden (Michelle Rodriguez); features cameos from real-life surfers incl. Layne Beachley, Tom Carroll, Bruce Irons, Jamie O'Brien, and Makua Rothman; does $51.8M box office on a $25M budget. Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine (Oct. 9) examines gun control in the U.S. from a leftist anti-gun perspective; "Are we a nation of gun nuts, or just a nation of nuts?"; too bad, he descends into too many obvious falsehoods, incl. that the white English colonists of Am. invented the "genius idea" of African slavery, and that the Africanized "killer bee" is no threat to the U.S., when it reached the U.S. in 1990, spreads through the S U.S. this year, followed by SW Ark. in June 2005 and New Orleans, La. in Sept. 2007. Patrick Stettner's The Business of Strangers (May 3) stars CEO Stockard Channing and bad girl asst. Julia Stiles as two businesswomen getting revenge on rapist Fred Weller, but not really, and not really, and not really?; Psalms 58:10? Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (Dec. 25), based on the book by Frank Abagnale Jr. stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Abagnale, who cons his way into millions of dollars worth of checks by posing as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor; film debut of Amy Adams (1974-) as his babe Brenda Strong. Adam Curtis' The Century of the Self is a BBC documentary showing how pshrinks Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Edward Louis Bernays et al. were used by big govt. and corps. to control the pop. Roger Michell's Changing Lanes (Apr. 12) (Paramount Pictures) stars Ben Affleck as NYC atty. Gavin Banek, who is rushing to court to file a power of appointment signed by a dead man who signed his foundation over to his law firm, and has a car collision on FDR Drive with insurance salesman Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson), who is trying to gain custody of his children before his estranged wife takes them to Ore., getting into a one-upmanship war; does $94.9M box office on a $45M budget; "Doyle Gipson is a man of no honor at all." Rob Marshall's Chicago (Dec. 10), based on the play by Maurine Dallas Watkins and book by Bob Fosse stars Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma Kelly, and Renee Zellweger as Roxie Hart, two babes on death row in 1920s Chicago, who sing and dance their way out of murder raps with the help of suave atty. Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), while prison matron Queen Latifah watches over them; features the song Cell Block Tango ("Pop, six, squish, uh huh, Cicero, Lipschitz"); #10 movie of 2002 ($171M) - if you don't believe me rub my belly? Fernando Meirelles' City of God (Aug. 30), based on the 1997 Paulo Lins novel (based on a true story) is a super-violent movie set in the Cidade de Deus shantytown (favel) of W Rio de Janeiro, starring Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Phellipe Haagensen and Douglas Silva, that becomes an art house hit; "We need to rob some rich man's house. That's the only way to get out of here". Tamra Davis' Crossroads (Feb. 15), written by Shonda Rhimes (1970-) stars pop singer Britney Spears in her film debut as Lucy Wagner, Zoe Saldana as Kit, and Taryn Manning as Mimi, three childhood friends who go on a cross-country trip with Ben Kimble (Anson Mount), a guy they just met; does $61M box office on a $10M budget; Mount is nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for the performance, but not by name. Lee Tamahori's Die Another Day (Nov. 22) (Eon Productions) (MGM) (20th Cent. Fox) (James Bond 007 film #20) (40th anniv. of "Dr. No") stars Pierce Brosnan as James Bond (4th and last time), Halle Berry as Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson, Rosamund Pike (Oxford friend of Chelsea Clinton) in her film debut as double-agent temptress Miranda Frost, and Toby Stephens as bad guy Gustav Graves/Col. Moon; does a record $431.97M box office on a $142M budget; the Die Another Day Theme is sung by Madonna. Callie Khouri's Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (June 7) stars Sandra Bullock as New York playwright Sidda Lee Walker, whose rift with her eccentric benemil (benzedrine-miltown) gulping La. mother Vivi (Ellyn Burnstyn and Ashley Judd) takes the intervention of the sisterhood of Vivi, Teensy, Caro, and Necie, who met as little girls in 1930; guaranteed to make men gag? Stephen Fears' Dirty Pretty Things (Dec. 13) stars Okwe as Chiwetel Ejiofor, a Nigerian immigrant to London, who discovers a human heart in the toilet of a West End hotel and hooks up with Turkish maid Senay Gelik (Audrey Tautou). Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant (Dec. 20) portrays Turkey as intriguing in a tale of two men heading in different directions. Ellory Elkayem's Eight Legged Freaks (July 17 (Centropolis Entertainment (Village Roadshow Pictures) (Warner Bros. Pictures) is a horror comedy starring David Arquette as Chris McCormick, and Kari Wuhrer as Sheriff Samantha Parker of Prosperity, Ariz., who fight giant jumping man-eating mutant spiders created by toxic waste; does $45M box office on a $30M budget; dedicated to David Arquette's father Lewis Arquette, who died in 2001 of heart failure, and producer Dean Devlin's parents Don Devlin and Pilar Seurat, who died of lung cancer in 2001 and 2002. The Emperor's Club (Sept. 9) (Universal Pictures) stars Kevin Kline as St. Benedict's Academy Roman history teacher William Hundert, and Emile Hirsch as rebellious pampered student Sedgewick Bell; does $16.3M box office on a $12.5M bueget. David Arquette, Kari Wuhrer, and Scott Terra; does $46M box office on a $30M budget. Michael Lehmann's 40 Days and 40 Nights (Mar. 1) is about Matt Sullivan (Josh Hartnett), who does the impossible and goes without sex for you know how many 24-hour periods. Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (Dec. 20) (Miramax), based on the 1927 book by Herbert Asbury stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Amsterdam Vallon, son of Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson), Daniel Day-Lewis as William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, Jim Broadbent as Boss Tweed, John C. Reilly as Happy Jack Mulraney, and Cameron Diaz as pickpocket Jenny Everdeane in an attempted recreation of hellhole Five Points, Manhattan, New York City in 1862-3 incl. the Dead Rabbits and their bitter nativist gang enemies (the Bowery Boys?); does $193.8M box office on a $100M budget. On Dec. 20, 2002 Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York (Miramax) debuts based on the 1927 book by Herbert Asbury, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Amsterdam Vallon, son of Priest Vallon (Liam Neeson), Daniel Day-Lewis as William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, Jim Broadbent as Boss Tweed, John C. Reilly as Happy Jack Mulraney, and Cameron Diaz as pickpocket Jenny Everdeane in an attempted recreation of hellhole Five Points, Manhattan, New York City in 1862-3 incl. the Dead Rabbits and their bitter nativist gang enemies (the Bowery Boys?); does $193.8M box office on a $100M budget. Robert Altman's Gosford Park (Jan. 4) stars Marrie Thomas, Michael Gambon, Kristin Scott Thomas et al. shows life in a 1932 English country house. Chris Columbus' Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Nov. 15) continues the kiddie pocket-picking machine; #4 movie of 2002 ($262M). Gregor Hoblit's Hart's War (Feb. 15), based on the John Katzenbach novel stars Bruce Willis as Col. William A. McNamara, Colin Farrell as Lt. Thomas W. Hart (what, Willis isn't Hart?), and Terrence Howard as black Lt. Lincoln A. Scott, who gets framed for murder so that the trial can be used as a decoy for an escape plot. Chris Wedge's and Carlos Aldanha's Ice Age (Mar. 15) is an animated flick about a sabertooth tiger, sloth, and woolly mammoth who try to return a lost human infant to his tribe; "The Coolest Event in 16,000 Years"; #9 movie of 2002 ($176M). Betty Thomas' I Spy (Nov. 1) stars Owen Wilson as Alex Scott, and Eddie Murphy as Kelly Robinson in a lame remake of the TV series. Jeff Tremaine's Jackass: The Movie stars Johnny Knoxville and his band of maniacs performing gross-out gags and stunts on the big screen, such as medicine ball dodgeball in the dark, turning a dwarf into a fastball with a parachute and fan, riding a fire hose for a "rodeo", a Sumo wrestler jumping on the dwarf in bed, and a brave man sticking his penis into a snake terrarium for a "puppet show". Nick Cassavetes' John Q (Feb. 15) (released the day after Valentine's Day, ha ha) stars Denzel Washington as disgruntled father John Quincy Archibald, who holds the emergency room of a hospital hostage to force them to give his son a heart transplant; makes Washington the go-to man for crazed killer roles?; stars James Woods as Dr. Raymond Turner, Robert Duvall as Lt. Frank Grimes, and Kimberly Elise as Denise Archibald; does $102M box office on a $36M budget. Kathryn Bigelow's K-19: The Widowmaker (July 19), about the Soviet Union's first nuclear ballistic submarine, which suffers a reactor malfunction in the North Atlantic in 1961 stars Liam Neeson as Capt. Mikhail Polenin, and Harrison Ford as Capt. Alexei Vostrikov. Nanette Burnstein and Brett Morgen's The Kid Stays in the Picture (Jan. 18), based on the 1994 autobio. of famous Paramount producer Robert Evans ("The Godfather", "Rosemary's Babe", "Love Story", "The Odd Couple") stars Evans as himself. Lisa Cholodenko's Laurel Canyon (May 18) (Sony Pictures) stars Christian Bale as new pshrink Sam, Kate Beckinsale as his babe Alex, Frances McDormand as Sam's bi mother Jane, and Natascha McElhone as Sam's other babe Sara in a revolving middle class LA love triangle; does $4.4M box office. Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Dec. 5) (New Line Cinema) continues the J.R.R. Tolkien trilogy; #2 movie of 2002 ($340M U.S. and $926M worldwide box office on a $94M budget). Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black II (July 3) (Columbia Pictures) continues the 1997 saga of Agent J (James Darrell Edward III) (Will Smith), who must restore the memory of retired Agent K (Kevin Brown) (Tommy Lee Jones) to save the world again; co-stars Lara Flynn Boyle as alien queen Serleena, Rip Torn as Chief Zed, Tony Shalhoub as Jack Jeebs, Patrick Warburton as Agent T, and Paige Brooks as Princess Lauranna; features a cameo by Peter Graves; #8 movie of 2002 ($190M U.S. and $441.8M box office on a $140M budget). Brad Silberling's Moonlight Mile (Sept. 27) (Touchstone Pictures) (original titles "Baby's in Black" and "Goodbye Hello"), based on Silberstein's babe Rebecca Schaeffer, who was killed by an obsessed fan in 1989 and set in 1973 stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Joe Nast, whose babe Diana Floss (Careena Melia) was killed in a restaurant in Cape Ann, Mass., and Dustin Hoffman as her father Ben Floss, who go into business as Floss & Son, until Joe finally confesses that he broke up with her three days before her murder; Susan Sarandon plays Diana's mother Jojo; does $10M box office on a $21M budget. Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress (Sept. 14) is a Japanime that debuts Kon's sensory overload capabilities. Steven Speilberg's Minority Report (June 19) (Amblin Entertainment) (20th Cent. Fox) (DreamWorks Pictures), based on a short story by Philip K. Dick about a society that arrests you before you commit the crime, set in 2054 Washington, D.C. stars Tom Cruise as PreCrime Capt. John Anderton, Colin Farrell as DOJ agent Danny Witwer, Samantha Morton as senior precog Agatha Lively, and Max von Sydow as her boss dir. Lamar Burgess; brings in $358.M worldwide box office on a $102M budget. Mark Pellington's The Mothman Prophecies (Jan. 25) (Lakeshore Entertainment), based on the 1975 book by John Keel based on real events in Point Pleasant, W.Va. in Nov. 1966 and Dec. 1967 stars Richard Gere as journalist John Klein, who investigates a dream by Officer Connie Mills (Laura Linney) about a red-eyed flying creature telling her "Wake up, Number 37"; Will Patton plays Gordon Smallwood; does $55.1M box office on a $32M budget. Joel Zwick's My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Aug. 2) written by Nia Vardalos stars her as Fotoula "Toula" Portokalos (Gr. for orange), who marries non-Greek Ian Miller (Gr. for apple) (John Corbett), and must convince her family to accept him; Michael Constantine plays Windex-toting daddy Kostas "Gus" Portokalos, Lainie Kazan plays his wife Maria, Bruce Gray and Fiona Reid play daddy Rodney and mommy Harriet Miller; #5 movie of 2002 ($241M); highest-grossing U.S. movie to never reach #1 at the box office during any weekend. Ismail Merchant's and James Ivory's The Mystic Masseur (Oct. 5), based on the V.S. Naipaul novel, filmed in Trinidad stars Aasif Mandavi as Trinidad teacher Ganesh Ramseyor, who is determined to write a book, moves to Port of Spain, becomes a "mystic masseur" (one who can cure the sick), becomes a star, and goes into politics. Godfrey Reggio's Naqoyqatsi: Life as War is the sequel to "Koyaanisqatsi" (1983) and "Powaqqatsi" (1988). Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth (Sept. 10) (20th Cent. Fox) (delayed until Apr. 4, 2003 due to the Beltway Sniper attacks) stars Colin Farrell as NYC publicist Stuart "Stu" Shepard, who cheats on his wife Kelly (Radha Mitchell) with Pamela McFadden (Katie Holmes), and gets trapped in a you know what by extortionist with a laser rifle Kiefer Sutherland, bringing the NYPD led by Capt. Ed Ramey (Forest Whitaker), and ending in an exciting conclusion with a twist; "A ringing phone has to be answered, doesn't it?"; does $97.8M box office on a $13M budget. Steve Guttenberg's P.S. Your Cat is Dead!, based on the 1972 book by "A Chorus Line" writer James Kirkwood Jr. stars Guttenberg and Lombardo Boyar as loser Jimy Zoole and gay burglar Eddie Tesoro, who become friends. Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love (Nov. 1) stars Adam Sandler as toilet plunger co. owner Barry Egan, and Emily Watson as his babe Lena Leonard, whom he courts while trying to amass frequently-flier miles by buying tons of pudding and frequenting phone-sex hotlines; a box-office flop, but a critical success for Sandler's dark side and range? Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence (Feb. 4), based on the book "Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence" by Doris Pilkington Garimara tells the true story of two mixed-race Aboriginal girls in 1931 Australia who run away from Moore River Native Settlement in Perth and trek for 9 weeks and 1.5K mi. to return to their Aboriginal mother in Jigalong while being tracked by whites; the claim that they were sent to the settlement to "breed out the color" is false, because they were realy removed for having sex with white men? Pamela Cordoso's Real Women Have Curves is the film debut of America Ferrera as a bright East Los Angeles garment worker whose Beverly Hills H.S. teacher Mr. Guzman (George Lopez) coaxes to go to Columbia U. Brett Ratner's Red Dragon (Oct. 4), based on the Thomas Harris novel stars Anthony Hopkins as Dr. Hannibal Lector, Edward Norton as psychic FBI agent Will Graham, and Ralph Fiennes as "Tooth Fairy" Francis Dolarhyde. Gore Verbinski's The Ring (DreamWorks Pictures) (Oct. 18), a remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film "Ring" based on the Koji Suzuki novel stars Naomi Watts and David Dorfman as Rachel and Aidan Keller, who investigate a cursed videotape that kills anybody who views it seven days later; does $249.3M box office on a $48M budget; followed by "The Ring Two" (2005) and "Rings" (2017). Sam Mendes' Road to Perdition (July 12), based on the graphic novel by Max Allan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner stars Tyler Hoechlin as Michael Sullivan Jr., who witnesses what his hit man daddy Michael (Tom Hanks) does for a living. Chuck Russell's The Scorpion King (Apr. 19) stars the Rock (Dwayne Johnson), who receives a record $5.5M for an actor in his first starring role; the Gomorrah Bazaar sequences are filmed on the 1960 Spartacus backlot set at Universal Studios. Harry Gantz and Joe Gantz's Sex with Strangers (Jan.) is a documentary. Lasse Hallstrom's The Shipping News (Jan. 11), based on the Annie Proulx novel stars Kevin Spacey as Quoyle, who had a bad childhood and hates water. M. Night Shyamalan's Signs (Aug. 2) stars Mel Gibson as Rev. Graham Hess, who deals with crop circles and ridiculous water-hating ETs; #6 movie of 2002 ($228M in the U.S., $408M worldwide on a $72M budget). Steven Soderbergh's Solaris (Nov. 29) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 1961 sci-fi novel by Stanislaw Lem and Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 film stars George Clooney as Dr. Chris Klein, who meets his dead wife Rheya (Natascha McElhone) aboard a space station where people working for the DBA Corp. have been dying; does $30M box office on a $47M budget (bad trailers?). Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (May 3), based on the Stan Lee and Steve Ditko comic book char. stars meek sensitive Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, who is turned by a radioactive spider into a superhero; Kirsten Dunst plays his girlfriend Mary Jane Watson; Willem Dafoe plays bad guy Green Goblin AKA Norman Osborn, whose son Harry Osborn (James Franco) is Parker's best friend; Jonathan K. Simmons plays "Daily Bugle" ed. J. Jonah Jameson; does $404M worldwide on a $139M budget; trailers showing the WTC are yanked from theaters. Stuart Baird's Star Trek: Nemesis (Dec. 13) brings the ST:TNG series to a screeching Romulan flopping thud; stars Tom Hardy as Reman Praetor Shinzon; brings in $43M in the U.S. and $67M worldwide on a $60M budget. George Lucas' Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (May 16) featuring Anakin Skywalker and Padme in a forbidden romance, bringing in $311M in the U.S. (#3 in 2002) and $648.3M worldwide. Philip Alden Robinson's The Sum of All Fears (May 31), based on the 1991 Tom Clancy novel stars miscast wet-behind-the-ears Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan, who must stop a nuke from going off during the Super Bowl in Baltimore, then stop the U.S. and Russia from annihilating each other by proving it was done by neo-Nazis; James Cromwell plays pres. Bob Fowler, and Morgan Freeman plays DCI William Cabot; the book is way better since the bad guys are Palestinians and the Red Army Faction, and the nuke goes off in TLW's Denver not Baltimore? Andy Tennant's Sweet Home Alabama (Sept. 27) stars Reese Witherspoon as Southern white trash girl Melanie Smooter, who runs away from her redneck hubby Jake Perry (Josh Lucas) and becomes New York fashion designer socialite Melanie Carmichael, then decides that there's no place like home. Simon Wells' The Time Machine (Mar. 8) stars Guy Pearce as Alexander Hartdegen, and Mark Addy as David Filby in a lame remake of the 1960 classic. Adrian Lyne's Unfaithful (May 10), a remake of the 1969 Claude Chabrol film stars Diane Lane as Connie Sumner, who cheats on faithful hubby Ed (Richard Gere) with young stud Olivier Martinez despite a seemingly happy marriage. Randall Wallace's We Were Soldiers (Mar. 1) (Paramount), based on the 1992 book by Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joseph L. Galloway about the Nov. 14, 1965 Battle of Ia Drang stars Mel Gibson as Moore, Madeleine Stowe as his wife Julia, Sam Elliott as Sgt. Maj. Basil L. Plumiey, and Greg Kinnear as Maj. Bruce P. Crandall; "Custer was a wussy" (Elliott); does $114.7M box office on a $75M budget. Cathy Malkasian and Jeff McGrath's The Wild Thornberrys Movie (Dec. 20) is an animated flick about Debbie and her sister Eliza, who has to give up her power to talk to the animals to save her. Peter Kosminsky's White Oleander (Oct. 11), based on the 1999 novel by Janet Fitch about a girl whose mother's life imprisonment causes her to have to endure numerous foster families stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Ingrid and Alison Lohman as Astrid Magnussen. Plays: Edward Albee (1928-), The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (John Golden Theater, New York) (Mar. 10) (309 perf.); an architect falls in love with a goat; title comes from Shakespeare's "The Two Gentlemen of Verona"; the Broadway debut of Sally Fields. Alan Ayckbourne, Snake in the Grass (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough) (June 5); two middle-aged women return to the house of their dead abusive father. John Breen, Alone It Stands; the 12-0 1978 rugby V by the Irish Munster team over the Kiwi All Blacks. Moira Buffini, Dinner (Nat. Theatre, London) (Oct. 18). Lonnie Carter, The Romance of Magno Rubio (New York) (Oct.); a lovesick Filipino farmworker. Caryl Churchill (1938-), A Number (Sept. 23); human cloning. Christopher Durang (1949-), Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge (City Theater, Pittsburgh) (Nov. 7); "What if Dickens' Mrs. Cratchit wasn't so goody-goody, but instead was an angry, stressed-out modern-day American woman who wanted out of this harsh London 1840s life?" Ben Elton (1959-), We Will Rock You (rock musical) (Dominion Theatre, West End, London) (4,659 perf.); the music of Queen, becoming the longest running musical in West End history (until ?). Nora Ephron (1941-2012), Marvin Hamlisch (1944-2012), and Craig Carnelia (1946-), Imaginary Friends (Ethel Barrymore Theater, New York) (Dec. 12) (76 perf.); Ephron's first play; stars Cherry Jones as Mary McCarthy, and Swoosie Kurtz as Lillian Hellman. David French (1939-), Soldier's Heart; Mercer play #5. Jeremy Gable, Algor Mortis. William Gibson (1914-2008), Golda's Balcony (Shakespeare & Co., Berkshires); a rewrite of his 1977 play "Gilda" to reduce it to a monologue; stars Tovah Feldshuh. Peter Gill, The York Realist (Royal Court Theatre, London) (Jan.); George and John, two English boys in love, played by Lloyd Owen and Richard Coyle. Richard Greenberg, Take Me Out (Joseph Papp Theater, New York) (Sept. 5); gay baseball player Darren Lemming comes out, freaking his fellow players. David Greig, Outlying Islands; two ornithologists in 1939. John Guare (1938-), A Few Stout Individuals. Carrie Hamilton (1963-2002) and Carol Burnett, Hollywood Arms (Goodman Theatre, Chicago) (Apr. 9); based on Burnett' s memoir "One More Time" about Hollywood in 1945-51; her daughter Carrie Hamilton dies on Jan. 20 before the debut. Christopher Hampton (1946-), The Talking Cure. Peter Handke (1942-), Underground Blues. David Hare (1947-), The Breath of Life. Rupert Holmes, Say Goodnight, Gracie (Helen Hayes Theater, New York) (Oct. 10) (364 perf.); stars Frank Gorshin as George Burns, and Didi Conn as the voice of Gracie Allen; Swango (musical); stars Mariela Franganillo and Robert Royston. Tina Howe (1937-), Rembrandt's Gift. Tony Kushner (1956-), Caroline, or Change (musical) (Joseph Papp Theater, New York); Helen (Joseph Papp Theater, New York). Kenneth Lonergan (1962-), Lobby Hero. Steve Martin (1945-), The Underpants (Classic Stage Co., New York) (Apr. 4); based on the 1910 play "Die Hose" by Carl Sternheim (1878-1942). Frank McGuinness (1953-), Gates of Gold (Gate Theatre, Dublin). Mark Medoff (1940-), The Same Life Over. Arthur Miller (1915-2005), Resurrection Blues (Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis) (Aug. 9). Tim O'Malley (1957-), Godshow; autobio. play about his career at Second City in Chicago in the 1990s. March Shaiman (1959-), Scott Wittman (1954-), Mark O'Donnell (1954-2012), and Thomas Meehan (1929-), Hairspray (musical) (Neil Simon Theatre, New York) (Aug. 15) (2,642 perf.); based on the 1988 John Waters film, set in 1962 Baltimore, Md., where obese teenie Tracy Turnblad (Marissa Jaret Winokur) achieves her dream of dancing on The Corny Collins Show (based on The Buddy Deane Show), then launches a campaign to integrate it; Harvey Fierstein plays Tracy's mother Edna, and Linda Hart plays producer Velma Von Tussle; "Broadway's big fat musical comes out". Richard M. Sherman (1928-), Richard B. Sherman (1925-2012), and Jeremy Sams (1957-), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (musical) (London Palladium, West End, London) (Apr. 16) (Lyric Theatre, New York) (Apr. 28, 2005) (285 perf.); based on the 1968 film; dir. by Adrian Noble; choreography by Gillian Lynne; the West End production features the Ł750K flying Chitty car, which becomes the world's most expensive stage prop (until ?), requiring the Palladium's revolving stage to be removed. Simon Stephens (1971-), Port. Tom Stoppard (1937-), The Coast of Utopia (Nat. Theatre, London) (June 22); incl. "Voyage", "Shipwreck", "Salvage", about Russia in 1833-66. August Wilson (1945-2005), Gem of the Ocean (Eugene O'Neill Theater, Waterford, Conn.); first in the 10-play Pittsburgh Cycle; set in 1904 at 1839 Wylie Ave. in Pittsburgh's Hill District; 285-y.-o. matriarch Aunt Ester welcomes Solly Two Kings and Citizen Barlow into her home. Poetry: John Ash (1948-), The Anatolikon. Frank Bidart (1939-), Music Like Dirt (Apr. 15); only poetry chapbook ever nominated for a Pulitzer Prize? Caroline Bird (1987-), Spilt Milk. Turner Cassity (1929-2009), No Second Eden (Oct. 31); incl. "A Member of the Mystik Krewe", "The Metrist at the Operetta", "Stylization and Its Failures", and "WTC"; "Against the best advice, We put up Babel twice." Billy Collins (1941-), Nine Horses. Michael Crummey (1965-), Salvage (Mar. 26). Carl Dennis (1939-), Practical Gods (Pulitzer Prize). Jorie Graham (1950-), Never. Donald Hall Jr. (1928-), The Painted Bed (Apr. 11). Michael S. Harper (1938-), Selected Poems. Elizabeth Jennings (1926-2001), New Collected Poems (posth.) (Apr. 2). Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), The Second Space. Sharon Olds (1942-), The Unswept Room. Mary Oliver (1935-), What Do We Know. Linda Pastan (1932-), The Last Uncle. John Ross (1938-2011), Against Amnesia. Philip Schultz (1945-), The Holy Worm of Praise. Gerald Stern (1925-), American Sonnets. James Tate (1943-), Memoir of the Hawk. David Wagoner (1926-), The House of Song. Charles Wright (1935-), A Short History of the Shadow. Robert Wilson (1941-), Richard Strauss' Die Frau Ohne Schatten (Opera Bastille, Paris). Robert Wilson (1941-) and Tom Waits (1949-), George Buchner's Woyzeck. Novels: Brian Aldiss (1925-), Super-State. Isabel Allende (1942-), City of the Beasts. Gwenaelle Aubry (1971-), The Detached (L'Isolée); about prisoner Margot, distant sister of Florence Rey, and her love for Peter. Louis Auchincloss (1917-), Manhattan Monologues (short stories). Jean Marie Auel (1936-), The Shelters of Stone (Apr. 30); Earth's Children #5; Ayala and Jondalar in the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii. Paul Benjamin Auster (1947-), The Book of Illusions. Richard Bach (1936-), The Ferret Chronicles (2002-3). Clive Barker (1952-), Abarat; first of the Abarat Quintet. Alonso Sanchez Baute, To Hell with the Goddamn Spring; turned into a play by Colombian dir. Jorge Ali Triana in 2004. Greg Bear (1951-), Vitals; about scientist Hal Cousins, who seeks immortality. Ann Beattie (1947-), The Doctor's House. Maeve Binchy (1940-), Quentins. Barbara Taylor Bradford (1933-), Three Weeks in Paris (Feb.). David Brin (1950-), Kiln (Kil'n) People. Anita Brookner (1928-), The Bay of Angels. Rita Mae Brown (1944-), Alma Mater. James Lee Burke (1936-), Jolie Blon's Bounce; White Doves at Morning. A.S. Byatt (1936-), A Whistling Woman. Christopher Buckley (1952-), No Way to Treat a First Lady. James Lee Burke (1936-), White Doves at Morning. Robert Olen Butler (1945-), Fair Warning. Jonathan Carroll, White Apples; Chaos personified sets out to control the world, and all that stands in his way is the unborn child Anjo. Stephen L. Carter (1955-), The Emperor of Ocean Park (first novel); black univ. pres. Lemaster Carlyle, his divinity school dean wife Julia and daughter Vanessa in Conn., and a black judge tarnished by confirmation hearings; sells it for a $1M advance; "not a roman-a-clef on Yale University". Tom Clancy (1947-2013), Red Rabbit. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-), Daddy's Little Girl. Andrei Codrescu (1946-), Cananova in Bohemia. J.M. Coetzee (1940-), Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II (fictional autobio.). Jackie Collins (1937-), Deadly Embrace; sequel to "Lethal Seduction". Pat Conroy (1945-), My Losing Season; autobio. novel about his senior season as starting point guard on the Citadel basketball team in 1966-7 and its 8-17 record. Catherine Cookson (1906-98), Silent Lady (posth.). Robert Coover (1932-), The Adventures of Lucky Pierre (Director's Cut). Michael Crichton (1942-2008), Prey. Justin Cronin, Mary and O'Neil (first novel). John Crowley (1942-), The Translator. Mitch Cullin, UnderSurface. Marie Darrieussecq (1969-), The Baby (Le Bébé); autobio. novel about her new baby, complaining of the lack of babies as subjects in lit. Margaret Drabble (1939-), The Seven Sisters. Dave Eggers, You Shall Know Our Velocity (Sept.). Jeffrey Eugenides (1960-), Middlesex (Pulitzer Prize); 41-y.-o. Greek-Am. hermaphrodite Cal Stephanides AKA Calliope; "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." Jonathan Safran Foer (1977-), Everything Is Illuminated (first novel) (Apr.). Ken Follett (1949-), Hornet Flight. Michael Frayn (1933-), Spies. Bruce Jay Friedman (1930-), Violencia! A Musical Novel (Jan. 9); NY homicide dept. clerk Paul Gurney quits his job to write a musical play about a homicide dept. Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012), The Eagle's Throne; a future world where everybody wants to be president; U.S. Pres. Condoleezza Rice in 2020? William Gaddis (1922-98), Agape Agape (last work) (posth.); The Rush for Second Place (posth.). Julia Glass (1956-), Three Junes (first novel); bestseller about Scotman Paul McLeod and his three grown sons, incl. gay Greenwich Village bookstore owner Fenno and his buds Malachy Burns, Tony and Mal, and Fern Olitsky. Nadine Gordimer (1923-), The Pickup; white Julie Summers and Arab immigrant Abdu. Winston Graham (1908-2003), Bella Poldark; #12 (last) in the Poldark Saga (begun 1945). John Grisham (1955-), The Summons. Denis Guedj, The Parrot's Theorem (first novel); Parisian bookseller Pierre Ruch, his colleague Elgar Grosrouvre, and a math-savvy parrot. Pete Hamill (1935-), Forever. Laurell K. Hamilton, Narcissus in Chains; Anita Blake, an erotic federal marshal who specializes in hunting vampires? Everette Lynn Harris (1955-2009), Any Way the Wind Blows. Adam Haslett (1970-), You Are Not a Stranger Here (short stories) (debut). Aleksandar Hemon (1964-), Nowhere Man. Patricia Highsmith (1921-95), Nothing That Meets the Eye: The Uncollected Stories (posth.). Oscar Hijuelos (1951-), A Simple Habana Melody. Tony Hillerman (1925-), The Wailing Wind. Russell Hoban (1925-), The Bat Tattoo. Townsend Hoopes (1922-2004), A Textured Web. Denis Johnson (1949-), Train Dreams. Ward Just (1935-), The Weather in Berlin. Thomas Keneally (1935-), An Angel in Australia (Office of Innocence). John Kessel (1950-), Stories for Men. Elias Khoury (1948-), Yalo. Sue Monk Kidd (1948-), The Secret Life of Bees (first novel); set in 1964 during the passage of the U.S. Civil Rights Act; filmed in 2008. Dean Koontz (1945-), By the Light of the Moon in Dec. Judith Krantz (1928-), Scruples 2; sequel to 1978 book. Nicole Krauss (1974-), Man Walks Into a Room (first novel). Deborah Larsen, The White; about Mary Jemison, kidnapped in Penn. by Indians in 1758. Brad Leithauser (1953-), Darlington's Fall: A Novel in Verse. Jeffrey Lent, Lost Nation; mysterious rogue Blood in 19th cent. N N.H. Elmore Leonard (1925-), When the Women Come Out to Dance (short stories); Tishomingo Blues. Eric Maisel (1947-), The Van Gogh Blues. Bobbie Ann Mason (1940-), Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail (short stories). Colleen McCullough (1937-), The October Horse (Nov. 7); Masters of Rome #6; Julius Caesar's last years and the rise of Octavian. Alice McDermott (1953-), Child of My Heart. Thomas McGuane (1939-), The Cadence of Grass. Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, The Nanny Diaries. Larry McMurtry (1936-), All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers; novelist Danny Deck; Paradise. Stanley Middleton (1919-2009), Love in the Provinces. Anchee Min (1957-), Wild Ginger. Susan Minot (1956-), Rapture. David Mitchell (1969-), Numer9Dream. Minae Mizumura, A Real Novel; Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights" reset in post-WWII Japan. Christopher Moore (1957-), Lamb: The Gospel Accoding to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. Richard K. Morgan (1965-), Altered Carbon; cyberpunk novel starring antihero Takeshi Kovacs, about the 26th cent., in which dead people can have their cortical stacks downloaded into new bodies (sleeves), except for Catholics, who believe their soul goes to Heaven, making them targets for murder. David Morrell (1943-), Long Lost. Sir John Mortimer (1923-2009), Rumple and the Primrose Path. Walter Mosley (1952-), Bad Boy Brawly Brown; Easy Rawlins #7. Haruki Murakami (1949-), Kafka on the Shore; the Oedipal quest; English trans. 2005. Bill Neugent, No Outward Sign. Heidi Neumark (1954-), Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx; Lutheran minister welcomes LBGTs, and decides it's okay to use non-gender names for God. Joyce Carol Oates (1938-), I'll Take You There. Tim O'Brien (1946-), July, July. Stewart O'Nan (1961-), Wish You Were Here. Simon J. Ortiz (1941-), Out There Somewhere. Amos Oz (1939-), A Tale of Love and Darkness; autobio. novel; English trans. 2004. Chuck Palahniuk (1962-), Lullaby. Robert Brown Parker (1932-2010), Widow's Walk; Spenser #29; Shrink Rap; Sunny Randall #3. James Patterson (1947-), 2nd Chance. Arthur Phillips (1969-), Prague (first novel); Budapest students view going to Prague like the aging boomers of "The Big Chill" view idealism? Jodi Picoult (1966-), Perfect Match. Steven Pressfield (1943-), Last of the Amazons; King Thesus of Athens sails to their island. Reynolds Price (1933-), Noble Norfleet. Michael Punke (1964-), The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge; Am. frontiersman Hugh Glass in 1823 Missouri Territory is mauled by a bear and left for dead by his companions, causing him to go on a revenge tour; filmed in 2015 by Alejandro G. Inarritu. Anne Rice (1941-), Blackwood Farm; #9 in the Vampire Chronicles; Tarquin "Quinn" Blackwood. Kim Stanley Robinson (1952-), The Years of Rice and Salt; an alternate world where almost everybody in Europe dies in the 14th cent. Black Death, allowing the non-Euros incl. the Chinese and the Muslims to share the world. Joel C. Rosenberg (1967-), The Last Jihad (first novel); allegedly written 9 mo. before 9/11, about Islamic terrorists hijacking a jet and using it to attack a U.S. city, leading to a war with Saddam Hussein. Richard Russo (1949-), The Whore's Child and Other Stories. Karl Schroeder (1962-), Pemanence. Alice Sebold (1962-), The Lovely Bones (first novel); bestseller about a raped and murdered teen girl who watches from heaven; "My name is Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie, I was 14 when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." Hubert Selby Jr. (1928-2004), Waiting Period. Mary Lee Settle (1918-2005), I, Roger Williams. Jeffrey Shaara (1952-), The Glorious Cause; 1776-83 U.S. Akhil Sharma, An Obedient Father (first novel). Anita Shreve (1946-), Sea Glass. Dan Simmons (1948-), A Winter Haunting; Worlds Enough & Time (short stories). John Thomas Sladek (1937-2000), Maps (posth.); ed. David Langford. Lee Smith (1944-), The Last Girls. Zadie Smith (1975-), The Autograph Man; Jewish-Chinese Londoner Alex Li Tandem. Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006), Little Casino. Nicholas Sparks (1965-), Nights in Rodanthe (Sept.). Danielle Steel (1947-), The Cottage; Sunset in St. Tropez; Answered Prayers. David Storey (1933-), As It Happened. Whitley Strieber (1945-), Lilith's Dream. Brad Thor (1969-), The Lions of Lucerne (first novel); ex-Navy SEAL Secret Service agent Scot Harvath rescues the U.S. pres. after he is kidnapped. Colm Toibin (1955-), Lady Gregory's Lightship. Simon Tolkien (1959-), The Stepmother (Final Witness); by J.R.R. Tolkien's grandson. Barry Unsworth (1930-2012), The Songs of the Kings. Vernor Vinge (1944-), Fast Times at Fairmont High. Bruce Alan Wagner (1954-), I'll Let You Go; #2 in the Cellular Trilogy. Jill Paton Walsh and Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), A Presumption of Death; yet another Lord Peter Wimsey novel. Chris Ware, Jim Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth (graphic novel). Irvine Welsh (1958-), Porno; sequel to "Trainspotting" (1983); 10 years later they make a porno movie. Paul West (1930-), A Fifth of November. Stephen White (1951-), Warning Signs (Mar.). Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism and Political Change in Egypt. Richard Yates (1926-92), The Collected Stories of Richard Yates (posth.). Births: Am. dangling celeb kid Prince Michael Jackson II (Michael Joseph Jackson) (AKA Blanket) on Feb. 22; son of Michael Jackson and ?. Russian figure skater Alina Ilnazovna Zagitova on May 18 in Izhevsk, Udmurtia; of Tatar descent; named after Russian gymnast Alina Kabaeva; grows up in Moscow. Deaths: Am. world's oldest person (since June 2001) Maud Davis Farris-Luse (b. 1887) on Mar. 18 in Coldwater, Mich. Am. film editor Margaret Booth (b. 1898) on Oct. 28 in Los Angeles, Calif. English Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mum (b. 1900) on Mar. 30 in Royal Lodge, Windsor; dies in her sleep at age 101. German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (b. 1900) on Mar. 13 in Heidelberg; French philosopher Jacques Derrida writes his obit., expressing their past failure to find common ground as one of the worst debacles of his life, but expressing respect?: "I basically only read books that are over 2,000 years old"; "In fact history does not belong to us, but we belong to it"; "The self-awareness of the individual is only a flickering in the closed circuits of historical life." English novelist Angela du Maurier (b. 1904) on Feb. 5 in Wandsworth, London. Am. "Nancy Drew" novelist Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson (b. 1905) on May 28. Sicilian-born Am. crime boss Joe Bonanno (b. 1905) on May 12 in Tucson, Ariz. (heart failure). Austrian-born Am. biochemist Erwin Chargaff (b. 1905) on June 20 in New York City. Dominican Repub. pres. (1960-2, 1966-78, 1986-96) Joaquin Balaguer (b. 1906) on July 14 in Santo Domingo. English novelist Winifred Watson (b. 1906) on Aug. 5 in Newcastle, Tyne and Wear. Austrian-born Am. "Some Like It Hot" do-it-all filmmaker Billy Wilder (b. 1906) on Mar. 27 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (pneumonia): made 60 films in 50+ years; his headstone reads "I'm a writer but then nobody's perfect"; "Hindsight is 20/20"; "Of the [Hollywood] Ten, two had talent, and the rest were just unfriendly." Swedish "Pippi Longstocking" children's writer Astrid Lindgren (b. 1907) on Jan. 28 in Stockholm; sold 140M+ books worldwide. Am. TV Guide publisher Walter Hubert Annenberg (b. 1908) on Oct. 1 in Wynnewood, Penn.: "Education holds civilization together." Am. entertainer "Mr. Television" Milton Berle (b. 1908) on Mar. 27 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer); Dudley Moore and Billy Wilder die the same day, causing Tony Randall to call it "the Day Comedy Died". Am. "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" writer Dee Alexander Brown (b. 1908) on Dec. 12 in Little Rock, Ark. Am. artist Charles Henri Ford (b. 1908) on Sept. 27 in New York City. Am. jazz bandleader Lionel Hampton (b. 1908) on Aug. 31 in New York City (heart failure). Canadian-Armenian photographer Yousuf Karsh (b. 1908) on July 13 in Boston, Mass. Am. TV exec Pat Weaver (b. 1908) on Mar. 15 in Santa Barbara, Calif. German journalist Countess Marion Doenhoff (b. 1909) on Mar. 11. Am. astronomer Jesse Leonard Greenstein (b. 1909) on Oct. 21. Am. Mormon fundamentalist leader Rulon Jeffs (b. 1909) on Sept. 8 in St. George, Utah. Am. psychologist Neal Elgar Miller (b. 1909) on Mar. 23. English novelist William Cooper (b. 1910) on Sept. 5. Am. novelist Harriet Doerr (b. 1910) on Nov. 24 in Pasadena, Calif. Am. Lawrence Welk Show conductor George Cates (b. 1911) on May 12 in Santa Monica, Calif. Austrian-Am. cybernetics scientist Heinz von Foerster (b. 1911) on Oct. 2 in Pescadero, Calif. Am. "Inspector Frank Luger in Barney Miller" actor James Gregory (b. 1911) on Sept. 16 in Sedona, Ariz. Chilean painter Roberto Matta (b. 1911) on Nov. 23 in Civitavecchia, Italy. Am. radio astronomy pioneer Grote Reber (b. 1911) on Dec. 20 in Hobart, Tasmania. Am. physicist Lyle Benjamin Borst (b. 1912) on July 30 in Williamsville, N.Y. Am. black Air Force gen. #1 Benjamin Oliver Davis Jr. (b. 1912) on July 4 in Washington, D.C. Am. "Dr. Zachary Smith in Lost in Space" actor Jonathan Harris (b. 1914) on Nov. 3 in Encino, Calif. (blood clot). Am. Common Cause founder John William Gardner (b. 1912) on Feb. 16 in Palo Alto, Calif. (cancer): "Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." Am. Jolly Rancher candy manufacturer Bill Harmsen (b. 1912) on Apr. 10 in Wheat Ridge, Colo. (prostate cancer). Am. golfer Sam Snead (b. 1912) on May 23 in Hot Springs, Va.; won seven majors, incl. three Masters, three PGA championships, and one British Open, but no U.S. Open; four 2nd place finishes; won the Greater Greensboro Open 8x. Austrian-born Am. economist Wolfgang Friedrich Stolper (b. 1912) on Mar. 31 in Ann Arbor, Mich. Peruvian pres. #85 (1963-8) and #88 (1980-5) Fernando Belaunde Terry (b. 1912) on June 4 in Lima. Am. writer Norman Oliver Brown (b. 1913) in Santa Cruz, Calif. Am. convicted liar CIA dir. (1966-73) Richard M. Helms (b. 1913) on Oct. 23. Am. ecologist Eugene Odum (b. 1913) on Aug. 10 in Athens, Ga. Am. legal scholar Eugene V. Rostow (b. 1913) on Nov. 25. Am. studio exec Lew Wasserman (b. 1913) on June 3 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Am. "Mayer Stoner in The Andy Griffith Show" actor Parley Baer (b. 1914) on Nov. 22 in Los Angeles, Calif. (stroke). Am. Heisman Trophy winner #1 (1935) Jay Berwanger (b. 1914) on June 26 in Oak Brook, Ill. Am. "Tom Chaney in True Grit" actor Jeff Corey (b. 1914) on Aug. 16 in Santa Monica, Calif. (lung cancer). Am. "Singin' in the Rain" lyricist-screenwriter Adolph Green (b. 1914) on Oct. 23. Norwegian "Kon-Tiki" explorer Thor Heyerdahl (b. 1914) on Apr. 18 in Colla Micheri, Italy (brain cancer). English theatrical dir. Joan Maud Littlewood (b. 1914) on Sept. 20 in London. Austrian-born British biochemist Max Perutz (b. 1914) on Feb. 6 in Cambridge; 1962 Nobel Chem. Prize. Indian guru Satchidananda Saraswati (b. 1914) on Aug. 19 in Tamil Nadu. Am. TV journalist Howard K. Smith (b. 1914) on Feb. 15 in Bethesda, Md. (pneumonia). British "Firewalker", "St. Ives" dir. J. Lee Thompson (b. 1914) on Aug. 30 in Sooke, B.C., Canada (heart failure). Am. JFK conspiracy theorist Harold Weisberg (b. 1914) on Feb. 21 in Frederick, Del. Am. "Roy Walley in National Lampoon's Vacation" actor Eddie Bracken (b. 1915) on Nov. 14 in Montclair, N.J. South African-born Israeli statesman Abba Eban (b. 1915) on Nov. 17 near Tel Aviv. Am. 1-armed baseball player Pete Gray (b. 1915) on June 30 in Nanticoke, Penn. British economic historian Sir John Habakkuk (b. 1915) on Nov. 3 in Chew Stoke, Somerset (renal failure and myelodysplasia). Swedish "Garbo replacement" actress Signe Hasso (b. 1915) on June 7 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. comic book writer Robert Kanigher (b. 1915) on May in Fishkill, N.Y. Am. sculptor Robert Lippold (b. 1915) on Aug. 22 in Roslyn, N.Y. Am. judge Mildred Lillie (b. 1915) on Oct. 27 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. folklorist Alan Lomax (b. 1915) on July 19 in Safety Harbor, Fla. English Liberal politician Michael Young (b. 1915) on Jan. 14. Am. writer Bruce Bliven Jr. (b. 1916) on Jan. 2 in Manhattan, N.Y. Spanish writer Camilo Jose Cela (b. 1916) on Jan. 17 in Madrid (heart failure). English anthropologist John Desmond Clark (b. 1916) on Feb. 14 in Oakland, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. Barbie doll inventor Ruth Handler (b. 1916) on Apr. 27 in Los Angeles, Calif. (colon cancer). Am. Los Angeles Lakers announcer Chick Hearn (b. 1916) on Aug. 5 in Encino, Calif. (fall at home). English "Dial M for Murder" playwright Frederick Knott (b. 1916) on Dec. 17 in New York City. Am. gov. #36 (1963-73) John Arthur Love (b. 1916) on Jan. 21 in Aurora, Colo. Russian-born French historian-novelist Zoe B. Oldenbourg (b. 1916). German map designer Arno Peters (b. 1916) on Dec. 2 in Bremen. Australian-born Soviet physicist Alexander M. Prokhorov (b. 1916) on Jan. 8 in Moscow; 1964 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. folk singer Ola Belle Reed (b. 1916) on Aug. 16. Spanish journalist Jose Ortega Spottorno (b. 1916) on Feb. 18 in Madrid (cancer); son of Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955). Am. scholar Richard Warrington Baldwin Lewis (b. 1917) on June 13 in Bethany, Conn.; uses a typewriter to the end. Am. writer Walter Lord (b. 1917) on May 19 in New York City (Parkinson's). Canadian scientist Baldur Rosmund Stefansson (b. 1917) on Jan. 3. U.S. secy. of state #57 (1977-80) Cyrus Vance (b. 1917) on Jan. 12 in New York City. Am. diplomat lt. gen. Vernon A. Walters (b. 1917) on Feb. 10 in West Palm Beach, Fla. U.S. Supreme Court justice #93 (1962-93) Byron Raymond "Whizzer" White (b. 1917) on Apr. 15 in Denver, Colo. English dir. Stuart Burge (b. 1918) on Jan. 24. Am. writer William Dufty (b. 1918) on June 28 in Birmingham, Mich. (cancer). Hungarian-born English producer-writer Martin Julius Esslin (b. 1918) on Feb. 24. Am. "Det. Chin Ho Kelly" actor Kam Fong (b. 1918) on Oct. 18 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Am. columnist Esther Pauline Lederer (AKA Ann Landers) (b. 1918) on June 22 (multiple myeloma). Swiss historian Herbert Luethy b. 1918) on Nov. 16 in Basel. Am. actress Peggy Moran (b. 1918) on Oct. 24 in Camarillo, Calif. Saudi businessman Saulaiman Saleh Olayan (b. 1918) on July 4. Am. baseball star Ted Williams (b. 1918) on July 5 in Inverness, Fla. (heart failure); last ML player to bat over .400 (.406 in 1941) until ?. Am. environmentalist Raymond Fredric Dasmann (b. 1919) on Nov. 5. Canadian climatologist Kenneth Hare (b. 1919) on Sept. 3: "The Puritan through life's sweet garden goes to pluck the thorn and cast away the rose." Am. "Star Trek: TOS" dir.-producer-writer John Meredyth Lucas (b. 1919) on Oct. 19 in Newport Beach, Calif. Am. historian Eric Louis McKitrick (b. 1919) on Apr. 24 in New York City. Am. "Cyrus Redblock in Star Trek: TNG" tough guy actor Lawrence Tierney (b. 1919) on Feb. 26 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. banker Arthur Altschul Sr. (b. 1920) on Mar. 17. German Adolf Hitler's secy. Traudl Junge (b. 1920) on Feb. 10 in Munich (cancer). Am. "Fever" singer-songwriter Peggy Lee (b. 1920) on Jan. 21 (heart attack). Puerto Rican-born Am. "Pepino Garcia in The Real McCoys" actor Tony Martinez (b. 1920) on Sept. 16 in Las Vegas, Nev. Australian "Rumpole of the Bailey" actor Leo McKern (b. 1920) on July 23 in Bath, Somerset, England. Am. "Aunt Esther in Sanford and Son" actress LaWanda Page (b. 1920) on Sept. 14 in Hollywood, Calif. (heart attack): "I'm nervous as a whore in a church." English chemist George Porter (b. 1920) on Aug. 31; 1967 Nobel Chem. Prize. German violinist Helmut Zacharias (b. 1920) on Feb. 28 in Tessin, Switzerland. Am. actor John Agar (b. 1921) on Apr. 7 in Burbank, Calif. (emphysema). Am. actor George Nader (b. 1921) on Feb. 4 in Woodland Hills, Calif. (cardio-pulmonary failure). Am. philosopher John Rawls (b. 1921) on Nov. 24. Am. R&B singer Billy Ward (b. 1921) on Feb. 16 in Inglewood, Calif. Am. fashion designer Bill Blass (b. 1922) on June 12 in New Preston, Conn. (throat cancer); leaves a $52M estate. Am. playwright Vinnette Carroll (b. 1922) on Nov. 5 in Lauderhill, Fla. (heart failure). Am. publisher Ira Eaker (b 1922) on June 26 in Tamarac, Fla. Am. "Butterflies Are Free" playwright Leonard Gershe (b. 1922) on Mar. 9 in Beverley Hills, Calif. (stroke). Am. sci-fi writer Damon Knight (b. 1922). French-born "Do You Hear What I Hear?" songwriter (b. 1922) on Nov. 22 in Brewster, N.Y. (Pick's disease). Am. peace activist Philip Berrigan (b. 1923) on Dec. 6 in Baltimore, Md. (cancer). Am. Chicago mayor #39 (1976-9) Michael Anthony Bilandic (b. 1923) on Jan. 25 in Chicago, Ill. (heart failure). Am. novelist Thomas Flanagan (b. 1923) on Mar. 21 in Berkeley, Calif. German-born Israeli gun designer Uzi Gal (b. 1923) on Sept. 7 (cancer); buried on Mt. Carmel, Israel. Dutch brewery magnate Freddy Heineken (b. 1923) on Jan. 3 in Noordwijk (pneumonia); net worth: 9.5B Dutch guilders. Australian writer Dorothy Hewett (b. 1923) on Aug. 25 near Sydney (breast cancer). Austrian photographer Inge Morath (b. 1923) on Jan. 30 in New York City (cancer). Am. Pop Art pioneer Larry Rivers (b. 1923) on Aug. 14. French mathematician Rene Thom (b. 1923) on Oct. 25 in Burs-sur-Yvette. Scottish serial murderer Archibald Thomson Hall (b. 1924) on Sept. 16 in Kingston Prison, Portsmouth, England (stroke). Am. Vail Ski Resort founder Pete Seibert (b. 1924) on July 25 in Vail, Colo. (esophageal cancer). Am. RISC computer scientist John Cocke (b. 1925) on July 16 in Valhalla, N.Y. Am. singer Alan Dale (b. 1925) on Apr. 20 in New York City. German actress-singer-writer Hildegard Knef (b. 1925) on Feb. 1 in Berlin (emphysema). Am. poet-playwright Kenneth Koch (b. 1925) on July 6. Am. "The Pawnbroker", "In the Heat of the Night" actor Rod Steiger (b. 1925) on July 9. Am. "Mrs. B. in Hazel" actress Whitney Blake (b. 1926) on Sept. 28 in Edgartown, Mass. (cancer). Am. jazz musician Ray Brown (b. 1926) on July 2 in Indianapolis, Ind. British sci-fi writer Richard Cowper (b. 1926) on Apr. 29. Am. auto racer Pat Flaherty (b. 1926) on Apr. 9. Am. novelist Wallace Markfield (b. 1926) on May 24 in Roslyn, N.Y. Am. aphorist Mason Cooley (b. 1927) on July 25: "The educated do not share a common body of information but a common state of mind"; "Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble-making individual." Argentine biochemist Cesar Milstein (b. 1927) on Mar. 24 in Cambridge, England (heart failure); 1984 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. singer Rosemary Clooney (b. 1928) on June 29 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (lung cancer). Am. actor James Coburn (b. 1928) on Nov. 18 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Am. R&B singer-songwriter Rosco Gordon (b. 1928) on July 11 in Queens, N.Y. (heart attack). Am. football hall-of-fame player Dick "Night Train" Lane (b. 1928) on Jan. 29. Am. "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" actress Irish McCalla (b. 1928) on Feb. 1. Am. football player-announcer Kyle Rote (b. 1928) on Aug. 15 in Baltimore, Md. Am. geophysicist Gordon J.F. MacDonald (b. 1929) on May 14. Am. "The Chosen" novelist Chaim Potok (b. 1929) on July 23 in Merion, Penn. (brain cancer). Dutch computer scientist Edsger Wybe Dijkstra (b. 1930) on Aug. 6 in Nuenen. Canadian novelist Timothy Findley (b. 1930) on June 21 in Brignoles, France. Am. "The Manchurian Candidate" film dir. John Frankenheimer (b. 1930) on July 6 in Los Angeles, Calif. (stroke); no nominations for best dir. Oscar. English Princess Margaret (b. 1930) on Feb. 9 in London. Am. basketball player-coach Richie Regan (b. 1930) on Dec. 24 in Neptune, N.J. Japanese-born Am. physicist Bunji Sakata (b. 1930) on Aug. 31 in Japan (cancer). Japanese graphic designer Ikko Tanaka (b. 1930) on Jan. 10. Am. football player (first black QB in the NFL) Willie Thrower (b. 1930) on Feb. 20 in New Kensington, Penn. (heart attack). Am. TV executive/sports producer Roone Arledge (b. 1931) on Dec. 5 in Southampton, N.Y. (prostate cancer). Scottish skiffle musician Lonnie Donegan (b. 1931) on Nov. 3 in Market Deeping, Lincolnshire, England. Am. "Red Sky at Morning" novelist Richard Bradford (b. 1932) on Mar. 23 in Santa Fe, N.M. English "My Week with Marilyn" filmmaker Colin Clark (b. 1932) on Dec. 17 in London. Am. "Dragon's Egg" novelist Robert Lull Forward (b. 1932) on Sept. 21 in Seattle, Wash. (cancer). Am. novelist Lois Gould (b. 1932) on May 29 in Manhattan, N.Y. Soviet cosmonaut Nikolai Rukavishnikov (b. 1932) on Oct. 19 in Moscow. Am. Wendy's Old Fashion Hamburgers founder Dave Thomas (b. 1932) on Jan. 8 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. Irish "Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter" actor Richard Harris (b. 1933) on Oct. 25 in London. Am. white supremacist leader William Luther Pierce III (b. 1933) on July 23 in Mill Point, W. Va. (cancer): "Jews control all the major news media." Am. football hall-of-fame QB Johnny Unitas (b. 1933) on Sept. 11 in Lutherville-Timonium, Md. Am. Hillside Strangler serial murderer Angelo Anthony Buono Jr. (b. 1934) on Sept. 21 in Calipatria State Prison, Calif. Am. writer Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (b. 1934) on Apr. 24 in Manhattan, N.Y. (COPD from smoking). Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi (b. 1934) on Feb. 22 in Lucusse (KIA in battle with Angolan govt. troops). Am. poet John Wieners (b. 1934) on Mar. 1 in Boston, Mass. English "10" actor Dudley Moore (b. 1935) on Mar. 27 in Plainfield, N.J. (progressive supranuclear palsy); last words: "I can hear the music all around me." Am. "Band of Brothers" historian Stephen Edward Ambrose (b. 1936) on Oct. 13 in Bay St. Louis, Miss. (lung cancer). Am. "The Coasters" singer Billy Guy (b. 1936) on Nov. 5. Am. folk singer Dave Van Ronk (b. 1936) on Feb. 10 in New York City. Am. country singer Waylon Jennings (b. 1937) on Feb. 13 in Chandler, Ariz. diabetes). Palestinian Arab terrorist Abu Nidal (b. 1937) on Aug. 16 in Baghdad, Iraq (assassinated on the orders of Saddam Hussein). Am. "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" writer Clark Gesner (b. 1938) on July 23 in New York City. Am. philosopher Robert Nozick (b. 1938) on Jan. 23. Am. "Teflon Don" John Gotti (b. 1940) on June 10 in Springfield, Mo. (cancer); dies in a prison hospital. Am. "Hey Joe", "Morning Dew" singer Tim Rose (b. 1940) on Sept. 24 in London, England (heart attack). Am. basketball player Jim Barnes (b. 1941) on Sept. 14 in Silver Spring, Md. Am. evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould (b. 1941) on May 20 in New York City (cancer) - evolution explains cancer? South African-born British explorer Charles Robert Burton (b. 1942) on July 15 in Framfield, Sussex (heart attack). Am. sprinter and football-hall-of-fame player Bob Hayes (b. 1942) on Sept. 18 in Jacksonville, Fla. (kidney failure). Am. Olympic hurdler Willie Davenport (b. 1943) on June 17 in Chicago's O'Haire Internat. Airport (heart attack). Am. film dir. Bruce Paltrow (b. 1943) on Oct. 3 in Rome, Italy (cancer); dies while celebrating his daughter Gwyneth's 30th birthday. English rock bassist (The Who) John Entwistle (b. 1944) on June 27 in Las Vegas, Nev. U.S. Sen. (D-Minn.) (1991-2002) Paul David Wellstone (b. 1944) on Oct. 2 (10:22 a.m.) in Eveleth, Minn. (airplane crash). Am. political scientist Richard McKelvey (b. 1944) on ?. Canadian-born Am. JDL chmn. (1985-2002) Irv Rubin (b. 1945) on Nov. 13 in Los Angeles (suicide); dies in jail while awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to bomb govt. and private property. English historian Roy Porter (b. 1946) on Mar. 3. Am. "Three Dog Night" bassist Joe Schermie (b. 1946) on Mar. 25 (heart attack). Am. "Spenser: For Hire", "Bob in Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice" actor Robert Urich (b. 1946) on Apr. 16 (cancer). Am. sci-fi novelist George Alec Effinger (b. 1947) on Apr. 27 in New Orleans, La. Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn (b. 1948) on May 6 in Hilversum (murdered). A. "Get Christie Love!" actress-singer Teresa Graves (b. 1948) on Oct. 10 in Los Angeles, Calif.; dies in a house fire. Am. "Deep Throat" porn star turned anti-porn activist Linda Lovelace (b. 1949) on Apr. 22 in Denver, Colo. (automobile accident). Russian politician lt. gen. Alexander Lebed (b. 1950) on Apr. 28 in Sayan Mountains (Mi-8 heli crash). English "The Clash" punk rocker John Graham Mellor (Joe Strummer) (b. 1952) on Dec. 22 in Broomfield, Somerset (heart attack). Am. fashion photographer Herb Ritts (b. 1952) on Dec. 26 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pneumonia from AIDS). Am. basketball player Phil Smith (b. 1952) on July 29 in Escondido, Calif. (cancer). Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Vasyutin (b. 1952) on July 19 (cancer). Am. football center Mike Webster (b. 1952) on Sept. 24 in Pittsburgh, Penn.; becomes the first NFL player to be diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) by Nigerian-born Am. forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Ifeakandu Omalu (1968-); the NFL tries a coverup by claiming he died of a heart attack until 4K former NFL players sue the NFL in 2011, and they reach a $765M settlement on Aug. 30, 2013, followed by a final settlement on Apr 22, 2015, requiring $75M for medical exams, $10M for R&D, and no limit for damages; in Sept. 2015 the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs and Boston U. announce that they found CTE in 96% of NFL players and 79% of all football players; in 2015 the film Concussion starring Will Smith as Omalu is released. Cuban Santerian priest Baba Raul Canizares (b. 1955) on Dec. 28. Am. serial murderer Aileen Wuornos (b. 1956) on Oct. 9 in Fla. State Prison, Bradford County, Fla. (executed by lethal injection). Am. actress-playwright Carrie Hamilton (b. 1963) on Jan. 20 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). Am. "Alice in Chains" lead singer Layne Staley (b. 1967) on Apr. 5 in Seattle, Wash. (OD) (same day of the year as Kurt Cobain). South African cricketer Hansie Cronje (b. 1969).
2003 Chinese Year: Black Ram (Sheep) (Goat) (Feb. 1) (lunar year 4700). Time Person of the Year: The U.S. Soldier. This is the first year of the 21st cent. that is a prime number. The U.N. declares this the Internat. Year of Freshwater. The U.S. Congress declares this the Year of the Blues. The Am. Century only has 22 years left? The Anglo pop. of Tex. drops below 50% for the first time since the 1800s. By this year 1 out of every 32 in the U.S. is either in prison, on probation or parole (6.9M). The number of children orphaned by AIDS reaches 15M. Median income for U.S. blacks reaches 81% of whites, compared to 63% in 1968 (MLK Jr.) and 43% in 1955 (Rosa Parks). The U.S. has 65 nuclear plants providing 20% of the total power - so let's build 260 more and provide 100%? On Jan. 1 Okla. defeats Wash. State by 34-14 to win the 2003 Rose Bowl. On Jan. 1 an IVF baby is born 1 min. after midnight to a lesbian couple, Helen Rubin and Joanna Bare in, ahem, Virginia - well kiss my grits? On Jan. 3 Ohio State U. wins its first nat. football championship in 34 years with a 31-24 double-OT upset of Miami U. in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl. On Jan. 3 U.S. Md. Dem. Rep. (since 1981) Steny Hamilton Hoyer (1939-) becomes minority whip #21 of the U.S. House (until Jan. 3, 2007). On Jan. 3 J.C. Watts Jr. (1957-) retires as a Repub. member of the U.S. House from Okla. (since 1995), becoming the last African-Am. Repub. in the House until ? On Jan. 3 after becoming the youngest woman elected to a U.S. state legislature in 2002, Am. Samoa-born Tulsi (Hindi "basil") Gabbard (1981-) becomes a Dem. U.S. rep. for Hawaii (until ?) , going on to support Socialist Bernie Sanders for U.S. pres. in 2016 and snub Hillary Clinton, ending up too conservative for Dems. and too liberal for Repubs.?; on Jan. 11, 2019 she announces her candidacy for the Dem. nomination for U.S. pres. in 2020. On Jan. 7 Pope Shenouda ("slave of God") III (1923-) of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt says that while Coptic Christians and Muslims get along, pesky Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, and Seventh-Day Adventists are disturbing the country's unity. On Jan. 8 the previous year's no-fatalities record for commercial flight in the U.S. is broken when a US Airways Express Beech 1900 crashes shortly after takeoff at Greenville, S.C., killing all 21 aboard. On Jan. 10 North Korea announces that it is pulling out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty - 5-4-3-2-1 is scheduled to premiere when? On Jan. 15 after defeating banana king (wealthiest man in Ecuador) Alvaro Ferando Noboa Ponton (1950-) with 55% of the vote, pro-left former col. Lucio Edwin Gutierrez Borbua (1957-) becomes pres. of Ecuador (until Apr. 20, 2005). On Jan. 16 Protests Against the Iraq War are held worldwide, incl. 30K in Washington, D.C.; on Jan. 18 more protests are held worldwide, incl. 50K in San Francisco, Calif., 45K in Seattle, wash., and tens of thousands in Washington, D.C., with Rev. Jesse Jackson uttering the soundbyte: "We are here because we choose coexistence over coannihilation"; meanwhile Pres. Bush tries to find an excuse to force U.S. troops into a war with Iraq (not realizing that Iraq is all that is keeping Iran from forming a Shia Sword all the way to Israel?); the admin. denies allegations that Bush is just a puppet of the multinat. oil corps. who want to use an occupied Iraq (home of the second largest oil reserves in the Middle East?) as a base to control Middle East oil (especially untapped Caspian Sea oil), or a puppet of the Zionist regime and Israel, or that the euros versus dollars issue has anything to do with it, but France, Russia, and Germany split with the U.S. and actively discourage U.S. invasion of Iraq as Bush builds up an invasion force that says screw you world. On Jan. 20 the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 1456, calling on all states to prevent and suppress all support for terrorism, mentioning human rights for the first time but failing to define terrorism. On Jan. 21 the U.S. Census Bureau announces that Hispanics outnumber African-Americans in the U.S. by 37 to 36.2M; is the U.S. headed towards becoming a bilingual nation? On Jan. 23 Pres. Bush strikes back on the anniv. of "Roe v. Wade" by telling abortion foes "We will prevail". On Jan. 23 the last weak signal is received from NASA's Pioneer 10, originally launched on Mar. 2, 1972. On Jan. 24 the new U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security opens, with Thomas Joseph "Tom" Ridge (1945-) as secy. #1 (until Feb. 1, 2005). On Jan. 25 a French-brokered peace in Ivory Coast is signed, calling for the govt. of pres. Laurent Gbagbo to share power with pro-Guei rebels, with Seydou Diarrhea, er, Diarra as PM; too bad, Gbagbo reneges, and riots begin in the capital Yamoussoukro, causing a ceasefire to be signed on May 3 and another peace to be declared on July 4, supported by 4K U.N. peacekeeper troops; the rebels continue to hold the N half of the country. On Jan. 26 Super Bowl XXXVII (37) (2003) is held in Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, Calif.; the top-ranked defense Tampa Bay Buccaneers (NFC) defeat the top-ranked offense Oakland Raiders (AFC) 48-21 as coach Jon Gruden gets even with former boss Al Davis; the Bucs return three of five Rich Gannon interceptions for TDs, incl. a 44-yard one by linebacker Derrick Brooks, and a 50-yard one by Dwight Smith with 2 sec. left; Bucs free safety Dexter Lamar Jackson (1977-) is MVP. On Jan. 27 Pres. Bush nominates John Glover Roberts Jr. (b. 1955) to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, staging ground for elevation to the Supreme Court; he is confirmed on May 8. On Jan. 28 the Ariel Sharon's Likud Party wins the Israeli election with 38 of 120 seats. On Jan. 28 Donald Trump gives an interview to Neil Cavuto, in which he shows his undecidedness about the Iraq War, with the soundbyte: "Well, he's [Pres. George W. Bush] either got to do something or not do something perhaps. Because perhaps he shouldn't be doing it yet. Perhaps we should be waiting for the United Nations"; in his Sept. 26, 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton, moderator Lester Holt tries to frame him on being for the war back then. The Bush admin. gives us the Plamgate-Uraniumscootergate micro-mini-scandal? On Jan. 29 (Tue.) Pres. George W. Bush gives his 2003 State of the Union Address, uttering the soundbyte "We will prevail" against terrorism, and uttering the "infamous 16 words", claiming that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"; the White House later admits that this charge plays a part in the decision to invade Iraq, and that it relied on faulty intel and should not have been in his speech; too bad, Congress had already voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq 3 mo. earlier; behind Bush on the walls of the Congress are all kinds of disturbing Illuminati, Mason, and Satanic symbols, incl. the Pillars of Jakin and Boaz and the good ole ancient Roman fasci; on May 6 New York Times columnist Nicholas Donabet Kristof (1959-) reports that an unnamed U.S. ambassador who had been sent to Niger in 2002 told the CIA and State Dept. well before Bush's speech that the uranium story was bullwhacky; in Nov. 2005 Italian intel officials conclude that a set of documents bolstering the Iraq-Niger link had been forged by an occasional Italian spy; in Jan. 2006 a FOIA lawsuit by conservative Judicial Watch causes the Jan. 2002 Secret Memo by the U.S. State Dept.'s intel bureau (in which the sale was declared "unlikely") to finally be declassified; meanwhile vice-pres. Dick Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (1950-) asks undersecy. of state Marc Grossman to check up on that pesky bigmouth ambassador, and learns that his name is Joseph Charles Wilson IV (1949-), husband of Alaskan-born hot blonde Valerie Elise Plame Wilson (1963-), who since 1985 has been in the CIA and has worked up to station chief and works on the team that has been trying to decide if Saddam Hussein has WMDs, and somebody in the Bush admin. decides on a plan to 'get' Wilson by getting her; on June 11-12 Grossman tells Libby that Plame works for the CIA and that she was involved in planning the Niger trip, which is confirmed by Cheney's top press aide Cathie Martin, who says she got it from CIA spokesman (former U.S. Navy capt.) Bill Harlow; on June 11-12 Cheney confirms Plame's CIA status to Libby; on June 13 Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward interviews deputy secy. of state (2001-5) Richard Lee Armitage (1945-) for a book, and Armitage tells him about Plame working for the CIA; on June 23 Libby meets with New York Times reporter Judith Miller (1948-) and spills the beans to her; on July 6 Wilson pub. an op-ed column in the New York Times criticizing the admin.; on July 7 Libby meets with White House press secy. (2001-3) Ari Fleischer, and spills the beans again, allegedly telling him the info is "hush-hush", which Libby later denies; since both Fleischer and Libby are Zionist Jews, this proves a Zionist conspiracy connected with 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq?; on July 8 columnist Robert David Sanders Novak (1931-) interviews Armitage, who spills the beans to him, causing Novak to obtain confirmation from White House top political adviser Karl Christian Rove (1950-); on July 11 Fleischer again spills the beans to two reporters on a pres. trip to Africa; meanwhile Rove spills the beans to Matthew Cooper (1962-) of Time mag.; on July 14 a syndicated column by Novak spills the beans, citing two unidentified senior admin. officials; later it comes out that Cheney learned about Plame from CIA dir. George Tenet; when it is learned that disclosing a covert agent's identity is a crime and that a criminal investigation was authorized on Sept. 26, the admin. begins stonewalling, starting with Armitage telling investigators that he is the leak, followed on Sept. 29 by the White House denying that Rover, er, Rove leaked Plame's identity to retaliate against her anti-admin. hubby Wilson, despite his admitting to FBI that he had leaked the info. to Novak; too bad, on Oct. 14 and Nov. 26 Libby is interviewed by the FBI, and on Dec. 30 Chicago U.S. atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald (1960-) (sounds like John Fitzgerald you know who?) is named to head the leak investigation - so get the lady another job and fuggedaboutit? On Jan. 29 AOL-Time Warner reports an annual loss of $98.7B. On Jan. 30 Belgium officially recognizes gay marriages - shall we eat or drink to it? The bad side of the U.S. govt. on display? On Jan. 31 a federal jury in San Francisco, Calif. is duped by a crook in a black robe to convict noted marijuana advocate and authority Edward "Ed" Rosenthal (1944-) of federal marijuana charges even though Calif. law permits it for medical uses and the city of Oakland tried to shield him with immunity as its officer; on Feb. 4 the jury cries foul for not being told this, demanding a new trial as the puppet judge and prosecutors slap each other on the backs for squashing a hero like a bug for political reasons in the name of the law, instead of taking Calif. itself to court first so the fight is more fair; his conviction is overturned on appeal, and they try and convict him again to justify having already served his sentence - and America wants to spread its brand of democracy all over the world? In Jan. Saddam Hussein stuns his top military leaders when he tells them that he has no WMDs after all, and just wanted Iran to think he did to keep them off his back; the leaders are demoralized because they had counted on using gas or germ weapons against the Americans; after he is captured, Saddam repeats this, but adds to FBI agent George L. Piro that he faked having WMDs while in power but planned on developing them incl. nukes within a year; meanwhile Iraqi defector to Germany Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi WMD labs later admits he lied to sucker the U.S. into toppling him; CIA officer Tyler S. Drumheller (1942-2015) had warned top CIA officials in vain before Gen. Colin Powell gave his U.N. speech. In Jan. 30-year U.S. Rep. Sen. (chmn. of the Sen. Agriculture Committee and Sen. Foreign Relations Committee) Jesse Helms (b. 1921) decides against seeking a 6th term and leaves Congress; his seat is won by Sen. Bob Dole's wife Elizabeth Dole; he suffers from heart problems, a bone disorder, and prostate cancer, and goes around Capitol Hill on a motorized scooter; in Apr. 2006 he ends up in a nursing home after developing vascular dementia. In Jan. Calif. Gov. Ahnuld has surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff. On Feb. 1 (8:59 EST) NASA Space Shuttle Columbia, which lifted off on Jan. 16 breaks up during reentry and disintegrates 40 mi. up over Palestine, Tex. as it approaches the landing area, killing all seven aboard incl. cmdr. Rick Husband, pilot William McCool, payload cmdr. Michael Anderson, engineer Kalpana Chala, David Brown, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon, all while millions watch the eerie execution on TV; Ramon is the first Israeli in space; giving conspiracy kooks hay to blame Iran, since it's the 24th anniv. of Ayatollah Khomeini's return to Iran, plus the embedded letters "Iran" in Ramon's name, and the coincidence of Palestine, Tex.; the breakup is caused by hot gases escaping through a 3-in. hole in the left wing created at liftoff by a piece of foam insulation breaking off from the external fuel tank, causing NASA to spend $200M to fix the problem before the next flight in 2005; much of the debris lands in Nacogdoches, Tex. On Feb. 2 Vaclav Havel steps down as pres. of the Czech Repub., and goes back to writing plays, and on Mar. 7 economist-politician Vaclav (Václav) Klaus (1941-) (PM #1 in 1993-8) becomes pres. #2 of the Czech Repub. (until Mar. 7, 2013), going on to become a prominent global warming skeptic and Euroskeptic and grant a mass amnesty to prisoners on Jan. 1, 2013 that gets him charged with high treason by the Czech Senate, making him ineligible for a 3rd tersm. On Feb. 3 super-rich Bronx, N.Y.-born "Wall of Sound" pop music producer Phillip Harvey (Harvey Phillip) "Phil" Spector (1939-) is arrested for the shooting murder of B-movie actress Lana Jean Clarkson (b. 1962) in his hilltop castle-like mansion in Alhambra, Calif., uttering the soundbyte "I think I just shot her", claiming that it was an "accidental suicide", and she "kissed the gun", which the D.A. disagrees with, saying he has evidence he pulled guns on other women, despite other evidence that Clarkson had gunshot residue on both of her hands; on May 23 he shows up in L.A. Superior Court sporting an oversized "Dolly Parton" hairdo of frosted and teased curls; on Nov. 20 he is charged with murder; on Sept. 26, 2007 a mistrial is declared after a 10-2 hung jury; on Oct. 20, 2008 he is retried, and convicted on Apr. 13, 2009 of 2nd degree murder, receiving a 19-years-to-life prison sentence on May 29, 2009; writer Mick Brown, who interviews Spector weeks before the killing later pub. a book detailing his long history of pulling loaded guns on people incl. John Lennon and The Ramones - but never pulling the trigger? On Feb. 5 U.S. secy. of state #65 (2001-5) Gen. Colin Luther Powell (1937-) delivers a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, claiming that Iraq has WMDs, using it as the Bush admin.'s rationale for war; too bad, he mistakenly names obscure jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi 21x, making him a celeb that causes him to recruit followers in Iraq and lay the groundwork for ISIS; after the invasion fails to find any WMDs, he calls the speech a "blot" on his record, claiming that he warned Pres. Bush "If you break it, you own it." On Feb. 10 Kurdish political leader Shawkat Hajji Mushir is assassinated by Kurdish Islamic militants in league with Al-Qaida. On Feb. 12 Donald Rumsfeld utters the immortal soundbyte in a briefing on the Iraqi situation: "As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns." On Feb. 13 Tom Ridge's Dept. of Homeland Security causes a run on duck (duct) tape and plastic sheeting with an announcement that terrorists are suspected of being about ready to set off a dirty bomb in the U.S. On Feb. 14 the original Dolly the Sheep dies - did they mention the part about the horse? On Feb. 15 100K in Dublin, Ireland and 30K in Belfast, Northern Ireland march in protest of the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq. On Feb. 17 a nightclub stampede in Chicago, Ill. kills 21. On Feb. 19 Mo. Rep. Dick Gephardt announces his 2nd candidacy for U.S. pres., with a pledge to repeal most of Pres. Bush's tax cuts, which he claims mainly benefit the rich. On Feb. 19 an election causes a runoff, and on Mar. 5 Robert Kocharian (1954-) is reelected pres. of Armenia (until Apr. 9, 2008). On Feb. 20 a 100-fatality nightclub fire in The Station in West Warwick, R.I. is set off by pyrotechnics igniting flammable soundproofing foam as the heavy metal band Great White begins their set and a TV cameraman is filming footage for a story on safety in public places; the nightclub had no sprinklers because state laws don't require any for Class C venues (with a capacity of less than 300 people), but lead vocalist Jack Russell refused to play unless there was a guarantee of 500?; Great White guitarist Ty Longley dies in the blaze; on Dec. 9 Jeffrey and Michael Derderian, the owners of the nightclub and Daniel Biechele (26), the tour manager of Great White are indicted; in Feb. 2006 Biechele pleads guilty to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter, and on May 10, 2006 is sentenced to a light four years, stirring outrage from victims' families; on Sept. 29, 2006 owner Michael Derderian (1961-) receives four years, and his brother Jeffrey Derderian (1967-) gets no time from Judge Frances Darigan, all without a trial, causing outrage by victims' relatives. On Feb. 20 Kuwaiti-born U. of Southern Fla. computer science prof. Sami Amin Al-Arian (1958-), a founder of the Islamic Society of North Am. (ISNA), and prominent speaker against "Islamophobia" is arrested by the U.S. govt. for being the alleged leader of the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) anti-Israel terrorist org. in the U.S.; he pleads guilty in 2006, and is sentenced to 57 mo. On Feb. 25 after promoting an end to regionalism in politics via an Internet campaign, human rights atty. Roh Moo-hyun (1946-2009) becomes pres. #16 of South Korea (until Feb. 25, 2008). On Feb. 26 the U.S. Supreme Court rules that federal racketeering (RICO) laws cannot be used to stop abortion protesters - a chain of crimes to protect a source of income, not to stop somebody else's? On Feb. 27 Rolandas Paksas (1956-) becomes pres. #3 of Lithuania since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 (until Apr. 6, 2004). On Feb. 28 economist Vaclav Klaus (1941-) is elected pres. #2 of Czech., and is sworn-in on Mar. 7 (until Mar. 7, 2013). In Feb. Gen. Omar al-Bashir and his Arab Muslim Janjaweed (Arab. "horse genies", "evil horsemen") militia begin a campaign of ethnic and religious persecution in drought-stricken Darfur in W Sudan, burning down villages, killing 180K (mostly Christians), and driving 2M from their homes within a few years; within three years they kill 300K and drive 2.5M from their homes into Chad and Central African Repub. In Feb. the Occupy London March in Hyde Park, C London becomes the largest protest in British history; too bad, it fails to stop Britain from joining the U.S. invasion of Iraq 32 days later. In Feb. railroad giant CSX Corp. CEO John William Snow (1939-) becomes U.S. treasury secy. #73 (until June 28, 2006); in Mar. Congress passes a 3% federal exise tax on long distance calls and bundled services, collecting $13B by 2006, when lawsuits causes it to it reverse course and offer the money back. In Feb. Cuban Luis Grass Rodriguez tries again, attempting to reach Fla. aboard a 1959 Buick sedan converted into a boat; by Dec. 2004 he has been granted refugee status in Costa Rica. In Feb. a controversial referendum in Kyrgyzstan expands the powers of corrupt pres. Askar Akayev; in June parliament grants him lifelong immunity from prosecution - washed away? In Feb. Egyptian cleric Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr (1963-) is kidnapped from a street in Milan, Italy by the CIA, then tortured for the next 14 mo.; 26 Americans are later put on trial in Italy for it in absentia. In Feb. after two reporters bring a lawsuit against their employer Fox News (owned by Ruper Murdoch) for ordering them to falsify their findings then firing them after they refused, a Fla. Appeals Court rules that "There is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States." On Mar. 1 Al-Qaida mastermind ($25M bounty on his head) Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (1964-) is arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan along with money man Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. On Mar. 1 the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is incorporated into the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. On Mar. 3 Al-Qaida leader Abu Mohammed Al Masri is assassinated in Lebanon by the Israelis. On Mar. 3 the parliament of Serbia and Montenegro is inaugrated, replacing the Yugoslavian parliament. On Mar. 3 British atty.-gen. (2001-7) Peter Henry Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith (1950-) writes a Letter to PM Tony Blair, telling him that deposing Saddam Hussein would be a blatant breach of internat. law; after being leaked to the press, it is officially pub. on Apr. 28, 2005. On Mar. 4 WHO issues a rare travel advisory for SARS. On Mar. 5 Nigerian opposition All Nigeria People's Party leader Marshal Sokari Harry is assassinated in Abuja. On Mar. 5 the U.S. Supreme Court by 5-4 upholds Calif.'s notorious Three Strikes and You're Out sentencing law - there's one bright side - at least America is moving closer to Islamic countries on the law & order issue? On Mar. 6 an Air Algeria Boeing 737 jet crashes, killing 102 in the S Algerian province of Tamanrasset, becoming the worst crash in Algeria since 1962 independence. On Mar. 8 Hamas vows revenge after one of its founding members and three bodyguards are killed in an Israeli heli attack in Gaza; meanwhile the Israeli army promises to strike again. On Mar. 8 Nashville Star, a clone of "American Idol" for country singers debuts on USA Network (until Aug. 4, 2008); the 2003 season sees Miranda Lambert come in #3 then sign a contract with Epic Records. On Mar. 12 Serb leader Zoran Djindjic (1952-2003) is assassinated 1 mo. after Yugoslavia is abolished in favor of the new state of Serbia and Montenegro, and Kostunica steps down in favor of him. On Mar. 14 underdog former mayor of Istanbul (1994-8) Recep Tayyip Erdogan (1954-) (whose wife Emine wears the veil) becomes PM of Turkey (until ?), succeeding Abdullah Gul (whose wife Haynrunisa wears a headscarf), who resigned over U.S. troop deployment in Turkey, which was narrowly defeated on Mar. 1; the wearing of Sharia garb was outlawed by Kemal Ataturk, revealing a resurgence of Muslim fundamentalism; Erdogan is a friend of Saudi terrorism financier Yasin al-Qadi (1956-), and protects him from sanctions. On Mar. 14 U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. steps down as a regional Whip for the House Dems. for making what he called "insensitive" remarks about Jews pushing the U.S. into war with Iraq - but are they true? On Mar. 14-15 the Dixie Chicks (Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire, Emily Robison) are pulled from country music station playlists after lead singer Natalie in a London concert on Mar. 10 comments that she is "ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas", despite an apology on Mar. 14 for being "disrespectful"; the petty viciousness of the backlash from the "American patriots" makes everybody ashamed of lots more people from Texas?; on Apr. 24 Diane Sawyer attempts to rehabilitate the Chix by interviewing them on TV in an Americanized version of the Stalinist show trial, and a nude mag. cover totally patches things up? On Mar. 15 Hu Jintao (1942-) becomes pres. #6 of the People's Repub. of China (until Mar. 14, 2013), replacing pres. (since Jar. 27, 1993) Jiang Zemin; on Mar. 16 Wen Jiabao (1942-) becomes PM #6 of the People's Repub. of China (until Mar. 15, 203) - hu, wen, jin, jia, and bao? On Mar. 16 U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney utters the soundbyte about Iraq to reporters: "We will in fact be greeted as liberators... I think it will go relatively quickly... weeks rather than months"; he adds, "We believe (Saddam) has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons" - is that like orange juice? On Mar. 17 chemical engineer George Maxwell Richards (1931-) becomes pres. #4 of Trinidad and Tobago (until Mar. 18, 2013), becoming the first Amerindian head of state in the Anglophone Caribbean. On Mar. 17 after claiming to have exhausted the diplomatic options, Pres. Bush gives Madass Saddam a generous 48 hours to leave Dodge, er, his own country with his sons and heirs. On Mar. 17 a law goes into effect in the Netherlands permitting pharmacies to fill prescriptions for marijuana - and lead us not into temptation? On Mar. 18 a huge wet snowstorm, the worst in 90 years hits Colo., which is in the middle of its biggest drought in recorded history; the weather stays wet for the rest of the year and next, ending the drought. On Mar. 18 British PM Tony Poodle, er, Blair wins the approval of Parliament for joining the U.S. in using force to disarm Iraq despite some defections in his own party; meanwhile, France, Germany, and Russia continue to pooh-pooh them, triggering an anti-French reaction by Americans (who figure that the Frogs owe them for liberating their country in WWII?), causing a movement to change the name "French fries" to Freedom Fries, incl. the cafeterias in the U.S. House office bldgs. The Chimp President Plunges the U.S. Into Lord Knows What? On Mar. 19 after Pres. Bush relies on conclusions by neoconservative Pentagon policy chief (undersecy. of defense for policy) Douglas J. Feith (1953-) that Saddam Hussein is linked to Al-Qaida, plus the advice of Jewish-Am. Islam expert Bernard Lewis (1916-) and Shiite Iraqi exile Ahmed (Ahmad) Abdel Hadi Chalabi (1944-20915) ("the George Wasington of Iraq", who later proves to be only it for the Shiites) Operation Iraqi Freedom to disarm Iraq, rid it of them pesky WMDs and force a regime change begins; the same day U.S. Sen. (D-W.V.) (1959-2010) Robert Carlyle Byrd (Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr.) (1917-2010) gives a speech in the Senate, saying "I weep for my country" as the U.S. discards its image of a strong, benevolent peacekeeper and begins the U.S.-Iraq War (ends ?), which becomes the TBI (traumatic brain injury) war, with improved body armor causing the highest injury survival rate in the history of warfare (86%), filling VA hospitals with disfigured and brain-damaged soldiers, who get to enjoy all the new hi-tech prosthetic devices; Britain's Prince Charles secretly lobbies in vain against it; the Bush admin. begins a secret Pentagon program to use retired military analysts to generate positive war news coverage; Iraqi Gen. Babaker Baderkhan Shawkat Zebari is appointed chief of staff of the Iraqi Joint Forces (until ?); the war is a giant mistake as it plays into al-Qaida's hands, eliminating their rival Saddam Hussein, intensifying anti-Americanism, helping them recruit more suicide bombers, and giving them time to destabilize the govt. of Pakistan in order to get their hands on nukes?; after Saddam Hussein's regime falls, the downtrodden Shiites finally get to observe their annual Ashoura holiday despite the threat of Sunni attacks as a demonstration of power; meanwhile the 1M Iraqi Christians, which Saddam's regime kept from harm, find themselves in the middle of a world of hurt, and begin fleeing to Syria and Jordan amid mindless hate and murder - Bush's Planet of the Apes? On Mar. 19 a Cuban Aerotaxi plane is hijacked en route from Havana to the Isle of Youth in Cuba and flown to Fla., after which USAF jets intercept it and escort it to Key West. On Mar. 20 U.S. Navy SEALS in their largest operation to date capture the Mabot and Kaaot oil platforms along with the port of Al Faw, preparing Iraq for a U.S. invasion; on Mar. 20 the U.S. stages a surgical air strike, using over two dozen cruise missles on the suspected Baghdad bunker of Big Bad Sodamn Insane; too bad, he is nowhere near the site, triggering massive world protests of the supposed injustice of attacking the murderous sick demented turdball's regime before it can attack the U.S., even though it is the U.S. who is paying and doing all the work, while they benefit; on Mar. 21 (8:09 p.m. local time) the U.S. opens up its promised Shock and Awe (Shock Allah?) phase of the war, invented by consultant Harlan K. Ullman (1941-) with a massive hi-tech air strike on Baghdad, inviting eager comparisons with the Nazi Blitzkrieg, even though the idea behind it is to attack only the regime not the subject people; on Mar. 20 a Gallup poll shows that 76% of Americans approve of the decision to go to war; the irrational hate flaring worldwide against the U.S. is so great that the question remains open of whether the entire Islamic world will finally unite in a suicidal religious jihad against the Great Satan of the U.S. and its Western allies, and bring the 14-cent.-long Muslim-Christian-Jewish world religious lifestyle war back, while the atheists, secularists et al. wait in the wings and hope they all give up their ridiculous beliefs of a looming End of the World once and for all? - what you been missing? On Mar. 23 a referendum approves a new constitution confirming Chechnya as part of the Russian Federation; on Oct. 5 Akhmad (Akhmat) Abdulkhamidovich Kadyrov (1951-2004) is elected pres. of the Chechen Repub. (until May 9, 2004). On Mar. 23 Abdul Majid Dar, former leader of Kashmir's largest Islamic rebel group is assassinated by Kashmir gunmen in retribution for talking with the Indian govt. On Mar. 23 Al-Jazeera (named for the N portion of Mesopotamia, the S portion being called Iraq Arabi) goes live on the Internet with an English language website, but is quickly knocked offline. On Mar. 23 the 75th Academy Awards in Los Angeles are hosted by Steve Martin (2nd time), and 279 films are eligible for consideration; the best picture Oscar for 2002 goes to Chicago along with best supporting actress to Catherine Zeta-Jones, best dir. to Roman Polanski for The Pianist, along with best actor to Adrien Brody (youngest ever, displacing Richard Dreyfuss), best actress to Nicole Kidman for The Hours, and best supporting actor to Chris Cooper for Adaptation; Michael Moore wins an Oscar for his documentary film Bowling for Columbine, then gets hooted off the stage during a speech calling Bush "a fictional president who won a fictional election". On Mar. 24 the Arab League calls for the U.S. and Britain to withdraw their troops from Iraq immediately; the same day Saddam Hussein appears on Iraqi TV, saying that "victory is soon". On Mar. 25 Saudi Arabia makes a peace proposal to Iraq and the U.S. On Mar. 27 Serbian police kill two major suspects in the assassination of PM Zoran Djindjic. On Mar. 28 Japan launches its first spy satellites, causing North Korea to go nonlinear and huff and puff. On Mar. 31 ignoring his apology, NBC fires Peter Arnett for telling Iraqi TV that the U.S. war plan had failed in its initial stages; London's Daily Mirror quickly hires him. On Mar. 30 Donald Rumsfeld utters the soundbyte to reporters, "We know where [the WMDs] are." On Mar. 31 a Cuban airliner with 32 passengers is hijacked to Key West, Fla. In Mar. Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) dir. gen. (since 1997) Mohamed el-Baradei (1942-) tells the U.N. Security Council that the documents claiming to prove that Iraq tried to acquire uranium from Niger are bogus, after which the U.S. tries to get him fired, but can't get enough support from other countries, after which on June 9 Condoleezza Rice meets with him and the U.S. drops its objections, and he is reappointed on June 13; he is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. On Apr. 1 U.S. Special Forces rescue from an Iraqi hospital U.S. Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch (1984-), whose 507th Ordnance Maintenance Co. had been ambushed on Mar. 23 in Nasiriya, Iraq, becoming an overblown media event; everybody's got a theory (she is from Palestine, W. Va., get it?); Mohammed Odeh Al-Rehatef, the Iraqi atty. who helped her escape is granted asylum in the U.S.; following her release from the hospital she returns to W. Va. to fiance Sgt. Ruben Contreras, then later drops him for Wes Robinson, and has a 7 lb. 10 oz. baby girl on Jan. 9, 2007. On Apr. 1 two men carrying grenades hijack a Cuban Aerotaxi plane to the U.S. but it lands in Havana after running out of fuel; no more hijackings in Cuba until May 3, 2007. On Apr. 3 moderate Shiite cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei returns to his home city of Najaf, Iraq from exile in the U.K; on Apr. 10 he is killed by a mob on the orders of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. On Apr. 6-7 after Saddam Hussein, fearing a Shiite uprising to which he would need to send troops, delays blowing up a key bridge on the Euphrates River S of the city to block their advance, U.S. forces easily raid C Baghdad and encircle the city, finding little resistance; at 2 p.m. on Apr. 7 an airstrike on Sodamn's residential palace in Baghdad is rumored to have killed him and his two devil spawn sons, but actually he is nowhere near the site, as he flees west toward Ramadi with them to escape U.S. forces, staying in a network of safe houses in civilian neighborhoods; on Apr. 7 he happens to be in a safe house only 1.5 mi. from the route taken by U.S. troops on their 2nd Thunder Run into Baghdad; on the night of Apr. 10 the U.S. bombs a bldg. next to a Ramadi house he is hiding in, causing him and his sons Odai and Qusai to split with him the next morning, going to Tikrit and Mosul (home of muslin), where U.S. troops kill them in July; meanwhile English journalist Boris Johnson (1964-) finds a cool leather cigar case in the bombed-out Baghdad villa of deputy PM Tariq Aziz, and decides to keep it, which later causes Iraq to demand it back after he becomes mayor of London on May 4, 2008, and he finally surrenders it on June 24, 2008. On Apr. 7 the U. of Texas at Austin announces that it is paying $5M for the Watergate Papers of Bob Woodward (1943-) and Carl Bernstein. On Apr. 7 Haitian pres. Jean-Bertrand Aristide celebrates the 200th anniv. of the death of Haiti's founder Toussaint l'Ouverture by claiming that France owes it $21.7B in reparations for colonialism and slavery; on Apr. 8 France rejects the demand, pointing to the $2.4B lent to it by the internat. community, incl. $240M from France. On Apr. 8 a U.S. tank fires on Hotel Palestine in Baghdad, killing Spanish TV journalist Jose Couso Permui (b. 1965); on Oct. 19, 2005 a court in Madrid issues an internat. arrest warrant for the 3-man U.S. Third Infantry tank crew, Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. Philip Wolford, and Lt. Col. Philip de Camp. On Apr. 9 Baghdad falls as Saddam Hussein's army proves to be what he once (1990) called the U.S. army, a paper tiger; the name of Saddam Internat. Airport is changed; too bad, Baghdad has 2M Sunnis and 4M Shiites, who hate each other's guts so bad that civil war soon brews, with the hapless U.S. troops in the middle, and Iran waiting in the wings to back the Shiites, with an obvious plan to exterminate the Sunnis and Kurds, amalgamate the two countries, get nukes, and then form the main shaft of a spear headed directly into Israel, pushing it into the sea, and leaving the U.S. in the position of picking up refugees like in the days of Dunkirk? - and the Clueless Chimp of the White House unable to face the reality that if he had just left Saddam in power it would have remained stable? On Apr. 11 Donald Rumsfeld is questioned by reporters about widespread looting in Baghdad, and utters the soundbyte: "Stuff happens, and it's untidy, and freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." On Apr. 13 during the confusion of the U.S. invasion the Baghdad Museum is stripped by prof. thieves. On Apr. 13 the U.S. announces the capture of Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, half-brother and adviser to Saddam Hussein. On Apr. 13 seven U.S. POWs incl. black Army Specialist Shoshana Nyree Johnson (1973-) (first black POW in U.S. history) are released by Iraqi troops near Trikit. On Apr. 13 U.S. Sgt. Hasan K. Akbar (Mark Fidel Kools) (1971-) of the 326th Engineer Battalion lobs four stolen hand grenades and shoots his M-4 rifle into three tents filled with sleeping officers at the U.S. 101st Airborne Div. 1st Brigade ops center in Kuwait, killing Capt. Christopher Seifert and Maj. Gregory Stone; in Apr. 2005 he is sentenced to death, and executed on ?. On Apr. 13-14 the badly decomposed bodies of 8-mo. pregnant Laci Denise Peterson (nee Rocha) (b. 1975) and her fetus Conner are found in the Isabel Regional Shoreline of Richmond Point in San Francisco Bay, causing authorities to arrest her husband, fertilizer salesman Scott Lee Peterson (1972-) on Apr. 18 and charge him with capital murder; he hires famed defense atty. Mark John Geragos (1957-), known for representing pop star Michael Jackson; Rick Warren's "A Purpose-Driven Life" is on his car seat during his arrest at the Torrey Pines Golf Course in La Jolla, Calif., given him by his hot blonde girlfriend Amber Dawn Frey (1975-), who had been working with authorities to draw him out, despite wanting to hook up with her being his main motive; his hair and goatee had been bleached blonde, and he was carrying $15K in cash along with an array of camping equipment; on Mar. 16, 2005 he is sentenced to death by lethal injection, beginning a bonanza for lawyers handling his appeals. On Apr. 15 Abu (Mohammad) Abbas (1948-2004), mastermind of the 1985 PLO Achille Lauro hijacking is captured at his Badhdad home where he had lived for years basking in the glory of an Islamic freedom fighter. On Apr. 16 Am. Airlines narrowly averts bankruptcy after flight attendants agree to $340M in labor concessions; all the airlines are teetering on the brink now since 9/11 did them in. On Apr. 19 Nigerian pres. #12 (since May 29, 1999) Olusegun Obasanjo wins a new term in an election opponents denounce as fraudulent; he stays in office until May 29, 2007. On Apr. 20 the U.S. Army takes control of Baghdad from the Marines. On Apr. 24 (7:34 a.m.) a 14-y.-o. boy shoots and kills his junior high school principal Eugene Segro with a shotgun to the chest in Red Lion, Penn., then uses another gun to shoot himself in the head in a packed school cafeteria. On Apr. 26 Russia launches Soyuz TMA-2, carrying cosmonauts Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko (1961-) and Edward Tsang Lu (1963-) of the U.S.; on Oct. 18 Soyuz TMA-3 blasts off, carrying cosmonauts Alexander Yuriyevich "Sasha" Kaleri (1956-), Colin Michael Foale (1957-), and Pedro Duque Duque (1963-) of Spain; Soyuz TMA-2 returns on Oct. 28 with Yuri Malenchenko, Edward Tsang Lu, and Pedro Duque; Soyuz TMA-3 returns next Apr. 30 with Alexander Kaleri, Michael Foale, and Andre Kuipers. On Apr. 30 after 30 mo. of violence the Quartet (U.S., EU, Russia, and the secy.-gen. of the U.N.) issues the Middle East Roadmap for Peace, outlining a 3-phase plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, namely, Phase 1: "Ending terror and violence, normalizing Palestinian life, and building Palestinian institutions", Phase 2: "Interim agreement with a Palestinian state having provisional borders and attributes of sovereigny... as a way station to a permanent status settlement", and Phase 3: "Permanent status agreement and the end of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict"; on May 23 it is endorsed by Ariel Sharon, and on May 25 by the Israeli cabinet, followed on June 4 by Mahmoud Abbas; on Nov. 20, 2003 Resolution 1515 based on it is adopted unanimously by the U.N. Security Council, incl. Syria, calling for a permanent 2-state solution after the cessation of violence, reform of the Palestinian Nat. Authority, and dismantling of the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure, along with the "illegal outposts" of Israel; on Mar. 19, 2010 the Quartet endorses it again. In Apr. a stash of foreign currency worth $200M ($100M U.S., 90M euros) is found in a Baghdad neighborhood; it is flown out of Iraq and set to be returned to help rebuild it. In Apr. Hutu Domitien Ndayizeye (1953-) becomes pres. of Burundi (until 2005). In Apr. Genovese crime family head (1981-2005) Vincent Louis "the Chin" Gigante (1928-2005), serving a 12-year sentence from a July 1997 racketeering conviction admits his long-time insanity ruse and pleads guilty to obstruction of justice, receiving another 3 years; for years he had wandered the streets of Greenwich village in nightclothes, muttering incoherently, while his Roman Catholic priest brother claimed he suffered from dementia. In Apr. the U.S. Naval Training Range on the E half of beautiful Vieques Island 8 mi. E of Puerto Rico's main island is closed after decades of using it as a target for bombs and rockets (since 1948), creating a cleanup nightmare. In Apr. screenwriter Anthony Robert "Tony" Kushner (1956-) and Entertainment Weekly ed. Mark Harris become the first to have their same-sex committment ceremony featured in the Vows column of the New York Times. On May 1 after announcing it in his 2003 State of the Union Address in response to recommendations by the 9/11 Commission, Pres. George W. Bush issues Executive Order 13354 establishing the Terrorist Threat Integration Center (TTIC), with John Owen Brennan (1955-) as dir. #1 (until Aug. 27, 2004). Oh mister bookworm what's the matter? On May 1 (May Day) Pres. Bush emerges from a Navy jet clad in a flight suit on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln under a giant "Mission Accomplished" banner, announcing that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended... In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide"; meanwhile shooting goes on daily, the country has no basic services, neither Saddam Hussein nor his spooky WMDs have been found, and giant ammounts of weapons and ammo are stolen by insurgents to fight with and make IUDs out of; up to this speech, 139 U.S. soldiers been killed, and three years later the figure increases by 2,258 - if the U.S. had summarily pulled out then and there, Bush would have been right? On May 5 a UFO was supposed to pick up true believers, according to Dr. Malachi Z. York, founder of the Nuwaubians in Georgia, USA. On May 7 Pres. Bush orders U.S. sanctions against Iraq lifted. On May 8 the U.S. Senate unanimously endorses adding seven former Communist nations to NATO incl. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuana, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. On May 10 Shiite leader Ayatollah Sayed Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim (b. 1939) returns triumphantly to his Iraqi homeland after two decades in Iranian exile; on Aug. 29 he is killed along with 84-125 others when a car blomb explodes as he leaves Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf. On May 11 the U.S. declares the Iraqi Ba'ath Party dead. On May 11 the famous gold-ivory-enamel Saliera (salt cellar) made by Benvenuto Cellini in 1543 for French king Francois I is stolen from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in a smash-and-grab robbery in which the guards miss the event and have no clue as to who did it; 3 years later it is found in a forest N of the city. May 13 Prophets Foul and Fair? On May 13 the world is supposed to end, according to Nancy Lieder of ZetaTalk. On May 13 suicide bombers linked to Al-Qaida strike Western housing compounds in the Saudi capital Riyadh, killing 26; the attack is later pinned on Al-Qaida, becoming their 4th terrorist attack since 9/11; a taped voice in Apr. thought to be Osama bin Laden's exhorted Muslims to rise up against Saudi Arabia and called for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests. On May 14 S Texas "coyote" smugglers abandon more than 70 illegal immigrants in an airtight locked trailer at a Victoria, Tex. truck stop 100 mi. SW of Houston after they kick out a signal light to get attention; 19 die from heat prostration; 14 people, incl. Victor Sanchez Rodriguez and his wife Emma Sapata Rodriguez are indicted on conspiracy, smuggling, and other charges; the truck driver Tyrone Williams (1970-) is tried on charges that could bring the death penalty, and given life in priz on Jan. 18, 2007. On May 16 Moroccan suicide bombers simultaneously attack five Jewish and foreign targets in Casablanca, Morocco, killing 41 and wounding 100; the attacks are later pinned on Al-Qaida, showing that Morocco may be next on the list of semi-sane regimes to be undermined. On May 17 Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re of the Vatican acknowledges that Pope John Paul II is suffering from Parkinson's Disease. On May 18 a Hamas suicide attacker disguised as an observant Jew kills seven Israeli bus passengers. On May 19 WorldCom Inc. agrees to pay investors $500M to settle civil fraud charges. On May 22 the U.N. Security Council gives the U.S. and Britain a mandate to rule Iraq, ending 13 years of economic sanctions. On May 22 John McCain brags about his support for the Bush admin., with the soundbyte: "I voted with the president over 90% of the time, higher than a lot of my Republican colleagues", which is later used against him bigtime when he runs for pres. in 2008. On May 24 Paul McCartney plays a 3-hour show in Russia's Red Square, featuring 30 hit songs incl. "Back in the USSR"; the Beatles had been banned from playing in Russia in the 1960s. On May 25 Israel's govt. conditionally approves by a narrow margin an internationally-backed road map to peace; on May 26 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon angers hardliners with a speech to his Likud Party that he is determined to reach a peace deal with everybody's pals the Palestinians. On May 26 93% of Rwandans vote to approve a new 2003 Rwandan Constitution giving Hutus and Tutsis a balance of power, with neither allowed to hold more than half the seats in parliament, and the incitement of ethnic hatred outlawed; on Aug. 26 pres. elections give pres. Paul Kagame a landslide V. On May 28 the French Council of the Muslim Faith (Muslim Council of France) is founded to represent Muslims to the French govt. On May 29 Pres. Bush issues the soundbyte to reporters: "We found the weapons of mass destruction." On May 29 the Moulin Rouge (built 1955), Las Vegas' first desegregated casino-resort burns down (arson). On May 31 an annular solar eclipse is seen from Northern Scotland, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland, with a partial eclipse covering much of Europe and Russia. In May U.S. troops in Iraq find a Jewish archive in a flooded basement of Saddam Hussein's Mukhabarat secret police; despite there being only 10 Jews left in Iraq by 2010, the Iraq govt. demands that they be returned. In May Al-Qaida begins implementing the Mountain Manifesto, a plan to take over Saudi Arabia. In May the Guldimann Fax is allegedly received by the U.S. State Dept. by Nat. Security Council officials Flynt Leverett and his wife Hillary Mann Leverett claiming that the govt. of Iran is making a historic offer of a "grand bargain" to resolve all disputes with the U.S., which disses it as inauthentic; it later turns out to be composed by Swiss ambassador to Iran Tim Buldimann. In May the famous Old Man of the Mountain in Franconia Notch Park in the White Mts. in N New Hampshire collapses. On June 1 Shukri Mohammed Ghanem (1942-), former research dir. of OPEC becomes PM of Libya (until Mar. 1, 2006), going on to utter the soundbyte on Sept. 16, 2004 that Israel is "a mistake in the political geography", and that U.S. military intervention in Iraq has "fed extremists and fundamentalists and results in the dissemination of violence" because "it is necessary to deal with oil-producing areas and the areas of pipelines as sacred places". On June 3 document Considerations, approved on Mar. 28 by co-author Pope John Paul II is released by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by co-author Cardinal Ratzinger, condemning same-sex marriage, saying that all Catholics are "obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions", while a Catholic politician "has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it, with the soundbyte that "homosexuality is a troubling moral and social phenomenon", adding "Men and women are equal as persons and complementary as male and female", and "No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman." On June 4 Pres. Bush holds landmark peace plan meetings with the PMs of Israel and Palestine after winning support from top Arab leaders; they amount to diddly squat? On June 9 French helis rescue more than 500 Americans and others as rebels bear down on the capital of Liberia, cornering warlord-pres. (since Aug. 2, 1997) Charles McArthur Ghankay Taylor (1948-) in Monrovia as U.S. Navy warships hover off the coast and Pres. Bush urges him to step down. On June 10 Israeli helis wound senior Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi and kill two others; they finally get him next Apr.; on June 11 a suicide bomber kills 17 people in a Jerusalem bus blast; in retaliation two Israeli rocket strikes against Hamas fugitives kill 11 Palestinians in Gaza City. On June 11 a ceremony is held in New York City at the corner of West and Chambers to celebrate the first seeing-eye dog. On June 17 after being dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army in Fort Benning, Ga. and moving to Jacksonville, Fla. in 1999 and working as a taxi driver, 6'6" Beaumont, Tex.-born Paul Durousseau (1970-) is arrested and charged with five counts of murder out of up to nine from Jan. 6, 1997-Jan. 20, 2003, all single and black; on Dec. 13, 2007 he is sentenced to death by lethal injection for the 1999 rape-murder of 24-y.-o. Tyresa Mack. On June 18 the U.S. Census Bureau announces that Hispanics outnumber blacks in the U.S. for the first time, making them the largest minority group, with 38.8M, a 9.8% increase since 2000; blacks are up 3.1% to 36.6M, out of a total U.S. pop. of 288.4M, up 2.5%. On June 18 Denver, Colo. bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman (1953-) captures Max Factor heir Andrew Stuart Luster (1963-) in Puerto Villarta, Mexico, after he was convicted of raping three women and fled the U.S., catapulting the Dog to fame and resulting in the cable TV series Dog the Bounty Hunter on Aug. 31, 2004 (until June 23, 2012) (246 episodes); on Sept. 14, 2006 he and two associates are arrested in Hawaii on Mexican charges from the incident. On June 22 a record 18.75" hailstone is found in Aurora, Neb. On June 23 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court votes 6-3 in Gratz v. Bollinger to strike down the U. of Mich. undergrad affirmative action program because its point system is too quotalike; the same day they vote 5-4 in Grutter v. Bollinger to uphold affirmative action at the U. of Mich. law school as long as race is part of a nuanced review of each applicant; in the first vote John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and David Souter dissent; in the 2nd Anthony Kennedy, William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas dissent, and the deciding vote is cast by Sandra Day O'Connor, with Scalia writing the soundbyte: "This is not, of course, an 'educational benefit' on which students will be graded on their Law School transcript (Works and Plays Well with Others: B+) or tested by the bar examiners (Q: Describe in 500 words or less your cross-racial understanding). For it is a lesson of life rather than law - essentially the same lesson taught to (or rather learned by, for it cannot be 'taught' in the usual sense) people three feet shorter and twenty years younger than the full-grown adults at the University of Michigan Law School, in institutions ranging from Boy Scout troops to public-school kindergartens"; Pres. Bush. issues a statement applauding the court for recognizing the value of diversity - how did such a tiny number of people get in this position anyway? On June 26 the U.S. (Rehnquist) Supreme Court rules 6-3 in Lawrence v. Tex. that states can't enforce sodomy (gay sex) laws because they violate the Constitutional right to privacy first invented, er, enunciated in Griswold v. Conn. (1965), overturning Bowers v. Hardwick (1986); "The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime" (Anthony Kennedy) - so you like English muffins? On June 28 the toll of U.S. dead since the start of the Iraqi invasion tops 200 - it'll never reach a thousand? In June the first parliamentary elections in Jordan under King Abdullah give his supporters a two-thirds majority. In June U.S. Army chief of staff Gen. Eric Ken Shinseki (1942-), the first Asian U.S. gen. retires after telling defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld that it would take several hundred thousand, not 140K soldiers to pacify Iraq; he is replaced by Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez (1951-), the highest-ranking Hispanic in the U.S. Army (until Nov. 1, 2006), who later slams Bush's handling of the Iraq war. In June ever-leading New Zealand legalizes prostitution - Xena the Warrior Princess jokes here? In June Falls Church, Va. Dar al-Hijrah Mosque member Ahmed Omar Abu Ali (1981-) is arrested in Saudi Arabia, and extradited back to the U.S., where on Nov. 22, 2005 he is convicted of providing material support to al-Qaida and conspiring to assassinate Pres. George W. Bush; the mosque's dir. of outreach (since June 2002), imam Johari Abdul Malik (born Winslow Seale in La.) tells the New York Times that Abu Ali is comparable to civil rights hero Rosa Parks; in 2001-2 the imam of Dar al-Hijrah was N.M.-born Anwar al-Awlaki (1971-2011), Islam's Mr. Sunshine, whose sermons were attended by three 9/11 hijackers, and hosted eager attendant Maj. Nidal Hasan; next year after years of lying to infidel Americans about his true intentions, he flees to Yemen to head up an al-Qaida org., becoming the first U.S. citizen placed on the CIA target list in Apr. 2010. In June believers in Planet X predict it will get close enough to Earth to cause major damage. In June Sedan, France-born Michel Fourniret (1942-) is arrested after he fails to kidnap a 14-y.-o. Belgian girl in 2000 and his wife Monique Olivier turns him in in an attempt to avoid prosecution; in June-July 2004 Fourniret confesses to the kidnap, rape, and murder of nine girls in 1987-2001, with 10 more suspected, and on May 28, 2008 he is convicted of 16 murders, receiving a life sentence; Olivier receives life with possible parole in 28 years. In June Am. Remote Viewing (RV) student Aaron C. Donahue announces that he's a Luciferian, because Lucifer is "the father of the human race" who genetically engineered humanity from primates, and is being framed by angels ("spiritual parasites"), who are really to blame for the world's problems, announcing his P.A.N. (Practical Application of Nonhistorical Data) that allegedly helped him win the Calif. Lottery, causing his teacher Ed Dames to break with him, causing him to utter the soundbyte: "Lucifer is the loving progenitor of what we refer to as a complete human being or mirror. It does not take your soul but rather, it provides sanctuary... Lucifer also oversees much of our future with children. This will explain why it is that Ed has never located a missing child. Ed is clearly influenced by the Angels who are at war with mankind..." On July 1 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon and Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas hold a summit, in which they rededicate themselves to peace efforts, and speak of a shared future for their incompatible peoples. On July 1 Los Angeles Lakers basketball star Kobe Bean Bryant (1978-) allegedly rapes a woman in his room at the Lodge and Spa at Cordillera Hotel in Edwards, Colo. the night before surgery by Dr. Richard Steadman, causing the sheriff of Eagle, Colo. arrests him in July, causing mucho publicity; the case is dropped after he admits to an affair and she refuses to testify, then files a civil suit that is settled out of court after he apologizes but admits no guilt. On July 5 a bomb blast in Ramadi, Iraq kills seven Iraqi police recruits as they graduate from a U.S.-taught training course. On July 6 Liberian pres. and super-thief Charles Taylor (1942-), who bled his country of its treasure accepts an asylum offer from Nigeria after a U.N. tribunal indicts him for crimes against humanity; on Aug. 10 he delivers his farewell address to a nation bloodied by 14 years of war, having no running water or electricity while he looted it blind, then absconds to live a life of ease in nearby Nigeria; in Mar. 27 2006 he vanishes from Nigeria just after it agrees to transfer him to a war crimes tribunal, and is captured and put on trial in The Hague, after which he claims that he wants to convert to Judaism, pissing-off Jews, who don't want him. On July 7 U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, head honcho of the Iraqi invasion retires. On July 7 Am. leftist activist (aide to Pres. Clinton) John David Podesta (1949-) founds the liberal Center for Am. Progress in Washington, D.C., which is later described as the "official Hillary Clinton think tank"; on July 31, 2016 the report From Russia with Money: Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset, and Cronyism, alleging that Hillary's campaign chmn. John Podesta sat on the board the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama along with Russian officials that received $35M from the Russian govt. of Vladimir Putin, and failed to fully disclose it on federal forms, after which the firm was the subject of the Panama Papers massive global offshore money laundering scandal, which incl. Mass.-based Joule Unlimited, owned by Joule Global Stitching, Russian investor Viktor Vekselberg and his Renova Group, and Swiss investor Hansjoerg Wyss and his Wyss Foundation, all of which are involved with the Clinton Global Initiative; this was done at the same time that Hillary was into her reset strategy with Russia, spearheading the transfer of advanced U.S. technology. On July 8 Pres. George W. Bush begins a 5-nation tour of Africa in Senegal, where he calls U.S. slavery one of history's greatest crimes while standing on the location of an old slave auction; on July 12 he wraps-up his tour of Africa, saying that he will not allow terrorists to use the continent as a base "to threaten the world". On July 10 the New Granada Mosque in Spain is competed, heralding the "return of Islam to Spain". On July 10 the Licensing Act of 2003 is enacted in Britain, simplifying licensing for pubs and allowing extended opening hours, effective Nov. 24, 2005. On July 12 the USS Ronald Reagan, the first carrier named for a living pres. is commissioned in Norfolk, Va. On July 13 Egyptian grand imam Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (1928-2001) speaks at an Islamic conference in Kuala Lumpur against Islamic terrorism, saying "Extremism is the enemy of Islam. Whereas jihad is allowed in Islam to defend one's land, to help the oppressed, the difference between jihad in Islam and extremism is like the Earth and the sky" - which makes it okay for Palestinians? On July 14 Iraq's new governing council meets for the first time, and votes to send a delegation to the U.N. Security Council to assert its right to represent Baghdad. On July 14 the U.S. Senate scuttles by a 50-48 vote a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage - the Senate is bifurcated on the issue? On July 15 Queer Eye for the Straight Guy debuts on Bravo-TV for 100 episodes (until Oct. 30, 2007), with a team of five gay men known as the Fab Five performing a makeover (make-better) on a straight man; in 2005 the title is shortened by Queer Eye; spawns Queer Eye for the Straight Girl (Jan. 11-May 8, 2005). On July 16 after confusing the gas pedal with the brake, 86-y.-o. retired salesman George Russell Weller (1916-) plows his 1992 Buick Le Sabre at freeway speed into a crowded farmers market in Los Angeles, Calif., killing 10 and injuring 63 over a 2.5 block area; on Oct. 20 he is convicted of 10 counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, and in Nov. is let off on probation because of illness. On July 18 (Fri.) Ryan Murphy's drama series Nip/Tuck debuts on FX for 100 episodes (until Mar. 3, 2010), starring Dylan Walsh as Sean McNamara and Julian McMahon as Christian Troy, two plastic surgeons who get all the poontang they want by promising to make them beautiful. On July 19 a chartered airplane carrying three families to a game reserve plows into Mount Kenya, killing all 12 U.S. tourists and the two South African pilots. On July 19the animated series Teen Titans debuts on the Cartoon Network for 65 episodes (until Jan. 16, 2006), based on the DC Comics chars. Robin (Scott Menville), Starfire (Hynden Walch), Cyborg (Khary Payton), Raven (Tara Strong), and Beast Boy (Greg Cipes). On July 21 Narberth, Penn.-born Quaker geologist John Wright Hickenlooper Jr. (1952-), owner of Wynkoop Brewing Co. brewpub and cousin of filmmaker George Hickenlooper becomes Dem. mayor #43 of Denver, Colo. (until Jan. 11, 2011). On July 22 Saddam Hussein's sons Qusai and Odai are killed in a gun battle with U.S. soldiers. On July 22-24 the House and Senate 9/11 Commission issues its 800-page Final Report on 9/11, citing countless screwups on the part of U.S. authorities; a chapter on Saudi financing of 9/11 is suppressed, along with info. linking 9/11 with the Saudi govt.? On July 23 an audiotape purporting to be from Saddam Hussein calls on Iraqis to resist the U.S. occupation - they listen and obey a man hiding in a hole? On July 27 Eltham, London-born America's best-loved comedian and icon Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (b. 1903) dies in Toluca Lake, Calif. at age 100, ending the 20th cent. for real? On July 28 rebels in Liberia capture Buchanan, its second-largest city. On July 31 two of Saddam Hussein's daughters and their nine children are granted refuge in Jordan. In July Australia restores order to the Solomon Islands, ending their civil war. In July Canada permits dispensing of marijuana by prescription. In July-Aug. the Summer 2003 European Heat Wave kills 70K, becoming the hottest summer in Europe since 1540; on Aug. 10 a record of 38.5C (101.3F) is set in Faversham, Kent, England; on Sept. 25 France reports a death toll of 14,802, mostly elderly people without air conditioning from the summer heat wave; the young people were vacationing at the time, and arrived back to find thousands of negelected dead old people bottled up in their hot apts.? On Aug. 1 a suicide bomber in a hotel outside Chechnya kills 50. On Aug. 5 a suicide bomber kills 12 and wounds 150 at the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Setiabudi (near Jakarta), Indonesia; it is later pinned on Jamaah Islamiyah. On Aug. 5 the teen drama series The O.C. debuts on Fox Network for 92 expidodes (until Feb. 22, 2007), about teenies in Newport Beach, Calif., incl. Ryan Atwood, played by Benjamin McKenzie Schenkkan (1978-), a troubled teenie from Chino who is taken in by liberal Jewish public defender Sandy Cohen, played by Peter Killian Gallagher (1955-) and his wife Kirsten, played by Kelly Rowan (1965-), and their son Seth, played by Adam Jared Brody (1979-), who becomes a star playing a Jewish nerd with a Holden Caulfield wanderlust. On Aug. 6 Austrian-born Repub. "Conan the Barbarian", "The Terminator" actor Ahnuld (Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger) (1947-) makes an appearance on NBC-TV's The Tonight Show With Jay Leno to announce his bid to replace Calif. Gov. Gray Davis, which he does quite handily, bringing a new, young electorate out with him, backed by his Kennedy Dem. wife Maria Shriver. On Aug. 6 Saudi Arabian college student Mohammed Ali Alayed (1981-) attacks and kills his Moroccan Jewish friend Michel Sellouk in Houston, Tex. with a knife, slashing his throat and attempting to sever his head; the police attempt a coverup by claiming they see no connection to race or religion, despite it coming out that Alayed had a "religious experience" two years earlier and became a devout Muslim. On Aug. 7 a car bombing outside the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad kills 17 and injures dozens. On Aug. 9 the U.S. Army fires up its first chemical weapons incinerator located near a residential area, outside Anniston, Ala., destroying two rockets loaded with enough sarin nerve agent to wipe out a city. On Aug. 11 Pres. Bush chooses Utah Repub. Gov. (since 1993) Michael Okerlund "Mike" Leavitt (1951-) to head the EPA (until Jan. 26, 2005) - he mike leavitt alone, and he mike not? On Aug. 13 Iraq begins pumping crude oil from its N oil fields for the first time since the start of Bush's war. On Aug. 14 (4:10 p.m. EDT) the Great 2003 Northeast Power Blackout, the worst power blackout in NE U.S. history affects 50M, incl. parts of Canada - penii and vagini collide with tidal wave proportions in the darky dark dark? On Aug. 14 Ala. Supreme Court chief justice Moses, er, Roy Stewart Moore (1947-) (a Repub.) defies a federal court order to remove a granite Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial bldg.; on Nov. 13 he not only loses the fight but his jobby job job when a judicial ethics panel accuses him of having "placed himself above the law" - thou shalt not have any other gods than the U.S. govt.? On Aug. 15 Episcopal leaders in Minneapolis approve the election of gay clergyman V. Gene Robinson (1947-) as bishop of the Diocese of N.H. - when he tries to put something in your mouth, close your eyes? On Aug. 19 a suicide truck bomb strikes U.N. HQ in Baghdad, killing 22, incl. the top U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello (b. 1948) of Brazil; al-Qaida-connected mastermind Ali Hussein Alwan Hamid al-Azzawi is captured in Iraq in Jan. 2010. On Aug. 27 Mars comes its closest to the Earth in 60K years, only 35M mi.; on Oct. 29, 2005 it appears above the horizon. On Aug. 27 Salvador Tapia (b. 1967), who had been fired from an auto parts warehouse in Chicago, Ill. six years earlier comes back armed and kills six employees before being killed by police. On Aug. 30 Russian nuclear sub K-159, being towed to a scrapyard sinks in a gale in the Barents Sea, killing 9 of 10 crew members. In Aug. impeachment proceedings against Zambian pres. (since 2002) Levy Mwanawasa are rejected by parliament. In Aug. the Internat. Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine opens, featuring genuine Yeti hair. On Sept. 6 Palestinian PM #1 (since Mar. 19) Mahmoud Abbas resigns. On Sept. 8 the syndicated Ellen DeGeneres Show debuts (until ?), going on to win over a dozen Daytime Emmy Awards. On Sept. 9 the Boston Roman Catholic Archdiocese agrees to pay $85M to 552 people to settle clergy sex abuse cases. On Sept. 10 Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh (age 46) is stabbed in a Stockholm dept. store; she dies on Sept. 11. On Sept. 11 Israel issues an ominous threat to "remove" Yasser Arafat for failing to halt suicide bombings. On Sept. 11 Canadian comedian Tommy Chong (1938-) is sentenced to 9 mo. in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to sell bongs on the Internet; he serves 9 mo. On Sept. 14 Swedes reject the Euro, even though assassinated foreign minister Anna Lindh was ardently for it. On Sept. 14 Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, U.S. military cmdr. in Iraq authorizes the use of loud rock music to break terrorist POWs "to create fear, disorient... and prolong capture shock". On Sept. 17 Spain's leading investigating judge Baltasar Garzon (Garzón) Real (1955-) issues the first indictment against Osama bin Laden for the 9/11 attack. On Sept. 17 Pres. Bush tells reporters "There's no question that Saddam Hussein had Al-Qaida ties." On Sept. 18 Category 5 Hurricane Isabel plows into the Outer Banks of N.C. with 105 mph winds, then pushes its way up the E U.S. seaboard, killing 16 in seven states and doing $3.6B damage. On Sept. 21 after Richard Grasso resigns over an over-compensation scandal, former Citigroup CEO John Shepard Reed (1939-) (ousted on Feb. 28, 2000) is named temporary head of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) (until ?), working for $1 salary and setting up new rules as the NYSE becomes a public corp. - wake up John Doe you're the hope of the world? On Sept. 22 the comedy series Two and a Half Men debuts on CBS-TV for 262 episodes (until Feb. 19, 2015), starring Charlie Sheen Carlos Irwin Estevez (1965-) as hedonistic jingle writer Charlie Francis Harper, Jonathan Niven "Jon" Cryer (1965-) (Matthew Broderick lookalike?) as his uptight brother Alan, and Angus Turner Jones (1993-) as his son Jake, who move into his Malibu beachfront house with him; becomes the biggest hit comedy of the decade; on Mar. 7, 2011 Sheen is fired for "moral turpitude", and replaced with Christopher Ashton Kutcher (1978-) as Walden Schmidt. On Sept. 23 Donald P. Bellisario's and Don McGill's NCIS (Naval Criminal Investigative Service), debuts on CBS-TV for ? episodes (until ?) as a spinoff of JAG, starring Mark Harmon (1951-) as Leroy Jethro Gibbs, head of the Major Case Response Team in Washington Navy Yard in Washington D.C. On Sept. 24 Pope John Paul II skips a weekly gen. audience due to an intestinal problem. On Sept. 24 after getting pissed-off at being teased over his acne, 15-y.-o. student John Jason McLaughlin (1988-) shoots and kills fellow students, 17-y.-o. Aaron Rollins and 14-y.-o. Seth Bartell at Rocori H.S. in Cold Springs, Minn.; he is sentenced to life in priz. On Sept. 28 a massive blackout strikes almost all of Italy, leaving millions without power. In Sept. the reenactment of the ceremony 400 years earlier to install Guru Granth Sahib at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India is attended by 2.5M. On Sept. 28 the police procedural series Cold Case debuts on CBS-TV for 156 episodes (until May 2, 2010), about the cold case div. of the Philly Police Dept., starring Kathryn Susan Morris (1969-) as Det. Lilly Rush. On Oct. 1 the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) is established at Hickam AFB in Oahu, Hawaii to try to account for missing U.S. war veterans; on Jan. 30, 2015 after the U.S. govt. decides to coverup its own mess it is deactivated. On Oct. 2 the Los Angeles Times pub. allegations that Calif. gov. candidate Arnold Gropenneger, er, Schwarzenegger had sexually harassed at least six women in his past by groping them on movie sets, studio offices, and gyms; Ahnuld gives a speech the same day to apologize, saying "Yes, I have behaved badly sometimes. Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right which I thought then was playful, but now I recognize that I have offended people. And those people that I have offended, I want to say to them, 'I am deeply sorry about that and I apologize, because this is not what I'm trying to do.' When I'm governor, I want to prove to the women that I will be a champion for the women"; on Oct. 4 the Times adds three more women, one a CNN intern and two from his 1988 "Twins" movie set; on Oct. 5 four new accounts are pub. On Oct. 3 gay illusionist Roy Horny, er, Roy Horn (1945-) of Siegfried and Roy (Siegfried Fischbacher) is mauled by 380-lb. white tiger Montecore in front of a horrified audience at the Mirage in Las Vegas, Nev.; it sinks his teeth into his neck and drags him offstage, crushing his windpipe, ending the long-running act and leaving Horn partially paralyzed; the 7-y.-o. tiger had performed over 2Kx; conspiracy theories abound. On Oct. 3 former Colo. Dem. gov. Richard "Dick" Lamm gives the speech How to Destroy America, decrying multiculturalism and mass immigration. On Oct. 4 a Palestinian woman blows herself up inside a restaurant in Haifa, Israel, killing 21. On Oct. 5 Israel bombs an Islamic jihad base in Syria, becoming the first Israeli attack deep inside Syrian territory in three decades. On Oct. 5 (6?) Am. bear lover Timothy Treadwell (b. 1957), who has spent 13 summers in Alaska's Katmal Nat. Park studying grizzly bears up close is killed and eaten (along with his girlfriend Amie Huguenard) by a 20-y.-o. grizzly hard up for a pre-hibernation snack? On Oct. 5 Italian nun ("the Mother Teresa of Africa") Annalena Tonnelli is murdered in Borama, Somaliland by radical Muslims, who go on to persecute and brutally murder Christians unchecked (until ?). On Oct. 7 after personal financing by wealthy Bohemian-German-Lebanese Darrell Edward Issa (1953-) (pr. EYE-suh), Calif. voters recall Gov. Gray Davis, and elect Austrian-born "Terminator" Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (1947-) (AKA Ahnuld) as their new "governator" (Repub. Calif. gov. #38), who takes office Nov. 17 (until Jan. 3, 2011), uttering the soundbyte: "Say hasta la vista to Gray Davis." On Oct. 9 a suicide car bomber at a police station in Baghdad, Iraq kills eight. On Oct. 9 Spanish military attache Sgt. Jose Antonio Bernal Gomez (b. 1969) is shot to death in Baghdad. On Oct. 12 a suicide attack outside a Baghdad hotel full of Americans kills six bystanders. On Oct. 15 a Staten Island ferry slams into a maintenance pier after the pilot blacks out at the controls, killing 11; the pilot, asst. capt. Richard Smith later pleads guilty to 11 counts of manslaughter, and on Jan. 9, 2006 is sentenced to 18 mo. in prison. On Oct. 15 after four unmanned missions since 1999, the Chinese Shenzhou 5 takes off from Jiuquan Launch Center in Gansu Province on a Long March 2F launch vehicle carrying military pilot Yang Liwei (1965-), orbiting 14x before returning after 21 h 22 m, becoming the first Chinese human space flight, making China the 3rd country with independent human spaceflight capability after the Soviet Union (Russia) and U.S. On Oct. 17 popular TV journalist Carlos Diego Mesa Gisbert (1953-) becomes pres. of Bolivia (until June 6, 2005), soon getting in over his head with the Bolivian Gas War. On Oct. 18-25 the Florida Marlins (NL) (mgr. Jack McKeon) defeat the New York Yankees (AL) (mgr. Joe Torre) by 4-2 to win the Ninety-Ninth (99th) World Series; on Oct. 16 the Red Sox are five outs from defeating the Yankees, but mgr. Grad Little keeps pitcher Pedro Martinez in the 8th inning too long, allowing the Yankees to win in extra innings. On Oct. 19 a nun gets some as Pope John Paul II beatifies Mother Teresa (1910-97) in St. Peter's Square in front of 300K pilgrims. On Oct. 20 Pres. Bush pushes North Korea's nuclear threat to the forefront of the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Summit in Thailand - to cries of "chicken" from the far-right wing when he doesn't just invade them like he did Iraq? On Oct. 21 the U.S. Senate votes to ban the practice of partial-birth abortion - whatever the squishy definition of it may be? On Oct. 21 Yasser Arafat is diagnosed with gallstones. On Oct. 22 Pres. Bush is heckled during a speech to a divided Australian Parliament in which he defends the war with Iraq. On Oct. 23 Pres. Bush winds up his Pacific trip in Hawaii, where he drops flowers into the water at the sunken battleship USS Arizona. On Oct. 24 the Concorde makes its last flight. On Oct. 25 the Nat. March on Washington to Bring Troops Home in the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C. is attended by 100K. On Oct. 26 a barrage of rockets hits Baghdad's Al-Rasheed Hotel, killing a U.S. col. and wounding 18 others; deputy U.S. defense secy. Paul Wolfowitz (1943-) (Pres. Clinton's atty. in the Paula Jones case) is in the hotel but is unhurt. On Oct. 26-28 wildfires fed by hot Santa Ana winds flare into gigantic walls of flame, devouring entire neighborhoods in the San Fernando Valley in S Calif. outside Los Angeles, killing 13. On Oct. 27 suicide bombers in Baghdad, Iraq strike a Red Cross HQ and three police stations, killing dozens. On Oct. 30 the U.S. House approves an $87.5B package for Iraq and Afghanistan, and on Nov. 3 the U.S. Senate approves it; it becomes a pres. campaign issue when Dem. candidate Sen. John Kerry of Mass. issues the soundbyte: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it." On Oct. 30 four construction workers are killed when an Atlantic City, N.J. casino parking garage collapses. On Oct. 30 U.S. McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act, drafted by U.S. Repub. Ariz. Sen. John McCain and Indep. Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman is defeated in the U.S. Senate by 55-43; it would have capped 2010 CO2 emissions at the 2000 level and established a scholarship at the Nat. Academy of Sciences for students of climatology; similar acts are defeated in 2005 (38-60) and 2007 (dies in committee). On Oct. 31 Dato' (Datuk) Seri Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi (1939-) of the UMNO becomes PM of Malaysia (until ?). On Oct. 31 14-y.-o. surfer Bethany Meilani Hamilton (1990-) loses her left arm to a shark attack in Australia, but keeps on surfin', going pro. On Nov. 1 Dem. pres. candidate (physician from Vt.) Howard Brush Dean III (1948-), known for his Internet campaign prowess on BlogforAmerica.com puts his joystick in his mouth when he tells the Des Moines Register that he wants to be "the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks". On Nov. 2 Iraqi insurgents use a shoulder-fired AA missile to shoot down a Chinook heli carrying dozens of U.S. soldiers near Fallujah, Iraq, killing 16 U.S. soldiers and injuring 26. On Nov. 2 the sitcom Arrested Development debuts on Fox Network for 53 episodes (until Feb. 10, 2006), about the dysfunctional formerly wealthy Bluth family in Newport Beach, Calif., starring Jeffrey Michael Tambor (1944-) as patriarch George Bluth Sr., Jason Kent Bateman (1969-) as Michael, and Portia de Rossi (Amanda Lee Rogers) (1973-) as Lindsay Funke ("It's vodka... it goes bad once it's been opened"), with a handheld camera reality style format narrated by Ron Howard, winning six Emmys and one Golden Globe but lasting only three seasons (Feb. 10, 2006), after which it is revived by Netflix in 2013-. On Nov. 4 NFL Network is launched, reaching 71.9M subscribers by 2015. On Nov. 5 the U.S. Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2013 is signed by Pres. George W. Bush, banning the practice; in 2007 it is upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in "Gonzales v. Carhart'. On Nov. 7 a U.S. Black Hawk heli is downed hear Tikrit, Iraq by an RPG, killing four crew and two passengers from the Dept. of the Army HQ in Washington, D.C. On Nov. 7 U.S. Pres. Bush gives a speech to the Nat. Endowment for Dem., in which he claims that the West must share the blame for the "freedom deficit" in W Asia (Middle East), with the soundbytes "Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom and never even to have a choice in the matter?", and "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty." On Nov. 8 a suicide car bomber kills 17 and wounds 122 in a housing complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On Nov. 9 Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi's ruling bloc wins a majority in parliamentary elections. On Nov. 10 John Kerry replaces his campaign mgr. Jim Jordan with women's issues expert Mary Beth Cahill, reigniting his faltering U.S. pres. campaign - with Iraq turning into a potential Vietnam, how can he fail to beat George "W for Wrong" Bush? (just watch)? On Nov. 15 two Black Hawk helis crash in Mosul, Iraq after colliding while trying to avoid ground fire, killing 17 U.S. soldiers and wounding five. On Nov. 15 the 2003 Istanbul Bombings start with twin car bombs exploding outside two synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 23, plus the two bombers, and injuring 300+; Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul says that the two bombers had visited Afghanistan, and Al-Qaida is suspected; on Nov. 20 two more truck bombs detonate, killing 30 and injuring 400; Syrian-born Loai al-Saqa is later convicted of masterminding the bombings, and given life without parole; on May 22, 2006 he appears in court wearing an orange Guantanamo Bay-style jumpsuit, and is kicked out. On Nov. 16 Serbia fails for the 3rd time in a year to elect a pres. because of low voter turnout. On Nov. 16 French U.N. worker Bettina Goislard (b. 1974) is shot and killed in Afghanistan. On Nov. 18 the Mass. Supreme Judicial Court rules 4-3 in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health that the state constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry, and the stampede to the courthouse steps for happy brides and brides and grooms and grooms begins starting Jan. 1, 2004, becoming the first state court decision giving same-sex couples the right to marry - there is no Big C difference between face and ass in Mass.? On Nov. 19 Trey Parker's All About Mormons debuts on Comedy Central, episode 12 of seven 7 of the animated TV series South Park, lampooning the Mormons and their founder Joseph Smith Jr. On Nov. 20 "Man in the Mirror" singer Michael Jackson is booked on suspicion of child molestation in Santa Barbara, Calif., accused of molesting a 13-y.-o. boy in 2003 - a zillion Michael Jackson gay pedophile jokes light up the Internet? On Nov. 20 truck bombs detonate at a London-based bank and the British consulate in Istanbul, killing over two dozen and wounding nearly 450; Al-Qaida is suspected. On Nov. 23 there is a total solar eclipse in Antarctica. On Nov. 23 Georgian pres. (since 1995) Eduard Shevardnadze resigns in the face of protests caused by the bloodless Rose Rev. On Nov. 23 five U.S. soldiers are killed in a heli crash in Afghanistan. On Nov. 25 after passing the House by 216-215 on June 27, the Senate unanimously on July 7, the House again by 220-215 after a dusk-to-dawn debate, and the Senate again by 54-44 on Nov. 22, the historic Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act is agreed to, and signed by Pres. Bush on Dec. 8, combining new prescription drug benefits for seniors with measures to control costs before the baby boomers bankrupt it. On Nov. 26 Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush, former Iraqi air force cmdr. is killed by suffocation by U.S. troops during interrogation, his head covered with a sleeping bag with an electrical cord wrapped around his neck to create a "stress position"; after a coverup attempt, four U.S. servicemen are arrested, and chief warrant officer Lewis E. Weishofer Jr. (1964-) is convicted of negligent homicide in a 2006 court-martial. On Nov. 27 Pres. Bush sneaks into Iraq to spend Thanksgiving with U.S. troops and thank them for "defending the American people from danger". On Nov. 29 gunmen in Iraq ambush and kill two Japanese diplomats. On Nov. 29 seven members of Spain's military intelligence agency are killed in Mahmudiyah, Iraq. On Oct. 30-Nov. 29 the human race was supposed to be wiped out by nuclear war, according to Aum Shinrikyo - walk like an Egyptian? On Nov. 30 Iraqi insurgents stage coordinated attacks throughout the city of Samarra, Iraq, catching U.S. soldiers between Iraq and a hard place. On Nov. 30 two South Korean contractors are killed in a roadside ambush in Iraq. In Nov. 2 rigged parliamentary elections in the Repub. of Georgia spark the Rose Revolution, with Mikheil Nikolozis Saakashvili (1967-) claiming a V and carrying roses as he storms into parliament in Tbilisi, displacing Pres. Eduard Schevardnadze in a bloodless coup; he is sworn-in next Jan. 25 (until ?). On Dec. 1 after two years of secret negotiations, the Geneva Accord (Initiative) is announced in Geneva, claiming to be a model permanent status agreement to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with a 2-state solution giving almost all of the West Bank and Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, and returning Israel's borders to the start of the 1967 Six-Day War, with East Jerusalem becoming the capital of the Palestinian state and West Jerusalem of Israel, and Palestinians agreeing to limit their "right of return" and make no more demands. On Dec. 2 the all-wise U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court unanimously rules in U.S. v. Banks that when police knock on your door they only have to wait 15-20 sec. before breaking in if you are a "drug suspect" - a crack house would have a bouncer waiting right at the door anyway, and decency requires he be given enough time to zip up and for her to button up? On Dec. 3 a U.N. tribunal convicts a radio news dir. and a newspaper editor for their role in promoting the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and gives them life sentences. On Dec. 4 Pres. Bush scraps import tariffs he had imposed earlier to help the U.S. steel industry. On Dec. 4 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA), which improves the nat. credit reporting system and reduces identity theft, providing consumers with a free copy of their credit report each year if they request ait, allowing them to put a fraud alert on it; businesses must partially conceal credit card numbers on receipts. On Dec. 5 a bomb explodes on the Stavropol Krai commuter train in Russia during rush hour, killing 41 and injuring 150+. On Dec. 6 a U.S. warplane pursuing a "known terrorist" attacks a village in E Afghanistan, mistakenly killing nine children. On Dec. 7 allies of Pres. Vladimir Putin win a sweeping V in the Russian parliamentary elections, helping him tighten his group until he is on the brink of being as powerful as people's choice Stalin. The pharmaceutic conglomerate sets up the U.S. to ride it like a hobby horse, paying them as we go down the tubes? On Dec. 8 taking advantage of the 2002 lapsing of the 1990 Pay-As-You Go Budget Enforcement Act, the U.S. Medical Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act (Medicare Part D) (Prescription Drug Benefit for Seniors) is signed by Pres. George W. Bush with no corresponding tax increase to pay for it after passing the House by 220-15 in an all-night arm-twisting session backed by the pharmaceutical industry, who are the main beneficiaries, with Rep. (D-Ohio) (1997-2007) Ted Strickland (1941-) uttering the soundbyte:" "This bill was written by and for the pharmaceutical companies", and Rep. (D-N.Y.) (1989-) Eliot L. Engel (1947-) on Nov. 21 uttering the soundbyte: "Shame on this Congress for betraying our seniors and ramming this bill through in the middle of the night"; in 2005 the Bush admin. admits that it will cost $1.2T over 10 years ($8T by?), with the govt. paying exorbitant drug co. prices with no competition so that seniors can get discounts; meanwhile La. Repub. Rep. (1980-2005) William Joseph "Billy" Tauzin II (1943-), chmn. of the House committee that regulates the pharmaceutical industry, who shepherds the bill through Congress, kachings, er, resigns in 2005 to take a $2.5M a year job with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufactuers of Am. lobbying group. On Dec. 9 the U.N. Convention Against Corruption (drafted Oct. 31), promoted by the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is signed, designed to reduce corruption across country borders incl. abuse of power, private sector corruption, embezzlement, and money laundering; it becomes effective on Dec. 14, 2005, with 140 signatories and 183 parties by 2018. On Dec. 9 Muslim female suicide bomber Khadishat (Khedizhi) Mangerieva (widow of Chechn rebel cmdr. Ruslan Mangeriev) explodes her suicide belt in a busy street near the Kremlin in Red Square, Moscow, Russia, killing six and injuring 44. On Dec. 12 PM #20 (since Nov. 4, 1993) Jean Chretien steps down in favor of new Liberal Party leader and former finance minister #34 (1993-2002) Paul Edgar Philippe Martin (Paul Martin Jr.) (1938-), who becomes Canadian PM #21 (until Feb. 6, 2006). On Dec. 12 West Orange, N.J.-born nurse Charles Edwmund Cullen (1960-) is arrested, admitting to murdering up to 40 patients since 1987 by feeding them unprescribed medications incl. digoxin, allegedly to end their suffering, becoming known as "the Angel of Death"; on Mar. 2, 2006 he receives a life sentence in Somerville, N.J. as relatives of the victims yell at him in the courtroom; he is given 127 years in prison (18 life sentences), eligible for parole in 2403; he is suspected of up to 400 murders, which would make him the U.S. serial murder champ. On Dec. 13/14 (Fri./Sat.) Saddam Hussein is captured like a rat by elite U.S. Special Ops. unit Task Force 145 in Operation Red Dawn (named after the 1984 film), hiding in a rat hole under a farmhouse in Adwar, Iraq near his hometown of Tikrit; he is armed but offers no resistance, and looks a mental and physical wreck; on Dec. 14 he is displayed on TV screens worldwide looking like a bum saying aah for a flophouse doctor? On Dec. 14 female Afghan politician Malalai Joya (1978-) gives a speech at the 502-delegate Loya Jirga constitutional convention, speaking out against the warlords and clerics (former mujahideen), calling them war criminals who shouldn't be appointed to planning groups or be part of the Afghan govt., getting her thrown out, becoming known as "the bravest woman in Afghanistan"; after being elected to the Afghan parliament in Sept. 2005 and continuing to speak out, she is suspended in May 2007 for "insulting" fellow reps (until ?). On Dec. 15 Iraqi leaders celebrate the capture of So Damn Insane, saying that they want to bring him to a quick trial and execute him by summer, but U.S. officials signal that it will be put on the backburner; meanwhile FBI agent George Piro interviews him for 7 mo., getting him to talk and admit that the WMD talk was a bluff aimed at Iran, that the U.N. weapons inspectors dismantled them, and that he never expected a major U.S. invasion, only a 4-day aerial attack like he had survived before. On Dec. 16 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act, attempting to stem the flood of junk e-mail spam, along with a bill to establish a nat. museum devoted to black history; political campaigns are exempted from its regulations. On Dec. 17 former Ill. Gov. (1999-2003) George Homer Ryan (1934-) is indicted on corruption charges; he is convicted in 2006, and begins a 6 year 6 mo. federal sentence on Nov. 7, 2007 - making way for Blagojevich? On Dec. 20 Spain's PM Jose Maria Aznar pays a surprise visit to Spanish soldiers in Iraq. On Dec. 21 the U.S. govt. raises the nat. threat level to orange, indicating a high risk of a terrorist attack - Merry Xmas? On Dec. 22 (11:15 a.m. PS) the 6.6 San Simeon Earthquake hits the C Calif. coast 7 mi. NE of San Simeon, killing two and injuring 40, becoming the most destructive U.S. earthquake since the Jan. 17, 1994 Northridge Earthquake. On Dec. 23 the U.S. govt. announces the first case of mad cow disease in the U.S.; it is later confirmed. On Dec. 24 a roadside bomb explodes N of Baghdad, killing three U.S. soldiers, becoming the deadliest attack on Americans so far in Iraq following Saddam Hussein's capture. On Dec. 26 an earthquake strikes Bam, Iran, killing 31K, causing a senior Iranian cleric in 2010 to declare that uncovered women cause earthquakes - wham bam thank you maam? On Dec. 27 coordinated rebel assaults in Karbala, Iraq kill 13, incl. six coalition soldiers. On Dec. 28 for the first time ever Libya allows U.N. nuclear inspectors access to four sites related to its nuclear weapons program after announcing that is is abandoning the program; next year centrifuges from Pakistan and highly enriched uranium are airlifted from the country. On Dec. 30 the Bush admin. bans the sale of the herbal stimulant ephedra (ma huang) (Ephedra sinica), which has been linked to 155 deaths and dozens of heart attacks and strokes. On Dec. 31 a car bomb explodes in a crowded restaurant hosting a New Year's Eve party in Baghdad, Iraq, killing eight Iraqis. In Dec. San Francisco Giants outfielder Barry Bonds testifies before a grand jury, admitting to using the products of the Calif.-based co. BALCO, but didn't know they contained steroids; the company's client list incl. Olympian Marion Jones, and N.Y. Yankee Jason Gilbert Giambi, whose reps are tarnished along with his. In Dec. the U.N. Gen. Assembly proclaims 2005-15 as the Internat. Decade for Action 'Water for Life', promoting efforts to fulfill internat. commitments on water and water-related issues. In Dec. a woman in Harbin, China runs over and kills a peasant who had scratched her Mercedes with his vegetable cart, and escapes charges, causing people to think she had govt. ties because she had an expensive license plate filled with lucky number 8s; the stink causes the officials to put license plates up for auction with the proceeds going to accident victims. In Dec. the U.S. Improved Nutrition and Physical Activity Act is sponsored by Sen. Repub. leader Bill Frist, a physician. In Dec. Am. pop star Michael Jackson converts to the Nation of Islam, pissing-off his Jewish ex-wife Debbie Rowe, who next Mar. demands he distance himself from them and threatens to take him to court over custody of their two children. In Dec. Romeo the Black Wolf appears on the outskirts of Juneau, Alaska, making friends with local dogs, returning time and again for the next six years. Ailing Azerbaijan pres. (since June 1993) Heydar Aliyev (b. 1923) chooses his secular Muslim son Ilham Heydar Oglu Aliyev (1961-) as PM, but after opposition he is elected pres., and on Oct. 31 is sworn-in as pres. #4 (until ?) (really dictator); Artur Rasizade (1935-) becomes PM; Heydar Aliyev dies on Dec. 12. CONPLAN 8022 is formulated by the U.S. govt. as "a concept plan for the quick use of nuclear, conventional, or information warfare capabilities" to destroy preemptively, if necessary "time-urgent targets" "anywhere in the world", giving the decision to use nukes to military cmdrs. without need for special pres. authorization. Iran allegedly halts work on its nuclear weapons program; they really didn't? Benjamin Netanyahu openly frets about the "demographic bomb" of higher Arab than Jewish fertility rates, saying that if the percentage of Arab citizens of Israel rises much above its current level of 20%, Israel will lose its Jewish identity. An effort by the U.S. to rebuild Iraq with 20 planes full of $12B in cash from seized Iraqi assets known as the Development Fund for Iraq is stymied when $6.6B is reported missing; in 2011 it turns out it was safe in the Central Bank of Iraq. Saudi Arabia under conservative Wahhibi interior minister (since 1975) Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al-Saud begins a crackdown on al-Qaida, incl. mass arrests, a jihadi rehabilitation program, and a border fence with Yemen, driving al-Qaida into Yemen. Gerald Michael Boyd (1950-2006), the first black managing ed. of the New York Times, along with exec. ed. Howell Hiram Raines (1943-) are forced to resign over the Jayson Blair (1976-) plagiarism scandal. Americans Coming Together (ACT) is founded by Steven "Steve" Rosenthal (1953-) and backed by billionaire George Soros and the Service Employees Internat. Union to get out the vote for progressive candidates in the 2004 election. "Sage of Omaha" Warren Buffet warns that derivatives are "financial weapons of mass destruction" that could lead to a "corporate meltdown"; nobody listens? Am. Muslim Abdullah al-Kidd is detained for 16 days without charges because the govt. thinks he has info. in a computer terrorism case against fellow U. of Idaho student Sami Omar al-Hussayen, who is acquitted, causing al-Kidd to sue U.S. atty.-gen. John Ashcroft for violating his constitutional rights, after which on Sept. 4 a 3-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the case may proceed, calling the concept of detention of witnesses without charge "repugnant to the Constitution", and calling the policy "a painful reminder of some of the most ignominious chapters of our national history". Ontario and British Columbia Canada legalize same-sex marriage. The U.S. begins building military bases in the Persian Gulf, incl. Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, UAE, and Bahrain, which becomes home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Moroccan king Mohammed VI gives a speech on Islam in Morroco, with the soundbyte: "Fourteen centuries ago, indeed, the Moroccans decided to adopt Islam because it is the religion of the just middle. It is based on tolerance, honors the dignity of man, preaches coexistence, and rejects aggression, extremism and the quest for power by means of religion... Is there any need therefore for the Moroccan people, strong in the unity of their religious rite and the authenticity of their civilization, to import cultural rites that are foreign to their traditions? We will not tolerate it, all the more so because these doctrines are incompatible with the specific Moroccan identity. Those we see promoting a rite that is foreign to our people we will oppose with the vigor that is required of those whose duty it is to stand guard over the preservation of unity of worship among Moroccans, thus reaffirming our intention of defending our choice of the Malikite rite, while respecting those of others, each people having their own particularities and their own choices" - coming from the descendants of people who viciously invaded and conquered Christian Spain for centuries, it sounds like pandering? 17-y.-o. black Ga. high school football star Genarlow Wilson (1985-) (my genitals are low?) has consensual, er, consentual, er, consensual beejay sex with a 15-y.-o. black girl which is captured on video (there were actually six black males and two black females partying), causing the Ga. authorities to move on him, twisting a 1995 child molestation law to railroad him to a 10-year sentence, causing outrage at the specter of Jim Crow returning to Jawjaw; on June 11, 2007 a judge orders him released from priz after two years, calling it a "grave miscarriage of justice", causing the white Ga. atty.-gen. to announce an immediate appeal to keep him behind bars, stirring more outrage. Am. boxer Mike Tyson somehow manages to squander his $300M fortune, and declares bankruptcy - one dollar for every lap dancer? U.S. Rep. (R-Colo.) (1999-2009) Thomas Gerard "Tom" Tancredo (1945-), 1999 founder of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus introduces the U.S. Mass Immigration Reduction Act, with the goal of stopping Mexican, er, immigration to the U.S. for five years, with only spouses and children of U.S. citizens being allowed; the act extends itself indefinitely as long as there are 10K or more illegals sneaking in a year; when the Congress doesn't buy it, he tries again in 2007 with a proposed U.S. constitutional amendment to make English the official U.S. language, and another one in 2005 to call on the U.S. pres. to abandon the One-China Policy and recognize Taiwan. The 2003 Tex. Redistricting Plan, redistricting the state in favor of the Repubs., led by U.S. House Majority Leader (Repub.) Tom DeLay is passed by the Tex. legislature despite the Dem. Killer Ds fleeing the state to Ardmore, Okla. for the week of May 23, followed in Aug. by the Dem. Tex. Eleven fleeing the state to Albuquerque, N.M. for 46 days in an attempt to bust the quorum; on June 28, 2006 the U.S. Supreme Court upholds it except for the 23rd congressional district. U.S. Rep. (R-S.D.) William "Bill" Janklow (1939-) strikes and kills a motorcyclist in his car, after which he is convicted of vehicular homicide and sentenced to 100 days in jail, becoming known as "Wild Bill". U.S. homeland security tsar Tom Ridge announces that al-Qaida sleeper agents in the U.S. are awaiting orders buried in secret codes broacast by the al-Jazeera TV network; too bad, the source Dennis Montgomery (1953-), owner of a Nev. software gaming co. later proves to be lying to them to juke them for money. The U.S. Air Force Academy Board of Visitors, chaired by Va. Repub. Gov. (1998-2003) James Stuart "Jim" Gilmore III (1949-) (required to have at least two USAF Academy grads) investigates alleged mismanagement of the many sexual assault complaints by female cadets, which usually resulted in no action or slaps on the, er, wrist for the male cadets, and humiliation, trumped-up discipline, or expulsion for the female cadet victims. South Central Los Angeles (Calif.) is renamed South Los Angeles. The 100 sq. mi. South Pacific island of Niue becomes the world's first WiFi nation, providing free wireless Internet access to the entire pop.; in 1997 they received the Internet top-level domain .nu, which became popular for obvious reasons. Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) is founded by Berta Soler et al. to support the wives and relatives of jailed dissidents in Cuba. The Tharwa (Arab. "wealth") Foundation is founded in Washington, D.C. by Syrian-born dissident Ammar Abdulhamid (1966-). Jihad Watch is founded in Oct. by Am. Roman Catholic Islam expert 'Robert Bruce Spencer (1962-) to monitor and warn of the incursions of Islam on the West. The Streisand Effect is coined after Barbra Streisand tries to get photos of her home suppressed, causing more than ever to spread. Rosie O'Donnell loses $10M in her failed Broadway play (closes in 3 mo.) Taboo, about has-been gay pop star Boy George (who stars, but doesn't play himself). Allergen-free cats becoming available on the pet market. The sales of camera phones outstrip stand-alone digital cameras for the first time this year; by next year 186M camera phones are sold, vs. 69M digital cameras. Former infamous Fla. secy. of state Katherine Harris wins a U.S. House seat in Fla. French pres. Jacques Chirac, who used to smoke three packs a day declares a war on tobacco, imposing steep tax increases on cigarettes. The Am. Film Inst. votes Hannibal "the Cannibal" Lecter the top movie villain of all time. N.Y. state lifts a ban on cultivation of black currants, which had been banned since ? because they can carry a fungus that is lethal to pine trees. A sex tape showing hotel heiress Paris Hilton (1981-) galavanting with boyfriend Rock Salomon in night-vision green, along with her E! channel reality TV series The Simple Life (2003-7) propels her to anorexic stardom, along with her anorexic friend Nicole Richie (1981-); too bad, by 2007 both are getting in trouble with the law for DUI. U.S. 666 from Gallup, N.M. to Monticello, Utah through Colo. and Ariz. is changed to U.S. 491 because so many road signs were being ripped off. In the U.S. 24 people die this year from inhaling microwave popcorn fumes. The $200K Richard H. Driehaus Architecture Prize is established by the U. of Notre Dame to recognize major contributors to New Classical Architecture, an alternative to modernist architecture and the Pritzker Prize. History Detectives debuts on PBS-TV (until 2014), starring C. Wesley "Wes" Cowan (1951-), Elyse Luray, Eduardo Obregon Pagan (Obregón Pagán) (1960-), Gwendolyn "Gwen" Wright, and Tukufu Zuberi (1959-). Hans Neuenfels' production of Mozart's 1781 opera Idomeneo features King Idomeneo presenting the severed heads of Poseidon, Prophet Muhammad, Jesus and Buddha, which backfires after the Muhammad cartoon brouhaha, causing Berlin's Deutsche Opera to cancel it in Sept. 2006. The term "SITCOM" is coined for a family with a single income, two children, and an oppressive mortgage, along with "metrosexual" for a fauxmosexual or faux homosexual, a heterosexual who is fashion conscious. RMS Queen Mary 2 (QM2), the first major ocean liner built since the QE2 (1969) is launched, becoming the longest, widest and tallest passenger ship ever built (until ?), as well as the highest gross tonnage (until 2006); QE2 is purchased in 2008 by Dubai. Mark Rosen (Rosenzweig), 3rd generation CEO of 100-y.-o. European-founded home appliance co. Euro-Pro Operating LLC moves the HQ from Montreal, Canada to Newton, Mass., revamping the product line with the cyclonic Shark Rocket, Shark Rotator, Shark Navigator, Shark Steam & Spray Mop, and Shark Vac-Then-Steam, causing vacuum cleaner sales to zoom from 1% of the market in 2008 to 20% ($1.6B) in 2014 after hiring advertising consultant co. Gap Internat. in 2012 and pushing the products on TV shopping channels with a $130M/year budget, passing Dyson and becoming #1 in the U.S. market. Barbecue University debuts on PBS-TV (until 2006), hosted by Nagoya, Japan-born Am. chef Steven Raichlen (1953-). The first 4-5-day Belgrade Beer Fest is held in Serbia near the Kalemegdan Fortress, attracting 75K foreign visitors in 2004, 650K in 2009, and 900K in 2010. Sports: On Jan. 10 the NBA expands to 30 teams as the Charlotte Bobcats team is founded, changing to the Charlotte Hornets in 2013 after the New Orleans Hornets change their name to New Orleans Pelicans. On Jan. 19 a 92-yard interception return for a TD by Ronde Barber in the closing minutes clinches a 27-10 NFC championship V by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers over the Philadelphia Eagles in the final game played at Veterans Stadium in Philly. In Jan. the Sunshine Millions, a series of eight Thoroughbred horseraces is first held at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif. and Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla. On Feb. 16 the 2003 (45th) Daytona 500 is won by Michael Waltrip (2nd win in 3 years) in 109 laps after rain shuts it down; cars carry decals honoring the Space Shuttle Columbia astronauts; Ryan Newman's Dodge tumbles end-over-end in the tri-oval, causing an investigation. On May 3 underdog Funny Cide becomes the first gelding to win the Kentucky Derby since 1929. On May 25 the 2003 (87th) Indianapolis 500 is won by Gil de Ferran (1967-) of France after passing his Penske teammate Helo Castroneves with 31 laps to go. On May 27-June 9 the 2003 Stanley Cup Finals see the New Jersey Devils defeat the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (first appearance in the Finals) 4-3, ending the Devils-Avalanche-Red Wings string of titles since 1995; MVP is 6'1" Ducks goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere (Jean-Sébastien Gigučre) (1977-). On June 4-15 after the #8 seed Philadelphia 76ers (coach Doug Collins) knock off the #1 seed Chicago Bulls, then lose to the Boston Celtics, the 2003 NBA Finals sees the San Antonio Spurs (coach Gregg Popovich) defeat the New Jersey Nets (coach Byron Scott) by 4-2; Tim Duncan of the Spurs is MVP. On July 27 Lance Armstrong wins a record-tying 5th straight title in the Tour de Lance (France). On Aug. 10 SS Rafael Antoni "Fookie" Furcal (1977-) of the Atlanta Braves makes an unassisted triple play against the St. Louis Cardinals, becoming the 12th in ML history (last 2000). On Sept. 13 "Sugar" Shane Mosley (1971-) wins a "close but unanimous" decision over "Golden Boy of Calif." Oscar De La Hoya (1973-) in Las Vegas to take the WBC and WBA 154-lb. boxing titles. On Sept. 21 ABC-TV's Monday Night Football features the Denver Broncos hosting their nemesis the Oakland Raiders in front of a crowd of 76,753, the largest ever home game attendance (least no-shows); the Broncos defeat the Raiders by 31-10. On Oct. 14 after going ahead 3-0 with a 3-2 lead in the NL championship series, the Chicago Cubs are defeated by the Florda Marlins after fan Steve Bartman becomes a villain for tipping a foul ball hit by 2B player Luis Castillo as Cubs left fielder Moises Alou tries to catch it, after which the Marlins score eight runs in the inning and win the game 8-3. In Oct. Seth Franco becomes the first white member of the Harlem Globetrotters (founded 1942); he stays only one year. Michael Jordan (b. 1963) leaves the game of basketball for good, with a total of 32,292 career points, six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls, College Player of the Year for two years, and five NBA MVP awards; he is quickly chosen as one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history. The first Homeless World Cup is held in Ahnuld's hometown of Graz, Austria, with teams of homeless from 18 nations; the 2008 cup in Melbourne has 56 nations. The NFL establishes the Rooney Rule, requring teams to interview minority candidates for head coaching and senior football operation openings. Architecture: On Feb. 27 Jewish Polish-Am. architect Daniel Libeskind (1946-), known for wearing cowboy boots and thick black glasses with slit sides and designing structures with jagged edges, sharp angles, and tortured geometries wins the competition to design the WTC 9/11 memorial site, proposing the Memory Foundations master site plan, which ends up getting replaced by a cheaper plan. On June 25 the $73M ship's-sail-like Jerusalem Chords Bridge, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava (1951-). On June 28 he $300M (2.5B yuan) 1,804-ft. Lupu Bridge over the Huangpu River in Shanghai opens, becoming the world's longest steel arch bridge (until 2009). On July 4 the private Nat. Constitution Center (begun Sept. 17, 2000) in Philadelphia's Independence Mall opens in a gray Indiana limestone bldg. (no red brick). In Sept. $365M Soldier Field II in Chicago, Ill. opens as the home of the NFL Chicago Bears. On Oct. 24 the $130M Walt Disney Concert Hall at 111 S. Grand Ave. in downtown Los Angeles, Calif. opens, designed by Frank Gehry, seating 2,265, becoming the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. On Dec. 19 the Nat. Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) is founded on the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C.; on Feb. 22, 2012 Pres. Obama attends the groundbreaking ceremny; it opens on Sept. 24, 2016. On Dec. 20 the 866-ft. (264.1m) 57-story Triumph Palace luxury apt. bldg. in Moscow is finished, becoming Europe's tallest bldg. (until 2007). On Dec. 26 the $220M Glendale Arena in Glendale, Ariz. across the street from the U. of Phoenix Stadium opens as the home of the NHL Arizona Coyotes and NLL Arizona Sting; in Oct. 2006 it becomes Jobing.com Stadium; in Aug. 2014 it becomes Gila River Arena. Big Sandy Federal Penitentiary near Inez in E Ky. 133 mi. from Frankfort and 320 mi. from Washington, D.C. opens to house people convicted of crimes in Washington, D.C., becoming known for prisoner stabbings. The blob-like Kunsthaus Graz (Grazer Kunsthaus) is built in Graz, Austria by Colin Fournier and Peter Cook as part of the 2003 European Capital of Culture celebrations, becoming known as "the Friendly Alien". Nobel Prizes: Peace: Shirin Ebadi (1947-) (Iran) (first Muslim woman) [women's, children's, and refugee rights]; in 2009 Iranian authorities confiscate her medal for the first time in the history of the Nobel Prize; Lit.: John Maxwell Coetzee (1940-) (South Africa); Physics: Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov (1928-) (Russia, U.S.), Sir Anthony James Leggett (1938-) (U.K., U.S.), and Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg (1916-2009) (Russia) [superconductivity]; Chem.: Peter Agre (1949-) (U.S.) and Roderick MacKinnon (1956-) (U.S.) [aquaporins], and Paul Christian Lauterbur (1929-2007) (U.S.) and Sir Peter Mansfield (1933-) (U.K.) [MRI]; Economics: Robert Fry Engle III (1942-) (U.S.) and Sir Clive William John Granger (1934-2009) (U.K.) [ARCH statistical tools for stock market]. Inventions: On Mar. 11 the USAF tests the MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb) (Mother of All Bombs), the most powerful non-nuclear bomb yet designed; on Sept. 11, 2007 Russia tests its FOAB (Father of All Bombs, which is 4x more powerful and almost forms a mushroom cloud. On June 10 Spirit, the first of two NASA Mars Exploration Rovers is launched, followed by Opportunity on July 7; Spirit lands next Jan. 4, and Opportunity next Jan. 25 on the opposite side of Mars. In June the first-ever private Moon launch by TransOrbital, Inc. of La Jolla, Calif. blasts off from Kazakhstan. In early Aug. Blaster and SoBig network worms are released, causing Microsoft to begin offering cash rewards to detectives who help capture the worm farmers; despite this, next year Netsky and Sasser do it again - Bill Gates should give all those billions back to his Windoze customers for selling them schlock software, plus more millions to the worm programmers for showing him up, then get a job at a food bank for the elderly? In the fall Theranos (therapy + diagnosis) is founded by Stanford U. sophomore Elizabeth Anne Holmes (1984-) to market a revolutionary faster blood test, causing her to become the youngest self-made female billionaire in the U.S. in 2014 ($4.5B); too bad, many scientists are skeptical of the value of the blood test, which is ever-shrouded in secrecy. On Oct. 29 the first-person shooter video game Call of Duty is released on Microsoft Windows by Activision, launching a franchise that sells 250M copies ($15B). On Nov. 18 the People's Repub. of China announces the Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD) optical digital audio-video format as a lower cost alternative to the DVD format; too bad, it never takes off. Chinese computer scientist Chen Jin (1969-) announces the creation of China's first home-grown digital microchips, becoming a nat. hero; on May 12, 2006 the govt. announces that it is all a fraud, and that he stole his designs from a foreign co. In 2003-5 the Austrian 440 lb. 6-hour 140mph 55hp 18K-ft. alt. Schiebel Camcopter S-100 rotorcraft surveillance UAV is developed. The Bonker, a sexual position furniture for the bedroom is introduced by Gonk Designs. SBT Co. Ltd. of Beijing, China develops the Electronic Cigarette, which atomizes nicotine with a battery-driven LED. Microsoft Word 2003 features custom XML; on Aug. 11 U.S. district judge Leonard Davis rules that they infringed on the "449 patent" of i4i of Canada, awarding them $290M. The $500 Motorola RAZR V3 cell phone is released, with a VGA camera and 2.2 in. 176x200 LCD; it sells 110M units. Am. inventor John S. Kanzius (1944-2009) invents the Kanzius Machine, which bombards cancer cells with RF energy, allegedly killing them; too bad, he dies of cancer before he can er, perfect it. Intel Corp. releases the Itanium 2 chip, which has a shocking 410M transistors. Luis von Ahn, Manuel Blum, Nicholas J. Hopper, and John Langford of Carnegie Mellon U. coin the term CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart), invented in 1997. Toyota begins marketing vehicles with Intelligent Parking Assist (IPA), a system allowing them to self-park. Science: On Jan. 22 Chinese paleontologists announce the discovery of Microraptor gui, a 4-winged flying bird-like dinosaur NE of Beijing. On Mar. 28 Bernard La Scola, Didier Raoult et al. of the U. of the Mediterranean in Marseille pub. an article in Science reporting the discovery of Mimivirus (microbe mimicking virus), with 1.18M bases containing 900+ genes, the size of a small bacterium, overturning the belief that a virus is a simple inert particle and throwing the classification system into a tizzy until? In Apr. Japanese scientists announce the discovery of PQQ (pyrroloquinoline quinone), the first new vitamin discovered in 55 years - does it explain my impotence? On May 15 Michael Nitsche, Walter Paulus et al. of the U. of Gottingen pub. an article reporting that weak DC current applied to the motor regions of the human brain stimulates faster learning. On Sept. 27 the $140M SMART-1 (Small Mission for Advanced Research and Technology) On Oct. 11 18 doctors at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, Tex. begin a successful 34-hour separation surgery for 2-y.-o. conjoined twins from Egypt, and finish on Oct. 12. On Dec. 3 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act, authorizing nearly $4B for programs and activities supported by the Nat. Nanotechnology Initiative. Am. chemist Carolyn Ruth Bertozzi (1966-) coins the term Bioorthogonal Chemistry to refer to any chemical reaction that can occur inside living systems without interfering with native biochemical processed. 2.5km-diam. Eris, a Solar System dwarf planet 27% more massive than Pluto is discovered by Michael E. "Mike" Brown (1965-) of Palomar Observatory, causing Pluto's status as a planet to be reconsidered, and leading to its demotion to dwarf planet. Adilson E. Motter of Northwestern U. conjectures that the expansion of the Universe right after the Big Bang was chaotic; he proves it mathematically in 2010. The first Definitive List of Scientific Predictions is produced by an internat. conference. The newly discovered armored dinosaur Crichtonsaurus bohlini is named in honor of "Jurassic Park" author Michael Crichton. UCLA astronomer Andrea Ghez discovers a supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, leading to the conclusion that most galaxies also have them, and that they both destroy and create stars, determining their structure and evolution. The sequencing of the human genome is finished. Swedish psychiatrist Lars Christopher Gillberg (1950-) et al. identify the genetic mutations in individuals with autism, two genes on the X chromosome. The Barcode of Life Initiative is launched to try telling species apart by using a very short gene sequence from a standardized position in the genome. The first human clone is planned by Prof. Panos Zavos of the U.S. and Dr. Severino Antinori of Italy. David C. Page et al. of Cambridge U. discover that Y chromosomes contain palindromes; in 2009 the palindrome system is discovered to have a simple weakness that explains sex anomalies incl. feminization and sex reversal - Madam, I'm Adam William Ruddiman proposes that humanity's influence on climate began thousands of years ago, not during the Industrial Rev. The first intersex fish, male fish with female sexual traits (immature eggs in their testes) are discovered in the Potomac River, caused by pollutants - followed by intersex humans in ? The $173.5M NASA PICASSO-CENA (Climatologie Entendu des Nuages et des Aerosols) (Instruments for Cloud and Aerosol Observations) is launched to examine the role of clouds and aerosols in the Earth's radiation budget using Lidar (laser radar). Art: Enrique Chagoya, The Misadventures of Mohammad. Maggie Michael, Travel (2003-5); 46"x64". Elizabeth Murray (1940-2007), Bop. Philip Pearlstein (1924-), Model with Blue Flowered Kimono. Music: 311, Evolver (album #7) (July 22) (#7 in the U.S.); incl. Beyond the Gray Sky, Creatures (For a While). John Coolidge Adams (1947-), On the Transmigration of Souls (Avery Fisher Hall, New York) (Sept. 19) (Pulitzer Prize); tribute to 9/11. Jane's Addiction, Strays (album #3) (July 22) (#4 in the U.S.); first album since 1991; first with bassist Chris Chaney; incl. Just Because, True Nature. a-ha, How Can I Sleep with Your Voice in My Head (album) (Mar. 25). Allman Brothers Band, Hittin' the Note (album #13) (Mar. 18); incl. Heart of Stone; Live at the Beacon Theatre (album) (Sept. 23). Anthrax, We've Come for You All (album #9) (May 6) (#122 in the U.S.); incl. What Doesn't Die, Safe Home, Takin' the Music Back. Apocalyptica, Reflections (album #4) (Feb. 10); incl. Faraway. Ashanti (1980-), Chapter II (album #2) (July 1) (#1 in the U.S., #5 in the U.K.); incl. Rock Wit U (Awww Baby), Rain on Me, Breakup 2 Makeup (w/Black Child); Ashanti's Christmas (album) (Nov. 18) (#16 in the U.S.). Gilad Atzmon (1963-), Exile (album). Erykah Badu (1971-), Worldwide Underground (album). Joan Baez (1941-), Dark Chords on a Big Guitar (album). Marcia Ball (1949-), So Many Rivers (album). Buju Banton (1973-), Friends for Life (album #7) (Mar. 11). Pat Benatar (1953-), Go (album); incl. Have It All. Belle and Sebastian, Dear Catastrophe Waitress (album #6) (Oct. 6); incl. Step into My Office, Baby. Dierks Bentley (1975-), Dierks Bentley (album) (debut) (Aug. 19); incl. What Was I Thinkin', My Last Name, How Am I Doin'. Beyonce (1981-), Dangerously in Love (#1 in the U.S. and the U.K.) (11M copies); incl. Crazy in Love (w/Jay-Z) (1st by a female artist to go #1 in the U.S. and U.K. simultaneously), Baby Boy (w/Sean Paul), Me, Myself and I, Naughty Girl. Limp Bizkit, Results May Vary (album #4) (Sept. 23); incl. Eat You Alive. Mary J. Blige (1971-), Love & Life (album #6) (Aug. 26) (#1 in the U.S.) (2M copies); incl. Love @ 1st Sight (w/Method Man), Ooh!, Not Today (w/Eve), It's a Wrap. Third Eye Blind, Out of the Vein (album #3) (May 13) (500K copies), first with guitarist Tony Fredianelli; incl. Blinded (When I See You). Blink-182, Blink-182 (album #5) (Nov. 18) (#3 in the U.S., #22 in U.K.); incl. Feeling This, I Miss You. Moody Blues, December (album) (Oct. 28); guest flautist Norda Mullen. Butterfly Boucher (1979-), Flutterby (album) (debut) (Oct. 7); incl. I Can't Make Me, Another White Dash. David Bowie (1947-), Reality (album) (July 15); he gets obsessed with getting old; incl. Never Get Old, The Loneliest Guy, Bring Me the Disco King (with Maynard James Keenan); sho' 'nuff, he suffers a heart attack on June 25, 2004 in Scheessel, Germany, slowing him down. Beastie Boys, In a World Gone Mad; protest against the 2003 U.S. Iraq War. Pet Shop Boys, Disco 3 (album) (Feb. 3); incl. If Looks Could Kill; Pop Art: The Hits (album) (Nov. 24); incl. Flamboyant, Miracles. Michelle Branch (1983-), Hotel Paper (album #2) (June 24) (#2 in the U.S.); sells 1M copies; incl. Are You Happy Now? (#16 in the U.S.), Breathe (#36 in the U.S.). Cam'ron (1974-), Diplomatic Immunity (album). The Cardigans, Long Gone Before Daylight (album #5) (Mar. 19) (#47 in the U.K.). Mariah Carey (1970-), The Remixes (album) (Oct. 14). June Carter Cash (1929-2003), Wildwood Flower (album) (posth.). 50 Cent (1975-), Get Rich or Die Tryin' (album) (debut) (#1 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.) (15M copies, incl. 8M in the U.S.); incl. In Da Club, 21 Questions (w/Nate Dogg), Wanksta, P.I.M.P. (w/Snoop Dogg). Kenny Chesney (1968-), All I Want for Christmas is a Real Good Tan (album). Kelly Clarkson (1982-), Thankful (album) (debut) (Apr. 15) (#1 in the U.S.); sells 3M copies; incl. A Moment Like This. Biffy Clyro, The Vertigo of Bliss (album #2) (June 16); incl. Toys, Toys, Toys, Choke, Toys, Toys, Toys, The Ideal Height, Questions and Answers, Eradicate the Doubt. Alice Cooper (1948-), The Eyes of Alice Cooper (album #23). Elvis Costello (1954-), North (album) (Sept. 23). Cracker, Countrysides (album #7) (Oct. 7); incl. Ain't Gonna Suck Itself. The Cramps, Fiends of Dope Island (album). Counting Crows, Films About Ghosts (album) (Nov.). Death Cab for Cutie, Transatlanticism (album #4) (Oct. 7) (#97 in the U.S.); first with drummer Jason McGerr; incl. The New Year, Title and Registration, The Sound of Setting. The Grateful Dead, Dick's Picks Vol. 27 (album) (Jan. 17); recorded on Dec. 16, 1992 in Oakland, Calif.; View from the Vault, Vol. 4 (album) (Apr. 8); Dick's Picks Vol. 28 (album) (Apr. 20); recorded on Feb. 26-28, 1973; Dick's Picks Vol. 29 (album) (June); recorded on May 19-21, 1977; Dick's Picks Vol. 30 (album) (Oct. 30). Deftones, Deftones (album #4) (May 20) (#2 in the U.S) (500K copies); incl. Minerva, Hexagram. Celine Dion (1968-), One Heart (album #8) (Mar. 24); incl. One Heart, Have You Ever Been in Love. Doobie Brothers, Divided Highway (album) (Feb. 25). 3 Doors Down, Another 700 Miles (album) (Nov. 11). Hilary Duff (1987-), Metamorphosis (Aug. 26) (#1 in the U.S., #69 in the U.K.) (5M copies worldwide); incl. So Yesterday, Come Clean, Little Voice. As I Lay Dying, Frail Words Collapse (album #2) (July 1) (250K copies); incl. 94 Hours, Forever. Finger Eleven, Finger Eleven (album #4) (June 17); incl. One Thing (#16 in the U.S.). Epica, The Phantom Agony (album) (debut) (June 5); from Netherlands, incl. Mark Jansen (1978), and Simone Johanna Maria Simons (1985-); incl. Cry for the Moon (about child abuse by priests). Gloria Estefan (1957-), Unwrapped (album #10) (Sept. 22); incl. Wrapped. Eve 6, It's All in Your Head (album #3) (July 22); dropped by RCA Records after poor sales. Elysian Fields, Dreams That Breathe Your Name (album #3). Fall Out Boy, Fall Out Boy's Evening Out With Your Girlfriend (Mar. 25) (album) (debut); from Wilmette, Ill.; incl. Patrick Stump (vocals, guitar), Joe Trohman (guitar), Pete Wentz (bass), and Andy Hurley (drums); Take This to Your Grave (album #2) (May 6) (500K copies); incl. Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy. Dan Fogelberg (1951-2007), Full Circle (album). Arcade Fire, Arcade Fire (AKA Us Kids Now) (album) (debut); from Montreal, Canada, incl. Win Butler (1980-), Regine Chassagne (1977-), and William Pierce Butler (1982-). Fuel, Natural Selection (album #3) (Sept. 23); incl. Won't Back Down (from the film "Daredevil"), Falls on Me, Million Miles, Miss Independent. Nelly Furtado (1978-), Folklore (album #2) (Nov. 25) (#38 in the U.S., #11 in the U.K.); incl. Powerless (Say What You Want), Try, Forca, Explode, The Grass Is Green. AQi Fzono (1969-), Chronicle (album #6). Debbie Gibson (1970-), Colored Lights: The Broadway Album (album). Lamb of God, As the Palaces Burn (album #3) (May 6) (250K copies); incl. As the Palaces Burn, Ruin, 11th Hour, A Devil in God's Country. Godsmack, Faceless (album #3) (Apr. 8) (#1 in the U.S., #156 in the U.K.) (1.5M copies in the U.S.); first with drummer Shannon Larkin from Ugly Kid Joe; incl. Straight Out of Line, I Stand Alone, Serenity, Re-Align. Macy Gray (1967-), The Trouble with Being Myself (album) (Apr. 28); incl. When I See You, She Ain't Right for You. 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, Other Ways of Speaking (album #3) (Apr. 8) (last album); incl. Never Be Alone Again (w/Chrissie Hynde), Painted Veil, Full Length of the River, Afraid, Folsom Prison Blues; Russell Crowe then "evolves" the band into The Ordinary Fear of God. Guano Apes, Walking on a Thin Line (album #3) (Feb. 3) (100K copies); incl. You Can't Stop Me, Pretty in Scarlet, Quietly. Nina Hagen (1955-), Big Band Explosion (album #13) (Dec. 9); incl. Let Me Entertain You (by Jules Styne and Stephen Sondheim). Merle Haggard (1937-), Haggard Like Never Before (album); incl. That's the News; questions Bush's declaration that the Iraq War is over. Emmylou Harris (1947-), Stumble Into Grace (album). Hans Werner Henze (1926-), L'Upupa under der Triumph der Sohnesliebe (The Hoopoe and the Triumph of Filian Love) (opera); based on a Syrian fairy tale. Her Space Holiday, The Young Machines (album). Hoobastank, The Reason (album #2) (Dec. 9) (2.5M copies); incl. The Reason, Same Direction, Out of Control. Crowded House, Classic Masters (album) (June 24). David Ippolito, Talk Louder (the Cell Phone Song) (album #6). Isley Brothers, Body Kiss (album). Alan Jackson (1958-) and Jimmy Buffett (1946-), It's Five O'Clock Somewhere (June) (#1 country) (#1 in the U.S.). Jamelia (1981-), Thank You (album #2) (Sept. 20); incl. Bout, Superstar, Thank You, See It In a Boy's Eyes, DJ. Jamiroquai, Late Night Tales: Jamiroquai (album) (Nov. 10). Jay-Z (1969-), The Black Album (album #8) (Nov. 14); claims it's his last studio album; incl. Change Clothes, Dirt Off Your Shoulder, 99 Problems. Jack Hody Johnson (1975-), On and On (album #2) (May 6) (#3 in the U.S.); incl. The Horizon Has Been Defeated, Taylor, Rodeo Clowns. Bon Jovi, This Left Feels Right (album) (Nov.). R. Kelly (1967-), Chocolate Factory (album #5) (Feb. 18) (#1 in the U.S.) (3M copies); incl. Step in the Name of Love, Snake, Ignition (Remix). Alicia Keys (1981-), The Diary of Alicia Keys (album #2) (Dec. 2) (#1 in the U.S., #13 in the U.K.) (8M copies); incl. You Don't Know My Name, If I Ain't Got You, Diary. The Black Keys, Thickfreakness (album #2) (Apr. 8); incl. Thickfreakness, Set You Free (used in the 2003 film "School of Rock"), Hard Row, Have Love, Will Travel (by Richard Berry). Korn, Take a Look in the Mirror (album #6) (Nov. 21) (#9 in the U.S.); last with Brian "Head" Welch; incl. Did My Time (#12 in the U.S.), Right Now (#11 in the U.S.), Y'All Want a Single (#23 in the U.S.), Everything I've Known (#30 in the U.S.). Kraftwerk, Tour de France Soundtracks (album #10) (Aug. 4); first original album since 1986; incl. Tour de France. Barenaked Ladies, Everything to Everyone (album #6) (Oct. 21) (#10 in the U.S., #6 in Canada); incl. Another Postcard (#82 in the U.S.), Testing 1, 2, 3, For You, Celebrity, Maybe Katie. Strapping Young Lad, Strapping Young Lad (album #3) (Feb. 11) (#97 in the U.S.); incl. Relentless, Rape Song. Laibach, WAT (We Are Time) (album #12) (Sept. 8). Jonny Lang (1981-), Long Time Coming (album #3) (Oct. 14) (#17 in the U.S.); incl. Long Time Coming, Red Light. Cyndi Lauper (1953-), At Last (album #8) (Nov. 18); incl. At Last, Makin' Whoopee (with Tony Bennett). Annie Lennox (1954-), Bare (album #3) (June 5) (#4 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.); incl. A Thousand Beautiful Things, Pavement Cracks, Wonderful. Georges Lentz, Ingwe (2003-9); a 60-min. work for solo electric guitar. Black Lips, Black Lips! (Mar. 18); from Atlanta, Ga., incl. Cole Alexander (vocals), Jared Swilley (bass), Ben Eberbaugh (-2002) (guitar), Jack Hines (guitar), and Joe Bradley (drums). Meat Loaf (1947-), Couldn't Have Said It Better (album). Loon (1975-), Loon (album) (debut) (Oct. 21) (#6 in the U.S.); incl. How You Want That, Relax Your Mind. Lorna (1983-), Papi Chulo... (Te Traigo el Mmmm) (debut). Ludacris (1977-), Chicken-N-Beer (album #3) (Oct. 7) (#1 in the U.S.) (2.7M copies); incl. Stand Up, Splash Waterfalls, Diamond in the Back, P-Poppin (Pussy Poppin'). Fleetwood Mac, Say You Will (album #16) (Apr. 15); first without Christine McVie; incl. Say You Will, Murrow Turning Over in His Grave. Madonna (1958-), American Life (album #9) (Apr. 22) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); her lowest-selling album; a collaboration with Mirwais Ahmadzai (1960-), rejecting the values in "Material Girl"; last album produced by Maverick; incl. American Life; "I tried to be a boy, I tried to be a girl, I tried to be a mess, I tried to be the best"; Remixed & Revisited (album) (Nov. 24) (#115 in the U.S.). Mae (Multi-Sensory Aesthetic Experience), Destination: Beautiful (album) (debut) (Feb. 25); from Norfolk, Va., incl. Dave Elkins, Zach Gehring, and Jacob Marshall (drums) (who names the group based on his course at Old Dominion U.); incl. Embers and Envelopes, All Deliberate Speed, This Time Is the Last Time. Vusi Mahlasela (1965-), The Voice (album); incl. Weeping. Iron Maiden, Dance of Death (album #13) (Sept. 2); incl. Wildest Dreams, Rainmaker. Marilyn Manson, The Golden Age of Grotesque (album #5) (Apr. 13); sells 4M copies; incl. mOBSCENE, This is the New Shit, (s)AINT. Bob Marley (1945-81) and the Wailers, Live at the Roxy (double album) (June 24); recorded on May 26, 1976 in West Hollywood, Calif. John Mayer (1977-), Heavier Things (album #2) (Sept. 9) (#1 in the U.S.) (3M copies); incl. Bigger Than My Body, Clarity, Daughters. Martina McBride (1966-), Martina (album #6); incl. This One's for the Girls; "This is for all you girls about 13/ high school can be so rough, can be so mean/ hold onto, onto your innocence", In My Daughter's Eyes. Paul McCartney (1942-), Back in the World: Live (album) (Mar. 17) (#5 in the U.K.). Reba McEntire (1955-), 20th Century Masters: The Christmas Collection: The Best of Reba (album) (Sept. 23); Room to Breathe (album #27) (Nov. 18); incl. Somebody (#1). John Mellencamp (1951-), Trouble No More (June 3) (album); incl. Teardrops Will Fall. Katie Melua (1984-), Call Off the Search (album) (debut) (Nov. 3); sells 1.8M copies; incl. Call Off the Search, The Closest Thing to Crazy, Crawling Up a Hill. Natalie Merchant (1963-), The House Carpenter's Daughter (album #4) (Sept. 16). Metallica, St. Anger (album) (June 5); incl. St. Anger. Metric, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? (album) (debut); from Toronto, Canada, incl. Emily Haines (vocals), James Shaw (guitar, vocals), Joshua Winstead (bass, vocals), and Joules Scott-Key (drums); incl. Combat Baby. Steve Miller Band, Young Hearts (album). Kylie Minogue (1968-), Body Language (album #9) (Nov. 20) ($2 in the U.K., #6 in the U.K.); incl. Slow, Red Blooded Woman, Chocolate. Bret Michaels (1963-), Songs of Life (album #2) (Apr. 22); incl. Raine (about his daughter Raine Elizabeth Sychak, b. May 20, 2000), Bittersweet, One More Day (9/11 tribute). Moonspell, The Antidote (album #6); incl. Everything Invaded. Van Morrison (1945-), What's Wrong With This Picture? (album #30) (Oct. 21). Motorhead, Live at Brixton Academy (album) (Dec. 9). Smash Mouth, Get the Picture? (album #4) (Aug. 5); incl. You Are My Number One, Hang On (used in "The Cat in the Hat"). Puddle of Mudd, Life on Display (album #2) (Nov. 25 (#20 in the U.S.) (700K copies); incl. Away from Me (#1 in the U.S.), Spin You Around, Heel Over Head; Greg and Paul leave the band. Dropkick Murphys, Blackout (album #4) (June 10); incl. Buried Alive, Kiss Me, I'm Shitfaced. The National, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers (album #2) (Sept. 2). Nelly (1974-), Da Derrty Versions: The Reinvention (album); incl. Iz U (featured on Walt Disney's "The Haunted Mansion), Tip Drill, Pimp Juice. The Nice, Vivacitas: Live at Glasgow 2002 (album #5) (Sept. 16); first album since 1971. Nickelback, The Long Road (album #4) (Sept. 23) (#6 in the U.S., #5 in the U.K.) (5M copies); incl. Someday, Figured You Out, See You at the Show, Feelin' Way Too Damn Good, Because of You. Hall & Oates, Do It for Love (album #16) (Feb. 11); incl. Do It for Love. Indian Ocean, Jhini (album #3); incl. Jhini. Sinead O'Connor (1966-), She Who Dwells in the Secret Place of the Most High Shall Abide Under the Shadow of the Almighty (double album) (Sept. 9); claims she's retired now; incl. Molly Malone. Blue October, History for Sale (album #3) (Apr. 8); incl. Razorblade, Calling You. The Offspring, Splinter (album #7) (Dec. 9); sells 1.8M copies; first without Ron Welty; incl. Splinter, Hit That, (Can't Get My) Head Around You. Outkast, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (album); incl. Hey Ya!; "Shake it like a Polaroid picture". Brad Paisley (1972-), Mud on Tires (album); incl. Mud on Tires, Celebrity. Paris (Oscar Jackson Jr.) (1967-), Sonic Jihad (album #5) (Oct. 7); incl. Sheep to the Slaughter, Field Nigga Boogie, AWOL. Linkin Park, Meteora (album #2) (Mar. 25) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (10M copies); incl. Somewhere I Belong (#32 in the U.S., #10 in the U.K.), Faint (#48 in the U.S., #15 in the U.K.), Numb (#11 in the U.S., #14 in the U.K.), From the Inside, Breaking the Habit (#20 in the U.S., #39 in the U.K.), Lying from You (#58 in the U.S.). Snow Patrol, Final Straw (album); incl. Run, Chocolate, Spitting Games, How to Be Dead. Black Eyed Peas, Elephunk (album #3) (June 24); sells 8M copies; will.i.am (William James Adams Jr.) (1975-), apl.de.ap (Allan Pineda Lindo) (1974-), Taboo Nawasha (Jaime Luis Gomez) (1975-), Fergie (Stacy Ann Ferguson (1975-); incl. Hey Mama, Where is the Love?, Shut Up, Let's Get It Started (Let's Get Retarded); adding vocalist Fergie (formerly of the Disney Channel's "Kids Incorporated" and 90s pop group Wild Orchid) causes the L.A. trio to shoot to the top in pop. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Greatest Hits (album) (Nov.); incl. Fortune Faded, Save the Population. Pink (1979-), Try This (album #3) (Nov. 11) (#9 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.) (3M copies); incl. Trouble, God is a DJ, Last to Know. Placebo, Sleeping with Ghosts (album #4) (Apr. 1) (#11 in the U.K.); incl. Sleeping with Ghosts, The Bitter End, Special Needs; Covers (album) (Sept. 22); incl. Running Up That Hill (by Kate Bush) (#66 in the U.K.). Iggy Pop (1947-), Skull Ring (album) (Nov. 4); incl. Little Know It All (w/Sum 41), Rock Show (w/Peaches). The New Pornographers, Electric Version (album #2) (May 6); incl. The Electric Version, The Laws Have Changed. Manic Street Preachers, Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of Manic Street Preachers (album) (July 14). Queensryche, Tribe (album #9) (July 22). Radiohead, Hail to the Thief (album #6) (June 9); incl. There There, Go to Sleep, 2 + 2 = 5. The Raveonettes, Whip It On (album) (debut) (Aug. 6); from Denmark, incl. Sune Rose Wagner (1973) and Sharin Foo (1979); incl. Attack of the Ghostriders; Chain Gang of Love (album) (debut) (Aug. 25); incl. Chang Gang of Love, C'mon Everybody, The Love Gang. Juno Reactor, Mona Lisa Overdrive (from "The Matrix Reloaded"); Navras (from "The Matrix Revolutions"). Eddi Reader (1959-), Eddi Reader Sings the Songs of Robert Burns (album #7). Lou Reed (1942-), The Raven (album #19) (Jan. 28); tribute to Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49); incl. The Conqueror Worm, Edgar Allan Poe. Steve Reich (1936-), Cello Counterpoint. The All-American Rejects, The All-American Rejects (album) (debut) (Jan. 17) (#25 in the U.S., #50 in the U.K.); from Stillwater, Okla., incl. Tyson Ritter (vocals, bass), Nick Wheeler (guitar), Mike Kennerty (guitar), and Chris Gaylor (drums); incl. Swing, Swing. Kid Rock (1971-), Kid Rock (album). The Romantics, 61/49 (album #6) (Sept.); first album since 1985. Skid Row, Thickskin (album #4) (Aug. 5); incl. Thick Is the Skin, New Generation, Ghost. Rush, Rush in Rio (album) (Oct. 21). Pharoah Sanders (1940-), The Creator Has a Master Plan (album). Primal Scream and Kate Moss (1974-), Some Velvet Morning (Nov. 10). Seal (1963-), Seal (album #4) (Sept. 9). Jessica Simpson (1980-), In This Skin (album #3) (Aug. 19) (#2 in the U.S., #36 in the U.K.) (7M copies); incl. Sweetest Sin, With You, Take My Breath Away, Angels. Eve 6, It's All in Your Head (album); incl. Think Twice, At Least We're Dreaming, Good Lives. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Vicious Cycle (album #11) (May 20). Sister Sledge, Style (album #11). Black Label Society, The Blessed Hellride (album #4) (Apr. 22); incl. Stillborn (w/Ozzy Osbourne), Doomsday Jesus; Boozed, Broozed & Broken-Boned (album) (Aug. 12). Britney Spears (1981-), In The Zone (album); incl. Toxic. Chicks on Speed, 99 Cents (album #2) (Oct.); incl. We Don't Play Guitars, Wordy Rappinghood. Staind, 14 Shades of Grey (album #4) (May 20) (#1 in the U.S., #16 in the U.K.) (2M copies); incl. Price to Play, So Far Away, How About You. Ringo Starr (1940-), Ringo Rama (album #12) (Mar. 24). Status Quo, Riffs (album #26) (Dec. 23). Rod Stewart (1945-), As Time Goes By: The Great American Songbook 2 (album) (Oct. 14). Joss Stone (1987-), The Soul Sessions (album) (debut) (Nov. 24) (#39 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.); incl. Fell in Love with a Boy, Super Duper Love. Stratovarius, Elements, Pt. 1 (album #9) (Jan. 27); incl. Eagleheart; Elements, Pts. 2 (album #10) (Nov. 24); incl. I Walk to My Own Song. White Stripes, Elephant (album #4) (Apr. 1) (#6 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (5M copies); Rolling Stone mag.'s #5 best album of the decade; incl. Seven Nation Army (#76 in the U.S., #7 in the U.K.) ("Don't want to hear about it/ Every single one's got a story to tell/ Everyone knows about it/ From the Queen of England to the hounds of Hell"), The Hardest Button to Button (#8 in the U.S., #23 in the U.K.), There's No Home for You Here, I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself (#25 in the U.S., #13 in the U.K.). The Strokes, Room on Fire (album #2) (Oct. 28) (#4 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); incl. 12:51 (#15 in the U.S., #7 in the U.K.), Reptilia (#19 in the U.S., #17 in the U.K.), The End Has No End (#35 in the U.S., #27 in the U.K.). Styx, Cyclorama (album #14) (Feb. 18); first with Lawrence Gowan (1956-). Sugarbabes, Three (album #3) (Oct. 27); incl. Hole in the Head, Too Lost in You, In the Middle, Caught in a Moment. Howard Tate (1939-), Rediscovered; comeback after having royalties from his 1960s hits "Ain't Nobody Home" et al. ripped off, resulting in homelessness and drug addiction? Within Temptation, The Silent Force (album #3) (Nov. 15); first with Ruud Jolie and Martijn Spierenburg; incl. Stand My Ground, Memories, Angels, Jillian (I'd Give My Heart). ZZ Top, Mescalero (album #14) (Apr. 15). Toto, Through the Looking Glass (album #11) (Nov. 5); all covers; 25th Anniversary: Live in Amsterdam (album). Train, My Private Nation (album #3) (June 3) (#6 in the U.S.); incl. Calling All Angels, When I Look to the Sky, Get to Me; Live in Atlanta (album) (July 31). Randy Travis (1959-), Worship and Faith (album). Cheap Trick, Special One (album #14) (July 23); incl. Scent of a Woman. The Fall of Troy, The Fall of Troy (album) (debut) (Nov. 4); from Mukilteo, Wash., incl. Thomas Joseph Erak (1985-) (vocals), Andrew Forsman (1985-) (drums), and Frank "Black" Ene (bass). Jethro Tull, The Jethro Tull Christmas Album (album #22) (Sept. 30). Bonnie Tyler (1951-), Heart Strings (Heart & Soul) (album #13) (Mar. 24). Six Feet Under, Bringer of Blood (album #5) (Sept. 23); incl. Amerika the Brutal, Murdered in the Basement, When Skin Turns Blue, Bringer of Blood. The Undertones, Get What You Need (album #5) (Sept. 30); first album since 1983; new lead singer Paul McLoone (1967-). Westlife, Turnaround (album #5) (Nov. 24) (7M copies); incl. Hey Whatever (#4 in the U.K.), Mandy (by Barry Manilow) (#1 in the U.K.), Obvious #3 in the U.K.). Amy Winehouse (1983-2011), Frank (album) (debut) (Oct. 20) (900K copies in the U.K.); the English answer to Britney Spears?; incl. Stronger Than Me, Take the Box, In My Bed, Fuck Me Pumps. Steve Winwood (1948-), About Time (album #8) (June 17); last album in 1997. Wisin and Yandel, Mi Vida... My Life (album #3) (Oct. 21); De Otra Manera (album #4). Darryl Worley, Have You Forgotten; about 9/11. Yello, The Eye (album #11) (Dec. 9). Lil' Zane (1982-), The Big Zane Theory (album #2) (Aug. 19). Frank Zappa (1940-93), Halloween (album) (posth.) (Feb. 4); Halloween show at the Palladium in New York City in 1978. Warren Zevon (1947-2003), The Wind (album) (Aug. 26); released 2 wks. before the inventor of rock noir dies of lung cancer (Sept. 7), and finally wins a Grammy; incl. Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Movies: Alejandro Inarritu's 21 Grams (Dec. 26) (This is That), #2 in the Trilogy of Death series ("Amores Perros", 2000; "Babel", 2006"), named after the claim by Dr. Duncan MacDougall that the human soul weighs 21 grams stars miscast Sean Penn as math prof. with a bad heart Paul Rivers, who benefits when born-again Christian convict Jack Jordan (Benicio del Toro) kills the husband of recovering drug addict Christina Peck (Naomi Watts) and his heart is donated to him, after which he follows her around and hooks up with her until the transplant goes bad and she finds she is carrying his baby, with Jack's conscience getting in the middle; does $60M box office on a $20M budget. Spike Jonze's Adaptation (Jan. 10), based on the book by Susan Orlean stars Nicolas Cage as Charlie, and Donald Kaufman, and Meryl Streep as Susan Orlean; "One story. Four lives... A million ways it can end." Robert Pulcini's and Shari Springer Berman's American Splendor (Sept. 12), based on the 1986 biography of Jewish-Am. underground comic book writer Harvey Pekar (1939-2010) stars Paul Giamatti, with appearances by Pekar. Denzel Washington's Antwone Fisher (Jan. 10), based on Fisher's 2001 autobio. stars Denzel as Navy pshrink Dr. Jerome Davenport, who tries to figure out why black swabbie Antwone Quenton "Fish" Fisher (Derek Luke) is so violent, and discovers a messed-up upbringing sorry story. Terry Zwigoff's Bad Santa (Nov. 26) (Tryptich Pictures) (Dimension Films) stars Billy Bob Thornton as alcoholic sex-addicted dirty-talking dept. store Santa Claus Willie T. Soke, and Tony Cox as his midget Little Helper Marcus Skidmore, who end each season by robbing the store; Brett Kelly plays fat kid Thurman Merman; Lauren Graham plays Soke's babe Sue; Bernie Mac plays Gin Slagel; does $76.5M box office on a $23M budget; followed by "Bad Santa 2" (2016). Tim Burton's Big Fish (Dec. 10) (Columbia Pictures), based on the 1998 Daniel Wallace novel stars Ewan McGregor as Ed Bloom Jr., a son who tries to relive the baloney stories his daddy Albert Finney told him about himself; Jessica Lange plays Finney's wife Sandra K., Helena Bonham Carter plays an elderly witch with an evil eye, Steve Busceme plays Norther Winslow, a poet from Ashton, Ala. who lives forever in Spectre, Ala., Danny DeVito plays Amos Calloway, a circus ringmaster and werewolf, Matthew McGrory plays giant Karl; does $122.9M box office on a $70M budget. Tom Shadyac's Bruce Almighty (May 23) stars Jim Carrey as Bruce Nolan, who is given divine powers for one week by God (Morgan Freeman) to teach him how hard it is; Jennifer Aniston plays his babe Grace Connelly, Catherine Bell plays his other babe Susan Ortega, and Steve Carell plays his rival Evan Baxter; #5 movie of 2003 ($242M U.S. and $484.6M box office on a $81M budget). Nigel Cole's Calendar Girls (Sept. 2) (Buena Vista Pictures) is the story of some Yorkshire women incl. Helen Mirren and Julie Walters who produce a nude calendar for leukemia research; does $96M box office on a $10M budget. Shawn Levy's Cheaper by the Dozen (Dec. 25), based on the novel by Frank G. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernest Gilbreth Carey stars Steve Martin as Tom Baker, father of a family of 12; #10 movie of 2003 ($139M). Mike Figgis' Cold Creek Manor (Sept. 17) is a psychological thriller about NYC filmmaker Cooper and Leah Tilson (Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone), who are terrorized by ex-con Dale Massie (Stephen Dorff), the former owner of a decaying rural mansion they bought in foreclosure. Jon Amiel's The Core (Mar. 28) (Paramount) stars Hilary Swank as USAF Maj. Rebecca "Beck" Childs, Bruce Greenwood as USN Cmdr. Robert "Bob" Iverson, Aaron Eckhart as U. of Chicago Dr. Joshua "Josh" Keyes, Delroy Lindo as Dr. Edward "Braz" Brazzelton, and Stanley Tucci as Dr. Conrad Zimsky of Project D.E.S.T.I.N.I., which flies the Virgil into the Earth's stalled core relying on their Unobtanium hull; does $73.5M box office on a $60M budget; "Earth has a deadline." Mark Achbar's and Jennifer Abbott's The Corporation (Sept. 10) is a Canadian documentary analyzing the modern corporation like a pshrink might do. Gary Hardwick's Deliver Us from Eva (Feb. 7) based on Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew", stars LL Cool J as Ray Adams, who is paid to date troublesome Eva Dandridge (Gabrielle Union). Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers (Oct. 10), based on the Gilbert Adair novel "The Holy Innocents" stars Eva Green and Louis Garrel as twins Isabelle and Theo, who are in an incestuous relationship, and take in Am. student film buff Matthew (Michael Pitt), secluding themselves and having sex until the 1968 Paris student uprising. Gus Van Sant's Elephant (Oct. 3) stars Alex Frost, Eric Deulen and other no-names in a day in the life of high school students. Jon Favreau's Elf (Nov. 7) (Guy Walks Into a Bar Productions) (New Line Cinema) debuts, starring Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf, who discovers he's really Buddy Hobbs the human, and travels from the North Pole to New York City to see his father Walter Hobbs (James Caan) and his stepmother Emily Hobbs (Mary Steenburgen) during Christmas; Maurice LaMarche voices Buddy's burp; #4 movie of 2003 ($173M U.S. and $220M worldwide box office on a $33M budget); "I'm a cotton-headed ninny-muggins"; inspires the 2010 Broadway musical "Elf: The Musical", and the 2014 NBC-TV animated TV special "Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas"; "This holiday discover your inner elf." "This holiday discover your inner elf." Disney/Pixar's Finding Nemo (May 30), dir. by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich is about Marlin the clownfish, who loses his wife pregnant wife Coral to a barracuda, and saves one egg, which he names you know what; "If this is some kind of practical joke, it's not funny, and I know funny, I'm a clownfish"; "the ultimate fish-out-of-water story" (Time mag.); #2 movie of 2003 ($340M). Martin Brest's Gigli (Aug. 1), starring "Bennifer" (Jennifer Lopez and what's his name Ben Affleck) becomes notorious as a bomb; a criminal lesbian, a hit man with a heart of gold and a retard become best friends? David Caffrey's Grand Theft Parsons (Nov. 6) stars Gabriel Macht as country-rock musician Gram Parsons, and Johnny Knoxville as his road mgr. Phil Kaufman, who stole his corpse and cremated it in Joshua Tree Nat. Park. John Pielmeier's and G. Ross Parker's Hitler: The Rise of Evil (May 18) is a Canadian TV miniseries about Adolf Hitler's childhood and rise to power. Ron Shelton's Hollywood Homicide (June 13) (Columbia Pictures), based on the true experienced of LAPD dick Robert Souza stars Harrison Ford as Sgt. Joe Gavilan, and Josh Hartnett as Det. K.C. Calden, two LAPD dicks who moonlight at real estate and acting; also features Martin Landau, Dwight Yoakam, and Frank Sinatra Jr., with cameos by Eric Idle and Smokey Robinson; Lena Olin plays Ford's babe Ruby; does $51M box office. Stephen Daldry's The Hours (Jan. 24), based on the Michael Cunni, er, Cunningham novel stars Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), Julianne Moore as Laura Brown, Meryl Streep as Clarissa Vaughan, and Miranda Richardson as Vanessa Bell. Donald Petrie's How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Feb. 7) (Paramount Pictures) stars Kate Hudson as Composure women's mag. writer Andie Anderson, who wants to write an article titled you know what, and meets ad exec Benjamin "Ben" Barry (Matthew McConaughey), who bets his boss that he can make any women fall in love with him in guess how many days, until they find each other out; does $177.4M box office on a $50M budget. Robert Benton's The Human Stain, based on the 2000 Philip Roth novel stars Anthony Hopkins as Jewish classics prof. Coleman Silk, who has an affair with long-legged blonde Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman), whose hubby Lester (Ed Harris) gets mean and exposes his past; meanwhile Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise) acts as narrator. William Friedkin's The Hunted (Mar. 14) stars Tommy Lee Jones as deep-woods tracker L.T. Bonham, who has to hunt down the renegade Special Forces assassin Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Toro) that he trained in gorgeous Silver Falls, Ore. F. Gary Gray's The Italian Job (May 30), a remake of the 1969 film stars Donald Sutherland, Charlize Theron, and Mark Wahlberg; "Trust everyone, just don't trust the devil inside them." Amit Saxena's Jism (Jan. 17) is a Bollywood flick starring Bipasha Basu as a millionaire's wife, and John Abraham as an alcoholic playboy atty., who have a torrid love scene cloned from the 1981 Kathleen Turner-William Hurt flick "Body Heat". Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume 1 (Oct. 10) (A Band Apart) (Miramax Films), based on the 1973 Japanese film "Lady Snowblood" stars Uma Thurman as Kung Fu fighting "the Bride" "Black Mamba" Beatrix Kiddo, whose hubby "Snake Charmer" Bill (David Carradine) and his Deadly Viper Assassination Squad pop a cap in her crown at her wedding in El Paso, Tex., causing her to vow revenge and obtain a genuine Hanzo samurai sword from swordsmith Hattori Hanzo in Okinawa; also stars Vivica A. Fox as "Copperhead" Vernita Green , Darryl Hannah as 1-eyed "Calif. Mountain Snake" Elle Driver, Lucy Liu as "Cottonmouth" "Queen of the Tokyo Underworld" O-Ren Ishii, Michael Madsen as Bill's brother "Sidewinder" Budd, Sonny Chiba as Samurai swordswmith Hattori Hanzo, Chiaki Kuriyama as 17-y.-o. Kung Fu fighter Gogo Yubari, and Gordon Liu as all-white Kung Fu master Pai Mei, who knows the secret 5-Pointed Palm Exploding Heart Technique; Ellie Driver whistles a song from the 1969 British horror film "Twisted Nerve", composed by talented Bernard Herrmann to indicate she's about to kill Kiddo; grosses $70M in the U.S. and $181M worldwide on a $30M budget; features cool music by the Japanese group The 5, 6, 7, 8s (5.6.7.8's), who perform I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield, I'm Blue, and Woo Hoo (used in Vonage commercials) in the House of Blue Leaves; the sequel Kill Bill Volume 2 (Apr. 16, 2004) features Perla Haney-Jardine as Beatrix's daughter B.B. Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Dec. 13) satisfying closes the Tolkien trilogy; #1 movie of 2003 ($377M). Michael Landon Jr.'s Love Comes Softly, a TV movie based on the 75+ Christian inspirational books of Janette Oke stars Katherine Heigl as a young 21st cent. cosmetic smiling starlet, er, 19th cent. pregnant Am. frontier woman with an ever-fresh blow-dry, who finds herself widowed and ending up living with widower Dale Midkiff, who has a daughter that hates her, until you know what; the 2004 sequel Love's Enduring Promise is about the grown-up daughter finding you know what. Ridley Scott's Matchstick Men (Sept. 12), based on the Eric Garcia book stars Nicolas Cage as an obsessive compulsive con man who unexpectedly loses his innocent daughter. The Wachowski Brothers' The Matrix Reloaded (May 15) is another quantum leap for sci-fi flicks, with hero Nero taking on a mob of Agent Smiths and resurrecting his babe Trinity from the dead; #4 movie of 2003 ($281M); The Matrix Revolutions (Nov. 5) wraps up the series satisfyingly to cool music by Juno Reactor with a cool battle between the underground human city of Zion and 250K robot probes, shocking audiences by substituting new Oracle Mary Alice for deceased Gloria Foster ("I don't recognize my face in the mirror but I still love candy" - "No one can see beyond a choice they don't understand"), becoming the #9 movie of 2003 ($139M); Lambert Wilson plays the martini-loving Merovingian, and Bruce Spence plays the Trainman of Mobil Ave.; "Cookies need love like everything does" - a parable for the struggle of Western civilization against a global Muslim jihad? Ron Howard's The Missing (Nov. 26) (Revolution Studios) (Imagine Entertainment) (Columbia Pictures), based on the 1996 Thomas Edison novel "The Last Ride" stars Tommy Lee Jorenes as Samuel Jones in 1885 N.M., who goes Injun as Chaa-duu-ba-its-iidan then returns to his daughter, medicine woman Magdalena "Maggie" Gilkeson (Cate Blanchett), who doesn't want him back until her daughter Lilly Gilkeson (Evan Rachel Wood) is kidnapped by Apaches who start taking her to Mexico to become a white blonde ho; actors spend long hours studying to speak the Apache language; does $38.4M box office on a $60M budget. Kevin Costner's Open Range (Aug. 15) (Touchstone Pictures) (Buena Vista Pictures), based on the Lauran Paine novel set in 1882 Mont. stars Robert Duvall as Boss Spearman, Kevin Costner as Charley Waite, and Annette Bening as Sue Barlow in a film that tries hard not to look like "Lonesome Dove" and fails; does $68.3M box office on a $22M budget. Richard Kwietniowski's Owning Mahowny (Jan. 23), written by Maurice Chauvet based on the book "Stung" by Gary Stephen Ross stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as gambleholic bank mgr. Dan Mahowny, based on Toronto man Brian Molony, who rips off both the bank and the Atlantic City casino, becoming the largest bank fraud in Canadian history, $10M in 1980-2; Minnie Driver plays his girlfriend Belinda, and Chris Collins plays casino employee Chris Collins. John Woo's Paycheck, (Dec. 25), based on a short story by Philip K. Dick stars Ben Affleck as reverse engineer Michael Jennings, Uma Thurman as his babe Dr. Rachel Porter, and Aaron Eckhart as billionaire Allcom CEO James Rethrick, who hires him to reverse engineer a competitor's product, a device that can see the future, promising him the paycheck of his dreams. Roman Polanski's The Pianist (Jan. 3), based on the 1945 memoir by Wladyslaw Szpilman (1911-2000) stars Adrian Brody as Jewish pianist Szpilman, who goes through the horrible Holocaust and plays beautiful music while the *!?!* Nazis bomb his town of Warsaw - if it were Israelis bombing a Palestinian pianist it would be called manipulative? Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (July 7) stars Johnny Depp as mascara-wearing Capt. Jack Sparrow (who channels Rolling Stones member Keith Richards), Keira Knightley as Elizabeth, and Orlando Bloom as Will in a movie based on a theme-park ride; #3 movie of 2003 ($306M); spawns sequels in 2006 (Dead Man's Chest) and 2007 (At World's End); the 2006 sequel earns a record $132M over the July 7-9 weekend; Verbinski is known for the croaking frog Budweiser beer commercials. Michael Tollin's Radio (Oct. 24) stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as black radio-collecting retardo James Robert "Radio" Kennedy of Anderson, S.C., whom Coach Jones (Ed Harris) of Hannah High School takes under his wing, uniting the town; Alfre Woodard (pretty?) plays Principal Daniels, and S. Epatha Merkerson (ugly?) plays Maggie. Gary Fleder's Runaway Jury (Oct. 17), based on the John Grisham novel with a firearms manufacturer substituted for a tobacco co. stars Gene Hackman and Dustin as Hoffman the rival attys., and John Cusack as jury member Nick Easter, who with his babe Marlee (Rachel Weisz) try to sell the jury's verdict to them, with ulterior motives. Ingmar Bergman's Saraband (Dec. 1), a Swedish TV movie stars Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson in a sequel to "Scenes from a Marriage" (1973); Bergman's last film. Richard Linklater's School of Rock (Oct. 3) stars Jack Black as rocker Dewey Finn, who is kicked out of his band No Vacancy, then disguises himself as a substitute teacher at a prep school to form a band out of 5th grade students to win the Battle of the Bands to pay his apt. rent. David Stewart's The Search for the Loch Ness Monster , The Great Loch Ness Debate, Laurie Brian's America's Loch Ness Monster, and the July 29 discovery of a plesiosaur fossil, followed by Werner Herzog's Incident at Loch Ness (Sept. 17, 2004) beat the issue to death? Soren Kragh-Jacobsen's Skagerrak (Mar. 14) is about being hit by happiness when you least expect it. Dewey Nicks' Slackers (Feb. 1) stars Devon Sawa, Jason Segel, Michael C. Maronna et al. in a college ripoff flick about a geek blackmailing other students to win the school's most popular girl; the plot keywords are "nosebleed", "lesbian", "female nudity", "caught masturbating", and "cheating". Nancy Meyers' Something's Gotta Give,/a> (Dec. 12) stars Jack Nicholason as wealthy New York music mogul Harry Sanborn, who only dates women under 30, but falls for 50-something playwright Erica Barry (Diane Keaton), who's also hooking up with 30-something doctor Julian Mercer (Keanu Reeves); grosses $266.7M on a $60M budget. Jeffrey Blitz's Spellbound (Oct. 10), a documentary of the 1999 Scripps Nat. Spelling Bee rekindles interest in the stupid contest. Francois Ozon's Swimming Pool (May 18) stars Charlotte Rampling as middle-aged English mystery author Sarah Morton, who gets a writer's block and vacations in her publisher's upscale country house near Lacoste, France, where she meets the publisher's daughter Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), who likes to lounge around the pool topless and engage in 1-night stands with male bimbos; does $22.4M box office on a $7.8M budget. Jonathan Mostow's Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (July 2) boringly continues (ends?) the Terminator series with female terminatrix T-X (Kristanna Loken); Nick Stahl plays adult John Connor; Claire Danes plays his babe Kate Brewster; #8 movie of 2003 ($150M). Antoine Fuqua's Tears of the Sun (Mar. 7) stars Bruce Willis as Navy SEAL Lt. A.K. Waters, who is sent by Capt. Bill Rhodes (Tom Skerritt) to rescue Dr. Lena Fiore Kendricks (Monica Bellucci) from the Nigerian civil war; does $85.6M box office on a $75M budget. C.B. Harding'sThe Three Amigos is a hilarious standup comedy show in English by Hispanic-Am. comedians Carlos Mencia, Pablo Francisco, and Freddy Soto, contributing to racial and ethnic understanding. Steve Boyum's Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision (Sept. 30) stars Jason Scott Lee as 2025 Time Enforcement Commission agent Ryan Chan. Satoshi Kon's animated Tokyo Godfathers (Nov. 8) is another of his cool animes about Christmas in Tokyo. Len Wiseman's action horror film Underworld )Sept. 19) (Lakeshore Entertainment) is about the secret war between vampires and lycans (werewolves), with 600-y.-o. vampire Death Dealer Selene (Kate Beckinsale) hunting lycans while falling for human medical student Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman), who is bitten by a lycan and becomes a hybrid, conflicting her; does $95.7M box office on a $22M budget, spawning the Underworld film series, incl. "Underworld Evolution" (2006), "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" (2009), "Underworld: Awakening" (2012), and "Underworld: Blood Wars" (2016). Rob Schmidt's Wrong Turn (May 30) (Constantin Film) (Summit Entertainment) (20th Cent. Fox) attempts to gross-out the audience with hideous in-bred mountain men in W. Va. who catch motorists and make them into stew; Julian Richings plays Three Finger; does $28.7M box office on a $12.6M budget; spawns sequels incl. "Wrong Turn 2: Dead End" (2009), "Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings" (2011), "Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines" (2012), "Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort" (2014). Bryan Singer's X2 (May 2) continues the X-Men saga; #6 movie of 2003 ($215M). Nonfiction: Richard Abanes (1961-), One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church (July 29); meticulously reviews the history of the LDS Church, bringing out attempted coverups and whitewashes, and exposing its attempt to appear as part of the mainstream while hiding its goal of a Mormon OWG and a money-raking scheme for the prophets; Francesco Alberoni (1929-), The Mystery of Falling in Love. Elizabeth Alexander (1962-), The Black Interior; African-Am. creativity. Isabel Allende (1942-), My Invented Country (autobio.). Aharon Appelfeld (1932-), The Story of a Life: A Memoir. Margaret Atwood (1939-), Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing (Sept. 9). Blake Bailey, A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates; undiscovered genius Richard Yates (1926-92). Bernard Bailyn (1922-), To Begin the World Anew: The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders. Brigitte Bardot (1934-), A Cry in the Silence; decries the Islamization of France and her prosecution by the French govt. just for speaking her mind about it; "Over the last twenty years, we have given in to a subterranean, dangerous, and uncontrolled infiltration, which not only resists adjusting to our laws and customs but which will, as the years pass, attempt to impose its own." Herbert Benson (1935-), The Breakout Principle: How to Activate the Natural Trigger That Maximizes Creativity, Athletic Performance, Productivity, and Personal Well-Being. A. Scott Berg (1949-), Kate Remembered; bio. of Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003). Paul Berman (1948-), Terror and Liberalism; the failure of liberalism after WWI led to totalitarianism via Sayyid Qutb's writings of the 1950s?; argues that Islamism is analogous to 20th cent. totalitarianism. John Michael Bishop (1936-), How to Win the Nobel Prize: An Unexpected Life in Science. Conrad Black, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom. Harold Bloom (1930-), Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Minds. Don Boys, ISLAM: America's Trojan Horse! (Mar.). Tara Brach (1953-), Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha. John R. Bradley, Behind the Veil of Vice: The Business and Culture of Sex in the Middle East (Sept.). Rick Bragg, I Am a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story. H.W. Brands, Founders Chic: Our Reverence for the Fathers Has Gotten Out of Hand; pub. in the Sept. issue of The Atlantic Monthly. Timothy H. Breen (1942-) and Timothy D. Hall, Colonial America in an Atlantic World: A Story of Creative Interaction. Douglas Brinkley (1960-), Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and a Century of Progress, 1903-2003. Po Bronson, What Should I Do With My Life?. Judith M. Brown, Nehru: A Political Life. James MacGregor Brown (1918-2014), Transforming Leadership: A New Pursuit of Happiness; proposs a new type of global leadership to combat global poverty. Paul Burrell, A Royal Duty. Augusten Burroughs (1965-), Dry: A Memoir; his alcoholism; Magical Thinking: True Stories (essays). Bill Bryson (1951-), A Short Hitory of Nearly Everything; bestseller; popular science via bios. of scientists. Barbara Bush (1925-), Reflections: Life After the White House (autobio.). Norman F. Cantor (1929-2004), Antiquity (2 vols.). David Caute (1936-), Marechera and the Colonel. Marshall Chapman (1949-), Goodbye, Little Rock and Roller (autobio). Phyllis Chesler (1940-), The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It; "In our contemporary world anti-Zionism is nearly inseparable from anti-Semitism"; "African-Americans (not Jews) are the Jews in America but Jews are the world's niggers". Deepak Chopra (1946-), Golf for Enlightenment: The Seven Lessons for the Game of Life. Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-), Living History (autobio.) (June 9); bestseller (1M+ copies); Simon & Schuster pays her an $8M advance after the U.S. Senate gives her special permission. Robert Coles (1929-), Bruce Springsteen's America: The People Listening, a Poet Singing. Nadia Comaneci (1961-), Letters to a Young Gymnast (autobio.). Nellie Connally (1919-2006), From Love Field: Our Final Hours with President John F. Kennedy; "Mister President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you". Ann Coulter (1961-), Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism; attempts to rehabilitate Joseph McCarthy, causing admirer David Horowitz to part ranks with her. George Crile III (1945-2006), Charlie Wilson's War; bestseller; the CIA's secret war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s; claims to foresee the later jihad against Westerners. Herman Daly (1938-), Ecological Economics: The Concept of Scale and Its Relation to Allocation, Distribution, and Uneconomic Growth (Oct. 16); Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications (Nov. 1). Robert Dallek (1934-), An Unfinished Life; bio. of JFK. Richard Dawkins (1941-), A Devil's Chaplain. Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life. Antonio Damasio (1944-), Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. Daniel Dennett (1942-), Freedom Evolves. Peter Ferdinand Drucker (1909-2005), A Functioning Society. Alan Dershowitz (1938-), The Case for Israel; bestseller; critics accuse him of plagiarism; spawns the 2005 book "The Case Against Israel" by Michaael Neumann (1946-). Dinesh D'Souza (1961-), What's So Great About America? John Edward (1969-), After Life: Answers From the Other Side. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It (Aug. 23); exposes Muslims who fund terrorism; too bad, billionaire Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz (1949-2009) stinks Britain up when he sues her in British court for libel and wins, even though she is a U.S. citizen, causing the N.Y. state legislature on May 1, 2008 to pass a law offering "New Yorkers greater protection against libel judgments in countries whose laws are inconsistent with the freedom of speech granted by the U.S. Constitution." Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-) and Arlie Hochschild (eds.), Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. Joseph Epstein (1937-), Envy. Niall Ferguson (1964-), Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003), showing how "an archipelago of rainy islands... came to rule the world", defending it against critics for "impos[ing] free markets, the rule of law... and relatively incorrupt government" on a quarter of the Earth's pop.; details the British Empire of the 19th cent. and how it led globalization with military conquest, missionary work, spread of the English language, steam power, telegraphs, guns, and engineers, fueled by 20M emigrants between 1600-1960, with imports of coffee, tea, tobacco, and sugar fueling free movement of goods, capital, and labor, leading to mass consumerism; The difficulty with the achievements of empire is that they are much more likely to be taken for granted than the sins of empire"; "The question is not whether British imperialism was without blemish. It was not. The question is whether there could have been a less bloody path to modernity"; Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power. James Henry Fetzer (1940-), The Great Zapruder Film Hoax: Deceit and Deception in the Death of JFK; claims the CIA doctored it to bolster a lone gunman story. Jens Malte Fischer, Gustav Mahler; bestseller in Germany. Thomas Fleming, The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I. Antony Flew (1923-), Social Life and Moral Judgment; Does God Exist: The Craig-Flew Debate (with William Lane Craig). Anatoly Fomenko (1945-), Antiquity in the Middle Ages: Greek and Bible History; prominent Russian mathematician proposes the Fomenko Topological Transformation of History, claiming that human history goes back hundreds not thousands of years, and that most of it happened in the Middle Ages. Al Franken (1951-), Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right; Oh, the Things I Know! A Guide to Success, or Failing That, Happiness. Richard B. Freeman (1943-), Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization? James Christopher Frey (1969-), A Million Little Pieces (autobio.); on Jan. 8, 2006 SmokingGun.com pub. an expose calling it fiction, and on 1-10-06 Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News calls it "a million little fibs"; after Frey appears on CNN's Larry King Live with his mother Lynne on 1-11-06 to explain that it is a "memoir", on 1-27-06 Oprah Winfrey takes him to task and gets him to admit it's a fabrication - but then, what is fact and what is fiction when you got your hands on the green? Steve Fuller, Kuhn vs. Popper: The Struggle for the Soul of Science. Paul Fussell Jr. (1924-2012), The Boys' Crusade: The American Infantry in Northwestern Europe, 1944-1945; "At this distance it may not be easy to remember that the European ground war in the west was fought by American boys 17, 18 and 19 years old…. These infantry soldiers, if they weren't children, weren't quite men either... Taken as a whole, the boys had a powerful propulsion of optimism, a sense that the war couldn't last forever, and that if anyone was going to get wounded, it would not be them." Tess Gallagher (1943-), A Concert of Tenses (essays). Gangaji (1942-), Just Like You: An Autobiography; how she meets Papaji in India in 1990 and becomes spiritual. John William Gardner (1912-2002), Living, Leading, and the American Dream. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (1950-), The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers. Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002), The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox (posth.); the historical war between the sciences and humanities, and how it was all a misunderstanding? Winston Graham (1908-2003), Memoirs of a Private Man (autobio.). Steven Hahn (1951-), A Nation Under our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration (Nov. 10) (Pulitzer Prize); African-Am. political power in the U.S. from the end of the U.S. Civil War to the Great Migration in 1915-30. Pete Hamill (1935-), Why Sinatra Matters. Olav Hammer, Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age. Victor Davis Hanson (1953-), Ripples of Battle: How Wars Fought Long Ago Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think. Mexifornia: A State of Becoming; the horrible Mexican Huns are taking over Calif., oh my? Donna Haraway (1944-), The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness. John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage; "The American people, through the Constitution and under laws enacted by the Congress, invested in Presidents Roosevelt and Truman authority to share or not share the nation's secrets with our allies. They did not invest that authority in Harry White, Theodore Hall, Alger Hiss, or Lauchlin Currie. These men never went before American voters to ask for this authority or to account for their actions, but arrogated to themselves the right to give secrets to a foreign power. They betrayed the American people and the Constitution. Moreover, not one of them had the courage to admit what he had done and accept the consequences. Why admire and apologize for them." Anthony Hecht (1923-2004), Melodies Unheard: Essays on the Mysteries of Poetry. Chris Hedges (1956-), What Every Person Should Know About War (June 3). David Hirst, The Gun and the Olive Branch. Peter Hitchens (1951-), A Brief History of Crime. Edward Hoagland (1932-), Hoagland on Nature. Tom Holland (1968-), Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic. Ian Spencer Hornsey, A History of Beer and Brewing. David Joel Horowitz (1939-), Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey. Imran Nazar Hosein (1942-), Jerusalem in the Quran; Trinidadian Islamic scholar's anti-Zionist view. Raphael Israeli, Islamikaze: Manifestations of Islamic Martyrology. Philip Jenkins (1952-), The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice (Apr. 17). Davis D. Joyce, Howard Zinn: A Radical American Vision. Robert Kagan (1958-), Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order; internat. bestseller claiming that U.S. foreign policy is based on having power, and Europe's is based on not having any. Efraim Karsh (1953-), Rethinking the Middle East; Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest. Rita Katz, Terrorist Hunter: The Extraordinary Story of a Woman Who Went Undercover to Infiltrate the Radical Islamic Groups Operating in America. Sir John Keegan (1934-), Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda. Tracy Kidder (1945-), Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World; about Partners in Health (founded 1987). Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (July 18); how the U.S. and Britain stabbed PM Mossadeq in the back in 1953 to restore the bum shah, turning Iran against them and giving it to the Islamists. Kenneth Kitchen (1932-), On the Reliability of the Old Testament; attempts to prove the historicity of the Old Testament. Edward Klein (1937-), All Too Human: The Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy. Jon Krakauer (1954-), Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (July); a history of the violent origins of the LDS (Mormon) Church combined with a true crime story about the 1984 murder of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter Erica by the fundamentalist Mormon School of the Prophets, pissing-off church officials, who nitpick it and hope it goes away; meanwhile in 2011 Warner Bros. purchases the film rights. Tony Kushner (1956-) and Alisa Solomon (eds.), Wrestling with Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Israel-Palestinian Conflict (Dec.); Kushner later pisses-off Zionists with his proposal to merge the two countries "because [they're] geographically kind of ridiculous looking on a map". Robert Langdon (1964-), Symbols of the Sacred Feminine; by a prof. of religious symbology at Harvard U., whose portrait bears a striking resemblance to Hollywood actor Tom Hanks? :) Erik Larson (1954-), The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America; bestseller about architect Daniel Burnham and the creepy doings of H.H. Holmes at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Bernard Lewis (1916-), The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. Michael Lewis (1960-), Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (June 17); Billy Beane of the Oakland A's and how he got good players at low prices by considering college and h.s. performance and using raw number-crunching; after winning a record 20 straight games in the 2002 season, the A's make the playoffs 5x under Beane's system, then miss the playoffs for the next five seasons. Robert Jay Lifton (1926-), Superpower Syndrome: America's Apocalyptic Confrontation with the World; the U.S. "national mind-set... that takes on a sense of omnipotence, of unique standing in the world that grants it the right to hold sway over all other nations", that is "part of an ongoing dynamic in which the American apocalyptic interacts, almost to the point of collusion, with the Islamic apocalyptic"and "has in it the potential seeds of world destruction". David Limbaugh (1952-), Persecution: How Liberals are Waging War Against Christians (Oct.). Graham Lord (1943-), Niv: The Authorised Biography of David Niven; actor David Niven (1910-83). John Lott (1958-), The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard About Gun Control is Wrong (Mar. 25); big hit with the NRA crowd. Manning Marable (1950-2011), The Great Wells of Democracy: The Meaning of Race in American Life. Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon; farm animal rights. Barr McClellan, Blood, Money & Power: How LBJ Killed JFK (Sept.); NYT #1 bestseller; claims LBJ was the driving force behind JFK's assassination; by a partner in Clark Law Firm of Austin, Tex., which handled LBJ's business transactions; "It is the most serious of public accusations, but it is so serious that serious people dismiss it as nuts." (NYT) Bill McKibben (1960-), Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age; disses Transhumanism. Jon Ellis Meacham (1969-), Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship. Douglas Moggach, The Philosophy and Ethics of Bruno Bauer; the Jesus-is-a-myth guy Bruno Bauer (1809-82). Jurgen Moltmann (1926-), Science and Wisdom. Dito Montiel (1965-), A Guidebook to Recognizing Your Saints (autobio.). James Moore and Wayne Slater, Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential; released as a documentary film in 2004 dir. by Joseph Mealey and Michael Paradies Shoob. Michael Moore (1954-), Dude, Where's My Country? Robin Morgan (1941-) (ed.), Sisterhood is Forever. Richard Ward Morris (1939-2003), The Last Sorcerers: The Path from Alchemy to the Periodic Table (posth.). Sir John Mortimer (1923-2009), Where There's a Will (autobio.). Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran. Jacob Needleman (1934-), Lost Christianity; Heart of Philosophy; Time and the Soul; The American Soul. Aryeh Neier (1979-), Taking Liberties: Four Decades in the Struggle for Human Rights. Paul Newman (1925-2008) and A.E. Hotchner (1920-), Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good; the Newman's Own Co. and the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp. Queen Noor (1951-), Leap of Faith. Richard O'Neill, Patrick O'Brian's Navy: The Illustrated Companion to Jack Aubrey's World. Bill O'Reilly (1949-), Who's Looking Out For You?. Michael B. Oren (1955-), Reunion. Elinor Ostrom (1933-), Trust and Reciprocity: Interdisciplinary Lessons from Experimental Research. Elaine Pagels (1943-), Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas; how the Gospel of Thomas claims that Jesus was not God but just a New Age teacher, and that the Gospel of John was written to counter it and to blacken the name of Doubting Thomas' name. Michael Parenti (1933-), The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome; the rabble's POV. Joseph Chilton Pearce (1926-), Spiritual Initiation and the Breakthrough of Consciousness: The Bond of Power. Francis Edwards Peters, Jerusalem: The Contested City; Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians. Ralph Peters (1952-), Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace. Kevin Phillips (1940-), William McKinley. Daniel Pipes (1949-), Miniatures: Views of Islamic and Middle Eastern Politics (Oct.) (essays). The Pontifical Councils for Culture and Religious Dialogue, Jesus Christ: The Bearer of the Water of Life. A Christian Reflection on the "New Age"; points out that the New Age Movement is neither new nor a religious movement, but is an eclectic mix from the Orient, Gnosticism, and pagan religions, mixed with Darwinian Evolution, Depth Psychology, Quantum Mechanics, Feminism, and Ecology - they're jealous and should see a pshrink? Roy Porter (1946-2002), Blood and Guts: A Short History of Medicine. Samantha Power (1970-), A Problem from Hell America and the Age of Genocide (Pulitzer Prize). Reynolds Price (1933-), A Serious Way of Wondering: The Ethics of Jesus Imagined. Michael S. Radu (1947-2009), Dangerous Neighborhood: Contemporary Issues in Turkey's Foreign Relations. Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam; claims that "Islam is European" and can develop its own pro-Western brand; in 2009 he pub. "What I Believe", saying "We are witnessing the birth of a Western Islamic culture within which Muslims remain faithful to fundamental religious principles, while owning up to their Western cultures. They are both fully Muslim as to religion and fully Western as to culture, and that is no problem at all." Marcus Raskin (1934-), Liberalism: The Genius of American Ideals. Diane Ravitch (1938-), The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn; accuses both the left and right of having PC police; Making Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society; Kid Stuff: Marketing Sex and Violence to America's Children. Marc Reisner (1948-2000), A Dangerous Place (posth.). Andrew Roberts (1963-), Hitler and Churchill: Secrets of Leadership. Peter Robinson (1957-), How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life; makes a fan of Margaret Thatcher. Pete Rose (1941-) and Rick Hill, My Prison Without Bars. Marshall B. Rosenberg (1934-), Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life; disses the "Dominator Culture" that allows a minority to rule over the majority, advocating educational reforms incl. no grades, authority, labels, punishments, rewards, duty, or obligations. Emmanuel Saenz (1972-) and Thomas Piketty, Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998. Amin Saikal, Islam and the West: Conflict or Cooperation? Michael Savage (1942-), The Enemy Within: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Schools, Faith, and Military; "Federal courts and judges in America today are to be more feared than al-Qaida." Michael F. Scheuer, Through Our Enemies' Eyes: Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam & the Future of America; chief of the CIA Bin Laden Issue Station (Alec Station) in 1996-9. Peter Dale Scott (1929-), Drugs, Oil and War. Robert J. Shiller (1946-), Is There a Bubble in the Housing Market? Bernie S. Siegel, 365 Prescriptions for the Soul. Kenneth Silverman (1936-), Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F.B. Morse. Peter Singer (1946-), Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna. George Soros (1930-), The Alchemy of Finance (Aug. 1); "I admit that I have always harbored an exaggerated view of my self-importance - to put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes (each with his General Theory) or, even better, a scientist like Einstein (reflexivity sounds like relativity"; The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (Dec.); the "primary objective is to persuade the American public to reject President Bush in the forthcoming elections"; "Although the West has material superiority, Islam will prevail because it has a major competitive advantage: it is not afraid of death." Thomas Sowell (1930-), Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One. George Steiner (1929-), Lessons of the Masters. Victor J. Stenger (1935-), Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe. Ian Stevenson (1918-2007), European Cases of the Reincarnation Type. Joseph Stiglitz (1943-), The Roaring Nineties: A New History of the World's Most Prosperous Decade. Cass R. Sunstein (1954-), Why Societies Need Dissent. Ron Suskind (1959-), The Price of Loyalty. Jeff Tamarkin, Got A Revolution: The Turbulent Flight of Jefferson Airplane. Amy Tan (1952-), The Opposite of Fate. William Taubman (1940-), Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (Mar. 1) (Pulitzer Prize); took 20 years to write, making use of archives in Russia and Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Hugh Thomas (1931-), Rivers of Gold. Lester Thurow (1938-), Fortune Favors the Bold: What We Must Do to Build a New and Lasting Global Prosperity; touts the triumph of U.S. capitalism in a "third industrial revolution" based on a knowledge-based global economy with a global info. infrastructure, which he claims can meet the challenges of the U.S. trade deficit, surge of Chinese exports, stagnation of the Japanese et al.; proposes that the IMF be replaced by internat. bank deposit insurance, that govts. use eminent domain to take over pharmaceutical patents, and that the U.S. govt. permit U.S. corporations to ignore copyrights originating in countries that refuse to prosecute copyright pirates. Kenneth R. Timmerman (1953-), Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War Against America. Fred Vargas (1957-), Routes of the Plague (Les chemins de la peste); definite research on the epidemiology of the Black Death. Michael Walzer (1935-) et al. (eds.), The Jewish Political Tradition, Vol. II: Membership. Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents are Going Broke. Stuart Wilde (1946-), God's Gladiators. Garry Wills (1934-), Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power. Andrew Norman Wilson (1950-), Iris Murdoch as I Knew Her; English novelist Iris Murdoch (1919-99); how she "thrived on acts of betrayal" and was "prepared to go to bed with almost anyone". Michael Wolff, Autumn of the Moguls: My Misadventures with Titans, Poseurs, and Money Guys Who Mastered and Messed Up Big Media. Robin Wood (1931-2009), Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan; Rio Bravo. Howard Zinn (1922-2010), The Twentieth Century: A People's History. Slavoj Zizek, The Parallax View. Plays: T. Gregory Argall, A Year in the Death of Eddie Jester (Cyril Clark Library Theatre) (Apr. 23). Kwame Kwei-Armah, Elmina's Kitchen (May). Alan Ayckbourn (1939-), Sugar Daddies (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough) (July 23); a bimbo and an rich old man, who turns out sinister. Matthew Barber, Enchanted April (Belasco Theater, New York) (Apr. 4). David Barr and Mamie Till Mobley, The State of Mississippi and the Face of Emmett Till; about Emmett Till (1941-55). Nilo Cruz, Anna in the Tropics (Pulitzer Prize) (Royale Theatre, New York) (Nov. 16); stars Jimmy Smits as Juan Julian in a Fla. cigar factory in 1929 reading Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina". Nick Dear, Power; stars Rupert Penry-Jones as Louis XIV of France (1638-1715), and Stephen Boxer as his finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-83). Roddy Doyle (1958-), The Woman Who Walked into Doors; based on his 1996 novel. Bryan Fogel and Sam Wolfson, Jewtopia's Guide to Being All That Jew Can Be! (Coast Playhouse, West Hollywood) (May 8). Michael Frayn (1933-), Democracy (Nat. Theatre, London) (Sept. 9); West German chancellor Willy Brandt's decision to expose Commie spy Gunter Guillaume. William Gibson (1914-2008), Golda's Balcony. Richard Greenberg, The Violet Hour (Manhattan Theatre Club, New York) (Nov. 6) (54 perf.); a strapped publisher must choose between publishing the giant novel of his college rommate Denis McCleary or the memoirs of his mistress Jessie Brewster. Norman Hudis, Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Brothers (Princess Theatre, Norfolk) (June 15). Fred Lawless and Len Pentin, Slappers and Slapheads (Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool). Ropert Lopez (1975-), Jeff Marx (1970-), and Jeff Whitty (1971-), Avenue Q (musical) (Vineyard Theatre, New York) (Mar. 19) (72 perf.) (John Golden Theatre, New York) (July 31) (2,534 perf.); puppet show with puppetmasters visible onstage, a takeoff on PBS-TV's "Sesame Street", about how it told them that they were special, but reality tells them the opposite; features "Sesame Street" puppeteers John Tartaglia, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Jennifer Barnhart, and Rick Lyon, working puppets Rod and Nicky (Bert and Ernie), Trekkie Monster (Cookie Monster), Bad Idea Bear, and Lucy the Slut; stars Natalie Venetia Belcon as Gary Coleman. Wendy MacLeod, Juvenilia. Peter Martins, Thou Swell (ballet); tribute to Richard Rodgers. William Mastrosimone, The Afghan Women (Mill Hill Playhouse, Trenton, N.J.). Martin McDonagh, The Pillowman (Cottesloe Theatre, London) (Nov. 13); writer Katurian is grilled by his police state over the content of his short stories. Thomas Kilroy (1934-), The Shape of Metal (Peacock Theatre, Dublin). Tony Kushner (1956-), Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy. Nell Leyshon, Glass Eels (radio play); a girls' sexual awakening and eel fishing. Matthew McDonagh, The Pillowman (Nat. Theatre, London) (Nov. 13). Mark Medoff (1940-), Prymate. William Nicholson, The Retreat from Moscow (Booth Theater, New York) (Oct. 23); about Alice (Eileen Atkins) and Edward (John Lithgow). John Henry Redwood, No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs (Philadelphia) (Jan. 1); the Cheeks family in 1949 N.C. Tim Robbins (1958-), Embedded; satirizes the Bush admin. via the Iraqi War. Willy Russell (1947-), Hoovering the Moon. Stephen Lawrence Schwarz (1948-) and Winnie Holzman (1954-), Wicked: The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz (musical) (Curran Theatre, San Francisco) (May 28) (Gershwin Theatre, New York) (Oct. 30); (Apollo Victoria Theatre) (West End, London) (Sept. 27, 2006); based on the 1995 Gregory Maguire novel "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West"; Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West (Idina Menzel), Galinda (Glinda), the Good Witch (Kristin Chenoweth), and the Wizard (Joel Grey); reaches 5.6K perf. in 2017. John Patrick Shanley (1950-), Dirty Story; the Israeli-Palestine relationship as a sadomasochistic relationship between a man and woman. Stephen Sonheim (1930-) and John Weidman (1946-), Road Show (Bounce) (musical) (Goodman Theater, Chicago) (June 20); Addison and Wilson Mizner from the Alaska Gold Rush to the 1930s Fla. real estate boom. Simon Stephens (1971-), One Minute. Paul Vogel, The Long Christmas Ride Home (Providence, R.I.) (May 16). John Weidman (1946-) and Stephen Sondheim (1930-), Bounce (Road Show) (Goodman Theatre, Chicago) (June 20); dir. by Harold Prince; first Prince-Sondheim collaboration since "Merrily We Roll Along" (1981); a flop. Doug Wright, I'm My Own Wife (Dec. 3) (Lyceum Theater, New York). Doug Wright, I Am My Own Wife (Playwrights Horizons, New York) (May 27); about German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf (1928-2002), AKA Lothar Berfeld. Nicholas Wright, His Dark Materials (Nat. Theatre, London) (Dec. 20); based on the Phillip Pullman novels; Vincent in Brixton; Vincent Van Gogh in Brixton, London in 1873. Poetry: Nanni Balestrini (1935-), Tutto in una Volta, Antologia 1954-2003; Sfinimondo. Andrei Codrescu (1946-), It Was Today: New Poems. Billy Collins (1941-) (ed.), Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry. Robert Creeley (1926-2005), If I Were Writing This. Stephen Dunn (1939-), Local Visitations. Marilyn Hacker (1942-), Desesperanto: Poems 1999-2002; First Cities: Collected Early Poems 1960-1979. Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser (1939-), Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry. John Hollander (1929-), Picture Window. Maxine Kumin (1925-), Bringing Together: Uncollected Early Poems 1958-1988. Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), Orpheus and Eurydice. Paul Muldoon, Moy Sand and Gravel (Pulitzer Prize). Mary Oliver (1935-), Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays. Frithjof Schuon (1907-98), Adastra & Stella Maris: Poems by Frithjob Schuon (posth.). Charles Simic (1938-), The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems. Alice Walker (1944-), A Poem Traveled Down My Arm: Poems and Drawings (Oct. 28). C.K. Williams (1936-), The Singing. Novels: Peter Ackroyd (1949-), The Clerkenwell Tales. Catherine Aird (1930-), Amendment of Life. Martin Amis (1949-), Yellow Dog; a flop; "It's like your favorite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating" (Tibor Fischer). Margaret Atwood (1939-), Oryx and Crake; Snowman lives in a post-apocalyptic world populated by the primitive humanoid genetically-engineered race of Crakers; when fans call the novel science-fiction, she responds that it's "speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians", later adding "talking squids in outer space", pissing-off sci-fi fans. Gwenaelle Aubry (1971-), The Isolation (L'Isolement). Louis Auchincloss (1917-), The Scarlet Letters; his 59th book. David Ball, Ironfire. J.G. Ballard (1930-2009), Millennium People. John Banville (1945-), The Sea; art historian Max Morden. Pat Barker (1943-), Double Vision. Frederick Barthelme (1943-), Elroy Nights. Austin Bay, The Wrong Side of Brightness. Greg Bear (1951-), Darwin's Children; sequel to "Darwin's Radio" (1999). Thomas Berger (1924-), Best Friends. Steve Berry (1955-), The Amber Room (Aug. 26); pub. by Ballantine Books after 12 years and 85 rejections; Judge Rachel Cutler and her divorced hubby Paul hunt for the Amber Room of the Catherine Palace in Tsarskoe Selo, Russia, which disappeared in 1945; launches his bestselling historical adventure novel career (18M copies). Holly Black (1971-) and Tony DiTerlizzi (1969-), The Field Guide; first of "The Spiderwick Chronicles", a silly fantasy story for kiddies - that are dummer than dog doo? Lawrence Block, Small Town; post-9/11 New York City. T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948-), Drop City. Anita Brookner (1928-), The Next Big Thing (Making Things Better). Pass the cilice, Mother T? Dan Brown (1964-), The Da Vinci Code (Mar. 18) (two days after the U.S. invades Iraq); 10K advance copies and 230K initial press run; 23,578 sold the first week, making #1 on the NYT bestseller list ("the novel that ate the world"); "Renowned curator Jacques Sauniere staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery" (first line); "O, Draconian devil! Oh, lame saint!"; "So dark the con of man"; "In London lies a knight a pope interred/ His labor's fruit a Holy wrath incurred/ You seek the orb that ought be on his tomb/ It speaks of Rosy flesh and seeded womb"; "The Holy Grail 'neath ancient Roslin waits/ The blade and chalice guarding o'er Her gates/ She rests at last beneath the starry skies"; Harris Tweed-loving Harvard U. religious symbology prof. Robert Langdon (language don?), Capt. Bezu Fache (busy fish?) and Lt. Jerome Collet (roam around and collate his boss' microfiche?) of the DCPJ, Jacques Sauniere (saner?) of the Louvre, "Princess" Sophie (Sofia) Neveu (renovate?) alias St. Clair (not Plantard), monk Silas (Sauniere's Judas?) and Bishop Manuel Aringarosa (ring around the rosey?) of Opus Dei (which has only lay members?), Andre Vernet (wears vernier Rolex timepieces?) of the Depository Bank of Zurich, Sir Leigh Teabing (Sir Lipton tea bag?) alias the Teacher at Chateau Villette (1668) and his manservant Remy Legaludec (legal duke?) from Lyons and his Medusa revolver, the Da Vinci cryptex with password SOFIA, er, APPLE, fleur de lis, PHI, Amon L'Isa, 325 Council of Nicea, security warden Claude Grouard (guard?), Pamela Gettum (I'll get um for ya?) of King's College library, Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris with the first Rose Line and Sister Sandrine Bieil (bee eye?), Vatican Biblioteca Astronomica, Gare Saint-Lazre train station, 24 Rue Haxo and the Bois de Boulogne ("garden of earthly delights"), Friday the 13th of Oct. 1307, Leonardo da Vinci (always called Leonardo, never da Vinci?) and his Vitruvian Man, Mona Lisa, Madonna of the Rocks and skitoma-filled Last Supper, Sofia, 1099 Priory of Sion and Godefroi de Bouillon, Pentacle of Venus and Hieros Gamos, Dead Sea Scrolls, Sang Real not San Greal, Mary Magdalene of the tribe of Benjamin and Jesus of the House of David equals unbelievable; Atbash cipher and Sheshach alias Babel, Sir Isaac Newton and Alexander Pope, 1185 London Temple Church and 1065 Westminster Abbey with College Garden and octagonal Chapter House, 1446 Rosslyn Chapel (Cathedral of Codes) with the Boaz and Jachin pillars, Fibonacci sequence 13-3-2-21-1-1-8-5; "Yo soy un espectro" (Silas) (p. 56); starting with Ch. 58 the book gets rather preachy?; "Leonardo was one of the keepers of the secret of the Holy Grail. And he hid clues in his art" (Teabing) (p. 230); "Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false... More than eighty gospels were considered for the New Testament, and yet only a relative few were chosen for inclusion - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, among them... The Bible, as we know it today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great... a lifelong pagan who was baptized on his deathbed, too weak to protest" (Teabing) (pp. 230-1); "At this gathering many aspects of Christianity were debated and voted upon - the date of Easter, the role of the bishops, the administration of sacraments, and of course, the divinity of Jesus... Until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet... a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless.... Jesus' establishment as 'the son of God' was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea... A relatively close vote at that"; "It was all about power... Christ as Messiah was critical to the functioning of Church and state. Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power" (Teabing) (p. 233); "The twist is this... Because Constantine upgraded Jesus' status almost four centuries after Jesus' death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke. From this sprang the most profound moment in Christian history... Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ's human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned" (Teabing) (p. 234); "Fortunately for historians... some of the gospels that Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive... the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the 1950s hidden in a cave near Qumran in the Judean desert. And, of course, the Coptic Scrolls in 1945 at Nag Hammadi. In addition to telling the true Grail story, these documents speak of Christ's ministry in very human terms. Of course, the Vatican, in keeping with their tradition of misinformation, tried very hard to suppress the release of these scrolls. And why wouldn't they? The scrolls highlight glaring historical discrepancies and fabrications, clearly confirming that the modern Bible was compiled and edited by men who possessed a political agenda - to promote the divinity of the man Jesus Christ and use His influence to solidify their own power base" (Teabing) (p. 234); "The Grail... is symbolic of the lost goddess. When Christianity came along, the old pagan religions did not die easily. Legends of chivalric quests for the lost Grail were in fact stories of forbidden quests to find the lost sacred feminine. Knights who claimed to be 'searching for the chalice' were seaking in code as a way to protect themselves from a Church that had subjugated women, banished the Goddess, burned nonbelievers, and forbidden the pagan reverence for the sacred feminine" (Langdon) (pp. 238-9); "It was not Peter to whom Christ gave directions with which to establish the Christian Church. It was Mary Magdalene... Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene" (Teabing) (p. 248); "Behold the greatest cover-up in human history. Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. She was the womb that bore the lineage, and the vine from which the sacred fruit sprang forth" (Teabing) (p. 249); becomes bestselling adult novel of all time (60M by 2006), spawning the new genre of fractured history written at the 8th grade level for the history-starved masses ("You don't hate history, you just hate your own history"?) spoon-fed during a ridiculous murder adventure; milks the fallacy of the evil albino, the fallacy of the talking killer, and the fallacy of the Bride of Christ not being his Church but his hot freckled red-haired bunkbunny Mary Magdalene, whose DNA (check out that melanocritia-1 receptor?) is more valuable than weapons-grade plutonium?; the best hook is the novel's opening: "FACT... All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate", spawning the Anti-Da Vinci Code Industry; "Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a wife, as the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?" (1 Cor. 9:5). John Burdett, Bangkok 8; Royal Thai Police dick Sonchai Jitpleecheep. James Lee Burke (1936-), Last Car to Elysian Fields. Hortense Calisher (1911-2009), Sunday Jews. Peter Carey, My Life as a Fake. Jimmy Carter (1924-), The Hornet's Nest: A Novel of the Revolutionary War (Nov. 11); first novel pub. by a U.S. pres. David Caute (1936-), The Dancer Defects. Tom Clancy (1947-2013), The Teeth of the Tiger; pres. Jack Ryan's nephews try to join the Handley Assocs. black ops firm.; introduces Jack Ryan Jr. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-), The Second Time Around. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (1940-), Revolutions (Révolutions). Paul Coelho (1947-), Eleven Minutes. Stephen Coonts (1946-), Liberty; Rear Adm. Jake Grafton #10. J.M. Coetzee (1940-), Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons; famous writer travels the world to give lectures on Kafka, and regresses into one of his monkeys?; really the author's female alter-ego? Harlan Cohen, No Second Chance. Jackie Collins (1937-2015), Hollywood Divorces. Robin Cook (1940-), Seizure. Jim Crace (1946-), Six. Clive Cussler (1931-), Trojan Odyssey; Dirk Pitt #17. Marie Darrieussecq (1969-), White; engineers Peter and Edmee on an isolated base in the South Pole. Guy Davenport (1927-2005), The Death of Picasso: New and Selected Writing. Samuel R. Delany (1942-), Aye, and Gomorrah, and Other Stories. Don DeLillo (1936-), Cosmopolis (Apr. 14); 28-y.-o. billionaire Eric Parker tries to take his stretch limo across midtown Manhattan to get a haircut and loses his fortune by betting against the rise of the yen. E.L. Doctorow (1931-), Reporting the Universe. Bruce Ducker, Mooney in Flight. Timothy Egan, The Winemaker's Daughter. Tom Englehardt, The Last Days of Publishing. Joseph Epstein (1937-), Fabulous Small Jews (short stories). Louise Erdrich (1954-), The Master Butchers Singing Club. Sebastian Faulks (1953-), Human Traces. David Flusfeder, The Gift. Mick Foley (1965-), Tietam Brown. Margaret Forster (1938-), Diary of an Ordinary Woman, 1914-1995. Frederick Forsyth (1938-), Avenger (Sept.); a Canadian billionaire hires a Vietnam vet to bring his grandson's killer to the U.S. Karin Fossum ("Norway's Queen of Crime"), Don't Look Back. Esther Freud (1963-), The Sea House. Cornelia Funke (1958-), Inkheart (Tintenherz) (Sept. 23 (NYT bestseller); first in the Inkheart Trilogy, incl. "Inkspell" (2005) and Inkdeath (2007), about teenie Meggie Folchart, whose bookbinder daddy Mo has the ability to bring chars. from books to life; filmed in 2008; the series sells 20M+ copies. Alan Furst (1941-), Blood of Victory; Night Soldiers #7. William Gibson (1948-), Pattern Recognition. Rob Grant, Incompetence. Gunter Grass (1927-), Crabwalk. Thomas Christopher Greene, Mirror Lake (first novel). John Grisham (1955-), The King of Torts; Clay Carter as Melvin Belli? Michael Gruber, Tropic of Night. Laurell K. Hamilton, Incubus Dreams. Pete Hamill (1935-), Forever. Ron Hansen (1947-), Isn't It Romantic? Shirley Hazzard (1931-), The Great Fire; about U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Josh Thurlow in WWII. Zoe Heller (1965-), Notes on a Scandal (What Was She Thinking?); female art teacher Bathsheba "Sheba" Hart at a London school hooks up with an underage pupil, and is played by lonely old history teacher Barbara; filmed in 2006 starring Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench. Tony Hillerman (1925-2008), The Sinister Pig. Russell Hoban (1925-), Her Name Was Lola. Alice Hoffman (1952-), The Probable Future. Janette Turner Hospital (1942-), Due Preparations for the Plague. Khaled Hosseini (1965-), The Kite Runner; a young Afghan boy dealing with the fallout of an unexpected event amid bloodshed, rape, murder and abuse; bestseller. P.D. James (1920-), The Murder Room; Adam Dalgliesh #12. Rula Jebreal (1973-), Miral (first novel); internat. bestseller; filmed in 2010. Charles R. Johnson (1948-), Turning the Wheel. Edward P. Jones (1951-), The Known World (Pulitzer Prize). Kaylie Jones (1960-), Speak Now. Thomas Keneally (1935-), The Tyrant's Novel. Stephen King (1947-), The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla; The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah; Stephen King's The Dark Tower: A Concordance (by Robin Furth). Michael Muhammad Knight (1977-), The Taqwacores; taqwa (Islamic love-fear of Allah) + hardcore; Am.-born Muslim convert begins rejecting Islam's moral code and goes punk. Siegfried Lenz (1926-), Fundburo. Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), A Coyote's in the House. Doris Lessing (1919-2013), The Grandmothers. Jonathan Lethem (1964-), The Fortress of Solitude (Dec. 31). Elinor Lipman (1950-), The Pursuit of Alice Thrift. Penelope Lively (1933-), The Photograph. Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-), The Way to Paradise. Ismail Kadare (1936-), The Successor; Agamemnon's Daughter. Marne Davis Kellogg, Brilliant; internat. jewel thief Kick v. retired Scotland yard cmdr. Thomas Curtis. Stephen King (1947-), Desperation; yet another haunted town (in Nevada) that is saved by children? Dean Koontz (1945-), Odd Thomas. William Kowalski (1970-), The Adventures of Flash Jackson. Jhumpa Lahiri, The Namesake; two generations of Indian family attempt to assimilate into U.S. culture. Jonathan Lethem (1964-), The Fortress of Solitude. Gregory Maguire (1954-), Mirror, Mirror; a retelling of the tale of Snow White, about 16th cent. nobleman Don Vincente de Nevada of Montefior and his 7-y.-o. daughter Bianca. Peter Manson (1969-), Adjunct: An Undigest. Steve Martin (1945-), The Pleasure of My Company (Oct. 1); OCD-sufferer Daniel Pecan Cambridge of Santa Monica, Calif. James McBride (1957-), Miracle at St. Anna; the African-Am. 92nd Infantry Div. in Italy in 1944-5. Colum McCann (1965-), Dancer; Rudolph Nureyev. Colleen McCullough (1937-), The Touch (Nov.); Elizabeth Drummond travels from Kinross, Scotland to N.S.W., Australia in the late 19th cent. to marry her wealthy cousin Alexander Kinross. Larry McMurtry (1936-), By Sorrow's River; Tasmin Berrybender and Monty, son of her "Sin Killer" husband; Duane's Depressed; conclusion to the trilogy of "The Last Picture Show" and "Texasville". Robert K. Morgan (1965-), Broken Angels. David Morrell (1943-), The Protector. Toni Morrison (1931-), Love. Nicholas Mosley (1923-), Inventing God. Walter Mosley (1952-), Six Easy Pieces (short stories); Easy Rawlins #8, with the return of Mouse. Alice Munro (1931-), No Love Lost (short stories). David Nicholls (1966-), Starter for Ten; a first year British univ. student struggles to get on the Granada TV quiz show "University Challenge" to win hot Alice Harbinson; the first round is worth guess how many points. Joyce Carol Oates (1938-), The Tattooed Girl. Stewart O'Nan (1961-), The Night Country. Suze Orman (1951-), The Laws of Money, the Lessons of Life. Chueck Palahniuk, Diary. Sara Paretsky (1947-), Blacklist; V.I. Warshawski #11. Robert Brown Parker (1932-2010), Back Story; Spenser #30; Stone Cold; Jesse Stone #4. Arturo Perez-Reverte, Captain Alatriste. Ralph Peters (1952-), Flames of Heaven: A Novel of the End of the Soviet Union. Harry Mark Petrakis (1923-), Twilight of the Ice. Jodi Picoult (1966-), Second Glance. Marge Piercy (1936-), The Third Child. Stanley Pottinger, The Last Nazi. Richard Powers (1957-), The Time of Our Singing. Richard Price (1949-), Samaritan. Francine Prose (1947-), After Joanna Cotler. John Rechy (1934-), The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens. Kenneth Rexroth (1905-82), Complete Poems (posth.). Anne Rice (1941-), Blood Canticle. Joel C. Rosenberg (1967-), The Last Days. Boualem Sansal (1949-), Dis-moi le Paradis. Jose Saramago (1922-2010), The Double (O Homem Duplicado). Robert James Sawyer (1960-), Hominids. Deborah Scroggins, Emma's War; British aid worker in Sudan Emma McCune marries a polygamous Sudanese warlord and has her idealism tarnished as he wages jihad in South Sudan. Rupert Sheldrake (1942-), The Sense of Being Stared At, and Other Aspects of the Extended Mind. Carol Shields (1935-2003), Unless (final novel). Anita Shreve (1946-), Light on Snow. Lionel Shriver (1957-), We Need to Talk About Kevin (Apr. 14); Eva Khatchadourian talks about her son Kevin, who blinds his sister in one eye with Liquid Plumr, and uses a crossbow for a school massacre; filmed in 2011. Gary Shteyngart (1972-), The Russian Debutante's Handbook (first novel). Robert Silverberg (1935-), Roma Eterna; how Moses' bid for freedom from Egypt fails, meaning that there is no Jesus Christ, and later the Romans assassinate Muhammad, stopping Islam, allowing the Roman Empire to survive to the present day. Dan Simmons (1948-), Ilium; a recreation of the events of the Iliad on an alternate Earth and Mars; followed by "Olympos" (2005). Jane Smiley (1949-), Good Faith. Gary Soto (1952-), Buried Onions; Local News; Amnesia in a Republican County. Nicholas Sparks (1965-), The Guardian (Apr.); The Wedding (Sept.d). Norman Spinrad (1940-), He Walked Among Us; The Druid King; Caesar's war against Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix in 52 B.C.E. Danielle Steel (1947-), Dating Game; Johnny Angel; Safe Harbour. Charlie Stella, Charlie Opera; Charlie Pelecchia. Neal Town Stephenson (1959-), The Confusion (the Baroque Cycle #2). Robert Stone (1937-), Bay of Souls. Charles Stross (1964-), Singularity Sky; first in the Eschaton series. Graham Swift (1949-), The Light of Day. Amy Tan (1952-), The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings. Brad Thor (1969-), Path of the Assassin. Rose Tremain (1943-), The Colour. Lisa Tucker, The Promised World (first novel). Leon Uris (1924-2003), O'Hara's Choice; Amanda and Zachary. Bruce Alan Wagner (1954-), Still Holding; #3 of 3 in the Cellular Trilogy (begun 1996). Lauren Weisberger (1977-), The Devil Wears Prada (Oct. 6) (first novel); bestselling roman a clef about Vogue mag. ed.-in-chief (since 1988) Lady Anna Wintour (1949-) by her former asst. for 10 mo.; 23-y.-o. Brown U. grad. Andrea Sachs becomes asst. to Miranda Priestly of Runway Mag. (who fiendishly wears her Prada), and quits 1 mo. short of her 1-year goal; filmed in 2006 starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Emily Blunt; followed by "Revenge Wears Prada: The Devil Returns" (2013). Louise Welsh, The Cutting Room (first novel); snuff porn in Glasgow, Scotland. Edmund White (1940-), Fanny: A Fiction; Frances Trollope and Frances Wright. T.L. Winslow (1953-), Kid Chr4ist. Tobias Wolff, Old School. Meg Wolitzer (1959-), The Wife: A Novel; a famous New York Jewish novelist's wife decides to leave him, and tells why; filmed in 2017 starring Glenn Close. James Wood (1965-), The Book Against God (first novel). Births: Swedish climate activist Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg on Jan. 3 in Stockholm. Swedish climate activist Izabella Nilsson Jarvandi on Jan. 6 in Gothenburg. Am. "Damon Cross in Alex Cross" actor (black) Sayeed Shahidi on Feb. 14 in Minneapolis, Minn.; Iranian father, African-Am. mother; brother of Yara Shahidi (2000-); grows up in Calif. English "Dustbin Baby" actress Lucy Hutchinson on July 18 in Sanderstead, Croydon. Am. "Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild" actress (black) Quvenzhane (Quvenzhané) Wallis on Aug. 28 in Houma, La.; first person in the 21st cent. to be nominated for a best actress Oscar. Deaths: Argentine pres. (1981-2) Gen. Leopoldo Galtieri (b. 1926) on Jan. 12 in Buenos Aires. Dominican world's almost oldest woman Elizabeth "Ma Pampo" Israel (b. 1875) in Jan. Chinese Dragon Lady Madame Chiang Kai-shek (b. 1898) on Oct. 23. English-born Am. Texas Instruments co-founder Cecil Howard Green (b. 1900) on apr. 11. German filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (b. 1902) on Sept. 8 in Pocking (dies in her sleep); learned scuba diving at age 70, survived a car crash in her 60s, broke her hip at age 79 while skiing, and survived a heli crash at age 98, all after kissing Hitler? - good genes? Am. politician J. Strom Thurmond (b. 1902) on June 26 in Edgefield, S.C. English archeologist Mary Chubb (b. 1903) on Jan. 22. Am. caricaturist Al Hirschfeld (b. 1903) on Jan. 20 in New York City; on June 21, 2003 the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway is renamed after him. British-born Am. comedian Bob Hope (b. 1903) on July 27 in Toluca Lake, Calif. at age 100; hosted the Academy Awards 20x. Puerto Rico gov. #3 (1969-73) Luis Alberto Ferre Aguayo (b. 1904) on Oct. 21 in San Juan. Am. swimmer Gertrude Ederle (b. 1905) on Nov. 30 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. aviation pioneer Bobbi Trout (b. 1906) on Jan. 24 in San Diego, Calif. (heart attack). Am. jazz man Benny Carter (b. 1907) on July 12 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. actress Katharine Hepburn (b. 1907) on June 29 in Old Saybrook, Conn.; dies at age 96 at home surrounded by loved ones; the lights of Broadway are dimmed for an hour in tribute. English-born Am. jockey Johnny Longden (b. 1907) on Feb. 14 in Banning, Calif. Am. country singer Bill Carlisle (b. 1908) on Mar. 17 in Nashville, Tenn. Am. "Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies" actor Buddy Ebsen (b. 1908) on July 6 in Torrance, Calif. English "Poldark" novelist Winston Graham (b. 1908) on July 10 in London. Am. poet Josephine Jacobsen (b. 1908) on July 9 in Cockneyville, Md.: "Poetry is like walking along a little, tiny, narrow ridge up on a precipice. You never know the next step, whether there's going to be a plunge. I think poetry is dangerous. There's nothing mild and predictable about poetry." English poet-critic Kathleen Jessie Raine (b. 1908) on July 6 in London. Am. playwright Sylvia Regan (b. 1908) on Jan. 18 in New York City. Am. John Wayne's wife (1933-45) Josephine Wayne (b. 1908) on June 24 in Calif. (cancer). Hungarian-born Am. "Dr. Strangelove" H-bomb physicist Edward Teller (b. 1908) on Sept. 9 in Stanford, Calif. English fashion designer Sir Edwin Hardy Amies (b. 1909) on Mar. 5. Vienna-born U.S. treasury secy. #57 (1961-5) C. Douglas Dillon (b. 1909) on Jan. 10 in New York City. Greek-Am. rat fink movie dir. Elia Kazan (b. 1909). English actress Rachel Kempson (b. 1910) on May 24 in Millbrook, N.Y. German SS Col. Helmut Knochen (b. 1910) on Apr. 4 in Baden-Baden; pardoned by Charles de Gaulle in 1958. Am. sociologist Robert King Merton (b. 1910) on Feb. 23 in New York City. Am. journalist Fred James Cook (b. 1911) on Apr. 4 English "Cocoon" actor Hume Cronyn (b. 1911) on June 15 in Fairfield, Conn. (prostate cancer). Am. politician Frank Moss (b. 1911) on Jan. 29. Am. Denver, Colo. mayor #36 (1947-55) James Quigg Newton Jr. (b. 1911) on Apr. 4 in Denver, Colo. Am. nurse Ann Agnes Bernatitus (b. 1912) on Mar. 3 in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. Am. "PT-109" writer Robert J. Donovan (b. 1912) on Aug. 8 in St. Petersburg, Fla. (stroke). Am. poet James Dillet Freeman (b. 1912) on Apr. 9. U.S. Rep. (D-Mich.) (1955-74) Martha Griffiths (b. 1912) on Apr. 22 in Armada, Mich. English historian Christopher Hill (b. 1912) on Feb. 23 in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire (Alzheimer's). English actress Dame Wendy Hiller (b. 1912) on May 14 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. South African ANC leader Walter Sisulu (b. 1912) on May 5. Am. Tex. gov. #40 (1969-73) Preston Earnest Smith (b. 1912) on Oct. 18 in Lubbock, Tex. Am. economist Abram Bergson (b. 1914) on Apr. 23 in Cambridge, Mass. Am. linguist Charles Berlitz (b. 1914) on Dec. 18 in Tamarac, Fla. Am. "Spartacus" novelist Howard Fast (b. 1914) on Mar. 12 in Old Greenwich, Conn. Am. "Because All Men Are Brothers" folk singer-songwriter Tom Glazer (b. 1914) on Feb. 21 in Rochester, N.Y. Am. actor Stacy Keach Sr. (b. 1914) on Feb. 13 in Burbank, Calif. (congestive heart failure). Am. "Li'l Abner", "Road to Utopia" dir. Norman Panama (b. 1914) on Jan. 13 in Los Angeles, Calif. (Parkinson's). Am. actress Elaine Steinbeck (b. 1914) on Apr. 27 in Manhattan, N.Y. English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper (b. 1914) on Jan. 26 in Didcot, Oxfordshire. English "Delbert Grady in The Shining" actor Philip Stone (b. 1914) on June 15 in London. Am. "You Always Hurt the One You Love" songwriter Doris Fisher (b. 1915) on Jan. 15 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. WWII USMC fighter ace and AFL commissioner (1959-66) Joe Foss (b. 1915) on Jan. 1. Am. human ecologist Garrett James Hardin (b. 1915) on Sept. 14 in Santa Barbarra, Calif. (suicide along with his wife a la the Hemlock Society). Am. Washington, D.C. mayor #1 (1975-9) Walter Washington (b. 1915) on Oct. 27 in Washington, D.C. Am. actor Harold Ayer (b. 1916) on Mar. 6 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Bela Oxymyx in Star Trek" actor Anthony Caruso (b. 1916) on Apr. 4 in Brentwood, Calif. German-born Canadian philosopher-theologian Emil Ludwig Fackenheim (b. 1916) on Sept. 19 in Jerusalem. French feminist politician Francoise Giroud (b. 1916) on Jan. 19 in Paris: "Feminism, as far as I know, is not about the right or the left." Am. economist Walt Whitman Rostow (b. 1916) on Feb. 13. Am. "Gilligan's Island Theme" composer George Wyle (b. 1916) on May 2 in Tarzana, Calif. (leukemia). Am. Coors CEO (1980-88) Joseph Coors (b. 1917) on Mar. 15 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. (cancer). Am. philosopher Donald Herbert Davidson (b. 1917) on Aug. 30 in Berkeley, Calif. Am. lit. critic Leslie Fiedler (b. 1917) on Jan. 29 in Buffalo, N.Y.: "To be an American (unlike being English or French or whatever) is precisely to imagine a destiny rather than to inherit one; since we have always been, insofar as we are Americans at all, inhabitants of myth rather than history." Spanish novelist Jose Maria Gironella (b. 1917) on Jan. 3 in Arenys de Mar, Gerona. Am. composer Lou Harrison (b. 1917) on Feb. 2. Am. historian Jackson Turner Main (b. 1917) on Oct. 19 in Boulder, Colo. (Alzheimer's). Russian-born Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine (b. 1917) on May 28 in Brussels; 1977 Nobel Chem. Prize. Cuban "Watermelon Man" jazz percussionist Mongo Santamaria (b. 1917) on Feb. 1 in Miami, Fla. Am. "Charles Hamilton in Gone with the Wind" actor Rand Brooks (b. 1918) on Sept. 1 in Santa Ynez, Calif. Am. "Ralph Kramden in The Honeymooners" actor Art Carney (b. 1918) on Nov. 9 in Chester, Conn. Am. actress Anne Gwynne (b. 1918) on Mar. 31 in Woodland Hills, Calif. Pakistani leader Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan (b. 1918). U.S. Sen. (D-La.) (1948-87) Russell B. Long (b. 1918) on May 9; chmn. of the Senate Committee on Finance: "Don't tax you; don't tax me; tax that man behind the tree." Italian-born Am. economist Franco Modigliani (b. 1918) on Sept. 25 in Cambridge, Mass.; 1985 Nobel Econ. Prize. U.S. treasury secy. (1981-5) Donald T. Regan (b. 1918) on June 10 in Williamsburg, Va. English producer Peter Shaw (b. 1918) on Jan. 22 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart failure). Am. TV game show host Mike Stokey (b. 1918) on Sept. 7 in Las Vegas, Nev. (liver disease). Am. TV quiz show producer Steve Carlin (b. 1919) on Feb. 4 in New York City (Alzheimer's). Am. historian Margaret Louise Coit (b. 1919) on Mar. 15 in Amesbury, Mass. Am. media mogul Edward Gaylor (b. 1919) on Apr. 27 in Oklahoma City, Okla. Am. writer Marion Hargrove (b. 1919) on Aug. 23. Am. Episcopal bishop Paul Moore Jr. (b. 1919) on May 1. Am. historian Richard Elliott Neustadt (b. 1919) on Oct. 31 in London. Am. "Eliot Ness in The Untouchables" actor Robert Stack (b. 1919) on May 14 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Am. "Forever Amber" novelist Kathleen Winsor (b. 1919) on May 26 in New York City. Am. TV journalist David Brinkley (b. 1920) on June 11 in Houston, Tex. Am. actor Jack Elam (b. 1920) on Oct. 20 in Ashland, Ore. (heart failure). British Social Dem. politician Roy Harris Jenkins (b. 1920) on Jan. 5 in East Hendred, Oxfordshire. Am. psychologist Paul Everett Meehl (b. 1920) on Feb. 14. Am. "Philip Boynton in Our Miss Brooks" actor Robert Rockwell (b. 1920) on Jan. 25 in Malibu, Calif. Am. "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" novelist Sloan Wilson (b. 1920) on May 25 in Colonial Beach, Va. Am. football player Otto Everett Graham (b. 1921). Am. jazz drummer Don Lamond (b. 1921) on Dec. 23 in Orlando, Fla. Am. "Willie and Joe" cartoonist Bill Mauldin (b. 1921) on Jan. 22 in Newport Beach, Calif. Am. Dem. politician Maury Maverick Jr. (b. 1921) on Jan. 28. English historian John Terraine (b. 1921) on Dec. 28 in London. Am. "The Purple People Eater" singer Sheb Wooley (b. 1921) on Sept. 16 in Nashville, Tenn. (leukemia). Am. film dir.-writer George Axelrod (b. 1922) on June 21 in Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. Rep. (R-N.Y.) (1965-85) and World Bank pres. (1986-91) Barber Benjamin Conable Jr. (b. 1922) on Nov. 30 in Sarasota, Fla. Am. "Please Don't Eat the Dasies" writer Jean Kerr (b. 1922) on Jan. 5 in White Plains, N.Y. (pneumonia). Am. sci-fi writer Hal Clement (b. 1922) on Oct. 29 in Milton, Mass. English "Day the World Ended", "The She Creature" film producer-writer Alex Gordon (b. 1922) on June 24. Am. poet Alan Dugan (b. 1923) on Sept. 3 (pneumonia). French "Boeing-Boeing" playwright Marc Camoletti (b. 1923) on July 18 in Deauville. English computer scientist (inventor of relational databases) Edgar Frank Codd (b. 1923) on Apr. 18 in Williams Island, Fla. (heart failure). Am. playwright Jean Kerr (b. 1923) on Jan. 5 in White Plains, N.Y. (pneumonia). Canadian "The Hockey News" founder Ken McKenzie (b. 1923) on Apr. 9 in Toronto, Ont. Am. country singer Redd Stewart (b. 1923) on Aug. 2 in Louisville, Ky. Am. King's Hawaiian Bread founder Robert Taira (b. 1923) on May 29 in Torrance, Calif. Am. country singer Rosalie Allen (b. 1924) on Sept. 24 (heart failure). Mauritanian pres. (1960-78) Moktar Ould Daddah (b. 1924) on July 10 in Paris, France. Am. jaz musician Roy S. Harte (b. 1924) on Oct. 26 in Burbank, Calif. Am. jazz saxophonist Herbie Steward (b. 1926) on Aug. 9 in Clearlake, Calif. Am. "Exodust", "Trinity" novelist Leon Uris (b. 1924) on June 21 in Shelter Island, N.Y. Am. country musician Speedy West (b. 1924) on Nov. 15. Ugandan exiled dictator Idi Amin (b. 1925) on Aug. 16 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Italian composer Luciano Berio (b. 1925) on May 27 in Rome. Am. actress Jeanne Crain (b. 1925) on Dec. 14 in Santa Barbara, Calif. Nigerian Biafran pres. #2 (1970) Gen. Philip Effiong (b. 1925) on Nov. 6 in Aba, Abia. Am. "Tracy Steele in Hawaiian Eye" actor Anthony Eisley (b. 1925) on Jan. 29 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, Calif. (heart attack). Bosnian pres. #1 (1990-2000) Alija Izetbegovic (b. 1925) on Oct. 19 in Sarajevo. Czech chemist Drahoslav Lim (b. 1925) on Aug. 22 in San Diego, Calif. Am. celeb Carol Matthau (b. 1925) on July 23. Am. "Singin' in the Rain" actor Donald O'Connor (b. 1925) on Sept. 27 in Woodland Hills, Calif. (heart failure). Am. poet Robert Creeley (b. 1926) on Mar. 30 in Odessa, Tex. (pneumonia). Am. feminist educator Carolyn Heilbrun (b. 1926) on Oct. 9 in New York City (suicide): "Today's shocks are tomorrow's conventions." Belgian physician Paul Janssen (b. 1926) on Nov. 11 in Rome, Italy. English "Midnight Cowboy" film dir. John Schlesinger (b. 1926) on July 25 in Palm Springs, Calif. (stroke). Am. Nobel-cheated geneticist Martha Cowles Chase (b. 1927) on Aug. 8 (cancer and dementia). Am. actor Richard Crenna (b. 1927) on Jan. 17. Am. tennis champ Althea Gibson (b. 1927) on Sept. 28 in East Orange, N.J.: "No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you." English novelist Nicolas Freeling (b. 1927) on July 20. Canadian singer-actress Gisele MacKenzie (b. 1927) on Sept. 5 (colon cancer). Am. Dem. politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan (b. 1927) on Mar. 26 in New York City. Am. novelist Joan Lowery Nixon (b. 1927) on June 28 in Houston, Tex. (pancreatic cancer). Am. writer-actor George Plimpton (b. 1927) on Sept. 25 in New York City. Am. country singer Dave Dudley (b. 1928) on Dec. 22 near Danbury, Wisc. (heart attack). Am. country singer Don Gibson (b. 1928) on Nov. 17. British historian John Morris Roberts (b. 1928) on May 30 in Roadwater, Somerset. Am. children's TV king Mister Rogers (b. 1928) on Feb. 27; aired the show from 1968-2001 from KQED in Pittsburgh, Penn. - won't you do your neighbor? U.S. Dem. politician Paul Martin Simon (b. 1928) on Dec. 9 in Springfield, Ill. (heart surgery). Am. country singer June Carter Cash (b. 1929) on May 15 in Nashville, Tenn. Am. televangelist Garner Ted Armstrong (b. 1930) on Sept. 12 (pneumonia). Am. diet guru Robert C. Atkins (b. 1930) on Apr. 17 in New York City (epidural hematoma from slip on ice). Am. actress Kathie Browne (b. 1930) on Apr. 8 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Central African Repub. (CAR) pres. #1 (1960-6) and pres. #3 (1979-81) David Dacko (b. 1930) on Nov. 20 in Yaounde, Cameroon. Am. jazz flautist Herbie Mann (b. 1930) on July 1 (prostate cancer). Am. "Woman of the Year" lyricist Peter Stone (b. 1930) on Apr. 26 in New York City; won an Emmy in 1962, Oscar in 1965, and three Tonys. Am. historian Robin W. Winks (b. 1930) on Apr. 7 in New Haven, Conn. Am. clarinetist Henry Cuesta (b. 1931) on Dec. 17 in Sherman Oaks, Calif. (cancer). Am. jockey Willie Shoemaker (b. 1931) on Oct. 12; 8,833 career victories in 40,350 races. Australian composer Malcolm Williamson (b. 1931) on Mar. 2 in Cambridge, England. Canadian CanWest Global Communications Corp. founder Israel Harold Asper (b. 1932) on Oct. 7 in Winnepeg, Man. Am. "A Boy Called Sue" singer Johnny Cash (b. 1932) on Sept. 12 in Nashville, Tenn. (diabetes). Am. novelist-screenwriter John Gregory Dunne (b. 1932) on Dec. 30 in Manhattan, N.Y. (heart attack). Am.-born British philanthropist Sir John Paul Getty II (b. 1932) on Apr. 17 in London; son of Jean Paul Getty Sr. (1892-1976). Am. actor Harry Goz (b. 1932) on Sept. 6 in Manhasset, N.Y. (multiple myeloma). Am. actor Gordon Jump (b. 1932) on Sept. 22 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Funny Face" supermodel-actress Suzy Parker (b. 1932) on May 3 in Montecito, Calif. German actor Horst Buccholz (b. 1933) on Mar. 3 in Berlin. English actor Don Estelle (b. 1933) on Aug. 2 in Rochdale. Am. "Selena Cross in Peyton Place" actress Hope Lange (b. 1933) on Dec. 19 in Santa Monica, Calif. (ischemic colitis). Am. "Miss Hannigan in Annie" actress-singer Dorothy Loudon (b. 1933) on Nov. 15 in New York City (cancer). Soviet cosmonaut Oleg Grigoryevich Makarov (b. 1933) on May 28 in Moscow. Am. short story writer Leonard Michaels (b. 1933) on May 10. Am. "To be Young, Gifted and Black" singer-pianist Nina Simone (b. 1933) on Apr. 21 in Carry-le-Rouet, France. English "Zorba the Greek" actor Alan Bates (b. 1934) on Dec. 27 in London. Am. singer-songwriter Skip Battin (b. 1934) on July 6 in Salem, Ore. (Alzheimer's). Am. "I'm Not Rappaport" playwright Herb Gardner (b. 1934) on Sept. 25 in Manhattan, N.Y. (lung disease). Am. playwright-dir. Louis LaRusso II (b. 1935) on Feb. 22 in Hoboken, N.J. (bladder cancer). Palestinian-born Am. scholar Edward Said (b. 1935) on Sept. 25 in New York City (leukemia). Am.-born Canadian novelist Carol Shields (b. 1935) on July 16 in Victoria, B.C. (cancer). Zimbabwe pres. #1 (1980-7) Canaan Banana (b. 1936) on Nov. 10 in London, England. Am. actor Burr DeBenning (b. 1936) on May 26 in Miramonte, Calif. Am. playwright Paul Zindel (b. 1936) on Mar. 27 (lung cancer). Am. "Wall Street Journal" editorial page ed. (1972-2002) Robert Leroy Bartley (b. 1937) on Dec. 10 (cancer): receives the Pres. Medal of Freedome one week before his death: "In general, 'the market' is smarter than the smartest of its individual participants." Italian opera tenor Franco Bonisolli (b. 1937) on Oct. 20 in Vienna, Austria. Am. "Miracle on Ice" hockey player-coach Herb Brooks (b. 1937) on Aug. 11 near Forest Lake, Minn. (car accident). English musician-songwriter-producer Ian Samwell (b. 1937) on Apr. 13 in Sacramento, Calif. Am. legal scholar John Hart Ely (b. 1938) on Oct. 25 in Miami, Fla. (cancer). English "The Searchers" bassist Tony Jackson (b. 1938) on Aug. 18 in Nottingham (alcoholism). English record producer Mickie Most (b. 1938) on May 30 in London (mesothelioma); leaves a Ł50M fortune. Canadian poet John Newlove (b. 1938). Am. hall-of-fame bowler Beverly Ann Ortner (b. 1938) on Dec. 26 in Tucson, Ariz. (cancer). Am. "Take This Job and Shove It" singer Johnny Paycheck (b. 1938) on Feb. 19 in Nashville, Ill. Am. actress Kathie Browne (b. 1939) in Apr. in Beverly Hills, Calif. Am. writer-poet Richard Ward Morris (b. 1939) on Aug. 28. Am. computer entrepreneur Adam Osborne (b. 1939) on Mar. 18 in Kodaikanal, India. Am. White House press secy. (1969-74) Ronald Ziegler (b. 1939) on Feb. 10 in Coronado Shores, Calif. (heart attack). Am. basketball player-coach Dave DeBusschere (b. 1940) on May 14 in New York City. English actor-singer Adam Faith (b. 1940) on Mar. 8 in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire; last words: "Channel Five is all shit, isn't it? Christ, the crap they put on there. It's a waste of space." Am. "Righteous Brothers" singer Bobby Hatfield (b. 1940) on Nov. 5 in Kalamazoo, Mich. (cocaine OD). Am. hall-of-fame bowler Don Johnson (b. 1940) on May 3 in North Las Vegas, Nev. (heart attack). Am. novelist James Welch (b. 1940) on Aug. 4 in Missoula, Mont. English "Blowup" actor David Hemmings (b. 1941) on Dec. 3 in Bucharest, Romania (heart attack). Russian high jumper Valeri Brumel (b. 1942) on Jan. 26. English "Humble Pie" rock bassist Greg Ridley (b. 1942) on No. 19 in Alicante, Spain (pneumonia). Am. "War" singer Edwin Starr (b. 1942) on Apr. 2 in Detroit, Mich. Am. atty. Robert Kardashian (b. 1944) on Sept. 30 in Los Angeles, Calif. (esophageal cancer). Am. "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" singer Barry White (b. 1944) on July 4 in Los Angeles, Calif. (kidney failure). Am. all-star baseball player Bobby Bonds (b. 1946) on Aug. 23. Am. soul singer Arthur Conley (b. 1946) on Nov. 17 in Ruurlo, Netherlands (cancer). Am. rocker Warren Zevon (b. 1947) on Sept. 7 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Nell Harper in Gimme a Break!" singer-actor Nell Carter (b. 1948) on Jan. 23 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (diabetes and heart disease). Am. film composer Michael Kamen (b. 1948) on Nov. 18 in London, England (heart attack). Am. "Three's Company" actor John Ritter (b. 1948) on Sept. 11 in Burbank, Calif. (aortic dissection). Am. actress Lynne Thigpen (b. 1948) on Mar. 12 in Marina del Rey, Calif. English-born Australian "Bee Gees" singer Maurice Gibb (b. 1949) on Jan. 12 in Miami, Fla. (emergency surgery for an intestinal blockage); brothers Barry (1946-) and Robin (1949-) don't perform again until Feb. 18, 2006. English "Addicted to Love" singer Robert Allen Palmer (b. 1949) on Sept. 26 in Paris (heart attack). Am. "Del in The Green Mile" actor Michael Jeter (b. 1952) on Mar. 30 in Los Angeles, Calif. (epileptic seizure). Am. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers musician Howie Epstein (b. 1955) on Feb. 23 in Santa Fe, N.M. (drug use complications). Am. prof. wrestler Curt Hennig (b. 1958) on Feb. 10 in Tampa, Fla. (cocaine, steroid, and painkiller OD). Am. actress-model Lana Clarkson (b. 1962) on Feb. 3 in Alhambra, Calif. (murdered). Iraqi smiling devil Uday Hussein (b. 1964) on July 22 in Mosul (killed by U.S. forces). Iraqi heir apparent Qusay Hussein (b. 1966) on July 22 in Mosul (killed by U.S. forces). Am. musician Elliott Smith (b. 1969) on Oct. 23 in Los Angeles, Calif.
2004 Doomsday Clock: 7 min. to midnight. Chinese Year: Monkey (Jan. 22) (lunar year 4701); China uses the year to try and preserve the Chinese Golden Monkey (Pygathrix roxellana) - Pres. George Dubya Bush is the poster boy? Time Person of the Year: George W. Bush (1946-) (first time 2000); he is chosen after considering and passing over the collective group of Internet bloggers (Webloggers) (citizen journalists), AKA the Bloggosphere, the equivalent of bathroom wall graffiti, where the temptation to respond to anon. insults by creating a "sock puppet" alias gets senior "New Republic" ed. Lee Siegel (1957-) suspended next year; Merriam-Webster names the word "blog" as its new word of the year. This is the U.N. Internat. Year of Rice, emphasizing shortages throughout the world. The 2004 African Locust Infestation ravages crops across the N third of Africa, leaving millions at risk of starvation; in 2006 another swarm reaches 3 sq. mi. in area as it moves across Mauritania; meanwhile a drought in Niger combined with desert locust damage destroys the fall crop, leaving 3.6M short of food, causing a food crisis in 2005-6. The Antarctic Polar Night begins (ends 2016), with 100 different locations on the East Antarctic Plateau reaching temps of -98C (-144F), beating the record low air temp of -89.2C (-129F) of July 23, 1983. Ga. becomes the fastest growing state in the U.S. E of Colo., growing 36% since 1990. And the non-whites keep pouring in: Britain: 2.7M immigrants (5% of total pop.); France: 3.3M (6%); Germany: 7.3M (9%); Italy: 1.3M (2%); Netherlands: 700K (4%); Spain: 2.7M (7%). This year world oil consumption rises 3.4% to 82.4M barrels a day (vs. 74M in 1997), with the U.S. hogging 20.5M; China comes into the radar at 6.6M. Worldwide military spending reaches $1T this year, equal to $162 per capita; 19 conflicts causing more than 1K deaths are fought this year, of which 16 had been raging for more than a decade. The U.S. nat. deficit this year is $413B, a record for the Bush admin. through 2008. Amnesty Internat. reports that over 7K people are sentenced to die in 64 countries this year, and 3,797 people in 25 countries are executed: China: 3,400; Iran: 159; Vietnam: 64; U.S.: 59. On Jan. 1 Michigan defeats USC by 28-14 to win the 2004 Rose Bowl. On Jan. 3 Egyptian charter Flash Airlines Flight 604 (Boeing 737) crashes into the Red Sea, killing all 148 aboard, incl. 133 French tourists. On Jan. 5 Indian PM Atal Bihari Bajpayee and Pakistani pres. Pervez Musharraf meet for the first time since the Dec. 13, 2001 Indian Parliament Attack. On Jan. 5 foreigners begin to be photographed and fingerprinted upon arrival at U.S. airports as part of the U.S. anti-terrorism effort. On Jan. 6 13 children and two adults are killed in Afghanistan's S Kandahar Province after a time bomb in an apple cart goes off on a street regularly used by U.S. military patrols. On Jan. 7 Pres. Bush proposes legal status for millions of illegal immigrants working in the U.S., even if only temporarily - somebody has to clean the toilets and do dirty construction jobs or work on roofs in the hot sun? On Jan. 8 a Black Hawk medivac heli is hit by a rocket and crashes near Fallujah, killing nine U.S. soldiers - the insurgents greet the infidel invaders and wish them a Hellish New Year? On Jan. 8 the Mark Burnett reality TV series The Apprentice, created by Mark Burnett debuts on NBC-TV for 185 episodes (until 2015), featuring Trump lording it over 16-18 job applicants in Trump Tower in Manhattan while making $14M a year, becoming known for the catchphrase "You're fired!"; the theme song is "For the Love of Money" by The O'Jays (1973). On Jan. 8 Oakland, Calif.-born Kamala Devi Harris (1964-) (Tamil Indian father, black Jamaican father) becomes Dem. San Francisco, Calif. district atty. #27 (until Jan. 3, 2011), going on to become Dem. Calif. atty. gen. #32 on Jan. 3, 2011 (untl Jan. 3, 2017) and U.S. Sen. (D-Calif.) on Jan. 3, 2017, succeeding Barbara Boxer (until ?); in 2019 she announces her candidacy for U.S. pres. in 2020. On Jan. 9 the U.S. govt. lowers the nat. threat level from orange back to yellow. On Jan. 11 Dem. candidate Howard Brush Dean III (1948-) acknowledges in his last debate before the Iowa caucuses that no blacks or Hispanics had served in his cabinet during his 12 years as gov. of Vermont. On Jan. 12 Pres. Bush and Mexican Pres. Vicente Fox meet in Monterrey, Mexico before the opening of a 34-nation hemispheric summit, and hammer out agreements on immigration and Iraq. On Jan. 12 a former Molson's Brewery in Barrie, Ont. is raided and found to house one of the largest illegal cannabis growing operations in Canadian history. On Jan. 13 a U.S. Army Apache attack heli is shot down in Iraq, but the two crew members escape injury. The U.S. stinks itself up after supposedly invading Iraq moral grounds? On Jan. 13 U.S. Army Spc. Joseph M. Darby (1979-) of the 800th MP Brigade at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq blows the whistle on the first case of U.S. abuse of Iraqi POWs there (many in the previous 3 mo.); on Mar. 20 after an internal Army probe led by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba (1950-), six soldiers are charged; on Apr. 28 CBS airs disturbing photos of prisoner humiltation and abuse, setting off a public outcry and becoming the turning point in bland public acceptance of the war, and eroding the U.S. moral image in the world; on May 6 Pres. Bush publicly apologizes, followed by Donald Rumsfeld on May 7. On Jan. 14 Pres. Bush announces that the Internat. Space Station (ISS) will be used for research on human biology in space in preparation for a Mars mission. On Jan. 17 three U.S. soldiers are killed N of Baghdad, pushing the U.S. death toll in Iraq to the 500 mark. On Jan. 18 a suicide truck bombing outside the HQ of the U.S.-led coalition in Baghdad kills 31. On Jan. 18 the soft porn drama The L Word debuts on Showtime for 70 episodes (until Mar. 8, 2009), about lesbians in West Hollywood, Calif., along with their straight, bi, and transgender friends. On Jan. 19 6'4" Jay Leno-jawed Mass. Dem. Sen. (since 1985) John Forbes Kerry (1943-) (worth $750M, mostly from wife Teresa Heinz Kerry) wins Iowa's Dem. caucuses, reviving his sagging campaign; Johnny Reid "John" Edwards (1953-) of N.C. comes in 2nd; his wife (since 1977) Mary Elizabeth Anania Edwards (1949-2010) is dignosed with breast cancer on Nov. 3, 2004, the day that Kerry concedes defeat in the 2004 U.S. Pres. Election; Howard Dean comes in 3rd after he flubs up by delivering his I Have a Scream speech, with a wild fist-pumping yak-like bellow that makes a damaging soundbyte even though the crowd was bellowing too and his contribution was singled out - American Idol reject number what? On Jan. 20 (Tues.) Pres. Bush gives his 2004 State of the Union Address, with Edgar Bergen (Dick Cheney) (his CIA nickname) looking on - let me guess, stay the course, and don't confuse me with details? On Jan. 21 Pres. Bush visits community colleges in Arizona and Ohio to push the new job training initiatives proposed in his State of the Union speech the day before. On Jan. 25 NASA's Opportunity rover sends it first pictures of Mars to Earth. On Jan. 25 the Respect Party (Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism, Community and Trade Unionism) is founded in Manchester, England to fight the Iraq war by British Muslim Salma Yaqoob (1971-) et al. On Jan. 26 the White House finally retreats from its confident claims that Iraq had WMDs, and Dems. swiftly seek to make political hay. On Jan. 27 John Kerry wins the N.H. Dem. pres. primary. On Jan. 31 six U.S.-bound flights from England, Scotland, and France are canceled because of security concerns. In Jan. a federal grand jury begins investigating the Plamegate leak scandal, and on Mar. 5 and Mar. 24 Scooter Libby testifies before it that he learned of the info. from NBC-TV's Meet the Press, hosted by Tim Russert (1950-2008), not Cheney; too bad, notes he took at the time surface in Oct. 2005, and his ass is grass and the prosecutor's got the lawnmower? In Jan. King Norodom Sihanouk goes into self-imposed exile in Pyongyang, North Korea, then Beijing, where they treat him for his health problems, and on Oct. 7 abdicates, after which his elder son (a classical dance instructor) Norodom Sihamoni (1953-) becomes king of Cambodia on Oct. 14 (until ?). On Feb. 1 twin suicide bombers kill 109 at two Kurdish party offices in Irbil, Iraq. The 38-D Cup Wardrobe Malfunction Bowl? On Feb. 1 Super Bowl XXXVIII (38) (2004) is held in Houston, Tex., and the New England Patriots (AFC) defeat the Carolina Panthers (NFC) 32-29 as 6'4" MVP (for the 2nd time) Patriots QB (#12) Thomas Edward Patrick "Tom Terrific" Brady Jr. (1977-) duels Carolina's 6'2" QB (#12) Jake Christopher Delhomme (1975-), the two QBs passing for 677 yards and six TDs; Delhomme makes a SB record 85-yard pass completion to Muhsin Muhammad II (Melvin Darnell Campbell Jr.) (1973-); Carolina becomes the first #3 seed to reach the SB; Justin Timberlake exposes Janet Jackson's breast during the halftime show, and she later claims a "wardrobe malfunction", triggering the Nipplegate controversy; at the Grammys, Timberlake comments "What occurred was unintentional, completely regrettable, and I apologize if you guys are offended"; a record $550K FCC fine results in mass self-censorship at radio and TV stations all the rest of the year, and Howard Stern flees to unregulated satellite radio, debuting on Sirius Satellite Radio (launched on July 1, 2002) in Jan. 2006. On Feb. 3 John Kerry wins Dem. pres. primaries in 5 out of 7 states. On Feb. 3 ricin powder is found in the Dirksen Senate Office Bldg., causing work in the U.S. Senate to all-but stop. On Feb. 4 White Plains, N.Y.-born Jewish-Am. Harvard student Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (1984-) launches the Web site Sucker, er, Facebook.com from his dorm room, then drops out to move to Palo Alto, Calif. and build a megacorp; too bad, he soon becomes a Bill Gates type monopolist who doesn't protect user privacy and terminates accounts at will for any reason?; in 2007 the Beacon advertising platform is launched, but is taken down after it shares user purchasing decisions without their permission - the next big thing will be Assbook.com? On Feb. 6 a Chechen terrorist suicide bombing on a Moscow commuter train kills 44 and injures 70. On Feb. 7 John Kerry wins the Washington state and Michigan Dem. pres. primaries. On Feb. 8 Pres. Bush is interviewed on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press", and denies marching America blind into war under false pretenses, claiming that it was necessary because Madman Hussein could have developed a nuke. On Feb. 10 the White House releases documents claiming to prove that Pres. Bush met his requirements in the Texas Air Nat. Guard during the Vietnam War. On Feb. 11 Gen. Wesley Clark drops out of the U.S. pres. race. On Feb. 11 a car bomb at an army recruiting center in Baghdad kills 47 people. On Feb. 12 Mattel announces that Barbie and Ken have quit dating after 43 years, and that she has a new Australian "friend" named Blaine - he becomes a middle-aged fag and she goes bi, or was it a wardrobe malfunction? On Feb. 13 former Chechen acting pres. (1996-7) Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev (b. 1952) is assassinated via car bomb in Doha, Qatar; two Russian agents are later convicted of murder in Qatar. On Feb. 14 guerrillas raid a police station W of Baghdad, killing 23 and freeing dozens of prisoners. On Feb. 14 a glass and concrete roof of an indoor water park in Moscow collapses, killing 28. On Feb. 17 John Kerry wins the Wisc. Dem. pres. primary, with John Edwards coming in 2nd, and Howard Dean a distant 3rd; on Feb. 18 Dean drops out of the pres. race after losing 17 straight contests, and becomes Dem. nat. chmn. ("Chairman Now"). On Feb. 18 a train fire in Neishabour, Iran kills 320 and devastates five villages. On Feb. 21 the Internat. Red Cross visits Saddam Hussein in U.S. custody. On Feb. 22 consumer advocate Ralph Nader enters the U.S. pres. race as an independent amid calls from Dems. to not mess up their chances again. On Feb. 23 the U.S. Army cancels its RAH-66 Comanche heli program after only two are built and sinking $6.9B into it since Oct. 1988. On Feb. 25 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 7-2 (Thomas, Scalia) in Locke v. Davey that states don't have to underwrite the religious training of students planning careers in the ministry; William Rehnquist writes the majority opinion, saying there is nothing "inherently constitutionally suspect" in the denial of funding for vocational religious instruction, and that there is a "substantial state interest" in not funding "devotional degrees". On Feb. 27 the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 to adopt Resolution 1528 to create the U.N. Operation in Cote d'Ivoire (Opération des Nations Unies en Côte d'Ivoire) (ONUC), to take over from the MINUCI on Apr. 4 (ends ?); by Mar. 31, 2017 it comprises 17 uniformed and 689 civilian personnel. On Feb. 29 the 76th Academy Awards in the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles are hosted by Billy Crystal (5th time), and 254 films are eligible for consideration; New Line's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the finale of the Tolkien trilogy, dir. by Peter Jackson sweeps the 2003 Oscars with 11 awards, incl. best picture and best dir.; Charlize Theron becomes the first South African to win an Oscar, best actress for Monster; Sean Penn wins best actor, and Tim Robbins wins best supporting actor for Mystic River; Rene Zellweger wins best supporting actress for Cold Mountain. On Feb. 29 (Leap Day) U.S. Marines kidnap Haitian pres. (since Feb. 7, 2001) Jean-Bertrand Aristide; on Mar. 1 in Haiti rebels roll into Port-au-Prince where they meet thousands of residents cheering his ouster; a multinat. U.N. force of 3K troops, incl. French restores order, becoming the first French troops deployed to Haiti since its 1804 independence; the force is later increased to 9K under Brazilian leadership; on Mar. 12 former Haitian foreign minister Gerard (Gérard) Latortue (1934-) becomes PM #12 of Jamaica (until June 9, 2006), and Jamaican PM (since 1992) Percival Patterson refuses to recognize him, while granting Aristide sanctuary and suing the U.S. and France for kidnapping him. In Feb. a team of the world's best kayakers descends the 150-mi. Tsangpo Gorge ("the Everest of Rivers") in SE Tibet in 24 days. On Mar. 2 a series of coordinated blasts in Iraq kills 181 at Shiite shrines in Karbomba, er, Karbala and Bangdead, er, Baghdad during a Shiite Muslim religious festival. On Mar. 3 the first same-sex marriage licenses are issued in Multnomah County, Ore., starting an successful political battle to amend the Ore. constitution to prohibit it. On Mar. 3 the Walt Disney Corp.'s board votes to strip Michael Eisner of his post as chmn. while retaining him as CEO. On Mar. 4 Mounir el Motassadeq, the only person convicted in the 9-11 attacks wins a retrial in a German appeals court. On Mar. 5 Am. homemaking diva Martha Stewart (1941-) is convicted in federal court of four felony charges regarding a Dec. 27, 2001 insider trading sale of 3,928 shares of ImClone Systems for $45,673, receiving a $30K fine and 5-mo. in prison; on Mar. 15 she resigns from the board of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia; she ends up serving 5 mo. in Alderson Correctional Facility in W. Va., AKA Camp Cupcake, where she gets the prison nickname M. Diddy and invents the Freedom Poncho, being released on Mar. 4, 2005 and going on to make a comeback, starting with a $2M book deal - a railroad job to keep a good woman down? On Mar. 7 14 Palestinians are killed in the deadliest Israeli raid in Gaza in 17 mo. On Mar. 8 Iraq's governing council signs an interim constitution. On Mar. 9 2002 Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad (a Gulf War vet formerly named John Allen Williams) is sentenced to death in Va.; on Mar. 10 his partner, teenage sniper Lee Boyd Malvo is sentenced in Chesapeake, Va. to life in prison. On Mar. 10 the conservative-libertarian political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity is founded in Arlington, Va., funded by the billionaire Koch Brothers, going on to turn the Obama-era Tea Party into a political force, organizing opposition to Obama admin. initiatives on global warming, Medicaid expansion, economic stimulus, Obamacare, cap and trade, federal min. wage et al., helping achieve a Repub. majority in the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014; in 2008 it launches the No Climate Tax Pledge, which is signed by 411 politicians incl. 25% of U.S. senators and 33% of U.S. reps by July 213 incl. 9 of 12 Repubs. on the House Energy and Commerce Committee; in 2005 Spartanburg, S.C.-born Repub. political strategist Tim Phillips (1964-) becomes pres. (until ?). Hey won't you play another somebody done somebody wrong song? On Mar. 11 the 2004 Madrid Train Bombings see 10 RDX bombs explode in quick succession across the commuter rail network in Madrid, Spain, killing 192 and injuring 2,050, becoming the deadliest terrorist attack in Europe since WWII; the Muslim response to the Jan. 2, 1492 ouster of the Moors?; the attack is linked to al-Qaida, incl. Moroccan immigrants in Spain; on Aug. 17, 2005 Serbian police arrest 22-y.-o. Abdelmajid Bouchar in connection with it; in May, 2004 Oregon atty. Brandon Mayfield (1966-) is arrested and jailed for two weeks by the U.S. govt., which admits it made a fingerprinting mistake and apologizes to him and his Egyptian immigrant wife, agreeing to pay him $2M. On Mar. 14 opposition Socialists score a dramatic upset win in Spain's gen. election, claiming that conservatives brought on the Madrid bombings by supporting the U.S. war in Iraq, and on Apr. 16 Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (1960-) becomes PM of Spain (until Dec. 21, 2011), going on to piss-off the George W. Bush admin. by pulling out Spanish troops from Iraq, but compensating by increasing troops in Afghanistan, legalize same-sex marriage, reform abortion law despite Vatican abortion, attempt peace negotiations with the separatist ETA, refurm the Statute of Catalonia, and attempt to appease Islam by co-sponsoring the Alliance of Civilizations with Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On Mar. 16 China declares victory in its fight against bird flu, claiming to have stamped out all known cases - the devil went down to China, looking for a soul to steal? On Mar. 17 a car bomb blows up a 5-story hotel catering to foreigners in the heart of beautiful Baghdad, killing seven. On Mar. 21 the White House disses assertions by Pres. Bush's former counterterrorism coordinator Richard Alan Clarke (1950-) that his admin. had failed to recognize the risk of an attack by Al-Qaida in the months leading up to 9/11. On Mar. 21 the hit drama Deadwood debuts on HBO for 36 episodes (until Aug. 27, 2006), set in 1877 S.D., starring Canadian-born Molly Parker (1972-) as Alma Garret. On Mar. 22 Hamas founder and Palestinian leader Sheik Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin (b. 1937) is assassinated along with nine bystanders in Gaza City by an Israeli Apache heli; on Mar. 23 other Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi (b. 1947) is named his successor, and on Apr. 17 he is ditto by an Israeli Apache heli, which kills two others and wounds four; the U.S. waffles about whether to support or condemn their ally. On Mar. 23 U.S. defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld and U.S. state secy. Colin Powell testify before the 9/11 Commission, chaired by former N.J. Gov. (1982-90) Thomas Howard Kean (1935-) and former Ind. rep. Lee Herbert Hamilton (1931-), and strongly defend the pre-9/11 actions of the admin. On Mar. 24 MLK Jr.'s widow Coretta Scott King gives her support to gay marriage, calling it a civil rights issue, and saying that constitutional amendments should expand not restrict freedom. On Mar. 24 16-y.-o. Palestinian Hussam Abdo (1988-) is caught entering the Hawara Checkpoint in the West Bank wired with a suicide vest. On Mar. 25 the U.S. Congress passes the U.S. Unborn Victims of Violence Act, making it a separate offense to harm a fetus during a violent federal crime - unless you have an abortion doctor immunity? On Mar. 28 the govt. of French Pres. Jacques Chirac suffers stinging defeats in regional elections as the people censure his painful economic reforms. On Mar. 28 the first hurricane on record in the South Atlantic (Category I) hits Brazil, killing two, injuring 39 and leaving 1.5K homeless; the first ever in Brazil. On Mar. 29 Mass. lawmakers approve a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage while legalizing civil unions, leaving the issue for the next legislative session - put a wedding band around our dogs and let it fly? On Mar. 30 Pres. Bush flip-flops and allows nat. security adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify publicly under oath before the independent 9/11 panel. On Mar. 31 four U.S. civilian contractors are killed by insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq; afterwards frenzied crowds drag the bodies out and string two of them from a bridge - for a look? In Mar. veterinarian-pharmacologist Dr. Lester Mills Crawford (1938-) becomes acting commissioner of the U.S. FDA after the Senate confirms dir. Mark Barr McClellan (1963-) to oversee the agency that runs Medicaid and Medicare. In Mar. the U.S. quietly changes the name of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to CIS - sounds like that hit TV show? In Mar. Muslim ethnic Albanians stage a pogrom of Orthodox Serbs in Dakovica, Kosovo, leaving only five Serbian women holed-up in a monastery under police protection. In Mar. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies is appointed Master of the Queen's Music in Britian. On Apr. 4 Baghdad Black Sunday, a U.S. 1st Cavalry Div. patrol assigned to assist with sewage patrol drives into an ambush in a Baghdad alley, suffering their record for single-day casualties as rescue vehicles from nearby Camp War Eagle lack armor plating because the gens. had believed that tanks would appear unfriendly for peacekeepers? On Apr. 5 a U.S.-Canadian task force investigating the Aug. 14, 2003 power blackout calls for urgent approval of mandatory reliability rules for the electric transmission industry. On Apr. 6 Pres. Rolandas Paksas of Lithuania is narrowly ousted by lawmakers for abuse of office. On Apr. 6 a military court in Jordan convicts eight Muslim militants, incl. terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and sentences them to death (some in absentia) for the 2002 killing of U.S. aid official Laurence Foley, linking their conspiracy to Al-Qaida. On Apr. 7 Sept. 11 suspect Mounir el Mostassadeq is freed after a court in Hamburg, Germany rules that the evidence is too weak to hold him pending a retrial; the only person convicted so far in the attack walks? On Apr. 8 Nat. Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice tells the Sept. 11 commission that "there was no silver bullet" that could have prevented 9/11. On Apr. 9 U.S. SSgt. Matt Maupin (b. 1988) is captured near Baghdad, and used as propaganda by Muslim militants, who release videos that are shown on Al-Jazeera; his remains are discovered in Mar. 2008 on the outskirts of Baghdad 12 mi. from where his convoy was ambushed, and on Apr. 27, 2008 10K attend his funeral in Cincinnati, Ohio. On Apr. 14 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon makes a triumphal visit to Washington, D.C., where Pres. Bush endorses his plan to withdraw troops and Jewish settlers from Gaza while laying claim to large settlement blocks in the West Bank; on May 2 Sharon's Likud Party rejects his plan 60-40, embarrassing him. On Apr. 15 a videotape shows a man portraying himself as Osama bin Laden offering a "truce" to European countries whose soldiers leave Islamic nations and do not attack Muslims. On Apr. 16, 2004 Trump gives an interview to Wolf Blitzer of CNN, uttering the soundbyte: "Well, you'd be shocked if I said that in many cases I probably identify more as Democrat." On Apr. 19 Russia launches Soyuz TMA-4, carrying cosmonauts Gennady Ivanovich Padalka (1958-), Edward Michael "Mike" Fincke (1967-) of the U.S., and Andre Kuipers (1958-) of Netherlands; on Oct. 14 Soyuz TMA-5 blasts off, carrying astronauts Salizhan Shakirovich Sharipov (1964-) of Russia, Leroy Chiao (1960-) of the U.S., and Yuri Shargin of Russia; Soyuz TMA-4 returns on Oct. 24 with Gennady Padalka, Michael Fincke, and Yuri Shargin; Soyuz TMA-5 returns next Apr. 24 with Salizhan Sharipov, Leroy Chiao, and Roberto Vittori. On Apr. 20 a tornado in NC Ill. kills eight. On Apr. 21 five suicide bombers detonate car bombs against police bldgs. in Basra, Iraq, killing 74. On Apr. 22 NFL player Patrick Daniel "Pat" Tillman (b. 1977), who forfeited a multimillion dollar contract to serve as a U.S. Army Ranger in Afghanistan is killed by friendly fire near the Pakistani border after emerging from a canyon where the enemy fired on them; his younger bro' Kevin Tillman is in a convoy behind him; the military tries a coverup but goofs up and creates a firestorm of controversy. On Apr. 22 two trains carrying flammable liquids collide in Ryongchon, North Korea near the Chinese border, killing 161 and injuring 1.3K. On Apr. 25 the March for Women's Lives in the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C. sees 500K-1.15M (largest protest in U.S. history?) protest the Nov. 5, 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act; pro-life protesters line the route in spots. On Apr. 26 after being criticized for his anti-war activities during the Vietnam War, Dem. pres. candidate John Kerry accuses Pres. Bush of failing to prove that he'd fulfilled his commitment to the Nat. Guard during the same period - the I'm as bad as you are defense? On Apr. 27 U.S. warplanes and artillery pound Sunni insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq, followed by Iraqi police moving into the streets to take the city back. On Apr. 28 five big investment banks incl. Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs meet with the SEC, asking them to allow them to regulate themselves and determine their own leverage ratio; after the SEC agrees, the Bear Stearns ratio jumps to 33-1. On Apr. 28 the first photos of the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison are shown on CBS' 60 Minutes II. In Apr. Ted Koppel's Nightline gets in trouble when he reads a list of U.S. servicemen and women killed in Iraq, and the Sinclair Broadcast Group accuses him of making an antiwar statement and refuses to carry the program. In Apr. British soccer star David Beckham's personal aide Rebecca Loos claims she had a 10-day affair with him; he denies it - nobody can bend it like Beckham? On May 1 eight ex-Communist nations join the European Union: Poland, Slovakia, Czech Repub., Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; Cyprus and Malta also join. On May 2 Israeli citizen Tali Hatuel and her four daughters in Gus Katif, Israel are murdered in their vehicle by Palestinian Muslim militants. On May 2 Sonoyo, one of the last 500 Sumatran tigers left on Earth gives birth to three cubs at the Nat. Zoo in Washington, D.C. On May 2 insurgent attacks across Iraq kill nine U.S. soldiers, showing that the U.S. is in for a long ordeal in Iraq - keep on the sunny side while fighting for your country? On May 2 the Yelwa Massacre in Nigeria sees members of the Christian Assoc. of Nigeria massacre 630+ Muslims. On May 6 U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution 58/292 is adopted, titled "Status of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem", affirming that Palestinian territory incl. East Jerusalem is under military occupation by Israel, which is obligated by the Geneva Convention to protect civilians, supporting the 2-state solution based on pre-1967 borders. On May 6 the 10-year hit NBC-TV show Friends (debuted Sept. 22, 1994) airs its finale this year, sending Joey, Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Monica and Phoebe to new lives; the spinoff show Joey is a minor success. On May 7 the beheaded body of 26-y.-o. Jewish-Am. telecom expert Nicholas Evan Berg (b. 1978) is found in Baghdad; known for travelling unguarded throughout Iraq, he was warned by the FBI shortly before his Apr. 10 disappearance, and turns down a State Dept. offer for a free flight home; on May 11 the Web site of the militant Malaysian Islamist group Muntada al-Ansar uploads a video titled "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering a Jewish-American"; the govt. immediately shuts the site down, causing terrorists to begin using Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (1966-2006) in their videos as a poster boy for their cause. On May 9 a bomb destroys the VIP section at a stadium during a Victory Day celebration in Grozny, Chechnya, killing six, incl. pres. (since 2003) Akhmad Kadyrov; on Aug. 30 after elections, Kazhakhstan-born former rebel warlord (who went over to the Russians during the Chechen war) Alu Dadashevich Alkhanov (1957-) becomes pres. (until Feb. 15, 2007). On May 10 Pres. Bush expresses "deep disgust and disbelief" as he examines new photos and video clips of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners while visiting the Pentagon. On May 11 the E-10 join the EU in its largest expansion (until ?), incl. Cyprus, Czech Repub., Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia. On May 14 actress Gwyneth Paltrow gives birth to a daughter named Apple, and when asked what kind of apple, she replies "Golden Delicious" - my little Sauce? On May 17 (Mon.) at a 50th anniv. observance of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision in Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., black entertainment millionaire and Ph.D in Education Bill Cosby delivers his Pound Cake Speech, a litany of self-reliance, personal responsibility, and other moral values that need to be taught to black youths and families, causing the press to have a field day when a few black leaders see him as blaming the victim. On May 22 after the Indian Nat. Congress Party of Rajiv Gandhi's Italian-born widow Sonia Gandhi (Edvige Antonia Albina Maino) (1946-) wins parliamentary elections in India, causing PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee to resign, she shocks everybody by refusing to become PM after she takes the criticism of her Italian birth seriously, and finance minister Manmohan Singh (1932-) becomes Indian PM #15 (first Sikh) (until May 26, 2014). On May 23 a large roof section of a new passenger terminal at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris collapses, killing four. On May 24 after he sells Mali's maize reserves and pockets the proceeds before a famine, then is blocked in passing an amendment allowing him to run for a 3rd term, Malian pres. #2 (since may 24, 1994) Elson Bakili Muluzi steps aside for handpicked Bingu wa Mutharika (1934-2012), who becomes pres. #3 of Mali (until Apr. 5, 2012). On May 26 Terry Nichols is found guilty of 161 state murder charges for his role in the Okla. City bombing, and receives 161 consecutive life sentences. On May 26 Pres. Bush meets with Gabon Pres. Omar Bongo in the Oval Office; 10 mo. earlier lobbyist Jack Abramoff asked for $9M from Bongo to arrange the meeting, the fees to be paid to his Md. lobbying firm GrassRoots Interactive. In May Christian gospel singer Helen Berhane (1975-) is arrested in Asmara, Eritrea for belonging to the banned charismatic Rema Church, and is finally released in Oct. 2006, claiming inhuman treatment and torture to make her recant her faith; the only officially recognized religions are Islam, Catholicism, and Lutheranism. In May gasoline prices in the U.S. top $2 a gal. for the first time, then reach a record high of $2.06, before starting a gradual decline to about $1.80 at the end of the year; at the end of 2003 they were about $1.50. In May a volcano erupts for the first time in recorded history on the uninhabited island of Anatahan in the Northern Marianas, followed by a more powerful eruption on Aug. 10, 2005, raining volcanic ash on Saipan, Rota, and Tinian. In May the St. Petersburg Erotica Museum opens in Russia, housing Rasputin's penis among other choice tourist items. On June 2 the Taliban stages an ambush in NW Afghanistan, killing three foreign aid workers and two Afghans. One June 3 CIA dir. (since July 11, 2004) George John Tenet (1953-) announces his resignation effective July 11 over intelligence lapses about WMD in Iraq, which Pres. Bush uses to excuse himself from repercussions for steamrolling the U.S. into invasion, particularly Tenet's statement that "It's a slam dunk, Mister President" when allegedly asked if Iraq has WMDs; Tenet becomes the longest office-holder in four decades. On June 5 ex-pres. Ronald Reagan (b. 1911) dies of pneumonia and Alzheimer's disease, becoming the first U.S. pres. to die in the 21st cent. and 2nd longest-lived U.S. pres.; on June 9-11 he lies in state in the Nat. Cathedral in Washington, D.C. (first state funeral since LBK in 1973); on June 11 his funeral is attended by 25 world leaders (compared to 100 for Tito in 1980, 60 for Brezhnev in 1982, and 40 for Rabin in 1995) and 14 foreign ministers, after which he is flown to Calif to be interred at his pres. library. On June 5 Am. singers Jennifer Lynn Lopez (J.Lo) (1969-) and Marc Anthony (Marco Antonio Muniz) (1968-) marry in a surprise ceremony (until ?); she wears $7M in Neil Lane jewelry. On June 6 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon gets his Hitnatkut Unilateral Disengagement Plan approved by the Knesset to forcibly evict all Israelis from the Gaza Strip and four settlements on the N West Bank. On June 7-8 there is a rare (first since 1882) transit of Venus (visible from North Am. E of the Mississippi River); next on June 5-6, 2012. One June 13 gunmen assassinate a senior Education Ministry official in Iraq. On June 14 a car bomb during rush hour in a busy Baghdad street kills 12 incl. five foreign power plant workers. On June 15 the Southern Baptist Convention quits the Baptist World Alliance, accusing it of accepting liberal theology. On June 16 The Ashlee Simpson Show debuts on MTV for 18 episodes (until Mar. 30, 2005), starring Ashlee Simpson (Ashley Nicolle Simpson Ross) (1984-), younger sister of Jessica Simpson. On June 16 Pornucopia debuts on HBO for six episodes as a spinoff of "Real Sex", about the Calif. porno industry. On June 18 Taliban ally Nek Muhammad Wazir (b. 1975) becomes the first casualty of the CIA-run U.S. Predator drone campaign in Pakistan; at first the U.S. tries to cover it up by claiming the Pakistan military did it, when all they did was make a secret deal to allow them airspace. On June 19, 20, and 25 the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Chicks On Speed, and James Brown headline the top-grossing entertainment of 2004 at London's Hyde Park, grossing $17,187,324 and drawing over 258K - having fun and not letting anything get to them? On June 20 Al-Jazeera airs a videotape from Al-Qaida showing South Korean hostage Kim Sun-il (b. 1970) pleading for his life and for his govt. to pull troops out of Iraq; on June 22 he is beheaded, becoming the 3rd in the Middle East in a little over 1 mo. On June 20 Lebanese-born Muslim U.S. Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun goes AWOL from Camp Fallujah in Iraq; he is captured and brought back to Quantico Marine Base in Va. for trial, but never tried until ? On June 21 pilot Michael Winston "Mike" Melvill (1941-) takes the SpaceShipOne rocket plane 62.2 mi. (327K ft.) above the Earth in a 90-min. flight, becoming the first privately financed manned spaceflight after Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen pumps $20M into it. On June 23 the U.S. gives up trying to win a new exemption for U.S. troops from internat. prosecution for war crimes after the Abu Ghraib episode ties their hands. On June 24 coordinated attacks in N and C Iraq kill 89 incl. three U.S. soldiers. On June 25 U.S. pres. George W. Bush arrives in Ireland for an EU-U.S. summit at Dromoland Castle in County Clare, where anti-war protests are staged against the use of Shannon Airport as a transit stop for U.S. troops en route to Iraq. On June 27 NATO leaders meeting in Turkey pledge to take a bigger military role in Iraq, causing Pres. Bush to crow that the alliance is ready to "meet the threats of the 21st century". On June 27 former defense minister (a psychologist) Boris Tadic (1958-) of the Serbian Dem. Party is elected pres. of Serbia, and is sworn-in on July 11 (until ?). On June 28 (10:26 a.m.) the U.S. hands power over to an interim Iraq govt. led by Shiite PM Iyad Allawi (1945-) and Sunni pres. Ghazi al-Yawer (1958-) two days ahead of schedule to foil sabotage; Adnan Pachachi (1923-) is head of the gov. council; pres. envoy Lewis Paul Bremer III (1941-), top civilian admin. of the U.S.-led coalition flies from Baghdad about two hours after the handover ceremony; new U.S. ambassador John Negroponte (1939-) arrives in Baghdad the same day. Muhammada Rasul Bush? On June 28 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 6-3 in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that the U.S. govt. has the power to detain enemy combatants incl. U.S. citizens, but that the ones who are U.S. citizens must have the right to due process to challenge their enemy combatant status; on J une 28 it rules 6-3 in Rasul v. Bush that foreign nationals held in Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) detention camp have constitutional rights and can petition federal courts for writs of habeus corpus to review the legality of their detention, reversing a decision of Washington, D.C. circuit judge Merrick Garland, causing Congress to try to get around them by passing the U.S. Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the U.S. Military Commissions Act of 2006, denying habeas corpus to "unlawful enemy combatants" regardless of citizen status, with the govt. having the sole right to label them to keep them locked up indefinitely without charges - how long until the first U.S. president-for-life begins using it to lock up millions? On June 29 a U.N. heli carrying peacekeepers and aid workers crashes in Sierra Leone, killing all 24 aboard. On June 29 a roadside bomb in Baghdad kills three U.S. Marines and wounds two more; youthful insurgents celebrate the bombings for the media - we like this so much it's becoming a habit? On June 30 the U.S. federal appeals court approves an antitrust settlement that Microsoft negotiated with the U.S. Justice Dept. In June Paul Martin is reelected as PM of Canada (until ?), but his Liberal Party loses its majority in parliament after dominating for 11 years. In June former Rwandan pres. (1994-2000) (Hutu) Pasteur Bizimungu is sentenced to 15 years on charges of inciting ethnic hatred, causing many to call it a political vendetta. In June the Sa'dah (al-Houthi) Rebellion in N Yemen begins (ends ?) as Zaidiyya Shiite cleric Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi (-2004) begin a push to impose Shia Sharia over the Dem. Repub. of Yemen, which they accuse of being too friendly with the U.S., with Sunni next-door-neighbor Saudi Arabia playing both ends against the middle; after the Yemeni govt. puts a $55K bounty on his head, al-Houthi is killed along with several aides, but his Houthis fight on, with Hussein's brother Sheikh Abd al-Malik (Abdul-Malik) Houthi (1982-) as the new Houthi leader (until ?); in Dec. 2009 he is allegedly seriously wounded, and has a leg amputated. On June ? Pres. Bush responds to press inquiries about Karl Rove by pledging to fire anyone who leaked info. about the secret identity of Valerie Plame; on July 18, 2005 he changes it to "committed a crime" (so that he can use his grate powah to get Rove off criminal charges and keep him no matter what?). In June trains begin travelling between Moscow and Grozny after a 5-year break. On July 1 the Saddam Hussein Trial begins as he is arraigned on war crimes and genocide charges before a judge in Baghdad, and tells him to stuff it. On July 5 Alfonso Durazo Montano, Mexican Pres. Vicente Fox's chief of staff resigns in a stinking rebuke. On July 5 1K+ U.S. radio stations simultaneously play "That's All Right" to celebrate Elvis Presley's 50th anniv. On July 8 insurgents detonate a car bomb and five mortars at a military station in Samarra, Iraq, killing five U.S. soldiers, one Iraqi guardsman, and three civilians, and wounding 20 U.S. soldiers. On July 8 Adelphia Communications Corp. (cable co.) founder John J. Rigas (1924-) (son of Greek immigrants to the U.S.) is convicted of securities fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy charges in U.S. federal court, and on June 27, 2005 is sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, losing control of the NHL Buffalo Sabres team. On July 11 elections in Japan retain a majority for PM Junichiro Koizumi and his Liberal Dem. Party, while the largest opposition party makes strong gains in the upper house. On July 13 Osama bin Laden's associate Khaled bin Ouda bin Mohammed al-Harby surrenders to Saudi diplomats in Iran and is flown to Saudi Arabia. On July 13 after running from U.S. authorities, who accuse him of violating a trade embargo by playing Boris Spassky in Belgrade in 1992 and earning $3.3M, and having his passport revoked by the U.S. in Dec. 2003, chess champ Bobby Fischer is detained as he tries to fly from Japan's Narita Airport; he fights deportation to the U.S. by renouncing his U.S. citizenship and by marrying a Japanese woman, Miyoko Watai (1945-), acting pres. of the Japan Chess Assoc.; on Aug. 24 his application for protection as a political refugee is rejected by the Japanese authorities, and he has to figure out what move to make next. On July 14 Donald Trump gives an interview to Esquire mag., dissing the Bush admin. for its handling of the Iraq War, with the soundbytes: "Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country?” C’mon. Two minutes after we leave, there’s going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over. And he’ll have weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam didn’t have", also dissing Bush for failing to find Osama bin Laden, with the soundbyte: "Tell me, how is it possible that we can’t find a guy who’s six-foot-six and supposedly needs a dialysis machine? Can you explain that one to me? We have all our energies focused on one place, where they shouldn’t be focused"; in Nov. he gives an interview to Larry King, saying: "I don't believe we made the right decision going in to Iraq, but hopefully we're getting out." On July 17 the first Rock the Bells hip hop festival in San Bernardino, Calif. features Wu-Tang Clan (4 mo. before the death of Ol' Dirty Bastard), Redman (Reginald "Reggie" Noble) (1970-), Dilated Peoples, Paul "Sage" Francis (1976-), MC Supernatural, Chali 2na (Charles Stewart) and DJ Nu Mark of Jurassic 5, Eyedea & Abilities (E&A) et al.; a 2nd festival is held on Nov. 13 in Anaheim, Calif., featuring MC Supernatural, Jurassic 5, A Tribe Called Quest, Xzibit (Alvin Nathaniel Joiner) (1974-), Cypress Hill, Jaylib, Little Brother, Crown City Rockers et al.; in 2006 it goes on a nat. tour. On July 18 Doug Ellin's comedy drama series Entourage debuts on HBO for 96 episodes (until Sept. 11, 2011), based on the life of Mark Wahlberg, starring Adrian Grenier (1976-) as Vincent Chase, who grew up in Queens, N.Y. and became an A-list movie star in Hollyweird, and Kevin Connolly (1974-) as his mgr. and best friend Eric "E" Murphy, based on Eric Weinstein (Stephen Levinson?). On July 20 former nat. security adviser (since 1997) Samuel Richard "Sandy" Berger (1945-) quits as John Kerry's informal adviser after a criminal investigation is disclosed about his alleged mishandling of classified terrorism documents. On July 21 the comedy-drama series Rescue Me debuts on FX (until Sept. 7, 2011), about New York City fighters suffering from post-9/11 trauma,starring Tommy Gavin, played by Denis Colin Leary (1957-), who sports a thick Boston accent. On July 22 the 911 Commission Report is issued, dishing out lukewarm blame on U.S. leaders; it finds that 11 Saudi hijackers had traveled to the U.S. via the Dubai airport, and that two of them were UAE citizens, and one had received $100K via the UAE. On July 23 U.S. Sen. (R-Mo.) (1975-95) John Clagett Danforth (1936-) (grandson of Purina Mills founder William H. Danforth) (known for the Danforth Report whitewashing the 1993 Waco Siege) becomes U.S. U.N. ambassador #24 (until Jan. 20, 2005), attempting unsuccessfully to bring peace to the Sudan and submitting his resignation on Nov. 22 six days after the announcement that he is going to be replaced by Condoleeza Rice. On July 25 Israeli protesters of PM Ariel Sharon's Gaza Strip withdrawal plan form a 55-mi. human chain from Gasa to Jerusalem. On July 26-29 the 2004 Dem. Nat. Convention is held in Boston, Mass.; on July 26 Al and Tipper Gore engage in a long kiss in an attempt to soften up his "stiff boring" image; after a parade of speakers takes Pres. Bush to task for the economy and the war on terror, on July 28 Vietnam Swift Boat war hero Sen. John Kerry of Mass. is nominated for pres., with personal liability atty. Sen. John Edwards of Va. as vice-pres.; Tex. homebuilder Bob J. (Bobby Jack) Perry (1932-) funds the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, attacking Kerry's war record with ads showing Viet vets making unsubstantiated allegations. On July 26 Google.com files to go public on the same day that a computer virus takes the site down for several hours; on Aug. 18 it goes public and becomes a $50B co. six years after founding. In July Pres. Bush finally drops his insistence on calling all radical Muslims "terrorists", and begins using the phrase "Islamic militants". In July a U.S. Senate investigation reveals $28M in foreign bank accounts owned by Gen. Augusto Pinochet of Chile, getting him indicted for tax evasion. On Aug. 1 the U.S. govt. warns of possible Al-Qaida attacks against several specific financial institutions in New York City, Washington D.C., and Newark, N.J., putting them on Orange (High) Alart), putting security checkpoints in the Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom neighborhoods and erecting fences around monuments, limiting tours of the White House, turning it into Fortress Washington; on Aug. 3 Tom Ridge defends his decision to tighten security in those cities, admitting it's all based on 4-y.-o. intel; the vehicle inspects around the U.S. Capitol are removed in Nov. - what's in your wallet? On Aug. 4 Staten Island ferry pilot Richard Smith pleads guilty to manslaughter in the crash that killed 11 commuters last Oct., admitting that he passed out at the helm after going to work with medication in his system. On Aug. 5 74-y.-o. James Barney Hubbard (b. 1930) is executed in Ala. after 26 years on death row, becoming the oldest person to be executed in the Ala. history and the oldest in the U.S. since 1976. On Aug. 8 2-time black Repub. pres. hopeful Alan Lee Keyes (1950-) enters the Ill. Senate race, but ends up losing to handsomer black Dem. Barack Hussein Obama II (1961-) (I'm So Damn Hussein and I'm Back, Bam?) (the new Adlai Stevenson?) (first African-Am. pres. of the Harvard Law Review), whose un-PC name comes from a Muslim grandfather (a Kenyan farmer), and Muslim father (a Kenyan govt. economist and Communist), although he is a member of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ and opposes abortion; the name Barack is of African origin and means blessed, while Hussein is of Arabic origin and means handsome; Barach comes from the Hebrew phrase "Ben Rabi hayyim" meaning son of Rabbi Hayyim?; rumors soon spread that he is really a Muslim terrorist plant with a master plan to take over the controls of the U.S. and pilot it into the ground; meanwhile the fact that he's half-white and half-black and that the U.S. suffers from a dearth of leaders makes him an instant candidate for U.S. pres. in 2008 despite lack of voter knowledge about him; Keyes ran after original Repub. nominee Jack Ryan left the race over a sex club scandal, and former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka turned down a chance to run against Obama, later saying that he probably would have won, and that it was the biggest mistake of his life seeing how the bum made it to the White House. On Aug. 9 Okla. City bomber Terry Nichols addresses a court for the first time, asking victims for forgiveness while being sentenced to 161 consecutive life sentences. On Aug. 10 Pres. Bush chooses Repub. U.S. rep. and ex-spy Porter Johnston Goss (1938-) as CIA dir. #19 (until May 5, 2006); he takes office on Sept. 24. On Aug. 11 Britain grants its first license for human cloning for the purpose of stem cell research. It's like kissing your sister? On Aug. 12 47-y.-o. Dem. N.J. gov. (since Jan. 15, 2002) (a Roman Catholic in favor of abortion) James Edward "Jim" McGreevey (1957-) announces that he is gay and had an extramarital affair with his male Israeli-born N.J. Homeland security adviser Golan Cipel (1968-), and that he will bend over and step down on Nov. 15 and leave his Portuguese-born wife Diana Matos McGreevey (1966-) (who is manipulated into standing by his side during the announcement and smiling) to be with his new life partner Mark O'Donnell; Cipel had forced him to out himself by filing a sexual harassment suit, which he later drops; McGreevey is replaced by Dem. Richard James "Dick" Codey (1946-) followed on Jan. 17, 2006 by Dem. U.S. Sen (since 2001) Jon Stevens Corzine (1947-), who defeats Repub. businessman Doug Forrester (1943-) in a race in which the two multimillionaires spend $70M, doubling the previous N.J. gov. race record; in 2009 McGreevey begins training to become an Episcopal priest. On Aug. 13-29 the XXVIII (28th) (2004) Summer Olympic Games are held in the "real place to hold it" Athens, Greece; 10,2625 athletes from 201 nations compete in 301 events in 28 sports; the U.S. team wins 102 total medals, incl. 36 gold, with China coming in #2 with 32 golds, and Russia #3 with 27 golds; official mascots are sister-brother Athina and Phevos; the first Olympics with live Internet coverage; the opening ceremony, choreographed by avant-garde dir. Dimitris Papaioannou (1964-) starts with a 28-sec. countdown paced by an amplified heartbeat, and features a topless Minoan priestess and nude men dressed as Greek statues, which is totally censored in Janet Jackson's U.S.; at first only 14K of 140K planned visitors show up in Athens, leading to empty seats until a 2nd effort fills them; 6'4" "Golden Boy" swimmer Michael Fred Phelps II (1985-) becomes the first U.S. athlete to win eight medals in one Olympiad (six gold and two bronze); Natalie Anne Coughlin (1982-) of the U.S. wins two golds, two silvers, and one bronze in swimming, becoming the first woman to swim the 100m backstroke in less than 1 min. on Aug. 13, and first woman to win gold in the 100m backstroke in two straight Olympics; on Aug. 18 Paul Elbert Hamm (1982-) (who competes alongside his twin brother Morgan) becomes the first U.S. athlete to win the men's gymnastics all-around gold medal, setting a record for the closest margin after it was discovered that a scoring error might have given the title to Yang Tae-Young (1980-) of South Korea; 16-y.-o. Carly Rae Patterson (1988-) becomes the first U.S. gymnast since Mary Lou Retton to take the women's all-around gold medal; 5'9" Misty Elizabeth "the Turtlle" May-Treanor (1977-) and 6'3" Kerri Lee Walsh (1978-) ("Six Feet of Sunshine") win a gold in beach volleyball, and do it again in 2008, earning the name of "greatest beach volleyball team of all time". On Aug. 13 Hurricane Charley hits the W coast of Fla., killing 19 and causing $10+B in damage; failure of weather prediction software to pinpoint the landfall location (50 mi. off) adds to the damage and confusion. On Aug. 14 Israeli TV channel 10 airs the documentary The Ringworm Children (100,000 Rays), dir. by David Belhassen and Asher Hermias, which claims that starting in 1951 the Israeli govt. began subjecting 100K dark Sephardic mainly Moroccan children to megadoses of X-rays in order to make them sterile or kill them, and that the U.S. govt. paid them 300M Israeli liras a year for this program. On Aug. 17 British police charge eight terrorist suspects with conspiring to use WMD to cause "fear of injury". On Aug. 19 John Kerry fights allegations that he exaggerated his Vietnam combat record, accusing Pres. Bush of using a Repub. front group "to do his dirty work". On Aug. 20 Palestinian-born Am. Muslim Ismail Salim Elbarasse (1947-) (who was arrested in Apr. 1998 for refusing to testify in an Islamic terror fundraising investigation then released in Dec. 1998) is arrested as a material witness in a Hamas terror support case; a search of his home turns up a sub-basement containing archives of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S.; his associate Abdelhaleem Ashqar is sentenced to 11 years for refusing to testify about his knowledge of Hamas networks in the U.S. after prosecutors seek a life sentence. On Aug. 21 after his wife videotaped the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the FBI seized hundreds of documents from the Annandale, Virginia home of Ismael Selim Elbarasse tying him to Hamas, later exposing him as a U.S. front for the how-many-times-did-I-mention Muslim Brotherhood, uncovering the Annandale Explanatory Memorandum, detailing a 5-phase plan to infiltrate and take over the U.S., starting with churches, then set up Sharia, proving that almost every major U.S. Islamic group is controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood incl. CAIR; the documents are used as evidence in the 2007 Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development case, the largest terrorism funding case so far in U.S. history, with one of the documents containing the soundbyte "The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood's name for itself] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions." On Aug. 22 as spectators watch, armed black-masked thieves steal one of the four versions of Edvard Munch's painting The Scream along with his Madonna from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway; they are recovered on Aug. 29, 2006 after David Toska, mastermind of an Apr. 2006 $9M bank robberty admits they were stolen to divert the heat from their trail, and makes a deal for a milder prison term for their return - one call, that's all? On Aug. 23 Pres. Bush criticizes a commercial that had stopped running a week before which accused John Kerry of inflating his Vietnam War record, and says that broadcast attacks by outside groups have no place in the pres. race. On Aug. 24 two passenger planes in Russia are bombed by Chechen rebels, killing 90. On Aug. 25 Sir Mark Thatcher (1953-), son of former British PM Margaret Thatcher is arrested in South Africa for violating the country's anti-mercenary laws after he allegedly paid to charter an Alouette III heli to be used in a takeover attempt of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea, where Pres. Teodoro Obiang Nguema has ruled for 24 years; on Jan. 13 he pleads guilty in exchange for a suspended jail sentence. On Aug. 25 a U.S. Army investigation finds that 27 people attached to Abu Ghraib Prison either approved or participated in POW abuse. On Aug. 27 John Owen Brennan (1955-) becomes acting dir. #1 of the new Nat. Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in McLean, Va. (until Aug. 1, 2005), reporting to the Dir. of Nat. Intelligence along with the CIA, FBI, and Dept. of Defense; his position becomes official after signing of the U.S. Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act on Dec. 17, which establishes the office of Dir. of Nat. Intelligence (DNI), the Nat. Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board; by 2010 the CIA has the largest budget of all U.S. intel agencies; in 2012 U.S. atty. gen. Eric Holder grants the NCTC authority to collect, store, and analyze data collected on U.S. citizens by govt. and non-govt. sources for suspicious behavior via pattern analysis, collected in its Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) of 1.2M terror suspects, and to share data with foreign states, causing a firestorm of controversy. On Aug. 29 Tropical Storm Gaston hits S.C. at near-hurricane force. On Aug. 30-Sept. 2 the 2004 Repub. Nat. Convention is held at Madison Square Garden in New York City; on Aug. 31 Laura Bush and Ahnuld praise Bushy Baby as a man of strength and compassion who is steady and decisive compared to shift-with-the-wind Kerry; on Aug. 31 Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gives a speech, with the soundbytes: "But then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting the government off your back, lowering the taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air. I said to my friend, I said, 'What party is he?' My friend said, 'He's a Republican.' I said, 'Then I am a Republican.' And I have been a Republican ever since"; "If they don't have the guts to come up here in front of you and say I don't want to represent you, I want to represent those special interests, the unions, the trial lawyers... If they don't have the guts, I call them girlie men"; "Speaking of acting, one of my movies was called True Lies. It's what the Democrats should have called their convention"; on Sept. 2 Pres. Bush addresses the 2004 Repub. Nat. Convention, giving his acceptance speech, picking apart John Kerry's Iraq War record and tax cuts, and uttering the soundbyte "We will prevail" over terrorism - snore? On Aug. 31 (a.m.) a suicide bomber in a Moscow metro station outside Rizhskaya kills 10+ and injures 50+. In Aug. 15 Yemeni militants are convicted of involvement in the Oct. 12, 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, incl. Jamal Ahmed Mohammad Ali al-Badawi (1906-), who helped plan and organize the attack, and on Sept. 29 gets a death sentence, which is reduced to 15 years in 2005; on Feb. 3, 2006 he escapes from jail in Yemen, and is captured on ? - in cole blood? On Sept. 1 (1st day of school) Sunni Muslim Chechen militants (followers of Shamil Basayev) stage the Beslan Massacre at a school in North Caucasus, holding 1,128 hostages and setting off bombs before Russian commandos storm in and shoot it out with them, ending the conflict on Sept. 3; 319 hostages incl. 187 children are killed, and hundreds injured, making the Colo. Columbine H.S. massacre look like a walk in the park to pick Elberta peaches; Al-Qaida is suspected of being involved in this Muslim attack on a Greek Orthodox Christian school; on Sept. 7 130K Russians rally outside the Kremlin in a show of unity against baby-killer Islamic terrorists; Russian faith healer Grigory Petrovich Grabovoy (1963-) promises to resurrect the children, and ends up in prison for fraud in 2006-10. On Sept. 5 Hurricane Frances slams into Fla.'s EC coast from the SE, weakening to a tropical storm and dumping more than 13 in. of rain, adding to the damage of Hurricane Charley weeks before; in Orlando the combined rainfall overwhelms the drainage system, turning Disney World into Sea World; on Sept. 6 it strikes the Fla. panhandle. Big day for U.S. drug companies and bad day for the U.S. beef and fast food hamburger industry? On Sept. 6 (Labor Day) former U.S. pres., fast food lover and monica, er, sax player Bill Clinton has a 4-hour quadruple heart bypass operation in New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia after it is found that his arteries are 90% blocked by years of gorging on junk food and trying to jog it off while discontinuing his cholesterol-controlling meds. On Sept. 7 an AP tally shows that the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq tops the 1K mark (1003); the Iraqi civilian death toll is estimated at 10K+. On Sept. 7 the Denver, Colo.-based firm Invesco agrees to a $450M settlement (third largest in history) with regulators for allowing favored investors to rapidly trade in and out of their funds ("market timing"). On Sept. 7 Category 5 Hurricane Ivan "the Terrible" pummels Grenada (killing 39), Barbados, and other southern Caribbean islands (the deadliest storm damage in a decade); it skirts by Jamaica on Sept. 11, killing 15, then the Cayman Islands on Sept. 12 (200 mph wind gusts), damaging half of the 15K well-built homes with 150-mph winds, then Cuba on Sept. 13; it disrupts underwater oil pipelines, raising prices in the U.S. after generating at least two dozen waves over 50 ft. high, the largest measuring 91 ft. Sixty Minutes Too Much, or, Rathergate? On Sept. 8 after investigative work by CBS 60 Minutes II producer Mary Alice Mapes (1956-) (known for reporting the Abu Ghraib scandal), the Rathergate Scandal begins when Wharton, Tex.-born CBS Evening News anchor (since Mar. 19, 1981) Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather Jr. (1931-) airs an investigation on 60 Minutes II (launched Jan. 13, 1999) into Pres. Bush's Air Nat. Guard service in Ala., claiming to have authenticated the Killian documents from Tex. Army Nat. Guard lt. col. Bill Burkett stating that Bush's squadron cmdr. lt. col. Jerry B. Killian believed that Bush had been shirking his duties and receiving preferential treatment; when the documents later turn out to be faked on a typewriter that didn't exist at the time, the fit hits the shan, and on Sept. 20 CBS apologizes for a "mistake in judgment" in airing a show that could influence the election in favor of Kerry; cries of conspiracy from Repubs. cause an independent panel chaired by former U.S. atty. gen. Dick Thornburgh and former AP pres. Louis Boccardi to be formed to investigate; Mapes is fired in Jan. 2005, and senior vice-pres. Betsy West and executive producer Josh Howard and his deputy Mary Murphy are asked to resign; Rather steps down as anchor of CBS Evening News on Mar. 9, 2005, suing unsuccessfully for breach of contract; after having its name changed to 60 Minutes Wed., it is cancelled on Sept. 2, 2005; the entire affair is portayed in the 2015 film The Truth starring Robert Redford as Rather and Cate Blanchett as Mapes, based on Mapes' 2005 book "Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power". On Sept. 9 the Bush admin. for the first time calls attacks in W Sudan's Darfur region by govt.-backed Arab Janjaweed Muslim militia against black non-Muslim Africans "genocide"; by now tens of thousands have been killed, and 1.2M uprooted; too bad, the U.N. fails to accept the call of genocide, claiming the leaders have no genocidal intent, and therefore the U.N. law against genocide doesn't apply. On Sept. 9 Jemaah Islamiyah Muslim militants detonate a car bomb outside the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing 9 and wounding 173 as reprisal for their support of the U.S. in Iraq. On Sept. 10 Osama bin Laden's chief deputy Ayman al-Zawahri claims in a videotape broadcast that the U.S. is on the brink of defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan: "The Americans in both countries are between two fires. If they continue they bleed to death and if they withdraw they lose everything", becoming the 3rd tape in a row issued by Al-Qaida on Sept. 10 - why a day early this time and why no mention of attacks in the U.S.? On Sept. 12 Iraq has a Bloody Sunday as insurgents hammer C Baghdad with mortar and rocket barrages, and nearly 60 people are killed nationwide, incl. 37 in Baghdad. On Sept. 12 violent demonstrators in Herat, Afghanistan ransack four U.S. office compounds to protest the removal of Gov. Ismail Khan by the central govt.; he is replaced by Sayed Muhammad Khairkhwa, a member of the same Jamiat-i-Islami faction. On Sept. 12 Mt. Etna erupts yet again. In Sept. 12 US Airways, 5th largest airline in the U.S. declares bankruptcy for the first of 2x in two years (Aug. 11, 2002). On Sept. 12 terrorists set off a car bomb in a Baghdad shopping street full of police recruits, and fire on a police van N of the city, killing 59. On Sept. 13 Russian pres. Valadimir Putin orders a stunning overhaul of Russia's political system allegedly to fight terrorism, consolidating power to himself and his party. On Sept. 13 U.S. warplanes unleash airstrikes on a suspected terrorist (Al-Qaida) hideout in Fallujah, Iraq, killing 20. On Sept. 13 the U.S. Congressional ban on 19 types of military-style assault weapons as well as magazines holding up to 100 rounds of ammo expires as the NRA holds a gun to, er, flexes its muscles with both parties? On Sept. 13 a video posted on a Web site shows a Turkish driver being beheaded by Islamic militants - this Bud's for you? On Sept. 13 the BBC quotes the foreign minister of North Korea as explaining a 2-mi.-wide mushroom cloud from an explosion on Sept. 9 as due to planned demolition for a hydroelectric project, and not from a nuclear test as speculated. On Sept. 13 Batman scales the walls of Buckingham Palace and waves to the admiring crowds and frantic bobbies for hours before being escorted away. On Sept. 15 five foxhunting enthusiasts storm the floor of the House of Commons to disrupt a debate on banning their favorite sport; one lawmaker says that here hasn't been such an intrusion in Parliament since the year 1642. On Sept. 15 U.S. Rep. (R-Calif.) (1989-) Dana Tyrone Rohrabacher (1947-) introduces an amendment to the U.S. Constitution allowing anyone who's been a U.S. citizen for 20 years to run for U.S. pres., esp. fellow Calif. Repub. Arnold Schwarzenegger; Senate Judiciary Committee chmn. Orrin Hatch of Utah proposes the same; on 60 Minutes on Oct. 31 (Halloween) Ahnuld says he would support such an amendment, with the soundbyte: "I mean, you know, anyone with my way of thinking, you always shoot for the top." On Sept. 15 the Los Alamos Nat. Laboratory fires four workers and forces one to resign for their roles in a security and safety scandal that caused two computer disks containing classified info. to go missing and an intern to be injured in a laser accident; since July 7 the lab had been virtually shut down, idling some 12K workers. In Sept. 15 10 Palestinians are killed in two confrontations with Israeli troops, the highest single-day death toll in the West Bank since 2002; the same day Israeli PM Ariel Sharon acknowledges that he is casting aside the U.S.-backed peace "road map". On Sept. 15 ex-U.S. Green Beret Jonathan Keith "Jack" Idema (1956-) is sentenced to 10 years by a court in Kabul, Afghanistan for running a private jail and torturing terror suspects; he is released and deported on June 2, 2007 after a gen. amnesty is declared by pres. Hamid Karzai. On Sept. 16 Calif. Gov. Ahnuld announces that he's running for reelection in Nov. 2006, saying "I originally got into this... to finish the job. I'm in there for seven years" - the only state with the golden poppy as its flower? On Sept. 17 a U.S. law passed the year before requires the federal govt. and any school receiving federal funding to organize Constitution-related activities on the anniv. of the 1787 adoption; since it falls on Sat. they do it on Sept. 16 instead. On Sept. 18 Miss America 2004 Ericka Dunlap (black) crowns Miss America 2005 Deidre Downs (1980-) (white) in Atlantic City, N.J. before an ABC-TV audience of a record low 9.8M (28.2 in 1984, 20.9 in 1994); the org. announces that its next pageant will be broadcast on Country Music TV on Jan. 21; at its peak in the 1960s three of four households tuned in - the largely white audience has grown tired of rigged PC elections of minorities over their favorite blonde-blue contestants but can't admit it, only tune out? On Sept. 18 Am. pop star Britney Spears marries backup dancer Kevin Federline (K-Fed) (1978-) (until Nov. 7, 2006); they have son Sean Preston next Sept. 14 and Jayden James on Sept. 12, 2006. On Sept. 19 former Chinese pres. Jiang Zemin leaves his top military post, leaving gen. secy. (since 2002) and pres. (since 2003) Hu Jintao (1942-) as the undisputed leader of China - who jin charge tao? On Sept. 21 Pres. Bush addresses the U.N. Gen. Assembly, defending his decision to invade Iraq and urging the U.N. to stand united with Iraq's struggling govt. On Sept. 21 a United Airlines flight from London to Washington, D.C. is diverted to Bangor, Maine at the order of U.S. officials after discovering that Yusuf Islam (1948-), the singer known until 1977 as Cat Stevens (formerly Stephen Demetre Georgiou) is aboard, claiming he is on the Terrorist Watch List for activities linking him with terrorism; he is arrested and put on a plane back, returning to London on Thur., saying "Half of me wants to smile, and half of me wants to growl"; on Nov. 10 he is presented with a Man of Peace award by Mikhail Gorbachev's foundation in Rome, followed by other recognition, and after many back-and-forths and a successful libel suit in Britain he is quietly allowed to enter the U.S. in Dec. 2006. On Sept. 22 18-y.-o. female suicide bomber Zainab Abu Salem (b. 1986) detonates at a busy Jerusalem bus station, killing two Israeli policemen who stopped her for a security check, and blowing her head clean off; the same day PM Sharon drops a plan to simultaneously evacuate 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip at the beginning of 2005, reverting to a staged pullout plan for the summer. On Sept. 22 Lost debuts on ABC-TV for 121 episodes (until May 23, 2010), about 48 survivors of crashed Oceanic Flight 815 on a mysterious tropical island somewhere between Australia and Los Angeles (really Oahu, Hawaii); created by Damon Lindelof, J.J. Abrams, and Jeffrey Lieber, it is one of the most expensive TV series on the U.S. networks, with a large multiracial ensemble cast incl. Terrance "Terry" O'Quinn (1952-) as John Locke, Naveen William Sidney Andrews (1969-) as ex-Iranian Repub. Guard member Sayid Jarrah, Matthew Chandler Fox (1966-) as surgeon Jack Shephard, Jorge Garcia (1973-) as lottery winner Hugo "Hurley" Reyes, Margaret "Maggie" Grace Denig (1983-) as dance teacher Shannon Rutherford, Joshua Lee "Josh" Holloway (1969-) as con man James "Sawyer" Ford, Yunjim Kim (1973-) as mobster's daughter Sun-Hwa Kwon, Daniel Dae Kim (1968-) as her hubby Jin-Soo Kwon, Nicole Evangeline Lilly (1979-) as fugitive Kate Austen, Dominic Bernard Patrick Luke Managhan (1976-) as ex-rock star Charlie Pace, Harold Perrineau (1963-) (Link in The Matrix) as construction worker Michael Dawson, Malcolm David Kelley (1992-) as his son Walt Lloyd, Emilie de Ravin (1981-) as pregnant Australian Claire Littleton, and Ian Joseph Somerhalder (1978-) as Boone Carlyle; beside the Others and the DHARMA Initiative, their common enemy is the Monster AKA the Smoke Monster and Man in Black. On Sept. 22 Veronica Mars debuts on UPN for 64 episodes (until May 22, 2007), set in Neptune, Calif. (zip code 90909), starring Kristen Anne Bell (1980-) as a h.s. student and daughter of sheriff Keith Mars, who is dumped by beau Duncan Kane and tries to solve the murder of best friend Lilly Kane, whose software billionaire father Jake Kane is a suspect, turning into a PI. On Sept. 26 Fla. receives its 4th visit from a hurricane in one season (the first time since Tex. in 1886) as Hurricane Jeanne (Category 3) slams into the E coast with 120 mph winds, killing six, becoming the worst hurricane season in Fla. since 1851; on Sept. 27 Pres. Bush asks Congress for $7.1B to help the SE states recover. On Sept. 28 the 6.0 Parkfield Earthquake rocks C Calif. On Sept. 29 British hostage Kenneth John Bigley (b. 1942) appears on an Islamic web site in a video weeping and pleading for his life; on Oct. 7 he pleads for his life again, then minutes later is later beheaded by members of al-Zarqawi's group. On Sept. 30 Northern Ireland Protestant Dem. Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley makes an historic first visit to Dublin for talks with Taoiseach (PM) Bertie Ahern. On Sept. 30 after a 16-mo. $900M coverup, er, invesigation, the Iraq Survey Group, led by top U.S. arms inspector (since 2004) Charles A. Duelfer reports that no evidence has been found that Saddam Hussein's regime had produced WMDs after 1991; on Aug. 6, 2006 despite a blizzard of publicity a Harris poll indicates that half of Americans still believe WMDs existed in Iraq in 2003. In Sept. Madonna's blockbuster Re-Invention Tour wraps up, selling out 55 of 56 performances with an avg. nightly take of $2.23M, ringing up a total of $125M, which places it far ahead of all tours this year; Prince's Purple Reign (Musicology) Tour draws 1.5M people and grosses $90.2M to come in 2nd, and Shania Twain comes in 3rd with 950K attendance and $62.5M; Celine Dion grosses $77M at the Colosseum at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, and in a total run of four years grosses $400M, working out to $697K per show. On Oct. 1 Mount St. Helens in Washington State erupts for the 1st time in 18 years, but it turns out to only be a belch of white steam and ash; it does it again on Oct. 4. On Oct. 1 the oil market opens for the first time ever at over $50 a barrel ($51 on Oct. 5). On Oct. 3 (Sun.) David E. Kelley's legal dramedy Boston Legal (original title The Practice: Fleet Street) debuts on ABC-TV for 101 episodes (until Dec. 8, 2008) as a spinoff of "The Practice", starring James Todd Spader (1960-) as atty. Alan Shore, and William "Bill" Shatner (1931-) as atty. Denny Crane. On Oct. 3 (Sun.) Marc Cherry's comedy-drama-mystery series Desperate Housewives debuts on ABC-TV for 180 episodes (until May 13, 2012), set on Wisteria Lane in Fairview in the Eagle State, about a group of women as seen through the eyes of neighbor Mary Alice Young (played by Brenda Strong), who committed suicide in the first episode. causing their seemingly perfect suburban neighborhood to have mucho skeletons in the closets; stars Teri Lynn Hatcher (1964-) as Susan Mayer, Felicity Kendall Huffman (1962-) as Lynette Scavo, redheaded Marcia Anne Cross (1962-) as Bree Van de Kamp, and Mexican-Am. Eva Jacqueline Longoria (1975-) as Gabrielle Solis. On Oct. 4 insurgents unleash a powerful car bomb near the Green Zone (AKA Karradat Mariam) in C Baghdad, symbol of U.S. authority in Iraq, becoming a quantum leap; two other explosions bring the day's bombing total to 24 dead and 100+ wounded. On Oct. 4 Polish pres. (since 1995) Aleksander Kwasniewski (1954-) announces that he is considering withdrawing Poland's 2.4K soldiers from Iraq by late 2005 - faster if we can get away with it? On Oct. 5 Dick Cheney and John Edwards debate for the first and only time. On Oct. 6 the 30-member European Union executive commission recommends that Turkey be put on a course to membership, but not until at least the year 2015. On Oct. 7 (night) bomb attacks on three resorts in Sinai, Egypt kill 34 and injure 171; Al-Qaida is suspected. On Oct. 8 in response to the Sept. 1 Beslan School Massacre in Russia et al., the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 1566, condemning terrorism, which is defined as "criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act", adding that such acts are "under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature", with U.S. U.N. ambassador John Danforth uttering the soundbytes: "The resolution which we have adopted states very simply that the deliberate massacre of innocents is never justifiable in any cause - never", and "Some claim that exploding bombs in the midst of children is in the service of God", calling it instead "the ultimate blasphemy"; the resolution calls for the creation of a working group to expand the list of sanctioned terrorist entities beyond al-Qaida and the Taliban; meanwhile work begins to draft a comprehensive convention defining terrorism for adoption by the U.N. Gen. Assembly (ends ?). On Oct. 11 EU foreign ministers lift sanctions against Libya and ease their arms embargo. On Oct. 12 after deliberating only 80 min., a jury in Baton Rouge, La. finds black serial killer Derrick Todd Lee (1968-) guilty of first degree murder in the death of 22-y.-o. Charlotte Murray Pace; he later receives the death penalty. On Oct. 13 Bush and Kerry hold their 3rd and last pres. talking heads debate. On Oct. 14 the U.S. Treasury Dept. announces that the federal deficit has surged to a record $413B for the year. On Oct. 16 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004, ordering the U.S. State Dept. to monitor global anti-Semitism and report annually to Congress. On Oct. 16 the 150th anniv. of the birth of Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is celebrated by BBC-TV in Happy Birthday Oscar Wilde, featuring fellow Irishmen Bono, James Cromwell, Liam Neeson, Rosie Perez, Hector Elizondo et al. On Oct. 17 Jordan indicts Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and 12 other Muslims for an alleged al-Qaida plot to attack the U.S. embassy in Amman as well as Jordanian govt. targets. On Oct. 17-20 the Boston Red Sox win four consecutive games to overcome a 3-0 deficit and defeat the New York Yankees in the AL Championship Series - come from behind feels so good yah? On Oct. 18 Bush and Kerry trade barbs, with Bush claiming Kerry stands for "protest and defeatism", while Kerry accuses Bush of "arrogant boasting". On Oct. 19 Dalkey, County Dublin, Ireland-born aid worker Margaret Hassan (nee Fitzsimons) (b. 1945) AKA Madam Margaret is kidnapped in Baghdad by ISIS, and killed on Nov. 8 after a video is releaed showing her pleading for help, with the soundbyte: "Tell Mr. Tony Blair to take the troops out of Iraq and not bring them here to Baghdad." On Oct. 18 1,830m Mount Soputan Vocano in N Indonesia awakens, but causes no fatalities. On Oct. 20 retired gen. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (1949-) (AKY SBY) becomes pres. #6 of Indonesia (until ?); in 2009 he becomes the first Indonesian pres. to be reelected. On Oct. 20 U.S. Army Reserve SSgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick (1966-) of Buckingham, Va. pleads guilty to eight criminal counts for abusing Iraqi detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison, saying that the degrading treatment was "for military intelligence purposes"; six other members of his Cresaptown, Md.-based 372nd Military Police Co. are also charged. On Oct. 20 the Global Corruption Perceptions Index is pub. by Transparency Internat. in London (0=most corrupt, 10=least corrupt) giving the U.S. a 7.5 score and a ranking of 17; the #1 ranking/score (9.7) goes to Finland, and the lowest ranking (145) and score (1.5) to Haiti. On Oct. 21 an AP poll finds Bush and Kerry in a tie. On Oct. 23 Operation Cajuana sees Brazil launch its first rocket into space, the VSB-30 sounding rocket from Alcantara Launch Center in Brazil. On Oct. 24 a plane owned by top NASCAR team Hendrick Motorsports crashes in Martinsville, Va., killing all 10 aboard. On Oct. 25 it is announced that U.S. chief justice William H. Rehnquist has thyroid cancer. On Oct. 26 the FCC gives its approval to the $41B acquisition by Cingular Wireless LCC of AT&T Wireless Services Inc., making it the #1 wireless firm; the orange "Jack" logo becomes successful, and the subscriber base grows to 62M, until AT&T buys BellSouth Corp. in Jan. 2007 and retires it. Maybe the world will never end? On Oct. 27 the Boston Red Sox (mgr. Terry Francona) finally 86 the 1919 Curse of the Bambino, end an 86-year drought (only 4 WS appearances and no wins), and sweep the One Hundredth (100th) World Series 4-0, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals (mgr. Tony La Russa) 3-0 at Busch Stadium, and becoming the 4th team in WS history to never trail an inning (1963 Dodgers, 1966 Orioles, 1989 A's); the Cardinals join the 1963 Yankees as the only teams winning more than 100 games in the regular season and winning no games in the WS; the Red Sox had come back from a 3-0 deficit in the AL Championship Series to bury the Babe; seating capacity at Fenway Park is 36,298; ticket prices range from $50 for SRO to $190 for box seats; 112,462,559 tickets had been sold at Fenway Park during the 1919-2004 regular seasons; since 1918 the Boston Celtics won 16 sports championships, the Boston Bruins 5, the New England Patriots 2; owner John William Henry II (1949-) made his fortune by using statistics in the soybean market; co-owner Thomas C. "Tom" Werner (1950-) is a TV exec known for "Roseanne" and "The Cosby Show"; CEO Lawrence "Larry" Lucchino (1945-) is the father of the old-style Fenway-style ballpark movement; in Nov. 2002 lifelong Red Sox fan Theo Nathan Epstein (1973-) became the youngest gen. mgr. in ML baseball at age 28. On Oct. 27 Palestinian Nat. Authority pres. #1 (since Jan. 20, 1996) Yasser Arafat (b. 1929) collapses during the night in Ramallah, and is unconscious for about 10 min. after he vomits while eating soup inside his partially demolished compound where he has been confined for 2-1/2 years; a committee of three senior officials incl. PM Ahmed Qureia run Palestine while he recuperates in a military hospital in France, where he is flown on Oct. 29; he dies at 3:30 a.m. on Nov. 11. On Oct. 27 a 6.1 earthquake and several large aftershocks shake the prefecture of Niigata, Japan, killing 40 and damaging 6K homes, become the deadliest in Japan since 1995. On Oct. 28 the U.S. Check Clearing for the 21st Cent. (Check 21) Act (signed by Pres. Bush on Oct. 28, 2003) goes into effect, allowing paper checks to be replaced by digital images to facilitate electronic processing. On Oct. 28 insurgents execute 11 Iraqi soldiers and vow on a Web site that they will avenge the "blood" of woman and children killed in U.S. strikes on Fallujah. On Oct. 28 Scotch terrier Miss Beazley, a relative of First Dog Barney is born, and is given as a gift by Pres. Bush to his wife Laura as a 58th birthday present on Nov. 4, scheduled to arrive just before Christmas. On Oct. 29 the first European Union Constitution is signed in Rome. On Oct. 30 a suicide car bomber rams a U.S. convoy W of Baghdad, Iraq, killing eight Marines and wounding nine. On Oct. 31 Bush and Kerry campaign in Fla. and Ohio, starting with Sunday church services. In Oct. news leaks that the monks of the 950-y.-o. hospice of St. Bernard (8114 ft. alt.) (above the village of Martigny) are getting rid of their remaining 18 St. Bernard dogs, modern helis having replaced the need for the big cute gluttons; they intend to keep their golden retriever Justy; the last 16 St. Bernard puppies are put up for sale at $1.7K each. In Oct. ultra-Orthodox Jewish yeshiva student Natan Zvi Rosenthal is arrested for spitting at the cross carried by Armenian archbishop of Jerusalem Nourhan Manougian, who strikes back, starting a fist fight; Rosenthal tells police he had been brought up to consider crosses and Christianity itself as idol worship. In Oct. Tulane U. shuts down its Willed Body Program after allegations of mistreatment of bodies, incl. selling them to the U.S. Army to test protective footwear for land mines. In Oct. John Howard wins a 4th term as PM of Australia (since 1996). In Oct. North Korea launches its "Let's Trim Our Hair According to the Socialist Lifestyle" program, requring all males to trim their locks to stay under a 2-in. limit; even Kim Jong-il trims his famous pompadour to go with the program; by Feb. the state-run Central TV is openly singling out and ridiculing slackers. In Oct. warlords and civilian leaders in Somalia agree on a new govt. In Oct. an outbreak of Ebola-like Marbug virus begins in Angola, infecting 214 and killing 194 by Apr. 2005, when the outbreak is finally recognized among the numerous early deaths from infectious diseases (one in four dies before age five). On Nov. 2 after defeating fellow Repub. Bob Shaffer in the primary by pointing to his support for same-sex civil unions, and his company's payment of benefits to same-sex partners and promotion of their beer in gay bars, Coors chmn.-CEO (since 1993) Peter Hanson "Pete" Coors (1946-) (great-grandson of Adolph Coors Sr., and son of Joseph Coors and Holly Coors) loses the election for U.S. Sen. for Colo. to Dem. Colo. atty. gen. Ken Salazar by 51%-47%; in 2005 Coors merges with Molson, and he stays on as a dir. On Nov. 16 Fox-TV debuts the hit drama House, M.D. for 177 episodes (until May 21, 2012), starring English actor Hugh Laurie (1959-) as Dr. Gregory House, who walks with a cane and pops self-prescribed Vicodin pills while chasing his ex-wife Sela Ward and managing his team of diagnosticians, incl. single black man Omar Hashim Epps (1973-) (Dr. Eric Doreman), single white babe Jennifer Marie Morrison (1979-) (as Dr. Alison Cameron), (who's in love with him but can't overcome the ex-wife), and single white doc Jesse Gordon Spencer (1979-) (as Dr. Robert Chase) (who's in love with Morrison in real life, but never get married); meanwhile his female boss Dr. Lisa Cuddy, played by Lisa Edelstein (1966-) struggles to keep control of this authority-bucking precious genius, who never fails to solve the insoluble medical problem just in time to save the patient, his hospital, and his job - TLW's favorite TV show for the next few years? On Nov. 1 U.S. contract workers Roy Hallums (1948-), Robert Tarongoy of the Philippines et al. are kidnapped in an armed assault on their Baghdad compound; Tarongoy is freed after 8 mo., Hallums on Sept. 7, 2005 after 311 days. On Nov. 2 (Tue.) the 2004 U.S. Pres. Election sees the "compassionate conservatism" campaign by incumbent pres. George W. "Dubya" Bush and running mate Dick Cheney pay off with a high voter turnout (60% of the electorate voting, most since 1968), getting reelected by 51% to 48%, capturing the Solid South and the heartland states, with the swing states of Ohio, Mich., and Fla. going for him, and only Penn. going for Kerry, the first Roman Catholic pres. candidate since 1960, who garners less Catholic votes than the Methodist Bush, and fares worse with them than Gore did in 2000; Hispanic voters (8% of the electorate, up from 6% in 2000) give Bush 44% of their vote, up from 35% in 2000; millions of pre-Brokeback Mountain Billy Bobs in the heartland states who never voted in past elections wait in line for hours to vote against the perceived threat of Kerry of legalizing gay marriage, ensuring straight Billy Bob Bush's election; 11 states pass constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, and Kerry's opposition to a federal constitutional ban is blamed for uniting many religious denominations behind Bush, although Bush garners 20% of the gay vote also; online voting becomes a reality in the U.S. as 50M vote on touch-screen machines; too bad that the system for testing and certifying these machines is virtually nonexistent; for the first time, the Org. for Security and Cooperation in Europe monitors the election, sending 92 observers from 34 countries; guaranteed future Dem. pres. candidate Barack Hussein Obama II (1961-) (whose portrait bears a striking resemblance to Hollywood star Will Smith (1968-)?) trounces Alan Keyes by 43 percentage points in the Ill. U.S. Senate race; Thomas Andrew "Tom" Daschle (1947-) (D-S.D.) becomes the first U.S. Sen. majority leader to be defeated in an election; Calif. decides to channel $3B into embryonic stem-cell research via Proposition 71, which causes the creation of the Calif. Inst. for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM); the U.S. Congress is now 30% conservative Christian; Kerry leaves $14M of his campaign funds unspent, although he lost by only 10K votes in Iowa and if he had spent more? The Year of the White Prick in a Suit, Pt. 2? Or, a Nerd is Zerged? Why are some Mormons so smart and so dumb? On Nov. 2 the 40-y.-o. TV quiz show Jeopardy! holds its 4000th episode, featuring emcee Alex Trebek (1940-) and announcer Johnny Gilbert (1924-); since changing its rules allowing unlimited appearances to the winner in 2003, after making his first appearance on June 2, 30-y.-o. Edmonds, Wash.-born Mormon software engineer of Holladay, Utah (the state that's 65% Mormon) Kenneth Wayne "Ken" Jennings III (1974-) ("nerd") ("smarmy") ("peronality of a hall monitor") (resembles a white prick in a suit with the face of Mel Gibson pasted on?) (B.S. in computer science and English at BYU) rakes in $2M+ in earnings by this date, then ups his total to $2,197K, making him the biggest game show winner in TV history (later falling to #1 behind Brad Rutter), the hoopla boosting the show's ratings 22% to #1 among syndicated TV shows; on Nov. 3 (his 66th appearance) he wins a single game record $75K; on Nov. 30 he finally loses in his 75th appearance after winning $2,520,700 (10% of which he gives straight to the Mormon Church) and giving 2.7K correct responses when 48-y.-o. Ventura, Calif. real estate agent Nancy Zerg (1956-) beats him in Final Jeopardy on a question about income tax prep. service H&R Block: "This company has 70K employees, most of which only work 4 mo. of each year"; he guesses Federal Express (and later says that he does his own taxes, meaning the Mormon Church does them to make sure they get all of their 10%?), losing $5601 of his $14,400, leaving $8799, while Zerg bets $4401 of her $10K, giving $14,401; if he hadn't flubbed an easy Double Jeopardy question about Nutsy Bastogne, he wouldn't have lost $5.4K, and if he hadn't flubbed another easy one about cloche hats, he wouldn't have lost another $4.8K, and thus had a shutout game; she loses on her next appearance (Dec. 1) to Katie Fitzgerald; lucky for Ken, losing on a question about a major corp., with a wrong answer giving the name of another major corp., he later makes more moolah by doing ads for both, and gets free income tax prep service for life from H&R Block. On Nov. 2 Sotheby's Auction House announces the sale for $30K of a small leather-bound vol. of drawings by Muhammad Ali, depicting himself fighting Smokin' Joe Frazier; an acrylic-bound vol. of drawings by ex-Beatle Paul McCartney raises $23K, followed by a leather-bound volume of drawings by author J.K. Rowling for $20K; in all $225K is raised for a S London charity for the homeless. On Nov. 3 John Kerry concedes the election to Pres. Bush, choosing not to launch a legal fight over Ohio - knowing the Repubs. can rig the U.S. Supreme Court? On Nov. 3 an AP-Ipsos poll shows Pres. Bush's approval rating dipping to 37%, its lowest ever. On Nov. 2 Dutch filmmaker Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh (1957-2004), great-great grandson of Vincent van Gogh brother Theo van Gogh, known for his criticism of Islamic extremism in the 2004 film Submission is slain in Amsterdam on his bicycle by Dutch-born Dutch-Moroccan Muslim Mohammed Bouyeri (1978-); by Nov. 14 20 attacks are made on Muslim sites, and 13 suspects are being held on terrorist charges; on Nov. 14 PM Jan Peter Balkenende vists a Turkish mosque in Eindhoven in a show of solidarity with the Muslims; a note on van Gogh's chest says that Somalian-born Dutch Muslim-turned-atheist politician-activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969-), his collaborator on the film (which showed naked women with Quran verses inscribed on their bodies) is next, causing her to go under protection with 24-hour bodyguards, then flee to the U.S., where she joins the conservative Am. Enterprise Inst. On Nov. 4 Pres. Bush pledges to aggressively pursue major changes in Social Security, the tax code and medical malpractice awards. On Nov. 4 Latin Am. leaders kick off the Rio Group Conference in Brazil, which commits to sending an additional 1.5K troops to join the 4K already trying to restore order in Haiti. On Nov. 4 military hardliners in top cocoa producer Ivory Coast (two bar soap brand names?) break a ceasefire and launch surprise air strikes against rebel positions in an effort to retake the N part of the country held by Muslim rebels since 2002; on Nov. 6 French troops clash with soldiers and angry mobs in Abidjan after Ivory Coast warplanes kill at least nine French peacekeepers and a U.S. civilian in an air strike, and, although govt. officials call it an accident, on Nov. 7 France responds with overwhelming military force, destroying two Soviet-made Sukhoi jets used in the bombing, plus at least three heli gunships; the 6K-man U.N. peacekeeping force there incl. 4K French troops; the French declare that new Ivory Coast pres. (2000-11) Laurent Koudou Gbagbo (1945-) will be "held personally responsible by the international community for the public order in Abidjan", and order an evacuation; on Nov. 14 African leaders meeting in Abuja, Nigeria back an arms embargo. On Nov. 7 coordinated attacks on police stations throughout Iraq kill more than 50 people; two dozen Americans are wounded. On Nov. 8-Dec. 23 thousands of U.S. troops attack Sunni insurgent strongholds in the Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq, scoring a big military V for the U.S. and destroying the city, eliminating the last major guerrilla safe haven in Iraq; it is really a U.S. atrocity because they used depleted and enriched uranium, cluster bombs, white phosphorous, and other terror weapons? On Nov. 9 U.S. atty.-gen. John Ashcroft and commerce secy. Don Evans resign, becoming the first George W. Bush cabinet members to leave. On Nov. 10-16 the USS Nimitz UFO Incident sees two F/A-18 Super Hornet pilots led by Strike Fighter Squadron 41 cmdr. allegedly ancounter a UFO, which critics attribute to equipment malfunction; on May 31-July 5, 2019 the History Channel debuts Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation, featuring Blink-182 lead singer Tom DeLonge, 2015 founder of the To the Stars Academy of Arts & Sciences; in Sept. 2019 a 2nd season is greenlit after viral clips from the show are confirmed by the U.S. Navy to be authentic footage. On Nov. 11 Palestinians worldwide mourn the death of leader Yasser Arafat, waving flags and burning tires. On Nov. 12 after damning testimony and tapes of conversations with his lover Amber Frey are heard by the jury, former fertilizer salesman Scott Lee Peterson (1972-) is convicted of murdering his pregnant wife Laci and dumping her body in San Francisco Bay in a crowd-pleasing verdict after a sensationalized 5-mo. trial; on Dec. 13 the jury recommends the death penalty; Judge Alfred A. Delucchi sentences him formally on Feb. 25, at which time Peterson joins 641 other inmates on Calif.'s death row, only 10 of whom have been executed since Calif. brought back capital punishment in 1978; San Quentin happens to overlook San Francisco Bay, where Laci's body was dumped?; Amber Frey's atty. is up-and-coming Gloria Allred, who represented Paula Jones against Pres. Bill Clinton. On Nov. 13 a U.S. Marine shoots and kills an apparently unarmed wounded Iraqi in a mosque in Fallujah, Iraq, angering Sunni Muslims as a video tape of the incident is shown over and over on Muslim TV; Marines could be heard telling the soldier that the raghead bum was playing dead? - everybody plays the fool sometime, but in Iraq it's one time too many? On Nov. 14 a group of Palestinian gunmen unleash bursts of gunfire as Yasser Arafat's likely successor Mahmoud Abbas arrives at a morning service for the deceased leader, killing two security officers and wounding four more; this comes hours after it is announced that elections will be held on Jan. 9 to replace Arafat, the first vote in nine years. On Nov. 14 Iran notifies the U.N. nuclear watchdog that it will suspend uranium enrichment and related activities to dispel suspicions that it is trying to build nukes - how soon will they forget? On Nov. 15 Colin Powell announces his resignation, and on Nov. 16 Pres. Bush names his nat. security adviser Condoleezza Rice (1954-) as the new U.S. secy. of state (until Jan. 20, 2009), becoming the 2nd woman and first black woman. On Nov. 15 the White House announces the resignation of education secy. Rod Paige, agriculture secy. Ann Veneman, and energy secy. Spencer Abraham. As of Nov. 15 the U.S. Supreme Court has gone 10 years and 3 mo. without a change; the only longer period was 11 years 8 mo. from 1812-23; only 3 times before (1932-7, 1864-70, 1846-51) has it even gone past 5 years. On Nov. 15 a steamy intro to ABC's Monday Night Football (Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys) featuring naked white blonde babe Nicolette Sheridan of the hit show Desperate Housewives dropping her towel and jumping into the arms of big tall black Eagles receiver Terrell Owens in his locker room draws complaints from angry viewers and the NFL, and an apology from ABC; announcer John Madden was originally picked for the skit, but didn't have the time? On Nov. 16 Iraq CARE dir. Margaret Hassan (b. 1945) (abducted on Oct. 19 from her car in Baghdad) becomes the first woman hostage to be killed by the insurgents since the U.S. invasion; so far 243 foreigners and Iraqis have been abducted, 162 freed, 31 missing and 50 killed; another woman, a Polish-Iraqi citizen remains a hostage. On Nov. 17 ailing retail giants Sears and K-Mart announce an $11B merger in hopes of staying afloat in the face of the dominant retailer Wal-Mart. On Nov. 18 the U.K. Civil Partnership Act of 2004 is given royal assent, creating parallel rights to married couples; full same-sex marriage is legalized in ? On Nov. 19 Iraqi electoral officials announce that they have set the date of Jan. 30 for the country's first dem. elections for the 275-member Nat. Assembly despite all the Sunni violence and boycott threats by Sunni Arab leaders. On Nov. 19 the world's leading economic nations cancel 80% of Iraq's $38.9B debt; Iraq owes another $80B to Arab countries. On Nov. 19 the U.S. House stuns Pres. Bush by killing legislation to reorganize America's intel services after the Pentagon, fearful of losing their turf influence conservative Repubs. to block it; public outcry causes them to about-face on Dec. 7, creating a dir. of nat. intelligence with power over the country's 15 intel agencies, a nat. counterterrorism center, and a civil liberties board to monitor the govt.'s activities; Defense officials are given priority in battlefield areas over spy satellite and other intel. The real She Vangs combined with the real Deer Hunter? On Nov. 21 36-y.-o. Hmong Lsoa immigrant Chai Soua Vang (b. 1968) of St. Paul, Minn. shoots eight deer hunters in NW Wisc., killing six after he claims that the white hunters surrounded and threw racial slurs at him; on Nov. 8, 2005 he is sentenced to six life sentences, equal to life without parole; on Jan. 6, 2007 the body of Hmong squirrel hunter Cha Vang (b. 1976) is found shot with a shotgun and stabbed 6x in a wildlife refuge near Green Bay, Wisc., and on Jan. 16, 2007 James Allen Nichols (1978-) (white) is charged with murder, but ony convicted by an all-white jury of 2nd degree intentional homicide on Oct. 6, 2007, with a 60-year sentence, causing Hmongs to call it a retaliatory killing. On Nov. 21 Pres. Bush attends an economic summit in Chile, pledging a fresh push for stalled immigration reforms. On Nov. 21 scientists supervise the release of water from Glen Canyon Dam near Page, Ariz. into the Grand Canyon in an effort to restore beaches and save fish and plants that have been disappearing since the dam's construction 40 years earlier; four of eight native species of fish have disappeared, and a fifth (the humpback chub) is endangered. On Nov. 21 a China Yunnan (Eastern) Airlines CRJ-200 en route from Baotou to Shanghai, China catches fire, breaks up, and crashes into a frozen lake 2km (1.2 mi.) from the runway,killing all 47 passengers and six crew plus two on the ground; the next major Chinese airline accident isn't until Aug. 24, 2010. On Nov. 22 in Ukraine the Orange Rev. begins with tens of thousands of demonstrators jamming downtown Kiev, resulting in pro-Western opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko declaring himself the winner of the disputed Nov. 21 pres. election and taking a symbolic oath of office to the approval of hundreds of thousands of street protesters as the U.S. govt. urges the Ukrainian govt. not to certify Kremlin-backed PM Viktor Fedorovich Yanukovich (1950-), backed by outgoing Pres. Leonid Kuchma as the winner, but they do it on Nov. 24; on Nov. 27 Ukraine's parliament declares the election to have been rigged by the Central Elections Commission, but their vote is only symbolic, and the Supreme Court is left to decide; on Nov. 29 the opposition, which had been blocking access to govt. bldgs. gives Kuchma 24 hours to fire Yanukovich; a revote is scheduled for Dec. 26; the whole affair puts Pres. Bush in opposition to Russian Pres. Putin, who had been developing a close relationship based on their shared fight against terrorism but who seems to be aiming at becoming a dictator in the process; the Orange Rev. smells of a pattern of pro-NATO "Color Revs." stage-managed by the U.S., causing a break in U.S.-Russian relations?; meanwhile, speaking of organ, in Dec. tests reveal that Yushchenko has been surreptitiously poisoned with dioxin (Agent Orange), causing him to visibly age and his face to become pockmarked; he reportedly has the 2nd-highest level of dioxin ever recorded, more than 6K times the normal concentration; luckily he recovers. On Nov. 23 Dan Rather apologizes for his Sept. 8 60 Minutes II misreport on Bush, then announces that he will step down as anchor of the CBS Evening News next Mar. 9, leaving the anchor post he inherited from Walter Cronkite after 24 years to the day; he never reveals if one is caused by the other. On Nov. 23 former pres. Clinton opens his double-wide-trailer-shaped pres. library during a rainy day in Little Rock, Ark.; U-2 performs live to jazz it up for the four living presidents present (Carter, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., Clinton). On Nov. 23 actor Robert Downey Jr. makes his singing debut with a CD, The Futurist, containing eight pop ballads written and sung by himself, plus Smile, by his movie alter-ego Charlie Chaplin; he appears on the Oprah Winfrey Show to plug it and talk about his past life of drugs and scrapes with the law; just two days earlier comedian $25M per movie actor Jim Carrey (1956-) tells 60 Minutes that he gave up Prozac and alcohol because they didn't cure his depression, and "life is too beautiful". On Nov. 25 Yemen authorities announce the release of 113 Al-Qaida militants after they had "recanted their extremist views". On Nov. 25 Sunni Muslim spokesman urge postponement of the upcoming Jan. 30 Iraqi nat. elections, without effect. On Nov. 25 (Thur.) Pres. Bush visits Iraq, getting involved in Turkeygate when critics claim he poses with a plastic turkey, although it's real? On Nov. 28 a gas explosion in the state-owned Chenjiashan coal mine in Shaanxi province in C China kills 25 and traps 141 others, and 127 escape. On Nov. 28 a plane crash outside Montrose, Colo. injures NBC-TV Sports chmn. Dick Ebersol (1947-) (husband of actress Jill St. John, er, Susan St. James), and kills his 14-y.-o. son Teddy and two crew members. On Nov. 29 a 7.1 earthquake strikes Hokkaido, Japan at 3:22 a.m., but no deaths result. On Nov. 29 Pres Bush nominates Havana-born cereal giant Kellogg Co. CEO Carlos Miguel Gutierrez (1953-) to be U.S. commerce secy. - start the day right? On Nov. 30 Tom Ridge announces his resignation as Dept. of Homeland Security secy. On Nov. 30 NAACP pres. Kweisi Mfume announces his resignation after nearly nine years. On Nov. 30 Ambrose Kappos is acquitted of burglary and stalking charges involving singer Sheryl Crow. In Nov. the civil war in Ivory Coast erupts again. In Nov. Turkey declares Mt. Ararat and the surrounding area a nat. park. In Nov. Shania Twain becomes the first singer to have an album certified 20x platinum. In Nov. the San Francisco Chronicle runs a photo of the cigarette-smoking "Marlboro Man", identified only as "a member of Charlie Company" in Iraq during the battle for Fallujah; he turns out to be James Blake Miller from Jonancy, Ky., later being discharged from the Marines with post-traumatic stress disorder; on June 3, 2006 he marries Jessica Holbrook, with readers of the San Francisco Chronicle contributing $15K; he files for divorce on June 26; of course the real Marlboro Man David McLean (-1995) died of lung cancer? In Nov. the season premiere of the Oprah Winfrey Show features a giant giveaway of a free new Pontiac G6 to every member of the audience; Pontiac pays for it, not Oprah, and the lucky winners have to pay taxes on it - while her soup tonight's butternut squash? In Nov. the mummy of King Tutankhamun is taken from its tomb in the Valley of the Kings outside Luxor and flown to Cairo for X-rays in an attempt to solve the mystery of how the 17-y.-o. pharaoh died; it is the first time in 82 years that his remains leave his tomb. In Nov. the Indian state of Orissa uses wildlife protection laws to shut down 20K prof. snake charmers, but they fight back, threatening to release their snakes in the state assembly if arrests don't cease. In Nov. the 51-member Cuban dance troup Havana Night Club, created by Nicole "N.D." Durr becomes one of the largest groups of Cubans to defect to the U.S.; in July, 2005 49 are allowed to stay after the rest decide to return. In Nov. former U.S. pres. Bill Clinton interviews Peter Jennings on ABC PrimeTime, and calls Kenyan pres. (since 2002) Mwai Kibai the one living person he'd most like to meet "because of the Kenyan government's decision to abolish school fees for primary education", which increased school attendance by 1.7M; he finally meets the dude on July 22, 2005. In Nov. the Intelligencer, Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies pub. an article by Mass. Gen. Hospital senior psychiatrist William Henry Anderson warning that the U.S. Muslim body politic contains 100K "zealots" that would have to be exterminated the way the "treatment of cancer requires killing of the malignant cells"; he is ignored until ? In Nov. after becoming the first Ascended Master to admit a channeled UFO-related entity, Master Ashtar into his teachings, Joshua David Stone (1953-2005) founds I AM (Integrated Ascended Masters) U. in San Luis Obispo, Calif., which later moves to Austria; when he dies Gloria Excelsias takes over. On Dec. 1 World AIDS Day laments that 39.4M people now have it, two-thirds of them in black Africa, starting with 5.3M in South Africa, then continuing N, 1.8M in Zimbabwe, 1.2M in Kenya, 1.1M in Congo, 1.5M in Ethiopia, peaking at 3.6M in Nigeria, then suddenly ending with the N border states of Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, none of which have more than 15K; the Bush admin. goes ahead with its June, 2002 $500M plan to push the AIDS drug nevirapine for pregnant women across Africa, despite Health & Human Services Dept. warnings that NIH research on the drug is flawed, and that it might threaten newborns with severe reactions incl. death. On Dec. 1 Tom Brokaw leaves the anchor desk at #1 "NBC Nightly News" after 42 years at the network, and is succeeded by Brian Douglas Williams (1959-) - the straight white cowboy on the evening boob tube continues to reassure those hiding from the racial-sexual zoo on the daytime boob tube? On Dec. 2 Pres. Bush nominates former New York City police commissioner (2000-1) Bernard Bailey "Bernie" Kerik (1955-) to run the Dept. of Homeland Security, but Kerik withdraws his name days later, citing immigration problems with a former nanny; in 2006 Kerik pleads guilty to two ethics violations and pays $221K, then on Nov. 8, 2007 is indicted by a federal grand jury on 16 counts of conspiracy and fraud; his friend Ruly Giuliani, who had promoted him in New York City gets the flak - immigrated what into her what? On Dec. 5 Russian Pres. Putin makes the first official visit by a Russian leader to Turkey, meeting with Turkish Pres. Ahmet Necdet Sezer for two days while shrugging off protests by Turkish pro-Chechans. On Dec. 5 gunmen ambush a bus carrying unarmed Iraqis to work at a U.S. ammo dump near Tikrit, Iraq, killing 17. On Dec. 5 the Web site Digg is launched by Robert Kevin Rose (1977-) et al. to let users suggest technology news articles. On Dec. 6 "eternal teenager" Dick Clark suffers a mild stroke, which prevents him from hosting his annual "Rockin'" Times Square New Year's Eve TV special, and Regis Philbin subs; he returns for the Jan. 1, 2006 show, displaying speech impediments. On Dec. 6 Al-Qaida militants invade the U.S. Consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, killing five non-U.S. consulate employees and wounding 13; four of the five attackers are killed, and one captured wounded; on Dec. 16 Osama bin Laden, speaking on an audiotape posted on an Islamic Web site praises the attackers, and calls on militants to stop the flow of oil to the West. On Dec. 6 Iraqi militants brazenly roam Baghdad's streets within blocks of the U.S. Embassy and the HQ of Iraq's interim govt., looking to kill any Iraqis working for the U.S.; the U.S. strikes back, but the militants score a publicity coup. On Dec. 7 Hamid Karzai (1957-) is sworn-in as the first popularly elected pres. of Afghanistan (until ?); U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney attends the ceremony in Kabul; men line up for a shave after five hairy years under the intolerant Taliban. On Dec. 7 deputy interior dept. secy. (former lobbyist) J. Steven Griles resigns in the wake of an ethics probe alleging that he failed to sever ties with former business interests. On Dec. 8 the U.S. Senate votes 89-2 to approve the biggest overhaul of the U.S. intelligence system in 50 years. On Dec. 8 Joyce and Stanley Boim of the U.S. are awarded $156 by a federal court jury for the murder of their teenie son David, who was shot and killed in May 1999 by Hamas in Israel; the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, Islamic Assoc. for Palestine, Quranic Literacy Inst., and Muhammad Salah are defendants found liable. On Dec. 9 Pres. Bush publicly rules out raising taxes to finance a Social Security overhaul. On Dec. 10 an Apache heli collides with a UH-60 Black Hawk heli that was on the ground at an air base in Mosul, Iraq, killing two U.S. soldiers and injuring four. On Dec. 12 a bomb explodes in a S Philippines market, killing 14. On Dec. 12 militants blow up a base in Israel, killing five soldiers. On Dec. 12 Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas apologizes for PLO support of Saddam Hussein during his 1990 invasion of Kuwait. On Dec. 13 media billionaire Rupert S. Murdoch buys the 834 Fifth Ave. penthouse of the late Laurence S. Rockefeller (at 64th St., across from the entrance to the Central Park Zoo) for $44M, becoming the most expensive residence in Manhattan history. On Dec. 14 two trains collide head-on in the rural N Punjab state of India, killing 37 and injuring 40. On Dec. 14 Felix Vazquez (1965-), a catcher on his co. baseball team catches 1-mo.-o. Eric Guzman after mother Tracinda Foxe drops him from her 3rd floor Bronx, N.Y. apt. during a fire, then gives him mouth-to-mouth, and is captured on video, making him a nat. hero. On Dec. 15 a bomb targeting prominent Shiite cleric Sheik Abdul Mahdi al-Karbalayee wounds him and kills seven outside one of S Iraq's holiest shrines. On Dec. 15 Time Warner Inc. agrees to pay more than $500M to settle federal securities fraud and accounting investigations of its America Online unit. On Dec. 16 Pres. Bush says that Social Security is headed for bankruptcy, and pushes a plan for private retirement accounts. On Dec. 16 Bobby Jo Stinnett (1981-) of Skidmore, Mo. is found in her home, dying with her unborn baby cut from her womb; Lisa Montgomery of Melvern, Kan. is arrested for strangling her, stealing the baby from her womb and claiming it as her own. On Dec. 16 17M viewers watch Donald Trump hire West Point grad. and software exec Kelly Perdew as his latest protege; in Apr. 28M watched him hire his 1st protege, Bill Rancic, all on NBC-TV. On Dec. 19 car bombs go off in a funeral procession in Najaf, Iraq and the main bus station in Karbala (both Shiite holy cities), killing 60 and wounding 120. On Dec. 20 Pres. Bush lets the cat out of the bag in a press conference, admitting that American resolve has been shaken by the carnage in Iraq, bravely blaming it on the performance of U.S.-trained Iraqi troops? On Dec. 21 a crowded dining hall at a U.S. base near Mosul, Iraq is bombed by Abu Omar al-Mosuli, a suicide bomber wearing an Iraqi uniform who slips into the base through a hole in the fence, killing 22, incl. 18 Americans (14 U.S. service members), and wounding 76, upping the ante as elections approach; seven employees of Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton Co. that supplies food service are among the dead; insurgent group Ansar al-Sunnah immediately claims responsibility. On Dec. 22 U.S. defense secy. Donald H. Rumsfeld utters the soundbyte "Their grief is something I feel to my core" in answer to criticism of insensitivity to U.S. troops and their families. On Dec. 22-23 a snowstorm across the lower Midwest U.S. and Ohio Valley breaks 104-y.-o. records for size, intensity and cost, dumping 23 in. of snow on Mansfield, Ohio. Look what the cat dragged in? On Dec. 26 (6:58 a.m.) (Boxing Day in Britain) the 2004 Boxing Day (Indian Ocean) Tsunami sees the Sumatra-Anaman Earthquake, the strongest (9.0) earthquake in 40 years (4th largest in the last cent., equal to 1M Hiroshima-size A-bombs) strike deep beneath the Indian Ocean, unleashing 20-40 ft. tidal waves that ravage the coasts of 11 S Asian and African countries (Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand), killing 230K, destroying 430K homes, and leaving millions homeless; 2003 Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model Petra Niemcova (1979-) and her boyfriend, fashion photographer Simon Atlee are carried away in the resort of Phuket (pr. POO-ket, not fukit?), which is totally devastated, the 2004 Sri Lanka Tsunami Train Wreck kills 1.7K, becoming the worst rail disaster in history (until ?); but she survives by clinging to a tree for 8 hours; Sri Lanka is hardest hit with over 30K dead; Poom Jensen (b. 1983), grandson of Thai King Bumipol-Adulyadej is killed in Phuket while jet skiing; actor Richard Attenborough's 14-y.-o. granddaughter Lucy is killed, along with his daughter Jane; former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is evacuated from a Sri Lankan hotel by the Sri Lankan air force; interior designer Nate Berkus (1971-) survives the tsunami in Sri Lanka after losing his gay lover, photographer Fernando Bengoechea (b. 1965); the first tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 500 years, there was no warning system put in place like the U.S. one in the Pacific, costing only $4M a year; on Dec. 29 Pres. Bush proposes a worldwide one, at $20M a year, and one is installed on Sumatra Island by German and Indonesian scientists beginning in Oct.; Pres. Bush embarrasses the U.S. when the initial offer of a paltry $35M for emergency aid draws cries of cheapskate from Jan Egeland, U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator; the offer is raised by Dec. 31 to $350M, and total world aid offered reaches $4B ($1.3B from the U.S.) after U.N. Secy.-Gen. Kofi Annan makes a special appeal for long-term aid; Egeland later claims he was misquoted, and that he was talking about rich countries' total contribution to poor countries in dire need, not the one tsunami disaster per se; by 2006 the U.S. gives $3.16B, and individual donors $2.78B, with an avg. household donation of $135; U.S. corps. give $340M. On Dec. 26 residents of Pe'at Sadeh agree to become the first Jewish settlement in Gaza to be evacuated from the area, which is done next Aug. - 20 more to go. On Dec. 27 opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko declares victory in the 3rd (Dec. 26) Ukrainian pres. election, receiving 56%-58% of the vote, depending on whom you believe. On Dec. 27 satellites, radio transmissions etc. on Earth are disrupted for 0.1 sec. by a starquake. When will the Bush admin. give up that old time Iraq and roll? On Dec. 28 at least 54 are killed by car bombs, assassinations, ambushes, and raids on police stations in the sunny Sunni Triangle; in one Tikrit police station insurgents slit the throats of 12 policemen, then blow it up; a suicide bomber in Samarra wounds 10 people at the city center; in Muradiya a car bomb kills five civilians and wounds dozens more; another group claims it executed eight Iraqi employees of a U.S. security co.; the deputy gov. of Anbar province is assassinated near Ramadi; a car bomb in Baqouba kills five Iraqi Nat. Guardsmen and injures 26, while another gunman assassinates a local police cmdr. On Dec. 29 Pres. Bush assembles a 4-nation coalition to organize humanitarian relief for Asia, and affirms that the U.S. will help bankroll long-term rebuilding. On Dec. 29 64-y.-o. William Alfred "Al" Ginglen (1940-) is sentenced to 40 years in prison in Springfield, Ill. for a string of bank robberies after his own sons recognize him in a surveillance photo and turn him in. On Dec. 30 Adrian, Mich.-born Dem. Christine "Chris" O'Grady Gregoire (1947-) is declared victor of the Wash. gov. election over Repub. Dino Rossi by 129 votes out of 2.8M cast, and next Jan. 12 she is sworn-in as Wash. gov. #22 (until Jan. 16, 2013). On Dec. 30 (night) a fire sweeps through the crowded Buenos Aires nightclub Republica de la Cromagnon during a rock concert, killing 194 and injuring 1,492; 4K mainly teens were inside the club with a building capacity of 1.5K for a concert of the Argentine rock band Los Callejeros; the fire is blamed on the govt. for giving it a permit despite no basic safety equipment incl. fire extinguishers. In Dec. New Zealand legalizes same-sex unions. In the winter of 2004-5 Death Valley, Calif. experiences its greatest rainfall on record (until ?), 6 in., over 3x normal, causing an explosion in Mar. 2005 of 50 kinds of wildflowers and developing the fragrance of a flower shop, along with jillions of bees. The British Labour Party finally pushes through a ban on foxhunting, causing die-hard Conservative Ian Farquhar to break down and cry. South Korean pes. Roh Moo-hyun tries unsuccessfully to move the capital from Seoul to Gongjiu. Kazakhstan signs a deal permitting China to build an oil pipeline to the Chinese border. Genoa, Italy is the European City of Culture for this year. After a scandal causes the arrest of several officials of the "Mutiny on the Bounty" island of Pitcairn, Brenda Christian becomes its first mayor. The govt. of Pakistan outlaws Vani, the Muslim practice of parceling out or trading girls to familes to settle disputes. Flu vaccine prepared by the Chiron Corp. in Britain becomes contaminated, causing a shortage in the U.S. The U.N. World Leaders Summit on Hunger in New York City results in a declaration signed by 110 nations, stating: "The greatest scandal is not that hunger exists but that it persists even when we have the means to eliminate it"; 5M children die each year of hunger, 852M people don't have enough to eat (815 in underdeveloped countries, 28 in developing countries, 9 in developed countries). The Valdai Discussion Club is founded in Russia as a forum that "aims to promote dialogue of Russian and international intellectual elites". Dictator Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan gets a law passed making him and all his family members immune from prosecution forever, making him one of the last authoritarian leaders in control of a former Soviet republic. Aruba decides to indefinitely pospone its independence from the Netherlands, leaving its defense and foreign affairs to it. Brazil briefly pisses-off the world when it denies Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors access to an enrichment plant. Kayseri, Turkey starts a record 139 new businesses in a single day, earning the title "Anatolian tiger"; meanwhile capitalism is sweeping Turkey, making it the home of "Calvinist Islam". Chile legalizes divorce. The U.S. Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act requires U.S. citizens traveling by air to and from Western Hemisphere states to have a passport to enter the U.S.; starting in Jan. 2008 persons traveling by land and sea also must have one. Federal agents raid the offices of the Islamic Am. Relief Agency-USA, and charge five officers incl. dir. Mubarak Hamed, and former Congressman Mark Deli Siljander with illegally sending $1M+ to Iraq, claiming that it's part of a global network of similar Islamic charities that fund Islamic terrorists; by 2020 three plead guilty. The top three selling vehicles in the U.S. this year are gas-guzzling pickups. The British govt. gives out over 1M blue wristbands in its campaign to stop bullying. A secret 2004 CIA program to hire Blackwater Worldwide to kill top al-Qaida leaders is begun, staging raids Vt.'s largest city Killington, Vt. unsuccessfully tries to join N.H. Jon Stewart criticizes the TV show Crossfire as "partisan hackery". This is the Year of the Gnome for the Bohemian city of Usti nad Labem. Econ Journal Watch is founded (until ?). The Israelis begin putting containers of pork fat in their buses on the theory that Islamists won't want to enter them and blow them up. Hope Not Hate is founded in the U.K. to counter the British Nat. Party (BNP). The London Times pub. its first annual Times Higher Education World Universities Rankings; in 2016 the top five are Oxford U., Caltech, Stanford U., Cambridge U., and MIT. The Muslim Histories and Culture (MHC) Project is founded by the U. of Tex. at Austin and Aga Khan U. in Pakistan to create a Muslim-friendly curriculum for Tex. students. Officials at Sequoia Nat. Park in Calif. destroy 44K marijuana plants this year, allegedly worth $4K per plant; next year they only discover 4.4K plants. A memorial to military chaplains is erected at Ft. Snelling Nat. Cemetery in Minneapolis, Minn. (founded in 1939). The Nat. Trust for Historic Preservation designates the entire state of Vt. as endangered. The first wolverine in 200 years is seen in Mich., the Wolverine State. A descendant of "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" author Samuel Taylor Coleridge enters the 2K-mi. Albatross Race. The word "snowclone" is coined by Glen Whitman on Jan. 15 in reference to the many words for snow in the Eskimo language; e.g., "40 is the new 30", "50 is the new 40". Tylenol finally markets an EZ-Open container for arthritics. After designing the Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu-Dhabi in 1997-2010, and the Nat. Museum of the Arts of the 21st Cent. (MAXXI) in Rome, Italy in 1998-2010, Iraqi-born British architect ("Queen of the Curve" Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid (1950-2016) becomes the first woman to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Truth & Soul Records is founded in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, N.Y. by Leon Michels and Jeff Silverman, going on to sign acts incl. The Phenomenal Handclap Band, The Fabulous Three, and Lee Fields and The Expressions. A 10-y.-o. cheese sandwich that resembles the Virgin Mary (from a Wall Drug in S.D.?) is auctioned on eBay for $28K. The Oldsmobile discontinues production after 106 years. Coke announces Coke II, and Pepsi announces Pepsi Edge, new versions with half the calories and carbs. Reynolds American Inc. is formed in Jan. from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Am. Snuff Co., Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co., and Niconovum AB, becoming the 2nd largest tobacco co. in the U.S., selling 28% of all cigarettes in the U.S. by 2010; in July 2014 it purchases Lorillard Tobacco Co. for $25B. Nevada becomes a big attraction with Chinese tourists, causing the Nevada Tourism Board to run ads there. U.S. Jewish immigration to Israel is 2,690, the highest since the 1984 figure of 2,827. Between 1998-2004 the avg. nicotine yield of an Am. cigarette goes up 10%; the Newport 100 menthol is #1 at 3.2 mg. "Low-carb" is the U.S. food product marketing buzzword this year, but by the end of the year consumers begin to lose interest with the often flat and tasteless potato chips, cookies and other food on the store shelves, and it just sits there. Ryan Seacrest replaces Casey Kasem on the radio show "America's Top 40". Jack Daniel's lowers the alcohol of its flagship brand Old No. 7 Black Label "Quality Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey" from 86 proof to 80 proof. The liberal Air America Network gets off to a shaky start but reaches 40 radio markets by the end of the year. The World Wide Web sports 10B+ pages; the Internet still fails to kill paper-based book sales, although 1 of 12 book sales is of used books ($2.2B total, $600M over the Internet, a 11%/33% jump from 2003). The Statue of Liberty, shut down after 9/11 reopens, but tourists are only allowed to the top of the pedestal, or Lady Liberty's toes. Thieves steal 240 manhole covers in Beijing, China for scrap. The avg. 1-way commute in the U.S. this year is 24.4 mi. Billboard begins carrying a top-20 list of ring tones for cell phones, incl. "My Boo", "Theme from Halloween", and "Ice Ice Baby". Wrigley Co. purchases Life Savers and Altoids from Kraft Foods for $1.48B; in 2008 Mars Co. purchases Wrigley for $23B. Intel Corp. begins shipping 95% lead-free microprocessor packages. Mark Zackersky founds Freebook.com to provide free ebooks, audio, books and book summaries. The U.S. Mint issues state quarters for Mich. (Jan.). A Ming vase is auctioned for $6M. Ted "The Poet Man" Kooser (1939-) becomes U.S. poet laureate #13 (until 2006). The U.S. porno industry goes through an AIDS scare. Velcro is added to U.S. Army uniforms; too bad, after it proves unable to handle desert dust, it is discontinued in Aug. 2010. British neurologist Natasha Campbell-McBride coins the term Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS), for the connection between functions of the digestive system and brain. The Guam Broadbill songbird is declared extinct after loss of habitat and the introduction of brown tree snakes wipe it out. Sports: On Feb. 15 the 2004 (46th) Daytona 500, the first to air in high-definition is won by Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr. (1974-), becoming his first win six years to the day after his father's first and only win; Tony Stewart comes in 2nd, and rookie Scott Wimmer comes in 3rd. In Feb. Roger Federer (1981-) of Switzerland becomes the #1 tennis player in the world; too bad, he can't win on clay, and never wins the French Open? On Mar. 31 Laguna, Calif.-born Melissa "Missy" Bellinder (1981-) (later Parkin) becomes the first woman to join the Prof. Bowlers Assoc. (PBA). On May 1 despite smashing his head against an iron bar and fracturing his skull the year before, causing him to be nicknamed "Quasimodi" for his swollen head and eyes, Philly's favorite son Smarty Jones (2001-) (chestnut colt) (jockey Stewart Elliott in his Triple Crown debut), owned by emphysema sufferer Roy Chapman (1926-2006) wins the Kentucky Derby, becoming the first horse with a perfect record to win since Seattle Slew in 1977; on May 15 he wins the 129th Preakness by a record 11.5 lengths; on June 5 at Belmont (a 3-10 favorite) he fades in the stretch and is beaten by 36-1 longshot Birdstone (2001-) (jockey Edgar Prado) by a length; he retires in the summer. On May 8 6'10" pitcher Randall David "Randy" Johnson (1963-) ("the Big Unit") of the Arizona Diamondbacks throws a perfect game in a 2-0 win over the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta, becoming the 15th in ML baseball since 1900. On May 14 Brandon Inge and Omar Infante of the Detroit Tigers hit back-to-back homers, becoming the first-ever teammates with names beginning with the letter I to do it? On May 25-June 7 the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals see the Tampa Bay Lightning (first appearance in the Finals) defeat the Calgary Flames (first appearance since 1989) 4-3; MVP is 6'0" center Bradley Glenn "Brad" Richards (1980-) of the Lightning; on June 5 in Game 6 a goal by Lightning right wing Martin St. Louis (1975-) 33 sec. into the 2nd OT forces a game 7, in which Ruslan Fedotenko (1979-) scores two goals to help the Tampa Lightning to its first championship vs. the Calgary Flames. On May 30 the 2004 (88th) Indianapolis 500 is won by Buddy Rice (1976-) after the race is ended by rain at 180 laps (450 mi.); team owners are Bobby Rahal and David Letterman. On June 6-15 the 2004 NBA Finals sees the Detroit Pistons (coach Larry Brown) defeat the Los Angeles Lakers (coach Phil Jackson) by 4-1; Chauncey Billups of the Pistons is MVP; William Davidson becomes the first pro sports owner to win two titles in one year. On June 9 Rusty Wallace sets a NASCAR speed record of 216.309 mph at Talladega Superspeedway, beating Bill Elliott's 1987 record of 212.809 mph. On June 18-July 13 the 2004 FIDE World Chess Championship is held at the Almahary Hotel in Tripoli, Libya, where Muammar al-Gaddafi offers $2M in prizes and Israeli players are excluded, causing former U.S. and U.S.S.R. champ Boris Franzevich Gulko (1947-) and most top players to boycott it, with Gulko writing a letter to FIDE pres. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, with the soundbyte: "I implore you not to be the first president of FIDE to preside over the first world chess championship from which Jews are excluded. Our magnificent and noble game does not deserve such a disgrace"; originally the winner was going to play world champ Garry Kassparov, but it never happens; a similar thing happened in 1986, where it was held in the UAE. On July 3 17-y.-o. 6'2" Maria Yuryevna Sharapova (1987-) upsets Serena Williams to win the 2004 Wimbleton women'a singles title; she becomes world #1 next Aug. 22, but wins no major titles until the 2006 U.S. Open. On July 25 Texas-born bicyclist Lance Armstrong wins a record 6th Tour de Lance, er, France. In Aug. the Internat. Basketball League (IBL) is founded with eight teams by Portland, Ore. sports promoter to play a faster, more exciting, higher-scoring (by 30 points) form of the game, incl. a 22-sec. shot clock and the immediate inbound rule; by Apr. 2005 it has 17 teams; the first championship is won by the Battle Creek Knights after they defeat the Dayton Jets; in July 2011 it is sold to Bryan Hunter of Vancouver, Wash.; in Mar. 2014 it merges with the West Coast Basketball League (WCBL). On Sept. 17 Barry "asterisk" Bonds hits his 700th homer at SBC Park, becoming the first member of the ML 700-homer club in 31 years; Steve Williams (1979-) secures the ball after a scramble in the beachers, and later Timothy Murphy (1965-) sues him, claiming the ball should be his because he had it locked behind his knees before Williams swiped it; on Oct. 27 Williams sells the ball for $804,129 after a 10-day online auction on Overstock.com. On Oct. 1 Ichiro Suzuki (1973-) of the Seattle Mariners breaks the 84-y.-o. record of George Sisler as he scores his 258th ML hit in a single season, with a single in the 3rd inning against the Texas Rangers in an 8-3 game; he later gets another hit, giving him 259 for the season and a ML-leading .373 average; "Through my career, I think this is the best moment" (Suzuki). The 2004 Anti-FIDE Chess Olympiad is hosted in Libya, where Muammar al-Gaddafi offers $2M in prizes and Israeli players are excluded, causing former U.S. and U.S.S.R. champ Boris Gulko and most top players to boycott it; a similar thing happened in 1986, where it was held in the UAE, and 1976, when it was held in Tripoli, LIbya. On Nov. 19 (Fri.) in The Palace in Auburn Hills, Mich. an Indiana Pacers-Detroit Pistons game is stopped with 45.9 sec. remaining after the fans and the teams get into a brawl, incl. the Pacers' Ronald William "Ron" Artest Jr. (1979-) and Stephen Jesse Jackson (1978-) going into the stands after fans dump refreshments on them; the Pacers win 97-82, but the struggling NBA is given a black eye, and on Nov. 21 nine players are banned for 143 games, incl. a season-long (73 game) suspension for Artest, 30 games for Jackson, 25 for Jermaine O'Neal, 5 for Anthony Johnson (all of the Pacers), and 6 games for Detroit's Ben Wallace, who started it all by shoving Artest after a foul - why can't we be friends? I take my honey to the welfare line, I see you standing in it every time? On Dec. 26 Indianapolis Colts QB (#18) Peyton (Gael. "royal") Williams Manning (1976-) breaks Dan Marino's 1984 record of 48 TDs in the regular season in a game against the San Diego Chargers, with 49, which it takes Tom Brady of the New England Patriots until 2007 to beat (50); Manning ends the season with an NFL record QB rating of 121.1. The Brunswick Euro Challenge is founded, open to amateur and prof. 10-pin bowlers from the U.S., Europe, and Asia. In the 2004-5 season the avg. NBA salary tops $4M ($4.4M), making basketball players the world's highest-paid athletes. 5'11" Tex.-born RB Jamario Thomas (1985-) of the U. of North Tex. sets an NCAA record for the fastest to reach 1K yards, with 1,801 yards for the season, and the NCAA freshman record for five 200-yard games; too bad, after injuries his performance drops for the rest of his college career, and he is not drafted by the NFL. Architecture: On May 18 the 1M sq. ft. Sands Macau, owned by Sheldon Gary Adelson (1933-) opens, becoming the PRC's first Las Vegas-style casino. On Apr. 29 the Nat. World War II Memorial between the Washington and Lincoln Monuments in Washington, D.C. opens; on May 29 it is dedicated by Pres. George W. Bush. On July 4 a 20-ton granite slab inscribed "The enduring spirit of freedom" is laid as the cornerstone of the 1,776-ft. Freedom Tower skyscraper that will replace the WTC twin towers. On Aug. 8 the 22K sq. ft. BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu Temple in Bartlett (near Chicago), Ill. opens, becoming the largest Hindu stone temple in the U.S. (until ?). On Sept. 21 the 250K-sq.-ft. Nat. Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., on the Nat. Mall next to the Air and Space Museum opens; it features an exterior of Kasota limestone from Minn. with a unique curvilinear design suggesting carving by wind and water. On Nov. 16 the $133M MTS Centre in Winnipeg, Man. opens as the home of the NHL Winnipeg Jets and the AHL Manitoba Moose; on Oct. 17, 2011 the Winnipeg Jets win their first game there. On Dec. 31 the 1,667-ft. Taipei 101 skyscraper in Taiwan opens to the public, becoming the world's tallest bldg. (until 2007). Nobel Prizes: Peace: Wangari Muta Maathai (1940-) (Kenya) [Green Belt Movement]; Lit.: Elfriede Jelinek (1946-) (Austria) (states that she considers Austrian writer Peter Handke to be more worthy and that she got the award just for being female, and sends a video message instead of attending, claiming agoraphobia); Physics: David Jonathan Gross (1941-) (U.S.), Frank Anthony Wilczek (1951-) (U.S.), and Hugh David Politzer (U.S.) [asymptotic freedom in the strong interaction]; Chem.: Avram Hershko (1937-) (Israel), Aaron Ciechanover (1947-) (Israel), and Irwin A. Rose (1926-) (U.S.) [ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation]; Medicine: Richard Axel (1946-) (U.S.) and Linda Brown Buck (1947-) (U.S.) [odorant receptors and org. of olfactory system]; Economics: Finn Erling Kydland (1943-) (Norway) and Edward Christian Prescott (1940-) (U.S.) [dynamic macroeconomics]. Inventions: On Jan. 3 NASA's Mars rover Spirit touches down on Mars - monsters vs. aliens is a must-see in 3-D? On Sept. 8 the $264M Lockheed-Martin Genesis space capsule (launched Aug. 8, 2001), after 29 mo. in space collecting solar wind particles from the sun crashes in a Utah desert at 193 mph after the parachute fails to deploy, losing the data collected; a part that releases the parachute was later found to have been installed backwards? - was it software or hardware? On Sept. 29 after being piloted on Dec. 17, 2003 (100th anniv. of the Wright Brothers' first flight) by William Brian Binnie (1953-), reaching supersonic flight, SpaceShipOne, travels into space and back, breaking the 100 km (62 mi.) line and reaching an alt. of 102.93km, piloted by Michael Winston "Mike" Melvill (1940-), then on Oct. 4 reaching 112.014km piloted by Binnie, being plagued by a series of 29 rapid rolls near the top of its ascent, winning the $10M Ansari X Prize for the first manned private spaceflight, named for Iranian-born Am. Texas telecom entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari (1966-); it was designed by Burt Rutan (brother of Dick Rutan) and financed by Paul G. Allen; the previous record alt. for an air-launched craft was 354K ft., reached by a U.S. X-15 in 1963; on Sept. 18, 2006 Ansari becomes the first private female space explorer and first Eastern and Muslim woman in space. On Sept. 30 arthritis drug Vioxx is withdrawn from the market by its manufacturer Merck & Co. after reports of it triggering heart attacks, plus a $253M award on Aug. 9 in Angleton, Tex. to the widow of Robert Ernst, who died after taking the drug for 8 mo. In Oct. Google Maps is acquired from Sydney, Australia-based Where 2 Technologies, owned by Danish brothers Lars Eilstrup Rasmussen and Jens Eilstrup Rasmussen, turned from a downloadable to Web-based app, and launched by Google in Feb. 2005. On Nov. 16 the 12-ft.-long unmanned air-breathing NASA X-43A scramjet flies under its own power above the Pacific Ocean for 10 sec., reaching Mach 9.7 (7K mph), the 3rd of its kind (#2 reached Mach 6.83 in Mar.); the SR-71 Blackbird is still the fastest air-breathing manned aircraft at Mach 3. In Nov. Firefox open source browser is released by Mozilla, gaining 300M users by 2009. Honda releases the first fuel cell vehicle to the consumer market; fuel cells were supposed to begin appearing in homes and camps this year. Iomega introduces a 1 GB model of its Micro Mini line of zip drives, weighing 0.5 oz. and having an 8 MB/sec read speed, all for only $179.95. The PalmOne Treo 600 smartphone is released, causing a rev. in palmsize Internet terminals. Roll-up displays (flexible computer/TV screens) were supposed to go on the market this year, according to Wired.com. The first electronic cigarette, based on ultrasonic atomizing technoogy is patented in the U.S., in which nicotine is dissolved in a cartridge containing propylene glycol, then atomized to create an ultrafine spray resembling smoke. Science: On Feb. 13 (Ides of Feb.) the Diamond Star Lucy (white dwarf BPM 37093) 50 l.y. from Earth is announced by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, containing 10 billion trillion trillion (1E34) carats, becoming the universe's largest known diamond; named after the 1967 Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". On Mar. 23 NASA announces that its Mars Exploration Rovers have discovered evidence of past liquid water on the Martian surface after Opportunity's landing site Meridiani Planum shows evidence of being the shoreline of a long-gone salty sea. In Apr. a female mouse named Kaguya-hime (after a 10th cent. folk tale about a baby girl discovered in a bamboo stalk) becomes the first mammal created from the eggs of two other mice without a Mickey's help; mammalian parthenogenesis becomes a reality; in 2009 13 more are born; the mice live 28% longer than control mice. On May 24 scientists announce that the Universe has been measured at 156B l.y. wide - expanding raisin pudding jokes here? On Aug. 3 the NASA MESSENGER (Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging) robot spacecraft blasts off on a Delta II rocket, entering orbit around Mercury on Mar. 18, 2011 (first spacecraft), going to complete its primary mission in 2012, then impacting the surface on Apr. 30, 2015 after discovering wrinkle ridges called lobate scarps. Barry Popkin and On Oct. 28 Australian and Indonesian scientists announce the discovery of Homo floresiensis (Flores Man), a clan of tiny humans standing about 30 in. tall, who lived in the isolated island of Flores in E Indonesia as recently as 18K years ago, until a volcanic eruption caused their extinction 12K years ago. In Nov. the Assoc. of Black Cardiologists pub. a 2-year study in The New England Journal of Medicine on BiDil, a new heart drug for blacks only, made by NitroMed Inc. of Lexington, Mass.; it becomes the first drug ever approved for only one racial group? In Nov. researchers at the Univ. of Colo. and the Caltech announce that they have found a key brain receptor, Alpha-4 Beta-2, responsible for the addictive effects of nicotine after it releases the neurotransmitter dopamine. On Dec. 6 Encinitas, Calif. h.s. senior Aaron Goldstein wins the Siemens Westinghouse $100K college scholarship for inventing a gyroscopic device that converts ocean wave energy into electricity. On Dec. 25 after entering Saturn orbit on July 1, the NASA Cassini spacecraft (launched on Oct. 15, 1997 by a Titan IV to orbit Saturn) drops the Huygens probe on Titan, landing on Jan. 14, becoming the first-ever in the outer Solar System. The U.S. FDA approves the first biological therapy that blocks the formation of new blood vessels to tumors, pioneered by Judah Folkman (1933-2008) of the U.S. George Bray accuse high fructose corn syrup in soft drinks of endangering health, pissing-off Coca-Cola, Pepsi et al. Australian mathematician Terence "Terry" Chi-Shen Tao (1975) and English mathematician Ben Green prove the Green-Tao Theorem, that there are arbitrarily long arithmetic progressions of prime numbers. The Compressed (Compressive) (Sparse) Sensing is invented by Emmanuel Candes of Caltech, and Justin Romberg and Terry Tao of UCLA, based on L1 norms, permitting the Nyquist-Shannon Criterion to be surpassed and enabling noisy images to be startlingly sharpened. A species of lemur discovered in Madagascar is the first known primate to hibernate. The CMB Cold Spot is discovered, a region of the sky with unusually cold cosmic microwave background radiation. Jay McNeil of Ky. becomes the first amateur astronomer to find a new nebula. The FDA approves the use of Botox for excessive sweating. Scientists drop their estimate of the number of genes in the human genome from 30K-40K to 20K-25K; in contrast, Arabidopsis, a plant in the mustard family has about 27K, a fruit fly 13.6K, rice 45K, and maize 50K. Nonfiction: 9-11 Commission, The 9-11 Commission Report. Walter Abish (1931-), Double Vision: A Self-Portrait. Catherine Allegret (1946-), World Upside Down (autobio.); daughter of Simone Signoret and stepdaughter of Yves Montand claims sexual abuse. Ted Allen, Kyan Douglas, Thom Felicia, Carson Kressley, and Jai Rodriguez, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy: The Fab Five's Guide to Looking Better, Cooking Better, Dressing Better, Behaving Better, and Living Better. Graham Allison, Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe (Aug. 9); "Tonight, I'm going to talk about two big ideas. First, the proposition that on the current course, if we continue on the present trajectory, I believe the likelihood of our seeing a nuclear weapon explode in one of our cities is greater than even. That is, there is a higher than fifty one percent chance of a nuclear bomb exploding in one of our cities before the end of a decade from when this book was written, that is, by 2014. That's the first big idea. So, just stay on auto-pilot and we see a nuclear 9/11. The second big idea is that this does not have to happen. This is not written inevitably in the cards." Chris Anderson (1961-), The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More; the new business model created by Amazon.com, Netflix.com et al.; why iTunes makes big bucks selling personalized albums from a selection of 2M songs, when most of the individual titles don't sell many units per year, proving that the era of the "hit song" is dead. Christopher Peter Andersen (1949-), Sweet Caroline: Last Child of Camelot; American Evita: Hillary Clinton's Path to Power (June 6); compares her to Eva Peron. Mohammed H. Anwar, Memories of Afghanistan (autobio.); child abuse, sadism and homosexual rape by authorities, mistreatment of women, public execution "orgies", royal spies. Karen Armstrong (1944-), The Spiral Staircase. Timothy Garton Ash (1955-), Free World: America, Europe, and the Surprising Future of the West (Nov. 2); urges cooperation to spread democracy and freedom; "There are not two separate sets of values, European and American, but several intersecting sets of values." Rick Atkinson (1952-), In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat. Margaret Atwood (1939-), Moving Targets: Writing with Intent 1982-2004. Andrew J. Bacevich (1947-), American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. Purain Bair (1944-) and Susanna Bair, Energize Your Heart in 4 Dimensions. James Bamford (1946-), A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies; the "neocon" Pentagon hawks vs. the "ideologically" liberal CIA; how nat. security advisers Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser drew up plans for an Iraqi invasion in 1996 for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (who rejected them), and only needed a pretext to set them in motion? Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business and Bad Medicine. Robert Bauval (1948-) and Graham Hancock (1950-), Talisman: Sacred Cities, Secret Faith. Michelle Belanger (1973-), The Psychic Vampire Codex. Herbert Benson (1935-), Mind Over Menopause; Mind Your Heart. Jayson Blair, Burning Down My Masters' House: My Life at The New York Times. William Bloom (1948-), Solution: The Holistic Manifesto (Oct. 15). John Morton Blum (1921-2011), A Life with History (autobio.) (Sept. 3); one of the top 20th cent. Am. historians tells about his years as a history prof. at Yale U. (1957-91), one of the Big Three at the Yale U. History Dept. (#1 in the U.S.) along with Edmund Morgan and C. Vann Woodward, which were "not a refuge from reality but an alternative reality", where he taught classes to privileged mainly white WASP students incl. C-students George W. Bush and John Kerry, lasting long enough to see Jews like Joseph Lieberman and blacks like Henry Louis Gates. David Bodanis, Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity. Christopher Booker (1937-), The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. Kevin Boyle, Arc of Justice. Dannion Brinkley (1950-), The Secrets of the Light: Spiritual Strategies to Empower Your Life... Here and in the Hereafter. Douglas Brinkley (1960-), Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War. Douglas Brinkley (1960-) and Ronald J. Dretz, Voices of Valor: D-Day, June 6, 1944. Rick Broadhead, Dear Valued Customer: You Are a Loser. David Brock (1962-), The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy; his rationale for founding Media Matters for Am. (MMfA) to monitor U.S. media for conservative misinfo. Harry Browne (1933-2006), Liberty A to Z; "872 libertarian soundbytes you can use right now". Frederick Buechner (1926-), Speak What We Feel (Not What We Ought to Say): Reflections on Literature and Faith; Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith. Richard Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization; disses Bush admin.-backed Jewish history of Islam scholar Bernard Lewis for confusing Iraq with Turkey and thinking of Osama bin Laden as the last gasp of the Western triumph over Islam. Peter Burke (1937-), What is Cultural History?; 2nd ed. 2008. James MacGregor Burns (1918-2014) and Susan Dunn, George Washington (Jan. 7); ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. James MacGregor Burns (1918-2014), Georgia Jones Sorenson, and George R. Goethals (eds.), Encyclopedia of Leadership (4 vols.) (Mar. 19). Augusten Burroughs (1965-), Magical Thinking. Thomas Cahill (1940-), Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matters. Bruce Caldwell, Hayek's Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F.A. Hayek. Philip Caputo (1941-), In the Shadows of the Morning: Essays on Wild Lands, Wild Waters, and a Few Untamed People. Norman F. Cantor (1929-2004), The Last Knight: The Twilight of the Middle Ages and the Birth of the Modern Era; about John of Gaunt. George Carlin (1937-2008), When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? Ethan Casey, Alive and Well in Pakistan: A Human Journey in a Dangerous Time. Richard Alan Clarke (1950-), Against All Enemies; Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror - What Really Happened; the Saudi royal family is secretly Jewish, and so is al-Qaida, which was created so that extremist Muslims could be channeled into Jewish, actually Israeli and U.S. ends? Bill Clinton (1946-), My Life (autobio.) (June 22); bestseller (2.25M copies); receives a $15M advance. Jonathan Coe, Like a Fiery Elephant; bio. of novelist B.S. Johnson (1933-73), causing a resurgence of interest. Nadine Cohodas, Queen: The Life and Times of Dinah Washington. Steve Coll (1958-), Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (Dec. 28) (Pulitzer Prize). Evan S. Connell Jr. (1924-), Francisco Goya: A Life. Robert Conquest (1917-2015), The Dragons of Expectation: Reality and Delusion in the Course of History. Jerome Robert Corsi (1946-) and John Ellis O'Neill (1946-), Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry (Aug.); bestseller (1.2M copies). Ann Coulter (1961-), How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter. Harvey Gallagher Cox Jr. (1929-), When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today. Lynne Cox (1957-), Swimming to Antarctica; survives 25 min. and swims 1.6km. Richard Ben Cramer (1950-), How Israel Lost: The Four Questions; 1979 Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for the Philly Inquirer questions his Zionist faith. Michael Crummey (1965-), Newfoundland: Journey into a Lost Nation. G. Brent Dalrymple (1937-), Ancient Earth, Ancient Skies: The Age of Earth and Its Cosmic Surroundings. Richard Dawkins (1941-), The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life; human evolution told backwards; "The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 10 billion years after the universe evolved literally out of nothing is a fact so staggering that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice." Jimmy Dean (1928-2010), 30 Years of Sausage, 50 Years of Ham (autobio.). John Wesley Dean III (1938-), Warren G. Harding; Harding has the Teapot Dome Scandal, he had the Watergate Scandal?; Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush; the Bush. admin. classifies too much info. to cover its mistakes up? Alan Dershowitz (1938-), Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights. Jared Mason Diamond (1937-), Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. E.J. Dionne (1952-), Stand Up, Fight Back: Republican Toughs, Democratic Whimps, and the Politics of Revenge. Maureen Dowd, Bushworld: Enter at Your Own Risk. Anthony Downs (1930-), Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion; rev. ed. of the 1992 book. Bob Dylan (1941-), Chronicles: Volume One (Oct. 5) (autobio.). Martin Edmond (1952-), Chronicle of the Unsung (autobio.) (May 1). John Edward (1969-), Final Beginnings: The Tunnel - I thought the tunnel was the initial beginning? Albert Ellis (1913-2007), Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for Me, It Can Work for You (autobio.). Joseph J. Ellis, His Excellency: George Washington. Khaled Abou El Fadl (1963-), Islam and the Challenge of Democracy. Oriana Fallaci (1929-2006), The Force of Reason (La Forza della Ragione) (Apr.); bestseller warning that Europe is becoming Eurabia, and that coexistence of the West with "Islamofascism" is impossible. Niall Ferguson (1964-), Colossus: The Price of America's Empire (Apr. 22); pooh-poohs Pres. George W. Bush's statement that "America has never been an empire", and U.S. defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld's assertion that "We're not imperialistic", claiming that the U.S. is a global empire with attention deficit disorder that's in denial of its responsibilities both foreign and domestic. James Henry Fetzer (1940-), American Assassination: The Strange Death of Senator Paul Wellstone; claims a conspiracy. Helen E. Fisher (1945-), Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love; love is just chemistry?; lust v. attraction v. attachment; explorer (dopamine), negotiator (estrogen), director (testosterone), builder (serotinin) - we can recognize it but can we beat it? E.J. Fleming, The Fixers: Eddie Mannix, Howard Strickling and the MGM Publicity Machine; sumptuous scandals about the coverups of the deaths of Jean Harlow's hubby Paul Bern, Three Stooges mgr. Ted Healy, Superman actor George Reeves, et al. Larry Flynt (1942-), Sex, Lies & Politics: The Naked Truth; "I have been shot and paralyzed; sued for millions; indicted, convicted and incarcerated numerous times, and it has never stopped me from speaking my mind." Thomas Frank (1965-), What's the Matter With Kansas (America)? How the Conservatives Won the Heart of America; formerly left-wing Populist working class people turn the state over to the Repubs.? Gen. Tommy Ray Franks (1945-) (with Malcolm McConnell), American Soldier. Jo Freeman (1945-), At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Education of an Activist, 1961-1965. Amber Frey (1975-), Witness for the Prosecution of Scott Peterson. Francis Fukuyama (1952-), State-Building: Governance and the World Order in the 21st Century. Mark A. Gabriel, Jesus and Muhammad: Profound Differences and Surprising Similarities (Mar.). John Lewis Gaddis (1941-), Surprise, Security, and the American Experience. Nicholas Gage (1939-), A Place for Us: A Greek Immigrant Boy's Odyssey to a New Country and an Unknown Father (autobio.). Jim Garrison (1951-), America as Empire: Global Leader or Rogue Power?. Suzy Gershman, Born to Shop. Sir Martin Gilbert (1936-2015), D-Day. Warren Goldstein, William Sloane Coffin Jr.: A Holy Impatience. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (1953-2012), G.R.S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest (w/G.R.S. Mead and Clare Goodrick-Clarke) (2005). Helena Blavatsky. Simon Gray (1936-2008), The Smoking Diaries (autobio.); playwright dying of cancer sticks. Glenda Green (1945-), The Keys of Jeshua. Stephen Greenblatt (1943-), Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare; Falstaff is a combo of Shakespeare's father and rival Robert Greene?; Hamlet is a combo of Greene, Shakespeare's son Hamnet, his father, and the "world of damaged residuals" that undercover Roman Catholics had to endure?; Shylock is Jewish physician Roderigo Lopez? Brian Greene (1963-), The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality. Linda Greenlaw, All Fisherman Are Liars: True Tales from the Dry Dock Bar; the female captain in "The Perfect Storm" speaks about carrying three red lights and bleeding the monkey (drinking). Stanislav Grof (1931-) and Melody Sullivan, Caterpillar Dreams. Mireille Guiliano (1946-), French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure (Dec. 28); bestseller. Stefan Halper (1944-), America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order (bestseller). Pete Hamill (1935-), Downtown: My Manhattan. Bethany Hamilton (1990-), Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board; filmed in 2011. Sean Hannity (1961-), Deliver Us From Evil. Victor Davis Hanson (1953-), Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq. Everett Lynn Harris (1955-2009), What Becomes of the Brokenhearted (autobio.). Sam Harris (1967-), The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. Gary Hart (1936-), The Fourth Power: A Grand Strategy for the United States in the Twenty-First Century; American's inherent values as set forth in the Constitution should form the basis of U.S. foreign policy? Thom Hartmann (1952-), What Would Jefferson Do?; We the People: A Call to Take Back America. Peter Heller, Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet's Tsangpo River. Tony Hendra, Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul; the ed. of National Lampoon has a 40-year friendship with a Benedictine monk? Esther Hicks (1948-) and Jerry Hicks, Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires (Sept.). Charles Higham (1931-2012), Murdering Mr. Lincoln: A New Detection of the 19th Century's Most Famous Crime; Murder in Hollywood: Solving a Silent Screen Mystery; the mysterious death of movie dir. William Desmond Taylor. Paris Hilton and Merle Ginsberg, Confessions of an Heiress. Philip Hoare (1958-), The Ghosts of Netley. David Horovitz (1962-), Still Life With Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism. David Joel Horowitz (1939-), Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left. David Joel Horowitz (1939-) and Peter Collier, The Anti-Chomsky Reader. A.E. Hotchner (1920-), Everyone Comes to Elaine's. Tristram Hunt (1974-), Building Jerusalem. Samuel Phillips Huntington (1927-2008), Who Are We? The Challenges to America's National Identity. Rhys Llywelyn Isaac (1937-2010), Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom: Revolution and Rebellion on a Virginia Plantation. Antje Jackelen and Charles L. Harper, Time and Eternity: The Question of Time in Church, Science, and Theology; "The tension between the already and the not-yet as the eschatological disruption of linear chronology." A.J. Jacobs (1968-), The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World; NYT bestseller; spends one lousy year reading the 44M-word 32-vol. 33K-page Encyclopaedia Britannica and thinks he's TLW? :); "The Know-It-All is a terrific book. It's a lot shorter than the encyclopedia, and funnier, and you'll remember more of it. Plus, if it falls off the shelf onto your head, you'll live." (P.J. O'Rourke) Jane Jacobs (1916-2006), Dark Age Ahead; North Am. civilization is beginning a spiral decline like the Roman empire? Shiv R. Jhawar (1948-), Building a Noble World; to change the world first change oneself spiritually. Susan Jacoby (1945-), Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. Elizabeth Jenkins (1905-2010), The View from Downshire Hill (autobio.). Ha Jin (1956-), War Trash. Chalmers Ashby Johnson (1931-), The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic; how the way that the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex kept humming after the 1989 collapse of the Soviet Union proves that the U.S. wants a global empire, and how this must lead to terrorism against it, the loss of core democratic values, and eventual disaster for the economy. Walter Johnson Jr. (1966-), The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas; State of the Field: Slavery. Tony R. Judt (1948-2010) (ed.), Identity Politics in a Multilinguage Age. Sir John Keegan (1934-), The Iraq War. Kitty Kelley (1942-), The Dynasty: The Real Story of the Bush Family (Sept. 14); claims that George W. Bush snorted cocaine at Camp David during his daddy's presidency. Daren Kemp, New Age, A Guide: Alternative Spiritualities from Aquarian Conspiracy to Next Age. David I. Kertzer (1948-), Prisoner of the Vatican: The Pope's Plot to Capture Italy from the New Italian State. Rashid Khalidi (1948-), Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East; accuses the U.S. of imperialism and colonialism, warning that it will backfire; which accuses the U.S. of imperialism and colonialism, warning that it will backfire; "I wrote this book before, during, and immediately after the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, out of a desire to warn against what I believed was a looming disaster." (opening line) Stephen Kinzer, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between To Worlds. Edward Klein (1937-), Farewell, Jackie: A Portrait of Her Final Days. Larry J. Kolb, Overworld (memoir); a spy, trained by CIA spymaster Miles Copland, he is the real watch-out-Shrek James Bond? Philip B. Kunhardt Jr. (1927-2006), The Dreaming Game; his mother, "Pat the Bunny" children's writer Dorothy M. Kunhardt. Mark Kurlansky, 1968: The Year that Rocked the World. Gavin Lambert (1924-2005), Natalie Wood: A Life; by his personal friend, who details her relationship with Elvis Presley, Robert Wagner, Warren Beatty et al., and claims that she liked to date gay and bi men, incl. James Dean, Tab Hutner, Nicholas Ray, and Nick Adams. The Ivan Moffat File: Life Among the Beautiful and Damned in London, Paris, New York and Hollywood. Richard D. Lamm (1935-), The Brave New World of Health Care; "Health care has been the fastest growing cost of business, government and the family budget"; "No budget can tolerate open-ended demands." William Langewiesche, The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime. Frances Moore Lappe (1944-), You Have the Power: Choosing Courage in a Culture of Fear. Ian Lawton (1959-), The Book of the Soul: Rational Spirituality for the Twenty-First Century; introduces the idea of "Rational Spirituality" that relies on "evidence not faith", using near-death experiences (NDEs) and past-life regression as proof of the soul. Gideon Levy (1953-), Twilight Zone: Life and Death under the Israeli Occupation, 1998-2003; Jewish journalist turns sympathetic to the Palestinians and calls for unilateral Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories. Bernard Lewis (1916-), From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East. Seymour Martin Lipset (1922-2006), Noah Meletz, Rafael Gomez and Ivan Katchanovski, The Paradox of American Unionism: Why Americans Like Unions More Than Canadians Do, But Join Much Less; Seymour Martin Lipset (1922-2006) and Jason M. Lakin, The Democratic Century. Kip Lornell, The NPR Curious Listener's Guide to American Folk Music; foreword by Linda Ronstadt. Michelle Malkin (1970-), In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror. Irshad Manji (1968-), The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith; bestseller by a "Muslim refusenik" who refuses to "join an army of robots in the name of God"; "Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare" (NYT). Martin Emil Marty (1928-), Martin Luther. Robert K. Massie (1929-), Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea. Ali al-Amin Mazrui (1933-), The African Predicament and the American Experience: A Tale of Two Edens. David McCullough (1933-), John Adams; sells 2M copies. Walter Allen McDougall (1946-), Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History, 1585-1828; calls the U.S. "the central event of the past four hundred years", showing how Americans used their historically unequalled freedom for both good and bad. Dina Matos McGreevey (1966-), Silent Parter: A Memoir of My Marriage; she speaks out about a hubby whose breath smells like you know what while she claims she never suspects? John McPhee (1931-), The American Shad: Selections from the Founding Fish. Brian McWilliams, Spam Kings: The Real Story Behind the High-Rolling Hucksters Pushing Porn, Pills and @*#?% Enlargements. Paul Charles Merkley, American Presidents, Religion and Israel. Michael Mirdad, The Seven Initiations of the Spiritual Path: Understanding the Purpose of Life's Tests (Mar. 31); Sacred Sexuality: A Manual for Living Bliss (Aug. 21). Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), The Free Market and Its Enemies: Pseudo-Science, Socialism, and Inflation (posth.); lectures given in 1951. Jurgen Moltmann (1926-), In the End the Beginning. Edmund Sears Morgan (1916-2013), The Genuine Article: A Historian Looks at Early America; articles he pub. in New York Review of Books, expressing appreciation for the Puritans' religion for "the intellectual rigor and elegance of a system of ideas that made sense of human life in a way no longer palatable to most of us. Certainly not palatable to me... What Americans said from the beginning about taxation and just government deserved to be taken as seriously as the Puritans' ideas about God and man." Dick Morris (1948-) and Eileen McGann, Rewriting History (May 4); a rebuttal to Hillary Clinton's "Living History", exposing her as cold, manipulative, and single-mindedly in pursuit of grate wealth and powah; Because He Could (Oct. 12); an insider look at the Clinton White House, written as a rebuttal to Pres. Clinton's memoir "My Life". Toni Morrison (1931-), Remember: The Journey to School Integration. Abu Bakr Naji, The Management of Savagery; becomes a Bible for Al Shabaab, ISIS et al. Zoe Nicholson, The Hungry Heart: A Woman's Fast for Justice; her 37-day fast in 1982 to get Ill. to ratify the ERA. Barack Hussein Obama II (1961-), Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (autobio.); admits that he tried marijuana and cocaine in his youth; the audio version nets him a Grammy. Mark Obmascik, The Big Year (first book); three men compete to see the most bird species in one year. Maureen O'Hara (1920-2015), 'Tis Herself (autobio.); NYT bestseller. Mary Oliver (1935-), Long Life: Essays and Other Writings. Stewart O'Nan (1961-) and Stephen King (1947-), Faithful: Two Diehard Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season. Andrew P. Napolitano (1950-), Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws (first book) (Nov. 11). John E. O'Neill and Jerome Robert Corsi (1946-), Unfit for Command. P.J. O'Rourke (1947-), Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism. Steven Ozment (1939-), A Mighty Fortress: A New History of the German People. Chuck Palahniuk (1962-), Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories (June 14). Ilan Pappe (1954-), A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples. Michael Parenti (1933-), Superpatriotism. John Perkins (1945-), Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; bestseller about his lovely career at the consulting firm of Chas. T. Main. Francis Edwards Peters, Children of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Kevin Phillips (1940-), American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush; have the Bushes turned the U.S. into a royal dynasty? Sarah M. Pike, New Age and Neopagan Religions in America. Roy Porter (1946-2002), Flesh in the Age of Reason (posth.). Bernard van Praag (1939-) and Ada Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Happiness Quantified: A Satisfaction Calculus Approach; founds Happiness Economics. C.K. Prahalad (1941-2010), The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits (Aug. 5); "An intriguing blueprint for how to fight poverty with profitability" (Bill Gates). Karl H. Pribram (1919-), Gordon G. Globus, and Giuseppe Vitiello, Brain and Being: At the Boundary between Science, Philosophy, Language, and Arts (Sept. 30). Aron Ralston, Between A Rock and a Hard Place. Feisal Abdul Rauf (1948-), What's Right with Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West; by the Kuwaiti-born imam of the Masjid al-Farah Mosque in New York City since 1983; the Arabic ed. has the title "The Call from the WTC Rubble: Islamic Da'wah from the Heart of America Post-9/11". Richard Rhodes (1937-), John James Audubon: The Making of an American. Andrew Roberts (1963-), What Might Have Been. Corey Robin (1967-), Fear: The History of a Political Idea. Christine Rosen, Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement (Mar. 4); how eugenics took over Am. religious groups in the early 20th cent. John Ross (1938-2011), Murdered by Capitalism: A Memoir of 150 Years of Life and Death on the American Left (autobio.). Barry Rubin (1950-2014), Hating America: A History (Aug. 10); Loathing America (ed.). Tim Russert (1950-2008), Big Russ and Me; his newspaper truck driver daddy. Michael Ryan (1946-), Baby B (autobio.). Acharya S (D.M. Murdock), Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled; shows parallels. Amin Saikal (1950-), Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival. James Salter (1925-), Gods of Tin (autobio.). Mark Ivor Satin (1946-), Radical Middle: The Politics We Need Now; changes "Dare to struggle, dare to win" to "Dare to synthesize, dare to take it all in." Jeremy Schaap (1969-), Cinderella Man: James J. Braddock, Max Baer, and the Greatest Upset in Fighting History; Am. boxer James J. Braddock (1905-74), dubbed "Cinderella Man" by Damon Runyon. Albert Schatz (1922-2005) and Inge Auerbacher, Finding Dr. Schatz: The Discovery of Streptomycin and a Life It Saved. Orville Hickok Schell (1940-) Empire: Impressions of China. Michael F. Scheuer (1952-), Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror; pub. anon. by the CIA official in charge of the anti-Osama bin Laden effort in 1996-9; claims that Muslim terrorists hate the U.S. not for its freedom and democracy, but for its support of Israel and interventionist policies, causing him to endorse Ron Paul for U.S. pres. in 2012; "The fundamental flaw in our thinking about Bin Laden is that Muslims hate and attack us for what we are and think, rather than what we do. Muslims are bothered by our modernity, democracy, and sexuality, but they are rarely spurred to action unless American forces encroach on their lands. It's American foreign policy that enrages Osama and al-Qaeda, not American culture and society." Larry Schweikart (1951-) and Michael Allen, A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror (Dec. 29) (NYT bestseller); rebuts Howard Zinn's America-hating "A People's History of the United States", calling America an "overwhelmingly positive" force for good. Simon Sebag-Montefiore (1965-), My Affair with Stalin; Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar; Catherine the Great and Potemkin. David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Seether, Disclaimer II (album #2) (June 15); remix of the 2002 debut album, plus Broken (w/Amy Lee) (#20 in the U.S.). Hans F. Sennholz (1922-2007), Sowing the Wind. Mary Lee Settle (1918-2005), Spanish Recognitions: The Road from the Past. Laura Shapiro, Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America. Natan Sharansky, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny. Maria Shriver (1955-), What's Happening to Grandpa? Sherif Shubashy, Down With Sibawayh If Arabic Is to Live On!; disses 8th cent. Persian Sibawayh, father of Arabic philology for making Arabic into a dead language like Latin, whose hallowed status "has rendered it a heavy chain curbing the Arabs' intellect, blocking their creative energies... and relegating them to cultural bondage." Peter Singer (1946-), The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush. Zecharia Sitchin (1920-2010), The Earth Chronicles Expeditions - imagine hair that defies all kinds of weather? Jane Smiley (1949-), A Year at the Races: Reflections on Horses, Humans, Love, Money, and Luck (autobio.) (Apr. 13). Susan Sontag (1933-2004), Regarding the Pain of Others. Thomas Sowell (1930-), Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy. Nicholas Sparks (1965-), Three Weeks with My Brother (Apr.); they lose both parents and their sister then go on a trip. George Steiner (1929-), Nostalgia for the Absolute. Victor J. Stenger (1935-), The Comprehensible Cosmos: Where Do the Laws of Physics Come From? Gerald Stern (1925-), What I Can't Bear Losing: Notes from a Life. Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, de Kooning: An American Master (Nov. 9) (Pulitzer Prize). Jon Stewart, Ben Karlin, and David Javerbaum, America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction. John Stossel (1947-), Give Me a Break. Ron Suskind (1959-), The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill (Jan. 13); claims that Bush started planning the Iraq War right after taking office. Kara Swisher, There Must Be a Pony In Here Somewhere: The AOL Time Warner Debacle and the Quest for the Digital Future (Oct. 26); "Time Warner was had by AOL". Brian Sykes, Adam's Curse: A Future Without Men. Jacob Taubes, The Political Theology of Paul; Jewish writer takes on pesky German pro-dictatorship theological thinker Carl Schmitt (1888-1985). Tarita Teriipia (1941-), Marlon, My Love and My Torment; her 1962-72 marriage to Marlon Brando. Kenneth R. Timmerman (1953-), The French Betrayal of America. David Toop (1949-), Haunted Weather: Music, Silence, and Memory. Donald Trump (1946-), How to Get Rich; The Way to the Top: The Best Business Advice I Ever Received; Think Like a Billionaire: Everything You Need to Know About Success, Real Estate and Life. Lynne Truss (1955-), Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation; dedicated "to the memory of the striking Bolshevik printers of St. Petersburg who, in 1905, demanded to be paid the same rate for punctuation marks as for letters, and thereby directly precipitated the first Russian Revolution" - shouldn't be zero-tolerance? Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958-) and Donald Goldsmith, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution; written to accompany a Nova special; "Science depends on organized skepticism"; "A hundred billion years from now... all but the closest galaxies will have vanished over our horizon of visibility. Enjoy the view while you can." Sinan Ulgen and Kemal Dervis, The European Transformation of Modern Turkey. Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Wolf: The Secret History of America's War on Drugs. Richard Vedder, Going Broke By Degree: Why College Costs Too Much. Gore Vidal (1925-2012), Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia; warns against electronic voting and the Help Am. Vote Act; thinks that Bush will lose the 2004 election. Michael Walzer (1935-), Arguing About War; Politics and Passion: Toward a More Egalitarian Liberalism. Elizabeth Warren (1949-), The Two Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke. Benjamin J. Wattenberg (1933-), Fewer: How the New Demography of Depopulation Will Shape Our Future. Stuart Wilde (1946-), The Three Keys to Self-Empowerment. Stanley Tookie Williams III (1953-2005), Blue Rage, Black Redemption: A Memoir (autobio.). Paul Winchell (1922-2005), Winch (autobio.). Cornel West (1953-), Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism; sequel to "Race Matters" (1993); free market fundamentalism, aggressive militarism and escalating authoritarianism, oh my? Cornel West (1953-) and Ken Wilber (1949-), The Ultimate Matrix Collection; his cameos as Councilor West of the Council of Zion in "The Matrix Reloaded" and "The Matrix Revolutions", where he utters the soundbyte "Comprehension is not a requisite of cooperation". Marjorie Williams, The Woman at the Washington Zoo; ed. by Timothy Noah. Fred Alan Wolf (1934-), The Yoga of Time Travel: How the Mind Can Defeat Time. Martin Wolf (1946-), Why Globalization Works; former free market economist turned New Keynesian blames past failure on govts., which he claims can be reformed; helps drive the 2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence, a massive fiscal and monetary response to the financial crisis of 2007–2010. James Wood (1965-), The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel. Bob Woodward (1943-), Plan of Attack. Arthur Middleton Young (1905-95), Nested Time: An Astrological Autobiography (posth.); ed. Kathy Goss. Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943-2010), Rethinking the Quran: Towards a Humanistic Hermeneutics; gets him declared an apostate by the Egyptian supreme court, causing his marriage to be forcibly dissolved, after which he flees Egypt. Howard Zinn (1922-2010) and Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History of the United States; primary sources; "I want to point out that people who seem to have no power, whether working people, people of color, or women - once they organize and protest and create movements - have a voice no government can suppress." Art: Damien Hirst (1965-) and David Bailey (1938-), The Stations of the Cross (12 photographs). Zhang Hongtu, Bada - Van Gogh. Tsehai Johnson, Field #2 (ceramic). Elizabeth Murray (1940-2007), So Long Maryanne. Erwin Redl, FADE; pure-red LEDS in a wavelike fade moving across a virtual curtain. Music: The 5, 6, 7, 8s, Woo Hoo (by The Rock A-Teens) (#28 in the U.K.) (featured in "Kill Bill Vol. 1", and used in Vonage commercials); I'm Blue (#71 in the U.K.). The Academy Is..., The Academy (album) (debut) (Mar. 23); originally The Academy; from Hoffman Estates, Ill., incl. William Beckett, Mike Carden, Michael Guy Chislett, Adam T. Siska (bass), Andy "the Butcher" Mrotek; incl. Slow Down, Checkmarks, The Phrase That Pays. Bruce Adolphe (1955-), Tiger's Ear: Listening to Abstract Expressionist Painting; evokes the look and feel of the Big Six. Aerosmith, Honkin' on Bobo (album #14) (Mar. 30); big-lipped long-tonued Steven Tyler's term for oral sex. Allman Brothers, One Way Out (album) (Mar. 23). Amon Amarth, Fate of Norns (album #5) (Sept. 6); incl. Fate of Norns. The Presidents of the United States of America, Loves Everybody (album #4) (Aug. 17). Akon (1977-), Trouble (album) (debut) (June 29); sells 1.6M copies; becomes known for parent advisory labels on his albums for profanity; incl. Locked Up, Ghetto, Lonely. Joseph Arthur (1971-), Our Shadows Will Remain (album #4) (Oct. 12); incl. In Ohio, Devil's Broom. Ashanti (1980-), Concrete Rose (album #3) (Dec. 14) (#7 in the U.S., #20 in the U.K.); incl. Only U (#13 in the U.S.), Don't Let Them, Wonderful (w/Ja Rule, R. Kelly), Don't Leave Me Alone. Anita Baker (1958-), My Everything (album #6) (Sept. 7) (#4 in the U.S.); incl. You're My Everything. Beatallica, Beatallica (The Grey Album) (EP #2) (Apr. 1, 2004); incl. Blackened the USSR, Hey Dude, I Want to Choke Your Band. Natasha Bedingfield (1981-), Unwritten (album) (Sept. 6) (debut) (#26 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. Unwritten, Single, These Words, I Bruise Easily, The One That Got Away. Big & Rich, Horse of a Different Color (album #1) (May 4) (3M copies); incl. Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy) (#56 in the U.S.) (#11 country). Bjork (1965-), Medulla (album #6) (Aug. 30) (#14 in the U.S., #9 in the U.K.); original title "Ink"; contra U.S. racism and patriotism generated by 9/11; incl. Where Is the Line, Who Is It (Carry My Joy on the Left, Carry My Pain on the Right, Oceania, Ancestors. Prussian Blue, Fragment of the Future (album) (debut) (Nov.); white supremacist duo from Bakersfield, Calif. incl. fraternal twins Lynx Vaughan Gaede (1992-) and Lamb Lennon Gaede (1992-); incl. Aryan Man Awake. Maya Bond (2000-), Pink Drums, Purple Lights (album) (debut); incl. Cute Papa. Beastie Boys, To the 5 Boroughs (album) (June 15); incl. Ch-Check It Out. Jimmy Buffett (1946-), License to Chill (album #26) (July 13); his first #1 album; incl. Hey Good Lookin'. Chris de Burgh (1948-), The Road to Freedom (album #14). Cake, Pressure Chief (album #5) (Oct. 5) (#17 in the U.S.); incl. No Phone (#13 in the U.S.), Carbon Monoxide, The Guitar Man; Extra Value (album). Neko Case (1970-) and Her Boyfriends, The Tigers Have Spoken (album) (Nov. 9). Peter Cetera (1944-), You Just Gotta Love Christmas (album #8) (Oct. 19). Ray Charles (1930-2004) et al., Genius Loves Company (last album) (Aug. 31). Ray Charles (1930-2004) and Norah Jones (1979-), Here We Go Again. Kenny Chesney (1968-), When the Sun Goes Down (album); incl. When the Sun Goes Down (with Uncle Kracker), There Goes My Life. Metal Church, The Weight of the World (album #7); first with Ronny Munroe (vocals), Jay Reynolds (guitar), Steve Unger (bass), and Kirk Arrington (drums); incl. Weight of the World Cover. Kelly Clarkson (1982-), Breakaway (album #2) (Nov. 30) (#3 in the U.S.); sells 14M copies worldwide (6M in the U.S.); incl. Breakaway, Since U Been Gone (written by Max Martin and Dr. Luke Gottwald), Behind These Hazel Eyes, Because of You. Biffy Clyro, Infinity Land (album #3) (Oct. 4); incl. There's No Such Thing as a Jaggy Snake, Glitter and Trauma, My Recovery Injection, Only One Word Comes to Mind. Joe Cocker (1944-2014), Heart & Soul (album #19) (Oct. 12). Leonard Cohen (1934-), Dear Heather (album) (Oct. 26); incl. Dear Heather. Elvis Costello (1954-), Il Sogno (album) (Sept. 21). Elvis Costello (1954-) and the Imposters, The Delivery Man (album) (Sept. 21); incl. The Scarlet Tide. The Cramps, How to Make a Monster (double album). Counting Crows, Accidentally in Love. The Cure, The Cure (album #12) (June 28); comeback time?; incl. The End of the World, alt.end, Taking Off. Death Cab for Cutie, Studio X Sessions EP (album) (July 27). D12, D12 World (album); incl. My Band; on Apr. 12 member Deshaun "Proof" Holton (blood alcohol level 0.32) murders retired Army Sgt. Keither Bender Jr. and is shot and killed in self-defense by the latter's cousin Mario Etheridge. Green Day, American Idiot (album #7) (Sept. 21) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); sells 15M copies; rock opera about Jesus of Suburbia; incl. American Idiot, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Holiday, Wake Me Up When September Ends, Jesus of Suburbia. The Grateful Dead, Dick's Picks Vol. 31 (album) (Mar.); recorded on Aug. 4-5, 1974; Dick's Picks Vol. 32 (album) (July 20); recorded on Aug. 7, 1982 in East Troy, Wisc.; Dick's Picks Vol. 33 (album) (Nov. 15); recorded on Oct. 9-10, 1976 in Oakland, Calif. Mos Def (1973-), The New Danger (album #2) (Oct. 19) (#5 in the U.S.); incl. Sex, Love & Money. Celine Dion (1968-), A New Day... Live in Las Vegas (album) (June 14); Miracle (album #9) (Oct. 11). Snoop Dogg (1971-), R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece (album #7) (Nov. 16) (1.7M copies); incl. Let's Get Blown (w/Pharrell Williams). Dokken, Hell to Pay (album #9) (July 13). Goo Goo Dolls, Live in Buffalo: July 4th, 2004 (album) (Nov. 23). Doobie Brothers, Live at Wolf Trap (album) (Oct. 26). No Doubt, It's My Life. System of a Down, Mesmerize (album #4) (May 17); incl. B.Y.O.B., Question. Hilary Duff (1987-), Hilary Duff (album #3) (Sept. 28) (#2 in the U.S.) (1.8M copies in the U.S.) ("Basically, I'm not Lizzie McGuire anymore"); incl. Fly, Someone's Watching Over Me. Duran Duran, Astronaut (album #11) (Oct. 11); first with original five members since 1983; incl. (Reach Up for the) Sunrise, What Happens Tomorrow, Nice. Eminem (1972-), Encore (album); incl. Mosh ("fuck Bush", "this weapon of mass destruction that we call our president"); Just Lose It; disrespects Michael Jackson. Epica, We Will Take You With Us (album #2) (Sept.). Melissa Etheridge (1961-), Lucky (album) (Feb. 10); incl. Breathe, This Moment. Europe, Start from the Dark (album #6) (Sept. 22); incl. Got to Have Faith. Sara Evans (1971-), Restless (album); incl. Back Seat of a Greyhound Bus, Perfect, Suds in the Bucket. Exodus, Tempo of the Damned (album #6) (Mar. 9); first studio album since 1992; incl. War Is My Shepherd, Impaler (by Metallica). Better Than Ezra, Live at the House of Blues, New Orleans (album) (Sept. 28). Faithless, No Roots (album) (June 7); their first #1 U.K. album; incl. Mass Destruction, I Want More; Everything Will Be Alright Tomorrow (album) (Aug. 30). Fall Out Boy, My Heart Will Always Be the B-Side to My Tongue (EP) (May 18) (#153 in the U.S.). Feist (9176-), Let It Die (album #2) (May 18); incl. Gatekeeper, Mushaboom, One Evening. Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand (album) (debut) (Feb. 9) (#32 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.) (3.6M copies); from Glasgow, Scotland, incl. Alex Kapranos (Alexander Paul Kapranos Huntley) (1973-) (vocals, guitar), Robert Byron "Bob" Hardy (1980-) (bass), Nicholas John Augustine "Nick" McCarthy (1974-) (keyboards, vocals), and Paul Robert Jude Nester Thomson (1976-) (drums); incl. Take Me Out (#3 in the U.K.), The Dark of the Matinee, This Fire, Michael. Arcade Fire, Funeral (album) (debut) (Sept. 14); title comes from band members who recently lost family members; incl. Rebellion (Lies) (#19 in the U.K.), Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels), Neighborhood #2 (Laika), Neighborhood #3 (Power Out), Wake Up. John Fogerty (1945-), Deja Vu All Over Again; the war in Iraq continues long after Pres. Bush declares mission accomplished? Peter Frampton (1950-), Gold (album). Gandalf (1952-), Colors of a New Dawn (album #24); incl. Colors of a New Dawn. Indigo Girls, All That We Let In (album #9) (Feb. 17). Lamb of God, Ashes of the Wake (album #4) (Aug. 31) (#27 in the U.S.) (400K copies); incl. Ashes of the Wake (anti-Iraq War), Now You've Got Something to Die For, One Gun, The Faded Line, Laid to Rest. Godsmack, The Other Side (EP) (Mar. 16). Van Halen, The Best of Both Worlds (album) (July 20); Eddie Van Halen subs for Michael Anthony on bass; incl. It's About Time, Up for Breakfast. P.J. Harvey (1969-), Uh Huh Her (album #7) (May 31) (#29 in the U.S., #12 in the U.K.); incl. The Letter (#28 in the U.K.), You Come Through, Shame. Heart, Jupiters Darling (album #13) (#94 in the U.S.) (June 22); incl. The Oldest Story in the World, The Perfect Goodbye. Helmet, Size Matters (album #5) (Oct. 5) (#12 in the U.S.); first album since 1997; incl. See You Dead. Hans Werner Henze (1926-), Sebastian im Traum. Missy Higgins (1983-), The Sound of White (album) (debut) (Sept. 6); incl. The Sound of White, Scar, The Special Two, Ten Days. Janis Ian (1951-), Billie's Bones (album). Incubus, A Crow Left of the Murder... (album #5) (Feb. 3) (#2 in the U.S.) (#6 in the U.K.) (600K copies); first with Ben Kenney replacing Dirk Lance; incl. Megalomaniac (#1 in the U.S.), Talk Shows on Mute (#3 in the U.S.). David Ippolito, Common Ground (album #7). LL Cool J (1968-), The DEFinition (album) (Aug. 31); incl. Headsprung, Hush. Janet Jackson (1966-), Damita Jo (album #8) (Mar. 30) (#73 in the U.S.); incl. Just a Little While, I Want You, All Nite (Don't Stop), R&B Junkie. Jimmy Eat World, Futures (album #5) (Oct. 19); incl. Pain, Work, Futures. Elton John (1947-), Peachtree Road (Elton John's Billy Elliot the Musical) (album #28) (Nov. 9); incl. Electricity. JoJo (1990-), JoJo (album) (debut) (June 22); incl. Breezy, The Happy Song. Norah Jones (1979-), Feels Like Home (album #2) (Feb. 9) (#1 in the U.S.) (14M copies, incl. 4M in the U.S.); incl. Sunrise, What Am I to You?, Those Sweet Words. Bon Jovi, 100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can't Be Wrong (boxed set); marks the sale of 100M albums and the band's 20th anniv. Juanes, Mi Sangre (album #3) (Sept. 28); incl. La Camisa Negra. R. Kelly (1967-), Happy People/ U Saved Me (album #6) (double album) (Aug. 24) (#2 in the U.S.) (3M copies); incl. Happy People (#19 in the U.S., #6 in the U.K.), U Saved Me (#52 in the U.S., #6 in the U.K.). Unfinished Business (album) (with Jay-Z). The Black Keys, Rubber Factory (album #3) (Sept. 7); incl. When the Lights Go Out (used in the 2006 film "Black Snake Moan"), 10 A.M. Automatic (used in the 2006 film "Live Free or Die"), Till I Get My Way, Grown So Ugly (by Robert Pete Williams) (used in the 2008 film "Cloverfield"). Chaka Khan (1953-), Classikhan (album #10) (Oct. 5). Rilo Kiley, More Adventurous (album #3) (Aug. 17); incl. Portions for Foxes. The Killers, Hot Fuss (album) (debut) (June 7) (#7 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); from Las Vegas, Nev., incl. Brandon Richard Flowers (1981-) (vocals), David Keuning (guitar, vocals), Mark Stoermer (bass, vocals), and Ronnie Vannucci Jr. (drums); incl. Somebody Told Me, All These Things That I've Done, Mr. Brightside, Smile Like You Mean It. K'naan (1978-), My Life Is a Movie (album) (debut); incl. Soobax. Diana Krall (1964-), The Girl in the Other Room (album) (Apr.); incl. Tempation. Fela Kuti (1938-97), The Underground Spiritual Game (album). Patti LaBelle (1944-), Timeless Journey (album); incl. 2 Steps Away, When You Smile. Barenaked Ladies, Barenaked for the Holidays (album) (Oct. 5). Laibach, Anthems (album #13) (double album). k.d. lang (1961-), Hymns of the 49th Parallel (album #9) (July 27). Avril Lavigne (1984-), Under My Skin (album #2) (May 25) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (10M copies); incl. Don't Tell Me, My Happy Ending, Nobody's Home, He Wasn't, Girlfriend. John Legend (1978-), Get Lifted (album) (debut) (Dec. 28); sells 3M copies; incl. Let's Get Lifted, Ordinary People, Used to Love U, So High, Number One (w/Kanye West). Juliette and the Licks, ...Like a Bolt of Lightning (EP) (debut) (Oct. 12). Juliette and the Licks, You're Speaking My Language (album) (debut) (May 17); fronted by Juliette Lewis (1973-); incl. You're Speaking My Language, Got Love to Kill. Black Lips, We Did Not Know the Forest Spirit Made the Flowers Grow (album #2) (May 18); title from Hayao Miyazaki's 1997 film "Princess Mononoke"; incl. Time of the Scab, 100 New Fears. Robert Lockwood Jr. (1915-2006) et al., Last of the Great Mississippi Delta Bluesman: Live in Dallas (album). Lindsay Lohan (1986-), Speak (album) (debut) (Dec. 7); incl. Rumors, Over, First. Ludacris (1977-), The Red Light District (album #4) (Dec. 7) (#1 in the U.S.) (2.1M copies); incl. Get Back, Number One Spot, The Potion, Pimpin' All Over the World. Loretta Lynn (1935-), Van Lear Rose (album) (Apr. 27); incl. Van Lear Rose. 10,000 Maniacs, Campfire Songs: The Popular, Obscure and Unknown Recordings (album). Marilyn Manson, Lest We Forget: The Best Of (album) (Sept. 28); incl. Tainted Love. John Mayer (1977-), As/Is (album) (Oct. 19). Tim McGraw (1967-), Live Like You Were Dying (album #8) (Aug. 24) #1 in the U.S.) (#1 country) (4M copies); dedicated to his father Tug McGraw, who died of brain cancer; incl. Live Like You Were Dying (#29 in the U.S) (#1 country) (2M copies), Back When (#30 in the U.S.) (#1 country). Live Like You Were Dying (album #9) (Aug. 24); Live Like You Were Dying. Tim McGraw (1967-) and Nelly (1974-), Over and Over. Bonnie McKee (1984-), Trouble (album) (debut) (Sept. 28); incl. Trouble. Christine McVie (1943-), In The Meantime (album). Mike + the Mechanics, Rewired (album #6) (June 7). Megadeth, The System Has Failed (album #10) (Sept. 14) (#18 in the U.S.); incl. Die Dead Enough (#21 in the U.S.), Of Mice and Men (#39 in the U.S.). Alanis Morissette (1974-), So-Called Chaos (album) (May); incl. Everything, Eight Easy Steps. Morrissey (1959-), You are the Quarry (album). Paul Moravec, Tempest Fantasy (Pulitzer Prize). Motorhead, Inferno (album #17) (June 22); incl. Terminal Show, In the Name of Tragedy, Killers, Life's a Bitch, Whorehouse Blues. Modest Mouse, Good News for People Who Love Bad News (album #4) (Apr. 6) (#18 in the U.S., #40 in the U.K.); incl. Float On (#68 in the U.S., #46 in the U.K.), Ocean Breathes Salty (#96 in the U.K.); Baron von Bullshit Rides Again (album) (Apr. 13). The National, Cherry Tree (album) (July 20). Nelly (1974-), Sweat (album #3) (Sept. 14) (#2 in the U.S.); incl. Flap Your Wings, Heart of a Champion; Suit (album #4) (Sept. 14) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. My Place (w/Jaheim), Over and Over (w/Tim McGraw), 'N' Dey Say. Olivia Newton-John (1948-), Indigo-Women of Song. Twisted Nixon, Iraqi War; Saddam Don't Surf. Nonpoint, Recoil (album #3) (Aug. 3) (#115 in the U.S.); incl. Wait, Broken Bones. Hall & Oates, Our Kind of Soul (album #17) (Oct. 26). Blue October, Argue with a Tree... (album #4) (Sept. 15). Midnight Oil, Best of Both Worlds (album) (Apr. 5). Omarion (1984-), O (debut). Wilson Phillips, California (album #3) (May 25); first album since 1992; sells 30K copies. Phish, Undermind (album) (Mar.); released before their last show on Aug. 15. Phoenix, Alphabetical (album #2) (Mar. 29); incl. Everything Is Everything, Run Run Run; Live! Thirty Days Ago (album) (Nov. 8). Pitbull, M.I.A.M.I. (Money Is A Major Issue) (album) (debut) (Aug. 24) (#14 in the U.S.); incl. 305 Anthem (w/Lil Jon), Toma (w/Lil Jon). Phantom Planet, Phantom Planet (album #3) (Jan. 6); incl. Big Brat. Insane Clown Posse, Hell's Pit (Aug. 31) (album); intended to warn listeners of the horrors of Hell? Manic Street Preachers, Lifeblood (album #7) (Nov. 1) (#2 in the U.K.); incl. The Love of Richard Nixon, and Empty Souls. Prince (1958-), Musicology (album) (Apr. 20); incl. "Musicology", "Cinnamon Girl". Eric Prydz (1976-), Call on Me (Sept. 23) (#1 in the U.K.). Skinny Puppy, The Greater Wrong of the Right (album #9); first album since 1996; incl. EmpTe. Queensryche, The Art of Live (album) (Apr. 20). Rammstein, Reise, Reise (Arise, Arise) (album #4) (Sept. 27) (1.5M copies); incl. Mein Teil (My Part) (about the German cannibals Armin Meiwes and Bernd Jurgen Armando Brandes, who ate Brandes' penis together and went from there), Amerika, Ohne Dich (Without You), Keine Lust (No Desire). Juno Reactor, Labyrinth (album #6) (Oct. 26); incl. Angels and Men, Zwara. Martha Reeves (1941-), Home to You (album). Steve Reich (1936-), You Are (Variations). R.E.M., Around the Sun (album #13) (Oct. 4); incl. Leaving New York, Electron Blue, Wanderlust, Aftermath. Lionel Richie (1949-), Just for You (album #7) (May 4). My Chemical Romance, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge (album #2) (June 8) (#28 in the U.S., #34 in the U.K.) (1.7M copies); first with Reprise Records; incl. Helena (#33 in the U.S.), I'm Not Okay (I Promise) (#86 in the U.S.), The Ghost of You (#84 in the U.S.). Linda Ronstadt (1946-), Hummin' to Myself (album); jazz. Rush, Feedback (album) (June 29). Scorpions, Unbreakable (album #14); incl. New Generation, Love 'Em or Leave 'Em, Deep and Dark. Mr. Scruff (1972-), Keep It Solid Steel Volume 1 (album) (Jan. 1). Howard Leslie Shore (1946-), The Lord of the Rings: Symphony in Six Movements. Ashlee Simpson (1984-), Autobiography (album) ((debut) July 20) (#1 in the U.S.); biggest debut album so far by female artist; incl. Autobiography, La La, Pieces of Me; performs it on Oct. 23 on Saturday Night Live (hosted by Jude Law), and gets critized for using a pre-recorded vocal track and getting caught when the wrong song is played. Jessica Simpson (1980-), Rejoyce: The Christmas Album (album #4) (Nov. 23) (#14 in the U.S.). Twisted Sister, Still Hungry (album) (Oct. 19). Fatboy Slim (1963-), Palokaville (album #4) (Oct. 4); incl. Don't Let the Man Get You Down, Slash Dot Slash. Patti Smith (1946-), Trampin' (album #9) (Apr. 27); incl. Jubilee. Black Label Society, Hangover Music, Vol. VI (album #5) (Apr. 20); incl. A Whiter Shade of Pale (by Procul Harum). Collective Soul, Youth (album #6) (Nov. 16); (#66 in the U.S.); first on their own label EI Music Group; incl. Better Now, Counting the Days, How Do You Love? Regina Spektor (1980-), Soviet Kitsch (album #3) (Aug. 17); title comes from Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being"; incl. Carbon Monoxide, Us. Spiderbait, Tonight Alright (album #6) (Aug. 17); incl. Black Betty, Fucken Awesome, Tonite. Ringo Starr (1940-), Tour 2003 (album) (Mar. 23). Rod Stewart (1945-), Stardust: The Great American Songbook 3 (album) (Oct. 19) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); dedicated to the Tartan Army (fans of the Scottish nat. soccer team); his first #1 album in the U.S. since "Blondes Have More Fun" (1978). Joss Stone (1987-), Mind, Body & Soul (album #2) (Sept. 27) (#11 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (youngest female singer to top the U.K. albums chart since Avril Lavigne); incl. You Had Me, Spoiled. Right to Be Wrong, You Had Me. Rolling Stones, Live Licks (double album) (Nov. 1). Therion, Sirius B (album #14) (May 24); incl. Sirius B; Lemuria (album #15) (May 24); incl. Lemuria. Seven Mary Three, Dis/Location (album #6) (May 11); incl. Without You Feels. Train, Alive at Last (album) (Nov. 2); recorded in Birmingham, Ala. Randy Travis (1959-), Passing Through (album) (Nov. 9); incl. Four Walls. Jethro Tull, Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 (album) (Nov. 2). Shania Twain (1965-), Greatest Hits (album) (Nov. 8); sells 7M copies. Bonnie Tyler (1951-), Simply Believe (album #14) (Apr. 13). Uma2rman, V Gorode N (album) (debut); from Moscow, incl. Sergei Kristovski and Vladimir Kristovski; incl. Uma Thurman, Nochnoi Dozor (theme of the film "Night Watch"). U2, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (album #11) (Nov. 22) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); sells 9M copies; incl. Vertigo, City of Blinding Lights, Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, Yahweh, Original of the Species. Six Feet Under, Graveyard Classics 2 (album) (Oct. 19). Keith Urban (1967-), Be Here; You'll Think of Me. Usher (1978-), Confessions (album #4) (album #4) (Mar. 23) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (10M copies in the U.S. and 20M copies worldwide, #2 of the decade, incl. 1.1M copies in week #1, a record for an R&B artist); incl. Confessions, Confessions Part II, Yeah! (w/Lil Jon and Ludacris), Burn, My Boo (w/Alicia Keys), Caught Up. Nouvelle Vague, Nouvelle Vague (album) (debut) (Aug. 9); cover band from France, incl. Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux; incl. Love Will Tear Us Apart, Too Drunk to Fuck. Kevin Welch (1955-), You Can't Save Everybody (album #6). Kanye West (1977-), The College Dropout (album) (debut) (Feb. 10) (#2 in the U.S.) (4M copies worldwide); incl. Through the Wire, Slow Jamz (w/Twista and Jamie Foxx), All Falls Down (w/Syleena Johnson), Jesus Walks, The New Workout Plan. Westlife, ...Allow Us To Be Frank (album #6) (Nov. 8) (#3 in the U.K.); Rat Pack tribute album. Wilco, A Ghost Is Born (album #5) (June 22); incl. Hell is Chrome, Muzzle of Bees, Spiders (Kidsmoke). Brian Wilson (1942-), Smile (album). Gretchen Wilson (1973-), Here for the Party (album) (debut); incl. Redneck Woman. Chely Wright (1970-), Everything (album) (Oct. 26); incl. Back of the Bottom Drawer. Daddy Yankee (1977-), Barrio Fino (album #3) (July 13) (#26 in the U.S.) (1M copies in the U.S. - a first for a reggaeton artist); incl. Gasolina. Frank Zappa (1940-93), Joe's Corsage (album) (posth.) (May 30); AuAUDIOPHILIAc (album) (posth.) (Sept. 14); Joe's Domage (album) (posth.) (Oct. 1). The Zutons, Who Killed... The Zutons? (album) (debut) (May). Movies: Oliver Stone's Alexander the Great (Nov. 24), about the young, blonde gay Greek conqueror makes a star of Colin Farrell even though the 175-min. unhistorical movie rambles, and his momma Olympia (Angelina Jolie) looks like his sister?; meanwhile 2 mo. later Jim Lindsay's The True Story of Alexander the Great (Jan. 25, 2005) also comes and goes. Istvan Szabo's Being Julia (Oct. 28), based on the W. Somerset Maugham novel "Theatre" stars Annette Bening as bored 1930s London diva Julia Lambert, who has an affair with young Yank Tom Fennel (Shaun Evans), and gets revenge when she finds out he's using her; the role gets her an Oscar nomination, but she gets "Swanked" by Hilary Swank for a 2nd straight time (first time "American Beauty"). Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Supremacy (July 15) stars Matt Damon as trained assassin Jason Bourne, who is framed and goes on da run; #8 movie of 2004 ($176M). Joe Roth's Christmas with the Kranks (Revolution Studios) (1492 Pictures) (Columbia Pictures), written by Chris Columbus based on the 2001 John Grisham novel "Skipping Christmas" stars Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis as empty nesters Luther and Nora Krank of Riverside, Ill., who decide to skip Christmas while daughter Blair (Julie Gonzalo) is in Peru, bringing down the neighbors on them led by Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Aykroyd) along with Luther's co-workers, only to flop fast when Blair suddenly returns on Christmas Eve morning; Tom Poston (last film role) plays Father Zabriskie; does $96.6M box office on a $60M budget. Mike Nichols' Closer (Dec. 3) (Columbia Pictures), based on the 1997 Patrick Marber play based on Mozart's opera "Cosi fan tutte" stars Natalie Portman as Alice Ayres/Jane Jones, Jude Law as Dan Woolf, Julia Roberts as Anna Cameron, and Clive Owen as Larry Gray in a flick about love at first sight, who are "traitors at every glance"; in reality, it's an excuse to put out phone sex disguised as movie dialogue?; does $115M box office on a $27M budget. Michael Mann's Collateral (), the first feature film shot mostly with hi-definition cameras stars Tom Cruise as prof. hitman Vincent, who hires cabbie Max Durocher (Jamie Foxx) all night so he can pull off a string of hits to stop a federal drug case, but goes too far when he tries to hit his love babe Annie Farrell (Jada Pinkett Smith). Sara Sugarman's Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (Feb. 20) stars Lindsay Lohan in her first non-remake as Mary Elizabeth Cep, whose family moves to the suburbs, causing her to have to fit in; a flop with critics but not at the box office. Michael Lembeck's Connie and Carla (Apr. 16) (Universal Studios) stars Nia Vardalos and Toni Collette, two women who pose as men dressing in drag to hide from gangsters; David Duchnovny plays Jeff, who falls for Connie; does $11.3M box office on a $27M budget. David Twohy's The Chronicles of Riddick (June 11), a sequel to "Pitch Black" stars Vin Diesel as Riddiculous, er, Richard B. Riddick in a black screen with 5-quick-beat pseudo-music trying to lull you to sleep while jarring you back awake?; a world where nobody eats, sleeps, or takes time for bodily functions, and the bill for the war is paid by, er, isn't?; "You keep what you kill"?; brings in $107M on a $105M budget; based on the prequel "Pitch Black" (2000); followed by "Riddick" (2013). Pieter Jan Brugge's The Clearing (July 2) (Thousand Words) (Brugge's dir. debut) stars Robert Redford, Hellen Mirren, and Willem Dafoe in a kidnapping flick. Roland Emmerich's The Day After Tomorrow (May 17) (20th Cent. Fox) stars Dennis Quaid as climatologist Jack Hall, who must save the world from super-fast global warming er, cooling, which incl. New York being taken over by a new ice age; Jake Gyllenhaal plays his stranded son Sam; #7 movie of 2004 ($187M in the U.S., $544.3M worldwide on a $125M budget). Irwin Winkler's De-Lovely (May 22) stars Kevin Kline as Cole Porter (1891-1964), and Ashley Judd as his wife Linda. Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall (Der Untergang) (Sept. 16), based on books by Hitler's secy. ("the best boss I ever had") Traudl Junge (1920-2002) et al., about the final days of Herr Hitler (played by Bruno Ganz) in the bunker is the best German-perspective WWII flick since Das Boot, although it is controversially intimate and lifelike? Renny Harlin's Exorcist: The Beginning (Aug. 20) stars Stellan Skarsgard as Father Merrin, who first encounters demon Pazuzu while bedding Dr. Sarah (Isaella Scorupco). Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Mar. 19) (Focus Features), named after a line in Alexander Pope's poem "Eloisa to Abelard" stars Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as separated lovers Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski, who had Lacuna Inc. of New York City erase their memories, and meet by accident on a train and fall in love over again; does $72.2M box office on a $20M budget. Roger Moore's Fahrenheit 911 (June 25) (the first documentary to win the Palme d'Or since Cousteau in 1956) is a persuasive indictment of the Bush chimp in a suit mismanaging America, but it fails to cost Bush the election; Ray Greedbury, er, Bradbury stinks himself up by trying to sue him for "infringing" on the title of his sci-fi novel, which shall remain nameless, knowing that titles aren't copyrightable, much less scientific measurements? John Moore's Flight of the Phoenix (Dec. 17) stars Dennis Quaid as Frank Towns, Tyrese Gibson as A.J., Giovanni Ribisi as Elliott, and Hugh Laurie as Ian, whose plane crashes in a Mongolian desert and they have to try to build a new one. Peter Berg's Friday Night Lights (Oct. 8) (Universal Pictures), based on the 1990 H.G. Bissinger book about the 1988 5A Permian H.S. Panthers football team in Odessa, Tex. stars Billy Bob Thornton as coach Gary Gaines, who coaches them to the state championship against the Dallas Carter H.S. Cowboys; does $61.95M box office on a $30M budget. Zach Braff's Garden State (Jan. 16) (Miramax) stars Braff as 26-y.-o. actor/waitor Andrew Largeman, who returns to his home in N.J. after his mother dies, who hooks up with pathological liar Sam (Natalie Portman); does $35.8M box office on a $2.5M budgets. Peter Hewitt's Garfield (June 11) features the voice of Bill Murray as Jon Arbuckle's (Breckin Meyer) cat Garfield, who has to rescue his dog Odie. Takashi Shimizu's The Grudge (Oct. 22) (Ghost House Pictures) (Columbia Pictures), a remake of the 2003 film "Ju-on: The Grudge" about a curse that is born when someone dies in extreme sorrow or powerful rage stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as U. of Tokyo exchange student Karen Davis, and Jason Behr as her beau Doug McCarthy; does $187.2M box office on a $10M budget; followed by "The Grudge 2" (2006), "The Grudge 3" (2009), and "Grudge" (2019); watch trailer; watch trailer. Alfonso Cuaron's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (June 4) is the #6 movie of 2004 ($249M). Paul Etheredge-Ouzts' Hellbent (June 26) (Regent Releasing) bills itself as the first gay slasher film; does $183K box office. Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy (Mar. 30) (Revolution Studios) (Dark Horse Entertainment) (Columbia Pictures), based on the Dark Horse Comics series by Mike Mignola stars Ron Perlman as the Baby Ruth candy bar-munching half-man half-devil hero with a right hand of stone Abe Sapien, and Selma Blair as pyrokinetic babe Liz Sherman, who fight the demon Sammael, then have a flaming kiss, proving that what makes a man is "not how he starts things but how he decides to end them"; followed by "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (2008); does $99.3M box office on a $66M budget. Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers (May 19), set in 859 during the Tang Dynasty stars Andy Lau as Police Capt. Leo, who is ordered to kill the unknown leader of the rebel House of Flying Daggers in Fengtian in 10 days, causing him to arrest blind dancer Mei (Zhang Ziyi), who is suspected of being the previous leader's daughter; features elaborate cinematography and period costumes; does $92.9M box office on a $12M budget. Brad Bird's The Incredibles (Nov. 5) is an animated flick about a family of undercover superheroes, starring the voices of Craig T. Nelson as Mr. Incredible, Holly Hunter as Elastigirl, Samuel L. Jackson as Brozone, and Jason Lee as Syndrome; #5 movie of 2004 ($261M). Alex Proyas' I, Robot (July 15) (20th Cent. Fox), written by Jeff Vintar (not based on the 1950 Isaac Asimov book) and set in robot-filled 2035 stars Will Smith as Chicago detective Del Spooner, who was saved from drowning by a robot who allowed a 12-y.-o. girl to drown in his place, making him hate all robots, investigating the suspicious suicide of U.S. Robotics founder Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell), tracing it to the AI called V.I.K.I. (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence) (Fiona Hogan) with the help of robopsychologist Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan); Bruce Greenwood plays USR CEO Lawrence Robertson; grosses $347M worldwide on a $120M budget. Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle (Sept. 14) (China Film Group) (Columbia Pictures) (Sony Pictures Classics) stars Chow as Sing, specialist in the Fut Gar Buddhist Palm technique, who joins the Axe Gang, led by Brother Sum (Danny Chan Kwok-kwan); does $102M box office incl. $17M in North Am. on a $20M budget, becoming the highest-grossing film in Hong Kong history until "You Are the Apple of My Eye" (2011). Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Dec. 25) is a stinker starring Bill Murray as a kooky oceanographer (spoof of Jacques Cousteau) who is out to get revenge on a fabled Jaguar shark that ate his partner Esteban; features Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldlbum, Owen Wilson, and Anjelica Huston. Stephen Hopkins' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (May 21), based on the book by Roger Lewis stars Geoffrey Rush as Peter Sellers, John Lithgow as Blake Edwards, Emily Watson as Emily Watson, and Charlize Theron as Britt Ekland. Tony Scott's Man on Fire (Apr. 23), based on the A.J. Quinnell books stars Denzel Washington as Creasy, an ex-CIA agent who used to be a govt. assassin and has lost the will to live and turned into a Nicolas Cage alcoholic, until he is given a second chance to guard cute loveable Pita (Dakota Fanning) in Mexico City, then goes on a Rambo-style revenge mission against her kidnapper-murderers, only to discover several kinks in the official coverstory; Mark Anthony and Radha Mitchell play Pita's parents, Christopher Walken plays Creasy's handler Rayburn, and Giancarlo Giannini and Rachel Ticotin are good as the local federales and press, who play Creasy off to lead them to "The Voice" Daniel Sanchez (Gustavo Sanchez Parra). Joshua Marston's Maria Full of Grace (Apr. 2) stars Catalina Sandino Moreno as a pregnant Colombian teenie who becomes a drug mule, gaining her the first best actress Oscar nomination for an actress speaking only Spanish lines. Nagi Noda's Mariko Takahashi's Fitness Video for Being Appraised as an Ex-Fat Girl features exercisers dressed in poodle costumes with superimposed dog faces, going viral on the Internet. Mark Waters' Mean Girls (Apr. 30), written by Tina Fey based on Rosalind Wiseman's 2002 book "Queen Bees and Wannabees" about female teenage social cliques is the first PG-13 (and non-Disney) role for child star Lindsay Lohan (1986-), and features several SNL alumni, grossing $128M worldwide at the box office, turning Lohan into a paparazzi-targeted star. Jay Roach's Meet the Fockers (Dec. 22) introduces Greg Focker's parents Bernie and Rozalin (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand); almost nixed by movie censors until a real Focker family is found in a Canadian phone book; #4 movie of 2004 ($279M). Michael Radford's The Merchant of Venice (Dec. 3), based on the Shakespeare play becomesthe first full-length sound version in English; stars Al Pacino as Shylock, Jeremy Irons as Antonio, Joseph Fiennes as Bassanio, and Lynn Collins as Portia; does $21.4M box office on a $30M budget. Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin (Sept.3), based on the 1995 Scott Heim novel about a teen male gay hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions who cross paths and discover their childhood abuse stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brian Corbet. Jared Hess' Napoleon Dynamite (Aug. 27), a high school nerd flick stars Hispanic Efren Ramirez as Pedro, and white Afro-wearing Jon Heder, who helps him run for class pres. wearing a "Vote for Pedro" t-shirt, and buys a brown suit for the school dance down the street from his Rex Kwon Do studio in Preston, Idaho; "Knock it off, Napoleon! Just make yourself a dang quesa-dilluh!" Jon Turteltaub's National Treasure (Nov. 19) stars Nicolas Cage as Am. history buff Benjamin Franklin Gates, who uses a code hidden on the back of the Declaration of Independence to track down the fabled treasure of the Knights Templars in Old North Church in Boston, Mass.; #9 movie of 2003 ($173M). Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (Feb. 25) (Icon Productions) (Newmarket Films), based on the visions of 19th cent. German mystic nun Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824) (who is beatified by Pope John Paul II on Oct. 3) reenacts the Catholicized Gospel story of the Stations of the Cross with actors speaking the original languages (with subtitles) is a bloody lovefest for millions of Christians, bringing in $370M U.S. and $611.9M worldwide box office on a $30M budget (#3 movie of 2004), becoming the top-grossing R-rated film in history (until ?), and making Mel too rich to want to be Pope Mel I?; he gyps the screenwriter Benedict Fitzgerald, who later sues him; too bad, in Mar. 2003 Mel's ultra-conservative Roman Catholic daddy Hutton Peter "Red" Gibson (1918-) (the 1968 "Jeopardy!" grand champ, with a genius IQ) gave an interview to The New York Times Mag., saying that Vatican II was a "Masonic plot backed by the Jews", that the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by remote control, and that the WWII Holocaust was impossible as stated because the Nazis couldn't have disposed of 6M corpses without a trace, and census figures prove there were more Jews in Europe after WWII than before, also adding that certain Jews want a OWG with a global religion, then reiterated these views a week before the film's release to radio talk show host Steve Feuerstein, after which charges of anti-Semitism are denied by Mel, who is defended by Focus on the Family and other anti-Semitic, er, Christian groups. Robert Zemeckis' 3-D computer animated film The Polar Express (Oct. 21) (Castle Rock Entertainment) (Warner Bros. Pictures), based on the 1985 Chris van Allsburg children's novel stars Tom Hanks in motion-capture mode, with Daryl Sabara doing the voice of Hero Boy; does $310.6M box office on a $165M budget. Shane Carruth's Primer (Oct. 8), made on a $7K budget is about the accidental discovery of a means of time travel that leads to unexpected difficulties. Jonathan Hensleigh's The Punisher (Apr. 16) (Lionsgate Films) (Marvel Entertainment), based on the Marvel Comics char. stars Thomas Jane as Thomas Castle AKA The Punisher, John Travolta as Howard Saint, Will Patton as Quentin Glass, Rebecca Romijn as Joan, Ben Fsoter as Spacker Dave, and John Pinette as Nathaniel Bumpo; does $54.7M box office on a $33M budget. Taylor Hackford's Ray (Oct. 29) stars Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in a bopic that twists a few facts but captures the genius, claiming he was banned from Jawjaw for life in 1961 in order to make a climax out of him singing "Georgia on My Mind" for the Ga. state legislature in 1979. James Wan's Saw (Jan. 24) (Twisted Piectures) (Lionsgate Films) (Wan's dir. debut), written by Leigh Whannell stars Tobin Bell as John Kramer, and Cary Elwes as oncologist Dr. Lawrence Gordon who is along with photographer Adam Stanheight (Whannell) in a dilapidated bathroom by the mysterious Jigsaw Killer, and learn that Lawrence must kill Adam by 6:00 or his wife and daughter will be killed by Zep Hindle (Michael Enderson); meanwhile detective David Tapp (Danny Glover) pursues Lawrence in the belief that he's the Jigsaw Killer, who turns out to be Bell after it's too late; does $103.9M box office on a $1.2M budget, becoming the first big horror film hit since "Scream" (1996), launching the Saw franchise that grosses $975M, incl. "Saw II" (2005), "Saw III" (2006), "Saw IV" (2007), "Saw V" (2008), "Saw VI" (2009), "Saw 3D" (2010), and "Jigsaw" (2017); critics call it "torture porn". David Koepp's Secret Window (Mar. 12) (Columbia Pictures), based on the Stephen King novel "Secret Window, Secret Garden" stars Johnny Deep as blocked writer Morton "Mort" Rainey, who is hounded by writer John Shooter (John Turturro) over alleged plagiarism until it gets bloody, when P.I. Ken Karsch (Charles S. Dutton) and Sheriff Dave Newsome (Len Cariou) get involved; Maria Bellow plays Mort's cheating wife Amy; does $92.9M box office on a $40M budget. Bibo Bergeron's and Vicky Jenson's Shark Tale (Oct. 1) is an animated flick starring the voices of Will Smith, Robert De Niro, Renee Zellweger and Jack Black; #10 movie of 2004 ($161M). Andrew Adamson and Kelly Asbury's Shrek 2 (May 19) continues the animated series with new char. Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas); #1 movie of 2004 ($436M). James L. Brooks' Spanglish (Dec. 17) stars Adam Sandler as a chef who hires Spanish-speaking maid Flor (Paz Vega), who finally decides to learn English. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 (June 30) stars Alfred Molina as Dr. Otto Gunther Octavius, who turns himself into bad guy Doctor Octopus (Doc Ock), based on a July 1963 Stan Lee char.; #2 movie of 2004 ($374M on a $200M budget). Richard Eyre's Stage Beauty (May 8) (BBC Films) (Momentum Pictures) (Lionsgate), written by Jeffrey Hatcher based on his play "Compleat Female Stage Beauty" stars Billy Crudup as 17th cent. British drag actor Edward "Ned" Kynaston.; does $2.15M box office. Frank Oz's The Stepford Wives (June 11), based on the Ira Levin book is the film debut of Faith Hill as Sarah Sunderson, and stars Nicole Kidman as Joanna Eberhart, Bette Midler as Bobbie Markowitz, Jon Lovitz as Dave Markowitz, Glenn Close as Claire Wellington, Christopher Walken as Mike Wellington, and Matthew Broderick as Walter Kresby. Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me (May 21) follows the writer-dir. for 30 days as he lives entirely on McDonald's foods, consuming 5K calories avg. per day, gaining 24.5 lbs., and experiencing mood swings, sexual dysfunction and liver damage, then takes 14 mo. to lose the weight. Steven Spielberg's The Terminal (June 18) stars Tom Hanks as Eastern European everyman Viktor Navorski living at a New York Airport that won't him leave as long as his country is at war; based on a real man living at a Paris airport? Wolgang Petersen's Troy (May 14) (Warner Bros.) stars Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector, Orlando Bloom as Paris, and Diane Kruger as Helen, and features hi-tech battle scenes although the actors are too scrawny to look like real Greeks, SFX or not?; Pitt injures his Achilles heel during filming, delaying production for weeks?; does $497M box office on a $175M budget. Stephen Sommers' Van Helsing (May 7) (Sommers Co.) (Stillking Films) (Universal Pictures) stars Hugh Jackman as monster hunter Gabriel Van Helsing, Kate Beckinsale as Anna Valerious, Will Kemp as her brother Velkan Valerious, Richard Roxburgh as Count Vladislaus Dracula, Shuler Hensley as Frankeinstein's monster, Kevin J. O'Connor as Frankenstein's ex-servant Igor, David Wenham as Friar Carl, Silvia Colloca as Dracula's concubine Verona, Elena Anaya as Dracula's concubine Aleera, Josie Maran as Dracula's concubine Marishka, Samuel West as Dr. Victor Frankenstein, Tom Fisher as Transylvanian grave digger Top Hat, and Robbie Coltrane as the voice of Mr. Hyde; does $300.3M box office on a $160M budget. M. Night Shyamalan's The Village (July 30), about a village near Philly in 1897 stars Joaquin Phoenix as Lucius Hunt, and Bryce Dallas Howard as Livy Elizabeth Walker, daughter of chief elder Edward Walker (William Hurt), who are all afraid of "Those We Don't Speak Of" in the woods. William Arntz's What the Bleep Do We Know!? (Apr. 23) posits a connection between quantum physics and consciousness; does $10M at the box office. Plays: Alan Ayckbourn (1939-), Drowning on Dry Land (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough) (May 4); eternal failure Charlie Conrad; Private Fears in Public Places (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough) (Aug. 17). Alan Bennett (1934-), The History Boys (Lyttleton Theatre, Royal Nat. Theatre, London) (May 18) (Broadhurst Theatre, New York, Apr. 23, 2006, 185 perf.); Cutler's Grammar School in Sheffield under headmaster Felix Armstrong in the 1980s prepares for the Oxbridge entrance exams with teachers Douglas Hector (English) (based on Frank McEachran), Irwin (history) (based on Niall Ferguson), and Mrs. Dorothy Lintott (history). Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, Behzti (Dishonour) (Rep Theatre, Birmingham) (Dec. 18); opening night causes a riot by Sikhs. Peter Braunstein, Andy & Edie (New York) (June 3); stars Misha Sedgwick as Edie Sedgwick, and Thomas Blake as Andy Warhol. Paul Day Clemens and Ron Magid, Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight; stars John Astin. Per Olov Enquist (1934-), The Book About Blanche and Marie (Boken om Blanche och Marie). Athol Fugard (1932-), Exits and Entrances (Fountain Theatre, Los Angeles); stars Morlan Higgins and William Dennis Hurley. Jeremy Joseph Gable (1982-), American Way (Blank Theatre, Los Angeles) (Oct. 24); three comic book superheroes are powerless to prevent a tragedy (the Bush admin. and 9/11); Slurp!. Gina Gionfriddo, After Ashley (Louisville, Ky.) (Mar.). Miles Gregley, Rafael Agustin, and Allan Axibal, Nigger Wetback Chink: The Race Play (Los Angeles) (Mar.); takes on racial sterotypes and slurs. Davie Hare (1947-), Stuff Happens; about the Iraq War, based on a Donald Rumsfeld quote from Apr. 11, 2003. Brent Hartinger, The Geography Club (Seattle); based on his novel. Jack Heifner, Seduction; all-male gay adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler's 1900 "La Ronde (Reigen)". Robert Hewett, The Blonde, the Brunette and the Vengeful Redhead (Stables Theatre, Sydney); Rhonda Russell. Rolf Hochhuth (1931-), McKinsey is Coming. David Henry Hwang (1957-), Tibet Through the Red Box (Children's Theatre, Seattle) (Jan. 30); based on a children's book by Peter Sis. Terry Johnson, Dumb Show (Royal Court Theatre, London) (Sept. 4); Barry, AKA Mr. Saturday Night. Thomas Kilroy (1934-), My Scandalous Life. Lisa Kron, Well (Joseph Papp Theater, New York. Bryony Lavery, Frozen; 10-y.-o. Rhona disappears. Mark Medoff (1940-), The Dramaturgy of Mark Medoff. Arthur Miller (1915-2005), Finishing the Picture (last play) (Goodman Theatre, Chicago) (Sept.); based on his time with wife Marilyn Monroe while shooting "The Misfits" in summer-fall 1960. Walter L. Newton, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden; based on the Joanne Greenberg novel. Louis Nowra (1950-), The Woman with Dog's Eyes; #1 in the Boyce Trilogy (2004-6). Tyler Perry, Meet the Browns. Bert V. Royal, Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead (Soho Playhouse, New York) (Aug.); the Peanuts chars. as teenagers. Gregory Charles Royal, It's a Hardbop LIfe (JVC Jazz Festival, New York) (July). Sarah Ruhl (1974-), The Clean House (Yale Repertory Theatre); Brazilian cleaning woman Mathilde won't clean her physician boss' house because she wants to be a comedian. Sam Shepard (1943-), The God of Hell (Actors Studio, New York); Wisc. dairy farmers Frank and Emma are targeted by govt. employee Mr. Welch, who is pursuing Frank's old friend Haynes. Robert B. Sherman (1925-2012), Richard M. Sherman (1928-), George Stiles (191-), Anthony Drewe, Julian Fellowes (1949-), and William David Brohn (1933-), Mary Poppins (musical) (Prince Edward Theatre, West End, London) (Dec. 15) (New Amsterdam Theatre, New York) (Nov. 16, 2006) (2,619 perf.); based on the P.L. Travers books and the 1964 Walt Disney film; first Disney musical to debut in the U.K. (until ?); stars Laura Michelle Kelly (Ashley Brown on Broadway) as Mary Poppins, and Gavin Lee as Bert; "For children seven years and up"; on Mar. 17, 2005 Julie Andrews visits as a guest, giving a speech. Nicky Silver, Beautiful Child (Vineyard Theater, New York) (Feb. 24); stars George Grizzard and Penny Fuller as middle-aged couple Harry and Nan, who blind their grown son Isaac for falling in love with a boy. Simon Stephens (1971-), Christmas; Country Music. Tom Stoppard (1937-), Enrico IV; tr. of the Luigi Pirandello play. Imogen Stubbs, We Happy Few (John Gielgud Theatre, London) (June 29); title from Shakespeare's "Henry V". David Williamson (1942-), Amigos (Sydney). Robert Wilson (1941-), I La Galigo. Doug Wright (1962-), I Am My Own Wife (Pulitzer Prize). Poetry: John Ash (1948-), To the City. Rita Dove (1952-), American Smooth. Norman Dubie (1945-), Ordinary Mornings of a Coliseum. George Fetherling (1949-), Singer, An Elegy. Donald Rodney Justice (1925-2004), Collected Poems (posth.). Bill Knott (1940-), The Unsubscriber. Ted Kooser (1939-), Delights and Shadows (Pulitzer Prize); Local Wonders: Seasons in the Bohemian Alps. Rod McKuen (1933-), Rusting in the Rain. Sharon Olds (1942-), Strike Sparks: Selected Poems. Mary Oliver (1935-), Why I Wake Up Early: New Poems; Blue Iris: Poems and Essays. Michael Ryan (1946-), New and Selected Poems. Philip Schultz (1945-), Living in the Past. Charles Simic (1938-), Selected Poems 1963-2003. Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006), New and Selected Poems, 1958-1998. Gerald Stern (1925-), Not God After All. James Tate (1943-), Return to the City of White Donkeys. Tomas Transtromer (1931-), The Great Enigma. Calvin Trillin (1935-), Obliviously On He Sails: The Bush Administration in Rhyme. Jean Valentine, Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003. Derek Walcott (1930-), The Prodigal. Richard Wilbur (1921-2017), Collected Poems, 1943-2004 (Dec. 6). Charles Wright (1935-), Buffalo Yoga. Franz Wright, Walking to Martha's Vineyard. Novels: Peter Ackroyd (1949-), The Lambs of London. Catherine Aird (1930-), Chapter and Hearse. Mitch Albom (1958-), The Five People You Meet in Heaven; Eddie finds that heaven is where you reveal the haunting secrets behind the meaning of life. Monica Ali (1967-), Brick Lane (first novel) (June); Bengali immgrants in London's East End. Isabel Allende (1942-), Kingdom of the Golden Dragon. Jonathan Ames (1964-), Wake Up Sir! Donna Andrews, We'll Always Have Parrots. Louis Auchincloss (1917-), East Side Story. Paul Benjamin Auster (1947-), Oracle Night. Nanni Balestrini (1935-), Sandokan, Storia di Camorra. Russell Banks (1940-), The Darling. Clive Barker (1952-), Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War. Julian Barnes (1946-), The Lemon Table (short stories). Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, Peter and the Starcatchers; a Peter Pan prequel, featuring Molly Aster, teenage daughter of the British Ambassador to Rundoon. Richard Bausch, Wives & Lovers: Three Short Novels; incl. "Requisite Kindness". Thomas Berger (1924-), Adventures of the Artificial Woman. Steve Berry (1955-), The Romanov Prophecy. Wendell Berry (1934-), Hannah Coulter; That Distant Land: The Collected Stories of Wendell Berry. Chetan Bhagat (1973-), Five Point Someone: What not to do at IIT; bestseller (1M copies); filmed in 2009 as "3 Idiots". Maeve Binchy (1940-), Night Of Rain And Stars. Daniel Black, They Tell Me of a Home. Michael Blaine, The Midnight Band of Mercy. James Carlos Blake, Handsome Harry: Or The Gangster's True Confessions. Pierre Bourgeade (1927-2009), Les Comediens; Crashville. T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948-), The Inner Circle. Anita Brookner (1928-), The Rules of Engagement. Terry Brooks, Tanequil. Christopher Buckley (1952-), Florence of Arabia. Jimmy Buffett (1946-), A Salty Piece of Land. James Lee Burke (1936-), In the Moon of the Red Ponies; Billy Bob Holland #4. Robert Olen Butler (1945-), Had a Good Time: Stories from American Postcards. Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, The Rule of Four - death by scratch and sniff? Hortense Calisher (1911-2009), Tattoo for a Slave (autobio.). John le Carre (1931-), Absolute Friends; Ted Mundy and Sasha. Michael Chabon (1963-), The Final Solution: A Story of Detection; McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories; incl. Stephen King's "Lisey and the Madman". Barbara Chase-Riboud (1939-), Hottentot Venus. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-), Nighttime is My Time; You Belong to Me. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-) and Carol Higgins Clark (1956-), The Christmas Thief. Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (short stories). Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (1940-), The African. Andrei Codrescu (1946-), Wakefield. Paul Coelho (1947-), The Genie and the Roses; Journeys. Robert Coover (1932-), Stepmother. Bernard Cornwell, Sharpe's Prey: Denmark 1807; Richard Sharpe vs. Napoleon. Patricia Cornwell (1956-), Trace. Douglas Coupland, Eleanor Rigby; 36-y.-o. Vancouver woman's 20-y.-o. adopted-out son returns. Michael Crichton (1942-2008), State of Fear (Dec. 7); NYT bestseller (1.5M copies); ecoterrorists plot mass murder to publicize the dangers of global warming, calling climate change "a vast pseudo-scientific hoax", which the book attempts to refute with scientific arguments that are pooh-poohed by climate warmists, making it more popular? M. Allen Cunningham, The Green Age of Aher Witherow (first novel). Clive Cussler (1931-), Black Wind; Dirk Pitt #18. Edwidge Danticat, The Dew Breakers. Guy Davenport (1927-2005), Wo es War, Soll Ich Werden: The Restored Original Text. Diane Mott Davidson (1949-), Double Shot. Jeffrey Deaver, Garden of Beasts: A Novel of Berlin 1936. Nelson DeMille, Night Fall; about TWA Flight 800 in 1996. John Denning, The Bookman's Promise. Kate DiCamillo (1964-), The Tale of Despereaux. Cory Doctorow (1971-), A Place So Foreign and Eight More (short stories). E.L. Doctorow (1931-), Sweet Land Stories. Anthony Doerr, About Grace. Roddy Doyle (1958-), Oh, Play That Thing!; vol. 2 of the Last Roundup Trilogy (1999-2010). Margaret Drabble (1939-), The Red Queen: A Transcultural Tragicomedy; Barbara Halliwall receives a 200-y.-o. memoir from a Korean princess. Martin Bauml Duberman (1930-), Haymarket. John Gregory Dunne (1932-2003), Nothing Lost (posth.). James Ellroy (1948-), Destination: Morgue!. Louise Erdrich (1954-), Four Souls. Maria Flook, Lux: A Novel. Ken Follett (1949-), Whiteout. Richard Ford (1944-), Vintage Ford (short stories). Alan Furst (1941-), Dark Voyage; Night Soldiers #8. Alex Garland, The Coma. George Garrett (1929-2008), Double Vision. Lisa Glatt, A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That (first novel). Robert Goddard, Sight Unseen. Francisco Goldman (1954-), The Divine Husband. Sue Grafton (1940-), 'R' is for Ricochet. John Grisham (1955-), The Broker; the CIA gets a pardon for Joel Backman. Michael Gruber, Valley of Bones. Judith Guest (1936-), The Tarnished Eye. Mark Haddon (1962-), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (first novel); an autistic narrator launches a murder investigation. Jennifer Haigh, Baker Towers. Janice Hallowell, The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn. Laurell K. Hamilton, Micah. Peter Handke (1942-), Don Juan (Told by Himself). Jim Harrison (1937-), True North. John Harrison, Light; The Course of the Heart. Brent Hartinger, The Last Chance Texaco. Ken Haruf, Eventide. Mark Helprin (1947-), The Pacific and Other Stories. Carl Hiaasen (1953-), Skinny Dip; bad marine biologist Chaz Perrone in the dark Sunshine State? George V. Higgins (1939-99), The Easiest Thing in the World: The Unpublished Fiction of George V. Higgins (posth.). Tony Hillerman (1925-2008), Skeleton Man. S.E. Hinton (1950-), Hawkes Harbor. Alice Hoffman (1952-), Blackbird House. Pam Houston (1962-), Sight Hound. Susan Isaacs (1943-), Any Place I Hang My Hat. John Jakes (1932-), Savannah. Gish Jen, The Love Wife. Ha Jin (1956-), War Trash. Iris Johansen, Blind Alley. Edward P. Jones (1951-), The Known World (first novel); slave life in the antebellum South (Pulitzer Prize). Craig Johnson, The Cold Dish. Neil Jordan, Shade. Ward Just (1935-), An Unfinished Season. Cynthia Kadohata (1956-), Kira-Kira. Marne Davis Kellogg, Priceless; Kick the Shamrock Burglar again. Sue Monk Kidd (1948-), The Secret Life of Bees (first novel); living in the racist Am. South of 1964, 14-y.-o. Lily Owens copes with having killed her mother Deborah at age 4, and having to live with a daddy that doesn't love her, finally running away to find a new hive of black beekeeper mothers in Tiburon, S.C. Stephen King (1947-), The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower (Nov.); King now claims to retire, but the catch is, what do most people do after they retire except write a book? Leslie S. Klinger, The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes (2 vols.). Dean Koontz (1945-), Life Expectancy; The Good Guy; Tim Carter gets mixed up in a contract murder. William Kowalski (1970-), The Good Neighbor. Stieg Larsson (1954-2004), The Millennium Trilogy (posth.); about 20-something Lisbeth Salander, who has a photographic memory and poor social skills, and investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who works for Millennium mag.; becomes the #22 best-selling author on Earth in 2008, selling 27M copies in 40+ countries by 2010, 65M by Dec. 2011, and 80M by 2015, becoming the first ebook with 1M Kindle downloads in 2010; incl. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", "The Girl Who Played with Fire", "he Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest"; Lisbeth gets revenge on her tormentor Nils by tattooing "I'm a sadistic pig and a rapist" on his stomach. Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), Mr. Paradise. Jonathan Lethem (1964-), Men and Cartoons (short stories). Jeff Lindsay, Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Charles de Lint (1951-), The Blue Girl. Laura Lippman (1959-), Every Secret Thing; filmed in 2014. Margot Livesey, Banishing Verona. Chuck Logan, After the Rain. Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), Dreams of the Rehabilitation (Recovery) Period. David Maine, The Preservationist. John Robert Marlow, Nano. Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014), Memories of My Melancholy Whores; "In my ninetieth year, I decided to give myself the gift of a night of love with a young virgin." Yann Martel, We Ate the Children Last (short stories). Ron McLarty, The Memory of Running. Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, Citizen Girl. Larry McMurtry (1936-), Folly and Glory. Stanley Middleton (1919-2009), Brief Garlands. Anchee Min (1957-), The Empress Orchid; concubine Orchid rises to become Empress Cixi (Tzu Hsi) (1835-1908), mother of the last emperor of China. David Mitchell (1969-), Cloud Atlas; six different ages and voices, which double back in eternal recurrence; sells 400K copies. L.E. Modesitt Jr., Flash. Walter Moers, The 13-1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear. Elizabeth Moon, The Speed of Dark. Christopher Moore (1957-), The Stupidest Angel. Mary McGarry Morris (1943-), A Hole in the Universe; a man returns to his community after 25 years in priz. Sir John Mortimer (1923-2009), Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders. Walter Mosley (1952-), Little Scarlet; Easy Rawlins #9. Alice Munro (1931-), Runaway (short stories). V.S. Naipaul (1932-), Magic Seeds. Larry Niven (1938-), Ringworld's Children; Ringworld #4. Craig Nova, Cruisers. Irene Nemirovsky (-1942), Suite Francaise (posth.); sent to Auschwitz in 1942, her two young daughters (5 and 13) escape with her ms.? Joyce Carol Oates (1938-), The Falls. Patrick O'Brian (1914-2000), The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey (posth.); Aubrey-Maturin #21. Dan O'Brien, The Indian Agent. Simon J. Ortiz (1941-), The Good Rainbow Road: Rawa Kashtyaa'tsi Hiyaani (A Native American Tale in Keres). Tatum O'Neal, Paper Life. Cynthia Ozick (1928-), Heir to the Glimmering World (The Bear Boy). Orhan Pamuk, Snow. Robert Brown Parker (1932-2010), Double Play; Bad Business; Spenser #31; Melanchony Baby; Sunny Randall #4. T. Jefferson Parker (1953-), California Girl. James Patterson (1947-), London Bridges. Michael Pearce, A Dead Man in Trieste. Arturo Perez-Reverte, The Queen of the South. Harry Mark Petrakis (1923-), The Orchards of Ithaca. Arthur Phillips (1969-), The Egyptologist; steals plot from Nabokov's "Pale Fire"? Rex Pickett (1952-), Sideways. Jodi Picoult (1966-), My Sister's Keeper; one Fitzgerald sister is being used as a Frankenstein parts machine to keep another sister alive, and finally sues her parents for emancipation. Heidi Postlewait, Kenneth Cain, and Andrew Thompson, Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures; three young people joins the U.N. in Cambodia in the 1990s. Steven Pressfield (1943-), The Virtues of War; Alexander the Great. Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Brimstone. Annie Proulx (1935-), Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2. John Rechy (1934-), Beneath the Skin. Terry Reed, The Full Cleveland. Reggie Rivers, 4th and Fixed: When the Mob Tackles Football, It's No Longer Just a Game. Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram. Kim Stanley Robinson (1952-), Forty Signs of Rain; Science in the Capital #1. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (Pulitzer Prize). Philip Roth (1933-), The Plot Against America; the Nazis win WWII. Rafael Sabatini (1875-1950), The Treasure Ship (posth.). Jose Saramago (1922-2010), Seeing (Ensaio Sobre a Lucidez). Lisa Scottoline, Killer Smile. Jeffrey Shaara (1952-), To the Last Man; WWI. Sidney Sheldon (1917-2007), Are You Afraid of the Dark? Lucius Shepard, A Handbook of American Prayer. John Shors (1969-), Beneath a Marble Sky (first novel); narrator is 17th cent. Hindustani princess; "If you're not writing a Tom Clancy or Clive Cussler book, you'd better appeal to women if you want to write a novel". Anita Shreve (1946-), Light on Snow. Anne Rivers Siddons (1936-), Islands. Daniel Silva, A Death in Vienna. Alexander McCall Smith, The Sunday Philosophy Club; The Girl Who Married a Lion (Dec.). Martin Cruz Smith (1942-), Wolves Eat Dogs; Arkady Renko #5; detective Arkady Renko vs. the new Russian billionaires near Chernobyl. Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006), The Moon in Its Flights (short stories). Muriel Spark (1918-2006), The Finishing School. Danielle Steel (1947-), Ransom; Second Chance; Echoes. Neal Town Stephenson (1959-), The System of the World; part 3 of 3 in the Baroque Cycle. Charles Stross (1964-), Iron Sunrise; The Atrocity Archives; first in the Laundry Files, about British spy Bob Howard; The Family Trade; first in the Merchant Princes series. Brad Thor (1969-), State of the Union. Colm Toibin (1955-), The Master; Henry James. Lily Tuck, The News from Paraguay. Anne Tyler (1941-), The Amateur Marriage; it began in WWII and lasts for decades? John Updike (1932-2009), Villages. Vernor Vinge (1944-), The Cookie Monster. Helen Walsh, Brass. Jennifer Weiner, Little Earthquakes. Fay Weldon (1931-), Mantrapped. Andrew Norman Wilson (1950-), My Name is Legion. Tom Wolfe (1930-2018), I Am Charlotte Simmons; party school Dupont U.; gets a sales boost when Pres. George Dubya Bush recommends it. Births: Am. musician Grace Avery VanderWaal on Jan. 15 in Kansas City, Kan.; grows up in Suffern, N.Y. Am. 5'9-1/2" tennis player (black) Cori "Coco" Gauff on Mar. 13 in Atlanta, Ga. Deaths: Austrian actor Carl Esmond (b. 1902) on Dec. 4 in Brentwood, Calif. Am. poet Carl Rakosi (b. 1903) on June 25 in San Francisco, Calif.; last surviving member of the Objectivist poets. Am. physiologist Ancel Benjamin Keys (b. 1904) on Nov. 20 in Minneapolis, Minn. Italian film historian Joseph-Marie Lo Duca (b. 1905) on Aug. 6 in Samois-Sur-Seine (near Fontainebleu). Am. advertising exec Mac Dane (b. 1906) on Aug. 8 in New York City. Am. cosmetics queen Estee Lauder (b. 1906) on Apr. 24 in New York City. Am. GM CEO (1965-71) James M. Roche (b. 1906) on June 6 in Belleair, Fla. Am. astronomer Fred Lawrence Whipple (b. 1906) on Aug. 30. German photographer Walter Frentz (b. 1907) on July 6 in Uberlingen. Am. photographer Carl Mydans (b. 1907) on Aug. 16. Am. diplomat Paul Henry Nitze (b. 1907) on Oct. 19 in Washington, D.C. Am. musician Alvino Rey (b. 1907) on Feb. 2 in Salt Lake City, Utah (heart failure). Canadian "girl in King Kong" actress Fay Wray (b. 1907) on Aug. 8; on Aug. 10 the Empire State Bldg. turns off its lights for 15 min. in tribute. Am. architect Max Abramovitz (b. 1908) on Sept. 12 in Pound Ridge, N.Y. French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson (b. 1908) on Aug. 3 in Cereste. British-born Am. journalist Alistair Cooke (b. 1908) on Mar. 30 in New York City (cancer); his bones are illegally sold as medical bone grafts with the cancer certificate covered-up, after which N.J. surgeon Michael Mastromarino and Lee Cruceta are convicted and sentenced to 18-54 years each: "As I see it, in (America)... the race is on between the decadence and its vitality." Am. Tammany Hall Boss (last?) Carmine DeSapio (b. 1908) on July 27 in Manhattan, N.Y. English "The Far Pavilions" novelist Mary Margaret Kaye (b. 1908) on Jan. 29. French novelist Robert Merle (b. 1908) on Mar. 28 in Grosrouvre (near Paris) (heart attack). Austrian-born Am. music publisher Julian Aberbach (b. 1909) on May 17 in New York City (heart failure). Am. actress Frances Dee (b. 1909) on Mar. 6 in Norwalk, Conn. English ballerina Dame Alicia Markova (b. 1910) on Dec. 2 in Bath, Somerset (stroke). Am. "Brother Rat" actor-writer-dir. John Cherry Monks Jr. (b. 1910) on Dec. 10 in Pacific Palisades, Calif.: "Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse" (John Derek as Nick Romano in "Knock On Any Door", 1949). Am. philanthropist Laurance Spelman Rockefeller (b. 1910) on July 11 (pulmonary fibrosis). Am. jazz bandleader Artie Shaw (b. 1910) on Dec. 30 in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Am. economist Paul Sweezy (b. 1910) on Feb. 27; "the most noted American Marxist scholar [of the 20th cent.]" (John Kenneth Galbraith). Dutch prince consort (1948-80) Bernhard (b. 1911) on Dec. 1 in Utrecht. Am. "My Sister Eileen" playwright Jerome Chodorov (b. 1911) on Sept. 12 in Nyack, N.Y. Polish-born Am. writer Czeslaw Milosz (b. 1911) on Aug. 14 in Crakow; 1980 Nobel Lit. Prize. Am. Tang food chemist William A. Mitchell (b. 1911) on July 26 in Stockton, Calif. (heart failure). U.S. Repub. pres. #40 (1981-9) Ronald Reagan (b. 1911) on June 5 in Belvedere, Calif. (pneumonia and Alzheimer's); acted in 50+ films, but only once in a villain role: "Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book"; "You can tell a lot about a person's character by the way he eats jelly beans"; "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought"; "The West will not defeat Communism, it will transcend it"; "Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid"; "The most terrifying words in the English language are 'I work for the government and I'm here to help you'"; "No arsenal, no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women"; "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children what it was once like in the United States where men were free"; "How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin"; "I don't think you can overstate the importance that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism will have to the rest of the world in the century ahead - especially if, as seems possible, its most fanatical elements get their hands on nuclear and chemical weapons and the means to deliver them against their enemies." Am. "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" country singer Jerry Scoggins (b. 1911) on Dec. 7 in Westlake Village, Calif. Am. ed.-publisher Donald Allen (b. 1912) on Aug. 29 in San Francisco, Calif. English-born Am. chemist Herbert Charles Brown (b. 1912) on Dec. 19 in Lafayette, Ind.; 1979 Nobel Chem. Prize. Am. internat. French chef ("the first celebrity chef") Julia Child (b. 1912) in Aug. Am. children's writer Syd Hoff (b. 1912) on May 12. Canadian-Am. painter Agnes Martin (b. 1912) on Dec. 16. Am. historian John Toland (b. 1912) on Jan. 4 in Danbury, Conn. (pneumonia). Am. physicist Philip Hauge Abelson (b. 1913) on Aug. 1. Am. "Woody Woodpecker's laugh" singer Harry Babbitt (b. 1913) on Apr. 9 in Newport Beach, Calif. Am. "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" songwriter Donald Yetter Gardner (b. 1913) on Sept. 15 in Needham, Mass. Am. actress-swimmer Eleanor Holm (b. 1913) on Jan. 31 in Miami, Fla. (kidney failure). English actress Anna Lee (b. 1913) on May 14 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Am. historian Daniel Joseph Boorstin (b. 1914) on Feb. 28 in Washington, D.C. English historian Alan Bullock (b. 1914) on Feb. 2. Am. film producer Max J. Rosenberg (b. 1914) on June 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Inherit the Wind", "Auntie Mame" playwright Jerome Lawrence (b. 1915) on Feb. 29 in Malibu, Calif. (stroke). Am. architect Edward Larrabee Barnes (b. 1915) on Sept. 22 in Cupertino, Calif. Am. "Inherit the Wind" playwright Jerome Lawrence (b. 1915) on Feb. 29 in Malibu, Calif. Am. actor John Randolph (b. 1915) on Feb. 24 in Hollywood, Calif. Swedish biochemist Sune Karl Bergstrom (b. 1916) on Aug. 15; 1982 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. jazz pianist-songwriter Joe Bushkin (b. 1916) on Nov. 3; co-author with John DeVries of Frank Sinatra's first hit song "Oh! Look at Me Now". English molecular biologist Francis H.C. Crick (b. 1916) on July 28 in San Diego, Calif.; 1962 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. journalist J. Frank Diggs (b. 1916) on Jan. 26 in Arlington, Va. (pneumonia). Am. children's writer Bill Martin Jr. (b. 1916) on Aug. 11 in Commerce, Tx. Am. actress Mercedes McCambridge (b. 1916) on Mar. 2 in La Jolla, Calif. Kiwi molecular biologist Maurice H.F. Wilkins (b. 1916) on Oct. 5 in Blackheath, London; 1962 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. "Reveille With Beverly" radio host Jean Ruth Hay (b. 1917) on Sept. 18. English writer-politician Nigel Nicolson (b. 1917) on Sept. 23. English psychiatrist Humphry Fortescue Osmond (b. 1917) on Feb. 6. Am. "Louise Weezy Jefferson in The Jeffersons" actress Isabel Sanford (b. 1917) on July 9 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. publisher Roger Williams Straus Jr. (b. 1917) on May 25 in New York City (pneumonia). Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen (b. 1918) on Jan. 25 in Hoofddorp. Am. geneticist Edward B. Lewis (b. 1918) on July 21; 1995 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. entertainer Jack Paar (b. 1918) on Jan. 27 in Greenwich, Conn. Am. "Fail-Safe" writer John Harvey Wheeler (b. 1918) on Sept. 6 in Carpinteria, Calif. English X-ray computed tomography inventor Sir Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield (b. 1919) on Aug. 12; 1979 Nobel Medical Prize. German-born Am. actress Uta Hagen (b. 1919) on Jan. 14 in New York City. Am. "Showboat", "Clayton Farlow in Dallas" actor-singer Howard Keel (b. 1919). Canadian writer Pierre Berton (b. 1920) on Nov. 30 in Toronto, Ont. (heart failure). Irish Provisional IRA founder Joe Cahill (b. 1920) on July 23 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Austrian astrophysicist Thomas Gold (b. 1920) on June 22. English "Hotel", "Airport" novel Arthur Hailey (b. 1920) on Nov. 24; sold 170M copies. German-Australian photographer Helmut Newton (b. 1920) on Jan. 23 in West Hollywood, Calif. (automobile accident). Am. scientist Arthur Nobile (b. 1920) on Jan. 13. Canadian physicist Gilbert Norman Plass (b. 1920) on Mar. 1 in Bryan, Tex. Am. "Felix Unger in The Odd Couple" actor Tony Randall (b. 1920) on May 17 in New York City. English writer Jasper Ridley (b. 1920). Canadian Bank of Canada gov. (1973-87) Gerald Bouey (b. 1921). Am. "I don't get no respect" comedian Rodney Dangerfield (b. 1921) on Oct. 5 in Westwood, Calif.: "There goes the neighborhood" (tombstone). French-born Am. economist Gerard Debreu (b. 1921) on Dec. 31 in Paris; 1983 Nobel Econ. Prize. Am. poet Mona Van Duyn (b. 1921) on Dec. 2 in University City, Mo. (bone cancer). Indian PM #9 (1991-1) P.V. Narasimha Rao (b. 1921) on Dec. 23 in New Delhi. English "Spartacus" actor Sir Peter Ustinov (b. 1921) on Mar. 28 in Genolier, Vaud, Switzerland (heart failure): "World government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest, in its only sense, the patriotism of men who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good." Am. auto racer Rodger Ward (b. 1921) on July 5 in Anaheim, Calif. Am. "The Magnificent Seven" film composer Elmer Bernstein (b. 1922) on Aug. 18 in Ojai, Calif. (cancer). U.S. vice-adm. Samuel Lee Gravely Jr. (b. 1922) on Oct. 22 in Bethesda, Md. Am. writer Townsend Hoopes (b. 1922) on Sept. 20 (cancer). Am. jazz musician Illinois Jacquet (b. 1922) on July 22 in Queens, N.Y. (heart attack). Am. "The Death of a President" writer William Manchester (b. 1922) on June 1. Am. porno producer-dir. Russ Meyer (b. 1922) on Sept. 18 in Hollywood Hills, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. children's TV actor Ray Rayner (b. 1922) on Jan. 21 in Fort Myers, Fla. Am. photographer Richard Avedon (b. 1923) on Oct. 1 in San Antonio, Tex.: "I think charm is the ability to be truly interested in other people." Austrian-born Am. philosopher Paul Edwards (b. 1923) on Dec. 9 in New York City. Am. poet Anthony Hecht (b. 1923) on Oct. 20. Am. "Mr. K in Nissan ads" actor Dale Ishimoto (b. 1923) on Mar. 4. Am. actress-dancer Ann Miller (b. 1923) on Jan. 22 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Godfather" actor Marlon Brando (b. 1924) on July 1 in Los Angeles, Calif. (lung disease): "I have eyes like those of a dead pig"; "Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse"; "Acting is a bum's life. Quitting acting, that is the sign of maturity." Australian writer Janet Frame (b. 1924) on Jan. 29 in Dunedin. Romanian-born French "Twilight Zone Theme" composer Marius Constant (b. 1925) on May 15 in Paris. German-born Am. historian Karl Joachim Weintraub (b. 1924) on Mar. 25 in Chicago, Ill. Am. poet Donald Justice (b. 1925) on Aug. 6. Am. billionaire oil-entertainment mogul Marvin Davis (b. 1925) on Sept. 25 in Beverly Hills, Calif.; #30 on Forbes' list of the top 400 richest Americans. English "Guinness Book of Records" co-founder Norris McWhirter (b. 1925) on Apr. 19 in Wiltshire (heart attack). Mexican chemist Luis Miramontes (b. 1925) on Sept. 13 in Mexico City. English chemist Sir John Anthony Pople (b. 1925) on Mar. 15 in Chicago, Ill.; 1998 Nobel Chem. Prize. Swiss-born Am. "On Death and Dying" physician-writer Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (b. 1926) on Aug. 24 in Scottsdale, Ariz. English Shakespearean scholar Eric Sams (b. 1926) on Sept. 13 in London; leaves unfinished "The Real Shakespeare: Retrieving the Later Years, 1594-1616". U.S. Navy Capt. Lloyd M. Bucher (b. 1927) on Jan. 28 in San Diego, Calif. Am. astronaut Gordon Cooper (b. 1927) on Oct. 4. Am. jazz drummer Elvin Jones (b. 1927) on May 18 in Englewood, N.J. Am. "Captain Kangaroo" actor Bob Keeshan (b. 1927) on Jan. 24 in Windsor, Vt. Am. comedian Alan King (b. 1927) on May 9 in New York City. Am. "Psycho" actress Janet Leigh (b. 1927) on Oct. 3 in Beverly Hills, Calif.; she never took a shower again after that movie? English pharmacologist Sir John Robert Vane (b. 1927) on Nov. 19 in Kent; 1982 Nobel Medicine Prize. Am. bluegrass fiddler Vassar Clements (b. 1928) on Aug. 16. Am. "Cabaret" lyricist Fred Ebb (b. 1928) on Sept. 11 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. S.C. Johnson & Son pres. Samuel Curtis Johnson Jr. (b. 1928) on May 22 in Racine, Wisc. Am. philanthropist (McDonald's Restaurants heir) Joan Beverly Kroc (b. 1928) on Oct. 12 in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. (brain cancer); leaves $1.6B of her $2B fortune to her favorite charity the Salvation Army, and $225M to NPR - no wonder they don't want my old junk anymore? Am. "Ajax Man" actor Eugene Roche (b. 1928) on July 28 in Encino, Calif. (heart attack). Am. "Last Exit to Brooklyn" novelist Hubert Selby Jr. (b. 1928) on Apr. 26 in Los Angeles, Calif. (lung disease). Am. leftist activist Richard Barnet (b. 1929) on Dec. 23. Indian Kundalini Yoga guru Yogi Bhajan (b. 1929) on Oct. 6 in Espanola, N.M. Canadian historian Norman F. Cantor (b. 1929) on Sept. 18 in Miami, Fla. Am. "Sweet Charity" songwriter Cy Coleman (b. 1929) on Nov. 18 (heart failure). Am. "Star Trek", "The Omen" composer Jerry Goldsmith (b. 1929) on July 21 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (colon cancer). English-born Am. poet Thom Gunn (b. 1929) on Apr. 25 in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, Calif. (meth OD). Am. actor Ron Hayes (b. 1929) on Oct. 1 in Malibu, Calif. Am. economist (AIM founder) Reed Irvine (b. 1929) on Nov. 16. Am. psychiatrist John Edward Mack (b. 1929) on Sept. 27 in London, England (automobile accident). Am. photographer Francesco Scavullo (b. 1929). Egyptian-born Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (b. 1929) on Nov. 11 in Paris, France; leaves a $1B estate; 1994 Nobel Peace Prize; dies of AIDS caused by gay love affairs?; poisoned by the Israelis with polonium on his toothbrush? Am. "Georgia On My Mind" singer Ray Charles (b. 1930) on June 10 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (liver failure): "To me, it's the worst thing in the world" (deafness). French deconstructionist philosopher Jacques Derrida (b. 1930) on Oct. 8 in Paris (pancreatic cancer) - fatal deconstruction jokes here? Am. country singer Roy Drusky (b. 1930) on Sept. 23 in Nashville, Tenn. (lung cancer). Am. country musician Hank Garland (b. 1930) on Dec. 27 in Orange Park, Fla. German-born Austrian conductor Carlos Kleiber (b. 1930) on July 13. Israeli "Jerusalem of Gold" songwriter Naomi Shemer (b. 1930) on June 26 in Tel Aviv. Am. country singer Skeeter Davis (b. 1931) on Sept. 19 in Nashville, Tenn. Am. artist Tom Wesselmann (b. 1931) on Dec. 17. Am. actor John Drew Barrymore (b. 1932) on Nov. 29 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). Am. writer Douglas Day (b. 1932) on Oct. 10 in Charlottesville, Va. (suicide). Am. novelist Ronald Sukenick (b. 1932) on July 22. Am. photojournalist Eddie Adams (b. 1933) on Sept. 19 in New York City. Am. lyricist Fred Ebb (b. 1933) on Sept. 11 in New York City (heart attack). Am. writer-activist "zealot of seriousness", "besotted aesthete", "obsessed moralist" Susan Sontag (b. 1933) on Dec. 28 in New York City (acute myelogenous leukemia after a 30-year battle with cancer); called the white race "the cancer of human history" during the 1960s Vietnam War days. Am. "Singing the Blues" songwriter Melvin Endsley (b. 1934) on Aug. 16; wrote 400+ songs. Am. country singer Jimmy Lee Fautheree (b. 1934) on June 29 in Dallas, Tex. (cancer). English soccer player-mgr. Brian Clough (b. 1935) on Sept. 20 in Derby. Am. "Law and Order" actor Jerry Orbach (b. 1935) on Dec. 28 in New York City (testicular cancer). French novelist-playwright Francoise Sagan (b. 1935) on Sept. 24 in Honfleur, Calvados (pulmonary embolism): "A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off you"; "To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter"; "Are you joking? I believe in passing, nothing else. Two years, no more, alright, then, three" (when asked if she believed in love). Am. comedian Vaughn Meader (b. 1936) on Oct. 29 in Waterville, Maine. English historian Conrad Russell, 5th earl Rusell (b. 1937) on Oct. 14 in Park Royal, London (emphysema). Am. "Just One Look" R&B singer Doris Troy (b. 1937) on Feb. 16. Am. "Youngblood Priest in Super Fly" actor Ron O'Neal (b. 1937) on Jan. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pancreatic cancer). Am. "Jelly in Analyze That" actor Joe Viterelli (b. 1937) on Jan. 28 in Las Vegas, Nev. (heart operation). Norwegian billionaire Arne Naess Jr. (b. 1938) in Jan. in South Africa; dies in a fall while mountain climbing; husband of singer Diana Ross. Am. journalist Jack Newfield (b. 1938) on Dec. 20 (lung cancer). Am. "Jan and Dean" singer William Jan Berry (b. 1940) on Mar. 26. Soviet cosmonaut Gennady Strekalov (b. 1940) on Dec. 25 in Moscow. Am. "Lt. Ed Traxler in The Terminator" actor Paul Winfield (b. 1940) on Mar. 7 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. atty. Anne Gorsuch Burford (b. 1942) on July 18 in Aurora, Colo. (cancer). Am. music producer Terry Melcher (b. 1942) on Nov. 19 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (melanoma). Am. bluesman Son Seals (b. 1942) on Dec. 20 in Chicago, Ill. (diabetes). Am. baseball pitcher Tug McGraw Jr. (b. 1944) on Jan. 5 (brain tumor): "Ten million years from now, when the Sun burns out and the Earth is just a frozen snowball hurtling through space, nobody's going to care whether or not I got this guy out"; "I don't know, I never smoked AstroTurf" (asked whether he prefers it or real grass); "Ninety percent I'll spend on good times, women and Irish whiskey, the other ten percent I'll probably waste" (asked what he will do with his salary). Irish-born Iraqi aid worker Margaret Hassan (b. 1945) on Nov. 8 (murdered by ISIS). Am. astrologer Joyce Jillson (b. 1946) on Oct. 1 in Los Angeles, Calif. (kidney failure). Canadian rocker Bruce Palmer (b. 1946) on Oct. 1 in Belleville, Ont. (heart attack). British serial killer Harold Shipman (b. 1946) on Jan. 13 in HMS Prison Wakefield, West Yorkshire (suicide); hangs himself in his cell one day before his 58th birthday. French economist Jean-Jacques Laffont (b. 1947) on May 1 in Colomiers. English "The Woman in Black" playwright Stephen Mallatratt (b. 1947) on Nov. 22. Am. "Super Freak" singer Rick James (b. 1948) on Aug. 6 in Burbank, Calif. (heart attack not OD). Am. punk rocker Johnny Ramone (b. 1948) on Sept. 15 in Los Angeles, Calif. (prostate cancer). Palestinian terrorist Muhammad Zaidan (b. 1948) on Mar. 8; dies in U.S. custody after being captured in Iraq on Apr. 15, 2003. Chechen pres. #1 (2003-4) Akhmad Kadyrov (b. 1951) on May 9 in Grozny (assassinated). Am. "Gloria in Flashdance" singer Laura Branigan (b. 1952) on Aug. 26 in East Quogue, Long Island, N.Y. (brain aneurysm). Am. ping-pong player Glenn L. Cowan (b. 1952) on Apr. 6 (heart attack); Chinese table tennis champ Zhuang Zedong calls from Beijing to express sympathy, and visits the U.S. in 2007, meeting his mother and calling not seeing Cowan again the "regret of my life." Am. "Valerian in Dragonslayer" actress Caitlin Clarke (b. 1952) on Sept. 9 in Sewickley, Penn. (ovarian cancer). Am. "Superman" actor spinal chord and stem cell research activist Christopher Reeve (b. 1952) on Oct. 10; paralyzed from the neck down from a horseback riding accident in Culpeper, Va. in May 1995. English-born Canadian PowerBar inventor Brian Maxwell (b. 1953) on Mar. 19 in San Anselmo, Calif. (heart attack). Am. fashion designer Stephen Sprouse (b. 1953) on Mar. 4 in New York City. Swedish "Millennium Trilogy" novelist Stieg Larsson (b. 1954) on Nov. 9 in Stockholm (heart attack); after his trilogy is pub. posth., it sells 27M copies in 40+ countries by 2010, 65M by Dec. 2011, and 80M by 2015, becoming the first ebook with 1M Kindle downloads in 2010. Scottish New Wave guitarist John McGeoch (b. 1955) on Mar. 4. Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (b. 1957) on Nov. 2 in Amsterdam (murdered). Am. comedian Eric Douglas (b. 1958) on July 6 in New York City (OD). Am. "Woman at the Washington Zoo" Washington Post reporter-columnist Marjorie Williams (d. 1958) in Jan. (liver cancer): "We are hopelessly small to be trusted with the raising of people even smaller." Am. football player (#92 for the Green Bay Packers) Reggie White (b. 1961) on Dec. 26. Am. Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell Abbott (b. 1966) on Dec. 8 in Columbus, Ohio; murdered onstage by Nathan Gale while performing with Damageplan (mad that he left Pantera?). Am. Wu-Tang Clan rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard (b. 1968) on Nov. 13 in New York City (OD). Am. "Rape of Nanking" writer Irish Chang (b. 1968) on Nov. 9 in Los Gatos, Calif. (suicide). Am. drag racer Darrell Russell (b. 1968) on June 27 in Madison, Ill; dies of injuries at the Sears Craftsman Nationals.
2005 Doomsday Clock: 7 min. to midnight. Chinese Year: Rooster (Chicken) (Feb. 8) (lunar year 4702). Time Persons of the Year: The Good Samaritans (Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, and Bono). This is the U.N. Internat. Year of Microcredit. The U.N. Gen. Assembly adopts the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) Doctrine. Iraq surpasses Israel as the #1 annual recipient of U.S. foreign aid, followed by Egypt and Jordan, which receive aid on the condition that they maintain peaceful relations with Israel. Pop. of Mexico: 103.1M (about 1M a year increase since 2000); the U.S. Border Patrol catches 155K non-Mexican migrants along the 2K-mi. U.S.-Mexico border this year, incl. some from terrorist countries incl. Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan, up 5x in three years; 516 Mexican illegal die attempting to come across the border this year, up 40% from 2004; the U.S. has 55K centenarians. On top of regular immigration since the passing of the 1965 U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, a record 96K Muslims become permanent legal U.S. residents this year. As of this year the world consumes 84M barrels of oil a day, while oil fields produce 85M, leaving only 1M barrels of "excess capacity"; meanwhile China is motorizing at jet speed, causing a tug of war with the U.S., which consumes 25% of the world's energy with just 5% of the pop., and imports 10M barrels a day, half from OPEC (35% domestic, 11% Canada, 10% Mexico, 9% Saudi Arabia, 8% Venezuela, 7% Nigeria, 20% other); world reserves of oil total 1.1T barrels (.9T previously consumed), enough for 40 years. According to WHO, 1.6M people die each year as a result of violence; in Africa 609 per million people die a violent death; since 1990 human wars (incl. 55 civil wars) have claimed 3.6M lives, nearly half of them children. In Iraq this year 10,593 IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) detonate, causing 64% of all U.S. deaths; meanwhile the U.S. policy is to "de-weaken" the country so that they can eventually pull out. In the U.S. this year 51% of women claim to be living without a spouse, compared to 49% in 2000 and 35% in 1950; 47% of adults in their 30s and 40s have lived in a cohabiting relationship; 37% of U.S. births are out of wedlock, compared to 5.3% in 1960; meanwhile a Pew Research Study finds that 71% of people believe that having children out of wedlock is a "big problem" for the U.S., and 44% believe it is "always or almost always wrong" for unmarried women to have children. Between Feb. of this year and Oct. 2006 more than 93M data records of Americans are exposed to breaches of security. The U.S. has a negative savings rate this year for the first time since 1933. Over 17.5K are trafficked into the U.S. this year, one-third from Mexico for slave labor, incl. sexual exploitation; over 2M children worldwide are employed in the sex industry; human trafficking worldwide is a $6B-$9B industry. Kentucky leads the U.S. with the highest percentage (28%) of smokers as its leaders try to change the state economy's "Three B's" (Bourbon, Building and 'bacco) to about anything else. Since 1970 20M legal Islamic immigrants have come to Europe, equaling the combined pops. of Ireland, Denmark, and Belgium? Horn of Africa pirates begin raking in $50M a year (until ?), using it to finance global criminal operations. Between this year and 2009 the U.S. Dept. holds $880M worth of contracts with seven internat. corps. that do significant business with Iran in the oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors. After 14 consecutive years of double-digit increases in its military budget, China has the 2nd biggest in the world ($65B), with 2.5M soldiers; it targets 600 missiles at Taiwan, adding 75 more each year. China shows how Big Brother and the Internet can coexist? After investing $138B in infrastructure over five years, China now has 94M Internet users, compared to 24M for India; online revenue is $1.1B, compared to $93M for India; in Aug. Yahoo.com pays $1B for a 40% stake in Alibaba.com, China's biggest online commerce firm; in 2003 it invested $120M in a Chinese search engine, and in 2004 bought a controlling stake in online auction site 1pai.com.cn; Chinese web sites are prohibited from containing content that "divulges state secrets, subverts the govt. or undermines national unity", and in 1997 this was announced to incl. "feudalistic" and "supersitious" content, incl. astrology, fortune-telling and numerology; there are Internet police depts. in over 700 cities and provinces; Microsoft Corp. draws criticism for implementing software for China which kow-tows to these demands, warning bloggers not to use words like "democracy", "freedom", "liberty", "demonstration", "separatism", "capitalism", "human rights"; China also bans Wikipedia, the 2.3M article 100-language free online user-supported hit-miss encyclopedia. This year 73M people in the U.S. receive "phishing" emails, looking for dupes to visit their fake web sites and give them personal info. so they can steal from them - the first pure Internet crime not imported from the non-Internet world? U.S. workers waste 551K years of time reading blogs as 35M people (one in four of the work force) visit blogs, averaging 3.5 hours per week. Text messaging reaches 1M a day avg. worldwide; short message service (SMS) allows ads to intrude; Islamic countries allows a man to divorce his wife by sending the message "I divorce you" three times by SMS - I ain't no hollaback girl? The U.S. drug industry hooks millions on its pills and potions, spending an average of $663K a day advertising Nexium (heartburn), $586K for Crestol (cholesterol), $447K for Cialis (erectile dysfunction), $405K for Levitra (ED), $340K for Zelnorm (irritable bowel), $334K for Prevacid (heartburn), $320K for Flonase (nasal allergies), and $312K for Celebrex (arthritis). Latin America replaces Asia as the source for most of the heroin seized in the U.S.; in 1989 Asia accounted for 96%, but this year only 10%, with Colombia alone accounting for 60%. The school pop. in America reaches 49.6M children, finally breaking the 1970 record of 48.7M set by the baby boomer generation. In the U.S. 50.3% of all business mgrs. and profs. are female, but comprise less than 2% of Fortune 1000 CEOs and 7.9% of Fortune 500 top earners. U.S. traffic deaths of 43,443 (1.47 deaths per 100M mi. traveled) are the highest since 1990; 2.7M are injured in crashes, and 4,675 pedestrians die, plus 3,374 drivers between ages 16-20. On Jan. 1 Michigan defeats Texas by 38-37 to win the 2005 Rose Bowl. On Jan. 1 at 0:00:00 the Turkish govt. drops six zeroes from its nat. currency, a result of decades of double-digit inflation that inflated its lira from 2.8 to the U.S dollar in the 1950s to 1.35M, made possible by recent stunning economic progress. On Jan. 1 a prison riot at Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, N.J. by the Bloods street gang begins after guards confiscate contraband chicken from convicted 25-y.-o. drug dealer Omar McCray, and he yells, "Bloods out, rat-a-tat, Bloods out". On Jan. 2 sports figures Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova, NFL teams and others join in assisting the relief mission for the tsunami in S Asia; on Jan. 3 Pres. Bush taps his daddy and former pres. Clinton to help. On Jan. 3 Medium debuts on NBC-TV for 130 episodes (until Jan. 21, 2011), moving to CBS-TV on Sept. 25, 2009, based on real-life medium Allison DuBois (1972) starring Patricia Arquette as medium Allison DuBois of Phoenix, Ariz., who works with the DA; all three of her daughters have her gift. On Jan. 4 the pro-U.S. gov. of the Baghdad region is assassinated with six bodyguards as he drives to work - great start defensively for the Trojans as they start the second half? On Jan. 4 half-white half-black Barack (Arab. "blessed") Hussein (Arab. "handsome") Obama (Kenyan "crooked") II (1961-) becomes U.S. Dem. Sen. for Ill. (until ?), beginning a meteoric rise in U.S. politics. On Jan. 5 China's pop. officially reaches 1.3B. On Jan. 5 Pres. Bush opens a new push for caps on medical malpractice awards - contending that his owner-trainers tell him what to do? On Jan. 5 Am. paleontologist Charles Repenning (b. 1922) is found dead in his home in Lakewood, Colo. (first to find dino bones on the North Slope of Alaska), killed by meth-addict burglars Richard James Kasparson (1970-) and Michael Wessel, who had been hired by Nicholas Savajian, a remodeler who had been invited into Repenning's home and saw all the neat fossils and other artifacts it contained; both are later sentenced to life in priz with no meth. On Jan. 5 CNN Pres. Jonathan Klein describes CNN's coverage of the tsunami, saying "We were able to flood the zone immediately." On Jan. 6 Nelson Mandela announces that his 54-y.-o. son Makgatho died of AIDS that morning. On Jan. 6 the Internat. Summit on Tsunami Relief convenes in Jakarta. On Jan. 6 a roadside bomb strikes a Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Bag Ur Dad (Baghdad), killing seven U.S. soldiers, and showing that the insurgents can make big enough bombs to penetrate their best armor - I don't know why you say goodbye I say boom? On Jan. 6 a freight train slams into a parked train in Graniteville, S.C., rupturing a chlorine tank, and the gas kills nine and injures 234. On Jan. 7 super-intense rainstorms begin drenching the Pacific coast of Southern Calif., dumping a whole year's worth of rain (20+ in.) and causing mudslides and deaths as the old song lyrics "it never rains in Southern California" are played by radio stations; the Sierra Nevadas get 19 ft. of snow at elevations above 7K feet from Dec. 28-Jan. 9, the most since 1916; storms also cause flooding in Ariz., avalanches in Utah, and ice damage and flooding in the Ohio Valley; MF believers increase their volume of warnings of an approaching Armageddon? On Jan. 7 Hollywood dream couple (since July 29, 2000) Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston announce their separation, and in Mar. Aniston files for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences; in an Aug. interview for Vanity Fair she denies that the breakup is due to her not wanting children, saying "I did and I do and I will", attributing it instead to "when you stop growing together, that's when the problems happen"; she says "I was shocked" at published pictures of Pitt with actress Angelina Jolie and her 3-y.-o. son Maddox on a beach in Africa while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith; on Dec. 2 the acting team of Brad Pitt (1963-) and Angelina Jolie (1975-) confirm rumors of having a serious affair since the filming of Mr. and Mrs. Smith when they file a legal petition in Los Angeles to change the names of Jolie's children Maddox (b. 2002) (adopted from Cambodia) and Zahara (b. 2005) (adopted from Ethiopia) to Jolie-Pitt, causing their acting duo to be called "Brangelina" (Bradgelina); she later claims that she refused to "be intimate" with him until he got a divorce, then has his baby Shiloh in May, 2007; in Mar. 2007 she adopts Pax Thien (b. 2004) in Vietnam. On Jan. 8 a roadside bomb goes off under a U.S. convoy at night near a police checkpoint in Yussifiyah (9 mi. S of Baghdad), causing the troops to open fire; two police officers and three civilians are killed; earlier that day, at 2 a.m. the U.S. drops a 500-lb. bomb on the wrong house during a search for terror suspects in Aitha, 30 mi. S of Mosul, killing seven adults and seven children; another U.S. soldier assigned to Task Force Baghdad is killed in a roadside bomb; Samarra's deputy police chief Col. Mohammed Mudhafir is shot by insurgents as he drives alone; an accidental explosion kills seven Ukrainian soldiers and one from Kazakhstan at an ammo dump 6 mi. S of Suwaira about noon. On Jan. 9 Mahmoud Abbas (1935-) is elected pres. of the Palestinian Authority, winning 65% of the vote in a field of seven candidates, and taking office on Jan. 15 (until ?); his avowed goals are a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, and the right of return for displaced Palestinians. On Jan. 9 Britain's Prince Harry (1984) wears a Nazi uniform to a costume party, a photo of which is featured on the front page of the Jan. 12 ed. of The Sun with the title "Harry the Nazi", bringing a public apology and cries from the Simon Wiesenthal Center for him to go to Auschwitz to atone. On Jan. 10 PM Ariel Sharon's new govt. takes office after a close (58-56) parliamentary vote, giving him a cabinet majority for his plan to remove all 21 settlements from the Gaza Strip and four from the West Bank (8.5K Israelis total) starting in July. On Jan. 10 CBS issues the thick Rathergate Report after an internal review, accusing three news execs and producer Mary Mapes of 60 Minutes II of "myopic zeal", and firing them or asking them to resign; CBS News Pres. Andrew Heyward and Dan Rather escape punishment, although the latter is criticized by CBS Chief Exec. Leslie Moonves for "errors of credulity and over-enthusiasm"; the name of the disgraced show is changed to 60 Minutes Wednesday, as the mother show begins its 38th season on Sun. Jan. 16, and last airs on Sept. 2. On Jan. 10 Pope John Paul II puts lobbying against same-sex marriage at the top of the Vatican's agenda for the year; also on the anti-list are abortion, cloning, assisted procreation, and embryonic stem cell use. On Jan. 10 a roadside bomb destroys an armored Bradley Fighting Vehicle in Baghdad, killing two U.S. soldiers and wounding four more (the second such attack in a week); hours earlier gunmen in a passing car assassinate Baghdad's deputy police chief and his son while they drive to work; a suicide bomber blows up a fake police car at a Baghdad police station, killing four officers and wounding ten more; afterwards, two rockets tear a hole in a family home nearby, injuring two; a roadside bombing kills three Iraqi Nat. Guard soldiers and wounds six during a joint patrol with U.S. troops in Mosul; the insurgents give notice that they will station snipers to stalk voters outside polling places during the Jan. 30 elections. On Jan. 10 a U.S. SH-60 Seahawk heli on a relief operation hard-lands in a rice paddy near the Banda Aceh airport, injuring all 10 U.S. servicemen aboard. On Jan. 10 Air Force officials announce that Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Fiscus, Judge Advocate Gen. of the Air Force from Feb. 2002-Sept. 2004 will be retired at the rank of col. after being dismissed for engaging in "unprofessional relationships" with female subordinates - he didn't pay them union scale for beejays and hand jobs? On Jan. 11 Pres. Bush nominates federal judge Michael B. Chertoff (1953-) (co-writer of the U.S. Patriot Act) (his mother Livia Eisen was an El Al air hostess with alleged links to the Mossad) as U.S. homeland security secy. #2 (until Jan. 21, 2009), replacing Tom Ridge, who steps down on Feb. 1; Ridge had been subject to news coverage of his ritzy fun-filled junkets at taxpayer expense to Hawaii supposedly for official govt. business. On Jan. 12 French justice minister Dominique Perben asks the Paris prosecutor's office to prosecute anti-immigration Nat. Front Party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen for making a remark to the weekly pub. Rivarol that "the German occupation was not that inhumane, even if there were a number of excesses" - book him, life without parole? On Jan. 12 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 5-4 in U.S. v. Booker to strike down the federal mandatory sentencing guidelines, making them advisory only. On Jan. 12 the NASA Deep Impact spacecraft (built by Ball Aerospace of Boulder, Colo.) blasts off on a mission to smash a hole in a comet to investigate its contents; on July 3 at 10:57 p.m. PDT its 820-lb. cooper-fortified "impactor" smashes into icy Comet Tempel 1; later Russian astrologer Marina Bai (1965-) sues NASA for $300M for interfering with her horoscopes by "ruining the natural balance of forces in the Universe"; her case is thrown out of court then reinstated, and ends in ? - and ice cream truck drivers everywhere do what? On Jan. 13 a federal judge in Atlanta, Ga. orders a suburban Atlanta school system to remove stickers from its h.s. biology textbooks that call evolution "a theory, not a fact", and carry a legend that they are "approved by Cobb County Board of Education, Thusday, Mar. 28, 2002." On Jan. 13 a large scale Palestinian attack kills six Israeli civilians at a Gaza crossing point, causing Israeli PM Ariel Sharon on Jan. 14 to suspend all contacts with the Palestinian leadership until they halt militant attacks. On Jan. 13 (night) 28 Iraqi POWs escape en route from the Abu Ghraib Prison to another facility; meanwhile the U.S. Nat. Intelligence Council releases a report saying that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next gen. of "professionalized" terrorists. On Jan. 14 an Iraqi military bus is rocketed by insurgents W of Baghdad; a large U.S.-Iraqi force descends on Av Gani, Iraq looking for insurgents, an Iraqi bus collides with a U.S. tank, killing six bus passengers and injuring eight. On Jan. 14 a U.S. military judge convicts SSgt. Jonathan J. Alban-Cardenas of murder for the mercy-killing of a 16-y.-o. Iraqi, sentencing him to one year in prison. On Jan. 14 Alberta PM Ralph Klein utters the soundbyte: "You would have to eat 10 billion meals of brains, spinal cords, ganglia, eyeballs and tonsils to get the [mad cow] disease" - since I got in the loop, everyone can eat my guts? On Jan. 15 PLO chmn. Mahmoud Abbas is sworn-in as pres. of the Palestinian Authority, and armed Palestinian factions swear to press ahead with attacks, but the PLO calls for an end to them; Abbas utters the soundbyte: "We are telling the entire world, today Gaza and tomorrow Jerusalem"; despite this Hamas renews rocket and mortar fire against Jewish settlers in Gaza on Jan. 16; on Jan. 16 Sharon warns Palestinian PM Ahmed Qureia that he has given the army orders to act "without restrictions" against any acts of Palestinian terrorism; the latter responds with a statement demanding a halt to "all military acts that harm our national interests and provide excuses to Israel". On Jan. 15 Richard Armitage, a deputy of U.S. state secy. Colin Powell reveals that he and Powell sometimes used the "bully pulpit" and went public with dissenting views to try to influence the less-moderate Bush admin. on policy issues. On Jan. 16 the U.S. frees 81 detainees in Afghanistan ahead of the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha. On Jan. 16 the Golden Globe Awards are held in Hollywood; The Aviator wins for best dramatic film, Sideways for best comedy film. On Jan. 16 66-y.-o. Adriana Iliescu (1938-) gives birth to 3.19 lb. Eliza Maria in Bucharest, Romania, becoming the oldest recorded woman to give birth; a twin sister is stillborn. On Jan. 17 former Chinese PM Zhao Ziyang (b. 1920) dies; he had been under house arrest since being toppled in a power struggle following the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. On Jan. 17 Iraqi expatriates in 14 countries begin registering to vote in Iraq's Jan. 30 elections. On Jan. 17 Sunni insurgents seeking to derail the election kidnap Syrian Catholic archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa (1938-) in Mosul, and 20+ people in a series of brazen assaults in the flashpoint region N and W of Baghdad. On Jan. 18 the 1.2M lb. Airbus A380 superjumbo jet (30% bigger than a 747) is unveiled in Toulouse, France, making its first flight on Apr. 27; it has a record passenger cap. of 800, and 149 have already been ordered; on Oct. 25 the first airline to fly is Singapore Airlines; it is tested with passengers in Mar. 2007, and has 156 standing orders, none from U.S. carriers. On Jan. 18 the Michael Jackson Trial People of the State of Calif. v. Michael Joseph Jackson for molesting 13-y.-o. Gavin Arvizo begins as he is arraigned in Santa Maria, Calif., then goes outside and wows fans with an electrifying dance atop his black SUV; on Jan. 31 jury selection begins; on Feb. 23 a jury is selected; on Feb. 28 opening statements are made; the trial becomes the most publicized in history (until ?). On Jan. 19 Iraqi insurgents set off five car bombs across Baghdad (the first four within a 90 min. span), killing at least a dozen; the first is at 7 a.m. in the Australian embassy, followed a half hour later by one at a police station, then one at a military recruiting center; the 4th is at the Baghdad Int. Airport, and the fifth explodes around noon near a Shiite mosque and bank in the northern part of the city; insurgents in a car also fire on an office of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, killing one member. On Jan. 19 the Am. Cancer Society's annual statistical report notes that cancer has surpassed heart disease as the top killer of Americans younger than 85 (476,009 from cancer in 2002 vs. 450,637 from heart disease). On Jan. 19 21-y.-o. homeless Mexican man Francisco Serrano (1983-) is arrested 2x at Apple Valley High School, his alma mater where he had been posing as a student for three weeks, sitting in on classes, showering in the locker room, and sleeping in the theater - they did a good job preparing him for his life work? On Jan. 19 under pressure from the U.S. and others, Israeli PM Ariel Sharon approves a "security meeting" with field cmdrs. which prevents a large-scale Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. On Jan. 19 in Tampa, Fla. U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. issues the first-ever ruling upholding the federal law letting states ban same-sex marriages, dismissing a lawsuit by two women seeking to have their Mass. marriage recognized in Fla. - well blow me down? On Jan. 19 Pres. Bush pledges to seek unity in a divided U.S., saying, "I am eager and ready for the work ahead" - how about capable? On Jan. 20 U.S. pres. #43 George W. Bush is inaugurated for a 2nd term in the 64th U.S. Pres. Inauguration (the 16th 2-term pres.), with Richard Cheney continuing as the 46th vice-pres.; corporate America donates $40M to the inauguration fund; Washington Post columnist and CFR senior fellow Michael John Gerson (1964-) writes Bush's idealistic 1.8K-word inaugural speech, containing the soundbyte: "We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world"; Margaret Spellings (1957-) becomes U.S. education secy., and later in Jan. writes a letter to the head of PBS-TV complaining about an episode of Postcards from Buster about a lesbian couple; on Oct. 8, 2006 she appears on Celebrity Jeopardy!, getting eaten, er, whipped, er, beaten bigtime by Michael McKean, who played Lenny on "Laverne and Shirley". Colorado's political regime stinks itself up trying to get around academic freedom in a public university, a good argument for private universities? On Jan. 21 Ian Mandel (1984-), a junior at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. pub. an article in the college newspaper "The Spectator", setting off a chain reaction over the un-PC views of super-popular U. of Colo. (Boulder) ethics studies PhD-less Urbana, Ill.-born prof. Ward LeRoy Churchill (1947-), who rose from an admin. asst. position with the Am. Indian Equal Opportunities Program in 1978 to full prof. in 1997 and chmn. of the ethnic studies dept. in 2002 ($100K a year), and pub. an article written on Sept. 12, 2001 titled Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, comparing the Twin Tower victims of the 9/11 attack to Nazis and "little Eichmanns", saying they are just "technocrats" getting deserved payback from victims of prior U.S. misdeeds in the Middle East; on Feb. 1 he resigns as chmn. amid angry outcries by Student Repub. protesters and Colo. politicians, incl. the infamous C.U. Board of Regents, and Gov. Bill Owens (a Texan) stinks himself up by calling for his removal, claiming that as a public official supported by public funds they have a right to control his public speech, like any govt. bureaucrat that has no freedom to speak out against the regime, then calling CU pres. Betsy Hoffman and threatening to cut off state funds if they don't fire him; Churchill threatens to sue if he's fired, saying "I don't work for Governor Bill Owens", but for the students, and has tenure and the right to academic freedom, but that doesn't stop the regents, the Rocky Mt. Roman Emperors, enjoying a unique position in the state constitution as an independent state arm equal to the legislature (big mistake), and not stymied by the law being on Churchill's side they declare all-out war on him, all at taxpayer expense, immediately switching to an attack on his years-old claim to be a member of the Keetowah Cherokee tribe in Okla., claiming that this mostly white prof. without a doctorate lied to get affirmative action preference in hiring; after that doesn't work, they spend years having academic committees go through every word of his massive published output, adding a blizzard of petty allegations of plagiarism and copyright violations like any author might have let slip in, and which should have been brought to his attention incrementally not all at once, then appointing a 5-person committee chaired by law prof. Marianne "Mimi" Wesson to rubber-stamp their prior decision to 'get' him by making it look like due process, and on May 9, 2006 it finds him guilty on all seven "counts", incl. pub. an unsupported footnote claiming that Capt. John Smith had tried to spread smallpox to the Indians, and plagiarism for plagiarising himself because he ghost-wrote a paper under an alias, although only one of the members recommends that he be fired, causing him to call it "a travesty" and threaten a lawsuit, while his enemies, incl. loser Denver newspaper Rocky Mountain News (closes 2009) (known for supporting Col. Chivington in the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, and personally pissing-off TLW by refusing to print his letters to the editor since the 1970s) jump at the chance to call for him to "never teach again"; sho' 'nuff, on July 24, 2007 after the regents fire him rather than put him on probation or suspend him for awhile, calling any attempt to sue them on First Amendment grounds "frivolous", which doesn't stop him, and on Apr. 2, 2009 after a 6-week trial a jury finds in his favor, awarding him $1 in damages, and in July 2009 a district court judge vacates the award and denies his request to order his reinstatement because CU is an arm of the Colo. govt. itself and has "quasi-judicial immunity"; on Apr. 1, 2013 after the Colo. Supreme court rubberstamps the decision, the U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear the case - moral: CU is a party school and a joke hiding behind govt. immunity, and should be closed? On Jan. 23 a bug is found outside actress Nicole Kidman's home in Sydney, Australia, causing paparazzo Jamie Fawcett to be suspected and ordered by a judge on Apr. 6 to provide a DNA sample. On Jan. 23 Viktor (Victor) Andriyovich Yushchenko (1954-) is sworn-in as pres. #3 of Ukraine (until Feb. 25, 2010). On Jan. 23 charges against Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (1952-) are dropped after the EU objects; he had been charged in 2004 in Istanbul with "insulting Turkish identity" for speaking in a newspaper interview about the 1915 million-man Armenian massacre and the 1980 30K-man Kurdish massacre by Turks; on Oct. 12, 2006 he wins the Nobel Lit. Prize. On Jan. 23 Numbers (NUMB3RS) debuts on CBS-TV for 118 episodes (until Mar. 12, 2010), starring Robert Alan "Rob" Morrow (1962-) as FBI Special Agent Don Eppes, and David Krumholtz (1978-) as his math whiz brother Prof. Charlie Eppes, who solve crimes in LA mathematically with their father Alan Eppes, played by Judd Seymore Hirsch (1935-). On Jan. 24 Iraqi authorities announce that Sami Mohammed Ali Said al-Jaaf (AKA Abu Omar al-Kurdi), an al-Qaida lt. arrested on Jan. 15 in Baghdad "confessed to building approximately 75% of the car bombs used in attacks in Baghdad" during the war (32 car bombings). On Jan. 24 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Cour rules 8-0-1 in Commissioner v. Banks that a taxpayer's settlement is income, even the contingency fee he pays his atty., except for in employment cases, which are exempted by the 2004 U.S. Am. Jobs Creation Act; Rehnquist recused himself. A vacant adult gives millions a magic moment with the Void? On Jan. 24 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court clears the way for the plug to be pulled on brain-damaged 41-y.-o. Theresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo (Schindler) (b. 1963), who has been kept on life support in Fla. since potassium deficiency and an eating disorder induced a heart attack on Feb. 25 1990, interrupting oxygen flow to her brain for 5 min. and leaving her in a persistent vegetative state (she can open her eyes, but can't think, and depends on a feeding tube); after years of fruitless therapies, her hubby Michael decides to have her feeding tube removed, but her parents Robert and Mary Schindler don't, and they begin a court battle; Repub. Gov. Jeb Bush successfully lobbies the Fla. legislature to pass a law to keep her alive; when the U.S. Supreme Court again clears the way, her feeding tube is pulled on Mar. 18 in her hospice in Pinellas Park; on Mar. 21 the U.S. House by 203-58 passes an emergency law throwing her case into Fla. District Court, which sides with her hubby against her parents; on Mar. 22 Terri's parents beg a federal appeals court to order her feeding tube reinserted; the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to intervene in the case for the 6th time on Mar. 30 at 10:40 p.m., less than 2 hours after the request is filed; she dies on Mar. 31 at 9:05 a.m. amid a throng of protesters; House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) asks the House Judiciary Committee to examine the case and make recommendations on how to address a politicized "arrogant, out-of-control" federal judiciary, that he says will have to answer for its actions; on Apr. 13 he apologizes for his remarks, calling them "inartful" (he is a marked man now?); on June 15 an autopsy is released backing Michael's contention that she was in a persistent vegetative state. On Jan. 25 a video shows U.S. contractor Roy Hallums (1948-), who was kidnapped in Baghdad the previous Nov. 1 by Iraqi hoodlums looking for ransom pleading for his life; his ex-wife Susan gets Moammar Gadhafi to make a public appeal for his release; he is rescued by coalition troops on Sept. 7. On Jan. 26 a U.S. CH-53E Sea Stallion transport heli crashes in a desert sandstorm in early morning darkness in W Iraq, killing all 30 U.S. Marines and one Navy medic aboard; they had been on a security mission in support of the upcoming election; hours after the crash, Pres. Bush holds the first news conference of his 2nd term (18th overall), pleading for Americans' patience in Iraq, urging Iraqis to defy terrorist threats and vote, and declaring "I firmly planted the flag of liberty" (at a cost to U.S. taxpayers of $1B a week?); later in the day insurgents set off eight car bombs which kill 13 and injure 40, incl. 11 Americans, and carry out a string of attacks on schools slated to be used as election centers; the U.S. death toll for the Iraqi war exceeds 1,400. On Jan. 26 (6:03 a.m. PST) Juan Manuel Alvarez (1978-) leaves his gasoline-soaked SUV on some railroad tracks in Glendale, Calif., at the outskirts of Los Angeles, causing a commuter train to smash into it, derail, and crash into an oncoming train, killing 11 and injuring 177; in Aug. 2008 he is sentenced to 11 consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole - guess why I did it? On Jan. 26 Birmingham, Ala.-born Repub. Condoleezza Rice (1954-) (sounds like a soul food recipe?) is sworn-in as U.S. secy. of state #66 (until Jan. 20, 2009) after the Senate confirms her by a 85-13 vote (2nd woman and first black woman to have the job); 2nd secy. of state to never be married (James Buchanan); 12 of 44 Dems. and one Independent vote not to confirm her, the highest number of votes against a SOS nominee since Henry Clay in 1825; the last nominee to receive any no votes was Alexander Haig in 1981; on Jan. 26 U.S. deputy nat. security advisor (since 2001) Stephen John Hadley (1947-) succeeds her as nat. security adviser #21 (until Jan. 20, 2009); U.S. EPA secy. (since 2003) Mike Leavitt becomes U.S. Health and Human Services secy. #8 (until Jan. 20, 2009). On Jan. 26 hip-hop label Murder Inc. founder Irving "Irv Gotti" Lorenzo (1970-) and his brother Chris are charged with laundering $1M+ in drug profits from Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff's multistate crack and heroin operation; the label's superstar artists Ja Rule (Jeff Atkins) and Ashanti are not charged. On Jan. 29 a court in Saudi Arabia rules that the value of a woman's life is equal that of one man's leg as far as blood money is concerned. On Jan. 30 (Sun.) the first Iraqi parliamentary elections in half a cent. are held in U.S.-occupied Iraq (150K troops) under heavy security from spoilsport insurgents, who kill at least 40 with suicide bombers, and shoot down a British military transport plane, killing 10 as Pres. Bush calls the balloting a resounding success; the majority Sunnis are victorious (only 10% of the Shiites vote); on Jan. 31 spoilsport al-Qaida issues a message promising to "destroy the American game of democracy" in Iraq through holy war - stick with what works? On Jan. 31 the Vatican announces that Pope John Paul II has a mild case of flu, forcing cancellation of appearances; on Feb. 1 he is rushed to the hospital after upper respiratory problems and larynx spasms cause breathing difficulties; on Feb. 9 he misses the Ash Wed. ceremony for the first time, allowing Am. Cardinal J. Francis Stafford (b. 1832) to preside in his place; he leaves the hospital in the evening of Feb. 10 in his white popemobile, makes a 30 min. public appearance on Feb. 23, but is rushed back by ambulance on Feb. 24 for an emergency tracheotomy to relieve more flu-like symptoms; he then makes a surprise public appearance on Sun. Feb. 27 from his hospital window; on Mar. 13 he returns to his Vatican apt. overlooking St. Peter's Square; on Mar. 20 he misses his first Palm Sunday Mass in his 26 years as pope, appearing only briefly on his 3rd-story balcony, appearing frustrated; on Mar. 27 he delivers an Easter Sunday blessing in St. Peter's Square, but is unable to speak and makes the sign of the cross. In Jan. the Comprehensive Peace Agreement is signed by the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and the genocide-loving Islamist Nat. Congress Party, calling for a secession referendum for non-Islamic South Sudan by 2011; on July 9 SPLM rebel leader John Garang de Mabior (1945-2005) is inaugurated into a nat. unity govt. as vice-pres. #1 of Sudan, looking to form a cabinet by Aug. 9; too bad, 3 weeks later on July 30 he dies along with 13 others in a heli crash into a mountain in S Sudan in bad weather, causing supporters, suspecting a govt. plot to riot in Khartoum on Aug. 1, killing 36; the SPLM quickly quashes the rumors and names Garang's deputy Salva Kiir Mayardit (1951-) as its head as well as pres. of South Sudan, and new Sudan vice-pres.; meanwhile Omar al-Bashir's troops still occupy the south. Here cums da judge? Oklahoma shows the power of Christianity to make public exposure of Dick Almighty a crime? In Jan. indecent exposure charges are filed against 58-y.-o. ex-judge Donald D. Thompson (1947-) of Oklahoma City for using a sexual device (a white-handled penis pump) to masturbate under his robe in court during trials, causing him to become known as the "Penis Pump Judge"; he retired in Aug. 2004 after 23 years on the bench after being threatened with removal; his trial in June-Aug. 2006 results in a 4-year sentence, despite claiming the pump was a gag gift and he never used it after court reporter Lisa Foster testifies she saw him expose himself in court at least 15x between 2001-3 - and kept her mouth shut? In Jan. the Jewish Sanhedrin (70 rabbis) in Tiberias, Israel meets for the first time since 475 C.E.; meanwhile the Cohen Modal Haplotype is discovered, permitting Jews qualified to act as priests to be ID'd, causing Rabbi Yisrael Ariel et al. to go ahead with extensive plans for rebuilding the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem - when/if I can only imagine? In Jan. gay fashion reporter Steven "Cojo" Cojocaru (1962-) has a kidney transplant, only to be unceremoniously fired by NBC-TV when he arranges to go on the Oprah Winfrey show to talk about it; when he does go on that show in Apr., he says "I thought I was cynical - like L.A., New York cynical - but I found out I'm Pippi Longstocking". In Jan. the Muslim hajj in Saudi Arabia sees a record 2.56M people. On Feb. 2 Pres. Bush delivers his 2005 State of the Union Address, with vice-pres. Dick Cheney looking on as usual, acting oblivious to setbacks in Iraq and uttering the soundbyte: "Right now, Americans in uniform are serving at posts across the world, often taking great risks on my orders." On Feb. 3 San Antonio, Tex.-born, Humble, Tex.-raised, Harvard-educated Roman Catholic Alberto R. Gonzales (1955-), former head of the White House counsel's office is sworn-in as U.S. atty.-gen. #80 (until Sept. 17, 2007); although declaring his independence from Pres. Bush, he names three attys. from that office as his top aides - just wait? On Feb. 5 Gnassingbe Eyadema dies after 38 years in office, and on Feb. 25 his son Faure Essozimma Gnassingbe (Gnassingbé) (1966-) becomes pres. of Togo, but resigns on Feb. 25 after pressure by the U.S., U.N., and West African leaders, along with an arms embargo imposed by the Economic Community of West African States; too bad, an election on Apr. 24 puts him back in office on May 4 (until ?), despite the opposition claiming fraud. On Feb. 6 Super Bowl XXXIX (39) (2005) is held Jacksonville, Fla., and the 14-2 New England Patriots (AFC) defeat the 13-3 Philadelphia Eagles (NFC) 24-21; Patriots WR (#83) Deion Branch (1979-) is MVP; the pregame talk about Terrell Owens returning from a broken ankle is eclipsed by a Patriots wide receiver mockingly flapping his wings after a TD catch; the Patriots' 3rd win in four Super Bowls (the 2nd team ever), and 3rd straight SB win by 3 points; the once-powerful San Francisco 49ers finish the season 2-14 at the bottom of their NFC West division as Joe Montana fades away on TV commercials, and Jerry Rice tries out for the Broncos and retires rather than face being cut, then ends upon TV's Dancing With the Stars; 43.8M lbs. of love-the-skin-you're-in avocados are eaten during the game by viewers. On Feb 6 the adult animated sitcom American Dad!, created by Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker, and Matt Weitzman debuts on Fox Network, about Repub. CIA agent Stan Smith (Set MacFarlane), his wife Francine (Wendy Schaal), liberal college-age daughter Hayley (Rachael MacFarlane), and dorky h.s. age son Steve (Scott Grimes); Stan's boss is Avery Bullock (Patrick Stewart), deputy dir. of the CIA. On Feb. 7 Pres. Bush proposes a $2.57T budget that proposes to end scores of programs but still increases the federal deficit by $42B over the next five years. On Feb. 8 Palestinian (Fatah) leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli PM Ariel Sharon sign a ceasefire at a summit meeting in Egypt. On Feb. 8 a suicide bomber blows himself up in the middle of a crowd of army recruits in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 21 in the city's deadliest attack since the election (see Feb. 11, 2004). On Feb. 9 a new U.S. postage stamp honoring Pres. Reagan is issued in ceremonies across the nation. On Feb. 9 a snowstorm in Pakistan causes avalanches and floods, killing 2,029. On Feb. 10 Hamas launches a mortar and rocket barrage on Jewish settlements in the S Gaza Strip before dawn in retaliation for the death of two Palestinians the day before; Mahmoud Abbas calls an emergency session of the central committee of the Fatah movement and fires three of his security chiefs along with a number of lower-ranking officers in his determination to enforce the ceasefire of Feb. 8. On Feb. 10 North Korea declares publicly that it possesses nukes just as the U.S. believes it is about to return to the negotiating table after an 8 mo. hiatus; this time the Bush admin. avoids all bluster about having to invade an "axis of evil" country possessing WMD; North Korea becomes the 9th nation to get nukes (U.S. 6K, Russia 8.5K, Britain 200, France 350, China 400, India 45-95, Pakistan 30-50, Israel 200). On Feb. 10 56-y.-o. Prince Charles of Wales (1948-) announces his engagement to 2nd wife, 57-y.-o. horseface Camilla Parker Bowles (1947-), Scottish Duchess of Rothesay, whose 30-year love affair broke up his marriage to Diana; since she knows how to keep the British stiff upper lip the queen gives her approval; they marry on Apr. 9 after delaying one day to allow for attendance at Pope John Paul II's funeral; Camilla's titles after marriage are HRH Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, and Duchess of Rothesay, followed by Queen if/when Charles becomes king; she never uses princess of Wales to avoid confusion with Lady Diana Spencer; he gives her a family heirloom square-cut diamond with three diamond baguettes on each side on a platinum band for an engagement ring; Irish-born London hat designer Philip Treacy (1967-) designs hats for the wedding. On Feb. 12 artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude unveil their project (#19) The Gates in New York's Central Park, consisting of 7.5K 16-ft.-tall yellow-orange vinyl gates at 12-ft. invervals lining 23 of its 58 mi. of walkways, each with its own saffron colored fabric panel; they remain in place until Feb. 27. On Feb. 13 the final results in the Iraqi elections come in, showing the clergy-backed Shiites and independence-minded Kurds winning. Valentine's Day Shakespearean Tragedy, or Who Was That Masked Man? On Feb. 14 a massive 1K kg car bomb blasts the motorcade of 60-y.-o. billionaire Muslim politician and former PM (1992-8, 2000-4) Rafik Hariri (b. 1944) in Beirut, Lebanon, killing him along with six bodyguards and 15 passersby, and wounding almost 100; he resigned last Oct. 20 after a dispute with Syria over its influence and its maintenance of 15K troops in Lebanon; on Mar. 24 a U.N. report concludes that Lebanon's probe into the killing is unsatisfactory, and the U.N. begins its own investigation; his 2nd son Saad Hariri (Saad ed Deen Rafiqk Al-Hariri) (1970-) becomes head of his daddy's Sunni Movement of the Future; on July 22, 2010 Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah makes a surprise announcement that his party is likely to be implicated in the assassination. On Feb. 14 Pres. Bush asks Congress to provide $81.9B more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, making the total price tag for the war on terrorism since 9/11 a whopping $300B. On Feb. 14 Maya Jeane Marcel-Keyes (1985-), daughter of conservative black politician Alan Keyes comes out as a "liberal queer" at a rally sponsored by the gay rights group Equality Maryland. On Feb. 14 a gas explosion in the Sunjiawan Mine in Liaoning province in NE China kills 203 miners, injures 22 and traps 13 more underground, becoming the deadliest mine disaster since the beginning of Communist rule in 1949; the final death toll is 214. On Feb. 14 a mosque fire in Tehran during evening prayers begins after a female worshipper's veil catches flames from a kerosene heater, killing 59 and injuring 250+ of 400 worshippers. On Feb. 14 a Sri Lankan court rules that Baby 81 (born Oct. 19) should be given the name Abhilasha and awarded to Murugupillai and Jenita Jeyarajah; he had been swept from his mother's arms by the Dec. 26 tsunami; the father vows to smash 100 coconuts at a temple of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh, offer sweet rice to the warrior god Murugan and kill a rooster for the goddess Kali. On Feb. 14 the U.S. govt. announces that a test of its nat. ballistic missile defense system, designed to defend against missiles launched from North Korea across the Pacific Ocean has failed for the 2nd time in as many months; the interceptor bases are in Alaska and Calif.; the same day South Korea announces high-level military talks with North Korea in an effort to coax it to return to 6-nation disarmament negotiations; at the same time Seoul officials say it's too early to declare North Korea a nuclear power as the alleged nukes haven't been confirmed. On Feb. 15 15-y.-o. Christopher Frank Pittman (1989-) is found guilty in Charleston, S.C. and sentenced to 30 years for killing his grandparents Joe and Joy and burning down their house in 2001 after he claims that the antidepressant drug Zoloft drove him to do it. On Feb. 15 74-y.-o. defrocked hip "street priest" Paul Richard Shanley (1931-) is sentenced in Boston, Mass. to 12-15 years on child rape charges for molesting a boy 20 years earlier; he claims it is a frame-up; just a coincidence that John Patrick Shanley writes the play "Doubt" about a priest accused of you know what, who claims it is a you know what? On Feb. 16 Ariz. Repub. Sen. John McCain tells reporters asking him about a local TV station's preference for auto accident coverage, "If a local candidate wants to be on TV and can't afford advertising, his only hope is to have a freak accident." On Feb. 16-May 30 the first major retrospective on the work of Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali in the U.S. since 1941 is held in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, displaying more than 200 of his works. On Feb. 17 Libya skips its final payment of the $540M settlement it agreed to pay families of the 270 people killed in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 after Moammar Gadhafi becomes annoyed at the slowness of the Bush admin. in lifting sanctions. It never rains in Southern California? On Feb. 17-21, 2005 storms in and around Los Angeles, Calif. drop 6.5 in. of rain, making the total since July 31.4 in. (5th highest on record), and killing four in mudslides; on Feb. 22 N Calif. is hit by severe thunderstorms and a pair of tornadoes. On Feb. 18 WHO announces that a rare form of pneumonic plague has killed at least 61 workers in a diamond mine in the remote wilds of NE Congo 170 mi. N of Kisangani (provincial capital of Oreintal), and the rest of the 7K workers have fled into the forests. The U.S. Roman Catholic priesthood is a gay pedophile brothel? On Feb. 18 Roman Catholic leaders admit receiving 1,092 new abuse claims against U.S. priests and deacons in 2004, even after paying more than $800M in settlements for claims prior to that year; 756 clerics are accused, of which nearly three quarters had died, been defrocked, or removed from public ministry before the claims were made; most alleged victims were boys aged 10-14. On Feb. 18 Greek Orthodox Church leader Archbishop Christodoulos apologizes to the Greek nation for a blitz of allegations ranging from antiquity smuggling to embezzlement to trial fixing to sex escapades by a 91-y.-o. with a young woman, and opens an emergency conclave of senior clerics (the 102-member Holy Synod) to fix (coverup?) the problems; lawmakers call for the ending of the church's status as the official state religion of Greece. On Feb. 18 Venezuelan police rescue Maura Villarreal (1951-), mother of Detroit Tigers pitcher Ugueth Urbina from kidnappers; she was kidnapped from her home last Sept. 1. On Feb. 18-25 the World Summit on the Information Society is held in Geneva, Switzerland to address the global digital divide between rich and poor countries and spread Internet access across the world, establishing May 17 as World Info. Society Day in Nov., which is adopted by the U.N. Gen. Assembly as Resolution 60/252 in Mar. 2006; in Nov. 2006 it decides to celebrate May 17 as World Telecommunication and Info. Society Day. On Feb. 19 the $3.2B 453-ft. nuclear-powered sub USS Jimmy Carter (the Nuclear Peanut?) is commissioned in New London, Conn. (built in Groton); it features the ability to tap undersea cables, and replaces the USS Parche, which was retired last fall. On Feb. 20 former Dutch PM (1982-94) Rudolphus Franciscus Marie "Ruud" Lubbers (1939-2018) resigns as the 9th U.N. high commissioner for refugees over sexual harassment allegations; he held the post since Jan. 1, 2001, and refused to accept a paycheck. On Feb. 20 Israel's cabinet gives final approval to the planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements. On Feb. 20 the stop-motion animated TV series Robot Chicken debuts on cable, named after an item on the menu of a Chinese restaurant in West Hollywood; created by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich. On Feb. 21-22 Pres. Bush visits Brussels for a NATO summit; on Feb. 21 he scolds Russia for backsliding on democracy and urges Mideast allies to take difficult steps for peace; on Feb. 22 he tells reporters, "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table." On Feb. 23 Pres. Bush meets with European leaders, and urges them to maintain an arms embargo on China, then stops in Germany for nine hours, where he and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder demand in unison that Tehran abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions, Bush saying "Iran must not have a nuclear weapon"; on Feb. 24 he meets with Pres. Putin in Bratislava, where he praises him for ditching the old totalitarianism thinking; Putin comments that it is impossible not to, since the Russian public has changed. On Feb. 24 the New York City medical examiner's office announces that it has exhausted all efforts to identify remains of WTC 9/11 victims, the limits of DNA technology having been reached with more than 1,100 of the 2,800 victims unidentified; fewer than 300 whole bodies were recovered; 20K body pieces were found in the ruins, 6K small enough to fit in 5-in. test tubes; over 800 victims were identified by DNA alone; the most matched to one person was over 200. BTK: a new Burger King sandwich? On Feb. 25 Pittsburg, Kan.-born Dennis Lynn Rader (1945-), a white church-going family man and code enforcement supervisor with the Wichita, Kan. suburb of Park City is arrested, and admits to being the self-styled BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) killer, confessing to at least six out of 13 suspected slayings dating back to 1974; he eluded capture for years with his pose as a married father of two who was a Cub Scout leader and pres. of the church council of the Christ Lutheran Church, but resurfaced a year earlier after 18 years of silence; on Mar. 1 he is charged with 10 counts of first degree murder, pleads guilty, and on Aug. 18 is sentenced to 10 consecutive life sentences (min. 175 years without chance of parole) - try using that for your starting point? On Feb. 26 gunmen kill nine U.N. Bangladeshi peacekeeping troops in a grass ambush in NE Congo near the town of Kafe 20 mi. NW of Bunia. On Feb. 27 Iraqi officials announce the capture of Saddam Hussein's half-brother Ayman Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti (1947-) in Hasakah in NE Syria where he was financing Iraqi insurgents. On Feb. 27 Iran and Russia sign a nuclear fuel agreement, enabling Tehran to bring its first reactor online by mid-2006, and snubbing Pres. Bush, who attempted to persuade Pres. Putin against it at the Feb. 24th Slovakian summit. On Feb. 27 the 77th Academy Awards (moved up 1 mo.), hosted by Chris Rock (first time) are held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif.; 267 films are eligible for consideration; best picture Oscar for 2004 goes to Million Dollar Baby, along with best dir. to Clint Eastwood, best actress to Hilary Swank, and best supporting actor to Morgan Freeman; Swank joins Vivien Leigh, Helen Hayes, Sally Field, and Luise Rainer as the only actresses with a perfect track record of two nominations and two wins; best actor goes to Jamie Foxx for Ray (he was also nominated for best supporting actor for Collateral, and had a Billboard #1 pop album, becoming #4 after Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and Barbra Streisand); best supporting actor goes to Cate Blanchett for her portrayal of Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator; Al Otro Lado Del Rio, from The Motorcycle Diaries, the first Spanish language song ever nominated for an Oscar wins for best original song. On Feb. 28 Nemaha County, Kan.-born Donna Grace Glenn Humphrey (b. 1915) and her son-in-law Michael Lefkow (64) are shot to death at the Chicago area home of her daughter, U.S. District Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow (1944-); on Mar. 9 Chicago electrician Bart Ross is stopped by police in his car and commits suicide, leaving a suicide note claiming responsibility for the slayings; the judge had earlier dismissed his lawsuits over a cancer treatment; white supremacist leader Matthew F. "Matt" Hale (1971-), convicted in Apr. 2004 for trying to have the same judge killed over a trademark case is sentenced to 40 years on Apr. 6 by U.S. District Judge James Maxwell Moody (1940-) in Chicago after the Ross confession clears him of the killings, causing Hale to claim he is a victim of govt. persecution. In Feb. the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) begins Operation Community Shield, arresting 7,655 street gang members, followed in Sept. by the FBI arresting 660 more incl. members of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), the 1980s Central Am. (mainly Salvadoran) gang of LA, which has 50K +members. In Feb. the 9K-sq.-ft. Churchill Museum opens next to the underground Cabinet War Rooms in the Treasury bldg. on King Charles St. in London. In Feb. France passes a law stipulating that school textbooks "recognize in particular the positive character of the French overseas presence, notably in North Africa"; it takes until Oct. for the public to complain, causing the govt. to backpeddle amid calls to abrogate the law? In Feb. the first annual Israeli Apartheid Week is observed in Toronto, Canada, spreading to 50+ cities around the world by 2015 incl. the U.S., U.K., and South Africa. Live fast and leave a good-looking corpse? On Mar 1 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 6-3 in Roper v. Simmons to reverse Stanford v. Kentucky (1989), raising the min. age for capital punishment from 16 to 18; dissenters incl. Justices Antonin Scalia, William Rehnquist, and Clarence Thomas, who argue that it is for Congress to set an age not the court; Scalia disses the court for quoting foreign law, with the soundbyte that the court would "invoke alien law when it agrees with one's own thinking, and ignore it otherwise"; a total of 72 people on state death rows around the U.S. are saved - never too old though? On Mar. 1 2K+ black-clad Iraqis protest outside a medical clinic in Hillah, Iraq (60 mi. S of Baghdad), where a suicide car bomber killed 125 and wounded 130 the day before, chanting "No to terrorism!" On Mar 1 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 6-3 in Roper v. Simmons to reverse Stanford v. Kentucky (1989), raising the min. age for capital punishment from 16 to 18; dissenters incl. Justices Antonin Scalia, William Rehnquist, and Clarence Thomas. On Mar. 2 Syrian pres. Bashar Assad buckles under growing pressure from internat. leaders and tells Time mag. that he will withdraw Syria's 15K troops from Lebanon "maybe in the next few months". On Mar. 2 the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq reaches 1,500. On Mar. 2 the lawsuit against NBA star Kobe Bryant for rape is settled, with the terms undisclosed - so many games' pay to the white ho? On Mar. 3 Pres. Bush visits CIA HQ and promises the employees that they will retain an "incredibly vital" role despite the creation of the new post of nat. dir. of intelligence. On Mar. 4 Martha Stupor, er, Stewart is released from Alderson Prison and returns to one of her luxurious homes in a 153-acre model farm in Bedford in rural Westchester County, N.Y., where she must complete 5 mo. of home confinement with an ankle bracelet; she wears a Freedom Poncho knitted by a fellow inmate, which becomes popular; "The experience of the last 5 months has been life altering and life affirming." On Mar. 6 Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena (1948-) claims that U.S. soldiers opened fire on the car carrying her to the Baghdad airport without warning, killing the Italian agent who just won her freedom after 1 mo. in captivity. On Mar. 9 Dan Rather anchors CBS Evening News for the last time, ending a 24 year career, incl. a decade in 3rd place behind NBC and ABC, signing off with "... and to all of you, courage"; he is replaced by Bob Schieffer as interim anchor until Katie Curie can come aboard. On Mar. 9 Michael Jackson's accuser takes the stand, calling him "the coolest guy in the world"; on Mar. 10 Jackson goes AWOL from his trial and is nearly jailed before showing up more than an hour late in his pajama bottoms and slippers, wearing a tuxedo coat over a white t-shirt, and claiming he has just been treated at a hospital for a serious back problem (ready to go to bed with some more kids?); on Mar. 21 Jackson again arrives at court late, claiming back problems, but is only a few minutes late and is not penalized. On Mar. 10 a suicide bomber attacks a funeral tent in a mosque courtyard jammed with Shiite mourners in Mosul, Iraq, killing 47 and wounding over 100, and splattering blood and body parts over rows of cheap white plastic chairs. On Mar. 10 former U.S. pres. Bill Clinton undergoes successful surgery at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia U. Medical Center to remove fluid and scar tissue from his chest cavity caused by his quadruple heart bypass operation 6 mo. earlier. On Mar. 10 a U.S. federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y. dismisses a lawsuit against the U.S. by the Vietnamese govt. on behalf of millions of Vietnamese for using the toxic defoliant Agent Orange (beginning in 1962); in June Vietnam appeals to a U.S. appeals court. On Mar. 10 chess champ Garry Kasparov retires from prof. chess to devote his time to politics, forming the United Civil Front and joining the Other Russia anti-Putin coalition. On Mar. 11 the British Prevention of Terrorism Act is passed, permitting the home secy. to impose "control orders" on people suspected of involvement with terrorism and derogate (opt out) of human rights laws; the first derogating control orders are issued on ?. On Mar. 12 Socialist Jose Socrates de Carvalho Pinto de Sousa (1957-) becomes PM of Portugal (until ?), succeeding Social Dem. Pedro Santana Lopes. On Mar. 13 black rape defendant Brian Gene Nichols (1971-) is captured in Duluth (a suburb N of Atlanta, Ga.) for a crime rampage that started on Mar. 10 in an Atlanta courtroom at his own rape retrial and left four people dead, incl. Superior Court Judge Rowland Barnes, a sheriff's deputy, and U.S. customs and immigration agent David Wilhelm; 26-y.-o. white widow Ashley Smith (1978-) (whose first hubby Danial McFarland "Mack" Smith was stabbed to death on Aug. 18 in Augusta, Ga.) is bound and held for 7 hours at her suburban Atlanta home on Mar. 11 before she talks him into giving himself up on Mar. 12, reading the death penalty case passages from Rick Warren's "A Purpose-Driven Life" and giving him crystal meth after he demands pot; on Mar. 24 she receives $70K in reward money; she reveals the meth thingie in her Sept. book Unlikely Angel, but is not charged with drug possession because she's the new hero of Am. evangelicals, who know Jesus is a friend of sin sin sinners? On Mar. 13 the Walt Disney Co. announces that Disney pres. Robert A. "Bob" Iger (1951-) will succeed Michael Eisner as CEO, effective Oct. 1 (until ?). Fun with Dick & Jane? On Mar. 15 former CEO Joe Nacchio and six other former execs. of Colo. communications co. Qwest are accused by the SEC of orchestrating a massive $3B financial fraud to mislead investors after receiving total compensation of $216.4M from 1999-2001 while the stock plummeted from $64 to $2 in 2000-2002, ruining employees; the same day former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers is convicted in a New York federal court of securities fraud and conspiracy, and seven counts of filing false reports with regulators (later receiving 25 years in priz); on Dec. 20 Nacchio is indicted on 42 counts of insider trading in federal court in Denver; Nacchio's trial begins in Denver on Mar. 19, 2007 with presiding judge Edward Nottingham, known for losing his temper in the courtroom getting started fast by scolding lead Nacchio atty. Herbert Stern for arriving minutes late from a break; on Apr. 19 a jury finds him not guilty on the first 23 counts, then guilty on the rest, resulting from his illegal trades between Apr. 26-May 29, 2001, making for a roller coaster ride for his family, getting him a $52M forfeiture order and 6 years in prison on July 27; wait, it's not over, on Mar. 17, 2008 the appeals court grants him a new trial after an expert defense witness was found to be incorrectly excluded. On Mar. 15-21 U.S. secy. of state Condi Rice visits Asia, concluding in Beijing, where she states that North Korea could face internat. sanctions for pulling out of 6-way talks on nuclear disarmament a year earlier; she also mentions U.S. displeasure over heightened Chinese tensions with Taiwan, and attends a Palm Sunday church service on Mar. 20. America's justice for the stars system produces two verdicts in one day? On Mar. 16 71-y.-o. actor Robert Blake (Michael James Gubitosi) (1933-) is acquitted of the May 4, 2001 murder of his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley (1956-2001) in a parked car outside a restaurant in Studio City, Calif. by a Los Angeles jury after a 4-mo. trial; he claims to have spent $10M in his defense and to be broke and in need of a job; on Nov. 18 he is found liable for his wife's death by a civil jury in Burbank, Calif. and ordered to pay her children $30M (O.J.'s victims got $33.5M). On Mar. 16 Scott Peterson (1972-) is sentenced to death row by Judge Alfred Delucchi in Redwood City, Calif for the slaying of his pregnant wife Laci after a turbulent court session in which Laci's father Dennis Rocha tells him "You're going to burn in Hell for this", and he is sentenced to death by lethal injection, beginning a bonanza for lawyers handling his appeals - they go from mini-floodlights to mini-spotlights just like that? On Mar. 16 the 275-seat Iraqi parliament is sworn in. On Mar. 16 the U.S. Senate votes 51-49 to approve oil drilling in the Arctic Nat. Wildlife Refuge, causing environmentalists who have successfully blocked it for decades to throw a hissy fit. On Mar. 16 oil prices close at a record $56.46 a barrel, beating the previous peak price of $55.17, set twice in Oct. On Mar. 16 15 pirates board a Japanese vessel in the Asian Pacific and take the captain and two crewman hostage for ransom, becoming the 37th pirate attack in the Malacca Straits this year, which has annual traffic of 50K ships between Malaysia and Indonesia. On Mar. 17 the Pakistani military attacks Bugti, Balochistan. On Mar. 17 the U.S. Congress hears testimony from ML baseball stars on the ML Baseball Steroid Problem; Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa neigh, er, claim they never used them, while Mark McGwire refuses to answer - until his voice changes back? On Mar. 17 rapper Lil' Kim (Kimberly Jones) (1975-) is convicted of lying to a federal grand jury about her involvement in a shootout outside a Manhattan radio station, and is sentenced to a year and a day. On Mar. 17 contractor Kelly A. Frank (1962-) is charged with felony solicitation, and accused of a plot to kidnap David Letterman's 3-y.-o. son and nanny from his 2.7K-acre Montana ranch for a $5M ransom (a month's pay for Letterman?); after the jury doesn't buy it, they railroad him to 10 years for overcharging Letterman; he then escapes from a prison ranch on June 8, 2007. On Mar. 20 Iraqi insurgents ambush a U.S. military convoy 12 mi. SE of Baghdad in Salman Pak (al-Salman) military facility near Baghdad, starting a battle that leaves 24 insurgents dead and seven wounded; six U.S. soldiers are wounded. On Mar. 20 Iraq and Jordan mutually withdraw their ambassadors over a claim that Jordan is failing to block terrorists from entering Iraq; the same day a Jordanian court sentences Jordan-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to a 15-year prison term, while he remains at large with a $25M U.S. bounty on his head. On Mar. 21 U.N. secy.-gen. Kofi Annan lays out his plans for sweeping changes to the U.N. before its 191-member General Assembly; his 63-page report is released on Mar. 20, callings for a new U.N. Human Rights Council to replace the Commission on Human Rights, an expanded Security Council, a streamlined Secretariat, programs to cut poverty and nuke proliferation, and a new convention against terrorism by Sept. 2006. On Mar. 21 16-y.-o. Prozac-popping Ojibwe h.s. student Jeffrey James "Jeff" Weise (b. 1988) goes on a shooting rampage at a poverty-stricken Indian rez in Red Lake, Minn., killing his grandfather and his girlfriend, followed by seven people at Red Lake H.S., injuring five before killing himself after exchanging gunfire with police; on Apr. 12 the school reopens, and more than two-thirds of the students stay away. On Mar. 21 U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist returns to court, despite being diagnosed with thyroid cancer in Oct. and receiving radiation and chemotherapy; on July 13 he ends up back in the hospital, causing rumors of his imminent resignation to abound until he "puts to rest the speculation and unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement" after his release on July 14; in July and Aug. he is briefly hospitalized for observation after running fevers. On Mar. 21 a real life "Dumb and Dumber" occurs as Australians Luke Carroll and Anthony Prince stick up the WestStar Bank in Vail, Colo. with a BB gun, escaping with $132K, then go to Denver Internat. Airport to make a getaway flight to Mexico, stopping to have their photos snapped displaying fistfuls of their loot, and are arrested by FBI agents at the airport, who use the photos to ID them? On Mar. 22 39-y.-o. Anna Ayala (1965-) claims to find a 1.5-in. fingertip in a bowl of chili she bought at a Wendy's in San Jose, Calif.; she is later arrested for fraud, and admits she planted the finger of a friend of her husband, who lost it in an asphalt plant in Las Vegas; in 2005 Mike Casey, mgr. of the plant splits a $100K reward from Wendy's Internat. Inc. with an anonymous tipster for helping solve the "chili finger case"; on Jan. 18 Anna and her husband Jaime Plascencia are sentenced to nine years in San Jose, Calif. and to pay $21.8M to Wendy's for damages, along with $170K to Wendy's workers for lost wages. On Mar. 23 a BP America refinery in Texas City, Tex. explodes, killing 15 and injuring 180+, becoming the worst gas and chemical industry accident since the Arco Chemical plant exploded in nearby Channelview in 1990, killing 17. On Mar. 23 Pres. Bush holds the First North Am. Leaders Summit in Waco, Tex. near his Texas ranch to discuss progress on NAFTA with the presidents of Mexico and Canada, which becomes an annual affair; meanwhile the U.S. SAFETEA-LU Act (Safe Accountable Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act - a Legacy for Users) is passed to fund the NAFTA Superhighway, incl. tollways, tracks, FAST lanes, and giant inland shipping ports, incl. the $138B Trans Texas Corridor from Mexico to Canada, and the CANAMEX Corridor in the W U.S.; the whole plan stirs fears of an attempted merger of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico into a North Am. Union (NAU) patterned after the EU, with a "joint perimeter" around all three, and the inevitable short-circuiting of U.S. laws and constitutional guarantees, incl. the end of all efforts at stemming illegal immigration; on Mar. 23 the Security and Prosperity Partnership is signed in well-chosen Waco, Tex. by U.S. Pres. Bush, Mexican pres. Vicente Fox, and Canadian PM Paul Martin, calling for the establishment of a common security border perimeter around North Am. by 2010, along with free movement across boards of people, commerce and capital, facilitated by a North Am. Border Pass, which will replace a U.S. passport for travel to Canada and Mexico, with the soundbyte "Our security and prosperity are mutually dependent and complementary"; further goals of a North Am. court, inter-parliamentary group, executive commission, military defense command, development bank and customs office, piss-off Bible-thumpers and others, who call it an attempt to foist the feared North Am. Union on the U.S. and take away its sovereignty, with the sinister Council on Foreign Relations ruling all three countries in favor of multinat. corporate profits, causing the Bush admin. to pub. SPP Myths vs. Facts on its Web site www.spp.gov, saying that "no agreement was ever signed", and it is only a "dialog" to "enhance prosperity", only pissing-off the critics more as they point out massive activity going on in the NAFTA section of the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, and how the EU was incrementally foisted on Europe the same way, via incremental official denials until it was too late. On Mar. 24 Kmart, only two years out of bankruptcy buys Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $12.3B in attempt to compete with Wal-Mart and Home Depot; the merged co. has annual sales of $55B. On Mar. 24 after parliamentary elections in Kyrgyzstan in Feb.-Mar. are called for flaws by internat. observers, touching off the Tulip (Pink) Rev., a wave of violent dem. protests throughout the country; after protesters take over the pres. compound, Pres. Askar Akayev flees, then resigns on Apr. 4 (after making sure his Swiss bank accounts are safe?), becoming the 3rd govt. in a former Soviet repub. after Georgia and Ukraine to be brought down by popular revolt during the past 1.5 years; opposition leader Kurmanbek Saliyevich Bakiev (1949-) is freed from prison, along with Felix Kulov; Bakiev becomes interim pres. until the election on July 10, which he wins with 88.7%, appointing Kulov as PM; opposition lawmaker Ishenbai Duyshonbiyevich Kadyrbekov (1949-) is an also-ran. On Mar. 24 hundreds of power workers shouting "No, no to terror!" march in Baghdad to protest attacks on their colleagues. On Mar. 24 chess champ Bobby Fischer arrives in Iceland after what he calls an illegal 9-mo. detention in Japan (since July 13), blasting the U.S. and calling it an "illegitimate country" that should be given back to the Indians; on Mar. 21 he is granted Icelandic citizenship, allowing him to leave Japan - shouldn't Iceland be given back to the Eskimos? On Mar. 24 the comedy series The Office debuts on NBC-TV for 201 episodes (until May 16, 2013), a "mockumentary" based on the BBC series that debuted on July 9, 2001, starring Steve Carell (1962-) as Michael Scott, mgr. of Dunder Mifflin stationery co. in mainly white PC Scranton, Penn., interacting with mainly white office mates Rainn Wilson (1966-) (as Dwight Schrute), John Krasinski (1979-) (as Jim Halpert), Jenna Fischer (1974-) (as Pam Beesly), and B.J. Novak (1979-) (one of the writers) (as Ryan Howard) while pushing all the latest PC Hollyweird values on the viewers, with the gag being that the camera is part of the show; the theme song is written by Jay Ferguson and performed by the Scrantones. On Mar. 25-Sept. 25 Expo 2005 is held in Aichi (near Nagoya), Japan, drawing 121 countries, stressing sustainable growth and healing the "Wounded Planet"; Bio-Lung, a 490 ft. x 50 ft. wall made up of 200K plants of 200 species is the show's symbol; Linimo, Japan's first commercial maglev linear train debuts. On Mar. 27 the medical drama series Grey's Anatomy debuts on ABC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), about surgical interns and residents at Seattle Grace Hospital trying to become full-fledged physicians, with a multiracial cast incl. Ellen Kathleen Pompeo (1969-) as Dr. Meredith Grey, and Patrick Galen Dempsey (1966-) as Dr. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd. On Mar. 28 the 8.7 Nias Earthquake hits the Indonesian region, killing 1,313, but this time there only a tiny tsunami. On Mar. 28 the Colo. Supreme Court throws out the death penalty in a rape-murder case because five jurors had consulted the Bible and quoted Scripture during deliberations - that's no longer the law in this state? On Mar. 30 First Lady Laura Bush visits Kabul, Afghanistan, where she talks with Afghan women freed from Taliban repression and urges greater rights - just don't read a Christian Bible or kkkkk-kkkkk? On Mar. 31 a report by the U.S. Pres. Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities concludes that the U.S. govt. knows "disturbingly little" about nuke and bio threats from dangerous adversaries. In Mar. longtime rocker Eric Clapton visits Buckingham Palace, and Queen Elizabeth II asks him "Have you been playing a long time?" In Mar. Somalian Islamic militia leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys (1935-) threatens a jihad if foreign troops enter Somalia again, and pledges to establish an Islamic govt. In Mar. Popular Mechanics pub. a story about nine reporters and 70 profs. investigating claims of an inside-job conspiracy at the 9/11 WTC disaster then discarding them, pissing-off Jim Hoffman of the 9/11 Truth Movement; on Apr. 7, 2008 BBC-TV airs Nine Hundred and Eleven Questions, narrated by Charlie Sheen. In the spring the non-tax-exempt Democracy Alliance (DA) is founded by Rob Stein to fund progressive groups, with 110 partners incl. George Soros who each contribute at least $200K/year; by 2016 it gives away $500M, which doesn't prevent Donald Trump from defeating Hillary Clinton for U.S. pres. Rome goes for Easter eggs benedict with sauerkraut? On Apr. 2 Parkinson's disease sufferer Pope (since 1978) John Paul II (b. 1920) dies (3rd-longest reigning pope at 26 years), and on Apr. 3 his body lies in state while millions attend services worldwide, incl. 100K at Pilsudski Square in Warsaw and 60K in Krakow; on Apr. 4 his unembalmed body is carried on a crimson platform to St. Peter's Basilica, where 2M view it; on Apr. 8 he becomes the 147th pope to be buried beneath St. Peter's Basilica (in the tomb formerly used by dead Pope John XXII before he was moved to the main floor following his beatification), joining Emperor Otto II, Queen Christina of Sweden, Pope Pius XII, Pope John Paul I, and of course St. Peter himself; archbishop of Canterbury #104 (since 2003) Rowan Douglas Williams (1950-) becomes the first English archbishop of Canterbury to attend a papal funeral since Henry VIII, and he also attends Benedict's installation; on Apr. 17 (Sun.) the 183 cardinals (of whom only 115 are young enough to vote) go into conclave to pick a new pope, and on Apr. 19 (Adolf Hitler's birthday, three days after his own birthday) strict orthodox archconservative Munich Archbishop and "Iron Cardinal" (since 1977) (prefect emeritus of the Doctrine of the Faith in the Roman Curia and Dean of the College of Cardinals, who is behind John Paul II's policy of a "strong Rome") Joseph Ratzinger (a WWII member of the Hitler Youth who deserted and became a U.S. POW while erecting defenses for the Nazis?) is elected Pope (#265) Benedict XVI (1927-) on the 4th ballot (1st German pope since Victor II in 1055-57, and 1st Pope Benedict since 1922); Argentine Jesuit Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (1936-) comes in 2nd in each ballot; according to John Paul II's request, the Vatican departs from tradition by ringing bells at 6:04 p.m. in addition to sending white smoke up the chimney at 5:49 p.m. to signal the completion of the election after just a little over 24 hours in conclave; the new pope receives 56K emails in his first two days, and fast-tracks his predecessor for sainthood within weeks; in 2007 Sister Marie Simon Pierre (1960-) publicly claims that praying to Pope John Paul II cured her of Parkinson's Disease, becoming the first of two miracles required to make him a saint - the whole thing is proof that the Nazis, having toppled Soviet Communism and reunified Germany are slowly regaining strength and positioning for a Fourth Reich? On Apr. 3 Kirkuk-born economist Hajim Mahdi Saleh al-Hassani (1954-), a Sunni is chosen to be speaker of the 275-seat transitional nat. assembly in Iraq. On Apr. 4 an explosion in Anbar Province in Iraq kills one Marine, and two U.S. and one Iraqi soldier are killed in a joint attack on insurgents in E Diyala Province; the AP death toll for the U.S. military in Iraq reaches 1,536; on Apr. 5 another U.S. soldier is killed in Baghdad when an abandoned taxi explodes on an expressway. On Apr. 4-10 the U.S. Justice Dept. runs Operation FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally), with U.S. marshals deputizing hundreds of police, sheriff's deputies, and agents to round up more than 10K fugitives wanted for violent crimes around the U.S. On Apr. 5 the Bush admin. announces that starting in 2008 Americans travelling from Canada, Mexico, Bermuda, the Caribbean, and Panama will no longer be able to get by just stating their citizenship, but must show a passport - that really hurts? On Apr. 5 3K detailed patient hospital statements blow across downtown Cleveland, Ohio in the wind after a box falls off a delivery truck. She drives me crazy, I can't help myself, or, Forever and always, I go crazy? On Apr. 6 the 275-member Iraqi parliament chooses Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani (1933-) as pres. #6 (until July 24, 2014), and Baghdad-born Shiite leader Adel (Adil) Abdul-Mahdi (1942-), and interim pres. (Mosul-born Sunni Arab) Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer (1958-) as vice-presidents, along with Karbala-born Shiite leader Ibrahim al-Eshaiker al-Jaafari (1947-) as PM #1 (until May 20, 2006); they take their oaths on Apr. 7, two days short of the 2nd anniv. of Baghdad's fall to U.S.-led forces; Saddam Hussein watches the action on tape in his Baghdad jail cell as his longtime foes take over his job in Iraq's first dem. govt. in 50 years; the new govt. must draft a new constitution by Aug. 15, submit it to a referendum by Oct. 15, and hold new elections by Dec. 15. On Apr. 6 Monaco's Prince (since May 9, 1949) Rainier III (b. 1923) dies in Monaco (pop. 32K), and his 47-y.-o. U.S.-educated 5-time bobsledding Olympian billionaire son Prince Albert II (1958-) succeeds as ruler of "a sunny place for shady people" (he took over royal powers a week earlier because of his dad's bad health), becoming the only ruling monarch of Europe to share a name with another (Albert II of Belgium); Rainier is buried alongside Princess Grace on Apr. 15 at the Monaco Cathedral where they were wed. On Apr. 6 Brian Darling (1965-), legal counsel of Cuban-born Fla. Repub. Sen. (2005-) Melquiades (Melquíades) Rafael "Mel" Martinez (1946-) resigns after an unsigned memo passed around on Capitol Hill during deliberations on the Terri Schiavo case, claming that it "is a great political issue... and a tough issue for Dems." (first reported by ABC News on Mar. 18) is traced to him. On Apr. 6 a U.S. CH-47 Chinook heli crashes in a dust storm near Ghazni, Afghanistan S of Kabul, killing 15 military and three civilian contractor personnel. On Apr. 6 Bobbi Parker, wife of asst. warden Randy Parker is reunited 11 years after being kidnapped by murder convict Randolph Dial in a 1994 escape from an Okla. prison and held under threats of harm to her family. On Apr. 7 U.S. drug regulators issue a sweeping Warning on Non-Opioid Painkillers that most popular painkillers on the market can hurt the heart, stomach, and skin, and persuade Pfizer to withdraw its hot-selling pain pill Bextra; tough warnings are required for prescription painkillers Celebrex, Naprosyn, Motrin, Voltaren et al., and even OTC pills such as Advil and Aleve are required to cite risks. On Apr. 7 Mexico's Congress votes to strip leftist Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (1953-) of his immunity, opening the way for his arrest on charges of disobeying a court order in 2001; the vote comes hours after he announces his candidacy for pres., later being touted as the "Mexican Messiah". On Apr. 7 a motorcycle sets off a bomb in the midst of a tour group in a historic bazaar in Cairo, Egypt, killing four and wounding 18, becoming the first attack targeting foreign tourists in the city since 1997. On Apr. 7 Jeffrey Doyle Robertson (1960-), f ather of a h.s. football QB (known for being a hothead) shoots and wounds coach Gary Joe Kinne with an assault rifle at the fieldhouse of Canton High in Canton, Texas, then flees; he is carried out of the woods on a stretcher a few hours later. I'm bad, bad bad? On Apr. 7 former Neverland ranch security guard Ralph Chacon finally uses the O word in testimony in Santa Maria, Calif., claiming that he saw Michael Jackson perform oral sex on a boy after taking a whirlpool bath with him in late 1992 or early 1993; the boy received a multimillion dollar settlement from Jackson in 1994 and refused to cooperate in a police investigation, which resulted in no charges filed; on Apr. 10 Michael's mom Katherine Jackson leaves the courtroom during graphic testimony, but later explains that she needed to use the restroom - to throw up? On Apr. 8 Eric Rudolph agrees to plead guilty to the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and three other bombings in exchange for escaping the death penalty. On Apr. 8 Timu, the world's first test-tube gorilla gives birth to a female baby, then loses interest in it 7 hours later, causing zookeepers to step in. Bride of Chucky? On Apr. 9 (Sat.) Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles marry in a civil ceremony in the 17th cent. Guildhall at Windsor before 30 guests, where they acknowledge their "sins and wickedness" for being divorcees; she wears a straw hat overlaid with ivory French lace and trimmed with a fountain of feathers; the queen does not attend the wedding, but does attend the blessing ceremony in the Gothic St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, where Camilla switches to a feathered semicircular headdress, while the queen and just about every other female wears some kind of feathers in their hats - now if she will just keep her mouth shut between feedings like a good chick? On Apr. 9 Pakistani embassy employee Malik Mohammed Javed is kidnapped in Baghdad, Iraq while en route to pray in a mosque by the Omar bin Khattab terrorist group. On Apr. 9 three Palestinian teenagers are killed by Israeli forces at a refugee camp, causing militants to retaliate by firing dozens of mortar shells toward Jewish settlements in Gaza. On Apr. 10 a rally called by anti-pullout Israeli extremists at the Temple Mount (Al Aqsa compound) in Jerusalem's Old City is blocked by hundreds of Muslim demonstrators, who are chased out by thousands of Israeli riot police. On Apr. 10 40K anti-Japanese protesters rally in Guangzhou, along with more in other major Chinese cities over Japan's bid to get a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council; on Apr. 13 China calls Japan's decision to let cos. explore a disputed area of the East China Sea for natural gas a "provocation" that could imperil Japan's bid for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat; on Apr. 14 a 3rd straight week of anti-Japanese demonstrations over Japan's wartime past and its bid for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat takes place in China, worrying the govt. that protesters could end up criticizing their regime. On Apr. 10 the U.S.-backed candidate drops out, leaving the race for new secy.-gen. of the Org. of Am. States (OAS) to Mexican foreign secy. Luis Ernesto Derbez Bautista (1947-) and Chilean Socialist interior minister Jose Miguel "El Panzer" Insulza Salinas (1943-), becoming the first time in its 57-year history that a U.S.-chosen candidate does not lead the OAS; Chilean pres. Ricardo Lagos steps in, insuring U.S. officials that his brand of Socialism is not the hard line Hugo Chavez type, and that he wants to "break the bipolar axis" between left and right; on June 2 Insulza becomes the sec.-gen. of the OAS (until ?). On Apr. 10 a Canadian Pacific Railway freight train en route from Chicago to St. Paul, Minn. smashes into a minivan near Columbus, Wisc., killing all four in the vehicle at an intersection without lights or gates. On Apr. 11 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon visits Pres. Bush at his Tex. ranch, and Bush tells him that he could not allow further West Bank settlment growth and that mutual Israeli-Palestinian are hampering peace prospects. On Apr. 11 a 9-story garment factory in Savar, Bangladesh collapses after a boiler explodes, killing four and trapping 200 of the 300 workers in the rubble. On Apr. 11 a 6.8 undersea earthquake rocks Sumatra, Indonesia, followed by at least 10 aftershocks up to 6.3. On Apr. 12 a New York City grand jury indicts Dhiran Barot (Abu Musi al-Hindi), Nadeem Tarmohammed and Qaisar Shaffi (all with suspected al-Qaida ties) for a plot to attack the NYSE and Citicorp bldgs. in New York City, the Prudential Bldg. in Newark, N.J., and the IMF and World Bank HQ in Washington D.C. On Apr. 12 data broker Reed Elsevier Group PLC of London admits that criminals may have breached computer files containing personal info. of 310K people from their subsidiary LexisNexis, revising an earlier estimate of 32K people - just press Send, it's easy? On Apr. 12 U.S. troops battle arms smugglers near Qaim, Iraq along the Syrian border, killing an unknown number; car bombs in two northern cities kill 10; Fadhil Ibrahim Mahmud al-Mashadani, a member of Saddam's regime is captured on a farm NE of Baghdad. On Apr. 12 thousands of scientists scramble to destroy vials of 1957 killer flu sent to 5K labs in 18 countries by mistake; since it has not been included in flu vaccines since 1968, people born after that year have no immunity to it. On Apr. 12 Lebanese officials announce that the last 4K Syrian soldiers will leave Lebanon within 10 days. On Apr. 12 police commandos capture a 50-y.-o. man who hijacked a bus and held four schoolgirls at knifepoint in a house in Ennepetal, Germany, identifying him as an Iranian asylum seeker. On Apr. 13 abortion opponent Olympic Park Bomber Eric Robert Rudolph (1966-) pleads guilty to four bombings across the S U.S. that killed two and injured 120 in back-to-back court appearances in Birmingham and Atlanta, saying "Because I believe that abortion is murder, I also believe that force is justified... in an attempt to stop it"; he gets a plea bargain giving him four consecutive life sentences without parole, and is shipped off to Florence Supermax prison in Colo. to join Sammy "the Bull Gravano, Robert Hanssen, Ted Kaczynski, Richard Reid and Ramzi Yousef. On Apr. 13 insurgents blow up a fuel tank in Baghdad, kill 12 policemen in Kirkuk, and drive a car bomb into a U.S. convoy, killing five Iraqis and wounding four U.S. contract workers on Baghdad's airport road; Indiana man Jeffrey Ake (1958-) of bottled-water equipment maker Equipment Express, who was kidnapped on Apr. 11 is shown at gunpoint on a videotaped aired by Al-Jazeera TV pleading for his life and a $1M ransom; he is never heard from again? On Apr. 13 the U.N. Gen. Assembly after seven years of waffling adopts a Global Treaty to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism, making it a crime to possess radioactive material or weapons with the intention of committing a terrorist act. On Apr. 13 the FDA allows silicone-gel breast implants to return to the U.S. market after a 13-year ban after Mentor Corp. persuades them that it has improved their durability; just the day before rival Inamed Corp. had lost its appeal to them. On Apr. 13 Afghanistan pres. Hamid Karzai calls for a security partnership with the U.S. to make its military presence there permanent. On Apr. 13 a jury in London finds Algerian militant Kamel Bourgass (1974-) guilty of murdering a policeman trying to arrest him for an al-Qaida plot to spread the deadly toxin ricin; eight other suspects are cleared, along with four others a week earlier - kamel bourgass on you too? On Apr. 13 Conn. becomes the 2nd U.S. state to legalize same-sex civil unions, and the first to do it without a court order; marriage is still legally defined as being between one man and one woman - but I just have to do it even if it's illegal? On Apr. 14 the Oregon Supreme Court nullifies about 3K marriage licenses issued to gay couples a year earlier by Portland's Multnomah County, incl. the first license, issued to Becky Kennedy and Mary Li. On Apr. 14 two car bombs in C Baghdad in front of the Interior Ministry kill 18 and wound 36; U.S. troops detonate a 3rd one that had failed to explode; al-Aqida claims credit - partial credit? On Apr. 14 Prince Charles and Camilla open a play park in Scotland in their first royal engagement as a married couple. On Apr. 15 a fire in the Paris Opera Hotel in Paris' 9th district (popular with tourists) kills 20 aand injures 51, and requires 50 fire engines and 250 firefighters. On Apr. 15 Ecuadorian pres. (since 2003) Lucio Gutierrez declares a state of emergency in Quito as he closes down a newly-appointed supreme court, then lifts it on Apr. 16 after the army refuses to enforce it, and the congress announces a session to investigate him, which they hold on Apr. 20 after massive demonstrations driving him into the Brazilian embassy, voting 60-2 to remove him from office, after which he flees to Brazil, becoming the 3rd leader forced from office in Ecuador in eight years; vice-pres. (since 2003) Luis Alfredo Palacio Gonzalez (1939-) replaces him as pres. (until Jan. 15, 2007). On Apr. 15 violent demonstrations erupt in Ahvaz, Iran on the Iraqi border after reports circulate of a plan to decrease the proportion of Arabs in the area, causing 20 deaths and 250 arrests; Iran's pop. is 51% Persian and 3% Arab. On Apr. 15 the Russians launch Soyuz TMA-6, carrying cosmonauts Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev (Krikalyov) (1958-), John Lynch Phillips (1951-) of the U.S., and Roberto Vittori (1964-) of Italy; on Oct. 1 Soyuz TMA-7 blasts off, carrying cosmonauts Valery Ivanovich Tokarev (1952-), William Surles McArthur Jr. (1951-) of the U.S., and space tourist #3 Gregory Hammond "Greg" Olsen (1945-) of the U.S.; Soyuz TMA-6 returns on Oct. 15 with Sergei Krikalev, John Phillips, and Gregory Olsen; Soyuz TMA-7 returns next Apr. 8 with Valery Tokarev, William McArthur, and Marcos Pontes. On Apr. 16 Mary Kay Letourneau (1962-) marries Vili Fualaau (1983-), her former 6th grade pupil with whom she had two children and served 7.5 years in prison for "raping him" when he was 12 and she was a 34-y.-o. married mother of four - he got the best of the first deal? On Apr. 16 Marla Ruzicka (b. 1976) of Lakeport, Calif., founder of Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) is killed along with two other people by a car bomb in Iraq; she had successfully lobbied Congress to put millions of dollars in aid into the 2004 foreign aid bill to help Iraqi businesses that had been bombed by mistake. On Apr. 17 registered sex offender David Lee Onstott (1969-) is charged with the first degree murder of 13-y.-o. Sarah Michelle Lunde of Fla., whose body had been found a day earlier; he is convicted on Aug. 21, 2008. On Apr. 20 Pres. Bush signs the 2005 U.S. Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Prevention Act, written by credit card cos., which makes it harder for people to declare bankruptcy, allowing the cos. to employ sleazy debt collectors to get their hands on everything they can. When does a president declare a war bankrupt? On Apr. 20 Iraq announces the recovery of more than 50 bodies from the Rigor Mortis, er, Tigris River, claiming they had been deducted from an area S of Bagdead, er, Baghdad; another 19 bullet-ridden bodies are found in NW Baghdad in a soccer stadium in Hades, er, Hadith. On Apr. 20 U.S. secy. of state Condoleezza Rice tells Russian pres. Vladimir Putin that it need not fear American "encirclement" as former Soviet repubs. establish pro-Western govts. in Georgia, Ukraine, et al., but that it is "the normal development of U.S. relations with fully independent states" - Tsar Putin don't wanna hear that? On Apr. 21 a Russian-made civilian Shatoy Mi-8 commercial heli contracted by the U.S. Defense Dept. is shot down by missile fire N of Baghdad, killing 11 incl. six U.S. diplomat bodyguards. On Apr. 21 U.S. ambassador to Iraq (since June, 2004) John Negroponte becomes dir of U.S. nat. intelligence (until Feb. 13 2007). On Apr. 24 Iraqi insurgents score 21 more dead and 73 wounded, plus one U.S soldier, giving them 38 kills for the week, incl. 3 Americans. On Apr. 24 Syrian troops pack up their remaining equipment in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley after 29 years as Syrians dance in the street; on Apr. 26 the last soldiers leave, ending their 29-year military presence. On Apr. 24 hundreds of thousands of protesters jam Mexico City's central square to protest federal prosecution of their mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. On Apr. 24 Pope Benedict XVI is formally installed in the Vatican, saying in his installation homily that as pontiff he will listen to the will of God in governing the world's 1.1B Catholics. On Apr. 25 the Amagasaki Rail Crash sees a crowded 7-car commuter train carrying 580 passengers derail and plow into an apt. bldg. near Amagasaki, Japan, 250 mi. W of Tokyo, killing 107 and injuring 460, becoming the worse Japanese train accident since 1963 (until ?); the 23-y.-o. driver only had 11 mo. of experience, and was speeding to get the train back on schedule. On Apr. 26 Faure Gnassingbe (Gnassingbé) (1966-), son of late dictator Gnassingbe Eyadema (who died of a heart attack on Feb. 5) wins 60% of the vote to become pres. of Togo, causing opposition supporters to mob the streets in Lome; he is sworn on on May 4 (until ?). On Apr. 26 Washington, D.C.-born Muslim "rock star" scholar Ali al-Timimi (1963-) is convicted of exhorting Muslims in Va. to join the Taliban and fight U.S. troops in the days following 9/11, and given life without parole; on July 13 he is sentenced to life in prison for "soliciting treason" by exhorting his followers to join Lashkar-e-Taiba and fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan at a small mosque in Falls Church, Va.; his 11-man Va. Jihad Network, which incl. CAIR civil rights and comm. dir. Randall Todd "Ismail" Royer played paintball to train for jihad; all are sentenced to terms ranging from 46 mo. to life. On Apr. 27 Pres. Bush gives a speech calling for more nuclear power plants and urging Congress to give tax breaks for fuel-efficient hybrid and clean-diesel cars. On Apr. 25 Condoleezza Rice begins her first (5-day) trip as U.S. secy. of state to Latin Am.. She packed my bags pre-flight, zero out 9 a.m.? On Apr. 27 "E.T.-eyed" Jennifer Wilbanks (1973-) cuts her hair and takes a Greyhound bus to Las Vegas to avoid a lavish Apr. 30 600-guest wedding in Duluth, Ga.; she calls her fiancee John Mason and police from a pay phone in Albuquerque, claiming she had been kidnapped, but later admits a case of cold feet; on June 2 the "runaway bride" is sentenced to two years of probation and 120 hours of community service as part of a plea bargain on a charge of making a false statement; on Mar. 7, 2006 Runaway Bride bobblehead dolls sell well at a sports promo in her hometown of Duluth. On Apr. 27 U.S. atty.-gen. Alberto Gonzales seeks renewal of the powers granted law enforcement under the U.S. Patriot Act, telling Congress that "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse" since it was enacted; it later comes out that a Mar. report by inspector gen. Glenn A. Fine documenting violations was sent to him by the FBI on Apr. 21, causing his asst. Kenneth Wainstein to describe them as mistakes not violations. On Apr. 28 U.S. Sgt. Hasan Karim Akbar (Mark Fidel Kools) (1971-) is sentenced to death for fragging and killing two U.S. officers during the opening days of the Iraqi invasion because he was concerned about U.S. troops killing fellow Muslims. In Apr. 567 Iraqis are killed, incl. 364 civilians in 34 car bombings, 16 other blasts and 54 other attacks; only 341 Iraqis (incl. 164 civilians) were killed in Mar. In Apr. the U.S. federal govt. stops funding the Matrix (Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange) database of public and commercially-collected private info. on Americans that was created as a response to 9/11 by Fla. law enforcement officials and a 1-time drug-running computer whiz named Hank Asher of Seisint, Inc.; civil liberties groups loudly objected to it, causing several states to discontinue its use, but Conn., Fla., Ohio, and Penn. continue to use it. In Apr. Hollywood actors Tom Cruise (Thomas Cruise Mapother IV) (1962-) and Kate Noelle "Katie" Holmes (1978-) go public with their relationship, smooching and posing for photographers in Rome; since they both have major movies in the works, critics label it a publicity stunt, but on June 17 they announce their engagement at the Eiffel Tower, and marry on Nov. 18, 2006 at Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, Italy after she becomes a Scientologist, becoming known as Tomkat; on May 23 Cruise appears on The Oprah Winfrey Show to declare his love for "Dawson's Creek" actress Katie Holmes, jumping on Oprah's couch like a trampoline and hurting his image; on June 29, 2012 Holmes files for divorce, stating that she fears intimidation by the Church of Scientology, which she is leaving, and that Tom will abduct their daughter Suri (b. Apr. 2006). In Apr. actress Reese Witherspoon claims paparazzi tried to run her car off the road. In Apr. Algerian-born Frenchman Djamel (Jamel) Beghal, a confessed al-Qaida and Tablighi Jamaat member is convicted in Paris for plotting to blow up the U.S. embassy. In Apr. after decades of the shah and Saddam Hussein restricting religious pilgrimages from Iran to Iraq, an agreement is signed allowing 1.5K Iranian pilgrims to enter Iraq daily; by 2009 it is raised to 5K a day, and 6K a day in 2011 (2M a year vs. 1.6M going on hajj to Mecca). On May 2 after random highway shootings in the Los Angeles and Southern Calif. area begin occurring within a 75-mi. area on Mar. 12, killing four and wounding four, police close down a section of the highway to search for bullet fragments after the shooters remain unidentified. In Apr. the World Bank Food Programme approves a $3.8B loan for hungry Zambia, and announces that it will stop food aid shipments to China at the end of the year; China becomes the world's 3rd largest food aid donor by 2009. On May 2 U.S. Pfc. Lynndie Rana England (1982-) pleads guilty at Ft. Hood, Tex. to mistreating POWs at Abu Ghraib Prison; Army Reserve Spc. Charles A. Graner Jr. (1968-) (father of her infant son Carter Allan) was convicted in Jan. and sentenced to 10 years in prison; on May 4 the military judge throws out her guilty plea, saying he is not convinced she knew her actions were wrong; after trying to cop a plea about just wanting to please her soldier boyfriend, on Sept. 26-27 she is found guilty and sentenced to three years on six counts of prisoner maltreatment. On May 2 a Los Angeles judge throws out a $9M palimony lawsuit against political comic Bill Maher by former model Nancy "Coco" Johnson. On May 2 Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush signs the Fla. Jessica Lunsford Act, imposing tougher penalties on child molesters, incl. mandatory 25 years to life, and a lifetime GPS monitoring for released offenders; 9-y.-o. Jessica Lundsford's death was discovered in Mar., and convicted sex offender John E. Couey was arrested and charged with snatching her from her bedroom and murdering her by burying her alive; in Apr. 13-y.-o. Sarah Lunde is found dead, and another registered sex offender is charged with her murder; on Aug. 24, 2007 Couey is sentenced to death; the Jessica Marie Lunford Foundation works to get the act passed in all 50 states. On May 3 a forensic accountant testifies in Michael Jackson's child molestation trial that he spends $20 to $30M more each year than he earns; on May 4 the prosecutors rest their case. On May 4 Pakistani commandos nab senior al-Qaida leader Abu Farraj al-Libbi (a Libyan native), the group's no. 3 operative after a shootout at one of his hideouts. On May 4 a suicide attacker kills 60 and wounds 150 at a police recruitment center in Irbil, Iraq; earlier another bomber kills 11 at an Iraqi army recruitment center in C Baghdad, and two more bombers kill nine policemen in W Baghdad. On May 4 an ABC News "Primetime Live" special details allegations by 2003 American Idol contestant Corey Delaney Clark (1980-) that he had an affair with judge Paula Abdul which involved kisses and coaching on how to win the game. On May 4 Pentagon analyst Lawrence Anthony "Larry" Franklin (1947-), an Air Force reserve col. who once was the #3 Defense Dept. official is arrested for divulging top secret info. about Iraq to two execs. of the Am. Israel Public Affairs Committtee at a lunch in June 2003 in Arlington, Va. On May 5 Tony Blair wins a historic 3rd term as Britain's PM, but his Labour Party's majority in Parliament is sharply reduced from 161 to 68 seats (594 of 646), with only 37% of the popular vote, lowest winning share in English history; he enjoyed landslide victories in 1997 and 2001; two makeshift granades explode outside the British Consulate near the U.N. HQ in New York City as British voters go to the polls; Sadiq Aman Khan (1970-) becomes Labour MP for Tooting, London (until ?). On May 5 U.S. Army Brig Gen. Janis Lee Karpinsky (nee Beam) (1953-), whose Army Reserve unit was in charge of the Abu Ghraib (absent garb?) Prison is demoted to col., ending her career; three other more senior gens. are cleared of wrongdoing, while three majors, three captains, two first lts., one second lt., and two chief warrant officers are punished. On May 5 the U.S. and Vietnam announce the Vietnam Religious Freedom Agreement, making it easier for people (esp. Roman Catholics) to worship freely in Communist Vietnam. The Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism (OVT) is established by the U.S. Dept. of Justice to aid the victims and families of U.S. citizens injured or killed in terrorist attacks abroad; in 2006 it becomes part of the new Justice Dept. Nat. Security Div. On May 8 Pres. Bush and Pres. Putin hold a Moscow Summit, and go out of their way to take a unified stand on Middle East peace and terrorism to quell criticism of backsliding on democracy. Justice for the cop dept. shows the true face of Dirty Denver, Colo.? On May 8 (Mother's Day) illegal Mexican immigrant Raul Gomez-Garcia kills off-duty sacred cow Denver cop John "Jack" Bishop and wounds his partner at a baptism party at the Salon Ocampo banquet hall, then flees to Mexico, where he is later captured after an intensive manhunt in Denver and L.A.; on June 6 U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) asks U.S. secy. of state Condoleezza Rice to intervene with Mexico, followed on June 7 by U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) asking Mexico's atty. gen to make an exception in their extradition laws, followed on June 8 by U.S. Rep. (R-Colo.) (1999-2009) Tom Tancredo (1945-), introducing an amendment to open negotiations with Mexico to change its extradition laws; on June 13 the Mexican govt. says it will take 1-3 years to make a decision on returning him, and only if prosecutors agree not to seek the death penalty; on June 14 U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez (R-Colo.) proposes a bill to block foreign aid to Mexico if it won't hand over the accused "cop-killer", commenting to the press that "I've vacationed in Mexico before; I know exactly what 'Mexican time' is"; on June 15 Mexican consul gen. Juan Marcos Gutierrez Gonzalez quips "I don't think he should call it Mexican time, it's legal time"; the extradition finally is done in 2006 after promises not to seek the death penalty; on June 16, 2006 Jaime Arana del Angel receives a max. 12 years as accessory to murder of a cop for burying the murder weapon and giving G-G a ride out of town, the taxi service meriting the max because it had "extraordinary, almost mind-boggling repurcussions", according to the prosecutors, costing them the chance to get G-G a death penalty; on Sept. 16, 2006 Gomez-Garcia is convicted of 2nd degree murder, and gets the max of 80 years - they can just lock him up with the right psycho? On May 10 the U.S. Congress approves an additional $82B for the war on terror, bringing the total cost since 9/11 to over $300B - who made the real profits? On May 10 the Iraqi Parliament appoints 55 legislators (44 men and 11 women) to write a new constitution; on June 23 14 more men and two more women are added to give Sunni Arabs more representation; they work on it for a total of 4 mo. using the old U.S. Articles of Confederation and Iraq's interim constitution. On May 10 the federal courts approve the plan of United Airlines to terminate its employee pension plans. On May 10 German white blonde supermodel Heidi Klum (1933-) ("the Body") marries bald black London-born Nigerian-Brazilian soul singer Seal (Seal Henry Olusegun Olumide Adeola Samuel) (1963-) in Costa Careyes, Mexico, then has son Henry Gunther Ademola Dashtu Samuel on Sept. 12, followed by Johan Riley Fyodor Taiwo Samuel next Nov. 22; she also has a daughter Helene "Leni" Klum (2004-) by Italian Renault Formula One team dir. Flavio Briatore (1950-); a German newspaper calls them a "patchwork family". On May 11 the U.S. Real ID Act of 2005 is signed by Pres. George W. Bush, effective May 11, 2008, requiring states to check that the documents presented for getting a diver's license (birth certificate, passport) are genuine, and incl. a digital photo and some form of biometric data such as a thumbprint, with licenses from non-complying states not to be accepted at airports and federal bldgs.; Section 102 gives the Homeland Security secy. unprecedented power to suspend any law standing in the way of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, incl. environmental laws; the act freaks-out libertarians, who compare it with Nazism; Rep. Jim Guest (R-Mo.) calls it a "frontal assault on the freedom of Americans"; Maine's legislature votes to demand its repeal. On May 11 a suicide bomber in a vehicle swerves in front of a police station in Tikrit, Iraq into a market, killing 31 and wounding 66; meanwhile another bomber blows up while standing in a line outside a police and army recruiting center in Hawija, Iraq, killing 32 and wounding 40. On May 11 Hayden "Jim" Sheaffer Jr. (1936-) and student pilot Troy D. Martin (1969-) of Penn. fly into Washington airspace within 3 mi. of the White House at midday, but it is determined that they were simply lost, and they are released without charges after giving statements. On May 12 after being nominated by Pres. George W. Bush, the GOP-controlled Foreign Relations Committee votes 10-8 along party lines to send the nomination of ultra-conservative interventionist (known for the Feb. 3, 1994 soundbyte: "The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference") John Robert Bolton (1948-) as the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. to the full U.S. Senate, but without the usual recommendation; Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) calls Bolton "the poster child of what someone in the diplomatic corps should not be. He is an ideologue and fosters an atmosphere of intimidation" - work, it's like you don't even know me? On May 12 Russian security chief Nikolai Patrushev accuses U.S. and other foreign intelligence services of using nongovt. orgs. (NGOs) such as the Peace Corps and Merlin to spy on Russia and stir up unrest in former Soviet repubs. On May 12 Ed Viesturs (44) of Bainbridge Island, Wash. becomes the first Am. to scale all of the world's 14 peaks higher than 26,240 ft., reaching the 26,540-ft. summit of Mt. Annapurna in Nepal. On May 13 (Fri.) Cornell-educated serial killer Michael Ross (b. 1959) is executed by lethal injection after fighting attempts by public defenders to save his life, becoming the first execution in New England in 45 years. On May 13 thousands of protesters take to the street after 23 Islamic businessmen are arrested on extremist charges in Tashkent, Uzbekistan; meanwhile 500 are killed in Andijan, Uzbekistan, 30 mi. W of the Kyrgyz frontier in an Islamic uprising, raising cries of govt. atrocities. On May 13 U.S. state secy. Condoleezza Rice speaks out against the alleged desecration of the Quran by U.S. troops in Iraq with the soundbyte: "Disrespect for the holy Quran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States. We honor the sacred books of all the world's great religions. Disrespect for the holy Quran is abhorrent to us all"; on May 16 Newsweek mag. retracts a story by Michael Isikoff claiming that U.S. military personnel abused the Quran (Koran) and flushed them down the toilet, which caused protests in Afghanistan that killed 15 and injured scores; on May 26 five cases of mishandling Qurans of Muslim POWs at Guantanamo Bay are confirmed, but investigators find no "credible evidence" of flushing one of the giant toilet-chokers down - if she calls it holy one more time I'll scream? On May 13 the TV series Star Trek: Enterprise winds up its 4th and last season on UPN, ending an 18-year run for Star Trek as an original show on that network since Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in 1987; the original Star Trek show ("ST: TOS") debuted on NBC-TV in 1966, followed by ST:TNG in 1987, then Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in 1992, and Star Trek: Voyager in 1995; says Enterprise exec. producer Rick Berman "You can squeeze only so many eggs out of a golden goose." On May 14 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) animal rights activists take on the English palace guards and their bearskin hats, which each require 1-2 bear pelts to make, announcing that its members will shadow Queen Elizabeth II on her May 15-25 visit to Canada. On May 15 the bodies of 46 Iraqis shot execution-style are found dumped around an abandoned chicken farm W of Baghdad; meanwhile secy. of state Condi Rice makes a surprise visit to Iraq (her first), telling Shiite leaders in Baghdad to court the Sunnis in writing the new constitution; she also visits the N city of Salahuddin, where she wears a flak jacket as she meets Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani (1946-). On May 15 (Sun.) Palestinians commemorate Al Nakba (the catastrophe) of the 1948 creation of the bandit state of Israel which displaced 700K (now 4M, counting descendants), with mourners carrying old keys of homes they lost; meanwhile Israelis celebrate with fireworks and other festivities. On May 15 eight Uzbek soldiers and three Islamic militants are killed in a battle in Fergana, Uzbekistan near the Kyrgyz border. On May 15 soldiers in Nepal rescue 600 students in Niskov village 190 mi. W of Katmandu after they had been abducted from their classrooms by Maoist rebels; a ceasefire is signed on May 25, 2006. On May 17 British (Scottish) Socialist politician George Galloway (1954-) (known for meeting with Saddam Hussein 1994 and appearing to praise his regime, then being expelled from the British Labour Party in Oct. 2003) denounces U.S. Senators in testimony on Capitol Hill, denying accusations of profiting from the U.S. oil-for-food program. On May 17 Dem. Antonio Ramon Villaraigosa (nee Antonio Ramon Villar Jr.) (1953-) defeats Dem. Mayor James Hahn by 59%-41%, and on July 1 is sworn in as Los Angeles mayor $1 (until July 1, 2013), becoming the first Hispanic mayor of Los Angeles since 1872, when it was a town of 5K people; the city is now 48% Hispanic, 31% white, 11% Asian, and 10% black; Mexican ambassador Carlos de Izaga attends the inauguration; in Nov. 2016 he announces his candidacy for Calif. gov. in 2018 - the reconquista is 48% complete? On May 22 U.S. First Lady Laura Bush visits holy sites in Jerusalem, and is heckled - shave your bush before showing your face here? On May 22 three Romanian journalists and their Iraqi-Am. guide are freed after nearly 2 mo. in captivity in Iraq. On May 23 suicide car bomber explodes outside a Shia mosque in Mahmudiyya, Iraq killing 10; meanwhile a car bomb in a crowded Baghdad commercial district outside a restaurant frequented by police explodes, killing 11 and wounding 110, after which irate Iraqis take it out on police and U.S. troops arriving on the scene, throwing stones at them. On May 23 the Gang of 14 U.S. Senators forges a compromise ending the blockage of an up-or-down vote on judicial nominees, with Repubs. threatening the "nuclear option" (majority vote instead of 60 votes to end a Dem. filibuster); on May 24 white Palacios, Tex.-born Tex. Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Richman Owen (1954-) wins Senate confirmation as a federal appeals judge after a bitter 4-year battle in which Pres. Bush compromises on current and future judicial nominees. On May 23 Donald Trump founds Trump U. to coach dupes, er, students in real estate investing for fees ranging from $1.5K-$35K depending on how much room they have left in their credit cards, with high-pressure salesmen working out of a phone boilerroom coached to get suckers to max out their credit cards in a mad rush to get rich quick, like many other real estate investment courses which only make money for those who run them, although there are isolated cases of lucky pluckers buying some property low and flipping it for a good profit, making it borderline legal; it ceases operations in May 2011; on Aug. 24, 2013 the state of New York files a $40M civil suit against it, followed by lawsuits from disgruntled students. On May 25 a referendum in Egypt on a constitutional amendment permitting a multicandidate vote for pres. is boycotted by six opposition groups, who say it sets nearly impossible conditions for new candidates who want to present an alternative to Pres. Hosni Mubarak and his Nat. Dem. Party. On May 26 Iraqi's Shiite majority govt. launches Operation Lightning with 40K troops to crush Sunni, er, insurgents, who lash back with several sustained attacks on several police stations and an army barracks, killing 20+. On May 26 the Hmong refugee (from Laos) camp at Wat Tham Krabok 60 mi. N of Bangkok (the largest) is officially closed. On May 27 (Fri.) (10:07 p.m.) Big Ben in London stops ticking during record hot weather (90 F); it restarts, stops again at 10:20 p.m., and restarts at 11:50 p.m.; it is stopped deliberately for 33 hours on Oct. 29 for maintenance. On May 29 55% of French voters reject the European Union (EU), followed on June 1 by 62% of Dutch voters; only 9 of 25 states have approved it (Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain), and all 25 have until 2006 to approve it or else the 450M person economic superstate is kaput. On May 29 police find six people shot to death and another injured in adjacent farmhouses in the C Ohio city of Bellefontaine, and conclude that it is a multiple murder and suicide. On May 29 2M (that's million) gays and their supporters parade in Sao Paulo, Brazil's largest city (home of the group Os Mutantes) wearing lavish costumes and waving rainbow-colored flags to demonstrate for legalization of gay civil unions. On May 30 U.S. vice-pres. head, er, Dick Cheney issues a soundbyte that the Iraq insurgency is in its "final throes", which is regularly trotted out against him as the war grinds on throe-out his term of office. Welcome to the beginning of a whole new life? On May 30 18-y.-o. blonde beautiful honors student Natalee Ann Holloway (b. 1986) of Mountain Brook, Ala. disappears in Oranjestad, Aruba in the early hours after celebrating her high school graduation with 124 other students and seven chaperones on the boat Tattoo; she is seen leaving with three young men; in June Joran van der Sloot (1988-), son of Dutch justice ministry official Paul van der Sloot and two Surinamese brothers, Satish Kalpoe (1987-) and Deepak Kalpoe (1984-) are detained, telling police that they dropped her off from their car beside a lighthouse at Arisha Beach after she and the Dutch teen had been kissing in the back seat; on June 12 one of them admits that "something bad happened" to her, and on June 15 authorities search elder van der Sloot's home; on June 17 DJ Steve Gregory Croes (1979-) is arrested, while Natalee's mom Beth Holloway Twitty complains that the authorities are dragging their feet; in July a judge releases the Kalpoe brothers for lack of evidence, but they are rearrested on Aug. 26 after new evidence is found, then released again; critics complain that 53% of 47.6K active cases of missing adults in the U.S. are men and 29% black, but that only upper-middle class white (usually blonde and sexy) women get news coverage and police action; on Nov. 8 Ala. Gov. Bob Riley steps it up a notch by asking for a nationwide travel boycott of Aruba after the case remains unsolved; on Feb. 23, 2006 Joran appears on ABC News' Primetime claiming that he left her on the beach after they "cuddled for a while"; too bad, on Feb. 3 a hidden camera video is released where he confesses to dumping her possibly alive body in the sea and brags that she'll never be found - bleach is how many dimes a gallon? On May 31 Vanity Fair reveals that former #2 at the FBI William Mark Felt Sr. (1913-2008) is the Watergate mystery figure Deep Throat; his family got him to divulge his identity so they could cash in and pay family bills?; Felt had wanted to become head of the FBI, but was passed over for less deep L. Patrick Gray. On May 31 French Pres. Jacques Chirac fires PM Jean-Pierre Raffarin over voter rejection of the EU, and replaces him with 51-y.-o. poet (son of a senator) Dominique de Villepin (1953-) (until May 15, 2007); on June 2 he appoints 50-y.-o. former interior and finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy (Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa) (1955-) as interior minister (until Mar. 26, 2007), which is cool, since Sarkozky is leader of the center-right Union for Popular Movement Party, and is Chirac's rival for pres.; with his wife Cecilia, the Sarkozys are called the Kennedys of France; too bad, they announce their divorce on Oct. 18, 2007. On May 31 an Italian AB-412 heli crashes 8 mi. S of Nasiriyah, Iraq, killing four aboard; it is listed as an accident. In May Pres. Bush signs the Dominican Repub. - Central Am. Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with leaders of five Central Am. countries (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica) and the Dominican Repub.; the U.S. Congress ratifies it in Aug. In May Hilton Hotel heiress Paris Hilton (1981-) gets engaged to shipping heir Paris Latsis (1979-), who gives her a 24-carat diamond engagement ring; they call it off in Sept. In May a pressure group arranges a release ceremony for 7K slaves in Niger; too bad, after the govt. warns that anybody admitting to being a slavemaster will be prosecuted, the ceremony is scrapped. In May Chinese pres. Hu Jintao cancels an int. conference on democracy in Beijing planned for June, and accuses Ching Cheong (1949-), detained Hong Kong-based reporter for Singapore's The Straits Times of spying for a foreign intelligence agency for trying to obtain a ms. of a book on late purged Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang. In May another peace is signed in 99-44/100 pure Ivory Coast, and elections are scheduled for Oct., but they are cancelled after the U.N. declares it impossible to stop the fighting, and the U.N. Security Council recommends that pres. Laurent Gbagbo remain in office for another year while turning over most of his power to new transitional PM Charles Konan Banny (1942-), gov. of the West African Central Bank, who becomes PM on Dec. 7 (until Apr. 7, 2007). In May Donald Trump establishes the online Trump Univ. In May a paparazzi crashes into Lindsay Lohan's car in West Los Angeles. In May the Downing Street Org. is founded, issuing the Downing Street Memos demanding that Congress hold Pres. Bush and Vice-Pres. Cheney and their aides accountable for crimes and abuses of power. In May Arianna Huffington and former AOL exec Kenneth Lerer found the leftist pro-Islam Huffington Post Web site, which reaches 25M monthly viewers by 2011 when AOL purchases it for $315M. In May Hell's Kitchen debuts on Fox Network, featuring British chef Gordon James Ramsay (1966-) putting aspiring chefs through Hell drill instructor-style for a season before selecting one to become a high-paid chef in charge of their own restaurant. On June 1 an al-Qaida suicide bomber detonates in a mosque during a funeral in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing 20, incl. Kabul's police chief, and wounding 42 others, becoming the deadliest attack in Afghanistan since the violent surge began in Mar. On June 1 a landslide in Laguna Beach, Calif. causes 1K to be evacuated. Michael Jackson joins O.J.'s exclusive Calif. A-Team? On June 1 jurors in the Michael Jackson trial are given their instructions, and begin deliberations on June 3 (Fri.); early in the deliberations three jurors vote to convict, but on June 13 after 30 hours of deliberations over seven days they unanimously acquit him of all 14 charges carrying nearly 20 years; on June 14 Jackson's chief atty. Thomas Arthur Mesereau Jr. (with flamboyant white hair) says that the star won't let children into his bed anymore because "it makes him vulnerable to false charges"; on Aug. 8 white jurors Ray Hultman (1943-) and Eleanor Cook (1926-) go public with regret at his acquittal on MSNBC's Rita Cosby Show, Hultman saying that the other jurors "just wouldn't take those blinders off long enough to really look at all the evidence that was there", and Cook saying that the other jurors are "the ones that let a pedophile go"; in June Cook told ABC's Good Morning America that she thought Jackson had molested other children but had to limit her decision to the 13-y.-o. boy at the trial; on Aug. 23 the mother of Jackson's accuser is charged with welfare fraud, accused of collecting nearly $19K illegally. On June 1 U.N. Secy.-Gen. Kofi Annan fires staffer (Cypriot diplomat) Joseph Stephanides for manipulating contracts under the $64B Iraq oil-for-food program. On June 1 federal investigators unearth the casket of 14-y.-o. black Chicago teen Emmett Till, slain in Aug. 1955 for whistling at a white woman. On June 1 a landslide takes down 17 multi-million dollar homes in Laguna Beach, Calif., all built on a steep sandstone hill for them luxurious ocean views. On June 2 insurgents kill 39 in a series of rapid-fire attacks, incl. 12 at a restaurant in Tuz Khormatu, Iraq; meanwhile Iraq's interior minister claims that the govt. sweep by police and soldiers has captured 700 and killed 28 insurgents. On June 2 Israel releases nearly 400 Palestinian POWs as part of a ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian Authority. On June 2 prominent anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir (b. 1960) is killed by a bomb placed under his car's driver's seat in Beirut, causing the opposition to accuse Syria. On June 2 a suicide bomber explodes in the remote village of Sa'ud, Iraq (near Balad), killing 10 and wounding 10. On June 2 13-y.-o. Anurag Kashyap wins the U.S. nat. spelling bee by spelling "appoggiatura", an embellishing musical note - Anurag and the Bee? On June 5 militias loyal to the Council of Islamic Courts drive the warlords out of Somalia; on June 30 Osama bin Laden calls on Muslims to open a third front in the war against the U.S. there. On June 6 the U.S. (Rehnquist) Supreme Court rules 6-3 in Gonzales v. Raich (Ashcroft v. Raich) that people can be prosecuted for violating federal drug laws for smoking marijuana even if their doctors prescribe it and the state approves it, citing the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause; Justice Antonin Scalia writes that Congress may regulate intrastate activities if it is a necessary part of a more gen. regulation of interstate commerce; Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas dissent - I thought I'd never side with a white woman and a black man against a bunch of white men? On June 6-7 the Hussein Brigade arrests 60 men as part of Operation Lightning in Iraq. On June 6-7 the Bolivian capital La Paz is blockaded by poor Indian anti-govt. demonstrators, demanding more power from the white minority, causing Pres. Carlos Diego Mesa Gisbert (who for 19 mo. had been pushing a U.S.-backed free market govt.) to resign on June 6. On June 7 Pres. Bush and PM Blair embrace an African debt relief plan to put them "on a path to reform". On June 7 the Repub.-controlled U.S. Senate ends a nearly 2-year filibuster, clearing the way for Calif. Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown (1949-), a black conservative from Ala. to be confirmed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for D.C., the 2nd highest U.S. court. On June 7 GM CEO (since 2000) Rick Wagoner announces plans to close plants and eliminate 25K manufacturing jobs in the U.S. by 2008. On June 7 three explosions in and around Hawija, Iraq kill 34. On June 9 Donna Goeppert hits the $1M jackpot in the Penn. lottery for the 2nd time, the first time being in Jan. On June 10 an Iraqi shepherd finds the buried bodies of 20 blindfolded, shot-from-behind Sunni men in the Nahrawan Desert 20 mi. east of Baghdad; 21 men are found slain near Qaim, Iraq on the Syrian frontier 200 mi. W of Baghdad. On June 11 four U.S. soldiers die in two roadside bombings W of Baghdad, bringing the number of U.S. forces killed in Iraq since the start of the war over the 1,700 mark; meanwhile gunmen open fire on a minibus in Diyara, Iraq, killing 11 Iraqi construction workers. On June 11 insurgents working for al-Zarqawi stage a suicide bombing inside the heavily-guarded Interior Ministry HQ in Baghdad, killing three; the attack was aimed at the Shiite-dominated Wolf Brigade. On June 11 French Liberation journalist Florence Aubenas, who had been abducted Jan. 5 in Baghdad is freed, and returns to France on June 12, being greeted by French Pres. Jacques Chirac, and describing her captivity tied-up and blindfolded in a cellar as "harsh"; her Iraqi interpreter Hussein Hanun is also freed. On June 12 a flash flood in Shalan in NE China's Heilongjiang Province swamps a school and kills 88 out of 352 students (ages 6-14) and four villagers; none of the 31 teachers are killed; 25 people are hospitalized; the same day a fire at the Huanan Hotel in Shantou in S China thousands of miles away kills 31 and injures 15. On June 12 Iraqi police find the bullet-ridden bodies of 28 people buried in shallow graves or dumped on the streets in Baghdad. On June 12 three Georgia Army Nat. Guard are seriously wounded in a mortar attack in Mahmudiyah, Iraq. On June 12 Iraqi Wolf Brigade leader Gen. Rashid Flaiyeh narrowly escapes an assassination attempt when mortars rain down on his mother's funeral in N Baghdad, wounding 11. On June 12 a bomb derails a passenger train travelling from Chechnya to Moscow, 90 mi. S of Moscow, injuring 15; Chechen separatists are blamed; the blasts happens hours before Pres. Putin holds a Kremlin ceremony in honor of the Day of Russia, a nat. holiday marking the breakup of the Soviet Union. On June 12 four bombs in Ahvaz, Iran kill eight and injure 86, followed hours later by two bombs in Tehran, killing one and wounding four; Iran blames Saddam Hussein supporters. On June 12 the Palestinian Authority executes four Palestinian men for murder, becoming the first execution in three years. On June 12 the Iranian Women Movement protests in front of Tehran U. against the regime's gender discrimination, and police break it up, arresting two - the most bodacious ones, for a body cavity search? On June 12 five children ages 6 mo. to 6 years die in a house fire in the well-tended Kensington neighborhood of Philly as security bars on the windows hamper rescue attempts. On June 12 the 111-member Kurdish Parliament unanimously elects veteran guerrilla leader Massoud Barzani to be the first pres. of Iraq's N Kurdistan region, which has a 100K-man Kurdish-Peshmerga militia. On June 12 U.S. Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) says that even though he voted for the Iraq War, "We've done about as much as we can do", and that the reasons for invading Iraq have proved false; he and other lawmakers plan to introduce legislation immediately calling for a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal - table that? On June 12 U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney tells Fox News that there are no plans to close the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. On June 12 Paris Hilton and her mother Kathy serve as grand marshals in the 35th annual Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood, Calif. On June 13 Sen. Repub. leader Bill Frist orders his trustee to see his shares of Hospital Corp. of America (founded by his father Thomas), leading to accusations of insider trading when two weeks later the corp. issues a bad earnings report causing the stock price to fall 16%. On June 13 the police procedural show The Closer, a spinoff of "Prime Suspect" debuts on TNT Network for 109 episodes (until Aug. 13, 2012), starring Kyra Minturn Sedgwick (1965-) as LAPD deputy chief Brenda Leigh Johnson, an expert case-closing interrogator who sometimes uses deceit and intimidation to make suspects confess. On June 14 a suicide bomber detonates himself in a crowded bank in Kirkuk, Iraq, killing 23 and wounding 100, becoming the city's worst attack since Saddam's ouster. On June 14 Okla. country sweetheart Carrie Marie Underwood (1983), American Idol winner #4 (May 25) releases her first single, Inside Your Heaven with Arista Records; Ala. runner-up Harold Elwin "Bo" Bice Jr. (1975-) also releases the same song, and passes her on the charts. On June 14 Bill and Hillary Clinton finally pay off the last of their legal bills from the Whitewater and impeachment investigations, reporting a joint bank account valued at $5M-$25M and a blind trust valued between $5-$25M; in 2004 Bill earned $875K from speaking engagements, compared to $13.9M in 2002-3. On June 15 the U.S. House votes 238-187 to block the fed govt. from using the Patriot Act to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips, reversing a narrow loss the year before by allowing the govt. to continue to obtain records of Internet use at libraries. On June 15 six masked gunmen take 70 students and teachers hostage at an internat. school in Siem Reap Province in NW Cambodia, demanding money, weapons and cars, then killing a 3-y.-o. Canadian boy before being captured by police on June 16. On June 15 a Marine Harrier jet carrying four 500-lb. bombs crashes into the backyard of a home in Yuma, Az. On June 15 the Shinnecock Indian Tribe files a multi-billion dollar lawsuit in U.S. District Court claiming ownership of 3.6K acres on E Long Island in the hopes of building a casino at the gateway to the super-rich Hamptons (Southampton). On June 15 the Mexican Supreme Court rules that former pres. Luis Echeverria can be charged with genocide for his involvement in a 1971 massacre of student protesters. On June 15 Taliban rebels break into a medical clinic near the Pakistan border in Afghanistan and kill a doctor and six of his assistants; the same day hundreds of insurgents clash with U.S.-led coalition forces, and seven insurgents are killed. On June 15 105-y.-o. Percy Arrowsmith, who two weeks earlier set the record for the world's longest marriage (80 years) with 100-y.-o. wife Florence dies in his home in Hereford, NW of London, England. On June 16 Australian hostage Douglas Wood is freed from a Baghdad home by U.S. troops after 47 days; the captors kept him under a blanket in Arab dress and claimed he was their ailing father. On June 16 a suicide bomber in an army uniform detonates himself in a crowded mess hall in Baghdad, killing 26 Iraqi soldiers; a roadside bomb kills five U.S. Marines near Ramadi; the total kill by insurgents in one day exceeds 50. On June 17 former Tyco Internat. CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski and CFO Mark H. Swartz are convicted on 30 of 31 counts of securities fraud, conspiracy, grand larceny, and falsifying business records in Manhattan; prosecutors use the case to send a message against corporate greed. On June 17 credit card transaction co. MasterCard Internat. Inc. announces the largest breach of security involving financial data to date, saying that 13.9M MasterCard accounts had been breached by a computer virus that captured data from CardSystems Solutions Inc., which processes credit card payments; at least 68K accounts have had fraudulent charges posted to them so far. On June 17 Guidant Corp., sued on June 1 by a Penn. man over their failure to tell patients using its cadiac defibrillators that they can short-circuit announces that the devices used by 50K heart patients are flawed and offer to replace more than half of them. On June 17 black clan patriarch Marcus Wesson (1947-) is convicted in raisin capital Fresno, Calif. of murdering nine of his incestuous children and of raping and molesting seven of his underage daughters and nieces; the police found the bodies in a bloody pile on Mar. 12, 2004 after a standoff. On June 19 fighting in S Afghanistan kills 20 militants; meanwhile the Taliban claims that it has assassinated a kidnapped Afghan police chief and five of his men who collaborated with the U.S. On June 19 a suicide bomber explodes in a popular Baghdad restaurant during lunchtime, killing 23. On June 19 the temp. reaches 116 F in Lahore, Pakistan, followed by 118 F on June 20 and 121 F on June 22. On June 20 Pres. Bush attends a joint news conference with European leaders, saying that he is determined to complete the mission of establishing democracy in Iraq to make the world a better place. On June 20 parliamentary elections in Lebanon are announced, showing that the anti-Syrian opposition with a majority; on June 21 anti-Syrian Greek Orthodox Christian Lebanese politician (former Communist Party leader) (Captain Kangaroo lookalike?) George Hawi (b. 1938) is killed by a car bomb in W Beirut; he joins anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir (June 2) and former PM Rafik Hariri (Feb. 14); White House press secy. (2003-6) Scott McClellan (1968-) calls them "targeted assassinations of political figures", but stops short of blaming Syria, while anti-Syrian leaders claim that Syria has drawn up a hit list of enemies in Lebanon. On June 20 a suicide bomber in Arbil, Iraq kills 15 traffic cops and wounds 100. On June 21 80-y.-o. wheelchair-riding former KKK member Eager Racist Killer Edgar Ray "Preacher" Killen (1925-) is found guilty of manslaughter of three civil rights workers 41 years after he did it by a jury of 9 whites and 3 blacks, who deliberate for less than 6 hours and clear him of murder charges; "Forty-one years after the tragic murders... justice finally arrives in Philadelphia, Miss.", says Rep. Bennett Thompson, the only black congressman in Miss. On June 21 Vietnamese PM Phan Van Khai visits the White House, becoming the highest-ranking Communist official from Vietnam to visit since the end of the Vietnam War; meanwhile hundreds protest the visit in front of the White House. On June 21 Afghan and U.S.-led coalition troops battle rebels in the Daychopan district in Zabul Province in S Afghanistan, killing 40 rebels while killing a policeman and wounding five U.S. soldiers and two more policemen. On June 22 a U.S. U-2 spy plane crashes while returning to its base in the UAR from a mission in Afghanistan, killing the pilot. The U.S. Congress reaches its all-time peak of stupidity? On June 22 the U.S. House passes (by 8 votes, 286-130) the U.S. Flag Desecration Amendment to the U.S. Bill of Rights: "The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States"; luckily it fails to pass the U.S. Senate by one vote next June 27 after being sponsored by Mormon Utah Repub. sen. Orrin Hatch - a "flag of the United States" incl. not just those owned by the govt. (which are already protected), but copies or fancied copies owned by private individuals, incl. icing on cakes and drawings on the backs of matchbooks? Drop that cake you're desecrating, you're under arrest? What is "desecration" (de-consecration) in those cases, since real flags that soldiers died for on battlefields are one thing, but a piece of private property containing a design of stars and stripes that represents the freedom of the people under a constitutional sovereign state is not a holy object that must be carefully stored, revered, kissed, etc., like the Big Black Cube of the Muslims in Mecca? So what is being desecrated, the flag or the Constitution? the near-passing of this horrible monstrosity shows the low level to which U.S. literacy has sunk, and signals its downward slide? On June 23 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 5-4 in Kelo v. City of New London, Conn. that it is "permissible use" for the govt. to take property from one private owner under the law of eminent domain and give it to another in furtherance of economic development as long as it is for a public purpose, not just a public use; Donald Trump utters the soundbyte "I happen to agree with it 100 percent." On June 24 Hollyweird and Scientology superstar Tom Cruise gives an interview to ABC-TV's Matt Lauer, dissing Brooke Shields for using anti-depressant drugs like Ritalin and Paxil for postpartum depression after giving birth to daughter Rowan Frances in 2003 instead of vitamins and exercise, calling Lauer "glib" for disagreeing, and uttering the soundbytes: "You don't even know what Ritalin is"; "Before I was a Scientologist I never agreed with psychiatry, and when I started studying the history of psychiatry, I understood more and more why I didn't believe in psychology", "Psychiatry is a pseudo-science", and "You don't know the history of psychiatry, I do"; in 2008 Cruise apologizes for being "arrogant"; on July 1 Shields pub. an op-ed piece in The New York Times, saying, "I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Mr. Cruise has never suffered from postpartum depression"; meanwhile, Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, starring Tom Cruise debuts on June 30 with $21.3M at the domestic box office, and $34.6M worldwide; in Dec. a museum called "Psychiatry: An Industry of Death", linked to the Church of Scientology opens in Hollywood, the opening attended by Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley, Danny Masterson, Jenna Elfman, Catherine Bell et al. On June 24-26 Rev. Billy Graham (b. 1918) holds a revival meeting in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, N.Y. that he claims is his last after preaching to 210M in 185 countries, the most in history; his son Franklin will take his place. On June 26 four suicide bombers strike Iraqi police and army forces in a 16-hour wave of violence in Mosul, killing 38; defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld says that the Iraqi insurgency could take as long as 12 years to defeat, with Iraqi security forces, not U.S. and foreign troops taking the lead and finishing the job. On June 26 U.S. troops sweep the Khakeran Valley in Afghanistan 130 mi. NE of the main S city of Kandahar, seeking up to 300 insurgents. On June 27 the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) Court rules 7-2 in Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales that a town and its police dept. can't be sued in federal court for failing to enforce a restraining order, which led to the murder of a woman's three children by her estranged husband. On June 27, 2005 after arguments by Repub. Tex. atty. gen. #50 (since Dec. 2, 2002) Greg Abbott (future Tex. gov. #48 on Jan. 20, 2015), the U.S. Supreme (Rehnquist) rules 5-4 in that it's okay to display the Ten Commandments on govt. property at the Tex. State Capitol in Austin because it is a "passive monument"; McCreary County v. ACLU of Ky. to ban the same kind of display in Ky.; Stephen Breyer is the swing vote in both cases - just blank out the non-PC ones? On June 28 Pres. Bush issues Executive Order 13382, titled "Blocking Property of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators and Their Supporters", barring financial entities involved in nuclear proliferation from the U.S. financial and commercial system; starting in 2007 the U.S. Treasury Dept. designates 15 Iranian banks under it. On June 29 the Petrocaribe oil alliance between Venezuela and 17 South Am. and Caribbean nations is signed, providing preferential payment conditions. On June 29 Mexico releases a series of postage stamps depicting the black char. Memin Pinguin (created in 1943 by Yolanda Vargas Dulche and Sixto Valencia), drawing howls from U.S. black activists. On June 30 Spain becomes the country #3 to legalize gay marriage - let's play bull and matador? On June 30 the U.S. Federal Reserve boosts the interest rate for the 9th time in a row (from 3.00% to 3.25%). In June the Stockholm Int. Peace Research Inst. reports that U.S. defense spending this year breaks the $1T mark, almost half of the world's military expenditures, but after adjusting for inflation it's actually 6% lower than the Cold War peak in 1987-8. In June John Kerry releases his college transcript, showing a 76% (C) average, incl. 3 D's in his freshman year (rocks for jocks, history, political science); in 1999 The New Yorker pub. George W. Bush's transcript, showing a 77%, graduating two years after Kerry. In June the U.S. signs a 10-year defense pact with India, upsetting Pakistan by their possible acquisition of the U.S. Patriot ABM system. In June the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) votes 6-3 to proceed with ".xxx" domain names for porn sites; participation in the "red-light district" porn domain is voluntary. In June black Verizon exec Bruce Scott Gordon (1946-) becomes head of the NAACP (until Mar. 2007). In June the State Supreme Court of Chihuahua, Mexico throws out the case against Victor Javier Garcia Uribe, setting him free after 3.5 years in prison after police frame him and torture him into a false confession in the mysterious rape-deaths of more than 350 women in and around the border city of Juarez during the past decade; meanwhile the crime spree is spreading to other Mexican cities such as Chihuahua; the police are suspected of being involved. In June 86-y.-o. Billy Graham holds yet another gospel crusade with an audience of 230K. In June a Statue of "Samantha on Bewitched" Elizabeth Montgomery is erected in Salem, Mass. In June the worst red tide outbreak since 1972 strikes the Atlantic shore from Cape Cod to Maine, putting clammers out of business and causing federal officials to declare an economic emergency. In the summer U.S. Army SSgt. Dale L. Horn (1980-) from Fort Walton Beach, Fla. is made an official sheik in the village of Qayyarah, Iraq after helping 30 villages get clean water; other sheiks gave him five sheep and a postage stamp of land to fulfill the requirements for becoming "Sheik Horn"? On July 2 Egyptian diplomat Ihab al-Sherif is kidnapped in Baghdad, and is later killed, with al-Qaida's Iraqi wing claiming credit; meanwhile a suicide bomber explodes in a Baghdad police recruiting center, killing 16 and wounding 22. On July 2 Joseph Edward Duncan III (1963-), a convicted sex offender is arrested at a Denny's restaurant in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho after a waitress recognizes the 8-y.-o. girl with him as the one kidnapped on May 15 along with her 9-y.-o. brother after the mother and her boyfriend were bludgeoned to death; he had been entering messages in his Internet blog about his sex addiction, writing "God has shown me the right choice, but my demons have me tied to a spit and the fire has already been lit" on Apr. 24. On July 3 Saidi security forces kill Younis Mohammed Ibrahim al-Hayari, the al-Qaida leader of Morocco in a gun battle in Riyadh. On July 4 Pres. Bush gives a speech in Morgantown, W. Va. defending staying the course in Iraq, saying "The proper response is not retreat, it is courage." On July 4 a U.S. airstrike in E Afghanistan in the same province where the U.S. heli was downed a week earlier kills 17 civilians; meanwhile rebel attacks across the country kill 700. On July 4 the United Church of Christ votes by 80% to endorse same-sex marriage, making it the largest Christian denomination to do so (until ?). On July 5 Pres. Bush makes a stopover in Denmark and thanks them for their help in the Iraq War, then heads to the 13-nation Group of Eight Summit (U.S., Britain, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Russia, plus China, India, Mexico, Brazil, S Africa) in Gleneagles, Puppet-Masterland (Scotland), where on July 6 he finally admits publicly that greenhouse gases are warming the Earth, and finds PM Tony Blair balking at his attempt to scale back goals for relieving poverty and disease in Africa; meanwhile 5K-15K demonstrators surround the Gleneagles Golf Resort, while Pres. Bush collides with a police officer and falls during a bike ride on the grounds - we are supersizing our surprises while surprising our biggest fans? On July 5 gunmen open fire on senior envoys from Pakistan and Bahrain in a failed kidnap attempt. On July 5-10 an AP poll finds that 6 in 10 Americans think another world war in their lifetime is likely, compared to only one-third of Japanese. British bulldog gets kicked in jaw by pesky Muslim immigrants on 7/11? On July 7 (7/7) (8:49 a.m. BST) the London 7/11 Suicide Bombings see four bombings in London, England (pop. 7.4M) by four jihadists, incl. near Paddington Station (Circle line) (N of Hyde Park), Liverpool Street Station (Circle line) (NW of Aldgate Station), Russell Square (Piccadilly Line) (N of the U. of London and the British Museum), and King's Cross Station (Piccadilly Line) (stop for the Hogwart's Express?) kill 52 plus four suicide bombers, and injure 784, becoming the deadliest attack on London since WWII, and shocking the supposedly safe city, which had been considered a tolerant haven for budding Muslim terrorists; former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is yards away from the explosion near the Liverpool St. Station, and calls it an "eerie reminder" of 9/11; the politicos come thru with great soundbytes: "We will show, by our spirit and dignity, and by our quiet but true strength that there is in the British people, that our values will long outlast theirs" (PM Tony Blair); "This scorn for human life is something we must fight with every greater firmness" (Jacques Chirac); "No matter where such inhuman crimes occur... they demand unconditional condemnation" (Vladimir Putin); on July 17 the Sunni Council, Britain's largest Sunni Muslim group, led by Sheikh Abu Basir al-Tartusi issues a fatwa condemning the bombings as "perverted ideology", while al-Tartusi later issues the soundbyte "More than half of the Quran and hundreds of the Prophet's sayings call for jihad and fighting those unjust tyrants"; one of the bombers, Shehzad Tanweer (22), a Briton of Pakistani descent who worked at his father's fish and chips shop in Leeds leaves behind savings of $212,460, which goes to his family; ringleader Tafazal Mohammad (1964-) is later paid 80K pounds to lecture Scotland Yard's counterterrorism unit on how best to "engage" with Muslims; British pacifist Samantha Louise Lewthwaite (1983-), widow of black Jamaica-born British Muslim convert Germaine Maurice Lindsay (Abdullah Shaheed Jamal) (1985-2005), who blew up on Russell Square, killing 26, goes on to become the Muslim terrorist AKA the White Widow. On July 8 Category 4 (150 mph) Hurricane Dennis hits Haiti, killing 10, then the S coast of Cuba, killing 10, then weakens to Category 2 (110 mph) and heads for the Florida Keys and Gulf Coast, picking up to Category 3 (120ph) as it slams into the Fla. Panhandle on July 10. On July 9 a panda is born at the Nat. Zoo in Washington, D.C.; another is born on Aug. 2 at the San Diego Zoo. On July 9 the BDS movement is founded by Palestinians to campaign for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. On July 10 the body of a missing U.S. commando is found in E Afghanistan, becoming the last member of a 4-man Special Forces unit that disappeared the previous month to be found. On July 10 a suicide bomber detonates at a Baghdad army recruiting center at Muthana Airfield in C Baghdad, Iraq, killing 25 and wounding 47. On July 11 four terror suspects incl. a top al-Qaida lt. escape from a U.S. military jail in Afghanistan; the identity of Omar al-Farouq is acknowledged in Nov.; on Sept. 25, 2006 he is killed during a raid on his home in Basra, Iraq. On July 12 U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist is hospitalized with a fever. On July 13 a suicide car bomber in Iraq denotates next to U.S. troops handing out candy and toys, killing 32 children and one U.S. soldier, and wounding 70. On July 13 a triple train collision near Ghotki, Pakistan kills 133. On July 16 suicide bomber explodes beneath propane tanker parked near a Shia mosque S of Baghdad, killing 98 and wounding 156. On July 16 Hollywood star Sandra Bullock (1964-) marries "Monster Garage" host Jesse James (1969-); he was previously married twice, last time to to porno star Janine Marie Lindemulder in 2002-4. On July 17 an Iraqi Special Tribunal files its first criminal case against Saddam Hussein for a 1982 massacre of Shiites. On July 17 a federal jury convicts Michael Zuchet, the acting mayor of San Diego, Calif. and city councilman Ralph Inzunza of taking payoffs from a strip club owner to help repeal a "no touching" law at nude clubs; it was Zuchet's first day on the job. On July 18 Hurricane Emily hits Mexico's Mayan Riviera, stranding thousands of tourists and making local residents homeless. On July 18 (night) Israeli security forces block thousands of Jewish setlers from marching in Netivot, Israel in protest of the upcoming Gaza Strip pullout. On July 18 Pres. Bush holds the first Washington A-list dinner of his 2nd term, honoring Indian PM Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur; he only held four grand dinners in his first term, compared to 25 by his 1-term father and 57 by two-term Reagan. On July 18 Pres. Bush lowers his standard for staff dismissals to those "who committed a crime", superseding his June 2004 pledge to fire anyone who leaked info. about the secret identity of Valerie Plame. On July 18 Mamoun Darkazanli (b. 1959), an al-Qaida suspect is freed after the German high court blocks his extradition to Spain, ruling that a EU-wide arrest warrant violates the German constitution; he had appeared in a 1999 wedding video with two of the three 9/11 suicide pilots who lived and studied in Hamburg. On July 18 the first shipment of Canadian cattle roll into the U.S. (35 black Angus at Lewiston, N.Y.) after a 2-year ban because of mad cow disease. On July 19 Sunni Muslim former Citibank employee Fouad (Fuad) Siniora (1943-) becomes PM of Lebanon; on May 25, 2008 he is renominated along with the post of acting pres. (until Nov. 9, 2009). Mecca lecca hi, Mecca lecca ho, Mecca tancredo? On July 19 Turkish, Russian, and U.S. officials react angrily to comments made by Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) the week before during an interview with Fla. radio talk show host Pat Campbell that if Islamic terrorists nuke the U.S., "and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites"; on July 19 he explains that he didn't mean Mecca. On July 19 Mijbil Issa and Dhamin Hussein al-Obeidi, two of 15 Sunni Arabs on the new Iraqi constitution drafting committee are assassinated in Baghdad; earlier threats had caused two other Sunnis to resign. On July 19 thousands of Jewish settlers clash with Israeli police in a makeshift protest camp in Kfar Maimon, Israel, while trying to march to Gaza Strip settlements marked for evacuation in Aug.; "Ariel Sharon is not scared of 20K or 50K marching settlers", says vice-PM Ehud Olmert. On July 21 the 2005 Attempted London Bombings sees four bombs planted by terrorists on three London Underground trains and a double-decker bus, but they fail to fully detonate; by July 31 police arrest 21 people; Somali-born Ramzi Mohammed (1981-) and Muktar Said Ibrahim (Muktar Mohammed Said) (1978-) are convicted and given 40 years to life for the Oval tube station attempt; during their July 27 arrest they stand nearly naked on their balcony to avoid tear gas, with Ramzi shouting "I have rights" to the media; Somali-born Yasin (Yassin) Hassan Omar (1983-) and Ethiopian-born Hussain Osman (Hamdi Isaac) (1978-) are convicted of the Victoria Line attempt and given 40-life. On July 21 (just hours after the London attack) the U.S. House votes 257-171 (214 Repubs. and 43 Dems.) to extend the U.S. Patriot Act. On July 21 China announces that it is cutting its currency's link to the dollar, raising the yuan 2.1% against it, thus making Chinese exports to the U.S. more expensive and helping America's $162B trade deficit with them. On July 21 two Algerian diplomats and their driver are kidnapped in Baghdad, Iraq in the infamous Mansour District, bringing the total to five key diplomats from Islamic countries in less than 3 weeks; victims incl. Ali Belaroussi, chief of the Algerian mission, and Azzedine Ben Kadi; al-Qaida later announces that it killed them. On July 21 the 2nd day of riots in Sana'a, Yemen over its crumbling economy leave 16 dead in the country's worst civil strife in a decade; this time rioters demand the ouster of the govt., which had signed an economic pact with the U.S. and is a close ally on their war on terror. On July 21 the U.S. Treasury Dept. identifies four nephews of Saddam Hussein who they claim played significant roles in supporting insurgents from Syrian bases, all sons of Saddam's half-brother and adviser Ayman Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, who was captured in Feb. in Syria. On July 21 Sudanese security officers in Khartoum rough up members of U.S. secy. of state Condoleezza Rice's entourage at the compound of Pres. Omar el-Bashir, and the foreign minister meets her demand to apologize personally; she also meets refugees in Darfur, and leaves without promising that the U.S. will lift economic sanctions or remove Sudan from their list of terrorist-sponsoring countries. On July 21 the U.S. and Russia open a new U.S.-financed command center aimed at preventing nuclear arms trafficking in Russia. On July 21 Vladimir Arutyunian is arrested in Tbilisi, Georgia, and admits to throwing a grenade during a May rally where U.S. Pres. Bush was making a speech. On July 21 Lisa G. Berzins, a prominent eating disorder expert who collapsed in a supermarket after inhaling whipped cream propellant applies for accelerated rehabilitation to avoid a guilty plea. On July 21 suburban teenager Andrew Osantowski is sentenced to at least 4.5 years for plotting a massacre at his high school and amassing a home arsenal; "You still have a future", says Judge Matthew Switalski. On July 21 U.S. authorities announce the shutting down of a 360-ft. underground marijuana-smuggling tunnel underneath the U.S.-Canadian border near Lynden, Wash., the first such tunnel discovered on that border; Canadian authorities learned of it while under construction in Feb. and U.S. officials monitored it then shut it down as it opened, arresting five people with a total of 200 lbs. of weed. On July 22 British police chase down and shoot Brazilian citizen Jean Charles de Menezes (b. 1978) 5x in the head after he emerges from a S London apt. complex; they later admit that they wrongly suspected him of being a terrorist and that he was totally innocent, stirring angry protests; later a police coverup is exposed, showing that he was not even acting guilty; on Nov. 1, 2007 the London police force is found guilty of endangering the public by a jury, and ordered to pay $2.1M, although the police chief Ian Blair refuses to resign. On July 22 filmmaker Roman Polanski (1933-) wins a libel suit against Vanity Fair mag. over a 2002 article accusing him of propositioning Norwegian model Beatte Telle while on the way to the funeral of his murdered wife Sharon Tate, putting his hand on her thigh and promising "I will make another Sharon Tate out of you"; at the trial the mag. admitted that it didn't happen before the funeral after all, but two weeks after it; on July 24 she tells the London Mail that it never happened and that "Polanski just stood there. He just stared at me for ages... Perhaps I reminded him of Sharon Tate." On July 23 (1:15 a.m.) (Egyptian Rev. Day) a series of three bombs kill 88 and injure 150 in a downtown market the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, in Egypt, causing numerous arrests esp. of Bedouins in the Sinai, and a separation barrier to be built around the city to keep Bedouins out; al-Qaida claims credit; the same resorts had been attacked on Oct. 7, 2004. On July 23 a 6.0 earthquake shakes Tokyo, injuring 27. On July 23-28 81-y.-o. Pres. Robert Mugabe of platinum-rich Zimbabwe visits China as part of his "Look East" policy to switch from Britain to China for its economic support, with his human rights abuses not an issue there, incl. a life expectancy drop since 1988 from 62 to 38 years. On July 23-24 60 survivors of the July 30, 1945 USS Indianapolis tragedy gather in Indianapolis, Ind. for a reunion at a memorial, where Navy secy. Gordon England lays a wreath. The next Aryan Hitler takes the baton and carries on? On July 24 former Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956-) (Imadinnajacket, Inajacket) steamrolls former pres. Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani in a surprise to Westerners, and is sworn-in on Aug. 6 as Islamic Repub. of Iran pres. #6 (until ?); on June 17 he only received 19% of the vote in a pres. runoff against former pres. Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, who warned that he will run a totalitarian regime and that the 200K-man Rev. Guard (of which MA is a former cmdr.) is rigging the vote; during the campaign Imadinnajacket says that Iran "did not have a revolution in order to have democracy"; on July 27 he vows to pursue a peaceful nuclear program and says that his govt. will not be extremist, while U.S. defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld calls the election a "mock election" because more than 1K potential candidates were disqualified from running by the hard-line Guardian Council; former U.S. hostages say he was one of the Iranians who seized them in 1979 (co-founder of the student org.); as pres. he becomes known for frequently weeping; he is a puppet of Shiite #1 grand ayatollah Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani (1930-) and ayatollah Mohammad Taghi (Taqi) Mesbah Yazdi (1934-), who claims that his protege is the "chosen" of the Mahdi. On July 24 a suicide truck bomber denotes outside the al-Rashad Police Station police station in Baghdad, killing 25 and wounding 33; in the night four U.S. soldiers are killed in SW Baghdad by a roadside bomb. On July 24 a luxury long-haul passenger bus dives off the Tamburaw Bridge into a river in Kano in N Nigeria after the driver falls asleep, killing 56 of 62. Om July 25 the AFL-CIO splinters after the Service Employees Internat. Union and the Teamsters announce their exit. On July 25 14-y.-o. Jamie Marie Daigle of Ganzales, La. is killed by an 8-ft. bull shark in Destin, Fla. as she swims on a boogie board 100 yards from shore. On July 25 Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations debuts on Travel Channel for 142 episodes (until Nov. 5, 2012). The real Capt. Janeway? On July 26 (10:39 a.m. EDT) Space Shuttle Discovery "Return to Flight" Mission STS-114 (first flight since the Columbia disaster 2.5 years earlier), with a 7-person crew commanded by 48-y.-o. Eileen Marie Collins (1956-), incl. James MacNeal "Vegas" Kelly (1964-), Japanese-born Soichi Noguchi (1965-), Stephen Kern Robinson (1955-) Australian-born Andrew Sydney Withiel "Andy" Thomas (1951-), Wendy Barrien Lawrence (1959-), and Charles Joseph "Charlie" Camarda (1952-) has a picture-perfect liftoff 13 days after a postponement caused by a faulty fuel sensor in the external tank; 36 hours later (July 27) images shot from one of the 100+ cameras onboard show that a piece of foam insulation separated from the external fuel tank but missed hitting the shuttle, causing NASA to ground all future shuttles until the problem can be fixed; on July 28 NASA announces that the Shuttle looks safe to return to Earth; on Aug. 3 astronaut Stephen K. Robinson removes two pieces of filler material from the Shuttle's belly; the Shuttle returns safely on Aug. 9 after 219 orbits and lands at Edwards AFB, Calif. at 6:11 a.m. EDT as the song Come On, Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners is played. On July 26 16 Iraq govt. employees are killed and 27 wounded near Abu Ghraib Prison when gunmen fire at a pair of buses taking them home to Shiite neighborhoods. On July 26 a draft copy of the new Iraqi constitution proclaims that Islam will be the main source of legislation, and that no law will be approved that contradicts "the rules of Islam" - how many infidel U.S. servicemen died for that? On July 26 North Korea ends a 13-mo. boycott and begins talks in Beijing on denuclearizing. On July 27 about 300 Boy Scouts out of 40K at their 2005 Nat. Scout Jamboree (July 25-Aug. 3) at Ft. A.P. Hill, near Bowling Green, Va. (S of Washington, D.C.) are treated for heat sickness in 100+ deg. F heat while waiting for Pres. Bush to arrive at a memorial service for four Scout leaders who were killed by a power line while pitching a tent on July 25; Bush cancels the visit because of high winds. On July 28 the House by a 217-215 vote approves the Dominican Repub. - Central Am. Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), becoming a personal triumph for Pres. Bush; it adds six Latin Am. countries to the list of nations with free-trade agreements with the U.S. On July 29 the British army begins dismantling military positions in Northern Ireland one day after the IRA promises full disarmament and renounces all violence; on July 27 the Brits parole an IRA mass murderer as part of the deal; on Sept. 23 the Sinn Fein and Irish govt. meet for the time time in 8 mo., and the IRA agrees to dispose of its stockpiled arms within a week. On July 29 actress Cameron Diaz accepts "substantial" damages from a British tabloid for alleging she had an affair with a married man; on July 25 a photographer who tried to sell topless photos of her in 2003 is found guilty of forgery, attempted grand theft and perjury by a Los Angeles court. On July 29 a suicide bomber at an army recruitment center in Rabi'a, Iraq in N Iraq kills 48 and wounds 58. On July 30 Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) angers the Bush admin. by coming out in support of expanded human embryonic stem-cell research - no more Superman movies for you? On July 30 a raid on an apt. in S England nabs seven more suspects for the July 21 transit bombings, followed by 2 more in S London on Aug. 1, bringing the total to 21. On July 30 18-y.-o. black student Anthony Walker (b. 1987) is murdered with an ice axe by Michael Barton (18) and his cousin Paul Taylor (20) in Huyton (near Liverpool), Merseyside, England while waiting for a bus after a man shouts racial insults; on Aug. 3 they are arrested, receiving life sentences. In July the U.S. suffers from a nationwide heat wave, caused by late arrival of the summer monsoon season, with temperatures reaching 120 deg F in Ariz.; Cuba suffers from both a heat wave and a breakdown of the electrical grid, causing anti-govt. protests and graffiti, causing Pres. Fidel Castro to ask for patience on July 26 in his 52nd anniv. of the rev. speech. In July Sandra Day O'Connor announces her retirement, 2 mo. before chief justice William Rehnquist dies; she later says that he told her he wasn't ready to retire and she didn't want to to quit at the same time, and would have preferred to stay on until she was "really in bad shape", but decided to do it for her ailing husband. In July Canada legalizes gay marriage, joining Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain as #4. In July hidden porno material is found hidden in the popular video game Grand Theft Auto: San Antonio, causing it to be removed from store shelves and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D.-N.Y.) to introduce legislation prohibiting the sale of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors; in Aug. video-game execs host a fundraiser for her. In July the U.S. approves a measure to transmit radio and TV newscasts into Venezuela to get around their iron curtain, causing Pres. Hugo Chavez to vow to jam them. In July Marin Alsop (1956-) becomes the first female conductor of a major U.S. orchestra, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. In July Penn. lawmakers vote themselves a 16% pay raise in secret without public debate or scrutiny, then leave town, using a 20-y.-o. court ruling to collect their pay increases immediately despite a provision in the constitution barring same-term pay increases; when the public finds out they raise hell about the Great Harrison Caper of 2005, but the lawmakers keep their raises. In July four terrorist suspects incl. al-Qaida's highest ranking operative in SE Asia and a Saudi al-Qaida operative escape from the U.S. military detention center Cell 119 in Bagram, Afghanistan; it takes until Dec. for the military to admit how dangerous the escapees were. In July Thailand PM Thaksin Shinawatra assumes emergency powers to deal with the resurgent Muslim South Thailand Insurgency, which is causing thousands of Buddhists to flee north; next Sept. 19 a military junta ousts Shinawatra, while the death toll increases to 2,579 by mid-Sept. 2007 and 3K in Mar. 2008; the insurgency ends in ?. In July a ms. of "All You Need is Love" by Beatle John Lennon sells for $1M at auction - money can't buy me love? Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud (1924-2015) (de facto ruler since Jan. 1, 1996 when Fahd had an incapacitating stroke) is crowned as king #6 of Saudi Arabia (until Jan. 23, 2015), with his brother prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud (1928-) as crown prince and heir apparent; London-born CNN journalist Christiane Amanpour (1958-) is the last to interview Fahd and the first to interview new king Abdullah. On Aug. 1 Iraq's electoral commission begins registering voters for the upcoming constitutional referendum on Oct. 15 and gen. election on Dec. 15. On Aug. 1 the co. distributing Atkins diet products (pancake-waffle mix, cookie mix, potato chips, etc.) goes bankrupt; just a year ago (May 17, 2004) NBC-TV's Nightly News was touting them as the big new thing among dieters, but the percentage of Americans on the plan slides from 9% to 2% - most of the products tasted awful, so what's the surprise? On Aug. 1 seven U.S. Marines are killed in two separate attacks W of Baghdad, bringing the Iraq War total of U.S. military dead since Mar. 2003 past 1.8K. On Aug. 1 Minn. drops its DWI limit to 0.08%, the last state to do so (first was Utah in 1983); the previous uniform limit was 0.10%. On Aug. 1 Paris-born Jewish billionaire founder of Ameriquest Corp. Roland E. Arnall (1939-2008), known for raising millions for Pres. George W. Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger et al. is appointed U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands; meanwhile in early 2006 his Ameriquest Corp. announces a $325M settlement with 49 states after its crooked predatory balooning-payment mortgage practices that have ruined hundreds of thousands of families are exposed. On Aug. 1 the Calif. Supreme Court rules that country clubs must offer gay members who register as domestic partners the same discounts given to married heteros after Bernardo Heights Country Club (San Diego) member B. Birgit Koebke (1957-) gets pissed-off about her lezzie domestic partner Kendall E. French having to play as a guest - sin and you're in in California? On Aug. 2 at 4:03 p.m. Flight 358, an Air France Airbus A340 from Paris slides off a runway by 200 yards at Pearson Int. Airport in a thunderstorm in Toronto, Canada, breaks into three pieces, then burns, but all 309 people (297 passengers) survive as they exit in 90 sec., 75% of them in 52 sec.; the first A340 crash in 13 years of commercial service? On Aug. 2 U.S. freelance journalist Steven Vincent and a female Iraqi translator are abducted by five men at a currency exchange shop in Basra, and Vincent's body is discovered that night shot in the head; he had written a recent article in The New York Times claiming that Basra's police had been infiltrated by Shiite militiamen - shiite if he wasn't right? On Aug. 2 Pres. Bush takes advantage of Congress being in recess to appoint controversial diplomat John Robert Bolton (1948-) as U.S. ambassador #25 to the U.N., saying, "This post is too important to leave vacant any longer"; he resigns on Dec. 31, 2006 after becoming known for undiplomatic outbursts and failing to gain Senate confirmation. On Aug. 1 King Fahd (b. 1923) dies, and his pro-U.S. half-brother Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (1924-2015) becomes king and PM of Saudi Arabia (until Jan. 23, 2015), going on to attempt several reforms, making his son-in-law Faisal bin Abdullah a minister, and U.S.-educated teacher Nora Al Fayez a deputy education minister in charge of a new dept. for female students, reforming Sharia courts and judges and cracking down on homegrown terrorism; in Nov. 2007 he visits Pope Benedict XVI (first monarch to do it); in June 2008 he holds a conference in Mecca to urge Muslim leaders to speak with a single voice with Jewish and Christian leaders in interfaith dialogue, holding the first in Madrid, Spain in July 2008; in Nov. 2012 his Internat. Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue opens; in Jan. 2011 he calls for the establishment of an Arab common market; in July 2012 he allows women athletes to compete in the Olympics for the first time; in Aug. 2013 a new law makes domestic violence a crime with a sentence of up to 1 year and a 50K riyal fine; when Barack Obama becomes U.S. pres. he becomes his big booster, with the soundbyte: "Thank God for bringing Obama to the presidency", adding that his election brought "great hope" in the Muslim world. On Aug. 2 Russia's Foreign Ministry gets pissed-off after ABC-TV airs an interview by Russian journalist Andrei Babitsky of Chechen Warlord Shamil Basayev on Nightline, and says it will not renew permission for them to operate in Russia. On Aug. 2 26-y.-o. Susan M. Torres (1979-), whose cancer spread to her brain, causing her to go into a coma on May 7 and become brain dead, gives birth to a baby girl, Susan Anne Catherine Torres (1 lb. 13 oz.) by C-section; her husband Justin then okays the pulling of her life support plug. On Aug. 2 Pres. Bush signs a free trade pact with five Central Am. nations and the Dominican Repub. On Aug. 2 Pres. Bush tells a group of Tex. newspaper reporters that "both sides ought to be properly taught", referring to the theory of intelligent design. On Aug. 3 14 U.S. Marines in a 25-ton armored amphibious vehicle (AAV) in Baghdad, Iraq are killed by a huge IED planted under the road, which flips it over and engulfs it in a giant fireball; a civilian translator is also killed, and one Marine wounded (the deadliest roadside bombing suffered by U.S. forces to date in the Iraq war); the town of Brook Park, Ohio (a suburb of Cleveland), home to the 3rd Battalion of the 25th Marines loses all 14, plus five others killed two days earlier on sniper duty. On Aug. 3 67-y.-o. Luis Diaz (1938-), known as Florida's Bird Road Rapist is released from prison after 26 years when DNA evidence clears him in two of the seven sexual assaults occurring in 1977-9 in Coral Gables. On Aug. 3 Mauritanian pres. (since Dec. 12, 1984) Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya is overthrown by a military junta while he is visiting nearby Niger after attending King Fahd's funeral; nat. police chief Col. Ely Ould Mohammed Vall (1953-) is named the new transitional military leader (until Apr. 19, 2007). On Aug. 3 the Islamic Jihad promises that it will fire no more rockets at Israelis as the planned Aug. 15 Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip approaches; in Ofakim in S Israel thousands of Jewish settlers scuffle with Israeli police as they try to march toward the Jewish Gush Katif settlements that are set to be evacuated; on Aug. 4 extremist Israeli rabbis pronounce an ancient Aramaic death curse on Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, identical to the one they put on assassinated PM Rabin; on Aug. 4 19-y.-o. Israeli army deserter Eden Natan Zada (1986-), upset over the planned evacuation opens fire in a bus in Shfaram in N Israel carrying Israeli Arab passengers, killing four and wounding 13 before being beaten to death by an angry crowd. On Aug. 3 Focus on the Family sparks a nat. controversy when its founder James Clayton "Jim" Dobson (1936-) in his radio program compares stem cell research to Nazi death camp experiments, causing the Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to accuse him of trivializing the Holocaust. On Aug. 4 Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, former employees of the pro-Israel lobbying org. AIPAC (Am. Israel Public Affairs Committee) are charged with conspiring to disclose classified U.S. defense info. since 1999; in June Pentagon analyst (USAF Reserve col.) Lawrence Anthony Franklin was indicted for leaking clasified info. to AIPAC employees, and pleads guilty in Oct. On Aug. 4 al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri releases a videotape (his 7th), claiming that the U.S. will suffer tens of thousands of military deaths in Iraq if it doesn't pull out, along with more bombings in London, and "you will see, God willing, what will make you forget the horrible things in Vietnam"; Pres. Bush replies that this only proves that the U.S. is in a war with "killers" who seek to "impose their dark vision on the world". On Aug. 4 Jordan arrests 17 al-Qaida militants for allegedly plotting to attack U.S. troops. On Aug. 4 a joint European-U.S. proposal to Iran is prepared, offering it a full political and economic relationship with the West if it stops trying to develop nukes. On Aug. 4 Pakistan's Supreme Court rules a law establishing a Taliban-style morality police in a NW province unconstitutional. On Aug. 4 Rob McElhenney's sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia debuts on FX Network for ? episodes (until ?), about the self-centered group of misfit friends called The Gang who run Paddy's Pub in South Philadelphia, Penn., incl. Robert Dale "Rob" McElhenney (1977-) as co-owner Ronald "Mac" McDonald, Charles Peckham "Charlie" Day (1976-) as co-owner Charlie Kelly, Glenn Franklin Howerton III (1976-) as co-owner Dennis Reynolds, Kaitlin Willow Olson (1975-) (Rob Mcelhenney's wife in 2008-) as Dennis' twin sister and bartender Deandra "Sweet Dee" Reynolds, Daniel Michael "Danny" DeVito (1944-) as Charlie's sleazy businessman roommate Frank Reynolds, father of Dennis and Sweet Dee, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis (1979-) (wife of Charlie Day in 2006-) as the Waitress; the series tanks until DeVito joins, then becomes the longest-running comedy in cable TV history (until ?). On Aug. 8 the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 is signed by Pres. George W. Bush, creating the Renewable Fuel Standard, a requirement to put a min. vol. of renewable fuels in all transportation fuel sold in the U.S.; it is expanded and extended by the U.S. Energy Independence and Security (Clean Energy) Act of 2007, signed by Pres. George W. Bush on Dec. 19, 2007, implementing his "Twenty in Ten" challenge to reduce gasoline consumption by 20% in 10 years. On Aug. 6 Typhoon Matsa (formed July 30) slams into China's SE coast, killing four. On Aug. 6 a march is held in Atlanta, Ga. calling for renewal of the 1965 U.S. Voting Rights Act. On Aug. 6 (Sat.) Pres. Bush begins a 1-mo. stay at his Texas ranch, and Calif. mother Cindy Lee Miller Sheehan (1957-), who lost her 24-y.-o. son in Iraq begins a roadside protest outside the ranch, claiming she plans to stay the entire month unless and until Bush meets with her; on Aug. 23 Bush tells the press "I sympathize with Mrs. Sheehan", but thinks that pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq "would send a terrible signal to the enemy"; in July 2006 she buys a 5-acre lot 7 mi. from Bush's ranch for $52.5K with insurance money received after her son was killed in Iraq, and resumes her protests on Aug. 6, 2006, the 1st anniv. of her first protests - Yo, Cindy? On Aug. 6 British Labour MP (1983-2003) and foreign secy. (1997-2001) Robert Finlayson "Robin" Cook (b. 1946), who resigned as House of Commons leader on Mar. 17, 2003 in protest of the Iraq invasion dies four weeks after describing al-Qaida as a fiction invented by Western intel: "Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by Western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally 'the database', was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians." On Aug. 7 Canadian-born ABC News anchorman (since 1965) Peter Charles Archibald Ewart Jennings (b. 1938) dies of lung cancer in his Manhattan home; an ex-smoker, he started chemotherapy in early Apr., and announced his ailment on Apr. 5 in a scratchy voice and never returned as anchor; his example causes millions to vow to quit smoking; 173K new cases of lung cancer are diagnosed each year, and 160K die (28% of all cancer deaths). On Aug. 7 a trapped (since Aug. 4) 7-man Russian AS-28 Mini-sub is freed from the Pacific floor in Beryozovaya Bay S of Petropavlosk-Kamchatsky in the Bering Sea by a British remote-controlled vehicle three days after it became ensared in a fishing net and cables in 600 ft. of water; the crew only had six hours of air left. On Aug. 7 Israeli finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu abruptly resigns before the cabinet votes 17-5 to approve the first stage of the withdrawal from Gaza. On Aug. 7 the privately-owned Daxing Colliery in Meizhou City in Guangdong Province, China floods, trapping 102 miners 1378 ft. underground. Things Not to Do in Denver When You're Dead? On Aug. 7 Grammy-winning musician Marc Cohn (1959-), husband (since July 20, 2002) of ABC News anchor Elizabeth Vargas is shot in the head in downtown Denver, Colo. while returning to his hotel after a concert by carjacker Joseph William Yacteen (1979-), who shoots through the windshield; a bullet is removed from Cohen's right temple, and Yacteen is captured after a police standoff. On Aug. 8 former U.N. procurement officer Alexander Yakovlev of Russia pleads guilty to soliciting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from contractors in connection with the Iraqi oil-for-food program, and the same day Cyprus-born Armenian program chief Benon Vahe Sevan (1937-) is accused by a U.N.-backed probe led by former Federal Reserve chmn. Paul Volcker of taking $148K in kickbacks; in Sept. the probe releases a report claiming that half of the 4.5K cos. taking part in the program paid kickbacks or illegal surcharges. On Aug. 8 Palestinian gunmen linked to Farouk Kaddoumi, Tunisian-based rival of Mahmoud Abbas abduct two U.N. workers and their driver in the Gaza town of Khan Younis, but Palestinian security officers storm their hideout and free the hostages. On Aug. 8 Israel's Security Cabinet refuses to let the Rafah crossing to Egypt, Gaza's only link to the outside world to be taken from their control. On Aug. 8 Iran resumes operations at the Uranium Conversion Facility near Isfahan (255 mi. S of Tehran), which had been suspended in Nov., causing the U.S. and Europe to seek U.N. sanctions; on Aug. 10 they remove the U.N. seals on the equipment and begin processing raw yellowcake uranium into uranium hexafluoride gas; 7.5 tons of yellowcake can make 40 lb. of weapons grade uranium, enough for one crude nuke; in July 2008 they ship 500 metric tons of yellowcake to Canada, as revealed in 2010 by WikiLeaks - you shovel 7.5 tons and whadya get, a crude little nuke and deeper in debt? On Aug. 8 thieves steal a record $65M from a Central Bank vault in Fortaleza, Brazil after digging a 262-ft. tunnel from a nearby house. On Aug. 8 38 detainees at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Navy base in Cuba begin a hunger strike; on Dec. 25 46 more join, for a total of 84. On Aug. 9 a suicide car bomber strikes a U.S. convoy waiting at a street intersection in Baghdad, Iraq, killing seven (one U.S. soldier and six Iraqi civilians) and wounding 90+. On Aug. 9 Niger's pres. Mamadou Tandja claims that people in his country "look well fed" despite TV images of starving children, and that the locust invasion of the year before and poor rains are not unusual for his country. On Aug. 9 Christopher Reeve's 44-y.-o. widow Dana Reeve (b. 1961) announces that she has lung cancer, even though she is a non-smoker; she dies on Mar. 6, 2006 - she might as well have smoked? On Aug. 9 Colo.-based "spam king" Scott Richter (1967-), owner of OptInRealBig.com agrees to pay Microsoft Corp. $7M to settle a Dec. 2003 lawsuit over his spamming activities; the N.Y. atty.-gen. settled for $50K in July 2004. On Aug. 9 the U.S. Army announces that it has sacked 55-y.-o. 4-star Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, cmdr. of Army Training and Doctrine Command over sexual misconduct (adultery) charges. On Aug. 9 white nurse Jennifer Hyatte (1974-) ambushes two guards leading her black husband George (34) from a courthouse in Kingston, Tenn., killing guard Wayne "Cotton" Morgan; they are captured on Aug. 10 in Columbus, Ohio. On Aug. 10 insurgents kidnap brig. gen. Khudayer Abbas, a senior Interior Ministry official tied to the paramilitary in Andalus Square in Baghdad. On Aug. 10 four U.S. soldiers in a 10-member patrol are killed by insurgents near Beiji, Iraq 155 mi. N of Baghdad. On Aug. 10 smug Iran resumes full operations at its uranium conversion plant. On Aug. 10 Pres. Bush signs a $286.4B transportation bill containing 6,371 special pet projects valued at $24B, incl. a $231M bridge near Anchorage to be named Don Young's Way in honor of its sponsor House Transportation Committee Chmn. Don Young of Alaska. On Aug. 11 Britain detains Osama bin Laden's "spiritual ambassador in Europe" Abu Qatada and 10 others as security threats, and announces plans to deport them. On Aug. 11 Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim calls for a Shiite federal region in Iraq in three northern provinces, plus Kirkuk, where much of Iraq's oil is located, threatening to defeat the new constitution in the four (out of 18) provinces where they have a majority of the pop. On Aug. 11 Pakistan successfully test-fires the 310-mi.-range Babur, its first cruise missle; India already has a Russian-made one. On Aug. 11 Monsignor Eugene Clark resigns as rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City after court papers name him as "the other man" in a divorce case between Philip DeFilippo and his wife Laura; Clark had been taped with her entering/exiting a Long Island hotel in July. On Aug. 12 Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar (73) (a Tamil) is assassinated in Sri Lanka by two snipers, causing Pres. Chandrika Kumaratunga to declare a state of emergency; the Liberation Tigers of Tamileelam (against whom Kadirgamar had led an internat. campaign) are suspected. On Aug. 13 Tony Hall, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Assoc. is barred from meeting victims of Zimbabwe Pres. Robert Mugabe's mass eviction campaign Operation Murambatsivana (Clean the Filth), the forcible eviction of 700K from their homes and businesses to forestall demonstrations in an economy with the world's highest inflation rate, 80% unemployment, and and HIV/AIDS rate of over 20%. On Aug. 13 the Israeli army begins the forced evacuation of the Jewish Gush Katif settlement in SW Gaza Strip; the residents are evicted on Aug. 22, after which overjoyed Palestinians move in and destroy four synagogues while looting the homes and moving in; meanwhile on Aug. 15 8.5K Israeli settlers (1.6K families), "assisted" by 15K army troops with orders to use force if needed begin evacuating all 21 Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip (plus four more in the N West Bank) after 38 years of occupation; some settlers paint pig faces on their floors to offend any of the 1.3M Palestinians who might take over, while others burn their houses down; on Aug. 16 hundreds of settlers hunker down in advance of a midnight deadline to leave; by Aug. 17 only 600 families remain; there are 122K Palestinians living in Jordan, 401K in Syria, and 394.5K in Lebanon, all hoping to return; Palestinian negotiator Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat (1955-) (known for negotiating the Oslo Occords) issues the soundbyte: "At this moment of our history, we extend our arms to Mr. Sharon... to please join us back at the negotiating table"; the great menorah (7-branch) is removed from the last synagogue by Jewish men walking single file carrying it on a rod, bringing back memories of the Arch of Titus in 81 C.E.; 180 Israeli families set up the Halutza (Heb. "pioneer") agricultural community along the Gaza-Egypt border, piping in desalinated water from the Mediterranean coast, and by 2010 exporting $50M a year of produce. On Aug. 13 former U.S. Rep. (R-Calif.) (since 1989) Charles Christopher Cox (1952-) becomes SEC chmn. (until ?). On Aug. 14 Helios Airlines Flight ZU522 crashes into a hillside in suburban Athens, killing all 115 passengers and six crew after it loses pressure, causing loss of consciousness of almost everybody aboard. On Aug. 15 drafters of the new Iraqi consitution fail to reach an agreement in spite of strenuous efforts by the U.S. - but Muhammad says? On Aug. 15 Mara Salvatrucha gang members stage simultaneous riots in seven Guatemalan prisons, attacking MS-18 gang members and killing 31 inmates. On Aug. 15 Rev. Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels ambush a car 260 mi. NE of Bogota, Colombia, killing two Catholic priests; Victor Julio Suarez Rojas (1963-), AKA Mono Jojoy is implicated. On Aug. 15 a car bomb explodes outside a restaurant in Grozny, near where regional Pres. Alu Alkhanov is conducting a meeting, killing two On Aug. 15 Muslim cleric Shabbir Ahmed (1966-) agrees to be deported from San Francisco, Calif. after being accused of trying to open a terrorist camp. On Aug. 15 a small boat carrying 113 illegal immigrants goes down 100 mi. off the Pacific coast of SW Colombia, and on Aug. 17 the nine survivors are rescued by the Ecuadoran navy. On Aug. 16 a chartered West Caribbean Airways MD-80 jet filled with tourists returning to the island of Martinique crashes in W Venezuela near Machiques close to the Colombian border, killing all 160 aboard. On Aug. 16 17 Spanish NATO peacekeeper soldiers are killed and five are injured in a heli crash in a W Afghan desert in Herat Province in a sandstorm. On Aug. 16 a 7.2 earthquake strikes Tokyo, injuring 16. On Aug. 16 Oregon enacts a law making it the first state to require prescriptions for cold and allergy medications containing pseudoephedrine, which is used to make methamphetamine. On Aug. 16 Pres. Bush announces plans to return two U.S. Army divs. from Cold War era bases in Germany. On Aug. 16 Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Cologne for the 20th (2005) World Youth Day in his first foreign trip and first return to Germany since his elevation; on Aug. 21 (Sun.) he addresss 1M participants. On Aug. 17 Israeli Shvut Rahel West Bank settler and bus driver Asher Weisgan (1966-2006) kills four Palestinian laborers and wounds two after seizing a gun from a guard at a security post and shooting his own passengers; PM Sharon condemns the act as "Jewish terror"; Hamas agrees not to retaliate to allow the Gaza pullout to proceed smoothly, but a mortar shell falls near Israeli soldiers without causing casualties. On Aug. 17 Iraq celebrates Three Car Bomb Day as a car bomb explodes near the crowded Nadha bus station in Baghdad, then another explodes as police respond, and a 3rd explodes a half hour later across the street from the al-Kindi Hospital where the injured were arriving by ambulances; the total score is 38 dead and 68 injured, all civilians; meanwhile, the U.S. military death toll reaches 1860. On Aug. 17 Repub. Ohio Gov. (1999-2007) Robert Alphonso "Bob" Taft II (1942-) (great-great grandson of Pres. William Howard Taft) is charged with four ethics violations for failing to report a lousy $5.8K in gifts, becoming the first Ohio gov. to be charged with a crime; he pleads no contest in Aug.; in Nov. his approval record hits a U.S. low of 6.5%. On Aug. 17 Coretta Scott King (78) is hospitalized for a stroke; she returns home on Sept. 23 after therapy. On Aug. 17 a New Orleans judge fines singer Michael Jackson $10K when his atty. is a no-show in a civil case accusing him of sexually assaulting an 18-y.-o. man during the 1984 World's Fair - would you let me go down on you if my face were whiter? On Aug. 18 a roadside bomb kills four U.S. soldiers in Samarra, Iraq. On Aug. 18 a tornado in Stoughton, Wisc. kills one and injures eight. On Aug. 22 Pres. Bush gives a speech in Salt Lake City, Utah, comparing the fight against terrorism to WWI and WWII. On Aug. 22 Pat Robertson calls for the assassination of Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez on his Christian Broadcasting Network show The 700 Club, saying, "I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assasinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don't think any oil shipments will stop"; on Aug. 24 he apologizes after initial attempts to lie his way out of it; on Aug. 28 Rev. Jesse Jackson calls his comments "immoral" and "illegal" (two true Christian leaders); meanwhile, Chavez says, "If something happens to me, the responsible one will be President George W. Bush", whom he calls "Mr. Danger", stockpiling 100K Russian AK-47s and acquiring combat planes from Brazil, warning that "If the government of the United States attempts to commit the foolhardy enterprise of attacking us, it would be embarked on a 100-year war". On Aug. 23 TANS Peru Flight 204 (Boeing 737) carrying 100 crashes near a jungle town while attempting an an emergency landing in a tropical storm, splitting in two and killing 57. On Aug. 23 Pakistani Pres. Gen. Pervez Musharraf (b. 1943) confirms that nuclear scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear program had provided North Korea with centrifuge machines to make fuel for an atomic bomb, as well as uranium hexafluoride for processing into fuel; he had already confessed in Jan. 2004 to trafficking nuclear secrets and parts to other countries, and was pardoned by Musharraf, but remains under house arrest to force cooperation with the authorities, who continue to keep him muzzled even after an Aug. 22, 2006 announcement that he is suffering from prostate cancer; Musharaff's defection from Muslim terrorist ranks causes him to be targeted for assassination. On Aug. 23 the CIA's independent watchdog recommends disciplinary reviews for officials involved in the failed intel efforts before the 911 attacks, incl. former CIA Dir. George Tenet, former clandestine service chief Jim Pavitt, and former counterterrorism center head Cofer Black. On Aug. 23 New York City announces a $212M security upgrade for its subways, incl. 1K surveillance cameras and 3K motion sensors. On Aug. 24 masked Sunni insurgents attack Iraqi police in W Baghdad with multiple car bombs and small-arms, killing 13 and wounding 43; in S Iraq supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (1974-) try to repoen his office in Najaf, causing rival Shiites to try to block them, with fights breaking out that kill four and injure 20; fighting then spreads across C and S Iraq incl. Basra. On Aug. 24 Pres. Bush speaks to members of the Idaho Nat. Guard in Nampa, Idaho, saying that as long as he is pres., "We will stay, we will fight and we will win the war on terrorism"; Idaho has the highest percentage of Nat. Guard troops serving in Iraq. On Aug. 24 gasoline in the U.S. reaches a record avg. of $2.61/gal. Katrina and the Waves Walking on Sunshine Not? America's troubles pile ever higher as it gets hit with its greatest natural disaster in a century and proves it can't respond properly? On Aug. 24 Tropical Depression 12 (begun Aug 23) strengthens into Tropical Storm Katrina; on Aug. 25 Category 1 (92 mph) Hurricane Katrina (Latrine-a?) strikes Fla.'s SE coast, killing two and leaving more than 1M customers without power before heading into the Gulf of Mexico; Kiss Me Katrina is the 11th storm of the June 1-Nov. 30 Atlantic hurricane season, seven ahead of the typical number; on Aug. 28 New Orleans mayor (2002-10) Clarence Ray Nagin Jr. (1956-) orders total evacuation; on Aug. 29 (Mon.) Hurricane Katrina increases to Category 4 (150 mph) as it closes in on the Big Easy New Orleans, causing 53 levee breaches and submerging 80% of the city, killing 1,577 in La., 221 in Miss., 14 in Fla., 2 in Ga., 2 in Ala.) and leaving 1M+ in six states without electricity in the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history ($125B); at 9:12 a.m. the Nat. Weather Service receives reports of a levee breach and issues a flash flood warning, but shortly after noon La. Dem. Gov. (2004-8) Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (1942-) mistakenly tells the Bush admin. "I think we have not breached the levee at this time"; on Aug. 29 100 die in Harrison County, Miss. (Biloxi and Gulfport); on Aug. 30 two levees break in New Orleans, leaving 80% of it underwater, up to 20 ft., and making the city uninhabitable, while rescuers in boats and helis rescue hundreds of stranded people amid looting; some areas underwater stay for 4-6 weeks, incl. 67K pop. middle-class St. Bernard Parish, and Lakeview Parish (9 ft. of water); central New Orleans is underwater for 57 days; the fortunate whites successfully flee New Orleans (in their gas-guzzling SUVs?) before the storm arrives, leaving a huge number of poor and/or elderly blacks trapped behind, looking like Third World refugees on TV, which causes white Americans to yawn and/or wink at their misfortune, and only after black may Ray Nagin announces "This is a desperate SOS" on Sept. 1 does massive federal aid arrive, finding a hellhole of human waste, looting, murders and gang rapes, and the need for martial law and complete evacuation of the city, causing 1.3M to flee the Gulf Coast, becoming the largest urban evacuation in U.S. history (until ?); on Aug. 31 10K Nat. Guard troops from across the U.S. arrive, and instead of engaging in evacuation of refugees concentrate on martial law against looting, incl. people trying to forage for food for survival?; on Sept. 5 Nagin announces the city has been "destroyed"; 30K mostly poor inner city blacks huddle up for five days in the leaky unsupplied Superdome amid tons of human waste, incl. used heroin needles, where jungle rules apply; (most of these poor human garbage, er, Afro-Am. citizens vote Democrat, so Bush thinks why get too worked up?) 28K federal troops don't arrive until Sept. 3 (five days), led by U.S. gen. Russel L. Honore (Honoré) (1947-), "the Ragin' Cajun"; one bright spot, the U.S. Coast Guard ("semper paratus") moves in fast and rescues 33K from rooftops from helis equipped with TV cameras for self-publicity; since La. supplies one-third of America's oil (4M barrels a day), it trades briefly at a record $70 a barrel; on Aug. 27 offshore oil rigs producing 1M barrels a day are shut down; on Aug. 30 gasoline prices jump 10-50 cents/gal. throughout the U.S. (and don't come back down until mid Nov.); Katrina costs 500K Americans their jobs, ruining the fun of a Sept. 2 report that the nat. unemployment rate is at a four-year low (4.9%); the disaster causes winter natural gas prices to increase over 70%; 18K slot machines in Mississippi's floating casinos are destroyed or stolen because of the hurricane; the loss of life is the greatest caused by a U.S. storm since 1928; 500K cars are damaged by the hurricane, and about half of these are refurbished and put back on the market as unsafe lemons; on Aug. 15, 2006 U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr. rules that an insurance co.'s policies do not cover damage from flood waters or storm surge; attempts by the U.S. govt. to supply aid to hurricane victims results in massive fraud claims; the New Orleans Saints (NFL) end up playing home games in three different states this year; Austrian-Canadian Magna Internat. auto parts magnate Frank H. Stronach (Franz Strohsack) (1932-) buys victims a $2.4M farm near Simmesport (upriver from Baton Rouge) and provides free mobile homes to 190 residents in exchange for 8 hours a week of communityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadaville,_Louisiana service on its self-sufficient organic farm, causing the community to become known as Canadaville; between July 2005 and July 2006 the pop. of Texas increases by 580K from Katrina refugees; the disaster causes the popularity of the name Katrina for newborn girls to plummet from #247 to 382, with only 850 given the name in the U.S. in 2006; on Nov. 18, 2009 a federal judge in New Orleans finds that the Army Corps of Engineers is liable to homeowners for damage. On Aug. 24 the Italian Red Cross admits that it had treated four Iraqi insurgents a year earlier with the knowledge of the Italian govt. and hid them from U.S. forces in exchange for the release of kidnapped aid workers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, who had been abducted on Sept. 7 and freed Sept. 28. On Aug. 24 the 9-member base-closing commission votes to shut down the U.S. Army's historic Walter Reed hospital, moving its staff to the Nat. Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., updating and expanding it and renaming it Walter Reed II. On Aug. 24 The Journal of the Am. Medical Assoc. pub. an article by Dr. Catherine DeAngelis (1940-) (a staunch Roman Catholic) claiming that fetuses likely don't feel pain until late pregnancy, which abortion foes decry as politically motivated and aimed at proposed federal legislation requiring doctors to provide fetal pain info. to women seeking abortions of fetuses at least 20 weeks old. On Aug. 25 Calif. atty.-gen. Bill Lockyer files suit against dozens of pharmaceutical cos. for cheating the state out of hundreds of millions of dollars by fraudulently inflating the cost of drugs. On Aug. 25 African health ministers at a WHO meeting in Mozambique, Africa declare a continent-wide tuberculosis emergency, where it kills 500K people a year. On Aug. 26 after being elected unopposed by parliament, Christian Pierre Nkurunziza (1963-) becomes pres. of Burundi (until ?); on Aug. 26, 2010 he is reelected for a 2nd term with 91% of the vote; in Mar. 2014 he bans Sat. morning jogging due to "fears it was being used as a cover for subversion", as militants in Bujumbura have been doing for years, sentencing 21 members of the Movement of Solidarity and Democracy Party (MSD) to life in prison for it. On Aug. 26 Uzbekistan's upper house of parliament votes 93-0 to evict U.S. troops from their base in the country to get even for the U.S. criticizing their bloody crackdown on unrest in E Uzbekistan. On Aug. 26 Farid Essebar (1987-) of Morocco and Atilla "Coder" Ekici (1984-) of Turkey are arrested for infecting the Internet with the Zotob Worm, which targets Microsoft Windows 2000 operating systems through their "plug and play" hardware detection feature. On Aug. 26 a fire in a rundown Paris apt. kills 17, mainly sleeping children, mostly poor immigrants from Africa. On Aug. 28 the 71-member Iraqi constitutional committee signs a draft charter over the objections of Sunni Arab leaders. On Aug. 31 thousands of Shiite pilgrims fearing a suicide bomber stampede on the Two Imams Bridge in the N Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah, Iraq, crushing each other or plunging 30 ft. into the Tigris River, killing 953, mostly women and children, leaving thousands of abandoned sandals on the bridge, becoming the greatest loss of life in Iraq since the Mar. 2003 U.S. invasion; they were celebrating the 799 death of the 7th (of 12) imams revered by the Shiites, Imam Moussa ibn Jaafar al-Kadhim; it is not reopened until Nov. 11, 2008. In Aug. former Hutu rebel leader Pierre Nkurunziza (1963-) (a born-again Christian?) is elected pres. of Burundi by parliament, ending the 12-year civil war, with the one rebel group remaining engaging in peace talks. In Aug. the U.S. blacklists a bank in Macao accused of laundering counterfeit U.S. currency printed by North Korea, causing banks around the world to follow suit. In Aug. retired country superstar Garth Brooks signs a deal with Wal-Mart after splitting with Capitol Records, becoming the first exclusive music distribution deal with a single retailer by a major recording artist. In Aug. the U.S. Mint announces the seizure of 10 rare 1933 Double Eagle $20 gold coins that had been given to them for authentication by Joan Langboard, who found them among the property of her father Israel Switt, a Philly jeweler; the Mint claims they had been taken from them originally "in an unlawful manner" and plans to display them in public exhibits; she files a federal lawsuit seeking their recovery, saying that mint officials can't prove they had been stolen or were subject to forfeiture. In early Aug. Chinese workers start setting up and operating oil drilling rigs in Colo. after HongHua Ltd. of Guanghan City, China is invited in by Texas-based GTS because of a shortage of U.S. labor and equipment; when they arrive trouble brews as Am. workers making $22-$30 an hour find the imports work for only $10-$12. In Aug. a new Nat. Intelligence Estimate claims that Iraq is a decade away from developing nukes, conflicting with testimony in Feb. by Vice-Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, dir. of the DIA that they are five years away. In Aug. actress Scarlett Johansson is involved in a minor car crash in a Disneyland parking lot after being followed by paparazzi. In Aug. Fla. Repub. Rep. Katherine Harris becomes a candidate for U.S. Sen., causing the late-night mockery of her makeup and form-fitting clothes to resume, compounded by an appearance on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, where she appears to flirt with Sean Hannity and has little of substance to say, other than that she's "excited"; her defense contractor Mitchell Wade, who pleaded guilty to bribing another congressman admits giving her $32K in illegal contributions, causing her to kick in $10M of her own money to stay in, causing all her key staff to quit, incl. campaign mgr. Jim Dornan, who comments "This campaign will go down in history as one of the most disastrous ever run in the United States" - everybody's gonna be happy, as happy as you and me? On Aug. ? a rocket attack on a U.S. Navy warship in the Jordanian port of Aqaba kills on Jordanian soldier; Abu Musab al-Zarqasi is suspected. On Aug. ? Dorothy's $1M ruby slippers are stolen from a museum devoted to Judy Garland. On Sept. 1 a videotape features al-Qaida's No. 2 making the group's first direct claim of responsibility for the July 7 London bombings. Now Tom Cruise know's he's over the hill? On Sept. 1 the last two squadrons of F-14 Tomcats leave Oceana Naval Air Station in Norfolk, Va. in the last mission for the "Top Gun" planes, which are being replaced by the slower, smaller, but easier to maintain F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet; the last two F-14 squadrons (22 planes) fly back to Oceana on Mar. 10, 2006, one day before the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt returns to Norfolk Naval Station; fearing that the parts could fall into the hands of terrorists, the Pentagon pays a contractor $900K per plane to shred them. On Sept. 2 NBC's Brian Williams goofs in his coverage of New Orleans, saying "When we get back to the States"; Pres. Bush issues the inane soundbyte to FEMA dir. Michael DeWayne "Nero?" Brown (1954-) (who resigns 10 days later): "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job"; in 2005 an investigation by Time mag. reveals discrepancies in the resume he used to get his job - for a fema-le? On Sept. 3 (Sat.) U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist (b. 1924) dies at his home in Arlington, Va. after nearly a year of battling tyroid cancer; the last time there were two simultaneous court vacancies was in 1971 (Black and Harlan), and he was one of the two new justices appointed; his record incl. supporting racial segregation as a clerk to Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson in 1952-3, campaigning for Barry Goldwater in 1964, dissenting on the Roe vs. Wade case in 1973, opposing affirmative action in 1979, supporting Hustler mag.'s freedom of speech claims in 1987, supporting Congress' right to appoint special prosecutors in 1988, presiding over Pres. Clinton's impeachment in 1999, and supporting the 5-4 majority in stopping the Florida recount in 2000; Pres. Bush immediately upgrades John Roberts' nomination to chief justice; since 1789 U.S. presidents have nominated 149 for the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Senate has rejected only 12 (9 were withdrawn by the pres., 6 withdrew themselves, 5 lapsed from a time limit). On Sept. 3 the Taliban claims responsibility for killing five people, an election candidate and a govt. official, as well as British engineer David Addison, who was abducted on Sept. 1. On Sept. 5 Indonesian Mandala Airlines Flight 091 (Boeing 737) en route to Jakarta crashes into a crowded residential neighborhood in Medan, Indonesia shortly after takeoff, bursting into flames and killing all 99 aboard plus 44 on the ground (143 total). On Sept. 5 the Danziger Bridge in E New Orleans, La. sees five New Orleans police officers open fire on unarmed civilians walking into a grocery, killing two and wounding four others; on Aug. 5, 2011 all five are found guilty by a federal jury for doing it and and trying to cover it up. On Sept. 6 the avg. price of U.S. gasoline zooms to $3.07, a $0.47 increase since Hurricane Katrina. On Sept. 7 Egyptian voters vote for pres. for the first time, and Hosni Mubarak is reelected for another six years in a 10-candidate field amid charges of fraud; Sean McCormack of the U.S. State Dept. calls the election "a beginning"; runner-up Ayman Abd El Aziz Nour (1964-) is later convicted of forging documents and given a 5-year jail sentence, although his main accuser later recants. On Sept. 8 Pres. Clinton's former (1997-2001) nat. security adviser Sandy Berger is fined $50K for taking classified documents from the Nat. Archives, multiplying the $10K fine recommended by govt. lawyers. On Sept. 11 former pres. (1992-7) Sali Berisha (1944-) of the Dem. Party of Albania becomes PM of Albania (until ?). On Sept. 11 Pres. Bush visits New Orleans, staying in the USS Iwo Jima amphibious assault ship docked in the Mississippi River on the edge of the C business district, then on Sept. 12 tours the city in a military convoy, followed by an aerial tour and meetings with state and local officials. On Sept. 11-12 parliamentary elections in Norway give a V to the Socialist Left Party along with the Centre Party and Labour Party; on Oct. 17 Socialist Left Pary leader (1997-2012) Kristin Halvorsen (1960-) becomes finance minister #125 (until Oct. 20, 2009), becoming the first woman and first Socialist Left Party cabinet member, promising that all children will be provided with kindergarten by the end of 2007, that that poverty in Norway can be eliminated "with the stroke of a pen"; on Jan. 5, 2006 she calls for a boycott of Israeli products in solidarity with the Palestinians, which backfires, causing her to apologize; in Jan. 2009 she participated in anti-Israel protests that turn into violent riots. On Sept. 12 FEMA dir. Mike Brown (50) resigns under intense criticism of his handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster; on Sept. 14 he blames La. Gov. Kathleen Blanco for creating an "out of control" situation, saying "I can't get a unified command established"; he also reveals that on Aug. 30 at the end of the day he asked the White House to take over the response efforts, which he calls his biggest mistake for his tardiness; in Mar. 2007 Shooting Blanco announces she won't seek a 2nd term. On Sept. 12 a mistake by a power worker leads to a blackout of half of Los Angeles, Calif. On Sept. 13 Pres. Bush takes responsibility for federal govt. mistakes in dealing with Hurricane Katrina; the death toll stands at 659 incl. 423 in La., 218 in Miss., 14 in Fla., 2 in Ala., 2 in Ga. On Sept. 13 husband-and-wife owners Salvador and Mabel Mangano of St. Rita's Nursing Home in Chalmette, La. are booked by La. atty.-gen. Charles Foti with negligent homicide in the deaths of 34 patients on Sept. 29 during Hurricane Katrina, claiming they "were asked if they wanted to move [the patients]. They did not. They were warned repeatedly that this storm was coming"; in Sept. 2006 they sue the govt. for failing to keep residents safe and evacuate them as the storm approached. On Sept. 13 U.S. chief justice nominee John Roberts refuses to answer questions about abortion and other controversial questions for Dems. at his Senate confirmation hearing, saying "My faith and my religious beliefs do not play a role" in his decisions, but that he would not discuss matters that might come before the court - do I sense Roe v. Wade coming to an end? On Sept. 13 6K protesters march in Katmandu, Nepal demanding the restoration of democracy, and are beaten down by bamboo baton-wielding riot police, who arrest 300 incl. top opposition leaders. On Sept. 13 85-y.-o. Kimani Ng'ang' of Kenya, billed as the world's oldest elementary school pupil tours Manhattan, N.Y. and holds a news conference outside the U.N. HQ for the 100M children denied an education because of poverty; he began school in Jan. 2004. On Sept. 13 the crime procedural comedy-drama Bones debuts on Fox Network for ? episodes (until ?), starring Emily Erin Deschanel (1976-) as forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance "Bones" Brennan (based on real life writer Kathy Reichs, the show's producer), who works at the Jeffersonian Inst. in Washington, D.C., and David Paul Boreanaz (1969-) as her partner, FBI special agent Seeley Booth; every episode features a disgusting decomposing corpse, causing some networks to later air reruns at lunchtime as a joke? On Sept. 14 (6:30 a.m.) a suicide car bomber kills 80 and wounds 160 near a group of construction workers in a Shiite district in N Baghdad. On Sept. 14-16 the 2005 World Summit, a follow-up to the 2000 Millennium Summit meets at the U.N. HQ in New York City, with 191 member states (largest gathering of world history until ?) given "a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take bold decisions in the areas of development, security, human rights and reform of the United Nations"; the U.N. Convention Against Corruption (signed Dec. 9, 2003) receives its 30th ratification, allowing it to go into force in Dec.; the inaugural session of the Clinton Global Initiative is held in New York City to coincide with the summit. On Sept. 14 in San Francisco, Calif. U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton rules that the reciting of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because of the words "under God", backing a 2002 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of Sacramento, Calif. Jewish atheist physician-atty. Michael Arthur Newdow (1953-); in Nov. 2005 he files a federal lawsuit challenging the motto "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency, but it is thrown out in June 2006 on the grounds that the words are a secular nat. slogan, and the same year the U.S. House of Reps. by a 260-167 vote passes the U.S. Pledge Protection Act. On Sept. 14 Delta Airlines and Northwest Airlines declare bankruptcy. On Sept. 15 Pres. Bush promises that the federal govt. will pay most of the costs of rebuilding the Gulf Coast, expected to reach $200B. On Sept. 15 Israel's Supreme Court rejects an opinion by the Internat. Court of Justice calling for the removal of its West Bank barrier. On Sept. 15 actress Renee Zellweger and country music star Kenny Chesney announce announce the annulment of their 4-mo. marriage, the court papers citing "fraud"; they first met at the Concert of Hope tsunami relief benefit on Jan. 15 where Renee was answering phones and Kenny was singing; Kenny gets the hit song You Had Me From Hello to show for the experience? On Sept. 17 a commuter train en route from Joliet to Chicago, Ill. derails 5 mi. S of downtown, killing two and injuring dozens; an investigation reveals that it was going 69 mph at a crossover designed for 10 mph. On Sept. 17 Iraqi pilgrims celebrate the Mid of Shaban in Karbala; meanwhile a car bomb in the Nahrawan district 20 mi. E of Baghdad kills 30 Iraqis and wounds 48; another 10 die in other parts of the country, bringing the 4-day death toll from political violence triggered by a U.S.-Iraqi attack in the Sunni stronghold of Tall Afar to at least 250. On Sept. 18 (Sun.) Afghanistan holds its first contested legislative elections in more than 25 years; the Taliban fails to disrupt the voting, wounding three people in 19 attacks; there are 582 female candidates out of 5.8K for a quarter of the seats in parliament and 34 provincial councils reserved for women. On Sept. 18 elections in Germany fail to give any party of candidate a clear majority, and rivals Gerhard Schroder of the Social Dems. (34.3%) and pro-U.S. Russian-speaking quantum chemist Angela Merkel (1954-) of the Christian Dems. (35.2%) both claim a mandate to govern as chancellor, with the parliament yet to choose; on Oct. 10 Merkel strikes a power-sharing deal, becoming the first woman as well as the first politician from ex-Communist East Germany to be Germany's chancellor; her Christian Dem. Party controls half of the cabinet posts, and the rival Social Dems. the rest; Germany suffers from 11.2% unemployment. On Sept. 18 North Korea pledges to drop its nuclear weapons programs and rejoin internat. arms treaties in a unanimous agreement with the other five parties at 6-party talks (China, Japan, Russia, U.S., the two Koreas). On Sept. 18 hundreds of Palestinian troops seal off Gaza's border with Egypt to quash a week-long free-for-all along the frontier; Hamas stages a military-style victory parade in downtown Gaza City; meanwhile Hamas and Fatah begin preparing for a final all-out battle, stockpiling weapons, with Iran aiding Hamas, the arms race causing assault rifle prices to double in a year (to $2.3K for an Egyptian or Chinese model, and more for a higher quality Russian or Iraqi model, plus over $3 per bullet). On Sept. 18 Faris Nasir Hussein, a Kurdish member of parliament is assassinated 50 mi. N of Baghdad by insurgents, and police find 20 bodies in the Tigris River N of the city, which had been murdered on Sept. 17 as they drove to Baghdad for a Sept. 18 session of the legislature. On Sept. 18 Typhoon Khanun batters China's E coast, killing 18. On Sept. 18 Hurricane Ophelia drifts slowly off the SE coast of the U.S. before lashing the E Carolinas (no fatalities). On Sept. 18 Philippe Roch, head of Switzerland's environment agency claims that Hurricane Katrina and other recent storms are indicative of global warming, saying "These are typically phenomena described by the models for climate change, so the link is for me personally evident." On Sept. 19 NASA announces a $104B ">Apollo on Steroids program to send astronauts back to the Moon by 2018 using a beefed-up shuttle with Apollo parts which can ferry up to six astronauts at a time for stays of one week to 6 mo. On Sept. 19 How I Met Your Mother debuts on CBS-TV for 208 episodes (until Mar. 31, 2014), about daddy Joshua Thomas "Josh" Radnor (1974-) as Theodore Evelyn "Ted" Mosby telling his kids in 2030 about how he did you know what; co-stars Jason Jordan Segel (1980-) as Marshall Eriksen, Jacoba Francisco Maria "Cobie" Smulders (1982-) as Robin Scherbatsky, Neil Patrick Harris (1973-) as Barney Stinson, and Alyson Lee Hannigan (1974-) as Lily Aldrin; they like to meet in MacLaren's Bar in New York City. On Sept. 19 the TV sitcom Kitchen Confidential debuts on Fox Network for 13 episodes (until Dec. 5, 2005), starring Bradley Cooper as chef Jack Bourdain. On Sept. 20-21 the multimillion-dollar career of supermodel Kate Moss (1974-) tanks when photos of her dosing on cocaine with bad boy rocker beau Pete Doherty (1979-) appear in the British tabloid Sunday Mirror, immediately losing a $1.25M a year contract with Chanel as the face of their Coco Mademoiselle fragrance, plus a $2M a year contract with Swedish clothing giant Hennes & Mauritz, eventually reaching $8M of lost work; on Sept. 22 Moss issues a public apology, taking "full responsibility for my actions"; the fact that her entire industry pushed her underfed "heroin chic" image in its ads for products such as Opium promotes conservation of public fiction in the Fiction Cent.?; by the end of the year her career is back, and she is on three major mag. covers? On Sept. 20 the comedy series My Name Is Earl debuts on NBC-TV for 96 episodes (until May 14, 2009), starring former skateboard champ Jason Michael Lee (1970-) as ex-small-time criminal Earl Jehoshaphat Hickey of Camden County, who spends his remaining life trying to undo all his bad karma with friend Randy Hickey, played by Ethan Suplee (1976-); "Karma is a funny thing." On Sept. 21 JetBlue Flight 292 (Airbus A320) en route to New York City from Burbank, Calif. makes an emergency landing at LAX after its front landing gear turns sideways. On Sept. 21 Stephen M. Ressa (1978-) of Rialto, Calif. plows his car into pedestrians "like a lawnmower" on the Las Vegas Strip in Nev., killing three and injuring 14; he tells police he thought the people in the crowd were staring at him like demons, and is charged with murder and attempted murder, receiving six life sentences. On Sept. 21 Hurricane Rita (17th Atlantic Basin storm of the year) lashes the Fla. coast and heads into the Gulf of Mexico, where on Sept. 22 it becomes Category 5 (175 mph), heading towards Galveston, Tex., then slows down to Category 3 (126 mph) before hitting the Tex.-La. coast on Sept. 23; on Sept. 22 1.3M people in Tex. and La. are ordered to evacuate, and 3M end up evacuating; this time the Bush admin. is up to speed with advance preparations (probably because Tex. has more Repubs. than La.?); on Sept. 23 Bush goes to the 3-y.-o. Northcom observation center in Colorado Springs, Colo. to watch the storm's progress; on Sept. 23 23 elderly evacuees from Bellaire, Tex. (previously evacuated to Houston from New Orleans to Katrina) die in a charter bus near Dallas when their oxygen bottles feed a fire; on Sept. 28 bus driver Juan Robles Gutierrez (1970-) is taken into federal custody on an immigration violation, then on Oct. 17 charged with 23 counts of criminally negligent homicide; on Feb. 1, 2006 bus owner James H. "Butch" Maples (a former NFL player) is arrested on federal transportation charges, facing seven years and $1.35M in fines; the storm causes $5B in damage, and kills 10. On Sept. 21 two students are shot and wounded at Del. State U. in Dover, causing a lockdown of the dorms while a suspect is sought; he is never caught? On Sept. 22 after intending him to replace retiring justice Sandra Day O'Connor until chief justice William Rehnquist dies, giving Pres. George W. Bush an idea, the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 13-5 vote approves John Roberts' chief justice nomination; all 10 Repubs. back him, plus three Dems.; Edward Kennedy (Mass.), Joseph Biden (Del.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Charles Schumer (N.Y.), and Dick Durbin (Ill.) vote against him; on Sept. 29 Buffalo, N.Y.-born John Glover Roberts Jr. (1951-) (Roman Catholic) becomes U.S. Chief Justice #17 and justice #109 (until ?) just hours after the Senate votes 77-23 to confirm him; 22 Dems. (exactly half) join all 55 Repubs. On Sept. 22 Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husayni (al-Husseini) al-Sistani (1930-), Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric endorses the draft Iraqi constitution. On Sept. 22 rebels kill 10 police officers on a highway in Bogota, Colombia in the mountains outside La Cruz, ambushing their truck. On Sept. 22 JDL member Earl Krugel (b. 1943-) is sentenced in Los Angeles, Calf. to 20 years for a plot to bomb a mosque and a Lebanese-Am. congressman's office. On Sept. 22 five Chicago officials are indicted on fraud (patronage) charges by federal prosecutors, rocking Mayor Richard M. Daley's admin. On Sept. 22 a Philly Judge rules that a Muslim firefighter can't wear a beard because it defeats the seal on his respiratory mask. On Sept. 22 Jeff Davis' Criminal Minds (original title "Quantico") debuts on CBS-TV for ? episodes (until ?), focusing on profiling the criminal "unsubs" (unknown subjects) rather than the crime, set in the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Va., starring Mandel Bruce "Mandy" Patinkin (1952-) for the first three seasons, followed by Joseph Anthony "Joe" Mantegna Jr. (1947-). On Sept. 22 the period sitcom Everybody Hates Christ, er, Everybody Hates Chris debuts on UPN for 88 episodes (until May 8, 2009) (after switching to The CW in 2006), inspired by the teenage experiences of African-Am. comedian Chris Rock attending an all-white high school in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. in 1982-7, starring Tyler James Williams (1992-) as Chris, Terry Alan Crews Jr. (1968-) as his father Julius, Tichina Rolanda Arnold (1971-) as his mother Rochelle, Tequan Richmond (1992-) as his brother Drew, and Vincent Michael Martella (1992-) as his white best friend Greg Wuliger. On Sept. 23 Britain formally proposes that the Iranian govt. be reported to the U.N. Security Council for failure to comply with nuclear treaties, causing Iran's foreign miniter on Sept. 25 to call possible sanctions "illegal and illogical" and accuse the U.S. of behind behind them; a letter to Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by 180 of 290 lawmakers calls for cancelling of Iran's voluntary suspension of nuclear activities. On Sept. 23 Carolyn Correa (1954-) of Willingboro, N.J. receives 9-30 years in prison for kidnapping 10-day-old Delimar Vera in Dec. 1997 from a crib in Philly during a fire and raising her as her own after officials conclude that the baby died in the fire, until her parents see her at a birthday party in Mar. 2004 and recognize her. On Sept. 23 Ghost Whisperer, based on the experienced of Bayside, N.Y.-born psychic medium James Van Praagh (1958-) debuts on CBS-TV for 107 episodes (until May 21, 2010), starring Jennifer Love Hewitt (1979-) as medium Melinda Gordon, who helps the dead pass over to the other side. On Sept. 24 the Sept. 24, 2005 Anti-Iraq War Protest in the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C. is attended by tens of thousands incl. Cindy Sheehan; on Sept. 25 about 400 stage a lame counter-rally; on Sept. 26 370 protesters are arrested in front of the White House during another anti-Iraq War protest, the first being Cindy Sheehan. On Sept. 25 a U.S. CH-47 military heli crashes near Daychopan, Afghanistan 180 mi. SW of Kabul, killing all five aboard. On Sept. 25 Polish voters oust their scandal-prone govt. of ex-Communists in parliamentary elections, giving a broad majority to two center-right parties that promise tax cuts and clean govt. - do the math and save? On Sept. 25 a car bomb explodes in a car driven by Lebanese political talk show host and news anchor May Chidiac (1964-) in Jounierh, N of Beirut, severing her left arm and leg; on Sept. 26 thousands of students protest in Lebanon, calling for the govt. to take action. On Sept. 25 a 7.0 earthquake hits N Peru 420 mi. N of Lima, killing four. On Sept. 26 (8 a.m.) Sept. Fun Day in Iraq begins when a suicide car bomber in Baghdad, Iraq kills six and wounds 13 at a police checkpoint guarding govt. ministries; later another suicide car bomber detonates in a convoy carrying Interior Ministry commandos, killing seven plus two civilians; S of Baghdad two bicycle bombings in town markets kill seven and wound dozens; followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ambush an Iraqi patrol in E Baghdad, causing U.S. forces to counterattack during the 90 min. battle in which eight attackers are killed; an armored car in Baghdad is robbed of $850K, and two guards are killed. On Sept. 26 Israel kills top Islamic Jihad cmdr. Mohammed Khalil (b. 1970 and his bodyguard in an airstrike in the Gaza Strip, and rounds up 200+ wanted Palestinians in a broad offensive against Islamic militants as a response to a wave of rocket attacks against Israeli towns over the weekend; Hamas then calls off the rocket fire, but Islamic Jihad's top leader Mohammed al-Hindi says his group will no longer honor the ceasefire; meanwhile a Likud meeting is sabotaged by Sharon's opponents, who get the electricity shut off, causing him to walk out. On Sept. 26 nine Islamic miitants are arrested outside Paris for plotting a terrorist attack on the Paris subway system. On Sept. 26 Ethiopia's Mount Erta Ale (Arteale) erupts, displacing about 40K nomads; it erupts again in Oct. On Sept. 26 Syrian-born Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer (Taysir) Allouni (1955-), who was granted an interview by Osama bin Laden after 9/11 is convicted in Spain of collaborating with al-Qaida, and sentenced to seven years. On Sept. 27 Abdullah Abu Azzam, #2 in command of the al-Qaida in Iraq is killed in battle after his high-rise apt. bldg. in SE Baghdad is raided before dawn by troops; a suicide attacker detonates at a police recruitment center in Baqouba, N of Baghdad, killing nine, and gunmen in Baghdad kill four policemen; another suicide bomber is intercepted within 1 mi. of the U.S. embassy in the heavily fortified Green Zone (AKA Karradat Mariam). On Sept. 27 Typhoon Damrey (Khmer for elephant) slams into N Vietnam, causing the evacuation of 300K after killing 31 in China and the Philippines, becoming the biggest storm in China in three decades - and them foreign devils have to give it a name with one of them "r"s in it? On Sept. 27 Michael Brown appears before Congress, angrily blaming the New Orleans mayor, the La. gov., the White House, and Pres. Bush for the lousy showing with Hurricane Katrina; meanwhile on Sept. 27 New Orleans police chief (superintendent) Eddie Compass announces his resignation after 28 years after his force disintegrates in the wake of Hurricane Katrina into desertions and looting; on Sept. 29 the police dept. announces it is investigating 12 officers for looting. On Sept. 27 Michaelle Jean (1957-), a refugee from Haiti is sworn-in as Canada's 27th gov.-gen. in Toronto, becoming the 1st black and the 3rd woman to hold the largely ceremonial post of head of state. On Sept. 27 investment banker Michael Wittenberg (b. 1962), husband of Broadway star Bernadette Peters (b. 1948) (since 1996) is killed in a heli crash. On Sept. 28 female suicide bomber in drag detonates in a line of army recruits in the Sunni town of Tal Afar, Iraq far, er, near the Syrian border, killing six and wounding 35, becoming the first known Iraqi suicide bomber; al-Qaida claims responsibility for the work of a "blessed sister"; after an Iraq govt. offensive in Tal Afar, Jordan-born Iraqi al-Qaida leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (1966-2006) declares all-out war on the Shiites, bombing three hotels in Amman, Jordan this year; he is killed by the U.S. on June 7, 2006 N of Baqubah, Iraq, leaving 2nd in command Abu Ayyub al-Masri (1968-2010), who is killed by the U.S. on Apr. 18, 2010 in Tikrit. On Sept. 28 Iraqi police find seven construction workers who had been led away by police impersonators, then blindfolded, bound and shot to death. On Sept. 28 Israeli aircraft unleash a barrage of missles and artillery into the Gaza Strip for the first time as fighting enters its fifth day. There was a lone cupcake with your name on it? On Sept. 28 Tex. Repub. House Majority Leader (since Jan. 3 2003) Thomas Dale "Tom the Hammer" DeLay (1947-) is indicted by a Tex. grand jury (on the last day of their term) for conspiring to violate political fundraising laws, causing him to step down from his GOP post; he becomes the highest ranking member of Congress to face criminal prosecution while in office; Mo. Rep. Roy Dean Blunt (1950-) (House Majority Whip since Jan. 3, 2003) is appointed to take over his leadership duties; the indictment alleges that DeLay's PAC Texans for a Repub. Majority accepted $155K from corps. in 2001-2 then used it to fund candidates for the Texas House in violation of Texas law; Dem. Travis County D.A. Ronald Dale "Ronnie" Earle (1942-) is behind the indictment; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) jumps on the indictment, calling it "the latest example that Repubs. in Congress are plagued by a culture of corruption at the expense of the American people"; DeLay faces 6 mo. to two years and a $10K fine for criminal conspiracy on the charges, but in Oct. his attys. get the charges dismissed because the law alleged to have been broken was not in effect at the time of the alleged violation; this only causes Earle to get a 2nd grand jury to indict him on conspiracy and money laundering charges, which DeLay calls an "abomination of justice", turning himself into the Travis County sheriff's office on Oct. 20, 2006; on Apr. 3, 2006 he announces his decision to leave Congress in May-June; the grand jury dissolves on Aug. 16, 2010 without bringing charges, calling DeLay to bemoan the "criminalization of politics", telling reporters "It's no longer good enough to beat you on policy, they have to completely drown you and put you in prison and destroy your family and your reputation, your finances and then dance on your grave"; on Nov. 24, 2010 a Tex. jury convicts DeLay of illegally channeling $190K in corporate donations into 2002 Tex. legislative races through a money swap that DeLay argued was legal, and on Jan. 10 he is sentenced to three years in prison. On Sept. 28 five U.S. soldiers are killed in a roadside bombing during combat in Ramadi, Iraq W of Baghdad. On Sept. 28-29 a 17K-acre wildfire rages in the hills of NW Los Angeles, forcing hundreds to evacuate; on Sept. 28 90K chickens are killed when it consumes three coops. On Sept. 29 (6:45 p.m.) three Sunni suicide bombers detonate simultaneously in the heart of Balad, Iraq 50 mi. N of Baghdad, killing 65 and wounding 80 as part of the all-out war declared by al-Qaida leader al-Zarqawi against the Shiite majority in rocking Iraq. On Sept. 29 New York Times reporter Judith Miller is released after 85 days (since July 6) behind bars after agreeing to testify in the investigation into the disclosure of the identity of a covert CIA officer after her source Scooter Libby releases her from her promise of confidentiality; she appears before a grand jury on Sept. 30, and Cheney becomes the focus of conspiracy investigation; on Oct. 24 notes from a meeting on June 12, 2003 between him and Libby surface, implicating them both, causing them to double-shuffle about his poor memories, and on Oct. 28 Libby is indicted on five counts of obstruction of justice and two counts each of making a false statement and perjury, pleading not guilty on Nov. 3 (that lie is free?); the trial is successfully stalled by somebody until Jan. 23, 2007, safely after the nat. elections; on Nov. 9 Judith Miller retires from the New York Times, saying, "Over the last few months I have become the news, something a ... reporter never wants to be" - we call it the Three Stooges syndrome? On Sept. 29 five migrants are killed and nearly 100 injured during an attempt to cross from Morocco into Spanish Ceuta by scaling razor-wire fences; Spain's other enclave Melilla is also a target. On Sept. 29 by 9-0 the Supreme Court of Canada clears the way for the govt. to sue cigarette cos. for the cost of treating smoking-related illnesses. On Sept. 29 the U.S. House of Reps. passes by 229-193 a bill pushed through by GOP House Resources Committee chmn. Richard Pombo of Calif. to overhaul the 1973 Endangered Species Act, weakening protections in the name of facilitating oil and gas development, and using Hurricane Katrina as an excuse. On Sept. 29 the FDA warns doctors about the Eli Lilly drug Strattera, used to treat ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in adolescents and children, saying that it can lead to suicidal thinking. On Sept. 29 Repub. Calif. Gov. Ahnuld (Arnold Schwarzenegger) fulfills a campaign and vetoes a bill attempting to legalize same-sex marriages - don't be a girlie man? On Sept. 30 New York Times journalist Judith Miller, out of jail for 85 days testifies before a grand jury in Washington, D.C. as the final holdout witness needed by special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald on the Valerie Plame ID leak probe; she says she hopes her case will help get a federal shield law for reporters passed. On Sept. 30 the First Bush-Kerry Debate sees Kerry call Iraq an "incredible mess", and Bush say that U.S. troops look at Kerry and wonder, "How can I follow this guy?" On Sept. 30 former Reagan secy. of education William J. Bennett apologizes for remarks made on his radio show that "... if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose... abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down", saying the comments were taken out of context; White House spokesman Scott McClellan says that Pres. Bush "believes the comments were not appropriate". In Sept. the annual Antarctic ozone hole forms, reaching 9.5M sq. mi. in area, the same size as North Am. In Sept. GM's employee-discount-for-everyone promotion ends, selling lots of vehicles at an avg. loss of over $1K per sale, and causing 3rd quarter losses of $1.6B; on Oct. 17 GM gains concessions by the UAW to cut $1B of its $5.2B a year in generous health care benefits to 1.1M workers, retirees and dependents; shortly before this, Delphi, the auto parts co. that was owned by GM until 1999 seeks bankruptcy protection, leaving GM liable for up to $12B in pension and health care benefits. In Sept. the Houston Astrodome is assigned a special zip code of 7734, er, 77230 for Hurricane Katrina refugees to receive mail. In Sept. the Campaign to Defend the Constitution (DefCon) is founded by the Tides Center to combat the religious right in the name of separation of church and state; its funding runs out in Dec. 2007. In Sept. Brooklyn, N.Y.-born gay billionaire DreamWorks SKG co-founder David Lawrence Geffen (1943-) begins discussing the purchase of the Los Angeles Times with Leo Wolinsky, making a $2B offer in Nov. 2006, which the parent Tribune Co. rejects, selling instead in Dec. 2007 to Chicago billionaire real estate tycoon Samuel Zell (Shmuel Zielonka) (1941-), who also acquires the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Cubs ML baseball team. In late Sept. Emily Stern (1986-), daughter of shock jock Howard Stern is anon. cast as Madonna in the off-Broadway satire Kabbalah, in which she performs nude in the final 10 min.; she quits in Jan. after fan websites reveal her identity. On Oct. 2 the Ethan Allen Tour Boat tips and sinks on Lake George, N.Y., killing 20 of 47 elderly passengers when Capt. Richard Paris turns into the wake of another boat; on Oct. 3 state regulators suspend the co.'s licenses because the boat did not have the required min. two crew members aboard. On Oct. 2 Hurricane Stan hits Central Am., killing 1,648. On Oct. 3 Condoleezza Rice appears on ABC's This Week and defends her characterization of Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities in the months preceding the Iraq invasion - aren't you a specialist? Deconstructing Harriet? On Oct. 3 after going with the Repub. program of limiting the selection process to anti-abortion candidates, and yielding to pressure to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with another woman, only to find no Repub. women with good enough credentials, Pres. Bush nominates his personal friend, Conservative Baptist Texas atty. (White House counsel) Harriet Ellen Miers (1945-) to the U.S. Supreme Court despite lack of experience as a judge and her close ties, stirring immediate opposition from conservatives who believe she will be another swing vote like O'Connor; on Oct. 24 Pres. Bush refuses to turn over documents detailing private advice she gave him while serving in the White House, and on Oct. 27 after she flunks a test given her by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and after requests for private papers to determine her political views, the White House announces that Bush asked her to withdraw her nomination (11th to be withdrawn of 157 submitted to the Senate since 1789, and the first since Abe Fortas in 1968). On Oct. 4 U.S. Operation River Gate begins in W Iraq (ends Oct. 21) - listen, you made them strong, we'll make them army strong? On Oct. 5 a bomb at the entrance of a Shiite mosque S of Baghdad kills 25 and wounds 87, and U.S. troops capture 35 suspected insurgents in Baghdad. On Oct. 5 Iraqi authorities begin distributing constitution booklets to the public, which Sunnis use for toilet paper, filling trash dumps. On Oct. 6 Pres. Bush gives a speech before the Nat. Endowment for Democracy, citing "steady progress" in the war on terror, and claiming that the U.S. and its allies foiled at least 10 serious al-Qaida plots in the past four years. On Oct. 6 the Woodhouse (Calimesa) Fire in San Timoteo Canyon in Riverside County, S Calif. consumes 6K acres. On Oct. 6 health experts identify Legionnaire's Disease as the cause of the death of 16 elderly people at the Seven Oaks Home for the Aged in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough; a total of 88 were infected; in Feb. 2014 the city and province agree to a $1.2M settlement. On Oct. 6 Gregg Miller receives the Ig Noble Prize for medicine at Harvard U. in Boston for his invention of Neuticles, prosthetic testicles for neutered dogs. On Oct. 7 chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed Mostafa ElBaradei (1942-) and his Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) win the Nobel Peace Prize, which he claims vindicates his approach of using diplomacy rather than confrontation. Deconstructing Harriet? On Oct. 7 after going with the Repub. program of limiting the selection process to anti-abortion candidates, and yielding to pressure to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with another woman, only to find no Repub. women with good enough credentials, Pres. Bush nominates his personal friend, Conservative Baptist Texas atty. (White House counsel) Harriet Ellen Miers (1945-) to the U.S. Supreme Court, stirring immediate opposition from Conservatives who believe she will be another swing vote like O'Connor; on Oct. 24 Pres. Bush refuses to turn over documents detailing private advice she gave him while serving in the White House, and on Oct. 27 she withdraws her nomination (the 11th to be withdrawn of 157 submitted to the Senate since 1789, and the first since Abe Fortas in 1968). On Oct. 7 six U.S. Marines are killed in two roadside bomb attacks in W Iraq during a 2-pronged offensive against strongholds along the Euphrates River; in S Iraq British forces heat up their campaign to curb the influence of conservative Shiite militias by arresting 12; in SE Iraq police announce the finding of the bodies of 22 men, mostly Sunnis, who had been abducted in Baghdad in Aug. On Oct. 7 a week of intense rain, mudslides, and flooding caused by Hurricane Stan kills 27 in C Mexico, with Guatemala bearing the brunt, followed by a strong earthquake in Guatemala and El Salvador; total dead and missing top 1K. On Oct. 7 intense rains waterlog the NE U.S., dropping more than a 1 ft. in places for the next ? days. On Oct. 7 Typhoon Krosa slams into China, killing five and causing 1.4M to be evacuated, and causing $1B damage by Oct. 9. On Oct. 7 tens of thousands of Iranians rally aross Iran to back its nuclear activities, causing its top envoy to announce that Iran could stop U.N. inspections. On Oct. 7 a Victoria's Secret store in McLean, Va. is picketed by 30 women for promoting lesbianism and sadomasochism with displays of a tied-up mannequin and two female mannequins lying on a bed together - add a male mannequin and it's okay again? On Oct. 7 Calif. Gov. Ahnuld signs a bill barring high school athletes from taking nutritional supplements synephrine, ephedra, and DHEA after being criticized for having his own multimillion-dollar contract with muscle mags. advertising supplements - although when he was Mr. Olympia he popped roids like candy? On Oct. 8 (8:50:39 local time) the 7.6 Kashmir (South Asian) Earthquake of 2005 rocks Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan, killing 86K-87K, injuring 69K-75K and leaving 2.8M homeless; hundreds are trapped in a 19-story bldg. in Islamabad; 11K are killed in Muzaffarabad, capital of Kashmir; on Oct. 10 Kuwait and the UAR each announce $100M and the U.S. pledges $50M in aid after govt. officials predict the death toll will climb to 20K-40K; on Oct. 15 the Pakistani death toll reaches 38K, with 2M homeless; on Oct. 19 the death toll soars to 79K, and aftershocks send up huge clouds of dust; in Nov. the Quantum Shift Concert raises money for the relief effort, featuring Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono, Paul Simon, and his son Harper Simon. On Oct. 8 retired black elementary teacher Robert Davis (1941-) is arrested and beaten by two white New Orleans police officers, Robert Evangelist (36) and Lance Schilling (29) for alleged drunkenness, and the incident is caught on tape, causing police Supt. Warren Riley to call their actions unacceptable; Davis later claims "I haven't had a drink in 25 years", and the officers are all charged with battery, pleading not guilty; a 3rd white officer, Stewart Smith (50) is caught on tape grabbing and shoving an AP TV News producer, and also pleads not guilty, relying on the double-sidedness of laws protecting police to get off; on Dec. 21 the police dept. jumps the gun and fires the officers doing the beating, and suspends the shover for 120 days, causing the police union to vow to appeal to the Civil Service Commission; in Mar. 2006 they are indicted by a grand jury. On Oct. 9 Guatemalan officials announce that they will abandon communities buried by landslides and declare them mass graveyards, while dozens of foreign tourists flee mucked-up lakeside Mayan towns to better bargains for their tourist money? On Oct. 9 the Somalian Council of Islamic Courts declares holy war (jihad) on too-Christian Ethiopia. On Oct. 10 Iraq issues arrest warrants for the defense minister and 27 other officials from the U.S.-backed govt. of former PM Iyad Allawi over the misappropriation of $1B in military procurement funds, most of them fleeing Iraq for Britain after 10 mo. in office, incl. Allawi, Adnan Pachachi, and Ibrahim al-Jaafari; up to $2.3B is stolen from the Iraqi treasury; not that they're alone, as over 1.5M leave the country - I was just taking the ponies out for a ride? On Oct. 10 the first meeting between Israeli PM Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas since the Israeli Gaza Strip withdrawal is called off after the two sides deadlock over Israeli troop pullouts from the West Banka nd releases of Palestinian prisoners; three unarmed Palestinian laborers crawling over the Gaza-Israeli border are shot and killed by Israeli troops. On Oct. 10 an open letter by Am. poet Sharon Olds (1942-) to First Lady Laura Bush declining an invitation to the Nat. Book Festival in Washington, D.C. contains the soundbyte: "So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the candles, and I could not stomach it." On Oct. 11 Iraqi negotiators reach a breakthrough deal on the new constitution, causing at least one Sunni Arab Party, the Iraqi Islamic Party to begin urging support; the deal calls for a commission to consider amendments to be set up by parliament after it is formed in Dec.; too bad, it's too late to modify the millions of copies of free constitutions handed out to the public. On Oct. 11 Japan's lower house approves a plan to privatize Japan's $3T postal system and create the world's largest bank. On Oct. 11 millionaire Am. scientist Gregory Olsen returns with a Russian-U.S. crew from the ISS, landing in Kazakhstan after a 7-day space trip, the third trip to the orbiting lab. by a private citizen; he blasted off on Oct. 1 with U.S. astronaut William McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev from Balkonur in Kazakhstan, and returned with John Phillips and Sergei Krikalev, who had been there since Apr. On Oct. 11 the Los Angeles City Council votes to turn the famed Florentine Gardens nightclub in Hollywood on Hollywood Blvd. near the Hollywood Fwy. (big among stars in the 1940s) into a fire station; they later give up after a backlash. On Oct. 12 Syrian interior minister Brig. Gen. Ghazi Kenaan (b. 1942), who had controlled Lebanon for two decades is found dead in his office days before a U.N. report is due to be released implicating high-ranking Syrian officials in the murder of Lebanon PM Rafik Hariri; the Syrian govt. claims it is a suicide; hours before Syrian Pres. Bashar Asaad said that if Syrian involvement is proved those involved would be charged with treason and handed over to an internat. court; the report is released on Oct. 20, implicating high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese intel officers, but not naming names, but a diplomat says that Asad's brother-in-law and number two man in Syria military intel chief Asef Shawkat is the ringleader; lead investigator Detlev Mehlis from Germany is given until Dec. to continue the inquiry. On Oct. 12 after 14 years of civil war the first pres. election is held in Liberia; soccer star George Weah is backed by most of the country's top warlords and faction leaders, but surprising upstart "Iron Lady" Ellen Johnson Sirleaf proves popular with the masses. On Oct. 12 police in Bogota, Colombia discover a cluster of rockets pointing at the pres. palace, while a key ally of Pres. Alvaro Uribe narrowly survives a bomb attack, causing Uribe to publicly criticize his military commanders. On Oct. 12 Israel announces the capture of senior Hamas operative Ibrahim Ighnimat (1958-), who is linked to a 1997 suicide bombing that killed three Israelis, and the kidnapping and murder of an Israeli soldier; the Israelis were disguised as vegetable vendors to gain access to the Hebron region to make the arrest. On Oct. 12 the World Bank releases a report saying that 40M in Eastern Europe have moved out of poverty in 1998-2003, leaving 61M still poor; Russia, Moldovia, Romania, Hungary, and Kazakhstan have scored the greatest gains. On Oct. 12 the Shenzhou 6 is launched on a Long March 2F rocket from Jiuquan Launch Center, carrying Fei Junlong (1965-) and Nie Haisheng (1964-), orbiting 4x and returning to Earth after 4 d 19 h 33 m. On Oct. 12 Michelle Duggar (1966-) of Rogers, Ark. has her 16th child; she had her first one at age 21 four years after being married to Jim Bob Duggar (a state rep.), and they are all given names beginning with the letter "J". On Oct. 14 James Bond fans are shocked when short blonde-haired working class Chester, Cheshire-born English actor Daniel Wroughton Craig (1968-) is revealed as the star of the Nov. 2006 Bond film Casino Royale after being picked over 200 other actors; he goes on to win them over? On Oct. 15 a referendum on the new Iraqi constitution is held despite Sunni insurgents killing hundreds in the days leading up to it. On Oct. 15 Romania quarantines the Danube River Delta in the E where one of Europe's first bird flu strains appears; Poland bans the sale of live birds at open-air markets starting Oct. 17; the deadly H5N1 virus, responsible for 60 human deaths is confirmed on Oct. 14 in Turkey; Turkish officials kill 3K poultry in the NW province of Balikesir after they mess with migratory birds near a nature reserve; on Oct. 16 thousands of domestic fowl are killed in eastern Roman. On Oct. 15 Pamela Jeanne Vitale (b. 1953), wife of TV legal pundit Daniel Horowitz is clubbed to death by a 16-y.-o. Goth student who believed that his marijuana-growing equipment had been mistakenly delivered to them. On Oct. 15 the Millions More Movement is held on the 10th anniv. of the Million Man March; too bad, only a few thousand show up. On Oct. 16 Palestinian Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade gunmen in a speeding car kill three Israelis and wound four more at a crowded bus stop in Gush Etzion in the West Bank; minutes later another drive-by shooting in the West Bank seriously wounds one Israeli; Isreali troops kill one Islamic militant and wound a bystander in the West Bank. On Oct. 17 the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to allow the Bush admin. to pursue a $280B penalty against tobacco cos. for misleading the public about the dangers of smoking after a 9-mo. trial; the case is left pending until the judge rules if they violated the federal RICO statue. On Oct. 17 women calling themselves the Granny Peace Brigade are arrested while protesting the Iraq War outside the Times Square military recruiting center by police who accuse them of blocking the entrance; on Apr. 27, 2006 they are acquitted of disorderly conduct in Manhattan Criminal Court by Judge Neil Ross after claiming they were there to enlist themselves but were turned down, and being grannies would have politely let anybody else through, although there was nobody else wanting to enlist? On Oct. 17 the US Weekly carries a headline carrying a picture of Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson, with the title "Split!"; she later says that a trip to Africa on behalf of Operation Smile (which helps children with facial deformities) on the eve of her 3rd wedding anniv. while he stays home causes her to know "I needed to find something more in my life on my own", causing her to stop answering his calls and file for divorce. On Oct. 15 Category 5 (185 mph) Hurricane Wilma starts as a tropical depression in the Caribbean Sea near Jamaica, going W and t urning into a tropical storm on Oct. 17, then turning S and becoming a hurricane on Oct. 18, growing to Category 5 on Oct. 19, becoming the strongest storm in the Atlantic in recorded history as it wobbles its way through the Caribbean, hitting the Yucatan Peninsula on Oct. 21-22 then entering the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane, sideswiping Cuba on Oct. 23 and accelerating to Category 3 on Oct. 24 before hitting Cape Romano, Fla. with 120 mph winds, crossing Fla. while weakening to Category 2 and reintensifying to Category 3 as it reaches the Atlantic Ocean and dissipating on Oct. 27, killing 87 incl. 13 in Haiti and Jamaica, causing $27B damage, becoming the 3rd most costly hurricane in history after Katrina and Andrew, and the 8th hurricane to hit Fla. in 15 mo., after which no major hurricane hits the continental U.S. until Hurricane Harvey on Aug. 26, 2017 after 11 years 10 mo.; no hurricane hits Fla. until Hurricane Hermine in 2016, and no major hurricane until Hurricane Irma in Sept. 2017. Life after Wife Swap? On Oct. 19 the Saddam Hussein Trial begins on charges of ordering the 1982 massacre of 148 Shiites in the town of Dujail, along with seven co-defendants, Awad Hamed al-Bandar (chief justice of the Rev. Court), Taha Yassin Ramadan (-2007) (vice-pres.), Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid) (Ba'th official), Mohammed Azawi Ali Baath (Ba'th Dujail official), Ali Dayih Ali (Ba'th Dujail official), and Barzan Ibrahim (intel chief) (Saddam's half-brother); only Azawi Ali (who sits at the back end of the back row) is acquitted; Saddam refuses to identify himself to the court, saying, "I do not respond to this so-called court, with all due respect to its people, and I retain my constitutional right as the president of Iraq", finally entering a not guilty plea - you bozos captured one of my impersonators? On Oct. 19 a deadly strain of bird flu is detected S of Moscow, and another in the grasslands of N China. On Oct. 19 a man reports seeing a woman toss her three young children (6, 2, and 16 mo.) into San Francisco Bay from a pier, and on Oct. 20 23-y.-o. schizophrenic Lashuan T. Harris (1984-) is charged with murder after it is found she told her mother she was going to feed her kids to the sharks; in Jan. 2007 she is convicted of 2nd degree murder, declared inane and sent to a mental hospital - I'm an environmentalist? On Oct. 19 the U.S. Congress votes to cut off federal subsidies for erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra - no more fun in old folks' homes at Uncle Sam's expense? On Oct. 19 the Houston Astros advance to their first World Series in their 44-year history by defeating the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Championship Series. On Oct. 19 Steve West and his landscaper wife Carolyn, along with their in-laws Bob and Frances, all of Salem, Ore. win the $340M Powerball lottery (2nd biggest jackpot in U.S. lottery history) after going together on $40 worth of tickets; o n Nov. 17 a secy. and six lab workers at Kaiser Permanente in Anaheim, Calif. win the $315M Mega Millions jackpot after chipping in $3 each to buy 21 tickets. On Oct. 20 the U.S. House votes 283-144 to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from liability from gun-crime victims after the Senate passes the bill by 65-31 in July; Nat. Rifle Assoc. (NRA) forces are both glad and sad, as provisions are snuck in requiring trigger locks on some weapons. On Oct. 22-26 the Chicago White Sox (mgr. Ozzie Guillen) defeat the Houston Astros (mgr. Phil Garner) 4-0 in the 101st (2005) World Series, ending their 88-year dry spell; the first appearance ever for the Astros, the longest wait for a ML franchise (Angels 44, St. Louis Browns 42, St. Louis Cardinals 24); Game 3 on Oct. 25 goes for 14 innings, equaling the series record, and a record 17 pitchers are used, and is ended when former Houston infielder Geoff Blum hits a 2-out homer in the 14th inning to give the White Sox a 7-5 victory. On Oct. 21 Saddam Hussein's Sunni Arab atty. Saadoun Sughaiyer al-Janabi is abducted from his office, them dumped in the street in Baghdad dead with two bullet wounds in the head; meanwhile four U.S. servicemen are killed in insurgent attacks. On Oct. 21 Beaumont, Tex.-born oil mogul Oscar Sherman Wyatt Jr. (1924-) (chmn. of Coastal Corp.) and two Swiss execs are charged with paying millions in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime in the Oil-for-Food Scandal; in Oct. 2007 Wyatt pleads guilty, and receives a 1-year sentence in a minimum security prison in Beaumont. On Oct. 21 Operation River Gate ends with one U.S. Marine killed near Haqlaniyah as four insurgents are killed and a bunker destroyed. On Oct. 22 U.S. forces kill 20 injurgents and destroy five safe houses in Iraq near the Syrian border. On Oct. 22 Croatian authorities begin killing thousands of domestic birds near a nat. park where six swans died of bird flu. On Oct. 23 (Sun.) a team of top Afghan officials visits S Afghanistan to investigate allegations that U.S. soldiers cremated the remains of Taliban fighters in violation of Muslim Sharia and then used the scene for propaganda. On Oct. 23 pro-capitalist Warsaw mayor Lech Kaczynski (1949-2010) is elected pres. of Poland with 54% of the vote over pro-market Civic Platform candidate Donald Tusk Franciszek (1957-), an admirer of Reagan and Thatcher, taking office on Dec. 23 (until Apr. 10, 2010), and becoming the best friend the Jews in Poland have had in a Polish leader (until ?); his twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski (1949-), leader of the nationalist conservative Law and Justice Party is appointed PM on July 2006 (until Nov. 2007). On Oct. 23 a bomb in a residential area of Tikrit, Iraq kills an Iraqi police col. and four children; other attacks in Iraq bring the death toll to 20, with 31 wounded. On Oct. 23 a Nigerian Bellview Airlines Boeing 737 plane carrying 117 crashes near Lissa 30 mi. N of Lagos shortly after takeoff, killing all aboard. On Oct. 23 record-breaking 23nd named Atlantic storm Tropical Storm Alpha drenches Haiti and the Dominican Repub.; the 2005 U.S. Hurricane season ends with 27 named storms and 15 hurricanes, and the names Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan, and Wilma are permanently retired by the World Meteorological Org. On Oct. 23 Pope Benedict XVI presides over his first saint-making Mass in Vatican City at the 250-member Synod of Bishops, naming five new saints incl. Chilean Jesuit Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, while reaffirming the church's position on celibacy for priests, calling it a "precious gift" - give me a word that rhymes with choir boy? On Oct. 24 a car bomb explodes near the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, blowing a hole in the protective wall, allowing a 2nd suicide bomber truck to get through, but it gets stuck, blowing up and killing six passersby; the AP counts 1,997 U.S. military deaths in the Iraq War so far, six higher than the official U.S. govt. tally. On Oct. 24 a Los Angeles judge signs a Dec. 13 death warrant at San Quentin Prison for Crips gang co-founder Stanley Tookie Williams III (b. 1953), who has been on death row since Apr. 20, 1981 for four 1979 shotgun murders, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his prison-written children's books; his lawyers appeal to Calif. Gov. Ahnuld for clemency, hoping to be the first to receive clemency since Reagan spared a mentally-ill killer in 1967; on Dec. 12 the Governator nixes it, and he is executed by lethal injection on Dec. 13 - appealing to the Terminator for clemency? Keep the pace, you're in the race? On Oct. 25 the U.S. military death toll in the Iraq War reaches 2,000 (incl. 497 Nat. Guard or Reserve troops); the U.S. Senate observes a moment of silence to honor them; 30K or more Iraqis have died in the war, incl. 3,870 in the past 6 mo., but who's counting? On Oct. 25 Iraq's election commission declares that the new constitution was ratified by 79% of the 9.8M voters; only three heavily-Sunni provinces, Anbar (E of Baghdad) (96%), Salaheddin (N of Baghdad) (81%) (Sadam's province), and Diyala (W of Baghdad) (51%) defeat it, but three of the 18 provinces had to defeat it by two-thirds for the constitution to go down. On Oct. 25 U.S. Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Northern Command in Colo. Springs, Colo., which provided the military response to Hurricane Katrina proposes that the Dept. of Defense be given complete authority to respond to all natural disasters - tell a friend to tell a friend? On Oct. 25 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah announces the withdrawal of 220 missionaries from Venezuela two weeks after Pres. Hugo Chavez ordered the expulsion of the Fla.-based evangelical New Tribes Mission. On Oct. 25 the EU's highest court ends a 2-decade fight with France and Britain and announces that feta cheese is Greek and deserves protection throughout the 25-nation EU. On Oct. 25 Russian Jewish geek billionaire (wealthest in Russia, 16th wealthiest on Earth) Mikahil Borisovich Khodorkovsky (1963-), head of Yukos, which controls 2% of the world's oil is arrested on fraud charges, and convicted on May 31, 2005, getting eight years in prison. On Oct. 26 a 20-y.-o. Palestinian blows himself up at a falafel stand in an open air market in Hadera, Israel, killing five Israelis and wounding more than 30; on Oct. 27 the Israelis counter with a missile attack on a car belonging to Islamic Jihad Movement members in the Jabalya refugee camp N of the Gaza Strip. n Oct. 26, 2005 at the World Without Zionism Conference in Tehran, Imadinnajacket made the statement "Our dear imam [Ayatolla Khomeini] ordered that this Jerusalem-occupying regime must be erased from the page of time. This was a very wise statement... Soon this stain of disgrace will be cleaned from the garment of the world of Islam, and this is attainable." When the New York Times translated his statement as "must be wiped off the map", it caused an international controversy until the Iranian Republic's official translation said wiped off the map also; it takes until Nov. 13 for U.S. secy. of state Condoleezaa Rice to publicly rebuke him, saying "No civilized nation should have a leader who wishes or hopes or desires or considers it a matter of policy to express that." On Oct. 26 Mumbai, India-born Parsi Noshir Sheriarji Gowadia (1944-) of Haiku, Hawaii, who calls himself the father of the technology protecting B-2 stealth bombers from heat-seeking missiles is arrested for selling U.S. military secrets. On Oct. 27 Sunni Arab militants kill 14 Shiite militiamen and policemen in a clash SE of Baghdad, Iraq; two U.S. Army soldiers are killed when their convoy hits a roadside bomb in Baghdad; another soldier dies in an ambush 37 mi. N of Baghdad, and four others are wounded. On Oct. 27 the accidental electrocution deaths of two Muslim teenagers hiding in an electrical power substation from the pigs after fleeing an ID check in the NE Paris banlieue (low-income suburb) of Clichy-sous-Bois sparks rioting by Mauritanian and Tunisian Muslim youths, spreading all over the country to 300 cities, with the Allah-Akbar-shouting youths burning 1K cars, vandalizing bldgs., and throwing rocks and bottles at the police, doing millions in damage for a mo., causing some to call Paris the new "Baghdad-sur-Seine"; on July 15 the New York Times carried an article titled "The Time Bombs in France's Suburbs", telling of French Muslims turning jihadist and going to Iraq to fight against the U.S. On Oct. 28 I. Lewis "Scotter" Libby is indicted on five charges of obstruction of justice and perjury, carrying a max. penalty of 30 years and $1.25M in fines, causing him to resign; "Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls... was not true. It was false" says special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. On Oct. 29 (2 days before the Hindu Diwali Festival) a series of three bomb blasts by Islamic Kashmiri Lashkar-e-Taiba (Urdu "Army of the Righteous") Islamic separatist militants strikes New Delhi, India killing 62 and injuring 210; in Dec. the U.N. declares Lashkar-e-Taiba a terrorist org., and Pakistani prof. Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (1950-) its leader. On Oct. 30 Iraqi insurgents kill Ghalib Abdul-Mahdi, brother of Iraq's Shiite vice-pres. Adil Abdul-Mahdi on Palestine St. in Baghdad; the same day police find the bodies of 11 blindfolded, bound and shot men in a village near Baghdad where Sunnis and Shiites clashed three days earlier. On Oct. 30 the Frauenkirche ("Church of Our Lady") in Dresden, Germany, firebombed by the U.S. and Britain on Feb. 13-14, 1945 is reopened in front of a crowd of 60K after $215M is spent to restore it, incl. $120M in donations, much of it from the U.S. and Britain. On Oct. 30 the remains of U.S. civil rights icon Rosa Parks (1913-2005), who died on Oct. 24 just weeks of the 50th anniv. of her big bus ride in Montgomery, Ala. on Dec. 1, 1955 lie in honor in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, becoming the 31th person and first woman so honored; on Oct. 31 a memorial service is held. On Oct. 30 Pastor Kyle Lake (b. 1972) is electrocuted while performing a baptism in the University Baptist Church in Waco, Tex. when he tries to adjust a microphone. On Oct. 31 Rev. Irene "Beth" Stroud (1970-) is defrocked by the United Methodist Church for being caught in a lesbian partnership - from the Matrix Reloaded to End of Days? Ready, jump? On Oct. 31 Pres. Bush picks extremely right-wing Catholic N.J. native 3rd Circuit U.S. Appeals Court Judge (since 1990, when he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate for the position) Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. (1950-) for Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the U.S. Supreme Court four days after withdrawing Harriet Miers' name; Sen. Dem. leader Harry Reid of Nev. questions the choice, saying that Alito is "too radical for the American people"; Reid also nixes Judge J. Michael Luttig of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Priscilla Owen of the 5th Circuit; a 1985 application for a promotion in the Reagan. admin. is disclosed by the White House, showing Alito's 1972-87 membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which lobbied against the university's affirmative action policies; his confirmation will give the court a Roman Catholic majority; ironically, Dem. Catholic Mass. Sen. Edward Kennedy soon drops his membership in the Owl Club, a Harvard college social club that bans women members after it is pointed out to him; Alito is approved by the Senate 58-42 on Jan. 31, 2006, the closest vote since the 1991 52-48 Clarence Thomas vote, becoming U.S. Supreme Court justice #110 (until ?); the lone Repub. Sen. to vote no is Lincoln Chafee (son of Sen. John Chafee, whose seat he was appointed to when he died in 1999) from Dem.-leaning R.I., which Kerry won by 20 points in 2004; Chafee was the only Repub. sen. to vote against the Iraq War resolution; four Dems. vote for Alito, Robert C. Byrd of W.V., Kent Conrad of N.D., Tim Johnson of S.D., and Ben Nelson of Neb. (all from states carried by Pres. Bush in 2004); he is sworn-in as U.S. Supreme Court justice #110 (becoming first in the all-time alphabetized list?), and Sandra Day O'Connor retires and returns to Ariz. In Oct. the Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education issues an "instruction" reaffirming the ban on ordination of homosexuals; at the same time an evaluation of all 229 U.S. seminaries begins under their direction; the U.S. has 42.5K priests, 25%-50% of whom are homos - something is sure to hit the fan? In Oct. the Bush admin. releases the 381-page Pandemic Influenza Strategic Plan to deal with a possible outbreak of pandemic flu. In Oct. 44-y.-o. lezzie Am. rocker Melissa Etheridge (b. 1961) begins touring again for the first time after contracting breast cancer in 2004 - she turned it on with new Venus Vibrance and revealed the goddess in you? In Oct. two Aleutian Island volcanoes, Cleveland Volcano and Tanago Volcano rumble to life beneath a major world airline flyway between North Am. and Asia, causing small earthquakes and spitting an ash cloud almost 3 mi. high; the mile-hi Sierra Negra Volcano on the largest of the Galapagos Islands begins erupting on Oct. 23. In Oct. the principal of Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale, N.Y. cancels the sex-booze-drugs-filled spring prom because of "the flaunting of affulence, assuming exaggerated expenses, a pursuit of vanity for vanity's sake - in a word, financial decadence." In Oct. Eduardo Braga, gov. of Amazonas state in Brazil decrees a "state of public calamity" caused by the worst recorded drought in the Amazon River basin, source of a quarter of the world's fresh water, caused by the same temp. rise in the Atlantic that brought Hurricane Katrina. Salad terrorism? In Oct. an outbreak of E. coli sickens 11 in Minn., calling the U.S. FDA to warn people not to eat certain Dole prepackaged salads; starting on Aug. 25, 2006 in Wisc. another E. coli outbreak sickens at least 187 and kills one, causing the FDA to warn against eating fresh bagged spinach nationwide, which causes it to be pulled from store shelves, becoming the 20th leafy green scare in 10 years, mainly in Calif.; in late Oct. authorities trace it to wild pigs, then next Mar. decide it came from Paicines Ranch in San Benito County, Calif., which sells to Mission Organics. In Oct. former Soviet pres. Mikhail Gorbachev and chess players Anatoly Karpov and Susan Polgar meet in Lindsborg, Kan. to promote "Chess for Peace"; Karpov and Polgar end up in a 3-3 tie (2 wins, 2 draws). In Oct. the Kansas School Board becomes the first in the U.S. to back Intelligent Design as a subject to teach alongside Darwininian Evolution, raising a storm of protest; leave it to Oregon State physics grad Bobby Henderson to trivialize the issue by sending them a letter claiming to speak for 10M members followers of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, demanding equal time for their views; the board eventually backs down, but the FSM cult continues to grow on campuses, spreading to Europe? On Nov. 1 after holding a special session on Jan. 24 marking the 60th anniv. of the closing of the Nazi concentration camps, the 42nd Session of the U.N. Gen. Assembly unanimously approves U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution 60/7 which designates Jan. 27 as Internat. Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the WWII Holocaust tragedy that killed 6M Jews, 5M Slavs, 3M Poles, 200K Romani, 250K disabled people, and 9K homosexual men. On Nov. 2 more good news in Iraq as a suicide bomber detonates a minibus in an outdoor shopper-packed market ahead of a Muslim festival in Musayyaib, Iraq 40 mi. S of Baghdad at 5 p.m., killing 20 and wounding 60. On Nov. 3 Scooter Libby pleads not guilty to charges of lying about disclosing classified info, his atty. saying he intends to "clear his good name"; meanwhile Pres. Bush's job approval rating falls to the lowest of his presidency, down to 37%, with 59% disapproving of the job he's doing; among Repubs. it drops to 78%, Dems. 9%, independents 24%, men 39%, women 35%. On Nov. 3 emails are released showing former FEMA dir. Michael Brown fiddling while Rome burned, discussing his appearance, his dog, and his public image as the Hurricane Katrina disaster was going into the red zone; "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire you'll really vomit - I am a fashion god." On Nov. 3 the 4th Summit of the Americas begins in Mar Del Plata, Argentina to discuss the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, a free trade zone stretching from Alaska to Argentina; at the same time Venezuela stages a mock U.S. invasion of its own territory, and its pres. Hugo Chavez arrives at the summit emboldened by thousands of anti-U.S. protesters, joking that Pres. Bush is afraid of meeting him face to face, and he might sneak up and scare him at the summit; after Chavez leads a stadium full of anti-U.S. protesters and the summit fails to support the free trade zone, Bush leaves early. On Nov. 3 the EU, the Council of Europe, and Human Rights Watch announce an investigation into alleged secret jails set up by the CIA in Eastern Europe and elsewhere incl. Szymany Airport in Poland and Mihail Kogalniceanu Military Airfield in Romania, based on allegations reported on Nov. 2 in The Washington Post. On Nov. 5 U.S.-Iraqi troops begin an offensive against al-Qaida militants in Husaybah, Iraq on the Syrian border, a major entry point for foreign insurgents; on Nov. 7 al-Qaida warns the Iraq govt. to halt the offensive within 24 hours or see "the earth... shake beneath their feet". On Nov. 6 the deadliest tornado since 1974 hits SW Ind. and W Ky., killing 22, 17 of them in the Eastbrook Mobile Home Park. On Nov. 6 Israeli authorities unveil a 3rd cent. Christian church found under the planned site of a new prison ward of Megiddo Prison in Israel, which head archeologist Yotam Tepper calls "the oldest archeological remains of a church in Israel, maybe even in the entire region. Whether in the entire world, it's still too early to say"; the mosaics depict fish rather than a cross, and tell about a Roman officer and a woman named Aketous who donated money to build the church in the memory "of the god Jesus Christ" - roll in over in your grave, Arius? On Nov. 6 rioters in a working class suburb of Paris fire shotguns on police, wounding 10, just hours after Pres. Chirac called an emergency meeting of top security officials; 1.3K vehicles are burned in a dozen cities, incl. 35 in the heart of Paris; on Nov. 7 French Pres. Jacques Chirac imposes the first state emergency and curfew in 40 years after France's worst civil unrest in decades (begun Oct. 27) enters a 12th night, with French-born Muslim children of Arab and African immigrants rioting in Toulouse, Sevran, Vitry-sur-Seine, and other Paris suburbs, burning 814 vehicles (1.4K the night before, and a total of 10K vehicles), becoming the worst and most widespread damage since WWII; Algerian-Tunisian-Mauritanian leaders call for an overall solution to decades of white discrimination and segregation; on Nov. 6 1.4K cars are torched; on Nov. 12 502; on Nov. 13 (Sun.) the riots are concentrated in Lyon, still without touching the tourist districts of Paris as feared, and only 374 cars are torched (about 100 were burned in France on an avg. Sat. night before the riots). On Nov. 7 a suicide bomber at a checkpoint S of Baghdad, Iraq kills four U.S. soldiers; meanwhile five U.S. soldiers from an elite unit are charged with kicking and punching Iraqi detaineers. On Nov. 7 Pres. Bush holds a news conference with Pres. Martin Torrijos in Panama City, saying "We do not torture" those held in overseas CIA prisons; meanwhile, he supports an effort of vice-pres. Cheney to block a proposed Senate ban on CIA torture, Cheney telling Senate Repubs. on Nov. 1 that it would "tie the president's hands" - both sides of his mouth are working? On Nov. 7 file-sharing service Grokster Ltd. agrees to a settlement, shutting down and paying $50M to settle piracy complaints by Hollywood and the music industry, after a Supreme Court ruling in June in MGM v. Grokster that they and not just their pirate customers can be gone after causes them to lose the desire to fight. As of Nov. 7 WHO reports 41 deaths from bird flu in Vietnam, 13 in Thailand, 5 in Indonesia, and 4 in Cambodia, for a total of 63 since late 2003. On Nov. 8 a masked gunman in a speeding Opel assassinates Saddam Hussein's atty. Adel al-Zubeidi in a W Baghdad Sunni Arab neighborhood; Thamir al-Khuzaie, atty. for Saddam's half-brother Barazan Ibrahim is wounded; the first killing of an atty. for Saddam happened on Oct. 20, when his body was found the day after the trial's opening session. On Nov. 8 Australian authorities arrest 17 terror suspects, incl. a prominent radical Muslim cleric sympathetic to Osama bin Laden, claiming to foil a major terror attack; a Muslim identified as BUSB shoots at the police, who shoot and arrest him; in Sept. 2011 he is acquitted of attempted assault on a police officer because the court finds "anti-Muslim feeling in the community" made him skittish - the Islamophobia Defense? On Nov. 8 Calif. voters reject all four govt.-overhaul measures put on the ballot by Gov. Ahnuld just as he is gearing up for a re-election bid for 2006; "He had a mandate to reform state government, and he no longer has that mandate", says Dem. consultant Darry Sragow. On Nov. 8 Tim Kaine wins the gov. race in Va., beating Repub. Jerry Kilgore, becoming the first back-to-back Dem. wins for gov. in the predominantly red (Repub.) state since 1989, despite an appearance by Pres. Bush. On Nov. 8 by a 6-4 vote the Kansas State Board of Ed. adopts new science curricula standards that openly question the theory of evolution; six Repubs. vote yes, and two Repubs. and two Dems. vote no. What's in your wallet, boo? On Nov. 8 former finance minister Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (b. 1939) is elected the 23rd pres. of Liberia, becoming the first female head of state in Africa; pres. #22 served briefly before a caretaker govt. took over, #21 Charles Taylor won office after igniting a civil war but fled into exile in 2003; #20 Samuel Doe was executed by guerrillas who first cut off his ears; #19 William Tolbert was overthrown and assassinated in 1980, along with 13 cabinet ministers tied to wooden poles in their underwear and shot by a firing squad; Sirleaf was Tolbert's finance minister, but escaped and fled overseas, returning to be jailed by Doe in 1985 for criticizing him, emerging as the "Iron Lady"; she immediately faces pressure to extradite and try Charles Taylor for his crimes in a country that lost 200K of its 3M people in back-to-back civil wars from 1989 to 2003. On Nov. 8 15-y.-o. Ken Bartley Jr. (1990-) shoots and kills Campbell County High School asst. principal Ken Bruce in Jackson, Tenn. (30 mi. NW of Knoxville) and wounds principal Gary Seale after a scuffle. On Nov. 8 Ernst Zundel, author of the book The Hitler We Loved and Why is put on trial in Mannheim, Germany for the horrible crime of daring to deny the historicity of the Holocaust - is that like denying the Eucharist? On Nov. 9 suicide bombers working for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi carry out nearly simultaneous suicide bombings on three U.S.-based hotels in Amman, Jordan, the Grand Hyatt, Radisson SAS, and Days Inn, killing 58 and wounding 115, incl. 27 West Bank Palestinians, becoming the first time Palestinians have been the target of a suicide bombing, and perhaps sobering them up, causing the Palestinian Authority to condemn Zarqawi, lower flags to half staff, and declare a 3-day mourning period; on Nov. 10 thousands of angry protesters demonstrate throughout Jordan, shouting "Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!", causing Zarqawi's group to post rare justifications of their attack on the Web: "Let all know that we have struck only after being confident that they are centers for launching war on Islam and support the crusaders' presence in Iraq and the Arab Peninsula and the presence of the Jews on the land of Palestine"; on Nov. 15 11 top Jordanian officials incl. the nat. security adviser resign. On Nov. 9 two young men rob the home of Denver, Colo. Police Chief Gerry Whitman in broad daylight, taking his gun; it is later revealed that Whitman spends much time at home running the dept. on a cell phone for his $140K salary, despite his own officers having to go through elaborate paperwork to get any leave. On Nov. 9 the Pakistan Internat. Airlines Worldliner (Boeing 777-200LR) takes off from Hong Kong, and arrives in London on Nov. 10 after a 22 hour 42 min. 11,664 nautical mi. flight, breaking the record for the longest nonstop commercial jet flight set in 1989 by a Boeing 747-400. On Nov. 9 Pope Benedict XVI makes comments in his gen. audience in Vatican City that the Universe was made by an "intelligent project", quoting 4th cent. St. Basil the Great; Austrian Cardinal-Archbishop Christoph Maria Michael Hugo Damian Peter Adalbert, Count of Schoenborn (Schönborn) (1945-), who backed Intelligent Design and dismissed Pope John Paul II's 1996 statement that evolution is "more than just a hypothesis" attends the audience. On Nov. 10 (9:45 a.m.) a suicide bomber detonates in the Baghdad ? Restaurant favored by police and army recruiters, killing 35 and wounding 25 (al-Qaida takes credit); later a car bomb blows up outside an Iraqi army recruiting center in Tikrit, killing seven and wounding 13, all officers of Saddam's regime invited (up to the rank of major) a week earlier by Iraq's defense minister to reenlist; meanwhile Iraqi troops find 27 decomposing bodies near Jassan, Iraq close to the Iranian border. On Nov. 10 the European Court of Human Rights in Leyla Sahin v. Turkey upholds the legitimacy of a Turkish law prohibiting women from wearing religious head covering in govt. bldgs., schools, and univs.; on Feb. 22, 2008 the pres. of Turkey approves two constitutional amendments allowing them, but the Turkish supreme court overturns them. On Nov. 11 Pres. Bush gives a speech on Veterans Day at Tobyhanna, Pa. Army Depot, lashing out at congressional Iraq War policy critics, calling them "deeply irresponsible"; Sen. John Kerry shoots back, saying that Bush plays "the politics of fear and smear". On Nov. 11 Saddam's #2 man Izzat Ibraham al-Douri, the King of Clubs (#6) in the U.S. deck of cards is reported dead in an e-mail signed by the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party; suffering from leukemia, he had a $10M bounty put on his head in 2003. On Nov. 12 (Sat.) Iraqi police arrest 350+ incl. local officials and Sunny Arab party leaders in a dragnet operation in Baquba, Iraq, drawing criticism that they are trying to intimidate Sunnis from participating in the upcoming Dec. 15 elections. On Nov. 12 Afghanistan elects provincial reps to the Meshrano Jirga, its upper house of parliament (house of elders), becoming the country's first elected legislature in 30 years, meeting for the first time on Dec. 18. On Nov. 13 Iraqi woman Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi (1970-) is arrested, and confesses on Jordanian state TV that she tried to blow herself up along with her husband in the Radisson Hotel on Nov. 9, but it failed to detonate, after which she is convicted and sentenced to death by hanging on Sept. 21, 2006, and recants her confession and appeals, which is denied in Jan. 2007. On Nov. 13 a chemical plant explodes in Jilin, China, creating a 50-mi. benzene slick that causes running water to be shut down in the city of Harbin (pop. 3.8M) for five days; the slick continues on into Russian territory, threatening Khabarovsk (580K pop.). On Nov. 13 World Wrestling Entertainment star Eduard "Eddie" Gory Guerrero (b. 1967) is found dead in his hotel room at the Minneapolis Marriot City Center. On Nov. 14 Pres. Bush leaves for a 8-day trip of Asia, incl. Japan, China, and South Korea, and on Nov. 15 attends the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Conference in Busan, where leading members, the U.S., China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan agree to support free trade talks at the WTO; on Nov. 16 he tells China to be more like archrival Taiwan, and asks them to open its economy to foreign competition to narrow its $200B trade surplus with the U.S. - he should have kept mum? On Nov. 14 a Presbyterian congregation in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. ordains gay Raymond Bagnuolo, despite his refusal to practice chastity - the squirrels need a nut feeder? On Nov. 15 the U.S. Senate votes 79-19 to urge the Bush admin. to publicly explain its strategy for success in Iraq and to begin providing quarterly reports on military ops.; a plan for calling for a phased troop withdrawal is dropped. On Nov. 15 Iraq's PM announces that 173 malnourished, probably tortured detainees were found at an Interior Ministry basement lockup seized by U.S. forces in Baghdad, validating Sunni complaints of abuse by the Shiite-controlled ministry. On Nov. 15 after strong U.S. pressure, Israel and the Palestinians reach an agreement to open Gaza's borders. On Nov. 15 the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colo. hears arguments over a 55-year 10-ft.-thick reams of legal BS paperwork prison sentenced imposed on 26-y.-o. Salt Lake City man Weldon H. Angelos for selling small amounts of marijuana while possessing a firearm (he sold 8 oz. of weed 3x times to an acquaintance working for the police) - and now his ass is grass for life because the U.S. is becoming a gulag controlled by super-rich Puritans in Congress who have architected victimless crime legal bull into machines for turning people into slaves with even judges' hands being tied? How about just I'm throwing it out of court and never bring this kind of garbage before me again or I'll jail you prosecutors for contempt? On Nov. 15 Muslim leaders meet in the Hofburg Palace of Vienna to complain about how terrorists are distorting the image of Islam, with Austrian foreign minister Ursula Plassnik uttering the soundbyte: "Muslims throughout the world are suffering increasingly from the unacceptable connection of Islam with violence or even terrorism", and Iraq pres. Jalal Talabani uttering the soundbyte: "The Islamic religion is facing a disfigurement in essence to its reality as a religion of love, compassion and peace by a small group of radicals who have lost the way." On Nov. 16 China reports its first human cases on the mainland, incl. at least one death from the deadly H5N1 strain, racing to inoculate billions of poultry. On Nov. 16 famed Washington Post asst. managing editor Bob Woodward apologizes to the paper's top editor for withholding for more than two years the fact that a Bush admin. official had told him the identity of the CIA agent at the center of the 23-mo. federal criminal investigation, explaining that he didn't want to testify before the federal grand jury and end up like Judith Miller. On Nov. 16 Iraq continues to be a meat grinder as five U.S. Marines are killed in fighting with insurgents nar the Syrian border, and U.S. Army soldier dies of wounds suffered in Big Daddy. On Nov. 16 Pres. Bush and South Korean Pres. Roh Moo-hyun meet in Gyeongju, Korea's ancient capital, and declare that a nuclear-armed North Korea "will not be tolerated", but stress that the little problem they're having with them should be resolved through peaceful and diplomatic means down to the x-y-z. On Nov. 16 Iran admits that its new Russian-made (Polyot) 375-lb. Sina-1 satellite, launched 1 mo. earlier is capable of spying on Israel (that country their pres. said should be wiped off the map?); a 2nd Iranian-built satellite is set to be launched in 2 mo. On Nov. 16 the U.S. Senate votes to force U.S. cos. to make up an underfunding of pension plans estimated at $450B and live up to promises made to employees. On Nov. 16 the $230M "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska, supposed to lead to an island with a pop. of 50 is scrapped by the U.S. Congress, defeating Repub. Senate Appropriations Committtee chmn. Theodore Fulton "Ted" Ted Stevens (1923-2010) from Alaska (known for his trademark "The Hulk" tie); they also axe "Don Young's Way", a $229 bridge between Anchorage and sparsely populated Knik, Alaska, named after Repub. House Transportation Committee chmn. Don Young, also from Alaska; but they score a back atchya by getting the money earmarked for their state anyway, this time without strings? On Nov. 17 CREA pres. Italia Federici, a former aide of Gale Norton defends nearly $500K in contributions her org. received from Indian casino tribes represented by Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff (1959-) (Jack Off for short?) in front of a Senate panel; on Nov. 18 Abramoff is charged with defrauding Amerindian tribes of millions of dollars; on Dec. 14 Norton denies that Abramoff influenced her interior dept., but on Mar. 10, 2006 decides to resign. On Nov. 17 U.S. Rep. (D-Penn.) (1969-) John Patrick "Jack" Murtha Jr. (1932-2010) flip-flops from being a hawk to calling for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. On Nov. 18 pure-bred blind Chinese Crested hairless Sam, the World's Ugliest Dog (b. 1990) (with hairless body and crooked teeth) dies just short of his 15th birthday after winning his 3rd straight title at the Sonoma-Marin Fair this summer; owner Susie Lockheed of Santa Barbara, Calif. took him in six years earlier and met her boyfriend through an online dating site with a photo of them. On Nov. 18 U.S. Rep. (R-Ohio) (2005-) Jeannette Marie Hoffman "Jean" Schmidt (1951-) (most junior member of the House) is booed by Dems. after telling them that a Marine col. back home sent a message "Cowards cut and run - Marines never do"; the House then defeats a measure for a quick U.S. Iraqi pullout by 403-3. On Nov. 19 a suicide bomber plows his car into a tent full of Shiite mourners in Iraq, killing 30 - and turning them into what? Had it up to tha' in Iraq, boys? On Nov. 19 U.S. Marines stink up the U.S. name after a bomb rocks their military convoy in Haditha, Iraq, killing Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel "TJ" Terrazas (b. 1985), and causing the rest, led by SSgt. Frank Wuterich (1980-) to shoot and kill unarmed civilians in a taxi at the scene, then go into two homes and massacre up 24 inhabitants; the brass attempts to cover it up until next May, when news leaks happen, and the fit hits the shan. On Nov. 20 a gunman opens fire in a busy shopping mall in Tacoma, Wash., wounding six and taking three hostage in a music store before surrendering. On Nov. 21 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon announces that he is gambling and breaking away from his hardline Likud Party to avoid squandering peacemaking oportunities created by the Gaza Strip pullout, and forms a new coalition "liberal" party called Kadima; Mar. elections are now likely; on Dec. 11 Tehran-born Mizrahi Jewish defense minister (since 2002) Shaul Mofaz (1948-) quits Likud to join Sharon's new centrist faction. On Nov. 21 a car bomb attack in Baqouba, Iraq kills four and wounds 10 civilians; U.S. soldiers mistakenly fire on a civilian vehicle outside a U.S. base in Baqouba, Iraq, killing two adults and a child. On Nov. 21 Pres. Bush becomes the first U.S. pres. to visit Mongolia (for 4 hours), telling Pres. Nambaryn Enkhbayar that his country has stood with the U.S. as "brothers in the cause of freedom", and telling him "I feel very much at home in your country" because of all the yaks"; Mongolia, which refers to the U.S. as their "third neighbor" sends more troops per capita to Iraq than every country except Britain and Denmark? - for old Genghis Khan? On Nov. 21 the U.S. bans poultry from mainland British Columbia because of one case of the bird flu, one duck out of 56K birds at a farm in Chillwack, which are killed for safety. On Nov. 22 Ted Koppel (b. 1940) makes his final appearance on ABC-TV's Nightline (begun 1980); a new vers. debuts on Nov. 28. On Nov. 22 the Italian Catholic news agency Adista posts a long-awaited Vatican Instruction on Gay Priests, toughening its stand against gay candidates for the priesthood, saying it "cannot admit to the seminary and the sacred orders those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies or support so-called gay culture"; since 25%-50% of U.S. priests are gay, will the future see an aging fag subgroup pigging out on each other until they go to hog heaven? On Nov. 22 Houston, Tex.-born Muslim student Ahmed Omar Abu Ali (1981-) (raised in Falls Church, Va.) is convicted of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate Pres. Bush; he was arrested at a Medina, Saudi Arabia univ. in June 2003, and later claims that the Saudi Mubahith security force tortured him to obtain a confession. On Nov. 22 a suicide car bomber in Kirkuk, Iraq kills 21 incl. 12 police and injures 24 after his accomplices lure police to the scene by shooting an officer. On Nov. 22 gorgeous blonde former Greco Middle School, Fla. reading teacher Debra Jean LaFave (nee Beasley) (1980-) is sentenced to three years of house arrest and seven years of probation in Hillsborough County for lewd and lascivious battery, the horrendous offense of having sex (for free?) with a 14-y.-o. male student twice, once in the classroom and once in her home; she is then charged for having sex with the same lucky, er, victim in a SUV, but on Mar. 21, 2006 the charges are dropped out of concern for the boy, whose mother is disappointed that she didn't get jail time - Puritanism is alive and well in Latter Day Amerika? On Nov. 23 Kenyan pres. (since 2002) Mwai Kibaki dismisses his entire cabinet after they help voters defeat a proposed new constitution that would give him sweeping powers; next July Kibaki's new Narc-Kenya political party wins three out of five parliamentary seats, showing popular support, helped by a growing GDP. On Nov. 24 the Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.'s key nuclear watchdog agency meets in Vienna over the future of Iran's nuclear program; two weeks earlier its head Mohamed ElBaradei traveled to Iran to offer a proposal to move its uranium enrichment program to Russia, which was declined. On Nov. 24 several supermarkets defy the 17th cent. Puritan Blue Laws in Boston, Mass., causing the Mass. atty.-gen. to launch an investigation; although the ban on Sunday liquor sales has been repealed, the opening of most stores on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's Day still has not? On Nov. 24 a suicide bomber detonates outside a hospital S of Baghdad while U.S. troops are handing out food and candy to children, killing 30. On Nov. 25 British Columbia, Canada pledges $4.3B in funding over the next decade for the nearly 1M aboriginal peoples of the North Am. nation, the First Nations, and Inuits. On Nov. 25 German archeologist Susanne Kristina Osthoff (1962-) and her Iraqi driver are taken hostage in Iraq, and shown on TV footage on Nov. 27 by the German broadcaster ARD; another tape shows four peace activists, an American, a Briton, and two Canadians, all members of the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams; Osthoff is released on Dec. 18, and claims she had been happy, and had even been given some of the ransom money to pay for her digital camera. On Nov. 26 Palestinians take control of the Rafah border crossing on the Gaza Strip between Gaza and Egypt amid a festive air. On Nov. 27 Senate Armed Services Committee chmn. John Warner (R-Va.) appears on NBC-TV's Meet the Press, suggesting that Pres. Bush should begin FDR-style fireside chats to save his admin. from tanking over the Iraq war, and debates with Sen. Foreign Relations Committee's top Dem., Joe Biden of Del. about whether the U.S. can maintain its baseline troop levels past next year; meanwhile the Pentagon announces that U.S. troop levels will drop from 160K to below 140K after the Dec. 15 Iraqi elections. On Nov. 27 eight Sunni Arab men are arrested by police in N Iraq for plotting to assassinate Raid Juhi, chief investigative judge of the court trying Saddam Hussein, whose trial resumes after a recess of almost six weeks. On Nov. 27 a 5.9 earthquake in S Iran kills 10 and injures 70. On Nov. 27 the Tex.-Okla. Wildfires of 2005-6 begin after a combo of high temps, drought, and high winds, with 22,564 wildfires burning 1,872,701 acres in the year as of Apr. 5, 2006. On Nov. 28 voters in the tiny Alpine principality of Vaduz reject by 80%-20% a Roman Catholic-backed constitutional amendment preventing abortion, birth control, assisted suicide, and living wills. On Nov. 28 a corruption scandal forces a no-confidence vote, toppling Canadian PM Paul Martin's minority Liberal Party govt. (pro same sex marriage, contra U.S. invasion of Iraq and continental ballistic missile shield), prompting the first Christmas-winter campaign in Canada in 26 years. On Nov. 28 8-term congressman (R.-Calif.) (1991-2005), former U.S. Navy Top Gun flight instructor and Vietnam War flying ace Randy "Duke" Cunningham (1941-), member of the House Intelligence Committee pleads guilty to taking $2.4M in bribes from defense contractors and resigns, and on Mar. 3, 2005 receives 8 years 4 mo. in priz, is ordered to forfeit $1.85M and pay another $1.8M for back taxes; the Rancho Santa Fe mansion and Rolls Royce kind of gave him away?; on Oct. 17 a report by an investigator hired by the Intel. Committee claims that he had directed at least $70M in business to two contractors in return for millions in bribes. On Nov. 28 Benjamin Franklin Elementary becomes the first public school in New Orleans, La. to reopen since Hurricane Katrina; 120 of 210 students show up. On Nov. 29 Va. Gov. Mark R. Warner commutes the death sentence of Robin McKennel Lovitt (1963-), who would have been the 1,000th person executed in the U.S. since 1976. On Nov. 31 the U.S. hurricane season ends with a record 13 hurricanes and 26 named storms. In Nov. Frank Tassone, former superintendent of the Roslyn, N.Y. school district asks a judge to rule that he doesn't have to testify against his gay spouse Stephen Signorelli in a trial in which he pled guilty on Sept. 26 to stealing $219K from the school district to pay for flying to London on the Concorde and dry cleaning, alleging he is his spouse; it it later learned that he also paid for romantic getaways with him to Las Vegas; his spending spree causes many teachers to be forced into early retirement for lack of funds. In Nov. Myanmar dictator Gen. Than Shwe moves the entire govt. from Rangoon (Yangon) (capital for the last 120 years) to Pyinmana, in a remote area 245 mi. away, giving civil servants two days notice and forbidding resignation. In Nov. former pres. of Finland (1994-2000) Martti Ahtisaari (1937-) is appointed by U.S. secy.-gen. Kofi Annan as special envoy for the "Kosovo status process" to determine whether it should remain a province of Serbia or become independent, and he eventually decides on independence with internat. monitoring, which causes the Serbs to begin personal attacks on his character to discredit him, after which he quits in July 2007, then after Serbia declares independence in Feb. 2008, he receives the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize. In Nov. the 300 lb. Hollywood Walk of Fame star of actor Gregory Peck is stolen, becoming the 4th since the Walk of Fame was begun in 1960 (Kirk Douglas, Jimmy Stewart, Gene Autry). In Nov. Nicholas Negroponte (1943-), brother of Homeland Security dir. John Negroponte unveils the Children's Machine, a $100 laptop computer with many advanced features, which he hopes to put into the hands of every child in the Third World via his org. One Laptop Per Child. On Dec. 1 World AIDS Day 2005 draws attention to the 40M people worldwide infected with HIV, dying at the rate of 3M a year (6 a min.); over half of HIV infections are in Africa, which has only 10% of the world's pop; the same day the World Health Org. (WHO) stops hiring smokers - dick smokers okay? On Dec. 1 South Africa's Constitutional (highest) Court rules in favor of gay marriage, and gives Parliament a year to make necessary legal changes. On Dec. 1 Oprah Winfrey appears on David Letterman's Late Show for the first time in 16 years, tripling its audience to 13.5M, and apparently forgiving him for his "Uma Oprah" skit in the Oscars in 1995; he then escorts her to the Broadway debut of The Color Purple. On Dec. 2 convicted murderer Kenneth Lee Boyd (b. 1948) is executed in Raleigh, N.C., becoming the 1,000th person executed in the U.S. since 1977 (#1 was Gary Gilmore in Utah). On Dec. 2 an IED in Fallujah kills 10 and wounds 11 U.S. Marines from Regimental Combat Team 8 based at Camp Lejeune, N.C., becoming the deadliest attack against U.S. troops in Iraq in 4 mo. On Dec. 2 the U.S. Transportation Security Admin. (TSA) announces relaxed regs. for airline passengers, who will now be permitted to carry scissors with blades up to 4 in. long and screwdrivers up to 7 in. (effective Dec. 22), despite objections from flight attendants and 9/11 attack victim relatives; pat-downs will become more thorough to compensate. On Dec. 3 insurgents kill 19 and wound two Iraqi soldiers NE of Baghdad. On Dec. 3 the Vatican holds a Christmas concert, taping it for broadcast in Italy on Christmas Eve after dropping Brazilian singer Daniela Mercury for appearing in TV ads promoting the distribution of free condoms. On Dec. 4 a would-be suicide bomber detonates when hit by a motorbike in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing them both and wounding two others hours earlier two U.S. helis collide during combat operations, wounding six. On Dec. 5 Saddam Hussein puts up a show in court, telling the judge "You cannot continue with this game. Do you want the neck of Saddam Hussein? Then have it"; meanwhile witnesses describe abuse in Dujail, incl. "Hall 63", where a meat grinder is used; Hussein's atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark (former U.S. atty.-gen.) leads a walkout after arguing that the court is illegitimate because it is based on U.S. occupation. On Dec. 5 a suicide bomber detonates outside a shopping center in the coastal city of Netanya, Israel, killing five and wounding 40; an alert driver spots him walking toward the mall and alerts police, limiting injuries. On Dec. 5 the Sept. 11 Public Discourse Project reports that the U.S. is "arlarmingly vulnerable to terrorist strikes". On Dec. 6 after dark police crack down on a social protest in the Chinese countryside in the town of Dongzho, China over plans to build a coal fired generator, killing 20, becoming the greatest demonstrator-kill since Tiananmen Square in 1989? On Dec. 6 a military C-130 4-engine tuboprop plane loaded with Iranian journalists crashes into the 10-story Towhid apt. bldg. in the Azari suburb of Tehran near Mehrabad Airport during an emergency landing after engine trouble, killing 115. On Dec. 6 the U.N. authorizes a regional peacekeeping force for Somalia, but the Council of Islamic Courts rejects it; on Dec. 19 the first direct fighting between Somalia and Ethiopia begins. On Dec. 8 the 50-nation summit of Islamic nations in Mecca, Saudi Arabia issues the Mecca Declaration promising to stamp out extremist thought; meanwhile Iranian Pres. Ahmadinejad tells a news conference that he doubts that the Holocaust took place and that if Europe feels guilty about it they should move Israel to Europe instead of making "the repercussions fall on the Palestinians"; Saudi spokesmen take exception, comparing his statements to those of Sodamn Insane and Moammar Daffy Duck - you look kind of lost yourself? On Dec. 8 the U.S. House and Senate reach agreement on reauthorizing the U.S. Patriot Act, extending the provisions permitting govt. roving wiretaps and secret access to library and other files for four years; on Dec. 16 Senate Dems., citing civil liberties concerns block its passage with a filibuster after a 52-47 vote to advance it to a final vote; meanwhile the Senate begins looking into accusations that Pres. Bush has authorized the Nat. Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop without warrants on people inside the U.S., causing him to attempt to justify it on Dec. 17 as "critical to saving American lives", which causes a Dem. to say he is attempting to justify the divine right of kings again; on Dec. 30 Pres. Bush signs a bill renewing the law for a few more weeks (until Feb. 3). On Dec. 8 a suicide bomber in a bus en route from Baghdad to Nasiriyah, Iraq kills 32, making the 3-day suicide bomber death toll in Bagged Dead at least 75. On Dec. 8 Southwest Airlines Flight 1248 (Boeing 737) from Baltimore slides off a runway in a heavy snowstorm in Midway Internat. Airport, the second largest in Chicago at 7:15 p.m., crashing through a fence into a busy street and hitting a vehicle, killing a 6-y.-o. boy. On Dec. 8 Boulder, Colo. physicist John Hall and co-winner Roy Glauber use their Nobel Prize platform in Stockholm to criticize the Bush admin., saying that their attitude in science "does not go in the right direction" (Hall); "Some in Congress are more concerned with the political consequences of research projects than their scientific importance" (Glauber). On Dec. 9 N.J. gov.-elect Jon Corzine appoints Dem. Rep. Robert Menendez (1954-) to serve the remaining year in his Senate term, making him the 3rd Hispanic in the Senate after Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) and Mel Martinez (R-Fla.). On Dec. 9 a storm blankets the NE U.S. with up to 1 ft. of snow, causing five fatal crashes. On Dec. 9 Pres. Clinton tells the U.N. Climate Conference in Montreal that the Bush admin. is "flat wrong" in failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to reduce CO2 emissions just because it might damage the U.S. economy, as 150+ countries and about three dozen industrialized countries have done; the huffing-puffing U.S., China, and India still have not signed on. On Dec. 10 Russia Today (later RT) internat. TV network is launched, funded by the Russian govt., featuring content in English, Spanish, French, German, and Arabic as well as Russian. On Dec. 11 a suicide bomber kills himself and wounds three civilians near a U.S. and Afghan military convoy in Kandahar, Afghanistan. On Dec. 11 a tape by Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri surfaces, calling for a global jihad against "the Cross and Zionism". It's time to play the Nutcracker Suite? On Dec. 11-12 neo-Nazi violence between whites and Arabs in Sydney, Australia follows a rumor that Lebanese youths had assaulted two white lifeguards on "surfers only" Cronulla Beach on Dec. 4. On Dec. 12 Pres. Bush estimates that 30K Iraqis have died in the war, and says that "knowing that I know today, I'd make the decision again" to remove Saddam Hussein. On Dec. 12 Lebanese journalist and critic of Syria Gibran Tueni (1957-), gen. manager and grandson of the founder of An-Nahar (founded 1933), Lebanon's leading newspaper is killed in Beirut in a car bombing. On Dec. 12 Red Cross chief exec (since 2002) Marsha Evans is ousted with a $780K severance package from the $4B charity after criticism for its handling of Hurricane Katrina. On Dec. 14 the U.S. House narrowly passes a spending bill which freezes or cuts back a wide variety of domestic programs and cuts federal aid to education for the first time in a decade. On Dec. 14 Iran's pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls the Nazi Holocaust a "myth", used as a pretext for the Jewish state's existence, causing the White House to reply that this proves Iran must not be allowed to develop nukes. On Dec. 15 parliamentary elections are held for a new govt. in Iraq that is to take power on Dec. 31, and about 11M Iraqis (70% of registered voters) turn out; voters' fingertips are marked with purple dye; after angry street protests and charges of vote-rigging, U.S. and Iraqi officials announce an attempt to form a coalition govt. on Dec. 24. On Dec. 15 the New York Times reports that in 2002 Pres. Bush signed a pres. order to allow the NSA to spy on Americans suspected of being connected to terrorist activity without warrants. On Dec. 15 a $3M bronze statue by English sculptor Henry Moore is stolen from the grounds of the Henry Moore Foundation Museum in Hertfordshire with a crane and truck. In mid-Dec. the U.S. has 159K troops in Iraq, up from 146.3K in May, and down from 192K in Mar. 2003; Bulgaria and Ukraine begin withdrawing their combined 1,250 troops from Iraq; the so-called coalition of 24 nations supporting the 150K troops of the U.S. consists of 8K troops from Britain, 3.2K from S. Korea, 2.8K from Italy (troop and police trainers), 1.4K from Poland (troop and police trainers), 900 from Australia, 898 from Georgia, 876 from Ukraine, 863 from Romania, 600 from Japan (noncombat troops), 380 from Bulgaria, down to 32 from Macedonia. On Dec. 16 Hamas celebrates a landslide V in West Bank city elections. On Dec. 17 the Psychiatry: An Industry of Death Museum at 6616 Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles, Calif. opens, owned by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), founded by the Church of Scientology, attended by Scientologist celebs Lisa Marie Presley, Priscilla Presley, Jenna Elfman, Danny Masterson, Giovanni Ribisi, Anne Archer et al.; Hollywood actress Leah Remini tells CNN: "If somebody is going to get turned off about something because of what they read or heard, then that person's not smart enough to even enter a church. If you're really against something, then know what you're against." On Dec. 18 (eve.) for 16 min. Pres. Bush addresses the nation live from the Oval Office for the first time since the beginning of the Iraq War in Mar. 2003 to crow about the successful Iraqi elections and talk about the "path that lies ahead", saying, "we do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists", adding that the latter "feel a tightening noose, and fear the rise of a democratic Iraq", concluding that he's determined to "finish the job", "doing what is right and accepting the consequences", and exhorting Americans not to "give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom". On Dec. 18 nearly two dozen die in Iraq from suicide bombings and gunmen as vice-pres. Dick Cheney makes a surprise visit. On Dec. 18 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon suffers a minor stroke. On Dec. 18 Socialist candidate and coca farmer Evo Morales (Juan Evo Morales Ayma) (1959-) wins the pres. election in Bolivia, becoming its first Indian pres. (until ?), waving a coca branch as he greets supporters, promising to end the U.S.-backed anti-cocaine campaign, and that if the U.S. wants relations "Welcome, but no to a relationship of submission"; he is sworn-in on Jan. 22, and goes on a world tour wearing a brightly striped sweater which sparks an "Evo Fashion" craze; he halves his $3.9K a mo. salary along with his cabinet ministers, using the savings to hire public school teachers. On Dec. 19 TV "prosperity gospel" evangelist Joel Scott Hayley Osteen (1963-) of the giant Lakewood Church in the former Compac Center in Houston, Tex. (viewing audience 200M; church attendance 40K, income $55M a year) stinks himself up when his wife Victoria Iloff Osteen (1961-) is asked to leave Continental Airlines Flight 1602 (Houston to Vail, Colo.) after a dispute over a spill on her pull-down tray; she is later fined $3K. On Dec. 19 (2:30 p.m.) a Chalk's Ocean Airways twin-engine Grumman G-73T Turbine Mallard crashes off Miami Beach en route from Miami to Bimini, killing all 20 aboard. On Dec. 19 Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bans all Western music, incl. classical from Iran state radio and TV stations. I'm too sexy for my Volvo? On Dec. 19 lezzies Shannon Sickels of Northern Ireland and Grainne Close of New York City become the first gay couple in the U.K. to legally form a civil partnership in Belfast, as North Ireland, the last region of the U.K. to legalize homosexuality (1982) becomes the first to legalize same-sex partnerships; Scotland follows its lead on Dec. 20, and England and Wales on Dec. 21; Denmark was the first country (1989), and by now Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden permit them. On Dec. 20 federal judge John Edward Jones III (1955-) rules in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District that the Oct. 2004 decision of the Dover, Penn. school board to permit teaching Intelligent Design in public schools is un-PC, er, unconstitutional, because it "cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents", and on Jan. 3, 2006 they rescind their policy; a video of the school board hearings where noted pro-ID experts testify while pro-evolution experts boycott it is released, becoming a great time capsule - because it prohibits the free exercise of religion or might cause it to receive equal time and threaten the ACLU program of freedom from religion? On Dec. 20-22 3K mass transit workers in New York City strike, bringing the city to its knees and causing thousands to don sneakers and walking shoes and walk to work over the Brooklyn Bridge, like in the Apr. 1, 1980 strike. On Dec. 21 minister #11 of foreign affairs (1995-2005) (Julius Nyerere protege) Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete (1950-) becomes pres. #4 of Tanzania (until Nov. 5, 2015). On Dec. 21 singer Sir Elton John (1947-) weds his male partner of 12 years, Canadian ad man David Furnish (1962-) in the 17th cent. Windsor Town Hall (where Prince Charles and Camilla got married in Apr.) after Britain's civil partnership law takes effect, along with hundreds of same-sex couples; the wedding reception at Elton John's Windsor mansion for 700 guests incl. George Michaels, Donatella Versace, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, and Posh Spice Girl Victoria Beckham costs $1.75M. On Dec. 21 after Gov. Ahnuld's denial of leniency to Tookie Williams gets him assailed by citizens of his hometown of Graz, Austria ("city of human rights") (capital punishment is illegal in Austria), he decides to cut his ties with them and return a ring of honor they gave him in 1999, causing mayor Siegfried Nagi begs him to reconsider, assuring him that most residents still admire him; at his request, on Dec. 25 officials remove giant letters spelling out his name on a 15.3K-seat soccer stadium. On Dec. 21 Saddam Hussein claims in court that Americans beat and tortured him and other defendants in prison in an obvious effort to top witnesses who describe his own forces using electric shocks and molten plastic hoses to rip skin off Kurds in Dujail in 1982. On Dec. 21 vice-pres. Cheney breaks the tie in the U.S. Senate to pass a 6-mo. extension of the U.S. Patriot Act, due to expire on Dec. 31, and Pres. Bush issues his sternest warning yet that "the terrorists still want to hit us again"; the House still is holding up the bill because of civil rights concerns. On Dec. 21 the Senate denies the bid of powerful Alaska Repub. Sen. Ted Stevens (1923-2010) (wearing his lucky Incredible Hulk tie) to get oil drilling authorized in the Arctic Nat. Wildlife Refuge by putting the measure in a $453.5B defense spending bill after Maria Cantwell (D.-Wash.) calls it "legislative blackmail" and Dems. threaten a filibuster; Stevens claims that in 1980 Dem. Sens. Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Wash. and Paul Tsongas of Mass. made a "deal" to do it, but died before fulfilling it, and "A promise made is a debt unpaid"; in 1998 the U.S. Geological Survey estimated 5.6B-16B barrels of oil are recoverable from the area, which would produce 1M barrels a day, about 5% of U.S. consumption. On Dec. 22 Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Mohammed Mahdi Akef posts a statement on his Web site that the Holocaust is a myth, and that the U.S., the public face of the NWO is being "manipulated by the hands of the sons of Zion"; the MB won 88 seats in Egypt's parliament two weeks earlier, establishing itself as the only significant opposition org. in the country? On Dec. 23 the last air-cooled engine for the classic VW minivan comes off the Volkwagen AG assembly line in Sao Paulo, Brazil because of a new Brazilian emissions law. Islam, the religion of Kill Kill Kill Kill strikes again? On Dec. 24 Nazir Ahmed (1965-) of Gago Mandi, Punjab, Pakistan slits the throats of his three young daughters and their 25-y.-o. stepsister in front of his wife and 3-mo.-o. son to salvage his family's "honor" after the older girl allegedly commited adultery and he doesn't want the daughters to do the same when they grow up; he is arrested and faces the death penalty, but remains unrepentant, saying that "I wish that I get a chance to eliminate the boy she ran away with and set his home on fire." On Dec. 25 two burqa-clad Muslim gunmen attack a Presbyterian church Christmas service in Chianwala, E Pakistan with a grenade, killing three young girls, after which police detain an Islamic cleric who called on Muslims to kill Christians a few days earlier. On Dec. 25 (night) two police officers in an emergency truck plunge 40 ft. off the open drawbridge Lincoln Highway Bridge on the Hackensack River in Jersey City, N.J. in thick fog after they go out to place fares to warn motorists that the bridge's safety warning system is broken, and they forget to warn the bridge operator of their presence. On Dec. 26 at least two dozen people incl. a U.S. soldier are killed in shootings and bombings in Iraq; two U.S. pilots are killed when their Apachi heli collides with another heli W of Baghdad. On Dec. 26 a dozen New Orleans police officers surround Anthony Hayes (1967-) as he brandishes a small knife, and shoot him 9x, killing him, claiming they felt their lives to be threatened; the officers are not charged with a speck of spit by the justice-for-the-pigs DA. On Dec. 26 survivors pray beside mass graves and beachside memorials in Indonesia to mark the first anniv. of the tsunami; on Dec. 27 rebels in Indonesia's Aceh province formally disband their armed wing after 29 years struggling for independence and thousands of deaths, saying they plan to join the political process and participate in upcoming elections. On Dec. 27 Russian Pres. Putin's outspoken libertarian economic adviser Andrey Nikolayevich Illarionov (1961-) resigns after criticizing the Kremlin for stifling political freedom and competition with govt.-controlled corps, and moves to the U.S. On Dec. 27 the U.S. Nat. Security Agency (NSA) stops placing permanent (expire 2035) cookies on computers of visitors to their Web site after complaints. On Dec. 27 the Europart independent artists' group in Austria begins displaying nude pics of Pres. Bush, Pres. Chirac, and Queen Elizabeth II engaging in sex acts on electronic billboards across Vienna; they are yanked on Dec. 28 by orders of chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel, despite the govt. giving the group $1.2M in subsidies - change the pics to Jesus and they'll be OK? On Dec. 28 the U.S. Agency for Internat. Development adds $20M to their initial $15M Asian tsunami relief fund after secy. of state Colin Powell reacts to the suggestion that the U.S. is "stingy". On Dec. 28 a British aid worker and her parents are kidnapped in the S Gaza Strip by Palestinian gunmen, and are freed two days later. On Dec. 28 inmates at the A'dala Prison in the Baghdad suburb of Kazimiyah, Iraq storm the prison armory and steal an AK-47 rifle, which is used to kill eight and wound one U.S. soldier in a botched escape attempt. On Dec. 30 Palestinian policeman go on a rampage over the killing of a colleague and seize the Gaza-Egypt border crossing for several hours, forcing EU monitors to flee. On Dec. 30 Egyptian riot police kill 23 unarmed Sudanese migrants in a public park in Cairo that they had occupied for 3 mo. in an effort to pressure U.N. officials into relocating them. On Dec. 30 the U.S. issues its first electronic passports, containing an embedded IC in the cover allowing sensor scanning. On Dec. 30 iPledge, a nationwide registry of Americans taking the anti-acne drug Accutane (isotretinoin) begins accepting names in an effort to limit women who are about to get pregnant from taking it and risking birth defects. On Dec. 31 (New Year's Eve) at least 20 more are killed in Iraq in bombings and shootings; meanwhile U.S. troops shiver through a performance of "American Idol 3" finalist Diana DeGarmo et al. On Dec. 31 a nail bomb in a meat market in Palu, Indonesia 1K mi. NE of Jakarta kills eight and wounds 45 after warnings that the Jemaah Islamiyah, linked to al-Qaida is planning holiday strikes in an attempt to establish an Islamic state spanning Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and S Philippines. On Dec. 31 the Internat. Telecomm. Union decrees that the final minute of the year will contain 61 rather than 60 seconds to keep up with the slip in the planet's rotation, becoming the 23rd leap sec. inserted since 1972. On Dec. 31 97-y.-o. heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey undergoes a procedure to repair an aortic aneurysm with a Dacron graft. In Dec. Kazakhstan pres. Nursultan Nazarbayev is reelected for another seven years with 91% of the vote - does that incl. Borat? In Dec. the U.S. House of Reps. passes an immigrant deportation bill that would initiate felony charges and deportation for the 11M-12M illegals in the U.S., causing illegal immigrants to begin planning mass action to fight back. In Dec. the venerable City News Service of the Chicago Tribune (founded in 1890) is eliminated and replaced with a 24-hour news desk for the paper's websites only; Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Charles MacArthur, Ben Hecht (1894-1964), Melvyn Douglas all cut their teeth there. In Dec. Gov. Ahnuld goes to the hospital for a rapid heartbeat. In Dec. a movement to ban the word "Christmas" and replace it with more PC words such as "Holiday" gains momentum; meanwhile Rev. D. James Kennedy and other Christian leaders organize a political countermovement, which results in the NBC show The Book of Daniel, written by a homosexual, about an Episcopalian minister (Aidan Quinn) who talks to a laid-back relativistic ethics Jesus canceled; Kennedy next takes on Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code"; Wal-Mart instructs its employees to use happy holidays in hellos to customers, then flip-flops next year. Former U.S. deputy defense secy. Paul Wolfowitz (1943-), Pres. Clinton's atty. in the Paula Jones case, who was instrumental in ramrodding the U.S. into the Iraq War ("I'm reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators") becomes pres. of the World Bank, raising eyebrows; he then stinks himself up by promoting his longtime babe Shaha Ali Riza; he takes his new job to give the appearance of avoiding a conflict of interest, but only angering watchdogs, who call for his resignation, which he finally tenders on May 17, 2007. In 2005 a total of 844 (841 according to the AP) U.S. service members are killed in Iraq, compared to 848 in 2004; the number wounded is 9,157, compared to 7,956 in 2004; the total dead since the war began is 2,178, with 15,955 wounded; the bloodiest month in 2005 was Jan., with 107 killed and 500 wounded; the second worst month was Oct., with 96 dead and 603 wounded; more than half of the deaths are caused by homemade, usually roadside bombs. An advisory panel recommends permitting women to ascend the throne in Japan, abolishing a 1947 law; the imperial family, led by Emperor Akihito has not produced a male heir since the 1960s; Crown Prince Naruhito and crown Princess Masako have one child, 3-y.-o. Aiko (Jap. "little loved one"), Princess Toshi (2001). In response to the Mar. 2004 bombing of Madrid, the U.N. founds the Alliance of Civilizations to prevent a clash of civilizations, tracing back to the U.N. initiative called "Dialogue Among Civilizations" proposed in 1998 by Iranian pres. Mohammad Khatami to counter Samuel Huntington's book "The Clash of Civilizations"; too bad, it ends up being coopted by Islamic countries against the West. The Israeli Supreme Court issues a ruling barring use of enemy civilians as human shields; too bad, in Feb. 2007 AP TV News films an incident involving 24-y.-o. Sameh Amira (1983-) being taken from his house on the West Bank by Israeli troops and used for one. Bhutan becomes the first country in the world to ban the sale of all tobacco products and public smoking. The U.S. govt. launches the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) initiative for teen students from Afghanistan; in June 2011 after scores of students flee to Canada rather than return home, they scrap it. Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush signs a law making the orange the official state fruit of Fla. After 50 years (1955) Britain discontinues the famous red Routemaster double-decker buses for more efficient German-made ones. Allergan Inc. sells $800M worth of Botox Cosmetic, 42% going for cosmetic uses (90% women). Cheap Monday jeans, by designer Bjorn Atldax cause controversy in Sweden with their logo of a skull with an upside-down cross on its forehead, fueled by the designer's announcement that "It's an active statement against Christianity", which he calls a "force of evil", responsible for many wars throughout history; 200K pairs were sold since Mar. 2004. Israel signs a 20-year contract with Egypt to supply it with natural gas; 45% of Israel's natural gas is supplied by Egypt. A 35-mi. rift opens in the desert of Ethiopia, which some geologists believe will eventually spawn a new ocean. An oil sands boom begins in Alberta, Canada, at $25 a ton; 175B barrels of proven reserves up for grabs with current technology, and up to 2T barrels total (8x Saudi Arabia). The top 10 Web search terms on Google.com from 1995-2005: "Pamela Anderson", "Dragonball", "Pokemon", "Britney Spears", "WWE", "Tattoos", "Las Vegas", "NFL", "Sept. 11 attacks", "Christmas". Google.com announces plans to create a "print library", consisting of digitized versions of millions of books from distinguished U.S. univ. libraries, but without receiving author permission, although the latter may remove their titles from the program; their plan to also profit from the program causes the Authors' Guild and the Assoc. of Am. Publishers (pres. Pat Schroeder, former Colo. U.S. Rep.) to sue; meanwhile Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard, Adobe, and Internet Archive introduce Open Content Alliance, a similar program limited to books free of copyright; an attempt by Google to get Yahoo and Microsoft to give it info. about their projects to defend against the suit is rebuffed as an attempt to get at trade secrets. Kraft Foods discontinues junk food ads for children. The U.S. Mint issues state quarters for Calif., Minn., Ore., Kan., and West Va. 82-y.-o. writer Norman Mailer accepts an honorary medal at the Nat. Book Awards dinner, saying "The passion readers used to feel for venturing into the serious novel has withered." Olivia Newton-John's half-Korean cameraman boyfriend (since 1996) Patrick Kim McDermott is reported missing while on a fishing trip; he is later allegedly sighted in Mexico. Jonathan Plummer (1975-), husband of "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" novelist Terry McMillan (1952-) reveals that he's gay and divorces her, claiming royalties from her bestselling novel inspired by him; in 2007 she sues him for $40M for trying to smear her rep during the divorce. A federal court puts wolves in the W U.S. under the Endangered Species Act, with penalties of up to $100K fine and one year in prison for killing one except in defense of human life. Widespread use of the sleeping pill Ambien (Zolpidem) causes an epidemic of sleepwalking and "sexsomnia"; that doesn't stop the U.S. FDA from approving generic versions of it on Apr. 23, 2007. The Syrian Am. Council is founded on Nov. 20 in Burr Ridge, Ill. The WB Network's onscreen symbol Michigan J. Frog (b. 1955) "dies" after "The frog was on life support for a long time and we got permission from a federal court to remove the feeding tube" (WB Pres. Garth Ancier). Am. seer Alex Yuan Chun Chiu predicts that China will nuke the U.S. this year over the Taiwan dispute. Total Web pages by the end of this year number 600B; Blogs: 50M; eBay: 50M live auctions/min. The European online market exceeds the U.S. this year, or next? Exxon grabs headlines when it posts an all-time record $36.13B operating profit for 2005; it spends $17.7B a year and pumps 4M barrels of oil and natural gas a day; it announces that it is going to build natural gas wells in Piceance Basin in Colo. using new multizone-stimulation technology, stirring concerns from environmentalists. The U.S. Congress votes to change the beginning of Daylight Savings Time to the first Sun. in Nov. in order to save energy. The U.S. Real ID Act of 2005 is passed, mandating federal requirements for driver's licenses, stirring fears of a coming national ID card and Big Brother, sealing the fate of Americans as hostages in a coming New World Order One-World Govt., and causing a rebellion at the state level to resist implementation. The Arab League and the EU create the Greater Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA) as the first step toward a Euro-Mediterrean free trade area. CIA dir. George J. Tenet pub. a classified document claiming that the Clinton admin. bankrupted the intel community and refused to let the CIA prioritize anti-terrorism over other major priorities, leaving the CIA stretched too thin in the days leading to 9/11; it is not declassified until June 12, 2015. The Voyager 1 space probe launched in 1977 reaches the Sun's termination shock this year after 28 years in space, followed by Voyager 2 in July 2008. China leads the world in baby adoptions by U.S. families, thanks to the country's mad desire for male babies. The U.S. still calls 53 of the top 100 brand names home; Germany 9; France 8; Japan 7; Britain and Switzerland 5; Italy 4; Netherlands and South Korea 3; Finland, Sweden and Spain 1. The U.S. launches Operation Avarice (ends 2006), secretly buying 400 Borak chemical warhead rockets from Iraq that they manufactured in the 1980s but hid from inspectors; Pres. Bush fails to declassify the info., allowing his critics to claim that Iraq had no WMDs prior to the U.S. invasion. The U.S. Defense Dept. discharges 726 people this year for being gay, up 10% from 2004. The annual Global Peace and Unity Event in London is founded to bring Muslims and non-Muslims together; too bad, it ends up inviting speakers who are for terrorism and against Israel. The era of mass audience movies starts to end this year, with Disney, Sony, DreamWorks and others awash in red ink; the drop in prices from $7K to $2K of giant home HDTV systems keeps the demand for DVDs high, shrinking the release time from 9 mo. to 6 mo. to 3 mo. A record 145K Germans (highest since 1954) emigrate amid record (highest since WWI) unemployment (5.2M in Feb.); in June the jobless rate hits 8.2%. The Current Channel, AKA the Al Gore Network, backed with $70M in investment begins airing on cable. Adidas buys Reebok to better compete with Nike. The Renee and Lester Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis U. is founded, going on to become rabidly anti-Israel, endowing Pascal Menoret to the Crown Chair on Sept. 8, 2015. U2 singer Bono founds the "socially conscious" Edun (nude backwards) fashion line. Melissa Ann Young wins the Miss Wisc. USA beauty pageant; on Mar. 30, 2016 she tells Donald Trump that she is suffering from a terminal illness, causing Trump to set up a crowdfunding site through Fundanything.com for her Mexican-Am. son to go to college. White gay nudist Richard Hatch (1961-), the first winner of the Survivor TV reality show in Borneo (hosted by Jeff Probst of Rock & Roll Jeopardy fame) gets in trouble with the IRS for not reporting his $1M earnings which were presented to him on TV watched by millions, plus other income; he is convicted of income tax fraud after a trial where he claims he thought the show's producers paid the taxes for him, and in 2006 gets 51 mo. from U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres, who said he repeatedly lied on the witness stand - outsmart, outwit, outlast? This year there are an avg. of 15 murders a day in post-Communist Moscow, compared to two a day in New York City. A fisherman nets a record 646-lb. catfish in the Mekong River, home to an endangered species of catfish that can grow to 9 ft. - I smell a monster movie here? Jordanian-born Muslim Omar Alomari is hired by the Ohio Dept of Public Safety's Office of Homeland Secuity as a liaison with the Ohio Muslim community, and he goes on to pub. "A Guide to Arabic and Islamic Culture", defining jihad as "the benign pursuit of personal betterment. It may be applied to physical conflict fo Muslims, but only in the arena of Muslims defend themselves when attacked or when attempting to overthrow oppression and occupation... Jihad as a holy war is a European invention, spread in the West"; the Obama admin. appoints him to the U.S. Dept. of Security's Countering Violent Extremism Working Group, which turns out to be spreading "Islamist propaganda", and Alomari is fired for lying aout a previous job firing and failing to disclose ties to the Jordanian govt., where he held a high govt. position; in Apr. 2012 he files a "lawfare" lawsuit for investigating his background. Cartoonist Matt Furie introduces Pepe the Frog in his Boy's Club comic series, becoming known as the Sad Frog Meme, with a speech bubble saying "Feels good/bad man", becoming popular on the Internet; in 2016 anti-Semites co-opt it as their logo on Twitter. The Country Music Assoc. Awards are moved from Nashville, Tenn. to New York City. English philosophy prof. and "world's most influential atheist" Antony Flew (1923-) pub. an interview in the journal Philosophia Christi, titled "Atheist Becomes Theist", saying that he now believes in God because he "had to go where the evidence leads"... the findings of more than fifty years of DNA research have provided materials for a new and enormously powerful argument to design... the biblical account [of Genesis] might be scientifically accurate"; asked if he will also become a Christian he replies, "It's very unlikely... if I wanted any sort of future life I should become a Jehovah's Witness" - he flew the atheist coop? Suicides in Japan top 30K for the 8th straight year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that vaccination rates for black children in the U.S. has caught up to that of the other racial groups for the first time in a decade. Online gambling peaks at $12B, then slides by half by 2007. Montana issues hunting licenses for bison after reports of brucellosis. The B1 Butcher in Namibia begins murdering and dismembering women along Nat. Road B1, reaching five victims by 2007; he is not identified until ?. Blockbuster initiates a "no more late fees" policy for movies. U.S. publishers begin marketing "premium ed." paperbacks for aging Baby Boomers, using higher quality paper and larger type with more space between lines, and 3/4 in. taller (4.75 x 8). The SAT for U.S. college admissions is modifed and lengthened, with analogy questions removed from the reading test and quantitative comparisons removed from the math test, and a written essay test added. The Free File Software Program, created by a partnership of 19 cos. with the IRS, and available for free to any taxpayer with an adjusted gross income of $52K or less begins operation, attracting 5.12M taxpayers; after it proves full of bugs and the IRS doesn't have the authority to make them correct it, filers fall to 3.9M in 2005, and less in 2006. Guitar Hero video game is released by Harmonix and RedOctane, starting a craze. The U.S. Mint issues a new Jefferson nickel which contains the first-ever face-forward depiction of a U.S. pres. Jewish-Am. "Portnoy's Complaint", "Goodbye, Columbus" writer Philip Roth (1933-) becomes the 3rd living writer to have his collected works pub. by the Library of America. After Barbra Streisand unsuccessfully sues photographer Kenneth Adelman and Pictopia.com for pub. an aerial photo of her Malibu, Calif., mansion, causing 420K Web site visits in 1 mo., the term "Streisand Effect" is coined by Mike Masnick of Techdirt.com to mean the backfiring of attempts to censor info. by making everybody rush to see it. The Walk of Game in San Francisco, Calif. opens to honor pioneers and icons of the video game industry. Am. comedian Stephen Colbert coins the word "truthiness" to mean things a person claims to know "from the gut" on The Colbert Report of Oct. 17; too bad, it was already listed in the OED. Lindsay Lohan becomes the first living person to have a "My Scene Goes Hollywood" doll released by Mattel. The Brewers Assoc. (BA) is formed from the merger of the Brewers Assoc. of Am. (founded 1942) and the Assoc. of Brewers (founded 1983), with Charlie Papazian as pres. #1 (until), reaching 1.9K brewers by 2016. Jackson, Miss.-born chef (Culinary Inst. of Am. graduate) Catherine Ann "Cat" Cora (1967-) co-founds Chefs for Humanity in Jan. "to quickly be able to raise funds and provide resources for important emergency and humanitarian aid, nutritional education, and hunger-related initiatves throughout the world." Sports: Dennis Quaid (1.1 handicap) becomes the top celeb golf player in the U.S. On Jan. 13 ML baseball adopts a new tougher steroid testing program that suspends first-time offenders for 10 days and randomly tests players year-round. On Jan. 30 homeless man William Lepeska (1965-) is arrested after swimming nude across Biscayne Bay, trying to get into the $5M Sunset Island estate of tennis star Anna Kournikova (1981-), screaming "Anna, save me!", and accused of stalking her; on Feb. 23 he is ordered to permanently stay at least 1K ft. away from her after he admits to doing the swimming, and she reads portions of a letter sent to her by him - her ass is too high class for him? On Feb. 16NHL commissioner (since 1993) Gary Bruce Bettman announces that the league's entire season is being cancelled because of a labor dispute over a salary cap, becoming known as the 2004-5 NHL Lockout; the NHL becomes the first prof. league in North Am. to shut itself down; on July 22 NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announces the end of the 310-day lockout and unveils rule changes to favor more offense. On Feb. 20 the 2005 (47th) Daytona 500 is won by Jeff Gordon (3rd win); Kurt Busch comes in 2nd, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. comes in 3rd; due to the green-white-checker finish rule of 2004, it becomes the first Daytona 500 to go longer than 500 mi. (507. mi.); the first to end at sunset. On Feb. 28 the Pakistan cricket team arrives in India on its first tour in six years. On Mar. 3 James Stephen "Steve" Fossett (1944-2007) of Beaver Creek, Colo. completes the first solo nonstop balloon flight around the world in 67 hours, financed by Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (1950-), who stars in his own exciting TV reality show The Rebel Billionaire this year. On Apr. 10 Tiger Woods wins his 4th Masters with a finish of birdies and bogeys. On May 13 Tiger Wood's streak of 142 consecutive cuts made on the PGA Tour ends at the Byron Nelson Championship at the Cottonwood Valley Course in Irving, Tex.; his 2nd round 2-over-par 72 gives him 1-over 141, one over the cut; his streak started in Feb. 1998 at the Pebble Beach Nat. Pro-Am; his only other missed cut was in the 1997 Canadian Open; in 2003 he passed Byron Nelson's record of 113 consecutive cuts to become the all-time leader. On May 15 the Czech Repub. defeats Canada for a 3rd straight time in the world ice hockey championships in Vienna Austria, winning 3-0. On May 25 Bradford Gates "Brad" Rutter (1978-) of Penn. beats Ken Jennings and Jerome Vered to win the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions, winning $2M, giving total show winnings of $3,255,102, the highest in the show's history; Jennings comes in 2nd, getting a measly $500K, giving total show winnings of only $3,020,700. Lady and gentlemen, start your engines? On May 29 the 2005 (89th) Indianapolis 500 is upstaged by 5'2" 100 lb. bikini-loving Danica Sue Patrick (1982-), the 4th woman ever in the race, who achieves the highest starting position for a woman as well as the highest finish, and becomes the first woman to lead a lap (#56); she regains the lead near the end, but is low on fuel and finishes 4th in her Honda, which is put in the Honda Museum; the winner is English driver Daniel Clive "Dan" Wheldon (1978-2011), sponsored by Michael Andretti, ending a 35-year Andretti drought; Patrick becomes the first female Indy Racing League Rookie of the Year; Wheldon is killed on Oct. 16, 2011 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. On June 9-23 the 2005 NBA Finals sees the San Antonio Spurs (coach Gregg Popovich) defeat the Detroit Pistons (coach Larry Brown) by 4-3; Tim Duncan of the Spurs is MVP. On June 12 John Elway's Colorado Crush defeats the Georgia Force 51-48 in ArenaBowl XIX in Las Vegas after only three seasons in the Arena Football League (AFL). On June 14 Michelle Wie (1989-) becomes the first female player to qualify for an adult male U.S. Golf Assoc. championship, tying for first in a 36-hole U.S. Amateur Public Links sectional qualifying tournament; in 2003 she became the youngest woman to win the same tournament. On June 15 former Baylor U. basketball player Carlton Eric Dotson Jr. (1982-) is sentenced to 35 years in prison in Waco, Tex. for the murder of his teammate and best friend Patrick James Dennehy (1982-2003), whose body was found in 2003 in a field after Dotson called police to say he was hearing voices saying he is Jesus Christ, and told them where to find the body, launching the Baylor U. Basketball Scandal, causing head basketball coach (since 1999) David Gregory "Dave" Bliss (1943-) to resign after he is exposed for paying Dennehy's tuition, not reporting failed drug tests, and asking players to lie about it; the team doesn't have another winning season until 2008. On June 19 14 Formula One drivers refuse to participate in the 2005 U.S. Grand Prix because of fears of the safety of their Michelin tires; the race is won by Michael Schumacher (1969-), one of six who race on Bridgestones. On July 15 "Golden Bear" Jack Nicklaus plays his last pro golf game at the British Open in St. Andrews, Scotland, uttering the soundbyte: "I knew that hole would move wherever I hit it." On July 17 Tiger Woods wins the British Open with a 2-under 70 for his 10th career major. On July 24 Lance Armstrong wins his 7th straight "Tour de Lance" in France and retires (as he had announced on Apr. 18), saying "Viva Le Tour de France"; he contines to raise funds to fight cancer by selling his yellow Livestrong bracelets; an emotional speech blasts those who accused him of using performance-enhancing drugs of being unable to dream big and believe in achieving the impossible; he later goes on a 17-mi. Tour de Crawford with Pres. Bush on his Tex. ranch. On Aug. 1 5,000-hit 300-homer Hall of Fame sure-thing Baltimore Orioles 1st baseman Rafael Palmeiro (1964-) fails a drug test for steroids, prompting him to apologize to his team; he had been the most emphatic ball player testifying before Congress in Mar. that he had never used them and never would? On Sept. 20 the Sacramento Monarchs finally win a sports title for starving Sacramento, Calif. when they win the NBA title in front of 15K fans in Arco Arena. In the fall Cuyler Frank (1977-) becomes the first radio announcer to do a play-by-play of a football game in Navajo, for the N.M. State U. Aggies. White men can't jump, but they can't open their mouths in public either in the new PC U.S.? On Oct. 25 after a 48-10 loss to Texas Christian U. (TCU), Cheraw,S.C.-born lily white Air Force Academy coach (1980-2006) Fisher DeBerry (1938-) makes un-PC statements and touches the new third rail of U.S. politics at a media luncheon, commenting that TCU "had a lot more Afro-American players than we did and they ran a lot faster than we did. That doesn't mean that Caucasian kids and other descents can't run, but it's very obvious to me that they run extremely well"; also "The black athlete, statistically, from program to program, seems to have an edge as far as speed is concerned"; the PC police then come down on him hard, resulting in a reprimand, even though the statements are true and white men can't run with the black men?; black running backs have led the NFL in rushing for the past 43 consecutive seasons; between 1977-2005 96 receivers were drafted in the first round of the NFL, all of them black; the world records at every race distance under 800m are held by men of West African descent, as it has been since the middle of the 20th cent.; as of 2001, 494 of the fastest 500 times in the 100m run have been by men of West African descent; of the approx. 200 times the 10-sec. barrier has been broken, all have been by runners of West African descent; when it comes to distance running, Kenyans and Ethiopians dominate, with most of the top runners coming from one small Kenyan ethnic group - East is East and West is West, and never the what? In Oct. WNBA basketball star Sheryl Swoopes comes out as a lesbian after divorcing her hubby with whom she had a child, announcing a relationship with Comets asst. coach Alisa Scott; in 2011 she gets engaged to a man, Chris Unclesho, and marries him. On Nov. 2 7'0" center Andrew Bynum (1987-) (#17) of the Los Angeles Lakers (b. Oct. 27, 1987) becomes the youngest player to play in a regular season NBA game at 18 years 6 days, breaking Jermaine O'Neal's 1995 record by 46 days. On Nov. 5, 2005 the 22-team BJ (Basketball Japan) League is founded in Japan, divided into Eastern and Western Conferences; it holds its first All-Star Game in 2006; in 2012 the Nat. Basketball League (NBL) is founded by the Japanese Basketball Assoc. to exist alongside the BJ League; in 2013-4 former Chicago Bulls coach Bill Cartwright becomes head coach of team Osaka Evessa. On Nov. 28 after 20 years of trying, Kent Wagner (1958-) (husband of Lisa Wagner) of Palmetto, Fla. scores a 292 game in Bradenton, Fla. after deliberately hitting two pins with his final ball to become the first bowler with sanctioned games with scores of every number from 290 to 300. Jennifer Tilly becomes the first celeb. to win the World Series of Poker. The U.S. (United States) Bowling Congress in Greendale, Wisc. is formed from the merger of the Am. Bowling Congress (ABC), Women's Internat. Bowling Congress (WIBC), Young American Bowling Alliance (YABA), and USA Bowling, founding the USBC Hall of Fame by merging the ABC (1941) and WIBC (1953) halls of fame; in Nov. 2008 it moves to Arlington, Tex. Architecture: On Apr. 19 the $115M Abraham Lincoln Museum complex opens in Springfield, Ill., with 47K Lincoln-related items, becoming the largest collection of Lincoln artifacts on Earth. On May 10 Germany dedicates a new Nat. Holocaust Memorial, a square block of 2.7K+ undulating charcoal-colored concrete slabs in the heart of Berlin one block from the Brandenburg Gate near Hitler's bunker; on July 30, 2006 vandals scratch a swastika onto one of the slabs. On June 12 Shaab Stadium in Baghdad (the city's biggest sports complex, cap. 50K) opens after two years as a U.S. military base, and two elite Iraqi soccer teams, the Zawraa (ancient name for Baghdad) and the Shurta (Arabic for police) play before 2K fans, and Zawraa wins 2-0. On Aug. 27 the 623-ft. (190m) 54-story 90-degree-twist HSB Turning Torso Bldg. in Malmo, Sweden, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava Valls (1951-) opens, becoming the tallest bldg. in Scandinavia, tallest residential bldg. in the EU, and 2nd tallest residential bldg. in Europe. The 1,058-ft. (322.5m) Q1 Bldg. in Gold Coast, Australia opens, becoming the world's tallest all-residential bldg. (until ?), and tallest in Australia (until ?). Nobel Prizes: Peace: Mohamed Mostafa ElBaradei (1942-) (Egypt) and Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Lit.: Harold Pinter (1930-2008) (U.K.) ("uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle"); Physics: John Lewis "Jan" Hall (1934-) (U.S.) [quantum theory of optical coherence], Roy Jay Glauber (1925-) (U.S.), and Theodor Wolfgang Hansch (1941-) (Germany) [laser spectroscopy and optical frequency comb technique]; Chem.: Yves Chauvin (1930-) (France), Robert Howard Grubbs (1942-) (U.S.) (born near Possum Trot, Ky.), and Richard Royce Schrock (1945-) (U.S.) [olefin metathesis method of organic synthesis]; Medicine: Barry James Marshall (1951-) (Australia) and John Robin Warren (1937-) (Australia) [Helicobacter pylori]; Economics: Robert John Aumann (1930-) (U.S.) and Thomas Crombie Schelling (1921-) (U.S.) [for "having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis"]. Inventions: By this year the avg. desktop PC has 109 GB of storage, and the laptop has 58 GB. Intel Corp. releases a new 2005 Intel Itanium 2 chip with 1.7B transistors, and introduces the BTX motherboard, which allows repositioning of PC parts for more efficient cooling. On Feb. 14 20-something Am. geeks Chad Meredith Hurley (1977-), Bangladeshi-descent Jawed Karim (1979-), and Taipei, Taiwan-born Steve Shih Chen (1978-) found YouTube.com for sharing homemade videos on the Web, and within a year receive a $11.5M venture capital investment from Sequoia Capital of Menlo Park, Calif., the same firm that helped launch Google, and ramp up its San Mateo, Calif. site to 9M visitors a mo. by Feb. 2006; the first video is Me at the zoo by Karim; like MySpace.com, it gets into trouble with either sexual predators or copyright violation issues, but on Oct. 16, 2006 Google buys YouTube for $1.65B - but but but they're the future? On Apr. 27 the 853-seat double-deck 8K nmi.-range Airbus A380 wide-body airliner makes its first flight to compete with the Boeing 747, becoming the world's largest passenger airliner, selling for $445.6M in the U.S.; too bad, after electrical wiring difficulties cause a 2-year delay, development costs balloon to $25B, which the co. can't recoup, and inability to carry cargo prevents it from being repurposed, causing production to end in 2021; 234 are built by Jan. 31, 2019. On May 12 the Xbox 360 home video console is introduced by Microsoft. On June 23 Reddit social news aggregation, rating, and discussion Web site is founded in Medford, Masss. by former U. of Va. roommates Steve Huffman (1983-) and "Mayor of the Internet" Alexis Kerry Ohanian Sr. (1983-) with the goal of becoming "the front page of the Internet"; in Oct. 2006 it is acquired by Conde Nast Pubs. of San Francisco, Calif. going on to reach 542M visits/mo. by Feb. 2018. In July Rupert Murdoch purchases the artist community Web site MySpace.com (founded on Aug. 1, 2003) for $580M from founders Tom Anderson and Chris De Wolfe, who launched it in Jan. 2004, and benefitted from the penetration of the Internet into homes; by the end of the year it has 42M registered users and has 550K musical artists with songs on the site. On Sept. 29 the FDA warns doctors about the Eli Lilly drug Strattera, used to treat ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) in adolescents and children, saying that it can lead to suicidal thinking. Durand-Wayland of LaGrange, Ga. introduces laser coding, AKA natural light labeling for fruits and vegetables, allowing those pesky paper stickers to be dispensed with. The USAF $137.5M F-22 Raptor enters service in Dec., becoming the #1 fighter on Earth, with everything but the kitchen sink, incl. stealth capability; 187 are ordered by 2009; they are not used in combat until ?. Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM) is introduced commercially. The Rheos System is developed by the U. of Rochester Medical Center to regulate blood pressure similarly to how a pacemaker regulates heart rhythm. Science: On Feb. 1-3 after an invitation by British PM Tony Blair, Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change: A Scientific Symposium on Stabilisation of Greenhouse Gases is held at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in Exeter, Devon, England, chaired by Dennis Tirpak to take action on the 2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report and achieve the objectives of the 1991 U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, concluding that the runaway level of 2C of global warming would likely happen after the atmospheric CO2 level reaches 550ppm, and that action must be taken when it is still below 400ppm because if it reaches 450 ppm then there is only a 50% likelihood of stopping the global warming from reaching 2C, also that if no action is taken for 20 years, emission reduction rates will have to be 3x-7x greater to achieve the same temperature target, causing the U.K. to change its target in its Climate Change Act from 60% to 80% by 2050. On Mar. 25 the journal Science pub. an announcement that soft tissues that resemble blood vessels and cells were recovered from the thighbone of an 18-y.-o. T-Rex known as MOR 1125, found in a sandstone formation in Montana. On Mar. 31 Palomar Observatory discovers plutoid Makemake in the Kuiper Belt. On Apr. 12 thousands of scientists scramble to destroy vials of 1957 killer flu sent to 5K labs in 18 countries by mistake; since it has not been included in flu vaccines since 1968, people born after that year have no immunity to it. In Apr. scientists announce the discovery of the Laotian rock rat (kha-nyou) (Laonastes aenigmamus) in the Khammouan region of Laos, which has the face of a rat and the tail of a squirrel, and classify it as part of the Diatomyidae family that supposedly went extinct 11M years ago, "the coelacanth of rodents" (Mary Dawson) - doesn't everybody know that squirrels are tree rats? Where's the 11 million years of missing bones? In Apr. ornithologists announce the confirmation of the sighting of the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker (believed extinct since 1944) by a kayaker in the Cache River Nat. Wildlife Refuge in E Ark. in 2004; skeptics are convinced by audio recordings of its distinctive double rap (one echo, one close)? In May South Korean scientists use skin samples from patients to create embryonic stem cells; meanwhile, in Britain scientists produce a cloned embryo from which stem cells can be harvested. In May the Blue Brain Project is launched to reverse-engineer the mammalian brain down to the molecular level from lab data; on July 22, 2009 dir. Henry Markram of the Ecole Polytechnique in Switzerland utters the soundbyte: "It is not impossible to build a human brain and we can do it in 10 years." In June scientists at St. Thomas' Hospital in London release a study showing that 34% of the difficulty women face in reaching orgasm during intercourse is due to genes - wearing them too tight? In July a new planetoid orbiting the Sun at 9B mi. (3X the orbit of Pluto) named UB313 (nicknamed Xena) is announced, with an albedo of .6; it has methane ice on its surface, and has a moon. The Red Planet gets Americanized? In July NASA cancels the $500M Lockheed Martin Mars Telecommunications Orbiter, planned for a 2009 launch, to be the first of a network of Martian comm satellites on a 10-year mission in orbit 2.8K mi. above Mars in order to have a line of sight to Earth and pioneer the use of lasers for planet-to-planet communication; on Aug. 12 the Lockheed Martin Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is launched, attaining Martian orbit on Mar. 10, 2006 and aerobraking for 5 mo. until Nov. 2006, joining five other Mars spacecraft to measure Mar in 8-12 in. scale and will serve as the main relay for the data to be returned by the Mars Science Lab, to be launched in 2009. In July the Ninth World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics in Orlando, Fla. is held, trying to live down ridicule from its early acceptance of the bogus computer-generated paper "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy", submitted by MIT students Jeremy Stribling, Max Krohn, and Dan Aguayo as a joke to prove that academic conferences pander to academics looking to pad resumes with worthless alphabet soup papers that they spend all their time on instead of real research. Would-be Christopher Columbus sinks? On Aug. 3 the journal Nature reports that South Korean scientists, led by Hwang Woo-suk have created the Afghan hound Snuppy (Seoul Nat. U. puppy), the world's first cloned dog, after implanting over 100 dogs with more than 1K cloned embryos; in a May article in Science he announces creation of the technology to create patient-matched stem cells, and on Dec. 23 resigns from Seoul Nat. U. after admitting he had fabricated the results of 9 of the 11 stem cell lines involved, while still maintaining that the technology works; on Jan. 10 his school, Seoul Nat. U says that he did fake his results with human stem cells but that his cloned dog is genuine; on June 17, 2009 South Korea finally lifts its ban on human stem cell research despite opposition by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea. On Aug. 11 the online ed. of Science pub. three reports reporting that old temp. records used to feed calculations indicating that there is no global warming contained errors, and that the troposphere has warmed during the last two decades; John Christy and Roy Spencer of the U. of Ala., who developed the original records concede the error, but say that the warming rate calculated is too small to be a concern? On Sept. 8 the first non-invasive pediatric procedure ever webcast is performed at Presbyterian/St. Luke Medical Center in Denver, Colo, as a 13-y.-o. undergoes a procedure to alleviate acid reflux. On Sept. 28 the Nat. Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. releases data that the Arctic ice cap is shrinking, reaching its smallest-ever size this summer, and that the cause is probably global warming from human-generated greenhouse gases; they also speculate that the change is becoming self-sustaining as the holes in the ice allow the sea to absorb solar energy; they also claim that the permafrost is disappearing, coastal areas are being inundated, and polar bears are losing hunting grounds. On Oct. 26 researchers from the U.S., Britain and Japan announce the completion of a new kind of DNA map in a 3-year $138M effort, a compilation of 5M different regions in the human genome where chemical sequences vary from person to person, in an effort to speed up gene-hunting searches. In the Nov. 11 issue of Science, Stanford U. researchers announce the discovery of a single human gene that produces two hormones with opposite effects, ghrelin, which stimulates appetite, and obestatin, which inhibits it. Fillet of face, the new pet chow? On Nov. 27-28 38-y.-o. unemployed divorced French mother Isabelle Dinoire (1967-2016), who had the lower half of her face ripped off in June by her Labrador retriever mix while unconscious with drugs becomes the first recipient of a partial face transplant by an internat. team in Amiens led by Dr. Jean-Michel Dubernard (1941-), who operate for 15 hours; the donor was a brain-dead woman in Lille; the announcement on Dec. 2 draws internat. criticism that she won't be able to handle the new face psychologically; on Oct. 25, 2006 an ethics panel in London approves full-face transplants; in the U.S. in 2007 the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio and the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass. become the first to offer it - hold the ugly jokes? In Nov. Kevin Luhman of Penn. State U. announces the discovery of a brown dwarf (1% of the mass of the Sun) located 500 l.y. from Earth in the constellation Chamaeoleon, claiming it appears to be undergoing a planet-forming process. In Dec. Harvard and MIT announce the first complete deciphering of the genetic code of a dog, a boxer named Tasha; "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. We're here to unveil the book of the dog", says Dr. Francis Collins, dir. of the Nat. Human Genome Research Inst.; in 2003 the DNA (2.4B chemical building blocks) of a male poodle named Shadow was partially decoded. In Dec. U. of Kan. researcher Johannes Feddema et al. in Science predict that the deforestation of Amazon jungles could strengthen the summer monsoon in the SW U.S., adding 2 in. to the precipitation and offsetting some of global warming's effects; global deforestation is going at a rate of 50K sq. mi. a year. On Dec. 12 Fred Gage et al. of the Salk Inst. in San Diego, Calif. announce the birth of mice with 0.1% of human cells in their brains after injecting 14-day-old embroys with 100K human embryonic stem cells. The British Journal of Psychology pub. an article by Paul Irwing and Richard Lynn showing that men average 5 more points on IQ tests than women, and that the disparity grows as IQ scores rise, with 2x as many at IQ 125, and 5.5x as many at IQ 155 - what about penis size? Merck & Co. announces that its new vaccine Gardasil is 100% effective in a 2-year test on 10K girls and women in preventing the most common forms of cervical cancer, caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV), which kills 300K women a year (only 3.7K in the U.S.). German-born British human geneticist Sir Walter Bodmer (1936-) is appointed to lead a Ł2.3M program at Oxford U. to study the genetic makeup of the U.K. Paralyzed patient Matt Nagle is taught to operate an artificial hand via a computer chip implanted in his head. Asteroid 87 Sylvia is found to have two moons. The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory Scientific Collaboration (LIGO) begins measurements to detect gravity waves; too bad, it doesn't detect any until ? U. of N.C. physicist Laura Mersini-Houghton and Carnegie Mellon U. physicist Richard Holman predict anomalies in Big Bang radiation caused pull from other Universes; Mersini-Houghton claims proof in 2013. Eugene Koonin of the Nat. Insts. of Health et al. discover Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) (pr. "crisper"), in DNA, which implement an immune system against viral DNA. The Nat. Geographic Society and IBM begin a $40M 5-year project to reconstruct a genealogy of the world's pops. and the migration paths of early humans from their ancestral homeland in Africa by collecting and analyzing 100K blood samples from indigenous pops. around the world and analyzing them genetically. Scientists observe gorillas in the wild for the first time using tools when female gorilla Leah uses a stick to test the depth of the water in Nouabal De-Ndoki Nat. Park in the Repub. of Congo. Ramon Bonfil and Barbara Block Stanford U. announce that a great white shark (named Nicole) swam over 12K mi. from Africa to Australia and back, linking the shark pops. of the two continents - human meat makes good fuel? A record 21 surviving baby pandas are born in China's zoos and breeding centers this year using artificial insemination. KV 63, the 63rd tomb found in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt is discovered by U.S. archeologists, becoming the first new tomb uncovered since King Tut's in 1922; in June 2006 the tomb is opened, revealing embalming materials and woven flowers from the period of -1500 to -1000. New measurements of Mt. Everest indicate a height of 29,017 ft., down 12 ft. from 1975. The Badlands Guardian (Indian Head) near Medicine Hat, Albert, Canada is discovered, becoming a mystery of history (until ?). Nonfiction: Anon. (1911-2001), A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City - a Diary; Apr. 20-June 22, 1945 in balls-out Berlin. Peter Ackroyd (1949-), Shakespeare: The Biography. Amir D. Aczel, Descartes' Secret Notebook: A True Tale of Mathematics, Mysticism, and the Quest to Understand the Universe. Francesco Alberoni (1929-), Sex and Love. Alan Alda (1936-), Never Have Your Dog Stuffed and Other Things I've Learned (autobio.) (Sept. 13). Svetlana Alexievich (1948-), Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster. Woody Allen (1935-), Above the Law, Below the Box Springs. Gotz Aly (1947-), Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State; how Hitler bought his people's loyalty with plunder, making occupied countries pay two-thirds of the cost of the war while keeping taxes low at home. Jonathan Ames (1964-), Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs. Andy Andrews, The Seven Decisions. Maya Angelou (1928-), Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer. Reza Aslan (1972-), No god But God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam; big hit with Westerners, claiming that we are now living in the era of the Islamic Reformation a la the 16th cent. Protestant Reformation, and that there isn't really a clash of civilizations, jihad was intended to be solely defensive, etc.; "The notion that historical context should play no role in the interpretation of the Koran – that what applied to Muhammad's community applies to all Muslim communities for all time – is simply an untenable position in every sense" - Allahu Akbar off with his head? Joseph Atwill, Caesar's Messiah; claims that the Roman Flavian emperors invented Jesus using Jewish traitor brain man Josephus ca. 73 C.E. in order to create a peaceful Messiah that would never lead another violent revolt against Rome. Paul Auster (1947-), Collected Prose. Chris Ayres, War Reporting for Cowards (autobio.); embedded reporters in Iraq. David B. (Pierre-Francois Beauchard), Epileptic (autobio.); growing up with an epileptic brother. Bruce Babbitt (1938-), Cities in the Wilderness: A New Vision of Land Use in America; wants stronger federal leadership, incl. expanding the Endangered Species Act to landscapes. Andrew J. Bacevich (1947-), The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War. Mike G.L. Baillie and Patrick McCafferty, The Celtic Gods: Comets in Irish Mythology. Bernard Bailyn (1922-), Atlantic History: Concept and Contours. Marc Ian Barasch, Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness. Fantasia Barrino (1984-) and Kim Green, Life is Not a Fairy Tale; winning Am. Idol despite being illiterate, she takes tutoring and learns to read. John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History; the 1918-19 Spanish Flu Pandemic. Martha Nibley Beck (1962-), Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith; by the daughter of chief Mormon apologist Hugh Nibley (1910-2005), claiming she was sexually abused as a child by daddy in bizarre religious rituals - the work of Stan? Michelle Belanger (1973-), Sacred Hunger. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right (Oct. 13); "We are losing" (opening line); disses the Bush admin. for its handling of al-Qaida and Bush's statement that "75% of known al-Qaida leaders have been brought to justice", claiming that the invasion of Iraq played into their hands, helping al-Qaida with recruitment and turning the Muslim world and much of the rest of the world against the U.S., with the soundbyte "It is unlikely that even in his most feverish reveries Usama bin Laden could have imagined that America would stumble so badly and wound itself so grievously". Phyllis Bennis, Challenging Empire: How People, Governments,and the U.N. Defy U.S. Power (Nov. 30); world opinion is the 2nd world power after the U.S.? John Berendt (1939-), The City of Falling Angels (2nd novel); about Venice since the last opera house burned down in 1996. Nate Berkus (1971-), Home Rules: Transform the Place You Live into a Place You'll Love. Paul Berman (1948-), Power and the Idealists: Or, The Passion of Joschka Fischer, and Its Aftermath. Gary Berntsen, Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander (Dec. 27); claims that Osama bin Laden could have been captured in Tora Bora. Robert Berringer, Ancient Gods and Their Mysteries: Will They Return in 2012 AD? (Apr. 1); claims that ancient deities Yahweh (Jehovah) and Quetzalcoatl left a "trail of breadcrumbs", and will return on Dec. 21, 2012. Anne Bird, Blood Brother. Kai Bird (1951-) and Martin J. Sherwin (1937-), American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Pulitzer Prize). Joan Biskupic, Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice. H.G. Bissinger (1954-), Three Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy; the St. Louis Cardinals vs. the Chicago Cubs. Harold Bloom (1930-), Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine. Christopher Booker (1937-) and Richard A.E. North, The Great Deception: Can the European Union Survive?. Neal Boortz and John Linder, The Fair Tax Book; tax purchases not income with a 23% nat. retail sales tax. Andrew G. Bostom, The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims; shows that jihad doesn't have many rich meanings, but is all about expansion of the faith by violence. James Bradley (1954-), Flags of Our Fathers; the story behind the WWII photo taken at Iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945 by Joe Rosenthal. Taylor Branch, At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-1968. Timothy H. Breen (1942-), Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence. Douglas Brinkley (1960-), The Boys of Pointe du Hoc: Ronald Reagan, D-Day, and the U.S. Army 2nd Ranger Battalion. Po Bronson, Why Do I Love These People? David Jay Brown, Conversations on the Edge: Contemplating the Future with Noam Chomsky, George Carlin, Deepak Chopra, Rupert Sheldrake, and Others (Apr. 21). James Brown (1933-2006), I Feel Good: A Memoir of a Life of Soul (autobio.). Judith Anne Brown, John Marco Allegro: The Maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls; by his daughter. Robert Bruegmann, Sprawl; open space and smart growth create hysteria? Howard Bryant, Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball. Kenneth Burke (1897-1993), Here and Elsewhere: Collected Fiction (posth.). Robert Olen Butler (1945-), From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction. Cambridge U. Press, The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. Jose Canseco (1964-), Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big; admits to juicing up with steroids. Norman F. Cantor (1929-2004), Alexander the Great (posth.). Philip Caputo (1941-), Ten Thousand Days of Thunder: A History of the Vietnam War; 13 Seconds: A Look Back at the Kent State Shootings. Richard Carrier (1969-), Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism (first book); defends Scientific Materialism (Metaphysical Naturalism). Sean B. Carroll, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom - Charles Darwin has this innocent look on his face like I didn't do nothing? Jimmy Carter (1924-), Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis; Sunday Mornings in Plains: Bringing Peace to a Changing World. Phyllis Chesler (1940-), The Death of Feminism: What's Next in the Struggle for Women's Freedom. Raj Chetty (1979-) and Emmanuel Saenz (1972-), Dividend Taxes and Corporate Behavior: Evidence from the 2003 Dividend Tax Cut; reports that the 2003 dividend rate cut from 35% to 15% caused more companies to pay out dividends, but also that they are likelier to pay dividends if top execs own substantial stock, and that when the rate is too high, or execs own too few shares, mgt. tends to reinvest earnings in low priority projects or frivolous purchases to keep the money within the firm. Deepak Chopra (1946-), The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga: A Practical Guide to Healing Body, Mind, and Spirit. Peace is the Way: Bringing War and Violence to an End; how a "critical mass" of people can defeat the global "addition to war", founding Alliance for a New Humanity to form "peace cells" around the world. David Christian (1946-), Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History; makes a fan of history ignoramus Bill Gates. Church of England, The 100-Minute Bible; designed to be read between soap operas, it reduces the Old Testament to 17 1-page sections and the New Testament to 33; it calls Satan one of God's servants, and identifies the Great Babylon in Rev. ch. 17 as Rome. Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001; Charlie Wilson's War plus plus. Arnold M. Cooper (1930-2011), The Quiet Revolution in American Psychoanalysis (essays) (Jan. 9), how psychiatry has evolved since Freud, plus his contributions in the area of narcissism and masochism. Jerome Robert Corsi (1946-), Atomic Iran: How the Terrorist Regime Bought the Bomb and American Politicians. Jerome Robert Corsi (1946-) and Craig R. Smith, Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil. W. Michael Cox and Richard Alm, Myths of Rich and Poor. Daniel Coyle, Lance Armstrong's War: One Man's Battle Against Fate - no tomato sauce or chocolate mousse, but Juanita Cuervo is okay? Catherine Crier (with Cole Thompson), A Deadly Game: The Untold Story of the Scott Peterson Investigation. Theodore Dalrymple (1949-), Our Culture, What's Left Of It: The Mandarins and the Masses (essays). Marie Darrieussecq (1969-), The Country (Le Pays); about writer Marie Riviere, who leaves Paris with her 2-y.-o. child to live with her parents in a trailer in the country. John H. Davis (1929-), The Hill. Andrew Delbanco, Herman Melville: His World and Work; existentialist skeptic author is finally figured out? Daniel Dennett (1942-), Sweet Dreams: Philosophical Obstacles to a Science of Consciousness. Jared Mason Diamond (1937-), Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed; how Eurasian dominance comes from ecological factors not racial superiority, while trying to deny ecological or environmental determinism; the case of Hispaniola Island. Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq. Peter Diamond (1940-) and Peter Orszag (1968-), Saving Social Security: The Diamond-Orszag Plan (Apr.); proposes small incremental increases in contributions based on actuarial tables adjusted for changes in life expectancy, and an increase in the proportion of earnings subject to taxation. Joan Didion (1934-), The Year of Magical Thinking (memoir); her hubby John Gregory Dunne (d. 2003) and daughter Quintana Roo Dunne Michael (d. 2005) die within two years. The Downing Street Memos; minutes from British PM Blair's war cabinet revealing that the head of the British Secret Service believed the Bush admin. was fixing intel to justify invading Iraq in summer 2002, and had no plan for rebuilding postwar Iraq. Thomas Michael Disch (1940-2008), On SF (essays on science fiction). Donovan (1946-), The Hurdy Gurdy Man (autobio.). Maureen Dowd (1952-), Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide; men don't like women with power, but love servants, maids, masseuses, etc.? Robert Dreyfuss, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam. Stephen Dubner (1963-) and Steve Levitt (1967-), Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Apr. 12); bestseller (4M copies); how simple fixes can solve big problems; the drop in violent crime traces to Roe v. Wade?; backyard swimming pools are more dangerous than guns? Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. John Edward (1969-), Practical Praying: Using the Rosary to Enhance Your Life. Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time. Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-), Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream. Caroline Elkins, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya (Pulitzer Prize). Eve Ensler (1953-), The Vagina Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken World Revolution. Khaled Abou El Fadl (1963-), The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists (Oct. 4). Emmanuel Faye, Heidegger: The Introduction of Nazism into Philosophy; claims that his Nazi sympathies ruin all his philosophical works, hence should be banned. John Feinstein, Next Man Up: A Year Behind the Lines in Today's NFL. Marilyn Ferguson (1938-2008), Aquarius Now: Radical Common Sense and Reclaiming Our Personal Sovereignty (Nov.); sequel to "The Aquarian Conspiracy" (1980). Niall Ferguson (1964-), 1914: Why the World Went to War. Nathaniel Fick, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer; "Sure as Christ made little red apples." Andrew J. Field, Mainliner Denver: The Bombing of Flight 629; the Nov. 1955 plane bombing by John Gilbert Graham in Colo. Norman Gary Finkelstein (1953-), The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering; a U.S. Jew asserts that the Holocaust is being used by Zionist Jews for personal and political reasons and to extort money from Germans and oppress the Palestinians, then criticizes sacred cows Elie Wiesel and Steven Spielberg, pissing-off Zionist bulldog Harvard law prof. Alan Morton Dershowitz (1938-), who goes on a successful crusade to get his tenure at DePaul U. revoked. Frank Fitzpatrick, The Lion in Autumn: A Season with Joe Paterno and Penn State Football. Tim Flannery (1956-), The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change; makes fans of Sir Richard Branson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, British Columbia PM Gordon Campbell, and Zhou Ji, pres. of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Jane Fonda (1937-), My Life So Far (autobio.). Paula Fox (1923-), The Coldest Winter: A Stringer in Liberated Europe (autobio.). Al Franken, The Truth (with Jokes). Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bull----. John Hope Franklin (1915-2009), Mirror to America: The Autobiography of John Hope Franklin (autobio.). James Christopher Frey (1969-), My Friend Leonard. Thomas L. Friedman (1953-), The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century; about his visit to Bangalore, India, where he witnessed work flow software converge the personal computer with fiber-optic micro cable, which he calls Globalization 3.0, superseding Globalization 2.0 (mutlinat. corps.) and Globalization 1.0 (govts.), arguing for countries to surrender a degree of economic sovereignty to the "golden straitjacket" of global capital markets and multinational corporations while preserving local traditions via "glocalization"; the U.S. needs energy independence from the Saudis so that their younger generation can overthrow them, and needs to open up immigration to "the world's first-round intellectual draft choices in an age when everyone increasingly has the same innovation tools and the key differentiator is human talent." Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012), This I Believe: An A to Z of a Life. Mark Fuhrman (1952-), Silent Witness: The Untol Story of Terri Schiavo's Death; after the O.J. Trial, the writer suffers from a credibility gap? John Lewis Gaddis (1941-), The Cold War: A New History. Jordi Gali (1961-) and Olivier Blanchard (1948-), Real Wage Rigidities and the New Keynesian Model; coins the term "divine coincidence" for the property of New Keynesian macroeconomic models that stabilizing the inflation rate stabilizes the output gap, allowing central bankers to pursue a simplified Taylor Rule focused only on inflation stabilization without needing to consider output growth, then showing that with frictional unemployment and other frictions added to the model, there is a tradeoff between stabilizing inflation and stabilizing the output gap. Oded Galor (1956-), From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory (Jan. 20); "Deciphering the fundamental determinants of the transition from stagnation to growth and the great divergence has been widely viewed as one of the most significant research challenges facing researchers in the field of growth and development"; Discrete Dynamical Systems (Apr. 1). Joel Garreau, Radical Evolution; will nanobots replicate out of control and turn the planet into gray goo, or transhumans and posthumans accelerate their own evolution, creating the Heaven Scenario, AKA the Rapture of the Nerds, or a middle ground called the Prevail? John Gibson, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday is Worse Than You Thought; secular (read liberal Jewish) orgs. are behind a plot to rob Xmas of its spiritual nature? Malcolm Gladwell (1963-), Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (Jan. 11); sells 2M copies; coins the terms "blink" and "thin-slicing", claiming that experts often make better decisions with snap judgments based on narrow, targeted views of the big picture. Rebecca Godfrey, Under the Bridge; the Reena Virk murder of Nov. 14, 1997. Jacques le Goff, The Birth of Europe; tries to rehabiliate the Middle Ages as cooler than cool. Bernard Goldberg (1945-), 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America; "Liberals [who are] snooty, snobby know-it-alls, who have gotten angrier and angrier in recent years and who think they're not only smarter, but also better than everyone else, especially everyone else who lives in a 'red state' - a population they see as hopelessly dumb and pathetically religious"; repub. in 2006 as "110 People Who Are Screwing Up America"; incl. Michael Moore (1954-), Arthur Sulzberger (1926-), Ted Kennedy (1932-), Jesse Jackson (1941-), Jimmy Carter (1924-), Al Gore (1948-), Noam Chomsky (1928-), Dan Rather (1931-), Howard Stern (1954-), Eminem (1972-), Ludacris (1977-), and Courtney Love (1964-) ("Ho"). Rebecca Goldstein (1950-), The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Godel. Lawrence Goldstone, Dark Bargain: Slavery and Profits at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (1953-2012) (ed.), G.R.S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest. Doris Kearns Goodwin (1943-), Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Oct. 25), about how he managed his cabinet, becoming a favorite of Pres. Obama; used as a basis for the 2012 Steven Spielberg film "Lincoln". William P. Grady, How Satan Turned America Against God; afterword by nuclear physicist Samuel Theodore Cohen, supporter of Patrick Buchanan's 2000 U.S. pres. run. Seth Grahame-Smith (1976-), The Big Book of Porn: A Penetrating Look at the World of Dirty Movies. Francine du Plessix Gray, Them: A Memoir of Parents. Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel (eds.), The Torture Papers. John Grogan (1957-), Marley & Me (autobio.) (Oct.); life with an unruly yellow Lab; filmed in 2008 by David Frankel starring Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. Peter Guralnick, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke; the first gospel music superstar to move into pop in the late 1950s. Jurgen Habermas (1929-), Old Europe, New Europe, Core Europe: Transatlantic Relations After the Iraq War; plea for a common foreign policy after 9/11. Graham Hancock (1950-), Supernatural: Meeting with the Ancient Teachers of Mankind. Peter Handke (1942-), The Tablas of Daimiel; Travelling Yesterday. Chelsea Handler (1975-), My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands (autobio.) (May 12); bestseller. Victor Davis Hanson (1953-), A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Pelopponesian War. John F. Harris, The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House - a new meaning for whitewater? Sam Harris (1967-), The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason; an atheist nukes all religions, which are "all equally uncontaminated by evidence", and "allows otherwise normal human beings to reap the fruits of madness and consider them holy"; "It is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your prayer, while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window"; "The Nazis were agents of religion"; Islam is a "cult of death"; "Not only do we still eat the offal of the ancient world, we are positively smug about it"; on the other hand, "Mysticism is a rational enterprise, religion is not". Gary Hart (1936-), God and Caesar in America: An Essay on Religion and Politics. Thom Hartmann (1951-), Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK. Chris Hedges (1956-), Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America (May 31). Paul Hemphill, Lovesick Blues: The Life of Hank Williams. Jessica Hendra, How to Cook Your Daughter (Oct.); daughter of comedian Tony Hendra claims he sexually abused her as a little girl, and calls his 2004 book "Father Joe" "a horrible lie, a con." Philip Hoare (1958-), England's Lost Eden: Adventures in a Victorian Utopia. Adam Hochschild (1942-), Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves. Alice Hoffman (1952-), The Ice Queen. Tom Holland (1968-), Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West. Nick Hornby (1957-), The Polysyllabic Spree; the joys of reading. David Joel Horowitz (1939-), The End of Time. *Rachel Howard, The Lost Night: A Daughter's Search for the Truth of Her Father's Murder. Stephen Hunter and John Bainbridge Jr., American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry Truman and the Shot-out That Stopped It. Tab Hunter (with Eddie Muller), Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star. Sherman A. Jackson, Islam and Blackamerican: Looking Towards the Third Resurrection (Apr. 15); claims that Islam took root among African-Ams. as a tool against racism. Brenda James and William D. Rubenstein, The Truth Will Out: Unmasking the Real Shakespeare; proposes that the real Shakespeare was his distant relative Sir Henry Neville (1564-1615), a courtier, politician, and diplomat, who was in the right place at the right time, and whose letters contain a startlingly large number of hapaxes found in Shakespeare, e.g., "inconveniences" and "petit", found only once each in Henry V. Molly Jong-Fast (1978-), The Sex Doctors in the Basement: True Stories from a Semi-Celebrity Childhood (autobio.). Haynes Johnson (1931-), The Age of Anxiety: McCarthyism to Terrorism. Joyce Johnson (1935-), Missing Men: A Memoir. Alvin M. Josephy Jr. (ed.), Lewis and Clark Through Indian Eyes; Josephy, #1 native Am. historian and Vine Deloria Jr. (1933-2005), #1 native Am. (Lakota Sioux) intellectual contribute to this vol., then die a 1 mo. apart in fall 2005. Tony R. Judt (1948-2010), Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944-), Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. Robert D. Kaplan, Imperial Grunts: the American Military on the Ground. Efraim Karsh (1953-), La Guerre D'Oslo. Tracy Kidder (1945-), My Detachment. Stephen Kinzer, Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua. Edward Klein (1937-), The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President; claims she is a lesbian who conceived daughter Chelsea after being raped by hubby Bill. David Klinghoffer, Why the Jews Rejected Jesus. Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself To Live: 80% of a True Story. Jonathan Kozol (1936-), The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (Sept. 13). Nick Kotz, Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Lutehr King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America. Erich Krauss, Wave of Destruction. David Kupelian, The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom (Aug.); how sin is in because of slick marketing. Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History. Ray Kurzweil (1948-), The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology; how the PCs will equal human brains by 2020, mind uploading will begin in 2030, PCs will be 1Bx smarter than humans by 2045, and the Singularity will make humans #2 after machines, and the Universe will "wake up" as early as 2199 after the godlike chips figure out how to travel faster than the speed of light - dumbest book of the century, or, Isn't the Earth a tough place for any visiting intelligence to play? Jean-Jacques Laffont (1947-2004), Regulation and Development; policies for improving the economies of less-developed countries (LDCs). Anne Lamott (1954-), Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith; "George Bush doesn't have a clue as to the mission of Jesus. Could you please, please take care of suffering and the poorest of the poor and try not to kill people today." Richard Land, The Divided State of America: What Liberals and Conservatives Are Missing in the God and Country Shouting Match; Southern Baptist leader says God is not partisan, but Pres. Obama is "very dangerous" in his economic policies, and his foreign policy is causing "severe damage" to U.S. world standing. Frances Moore Lappe (1944-), Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life. Brian Latell, After Fidel: The Inside Story of Castro's Regime and Cuba's Next Leader; how Fidel (recently found by the CIA to be suffering from Parkinson's disease) has plans for his brother (army head) Raul (1931-) to take over. Robert Betts Laughlin (1950-), A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down; by the 1998 Nobel Prize Winner who doubts the existence of black holes; how the fact that there are simple laws doesn't help when trying to understand why football crowds suddenly begin singing in unison, arguing for emergence as the replacement for reductionism; "Physics is now in the midst of a crisis, an ideological battle. The most fundamental things you know may not be fundamental" - whoops there goes gravity? Dominic Lawson, End Game: Dispatches From a War for the World Chess Crown; the 1993 match between Nigel Short of Britain and Garry Kasparov. Richard Layard (1934-), Happiness: Lessons From a New Science. Cynthia Lennon (1939-), John; John Lennon's first wife deserves an extra reward? Jonathan Lethem (1964-), The Disappointment Artist. Jerry Lewis (1926-) and James Kaplan, Dean and Me (A Love Story); "It's hard to explain to a 99-channel, Internet-connected, all-entertainment-all-the-time world what it felt like to be a big act in a much simpler time, having very public trouble." Michael Lewis (1960-), Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life. Garret LoPorto (1976-), The DaVinci Method: Break Out & Express Your Fire (first book); claims that a 1996 study concluding that dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) exon III polymorphism is associated with the human personality trait of novelty-seeking means that everybody with it can and should become a genius like Leonardo DaVinci, or at least, rehearsing quotes from Leonardo Da Vinci will make you into one? Graham Lord (1943-), John Mortimer: The Devil's Advocate - The Unauthorised Biography. James Lovelock (1919-), Gaia: Medicine for an Ailing Planet. John Lukacs (1924-), Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred; how populism renders the U.S. pop. vulnerable to demagogues. Gary Magnesen, The Investigation: A Former FBI Agent Uncovers the Truth Behind Howard Hughes, Melvin Dummar, and the Most-Contested Will in American History; backs up Dummar's claim with new witnesses. Magnus Magnusson (1929-2007), Scotland: The Story of a Nation. Michelle Malkin (1970-), Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild (Oct.). Mary Mapes (1956-), Truth and Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power; film in 2015 as "Truth". Greil Marcus (1945-), Like A Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads. Stephen J. May, Michener: A Writer's Journey; the first bio. of James A. Michener (1907-97). John McCain (1936-) and Mark Salter, Character is Destiny; says that Charles Darwin is "steadfast and honest in his pursuit of knowledge", and "I don't see why that magnificence excludes religious faith from its interpretation." Frank McCourt (1930-2009), Teacher Man; his 30 years of teaching English in New York City public high schools, starting in Mar. 1958 at McKee Vocational and Technical H.S. on Staten Island, where he is come down on by the principal for eating a student's baloney sandwich in front of his class to stop a fight. David McCullough (1933-), 1776 (May 24); the military story, incl. the two Georges, and the inside story of how hard it was to create a free society. Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers: The Hijackers, Who They Were, Why They Did It; "It was their ordinariness that makes it much more likely there are a great many more men just like them." Gerald McKnight, Breach of Trust; disses the Warren Commission as a failure. James D. McLaird, Calamity Jane: The Woman and the Legend; Martha Canary AKA Calamity Jane (1852-1903). Ed McMahon (1923-), Here's Johnny: My Memories of Johnny Carson, The Tonight Show, and 46 Years of Friendship. Candice Millard, The River of Doubt: Teddy Roosevelt in Brazil in 1913-14. Larry McMurtry (1936-), The Colonel & Little Missie Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, and the Beginnings of Superstardom in America. Giles Milton, White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and Islam's One Million White Slaves (May 19); the sad episode of Islamic pirates kidnapping 1.25M Christian Euros from 1530-1789. Andrea Mitchell, Talking Back: To Presidents, Dictators, and Assorted Scoundrels. Matthew Modine, FULL METAL JACKET Diary. J.R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar. Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science; it all began with Reagan. James Moore and Wayne Slater, Rove Exposed: How Bush's Brain Fooled America. Martin Moran, The Tricky Part. Dick Morris (1948-), Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race - wrong twice? Frederic Morton (1924-), Runaway Waltz (autobio.). Michael Neumann (1946-), The Case Against Israel; reply to Alan Dershowitz's 2005 book "The Case for Israel". Thomas J. Noel, Riding High: Colorado Ranchers and 100 Years of the National Western Stock Show. Christiane Northrup, Mother-Daughter Wisdom. Paul Orfalea, Copy This! Lessons from a Hyperactive Dyslexic; how he founded Kinko's in 1970. Suze Orman (1951-), The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke. Sharon Osbourne (1952-) and Penelope Dening, Extreme: My Autobiography (autobio); bestseller (2M copies). David M. Oshinsky (1944-), Polio: An American Story (Pulitzer Prize). Nicholas Ostler (1952-), Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, "the first history of the world's great tongues". Elinor Ostrom (1933-), The Samaritans' Dilemma; Understanding Institutional Diversity. Cynthia Ozick (1928-), The Din the Head (essays). Ilan Pappe (1954-), The Modern Middle East. Roger Penrose (1931-), The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe; the recognized laws of physics are incomplete, and "I do not believe that we have yet found the true 'road to reality'." Ralph Peters (1952-), New Glory: Expanding America's Global Supremacy. Tom Peters (1942-), Design. Tom Peters (1942-) and Martha Barletta, Trends. James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer, Social Movements and State Power: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador. Walid Phares, Future Jihad: Terrorist Strategies Against America; bestseller. David L. Phillips, Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco. Michael Collins Piper (1960-), Target: Traficant: The Untold Story (Jan.); U.S. Rep. (D-Ohio) Jim Traficant, who was ousted and convicted of corruption charges and claims he was set up by the "pro-Israel clique", singling out U.S. asst. atty.-gen. Michael Chertoff. David Plotz, The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank; Robert Graham and his 215 kids. William Poundstone, Fortune's Formula; the Kelly Stock Wagering System of John Kelly Jr. (1921-65). Ron Powers, Mark Twain: A Life. Edvard Radzinsky, Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar. Raghuram Rajan (1963-), Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?; chief economist of the IMF in 2003-6 predicts disaster for the global financial sector, making him a hero when the Great (Global) Recession hits in Dec. 2007. Jenny Randles, Breaking the Time Barrier. Marcus Raskin (1934-) and Carl LeVan, In Democracy's Shadow: The Secret World of National Security. Raheel Raza, Their Jihad... Not My Jihad! (Nov. 15). Richard Reeves, President Reagan: The Triumph of the Imagination; "No one ever called Reagan an intellectual, but he did see the world in terms of ideas... that he held with stubborn certainty." Tom Reiss (1964-), The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life; internat. bestseller. John M. Richardson Jr. (1938-), Paradise Poisoned: Learning About Conflict, Development and Terrorism from Sri Lanka's Civil Wars; claims that violent conflict and terrorism are predictable and preventable, even with al-Qaida. Andrew Roberts (1963-), Waterloo: June 18, 1815: The Battle for Modern Europe. Chris Roberts, Heavy Words, Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme. David Roberts, On the Ridge Between Life and Death: A Climbing Life Reexamined. Sharon Rocha, For Laci. Marion Elizabeth Rodgers, Mencken: The American Iconoclast. Dennis Rodman (1961-) and Jack Isenhour, I Should Be Dead By Now (autobio.) (Sept. 1). Carl Rollyson, Essays in Biography. Bill Romanowski (1966-), Living on the Edge: Living Dreams and Slaying Dragons; NYT bestseller; former NFL star, the league's dirtiest player known for giant mood swings on the field disses talk of his 34 concussions and blames it on chemical performance enhancers; points fingers. Murray Newton Rothbard (1926-95), A History of Money and Banking in the United States (posth.). Jeffrey Sachs (1954-), The End of Poverty; NYT bestseller that argues that extreme poverty (income of less than $1 a day) can be eliminated globally by 2025. Rick Santorum, It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good; rebuttal of Hillary Clinton's 1996 bestseller by a Repub. Sen. from Penn. Dan Savage (1964-), The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family; his yummy gay marriage with his partner Terry. Michael Savage (1942-), Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions (Apr. 12) (NYT bestseller); how liberals and leftist undermine the basic tenets of Am. life incl. marriage, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the Ten Commandments; calls radical Islam "Islamofascism"; "I believe it's time for the heads of... left-wing agitation groups who are using the courts to impose their will on the sheeple to be prosecuted under the federal RICO statutes"; "I envisage an Oil for Illegals program.. The president should demand one barrel of oil from Mexico for every illegal alien that sneaks into our country"; "Real homeland security begins when we arrest, interrogate, jail, or deport known operatives within our own borders... One dirty bomb can ruin your whole day." Simon Schama (1945-), Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution; about the Black Loyalists of the Am. Rev. who fled to Britain, and their fate. Barnet Schecter, The Devil's Own Work: The Civil War Draft Riots and the Fight to Reconstruct America. Richard Schickel, Elia Kazan: A Biography. Stacy Schiff (1961-), A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (Dr. Franklin Goes to France). Leigh Eric Schmidt, Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality. Rob Schultheis, Waging Peace: A Special Operations Team's Battle to Rebuild Iraq; the U.S. Army Civil Affairs Corps, AKA the "cleanup crew". Simon Sebag-Montefiore (1965-), Potemkin: Catherine the Great's Imperial Partner; A History of Caucasus. John Selby (1945-), Seven Masters, One Path: Meditation Secrets from the World's Greatest Teachers. Vikram Seth, Two Lives; his uncle Shanti and aunt Henny in the Holocaust. Kenneth Sewell and Clint Richmond, Red Star Rogue; a Soviet nuclear sub attempts to nuke the U.S., and it's covered up? Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near. Sidney Sheldon (1917-2007), The Other Side of Me (autobio.). Edwin Sherman, Bible Code Bombshell: Compelling Scientific Evidence that God Authored the Bible; the Book of Isaiah is the real deal and he's gonna squeeze for us some of that juice? Michael Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil. Brooke Shields, Down Came the Rain. Walid Shoebat, Why I Left Jihad: The Root of Terrorism and the Return of Radical Islam (May 30). Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America (Apr. 12). Mark Singer, Character Studies: Encounters with the Curiously Obsessed. Peter Singer (1946-) (ed.), In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave. Mark Skousen (1947-), Vienna and Chicago: Friends or Foes? A Tale of Two Schools of Free-Market Economics. Jane Smiley (1949-), Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel; "The ultimate fact about novel-writing is that you can never control whether your writing efforts will be successful, but you can control whether they will be enjoyable or satisfying." Ashley Smith (1978-), Unlikely Angel (Sept.); her ordeal with Brian Gene Nichols. Philip Smith, Why War? The Cultural Logic of Iraq, the Gulf War, and Suez (Dec. 1). Dava Sobel, The Planets. Thomas Sowell (1930-), Black Rednecks and White Liberals: And Other Cultural and Ethnic Issues; claims that black ghetto culture is a relic of white Southern redneck culture. Bob Spitz, The Beatles: The Biography (Nov.). Hilary Spurling, Matisse the Master: A Life of Henri Matisse (1869-1954), The Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954. Tom Standage, The History of the World in Six Glasses. George Steiner (1929-), The Idea of Europe. Victor J. Stenger (1935-), God: The Failed Hypothesis: How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist. Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, De Kooning: An American Master (Pulitzer Prize). James B. Stewart, Disney War; Disney's true Seven Dwarfs: Sneaky, Screamy, Pushy, Greedy, Grabby, Nasty, and Snarky. Martha Stewart (1941-), Martha's Rules: 10 Essentials for Achieving Success as You Start, Build, or Manage a Business (Oct.); sells only 37K copies by Dec. - the marriage was built to last but the house was built too small? John A. Stormer (1928-), Betrayed by the Bench; subversion of the U.S. Constitution by the U.S. judiciary. Cass R. Sunstein (1954-), Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America; The Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle. Dick Taverne (1928-), The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy, and the New Fundamentalism; British Liberal PM and 2002 founder of Sense About Science speaks. Philip Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment. Kenneth R. Timmerman (1953-), Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran; gets him a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 by Swedish deputy PM Per Ahlmark. Blair Tindall, Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs and Classical Music; the X-rated side of the fun classical music world. Eckhart Tolle (1948-), A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose; bestseller (5M copies). Nikolai Tolstoy, Patrick O'Brian: The Making of the Novelist 1914-1949. Clarence Arthur Tripp (1919-2003), The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln (posth.); claims he was gay. Lynne Truss, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay at Home and Bolt the Door. Jim B. Tucker, Life Before Life: A Scientific Investigation of Children's Memories of Previous Lives; his continuation of the search of Ian Stevenson (1918-2007). Sinan Ulgen, Handbook of EU Negotiations. Muhammad Taqi Usmani (1943-), Islam and Modernism; Pakistani Muslim scholar causes controversy in the West with his claims that the Islamic doctrine of jihad is a real threat to the West, not just a misinterpretation of the Quran, because the Quran orders that "killing is to continue until the unbelievers pay jizyah after they are humbled and overpowered", and "In my humble knowledge there has not been a single incident in the entire history of Islam where Muslims had shown their willingness to stop jihad just for one condition that they be allowed to preach Islam freely." Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007), A Man Without a Country (autobio.); "When the last living thing has died on account of us, how poetical it would be if Earth could say, in a voice floating up perhaps from the floor of the Grand Canyon, 'It is done.' People did not like it here." Stephen Wackwitz (b. 1952), An Invisible Country. Elijah Wald, The Mayor of MacDougal Street; folk musician Dave Van Ronk (1936-2005). David Foster Wallace, Consider the Lobster And Other Essays. Mike Wallace (1918-) and Gary Paul Gates, Between You and Me: A Memoir. Maureen Waller, London 1945: Life in the Debris of War. Essie Mae Washington-Williams, Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond. George Weigel (1951-), The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God; argues that Europe's "demographic suicide" (low birthrates) will cause its welfare states to collapse, and is creating a "vacuum into which Islamic immigrants are flowing" - tourniquet! tourniquet? Alison Weir (1951-), Isabella: She-Wolf of France, Queen of England. Brian Weiss (1944-), Same Soul, Many Bodies: Discover the Healing Power of Future Lives through Progression Therapy (Aug 30). Jack Welch and Suzy Welch, Winning; the "differentiation system" of sorting employees into a top 20% of stars, a middle 70% of the "crucial majority", and a bottom 10% to be weeded out - what happened to some are more equal than others? Sam Weller, The Bradbury Chronicles. Edmund Valentine White III (1940-), My Lives (autobio.). Sean Wilentz, Andrew Jackson; The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln. Marjorie Williams (ed. by Timothy Noah), The Woman at the Washington Zoo: Writings on Politics, Family and Fate. Garry Wills (1934-), Henry Adams and the Making of America; attempts to rescue Adams' rep. as a "wholly owned subsidiary of English departments", and rehabiliate him as a historian. Diane Wilson (1948-), An Unreasonable Woman: A True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas (autobio.); 4th gen. shrimper and environmental activist. Simon Winchester, A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. Joel S. Wit, Daniel B. Poneman, and Robert L. Gallucci, Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis. Bob Woodward (1943-) and Carl Bernstein (1944-), The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate's Deep Throat; FBI agent William Mark Felt (1913-2008). Randall D. Wright (1956-) and Ricardo Lagos (1938-), A Unified Framework for Monetary Theory and Policy Analysis; expands the Kiyotaki-Moore Model of Credit Cycles to make it useful for monetary policy. Bat Ye'or, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Asia; coins the term "Eurabia" for the evermore Islamized Europe. John C. Yoo, The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs After 9/11; argues for broad pres. war powers up to the King George III level - incl. a little tickly-tickly? Byron York (1955-), The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President - and Why They'll Try Even Harder Next Time. Rafi Zabor (1946-), I, Wabenzi (memoir). Robert Zubrin, Benedict Arnold: A Drama of the American Revolution in Five Acts. Music: 311, Don't Tread On Me (album #8) (Aug. 16) (#5 in the U.S.); incl. Don't Tread On Me (#93 in the U.S.), Speak Easy, Frolic Room. The Academy Is..., Almost Here (album #2) (Feb. 8) (#185 in the U.S.); incl. Checkmarks, Slow Down (Hollywood Hills), The Phrase That Pays, Classifieds. Death From Above, You're a Woman, I'm a Machine (album). John Coolidge Adams (1947-), Doctor Atomic (opera) (San Francisco Opera) (Oct. 1); Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project; incl. Bhagavad Gita Chorus, Batter, My Heart, Red Alert, Doctor Atomic Solo. Queens of the Stone Age, Lullabies to Paralyze (album #4) (Mar. 21) (#5 in the U.S.) (450K copies); incl. Little Sister, In My Head, Burn the Witch, Medication. a-ha, Analogue (album #8) (Nov. 4); incl. Analogue (All I Want), Celice, Birthright, Cosy Prisons. Tori Amos (1963-), The Beekeeper (album #8) (Feb. 20) (#5 in the U.S., #24 in the U.K.); incl. Sleeps with Butterflies, Sweet the Sting. Apocalyptica, Apocalyptica (album #5) (Jan. 24); incl. Life Burns!, Bittersweet. Fiona Apple (1977-), Extraordinary Machine (album #3) (Oct. 4) (#7 in the U.S.); incl. Parting Gift, Not About Love. Audioslave, Out of Exile (album #2) (May 23) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. Be Yourself, Your Time Has Come, Doesn't Remind Me. Bun B (1973-), Trill (album) (debut); incl. Draped Up, Git It, Get Throwed. Anita Baker (1958-), Christmas Fantasy (album #7) (Oct. 4) (#120 in the U.S.). Beck (1970-), Guero (album) (Mar. 29); incl. Girl, E-Pro, Hell Yes. Dierks Bentley (1975-), Modern Day Drifter (album #2) (May 10); incl. Lot of Leavin' Left to Do, Come a Little Closer, Settle for a Slowdown. Bo Bice (1975-), Inside Your Heaven (#2 in the U.S.). The Notorious Big (1972-97), Duets: The Final Chapter (album #4) (Dec. 20) (posth.) (#3 in the U.S., #13 in the U.K.); incl. Nasty Girl (w/Diddy, Nelly, and Jagged Edge) (#45 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.), Spit Your Game (w/Twista and Krayzie Bone). Limp Bizkit, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (album #5) (May 2); sells 1M copies; incl. The Truth. Bjork (1965-), Army of Me: Remixes and Covers (album) (May 31); The Music from Drawing Restraint 9 (album) (July 25); incl. Storm, Holographic Entrypoint. Mary J. Blige (1971-), The Breakthrough (album #7) (Dec. 20) (#1 in the U.S., #22 in the U.K.) (7M copies); incl. Be Without You, Enough Cryin' (w/Brook Lynn), Take Me As I Am, One (w/U2). Blink-182, Greatest Hits (album) (Oct. 31). Orange Blossom, Everything Must Change (album #2); incl. Habibi (My Darling). Prussian Blue, The Path We Chose (album #2) (last album); incl. The Green Fields of France. Moody Blues, Lovely to See You: Live (double album) (Nov. 15). James Blunt (1974-), Back to Bedlam (album) (debut) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (12M copies); incl. You're Beautiful (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (written after spotting his ex with a new beau; ex-military man becomes the first Brit to top the Billboard Top 100 in the U.S. since Elton John in 1997), Wisemen, High, Goodbye My Lover. The Backstreet Boys, Never Gone (album #5) (June 14) (#3 in the U.S., #11 in the U.K.) (2M copies); first album with a rock sound; incl. Incomplete, Just Want You to Know, I Still.... Pet Shop Boys, Back to Mine (album) (Apr. 25); Battleship Potemkin (album) (Sept. 5); written to accompany the 1925 silent Sergei Eisenstein film. The Bravery, The Bravery (album) (debut) (#18 in the U.S., #5 in the U.K.); from New York City, incl. San Endicott (vocals, guitar), Michael "Moose" Zakarin (guitar), John Conway (keyboards), Mike Hindert (bass), and Anthony Burulcich (drums); incl. An Honest Mistake, Fearless, Unconditional, Swollen Summer. Toni Braxton (1967-), Libra (album) (Sept. 27); incl. Please, Trippin' (That's the Way Love Works) (with Keyshia Cole). Alison Brown (1962-), Stolen Moments (album); incl. Musette for a Palindrome. Michael Buble (1975-) It's Time (album) (Feb. 15); sells 6M copies. Echo and the Bunnymen, Siberia (album #10) (Sept. 20); incl. Of A Life. Bush, The Best of: 1994-1999 (double album) (June 14). Kate Bush (1958-), Aerial (A Sea of Honey/ A Sky of Honey) (double album #9) (Nov. 7) (first in 12 years); incl. Aerial, King of the Mountain, Bertie, Joanni, Pi; sings it to its 137th decimal place, omitting 79-100, A Choral Room Chris Brown (1989-), Chris Brown (album); sells 4M copies; incl. Run It!; "I know what girls want, I know what girls like, they like to stay up, and party all night." Cake, Wheels (album). The Cardigans, Super Extra Gravity (album #6) (Oct. 4). Mariah Carey (1970-), The Emancipation of Mimi (album #10) (Apr. 4) (#1 in the U.S., #7 in the U.K.); her old nickname; highest-selling album of 2005 (10M copies); incl. We Belong Together, It's Like That (w/Fatman Scoop, Jermaine Drupri), Shake It Off, Mine Again, Say Somethin' (w/Snoop Dogg), Get Your Number (w/ Jermaine Dupri). Fall Out Boy, From Under the Cork Tree (album #3) (May 3) (#9 in the U.S.) (3M copies); incl. Sugar, We're Goin Down, Dance, Dance, and A Little Less Sixteen Candles, a Little More 'Touch Me'. 50 Cent (1975-), The Massacre (album #2) (Mar. 3) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (11M copies worldwide); incl. Disco Inferno, Candy Shop (w/Olivia), Just a Lil Bit, Outta Control (Remix) (w/Mobb Deep). Tracy Chapman (1964-), Where You Live (album #7) (Sept. 13) (#49 in the U.S., #43 in the U.K.). Kenny Chesney (1968-), Be As You Are (Songs from an Old Blue Chair) (album) (Jan.); The Road and the Radio (album); incl. Living in Fast Forward, Summertime, Beer in Mexico. Chic, A Night in Amsterdam (album) (June 20); recorded in the Amsterdam Paradiso on July 17, 2005. Kaiser Chiefs, Employment (album). New Young Pony Club, Ice Cream (debut) (Feb.); The Get Go (June 27); Fantastic Playroom (album) (debut) (July 9) (#54 in the U.K.); incl. The Bomb. from London, England, incl. Tahita Rotardier Bulmer, Andy Spence, Lou Hayter, and Sarah Jones. Coldplay, X&Y (album #3) (June 6) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); incl. Fix You (written for his babe Gwyneth Paltrow, whose daddy Bruce Paltrow died in 2002), The Hardest Part, Speed of Sound, Talk, What If, White Shadows. Alice Cooper (1948-), Dirty Diamonds (album #24). Susan Cowsill (1959-), Just Believe It (album) (solo debut). Sheryl Crow (1962-), Wildflower (album) (Sept.). D4L, Laffy Taffy; "Shake that Laffy Taffy". Death Cab for Cutie, The John Byrd EP (Mar. 1); named after their sound engineer; Plans (album #5) (Aug. 30) (#4 in the U.S.); incl. Soul Meets Body, Crooked Teeth, I Will Follow You Into the Dark. Craig Ashley David (1981-), The Story Goes... (album) (Sept. 6); incl. All the Way, Don't Love You No More (I'm Sorry). Green Day, Bullet in a Bible (album) (Nov. 15) (#8 in the U.S., #6 in the U.K.). Grateful Dead, Dick's Picks Vol. 34 (album) (Feb. 14); recorded on Nov. 2, 1977 in Toronto; Dick's Picks Vol. 35 (album) (June 17); recorded in Aug. 1971; Dick's Picks Vol. 36 (album) (Oct.); recorded in Sept. 1972. Panic! at the Disco, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (album) (debut) (#13 in the U.S.) (Sept. 27) (2M copies); from Summerlin, Las Vegas, Nev.; Brendon Boyd Urie (1987-) (vocals), George Ryan Ross III (1986-) (guitar), Peter Wentz (bass), and Spencer James Smith (1987-) (drums); named after the Name Taken song "Panic"; incl. I Write Sins Not Tragedies, The Only Difference Between Martyrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage, Lying is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off, But It's Better If You Do, Build God, Then We'll Talk. Disturbed, Ten Thousand Fists (album #3) (Sept. 20, 2005) (#1 in the U.S., #59 in the U.K.) (1.9M copies in the U.S.); first with bassist John Mayer; dedicated to Dimebag Darrell; incl. Ten Thousand Fists, Guarded, Stricken, Just Stop, Land of Confusion (by Genesis). Pussycat Dolls, Don't Cha (w/Busta Rhymes) (Apr. 26) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); from Los Angeles, Calif., incl. Hawaiian-born Nicole Prescovia Elikolani Valiente Scherzinger (1978-), Carmit Bachar, Melody Thornton, Jessica Sutta, Ashley Roberts, and Kimberly Wyatt; PCD (#5 in the U.S., #7 in the U.K.) (album) (debut) (Sept. 12) (sold 9M copies); incl. Stickwitu (w/Avant), Buttons (w/Snoop Dogg), Beep (w/will.i.am). Donovan (1946-), To Try for the Sun: The Journey of Donovan (album) (Sept. 13). Doobie Brothers, The Very Best of the Doobie Brothers (double album) (Mar. 13). System of a Down, Hypnotize (Nov. 22) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. Hypnotize, Lonely Day, Kill Rock 'n Roll, Victim of Obscenity. 3 Doors Down, Seventeen Days (album #3) (Feb. 8) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. Let Me Go, Behind Those Eyes. As I Lay Dying, Shadows Are Security (album #3) (June 14) (#35 in the U.S.) (275K copies); incl. Confined, Through Struggle, The Darkest Nights. Eminem (1972-), Curtain Call: The Hits (album) (Dec. 6). Public Enemy, New Whirl Odor (album #9) (Nov. 1); incl. MKLVFKWR (Make Love Fuck War) (w/Moby). Brian Eno (1948-), Another Day on Earth (album). Enya (1961-), Amarantine (album #7) (Nov. 22); incl. Amarantine, It's In the Rain. Epica, Consign to Oblivion (album #2) (Apr. 21); incl. Solitary Ground, Quietus; The Score... An Epic Journey Soundtrack (album #3) (Sept. 20). Melissa Etheridge (1961-), The Road Less Traveled (album) (Oct.). Sara Evans (1971-), Real Fine Place (album); incl. A Real Fine Place to Start Blues Explosion, Damage (album). Exodus, Shovel Headed Kill Machine (album #7) (Oct. 4); first with vocalist Rob Dukes and drummer Paul Bostaph; incl. Deathamphetamine. Better Than Ezra, Before the Robots (album #6) (May 31); incl. A Lifetime. Marianne Faithfull (1946-), Before the Poison (album). Kevin Federline (1978-), The Truth (album). Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have It So Much Better (album #2) (Oct. 3) (#8 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. Do You Want To, The Fallen/ L. Wells, Walk Away, Eleanor Put Your Boots On. Elysian Fields, Bum Raps and Love Taps (album #4); incl. Duel with Cudgels, We're in Love. Foo Fighters, In Your Honor (album #5) (double album) (June 14); incl. In Your Honor, Best of You, DOA, Resolve, No Way Back, Miracle, Cold Day in the Sun. Fishbone, Live in Amsterdam (album) (May 31). The Fray, How to Save a Life (album) (debut) (Sept. 13) (#14 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.); from Denver, Colo., incl. Isaac Edward Slade (1981-) (vocals) and Joe King (1980-); incl. How to Save a Life (#1 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.), Over My Head (Cable Car) (#8 in the U.S., #19 in the U.K.). Crazy Frog, Axel-F; first hit cell phone ring tone. Funtwo (Lim Jeong-hun) (1984-), Pachelbel's Canon in D Major; South Korean plays in his bedroom, uploads it to YouTube, and becomes an instant guitar legend, getting over 80M views and 500K viewer text comments; too bad, he decides not to go pro. The Game, The Documentary (album) (debut) (Jan. 18); original title "Nigga Witta Attitude Vol. 1"; sells 6M copies; incl. Westside Story, Hate It or Love It (w/ 50 Cent). Garbage, Bleed Like Me (album #4) (Apr. 11); incl. Why Do You Love Me. Lamb of God, Killadelphia (album) (Dec. 13). Melody Gardot (1985-), Some Lessons: The Bedroom Sessions (album) (debut) (May 3); incl. Some Lessons. OK Go, Oh No (album). Jay Greenberg (1991-), Symphony No. 5. Merle Haggard (1937-), Chicago Wind (album) (Oct.); incl. America First ("Let's get out of Iraq, and get back on track"). Herbie Hancock (1940-), Possibilities (album #45) (Aug. 30). Faith Hill (1967-), Fireflies (album); incl. Mississippi Girl, Like We Never Loved At All (with Tim McGraw). Her Space Holiday, The Past Presents the Future (album). Yusuf Islam (1948-), Indian Ocean; the 2004 tsunami. Jamiroquai, Dynamite (album #6) (June 20); incl. Feels Just Like It Should, Seven Days in Sunny June, (Don't) Give Hate a Chance. Flotsam and Jetsam, Dreams of Death (album #9) (July 26). Billy Joel (1949-), My Lives (boxed set). Elton John (1947-), Elton John's Christmas Party (album) (Nov. 10); released exclusively at Hear Music outlets in Starbucks coffee ships. Elton John (1947-) and Bernie Taupin (1950-), Lestat (musical) (Dec.) (San Francisco); based on the Anne Rice novels. Jack Hody Johnson (1975-), In Between Dreams (album #3) (Mar. 1) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. Better Together, Good People, Sitting, Waiting, Wishing, Breakdown, Banana Pancakes. Journey, Generations (album) (Aug. 29); incl. Faith in the Heartland. Bon Jovi, Have a Nice Day (album) (Sept. 20) (#2 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); incl. Have a Nice Day, Welcome to Wherever You Are, Who Says You Can't Go Home (with Jennifer Nettles) (first rock & roll band with a #1 Billboard Hot Country hit). Toby Keith (1961-), White Trash with Money (album); first release on his new Show Dog Nashville label. R. Kelly (1967-), Sex in the Kitchen (Apr.); TP-3: Reloaded (album #7) (July 5) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. Trapped in the Closet, Ch. 1-Ch. 5. K'naan (1978-), The Dusty Foot Philosopher (album #2) (June 7); incl. If Rap Gets Jealous. Korn, See You on the Other Side (album #7) (Dec. 6) (#2 in the U.S.); original title "Souvenir of Sadness"; first without Brian "Head" Welch; last with drummer David Silveria; incl. Twisted Transistor (#3 in the U.S.), Coming Undone (#4 in the U.S.), Politics (#18 in the U.S.). Strapping Young Lad, Alien (album #4) (Mar. 22) (#32 in the U.S.); incl. Love? Cyndi Lauper (1953-), The Body Acoustic (album #9) ((Nov. 8). Huey Lewis (1950-) and the News, Live at 25 (album) (May 17). Black Lips, Let It Bloom (album #3) (Nov. 22); incl. Boomerang, Not a Problem, Everybody's Doin' It, Feeling Gay. Lindsay Lohan (1986-), A Little More Personal (Raw) (album #2) (Dec. 6); incl. Confessions of a Broken Heart (Daughter to Father), Edge of Seventeen, I Want You to Want Me. Jennifer Lopez (1969-), Rebirth (album #4) (Mar. 1) (#2 in the U.S., #8 in the U.K.); incl. Get Right (#12 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.). Madonna (1958-), Confessions on a Dance Floor (album #10) (Nov. 15) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (12M copies); incl. Hung Up (her 38th top-10 Billboard hit, tying Elvis Presley), Sorry, Get Together, Jump; I'm Going to Tell You A Secret (album) (Oct. 21). Mae, The Everglow (album #2) (Mar. 29); concept album. Metric, Live It Out (album #2) (Sept. 27) (150K copies); incl. Monster Hospital, Poster of a Girl, Empty. Iron Maiden, The Essential Iron Maiden (album) (July 5); Death on the Road (Aug. 30). Dave Matthews Band, Stand Up (album). John Mayer Trio, Try! (album) (Nov. 22). Martina McBride (1966-), Timeless (album #7). Paul McCartney (1942-), Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (album #13) (Sept. 12) (#6 in the U.S., #10 in the U.K.); incl. Fine Line, Jenny Wren, Friends to Go, Too Much Rain, This Never Happened Before. Gene McDaniels (1935-), Screams and Whispers (album #12); first album since 1975. Katie Melua (1984-), Piece by Piece (album #2) (Sept. 26); Nine Million Bicy8cles, I Cried for You, Spider's Web, It's Only Pain, Shy Boy. Natalie Merchant (1963-), Retrospective: 1995-2005 (album). M.I.A. (Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasm) (1975-), Arular (album) (debut) (Mar. 22); incl. Bucky Done Gun. Ingrid Michaelson (1979-), Slow the Rain (album). Moby, Hotel (album). Depeche Mode, Playing the Angel (album #11) (Oct. 17); incl. Precious, A Pain That I'm Used To, Suffer Well, Join the Revelator/ Lilian. Van Morrison (1945-), Magic Time (album #31) (May 17); incl. Stranded, I'm Confessin'. Dropkick Murphys, The Warrior's Code (album #5) (June 21); incl. I'm Shipping Up to Boston. Nine Inch Nails, With Teeth (album #4) (May 3) (#1 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.); incl. The Hand That Feeds (#1 in the U.S.), Only (#1 in the U.S.), Every Day Is Exactly the Same (#1 in the U.S.). The National, Alligator (album #3) (Apr. 12); incl. Mr. November. Olivia Newton-John (1948-), Stronger Than Before; features herself (1992) and other cancer survivors incl. Diahann Carroll; Hypnotize (album) (Nov.). Nickelback, All the Right Reasons (album #5) (Oct. 4) (#1 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.) (11M copies); first with drummer Daniel Adair; incl. Rockstar, Photograph, Animals, Savin' Me, Far Away, If Everyone Cared, Side of a Bullet. Niyaz, Niyaz (album) (debut) (Apr. 19); Niyaz means "yearning" in Persian and Urdu; from LA, incl. Carmen Rizzo, Azam Ali, and Loga Ramin Torkian; incl. Ghazal, Allahi Allah, Dilruba. Nonpoint, To the Pain (album #4) (Nov. 8) (#147 in the U.S.); incl. Bullet With A Name, Alive and Kicking. Oasis, Don't Believe the Truth (album #6) (May 30) (#12 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. Lyla, The Importance of Being Idle, Let There Be Love. Indian Ocean, Black Friday Soundtrack (album) (Jan.). Sinead O'Connor (1966-), Collaborations (album) (June 21); Throw Down Your Arms (album) (Oct. 4). Omarion (1984-), Touch; O (album) (debut) (Feb. 22); sells 750K copies; incl. O. New Order, Waiting for the Sirens' Call (album #8) (last album) (Mar. 28) (#46 in the U.S., #5 in the U.K.); incl. Waiting for the Sirens' Call, Krafty, Jetstream. Tony Orlando (1944-) and Dawn, Christmas Reunion (album). Brad Paisley (1972-), Time Well Wasted (album). Maximo Park, A Certain Trigger (album) (debut) (May 16); from Newcastle, England, incl. Paul Smith (1979-) (vocals), Duncan Lloyd (guitar), Archis Tiku (bass), Lukas Wooller (keyboards), Tom English (drums); incl. The Coast Is Always Changing, Apply Some Pressure, Graffiti, Going Missing, I Want You to Stay. Bloc Party, Silent Alarm (album). Black Eyed Peas, Monkey Business (album #4); (May 27); sells 10M copies; incl. Pump It (based on Dick Dale's 1962 hit "Misirlou"), Don't Phunk with My Heart, Don't Lie, My Humps, Dum Diddly, Bebot, Union (with Sting). Peter and the Test Tube Babies, A Foot Full of Bullets (album #12). Silversun Pickups, Pikul (album) (debut) (July); named after a liquor store at the intersection of Sunset Strip and Silver Lake Blvd. in Hollywood, Calif.; Brian Aubert (vocals), Nikki Monninger (bass), Christopher Guanlao (drums), and Joe Lester (keyboards). Pitbull (1981-), Money Is Still A Major Issue (album #2) (Nov. 15). The New Pornographers, Twin Cinema (album #3) (Aug. 23); incl. Twin Cinema, The Bleeding Heart Show. The Posies, Every Kind of Light (album #6) (June 28); last album in 1998; incl. Second Time Around. Daniel Powter (1971-), Daniel Powter (album); incl. "Bad Day" (played for the losers in 2006 Am. Idol). Judas Priest, Angel of Retribution (Mar. 1). Eric Prydz (1976-), Woz Not Woz (w/Steve Angello) (#55 in the U.K.). Bonnie Raitt (1949-), Souls Alike (album #15) (Sept. 13). Rammstein, Rosenrot (Rose Red) (album #5) (Oct. 28); incl. Rosenrot, Mann Gegen Mann (Man Against Man), Benzin, Stirb Nicht Vor Mir (Don't Die Before I Do), Zerstoren (Destroy), Te Quiero Puta! (I Want You Whore!) (with Carmen Zapata), Feuer und Wasser (Fire and Water). Raveonettes, Pretty in Black (album #2) (May 3); incl. Love in a Trashcan, My Boyfriend's Back (cover of the Angels' hit). Steve Reich (1936-), The Desert Music: Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings. The All-American Rejects, Move Along (album #2) (July 12) (#6 in the U.S., #45 in the U.K.) (2M copies); incl. Move Along (#15 in the U.S., #42 in the U.K.), Dirty Little Secret (#9 in the U.S., #18 in the U.K.), It Ends Tonight (#8 in the U.S., #66 in the U.K.). Rihanna (1988-), Music of the Sun (album) (debut) (Aug. 26) (#10 in the U.S.) (2M copies); incl. Pon de Replay, If It's Lovin' That You Want. My Chemical Romance, Warped Tour Bootleg Series (EP) (July 19). Rush, R30: 30th Anniversary Tour (album) (Nov. 22). Mr. Scruff (1972-), Mrs Cruff (album) (May 22). Seal (1963-), Live in Paris (album) (July 6). Belle and Sebastian, Push Barman to Open Old Wounds (album #7) (May 24); If You're Feeling Sinister: Live at the Barbican (album) (Dec. 6). Seether, Karma and Effect (album #3) (May 24) (800K copies worldwide) (their masterpiece?); incl. Remedy, Truth, The Gift. Shaggy, Clothes Drop (album); incl. Wild 2Nite (with Olivia). Carly Simon (1945-), Moonlight Serenade (album). Spoon, Gimme Fiction (album). Bruce Springsteen (1949-), Devils & Dust. LeAnn Rimes (1982-), This Woman (album); her country music comeback. Shakira (1977-), Fijacion Oral Vol. 1 (album #4) (June 3) (#4 in the U.S.) (4M copies); incl. La Tortura; Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 (album #5) (Nov. 28) (#5 in the U.S., #12 in the U.K.) (8M copies); incl. Don't Bother, Hips Don't Lie (w/Wyclef Jean), Illegal (w/Santana). Ashlee Simpson (1984-), I Am Me (album #2) (Oct. 18) (#1 in the U.S., #50 in the U.K.)); incl. Boyfriend, L.O.V.E.. Sleater-Kinney, The Woods (album #7) (last album) (May 24); incl. Jumpers, Modern Girl. Black Label Society, Mafia (album #6) (Mar. 8) (#15 in the U.S.) (250K copies in the U.S.); incl. In This River (dedicated to Dimebag Darrell), Fire It Up, Suicide Messiah. Collective Soul, From the Ground Up (EP) (#129 in the U.S.). Hush Sound, So Sudden (album); Bob Morris, Mike Leblanc, Greta Saltpeter (piano), Darren Wilson (drums). LCD Soundsystem, LCD Soundsystem (album) (debut) (Jan. 24); James Murphy (1970); Staind, Chapter V (album #5) (Aug. 9) (#1 in the U.S., #112 in the U.K.) (1.5M copies); incl. Right Here, Falling, Everything Changes, King of All Excuses. Big Star, In Space (album #4) (Sept. 27); first new album since 1974; incl. Turn My Back on the Sun, Best Chance, Dony. Ringo Starr (1940-), Choose Love (album #13) (June 7). Status Quo, The Party Ain't Over Yet (album #27) (Sept. 19). The Hold Steady, Separation Sunday (album). Gwen Stefani (1969-), Love.Angel.Music.Baby. (album) (solo debut) (Nov. 22); incl. Rich Girl (with Eve), Harajuku Girls; Hollaback Girl (the cheerleader capt. who hollas, as opposed to the rest who holla back?); first track to get 1M paid downloads. Al Stewart (1945-), A Beach Full of Shells (album #17). Rod Stewart (1945-), Thanks for the Memory: The Great American Songbook 4 (album) (Oct. 18). Rolling Stones, A Bigger Bang (album #24) (Sept. 5) (#3 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); incl. Rough Justice, Streets of Love (#15 in the U.K.), Rain Fall Down (#33 in the U.K.), Biggest Mistake (#51 in the U.K.); Rarities 1971-2003 (album) (Nov. 21). Stratovarius, Stratovarius (album #11) (Sept. 5); last with Timo Tolkki; incl. Maniac Dance. White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan (album #5) (June 7); incl. Blue Orchid, My Doorbell, The Denial Twist. Steven Stucky, Second Concerto for Orchestra (Pulitzer Prize). Styx, Big Band Theory (album #15) (May 10). Sugarbabes, Taller in More Ways (album #4) (Oct. 10); incl. Push the Button, Ugly, Red Dress, Follow Me Home. Nada Surf, The Weight Is a Gift (album #4) (Sept. 20). Plain White T's, All That We Needed (album). Livingston Taylor (1950-), There You Are Again (album). Testament, Live in London (album). Therion, Atlantis Lucid Dreaming (album) (Sept. 6). Train, Get To Me EP (album) (Aug. 16). The Fall of Troy, Doppelganger (Doppelgänger) (album #2) (Aug. 16); incl. F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X. Jethro Tull, Aqualung Live (album) (Sept. 19). KT Tunstall (1975-), Eye to the Telescope (album) (debut) (Dec. 13) (#33 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.) (2.6M copies worldwide); incl. Black Horse and the Cherry Tree (#28 in the U.K.), Suddenly I See (#12 in the U.K.), Other Side of the World (#13 in the U.K.), Under the Weather (#39 in the U.K.), Another Place to Fall (#52 in the U.K.). Bonnie Tyler (1951-), Wings (album #15) (May 14). Six Feet Under, 13 (album #6) (Mar. 21); incl. Decomposition of the Human Race, Shadow of the Reaper, The Art of Headhunting. Keith Urban (1967-), Days Go By. Steve Vai (1960-), Real Illusions: Reflections (album #8) (Feb. 22); last album in 1999; about a town visited by God-sent Pamposh to construct a new church; incl. Lotus Feet. The Veronicas, The Secret Life Of... (album) (debut) (Oct. 17) (#133 in the U.S., #2 in Australia); incl. 4ever (#90 in the U.S.), Everything I'm Not, When It All Falls Apart, Revolution, Leave Me Alone. The Wallflowers, Rebel, Sweetheart (album #5) (May 24); incl. The Beautiful Side of Somewhere. Roger Waters (1943-), Ca Ira (Ça Ira); 3-act opera based on the French Rev. Kanye West (1977-), Late Registration (album #2) (Aug. 30) (#1 in the U.S.) (3M copies); incl. Diamonds from Sierra Leone, Gold Digger (w/Jamie Foxx), Heard 'Em Say (w/Adam Levine), Touch the Sky (w/Lupe), Drive Slow (w/Paul Wall). Weezer, Make Believe (album #5) (May 10) (#2 in the U.S., #11 in the U.K.); incl. Beverly Hills, Perfect Situation, We Are All on Drugs, This Is Such A Pity. Kanye West (1977-), Late Registration (Aug. 30) (#1 in the U.S.) (3M copies); incl. Diamonds from Sierra Leone, Gold Digger (w/Jamie Foxx), Heard 'Em Say (w/Adam Levine), Touch the Sky (w/Lupe), Drive Slow (w/Paul Wall). Westlife, Face to Face (album #7) (Oct. 31) (#1 in the U.K.) (6M copies); incl. You Raise Me Up, When You Tell Me That You Love Me (w/Diana Ross) (#2 in the U.K.), Amazing (#4 in the U.K.). Gretchen Wilson (1973-), All Jacked Up; incl. All Jacked Up; highest debuting single for a female country artist (until ?). Wisin and Yandel, Pa'l Mundo (album #5) (Nov. 8); their first hit; incl. Rakata, Llame Pa' Verte (Bailando Sexy), Noche de Sexo. Stevie Wonder (1950-), A Time to Love (album) (Oct. 18); incl. So What the Fuss (with Prince and En Vogue), Positivity (with Aisha Morris), From the Bottom of My Heart, Shelter in the Rain. Chely Wright (1970-), The Metropolitan Hotel (album #6) (Feb. 22); incl. Back of the Bottom Drawer. Yehudi Wyner (1929-), Chiavi in Mano (concerto) (Pulitzer Prize). Trisha Yearwood (1964-), Jasper County (album). Neil Young (1945-), Prairie Wind (album); written in the weeks before a procedure to relieve a brain aneurysm. Frank Zappa (1940-93), Joe's XMASage (album) (posth.) (Dec.). Movies: Karyn Kusama's Aeon Flux (Dec. 2), based on the 1991-5 MTV series is a silly-but-cool sci-fi flick starring Charlize Theron as an assassin working for the Monicans to overthrow the govt. of Bregna; Frances McDormand plays Handler, Marton Csokas plays Trevor Goodchild, Jonny Lee Miller plays Oren Goodchild, and Sophie Okonedo plays Sithandra; does $52M box office on a $62M budget. James Cameron's Aliens of the Deep (Jan. 28) is a documentary about ocean life in the Mid-Ocean Ridges of the Atlantic and Pacific. Rebecca Miller's The Ballad of Jack and Rose (June 2) stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Camilla Belle as father-daughter Jack and Rose Slavin, who live on an abandoned island commune until developer Marty Rance (Beau Bridges) tries to build a housing tract. Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (June 15) stars Christian Bale as Batman, Michael Caine as Alfred, Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, Liam Neeson as Henri Ducard, and Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes in the story of how he you know what; #8 movie of 2005 ($205M). ?'s Be Cool (), based on the 1999 Elmore Leonard novel stars John Travolta. Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice (Feb. 11), a Bollywood flick based on the Jane Austen classic stars Aishwarya Rai as Lalita and Martin Henderson as Will Darcy in an Indianized musical having little to do with classic English anything? Two big thumbs up? The Holy Grail of Social Engineering Pictures is launched by Hollyweird in Oh-nly-Six? Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (Dec. 9), written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana based on an Oct. 13, 1997 New Yorker short story by Annie Proulx is about two 1963 sheep cowboys, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Wyo., who go gay and do the bob-and-weave (and bareback?) in high altitude in secret, causing sperm to flow like champagne, after which they separate and marry straight women Alma (Mont.-born Michelle Williams) (Ennis) and Laureen (Anne Hathaway) (Jack); too bad, "this thing gets hold of them again" and they continue to meet once a year for 20 sperm-filled years, fighting the feelings of missed same-sex marital bliss (not just fast food that melts in your mouth?) to the hauntingly sterile "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" as yet more sperm flows, but not in chicks, because it's a dick flick, although not a single one is seen; grosses only $83M in the U.S. despite the ploy of using non-gay actors to keep audiences from getting the feeling they're in a gay movie house, where male-male marriage is a 4-letter word?; in real life Heath Ledger (1979-2008) falls in love on the set with Michelle Williams (1980-), and they marry and have daughter Matilda on Oct. 28, 2005 - one could substitute a man and a boy, two women, a woman and a girl, a father and his son, etc., and the values stay free-floating, welcome to the 21st century of sin is in? Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers (Aug. 5) (Focus Features) stars Bill Murray as aging former playboy Don Johnston, who enjoys his retirement nest egg made in the computer industry until he finds out that he has a 19-y.-o. son from an anon. letter, causing him to travel cross-country in his car to visit four old flames, incl. Laura (Sharon Stone), Dora (Frances Conroy), Carmen (Jessica Lange), and Penny (Tilda Swinton); does $13.7M box office in the U.S. and $46.7M worldside on a $10M budget. Nick Love's The Business stars Danny Dyer as Frankie and Tamer Hassan as Charlie, two Brits who import drugs on the Costa del Crime (Sol) in Spain in the 1980s. Bennett Miller's Capote (Sept. 2) (United Artists) gives Philip Seymour Hoffman the role of his life as the New York goo-goo talking-walking literary sockhusking chief prickhead; Miller's first narrative feature; does $49.2M box office on a $7M budget; yet another film about the transforming power of dick? - now when you wake up with milk you wake up in paradise? Bruce Hunt's The Cave (Aug. 26) (Lakeshore Entertainment) (Screen Gems) debuts, set in the Carpathian Mts. of Romania during the Cold War, where a group of British-Soviet explorers search for a lost 13th cent. Eastern Orthodox abbey, finding it only to find it's built over the world's largest underground cave system and get trapped in a landslide; 30 years later a team of archeologists led by Dr. Nicolai (Marcel Ires) and Katheryn Jannings (Lena Headey) along with a team of Am. spelunkers led by Jack McAllister (Cole Hauser) and his brother Tyler McAllister (Eddie Cibrian) return with a ton of scientific equipment to investigate, encountering mutated parasites that turn them into demonic mutants; does $33.2M box office on a $30M budget. Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (July 15), based on the book by Roald Dahl stars Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket, Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Bucket, and David Kelly as Grandpa Joe; #7 movie of 2005 ($207M). Mark Dindal's animated Chicken Little (Nov. 4) chokes in $134.3M during the Xmas season (#4). Andrew Adamson's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Dec. 9), the last great fantasy epic of the 20th cent. to be filmed, is spawned and influenced by the newborn Christian evangelical "no dicks in flix" community that made big bucks for Mel Gibson the previous year, despite producer Disney's protestations that it's not a Christian proselytizing tool; #2 movie of 2005 ($292M in the U.S., $745M worldwide); stars William Moseley as Peter, Anna Popplewell as Anna, Georgie Henley as Lucy, and Skandar Keynes as Edmund Pevensie; Liam Neeson is the voice of Aslan; Tilda Swinton plays the White Witch; the pedophile-questionmark faun Mr. Tumnus, played by James McAvoy makes the dinner a winner? Ron Howard's Cinderella Man (June 3) (Miramax Films) (Universal Pictures), filmed in Toronto based on the book by Jeremy Schaap stars Russell Crowe as light heavyweight boxer James J. Braddock, and Renee Zellweger as his wife Mae, who breaks his right hand but learns to make up for it with his left, and rises from longshoreman in NYC to champion after upsetting Max Baer on June 13, 1935, then loses his title to Joe Louis and ends up operating heavy machinery on the docks; Crowe dislocates his shoulder during filming and holds production up for 6 weeks, but its publicity is stunk up by his June 6 arrest in the swank NYC Mercer Hotel for assault for throwing a phone at concierge Nestor Estrada after failing to get through to his wife Danielle Spencer in Australia, causing AMC Theaters to help sagging ticket sales by offering a money-back guarantee; Crowe apologizes on the Letterman Show, then pleads guilty to misdemeanor charges and settles for an undisclosed sum; the movie wasn't bad?; does $108.5M box office on an $88M budget. Thomas Carter's Coach Carter (Jan. 14) (MTV Films) (Paramount Pictures), based on a true story stars Samuel L. Jackson as Richmond, Calif. H.S. basketball coach Ken Carter, who imposes discipline and ends up suspending his undefeated team in 1999 for not maintaining 2.3 GPA; the film debut of hunk Channing Matthew Tatum (1980-); does $76.7M box office on a $30M budget. Fernando Meirelles' The Constant Gardener (Aug. 31) (Focus Features), written by Jeffrey Caine based on the 2001 John le Carre novel stars Ralph Fiennes as British diplomat Justin Quayle, whose young activist wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) is murdered in the veldt near Lake Turkana in Kenya, causing her black driver Arnold Bluhm (Hubert Kounde) to be suspected, until he turns out to be gay and murdered also, leading to a conspiracy involving sinister drug co. KHA Pharamaceuticals; "Love, at any cost"; does $82.5M box office on a $25M budget. Francis Lawrence's Constantine (Feb. 17) (Warner Bros. Pictures) (Lawrence's dir. debut), based on the "Hellblazer" comic books of Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis stars Keanu Reeves as chain-smoking evil soul hunter John Constantine, who attempted suicide, damning him to Hell, and Rachel Weisz as LAPD Det. Angela Dodson, whose twin sister mysteriously committed suicide, and wants him to rescue her; Shia LaBeaouf plays John's driver Chas Kramer; Tilda Swinton plays Archangel Gabriel; Djimon Hounsou plays witch doctor Papa Midnite, who plays both sides; Peter Stormare plays Lucifer Morningstar; does $230.9M box office on a $100M budget; becomes a cult favorite, but Reeves isn't interested in a sequel; "What if I told you that God and the Devil made a wager for the souls of all mankind. No direct contact with humans, that would be the rule, just influence, see who would win. Demons stay in Hell, angels in Heaven. They call it the Balance."; "You see them, they see you"; - 2K years of Christianity have been reduced to a comic book movie? Paul Haggis' Crash (May 6), about race relations in ever-mixing L.A. features an ensemble cast incl. Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, and smiley Sandra Bullock, who plays against type as an angry mugged woman; Iranian-born Bahar Soomekh debuts as Persian-Am. Dorri, who buys her daddy a gun with blanks that end up saving him from murdering a little girl; since it's a Hollyweird PC film, it's okay to throw the N-word around a jillion times since the message is that naturally racist people will recognize each other's humanity during an emergency like a car crash; "I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something". Neil Marshall's claustrophobic horror film The Descent (July 6) (Celador Films) (Pathe Distribution) is about six women who enter a cave system filled with evil crawlers; does $57.1M box office on a Ł3.5M budget; followed by "The Descent Part 2" (2009). Tony Scott's Domino (Oct. 14), about British "Manchurian Candidate killer" actor Laurence Harvey's daughter Domino (1970-2005) (who OD'd in June) ends with Tom Waits playing mescaline-pushing preacher "The Wanderer". Stuart Gordon's Edmond (Aug. 31), based on the 1982 David Mamet play stars William H. Macy as Manhattan office worker Edmond, who stops by fortune teller Frances Bay and is told "You are not where you belong", causing him to quit his marriage and walk the streets looking for where he does belong. Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown (Sept. 4) stars Orlando Bloom as shoe designer Drew Baylor, who costs his co. $972M and gets fired by his boss Phil DeVoss (Alec Baldwin) then plans suicide with a butcher knife taped to his exercise bike before finding out that his father died of a heart attack in you know where, Ky.; also stars Kirsten Dunce, er, Dunst as his new babe Claire Colburn, and and Susan Sarandon as grieving widow Hollie Baylor. Scott Derrickson's The Exorcism of Emily Rose (Sept. 9) (Lakeshore Entertainment) (Screen Gems), based on Felictas Goodman's book "The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel" stars Laura Linney as agnostic atty. Erin Christine Bruner representing parish priest Father Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson), who is on trial for negligent homicide for performing an exorcism on 19-y.-o. Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter), based on real-life devout German Roman Catholic Anneliese Michel (1952-76; does $144.2M box office on a $19.3M budget. Robert Schwentke's Flightplan (Sept. 23), based on the 1938 Hitchcock film "The Lady Vanishes" is a thriller starring Jodie Foster as aircraft engineer Kyle Pratt, whose hubby David died from a fall in Germany, causing her to return to New York with his casket on a giant Elgin E-474 with her 6-y.-o. daughter Juliet (Marlene Lawston), who mysteriously disappears midway through the flight, causing mommy to begin frantically searching for her and violating security until she's arrested by the air marshal Carson (Peter Sarsgaard), who turns out to be a hijacker who was trying to frame her in his place to get away with the dough; Sean Bean also stars as airplane capt. Marcus Rich; grosses $89M in the U.S. and $223M worldwide despite being boycotted by the Assoc. of Prof. Flight Attendants, making it more popular? Michael Hoffman's Game 6, written by Don DeLillo in 1991 stars Michael Keaton as Boston Red Sox fan Nicky Rogan on Oct. 25, 1986, who vents his frustrations by planning a murder. George Clooney's B&W Good Night, and Good Luck (Oct. 14) covers the 1953-4 war between CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and Sen. Joseph McCarthy, showing that the center was turning against McCarthy, although it leaves out how others took him on earlier, such as The Washington Post and other CBS journalists; the 2nd Oscar-nominated film to have 60 Minutes newsman Don Hewitt as a char. after "The Insider". Werner Herzog's Grizzly Man (Dec. 7) looks at the life of longtime bear lover Timothy Treadwell (1957-2003), who ends up in a bear's stomach in Oct. 2003 in Alaska along with his girlfriend Amy, killed while his camera is rolling with the lens cap on. Mike Newell's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Nov. 18) goblets up the bucks at the box office, coming #3 for 2005 ($290M). David Cronenberg's A History of Violence (Sept. 30), based on the graphic novel by Vince Locke and John Wagner stars Viggo Mortenesen as a diner owner with a hit man past, Maria Bellow as his wife, and William Hurt as a put-upon mobster. Andy Tennant's Hitch (Feb. 11) stars Will Smith as prof. date doctor Alex "Hitch" Hitchens, who finds it doesn't work so good for himself with his dream babe, Raquel Welch lookalike Sara Melas (Eva Mendes); also stars Tom Arnold lookalike Kevin James as Albert Brennaman, and Cameron Diaz lookalike Amber Valletta as Allegra Cole. Garth Jennings' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Apr. 28) (Touchstone Pictures), based on the 1979 book by Douglas Adams stars Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent, Sam Rockwell as Pres. Zaphod Beeblebrox, Mos Def as Ford Prefect, Zooey Deschanel as Tricia McMillan/Trillian, and the voices of Stephen Fry and Alan Rickman; does $104.5M on a $50M budget. Eli Roth's Hostel (Sept. 17) (Raw Nerve) (Lionsgate) (Screen Gems), filmed in the Czech Repub. stars Jay Hernandez and Derek Richardson as two college students traveling through Europe who are captured and tortured by a mysterious group called the Elite Hunting Club; does $80.6M box office on a $4.8M budget; "There is a place where all your darkest sickest fantasies are possible. Where you can experience anything you desire. Where you can torture, punish, or kill for a price"; followed by "Hostel: Part II" (2007), "Hostel: Part III" (2011). Jaume Collet-Serra's House of Wax (May 6), a remake of the 1953 Vincent Price movie is the waxen acting debut of Paris Hilton as Paige Edwards. Craig Brewer's Hustle and Flow (July 22) stars Terrence Howard as Djay, a black Memphis street pimp with a white ho Nola (Taryn Manning), whom he pimps to pay for his Caddy and make money to buy studio equipment for his aspiring rapper career; blacks calling each other the N word is okay because they're doing it to each other? Sydney Pollack's The Interpreter (Apr. 8) stars Nicole Kidman as South African interpreter Silvia Broome, whose dual citizenship in the African country of Motobo along with past terrorist ties cause Secret Service agent Tobin Keller (Sean Penn) to mistrust her when she claims she heard talk of an assassination plot against corrupt Matobo pres. Edmond Zuwanie (Earl Cameron); Pollack's last film. Michael Bay's The Island (July 22) (Warner Bros) stars Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson as Lincoln Echo Six and Jordan Two Delta, who discover that they're clones created to harvest for body parts; does $162.9M box office (only $36M in the U.S.) on a $126M budget; in 2007 Bay settles a copyright infringement lawsuit by the makers of "Parts: The Clonus Horror" (1979). Sam Mendes' Jarhead (Nov. 4) (Red Wagon Entertainment) (Neal Street Productions) (Universal Pictures), based on the Anthony Swofford novel about U.S. Marines Anthony Swofford (Jack Gyllenhaal) et al. in the First Gulf War portrays them as hopped-up killing machines parked in t he Saudi Arabian desert with nothing to do except shout "Oorah", play football wearing gas masks, and fight gay tendencies; does $96.9M box office on a $72M budget. Penelope Spheeris' The Kid and I stars Tom Arnold and Eric Gores (1983-), who becomes the first person with cerebral palsy to star in an action movie after he sees "True Lies" then moves in next door to Arnold (being the son of a billionaire doesn't hurt?) - the other Ahnuld doesn't have cerebral palsy? Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven (May 2) (Scott Free Productions) (Studio Babelsberg) (20th Cent. Fox), filmed in Quarzazate, Morroco and filled with super-cool medieval battle scenes stars Orlando Bloom as 12th cent. French knight Balian of Ibelin, who fights cool dressed-in-black chivalrous Ayyubid Muslim sultan Saladan (Ghassan Massoud) for Jerusalem in 1187 while romancing super-hot (those eyes, those eyes) Queen Sibylla (Eva Green) and fighting mean Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas) and crazy-as-a-fox Raynald de Chatillon (Brendan Gleeson) (master of Kerak Castle) with help from marshal Tiberias (Jeremy Irons); Liam Needson, er, Neeson plays Balian's father Godfrey; David Thewlis plays the Hospitaller; Alexander Siddig plays Saladin's Persian lt. Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani; Edward Norton plays leprous Jerusalem king Baldwin IV; Iain Glen plays Richard Lionheart; "What is Jerusalem worth?" (Balian); "Nothing... everything" (Saladin); "Nearly a thousand years later, peace in the Holy Land remains elusive"; does $211.7M box office on a $130M budget. Phil Morrison's Junebug (Aug. 5) (Sony Pictures) stars Embeth Davidtz as newlywed Chicago art dealer Madeleine Johnsten, who travels to N.C. to meet the family of hubby George (Alessandro Nivola) and chase a local painter David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor), getting involved with pregnant Ashley McKenzie (Amy Adams), who wants to name her baby you know what; does $3.4M box office on a $1M budget. Peter Jackson's King Kong (Dec. 13) (Universal Pictures), an updated remake with the latest SFX stars Jack Black as Carl Denham, Adrien Brody as Jack Driscoll, and Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow; the #5 movie of 2005 ($218M U.S., $550.5M worldwide based on a $207M budget). Julian Jarrold's Kinky Boots (Oct. 7) stars Joel Edgerton as Charlie Price, a Northampton shoemaker who begins manufacturing fetish footwear in order to save the failing family business. Martin Campbell's The Legend of Zorro (Oct. 28), a sequel to "The Mask of Zorro" (1998) set in 1850 San Mateo County, Calif. stars Antonio Banderas as Don Alejandro de la Vega, and Catherine Zeta-Jones as his wife Elena, with Rufus Sewell playing the bad guy Jacob McGivens; grosses $142M worldwide. Dylan Avery's Loose Change (Apr. 13) is the first in a series of films (2006, 2007, 2009) claiming that the 9/11 false flag attacks were conducted by the U.S. govt. Catherine Hardwicke's Lords of Dogtown (June 3) (Columbia Pictures) (TriStar Pictures), written by Stacy Peralta is about the Z-Boys (Zephyr Boys) skateboarders (former surfers) in "Dogtown" Venice Beach, Los Angeles, Calif. ("kennel by the sea") in the late 1970s, who turned skateboarding from a safe to an extreme sport and launched a nat. craze; stars John Robinson as Peralta, Emile Hirsch as Jay Adams, Victor Rasuk as Tony Alva, Michael Angarano as rich kid Sid, and Heath Ledger as mgr. Skip Anglund; does $13.4M box office on a $25M budget. Eric Darnell's and Tom McGrath's Madagascar (May 27) is an animated movie about four animals who escape from the New York Central Zoo to you know where, and discover who spoiled they had been; stars the voices of Ben Stiller as Alex, Chris Rock as Marty, David Schwimmer as Melman, and Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria; #9 movie of 2005 ($193M). Luc Jacquet's March of the Penguins (Marche de l'Empereur) (July 22) is a documentary that turns into a surprise hit as the sight of male penguins mothering chicks melts hearts? Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know (Aug. 19) is about falling in love via mind games. Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha (Dec. 23), based on the novel by 47-y.-o. Tenn. white author Arthur Golden becomes the first big budget Hollywood movie with Asian actors in every leading role, starring China's Beijing-born "female Brad Pitt" Ziyi Zhang (1979-), who speed-learns English in New York City over the summer, then gets criticized for playing a Japanese. Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby (Jan. 28), based on the book by F.X. Toole stars Hilary Swank as poor white trash girl Margaret "Maggie" Fitzgerald, who fights to become a boxing champ, only to become a paraplegic and end up asking coach Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) to pull the plug on her, while Dunn's partner, grandfatherly Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris (Morgan) Freeman plays an impotent God; Maggie wears the slogan "Mo Chuisle" (pro. mokh-HUH-shluh) (misspelled as Mo Cuishle) on her robe, which is Gaelic for "My pulse"; Swank's main sparring partner is "the Real Million Dollar Baby" Maureen Carranza Shea (1981-); does $216.7M box office on a $30M budget. Robert Luketic's Monster in Law (May 13) stars Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez; does $155M box office on a $43M budget. Doug Liman's Mr. & Mrs. Smith (June 10) is a comedy about married assassins Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who end up being paid to hit each other; #10 movie of 2005 ($186M). Petter Naess' Mozart and the Whale (Sept. 10) stars Radha Mitchell and Josh Hartnett as Aspberger Syndrome (autism) sufferers. Steven Spielberg's Munich (Dec. 23) (Universal), a remake of the 1986 TV movie "Sword of Gideon" based on George Jonas' 1984 book about the secret Israeli Mossad Operation Wrath of God formed to get even with 11 Black September terrorist for the 1972 Munich Massacre stars Eric Bana as Avner Kaufman, Daniel Craig as Steve, Hanns Zischler as Hans, Mathieu Kassovitz as Robert, Ciaran Hinds as Carl the Cleaner, and Moshe Ivgy as Michael Harari, leader of the team who killed innocent waiter Ahmed Bouchiki in Lillehammer, Norway after mistaking him for Black Sept. chief Ali Hassan Salameh, causing the govt. to go after his team; does $130M box office on a $77M budget. Niki Caro's North Country (Sept. 12) (Participant Productions) (Warner Bros.), based on the 2002 book "Class Action: The Story of Lois Jenson and the Landmark Case That Changed Sexual Harassment Law" by Clara Bingham and Laura Leedy Gansler stars Charlize Theron as Josey Aimes, a N Minn. miner who gets sexually harassed and starts a class action suit over it; does $25.2M box office on a $35M budget. Wayne Kopping's Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West is a shark-music documentary showing the looming threat to Judeo-Christian civilization, while claiming that only 10%-15% of the 1.2B Muslims support terrorism (although far more hate the U.S. and Israel), and that the "good" Muslims are victims too, woo woo woo; the film pisses-off Western leftists, who fear a gen. anti-Islamic backlash in Western countries more than they fear Islamic terrorism? John Madden's Proof (Sept. 5) (Miramax Films), written by Rebecca Miller based on the 2000 play by David Auburn stars Gwyneth Paltrow as 27-y.-o. Catherine, daughter of brilliant but cracked dead mathematician Robert Lllewellyn (Anthony Hopkins); Jake Gyllenhaal plays his ex-student Harold "Hal" Dobbs, who wants to search through her pants, er, his papers for a brilliant mathematical you know what; does $14M box office on a $20M budget. The Proposition (Oct. 6) (FIrst Look Pictures), set in the 1880s Australian Outback stars Guy Pearce as Charlie Burns, Ray Winstone as Capt. Morris Stanley, Emily Watson as martha Stanley, and John Hurt as Jellon Lamb; does $5M box office on a $2M budget. Vikram Bhatt's Raaz (Mar. 12), based on the film "What Lies Beneath" about a haunted house, starring Bipasha Bashu becomes the top Bollywood film of the year. John Turturro's Romance and Cigarettes (Dec. 1) stars James Gandolfini as a Queens steel worker, whose wife Susan Sarandon finds a love letter he wrote to his mistress Kate Winslet. Breck Eisner's Sahara (Apr. 4) (Paramount Pictures), based on the Clive Cussler Dirk Pitts novels stars Matthew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt, and Penelope Cruz as Dr. Eva Rojas on a quest up the Niger River in Mali for the Confed. ironclad CSS Texas, containing the Confed. treasury by following a disease it's spreading; Lambert Wilson plays businessman Yves Massarde; Lennie James plays dictator Brig. Gen. Zateb Kazim; does $119M box office on a $130M budget; too bad, its giant $81M distribution cost incl. bribes to the Moroccan govt. causes it to lose $105M. Liam Lynch's Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic is a long standup comedy routine by the new Lenny Bruce, who uses her race, religion, and sexuality as punch lines?; "Mommy is one of the Chosen People, and daddy believes that Jesus is magic... I hope the Jews did kill Christ; I'd do it again in a second." David Steiman's Santa's Slay (Dec. 20) (Media 8 Entertainment) is a black comedy horror Christmas film starring prof. wrestling star Bill Goldberg as an evil Santa who drives a sleigh pulled by hell-deer and arrives at Hell Township, proceeding to slaughter the pop. based on his Naughty List; "I'm just trying spread a little yuletide fear"; "Christmas is over when I say it's over." Julian Fellowes' Separate Lies (Sept. 16) (Fox Searchlight Pictures), based on the 1951 novel "A Way Through the Wood" by Nigel Balchim and the 1957 play "Waiting for Gillian" stars Tom Wilkinson as wealthy London doctor James Manning, and Emily Watson as his trophy wife Anne, who welcome bad apple William "Bill" Bule (Rupert Everett) into their happy lives; Fellowes' dir. debut. Joss Whedon's Serenity (Aug. 22), based on the 2002 series "Firefly" debuts, bringing in $38.9M on a budget of $39M. Anand Tucker's Shopgirl (Oct. 21), based on the 2000 Steve Martin novel stars Martin and Claire Danes. Alexander Payne's Sideways (Jan. 21), based on the Rex Pickett novel makes stars of both Paul Giamatti and the Santa Ynez Valley wine country of Santa Barbara, Calif., as pinot noir-loving merlot-hating Miles Raymond (Paul) gives Jack (Thomas Haden Church) a wine-tasting lesson at the Sanford Winery, while Jack begins an ill-fated tryst with waitress Maya (Virginia Madsen) at the A.J. Spurs restaurant; "Quaffable... but not transcendent"; "If anyone orders merlot, I'm leaving. I am not drinking any fucking merlot"; "Good, I like nonfiction. There is so much to know about this world. I think you read something somebody just invented, waste of time"; Miles tells Maya that his unpub. novel "evolves or devolves into a kind of Robbe-Grillet mystery, but no real resolution". Zach Niles' and Banker White's Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars (Nov. 9) is a documentary about a group of musicians in a West African refugee camp who fight to survive the horrible civil war. Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale (Jan. 23) (Samual Goldwyn Films) (Sony Pictures) stars Jesse Eisenberg as Walt Berkman, and Owen Kline as Frank Berkman, who have to deal their parents' divorce in the 1980s at the Am. Museum of Nat. History squid-sperm whale diorama; does $11.2M box office on a $1.5M budget. George Lucas' Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (May 15) (2oth Cent. Fox) brings the 6-part saga to an end adequately but not brilliantly, as Canadian teenie actor Christian Hayden is not quite up to the face-acting requirements in the reaction shots?; Scottish actor Ian McDiarmid almost steals the show as Supreme Chancellor Palpatine alias the Evil Emperor; #1 movie of 2005 ($381M U.S. and $848.8M worldwide box office on a $113M budget). Stephen Gaghan's Syriana (Nov. 23), based on the Robert Baer memoir "See No Evil" stars George Clooney (after Harrison Ford turns down the role) as CIA operative Bob Barnes, Matt Damon as young oil analyst Bryan Woodman, and Jeffrey Wright as Washington, D.C. atty. Bennett Holiday, who is investigating a merger between oil cos. Connex and Killen, showing how the Western oil addiction has corrupted U.S. foreign policy; Alexander Siddig plays Prince Nasir Al-Subaai, eldest son of the emir, who his brother Prince Meshal (Akbar Kurtha) plots to assassinate; Pax Syriana is the necessary state of peace between Assyria (from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates, and from the Sinai to the Taurus Mts.) and the U.S. so that it can get oil; grosses $50.8M in North Am. and $93.9M worldwide; "You want to know what the business world thinks of you? We think that 100 years ago you were living out here in tents in the desert chopping each other's heads off, and that's exactly where you're gonna be in another 100." Duncan Tucker's Transamerica (Feb. 10) stars "Desperate Housewives" babe Felicity Huffman as man named Stanley preparing for sex-change surgery, taking female hormones to become Bree, who on the eve of his final castration has to bail his 17-y.-o. son Toby he never knew he had (Kevin Negers) from jail, and finds out he's a hustler who wants to become a porn star - nice way to round out the Hollyweird Year of Dick Almighty? Gavin Hood's Tsotsi (Dec. 23), based on a novel by South African playwright Athol Fugard is set in a Soweto slum near Johannesburg, featuring music by South African artist Zola; wins the best foreign film Oscar. Lasse Hallstrom's An Unfinished Life (Sept. 15) stars Jennifer Lopez as a down-on-her-luck woman with a daughter who moves in with rancher father-in-law Robert Redford, who blames her for the death of his son in a car accident, while taking care of friend Morgan Freeman, who was wounded by a bear, and after he finally forgives the bear, they forgive each other. James Mangold's Walk the Line (Nov. 18) stars Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon in an uncanny channeling of Johnny "tortured soul" Cash and June "fever" Carter, even doing their own singing and geetar playing, and featuring the outdated hetero lifestyle; it brings in $116.3M (#5). Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds (June 29) (Amblin Entertainment) (Paramount Pictures), a remake of the 1953 Byron Haskin flick stars Tom Cruise as Ray Ferrier, and Dakota Fanning as his daughter Rachel, using images from the 9/11 exodus of New Yorkers from Lower Manhattan; "The images that stand out most in my mind are of everybody from Manhattan crossing the George Washington Bridge in the shadow of 9/11. It was a searing image I haven't been able to get out of my head" (Spielberg); does $591.7M box office on a $132M budget. Gore Verbinski's The Weather Man (Oct. 28) stars Nicolas Cage as Chicago weatherman David Spritz, whom everbody around him sees as a failure, incl. his Pulitzer Prize-winning writer dad Robert (Michael Caine) and ex-wife Noreen (Hope Davis); a box office flop. David Dobkin's Wedding Crashers (July 15) (New Line Cinema) stars Owen Wilson, as John Beckwith and Vince Vaughn as Jeremy Grey, bachelor divorce mediators in Washington, D.C. who you know what to bed women; co-stars Christopher Walken as U.S. treasury secy. William Cleary Jane Seymour as his wife Kathleen "Kitty Kat" Cleary, Rachel McAdams and Isla Fisher as his daughters Claire and Gloria, and Bradley Cooper as Claire's cheating boyfriend Sack Lodge; #6 movie of 2005 ($209M U.S. and $285.2M worldwide box office on a $40M budget). Atom Egoyan's Where the Truth Lies (Oct. 7), based on the novel by Rupert ("Pina Colada Song") Holmes features a 3-way sex scene between Kevin Bacon, Rachel Blanchard, and Colin Firth (dicks are for sharing?); "What happened to Maureen O'Flaherty?" Art: The 40-ft.-high Blue Bear Statue, designed by Lawrence Argent is built on the E side of the Colo. Convention Center in Denver, Colo.; it is made of polymer concrete and weighs 5 tons, dwarfing the 26-ft. 1954 Smokey Bear Statue in International Falls, Minn. Banksy, Wall and Piece. Damien Hirst (1965-), The Wrath of God; another shark in formaldehyde; The Inescapable Truth; human skull and dove in formaldehyde; The Sacred Heart of Jesus; perspex, bull's heart et al. in formaldehyde; Faithless; butterflies on canvas with glossy house paint; The Hat Makes de Man (painted bronze). Shanell Pap, Crocheted Human; anatomically correct. On Aug. 9 Ruan, a human fetus head grafted onto the body of a bird is withdrawn from a Swiss museum after a visitor complains; Chinese artist Xiao Yu says he bought the head in 1990 for a few bucks and that it was a female specimen from the 1960s. Emmi Whitehorse (1957-), Salmonberry B. Michael Whiting, 2005 Boogie. Kehinde Wiley (1977-), Napoleon Leading the Army Over the Alps; er, apes Jacques-Louis David's 1801 equestrian portrait substituting a young black man. Plays: Alan Ayckbourn (1939-), Improbable Fiction (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough) (May 31). Patrick Barlow (1947-), The 39 Steps (West Yorkshire Playhouse) (June 17) (Tricycle Theatre, London) (Aug. 10, 2006) (Criterion Theatre, West End, London) (Sept. 14, 2006) (3,731 perf.) (Am. Airlines Theatre, New York) (Jan. 15, 2008) (Cort Theatre, New York) (Apr. 29, 2008) (Helen Hayes Theatre, New York) (Jan. 21, 2009); based on the 1915 John Buchan novel and the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film; a 4-actor cast. George Barthel, Through a Naked Lens (Wings Theater, New York); about Hollywood star Ramon Navarro and his publicist (gay bud?) Herbert Howe. Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, Pete and Dud: Come Again (Edinburgh) (Aug.). Howard Brenton (1942-), Paul (Nat. Theatre, London) (Sept. 30); St. Paul. Amelia Bullmore, Mammals (Bush Theatre, London) (Apr. 6). Rebecca Clarke, Unspoken; how she copes with a severely disabled brother. Eric Coble, The Dead Guy. Simon Mendes Da Costa, Losing Louis (Hampstead Theatre, London) (Jan. 26). Chris D'Arienzo, Rock of Ages (musical) (King King, Los Angeles) (July 27) (New World Stages, New York) (Oct. 16, 2008) (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, New York) (Apr. 7, 2009) (Helen Hayes Theatre, New York) (Mar. 24, 2011) (2,328 perf.); about 1980s glam metal bands incl. Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Europe, Steve Perry, Poison, Styx, and Twisted Sister. Don DeLillo (1936-), Love-Lies-Bleeding (Fulton St. Theater, Boise) (May 2); vegetating artist Alex Macklin, his son Sean, and wives Toinette and Lia. Will Eno, Thom Pain (Based on Nothing) (New York) (Feb. 1). William Finn (1952-), Rachel Sheinkin, and Jay Reiss, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (musical) (Second Stage Theatre, New York) (Feb. 7) (Circle in the Square Theatre, New York) (Apr. 15) (1,136 perf.); dir. by James Lapine; choreography by Dan Knechtges; four audiences members are invited on stage to compete along with the six young actors. Brian Friel (1929-), The Home Place (Gate Theatre, Dublin) (Feb. 1). Jeremy Gable (1982-), Marat.Sade; Weapons of Ass Destruction. Ray Galton and John Antrobus, Steptoe and Son in Murder at Oil Drum Lane; their deaths. Bob Gaudio (1942-), Bob Crewe (1930-2014), Marshall Brickman (1939-), and Rick Elice (1956-), The Jersey Boys (musical) (Nov. 6) (August Wilson Theater, New York) (4,642 perf.) (Prince Edward Theatre, West End, London) (Feb. 2008) (Piccadilly Theatre, West End, London) (Mar. 15, 2014) (3,657 perf.); the story of Frankie Valli (1934-) and the Four Seasons. Benjamin T. George, True Blue (Riant Theater, New York) (Aug.); an American (Will) and an Iraqi family deal with the horrors of war. Kathie Lee Gifford (1953-), David Pomeranz (1951-), and David Friedman (1950-), Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee Semple McPherson (musical) (White Plains Performing Arts Center) (Oct.) (Neil Simon Theatre, New York) (Nov. 15, 2012) (29 perf.); stars Carolee Carmello; Hurricane Sandy is blamed for the early closing. Richard Greenberg, A Naked Girl on the Appian Way (South Coast Repertory, Costa Mesa, Calif.) (Apr. 1). Stephen Adly Guirgis, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Public Theater, New York) (Mar. 2); dir. by Philip Seymour Hoffman. David Harrower, Blackbird. Darcy Hogan, The Land Southward (Hunger Artists Theatre, Fullerton, Calif.) (Apr.); U.S. nuclear testing in the 1950s. Hugh Hughes, Floating; the Isle of Anglesey breaks off from Wales and floats around the world. Eric Idle (1943-), Neil Innes (1944-), and John Du Prez (1946-), Monty Python's Spamalot (musical) (Shubert Theatre, Chicago) (Jan. 9) (Shubert Theatre, New York) (Mar. 17) (1,575 perf.); seen by 2M people, grossing $175M; based on the 1975 film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", dir. by Mike Nichols. Elton John (1947-) and Lee Hall (1966-), Billy Elliot the Music (musical) (Victoria Palace Theatre, West End, London (May 11) (4,566 perf.) (Imperial Theatre, New York) (Oct. 1, 2008); based on the 2000 film about a boxer who becomes a ballet dancer during the U.K. miner's strike of 1984-5 in County Durham, NE England. Rolin Jones, The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow (David Mamet's Atlantic Theatre Co.); agoraphobic OCD-suffering Jennifer Marcus reengineers obsolete missile components for the U.S. Army from her bedroom, then devises a new form of human contact to find her family in China. David Knijnenburg, Hitchcock & Herrmann; Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann. Neil LaBute, Some Girl(s) (Lucille Lortel Theater, New York); stars Fran Drescher, Judy Reyes, Brooke Smith, Maura Tierney, and Eric McCormack; This Is How It Goes (Public Theater, New York) (Mar. 27); an interracial love triangle between Belinda (Amanda Peet), Cody (Jeffrey Wright), and Man (Ben Stiller). Carlos Lacamara, Nowhere on the Border. James Lapine (1949-), Fran's Bed. David Lindsay-Abaire, Rabbit Hole (Pulitzer Prize). Matthew Lombardo, Tea at Five; stars Kate Mulgrew as Katharine Hepburn. Ken Ludwig, Be My Baby (Alley Theatre, Houston); stars Hal Holbrook and Dixie Carter. Ann-Marie MacDonald, Belle Moral. David Mamet, Romance (Atlantic Theater, New York). Melanie Marnich, Cradle of Man. Elaine May, After the Night and the Music; title from the Howard Dietz song "You and the Night and the Music". Frank McGuinness (1953-), Speaking Like Magpies (Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon). Allison Moore, Hazzard County. Peter Morris, Guardians (Edinburgh). Chloe Moss, How Live is Spelt (Bush Theatre, London). Tommy Murphy, Strangers in Between (Griffin Theatre, Sydney) (Feb.). Richard Norton-Taylor, Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry (Tricycle Theatre, London). Louis Nowra (1950-), The Marvellous Boy (Sydney). Philip Ridley, Mercury Fur (Menier Chocolate Factory, London). John Patrick Shanley (1950-), Defiance (Manhattan Theatre Club); stars Stephen Lang as a col. who promotes black officer Chris Bauer solely based on race; Doubt: a Parable (Manhattan Theatre Club, New York) (Nov. 23) (525 perf.) (Pulitzer Prize); Father Flynn's suspected sexual conduct with Donald Muller (school's first black student) is questioned in St. Nicholas Church School in Bronx, N.Y. in fall 1964 by Sister Aloysius and Sister James, and the quality of doubt becomes a more positive force than faith; a battle between pre and post Vatican II views?; "What do you do when you're not sure?" (Flynn). Gerald Sibleyras, Heroes: Le Vent des Peupliers; tr. by Tom Stoppard. Simon Stephens (1971-), On the Shore of the Wide World (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester) (Apr. 18); title taken from the John Keats poem "When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be". Caridad Svich, Luna Park (San Francisco). Stephen Temperley, Souvenir; socialite Florence Foster Jenkins and pianist Cosme McMoon in 1964. Vern Thiessen, Shakespeare's Will (Edmonton). Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006), Third (last play) (Lincoln Center, New York) (Sept. 29). Michael Weller (1942-), Approaching Moomtaj. David Williamson (1942-), Influence (Sydney). August Wilson (1945-2005), Radio Golf (Yale Repertore Theatre); last in the 10-part Pittsburgh Cycle. Robert Wilson (1941-), Jean de La Fontain's The Fables; Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Vincent Woods, A Cry from Heaven. Poetry: Elizabeth Alexander (1962-), American Sublime. Archie Randolph Ammons (1926-2001), Bosh and Flapdoodle: Poems. Frank Bidart (1939-), Star Dust. Robert Bly (1926-), My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy; The Urge to Travel Long Distances. Billy Collins (1941-) (ed.), 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day; The Trouble with Poetry. Mark Doty (1944-), School of the Arts. Thomas Sayers Ellis, The Maverick Room. Jack Gilbert, Refusing Heaven. Jorie Graham (1950-), Overlord. Jim Harrison (1937-), Livingston Suite. Ted Kooser (1939-), Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985; The Poetry Home Repair Manual: Practical Advice for Beginning Poets. Maxine Kumin (1925-), Jack and Other New Poems. W.S. Merwin (1927-), Migration: New and Selected Poems; Present Company. Mary Oliver (1935-), New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2. Pattiann Rogers (1940-), Fireweed: Selected Poems, Revised and Expanded. Michael Ryan (1946-), New and Selected Poems. Martin Seymour-Smith (1928-98), Collected Poems (posth.). Charles Simic (1938-), My Noiseless Entourage. Dave Smith (1942-), Little Boats, Unsalvaged: Poems, 1992-2004. Gerald Stern (1925-), Everything Is Burning. Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012), Colon. David Wagoner (1926-), Good Morning and GoodNight. Charles Wright (1935-), The Wrong End of the Rainbow. Kevin Young, Black Maria; a noir in verse. Novels: A year in which historical fiction sells better than other kinds, brought on by 9/11 and Millennium Fever? Catherine Aird (1930-), A Hole in One. Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan, The Underminer. Wendy Alec, The Fall of Lucifer (Oct.). Isabel Allende (1942-), Forest of the Pygmies; Zorro. Rudolfo Anaya, Serafina's Stories. Pam Anderson (1967-), Star; "What happens when the A-list meets a D-cup"; she goes on to star in the comedy TV series Stacked about a blonde rock & roll bimbo with brains to spare who works in a lit. bookstore. Robert Anderson, Little Fugue (first novel); about Sylvia Plath (1932-63) and her hubby Ted Hughes (1930-98). Neal Asher (1961-), Cowl. Margaret Atwood (1939-), The Penelopiad; Homer's Odyssey from the female POV, dissing the injustice of males. Gilad Atzmon (1963-), My One and Only Love. Paul Benjamin Auster (1947-), The Brooklyn Follies. Tash Aw (1971-), The Harmony Silk Factory (first novel); textile magnate Johnny Lim, his wife Snow Soong, and son Jasper in 1940s British-ruled Malaysia. Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot; Sophie Applebaum. John Banville (1945-), The Sea; aging dilettante art historian Max Morden; author likes the words "cinereal" and "flocculent". Julian Barnes (1946-), Arthur & George. Nevada Barr, Hard Truth. Sebastian Barry, A Long Long Way. John Barth (1930-), Where Three Roads Meet. Nancy Baxter, Norma Ever After (first novel); Norma Dale. Barrington J. Bayley (1937-2008), The Sinners of Erspia; The Great Hydration. Greg Bear (1951-), Quantico; about FBI agents trying to prevent a bioterrorist attack. Frederic Beigbeder, Windows on the World (tr. Frank Wynne). Ann Beattie (1947-), Follies: New Stories (short stories). Madison Smartt Bell, The Stone That the Builder Refused; hate hate Haiti. Aimee Bender, Willful Creatures (short stories). Steve Berry (1955-), The Third Secret. Tom Bissell, God Lives in St. Petersburg. Baxter Black, Hey Cowgirl, Need a Ride? Alice Blanchard, Life Sentences. M.H. Bonham, Prophecy Swords. Marshall Boswell, Alternative Atlanta (first novel). Robert Olen Butler (1945-), Mots de Tete (Severance) (short stories). T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948-), Tooth Claw and Other Stories; The Human Fly (short stories). Ray Bradbury (1920-), Somewhere a Band Is Playing; "I wrote it for Katherine Hepburn back around 1962... But she got tired of waiting, grew old and died." Gayle Brandeis, The Book of Dead Birds (first novel). Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell, Fan-Tan (posth.) (Sept.); pirate Anatole "Annie" Doultry and gangster Madame Lai Choi San in 1927 Hong Kong. Kathy Brandt, Dangerous Depths: An Underwater Investigation; detective Hannah Simmons. Anita Brookner (1928-), Leaving Home. Geraldine Brooks (1955-), March (Pulitzer Prize). Marshall Browne, Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn; thriller featuring the game of Go. Ken Bruen, Vixen. Edna Buchanan, Shadows. Frederick Buechner (1926-), The Christmas Tide. John Burdett, Bangkok Tattoo. James Lee Burke (1936-), Crusader's Cross; Dave Robicheaux and his half-brother Jimmie in 1958. Bebe Moore Campbell, 72 Hour Hold; Keri and her 18-y.-o. mentally-ill daughter. Philip Caputo (1941-), Acts of Faith; Douglas Braithwaite, Fitzhugh Martin, Tara Whitcomb, Michael Goraende, Quinette Hardin; Graham Greene's "The Quiet American" set in Sudan? Orson Scott Card (1951-), Magic Street. Caleb Carr, The Italian Secretary: A Further Adventure of Sherlock Holmes. Jonathan Carroll, Glass Soup. Lee Child (1954-), One Shot; Jack Reacher #9; filmed in 2012 strring Tom Cruise. Sandra Cisneros, Caramelo; Lala Reyes, Aunty Light-Skin, "Uncle Old", "Awful Grandmother". Mary Higgins Clark (1927-), No Place Like Home; Liza Barton returns to her childhood home; Dancing in the Dark; TV journalist Diane Mayfield in Ocean Grove, N.J. Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, Sunstorm (A Time Odyssey). Clare Clark, The Great Stink (first novel); the 1855 London heat wave and how it become a very superstitious handwriting on the wall. Richard Alan Clarke (1950-), The Scorpion's Gate (Oct. 25) (first novel); a thriller billed as the sequel to "Against All Enemies". Stephen Clarke, A Year in the Merde. Rita Cleary, Calling the Wind: A Lewis & Clark Story. Chris Cleave, Incendiary (first novel). Margaret Coel, Eye of the Wolf; Father John O'Malley and Vickey Holden. Paul Coelho (1947-), The Zahir; Revived Paths. J.M. Coetzee (1940-), Slow Man; a misanthropic photographer loses his leg in an accident and is saved by a married Croat woman; "Someone needs to rescue J.M. Coetzee from Elizabeth Costello" (John Freeman). Susann Cokal, Breath and Bones. Marjorie Kowalski Cole, Correcting the Landscape. Larry Collins (1929-2005) and Dominique Lapierre (1931-), Is New York Burning? (New-York Brule-t-il?); a terrorist attack on New York City. Michael Connelly, The Closers; The Lincoln Lawyer; Mickey Haller. Robin Cook (1940-), Marker. Robert Coover (1932-), A Child Again. Bernard Cornwell, The Last Kingdom; Vikings vs. Britons for control of 9th-10th cent. England. Ann Howard Creel, Under a Stand Still Moon; the Anasazis. Cheryl Howard Crew (wife of Ron Howard), In the Face of Jinn; Christine and Elizabeth Shepherd in India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Justin Cronin, The Summer Guest. John Crowley (1942-), Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land. James Crumley, The Right Madness; C.W. Sughrue of Meriwether, Montana. Michael Crummey (1965-), The Wreckage. Mitch Cullin, A Slight Trick of the Mind. Michael Cunningham (1952-), Specimen Days. John M. Daniel, The Poet's Funeral. Rana Dasgupta, Tokyo Cancelled (first novel); a modern mini-Decameron. Craig Davidson, Rust and Bone (short stories). Katherine Davies, The Madness of Love (first novel). Claire Davis, Season of the Snake. Nelson DeMille, Night Fall. Kate DiCamillo, Mercy Watson to the Rescue. E.L. Doctorow (1931-), The March; Sherman's 1864 March to the Sea; how the northward exodus of slaves after the war begins makes the Emancipation Proclamation a rhetorical default; sells 100K copies by the end of the year. Christina Dodd, Close to You; TV reporter Kate Montgomery and bodyguard Teague Ramos. John Dunning, The Sign of the Book. Umberto Eco (tr. Geoffrey Brock), The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana: An Illustrated Novel; the lost memory of rare book dealer Yambo. David Harris Ebenbach, Between Camelots (short stories). George Alec Effinger (1947-2002), Live! From Planet Earth (short stories). Chris Elliott, The Shroud of the Thwacker. Bret Easton Ellis (1964-), Lunar Park; about fictional Gen-X enfante terrible writer Brad Easton Ellis. Louise Erdrich (1954-), The Painted Drum. Carrolly Erickson, The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette (first novel). Andreas Eschbach, The Carpet Makers. Loren D. Estelman, The ndertaker's Wife; Wild Bill Hickock as a gun-toting Oscar Wilde? Nicholas Evans, The Divide. Richard Paul Evans, The Sunflower. Jim Fergus, The Wild Girl: The Notebooks of Ned Giles, 1932 Signed 1st Edition. George Fetherling (1949-), Jericho. Jasper Fforde, The Big Over Easy - would fit as a new name for New Orleans? Karen Fisher, A Sudden Country; James MacLaren in the 1847 Oregon migration. Thomas Fleming, The Secret Trial of Robert E. Lee; asst. secy. of war of Charles A. Dana puts Lee on trial in Arlington? Vince Flynn, Consent to Kill; Mitch Rapp of the CIA. Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; 9-y.-o. Oskar Schell loses his dad to 9/11, and finds God, er, his grandfather? Mick Foley (1965-), Scooter. Alan Dean Foster, The Light-Years Beneath My Feet. Margaret Forster (1938-), Is There Anything You Want? Henry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit. Marilyn French (1929-2009), The Love Children. Lisa Fugard, Skinner's Drift (first novel). Neil Gaiman (1960-), Anansi Boys; Fat Charlie Nancy's dad is an Anansi, one of the trickster gods who first brought fiction to man; thus, Charlie isn't even fat? Mark Gatiss, The Vesuvius Club. Anne Giardini, The Sad Truth About Happiness (first novel). Barry Gifford (1946-), Do the Blind Dream? Micaela Gilchrist, The Fiercer Heart. Lisa Glatt, The Apple's Bruise (short stories); chick-lit with attitude?; "Let's give it a whirl - I'm not a carnival ride"; "Let's just talk. I want to hear everything you have to say"; the answer to Freud? Gail Godwin (1937-), Queen of the Underworld. Myla Goldberg, Wickett's Remedy; about Southie girl Lydie Kilkenny in the early 1900s, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, and how a stolen tonic recipe is used to make a popular soda pop. Nadine Gordimer (1923-), Get a Life; based on the death of her hubby Reinhold Cassirer. Mary Catherine Gordon (1949-), Pearl. Maya Gold and Louise Fitzhugh (1928-74), Harriet the Spy, Double Agent. Steven Gould, Reflex. Thomas Christopher Greene, I'll Never Be Gone. Joanne Greenberg, Appearances; Denver ski atty. Robert Greer, Resurrecting Langston Blue; black bail bondsman C.J. Floyd tears up the streets of Denver in his 2-toned 1957 Chevy Bel Air. Philippa Gregory, The Constant Princess; was Henry VIII's bride Katherine of Aragon really a virgin despite her marriage to his late brother Arthur? W.E.B. Griffin, By Order of the President. Gene Guerin, Cottonwood Saints. Jim Harrison (1937-), The Summer He Didn't Die. Lou Harry and Eric Pfeffinger, The High-Impact Infidelity Diet. John Haskell, American Purgatorio (first novel). Joanne Harris, Gentlemen and Players; St. Oswald's school and its Mole? Jim Harrison (1937-), The Summer He Didn't Die (3 novellas). John Twelve Hawks, The traveller (first novel); "Harlequins protect travellers. That's all you need to know." Mo Hayder, The Devil of Nanking. Mark Helprin (1947-), Freddy and Fredericka. Carl Hiaasen (1953-), Flush. Homer Hickam, The Ambassador's Son; #2 in Josh Thurlow trilogy. Robert Hicks, The Widow of the South (first novel); based on the true story of Carrie Winder McGavock (1829-1905) of Franklin, Tenn.; sells 100K copies by the end of the year, neck-in-neck with Doctorow. Reginald Hill, The Stranger House. Russell Hoban (1925-), Come Dance with Me. Alice Hoffman (1952-), The Ice Queen. Rupert Holmes, Swing. Nick Hornby (1957-), A Long Way Down; a has-been rocker delivers pizzas in North London and plans suicide on the last day of 1999 (Serge Bielanko of Marah?); hyperactive lit.? Michel Houellebecq (1958-), The Possibility of an Island (La Possibilite d'une Ile). Heather E. Howard, Chore Whore: Adventures of a Personal Assistant (first novel). Jeff Hull, Pale Morning Done (first novel); Marshall Tate and the Fly X Ranch. Greg Iles, Turning Angel; Penn Cage, ex-prosecutor from Tex. returns. John Irving (1942-), Until I Find You; Jack Burns, son of wandering tattoo artist Alice, who searches for Jack's father William, a church organist and ink junkie, and enrolls him in all-girls school St. Hilda, where she has a lez affair with divorced mother Leslie? Kazuo Ishiguro (1954-), Never Let Me Go; Hailsham English private school students Kathy H., Tommy D., and Ruth share a big secret, causing them to be treated like pariahs, but don't figure it out until they grow up and find that they were bred by scientists to use their vital organs. P.D. James (1920-), The Lighthouse; Adam Dalgleish #13; murders on Combe Island off the Cornish coast. Arthur Japin, In Lucia's Eyes; Casanova's first love. Ha Jin (1956-), War Trash. Graham Joyce (1954-), The Limits of Enchantment. Juris Jurjevics, The Trudeau Vector (first novel) (Aug. 17); hubby of Laurie Colwin (1944-92) and ed. of Soho Press; biohazard at Arctic Research Station Trudeau. Ismail Kadare (1936-), The Successor. A.L. Kennedy, Paradise; Hanna Luckraft and Irish whiskey. Sue Monk Kidd (1948-), The Mermaid Chair; Jessie Sullivan. Owen King, We're All in This Together (first novel). Stephen King (1947-), The Dark Tower VII; The Colorado Kid; Stephanie McCann of the "Weekly Islander" - he's always going to be outside the box? Walter Kirn, Mission to America. Dean Koontz (1945-), Forever Odd; Odd Thomas and Pico Mundo, Calif. revisited; Velocity; bartender Billy Wiles and his terrible choice. Elizabeth Kostova (1964-), The Historian (first novel); is Vlad III Dracula the Impaler (1431-71) still alive?; Little, Brown & Co. pays $2M for it, and it sells 500K copies by Dec. 2005; parallel account of historian Paul in the 1950s, his daughter in 1972-3, and his mentor Bartholomew Rossi in 1930. William Kotzwinkle, The Amphora Project. Nicole Krauss (1974-), The History of Love (May 2); internat. bestseller about 80-y.-o. Jewish Holocaust survivor Leo Gurkey, young Alma Singer and a lost ms. Carson Kresley (b. 1969), You're Different and That's Super (children's book). Pascal Laine (1942-), Le Mystere de la Tour Eiffel. Laila Lalami, Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits (first novel); illegal immigrants from Morocco to Spain. Lorna Landvik, Oh My Stars. Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Sightseeing (first novel); sights and sounds of Thailand. Stieg Larsson (1954-2004), The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; first in the worldwide bestselling (65M copies) Millennium Trilogy (2005, 2006, 2007); about rape victim Lisbeth Salander, based on a real 15-y.-o. girl he saw gang-raped but failed to help, haunting him for life; investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist; in 2010 it becomes the first ebook with 1M Kindle downloads. Jose Latour, Comrades in Miami. Michael Lavigne, Not Me (first novel). Jim Lehrer, The Franklin Affair. Maria T. Lennon, Making It Up As I Go Along. Elmore Leonard (1925-2013), The Hot Kid. Jonathan Lethem (1964-), Thirsty People; The Disappointment Artist. Kathy Lette, A Stitch in Time. Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams; Einstein's mind in his big year 5-4-3-2-Ein 1905. Jeff Lindsay, Dearly Devoted Dexter; Dexter Morgan and his Dark Passenger. Penelope Lively (1933-), Making It Up. Jeff Long, The Wall. Jim Lynch, The Highest Tide (first novel); 13-y.-o. old soul Miles O'Malley. Stuart MacBride, Cold Granite (first novel). Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), The Seventh Heaven. David Maine, Fallen. Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1927-2014), Memories of My Melancholy Whores. Russell Martin, The Sorrow of Archaeology. David Marusek, Counting Heads (first novel). Bobbie Ann Mason (1940-), An Atomic Romance. Francine Matthews, Blown. Ed McBain (1926-2005), Fiddlers; 55th and last in the 87th Precinct Series set in the New York City clone of Isola; pub. 2 mo. after McBain's death; the Deaf Man is still out there somewhere, and Steve Carella, Bert Kling, and Fat Ollie Weeks. Richard McCann (1949-), Mother of Sorrows; "unbearably beautiful" (Michael Cunningham). Cormac McCarthy (1933-), No Country for Old Men; title comes from the poem Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats; Vietnam vet Llewelyn Moss discovers a cache of $2M drug money in big bad Tex. near the Mexican border, causing its owners to send killer Anton Chigurh (the next Hannibal Lecter?); filmed in 2007. Sharyn McCrumb, St. Dale; stock car driver Harley Claymore on a tour of Southern speedways which turns into a pilgrimage of Dale Earnhardt sites. Ian McEwan (1948-), Saturday; English neurosurgeon Henry Perowne on Feb. 15, 2003 during a London protest against the invasion of Iraq; "Everyone agrees, airliners look different in the sky these days, predatory or doomed." Kevin McIlvoy, The Complete History of New Mexico (short stories). Jay McInerney (1955-), The Good Life; sequel to "Brightness Falls". Elizabeth McKenzie, Stop That Girl (first novel); about Ann. Ian R. McLeod, The House of Storms. Terry McMillan (1951-), The Interruption of Everything. Catriona McPherson, After the Armistice Ball. Larry McMurtry (1936-), Oh What a Slaughter!; Loop Group; Maggie and Connie. Cheryl Mendelson, Love, Work, Children. Stephenie Meyer (1973-), Twilight (Oct.) (first novel); original title "Forks"; bestseller; first of a bestselling trilogy about high school girl Isabella "Bella" Swan, who moves from Phoenix, Ariz., to Forks, Wash. and falls in love with vampire Edward Cullen; discovered in a slush pile at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, launching her career as the next J.K. Rowling, going on to sell 100M+ copies. Stanley Middleton (1919-2009), Sterner Stuff. Adrienne Miller, The Coast of Akron (first novel); Merit Haven Ash, daughter of world-famous painter Lowell and wife Jenny. Sue Miller (1943-), Lost in the Forest. Kyle Mills, Fade; Am.-Arab Salam al-Fayed of the U.S. Navy Seals. Denise Mina, Field of Blood. Jacquelyn Mitchard, The Breakdown Lane. Rick Moody (1961-), The Diviners. Richard K. Morgan (1965-), Woken Furies. David Morrell (1943-), Creepers. Mary McGarry Morris (1943-), The Lost Mother; a 12-y.-o. boy tells how his mother leaves the family during the Great Depression. Nicholas Mosley (1923-), Look at the Dark. Walter Mosley (1952-), Cinnamon Kiss; Easy Rawlins #10; Philomena "Cinnamon" Cargill in the Summer of Love. Alice Munro (1931-), Runaway (short stories); high-brow chick-lit? Haruki Murakami (1949-), Mysteries of Tokyo (short stories). Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), Cloud, Castle, Lake (short stories) (posth.). David Nicholls, The Understudy. Galt Niederhoffer, A Taxonomy of Barnacles (first novel); self-made N.Y. pantyhose prince and Darwin fan Barry Barnacle dies, and his six daughters Benita, Beryl, Belinda, Beth, Bridget, and Bell fight for his inheritance; the last two have love affairs with next-door twins Billy and Blaine Finch. Audrey Niffenegger, The Three Incestuous Sisters: An Illustrated Novel. Joyce Carol Oates (1938-), Missing Mom. Redmond O'Hanlon, Trawler. Stewart O'Nan (1961-), The Good Wife. Chuck Palahniuk (1962-), Haunted (short stories). Sara Paretsky (1947-), Fire Sale; V.I. Warshawski #12. Paul Park (1954-), A Princess of Roumania. Robert Brown Parker (1932-2010), Appaloosa (June 6); Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch #1; Cold Service; Spenser #32; School Days; Spenser #33. James Patterson (1947-), Mary, Mary; Patterson goes for 25 years with less than one book a year, then joins with co-authors and puts out three in 2001, 2002, and 2003, then four in 2004, and five in 2005. James Patterson (1947-) and Andrew Gross, Lifeguard; Ned Kelley, 19th cent. Australian outlaw not. Jack Pendarvis, The Mysterious Secret of the Valuable Treasure. Elliot Perlman (1964-), Seven Types of Ambiguity; The Reasons I Won't Be Coming (short stories). Jodi Picoult (1966-), Vanishing Acts. Marge Piercy (1936-), Sex Wars. Peter Pouncey (1937-), Rules for Old Men Waiting. Reynolds Price (1933-), The Good Priest's Son (June); two weeks in the life of Mabry Kincaid and 9/11. Francine Prose (1947-), A Changed Man; neo-Nazi skinhead Vincent Nolan walks into the World Brotherhood Watch, a human rights org. headed by Auschwitz survivor Meyer Maslow. E. Annie Proulx, Larry McMurtry (1936-), and Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain: Secret in the Mountain. Eric Puchner, Music Through the Floor (short stories). Robert J. Randisi (ed.), Greatest Hits: Original Stories of Hitmen, Hired Guns, and Private Eyes; 15 crime stories. Holiday Reinhorn, Big Cats (short stories). Ruth Rendell (Barbara Vine), 13 Steps Down. Anne Rice (1941-), Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt; the boyhood of Christ; written after reconverting to Roman Catholicism in 1998 - but keeping the money? Stella Rimington, At Risk. David L. Robbins, Liberation Road. Kim Stanley Robinson (1952-), Fifty Degrees Below; Science in the Capital #2. Roxana Robinson, A Perfect Stranger (short stories). Luis J. Rodriguez, Music of the Mill; an L.A. steel mill. Joel C. Rosenberg (1967-), The Ezekiel Option (first novel). J.K. Rowling (1965-), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (12:01 a.m. on July 16); Harry's 6th year at Hogwarts; first printing is 10.8M copies, for a total of 210M series books sold worldwide; Amazon.com rakes in more sales for this one title than in its entire first year of operation; the char. Demelza Robins is named after the Demelza House Children's Hospice for terminally-ill kids, a favorite of Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe. S.J. Rozan, Absent Friends. Gwyn Hyman Rubio, The Woodsman's Daughter; Dahlia Miller in 19th cent. S Ga. Sheldon Rusch, For Edgar (first novel); serial murders with a Poe theme. Salman Rushdie (1947-), Shalimar the Clown; former U.S. ambassador to India Max Ophuls is butchered by his Kashmiri Muslim driver Norman Sher Noman, the title char. Mary Doria Russell, A Thread of Grace. James Salter (1925-), Last Night (short stories). Boualem Sansal (1949-), Harraga. Shamim Sarif, Despite the Falling Snow. James Salter (1925-), Last Night (short stories). Jose Saramago (1922-2010), Don Giovanni ou o Dissoluto Absolvido; Death with Interruptions (As Intermitencias da Morte). Robert James Sawyer (1960-), Mindscan (Mar. 10); Jake Sullivan. John Scalzi (1969-), Old Man's War (first novel). Bill Scheft, Time Won't Let Me; no connection with the 1966 Outsiders hit? Karl Schroeder (1962-), Lady of Mazes; Crisis in Zefra. Lynne Sharon Schwartz, The Writing on the Wall (May). Kamila Shamsie, Broken Verses; Pakistani cosmopolitan youth. James Sheehan, The Mayor of Lexington Ave (first novel); low-IQ Bass Creek, Fla. store clerk Rudy is framed for murdering Lucy Ochoa by police sgt. Wesley Brume, and Miami atty. Jack Tobin comes to the rescue. Lucius Shepard, Eternity and Other Stories. Carol Shields (1935-2003), Carol Shields: Collected Stories (posth.). Jennie Shortridge, Eating Heaven (first novel). Anita Shreve (1946-), A Wedding in December (Oct. 10); Bill and Bridget. Jenefer Shute, User I.D. (Aug. 10); 38-y.-o. ESL instructor Vera de Sica becomes a victim of identity theft. Anne Rivers Siddons (1936-), Sweetwater Creek (Aug. 9); Emily Parmeter. Alan Sillitoe (1928-2010), A Man of His Time (last novel) (Jan. 17); blacksmith Ernest Burton. Dan Simmons (1948-), Olympos (June 25); sequel to "Ilium". Curtis Sittenfield (1976-), Prep (first novel); Lee, Cross and Aspeth at a New England boarding school. Jane Smiley (1949-), Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel. Alexander McCall Smith, Portuguese Irregular Verbs (Jan.); The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs (Jan.); At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances (Jan.); In the Company of Cheerful Ladies (Apr.) (sixth book in the adventures of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, founded by Mma Ramotswe in Botswana); 44 Scotland Street (June). Zadie Smith (1975-), On Beauty; inspired by E.M. Forster's "Howards End"; a mixed-race family British-Am. family in the U.S. Lemony Snicket (1970-), The Penultimate Peril (Oct. 18); 12th book about the Baudelaire orphans. Christopher Sorrentino (1963-), Trance; Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006), Lunar Follies. Patty Hearst. Gary Soto (1952-), The Afterlife; sequel to "Buried Oniones" (2003). Nicholas Sparks (1965-), True Believer (Apr.); At First Sight (Oct.). Norman Spinrad (1940-), Mexica. Danielle Steel (1947-), Impossible; Miracle; Toxic Bachelors. Charles Stross (1964-), Accelerando; stories about the Singularity. Vikas Swarup (1963-), Q&A (first novel); bestseller about a poor waiter in Mumbai who becomes the top quiz show winner in Indian history. Ginger Strand, Flight (first novel). Duane Swierczynski (1972-), Secret Dead Men (first novel); The Wheel Man. Amy Tan (1952-), Saving Fish From Drowning; San Fran art maven Bibi Chen is mysteriously murdered; the way Buddhists fish is to scoop them out of the water to guess what, and unfortunately they don't recover. Whitney Terrell, The King of Kings County; Alton Acheson as narrated by his son Jack in Kansas City, Mo. Brad Thor (1969-), Blowback. Carrie Tiffany (1965-), Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living (first novel); the Better Farming Train moving across drought-plagued 1930s Australia. Katherine Tower, Evening Ferry. Trevanian, The Crazyladies of Pearl Street; Albany, N.Y. during the Great Depression. William Trevor (1928-), A Bit on the Side (short stories). Scott Turow (1949-), Ordinary Heroes. Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird's Daughter; great-aunt Teresa (Teresita) is a Mexican saint and revolutionary who is declared the most dangerous girl in Mexico. Andrew Vachss, Two Trains Running. Carrie Vaughn (1973-), Kitty and the Midnight Hour (first novel); cute blonde late night radio talk show host Kitty Norville turns into a werewolf every full Moon; spawns a romance series. Victoria Vinton, The Jungle Law. Bruce Alan Wagner (1954-), The Chrysanthemum Palace. Rebecca Wells (1952-), Ya-Yas in Bloom; sequel to "Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" (1996). Arnold Wesker (1932-), Honey (first novel); sequel to Alex Haley's "Roots", continuing the story of Beatie Bryant. William T. Wollmann, Europe Central. Jennifer Weiner, Goodnight Nobody. Rebecca Wells (1952-), Ya-Yas In Bloom. Stephen White (1951-), Missing Persons; Boulder, Colo. clinical psychologist Dr. Alan Gregory in novel #13? John Edgar Wideman (1941-), God's Gym (short stories). Elie Wiesel (1928-), The Time of the Uprooted; about Gamaliel Friedman AKA Peter Kertesz. Louise Welsh, Tamburlaine Must Die. Christopher Wilson, Cotton. Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007), Email to the Universe; AKA Tail of the Tribe. Robert Charles Wilson (1953-), Spin; about Tyler Dupree, who lives through the years when aliens construct a "spin membrane" over Earth. Markus Zusak (1975-), The Book Thief; internat. bestseller; Liesel and her foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann, who hide Jewish man Max, who teachs her to read, causing her to steal books intending for burning by the Nazis; filmed in 2013 by Brian Percival. Alan Zweibel, The Other Shulman (first novel); a man in midlife crisis enters the New York Marathon and finishes dead last? Births: British celeb kid Cruz Beckham on Feb. 20 in Madrid, Spain; 3rd son of British soccer star David Beckham and Victoria (formerly known as Posh Spice); has brothers Brooklyn (2000-) and Romeo (2003-). English "Cinderella" child prodigy musician-coposer Alma Elizabeth Deutscher in Feb. in Basingstroke; Israeli father. Romanian child bodybuilder Giuliano Stroe on July 18. Am. celeb kid Sean Preston Federline on Sept. 14; son of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline. Deaths: Am. historian Arthur Walworth (b. 1903) on Jan. 10 in Needham, Mass. (heart failure). Am. poet Richard Eberhart (b. 1904) on June 9 in Hanover, N.H. Am. diplomat-historian George Frost Kennan (b. 1904) on Mar. 17 in Princeton, N.J.; author of the seminal 1947 paper "The Source of Soviet Conduct" under the alias "X", which launched the Cold War. German-born Am. evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr (b. 1904) on Feb. 3 in Bedford, Mass. German heavyweight boxer Max Schmeling (b. 1905) on Feb. 2 in Hollenstedt, Germany. Am. "Green Acres" actor Eddie Albert (b. 1906) on May 26 in Pacific Palisades, Calif. (Alzheimer's). German-born Am. nuclear physicist Hans Bethe (b. 1906) on Mar. 6 in Ithaca, N.Y.; 1967 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. "glass box" skyscraper architect Philip Cortelyou Johnson (b. 1906) on Jan. 25 in New Canaan, Conn.; dies in his glass cube home; designed the New York State Theater in the Lincoln Center; "The man who introduced the glass box, and then, 50 years later, broke it". Am. "Brenda Starr" cartoonist Dale Messick (b. 1906) on Apr. 5 in Penngrove, Calif. German Olympic athlete Fritz Schlegen (b. 1906) on Sept. 12 in Kronberg im Taunus. Austrian "Gen. Burkhalter in Hogan's Heroes" actor Leon Askin (b. 1907) on June 3 in Vienna. English playwright Christopher Fry (b. 1907) on June 30 in Chichester. Am. actor Ford Rainey (b. 1908) on July 25 in Santa Monica, Calif. Croatian-born Valium chemist Leo Henryk Sternbach (b. 1908) on Sept. 28 in Chapel Hill, N.C. Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal (b. 1908) on Sept. 20; 89 members of his family died in Nazi concentration camps, and his Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles caught 1.1K Nazis after the war, incl. Adolf Eichmann, Triblinka-Sobibor commandant Franz Stangl, female Majdanek guard Hermine Braunsteiner, and Karl Silbauer, who arrested Anne Frank and her family: "When history looks back, I want people to know the Nazis weren't able to kill millions of people and get away with it" - other than Hitler, Goering, Mengele, etc.? Austrian-born Am. business expert Peter F. Drucker (b. 1909) on Nov. 11 in Claremont, Calif.: "It was naive of the 19th century optimists to expect paradise from technology. It is equally naive of the 20th century pessimists to make technology the scapegoat for such old shortcomings as man's blindness, cruelty, immaturity, greed and sinful pride"; "The best way to predict the future is to create it"; "Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things"; "What's measured improves"; "When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course"; "The purpose of business to create and keep a customer"; "The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said"; "Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility." Am.-born "American Madness", "The Jealous God" British actress Constance Cummings (b. 1910) on Nov. 23 in Oxfordshire. Am. actor Marc Lawrence (b. 1910) on Nov. 27 in Palm Springs, Calif. (heart failure). Am. Mormon apologist Hugh Nibley (b. 1910) on Feb. 24. Australian writer-artist Ray Parkin (b. 1910) on June 19. French actress Simone Simon (b. 1910) on Feb. 22 in Paris. English Vegan Society founder Donald Watson (b. 1910) on Nov. 16 in Keswick, Cumbria. Am. "Beverly Hillbillies" creator Paul Henning (b. 1911) on Mar. 25 in Burbank, Calif. U.S. Rep. (D-N.J.) (1949-89) Peter Wallace Rodino Jr. (b. 1909) on May 7 in West Orange, N.J. (heart failure); chmn. of the House Judiciary Committee that impeached Pres. Nixon on July 27, 1974. Am. geneticist Maclyn McCarty (b. 1911) on Jan. 2 (heart failure). British Labour PM (1976-9) James Callaghan (b. 1912) on Mar. 26 in Ringmer, East Sussex. Scottish "The Cone Gatherers" novelist Robin Jenkins (b. 1912) on Feb. 24. Am. feminist leader Molly Yard (b. 1912) on Sept. 21 in Pittsburgh, Penn. Canadian cardiac surgeon Wilred Gordon Bigelow (b. 1913) on Mar. 27. Scottish-born Am. historian Gordon Alexander Craig (b. 1913) on Oct. 30 British epidemiologist Sir Richard Doll (b. 1913) on July 24 in Oxford; first scientist to link smoking and lung cancer in the 1950s. Am. "Truth or Consequences" TV host Ralph Edwards (b. 1913) on Nov. 16 in Los Angeles, Calif. Irish-Am. "Dark Victory" actress Geraldine Fitzgerald (b. 1913) on July 17 in New York City (Alzheimer's). Am. novelist-screenwriter Devery Freeman (b. 1913) on Oct. 7 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart failure). Am. Gore-Tex queen Genevieve "Vieve" Gore (b. 1913) on Jan. 20 in Newark, N.J. Am. "I'm in the Mood for Love", "Yankee Doodle Dandy" singer-actress Frances Langford (b. 1913) on July 11 in Jensen Beach, Fla. (heart failure). Am. "Hi Ho, Steverino" comedian Louis Nye (b. 1913) on Oct. 9 in Los Angeles, Calif. (lung cancer). Am. civil rights pioneer Rosa Lee Parks (b. 1913) on Oct. 24 in Detroit, Mich. French novelist Claude Simon (b. 1913) on July 6 in Paris; 1985 Nobel Lit. Prize. Am. actor Harold J. Stone (b. 1913) on Nov. 18 in Woodland Hills, Calif. Spanish philosopher Julian Marias Aguilera (b. 1914) on Dec. 15. Am. mathematician George Dantzig (b. 1914) on May 13 in Stanford, Calif. U.S. Gen. William C. Westmoreland (b. 1914) on July 18 in Charleston, S.C. Am. "West Side Story", "The Sound of Music" dir.-producer Robert Wise (b. 1914) on Sept. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Kismet" composer-lyricist Robert Wright (b. 1914) on July 27 in Miami, Fla. Chinese Catholic bishop (Hanyang in Hubei Province) Zhang Bairen (b. 1915) on Oct. 12 (heart disease); imprisoned in 1955-79 for telling Chinese authorities that he would rather be shot dead than renounce the pope. English jurist Dame Rose Heilbron (b. 1914) on Dec. 8. German Rear Adm. Erich Topp (b. 1914) on Dec. 26 in Sussen. Canadian-born Am. author Saul Bellow (b. 1915) on Apr. 5 in Brookline, Mass.; 1976 Nobel Lit. Prize: "A man is only as good as what he loves"; "A fool can throw a stone in a pond that 100 wise men cannot get out"; "A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep"; "You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write." Am. "Rounds" composer David Diamond (b. 1915) on June 13 in Brighton, N.Y. (heart failure). Am. "A Star is Born" movie exec Sidney Luft (b. 1915) on Sept. 15 in Santa Monica, Calif. (heart attack). Am. "Death of a Salesman", "The Crucible" playwright Arthur Miller (b. 1915) on Feb. 10 in Roxbury, Conn. (heart failure); dies on the 56th anniv. of the debut of "Death of a Salesman"; wrote 23 plays, 12 books, and eight screenplays. Am. "Beth in Little Women" actress Jean Parker (b. 1915) on Nov. 30 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, Calif. Am. sports photographer Hy Peskin (b. 1915) on June 2 in Herzliyya, Israel; first staff photographer hired by Sports Illustrated: "I helped make the Dodgers famous and they helped make me." U.S. Sen. (D-Wisc.) William Proxmire (b. 1915) on Dec. 15 in Sykesville, Md. (Alzheimer's). Canadian-born Am. chemist Henry Taube (b. 1915) on Nov. 16 in Palo Alto, Calif.; 1983 Nobel Chem. Prize. Am. Civil War historian-novelist Shelby Foote (b. 1916) on June 27 in Memphis, Tenn.: "This country has two grievous sins on its hands. One of them is slavery - whether we'll ever be cured of it, I don't know. The other one is emancipation - they told 4 million people, you're free, hit the road, and they drifted back into a form of peonage that in some ways is worse than slavery." British Conservative PM (1970-4) Sir Edward Heath (b. 1916) on July 17 in Salisbury, Wiltshire. Upper Volta pres. #2 (1966-80) Sangoule Lamizana (b. 1916) on May 26. Am. New York Giants football team owner Wellington "Duke" Mara (b. 1916) on Oct. 25 in Rye, N.Y. (cancer); joined the team as a ballboy when his father purchased it in 1925; "The heart and soul of the National Football League" (Paul Tagliabue). U.S. Sen. (D-Minn.) Eugene McCarthy (b. 1916) on Sept. 10. Am. Dem. politician (Earth Day founder) Gaylor Anton Nelson (b. 1916) on July 3 in Kensington, Md. Russian-born Am. psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner (b. 1917) on Sept. 25 in Ithaca, N.Y. Am. actor-activist Ossie Davis (b. 1917) on Feb. 4 in Miami, Fla.; dies after starting production of the film Retirement with Peter Falk, George Segal, and Rip Torn, and is replaced by Bill Cobbs. Am. stage actor John Emmett Raitt (b. 1917) on Feb. 20 in Pacific Palisades, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. mystic Richard Rose (b. 1917) on July 6 (Alzheimer's). Am. "Commander Cody" actor George Dewey Wallace (b. 1917) on July 22 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. Nixon's gappy secy. Rose Mary Woods (b. 1917) on Jan. 22 in a nursing home in Alliance, Ohio. Am.-born German spy William Colepaugh (b. 1918) on Mar. 16 in Paoli, Penn. Am. bandleader Skitch Henderson (b. 1918) on Nov. 1 in New Milford, Conn. Am. Ebony and Jet mag. pub. John H. Johnson (b. 1918) on Aug. 8 in Chicago, Ill. (heart failure). Am. celeb Rosemary Kennedy (b. 1918) on Jan. 5 in Ft. Atkinson, Wisc. Swedish Wagnerian soprano Birgit Nilsson (b. 1918) on Dec. 25 in Farlove (near Kristianstad), Skane. Am. composer George Rochberg (b. 1918) on May 29 in Bryn Mawr, Penn. English physician Dame Cicely Mary Saunders (b. 1918) on July 14 (cancer). Am. "The Beulah Quintet" novelist Mary Lee Settle (b. 1918) on Sept. 27 in Ivy, Va. (lung cancer). British-Austrian mathematician Sir Hermann Bondi (b. 1919) on Sept. 10 in Cambridge. Am. actress Teresa Wright (b. 1918) on Mar. 6 in New Haven, Conn. (heart attack). Dominican PM (1980-95) Dame Eugenia Charles (b. 1919) on Sept. 6 in Fort-de-France, Martinique (pulmonary embolism). Am. accordionist Myron Floren (b. 1919) on July 23 in Rolling Hills Estates, Calif. (cancer). Am. economist-historian Robert Heilbroner (b. 1919) on Jan. 4 in New York City. Am. microbiologist Maurice Ralph Hillerman (b. 1919) on Apr. 11 in Philadelphia, Penn. (cancer). Am. UFO debunker Philip J. Klass (b. 1919) on Aug. 9 in Cocoa, Fla. (cancer). Am. activist Fred Korematsu (b. 1919) on Mar. 30 in Marin County, Calif. Am. "Ernest T. Bass on The Andy Griffith Show" actor-dir. Howard Morris (b. 1919) on May 21. Irish "Grig in The Last Starfighter" actor Dan O'Herlihy (b. 1919) on Feb. 17 in Malibu, Calif. Am. biochemist Joseph L. Owades (b. 1919) on Dec. 16 in Sonoma, Calif. Chinese PM (#3 1980-7) and gen. secy. #7 (1987-89) Zhao Ziyang (b. 1919) on Jan. 17 in Beijing; under house arrest since siding with the Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989. Am. actor Keith Andes (b. 1920) on Nov. 11 in Canyon Country, Calif. (bladder cancer). Am. country musician Jerry Byrd (b. 1920) on Apr. 11 in Honolulu, Hawaii (Parkinson's). Canadian "Scotty in Star Trek" actor James Doohan (b. 1920) on July 20 in Redmond, Wash. (Alzheimer's); on Apr. 28, 2007 7 grams of his ashes are launched into space along with those of Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper and 200 others by UP Aerospace Inc. of Conn. from Spaceport America in S New Mexico (price $495 each), making a 4-min. suborbital flight, and are then retrieved on May 18 in the New Mexico mountains. Am. physicist (laser inventor) Gordon Gould (b. 1920) on Sept. 16 in New York City. German novelist Willi Heinrich (b. 1920) on July 12 in Karlsruhe. Am. CBS newsman George Edward Herman (b. 1920) on Feb. 8 in Washington, D.C. Am. actress Virginia Mayo (b. 1920) on Jan. 17 in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Polish Pope (1978-2005) John Paul II (b. 1920) on Apr. 2 in Vatican City; last words: "totus tuus" (completely yours) (a dedication to the Virgin Mary); visited 129 countries (last was Lourdes, France in 2004): "The pope becomes persona non grata when he tries to convince the world of human sin." (1994) Am. microbiologist Albert Schatz (b. 1920) on Jan. 1 in Philadelphia, Penn. English gay radio producer Hallam Tennyson (b. 1920) on Dec. 21 in Highgate, London (stabbed in bed). Chinese PM Zhao Ziyang (b. 1920) on Jan. 17 in Beijing. Czech-born French economist Georges Anderla (b. 1921) on Apr. 26 in Antibes. Am. lit. critic Wayne Clayson Booth (b. 1921) on Oct. 10 in Chicago, Ill. (dementia). Am. Vail Mountain (Colo.) ski resort co-founder (with Peter Seibert) George Peck Caulkins Jr. (b. 1921) on Mar. 24 in Denver, Colo. Am. Marilyn Monroe's 1st hubby James Dougherty (b. 1921) on Aug. 15 in Marin, Calif. English-born Am. Mind Dynamics founder Alexander Everett (b. 1921) on Jan. 18 in Ore. Am. "Jeremiah Collins" actor Anthony George (b. 1921) on Mar. 16 in Newport Beach, Calif. (emphysema). Portuguese PM #103 (1974-5) Gen. Vasco dos Santos Goncalves (b. 1921) on June 11 in Almancil (heart attack in swimming pool). U.S. civil rights atty. and federal judge Constance Baker Motley (b. 1921) on Sept. 28 in Manhattan, N.Y. (heart failure); first black woman to serve as a N.Y. state senator, Manhattan borough pres., member of the Board of Estimate, argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, and serve as federal judge (1966); directed the legal campaign for James Meredith to gain admission to the U. of Miss in 1962. Am. "Chief Clifford in McCloud" actor J.D. Cannon (b. 1922) on May 20 in Hudson, N.Y. English playwright-actor Anthony Creighton (b. 1922) on Mar. 22. Am. actor Jason Evers (b. 1922) on Mar. 13 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart failure). Am. writer Bill Kaysing (b. 1922) on Apr. 21 in Santa Barbara, Calif. Am. novelist Marjorie Kellogg (b. 1922) on Dec. 19 in Santa Barbara, Calif. (Alzheimer's). Am. paleontologist Charles Repenning (b. 1922) on Jan. 5 in Lakewood, Calif. (murdered). Am. scientist Albert Schatz (b. 1922) on Jan. 17 in Philadelphia, Penn. (pancreatic cancer). Am. ventriloquist Paul Winchell (b. 1922) on June 24. Am. "Maxwell Smart in Get Smart" actor Don Adams (b. 1923) on Sept. 25 in Los Angeles, Calif. Spanish soprano Victoria de los Angeles (b. 1923) on Jan. 15 in Barcelona (heart failure). Am. "Berenstain Bears" author Stan Berenstain (b. 1923) in Philadelphia, Penn. (cancer); pub. 200+ children's books in 40 years. Am. jazz musician Percy Heath (b. 1923) on Apr. 28. Am. IC, handheld calculator, and thermal printer inventor Jack St. Clair Kilby (b. 1923) on June 20 in Dallas, Tex.; 2000 Nobel Physics Prize. Saudi Arabian king Fahd (b. 1923) on Aug. 1. Am. "Jerry Seinfeld's father Morty" Barney Martin (b. 1923) on Mar. 21 in Studio City, Calif. Am. actor Lon McCallister (b. 1923) on June 11 in South Lake Tahoe, Calif. (heart failure). Monaco "builder" Europe's longest-reigning monarch, 56 years) Prince (since May 9, 1949) Rainier III (b. 1923) on Apr. 6 (6:35 a.m.) (heart, kidney and breathing problems); dies with his son Prince Albert at his side; after Princess Grace's 1982 death he never remarried; on Apr. 15 his funeral is attended by over half a dozen heads of states and dignitaries from 60 countries; last Euro monarch to die on the throne until? Am. sportscaster Chris Schenkel (b. 1923) on Sept. 11 in Fort Wayne, Ind. (emphysema). Am. vice adm. and pres. candidate James B. Stockdale (b. 1923) on July 5 (Alzheimer's complications). Am. hall-of-fame football coach Hank Stram (b. 1923) on July 4 in Covington, La. Russian glasnost economist Alexander Yakovlev (b. 1923) on Oct. 18. Canadian actor Lloyd Bochner (b. 1924) on Oct. 29 in Santa Monica, Calif. (cancer). Am. politician Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924) on Jan. 1; first black woman to serve in the U.S. Congress. Israeli dir. Ephraim Kishon (b. 1924) on Jan. 29 in Appenzell, Switzerland. English-born Am. "Sons and Lovers" dir. Gavin Lambert (b. 1924) on July 17 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pulmonary fibrosis). Brazilian physicist Cesar Lattes (b. 1924) on Mar. 8 in Campinas, Sao Paulo. Am. six-foot-tenner basketball pioneer George Mikan (b. 1924) on June 1 in Scottsdale, Ariz. U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist (b. 1924) on Sept. 3 (11 p.m. EDT) in Arlington, Va. (thyroid cancer); buried in Arlington Nat. Cemetery since he was an Army sgt. in WWII, his casket placed beneath his wife's ashes. Am. singer Bobby Short (b. 1924) on Mar. 21 in New York City. Jewish pres. #7 (1993-8) Ezer Weizman (b. 1924) on Apr. 24 in Caesarea (respiratory failure). Am. "Point-Counterpoint on 60 Minutes" journalist Shana Alexander (b. 1925) on June 23 in Hermosa Beach, Calif. (cancer). Am. "The Gold Standard" late night TV talk show host Johnny Carson (b. 1925) on Jan. 23 in Malibu, Calif. (emphysema): "Happiness is a dry martini"; "Never continue in a job you don't enjoy." Am. football player Glenn "Mr. Outside" Davis (b. 1925) in Mar.; he and Felix "Doc" Blanchard (b. 1925) ("Mr. Inside") were the two dominant players of the dominant Army college football team of the 1940s. Am. automaker (inventor of the recessed windshield wiper and the overhead cam engine) John Z. DeLorean (b. 1925) on Mar. 19 in Summit, N.J. Am. actor John Fiedler (b. 1925) on June 25 in Englewood, N.J. (cancer). Am. historian Frank Everson Vandiver (b. 1925) on Jan. 7 in College Station, Tex. Am. novelist John Fowles (b. 1926) on Nov. 5 in Lyme Regis. Am. actress June Haver (b. 1926) on July 4 in Brentwood, Calif. (respiratory failure). Am. novelist and children's writer Ed McBain (Evan Hunter) (b. 1926) on July 6 in Weston, Conn.; author of the 3M-word "87th Precinct Series", which pioneered the police procedural. Austrian actress Maria Schell (b. 1926) on Apr. 26 in Preitenegg (pneumonia). Am. journalist Shana Alexander (b. 1927) on June 23 in Hermosa Beach, Calif. Am. "The Bold and the Beautiful" TV producer William Joseph Bell (b. 1927) on Apr. 6 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. writer Guy Davenport (b. 1927) on Jan. 4 (lung cancer). Am. bluegrass musician Jimmy Martin (b. 1927) on May 14 in Nashville, Tenn. (bladder cancer); his alcoholism and mood swings keeps him from being invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. Am. "Joseph Sisko in Star Trek: DS9" actor Brock Peters (b. 1927) on Aug. 23 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. bluegrass musician Vassar Clements (b. 1928) on Aug. 16 in Jamestown, N.Y. (brain cancer). Am. "Oddfather" mob boss Vincent "the Chin" Gigante (b. 1928) on Dec. 19 in Springfield, Mo. (dies in prison). Am. Hispanic (Chicano) activist Corky Gonzales (b. 1928) on Apr. 12. Am. "Dr. Hiram Baker in Little House on the Prairie" actor Kevin Hagen (b. 1928) on July 9 in Grants Pass, Ore. Am. atmospheric scientist Charles David Keeling (b. 1928) on June 20 (heart attack). Am. "Dinosaur Renaissance" paleontologist John H. Ostrom (b. 1928) on July 16 in Litchfield, Conn. (Alzheimer's); originated the modern theory that links dinosaurs and birds. Am. "Is Paris Burning?" writer Larry Collins (b. 1929) on June 20 in Frejus, France (cerebral hemorrhage). Cuban novelist Guillermo Cabrera Infante (b. 1929) on Feb. 21 in London (septicemia). Am. actor Richard Lupino (b. 1929) on Feb. 9 in New York City. Am. TV minister Dr. Gene Scott (b. 1929) on Feb. 21 in Glendale, Calif. Am. hall-of-fame bowler Dick Weber (b. 1929) on Feb. 14 in Florissant, Mo. Am. rock guitarist Link Wray (b. 1929) on Nov. 5 in Copenhagen, Denmark (heart failure). Syrian "Mohammad, Messenger of God" producer-dir. Moustapha Akkad (b. 1930) on Nov. 11 in Amman, Jordan (assassinated by al-Qaida suicide bomber). German-born Am. architect James Ingo Freed (b. 1930) on Dec. 15 in Manhattan, N.Y. (Parkinson's). Am. adm. William P. Lawrence (b. 1930) on Dec. 2 in Crownsville, Md. Am. economist John Muth (b. 1930) on Oct. 23 in Key West, Fla. Am. "old Privazste Ryan in Saving Private Ryan" actor Harrison Young (b. 1930) on July 3 in Port Huron, Mich. Russian pianist Lazar Berman (b. 1931) on Feb. 6 in Florence, Italy. Am. novelist Rona Jaffe (b. 1931) on Dec. 30 in London, England. Am. "Porter Ricks in Flipper" actor Brian Kelly (b. 1931) on Feb. 12 in Voorhees Township, N.J. (pneumonia). Am. composer Donald Martino (b. 1931) on Dec. 8 in Antigua. Am. "Stove Top Stuffing" inventor Ruth M. Siems (b. 1931) on Nov. 13 in Newburgh, Ind (heart attack). Am. "Annie Sullivan" "Mrs. Robinson" actress Anne Bancroft (b. 1932) on June 6 in New York City (uterine cancer). Am. "Cmdr. Ed Straker in UFO" actor Ed Bishop (b. 1932) on June 8 in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England. Am. auto racer Coo Coo Marlin (b. 1932) on Aug. 14 (lung cancer). Am. actress Sheree North (b. 1932) on Nov. 4 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Karate Kid" actor Noriyuki (Pat) Morita (b. 1932) on Nov. 24 in Las Legas, Nev. (heart failure). Canadian "Dean Wormer in Animal House" actor John Vernon (b. 1932) on Feb. 1 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart failure). Am. "Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs" actor Edward Bunker (b. 1933) on July 19 in Burbank, Calif. (diabetes). Am. writer Vine Deloria Jr. (b. 1933) on Nov. 13: "In recent years we have come to understand what progress is. It is the total replacement of nature by an artificial technology"; "Western civilization does not link knowledge and morality, but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent"; "The massive amount of useless knowledge produced by anthropologists attempting to capture real Indians in a network of theories has contributed substantially to the invisiblity of Indian people today." Am. Moog Synthesizer inventor Robert Moog (b. 1934) on Aug. 21 in Asheville, N.C. English right-wing politician John Tyndale (b. 1934) on July 19 in Hove, East Sussex. Am. "Gilligan in Gilligan's Island" actor Bob Denver (b. 1935) on Sept. 2 in N.C. (cancer). Togo pres. (1967-2005) Gnassingbe Eyadema (b. 1935) on Feb. 5 near Tunis, Tunisia (heart attack); longest-serving head of state in Africa. Am. "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" novelist Judith Rossner (b. 1935) on Aug. 9. Indian film producer Ismail Merchant (b. 1936) on May 25 in London. Am. "Somethin' Stupid" songwriter Clarence Carson Parks II (b. 1936) on June 22 in St. Marys, Ga. Am. "My Cousin Vinny" actor Lane Smith (b. 1936) on June 13 in Northridge, Calif. (ALS). Vietnamese-born French computer engineer Andre Truong Trong Thi (b. 1936) on Apr. 4 in Paris. Am. conservative journalist Jude Wanniski (b. 1936) on Aug. 29 in Morristown, N.J. (heart attack). Am. actor Dee Pollock (b. 1937) on Dec. 25 in Chico, Calif. (heart attack). Am. gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (b. 1937) on Feb. 20 in Woody Creek, Colo. (near Aspen) (suicide); his ashes are mixed with fireworks by the Zambelli Co. and launched from 34 mortar tubes on Aug. 20 (full moon) at sunset from a 153-ft. structure capped by a double-thumbed red fiberglass fist on his 42-acre Owl Farm, where a 400-capacity wooden bar with chandeliers lets observers party hearty; the whole $2M shindig is paid for by actor friend Johnny Depp; on Feb. 20, 2006 The Woody Creeker mag. is launched by his widow Anita Thompson: "The weird turn pro when the going gets weird." Am. flamboyant O.J. defense atty. Johnnie Cochran (b. 1937) on Mar. 29 in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, Calif. (brain tumor): "If it doesn't fit you must acquit." Am. soul singer Tyrone Davis (b. 1938) on Feb. 9 in Chicago, Ill. (stroke). Am. "Jefferson Airplane" drummer Spencer Dryden (b. 1938) on Jan. 11 in Penngrove, Calif. (colon cancer). Canadian-born Am. (since 2003) ABC News anchorman (since 1965) Peter Jennings (b. 1938) on Aug. 7 in Manhattan, N.Y. (lung cancer); a high school dropout, he joined ABC News on Aug. 3, 1964, and since 1983 was the anchor and senior ed. of "World News Tonight"; the last of the "Big Three" TV news anchormen (Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather of CBS). German celeb photographer Horst Tappe (b. 1938) on Aug. 21 in Vevey, Switzerland (cancer); famous for his photos of "Lolita" author Nabokov. Am. folk singer John Herald (b. 1939) on July 18 in West Hurley, N.Y. (suicide?). Am. musician Fritz Richmond (b. 1939) on Nov. 20 in Portland, Ore. (lung cancer). Am. comedian Richard Pryor (b. 1940) on Sept. 10; suffered from MS since the 1990s; leaves a hand-painted ceramic bowl with the inscription "Little Black Man in Big White World", which raises $7,099 in an online auction for the Geauga, Ohio Humane Society in Mar. 2006. English "Col. Paul Foster in UFO", "Agent XXX's lover Sergei Barsov in The Spy Who Loved Me" actor Michael Billington (b. 1941) on June 3 (cancer). English "The Searchers" drummer Chris Curtis (b. 1941) on Feb. 28 in Liverpool. Am. "Gidget" actress Sandra Dee (b. 1942) on Feb. 20 in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Am. rock music promoter Chet Helms (b. 1942) on June 25 in San Francisco, Calif. (stroke); discovered Janis Joplin. Soviet cosmonaut Gennadi Sarafanov (b. 1942) on Sept. 29. English rock drummer Tony Meehan (b. 1943) on Nov. 28 in Paddington, West London (head injuries from a fall). Am. Macintosh designer Jef Raskin (b. 1943) on Feb. 26 in Pacifica, Calif. (pancreatic cancer). English rock drummer Jim Capaldi (b. 1944) on Jan. 28 (stomach cancer). Lebanese PM (1992-8, 2000-4) Rafik Hariri (b. 1944) on Feb. 14 in Beirut (assassinated). Am. "Bread" pop group singer James Griffin (b. 1945) on Jan. 11 in Franklin, Tenn. Am. dramatist August Wilson (b. 1945) on Oct. 2 in Seattle, Wash. (liver cancer); on Oct. 16 the Virginia Theater on Broadway is renamed after him, becoming the first Broadway theater named after an African-Am. playwright Danish jazz musician Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (b. 1946) on Apr. 19 in Ishoj, Zealand. Am. "Tommy Mullaney in L.A. Law" "Leo McGarry in West Wing" actor John Spencer (d. 1947) on Dec. 16 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart attack); his McGarry character had recently suffered a heart attack. Am. actor Vincent Schiavelli (b. 1948) on Dec. 26 in Polizzi Generosa, Sicily (lung cancer). Am. actor Charles Rocket (b. 1949) on Oct. 7 in Canterbury, Conn. (suicide by slit throat). Am. singer Luther Vandross (b. 1951) on July 1 in Edison, N.J. (stroke); sold 35M records. Am. "feathered hair in Police Academy" actress Debralee Scott (b. 1953) on Apr. 5 in Fla.; dies after going into a coma for several days, getting released from the hospital, and going into a final nap; ever since 9/11 when her fiance police officer John Dennis Levi was killed, she had been drinking heavily. Am. New Age writer Joshua David Stone (b. 1953) in Aug. in Calif. Am. semi-reformed criminal Stanley Tookie Williams III (b. 1953) on Dec. 13 in Marin County, Calif. (executed). Am. "Cowsills" singer Barry Cowsill (b. 1954) on Aug. 29 in New Orleans, La.; dies from Hurricane Katrina; found 4 mo. later on a wharf. Am. journalist Marjorie Williams (b. 1958) in Jan. (liver cancer). Australian "Crowded House", "Split Enz" drummer Paul Hester (b. 1959) on Mar. 26 in Melbourne (suicide). English rock guitarist Nick Hawkins (b. 1965) on Oct. 10 in Las Vegas, Nev. (heart attack). Am. comedian Freddy Soto Jr. (b. 1970) on July 10 in Los Angeles, Calif. (OD). Am. giant actor Matthew McGrory (b. 1973) on Aug. 8 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart failure). Jamaican-born English Muslim terrorist Germaine Maurice Lindsay (Abdullah Shaheed Jamal) (b. 1985) on July 7 in Camden, London (KIA). Am. mass murderer Jeff Weise (b. 1988) on Mar. 21 in Red Lake, Minn. (suicide by shotgun).
2006 Doomsday Clock: 7 min. to midnight. Chinese Year: Dog (Jan. 29) (lunar year 4703). Time Person of the Year: You; celebrates the Internet era of blogging and uploading videos. This is the U.N. Year of Deserts and Desertification. The period from Jan. to Aug. is the warmest on record in the U.S. so far. U.S. pop. exceeds 300M on Oct. 17, with one new birth every 7 sec., one death every 13 sec., one immigrant entering every 31 sec., for a net of one new person every 11 sec.; U.S. pop. hit 100M in 1915, 200M in 1967; immigrants constitute 12% of the pop.; Latin Americans working outside their countries earn $500B this year, and send $60B home (up from $55B in 2005) to 30M families, incl. $45B from the U.S.; U.S. life span has increased from 54 to 78 years since 1915, women in the work force from 23% to 59%, and high school graduates from 13% to 85%; U.S. baby boomers (78M, incl. 9M blacks born 1946-64) begin turning 60 at the rate of 7,918 a day (330 an hour); in 1915 the most popular baby names were John and Mary, in 1946 James and Mary, in 1967 Lisa and Michael, this year Jacob and Emily (James #17, Mary #63); median age: 36, life expectancy: 78; price of a new home: $290.6K; milk: $3/gal.; gasoline: $2.66/gal.; avg. household size: 2.6; total U.S. philanthropic giving: $295.02B ($283.05B in 2005) (1.7% of GDP) (Brtain = 0.73% = #2). Chinese imports to the U.S.: $208B (16%); U.S. GNP: $13.2T; U.S. trade deficit: $857B. Fracking starts to take off in the U.S., launching the Shale Rev. that makes the U.S. energy indeendent. There are 285M TV sets in operation in the U.S. Russia suffers its coldest winter since 1978-9. According to the U.N., 21,796 deaths result from natural disasters this year, compared to 92K last year; 140M people are affected, compared with 157M last year. The U.S. Hurricane Drought begins, with no Category 3 or higher hurricane making landfall until 2017; the mean frequency of W North Pacific tropical cyclones is 18% lower in 1997-2014 than in 1980-96; the avg. value of total annual accumulated cyclone energy between 2006-16 is less than 60% of the 1900-2017 avg.; no increase in hurricane landfall frequency from 1900-2017; no correlation between tropical cyclone frequency and sea surface temperature over the W North Pacific basin. Global terrorism this year incl. 14K total attacks with 20K killed, incl. 7K attacks in Iraq with 13K killed, with more than 50% of the victims being Muslims; attacks in Afghanistan are up 53% over 2005, while attacks in Europe and Indonesia are down; the Taliban destroys 200 schools and kills 20 teachers this year, driving 200K children from classrooms, then next Jan. announces that it will open its own Islamic Sharia schools in Mar. with $1M funding; the number of Islamic extremist Web sites grows to 4.5K from 12 in 1998. South Africa loses 950 people a day this year from AIDS-related diseases, and 1.4K new people are infected each day (530K total); 5.6M of the country's 48M people are infected by the end of the year, making South Africa #2 behind India in total HIV-infected people, with life expectancy dropping from 63 in 1990 to 51; Russia has 1.3M infected with HIV, growing by 8%-10% a year, concentrated in St. Petersburg, Sverdlosvsk, Moscow and Samara. This year there are 14 female U.S. Senators (9 Dem., 5 Repub.) out of 100, 67 U.S. reps. (43 Dem., 24 Repub.) out of 435; 8 govs. (6 Dem., 2 Repub.) out of 50; First Lady Laura Bush repeatedly states that she wants to vote for a Repub. woman for pres. By this year there are 20 cities with 10M+ residents, incl. Jakarta, Mexico City, Mumbai, and Sao Paulo, up from only two in 1950, New York and Tokyo. By this year there are 23 nations under Muslim Sharia law, who presumably all want to exterminate Israel and bring Jerusalem back into the House of Islam. This year 34,452 civilians die in Iraq; 3,301 U.S. soldiers desert in the fiscal year (starting Oct.); hardly any are court-martialed. There are 6,912 living languages this year. WHO estimates that 1B adults in the world are overweight and 300M obese, vs. 600M undernourished. This year France's fertility rate zooms from 1.92 to 2.0 children per woman after a govt. program providing parental leave and cheap day care, making France the most fertile nation in the EU; meanwhile this year Germany's pop. begins to decline due to low birthrates. U.S. tourism figures finally reach pre-9/11 levels (19M). The Great Syrian Drought begins (ends 2011), wiping out the livelihoods of 800K farmers and herders. This year the music industry, reeling from massive piracy stages a pathetic mini-British Invasion, featuring James Blunt, KT Tunstall and Corrine Bailey Rae, and even The Who making a pathetic comeback. This year's 109th U.S. Congress (Jan. 3, 2005-Jan. 3, 2007) becomes the worst since the 96th Abscam Congress of 1979-81 (which lost six House members and one senator), losing Rep. Mark Foley (R-Penn.), Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), former House Majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), and Rep. Bob New (R-Ohio). On Jan. 1 the first of 77M U.S. Baby Boomers turns 60; more and more of them begin taking care of aged parents who look two generations older, making them the "sandwich generation", while others turn 30 again and start new college or other careers and take up fitness activities? - 50 is the new 30? On Jan. 1 (Sun.) U.S. Medicare payments for erectile dysfunction drugs are ended, and the money is used instead to aid the poor and victims of Hurricane Katrina. On Jan. 1 24 are wounded and two rebels are killed in eight car bombings in Baghdad and three in Kirkuk to kick off the Christian New Year Muslim-style; on Jan. 1-7 200 Iraqis and 12 U.S. troops are killed in Iraq to start year running. On Jan. 1 Mexico's Zapatista rebels, led by ski-masked Subcommandante Marcos launch a 6-mo. tour of Mexico to build a nationalist leftist movement to "shake this country up from below" - if there's anybody left who hasn't crossed the U.S. border? On Jan. 1 the six Latin Am. govts. that signed CAFTA in 2005 delay their entry into the free trade zone because of red tape, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala till Feb. 1, Nicaragua until Mar., and the DR until July 1; Costa Rica still hasn't ratified the pact. On Jan. 1 a tough law (signed last Oct. by Gov. Ahnuld) goes into effect in Calif. levying stiff penalties on "stalkerazzi", paparazzi and publishers who use celeb photos acquired through overly aggressive tactics. On Jan. 1 the U.N. World Food Program, which fed 600K in North Korea last Dec. officially shuts off aid to the country's 22M people at the govt.'s request. Farris Hassan's Day Off? On Jan. 1 16-y.-o. Farris Hassan (1989-) returns to Fla. from Iraq, where he had been since cutting school on Dec. 11, flying to Kuwait, then Lebanon before flying to Baghdad; his parents, who have been in the U.S. for over 30 years were born in Iraq, making it easy to secure an entry visa; his little experiment with "immersion journalism" gets him worldwide publicity. On Jan. 1 singer Liza Minnelli sings "New York, New York" at the inauguration of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his 2nd term, which he won by a 20% margin. On Jan. 1 the 2nd storm in a row (Dec. 31) hits N Calif., causing the Napa and Russian Rivers to crest above flood stage and evacuations to be ordered. On Jan. 1 most of 50K prisoners skip lunch to send food to fellow Kenyans suffering from food shortages as Pres. Mwai Kibaki declares a nat. disaster, saying that drought threatens 10% of the 25M pop., and calling for $153M in emergency food aid. On Jan. 1 Russia's natural gas monopoly Gazprom halts gas sales to Ukraine after the latter refuses to pay quadruple. On Jan. 2 Texas defeats USC by 41-38 to win the 2006 Rose Bowl. On Jan. 2 the Sago Coal Mine in Tallmansville, W. Va. collapses, trapping 13 miners 260 ft. below ground, and rescuers have to wait almost 12 hours for gases to clear before going in; on Jan. 4 after more than 42 hours 12 are found dead 2.5 mi. from the entrance, and on Jan. 5 lone survivor Randal L. McCloy Jr. (1979-) is moved to a Pittsburgh, Penn. hospital for treatment for oxygen deprivation and brain damage, where he emerges from a coma on Jan. 25; rescuers mistakenly informed families that 12 of the 13 had survived, causing them to later threaten lawsuits; on Feb. 1 W. Va. Gov. Joe Manchin calls for all 544 coal mines to voluntarily close for safety checks after two more mine workers are killed in separate accidents; the total U.S. coal mine death this year is 47, equalling the record for 1995. On Jan. 2 the bad holey roof of an ice rink in Bad Reichenhall, Germany collapses, at about 4 p.m. during a school holiday, killing 10. On Jan. 2 surfers lament Blank Monday, as Grubby (Gordon) Clark's Clark Foam Co., which makes most of the foam cores (blanks) for surfboards closes, leading to a rash of thefts in Santa Cruz, Calif., home of "The Hook", one of 65 famous surf breaks. On Jan. 3 Haliburton Co. is awarded $385M by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security to build new internment camps inside the U.S. On Jan. 3-4 lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleads guilty to felony charges, causing numerous lawmakers to hastily jettison compaign donations linked to him. On Jan. 4 Israeli PM Ariel Sharon (b. 1928) suffers a life-threatening stroke, and his powers are transferred to his cigar-smoking deputy Ehud Olmert (1945-) (former mayor of Jerusalem) of the Kadima Party, who becomes acting PM; on Jan. 5 Am. Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson suggests that the stroke is divine punishment for "dividing God's land" by ordering withdrawal from Gaza; on Jan. 24 Olmert says that he backs the creation of a Palestinian state and the relinquishing of parts of the West Bank by Israel to maintain its Jewish majority, and after his Kadima Party wins elections he becomes permanent PM on Apr. 14 (until ?). On Jan. 4 UAE PM Sheik Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum (b. 1944) dies, and on Jan. 5 his younger brother (UAE defense minister) Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum (1949-) becomes billionaire emir of Dubai (until ?). On Jan. 5 insurgents kill 125 civilians in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims in Karbala, Iraq, and five U.S. soldiers in a line of police recruits in Ramadi. On Jan. 5 a suicide bomber in ?, Afghanistan kills 10 and wounds 50. On Jan. 5 the 8-story Lulu'at al-Khair Bldg. in Mecca, Saudi Arabia (200 ft. from the Grand Mosque) collapses during the annual hajj, killing 20; the number of pilgrims to Mecca has increased 11x since 1990. On Jan. 6 the NYSE closes strong for the first five days of the year, up 3%, compared to 0.5% for all of 2005; on Jan. 9 the Dow Jones closes above 11K for the first time in five years (11,011); as go the first five days so goes the year? On Jan. 7 an explosives-laden fishing boat run by Tamil rebels rams a Sri Lankan navy patrol boat off the coast of Trincomalee, killing 13 sailors. On Jan. 7 a newly-built checkpoint near Miran Shah in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border (where thousands of troops had tried to flush out the remnants of the Taliban) is attacked, and eight security forces killed; the area has been wild and untameable since Alexander the Great. On Jan. 7 Tom DeLay announces that he will not attempt to reclaim his post as House majority leader when it reconvenes on Jan. 31, causing Repub. Reps. Roy Blunt (DeLay's whip) and John Boehner to announce their candidacies, pledging action on a reform agenda to save the decade-long hold on power by their party. On Jan. 7 28-y.-o. Am. Christian Science Monitor freelance writer Jill Carroll (1977-) is kidnapped in Baghdad, Iraq by the Sunni Revenge Brigades; her interpreter Allan Enwiyah is shot to death; on Jan. 17 Al-Jazeera airs a video in which her abductors give the U.S. 72 hours to free female prisoners in Iraq to prevent her death; five Iraqi women are released on Jan. 26, a week after the deadline, but U.S. officials insist it is unrelated to her; on Jan. 30 Al-Jazeera airs a video showing her weeping and veiled, calling for the release of all female Iraqi prisoners; she is released on Mar. 30 after 82 days and six safehouses. On Jan. 7 singer Harry Belafonte (1927-) leads a U.S. delgation that meets with Venezuelan Pres. Hugo Chavez, on Jan. 8 calling Pres. Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world", and saying that millions of Americans support Chavez' Socialist revolution - tell everyone you're a hit and somewhere somebody will believe it? On Jan. 8 a U.S. Army Black Hawk heli crashes E of Tal Afar, Iraq, killing all four crew and eight passengers aboard, bringing fatal heli crashes in Iraq since Mar. 20, 2003 to 23, with a death toll of 144; five other people die in separate attacks in Baghdad. On Jan. 8 two children and one adult test positive for deadly bird flu virus in Ankara, Turkey becoming the first known cases outside an eastern region; by Jan. 10 15 cases are documented, incl. 3 deaths. On Jan. 8 Calif. Governator Ahnuld gets into an accident on his motorcycle with his son Patrick when it collides with a car in his Los Angeles neighborhood, giving him a gashed lip, requiring 15 stitches; it is later revealed that he had been driving motorcycles since coming to the U.S. in 1968 without bothering to get a motorcycle endorsement on his driver's license, saying he never thought about it. On Jan. 8 New Delhi, India records its coldest temp. in 70 years, -32 F in a bitter cold spell in N India which kills 160+. On Jan. 9 Iran breaks open internationally monitored seals on three of its nuclear facilities, reopening them in violation of a 16-mo.-old agreement with France, Germany and Britain, bringing condemnation by the U.S. and its Euro allies; on Jan. 17 Iran proposes a resumption of nuclear talks with the Europeans, which Britain rejects as "vacuous"; on Jan. 26 the Russians propose to allow Iran to operate civilian nuclear facilities with internat. inspectors in control of the fuel, and to operate its Isfahan facility, and China and the U.S. endorse it. On Jan. 9 Pope Benedict XVI addresses the 174 ambassadors accredited to the Holy See to give his First State of the World Address, pointing to "political ideology combined with aberrant religious ideas" as the root cause of terrorism, along with a "clash of civilizations". On Jan. 11 Judge Samuel Alito's wife (since 1985) Martha-Ann Bomgardner weeps during Senate confirmation hearings as the Dems. attack his record and credibility, and leaves the room with a migraine headache. On Jan. 12 auxiliary bishop Thomas John Gumbleton (1930-) of Detroit, Mich. becomes the first U.S. Roman Catholic bishop to disclose that he was a victim of sexual abuse by clergy (a priest 60 years earlier); he resigns on Feb. 2, citing his age, one year past the normal retirement age. On Jan. 12 nuclear experts David Albright and Corey Hinderstein announce the "worst-case scenario" for Iranian ukes: "Given another year to make enough highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear weapons and a few more months to convert the uranium into weapon components, Iran could have made its first nuclear weapon in 2009... although the weapon may not be deliverable by a ballistic missle", adding that their estimate is "highly uncertain", not taking into account possible technical and scientific difficulties. On Jan. 14-15 thousands protest in Pakistan against a Jan. 14 U.S. air strike on the border village of Damadola, Pakistan in a failed attempt to kill #2 al-Qaida man Ayman al-Zawahri, which instead kills 18 civilians; on Jan. 17 Pakistan authorities admit that 4-5 foreign terrorists were also killed, but PM Shaukat Aziz says that attacks inside Pakistan "cannot be condoned"; John McCain apologizes, saying "It's terrible when innocent people are killed", then adds "I can't tell you that we wouldn't do the same thing again." On Jan. 14 two men on a motorbike in Kabul, Afghanistan shoot and kill former Taliban deputy interior minister Mohammed Khaksar, who switched loyalties to the U.S. after 2001, and was called "a traitor to our cause" by Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammed Yousaf; 10 are killed and 40 are wounded at an Islamic feast. On Jan. 14 the Pitchfork Rebellion in China begins when 1K villagers in Panlong in Guangdong Province (S China) begin a protest of the govt.'s decision to seize communal farmland and lease it to a foreign investor, and police attack them with electric batons, injuring 20 and killing a 13-y.-o. girl; the 900M farmers are getting more and more disgruntled at the so-called Commies selling out to Western capitalism and creating a wealthy urban elite while leaving them behind? On Jan. 15 former defense minister Veronica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (1951-), a Socialist doctor and former political prisoner of the Pinoche regime is elected as the first female pres. of Chile, taking office as pres. #33 of Chile on Mar. 11 (until Mar. 11, 2010) (followed on Mar. 11, 2014-Mar. 11, 2018 as pres. #35), defeating conservative multimillionaire Sebastian Pinera by 53.5% to 46%, becoming the 3rd female elected pres. of a Latin country after Violeta Chamorra of Nicaragua (1990-7) and Mireya Moscoso of Panama (1999-2004), and the 4th democratically elected pres. of the center-left coalition Concertacion in Chile since Pinochet's ouster; her father Air Force Gen. Alberto Bachelet was tortured to death by Pinochet's regime in 1974, and she and her mother were tortured and exiled in 1975. On Jan. 15 a suicide car bomber kills two civilians and a senior Canadian diplomat in a Canadian military convoy in S Afghanistan; the Taliban claims credit. On Jan. 15 Sheik Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah (b. 1926) dies after suffering a brain hemmorage in 2001, and his distant cousin Crown Prince Sheik Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah (1930-2008) becomes emir of Kuwait for nine days; on Jan. 24 after an unprecedented public quarrel within the ruling family the ailing emir agrees to abdicate in favor of longtime de-facto ruler and PM Sheik Sabah IV Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah (1929-), who is sworn-in on Jan. 29 (until ?). On Jan. 16 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (b. 1939) takes office as pres. of Liberia (until ?) as U.S. warships appear off the coast in a show of support; U.S. First Lady Laura Bush and Secy. of State Condoleezza Rice attend the ceremonies. On Jan. 16 New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin gives a Martin Luther King Day speech in which he predicts that the city will be a "chocolate" city one day, and asserts that "God was mad at America"; he apologizes on Jan. 17 after criticism; he was elected in 2002 with about 90% of the white vote and less than 50% of the black vote. On Jan. 16 a suicide bomber on a motorbike in a crowd watching a wrestling match in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan kills 21. On Jan. 16 (eve.) the 2006 (63rd) Golden Globe Awards gives the best drama film award to "Brokeback Mountain", and best musical or comedy to "Walk the Line"; Philip Seymour Hoffman wins the best drama actor award for "Capote", and Felicity Huffman the best drama actress award for "Transamerica"; gay fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi (1961-) gropes actress Scarlett Johansson's breast, asks Eva Longoria about her pubic hair, and peeks down Teri Hatcher's dress, supposedly to determine how it was constructed. On Jan. 17 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-3 in Gonzales v. Oregon to block the Bush admin.'s attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die, protecting Oregon's assisted-suicide law, rebuking former U.S. atty.-gen. John Ashcroft for improperly using the 1970 U.S. Controlled Substances Act to pursue Ore. doctors who prescribe lethal doses of medicines; new chief justice John Roberts is on the losing side, as Anthony M. Kennedy begins assuming the swing vote role of retiring justice Sandra Day O'Connor. On Jan. 17 the tercentennial of Benjamin Franklin's 1706 birth is celebrated in Philadelphia, Pa., where he spent half of his 84 years, even though he was born in Boston, Mass.; $5.3M is spent restoring his 4-story brick house in London just off Trafalgar Square, where he lived as a diplomat in 1757-62 and 1764-75. On Jan. 17 Calif.'s oldest death row inmate Clarence Ray Allen (b. 1930) is executed a day after his 76th birthday, saying "Hoka hey, it's a good day to die Fathers 4 Justice group in Britain announces that the group will disband after a "lunatic militant fringe" hatched a plot fo kidnap PM Tony Blair's 5-y.-o. son Leo to highlight the misery of fathers denied access to their children. On Jan. 18 Pakistani officials announce that two senior members of al-Qaida and the son-in-law of #2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri were among those killed in U.S. airstrikes in NE Pakistan a week earlier. On Jan. 18 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court votes 9-0 in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England to uphold the right of states to require parental involvement in abortion decisions by minors, giving N.H. a chance to salvage its 2003 law, but only when an exception is made to protect the mother's health; Sandra Day O'Connor writes the decision, the final one of her 24-year career, and the first presided over by new chief justice John Roberts. On Jan. 18 six former heads of the EPA (five Repubs. and one Dem.) accuse the Bush admin. of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems, its first administrator (1970) Bill Ruckelshaus saying "I don't think there's a commitment in this administration." On Jan. 18 Coretta Scott King (b. 1927) makes her last public appearance on the eve of her late hubby's birthday; she dies on Jan. 31 in an alternative medicine clinic in Mexico; on Feb. 5 she becomes the first woman and first black to lie in honor in the Ga. Capitol Rotunda; on Feb. 7 her funeral draws four U.S. presidents and other notables along with 10K at the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga.; her hubby's funeral four decades earlier was attended by no presidents - how long before crazed American blacks prohibit caricatures of their prophet? On Jan. 20 Neil Entwistle (1978-) shoots his wife Rachel and 9-mo-.old daughter Lillian in bed in Cambridge, Mass., then flees to England, where he is arrested on Feb. 9 in London; he had met his wife at the U. of York in England. On Jan. 20 23-y.-o. Jewish cell phone salesman Ilan Halimi (b. 1982) is abducted in Bagneux, Paris by a gang of African Muslim immigrants called the Barbarians, after which he is held for ransom and tortured for 3 weeks before being found on Feb. 11, soon dying of his numerous wounds. On Jan. 21 the Miss America 2006 pageant in Las Vegas, Nev. is broadcast on Country Music TV in an attempt to return to the glam days of the past; Miss Congeniality is back for the 1st time since 1974 - Sandra Bullock rules? On Jan. 22 former PM (1985-95) Anibal Antonio Cavaco Silva (1939-) (a Keynesian economist) wins the election, and on Mar. 9 is sworn-in as pres. #19 of the Portuguese Repub. (until Mar. 9, 2016), becoming the first to enjoy an absolute parliamentary majority and going on to lead Portugal into the EU and have the longest tenure of any Portuguese PM since Salazar. On Jan. 23 Ford Motor Co. announces 30K layoffs and the shutdown of 14 plants in the U.S.; the share of the U.S. Big Three (GM, Chevy, Ford) has systematically slid from 75% in 1995 to 60% in 2005 to the Japanese Big Three (Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai). On Jan. 23 Pres. Bush shoots back at critics of his once-secret domestic spying operation, which allows senior NSA officials to approve spying when there is "reason to believe" that al-Qaida is involved, saying it should be termed a "terrorist surveillance program", and asking, "If I wanted to break the law, why was I briefing Congress?" On Jan. 23 after a scandal involving misappropriation of govt. funds by the Liberal Party, Conservatives win 36% of the vote in Canadian parliamentary elections, ending 12 years of Liberal Party rule; Paul Martin resigns, and on Feb. 6 Conservative Party of Canada leader Stephen Joseph Harper (1959-) becomes Canadian PM #22 (until Nov. 4, 2015), going on to have improved relations with the Bush admin. On Jan. 23 Russia's Federal Security Service accuses four British diplomats of spying using electronic equipment concealed in a fake rock in a park in Moscow. On Jan. 23 Raouf Rasheed Abdel-Rahman (a Kurd) becomes the new chief judge at Saddam Hussein's Kurd genocide trial in Baghdad, replacing fellow Kurd Rizgar Mohammed Amin, who submitted his resignation on Jan. 15 after complaints of failing to maintain control of Sodamn Insane; meanwhile Amin's deputy Saeed al-Hammash, a Shiite is ousted; on Jan. 29 Raouf is given his first test by Sodamn, who chastizes him for removing his half-brother Barzan Ibraham (who calls the court "a daughter of adultery"), then orders all four lead defendants removed and tried in absentia, causing the defense team to walk out; on Feb. 1 Sodam Insane and four other main defendants refuse to attend their trial, which proceeds without them. On Jan. 23 a train derails and plunges into the Moraca Canyon in Bioce outside Podgorica, Montenegro, killing 46 and injuring 19. On Jan. 24 The CW Television Network is founded by CBS and Warner Bros., replacing UPN and The WB; it begins operations on Sept. 18. On Jan. 25 Pope Benedict XVI issues God Is Love, his first encyclical, in which he says that the Church has a duty through charitable work to influence political leaders, and warns against sex without unconditional love, which he says risks turning people into merchandise; in marriage between man and woman eros and agape are united, as well as in God's love for mankind, he says - what about cowboy lovers Heath and Jake? On Jan. 25 Hamas (led by Damascus-based Khaled Mashaal) surprises pollsters by winning in a landslide over the corrupton-riddled ruling Fatah Party in Palestinian elections (76 of 132 seats, vs. 43 for Fatah), offering to share power with pres. Mahmoud Abbas, who enjoys U.S. and Israeli backing since Hamas doesn't accept the existence of either; too bad, Fatah doesn't want to give up power, and plans a coup led by Gen. Keith Dayton. On Jan. 25 "Burqa Boy" Michael Jackson is spotted in a Manama, Bahrain shopping mall disguised in a traditional black Arabic woman's veil and gown (abaya); his brother Jermaine is friends with the king's son Sheik Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifa, who helped him convert to Islam in 1989, causing Michael to move there after his acquittal in Calif.; he lives in a set of $1.5M boy-lined villas there, which causes rumors that he converted to Islam, which has always been friendly to rich male pedophiles? On Jan. 26 Pres. George W. Bush holds his 22nd solo news conference to soothe frayed nerves over Palestine, saying that the U.S. won't deal with an org. devoted to the destruction of Israel, with the soundbyte "Peace is never dead because people want peace"; he also dodges photos showing him in a classic grip-and-grin with Repub. lobbyist Jack Abramoff, saying they prove nothing since tens of thousands of such pictures have been taken with others; in Sept. 2006 a report by the House Govt. Reform Committee reveals using e-mail messages and subpoenaed records to find 485 contacts between Abramoff's lobbying team and White House officials from 2001-4, incl. 82 with Karl Rove's office - thousands of people throw their pics of themselves posing with GWB into the trash? On Jan. 27 thousands of angry Fatah supporters burn cars and shoot into the air across the Gaza Strip, demanding resignations of corrupt party officials and decrying any coalition with Hamas, beginning the Palestinian Civil War (ends 2009), which the Palestinians call Wakseh ("humiliation"), since Muslims are fighting their brothers over Jews. On Jan. 27 Western Union sends its last telegram; the first was sent on May 24, 1844 - stop? On Jan. 27 Jose Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales (1952-) of the Liberal Party becomes pres. of Honduras (until June 28, 2009), going on to become friends with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and develop links with organized crime, as the U.S. embassy in Honduras wired Pres. Obama, and revealed in Nov. 2010 by WikiLeaks; first lady is Xiomara Castro de Zelaya (1959-). On Jan. 28 a convention hall roof collapses in Katowice, Poland, killing 65 and injuring 170+ during a racing pigeon exhibition. On Jan. 29 Condoleezza Rice tells the press that the U.S. will press allies to deprive the Hamas-led Palestinian govt. of financial support, and wants other nations incl. Arab ones to follow suit. On Jan. 15 Kuwaiti emir #3 (since Dec. 31, 1977) Jaber III al-Ahmed al-Jaber al-Sabah (b. 1926) dies, and Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah (1930-2008) becomes emir #4 of Kuwait for nine days, followed on Jan. 29 by Sheikh Sabah IV Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah (1929-), who becomes emir #5 of Kuwait (until ?). On Jan. 29 (weeks after being named as Peter Jennings replacement on ABC's World News Tonight Chinese-speaking co-anchor Bob Woodruff (1961-) and Canadian cameraman Doug Vogt (1960-) are seriously injured in Iraq by an IED near Taji, 12 mi. N of Baghdad as they travel with the U.S. 4th Infantry Div. as "embedded reporters", and are evacuated to medical facilities in Landstuhl, Germany; Woodruff, suffering broken bones and traumatic brain injury (TBI) wakes up from a coma after 36 days - and has to be retaught everything like Uhura in Star Trek? On Jan. 30 a video is aired showing al-Qaida's #2 man Ayman al-Zawahri mocking Pres. Bush, calling him a failure, butcher, etc., and calling for an attack "Allah willing, on your own land" - he looks like LBJ with a beard, glasses, and turban? On Jan. 30 a 2-mo.-old. baby is found floating in a black plastic bag attached to a board in a lake in SE Brazil; police arrest its mother, 29-y.-o. Simone Cassiano da Silva (1975-) for attempted homicide. On Jan. 31 the Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says that Iran has obtained a document showing how to cast uranium metal into hemispherical forms for use as an atomic bomb; the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council advise that Iran be hauled before it over its nuclear program and face possible sanctions - better frisk them first? On Jan. 30 a 6-y.-o. black boy in Brockton, Mass. is suspended for three days from Downey Elementary School for sexual harassment for putting two fingers in a classmate's waistband. Sanmarco the Markswoman? On Jan. 30 (9 p.m.) former postal worker Jennifer Sanmarco (b. 1961) forces her way into her old workplace at the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Processing and Distribution Center, and kills five before killing herself, using a 9mm handgun and reloading at least once, becoming the highest kill count for a woman at a workplace shooting. On Jan. 31 Alan Greenspan (last known to not be dead in 2000?) retires as chmn. of the Federal Reserve System after 18 years (current longest-serving U.S. pres. appointee); his agent Robert B. Barnett, who negotiated a $12M deal for Pres. Bill Clinton and an $8M deal for Hillary Clinton gets him $??M for his memoirs; on Feb. 1 Ben Shalom Bernanke (1953-) of Ga. (yes, a Jew) becomes the new chmn. of the Federal Reserve (until ?). Break out the gay baby diapers? In Jan. slick TV ads featuring a cute diapered baby looking at the camera, sponsored by Coloradans for Fairness and Equality begin running in Colo. claiming that "some of us are born gay"; gay Colo. software exec Tim Gill, and Jon Stryker, brother of Ft. Collins, Colo. heiress Pat Stryker financially back the group, which seeks to give gay couples the same rights as hetero ones. As of Jan. there are 50 commercial biodiesel plants in the U.S., with 40 more under construction, producing 75M gal. in 2005; formula: mix 25 gal. vegetable oil, 5 gal. methanol, and 2 lbs. potassium hydroxide (Red Devil drain cleaner?), heat at 130F for 2 hours, mix with water and purify with air bubbles for 2 days, then allow to settle to let the glycerine sink to the bottom. In Jan. the secret Israeli Kopel Report is made public, showing the botched security for Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In Jan. the U.S. FDA requires food manufacturers to list trans fatty acids on Nutrition Facts labels, causing a new scandal as manufacturers manipulate the labels to boost sales. On Feb. 1 Pres. Bush delivers his 2006 State of the Union Address to a deeply-divided Congress hours after court-tipping ultra-conservative judge Samuel Alito is sworn in, and right before admin. critic Cindy Sheehan is arrested and removed from the House gallery for "unlawful conduct" merely for wearing a t-shirt with an anti-war slogan (that "land of the free" slogan is clearly a piece of crap now?); at one point the Dems. in the audience cheer a Bush statement that his Social Security reforms had been denied by them; he attempts to defend domestic surveillance without court oversight by saying that he's not going to let terrorists hit us again; proclaiming that the U.S. is "addicted to oil" he sets a nat. goal of replacing 75% of oil imports from the Mideast by 2025, and calls for $50M over 10 years to develop cellulosic ethanol, derived from trash and grass; he calls for a congressional bipartisan commission to study the impact of aging Baby Boomers on Social Security; an NBC News poll released on Jan. 31 shows only a 39% approval rate for his admin., which he neglects to mention; Dems. take Bush to task for only giving lip service to alternative energy, Sen. Harry Reid of Nev. saying "We have never had a more oil-oriented administration." On Feb. 1 hundreds of stone-throwing Israeli settlers stand-off Israeli riot police in the West Bank settlement of Amona, after Israel's Supreme Court clears the way for demolition of nine homes, and at least 200 are injured. On Feb. 1 swastika-tattoed Insane Clown Posse fan Jacob D. Robida (b. 1987) attacks customers of a gay bar in New Bedford, Mass. with a handgun and hatchet, then kills a police officer on Feb. 5 at a routine stop in Mountain Home, Ark., followed by his girlfriend Jannifer Bailey of Charleston, W. Va. before the police kill him; ICP mgr. Alex Abbiss later releases a statement: "If anyone knows anything at all about ICP, then you know that they have never, ever been down or will be down with any racist or bigotry bullshit." On Feb. 2 U.S. defense secy. Donald Runsfeld issues the immortal soundbyte about Muslim jihadists: "They will either succeed in changing our way of life, or we will succeed in changing theirs." On Feb. 2 two car bombs detonate in quick succession in the evening near a crowded market in E Baghdad, Iraq, killing 16 and wounding 90; a roadside bomb strikes a U.S. vehicle S of Baghdad, killing five service members. On Feb. 2 the U.S. Supreme Court stops three executions to consider whether the letal injection method is cruel and unusual punishment. On Feb. 2 Congress extends the U.S. Patriot Act through Mar. 10. On Feb. 2 (night) 200 Taliban fighters ambush a police patrol near Sangin, Afghanistan, causing a pitched battle that kills 27 by Feb. 4. On Feb. 2-3 a string of five small Baptist churches in Bibb County, Ala. are torched as fast as the arsonists can drive from one to the next. On Feb. 3 23 al-Qaida prisoners escape from an underground prison in San'a, Yemen through an 180 yard tunnel emerging at a mosque; an inside job is suspected; one escapee is a militant convicted in the 2000 USS Cole bombing, Jamal Ahmed al-Badawi - now let's get some Western cartoonists? On Feb. 3 the 35-y.-o. Al-Salaam Boccaccio 98 Ferry, weighted down with 220 cars sinks in choppy water in the Red Sea between Dubah, Saudi Arabia and Safaga, Egypt, killing 1.1K of 1.4K; some of the survivors have to wait in the water for 24 hours for rescue. On Feb. 3 NASA admin. Michael Griffin sends an e-mail to 19K employees promising "scientific openness" four days after being asked by House Science Committee chmn. Sherwood "Sherry" Boehlert (1936-) (R-N.Y.) to respond to charges that its most senior climate scientist James Hansen, dir. of the Goddard Inst. for Space Studies had been muzzled on global warming. On Feb. 3 Hospital Santa Monica in Rosarito, Mexico, the clinic where Coretta Scott King died is closed by Mexican authorities; its dir. Kurt Donsbach is alleged to have a criminal past and a rep. for offering dubious treatments, and has no medical degree. On Feb. 3 the crew of the ISS shoves SuitSat-1, a spacesuit stuffed with discarded clothing and a 145.990 MHz radio transmitter for tracking by amateur radio operators out into space, giving it the nickname Ivan Ivanovich Smith. On Feb. 4 Cardinal George Pell of Australia gives a speech to the Legatus assoc. of Am. Roman Catholic business owners titled "Islam and Western Democracies", warning of the violence taught by the Quran and how Muslim majorities in the West will seek to impose Sharia. On Feb. 5 Super Bowl XL (40) is held in Ford Field in Detroit, Mich. (first time ever in Detroit) before a cap. 65K crowd; the Rolling Stones perform Microsoft's anthem Start Me Up at the halftime show, causing grumbling by Motown performers, who are only allowed to do a pregame show; the Pittsburgh Steelers, led by QB (#7) "Big Ben" Rothlisberger (1982-) (who wears jersey #7 because his childhood hero was John Elway) (2nd youngest starting SB QB after Dan Marino) defeat the 4-point-underdog Seattle Seahawks, led by QB (#8) Matt Hasselback (1975-) by 20-10; Jerome Abraham "The Bus" Bettis (1972-) returns to his hometown on an Elway-like sentimental journey, while Microsoft-backed Seattle no-name defense and offense led by MVP QB Shaun Alexander (1977-) (with a record 28 TDs during the season) fails to take the 6.7 lb. $25K Tiffany & Co. Lombardi Trophy to Emerald City rather than Steel City; tickets are now $600, and a 30-sec. ad costs $2.5M. Allah vs. Superman, or, Maybe that pope was right who called Muhammad the Antichrist? On Feb. 3 the reprinting of 12 cartoon caricatures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad from the Sept. 30, 2005 issue of Denmark's Jyllands-Posten, ed. by Flemming Rose (1958-), incl. one of Muhammad with a beard in his turban causes madass protests by Muslims in Britain, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Palestine, incl. 50K in Khartoum, Sudan, causing the Danish govt. to apologize, and U.S. State Dept. spokesperson Janelle Hironimus to criticize the papers for "inciting religious or ethnic hatred in this manner", which she calls "not acceptable" (never criticizes the madass Muslims?); on Feb. 4 crazed caricatures of, er, Muslim protesters in Damascus attack the Danish and Norwegian embassies, then on Feb. 5 set fire to the Danish mission in Beirut, while Iran recalls its ambassador to Denmark; on Feb. 6 400 madass Muslims running loose in Tehran attack the Danish Embassy in the name of their prince of darkness Muhammad, the prophet of Satan who preaches hate and murder, intolerance, subjection of women and non-Muslims, polygamy and pedophilia, and doesn't claim to be divine or a healer but is an admitted killer, yet can't even be portrayed, while worshippers must dance around a black meteorite idol from outer space sent by his father the Devil?; in support many other European newspapers reprint them, the headline of France Soir reading "Yes, we have the right to caricature God" (Oui, on a le droit de caricaturer Dieu); on Oct. 28, 2005 a coalition of Dutch Muslim groups try to press criminal charges against the paper, but the prosecutor drops them; on Jan. 1, 2006 Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen backs up the paper's right to freedom of speech; on Jan. 1, 2006 a Christian newspaper in Norway reprints the cartoons; on Jan. 25 Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia demand punishment of the Danish newspaper, and on Jan. 26 withdraws their ambassador from Denmark as the country begins a boycott of Danish products; on Jan. 30 the paper apologizes for offending the Morons, er, Muslims, but stands by its decision to print them; on Jan. 31 Danish Muslims demand a clearer apology; on Feb. 2 the Jordanian weekly Shihan reprints them with an editorial by former Sen. Jihad Momani, who is then fired as the publisher withdraws the issue from circulation; in 2010 WikiLeaks reveals that Syria helped orchestrate the Motoon riots; meanwhile on Feb. 6 200 more criminals attack the Austrian Embassy in Tehran, yet more crazies storm a U.S. military base outside Bagram, Afghanistan (four being put to sleep by Afghan troops like the mad dogs they are by being shot in the street), and yet more crazed mad dogs stampede in Somalia, killing a teen boy; on Feb. 6 Lebanon apologizes to Denmark about being home to deathhead moth loonies with turbans and beards who can't stand unsevered infidel heads existing on the same planet with them (how can anyone portray the real Muhammad anyway when there are no original pics of him to go by, and don't half of the lookalike loonies call themselves Muhammad, and how is the "idolatrous" behavior of non-believers in the non-Muslim world any business of theirs to punish by taking the law in their own hands?); meanwhile on Feb. 6 Iran's parliament issues a statement mentioning what happened to Salman Rushdie (1947-), with thinly veiled threats that the British author of the cartoons will soon have a death warrant out on him, and sure enough, a $1M reward is put out for the head of the cartoonist; in Nigeria the heavily Muslim north goes bananas and kills 100 Christians in the heavily Christian SE, becoming the bloodiest cartoon fighting; the Muslims then begin pressuring the U.N. to make "defamation of Islam" a world crime, with a yearly vote that starts out strong then dwindles until ?; in July 2013 Lebanese-born Danish Muslim leader Ahmad Akkari, who traveled the Muslim World fueling the uproar over the cartoons repents, admitting the newspaper has the right to print them; too bad, on Sept. 30, 2015 after years of relentless Muslim attacks combined with submission to Sharia by the leftist govts. and PC press, Jyllans-Posten reprints the original page sans cartoons - shouldn't Islam be the world crime, with a worldwide death warrant out for each and every mental zombie suffering from this incurable mental virus for the good of the world? Are there actually any intelligent, sane people in this sick mass mind-control hypnocult ruled by a graveyard Hitler? On Feb. 5 cartoon-hating Iran ends all voluntary cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency - as it races to build A-bombs and use them with reckless abandon like in a, ahem, cartoon? On Feb. 27 Fatwa No. 71480: "The Burning of Ias bin Abdul Yalil by Abu Bakr" is pub. by Qatar-run Islam Web, claiming that burning people alive as punishment is permissible under Islam; too bad, after Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath Kassasbeh is burned alive by ISIS in early 2015, they quickly retract it. On Feb. 7 several photos by paparazzi are pub. showing Britney Spears driving her SUV with infant son Sean Preston (b. 2005) perched on her lap instead of being strapped into a car seat in back; she explains she did it because of a "horrifying, frightful encounter with the paparazzi". My baloney has a first name? On Feb. 8 Pres. Bush weighs into the Muhammad cartoon rage crimes by saying he defends the rights of newspapers to print what they see fit, but admonishes them of their "responsibility to be thoughtful about others"; U.S. secy. of state Condoleezza Rice accuses Syria and Iran of trying to inflame the situation, which on Feb. 12 Iran denies, demanding an apology; on Feb. 8 Jordan's King Abdullah II, standing next to Pres. Bush in the White House adds that "Islam, like Christianity and Judaism, is a religion of peace, tolerance, moderation"; on Feb. 12 the violence spreads to the occupied territories, plus Turkey and Indonesia; graffiti calling Muhammad a pig is scrawled on a West Bank mosque, causing a protest in which Israeli soldiers shoot three Palestinians - like pigs? On Feb. 8 the World Org. for Animal Health reports that H5N1 bird flu virus has been detected for the first time in Africa, in a commercial chicken farm in Nigeria. On Feb. 8 the U.S., Russia, and Germany decide to cancel Afghanistan's debts, incl. $108M owed to the U.S. and $44M to Germany from before the 1979 Soviet Invasion, and $10B owed to Russia from loans to the puppet Communist govt. in the early 1990s. On Feb. 8 the Nat. Center for Health Statistics that annual cancer deaths in the U.S. have fallen for the first time since 1930, down from 557,271 in 2002 to 556,902 in 2003. On Feb. 8 Nepal holds its first election in seven years, marred by low turnout and violence, which the U.S. calls a "hollow attempt" by King Gyanendra to legitimize his power. On Feb. 8 (6:30 p.m.) a security sensor in the Russell Senate Office Bldg. in Washington, D.C. indicates the presence of a nerve agent in the attic, causing 200 staffers and eight senators to be held in a parking garage for three hours until tests give the all-clear. On Feb. 9 Russian Pres. Putin invites Hamas leaders to Moscow, saying that he does not view it as a terrorist org.; meanwhile, Palestinian gunmen abduct Egyptian diplomat Hussam el-Musli (Almousaly) in the Gaza Strip (released on Feb. 11), and a suicide bomber strikes in Hangu, Pakistan during the Shiite Muslims' most holy festival, triggering a riot that burns down the town and leaves 32 dead and 50 wounded. On Feb. 9 Pres. Bush announces the foiling of a terrorist plot to crash a plane into the 73-story US Bank Tower (Library Tower) in Los Angeles, Calif., tallest bldg. on the U.S. West Coast by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (1964-), who refused to swear a loyalty oath to Osama bin Laden so that if he cancelled the 9/11 plan he wouldn't have to obey him; after 9/11 he finally swears the oath. On Feb. 10 a car bomb outside a Sunni mosque in Baghdad, Iraq kills eight, and gunmen abduct a Sunni cleric. On Feb. 10-26 the XX (20th) Winter Olympics are held in Turin (Torino), Italy (first time in Italy since 1956, and first time in Europe since 1994), with 2.5K athletes from 85 countries; NBC-TV pays $613M for the telecast rights, with 418 hours of coverage, averaging 24.5 hours a day (vs. $6.4M for the 1972 Sapporo games, with 37 hours of coverage); the mascots are Neve (female snowball) and Griz (male ice cube); on Feb. 12 Shaun "the Flying Tomato" White (1986-) wins gold in the snowboard halfpipe; on Feb. 12 Michelle Kwan drops out and retires with five world and nine nat. titles but no Olympic gold, and Emily Hughes (sister of Sarah Hughes) takes her place at the last moment after being delayed by the big snowstorm in the E U.S.; U.S. downhill skiing hope Bode Miller (1977-) finishes a disappointing 5th on Feb. 12 and leaving the U.S. team, with surprise Antoine Deneriaz (Déneriaz) (1976-) of France winning gold; U.S. favorite (2002 gold medalist) short-track speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno slips in the 1.5Km semifinal on Feb. 12 and fails to qualify; on Feb. 16 Russian biathlete Olga Valeryevna Pyleva (1975-) is thrown out of the games and stripped of her silver medal after being the first athlete caught doping when a blood test detects the stimulant carphedon; on Feb. 18 Shani Davis (1982-) becomes the first black male U.S. athlete to win a Winter Olympic gold (long track ice skating), but his win only exposes hostility (racism?) by fellow white skaters, Chad Hedrick refusing to congratulate him, and expressing indignation that he trained in Canada and dropped out of the relay without notice, keeping the U.S. from a medal; on Feb. 19 Italy finally wins the cross-country skiing gold, the last time being in the first Winter Olympics in 1936; on Feb. 22 Russia ousts Canada from the hockey competition in the men's quarterfinals with a 2-0 win, while Finland ousts the U.S. men's hockey team 4-3 on the 26th anniv. of the Miracle on Ice game; on Feb. 22 Anja Paerson wins the women's slalom, a first for Sweden; on Feb. 23 Shizuka Arakawa (1981-) of Japan wins the gold in women's figure skating (a first), with Sasha Cohen (1984-) of the U.S. winning the silver, and (excuse me?) Irina Slutskaya (1979-) of Russia winning the bronze as the latter two fall in their long programs; Tugba Karademir (1985-) becomes the first figure skater from Turkey, coming in 21st; Evgeni Plushenko (1982-) of Russia wins the gold in men's figure skating; meanwhile the Shroud of Turin is used to resurrect Jesus Christ, who speaks to reporters as the Olympics begins? - (TLW, Salvation Day: the Immortality Device). Cheney's freeze-fame image is made for the administration that can't shoot straight? On Feb. 11 (5:30 p.m.) (Sat.) U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney accidentally shoots and wounds 78-y.-o. Henderson, Tex.-born companion Harry M. Whittington (1927-) (a millionaire atty. from Austin) in a weekend quail hunting trip near Corpus Christi in Kennedy County, Tex., spraying his face and chest with shotgun pellets, becoming the first shooting by a vice-pres. since Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in 1804; Whittington later has a heart attack in the hospital as a pellet lodges in his heart; on Feb. 16 Tex. authorities close the investigation without bringing charges, and Whittington goes on camera to apologize to Cheney; as late as 2009 he still has 30 pellets in his jaw and gums - how about shooting a certain lame duck? On Feb. 11 a fire at a Baptist church in rural Ala. becomes the 10th in a string of blazes churches in the state, half black and half white; on Mar. 8 three white college students, Russell DeBusk, Ben Moseley, and Matthew Cloyd, described as pranksters are arrested in Birmingham, Ala.; they tell federal agents that the first few blazes were "a joke" and that the others were started to throw investigators off the track. On Feb. 11-12 a record nor'easter, the Blizzard of 2006 hits 14 states, dumping 29.6 in. of snow in New York City (most since data were kept in 1869), and is Boston's 11th biggest snowstorm ever; 12-27 in. of snow hits the coast from N.C. to Maine; 520 flights are cancelled at LaGuardia, Liberty Int. in Newark, and JFK airports. On Feb. 12 the British govt. says it is investigating allegations that British soldiers kicked and beat Iraqi teenagers in an army compound in Basra in 2004 as pub. by the News of the World, showing scenes filmed by a "disgusted whistle-blower", in one of which a soldier shouts "Oh yes! You're going to get it. Yes, naughty little boys." On Feb. 12 supporters of agronomist and former pres. Rene Preval protest in Port-au-Prince (1958-), Haiti after he falls less than one point short of enough votes to avoid a runoff election for pres.; on Feb. 16 he is declared the winner after 85K blank votes are divided among the candidates to avoid a runoff, giving him 51%; Leslie Manigat comes in 2nd; he is sworn-in on May 14, donning the blue-red sash of scary Hate-y. On Feb. 13 a suicide bomber at a bank in E Baghdad, Iraq kills five and wounds 32. On Feb. 15 members of the U.S. Congress pillory execs of Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems after Billy Goat, er, Microsoft responds to a Chinese request to shut down the blog site of Chinese journalist Michael Anti (1964-) and provides the Commies with censoring software, and Yahoo stinks itself up by providing info. to help the Commies track down and imprison dissidents Shi Tao (10 years), Li Zhi (8 years), and Jiang Lijun (4 years); a grassroots Internet Boycott Yahoo campaign begins; Google has actually done nothing objectionable, offering the Chinkfaces a censored version of its search engine but keeping its uncensored version available? On Feb. 15 new images showing Iraqis being abused by U.S. guards at Abu Ghraib Prison in 2003 are broadcast by Australia's Special Broadcasting Service, incl. one group of naked men with bags over their heads being forced to masturbate. On Feb. 15 U.S. secy. of state Condoleezza Rice tells a Senate panel that she is planning to ask for $75M to promote democracy in Iran - should be $75T? On Feb. 15 Homeland Security Dir. Michael Chertoff is basted by senators for his handling of Hurricane Katrina, admitting to "many lapses". On Feb. 16 U.N. secy.-gen. Kofi Annan says that the U.S. should close its Guantanamo Bay Prison for terrorists as soon as possible. On Feb. 16 after lobbying by the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism, the British Racial and Religious Hatred Act makes it a crime in England and Wales to intentionally incite hatred against a person on the grounds of race or religion (or lack thereof), effective Oct. 1, 2007; too bad, while obviously aimed at protecting Muslims, it conflicts with freedom of religion and expression and might itself stir up more hatred? On Feb. 17 a mudslide wipes out the Guinsaugon village in Leyte, SE of Manila, Philippines, killing almost all 1.8K, leaving 21 survivors. On Feb. 17 two U.S. CH-53E transport helis carrying a dozen crew and troops from the counterterrorism force crashes into the sea in the Gulf of Aden near the N coastal town of Ras Siyyan, killing 10. On Feb. 17 another Muhammad cartoon protest in Benghazi, Libya kills 10, causing Italian govt. minister Roberto Calderoli (1956-), who had worn a t-shirt printed with the Danish Muhammad cartoons on TV to be forced to resign on Feb. 18 after PM Silvio Berlusconi demands his resignation, which Calderoli does under protest, warning of an Islamic attack on the West, saying, "In these last days, I expressed in my way solidarity with all those who have been struck by the blind violence of religious fanaticism". On Feb. 18 Communist insurgents in Nepal call for a nationwide strike to protest the autocratic rule of King Gyanendra, which he instituted to end an alleged communist insurgency; meanwhile the country's major political parties stage a weekend protest, starting with Democracy Day on Feb. 18, a celebration of the 1980s movement that forced the king to permit multiparty democracy; the protests drag on until Apr.; a legend says that Nepal's Shah dynasty of Hindu god-kings will end after 11 generations, and he is #12? On Feb. 18 thousands of Muslim looney tunes protesting the Muhammad cartoons attack Christians and burn churches in Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing 15. On Feb. 18 militants launch a wave of attacks across the oil-rich S delta of Nigeria, blowing up oil installations and seizing nine foreign oil workers, incl. three Americans; a 400K barrel-a-day facility supplying 16% of the country's output is shut down by Royal Dutch Shell. On Feb. 18 a U.S. soldier and three Iraqi police are killed in two roadside bomb attacks in Baghdad, along with three other officials in the 2nd attack. On Feb. 19 a predawn gas explosion in a mine in San Juan de Sabinas in N Mexico traps 65 miners. On Feb. 19 the Israeli govt. brands the Palestinian Authority a "terrorist authority" and halts the transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax and tariff money. On Feb. 19 eight ConAgra Foods ham processing 2nd-3rd shift workers in Neb. win the $365M Powerball jackpot (largest in U.S. history) after purchasing the ticket at a U-stop convenience store in Lincoln; two are immigrants from Vietnam and one from the Congo; they take home $15.5M each after taxes. On Feb. 19 more looney tunes protests against the Muhammad cartoons in Islamabad, Paistan cause hundreds to be arrested, and more looney tunes try to storm the U.S. embassy in Indonesia, while tens of thousands more rally in Istanbul; meanwhile Danish businesses suffering boycotts place full-page apologies in Saudi Arabian newspapers; total roadkill stands at 45 worldwide. On Feb. 20 the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala, scene of the Sept. 15, 1963 KKK bombing which killed four black girls is designated a U.S. nat. landmark. On Feb. 20 a Bush admin. decision to allow UAE-owned Dubai Ports World (owned by Dubai's royal Maktoum family) to operate six major U.S. ports in New York, Newark, Philly, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Miami is questioned by two Repub. governors, sparking an outcry., causing Pres. Bush to say that he will veto any measure to block the $6.8B deal; on Feb. 23 the Dems. push for a 45-day investigation; on Mar. 8 a House panel dominated by his own Repub. Party votes overwhelmingly to block the deal, and on Mar. 9 the co. agrees to transfer its U.S. operations to a U.S. co. On Feb. 20 Afghanistan-born U.S. ambassador Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad (1951-) warns Iraqi leaders that they risk losing U.S. support unless they establish a nat. unity govt. not controlled by religious crazies; meanwhile a string of Is-Lame (I-Slam?) suicide bombings kills 24, incl. one U.S. soldier. On Feb. 20 a new Betty Friedan Stamp is issued by the U.S. Post Office. On Feb. 21 Hams appoints former univ. admin. Ismail Haniyeh (1963-) as Palestinian PM (until June 14, 2007). On Feb. 21 a car bomb attack on an outdoor market in a Shiite area of SW Baghdad, Iraq kills 22 and injures dozens. On Feb. 21 Harvard pres. Lawrence Henry "Larry" Summers (1954-) announces his resignation on June 30 rather than fight his PC faculty pissed-off by his comments that innate ability may explain why few women reach top science posts; he ends up as Barack Obama's top economic adviser - which explains why he didn't pick Hillary Clinton as his running mate? On Feb. 22 a large explosion destroys the Golden Dome of the Shiite Askariya Shrine in Samarra (60 mi. N of Baghdad), raising fears of a religious civil war in Iraq as angry demonstrators cry for revenge, trashing Sunni mosques on Feb. 23 in violence that kills 120, causing the govt. to order a daytime curfew in Baghdad; on Feb. 22 Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, Iraq's most powerful Shiite politician blames U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad for threatening to cut off support to the Shiite-run Interior Ministry that oversees police because of its sectarian ties; the bombing triggers a cycle of Hatfield-McCoy retaliations for the rest of the year; on Aug. 2, 2007 Golden Mosque attack mastermind (al-Qaida cmdr.) Haytham Badri (Sabi) is killed during a U.S. air assault on his home in the Banat Hassan area 65 N of Baghdad. On Feb. 22 Pope Benedict XVI names 15 new cardinals, incl. John Paul II's longtime private secy., the archbishops of Hong Kong (Joseph Zen), Caracas, Seoul, Bordeaux, Toledo, Manilla, Boston (Sean P. O'Malley), and William Levada of the U.S. (Benedict's successor at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith); 12 of them are under still 80 and thus eligible to pick a new pope. On Feb. 22 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oscar Arias wins the pres. election in Costa Rica by a close 18,167 votes. On Feb. 22 China finally releases journalist Yu Dongyue, the 38-y.-o. Tiananmen Square protester who three red paint-filled eggshells on the giant portrait of Muhammad, er, Mao in Tiananmen Square on 5-23-1989; 16 years of torture and solitary have driven him insane; his partners, teacher Yu Zhijian. and bus driver Lu Decheng were released in 1998 after nine years in jail, and Lu fled to Thailand in 2004; 74 others T-protesters remain in priz. On Feb. 22 a judge in London orders the release of Prince Charles' 1997 Diary, leaked by a palace employee, despite his claim of confidentiality and copyright infringement; it shows him lamenting that he has to travel business class to Hong King to watch its handover to China, saying "I then discovered that [they - politicians?] were confortably ensconced in first class immediately below us. Such is the end of the Empire, I sighed to myself." On Feb. 22-23 (night) the Great Tronbridge Robbery sees a gang of armed robbers impersonating police officers make off with $85M from a cash center at Tonbridge, Kent County in S England. On Feb. 23 a 7.5 earthquake (strongest in a cent.) strikes Mozambique 19 min. after midnight, swaying bldgs. in the capital Maputo. On Feb. 23 (5:45 a.m.) the Moscow roof collapse sees a snow-covered football-field-size roof of a market in Moscow collapse, killing 56. On Feb. 24 Philippine pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo declares a state of emergency on the eve of the Feb. 25 20th anniv. of the People Power Uprising that forced Ferdinand Marcos into exile; on Feb. 24 Corazon Aquino leads a street protest urging her to step down; on Feb. 25 police raid newspaper offices and detain prominent critics. On Feb. 25 24-y.-o. Imette Carmella St. Guillen (b. 1981), a criminal justice student disappears from the Falls Bar in SoHO, N.Y. (in a bldg. owned by the family of Geraldine Ferraro), and is later found dumped on the side of a road in Brooklyn, raped, strangled, bound, and suffocated with packaging tape wrapped over her face. On Feb. 25 5th-grade teacher Wendie Ann Schweikert (1970-) is held on $100K bail in Laurens, S.C. for having sex with a male student twice at the E.B. Morse Elementary School, the boy's mother choked with tears at the hearing of the horrible "female pedophile" - the new Salem Witchhunt begins, meanwhile the hos down the block do tricks every night for bucks and everybody looks the other way? On Feb. 28 (Fat Tuesday) New Orleans holds its Mardi Gras parade down St. Charles Street, with signs that read "Come Hell or High Water", and revelers dressed up in satire of hurricane disaster, such as blind men with T-shirts reading "Levee Inspectors"; Mayor Ray Nagin dresses as cigar-chomping Gen. Russell L. Honore, "the Ragin' Cajun", who led the first convoy of hurricane relief aid. On Feb. 28 68 die in Sunni-Shiite strife across Baghdad in 65% Shiite, 32% Sunni Iraq, which is tilting toward civil war daily; meanwhile Pres. Bush seems unconcerned, telling ABC News' Elizabeth Vargas that he had talked with Iraqi leaders and they are cool. On Feb. 28 the U.S. Supreme Court rules that the U.S. Hobbs Act (extortion) and U.S. RICO Act (racketeering) can't be used against abortion demonstrators, clearing the way for Joseph Scheidler and other abortion leaders to go back at it, with only the 1994 U.S. Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to use to limit their protests against what women do with their fetus' bodies. On Feb. 28 German officials announce that a deadly strain of bird flu has been found in a cat, becoming the first animal other than a bird to be found with it in C Europe; it was found on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen where more than 100 wild birds infected with the H5N1 strain have been found; in 2003-4 tigers and snow leopards in a zoo in Thailand died after eating chicken carcasses infected with it, and three house cats died in 2004 near Bangkok from it. On Feb. 28 prosecutors in Baghdad present documents showing that Saddam Hussein approved the executions of 140+ Shiites in the 1980s; on Mar. 1 Saddam Hussein admits in court to ordering the death of the 148 Dujail Shiites, but points out that as they were given due process of law before execution, it was all legal - as if anybody cares by now? In Feb. the Great Lakes remain ice-free in the middle of the winter for the first time in memory, upsetting tourism and ice fishing. In Feb. Radio Shack CEO David Edmondson resigns after admitting that he lied about his academic credentials on his resume - no credit for life experience? In Feb. Michael Mastromarino, owner of Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J. is charged with stealing hundreds of cadavers from New York City funeral homes to sell tissue for transplants, incl. the body of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke (d. 2004). In Feb. Russia's stock market jumps 108% since the same month in 2005; India's market jumps 54%, and Brazil's market jumps 38%; the U.S. market grows only 1%, and the Chinese market 3%. In Feb. the N.M. legislature appropriates $110M to develop the first commercial spaceport on a ranch W of White Sands Missile Range near Truth or Consequences, N.M. where Virgin Galactic will use a rocket-glider combo to sell passengers into space for $200K a head, on a 2.5 hour trip which incl. 6 min. of weightlessness. In Feb. Condoleezza Rice wears a military-inspired dress and coat with big buttons and knee-high black boots to visit U.S. troops at Wiesbaden Army Field, creating a stir. On Feb. 24-28 New Orleans, La. celebrates its first Mardi Gras since Hurricane Katrina 6 mo. earlier; on Feb. 28 (Tue.) (Mardi Gras) the top of the Empire State Bldg. is lit in purple, green, and gold. In Feb. English Muslim Omar Khayam dresses up as a suicide bomber, shocking the country; in 2010 he receives a 13-year sentence for involvement in a heroin-cannabis factory. On Mar. 2 Pres. Bush concludes a historic nuclear deal with former bad boy India, meeting with Indian PM Manmohan Singh to tell them that now it's okay to have nukes?; on Mar. 3 Bush goes to Pakistan despite a bomb attack which killed a U.S. diplomat and three others near the U.S. consulate in Karachi, and massive anti-U.S. and anti-Indian protests; the deal with India allows them to receive nuclear fuel and technology from the U.S. and others, Bush issuing the non-sequitur, "It's in our economic interests that India have a civilian nuclear power industry to help take the pressure off the global demand for energy." On Mar. 2 the U.S. Senate finally passes the U.S. Patriot Act by a 89-10 vote after adding privacy protections, followed by the House on Mar. 7, and Pres. Bush signs it on Mar. 9, a day before it is set to expire; the measure also regulates cold and allergy medicines used to cook meth. On Mar. 2 an Italian parliamentary commission announces that it has concluded that top Soviet leaders were behind the failed plot to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981, saying that they hired Bulgarian secret agent Serghei Ivanov Antonov (former dir. of Balkan Air) et al. to eliminate him for supporting the Solidarity trade union; as if everybody hasn't read Tom Clancy's 2002 novel Red Rabbit? The U.S. manufactures its own cartoon controversy? On Mar. 2 students protest over the Mar. 1 suspension of Jay Bennish, a geography teacher at Overland H.S. in Aurora, Colo. for giving a world geography class lecture on Feb. 2 (the day after Bush's State of the Union address) calling the U.S. "probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth" and comparing Pres. Bush to Hitler "in tone", then inviting students to think for themselves and respond; the dimwitted administrators actually try to make something out of it after student Sean Allen makes an MP3 recording and shops it around, getting it played on a local radio talk station, taking official action and bringing it on themselves, showing the limits of their own education? On Mar. 2 the AP pub. figures obtained from the Iraqi Health Ministry putting the 2005 civilian death toll at 4,024, more than twice as many as the 1,222 police and 473 soldiers killed. On Mar. 2 new more colorful $10 bills are issued by the U.S. Mint, containing red, yellow, and orange as well as the traditional green. On Mar. 3 the Pentagon ends four years of secrecy and hands over the names of detainees at the U.S. military priz at Guantanamo embedded in 5K pages of transcripts of hearings, which also contain the revelation that many were detained simply for wearing common Casio watches - the new U.S. terrorist petting zoo? On Mar. 3 Wal-Mart reverses its decision and decides to stock the Plan-B "morning after" pill in its pharmacies. On Mar. 3 Hamas political chief Khaled Mshaal meets with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, but refuses to recognize Israel or abandon violence. On Mar. 3 a Vietnamese court convicts British rocker Gary Glitter (Paul Francis Gadd) (1944-) of obscene acts with two Vietnamese girls ages 10 and 11 in 2005 in his villa in S Vung Tau, and sentences him to three years in prison; afterwards he utters the soundbyte: "I haven't done anything. I'm innocent. It's a conspiracy by you know who." (British tabloids?) On Mar. 3 (noon) Iranian-born Muslim U.S. citizen Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar (1983-) gets a message from Allah and runs down six people with his SUV at the U. of N.C. Chapel Hill campus to "avenge the deaths of Muslims worldwide" and "punish the U.S. govt. for their actions around the world", adding "I was aiming to follow in the footsteps of one of my role models, Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, who obtained a doctorate degree"; at his initial hearing he tells the judge he was "thankful for the opportunity to spread the will of Allah"; none are seriously injured or killed; he is convicted of nine counts of attempted first-degree murder and gets 33 years in prison. On Mar. 4 Muslim paramilitary leader and Kremlin loyalist Ramzan Akhmadovich Kadyrov (1976-), son of former Chechen pres. Akhmad Kadyrov (assassinated in 2004), and Chechnya's most feared and-or hated man is appointed PM of Chechnya by Kremlin-backed pres. Alu Alkhanov, replacing Sergei Abramov, who resigned for medical reasons after a car accident. The Academy members break the back of viewers' expectations in '06? On Mar. 5, 2006 the 78th Academy Awards hosted by Jon Stewart are held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif.; 311 films are eligible for consideration; the best picture Oscar for 2005 goes to Lions Gate's Brokeback Mountain, er, Crash, best dir. to Ang Lee for Crash, er, Trash, er, Brokeback Mountain, best actor to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote (first duplicate best actor surname - Dustin Hoffman for "Kramer vs. Kramer" in 1979 and "Rain Man" in 1988), best actress to Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line, best supporting actor to George Clooney for Syriana, and best supporting actress to Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener; best original song goes to It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp by Three 6 Mafia ("Juicy J" Jordan Houston, "Crunchy Black" Cedric Coleman, and "DJ Paul" Beauregard) from Hustle & Flow; dir. Robert Altman (1925-2006) (who looks like a cross between Jimmy Stewart, Peter Fonda, and Clint Eastwood?) receives a lifetime achievement award, and reveals that he received a heart transplant from a young woman 10 years earlier; Larry McMurtry wears jeans with his tuxedo jacket; Jon Stewart jokes that Walk the Line is "'Ray' for white people", and that "The Oscars is really the one night of the year where you can see all your favorite stars without giving money to the Democratic Party"; the actresses and actors mainly dress in penguin-like black and white, with Michelle Williams going for mustard (canary?) with bright red lipstick, Keira Knightley for eggplant (with heavy black eye makeup and a vintage Bulgari necklace), Amy Adams for chocolate brown, Jessica Alba for gold, and Reese Witherspoon for silver; Charlize Theron wears a deep emerald Dior dress with a freaky bridesmaid bow on her shoulder almost big enough to be a 2nd head, while Helena Bonham Carter (English name and Russian looks?) wears a short blue gown with white shoes and a freaky big stiff updo. On Mar. 6 the U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously in ? v. that the govt. can force colleges campuses to accept military recruiters whether or not they provide them with federal money. On Mar. 6 Pres. Bush asks Congress for a modified version of the line-item veto struck down by the U.S. Supreme court eight years earlier; the new version would let him send line items back for an up-down vote; not only Repubs. but Dems. incl. John Kerry support him. On Mar. 6 S.D. bans most abortions except those necessary to save the mother's life; Ala., Miss., and Mo. immediately introduce similar bills - coat hangers fly off the store shelves? On Mar. 6 Milan Babic, a Croatian Serb convicted of ethnic cleansing during the Balkan wars commits suicide in prison in Amsterdam. On Mar. 7 a Pew Hispanic Center Report is pub., saying the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has grown to 11.5M-12M, with about 7.2M undocumented workers, or about 5% of the workforce, and that increased security has backfired by making it harder for them to return to Mexico; 6.2M illegals come from Mexico, 2.5M from Latin America, 1.5M from Asia, 0.6M from Europe or Canada, and 0.4M from Africa or other. On Mar. 7 the U.S. House votes 280-138 (only two more than needed) to extend the U.S. Patriot Act, sending it to Pres. Bush. On Mar. 7 U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney warns Iran of "meaningful consequences" if it doesn't stop developing nukes. On Mar. 7 a terrorist attack in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi, India kills 15 and injures dozens during services for the monkey deity Hanuman, the Liberator From Troubles? On Mar. 7 11-term Texas Rep. Tom DeLay beats three Repub. rivals and is renominated for Congress despite the charges hanging over his head. On Mar. 7 Pearson Educational Measurement in Austin, Tex. says that heavy rainy weather caused answer sheets to expand and its equipment that scans SAT college entrance exams to foul up and give lower scores (as much as 450 points) to 4,411 out of 495K taking the Oct. test, messing up the students' college entrance chances with such a late announcement after admissions are closed. On Mar. 7 an excerpt is pub. from Game of Shadows, an upcoming book by two San Francisco Chronicle reporters accusing baseball star Barry Bonds of using steroids, causing ML baseball commissioner Bud Selig to comment on Mar. 9 that he will review the allegations but not launch an official investigation; Bonds comments, "I won't even look at that" (the book). On Mar. 7 Munsuf Abdallah Khalidi, a news anchor on Sunni-run Baghdad TV in Iraq is shot and killed by terrorists. Let's hear it for the true-blue Dubs? On Mar. 8 the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland admits that 102 of its 2.8K Dublin priests past and present (3.6%) are suspected of child abuse; 32 have been sued and eight have been convicted of criminal offenses. On Mar. 8 the U.S. Senate unanimously approves a ban on gifts and meals from lobbyists to members of Congress as a reaction to the Jack Abramoff scandal. On Mar. 8 the reality TV show Top Chef debuts on Bravo (until ?), with judges incl. Elizabeth, N.J.-born chef (head judge) Thomas Patrick "Tom" Colicchio (1962-) (known for his Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan, N.Y., opened in July 1994 and named most popular restaurant in New York City in 2003 and 2005), Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, and Anthony Bourdain, spawning spinoffs "Top Chefs: Master", and "Top Chef: Just Desserts"; in 2007-10 Am. chef Lee Anne Wong becomes the culinary producer of "Top Chef", hosting the Webcast "Top Recipe: The Wong Way to Cook"; on June 10, 2009 Top Chef: Masters debuts on Bravo-TV (until ?), produced by Tom Colicchio and hosted by South Korean-born Kelly Choi (1976-) and Australian-born chef Curtis Stone (1975-); winners incl. Rick Bayless (1953-) (season 1), Ethiopian-born chef Marcus "Joar" Samuelsson (Kassahun Tsegie) (1970-) (season 2), Am. chef Floyd Cardoz (season 3), and R.I.-born chef (known for loving to cook offal) Chris Cosentino (season 4). On Mar. 9 Christophe Fauviau of Mont-de-Marsan in SW France is convicted of drugging his children's tennis opponents, leading to one accidental death. On Mar. 9 4-star Gen. John Philip Abizaid (1951-) (highest-ranking U.S. gen. of direct Arab descent, known as the "Mad Arab"), top U.S. cmdr. in the Middle East (July 7, 2003 - Mar. 16, 2007) tells Congress that Sunni-Shiite violence is more of a threat than the insurgency; when pressed by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.), Donald Rumsfeld reveals that a civil war would be initially handled by Iraqi security forces; in 2004 Abizaid used the term Long War to describe the war on Islamic insurgents, which he expects to last from 50-80 years, and which is adopted by the Bush admin. On Mar. 9 the U.S. military announces that it will begin moving the 4,537 prisoners of Abu Ghraib Prison in W Baghdad (out of 14,589 total U.S. prisoners in Iraq) to a new facility at Camp Cropper near the airport within 3 mo., then turn over the old facility to the Iraqis - so they can use it to torture Americans? On Mar. 8 the U.S. State Dept. releases its Annual Report on Global Human Rights Conditions, pointing fingers at 190+ countries, and saying that conditions have worsened in China since 2005; on Mar. 9 China criticizes the human rights record of the U.S., pointing to racial discrimination and the treatment of military POWs. On Mar. 10 Pres. Bush's approval rating drops to 37%, only 11 points higher than Tricky Dicky Nixon's in Mar. 1974; Clinton's lowest rating was 57% in Nov. 1997, Raagan's 65% in Nov. 1985, and Ike's 58% in Nov. 1957. On Mar. 10 the body of Tom Fox (b. 1951), the lone American among four Christian Peacemaker activists kidnapped a year earlier in Iraq is found; a video dated Feb. 28 shows the other three appealing for their release, Canadians James Loney (41) and Harmeet Singh Sooden (32), and Norman Kember (74) of Britain; British special forces and the U.S. military rescue them on Mar. 23; Kember's attitude after his rescue irks British army head Gen. Mike Jackson, who says "I am slightly saddened that there doesn't seem to have been a note of gratitude for the soldiers who risked their lives." On Mar. 10 police in Chichibu, Japan (50 mi. NW of Tokyo) find a van with six bodies slumped inside along with a smoking stove; they had all met over the Internet and formed a suicide pact. On Mar. 11 (Sat.) Amjad Hameed (b. 1960), dir. of Iraq's public TV channel Al-Iraqiya is shot and killed along with his driver as he heads to work in C Baghdad, bringing the total of journalists killed in Iraq since the U.S. invasion to over 70, and bringing calls for new laws permitting journalists to carry firearms. On Mar. 12 after a wait of 644 days (6-6-04) the HBO mob drama The Sopranos (created by David Chase) begins its 6th and final season, with 20 hour-long episodes (12 in 2006, 8 in 2007), compared to the usual 13, starting with episode #66; the final episode on June 11, 2007 (Mon.) is widely panned as a stinker, with a cat taken as a reincarnated murder victim, and James Gandolfini about to be wiped out by rival mobsters but never resolved. Iraq's Anatomy on Web-TV? On Mar. 12 after a planned attack near their checkpoint, four members of a family in Mahmoudiya, Iraq (20 mi. S of Baghdad) are murdered, and 14-y.-o. Abeer Qassim al-Janabi (b. 1992) raped and murdered by five U.S. soldiers from the 502nd Infantry Regiment, incl. St. Paul E. Cortez (1986-), Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, Pfc. Steven Dale Green (1984-), Spc. James P. Barker, and Pfc. Bryan L. Howard; on July 4 Iraqi lawmakers blast the U.S. and demand justice after the Mujahedeen Army reports the incident on a Web site; Green is arrested in N.C. after being discharged for a personality disorder; eight soldiers from the 101st Airborne Div. in Evansville, Ind. end up being court-martialed on murder charges; Cortez and Spielman are charged with the death penalty; on Feb. 22, 2007 Cortez gets 100 years (eligible for parole in 10 years) in exchange for testifying against the others; on Aug. 24, 2007 Spielman gets 110 years.; on May 7, 2009 Green is convicted of rape and four murders, and given life after a jury gets hung over the death penalty. On Mar. 12 Mark V. Olsen's and Will Scheffer's TV drama series Big Love debuts on HBO-TV for 53 episodes (until Mar. 20, 2011), about the United Effort Brotherhood of fundamentalist polygamous renegade Mormons in the Juniper Creek compound in Utah, starring Bill Paxton as patriarch Bill Henrickson, and his wives Barbara "Barb" (Jeanne Tripplehorn), Nicolette "Nicki" (Chloe Sevigny), and Margene "Margie" (Ginnifer Goodwin); Douglas Smith plays Bill's and Barb's son Ben, who is sexually attracted to Margene; Harry Dean Stanton plays Prophet Roman Grant. On Mar. 13 the sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine debuts on CBS-TV for 88 episodes (until May 12, 2010), starring Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus (1961-) as neurotic women's gym owner Christine Campbell. On Mar. 13-14 Iraqi authorities discover 87 executed corpses in the Shiite neighborhood of Kamaliyah in E Baghdad, and another 55 are recovered elsewhere in the city as the country edges toward civil war. On Mar. 14 the U.S. govt. begins prosecuting 32 murders and attempted murders reaching back 30 years by members of the Aryan Brotherhood AKA the Brand using the RICO Act in order to dismantle the gang that has infiltrated nearly every U.S. prison since its beginnings in San Quentin in 1964 - what are they going to do, put them in prison? On Mar. 14 Israeli troops storm a Palestinian-run prison in the West Bank and seize a Palestinian militant and his accomplices suspected of assassinating an Israeli cabinet minister, causing retaliation by Palestinian miliants against offices linked to the U.S. and Europe. On Mar. 14 Iraqi security officials announce that they have foiled a plot to put 421 al-Qaida men at guard posts in Baghdad's 2-sq.-mi. Green Zone on the W bank of the Tigris River, who were to then storm U.S. and British embassies; only one more bureaucrat's signature was required to hire them. On Mar. 14 Leonie Brinkema, the judge in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial bars half of the prosecution's key witnesses after finding that Federal Transportation Security Admin. atty. Carla Martin improperly coached several witnesses and gave them trial transcripts after lawyers for two airlines being sued for damages by 9/11 victims asked her to; having already pleaded guilty, the trial is about the death penalty? On Mar. 15 the FCC rules that programs on three TV networks, Fox, ABC, and CBS are "indecent" because of language, citing their 2004 ruling that virtually any use of certain expletives will be so considered; they all appeal by Apr., and NBC files on behalf of the others, all of them issuing a joint statement on Apr. 14 calling the ruling unconstitutional and inconsistent with two decades of previous rulings; the "S" word is especially cited, although the FCC says it can be used after 10 p.m. in the Eastern and Pacific time zones - "S" that stinks? On Mar. 15 Saddam Hussein testifies in Baghdad for the 1st time in his trial, using the photo op to call on Iraqis to stop killing each other and "resist the invaders and their backers". On Mar. 15-16 (night) U.S. troops execute 10+ Iraqi civilians incl. an infant in Ishaqi, Iraq, then try to cover it up with an airstrike. On Mar. 16 the U.S. begins Operation Swarmer, sending 1.5K Iraqi and coalition troops in 50 helis into Salahuddin Province in the largest air assault in nearly three years. On Mar. 16 Iraq's new 275-member parliament is sworn in, incl. 130 from the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, 55 from Sunni parties, 53 from the Kurdish Alliance, and 37 from secular and minority parties. On Mar. 16 Iran offers for the first time to enter into talks with the U.S. aimed at stabilizing Iraq - at a slightly smaller size of course? On Mar. 16 the U.S. Congress raises its debt ceiling from $6T to $9T. On Mar. 16 Pres. Bush picks pro-development Repub. Idaho gov. #30 (since Jan. 8, 1899) Dirk Arthur Kempthorne (1951-) to replace Gale Norton as interior secy. #49 (until Jan. 20, 2009); she left the U.S. with more wetlands than at any time since 1954? On Mar. 16 exotic black dancer Crystal Gail Magnum (1978-) accuses three Duke U. lacrosse players, Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty, and Reade Seligmann of sexual assault, causing their lives to be ruined as politically ambitious district atty. Michael Byron "Mike" Nifong (1950-) goes after them despite a faulty case. On Mar. 16 the Internat. Criminal Tribunal for the former Yuglosavia (ICTY) in The Hague convicts Bosnian Muslim army chief of staff Enver Hadzihasanovic (1950-) of war crimes, along with Amir Kubura. On Mar. 17 Muslim gunmen attack a Protestant church in Islamabad, Pakistan with a grenade, killing five and injuring 40. On Mar. 17 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. reaches a 5-year high of 11,279.65, its highest level since reaching 11,301.74 on 5-21-2001. On Mar. 19 global protests mark the 3rd anniv. of the Iraq War. On Mar. 19 a tropical 180 mph cyclone hits NE Australia, smashing into the coastal town of Innisfail, Australia. On Mar. 19 U.S. hold an emergency meeting in the Gaza Strip, mediating the 2-mo. border standoff. On Mar. 20 residents of Haditha, Iraq 140 mi. NW of Baghdad give new details about U.S. troops entering and shooting and killing 15 members of two families after a roadside bomb kills a U.S. Marine on Nov. 19, 2005. On Mar. 20 the Bush admin. calls for new elections in Belarus after independent observers call the reelection of hardline incumbent Alexander Lukashenko a farce. On Mar. 20-22 the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City grapples over the worldwide clean water shortage suffered by 1.1B and killing 3.1M a year; women in developing countries walk an avg. of 6 km (3.75 mi.) a day to fetch water. On Mar. 21 Colo. lawmarkers learn that 113 illegal immigrants were involved in accidents or traffic stops in the state and detained on Mar. 20-21 during a spell of snowy weather, incl. six vehicle crashes in the snow; of the 10K illegals crossing the U.S. border each day, a third come through the interstates in Colo.? On Mar. 21 Pres. Bush holds a press conference, admitting that U.S. forces will remain in Iraq after his term expires, and quashes questions by veteran reporter Helen Thomas (1920-2013), who believes he railroaded the U.S. into the war, saying "To assume I wanted war is just flat wrong"; "I'm optimistic we'll succeed; if not, I'd pull our troops out"; he then admits that he has spent his 2004 reelection victory capital on the war. On Mar. 21 Sgt. Michael J. Smith (1981-) of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. is found guilty at a court-martial of 6 of 13 counts for tormenting POWs with his snarling black Belgian shepherd at Abu Ghraib Prison, competing with a comrade to make the Iraqi prisoners soil themselves, and having his dog lick peanut butter off the genitals of a male soldier. On Mar. 21 100 masked Sunni Mujaheddin Shura Council gunmen storm the Muqdadiyah Prison near the Iranian border of Iraq 60 mi. NE of Baghdad, killing 20 policemen and freeing all 33 inmates, incl. 18 insurgents; 10 gunmen are killed. On Mar. 21 Iraqi interim PM Ibrahim al-Jaafari says that he hopes that "the formation of the new government does not last beyond April". On Mar. 21 retired FBI supervisor Michael Rolince, the FBI's top terrorism official testifies at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui that he never read FBI field agent's Harry Samit's Aug. 18, 2001 warning that Moussaoui (arrested 26 days before 9/11) appeared to be part of an unfolding airline hijacking plot; Moussaoui's rommate Hussein al-Attas testifies that he tried to enlist him in jihad, saying "This is the only way for me to get to paradise." On Mar. 21 the Bush admin. issues a whimpy subdued appeal to Afghanistan to let Afghan man Abdul Rahman (1965-), who converted from Islam to Christianity be spared the death penalty; on Mar. 29 he is freed from prison in Kabul after a court drops capital charges of apostasy, and receives asylum in Italy after an internat. uproar incl. an appeal by Pope Benedict XVI - it should be a world crime to be a Muslim in the first place? On Mar. 21 Thailand-born former Army pilot Ladda "Tammy" Duckworth (1968-), who lost both legs in Iraq wins the Dem. nomination for an Ill. seat in Congress, later losing by 2% of the vote to State Sen. Peter Roskam, who ran unopposed in his primary. On Mar. 22 the Basque militant group ETA (Euskadi Ta Azkatasuna) (Basque Homeland and Freedom) announces a permanent ceasefire and a new effort to provide democracy in the N Spanish Basque region; the group allegedly has caused over 800 deaths and $15.5B in damage since the 1960s. On Mar. 22 the U.S. Supreme Court in ? v. ? ends its unity under new chief justice John Roberts and splits 5-3 over the right of police to search a house when one resident says no, the majority going against the police. On Mar. 22 Hal the Coyote is captured near Belvedere Castle (79th St. and Central Park West) after visiting New York City and being chased by police through Central Park. On Mar. 22 a bus carrying Millennium cruise ship tourists plunges 300 ft. down a mountainside in N Chile, killing 12 Americans and injuring four others. On Mar. 24 a Pentagon report is released claiming that Russia collected info. about U.S. troop movements and battle plans at the outset of the U.S. invasion of Iraq by tapping U.S. military sources, then passed it to Saddam Hussein; Russia denies it. On Mar. 24 the U.S. joins Euro nations in imposing sanctions on Belarus in retaliation for its crackdown on political protesters; on Mar. 25 opposition leader Alexander Kazulin is seized in Minsk as he leads a march. On Mar. 24 (Fri.) thousands of Hispanics, mainly illegal immigrants protest around the U.S. against legislation cracking down on, er, illegal immigration; on Mar. 25 500K march in Los Angeles. On Mar. 27 Zacarias Moussaoui goes against his attys. and testifies against himself, telling how he wasn't supposed to be the 5th terrorist on United Airlines Flight 93 (the 20th hijacker), but rather was picked to hijack a 5th airplane on 9/11 along with shoe bomber Richard Reid and fly it into the White House. On Mar. 27 the Senate Judicary Committee caves in to protesters and approves sweeping immigration legislation claring the way for 10M-20M illegal immigrants to seek citizenship without having to first leave the country; the 12-6 vote incl. some flip-flopping of Repubs. On Mar. 28 Pres. Bush replaces longtime chief of staff Andrew Card with budget dir. and Harley rider (Jewish) Joshua "Bad Mitzvah" Bolten (1954-), whose father was a lifelong CIA officer; he is sworn-in on Apr. 14. On Mar. 28 1.16M demonstrate against a new youth labor law in France which threatens lifetime job security; on Apr. 4 another 1M come out after PM Dominique de Villepin refuses to scrap the law; on Apr. 10 Pres. Jacques Chirac caves in and cancels it. On Mar. 28 masked gunmen kidnap 24 Iraqis from three businesses in Baghdad, and make off with tens of thousands in cash. On Mar. 29 flamboyant black U.S. Rep. (D-Ga.) Cynthia McKinney,who once said that vice-pres. Al Gore has a low "Negro tolerance level" and claimed that Bush admin. officials had advance knowledge of 9/11 scuffles and strikes a pig, er, police officer as she tries to enter a House building, later blaming racial profiling and claiming self-defense. On Mar. 29-30 6.1 earthquakes in W Iran kill 70, injure 1.2K, and leave thousands homeless. On Mar. 30 Iraqi soccer star Manar Modhafar is gunned down in Baghdad. On Mar. 30 the Mass. Supreme Court rules that same-sex couples from state where gay marriage is prohibited cannot wed in Mass.; Repub. Gov. Mitt Romney (a Mormon married to Ann Romney for 37 years, and whose great-grandfather Miles Park Romney was a polygamist) welcomes the decision, saying he doesn't want Mass. to become "the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage" - how about an unmarried or polygamous lesbian-homoville? On Mar. 31 Iran announces the test-firing of a missile undetectable by radar, the Fajr-3 ("victory") that can host MIRVs and has a range of 1.2K mi., enough to reach Israel; the missile all but announces that Iran is trying to develop nukes? On Mar. 31 a mortar shell explodes on a street in N Baghdad, Iraq, killing three women in their homes. On Mar. 31 a Soyuz capsule docks with the ISS, bringing Brazil's first astronaut, Marcos Pontes, a new Russian-Am. crew and fresh supplies. On Mar. 31 a Palestinian Hamas militant is killed by a car bomb in Gaza City, unleashing factional unrest leaving three dead and 35 wounded. In Mar. Portia Simpson Miller of the People's Nat. Party (PNP) becomes the first PM of Jamaica - yo ho ho? On Mar. ? a disoriented elderly woman in a hospital gown is discharged from Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center near Los Angeles and sent off in a taxi cab, then dumped in Los Angeles's Skid Row area, where she is spotted wandering around and saved by the Union Rescue Mission, causing prosecutors to force them to stop the dumping of homeless people and go after other hospitals in the city. In Mar. the U.S. begins a housing bust, followed by a recession next Dec. In Mar. Lehady (Léhady) Soglo, son of former pres. Nicephore Soglo (who is past the age limit of 70) draws only 8.44% of the vote, and Pres. Mathieu Kerekou is reelected once again. In Mar. Humphrey, the b&w cat owned by several British PMs since 1989 ("Chief Mouser") (retired in 1997) dies. In Mar. an internat. Internet-based pedophile ring is busted by agencies from 35 countries, based on the chat room "Kids the Light of Our Lives"; 31 kids are rescued from sexual abuse, and 700 suspects are ID'd; ringleader Timothy David Martyn Cox (1980-) is later convicted. In Mar. Forbes mag. pub. its 2006 List of the World's Richest People, listing 793 world billionaires, 102 more than 2005, with a combined wealth of $2.6T (18% increase); Bill Gates heads the list with a $50B fortune (up from $46.5 bilion), Warren Buffett from Omaha, Neb. (chmn. of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.) is #2 with $42B; Martha Stewart (1941-), who was new to the list in 2005 drops off this year; the Czech Repub. places its first billionaire on the list, Petr Kellner (#224 with $3B); China has 10 billionaires, up from two last year. In Mar. Random House, publisher of "The Da Vinci Code" (2003) by Dan Brown is sued by "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" (1982) writers Michael Baigent (1948-) and Richard Leigh (1943-) in London's High Court for copyright infringement, claiming he "appropriated the architecture" of their nonfiction work by writing a fiction work with a totally different architecture that makes loads more money?; ideas can't be copyrighted, only expressions, but the news agencies gloss over this obvious dual publicity ploy and play along like it's a serious suit?; Brown basks in the extra publicity for his upcoming movie, testifying on Mar. 13 and producing a 69-page memoir about his starving author days; Judge Peter Smith (1952-) puts a secret code in his ruling that Dan Brown didn't infringe their copyright that reads "Smithy Code Jackie Fisher who are you Dreadnought"; after they lose their appeal, Baigent and Leigh are stuck with $?M in legal bills - when they coulda studied basic copyright law first and saved it all? In Mar. Research in Motion, maker of Blackberry e-mail devices loses a legal battle with patent troll NTP Inc., agreeing to pay $612.5M after being threatened with an injunction that would have shut them down; meanwhile EBay goes to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to make it difficult for injunctions to be won; the Blackberry becomes so addictive that it begins to be called the Crackberry? In Mar. Capt. Nicole Malachowski (1974-), wife of Maj. Paul Malachowski makes her debut with the Air Force's elite Thunderbird precision squadron, becoming its first female demonstration pilot; she is one of only 71 women pilots out of 568 who fly fighter jets for the Air Force. In Mar. Tunisian-born Rene Riffaud (1899-) is officially added to the rolls of living French WWI vets, bringing the total to seven; the U.S. has two, Britain 13, Italy 10, Germany 5, and Turkey none; the world total is less than 50. In Mar. the giant tortoise Addwaita ("the one and only") (b. 1757) dies in Calcutta, India at estimated age 250, one of four Aldabra tortoises brought in by British sailors in the 18th cent. In Mar. U.S. fatalities in Iraq are 31, the lowest number since Feb. 2004; in Apr. the number exceeds 40 by mid-mo. In Mar. a U.S. jury orders Mike Battles and his partner Scott Custer to pay $10M for swindling the U.S. govt. over Iraqi rebuilding projects. On Apr. 2 career criminal Ralph James "Bucky" Phillips (1962-) escapes from Erie County, N.Y. jail, living off the land and becoming a folk hero, until on June 10 he shoots N.Y. state trooper Sean Brown, then on Aug. 31 ambushes state troopers while staking out a family member's house in Pomfret, killing trooper Joseph Longobardo (b. 1974), after which the reward on him jumps to $450K; on Sept. 8 (8:00 p.m. EDT) he is captured by Penn. State Police in Warren County, Penn., and sentenced to life in prison. On Apr. 3 tornadoes strike Iowa, Ky., Ark., Mo., Ohio, Ill., and Ind., killing 27, incl. 23 along a 25-mi. swath of rural W Tenn. On Apr. 3 Citizens for Health asks the U.S. FDA to revoke its approval of popular sweetener Splenda ("made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar"), citing stomach pains, rashes et al. days after a federal court dismisses a suit against Splenda maker McNeil Nutritionals, accusing the trade Group Sugar Assoc. of false advertising on its Splenda-bashing Web site thetruthaboutsplenda.com; meanwhile the Nat. Cancer Inst. releases a study concluding that rival aspartame (Equal et al.) doesn't increase risks of certain kinds of cancer. On Apr. 4 the Iraq govt. files new charges against Saddam Hussein, Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti (1941-2010) ("Chemical Ali") and five others for killing an estimated 180K Kurds in N Iraq in 1987-8. On Apr. 4 former Sinn Fein official Denis Martin Donaldson (b. 1950), whose spying for Britain for 20 years was revealed in Dec. 2005 is found shot to death after being tortured in his home near Glenties, County Donegal in NW Ireland; the IRA denies responsibility. On Apr. 4 PM Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand announces his resignation after allegations of corruption and abuse two days after his party wins parliamentary elections; last Dec. King Bhumibol Adulyadej gave a speech jabbing at his misconduct, and allegedly didn't want his June Diamond Jubilee (60 years on the throne) disturbed by street protests. On Apr. 4 Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramirez Sanchez) is fined $6K by a Paris court for telling French TV that terrorist attacks are sometimes necessary. On Apr. 5 at 01:02:03 there is a calendar digit lineup in the U.S.; for Europe it happens on May 4. On Apr. 5 Booker T. Washington's 150th birthday is not attended by him personally, but. On Apr. 6 a car bomb in Najaf, Iraq kills at least 10 and injures 34 near the Shiite Imam Ali Mosque at the entrance to a cemetery. On Apr. 7 three suicide bombers dressed as women detonate inside the Shiite Buratha Mosque in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 85 and injuring 160. On Apr. 9 (Sun.) Iraqi Shiite lawmakers meet on the 3rd anniv. of the fall of Baghdad to U.S. forces as Iraqis observe Freedom Day; meanwhile at least 15 are killed, incl. eight suspected insurgents shot by U.S. soldiers in a pre-dawn raid N of Baghdad; meanwhile Egyptian Pres. Hosni Mubarak says that Iraqi Shiites are more loyal to Iran than Iraq. On Apr. 9 a stampede of Muhammad birthday celebrants in Karachi, Pakistan kills 29 women and children, and injures 70. Just try living without us Hispanics doing your menial jobs? On Apr. 10 2M illegal immigrants and supporters come out of the shadows and declare May 1 a Nat. Day of Action for Immigrant Justice AKA the Great Am. Boycott (El Gran Paro Estadounidense), staging mass rallies throughout the U.S., incl. 125K in New York City, 100K in Phoenix, Ariz., and 50K in Atlanta, Ga.; this time, wising up, the wannabe Americans no longer wave Mexican flags but try the more PC U.S. flags; the New York rally incl. Koreans and other nationalities; meanwhile the Center for Am. Progress in Washington, D.C. pub. a Report on Rounding Up Illegal Aliens, claiming it would cost $215B over five years to round them up and ship them back (20K each?) - they each get their own car to drive home in? Nobody mentions dissolving the cruddy Mexican govt. and annexing Mexico to the U.S.? On Apr. 10 Al Jazeera broadcasts a speech by Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, containing the frank soundbyte: "Some people believe that Muhammad is the prophet of the Arabs or the Muslims alone. This is a mistake. Muhammad is the prophet of all people. He superseded all previous religions. If Jesus were alive when Muhammad was sent, he would have followed him. All people must be Muslims... We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades... Allah mobilizes the Muslim nation of Turkey and adds it to the European Union. That's another 50 million Muslims. There will be 100 million Muslims in Europe. Albania, which is a Muslim country, has already entered the EU. Fifty percent of its citizens are Muslims." On Apr. 10 Cheeta the Chimp, star of a dozen "Tarzan" movies in the 1930s and 1940s and the oldest chimp in the world celebrates hs 74th birthday with diabetic cake in Palm Springs, Calif. - if they'll admit him into the U.S.? On Apr. 10 Italian elections give the center-left L'Unione coalition of economist Romano "the Professor" Prodi (1939-) a 2-seat Senate majority, leaving PM Silvio Berlusconi's conservative coalition a slim lead in the senate; on May 17 Prodi becomes Italian PM #52 (until May 8, 2008). On Apr. 10 Great British Menu debuts on BBC-TV for ? episodes (until ?); the first series cooks the birthday meal for Queen Elizabeth I on June 16 for 300 people; Irish chef Richard Corrigan (1964-) goes on to win 3x. On Apr. 11 Iran holds a celebration in Mashhad over its newly manufactured raw uranium, enriched using 164 centrifuges, with artists dancing and hoisting vials of the stuff; raw uranium is 0.7% U-235, and it must be boosted to 4% for a reactor and 90% for a warhead - to your health? On Apr. 11 Bernardo Provenzano (1933-2016), "the Phantom of Corleone", "the Accountant", "Binnie the Tractor", capo of the Corleonesi crime family and boss of bosses of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily is captured; on June 20 Italian authorities stage Operation Gotha, issuing 52 arrest warrants for the top echelon of the Cosa Nostra. On Apr. 11 77-y.-o. John McDarby is awarded $13.5M, incl. $9 in punitive damages in a suit against Merck & Co. for its drug Vioxx, the jury finding that the co. failed to warn of the drug's risks and committed consumer fraud in misrepresenting them to prescribing physicians; on Apr. 5 $4.5M was awarded to another plaintiff in Atlantic City, N.J.; in 2008 McDarby's award is overturned by an appeals court in N.J. On Apr. 12 Pakistani forces kill al-Qaida member Mohsin Musa Matawalli Atwah (b. 1960) of Egypt in a raid near the Afghan border in the N Waziristan village of Naghar Kalai, along with six other militants. On Apr. 12 the cockpit voice recorder from United Flight 93 on 9/11 is played at the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, and Sandy Dahl, wife of pilot Jason Dahl claims it shows that he was not killed immediately but fights the hijackers after being injured? - just in time for the new movie? On Apr. 13 the govt. of Chad fights off an onslaught of rebels from Darfur arriving in N'Djamena after traveling W 600 mi. in pickup trucks; oOn Apr. 14 350 are killed in a failed coup in N'Djamena, Chad; 271 rebels are captured, and 250 are paraded through the streets on Apr. 15, while Chad's Pres. Idriss Deby breaks off relations with Sudan and threatens to expel 200K Darfur refugees, calling the rebels Sudanese mercenaries. On Apr. 13 Israeli chief of military intel Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin (1951-) claims that Iran is within three years of having a nuclear bomb. On Apr. 13 a black bear kills 6-y.-o. Elora Petrasek and mauls her 45-y.-o. mother Susan Cenkus and 2-y.-o. brother Luke Cenkus in the Cherokee Nat. Forest on the Tenn.-N.C. line, becoming the 2nd documented black bear attack on a human in modern Tenn. history; there are 750K black bears in North Am., and they have killed a total of 56 people in the past cent. On Apr. 13 Kris Everson (33) and Sarah Everson (45) of Kansas City, Mo. publicly apologize for a scheme to claim the birth of sextuplets in order to get donations; in Jan. 2008 she is sentences to four years of probation. On Apr. 14 U.S. defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld gives an interview on Al-Arabiya TV, rejecting calls from six retired U.S. generals, Maj. Gen. John Batiste, Maj. Gen. John Riggs, Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack, Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, and Marine Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold to resign; Pres. Bush then backs him up, saying "He has my full support"; on Apr. 18 Rumsfeld suggests that calls for his resignation were caused by controversial changes he made at the Pentagon, such as cancelling favored Army weapons, appointing a retired gen. as Army chief of staff, and naming Marine generals to posts usually held by Army officers (James Jones for NATO command, James Carthwrite to head the U.S. Strategic Command, Peter Pace to be chmn. of the JCS), saying "The president knows... there are no indispensible men. He knows that I serve at his pleasure." On Apr. 14 Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defends Iran's nucler program, and issues a soundbyte calling Israel a "permanent threat" that will "soon" be liberated, saying, "Like it or not, the Zionist regime is heading toward annihilation", calling it "a rotten, dried tree that will be eliminated by one storm". On Apr. 14-16 Christian-Muslim violence in Alexandria, Egypt is touched off by knife attacks at three Coptic Christian churches which kill one and injure 16; on Apr. 16 one Muslim man dies. On Apr. 15 the U.S. military announces two more U.S. Marines killed and 22 wounded in Anbar Province in W Iraq. On Apr. 16 41 Taliban militants and six police are killed in Kandahar Province in SE Afghanistan by U.S.-led coalition forces, 2.5K of which are involved in an operation against the Taliban; an attack on a house in E Afghanistan kills seven and wounds three Afghan civilians. On Apr. 16 Pope Benedict XVI gives his First Easter Message, calling for nations to use diplomacy to defuse nuclear crises, and praying for Palestinians to have their own state alongside Israel; Grace Episcopal Church in Providence, R.I. hosts a U2 Eucharist (U2Charist), playing the Irish rock band's religious music, and handing out glow sticks and earplugs. On Apr. 17 a lunchtime car bomb kills seven and injures ? in Baghdad, Iraq as Shiite politicians meet to replace PM Ibraham al-Jaafari with another Shiite. On Apr. 17 (1:40 p.m.) a Palestinian suicide bomber kills nine and wounds dozens at the Mayor's Falafel fast food restaurant in Tel Aviv, Israel; the Hamas-led Palestinian admin. publicly defends the attack as a legitimate response to Israeli aggression, while Fatah Party leader Mahmoud Abbas condemns it? On Apr 17 the Maltrata Bus Crash sees an overcrowded bus filled with Easter celebrants en route from Guadalajara to Mexico City plunge 650 ft. into a ravine near Maltrata, Veracruz, Mexico, killing 57 of 60 aboard; on Apr. 18 another bus tumbles off a mountain road in C Peru in the Jaucan district 190 mi. SE of Lima, killing 25. On Apr. 18 the centenary of the San Francisco earthquake rumbles around. On Apr. 18 speaking of earthquakes, the German govt. announces that it will meet with 10 other countries in Luxembourg next May to consider amending a 1955 treaty closing their archives on 17M Nazi concentration camp inmates that are housed in Bad Arolsen. On Apr. 18 Chinese Pres. Hu Jintao kicks off a 4-day U.S. tour in Seattle, Wash. meeting with Microsoft chmn. Bill Gates in Redmond, telling him "Because you, Mr. Bill Gates, are a friend of China, I'm a friend of Microsoft", adding, "I am dealing with the operating system produced by Microsoft every day", laughing. On Apr. 18 Pres. Bush picks 6-term Repub. Rep. from Ohio Rob Portman to head the Office of Mgt. and Budget (OMB), and promotes his deputy Susan Schwab to top trade negotiator; Portman replaces Joshua Bolten, who was promoted to Bush's chief of staff. On Apr. 18 the German govt. announces the indictment of German Germar Rudolf (extradited from the U.S.?) and Belgian Siegried Verbeke for the crime of "systematically" denying the Nazi genocide of WWII Jews in pubs. - John Peter Zenger rolls over in his grave? On Apr. 18 two Roosevelt Island Tramway cable cars stall for several hours while hanging over the East River in New York City, stranding 70 in a scene reminiscent of Hollywood terrorist flicks. On Apr. 19 Ishinosuke Uwano (1922-), a former Japanese soldier last seen by his family when he went off to fight in WWII arrives in Tokyo from the Ukraine with his Ukrainian son; the Japanese govt. says that about 400 more WWII soldiers are still living in states of the former Soviet Union. On Apr. 20 Pres. Bush meets with Chinese Pres. Hu Jintai in Washington, D.C., and Hu is interrupted in a speech by Wenyi Wang (1958-), who shouts at him to stop persecuting the Falun Gong, causing Bush to apologize for her brief freedom of speech before she is manhandled and her mouth cupped by Secret Service agents and taken to jail like in er, Commie China on trumped-up charges of intimidating foreign officials?; when Bush later asks Hu when China will become a democracy with free elections, he responds, "I don't know what you mean by a democracy... we always believe in China that if there is no democracy, there will be no modernization" - whose achievement of rhetorical B.S. is greater, East or West? On Apr. 20 Iraqi PM Ibraham al-Jaafari bows to Sunni and Kurdish opposition and quits - did he keep his health benefits, and do you think his stress headaches will go away? On Apr. 20 the Hamas govt. of Palestine names Col. Jamal Abu Samhadana, head of the Popular Resistance Committees, which allegedly bombed a U.S. convoy to head a new security force made up of Islamic militants. On Apr. 20 U.S. nat. intel dir. John Negroponte gives a speech at the Nat. Press Club in Washington, D.C. marking his first year on the job, saying that "The United States intelligence community comprises almost 100,000 patriotic, talented and hard-working Americans in 16 federal departments and agencies" - so what happened in Iraq? On Apr. 20 an autopsy linking the Jan. death of police officer James Zadroga to dust at the WTC 9/11 site is released in New York City. On Apr. 20 five teen boys are arrested in Riverton, Kan. for allegedly plotting a Columbine-style high school massacre on its anniv. after they stupidly brag about it on the Internet. On Apr. 20 ICE begins rounding up 1.2K workers for pallet-maker IFCO Systems in 26 U.S. states for immigration violations, and arrests seven mgrs. for harboring illegals, then announces that more raids are coming. On Apr. 21 crude oil prices top $75 a barrel for the first time. On Apr. 21 Nepal's King Gyanendra offers to turn power over to political party leaders, and is rejected; on Apr. 22 protesters in Katmandu defy a curfew, and are attacked by riot police. On Apr. 21 Microsoft mogul Bill Gates makes his first-ever visit to Hanoi, Vietnam, and is greeted by thousands of cheering students, then meets with PM Phan Van Khai (who visited with him in the U.S. in 2005) and talks about getting Vietnamese into IT - I can remove your wart in as little as one treatment? On Apr. 21 a 27-y.-o. man plummets 10 ft. and is covered by rubble, killing him after a large sinkhole opens in the middle of his house in Alta, Calif., built on top of an underground mine. On Apr. 21 Dallas, Tex.-born Tara Elizabeth Conner (1985-) wins the Miss USA 2006 (55th) Pageant in 1st Mariner Arena in Baltimore, Md. in front of 7.8M viewers (2nd lowest ever); hosts are Nancy O'Dell and Drew Lachey; "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" star Carson Kressley provides commentary for the first time; too bad, after reports that she had been engaging in underage drinking and taking cocaine, heroin, and crystal meth, and has kissed Miss Teen USA Katie Blair, the PC press calls for her to be decrowned, but Donald Trump announces that he's giving her a second chance because "I believe in second chances, and sometimes it works when you give somebody a second chance" in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, causing celeb and lesbian rights activist Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell (1962-) to criticize him on The View, with the soundbyte: "[Trump] left the first wife, had an affair, left the second wife, had an affair. Had kids both times, but he's the moral compass for 20-year-olds in America. Donald, sit and spin, my friend", mocking his comb-over, then calling him a "snake oil salesman" and bringing up his bankruptcies, pissing Trump off and causing him to appear on several TV shows, with the soundbytes: "Rosie is a bully. I hit her between the eyes, she's worried about being sued, and her response today was nothing. She's not a very smart person, if you look at her IQ I guarantee you it's not up there", and "I guarantee I'll have a lot of Rosie's money right out of her big fat pocket. I'll have a lot of Rosie's money coming into my pocket. That's my prediction""; in an interview with People mag., he utters the soundbyte: "You can't make false statements. Rosie will rue the words she said. I'll most likely sue her for making those false statements... and it'l be fun. Rosie's a loser, a real loser. I look forward to taking lots of money from my nice fat little Rosie"; in an interview with Anderson Cooper of CNN, he utters the soundbyte: "If you looked like Rosie you'd be critical of beauty pageants, believe me. Rosie is a very unattractive woman, both inside and out. And as hard as it is to believe, inside is probably uglier than outside, and that's really saying something. But you have to understand, I know Rosie. Rosie's a loser. Rosie's been pulling the wool over people's eyes for a long time. She is a stone cold loser. What she is is a bully. Rosie says a lot of negative things about a lot of people. Nobody.. they don't do anything about it. I did something about it." On Apr. 21-22 the Danube River swells to its highest level in more than a cent. On Apr. 22 a mayoral election in New Orleans, La. gives incumbent Ray Nagin (black) 38% among 21 challengers, and #2 Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu (white) 29%, forcing a May 20 runoff, which is run by Nagin. On Apr. 22 four Canadian soldiers are killed by a roadside bomb in S Afghanistan in the mountainous Shah Wali Kot District of Kandahar Province, where they took over from U.S. forces 1 mo. earlier, becoming the deadliest attack on Canadian troops since being deployed in Afghanistan four years earlier. On Apr. 22 street clashes erupt in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal accuses Mahmoud Abbas of being a traitor for seeking to limit Hamas' powers. On Apr. 23 Osama bin Laden issues a taped message, saying that the West is at war with Islam, accusing the U.S. and Europe of supporting a Zionist war on Islam by cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian govt., and calling on followers to go to Sudan to fight a proposed U.N. force in Darfur. On Apr. 23 three U.S. soldiers are killed in the Baghdad area of Iraq by insurgents who fire mortars near the Defense Ministry; 27 Iraqis are killed in Iraq violence. On Apr. 24 (eve.) three nearly simultaneous bombings hit the Sinai seaside town of Dahab, Egypt, killing 24 incl. 21 Egyptians and three foreigners; on Apr. 25 Egyptian authorities arrest 30 men, while radical Muslim groups Hamas and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood move to distance themselves from the attacks, later pinning them on Gaza-based Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad. On Apr. 24 a wave of seven car bombs across Baghdad, Iraq kills 10 and wounds 76, while another 30 are killed or found murdered aross lovely Iraq. On Apr. 25 Pres. Bush gives the EPA the authority to temporarily waive regional clean-fuel regs to ease gasoline shortages and help with prices exceeding $3 a gal.; meanwhile in Apr. U.S. oil and gas cos. report combined first-quarter profits of $16+B, up 19%, with the combined profits from ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobile, and Chevron beating Google, Apple, and Oracle by 14x. On Apr. 25 an earthquake triggers a gold mine collapse in Beaconsfield, Australia, killing Larry Knight (44), and trapping Brant Webb (37) and Todd Russell (34) 3K ft. underground for two weeks; on May 7 60 Minutes reporter Richard Carleton (b. 1943) collapses and dies while covering the story and asking about the mine's safety record - don't ask? On Apr. 25 Iran threatens to hide its nukes if the West takes "harsh measures", and to transfer nuclear technology to Sudan. On Apr. 25 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi appears on a video posted on Web, mocking the U.S. military in Iraq for suicides, drug-taking and mutinies, and warning of attacks to come; the first video to clearly show his face? On Apr. 26 Nouri Kamel Mohammed Hassan al-Maliki (1950-) becomes acting PM of Iraq, followed by official PM on May 20 (until ?), reverting to his birth name after using the nome de guerre of Jawad al-Maliki during Saddam Hussein's reign; a sister of new Sunni vice-pres. Tariq al-Hashimi is killed in a drive-by shooting as she leaves her home in SW Baghdad, along with a bodyguard. On Apr. 28 five members of the U.S. Congress incl. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), James McGovern (D-Mass.), John Oliver (D-Mass.), and Jim Moran (D-Va.) are arrested and led away in plastic handcuffs from the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. in protest of govt. atrocities in the Darfur region, along with six others; on Apr. 30 thousands attend a D.C. rally urging the U.S. govt. to end genocide in Sudan. On Apr. 30 (Sun.) Pres. Bush says that plans floating around to counter high gasoline prices will only have a modest impact and that the ultimate goal must be reducing dependence on foreign oil. On Apr. 30 fishermen near Barbados find a boat with the mummified bodies of 11 young men who had left Senegal with 52 people aboard on Christmas Eve, bound for the Canary Islands, a gateway to Europe. On Apr. 30 the 2006 Doda Massacre in Jammu and Kashmir sees Muslim terrorists massacre 35 Hindu civilians. In Apr. Iranian officials claim they have trained 40K suicide bombers to be sent against the U.S. and Britain if their nuclear sites are attacked. In Apr. CIA dir. Porter Goss fires veteran CIA intel analyst Mary O. McCarthy (1945-) for leaking info. on CIA detention centers, which she denies. In Apr. Nuestro Himno, a fractured Spanish language version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" debuts on U.S. Spanish-speaking TV and radio, causing a backlash, with Puerto Rican immigrant singer Jose Feliciano (Jose Montserrate Feliciano Garcia) (1945-) (who got into trouble at the 1968 World Series for tinkering with it) saying "I know Mexico would be pissed-off if we took the Mexican national anthem and did it in English." In Apr. the Nat. Geographic Society announces pub. of the lost 2nd cent. C.E. Coptic Gospel of Judas, causing a firestorm of controversy. In Apr. a total of 952 are killed in war-related violence in Iraq, incl. 686 civilians, 190 insurgents, 54 police and 22 Iraqi soldiers. On May 1 A Day Without Immigrants (Un Dia Sin Inmigrantes) is staged in the U.S as 1M+ Hispanic immigrants walk off their jobs for one day to show gringos how much they're needed, incl. 400K in Chicago, 400K in Los Angeles, 75K in Denver, 50K in San Jose, Calif. and 20K in New York City; former Denver mayor (1983-91) Federico Fabian Pena (1947-), who grew up in Brownsville, Tex. speaks at the Denver rally, calling for a solution for all immigrants, not just Hispanic, dissing border fences and calling for amnesty after certain conditions are fulfilled - then the next group of ten jillion sneaks in, and? On May 1 Pres. Bush gives a White House speech on the the 3rd anniv. of his "mission accomplished" speech, saying that a "turning point" has arrived with the establishment of a permanent govt. in civil war-ready Baghdad, which is "more determined than ever to succeed"; meanwhile Rumsfeld and Rice stand by his side, trying to figure out how to put a spin on the future reality show? - two civil wars to go, and one to stay? On May 1 Bolivian Pres. Evo Morales fulfulls an election promise and nationalizes Bolivia's natural gas resources, which he says have been "looted" by foreign corps. On May 1 the first nesting pair of bald eagles is found in Vt., making it the 50th state to have them; in 1966 there were only 417 pairs in the entire U.S., but this year there are 7K. On May 3 Zacarias Moussaoui is sentenced to life in solitary confinement in a supermax federal prison (six life sentences), the judge telling him that he will "die with a whimper" and be denied publicity and martyrdom, or even the chance to talk to somebody; his last words are that the trial was a "wasted opportunity for this country to understand... why people like me... have so much hatred for you... America, you lost... I won"; meanwhile his mother Aicha El Wafi arrives at Dulles Internat. Airport on Apr. 25 and says "My life is hell". On May 3 Mexican Pres. Vicente Fox bows to major U.S. pressure and refuses to sign a law allowing small amounts of drugs to be possessed for personal use in an attempt to free police to focus on major dealers - blew their one chance to keep people on your side of the border? What's this problem Kennedys have with cars? On May 3 an Armenian Airbus A-320 crashes in stormy weather off the Black Sea coast in Russia, killing all 113 aboard. On May 3 Serbia's leading negotiator on EU relations resigns after the EU calls off talks on closer ties with Belgrade, citing Serbia's failure to turn over war crimes suspect Ratko Rizzo, er, Mladic. On May 4 R.I. Dem. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, son of Sen. Edward Kennedy crashes his Ford Mustang near the U.S. Capitol, and when a police officer accuses of him of appearing intoxicated he issues a statement that "I consumed no alcohol prior to the incident", later claiming he had been taking prescription Phenergan for gastroenteritis, and the sleeping pill Ambien. On May 4 Donald Rumsfeld gives a speech at the Southern Center for Internat. Studies in Atlanta, Ga., and is accosted by four protesters, then accused by former CIA analyst Ray McGovern of lying to get the U.S. into the Iraq War. On May 4 an earthquake strikes Tonga, followed by a 2-ft. tsunami. On May 4 the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution by 6-3 passes the House's 2005 Flag Desecration Amendment, and sends it to the full Judiciary Committee, asking the U.S. to join China, Iran, and Cuba in jailing people for free expression in the name of those who died for it - the old icon vs. iconoclast schism in Christianity? On May 5 thousands of Mexicans take to the streets for A Day Without Gringos, a boycott of U.S.-owned businesses to show support for Mexican immigrants to the U.S. Where's Harrison Ford when you need him? On May 5 CIA dir. Porter Goss (until 2004) is forced to resign by Pres. Bush, who picks Air Force Gen. Sterling, er, Michael Vincent Hayden (1945-), head of the NSA to replace him as CIA dir. #20 (until Feb. 12, 2009), drawing bipartisan fire for not being a civilian, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) saying it could leave the impression that the CIA has been "just gobbled up by the Defense Department"; criticism grows hotter when it is revealed that he is the one who supervised the hated domestic spying program, plus revelations on May 12 that the NSA has been building a secret database of millions of telephone calls by Americans, and only Qwest refused to turn over its records; he is confirmed on May 26. On May 6 a British military heli is shot down at 2 p.m. by a missile in Basra, Iraq, killing five soldiers, followed by several hundred young Shiite men arriving to celebrate and attack British troops, causing a firefight which kills six children and injures 46. On May 6 Pres. Bush hires conservative Fox broadcaster Robert Anthony "Tony" Snow (1955-) to replace Scott McClellan as press secy. (until Sept. 14, 2007), and on Apr. 14 hires new conservative chief of staff Joshua Brewster "Josh" Bolten (1954-). On May 7 Iran scoffs at sanctions as "meaningless" as its parliament prepares to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, as North Korea did in 2003. On May 7 Israeli authorities evict Jewish squatters from a Palestinian-owned bldg. in the West Bank town of Hebron in a show of zoom zoom for the govt. On May 7 three car bombs detonate within 30 min. of each other in Baghdad and the Shiite holy city of Karbala, Iraq, killing 16 and injuring dozens. On May 7 a fire breaks out at the Route 999 Nightclub in Pattaya, Thailand 70 mi. SE of Bangkok, killing seven and injuring 49. On May 8 at least 34 are killed in Iraq, incl. one U.S. soldier and five civilians in C Bagghdad killed and 10 wounded by a car bomb. On May 8 Jane K. Fernandes, the new pres. of Gallaudet U. in Washington, D.C. faces protests from its 1.9K-student body for not being "deaf enough" for the job, because, even though born deaf, she learned to speak and only picked up sign language as an adult?; on Oct. 29 the board of trustees votes to revoke her appointment after weeks of protests shut down the campus. On May 8 South African deputy pres. Jacob Zuma (1942-) is acquitted of the rape of a 31-y.-o. HIV-positive AIDS activist last Nov., the judge saying she made a false rape claim and that the sex was consensual; Zuma once headed South Africa's campaign against AIDS, yet had unprotected sex with her?; his political career salvaged, he goes on to become pres. in 2009. Something strapless this time? On May 8 the FBI places polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Pricks, er, Saints leader Warren Jeffs on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List ($100K reward) for sex with a minor and rape; the sect based in Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Ariz. split off from the mainstream in 1890; he has been on the lam for two years already on an Ariz. charge of sex with a minor; America's Most Wanted details his case, showing pics of the weird Puritannically-dressed underage babes that marry the old farts and claim that no man may put asunder what God has joined, and that it's all done in holy wedlock; in 2007 he is convicted on two counts of rape as an accomplice and sentenced to two consecutive terms of 5-life; on June 9, 2010 all four charges against him in Ariz. are dismissed with prejudice, meaning they can be refiled. On May 8 an 18-page letter from Iranian Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is received by Pres. Bush, lecturing him like a teacher, telling him that Western democracy has failed and that the U.S. invasion of Iraq, treatment of POWs, and support for Israel cannot be reconciled with Christian values, becoming the first contact by an Iranian leader with a U.S. pres. since the 1979 rev., it echoes Ruhollah Khomeini's Sept. 1989 letter to Gorbachev that Communism was dead, with an invitation to study Shiite Islam? On May 9 a widespread tornado outbreak sees two tornadoes sweep through N Tex., killing 3, injuring 10 and destroying 26 homes; on May 10 heavy storms rake Ark., topping trees. On May 9 Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia become the 44th through 47th members of the new U.N. Human Rights Council, hich replaces the politicized Human Rights Commission known for allowing members with bad records; 64 of the 191 U.N. member states submitted candidacies, which must be approved by a majority of the states; Venezuela and Iran are rejected; the U.S. didn't apply. On May 10 Pres. Vladimir Putin says that Russia must increase its birth rate, calling the yearly pop. decline of 700K "the most acute problem of contemporary Russia". On May 10 the EU issues a report on Romanian human rights abuses, citing gross treatment of kids and young adults in orphanages. On May 10 Okla. becomes the last U.S. state to make tattooing legal. Call in the investi-gators? On May 10 the body of female jogger Yovy Suarez Jimenez (28) is found in a canal in Sunrise, Fla., and authorities determine that she was killed by an alligator, becoming the 18th confirmed fatal gator attack in Fla. since 1948 (9 unconfirmed); within a week gators kill two more women, Annemarie Campbell (23) and Judy W. Cooper (43) - yum yum? On May 11 Catholic priest Rev. Gerald Robinson (1938-2014) is convicted of murder in the Apr. 5, 1980 (Holy Sat.) slaying of Sister of Mercy Margaret Ann Pahl, who was found stabbed 31x in a hospital chapel with her forehead anointed with a smudge of blood and her wounds forming an upside-down cross on her chest; a sword-shaped letter opener found in his room gives him away, plus he presided at her funeral Mass; he is sentenced to 15 to life, and dies in prison on July 4, 2014 while appealing. On May 11 seven U.S. service members die in Iraq, incl. four Marines who drown when their tank rolls off a bridge near Al-Karmah, Iraq, a suburb of Fallujah; an 8th death from May 9 is also announced. On May 11 the U.S. Senate reaches an agreement to send 14 Repubs. and 12 Dems. to negotiate with the House on the basis of providing them with a chance for citizenship despite their Dec. bill making them into potential felons. On May 11 the May (Mother's Day) 2006 New England Flood begins, becoming the worse since the 1938 New England Hurricane, bringing more than 10 in. of rain. On May 12 a gasoline pipeline in Ilado, Nigeria (30 mi. E of Lagos) explodes as villagers scavenge for fuel, killing 200; 1K+ have died in recent years from the same thing? On May 12 U.N. inspectors announce finding traces of near-weapons grade uranium on Iranian research equipment linked to the military. On May 12 the U.S. State Dept. sends John Hillen to visit the Persian Gulf to discuss a new defensive security strategy for the Persian Gulf against Iran. On May 12 famous oral historian Studs Terkel (1912-2008) et al. sue AT&T in federal court to stop it from giving customer records to the Nat. Security Agency without a court order; judge Matthew F. Kennedy dismisses it fast on July 26, telling them that the federal govt. has a state secrets privilege. On May 12-15 downpours in the NE U.S. cause the region's worst flooding since the 1930s, with more than 1 ft. of rain in some places. On May 13 10K people meeting in a town square in Andijan, Uzbekistan to support 23 businessmen freed from prison by supporters while awaiting a verdict are attacked by govt. troops, massacring hundreds. On May 13 Mount Merapi on the island of Java in Indonesia erupts, causing thousands to flee (last eruption 1994). On May 13-14 the First Capital Command (PCC), a notorious criminal gang in Brazil launches a wave of attacks against police in Sao Paulo state, killing 52; meanwhile there are revolts at 51 out of 144 prisons. On May 13 State Farm Insurance in Fla. announces that it is seeking to raise rates by over 70% for houses and 95% for mobile homes. On May 14 two car bombers tear into a C checkpoint for Baghdad's airport and detonate, killing 14 and wounding 16, becoming the first bomb attack aimed at the airport in nearly a year; meanwhile another 18 are killed and 60 wounded in other attacks in Iraq - where's my head? On May 14 the Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem upholds a law barring many Palestinians from living in Israel with Israeli spouses and children; meanwhile Britain's 67K-member Nat. Assoc. of Teachers in Further and Higher Ed. considers a boycott of Israeli lecturers for its "apartheid policies". On May 14 (Sun.) NBC-TV airs the last episode of The West Wing, showing pres.-elect (Dem.) Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) taking over the Oval Office from Pres. Jed Bartlett (Martin Sheen), who pardons his adviser Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) for leaking classified info.; Santos appoints rival Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda), a liberal Repub. Calif. Sen. On May 15 U.S. secy. of state Condy Rice announces that the U.S. has decided to restore diplomatic relations with Libya and remove it from the list of countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism, praising their "historic decisions... in 2003 to renounce terrorism and to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs". On May 15 Pres. Mush, er, Bush addresses the nation from the Oval Office on Immigration Reform, and acknowledges that the U.S. "has not been in complete control of its borders", and must be "shut to illegal immigrants, as well as criminals, drug dealers, and terrorists", then announces a $50B plan to increase the number of border patrol officers, construct $7.6B 2K-mi. hi-tech fences from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, and deploy 6K Nat. Guard members by July 1 to support the Border Patrol at $962M a year; he then announces a "temporary work program", with a new ID card for every legal foreign worker with biometric technology, with no plan for deporting workers who overstay their visas; the coyotes (smugglers) immediately jump their asking price from $2K to $3K, up from $300 in 1994; the U.S. begins to seal itself up - just like the ancient Roman Empire did before it fell? On May 15 the deadline for signing up for the U.S. govt. Medicare drug benefit arrives, with ? of the 43M eligible still not having signed up. On May 15 the govt. of Myanmar publicly acknowledges that its army is targeting the Karen ethnic minority, and criticizes the U.S. for granting political asylum to them. Dick Almighty loses a big one? On May 15 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court refuses to block lesbian Sue Ellen "Mian" Carvin of Wash. state from seeking parental rights to 5-y.-o. L.B. (1995-) she helped raise with longtime partner Page Britain, the biological mother by artificial insemination; the girl calls Carvin "Mama" and Britain "Mommy"; in 2001 they break up, and in 2002 Britain bars Carvin from seeing the girl, then marries the sperm donor and moves to Thailand - was it something she ate? My life on the D-list, only on Bravo? On May 15 British mountaineer David Sharp (b. 1972), on his 3rd straight attempt to summit Mt. Everest dies about 1K ft. into his descent in an alcove near the summit at 29,760 ft. holding Indian climber Green Boots, who died in 1996; before he dies, 40 people walk past him, and only one team gives him some oxygen, that of Kiwi mountaineer Mark Joseph Inglis (1959-), the first double amputee to reach the summit; the same day Maxime Chaya (with Sherpa guide Dorjee) becomes the first Lebanese citizen to reach the summit, and on their way down he, Russell Brice and Sherpa guide Dorjee find Sharp still alive but unconscious, spending an hour with him and giving him oxygen; a Turkish team led by Sherpa guide Nima visits him on their descent, finding him unconscious; Brice's chief Sherpa guide Phurba Tashi then visits him at 11:45 a.m., and find him conscious and talking, but can't get him on his feet, so they give him oxygen and move him into the sunlight, where the next visitors find him dead; he becomes the 190th person to die on the attempt to reach the summit, with more than 1.5K making it since Hillary in 1953; on May 25 Australian climber Lincoln Hall (b. 1956) succumbs in the death zone at 10:30 a.m., and is again left by other climbers, but is miraculously found alive the next day at 7 a.m. On May 16 gunmen in the Shiite commercial district of Al Shaab in N Baghdad wound five guards, and then a car bomb explodes after rescuers arrive, killing 19 and wounding dozens. On May 17 aircraft carrier USS Oriskany ("Mighty O") (commissioned in 1950), home to Ariz. Sen. John McCain in the Vietnam War is sunk 24 mi. off the coast of Pensacola, Fla., becoming the world's largest manmade reef, the first in a pilot program. On May 17 over 500K people are evacuated from China's S coast in advance of Typhoon Chanchu (Caloy), which hits Guangodong Province on May 18. On May 17-18 more than 100 are killed in a string of attacks by the Taliban in Afghanistan; Pres. Hamid Karzai accuses the madrasas in Pakistan of prepping students for jihad. On May 17-30 the suggestively-named Hidden Dreams Horse Farm in Milford Township, Mich., 30 mi. NW of Detroit is searched for the remains of Jimmy Hoffa, who was last seen in July 1975 at a restaurant 20 mi. away; nothing is found. On May 18 Australian PM John Howard visits Canada in the first visit by an Aussie leader in decades, and tells the parliament that a diminished U.S. role in global affairs "will leave a more vulnerable world... more exposed to terrorism". On May 18 a bomb in Iraq kills four U.S. soldiers and their Iraqi interpreter, and another two dozen Iraqis die in violence across the country. On May 18 10 POWs at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba use a faked suicide attempt to stage a riot, which is stopped by guards, leaving six detainees injured. On May 19 Pope Benedict XVI disciplines 86-y.-o. Mexican priest Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado (1920-2008), founder of the conservative Legionaries of Christ for sexual abuse allegations, making him "renounce every public ministry", making him a priest in name only after nine former seminaries accused him of abuse when they were young boys or teens in semen, er, seminaries in Spain and Italy in the 1940s through 1960s - that blows? On May 19 Sherpa guide Appa (1961-) scales Mt. Everest for a record 16th time; on Apr. 6, 2009 he does it for the 19th time - I'm appa to see ya? On May 19 Tommy Hilfiger gets in a fight with Axl Rose at the Plumm Nightclub in New York City. On May 20-21 the FBI raids the office of La. Dem. rep. William Jefferson in the Rayburn House Office Bldg. under a May 18 search warrant issued by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan during its investigation of his acceptance of hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for securing business deals in Africa, becoming the first warranted search of the office of a U.S. rep. in Congress' 219-year history, and causing an uproar from Dems. and Repubs.; on May 23 House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) complains directly to Pres. Bush, while Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) predicts the case will go to the U.S. Supreme Court; on May 25 Pres. Bush orders the seized documents sealed for 45 days; on May 28 Sen. majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) breaks ranks and says that "nobody in government should be above the law of the land, period." On May 21 a U.S. air strike on the village of Azizi in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan kills 16-34 civilians along with 80 militants, drawing the ire of Pres. Hamid Karzai. On May 22 cool-coastline postage-stamp-sized Slav Orthodox Christian Montenegro (pop. 600K, 30% Serb) votes by 55.4% to secede from much larger Serbia, ending its 88-year union (1918), causing celebrations in Podgorica and grumbling in Belgrade; on June 3 Montenegro declares independence, and joins the U.N. as member #192; of the 194 world countries, only Vatican City and Taiwan aren't members; on June 22 the U.N. Security Council adopts Resolution 1691 without vote to admit Montenegro. There's a fortune in American junk? On May 22 U.S. Veterans Affairs secy. (2005-7) Robert James "Jim" Nicholson (1938-) (former Colo. land developer) discloses thatpersonal data on 26M veterans discharged since 1975 was stolen from an employee's home on May 3, becoming the biggest security breach since the June CardSystems Solutions case; on May 25 Nicholson takes personal responsibility but refuses to resign; on June ? it is disclosed that records of 80% of all active duty U.S. service personnel are also on the stolen computer; on June 28 it is recovered untampered with from a buyer of a used PC for $100 who hears about the $50K reward; on June 27 Nicholson asks Congress for $160.5M to cover the costs of monitoring and indemnifying the people compromised, and turning his agency into a "model for information security". On May 22 Saddam Hussein's female defense atty. Bushra al-Khalil is pulled from the courtroom for arguing with chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman. On May 22-June 4 the U.S. Nat. Highway Traffic Safety Admin. holds a Click It or Ticket campaign to get the estimated 48M people in the U.S. who still don't click their seat belts to do it; 65% of 31K killed each year are men, and 58% of those crashing along rural roads were not wearing theirs. On May 23 Osama bin Laden releases an audiotape mocking the U.S. for railroading Zacarias Moussaoui, saying that "he had no connection at all with Sept. 11. I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers, and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission"; he also says that none of the terror suspects in Gitmo were involved, and most have no ties to al-Qaida. On May 23-24 Fox Network's American Idol Season 5 stages its final between contestants Taylor Reuben "Soul Patrol" Hicks (1976-) from Birmingham, Ala. (the winner) and Katharine Hope "Kat" McPhee (1984-) from Los Angeles, Calif.; a poll by Pursuant Inc. in Washington, D.C. indicates that one in 10 U.S. adults placed a vote for a candidate this season, incl. 50M (75% female) for the second-to-last week, and 35% believe their votes count as much or more than for U.S. pres.; the final garners 63.4M votes, more than any U.S. pres. has received?; the 5th straight winner from the South, after Kelly Clarkson from Tex., Ruben Studdard from Ala., Fantasia Barrino from N.C., and Carrie Underwood from Okla. On May 25 the U.S. Senate by 62-36 passes the U.S. Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, creating road to citizenship for the criminal, er, illegal immigrants who already snuck in, while attempting to close the borders so that the other zillion trying to sneak in will have to pay the coyotes more?; talks are held with the House to convince them to not make them into felons and yet not grant them amnesty either, and the 109th Congress ends next Jan. 3 without an agreement. On May 25 Pres. Bush and British PM Tony Blair hold a press conference in the White House East Room, looking like "yesterday's men", according to former British diplomat Jonathan Clarke. On May 25 Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas announces that he will call a nat. referundum on the Prisoners' Peace Plan, a deal hammered out by militants in an Israeli prisoner yard, which would accept the creation of a Palestinian state alongside a recognized state of Israel. On May 25 Pope Benedict VI begins a 4-day visit to Poland, meeting with Eastern Orthodox Archbishop Jeremiasz in Warsaw after his plane touches down at 11 a.m., and he doesn't do a JPII and kiss the tarmac?; newspapers suspend their daily pics of topless women; he speaks in Italian rather than his native German because of WWII sensitivities: he visits Wadowice on May 27, gives a Mass in a meadow in Krakow attended by 900 on May 28, then visits Auschwitz-Birkenau as "a son of the German people" on May 28, asking God why he remained silent during the "unprecedented mass crimes" of the Holocaust (Shoah), in which "the rulers of the Third Reich wanted to crush the entire Jewish people, to cancel it from the register of the peoples of the Earth... they ultimately wanted to tear up the taproot of the Christian faith and to replace it with a faith of their own invention"; this is his third visit to Auschwitz incl. one in 1979 with Pope John Paul II; not originally scheduled to see the camp, he tells his handlers, "I want to go, I have to go." On May 25 the U.S. House votes 225-201 to open the Alaska Nat. Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, citing the $3+ a gal. price of gasoline, even though it could only reduce prices by 1 cent a gal.; the Senate kills the idea. On May 25 the U.S. FDA approves thalidomide for treating multiple myeloma (bone marrow cancer). On May 27 at 5:54 a.m. a 6.3 earthquake in Indonesia (a lovely country located on the Ring of Fire) kills 5.7K and leaves 200K homeless on Java; Borobudur Buddhist Temple is spared, but Prambanan Hindu Temple is seriously damaged. On May 28 law-and-order conservative Colombian pres. (since 2002) Alvaro Uribe is reelected in a landslide, becoming the first time in over a cent. that a Colombian leader is reelected. On May 28 Sheik Osama al-Jadaan, a pro-U.S. Sunni chief who sent fighters to help U.S. troops battle al-Qaida in W Iraq is assassinated in Baghdad; meanwhile nine are killed and 35 wounded across the lovely paradise. On May 28 tens of thousands flee the East Timor capital of Dili as gangs terrorize the city at will, capping a week of bloodshed that kills 27. On May 29 (U.S. Labor Day) three dozen are killed in Iraq, incl. two CBS News crew members and a U.S. soldier; CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier is seriously wounded; 71 U.S. journalists have now died in the Iraq War, compared to 63 for the Vietnam War, 17 for the Korean War, and 69 for WWII; meanwhile Pres. Bush gives his Memorial Day Message at Arlington Nat. Cemetery, saying: "I am in awe of the men and women who sacrifice for the freedom of the United States of America", and claiming that the best way to honor the dead is by "defeating the terrorists... and by laying the foundation for a generation of peace". On May 29 violent anti-foreigner protests in Kabul, Afghanistan begin after a U.S. military truck crashes into traffic, killing four, and the soldiers fire into the crowd, killing four; a total of eight are killed and 107 injured before the streets are pacified of rioters shouting "Death to America". On May 29 public transit workers in Quebec, Canada go on strike, paralyzing the city. On May 30 Pres. Bush selects Goldman Sachs CEO (worth $600M) Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr. (1946-) as U.S. treasury secy. #74, succeeding John Snow, who resigned the same day; he is sworn-in on July 10 (until Jan. 20, 2009). On May 30 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Garcetti v. Ceballos to scale back protections for govt. whistleblowers in a 5-4 decision in which Samuel Alito casts the deciding vote, ruling that the speech of public employees has no First Amendment protection; dissenting are David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Ruther Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer. On May 30 car bombs in Shiite areas of Iraq kill 54 and injure 120. On May 30 the UNAIDS Report is released, showing 40M wordwide living with the virus; India passes South Africa as the country with the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS, 5.5M-5.7M. On May 31 the U.S., which has cut off diplomatic relations with Iran since 1979 offers to talk face-to-face over its nuke program if it first puts it on hold, but Iran rejects the offer, calling it a "propaganda move". On May 31 Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki declares a state of emergency in Basra after violence around the country kills 25 and wounds dozens, promising an "an iron fist against... those who threaten security". On May 31 Katie Couric (1957-) says goodbye on NBC's Today Show, and on Sept. 5 replaces Bob Schieffer as anchor and managing ed. of the CBS Evening News, and becomes a contributor to 60 Minutes after switching networks, becoming the first woman hired as solo anchor of a U.S. weeknight network newscast, with the lame sign-on "Hi, everyone"; Connie Chung shared the anchor desk with Dan Rather (1931-), Barbara Walters with Harry Reasoner, and Elizabeth Vargas with Bob Woodruff; to hedge their bets, CBS keeps Bob Schieffer on for two weekly commentaries; too bad, she's a disaster as anchor and her ratings slide to a distant third. On May 31-June 1 the 75th Scripps Nat. Spelling Bee, the first to feature prime-time TV coverage (on ABC) is held at the Grand Hyatt Washington in Washington, D.C., and 13-y.-o. Katherine "Kerry" Close of Spring Lake, N.J. wins with "ursprache" (a parent language), becoming the first female to win since 1999. In May after Chad dictator Idriss Deby reneges on his promises to the World Bank to use oil revenues for social programs and funnels it into his military regime, causing the World Bank to freeze Chad's bank accounts, and he survives a coup attempt in Apr. using French troops, and is reelected in May after the opposition boycotts the election, Idriss reaches another compromise, accepting 30% of oil revenues instead of the original measly 10%, with 70% to go to social programs instead of the original 80%; meanwhile the per capita income remains at $150 a mo. In May the 525-ft. Star of Nanchang opens in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China, becoming the tallest operating Ferris wheel in the world (until Feb. 2008). On June 1 Monaco's Prince Albert II acknowledges 14-y.-o. Jazmin Grace Grimaldi of Palm Desert, Calif. as his daughter, mothered by 44-y.-o. Tamara Rotolo when she had a fling with him in 1991 on the Cote d'Azur in S France (born Mar. 4, 1992); too bad, she won't be in line for the throne. On June 1 the U.S. Homeland Security Dept. cuts anti-terrorism funding to New York City by 40% ($83M) after determining that it has no nat. monuments or icons, such as the Empire State Bldg., Statue of Liberty, NYSE, Rockefeller Center, Holland and Lincoln tunnels, U.N. Bldg., or Brooklyn Bridge; outraged New Yorkers call for the firing of chief Michael Jack, er, Chertoff - how did they vote in the last pres. election? On June 3 Baltasar Garzon, Spain's top investigative magistrate gives a speech in Florence, Italy, calling the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay an "insult to countries that respect laws" and demanding its closing. On June 3 Canadian authorities announce the arrest of 17 people "inspired by al-Qaida", who they say were planning terrorist attacks in S Ontario and tried to acquire 3 tons of ammonium nitrate and other bomb components, three times the amount used in Oklahoma City. On June 3 four Russian diplomats are abducted in Iraq by al-Qaida gunmen, and are later killed. On June 4 Sunni gunmen stop two minivans N of Baghdad and kill 21 Shiites (incl. 11 students) "in the name of Islam" after separating out Sunnis. On June 4 Hamas rejects an ultimatum from Pres. Mahmoud Abbas to endorse a plan implicitly recognizing Israel, and a pregnant woman is killed during a clash between rival forces in Gaza. On June 5 gunmen in police uniforms raid bus stations in C Baghdad, Iraq, kidnapping 50. On June 5 the Islamic Courts Union milita with ties to al-Qaida, led by Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed seizes Somalia's capital of Mogadishu after weeks of fighting with U.S.-based secular warlords, ending 15 years of anarchy in the city, with 300 killed and 1.7K wounded; too bad, the militant Islamic Al-Shabaab (Arab. "Party of Youth") movement emerges, breaking with other insurgent groups and seeking to institute Sharia law. 666 is now a punchline for filthy lucre? On June 6 (6-6-6) (Rev. 13:18) another Millennium Fever Date comes and goes, but watch anybody who was born on this date very closely? - 1966 was a false 6-6-6, but this one is true? On June 6 (6-6-6) a remake of the 1976 horror classic The Omen, starring Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Liev Schreiber, and Julia Stiles, dir. by John Moore and with script by original screenwriter David Seltzer opens; Calif. Satanic speed metal band Slayer declares a Nat. Day of Slayer; at 6 p.m. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins sign copies of the latest installment of their "Left Behind" series at the Mardel Bookstore in Littleton, Colo.; an online oddmaker makes the world a 100K-to-1 favorite to survive. On June 6 Iraq PM Nouri al-Maliki promises to release 2.6K POWs by June 30 to promote "reconciliation and national dialogue"; on June 7 the first batch of 594 is freed, followed on June 11 by 230 more. On June 6 former PM (1999-201) Jacques-Edouard Alexis becomes PM of Haiti (until Sept. 5, 2008). The Bush admin. finally gets the Devil, only a day late? On June 7 U.S. Task Force 145 scores a direct hit on a safe house 1.25 mi. N of Hibhib outside Baqouba, Iraq occupied by 39-y.-o. irhabi (terrorist) Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "the Beheader" with two 500-lb. bombs dropped by F-16 fighters, killing him along with adviser Abu Abdul-Rahman and four others (two men, a woman and a child); but not immediately for Zarqawi, as he tries to escape from his stretcher before croaking 52 min. after the bombing; within a few hours U.S.-Iraqi forces, using captured computer disks conduct 17 raids in and around Baghdad, yielding a "treasure trove" of intel, followed by 425 more, capturing or killing 104 terrorists; at least 40 are killed in Baghdad after a rash of bombings; the publicity causes the elite force to change its name?; on June 15 the Iraq govt. releases a transcript of a document found in al-Zarqawi's hideout that describes the "current bleak situation" of al-Qaida in Iraq. On June 8-10 Am. white supremacist David Duke holds the Internat. Conference on the White World's Future in Moscow, Russia. On June 10 ...Cooks! debuts on ITV for 167 episodes (until May 21, 2010), hosted by Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England-born chef Henry Antony Cardew Worrall Thompson (1951-), with regular chefs incl. Torre del Greco, Italy-born Gennaro "Gino" D'Acampo (1976-), Arras, France-born Jean-Christophe Novelli (1961-), and Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire, England-born Brian Turner (1946-). On June 11 an Israeli air strike in Gaza kills to Hamas militants, while Palestinian militants bombard S Israel with homemade rockets. On June 11 three grenade attacks in Jammu, capital of Jammu-Kashmir kills one and wounds 29. On June 12 88-y.-o. Robert Byrd (D.-W. Va.) becomes the longest-serving member of the U.S. Senate, serving 17,237 days since 1959, while planning to run for a 9th term in Nov., which would add 2,190 more. On June 12 the U.S. Supreme Court, led by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy unanimously side with prisoners, making it easier for death row inmates to get DNA evidence before the courts and to contest lethal injections. On June 12 Palestinian forces loyal to Pres. Mahmoud Abbas go on a rampage against the Hamas-led govt. in Ramallah, West Bank, riddling govt. buildings with bullets and setting them on fire to protest an attack on their comrades in the Gaza Strip. On June 12 a new Security Plan for Baghdad is announced; meanwhile a car bomb in Baghdad kills five, and the Shiite Revenge begins. On June 12 Am. conservative writer Ann Coulter (1961-) pub. Godless: The Church of Liberalism, immediately gaining publicity for a statement about the "Jersey Widows", who lost their husbands at the WTC on 9/11, saying "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arrazies. I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much... And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies?" On June 13 after five grand jury appearances it is announced that Karl Rove won't be prosecuted for his role in Plamegate; meanwhile Valerie Plame files a lawsuit claiming that her CIA career was destroyed by the leak, and that her privacy rights were violated in retribution for her hubby's actions, and on July 19, 2007 U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismisses it on jurisdictional but not constitutional grounds. On June 13 Pres. Bush stages a surprise 5.5-hour visit to Iraq to make hay out of the al-Zarqawi thingie; PM Nouri al-Maliki announces an extended 6 a.m. curfew starting June 14, and orders a joint mission to deploy 75K Iraqi and U.S. troops in Baghdad. On June 14 Pres. Bush, back in Washington, D.C. calls an Iraqi pullout "bad policy" and election-year politicking, saying "It will endanger our country to pull out of Iraq before we accomplish the mission." On June 15 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Hudson v. Mich. to let police break into homes and seize evidence without knocking and announcing and waiting a reasonable time first, with dissenting Justice Stephen Breyer writing: "The Court destroys the strongest legal incentive to comply with the Constitution... And the Court does so without significant support in precedent." On June 15 the U.S. Congress pauses for a minute of silence to recognize the 2,500th U.S. military death in the Iraq War as part of a day-long debate, with six Dem. senators voting to withdraw troops by year's end, incl. Ted Kennedy (Mass.), John Kerry (Mass.), Robert Byrd (W.V.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Russ Feingold (Wisc.), and Tom Harkin (Iowa). On June 15 140K sq. mi. Papahanaumokuakea Marine Nat. Monument in Hawaii is established by Pres. George W. Bush, giving refuge to 7K species incl. the endangered hawksbill sea turtle, the threatened green turtle, and the endangered Hawaiian monk seal; commercial fishing ends in 2011; in Aug. 2016 it is expanded to 583K acres by Pres. Obama. On June 16 220-lb. Bruno (Bear JJ1) (b. 2004), the first bear seen in Germany since 1835 eludes capture in S Germany after killing livestock; it is part of a program to reintroduce bears to the Italian Alps; on June 26 it is shot and killed by govt.-sanctioned hunters in Schliersee after it kills sheep and rabbits, pissing-off animal lovers. On June 16 a 4.9 earthquake rocks most of Southern Calif., with no fatalities. On June 16 Mytishchi, Moscow-born "Bitsa Park Maniac" Alexander Yuryevich "Sasha" Pichushkin (1974-) is arrested after killing 48-63 mainly elderly homeless men in Bitsa Park in Moscow with a hammer to the head after offering them vodka, then pushing a vodka bottle into the holes in their skulls, becoming known as "the Chessboard Killer" after he states that his aim is to kill 64 people, the number of squares on a chessboard; he is given life in prison. On June 16 Pres. Bush and Repub. Rep. Dave Reichert drive by a school bus in Seattle, Wash., and the 43-y.-o. driver gives Bush the finger, causing him to be fired; on Nov. 3 he files a union grievance pleading wrongful termination; meanwhile on June 16 vice-pres. Cheney and his two sons are walking with their two sons to a piano camp in Beaver Creek, Colo. when Steven Howards (former dir. of the Denver Metro Air Quality Council) chances by, and tells him "Your policies in Iraq are reprehensible", then moves on, only to be handcuffed minutes later by Secret Service agent Virgil D. "Gus" Reichle Jr., who asks him, "Did you assault the vice president?", then takes him to jail; in Oct. he sues Cheney in federal court in Denver, Colo. after his charges are dismissed by a judge on July 10, and on June 4, 2012 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court unanimously rules that Secret Service Agents have qualified immunity preventing them from being sued. On June 16 Al-Qassam Brigades leader Yasser Ghalban is killed in an ambush by Fatah; he is known for the soundbyte: "We will rule the nations, by Allah's will. The U.S.A. will be conquered, Israel will be conquered, Rome and Britain will be conquered. The Jihad for Allah is the way of the truth and the way for salvation and the way which will lead us to crush the Jews and expel them from our country" - it's so nice to have the absolute truth before going to Hell? On June 18 ex-Beatle Paul McCartney (b. 1942) reaches 64, with everybody remembering his hit song (written at age 16) When I'm Sixty-Four from the 1967 "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album; "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?"; meanwhile ex-wife Heather Mills hires Princess Diana's atty. Anthony Julius, while Paul hires Prince Charles' atty. Fiona Shackleton. On June 18 Nevada bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, an oceanographer becomes the first woman elected to lead a church in the global Anglican Communion as she is picked to be the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church by the Episcopal Gen. Convention in Columbus, Ohio, whose membership is predominantly white and has been declining for years. On June 19 the grisly, tortured, beheaded, booby-trapped remains of two missing Americans, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca (b. 1983) of Houston, Tex. and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker (b. 1981) of Madras, Ore. are found in Baghdad a few mi. from where they disappeared on June 16 in an attack near Yousifiyah in the Sunni Triangle, which killed Spc. David J. Babineau (25) of Springfield, Mass.; a Web site posting claims that new Iraq al-Qaida leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajer did it personally; 8K U.S. and Iraqi troops searched for them, killing two insurgents and detaining 78. On June 19 the prosecution of Saddam Hussein, his half-brother Barzan Ibrahim (intel chief), Taha Yassin Ramadan (vice-pres.) and Awad Hamed al-Bandar (chief of jusice of the Rev. Court) finishes, demanding the death penalty, saying that So Damn Insane showed "no mercy", and that "Even the trees were not safe from their oppression", causing Saddam to mutter "Well done". On June 19 a suicide bomber detonates in a Baghdad restaurant 400 yards from the main gate of the Green Zone at lunchtime, killing 23; another bomber detonates during morning roll call outside a traffic police HQ in the Kurdish city of Irbil, wounding 50; meanwhile 1K U.S. and Iraqi forces take part in Operation Spear and Operation Dagger in rural Anbar Province, which began June 17 and June 18, respectively. On June 19 the first stone of the Svalbard "Doomsday" Global Seed Vault on Spitsbergen Island, Norway 680 mi. from the North Pole is laid by the PMs of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland. On June 19-23 at least 25 people are executed gangland-style in Mosul, Iraq. On June 20 the La. Nat. Guard marches into New Orleans to patrol streets after a surge in violent crime and gang-related murders. On June 21 America's Got Talent, created by Simon Cowell debuts on NBC-TV for ? episodes (until ?). On June 22 the FBI arrests seven black people in Miami City, Fla.'s Liberty City area, claiming they were planning to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago; on June 23 they reveal that they tried to join al-Qaida but never made contact or obtained explosives; on Nov. 18, 2009 Burson Augustin (1975-) is convicted and sentenced to six years in a federal prison; on Nov. 20 leader Narseal Batiste (1974-) gets 13.5 years. On June 23 the worst storm to hit the U.S. eastern seaboard in 300 years floods the Potomac and turns Washington, D.C. into a swamp, dumping more than 1 ft. of rain on June 26 and toppling a cent.-old elm tree on the White House lawn (portrayed on the back right side of the U.S. $20 bill), then on June 28 going on to flood the Schuykill River in Penn. On June 25 Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki unveils a 24-point Nat. Reconciliation Initiative offering amnesty to insurgents under certain conditions; a bomb in a plastic bag explodes in one of Baghdad's main markets in the al-Shurja Souk, killing 6 and injuring 17. On June 25 Palestinian Hamas militants sneak into Israel underneath a Gaza border crossing in a tunnel, then kill two Israeli soldiers and capture another, 19-y.-o. SSgt. Gilad Shalit (Schalit) (1986-), the first Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants in 12 years; after Israel offers to release hundreds of Palestinian terrorists in exchange for him, he is released on ?; on June 28 Israel attacks S Gaza and takes out power and bridges in an effort to pressure his release; on June 30 Israeli planes set the Palestinian Interior Ministry on fire. On June 25 Warren Buffett, world's 2nd richest man announces plans to donate 85% ($37.4B) of his $44B fortune to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four other charities starting in July; he and Bill Gates have been friends since they met in 1991; earlier in the month Bill Gates announces that he is giving up his daily duties at Microsoft to spend more time with his foundation; his kids Susie (52), Howard (51), and Peter (48) get a measly $1B each? On June 25 (Sun.) actress Nicole Kidman marries Keith Urban in a Roman Catholic ceremony overlooking Manly Beach in Sydney, Australia. On June 26 bombs at markets in two Iraqi cities kill at least 40 hours after lawmakers announce that seven Sunni Arab insurgent groups have offered the govt. a conditional truce. On June 26 the U.S. announces deployment of PAC-3 (Patriot Advanced Capability-3) interceptor missiles on U.S. bases in Japan for the first time in anticipation of North Korean tests of a long-range missile capable of reaching both nations; in 2004 the PAC-3 was deployed in South Korea, and it has also been deployed in Taiwan. On June 26 lightning-sparked wildfires burn more than 50K acres in N Nevada, while others scorch eight other W U.S. states plus Alaska and Fla. On June 25 Guy's Big Bite debuts on Food Network (until ?), starring Columbus, Ohio-born Guy Fieri (Ferry) (1968-); on Apr. 23, 2007 Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives debuts on Foot Network (until ?); on Feb. 17, 2008 Ultimate Recipe Showdown debuts on Food Network (until 2011), co-hosted by Marc Summers; on Sept. 14, 2008 Guy Off the Hook debuts on Food Network (until Oct. 19, 2008); on Jan. 1, 2012 Rachael vs. Guy: Celebrity Cook-Off debuts on Food Network (until ?), co-starring Rachael Ray; on Oct. 20, 2013 Guy's Grocery Games (Triple G) debuts on Food Network (until ?). On June 26 Nobel laureate (1996 Peace Prize) Jose Manuel Ramos Horta (1949-) is sworn-in as PM #3 of East Timor (until May 19, 2007) after being chosen by pres. Xanana Gusmao to replace Mari Alkatiri, who resigned in June after failing to stop the violence and being accused of forming a hit squad. And you thought the 4th cent. Roman civil war over homoousion vs. homoiousion was stupid? Who's more dangerous to America, the Christians within or the Muslims without? On June 27 the U.S. Senate avoids approving the Flag Desecration Amendment to the Constitution, sponsored by Moron, er, Mormon Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah by 1 vote (66-34); in 2005 the so-called more democratic House passed it by 286-130 (I know 286 House and 66 Senate members who should be burned alive?); retarded supporters, confusing official govt.-owned flags with private copies, missed permanently undermining the U.S. Bill of Rights for a "salute to veterans"?; Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) sums up the dumb side with "Countless men and women have died defending that flag", and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) sums up the smart side with "We are being asked to undermine the foundations of our democracy to squash a gnat" - give me some "U.S. flag" toilet paper and I'll desecrate it for you Mormons whose daddies died defending it? On June 27 U.S. Surgeon Gen. Richard Carmona issues the 670-page report The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco, announcing that any amount of second-hand smoke is harmful, and calls it a "serious health hazard" - what about those scenes of Lucas McCain smoking his stogie at the fireplace in front of his son Mark? On June 27 boyish-faced lily-white mainstream-appearing Charles Gibson (1951-) leaves ABC-TV's Good Morning America after 19 years to become the anchor of ABC's World News Tonight - the perfect man to take on Katie Couric on NBC? On June 28 the Susquehanna River floods, causing 200K to be evacuated from the Wilkes-Barre, Penn. area. On June 28 Ill. Sen. Barack Obama gives a keynote speech to the liberal Christian org. Call to Renewal in Washington, D.C., dissing Alan Keyes for saying that Jesus Christ wouldn't vote for him, then making light of the Bible a la Tom Paine: "And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is okay and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount, a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our Bibles. Folks haven't been reading their Bibles" - neither has he, he just found a Web site with a list of crap and regurgitated it? On June 29 Japanese PM Junichiro Koizumi meets with Pres. Bush at the White House; on June 30 Koizumi, an Elvis fan visits Graceland in Memphis, Tenn. On June 29 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-3 in Hamdan v. Rumsfield that Pres. Bush's decision to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates U.S. and internat. law, incl. the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, esp. Common Article 3; Alito goes with the minority, and Roberts does not vote; the biggest rebuke of an overreaching U.S. pres. since Pres. Truman and the steel mills in 1952? In June the 2.3M-member Presbyterian Church (USA) holds its 217th Gen. Assembly in Birmingham, Ala., and votes 282-212 to "receive" a document trying to get around the traditional language suggesting that God is male, suggesting 12 new phrases for their beloved Trinity (triune God), incl. "Compassionate Mother, Beloved Child and Live-giving Womb", "Lover, Beloved, and Love That Binds Lovers and Beloved Together", "Rock, Cornerstone, and Temple", and "Rainbow of Promise, Ark of Salvation, and Dove of Peace" - shalalala live for today? On June ? moderate Alan Garcia wins the pres. election in Peru over leftist Ollanta Humala, an ally of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. In June flooding kills at least 349 in China. In June an avg. of 100+ civilians a day are killed in Iraq, incl. nearly 6K for May-June. In June police arrest the Toronto 18, suspected Islamic terrorists in Toronto, Canada, claiming to have foiled a major terrorist attack; on Jan. 21, 2010 Jordanian-born mastermind Zakaria Amaria (1985-) is given a life sentence; Saad Gaya is given 12 years in prison. In June Pakistan-born U.S. citizen Syed Hashmi (1980-) is arrested at Heathrow Airport in London en route to Pakistan to visit it family, and next May becomes the first U.S. citizen to be extradited to the U.S. under the post-9/11 terrorism laws; too bad, they torture him at a Guantanamo-like prison in New York City, making him a cause celebre for civil libertarians. In June Pakistani Christian Qamar David is sentenced to life in prison for sending derogatory text messages about Muhammad; on Mar. 15, 2011 he dies in prison amid suspicions of being murdered. In June Tokyo-based Nissan Corp. (founded 1933), Japan's 2nd-biggest automaker produces its 100 millionth vehicle, reaching 100,140,000 by June 30, incl. 76,640,000 in Japan and 23,500,000 overseas. In June Paris Hilton goes on David Letterman's Late Show to tell him that her big feud with The Simple Life co-star Nicole Richie was just a sham - ha ha? On July 1 a giant car bomb explodes in an outdoor market in a Shiite district of Baghdad, Iraq, killing 66 and injuring 100 - watching you terrorists grow and go through the changes in your life? On July 1 the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the world's highest railway is opened between Beijing, China and Lhasa, Tibet (2.5K mi.), reaching 16K ft. above sea level and featuring oxygen for passengers. On July 2 pres. elections in Mexico create a deadlock between pro-free-market pro-U.S. Felipe Calderon Hinojosa (1963-) of the ruling Nat. Action Party, and leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (1953-), each with 36%, with Roberto Madrazo Pintado (1952-) of the yesterday's news PRI lagging with 19%; after much baksheesh, er, recounting, the winner is declared to be Calderon by 0.56% (35.89% to 35.33%) (a margin of 233,831 of 41.6M votes cast) on July 6; on July 16 (Sun.) hundreds of thousands of protesters in Mexico City demand a recount for Obrador, charging rampant fraud; Obrador's supporters are mainly in the poor S states, Calderon's in the affluent N and NW states. On July 3 half-mi.-wide Asteroid 2004 XP14 comes to within 269K mi. of the Earth. On July 3 a subway train in Valencia, Spain flips off the tracks, killing 41 and injuring 47. On July 3 the Philippine govt. says that at least 5K villagers have fled their homes in the S Philippines after nearly a week of clashes between govt. forces and Muslim guerrillas of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. On July 3 a U.S. federal judge issues a temporary restraining order barring the U.S. Navy from using a high-intensity sonar during war games because it could harm marine animals; on July 7 a settlement is reached barring the sonar from being used within 25 mi. of the new Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine Nat. Monument. On July 4 (2:38 p.m. EDT) NASA launches its crappy Space Shuttle Discovery from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. (first 4th of July launch) on mission STS-121; once again flying floam strikes the flying bomb, causing the mission to turn into a breast self-exam in space even though the pieces come off after the 2 min. 15 sec. critical point; on July 16 the astronauts issue a soundbyte: "We just flew over the Middle East, and I have to tell you, from up here it looks peaceful and quiet just like the rest of the planet" (Piers Sellers); a 14-in. repair spatula is lost during a spacewalk; they make a successful landing on July 17. A rare Commie fireworks tribute to U.S. Independence Day? On July 4 North Korea, ignoring repeated internat. warnings tests their Taep'o-Dong 2 (Taepodong-2) missile (2985-9320 mi. range), which proves a dud and breaks up and crashes into the Sea of Japan; six more missiles are launched in the next 24 hours, drawing protests from 13 nations while Dear Leader and Lodestar of the 21st Cent. Kim Jong Il remains crazy like a fox?; on July 5 the U.N. Security Council attempts to impose sanctions, but Russia and China block it; on July 6 the North Korean foreign minister declares that his country has a right to test missles as a "self-defense deterrent", and "If anyone intends to dispute or add pressure about this, we will have to take stronger physical actions in other forms." On July 4 Palestinian militants hit the Israeli city of Ashkelon with a rocket from Gaza for the first time, just hours after a deadline set by militants holding Israel soldier Gilad Shalit passes without Israel releasing 1.5K Palestinian POWs, all pissing Israelis off more than ever. On July 4 U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq publicly read portions of the Declaration of Independence at the Nat. Archives in Washington, D.C. On July 5 oil hits a record $75.40 a barrel. On July 5 Dem. N.J. Gov. Jon S. Corzine closes New Jersey's casinos for the first time in 28 years, putting 80K out of work as part of a 5-day state govt. shutdown caused by a fight with the legislature over a proposed sales tax increase; on July 6 the dispute is ended. On July 6 New York and Ga. uphold bans on same-sex unions, leaving Mass. as the only gay marriage haven. On July 6 Angela Magdaleno (1966-) of Los Angeles, Calif. gives birth to quadruplets by C-section (without fertility drugs) three years after delivering triplets via IVF, giving her a total of 10 children, all but the two oldest living with them in a 1-bedroom apt. On July 7 U.S. authorities announce the foiling of a terrorist plot to cripple the U.S. economy in Oct. or Nov. by destroying train tunnels in New York City, arresting eight suspects; on July 9 authorities announce the discovery of files describing a plan to attack New York train tunnels on the computer of al-Qaida man Assem Hammoud (1975-), who visited the U.S. in 2000. On July 9 India test-fires its 1.8K mi.-range, nuclear-capable Agni (Hindi "fire") 3 missile. On July 9 Polish Pres. Lech Kaczynski announces the appointment of his twin brother Jaroslav Kaczynski to succeed moderate PM Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, who resigned on July 8, and on ? he is sworn-in (until ?). On July 9 hundreds of Canadian and Afghan soldiers raid Taliban strongholds in Kandahar Province, killing at least 15 militants and one Canadian. On July 10 Chechen rebel leader Shamil Basayev (b. 1945) is killed when a dynamite-laden truck in his convoy explodes in Ekazhevo, Ingushetia - what a shamil the basayev-killer is no more? On July 14 Polish pres. (since Dec. 2005) Lech Kaczynski appoints his identical 45-min. older twin brother Jaroslaw Kaczynski (1949-) as PM of Poland (until Nov. 16, 2007). On July 10 Colo. passes the most restrictive anti-immigrant legislation so far in the U.S., requiring businesses to keep records sent to the federal govt. on employees for random state audits. On July 11 (6:24-35 p.m. local time) the 2006 Mumbai Train Bombings sees Kashmiri Muslim militants set off seven pressure cooker bombs in first-class train cars in the financial capital of Mumbai (Bombay), India (pop. 18M) during the evening rush hour (at seven stations), killing 209 commuters and injuring 700+; Indian police detain 350 in the NE suburb of Malwani for questioning, causing Muslims to complain that they're being targeted unjustly; on July 12 PM Manmohan Singh utters the soundbyte: "No one can make India kneel"; on Feb. 27, 2009 Indian Mujahideen leader Sadiq Sheikh confesses on TV to his role in the bombings; in Sept. 2015 12 Muslims are convicted. On July 11 a series of grenade attacks in Srinagar, Kashmir kill nine tourists. On July 11 a Big Dig tunnel in Boston, Mass. drops 12 tons of concrete onto a passing car, killing Milena Delvalle (38), and causing the state atty.-gen. Tom Reilly to begin a criminal investigation, saying "No one is going to be spared"; within days 362 violations are found, adding to the 169 defective areas found in 2005, exposing the $14.6B boondoggle as dangerous as well as wasteful; six people had been charged earlier in the year for covering up the use of inferior concrete; on July 27 Matthew Amorello, chmn. of the Mass. Turnpike Authority resigns under pressure of Gov. Mitt Romney. On July 11 Hezbollah militants capture Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a cross-border raid, causing Israel to invade Lebanon on July 12, shutting down Beirut Internat. Airport, which causes Hezbollah to fire rockets into 20 Israeli towns, incl. one of which lands in a train station in Haifa, killing eight, causing the Israeli PM to go nonlinear, causing the Middle East to go into the hairy edge of war; on July 16 the 6th day of hostilities causes the death toll to top 230 (210 Lebanese, 24 Israelis, incl. 410 Lebanese and 303 Israelis wounded) as hundreds of U.S. evacuees from Lebanon fly into Cyprus; meanwhile on July 16 world leaders incl. British PM Tony Blair and U.N. Secy.-Gen. Kofi Annan call for deployment of internat. forces to stop the bombardment of Israel, while Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah (1961-) says the battle has just begun; on July 17 Israel briefly sends troops into Lebanon while Hezbollah rockets knock down a 3-story house in N Israel; on July 19 mass evacuation to Cyprus of the 25K Americans and other foreigners by U.S. Navy and Marines begins. On July 11 comedian Robin Williams checks into the Hazelden Rehab. Center in Ore. after he begins drinking after 20 years of sobriety. On July 12 gunmen seize two dozen Shiites from a bus station in Baghdad, Iraq in a predominantly Sunni area, then kill them and dump their bodies in a nearby village. On July 12 the Journal of the Am. Medical Assoc. reveals that for the 2nd time in 2 mo. article contributors failed to disclose financial ties to drug cos. On July 13 the U.S. House votes to renew the 1965 U.S. Voters Rights Act, rejecting efforts by Southerners to relax federal oversight of their states; 33 Repubs. vote no, claiming that their racist voting obstacles are history. On July 14 oil prices reach a peak of $77.03 a barrel before beginning to decline. On July 14-16 Tropical Storm Bilis pounds SE China, killing 154 and injuring hundreds. On July 15 a heat wave begins in Calif., lasting 2 weeks and killing 139. On July 16 a suicide bomber detonates inside a cafe packed with Shiites in Tuz Khormato, Iraq 130 mi. N of Baghdad, killing 26 and injuring 22. On July 17 a 7.7 earthquake causes a 6-ft.-high 110-mi.-wide tsunami along the S coast of Java, killing at least 463, causing 23K to flee their homes in Pangandaran and other towns. On July 17 the U.S. House approves a treaty with Russia to protect the remaining 25K polar bears from overhunting. On July 17 Shiite gunmen massacre 50 in a market in Mahmoudiya, Iraq; reprisals kill at least 19 more. On July 17 Britain outlaws the Islamist org. Al Ghurabaa (Arab. "The Strangers"), causing spokesman Anjem Choudary to form Islam4UK in 2010. On July 17-Sept. 12 the 50+-day Siege of Musa Qala (Arab. "Fortress of Moses") in Helmand Province, Afghanistan sees a small force of British and Danish troops hold off a Taliban siege. On July 18 a Sunni driver in Iraq lures Shiites to his van by promising jobs, then blows it up, killing 53. On July 18 Dr. Anna Pou (50), nurse Cheri A. Landry (49), and nurse Lori L. Budo (43) are arrested for murdering four sick elderly patients in the aftermath of Hurricane Latrine, er, Katrina by administering a lethal morphine-Versed cocktail; "We're talking about people that pretended that maybe they were God" (La. Atty. Gen. Charles C. Foti). On July 19 Israeli troops invade S Lebanon as warplanes flatten houses and buildings, incl. one believed to hold top Hezbollah leaders; the death toll reaches 70; meanwhile 1K Americans are evacuated from Beirut to Cyprus by the 8-deck luxury liner Orient Queen. On July 20 Brandon Hedrick (b. 1979) becomes the first person to die in the electric chair in the U.S. in more than 2 years, taking the juice at 9:12 p.m. in Greensville, Va. Correctional Center; he chose it over lethal injection, a choice given inmates since 1995. On July 20 Pres. Bush makes his first appearance as pres. at an annual convention of the NAACP in the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.; chmn. Julian Bond had in the past compared Repubs. to Nazis and Bush to Hitler, but new pres. Bruce Gordon has mellowed the group out? On July 22 Kashmiri militant Mudassir, chief planner of Pakistan-based Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyaba is arrested in the Indian portion of Kasmir; he is thought to be behind June 11 and July 11 grenade attacks in Jammu and Srinagar. On July 23 (Sun.) bombs in Baghdad and Kirkuk, Iraq kill 62 and wound 200+. On July 23 Saddam Hussein is hospitalized on the 17th day of a hunger strike and fed with a tube; Saddam is striking to demand better security for his defense team, three of whom have been assassinated since the trial began, the last being Khamis al-Obeidi on June 21. On July 23 Amnesty Internat. issues a report claiming that security agents in Jordan torture terrorism suspects on behalf of the U.S. to force confessions. On July 23 a 5-y.-o. boy called Prince is rescued from a 60-ft. irrigation shaft in Aldeharhi, India after a 50-hour ordeal that gripped the nation. On July 24 Israeli troops seize a key Hezbollah stronghold in S Lebanon; Condoleezza Rice makes a surprise visit to Beirut, and meets with Lebanese PM Fuad Saniora, saying that the U.S. will not press Israel for a quick ceasefire until the long-term threat of Hezbollah is addressed; Israeli rockets hit Bint-Jbail near the Israeli border; Israel captures two Hezbollah guerrillas and plans to interrogate them; meanwhile the U.S. completes its evacuation of 12K Americans, and says it will switch to humanitarian aid; on July 25 a U.N. observation post near Khiam on Lebanon's E border with Israel comes under Israeli fire 21x, killing four observers, despite 10 phone calls in six hours telling them to stop; Hezbollah militants were using the U.N. workers as shields; U.N. Secy.-Gen. Kofi Annan calls the attack "apparently deliberate"; by July 28 Hezbollah has launched 1500 Katyusha rockets at Israel; on July 26 nine Israel soldiers are killed in battles for key towns, and Israel announces its intention of establishing a 1.2 mi.-wide security zone in Lebanon, and keep the Shebaa Farms in the Israel-Lebanon-Syria triangle, which they seized in the 1967 war. On July 24 the U.S. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act is signed by Pres. Bush, prohibiting real estate mgt. orgs from you know what. On July 27 Pres. Bush signs a bill to renew the U.S. Voting Rights Act of 1965 one year ahead of time. On July 27 it is announced that the NORAD complex in Colo. Springs, Colo. is being put on "warm standby". On July 27 rockets and mortars kill 31 in an upscale mostly Shiite area of Baghdad (high class Shiite?), collapsing an apt. house; a car bomb explodes in the commercial and residential district of Karradah, Iraq, injuring 150. On July 28 Hezbollah uses the Khaibar-1 (Iranian-made Fajr-5) missile for the first time, striking Haifa. On July 28 (2:36 a.m. PDT) film superstar Mel Colmcille Gerard Gibson (1956-) is arrested for drunk driving in Malibu, Calif., launching into a "barrage of anti-Semitic remarks", incl. the immortal soundbyte "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world", which is at first allegedly covered up, then causes a firestorm of controversy and threatens his career; his wife (since 1981) Robyn Gibson separates with him 1 mo. later, and files for divorce in Apr. 2009; he later apologizes and calls his statements "despicable", and enters a rehab program, then on Oct. 18 talks with Diane Sawyer on ABC-TV, calling his comments "the stupid ramblings of a drunkard", admitting that he slicked up his hair for his mugshot to avoid "one of those hideous mug shots" like Nick Nolte took; meanwhile on Aug. 1 he is arrested on terrorism charges by the feds for allegedly funneling money through Australia into Lebanon and Palestine to fund Muslim extremists against Israel (actually a joke posted on the Web) - but since true Jews never forgive or forget, just wait? On July 28 a bomb explodes between a Sunni mosque and youth center in Baghdad, Iraq during Friday prayers, killing four and wounding nine. On July 28 (4:00 p.m.) the Seattle Jewish Federation Shooting sees Muslim extremist Naveed Afzal Haq (1975-) go on jihad and shoot six women, killing one, calling himself a "soldier of Islam", shouting "I'm a Muslim-American, I'm angry at Israel"; on Jan. 14, 2010 after his attys. coach him to paint himself as mentally troubled with inadequate mental health care, he is sentenced to life in prison. On July 29 four U.S. Marines from Regimental Combat Team 7 are killed in Anbar Province in a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold W of Baghdad, while a U.S. F-16 drops two precision-guided bombs on a bldg. near Baghdad believed to be used by militants.; on July 31 a car bomb in Mosul explodes on a passing police patrol, killing three officers and three civilians. On July 30 an Israeli airstrike on a 3-story bldg. in the S Lebanese village of Qana kills 28, almost all of them women and children, igniting a firestorm of protest; Israel later releases video showing the village being used as a launch point for Katyusha rockets; Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issues a call for an immediate ceasefire, saying that "Islamic nations will not forgive the entities that hinder a ceasefire"; Iraqi Pres. Jalal Talabani (Sunni Kurd) calls the attack a "crime"; the U.N. Security issues a statement which "strongly deplores this loss of innocent life"; Israel agrees to suspend air attacks in S Lebanon for 48 hours; so far 518 have been killed in Lebanon, incl. 458 civilians - all over two Israeli soldiers? On July 30 the Dem. Republic of Congo has its first dem. elections in 46 years. On July 30 Mogadishu's internat. airport opens for the first time in a decade. On July 30 leftist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador calls for hundreds of thousands of his supports to erect permanent protest camps on the Zocalo (central plaza) of Mexico City "until the court resolves" the disputed pres. election; after he gets leftist lawmakers to protest, Vicente Fox becomes the first Mexican leader to abandon his state of the union speech on Sept. 4; he then calls for a halt to Sept. 16 Independence Day celebrations, and vows to rule the country from the streets, with the soundbyte "They can keep their pirated institutions and their phony president, but they cannot keep our fatherland and our national dignity"; on Sept. 5 the Federal Electoral Tribunal rules Calderon the pres.-elect, while millions of Mexicans are angry that outgoing pres. and fellow party member Vicente Fox didn't make good on promises of sweeping changes; on Sept. 14 Fox caves in and cancels the "Viva Mexico" Independence Day celebrations in the Zocalo to avoid protests, and move it to the small town of Dolores Hidalgo 170 mi. NW of Mexico City in Fox's conservative home state of Guanajuao. On July 31 Fidel Castro temporarily reliquinshes his pres. powers to his radical brother Raul Castro (1931-) after suffering GI bleeding from a surgery; he has six sons by his first two wives, plus several others out of wedlock; Cuban exiles in Monday take to the streets in anticipation of the old snake's death? On July 31 the U.N. Security Council passes a resolution giving Iran until Aug. 31 to suspend uranium enrichment or face sanctions. On July 31 British PM Tony Blair and Calif. Gov. Ahnuld announce an agreement to bypass the Bush admin. and work together to cut pollution and fight global warming; "This is an agreement to share ideas and information. It is not a treaty", Ahnuld spokesman Adam Mendelsohn says. On July 31 gunmen in military fatigues burst into the offices of the Iraqi-Am. Chamber of Commerce and a nearby mobile phone co. and seize 26 in the upscale Karradah Shiite area of Baghdad; four Iraqi soldiers are killed in a suicide bombing in N Iraq, the first-ever in the Kurdish-ruled province of Dahuk. In July China finally links Tibet and Beijing by train. In July the U.S. heat wave shaters 2.3K records, incl. a 117 F high in Cottonwood, S.D. on July 15, and 23 out of 31 days above 90 F in Helena, Mont.; this is the first year that the yearly heat wave in the U.S. West since 2000 has spread to the C plains; so far 7.1M acres of forest have burned, the most in any 10-year period (8.7M by Sept.) (annual avg. over the past 10 yars is 4.9M). In July the free mag. Babytalk shocks readers by displaying a photo of a baby nursing on a giant breast, a sign that the "lactivist" movement of public breastfeeding is gaining ground despite the Puritanical attitudes prevalent in the U.S. In July Pfizer's Chantix, a drug that makes the immune system attack nicotine to prevent the pleasurable "buzz" as a way to end addiction hits the market in the U.S., following Sanofi-Aventis SA's Acomplia, which won approval in Europe under the guise of a weight-loss drug. In July Robert Charles Browne (1952-), a life sentence inmate in a Colo. prison claims to have killed 48 other people starting in the early 1970s and spanning nine states and South Korea until his 1995 conviction. While the U.S. military is out in Iraq fighting ghosts, back home the illegals move in like insects? In July the town of Riverside, N.J. (pop. 8K) passes the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, banning hiring and housing of approx. 3.5K undocumented aliens, causing a protest by hundreds on Aug. 20, led by the Nat. Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, which vows to invite new illegals to move in to replace any forced out; meanwhile other towns incl. Hazleton, Penn. pass similar ordinances. In July a Scrips Howard and Ohio U. poll finds that more than one-third of Americans believe that federal officials assisted in the 9/11 attacks or purposely took no action to stop them so that the U.S. could have an excuse to start a war in the Middle East. In July the U.S. has its highest avg. temp (77.2 F) since 1936 (77.5 F). In July U.S. gas pump prices reach a record $3.015 per gal., rising by mid-Aug. to $3.025; from July-Oct. oil company profits reach $31.6B. In July the civilian death toll in Iraq (3.5K) exceeds the entire war before that; the total of killed and wounded in the Battle of Baghdad reaches 22K by mid-Aug. In July a computer programmer mistakenly wipes out the disk drive info. on a $38B oil-funded account at the Alaska Dept. of Revenue, costing it $200K to scan the original paperwork back in. In July the Italian govt. frees thousands of prisoners convicted of "minor" crimes, causing a resurgence in the Camorra in Naples, which soon rakes in 15B euros a year from drugs. In July Am. TV chef Anthony Bourdain is caught in Beirut when the Israel-Lebanon Conflict breaks out, holing-up in a hotel until cleaner "Mr. Wolf" helps the U.S. Marines evacuate him and his crew on July 20, resulting in a No Reservations episode that airs on Aug. 21 and is nominated for an Emmy. On Aug. 1 Iraq starts out a new month of killing with more than 70 killed, incl. 20 Iraqi troops, a U.S. soldier, and a British soldier. On Aug. 2 Toyota which passes Ford and becomes #2 in the U.S. auto market after GM; on Sept. 5 Bill Ford steps down as Ford Motor Co. CEO for Boeing hatchet, er, turnaround expert Alan Roger Mullaly (1945-), who wastes no time, and on Sept. 13 Ford announces that it will install electronic stabilization controls on all its vehicles by the end of 2009, then on Sept. 15 announces a reorg. plan which will cut 45K jobs. On Aug. 2 bomb blasts in a soccer field in the mostly Shiite district of Amil in W Baghdad kills 11 young people. On Aug. 2 Hezbollah launches 230+ rockets into Israel, followed on Aug. 3 by 200 more, killing eight; meanwhile a pro-Hezbollah rally called by Muqtada al-Sadr and approved by the Iraq govt. is held by thousands of white-shrouded Shiite youths in Baghdad's Sadr City while a motorcycle bomb kills 12. Hell's Top Model? On Aug. 2 Uruguayan model Luisel Ramos (b. 1984) dies of starvation, er, heart attack, followed on Nov. 14 by 5'8" 88 lb. Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston (b. 1985), then by the first one's sister Eliana Ramos on Feb. 13, 2007 (same cause), despite fashion show organizers in Spain and Italy setting weight guidelines for models; London Fashion Week organizers respond by prohibiting size zero models; the avg. model is 5'11" and size 0 or 2, vs. the avg. non-model woman at 5'4" and size 14; "2 is the new 4 and zero is the new 2" (The Devil Wears Prada). On Aug. 3 top U.S. cmdrs. tell Congress that civil war in Iraq is a "possibility" (Gen. Peter Pace); meanwhile Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton calls on defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld to resign. On Aug. 3 militants kill four Canadian soldiers and wound 10 in Pashmul, Afghanistan W of Kandahar; meanwhile a suicide car bomb in a market in Panjwayi 15 mi. away, killing 21 civilians and wounding 13. On Aug. 3 Toni Braxton (1968-) replaces Wayne Newton at the Flamingo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev., becoming the first African-Am. performer to enter the Top 10 Vegas Show chart. On Aug. 5-13 forest fires in NW Spain burn over 24K acres of forest and scrubland; more than 20 people are arrested for deliberately starting them. On Aug. 6 (night) a suicide bomber detonates among mourners at a funeral in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, Iraq, killing 10 and injuring 22; meanwhile three U.S. soldiers are killed in a roadside bombing SW of Baghdad. On Aug. 6 Iran defies a U.N. Security Council deadline and vows to expand its urianium enrichment. On Aug. 6 Hiroshima mayor Tadatoshi Akiba calls for the elimination of all nukes on the 61th anniv. of the U.S. A-bomb attack. On Aug. 6 U.S. journalist Paul Salopek (1962-) is arrested in Darfur, Sudan on espionage charges, and released on Sept. 9. On Aug. 7 a U.S.-Iraqi attack on a Shiite military stronghold in Baghdad, Iraq kills three, incl. a woman and child, causing Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki to criticize it, saying it could undermine his efforts at nat. reconciliation. On Aug. 7 Lebanese PM Fuad Saniora tearfully rejects a U.N. ceasefire plan, demanding an immediate Israeli pullout of S Lebanon. On Aug. 7 4-y.-o. conjoined twin sisters Kendra and Maliya Herrin undergo successful separation surgery in Salt Lake City, Utah. On Aug. 8 after a "netroots" campaign featuring video of Pres. Bush planting a kiss on his cheek after the 2005 State of the Union address, 3-term Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman loses the Dem. primary to anti-war millionaire challenger Ned Lamont 52-48, causing Lieberman to vow to run as an independent, only to see top Dem. senators John Kerry, Edward Kennedy et al. back Lamont; flamboyant Ga. Rep. Cynthia McKinney loses a runoff for the Dem. nomination. On Aug. 9 a string of bombings in the center of Baghdad kill at least 20 and wound 60. On Aug. 9-13 Perseid meteor showers brighten the night sky. On Aug. 10 British and Pakistan authorities break up a plot (set for Wed. Aug. 16) to smuggle chemicals aboard 10 U.S.-bound planes in England in soft drink containers and blow them up, arresting 24 people (41 by Aug. 12), and causing new restrictions on air travel as most liquids except baby food are prohibited, along with laptops and other electronic devices; on Aug. 21 police charge 11 people, and confirm that the plot involved the manufacture of explosives; on Aug. 10 Pres. Bush utters the soundbyte: "The recent arrests that our fellow citizens are now learning about are a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom, to hurt our nation." On Aug. 10 a Sunni Jamaat Jund al-Sahaba (Arab. "Soldiers of the Prophet's Companions") suicide bomber detonates outside Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, Iraq (Iraq's holiest Shiite shrine), killing 35 and wounding 122. On Aug. 10 Ukrainian cosmonaut Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko (1961-) becomes the first person to marry in space, marrying Ekaterina Dmitrieva in Tex. while he is over New Zealand on the Internat. Space Station. On Aug. 11 135 mph Typhoon Saomai (Juan) (formed Aug. 4) becomes China's worst tropical storm in a cent., hitting the SE coast, killing 100 and destroying 50K homes, then forcing 1.5M from their homes. On Aug. 11 the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution calling for the end of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, authorizing the deployment of 15K U.N. Peacekeepers and calling for an Israeli withdrawal by Mon. morning, which the Israelis use to stage their largest commando raid ever in S Lebanon; minutes after the U.N. vote Israeli warplanes pounds S Beirut with 20+ missiles, causing Hezbollah to fire more than 250 rockets at N Israel, the worst since July 12; on Aug. 11 an Israeli drone fires at a convoy of refugees in S Lebanon, killing seven and wounding 22; the death toll is 800, incl. 741 Lebanese and 123 Israelis. On Aug. 11 James Dobson of Focus on the Family calls the loss of life in Lebanon "terrible", likens Israel to "little David" facing "mighty Goliath", and asks God to intervene and "give His people a miracle on the battlefield"; meanwhile Rev. Ted Haggard, pres. of the Nat. Assoc. of Evangelicals says he is purposely maintaining silence about the conflict to protect "a rapidly growing evangelical population in virtually every Islamic country". On Aug. 11 Sesame Street introduces its first female muppet Abby Cadabby, a 3-y.-o. fairy with wings. On Aug. 11 U.S. Sen. (R-Va.) George Felix Allen (1952-) uses the word "macaca" at a campaign stop in Breaks, Va. to refer to Indian-Am. photographer S.R. Sidartha, who works for his opponent Jim Webb, bringing out the PC police and causing Webb to win the race. On Aug. 13 prominent British Muslim leaders pub. an Open Letter to Tony Blair, saying that his policy on the Middle East and Iraq offers "ammunition to extremists" and puts British lives "at increased risk". On Aug. 13 (eve.) a series of explosions in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad causes a battle between the U.S. military and Iraqis over who caused them, the U.S. blaming them on a gas line blast and the Iraqis on car bombs and rockets. On Aug. 14 as peacekeepers move in, tens of thousands of Lebanese jam roads trying to return to Beirut after 34 days of combat; meanwhile Hezbollah leader Nasrallah becomes a hero to the Muslims, the "lion of Lebanon", first-ever to shoot rockets into Zionist Israel, as his org. hands out $12K in $100 bills to each Lebanese family whose home was destroyed by Israel. On Aug. 14 the U.S. begins issuing electronic passports to the gen. public containing an embedded IC containing a digital photo, facial recognition data, and other security features. On Aug. 14 a video is released showing Fidel Castro healthy and joking from his hospital bed with Venezuelan pres. Hugo Chavez, causing anti-Castro forces to grumble. On Aug. 14 four masked gunmen in Gaza City kidnap U.S. Fox News correspondents Steven James "Steve" Centanni (1946-) of the U.S. and Olaf Wiig (1970-) of New Zealand; on Aug. 23 a video is released showing them and demanding the release of Muslim POWs within 72 hours; on Aug. 27 they appear on a video dressed in Arab robes and ranting against the West, then are released after the payment of a $2M ransom, immediately claiming the statements were made under duress and they been forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint. On Aug. 15 the last POW is transferred to Abu Ghraib Prison, and on Aug. 28 the prison is turned over to the Iraq govt. America's Got Talent Salutes Whom? On Aug. 15 41-y.-o. Ga. elementary school teacher John Mark Karr (1964-) is arrested in Bangkok, Thailand for the 1996 Christmas night murder of 6-y.-o. Boulder, Colo. beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey; he had become a suspect after long e-mail correspondence with U. of Colo. Michael Tracey in which he volunteered info. on the killing that was not public; in 2001 a 5-count misdemeanor child porno charge was brought against him in Calif.; on Aug. 17 he tells the press that he "was present at her death" but that it was "an accident" and that he "loves" her, stirring concerns that he is just confessing to gain fame; after being extradited to Boulder, he is cleared on Aug. 28 by district atty. Mary Lacy hours before appearing before a judge after DNA tests fail to match; Karr is sent to Calif. on his child porno charges, but they are dropped after prosecutors lose the evidence, the computer holding the images. On Aug. 16 Mirek Topolanek (Topolánek) (1956-) of the center-right Civic Dem. Party becomes PM of the Czech Repub. (until Mar. 26, 2009). On Aug. 16 Mexican officials announce the capture of drug lord Francisco Javier Arellano Felix (1969-) while deep-sea fishing on Aug. 14. On Aug. 17 U.S. District Judge (since 1979) Anna Diggs Taylor (1932-) in Detroit, Mich. rules that the NSA's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional, and orders it ended; meanwhile U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler (1938-) in Washington, D.C. rules that cigarette makers did violate racketeering laws and deceived the public for over 50 years about the health hazards of smoking, but that she couldn't order them to pay the $10B-$130B sought by the govt., nor order a national stop-smoking program, because an appeals court ruling permits only forward-looking remedies, although she does order them to publish "corrective statements", and to stop labeling cigarettes as "low tar", "light", "ultra light" and "mild" because of the way people smoke them. On Aug. 17 a coalition aircraft mistakenly drops a bomb in SE Patika Province in Afghanistan, killing 10 Afghan police officers on border patrol. On Aug. 18 acting Cuban pres. Raul Castro says that he has mobilized tens of thousands of troops in response to "aggressive U.S. acts", incl. stepped-up radio and TV broadcasts and an $80M plan to hasten the end of Commie rule - gotta keep these muscles tight? On Aug. 19-20 rolling battles with Taliban insurgents and Afgahan and NATO troops kill 71 militants and five Afghan security forces. On Aug. 20 rooftop snipers kill 20 and wound 300 white-shrouded Shiites as they throng around the Shrine of Imam Moussa Kadhim (d. 799) in the Kazimiyah neighborhood of N Baghdad, in what appears to be the opening of a civil war; on Aug. 21 (Mon.) Pres. Bush holds a press conference, sticking to his optimism of a democratic Iraq without a civil war, and insisting on the need for Iraq to "succeed" for U.S. security, saying, " We're not leaving so long as I'm president"; meanwhile Sen. Joe Lieberman calls on defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld to resign, but sticks to his pro-Iraq War policy, saying that the U.S. cannot "walk away" from the Iraqis; meanwhile Sen. John McCain of Ariz. says he won't campaign against his friend Lieberman in Del. On Aug. 21 Saddam Hussein's Genocide Trial (his 2nd trial) begins, with witnesses giving tear-jerking stories of how Kurds were treated like garbage, causing Saddam Hussein to bark at the prosecutors and refuse to enter a plea; on Aug. 22 Najiba Khider Ahmed (1965-) testifies about the Apr. 16, 1987 poison gas attack on Basilan and Sheik Wasan: "I saw 8-12 jets... There was greenish smoke from the bombs. It was as if there was a rotten apple or garlic smell minutes later. People were vomiting... We were blind and screaming. There was no one to rescue us, just God." On Aug. 21 Calif. agrees to raise the minimum wage from $6.75 to $8 by 2008. On Aug. 22 a Pulkovo Airlines Tu-154 passenger jet en route from the Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa to St. Petersburg crashes near Donetsk, Ukraine during a thunderstorm, killing all 170 aboard, becoming the third Russian passenger plane crash this year. On Aug. 22 U.S. District Judge Charles R. Bryer in San Francisco blocks a Jan. 2004 Bush admin. plan to permit commercial logging in Giant Sequoia Nat. Monument, calling it "incomprehensible". On Aug. 22 Iraq War hawk Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) says the Bush admin. misled Americans into believing it would be "some kind of day at the beach", and "it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this would be". On Aug. 22 the Ill. Restaurant Assoc. sues the city of Chicago, Ill. for banning the sale of foie gras, which involves force-feeding of ducks and geese to enlarge their yummy livers, and many restaurants incl. pizza parlors begin offering it free under-the-table as a protest. On Aug. 22 Zimbabwe switches to a new currency with three zeroes struck off the old denominations. On Aug. 22 Iran claims it will respond to U.S. demands regarding development of nukes; Anglo-Am. Jewish scholar (expert on Islam) Bernard Lewis (1916-) stirs concerns by noting that this is the 27th of Rajab of the Muslim year 1427, when Muslims commemorate the night flight of Muhammad from Jerusalem to heaven and back, saying that it would be "an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and, if ncessary, of the world". On Aug. 23 Viacom chm. Sumner Murray Redstone (Rothstein) (1923-) announces that actor Tom Cruise has been dropped despite bringing in $2.5B at the box office saying that he "has not been acceptable to Paramount" for all his public antics, and committed "creative suicide" which caused MI:III to lose $100M at the summer box office ($400M total); Cruise announces he will use private investors from now on, immediately getting $100M in backing, and on Nov. 3 buying 1919 film studio United Artists. On Aug. 23 Northwest Airlines Flight 42 en route from Amsterdam to Bombay is escorted back by Dutch F-16s after radioing that some passengers were acting suspiciously; 12 people are arrested. On Aug. 23 Wolfgang Priklopil (b. 1962) of Strasshof, Austria (10 mi. NE of Vienna) commits suicide by throwing himself in front of a commuter train in Vienna after 18-y.-o. Natascha Kampusch (1988-) comes to police with a story that she had been confined in a small cellar by him for the last eight years. On Aug. 24 French Pres. Jacques Chirac announces that France is sending 2K soldiers to S Lebanon and retain command of the peacekeeping force. On Aug. 24 ABC-TV airs Out of Control: AIDS in Black America, a Primetime documentary hosted by Terry Moran and Peter Jennings about gay and bisexual Am. black men spreading HIV; it was Jennings' last assignment for ABC News, 10 days before being diagnosed with lung cancer in spring 2005; black Ams. are 13% of the U.S. pop. but more than 50% of HIV cases; almost 70% of new Am. HIV cases are black women, and they are 23x more likely to be diagnosed with it than white women, with hetero contact being the overwhelming method of infection, as black men hide their closet gay sex because of social stigma in the black community - black men can't control what? The school year in the U.S. starts out fast with school shootings? On Aug. 24 Christopher A. Williams (b. 1980) shoots one teacher and wounds another at an elementary school in Essex, Vt., then shoots himself twice in the head and is arrested; he also killed his ex-girlfriend's mother. On Aug. 25 Iraqis loot Camp Abu Naji, a vacated British military base, embarrassing the govt. On Aug. 25 a forest fire in Montana is started by lightning, and grows to over 27K acres by Sept. 14. On Aug. 26 the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda signs a truce with the govt., ending nearly two decades of cutting off tongues and lips of innocent civilians, enslaving tens of thousands of children, and driving 2M from their homes; "good Christian" leader Joseph Kony (1962-) claims to be innocent of war crimes charges filed by the Internat. Criminal Court. On Aug. 26 a Taliban cmdr. and 15 other militants are announced killed in S Afghanistan, 1 day after 13 insurgents were killed along wih two French soldiers; meanwhile Canadian troops mistakenly kill a policeman and wound six others; the death toll in the past 4 mo. is now over 1.6K. On Aug. 26 the Pakistani army kills Nawab Akbar Bugti and 35 comrades, later causing legal trouble for army chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf. On Aug. 27 at 6:07 a.m. Comair Flight 5191 (twin-engine Bombardier Canadair CRJ-100) barrels off the runway in the Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Ky. after turning onto the wrong runway (1.5K ft. too short), and bursts into flames, killing 49 of 50 aboard, becoming the worst U.S. plane disaster in almost five years (Nov. 12, 2001); only first officer James M. Polehinke survives after police officer Bryan Jared pulls him out; an $18K cockpit warning system might have prevented the crash says Jim Hall, former chmn. of the NTSB. On Aug. 27 an Israeli aircraft fires two missiles at an armored car belonging to the Reuters News Agency, wounding five, incl. two cameramen. On Aug. 27 bomb attacks and shootings across Iraq kill dozens despite everything the U.S. and the Iraq govt. can do. On Aug. 27 a TV interview of Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah is aired, in which he says he wouldn't have ordered the July 12 capture of two Israeli soldiers if he had known it "would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude" (34 days of fighting ending Aug. 14). On Aug. 27 60 Minutes airs an interview of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin in which he replies to a CBS correspondent pointing out flood-damaged cars still on the streets of the Ninth Ward, saying, "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and it's five years later, so let's be fair"; after an outcry he apologizes on Sept. 1, saying, "I will never refer to that site as a hole. It's a sacred site that's currently in an undeveloped state." On Aug. 27 a garbage can bomb blows up a minibus in Ankara, Turkey, injuring 21, incl. 10 British tourists; Kurdish guerrillas are suspected. On Aug. 27 a British NATO soldier is killed and seven Afghan troops are wounded in insurgent attacks in Kandahar Province in S Afghanistan; meanwhile police kill 10 suspected Taliban militants attacking a govt. compound. On Aug. 27 Iran tests a new anti-ship sub-fired missile, raising worries of disruption of Persian Gulf oil tanker traffic. On Aug. 27 a hurricane watch is issued for the Fla. Keys as Tropical Storm Ernesto approaches; on Aug. 29 it hits Fla. after slowing down to 45 mph winds, then hits the S N.C. coast on Aug. 30 with 70 mph winds, weakening to a tropical depression on Sept. 1, and dumping 6 in. of rain; meanwhile Hurricane John reaches Category 4 as it moves toward the W coast of Mexico; on Sept. 1 it brushes by the E tip of Baja Calif., causing minor damage. On Aug. 28 a suicide bomber targeting a former police chief kills 21 civilians in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan. On Aug. 28 Denver, Colo.-based Newmont Mining Corp., #2 world gold producer shuts down operations in Yanacocha, Peru after workers demanding jobs and clean water block road access; clashes with police earler in Aug. left one dead and a dozen injured; meanwhile the corp. continues to fight a year-old prosecution in Manado, Indonesia charging that their Sulawesi Island mine has been polluting waters with mercury and arsenic. On Aug. 29 a kangaroo escapes from an exotic animal owner and begins hopping down the road in Oklahoma City, Okla. On Aug. 30 in San Francisco, Calif. Omeed Aziz Popal (1977-) deliberately plows into pedestrians in his black Honda Pilot SUV, killing one and injuring 13, later saying "I'm a terrorist, I don't care"; he is charged with murder and 19 counts of attempted murder. On Aug. 30 a series of explosions in Shiite neighborhoods in E Baghdad kills 43 and wounds 200; bringing the death toll in Iraq since Aug. 27 to 300+. On Aug. 31 Saudi-born Muslim Homaidan Ali Al-Turki (1969-) is sentenced to 28 years in Colo. for keeping an Indonesian housekeeper as a sex slave for four years; he complains that it's not a crime in Sharia countries, calling it "cynical Islamophobia". On Aug. 31 three white students hang noses from a tree at Jena High School in Jena, La., sparking protests by blacks; on Dec. 4 the Jena Six, six black teenies beat a white teenie and are arrested and charged, sparking more protests, incl. one by 10K-20K on Sept. 20, 2007; on Feb. 12, 2008 Pres. Bush makes a speech at a ceremony commemorating African-Am. History Month, saying "The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice but of gross injustice. Displaying one is not a harmless prank. And lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest" - a new word about to be criminalized? In Aug. Monday Night Football moves from ABC to ESPN, and the Oct. 23 show gets record cable ratings. In Aug. Madonna stages a mock crucifixion scene on a mirrored cross while wearing a crown of fake thorns and singing "Live to Tell" in Italy, Germany and elsewhere; her Confessions Tour (tour #7) (May 21 - Sept. 21) sells $194M in tickets in 60 shows (1.2M attendance), topping Cher's $192.5M from 273 shows in 2002-5 for the top-grossing tour by a solo female artist. In Aug. U.S. Rep. (R-Fla.) (2003-7) Katherine Harris (1957-) (R-Fla.) (Fla. secy. of state during the infamous 2002 U.S. Pres. Election) pub. controversial remarks in the weekly journal of the Fla. Baptist State Convention, saying that God did not intend the U.S. to be a "nation of secular laws", and that failure to elect more Christians will allow lawmaking bodies to "legislate sin", calling the separation of church and state a "lie we have been told" because "God is the one who chooses our rulers"; rival Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) says that "she does not deserve to be a representative"; she was only quoting the Bible, e.g. 1 Peter 2:13-14, 1 Tim. 2:1-2, Daniel 4:17? In Aug. the Trafigura shipping co. pays a bribe to dump 400 tons of toxic chemical waste near Abidjan, Ivory Coast, causing 85K to get sick and eight to die, after which Trafigura pays the Ivory Coast govt. $225M without admitting liability, and in Sept. 2009 it settles a class action suit in Britain, agreeing to pay 30K Ivory Coast residents $1.5K each; too bad, the British court stinks itself up on Sept. 11, 2009 by issuing an injunction against circulating a copy of the analysis of the waste, but Twitter and other Internet sites blow the cover on it. On Sept. 1 an Iran Airtour Tu-154 en route from Bandar Abbas in S Iran skids off the runway in the Shiite pilgrimage town of Mashhad (620 mi. NE of Tehran), raking a wing on the ground which sparks a fire that kills 29 of 148 aboard; all 11 crew survive; the 2nd Tu-154 crash in a month. On Sept. 1-4 31-y.-o. cook Christian Nielsen (1975-) goes on a 4-day killing spree in Newry, Maine, shooting and dismembering the owner of the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast and three others over the Labor Day weekend; there was a "for sale" sign in front of it. On Sept. 2 NATO forces launch Operation Medusa, a major anti-militant campaign by 8K Canadian, British, and Dutch troops in Afghanistan's Kandahar Province, claiming to kill 517 militants by Sept. 13. On Sept. 3 Iraqi nat. security adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie announces the arrest of Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi, AKA Abu Humam and Abu Rana, calling him the #2 man in the Iraqi al-Qaida, which the latter denies on Sept. 4. On Sept. 3 1K Italian soldiers join the first wave of internat. peacekeepers in S Lebanon, bringing the total to 3.25K, while Israeli soldiers remain and Israel continues it air blockade until Sept. 7, the 1 mo. anniv. of the ceasefire, and the sea blockade until ?. On Sept. 3 (Sun.) a fire in an apt. complex on Chicago's North Side kills six children; the family had been using candles since having their electricity shut off a mo. earlier. On Sept. 3-4 U.N. secy.-gen. Kofi Annan visits Tehran, Iran, meeting with Pres. Ahmadinejad, who on Sept. 4 announces that Iran will host a conference to examine "exaggerations" about the Jewish WWI Holocaust as a response against the caricatures of their Prophet in Western media; says Annan, "I think the tragedy of the Holocaust is an undeniable historical fact... We should avoid anything that incites hatred." On Sept. 3-10 the Internat. Congresss on Obesity in Sydney, Australia is held; in the opening speech, ? Zimmet says, "This insidious, creeping pandemic of obesity is now engulfing the entire world. It's as big a threat as global warming and bird flu." On Sept. 4 police in Baghdad find the bodies of 33 tortured, blindfolded men scattered across the city; meanwhile seven coalition forces die in combat, and Iraqi Olympic soccer star Ghanim Ghudayer is kidnapped. On Sept. 4 Nabeel Ahmed Issa Jaourah, from Rusaifa near al-Zarqawi's hometown of Zarqa in Iraq opens fire on Western tourists at the Roman ruins in C Amman, Jordan, wounding six. On Sept. 4 famed Australian TV star ("the Crocodile Hunter") Steve Irwin (b. 1962) is killed in the water at Batt Reef near Low Isles off the Australian resort town of Port Douglas (60 mi. N of Cairns) in NE Queensland state while shooting the series Ocean's Deadliest when he swims too close too a stingray, and it stabs him in the heart with its barbed tail, causing him to die within seconds of removing it; he is offered a state funeral, which his widow turns down; his death was filmed. On Sept. 4 leading Dem. lawmakers (House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid and other other congressional party leaders) urge Pres. Bush to consider changing the civilian leadership at the Pentagon. On Sept. 4 U.S. warplanes mistakenly fire on Canadian troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing one and wounding five, but claim that 200 insurgents are also killed in the operation; meanwhile a suicide vehicle bombing in Kabul kills one British soldier and four Afghans. On Sept. 5 Chevron Corp et al. announce the first successful oil production from the deep-water region of the Gulf of Mexico, drilling down 28.175 ft. in 7K-ft. waters to lower tertiary rock, which is believed to contain 3B-15B barrels of oil, compared to current U.S. reserves of 29.3B barrels, incl. 15B in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. On Sept. 5 Pres. Bush gives a speech to the Military Officers Assoc. of Am., linking those who underestimate terrorists to those who underestimated Hitler and Lenin, and accusing Dems. of being soft on terrorism, causing them to accuse him of making the U.S. less safe with his Iraq War. The view of zoo-like America changes cast members? On Sept. 5 raging liberal lezzie Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell (1962-) joins the all-female-host morning talk show The View on ABC-TV, replacing diva-ish Star Jones Reynolds, who was fired in June, joining Barbara Jill Walters (1929-) (who represents the older set), comedian Josephine Victoria "Joy" Behar (1942-) (the middle age set), and Elisabeth DelPadre Hasselbeck (nee Filarski) (1977-) (the 20-something set); two Jews, a leftist Italian Roman Catholic, a family values Italian Roman Catholic, a lez, and no blacks, Hispanics, and what else? On Sept. 5 Intel Corp. announces the cutting of 10.5K jobs, about 10% of their workforce. On Sept. 5 Donald Trump announces the sacking of longtime right-hand person Carolyn Kepcher (1969-). On Sept. 5 Katie Couric makes her debut as anchor of CBS Evening News, with 13.6M viewers, most in 8 years; she draws fire for snubbing mention of a key ruling by Mexico's electoral tribunal but displaying photos of It-babe Suri Cruise. On Sept. 6 Pres. Bush acknowledges that the CIA runs secret overseas prisons, and says that 14 suspects have been transferred to Guantanamo Bay for trials; the CIA program "has helped us to take potential mass murderers off the streets before they were able to kill"; meanwhile the Revised Army Field Manual is released (an update of the 1992 vers.), specifically barring torture and degrading treatment of POWs. On Sept. 6 Calif. becomes the U.S. state legislature to approve same-sex marriages; Gov. Terminator later vetoes it. On Sept. 7 Iraq takes control of its armed forces command from the U.S. On Sept. 7 Plamegate figure, former U.S. deputy sec. of state Richard Armitage finally acknowledges that he was the leak source to Novak and Woodward, but claims he didn't realize that Plame's job was covert. On Sept. 7 U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution 60/285 is adopted, expressing serious concern for environmental damage in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, calling on all U.N. orgs. to help rehabilitate it. On Sept. 8 U.S. Air Force Maj. Jill Metzger (1973-) knocks on the door of a house in Kant, Kyrgyzstan, 22 mi. from Bishkek, claiming to have been abducted after vanishing on Sept. 5. On Sept. 8 a car bomb in Kabul, Afghanistan kills 16 incl. two U.S. troops, and U.S. officials announce that a suicide bombing cell is hunting foreign troops there. On Sept. 9 Va. Repub. Sen. George Allen concedes defeat to Dem. (former Repub. and U.S. Navy secy.) James Henry "Jim" Webb Jr. (1946-), sealing Dem. control of Congress after he is sworn-in next Jan. 3 (until Jan. 3, 2013). On Sept. 10 a suicide bomber assassinates Gov. (since 2005) Abdul Hakim Taniwal (1946-) of Paktia Province in E Afghanistan, while NATO kills 94 Taliban fighters in the S, bring the 9-day toll to 420; meanwhile Pres. Hamid Karzai attends the inauguration of a $25M Coca-Cola bottling plant in Kabul. On Sept. 10 (14:56 UTC) the 5.8 2006 Gulf of Mexico Earthquake centered 260 mi. SW of Anna Maria, Fla. causes no damage. On Sept. 10 British PM Tony Blair announces that he will step down within a year after a letter from Labour Party leaders urging him to do so is circulated; finance minister James Gordon Brown (1951-) is his heir apparent; Conservative Party leader David William Donald Cameron (1966-) waits in the wings. On Sept. 10 Daniel Wayne Smith (b. 1986), son of Playboy playmate, reality TV star, and heiress Anna Nicole Smith (1967-2007) dies in his mother's hospital room in Nassau, Bahamas three days after she gives birth to a girl, Dannielynn Hope Marshall Stern/Birkhead; she later claims memory loss of the event; on Sept. 28 she holds a nonlegal wedding ceremony in a boat off Nassau, Bahamas with her atty. Howard Kevin Stern, who claims to be the father; on Oct. 3 photographer and former beau Larry E. Birkhead (1973-) files a paternity suit over the baby in Calif.; on Mar. 13, 2009 Stern is charged with conspiracy to provide a "known addict" with thousands of prescription pills in the months before she died, along with her physicians Khristine Eroshevich and Sandeep Kapoor; in Oct. 2010 a jury finds Stern and Eroshevich guilty of conspiracy to obtain prescription drugs by fraud, and acquits Kappor; on Jan. 6, 2010 a judge dismisses all charges. On Sept. 10 Jeff Ingram (1966-) turns up on the streets of Denver, Colo. with amnesia, and after being put on TV news programs is recognized by relatives in Olympia, Wash. On Sept. 10 mother of two Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani is sentenced to death by stoning in Sharia-land Iran; on July 8 after internat. appeals she is spared that form of death, but other execution options remain on the table. On Sept. 11 the U.S. commemorates the 5th anniv. of 9/11, and Pres. Bush gives a prime-time speech, which is later criticized for using the 9/11 attacks to bolster support for the Iraq War; meanwhile al-Qaida releases three videos lionizing themselves as men "who changed history". On Sept. 11 Hamas makes a deal to share power with Fatah in a bid to end the 6-mo.-ole sanctions and receive foreign aid. On Sept. 11 a suicide bomber detonates at the funeral of the gov. of Paktia Province in Kabul, killing seven and wounding 40, incl. two policemen and two children. On Sept. 11 Mitchell Cozad, backup punter for the U. of Northern Colo. does a Tonya Harding and stabs starting punter Rafael Mendoza in the right (kicking) leg, leaving a 4-in. wound in an effort to get his job; he is charged with attempted murder. On Sept. 12 Syrian guards foil an al-Qaida attempt to blow up the U.S. embassy in Damascus. On Sept. 12 Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki visits Iranian pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran, and is gifen a red carpet reception in his office; al-Maliki spent part of his exile from Iraq during Saddam's rule in Iran. On Sept. 13 Meredith Vieira (1953-) replaces Katie Couric as co-host of NBC's The Today Show (until ?). On Sept. 13 25-y.-o. Columbine H.S. copycat Kimveer Gill (b. 1981) of Laval, dressed in a black trench coat with a mohawk haircut opens fire at Dawson College in downtown Montreal, Canada, killing one and wounding 19 before police arrive and he kills himself; a blog is later discovered in which expresses a desire to die "in a hail of gunfire"; on Sept. 14 two 17-y.-o. boys are arrested in Green Bay, Wisc. with a cache of weapons for planning another Columbine-style massacre. On Sept. 13 Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of Iraq's biggest Sunni Arab group, the Iraqi Accordance Front calls on Shiite PM Nouri al-Maliki to disband militias after police announce the finding of 65 tortured bodies in and around Baghdad. On Sept. 13 NATO releases its first figures of deaths from suicide bombings in Afghanistan, 173 (151 civilians), incl. 50 on Sept. 13, but NATO nations fail to agree on calls for an extra 2.5K troops. On Sept. 13 the White House and three powerful GOP senators, John Warner (Va.), John McCain (Ariz.), and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) reach an impasse over a plan to have the Senate define what "inhumane treatment" is under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Protocols, fearing that it might lower the standard and put U.S. troops at risk. On Sept. 14 chief judge Abdullah al-Amiri (Shiite) gets in a pissing contest with Saddam Hussein in his Baghdad genocide trial, and ends up saying "you are not a dictator", causing Saddam to reply "Thank you". On Sept. 14 the U.S. military announces four U.S. soldiers killed and 25 injured in Iraq, incl. six killed by a car bomb in a soccer field in Fallujah, Iraq. On Sept. 14 top central banker Andrei Kozlov, a crusader against money-laundering is killed while playing soccer in Moscow. On Sept. 14 Elie Wiesel and actor George Clooney address the U.S. Security Council, pressing them to send peacekeepers to Darfur, Sudan to prevent the first genocide of the millennium, pointing to the 1994 Rwanda Genocide; Clooney and his journalist father Nick spent five days in Darfur in Apr. You can do it put your back into it? On Sept. 14 Pope Benedict XVI gives his Regensburg Lecture at Regensburg U. which quotes 14th cent. Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus (1350-1425) in 1391 that some of the teachings of Muhammad are "evil and inhuman", with the soundbyte "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached", adding that violence is contrary to God's nature and to reason; no surprise, his mere quoting of 600-y.-o. words to history ignoramus Westerners sparks a worldwide reaction of Muslim hate and anger to prove him right, incl. death threats, violence in the streets, attacks on Christian churches in Palestinian areas, and the murder of 65-y.-o. Italian missionary nun Sister Leonela in Mogadishu, Somalia hours after a Somalian cleric condemned the pope's speech, with Muslim disifnormation artists ignoring their own criminals and the Quran that created them, and instead savaging the Catholic Church, bringing up the usual trinity of the Crusades, Inquisition and Vatican relations with the Nazis; on Sept. 17 the pope says that he's "deeply sorry" that his remarks offended the Allah Akbars, and lamely claims he doesn't believe the words he was quoting, after which on Sept. 18 al-Qaida in Iraq issues the soundbyte "You and the West are doomed", saying its war with the West and Christianity will never end until Islam takes over the world, adding "We will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose the jizya tax, then the only thing acceptable is a conversion or the sword"; on Sept. 25 the pope tells Muslim envoys that their two faiths can overcome historic enmities and together reject violence, saying that the future of humanity is at stake, and urges "reciprocity" in religious freedom, calling for preserving the rights of Christians throughout the Islamic world - how much jumpin' and moving' around are you doing up there? - just walking slowly down the stairs? On Sept. 14 Daniel Alter (47) of Germany, Tomas Kucera (35) of Czech Repub., and Malcolm Mattitiani (38) of South Africa, the first rabbis since WWII are ordained in Germany in the rebuilt Dresden Synagogue; too bad, only Alter will stay in Germany, in Oldenburg. On Sept. 14 Survivor: Cook Islands debuts, gaining hype by dividing its 20 contestants by race into four tribes, white, black, Asian and Hispanic, bringing accusations of racism for ratings, which had dipped 25% in the prior season. On Sept. 15-17 the 11th PeaceJam is held in Denver, Colo., featuring the largest gathering (10) of Nobel Peace Prize winners ever assembled along with 3K young people from 31 countries. On Sept. 17 a gunman at the Duquesne U. campus in Pittsburgh, Penn. shoots five basketball players then escapes. On Sept. 17 six car bombs in Kurkuk, Iraq kill 24 and wound 84; meanwhile the U.S. military in Iraq imprisons AP photographer Bilal Hussein for being a security threat for 5 mo. sans charges or public hearing. On Sept. 18 49-y.-o. Taco Bell worker Luz Maria Franco Fierros is dragged behind a car for over a mi. in Douglas County, Colo. and killed by her live-in boyfriend Jose Luis Rubi-Nava (1970-); both are illegal immigrants. On Sept. 18 three suicide bombers kill 19 across Afghanistan, while bombers and gunmen kill at least 41 in Iraq. On Sept. 18 20-y.-o. Carlos Greene of Silver Spring, Md. crashes his vehicle on the U.S. Capitol grounds and runs armed through the Capitol before being tackled. On Sept. 19 the govt. of Thailand is overthrown by Muslim Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin (1947-) (first coup in 15 years) as PM Thaksin Shinawatra is away in New York City; Sondhi, who became head of the army in 2005 to better deal with the S Thailand Muslim insurgency becomes acting PM, and claims on TV in front of giant portraits of the king and queen that he will return the country to dem. elections in 1 year and turn the govt. to a civilian PM in two weeks; meanwhile Thaksin plots his comeback. On Sept. 19 Norfolk, Va. lifts its 56-year ban on tattoo parlors in the city hosting the world's largest naval base - close captioning provided by Garnier Fructis? On Sept. 19 U.N. secy.-gen. Kofi Annan opens the 61st U.N. Gen. Assembly, uttering the soundbyte: "On one side, supporters of Israel feel that it is harshly judged by standards that are not applied to its enemies, and too often this is true, particularly in some U.N. bodies"; on Sept. 19 U.S. Pres. #43 (2001-9) George Walker Bush (1946-) gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, claiming that the U.S. is not in a "war against Islam", saying "This propaganda is false and its purpose is to confuse you and justify acts of terror. We respect Islam"; Iranian pres. Ahmadinejad is nearby but snubs the speech; on Sept. 20 Venezuelan pres. (1999-2013) Hugo Chavez (1954-2013) gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, hamming it up by calling Bush a "diablo", saying "The Devil came here yesterday... as if he were the owner of the world", adding "In this very spot it smells like sulfur still", accusing the U.S. govt. of "domination, exploitation and pillage of peoples of the world"; "We appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our head"; U.S. ambassador John Bolton comments "Too bad the people of Venezuela don't have free speech"; in Oct. Chavez's behavior costs Argentina a seat on the U.N. Security Council; on Sept. ? a U.S. Secret Service agent accidentally discharges his shotgun as Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket is loading his motorcade at the InterContinental Hotel, freaking out Pres. Bush and co.; Imadinnajacket's refusal to make a public stink of the incident teaches the White House that he acts strategically, with caution, giving them respect for him? On Sept. 20 the CW Network, a combo of WB and UPN debuts with a new season of America's Top Model from the UPN. On Sept. 20 the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual conference of 50 world leaders hosted by former Pres. Clinton begins; Al Gore warns of a "full-scale planetary emergency" caused by global warming; on Sept. 21 Sir Richard Branson pledges to invest $3B over the next decade to combat global warming and promote alternate energy by using all of the profits of his train and airline cos.; another 113 commitments totaling $2.7B are made, topping 2005's $2.5B in pledges. On Sept. 21 Pakistan's Pres. Pervez Musharraf says that U.S. deputy secy. of state Richard Armitage once threatened his intel dir., "Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age"; Armitage denies it. On Sept. 21 Steven Warshak (1964-), pres. of of Berkeley Premium Neutraceutics, which makes the fraud, er, wonderful male enhancement product Enzyte is indicted in federal court for defrauding thousands of customers and banks of at least $100M; he is later convicted; too bad, the massive TV ads never actually make any explicit claims allowing it to be shut down, and continue raking in megabucks until ? - convicted, but he has a sackful of pride? On Sept. 23 Christian convert Mansuur Mohammed (b. 1981) is brutally beheaded with a knife by Muslim al Shahab extremists in Manyafulka (near Baidoa), Kenya, the videos making a disgusting stir on the Internet. On Sept. 24 Chris Wallace interviews former U.S. pres. Bill Clinton on News Sunday, and gets defensive when asked about why he didn't kill Osama bin Laden, saying he came closer to killing him than Bush did: "No, I didn't get him, but at least I tried". On Sept. 24 the drama series Brothers & Sisters debuts on ABC-TV for 109 episodes (until May 8, 2011), airing in the timeslot after "Desperate Housewives", about the wealthy Walker family of LA after the death of patriarch William Walker (Tom Skerritt), starring Sally Margaret Field (1946-) as matriarch Nora Walker, Rachel Anne Griffiths (1968-) as her eldest daughter Sarah Louise Walker, Calista Kay Flockhart (1964-) as #2 Katherine Anne "Kitty" Walker McAllister, Balthazar Getty (1975-) as #3 Thomas "Tommy" Walker, Matthew Rhys (Evans) (1974-) as #4 Kevin Walker, David Rodman "Dave" Annable (1979-) as #5 Justin Walker; Patricia Wettig (1951-) plays Holly Harper. On Sept. 25 the refurbished New Orleans Superdome reopens to host a game for ABC's Monday Night Football - for a mainly white paying audience? On Sept. 25 U.S. aviation security officials ease the ban on carry-on liquids for airlines passengers, permitting 3-oz. bottles that all fit into a quart-size zip-top plastic bag. On Sept. 25 women's rights champion Safia Ama Jan is murdered outside her home as she leaves for work by two men on a motorcycle in Kandahar, Afghanistan; Taliban cmdr. Mullah Sadullah claims credit; she was shot even though she was wearing the full burqa. On Sept. 25 Tim Kring's sci-fi drama series Heroes debuts on NBC-TV for 85 episodes (until Feb. 8, 2010), about ordinary people who discover they have superhuman abilities. On Sept. 26 James Hansen et al. of NASA's Goddard Inst. for Space Studies warn that the Earth's temperature is the warmest in 12K years, and has been warming .036F (0.2C) per decade for the past 30 years; 1.7K plant, animal, and insect species move poleward at an avg. rate of 4 mi. (6.5km) per decade in the last half of the 20th cent. On Sept. 26 Shinzo Abe (1954-) becomes PM #90 of Japan (until 2007) after a landslide V in Liberal Dem. Party elections, and promises to create a more assertive nation and give the military a larger internat. role; he also hints at strengthening ties with China. On Sept. 26 a remote-control bomb under a bridge in ? detonates as a 3-vehicle NATO convoy passes over, killing a NATO soldier and a child. On Sept. 27 (11:40 a.m.) tinerant haunted house maker Duane Roger Morrison (b. 1952) attacks Platte Canyon H.S. in Bailey, Colo. and takes six girls hostage in an English classroom, sexually molests them, releases two, then after promising that "something will happen" at 4 p.m., police raid the school at 3:35 p.m. and shoot it out, causing him to kill 16-y.-o. Emily Keyes (b. 1990) and then himself, becoming the 377th U.S. school shooting or stabbing in 15 years. On Sept. 27 Nancy Pelosi utters the soundbyte: "It is the most closed and corrupt Congress in history, being a rubber stamp for the Bush administration"; on Oct. 12 she says "He is in denial" about Iraq; on Oct. 30 she adds "Their approach comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses." On Sept. 27 the Calif. Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 is signed by Calif. Repub. Gov. (2003-11) Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (1947-), establishing a comprehensive program to reduce greenhouse emissions from all sources in the state, strengthening his Executive Order S-3-05 of June 1, 2005 establishing greenhouse emissions targets. On Sept. 28 Silvio Horta's comedy-drama series Ugly Betty, based on Fernando Gaitan's telenovela "You Soy Betta, La Fea" debuts on ABC-TV for 85 episodes (until Apr. 14, 2010), starring braces-wearing America Georgine Ferrera (1984-) as ugly Betty Suarez, who lands a job at a prestigious fashion mag. On Sept. 29 15-y.-o. special ed. student Eric Hainstock shoots Weston H.S. principal John Kalang (b. 1957) 3x in Cazenovia, Wisc., killing hime; he aims a shotgun at his face, has it wrestled away, pulls a handgun and shoots, then the wounded principal wrestles him to the ground; he had given the punk a disciplinary warning the day before for having tobacco on school grounds. On Sept. 29 (16:48 local time) Brazilian Gol Airlines Flight 1907 crashes in the jungle after colliding with a small Legacy executive jet after takeoff from Manaus in Para state, killing all 154 aboard. On Sept. 30 U.S. 6-term moderate Repub. Fla. Rep. Mark Foley (1954-), chmn. of the House Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, who introduced legislation in the summer to child children from adult exploitation over the Internet resigns after gay e-mails and instant messages to his male "hot stud" pages under the screen name Maf54 are exposed; on Oct. 4 Kirk Fordham top aide of Rep. (R-N.Y.) Tom Reynolds and Foley's top aid until Jan. 2004 resigns after claiming he warned Repub. staffers more than three years earlier about Foley, causing House Speaker Dennis Hastert's ass to become grass; meanwhile on Oct. 4 Foley admits that he's gay, referring to abuse by a clergy member as a teen when he was an altar boy - an in-your-face admission? On Sept. 30 a dam in NW Nigeria near Kano, Nigeria collapses, killing 40. In Sept. a record 55M children enroll in U.S. schools. In Sept. Time Inc.'s "People" mag. offshoot Teen People ceases pub. In Sept. the bimonthly Draft mag. is founded in Phoenix, Ariz. by Erika Rietz; in 2013 it pub. America's 100 Best Beer Bars List. In Sept. the end-of-summer size of the floating Artic polar ice cap shrinks for the 5th straight year, incl. 6% from 2004-5, as reported by NASA. In Sept. (after Labor Day) U.S. retail gas prices begin plummeting, reaching the low twos in some areas. In Sept. Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, head of the Saudi nat. security council has an unofficial meeting with an Israeli envoy over the spreading influence of Iran and its terrorist allies. In Sept. Mexican illegal immigrant Elvira Arellano (1975-) tries to avoid deportation by declaring sanctuary in the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago, Ill.; too bad, she makes the mistake of leaving, and is arrested on Aug. 19, 2007 in Los Angeles, Calif. In the fall anon. people in Sweden begin installing homemade dog sculptures called roundabout dogs at roundabout traffic intersections. On Oct. 1 (2:30 a.m.) Israel withdraws it last troops from Lebanon to beat the onset of Yom Kippur at sundown. On Oct. 1 Hamas and Fatah gunmen fight running battles in Gaza, in which eight are killed and 100 wounded. On Oct. 1 a video dated Jan. 18, 2000 showing 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Ata and Ziad al-Jarrah joking and making wills surfaces on the Web site of the London Sunday Times. On Oct. 1 CFO Indra K. Nooyi (1956-) becomes CEO of PepsiCo Inc., becoming one of 11 female CEOs of Fortune 500 cos. On Oct. 1 suspected al-Qaida terrorists Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeie and Mohammed al-Dailami are killed in Yemen in a dawn raid by govt. troopsl al-Rabeie had been sentenced to death for a 2002 attack on French oil tanker Limburg, and escaped earlier this year. On Oct. 1 Brazilian pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is reelected for a 2nd 4-year term (the limit). On Oct. 1 Donald Rumsfeld tells reporters that Bob Woodward's new book "State of Denial" reports that White House staff had encouraged Pres. Bush to fire him after the 2004 election, and says Bush had called him personally recently to express his continued support. On Oct. 1 the annual Red Mass of Roman Catholic U.S. Supreme Court justices is held at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C., led by Archbishop Donald Wuerl, and is attended by four of the five Roman Catholics on the court, except Alito. On Oct. 1 Donald Hall Jr. (1928-) becomes U.S. poet laureate #14 (until Aug. 2, 2007). On Oct. 2 32-y.-o. milk truck driver Charles Carl Roberts IV (1974-) storms a 1-room Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, near Paradise in Lancaster County in SE Penn., barricading himself in after expelling boys and adults, then opening fire on a dozen girls, shooting 10 and killing three before comming suicide; two more are killed the next day; the Amish forgive him because the kids are going to heaven; on Oct. 3 investigators claim he plotted the attack for a week, had molested two relatives 20 years earlier, and brought flexible plastic ties, eyebolts, and lubricating jelly; the 1997 death of his premie baby Elise haunted him?; the schoolhouse is razed on Oct. 12. On Oct. 2 Russia suspends all air, road, rail, sea, and postal links with Georgia after it arrests then releases four Russian officers on spying charges. On Oct. 2 Iraqis display a picture of a smiling Buddy Christ which they said was left by U.S. troops after an Oct. 1 raid in Sadr City, Baghdad; the U.S. military denies it. On Oct. 3 U.S. Gen. Barry McCaffrey utters the soundbyte that the Iraq War has left the U.S. military in critical condition, put it in danger of "breaking", and claims it has $61B in equipment shortages; he also says that two-thirds of the 14 U.S. Army brigades in Iraq "are not ready to fight". On Oct. 3 a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737 is hijacked by Hasan Ekinci of Turkey after takeoff from Tirana, Albania en route to Istanbul; he surrenders to police and releases all 113 passengers after landing in Brindisi, Italy, saying he was going to be arrested upon arrival in Turkey for evading the military draft last May for being a Christian convert, and asking for political asylum. On Oct. 3 Irish PM Bertie Ahern apologizes from taking secret money from businessmen in the 1990s before he took office nine years ago, and holds off but finally announces his resignation on Apr. 2, 2008, effective on May 6. On Oct. 3 the drama series Friday Night Lights, based on the 1990 book by H.G. Bissinger debuts on NBC-TV for 76 episodes (until Feb. 9, 2011), about the Dillon, Tex. Panthers H.S. football team coached by Eric Taylor, played by Kyle Martin Chandler (1965-), with an ensemble cast; too bad, although praised by critics, people not from Texas don't 'get' it, and it lingers at the bottom of the ratings until it is mercifully cancelled? On Oct. 4 a parliamentary committee approves a ban on smoking in all public areas in France, closing loopholes in the 1991 law banning it everywhere except designated areas; 20% of the pop. are smokers, following the proud tradition of smokers Camus, Cocteau, Colette), Sartre, and Jean-Paul Belmondo to early death? On Oct. 5 a Calif. appeals court upholds Calif.'s ban on gay marriage, reversing the Mar. 2005 ruling of a San Francisco trial judge, saying that the legislature not the courts must change the traditional definition. On Oct. 5 an outbreak of Dengue fever in India which infects 2.9K and kills 38 lands two grandchildren of PM Manmohan Singh in hospital. On Oct. 5 Iraqi War vet Zackery Bowen (b. 1978) kills his girlfriend Adriane "Addie" Hall (b. 1976) in their 1-bedroom 1829 garret above a voodoo temple in the macabre-loving French Quarter of New Orleans, La., then dismembers her and cooks her head and legs before leaping to his death on Oct. 16 from the roof of the Omni Hotel in the French Quarter, leaving a long suicide note in his pocket with instructions on finding her pieces; her torso is found in the fridge, her arms and legs in the oven, and her charred head in a pot; they met in Aug. 2005 when Hall gave Bowen refuge in her apt. the night that Hurricane Katrina hit, and they defied the mayor's order to evacuate and fell in love; subject of the 2009 book Shake the Devil Off by Ethan Brown. On Oct. 6 (Fri.) the U.N. Security Council unanimously urges North Korea to abandon all atomic weapons and cancel test plans; on Oct. 9 North Korea detonates a nuke underground anyway, causing Pres. Bush to call it "a threat to internat. peace and security", and the U.N. Security Council to weigh severe sanctions, voting 15-0-0 on Oct. 14 for "clear threat to international peace and security", causing North Koream ambassador Pak Gil Yon to walk out of the council chamber after calling their action "gangster-like" for ignoring the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which gives U.S. U.N. ambassador John Bolton a chance to snicker; the resolution was castrated of its authorization of military action by Russia and China, but bans luxury items such as cognac, French wine, and lobster loved by Kim Jong-il; Russia is alone in saying it has "no doubts" over the North Korean claim of an underground atomic explosion, while U.S. experts claim it was a dud at a mere 1 kiloton. On Oct. 6 ex-pres. Clinton and the Am. Heart Assoc. announce a deal with U.S. schools and major food cos. to make school snacks healthier, with less fat, sugar and salt, banning Snickers and other candy bars in favor of baked chips, yogurt, and reduced sugar chew bars. On Oct. 6 the Hallmark Channel miniseries Final Days of Planet Earth debuts, about an alien takeover, starring Daryl Hannah as Earth Queen Liz Quinlan, Campbell Scott as William Phillips, and Gil Bellows as Lloyd Walker. On Oct. 7 Russian investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya (b. 1958) is gunned down in the elevator of her apt. bldg. in Moscow, causing concerns that there is a pattern behind the silencing of journalists traceable to corrupt Pres. Putin; on Oct. 10 her funeral is attended by hundreds of Russian journalists, diplomats et al, while Pres. Putin calls her slaying a "disgustingly cruel" crime that cannot go unpunished, while downplaying her influence as "very minor"; meanwhile Internet postings from the "Russian Will" call for 89 people, incl. refugee rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina to be executed by "patriots" as friends of "alien peoples". On Oct. 9 the brother of Iraq's Sunni Arab vice-pres. is assassinated, becoming the 3rd of his four siblings he loses this year. On Oct. 9 U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents stop seizing small amounts of prescription medicines mailed from Canada, permitting up to a 90-day supply, and turning enforcement back over to the FDA, which focuses only on large shipments. On Oct. 10 a ban on child labor under age 14 takes effect in India. On Oct. 10 after being escorted out of her lavish mansion on New York's Upper East Side by her hubby Ron Perelman's security guards, Am. actress Ellen Barkin auctions 100+ pieces of jewelry from her marriage, fetching $20.3M at Christie's, saying "I'm not proud of that marriage." 10/11: a curious day of mellow crashes and mellowing organization changes? On Oct. 11 a Cirrus SR-20 plane owned by New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle (b. 1972) plunges into the 30th and 31st floors of the 40-story Belaire residential bldg. on E. 72nd St. in the Upper East Side of New York City; his flight instructor Tyler Stanger is also killed; the incident stirs fears of another 9/11; Yankees catcher Thurman Munson was killed in a 1979 crash of a plane he was piloting, and Lidle had repeatedly assured reporters that he wouldn't become another; novelist Carol Higgins Clark lives one floor below impact zone; on Oct. 7 the Yankees had been eliminated embarassingly quick from the playoffs, during the 5th inning of which which Lidle had been relegated to the bullpen. On Oct. 11 Pope Benedict XVI announces a loosening of restrictions of use on the 16th cent. Tridentine Latin Mass, permitting priests to say it after getting permission from the local bishop - the more the Church changes? On Oct. 11 Britain's Law Lords (highest court) rules for the first time that journalists have the right to pub. allegations about public figures as long as their reporting is responsible and in the public interest, reversing cents. of winning libel cases against journalists. On Oct. 11 Pres. Bush announces that up to a generous 70K refugees from around the world will be admitted to the U.S. next year, incl. 22K from Africa, 11K from E Asia, 6.5K from Europe and C Asia, 5.5K from the Near East and S Asia, and 5K from Latin Am. and the Caribbean, with 20K left up to the State Dept. - I'd rather just sneak in? On Oct. 11 a train crashes near Zoufftgen on France's NE border with Luxembourg, killing five. On Oct. 11 the satirical sitcom 30 Rock debuts on NBC-TV for 138 episodes (until Jan. 31, 2013), about fictional live sketch comedy "TGS with Tracy Jordan", located at the GE Bldg. of NBC Studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, starring creator Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey (1970-) (based on her experiences at Saturday Night Live) as head writer Liz Lemon, Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin (1957-) as exec Jack Donaghy, Tracy Jamal Morgan (1968-) as the show's male African-Am. star Tracy Jordan, and Jane Krakowski (1968-) as co-star Jenna Maroney. On Oct. 12 gunmen dressed as police storm a new satellite TV station in Baghdad, Iraq and kill 11 employees two days before its debut. On Oct. 12 Dianne Curry wins a runoff election for the Little Rock, Ark. school board, giving it a black majority for the first time, 49 years after federal troops escorted nine black students into Central High School. On Oct. 12 a Web site alleges that seven NFL football stadiums in the U.S. will be hit with radiological dirty bombs over the weekend on Oct. 18, causing the Homeland Security Dept. to alert stadium owners; the feds later say it is a hoax, and arrest Wisc. grocery store clerk Jake Joseph Brahm (1985-), who pleads guilty to violating the paranoid U.S. Patriot Act. On Oct. 13 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. Financial Services Regulatory Relief Act, reducing the regulatory burden on banks, S&Ls, and credit unions. On Oct. 13 British Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt (1950-), its top military cmdr. says that Britain should withdraw its troops from Iraq "sometime soon", contradicting PM Tony Blair, who said that retreat from Iraq would be "a craven act of surrender". On Oct. 15 (7:07 a.m.) the 6.7 2006 Kiholo Bay Earthquake hits 13 mi. N of Kailua Konaon the W coast of Hawaii Island (the Big Island) near the Kona Airport, becoming the strongest since 1983; no fatalities are reported, but vacationers suffer from power outages; it does $100M damage. On Oct. 16 civil rights atty. Lynne Stewart (1939-) is sentenced to 28 mo. in prison for helping imprisoned "Blind Sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman communicate with followers on the outside; prosecutors wanted 30 years. On Oct. 16 a suicide bomber rams his truck into a military convoy 100 mi. NE of Colombo, Sri Lanka, killing 94 and wounding 150, most sailors; the govt. blames the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. On Oct. 17 U.S. forces are called back to patrol the streets of the predominantly Shiite city of Balad, Iraq after five days of sectarian all-new-Ugly-Betty slaughter kill 95, which begin with the killing of 17 Shiite workers on Oct. 13, and the Iraqi 4th Army fails to stop it and fighting spills over into nearby Duluiyah, a Sunni city across the Tigris River on the E side. On Oct. 17 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. John Warner Defense Authorization Act, authorizing interrogation and prosecution of terror suspects, and amending the 1878 U.S. Possee Comitatus Act to read: "The President may employ the armed forces to restore public order in any State of the United States the President determines hinders the execution of laws or deprives people of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law or opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws"; HR 4986: Nat. Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 repeals the changes, reverting back to the 1807 Insurrection Act, but Pres. Bush attaches a signing statement that he doesn't feel bound by the repeal. On Oct. 17 U.S. officials announce that satellite images of North Korea indicate they are getting ready for a 2nd nuclear test as it holds huge rallies and proclaims that U.N. sanctions amount to a declaration of war. On Oct. 17 10 U.S. troops are killed in Iraq, followed by another on Oct. 18, bringing the Oct. death toll to 70, the highest since Nov. 2004 (137). On Oct. 17 British PM Tony Blair joins the debate over full-face veils worn by some kooky British Muslim women, calling it a "mark of separation", backing House of Commons leader Jack Straw, who earlier in Oct. says they shouldn't wear the disguises, arguing that it prevents communication, makes people feel uncomfortable, and sets them apart - since the eyes peering through the black slit make one think of poon peeking out of crotchless panties, I know why you can't speak? On Oct. 17 Pres. Bush signs the 2006 U.S. Military Commissions Act, establishing procedures for the use of military commissions to try alien unlawful enemy combatants engaged in hostilities against the U.S. On Oct. 18 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. tops 12K for the first time (12,049); on Oct. 19 it ends the day at a record 12,012. On Oct. 18 Japan assures the U.S. that it vows to remain nuke-free; Condy Rice vows that U.S. military commitments to Japan will continue undiminished. On Oct. 18 Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki meets with Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Mahdi Army, Iraq's most feared militia; meanwhile one of al-Sadr's district chiefs is arrested, causing a Shiite protest, and foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari blames U.S. officials for the chaos from the way they ran Iraq before the new govt. took control. On Oct. 18 NATO heli air strikes kill nine civilians in three mud-dried homes in Ashogho, Afghanistan in the S, and another rocket strikes a house in a village to the W, killing 13, hurting NATO's hopes of winning local support. On Oct. 18 Mexico, the birthplace of corn rejects requests from several multinat. corps. to start planting genetically modified (GMO) corn there. On Oct. 19 a suicide car bombing near Kirkuk, Iraq kills eight and wounds 70, while a total of 66 are killed and 175 wounded around Iraq; meanwhile the U.S. military finally concedes that it has failed to stem the tide of bombings and tortures in Baghdad despite a 2-mo. effort with 12K new U.S. and Iraqi troops, with U.S. Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV announcing that they are rethinking (oxymoron?) their strategy. On Oct. 19 Father Anthony Mercieca (1937-) of the Maltese island of Gozo admits that he had fondled Rep. Mark Foley as a teen, but it wasn't abuse because he "seemed to like it" - I love every little thing about this job? On Oct. 19 81-y.-o. James Bertakis of Lighthouse Point, Fla. is stabbed in the chest and heart by a stingray (eagle ray) that flopped into his boat in a deja vu of the Crocodile Hunter incident - an Alfred Hitchcock movie in the making? On Oct. 19 al-Qaida terorists conduct two IED attacks in Algeria, one against a police station in El Harrach (E of Algiers), the 2nd against a fuel storage site belong to the French Razel co. in Lakhdaria; on Oct. 29 they strike again at police stations in Reghaia and Dergana, followed by two more attacks against foreign oil workers next Mar. 5, and two more next Apr. 11. On Oct. 20 the 2006 EU Summit in Lahti, Finland sees Euro leaders stumbling over themselves trying to court Russian pres. Vladimir Putin - we have a family room, a media room, and a backyard? On Oct. 21-27 the St. Louis Cardinals (NL) defeat the Detroit Tigers (AL) 4-1 in the 102nd (2006) World Series; the same year St. Louis, Mo. is named the most dangerous city in the U.S.; the Washington Nationals fire ML's first black mgr. Jackie Robinson after 17 seasons with the Indians, Giants, Orioles, Expos, and Nationals, and a record of 1,065 wins vs. 1,176 losses; of the 317 mgr. positions filled in ML baseball since him, only 17 were filled by 11 different blacks, and of 30 ML teams in 2007 only two are managed by blacks, the New York Mets by Willie Randolph, and the Texas Rangers by Ron Washington; meanwhile blacks fail to sign up for baseball in high school and college in favor of basketball and football. On Oct. 22 former Iraq finance minster Ali Allawi appears on CBS-TV's 60 Minutes, alleging that up to $800M meant to equip the Iraqi army has been stolen by former officials, calling it "one of the biggest thefts in history"; meanwhile shoppers buying sweets for the feast marking the end of Ramadan are targeted by insurgents, killing 44. On Oct. 22 Sudan orders Johannes Pieter "Jan" Pronk (1940-) of Holland, the top U.N. official there (since 2004) to leave after he accuses the army of mobilizing Arab militias on Oct. 14. On Oct. 22 voters in Panama approve by 78% a $5.25B expansion of the Panama Canal to allow the largest ships to squeeze through; current traffic is at a max cap. of 35-40 ships a day, and generates $1.4B a year. On Oct. 23 Hungary celebrates the 50th anniv. of its 1956 anti-Soviet uprising, and anti-govt. protests grow violent, injuring 40. On Oct. 24 actor Michael J. Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease appears on TV asking voters to support stem cell research by voting for Dem. candidates incl. Tammy Duckworth of Ill. On Oct. 24 the U.S. Education Dept. announces that it will make it easier to create single-sex classes and schools - as long as the women don't wear veils? On Oct. 25 Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki gets angry at the U.S. for asking his govt. for a timetable to curb violence, and also vents anger at a joint U.S.-Iraqi raid in the Baghdad slum of Sadr City, where he derives a lot of support; meanwhile Pres. Bush tells the press that he still thinks the U.S. must come, er, win before it pulls out. On Oct. 25 the New Jersey Supreme Court rules 4-3 that gay couples are entitled to the same rights as hetero ones, and gives lawmakers 180 days to rewrite laws to offer either same-sex marriage or anal, er, oral, er, civil unions. On Oct. 25 after confessing to killing eight people, Shreveport, La.-born serial murderer ("the Gainesville Ripper") Daniel Harold "Danny" Rolling (b. 1954) is executed by lethal injection in Fla. for murdering five U. of Fla. college students in Gainesville in Aug. 1990; he confesses to eight murderers on Nov. 4, 1989-Aug. 27, 1990. On Oct. 26 after the Repub.-dominated U.S. House of Reps approves it (incl. 64 Dems., incl. Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton), plus 80 of 100 U.S. senators, Pres. Bush signs an election-pleaser law approving a 700-mi. border wall (fence) with Mexico's 2,100-mi. border, covering most of Ariz. and parts of Calif., N.M., and Tex.; too bad, the Dem.-controlled Congress amends it to allow DHS officials unlimited discretion, and by 2016 only 35.6 mi. of fencing have been set up. On Oct. 26 a fire set by arsonists at 1 a.m. near Cabazon, Calif. gets whipped up by Santa Ana winds and goes out of control, killing four firefighters; flames burn to the edge of a 400-person RV park in Poppet, stranding them; 700 are evacuated from Banning. On Oct. 26 Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilali, head of the 300K Muslims (out of 20M) in Australia stirs an outcry after he utters the Arabic soundbyte: "If you take uncovered meat outdoors and the cats come to eat it, whose fault is it, the meat's or the cat's?", referring to women appearing in public without a veil (hijab). On Oct. 26 the Nicaraguan legislature votes 52-0 (28 passing) to ban all abortions, joining El Salvador and Chili as the only countries in the Western hemisphere to ban it without exception, although most Latin Am. countries banit with rare exceptions (rape, life of mother in danger); only in Cuba and a few English-speaking Caribbean countries is it readily available. On Oct. 26 after selling Celtel (which sold 24M mobile phone subscriptions in 14 African countries) for $3.4B in 2005, 60-y.-o. Sudanese-born cell phone billionaire Mohammed "Mo" Ibraham (1946-) announces the creation of the Mo Abrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership ($5M upfront followed by $200K/year for life) for the sub-Saharan African pres. showing the greatest commitment to good governance. On Oct. 27 the last Ford Taurus cars (introduced 1985) are produced, and the plant in Atlanta, Ga. is closed along with 2K employees. On Oct. 27 gun battles in Oaxaca, Mexico kill three, incl. a U.S. journalist, causing outgoing pres. Vicente Fox to finally order 4K riot police into the city after 5 mo. of stalling while protests rage. On Oct. 29 Sunni Arab gunmen kill 23 police in Iraq, incl. 17 in one attack in Basra; meanwhile 2K Shiites demonstrate in Sadr City against U.S. forces "sieging" their district looking for a kidnapped comrade; meanwhile Saddam Hussein's chief atty. warns of worsening violence and chaos across the Mideast if he is sentenced to death. On Oct. 29 House majority leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) tells ABC's This Week: "I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best thing that's happened to the Pentagon in 25 years", sparking a Dem. debate on voting the GOP out of power. On Oct. 29 a Nigerian Boeing 737 jetliner crashes on the runway during takoff in Abuja, Nigeria, killing 99 of 105, incl. Muhammadu Maccido (b. 1928), sultan #19 of Sokoto (since Apr. 20, 1996), spiritual leader of Nigerian Muslims (50% of the pop.); the pilot had ignored ATC warnings about stormy weather; on Nov. 2 his brother Sa'adu Abubakar III (1956-) becomes sultan #20 of Sokoto (until ?). On Oct. 29 Mexican Pres. Vicente Fox finally sends thousands of federales into Oaxaca to end 5 mo. of unrest. On Oct. 30 Kentucky Fried Chicken announces that it will stop frying its chicken in trans fats by next Apr. in all 5.5K of its U.S. restaurants, switching to soybean oil; its famous biscuits will continue to use trans fat shortening, which they can't find a replacement for. On Oct. 30 the pres. election in Congo is disrupted by a drunken army sgt. in Goma in E Congo, who shoots and kills two election workers, inciting riots which destroy 43 polling stations along with thousands of ballots. On Oct. 31 agrees to return to 6-nation disarmament talks. On Oct. 31 Mass. Sen. John Kerry puts his foot in his mouth when he tells a group of Calif. students that those who don't study hard and do their homework and make an effort to be smart could "get stuck in Iraq"; after Sen. Hillary Clinton and other Dems. distance themselves and Pres. Bush demands an apology, he apologizes on Nov. 1, saying he meant to say "You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq - just ask President Bush". In Oct. Adam Yahiye Gadahn (Pearlman) (1978-), a part-Jewish Californian who converted as a teen to Islam and first appeared in an al-Qaida video as "Azzam the American" (Azzam al-Amriki) is charged by the U.S. with treason, becoming the first since Tomoya Kawakita in 1948; if arrested and convicted he would be the 9th person in U.S. history; his grandfather was a Zionist Jew; he remains at large until ?. In Oct. Am. rock megastar Madonna adopts a motherless 1-y.-o. black child in Malawi with the approval of his father, but human rights groups object to the way she seemingly bought him like a cute little, er; in June 2009 she adopts a 2nd one for a matched set? In Oct. Jared Harris (22), a cousin of 10-y.-o. Katlyn "Katie" Collman forcibly tattoos "KATIE'S REVENGE" on the forehead of her convicted killer Anthony Ray Stockelman. In Oct. Italian TV personality Vladimir Luxuria (Wladimiro Guadagno) (1965-), the first transvestite lawmaker in Italy causes a controversy when she/he uses the women's restrooms. In Oct. a total of 96 U.S. troops die in Ramadan-celebrating Iraq (107 in Jan. 2005, 135 in Apr. 2004, 137 in Nov. 2004). In Oct. Louis Farrakhan (b. 1933), known for calling Hitler "wickedly great" and Judaism a "gutter religion" cedes leadership of the Nation of Islam to an exec. board while he recovers from an anal ulcer resulting for 2000 surgery for prostate cancer. In Oct. U.S. Rep. (R-Ohio) Robert William "Bob" Ney (1954-) pleads guilty to conspiracy and making false statements in connection with campaign donations arranged by Jack Abramoff, and in Jan. 2007 is sentenced to 2.5 years in priz. In Oct. Megan Meier (b. 1993) commits suicide after receiving cruel messages from fake MySpace 16-y.-o. boy Josh Evans, saying the world would be better off without her; on May 15, 2008 neighbor Lori Drew (1959-) is charged with conspiracy for perpetrating a hoax on her, the trumped-up charges raising civil rights questions? In Oct. the U.S. Army changes its slogan from "An Army of One" to "Army Strong"; 1 mo. earlier the U.S. Air Force beat them to the punch by changing their slogan from "Cross Into the Blue" to "Do Something Amazing". On Nov. 1 Ethiopian immigrant Khalid Adem (1975-) is sentenced to 10 years in prison in Lawrenceville, Ga. for the genital mutilation of his 2-y.-o. daughter after he removes her clitoris with scissors in his Atlanta, Ga. apt. in 2001; he claims his wife's family did it, and that the daughter was coached to testify; on Nov. 18 2K protest against the sentence in Addis Ababa, Ethopia the U.S. State Dept. estimates that up to 130M women worldwide (not all of them Muslim) have been circumcized since 2001 in an effort to deny them sexual pleasure. In Oct. Operation Repo starring Sonia Pizarro debuts on Telemundo, moving to TruTV on Mar. 31, 2008 (until ?), becoming their #1-rated show (until ?). On Nov. 1 Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern debuts on the Travel Channel (until ?), starring New York City-born Minneapolis, Minn.-based chef Andrew Scott Zimmern (1961-), who plays the circus geek, traveling around the world and chowing down on foods that would gross a cat off a gut wagon, always with a serious look. The tip of the iceberg, indicating a massive loosening of morals among U.S. Christians in the face of the hurricane of Internet porn? On Nov. 2 Rev. Ted Arthur Haggard (1956-), a top Christian evangelist in Colo. Springs (founder of 14K-member New Life Church, son of an Indiana pig farmer, grad. of Oral, er, Roberts U. in 1978, married to plain Gayle Alcorn, daughter of a USAF col., with five kids, some of whom have his funny eyebrows?), and an opponent of gays and gay marriage leaves his posts as pastor and pres. of the 30M-member Nat. Assoc. of Evangelicals after admitting on his radio show on Nov. 1 to having responded to an ad at rentboy.com and having sex monthly with bodybuilder male escort Mike Forest Jones (1957-) from Denver for 3 years for $200 an hour; says Jones "We always met at my place... It was pretty much vanilla sex"; Jones also produces a tape of Haggard asking him to buy meth; on Nov. 3 Jones fails a lie detector test, but maintains his story, while Haggard admits buying meth and that Jones gave him a massage, but denies having sucked, er, had sex with him, only going so far as to say "I was tempted" by the meth, but didn't take any; on Nov. 4 (Sun.) his congregation is packed when the board reads a letter from him admitting to "sexually immoral conduct", saying "There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark, I've been fighting it all my life", and fires him; after a 3-week "spiritual restoration" program overseen by four ministers, he is proclaimed "completely heterosexual" next Feb. (just in time for Valentine's Day?) - that delicious forbidden fruit that melts in my mouth is like a plain vanilla ice cream cone, no, a used cigarette butt? On Nov. 2 a sheriff and 12 law officers in < a href="http://google.com">Roanoake, Va., "Sweatshirt Capital of the World" are charged in a scheme to resell drugs seized from criminals. On Nov. 2 a man in Toronto, Canada sexually abuses a preschool age girl live on the Internet while an undercover detective watches, and is arrested 2 hours later. On Nov. 2 a Website approved by Pres. Bush containing an archive of 48K boxes of documents seized in Iraq since the Mar. 2003 invasion is shut down after a dozen documents detailing Iraqi plans for a nuke are discovered. On Nov. 2 Iran test-fires dozen of missiles, incl. the Shahab-3 that can reach Israel three days after U.S.-led warships finish naval exercises in the Persian Gulf and Iran brands them as "adventurist". On Nov. 3 Israeli troops fire on a large crowd of unarmed Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip as they march to the Um al-Nasir Mosque in Beit Hanun (NE Gaza Strip) to help seiged militants who have been battling Israeli troops since Nov. 1, killing two and injuring 10, and causing a protest; Palestinian PM Ismail Haniya calls for the world to "come here and witness the daily massacres that are being carried out against the Palestinian nation"; Israeli Maj. Avital Leibovich counters that Hamas was "using those poor women as human shields". On Nov. 3 at 6:30 a.m. anti-Iraq War protester Malachi (Mark David) Ritscher (1954-) publicly immolates himself in Chicago, Ill. in front of morning commuters in front of a video camera, saying "If I am required to pay for your barbaric war, I choose not to live in your world." On Nov. 4 thousands protest across Taiwan to demand the resignation of pres. Chen Shui-bian over a corruption scandal involving his wife Wu Shu-chen and three pres. aides, accused of siphoning $450K from a special diplomacy fund between 2002-6; he leaves office, is indicted along with his wife Wu Shu-chen, then convicted on corruption charges on Sept. 11, 2009, and sentenced to life in priz, plus a $15M fine. On Nov. 4 African leaders convene in Beijing, and Chinese pres. Hu Jintao pledges to double African aid to "build a harmonious world". On Nov. 5 the verdict in Saddam Hussein's first trial comes in, and as he trembles but remains defiant he is sentenced to death by hanging, causing celebrations by Shiites and protests by Sunnis, who vow to avenge him with their blood; "Today we witnessed a landmark event in the history of Iraq" (Pres. Bush). On Nov. 5 4K Russian ultranationalists demonstrate in Moscow's Red Square on the new (2nd year) Nat. Unity Day holiday, shouting "Russia for Russians"; they then leae the square for a march and run into 10K police, who detain 200; meanwhile 1K attend an officially sanctioned counter-rally to denounce fascism. On Nov. 5 after three tries over 16 years, Daniel Ortega wins the pres. election in Nicaragua despite U.S. opposition, claiming to no longer be a Sandinista revolutionary, changing the old anthem "We fight against the Yankee enemey of humanity to "Give peace a chance"; thanks to "the pact", he wins with less than a majority of votes in a power-sharing agreement with the right-wing Constitutionalist Liberal Party. On Nov. 7 (Tues.) the 2006 U.S. Nat. Elections are held with bated breath by the Repubs., as the Dems. only need to gain 6 seats to win control of the House and 15 for the Senate, and becomes a Repub. bloodbath and anti-Bush backlash, with the Dems. winning the House and Senate (first Sen. majority in 12 years); 79M people vote (40.4%); Dem. Deval Laurdine Patrick (1956-) becomes the first African-Am. elected gov. of Mass., and the 2nd in the U.S.; Ted Strickland (1941-) becomes the first Dem. gov. of Ohio in 16 years, while Sherrod Campbell Brown (1952-) defeats Mike DeWine to take his U.S. Senate seat; the new Congress has 42 black reps. and one black sen., all Dems.; black rep. James Enos "Jim" Clyburn (1940-) of S.C. becomes the #3 leader of the House as majority whip, the 2nd black to reach the post after William Gray of Philly; Keith Maurice Ellison (1963-) (D-Minn.) (a black atty. from Detroit who converted in college) becomes the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Congress, planning to use the Quran at his swearing-in; Nancy Pelosi becomes the 52nd U.S. House Speaker and the first female one, becoming the 3rd in line for U.S. pres. and the most powerful woman in U.S. history - two whats and four whats separate her from the Ovulating Office? On Nov. 7 voters in Mich. by 58%-42% pass the Mich. Civil Rights Initiative (Proposal 2), banning affirmative action by publicly-funded institutions; on Apr. 22, 2014 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-2 in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action that voters in Mich. have the right to ban race-based preferences in college admissions, upholding the initiative. On Nov. 7 seven U.S. states pass constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage: Colo., Idaho, S.C., S.D., Tenn., Va., Wisc.; Ariz. defeats such an amendment; "Jewish cowboy" singer ("'Scuse Me While I Whip This Out") Kinky Friedman (1944-) comes in 4th in a 5-way race for gov. of Tex. On Nov. 7 Panama wins a seat on the U.N. Security Council on the 48th ballot after Guatemala and Venezuela cancel each other out and drop out; the other new members are Belgium, Indonesia, Italy, and South Africa. On Nov. 7 the Iraq govt. charges 57 members of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi police force, incl. a gen. with the torture of hundreds of detainees at Site No. 4 prison in E Baghdad after finding the bullet-riddled bodies of 15 death squad victims floating in the Tigris River S of Baghdad. On Nov. 7 a tornado in Saroma, Japan on Hokkaido kills nine, becoming the most deadly tornado in Japanese history, beating the record of three in Sept. on Kyushu; the first known tornado death in the country was in 1961. On Nov. 8 (within hours of the Dem. triumph in the nat. elections) Pres. Bush announces his acceptance of the resignation of unpopular (patsy?) defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld in favor of former CIA dir. (CIA man since 1966) and Texas A&M U. pres. Robert Gates (1943-) (co-chmn. of the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations task force that advocated a U.S. deal with Iran) and holds a press conference where he calls the election a "thumping", and admits to misleading the public when before the election he left the impression that Rumsfeld would be in to the end, saying that he didn't want to inject it into the campaign; when asked if the election results will cause him to pull out of Iraq, he replies "I'd like our troops to come home too, but... with victory"; speculation is rife that if had ditched Rummy weeks before the election they wouldn't have lost the Senate; meanwhile activist Cindy Sheehan leads about 50 protesters to a White House gate to deliver anti-war petitions, and is arrested; on Dec. 6 Gates is approved by a 95-2 Senate vote. On Nov. 8 Hamas calls off a 2-year ceasefire with Israel after 18 members of a family, incl. 8 children are killed by an Israeli artillery barrage in the densely populated N Gaza neighborhood of Beit Hanoun, becoming the highest number of Palestinian civilians killed in a single strike in 6 years; the Israelis later admit it was a mistake and apologize. On Nov. 8 a suicide bomber kills 42 troops and wounds 20 in Dargal, Pakistan. On Nov. 8 bird flu expert Dr. Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun (1947-) of Hong Kong becomes the first Chinese to lead the World Health Org. (WHO) of the U.N. as dir. #7, taking office next Jan. 4 (until July 1, 2017); she was Hong Kong's health dir. in 1997 when the city reported the first-ever outbreak of H5N1 bird flu virus, and wins kudos for ordering all 1.5M poultry in the area slaughtered in 3 days - I can enjoy food again? On Nov. 8 Francisco de Goya's 1778 painting Children with a Cart is stolen from a truck outside a hotel in Stroudsburg, Penn. as it is being transported from the Toledo Museum of Art to the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York City; it is recoverd on Nov. 21 in N.J., an FBI agent saying the thieves "probably thought it was a truck full of PlayStations". On Nov. 9 Iraq's health minister Ali al-Shemari gives a new estimate of 150K Iraq civilians killed in the 44-mo. Iraq War, tripling previous estimates; meanwhile Donald Rumsfeld acknowledges that progress has not been going "well enough or fast enough", and when asked to grade his performance says "I'd let history worry about that". On Nov. 9 the U.S. Army changes its slogan from "Army of One" to "Army Strong" - God bless America and no place else? On Nov. 9 gay leaders cancel a parade in Jerusalem after pressure from fundamentalist religious leaders who called such a public display in the holy city offensive, and after hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews clashed with police and burned trash bins. On Nov. 9 oilman Tim Marquez, a graduate of Lincoln H.S. in Denver, Colo. (TLW's school) donates $50M to launch the Denver Scholarship Foundation to give free higher eds. to graduates of Lincoln and other high schools in the district, who have systematically got more Hispanic-Latino each year since TLW's days. On Nov. 12 159 are killed in Iraq, incl. 35 men blown up while waiting to join the police force, and 50 bodies found behind an electrical co. in Baqouba, causing Shiite PM Nouri al-Maliki to promise to reshuffle his cabinet and blaming the Sunnis for the violence; meanwhile Saudi Prince Naif says that a fence is being built along the frontier to keep its youth from going to Iraq to join the insurgents. On Nov. 16 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi starts out lame by losing a battle by 149-86 to get her favorite (Iraq War critic) John Murtha of Penn. chosen as House majority leader; instead House minority whip (since 2003) Steny Hamilton Hoyer of Md. is picked. On Nov. 16 Segolene Royal (1953-) beats two rival candidates for the Socialist Party nomination in the French pres. race. On Nov. 16 U.N. leaders agree to a joint African Union and U.N. peacekeeping force for Sudan's Darfur region, with as many as 27K troops. On Nov. 16 Harith al-Dari, grandson of Sheikh Dari, who became a big Sunni hero in Iraq for assassinating a mean British army officer in 1920 becomes the most wanted man in Iraq after the Iraq govt. puts out an arrest warrant for him. On Nov. 16 white gay porn star Timothy John Boham ("Marcus Allen") (1981-) is arrested near the Mexico border for the slaying of collection co. pres. John Paul Kelso (43) in his Denver, Colo. home in a bathtub. For America not to be White is Right anymore, free speech must go? On Nov. 17 (Fri.) white "Kramer on Seinfeld" comedian Michael Richards (1949-) is recorded on a cell phone video camera making a racist N-word outburst at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood (owned by Mexican-Am. comedian Paul Rodriguez) after two black patrons heckle him, causing a nat. PC police media action against him, almost ending his career; on Nov. 20 he appears on David Letterman, saying "I'm not a racist; that's what's so insane about this", only to see the audience laugh at his fumbling use of the term "Afro-American"; on Nov. 22 he appears on the Jay Leno Show to apologize after Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld cancels an appearance to plug his show's DVDs, but it only adds fuel to the fire for not being contrite enough; on Nov. 27 he appears on Rev. Jesse Jackson's syndicated radio show "Keep Hope Alive" apologizing again, and criticism simmers down more when he apologizes to the two hecklers, who sue him; meanwhile a barrage of U.S. network TV shows cover all the issues of what whites should (must?) and should (must?) not call blacks, and on Dec. 2 comedian Andy Dick uses the N-word in a joke about Richards, causing a ton of criticism that makes him issue another apology for "my insensitivity"; in 20?? the U.S. Congress makes racist speech a capital crime, followed by the OWG Assembly making it a world capital crime in ??, causing the execution of ??M by ?? - only blacks can call each other the N-word, and only blacks can tell whites that their remark was racially insensitive and they're a racist and sue them, and don't call me black call me Afro-American, but don't make me call you Euro-American, cracker? On Nov. 17 Am. TV meteorologist Willard Anthony Watts (1958-) launches the blog Watts Up With That? (WUWT), opposing proponents of anthropogenic climate change esp. by CO2, going on to help spread the Climatic Research Unit controversy in Nov. 2009, and becoming the #1 climate change blog on Earth (until ?). On Nov. 17-20 Pres. Bush visits Vietnam, and on Nov. 20 visits the Vietnam stock exchange in Ho Chi Minh City, praising the Commies for trying capitalism; on Nov. 13 the U.S. House defeats by 228-161 (32 votes short) legislation to normalize trade relations on the first day it reconvened after the nat. elections; the same day the U.S. govt. drops Vietnam from a list of countries severely violating their people's religious freedom. On Nov. 19 the U.S. and Russia sign a trade pact removing the last major obstacle to Russia's 13-year effort to join the World Trade Org. On Nov. 19 three car bombs explode in a bus station in SE Baghdad, Iraq, killing 11 civilians and injuring 40; meanwhile the Iraqi deputy health minister is kidnapped from his Baghdad home. On Nov. 19 Colo. anti-immigration politician Tom Tancredo gives an interview to WorldNetDaily, calling the city of Miami, Fla. a "Third World country", pissing-off Fla. gov. Jeb Bush, who calls his remarks "naive", which Tancredo sloughs off by calling it "politically correct happy talk"; on Nov. 30 a speech he gives at Michigan State U. College of Law turns violent. On Nov. 20 a series of attacks in Baghdad, Ramadi, and Baqouba in Iraq kill 25, and the bodies of 75 tortured Iraqis are found. On Nov. 20 Iranian pres. Ahmadinejad invites Iraq and Syria to a weekend summit in Tehran; meanwhile Syrian foreign minister Walid Moallem visits Baghdad, restoring diplomatic relations after a quarter cent. On Nov. 20 Pres. Bush leaves Vietnam to spend 6 hours in Jakarta, Indonesia at Bogor Palace with pro-U.S. pres. (since 2004) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. On Nov. 20 (6:30 p.m.) the Six Flying Imams, led by Jordanian-born Sheikh Omar Shahin board US Airways Flight 300 from Minneapolis, Minn. to Phoenix, Ariz., acting suspiciously and causing security to remove them after a 3-hour standoff; on July 24, 2009 after they hire CAIR atty. Omar Mohammedi, U.S. district judge Ann Montgomery allows a discrimination lawsuit against the airline to proceed. On Nov. 22 92-y.-o. Kathryn Johnston is killed by police bursting into her Atlanta, Ga. home with a warrant to search for drugs after she opens fire on them because the neighborhood is so tough and she always has her gun ready. On Nov. 22 the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (CTPA) is signed, eliminating barriers to trade; the U.S. Congress passes it on Oct. 12, 2011, and it goes into effect on May 15, 2012 despite concerns that it helps the rich oil and other companies trample workers' rights. On Nov. 23 civil war gets just a tad closer in Iraq as Sunni insurgents attack Sadr City, the main enclave of Muqtada al-Sadr, setting off five bombs and firing mortars, killing 215 and wounding hundreds, becoming the deadliest sectarian attack since the U.S. invasion; the Shiites quickly strike back, lobbing 10 mortar shells at the Sunni Abu Hanifa Mosque, killing one, and 8 shells at the offices of the Assoc. of Muslim Scholars, top Sunni org. in Iraq, followed by more barrages on Sunni neighborhoods, killing 10 and wounding 21 - and Bush says he's gonna wait till the midnight hour? On Nov. 23 former Russian KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko (b. 1962), who was investigating the shooting death of journalist Anna Politkovskaya and accused Pres. Putin of behind behind it dies after being poisoned, claiming it was by Putin's agents; the poisoning is traced to radioactive isotope polonium-210, and traces are found on two British Airways jets, causing 33K passengers on 221 flights to be contacted; Mario Scaramella, an Italian security expert he met the day he fell ill is later found to show traces of polonium-210, along with his wife Marina Litvinenko; in 2007 Britain requests arrest warrants for KGB officer Dmitry Kovtun (who underwent treatment in Moscow for radiation poisoning) and his partner Andrei Lugovoi, who met Litvinenko at the Pine bar in London's Millennium Hotel on Nov. 1 (the day he fell ill), but Russian pres. Putin refuses to extradite them. On Nov. 23 hundreds of thousands of Lebanese mourn slain Christian Phalange Party politician Pierre Gemayel in Beirut and vent their anger at Syria and its ally Hezbollah. On Nov. 23 64-y.-o. Palestinian grandmother Fatma Omar An-Najar (b. 1942) detonates near Israeli troops in N Gaza, becoming the oldest of 100+ Palestinian suicide bombers targeting Israelis since 2000. On Nov. 23 Lt. Col. Steven Lee Jordan (1956-), who ran the U.S. interrogation center at Abu Ghraib Prison is charged with 12 counts carrying 42 years for allowing the prison misconduct to happen, becoming the highest level patsy so far in the scandal. On Nov. 23 Thursday Night Football debuts on NFL Network (until ?); in 2014 CBS Sports begins simulcasting the games. On Nov. 24 the small Mustafa (Sunni) Mosque in Baghdad, Iraq is attacked during Friday midday prayers by 50 unarmed men wearing mostly black uniforms and some with ski masks, chanting "We are the Mahdi Army, shield of the Shiites", followed by backups who blast the mosque with RPGs, then drag six worshippers outside and burn them with kerosone. On Nov. 24 Rwanda severs dilomatic ties with France after a French judge decies to issue internat. arrest warrants for nine high-ranking Rwandans for plotting the Apr. 6, 1994 murder of Rwandan pres. Juvenal Habyarimana. The reason cop cars are black and white? On Nov. 25 police in New York City fire 50 shots at the car of unarmed 23-y.-o. black man Sean Bell (b. 1983), killing him and wounding Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman outside the Club Kalua strip club where Bell had just attended his bachelor party and was about to attend his wedding, stirring outrage from black leaders, who stage a march along Fifth Ave. on Dec. 16, led by Rev. Al Sharpton; in Mar. 2007 three of the five police involved are indicted by a grand jury; too bad, on Apr. 25, 2008 they are acquitted of all charges and allowed to walk, Queens justice-for-the-cops puppet judge Arthur Cooperman giving a gobbledygook coverup explanation, while 1K police are mobilized to control possible unrest when the news sinks in - the only medicine you need is copcaine? On Nov. 25-26 protesters in Oaxaca, Mexico battle police and burn bldgs. On Nov. 25-Dec. 1 the U.S. SPCA bans the adoption of black cats - sounds like discrimination against blacks? On Nov. 25-Dec. 6 Super Typhoon Durian terrorizes Philippines, hitting the islands on Nov. 31, killing 208 and injuring 82 in Mayon, site of a July volcano eruption, which goes into massive mudslides, burying several villages and leaving 250+ missing; total fatalities reach 1,497, with $510M in damage. On Nov. 26 Palestinian factions stop firing rockets at Israel in exchange for an Israeli troop withdrawl. On Nov. 26 tens of thousands protest the pope's visit at a rally in Istanbul, Turkey. On Nov. 26 The Nativity Story becomes the first feature film to debut at the Vatican, in Paul VI Hall. On Nov. 27 73-y.-o. Lutheran pastor Roland Weisselberg (b. 1933) burns himself to death with gasoline in Erfurt (where Martin Luther took his first religious vows) after giving a sermon expressing fear that Christian Europe will be overwhelmed by Islam; his last words: "Jesus" and "Oskar" (a ref. to the 1976 self-immolation of Rev. Oskar Bruesewitz, protesting the East German Commie regime). On Nov. 27 Sunni insurgents begin bloody fighting with Iraqi security forces in Diyala Province (ends ?); meanwhile a U.S. F-16 fighter jet crashes 12 mi. NW of Baghdad, and insurgents kidnap the pilot, Maj. Troy L. Gilbert (34) before rescue forces can arrive. On Nov. 27 Israeli PM Ehud Olmert makes a conciliatory speech, holding out the hope of a Palestinian state if they quit them *!?*! rocket attacks and choose the path of peace. On Nov. 27 Iraqi pres. Jalal Talabani meets with Iranian pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran to seek his help in stopping the looming civil war, and Ahmadinejad pledges support, saying he will "stand next to its brother Iraq and will do all it can to strengthen security in Iraq"; meanwhile Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki asks the U.N. Security Council to extend the mandate of its 160K multinat. force in Iraq, which it votes to do unanimously on Nov. 28, while Britain announces that it will withdraw thousands of its 7K military personnel by the end of 2007, and Poland and Italy also announce impending troop withdrawals. On Nov. 27 the Australian govt. clears itself of wrongdoing in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal. On Nov. 27-28 a Nato Summit in Riga, Latvia is held to deal with the deteriorating conditions in opium-king (90% of the world supply, 1M addicts) Afghanistan, where NATO has 32K troops; Pres. Bush attends, and urges increased military spending and the inclusion of non-NATO countries Japan, Australia, and South Korea into joint missions; the summit also frets about the growing energy clout of Russia, whose natural gas Europe is dependent on for half of its imports, expected to rise to 80% by 2026, after a confidential study by NATO experts warning that Russia is seeking to build a gas cartel, er, leaks. On Nov. 28 Pres. Bush becomes the first U.S. pres. to visit Estonia (while his wife Laura is back at the White House receiving the Christmas tree), meeting with pres. Toomas Hendrik at Kadriorg Palace in Tallinn, praising its flat income tax as "transparent, open and simple"; PM Andrus Ansip shows him how his govt. holds paperless cabinet meetings. Did you ever dance with the Devil in the pale blue mosque? On Nov. 28 Pope Benedict XVI begins a 4-day visit to Turkey, two days after 25K hate-filled Muslim protesters demonstrated in Istanbul, pissed-off about his equating Islaughter, er, Islam and its prophet Manslaughter, er, Muhammad with violence, and calling for his blood and for the Christian church of Hagia Sophia to be turned into a Muslim mosque; the pope tells diplomats that all religions must "utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence as a legitimate expression of faith", and greets Turkey's top religious official Ali Bardakoglu (1952-), who puts in the soundbyte, "The so-called conviction that the sword is used to expand Islam in the world and growing Islamophobia hurts all Muslims" (they're the ones who are hurt?); on Nov. 29 he visits Turkey's tiny (20K Roman Catholic, 65K Armenian Orthodox, 3.5K Protestant, out of a total pop. of 70M) Christian communities, and meets with ecumenical patriarch Bartholomew (Bartholomeos) I (1940-) (known as the "green patriarch" for his environmentalism), while al-Qaida calls his visit a "Crusader campaign" designed to "extinguish the burning ember of Islam" in Turkey; on Nov. 30 he visits the mausoleum of Kemal Ataturk, then leaves for Ephesus after issuing saying "I should like to reiterate today all the esteem and profound respect that I have for Muslim believers" (not Muhammad or his crap?); on Nov. 31 he visits the Hagia Sophia, on guard not to make the sign of the cross or appear to be worshipping in "their" place that they took by, er, violence after 1K years; he then goes across the street and becomes the second pope to visit a Muslim house of worship, entering Istanbul's Sultanahmet (Blue) Mosque (built by Sultan Ahmed I in 1603-17), where he faces toward Mecca and meditates with eyes closed along with head cleric Mustafa Cagrici (1950-); he also issues a joint declaration calling for the preservation of Europe's Christian roots and for membership to the EU to require religious freedom, knowing that current candidate Turkey doesn't recognize Bart Simpson, er, Bartholomew I as leader of 300M Orthodox Christians and has rejected EU demands to open an Orthodox seminary. On Nov. 29 Pres. Bush holds talks in Amman, Jordan with Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki and King Abbdullah over what to do in Iraq. On Nov. 29 former U.S. secy. of state Henry Kissinger utters the soundbyte on a London TV interview that military victory in Iraq is no longer possible, and that the U.S. must enter into dialogue with Iraq's neighbors incl. Iran to make progress. On Nov. 29 actor Danny DeVito calls Pres. Bush "President Numbnuts" on ABC's "The View", which Joy Behar later defends, saying that numb is just a lack of sensation, nuts means crazy, and numbskull is non-sexist? On Nov. 31 Pres. Bush rejects the idea of a quick troop withdrawal from Iraq, while Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki says his country's forces will be ready to take over by June 2007. In Nov. the Sunni Islamist jihadist group Fatah al-Islam (Arab. "conquest of Islam") is founded by Saudi Arabia (and the U.S.?), going on to fight the Lebanese army in May-June 2007 in the Nahr al-Bared (al-Barid) Palestinian refugee camp. In Nov. a poll of 2K Chinese citizens finds that most expect China to become as powerful as the U.S. within a decade, and only a small minority believe it will still be the dominant world power in 50 years. In Nov. an Andy Warhol portrait of Chairman Mao sells for $17M at auction. In Nov. a judge in Al-Awwamiya, Saudi Arabia shocks Westerners by sentencing the female victim of a gang rape to 90 lashes for being alone with a former boyfriend after her marriage to get a picture of herself back from him, before being abducted from the car, and both gang raped; the rapists receive 1-5 years and 80-1000 lashes; the male victim gets no punishment. On Dec. 1 the 2006 hurricane season ends with no hurricanes hitting the U.S. On Dec. 1 Felipe Calderon is sworn-in as pres. of Mexico in a surprise early ceremony, while leftist lawmakers attempt to physically block him from attending his inauguration, turning the Mexican Congress into a free-for-all. On Dec. 1 800K protesters called by Hezbollah flood downtown Beirut to call for the U.S.-supported govt. to resign. On Dec. 3 a triple car bomb in a food market in a Shiite area of C Baghdad kills 51 a day after a U.S.-Iraqi raid against Sunni insurgents in a nearby neighborhood. On Dec. 3 the High Court of Botswana rules that the country's 100K Bushmen are entitled to live and hunt on their ancestral lands in the C Kalahari Game Reserve, stopping the govt. from evicting them to steal diamonds and other minerals. On Dec. 3 Joseph R. "Joe" Francis (1973-), founder of the Girls Gone Wild video empire (Mantra Films Inc.), which entices young women to bare their breasts in public pleads guilty for using two 17-y.-o. girls filmed on Panama City Beach during the 2003 spring break, and receives a $1.6M fine plus community service - the last gasp of the Christian right is using minors to sandbag those whom they want to 'get' for free love and sexually-liberated behavior? On Dec. 4 U.S. Sen. Barack Obama visits the New York City office of George Soros (1930-), where he is allegedly interviewed by billionaires for higher office, after which he soon announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. On Dec. 5 secy. of defense nominee Robert Gates tells the Senate that he doesn't believe the U.S. is winning the war in Iraq, but adds, "we are not losing", and that U.S. forces remain undefeated in battle; meanwhile a memo by Donald Rumsfeld two days before he resigns calls for a change of plan in Iraq - what Hitler said at Stalingrad? On Dec. 6 the 10-member bipartisan Iraq Study Group, led by former U.S. secy. of state James A. Baker III and former Ind. Rep. Lee H. Hamilton recommends a change in course to the new "primary mission" of training Iraq security forces, and pullout of most (75K) combat troops by spring 2008, but no timetable for troop withdrawals, stressing the need for more aggressive diplomatic efforts in the Middle East; the little problem that Iraq security forces are forever split between Sunni and Shiite, so that training more would be tantamount to arming both sides of a future civil war is conveniently ignored?; it also recommends a U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan, reinvigoration of the Arab-Israeli peace process, and a diplomatic engagement of Iran and Syria; on Dec. 7 Pres. Bush, backed by PM Tony Blair nix the report, refusing to endorse a major troop withdrawal and objecting to talks with Iran and Syria; meanwhile the report reveals that millions of dollars are being funneled from Saudi citizens to Iraqi Sunni insurgents, who have purchased Russian Strela shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. On Dec. 6 Mary Claire Cheney (1969-), lesbian daughter of Dick Cheney announces that she and her partner of 15 years Heather Poe (1961-) (UPS mgr.) are expecting; she has baby boy Samuel David Cheney on May 22, 2007 - I can't explain why Poe wasn't having it instead of me? On Dec. 6 an Islamic court official orders beheading for any residents of Bulo Burto, 125 mi. NE of Mogadishu in S Somalia who do not pray to Allah 5x a day - let's go outback tonight? On Dec. 6 the conservative Committee on Jewish Law and Standards in New York City eases its ban on ordaining gays for the first time in history, prohibiting gay clergy while permitting gay ordination and blessing ceremonies for same-sex couples - it's those changes in attitude, changes in attitude? Pres. Bush finds a new way to stink himself up on top of Iraq? On Dec. 6 the Bush admin. fires eight U.S. attys., causing an uproar next year with the new Dem. Congress, who accuse U.S. atty.-gen. Alberto R. Gonzales of letting himself be used by Karl Rove and other White House politicos and violating pledges and jeopardizing prosecutions; his contradictory statements about the reasons for firing and his personal involvement heat up the call for his dismissal; up till now only two of 486 U.S. attys. have been fired, and always for criminal misconduct. On Dec. 9 the U.S. announces that it is selling nuclear fuel to India. On Dec. 9 Ayman Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, half-nephew of Saddam Hussein, who is serving a life sentence for bomb-making escapes from a prison in N Iraq with help from a police officer (until ?); on Dec. 18 Ayham al-Samaraie, former electricity minister and dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen being held on corruption charges escapes with help of Blackwater Worldwide private security guards who used to work for him, and ends up in Chicago, Ill.; although arrest warrants have been issued for 90 former officials, incl. 15 ex-Cabinet ministers, he was the only Iraqi official convicted and jailed on corruption charges. On Dec. 9 Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. on a 12-day mission to rewire the Internat. Space Station (ISS), returning on Dec. 21. On Dec. 10 Donald Rumsfeld, who is still defense secy. until Dec. 18 makes a surprise visit to Assad Air Base in Iraq's Anbar Province; meanwhile Iraqi pres. Jalal Talabani criticizes the Iraq Study Group's report as "an insult to the people of Iraq", saying that increasing the number of U.S. troops training its forces would undermine his country's sovereignty. On Dec. 10 Gen. Augusto Pinochet (b. 1915) dies after being hospitalized on Dec. 3 for a heart attack and undergoing angioplasty, stopping efforts to try him for human rights violations and execute him; wild celebrations in the streets of Santiago, Chile cause scores of arrests, and 23 police are injured; on Nov. 25 Pinochet had issued a statement taking "full political responsibility" for the actions of his govt. On Dec. 10 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai gives a speech on the 58th anniv. of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, tearfully lamenting the killing of Afghan children by NATO and U.S. bombs and Pakistani terrorists. On Dec. 11 U.N. secy.-gen. Kofi Annan gives his farewell address at the Truman Library in Independence, Mo., saying that the U.S. must not sacrifice its dem. ideals in its war against terrorism, that "human rights and the rule of law are vital to global security and prosperity", and that when Bush, er, the U.S. "appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused", and finally "There's no secy.-gen. of the U.N. that's going to be in lockstep with the U.S. or any other country with regard to its policies"; he steps down on Dec. 31. On Dec. 11 three children are killed in the Gaza Strip in a drive-by shooting, targeting their father, a top Palestinian security officer and Fatah loyalist, causing civil war to edge closer. On Dec. 11 Israeli PM Ehud Olmet slips in an interview with a German TV station, listing Israel among the world's nuclear powers, violating the country's policy of not officially acknowledging its nukes. On Dec. 11 Iran hosts the Internat. Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust in Tehran, with 67 participants from 30 countries, incl. former U.S. KKK leader David Duke, Frederick Toben of Australia, Robert Faurisson of France et al., some of whom have been imprisoned for expressing their Holocaust-denying beliefs in Europe; on Dec. 12 pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinajad says that "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom" while sitting next to six members of Neturei Karta AKA Orthodox Jews United Against Zionism, whose spokesman Rabbi Moshe David (Yisroel Dovid) Weiss says "We don't want to deny the killing of Jews in World War II, but Zionists have given much higher figures for how many people were killed. They have used the Holocaust as a device to justify their oppression"; David Duke adds "The Holocaust is the device used as the pillar of Zionist imperialism, Zionist aggression, Zionist terror and Zionist murder"; Toben says, "The number of victims at the Asuchwitz concentration camp could be about 2,007"; on Dec. 20 Austria suddenly releases David Irving on probation after 13 mo. in priz for denying the sacred Holy-At-Any-Cost for two 1989 speeches; on Apr. 1, 2007 the Bais Yehuda Synagogue in Monsey, N.Y. of the Neturei Karta is burned - the irony of freedom of speech on this one issue being allowed only where Zionists don't have power? On Dec. 12 Pres. Bush signs the U.S. Financial Netting Improvements Act, revising the bankruptcy code and clarifying safe harbor protections. On Dec. 12 U.S. Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, multi-nat. corps cmdr. #2 in Iraq (Jan. 2006-July 2008) says that curbing unemployment and improving services are needed to reduce violence, and that military muscle cannot win the war alone; meanwhile two car bombs targeting laborers in Baghdad kill 63, and 50 men are found bound and shot to death. On Dec. 12 the U.S. INS raids six Swift meat plants in six states and arrests suspected illegal immigrants after uncovering a scheme to steal IDs and Social Security numbers of lawful U.S. residents to get jobs at the plant in Greeley, Colo. On Dec. 12 vans carrying 200 illegal immigrants are stopped by armed men just S of the U.S.-Mexican border, who burn the vehicles to warn them to stay out of the drug smuggling route of the Sinaloa drug cartel, signalling their takeover of the migrant-smuggling business, using them as decoys and demanding extortion money; by summer 2007 the flow of migrants slackens, and the U.S. tries to take credit for their work? On Dec. 13 the U.N. Gen. Assembly adopts the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which is opened for signatures on Mar. 30, 2007; it comes into force on May 3, 2008, establishing the 18-person Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Geneva; by Apr. 2018 it has 161 signatories and 177 parties; in Dec. 2012 the U.S. fails to ratify it by six votes. On Dec. 13 U.S. Sen. (D-S.D.) (1997-2015) Timothy Peter "Tim" Johnson (1946-) is hospitalized for bleeding in his brain caused by congenital arteriovenous malformation (AVM), leaving him in critical condition, causing concerns that the balance of power will tip back to the Repubs., getting a mention in Pres. Bush's 2007 State of the Union Address; he returns to the Senate on Feb. 15, 2007. On Dec. 13 William Roebuck receives a cable at the U.S. embassy in Damascus from Washington, D.C., explaining how Bashar al-Assad's weaknesses can be used to justify an invasion of Syria. On Dec. 14 after the U.N. Security Council recommends him by acclamation on Oct. 9, the U.N. Gen. Assembly elects Ban Ki-moon (1944-) of South Korea as U.N. secy.-gen. #8; he is sworn-in on Jan. 1, 2007 (until Dec. 31, 2016), with the soundbyte "My mission could be dubbed Operation Restore Trust", becoming known as "the bridge-builder". On Dec. 14 the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio, Tex. reports that U.S. breast cancer rates plunged 7% in 2003, the year after millions of women stopped taking menopause hormones. On Dec. 14 New Jersey passes legislation giving gay couples all the rights and responsibilities of marriage (but not the title) in response to a state supreme court order last Oct.; goes into effect next Feb. 19, joining Conn. and Vt. (civil unions), Mass. (gay marriage) and Calif. (domestic partnersips). On Dec. 9 Bhutan's king (since July 24, 1972) Jigme Singye Wangchuck (1955-) abdicates in favor of his 26-y.-o. Oxford-educated son Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (1980-) and permit a new constitution to turn the country into a parliamentary democracy; on Nov. 6, 2008 he is officially crowned as dragon king #5 of Bhutan (until ?). On Dec. 14 the 3-year $7M Operation Paget pub. the 871-page Paget Report after interviewing 300 witnesses, concluding that there was no conspiracy in the car crash death of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed, and that she was not pregnant or engaged, and had told a friend that she needed marriage "like a rash on my face" - leave him alone he's a family man? On Dec. 15 Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush suspends all executions after prison officials botch the Dec. 13 lethal injection of Angel Nieves Diaz (b. 1951), shooting the chemicals into the flesh of his arms instead of his veins, causing a 2nd dose to be needed and the execution to take 34 min. instead of the usual 15 min. max.; meanwhile a federal judge in Calif. imposes a moratorium on executions, declaring that the state's method of lethal injection violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment, followed by Md. on Dec. 19 - ask Spock about the Vulcan death grip? On Dec. 16 3K ethnic Tamils flee into govt.-held areas in E Sri Lanka, while the U.N. calls on Tamil Tiger rebels to let tens of thousands more flee the rebel-held town of Vaharai in E Batticaloa, where they fired artillery on Nov. 7 from a school filled with refugees, causing the Sri Lankan army to return fire, killing 45 civilians and injuring 100+; boats carrying fleeing civilians capsize, killing 8+. On Dec. 17 gunmen in Iraq army uniforms kidnap 25 employees at Red Crescent offices in downtown Baghdad, later releasing six hostages; a car bomb in Mahmoudiya (20 mi. S of Baghdad) injures four; 36 tortured corpses are found in the Baghdad area by police. On Dec. 17 a suicide bomber detonates in front of a U.S. convoy outside Khost City in E Afghanistan, killing one Afghan civilian and wounding two others. On Dec. 17 North Korea begins nuclear talks with the U.S. and four other nations in Beijing after a 13-mo. hiatus, proclaiming itself a nuclear power and calling on the U.S. to soften its stance. On Dec. 18 Robert Gates is sworn-in as U.S. defense secy., saying that failure in Iraq would be a "calamity" that would haunt the U.S. for years, but that "All of us want to find a way to bring America's sons and daughters home again." On Dec. 18 "moderate conservatives" outpoll Pres. Ahmadinejad's hardliners in local council races, sending a signal that people of Iran are getting pissed at his provocation of the West and isolation of his country. On Dec. 18 grocery store clerk Tom Stephens (1969-) is arrested in Ipswich, England (70 mi. NE of London) for the murder of five hos, whose naked bodies were found dumped in rural areas, causing fear of a modern Jack the Ripper; he later confesses after his involvement with up to 50 hos in the year after his 8-year marriage collapsed is revealed. On Dec. 18 the White House reveals that First Lady Laura Bush had a skin cancer tumor removed from her right shin in early Nov. On Dec. 19 Pres. Bush says that the U.S. should, er, expand and beef-up its armed forces. On Dec. 19 the Guttmacher Inst. of New York releases a report saying that 90% of Americans of both genders have had premarital sex, incl. 91% of women born between 1950-78 by age 30, and 88% of women born in the 1940s by age 44 - the Muslim extremists are right that the U.S. is an immoral whorehouse? On Dec. 20 the U.S. Stolen Valor Act of 2005, sponsored by Colo. Dem. rep. John Salazar makes it a crime to claim, wear, manufacture, or sell military decorations and medals, with a punishment of up to 1 year in prison; on July 23, 2010 Denver, Colo. U.S. district judge Robert Blackburn dismisses the case of Rick Glen Strandlof, ruling the law an unconsitutional violation of freedom of speech because the govt. doesn't have a compelling reason to restrict that type of speech. On Dec. 21 radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr agrees to allow his supporters to rejoin the Iraq govt., ending a 3-week boycott. On Dec. 21 dictator (since Nov. 2, 1990) Saparmurat Niyazov (b. 1940) dies, and Sunni Muslim dentist Gurbanguly Malikgulyyewic Berdimuhamedow (1957-) becomes pres. #2 of Turkmenistan (until ?), going on to dismantle his personality cult. On Dec. 24 Ethiopian Christian PM Meles Zenawi announces that his country is at war with Islamic militants in Somalia, sending troops and aircraft. On Dec. 24 Iraq interior minister Jawad al-Bolani admits that a total of 12K Iraq police have been killed since Saddam's ouster, but says "When we call for new recruits, they come by the hundreds and by the thousands". On Dec. 25 hundreds of British and Iraqi soldiers rescue 127 prisoners from Jameat Police Station in Basra, Iraq which had been infiltrated by militias; gunmen rob a bank in Basra of $740K; a car bomb at a market and a suicide bomber on a bus in Baghdad ill 14 and wound 33 civilians, and police find 40 bodies; meanwhile the U.S. military death toll in Iraq reaches 2,974, compared to 2,976 for the 9/11 attacks. On Dec. 25 Ethiopian jets bomb Somailia's two main airports in Mogadishu while ground troops capture three villages and the strategic border town of Belet Weyne; Islamic militia leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys flies into the airport shortly after the attack. The year 2006 ends with two final thoughts? On Dec. 26 Iraq's highest court rejects the appeal of Saddam Hussein (b. 1937) and orders him to be hanged within 30 days; thousands of requests stream in to be the lucky guy who throws the lever on him; he is held at Camp Cropper near the Baghdad airport; not wasting any time, on Dec. 30, hours after the U.S. gives custody of him to Iraqi authorities, he is hung like a dog ; it takes 20-30 min. for the heart to stop beating after the brain dies, so they leave him up while filming and releasing a video; state-run Iraqiya TV runs a screen legend reading "Saddam's execution marks the end of a dark period of Iraq's history"; his last words are "Long live Moqtada al-Sadr"; on Dec. 27 a Nov. 5 farewell letter by Saddam is posted on the Internet, saying "Here, I offer my soul to Allah as a sacrifice, and if he wants, he will send it to heaven with the martyrs", and calling for an end to sectarian hatred in a united war against the U.S.; on Dec. 28 two half-brothers visit Saddam's cell and take his personal belongings and his will; meanwhile on Dec. 26 former U.S. pres. Gerald R. Ford dies like a trooper at age 93, and the U.S. seizes the opportunity to show off how white is right one more time with a super-elaborate memorial to contrast the honor given this Dudley Doright, Christian hetero white all-American male with the hanging of the dark-complected Iraqi Dog, starting with Pres. Bush declaring Jan. 2 (Tues.) as a nat. day of mourning; one little kink?) on Dec. 27 the Washington Post reports that Ford questioned the Bush admin. rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in July, 2004 interviews with Bob Woodward that he granted on condition that they be released only after his death; on Dec. 30 (after being transported in a Lincoln?) Ford's casket is placed outside the door of the U.S. House of Reps. (first time ever for a U.S. pres.); in June 2009 documents are declassified showing that Saddam told the FBI before he was hanged that he had allowed the world to believe he had WMDs in order to keep from appearing weak to his real enemy Iran - meaning that the U.S. barrelled into Iraq for nothing, and ended up helping Iran more than they could have hoped? On Dec. 27 boy band impresario (Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC) Louis Jay "Lou" Pearlman (1954-) (1st cousin of Art Garfunkel) is indicted in Fla. for the largest Ponzi scheme in history ($500M), and next June 27 he is indicted by a federal grand jury for bank, mail and wire fraud, then convicted in 2008 and sentenced to up to 25 years - are the charges in sync? On Dec. 28 drug gangs in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil set fire to buses and fire on police, killing 19 (incl. 3 policemen) and wounding 21. On Dec. 28 the U.S. FDA gives preliminary approval to meat and milk from cloned animals or their offspring without special labeling, although retailers plan on using "clone-free" labels for marketing appeal. On Dec. 28 scientists announce that the 41-sq. mi. 3K-y.-o. Ayles Ice Shelf broke clear from the coast of Ellesmere Island (500 mi. S of the N Pole) 16 mo. earlier in a mere 1-hour period, one of six major shelves remaining in the Canadian Arctic, the rest being 90% smaller than when first discovered in 1906; the ice shelf drifts 30 mi. then refreezes into the sea ice. On Dec. 29 four U.S. sailors are swept from the deck of the nuclear sub USS Minneapolis-St. Paul by surging waves as it is leaving the harbor of Plymouth, England; two are killed. Make that three thoughts? On Dec. 31 the official U.S. Operation Iraqi Freedom military death toll reaches 3K, incl. 62 women, compared to 2,973 victims in the 9/11 attacks; 61.1% were KIA, 35.6% from IEDs, 3.2% from suicide; more than a third were killed in Anbar Province (1,111) and Baghdad (683). On Dec. 31 nine bomb blasts in Bangkok, Thailand kill two and injure 20. On Dec. 31 10-y.-o. Sergio Pelico in Webster, Tex. (near Houston) accidentally hangs himself from a bunk bed after watching a news report on Saddam's execution, tying a slipknot around his neck; other boys do it in Yemen, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, this time on purpose? In Dec. UNICEF releases a report saying that 7K girls go unborn each day in India because of "male child mania", which causes pregnant women to use ultrasound to find the gender of their fetus and then abort it if it's female. In Dec. lesbian couple Margaret Chambers and Cassandra Ormiston become the first same-sex married couple to file for divorce; they were married in 2004 and file for divorce in Providence, R.I. - lesbianism is better than male child mania? In Dec. airport officials in Seattle, Wash. hastily remove 14 plastic Christmas trees after a local rabbi threatens to sue unless they also display a giant menorah, but restores them after the rabbi claims he didn't want the trees removed, and then agrees not to sue after they promise to consider the menorah for next year. In Dec. the euro surpasses the dollar in combined value of cash in circulation, €610B, equivalent to US$800B. Late in the year Am. feminists turn against Hillary Clinton, with former backer Nora Ephron saying "She will do anything to win", claiming she's now one of those "who believe she doesn't really take a position unless it's completely safe, who believe she has taken the concept of triangulation and pushed it to a geometric level never achieved by anyone including her own husband, who can't stand her position on the war, who don't trust her as far as you can spit", and Jane Fonda calling her "a ventriloquist for the patriarchy with a skirt and a vagina." The Chinese govt. begins relocating 250K Tibetans (10% of the pop.) against their will from rural hamlets to "Socialist villages" serviced by Chinese roads and schools, and orders them to build their own housing; meanwhile it encourages ethnic Han Chinese to immigrate, tightens control of religion, and plans on replacing the 70-something Dalai Lama with a state-appointed stooge successor; thousands of I-think-you're-crazy Tibetans flee to Nepal. Iranian Council of Cultural Rev. head and pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad names the first cleric to head Tehran U., and begins a purge of liberal and secular teachers. Pres. Bush signs a law renewing the 1996 welfare overhaul law, with stricter work requirements for recipients. The U.S. govt. requires all produce to have labels giving the country of origin. The U.S. House of Reps votes to lift the 1980 ban on offshore drilling for 85% of the U.S. coastline, but the Senate fails to approve it; Pres. Obama finally lifts on the ban on Mar. 31, 2010. The British govt. pub. A New Deal for Welfare, Empowering People to Work, proposing shaking up the British welfare state as millions of disabled, sick, and injured workers are eventually forced to take steps to go back to work (until ?). Saudi Arabia launches the Khurais Project to pump water underground to boost oil production. Egyptian blogger (student at al-Azhar U.) Abdel Kareem Nabil (AKA Kareem Amer) (1986-) is arrested for insulting Islam and Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak, and isn't released until Nov. 2010, saying he was detained for 11 days beyond his sentence and beaten before release. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service claims that over 650M exotic animals worth $10B were legally imported into the U.S. since 2003, with only 120 full-time inspectors to police them for zoonotic diseases, which the Journal of Internal Medicine claims have infected 50M worldwide since 2000, killing up to 78K; during the summer Paris Hilton is bitten by her pet kinkajou (known for containing dangerous bacteria) named Baby Luv on the arm, ending up in the emergency room. The world was supposed to end this year according to the religious cult The Family, AKA Children of God; it is the first year of the Great Tribulation according to Ras Andy. According to myweb.ecomplanet.com/LENT6366/" Atlantis was supposed to rise this year from the Caribbean, causing Armageddon. China begins constructing a 52.8K-mi. highway system, which will equal the U.S. interstate highway system. A rabies epidemic in China causes mass extermination of dogs. The U.S. Mint issues state quarters for Nev., Neb., Colo., N.D., and S.D. Norway charges its citizens over $7/gal. for gas this year, while sitting on a $250B bank account from its oil exports and making as much as $500M from each of its North Sea oil platforms? Brazil discovers gigantic "pre-salt" oil fields, which are expected to produce an annual revenue of $45B by 2020. The Beepocalypse begins when beekeepers report losing up to 90% of their hives with no apparent reason, causing predictions of devastation to the food supply; by 2018 bee colonies are replenished, reaching a 20-year high? During Bernie Sanders' 2006 reelection campaign, the Bernie Arcade Game is put online, allowing players to navigate Bernie's eco-friendly hydrogen-fuelled plane through unfriendly skies filled with extreme right wing enemies, bags of special interest money, mud from mudslingers, and fat cats, fighting back by shooting fact sheets while the Vt.-based Cleary Brothers band plays in the background; no matter how low your score is, a voice says "That is an unbelievable number." Slovenian pres. #2 (since Dec. 22, 2002) Janez Drnovsek (1950-2008) goes New Age and founds the Movement for Justice and Development. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps adopt the Counterinsurgency Field Manual (pub. in June), which teaches that insurgencies can't be defeated without protecting and winning over the gen. pop., ignoring the lessons of the Hundred Years' War? 89-y.-o. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi pushes his World Peace Bond Plan for feeding the world's hungry and establishing world peace, calling for investors ($60K minimum) for a World Peace Bond to buy 5B acres in 100 developing countries to create labor-intensive subsistence farms - so concerned for the poor he wants everybody to be that way? The Mexico Technical Surveillance System is installed to eavesdrop on drug dealers. The Muxlim social networking Web site for Muslims is founded by Mohamed El-Fatatry and Pietari Paivanen of Finland, adhering to the principles of Islam vis a vis vulgarity etc. Of 4M live births by U.S. mothers this year, 29.1% are by Caesarean section (C-section), up 40% from 1996 and 400% since 1980; the convenience of not having to wait for labor? This year Internet consumer sales reach $211B, up from $2B in 1997. By this year there have been 442 Internet-related homicides (since 1995). By this year China has 34M Internet blog sites, with 75M people reading them. The cost of childhood vaccinations in the U.S. rises to $1,250 (for 12 shots), up from $100 (for 4 shots) 20 years earlier; a 13th shot costing $360 to protect girls from cervical cancer is in the queue. Early in the year a $32M goof by Kansas City, Mo.-based H&R Block on its own income tax return, plus other technical glitches drives away 250K customers, many into the arms of rival Jackson Hewitt Tax Service based in Parsippany, N.J. Ireland blocks shipments of U.S. arms to Israel via Shannon Airport, causing U.S. ambassador James C. Kenney to warn them that the U.S. will use other airports, costing the Irish economy millions of dollars; not disclosed until Nov. 2010 by WikiLeaks. NORAD moves its U.S. Northern Command from Cheyenne Mountain to Petersen AFB in Colorado Springs, Colo.; in 2015 it moves back underground. By this year one-third of new cars in Brazil are dual-fuel, using either gasoline or sugar-cane alcohol. The Parsall Oil Field in the Bakken Formation and Three Forks Formation in N.D. is discovered, causing the North Dakota Oil Boom (ends ?). The Great Am. Honeybee Collapse begins (ends 2013); by 2010 20-40% of colonies in the U.S. collapse; by 2013 1M beehives are lost. The Mormon Transhumanist Assoc. is founded in Salt Lake City, Utah to combine Mormonism and Transhumanism. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is founded by Jewish-Am. atty. (former Judge Advocate Gen. and atty. to H. Ross Perot) Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein to oppose evangelical Christian influence in the U.S. military, representing Jews, Muslims et al. The 70 Metal Books are found in a cave in Jordan, and believed to date from just after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., which caused Christians to flee to the area. Am. comedian Jon Stewart pokes fun at Alaska Repub. Ted Stevens, chmn. of the Senate Commerce Committe for saying that the Internet isn't a dump truck but a series of tubes. China, which adds 2K new cars a day to Beijing traffic plants 2.16B trees using its cheap labor, and slaps a 5% tax on chopsticks in an effort at forest conservation, announces plans to stop exporting them in 2008, pissing-off the Japanese, who buy 97% of their 25B sets of "waribashi" (Chin. "kuaizi") a year from them, having become dependent on China for them in the 1980s; retail prices zoom from 1 yen a pair to 1.5-1.7. The Phantom of the Opera reaches 7,986 performances, beating the record set by Cats. The Oxford U. Press lists "time" as the most commonly used noun in the English language. The govt. of Malaysia seizes over 5M illegal DVDs and CDs from pirates in over 2K raids, arresting 780; beginning on Mar. 13, 2007 they begin using two dogs loaned by the Motion Picture Assoc. of Am. (MPAA), who sniff out another 1M disks in Johor on Mar. 19, causing pirates to put a hit out on them and spray chemicals on their disks to foil them. The phrase "crazy crackalackin' mamajama" is coined in the U.S. After designing Jason Wu dolls for Integrity Toys since age 16, Taipei, Taiwan-born gay Canadian fashion designer Jason Wu (1982-) debuts his first fall collection, making fans of Ivanka Trump, January Jones, RuPaul, Amber Valletta, and Michelle Obama, who wears one of his coats during her visit with Queen Eliabeth II, and a ruby red velvet-chiffon dress at the 2013 U.S. pres. inaugural ball. This year the Rolling Stones concert tour grosses $437M, followed by Madonna ($195M), Bon Jovi ($131M), U2 ($96M), and Tim McGraw and Faith Hill ($88.8M). This year the Hedge Fund Unscandal begins, with hedge fund mgrs. taking home incomes of over $1B, then sheltering the earnings by using their busineses as virtual 401(k) accounts which accumulate tax-free capital gains; meanwhile the 2001 U.S. Tax Cut Bill allows them to leave their estates to children without estate tax; it is set to expire in 2010. Los Alamos Nat. Lab develops bomb-sniffing honeybees; when they recognize an explosive they stick out their proboscis. The Am. Film Inst. (AFI) votes "It's a Wonderful Life" as the most inspirational film of the 20th cent. Time Warner in the U.K. censors all smoking scenes from "Tom and Jerry" cartoons. Toms (TOMS) Shoes in Santa Monica, Calif. is founded by Tex.-born Blake Mycoskie (1976-) to produce jute rope-soled Argentine alpargata (espadrille) shoes, becoming known for its non-profit subsidiary Friends of TOMS that gives out a free pair to a needy person for every pair sold - make Charlie feel good? Sports: On Jan. 22 the Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Denver Broncos 34-17 to win the AFC title and become the first team since the 1985 New England Patriots to win three road playoff games to reach the Super Bowl; the Seattle Seahawks defeat the Carolina Panthers 34-14 to win the NFC Championship. On Feb. 11 U.S. adventurer James Stephen "Steve" Fossett (1945-2007) completes a record 26,389 mi. 76-hour nonstop round-the-world flight on the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer (sponsored by Virgin Airlines founder Sir Richard Branson), making an emergency landing at Bournemouth Internat. Airport in Manston, England; the previous record was 24,987 mi.; he left on Feb. 8 from Kennedy Space Center in Fla., losing about 750 lbs. of fuel during takeoff from a leak. On Feb. 19 the 2006 (48th) Daytona 500 is won by Jimmie Kenneth Johnson (1975-) in 203 laps (507.5 mi.) (2nd in a row to go longer than 500 mi.), becoming the first to end after sunset. On Mar. 8 NFL owners approve a 6-year extension to the collective bargaining agreement with the players' assoc., increasing the salary cap to 59.5% of league revenues; only the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals (who had a 52-108 record in the 1990s) vote against it. On Mar. ? Kobe Bryant of the L.A. Lakers scores 16K career points at age 27 years, 192 days, edging out Wilt Chamberlain by four days; the all-time scorer is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with 38,387. On Apr. 10 Phil Mickelson "works magic" for his 2nd Masters win in the Masters Golf Tournament in Augusta, Ga. On May 3 Tiger Woods' father Earl dies, and he withdraws from the Memorial Tournament in late May for the first time in his career, his first major tournament missed since turning pro in 1997; he returns on June 15 for the 106th U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y., and scores a 6-over-par 76 for 82nd place, three short of the cut, breaking his string of 39 consecutive cuts in majors, tied with Jack Nicklaus. On May 12 Justin Gatlin (1982-) of the U.S. equals the record for the 100 yard dash of 9.77 sec.; too bad, in 2006 he is banned for four years from track and field for using banned substances. On May 20 Barry Bonds hits career homer #714 after 29 at-bats (9 games) without one, a hit into the first deck of the elevated stands in right-center during the San Francisco Giants' 4-2 10-inning V over the Oakland Athletics, trying Babe Ruth's record; he is booed before the game; on May 28 he hits #715 in San Francisco's AT&T Park off Colorado Rockies pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim. On May 20 the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico sees Triple Crown hopeful Barbaro (2003-7) (who won the Kentucky Derby by 6.5 lenghths) shatter three bones in his right hind ankle; Dr. Dan Richardson of the U. of Penn. later pins his leg bones together with 27 screws in a noble effort to save him for stud work, even though the owners coulda collected $16M in insurance; too bad, on Jan. 29, 2007 he takes a turn for the worse and is put down, then becomes the first derby champ to be buried at Churchill Downs. On May 28 Samuel Jon "Sam" Hornish Jr. (1979-) whips by father-son team of Michael (43) and Marco (19) Andretti to win the 2006 (90th) Indianapolis 500 by .0635 sec., the 2nd closest finish ever; although Mario Andretti won in 1969, neither of his sons has; Hornish wins in his 7th try after leaving the pit late in the race with his fuel hose connected, losing a lap; much-touted Danica Patrick finishes 8th - did she panica? In May pro golfer "Long" John Patrick Daly (1966-) reveals that he has a little gambling habit, and gambled away as much as $60M. On June 5-19 the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals see the Carolina Hurricanes defeat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3; MVP is 6'2" Hurricanes goalie Cameron Kenneth "Cam" Ward (1984-), becoming the first starting goaltender to win since Patrick Roy in 1986. On June 8-20 the 2006 NBA Finals sees the Miami Heat (coach Pat Riley) defeat the Dallas Mavericks (coach Avery Johnson) by 4-2: Dwayne Wade of the Heat is MVP. On June 9-July 9 the men's 18th FIFA World Cup is held in Germany; 715.1M watch the final match; Italy defeats France to win; the song The Time of Our Lives by Il Divo and Toni Braxton is the anthem. On June 9-July 9 the 18th FIFA World Cup of Soccer final between France and Italy in Berlin is won by Italy 5-3 on penalty kicks after French star Zinedine Yazid "Zizou" Zidane (1972-) (who came out of retirement) gets pissed in OT and head-butts Italian defender Marco Materazzi (1973-) ("the head butt heard round the world"), drawing a red card; he later claims a racial remark made him see red. On July 9 Roger Federer of Switzerland defeats Rafael Nadal of Spain in four sets to win the Wimbleton men's singles title for the 4th year in a row. On July 23 Floyd Landis (1975-) of the U.S. wins the Tour de France (begun July 1) 57 sec. ahead of Spain's Oscar Pereiro after first cracking in the final climb of Stage 16 on July 19 then staging a stirring comeback in Stage 17 on July 20, going from 8 min. 8 sec. behind Pereiro to only 30 sec. behind in the mountains; he dedicates the V to the Swiss Phonak team, for which he abandoned a U.S. team containing Lance Armstrong; too bad, elevated testosterone in his blood test causes him to be disqualified, despite negative tests on all the other days, and the uselessness of a 1-day shot of the stuff?; meanwhile his Mennonite parents in Farmersville, Penn. ride bicycles all the time? On July 23 Tiger Woods wins the British Open and his 3rd Claret Jug with a 5-under-par 67 2-shot victory over Chris DiMarco, his 11th major championship, then walks off the 18th green with tears in his eyes in his first V since his daddy died of cancer on May 3 - Liquid Plummer Power Jet, blasts clogs away in 3 seconds? On Aug. 20 Tiger Woods wins the PGA championship with a 4-under-par 68 and a 5-shot victory, becoming his 12th major (3rd PGA title); only Jack Nicklaus' 18 titles stand between him and being #1 of all time. On Aug. 27 Tiger Woods wins his 4th consecutive tournament at the Bridgestone Invitational; since missing the cut at the U.S. Open in June he has played five, and tied for 2nd in one. On Aug. 28 the USTA Nat. Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens, N.Y. is renamed for Billie Jean King. On Sept. 1 Jamestown, N.Y.-born Roger Stokoe Goodell (1959-) succeeds Paul Tagliabue as NFL commissioner (until ?). On Oct. 1 the Chicago Bears defeat the Seattle Seahawks 40-7, scoring the final 17 points, becoming the 2nd time in the season they score 50 unanswered points, and bringing their record to 5-0, incl. four wins by 25 points or more, the second team in NFL history to do so, the first being the 1941 Bears. On Oct. 21 Tim Matheson of Colo. catches and releases a world record 29-in. 16 lb. brook trout at Barbe Lake in Manitoba, Canada; his record is certified in Jan. after ruumors that it is a splake (brook-lake trout hybrid) are investigated. On Nov. 13 #19 Joseph Keyshawn Johnson (1972-) of the Carolina Panthers becomes the first player to score a TD on Monday Night Football with four different teams (New York Jets, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Dallas Cowboys); he is released by the Panthers on May 1, 2007 after one season, and retires. On Dec. 10 LaDainian Tomlinson (1979-) scores his 29th TD, breaking the NFL season record held by Shaun Alexander. On Dec. 11 female sprinter Ruqaya Al Ghasara of Bahrain wins the gold medal in the 200m (23.9 sec.) in the Asian Games (held on Dec. 1-15 in Doha, Qatar) wearing a Muslim hijab headgear and full-length running suit among a crowd of babes wearing trunks so skimpy you can do gynecology exams on them with binoculars, becoming the first athlete from Bahrain to win a major internat. athletics gold medal. Spalding Co. and the NBA announce a new NBA Official Game Ball made of synthetic material; too bad, players complain that it gets too slick and won't bounce right, causing the NBA to revert to the old leather balls effective Jan. 1, 2007. Architecture: On May 15 the 33' x 66' x 42' 110-ton Cloud Gate AKA The Bean public sculpture by Bombay, India-born British artist Sir Anish Kapoor (1954-) in AT&T Plaza in Millennium Park, Chicago, Ill. is dedicated, composed of 168 welded stainless steel plates modeled after liquid mercury. On May 23 52-story 1.7M sq. ft. 7 World Trade Center 7 World Trade Center, designed by David M. Childs (1941-) and developed by billionaire original developer Larry A. Silverstein (193a-), the first destroyed skyscraper to be rebuilt since 9/11 opens, offering state of the art safety features but attracting few tenants, leaving 80% unrented; it becomes the first commercial tower in New York City to be certified "green" by the U.S. Green Building Council. On Aug. 1 $455M "giant Hostess Ding-Dong" Ariz. Cardinals Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., designed by Dennis Wellner opens, featuring 88 luxury lofts, a roll-out natural grass field, and retractable roof. On Nov. 13 ground is broken for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. next to the Nat. Mall between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials; it opens on Aug. 22, 2011. Eglin Federal Prison Camp at Eglin AFB in Fla. closes after gaining the nickname "Club Fed" for being too cushy. Italy scraps plans to build a 2.5 mi. bridge across the Messina Straits to Sicily, which would have been the world's longest single-span suspension bridge. The Frederic C. Hamilton Bldg. for the Denver Art Museum in Colo., designed by architect Daniel Libeskind (1946-) opens, which he describes as "two lines taking a walk". After the dam body is completed, the Chinese govt. evacuates 1.3M people to make way for the $22B Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River near Sandouping, Yiling District, Hubei Province, China, the world's largest hydroelectric project; it is completed on July 4, 2012, becoming the world's largest hydroelectric power station (22.5GW) (until ?); meanwhile one-third of China's landmass suffers from acid rain caused by rapid industrial growth as its factories spew 25.5M tons of sulfur dioxide in 2005, up 27% from 2000. Nobel Prizes: Peace: Muhammad Yunus (1940-) (Bangladesh) [Grameen Bank]; Lit.: Orhan Pamuk (1952-) (Turkey); Physics: George Fitzgerald Smoot III (1945-) and John Cromwell Mather (1946-) (U.S.) [cosmic microwave background radiation]; Chem.: Roger David Kornberg (1947-) (U.S.) [eukaryotic transcription] (his father Arthur Kornberg won the Nobel Med. Prize when he was 12, and as a son of a Nobel laureate he got to conduct research for more than a decade before having to pub. any results); Med.: Craig Cameron Mello (1960-) (U.S.) and Andrew Zachary Fire (1959-) (U.S.) [RNA interference]; Econ.: Edmund Strother Phelps Jr. (1933-) (U.S.) [inter-temporal tradeoffs in macroeconomic policy]. Inventions: By this year the avg. desktop PC has 129 GB of storage, and the laptop has 71 GB. By this year the Apple iPod personal music player 60 GB model weighs only 5.5 oz. and holds up to 15K songs for $399. Apple Corp. begins using Intel microcprocessors in its Macintosh computers instead of IBM PowerPC chips. On Jan. 31 the Lockheed Martin P-791 experimental hybrid airship makes its first flight, going on to be used for landings in rough areas sans roads and airstrips. In Mar. Twitter.com is founded by Jack Dorsey (1976-), becoming the first Internet telegraphing service, where users can select whose message stream of up to 140 chars. per message to follow; on Aug. 27 Chris Messina invents the Twitter hashtag, with the first Tweet using it reading "how do you feel about using # (pound) for groups." In Mar. Microsoft announces the Origami Ultra-Mobile Personal Computer (UMPC), smaller than a laptop and larger than an iPod, weighing 2.5 lbs. with a 7-in. touchscreen, which compresses Windows and an onscreen keyboard and gives Internet and GPS access; a steal at $600-$1K? In Mar. the HD-DVD high-definition disc format goes on the market, followed in June by rival Blu-ray Disc to service the 25M U.S. homes with HD TVs by the end of this year; the U.S. DVD market is $23.2B, $15.4B from sales and $7.8B from rentals; Blu-ray gives up in Feb. 2008. On Apr. 2 Iran announces the test-firing of the new high-speed (223 mph) Hoot (Whale) Torpedo, capable of destroying warships and subs., as fast as the Russian-made VA-111 Shkval, developed in 1995. On Apr. 23 Spotify "freemium" music streaming service is launched in Stockholm, Sweden, paying royalties to rights holders, reaching 170M users in 2018, 75M of them paying after it launches on Oct. 7, 2008. On Apr. 28 Google launches Google Translate free multilingual machine translation service, supporting 100+ languages and reaching 500M users/day by May 2017; in Nov. 2016 Google announces that it is switching to a neural machine engine called Google Neural Machine Translation (GNMT), which translates whole sentences at a time. In May Sir John Brian Pendry (1944-), a physicist at the Imperial College in London announces the possibility of using metamaterials with a negative refractive index to create a Harry Potter-like "invisibility cloak", claiming that he's as close as 18 mo. to having a working one; he announces a working product in ? On July 19 the electric Tesla Roadster is introduced, with a Lotus chassis and a 248 hp motor; it can accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.9 sec. and can travel 244 mi. (393 km) on a single charge, which takes only 3.5 hours; only $153K fully loaded, strictly cash; customers incl. Ahnuld. In July Nature pub. an article announcing success by John P. Donoghue et al. of Brown U. in test patient Matthew Nagle of Weymouth, Mass. in using small implants in the brain of paralyzed people to enable them to control external devices such as computers and robot arms. On Aug. 15 the $68M carrier-based Boeing EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft makes its first flight, going into service on Sept. 22, 2009 to replace the Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler. On Sept. 9 the Boeing 747 Dreamlifter (originally the Large Cargo Freighter) makes its first flight, being only used to transport Boeing 787 parts after being loaded by the world's longest cargo loader; only four are built. On Sept. 10 U.S. entrepreneur (co-founder of Texas-based Telecom Tech.) Anousheh Ansari (1966-) takes off with crew Joe Tanner and Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper on the Space Shuttle Atlantis for the internat. space station, becoming the first paying woman to make the voyage, and the first construction mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster; on Sept. 14 240-ft. solar wings are unfurled on the station; they return on Sept. 21, a day later than planned to give them time to check the tiles after space debris is spotted. In Sept. Jesse Sullivan of Dayton, Tenn. receives the first thought-controlled artificial arms, controlled by shoulder nerves grafted to his pectoral muscles, invented by Todd Kuiken et al. in U.S. govt.-sponsored research. On Oct. 17 the antidiabetic drug Sitagliptin by Merck & Co. (brand name Januvia) is approved by the U.S. FDA; on Apr. 2, 2007 they approve an oral combo with metformin, and on Oct. 7, 2011 an oral combo with simvastatin. On Dec. 1 United Launch Alliance is founded by Boeing and Lockheed Martin in Centennial, Colo., going on to unveil the Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle on Apr. 13, 2015 to replace the Atlas V at about half the price, featuring the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage (ACES) upper-stage rocket for boosting satellite payloads into geosynchronous orbit and interplanetary space probes to escape velocity. On Dec. 15 after Lockheed announced the program in 2001, the $98M-$116M single-seat single-engine all-weather Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stealth multirole fighter makes its first flight, complete with F-35A (conventional takeoff and landing), F-35B (short takeoff and vertical landing), and F-35c (catapult-assisted takeoff and arrested recovery) models, its lower cost causing the F-22 Raptor to be phased-out; 115 are built by Nov. 2014, with a total of 2,457 planned for use by the USAF, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Marine Corps; too bad, it's only good for its stealth, and can't win a close-up dogfight, and instead of wasting big bucks the military should have upgraded the F-15, F-16, and F-18? The $399 Microsoft Xbox 360 game platform is released, with a 20GB hard drive; it sells 34M units. IBM's Watson supercomputer undergoes initial tests to see if it can compete with humans in answering "Jeopardy!" clues, losing badly; in 2007 the IBM team is given a staff of 15 and 3.5 years to make it work, and by Feb. 2010 it reguarly beats humans; on Feb. 14, 2011 it goes on the air with champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, kicking their butts; too bad, it gives away how utterly devoid of intelligent it is by getting the Final Jeopardy clue wrong, claiming that Toronto is a U.S. city. The first digital projection systems for movie theaters are installed in the U.S., allowing studios to save $1.3B a year in film print manufacture and shipping costs, and permitting realistic 3-D. IBM patents Identification and Tracking of Persons Using RFID-Tagged Items. The Maxtor One Touch III Turbo Ed. is introduced, offering 1TB of digital storage for $799. James Harrison of Germany invents the Spray-On Condom. Science: A big year for planetary science? On Jan. 17 the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano pub. an article saying that "intelligent design" isn't science, and that teaching it alongside evolutionary theory in classrooms only creates confusion, but adds: "In a vision that goes beyond the empirical horizon, we can say that we aren't men by chance or by necessity, and that the human experience has a sense and a direction signaled by a superior design"; the article echoes the Vatican's chief astronomer Jesuit Rev. George V. Coyne (1933-), and either rebuffs or clarifies Pope Benedict XVI's Nov. off-the-cuff comments that the Universe was made by an "intelligent project". On Jan. 19 NASA launches the $650M unmanned New Horizons spacecraft on a 9.5-year 3B-mi. mission to flyby Pluto, the last unexplored planet, er, planetoid in the Solar System, followed by the Kuiper Belt; it features a memorial to Plugo, er, Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh; on Aug. 24, 2014 it passes the orbit of Neptune, rendezvousing with Pluto on July 14, 2015 at 8K mi. distance. On Jan. 23 scientists spot a gigantic storm on Saturn that unleashes lightning bolts 1Kx stronger than those found on Earth and lasts 10 hours; dozens more are spotted in the succeeding weeks. In Jan. Doron Behar, Karl Skorecki et al. in Israel pub. a study indicating that 40% of the 8M Ashkenazi Jews (out of a total world Jewish pop. of 13M) are descended from just four women who lived in Europe within the last 2K years, although ultimately they can be traced back to Jews dispersed from Israel to Italy in the 1st and 2nd cents. In Jan. the DeSmog Blog is founded by public relations exec James "Jim" Hoggan (1946-) of Vancouver, B.C., Canada to push the global warming theory and oppose "a well-funded and highly organized public relations campaign" that is "poisoning" the climate change debate. On Feb. 2 German astronomers report that icy ball 2003 UB313 in the Kuiper Belt (nicknamed Xena, then formally named Eris, the largest object discovered orbiting the Sun since Neptune in 1846 is 1,860 mi., 30% wider than Pluto (1.4K mi.), causing astronomers, led by U.S. astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958-) to begin questioning the status of Pluto as a planet; in Aug. the Internat. Astronomical Union (IAU) decides that Pluto is no longer a planet, but "dwarf planet" #13430, leaving Sol with only eight planets; Pluto joins Ceres and Xena as Sol's three dwarf planets; the word "plutoed" is coined, meaning demoted or devalued; on June 11, 2008 the IAU announces that similar distant bodies in the Solar System will be called "plutoids". On Feb. 10 Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass unveils the first tomb to be discovered (#63) in the Valley of the Kings since King Tut's in 1922, containing five wooden sarcophagi with mummies, surrounded by 20 jars with pharaonic seals intact, saying they're likely from the Thebes (Luxor)-based 18th Dynasty (1500-1300 B.C.E.). On Feb. 17 Science pub. the discovery that new neurons are born in the adult brain, overturning decades of neuroscientific dogma. In Feb. three major studies in the U.S. question the value to women of low fat diets to ward off heart disease and breast and colon cancer, calcium and Vitamin D pills to prevent broken bones, and glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate for arthritis patients - what about the Vitamin P from a man, and the exercise and bone-strengthening power of shagging? In Feb. archeologists unearth a massive eight-chambered tomb in the N Greek town of Pella (370 mi. N of Athens) dating to the period after Alexander, becoming the largest ever found and the first with more than three chambers. In Feb. the white nose syndrome in bats is first identified in a cave in Schoharie County, N.Y., after which it spreads throughout the NE U.S., killing 1M+ bats by 2009. On Mar. 10 Science pub. a report on water geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus, raising the possibility of life. In Mar. Sandia Nat. Labs in Albuquerque, N.M. announces the heating of particles to a record 2B Kelvin with their Z Machine, revealing a phenomenon they say will make nuclear fusion power plants more feasible. In Mar. the Am. Journal of Human Genetics pub. a study on Ashkenazi Jews, indicating a Hebrew origin for them, not Khazars as proposed by Arthur Koestler. On Apr. 10 U.S. health officials link Bausch & Lomb's ReNu brand contact lens solution to Fusarium keratitis, a blinding fungal eye infection reported in 109 cases in 17 states since June 2005. On Apr. 19 the JAMA pub. two govt.-funded studies which find no evidence that amalgam fillings containing mercury cause neurological problems in children; it also contains an article concluding that pregnancies spaced from 18-60 mo. apart produce the healthiest babies. On Apr. 20 the U.S. FDA (dir. John Walters) declares that "no sound scientific studies" support the medical use of smoked marijuana, contradicting a 1999 review by the Inst. of Medicine of the Nat. Academy of Sciences that finds it to be "moderately well suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS wasting." In Apr. a polargrizz (pizzly), a polar-grizzly bear hybrid is shot on the S end of Banks Island in the Beaufort Sea, becoming the first confirmed case of the formerly zoo-only hybrid in the wild. On May 1 Avandia maker GlaxoSmithKline releases a study linking Alzheimer's disease to diabetes, saying that brain cells can lose their ability to properly use sugar, and that therefore everybody over the age of ? should take their product?; 4.5M suffer from Alzheimer's this year, but it could zoom to 14M by 2050? On May 7 Nature Genetics pub. an article announcing a new genetic marker which signals a 60% increased risk of prostate cancer in men, and which is twice as common in blacks than whites. On May 9 Swedish researchers pub. an article in the Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences showing the results of a study that shows that gay women's brains react somewhat like those of hetero men; a year ago the same group reported that gay men's brains act similar (stronger than gay women's) to hetero women; they later claim that their study does not add weight to the idea that homosexuality has a physical underpinning and is not learned behavior - what hormone turns a mouth into the opposite gender's sex organ? On June 19 China says it will put a Chinese man on the Moon by 2024. In June Nix and Hydra, two new moons of Pluto are discovered by S. Alan Stern in Boulder, Colo. using the Hubble Space Telescope, and are christened by the Internat. Astronomical Union next year; after Pluto is downgraded, they are called mini-moons - a planet has moons, right, so go Pluto? In July the U.S. Congress passes H.R. 810, a bill sponsored by Rep. Diana DeGette (1957-) (D-Colo.) allowing federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, but on July 19 Pres. Bush vetoes it, saying "Our conscience and history as a nation demand that we resist this temptation", speaking to a White House audience which incl. the "Snow Flake Babies", adopted children who came from frozen embryos once slated to be discarded; an attempt to override his veto in the House fails 235-193. In July Terry Wallis (b. 1964), who suffered a traumatic brain injury 20 years earlier leaving him in a minimally conscious state, regains speech and movement after his brain spontaneously rewires itself, become the first such person in the U.S. - Terri Schiavo could have been the second? In July the U.S. FDA approves Atripla, the first one-pill once-a-day AIDS treatment, containing three drugs and costing only $1,150 a month at wholesale. On Aug. 23 Dr. Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Tech. reports in Nature a new technique for establishing colonies of human embyonic stem cells without destroying embryos, using 2-day-old embryos that have divided into eight cells (blastomeres), commenting "There is no rational reason left to oppose this research", but Roman Catholic bishops chime in with objections to IVF itself. In Aug. the U.S. FDA approves the spraying of a mix of six bacteriophage viruses to combat Listeria Monocytogenes bacterium on cold cuts et al., becoming their first approval of viruses as a food additive. In Sept. the new planet HAT-P-1 is announced in the constellation Lacerto 450 l.y. from Earth, becoming the biggest known planet, with a density less than water. On Oct. 6 article in Science reports that the longstanding latitudinal diversity gradient discovered by explorers over the cents., resulting in the debate about whether the tropics are a cradle or museum of biodiversity has been answered, and they they are both, "the engine for global biodiversity", and "What this means is that human-caused extinctions in the tropics will eventually start to affect the biological diversity in the temperate and high latitudes" (Kaustuv Roy, UCSD). On Oct. 16 U.S. and Russian scientists led by Ken Moody of the U.S. announce the creation of element #118 (a new noble gas under radon in the Periodic Table), plus its decay product element #116; since it lasts for less than 1 millisec., other scientists are skeptical, considering that Lawrence Berkeley Lab in Calif. announced the same discovery in 1991 but retracted it in 2001 after Dr. Victor Ninov admitted he fabricated data. In Oct. scientists announce the discovery of the grey Cypriot Mouse on Cyprus, calling it a "living fossil", identical to fossils predating the arrival of humans by several thousand years - a weak link in evolutionary theory? In Oct. researchers at the Bronx, N.Y. Zoo announce that their research proves that elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror and are therefore self-aware. On Nov. 2 Nature pub. a study by 27 different researchers who find that the red wine ingredient resveratrol lowers the rate of diabetes, liver problems, and other fat-related illnesses in obese mice. On Nov. 3 an article in Science by a team of ecologists and economists pub. data from a 4-year study of seafood pops., and warns that 29% of species have collapsed (catch declined 90%), and the rest will collapse by 2048. On Nov. 15 Dr. Simon Hoerstrup of the U. of Zurich announces the growing of human heart valves using stem cells from amniotic fluid. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen invests $41M to develop the Allen Brain Atlas, a 3-D map of the 21K genes in the mouse brain. In Nov. 6-y.-o. Daniel Kerner becomes the first patient to have stem cells from aborted fetuses transplanted into his brain in an effort to slow his Batten disease, a genetic disorder preventing wastes from being eliminated from brain cells. On Dec. 3 the U.S. govt. announces that circumcising adult men may reduce by half their risk of getting the AIDS virus through hetero intercourse, then shuts down two African studies so that the "uncut" men may get "cut". On Dec. 6 NASA announces that its Global Surveyor spacecraft has taken photos of an area where muddy water appears to have run down crater walls, becoming a "squirting gun for water on Mars" - maybe an ET was taking a leak? On Dec. 12 two studies in Nature report that mice with larger ratios of the bacterium Firmicutes than Bacteroidetes get twice as fat and take in more calories from the same amount of food - firm is cute? In Dec. Flora the Komodo Dragon at the Chester Zoo in England becomes the first documented case of parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction) in the species. Swedish biologist Svante Paabo announces a plan to reconstruct the entire genome of the Neanderthals. This year U.S. beekepers begin reporting Colony Collapse Disorder (CCDE). Shinya Yamanaka (1962-) of Kyoto U. in Japan creates the first Induced Pluripotent (iPS) Cells, that can develop into any cell type; too bad, less then 1% of adult cells can be reprogrammed into iPS cells until a new technique is found in Aug. 2009 that involves silencing the p53 pathway that prevents mutations and preserves the genome sequence. Israeli scientists announce the creation of ball lightning in a microwave oven. Art: Luis Cruz Azaceta, Bowl. Paul Vella Critien, Colonna Mediterranea; a large phallic statue erected in Luqa, Malta; stirs controversy in 2010 when the mayor tries to have it removed before a papal visit. Daniel Edwards (1965-), Britney Spears: A Monument to Pro-Life (sculpture); Britney in the moment of childbirth on a bearskin rug; Hillary Rodham Clinton: First Woman President of the United States (sculpture). Mitchell Gaudet, Waterline (glass). Andrew Gonzalez, Yemanja. Damien Hirst (1965-), The Death of God; made in Mexico. Marc Quinn, Self (sculpture); a cast of his head made from his own frozen blood; the Nat. Portrait Gallery of London pays Ł300K for it. William Stockman, Bully. Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004), Sunset Nude with Matisse Odalisque. Melanie Yazzi, Talking About Change. Music: The Academy Is..., From the Carpet (album #2) (Feb. 21). Queens of the Stone Age, Over the Years and Through the Woods (album) (Jan. 22). Christina Aguilera (1980-), Back to Basics (album) (Aug. 15); incl. Hurt, Ain't No Other Man, Candyman. Akon (1977-), Konvicted (album #2); incl. Smack That. Lily Allen (1985-), Alright, Still (album) (debut) (July 14) (#20 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); sells 2.6M copies; incl. Smile, LDN, Shame for You, Littlest Things, Alfie. Amon Amarth, With Oden on Our Side (album #6) Sept. 22); first album to enter the Billboard Charts; incl. With Oden on Our Side, Under the Northern Star. India.Arie (1975-), Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship (album #3) (June 26) (#1 in the U.S., #103 in the U.K.) (700K copies); incl. I Am Not My Hair (w/Akon), The Heart of the Matter, There's Hope. Joseph Arthur (1971-), Nuclear Daydream (album #5) (Sept. 19). Audioslave, Revelations (Sept. 4) (1M copies) (#2 in the U.S.) (#12 in the U.K.); incl. Original Fire, and Revelations; in Feb. 2007 after becoming the first U.S rock band to perform an open-air concert in Cuba, Cornell leaves and the group disbands; too bad, on May 18, 2017 Chris Cornell is found dead in his hotel room in Detroit, Mich. Buju Banton (1973-), Too Bad (album #8) (Sept. 12). Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere (album) (debut) (Apr. 24) (#4 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (5.8M copies); original title "Who Cares?"; from Atlanta, Ga., incl. Danger Mouse (Brian Joseph Burton) (1977-) and Cee Lo Green (Thomas DeCarlo Callaway) (1974-); named after NBA star Charles Barkley; incl. Crazy (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (first U.K. single based solely on downloads). Natasha Bedingfield (1981-), Live in New York City (album). Dierks Bentley (1975-), Long Trip Alone (album #3) (Oct. 17); incl. Long Trip Alone, Free and Easy (Down the Road I Go), Every Mile a Memory. Beyonce (1981-), B'Day (album #2) (Sept. 4) (#1 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.)) (3.5M copies); incl. Deja Vu, Beautiful Liar, Irreplaceable. Bo Bice (1975-), The Real Thing (album) (Dec. 13); incl. The Real Thing. Bjork (1965-), Volta (album #7) (May 2); incl. Declare Independence, The Dull Flame of Desire (w/Antony Hegarty), Innocence. Mary J. Blige (1971-), Reflections (A Retrospective) (album). Joe Bonamassa (1977-), You & Me (album #6) (June 6); incl. Django. Pet Shop Boys, Fundamental (album) (May 22); sells 1M copies; dedicated to Mahmoud Asgari and Ayaz Marhohi (hanged on July 19, 2005 for raping a 13-y.-o. Iranian boy); incl. Minimal, Numb (with Diane Warren), I'm with Stupid; Concrete (album) (Oct. 23). Laura Branigan (1952-2004), The Platinum Collection (album) (July 24) (posth.). Buckcherry, 15 (album #3) (Apr. 16) (1M copies); incl. Crazy Bitch, Next 2 You, Sorry (#39 in the U.S.), Everything, Broken Glass. Jimmy Buffett (1946-), Take the Weather with You (album #26) (Oct. 10). Chris de Burgh (1948-), The Storyman (album #15) (Nov. 6); incl. Storyman Theme, One World, The Shadow of the Mountain, Raging Storm (with Krystina Miles). Candlebox, The Best of Candlebox (album) (May 23). Cascada, Everytime We Touch (album) (debut) (Feb. 21); from Germany, incl. Natalie Horler (1981-), DJ Manian (Manuel Reuter), Yanou (Yann Peifer); incl. Everytime We Touch; The Remix Album (album) (Nov.). Neko Case (1970-), Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (album #4) (Mar. 7). Cassie, Cassie (album); incl. Me and U. Chamillionaire featuring Krayzie Bone, The Sound of Revenge (album); incl. Ridin'. Dixie Chicks, Taking the Long Way (album); incl. Not Ready to Make Nice, about the 2003 London controversy; sweeps the 2007 Grammys on Feb. 11. El Chombo and Andys Val Gourmet, Chacarron Macarron. Metal Church, A Light in the Dark (album #8) (June 19); incl. A Light in the Dark, Mirror of Lies. New Young Pony Club, Get Lucky (Mar. 20). Leonard Cohen (1934-) and Anjani Thomas, Blue Alert. Ornette Coleman (1930-2015), Sound Grammar (album) (Sept. 12) (Pulitzer Prize). Shawn Colvin (1956-), These Four Walls (album #7) (Sept. 12). Sean "Diddy" Combs (1969-), Press Play (album #4) (Oct. 17) (#1 in the U.S., #11 in the U.K.); incl. Come to Me (w/Jimmy Page), Last Night. David Cook (1982-), Analog Heart (album) (debut) (May 6). Coolio (1963-), The Return of the Gangsta (album #5) (Oct. 16); incl. Gangsta Walk (w/Snoop Dogg). Elvis Costello (1954-), My Flame Burns Blue (album) (Feb. 28); recorded at the North Sea Jazz Festival, July, 2004. Elvis Costello (1954-) and Allen Toussaint (1938-), The River in Reverse (album) (June 6); incl. Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further? Black Crowes, Freak 'n' Roll into the Fog (live album). Chris Daughtry (1979-), Daughtry (album) (debut) (Nov. 21); fastest-selling debut album in history (until ?), selling 1M copies in 5 weeks, and 4M total; incl. It's Not Over. Mos Def (1973-), True Magic (album #3) (Dec. 29); leaked on the Internet, killing sales; incl. True Magic. Deftones, Saturday Night Wrist (album #5) (Oct. 31) (#10 in the U.S.); last with Chi Cheng ("Straight evil music" - Moreno); incl. Hole in the Earth (#19 in the U.S., #69 in the U.K.), Mein (w/Serj Tankian) (#40 in the U.S.). Disney Studios, High School Musical Soundtrack (album); first animated movie soundtrack to reach #1. Snoop Dogg (1971-), The Blue Carpet Treatment (album #8) (Nov. 21) (#5 in the U.S.); incl. I Wanna Fuck You (w/Akon). Goo Goo Dolls, Let Love In (album #8) (Apr. 25) (#9 in the U.S.); incl. Better Days (#3 in the U.S.), Let Love In (#9 in the U.S.), Stay With You (#6 in the U.S.). Forgive Durden, Wonderland (album) (debut) (May 9); named from the novel "Fight Club"; Thomas Dutton. Bob Dylan (1941-), Modern Times (album #32) (Aug. 29); named after a 1936 Charlie Chaplin movie; incl. Rollin' and Tumblin', Someday Baby. Europe, Secret Society (album #7) (Oct. 25); incl. Secret Society, Always the Pretenders. Better Than Ezra, Juicy; used on "Desperate Housewives". Eminem (1972-), Eminem Presents the Re-Up (album) (Dec. 5). Arch Enemy, Live Apocalypse (double album) (July 24); incl. My Apocalypse. Public Enemy, Rebirth of a Nation (album #10) (Mar. 7). Faithless, Renaissance 3D (triple CD) (July 10); To All New Arrivals (album) (Nov. 27); incl. Bombs. Feist (1976-), Open Season (album #3) (Apr.). Fergie (1975-), The Duchess (album) (debut) (Sept. 13); sells 6M copies; incl. London Bridge, Fergalicious, Big Girls Don't Cry (Fergie Song). Foo Fighters, Skin and Bones (album) (Nov. 7). Fishbone, Still Stuck In Your Throat (album) (Oct. 16); first with Rocky George (guitar), Dre Gipson (keyboard, vocals), and Curtis Storey (trumpet, vocals); incl. Let Dem Ho's Fight. Rascall Flatts, Me And My Gang (album). Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes (EP) (debut) (fall); original name Pineapple; from Seattle, Wash., incl. Robin Pecknold (vocals); incl. She Got Dressed. Peter Frampton (1950-), Fingerprints (Sept. 12); incl. Black Hole Sun. The Fray, How to Save a Life (album) (debut) (Sept. 13); from Denver, Colo., incl. Isaac Slade (1981-), Joe King (1980-); incl. How to Save a Life, Over My Head (Cable Car); Live at the Electric Factory: Bootleg No. 2 (album) (July 18). Nelly Furtado (1978-) Loose (album #3) (June 7) (10M copies) (best-selling album of 2006-7); incl. No Hay Igual, Promiscuous, Maneater, Te Busque, All Good Things (Come to an End), Say It Right, Do It, In God's Hands. The Game, Doctor's Avocate (album) (Nov. 14). Secret Garden, Once in a Red Moon (album #5) (Mar. 26); incl. Awakening, You Raise Me Up (w/Brian Kennedy). Melody Gardot (1985-), Worrisome Heart (album #2) (Feb. 26); incl. Quiet Fire, Worrisome Heart, Goodnite. Ben Harper (1992-), Both Sides of the Gun (#7 in the U.S.) (Mar. 21) (double album) (White disc and Black disc); soul, hard rock, funk, and gospel; incl. Better Way. Indigo Girls, Despite Our Differences (album #10) (Sept. 19). Lamb of God, Sacrament (album #5) (Aug. 22) (#8 in the U.S.) (300K copies); incl. Redneck, Walk With Me in Hell, Blacken the Cursed Sun. Godsmack, IV (album #4) (Apr. 25) (#1 in the U.S.) (500K copies in the U.S.); incl. Speak, Shine Down, The Enemy. Jay Greenberg (1991-), Intelligent Life. Nina Hagen (1955-), Irgendwo auf der Welt (album #14) (Apr. 24). Procol Harum, The Wells on Fire (album #13). P.J. Harvey (1969-), The Peel Sessions 1991-2004 (album) (Oct. 23). Heather Headley (1974-), In My Mind (album); incl. "Me Time", "Am I Worth It". Helmet, Monochrome (album). Paris Hilton (1981-), Paris (album) (debut); incl. Stars Are Blind. Hinder, Extreme Behavior (album); incl. Lips of an Angel. Her Space Holiday, The Telescope (album). Hoobastank, Every Man for Himself (album #3) (May 8); incl. If I Were You, Inside of You, Born to Lead. Crowded House, Farewell the World (album) (Nov.). Vanessa Hudgens (1988-), V (album) (debut) (Sept. 26); incl. Come Back to Me, Say OK. Janis Ian (1951-), Folk is the New Black (album). Incubus, Light Grenades (album #6) (Nov. 28) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. Love Hurts, Anna Molly (#66 in the U.S.), Dig (#94 in the U.S.), Oil and Water. Yusuf Islam (1948-), An Other Cup (album) (Nov. 10); first Western album since "Back to Earth" in 1978; incl. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, I Think I See the Light. Isley Brothers, Baby Makin' Music (album). LL Cool J (1968-), Todd Smith (album) (Apr. 11); incl. Control Myself, Freeze (featuring Lyfe Jennings). Janet Jackson (1966-), 20 Y.O. (album #9) (Sept. 20) (#2 in the U.S., #63 in the U.K.); incl. Call On Me (w/Nelly), So Excited, Enjoy, With U. Pearl Jam, Pearl Jam (album #8) (May 2) (#2 in the U.S., #5 in the U.K.); incl. World Wide Suicide. Jamelia (1981-), Walk with Me (album) (Sept. 25); incl. Something About You, Beware of the Dog, No More. Jamiroquai, High Times: Singles 1992-2006 (album) (Nov. 6). Jay-Z (1969-), Kingdom Come (album #9) (Nov. 21); sells 680K copies the first week; incl. Show Me What You Got, 30 Something. Elton John (1947-), The Captain & The Kid (album #29) (Sept. 18); incl. The Bridge, Postcards from Richard Nixon. Jack Hody Johnson (1975-) and Friends, Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George (album) (Feb. 7) (#1 in the U.S.) (4M copies); incl. Upside Down, Talk of the Town (w/Kawika Kahiapo), We're Going to Be Friends (by Jack White), The 3 R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), With My Own Two Hands (w/Ben Harper). JoJo, High Road (album); incl. Too Little Too Late. Jonas Brothers, It's About Time (album) (debut) (Aug. 8); incl. Paul Kevin Jonas II (1987) (AKA K2), Joseph Adam "Joe" Jonas (1989), and Nicholas Jerry "Nick" Jonas (1992-); incl. Mandy. Journey, Live in Houston 1981: The Escape Tour (album) (Nov.). Gabriel Kahane (1981-), Craigslistlieder. Danity Kane, Danity Kane (album) (debut); sells 1M copies; Aubrey O'Day, Wanity "D. Woods" Woodgette, Shannon REx, Dawn Richard, Aundrea Fimbres; incl. Show Stopper, Ride for You. The Black Keys, Magic Potion (album #4) (Sept. 15); incl. Your Touch, You're the One, Just Got to Be. Cold War Kids, Robbers & Cowards (album) (Oct. 10) (debut); from Long Beach, Calif., incl. Nathan Willett (vocals), Jonnie Russell (drums), Matt Maust (bass), Matt Aveiro (drums); incl. Hang Me Up to Dry, Hospital Beds. The Killers, Sam's Town (album #2) (Oct. 2) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); sells 4.5M copies; incl. Read My Mind, When You Were Young, Bones, For Reasons Unknown. Nick Lachey (1973-), What's Left of Me (album) (May 9); incl. What's Left of Me, I Can't Hate You Anymore. Barenaked Ladies, Barenaked Ladies Are Me (album #7) (Sept. 12). Strapping Young Lads, The New Black (album #5) (last) (July 11) (#200 in the U.S.); incl. Wrong Side. Laibach, Volk (album #14) (Oct. 26); their take on several nat. anthems; incl. America; Turkiye. k.d. lang (1961-), Reintarnation (album) (Mar. 14). John Legend (1978-), Once Again (album #2) (Oct. 24); incl. Save Room, Heaven, P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care), Stereo. Sean Ono Lennon, Friendly Fire (album); incl. Dead Meat. Def Leppard, Yeah! (album) (May 23). Level 42, Retroglide (album #11) (last album in 1994) (Sept. 18); incl. Ship, Hell Town Story. Huey Lewis (1950-) and the News, Greatest Hits & Videos (album) (May 23). Jenny Lewis, Rabbit Fur Coat (album) (Jan. 24). Leona Lewis (1985-), A Moment Like This (Dec. 17) (#1 in the U.K.); winner of X Factor, Series 3; cover of the Kelly Clarkson #1 U.S. solo debut single; downloaded a record 50K times in 30 min. Juliette and the Licks, Four on the Floor (album #2) (last album) (Oct. 2); incl. Hot Kiss, Sticky Honey. Flaming Lips, At War with the Mystics (album #11) (Apr. 3); incl. The W.A.N.D.(The Will Always Negates Defeat), The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song (With All Your Power), It Overtakes Me. Meat Loaf (1947-), Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose (album); sells 2.5M copies. Loon (1975-), No Friends (album #2) (Aug. 29); Wizard of Harlem (album #3) (Oct. 26). Ludacris (1977-), Release Therapy (album #5) (Sept. 26) (#1 in the U.S.) (1.3M copies); incl. Money Maker (w/Pharrell) (#1 in the U.S.), Grew Up a Screw Up (w/Young Jeezy), Runaway Love (w/Mary J. Blige) (#2 in the U.S.), Girls Gone Wild, Slap. Where'd You Go? Madonna (1958-), I'm Going to Tell You A Secret (first live album) (June 20). Iron Maiden, A Matter of Life and Death (album #14) (Aug. 25); incl. The Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg, Different World. John Mayer (1977-), Continuum (album #3) (Sept. 9) (#2 in the U.S., #47 in the U.K.) (3M copies); incl. Waiting on the World to Change, Gravity, Dreaming with a Broken Heart; The Village Sessions (album) (Dec. 12). 10,000 Maniacs, Live Twenty-Five (album). Ziggy Marley (1968-), Love Is My Religion (July 2). Paul McCartney (1942-), Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart) (album) (Sept. 25). Ingrid Michaelson (1979-), (Take Me) The Way I Am. Mika (1983-), Dodgy Holiday EP (album) (debut) (Nov. 20); incl. Billy Brown. Fort Minor, The Rising Tied (album); incl. Where'd You Go. Arctic Monkeys, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (album) (debut) (Jan. 23) (#24 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); fastest-selling debut album in British music history (360K copies in week #1); from High Green, Sheffield, England, incl. Alexander David "Alex" Turner (1986-) (vocals), Jamie Phillip Cook (1985-) (guitar), Nicholas "Nick" O'Malley (1985-) (bass), Matthew "Matt" Helders (1986-) (drums); incl. I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor (#1 in the U.K.), When the Sun Goes Down (#1 in the U.K.). Dito Montiel (1965-), Dito Montiel (album) (debut). Moonspell, Memorial (album #7) (Apr. 24). Van Morrison (1945-), Pay the Devil (album #32) (Mar. 6); Live at Austin City Limits Festival (album). Morrissey (1959-), Ringleader of the Tormentors (album). Van Morrison (1945-), Pay the Devil (album) (Mar. 7); incl. Half as Much. Motorhead, Kiss of Death (album #18) (Aug. 29); incl. Kingdom of the Worm. Smash Mouth, Summer Girl (album #5) (Sept. 19); first with drummer Jason Sutter, who is replaced next year by Mitch Marine; incl. So Insane, Story of My Life. Michael Martin Murphey (1945-), Heartland Cowboy: Cowboy Songs Vol. 5 (album #27 (Oct. 31)); incl. Long and Lonesome Ride to Dalhart. Ne-Yo (1979-), In My Own Words (album) (debut); incl. So Sick, Sexy Love. Nickelback, All the Right Reasons (album); incl. Far Away, Savin' Me. Twisted Nixon, Left is Right. Yannick Noah (1960-), Charango (album #3); incl. Donne-moi une Vie, Aux Arbres Citoyens. Nonpoint, Live and Kicking (album) (Nov. 7). Gary Numan (1958-), Jagged (album #16) (Mar. 13). Blue October, Foiled (album) (Apr. 4); incl. Hate Me, Into the Ocean. Midnight Oil, Flat Chart (album) (Aug. 14). Omarion (1984-), 21 (album #2) (Dec. 26); incl. IceBox (w/Timbaland and Entourage). Yoko Ono (1933-), Yes, I'm A Witch (Feb.); remixes of her back catalog of sh, er, hits. Maximo Park, Missing Songs (album) (Jan. 9). Paris, Rebirth of a Nation (album); Paris Presents: Hard Truth Soldiers. Snow Patrol, Eyes Open (album); incl. Chasing Cars, You're All I Have, Hands Open. Sean Paul, The Trinity (album); incl. Temperature, Give It Up To Me. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium (album #9) (May 5) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); sells 7M copies; last with John Frusciante; incl. Dani California, Tell Me Baby, Snow (Hey Oh), Desecration Smile, Hump de Bump. Tom Petty (1950-), Highway Companion (album #3) (July 25); incl. Saving Grace, Square One. Phoenix, It's Never Been Like That (album #3) (May 15); incl. Long Distance Call (May 8), Consolation Prizes. Kellie Pickler (1986-), Small Town Girl (album) (debut) (Oct. 31); incl. Red High Heels, I Wonder, Things That Never Cross a Man's Mind. Silversun Pickups, Carnavas (album) (debut) (July 26); incl. Lazy Eye, Well Thought Out Twinkles. Pink (1979-), I'm Not Dead (album #4) (Mar. 31) (#6 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.) (6.5M copies); incl. Stupid Girls (#13 in the U.S.), Who Knew (#9 in the U.S.), U + Ur Hand (#9 in the U.S.), Dear Mr. President. Pitbull (1981-), El Mariel (album #2) (Oct. 31) (#17 in the U.S.); incl. Miami Shit, Come See Me, Jealouso. Placebo, Meds (album #5) (Mar. 13); incl. Meds, Because I Want You, Song to Say Goodbye, Infra-Red. Iggy Pop (1947-) and the Teddybears, Punkrocker. Daniel Powter, Daniel Powter (album); incl. Bad Day. Prince (1958-), 3121 (album) (Mar. 21); incl. "Te Amo Corazon", "Black Sweat". Queensryche, Operation: Mindcrime II (album #10) (Mar. 29); incl. I'm American. Corinne Bailey Rae (1979-), Corinne Bailey Rae (album) (debut) (Feb. 24); sells 3M copies; incl. Like a Star, Put Your Records On. Rammstein, Volkerball (V欫erball) (Dodgeball) (album) (Nov. 17). The All-American Rejects, Move Along (album); incl. Dirty Little Secret, Move Along. Red, End of Silence (album) (debut) (June 6) (#194 in the U.S.); from Nashville, Tenn.; incl. Michael Barnes (vocals), Anthony Armstrong (guitar), Randy Armstrong (bass), and Joe Rickard (drums); incl. Breathe Into Me, Let Go, Lost, Break Me Down. Steve Reich (1936-), Daniel Variations. Busta Rhymes (1972-), The Big Bang (album #7) (June 13) (#1 in the U.S., #19 in the U.K.) (600K copies); incl. Touch It (#16 in the U.S.), I Love My Chick (w/will.ia.am, Kelis). Lionel Richie (1949-), Coming Home (album #8) (Sept. 12); sells 500K copies; incl. I Call It Love, Why, All Around the World. Rihanna (1988-), A Girl Like Me (album #2) (Apr. 19) (#5 in the U.S., #5 in the U.K.); incl. SOS (#1 in the U.S.), Break It Off (w/Sean Paul), Unfaithful, We Ride. If It's Loving' That You Want. LeAnn Rimes (1982-), Whatever We Wanna (album); incl. And It Feels Like. Kid Rock (1971-), Live Trucker (album); recorded the old-fashioned way with mobile recording studio and tape? My Chemical Romance, Life on the Murder Scene (first live album) (triple album) (Mar. 21); The Black Parade (album #3) (Oct. 23) (#2 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); rock opera about the Patient, who is dying of cancer; incl. Welcome to the Black Parade, Famous Last Words, I Don't Love You, Teenagers. Skid Row, Revolutions Per Minute (album #5) (Oct. 24); first with drummer Dave Gara; incl. Shut Up Baby, I Love You. Bianca Ryan (1994-), Bianca Ryan (album) (debut) (Nov. 14). Primal Scream, Riot City Blues (album #8) (June 5); incl. When the Bomb Drops, Hell's Coming Down. Seal (1963-), One Night to Remember (album) (Mar. 27). Belle and Sebastian, The Life Pursuit (album #7) (Feb. 6) (#8 in the U.K.); incl. Funny Little Frog, The Blues Are Still Blue, White Collar Boy. Bob Seger (1945-), Face the Promise (Sept. 12); incl. Wait for Me. Duncan Sheik, White Limousine (album) (Jan. 24); incl. White Limousine. Robert Sher-Machherndl, Anilla (for three dancers). Jessica Simpson (1980-), A Public Affair (album #5) (Aug. 26) (#5 in the U.S., #65 in the U.K.) (1M copies); she now switches to country; incl. A Public Affair, I Belong to Me, You Spin Me Round (Like A Record). Twisted Sister, A Twisted Christmas (album) (Oct. 17) (#147 in the U.S.). Slayer, Christ Illusion (album #10) (Aug. 8) (#5 in the U.S.); incl. Eye of the Insane, Final Six. Black Label Society, The European Invasion - Doom Troopin' Live (album) (Aug. 22); Shot to Hell (album #7) (Sept. 12); incl. Concrete Jungle. Collective Soul, Home: A Live Concert Recording With the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra (album) (Feb. 7). Hush Sound, Like Vines (album #2); incl. We Intertwined, Lions Roar, You Are the Moon, Where We Went Wrong. LCD Soundsystem, 45:33 (album) (Nov. 12). Regina Spektor (1980-), Begin to Hope (album #4) (June 13); incl. Fidelity, Better, On the Radio. Bruce Springsteen (1949-), We Shall Overcome (album). Ringo Starr (1940-), Ringo Starr and Friends (album) (Aug. 15). Cobra Starship, While the City Sleeps, We Rule the Streets (album) (debut) (Oct. 10); from New York City, incl. Gabe Saporta (vocals), Ryland Blackington (guitar), Alex Suarez (bass), Victoria Asher (keyboards), and Nate Novarro (drums); incl. The Church of Hot Addiction. Rod Stewart (1945-), Still the Same... Great Rock Classics of Our Time (album) (Oct. 10). George Strait (1952-), Give It Away. The Strokes, First Impression of Earth (album #3) (Jan. 3) (#5 in the U.S., #9 in the U.K.); incl. Juicebox (#9 in the U.S., #5 in the U.K.), Heart in a Cage (#21 in the U.S., #25 in the U.K.), You Only Live Once (#35 in the U.S.). Taylor Swift (1989-), Taylor Swift (album) (debut) (Oct. 24) (#1 country) (#5 in the U.S.); incl. Our Song (#1 country) (#16 in the U.S.) (youngest person to write and perform a Billboard country #1 song), Should've Said No (#1 country) (#33 in the U.S.), Teardrops on My Guitar (#2 country) (#13 in the U.S.), Picture to Burn (#3 country) (#28 in the U.S.), Tim McGraw (#6 country) (#40 in the U.S.); the album stays 274 weeks on the Billboard top 200 chart. Plain White T's, Every Second Counts (album); incl. Hey There Delilah, Hate (I Really Don't Like You). Therion, Celebrators of Becoming (boxed set) (May 6). Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Thug Stories (album) (Sept. 19). Justin Timberlake (1981-) featuring T.I., Future Sex/ LoveSounds (album #2) (Sept. 12) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); sells 4M copies in the U.S. and 14M copies worldwide, and spawns six Top 20 hits for the 1st time since Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" (1991); incl. SexyBack, My Love, What Goes Around Comes Around, Summer Love, LoveStoned, Until the End of Time. Tool, 10,000 Days (album #4) (Apr. 28) (#1 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.) (3M copies worldwide); incl. Vicarious, The Pot, Jambi. T-Pain, Rappa Ternt Sanqa (album); incl. I'm Sprung. Toto, Falling in Between (album #12) (last album) (Feb. 14); incl. Bottom of Your Soul. Train, For Me, It's You (album #4) (Jan. 31) (#10 in the U.S.); incl. Cab, Give Myself to You, Am I Reaching You Now. Cheap Trick, Rockford (album #15) (June 6). KT Tunstall (1975-), KT Tunstall's Acoustic Extravaganza (album) (May 15); incl. Ashes. Carrie Underwood (1983-), Some Hearts (album) (debut); wins Country Music album of the year. Keith Urban (1967-), Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing. Various Artists, Bossa n' Stones, Vols. 1-2 (album) (Aug. 21). Nouvelle Vague, Bande a Part (album #2); incl. Don't Go, Blue Monday, Dancing with Myself, Heart of Glass. Warrant, Born Again (album #7); first without Jani Lane. Kevin Welch (1955-), Lost John Dean (album #7). Westlife, The Love Album (album #8) (Nov. 20) (#1 in the U.K.) (5M copies worldwide); incl. The Rose (by Bette Midler) (#1 in the U.K.). The Whitest Boy Alive, Dreams (album) (debut) (Sept. 4); from Berlin, Germany, incl. Erland Oye of Kings of Convenience (vocals), Marcin Oz (bass), Daniel Nentwig (piano), and Sebastian Maschat (drums); incl. Golden Cage, Inflation, Burning, Fireworks. The Who, Endless Wire (album) (Oct. 30); first original album since 1982; incl. It's Not Enough. Brian Wilson (1942-), Smile (album); long time coming comeback? Amy Winehouse (1983-2011), Back to Black (album #2) (Oct. 4) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (10M copies); incl. Back to Black, Rehab, You Know I'm No Good, Tears Dry on Their Own, Love Is a Losing Game. Winger, IV (album #4) (Oct. 20); last album in 1993. Yehudi Wyner (1929-), Piano Concerto: 'Chiavi in Mano' (Pulitzer Prize). Thom Yorke (1968-), The Eraser (album) (debut) (July 10); incl. The Eraser, Black Swan The Clock, Harrowdown Hill. Frank Zappa (1940-93), Imaginary Diseases (album) (posth.) (Jan.); Trance-Fusion (album) (posth.) (Oct. 24); The MOFO Project/Object (album) (posth.) (Dec. 5); The Frank Zappa AAAFNRAA Birthday Bundle (album) (posth.) (Dec. 15). Zola, Tsotsi Soundtrack (album); incl. Bhambatha. The Zutons, Tired of Hanging Around (album #2); incl. Valerie, Why Don't You Give Me Your Love?. Movies: The Year of Double Zero Six Dick Almighty in Hollyweird? Zack Snyder's 300 (Dec. 9) (Warner Bros.), based on Frank Miller's comic book, er, graphic novel about the 480 B.C.E. Battle of Thermopylae where 300 Am. Cowboys, er, Greek Spartans kick the asses of 250K Iranians, er, Persians marks a new era in movie making with an almost totally computer-generated film, with the few actors such as Gerard Butler (Leonidas), Dominic West (Theron), Lena Headey (Queen Gorgo), and Rodrigo Santoro (Xerxes) working out of a locomotive factory in Montreal; "War's not ugly; ugly is ugly" (Xerxes); "Only Spartan women give birth to real men" (Gorgo); the $70.9M opening weekend sets a record, which only stands until "Spider-Man 3" opens on May 5; #6 movie of 206 ($211M U.S. and $456M worldwide box office on a $65M budget); followed by "300: Rise of an Empire" (2014). Doug Atchison's Akeelah and the Bee (Apr. 28) (Lionsgate Films) stars Keke Palmer as 11-y.-o. Akeelah Anderson, who goes through Matrix-like coaching for the Scripps Nat. Spelling Bee by Dr. Joshua Larabee (Laurence Fishburne) while dealing with her reluctant mother Angela Bassett; does $19M box office on an $8M budget. Mel Gibson's Apocalypto: A New Beginning (Dec. 8) (Touchstone Pictures), about the gruesome human-sacrificing Mayans and starring Rudy Youngblood as Jaguar Paw gets good opening weekend box office despite all the recent bad publicity about Gibson; does $120.7M box office on a $40M budget. Robert Towne's Ask the Dust (Apr. 13), based on the John Fante novel, based on Los Angeles in the 1930s is shot in South Africa, and stars Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek as two hot-blooded lovers fighting the city and themselves. Michael Polish's The Astronaut Farmer (Oct. 15) stars Billy Bob Thornton as unbelievable former NASA astronaut Charles Farmer, who retired to run a family farm, and cobbles together his own manned launch vehicle in his spare time, only to be harassed by the FBI and FAA. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel (May 23), written by Guillermo Arriaga stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett as Richard and Susan Jones of San Diego, Calif., and deals with a series of events occurring in three continents after young goatherder Abdullah fires a shot in the mountains of Morocco at a bus carrying Western tourists, critically wounding Susan; receives seven Oscar nominations; Rinko Kikuchi receives a best supporting actress nomination, turning Japan on; some filmgoers report getting nausea and headaches from it?; does $135.3M box office on a $25M budget. Paul Verhoeven's Black Book (Sept. 14) stars Carice van Houten as WWII Dutch Jewish refugee Rachel Stein, who jons the Dutch Resistance poses as non-Jew Ellis de Vries to become lovers with SS head Ludwig Muntze, and falls in love with him, then is framed by Muntze's rival Gunther Franken (Waldemar Kobus) on being a double agent until she can find the you know what. Edward Zwick's Blood Diamond (Dec. 8) (Warner Bros.) stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Rhodesian gem smuggler Danny Archer in 1999 Sierra Leone, Jennifer Connelly as Am. journalist Maddy Bowen ("In America it's bling-bling; here it's bling-bang"), and Djimon Hounsou as Solomon Vandy, a father searching for his son, who was nonscripted by the rebels in a semi-remake of "The Defiant Ones"; does $171M box office on a $101M budget. Emilio Estevez's Bobby (Nov. 23) follows 22 people at L.A.'s Ambassador Hotel on the night when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated (June 6, 1968); stars incl. Emilio's ex-fiancee Demi Moore and his dad Martin Sheen; cougar Demi Moore also romanced Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt before latching onto young stuff Ashton Kutcher? Larry Charles' Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Nov. 3) (20th Cent. Fox) stars British Jewish comedian Sacha Noam Baron Cohen (1971-) in a country-bumpkin-in-the-big-city satire as reporter Borat Sagdiyev, who goes to New York City with his fat producer Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian) and his pet chicken Buh-Kaw, then discovers Pam Anderson and decides to find and marry her by travelling cross-country in an ice cream truck, all while speaking heavily accented Hebrew and using Candid Camera techniques, becoming a box office smash, doint $261.6M box office on an $18M budget; banned in all Arab countries except Lebanon, also pissing-off Russia; "This C.J. was like no Kazakh woman I have ever seen. She had golden hair, teeth as white as pearls, and the asshole of a 7-year-old. For the first time in my lifes, I was in love"; "This is my country of Kazakhstan. It locate between Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, and assholes Uzbekistan"; features the Kazakhstan Nat. Anthem; "Kazakhstan greatest country in the world. All other countries are run by little girls. Kazakhstan number one exporter of potassium, all other countries have inferior potassium. Kazakhstan home of Tinshein swimming pool, it's length thirty meter and width six meter. Filtration system a marvel to behold. It remove 83 percent of human solid waste. Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan you very nice place, from Plains of Tarashek to northern fence of Jewtown. Kazakhstan friend of all except Uzbekistan, they very nosey people with bone in their brain. Kazakhstan industry best in the world, we invented toffee and trouser belt. Kazakhstan's prostitutes cleanest in the region, except of course for Turkmenistan's.... Come grasp the mighty penis of our leader from junction with the testes to tip of its face!"; on Sept. 29, 2006 Borat gives a fake White House press conference one day before an official visit of Kazakhstan's real pres.; viewers relish dubious factoids about the Big K, incl. that it has the world's largest pop. of wolves, its people drink horse urine, shoot dogs, and view rape and incest as hobbies, causing the Big K govt. to hire two Western PR firms and run a 4-page ad in the New York Times setting the world straight, and rush through the big budget epic Nomad: The Warrior, starring Jason Scott Lee, Jay Hernandez and Kuno Becker, reminding us a zillion times how they're Genghis Khan's country; after Borat garners big bucks at the box office ($129M worldwide), some of the chumps, who all were suckered into signing releases, such as the villagers of Glod ("mud"), Romania attempt to sue; original dir. Todd Phillips quits after shooting the Star Spangled Banner Scene at a Texas rodeo. Peyton Reed's The Break-Up (June 2) (Universal Pictures) stars Jennifer Aniston as Brook Meyers, and Vince Vaughan as Gary Grobowski, who meet at a Chicago Cubs home game and move in together, until they you know what and Brooke lets him know by having him kicked off their couples-only bowling team; does $205M box office on a $52M budget. John Lasseter's and Joe Ranft's Cars (June 9) is an animated Pixar film about vehicles with eyes on their windshields; #3 movie of 2006 ($244m). Martin Campbell's Casino Royale (Nov. 14) (Eon Productions) (Stillking Films) (Babelsberg Film) (MGM) (Columbia Pictures) (James Bond 007 film #21), a reboot of the series, starring working class-looking Daniel Wroughton Craig (1938-) as James Blond, er, Bond, before he gets his 007 license, and Dame Judi Dench as M; Mads Mikkelsen plays the villain Le Chiffre, whom Bond must stop from winning a high stakes Texas Hold 'Em poker tournament at Casino Royale in Montenegro; doll-faced Eva Green stars as treasury agent Vesper Lynd (West Berlin); highest-grossing Bond film so far, taking in $167M in the U.S. (#10 movie of 2006), and $600M worldwide on a $150M budget; too bad, this new PC Bond is all about running fast and jumping high, and turns into an Alan Alda sensitive guy with women, complete with a woman boss, and literally gets his nuts cracked at the end and kind of wusses out for awhile, finally emerging looking bitter and damaged for the sequel?; the theme is You Know My Name, sung by Chris Cornell; followed by "Quantum of Solace" (2008), "Skyfall" (2012), and "Spectre" (2015). Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men (Sept. 22), based on the 1922 P.D. James novel about illegal immigrants suffering in 2027 U.K. after a plague of infertility stars Clive Owen as civil servant Theo Faron, who helps pregnant West African Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey) escape; does $70M office on a $76M budget. Kevin Smith's Clerks II (July 21) stars Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) and Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) as clerks who lose their Quick Stop to a fire, causing them to settle at Mooby's and descend farther into degenerate potty mouth talking than in the original, incl. discussions of girls with oversize clits, oral-anal sex, and saving the term "porch monkey" from applying only to N-words; "If I were you I'd spraypaint Eat Pussy across the side of the building in huge letters"; "You're going to be rolling in the pussy, man"; "Just a guy caught playing tonsil-hockey with his mother"; "The best part of the job is the barely legal pussy coming in here"; "You never go ass to mouth." Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain (Dec. 25), based on the 1997 Charles Frazier novel about the U.S. Civil War stars Jude Law as Will Inman, Nicole Kidman as Ada Monroe, and Renee Zellweger as Ruby Thewes; Elvis Costello sings the hit song The Scarlet Tide. Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower (A Whole City Clothed in Golden Armor) (Dec. 21) (Sony Pictures), set in 928 C.E. Tang China stars Chow Yun-fat as Chinese Tang emperor Ping, and Gong Li as his empress, whom he's slowly poisoning with a Persian fungus, causing her to plot a coup, steeped in lushly colorful opulence and back-stabbing; most expensive Chinese film to date ($45M); does $78.5M box office. Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code (May 17) (Imagine Entertainment) (Columbia Pictures), with screenplay by Akiva Goldman and the cool song Chevaliers de Sangreal by Hans Zimmer stars Tom Hanks as Harris Tweed-loving Harvard religious symbology prof. Robert Langdon, Audrey Tautou (pr. "toe-TOO") as Sophie Neveu, Jean Reno as French dick Bezu Fache, and Ian McKellen as Sir Lipton Teabag, er, Sir Leigh Teabing in a fairly faithful reproduction of this insanely improbable action novel based on fractured feminist-freethinker history (they couldn't X-ray or disassemble the cryptex?); (Fache thinks Langdon did it because of all the writing in blood, none of which says Langdon did it?); (the tomb of Mary Magdalene will causes millions to worship her like a new saint, when nobody needed the tomb of the Virgin Mary to ditto?); (the secret documents proving everything are in an underground room open to the public which anybody could discover easily?); (Sophie is the real grail, yet all these mysterious Priory of Sion people leave her in harm's way throughout the flick?); Paul Bettany plays albino Opus Dei sulpice-loving monk-assassin Silas, and "'You give me the whip, I give you the idol' in Raiders of the Lost Ark" Alfred Molina plays Bishop Aringarosa; the 68th film since 1960 to feature the fallacy of the evil albino, according to the Nat. Org. for Albinism and Hypopigmentation; #5 movie of 2006 ($218M U.S. and $758.2M worldwide box office on a $125M budget). Tony Scott's Deja Vu (Déjŕ Vu) (Nov. 22) (Touchstone Pictures) stars Denzel Washington as ATF agent Doug Carlin, who investigates a New Orleans Mardi Gras terrorist attack against ferry Sen. Alvin T. Stumpf that killed 543, and discovers the time window called Snow White, traveling into the past to prevent it and save Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), a woman he falls in love with; does $180.6M box office on a $75M budget. Amy Berg's Deliver Us From Evil (June 24) is about Father Oliver O'Grady, a Roman Catholic pedophile priest who was transferred to various parishes around the U.S. during the 1970s to coverup his crimes. Martin Scorsese's The Departed (Sept. 26) (Warner Bros.), a remake of the 2002 film "Infernal Affairs" stars Matt Damon as Mass. State Police Sgt. Colin Sullivan, who moles for Boston crime boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), while Leonardo DiCaprio plays undercover state cop Billy Costigan, who moles inside Costello's org. for state police chief Oliver Queenan (Martin Sheen), and ends up in a death duel with Sullivan, with Costello and Queenan caught in the middle; the 3rd consecutive best picture Oscar nomination for Scorsese with DiCaprio as a star ("Gangs of New York", 2002; "The Aviator", 2004); does $290M box office on a $90M budget. David Frankel's The Devil Wears Prada (June 30), based on the 2003 Lauren Weisberger novel stars Anne Hathaway as recent college grad Andy Sachs, who gets her first job as asst. to tyrannical fashion mag. ed. Mirandy Priestley (Meryl Streep, who gets her record 14th Oscar nod), pissing-off Vogue ed. Anna Wintour, who believes it's really her, later flopping and praising the film; Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci play co-asst. Emily Charlton and art dir. Nigel; the most expensively costumed film in history (until ?); does $327M worldwide on a $35M budget. Bill Condon's Dreamgirls (Dec. 25), based on the 1981 Tom Eyen and Henry Krieger musical about the Dreams (clones of the Supremes) stars Beyonce Knowles as Deena Jones, Jennifer Hudson as Effie White, Jamie Foxx as Curtis Taylor Jr., and Eddie Murphy as James Brown, er, James "Thunder" Early; too bad, faux Supremes music gives it a dreambusting quality? Scott Coffey' and Naomi Watts' Ellie Parker (July 14) stars Naomi Watts as Ellie Parker, showing how becoming a paid actor is a process of total self-sellout? Stefen Fangmeier's Eragon (Dec. 15), based on the 2001 Christopher Paolini novel is about farm boy Eragon (Edward Speleers), who finds the last blue dragon egg, which hatches into blue dragon Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz), and he becomes the last dragon rider, leading a revolt against the evil king Galbatorix (John Malkovich); Jeremy Irons plays former dragon rider Brom; "One part brave, three parts fool." Tom Dey's Failure to Launch (Mar. 10) stars Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Terry Bradshaw, and Kathy Bates in a comedy about 30-something Tripp, who still lives with his parents Al and Sue, who try to hook him up with Paula to get him outta there; filmed in New Orleans in the summer before the big flood, doubling for Md. Bobby Farrelly's and Peter Farrelly's Fever Pitch (Apr. 8), a remake of the 1997 flick based on the 1992 Nick Hornby novel stars Jimmy Fallon as diehard Boston Red Sox fan Ben Wrightman, and Drew Barrymore as his babe Lindsey Meeks, who inevitably makes him choose between Winter Guy and Summer Guy. Richard Loncraine's Firewall (Feb. 10) stars Harrison Ford as security expert Jack Stanfield, who's forced to rob a bank to pay his family's ransom. Sidney Lumet's Find Me Guilty (Mar. 17) stars overweight Vin Diesel as Lucchese crime family member Jackie DiNorscio, who becomes his own atty. and gets an ass for a client in a 21 mo. trial in 1987-8 for racketeering. Lawrence Malkin's Five Fingers (Aug. 25) stars Ryan Philippe as a Dutch pianist who is kidnapped in Morocco and tortured by mean chess-loving Muslim man Ahmat (Laurence Fishburne), losing four you know whats. James Gartner's Glory Road (Jan. 13) is a Disney film about the famous 1965-6 NCAA Div. 1 basketball championship season, where Texas Western defeated #1 lily-white Kentucky by using all-black starters, breaking the color line in the South, starring Jon Voight as losing coach Adolph Rupp, and Josh Lucas as winning coach Don Haskins. Christopher Dillon Quinn's God Grew Tired of Us: The Lost Boys of Sudan is about the 25K you know whats, refugees from the 1983 war, of which 3.8K came to the U.S. in 2001, and were quietly distributed 38 per lucky city. Ryan Fleck's Half Nelson (Aug. 11) stars Ryan Gosling as white inner city 8th grade teacher Dan Dunnne, who has a drug habit and forms a relationship with Drey (Shareeka Epps), who catches him smoking crack. George Miller's Happy Feet (Nov. 17) features lovable toe-tapping animated Emperor Penguins dancing to MC Hammer's You Can't Touch This; #8 movie of 2006 ($198M). Adam Green's Hatchet (Apr. 27) (ArieScope Pictures) (Anchor Bay Entertainment) is a slasher flick set in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, starring Joel Moore as Ben, Tamara Feldman as Marybeth Dunston, Deon Richmond as Marcus, Mercedes McNab as Misty, and Robert Englund as Sampson Dunston; does $208K box office on a $1.5M budget; spawns "Hatchet II" (2010), "Hatchet III" (2013), and "Victor Crowley" (2017). Kenny Ortega's High School Musical (Jan. 20) (Disney Channel) stars Zac Efron as basketball star Troy Bolton, and Gabriella Montez as brain girl Vanessa Anne Hudgens, who meet while singing karaoke during the summer, and just happen to end up in the same school together in the fall; Lucas Grabeel stars as Ryan, and new diva wannabe Ashley Tisdale as new diva wannabe Sharpay Evans, who lose their acting jobs to the new hit musical team of Troy and Gabriella; followed by "High School Musical II" (2007). Alexandre Aha'a The Hills Have Eyes (Mar. 10) (Dune Entertainment) (Fox Searchlight Pictures), a remake of the 1977 Wes Craven film is a splatter flick about a suburban Am. family being stalked by a group of inbred mutant cannibal desert psychos on a former atomic test site, proving that tomcats are fighters?; stars Aaron Stanford as Doug Bukowski, Kathleen Quinlan as Ethel Carter, Vinessa Shaw as Lynn Carter-Bukowski, Emilie de Ravin as Brenda Carter, Dan Byrd as Bobby Carter, Billy Drago as Papa Jupiter, Robert Joy as Lizard, Ted Living as Big Bob Carter, Desmond Askew as Big Brain, Ezra Buzzington as Goggle, and Michael Bailey Smith as Pluto; does $69.6M box office on a $15M budget; "Between 1945 and 1992 the United States Government conducted 311 nuclear tests in the desert of New Mexico." Nicholas Hytner's The History Boys (Oct. 13), based on the Alan Bennett play is about a British working class school where the boys prepare for college entrance exams while the teachers dream of ranging their rumps? Joon-ho Bong's The Host (Gwoemul) (July 27) is a hilarious monster film set in the polluted Han River in South Korea. Bob Dolman's How to Eat Fried Worms (Aug. 25), based on the 1973 children's book by Norman Rockwell's son Thomas Rockwell stars Luke Benward as Billy, who accepts a bully's challenge to eat 15 worms in 15 days; "New town. New friends. New menu." Carlos Saldanha's Ice Age: The Meltdown (Mar. 31) features a return of Diego, Manny and Sid; #9 movie of 2006 ($195M). Douglas McGrath's Infamous (Aug. 31) (Warner Bros.), based on the 1997 George Plimpton book "Truman Capote: In Which Various Friends, Enemies, Acquaintances, and Detractors Recall his Turbulent Career" stars Toby Jones as Truman Capote, Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee, Lee Pace as Richard Hickock, Daniel Craig as Perry Smith, and Jeff Daniels as DA Alvin Dewey; does $2.6M box office on a $13M budget. Neil Burger's The Illusionist (Aug. 18) (Yari Film Group), based on a short story by Steven Millhauser stars Edward Norton as magician Eisenheim in 1889 Vienna, whose childhood sweetheart Sophie (Jessica Biel) is controlled by mean crown prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), causing him to use all his powers to get her away from him, while Inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) tries to keep him from going to prison or worse; does $88M box office on a $16.5M budget. Spike Lee's Inside Man (Mar. 24) (Universal Pictures), written by Russell Gewirtz stars Clive Owen as bank robber Dalton Russell, who pulls off a perfect heist, not money but evidence against Manhattan Trust Bank chmn. Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), ending in a hostage situation with Det. Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) and power broker Madeleine White (Jodie Foster); does $184.4M box office on a $45M budget; "This time next week I'll be sucking down pina coladas in a hot tub with six girls named Amber and Tiffany" (Russell); "More like taking a shower with two guys named Jamal and Jesus, if you know what I mean. And here's the bad news. That thingy you're sucking on, it's not a pina colada." (Frazier) Jet Li's Jet Li's Fearless (Sept. 22) is the story of Chinese martial artist Huo Yuanjia; Li's last martial arts film? Phil Morrison's Junebug (Feb. 22) stars George Johnsten as Alessandro Nivola, an art dealer from Chicago who travels to N.C. to meet his wife Madeline's (Embeth Davidtz) dysfunctional in-laws and gets into their problems. Jason Reitman's Juno (Sept. 1) stars Ellen Page as pregnant Minn. teenager Juno MacGuff, who decides to adopt it out to a wealthy couple she finds in "Pennysaver", Mark and Vanessa Loring (Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner). Wayne Wang's Last Holiday (Jan. 13), a remake of the 1950 film by J.B. Priestley stars Queen Latifah as dept. store employee Georgia Byrd, who learns she has incurable terminal (fictional) Lampington's Disease, and decides to cash her life savings and live it up in the Grandhotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary, Czech Repub. Kevin Macdonald's The Last King of Scotland (Sept. 27) (Fox Searchlight Pictures) stars Forrest Whitaker as man-boy-devil Idi Amin Dada, dictator of Uganda during the 1970s; James McAvoy plays Scottish physician Nicholas Garrigan, whom Amin takes under his wing because his time in the British army taught him to love all things Scottish as symbolic of resistance against the "British conqueror"; Garrigan falls for Amin's charm, then guess what?; the movie is run, manned, and acted by real Scots, and filmed in Uganda, making for an interesting dir.'s cut?; does $48.4M box office on a $6M budget; "We've got no monkeys in Scotland." Christopher Browne's and Alex Browne's A League of Ordinary Gentlemen (Mar. 21) is a documentary film about 10-pin bowling starring PBA stars Pete Weber, Walter Ray Williams Jr., Chris Barnes, and Wayne Webb; it debuts on PBS-TV on Apr. 25, 2006. Laurence Dunmore's The Libertine (Mar. 10), adapted by Stephen Jeffreys from his play stars Johnny Depp as the debauched 2nd Earl of Rochester in 1670s Britain, whoring, drinking, writing porno plays and hanging out with "Merry Monarch" Charles II before his face falls off from syphilis? Todd Field's Little Children (Nov. 3) stars Kate Winslet and Gregg Edelman as Sarah and Richard Pierce, Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Wilson as Kathy and Brad Adamson, and Jackie Earle Haley as registered sex offender Ronnie J. McGorvey in an updated Madame Bovary. Jonathan Dayton's and Valerie Faris' Little Miss Sunshine (Aug. 18) (husband-wife team of dirs.) is about the Hoover family, who travel in their yellow VW van from Albuquerque, N.M. to Redondo Beach, Calif. to attend a beauty contest, taking an erratic course that puzzles fans, ending up in Scottsdale, Ariz., and at one point showing an I-10 sign in the wrong part of the journey? Ramesh Flinders, Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried's lonelygirl15 (June 16) is an interactive Web-based YouTube video series focusing on the diary of fictional teenie girl Bree, played by Jessica Lee Rose (1987), who is chased by the evil Order (ends Aug. 1, 2008); it gets 110M+ combined views, becoming the most popular show on the Internet of the year. Richard Shepard's The Matador (Jan. 27) stars Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear in a new dark twist on the buddy movie genre. J.J. Abrams' Mission: Impossible III (May 5) stars Tom Cruise as Eatin, er, Ethan Hunt, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as evil arms dealer Owen Davian, who fight over the Rabbit's Foot; does $398M box office on a $150M budget. Chris Noonan's Miss Potter (Dec. 3) (MGM)) stars Rene Zellweger as Peter Rabbit creator Beatrix, and Ewan McGregor as her young publisher in the English Lake District; does $35M box office on a $30M budget. Shawn Levy's Night at the Museum (Dec. 17) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 1999 children's book by Milan Trenc stars Ben Stiller as divorced father night watchman Larry Daley, who deals with a magical Egyptian object tthat makes the exhibits at the Am. Museum of Natural History in New York City come to life at night; #2 movie of 2006 ($251M U.S. and $574.5M worldwide box office on a $110M budget). Patrick Stettner's The Night Listener (Aug. 4), based on the 2000 Armistead Maupin novel stars Robin Williams as gay "dick smoker" late night talk show host Gabriel "Noone at Night", and Toni Collette as the adoptive mother of abused dying 14-y.-o. Peter Logand in a Hitchcockian noir about a woman with Munchausen's Syndrome by Phantom Proxy?; does $10.6M box office on a $3M budget. Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal (Dec. 25) (Fox Searchlight Pictures), based on the 2003 Zoe Heller novel stars Cate Blanchett as Sheba Hart, and and Judi Dench as Barbara Covett, a young and an old teacher in London, who have a sick pseudo-lez affair while Sheba hooks up with 15-y.-o. student Steven Connolly (Andrew Simpson) and gets them both in trouble; soundtrack by Philip Glass; does $49.8M box office on a $15M budget. Michel Hazanavicius' OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (Apr. 19) is a spy spoof starring Jean Dujardin as French secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath AKA OSS 117, an ex-trapeze artist who sports a goofy grin and suffers from vertigo; sequel OSS 117: Lost in Rio (Apr. 15, 2009) features a hilarious scene of trying to BBQ a crocodile. Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (May 27) (El Laberinto del Fauno) (Warner Bros.), about 11-y.-o. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) during the Spanish Civil War and her meetings with a remarkable beast is a remake of Hansel and Gretel combined with the 1997 72-day kidnapping of del Toro's father in Mexico, which caused his family to move to Spain; does $83.3M box office on a $19M budget. Satoshi Kon's Paprika (Nov. 25) is a Japanime about police detective Konakawa, who suffers fantastic nightmaries haunted by the sprite Paprika, the avatar of lady scientist Dr. Atsuko Chiba, and features flute-playing frogs and a disturbing metaphorical dream rape. Victor Salva's Peaceful Warrior (June 2), based on the 1980 book by Dan Millman stars Scott Mechlowicz as Dan Millman, and Nick Nolte as "Soc" Socrates. Stephen and Timothy Quay's The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes stars Amira Casar as a beautiful opera singer, Cesar Sarachu as a lovesick piano tuner, Gottfried John as a mad scientist who keeps a clitoris in a display case, and Assumpta Serna as his housekeeper vamp who seduces the piano tuner by inviting him to smell her armpits - MC Hammer U can't touch this? Wolfgang Petersen's Poseidon (May 12), a remake of the 1972 film stars Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, and Richard Dreyfuss; brings in $201.4M on a $160M budget. Stephen Frears' The Queen (Sept. 2) (Granada Productions) (Pathe Pictures), about the stiff royal reaction to Princess Diana's Aug. 31, 1997 death and the public's rage at the perceived lack of sympathy, causing the queen to stump to save the monarchy stars Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II, James Cromwell as Prince Philip, Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, Helen McCrory as Cherie Blair, Sylvia Syms as the Queen Mother, and Alex Jennings as Prince Charles; does Ł77.9M box office on a Ł9.8M budget. Christopher Nolan's The Prestige (Oct. 17 (Warner Bros.)), based on the 1995 Christopher Priest novel is about feuding magicians Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) in Victorian England; 73-y.-o. Michael Caine is the narrator and stage engineer John Cutter; Scarlett Johansson plays Angier's asst.-lover Olivia Wenscombe; David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla; Andy Serkis plays Tesla's asst. Mr. Alley; does $109.7M box office on a $40M budget. Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn (Sept. 9) (MGM), bsed on the true story of U.S. Navy Lt. Dieter Dengler in Laos in 1966 stars Christian Bale as Dengler; does $7.1M box office on a $10M budget. Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa (Dec. 20), the 6th and last (until next time?) of the Rocky saga features an Adrian-less champ trying to prove that 60 is the new 30 as he battles Mason "The Line" Dixon (real-life boxer Antonio Tarver) in Las Vegas. Ryan Murphy's Running With Scissors (Oct. 27), based on the Augusten Burroughs memoir stars Annette Bening as aspiring Anne Sexton-like poet Deirdre Burroughs, who uses her young boy Augusten as her audience; Jill Clayburgh plays the wife of the boy's pshrink. Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly (May 25), based on the 1977 Philip K. Dick novel stars Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr., and Rory Cochrane, about a future world of drug addicts who live under intrusive hi-tech police surveillance; uses an interpolated rotorscope on digital footage to give the film an animated look. Woody Allen's Scoop (July 28) (BBC Films) (Focus Features) stars Scarlett Johansson as Sondra Pransky, an Am. journalism student in London who scoops a big story on the Tarot Card Killer serial ho murderer and has a fling with the suspect, aristocrat Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman); Allen plays magician Sid Waterman "the Great Splenidini"; does $39M box office on a $4M budget. Gregory Dark's See No Evil (May 19) (original title "Eye Scream Man") (WWE Films) (Lionsgate Films) is about axe murderer Jacob Goodnight (WWE star Kane), who gouges out eyes, Christina Vidal as Christine Zarate, Samantha Noble as Kira Vanning, and Luke Pegler as Michael Montross; does $18.6M box office on a $8M budget. David Von Ancken's Seraphim Falls (Sept. 13) stars Pierce Brosnan as Carver, who is hunted down by mean ex-Civil War Col. Carver (Liam Neeson) in the frozen wilderness. Andy Fickman's She's the Man (Mar. 17), loosely based on Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" stars Amanda Byrnes as Viola Hastings, who cross-dresses and enters her brother's school in his place in order to play boys' soccer; "Everybody has a secret... Duke wants Olivia who likes Sebastian who is really Viola whose brother is dating Monique so she hates Olivia who's with Duke to make Sebastian jealous who is really Viola who's crushing on Duke who thinks she's a guy"; does $57M box office on a $20M budget. Christophe Gans' Silent Hill (Apr. 21) (Davis Films), adapted from the 1999 Konami video game about the Brethren pagan cult that burns those deemed witches to maintain a sinless existence and prevent the Apocalypse stars Radha Mitchell as Rose Da Silva, Sean Bean as her hubby Christopher, Laurie Holden as police officer Cybil Bennett, Jodelle Ferland as psychic Alessa Gillespie, and Deborah Kara Unger as her mother Dahlia; Alice Krige plays Brethren high priestess Christabella; Roberto Campanella plays Pyramid Head; does $97.6M box office on a $50M budget; followed by "Silent Hill: Revelation" (2012). James Gunn's Slither (Mar. 31) stars Michael Rooker as Wheelsy, S.C. car dealer Grant Grant, who is taken over by an ET parasite, and tries to infect the rest of Earth until he is "all that is"; does $12.8m box office on a $15M budget. David R. Ellis' Snakes on a Plane (Aug. 18) stars Samuel L. Jackson as FBI agent Neville Flynn, who accompanies Sean Jones (Nathan Phillips), witness against mobster Eddie Kim (Byron Lawson) on redeye Pacific Air Flight 121 from Honolulu to Los Angeles, and finds that the mobsters have filled the planes with a multitude of mean killer snakes from around the planet in an attempt to make it crash; a movie whose very title suggests its plot and makes it a hit?; features Bring It! (Snakes on a Plane Theme) by Cobra Starship. Tom Vaughan's Starter for 10 (Sept. 13), based on the 2003 David Nicholls novel stars James McAvoy as young Brian Jackson, who goes from working class roots to airy Bristol U., where he comes of age with his mealy-mouth Brit accent and cheats on the Challenge finale to get in the pants of hot blonde babe Alice Harbinson (Alice Eve), although he really loves Rebecca Epstein (Rebecca Hall), whom he jilts for her; after getting caught, guess what, he redeems himself like a man? Rob Cohen's Stealth (July 29) is a sci-fi thriller about U.S. Navy super hi-tech starring Jamie Foxx, Jessica Biel, Josh Lucas and Sam Shepard; too bad, it does $77M in box office on a $135M budget - since after 9/11 who believes the U.S. govt. can protect them from terrorists with anything they got? Marc Forster's Stranger Than Fiction (Nov. 10) stars Will Ferrell as IRS auditor Harold Crick, who is haunted by a narrator that only he can hear; when the narrator reveals that he's about to die, he hunts the author of the story to convince her to change the ending. Bryan Singer's Superman Returns (June 28) stars Brandon Routh as Clark Kent, Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, Sam Huntington as Jimmy Olsen, Frank Langella as Perry White, and Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor; #7 movie of 2006 ($200M). Jason Reitman's Thank You for Smoking (Apr. 14), based on the Christopher Buckley novel stars Aaron Eckhart as Nick Naylor, a member of the MOD (Merchants of Death) Squad, which incl. Polly Bailey (Maria Bello) of the liquor industry and Bobby Jay Bliss (David Koechner) of the firearm industry in a friendly competition. Adam McKay's Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Aug. 4) stars Will Ferrell as #1 NASCAR driver Ricky Bobby, who leans on his teammate Cal Naughton Jr. (John C. Reilly); also features Mos Def and Elvis Costello. Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Feb. 3) stars Tommy Lee Jones as ranch hand Pete Perkins, who promises his best friend that he will bury him in his hometown in Mexico. Kurt Wimmer's Ultraviolet (Mar. 3), based on the comic book stars supermodel Milla "Lite" Jovovich as a kick-ass futuristic chop-sockey Joan of Arc with purple hair in a movie about retaining belief in God despite all the attempts of man to play God with genetic engineering?; the state of the art in action movies, combining American, Japanese, and Chinese with cool industrial rock music and artistic touches to every kill. Paul Greengrass' United 93 (Apr. 28), released on DVD on Sept. 5, 1 week before the 5th anniv. of 9/11 depicts the final hours of the plane whose heroic passengers struck back against the raghead terrorist coward bums, only have it crash in a Penn. field; the survivors' families authorize the film and get 10% of the first weekend's box office; federal East Coast air traffic operations mgr. Ben Sliney plays himself. Henriette Mantel and Steve Skrovan's An Unreasonable Man is a documentary about ever-more-inflexible Ralph Nader (1934-), who still doesn't admit he caused Bore, er, Gore to lose the 2000 election, saying, "He knows he didn't do the best campaign... an excessively cautious campaign." James McTeigue's V for Vendetta (Mar. 17) (an Andy and Larry Wachowski film), based on a 1989 graphic novel by Alan Moore stars John Hurt as the Chairman, the British Norsefire dictator crushing TV production asst. Evey (Natalie Portman) (who has her head shaved onscreen by Jeremy Goodhead, er, Woodhead to the slogan "Strength Through Unity, Unity Through Faith", while the ever-masked you-go-weaving-and-I-go-weaving V (Hugo Weaving) (a Guy-Fawkes-masked Count of Monte Cristo reject transported to the 21st cent.?), named for the slogan from Christopher Marlowe's "Faust" ("Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici" - "By the power of truth, I, a living man, have conquered the Universe") fights the evil govt., tipping over 22K dominoes to form a giant letter V; "England Prevails" (BTN host Lewis Prothero); James Purefoy was originally cast as V. Ismail Merchant's and James Ivory's The White Countess (Dec. 21), based on a Kazuo Ishiguro novel stars Ralph Fiennes as blinded U.S. diplomat Todd Jackson, and Natasha Richardson as White Russian countess Sofia Belinskaya in the 1936 White Countess bar in Shanghai; the last Merchant-Ivory film, as Ismail Merchant (b. 1936) died on May 25, 2005 while working on the postproduction. Oliver Stone's World Trade Center (Aug. 9) stars Nicolas Cage et al. as New York firefighters at you-know-what, and abandons Stone's usual conspiracy theory mindset for a feel-good-America we-saved-them ring-the-cash-registers ending? Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand (May 26) sees the mutants split after a cure is found; #4 movie of 2006 ($234M). Art: Joellyn Duesberry, Spring Creek Flowing to the Yellowstone River in Montana (painting). Emilio Lobato, Descansolado (with Solice) (collage). A year for frantically churned-out books attempting to explain why America seems to be tottering on the brink? Nonfiction: Shinzo Abe (1954-), Toward a Beautiful Nation (July); claims that Japanese WWII Class A war criminals were not really criminals in the eyes of Japanese domestic law. Bruce Arnold Ackerman (1943-), Before the Next Attack: Preserving Civil Liberties in An Age of Terrorism; implementing an emergency constitution. Peter Ackroyd (1949-), Turner. Fouad A. Ajami (1945-), The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq. Madeleine Albright, (1937-) The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs; separation of church and state vs. the religious regimes? Jay Allison and Dan Gediman (eds.) This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women. Gloria Allred (1941-), Fight Back and Win: My Thirty-Year Fight Against Injustice and How You Can Wind Your Own Battles. Jonathan Alter (1957-), The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope; the U.S. came close to dictatorship before FDR was elected? Jonathan Ames (1964-), I Love You More Than You Know (essays); "(S)ex scenes and bathroom jokes are my bread and butter". Christopher Peter Andersen (1949-), Barbra: The Way She Is. Kurt Anderson, Graydon Carter and George Kalogerakis, Spy: The Funny Years. George-Marios Angeletos (1975-) and Ivan Werning (1974-), Crises and Prices: Information Aggregation, Multiplicity, and Volatility. Debby Applegate (1968-), The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher (first book) (Pulitzer Prize). Karen Armstrong (1944-), Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time. Jacques Attali, A Brief History of the Future. Andrew Bacevich, Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War. Michael Baigent (1948-), The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-up in History (Easter); claims secret papers prove that Jesus survived his crucifixion; an obvious attempt to cash in on the Dan Brown bandwagon? - no one touches my buttons but me? Mike G.L. Baillie, New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection; he global environmental downturn in 540 C.E. Stephen Baldwin (1966-), The Unusual Suspect (autobio.); how he became a born-again Christian after 9/11, and co-founded Breakthrough Ministries, changed to Antioch Ministries in 2008. Robert Bauval (1948-), The Egypt Code (Oct.). Bruce Bawer (1956-), While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within (Feb. 21); a takeoff on JFK's 1940 book "While Europe Slept"; how the its archenemy Islam is infiltrating the West with mass Islamic migration financed by free govt. handouts while the leaders have their heads in the sand because of the leftist PC establishment; the Nat. Book Critics Circle Award committee disses it as "Islamophobia"; "While there are such things as moderate and liberal Christianity, there is no such thing as a moderate or liberal Islam". Moazzam Begg, Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey to Guantanamo and Back; the first memoirs of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner? Robert L. Beir and (with Brian Josepher), Roosevelt and the Holocaust: A Rooseveltian Examines the Politics and Remembers the Times; a response to David Wyman's "The Abandonment of the Jews". Marshall Berman (1940-), On the Town: One Hundred Years of Spectacle in Town Square. Herbert Benson (1935-), Aggie Casey, and Brian O'Neill, The Harvard Medical School Guide to Lowering Your Blood Pressure. Josh Bernstein, Digging for the Truth: One Man's Epic Adventure Exploring the World's Greatest Archaeological Mysteries; the Indiana Jones hat and jacket and everything? Tanya Biank, Under the Sabers: The Unwritten Code of Army Wives. Kola Boof (1969-), Diary of a Lost Girl (autobio.); Osama bin Laden's Sudanese mistress tells how he used to fantasize about killing Bobby Brown and getting Whitney Houston into his harem? Wayne Clayson Booth (1921-2005), My Many Selves: The Quest for a Plausible Harmony (autobio.) (posth.). Gabor S. Borritt (1940-), The Gettysburg Gospel: The Lincoln Speech Nobody Knows. John Botte, Aftermath: Unseen 9/11 Photos by a New York City Cop. Anthony Bourdain (1956-2018), The Nasty Bits: Collected Varietal Cuts, Usable Trim, Scraps, and Bones (May 16). James Bowman, Honor: A History; the "tyranny of the face". Peter Boxall, 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. James Bradley and Ron Powers, Flags of Our Fathers; the six soldiers in the Mt. Suribachi photo. Taylor Branch (1947-), At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968. Ian Bremmer (1969-), The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall. Douglas Brinkley (1960-), The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast; Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism. Rosa Brooks (1020-), Jane Stromseth, and David Wippman, Can Might Make Rights? Building the Rule of Law After Military Interventions; helps shape U.S. army praxis. David Jay Brown, Mavericks of Medicine: Exploring the Future of Medicine with Andrew Weil, Jack Kevorkian, Bernie Siegel, Ray Kurzweil, and Others (Jan. 1). Ethan Brown, Queens Reigns Supreme: Fat Cat, 50 Cent, and the Rise of the Hip-Hop Hustler. Judith M. Brown, Global South Asians: Introducing the Modern Diaspora. Pascal Bruckner (1948-), , The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism (La Tyrannie de la Penitence: Essai sur le Masochisme Occidental); tr. Steven Rendall, 2010; how the West has been guilt-tripping itself, opening it up to mass invasion from Africa and the Muslim World without a protest; "Nothing is more Western than hatred of the West... All of modern thought can be reduced to mechanical denunciations of the West, emphasizing the latter's hypocrisy, violence, and abomination", which has led Westerners to romanticize the "South" (Africa and the Middle East) as innocent victims, and revile Israel; "Europe relieves itself of the crime of the Shoah by blaming Israel, it relieves itself of the sin of colonialism by blaming the United States", hence the Palestinian question has "quietly relegitimated hatred of the Jews", making Europe "the sick man of the planet"; meanwhile the U.S. is "the last great nation in the West" because "Whereas America asserts itself, Europe questions itself"; "The white man has sown grief and ruin wherever he has gone." Frederick Buechner (1926-), Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons. Avraham Burg (1955-), God is Back. Kenneth Burke (1897-1993), Essays Toward a Symbolic of Motives (posth.). Augusten Burroughs (1965-), Possible Side Effects (essays). Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance; "With extreme religious believers, if you insult God, you insult them." Bill Bryson (1951-), The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir. Rhonda Byrne (1951-), The Secret (Nov. 26); bestseller (19M copies); promotes the New Age Law of Attraction. Caroline Burau, Answering 911: Life in the Hot Seat; 911 emergency operator on 9/11. James MacGregor Burns (1918-2014), Running Alone: Presidential Leadership - JFK to Bush II: Why It Has Failed and How We Can Fix It (Sept.). Paul Burrell, Diana, the Way We Were; her former butler says she said, "I need a new marriage like I need a rash", referring to Dodi Fayed. Augusten Burroughs, Possible Side Effects: True Stories. Thomas Cahill (1940-), Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe. Gail Caldwell, A Strong West Wind; a memoir by a book reviewer? Julia Cameron (1949-), Floor Sample (autobio.); former wife of Martin Scorsese and founder of the Artist's Way workshops. Peter Ames Carlin, Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall & Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. Cynthia Carr, Our Town. James P. Carroll (1943-), House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power; son of Defense Intel. Agency dir. James Carroll grows up with the Pentagon; "Beware the House of War when understood as the House of God." Linda Carroll, Her Mother's Daughter: A Memoir of the Mother I Never Knew and of My Daughter, Courtney Love; her oldest child is the lead singer of Hole, and the widow of Kurt Cobain, who binded together pharmaceutically, and is herself really the daughter of children's book author Paula Fox? Jimmy Carter (1924-), Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid; shit-for-brains leftist paints outrageous fantasy of the Palestinian people as peaceful and oppressed, and Israelis as Nazis; how Israel's "occupying, confiscating and colonizing land that belongs to the Palestinians... perpetrates even worse instances of... apartheid than we witnessed in South Africa"; starts a furor, causing 14 Carter Center advisory board members to resign. Richard Carwardine, Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power. Shari Caudron, Who Are You People?; Barbie doll collectors and tornado chasers. Marcia Cavell, Becoming a Subject. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. Julia Child (1912-2004) (posth.) and Alex Prud'homme (her grand-nephew), My Life in France. Noam Chomsky (1928-), Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance; endorsed by Pres. Hugo Chavez. Deepak Chopra (1946-), Life After Death: The Burden of Proof; Kama Sutra: Including the Seven Spiritual Laws of Love. Robin Chotzinoff, Holy Unexpected: My New Life as a Jew. Diane Cilento (1933-), My Nine Lives (autobio.); former wife of James Bond 007 (1962-73). Andrei Codrescu (1946-), New Orleans, Mon Amour: Twenty Years of Writing from the City; Dialogues in Cyberspace with Robert Lazu. Diablo Cody (1978-), Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper; known for her Pussy Ranch blog and writing the screenplay plus an Oscar for "Juno" (2007). Jonathan Coe, Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson [1933-73] - raising or lowering the bar on experimental novels? Terry Coleman, Olivier [1907-89]; all the warts? Francis S. Collins (1950-), The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief; how he found God at age 27 by reading C.S. Lewis. Anderson Cooper, Dispatches From the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival. David Cope (1941-), Computer Models of Musical Creativity. Jerome Robert Corsi (1946-) and Kenneth Blackwell, Rebuilding America: A Prescription for Creating Strong Families, Building the Wealth of Working People, and Ending Welfare. Ann Coulter (1961-), Godless: The Church of Liberalism (June 12); the new state religion, with its sacrament of abortion, its holy writ of Roe v. Wade, its churches disguised as govt. schools (where prayer is prohibited and condoms are free), and its founding creation myth of Darwinian evolution? Lynne Cox (1957-), Grayson; her encounter with a lost baby gray whale off the coast of Calif. William Dalrymple, The Last Mughal. Mary Daly (1928-2010), Amazon Grae: Recalling the Courage to Sin Big; her war with Boston College to get away with excluding men from her radical feminist theology classes. John Clagett Danforth (1936-) Faith and Politics; decries the infiltration of U.S. politics by the religious right. Nonie Darwish (1949-), Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror; Egyptian-born Muslim who founded Arabs for Israel. Richard Dawkins (1941-), The God Delusion; first crusading atheist book to make it to #6 on the NYT nonfiction list. John W. Dean (1938-), Conservatives Without Conscience; pink-faced pigs like Cheney and Rove as the amoral power behind the Bush throne and the new political authoritarians. Frank Delaney (1942-), Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea; Capt. Henrik Kurt Carlsen and the "Flying Enterprise" in 1951-2. Daniel Dennett (1942-), Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. Alan Dershowitz (1938-), The Case for Israel; an attempted rebuttal of Norman Finkelstein, arguing that the Palestinians are led by a known Nazi war criminal and are dedicated to Jewish genocide - if you give me a blood sample I can extract the antigens? Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell. Lou Dobbs, War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back (Oct.). E.L. Doctorow (1931-), The Creationists: Selected Essays 1993-2006; 16 essays on creative people, from Genesis to the A-bomb; "Composition is the reigning enterprise of the human mind"; "Whatever any author says of his novel, is of course another form of fiction and is never to be taken on faith"; "We are what we create"; "There is no necessary equivalence between the aesthetic and moral achievement of a novel and the confused, drunken and tormented or immoral package of humanity who has produced it". Christophe Dubois and Christophe Deloire, Sexus Politicus; sex and politics in France; big hit in France. Kitty Dukakis (1936-), Shock: The Healing Power of Electroconvulsive Therapy; admits to undergoing the therapy starting in 2001 to treat depression. Michael Eric Dyson, Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. William Easterly (1957-), The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good; reply to Jeffrey Sachs' "The End of Poverty" (2005), dissing foreign aid donors as ineffective do-gooders, and dividing them into top-down Planners and bottom-up Searchers, the latter having the best chance of success. Bob Edgar, Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right (Sept.). Robert Morse Edsel (1956-), Rescuing Da Vinci: Hitler and the Nazis Stole Europe's Great Art - America and Her Allies Recovered It (Dec. 15). Elizabeth Edwards (1949-2010), Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers (autobio.). Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy; a 60s hippie child should know? Bart Ehrman, The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot. Rahm Emanuel (1959-) and Bruce Reed, The Plan: Big Ideas for America; incl. universal college access and child health care. Ken Emerson, Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and the Brilliance of the Brill Building Era. Steven Emerson (1953-), Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S. Nora Ephron (1941-), I Feel Bad About My Neck. Joseph Epstein (1937-), Friendship: An Expose; Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy's Guide. Susan Estrich, The Case for Hillary Clinton; the perfect candidate for 2008 (moderate, pro-military, family-values Dem.)? Khaled Abou El Fadl (1963-), The Search for Beauty in Islam: Conference of the Books. Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports. Peter Falk (1927-), Just One More Thing (autobio.). Niall Ferguson (1964-), The War of the World: History's Age of Hatred (Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West); about the incomprehensible 20th cent., the "lethal century", with a global multi-polar Hundred Years War, attempting to explain the paradox that even though it was "so bloody" it was also "a time of unparalleled progress." Charles Fishman, The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works, and How It's Transforming the American Economy. Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East; "It was an interesting precedent. When Iraq almost sank an American frigate [in 1987], Iran was to blame. When Al-Qaeda attacked the United States fourteen years later, Iraq was to blame." Tim Flannery, The Weather Makers: The History and Future Impact of Climate Change; "Global warming changes climate in jerks". Jonathan Franzen (1959-), The Discomfort Zone (memoir). Francis Fukuyama (1952-), America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Nonconservative Legacy; After the Neo Cons: Where the Right Went Wrong. Tess Gallagher (1943-), Soul Barnacles (essays); Words Like Distant Rain. Oded Galor (1956-) and Omer Moav, Das Human Kapital: A Theory of the Demise of the Class Structure. Norman Geras et al., The Euston Manifesto (Mar.); attempts to mobilize the traditions of British liberalism and the dem. left against the totalitarianism of radical Islam. Sir Martin Gilbert (1936-), Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction; The Somme: Heroism and Horror in the First World War. Jim Gilchrist and Jerome Robert Corsi (1946-), Minutemen: The Battle to Secure America's Borders; 30M illegals in the U.S. now, and 100M by 2025, oh my? Charles Glass (1951-), The Tribes Triumphant (June); sequel to "Tribes With Flags" (1991); The Northern Front: An Iraq War Diary (Oct.). William H. Glass, A Temple of Texts; a list of his 50 most treasured writers for the remnant who still read; "Misinformation alley is a more apt designation for the Internet, although it is lined with billboards called 'Web sites', obscuring whatever might been seen from the road." Jane Glover, Mozart's Women: His Family, His Friends, His Music. Rebecca Goldstein (1950-), Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity. Eva Golinger, The Chavez Code: Cracking U.S. Intervention in Venezuela. Jeff Goodell, Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future; the avg. American uses 20 lbs. of coal a day, and he tells us why that ain't good; "Coal is the only energy source that requires workers to put their lives on the line on a daily basis." Doris Kearns Goodwin (1943-), Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. Adam Gopnik (1956-), Through the Children's Gate; how to live in a world where J.D. Salinger co-opted all writing about children in New York City as symbols of innocence? Al Gore (1948-), An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It (May 24); pub. by Rodale Press in Emmaus, Penn.; the cover photo shows huge smokestacks belching a complete tornado; "I am Al Gore, and I used to be the next president of the United States of America"; "You see that pale, blue dot? That's us. Everything that has ever happened in all of human history, has happened on that pixel. All the triumphs and all the tragedies, all the wars all the famines, all the major advances... it's our only home. And that is what is at stake, our ability to live on planet Earth, to have a future as a civilization. I believe this is a moral issue, it is your time to seize this issue, it is our time to rise again to secure our future"; "As for why so many people still resist what the facts clearly show, I think, in part, the reason is that the truth about the climate crisis is an inconvenient one that means we are going to have to change the way we live our lives"; "Global warming, along with the cutting and burning of forests and other critical habitats, is causing the loss of living species at a level comparable to the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. That event was believed to have been caused by a giant asteroid. This time it is not an asteroid colliding with the Earth and wreaking havoc: it is us"; "Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, 'What were our parents thinking? Why didn't they wake up when they had a chance?' We have to hear that question from them, now"; "The scientists are virtually screaming from the rooftops now. The debate is over! There's no longer any debate in the scientific community about this. But the political systems around the world have held this at arm's length because it's an inconvenient truth, because they don't want to accept that it's a moral imperative"; "It is appropriate to have an over representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are, and how hopeful it is that we are going to solve this crisis"; "An Inconvenient Truth is so convincing that it makes opposers of the argument as credible as Holocaust deniers" (Jon Niccum); released along with a film (May 24), which does $24M U.S. and $26M worldwide box office, which is followed by An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power (July 28, 2017), which only grosses $5M worldwide; "I don't think anybody can prepare on a physical level. It isn't possible to prepare for what is about to happen. The Pentagon gives us one to three years left of normal life on this planet. Now you have Al Gore's movie 'An Inconvenient Truth', whom I find very optimistic, as he gives us ten years. But I don't know a single scientist on the planet who gives us ten years or anybody else who gives us that long. What the Pentagon talks about is the rapid changes in climate, making it impossible to live in certain areas. Exactly where those areas are, they don't know" (Drunvalo Melchizedek); the book is followed by the sequel Our Choice (original title: The Path to Survival) (Nov. 2009) - or, drowning polar bears, submerged mainly Dem. Manhattan and San Fran, and why I shoulda been president then grew a beard to save electricity? Amit Goswami, The Visionary Window: A Quantum Physicist's Guide to Enlightenment. Greg Grandin, Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism; the Reagan admin. intervention in Central Am. was a dress rehearshal for Bush's Iraq War? Simon Gray (1936-2008), The Year of the Jouncer (autobio.). Gael Greene (1935-), Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess (autobio.); her sexual encounter with Elvis Presley. Joshua M. Greene, Here Comes the Sun: The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison; "George had his rock and roll friends and he had his transcendental friends, and he liked to keep them separate." Robert Greene (1959-), The 33 Strategies of War. Steven Macon Greer (1955-), Hidden Truth, Forbidden Knowledge. Scott Griffin (1938-), My Heart Is Africa (autobio.); his 1996-7 experiences working for the Flying Doctors Service in Africa. John Grisham (1955-), The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (first non-fiction title); Oakland Athletics draft pick Ronald Keith Williamson (1953-2004) is convicted of murder in Ada, Okla., spends 12 years in priz, and DNA testing sets him free five days before his execution. Stanislav Grof (1931-), The Ultimate Journey: Consciousness and the Mystery of Death. John Grogan, Marley & Me; his dog. Tom Groneberg, One Good Horse: Learning to Train and Trust a Horse. Jurgen Habermas (1929-), The Divided West. Rebecca Hagelin, Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in A Culture That's Gone Stark Raving Mad. Earl Hamner Jr. (1923-), Generous Women: An Appreciation; by the creator of "The Waltons". Sam Harris (1967-), Letter to a Christian Nation; how religion is the root cause of all wars and a threat to the world, and the solution lies in giving up belief in God and becoming a secular atheist; "Many who claim to be transformed by Christ's love are deeply, even murderously, intolerant of criticism"; "People are literally dying over ancient literature." Gary Hart (1936-), The Shield & The Cloak: The Security of the Commons; the U.S., nation-states, and nonstate actors; the military is the shield and the non-military is the cloak; The Courage of Our Convictions: A Manifesto for Dems.; quit abandoning the legacy of FDR, Truman, JFK and LBJ? - and elect Barack Obama? Robert Harvey, American Shogun: A Tale of Two Cultures; gen. Douglas MacArthur and emperor Hirohito. Christian Hellwig (1976-) et al., Self-Fulfilling Currency Crises: The Role of Interest Rates; shows that when prices act as an endogenous public signal and private info. is sufficiently precise, equilibrium multiplicity may be restored. Daniel Hendrex and Wes Smith, A Soldier's Promise: The Heroic True Story of an American Soldier and an Iraqi Boy; 13-y.-o. Iraqi boy Jamil (Steve-O) turns on his Repub. Guard daddy and helps U.S. forces fight insurgents to gain asylum for himself, mother and siblings, later IDing Sayed, the insurgent who killed his mother. Peter Hessler, Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present. Esther Hicks (1948-) and Jerry Hicks, The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent: Living the Art of Allowing; The Law of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham (Oct.). Charles Higham (1931-2012), Dark Lady: Winston Churchill's Mother and Her World; Jennie Churchill. Ben Hills, Princess Masako: Prisoner of the Chrysanthemum Throne (Dec.); a Harvard grad. gives up a diplomatic career to marry royalty; Japanese pub. house Kodansha Ltd. cancels plans to trans. it into Japanese next Feb. Harold E. Hinds, Marilyn Ferris Motz, and Angela M.S. Nelson (eds.), Popular Culture Theory and Methodology: A Basic Introduction. E.D. Hirsch Jr. (1928-), The Knowledge Deficit; how the schools deemphasize reading, graduating knowledge-deficient students. Andrew Carrington Hitchcock, The Synagogue of Satan; 2nd ed. 2012; claims that Ashkenazi Jews are behind Communism and want to exterminate Christians. David Albert Hollinger (1941-) and Charles Capper (eds.), The American Intellectual Tradition (2 vols.); a source book for undergrad courses in Am. intellectual history that becomes very popular. Jed Horne, Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City. David Joel Horowitz (1939-), Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party; "The Shadow Party is the real power driving the Democrat machine. It is a network of radicals dedicated to transforming our constitutional republic into a socialist hive"; The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America; tenured radicals like Ward Churchill and his socialist feminist colleague Allison Jaggar, who advocates reengineering men's bodies to share childbearing duties? Robert Hughes (1938-), Things I Didn't Know (autobio.). Swanee Hunt, Half-Life of a Zealot (autobio.); daughter of billionaire H.L. Hunt turns liberal and becomes Clinton's ambassador to Vienna. Andrew Hussey, Paris: The Secret History. Patrick Hynes, In Defense of the Religious Right: Why Conservatives Are the Lifeblood of the Republican Party and Why That Terrifies the Democrats. Robert Irwin (1946-), For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies; critique of Edward Said's "Orientalism" (1978), which he calls "malignant charlatanry, in which it is hard to distinguish honest mistakes from willful misrepresentations", pointing out that his criticism focuses on British and French scholars, when it was the German ones who made the most original contributions, and ignores Russia's imperialist designs on C Asia and the Caucasus, lumping them in with the other Euro countries who had designs on the Middle East, finally noting that Western Orientalism "owes more to Muslim scholarship than most Muslims realise"; "I am a medievalist, but he hates the Middle Ages. Altogether he loathes the past, he does not have the ability to enter into the spirit of other ages. He lies about European novelists and twists their words; I am myself a novelist with great sympathy for some of those whom he denounces in his book. Finally, I am an orientalist, too, and his book is a long and persevering polemic against my subject, so I need to ask: is there anything at all to like in Said's book? - No. It is written far too quickly and carelessly. It abounds with misprints and mis-spelled names. It is an extremely polemic book, and throughout time many polemic books for or against Islam and the Muslim world have been written, but none have been taken seriously in the same way as Said"; "The fact is that researchers cannot build anything on Said's thoughts - dead-end... He has made it difficult for Westerners to say anything critical about Islam and the Muslim world. You cannot do that because then you run the risk of getting denounced as an orientalist, i.e. a racist, an imperialist and other terrible things." Richard A. Isay (1934-2012), Commitment and Healing: Gay Men and the Need for Reomantic Love. Jonathan Israel (1946-), Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1650-1752. Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon, The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation; the whole thing reduced to a comic book. Philip Jenkins (1952-), Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America. Ken Jennings (1974-), Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs; like Game #53, where he answers "ho" for "Term for a long-handled gardening tool that can also mean an immoral pleasure seeker". Terri Jentz, Strange Piece of Paradise; her encounter with an axe murderer. Paul Johnson, George Washington: The Founding Father. Ann Jones, Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan; how the stupid Bush admin. declared a V in Afghanistan in Feb. 2003 when women were being kept down as much as ever. Terry Jones, Islam Is of the Devil (Aug. 3). Erica Jong (1942-), Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life; blames Martha Stewart for breaking up her marriage to publisher Andy Stewart. Molly Jong-Fast (1978-), Girl (Maladjusted): True Stories from a Semi-Celebrity Childhood (autobio.). Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic; "Once upon a time, you could trace the spread of imperialism by counting up colonies. America's version of the colony is the military base; and by following the changing politics of global basing, one can learn much about our ever more all-encompassing imperial footprint and the militarism that grows with it... even more than in past empires, a well-entrenched militarism [lies] at the heart of our imperial adventures"; "Each year we spend more on our armed forces than all other nations on Earth combined" on U.S. troops "in more than 130 countries"; the U.S. officially has 737-860 overseas bases, plus 100+ secret ones. Sebastian Junger (1962-), A Death in Belmont; the Boston Strangler story. Robert Kagan (1958-), Dangerous Nation. Roger Kahn, Into My Own: The Remarkable People and Events that Shaped My Life (autobio.). Kumiko Kakehashi, So Sad to Fall in Battle: An Account of War in War; Based on General Tadamichi Kuribayashi's Letters from Iwo Jima; the loser's side. Justin Kaplan (1924-2014), When the Astors Owned New York: Blue Bloods and Grand Hotels in a Gilded Age. Efraim Karsh (1953-), Islamic Imperialism: A History; exposes the thousand-plus-year Great Jihad of Islam and how it persisted in the Ottoman Empire right up through WWI and is still alive today with the jihad against Israel, 9/11, al-Qaida, ISIS, etc.; draws a firestorm of criticism from the PC pro-Islam academic establishment, which accuses them of agitprop. Rodolph Kasser, Marvin Meyer and Gregor Wurst (eds.), The Gospel of Judas (Aug.); Judas is the hero of the gospels because he helped Jesus exit his prison-body, and is rewarded by exiting himself in a "luminous cloud" to a realm far higher than that inhabited by inferior Jewish deity Jehovah, whose creation stinks? Sam Kastensmidt, Indefensible: 10 Ways the ACLU is Destroying America; from freedom of religion to freedom from religion, from separation of church and state to state control of church, their war to get crosses and Ten Commandments off public property; what's next, getting rid of In God We Trust from money? David Katz, The Flavor Point Diet; sensor-specific satiety? Michael Kazin, A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan. Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission. Peter Kenez, A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End (2nd ed.). Edward M. Kennedy (1932-), America: Back on Track. Stephen Kinzer, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq; Hawaii 1893, Philippines 1898, Nicaragua 1909, Guatemala 1954, South Vietnam 1963, Chile 1973, Grenada 1983, Panama 1989, Iraq 2003. Michael Klare, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency. Aaron J. Klein, Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response. Joe Klein, Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized by People Who Think You're Stupid; "After Reagan, it became practically impossible for a candidate to propose any sort of long-term program involving short-term sacrifice." Hans Kung (1928-), The Beginning of All Things; accepts evolutionary theory but claims that God set up the laws. David Kuo, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction; how the Bush White House embraces evangelicals for political gain but privately calls them "nuts", "goofy" and "ridiculous". David Kupelian, The Making of Evil; multiculturalism is an attack on Christianity? Pascal Laine (1942-), Un Clou Chasse l'Autre ou La Vie d'Artiste. Wally Lamb (1950-), I'll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison. Angela Lambert, The Lost Life of Eva Braun; Hitler's 36-hour wife, whom his chaffeur calls "the unhappiest woman in Germany". Dick Lamm (1935-), Two Wands, One Nation; attempts to excuse the low black and Hispanic high school graduation rate by their failure to highly value education like Jews and Japanese; "I don't think Jews are smarter. I don't think Hispanics are dumber". Lewis Lapham, Pretensions to Empire: Notes on the Criminal Folly of the Bush Administration (Sept.). Erik Larson (1954-), Thunderstruck (Oct. 24); Guglielmo Marconi, Harvey Crippen and the invention of radio. Jonathan Laurence, Integrating Islam: Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France. Alena Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works. Ray Lemoine and Jeff Neumann, Babylon by Bus; two Americans go to Baghdad in 2004 to scam work as a nongovt. agency. Matthew Levitt, Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad. Bernard-Henri Levy (1948-) (tr. Charlotte Mandell), American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville; the 1831 glammed-up dreamgirls tour; "She [Sharon Stone] unfolds her legs, refolds them, pulls at the hem of her skirt with the gesture of a flirt who's trying to act virtuous, sighs deeply, takes her time, and finally gives me a look that is already outraged by what she's going to say". Jacqueline Levi-Valensi (ed.), Camus at Combat; his writings for the French Resistance in WWII. Michael Lewis (1960-), The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game; story of homeless 6'4 310 lb. black Michael Jerome Oher (1986-) (pr. oar), who has an 80 IQ but moves so fast that he becomes an NFL left tackle offensive lineman star after the NFL passing game begins to explode in the late 70s and linebackers begin killing QBs by exploiting their blind left side in the early 80s; he was adopted by affluent white Memphis, Tenn. couple Sean Tuohy and Leigh Anne Roberts Tuohy. Michael Lind (1962-), The American Way of Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life. Roger Lowenstein, Louis Rukeyser (1933-2006), and Robert Sobel (1931-99), Crashes, Booms, Panics and Government Regulation. Nelson Lichtenstein, Wal-Mart: The Face of Twenty-First Century Capitalism; the growing movement to boycott the mega-chain monster. David Limbaugh (1952-), Bankrupt: The Intellectual and Moral Bankruptcy of Today's Democratic Party (Sept.). Eugene Linden, The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather and the Destruction of Civilizations; or, ah ah, told you so? Damon Linker, The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege (Sept.) - thought it was the other way around? James Lovelock (1919-), The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back, and How We Can Still Save Humanity; the creator of the Gaia Hypothesis shocks fellow environmentalists by flopping and backing nuclear power as the only alternative to prevent global warming, else by the end of the cent. "billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable", claiming that 80% of humans will perish by 2100 C.E., and that the climate change will last 100K years. Barry W. Lynn (1948-), Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom; exec. dir. of Ams. United for Separation of Church and State (1992-). Myra MacPherson, All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone; J. Edgar Hoover is a "sacred cow" and a "glorified Dick Tracy"? Maddox, The Alphabet of Manliness; Chuck Norris' favorite food is whiskey, lumberjacks are raised by cyclopses, and Socrates is the father of spite? Norman Mailer (1923-2007) and John Buffalo Mailer (1978-), The Big Empty: Dialogues on Politics, Sex, God, Boxing, Morality, Myth, Poker and Bad Conscience in America. Peter Mandler (1958-), The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair. Peter Mandler (1958-) (ed.), Liberty and Authority in Victorian Britain (Sept. 21). Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track. Ali al-Amin Mazrui (1933-), Islam: Between Globalization and Counter-Terrorism. John McCain and Mark Salter, Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir. James Edward "Jim" McGreevey (1957-), The Confession; Irish Catholic N.J. Gov. stays closeted for 47 years and two marriages until lover Golan Cipal er, blows his whistle in 2004. Danica McKellar (1975-), Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail; encourages girls to do math. John McPhee (1931-), Uncommon Carriers. Jon Ellis Meacham (1969-), American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. Michael Mewshaw, If You Could See Me Now. John Michell (1933-2009) and Robin Heath, The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth: Discovering the Sacred Geometry of the Ancients. Fergus Millar (1935-), A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosiius II (408-450), showing how the Byzantine Empire's bureaucracy worked, and its dealings with the Church. Marvin Lee Minsky (1927-), The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind; critiques theories of how human minds work. Bill Minutaglio, The President's Counselor: The Rise to Power of Alberto Gonzales. Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), Marxism Unmasked: From Delusion to Destruction (posth.); lectures given in 1952. Seth Mnookin, Feeding the Monster: How Money, Smarts and Nerve Took a Team to the Top; the 2004 Boston Red Sox. Eric Henry Monkkonen (1942-2005), Homicide: Explaining America's Exceptionalism (essay) (posth.); a last attempt to explain higher U.S. murder rates. James Moore and Wayne Slater, The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power; Rove's beloved stepfather Louis Rove (Getty Oil geologist) is gay and abandoned his mother to live as a homo? Caroline Moorehead (ed.), Selected Letters of Martha Gelhorn; Ernest Hemingway's 3rd wife. Robin Morgan (1941-), The Burning Time; Fighting Words: A Toolkit for Combating the Religious Right. Ted Morgan (Sanche de Gramont), My Battle of Algiers; is Iraq another no-win Algeria in the making? Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-90), Chronicles of Wasted Time, Vols. I & II (posth.). Mike Mullane, Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut. Laurent Murawiec, Princes of Darkness: The Saudi Assault on the West; Saudi society is fundamentally hostile to all things Western? Jim Murk, Islam Rising (2 vols.). Douglas Murray (1979-), Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (Aug. 28). Pervez Musharraf (1943-), In the Line of Fire (Sept. 25); criticizes the U.S. invasion of Iraq for making the world more dangerous, and says he had no choice after 9/11 but to switch from supporting the Taliban to backing the U.S.-led war on terror; claims that the day after 9/11, Colin Powell called him with an ultimatum "You are either with us or against us", and the next day his deputy Richard Armitage called his spy chief and told them "that if we chose the terrorists, then we should be prepared to be bombed back to the Stone Age"; Armitage denies it. Abu Bakr Naji, Management of Savagery (Idarat al-Tawahush); training course for ISIS, explaining the concept of tashreed (deterrence); "I am talking about jihad and fighting, not about Islam and one should not confuse them. He cannot continue to fight and move from one stage to another unless the beginning state contains a stage of massacring the enemy and deterring him." Andrew P. Napolitano (1950-), The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land. Vali Reza Nasr (1960-), The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam will Shape the Future. David Nasaw, Andrew Carnegie (Oct.). Nat. Inst. on Aging and U.S. Census Bureau, 65+ in the United States: 2005. Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009), Catholic Matters: Confusion, Controversy, and the Splendor of Truth. Rick Newman and Don Shepperd, Bury Us Upside Down: The Misty Pilots and the Secret Battle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Jack Newfield (1938-2004), The Full Rudy: The Man, the Myth, the Mania. John Julius Norwich (1929-), The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean; from the Phoenicians and Pharaohs to the Arab conquests, the Holy Roman Empire and Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Suleyman the Magnificent, the Battle of Lepanto, Lord Nelson, Napoleon, the Greek War of Independence, and the Italian Risorgimento to the Gallipoli Campaign. Geoffrey Nunberg, Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Living, Left-Wing Freak Show. Barack Hussein Obama II (1961-), The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream; wins a 2nd Grammy. J. Eric Oliver, Fat Politics: The Real Story Behind America's Obesity Epidemic; an invention of public health officials and greedy scientists working for the sinister diet and weight-loss industry? Randy Olson, Flock of Dodos; the Intelligent Design debate. Bill O'Reilly (1949-), Culture Warrior; the "fierce culture war between the traditionalist and secular-progressive camps". Joel Osteen (1963-), Your Best Life Now; sells 4M copies. Nell Irvin Painter, Creating Black Americans. Ilan Pappe (1954-), The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine; claims that Israel did you know what in 1947 then covered it up, and that Zionism is more dangerous than Islam, calling for an internat. boycott of Israeli academics; The Israel-Palestine Question. Sam Parnia, What Happens When We Die. Eboo Patel, Building the Interfaith Youth Movement: Beyond Dialogue to Action; afterword by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Danica Patrick (1982-) (with Laura Morton), Danica: Crossing the Line (autobio.). Harvey Pekar, Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story; the curmudgeon of Cleveland and top chronicler of kvetch talks about someone other than himself? Tyler Perry, Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings. Ralph Peters (1952-), Never Quit the Fight. James Petras, Empire with Imperialism: The Globalizing Dynamics of Neoliberal Capitalism; The Power of Israel in the United States (Sept. 26); paints Israel as the Little Satan a la Islamists. Kevin Phillips (1940-), American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century; fundamentalist Christianity from the defeated South, hydrocarbon energy, and a colossal nat. debt are going to cause a U.S. meltdown and the emergence of China by 2050? Melanie Phillips (1951-), Londonistan; how the British govt. is afraid to offend Muslim extremists in their country. James Piereson, Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism (Sept. 15). Daniel Pinchbeck (1966-), 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl. Katha Pollitt (1949-), Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time. Gareth Porter (1942-), Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam. Roy Porter (1946-2002), The Cambridge History of Medicine; Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad-Doctors and Lunatics (posth.). Joel R. Primack (1944-) and Nancy Ellen Abrams, The View from the Center of the Universe: Discovering Our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos; sums up the super-arrogant Big Bang Evolutionary theory of the Big U of the World Scientific Priesthood, becoming the 21st cent. Bible? Francine Prose (1947-), Reading Like a Writer. Rain Pryor (1969-), Jokes My Father Never Told Me: Life, Love and Loss with Richard Pryor. David Quammen, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin: An Intimate Portrait of Charles Darwin and the Making of His Theory of Evolution. Michael S. Radu (1947-2009), Islamic and Terrorist Groups in Asia: The Growth and Influence of Islam in the Nations of Asia and Central Asia; Dilemmas of Democracy and Dictatorship: Place, Time, and Ideology in Global Perspective. Jerry Rassamni, From Jihad to Jesus (July 24); Lebanese-born militant Muslim moves to the U.S. and gets born again. Diane Ravitch (1938-), Forgotten Heroes of American Education: The Great Tradition of Teaching Teachers; The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know. David Remnick (ed.), Reporting; New Yorker pieces. Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Told: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina; how the Greatest Generation myth is used by Baby Boomers "even if it was other people's children who had to do the fighting". Joel Richardson, Antichrist: Islam's Awaited Messiah; claims that the Islamic Mahdi and Christian Antichrist are the same person. Louise Richardson, What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat; "neither crazy nor amoral but rather... rationally seeking to achieve a set of objectives within self-imposed limits". Thomas E. Ricks (1955-), Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. Andrew Roberts (1963-), A History of the English Speaking People Since 1900. Gene Roberts and Hank Kilbanoff, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (Pulitzer Prize). Jason Roberts, A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler; English "Blind Traveler" James Holman (1786-1857). Ronald Suresh Roberts, No Cold Kitchen; bio. of South African novelist Nadine Gordimer (1923-). James M. Robinson, The Secrets of Judas: The Story of the Misunderstood Disciple and His Lost Gospel; the first book about the long-lost Gospel of Judas. Christine Rosen, My Fundamentalist Education: A Memoir of a Divine Girlhood; "Growing up in a particular religion is like a person's daily experience with gravity. It is always there, but it is something you tend to notice only if you stumble." Robert N. Rosen, Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust; how FDR mobilized a global coalition to stomp the Nazis and end the killing of innocents and did his utmost, but couldn't win the war until it was too late; he didn't bomb concentration camps because it would kill innocents? Joel C. Rosenberg (1967-), Epicenter; events in the Middle East vs. the Bible Book of Daniel by an Am. Jew-turned-Christian. Lyle H. Rossiter Jr., The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness; claims he's figured out why radical leftists are mad. Murray Newton Rothbard (1926-95), The Complete Libertarian Forum (2 vols.). Barry Rubin, The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East. SQuire Rushnell, When God Winks at You: How God Speaks Directly to You Through the Power of Coincidence (Sept. 19); coins the term "godwinks". Tim Russert (1950-2008), Wisdom of Our Fathers. Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss, Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War; May-Nov. 1967 in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. Prentice Earl Sanders and Bennett Cohen, The Zebra Murders: A Season of Killing, Racial Madness, and Civil Rights; the 1973-4 black-on-white murder spree in San Francisco by members of the Nation of Islam; only the 2nd book published on them? John E. Sarno (1923-), The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders. Michael Savage (1942-), The Political Zoo; Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions. Robert Santelli, Greetings From E Street: The Story of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Simon Schama (1945-), The Power of Art; bios. of Euro artists; 8 episodes are aired on BBC-TV in Oct.-Nov. Ronald Shelp (1941-), Fallen Giant: The Amazing Story of Hank Greenberg and the History of AIG; AIG CEO (1968-2005) Maurice Raymond "Hank" Greenberg (1925-). Michael Schiavo, Terri: the Story; with the pres. and the pope on your ass, what else do you need? John Selby (1945-), Jesus for the Rest of Us. Hans F. Sennholz (1922-2007), Age of Inflation Continued. Tahir Shah, The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca; Jinns in the house, and waving an axe at a tree to make it give tastier dates? Eric Shawn, The U.N. Exposed: How the United Nations Sabotages America's Security. Cindy Sheehan, Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism; her son U.S. Army Specialist Casey Sheehan is killed in Iraq; "He didn't want to go to Iraq. He didn't believe in the mission. He thought George Bush was misusing he and his buddies. I begged him not to go and he just said, 'I don't want to go mom, but I have to.'" Gail Sheehy (1937-), Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life; aging baby boomers as "a new universe of lusty, liberated women"? Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design; the pro position on Darwin; "Creation by intelligent design is absurd" - and Darwinism isn't? Walid Shoebat, Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror. Zachary Shore, Breeding Bin Ladens: America, Islam, and the Future of Europe (Aug. 28); Muslim terrorists are bred not born, and Westerners shouldn't alarmed at mass Muslim immigration? Hampton Sides (1962-), Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West; how Pres. Polk used Kit Carson for his Mission: Impossible Team in the Am. West. Bernie S. Siegel, Love, Magic and Mudpies: Raising Your Kids to Feel Loved, Be Kind, and Make a Difference (Nov. 28). O.J. Simpson, If I Did It, Here's How It Happened (Nov. 30); ghostwritten by Pablo F. Fenjves (1953-) (who used to live at 875 S. Bundy Dr. in Brentwood, Calif., 60 yards away from Nicole Brown Simpson's residence) and Dominick Dunne (1925-2009); he claims it's fiction, but 400K copies are printed in anticipation of making him a bundle until the fit hits the shan; publisher Judith Regan (1953-) claims she wanted O.J. to confess; Fox Network, owned by publisher Harper Collins Publishing (owned by Ruper Murdoch's News Corp.) plans to air an interview of O.J. about the book on sweeps week (Nov. 27 and 29), stirring outrage from the Simpsons, Goldmans et al., causing everything to be cancelled; O.J. receives and keeps a $3.5M advance in the name of his children; in Dec. Regan is fired for making remarks that there is a "Jewish cabal" against her, and that Jews "should know about ganging up, finding common enemies and telling the big lie"; in Aug. 2007 the rights to the book are awarded to the Goldman family to help collect their civil judgment, and they add the subtitle "Confessions of a Killer", and semi-obliterate the word "If"; too bad, it leaks online in June 2007. Dave Smith (1942-), Hunting Men: Reflections on a Life in Poetry (Dec. 1); "Great poetry cannot be divorced from an intimate, organic link to place." Janna Malamud Smith, My Father is a Book: A Memoir of Bernard Malamud. Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (Sept. 19); science progresses through disagreement, not by following consensus?; U.S. physicists have spent 20 years focusing on the loser approach of a Theory of Everything via String Theory while other countries catch up and overtake it in science?; claims that natural selection is "the only methodology that was really successful for explaining how choices were made in nature", claiming that new universes are born from parent universes via black holes, and advocating that universes should be fine-tuned to maximize the production of hundreds of trillions of black holes. Jason Sokol, There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975. Suzanne Somers (1946-), Ageless: The Naked Truth About Bioidentical Hormones. George Soros (1930-), The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror (May 23); an attempt to rationalize his support for losing Dem. U.S. pres. candidate John Kerry by going philosophical with musings on closed vs. open societies (which supposedly know that truth is uncertain and unknowable and therefore tolerate multiple views), incl. his theory of reflexivity, extreme disequlibrium, and intersection of cognitive and participatory functions, with the soundbyte: "This fact, that our thinking forms part of what we think about, has far reaching implications both for our thinking and for reality. It sets some insuperable obstacles to understanding reality and it also renders reality different from what we understand it to be. Some aspects of reality permit us to acquire knowledge but others are not amenable to dispassionate understanding and reality as a whole belongs to that category"; too bad, by open society he really means flooding hated Naziland Germany with non-whites to get even with Hitler, totally ostriching on the issue of how they will bring their ancient evil scourge of Islam with them, along with an entirely different culture based on polygamy and breeding like rabbits, along with capital blasphemy laws, not to mention rabid anti-Semitism worse than the Nazis, ending the open society dream in a river of blood? J. Souten et al.. Violating Equality in Social Dilemmas: Emotional and Retributive Reactions as a Function of Trust, Attribution, and Honesty; generalizes the principle of Rabin Fairness (1993) to the provision of public goods. Thomas Sowell (1930-), Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays. Jay Spenser, 747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation; Boeing 747 designer Joseph F. "Joe" Sutter (1921-2016). Morgan Spurlock, Don't Eat This Book: Fast Food and the Supersizing of America; eats at McDonald's for a month, claiming to experience "buzzing pulsations" in his penis. Fritz Stern (1926-), Five Germanies I Have Known; the Weimar Repub., the Third Reich, postwar East-West Germany, post-1990 unified Germany. Ralph Steadman (1936-), The Joke's Over; how his partner Hunter S. Thompson was brilliant and funny but a cheat? Mark Steyn (1959-), America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It (Sept. 16); NYT bestseller warning of coming takeover of the West by Islam, turning it into Eurabia; based on the Jan. 2006 essay "It's the Demography, Stupid", which claims that "much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century" because "The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it", and Euro birthrates are falling while Muslim birth and immigration rates are soaring; Belgium has already been taken over by Muslims, and Europe, Japan and the U.S. are next, the U.S. by 2040? Joseph Stiglitz (1943-), Making Globalization Work (Sept.); claims that developing countries exert an excessive influence over developing countries. Chris Stringer, Homo Britannicus: The Story of Life in Britain. Amanda Mackenzie Stuart, Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age. Andrew Sullivan, The Conservative Soul: Howe We Lost It, How to Get it Back (Oct.). Cass R. Sunstein (1954-), Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge; The Second Bill of Rights: Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever; Are Judges Political? An Empirical Investigation of the Federal Judiciary. Patrick Suskind (1949-), On Love and Death (essays). Ron Suskind (1959-), The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11; NYT bestseller claims that U.S. foreign policy since 9/11 has been driven by vice-pres. Dick Cheney, whose doctrine is that "If there's even a 1% chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction... the United States must now act as if it were a certainy." Leonard Susskind, The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design. Lars Svendsen (tr. John Irons), A Philosophy of Boredom. James L. Swanson, Manhunt; the 2-week run of John Wilkes Booth in the Md.-Va. countryside. Bryan Sykes, Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland; a 10-year DNA survey of the Brits reveals their Viking blood? James D. Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty: The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family and the Birth of Christianity; the Jewish story that Jesus's father was a Roman soldier named Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera was right? - of course it's Saturday, that explains it? Gay Talese (1932-), A Writer's Life. Daniel Paul Tammet (1979-), Born on a Blue Day; savant memoir. Tom Tancredo (1945-) and Jon E. Doughtery, In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security (June 6); "Viewed from a different perspective, we can say that 2M people marched in protest on Apr. 10 [2006], and 297M Americans did not join them." Terence Tao (1975-), Solving Mathematical Problems: A Personal Perspective; 2006 Fields Medal winner. John Tayman, The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Old Way: A Story of the First People; how our hunter-gatherer past "clings to us still, in our preferences, in our thoughts and dreams, and even in some of our behavior". Victor Thorn (1962-2016), 9-11 EVIL: Israel's Central Role in the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks (July). John Tirman, 100 Ways America is Screwing Up the World; only 100? Hector Tobar, Translation Nation: Defining a New American Identity in the Spanish-Speaking United States; tour of the not-so-secret "new Latin republic of the United States". Alvin Toffler (1928-), Revolutionary Wealth; the old mass production era institutions are becoming useless to the U.S.? Sandy Tolan, The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East; Ramla in 1948. Martin Tolchin and Susan J. Tolchin, A World Ignited: How Apostles of Ethnic, Religious and Racial Hatred Torch the Globe. Serge Trifkovic (1954-), Defeating Jihad: How the War on Terrorism May Yet Be Won, In Spite of Ourselves. Calvin Trillin (1935-), About Alice; his wife Alice (1938-2001), best editor and perfect muse. Martinus J.G. Veltman (1931-), Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics. Gore Vidal (1925-2012), Point to Point Navigation. Norah Vincent, Self-Made Man; a year and a half dressing as a man named Ned? Richard Vinen, The Unfree French: Life Under Occupation. Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors. Sam Walker, Fantasyland: A Season on Baseball's Lunatic Fringe; the Rotisserie for roto-geeks, 23 ML players for $260, Tout Wars, Ron Shandler, Baseball Forecaster, Low Investment Mound Aces, and Really Expensive Mound Aces. Michael Walzer (1935-) (ed.), Law, Politics, and Morality in Judaism. Denzel Washington (1954-), A Hand to Guide Me: American Reflections (autobio.). Colin Wells, Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World. Jonathan Wells (1942-), The Politically Incorrect Guide To Darwinism and Intelligent Design; the pro position on ID. Mel White, Religion Gone Bad: The Hidden Dangers of the Christian Right. Tom Wicker, Shooting Star: The Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy. Marianne Williamson (1952-), The Gift of Change: Spiritual Guidance for Living Your Best Life (Jan. 3). Garry Wills (1934-), What Jesus Meant; "the real, radical Jesus"; What Paul Meant. Andrew Norman Wilson (1950-), Sir John Betjeman; rival biographer Bevis Hillier springs a hoax letter on him, which contains an acrostic spelling out "AN Wilson is a shit", sent by Eve de Harben (Ever been had). Swain Wolfe, The Boy Who Invented Skiing. Trinny Woodhall and Susannah Constantine, Take on America: What Your Clothes Say About You. Bob Woodward (1943-), State of Denial: Bush at War, Pt. III (Sept. 30); how Philip Zelikow, exec. dir. of the 9/11 Commission warned Bush in 2005 that the U.S. had only a 70% chance of achieving a stable dem. state in Iraq, but they didn't care because they were in a you know what over Iraq? - 70% of 0.007%? Lawrence Wright (1947-), The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 bestseller (Pulitzer Prize); title based on Quran 4:78. Plays: Salvatore Antonio, In Gabriel's Kitchen (first play) (Ontario) (July 26); an Italian-Canadian family finds out they have a gay son. Jacob M. Appel, Arborophilia (Repertory Theatre, Detroit) (Nov.); a man gets pissed-off when one daughter marries a Repub. and the other falls in love with a poplar tree. Alan Ayckbourn, If I Were You (Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough) (Oct. 17). Douglas Carter Beane, The Little Dog Laughed (Second Stage Theater, New York) (Jan. 10). Howard Brenton (1942-), In Extremis: The Story of Abelard & Heloise (Globe Theatre, London) (Aub. 27); the story of Abelard and Heloise. James Brough and Helen Elizabeth, The Pool: City of Culture. Caryl Churchill (1938-), Drunk Enough to Say I Love You; how Britain sucks up to the U.S. in foreign policy; gay buds Sam and Jack/Guy. Stella Duffy (1963-), Prime REsident. Stuart Draper, To W.H.; William Shakespeare and the mysterious "W.H.". David Eldrige, Festen (Apr. 9) (New York); adapted from the 1998 film "Celebration" by Thomas Vinterberg et al.; stage debut of sorry Ali McGraw as Else. Richard Elkan, To Quote the Bard; satire on the British royal family and PM Tony Blair. Scott Frankel (1963-), Doug Wright (1962-), and Michael Korie, Grey Gardens (Paywrights Horizons, New York) (Feb. 10) (Walter Kerr Theater, New York) (Nov. 2) (307 perf.); based on the 1975 documentary by Albert and David Maysies about formerly rich mother Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Big Edie) and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (Little Edie), Jackie Kennedy's aunt and cousin, who lived in poverty in the seedy Grey Gardens mansion at 3 West End Rd. in the Georgica Pond neighborhood of East Hampton, N.Y. Jeremy Gable (1982-), Giant Green Lizard! The Musical; paradoy of 1950s Japanese monster movies; The Ouroboros Line; Orange Alert; The Flying Spaghetti Monster Holiday Pageant. Graeme Garden, The Pocket Orchestra: The Unlikely Lives of the Great Composers. David Marshall Grant, Pen (Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis). Richard Greenberg, Three Days of Rain. A.R. Gurney, Indian Blood. Peter Handke (1942-), Spuren der Verirrten. David Hare (1947-), The Vertical Hour. Elizabeth Heffron, Mitzi's Abortion (Seattle). Beth Henley (1952-), Ridiculous Fraud (McCarter Theater, N.J.) (May 15); gender-switching version of Anton Chekhov's "Three Sister" set in La. Rand Higbee, The Head That Wouldn't Die!; satire of the 1950s sci-fi/horror films. Paul Hodson, Meeting Joe Strummer (Edinburgh). Tina Howe (1937-), Birth and After Birth. Radovan Ivsic, King Gordogan (Kralj Gordogan) (May 1). Elton John (1947-), Lestat (musical) (Apr. 25) (Palace Theater, New York); based on the Anne Rice novels about er, bloodsuckers with songs by Elton John and Bernie Taupin; a flop. Karoline Leach, Tryst (Promenade Theater, New York) (Apr. 6). Magwayen, Indrapura (Manila) (Dec. 9). Cormac McCarthy (1933-), The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form (Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago) (May 18); a black ex-con and a white atheist prof. debate religion. Martin McDonagh, The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Other Place Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon). Terrence McNally (1938-), Some Men; 80 years of gay men in the New York City, culminating with a gay wedding. Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon (London, Donmar Warehouse) (Aug.); the May 19, 1977 Frost-Nixon interview; stars Michael Sheen as Frost, and Frank Langella as Nixon; opens in Bernbard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York on Apr. 22 for 137 performances. Joanna Murray-Smith (1962-), The Female of the Species (Australia); based on the time that feminist Germaine Greer was held at gunpoint in her own home by a disturbed student. Louis Nowra (1950-), The Emperor of Sydney (Griffin Theatre, Sydney) (Aug. 16); last in the Boyce Trilogy. Debra Oswald, The Peach Season (Griffin Theatre, Sydney). Theresa Rebeck, The Scene. Yasmina Reza, God of Carnage (Dec. 8); two sets of parent meet and devolve. Gary Soto (1952-), Novio Boy (debut). Abbie Spallen, Pumpgirl (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh) (Aug. 3). Simon Stephens (1971-), Motortown. Tom Stoppard (1937-), Rock 'n' Roll (Royal Court Theatre, London) (June 3); Max Morrow in Prague in 1968-90, where Western rock and roll combats Communism? Michael Weller (1942-) and Lucy Simon, Zhivago (musical). Edmund White (1940-), Terre Haute; Timothy McVeigh is visited by Gore Vidal? Plays: David Kirby and Nicky Alt, Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels (Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool) (Aug. 3); comedy about the Kingsway Three, who want to brick up the tunnels between Liverpool and the Wirral. Patrick Marber, Don Juan in Soho (Donmare Warehouse, London) (Dec. 6); based on the Moliere play; stars Rhys Ifans as DJ. Mary Zimmerman, Argonautika (Lookingglass Theatre, Chicago); Jason and the Argonauts search for the Golden Fleece. Poetry: Elizabeth Alexander (1962-), American Blue: Selected Poems. Archie Randolph Ammons (1926-2001), Selected Poems. Renee Ashley, The Museum of Lost Wings. Earle Birney (1904-95), One Muddy Hand: Selected Poems (posth.). Elizabeth Bishop (1911-79), Edgar Allan Poe and the Juke Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments (posth.). Leonard Cohen (1934-), Book of Longing. Billy Collins (1941-), She Was Just Seventeen. Robert Creeley (1926-2005), On Earth: Last Poems and an Essay; Collected Poems 1975-2005. Stephen Dunn (1939-), Everything Else in the World. Claudia Emerson (1957-), Late Wife (Pulitzer Prize). Janet Frame (1924-2004), The Goose Bath (posth.). Tess Gallagher (1943-), Dear Ghosts. Louise Gluck (1943-), Averno. Donald Hall Jr. (1928-), White Apples and the Taste of Stone. Jim Harrison (1937-), Saving Daylight. Seamus Heaney (1939-), District and Circle. Brad Leithauser (1953-), Curves and Angles. Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004), Collected Poems. Mary Oliver (1935-), Thirst: Poems. Michael Ondaatje (1943-), The Story. Linda Pastan (1932-), Queen of a Rainy Country. Lucia Perillo, Luck Is Luck. Mark Ravenhill, The Cut; Paul practices a mysterious paintful immoral type of surgery that cures patients from desire. Charles Simic (1938-), Monkey Around. Patricia Smith (1955-), Teahouse of the Almighty. W.D. Snodgrass (1926-2009), Not for Specialists: New and Selected Poems. Mark Strand (1934-), Man and Camel. Henry S. Taylor (1942-), Crooked Run. Calvin Trillin (1935-), A Heckuva Job: More of the Bush Administration in Rhyme. C.K. Williams (1936-), Collected Poems, 1963-2006. Charles Wright (1935-), "Meditation on Form and Measure" ("Time and light are the same thing somewhere behind our backs"), Scar Tissue: Poems (July 25); incl. "Confessions of a Song and Dance Man", "Scar Tissue II" ("Hard to imagine that no one counts,/ that only things endure./ Unlike the seasons, our shirts don't shed,/ Whatever we see does not see us,/ however hard we look,/ The rain in its silver earrings against the oak trunks,/ The rain in its second skin"), Louis Zukofsky (1904-78), Selected Poems (posth.); ed. Charles Bernstein. Novels: Lee K. Abbott (1947-), All Things, All at Once (short stories). Peter Ackroyd (1949-), The Fall of Troy. Richard Adams (1920-), Daniel. Mitch Albom (1958-), For One More Day. Monica Ali (1967-), Alentejo Blue (June). Isabel Allende (1942-), Ines of My Soul; Ines Suarez, the female conquistador of Chile. Julia Alvarez, Saving the World. Gary Amdahl, Visigoth (short stories). Martin Amis (1949-), House of Meetings. Rudolfo Anaya (1937-), The Man Who Could Fly and Other Stories. Scott Anderson, Moonlight Hotel; David Richards holed-up in Kutar. Marie Arana, Cellophane (first novel); the Sobrevilla family in Peru. Jeffrey Archer, False Impressions. Sarah Armstrong, Salt Rain (first novel). Kate Atkinson, One Good Turn; a senseless car rage accident in Edinburgh gets good Samaritan Martin Canning in a pickle. Margaret Atwood (1939-), Moral Disorder; Nell's 92-y.-o. mother becomes bedridden and tells her stories; The Tent (short stories). Louis Auchincloss (1917-), The Young Apollo and Other Stories. Chris Bachelder, U.S.!; Upton Sinclair tribute on the 100th anniv. of "The Jungle". Robert Baer (1952-), Blow the House Down. Howard Bahr, The Judas Field; the 1864 battle of Franklin, Tenn. Kevin Baker, City of Fire (trilogy); the secret history of New York City. J.G. Ballard (1930-2009), Kingdom Come (last novel). Amiri Baraka (1934-2014), Tales of the Out & the Gone. Muriel Barbery (1969-), The Elegance of the Hedgehog (L'Élégance du hérisson) (Aug.); English trans. pub. in Sept. 2008; internat. bestseller (1M copies); about the intellectual inhabitants of a small upper-class Paris apt. block, narrated by conceirge Renee Michel and Paloma Josse. Julian Barnes (1946-), Arthur and George (Jan.). Stephanie Barron, Jane and the Barque of Frailty; Jane Austen the sleutch solving the death of a Russian princess. Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson (illustrations by Greg Call), Peter and the Shadow Thieves (July); 541 more pages on Peter Pan, the Starcatchers (who protect starstuff), evil Lord Ombra and his band of evil Others, divided into chapters of 10 pages max? Rick Bass, The Diezmo; a Mexican prison in the early days of the Texas Repub.? Louis Bayard, The Pale Blue Eye; young Edgar Allan Poe at West Point. Peter S. Beagle, The Line Between (short stories). Kate Benson, Two Harbors (first novel); high school prom queen abandons her family for Hollyweird. Suzanne Berne, The Ghost at the Table. Steve Berry (1955-), The Templar Legacy (Feb. 21); Cotton Malone #1. Wendell Berry (1934-), Andy Catlett: Early Travels. Maeve Binchy (1940-), Whitethorn Woods; Star Sullivan. Jeremy Blackman, Anonymous Lawyer (first novel); anon. blogger lawyer gets found out. Deborah Blum, Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death; paranormal phenom Leonora Piper. Teague Bohlen, The Pull of the Earth (first novel). Pierre Bourgeade (1927-2009), Ramatuelle. C.J. Box, In Plain Sight; Wyo. game warden Joe Pickett. T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948-), Talk Talk; deaf teacher Dr. Dana Halter deals with identity theft; narcissistic bad guy Peck. John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas; sells 3M copies. Ray Bradbury (1920-), Farewell Summer; sequel to "Dandelion Wine" (1957), originally the second half; young vs. old in Green Town, Ill.; Doug Spaulding, Calvin C. Quartermain. Christopher Bram, Exiles in America; art teacher Daniel Wexler and Iranian artist Abbas Rohani in the Am. South. Kevin Brockmeier, The Brief History of the Dead; Luka Sims of Afterlife City and its residents dependent on the memory of Laura Byrd, who is marooned in Antarctica with dwindling supplies? Peter C. Brown, The Fugitive Wife (first novel). James Lee Burke (1936-), Pegasus Descending; Dave Robicheaux. Stephen J. Cannell, White Sister (Aug.); sixth Shane Scully novel. Peter Carey, Theft: A Love Story; abstract painter Michael "Butcher" Boone, his brother and Marlene. Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games; Hindu kingpin Ganesh Gaitonde vs. Indian cop Sartaj Singh in Mumbai and his partner Constable Katekar; the Indian "Godfather"? C.J. Cherryh, Fortress of Ice; 5th vol. of "Fortress of Dragons" series. Mark Childress, One Mississippi. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-), Two Little Girls in Blue. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-) and Carol Higgins Clark (1956-), Santa Cruise. Susanna Clarke, The Ladies of Grace Adieu (short stories). Philippe Claudel (tr. Hoyt Rogers), By a Slow River. Alison Clement, Twenty Questions. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (1940-), Ourania; set in an abandoned Jesuit seminary in the utopian Repub. of Campos on the Pacific coast of Mexico in the 1980s, narrated by 16-y.-o. Inuit Raphael. Paul Coelho (1947-), Like the Flowing River; The Witch of Portobello. Jackie Collins (1937-2015), Lovers and Players. Robin Cook (1940-), Crisis; concierge medicine. Bernard Cornwell, The Pale Horseman; sequel to "The Last Kingdom"; Uhtred the warrior of Bebbanburg and Iseult the sorceress in late 9th cent. Anglo-Saxon England. Patricia Cornwell (1956-), At Risk; Win Garano; no Kay Scarpetta? J.M. Coetzee (1940-), Elizabeth Costello. Robin Cook (1940-), Crisis. Douglas Coupland, JPod. Harry Crews (1935-), An American Family: The Baby With the Curious Markings. Michael Crichton (1942-2008), Next; Rick Diehl, Jack Watson, BioGen, and the insane U.S. practice of patenting genes for greed? Clive Cussler (1931-) and Dirk Cussler, Treasure of Khan; Dirk Pitt #19; Pitt stops an oil mogul who seeks to use Genghis Khan's lost tomb to control the world. Mark Z. Danielewski, Only Resolutions. Marie Darrieussecq (1969-), Zoo (short stories). Diane Motte Davidson, Dark Tort; 13th Goldy the gourmet gumshoe tale. Kathryn Davis, The Thin Place; a young girl with an unearthly gift. Debra Dean, The Madonnas of Leningrad (first novel); Marina Buriakov, docent at the Hermitage squirrels the masterpieces away as the Nazis approach - in her memory? Len Deighton (1929-), Sherlock Holmes and the Titanic Swindle. Nelson DeMille, Wild Fire; the Reagan admin. plan to nuke the Islamic world if terrorists nuke the U.S. first?; smart-mouth flirt John Corey's 4th appearance. Nelson DeMille, Wild Fire; NYPD dick John Corey tries to stop oil magnate Bain Madox from triggering the Wild Fire response, the nuking of Islam. Kate DiCamillo, Mercy Watson Goes for a Ride; Mercy Watson Fights Crime; The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Ivan Doig, The Whistling Season "Can't Cook But Doesn't Bite"; Oliver Milliron and Rose Llewellyn. Keith Donohue, The Stolen Child (first novel); Hendry Day is changed by chanegling hobgoblins into Aniday. Sybil Downing, The Vote; suffragists in 1918 Colo. Roddy Doyle (1958-), Paula Spencer; sequel to "The Who Walked into Doors" (1996). Margaret Drabble (1939-), The Sea Lady. Sarah Dunant, In the Company of the Courtesan; Fiametta Bianchini and her pimp dwarf Bucino Teodoldi in stinking Venice in 1527, the year Rome is sacked by the Germans and Spanish? John Dunning, The Bookwoman's Last Fling; fifth Cliff Janeway novel? Cindy Dyson, And She Was; Brandy in the Aleutians. Jennifer Egan, The Keep; two cousins reunite to renovate a medieval castle in E Europe. Deborah Eisenberg, Twilight of the Superheroes (short stories). Kjell Eriksson (English tr. Ebba Segerberg), The Princess of Burundi. Loren Estelman, The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion. Paul Evans, Finding Noel; "I just love chocolate. It's God's apology for broccoli". Robert Ferrigno (1947-), Prayers for the Assassin; first in the Assassin Trilogy ("Sins of the Assassin", 2008; "Heart of the Assassin, 2009) about a Muslim takeover of the U.S. in the 2030s. David Fesperman, The Prisoner of Guantanamo; Revere Falk, Marine-turned-FBI agent. George Fetherling (1949-), Tales of Two Cities. Jasper Fford, The Fourth Bear. Janet Fitch, Paint It Black; bleached-blonde punk rocker Josie Tyrell in L.A. in the 1980s. Fannie Flagg, Can't Wait to Get to Heaven; Elner Shimfissle. Vince Flynn, Act of Treason; 21st cent. Jack Ryan clone Mitch Rapp in another implausible Tom Clancy wannabe plot? Richard Ford (1944-), The Lay of the Land; 55-y.-o. N.J. realtor Frank Bascombe in the innocent pre-9/11 year 2000 has prostate cancer; #3 in the Frank Bascombe Trilogy ("The Sportswriter", 1986, "Independence Day", 1995). Margaret Forster (1938-), Keeping the World Away. Frederick Forsyth (1938-), The Afghan (Aug.); British operative Col. Mike Martin goes undercover to infiltrate al-Qaida. Dick Francis, Under Orders; his 40th novel, and first in six years, breaking his 2000 vow not to write any more after his wife and collaborator Mary died; ex-jockey dick Sid Halley investigates racetrack deaths. Charles Frazier (1950-), Thirteen Moons; sequel to "Cold Mountain" (1997); orphaned Will Cooper and the Cherokee Trail of Tears; Random House outbids Grove Atlantic $8M to $6M for the rights. Marilyn French (1929-2009), In the Name of Friendship. Neil Freudenberg, The Dissident; a Chinese dissident in Beverly Hills? Carlos Fuentes (1928-2012), Todas las Familias Felices. Alan Furst (1941-), The Foreign Correspondent; Night Soldiers #9; Carlo Weisz of Trieste and the WWII Italian resistance. Neil Gaiman (1960-), Fragile Things (short stories). Debra Galant, Rattled (first novel); Heather Peters. Richard Galli, Of Rice and Men. Barry Gifford (1946-), The Stars Above Veracruz. Elizabeth Gilbert (1969-), Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia (autobio.); bestseller; filmed in 2010 starring Julia Roberts; the female guru is later revealed to be Gurumayi Chidvilasananda. Julia Glass (1956-), The Whole World Over. Allegra Goodman (1967-), Intuition; a virus to cure cancer. Mary Catherine Gordon (1949-), The Stories of Mary Gordon (short stories). Joe Gores (1931-), Glass Tiger. Joanne Greenberg (1932-), Appearances. W.E.B. Griffin, The Hostage; sequal to "By Order of the President". James Grippando, Lying With Strangers. Michael Gruber, Night of the Jaguar; Jimmy Paz. Sara Gruen (1969-), Water for Elephants (May 26); Cornell U. vet student Jacob Jankowski hears that his parents were killed in a car accident, drops out, and joins the Benzini Brothers travelling circus during the Great Depression, and falls for Marlena, who is married to schizo sadist August, and tries to avoid being redlighted (thrown off the train as it passes a trestle); epigraph: "I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.../ An elephant's faithful - one hundred per cent" (from Dr. Seuss's "Horton Hatches the Egg", 1940). Mike Haddon (1962-), A Spot of Bother. Joe Haldeman, War Stories. Jane Hamilton (1957-), When Madeline Was Young; Madeline Maciver has a bike accident leaving her with the mind of a child and thinking her ex-hubby's new wife is her mother. Laurell K. Hamilton, Danse Macabre. Daniel Handler (b. 1970), Adverbs. Kerry Hardie, The Bird Woman; Ellen McKinnon in Belfast. Stephen Harrigan, Challenger Park. Everette Lynn Harris (1955-2009), I Say a Little Prayer. Joanne Harris, Gentlemen and Players. Thomas Harris (1940-), Hannibal Rising; the childhood of Hannibal Lecter and his sister Mischa. Robert Harris, Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome; Cicero's 100-y.-o. secy. Tiro chronicles his boss' rise to power. John Hart, The King of Lies (first novel); N.C. atty. Jackson Workman "Work" Pickens kills his own father? Kenneth J. Harvey, The Town That Forgot How to Breathe (first novel); the coastal Newfoundland town of Bareneed is saved by tall tales? Mo Hayder, The Devil of Nanking; the 1937 rape of Nanking; "One death is hardly worth mentioning in this city where the devil stalks the streets". Amy Hempel, The Collected Stories (short stories). William Haywood Henderson, Augusta Locke. Tony Hendra, The Messiah of Morris Avenue (first novel); Christ returns as Bronx-bred Jose? William Haywood Henderson, Augusta Locke. Tony Hillerman (1925-2008), The Shape Shifter. Russell Hoban (1925-), Linger Awhile. A.M. Homes, This Book Will Save Your Life; Richard Novak's male midlife crisis? Kay Hooper (1958-), Sleeping with Fear; clairvoyant Riley Crane; Michael Houellebecq (1956-), The Possibility of an Island, about a Raelian-type cult that clones successful comedian Daniel twice (Daniel I, 24, and 25). Elisabeth Hyde, The Abortionist's Daughter. Greg Iles, True Evil. Craig Johnson, Death Without Company; Sheriff Walt Longmore in Durant, Wyo. Edward P. Jones (1951-), All Aunt Hagar's Children (short stories). Ward Just (1935-), Forgetfulness. Cynthia Kadohata (1956-), Weedflower. Ken Kalfus, A Disorder Pecular to the Country; 9/11 and divorces? Dave Kalstein, Prodigy; the Stansbury School in 2036 mass-produces geniuses? Michael S. Katz, Shalom on the Range; kosher Western? Jonathan Kellerman, Gone; Alex Delaware mystery; Trouble; medical student Jonah Stem kills the attacker of beautiful Eve Gones, who begins hooking up with him. Philip Kerr, The One From the Other; Bernie Gunther is back. Raymond Khoury, The Last Templar (first novel) (Jan.); after losing Acre in 1219, the Templars lose a big secret proving Christ a fake, which would have helped them unite Christianity, Islam and Judaism?; "What I'm telling you, Agent Reilly, is that basically everything Christians believe in today... was all made up... It's been a runaway bestseller for almost two thousand years... And looking at the state of the world today, I think it's definitely passed its sell-by date" (p. 293); "Christianity served a great purpose when it was conceived. It gave people hope, it provided a social support system, it helped bring down tyranny. It served the needs of a community. What needs does it serve today, apart from blocking medical research and justifying wars and murder?" (p. 297) Stephen King (1947-), Cell; dedicated to movie dir. George Romero; Lisey's Story (Oct. 23) (baed on his 2004 story "Lisey and the Madman") ; Lisey (pr. LEE-see) Debusher Landon, her dead husband Scott and Boo'ya Moon. William Kittredge, The Willow Field (first novel); 15-y.-o. Rossie Benasco becomes a cowboy and a man. Dean Koontz (1945-), The Husband; Brother Odd; he leaves Pico Mundo for a mountain monastery talking to his soul mate Stormy Llewellyn. Nick Laird, Utterly Monkey (first novel). Anne Lamott (1954-), Blue Shoe. Lori Lansens, The Girls; 29-y.-o. Canadian craniopagus (joined at the head) twins Rose and Ruby Darlen each write down their life stories. Stieg Larsson (1954-2004), The Girl Who Played with Fire; #2 in the Millennium Trilogy. Aaron Latham, Riding with John Wayne. J.M. Ledgard, Giraffe (first novel); the May Day 1975 Czech zoo scandal. Doris Lessing (1919-2013), The Story of General Dann and Mara's Daughter, Griot and the Snow Dog. Jonathan Lethem (1964-), How We Got Insipid (short stories). Jonathan Lethem (1964-) and Christopher Sorrentino (1963-), Believeniks!: 2005: The Year We Wrote a Book About the Mets; pub. under alias Ivan Felt and Harris Conklin. Judith Lindbergh, The Thrall's Tale; Katla the thrall and her rape baby Bibrau clash with Leif Eriksson and his Christian settlers in 10th cent. Greenland. Elinor Lipman (1950-), My Latest Grievance; Mr. and Mrs. Hatch at Dewing College in Boston. Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-), Travesuras de la Nina Malas (Pranks of the Bad Girl); a Peruvian man's lifetime obsession with a teen babe. David Long, The Inhabited World. Alison Lurie (1926-), Truth and Consequences; architecture prof. Alan MacKenzie hurts his back and changes his career to artist. Tucker Malarkey, Resurrection; a bunch of what? Gautam Malkani, Londonstani. Benjamin Markovits, Fathers and Daughters. Bobbie Ann Mason (1940-), Nancy Culpepper (short stories). Hisham Matar (1970-), In the Country of Men (first novel); 9-y.-o. Suleiman el Dawani in 1979 phone-tapping Morocco. Anna Maxted, A Tale of Two Sisters; Lizbet and Cassie Montgomery. Cormac McCarthy (1933-), The Road (10th novel) (Pulitzer Prize); the Veteran, the Wife, and the Son try to survive in the apocalyptic remains of cannibal-filled Appalachia; his take on "The Road Warrior"? Geraldine McCaughrean (1951-), Peter Pan in Scarlet (Oct.); the first sequel to "Peter Pan" authorized by the J.M. Barrie Estate. Colleen McCullough (1937-), On, Off; police lt. Carmine Delmonico vs. a serial rapist-murderer the Conn. Monster in 1965 Chubb U. in Holloman, Conn. Alice McDermott (1953-), After This; John and Mary Keane, their children Michael, Annie, Jacob, and Claire during the 1960s sexual rev., and the power of family. Heather McGowan, The Duchess of Nothing. Kathleen McGowan, The Expected One; Maureen Pascal, Tammy, cousin Father Peter Healy, and scholar Lord Berenger Sinclair search for the lost gospel of Mary Magdalene; the author is a direct descendant of Christ? Thomas McGuane (1939-), Gallatin Canyon (short stories). Jay McInerney (1955-), The Good Life. Larry McMurtry (1936-), Telegraph Days (May). Zakes Mda, The Whale Caller; bald kelp horn blower in the Western Cape falls in love with his whale Sharisha? James Meek, The People's Act of Love; escaped prisoner Kyrill Ivanovich Samarin in 1919 Russia. Farah Mendlesohn (ed.), Polder; devoted to John Clute. Brad Meltzer, Book of Fate. Elizabeth Merrick (ed.), This is Not Chick Lit: Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers (No Heels Required). Stephenie Meyer, New Moon (Aug.). Stanley Middleton (1919-2009), Mother's Boy. Joe Miller, Cross-X; an inner-city high school debate team. Denise Mina, The Dead Hour; 21-y.-o. Paddy Meehan of Glasgow. Jacquelyn Mitchard, Cage of Stars; 12-y.-o. Veronica (Ronnie) Swan sees her two baby sisters murdered. David Mitchell (1969-), Black Swan Green; 13 stories about life at age 13 in 1982; a village in Worcestershire, the name is a joke?; "The Earth's a door, if you press your ear against it". Anna Monardo, Falling in Love with Natassia. Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie, Lost Girls (graphic novel); Alice, Wendy and Dorothy on an island in the Boden Sea of Bavaria have an erotic awakening in 1913-4? Christopher Moore (1957-), A Dirty Job; Beta Male Charlie Asher and Minty Fresh, the Death Merchants vs. Death and the Morrigan? James Morrow, The Last Witchfinder; Jennet Stearne in Britain and America in the 18th cent. uses Isaac Newton's "Principia" to prove herself innocent of witchcraft? Sir John Mortimer (1923-2009), Rumpole and the Reign of Terror. Walter Mosley (1952-), The Wave; Fortunate Son. Kate Mosse (1961-), Labyrinth; Alice Tanner in 2005 and 17-y.-o. Alais in 1209 chase the Holy Grail in a tale where "women have the swords". Alice Munro (1931-), The View from Castle Rock: Stories (short stories); SW Colo. author's Canadian ancestors named Laidlaw are from Far Hope, Scotland. Haruki Murakami (1949-), Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (short stories) (Aug.). Sena Jeter Naslund, Abundance; Marie Antoinette wasn't really all that bad? Julia Navarro, The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud; Marco Valoni stops a conspiracy to destroy it. Irene Nemirovsky, Suite Francaise. John Treadwell Nichols (1940-), American Blood. Joyce Carol Oates (1938-), High Lonesome: Stories 1966-2006; Landfill (Oct. 9 issue of The New Yorker) (based on 19-y.-o. College of N.J. student John A. Flocco Jr., who went missing in Mar. and whose body is later found in a Penn. landfill); Black Girl/White Girl; black girl Minette Swift and white girl Genna Meade. Edna O'Brien (1930-), The Light of Evening. Carol O'Connell, Find Me; Kathy Mallory on the remains of Route 66. Stewart O'Nan (1961-), Last Night at the Lobster. Peter Orner, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (first novel); Larry Planska leaves Cincinnati, Ohio to teach at a Catholic boys school in Namibia. Robert Brown Parker (1932-2010), Hundred-Dollar Baby; Spenser #34; Sea Change; Jesse Stone #5; Blue Screen; Sunny Randall #5. T. Jefferson Parker (1953-), The Fallen. Carolyn Parkhurst, Lost and Found. James Patterson (1947-), Cross; Alex Cross goes after his wife's killer. James Patterson (1947-) and Andrew Gross, Judge & Jury; Andie DeGrasse, FBI agent Nick Pellisante and the Mafia trial of the cent. James Patterson (1947-) and Peter De Jonge, Beach Road; three white boys murdered in the Hamptons, and black basketball phenom Dante Halleyville is accused, causing atty. Tom Dunleavy to take the case. James Patterson (1947-) and Maxine Paetro, 5th Horseman. Matthew Pearl, The Poe Shadow. George Pelecanos, The Night Gardener; the Palindrome Murders. Thomas Perry, Nightlife. Marisha Pessl (1978-), Special Topics of Calamity Physics (first novel); Blue Van Meer and her academic father Gareth are drawn into the mystery of several murders. David Petersen (ed.), Postcards from Ed: Dispatches and Salvos from an American Iconoclast. Harry Mark Petrakis (1923-), Collected Stories. Nancy Pickard, The Virgin of Small Plains. Jodi Picoult (1966-), The Tenth Circle. Stanley Pottinger, The Boss. Richard Powers (1957-), The Echo Maker. Tim Powers, Three Days to Never. Steven Pressfield (1943-), The Afghan Campaign; Alexander the Great in 330 B.C.E. Anna Quindlen (1953-), Rise and Shine; narrator Bridget Fitzmaurice on her older sister Meghan, a Katie Couric-like host of a morning show, whose career nosedives. Kathy Reichs, Break No Bones (9th Dr. Temperance Brennan novel). Carl Reiner, NNNNN. J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts), Born in Death; another Lt. Eve Dallas and her multimillionaire hubby Roarke romance. David L. Robbins, The Assassins Gallery; a woman sent to kill FDR? Michael Robotham, Lost. Joel C. Rosenberg (1967-), The Copper Scroll. Philip Roth (1933-), Everyman; "Old age is not a battle, old age is a massacre." Jed Rubenfeld, The Interpretation of Murder (first novel); Sigmund Freud's 1909 trip to the U.S. intersects with a girl's murder? Rudy Rucker, Mathematicians in Love; Humelock grad students Bela and Paul race to prove the Morphic Classification Theorem, that everything is a form of computation and the right formulas can turn anything into a computer. Carl Safina, Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur. Jose Saramago (1922-2010), Memories of My Youth (As Pequenas Memorias). Marjane Satrapi (1969-), Chicken with Plums (graphic novel); the last 8 days of her sitar-playing uncle Nasser Ali Khan's life as he dies of a broken heart. Joe Scalzi (1969-), The Ghost Brigades; Old Man's War #2. Karl Schroeder (1962-), Sun of Suns (Oct. 3); first in Virga series. Carolyn See, There Will Never Be Another You. Will Self, The Book of Dave; Carl Devush's quest to reconcil his mummyself in 26th cent. New London, based on a book buried in his ex-wife's backyard by 21st cent. London cabbie Dave Rudman?; "Nobody goes into the business of writing satire to be liked." Jeff Shaara, The Rising Tide; first in WWII trilogy; the North African campaign of 1942-3. Aurelie Sheehan, History Lesson for Girls; Alison Glass. Anita Shreve (1946-), Body Surfing. Gary Shteyngart (1972-), Absurdistan; fat 325 lb. Russian-Jewish gangster's son Misha Borisovich "Snack Daddy" Vainberg is sent to Accidental College in the U.S. after a botched circumcision, falls in love with Rubinesque Desiree, then ends up in you know where? Javier Sierra, The Secret Supper; Pope Alexander IV, Father Agostino Leyre, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Soothsayer in 1497 Milan. Daniel Silva, The Messenger. Dan Simmons (1948-), The Terror; the doomed 1840s expedition to find the Northwest Passage, plus a legendary Esquimax beast. Kyle Smith, A Christmas Caroline. Lee Smith (1944-), On Agate Hill. Scott Smith, The Ruins. Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler) (1970-), The Beatrice Letters (A Series of Unfortunate Events #12); The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events #13) (Oct. 13, Fri.). Edmundo Paz Soldan, Turing's Delirium; codebreaker Miguel Saenz of the Black Chamber. Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006), A Strange Commonplace. Gary Soto (1952-), Accidental Love. Nicholas Sparks (1965-), Dear John (Oct.). Dana Spiotta, Eat the Document. Danielle Steel (1947-), The House; Coming Out; H.R.H.. Steve Stern (1947-), The Angel of Forgetfulness. Cheryl Strayed, Torch. Whitley Strieber (1945-), The Grays; aliens abduct humans and tamper with their genes to produce genius kids so they can feed on human emotion in return for technology transfer. Wesley Strick, Out There in the Dark (first novel). Charles Stross (1964-), Glasshouse. Elizabeth Strout, Abide With Me (first novel). Duane Swierczynski, The Blonde; Jack Eisley must stay with 10 ft. of the blonde who poisoned him? Lalita Tademy, Red River; the 1873 Colfax Riot. Michael Thomas, Man Gone Down (first novel); a black Am. father of three in a biracial marriage. Brad Thor (1969-), Takedown. Colm Toibin (1955-), Mothers and Sons (short stories). Rose Tremain (1943-), The Darkness of Wallis Simpson. Lisa Tucker, Once Upon a Day. Justin Tussing, The Best People in the World (first novel); a history student and his student fall in love in the 1970s and hit da road. Anne Tyler (1941-), Digging to America; married to an Iranian immigrant, the author explores upper middle class white-is-not-right Am. families adopting female babies from Asia, incl. an Iranian-Am. couple. Omar Tyree, What They Want; black male model Terrance Mitchell and his white woman Victoria, who doesn't satisfy him?; "It seemed like once you went there, you were a living zombie, with plenty of desert, but no spice". Barry Unsworth (1930-2012), The Ruby in Her Navel. John Updike (1932-2009), Terrorist. Jane Urquhart, A Map of Glass. Carrie Vaughn (1973-), Kitty Goes to Washington; Kitty Norville #2. Gore Vidal (1925-), Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories. Vernor Vinge (1944-), Rainbows End. Kaavya Viswanathan, How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life; withdrawn for plagiarizing chick-lit writers incl. Megan McCafferty, killing a $500K book deal from Little, Brown. Bruce Alan Wagner (1954-), Memorial. Ayelet Waldman, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. Robert James Waller, The Long Night of Winchell Dear; a poker player in W Tex. Jess Walter, The Zero. Joseph Wambaugh (1937-), Hollywood Station; his first LAPD novel since "The Glitter Dome" (1983); life under the federal consent decree and a 20% female cop force. Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006), Elements of Style (first novel). Sarah Waters, The Night Watch. Peter Watts (1958-), Blindsight; about astronauts of the ship Theseus (captained by a vampire) in 2082 investigating an alien entity called the Rorschach headed for Earth. Betty Webb, Desert Run; 4th Lena Jones mystery. Michael Weisskopf (1948-), Blood Brothers; a Time mag. correspondent goes on patrol with a U.S. platoon in Iraq and gets a grenade in his vehicle, which takes out his hand. Fay Weldon (1931-), She May Not Leave. Irvine Welsh (1958-), The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. Stephen White (1951-), Kill Me; Dr. Alan Gregory takes a back seat? Colson Whitehead, Apex Hides the Hurt; the name Winthrop just doesn't cut it anymore? Allen Wier, Tehano. Jacqueline Winspear, Pardonable Lies; 3rd Maisie Dobbs novel. Stephen Wright, The Amalgamation Polka. Lloyd Zimpel, A Season of Fire & Ice. Markus Zusak (1975-), The Book Thief; post-WWII German book thief Liesel Meminger eludes Death three times, causing him to utter the soundbyte "I am haunted by humans". Births: Am. crypto-child Suri (Jap. "pickpocket") (Heb. "princess" (Persian "red rose") Cruise on Apr. 19 in Los Angeles, Calif.; daughter of Tomkat actors Tom Cruise (1962-) and Katie Holmes (1978-); makes her debut on the Sept. 5 CBS Evening News, which is also the debut of anchor Katie Couric; in 2008 British journalist Andrew Morton (1953-) claims that her real daddy is L. Ron Hubbard (1911-86), and rumors fly that she's his reincarnation - does she have fringe on top? Am. celeb child Shiloh Nouvel ("New Messiah") Jolie-Pitt on May 27 in Namibia; son of actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, joining adopted children Maddox (4) and Zahara (16 mo.). Japanese prince Hisahito on Sept. 6 (8:27 a.m.) in Tokyo; 3rd child of Japanese princess Kiko (b. 1967), wife of the emperor's 2nd son prince Akishino; eldest son crown prince Naruhito and wife Masako only have a daughter, making him the first male heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne since Akishino in 1965; he starts out 3rd in line after Naruhito and Akishino, causing talk of dropping the 1947 male-only succession law. Canadian "Jack Newsome in Room" actor Jacob Tremblay on Oct. 5 in Vancouver, B.C. Deaths: Am. WWI vet Moses Hardy (b. Jan. 6, 1893) on Dec. 7 in Aberdeen, Miss.; son of black slaves born in the 1830s; 2nd oldest man (6th oldest person) in the world, and the last African-Am. U.S. veteran of WWI; only 10-12 U.S. WWI vets remain. Am. jazz musician Sweet Emma Barrett (b. 1897) on Jan. 28. Am. poet Stanley Kunitz (b. 1905) on May 14 in New York City. Am. film dir. Vincent Sherman (b. 1906) on June 18. Am. Titanic survivor Lillian Gertrud Asplund (b. 1907) on May 7 in Shrewsbury, Mass.; the last survivor (with her mother and 3-y.-o. brother Felix) of the 1912 Titanic sinking, in which she lost her father and three brothers, incl. a fraternal twin; her mother Selma (b. 1873) dies on Apr. 15, 1964, and Felix (b. 1909) dies on Mar. 1, 1983. Canadian-Am. "Affluent Society" economist John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908) on Apr. 29 in Cambridge, Mass.; "Witty, supple, eloquent and edged with that sheen of malice which the fallen sons of Adam always find attractive when it is directed at targets other than themselves" (Robert Lekachman): "Only the man who finds everything wrong and expects it to get worse is thought to have a clear brain." Am. actress Nancy Rennick (b. 1932) on Apr. 5 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. sci-fi novelist Jack Williamson (b. 1908) on Nov. 10 in Portales, N.M. Scottish composer Robin Orr (b. 1909) on Apr. 9. Am. actor Herbert Rudley (b. 1910) on Sept. 9 in Los Angeles, Calif. German-born British economist Sir Hans Singer (b. 1910) on Feb. 26 in Brighton. Am. "Margaret Anderson in Father Knows Best", "Spock's mother in Star Trek", "Ronald Colman's lover in Lost Horizon" actress Jane Wyatt (b. 1910) on Oct. 20 in Bel-Air, Calif. Am. cartoonist Joe Barbera (b. 1911) on Dec. 18 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. Teamsters internat. vice-pres. (-1989) Robert Holmes (b. 1911) on Feb. 19 in Detroit, Mich. (heart failure); lifelong associate of Jimmy Hoffa. Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz (b. 1911) on Aug. 29 in Cairo; 1988 Nobel Lit. Prize. Am. "Marines on Iwo Jima" photographer Joe Rosenthal (b. 1911) on Aug. 20 in Novato, Calif. Am. physicist Joseph Harold Rush (b. 1911) on Sept. 12 in Boulder, Colo. Am. conservative economist Milton Friedman (b. 1912) on Nov. 16. Romanian-born Canadian poet Irving Layton (b. 1912) on Jan. 4 in Montreal (Alzheimer's); "I taught him how to dress, and he taught me how to live forever" (Leonard Cohen): "I want to be remembered as someone who believed that a great poem was the noblest work of man and that no one ever wrote one who didn't want to get out of Hell." Am. #1 golf pro "Lord" Byron Nelson (b. 1912) on Sept. 26 in Roanoke, Tex. Am. black photographer-dir. Gordon Parks (b. 1912) on Mar. 7 in New York City: "I was just born with a need to explore every tool shop of my mind." Paraguayan dictator (1954-89) Gen. Alfredo Stroessner (b. 1912) on Aug. 16 in Brasilia. French-born Am. fashion designer Oleg Cassini (b. 1913) on Mar. 17 in Manhasset, N.Y. U.S. pres. #38 (1974-7) Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913) on Dec. 26 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Am. "The Taking of Pelham 123" novelist John Godey (b. 1913) on Apr. 16 in West New York, N.Y. South African-born British Communist leader Ted Grant (b. 1913) on July 20 in London (stroke). Am. conservative writer Willard Cleon Skousen (b. 1913) on Jan. 9. Am. "You Asked For It" TV host Jack Smith (b. 1913) on July 3 in Westlake Village, Calif. (leukemia). Am. TRW co-founder Dean Everett Wooldridge (b. 1913) on Sept. 20 in Santa Barbara, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. Squaw Valley ski resort founder Alexander C. Cushing (b. 1914) on Aug. 20 in Newport, R.I. Am. civil rights activist James Cameron (b. 1914) on June 11 in Milwaukee, Wisc. (heart failure); only known survivor of a lynching attempt. Am. physicist Raymond Davis Jr. (b. 1914) on May 31 in Blue Point, N.Y.; 2002 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. Nicholas Brothers tap dancer Fayard Nicholas (b. 1914) on Jan. 24 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "World Peace Through World Law" atty. Louis B. Sohn (b. 1914) on June 7. Am. space scientist James Alfred Van Allen (b. 1914) on Aug. 9 in Iowa City, Iowa (heart failure). Am. WWII Army medic Desmond T. Doss (b. 1915) on Mar. 23 in Piedmont, Ala.; only conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor (for actions in Okinawa). Am. blues guitarist Robert Lockwood Jr. (b. 1915) on Nov. 21 in Cleveland, Ohio (stroke). Chilean dictator-pres. (1973-90) Gen. Augusto Pinochet (b. 1915) on Dec. 10 in Santiago (heart failure). British PM John Profumo (b. 1915) on Mar. 9 in South Kensington, London (stroke). German-born Austrian-British soprano Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (b. 1915) on Aug. 3 in Schruns, Austria. South African PM (1978-84) and pres. #9 (1984-9) Pieter Willem Botha (b. 1916) on Oct. 13 in Wilderness, West Cape. Am. "Betty Boop" movie dir. Richard O. Fleischer (b. 1916) on Mar. 25. Canadian-born Am. "Blackboard Jungle", "Jonathan Kent in Superman" actor Glenn Ford (b. 1916) on Aug. 30 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Am.-born Canadian urbanologist Jane Jacobs (b. 1916) on Apr. 25. Am. comedian Jan Murray (b. 1916) on July 2 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Japanese-Am. WWI pardoned traitor Tokyo Rose (Iva Toguri d'Aquino) (b. 1916) on Sept. 26 in Chicago, Ill. Am. Dead Sea Scrolls archeologist John C. Trever (b. 1916) on Apr. 29 in Calif. Am. poet-historian Peter Viereck (b. 1916) on May 13: "Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of intellectuals." Am. actress-singer June Allyson (d. 1917) on July 9. Scottish New Age writer Eileen Caddy (b. 1917) on Dec. 13 in Findhorn. Am. "Singin' the Rain" screenwriter Betty Comden (b. 1917) on Nov. 23 in Manhattan, N.Y. (heart failure). Soviet economist Nikolay Fedorenko (b. 1917) on Apr. 1. Canadian mathematician Irving Kaplansky (b. 1917) on June 25. Am. chef-writer Edna Lewis (b. 1917) on Feb. 13. U.S. defense secy. (1981-7) Caspar Willard Weinberger (b. 1917) on Mar. 28 in Bangor, Maine. Am. Coppertone Girl artist Joyce Ballantyne (b. 1918) on May 15 in Ocala, Fla. (heart attack). Am. golfer Patty Berg (b. 1918) on Sept. 10 in Ft. Myers, Fla. (Alzheimer's). Am. novelist-playwright Joseph Hayes (b. 1918) on Sept. 11 in St. Augustine, Fla. Am. Math Olympiads founder George Lenchner (b. 1918) on May 14 in San Francisco. Am. portrait photographer Arnold Newman (b. 1918) on June 6 in New York City. Scottish "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" novelist Muriel Spark (b. 1918) on Apr. 14. Am. "Mike Hammer" author Frank Morrison "Mickey" Spillane (b. 1918) on July 17 in Murrells Inlet, S.C. (cancer): "No one likes them except the public"; "I don't have fans I have customers"; "That Mickey Spillane, he sure knows how to write" (1955 film Marty). Tonga king (1965-) Taufa'ahau Tupou IV (b. 1918) on Sept. 11 in New Zealand; in the 1990s he reaches a monarch record of 462 lbs., leading his 108K people on a diet-exercise program and losing 154 lbs. Swedish soprano Astrid Varnay (b. 1918) on Sept. 4 in Munich. Am. singer Georgia Gibbs (b. 1919) on Dec. 9 in New York City (leukemia). Am. political celeb Nellie Connally (b. 1919) on Sept. 1 in Austin, Tex. Am. WWII hero Desmond Doss (b. 1919) on Mar. 23 in Piedmont, Ala. Am. liquor importer Sidney E. Frank (b. 1919) on Jan. 10 (heart failure); dies on a private plane en route from San Diego, Calif. to Vancouver, B.C., Canada. Am. sports announcer Curt Gowdy (d. 1919) on Feb. 20 in Palm Beach, Fla. (leukemia); he sounds like "everybody's brother-in-law" (John Updike). Italian "The Battle of Algiers" dir. Gillo Montecorvo (b. 1919) on Oct. 12 in Rome (heart failure). Am. jazz singer ("the Jezebel of Jazz") Anita O'Day (b. 1919) on Nov. 23 in West Hollywood, Calif. Am. 1-handed pushups at the Oscars actor Jack Palance (b. 1919) on Nov. 10 in Montecito, Calif. Am. Hawaii gov. #1 (1959-62) William Francis Quinn (b. 1919) on Aug. 28 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Canadian-born NBC News pres. (1968-72, 1982-4) Reuven Frank (b. 1920) on Feb. 4: "Sunshine is a weather report, a flood is news"; "New is what someone wants to suppress - everything else is advertising." Am. actor Jack Warden (b. 1920) on July 19 in New York City. Am. actress Shelley Winters (b. 1920) on Jan. 14 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (heart failure). Am. jockey Anna Lee Aldred (b. 1921) on June 12 in Montrose, Colo. Dutch artist Karel Appel (b. 1921) on May 3 in Zurich, Switzerland. English composer Sir Malcolm Arnold (b. 1921) on Sept. 23 in Norwich. Am. artist Bonnie Woolsey Benschneider (b. 1921) on Oct. 15 in Colorado Springs, Colo. U.S. Sen. (D-Tex.) Lloyd "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" Bentsen (b. 1921) on May 23 in Houston, Tex.; suffered a stroke in 1999. English children's writer Peggy Cripps Appiah (b. 1921) on Feb. 11 in Kumasi, Ghana. Am. test pilot and X-15 rocket plane designer Scott Crossfield (b. 1921) on Apr. 20 in Ranger, Ga. (small plane crash). Am. feminist writer Betty Friedan (b. 1921) on Feb. 4 (85th birthday) in Washington, D.C. (heart failure): "It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself." Polish "Solaris" sci-fi novelist Stanislaw Lem (b. 1921) on Mar. 27 in Cracow. Am. "The Prince and the Pauper" actor Billy Mauch (b. 1921) on Sept. 29 in Palatine, Ill. Am. baritone Robert McFerrin Sr. (b. 1921) on Nov. 24 in St. Louis, Mo. (heart attack). Am. biochemist Robert Bruce Merrifield (b. 1921) on May 14 in Cresskill, N.J.; 1984 Nobel Chem. Prize. Am. "General Hospital" TV producer Gloria Monty (b. 1921) on Mar. 30. Am. bluesman Snooky Pryor (b. 1921) on Oct. 18. Am. writer Jay Presson Allen (b. 1922) on May 1 in New York City: "You write to please yourself"; "The only office where there's no superior is the office of the scribe." Am. "Clarabell the Clown" actor-musician Lew Anderson (b. 1922) on May 14 in Hawthorne, N.Y. (prostate cancer). Canadian "Owen Marshall", "Andromeda Strain" actor Arthur Hill (b. 1922) on Oct. 22 in Pacific Palisades, Calif. French #1 Burgundy winemaker Henri Jayer (b. 1922) on Sept. 21 in Dijon (prostate cancer). English no-frill airlines pioneer Sir Freddie Laker (b. 1922) on Feb. 9. Am. "Route 66" writer-producer Herbert Breiter Leonard (b. 1922) on Oct. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset (b. 1922) on Dec. 31: "The more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain democracy"; "Those who only know one country know no country." Am. "Kolchak the Night Stalker" actor Darren McGavin (b. 1922) on Feb. 25 in Los Angeles, Calif. Polish-born Am. labor economist Jacob Mincer (b. 1922) on Aug. 20 in New York City (Parkinson's). Am. heart transplant pioneer surgeon Dr. Norman Shumway (b. 1922) on Feb. 10 in Palo Alto, Calif. (lung cancer); Sen. majority leader Bill Frist, a heart transplant surgeon studied under him at Stanford U. Japanese "Tiger Tanaka in You Only Live Twice" actor Tetsuro Tamba (b. 1922) on Sept. 22 in Tokyo (pneumonia). Am. actor Joseph Bernard (b. 1923) on Apr. 3 in New York City. Am. sex reassignment surgery physician Stanley H. Biber (b. 1923) on Jan. 16 in Pueblo, Colo. Am. Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun (b. 1923) on Dec. 14 in New York City; hospitalized since an Oct. 29 Rolling Stones concert when he fell, suffered a head injury, and slipped into a coma. Canadian ballerina Melissa Hayden (b. 1923) on Aug. 9 in Winston-Salem, N.C. Canadian-born Am. historian Leonard W. Levy (b. 1923) on Aug. 24 in Ashland, Ore. Am. "Grandpa in The Munsters" actor Al Lewis (b. 1923) on Feb. 3 in New York City. Romanian-born Austrian "2001: A Space Odyssey", "The Shining" composer Gyorgy Ligeti (b. 1923) on June 12 in Vienna. Am. heart surgeon Norman Shumway (b. 1923) on Feb. 10 in Palo Alto, Calif. Am. TV impresario Aaron Spelling (b. 1923) on June 23 in Los Angeles, Calif.; produced 3K+ TV episodes; during the 1970s-80s turned ABC into the "Aaron Broadcasting Company" with his hit "mind candy" ("mindless candy") series and movies incl. "The Mod Quad", "Starsky and Hutch", "T.J. Hooker", "Hart to Hart", "Love Boat", "Fantasy Island", "Charlie's Angels", "Dynasty", Beverly Hills 90210", "Melrose Place", and "7th Heaven". Canadian newspaper-TV mogul Kenneth Thomson, 2nd baron Thomas of Fleet (b. 1923) on June 12 in Toronto, Ont.; dies with a net worth of $19.6B. Am. liberal Protestant peace activist clergyman Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr. (b. 1924) on Apr. 12 in Strafford, Vt.: "Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat"; "Without love violence will change the world; it will change it into a more violent one"; "The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love"; "For Christians, the problem is not how to reconcile homosexuality with scriptural passages that condemn it, but how to reconcile the rejection and punishment of homosexuals with the love of Christ"; "By abolishing slavery and ordaining women, millions of Protestants have gone far beyond biblical literalism. It's time we did the same for homophobia"; "To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought"; "I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap and then you grow wings." German-born Am. biologist Vernon M. Ingram (b. 1924) on Aug. 17 in Boston, Mass. Am. "Deputy Barney Fife in The Andy Griffith Show" actor Don Knotts (b. 1924) on Feb. 24 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. celeb Patricia Kennedy Lawton (b. 1924) on Sept. 18 (pneumonia). Am. throughbred owner Bob Lewis (b. 1924) (Silver Charm, Charismatic) on Feb. 17 in Newport Beach, Calif. (heart failure). Irish "Thunderball" writer Kevin McClory (b. 1924) on Nov. 20 in Loughlinstown, County Dublin (cerebral hemorrhage). Am. Nixon-Reagan adviser Lyn Nofziger (b. 1924) on Mar. 27 in Falls Church, Va. (cancer). French journalist-politician Jean-Jacques Servan-Schriber (b. 1924) on Nov. 7 in Fecamp. Am. "Chester Goode on Gunsmoke", "McCloud" actor Dennis Weaver (b. 1924) on Feb. 24 in Ridgway, Colo. (cancer); his 10K sq. ft. earthship home made out of tin cans and tires is listed for $3.75M; from 1955-64 his salary on "Gunsmoke" grew from $300 to $9K a week - Mis-ter Dil-lon? Am. film dir.-writer Robert Altman (b. 1925) on Nov. 20 in Los Angeles, Calif. English comedian Charlie Drake (b. 1925) on Dec. 23 in Twickenham, Middlesex (stroke). Am. talk show host Mike Douglas (b. 1925) on Aug. 11 (his birthday). Irish PM (1979-81, 1982-7) Charlie Haughey (b. 1925) on June 13 in Kinsealy, County Dublin (prostate cancer). Am. Harvard Business School prof. Theodore Levitt (b. 1925) on June 28; coined the term "globalization" (1983). Israeli physicist Yuval Ne'eman (b. 1925) on Apr. 26 in Tel Aviv. Am. "Louise Tate in Bewitched" actress Kasey Rogers (b. 1925) on July 6 in Los Angeles, Calif. (throat cancer). Am. "Emma Goldman in Reds" actress Maureen Stapleton (b. 1925) on Mar. 13. Am. "Sophie's Choice" novelist William Styron (b. 1925) on Nov. 1 in Martha's Vineyard, Mass. (pneumonia). Indonesian "Buru Quartet" novelist Pramoedya Ananta Toer (b. 1925) on Apr. 30; jailed by Suharto from 1965-79, followed by house arrest until 1992. Am. Smarty Jones thoroughbred owner Roy Chapman (b. 1926) on Feb. 17 in Doylestown, Penn. (emphysema). German historian Joachim Fest (b. 1926) on Sept. 11 in Kronberg im Taunus. Am. Rock Hudson's wife (1955-8) Phyllis Lucille Gates (b. 1926) on Jan. 4 in Marina del Rey, Calif. (lung cancer). Am. actor-bodybuilder (Jayne Mansfield's ex) Mickey Hargitay (b. 1926) on Sept. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. (multiple myeloma). Japanese "The Eel" dir. Shohei Imamura (b. 1926) on May 30 in Tokyo. Am. ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick (b. 1926) on Dec. 7 in Bethesda, Md.: "History is a better guide than good intentions." Kuwaiti emir Sheik Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah (b. 1926) on Jan. 15; emir during the 1990 Iraqi occupation. Scottish ballerina-actress Moira Shearer (b. 1926) on Jan. 31 in Oxford, England. North Vietnamese spy Maj. Gen. Pham Xuan An (b. 1927) on Sept. 27 in Ho Chi Minh City (emphysema). Am. Los Angeles Times pub. Otis Chandler (b. 1927) on Feb. 27 in Ojai, Calif. (Lewy Body Disease); succeeded by Tom Johnson. Am. "first lady of the civil rights movement" Coretta Scott King (b. 1927) on Jan. 31 in Mexico; a mother of four when hubby MLK Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Am. psychologist Robert Plutchik (b. 1927) on Apr. 29. Am. basketball player Paul Arizin (b. 1928) on Dec. 12 in Springfield, Penn. Am. R&B singer Ruth Brown (b. 1928) on Nov. 17 in Henderson, Nev. (heart attack). Am. linguist William Bright (b. 1928) on Oct. 15 in Louisville, Colo.; first honorary member of the Karuk tribe of Calif. for his 1957 work on their language. Am. "Tom Willis in The Jeffersons" actor Franklin Cover (b. 1928) on Feb. 5 in Englewood, N.J. (pneumonia). Am. psychologist Bernard Rimland (b. 1928) on Nov. 21 in San Diego, Calif. Latin "Acid" jazz percussion master Ray Barretto (b. 1929) on Feb. 17 in Hackensack, N.J. (heart failure). English-born Am. writer Anthony Cave Brown (b. 1929) on July 14 in Warrenton, Va. (dementia). Egyptian musician Hamza El Din (b. 1929) on May 22 in Berkeley, Calif. (gall bladder infection). Italian fiery independent journalist ("Heroine of Europe") Oriana Fallaci (b. 1929) on Sept. 15 in Florence (breast cancer); dies after becoming the target of "legal jihad" by Islamic groups in Europe, incl. the Union of Italian Muslims and Islamic Centre of Geneva: "Europe is no longer Europe, it is Eurabia, a colony of Islam, where the Islamic invasion does not proceed only in a physical sense, but also in a mental and cultural sense"; "Behind every Islamic terrorist there is an imam." Am. "Tequila" singer Danny Flores (b. 1929) on Sept. 19 in Huntington Beach, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. country singer Bonnie Owens (b. 1929) on Apr. 24; wife of Buck Owens. Am. country musician Buck Owens (b. 1929) on Mar. 25 in Bakersfield, Calif. (heart attack). Am. Mich. Wolverines football coach Bo Schembechler (b. 1929) on Nov. 17 in Southfield, Mich.; collapses in the studios of WXYZ-TV on the eve of the biggest matchup ever in the rivalry between #1 Ohio State and #2 Michigan. Am. novelist Gilbert Sorrentino (b. 1929) on May 18 Am. country singer Billy "the Tall Texan" Walker (b. 1929) on May 21 in Ft. Deposit, Ala. (van crash). English-born Australian wine promoter Len Evans (b. 1930) on Aug. 17 in Newcastle, N.S.W. (heart attack). Am. athlete-politician Bob Mathias (b. 1930) on Sept. 2 in Fresno, Calif. (cancer). Am. floppy disk inventor Alan F. Shugart (b. 1930) on Dec. 12 in San Jose, Calif. English "Salad Days" composer Julian Slade (b. 1930) on June 17 in London (cancer). French transsexual actress Coccinelle (b. 1931) on Oct. 9 in Marseille (stroke). South Korean video artist Nam June Paik (b. 1932) on Jan. 29 in Miami, Fla. Am. physicist Melvin Schwartz (b. 1932) on Aug. 28 in Twin Falls, Idaho; 1988 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. Tiger Woods' dad-coach Earl Woods (b. 1932) on May 3. Am. "Godfather of Soul" James Brown (b. 1933) on Dec. 25 in Atlanta, Ga. (pneumonia): "I used to shine shoes on the front steps of an Augusta, Georgia radio station. Now I own that radio station." Am. libertarian writer Harry Browne (b. 1933) on Mar. 1 in Franklin, Tenn. (ALS); U.S. pres. candidate of the Libertarian Party in 1996 and 2000. Am. writer (collaborator of Clifford Irving) Herbert Burkholz (b. 1933) on Apr. 30 in Hagerstown, Md. (lung cancer). Am. NASA "Six Million Dollar Man" test pilot Bruce Peterson (b. 1933) on May 1 in Ocean Springs, Calif. Am. Tex. gov. (1991-5) Ann Richards (b. 1933) on Sept. 13 in Austin, Tex. (cancer): "I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house'." Am. "Wall $treet Week" (1907-2002) financial journalist Louis Rukeyser (b. 1933) on May 2 in Hartford, Conn. (multiple myeloma). Am. uranium tycoon Oren Benton (b. 1934) on May 19 in Arapahoe County, Colo. (colon cancer). Irish novelist John McGahern (b. 1934) on Mar. 30 in Dublin. Am. "Frankenstein" actor Peter Boyle (b. 1935) on Dec. 12; John Lennon was his best man in his 1977 wedding. Am. serial murderer Richard Kuklinski (b. 1935) on Mar. 5 in Trenton, N.J. Am. boxing champ Floyd Patterson (b. 1935) on May 11 in New Paltz, N.Y. (Alzheimer's and prostate cancer). Am. four-octave singer-fundraiser Lou Rawls (b. 1935) on Jan. 6 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer); released 70+ albums, sold 40M+ records, and raised over $200M for the United Negro College Fund; "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game" (Frank Sinatra): "When you've said Budweiser, you've said it all." Am. "Mike Bauer in Guiding Light" actor Don Stewart (b. 1935) on Jan. 9 in Santa Barbara, Calif. Am. serial murderer Richard "the Iceman" Kulkinski (b. 1935) on Mar. 5 in Trenton, N.J.; dies in prison of natural causes. English "Freddie and the Dreamers" musician Freddie Garrity (b. 1936) on May 19 in Bangor, Wales. Am. "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" musician Freddy Fender (b. 1937) on Oct. 14 in Corpus Christi, Tex. (lung cancer). English geologist Sir Nicholas Shackleton (b. 1937) on Jan. 24. Am. Mass. gay rep. (first openly gay member of Congress) Gerry Studds (b. 1937) on Oct. 14; married Dean Hara in 2004 after gay marriage was legalized in Mass., but the federal govt. denies him death benefits, incl. Studds' $114K annual pension because the 1996 U.S. Defense of Marriage Act prevents it. English rocker Art Wood (b. 1937) on Nov. 3 in London (prostate cancer). Egyptian-born Am. historian Rosemarie Said Zahlan (b. 1937) on May 10. Am. abstract painter Larry Zox (b. 1937) on Dec. 16 (cancer). Am. country singer Johnny Duncan (b. 1938) on Aug. 14 (heart attack). Am. "In the News" journalist Christopher Glenn (b. 1938) on Oct. 17 in Norwalk, Conn. (liver cancer). Japanese PM (1996-8) Ryutaro Hashimoto (b. 1938) on July 1. Scottish "Abbey Road" photographer Iain Stewart Macmillan (b. 1938) on May 8 in Carnoustie, Angus. Am. "Act Naturally", "Hee Haw" country singer Buck Owens (b. 1938) on Mar. 25 in Bakersfield, Calif. (home of his Bakersfield Sound); only country star to have a hit record that is later done by the Beatles ("Act Naturally" in 1965, with Ringo Starr singing lead, plus a duet with Owens in 1989). Am. "Breakfast Club" actor Paul Gleason (b. 1939) on May 27 in Burbank, Calif. (asbestosis). Am. anti-Mormon activist Jerald Tanner (b. 1938) on Oct. 1 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Am. novelist Charles Newman (b. 1939) on Mar. 15 in St. Louis, Mo. (heart attack). Am. artist Luis Alfonso Jimenez Jr. (b. 1940). Am. "Jaws" novelist Peter Benchley (b. 1940) on Feb. 11 in Princeton, N.J. (idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis); "Peter kept telling people that the book was fiction, it was a novel, and that he no more took responsibility for the fear of sharks than Mario Puzo ... for the Mafia" (wife Wendy). Am. sculptor Luis Jimenez (b. 1940) on June 13 in Hondo, N.M.; killed when a piece of the 32-ft. steel-fiberglass Mustang Sculpture he had been working on for 14 years for the Denver Internat. Airport swings out of control and crushes him. Turkmenistan dictator-pres. (1990-2006) Saparmurat Atayevich Niyazov (b. 1940) on Dec. 21 in Ashgabat. Am. "Hello Mary Lou", "He's A Rebel" singer-songwriter Gene Pitney (b. 1940) on Apr. 5 in Cardiff, Wales. Am. TV journalist Ed Bradley (b. 1941) on Nov. 9 (leukemia). Jamaican "Israelites" singer Desmond Dekker (b. 1941) on May 25 in London. English "Tyrian in Dragonslayer" actor John Hallam (b. 1941) on Nov. 14 in Clifton, Oxfordshire. Yugoslavian pres. Slobodan Milosevic (b. 1941) on Mar. 12 in his detention cell in The Hague (heart attack). Am. "In the Midnight Hour", "Mustang Sally" R&B singer Wilson "Wicked" Pickett (b. 1941) on Jan. 19 in Ashburn, Va. (heart attack). Am. leftist journalist Ellen Willis (b. 1941) on Nov. 9 in Queens, N.Y. (lung cancer). Am. Enron CEO (1982-2002) Kenneth Lay (b. 1942) on July 5 in Snowmass, Colo. (heart attack). Am. historian Eric Henry Monkkonen (b. 1942) on May 30, 2005 in Culver City, Calif. (prostate cancer). Australian Olympic track athlete Peter Norman (b. 1942) on Oct. 3 in Melbourne, Victoria. Dutch singer-playwright Robert Long (b. 1943) on Dec. 13 in Antwerp, Belgium (cancer) (AIDS?) Kiwi Olympic archer Neroli Susan Fairhall (b. 1944) on June 11 in Christchurch. Am. "Love" singer Arthur Lee (b. 1945) on Aug. 3 in Memphis, Tenn. (leukemia); spent 1997-2001 in priz for a false charge of negligent discharge of a firearm. English "Pink Floyd" rocker Syd Barrett (b. 1946) on July 7 in Cambridge (pancreatic cancer); death certificate lists him as "retired musician". English "Bad Company" musician Boz Burrell (b. 1946) on Sept. 21 in Marbella, Spain (heart attack). Am. dir. Don Dohler (b. 1946) on Dec. 2 in Perry Hall, Md. Am. actor Andreas Katsulas (b. 1946) on Feb. 13 in Los Angeles, Calif. (lung cancer). Am. sci-fi writer Octavia E. Butler (b. 1947) on Feb. 24 in Seattle, Wash. (heart failure); discovered in 1969 by Harlan Ellison while she was trying to break into sitcom writing? Am. "National Lampoon" co-founder Robert Hoffman (b. 1947) on Aug. 20. Am. "sixth Beatle" singer-musician Billy Preston (b. 1947) on June 6 in Scottsdale, Ariz.; accompanied the Beatles on their last album "Let It Be". Am. "Kool & the Gang" founder Claydes Charles Smith (b. 1948) on June 20 in Maplewood, N.J. Am. "Tommy Anderson in Dennis the Menace" actor Billy Booth (b. 1949) on Dec. 31 in San Luis Obispo, Calif. (liver complications). Am. "City Slickers" actor Bruno Kirby (b. 1949) on Aug. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. (leukemia). Am. "Heidi Chronicles" playwright-novelist Wendy Wasserstein (b. 1950) on Jan. 30 (cancer). Am. rock drummer Bruce Gary (b. 1951) on Aug. 22 in Tarzana, Calif. (non-Hodgkin lymphoma). Am. baseball hall-of-fame outfielder Kirby Puckett (b. 1951) on Mar. 6 (stroke); retired in 1996 with serious eye ailments after playing in 10 consecutive All-Star Games. English "Artful Dodger in Oliver!" actor Jack Wild (b. 1952) on Mar. 1 in Tebworth, Bedfordshire. Am. Pointer Sisters member June Pointer (b. 1953) on Apr. 11 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. dog musher Susan Butcher (b. 1954) on Aug. 5 (leukemia). Am. serial murderer Danny Rolling (b. 1954) on Oct. 25 in Raiford, Fla. (executed by lethal injection). Am. serial murderer Robert Shulman (b. 1954) on Apr. 13 in Albany, N.Y. Jamaican heavyweight boxer Trevor Berbick (b. 1955) on Oct. 28 in Norwich, Port Antonio (murdered). Am. Miss W. Va. 1977 mystery woman Patsy Ramsey (b. 1957) on June 24 in Roswell, Ga. (ovarian cancer). Mexican "The Railroad Killer" serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz (b. 1959) on June 27 in Huntsville, Tex. (execution by lethal injection). Am. rock drummer Sandy West (b. 1959) on Oct. 21 (lung cancer). Am. baseball hall-of-fame player Kirby Puckett (b. 1960) on Mar. 6 in Phoenix, Ariz. (stroke); he ballooned to 300+ lbs. after retiring due to glaucoma. Am. actress-singer Dana Reeve (b. 1961) on Mar. 6 in White Plains, N.Y. (lung cancer); wife of "Superman" Christopher Reeve (d. 2004). Australian "Crocodile Hunter" Steve "Crikey!" Irwin (b. 1962) on Sept. 4 in Batt Reef, Australia; stung in the heart by a stingray, becoming the 3rd person in Australian history to die from one, after zillions of winning bouts with more dangerous crocs, snakes, lions, komodo dragons, etc.; "If I'm going to die, at least I want it filmed" (2002 interview) - crikey? Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko (b. 1962) on Nov. 23 in Bloomsbury, London, England (poisoning by radioactive Po-210). Latvian-born U.S. chess grandmaster ("the Polish Magician") Alexander Wojtkewicz (b. 1963) on July 14 (cancer). Am. 310-lb. "Nice Guy Eddie Cabit in Reservoir Dogs" actor Chris Penn (b. 1965) on Jan. 24 in Santa Monica, Calif.; dies the same day his film "The Darwin Awards" debuts at the Sundance Film Festival. Am. actress-dir. Adrienne Shelley (b. 1966) on Nov. 1 in New York City (murdered). Am. "Johnny Grunge of Public Enemy" wrestler Michael Durham (b. 1967) on Feb. 16 in Peachtree, Ga.; weighs 400+ lbs. at death, and steroids are suspected.
2007
Time Mag. Person of the Year: Vladimir Putin (1952-).
Doomsday Clock:
5 min. to midnight (Jan. 17, 14:30 GMT); 4th forward set since 1991, prompted by nuclear standoffs with Iran and N Korea and warnings of climate change;
"Global warming could kill millions. We should have a war on global warming rather than the war on terror" (Stephen W. Hawking, Jan. 17);
China's emissions increase 8% this year, causing it to overtake the U.S. as the top producer of greenhouse gases (14% higher),
although the U.S. still leads on a per capita basis, 19.4 tons, vs. 11.8 in Russia, 8.6 in the EU, 5.1 in China, and 1.8 in India.
Chinese Year: Pig (Feb. 18) (lunar year 4704).
This is the first U.N. Internat. Year of Planet Earth (ends 2009).
Over half the world's pop. lives in cities; almost all worldwide pop. growth in the next 30 years will be concentrated in cities, growing 1.8% annually (doubling every 38 years);
immigrants
make up 16% of the U.S. pop. (vs. a high of 21% in 1910 and a low of 5% in 1970), with 25% or more in Calif. (35%), N.Y. (27%), N.J. (26%), and Nev. (25%);
Muslim pop. of Europe: 18M (vs. 1M at the end of WWII); the U.S. has 1.2K mosques, up from 1K in 1990; a UNICEF report
pub. this year puts the once-tallest U.S. in 20th place for avg. stature, with the Dutch as #1, almost 3 in. taller than Americans, who are still
taller than Britains; teen students at the British military academy at Sandhurst are 9 in. taller than those at the British Marine School.
As of this year nine countries have nukes: U.S., Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel (unacknowledged), India, Pakistan, North Korea; Iran is suspected of pursuing them;
Indonesia is suspected of pursuing them in the 1960s after China's 1964 nuclear test; South Africa had them but gave them up in 1991; Egypt is pursuing a nuclear power program;
Sweden has been a question mark since the 1950s; Japan has an official anti-nuke policy; more than 30 countries without nukes possess the materials and capabilities to make them
using plutonium produced by a total of 435 operating nuclear power reactors worldwide; the U.S. and Russia possess 95% of the 27K known nukes; the original 1980s calculation of
nuclear winter conditions only used 100 Hiroshima-sized 15K-ton A-bombs.
Early in the year Al-Shabaab (Arab. "The Lads") arises from the ashes of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) that ruled
most of S Somalia, setting up horrific Sharia, see the grisly videos if you can stomach it; no surprise, the stupid Islam ignoramus U.S. govt. has been blithely permitting mass Somalian
immigration to make the whole country into Black Hawk Down, look what they do to too-white-for-the-U.N.
Minneapolis, Minn. (80K and growing), and might do to
Ft. Morgan, Colo. (1K),
and Shelbyville, Tenn. (1K),
so no surprise again that a number of them have returned to join Al Shishkebaab, even white American converts (that's right, Islam isn't a race), incl.
Omar Shafik Hammami (Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki) (1984-) of Daphne, Ala.,
Suleman Essa Ahmed of Columbus, Ohio, and
Cabdulaahi Ahmed Farrax (Abdullah Al-Amriki)
of Minn., the U.S. govt. never admits to making a mistake, it's their fault.
This year ExxonMobil Corp. posts a $40.6B annual profit, a record for a U.S. co. (it held the old record).
U.S. household net worth:
$64T; by 2009 this is down to $50T (21% drop);
U.S. income inequality
reaches an all-time high, with the top 0.01% of earners taking home 6% of total U.S. wages,
and the top 10% taking in 49.7% of total wages; the Baby Boomers
begin retiring, causing an economic slowdown?
The Shale Rev.
begins, zooming from 5% of U.S. natural gas production this year to 35% by 2012.
By this year the exodus of refugees from Iraq reaches 2M, with 50K more per mo. heading away from the insanity.
The number of suicide bombings in Pakistan,
which since 2001 was only 15, zooms to 358 by Nov. 2013.
Illegal immigrants
in the U.S. 11.8M (Jan.); just when illegal immigration from Mexico is seen a big problemo in the U.S., the Mexican birthrate drops to 2.2 births avg.
(compared to 2.1 for the U.S.), and life expectancy increases to 75 years (77 in the U.S.), causing predictions of a worker shortage?
The 2006-7 winter in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) is the coldest since 1941-2.
The U.S. prison pop. hits 2.2M, 1 of 133.
This year suicide bombers conduct 658 attacks worldwide, incl. 542 in U.S.-occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, double last year's total; the first
known suicide attack was in 1983 (U.S. Embassy in Beirut), and by the end of this year 1,840 incidents kill more than 21,350 and injure 50K, with
86% of incidents occurring since 2001, and the highest annual numbers in the past four years.
This year 36K women are raped in South Africa; one in four South African men interviewed in 2009 admit to committing rape.
Divorces in Italy
reach 50K, with 81K separations, compared to only 12K divorces in 1980.
Total global data storage:
295 exabytes (billion GB); 2 zettabytes (2K exabytes) of data are broadcast (175 newspapers per person per day).
This year Calif. (Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein), Wash. (Maria Cantwell, Patty Murray) and Maine (Susan M. Collins, Olympia J. Snowe)
have two female U.S. senators each, and the U.S. Senate has 16 total; only 35 of 1,897 U.S. Senators since 1789 have been female, 12 of them
appointed and seven of those succeeding deceased hubbies; the first was Rebecca Latimer Feltin in 1922; in 1930 Hattie Caraway was the first
to win an election; no women in 1922-31, 1945-7, 1973-8.
World glaciers thin an avg. of 29 in., a rate 2x that in the 1980s and 1990s.
On Jan. 1 the U.S. pop. is 300,888,812 (2.9M more than in 2006), with one birth every 8 sec. and one death every 11 sec. (Census Bureau).
The Jan. 1 issue of Time mag. names "You" as their Person of the Year, with a cover picture of a PC with a mirror for a screen, and
the caption, "Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world"; 2006 was the first year when the individual began to upload
his own videos en masse and upstage the major media?
On Jan. 1 the the 1,070-lb. ball dropped in Times Square to celebrate the new year switches to LED lights from Sylvania.
On Jan. 1 USC defeats Michigan by 32-18 to win the
2007 Rose Bowl.
On Jan. 1 U.S. Medicare payments for erectile dysfunction are ended; Medicaid payments were ended on Jan. 1, 2006.
On Jan. 1 seven U.S. states raise the minimum wage from the federal minimum of $5.15 an hour to as high as $7.50 an hour, while Ind. begins
offering a new license plate featuring the U.S. flag and the words "In God We Trust".
On Jan. 1 China begins requiring approval from the country's highest court before putting anyone to death; in 2005 Amnesty Internat. estimates they executed
at least 1,770 people for offenses as paltry as tax evasion, which is 80% of the world total of 2,148, incl. 60 in the U.S. - stop the cat box, stop the cat box?
On Jan. 1 Pres. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush join thousands of mourners paying respects to ex-pres. Gerald R. Ford at the U.S. Capitol.
On Jan. 1 crowds of Sunnis protest the hanging of Saddam Hussein, while a mob in Samara breaks the lock of the bomb-damaged Shiite Golden Dome
carrying a mock coffin and photos of their hero.
On Jan. 1 an Indonesian Adam Air Boeing 737-400 crashes in
Polewali
on E Sulawesi Island, killing 90 of 102.
On Jan. 1 2-term Wall Street corruption-fighting atty.-gen. Dem.
Eliot Laurence Spitzer (1959-)
is sworn-in as gov. of New York after 12-year Repub. gov. George Pataki declines to seek reelection, and state assembly minority leader John Faso proves a pushover.
On Jan. 1 Denver Broncos cornerback (#27) Darrent Williams (b. 1982) (AKA D-Will)
is killed in his limo in downtown Denver, Colo. by drive-by shooters in a SUV right after his team loses their final game and is
eliminated from the playoffs; the SUV is traced to Brian Hicks,
leader of a Denver gang called the Elite Eight, formed in a New Year's Eve, 2002 pact, resulting in over 100 people being arrested in Apr. 2007 in
the largest gang-drug sweep in Denver history; on Mar. 11, 2009 Willie Clark
is found guilty of the murder.
On Jan. 1 Yuki Lin becomes the first baby born in the U.S. in 2007, in New York City's Downtown Hospital;
a $25K U.S. Savings bond from Toys "R" Us is withdrawn after they find that her parents are illegal aliens.
On Jan. 2 the U.S. declares a nat. day of mourning for Pres. Ford, and an elaborate funeral service is held in Washington, D.C., with Pres. Bush saying
"In President Ford the world saw the best of America", and Pres. George H.W. Bush calling him a "Norman Rockwell painting come to life"; on Jan. 3 Ford is laid to rest on the grounds
of his pres. museum in Grand Rapids, Mich.
On Jan. 3 Iraqi authorities report the arrests of three men suspecting of baiting Saddam Hussein and/or shooting cell phone videos of his
hanging, which show him acting courteous and dignified in an obvious attempt at becoming a martyr.
On Jan. 3 Md. Dem. minority whip (since 2003) Steny Hamilton Hoyer (1939-)
succeeds John Murtha of Penn. as majority leader #26 of the U.S. House (until ?).
On Jan. 4 the 110th U.S. Congress
convenes, and Armani suit-wearing Nancy Pelosi by a straight party vote of 233-202 becomes the first female U.S. pseudo-pres., er, Speaker of the House,
saying that her rise "from the kitchen to Congress" is the culmination of two cents. of struggle for women, and that "today we have broken the marble ceiling"; she
arrives on the House floor with all six of her grandchildren; the U.S. pres. succession now is: Cheney, Pelosi, Richard Byrd, Condi Rice (male-female-male-female);
an elaborate series of events follows, with Tony Bennett singing "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" to her and a big delegation from San Francisco, incl.
Chamber of Commerce members and mayor Gavin Newson; Harry Mason Reid (1939-) (D-Nev.)
becomes Senate majority leader; meanwhile on Jan. 4 new U.S. rep.
Keith Maurice Ellison (1963-) (D-Minn.),
the first African-Am. from Minn. and first Muslim elected to Congress is sworn-in on a 2-vol. Quran (Koran) once owned by Thomas Jefferson (pub. 1764 in London);
the 110th Congress has 74 women in the House and 16 in the Senate, 42 blacks in the House and one in the Senate, 27 Hispanics in the House and three in the Senate, seven
Asians in the House and two in the Senate, and on Native Am. in the House; the
First 100 Hours of the 110th Congress
are used by Dems. to railroad legislation on minimum wage, stem cells, medicare, energy et al.
On Jan. 4 Fawaz Damra,
former imam of the largest mosque in Ohio is arrested by Israeli authorities after being rejected by 72 countries and ending up in his native West Bank;
he had been convicted in the U.S. of concealing his ties to terrorist groups.
On Jan. 5 Bush's admin. makes quick shuffles: nat. intel. dir. John Negroponte becomes top deputy to secy. of state Condy Rice, while
on Feb. 20 retired vice adm. John Michael "Mike" McConnell (1943-) becomes nat. intel. dir. (until ?);
Linton Brooks is dismissed as head of the nat. nuclear security admin.; Harriet Miers resigns as White House counsel after six years.
On Jan. 5 (eve.) ten bobbies are summoned to protect English Prince William and his girlfriend
Kate Middleton (1982-)
from paparazzi as they leave a London nightclub; as she turns 25 on Jan. 9, rumors swirl about nuptials, and she is called the "new Lady
Di"; she was at William's Dec. 2006 graduation ceremony at Sandhurst Military Academy, and in 2006 was the first romantic non-spousal
partner to be invited to spend Xmas with the royal family - looks like a female Dodi Fayed?
On Jan. 5 Calif. gov. (since Nov. 17, 2003) Ahnuld is sworn-in for a 2nd term sporting a badly broken right leg from a skiing accident; in Nov. he defeated
Dem. challenger Phil Angelides in a landslide; referring to his dismal year of 2005 when his approval rating slid to half, he says that centrist
"does not mean weak... It means well-balanced and well-grounded", and talks about his new politics that "looks beyond the old labels, the old ways, the old arguments",
seeking a new "creative center" of "post-partisanship"; the 1878 Schwarzenegger family Bible is used.
On Jan. 7 Iraqi troops launch a push to oust militias and pacify Baghdad as violence kills 17 across Iraq.
On Jan. 7 thousands riot in Dhaka, Bangladesh demanding electoral reforms, and a 19-party alliance halts traffic until Jan. 9 to isolate Dhaka.
On Jan. 8 a wildfire in Malibu, Calif. destroys the home of actress Suzanne Somers et al.
On Jan. 8 pizzeria mgr. Michael Devlin (1965-)
kidnaps 13-y.-o. Ben Ownby in Beaufort, Mo.; on Jan. 12 a tip about his white pickup truck leads to his arrest in suburban St. Louis along with 15-y.-o.
Shawn Hornbeck (1991-), whom he kidnapped in 2002; questions are raised about why Hornbeck could have escaped but didn't.
On Jan. 9 U.S. AC-130 gunships strafe suspected al-Qaida fighters in S Somalia, killing 5-10, becoming their first military action there since 1994.
On Jan. 9 Polish PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski says that the abrupt resignation of new Archbishop
Stanislaw Wojciech Wielgus (1939-)
and another top Roman Catholic clergyman over ties to Communist-era secret police is a "nat. crisis".
On Jan. 9 Pres. Bush drops plans to nominate conservative judges William J. Haynes II, William Myers III, and Terence Boyle to the U.S. appeals courts.
On Jan. 9 Denver, Colo.-born Dem. Denver district atty. August William "Bill" Ritter (1956-)
becomes Colo. gov. #41 (until Jan. 11, 2011).
On Jan. 9 Little Mosque on the Prairie
debuts on Canadian CBC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), becoming the first North Am. Muslim family sitcom; set in Mercy, Sask. (pop. 14K).
On Jan. 10 Pres. Bush delivers an Address to the Nation,
admitting he made a mistake, but not that kind of mistake, only not having enough troops, saying he will add 21.5K new soldiers to Iraq
immediately, with 17.5K going to Baghdad and the rest to Anbar Province, raising the troop count to 153.5K, compared to the peak of 159K in
Jan. 2005; the U.S. is also committing $1B to rebuild the infrastructure, matched with $10B by the Iraqis; Dem. leaders say they will force lawmakers
to vote on his proposal for a troop surge to put them on record; meanwhile Grandma Pelosi announces a smoking ban in the Speaker's Lobby just off the House floor.
On Jan. 10 Venezuelan pres. Hugo Chavez begins his 3rd term, saying that Socialism is the only way forward for his country and the world,
concluding: "Socialism or death! We shall prevail!" a la Castro.
On Jan. 12 Jennifer Lea Strange (1978-)
drinks 1.75 gal. of water without urinating in a "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest at KDND Radio of Sacramento, Calif., then dies of water intoxication,
causing 10 careless employees to be fired - K-dumber-than-a-doughnut?
On Jan. 13 AP reports that Pres. Obama is going to ask Congress for an additional $13B for the Iraq
and Afghanistan wars, on top of the record $708B Pentagon budget, making him the first pres. whose defense
budget exceeds $700B.
On Jan. 13 27-y.-o. Rochom P'ngieng (1979-)
is found 19 years after disappearing into the jungles of NE Cambodia while herding buffalo;
she likes to go naked and speaks no intelligible language.
On Jan. 14 a fire in a 64-unit 5-story apt. bldg. (built 1924) in Huntington, W. Va.
kills seven, incl. a child.
On Jan. 14 U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney says that the Pentagon and CIA are not violating people's rights by examining bank and credit records of people
suspected of terrorism or espionage in the U.S.
On Jan. 14 Pope Benedict XVI urges immigrants to respect the social values of their new countries and says laws are needed to protect their dignity, and that migrants
should be seen as a resource not a problem.
On Jan. 14 the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum receives an album containing 116 personal photos from
Karl Friedrich Hoecker (1911-2000),
adjutant to Auschwitz I Concentration Camp commandant Richard Bauer, taken in May-Dec. 1944, becoming the
first insider photos of the German concentration camp, showing happy innocent-looking Nazis having fun off-duty.
On Jan. 15 the 64th Golden Globe Awards, broadcast live on NBC-TV
go on without the $20K gift packages traditionally given to onstage presenters after the IRS comes down on them;
last year's incl. a $2K gym membership, $1.2K diamond pendant, $865 Chopard watch, $475 camera phone, handbags, MP3 players, and gift certificates;
the big drama award is presented by crutch-toting Ahnuld to Babel, whose dir. Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu of Mexico jokes
"I swear I have my papers in order, governor, I swear"; Jennifer Hudson (7th runner-up on Am. Idol) and Eddie Murphy win for
Dreamgirls, which wins best musical, Forest Whitaker wins best actor for The Last King of Scotland, Sacha Baron Cohen wins best
actor for Borat, Hellen Mirren wins best dramatic actress for The Queen, Meryl Streep wins best comic actress for
The Devil Wears Prada, America Ferrera wins best actress in a TV comedy for Ugly Betty; Martin Scorsese wins best dir. for
The Departed; Cars wins the first Globe for animated film; Clint Eastwood's Japanese-language Letters From Iwo Jima wins for best foreign-language film.
On Jan. 15 Saddam Hussein's chunky half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti (b. 1951)
is executed, the hangman's noose severing his blacked-hood head after he falls through a trap door - nobody asked me about wanting a Diet Pepsi?
On Jan. 15 a suicide bomber attacks an office of the Kuristan Dem. Party in Mosul, Iraq,
killing five incl. four U.S. soldiers and injuring 28.
On Jan. 15 "humanist and Christian of the left" Rafael Vicente Correa Delgado (1963-)
becomes pres. of Ecuador (until ?), raising a sword given to him by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela
and vowing to work for an "economic revolution" that will put the country's poor ahead of
foreign debt payments; in Dec. 2008 he repudiates Ecuador's nat. debt as illegitimate because
it was contracted by past military regimes, and takes on creditors in internat. courts.
On Jan. 16 (3:45 p.m.) twin car bombs detonate at
Al-Mustansiriya U.
in Baghdad as students line up for the ride home, killing 65.
On Jan. 17 U.S. health officials issue a
Report on U.S. Cancer Deaths,
showing that they have dropped for the 2nd straight year, from
556,902 to 553,888 in 2004 (3,014 less, or 0.5%); in 2003 they dropped
by 369, the first drop since 1930; the largest drop is in colorectal cancers,
1,110 in men and 1,094 in women.
On Jan. 17 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates calls for 2K-3K more GIs for Afghanistan and 21.5K for Iraq; meanwhile
Lawrence B. Wilkerson
(1945-), chief of staff for U.S. secy. of state Colin Powell tells the BBC that Iran offered
to help stabilize Iraq after the U.S. invasion in return for lifting sanctions and helping it fight
the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, but that vice-pres. Dick Cheney turned them down, despite warnings that
Iran was moving to the far-right, which proved true when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took power.
On Jan. 18 the U.S. House wraps up the "Democrats' 100 Hours" in only 87 hours, passing a list of
eight key measures, incl. new ethics rules, a raise in the minimum wage, expansion of tax-supported
stem cell research, increased homeland security, cheaper Medicare prescription drugs, lower
student loan interest rates, requiring tax cuts or new spending on benefit programs to be budgeted by
revenue increases elsewhere, and recovering lost oil-gas royalties while rolling back tax breaks.
On Jan. 18 U.S. and Iraqi forces arrest Sheik
Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji,
top aide to Shiite cleric boos Muqtada al-Sadr in Baghdad.
On Jan. 18 Consumer Reports
stinks itself up by admitting that an earlier report damning infant car seats for failing federal crash tests was wrong, confusing low speed with high speed crashes.
On Jan. 18 former beautician Martha Mata Vasquez (1967-)
is sentenced to 15 years in Salinas, Calif. for injecting Mazola brand corn oil into women's buttocks for $1.4K a pop and calling it the "French polymer treatment",
causing the Nov. 2005 death of Maria Olivia Castillo (46) of multiple organ failure due to fat blockage.
On Jan. 19 China successfully tests an anti-satellite weapon, becoming the 3rd country after the U.S. and Russia to have the capability.
On Jan. 19 Armenian "Agos" activist journalist Hrant Dink (b. 1954)
(known for criticizing the Turkish govt. for refusing to recognize the Armenian Genocide, and calling for reconciliation) is assassinated in Istanbul, Turkey; on
Jan. 23 tens of thousands attend his funeral ceremony in Istanbul; on Jan. 20 17-y.-o. Turkish nationalist (h.s. dropout)
Ogun Samast (1990-) is arrested, and confesses;
20 other suspects are arrested, and only Yasin Hayal is convicted of inciting Samast, the court ruling
that he acted alone and was not a member of a terrorist org., causing tens of thousands of Turks to protest that it's a coverup.
On Jan. 20 a U.S. Black Hawk heli crashes NE of Baghdad, Iraq, killing Colo. native Col.
Brian D. Allgood (b. 1960);
after three more helis "crash" in two weeks, and an insurgent Web site airs footage giving it away, the U.S. admits on Feb. 4 that they were actually shot down
with new anti-aircraft weapons received by Sunni militants.
On Jan. 20 Iraqi militants dressed as Iraqi soldiers enter a U.S. military compound in Karbala and
kidnap and kill four U.S. soldiers, a 5th one being killed in the firefight; Iranian involvement
is suspected, as relation for the arrest of five Iranians by U.S. troops in N Iraq.
On Jan. 20 Hillary Clinton announces on her Web web site the formation of a pres. exploratory committee
for the 2008 pres. election, with the soundbyte "I'm in, and I'm in to win"; in Apr. the Clintons
liquidate the blind trust set up when he became pres. in 1993 to avoid the possibility of ethical
conflicts or political embarrassments.
On Jan. 22 two car bombs in a C Baghdad market kill 88.
On Jan. 22 Iran bars 38 nuclear agency inspectors from entering the
country.
On Jan. 22 the
MSC Napoli
cargo ship sinks off Branscome, England, causing cargo containers to
reach shore, and bringing out local scavengers, who can legally cart it away if they report it to the govt.
On Jan. 23 Pres. Bush gives his 2007 State of the Union Address,
starting off by addressing "Madame Speaker" Nancy Pelosi, and remarking that her congressman father would have been proud;
he then sticks to his old Iraq policy, saying, "Our country is pursuing a new strategy in Iraq and I ask you to give it a chance to work", then
proposing a $7.5K tax deduction for expanded health insurance coverage and a 20% cut in gasoline consumption within a decade by using more
ethanol and biofuels; meanwhile new Pelosi sits hovering over his shoulder, and a dozen Congress members in the audience have announced or
are considering a run for pres.; the Dem. reply is given by Sen. Jim Webb of Va., a Vietnam vet who switched from the Repub. party last year, who
says "Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous wihdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos.
But an immediate shift toward strong regionally based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities and a formula
that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq"; Osama bin Laden's deputy
Ayman Muhammad Rabaie al-Zawahiri (1951-) of Egypt (a follower of Sayyid Qutb of Egypt, who executed
by Gamal Abdel Nasser, while Osama is a follower of 18th cent. Arabian fanatic Mohammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab)
mocks Bush's plan to send a "surge" of 21.5K troops, telling him to send "the entire army"; meanwhile New York City 9/11 responding policeman
Ceasar Borja (b. 1954) dies 2.5 hours before his son Ceasar Borja Jr. attends the Bush speech
with Sen. Hillary Clinton to symbolize the health problems of 9/11 workers.
On Jan. 23 a Blackwater Worldwide heli is shot down in C Baghdad in a Sunni neighborhood, killing five civilians aboard.
On Jan. 23 Iranian-born Israeli pres. Moshe Katsav (1945-) is accused of raping 10 female employees,
one calling him a "pervert" and "serial sex offender", becoming the first Israeli sitting pres. charged with a crime;
he is immune from prosecution while in office, but on June 28 he resigns for a plea deal to avoid a possible 20-year prison term later.
On Jan. 23 the U.S. sends a 2nd U.S. aircraft carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf to warn Iran to back down in its attempts to dominate the region.
On Jan. 23 China confirms that it sent men into orbit and launched dozens of satellites to test a new satellite-killing weapon.
On Jan. 23 U.S. officials announce the arrest of 750+ illegal immigrants in the past week in the Los Angeles metro area.
On Jan. 23 the trial
of Plamegate figure Scooty Libby begins before U.S. district judge Reggie B. Walton (1949-); on Jan. 29
former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer contradicts Libby's account that he first learned of Valerie Plame's covert CIA identity on July 10, 2003, testifying that Libby told him
about it on July 7, 2003 over lunch - oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive?
On Jan. 24 Ford Motor Co. announces that it lost $12.7B in 2006, which comes to $35M a day.
On Jan. 24 Dinner: Impossible
debuts on Food Network for 83 episodes (until May 24, 2011), hosted by Salisbury, England-born chef
Robert P. Irvine (1965-),
known for wearing black T-shirts and chef's jackets with the inscription "Sub sole, sub umbra, virens" (Flourishing in both sunshine and shade);
too bad, in 2008 "embellishments and inaccuracies" in his resume come to light, causing him to be replaced by Michael Symon for 10 episodes until they change their minds.
On Jan. 25 Hezbollah and pro-Lebanese govt. forces clash, leading to riots and paralyzing the govt.
On Jan. 25 after televised squabbling, the Iraqi Parliament approves a new security plan giving PM Nouri al-Maliki more authority.
On Jan. 27 Israeli Mossad dir. #9 (1998-2002)
Efraim Halevy (1934-) tells the Portuguese newspaper Expresso that
"We are in the midst of a Third World War" with radical Islam, and predicts that it will take at least 25 years for the West to win.
On Jan. 28 Iraqi troops backed by U.S. forces in tanks and helis (so the official version goes) kill at least 250 insurgents hiding in a date
palm orchard during a 15-hour battle near the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq;
one U.S. heli is shot down, and two U.S. soldiers are killed.
On Jan. 28 Saddam Hussein's cousin "Chemical Ali" Hussan al-Majid acknowledges in court that he gave orders to destroy scores of villages
during Baghdad's anti-Kurd campaign during the 1980-8 Iran-Iraq War, which killed 100K+ Kurds - way to go?
On Jan. 28 conservative Repub. Ark. gov. (since 1996)
Michael Dale "Mike" Huckabee (1955-) (a Bible-believing Baptist pastor born in Hope, Ark.)
(whose portrait bears a striking resemblance to "Gomer Pyle" actor Jim Nabors (1930-)?) enters
the U.S. pres. race - wrong year for Huckleberry Finn even if he picks Jim as his running mate?
On Jan. 28 Hillary Clinton makes her first pres. campaign swing through Iowa, giving a
speech
in Davenport, saying that Pres. Bush has made a mess of Iraq and that it's his responsibility to "extricate" the U.S. from it before he
leaves office, and that it would be "the height of irresponsibility" to pass the war along to herself, er, the next pres.; meanwhile rumors
surface that her Saudi-raised Muslim head of staff
Huma M. Abedin (1976-)
is having a lezzie affair with her.
On Jan. 28 Sinn Fein members vote overwhelmingly to recognize the authority of the North Ireland pigs, er, police, paving the way for the return of a Catholic-Protestant admin. there to
meet a 1988 Good Friday Peace Pact deadline of Mar. 26.
On Jan. 28 Prince Charles and Camilla visit Harlem, N.Y. during a weekend tour of the U.S., visiting the
Children's Zone's Promise Academy.
On Jan. 29 the deputy gov. in Najaf Province, Iraq announces
that his intel forces had infiltrated the Shiite Soldiers of Heaven and thwarted a major attack planned for that night, the eve of chest-beating forehead-slashing Ashura,
the holiest Shiite celebration; bloodletting is banned in Lebanon and Iran, but that doesn't stop them?
On Jan. 29 a Palestine suicide bomber kills three Israelis at a bakery in Eilat, Israel, becoming the first attack inside Israel in 9 mo.
On Jan. 30 after the recent disclosures of grossly extravagant pay packages disgust millions of U.S. workers, Pres. Bush makes a surprise visit to the
New York Stock Exchange, and gives a speech
warning companies to keep a lid on exec pay, saying, "America's corporate boardrooms must step up to their responsibilities. You need to pay attention to the executive compensation
packages that you approve. You need to show the world that American businesses are a model of transparency and good corporate governance."
On Jan. 31 the 2007 Boston Mooninite Panic in Boston, Mass.
sees a guerrilla marketing stunt by the Turner Broadcasting System to advertise the Cartoon Network show
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters
(about a talking milkshake, box of fries, and meatball) cause Boston authorities to overreact and throw anti-terrorist forces into action at a cost of $750K,
pissing them off and causing them to arrest Peter Berdovsky (1979-) and
Sean Stevens (1978-) on trumped-up charges, vowing to go after Turner;
the stunt involved placing magnetic light packages with pictures of "mooninites" Ignigokt and Err flipping the bird on public property in 10 U.S. cities;
the whole thing was openly blogged on the Web, and if the stupid Boston authorities had only checked before calling out the troops?; on Feb. 5
Turner Broadcasting and the ad agency agree to pay $2M in damages; on Feb. 9 James D. "Jim" Samples Jr. (1963-),
head of the Cartoon Network (since Aug. 22, 2001) resigns; the film is released on Apr. 13, doing $5.5M box office on a $750K budget.
On Jan. 31 British authorities arrest nine men in Birmingham, England
for an alleged terrorist plot to torture and behead a British Muslim soldier and broadcast it on the Net.
On Jan. 31 Del. Sen. Joe Biden joins the Dem. pres. race, and tells the New York Observer that Barack Obama is "articulate and bright and clean", pissing-off the PC police,
who jump on him and try to humiliate him for using a "code word" (clean) that "offends" the sacred cow segment of the U.S.; in the New Millennium U.S., clean is bad?
On Jan. 31 actress Veronica Lario (Miriam Raffaella Bartolini) (1956-), wife (1990-2010) of Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi
goes public with her anger over his flirtations in public with showgirl Mara Carfagna, making him publicly apologize on his knees.
On Jan. 31 Mikhail Gorbachev pub. a Letter to the Wall Street Journal,
saying "The goal is to develop a common concept for moving toward a world free of nuclear weapons", advocating dialogue within the framework of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; on
Mar. 2 the Bush admin. tells him to stuff it by announcing the selection of Lawrence Livermore Nat. Lab in Calif. to design the
Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW)
to be deployed in all U.S. nuclear warheads in the next few decades, pissing-off atmospheric scientists as well as Cold War figures Gorbachev and Henry Kissinger, after which
Congress cuts off funding in 2008, and the Obama admin. orders all work to cease in 2009.
In Jan. the U.N. estimates that at least 35K Iraqis have been killed each year since the U.S. Iraq War started in 2003.
In Jan. U.S. military experts announce that after the Iraq War ends the U.S. must spend $75B to rebuild the military and $24B to rebuild the Nat. Guard.
In Jan. Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai appoints Izzatullah Wasifi
as head of his 84-person anti-corruption dept., only to find out that he did four years in a Nevada state prison for selling heroin in the 1980s.
In Jan. Allen Jasson
is kicked off a Qantas flight to London in Melbourne for wearing a T-shirt with a photo of Pres. Bush and the slogan "World's #1 Terrorist".
In Jan. the Algerian militant Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC)
in the Maghreb (N and NW Africa) aligns itself with al-Qaida.
In Jan. the Leadership Group on U.S.-Muslim Engagement
is formed by a distinguished group of U.S. leaders.
In Jan. Tunisian Arab Muslim Abdul Wahab
becomes the first Arab to be nominated by the Dept. of the Righteous at Yad Vashem in Israel for saving a WWII Jewish family from the Nazis.
On Feb. 1 George Casey, outgoing top U.S. gen. in Iraq tells the
press that Pres. Bush has ordered thousands more troops into Iraq than needed to stop violence in Baghdad; he is being confirmed as U.S. Army chief of staff,
and being replaced in Iraq by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus.
On Feb. 1 a pair of suicide bombers detonate in a crowded outdoor market in
Hillah, Iraq, a Shiite city S of Baghdad, killing 45 and wounding 150.
On Feb. 1 Dem. San Francisco, Calif. mayor #42 (since Jan. 8, 2004) (youngest in a cent.)
Gavin Christopher Newsom (1967-) apologizes for getting caught in a sexual relationship with his appointments secy.
Ruby Rippey-Tourk (1972-), wife of his former campaign mgr. Alex Tourk (39) 1.5 years earlier as he was divorcing his wife,
Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, the couple once being touted by the press as the "New Kennedys".
On Feb. 3 British authorities confirm an outbreak of A(H5N1) bird flu that killed 2.5K turkeys in Lowestoft, E Britain since Feb. 1.
On Feb. 3 Iran opens its Isfahan Uranian Conversion Facility to almost 100 reporters and a delegation of froeign ambassadors from the U.N. nuclear agency.
On Feb. 4 U.S. Gen. Dan K. McNeill
takes command of the 35.5K NATO-led troops in Afghanistan after 9 mo. of British command.
On Feb. 4 after days of rain, rivers burst their banks in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing 25 and forcing 340K from their homes.
On Feb. 4 Super Bowl XLI (41)
is held in Dolphins Stadium in Miami, Fla., becoming known as the "Soul Bowl" for being the first in which there are two (any) black head coaches,
Tony Dungy (1955-) of the 15-4 Indianapolis Colts, and
Lovie Lee Smith (1958-)
of the 15-3 Chicago Bears; the first SB appearance for the Colts since their move to Indianapolis in 1984
(384 games), and the 2nd #3 seed to play in the SB (first Carolina in 2004); the two team home stadiums are only 188 mi. apart (a record); the Colts'
only SB win came in 1971 in Miami; the Indianapolis Colts, led by QB Peyton Williams Manning (1976-)
(#18) defeat the Chicago Bears led by QB Rex Daniel Grossman III (1980-) (#8)
by 29-17; Lovie Smith becomes the first African-Am. coach to lose a SB; the score is still 22-17
in the 4th quarter; Snickers runs an ad
showing two men accidentally kissing, then validating their heterosexuality by tearing out their chest hair,
which pisses-off the gay lobby and causes the ad to be cancelled later; the halftime show features
head kerchief-wearing Prince, who performs "Purple Rain" in the rain (first SB to be played entirely in the rain),
and gives one of the best SB halftime shows ever, not looking like a has-been like Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones?;
too bad, his guitar solo features a silhouette performance
projected on a beige sheet, where he appears to sprout a long serpent-like phallus, while his guitar handle
appears to become a pitchfork and his kerchief turns into horns? - and he's supposed to be a Jehovah's Witness?
On Feb. 5 Pres. Bush sends a $2.9T budget to Congress, and asks for an additional $100B for Iraq and the war
on terrorism on top of the $70B already sought, for a grand total of over $500B for the war that Donald Rumsfeld
said would cost only $50M.
On Feb. 5 U.S. Navy Capt. Lisa Marie Nowak (nee Caputo) (1963-)
(an astronaut) is charged with attempted kidnapping after she drives 900 mi. and dons a disguise to confront
Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman (1976-),
a woman she believed was her rival for the affections of Space Shuttle Navy Cmdr.
William Anthony "Bill" Oefelein (1965-),
then sprays pepper spray through her car window; after being arrested she is found with a wig, trench coat,
BB gun, knife, rubber tubing and pepper spray, becoming the first U.S. astronaut arrested on felony charges; Oefelein
leaves NASA on June 1; on Nov. 10, 2009 Nowak pleads guilty, and is discharged from the Navy in Aug. 2010.
On Feb. 6 a leaked cockpit video reveals an exchange between two U.S. pilots of the 190th Fighter Squadron
(based in Boise, Idaho) who kill British soldier Lance Cpl. Matty Hull (1976-2003)
and wound four others in Basra, Iraq on Mar. 28, 2003 after mistaking their bright orange "friendly" markers with rockets; the military had tried to cover it up.
On Feb. 8 celeb no-talent Marilyn-wannabe sexpot Anna Nicole Smith (b. 1967)
collapses at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Hollywood, Fla., causing mucho publicity (while endless deaths in Iraq are forgotten easily?); no pills
are found in her stomach; she had spent the last few days with 105-deg. fever, stomach flu, and an infection in her butt from repeated injections; a land grab begins
to get hold of her money, with three men claiming to be the father of her 5-mo.-old daughter Dannielynn,
Howard Kevin Stern (1968-) (listed as father on the birth certificate),
Larry E. Birkhead (1973-), and
Frederic von Anhalt (Robert Lichtenberg) (1943-),
husband of 90-y.-o. Zsa-Zsa Gabor; her mother Vergie Arthur
blames her death on "too many drugs", and thinks Larry is the real daddy; methadone is found in her fridge in the Bahamas, the same thing her
son died from; after a court battle which her mother loses, Anna is buried in the Bahamas instead of Tex., after weird Bronx-born Judge Judy Sheindlin,
er, Larry Seidlin (1950-)
(former Bronx cab driver) gives control of Danniellynn to an advocate and then cries on the bench on Feb. 22, with Dan Abrams of MSNBC comparing the hearing
to a "Seinfeld" episode and others predicting he'll be hosting a reality show; on Mar. 25 autopsy results are announced, indicating she ODed on nine prescription drugs
incl. chloral hydrate - the nation where Judge Judy makes $20M a year and the chief justice doesn't even make a lousy $1M, and the drug companies rake in $275B, more than anybody?
On Feb. 9 Muslims in Jerusalem
riot over Israeli construction efforts to replace a damaged cents.-old ramp in Jerusalem leading to Barclay's Gate near the Western Wall;
an attempt to open a tunnel there in 1996 caused riots killing 80; in 2000 Ariel Sharon visited unexpectedly, triggering riots and years of violence.
On Feb. 9 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates claims
that serial numbers found on bombs used by Iraqi terrorists prove they were manufactured in Iran.
On Feb. 9 N.Y. gov. Eliot Spitzer declares an emergency after more than 7 ft. of snow falls in
Oswego County
along E Lake Ontario.
On Feb. 9 the Ark. House of Reps.
votes down by 20-46 a proposal to name Jan. 29 as Thomas Paine Day because
of his writings criticizing the Bible, with Little Rock Repub.
Sid Rosenbaum
(Jewish) adding that they are "anti-Christian and anti-Jewish".
On Feb. 10 Barack Obama officially
announces
his presidential candidacy in front of the Old State Capitol Bldg. in Springfield, Ill.
where his hero
Abraham Lincoln (1809-65)
(born on Feb. 12) gave his
House Divided Speech
in 1858, running on promises of a rapid end to the Iraq War, universal health care,
and increased energy independence.
On Feb. 10 Barack Obama officially announces
his candidacy for U.S. pres. before a freezing crowd of 15K-20K in Springfield, Ill., home of Abraham Lincoln, incl. protesters against
his pro-abortion stance; his political strategist is New York-born Jewish journalist
David Axelrod (1955-).
On Feb. 10 at a security conference in Germany, Russian pres. Vladimir Putin blames U.S. policy for inciting other countries to seek nukes to defend
themselves from an "almost unconstrained use of military force... Unilateral, illegitimate actions have not solved a single problem; they
have become a hotbed of further conflicts", causing U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates to reply "Russia is a partner in endeavors", but "One Cold War
was quite enough"; on Feb. 20 Bush's nat. security adviser Stephen Hadley departs for a 4-day trip to Brussels, Moscow, and Berlin.
On Feb. 11 a Socialist Party-backed abortion referendum in Portugal
to legalize abortion up to 10 weeks is approved 59.24%-40.76%, with 43.61% of registered voters voting, which is less than 50%, hence is not legally binding,
which doesn't stop Pres. Anibal Cavasco Silva from ratifying it on Apr. 10; future pres. #20 (2016-) Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa leads the opposition.
On Feb. 11 the U.S. announces it has fired artillery rounds into Pakistan to strike Taliban fighters, claiming the right to self-defense.
On Feb. 11 Australian PM John Howard criticizes
U.S. Dem. pres. candidate Barack Obama, saying his plans for Iraq "encourage those who wanted to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq", causing Obama to
fire back "It's flattering that one of George W. Bush's allies feels obliged to attack me."
On Feb. 11 Turkmenistan holds its first officially contested pres. elections, which are rigged in favor of the hand-picked successor of
former pres. Saparmurad A. Niyazov, who died 7 weeks earlier.
On Feb. 11 (Sun.) (eve.) the 2007 Grammys
are swept by the Dixie Chicks, and features the Police reuniting to perform "Roxanne".
On Feb. 12
2008 Time Mag. Person of the Year: Barack Obama (1961-); next time 2012. Chinese Year: Rat (Feb. 7). The U.N. Gen. Assembly declares this the Internat. Year of Planet Earth to increase awareness of the importance of Earth sciences; also the U.N. Internat. Year of Sanitation, declared in conjunction with the Water for Life Decade, setting the goal of reducing the number of people without access to basic sanitation by half by 2015. The Great (Global) Recession (Dec. 2007-?) sees U.S. stock market investors lose $7T this year as the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. peaks at almost 13K in May, then crashes to 6.5K by Mar. 2009, then begins a long slow rise, reaching 8.5K by May 2009; total loses reach $7M in real estate losses, $11T in stock market losses, and $3T in retirement account losses; rising oil prices cause inflation in the U.S., which spreads into a global food crisis (worst in over 30 years) that rocks Egypt, North Korea, Haiti, Indonesia, et al., sparking food riots and spilling into net-producer nations such as Thailand; the whole fiasco is caused by the huge waste of the U.S. Iraq War, or is war good for the economy and it's the fault of global warming, or is it the Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage crisis? Global military spending rises 4% to a record $1.464T, up 45% since 1999 - sounds like a lot until all of the U.S. bailouts? The U.S. poverty rate climbs to 13.2% from 12.5% in 2007. The proportion of malnourished people in poor countries rises for the first time since ?; by next year the number of the world's chronically hungry reaches 1B for the 1st time since 1970, an increase of 100M since this year; meanwhile India and Horn of Africa countries incl. Ethiopia begin leasing farmland to Saudi Arabia et al. in exchange for quick cash, low-paying jobs and lessons in industrialization of agriculture. New immigrants to the U.K.: 590K (vs. 574K in 2007); 427K British people emigrate (vs. 341K in 2007). A record 1,046,539 are naturalized as U.S. citizens this year, with most coming from Mexico, India, and the Philippines; Pres. Bush begins allowing 1K Iraq refugees into the U.S. per mo., which jumps to 19K a year next year, after which in 2009 Pres. Obama signs a bill adding thousands more from Palestine; illegal immigrants in the U.S.: 11.6M (Jan.) (v. 11.8M in Jan. 2007); the illegal immigrant pop. in the U.S. has increased 37% since 2000; the U.S. Border Patrol makes 723K arrests at the Mexican border this year (97% of total arrests) (vs. 1.7M in 1986 and 1.2M in 2005), which drops 27% next year after the ailing economy makes El Norte less attractive; the number of Border Patrol agents increases from 9K in 2001 to 20K by Sept. 2009, with 626 of 661 mi. of planned fencing and walls erected next year; money sent back to Mexico by Mexicans in the U.S. drops from $2.19B this Apr. to $1.78B in Apr. 2009 ($24B in 2007). Turkey has $23.6B in overseas construction contracts this year, up from $750M in 2000; it slides to $20B in 2009. This year the avg. resident of London, England is filmed 300x a day for security by 4.2M surveillance cameras, one for every 15 people in the country. Premium crude oil prices, which broke the $100 a barrel level in 2004 peak at $145 in July, causing a rush to tap new sources of energy that result in breaking U.S. dependence on Middle East oil in ?. The first year that the U.S. adds more wind turbine than coal-fired power generation stations. At the beginning of the year there are 12 women heads of state: Michelle Bachelet (Chile), Helen Clark (New Zealand), Luisa Diogo (Mozambique), Tarja Halonen (Finland), Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Liberia), Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (Philippines), Mary McAleese (Ireland), Angela Merkel (Germany), Yulia Tymoshenko (Ukraine), Emily de Jongh-Elhage (Netherlands Antilles), Pratibha Patil (India), and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (Argentina). The 2008-2009 Keynesian Resurgence among economists and policy makers is a massive fiscal and monetary response to the 2007-10 financial crisis. On Jan. 1 USC defeats Illinois by 49-17 to win the 2008 Rose Bowl. On Jan. 1 Kenya starts the year out wrong with violent protests over the results of the Dec. 27 election that returned pres. Mwai Kibaki to power for another five years, which his Christian opponent Raila Amolo Odinga (1945-) claims is a rigged election; on Jan. 7 the two rivals agree to end their dispute after 486 are killed and 250K are made homeless, fleeing their homes in the Rift Valley; too bad, the protesters don't go along with them, and protests continue until Jan. 19, when opposition leaders decide to switch to a boycott, after which backroom negotiations by Madeleine Albright result in Kibaki appointing Odinga as PM on Apr. 17 (until Apr. 9, 2013). On Jan. 1 CourtTV (founded July 1, 1991) changes its name to truTV. On Jan. 1 Washington state becomes the U.S. state with the highest minimum wage, $8.07 an hour. Oh won't you stand by me, not? It's curtains for the little remaining goodwill for the George Dubya Bush admin. just as election time is nearing? On Jan. 2 oil reaches the $100-a-barrel mark ($102 on Feb. 27), greeting Americans with the news that the year is probably going to turn into a recession or worse; meanwhile the U.S. Foreclosure Scandal, caused by adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) affects up to 1 in 5 of subprime borrowers; on Jan. 11 the Bank of Am. announces plans to buy Countrywide, the largest mortgage lender in the U.S.; too bad, the lack of regulation of large investment bank holding cos. causes the Great Credit Meltdown of 2008 as they begin the Credit Default Swap, selling each other $60T of CDS's, swap contracts in which the buyer makes a series of payments in exchange for the right to a payoff if a credit instrument goes into default or there is a bankruptcy or restructuring; by the end of the hear former Federal Reserve Chm. Alan Greenspan utters the soundbyte "I made a mistake", referring to 18 years of preaching deregulation. On Jan. 3 the Iowa (pop. 3M) primary gives a V to Barack Obama with 38% of the Dem. vote, with John Edwards getting 30% and former front runner Hillary Clinton 29%; Mike Huckabee wins the Repub. vote with 34%, vs. 25% for big spending Mitt Romney, and 13% each for Fred Thompson and John McCain; Obama's Iowa caucus victory speech contains the soundbyte: "They said or sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose. But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do. You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. You have done what America can do in this new year, 2008"; Hillary runs an It's 3 A.M. Ad, with the soundbyte: "It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe in the city, but there's a phone in the White House and it' s ringing... Your vote will decide who answers that call", a campaign ad against Obama; too bad, Obama's campaign co-chmn. Jesse Jackson Jr. (1965-) stinks himself up with the comment "The natural reminder is O.J. How does an African-American candidate attack a white woman." On Jan. 6 (Sun.) three U.S. Navy ships entering the Persian Gulf are chased by five Iranian Rev. Guard speedboats, who drop white boxlike objects in the water in front of them and transmit the message "I am coming at you; you will explode in a couple of minutes"; they veer off moments before an order to fire on them is carried out. The tears of a clown? On Jan. 7 Hillary cries during a Q&A session, causing many face, er, fence-sitting women to come over to her camp after seeing her old image of a heartless bitch apparently melt; the woman who asked the question votes for Obama? - a desperate stage trick? On Jan. 8 Hillary Clinton rides on female support to win a surprise V over Barack Obama in the N.H. primary (pop. 1.3M) (39%), with Barack Obama coming in 2nd (36%), John Edwards 3rd (17%), and Bill Richardson 4th (5%); John McCain saves his campaign with a win (37%), with Mitt Romney 2nd (32%), Mike Huckabee 3rd (11%), and Rudolph Giuliani 4th (9%); too bad, the liberal media gives away their bias when the MSNBC election team laughs derisively at McCain's victory speech, which contains the soundbyte "I'm past the age that I can claim the noun kid no matter what adjective precedes it, but tonight we sure showed them what a comeback looks like." On Jan. 8 15-y.-o. Boy Scout Mohammed Jaisham Ibrahim (1992-) foils an assassination attempt on Maldives pres. Maumoon Gayoom, grabbing his knife after he leaps from the crowd and lunges. On Jan. 8 Sudanese soldiers shoot at a U.N. peacekeeper convoy in Darfur, wrecking a fuel tanker and wounding a local driver. On Jan. 8 Pres. Bush signs legislation aimed at preventing the severely mentally ill from buying guns after the Virginia Tech shootings cause bipartisan agreement; the holy grail of background checks at gun shows is still nowhere in the anti-gun lobby's sights, although Va. gov. Timothy M. Kaine puts in his two cents worth by proposing it now that he's got the spotlight. On Jan. 8 Bill Clinton makes a remark that Barack Obama's solid past opposition to the Iraq War is "the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen", and is jumped on by the PC police, who stretch it into the very idea that a black can be a U.S. pres., with black S.C. rep. James Clyburn saying on Feb. 11 that he might end his neutrality because of the comment. On Jan. 9 the U.S. military reports nine U.S. soldiers killed in the first two days of a new offensive against al-Qaida in Diyala Province, Iraq NE of Baghdad. On Jan. 10 N.M. Dem. gov. Bill Richardson, the one with the most actual executive experience (first Hispanic candidate for U.S. pres.?) drops out of the U.S. pres. race. On Jan. 10 a suicide bomber detonates in a crowd of police officers in a courthouse in Lahore, Pakistan, killing 22 and wounding 58. On Jan. 13 the 2008 Golden Globe Awards are a bare bones affair as the Writer's Guild of Am. strike continues; Atonement wins best picture (drama), Julian Schnabel wins best dir. for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; No Country For Old Men wins best screenplay; Julie Christie wins best actress for The Brave One and Daniel Day-Lewis best actor for There Will Be Blood; Sweeney Todd wins best picture (comedy) along with Johnny Depp for best actor (comedy); Marion Cotillard wins best actress (musical) for La Vie en Rose, Cate Blanchett best supporting actress in I'm Not There, Javier Barden best supporting actor in No Country For Old Men, Ratatouille for best animated feature, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly for best foreign language film. On Jan. 14 a Taliban suicide bomber at the luxury Serena Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan kills six incl. an American and Norwegian journalist; meanwhile U.S. officials announce that they are sending an additional 3.2K Marines to Afghanistan for a spring offensive. On Jan. 14 Repub. becomes La. gov. #55 (until ?), becoming the first Indian-Am. gov. of a U.S. state, and the first non-white gov. of La. since Reconstruction, vowing a "clean break with the past" and to root out corruption; at 36 he's also the youngest sitting U.S. gov.; mean while ex-La. gov. (1972-96) Edwin Edwards misses the ceremony since he's in priz on corruption charges - touch no cow in Louisiana? On Jan. 16 a female Shiite suicide bomber kills nine Shiites and wounds 15 in a marketplace in Khan Bani Saad, Iraq in S Diyala Province during the nutso self-flagellating Ashoura rites of the Shiites (11th female suicide bomber in last 4.5 years), causing a retaliatory attack on Jan. 17 by a Sunni a suicide against a nearby Shiite mosque, killing 11 and wounding 15; meanwhile the U.S. offensive in Diyala rages on. On Jan. 20 the well-written TV show Breaking Bad, created by "The X-Files" producer Vince Gilligan (1967-) debuts on AMC cable TV network for 62 episodes (until Sept. 29, 2013), starring Bryan Lee Canston (1956-) as 50-y.-o. high school chem. teacher Walter White, who has terminal cancer, a handicapped teenie son (R.J. Mitte) and pregnant wife (Anna Gunn), and decides to cook meth with former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to provide for his family when he goes, entering the sleazy criminal world and keeping viewers entertained with what bad thing's going to happen to him next as they slowly drag him down to their level, which doesn't stop you from rooting for him. On Jan. 21 a suicide bomber detonates inside a funeral tent in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 18; his target, a security official escapes unharmed - it's all just a little bit of history repeating? On Jan. 21 Dem. candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards attend a Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally in Columbia, S.C., giving him credit for paving the way for their candidacies and promising to further his vision. On Jan. 21 Iraq adopts a new Iraqi Flag that keeps the green Takbir ("Allahu Akbar" motto) but dispenses with Saddam Hussein's three green stars. On Jan. 22 officials of the Dem. Repub. of Congo sign an agreement with rebels to end the decade-long insurgency (begun 1996) that displaced 400K from their homes. On Jan. 22 Fred Thompson drops out of the Repub. pres. race. On Jan. 22 a suicide bomber pushing a cart attacks a high school in Baqubah, Iraq N of Baghdad, killing a bystander and injuring 21; initial reports that the bomber was female prove false - it was found sticking in what? On Jan. 22 the Federal Reserve delivers an emergency cut of the federal funds rate of 0.75%, followed by another 0.5% in its regular meeting on Jan. 30, for a total of 1.25%. On Jan. 23 Hamas militants blast large stretches of the Gaza Wall between Gaza Strip and Egypt, causing a stampede of shoppers into Egypt; the Egyptian military reseals it on Feb. 3 12 days after pres. Hosni Mubarak says they should be first given a chance to spend money there, buying cigs, yeast, mattresses etc.; too bad, terrorists see their chance and cross into Israel? On Jan. 24 Italian PM (since 2004) Romano Prodi resigns after losing a key confidence vote, making govt. #62 since WWII necessary. On Jan. 25 Pakistan successfully fires a medium-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile with a range of 420 mi. On Jan. 25 computer-savvy Frenchman Jerome Kerviel (1977-), a trader with Societe Generale in Paris is caught in the French Gigaeuro Bank Fraud after costing 4.9B Euros. On Jan. 26 the 2008 S.C. Primary is a V for Barack Obama, with 38%, vs. 30% for Hillary Clinton, and 19% for John Edwards; Obama utters the soundbyte "We are hungry for change"; too bad, her hubby Bill Clinton steps on it by trying to connect Obama's win to Jesse Jackson's win in 1984 and 1988; meanwhile John McCain wins the Repub. primary with 33%, vs. 23% for Mike Huckabee, 20% for Mitt Romney, 13% for Fred Thompson (who dropped out), and 4% for Rudy Giuliani, who has been concentrating on Fla. On Jan. 27 Caroline Kennedy announces support for Barack Obama, followed by Sen. Ted Kennedy on Jan. 28, which is a big snub for "co-presidency" candidates Bill and Hillary Clinton, who model themselves on JFK; on Jan. 30 prominent black Calif. congresswoman Maxine Waters counters by endorsing Cinton, while Kan. gov. Kathleen Sebelius endorses Obama; on Jan. 31 Arnold Schwarzenegger endorses John McCain, while his wife Maria Shriver endorses Obama. On Jan. 27 the worst snowstorms in 50 years strike China just before the Lunar New Year, catching 150M+ trying to travel to their family homes. On Jan. 27 pres. (since Mar. 12, 1995) Gordon B. Hinckley (b. 1910) dies, and the First Presidency is dissolved; on Feb. 3, 2008 former First Counselor in the First Presidency (since Mar. 12, 1995) and Boy Scout leader Thomas Spencer Monson (1927-) becomes pres. #16 of the LDS Church (until ?) - they're all so white and so right? Staying al-i-i-i-i-ve? On Jan. 28 U.S. Pres. Bush delivers his lame duck 2008 State of the Union Address, citing the successful surge in Iraq (30K new troops, plus the 90K-man Sons of Iraq (formed in summer 2006), former insurgents now on the U.S. payroll to protect neighborhoods and provide intel) and touting a $150B economic stimulus package of tax rebates while vowing to veto any spending bill that doesn't cut the number and cost of congressional earmarks; he pushes renewal of his No Child Left Behind Act and for permanent extension of the Anti-Terrorism Law, and claims that it's his goal to arrange a deal between Israel and the Palestinians by the end of his presidency, warning that the U.S. will confront Iran if it messes with its troops; Barack Obama snubs a handshake offer from Hillary Clinton, giving mixed explanations. On Jan. 28 a roadside bomb blast in Mosul, Iraq kills five U.S. soldiers, after which gunfire is sprayed at the rest of the unit from a mosque, and the perps flee. On Jan. 28 gunmen in Peshawar, Pakistan hold dozens of students and teachers hostage until authorities let them flee unpunished. On Jan. 29 John McCain wins the Fla. Repub. primary with 36%, putting him in the #1 position over Mitt Romney, who gets 31%; meanwhile Rudy Giuliani, who bet everything on Fla. gets 15% and drops out, endorsing McCain; Mike Huckabee gets 14%. On Jan. 30 handsome-smiling John Edwards drops out of the Dem. pres. race in New Orleans, La., the same city where he began it, and begins jockeying for a vice-pres. position, while continuing the massive $1.5M coverup of his sexual affair with Rielle Hunter with money from Mellon heiress Rachel "Bunny" Melon. On Jan. 30 the New Baptist Covenant Celebration meets in Atlanta, Ga. in an effort to unite 30+ Baptist groups representing 20M adherents - at this late, it's time to circle the wagons or the savages will pick us off at will? On Jan. 31 a U.S. missile strike in Waziristan in NW Pakistan near the Afghan border kills Abu Laith al-Libi (b. 1967), a senior al-Qaida cmdr. suspected of engineering the Feb. 2007 bombing of the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan during a visit by U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney. In Jan. Paraguay has its first outbreak of yellow fever in 34 years. In Jan. record cold sees the global land surface temp dip below the 20th cent. mean for the first time since 1982, along with the largest Jan. snow cover extent on record for the Eurasian continent and Northern Hemisphere, causing record biz for Colo. ski towns. In Jan. vending machines for marijuana and other prescription drugs go into service in Los Angeles, Calif. In Jan. Hasbro, owner of the rights to Scrabble threatens legal action against the popular Scrabulous Web site run by two brothers in Calcutta, Rajat and Jayani Agarwalla, which gets more than 700K players a day - how any co. can own the exclusive rights to simulate one following the rules of a game, as opposed to owning copyrights on physical board designs and trademarks eludes moi? In Jan. English Muslim Ishaq Kanmi (1987-) posts messages on the Internet under the name Shaykh Umar Rabie al-Khalaila, announcing the formation of a British al-Qaida branch and calling on "all Muslims in Britain to join us and prepare themselves for martyrdom operations and not lose this golden chance"; he is arrested in Aug. at Manchester Airport, and pleads guilty on May 10, 2010. In Jan. Muslim convert to Christianity Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy (1982-), who became the first Muslim-born Egyptian to sue the govt. for denying him official recognition of his religion sees a Cairo court rule that it is against Egyptian law for a Muslim to leave Islam, with the soundbyteL "He can believe whatever he wants in his heart, but on paper he can't convert." In Jan. the U.S. Library of Congress establishes the Nat. Ambassador for Young People's Literature position; the first award goes to Jon Scieszka (1954-). On Feb. 1 Hollywood star Wesley Trent Snipes (1962-) is found not guilty of federal tax fraud and conspiracy charges after he refused to file returns from 1999-2004 to protest the legitimacy of the IRS, causing him to become their target; luckily, the jury saves him from felony charges, returning only misdemeanor convictions. Hanging Chad? On Feb. 2 rebels invade N'Djamena, hanging capital of Chad after a 3-day advance across the desert, causing pres. Idriss Deby to hole-up in the pres. palace until Feb. 9, when a ceasefire is reached; meanwhile 500 French nationals are evacuated; Chad is a refuge for 250K Darfur refugees (out of 200K killed) from the horrible janjaweed militas, and a rebel takeover threatens them as well as humanitarian groups trying to help them; meanwhile in the W Kenyan town of Eldoret, rival ethnic groups hunt each other through the streets; on Feb. 10 the Sudanese air force strikes rebels in Darfur, causing 12K "destitute and terrified" refugees to pour into Chad, which accuses Sudan's pres. Omar al-Bashir of putting the rebels up to the N'Djamena attack in order to stop planned deployment of a Euro peacekeeper force in the border region. On Feb. 2 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy quietly marries supermodel-singer Carla Gilberta Bruni (1967-) (who called herself a "tamer of men" and calls monogamy boring) at Elysee Palace 3 mo. after meeting; on Feb. 13 she gives her first interview, saying "I am Italian by culture, and I would not like to divorce, so I am the first lady until the end of my husband's mandate and his wife until death." On Feb. 3 Super Bowl XLII (42) is held in Cardinals (U. of Phoenix) Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.; the underdog 5th-seeded wild card New York Giants (coach Tom Coughlin) defeat the 18-0 New England Patriots (coach Bill Belichick) by 17-14 to deny them the first perfect NFL season since the 1972 Miami Dolphins and become the first NFC wild card team (3rd consecutive) to win a SB; there are a record three lead changes in the 4th quarter; the Patriots, led by QB (#12) Thomas Edward Patrick "Tom" Brady Jr. (1977-) had already defeated the Giants by 38-35 in the final game of the regular season; Giants QB (#10) Elisha Nelson "Eli" Manning (1981-) (little brother of last year's SB-winning QB Peyton Manning) leads "Eli's Drive" to score the winning TD with 35 sec. left in the game, after instant hero David Mikel Tyree (1980-) makes a miracle helmet catch to set it up with 1:15 remaining, before which Manning eludes the grasp of four defenders and pulls free to throw the ball; Fox Network charges $2.7M for a 30 sec. commercial. On Feb. 3 a roadside bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia near a passenger-carrying minibus kills eight and wounds nine. On Feb. 3 the U.S. military announces that an errant airstrike SE of Baghdad, Iraq killed nine civilians (incl. a child) and wounded four (incl. two children). On Feb. 4 a Hamas suicide bomber in a shopping center in Dimona, Israel, 35 mi. from the border with Gaza Strip kills a 70-y.-o. Israeli woman and wounds 11, after which Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades release farewell videos bragging about getting to them via the broken barrier in Egypt; on Feb. 6 Israeli missiles kill eight Hamas militants in the courtyard of a Hamas police station in Gaza City in Christian forgiveness, er, Jewish justice. On Feb. 5 Super Tuesday puts half of the states up for grabs in the U.S. pres. race; John McCain is a big winner (9 states), wrapping up half the delegates he needs for nomination; Hillary Clinton picks up 9 states, incl. N.Y., Calif., and Mass., but remains only slightly ahead of Barack Obama, who wins the South (13 states total); white evangelical Christian Mike Huckabee sweeps the South plus W. Va., threatening to put deep-pockets Mormon Romney out of the race, and on Feb. 6 he drops out, saying "If I fight on in my campaign all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win, and in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign be a part of aiding a surrender to terror" - duh, a President Lucas McCain would bring on WWIII because he was tortured in the Hanoi Hilton and programmed to be the Manchurian Candidate, or at least isn't all there mentally and will crack under pressure, nuking China without warning to get even for all those bad times and nightmares? On Feb. 5 (night) 50+ tornadoes rip through the SE U.S., killing 44 - the Devil came to Jawjah because who didn't vote for whom? On Feb. 6 Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, cmdr. of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba confirms the existence of the formerly top secret Camp 7 for 15 "high value" al-Qaida prisoners. On Feb. 7 U.S. authorities announce the indictment of 62 people associated with the if-you-have-some-crayons-take-a-look Gambino Family of New York, claiming that they're finally shutting it down; simultaneously Italian authorities announce Operation Old Bridge, targeted at Mafia figures who were trying to strengthen ties with the U.S. On Feb. 7 archbishop of Canterbury #104 (since 2003) Rowan Douglas Williams (1950-) causesd a firestorm of controversy by saying that the adoption of Sharia in the U.K. is "unavoidable", with the soundbyte that "There is nor reason why Sharia Law, or any other religious code should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution", adding "It's not as if we're bringing in an alien and rival system"; he is backed-up by Nicholas Phillips, lord chief justice of England and Wales; after PM Gordon Brown said he "believes that British laws should be based on British values", they backtrack to keep their jobs. On Feb. 8 a woman shoots two fellow students then commits suicide at Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge, La. On Feb. 9 a bomber strikes a rally in Charsadda in N Pakistan, killing 25 at an opposition secular Awami Nationalist Party rally; police later claim to find the bomber's head - did he give good head? On Feb. 10 English Jewish Britney Spears wannabe (rehab client with a beehive hairdo?) Amy Winehouse (1983-2011) steals the show at the 2008 Grammys, winning five, and giving a tearful speech from London, where she decided to stay to be with her mommy - does she have a short skirt and long long jacket? On Feb. 10 three masked robbers walk into the uninsured E.G. Buhrle Collection in Zurich before closing and walk off with four paintings worth $163M after 3 min. work, becoming the biggest art heist since the 2004 theft of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" in 2004; who's got Paul Cezanne's "Boy in the Red Waistcoat", Edgar Degas' "Ludovic Lepic and His Daughters", Claude Monet's "Poppy Field at Vertheuil", and Vincent Van Gogh's "Blooming Chestnut Branches" now?; perhaps the same dudes who stole Picasso's "Head of a Horse" and "Glass and Pitcher" last week? On Feb. 11 Pakistani authorities (under big Yankee pressure?) announce the capture the capture of Talibean counter, er, Taliban leader Shah Mansoor Dadullah, brother of Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah, who was killed last year by GIs; meaanwhile Pakistan envoy Tariq Azizuddin is kidnapped in the Khyber trival area of Pakistan en route to Kabul. On Feb. 11 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket addresses the 29th Anniv. of the Islamic Rev., vowing not to slow Iran's nuclear program and announcing plans to launch more rockets into space and eventually orbit a domestic satellite. On Feb. 11 the 541-ft. Singapore Flyer opens, becoming the world's tallest Ferris wheel (until 2009). On Feb. 12 the U.S. Senate by 68-29 approves the reauthorization of a law giving the govt. greater powers to eavesdrop in terrorism cases without obtain warrants from a secret courts, along with immunity from lawsuits for telecom cos. cooperating with intel agencies; too bad, the House balks and smashing pumpkins it, allowing the law to expire at midnight on Feb. 16. On Feb. 12 Barack Obama decisively defeats Hillary Clinton in three Dem. primaries (Va., Md., Washington D.C.), seizing the overall electoral lead, causing him to utter the soundbyte "The cynics can no longer say that our hope is false. We've won East and West and North and South and cross the heartland of the country." On Feb. 12 Australian PM Kevin Rudd delivers an apology to the aborigines for cents. of injustice, and promises to make improving their lives a top priority, which is unanimously approved by parliament; Australia joins Canada (1998) and South Africa (1992) in apologizing to the natives they stole their land from after arriving in 1788. On Feb. 12 the bullet-ridden body of Iraqi journalist Hisham Muchawat Hamdan (b. 1980) is found in Baghdad; meanwhile police search for two CBS journalists kidnapped in Basra near the Sultan Palace Hotel, and dozens of Iraqi lawmakers walk out to stop a nat. budget and other laws from being passed. Uh-oh, better get NATO? On Feb. 12 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin on the Fitz warns Ukraine against joining NATO, and threatens to aim its nukes at if it deploys a missile defense system, even though the U.S. has not suggested expanding its missile shield in Poland and Czech Repub. there; in Jan. new Russian pres. Dmitri Medvedev says that Russia will deploy its Iskander missiles (adopted in 2006) in Kaliningrad in W Russia "to neutralize, if necessary, a NATO missile defense system"; meanwhile Russia and China push for a global ban on arms in space at the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, while the U.S. pushes for halting production of fissile material; too bad, the Russian proposal also incl. banning defensive missile shields, causing a deadlock; on Feb. 9 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates says he thinks that Russia wants to resolve its security disputes with the U.S., and predicts that if Kosovo declares independence from Serbia this month, it will "react cautiously". On Feb. 12 English leftist environmentalist newt-loving London mayor Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone (1945-) (known for setting up Britain's first register for gay couples in 2001, hosting a Jewish Hanukkah ceremony in City Hall in Dec. 2005, introducing an annual St. Patrick's Day festival in 2002, reviving the anti-racism Rise: London United music festival in 2001, and can you think of anything else, oh yes, the first "Eid in the Square" Muslim Ramadan celebration in Trafalgar Square in Oct. 2006) announces a new $50 charge for drivers of gas-guzzling cars to enter C London, tripling the original fees set in 2003. On Feb. 12 howling 15-in. Uno becomes the first beagle to win best of show in the 132nd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, beating 2,626 other dogs. On Feb. 12 (night) car bomb in Damascus, Syria kills top Shiite Hezbollah cmdr. I'm A Mad Mugger, er, Imad Fayez Mugniyeh (Mughniyah) (b. 1962), in hiding for years after being suspected for the 1983 Marine Barracks bombing, a 1985 TWA jetliner hijacking, and tons of other dirty work; on Feb. 14 Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrullah threatens to strike Israel anywhere in the world in a borderless war to get them for it, saying "You have crossed the borders" beyond the traditional battlefield of Lebanon and Israel; the CIA and Mossad really really did it? meanwhile on Feb. 13 Danish newspapers reprint Prophet Muhammad cartoons in a solidarity gesture after police reveal the arrest of three Muslims for plotting to kill the cartoonist Kurt Westergaard; remember that the horrible insult showed the prince of peace wearing a turban shaped like a bomb with a lit fuse?; do they start the protest all over again? - figure the rules out for yourself? On Feb. 13 the U.S. Senate approves by 51-45 approves a new intelligence bill that bans waterboarding and other torture of suspects, and limits them to a list of 19 U.S. Army Field Manual tactics; Pres. Bush vows to veto it. On Feb. 14 black-dressed Steven Kazmierczak (b. 1980) opens fire on a geology class inside Cole Hall (built in 1968) at Northern Ill. U. in DeKalb, Ill. in suburban Chicago, picking the crowd off from the stage with a shotgun and two handguns, firing 48 bullets and six shotgun shells and shooting 21 people and killing five before committing suicide; it is later found out that he bought gun accessories from the same TGSCOM Web Site patronized by Seung-hui Cho; school officials later demolish the hall. On Feb. 14 Roger Bergendorff is hospitalized from his Extended Stay America Motel near the Las Vegas Strip with ricin poisoning; later vials of ricin are found in his room along with guns and "The Anarchist Cookbook"; after recovering enough to talk, he says he kept it all for self-protection. On Feb. 15-19 Pres. Bush goes on a 6-day tour of Africa. On Feb. 17 a suicide bomber at a dog-fighting competition in Kandahar, Afghanistan kills 80. On Feb. 17 speaking of dogs, the USDA announces a recall of 143M lbs. of beef from Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, Calif. after a video is sent them showing sick animals being forced to their feet with prods and hoses, and/or dragged with ropes or pushed with forklifts into the slaughterhouse, after which USDA spokesmen call for an investigation of other plants, realizing that they take advantage of inspectors by doing the dirty work when they're preoccupied - road kill burger, yum yum? The seeds of WWIII are sewn? On Feb. 17 90%-Muslim ethnic Albanian Kosovo (pop. 2M) declares independence, with capital at Pristina, becoming the first Muslim country in Europe, with former Kosovo Liberation Army leader Hashim "the Snake" Thaci (1968-) as PM #1 (until ?), causing riots in Belgrade, Serbia, during which rioters invade and set fire to the U.S. embassy while shouting slogans about their precious St. Sava (1174-1236); the U.S. is among the first to recognize Kosovo, allegedly because it is allegedly pro-U.S. (and because Russia won't recognize it?), perhaps thinking it can be used as a poker chip against the other Muslim states, while a glance at history shows that for 620 years (since 1389) the poor Orthodox Christian Serbs have suffered one defeat after another in their attempt to unify the Balkans against the Muslim threat, and triggered WWI at the beginning of the 20th cent. over it, so what will happen in the 21st cent., stay tuned? On Feb. 17 John McCain pledges no new taxes if elected pres., while Bill Clinton campaigns in Ohio, saying that the nomination will come down to that state and Texas; meanwhile after it is later revealed that he snuck down to see John Edwards in N.C. to get an endorsement, Barack Obama gives a campaign speech with a soundbyte nearly identical to one given in 2006 by his friend, Mass. gov. Devall Patrick, which is seized on by the desperate Clinton campaign as horrible don't-vote-for-him plagiarism, despite the speech itself being plagiarism of JFK, MLK Jr., and FDR, and little more than a slogan?; "Don't tell me words don't matter. 'I have a dream' - just words? 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal' - just words? 'We have nothing to fear but fear itself' - just words, just speeches?"; Obama rightly downplays it as trivial, and reminds Hillary that she used his slogans in her speeches, like anybody cares - the whole idea that tiny soundbytes can be owned and must carry disclaimers, even in verbal ad libs is stupid, and belongs in backstabbing tenure-hoarding academia not a public arena, so don't vote for Hillary, give her a job at the U. of Colo.? On Feb. 17 the divorce settlement of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills is finalized, with Mills being awarded Ł24.3M plus payments of Ł35K a year for a nanny and school costs for their daughter; the divorce is granted on May 12. On Feb. 18 parliamentary elections in Pakistan deal a big D to pres. Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League, the opposition party of ex-PM Nawaz Sharif winning more than half of the 272 seats, a clear signal to back off on the Taliban and al-Qaida and stuff Bush. On Feb. 18 billionaire Egyptian-born Harrods owner Mohammed Fayed (1933-), father of Dodi Fayed claims at the Royal Court of Justice in London (in its 5th mo. of an inquest) that Prince Di told him hours before her Aug. 30-31, 1997 death that she had Dodi's bun in the oven and that they were engaged to be married, and that the convienient accident was arranged by Elizabeth II's Greek hubby Prince Philip, whom he calls a racist Nazi, accusing Prince Charles of being in it too so he could marry Camilla Parker-Bowles - sign right here says Mel Gibson? On Feb. 18 Michelle Obama addresses a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisc., uttering the soundbyte: "What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something, for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country", causing a firestorm of criticism and causing her to try to 'splain until Laura Bush defuses it in June with the comment "I think she probably meant 'I'm more proud'" - and if she didn't? On Feb. 18 British Pakistani Muslim terrorist Parviz Khan (1971-) is jailed for life for planning to kidnap and execute a British soldier "like a pig". On Feb. 19 Cuban pres. (since Jan. 1959) Fidel Castro (b. 1926) officially retires in favor of his younger whippersnapper brother Raoul Modesto Castro Ruz (1931-), who is rubberstamped pres. on Feb. 24 (until ?), ending the Great Miami Exile Dream of the demise of Communism with his overthrow. On Feb. 19 PM (since 2007) Serge Sargsyan (Sarkisian) (1954-) wins pres. elections in Armenia with 53%, defeating ex-pres. (1991-8) Levon Ter-Petrosian, and succeeding pres. (since 1998) Robert Kocharian (until ?); on Feb. 20 thousands gather in Yerevan to protest the election, calling it rigged; on Mar. 1 15K demonstrate in Yerevan, and and after it turns violent, Kocharian declares a 20-day state of emergency. On Feb. 20 U.S. Navy Aegis cruiser USS Lake Erie shoots down a failing U.S. spy satellite filled with 1K lbs. of hydrazine (launched Dec. 2006) with an anti-missile missile at 100+ mi. alt. travelling 17K mph; when China tried the same thing in 2007, the U.S. got pissed-off, but this is different, because white is still right? On Feb. 21 the New York Times runs a story alleging that John McCain had an affair with lobbyist Vicki L. Iseman (1967-) during the 2000 pres. primaries, timed just as he is wrapping up the nomination; she bears a striking resemblance to McCain's wife (since 1980) Cindy Lou Hensley McCain (1954-) - yawn? On Feb. 21 Turkish forces began incursions into N Iraq to take on Kurdistan Workers' Party insurgents; on Feb. 27 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates warns them to wrap up in the next few days; on Feb. 29 Turkey declares that it has achieved its goals, but on Mar. 5 their warplanes and artillery blast some more guerrillas 15 mi. across the Iraqi border. On Feb. 23 John McCain comments on ailing Fidel Castro, uttering the soundbyte: "I hope he has the opportunity to meet Karl Marx very soon." On Feb. 24 U.S. federal judge Richard P. Matsch (who presided over the Okla. City bombing trial) overturns a $51M jury verdict on a patent infringement case, then orders the attys. to pay each others' fees, saying that the entire lawsuit was frivolous because it was filed to stifle competition rather than protect a patent - first time in history they get it right? On Feb. 24 Louis Farrakhan publicly backs Barack Obama at a Nation of Islam convention in Chicago, Ill., with the soundbyte: "We are witnessing the phenomenal rise of a man of color in a country that has persecuted us because of our color." On Feb. 24 the 80th Academy Awards, hosted by Jon Stewart are held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif.; 306 films are eligible for consideration; the Coen brothers win the best dir. Oscar for 2007 for No Country for Old Men, which wins best picture, along with best adapted screenplay, and best supporting male actor for Javier Bardem, who says that the Coen brothers "put one of the most horrible haircuts in history on my head"; Daniel-Day Lewis wins best actor for There Will Be Blood, and first-time actress Marion Cotillard (wearing a fish-scale gown by Jean Paul Gaultier) wins best actress for La Vie en Rose (first winner for a French-language performance, first for a non-English language performance since Sophia Loren in 1960, and 2nd French actress to win best actress after Simone Signoret in 1959) (too bad, certain earlier statements about the Twin Towers of 9/11 being impossible to bring down with fire later haunt the voters; orange-haired Tilda Swinton (wearing a black draped velvet dress with one sleeve) wins best supporting actress for Michael Clayton, giving Euros a clean sweep of all four acting Oscars; Ratatouille wins for best animated feature; Falling Slowly from Once, by Glen Hansard and Czech-born Marketa Irglova (1988-) (youngest person to win an Oscar in a musical category until ?) wins for best song; The Bourne Ultimatum wins three Oscars, incl. film editing, robbing a record 4th Oscar chance for the Coen brothers; actresses Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, and Jessica Alba are preggers, with Blanchett wearing a purple embroidered Dries Van Noten gown showing it off; Diablo Cody wins for best screenwriter for Juno. On Feb. 26 Hillary Clinton makes a last attempt to save her failing campaign with yet another debate with Barack Obama in Cleveland, Ohio, attempting to challenge his honesty; meanwhile Conn. Sen. Christopher Dodd endorses Obama, and John McCain apologizes for remarks made at a fundraiser by Cincinnati, Ohio radio talk show host Bill Cunningham, who repeatedly refers to "Barack Hussein Obama", reminding listeners that if this dude becomes president it will rock them to their socks (Saddam Hussein + Osama bin Laden in the White House?); meanwhile a Los Angeles Times poll shows that either would lose to John McCain if the election were held now. On Feb. 27 the U.S. dollar drops to an all-time low against the Euro of 66 cents; meanwhile Fannie Mae of the U.S. reports a $3.55B loss for the last quarter of 2007; meanwhile Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard U. prof. Linda Bilmes pub. The Three Trillion Dollar War, claiming that the Iraq War has cost the U.S. guess how much? On Feb. 27 U.S. secy. of state Condoleezza Rice stops in Tokyo on the final leg of an Asian trip to deal with North Korea's nuclear program, expressing regret over the case of U.S. Marine SSgt. Tyrone Luther Hadnott (1970-), accused of raping a 14-y.-o. Japanese girl and arrested on Feb. 11, which Japanese PM Yasuo Fukuda called "unforgivable"; he is charged on Apr. 24. Shit or get off the pot, no? On Feb. 27 35-y.-o. "Toilet Seat Woman" Pam Babcock (1972-) is found physically stuck to a toilet seat she had been sitting on for two years in Ness City, Kan., her boyfriend Kory McFarren (b. 1971) bringing her food and water while she kept saying "Maybe tomorrow" to requests to leave the bathroom; of course the local authorities press charges for mistreatment of a dependent adult - oh crap, what do I do, this is huge? On Feb. 28 news that Prince Harry has been serving on the front lines in Afghanistan with the British army for 10 weeks (first British royal since Prince Andrew in the Falkland Islands in 1982) leaks on the U.S Web Site Dredge Report, causing him to be quickly withdrawn to avoid an assassination attempt. On Feb. 29 a bus crash in Guatemala caused by bad brakes kills 53. On Feb. 29 John McCain slips at a rally in Tyler, Tex., saying "I'm a proud, conservative, liberal Repub...", immediately repeating it without the bad word "liberal". On Feb. 29 the daytime soap opera The Young and the Restless reaches its 1,000th consecutive week as #1 (since Dec. 1988). In Feb. the U.S. govt. budget deficit reaches a record $175.56B. In Feb. black former "Diff'rent Strokes" actor Gary Coleman (1968-2010) (candidate for gov. of Calif. against Ahnuld in 2003, placing #8) reveals his secret marriage last summer to white busty redhead Shannon Price (1985-), claiming until then he was a 40-y.-o. virgin - oral sex doesn't count because it's not going all the way? In Feb. a poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows declining loyalty to traditional U.S. mainline religious denominations; Protestants now make up only 51%. In Feb. Neb. passes a Safe Haven Law allowing parents to legally abandon their children by leaving them at a hospital, but goofs by not naming an age limit, causing anything up to teenies to be dropped off, incl. a woman from Atlanta, Ga. who dropped off her 12-y.-o. son, causing them to reconvene on Nov. 17 to set the age limit to 3 days like in Colo. On Mar. 1 severe storms hit C Europe, tearing off a roof at the Dusseldorf Airport, disrupting power to 1M in Prague, and killing 10. On Mar. 2 pres. elections in Russia are no surprise as Tsar Vladimir Putin's hand-picked successor, Leningrad-born deputy-PM (since Nov. 14, 2005) (converted to Orthodox Christianity at age 23, and became a fan of Deep Purple) Dmitri (Dmitry) Anatolyevich Medvedev (1965-) wins; Putin's men spent months clamping down on all opposition with strongarm tactics, creating a de facto 1-party state, with the approval of most Russians, who are used to cents. of tsarist authority and can't stand the free-falling loose-cannon-on-deck feeling of Western multi-party politics; Putin becomes PM, and wields the real power, since Russia can have only one tsar, and he's it; meanwhile Medvedev claims to be the boss. On Mar. 2 a suicide bomber kills 42 and injures 53 during a meeting of 200 tribal leaders in Zarghon Village in Pakistan being held to discuss a suicide attack two days earlier that killed 40 in the Swat Valley during the funeral for a police officer, and another the day before that killed two in Bajur, all in NW Pakistan; as usual, pres. Pervez Musharraf gets the heat from the U.S. On Mar. 2, 2008 the Heartland Inst. (founded in Arlington Heights, Ill. in 1984, and known for working for Philip Morris to question the health risks of second-hand smoke) holds the first Internat. Conference on Climate Change in New York City, endorsing the Nongovernmental Internat. Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) and pub. the article Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate, criticizing the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), followed by the Manhattan Declaration, declaring that carbon dioxide (CO2) is essential for all life, and calling for an immediate halt to tax-funded attempts to counteract climate change, with the soundbytes: "Assertions of a supposed 'consensus' among climate experts are false", and demanding that "all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith"; leaders incl. Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (1952-), former adviser to British PM Margaret Thatcher; signers incl. S. Fred Singer, Anthony Watts, David Bellamy, Piers Corbyn, Ian Plimer, Robert M. Carter, and Roy Spencer; by 2017 12 conferences are held. On Mar. 3 Pres. Bush appoints Pakistan-born Tex.-based Muslim Sada Cumber (1951-) as the first U.S. ambassador to the Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Muslim U.N. (until Feb. 2010). On Mar. 4 pres. primaries in Ohio, Tex., Vt., and R.I. are a V for Lucas, er, John McCain, who cinches the Repub. nomination and gains the endorsement of Mike Huckabee; meanwhile Hillary Clinton, whose hubby Bill earlier admitted has to win or get out, scores Vs in Ohio and Tex., plus R.I., staying alive after losing 11 straight contests, causing them to head out to Wyo. to stump for the state's few delegates, which Obama wins by 60% to 40% on Mar. 9; meanwhile another poll shows that either would beat McCain if the election were held now. On Mar. 4 Northern Ireland Protestant leader Ian Paisley announces that he's stepping down in May. On Mar. 4 Venezuela and Ecuador reinforce their borders with Colombia after getting pissed-off at its border strike on a leftist guerrilla base in Ecuador on Mar. 1 that killed s enior FARC (Rev. Armed Forces of Colombia) member Raul Reyes (Luis Edgar Devia Silva) (b. 1948), who had a $5M U.S. reward on his head; on Mar. 6 Nicaragua breaks off diplomatic relations with Colombia, while the Rio Group Summit is hosted by the Dominican Repub. to find a diplomatic solution, U.S. spokesman saying they back Colombia's right to defend itself against FARC guerrillas, and wondering aloud what Venezuela has to do with it; the intervention of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is an attempt to revive the Marxist rev. in South Am.? On Mar. 4 the U.S. military announces the crash of an Iraqi heli in N Iraq that killed a U.S. soldier and seven others. On Mar. 4 the 2008 Mardakert Skirmishes see Armenia and Azerbaijan accuse each other of violating the May 5, 1994 Bishkek Protocol (provisional ceasefire agreement), after which on Mar. 14 the 62nd Session of the U.N. Gen. Assembly votes 39-7-100 to adopt U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution 62/243, "The Situation in the Occupied Territories of Afghanistan", about the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, reaffirming "continued respect and support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Azerbaijan "within its internationally recognized borders", demanding the "immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all the occupied territories of Azerbaijan", emphasizing that "no state shall render aid or assistance" to maintain the occupation of Azerbaijani territories. On Mar. 5 Xia Tao, armed with explosives takes 10 Australians hostage on a tourist bus in Xi'an N China, and is shot and killed by police. On Mar. 6 two bombs in the Shiite Karada district of Baghdad, Iraq kill 55 and injure 131 in a busy shopping mall, ruining all the talk of emerging from the doldrums of war. On Mar. 6 a Palestinian gunman kills eight students and wounds nine at the Mercaz HaRav, the top yeshiva in Jerusalem before being killed. On Mar. 6 before dawn a small bomb explodes in front of a miliary recruiting station in Times Square in New York City, causing minor damage, after which a video shows a thin white man with graying hair on a bicycle planting it; a big protest against a Marine recruiting station was held on Feb. 1 in Berkeley, Calif.; meanwhile U.S. gen. Victor E. "Gene" Renuart Jr., cmdr. of the North Am. Aerospace Defense Command in Colo. says that al-Qaida may be stepping up efforts to attack the U.S. to maintain their credibility and recruit followers; meanwhile Pres. Bush welcomes 107-y.-o. Frank Woodruff Buckles (1901-), the last known surviving U.S. WWI vet, who met Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing - left behind by the Kaiser's army? On Mar. 7 the new Forbes Billionaire List shows Bill Gates slipping to #2 after Microsoft's unsolicited $44.6B takeover bid of Yahoo was snubbed and his stock slid, allowing Warren Buffett to become #1; meanwhile Facebook.com new kid on the block Mark Zuckerberg becomes the youngest self-made billionaire in history, worth $1.5B, all through the funny money of clicks. On Mar. 7 (7:00 a.m.) a suicide bomber at a police compound in Mosul, Iraq kills four and wounds 17. On Mar. 7 17-y.-o. Tasleem Solangi (b. 1991) is mauled by dogs then shot to death by her Muslim uncle Zameer Solangi in Pakistan in an honor killing for alleged immorality; it is later revealed that it was done to convince her father to sell him some land. On Mar. 9 Spanish Socialist PM (since 2004) Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero wins reelection, an endorsement of his actions of pulling troops out of Iraq, legalizing same-sex marriages and on-demand divorce. On Mar. 9 Chinese authorities claim to have broken up a terrorist plot targeting the upcoming Beijing Olympics; meanwhile a flight crew foils an attempt to crash a China Southern flight from Urumqi. On Mar. 9 (dawn) a passenger train slams into a double-decker bus near Dolores, Argentina 125 mi. S of Buenos Aires, killing 26. On Mar. 10 N.Y. Dem. gov. #58 (since 2007) and former N.Y. atty.-gen. (1999-2006) Eliot Laurence Spitzer (1959-), formerly known as "the sheriff of Wall Street" for aggressive prosecution of securities and Internet fraud (incl. prostitution rings) is named as "client #9" in a federal sting of a high-priced ($4.3K an hour) prostitution ring known as the Emperor's Club VIP; he resigns as gov. on Mar. 12 after info. surfaces that he spent as much as $80K on the classy hos; on Mar. 17 he is replaced by lt. gov. (since Jan. 1, 2007) David Alexander Paterson (1954-) (known for failing the N.Y. bar exam, then blaming it on the testers for not accomodating his disability), who becomes N.Y. gov. #55 (until ?), the first black and first legally blind person to hold the position; the ho Spitzer was caught with is Kristen, AKA Madonna wannabe Ashley Alexandra Dupre (Dupré) (Youmans) (1985-), whose star is now on the rise (Madonna started the same way in the Big Apple?); too bad, on Mar. 18 Paterson admits that he also had affairs with a "number of women", incl. state employees, but is coming clean to avoid a later revelation; like the fashion dicates (McGreevey et al.), he makes the announcement with his zonked wife by his side - does she swallow or spitzer? On Mar. 10 Barack Obama gives a speech in Columbus, Miss. saying that he isn't running for vice-pres., and uttering the soundbyte: "I don't know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice-presidency to someone who is in first place - honey, two shampoos? On Mar. 10 a 5-mo. AP inquiry is announced that detected prescription drugs in the drinking water supplies of 24 major U.S. metro areas. On Mar. 11 the big news breaks that Dawn Wells (1938-), who played Mary Ann in "Gilligan's Island" is serving 6 mo. probation for marijuana possssion, having been sentenced on Feb. 29 after pleading guilty to reckless driving; she claims a friend left the stuff in her car and she was swerving while trying to find the heating controls - while on a 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour? On Mar. 11 U.S. Adm. William J. Fallon (1944-), top U.S. military cmdr. for the Middle East resigns amid speculation that his rift with Pres. Bush over Iran was a "distraction"; he had been described as single-handedly stopping an invasion, causing more rumors that now it's a green light to go balls-out to Tehran. On Mar. 11 twin suicide bombs in Lahore, Pakistan kill 24 and injure 200; meanwhile in Iraq eight GIs are announced killed on Mar. 10, and 42 civilians on Mar. 11, incl. 16 bus passengers in a roadside bombing, becoming the most GIs killed since last Sept. 10, when 10 were killed. On Mar. 11 Ind.-born African-Am. Muslim convert Andre (André) D. Carson (1974-) becomes the 2nd Muslim in Congress as a Dem. rep. from Ind. (until ?). It's not even Easter yet and they've got Obama on the cross? On Mar. 12 Geraldine Anne Ferraro (1935-) resigns from Hillary Clinton's campaign after her remarks publicly on Mar. 7 that Barack Obama wouldn't be in the position he's in if he weren't black pisses-off the PC police and causes them to call the PC Posse; meanwhile Obama wins 5 of 5 weekend contests on Mar. 7-8, winning 90+% of the er, black vote and only about one-third of the er, white vote; too bad, the race card starts being played by the opposition, and Obama's longtime (20 years) minister Rev. Jeremiah Alvesta "Jerry" Wright Jr. (1941-) of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Ill. comes under fire for his black racist statements supporting Louis Farrakhan and dissing whites for their er, history ("blue-eyed devils", "Antichrist", the U.S. govt. invented and spreads AIDS among blacks), Jews ("bloodsuckers", "Satanic"), homos, and America itself ("Great White West", "Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run", "God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people"); despite Obama's attempts to distance himself now, the sad truth is that his father is a black Muslim Communist from Kenya who put him through a year of Islamic classes, and it was only through Wright that he was baptized a Christian by him in 1988, having him marry him to his wife Michelle Robinson in 1992 then baptize his two daughters, even titling his book "The Audacity of Hope" from one of his sermons; on Mar. 18 after his campaign reaches a crisis, Obama finally gives up trying to avoid mentioning the subject of race for fear of being labeled the black candidate like Jesse Jackson (1941-), and delivers his Big Race Speech ("A More Perfect Union"), starting "We the people, in order to form a more perfect union", followed by "I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas"; after distancing himself from Wright politically, he adds "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother... who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe"; too bad, on Apr. 28 Wright makes more un-PC remarks at the Nat. Press Club, causing Obama to officially cut his ties on Apr. 29, calling them "a show of disrespect to me", "directly contradicting everything that I've done during my life"; in May 2010 after licking his wounds or two years, Wright sends a letter to the AP, grumbling that Obama "threw me under the bus" - so much for President Obama, and hello President McCain, or is this America's racial turning point? The Almay candidate, starts out white and adjusts to match your skin color? On Mar. 13 body of Chaldean Catholic archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho (b. 1942) is found in a shallow grave in N Iraq two weeks after he was kidnapped by gunmen - I'm ready, let's play, Christians? On Mar. 13 Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas accuses the Israeli govt. of "ethnic cleansing" in Palestinian areas around Jerusalem after four Islamic Jihad members are killed in a raid on Mar. 12. On Mar. 13 a suicide bomber targeting U.S. troops in Kabul goofs and kills six Afghan civilians; meanwhile U.S. forces strike across the bordeer into Pakistan at a suspected Taliban compound, killing four more civilians, pissing-off Pakistani officials. On Mar. 14 riots marking the 40th anniv. of the exile of the Dalai Lama and the coming of the Beijing Olympics rock Tibet, killing two (zillion?); meanwhile 100 Tibetan exiles on a 6-mo. protest march to Tibet defy orders of the Indian govt. to halt; on Mar. 17 the Chinese govt. deadline to the protesters to disperse expires, and they stop being nice, swarming Tibet with troops by Mar. 20, causing Tibetan to become an extinct language before our eyes, while the U.S. does nothing because it owes them so much money?; on Mar. 23 China accuses the Dalai Lama of inciting the unrest to undermine the Olympics, which he calls "baseless", causing 30 Chinese intellectuals to appeal to them to admit that its policy of crushing dissent while blaming the violence on him isn't working; on Mar. 25 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy suggests an Olympic boycott to punish China for its crackdown; too bad, on Apr 29 a Chinese court sentences 30, incl. six Buddhist monks arrested on Mar. 14-16 to prison terms ranging from three years to life - the horror, the horror, of giving them the Olympics in the first place? On Mar. 15 a bomb explodes in the back garden of the Luna Caprese Italian Restaurant in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing one and injuring 11, incl. five Americans (four FBI personnel); the restaurant is known for slipping alcoholic drinks to foreigners (Allah damn them?); on Mar. 16 an unmanned drone flattens a suspected militant safe house in Pakistan's tribal area, killing 20; meanwhile on Mar. 16 the Pakistan parliament convenes, packed with foes of U.S.-backed pres. Pervez Musharraf. On Mar. 15 the 5th anniv. of the U.S. Iraqi War sees total U.S. troop casualties total 29,320 wounded in action and 3,987 KIA; on Mar. 19 clueless Pres. Bush defends the war again, claiming that "the world is better" and the U.S. is safer because of him, er, it. On Mar. 15 a YouTube audio clip of Okla. Repub. rep. Sally Kern saying that "The homosexual agenda is destroying this nation", and "It's the biggest threat our nation has", comparing homosexuality to "toe cancer", and adding the soundbyte that "Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades, so it's the death knell of this country" pisses-off gay activists, bringing death threats along with a slew of anti-Kern YouTube uploads, while Okla. conservatives make her their champion; in 2009 she sponsors an "Okla. Citizen's Proclamation for Morality", blaming U.S. economic woes on "our greater national moral crisis" - make her eat her words? On Mar. 16 the Subprime Mortgage Crisis begins when JPMorgan Chase buys New York City investment bank Bear Stearns (founded 1923), whose stock slid from $170 to $2 because of its giant portfolio of worthless subprime mortgages for a measly $236M, with the U.S. govt. guaranteeing $30B of it, causing rumors of a coming new Great Depression, fueled again on Mar. 17 when the Federal Reserve lowers the prime rate for the 6th time in 6 mo., although the Dow Jones jumps 420.41 points (to 12,392.66) on Mar. 18, the biggest daily point gain in five years; on Mar. 17 the price of gold tops $1,035, the highest in history, then slides to $990 on Mar. 18. On Mar. 16 $15M Our Lady of the Rosary in Dohar, Qatar opens; too bad, they are afraid to display a cross on it or even a signboard for fear of hate-filled Muslim blacklash. On Mar. 17 ABC News announces the discovery of a large blue whale pop. in the Gulf of Corcovado in Chile, and lobbies for making it a Marine Protected Area to keep more salmon hatcheries from being built. On Mar. 17 it's happy St. Patty's Day in Iraq as a female Sunni suicide bomber in Karbala, Iraq kills 43 in front of a Shiite mosque, while another 29 are killed in other attacks, incl. six youths from mortar rounds at a soccer field in E Baghdad, and two U.S. soldiers in a roadside bombing N of Baghdad; the violence was obviously meant to greet U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney and pres. candidate John McCain, who tout recent security gains and reaffirm their long-term commitment. On Mar. 17 former N.J. gov. Jim McGreevey claims that he used to have 3-ways with his wife Dina Matos McGreevey and male aide Teddy Pedersen, the latter confirming it but claiming he didn't know if Sweet Cheeks, er, Big Jim was gay; she denies it all - mommy, what's a menage a trois? On Mar. 18 the U.S. Supreme Court begins hearing a challenge to the 1976 Washington D.C. ("murder capital of the U.S.") law banning handguns, and the justices orally indicate that they are finally going to rule that the in-your-face 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the individual's right to own guns, which the court has avoided for over 200 years; "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" -by the government; seems clear, right? wrong, ever since the flintlock was superseded by the Colt 45, yet the one thing Americans believe makes them different than the rest of the world is their right to have a personal arsenal, and if the govt. ever tries to take their guns away, it will be only after prying them from their cold dead fingers? On Mar. 18 Barack Obama gives his Race Speech at the Nat. Constitution Center in Philly, which hearkens to Abe Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech in New York City on Feb. 27, 1860? On Mar. 18 the divorce between will-you-still-need-me-will-you-still-feed-me-when-I'm 65-y.-o. Paul McCartney and 40-y.-o. Heather Mills is finalized, and she gets a tidy $47M of his $850M, acting as her own atty.; the trial reveals that Paul finally took his wedding ring for Linda off for her, and considered it a life marriage, therefore didn't make her sign a pre-nup, and that they stopped using birth control. On Mar. 19 the Mar. 19, 2008 Anti-War Protest is held around the world incl. Washington, D.C. On Mar. 19 (5th anniv. of the U.S. Iraq War) Pres. Bush's approval rating hits a new low of 31%, down 40 points from the start of the war, echoing the drop in LBJ's approval rating during the Vietnam War (74-35); not phased, Bush says "Defeating this enemy in Iraq will make it less likely we will face this enemy here at home", and "We're helping the people of Iraq establish a democracy in the heart of the Middle East. A free Iraq will fight terrorists instead of harboring them". On Mar. 19 Hillary Clinton calls for Barack Obama to agree to new primaries in Mich. and Fla. which gave her a V back in Jan. but whose delegates were excluded from the Dem. Convention for doing it too early; of course, Obama isn't going to give the nomination to her, so nothing happens? On Mar. 19 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Courts rules 7-2 in Snyder v. La. that prosecutors may not use peremptory strikes to remove African-Am. jurors solely on the basis of race; Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia dissent on the grounds that the court is merely second-guessing the decisions of the trial court, and doesn't really know the true reasons. On Mar. 20 a suicide bomber kills five and wounds 11 outside a brigade HQ in the Pakistan tribal region on Afghanistan's border while U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney is visiting Kabul for talks with Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai. On Mar. 20 the Web site JuicyCampus.com is slammed on U.S. network TV after 20-y.-o. Colgate U. student George So (1987-) is arrested for threatening to stage a school massacre; the main gripe is that they rely on the U.S. Bill of Rights to protect anon. malicious gossip posts about real names; it goes out of biz on Feb. 5, 2009. On Mar. 21 Dem. N.M. gov. Bill Richardson endorses Barack Obama. On Mar. 21 it is revealed that the passport files of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain had been breached by low-level U.S. State Dept. employees, embarrassing the brass. On Mar. 21 Thomas Beatie reveals that he's pregnant; he's really a woman named Tracy LaGondino who had her breasts excised and took testosterone and got the govt. to list her as a male so she could marry a woman and not be called a lesbian, causing him/her to become a cause celebre for the gay community since he totally upends the traditional roles, and they think they can score a V with the publicity? On Mar. 21 the Washington Post pub. a photo of Hillary Clinton's welcoming ceremony in Tuzla, Bosnia on Mar. 25, 1996, showing that she didn't have to run from the airplane to a waiting vehicle under sniper fire like she has recently become fond of repeating, causing her to come clean on Mar. 24 and admit she misspoke; proof that women can't face reality and shouldn't become the chief executive? On Mar. 22 it's Happy Easter to the U.S. as a roadside bomb kills three U.S. soldiers N of Baghdad, bringing the Iraq War death toll to 3,996. On Mar. 22 pro-Beijing Nationalist Party oppositition candidate Ma Ying-jeou (1950-) wins the pres. election in Taiwan, promising to work toward unification with China. On Mar. 22 U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney visits Jerusalem, and says that the U.S. wants a new beginning for the Palestinians but will never pressure Israel to take steps jeopardizing its security, and that U.S. support of Israel is "unshakable". On Mar. 23 a protest against Chinese rule by Uighur Muslims in Khotan in Xianjiang (NW China) is put down by Chinese police. On Mar. 24 longtime Bhutto aide Yousaf Raza Gillani (1952-) becomes PM #26 of Pakistan (until ?), immediately ordering the release of judges detained last year by pres. Pervez Musharraf, incl. chief justice (since 2005) Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry (1948-), who appears on the balcony of his Islamabad villa to cheering spectators. On Mar. 24 79+% of voters turn out for the first-ever parliamentary elections in Bhutan. a jury rejects his insanity plea. On Mar. 25 Yousuf (Yousaf) Raza Gilani (1952-) becomes PM #17 of Pakistan (until Apr. 26, 2012), the first from the Saraiki-speaking belt in the C and SE. On Mar. 25 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-3 in Medellin v. Tex. that an internat. treaty is not binding domestic law unless Congress enacts statutes implementing it or unless the treaty is self-executing; decisions of the Internat. Court of Justice are not binding domestic law, and without authority from Congress or the Constitution, the U.S. pres. lacks power to enforce internat. treaties or decisons of the Internat. Court of Justice. On Mar. 26 the Iraq govt. expands its anti-militia offensive against Shiite militias in 70% Shiite-controlled Basra, with the U.S. (which claims it was not given advance notice) providing air cover and advisers, giving Shiite groups 72 hours to surrender; too bad, when that doesn't work, the deadline is extended by more than a week; when that doesn't work 1K U.S. and Iraqi forces are called in to take on the 60K Mahdi fighters of Muqtada al-Sadr in the Shiite slum of Sadr City (pop. 3M); a ceasefire begins on May 11. On Mar. 26 Joshua Mauldin (1985-) is sentenced to 25 years for putting his infant daughter Ana in a microwave in his motel room and turning it on for up to 20 sec., causing severe burning, after which he lied that he spilled hot coffee on her. On Mar. 29 a 15-min. film titled Fitna (Arab. "ordeal") by Dutch anti-Muslim-immigrant politician Geert Wilders (1963-), founder of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy brings hate-filled protests in Pakistan, causing Sudanese pres. Omar al-Bashir to call on an Arab summit meeting in Damascus to demand a "binding international charter" prohibiting insults to Islam, er, religions; even more sick, Western leaders seem to conspire to silence those telling the truth about Islam, starting with Brigitte Bardot (1934-), who has been convicted 4x since 1997 of "inciting racial hatred" for pub. articles warning that the Muslims are ruining France - stick those kind of laws up your al-Bashir? On Mar. 29 elections are held in Zimbabwe, and on Mar. 30 dictator (since 1980) Robert Mugabe summons his security apparatus leaders and informs them that he plans to publicly concede the next day to opponent Morgan Richard Tsvangirai (1952-2018) of the Movement for a Dem. Change of a V, but military chief gen. Constantine Chiwenga talks him out of it and promises military support backed by the ruling Zimbabwe African Nat. Union-Patriotic Front; on Mar. 31 it's April Fool's Day in Zimbabwe as opposition foes of touring-facilities-and-picking-up-slack dictator Robert Mugabe claim a V in the Mar. 29 election, only to see official election returns slowly trickle in after Mugabe's Wiki is used to edit them; on Apr. 7 after the election results are still not pub., Mugabe forces several white ranchers and farmers off their land in an effort at a diversion; on Apr. 8 Operation CIBD (Coercion, Intimidation, Beating and Displacement) is implemented; on Apr. 23 as the coverup continues, Mugabe's party offers to form a govt. of nat. unity with Mugabe as pres.; after more violence, Tsvangirai, who is holed-up in the Dutch Embassy drops out on June 22, and on June 27 a rigged runoff election gives Mugabe a V, and on June 29 he is sworn-in for another term wile his country remains a starving hyperinflationary terrorized shithole, with 80 opposition supporters killed, hundreds missing, thousands injured, and hundreds of thousands homeless; meanwhile the U.N. lamely ponders sanctions. On Mar. 30 CIA dir. Michael Hayden appears on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press", and says that al-Qaida is training new operatives in W Pakistan who "look Western", and "would be able to come into this country without attracting the attention others might"; he adds "If there is another terrorist attack, it will originate there". On Mar. 31 gorgeous white blonde babe Katie Piper (1983-) is splashed in the face on Golder Green High St. in London with industrial strength sulfuric acid by hit man Stefan Sylvestre (1988-), hired by her black (South Asian?) former Internet boyfriend Daniel Lynch (1976-) (did somebody say lynch?) (who already raped and beat her), horribly disfiguring her; after 30 mo. of pain, surgeries, and therapy, she goes public; they both get life in priz. In Mar. a consortium of ranchers and loggers puts a $500K price on the head of Austrian Roman Catholic bishop Erwin Krautler, who has been working in the Brazilian state of Para since 1980 helping the indios fight back against oppression; he has been under police protection since last year - I guess the threat of excommunication doesn't work anymore? Speaking of balls out? In Mar. the police chief of Tehran, Iran is caught in a raid of a brothel with six nude women, and arrested. In Mar. after her campaign team circulates photos of Obama wearing a turban during a diplomatic trip to Kenya in 2006, Hillary Clinton gives an interview to Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes, who asks her if she believes that Obama is a Muslim, to which she utters the soundbyte: "No, there is nothing to base that on, as far as I know"; in 2015 despite her team starting the Obama-is-a-Muslim rumor, she slams Donald Trump for not rebuking a supporter who suggests it - what does it matter? On Apr. 2 the U.S. House OKs $50B to battle AIDS, TB and malaria in Africa over the next five years, tripling the previous budget; $41B will go to AIDS, which infects 6K new people each day. On Apr. 2 26-nation NATO rebuffs Pres. Bush's proposal to put Ukraine and Georgia on the path toward membership, which is opposed by Russia; Greece blocks Macedonia from joining by claiming its N region is also called that; Croatia and Albania are issued invitations to join. On Apr. 2 Russia's lower parliament house votes 370-56 to declare that the 1930s Ukrainian famine that killed millions of peasants was not genocide; Alexander Solzhenitsyn backs them, calling Ukrainian claims a "fable". On Apr. 3 Chinese dissident Hu Jia (1973-) (jailed since Dec.) is given 3.5 more years for "inciting state subversion" by posting articles against the intolerant Commie govt. on the Internet. On Apr. 4 it is reported that singers Beyonce Knowles (1981-) and Jay-Z (Shawn Corey Carter) (1969-) were married in a secret ceremony in New York City. On Apr. 5 Syrian Orthodox priest Father Youssef (Faiz Abdel) is killed in Baghdad, becoming the 2nd senior Christian priest killed in Iraq this year. On Apr. 6 protests against the Chinese Olympics in favor of Tibetan independence rock London during the passing of the torch, followed on Apr. 7 by Paris and on Apr. 8 by San Francisco, home of longtime Tibet supporter Richard Gere; meanwhile on Apr. 5 China vows to ramp up its "patriotic education" campaign to force Tibetan Buddhist monks to denounce the Dalai Lama and declare their loyalty to Beijing. The U.S. govt. never could stand Mormon polygamists, and love to stomp them like cockroaches like in Short Creek in 1953? On Apr. 7 after a phone call by "Sister" to Flora Jessop of the Child Protection Project in Phoenix Ariz. claiming she was sexually abused there, Tex. authorities take 416 children into custody from the Eldorado, Tex. Yearning for for Zion ranch of the polygamist slash pedophile Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints of Warren S. Jeffs, where every old billy goat is his own Elvis, with the right to mistreat women as bad as the Taliban and marry them at age 14; after each kid gets his own court-appointed atty., and the mothers show up wearing handmade 19th cent. prairie dresses with weird hairdoes caused by never cutting their hair (the height of the do indicating rank in the marriage), causing a hilarious courtroom fiasco, the puppet state district judge Barbara Walther refuses to release the children to their parents, instead ordering DNA testing, then putting the kids in foster homes, adding more kids after some are found posing as adults, incl. mothers, bringing the total to 440; meanwhile 33-y.-o. Rozita Swinton (1975-) is arrested in Colo. Springs, Colo. for filing a false police report and is suspected of faking the Sarah call; too bad, the five pregnant girls taken into custody who are under 17 give them the excuse to tear all of the kids from their mommies, who cares about the daddies either?; too bad, on May 23 the state appeals court orders the return of the children - call in Lexington Steele? On Apr. 7-8 tens of thousands of pro-Tibet demonstrators protest the Olympic torch relay across India, causing 15K police to be mobilized and hundreds to be arrested. On Apr. 8 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket announces a tripling of the Iranian nuke program, with 6K new centrifuges to be installed in Natanz; it takes 3K centrifuges one year to make one nuclear bomb, and they have had the joy-to-the-Islamic-world Big 3K since Nov. 7, 2007. On Apr. 8 U.S. Gen. David Betrayus, er, Petraus tells Congress that there will still be 100K troops in Iraq at the end of the Bush admin., pissing them off. On Apr. 8 six teenage girls and two teenage boys are arrested for inviting 16-y.-o. Victoria Lindsay in Lakeland, Fla. over, then beating her up on Mar. 30, later releasing a video to the Internet to get famous; they end up getting charged with enough trumped-up charges to get life sentences; meanwhile thousands of other videos are uploaded to the Internet showing other teen girls beating each other up, showing that the future of war is assured? On Apr. 10 Israel cuts off all fuel to the Gaza Strip after a bloody Palestinian raid on the Israeli depot pisses them off. On Apr. 10 the Bush admin. defines a Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Deterrent Doctrine, incl. retaliation through resort to all available options incl. nukes on "those states, organizations, or individuals who might enable or facilitate terrorists in obtaining or using weapons of mass destruction"; it is gutted by Pres. Obama in 2010. On Apr. 11 Denver, Colo.-based Frontier Airlines declares bankruptcy, becoming the 4th airline in two weeks to do so after hundred-buck-a-barrel oil cuts their profits to zilch; meanwhile Delta and Northwest Airlines attempt to merge, pissing-off consumer advocates. On Apr. 11 Barack Obama steps in it by claiming that small town Americans "cling to guns or religion" during a speech in Penn., allowing both Hillary Clinton and John McCain to pounce; Hillary then stages a photo opp by chug-a-lugging a boilermaker in a bar to pander to the blue collar crowd. On Apr. 10-13 food shortages in Haiti cause food riots, causing the ouster of PM (since 2006) Jacques-Edouard Alexis on Sept. 5. On Apr. 12 an explosion in a mosque in Shiraz, Iran during a meeting of an Iranian Shiite religious group kills nine and wounds 66; no group takes credit - call me irresponsible? On Apr. 13 the govt. of Iraq sacks 1.3K soldiers and policemen who had deserted during recent fighting against Shiite militias in Basra. On Apr. 13 former U.S. pres Jimmy Carter leaves for a 9-day mission to Israel, the West Bank, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. On Apr. 13 Barack Obama compares Hillary Clinton unfavorably to Annie Oakley, with the soundbyte that she has the same talking points as John "the Rifleman" McCain, esp. being pro 2nd Amendment and pretending to pack a 6-shooter. On Apr. 14 a grainy silent 16mm B&W film of Marilyn Monroe giving a beejay on her knees in the 1950s is sold to a private buyer in New York City for $1.5M, resurrecting speculation that the john is JFK, like J. Edgar Hoover once tried in vain to prove - by restaging it personally a thousand times with his boyfriend? On Apr. 14 British journalist Richard Butler is rescued 2 mo. after being kidnapped in Basra, Iraq while on assignment for CBS News; meanwhile car bombings and other attacks in Iraq kill 22 more. The phenomenon of trying to own knowledge as a product and not knowing when to stop is not limited to Bill Gates and Monopolysoft? The dying gasps of the paper-based publishing industry, who don't know how to handle the Internet threat? On Apr. 14 author J.K. Rowling goes to court in New York City to stop pub. of The Harry Potter Lexicon by librarian Steve Vander Ark, saying that she wanted to write her own lexicon and sell a zillion copies and give the money to charity, and that all his work should be discarded and the govt. should force him out of biz and send him to, er; while his lexicon was just a Web site she uttered the soundbyte "This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an Internet cafe while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter, which is embarrassing", and went nonlinear only when he tried to get his book into that bookshop, which she thinks she owns exclusive rights to, because those who publish on the Internet are losers and she's a winner, with her own literary agent, major publisher and all, who will actually make most of the moolah before the rest goes to charity? Nowhere Man, the world is at your command? On Apr. 15 Pope Benedict XVI arrives for his first U.S. visit, becoming the first pope to be greeted by a U.S. pres. at Edwards AFB in Washington, D.C., where evangelical Methodist cowboy Pres. George W. Bush calls him "the most listened-to man in the world", apologizing for the Church's sex scandals while salivating over the 70M U.S. Catholics, whose numbers grow daily with illegal immigration; popey makes no public statements on Iraq because of the murder of Christian churchmen changing his mind about pulling out too quick?; on Apr. 16 a musical ceremony on the White House Lawn sings happy birthday to him, and he goes on to admit that the clergy sex-abuse scandal has been "very badly handled", then adds "What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?"; on Apr. 17 he meets with victims of sexual abuse in the Boston area, and is given a list of 1K children who were abused going back several decades by Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley of Boston, issuing the soundbyte "No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse"; on Apr. 18 the pope gives an address to the the U.N., saying that respect for human rights and not violence is the key to solving many of the world's problems (what church has more experience?), and complaining about decision power resting in the hands of a few powerful (unnamed) nations; he leaves on Apr. 20 after leading a Mass before 60K at Yankee Stadium in New York City and telling them to be "obedient" to Church authority - a contradiction? On Apr. 15 a dorm fire in Kampala, Uganda kills 21 children. On Apr. 15 a Hewa Bora plane crashes in E Congo, killing 44 and injuring 146 after plowing into a market area in Kinsasha; all 79 passengers and six crew survive. On Apr. 16 the U.S. (Roberts) Supreme Court rules 7-2 in Baze v. Rees that the 3-drug cocktail used by Ky. and most states for legal injections is constitutional under the 8th Amendment. On Apr. 17 British PM Gordon Brown visits Washington D.C. and meets with pres. candidates John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, and talks about the "special relationship" between the U.S. and U.K.; meanwhile his relationship with Bush is frosty, although he adds "The world owes president George Bush a huge debt of gratitude for leading the world in our determination to root out terrorism." On Apr. 17 yet another suicide bomber goes kablooey in Albu Mohammad, Iraq (90 mi. N of Baghdad) at the funeral of two Sunni tribesmen who fought al-Qaida, killing 50. On Apr. 17 ex-U.S. pres. candidate Tom Tancredo (1945-) alleges that Pope Benedict XVI is encouraging illegal immigration to the U.S. in order to boost Church membership. On Apr. 18 Pres. Bush stinks himself up again, finally admitting that he believes in global warming, then calling for a halt in the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, causing critics to complain that he is giving permission to do nothing for almost 20 years. On Apr. 18 (Fri.) oil prices reach $116.69 a barrel. On Apr. 19 Palestinian militants siege the key Kerem Shalom Israel-Gaza border crossing, wounding 16 Israeli soldiers before they kill four of them. On Apr. 19 Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (1973-) issues a "final warning" to the Iraq govt. to halt the U.S.-backed crackdown or he will declare "open war until liberation"; meanwhile U.S. keeps attempting to clear a no-man's zone between Sadr City and the Green Zone in Baghdad, complete with a Berlin-style wall, and the Iraq govt. announces successes in Basra; after Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki tells al-Sadr to disband his Mahdi Army or face a ban from politics, al-Sadr calls him a U.S. sellout. On Apr. 19 (13th anniv. of the 1995 Okla. City Bombing) 30 members of the Nat. Socialist Movement march in Washington, D.C. to protest illegal immigration. On Apr. 19-20 the Battle of Mogadishu sees Ethiopian soldiers enter insurgent-held areas of the city, sparking heavy street fighting which kills 126-142, mostly civilians. On Apr. 20 elections in Paraguay give a V to Fernando Armindo Lugo Mendez (1949-), a suspended Roman Catholic bishop known for wearing sandals, flipping peace signs and admiring Che Guevara. On Apr. 20 a riot in Florence Supermax Prison near Canon City, Colo. started by white supremacists in honor of Hitler's birthday kills two. On Apr. 21 Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki appeals for support from his Arab neighbors, calling on them to open embassies and forgive Iraqi debts. On Apr. 21 "Hill-Rod" Clinton, "do you smell what Barack is cooking" Obama and John "McCainiac" appear in a computerized World Wrestling Entertainment wrestling bout on "Monday Night Raw" to settle their differences by force? On Apr. 21 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates calls on the U.S. Air Force to send more Predator drones to the battlefield in Iraq to spot attempts at planting roadside bombs, complaining that they are "stuck in old ways of doing business". On Apr. 21 Repub. Colo. state rep. Douglas Bruce calls migrant workers "illiterate peasants" in a speech against a pending bill authorizing 5K, immediately being kicked off the House podium like a mangy dog by Dem. state rep. Kathleen Curry, who says "How dare you?", followed by efforts at impeachment for exercising his rights to free speech in PColorado, while his opponents make unlimited use of local media air time in the capital of Denver, one of the worse "home rule" police states in the U.S. (home of illiterate peasant TLW); the publicity backfires on Curry, who is flooded with "you're nuts" and "drop dead" type hate mail from the Colo. pop., as Bruce defends his statements as accurate. On Apr. 21 U.S. pres. George W. Bush, Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon, and Canadian PM Stephen Harper open the first annual 2-day Three Amigos (People's) Summit in New Orleans, La., with Bush and Calderon strongly defending the 1994 NAFTA Act for creating hundreds of thousands of jobs on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border - jobs aimed at taking millions of jobs from illiterate peasant Americans, hehe? On Apr. 22 despite Obama outspending her, Hillary Clinton wins the Penn. Dem. pres. primary by 10 points (55-45), closing the delegate gap to about 150 and the popular vote gap to 500K (not counting Fla. and Mich., which would give her a lead); the fight heads to N.C. and Ind. On Apr. 22 a suicide bomber explodes his truck at a checkpoint near the W Iraq city of Ramadi, Iraq, a former al-Qaida stronghold, killing two U.S. Marines and wounding three, not counting civilians (one killed, 24 injured). On Apr. 23 envoys from the U.S. and other nations dash out of a U.N. Security Council meeting after Libyan ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi compares the plight of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to those in Nazi concentration camps - hey I'm Maryann from Gilligan's Island? On Apr. 23 in the case of David Lee Moore of Portsmouth, Va. the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upholds the power of police to conduct searches and seize evidence even if the arrest later turns out to have violated state law, with Antonin Scalia writing "We reaffirm against a novel challenge what we have signaled for half a century", namely that pigs only need probable cause of a crime committed in their presence and that mere laws can't stand in their way of searching for evidence to prove it in court. On Apr. 26 a fire in a mattress factory in Casabalanca, Morocco kills 55 and injures 12 out of 100, mostly women. On Apr. 26 running street gun battles between drug traffickers in Tijuana, Mexico kill 13 and wound nine. On Apr. 26 after U.S. Army Rangers of Co. A 2nd Battalion, 75h Regiment in UH-60 Black Hawks land in a grassy field in rural Iraq and are ambushed by insurgents, Spc. Joe Gibson defeats a suicide bomber with his bae hands, becoming a hero and earning a silver star. On Apr. 27 (Sun.) Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai escapes an attempted assassination in Kabul; three are killed and 10 are wounded. On Apr. 27 Shiite militants hammer the U.S.-protected Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq with rockets and mortars during a sandstorm, pissing-off the U.S. military; on Apr. 28 militants kill four U.S. soldiers in Baghdad with rockets and mortars as they try to push Shiite fighters farther from the Green Zone and out of range; too bad, after a 4-hour battle that kills 28 in Sadr City, some residents claim that the U.S. was killing civilians not militants. On Apr. 27 the Bush admin. announces a plan to enlist the 80M U.S. recreational boaters in the fight against terrorism by watching for a small boat coming in with a nuke aboard - gee why doesn't that make me feel real safe? On Apr. 27 a 350-acre wildfire near Los Angeles, Calif. forces 1K+ to flee their homes in the foothills. On Apr. 27 John McCain tasks Barack Obama for opposing his idea to suspend the tax on gasoline during the summer, saying it would help low income people with older gas-guzzling cars; Obama responds by pointing to his support of extending tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, saying "He hasn't told us really how he's going to pay for them. It is irresponsible, and the irony is he said it was irresponsible." On Apr. 27 English Islamist Abu Izzadeen (Trevor or Omar Brooks) (1976-) of the banned Muslim org. Al Ghurabaa is convicted of inciting terrorism for comments made in the Saudi-funded Regents Park Mosque in Nov. 2004, incl. "He who joins the British Army, the American Army, he is a mortal kaffir and his only punishment is for his head to be removed"; he is sentenced to 4-1/2 years, reduced to 3-1/2 years on appeal, then released to take up where he left off. On Apr. 28 (4:40 a.m.) a high-speed train en route from Beijing to coastal Qingdao derails and slams into another train near Zibo, China in Shangdong province in E China, killing 70 and injuring 400. On Apr. 28 an explosion in Gaza Strip kills a mother and four kids; Israel and militants point fingers at each other. On Apr. 28 Vietnam responds to allegations of baby-selling and corruption by halting all U.S. adoptions effective July 1 - closed party house? On Apr. 29 a suicide bomber and some gunmen attack a poppy eradication team in E Afghanistan, kiling 19 (incl. 12 police officers) and injuring 40. On Apr. 30 the U.S. troop death toll for Iraq is announced as 50, a 7-mo. high, with more than half in Baghdad. On Apr. 30 several Palestinian groups agree to an Hamas-sponsored Egyptian-mediated temporary truce proposal, but Israeli officials yawn it off, saying they would merely use it as a pretext to rearm and go at it again - it's funny how everything ends in o, like bombo and riflo? On Apr. 30 members of the Hawaiian Kingdom Govt. (founded 2001) storm the old 'Iolani Palace in Honolulu, Hawaii and set up a govt. in exile, seeking to restore the Hawaiian monarchy under queen Mahealani Kahau, who last year fined the Hawaiian state govt. $7T, negotiating a deal to protest daily on the grounds via a public assembly permit (until ?). In Apr. J Street is founded by Tel Aviv-born former Clinton senior domestic policy adviser Jeremy Ben-Ami and funded by George Soros as a rival to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) (founded 1963), claiming they're bad because they're alligned with the political right when in actuality J-Street is filled with traitor leftist Jews who want to see Israel go down the tubes, calling it a "new direction in American policy"? In late Apr. 42-y.-o. Elizabeth Fritzl blows the whistle on her father Josef Stefan Fritzl (1935-) for holding her captive for 24 years (since 1984) in a windowless underground cellar and fathering seven children by her while only visiting her to rape her, not even speaking to her; on Mar. 16, 2009 he pleads guilty incest - she reached 40 and he wanted to trade her in for two 20s? In Apr. the first rumors that Obama was not a U.S. citizen were not spread by the right but by supporters of Hillary Clinton when her volunteer in Iowa was fired for spreading the rumor, her adviser Sidney Blumenthal asked McClatchy Washington bureau chief James Asher to go to Kenya to search for his birth records, and told him in person that he was born there, and her pollster Mark Penn sent her a memo raising the issue of Obama's "lack of American roots"; meanwhile the Obama campaign charges her campaign with publicizing a photo of Obama in traditional Somali garb. On May 1 3,550-ft. Chaiten Volcano in S Chile 750 mi. S of Santiago awakens after 10K years to have a smoke. On May 1 U.S. missiles targeted at his house in Mogadishu, Somalia kill al-Qaida chief Aden Hashi Farah Ayro. On May 1 two suicide bombers attack a wedding caravan in the market district in Dayala Province NE of Baghdad, Iraq, killing 35 and wounding 65, incl. the bride and groom. On May 1 former Dem. nat. party chmn. Joseph J. "Joe" Andrew (1960-) defects from the Clinton to the Obama camp, saying that keeping the race going is only helping John McCain. On May 3 Cyclone Nargis crosses the Bay of Bengal and devastates Myanmar (Burma), killing up to 100K and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless, forcing the corrupt govt. to finally break down and accept internat. aid, although they refuse to allow nearby U.S. military forces to enter their country with relief aircraft, and on June 3 the U.S. Navy announces that it is pulling its ships out after failing to get permission to help and being ordered to leave - we know the ships are really full of Rambos and blonde female Christian missionaries? On May 3 the U.S. military fires guided missles into Sadr City, Iraq, goofing up and hitting a building 55 yards from a hospital, wounding 23. On May 5 oil prices hit $120 a barrel; The Futurist claims that this will ultimately be good for the U.S. economy as it causes technology solutions to be found. On May 6 the 2008 N.C. Dem. Primary is a 51-37 200K-vote V for Barack Obama, while the 2008 Ind. Dem. Primary is a slim 38%-34% V for Hillary Clinton, causing calls for her concede, which the wife of the Comeback Kid refuses to do? On May 8 a 6.7 earthquake hits E Japan. On May 8 Sen. Barack Obama drops by the U.S. House allegedly to say hello to superdelegates - blacks have a habit of going in the servant's entrance? A good idea is punished? On May 9 a U.S. soldier is caught using a Quran for target practice, causing a protest in Herat, leading him to be disciplined and removed from Iraq, while his cmdr. kisses a new copy before giving it to tribal leaders in Radwaniyah on May 17 and Pres. Bush apologizes on May 20 to PM Nouri al-Maliki - he should order all Qurans confiscated and burned if he had any guts? On May 11 storms in the U.S. Great Plains and South kill 22 in three states, incl. 15 in SW Mo. and 6 in Picher, Okla. On May 11 the first elections in Serbia since the Feb. declaration of independence of Kosovo are a V for the pro-Western Dem. Party of pres. Boris Tadic over the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party. On May 12 the 7.9 Chengdu Earthquake strikes W China along the Longmenshan Fault separating the Sichuan Basin from the Tibetan Plateau, killing 70K (incl. 19K students) and leaving 4M homeless; reports of faulty construction of schools, which left thousands of children dead cause angry parents to protest in Dujiangyan on June 3, causing a police crackdown; 9-y.-o. Mao Mao, a prime breeding female panda is killed in the Wolong sanctuary in Sichuan Province; the Chinese govt. exempts their 1979 policy to allow another child to qualifying parents. On May 12 Repub. U.S. pres. candidate John McCain gives a speech on climate change in Portland, Ore., with the soundbytes: "Today I'd like to focus on just one of those challenges, and among environmental dangers it is surely the most serious of all. Whether we call it 'climate change' or 'global warming', in the end we're all left with the same set of facts. The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington. Good stewardship, prudence, and simple commonsense demand that we to act meet the challenge, and act quickly"; "Some of the most compelling evidence of global warming comes to us from NASA. No longer do we need to rely on guesswork and computer modeling, because satellite images reveal a dramatic disappearance of glaciers, Antarctic ice shelves and polar ice sheets"; "We have many advantages in the fight against global warming, but time is not one of them. Instead of idly debating the precise extent of global warming, or the precise timeline of global warming, we need to deal with the central facts of rising temperatures, rising waters, and all the endless troubles that global warming will bring. We stand warned by serious and credible scientists across the world that time is short and the dangers are great. The most relevant question now is whether our own government is equal to the challenge." On May 13 Hillary Clinton wins the 2008 W. Va. Dem. Primary by 2-1 as white working class Dem. voters won't vote for a nig, er, Barack Obama to sit in the er, White House?; meanwhile on May 14 John Edwards endorses Obama. On May 13 the U.S. Senate votes 97-1 to halt oil shipments to the federal emergency reserve in order to help reduce gasoline prices; a similar measure passes the House by 385-25; the lone dissenter in the Senate is Colo. Een. Wayne Allard, who says that he prefers to expedite oil shale development; too bad, the action only increases the U.S. supply by 0.3% of the total demand of 21M barrels a day. On May 13 Saudi Arabia warns Iran that its support for the Shiite Hezbollah in the "Lebanon coup" (its war with the Sunni-led Lebanese govt.) will damage its relations with other Muslim and Arab countries; meanwhile Israel celebrates its 60th birthday, causing Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad to call it inappropriate and offensive as long as Israel rules over the Palestinians. On May 13 seven Muslim terrorist bombs in Jaipur, India kill 80 and wound nearly 200. On May 14 suicide bombers hit a funeral W of Baghdad plus an Iraq army post S of Baghdad, killing 21. On May 15 the Calif. Supreme Court by 4-3 overturns the ban on same-sex marriage, becoming the 2nd state after Mass. to allow full marriage rights for same-sex partners - Captain Peacock is on his knees? On May 15 John McCain predicts that the U.S. will be out of Iraq by 2013 and that Osama bin Laden won't be a threat, but declines to set a timetable. On May 15 Pres. Bush gives a speech to the Israeli Knesset, warning against appeasing terrorists, saying "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along... We have an obligation to call this what it is, the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history", pissing-off Barack Obama, who calls it a "false political attack", and Hillary Clinton, who calls the remarks "offensive and outrageous, especially in light of his failures in foreign policy". On May 18 Pres. Bush lectures Arab leaders in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt, telling them to expand their economies, offer equal opportunity to women and embrace democracy in order to bring peace to the Middle East - life is about more than sex, are you sure? On May 19 Barack Obama responds to criticism by John McCain that he has "reckless" judgment on foreign policy for wanting to talk with Iran, saying that the Iraq War has made Iran stronger; he then goes defensive on ABC News, warning the media to lay off his wife Michelle - or I'll make her wear her veil in public? On May 19 France acknowledges informal contacts with Hamas, which are denounced by the U.S., causing French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner (1939-) to describe them as "contacts, and nothing else, to inform us about the situation, first on the humanitarian front, and then especially the political one". On May 20 Hillary scores a big V (65-30) in the 2008 Ky. Dem. Primary, while Obama cruises 58-41 in the mail-only 2008 Ore. Dem. Primary, achieving a majority of pledged delegates. On May 20 (dawn) Iraqi troops enter Sadr City in E Baghdad, with Shiite militia fighters offering virtually no resistance. On May 20 Double-Decker Bus #188 crashes into a tree near Tower Bridge in C London, killing one and injuring 18. On May 21 Syria and Israel announce the start of peace talks after eight years of futzing around (since 1999). On May 21 David Roland Cook (1982-) beats younger judge favorite David James Archuleta (1990-) for Am. Idol Season 7 57%-43% after Simon Cowell issues a rare apology for all-but awarding the win to Archuleta on the prior show; Cook orginally came to the audition to support his younger brother Andrew, who didn't make it. On May 21 Mass. Dem. Sen. Edward "Ted" Kennedy (1932-) leaves Boston's Mass. Gen. Hospital after a stroke and a diagnosis of a malignant brain tumor shocks the nation; on May 20 W. Va. Sen. Robert Byrd hillaries, er, cries on the Senate floor over his "dear friend", saying "I love you"; on June 2 Ted K undergoes 3.5 hours of risky surgery at Duke U. Medical Center in Durham, N.C. - how soon till he turns conservative? On May 21 Pres. Bush announces that U.S. residents will finally be allowed to send cellphones to Cubans; the Cuban govt. began allowing its citizens to buy them on Mar. 29. On May 22 oil prices hit a record $135.09 a barrel, then begin a slow slide until June 24, when they go back up to $138, then hit $140 a barrel on June 26. On May 22-26 the 2008 Libertarian Party Convention in Denver, Colo. nominates Robert Laurence "Bob" Barr Jr. (1948-), former Ga. Repub. U.S. rep. (1995-2003), who gained fame as the leader of the movement to impeach Bill Clinton and started out as an ultra-conservative flag-waver until he began to balk at the Bush admin.'s encroachments on civil liberties and joined the LP in 2006 - just in time to steal votes from McCain? On May 23 Hillary Clinton steps on it when she brings up the assassination of Bobby Kennedy on June 6, 1968 to illustrate why it's okay to stay in the race this long, causing the PC police to come out and accuse her of inferring that Obama might be assassinated too and she's waiting like a vulture; Obama himself nixes them, but the controversy rages for days, illustrating the triviality of the campaign all along? On May 23 the city of Vallejo, Calif. files for bankruptcy - to be followed by every city in the U.S.? On May 23 after chef Rachel Ray appears in a Web ad for Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee wearing a thin nylon neck scarf, conservative Am. blogger Michelle Malkin (1970-) compares it to the Palestinian keffiyeh, causing conservatives to begin a boycott Dunkin' Donuts, which pulls the ad and explains the scarf as having no symbolism, causing a backlash against the conservatives by liberal bloggers. On May 25 U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll issues a soundbyte at a news conference that the militants in Iraq "are off-balance and on the run", although al-Qaida remains a "very lethal threat"; meanwhile the 300 attacks by militants in the previous week are the fewest since 2004, compared to 1.6K nearly a year ago. On May 25 former army chief of staff (Marionite Christian) gen. Michel Suleiman (1948-) becomes pres. of Lebanon (until ?). On May 25 Zimbabwe pres. Robert Mugabe threatens U.S. ambassador (since Nov. 6, 2007) (black) James David McGee (1949-) with expulsion for advising his opponent in the June 27 runoff to return to the hellhole country; on June 5 a mob of Mugabe loyalists attack vehicles carrying U.S. and British diplomats as they are investigating the political violence, causing U.S. state secy. Condy Rice to complain about "outrageous behavior". On May 26-27 The Andromeda Strain, based on the 1969 Michael Crichton novel debuts on A&E Network, starring Benjamin Bratt as Dr. Jeremy Stone, Christa Miller as Dr. Angela Noyce, Daniel Dae Kim as Dr. Tsi Chou, and Eric McCormack as Jack Nash. On May 27 a Memorial to the Gay Victims of Nazism is unveiled in Tiegarten Park in Berlin, Germany, complete with a kissing gay couple. On May 28 diplomats from over 100 nations agree to the Convention on Cluster Munitions, banning cluster bombs and requiring the destruction of stockpiles within eight years. On May 28 a new constituent assembly turns Nepal into a repub. and gives king Gyanendra 15 days to leave the palace. On May 28 the North Am. Aerospace Defense Command moves from its longtime home inside Cheyenne Mt. to nearby Peterson AFB in Colo. Springs to save $200M a year; too bad, the Pentagon finds flaws in the security, incl. potential hazards from a nearby airport. On May 29 Tropical Storm Alma hits NW Nicaragua, becoming the first tropical storm of 2008. And in the continuing story of Allah the God of Love and his prophet Badass M? On May 29 a suicide bomber wearing a military uniform detonates in Sinjar, Iraq in NW Iraq among a group of police recruits, killing 16, causing the Iraqi interior minister to remove the police chief. On May 29 leftist activist "Thelma and Louise" actress Susan Sarandon announces that if John McCain is elected pres., she will move to Canada or Italy. On May 30 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin visits France and meets with former pres. Jacques Chirac, who praised his 10 years in the Kremlin as "great years for Russia", saying that there can be no "balance in the world without a strong Russia". On May 30 Jeff Peckman meets with the Denver, Colo. city council and proposes an 18-member Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission to greet them. On May 30 78-y.-o. Angel Arce Torres is captured on a streetlight surveillance camera in Hartford, Conn. being hit by a car that just speeds away leaving him sprawled in the street, after which several cars zoom by ignoring him, while bystanders gawk and do nothing; he ends up in critical condition in Hartford Hospital - three strikes against him: old, Hispanic, poor? On May 31 Barack Obama resigns from the pesky Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Ill. after visiting white Roman Catholic priest Michael Louis Pfleger (1949-) mocks Hillary Clinton as crying over "a black man stealing my show"; Pfleger later apologizes, saying "These words are inconsistent with Senator Obama's life and message." In May U.S. state secy. Condoleezza Rice visits Jerusalem and has dinner with Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, who shocks her by how far he was willing to go for peace, incl. offering to give away nearly the entire West Bank, divide Jerusalem, and allow 5K Palestinian refugees to settle in Israel; too bad, Mahmoud Abbas rejects the offer because he wants all 4M Palestinian refugees to "go home"; on Sept. 18 Olmert offers Abbas a similiar plan incl. a 2-state solution, which Abbas also turns down, killing negotiations. In May the Israeli air force begins a 2-week air war exercise over the E Mediterranean incl. Greece, during which Israeli deputy PM Shaul Mofaz issues the soundbyte that if Iran continues "its program for developing nuclear weapons", Israel "would attack". In May the 2008 U.S. tornado season becomes the worst since 1998. In May the starched-pressed U.S. Battle Dress Uniform (BDU) is phased out in favor of a wrinkle-free cotton-nylon version which features a Mandarin collar, Velcro-attached insignia, and rough-side-out leather boots that don't require polishing; the U.S. Marines changed over to the Marine Corps Combat Utility Unform, with a computer-generated MARPAT (Marine Pattern) on Oct. 1, 2004, the U.S. Coast Guard switched to the Operational Dress Uniform (ODU) in 2004, and in 2007 the U.S. Air Force switched to the ddAirman Battle Uniform (ABU); meanwhile the New Iraqi Army gets to use surplus U.S. chocolate chip camoflauge uniforms, originally designed in 1962. On June 1 an article in Vanity Fair alleges that former pres. Bill Clinton has been engaging in hanky-panky with women incl. actress Gina Gershon, pissing him off and causing him to deny it. On June 1 the 2008 Universal Studios Fire begins, destroying the "Back to the Future" courthouse square, a mechanical King Kong, and up to 175K master tapes belonging to the Universal Music Group (UMG), incl. recordings by artists Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Steely Dan, Ella Fitzgerald, Nirvana, R.E.M., the Roots et al.; at first they claim only 40K-50K; the real number is 500K? On June 2 a car bomb in Islamabad, Pakistan kills six and wounds dozens near the Danish Embassy to 'get' Danish newspapers for reprinting the Muhammad carbombtoons. On June 3 the Prague Declaration is signed by C Euro leaders, former Soviet dissidents et al., calling on Europe to have "an honest and thorough debate on all the totalitarian crimes of the past century". On June 3 Barack Obama makes history by becoming the first African-Am. U.S. pres. delegate for a major political party, reaching the 2,118 delegates needed despite Hillary Clinton winning the 2008 South Dakota Dem. Primary by 55%-45% and not conceding until June 7, when she finally gives up trying to figure out how to strongarm him into a vice-pres. nomination and throws her support behind the Man, saying that electing him will achieve her goals of universal health care, a strong economy, and the end of the Iraq War, while calling her 18M primary twats, er, votes "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" (I'd like to view that ceiling?); Obama also wins the 2008 Mont. Dem. Primary by 56%-41%; virtually all of Africa (not just his daddy's home country of Kenya) goes er, ape-shit with happiness at the big news?; before giving a speech in St. Paul, Minn. to celebrate his V, Obama exchanges a fist bump with wife Michelle, which Fox news anchor E.D. Hill calls a "terrorist fist jab", causing her show to be canned; meanwhile John McCain gives a speech in Kenner, La., claiming that he has stronger credentials to be an independent agent of change than Obama, and a Pew Research Center Poll indicates that only 49% of independents have a favorable impression of Obama now, vs. 62% in Feb.; Obama meets with Hillary on June 5 at the home of Calif. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and informs her that he's not going to ask her to be his running mate, and on June 6 she holds a meeting at her Whitehaven St. home in Washington, D.C. to plan her concession speech; about this time Barack Obama secretly informs Iran that he will be much easier to bargain with than Pres. Bush? On June 3-5 the 2008 U.N. Summit on World Hunger in Rome attended by 180 countries sees world leaders pledge to reduce trade barriers and boost agricultural productivity to fight soaring food prices, while vowing to cut world hunger in half by 2015; U.N. officials claims that $30B a year is needed to resolve the crisis; meanwhile the U.S. Congress sends a $290B farm bill to Pres. Bush for a 2nd time after fixing a printing error that left out delivery of U.S. food aid abroad. On June 4 a truck packed with rockets blows up in a Shiite area of Baghdad, Iraq, killing 18 and wounding 75. On June 5 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (1964-), mastermind of the 9/11 attacks tells the Pentagon's war crimes court that he wants to be put to death to become a martyr - and go to his glass ceiling and get his promised cracks? On June 5 the Turkish Constitutional (Supreme) Court votes 9-2 to declare a Feb. 9 law ending the 80-y.-o. ban on women wearing head scarves at univs. unconstitutional, pissing-off the party of new PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan - the glass ceiling party? On June 5 a top Turkish gen. admits that Iran has been carrying out coordinated strikes with his troops on Kurdish rebels in N Iraq, becoming the first admission of such cooperation. On June 6 the unemployment rate for May is announced as 5.5%, the biggest monthly rise since 1986 (49K jobs cut). On June 6 former Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz warns that Israel will attack Iran if it continues to develop nukes, calling it "unavoidable"; meanwhile Turkish PM Tayyip Erdogan says that Iran has a "right to peaceful nuclear energy", and says that if the West and Israel don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons they should give theirs up first, while claiming to be against all nukes. On June 6 Glenview, Ill.-born Michael Thomas Gargiulo (1976-) is arrested in Santa Monica, Calif. after killing up to 10 women, incl. Ashton Kutcher's babe Ashley Ellerin on Feb. 21, 2001, becoming known as "the Hollywood Ripper" and "the Chiller Killer"; he is not convicted of murder until ? On June 7 new Russian pres. Dmitri Medvedev gives a speech in St. Petersburg accusing the U.S. of "economic egotism" that has fueled global troubles, while portraying Russia's growing economic might as a force for worldwide stabilization - I spell Arian with an i instead of a y? On June 8 a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan kills three British soldiers as U.S. First Lady Laura Bush makes a surprise visit to Afghanistan - if you get caught between the Moon and New York City, I know it's crazy, but it's true? On June 10 two bombs rock a train station in Beni Amrane, Algeria, killing 13. On June 10 heavy street fighting in Mogadishu, Somalia kills 20 and injures 80 after Somalian troops begin searching homes for weapons, causing insurgents to flood the streets. On June 10 a Sudanese Airbus (A310) veers off the runway in a thunderstorm in Khartoum, Sudan, killing 100 of 214. On June 10 after leaving Internet posts saying "I am hopeless... What I want to do: commit murder. My dream: to monopolize the tabloid TV shows", factory worker Tomohiro Kato (1963-) goes on a bloody rampage in Tokyo, slamming his rented truck into a crowd and then jumping out and stabbing them, killing three with his truck, four with his knife, and injuring 10; more knives are discovered in his apt. On June 10 protests over high fuel prices erupt in Asia, incl. truckers in Hong Kong and tire-burning demonstrators in India and Nepal; meanwhile a meater protest of 80K in Seoul, South Korea against pres. Lee Myung-bak is staged over his Apr. agreement with Pres. Bush to resume U.S. beef imports, which were banned in 2003 after a case of mad cow disease was discovered. On June 10 Barack Obama delivers a Speech on the Economy in St. Louis, Mo., with the soundbyte that the G.W. Bush admin. is "the most fiscally irresponsible administration in history", citing its record $413B deficit in 2004; too bad, after becoming pres., Obama's annual deficit is never lower than $650B for his entire admin.? On June 11 U.S.-led forces drops more than a dozen bombs in Pakistani tribal regions near the Afghan border, killing 11 Pakistani paramilitary troops. On June 12 a tornado hits a Boy Scout camp in Omaha, Neb., killing four teenage Scouts - be prepared? On June 12 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Boumediene v. Bush that Guantanamo Bay detainees can challenge their imprisonment in federal court, striking down the 2006 U.S. Miliary Commissions Act, an alternative review system set up by Congress that was drafted by John McCain, making him look dumb along with Pres. Bush, whose admin. is dealt a setback. On June 12 police find a 47-y.-o. woman in a filthy room in Naples, Italy, where she had been kept locked up for 17 years after having a son out of wedlock; her brother, sister, and 80-y.-o. mother are put under er, house arrest. On June 13 (Fri.) 30 Taliban militants stage a rocket attack on prison in Sarposa Prison in Kandahar, S Afghanistan, freeing 1.5K prisoners incl. 400 Taliban members. On June 13 a 7.2 earthquake strikes N Japan, killing six; thanks to predictive technology, residents of Honshu were given a 2-min. warning; a 6.7 earthquake hit E Japan on May 7. On June 13 the Big Iowa Flood of 2008 is their worst on record (until ?), supposedly of a magnitude that only happens once in 500 years; on June 17 the flood crest moves down the Mississippi River, while a levee breaks in Gulfport, Ill.; on June 28 another levee breaks in Winfield, Mo. On June 15 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai threatens to send troops into Pakistan if Taliban fighters there continue crossing his border. On June 16 Ariz. Repub. Sen. John McCain flops and calls for an end to the federal ban on offshore oil drilling; meanwhile a Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that almost 80% of Americans believe that high gasoline prices (now over the $4 a gal. mark) are causing them financial hardship. On June 16 Pres. Bush visits London, receiving pledges of new financial sanctions against Iran and a commitment for a car bomb's worth, er, 230 new British troops for Afghanistan; meanwhile Taliban fighters take over seven villages on the outskirts of Kandahar, causing residents to flee. On June 17 (Sun.) a car bomb in a busy commercial street in a Shiite area of Baghdad, Iraq kills 51 and wounds 35, becoming the worst blast in the city in over 3 mo.; the U.S. military accuses Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, saying he is trying to rekindle the Shiite-Sunni violence. On June 17 a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan kills 35. On June 18 hijab-wearing Muslim women Hebba Aref and Shimaa Abdelfadeel are refused seats directly behind Barack Obama in Detroit, Mich. by volunteers, pissing them off and causing them to go to the press; Obama spokesman Bill Burton later apologizes. On June 18 hundreds of Afghan and Canadian troops launch a major new offensive against the Taliban in S Afghanistan in Kandahar and other areas. On June 18 the EU passes new guidelines on ilegal immigrants, allowing them to be held in detention centers for up to 18 mo. before being expelled, while being provided with basic rights incl. free legal advice; 500K illegal immigrants pour into the EU every year; 24K N African immigrants were caught trying to sneak into Spain in 2006, and 10K in 2007, and 1K died at sea trying to reach it in 2007. On June 18 white Larry Sinclair holds a press conference, claiming he had a homosexual relationship with Obama in Chicago, and they both smoked crack cock, er, cocaine, and that Obama quit going to gay bars and bathhouses when he began running for the Senate in 2004; the PC press 69s the story. On June 21 the Philippine Ferry Princess of the Stars ferry capsizes from high seas in the wake of Typhoon Fengshen, killing 700+ of 740. On June 21 (Sat.) Pres. Bush gives a Sat. evening radio address, urging Congress to lift its ban on offshore oil-gas drilling, and accusing Dems. of blocking it. On June 23 the PC police blow the whistle again on Don Imus (1940-) after he asks what race oft-arrested Dallas cornerback Adam Bernard "Pacman" Jones (1983-) is, then adds "There you go - now we know"; after the whistle blows, he backtracks, saying "What people should be outraged about is that they arrest blacks for no reason." On June 23 the 2008 Pew Religious Landscape Survey finds that 92% of Americans believe in God, but 70% said that "many religions can lead to eternal life", and 68% said that "there's more than one true way to interpret the teachings of religion"; 55% believe in guardian angels, and 52% in prophetic dreams; only Jehovah's Witnesses (80%) and Mormons (57%) have majorities who believe their religion is the "one true faith leading to eternal life" (else why keep knocking on all them doors?); the percentage who think that many religions can lead to eternal salvation: Evangelical Protestants: 57%, Muslims: 56%, Hindus: 89%, Mainline Protestants 83%, Catholics: 79%, Jews: 82%; meanwhile on June 23 Colo. Springs, Colo. evangelical Focus on the Family leader James Dobson (1936-) accuses Barack Obama of distorting the Bible and trying to govern by the "lowest common denominator of morality", so he can kiss off most of the evangelical vote now. On June 23 John McCain proposes a $300M reward for anyone improving the electric car battery, and $5K tax credits for purchasers of zero-emission vehicles. On June 24 a bomb explodes inside the district council bldg. in Sadr City, Iraq, killing 10, incl. four Amricans; Iraqi officials call it an inside job and finger the Shiite guard force. On June 25 a freak dry lightning storm in N Calif. unleashes 8K lightning strikes and sets 800+ wildfires, threatening tourist mecca Big Sur by July 3. On June 25 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Kennedy v. La. that the 8th Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits a death penalty in all cases except those involving murder or crimes against the state such as treason, and does not permit a state to execute child rapists; on Oct. 1 the court refuses to reconsider after it is informed that it overlooked a recent federal law authorizing capital punishment for members of the military. On June 26 Pres. Bush moves to drop North Korea from a list of countries sponsoring terrorism and lift some trade sanctions after it turned over a report with details of plutonium production, signalling the start of an "action for action" process to dismantle its nuke program - start here, my 24/7 modem? On June 27 after policeman Dick Heller challenges the District of Columbia's de facto handgun ban (a 1976 law requiring handguns to be registered, while never issuing any registrations) the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in District of Columbia v. Heller that Washington, D.C. may not ban personal gun ownership, and that there is an individual right to bear arms independent of militias for self-defense, throwing the zillions of state and local gun laws up for grabs, and giving anti-Second Amendment forces their Roe v. Wade later when Scalia suddenly dies; "Undoubtedly, some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of the nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security and where gun violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct" (Antonin Scalia); "Today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership, like the freedom of speech or the right to freely assemble, is a fundamental right" (U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard); "Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner and for whatever purpose" (Scalia); the ruling only applies to weapons "in common use" incl. handguns, and not to dangerous or unusual weapons; the ruling only applies to D.C. until "McDonald v. City of Chicago" (2010); on June 27 the NRA sues San Francisco, Calif. to overturn its ban on guns in public housing. On June 29 Secrets of a Restaurant Chef debuts on Food Network (until ?), starring Cazenovia, N.Y.-born chef Anne Burrell (1969-); on Jan. 3, 2010 Worst Cooks in America debuts on Food Network (until ?), hosted by Burrell; in 2012 she is outed by Ted Allen, and on Dec. 31 she announces her engagement to fellow chef Koren Grieveson. On June 29 Billy Graham and his son Franklin Graham meet with John McCain, after which Franklin issues a statement praising his "personal faith and moral clarity on important social issues facing America today", although neither endorse any candidate. On June 29 an exploding twa, er, female suicide bomber goes off before she can reach her destination, a Sunni council 60 mi. NE of Baghdad, Iraq, becoming the 20th-something female suicide attack this year (vs. 8 in 2007). On June 29 Pakistan's new govt. claims a V against Islamic warlords threatening to overrun Peshawar in the Khyber tribal area in NW Pakistan. On June 29 the Chinese govt. prevents human-rights lawyers invited to a dinner in Beijing hosted by two U.S. congressmen from attending, pissing-off the U.S. govt. On June 30 Pres. Bush signs a bill providing $162B for the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars; meanwhile the U.S. military absorbs $400M a mo. increase in fuel costs, and Iraq opens internat. bidding for eight huge oil and gas fields which they hope will double production by 2013 to 5M barrels. In June the U.S. death military toll in Afghanistan is 28, highest since they arrived in late 2001; meanwhile the Group of Eight foreign ministers meets in Japan to address the issue of opium in Aghanistan, which is financing the Taliban, and agree to create a coordinating body to oversee $4B in aid to the tribal areas to improve police and military training, and implement anti-drug trafficking programs on the Turkish model, which allows farmers to sell their opium to pharmaceutical companies to make legal medicines. In June the poor economy makes finding summer jobs in the U.S. piss-poor hard. In June the number of personal computers in use worldwide hits 1B (822M at the beginning of 2005). In June negotiations begin on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to establish internat. standards on intellectual property rights enforcement; in Oct. 2010 the Senate of Mexico votes unanimously to bow out of it. On July 1 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver, Colo. announces a $5.5M settlement in 18 cases of sexual abuse by three priests on young parishioners between 1954-8, incl. defrocked priest Harold Robert White (1933-2006), accused of 30 cases between 1960-81 as the church covered it up and shifted him from parish to parish - for fresh white meat? On July 1 three Iraqi Shiite officials claim that Lebanese Hezbollah instructors trained Shiite militiamen in camps in S Iraq until 3 mo. ago; on July 2 British PM Gordon Brown proposes making it a crime to join or support Hezbollah. On July 2 berserk Muslim worker Hussam Dwayat (b. 1978) (who had a Jewish girlfriend?) kills three and injures 20 in a bulldozer in Jerusalem before being killed by police, causing Israeli PM Ehud Olmert to call for reviving the practice of demolishing the homes of attackers' families (ended 2005), and others to call for rescinding benefits given to the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem; vice-PM Haim Ramon calls for cutting off the attacker's home village in E Jerusalem by rerouting the West Bank wall. On July 2 five people are killed in rioting in Ulan Bator, Mongolia after allegations of fraud in parliamentary elections by the ruling party (the former Commies who ran it as a Soviet satellite), causing pres. Nambaryn Enkhbayar to declare a 4-day state of emergency. On July 2 Barack Obama gives a Speech in Colorado Springs, Colo., where he raises eyebrows by calling for a civilian national security force, adding that "People of all ages, stations, and skills will be asked to serve", and that it "will be a central cause of my presidency"; he is only talking about AmeriCorps, and the right-wingers jumped the gun with baseless allegations?; let's say they are right; not sworn to uphold the Constitution, they could become a bunch of Nazi Brownshirts or Stormtroopers, and include non-citizens?; it's especially kinky since Colo. Springs is the headquarters of a number of mainly white Christian evangelical conservative organizations. On July 3 the New York Times reports that people-hating Leona Helmsley (1920-2007) left $5B-$8B for the care of the nation's (the world's?) dogs in her will. On July 5 the new Madame Tussaud Berlin Branch opens, and the 2nd customer, a 41-y.-o. man angrily rips off the head of the wax figure of Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), who is portrayed sitting at a desk in his Berlin bunker; it is replaced on Sept. 13. On July 6 Afghan officials claim that fighter aircraft battling militants accidentally kill 27 Afghan civilians walking to a wedding ceremony in E Afghanistan, which the U.S. military denies. On July 6 insurgent attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq kill 16 and injure 15 one day after PM Nouri al-Maliki declares that terrorism has been defeated; meanwhile the UAE cancels $4B in debt owed by Iraq and restores full diplomatic relations. On July 6 after oil prices hit a record of almost $146 a barrel, OPEC chief Chakib Khelil (1939-) says that the high prices are due to a weak U.S. dollar caused by the U.S. decision to lower interests rates to bolster the economy. On July 7-9 the 34th G-8 Summit in Tokyo, Japan is attended by lame duck pres. George W. Bush, and focuses on global warming amid mucho protesters; on July 8 it agrees to a target of halving CO2 emissions by 2050, but sets no actual goals. On July 8 Bush admin. officials announce that they are negotiating with EU govts. to exchange fingerprint, DNA, and racial-ethnic origin data. On July 8 Congressional investigators announce that Medicare has paid up to $92M to phony medical suppliers using IDs of dead doctors. On July 9 the U.S. Congress passes a compromise surveillance bill that shields telecom communities from lawsuits for helping the govt. wiretap phone and computer lines after 9/11 without court permission. On July 9-10 Iran test-fires nine missiles, incl. one capable of hitting Israel to demonstrate to the U.S. not to mess with them. On July 9 Rev. Jesse Jackson apologizes for an off-camera remark about Barack Obama that he is talking down to blacks, and that he "wants to cut his nuts off". On July 9 al-Qaida-inspired gunmen storm the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, killing three police and three assailants. On July 9 200 gunmen in SUVs and on horseback attack internat. peacekeepers in Darfur, killing seven. On July 9 Boulder, Colo. DA Mary Lacy officially clears John and Patsy Ramsey in the 1996 murder of daughter JonBenet based on DNA evidence, and issues an official apology, even though Patsy has been dead for two years and their lives have been wrecked by the "umbrella of suspicion" for 12 years - Colo. authorities are never under an umbrella of suspicion? On July 13 the Battle of Wanat sees 100-150 Taliban guerrillas attack a coalition outpost in Dar-l-Pech district in the E Afghanistan Kunar Province, killing nine U.S. soldiers, most since June 2005, when 16 were killed. On July 13 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy launches the Union for the Mediterranean, consisting of 16 Euro nations plus 16 non-EU Mediterranean states, growing to 43 incl. 28 from the EU and 15 from the Mediterranean; too bad, it gets nowhere? On July 13 New Yorker mag. reveals the cover of its July 21, 2008 issue, portraying Barack Obama and his wife as Muslim terrorists burning a U.S. flag, pissing him off even though they claim it was meant to satirize the false image the right has been giving him; Obama responds that it insults Muslim Americans? - duh, like him? On July 14 the U.S. govt. decides to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after IndyMac Bank in Calif. collapses. On July 16 a satire video of McCain and Obama by JibJab.com makes nat. news in the U.S. On July 16 Allen Andrade (1977-) beats transgender genetic male Angie Zapata (1988-2008) to death with a fire extinguisher in Greeley, Colo. after sleeping with him and getting a beejay, then finding out the little secret, telling police he "killed it", after which the gay-lesbian movement makes a cause celebre of Andrade for U.S. federal hate crimes legislation; on Apr. 22, 2009 he is found guilty of murder despite a "trans panic" defense, and given life plus 60 years as an habitual offender on May 8. On July 18 MIT-educated female neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui (1972-) allegedly attempts to murder U.S. citizens while being questioned at a police HQ in Afghanistan; after shouting down witnesses, she is ejected from her federal trial; on Sept. 23, 2010 despite a worldwide protest she is sentenced to 86 years by a federal judge in New York City. On July 20 Hurricane Dolly forms, killing 17 on July 21 in Guatemala, then hitting South Padre Island, Tex. on July 23 and doing $1.5B damage. On July 20 Colo. Spam King Eddie Davidson (b. 1973) walks away from a federal prison camp near Florence, Colo., and on July 24 shoots his wife and child and wounds a teenage girl before killing himself near his home in Bennett, Colo. On July 20 the Indian govt. survives a vote of confidence, clearing the way for a deal, with the U.S. giving India access to nuclear fuel and tech. On July 20 U.S. pres. Barack Obama shows everybody that he's not a girlie man by sinking a 3-pointer on the basketball court with troops in Kuwait. On July 24 Dem. pres. candidate Barack Obama gives his A World That Stands As One Speech in Berlin in the same location as JFK (June 26, 1963) ("Ich bin ein Berliner"), Reagan (June 12, 1987) ("Mr. Gorbchev, tear down this wall") and Clinton (July 12, 1994) ("Berlin ist frei") before thousands of adoring admirers; too bad, he acts as if he were already pres. On July 25 seven bombs kill two in Bangalore, India; on July 26 (eve.) 16 bombs go off in crowded neighborhoods in Ahmadabad, India, killing 45 and wounding 161; on July 27 an email from the Indian Mujahideen claims credit, with the soundbyte "Do whatever you can, within 5 minutes from now, feel the terror of Death!" On July 25 Cindy Anthony, maternal grandmother of 2-y.-o. Caylee Anthony (b. 2005) of Orlando, Fla. calls 911 to report her disappearance, and that the car of her mother Casey Marie Anthony (1986-) smells like a corpse, after which she is charged with first-degree murder in Oct. 2008 and pleads not guilty; on Dec. 11, 2008 Caylee's remains are found in a blanket in a trash bag in a wooded area near the home, with duct tape on her skull; in Casey's trial in May-July 2011 the defense claims that Caylee accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool on June 16, 2008 and that Cindy's husband George disposed of the body, and on July 5 the jury finds Casey not guilty of murder or manslaughter, but guilty of four misdemeanor counts of providing false info. to police, and she is released on July 17, 2011 outraging the public; on Jan. 25, 2013 the Fla. appeals court overturns two of the misdemeanor convictions. On July 27 the U.S. military admits that its soldiers killed three innocent civilians last mo. after opening fire on a car on the high security Baghdad airport road in Iraq. On July 28 unemployed truck driver Jim D. Adkisson (1950-) opens fire on the Tenn. Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tenn., known for liberal and pro-gay views, killing two; he is charged with 1st degree murder; a 4-page letter found in his SUV says he hates the liberal movement and gays. On July 28 suicide bombers, incl. at least three women hit Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad and Kurdish protesters in Kirkuk, Iraq, killing 57. On July 28 Pres. Bush approves the execution of U.S. Army pvt. Ronald Adrin Gray for four murders and eight rapes in Fayetteville, N.C. over 8 mos. in the late 1980s while stationed at Ft. Bragg, making him the 11th to be executed by pres. approval since the 1951 Universal Code of Military Justice was enacted; the last was Pvt. John Bennett in 1961. On July 29 the U.S. Congress issues a milestone apology for the wrongs committed against blacks in the past incl. slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws - only 232 years late? Oh yes, there might be one of them black guys in the er, White House soon? On July 29 U.S. govt. microbiologist Bruce Edward Ivins (b. 1946) commits suicide via Tylenol-codeine OD as the FBI closes in on him for the 2001 anthrax attacks; he is the wrong man? On July 30 Israeli PM (since 2006) Ehud Olmert, under pressure from corruption charges announces that he will not compete in his party's leadership primary in Sept. On July 31 Repub. Sens. Tom Coburn of Okla. and Jon Kyl of Ariz. send a letter to U.S. state secy. Condoleezza Rice asking her to stop funding Muslim Brotherhood entities incl. the Islamic Society of North Am. (ISNA) and the Assoc. of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS). In July the U.S. paratroopers of Chosen Company are attacked by the Taliban in E Afghanistan, losing nine after almost being overrun by 200 insurgents, later causing new loose-mouthed U.S. Afghanistan CIC (June 15, 2009 to June 23, 2010) Gen. Stanley Allen McChrystal (1954-) to change his strategy. In July a high-society man calling himself Clark Rockefeller kidnaps his 7-y.-o. daughter Reigh in Boston, Mass., causing a police manhunt; he is arrested on Aug. 3, and the search for his real identity begins. In July gay ex-con Bradley LaShawn Fowler (1969-) files a $70M lawsuit against Bible publishers Zondervan and Thomas Nelson, alleging that their versions refer to homosexuality as a sin and therefore injure him personally to the tune of you know how much by violating his constitutional rights and causing him emotional distress - as he sucks what and takes what up his what, then wipes his chin on what, but it's no sin, it's what the Founding Fathers died for? In late July the govt. of Zimbabwe cuts 10 zeroes from its currency, allowing a mere 20 dollar coins to buy a loaf of bread on the black market. On Aug. 1 there is a total solar eclipse, causing a double sunset over Zheng, China. On Aug. 2 a battle between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza kills nine. On Aug. 3 a stampede at a Hindu temple in Himachal Pradesh in N India triggered by rumors of a landslide kills 145 pilgrims, incl. 30 children. On Aug. 3 nine K-2 climbers are killed after an avalanche cuts their ropes. On Aug. 4 Barack Obama flip-flops, saying he would support tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserves to cut gasoline prices, then on Aug. 5 pledges energy independence from imported oil for the U.S. in 10 years. On Aug. 5 the U.S. Govt. Accountability Office reports that Iraq could have a $79B budget surplus this year. On Aug. 6 a coup in Nouakchott, Mauritania ousts pres. (since Mar. 2007) Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi. On Aug. 7 U.S. district judge (since 1994) James Robertson (1938-) rules that Am. Indians are entitled to $455M for being cheated out of oil, gas, timber, gas, grazing, and other royalties by the U.S. Interior Dept. since 1887, only 1% of the $47B they had sued for; Blackfeet Indian Elouise Cobell filed the original lawsuit. On Aug. 8 former U.S. Sen. (D-N.C.) John Edwards finally admits having an affair in 2006 with filmmaker Rielle Hunter (1964-), but denies being the father of her baby Frances Quinn Hunter; he can kiss his vice-pres. hopes goodbye; after the dust settles, he finally admits to being the father on Jan. 20, 2010, and on Jan. 27, 2010 it is announced that he and his wife Elizabeth have legally separated. China says Hi, world, we're here, whatcha going to do about it? On Aug. 8, 2008 (8/8/8) at 8 p.m. (the number 8 being lucky to the Chinese) the XXIX (29th) Summer Olympic Games (slogan: "One World One Dream") open in Beijing, China after 400K Beijing residents are forcibly evicted from their homes (end Aug. 24); 11,028 athletes from 204 nations compete in 302 events in 28 sports in the new Feng Shui-approved Bird's Nest stadium and Water Cube swimming pavilion; the mascots are the Eight, er, Five Friendlies, representing China's four most popular animals (fish, panda, Tibetan antelope, swallow); the number 8 (ba) is lucky because it rhymes with fa (wealth); the number 4 (si) is unlucky since it means death in Chinese; the Chinese crowds like to yell "Jiayou!" (pr. jya-yo), meaning "add oil!", "lubricate!"; BMX (Bicycle Motocross) racing makes its debut; the U.S. wins 110 medals (36 golds), China 100 (51 golds), Russia 72 (23 golds), Britain 47 (19 golds); on Aug. 10 32-y.-o. Jason Edward Lezak (1975-) swims a record 46.06 sec. last leg of the 400m freestyle relay, running down French world record holder Alain Bernard (1983-) and breaking his world record of 47.50 by 1.5 sec. and giving the U.S. a gold with a final time of 3:08:24, shattering the world record of 3:12:23, and saving Michael Phelps' gold medal run, causing him to let out a loud victory yell which becomes the games' #1 soundbyte, being touted as the greatest relay of all time; meanwhile on Aug. 10 the Chinese basketball team led by Yao Ming loses by 101-70 to Team USA in the most watched basketball game in history, the crowd cheering wildly as he opens up the game with a 3-point shot; on Aug. 13 6'4" Jim, er, Michael Fred Phelps II (1985-), "the Baltimore Bullet" of the U.S. wins his 5th gold in swimming, giving him a record 11, followed by #6 on Aug. 15, #7 on Aug. 16, tying Mark Spitz's 1972 Munich record, and #8 on Aug. 17, setting the all-time Olympic record for most golds; on Aug. 16 Phelps defeats Am.-born swimmer Milorad Cavic (1984-) of Serbia by only 0.01 sec. in the final, giving Serbia its first Olympic swimming medal, with Cavic claiming he touched first but not with enough force to register; the Space Age Speedo LZR Racer (pr. like laser) swimsuit is used by 94% of the swimmers, bringing all their achievements, esp. Phelps' in question; on Aug. 15 Nastia Liukin (1989-) of the U.S. wins the all-round women's gold medal in gymnastics, with Shawn Johnson (1992-) of the U.S. winning the silver medal; on Aug. 17 Natalie Anne Coughlin (1982-) becomes the first U.S. female athlete to win six medals in one Olympics, and the first to win gold in 100m backstroke in two consecutive Olympics; 41-y.-o. Dara Grace Torres (1967-) becomes the first U.S swimmer to compete in five Olympics (1984-2008), and wins three silver medals; on Aug. 19 flyweight Henry Cejudo (1978-) of the U.S. (son of pesky fly-like illegal immigrants from Mexico) becomes the youngest Olympic freestyle gold winner; on Aug. 16 6'5" Usain "Lightning" Bolt (1986-) of Jamaica wins the 100M with a world record time of 9.69 sec., then on Aug. 20 wins the 200M with a world record time of 19.30 sec., shattering the supposedly unbreakable 19.32 sec. 1996 record of Michael Johnson, and becoming the first man to win both races since Carl Lewis in 1984, and the first to set world records in both in the same Olympics; on Aug. 24 (Sun.) the U.S. men's volleyball team wins gold after defeating defending champion Brazil, ending the Olympics on an upbeat, since the father-in-law of Kiwi-born coach Hugh McCutcheon (1969-) was fatally stabbed the day before competition started, and his mother injured, causing him to miss the team's first three games; the U.S. men's basketball Redeem Team (a play on the 1992 Dream Team) features Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, and LeBron James, plus coach Mike Krzyzewski, and wins gold after defeating Spain 118-109. Russia sees its chance and begins a push to reabsorb its former satellites, starting with Oily Juicy Jawjaw? On Aug. 9 as the Chinese Olympics begin, the tiny country of Georgia (known for its long-past glory with Queen Tamara, and cultural connections with Muslim Persia) declares war on Russia over the breakway nation of South Ossetia; on Sept. 15 after Russia steps up attacks, U.S. Pres. Bush accuses them of being "21st century barbarians", while U.S.-Russian relations slide back in the direction of Cold War days; on Aug. 26 Russia recognizes the breakaway repubs. of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, pissing-off the U.S. more in a strange reversal of rhetoric, since the U.S. has always been on the side of self-determination of peoples until now?; meanwhile virtually all of the 14K ethnic Georgians flee South Ossetia; on Sept. 2 Russian pres. Putin says that Russia will respond to an increase in NATO ships in the Black Sea, and says he doesn't fear expulsion from the G-8 - did anybody mention Domino Theory again? On Aug. 9 China is rocked by an Olympic murder as a knife-wielding Chinese man attacks two relatives of a coach for the U.S. men's vollyeball team in Beijing, killing one injuring the other, then throwing himself from the 2nd story of the 13th cent. Drum Tower and committing suicide. On Aug. 10 a mudslide in Boussoukoula in Burkina Faso kills 31 at an illegal gold mine, ordered closed by the govt. from June to Sept. 30. On Aug. 13 U.S. atty.-gen. Michael Mukasey announces that he is releasing new rules to turn the FBI into a nat. security agency with streamlined investigative guidelines to protect Barack, er, the new U.S. pres., who will be the first new one since 9/11. On Aug. 14 Poland announces a deal to base U.S. missiles on its territories, causing a Russian gen. to threaten nuclear retaliation, sending shudders through all the former Soviet satellites, esp. Ukraine. On Aug. 14 a UFH20 happens, and is later covered by Farmer's Insurance :) On Aug. 14-16 suicide bombers in Iraq strike Shiite pilgrims headed for Karbala for three days in a row. On Aug. 15 mascot Sir Nils Olav (named after Norwegian Lt. Nils Egelien and Olav V of Norway), a king penguin living in Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland is visited by the Norwegian King's Guard and awarded a knighthood from Harald V; he started out way back in 1972 as a lance corporal and was promoted each time the guard returned to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. On Aug. 16 Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi of the Pakistan People's Party gives pres. Pervez Musharraf two days to quit or face impeachment; meanwhile protesters in Multan carry signs reading "Shame on Bush and Mush", and demand the release of Aafia Siddiqui, accused of attempted murder of U.S. agents in Afghanistan; on Aug 18 hours before the proceedings are slated to begin he resigns, and Sindhi Muhammad Mian Soomro (1950-) becomes acting pres. (until Sept. 9). On Aug. 16 27-y.-o. Ghazala Khamis (1981-) gives birth to septuplets (four boys, three girls) in Cairo, Egypt using fertility drugs. On Aug. 17 Ellen DeGeneres officially marries her 4-year live-in Australian lover Portia de Rossi (1973-) (Nelle Porter in "Ally McBeal") in their Beverly Hills home - what did they have to eat? On Aug. 17 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin promises to begin puttin', er, withdrawing troops from Georgia, but is wishy-washy about specifics; on Aug. 19 NATO says there will be "no business as usual" until it withdraws troops immediately, causing Russia on Aug. 20 to threaten to withdraw from NATO, proving it was all about reconstructing the Soviet Union? On Aug. 19 after six suicide bombing attacks against military and police targets since Jan., an al-Qaida AQIM suicide bomber drives his car into a line of applicants at a police academy in Less Issers, Algiera, killing 48 and injuring 45, becoming the deadliest attack in Algeria since the 1990s. On Aug. 20 (12:20 GMT) Spanair Flight JK 5022 (MD-82) crashes during takeoff in Madrid en route to Las Palmas, Canary Islands after one of the two engines catches fire, killing 153 of 172; why couldn't the pilot survive on one engine? On Aug. 21 twin suicide bombings at the gates of a military ordnance factory in Wah, Pakistan (in Punjab N of Islamabad) kill 70+ and wound 100+, becoming the deadliest terrorist attack on a Pakistani military site (until ?); the site is a nuclear warhead assembly plant? On Aug. 22 coalition forces turn into baby killers when they kill 76 civilians, incl. 50 women and 19 children in a military operation in the Shindand district of Herat Province in W Afghanistan, stinking themselves up. It's like black face in reverse? On Aug. 22 Marc Harold Ramsey (1969-), an Arapahoe County Jail inmate in Colo. is charged in federal court with trumped-up charges of mailing a threatening letter from jail to Sen. John McCain's Denver campaign office with the legend "If you are reading this then you are alread dead! Unless of course you can't or don't breathe"; it contained a harmless white powder, which freaked out the workers, who called in the law, who stunk themselves up by over-reacting, and now must cover up their police action by charging the letter writer with something and put him on trial for exercising his rights to freedom of speech instead of themselves for abuse of power when they know it was an impotent hoax, with the prize five years in a federal priz and a $250K fine so they can go on to great careers and their convicted victim will be prohibited from even voting; if it was a deadly powder, they should arrest the jail officials too for letting it through?; why doesn't everybody clone that letter, dash some talc on it and send it to some politician to choke the stinking system?; duh, on Oct. 29 smart-dumb True American Hero Marc M. Keyser (1942-) of Fresno, Calif. is arrested for sending 120+ envelopes containing a packet of sugar labelled "Anthrax Sample" to test if this is still the Land of the Free or the Home of the Craven, claiming he's doing it as a publicity stunt for a his new novel - just like karioke only a little different? On Aug. 23 (2:45 a.m. EDT) the selection of middle-of-the-road liberal Dem. Del. Sen. (since 1973) (Roman Catholic) Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden Jr. (1942-) (sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act, as a slap, er, sop to disgruntled Hillary supporters) is confirmed via text message, and after it leaks to the press Barack Obama's campaign Web site officially confirms it later in the day, followed by an official announcement, with Obama calling Biden a "friend of the underdog", pissing-off Hillary Clinton supporters, 30% of whom say they won't vote for him; too bad, the idea of him closing the glass ceiling on her for a white man is a giant blunder, especially as he needs every vote she can bring him to have a chance of winning, and just as bad, the sight of Obama and Biden standing side-by-side makes people wonder who's more qualified for pres., the one with peach fuzz on his half-black cheeks or the wise experienced white veteran, playing into the hands of John McCain? On Aug. 25 Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic And Internat. Studies in Washington, D.C. issues a report claiming that "the U.S. is now losing the war against the Taliban", and calling for the U.S. to treat Pakistani territory as a combat zone; meanwhile the U.S. military death toll in Afghanistan this year is 101. On Aug. 25-28 (Mon.-Fri.) after the Dem. Party pulls off a con game in certifying Obama's constitutional eligibility, the 2008 Dem. Nat. Convention in Denver, Colo. is kicked off with the first-ever interfaith prayer meeting on Aug. 24, which scarf-wearing Canadian-born Muslim convert (pres. of the Islamic Society of North Am. since 2006) Ingrid Mattson (1963-) is invited to, pissing many off; meanwhile the pitiful few protesters are outnumbered by the police; on Aug. 26 after United Farm Workers (UFW) leader Dolores Huerta (1930-) places her name into nomination, Hillary Clinton gives a speech, starting out with "I am... a proud supporter of Barack Obama. My friends, it is time to take back the country we love"; too bad, her endorsement of Obama comes off lame and forced, as the obvious fact that he slammed the glass ceiling in her face in order to pick a white man to back him up hurts and it shows; is it to her advantage that Obama lose the election, allowing McCain a chance to stink the country up for four years in order to set her up for the White House?; too bad, if McCain were smart he'd pick Condoleezza Rice as his running mate, to trump the Dems. and win the election by a landslide, since he's got more experience than Biden, and Rice has more experience than Obama, and is 100% not 50% black, and is a woman to boot, giving Hillary supporters someone to vote for, and since McCain is an old fart Rice would have a realistic chance of being pres.?; on Aug. 25 police arrest 106 protesters, a record for the convention; it is later revealed that some of them were undercover Denver cops; on Aug. 27 Barack Obama becomes the 3rd Dem. nominee to give an outdoor acceptance speech (JFK in 1960, FDR in 1936), addressing 75K in Denver's Mile-Hi Invesco Field (home of the Denver Broncos) on a dazzling hi-tech stage complete with fake Greek columns as if he's a god, with a TV audience of 40M+, filled with the same old walk-on-water platitudes he's been giving all along, strung end-to-end, with few if any specifics other than the empty "change" message repeated ad infinitum, mixed with soundbytes about blacks (him) finally cracking through the barrier, incl. "America, we cannot turn back", and "This moment, this election, is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive"; his big celeb backer Oprah Winfrey (1954-) later calls it one of the greatest speeches ever given, saying "Just seeing him on stage, I cried my eyelashes off"; too bad, the thud with which he slammed the glass ceiling on Hillary backfires, causing him to get no convention bounce. On Aug. 25-Sept. 2 Hurricane Gustav starts 260 mi. SE of Port-au-Prince (1958-), Haiti and reaches Category 3 before hitting the U.S. near Cocodrie, La. on Sept. 1 as a Category 2, dropping to Category 1 within 4 hours, and missing New Orleans, which had been evacuated by orders of mayor Ray Nagin, who called it "the mother of all storms", and later changes that to mother-in-law, causing the Repub. Nat. Convention to be delayed one day. Ms. Smith Goes to Washington, or the new White Wonder Woman? Sure winner Obama blunders by sacrificing his queen, and never-give-up McCain responds with a lightning check, causing a key rook to change to his color and threatening checkmate in 60 days? On Aug. 29 (his 72nd birthday) after allegedly dropping his #1 choice Condoleezza Rice begins of rumors that she's a lesbian, John McCain zoom-zoom wastes no time and selects conservative white Alaska gov. (since 2006) (80% approval rating), mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (1996-2002), runnerup in the 1984 Miss Alaska contest, and straight-arrow Pentecostal Christian did-I-say-white-white-white hockey mom Sarah Louise Heath Palin (1964-) (favorite phrase "You betcha"), known as Sarah Barack, er, Barracuda in high school, where she was the star point guard, leading her team to a state basketball championship in 1982 on a fractured ankle (a real-life Maggie O'Connell in Northern Exposure?) as his running mate, becoming the first female Repub. vice-pres. candidate; although she is no Condoleezza Rice, her mediocre experience cancels out Obama's, while McCain's vast experience cancels out Biden's, so call it a push on that issue, while giving Hillary, er, women their big chance to vote one of their own into the er, White House, if that's important to them, duh, despite her conservative stand on abortion and gun ownership (does a frustrated woman voter care whether the mallet that broke through the glass ceiling was red or blue?); too bad, she anonymously quotes right-wing anti-Semitic journalist Westbrook Pegler (1894-1969) in her acceptance speech "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity", bringing out the PC police; college student David Kernell (1988-) hacks her Yahoo email account, and is tried in Tenn. in 2010, facing up to 50 years in federal prison; meanwhile on Sept. 1 the press jumps on Palin for having a Down's syndrome baby in Apr. then going right back to work, and another story that Palin's 17-y.-o. daughter Bristol is 5 mo. pregnant, but Palin fires back that she is not going to abort the baby and will marry the 18-y.-o. daddy Levi Johnston, gaining praise from the pro-lifers and words from Laura Bush, who accuses the press of being sexist and not holding male candidates to the same standard, while even Obama says that the subject should be off limits since his white mommy was 18 when she had him, which doesn't stop the press from harping on it for days; wasting no time, Tina Fey impersonates her viciously on the season debut of SNL, esp. her statement that "I can see Russia from my house", while Darrell Hammond (1955-) impersonates McCain (highest rating since the 9/11 attacks); meanwhile Hollywood actor Matt Damon rips her, saying "I need to know if she thinks dinosaurs were here four thousand years ago... because she's going to have the nuclear code"; Obama is unique in that it's hard to find anything to satirize in his mannerisms?; meanwhile on Sept. 16 the Alaska atty.-gen. announces that state employees are refusing to obey subpoenas in her ethics inquiry - Obama can have the blacks, they're only 13%, I'll take the women, they're 51%, and even if he gets all of the blacks, if I get only 50% of the white men plus 65% of the white women I'm in da White House, stick a feather in that hat and call it macaroni? In Aug. a breach in a dam in Nepal causes the Kosi River in India to overflow, flooding hundreds of villages in Bihar, displacing 2M and becoming the worst flooding in 50 years. In Aug. Mexicans begin returning from the U.S. to Mexico in record numbers after they fail to find work; illegal immigration has dropped 11% since last Aug., indicating that 1.3M have returned to their home countries. On Sept. 1 the U.S. formally returns control of formerly nasty Anbar Province in Iraq to the Iraq govt. On Sept. 1 Allied troops kill three Afghan children and wound seven more in a mistaken artillery strike, then kill two more children and their father in a second incident near Kabul, piling up the wrongs, incl. 60 children plus 30 more killed on Aug. 22 in W Afghanistan; meanwhile Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai openly calls for the U.S. to stop bombing and exercise more caution when operating in civilian areas. On Sept. 1 Japanese PM (since Sept. 2007) Yasuo Fukuda abruptly resigns after a year-long struggle with a deadlocked parliament. On Sept. 1 Palinstan, er, Pakistan opens an investigation into the killings of five women who defied all-male Prophet Muhammad and tried to choose their own husbands, causing them to be shot, thrown into a ditch and buried alive by their own relatives in what the Muslims call honor killings - another Allah akbar, right? On Sept. 1 category 4 Hurricane Ike is sighted W of the Cape Verde Islands, and on Sept. 8 it hits Haiti and Cuba hard, killing 114, then proceeds towards the Gulf of Mexico, hitting Tex. on Sept. 13-14 after 1M are told to flee or face "certain death", killing 28 before heading NE, causing $27B in damage (#3 costliest U.S. hurricane in history). On Sept. 1 Benjamin Todd Jealous (1973-) (white father, black mother) succeeds Bruce S. Gordon as pres. #17 of the NAACP (until ?), becoming the youngest ever. On Sept. 1-4 the 2008 Repub. Nat. Convention in Minneapolis, Minn. is the latest held so far (until ?), and the first one to take place entirely in Sept.; George W. Bush does an LBJ and stays away (first time in 40 years, since LBJ); on Sept. 2 Pres. Bush (remote), Fred Thompson, and (surprise!) former Dem. vice-pres. candidate Joe Lieberman address the convention, taking Obama on and building McCain and Palin up, with Bush saying "If the Hanoi Hilton could not break John McCain's resolve to do what is best for his country, you can be sure the angry left never will", Thompson calling Obama the "most, liberal, most inexperienced" candidate ever, and Lieberman saying that "country matters more than party", and that "The Washington bureaucrats and power brokers can't build a pen strong enough to hold these two mavericks" (Lucas McCain the Rifleman and Paladin, Have Gun Will Travel?), drawing applause by contrasting Obama's record to Dem. pres. Clinton, "who stood up to some of those same Democratic interest groups, worked with Republicans and got some important things done like welfare reform, free trade agreements, and a balanced budget"; on Sept. 3 Sarah Palin addresses the convention, dressed in a smart pleated skirt with high heels to outdo Hillary and Michelle Obama's pant suits, her eyeglasses projecting the brain babe look, with big smiling beauty queen looks underneath, going on to win over the audience bigtime, making points for her small town roots by comparing herself with Truman, uttering the soundbyte: "I'm not going to Washington to seek their (the media's) good opinion. I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country", winning them over with a quick joke about the difference between a pit bull and a hockey mom (the lipstick), then immediately becoming the Repub. lipsticked pit bull, going after Obama with several great soundbytes, incl. "Don't forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform, not even in the state senate", "Victory in Iraq is finally in sight. He wants to forfeit", "Al-Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America. He's worried that someone won't read them their rights", "Government is too big. He wants to grow it", after which McCain makes a surprise appearance, rhetorically asking the cheering crowd if he picked the right running mate while Heart's 1977 hit Barracuda rocks the convention, after which it is revealed that her TV audience was almost as big or bigger than Obama's, while a big convention bounce brings the McCain-Palin ticket from 8 points behind to a dead heat, incl. a 12-point lead among white women; too bad, the media begins digging up dirt on her, incl. how she got state trooper Mike Wooten fired after he divorced her sister and got in a bitter custody battle, and how she actively sought money from Washington and supported the Bridge to Nowhere (Gravina Island Bridge) before she found out that the state would also have to pay a share, then kept the $223M in federal money after the earmark designation was removed; they also have a field day when the Repub. campaign staff buys her a $150K designer wardrobe; if the dirt doesn't end up sticking, the McCain-Palin ticket is on track for a landslide V, with the Obama-Biden ticket lucky to win their own home states?; meanwhile, is Obama all show, posing as a Messiah but needing a boat to cross water like everybody else?; is he like a chocolate bunny, hollow inside?; in days he went from a probable winner to a sure loser, starting with his er, inexperienced decision to alienate the giant never-lost Clinton vote machine in order to run with a white man who gets him no votes and would be better left in the Senate to help him pass legislation later; is it too late for Obama to switch in Hillary as his running mate to give him a chance, and is he smart enough to try, after all, it's politics not chess, and you can take moves back if you are er, man enough to take the flack?; or is he so confident of winning that he will turn Hillary and her supporters to his side despite the temptation, because he knows that women, unlike men, are known to split ranks, stay tuned?; on Sept. 4 John McCain gives his 49-min. acceptance speech, telling his killer war hero personal story (even the part about cracking and being made to mouth anti-American Commie slogans, although this was after refusing early release because of family connections), repeatedly saying "I'm going to fight for you", adding "Let there be no doubt, my friends, we're going to win this election", and rising to a crescendo at the end, uttering the soundbyte "Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history, we make history". On Sept. 3 Hurricane Hannah hits Haiti, killing 61, after which it ends up moving up the U.S. east coast as a tropical storm. On Sept. 3 Kurt Sutter's crime drama series Sons of Anarchy debuts on FX Network for 92 episodes (until Dec. 9, 2014), about the outlaw SAMCRO (Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club, Redwood Original) motorcycle club operating in Charming, Calif., starring Steve McQueen-lookalike Charles Matthew "Charlie" Hunnam (1980-) as Jackson "Jax Teller, who begins questioning the club as it fights the rival Mayans of Oakland, Calif. On Sept. 4 U.S. SSgt. Kennith Mayne (b. 1979) of Arvada, Colo. is killed outside Baghdad, Iraq in his Humvee by a roadside bomb two hours after talking to his mother on the phone. On Sept. 4 Pakistan condemns the U.S. for a military raid into its South Waziristan tribal area earlier in the week that killed 15 civilians; the area has been wild and untamable since Alexander the Great - and now they give a shit? On Sept. 4 (night) a U.S. Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin heli crashes off Oahu, Hawaii while conducting search and rescue drills, killing four crew members. On Sept. 6 YACB (yet another car bomb) explodes in I Reek in the NW city of Tal Afar, Iraq, killing six and wounding 50. On Sept. 6 thousands of pissed-off Armenians protest the first-ever visit of a Turkish leader to Armenia, pres. Abdullah Gul, who watches the World Cup qualifying match beside Armenian pres. Serge Sarkisian; Turkey wins 2-0. On Sept. 7 the Bush admin. announces the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Takover, causing Moody economist Mark Zandi to predict that 30-year mortgage rates will dip to 5.5%, although the slumping housing market may or may not get stabilized by the multi-billion-dollar taxpayer bailout. On Sept. 7 (Sun.) Alan Ball's drama series True Blood debuts on HBO for 80 episodes (until Aug. 24, 2014), based on "The Southern Vampire Mysteries" novel series by Charlaine Harris, starring Kiwi actress Anna Hele Paquin (1982-) as Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress in Bon Temps, La. who has to deal with vampires, and falls in love with vampire Bill Compton, played by Stephen Moyer (Stephen John Emery) (1969-); after she comes out as bi on Apr. 1, 2010, they wed on Aug. 21, 2010; "It hurts so good." On Sept. 8 (Mon.) Fringe debuts on Fox Network for 100 episodes (until Jan. 18, 2013), about an FBI Fringe Div. team in Boston, Mass. that uses fringe science to investigate a parallel universe incl. a 48-state U.S., starring Anna Torv (1978-) as agent Olivia Dunham, Joshua Carter Jackson (1978-) as consultant Peter Bishop, John Noble (1948-) as mad scientist Walter Bishop, and Lance Reddick (1969-) as agent in charge Phillip Broyles; Mark Thomas Valley (1964-) plays Olivia's secret lover John Scott, whose death causes her to join the div.; they marry for real in Dec. 2008, then separate in early 2010. On Sept. 9 billionaire (one of Pakistan's five richest men, worth $1.8B) Asif Ali Zardari (1955-), widower of Benazir Bhutto becomes pres. #11 of Pakistan (until ?). On Sept. 9 Bolivia expels U.S. envoy Patrick Duddy, followed on Sept. 10 by Venezuelan pres. Hugo Chavez, who withdraws his ambassador Bernardo Alvarez Herrera (1956-) from Washington, D.C., saying he'll only be sent back "when there's a new government" in the U.S. On Sept. 10-13 the First World Knowledge Dialogue Symposium is held in Crans Montana, Switzerland, led by Dame Julia Higgins (1942-) (pres. of the British Assoc. for the Advancement of Science in 2003-4) to explore uniting the natural and human sciences; of course, they don't make any progress; "The World has problems, and Universities have Faculties". On Sept. 11 the Center for Empowered Learning and Living (CELL) opens in Denver, Colo. as the first museum specifically devoted to the subject of terrorism. On Sept. 12 (Fri.) Metrolink Train 111, driven by gay cell phone-texting engineer Robert Sanchez (b. 1962) runs a red light and doesn't hit the brakes, colliding head-on with another train, killing 25; his last text message was sent 22 sec. before the crash. On Sept. 13 gunmen abduct and kill four employees of an Iraqi TV station in Mosul, Iraq as they film a program about Ramadan. Just when McCain has a sure forced checkmate, his own bumbling king gets exposed for his years of bad moves, throwing the game back in Obama's favor without even having to make a move of his own? On Sept. 14 after months of the fit hitting the shan, and failing to find a buyer, Wall Street broker Lehman Brothers (founded 1850) declares plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and a govt.-brokered $50B takeover of Merrill Lynch, CEO John Alexander Thain (1955-) by the Bank of Am., CEO Kenneth D. "Ken" Lewis (1947-) is also revealed, bringing the brokerage failures to three since the credit crisis began 14 mo. ago, with only Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley remaining; Lewis only went through with it after U.S. treasury secy. Hank Paulson threatened to fire him along with the entire BOA board; news that Am. Internat. Group Inc. (AIG), the world's largest insurance co. needs a $40B restructuring (increased to $150B by Nov. 10) to avoid bankruptcy shakes the U.S. up more, causing the Dow Jones to drop 504.48 points on Sept. 15, AKA Black Monday, the worst day on Wall Street in seven years; on Sept. 15 there is a coordinated withdrawal of $550B from U.S. banks; meanwhile John McCain makes fatal error #1 by repeatedly uttering the dumbass-on-my-forehead statement "the fundamentals of the economy are strong" (which cinches Obama's coming V?), and Wonderless Woman Sarah Palin praises the govt. for not bailing out any more investment (as opposed to commercial and savings) banks, while claiming that her ticket is going to reform them in speeches in Colo., with the soundbyte "We're going to reform the way Wall Street does business and stop the golden parachutes for CEOs who betray the public trust", while McCain tells the press that he doesn't want taxpayers to be "on the hook for AIG"; too bad, on Sept. 16 at 7:30 p.m. EST news leaks that the federal govt. is going to bail out AIG with an $85B loan (80% share), causing maverick, er, Bush yes-man McCain to flip-flop and state "I didn't want to do that... But there are literally millions of people whose retirement, whose investment, whose insurance were at risk here. They were going to have their lives destroyed because of the greed and excess and corruption"; too bad, the news doesn't stop the Dow from plummeting 449.36 points on Sept. 17 (after recovering by 141.51 points on Sept. 16), until Euro and Asian countries on Sept. 18 announce that they're pumping in $180B to stabilize the world markets, causing the Dow to rebound by 410.03 points; but that still isn't enough to prevent the U.S. economy from continuing into a tailspin, causing Ben Bernanke to tell Congressional leaders on Sept. 18 that the country is days (hours?) away from collapse, with panic withdrawals from U.S. banks and money market accounts totaling $5.5T unless they take emergency action to create a superagency to buy all of the risky mortgages that are at the root of the problem, even though it will cost the taxpayers $700B, and the money goes to the investors not the homeowners; is it because the big investment houses are owned by ahem, Jews that a power play is being tried to get in the wallets of taxpayers, causing all the main candidates to fall in line, when the theory of free enterprise says let them fail, then let new investment houses rise? - it's all really a cover story to pay for the Iraq War while patsy Bushy Baby is still in office, stiffing his successor with the tax collection headaches, then backfiring as the U.S. elects a socialist who sees his chance? On Sept. 14 protesters in La Paz, Bolivia set fire to the town hall and blockade highways to protest gasoline and food shortages; meanwhile 30 are killed in Pando Province, where pres. Evo Morales declared martial law against separatists on Sept. 12. On Sept. 14 three roadside bombs in Jalawla, Iraq (60 mi. N of Baghdad) kill five in an Iraqi police convoy. On Sept. 15 the British govt. announces that Prince William plans to become a search-and-rescue pilot in the RAF. On Sept. 15 Pres. Bush places Bolivia on its counter-narcotics blacklist. On Sept. 16 Los Angeles, Calif.-born Columbia U.-educated Roman Catholic Maryknoll priest Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann (1933-2017) of Nicaragua (former foreign minister of Daniel Ortega, who went on a 2-mo. hunger strike in 1985 to protest U.S. military intervention via the Contras, then took the U.S. to the World Court, which ruled in 1986 that it violated internat. law and must pay reparations) becomes pres. of the U.N. Gen. Assembly (until Sept. 2009), going on to back Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket and Sudanese pres. Omar al Bashir, and accuse Israel of apartheid against the Palestinians. On Sept. 17 al-Qaida militants disguised as policemen denotate two car bombs outside the U.S. embassy in Sana'a, Yemen, killing 16, incl. six Yemeni police, six attackers, and four bystanders. On Sept. 17 Chinese authorities announce that 22 of 109 Chinese dairy firms failed an inspection, with kidney-damaging melamine found in their baby formulas (to make the protein content in watered-down milk seem higher so they can charge more), causing 53K to get sick, 80% of them 2-y.-o. or younger; the contaminant is even found in their tasty White Rabbit milk candy, eaten by adults; they obviously covered it up until the Olympics were over, and now the fit has hit the shan that the Commie country is full of baby killers for Capitalist profits? On Sept. 18 a U.S. Chinook CH-47 heli accident in S Iraq kills seven GIs. On Sept. 18 a rally by mainly Jewish groups is held to protest Iranian pres. Mahmoud Imadinnajacket; too bad, an invitation to Sarah Palin is cancelled, although another one to Hillary Clinton is confirmed, causing a controversy. On Sept. 19 11 Euro and eight Egyptian tourists are kidnapped in Gilf al-Kebir, Egypt, 500 mi. SW of Cairo. On Sept. 20 a suicide bomber at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan kills 53 and wounds 250+. On Sept. 21 high-flying investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs become regular banks. On Sept. 23 redwood treespassing treesitters Billy Stoetzer and Nadia "Cedar" Berg finally come down after 11 mo. in 300-ft. 1.5K-y.-o. Spooner in Nanning Creek in Humboldt County, N Calif. after the new owners Humboldt Redwood Co. agree to spare the trees, ending their 20-year fight with mean Pacific Lumber Co. On Sept. 23 the U.N. Gen. Assembly convenes, giving several world leaders, incl. Brazilian pres. Luis Inacio Lula da Silva a platform to slam the Bush admin. and Wall Street for threatening the global economy with their shenanigans; Bush counters with the lame soundbyte "We've promoted stability in the markets by preventing the disorderly failure of major companies", to which British minister Mark Malloch Brown responds "What you are seeing here is the letting off of some political steam. They are all remembering the very hard, unforgiving advice that they got from American financial institutions to deflate your economy, let your banks go to the wall." On Sept. 23 the U.S. Senate by 93-2 passes a $100B package saving 20M U.S. taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax; it also funds alternative energy incentives, gives tax breaks to businesses and individuals, and gives the same level of insurance benefits to mental health treatments as other medical treatments. On Sept. 23 the police procedural series The Mentalist debuts on CBS for 151 episodes (until Feb. 18, 2015), starring Tasmania-born Simon Baker (1969-) as fake psychic Patrick Jane, who is an adept magician, and becomes a consultant to the Calif. Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to help them track down Red John, the killer of his wife and daughter. On Sept. 24 a new poll indicates that Obama has passed McCain up bigtime because of the economic crisis, leading by 52%-43%. On Sept. 25 John McCain announces that he is suspending his campaign to return to Washington, D.C. and work to pass the economic bailout package; he also bugs out of a scheduled debate with Obama on Sept. 26 (Fri.), and invites Obama to join him in Washington, D.C., then changes his mind after a White House meeting with bipartisan congressmen ends up in failure, with House Repubs. saying they are philosophically opposed to bailing out Wall Street even after Bush folds on limiting exec pay; meanwhile on Sept. 24 the U.S. Senate okays a $630B package to finance the federal govt. for 6 mo., lifting their 25-y.-o. ban on offshore drilling, and Iraqi lawmakers pass a law setting provincial elections by early next year. On Sept. 25 after Thabo Mbeki is ousted over the weekend, Kgalema Petrus Motlanthe (1949-) is sworn-in as pres. of South Africa (until May 9, 2009) after being elected by a secret parliamentary ballot, being expected to hold the position for ANC leader Jacob Zuma when a new parliament is elected next year. On Sept. 25 an interview of Sarah Palin by noticeably shorter NBC journalist Katie Couric is aired, in which Sarah exposes her basic ignorance of issues and stinks herself up when she can't name a single newspaper or mag. that she reads, causing many to finally see that she's no Jack Kennedy (as if it matters, since she's only running for vice-pres., but actually does this time, because McCain would be the oldest U.S. pres. in history?). On Sept. 25 50 Somalian pirates seize Ukrainian-operated ship Faina (21 crew) off the Somalian coast en route to Mombasa, Kenya carrying 33 Russian-built T-72 tanks and ammo, and demand a $20M ransom; on Sept. 28 first mate Viktor Nikolsky dies from a stroke; on Sept. 30 three pirates are killed in a gunfight with rival pirates. On Sept. 25 the Chinese Shenzhou 7 spacecraft blasts off on a Long March 2F rocket from Jiuquan Launch Center, carrying Zhi Zhigang (1966-), Liu Boming (1966-), and Jing Haipeng (1966), returning on Sept. 28. On Sept. 26 119-y.-o. Washington Mutual (WaMu) ($300B assets) files for bankruptcy after losing $19B on bad mortgages, becoming the largest banking failure in U.S. history, soon being auctioned by the FDIC for $1.9B to JP Morgan. On Sept. 26 the First McCain-Obama Debate, focusing on nat. security sees both bring their A-game, with Obama trying to pin Bush's legacy on McCain, who counters by claiming he's a maverick who took Bush on, recounting numerous insider anecdotes parading his decades of great experience while Obama was doing school homework, and ending by seemingly showing open contempt for the punk, calling an Obama presidency dangerous; Obama walks into it by agreeing with McCain eight different times, making it look like he was getting a diplomacy lesson on camera; meanwhile few minds were changed, but Obama's knack of keeping his cool under pressure and quick learning ability showed many that he could handle the job of CIC after all; too bad, McCain misses Obama's real con game, that he loves to agree with the Dem. Party, and indeed can't say no, and is little more than a front for it, the party hoping he will let them design and pass a whole 21st Cent. New Deal and have him just rubberstamp it, creating a virtual 1-party nation for several years; McCain started out unable to say no to the Repub. Party but has evolved into a maverick to the extent that he can say no to it and work with Dems. when he thinks it's to the benefit of the nation of the whole, or is that just a ploy? On Sept. 27 a car bombing in Damascus, Syria near security offices kills 17, becoming the deadliest attack in decades. On Sept. 29 after days of wheeling-dealing accompanied by popular protest at "bailing out Wall Street", and sneers at its architect, U.S. treasury secy. (since 2006) bald (Treasuredome?) Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr. (1946-), (former CEO of Goldman-Sachs, who is himself worth $500M+, and is not a Jew but a Christian Scientist), the $700B "economic rescue" program" to buy the toxic mortgages from the banks in the hopes that one day they will make the govt. a profit (as if there won't be a massive vandalism of the "Bush houses", stripping most of them to the ground?) is defeated in the House by 228-205, causing the Dow to drop by 666, er, 777.68 points, costing shareholders $1T, followed by Pres. Bush appealing for them to go back and reverse their votes; every stock on the Standard & Poor's 500 drops except Campbell Soup Co.; too bad, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi goofs by giving a speech before the vote blaming the crisis on the Bush admin., giving several Repubs. an excuse to switch their vote to no; on Sept. 29 Wachovia announces that it is selling its banking operations to Citigroup for $2.2B; on Sept. 30 the House takes off for the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year), while the Dow rallies by 485.21 points on news that a new House vote will be taken afterwards; Merrill Lynch, which went for $75 a share a year ago, now goes for $29 a share; on Oct. 1 the Senate beats them to it, passing the bailout package by 74-25, even though it is loaded with earmarks (pork), and on Oct. 3 it finally passes the House by 263-171, and Pres. Bush signs it 1 hour later; on Nov. 13 Henry Paulson flip-flops and announces that the govt. will not purchase troubled bank assets - suckahs? On Sept. 29 a Hindu terrorist attack in Malegaon in Maharashtra state is a response to Muslim terrorism. On Sept. 30 a cowlike stampede at the Chamunda Devi Temple in Jodhpur, India kills 168 and injures 425, mostly men and boys, after devotees break coconuts for offerings, making the floor slippery. On Sept. 30, 2008 Swedish critic Horace Oscar Axel Endahl (1948-) top member of the Nobel Lit. Prize award jury utters the soundbyte that it's no coincidence that most winners are Euros, because "You can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world... not the United States", which is "too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialog of literature"; New Yorker ed. David Remnick responds that the Swedish Academy "has historically overlooked Proust, Joyce, and Nabokov... spare us the categorical lectures", and drops the names of Philip Roth (1933-), John Updike (1932-2009), and Don DeLillo (1936-); Nat. Book Awards dir. Harold Augenbraum adds that he'd like to send the bum a reading list of U.S. lit. In Sept. Russian gen. Nikolai Makarov visits Raul Castro in Havana, and offers to modernize their old Soviet-installed weapons systems and reactiatve their electronic eavesdropping station on Lourdes Island in return for using Cuba as a base to refuel Russian bombers and as a port for its warships. In Sept. Nigerian imam Mohammed Bello Abubakar (1922-), who chucked Sharia and married 86 wives and had 170 children and ended up arrested and sentenced to death for violating Sharia, gets out of it by divorcing 82 of them -one time when Sharia almost makes sense? On Oct. 1 Russia permits hundreds of EU monitors to deploy in Georgia, while declaring a 4-mi.-wide buffer zone extending from South Ossetia off-limits. On Oct. 1 the Russian Supreme Court rules that the Romanov family was a victim of political repression, and restores the Romanov name; the Russian Orthodox Church had already canonized Tsar Nicholas II and his family - clearing the way for Tsar Vladimir Putin? On Oct. 2 the Pew Hispanic Center announces that illegal immigration has dropped from 800K a year to about 500K a year since 2005, trailing legal immigration for the first time, while the total number has decreased from 12.4M in 2007 to 11.9M this year - give or take another 12M? On Oct. 2 the widely-viewed (70M viewers) Biden-Palin Debate surprisingly doesn't turn into a fiasco for Palin, who holds her own and shows debating experience, her biggest soundbytes being "Say it ain't so, Joe" and "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear"; while Biden seemingly forgets to boost Obama rather than himself several times; the expected self-destruction of Palin not materializing, the race is back to the pres. candidates. On Oct. 3 Pres. Bush signs the 2008 U.S. Child Soldiers Accountability Act, prohibiting the recruitment or use of child soldiers, designating those who recruit them as inadmissible aliens, and allowing their deportation. On Oct. 3 Canadian-Am. "Bobos in Paradise" Jewish author David Brooks (1961-) calls Sarah Palin a "fatal cancer to the Republican Party", but calls McCain and Obama "the two best candidates we've had in a long time". ' On Oct. 3 British PM Gordon Brown reshuffles the cabinet to create the Dept. of Energy and Climate Change to supervise the decommissioning of the country's nuclear sites, with British Labour Party leader (son of Polish Jewish immigrants) Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (1969-) as secy. of state for energy and climate change #1 (until May 11, 2010), announcing on Oct. 16 that the govt. will pledge itself to cut greenhouse emissions by 80% by 2050 rather than 60% as previously announced; in Mar. 2009 Miliband attends the U.K. debut of the pro-AGW film "The Age of Stupid", where star Pete Postlethwait ambushes him and pressures him into changing the govt.'s policy on coal-fired power stations, requiring them to capture 25% of their emissions immediately, and 100% by 2025; in 2009 he represents the U.K. at the Copenhagen Summit, pledging $10B/year to fight climate change, growing to $100B/year in 2020, blaming China for keeping the conference from reaching a legally binding agreement, which China denies, accusing Britain of a "political scheme". On Oct. 4 after the polls showing Obama making inroads in key battleground states, Sarah Palin gives a speech in Englewood, Colo., saying the "gloves are off, the heels are on", and digging up Obama's past associations with Weather Underground Org. co-founder (hubby of Bernardine Dohrn) William Charles "Bill" Ayers (1944-), who once planned to bomb the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol; Obama responds that his associations were slight and the bad stuff all happened when he was eight years old. Hold on, just a little bit tighter baby? On Oct. 6 Indian-Am. mechanical engineer and Wharton School grad. Neel T. Kashkari (1973-) is appointed by U.S. treasury sec. Hank Paulson as the federal bailout chief (until ?); too bad, despite the big bailout, the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. plummets 800 points, then partially recovers but closes down by 386.88 points, sinking below the 10K mark (lowest since 2004), after which stock markets throughout the world also tank, then on Oct. 7 the Dow Jones (which hit a high of 14,164 on Oct. 9, 2007) plummets another 508.39 points, for a total of 1.4K points in 2 weeks (lowest since 2003), after which the govt. reveals that it actually spent $800B bailing out Lehman Brothers, AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac etc. before the additional $700B bailout for Wall Street was voted in, and injected another $99B into the short term money market before the stock market opened, to no avail; on Oct. 9 (Thur.) it plummets another 678.91 points, closing at 8,579.19, then on Oct. 10 (Fri.) it see-saws by 1K points, closing down another 128 points; meanwhile superthieves incl. Robert Edward Rubin (1938-) of Citicorp, Richard Severin Fuld Jr. (1946-) of Lehman Bros., and Franklin Delano "Frank" Raines (1949-) of Fannie Mae, who made millions as they drove their institutions into bankruptcy get off without criminal prosecution, stinking the U.S. up and stirring memories of the fall of ancient Rome; on Oct. 5 (Sun.) Fuld is punched in the face and knocked out in the Lehman Bros. gym. after the bankruptcy announcement. On Oct. 6 U.S. military judge Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann grants terrorism suspects at Gitmo the right to laptop computers; it is later revealed that they had been using them earlier. On Oct. 6 The Daily Beast (after the fictional newspaper in Evelyn Waugh's 1938 novel "Scoop") U.S. news Web site is founded by Tina Brown; in Nov. 2010 it merges with Newsweek. On Oct. 7 the Second McCain-Obama Debate in Nashville, Tenn. is a boring push overshadowed by the looming collapse of the U.S. and world economies. On Oct. 9 a bomb in Baghdad kills Iraqi lawmaker Saleh al-Auqaeili (b. 1967), former spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr. On Oct. 9 a suicide bomber in Islamabad, Pakistan carrying a box of sweets wrecks a residential bldg. housing anti-terrorism police, injuring six officers; another roadside bomb in Pakistan hits a police bus carrying prisoners, while a U.S. unmanned aircraft kills nine near the Afghan border. On Oct. 9 Russian PM Vladimir Putin receives a 2-mo.-old 20 lb. Ussuri tiger cub for his birthday. On Oct. 10 the Conn. Supreme Court legalizes gay marriage. On Oct. 10 the panel investigating gov. Sarah Palin anounces that she abused her power but didn't break any laws in getting her former brother-in-law fired - here's the new deal, bucko, you do as I say? On Oct. 11 Peru's chief cabinet minister Jorge del Castillo resigns along with 16 colleagues in an oil kickback scandal, and on Oct. 12 leftist Yehude Simon (1927-) replaces him. On Oct. 11 zonked Pres. Bush removes North Korea from its terrorism blacklist, pissing-off Japan, 70-80 of whose citizens were kidnapped by North Korea from 1977-83, giving them a permanent grudge. On Oct. 11 Iraqi officials admit that 3K Christians have fled Mosul to escape Muslim extemist attacks in the past week; on Oct. 24 thousands more Christians flee Mosul, causing the U.N. to send relief. On Oct. 11 Gibson Square Publishing of Britain announces that it is postponing pub. of the novel "The Jewel of Medina" by Am. author Sherry Jones (about one of Prophet Muhammad's wives) after its offices were firebombed. On Oct. 11 (p.m.) a 5.9 earthquake hits Russia's N Caucasus region, killing four. On Oct. 11 the first annual Skepticon convention for atheists and skeptics is held in Springfield, Mo. by Mo. State U. students J.T. Eberhard and Lauren Lane. On Oct. 13 after the U.S. govt. announces that it will buy $250B equity in banks instead of just buying their toxic mortgages, and seven European nations unite to put $2.3T in banks, the Dow Jones rebounds bigtime by 936 points, recouping $1.2T of the $2.4T in lost shareholder equity; meanwhile Morgan Stanley saves itself with a $9B line of credit from a major Japanese bank after its shares plunged 60% last week; meanwhile in just a few weeks Washington D.C. becomes the new financial capital of the U.S., supplanting New York City; meanwhile on Oct. 13 Am. Jewish economist Paul Robin Krugman (1952-) of Princeton U., known for relentless criticism of the Bush admin. incl. the $700B bailout, who calls the Repub. Party "the party of the stupid" and John McCain "more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago" is awarded the Nobel Econ. Prize solo (first time since 2000). On Oct. 13 Barack Obama tells Joe the Plumber that he wants to "spread the wealth around", which the McCain campaign jumps on as proof that he is a Socialist; meanwhile McCain proposes buying up the toxic mortgages from homeowners and letting them renegotiate them, while Obama proposes a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures. On Oct. 13 election officials in Ohio begin investigating the Dem. Party pumper-uper ACORN (Assoc. of Community Orgs. for Reform Now) (founded 1970) for voter fraud after one voter admits to signing 73 voter registration forms in 5 mo.; it has registered 1.3M, mainly poor and blacks for the 2008 election, and been investigated in several states. On Oct. 14 Canadian PM (since 2006) Stephen Harper is reelected, but his Conserative Party falls short of a majority in Parliament. On Oct. 14 a U.S. soldier is shot dead in W Baghdad, making news for being the first U.S. combat death in the city in two weeks. On Oct. 14 5'7" 275 lb. Richard Wade Cooey II (b. 1967) is executed for the killing of two U. of Akron students on Sept. 1, 1986, becoming the first to die by lethal injection in Ohio in more than a year; his plea that he was too fat to be executed humanely by lethal injected was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court and Grill. On Oct. 14 the Internat. Conference on Religion in the Modern World opens in Tehran, Iran. On Oct. 15 three New York City police officers allegedly sodomize Michael Mineo with a police baton on a subway platform in Flatbush, Brooklyn and try to cover it up, getting off all charges with a jury, after which Mineo sues the city on May 28, 2009 for $220M. On Oct. 16 the Third (Last) McCain-Obama Debate features McCain's soundbyte "If you wanted to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago", and both of them dropping the name Joe the Plumber 16x total, really Samuel Joseph "Joe" Wurzelbacher (1973-) of Holland Ohio. On Oct. 18 nine Chinese workers are kidnapped in the Kordofan region of SW Sudan by rebels who want China (which buys two-thirds of all Sudanese oil) out, after which two hostages flee and five are executed on Oct. 27. On Oct. 18 Giada at Home debuts on Food Network (until ?), starring Italian chef Giada de Laurentiis (1970-). On Oct. 19 Colin Powell announces that he's backing Obama, citing McCain's choice of running mate and the rightward turn of the Repub. Party, dissing rumors that Obama's a secret Muslim with the soundbyte: "Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in America?... Is there something wrong with some 7-y.-o. Muslim-American kid believing that he could be president?" - yes, the Quran? On Oct. 19 Taliban militants seize a civilian bus in Kandahar Province and execute two dozen passengers, some by beheading. On Oct. 21 India launches Chandrayaan-1 (Sansk. "Moon Craft") from the Sriharikota Space Center in S India on a 2-year mission to map the lunar surface, plus to prove that backward India has arrived in the Space Race? On Oct. 22 Elizabeth II visits the famous Lipizzaner stud farm in Lipica, Slovenia, and is presented with a Lipizzaner horse. On Oct. 22-29 the 104th (2008) World Series sees the Philadelphia Phillies (NL) (mgr. Charlie Manuel) defeat the Tampa Bay Rays (AL) (mgr. John Maddon) 4-1. On Oct. 23 a suicide bomber drives into a Shiite govt. minister's convoy during morning rush hour in Baghdad, killing 11 and wounding 22. On Oct. 24 the bodies of black singer Jennifer Hudson's mother Darnell Donerson (b. 1951) and her son Jason Hudson (b. 1979) are found inside their S Chicago, Ill. home, followed by the body of her grandson Julian King (b. 2001) on Oct. 27; on Oct. 28 convicted felon William Balfour, estranged husband of Jennifer's sister is suspected. On Oct. 24-25 Barack Obama takes off campaigning to go to Hawaii to visit his ailing white grandmother Madelyn Lee Payne "Toot" Dunham (1922-2008), who went without new clothes to help him pay for college tuition; she dies on Nov. 2, two days before the election; on Oct. 25 he's back it, denying a statement John McCain made that he's like George Bush. On Oct. 25 Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez puts in his two centavos worth and calls Sarah Palin a "poor thing" and a "beauty queen that they've put in the role of a figurine" who doesn't know what she's talking about when she calls him a dictator. On Oct. 26 with a week to go before the elections, a transcript from a Jan. 18, 2001 public radio show is dredged up where Barack Obama muses on using the U.S. Supreme Court to socialistically redistribute wealth, giving the Repubs. a last chance to swing the polls, which are already going against them badly, while Obama's campaign has endless megabucks to spend for mood ads; the Dems. try to spin it as innocuous; is O Mama really promising to take the $10B per mo. going to the Iraq War and, instead of cutting off the expense tab after pulling out, think he's got a mandate to redistribute that to social welfare programs, forever? On Oct. 26 Colombian lawmaker Oscar Tulio Lizcano (1947-) escapes from leftist rebels after eight years in captivity. On Oct. 26 nine policemen kidnapped by Shirani tribesmen in Dera Ismail Khan in Pakistan near the Afghan border are released; on Oct. 27 a U.S. missile hits the house of a Taliban cmdr. there, killing 20. On Oct. 26 a U.S. Cobra heli attack on a bldg. in Syria near the Iraq border kills eight, incl. a top al-Qaida operative, pissing-off the Syrian govt., which on Oct. 28 closes the Am. School and U.S. cultural center in Damascus. On Oct. 26 a congregation of 5K Christian Copts are attacked by a hate-filled Muslim mob in Minya, Upper Egypt after trying to repair their church tower. On Oct. 27 severe flooding in Yemen caused by Tropical Depression ARB 02 kills 65 and displaces 20K. On Oct. 27 Am. feminist Erica Jong gives an interview to the Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera", telling them that if Barack Obama loses the pres. election, "it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets." On Oct. 27 federal agents claim to thwart a plot by two white skinheads to attack an African-Am. high school and kill 88 blacks and decapitate 14 more, as well as assassinate Barack Obama. On Oct. 28 former Detroit, Mich. black mayor (2002-8) Kwame Mailik Kilpatrick (1970-) gets 4 mo. in jail for obstruction of justice for lying about his affair with his chief of staff in a civil lawsuit in 2007 and assaulting a sheriff's detective, and is ordered to pay $1M in restitution. On Oct. 28 Congolese rebels under gen. Laurent Nkunda break a Jan. U.N.-brokered ceasefire and advance toward Goma, sending tens of thousands fleeing, firing on civilians. On Oct. 29 Barack Obama airs a $3M 30 min. infomercial on U.S. TV, viewed by 30M; meanwhile John McCain and Sarah Palin criticize the Los Angeles Times for withholding a 2003 event in which Obama praises Palestinian scholar (Columbia U. prof.) Rashid Khalidi, and McCain claims that an Obama presidency would hurt both the economy and the nat. security, saying "At least when European nations chose the path of higher taxes and cutting defense, they knew that their security would still be guaranteed by America. But if America takes the same path, who will guarantee our security?"; meanwhile the 16M early voters so far go 59-40 for Obama, while U.S. gasoline prices fall 25.8 cents to a nat. avg. of $2.65 (first time to drop below 2007 levels), and oil falls toward $60 a barrel - proof that Obama is a secret Muslim, and his Muslim oil buddies want him to get elected, or he's just lucky like Oswald? On Oct. 29 the 6.4 SW Pakistan Earthquake kills 170 and leaves thousands homeless; meanwhile the Pakistani govt. files a formal protest against U.S. missile attacks in tribal areas and demands that they be stopped. On Oct. 30 a Taliban suicide bomber in a govt. ministry in C Kabul, Afghanistan kills five and injures 12. On Oct. 31 Philip J. Berg became the first to try to get the federal courts to order pres.-elect Obama to produce his birth certificate by Dec. 1 before the electoral college met on Dec. 13; assuming rightly that the U.S. Supreme Court will refuse to hear the case, Obama ignores them, later releasing the infamous computer-generated certification (not certificate) of live birth (and not birth certificate - three different things) that was "filed" (not necessarily accepted) by registrar (or the state) to end the standoff, keeping the real certificate of live birth under lock and key and leaving the issue at the current impasse. In Oct. Am. porno star Lisa Ann (1972-) stars as Repub. candidate Serra Paylin in the XXX film Who's Nailin' Paylin by Larry Flynt's Hustler Mag., featuring her doing the lezzie thing with impersonators of Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice - some kind of historical thread comes full circle here? On Nov. 2 the Chinese govt. destroys 3.6K tons of animal feed tainted with melamine; meanwhile on Oct. 3 the U.S. FDA sets 2.5M ppm as a safe level for melamine in food for adults - enough to make me into a vegetarian? On Nov. 3 a U.S. airstrike in West Baghtu in Kandahar Province hits a wedding party, killing 36, incl. 10 women and 23 children, causing Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai on Nov. 5 to plead the allies to try harder to avoid injuring noncombatants, saying "We cannot win the fight against terrorism with airstrikes", adding "This is my first demand of the new president". On Nov. 3 Israel sends a cable to the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv telling them that they are working to keep Gaza's economy "functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis", as revealed in 2010 by WikiLeaks. On Nov. 4 (Tues.) (election day) the New Black Panther Party is filmed intimidating voters at polling stations in Philly, causing the U.S. Dept. of Justice to file a lawsuit, which the Obama admin. later drops even though they had won the suit by default when the defendants refused to answer the charges, pissing-off Repubs. - Obama doesn't trust the pigs to patrol polling places and make sure all blacks voted for him and not his white opponent? Another I-remember-where-I-was moment for Americans? On Nov. 4 (Tues.) with the tanking U.S. economy widely blamed on the Repub. Party, and Obama (campaign slogans: "Change we can believe in", "Yes we can", "No drama") running the best-financed pres. campaign in U.S. history ($745M vs. $350M in contributions) ($11 for each Obama vote) after flip-flopping on a promise to take only govt. funding from Sept. on, while McCain kept his promise and had to stop taking contributions in Sept. after accepting $84.1M in public campaign money (spending $150K on clothing for Palin) (while Obama raises $150M in Sept. alone), the 2008 U.S. Pres. Election (first in which neither major party candidate had been U.S. pres. or vice-pres. since 1952) is a V for Hawaii Sen. Barack Obama over Ariz. Sen. John McCain (131M of 197M eligible voters vote) (52.9%-45.7%, 365-173 electoral votes, 28-22 states, 69.5M vs. 59.9M votes) (most votes in history, vs. 62M for Bush in 2004) (first pres. candidate two split the electoral votes of Neb.), marked by joyful tearful celebrations in the streets all over the U.S., esp. by blacks, with only 43% of white voters voting for him, although 60% of Obama supporters are white, and only 74% of the voters in the election are white, and Obama gets 40% of the white men; 95% of black voters go for guess who (don't call it a racist vote, it's a spiritual thing, a first, it's history?), 67% of Hispanic voters, and 78% of Jewish voters (vs. 74% for Kerry in 2004), who were treated to "The Great Schlep", in which Jews flew to Fla. to talk their Jewish grandparents into voting for him; young voters go for Obama 2-1, and the Repub. turnout is the lowest since 1976; for the first time, young black voters ages 25-44 have the highest percentage turnout (64%, vs. 62.2% for white, 47.3% for Asian, and 47.7% for Hispanic); Obama wins contested states Penn., Ohio and N.M., which swings it; the Sarah Palin chess move fizzles with women, as 56% go for McCain-Palin, incl. 82% of Hillary Clinton voters; and Joseph Biden becomes the first Roman Catholic vice-pres. to be elected; a record 70M watch election returns on TV, culiminating with the sight of a 125K (240K) crowd at Grant Park off Lake Michigan in Chicago, Ill. gathering to hear his victory speech, where he utters the soundbytes "Change has come to America", "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer", and "The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there"; Jesse Jackson openly weeps; John McCain gives a concession speech which shows his big heart, with the soundbytes "The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly", "This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight", "I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president, and I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here"; he promised his daughters Malia Ann and Sasha a new puppy if he won, making a big deal about it; 106-y.-o. African-Am. Ann Louise Nixon Cooper (1902-2009), who knew MLK Jr. and voted for him in Oct. and was called by him specially is given special notice in the speech, then dies on Dec. 21; the U.S. enters a new era where the young and the increasing numbers of non-whites can swing nat. elections, the culmination of decades of mass brainwashing for the equality of races by Jewyweird, with Obama being their rabbit, a political Sidney Poitier (who always had to be apolitical, asexual to white people and help them out), only now he gets to be political, as long as it's on the left, and has to have a supporting cast of whites and Jews; the grate powah of Hollyweird was rolled out bigtime to elect Obama, evidenced by daytime TV shows "Oprah Winfrey", "The View" et al., plus nighttime shows such "24" (featuring black pres. David Palmer, played by Dennis Haysbert), and "Saturday Night Live", which pulled out all stops to caricature Sarah Palin as an unqualified nitwit; too bad, he has to give his victory speech behind a bulletproof screen, as white supremacists blow their gaskets and vow to kill him; the Obama V causes a massive positive reaction worldwide, changing America's failing image instantly; meanwhile the V causes a run on gun stores as a belief he will outlaw guns spreads (he has promised to outlaw automatics), and Roman Catholic priest Jay Scott Newman of Greenevile, S.C. warns parishoners to refrain from receiving Holy Communion if they voted for Obama because he supports abortion, and claims that voting for him "constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil"; in the days before his inauguration the U.S. liberal media began painting his legacy as the new Abraham Lincoln; too bad, I-shake-my-little-tush-on-the-catwalk Obama is what they used to call a mulatto, half-and-half, which until modern times neither the white nor black communities would accept, but luckily he looks more black than white (them ears, them ears), and the black community enthusiastically claims him as their own, although he has no Am. slave ancestry like other U.S. black leaders, and the warm misty feeling even white Ams. have for him conveniently glosses over the massive failure of African-Ams. in crime, education and economic status; meanwhile many Americans are scared of Obama because of his prior alignment with radical extremists, covered-up background, and Socialist leanings; a 100% black slave-descended U.S. pres. still may not happen in their lifetimes, stay tuned? - and where is "there"? Strange bedfellows? On Nov. 4 after enthusiastic support by the Roman Catholic Church and LDS Church, whose members contribute $20M, Calif. Proposition 8 is passed by 52.2%-47.8%, making same-sex marriage illegal, invalidating 18K marriages made over 4 mo. and causing protests to begin; after a court challenge, on May 26, 2009 the Calif. Supreme Court rules the proposition constitutional but lets the marriages stand because it didn't explicitly nullify them; in Aug. 2010 federal judge Vaughn Walker rules the amendment unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. On Nov. 4 the 2007 U.S. Nat. Elections give Dems. nine more seats in the U.S. House (regaining control) and five more seats in the U.S. Senate, not enough to override Repub. filibusters and steamroller through anything they want, creating a de facto 1-party system at the nat. level, yet - it is time for them to have their turn so they can screw things up too? On Nov. 4-6 Pope Benedict XVI and 25 Catholic scholars meet with 25 Muslim clerics and scholars in the Vatican who are pissed-off at his baptism of a prominent Egyptian-born Muslim last Easter in St. Peter's, his 2006 statements on Islam, etc., with the pope telling them they must overcome their misunderstandings - just give up Muhammad? no, you give up Christ? On Nov. 5 rebels led by Laurent Nkunda capture Kiwanja, Congo, killing 20 and wounding 33, then order the 30K pop. to leave town. On Nov. 5 just hours after Obama is elected pres. Michael Jacques (1984-) and two other white men who are pissed-off at the result set fire to the under-construction Macedonia Church of God in Springfield, Mass. On Nov. 6 pres.-elect Barack Obama selects former Pres. Clinton adviser and board member of Freddie Mac (2000-1), U.S. rep. (D-Ill.) (since 2003) Rahm (Heb. "lofty") Israel Emanuel (Heb. "God is with us") (1959-) (an ardent Zionist) (Ramses Emanuel?) (Rahm wasn't built in a day?) as his chief staff (until Oct. 1, 2010); his pediatrician father Dr. Benjamin Emanuel (former member of Irgun) is reported by The Jerusalem Post as saying the appointment will be good for Israel, adding "What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floors of the White House" - just when you thought the Jewish conspiracy theory was exploded by "Arab" Obama's nomination and election? On Nov. 6 the Gazan al-Qaida-linked org. Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad (Jahafil Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad fi Filastin) (Armies of Monotheism and Jihad in Palestine) is formed; in Apr. 2006 they staged the Dahab bombings in Egypt; on Feb. 5, 2011 leader Sheikh 'Ahed Ahmad 'Abd Al-Karim Al-Sa'idani (AKA Abu al-Walid al-Maqdisi) posts a fatwa declaring that Jews and Christians may be targeted in 9/11-type attacks because they are "fundamentally not innocent" and "aggressive combatants", and that it's okay to hurt Muslims in such attacks because otherwise "this would mean stopping the jihad"; on Mar. 2, 2011 Hamas arrests al-Maqdisi, and in retaliation on Apr. 14, 2011 they kidnap Italian pro-Palestinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni (b. 1975) in Gaza, then kill him on Apr. 15 when their ransom demands aren't met. On Nov. 6-7 70+ Saudis stage the first hunger strike in Saudi Arabia to protest the jailing of 11 dissidents. On Nov. 6 insurgents in NW Pakistan stage two suicide bombings against counterinsurgents, killing 19 and wounding dozens; meanwhile the Pakistani govt. announces the killing of 15 insurgents in an aerial bombardment. On Nov. 7 a fierce winter storm dumps 4 ft. in the Dakotas. On Nov. 7 a the College La Promesse in Petionville, Haiti suddenly collapses, killing 89, mostly students - it doesn't take much to ruin a moment like this? On Nov. 8 Category 3 Hurricane Paloma slams into S Cuba near Santa Cruz del Sur, causing hundreds of thousands to flee. On Nov. 8 a nuclear-powered Russian navy sub has an accident during a test run, killing 20+. On Nov. 8 Merrill Lynch currency trader John Phillip Key (1961-) of the conservative Nat. Party easily defeats left-wing bad-teeth PM (since 1999) Helen Clark, becoming PM #38 of New Zealand (until ?), promising to undo her greenhouse gas emission trading scheme. On Nov. 8 6K Muslim clerics in India approve a fatwa against terrorism at a conference in Hyderabad; the Indian supreme court issues a ban on fatwas, then lifts it on May 12, 2011 with the proviso that extralegal punishments are still illegal, and that only "propertly educated persons" may dispense fatwas that may be "accepted only voluntarily". On Nov. 9 (Sun.) Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan (1933-) gives a sermon titled "America's New Beginning", admitting he kept quiet for 9 mo. to help Obama get elected. On Nov. 9 Canadian reporter Melissa Fung is released after four weeks in captivity in Afghanistan, saying they held her in a small underground cave. On Nov. 10 pres.-elect Barack Obama visits the White House, where Pres. Bush gives him a look around (only too glad to give him the keys and get outta there before the fit hits the shan?); meanwhile Obama's 48 transition advisers reveal a list of 200 admin. actions and executive orders he plans on making to reverse Bush policies on climate change, stem-cell research, reproductive rights et al., incl. abolishing POW camps Delta and Echo at Guantanamo Bay; lame duck Pres. Bush's approval rating stays at a lame 24%, the most unpopular pres. since they're-coming-to-take-me-away-ha-ha Nixon. On Nov. 10 Sarah Palin blames the GOP defeat on the Bush admin., saying "How did we run up a $10 trillion debt in a Republican administration?", and "It's amazing that we did as well as we did." In Nov. 10 New York Times correspondent David Stephenson Rohde (1967-) is kidnapped S of Kabul by the Taliban along with Afghan reporter Tahir Ludin (1964-); they scale a wall and escape next year in the N Waziristan region of Pakistan after 7 mo. 10 days; meanwhile the NYT blacks out coverage to aid them, although they regularly refuse to heed federal govt. requests to black out news on the specific ways in which it combats terrorists. On Nov. 11 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announce a plan to allow mortgage holders to get reduced interest rates and longer terms to keep them from foreclosure; too bad, this covers only 20% of delinquent mortgages. On Nov. 11 Am. Hollyweird celeb Lindsay Lohan (a supporter) calls pres.-elect Barack Obama America's "first colored president" on "Access Hollywood", pissing-off the PC police; she actually mumbles and might have said good president? On Nov. 11 moderate Muslim Mohamed Nasheed (1967-), founder of the Maldivian Dem. Party becomes pres. of Maldives (until ?). On Nov. 12 U.S. treasury secy. Henry Paulson gives a news conference, saying "The facts changed and the situation worsened", calling for using bailout money to help consumers rather than financial institutions; the news causes the Dow to fall by 411.3 points. On Nov. 12 U.S. authorities announce that a supply convoy for the 65K allied forces in Afghanistan was hijacked by Taliban fighters near the Khyber Pass. On Nov. 12 ex-U.S. Border Patrol agent Jose Alonso Compean (José Alonso Compeán) (1976-) receives a 10-year sentence for shooting unarmed drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete Davila in 2006 and trying to cover it up, causing cries for Pres. Bush to grant him amnesty; meanwhile Davila gets 10 years for smuggling and nobody cares; Compean is granted an early prison release by Bush on Jan. 19, 2009. On Nov. 12 the Taliban attacks Afghan schoolgirls in Kandahar for daring to get educated, splashing battery acid on them and hurting 11 girls and four teachers; after a worldwide outcry, 10 Talibanis are arrested on Nov. 25. On Nov. 12 Reventador Volcano 55 mi. NE of Quito, Ecuador begins erupting; it last revented itself in Oct. 2007. On Nov. 12 Paula Goodspeed (b. 1980), an obsessive fan of Paula Abdul (1962-) (who bears a slight resemblance to her and once tried out for "American Idol" Season 5, displaying a voice like a parrot in pain) commits suicide in her parked car outside Abdul's home; her license plate reads "ABL LV". On Nov. 12 a U.N. Interfaith Conference sees Israeli pres. Shimon Peres shake hands with Egyptian grand shiek Mohammed Sayed Tantawi (1928-2010), causing a firestorm of criticism in the Muslim world, after which Tantawi says he didn't know it was him. On Nov. 13 senior diplomats from Germany plus the five permanent U.S. security members Britain, China, France, Russia, and the U.S. hold a conclave in Paris to discuss fast-tracking new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program that have been stalled. On Nov. 13 (10 a.m.) the pop. of S Calif. stages the Great ShakeOut, an earthquake drill, becoming the largest in history. On Nov. 13 pranksters distribute thousands of free copies of the New York Times with a prank headline that the U.S. Iraq War and Afghanistan War have ended; it is actually dated July 4, 2009 and describes the Obama Utopia with nat. health care, a rebuilt economy, higher progressive taxes, a nat. oil fund to study climate change et al. On Nov. 13 Sarah Palin addresses the Repub. Governors Assoc. meeting in Miami, Fla., admitting that the Repub. are the "minority party", and asking her fellow Repub. governors to keep new Pres. Obama in check, saying that if the new Congress should "err on the side of excess taxes, we have to show them the way"; of course, she is leaving her options open for 2012, saying "It's crazy to close a door before you know what's even open in front of you"; meanwhile Dem. officials leak the info. that Hillary Clinton is being considered by Obama for secy. of state. On Nov. 13 the London Times reports that an 8K-member Bedouin tribe in Bir al-Maksour, Galilee, Israel claims that Barack Obama is a lost member. On Nov. 14 the 15 euro-using EU countries announce that they're in a recession; meanwhile on Nov. 15 the G-20 representing 85% of the world economy and 67% of the pop. meet, and agree to a broad range of solutions, leaving the details to be worked out in the spring - after Obama's first 100 days are over? On Nov. 14 Ann E. Dunwoody (1953-) becomes the first female U.S. 4-star gen., breaking the legendary brass ceiling; the photo opp shows her woo-wooing on the shoulder of her hubby Col. Craig Brotchie? On Nov. 15 U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that the House will aid the ailing U.S. auto industry, which has been seeking $25B in loans, as long as it meets new fuel-efficiency standards, begins producing advanced vehicles, and restructures itself "to ensure their long-term economic viability"; too bad, the loan gets hung up after it is revealed that they really need many times that and would be better off filing for bankruptcy to reorganize and try to stay afloat amid global competition, although who would want to buy a vehicle from them when they might not be around when parts and service are needed?; meanwhile foreign automakers employ tens of thousands of workers in dozens of auto plants in the U.S., and are in rosy financial condition - the ultimate oldies but goodies collection? On Nov. 16 Barack Obama officially resigns his U.S. Senate seat, while staying ensconced in Chicago, claiming that he won't exercise his influence until he is sworn-in next Jan. 20 - because he's the fastest blackberry ever? On Nov. 16 after a suicide car bomber hits a U.S. convoy in Herat, Afghanistan, wounding two soldiers, and insurgent attacks go up 30% compared to 2007, Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai invites the Taliban to talks, offering protection, and saying that the U.S. can leave the country or try to oust him if they don't like it. On Nov. 16 the Colombian govt. begins emergency measures to appease irate victims of the Proyecciones DRFE pyramid scheme that suckered 600B pesos by promising 150% returns, and caused rioting in 13 towns when the owner Carlos Alfredo Suarez took the dough and skipped the country. On Nov. 17 Jerry Yang announces that he's resigning as CEO of Yahoo.com after a replacement is found, a probable move to get Microsoft to make another buyout offer. On Nov. 17 Pirate Alley in Somalia heats up again when Somalian pirates dodge warships to hijack Saudi supertanker MV Sirius Star, carrying $100M in oil, causing several major nations to begin rerouting tankers the long way around Africa. On Nov. 17 top Israeli Mafia kingpin "Don" Yaakov Alperon (b. 1955) is killed in Tel Aviv by a car bomb set by a rival gang. On Nov. 18 the Dem. Caucus votes to keep side-switcher Joe Liebermann - Mission: Impossible: Get Obama Elected worked? On Nov. 19 al-Qaida deputy Ayman al-Zawahri posts a letter on the Internet insulting Barack Obama, calling him, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice "house Negroes" - duh, he's da head of da house now? On Nov. 20 U.S. district judge Richard Leon releases 50 Guantanomo Bay Algerian prisoners after rejecting govt. claims that they are enemy combatants, becoming a first. Speaking of Barack Obama, he's already become president and begun his 100 days before Thanksgiving Turkey Bush leaves office? On Nov. 21 (Fri.) Barack Obama announces that he's picking Hillary Clinton to be his secy. of state (which by now is a woman's job?), and former N.Y. Federal Reserve Bank chief (since 2003) Timothy Franz "Tim" Geithner (1961-) (former chmn. of the Bank for Internat. Settlements) to be his treasury secy., the news causing the Dow Jones to surge upward 494 points, above the 8K mark, which it fell below on Nov. 19; meanwhile U.S. gasoline prices fall below $2 after peaking at $4.11 four mo. earlier. On Nov. 21 hours after a Shia cleric is killed, a bomb explodes at a funeral of a Shia Muslim in Dera Ismail Khan in lawless NW Pakistan (near Waziristan), killing six. On Nov. 22 Rashid Rauf (b. 1981) (a British citizen) and Abu Zubair al-Masri (a Saudi militant) are killed by a U.S. missile raid in N Waziristan near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border; they had been linked to a jetliner bomb plot; meanwhile on Nov. 23 protests are staged in Islamabad calling for the severing of ties with the U.S. On Nov. 22 Barack Obama says that he is crafting a massive 2-year Socialist, er, stimulus program to revive the economy, which in his first of three straight news conferences on Nov. 24 he estimates to be a $500B-$600B bailout, announcing Lawrence "Larry" Summers (1954-) as head of the Nat. Economic Council (more powerful than Tim Geithner), although he was one of the key architects of the policies that led to the financial meltdown, and was the Harvard pres. who made remarks on Jan. 14, 2007 that there are innate differences between men and women that explain why fewer women succeed in science and math, getting him fired - explaining why Obama closed the glass ceiling of the White House on Hillary, because to work up here you gotta know math, witness the mess Bush made, and just think of the mess McCain-Palin woulda made? On Nov. 22 ex-U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter and others are denied entry to Zimbabwe for a humanitarian mission. On Nov. 22 the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) announces that talks have fallen through and it will "authorize" members to go on strike. On Nov. 23 the U.S. govt. announces a $306B bailout of Citigroup. On Nov. 24 after it was designated by the U.S. govt. as a terrorist org. and shut down and stripped of assets, and a federal grand jury in Dallas, Tex. indicts it in 2004, causing the largest terrorism financing prosecution in U.S. history (until ?), Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (originally the Occupied Land Fund) (founded 1989) in Richardson, Tex., largest Muslim charity in the U.S. is convicted of funneling millions of dollars to Hamas in 2008-9, a rare V for the Bush admin, giving five officers sentences of 15-65 years in prison in 2009 for funneling $12M to Hamas. On Nov. 24 thousands of protesters surround the Thai govt. HQ in Bangkok demanding the resignation of PM Somchai Wongsawat, who is in Peru for the Pacific Rim conference; on Nov. 25 the protests turn violent, causing the airport to be closed; on Nov. 30 several explosions in Bangkok wound 50 protesters; on Dec. 1 the constitutional court in Bangkok orders Wongsawat deposed and banned from politics for five years, and dissolves his People's Power Party - bad month for Yankee pedophiles? On Nov. 24 Chinese riot police suddenly take up posts in Xiahe, Tibet, while a court sentences a group of Tibetans for anti-govt. protests. On Nov. 25 the U.S. govt. announces that it is pumping $200B into the consumer credit market by guaranteeing securities backed by credit card debt and other loans; meanwhile the U.S. stock market bounces up and down like a rubber ball, and no permanent stability is in sight? On Nov. 26 the Climate Change Act of 2008 by the British Parliament is given royal assent, making it the duty of the secy. of state for energy and climate change to ensure that the net carbon account for all six Kyoto greenhouse gases for the year 2050 is at least 80% lower than the 1990 baseline, aiming to make the U.K. a low-carbon economy with ministers given powers to introduce measures to achieve a wide range of greenhouse gas reduction targets; an independent Committee on Climate Change is established; British journalist Christopher John Penrice Booker (1937-) calls the act "the most expensive piece of legislation ever put through Parliament", with projected costs in the hundreds of billions over 40 years; on Oct. 17, 2009 he pub. the bestseller The Real Global Warming Disaster: Is the Obsession with 'Climate Change' Turning Out to Be the Most Costly Scientific Blunder in History?, denying a scientific consensus on climate change, denying that it is manmade, and calling govt. measures to combat it "one of the most expensive, destructive, and foolish mistakes the human race has ever made", labeling it Groupthink, with British science writer Philip Ball (1962-) (ed. of Nature) in The Observer (a critic) calling it "the definitive climate skeptics' manual... [in which] he has rounded up just about every criticism ever made of the majority scientific view that global warming, most probably caused by human activity, is under way, and presented them unchallenged"; Ball reverses the Groupthink argument with the observation that to accept Booker's position one must believe: "1) Most of the world's climate scientists, for reasons unspecified, decided to create a myth about human-induced global warming and have managed to twist endless measurements and computer models to fit their case, without the rest of the scientific community noticing. George W Bush and certain oil companies have, however, seen through the deception. 2) Most of the world's climate scientists are incompetent and have grossly misinterpreted their data and models, yet their faulty conclusions are not, as you might imagine, a random chaos of assertions, but all point in the same direction." Will them Allah Akbars ever give up trying to go to paradise on the bloody backs of infidels? On Nov. 26-29 (India's 9/11) the 2008 Mumbai Attacks see well-equipped Pakistan-trained Muslim Thanksgiving turkey Lashkar-e-Taiba gunmen attack 10 sites, incl. three luxury hotels, a hospital, train station, and popular restaurant in India's financial capital of Mumbai (Bombay), India, targeting Westerners with U.S. and British passports, esp. Jews, killing 164 (incl. 28 foreigners, incl. six Americans) and injuring 308, holding Western hostages in the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel (founded 1903) (scene of horrible carnage) and Trident-Oberoi Hotel, plus the Nairman House Jewish community center (killing five, incl. a rabbi) while demanding the release of fellow Islamic militants before they are captured or killed by authorities; on Nov. 30 India's top domestic security official (patsy?) Shivraj Vishwanath Patil (1935-), home affairs minister since May 22, 2004 resigns, while U.S. secy. of state Condoleezza Rice is sent to India (are you sure you are keeping them nukes safe?); the sole terrorist survivor resigns, while U.S. secy. of state Condoleezza Rice is sent to India (are you sure you are keeping them nukes safe?); the sole terrorist survivor Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab (1987-2012) claims to be a member of Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (Urdu "army of the righteous") (founded in Kunar Province, Afghan; in 2010 he claims that they got training from Pakistan Navy frogmen; on Oct. 19 a report from India claims that Pakistan's intel agency was deeply involved in planning the attack, funding recon missions, incl. to the Bhabha Atomic Research Center. On Nov. 27 the Iraq govt. agrees to allow U.S. troops to stay three more years; on Apr. 11 2015 Lashkar-e-Taiba operations chief Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi (1959-), suspected mastermind is released by the Pakistan courts on bail pending trial, outraging India. On Nov. 29 NATO and Afghan troops kill 53 militants in Afghanistan, incl. Taliban cmdr. Haji Yakub, who was hiding behind a woman's burqa. On Nov. 29-30 the Roman Catholic Church holds its first beatification ceremony on Cuban soil for Jose Olallo Valdes (1820-89) of the Hospitaller Order of St. John. In Nov. the U.S. loses 533K jobs, the highest since 1978. On Dec. 1 (Mon.) the U.S. govt. officially admits that the U.S. economy is in a recession. On Dec. 1 it is revealed that India was alerted to the Mumbai plot in Sept., but gave up its vigilance program; on Dec. 9 alleged mastermind Zaki ur-Rehman (Zaki-ur-Rehman) Lakhavi (1956-) is arrested in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir; on Dec. 11 Pakistan shuts down the Islamic charity Jamat-ud-Dawa for backing the militants; David Coleman Headley (Daood Sayed Gilani) (1960-) of Chicago, Ill. is accused of scouting targets for the terrorists after he is arrested in Oct. 2009 along with Punjab, Pakistan-born Tahawwur Hussain Rana (1961-) of Canada and charged with plotting to attack the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Postn that pub. the Muhammad cartoons in 2005 along with retired Pakistani maj. Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed. On Dec. 2 GM and Chrysler execs tell the U.S. Congress they need a $34B bailout, forecasting doom for the U.S. economy if they are allowed to fail. On Dec. 2 after the Nat. Repub. Trust raises $1M to keep him from losing his seat and giving Obama a filibuster-proof majority, white conservative Repub. U.S. Sen. (since 2003) Clarence Saxby Chambliss (1943-) of Ga. wins a runoff election against Dem. challenger Jim Martin by 57.5-42.5. On Dec. 3 a new U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement is announced, to take effect Jan. 1, with Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. cmdr. in Iraq telling his troops that they will have to start obtaining warrants before searching homes and detaining suspects. On Dec. 4 600 Israeli troops evict 200 right-wing Jewish settlers from a disputed bldg. in Hebron in the West Bank. causing other settlers to rampage through Palestinian areas; the Kfir Brigade, known for wearing camouflage berets proudly refuses to assist. On Dec. 4 Barack Obama uses his hi-tech Internet capability that helped him get elected to mobilize momentum for health reform; on Dec. 5 the Denver Health Care Summit in Denver, Colo. is held, and HHS nominee Sen. Tom Daschle says that the economic collapse is due to high health care costs - therefore he's recommending that more medical schools be built and medical salaries driven down by increasing the number of medical personnel, er, he's recommending that the all-powerful AMA monopoly be bolstered by putting doctors on the govt. dole ahead of other social services so the rich can get richer? On Dec. 6 pres.-elect Obama promises the largest public works construction program since the creation of the U.S. interstate highway system 50 years ago as a part of his economic recovery program; meanwhile he picks U.S. gen. Eric Shinseki (who was forced into retirement in 2003 for telling Congress that more troops are needed in Iraq) as the veteran affairs secy. On Dec. 6-8 leftist youths begin rioting in Athens, Greece after a cop kills a 15-y.-o. boy in Exarchia, spreading to Thessalonica and other Greek cities despite the two officers involved being arrested and charged, and the precinct police chief being suspended; the last time this happened was in 1985. On Dec. 7 Taliban militants attack two transport terminals for U.S. military supplies in Peshawar, Pakistan, destroying 160+ Humvees and trucks. On Dec. 9 a day after telling reporters "Feel free to tape me", Ill. Dem. gov. (since 2003) Milorad R. "Rod" Blagojevich (1956-) is arrested for trying to sell Barack Obama's senate seat for personal profit, causing Obama and his staff to attempt a coverup, er, distance themselves, after which the Ill. state legislature begins efforts to impeach him, which he responds to on Dec. 19 with the soundbyte: "I will fight, I will fight, I will fight until I take my last breath. I have done nothing wrong" (only was caught planning to?), after which on Dec. 30 he coolly appoints look-what-the-tide-washed-in former state atty.-gen. (1991-5) Roland W. Burris (1937-) to Obama's senate seat, bringing in the race card since Burris was the first black elected official in Ill. (1979), and after a bunch of PC flip-flopping he is confirmed, after which it is revealed that he raised money for Blagojevich and had tried to cover it up; meanwhile Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (1957-) asks to be appointed to Sillary, er, Hillary Clinton's N.Y. Sen. seat, causing Rep. Gary Ackerman of Queens on Dec. 10 to utter the soundbyte "I don't know what Caroline Kennedy's qualifications are, except that she has name recognition, but so does Jay-Lo [Jennifer Lopez]"; she drops out on Jan. 23 after problems with taxes and undocumented workers; on June 27, 2011 Blagojevich is convicted on 17 of 20 counts of attempting to sell Obama's Senate seat, and sentenced on Dec. 7, 2011 to 14 years - the Democratic Sarah Palin? On Dec. 9 Pres. Bush addresses the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, crowing on his great performance in fighting terrorism, saying he has "laid a solid foundation", the U.S. military is "stronger, more agile and better prepared", and "we've laid a solid foundation on which future presidents and future military leaders can build"; he leaves Pakistan with a warning that "We will do what is necessary to protect American troops and the American people." On Dec. 10 a mistaken attack by U.S. forces in Afghanistan kills six Afghan police officers and one civilian. On Dec. 11 nutcase Robert Mugabe (1924-) announces that his govt. has ended the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe; meanwhile it rages on while he keeps internat. aid at bay. On Dec. 11 (night) a $14B emergency bailout for U.S. automakers falls through in the Senate after the UAW refuses to accept wage cuts commensurate with Japanese-owned auto cos. in the U.S. On Dec. 11 a bipartisan Senate committee releases their Report on Detainee Abuse, which says that former U.S. defense secy. Donald Rumsfeld and other top Bush admin. officials are responsible for abuses at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere. On Dec. 11 Richard Cizik resigns from the Nat. Assoc. of Evangelicals after switching to supporting same-sex marriage; he had just been named one of the 100 most influential thinkers by Time mag. On Dec. 11 a suicide bomber at a restaurant in Kirkuk, Iraq during a meeting of Sunni Arabs and Kurds kills 55 and injures 109, demonstrating the fun future of the Iraq govt. after a U.S. pullout. On Dec. 11 nuclear talks with North Korea by the Bush admin. collapse, causing it to be left for Obama's admin. On Dec. 11 the U.N. Security Council adds the Pakistan-based terrorist group Jamaat-ud-Dawa and four others as terrorist fronts under its 1999 Resolution 1267. So much for a Jewish conspiracy if they steal each other blind? Or maybe it is a Jewish conspiracy, stay tuned? On Dec. 12 the Madoff Investment Scandal begins when Jewish-Am. investment broker Bernard Lawrence "Bernie" Madoff (1938-) is arrested after he reveals to his sons that his massive empire is a Ponzi scheme, and they turn him in; he is accused of making off with $65B from investors, incl. major names like Steven Spielberg, Elie Wiesel and several rich Palm Beach, Fla. Jews; after being allowed to stay in his rich apt. in New York City for months, he pleads guilty next Mar. 12 and is sent to jail to applause; on June 29 he is sentenced to 150 years in prison after his wife is allowed to keep $2.5M in assets; his case causes the Madoff Bill to be introduced into the N.Y. state legislature in July 2009, forcing the rich to pay for their jail stays at $90/; Boston financial analyst Harry Markopolos tried in vain to persuade the SEC since 2000 that Madoff was a crook, and an SEC investigator warned a superior about irregularities with Madoff's financial mgt. firm in 2004, but was ignored; on Dec. 11, 2010 his son Mark Madoff is found hanged in his New York City apt., an apparent suicide; Austrian banker Sonja Cohn is accused on Dec. 10, 2010 of conspiring for 23 years to funnel $9B+ into Madoff's Ponzi scheme; after only $1B is located, the mystery of where the money went becomes the biggest conspiracy theory since who killed JFK? - funneled to Israel? He shoulda been made Federal Reserve chairman? On Dec. 12 the BBC announces that it will not air the Crufts Dog Show (biggest in Britain) over allegations of inbreeding in pedigreed dogs. On Dec. 13 Miss Russia Kseniya Vladimirovna Sukhinova (1987-) of Siberia is crowned Miss World #58 in Johannesburg, South Africa - kiss ya and shiver all over? On Dec. 14 (Sun.) Pres. Bush makes a surprise state visit to Iraq to crow about his success, saying "The war is not over but it is decisively on its way to being won" (4,209 U.S. military dead, $576B spent, 150K troops remaining in Iraq); too bad, during a press conference Iraqi reporter Muntadar al-Zaidi (1979-) hurls his shoes at him (a gesture meaning he's lower than dirt), with the soundbyte "This is a farewell kiss, you dog"; Bush, who displays quick reflexes in ducking the missiles, later jokes "It was a size 10"; a new folk hero is born?; too bad, on Dec. 22 Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki claims he was put up to it by an unnamed militant known for slitting throats; on Mar. 12, 2009 he is sentenced to three years to cheers for being a hero; he could have gotten 15 years - Rosa Klebb in "From Russia With Love"? On Dec. 16 the U.S. Federal Reserve lowers its prime rate to banks to virtually zero in an all-out attempt to jumpstart the stalled economy. On Dec. 16 a bus carrying Russian tour guides crashes in the S Israeli desert near Eilat, killing 26 and injuring dozens. On Dec. 16 French police find five sticks of dynamite in a Paris dept. store along with a demand for the withdrawal of French troops from Afghanistan. On Dec. 16 the U.N. Security votes 14-0-1 (Libya) for Resolution 1850, reaffirming support for the 2007 Middle East summit in Annapolis, Md. and for the 2-state solution. On Dec. 17 Iraqi officials announce the arrest of 35 Iraq Ministry of the Interior officials for planning a coup; meanwhile British PM Gordon Brown announces that British troops will withdraw from Iraq before June 1, and Iraqi speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani resigns amid debate about a bill to order the withdrawal of all non-U.S. forces by July 31 along with another debate on a Shiite motion to discuss the case of shoe-tosser Muntadar al-Zaidi. On Dec. 18 a nonbinding resolution is passed by the U.N. Gen. Assembly, backed by the 57-nation Saudi-based Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC) urging members to take state action against "defamation of religion" and "incitement to religious hatred", particularly Muslim; meanwhile another nonbinding resolution calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality is signed by 66 of 192 U.N. member countries, but the U.S. refuses. On Dec. 18 Col. Theoneste (Théoneste) Bagosora (1941-), ringleader of the 1994 Rwanda genocide is sentenced to life in prison for the massacre of 800K, becoming the highest-ranking officer convicted by the U.N. Internat. Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. On Dec. 20 Continental Airlines Flight 1404 en route to Houston, Tex. runs off the runway in Denver, Colo. in a snowstorm on takeoff, catching fire and injuring 38 of 112 aboard. On Dec. 20 adm. Mike Mullen, chmn. of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff says that the U.S. may double the number of troops in Afghanistan by next summer from 30K to 60K. On Dec. 21 the AP reveals that pay and perks for the execs of the bailed-out banks this year will come to $1.6B. On Dec. 21 U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheny is interviewed by Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday", saying that the pres. "doesn't have to check with anybody" before launching nukes, and "could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen... He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in. It's unfortunate, but I think we're perfectly appropriate to take the steps we have"; he also ridicules vice-pres. elect Joe Biden for calling him "the most dangerous vice-president", pointing out that it's Article II not Article I of the U.S. Constitution that gives the pres. broad executive powers, and adding that if Biden wants to diminish the office, that's his call. On Dec. 22 Guinea pres. (since 1984) Lansana Conte (b. 1934) dies, and on Dec. 23 after drawing lots twice with two other soldiers, Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara (1964-) seizes power in the bauxite-exporting electricity-lacking France-hating Repub. of Guinea, becoming de facto pres. (until ?), ruling from military camps instead of govt. bldgs., deflating any hopes that he will bring democracy to this African stinkhole by massacring 157 on Oct. 1, 2009. On Dec. 24 Bishop Desmond Tutu says that it's time to to threaten Zimbabwean pres. Robert Mugabe with removal by force, citing his misrule and the death of 1.1K from a cholera epidemic; meanwhile Mugabe puts human rights activist Jestina Mukoko on trial for plotting his overthrow. On Dec. 24 Meet the Press gets new moderator David Michael Gregory (1970-) (until Aug. 14, 2014). On Dec. 25 recently-divorced 45-y.-o. Bruce Jeffrey Pardo (b. 1963) dresses up as Santa Claus and arrives at the home of his ex's parents in Covina, Calif., then opens up, killing eight, then accidentally sets his suit on fire while throwing Molotov cocktails, giving him critical burns, after which he commits suicide at his brother's home near Sylmar; he was carrying $17K in cash and a plane ticket to Canada. On Dec. 25 Chinese police arrest 59 in Tibet for downloading banned "reactionary songs" from the Internet at the behest of the Dalai Lama. On Dec. 26 a power failure in a thunderstorm in Hawaii blacks-out Oahu Island (pop. 900K), catching vacationing Pres. Obama. On Dec. 27 (Sat.) Israeli forces begin Operation Cast Lead, an all-out air assault on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which the Palestinians call "the Massacre of Black Saturday", as Israeli bombs kill 350, incl. 62 women and children, and injure 1.4K by Dec. 28; the Israelis warned them first via phone calls and leaflets; they finally pullout on Jan. 18, 2009 after killing up to 1.4K Palestinians (most on the first day) (incl. 400 women and children), injuring 5K, and destroying 4K and damaging 20K houses, after which Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri declares "We are the winner"; on Dec. 26 Turkish diplomats claimed to be on the verge of clinching a peace deal between Israel and Syria, and when they started the operation without informing him first, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan began turning on Israel? On Dec. 27 Berkley Books (Penguin Group) cancels the contract for the book Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived by alleged Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat (1930-) after they prove it's a hoax; he had claimed that his wife Roma Radzicky was a young Jewish girl pretending to be Christian, who would pass him food through the fence at Buchenwald camp, after which they met in the 1950s on a blind date and got married, fooling Oprah Winfrey, who hosted them and called their fiction "the single greatest love story... we've ever told on the air"; the film adaptation goes on? On Dec. 28 a bomb in the backpack of Li Yan explodes prematurely as he is about to plant it in a coffee shop in Kunming, SW China owned by two Americans and frequented by Westerners. On Dec. 30 Herman A. Van Rompuy (1947-) (Flemish) becomes PM of Belgium (until Nov. 25, 2009), succeeding Yves Leterme. On Dec. 30 Kabine (Kabiné) Komara (1950-) becomes PM of Guinea (until Jan. 26, 2010). On Dec. 30 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. closes at 8,668.39 (up 184.46) (vs. 13,365.87 at the end of 2007). On Dec. 31 a fire in the crowded Santika Club in Bangkok, Thailand kills 59 and injures 180. On Dec. 31 Madonna's Sticky and Sweet Tour ends the year with a record $408M in ticket sales for a solo artist. On Dec. 31 the U.S. Nat. Debt reaches a record 74.1% of GDP (vs. 68.1% under Clinton on Dec. 31, 1996). In Dec. the U.S. loses 524K jobs (1M in the last 2 mo.), for a yearly net loss of 2.59M jobs (12 consecutive mo., accelerating each mo.), worse since WWII, shutting out even college grads. In Dec. the U.S. Joint Forces Command issues its Joint Operating Environment 2008 Report, listing Pakistan and Mexico as the most likely states to collapse in the near future, causing Pres. Felipe Calderon next Jan. 9 to deny that there is chaos in Mexico or that "the civilian population was being massacred in the streets." In Dec. United We Dream is founded in Washington, D.C. for "the elimination of barriers to higher education for immigrant youth" by working to persuade the U.S. public and legislators to embrace the DREAM Act as enlightened policy rooted in "principles of social inclusion and justice". In Dec. Valerie Jarrett, co-chmn. of the Obama-Biden transition team signs a memorandum of understanding with Clinton Foundation CEO Bruce Lindsey that the foundation's activities will not "create conflicts or the appearance of conflicts for Senator Clinton as Secretary of State", which doesn't stop 180+ persons, cos., and foreign govts. from giving it money while officially lobbying the U.S. State Dept. The U.S. Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2008 is a 10-year aid package to Israel that requires that military aid maintain Israel's "qualitative military edge" over any combination of states and non-state actors. Indonesia issues a ban on followers of the minority Ahmadiyah sect from promoting their activities. Three Kurdish villages led by Turkish parliamentarian Suleyman Celebi start a war on Mor Gabriel Monastery in Turkey, founded in 397 C.E. The first major natural gas discovery in Israel is made off the coast of Haifa, containing 8T cu. ft., followed in Aug. 2010 by up to 1.5B barrels of oil near Rosh Ha'ayin, enough to make Israel self-sufficient for three decades. The U.S. Genetic Info. Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) is passed, prohibiting insurance cos. from using family medical histories or genetic testing to deny medical insurance or set rates, effective next Dec. 7. Bahrain passes a law setting a min. age of 15 for girls to marry, but because of Islamic influence leaves a loophole allowing younger girls to be married with the consent of the courts; meanwhile British PM Gordon Brown and Hazel Blears set up the Nat. Muslim Women's Advisory Group of 19 women to help Muslim women break down cultural barriers incl. forced measures; in Apr. 2010 founding member Shaista Gohir resigns, calling it a "political fad". Pakistani-born Maajid Nawaz (1978-), member for 14 years of the Sharia-loving caliph-desiring Hizb ut-Tahrir (Liberation Party) suddenly claims to have a change in heart and devotes his life to fighting Islamic extremism, with the soundbyte: "After learning through my studies that Islamism was not the religion of Islam, but rather a modern political ideology, I no longer felt guilty simply for criticising a political system inspired by 7th century norms", founding the Quilliam Foundation in London, which battles "the Narrative", "that the West is waging a war against Islam and Muslims to destroy Islam, and that the only way to stop this war is for Muslims to start fighting back on all fronts against the West"- why don't I believe he's honest, and suspect he's just a Muslim disinfo. expert? Indian-born Sikh Sant Singh Chatwal, founder of Hampshire Hotels and Resorts, and owner of the Bombay Palace restaurant chain raises $100K for Hillary's pres. campaign, becoming a trustee of the William J. Clinton Foundation and good friends with Bill and Hillary; on Apr. 17, 2014 he pleads guilty to illegal campaign contributions to "three unnamed candidates", and is sentenced on July 31 to ?. Sheryl Kara Sandberg (1969-) becomes CEO of Facebook (until ?). The Peter G. Peterson Foundation is founded by Peter George Peterson (1926-), co-founder of the Blackstone Group asset mgt. co., former U.S. commerce secy. (1972-3), and chmn. of the Council on Foreign Relations (until June 30, 2007), with a $1B endowment and a mission to address U.S. fiscal sustainability issues incl. deficits, tax policies, and entitlement programs; the first dir. is David M. Walker (1951-), U.S. comptroller gen. in 1998-2008. The annual $75K Cundill Prize in History is founded at McGill U. in Canada by Canadian investor F. Peter Cundill (1938-2011) for the non-fiction book most likely to have profound literary, social, and academic impact in the area of history, becoming the richest non-fiction historical lit. prize in the world; the first award goes to Stuart B. Schwartz for "All Can Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World" (2007). The annual Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. Prize for distinguished writing in American history of enduring public significance is established by the Society of Am. Historians, with a $10K award. Beall's List of alleged predatory open-access publishers if ounded by Denver-based U. of Colo. librarian Jeffrey Beall (1960-), becoming widely influential in causing journals to be censored by librarians until flaws are exposed, causing him to discontinue it in Jan. 2017. Harlow, Essex, England-born fashion designer Victoria Caroline Beckham (nee Adams) (1974-) (formerly Posh Spice of the Spice Girls) (wife of soccer star David Beckham) launches her own fashion label, becoming a success despite being a WAG (wife/girlfriend of a high-profile prof. athlete). Band-e Amir ("dam of the commander of the faithful Imam Ali") consisting of five lakes in the Hindu Kush Mts. of C Afghanistan (W of the Buddhas of Bamiyan) becomes Afghanistan's first nat. park. The FEMEN feminist protest group is founded in Ukraine to hold topless protests against sexism. France allows 40 new villages to classify themselves as part of the Champagne wine region. Lindsay Lohan announces a lesbian relationship with Samantha "Sam" Ronson (1977-). The Internet authorizes new "dot anything" domain names. $9 Zhu Zhu (Chin. "little pig") Pets are introduced by Russ Hornsby of Cepia LLC of St. Louis, Mo., becoming a craze during the 2009 Xmas holidays. Sports: On Feb. 17 the 2008 (50th) Daytona 500 is won by Ryan Joseph "Rocket Man" Newman (1977-), who receives a special gold-plated Harley J. Earl Trophy. On Apr. 20 Danica Patrick (1982-) finally breaks the "gas ceiling" and wins the Indy Japan 300, becoming the first female winner in IndyCar history - and how many women were looking for shells today? On May 3 the Kentucky Derby is attended by Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea, and Eight Belles (b. 2005), the race's first filly in nine years finishes 2nd, 4-3/4 lengths behind favorite Big Brown; too bad, she then collapses with two broken front ankles and has to be euthanized on the track - sounds like Hillary's race? On May 24-June 4 the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals see the Detroit Red Wings defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-2, becoming their 11th win and 4th in 11 seasons; MVP is Swedish-born 5'11" center Henrik Zetterberg (1980-), who scores the series-winning goal; Niklas Lidstrom becomes the first Euro-born-and-trained team capt. to win the Stanley cup. On May 25 (Sun.) the 2008 (92nd) Indianapolis 500 is won by fastest qualifier Scott Ronald Dixon (1980-) of New Zealand. On June 5-17 the 2008 NBA Finals sees the Boston Celtics (coach Doc Rivers) defeat the Los Angeles Lakers (coach Phil Jackson) by 4-2, becoming their first win since 1986 (17th overall); small forward Paul Pierce (1977-) (#34) of the Celtics is MVP. On June 16 Tiger Woods wins his 3rd U.S. Open (14th major title) in dramatic fashion, defeating 157th-ranked Rocco Anthony Mediate (1962-) in a sudden-death playoff after surviving on June 14 by making two eagles on the final 9 holes, followed by a 2-ft. birdie putt on the 72nd hole, calling it the "greatest tournament I've ever had"; he is later discovered to have a fractured leg, and is told to lay off for 9 mo. to let it heal. On July 6 Rafael Nadal Parera (1986-) of Spain defeats 5-time champ Roger Federer of Switzerland for the Wimbledon men's singles tennis title in 5 sets in a record 4:47 with two rain breaks, becoming the first Spaniard to win since Manuel Santana in 1966 and the first male since Bjorn Borg in 1980 to win the French Open (against Federer) and Wimbledon the same year. On July 8 after seven seasons, two NBA MVPs, and six All-Star picks, superstar 6'8" forward LeBron Raymone "King" James (1984-) leaves the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat (until 2014), as announced in the ESPN special The Decision; the Seattle SuperSonics relocate to Okla. City, Okla., becoming the Oklahoma City Thunder, changing the team colors to blue-yellow-sunset. On Aug. 14 Am. jockey Russell A. Baze (1958-) becomes the first with 10K wins at Golden Gate Fields on Two Step Cat; he passes the 11K mark on Aug. 14, 2010. On Nov. 7 Utah Jazz head coach Jerry Sloan becomes the first in NBA history to win 1K games with the same team with a 104-97 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder. On Nov. 29 the China Speed Horse Race Open becomes the first officially-sanctioned horse race in China since the declaration of the People's Repub. of China in 1949. On ? Serbian tennis player Ana Ivanovic (1987-) defeats Dinara Safina to win the 2008 French Open, followed on ? by the Australian Open, achieving #1 world ranking. Architecture: On Apr. 1 the National Harbor, Md. waterfront development S of Washington, D.C. at the junction of the Capital Beltway and the Anacostia Freeway near the Woodrow Wilson Bridge opens. On Aug. 16 $720M Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind. opens as the home of the NFL Indianapolis Colts. The 787-ft. (240m) Bahrain World Trade Center opens, becoming the first skyscraper to integrate wind turbines. The Neal Bridge in Pittsfield, Maine is made of carbon and glass fiber fabric tubes stuffed with concrete. The Olympic Dragon Terminal in Beijing, which looks like a giant sleeping dragon from the sky opens in Feb. in time for the Beijing Olympics, becoming the world's largest airport terminal (until ?). Silivri Prison in Silivri, Istanbul opens, becoming Turkey's most modern penal facility, and Europe's largest, housing 11K of Istanbul's 16K inmates under pink roofs. Nobel Prizes: 2008: The year of Nobel snubs? Big year for Japan? Peace: Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtissari (1937-) (Finland); Lit.: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (Clézio) (1940-) (France); Physics: Yoichiro Nambu (1921-) (U.S.), Makoto Kobayashi (1944-) (U.S.), and Toshihide Maskawa (1940-) (U.S.) [spontaneous broken symmetry]; Chem.: Osamu Shimomura (1928-) (Japan), Martin Lee Chalfie (1947-) (U.S.), and Roger Yonchien Tsien (1952-) (U.S.) [discovery of green fluorescent protein (GFP) in jellyfish]; colleague Douglas Prasher (whom they owe it all to?) is snubbed, and is found working for $10 an hour in Huntsville, Ala. as a shuttle operator; Med.: Francoise Barre-Sinoussi (Barré-Sinoussi) (1947-) (France) and Luc Antoine Montagnier (1932-) (France) [discovery of HIV] and Harald zur Hausen (1936-) (Germany) [discovery of HPV]; U.S. virologist Robert Charles Gallo (1937-), who disputes credit with the French team is snubbed; Econ.: Paul Robin Krugman (1953-) [U.S.] [New Trade Theory, New Economic Geography]. Inventions: On Jan. 10 the $2,500 bare bones no-frills Tata Nano, the cheapest car in the world is unveiled, creating excitement in India, China, and other poor countries, and causing speculation about whether global air pollution will end up going up or down as they replace smoky motorcyles; it becomes available in the summer. On Jan. 14 NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft flies by Mercury at 124 mi. (200 km) above the surface, beaming back photos showing that it's black and white like the Moon, but with red and blue tones; it photographs Caloris Crater, also an unusual Spider Crater. In Jan. Sun Microsystems announces a $1B acquisition of MySQL, an open source database co. that gives away its software to 99% of its customers; the paying 1% incl. Google, Yahoo!, Nokia, and Alcatel-Lucent. On Feb. 7 Space Shuttle Atlantis blasts off from Cape Canaveral with the $2B Columbus Science Lab, donated by Europe; it returns Feb. 20. On Mar. 11 (night) Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-123 lifts off from Cape Canaveral to deliver a robot and the Japanese Logistics Module, the first piece of a new Japanese lab to the ISS. On July 28 the cuil (pr. like cool) search engine is launched by ex-Google employees, featuring the largest index; it shuts down on Sept. 17, 2010. On Sept. 25 the Internet search engine DuckDuckGo is founded in Paolo, Penn. by Gabriel Weinberg, named after the children's game "Duck, Duck Goose", with the goals or protecting the privacy of users and avoiding Google's infamous filter buble of personalized search results; by 2018 it has 40 employees. In Nov. the Conficker (Downup) (Downadup) (Kido) Internet worm begins propagating via the bug-filled Microsoft Windows operating system, infecting millions of computers in 190+ countries, becoming the largest computer worm infection since Welchia in 2003. The $549 ASUS Eee PC 900 netbox is released, with an 8.9-in. display, 12 GB SSD, and 1 GB of RAM, starting yet another techie gadget rev. The Blu-Ray and HDVD formats are locked in competition for HD DVD players this year. The NuVinci Transmission is patented, using rotating and tilting balls to smoothly vary transmission speed. The Octopus Tap increases the flow of beer from a beer tap, allowing up to four spouts. The Bullet Fingerprinting Technique is invented, allowing fingerprints to be recovered from bullets. Science: On Jan. 18 Botanic Gardens Conservation Internat. issues a statement that "400 medicinal plants are at risk of extinction, from over-collection and deforestation, threatening the discovery of future cures for disease"; examples incl. Yew trees, Hoodia, Magnolias, and Autumn crocus. On Jan. 31 British scientists announce the creation of sperm cells from a human female embroyo, opening up the possibility of lesbian couples having children. On Feb. 14 the 124K-member Am. College of Physicians calls for the U.S. govt. to end its ban on research on marijuana as a medicine. On Feb. 14 an article in Nature reveals what we've always wanted to know, whether bats developed their airborne sonar before or after learning to fly, a 52M-y.-o. bat fossil of Onychonycteridae finneyi (AKA "the clawed bat") (found in Wyo. in 2003), showing wings but no sonar equipment, and claws on all five fingers instead of just 1-2 like modern bats - so they got sonar after trimming Lady Five Fingers? In Feb. High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) creates a patch of "artificial ionosphere" using their 3.6MW radio transmitter, leading to a new way to bounce radio signals around the Earth. In Mar. the Heartland Inst. (founded in Arlington Heights, Ill. in 1984, and known for working for Philip Morris to question the health risks of second-hand smoke) holds the first Internat. Conference on Climate Change in New York City, endorsing the Nongovernmental Internat. Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) and pub. the article "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate, criticizing the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, followed by the Manhattan Declaration, declaring that carbon dioxide (CO2) is essential for all life, and calling for an immediate halt to tax-funded attempts to counteract climate change, with the soundbytes: "Assertions of a supposed 'consensus' among climate experts are false", and demanding that aAll taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith"; signers incl. S. Fred Singer, Anthony Watts, David Bellamy, Piers Corbyn, Ian Plimer, Robert M. Carter, and Roy Spencer; by 2017 12 conferences are held. In Mar. Avraham Trakhtman, a Russian immigrant to Israel who worked as a night watchman becomes a real-life Good Will Hunting by solving the 1970 Road Coloring Problem, proving the existence of a universal map permitting a traveler to reach a given destination whatever his starting point. In Mar. French surgeon Laurent Lantieri of Henri-Mondor Hospital in Creteil performs the first full face transplant on neurofibromatosis sufferer Pascal Coler. On Apr. 24 an article in Science reports that protein derived from T-Rex bones closely resembles the main protein in chicken and ostrich bones and is only distantly related to lizard protein - tastes like chicken jokes here? In Apr. astronomers discover a storm on Saturn's moon Titan the size of India. On May 5 Archives of Gen. Psychiatry reports that 6-year-olds whose mothers breastfeed them have a verbal IQ 7.5 points higher - the next study will show that oral sex raises IQ among adults? On June 16 a Swedish study of 90 adults pub. in the Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences Journal finds that gay men and hetero women have brain halves of similar size, while lezzies and straight men have bigger right sides, lending evidence to sexual orientation being genetically determined or influenced - or proof that the once perfect 100% straight human race is degenerating through God's judgment on sin? On June 19 the New England Journal of Medicine pub. a report on a 52-y.-o. Ore. man with terminal skin cancer who was put into remission after an experimental treatment that revved-up his T cells. On June 28 U.S. scientist Mark Serreze of the Nat. Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. predicts that the North Pole may becoming ice-free for the first time in recorded history by the end of the summer; luckily, he was wrong. On July 25 an article in Science shows that in the U.S. girls in grades 2-11 have caught up with boys in math tests in the top 5% echelon, making former Harvard U. pres. Lawrence Summers look lame - but what about at the college and postgraduate level? In July Lord Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (1952-) pub. the article Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered in the newsletter of the Am. Physical Society, which contains the soundbytse: "More importantly, the conclusion is that, perhaps, there is no 'climate crisis', and that currently-fashionable efforts by governments to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions are pointless, may be ill-conceived, and could even be harmful", and "Global warming will not affect us for the next 2,000 years, and if it does, it won't have been caused by us", ramping up the scientific climate change denial movement; on Oct. 18 he posts the online article "More in Sorrow than in Anger, Open letter from The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to Senator John McCain about Climate Science and Policy" , dissing U.S. Sen. John McCain for a speech he made at a wind farm pushing anthropogenic climate change. scientific climate change denial movement; on Oct. 18 he posts the online article "More in Sorrow than in Anger, Open letter from The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley to Senator John McCain about Climate Science and Policy" , dissing U.S. Sen. John McCain for a speech he made at a wind farm pushing anthropogenic climate change. In Aug. the $10B 5-mi.-diam. Large Hadron Collider in Meyrin Switzerland begins test runs, hoping to eventually prove the existence of dark matter and dark energy, which make up 96% of the Universe, plus the Higgs boson, which gives mass to matter, not to mention evidence of the 10 dimensions of superstring theory; meanwhile critics warn that it might cause micro black holes to be created which hunker down inside the Earth and gobble it up; an electrical fault in Sept. 2008 causes it to be shut down until Nov. 20, 2009; in 2009 Holger Bech Nielsen of Denmark and asao Ninomiya of Japan pub. a theory that the Higgs boson is so abhorrent to Nature that its creation could ripple back in Time and stop the colider before it could make one. On Aug. 5 the Wildlife Conservation Society reports that the gorilla pop. in the Congo is now 125K, double what they used to believe. On Sept. 1 Google releases Chrome, a free open-source competitor to Microsoft's expensive monopolistic Internet Explorer. On Sept. 5 three studies are pub. in Science and Nature, showing how the cascade of genetic changes that turn brain and pancreas cells cancerous proceed along the same 12 core pathways. On Sept. 16 Vatican spokesman Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi announces that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is compatible with the Bible, but plans no posth. apology to Charles Darwin (1809-82), while announcing a Rome conference next Mar. for the 150th anniv. of his "Origin of Species". On Sept. 28 (Sun.) SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies) successfully launches its commercial rocket Falcon 1 into orbit from the South Pacific carrying a dummy payload on the 4th attempt. On Oct. 17 the NASA Cassini spacecraft makes the first observations from within the radio aura of another planet other than the Earth, Saturn. On Oct. 22 India launches its 2-year Chandrayaan-1 ("Moon Craft-1") mission (ends 2008) to map the lunar surface and search for water; it reaches the Moon on Nov. 12; in Aug. 2009 it detects evidence of large quantities of water in the polar regions. In Oct. photos of Mercury sent by the NASA Messenger spacecraft reveal that the planet was racked by volcanoes 3.8B-4B years ago, but fail to reveal the composition of the mysterious blue material all over the planet. On Nov. 12 doctors announce that a 42-y.-o. Am. patient living in Berlin, Germany has been cured of AIDS after receiving a bone marrow transplant 20 mo. earlier, giving AIDS patients hope, although the procedure is costly and dangerous. On Nov. 14 the Hubble Space Telescope captures the first photos of planet Formalhaut B, circling Formalhaut 25 l.y. from Earth in the constellation Piscis Australis (Southern Fish), becoming the first photo of a planet circling another star outside the Solar System. On Nov. 20 Nature pub. the result of a $1M study by Stephen Schuster et al. of Penn State U. which deciphered the genetic code of the woolly mammoth, concluding that they could be recreated in as little as 10-20 years - tell McDonald's to try selling one billion of them burgers? In Nov. the U.S. govt. begins funding the Human Microbiome Project to see if shit from one person's intestines can help another person with antibiotic-resistant C. difficile to fight back - shit happens jokes here? In Nov. scientists announce that they have mapped all of the genes of a person with cancer, incl. normal and cancerous cells. In Nov. IBM announces Blue Gene, a supercomputer that they will use to explore the frontiers of computing and brain simulation. On Dec. 28 Thomas Inge et al. of the Cincinnati Children's Hospital report that stomach stapling can reverse Type 2 diabetes in youths just like in adults. On Dec. 30 China announces the discovery of the largest dinosaur fossil site on Earth in Zhucheng, containing 7.6K fossils. In Dec. Alexey Vikhlinin announces that observations from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory indicate that dark energy, which fights gravity to cause the Universe to keep expanding also keeps clusters of 1K or more bright galaxies from getting too big. In Dec. the first exo-solar organic molecules are detected in Jupiter-sized Planet HD 189733b; next year HD 209458b becomes the 2nd exoplanet with organic signatures detected. Japanese scientist Osamu Shimomura isolates a glowing green fluorescent protein in the jellyfish. Researchers at the U. of Southern Denmark discover that the schizophrenia drug thioridazine kills antibiotic-resistant bacteria incl. Staphylococcus aureus; in 2013 it is found that it works by weakening the cell wall. Seth Lloyd of MIT proposes Quantum Illumination to improve the sensitivity of radar. The Dark Flow of billions of stars racing towards the edge of the observable Universe is discovered by Harald Ebeling of the U. of Hawaii and Dale Kocevski of UC Santa Cruz. Am. neurologists Jack Gallant and Shinji Nishimoto at UCB discover a way to correlate activity in the human brain cortex with static images seen by the subject; next year they extend the technique to moving scenes. Nonfiction: Peter Ackroyd (1949-), Poe: A Life Cut Short. Uri Avneri (1923-2018), 1948: A Soldier's Tale, the Bloody Road to Jerusalem; Israel's Vicious Circle. Andrew J. Bacevich (1947-), The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. Robert Baer (1952-), The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower (Aug. 18); Iran has already half-won its 30-year war with the U.S.? Nicholson Baker, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, The End of Civilization. Russ Baker, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put it in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America (Dec. 18); George H.W. Bush's suspected involvement in the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, et al. J.G. Ballard (1930-2009), Miracles of Life (autobio.). James Bamford (1946-), The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA from 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America; NYT bestseller about how 9/11 turned the NSA from downsizing to mushroom growth, "the largest, most costly, and most technologically sophisticated spy organization the world has ever known", with new tools "Orwell's Thought Police would have found useful"; "Never before in history have so few people wiretapped so many"; the 500K-name Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), which is used to screw honest Americans up, "sits ingloriously on a dated and inexpensive Dell laptop in the basement of the National Counterterrorism Center". Russell Banks (1940-), Dreaming Up America. Clive Barker (1952-), The Painter, The Creature and The Father of Lies: Essays. Julian Barnes (1946-), Nothing to Be Frightened Of (autobio.). Greg Bear (1951-), City at the End of Time; about the city of Kalpa in 300T C.E., which is fighting the Typhon, and sends psychic messages to three drifters in modern-day Seattle, Wash. Harry Beckhough, Germany's Fourth Reich; German domination of the EU. Peter W. Bernstein and Annalyn Swan, All the Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make - And Spend - Their Fortunes (Dec. 2). Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007) and Mark Siegel, Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West (Feb. 12); claims that Islam can peacefully coexist with the world, that the Quran promotes female equality, that Islam and democracy are "not only compatible but mutually sustaining", and that Western Islamophobes like Robert Spencer are upset over nothing; too bad, a few days after completing the ms. she is assassinated by er, Muslims. Stephen G. Bloom and Peter Feldstein, The Oxford Project; photojournal of Oxford, Iowa, pop. 700. Howard Blum, American Lighting: Terror, Mystery, Movie-Making & the Crime of the Century; the 1910 Los Angeles Times Bldg. bombing. Abraham Bolden, The Echo from Dealey Plaza; the first African-Am. Secret Service agent (1961), who is subjected to racism. Andrew G. Bostom, The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History (June 5). Taylor Branch, Wrestling History: The Bill Clinton Tapes; his 80 secret White House conversations with Pres. Clinton. H.W. Brands, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Judith M. Brown, Gandhi and Civil Disobedience: The Mahatma in Indian Politics, 1928-1934. Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-), and Brent Scowcroft (1925-), America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy. Tom Brown Jr. (1950-), Conversations with Grandfather (7 vols.) (2008-9). Vincent Bugliosi (1934-2015), The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (May 27); bestseller claiming that it should be done. Charles Bukowski (1921-94), Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook: Uncollected Stories and Essays, 1944-1990 (posth.). Avraham Burg (1955-), The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise From Its Ashes (Oct. 28); Israeli Jewish politician raises a firestorm of controversy by comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, and claiming that Israel's cloning of that nation-state and wallowing in the Holocaust is Hitler's final victory. Nina Burleigh, Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy Land (Oct.). Vincent Bzdek, Woman of the House: The Rise of Nancy Pelosi. Dana Canedy, A Journal for Jordan: A Memoir of Love and Loss. Jimmy Carter, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Ha-Joon Chang (1963-), Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism (Dec. 23); claims that history proves that the modern economic superpowers got that way by shameless protectionism and govt. intervention in industry, and are promoting a fairy tale about free trade that the IMF, World Bank, and WTO are ramming down developing countries' throats. Raj Chetty (1979-), Moral Hazard vs. Liquidity and Optimal Unemployment Insurance (Apr.). Pat Choate, Dangerous Business: The Risks of Globalization for America. Deepak Chopra (1946-), The Third Jesus: The Christ We Cannot Ignore; Jesus: A Story of Enlightenment; Jesus studied the Kabbalah and esoteric wisdom? Christopher Ciccone (1960-), Life with My Sister Madonna (July 14); her gay brother and personal asst. exposes all her dirty laundry in order to knock her off her high horse? Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates (1975-), The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood (autobio.). Jenny Cockell (1953-), Journeys Through Time: Uncovering My Past Lives. Steve Coll (1958-), The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century (NYT bestseller). Jennet Conant, The Irregulars (Sept. 9); Roald Dahl's WWII British spy years, and his sexual liaisons with Clare Boothe Luce and Millicent Rogers. Ward Connerly, Lessons from My Uncle James. David Cope (1941-), Hidden Structure: Music Analysis Using Computers. Jerome Robert Corsi (1946-), The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality (Aug. 1) (NYT #1 bestseller); an all-out attack on Barack Obama, alleging his "extreme leftism", "extensive connections with Islam and radical politics", "naive... foreign policy", past drug use, corrupt backers et al., causing the Obama campaign to issue the 40-page rebuttal "Unfit for Publication" alleging factual errors, causing Corsi to double down that the errors are minor and that his major allegations stand. Dora L. Costa and Matthew E. Kahn, Heroes and Cowards: The Social Face of War. Robin Darwall-Smith, A History of University College, Oxford (June 18); first treatment in over a cent. John Darwin (1948-), After Tamerlane: The Global History of Empire Since 1405 (Feb. 5). David Brion Davis (1927-), In Human Bondage: Slavery in the New World. Katie Davis (1989-), Awake Joy: the Essence of Enlightenment (Feb. 1). Jay P. Dolan, The Irish Americans. James W. "Jim" Douglass (1937), JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters; he was killed by "unspeakable" forces within the U.S. nat. security state after he changed from Cold Warrior to Man of Peace? Billy Doyle, The Mirage of Separation Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions; "According to Scientology, Jesus is an 'implant' forced upon a Thetan about a million years ago." Tony Dungy (1955-), Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life; first NFL-related title to become a #1 NYT bestseller. Martin Edmond, Luca Antara. Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-), This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation. Bart D. Ehrman (1955-), God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question - Why Do We Suffer?; Princeton theological student gives up his faith and claims the Bible doesn't really answer anything, but gives his own reasoning on why we should all work to alleviate suffering anyway. Marc Eliot, Reagan: The Hollywood Years; Rebel: The Life of Clint Eastwood. Per Olov Enquist (1934-), A Different Life (autobio.). Gunter Faltin (1944-), Brain versus Capital (Kopf schlagt Kapital); English tr. Feb. 2013. Jonathan Fast (1948-), Ceremonial Violence: The Psychological Explanation for School Rampage Shooting. Tarek Fatah, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State (first book); liberal Pakistani-born Canadian Muslim takes on the ultimate Islamic goal, advocating separation of church and state along with religious tolerance - is that a misdemeanor or felony under Sharia? Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War; how the mass deaths in the U.S. Civil War transformed society. Jules Feiffer (1929-), Feiffer: The Collected Works. Andrew Ferguson, Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America. Niall Ferguson (1964-), The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World (Nov. 3); history of money, ending with Chinamerica, and how an Asian savings glut propelled the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis. George Fetherling (1949-), River of Gold: The Fraser and Cariboo Gold Rushes. Eamonn Fingleton, In the Jaws of the Dragon: America's Fate in the Coming Era of Chinese Dominance. Jon Fisher (1972-), Strategic Entrepreneurism: Shattering the Start-Up Entrepreneurial Myths (Sept. 15). Caroline Fourest, Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan; how he pretends to be pro-West but really wants an Islamic takeover. David Freddoso, The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate; "I don't think you beat Obama by saying that he's Paris Hilton. The more important thing is really to look at is he who he says he is. Is he really this great reformer?"; "He's like all the rest of them. Not a reformer. Not a Messiah. Just like all the rest of them in Washington"; claims he won his Ill. Sen. seat by getting a team of attys. to throw all the other candidates off the ballot on technicalities, incl. a veteran black woman who helped him get his start, then backed mayor Richard Daley and his machine. Jo Freeman (1945-), We Will Be Heard: Women's Struggles for Political Power in the United States. David M. Friedman, The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever; Lindy'a attempt to save the life of his heart-damaged sister leads him to work with the tissue culture expert and invent a way to keep organs alive for weeks outside the body. Francis Fukuyama (1952-) (ed.), Falling Behind: Explaining the Development Gap Between Latin America and the United States. John Lewis Gaddis (1941-), Ending Tyranny: The Past and Future of an Idea. James K. Galbraith (1952-), The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too; how the Bush admin. turned govt. over to the big corps. Oded Galor (1956-) and Quarul H. Ashraf, Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch. Jan Garavaglia (1956-), How Not to Die: Surprising Lessons on Living Longer; medical examiner tells how 90% of corpses in the morgue died suddenly and unexpectedly from not taking medicine, accidents, bee stings, carbon monoxide, etc.; the #1 day for the morgue is Christmas? Nelson George and Alan Leeds (eds.) The James Brown Reader: 50 Years of Writing About the Godfather of Soul (Apr. 29). Diana DeGette (1957-), (with Daniel Paisner), Sex, Science and Stem Cells: Inside the Right Wing Assault on Reason; Colo. Dem. Rep. known for backing stem-cell research explains how the U.S. religious right has politicized science and hijacked the Repub. Party. Sir Martin Gilbert (1936-), The Story of Israel. Glenda Elizabeth Gilmore, Defying Dixie: The Radical Roots of Civil Rights, 1919-1950; about Pauli Murray (1910-85). Newt Gingrich (1943-), Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World that Works. Malcolm Gladwell (1963-), Outliers: The Story of Success (Nov. 8); duh, the formula is doing meaningful work, working hard, and remembering that reward depends on effort? Caroline Glick, Shackled Warrior: Israel and the Global Jihad (Apr. 20); how resurgent Islamic fundamentalism is the #1 threat to Israel and the West. Herbert Gold (1924-), Still Alive!: A Temporary Condition (autobio.). Ben Goldacre (1974-), Bad Science (Sept.); exposes medical fads and quacks incl. the Brain Gym, and dissing the medical profession for caving into drug co. pressure. Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism. Eva Golinger, Bush vs. Chavez: Washington's War on Venezuela. Annette Gordon-Reed (1958-), The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (Pulitzer Prize) (first African-Am.); traces the 75 descendants of Elizabeth Hemings, incl. the descendants of Thomas Jefferson. Amit Goswamy, Creative Evolution: A Physicist's Resolution Between Darwinism and Intelligent Design (Sept. 1). Simon Gray (1936-2008), The Last Cigarette: Smoking Diaries Vol. 3; Coda (posth.). Howard Grief (-2013), The Legal Foundation and Borders of Israel under International Law; the de jure soveignty over the entire land of Israel and Palestine was vested in the Jewish People by the San Remo Resolution of Apr. 24, 1920? Robin Griffith-Jones (1956-), Beloved Disciple: The Misunderstood Legacy of Mary Magdalene, the Woman Closest to Jesus; by the master of the Temple Church in London, so he oughta know? Terry Grossman (1947-) and Ray Kurzweil (1948-), Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever; people who are now 60 (like him?) will live to a healthy 120, at which point emerging technologies will kick in for those who can afford it; sugar is "the white Satan" - sounds like Satan is selling sugar, want any, Tim Russert? Mamdouh Habib and Julia Collingwood, My Story: The Tale of a Terrorist Who Wasn't; Egyptian-born Australian Muslim detained at Gitmo for helping to plan 9/11 is later released and proclaimed innocent. David Halberstam (1934-2007), The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever (posth.); completed by Frank Gifford. Judith von Halle (1927-), Secrets of the Stations of the Cross and the Grail Blood: The Mystery of Transformation; how she received the stigmata in 2004 and began to experience visions of events from the time of Christ. Chelsea Handler (1975-), Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (Apr. 22); bestseller. Donna Haraway (1944-), When Species Meet. Daoud Hari, The Translator (autobio.); memoir of the Darfur massacres; "If American athletes saw what I saw the Chinese doing in Darfur, they would not be able to play sports at the Olympics." Kathryn Harrison, While They Slept: An Inquiry Into the Murder of a Family (June); the 1984 Gilley family murders. Gary Hart (1936-), Under the Eagle's Wing: A National Security Strategy for the United States for 2009; "In the 21st century, we will have increasing difficulty distinguishing the security of some from the security of all... The new twenty-first-century security demands that nations collaborate across cultural and ideological barriers and across national borders to achieve common goals." Thom Hartmann (1951-) and Lamar Waldron, Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination. Brian Haughton, Haunted Spaces, Sacred Places: A Field Guide to Stone Circles, Crop Circles, Ancient Tombs, and Supernatural Landscapes (July 1); Lore of the Ghost: The Origins of the Most Famous Ghost Stories Throughout the World (Sept. 1). Shirley Hazzard (1931-), The Ancient Shore: Dispatches from Naples. Chris Hedges (1956-), I Don't Believe in Atheists (Mar. 4); both the atheists and the religious fundamentalists don't get it, because religion is for making us into moral human beings? Chris Hedges (1956-) and Laila Al-Arian, Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians (June 3). Arthur Herman, Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry that Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age. George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776; the U.S. has always been "an active and influential player in foreign affairs" and "aggressively and relentlessly expansionist", "heralds of a novus ordo seclorum, a new world order, in which enlightened diplomacy based on free trade would create a beneficent system that would serve the broader interest of mankind rather than the selfish needs of monarchs and their courts". Esther Hicks (1948-) and Jerry Hicks, Money and the Law of Attraction: Learning to Attract Health, Wealth and Happiness (Aug.); The Astonishing Power of Emotions: Let Your Feelings Be Your Guide (Sept.). Edward Hoagland (1932-), Early in the Season: A British Columbia Journal. Philip Hoare (1958-), Leviathan, or The Whale (Sept. 1); what is the true nature of the whale? Michael Holroyd (1935-), A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and Their Remarkable Families. Harold Holzer, Lincoln: President-Elect, Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter, 1860-1861; his 16 weeks to prepare, and how he made good use of it. Song Hongbing, Currency Wars; claims that Jews rule the world and were behind Hitler, the JFK assassination, and the 1990s Asian recession; becomes a bestseller in China; claims that the Rothschild family is worth $5T, 100x more than Bill Gates. Mike Huckabee (1955-), Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America. Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights. Andrew Hurley, Diners, Bowling Alleys, and Trailer Parks: Chasing the American Dream in the Postwar Consumer Culture (Dec. 15). Janis Ian (1951-), Society's Child (autobio.). Georg G. Iggers, Q. Edward Wang, and Supriya Mukherjee, A Global History of Modern Historiography; how Western academic historians of the last 2.5 cents. grew out of their Eurocentrism and are developing more of a global comparative view. Clifford Irving (1930-), Phantom Rosebuds (autobio.). Susan Jacoby (1945-), The Age of American Unreason; how post-WWII society created a "crisis of memory and knowledge involving everything about the way we learn and think". Philip Jenkins (1952-), The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia - and How It Died (Oct. 20); claims that the center of Christianity for cents. was in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia all the way to China. Ha Jin (1956-), The Writer as Migrant (essays); his life as a lit. exile. Dr. Richard Johnson and Timothy Gower, The Sugar Fix: The High-Fructose Fallout That is Making You Fat and Sick. Robert Joling and Philip Van Praag, An Open and Shut Case; claims the CIA was behind the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Brian Jay Jones, Washington Irving: An American Original (first book). Marjorie G. Jones, Frances Yates and the Hermetic Tradition; British historian Dame Frances Amelia Yates (1899-1981). Van Jones (1968-), The Green Collar Economy (Oct. 7). Tony R. Judt (1948-2010), Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century. Robert Kagan (1958-), The Return of History and the End of Dreams. Michio Kaku (1947-), Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel - we won't have the ability to travel in time er, anytime er, soon? Stefan Kanfer, Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando (Mar. 10). David Kaiser, The Road to Dallas: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy; blames it on organized crime and Cubans, no CIA; too bad about Oswald being the patsy? Thomas Keneally (1935-), Searching for Schindler; "Had I read [this] before making the film, I may have made it an hour longer" (Steven Spielberg). David I. Kertzer (1948-), Amalia's Tale: A Peasant's Fight for Justice in 19th Century Italy (An Impoverished Peasant Woman, an Ambitious Journey, and a Fight for Justice). Jytte Klausen, The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe. Alec Klein, A Class Apart: Prodigies, Pressure, and Passion Inside of America's Best High Schools; Manhattan's Stuyvesant H.S., where a grade below 99 is considered flunking? Michael Korda (1933-), Ike: An American Hero. Gary A. Kowalski (1953-), Revolutionary Spirits: The Enlightened Faith of America's Founding Fathers; claims that the U.S. Founding Fathers were neither devout Christians nor secularists but tried to combine religion with the Enlightenment. Deepa Kumar (1968-), Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization, and the UPS Strike. Wally Lamb (1950-), Wishin' and Hopin': A Christmas Story. Robert Betts Laughlin (1950-), The Crime of Reason And the Closing of the Scientific Mind. Nigel Lawson (1932-), An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming (Apr. 10); acknowledges global warming but denies that the science is settled, opposing the scientific consensus of the 2007 IPCC Report and claiming that global warming would bring benefits as well as harm, calls for gradual adaptation instead of radical action, with the soundbyte: "I don't question for a moment that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that, all things being equal, this will lead to warming of the atmosphere. And that it's true that scientists differ greatly on how big the effect is, but there is huge agreement that there is some effect. But we account for less than two percent of global carbon emissions. And so it is crazy for us–we can't do anything on our own – and if the rest of the world... is not going to go down this route... it's not doing any good. I have long since come to the conclusion... that [climate change] is an economic issue... My judgement is the most cost-effective way of dealing with it is though adaptation, and I believe that is perfectly do-able", pissing-off global warmists incl. Jean Palutikof and IPCC head Robert Watson, and the Hadley Centre, which admits that there has been no global warming since 2000 but blames it on the early 2007 La Nina - circular reasoning or gymnophobia? Edward G. Lengel, To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918. Bernard Lewis (1916-), Islam: The Religion and the People; after all the cents. of blood, a Jewish scholar on Islam pontificates that "At no time did the [Muslim] jurist approve of terrorism. Nor indeed is there any evidence of the use of terrorism [in Muslim history]"; "The emergence of the now widespread terrorism practice of suicide bombing is a development of the 20th century"; "The fanatical warrior offering his victims the choice of the Koran or the sword is not only untrue, it is impossible"; "Generally speaking, Muslim tolerance of unbelievers was far better than anything available in Christendom, until the rise of secularism in the 17th century". Michael Lewis (1960-), The Real Price of Everything: Rediscovering the Six Classics of Economics. Eric Lichtblau (1965-), Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice (Apr. 1); how Pres. George W. Bush trampled the U.S. Constitution to go after Islamic terrorists. Jessica Livingston (1972-), Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days; Steve Wozniak, Mitch Kapor, Ray Ozzie, Max Levchin. Steve Lohr, Go To: The Story of the Math Majors, Bridge Players, Engineers, Chess Wizards, Maverick Scientists, and Ico (Nov. 5). Ben Macintyre, Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal. Crystal Gail Magnum (1978-), The Last Dance for Grace: The Crystal Magnum Story; the Duke U. rape accuser's cash, er, side. Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. Eric S. Margolis (1947-), American Raj: Liberation or Domination? Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World (Oct. 1); predicts an Islamist takeover of Egypt. Ali al-Amin Mazrui (1933-), Globalization and Civilization: Are They Forces in Conflict?; The Politics of War and Culture of Violence; Euro-Jews and Afro-Arabs: The Great Semitic Divergence in History; attempts to explain why "Arabs lagged behind Jews in manifest genius", concluding "Jews have been at their best when they were Europeanized... almost as if you needed a mixture of Jewishness and Europeanness." Mark Matousek (1957-), The Boy He Left Behind: A Man's Search for His Lost Father; his search for the father who boned, er, abandoned him; When You're Falling, Dive: Lessons in the Art of Living; how he copes with HIV. Ali al-Amin Mazrui (1933-) et al. (eds.), Islam in Africa's Experience. Andrew C. McCarthy III, Willful Blindness: Memoir of the Jihad; describes a "zealous international network of warriors dead certain that history and Allah are on their side." Scott McClellan (1968-), What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception; Bush's press secy. from 2003-6 accuses Bush of "self-deception" and of maintaining a "permanent campaign approach". Walter Allen McDougall (1946-), Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877. Danica McKellar (1975-), Kiss My Math; why girls should get into it when not watching her as Winnie Cooper in "The Wonder Years". Larry McMurtry (1936-), Books: A Memoir. Jon Ellis Meacham (1969-), American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House (Nov. 11) (Pulitzer Prize). Michael Mirdad, You're Not Going Crazy... You're Just Waking Up! The Five Stages of Soul Transformation Process (Nov. 3); An Introduction to Tantra and Sacred Sexuality (Nov. 8). Jurgen Moltmann (1926-), A Broad Place (autobio.). Thomas Moore (1940-), A Life At Work: The Joy of Discovering What You Were Born to Do. Jefferson Morley, Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA; the CIA station chief in Mexico in 1963 covered-up CIA operations involving Lee Harvey Oswald? Benny Morris (1948-) (ed.), Making Israel. Benny Morris (1948-), 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. Charles R. Morris, The Trillion Dollar Meltdown: Easy Money, High Rollers, and the Great Credit Crash (Mar.); "The sad truth, however, is that subprime is just the first big boulder in an avalanche of asset write-downs that will rattle on through much of 2008. There will inevitably be margin calls, panicked selling, clamors from shareholders, and the flight from all risky assets that could double or triple the damage." Andrew Morton (1953-), Tom Cruise: An Unauthorized Biography (Jan.); claims he's #2 in command in the Church of Scientology, and that some true believers claim that his daughter Suri was conceived with L. Ron Hubbard's frozen sperm. Paul Mosley and John Hudson, The Macroeconomic Impact of Aid Volatility. Paul Mosley, Ales Bulir, and Alan Gelb, Introduction: the Volatility of Overseas Aid. Nat. Research Council, The New Americans: Economics, Demographics and Fiscal Effects of Immigration; how Mexican immigrants to the U.S. "are poorer, pay less tax, and are more likely to receive public benefits than American citizens", and cost taxpayers $346B a year after some economic voodoo. William Nordhaus (1941-), A Question of Balance: Weighing the Options on Global Warming Policies (June 24). Christiane Northrup, The Secret Pleasures of Menopause. Michael Parenti (1933-), Contrary Notions: The Michael Parenti Reader. Ron Paul (1935-), The Revolution: A Manifesto; libertarian U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) (1976-85, 1997-) advocates abolishing Social Security, income tax, nationalized health care, the FBI and DEA along with the war on drugs, and ending the Iraq War, starting his own movement. Ralph Peters (1952-), Looking for Trouble: Adventures in a Broken World. James Petras, Zionism, Militarism and the Decline of U.S. Power. Walid Phares, The Confrontation: Winning the War against Future Jihad. T. Boone Pickens (1928-), The First Billion is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future (Sept. 2); wants to run all of America's trucks on natural gas and fill the prairies with wind generators. Stanley Plumly (1939-), Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography. Sidney Poitier (1927-), Life Beyond Measure: Letters to My Great-Granddaughter. Samantha Power (1970-), Chasing the Flame Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World. Jill Price (1965-), The Woman Who Can't Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science (autobio.); suffers from hyperthymestic syndrome, never forgetting personal experiences, which weight her down as time progresses; the ultimate OCD? Jon Provost (1950-) and Laurie Jacobson, Timmy's in the Well: The Jon Provost Story; Timmy never fell into a well in "Lassie" but that doesn't stop the popular myth with its own true believers? Ibn Q. Al Rassooli, Lifting the Veil: The True Faces of Muhammad and Islam (Dec. 15). James Arthur Ray (1957-), Harmonic Wealth: The Secret of Attracting the Life You Want (Apr. 8); bestseller; too bad, on Oct. 8, 2009 two die during a sweat lodge ceremony at a Spiritual Warrior retreat in Sedona, Ariz., getting him convicted of negligent homicide - that's the life he wanted to attract? John Rechy (1934-), About My Life and the Kept Woman (autobio.). Andrew Roberts (1963-), Masters and Commanders: How Roosevelt, Churchill, Marshall and Alanbrooke Won the War in the West. David Roberts, Devil's Gate: Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart Tragedy. Aram Roston, The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi. Suze Rotolo (1943-2011), A Freewheelin' Time: A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties (autobio.); Bob Dylan's girlfriend in 1961-4, who clutches his arm on the cover of his 2nd album "Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"; claims that he may have talent but is no honorable man. Barry Rubin, The Truth About Syria (May 27). Anthony Rudel, Hello Everybody! The Dawn of American Radio. Gus Russo and Stephen Molton, Brothers in Arms: The Kennedys, the Castros and the Politics of Murder. Jeffrey Sachs (1954-), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet; advocates plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad; former CIA agent says that al-Qaida is in decline and the new generation of radical Islamists is less skilled and effective. Bill Salus, Isralestine: The Ancient Blueprints of the Future Middle East (July 7); uses the Bible to predict the outcome of the inevitable Jewish-Muslim war. Ricardo S. Sanchez (1951-), Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story; U.S. CIC in Iraq in 2003 retires and slams Pres. George W. Bush. Michael Savage (1942-), Psychological Nudity. William A. Schabas (1950-), War Crimes and Human Rights; the Khmer Rouge massacres in 1970s Cambodia lack "the ethnic dimension that is part of the essence of the crime [of genocide]." Simon Schama (1945-), The American Future: A History; a comparison of Barack Obama and John McCain, strongly preferring Obama; aired in four episodes on BBC-TV on Oct. 10-31. Michael F. Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq; by a CIA agent who resigned in 2004 in disgust after accusing his superiors of failing to aggressively target Osama bin Laden; "If you want to understand what's going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer" (Osama bin Laden, Sept. 7, 2007). Peter Dale Scott (1929-), The War Conspiracy: JFK, 911, and the Deep Politics of War. Natan Sharansky, Defending Identity: Its Indispensible Role in Protecting Democracy (June 3). David Sheff (1955-), Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction (Feb. 26); NYT bestseller about his son Nic's methamphetamine addiction; filmed in 2018 starring STeve Carell and Timothee Chalamet. Rick Shenkman, Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter. Alix Kates Shulman (1932-), To Love What Is: A Marriage Transformed (autobio.); caring for her brain-impaired husband. John Selby (1945-), Quiet Your Mind: An Easy-to-Use Guide to Ending Chronic Worry and Negative Thoughts and Living a Calmer Life. Jim Sheeler, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives; a casualty notification officer for the U.S. Iraq War. Philip Shenon, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Commission; how high-level U.S. govt. people got away with wrongdoing and incompetence. Clay Shirky (1964-), Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations; advocates "crowdsourcing" and other online collaborative efforts; "The Internet runs on love." Peter Singer (1946-), The Future of Animal Farming: Renewing the Animal Contract. Quentin Skinner (1940-), Hobbes and Republican Liberty. Mark Skousen (1947-), EconoPower: How a New Generation of Economists is Transforming the World (Mar. 21). Thomas P. Slaughter, The Beautiful Soul of John Woolman, Apostle of Abolition. Daniel Lord Smail, On Deep History and the Brain; "Where individuals once relied on religion and ritual as sources of dopamine and other chemical messengers, they turned increasingly to items of consumption, giving up God in favor of mammon.” Larry Smith (1968-) and Rachel Fershleiser (eds.), Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure; NYT bestselle); a takeoff of a line by Ernest Hemingway: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." Theodore Sorensen (1928-), Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History (autobio.); JFK's adviser. George Soros (1930-), The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means. Robert Spencer (1962-), Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America Without Guns or Bombs. Tori Spelling (1973-), Stori Telling (Mar. 11). George Steiner (1929-), My Unwritten Books; George Steiner at The New Yorker. Michael Sturmer (1938-), Putin and the Rise of Russia: The Country That Came In From the Cold; an admiring bio. by a right-wing German historian? Cass R. Sunstein (1954-) and Richard H. Thaler, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness; govt. should gently force people to be better, incl. putting healthiest foods in front at school cafeterias; marriage should be downgraded to a civil contract like a country club membership. Ron Suskind (1959-), The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism (Aug. 5). Radhanath Swami (1950-), The Journey Home: Autobiography of an American Swami; his journey from Jewish boy in Chicago to Hare Krishna guru in Mumbai, India. M. Wesley Swearingen, To Kill A President: Finally - An Ex-FBI Agent Rips Aside the Veil of Secrecy That Killed JFK (May 28). Michael Taeckens, Love is a Four-Letter Word. Victor Thorn, Hillary (and Bill) (3 vols.); incl. The Sex Volume (Feb. 14), The Drugs Volume, and The Murder Volume. Bruce Thornton (1953-), Decline and Fall: Europe's Slow Motion Suicide. Mary Tillman, Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman (Apr. 29); Pat Tillman's mother disses Stanley A. McChrystal (who was promoted to maj. gen. nine days after the death) for covering up his friendly fire death, calling him the "golden boy" of Pres. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld; "The false narrative, which McChrystal helped construct, diminished Pat's true actions". Kathleen Turner (1954-), Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love and Leading Roles (autobio.); claims that Nicolas Cage was arrested for DWI while filming "Peggy Sue Got Married", pissing him off and causing him to file a lawsuit. Paul Tough, Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America; Harlem Children's Zone dir. (1990-) Geoffrey Canada (1952-). Donald Trump (1946-) and Meredith McIver, Trump: Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success (Jan. 18). Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007), Armageddon in Retrospect (essays) (posth.). Charlotte S. Waisman and Jill S. Tietjen, Her Story: A Historyscope of the Women Who Changed America; 300 women starting with Virginia Dare in 1587. Barbara Walters (1929-), Audition: A Memoir (autobio.) (May 6); admits affair with black Mass. Dem. Sen. Edward Brooks. Benjamin J. Wattenberg (1933-), Fighting Words: A Tale of How Liberals Created Neo-Conservatism. Jacob Weisberg, The Bush Tragedy; George W. Bush "has been driven since childhood by a need to differentiate himself from his father", leading his presidency to crash and burn? Paul West (1930-), The Shadow Factory. Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order. Frank Wilczek, The Lightnebss of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces. Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008. Laura Lynne Williams, The Storks' Nest: Life and Love in the Russian Countryside. Marianne Williamson (1952-), The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Midlife (Jan.); bestseller. R.C.L. Wilson, The Great Ice Age. Anthony C. Wood, Preserving New York: Winning the Right to Protect a City's Landmarks; how the demolition of the Penn Station in NYC in 1963 led to the 1966 U.S. National Historic Preservation Act. James Wood (1965-), How Fiction Works; the "novel exists to be affecting... to shake us profoundly. When we're rigorous about feeling, we're honoring that"; coins the term "hysterical realism". Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Terry Tempest Williams (1955-), Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Oct.). Garry Wills (1934-), What the Gospels Meant. Michael Wolff, The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch. Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (Apr. 17); how the U.S. will no longer dominate the world economic, cultural or political scene due to the "rise of the rest", incl. China, India, Brazil, and Russia; "This is not a book about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else." Vadim Zeeland, Reality Transurfing (4 vols.) (2008-11); combines quantum physics with the idea of parallel worlds and the Law of Attraction. Philip Zimbardo (1933-), The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life; incl. his Time Perspective Inventory. Phil Zuckerman, Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment; secular society in Denmark and Sweden. Music: Saving Abel, Saving Abel (album) (debut) (#49 in the U.S.); from Corinth, Miss., incl. Jared Weeks, Jason Null, Scott Bartlett, Eric Taylor, Blake Dixon, and Daniel Dwight; incl. Addicted, 18 Days, Drowning (Face Down). The Academy Is..., Fast Times at Barrington High (album #4) (last) (Aug. 18) (#17 in the U.S.); incl. About a Girl. AC/DC, Black Ice (album #16) (Oct. 17); incl. Rock 'N Roll Train, Big Jack, Anything Goes, Money Made. Adele (1988-), 19 (album) (debut) (Jan. 28) (#1 in the U.K.); incl. Chasing Pavements, Hometown Glory, Cold Shoulder, Make You Feel My Love. Christina Aguilera (1980-), Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hits (album) (Nov. 7). Akon (1977-), Freedom (album #3) (Dec. 2); sells 600K copies; incl. Right Now (Na Na Na), Holla Holla (with T-Pain). Amon Amarth, Twilight of the Thunder God (album #7) (Sept. 17) (#50 in the U.S.); incl. Twilight of the Thunder God, Guardians of Asgaard (w/Lars Goran Petrov). The Presidents of the United States of America, These Are the Good Times People (album #5) (Mar. 11); first with Andrew McKeag instead of Dave Dederer; incl. Rot in the Sun. David Archuleta (1990-), David Archuleta (#2 in the U.S.) (900K copies worldwide); incl. Crush. Joseph Arthur (1971-) and the Lonely Astronauts, Temporary People (album #7) (Sept. 30); incl. Temporary People. Ashanti (1980-), The Declaration (album #4) (June 3) (#6 in the U.S.); incl. The Way That I Love You, Body on Me (w/Nelly, Akon), Good Good. B-52's, Funplex (album) (Mar. 25); first new album in 16 years, minus the hairdos and Ricky Wilson, and drummer Keith Strickland switching to guitar; incl. Funplex, Juliet of the Spirits, Deviant Ingredient, Eyes Wide Open, Pump, Ultraviolet. Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple (album #2) (Mar. 18); incl. Run (I'm a Natural Disaster), Going On, Who's Gonna Save My Soul. Bauhaus, Go Away White (album #5) (Mar. 3); first album since 1983; incl. Too Much 21st Century. Beatallica, All You Need Is Blood (May); in 13 languages. Bun B, II Trill (album) (Apr. 1). Erykah Badu (1971-), New Amerykah (album) (Feb. 26). Marcia Ball (1949-), Peace, Love & BBQ (album). Beck (1970-), Modern Guilt (album) (July 8). Natasha Bedingfield (1981-), Pocketful of Sunshine (Jan. 22); incl. Pocketful of Sunshine, Love Like This. Beastie Boys, The Mix-Up (album). Bell and Sebastian, The BBC Sessions (album) (Nov. 18). Beyonce (1981-), I Am... Sasha Fierce (album #3) (Nov. 18) (#1 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.) (7M copies); incl. If I Were a Boy, Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It), (the video starts a dance craze), Diva. Pet Shop Boys and Xenomania, ?. Billy Bragg (1957-) and The Blokes, Mr. Love & Justice (album #7) (Mar. 3); incl. Mr. Love & Justice, I Keep Faith, The Beach Is Free. Jackson Browne (1948-), Time the Conqueror (album #13) (Sept. 23) (#20 in the U.S.); expresses his disgust with the George W. Bush admin. Buckcherry, Black Butterfly (album #4) (Sept. 12) (#8 in the U.S.); incl. Too Drunk, Don't Go Away< Rescue Me, Talk to Me. Chris de Burgh (1948-), Footsteps (album #16) (Nov.). The Cab, Whisper War (album) (debut) (Apr. 29); from Las Vegas, Nev., incl. Alex DeLeon, Cash Colligan (bass), Alex Johnson (drums), Alex Marshall (piano), Ian Crawford; incl. I'll Run. Mariah Carey (1970-), E=MC^2 (Emancipation = Mariah Carey) (album #11) (Apr. 15) (#1 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.) (2.5M copies); incl. Touch My Body (#1 in the U.S.) (helps her pass Elvis Presley for the most #1 solo pop singles, 18), Bye Bye, I'll Be Lovin' U Long Time (w/T.l.), I Stay in Love; The Ballads (album) (Oct. 17). Tracy Chapman (1964-), Our Bright Future (album #8) (Nov. 11) (#57 in the U.S., #75 in the U.K.); incl. Sing for You. Owl City, Maybe I'm Dreaming (album) (debut) (Dec. 16); from Owatonna, Minn., incl. Adam Randal Young (1986-). Coldplay, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends (album #4) (June 11) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (10M copies); incl. Viva La Vida (Living the Life) (title named after a Frida Kahlo painting) (Cat Stevens sues for allegedly ripping off his "Foreigner Suite"), Lost!, Lovers in Japan, Violet Hill. David Cook (1982-), David Cook (album) (Nov. 18); incl. Light On, Time of My Life. Coolio (1963-), Stear Hear (album #6) (Oct. 28). Alice Cooper (1948-), Along Came a Spider (album #25). Elvis Costello (1954-) and the Imposters, Momofuku (album) (Apr. 22). Sheryl Crow (1962-), Detours (album) (Feb. 8); incl. Shine Over Babylon. Counting Crows, Saturday Nights and Morning Songs (album #5) (Mar. 25) (#3 in the U.S., #12 in the U.K.); incl. 1492, Washington Square, You Can't Count on Me (#80 in the U.S.), When I Dream of Michelangelo (#7 in the U.S.). Motley Crue, Saints of Los Angeles (The Dirt) (album #9) (June 24) (#4 in the U.S.); incl. Saints of Los Angeles (#5), Mutherfucker of the Year (#29), White Trash Circus (#37). Hyper Crush, The Arcade (album) (debut) (May 1); from LA, incl. rapper Donny Fontaine, vocalist Holly Valentine, and DJ/keyboardist Preston Moronoe; incl. The Arcade, Robo Tech, This Is My Life, Candy Store. Death Cab for Cutie, Narrow Stairs (album #6) (May 12) (#1 in the U.S., #24 in the U.K.); incl. I Will Possess Your Heart, No Sunlight, Cath..., Grapevine Fires. Miley Cyrus (1992-), Breakout (solo debut) (July 22); incl. The Damned, So, Who's Paranoid? (album #10) (Nov. 17); incl. Little Miss Disaster. Taylor Dayne (1962-), Satisfied (album) (Feb. 5). Panic! at the Disco, Pretty. Odd. (album #2) (Mar. 21) (#2 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); incl. Nine in the Afternoon, Mad as Rabbits, That Green Gentleman (Things Have Changed), Northern Downpour; ...Live in Chicago (album) (Dec. 2). Disturbed, Indestructible (album #4) (June 3, 2008) (#1 in the U.S., #20 in the U.K.) (1M copies); incl. Indestructible, Inside the Fire, Perfect Insanity, The Night. Snoop Dogg (1971-), Ego Trippin' (album #9) (Mar. 11). Dokken, Lightning Strikes Again (album #10) (May 13) (#133 in the U.S.); incl. Disease, Point Of No Return. Pussycat Dolls, Doll Domination (album #2) (Sept. 19) (#4 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.); incl. When I Grow Up, Bottle Pop, Whatcha Think About That (w/Missy Elliot), I Hate This Part. 3 Doors Down, 3 Doors Down (album #4) (May 20) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. It's Not My Time, Citzen/Soldier. Haylie Duff (1985-), Walk the Walk (album) (debut). Duffy (1984-), Rockferry (album) (debut) (Mar. 3); sells 6M copies; incl. Mercy, Warwick Avenue, Syrup and Honey. Forgive Durden, Razia's Shadow: A Musical (album) (Oct. 28). Enya (1961-), And Winter Came... (album #8) (Nov. 10); sells 3.5M copies; incl. White Is In the Winter Night, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, Trains and Winter Rains, My! My! Time Flies!, Oiche Chiuin. Exodus, Let There Be Blood (album) (Oct. 28). Extreme, Saudades de Rock (album #5) (Aug. 12); first album since 1995; incl. Comfortably Dumb. Marianne Faithfull (1946-), Easy Come, Easy Go (album) (May). Fall Out Boy, Folle a Deux (album #5) (Dec. 10) (#8 in the U.S.) (500K copies); incl. I Don't Care. Maroon 5, Call and Response: The Remix Album (album #3) (Dec. 9). Filter, Anthems for the Damned (album #4) (May 13) (#60 in the U.S.); incl. Soldiers of Misfortune. Fleet Foxes, Sun Giant (EP #2) (Apr. 8); incl. Mykonos, Drops in the River, English House; Fleet Foxes (album) (debut) (June 3) (#3 in the U.K.); incl. White Winter Hymnal, He Doesn't Know Why. Lady Gaga (1986-), The Fame (album) (debut) (Aug. 19); incl. Just Dance, Poker Face (about having to not show a man she's with that she'd rather be with a woman), Eh, Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say), LoveGame, Paparazzi. The Game, L.A.X. (album) (Aug. 26); original title "The D.O.C."; incl. Game's Pain, Dope Boys (with Travis Barker). Glasvegas, Glasvegas (album) (debut) (Sept. 8) (#2 in the U.K.); from Glasgow, Scotland, incl. James Allan (vocals), Rab Allan (guitar), Paul Donoghue (bass), and Joanna Lofgren (Löfgren) (drums); incl. It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry, Geraldine, Daddy's Gone; A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like A Kiss) (EP) (Dec. 1); incl. Fuck You, It's Over, Please Come Back Home, Silent Night (Noapte De Vis). Don Grady (1944-), Boomer: JazRokPop (album); songs for the Baby Boomer gen., by Robbie Douglas in "My Three Sons". The Phenomenal Handclap Band, The Phenomenal Handclap Band (album) (debut) (Oct. 28); incl. 15 to 20 (w/Lady Tigra), Baby, You'll Disappear. Jeff Healey (1966-2008), Mess of Blues (album) (Apr.) (posth.). Uriah Heep, Wake the Sleeper (album #21) (June 2); incl. What Kind of God. Her Space Holiday, XOXO, Panda and The New Kid Revival (album); Sleepy Tigers; used in a popular Bassett Furniture TV commercial; "You'll make biscuits and I'll make tea/ We'll curl up close and then fall asleep/ To the sound of no one else, no one else around." Vanessa Hudgens (1988-), Identified (album #2) (July 1). David Ippolito, Crazy on the Same Day (album #9). Bon Iver, For Emma, Forever Ago (album) (debut) (Feb. 19) (#64 in the U.S., #42 in the U.K.); from Eau Claire, Wisc., incl. Justin DeYarmond Edison Vernon (1981-); incl. For Emma, Skinny Love. LL Cool J (1968-), Exit 13 (album). Alan Jackson (1958-), Good Time (album) (Mar. 4); incl. Small Town Southern Man. Janet Jackson (1966-), Discipline (album #10) (Feb. 26) (#1 in the U.S., #63 in the U.K.) (500K copies); incl. Feedback (#19 in the U.S.), Rock with U, Luv, Can't B Good. Jack Hody Johnson (1975-), Sleep Through the Static (album #4) (Feb. 5) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); incl. Sleep Through the Static, Hope, If I Had Eyes. Jonas Brothers, Camp Rock Soundtrack (album) (June 17); A Little Bit Longer (album #3) (Aug. 12) (#1 in the U.S., #19 in the U.K.); incl. Burnin' Up, Lovebug, Tonight. Grace Jones (1948-), Hurricane (album #10) (Nov. 3); first album since 1989; incl. Hurricane, Williams' Blood, Corporate Cannibal. Journey, Revelation (album #13) (June 3); incl. Never Walk Away, Where Did I Lose Your Love, After All These Years. Juanes, La Vida... Es Un Ratico (album) (Nov. 25); incl. Me Enamora. Danity Kane, Welcome to the Dollhouse (album #2); incl. Welcome to the Dollhouse, Damaged. The Black Keys, Attack & Release (album #5) (Apr. 1) (#14 in the U.S.) featured I Got Mine, Same Old Thing, Strange Times. Cold War Kids, Loyalty to Loyalty (album #2) (Sept. 23); incl. Something Is Not Right with Me. The Killers, Day & Age (album #3) (Nov. 18) (#6 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (3M copies); incl. The World We Live In, Human, Spaceman, A Dustland Fairytale. The Kominas, Wild Nights in Guantanamo Bay, (album) (debut) (Mar. 14); from Boston, Mass., incl. Pakistani-born Shahjehan Khan (vocals), Basim Usmani (bass), Imran Malik (drums), and Bengali-born Arjun Ray (guitar); got their start after reading Michael Muhammad Knight's 2002 Muslim punk novel "The Taqwacores"; incl. Sharia Law in the U.S.A., Blow Shit Up, and I Want a Handjob. Barenaked Ladies, Snacktime! (album) (May 6); children's album. Ladyhawke (1979-), Ladyhawke (album) (debut) (Sept. 22) (#16 in the U.K.); incl. Back of the Van, Paris Is Burning, Dusk Till Dawn, My Delirium, Magic. k.d. lang (1961-), Watershed (album #5) (Feb. 5); her first #1 album, in Australia. Cyndi Lauper (1953-), Bring Ya to the Brink (album #10) (May 27); incl. Set Your Heart, Same Ol' Story, Into the Nightlife. John Legend (1978-), Evolver (album #3) (Oct. 20); incl. Everybody Knows, Green Light (with Andre 3000). Def Leppard, Songs from the Sparkle Lounge (album #10) (Apr. 25); incl. Go. Black Lips, 200 Million Thousand (album #5) (Feb. 24); incl. Short Fuse. Flaming Lips, Christmas on Mars Soundtrack (album #12) (Nov. 11). Demi Lovato (1992-), Don't Forget (album) (debut) (Sept. 23); incl. La La Land, Get Back; Behind Enemy Lines. Ludacris (1977-), Theater of the Mind (album #6) (Nov. 22) (#5 in the U.S.); incl. What Them Girls Like, One More Drink (w/T-Pain), Nasty Girl (w/Plies). Madonna (1958-), Hard Candy (album #11) (Apr. 25) (#53 in the U.S., #36 in the U.K.); last with Warner Bros. Records; sells 2M copies; cover shows her sucking on a mike; incl. Candy Shop, 4 Minutes (w/ Justin Timberlake) (#3 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.), Give It 2 Me (#57 in the U.S., #7 in the U.K.), Miles Away (#39 in the U.K.). John Mayer (1977-), Where the Light Is: Live in Los Angeles (album) (July 1). Martina McBride (1966-), Martina McBride (album #9); incl. Ride. Paul McCartney (1942-) and Youth (AKA The Fireman), Electric Arguments (album) (Nov. 24) (#67 in the U.S., #79 in the U.K.); title taken from the Allen Ginsberg poem "Kansas City to St. Louis"; incl. Sing the Changes. John Mellencamp (1951-), The Company We Keep (album). Metallica, Death Magnetic (album) (Sept.). Steve Miller Band, The Truth About the Lies (album). Millionaires, Bling Bling Bling! (EP) (debut) (July 22); from Huntington Beach, Calif., incl. sisters Melissa Marie and Allison Green; incl. I Like Money, Alcohol, In My Bed. Moby, Last Night (album) (Mar. 10); incl. Everyday It's 1989. Arctic Monkeys, At the Apollo (album) (Nov. 3). Van Morrison (1945-), Keep It Simple (album #32) (Mar. 17) (#10 in the U.S.); incl. That's Entrainment; "Entrainment is when you connect with the music... Entrainment is really what I'm getting at in the music... It's kind of when you're in the present moment - you're here - with no past or future." Motorhead, Motorizer (Motörizer) (album #19) (Aug. 26); Rock Out. Alannah Myles (1958-), Black Velvet (album #4). Nine Inch Nails, Ghosts I-IV (album #6) (Mar. 2) (#14 in the U.S., #60 in the U.K.); released under a Creative Commons license, with price points up to $300; The Slip (album #7) (July 22); released free, with the comment "This one's on me"; incl. Discipline. The National, The Virginia EP (album) (May 20). Nelly (1974-), Brass Knuckles (album #5) (Sept. 16) (#3 in the U.S.); incl. Party People (w/ Fergie) (#40 in the U.S., #14 in the U.K.), Stepped on My J'z (w/Ciara and Jermaine Dupri) (#90 in the U.S.), Body on Me (w/Akon and Ashanti) (#42 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.). Ne-Yo (1979-), Year of the Gentleman (album #3) (Sept. 16); incl. Closer, Mad. Nickelback, Dark Horse (album #6) (Nov. 17) (#2 in the U.K., #4 in the U.K.) (5M copies); incl. Gotta Be Somebody, Something in Your Mouth, If Today Was Your Last Day, I'd Come for You, Burn It to the Ground, Never Gonna Be Alone, Shakin' Hands, This Afternoon. Oasis, Dig Out Your Soul (album #7) (Oct. 6) (#5 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (5M copies); incl. The Shock of the Lightning, I'm Outta Time, Falling Down. The Offspring, Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace (album #8) (June 17); incl. Half-Truism, You're Gonna Go Far, Kid, Hammerhead, Kristy, Are You Doing Okay? Paris, Acid Reflex (album); incl. Don't Stop the Movement. Square One. Katy Perry (1984-), One of the Boys (album #2) (June 17) (#9 in the U.S., #11 in the U.K.) (5M copies); incl. I Kissed a Girl (June 16) ("I kissed a girl and I liked it") (the 1,000th #1 Billboard hit of the rock era, selling 4M+ copies). Kellie Pickler (1986-), Kellie Pickler (album #2) (Sept. 30); incl. Don't You Know You're Beautiful, Best Days of Your Life. Pink (1979-), Funhouse (album #5) (Oct. 24) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (1M copies); incl. So What (#1 in the U.S.) ("I guess I just lost my husband, I don't know where he went, so I'm going to drink my money, I'm not going to pay his rent"), Sober, Please Don't Leave Me, I Don't Believe You, Glitter in the Air (#20 in the U.S.). Phantom Planet, Raise the Dead (album #4) (Apr. 15); incl. Raise the Dead. Pretenders, Break Up the Concrete (album #9) (Oct. 7). Eric Prydz (1976-), Pjanoo (#2 in the U.K.). Juno Reactor, Gods and Monsters (album #7) (Apr. 22); incl. Immaculate Crucifixion, City of the Sinful. The All-American Rejects, When the World Comes Down (album #3) (Dec. 6) (#15 in the U.S., #48 in the U.K.); incl. Gives You Hell (#4 in the U.S., #18 in the U.K.), The Wind Blows (#113 in the U.S.), I Wanna (#92 in the U.S., #84 in the U.K.); Soundcheck Vol. 1 (EP) (Dec. 16). R.E.M., Accelerate (album #14) (Mar. 31); incl. Man-Sized Wreath, Supernatural Superserious, Hollow Man, Until the Day Is Done. Queen and Paul Rodgers, The Cosmos Roks (album #16) (Sept. 12); incl. Say It's Not True, C-lebrity. My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade Is Dead! (album) (June 30). La Roux, Quicksand (debut) (Dec.); combo of le roux and la rousse; from Brixton, England, incl. androgynous redhead Eleanor "Elly" Jackson (1988-). Primal Scream, Beautiful Future (album #9) (July 21); incl. Can't Go Back. Mr. Scruff (1972-), Ninja Tuna (album) (Oct. 6). Seal (1963-), Soul (album #6) (Nov. 1); incl. A Change Is Gonna Come (by Sam Cooke). Pete Seeger (1919-2014), Pete Seeger at 89 (album). Shaggy, Lucky Day (album); incl. Me Julie w/ Ali G), Hey Sexy Lady (with Brian and Tony Gold). Howard Leslie Shore (1946-) and Henry Hwang (1957-), The Fly (Theatre du Chatelet, Paris) (July 2); based on the 1986 David Cronenberg film, starring Daniel Okulitch as Seth Brundle, Ruxandra Donose as Veronica Quaife, and David Curry as Stathis Borans. Ashlee Simpson (1984-), Bittersweet World (album #3) (Apr. 22) (#4 in the U.S., #57 in the U.K.); incl. Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya), Little Miss Obsessive. Jessica Simpson (1980-), Do You Know (album #6) (Sept. 9) (#4 in the U.S.); incl. Come On Over, Remember That. Carly Simon (1945-), This Kind of Love (album) (Apr.). Hush Sound, Goodbye Blues (album #3) (Mar. 18); incl. Goodbye Blues. Spiderbait, Ghost Riders in the Sky; from the 2007 film "Ghost Rider". Britney Spears (1981-), Circus (album) (Dec. 2); incl. Circus, Womanizer (Sept. 26) (her first #1 single since "Baby One More Time" in 1998, rejuvenating her hot body career). Staind, The Illusion of Progress (album #6) (Aug. 19) (#3 in the U.S., #73 in the U.K.); incl. Believe, All I Want, The Way I Am, This Is It. Ringo Starr (1940-), Liverpool 8 (album #14) (Jan. 14); incl. Liverpool 8; Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band Live 2006 (July 7). Al Stewart (1945-), Sparks of Ancient Light (album #18) (Sept. 15); incl. Hanno the Navigator, Shah of Shahs, The Ear of the Night, The Loneliest Place on the Map. The Rolling Stones, Shine a Light Soundtrack (album) (Apr. 1). Sugarbabes, Catfights and Spotlights (album #6) (Oct. 17); incl. Girls, No Can Do. Donna Summer (1948-2012), Crayons (album #17) (May 20); first original album since 1991; incl. I'm a Fire, Stamp Your Feet, It's Only Love, Fame (The Game). Nada Surf, Lucky (album #5) (Feb. 4) (#82 in the U.S.); incl. Weightless, See These Bones, Beautiful Beat. Taylor Swift (1989-), Fearless (album #2) (Nov. 11) (#1 in the U.S.) (8.7M copies); incl. Love Story, Change. Testament, The Formation of Damnation (album #9) (Apr. 28) (#59 in the U.S.); features original guitarist Alex Skolnick and bassist Greg Christian, along with drummer Paul Bostaph (1964-); incl. The Formation of Damnation. Therion, Live Gothic (album) (July 25). Seven Mary Three, Day & Nightdriving (album #7) (Feb. 19); incl. Last Kiss. T.I., Paper Trail (album) (Sept. 30); incl. Whatever You Like, No Matter What. The Ting Tings, We Started Nothing (album) (debut) (May 19) (6M copies); from England, incl. Katie Rebecca White (1983-) (vocals), Jules "Jules" De Martino (1969-); incl. That's Not My Name, Fruit Machine, Shut Up and Let Me Go. The Fall of Troy, Phantom on the Horizon (album) (Nov. 28). Six Feet Under, Death Rituals (album #8) (Nov. 11); incl. Shot in the Head, Seed of Filth. Usher (1978-), Here I Stand (album #5) (May 27); sells 1.5M copies; incl. Trading Places, Love in This Club (with Young Jeezy), Moving Mountains. The Verve, Forth (album #4) (first album since 1999) (Aug. 25); incl. Love Is Noise (#4 in the U.K.). Lil Wayne (1982-), Tha Carter III (album). Weezer, Weezer (Red Album) (album #6) (June 3) (#4 in the U.S., #21 in the U.K.); incl. Pork and Beans, The Greatest Man That Ever Lived (Variations on a Shaker Hymn), Troublemaker, Dreamin'. Kanye West (1977-), 808s & Heartbreak (album #4) (Nov. 24) (#1 in the U.S.) (1.6M copies in the U.S.); incl. Love Lockdown, Heartless, Amazing (w/Young Jeezy), Paranoid (w/Mr Hudson). Wisin and Yandel and DJ Nesty, Wisin & Yandel Presentan: La Mente Maestra (album) (Oct. 28); incl. Me Estas Tentando (You're Tempting Me). Lil' Zane (1982-), Tha Return (album #3) (Feb. 26). Frank Zappa (1940-93), One Shot Deal (album) (posth.) (June 13); Joe's Menage (album) (posth.) (Oct. 1); The Frank Zappa aaafnraa Birthday Bundle (album) (posth.) (Dec. 21). White Zombie, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (5-disc boxed set) (Nov. 25). Movies: Eric Red's 100 Feet (July 24) stars Famke Janssen as Marnie Watson, who kills her abusive husband in self-defense, is put under house arrest, and is stalked by his ghost. Roland Emmerich's 10,000 B.C. (Mar. 7) stars Steven Strait, Camilla Belle, Cliff Curtis, and other no-names in a mammoth flick. Robert Luketic's 21 (Mar. 28) is about six MIT students who are trained to count cards by Prof. Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), and are sent to Las Vegas to rake in millions, led by whiz kid Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess), who gets caught and is roughed up and threatened with murder by Casino goon Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), and turned into a sandbagger; the message of the flick is that all blackjack players are supposed to be dopes who don't use their brains to win and that casino employees are above the law?; anybody can learn card-counting on the Net, and casinos don't have to offer blackjack, or can put more decks in the shoe, so what's the point of the stupid movie except to sucker viewers into the theater if they have any money left after losing at the casino? Anne Fletcher's 27 Dresses (Jan. 18) is a breakthrough for Katherine Heigl, the new Meg Ryan. Hesham Issawi's AmericanEast (Nov. 14) pushes the Islam is a Religion of Peace narrative in a 1-sided way via a speech, trying to explain away the existence of Islamic terrorists while portraying Muhammad as a "cool dude" who has no bad side to emulate, leaving most of real history out and leaving viewers ignorant of the real facts; ironically it suggests a way out for Muslims, viz., conversion to Judaism; stars Sayed Badreya, Sarah Shahi, Tim Guinee, Tony Shalhoub, and Michael Shalhoub. Ed Harris' Appaloosa (Sept. 19) (New Line Cinema), based on the 2005 novel by Robert B. Parker channeling Tombstone, Ariz. stars Harris as lawman Virgil Cole, who is hired along with deputy Everett Hitch (Viggo Mortensen) to protect the lawless town of 1882 Appaloosa, N.M. from rancher Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons); Renee Zellweger plays Hitch's babe Allie French; does $27.7M box office on a $20M budget. Baz Luhrmann's Australia (Nov. 26) stars Nicole Kidman as Lady Sarah Ashley, whose N Australian cattle ranch is threatened by land barons, causing her to lean on her handsome farmhand Drover (Hugh Jackman) in a 2K-head cattle drive, witnessing the Japanese bombing of Darwin at the start of WWII. Uli Edel's The Baader Meinhof Complex (Sept. 25), based on the 1985 bestseller by Stefan Aust is a documentary about the 1960s West German Red Army Faction. Chris Bell's Bigger, Stronger, Faster is a documentary about the weird world of sports steroids, incl. "poster boy for steroids" Ahnuld. Ridley Scott's Body of Lies (Oct. 10), based on the 2007 David Ignatius novel stars Leonardo DiCaprio as CIA operative Roger Ferris, who is sent by his boss Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) (who gained 63 lbs. for the role) to track down a top terrorist in Jordan (really Morocco). Mark Herman's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (Nov. 14), based on the 2006 John Boyne novel stars Laszlo Aron as Bruno, son of Auschwitz concentration camp commandant, who befriends Jewish POW Shmuel, after which he dresses up in striped you know whats, sneaks in to help him, and ends up in a gas chamber - the farther from the real events, the more fake history sprouts up? Rob Reiner's The Bucket List (Jan. 11) stars Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman as Edward Cole, and Carter Chambers, two old farts who escape a cancer ward for a last wild ride through the Seven Wonders of the World incl. Mt. Everest; blacks have come a long way since "The Defiant Ones" (1958)? Ethan Coen's and Joel Coen's Burn After Reading (Sept. 12) stars Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, and Tilda Swinton in a comedy about a CIA agent who writes a tell-all on a disk, which ends up in the hands of two gym employees, who try to cash it in. Darnell Martin's Cadillac Records (Dec. 5), about the early years of Chess Records in 1950s Chicago stars Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Cedric the Entertainer as Willie Dixon, Eamonn Walker as Howlin' Wolf, Mos Def as Chuck Berry, and Beyonce as Etta James; does $8.8M box office on a $12M budget. Clint Eastwood's Changeling (Oct. 31) stars Angelina Jolie as Christie Collins, whose son Walter (Gattling Griffith) is kidnapped in 1928 Los Angeles, and the corrupt LAPD return a different kid and tell her it's him, putting her through hell to come clean. Jon Poll's Charlie Bartlett (Feb. 22) stars Anton Yelchin as a rich kid who becomes the self-appointed pshrink to his high school; Robert Downey Jr. plays Principal Gardner. Roger Spottiswoode's The Children of Huang Shi (original title: The Bitter Sea) (Apr. 3) stars Jonathan Rhys-Myers as British journalist George Hogg in 1938 Nanjing, who rescues 60 orphans with help from Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell), Commie resistance fighter Chen Hansheng (Chow Yun-fat), and wealthy Mrs. Wang (Michelle Yeoh). Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale (Un Conte de Noel) (May 21) stars Catherine Deneuve as Junon, and Jean-Paul Roussilon as Abel, heads of a dysfunctional French family, whose children incl. Elizabeth (Anne Consigny) try to get them to a Christmas reunion. Steven Soderbergh's Che (Jan. 24) stars Benicio Del Toro as Ernesto "Che" Guevara, the Argentine doctor turned rev. leader who disappeared from Cuba in 1965 and ended up dead in Bolivia in Oct. 1967; comes in two parts. Andrew Adamson's The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (May 18) stars Ben Barnes as Prince Caspian in a flick filled with too many pitiless battle scenes and no obvious Christian message other than that animal-human monsters are just as good as white men?; the Pevensie kids forget the wardrobe and use a train station this time; Sergio Castellitto stars as bad king Miraz of the Telmarines; also stars Peter Dinklage as Trumpkin the Red Dwarf, and Harry Gregson-Williams as the voice of Pattertwig the Squirrel. Matt Reeves' Cloverfield (Jan. 18) (Bad Robot Productions) (Paramount Pictures) (named after Santa Monica Airport, located near the HQ of Bad Robot Productions) debuts, seen through a personal camcorder in the area "formerly known as Central Park" stars Lizzy Caplan (as Marlena Diamond), Michael Stahl-David (as Rob Hawkins), T.J. Miller (as Hud Platt), and Jessica Lucas (as Lily Ford) in an "Omigod" flick about a sea monster attacking New York City, but this time the tables are turned and the viewer only sees dust clouds like in 9/11?; does $170.8M box office on a $25M budget; "Something has found us"; followed by "10 Cloverfield Lane" (2016), "The Cloverfield Paradox" (2018). David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Dec. 25), based on a 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald stars Bradd Pitt as an infant born in his 80s and aging backwards, and Cate Blanchett as his er, babe; so silly you want your money back? Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight (July 14) stars Christian Bale as Batman, Gary Oldman as Lt. James Gordon, Heath Ledger as the Joker, Aaron Eckhart as district atty. Harvey Dent, and Maggie Gyllenhaal as his asst. Rachel Dawes; on July 18 it sets a 1-day box office record of $66.4M, then another record of $157M for opening weekend, going on to do $1B box office on a $185M budget; followed by "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012); "Some people just want to watch the world burn" (Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth); "Upset the established order and everything becomes chaos." (Ledger) Scott Derrickson's The Day the Earth Stood Still (Dec. 12) (20th Cent. Fox) is a remake of the 1951 film, starring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu; does $233M box office on a $80M budget. Edward Zwick's Defiance (Dec. 31) stars Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski (1906-87), who helps 1.2K Jews escape to the Belorussian forest and actively holding out against the Nazis, despite all the other Jews meekly submitting like lambs to the slaughter. Yojiro Takita's Departures (Sept. 13) is about young unemployed cellist Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), who suddenly decides to become a nakanshi (mortician). Neil Marshall's Doomsday (Mar. 14) is a sci-fi thriller about a plague in future Britain. D.J. Caruso's Eagle Eye (Sept. 26) (Paramount Pictures) stars Shia La Boeuf and Michelle Monaghan as Jerry Shaw and Rachel Holloman, who are thrown into an adventure via cell phone by mysterious voice Julianne Moore, who turns out to be the top secret Autonomous Reconnaissance Intelligence Integration Analysit (ARIAA) computer, which triggers Operation Guillotine, tasked to assassinate the president in favor of defense secy. Curly, er, George Callister (Michael Chiklis); Billy Bob Thornton plays FBI agent Tom Morgan; does $178.1M box office on an $80M budget. Laurent Cantet's Entre les Murs (Between the Walls) (The Class) (May 24), based on the 2006 novel by Francois Begaudeau stars himself as a teacher in Paris dealing with racially-mixed students; first French film to win the Palm de'Or since 1987 ("Under the Sun of Satan"); does $28.7M box office on a 2.5M Euro budget. Ben Stein's Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (Feb.) takes on the scientific establishment for systematically suppressing and ruining the scientific careers of creationists and intelligent design advocates incl. Richard M. von Sternberg, evoking memories of the bad ole days when the all-in-one establishment Roman Catholic Church burned heretics, only without the burning part, just their employment and access to scientific resources and journals, with the soundbyte: "Big Science in this area of biology has lost its way. Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are. Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-American, it's anti-science. It's anti the whole concept of learning", with co-producer Walt Ruloff adding "People will be stunned to actually find out what elitist scientists proclaim, which is that a large majority of Americans are simpletons who believe in a fairy tale", all of which of course is vigorously denied by its employed spokesmen. Dennis Lee's Fireflies in the Garden (Feb. 10) (Universal Pictures) stars Willem Dafoe, Ryan Reynolds, and Julia Roberts in a story about three generations of an academic family devastated by an automobile accident, causing domineering father Charles Taylor (Dafoe) to have to face his failings; does $3.4M box office on an $8M budget. Andy Tennant's Fool's Gold (Feb. 8) stars Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson as estranged couple Benjamin and Tess Finnegan, who are reuinited by a search for the 1715 Queen's Dowry treasure off the Fla. coast. Rob Minkoff's The Forbidden Kingdom (Apr. 18) is the first martial arts film teaming Jackie Chan (as Lu Yan the Drunken Immortal) and Jet Li (as Sun Wukong the Monkey King), with hidden wires everywhere; Michael Angarano plays Jason Tripitikas the traveler. Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon (Oct. 15), based on the 2006 Peter Morgan play stars Frank Langella as Richard Nixon, and Michael Sheen as David Frost, who turn Nixon's last interview into a 3-round world boxing match, with Nixon winning hands-down until the last round, when Frost battles back and knocks him out, getting him to admit he failed the Am. people and its system of government, making Frost a giant hit with journalists; too bad, Langella lays Nixon on a little too thick, making him look half-drunk all the time, and the shark music is too manipulative? Courtney Hunt's Frozen River (Jan. 18) stars Melissa Leo as Ray Leo, and Misty Upham as Lila, who smuggle illegal aliens across the St. Lawrence River between N.Y. and Quebec in a Mohawk Rez. Matteo Garrone's Gomorra (May 16), based on the book by Roberto Saviano depicts the gory Camorra crime mob in Naples in an artsy fashion. Ramin Bahrani's Goodbye Solo (Aug. 31) stars Souleymane Sy Savane as Winston-Salem, N.C. Senegalese taxi driver Solo, who picks up suicidal Southern good ol' boy William (Robert Gene "Red" West, former bodyguard of Elvis Presley), and forms an unlikely friendship. Zak Penn's The Grand (Apr. 4) is a light comedy about a $10M prof. poker game, starring Woody Harrelson as One Eyed Jack Faro, plus six other players, incl. Chris Parnellas Asperger's case Harold Melvin, who recites the Mentat Oath from "Dune" before every game, Richard King as Andy Andrews, Dennis Farina as Deuce Fairbanks, Werner Herzog as a German psycho, and Cheryl Hines and David Cross as twins whose father Gabe Kaplan makes them compete against each other; the second half of the film doesn't keep up with the first half? Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino (Dec. 12) stars Eastwood as lonely old hoarse cig-puffing Polish-Am. Korean War vet Walt Kowalski, whose Vietnamese Hmong (pr. Mung) teenie neighbor Thao Vang Lor (Bee Vang) tries to steal his prize 1972 Gran Torino, only to have his family force him to pay him back by working for him, after which it turns into a cross-cultural father-son thing; Ahney Her plays Sue Lor, and Christopher Carley plays Father Janovich. Peter Berg's Hancock (July 1) stars Will Smith as a black boozing superhero who dresses like a street bum, and hires PR agent Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman) to repair his image; does $107M by July 6, incl. $66M over the July 4th weekend. M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening (June 10) (20th Cent. Fox) stars Mark Wahlberg as Philly h.s. science teacher Elliot Moore, who flees from an airborne neurotoxin; Zooey Deschanel plays his wife Alma; does $16.4M box office on a $48M budget. Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army (July 11) star Ron Perlman and Selma Blair in a sequel that's better than the original. Jimmy Hayward's and Steve Martino's Horton Hears a Who! (Mar. 14) is an animated flick starring Jim Carrey as the voice of Horton, Steve Carrell as the mayor of Whoville, and Carol Burnett as Kangaroo. Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (Sept. 4), written by producer Mark Boal stars Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, Guy Pearce, Jeremy Renner, and Anthony Mackie in an action thriller about the U.S. Army's elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams in Iraq. Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk (June 8) (Marvel Studios) (Universal Pictures) stars Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, William Hurt as Gen. Thunderbolt Ross, Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky, and Liv Tyler as Betty Ross; Lou Ferrigno appears as the Hulk's voice; does $263.4M box office on a $150M budget. Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (May 22) sees long-in-the-tooth Harrison Ford return to reprise the 1980s franchise; Cate Blanchett plays Russian villain Irina Spalko; grosses $126M on the 4-day Memorial Day weekend. Iain Softley's Inkheart (Dec. 11), based on the 2003 novel by Cornelia Funke stars Brendan Fraser as booklover Mo "Silvertongue" Folchart, a man who when he reads fiction aloud sees a main chars come to life, at the expense of a person from the real world being sent back to theirs, in particular his wife, who has been trapped in guess what book for nine years; also stars Eliza Bennett, Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, and Jim Broadbent; does $62.5M box office on a $60M budget. Aaron Newman's Iran is Not the Problem is a documentary with the tagline "Will truth be the casualty of our next war?", portraying Iran as innocuous and not worth invading by the U.S., because it's only about oil and U.S. world domination. Jon Favreau's Iron Man (May 2), based on the Marvel Comics char. stars Robert Downey Jr. as hi tech genius Tony Stark, who builds an advanced exoskeleton that makes him into a superhero; Gwyneth Paltrow plays his asst. Pepper Potts; Terrence Howard plays military liaison James Rhodes; Jeff Bridges plays Stark Industries exec Obadiah Stane; brings in $585M on a $140M budget; followed by "Iron Man 2" (2010), "Iron Man 3" (2013). Jean de Sigonzac's Lost City Raiders (Oct. 31) stars James Brolin, Ian Somerhalder, Ben Cross, and Jamie King on globally-warmed 2048 New Vatican, where Cardinal Battaglia wants to use the Scepter of Moses to stop a global flood. Marco Schnabel's The Love Guru (June 20) stars Mike Myers as Am.-born Guru Pitka, who returns to break into the self-help biz with books such as "If You're Happy and You Know It Think Again"; also stars Justin Timberlake as Jacques Grande, Verne Troyer as Coach Cherkov, Jessica Alba as Jane Bullard, and Jessica Simpson, Deepak Chopra, Kanye West, and Rob Blake as themselves in a mediocre comedy filled with penis jokes; "His Karma is huge"; "Get ready for the summer of love". Paul Weiland's Made of Honor (May 2) stars Patrick Dempsey, who is asked to be the maid of honor by Michelle Monaghan, but falls for her and tries to get her to break it off for him. Phyllida Lloyd's Mamma Mia! (June 30) (Relativity Media) (Universal Pictures), written by Catherine Johnson is a musical based on songs by ABBA and named after their 1975 hit, starring Amanda Seyfried as bride-to-be Sophie Sheridan, who invites three of her mother Donna's (Meryl Streep) former beaus to her wedding on Kalokairi Island in Greece hoping to ID one as her father, either Sam Carmichael (Pierce Brosnan), Harry Bright (Colin Firth), or Bill Anderson (Stellan Skarsgard); grosses $615.7M worldwide on a $52M budget, becoming the 5th highest grossing film of 2008, highest grossing musical until ?), and the most commercially successful British film (until ?). James Marsh's Man on Wire (Jan. 22) (BBC Storyville) (Discovery Films) (UK Film Council) (Magnolia Pictures), based on his book "To Reach the Clouds" is a documentary about 1974 WTC tightrope walker Philippe Petit; "There is no why" (Petit); does $5.3M box office on a $1.9M budget. David Frankel's Marley & Me (Dec. 25) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 2005 book by John Grogan about a loveable unruly yellow Lab stars Owen Wilson, Jennifer Anniston, and Eric Dane; Marley is played by 22 dogs; does $247.8M box office on a $60M budget. Spike Lee's Miracle at St. Anna (Sept. 26) (Touchstone Pictures), based on the 2003 novel by James McBride is about four black WWII Buffalo soldiers of the 92nd Infantry Div., incl. SSgt. Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke), Sgt. Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy), Cpl. Hector Negron (Laz Alonso), and PFC Samuel "Sam" Train (Omar Benson Miller), who get trapped in a Tuscan village and end up protecting little boy Angelo Torancelli (Matteo Sciabordi) and the Head of the Primavera bust while Stamps and Cummings get it on with hot villager Renata Salducci (Valentina Cervi); Pierfrancesco Favi plays Partisan leader Peppi Grotta AKA The Great Butterfly; does $9.3M box office on a $45M budget. Bharat Nalluri's Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Mar. 7), based on the Winifred Watson novel stars Frances McDormand as English nanny Guinevere Pettigrew, who ends up working for flashy Am. actress Delysia Lafosse (Amy Adams) in WWII London. Gus Van Sant's Milk (Oct. 28) stars Sean Penn as Harvey Milk (1930-78), and Josh Brolin as Dan White (1946-85); "Can homosexuals reproduce?" (Brolin); "No, but God knows we keep trying" (Penn). Sergei Bodrov's Mongol, starring Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano attempts to humanize Genghis Khan and show his good side. George C. Wolfe's Nights in Rodanthe (Sept. 26) stars Diane Lane, Richard Gere, and Christopher Meloni in a storm in N.C. Howard McCain's Outlander (July 2008), a remake of Bewolf set in 709 C.E. Norway stars James Caviezel as ET humanoid soldier Kainan, whose spacecraft wrecks in a large lake, allowing his Moorwen prisoner to escape, causing him to hoodwink local Norse king Hrothgar of Heorot (John Hurt) into helping him hunt a "dragon" while he hooks up with his daughter Freya (Sophia Myles). Tim Russ's Star Trek: Of Gods and Men (June 15) stars geriatric ST:TOS actors in a Lawrence Welk of the 23rd cent., starring aging Nichelle Nicholas as Uhura, Walter Koenig as Chekhov, and Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand. Marc Forster's Quantum of Solace (Oct. 29) (Eon Productions) (MGM) (Columbia Pictures0) (James Bond 007 film #22), the 2nd starring Daniel Craig is a sequel to the 1953 novel "Casino Royale", in which Bond battles Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a member of the evil Quantum org., who poses as an environmentalist to stage a coup in Bolivia and take control of its water supply, with the help of MI6 agent Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton); meanwhile Bond seeks revenge for his babe Vesper Lynd ("West Berlin") (Eva Green) (only woman other than future wife Tracy to whom he proposes), while his loyalty is questioned by M; does $586M box office on a $200M budget, incl. $70M office on opening weekend; the Quantum of Solace Theme is performed by Jack White and Alicia Keys. John Erick Dowdle's Quarantine (Oct. 10) (Andale Pictures) (Screen Gems) debuts, set on Mar. 11, 2008, about a mad-dog cannibal Armageddon Virus stolen from a lab by a doomsday cult and let loose as seen through the lens of reporter Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and camerman Scott Percival (Steve Harris); does $41.3M box office on a $12M budget. Sylvester Stallone's Rambo (IV) (Jan. 24) (Millennium Films) (Lionsgate) (The Weinstein Co.) stars Stallone as John Rambo, who leads some mercenaries in Burma to rescue a village of Karen tribespeople along with hot babe Sarah Miller (Julie Benz); does $113M box office on a $50M budget. Stephen Daldry's The Reader (Dec. 10), based on the 1995 novel by Bernhard Schlink stars Ralph Fiennes as law student Michael Berg, who encounters his former lover Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) (who likes to be read to) in a Nazi war crimes trial, and discovers her big secret, illiteracy; David Kross plays young Michael; Winslet's best supporting actress Oscar is the first ever for playing a Nazi. Larry Charles' Religulous (Oct. 3) ((Thousand Words, Liongate) is a documentary giving Bill Maher's irreverent take on world religions; "Why doesn't he just obliterate the Devil and therefore get rid of evil in the world? ... He will? What's he waiting for?"; "Senator, it worries me that people are running my country who believe in a talking snake"; "Sir, you would agree that even if a billion people believe something, it could still be ridiculous"; does $13.6M box office on a $2.5M budget. Gotz Spielmann's Revanche (Revenge) (Feb. 10) stars Irina Potapenko as Tamara, yet another hooker with a heart of gold, and Johannes Krisch as her lover Alex, who takes on her mean pimp and robs a bank with her to escape, only getting into more trouble. Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road (Dec. 15) (DreamWorks Pictures) (BBC Films), based on the 1961 Richard Yates novel stars Leonardi Di Caprio and Kate Winslow as salesman Frank Wheeler and his wife April, who live at 115 Revolutionary Road in Conn., where their dream marriage crumbles; does $75.2M box office on a $35M budget. Tamara Jenkins' The Savages (Jan. 18) stars Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as troubled siblings Jon and Wendy Savage, who take care of their ailing father Lenny (Philip Bosco). Gina Prince-Bythewood's The Secret Life of Bees (Oct. 17), based on the 2002 Sue Monk Kidd novel set in the racist Am. South in 1964 stars Dakota Fanning as 14-y.-o. Lily Owens, who lives with the knowledge that she killed her mommy at age 4 and that her racist daddy doesn't love her, and springs her black nanny Rosaleen Daise (Jennifer Hudson) from jail so they can hitchhike to just-as-racist Tiburon, S.C. to pursue her mother's memory, finding three black beekeepers, August, June and May Boatwright (Queen Latifah, Alicia Keys and Sophie Okonedo), who take them in and help her face her demons and learn that she is loved; their honey labels have a Black Madonna. Gabriele Muccino's Seven Pounds (Dec. 19) stars Will Smith as IRS agent Ben Thomas, who gets religion and sets out to help seven strangers, incl. Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson). Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (Aug. 30) (Film4) (Warner Bros.) (Celador Films), written by Simon Beaufoy based on the 2005 novel "Q&A" by Vikas Swarup stars English-born Dev Patel (1990-) in his film debut as Mumbai slumdog Jamal Malik, who faces long odds to go all the way to 20M rupees on the Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" to save his childhood sweetheart Latika (played by Rubina Ali and Freida Pinto), and ends up in trouble with the police in a complex story with flashbacks of his horrible childhood; the show's MC Prem Kumar is played by Anil Kapoor; after he proves to the police that he didn't cheat because every answer came from a life experience, the lovers do a Bollywood dance at the C.S.T. train station to the song Jai Ho; does $377.9M box office on a $15M budget; on Apr. 22, 2009 allegations that Rafiq Qureshi attempted to sell his 9-y.-o. daughter Rubina Ali (1999-) for $300K are dropped; on May 14, 2009 the home of 10-y.-o. star Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail (1999-) is bulldozed for pre-monsoon control. Mark Waters' The Spiderwick Chronicles (Feb. 14), based on the books by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black about an invisible world of magic creatures who are trying to break through the magic circle into the Spiderwick Estate and steal Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You stars Freddie Highmore as twin brothers Jared and Simon Grace, and Sarah Bolger as their sister Mallory; Nick Nolte plays the evil ogre Mulgarath; Martin Short plays brownie/boggart Thimbletack. Adam McKay's Step Brothers (July 25) (Columbia Pictures) stars Will Ferrell as Brennan Huff and John C. Reilly as Dale Doback, two sleepwalking 40-y.-o. bums who still live with their parents Nancy Huff (Mary Steenburgen) and Richard Jenkins (Robert Doback), who get married, making them into brothers and roommates; does $128.1M box office on a $65M budget. Kimberly Peirce's Stop-Loss (Mar. 28) stars Ryan Phillippe as Sgt. Brandon King, a decorated Iraqi War hero who is forced to do another tour of duty by the Bush admin., forcing him to leave his nice life next door to the Bradys. Bryan Bertino's The Strangers (May 30) (Vertigo Entertainment) (Rogue Pictures), based on the Manson family Tate murders and shot in rural S.C. is about three masked men invading the home of Kristen (Liv Tyler) and James (Scott Speedman); what really sells tickets are Tyler's nude scenes?; does $82.4M box office on a $9M budget; followed by "The Strangers: Prey at Night" (2018). Pierre Morel's Taken (Feb. 27) is a sleeper hit that ends up doing $226M on a $25M budget, starring Liam Neeson as ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills, who searches for his kidnapped daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) in Paris against a 96-hour time limit; Famke Janssen plays Kim's mother Lenore "Lenny" Mills; the thugs are all from Tropoje, Albania; cements Neeson's rep as an action hero; followed by "Taken 2" (2012). Michael Lichtenstein's horror comedy film Teeth (Jan. 19) (Roadside Attractions) (Dimension Extreme) stars Jess Weixler as Dawn O'Keefe, who suffers from vagina dentata ("It's Latin for teeth"); does $2.340M box office on a $2M budget. Daniel Junge's They Killed Sister Dorothy, narrated by Martin Sheen documents the murder of 73-y.-old Catholic nun and Brazilian rain forest activist Dorothy Stang (1931-2005) in Feb. 2005, causing Brazilian cattle rancher Regivaldo Galvao to be arrested by authorities in Dec. Jeffrey Nachmanoff's Traitor (Aug. 27) (Overture Films) stars Don Cheadle as Sudanese-Am. Muslim Samir Horn, who works undercover for the CIA, getting conflicted over his religion; does 27.6M box office on a $22M budget. Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder (Aug. 13) is a satire comedy about prima donna actors making a Vietnam War film who end up doing it for real, starring Stiller as Tugg Speedman, Jack Black as Jeff Portnoy, Anthony Ruivivar as Platoon Sgt. Shot in Head, and Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus, who appears in blackface. Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight (Nov. 21), based on the Stephenie Meyer novel stars Kristen Stewart as Isabella "Bella" Swan, a teenie from Ariz. who moves to Wash. state and falls in love with 100+-y.-o. vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) (who has been 17 since 1918), grooving on his Superman-like abilities, and not having to worry about sex with a stone-cold walking slab, only about getting that way herself?; does $192M domestic and $191M foreign, for a total of $382M worldwide box office. Bryan Singer's Valkyrie (Dec. 25) (Studio Babelsberg) (United Artists) (Bad Hat Harry Productions) (Cruise/Wagner Productions)(MGM) (20th Cent. Fox) stars lookalike profile Tom Cruise as German Col. Claus von Stauffenburg, who unsuccessfully attempts to assassinate Herr Hitler on July 20, 1944 but at least gets close enough to make it exciting; features Kenneth Branagh as Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow, Bill Nighy as Gen. Friedrich Olbricht, Terence Stamp as Col. Gen. Ludwig Beck, Tom Wilkinson as Col. Gen. Friedrich Fromm, Carice van Houton as Stauffenberg's wife Nina, Matthias Freihof as Heinrich Himmler, Harvey Friedman as Joseph Goebbels, and David Bamber as Adolf Hitler; does $200M box office on a $75M budget. Pete Travis' Vantage Point (Feb. 13) (Relativity Media) (Columbia Pictures), written by Barry Levy is a hi-tech thriller about the assassination of U.S. pres. Ashton (William Hurt) in Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, Spain (really Mexico City, dressed up to look like i) as he is about to end the war on terrorism; luckily, he was tipped off and sent a double into the plaza, where Secret Service man Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) (who took a bullet for the same pres. 6 mo. earlier, and isn't told it's a double because he's considered still too shaken up) can't stop it all, but views videos by Am. tourist Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker) and begins chasing the lone gunman, only to be caught in a big bomb blast; the way cool plot then recycles the timeline over and over to show that the real pres. is holed-up in a nearby hotel, the assassins (as in conspiracy) know it, and hit him there and abduct him, but God Bless America, big cowboy hero Clint, er, Thomas Barnes survives superhuman odds and figures it out and saves him anyway; meanwhile subplots abound, involving actors Matthew Fox, Eduardo Noriega, Richard T. Jones, Holt McAllany, Ayelet Zurer, Said Taghmaoui et al.; too bad, it rocks until the ending, which has too many coincidences?; does $151.1M box office on a $40M budget. Woody Allen's Vicky Chistina Barcelona (Aug. 15) stars Javier Bardem as sensitive Spanish painter Juan Antonio Gonzalo, who attempts to romance Am. tourists Vicky (Rebecca Hall) (brunette) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) (blonde) in Barcelona at the same time (preferably in the same bed), only to have his jealous ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) butt in; narrated by Christopher Evan Welch; "Only unfulfilled love can be romantic." Oliver Stone's W. (Oct. 16) stars Josh Brolin as U.S. pres. George W. Bush, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, Sayed Badreya as Saddam Hussein, and J. Grant Albrecht as Jacques Chirac; does $29.5M box office on a $25.1M budget. Andrew Stanton's Wall-E (WALL-E) (June 27) is about cute lovable sanitation bot Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class (last robot on Earth) (voiced by Ben Burtt of R2D2 fame), who falls in love with and follows his robot babe EVE into space; does $521M box office on a $180M budget. Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir (June 12) (B&W animation) explores the gappy memory of an Israeli soldier who lost it in the 1980s Lebanese war. Timur Bekmambetov's Wanted (June 12) (Universal Pictures), based on the Mark Millar and J.G. Jones graphic novel series is a high-energy thriller about the Fraternity, a millennium-y.-o. secret society of super-powered assassins whose day job is weaving, starring James McAvoy as Chicago office worker Wesley Gibson, Angelina Jolie as Fox, Thomas Kretschmann as Cross, and Morgan Freeman as Sloan; does $341M box office on a $75M budget; the sequel stalls in development. Joshua Seftel's War, Inc. (Apr. 28) stars John Cusack as hit man Brand Hauser, and Marisa Tomei as reporter Natalie Hegalhuzen in a satire on the role of U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney and Halliburton in the Turaqistan War. Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy stars Michelle Williams as homeless Wendy from Ind., who loses her dog Lucy; also stars Will Patton. Jerome Tanner's Who's Nailin' Paylin (Nov. 4) (election day), a XXX porno spoof film stars Lisa Ann as Serra Paylin, Nina Hartley as Hilly, and Jada Fire as Condi, who get it on in hot lesbian action that's so realistic they didn't have to use actors? Alexander Olch's The Windmill Movie (Sept.) is based on a documentary filmmaker Richard P. Rogers tried to make before his 2001 death about his rich Hamptons lifestyle. Diane English's The Women, based on a 1939 Clare Buth Luce play about a wealthy New Yorker leaving her cheating husband to bond with other society women at a resort features Bette Midler turning Meg Ryan on to pot; Ryan's soundybte "I'm really stoned" is censored in the DVD. Peyton Reed's Yes Man (Dec. 9) (Warner Bros.), based on the 2005 book by Danny Wallace stars Jim Carrey as bank employee Carl Allen, who is mesmerized by Yes! guru Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp), and can't say no to anything, gaining girlfriend Allison (Zooey Deschangel); Bradley Cooper plays his best friend Peter; does $226M box office on a $70M budget; Dennis Dugan's You Don't Mess with the Zohan (June 6) (Columbia Pictures) stars Adam Sandler as superhuman Israeli commando Zohan Dvir, who fakes his own death to become New York City hairstylist Scrappy Coco ("Half Australian, half Mount Everest"); John Turturro plays his superhuman Palestinian archenemy Fatoush "the Phantom" Hakbarah; does $202M box office on a $90M budget. James L. Frachon's Zombieland ("the other Zombieland") stars Brad Dourif and Arly Jover in a funeral home horror flick. Art: Emilio Lobato, La Charla (The Chat). Robert Rauschenberg, Lotus X; Lotus Bed I. Plays: Jeanine Tesori (1961-) and David Lindsay-Abaire (1969-), Shrek The Musical (musical) (Broadway Theatre, New York) (Dec. 14) (441 perf.); based on the 2001 film and the 1990 book by William Steig; stars Brian d'Arcy James as Shrek, Sutton Foster as Fiona, Christopher Sieber as Farquaad, and Daniel Breaker as the Donkey. Jacob Appel, The Mistress of Wholesome (Little Theatre, Alexandria, Va.) (May 16). Joey Arias, Arias With a Twist (New York) (June 12). Howard Brenton (1942-), Never So Good (Nat. Theatre, London) (Mar. 26); stars Jeremy Irons as Conservative British PM (1957-63) Harold Macmillan. Ethan Coen, Almost an Evening (New York) (Jan.). Lucinda Coxon, Happy Now? (Nat. Theatre, London) (Jan. 24). Don DeLillo, The Word for Snow (Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago) (Oct. 27). Michael Frayn (1933-), Afterlife (Nat. Theatre, London) (June 11); stars Roger Allam as Max Reinhardt. Jeremy Gable, Flying Spaghetti Monster: The Holy Mug of Grog. Gina Gionfriddo, Becky Shaw (Louisville, Ky.). Michael Gow, Toy Symphony; Roland Henning gets writer's block. David Hare (1947-), Gethsemane. Tony Harrison, Fram (Nat. Theatre, London) (Apr. 10); Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his ship Fram. David Henry Hwang (1957-), Yellow Face (Mark Taper Forum, Los Angeles). Nicholas de Jongh, Plague Over England (Finborough Theatre, London) (Mar.); based on the Oct. 21, 1953 lewd behavior arrest of gay actor John Gielgud. Dan Kwong, Be Like Water (Union Center for the Arts, Los Angeles) (Sept. 17); a young Asian-Am. girl is visited by Bruce Lee's ghost. Tracy Letts (1965-), August: Osage Country; a dysfunctional Okla. family; filmed in 2013. Adrienne Kennedy (1931-), Mom, How Did You Meet the Beatles? Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Her Naked Skin (Nat. Theatre, London) (July 24); first play by a woman writer to be produced in the Olivier Theatre; a love affair between two early 20th cent. suffragettes, played by Lesley Manville and Jemima Rooper. Frank McGuinness (1953-), The Holy Moley Jesus Story (Greash Theatre, Dublin). James Millar and Peter Rutherford, The Hatpin (musical) (Seymour Centre, Sydney) (Feb. 27); based on the story of Amber Murray. Joanna Murray-Smith (1962-), Scenes from a Marriage (Jan.); Ninety (Melbourne) (Aug.). Morris Panych, What Lies Before Us; a railway survey team is stranded in the Canadian Rockies in 1884. Tyler Perry, The Marriage Counselor (Jan.). Yasmina Reza (1959-), God of Carnage (Gielgud Theatre, West End, London) (Mar. 25) (Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, New York) (Mar. 22, 2009) (452 perf.); two children get in a fight in the park, causing their parents to meet to discuss it, but their discussion degenerates as they become childish too; dir. by Matthew Warchus; London production stars Ralph Fiennes, Tamsin Greig, Janet McTeer, and Ken Stott; Broadway production stars Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, and Marcia Gay Harden; "A comedy of manners... without the manners." Robbie Roth, Robert Cary, and Tom Hedley, Flashdance the Musical (musical) (Theatre Royal, Plymouth) (July); adapted from the 1983 film; stars Victoria Hamilton-Barritt as Alex Owens, and Noel Sullivan as Nick Hurley. Sarah Ruhl (1974-), Dead Man's Cell Phone (Playwrights Horizons, New York); stars Mary-Louise Paker. Nick Stafford, War Horse (Nat. Theatre, London) (Oct. 17); adaptation of the book by Michael Morpurgo. Paula Vogel (1951-), Civil War Christmas. Anna Waronker (1972-) and Charlotte Caffey (1957-), Lovelace: A Rock Musical (Hayworth Theater, Los Angeles). Michael Weller (1942-), Beast. Robert Wilson (1941-), Rumi for the Polish Nat. Opera; Faust for the Polish Nat. Opera. Poetry: Frank Bidart (1939-), Watching the Spring Festival; his first book of lyrics. Andrei Codrescu (1946-), Jealous Witness: New Poems. Billy Collins (1941-), Ballistics. Mark Doty (1944-), Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems; Theories and Apparitions. Reginald Gibbons, Creatures of a Day. Jorie Graham (1950-), Sea Change. John Hollander (1929-), A Draft of Light. Reginald Howard, Without Saying. Ted Kooser (1939-), Valentines. W.S. Merwin (1927-), The Shadow of Sirius. Sharon Olds (1942-), One Secret Thing. Mary Oliver (1935-), Red Bird. George Oppen (1908-84), New Collected Poems (posth.). Kenneth Patchen (1911-72), We Meet; The Walking-Away World (posth.). Karl Shapiro (1913-2008), Coda: Last Poems (posth.). Charles Simic (1938-), Sixty Poems; That Little Something; Monster Loves His Labyrinth. Patricia Smith (1955-), Blood Dazzler; Hurricane Katrina; "None of them talked about Katrina/ She was their odd sister/ the blood dazzler". Gerald Stern (1925-), Save the Last Dance. James Tate (1943-), Ghost Soldiers. Sir Arnold Wesker (1932-), All Things Tire of Themselves. Novels: Peter Ackroyd (1949-), The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein. Aravind Adiga (1974-), The White Tiger (first novel); rickshaw puller's son Balram Halwai in the Ganges River Valley escapes crushing poverty. Martin Amis (1949-), The Pregnant Widow. Jami Attenberg, The Kept Man (first novel); Manhattan party girl Jarvis Miller shops for a kept man. Paul Benjamin Auster (1947-), Man in the Dark (Sept.). Russell Banks (1940-), The Reserve; artist Jordan Groves in the Adirondacks in the 1930s. Clive Barker (1952-), The Scarlet Gospels; Absolute Midnight; Abarat #3. Stephanie Barron, A Flaw in the Blood; the real reason Prince Albert died "almost certainly was not typhoid". CharLes Baxter (1922-96), The Soul Thief; Nathaniel Mason and Theresa visit Lucas Samaras' Mirrored Room in the Albright-Knox Art Gallery of Buffalo, where each reflection shows them aging by a year. Glenn Beck (1964-), The Christmas Sweater (first novel) (Nov. 11). Steve Berry (1955-), The Charlemagne Pursuit; Cotton Malone #4. Maeve Binchy (1940-), Heart and Soul. William Peter Blatty (1928-), Elsewhere (Dec. 22); a ghost is a person who refuses to accept he's dead? Pierre Bourgeade (1927-2009), Ca n'Arrive qu'aux Mourants. C.J. Box, Free Fire; atty. Clay McCann uses a legal loophole to get away with a multiple murder. Dan Brown (1964-), The Solomon Key; Freemasons and the founding of America. Frederick Buechner (1926-), The Yellow Leaves: A Miscellany. James Lee Burke (1936-), Swan Peak. Robert Olen Butler (1945-), Intercourse (short stories). Jan Burke, The Messenger; supernatural thriller. John le Carre (1931-), The Most Wanted Man; surveillance of Muslim terrorists in "guilty city" Hamburg (home of Mohammed Atta and other 9/11 plotters) goes too far? Mary Higgins Clark (1927-), Where Are You Now?. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-) and Carol Higgins Clark (1956-), Dashing Through the Snow. Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio (1940-), The Refrain of Hunger (Ritournelle de la Faim); set in 1930s Paris, about Ethel Brown, who must save herself and her parents. Paul Coelho (1947-), The Winner Stands Alone. Jackie Collins (1937-), Married Lovers (June 10); personal trainer Cameron Paradise. Suzanne Collins (1962-), The Hunger Games; 16-y.-o. Katniss Everdeen lives in Panem over the ruins of North Am., ruled by the Capitol, which holds an annual event where a boy and girl ages 12-18 from each of the 12 districts are selected by lottery to compete in a televised battle to the death; bestseller (1.5M copies); filmed in 2012; first of the Hunger Games Trilogy (2008-10). Evan S. Connell Jr. (1924-), Lost in Uttar Pradesh. Robin Cook (1940-), Foreign Body. Stephen Coonts (1946-), The Assassin; Rear Adm. Jake Grafton #11. Patricia Cornwell (1956-), The Front. John Crowley (1942-), Four Freedoms. Mitch Cullin, The Post-War Dream. Clive Cussler (1931-), Plague Ship. Clive Cussler (1931-) and Dirk Cussler, Arctic Drift (Nov.); Dirk Pitt #20. Nelson DeMille, The Gate House; Susan Stanhope Sutter of Long Island shoots next-door neighbor Frank Bellarosa, a mob boss, then divorces her hubby John. Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Pulitzer Prize). Thomas Michael Disch (1940-2008), The Word of God; written in the voice of God; The Wall of America (short stories). Cory Doctorow (1971-), Little Brother. E.L. Doctorow (1931-), Wakefield (The New Yorker, Jan. 14); Homer & Langley; the Collyer brothers, rich Harlem packrats, who die in their trash-filled mansion in 1947. Larry Doyle, I Love You, Beth Cooper; awkward boy falls for cheerleader. Andre Dubus III (1959-), The Garden of Last Days. Tony Earley, The Blue Star; sequel to "Jim the Boy". David Ebershoff, The 19th Wife; a Mormon is murdered, and guess who is accused? Louise Erdrich (1954-), The Plague of Doves; The Red Convertible: Selected and New Stories, 1978-2008. Sebastian Faulks (1953-), Devil May Care (May); an authorized 007 James Bond novel set during the Cold War; in Jan. Britain marks the May 28 centennial of the birth of Ian Fleming (1908-64) by releasing James Bond theme postage stamps. Ken Follett (1949-), World Without End; #1 in the Century Trilogy. Paula Fox (1923-), A Portrait of Ivan. Carlos Fuentes, Happy Families; tr. Edith Grossman. Alan Furst (1941-), Spies of Warsaw; Night Soldiers #10. Neil Gaiman (1960-), The Graveyard Book. Kim Gatlin, Good Christian Bitches (Oct. 31); divorced mother of two Amanda moves back to Dallas. Julia Glass (1956-), I See You Everywhere (Oct. 14). Allegra Goodman (1967-), The Other Side of the Island. Thomas Christopher Greene, The Envious Moon. John Grisham (1955-), The Appeal. Lauren Groff (1978-), The Monsters of Templeton (Feb.) (first novel). David Grossman (1954-), To the End of the Land (Sept. 21); Ora, Ilan, Avram, Adam, and Ofer in Israel; English trans. Sept. 21, 2010; on Pres. Obama's summer 2011 reading list. Everette Lynn Harris (1955-2009), Just Too Good To Be True. Jim Harrison (1937-), The English Major. Scott Heim (1966-), We Disappear. Aleksandar Hemon (1964-), The Lazarus Project. Alice Hoffman (1952-), The Third Angel. P.D. James (1920-), The Private Patient; Adam Dalgliesh #14. Sherry Jones, The Jewel of Medina (Oct.); one of the wives of Prophet Muhammad. Hillary Jordan, Mudbound (first novel); the white landowning McAllan family vs. the black sharecropper Jackson family in the Deep South. A.L. Kennedy, Day; WWII RAF turret gunner Alfie Day relives the war as an extra in a movie. John Kessel (1950-), The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories. Elias Khoury (1948-), Yalo; the Lebanese civil war produces a likeable rapist? Stephen King (1947-), Duma Key; Edgar Freemantle gets in a construction accident, leases the waterfront house Big Pink in Fla., and takes up painting; N; releases an animated video adaption of this short story in July, getting 1M hits on the Internet by Dec. Jane F. Kotapish, Salvage; a mother and daughter slowly go mad. Rachel Kushner (1968-), Telex from Cuba (first novel). Mark Leach, Marienbad My Love; a free e-book claiming to be the world's longest novel (17M words), about a journalist who tries to produce a new sci-film film version of the 1961 French New Wave film "Last Year at Marienbad" in order to bring about the end of the world. Yann Martel (1963-), A 20th Century Shirt; a talking monkey and donkey in a man's dress shirt discuss the Holocaust. Guillermo Martinez, The Book of Murder. Peter Matthiessen (1927-), Shadow Country; reworking of the Watson trilogy. Colleen McCullough (1937-), The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet. Dennis McFarland, Letter from Point Clear; evangelical preacher Pastor Vandorpe. Bill McKibben (1960-), The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces from an Active Life. Stephenie Meyer, The Host (May 6); Breaking Dawn (Aug. 2). Stanley Middleton (1919-2009), Her Three Wise Men. Sue Miller (1943-), The Senator's Wife. Toni Morrison (1931-), A Mercy. Katherine Neville (1945-), The Fire; sequel to "The Eight" (1988). Elle Newmark, The Book of Unholy Mischief. Bragi Olafsson, The Pets; Emil Haldorsson suffers from eternal houseguest Havard Knutsson. Stewart O'Nan (1961-), Songs for the Missing. Chuck Palahniuk (1962-), Snuff. Sara Paretsky (1947-), Bleeding Kansas; non-Warshawski novel. Robert Brown Parker (1932-2010), The Boxer and the Spy; Rough Weather; Spenser #36; Stranger in Paradise; Jesse Stone #7; Resolution; Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch #2. Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite. Jodi Picoult (1966-), Change of Heart. Steven Pressfield (1943-), Killing Rommel. Richard Price (1949-), Lush Life. Francine Prose (1947-), Goldengrove (Sept.); suburban teenie Nico loves her older sister Margaret. Annie Proulx, Fine Just the Way It Is: Wyoming Stories 3. Jon Raymond, Livability (short stories). Anne Rice (1941-), Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. Marilynne Robinson, Home. Joel C. Rosenberg (1967-), Dead Heat. Boualem Sansal (1949-), Le Village de l'Allemand ou Le Journal des Freres Schiller (The German Mujahid) (An Unfinished Business). Jose Saramago (1922-2010), The Trip of the Elephant (Elephant Journey) (A Viagem do Elefante); Death with Interruptions (Oct. 6); a world where people grow old and frail but never die. John Scalzi (1969-), Zoe's Tale (Aug.); Old Man's War #4. Bernhard Schlink, Homecoming; Peter Debauer grows up in post-WWII Germany, then searches for writer John de Baur. John Burnham Schwartz, The Commoner; Haruko, Japan and the A-bomb. Salvatore Scibona, The End (first novel). Simon Sebag-Montefiore (1965-), Sashenka (first novel). Jeffrey Shaara (1952-), The Steel Wave: A Novel of World War II (May 13); #2 in trilogy. Anne Rivers Siddons (1936-), Off Season (Aug. 13); Lily Constable McCall and her rival Peaches Davenport for the love of Jon Lowell. Dan Simmons (1948-), Muse of Fire (Dec. 28); the Earth becomes a mausoleum after the Archons erase its culture except for Shakespeare. Zadie Smith (1975-) (ed.), The Book of Other People. Nicholas Sparks (1965-), The Lucky One (Sept. 30); Logan Thibault of the USMC looks for a woman whose picture brings him good luck. Scott Spencer (1945-), Willing; 37-y.-o. New York writer Avery Jankowsky has a midlife crisis. Danielle Steel (1947-), Honor Thyself; Rogue; A Good Woman. Neal Town Stephenson (1959-), Anathem, about the planet Arbre, where brain people live like monks (fraas and suurs) in concents to pursue intellectual endeavors, and can only communicate with outsiders on the 10-day Apert. Steve Stern (1947-), The North of God. Charles Stross (1964-), Saturn's Children. Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge (short stories); a retired 7th grade math teacher. Duane Swierczynski (1972-), Severance Package. Brad Thor (1969-), The Last Patriot; NYT #1 bestseller about counterterrorism agent Scot Harvath, who uncovers a big secret about Muhammad via clues left by Thomas Jefferson; pisses-off Muslin convert (ex-Richard Nixon aide) Robert D. Crane for "Islamophobia", causing Glenn Beck to predict that he might be assassinated by Muslim extremists, and the WorldNetDaily to call him "the new Salman Rushdie"; banned in Saudi Arabia, making it more popular? Hannah Tinti, The Good Thief (first novel). Rose Tremain (1943-), The Road Home. John Updike (1932-2009), The Widows of Eastwick (last novel); sequel to "The Witches of Eastwick" (1984). Carrie Vaughn (1973-), Kitty and the Silver Bullet; Kitty Norville #4. Dan Vyleta, Pavel & I (first novel); the feral post-WWI children of Berlin. Joseph Wambaugh (1937-), Hollywood Crows. Charles Webb (1939-), Home School; sequel to "The Graduate" (1963). Alison Weir, Elizabeth, the Queen. Irvine Welsh (1958-), Crime; inspector Ray Lennox from "Filth". Stephen White (1951-), Dead Time (Mar.); Alan Gregory. John Edgar Wideman (1941-), Fanon. Dirk Wittenborn, Pharmakon; 1950s Yale psychologist William Friedrich creates a happiness drug. Tobias Wolff (1945-), Our Story Begins (short stories). Alissa York, Effigy; the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre in S Utah. Births: Am. "I Am Jazz" gay activist (trans) Jazz Jennings on Oct. 6 in South Fla. Deaths: Am. mob boss Salvatore "Bill" Bonanno (b. 1932) on Jan. 1 in Tucson, Ariz. (heart attack). Am. photographer Herbert Keppler (b. 1925) on Jan. 4 in Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y. Kiwi mountain climber Sir Edmund Hillary (b. 1919) on Jan. 11 in Auckland. Am. cancer researcher Judah Folkman (b. 1933) on Jan. 14 in Denver, Colo. (heart attack). Am. historian Robert Vance Bruce (b. 1923) on Jan. 15 in Olympia, Wash. Am. "The Client" actor Brad Renfro (b. 1982) on Jan. 15 in Los Angeles, Calif. (OD). Am. Carl's Jr. founder Carl Karcher (b. 1917) on Jan. 11 in Fullerton, Calif. (Parkinson's). Am. expatriate world chess champ #11 (1972-5) Bobby Fischer (b. 1943) on Jan. 17 in Reyjkavik, Iceland: "Chess is life" - your move? Am. "Sam the Butcher in The Brady Bunch" actor Allan Melvin (b. 1923) on Jan. 17 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). Am. "Emily Hartley in The Bob Newhart Show" actress Suzanne Pleshette (b. 1937) on Jan. 19 in Los Angeles, Calif. (lung cancer). Australian "The Joker in The Dark Knight" actor Heath Ledger (b. 1979) on Jan. 22 in New York City (OD); found dead in his apt. of an accidental prescription drug OD, with six drugs in his system 4.5 mo. after breaking up with Michelle Williams (1980-) on Sept. 4, 2007, making him the new James Dean? Am. Marlon Brando's son Christian Brando (b. 1958) on Jan. 26 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pneumonia); dies destitute. Am. Mormon Church pres. (1995-2008) Gordon Bitner Hinckley (b. 1910) on Jan. 27 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Indonesian pres. #2 (1967-98) Suharto (b. 1921) on Jan. 27 in Jakarta. Am. writer Margaret Truman Daniel (b. 1924) on Jan. 29 in Chicago, Ill. Mexican Roman Catholic priest Marcial Maciel (b. 1920) on Jan. 30 in Jacksonville, Fla. U.S. agriculture secy. #18 (1971-6) Earl Butz (b. 1909) on Feb. 2 in Washington, D.C. English-Canadian "Lt. Philip Gerard in The Fugitive" actor Barry Morse (b. 1918) on Feb. 2 in London. Am. ABC-TV journalist John McWethy (b. 1947) on Feb. 6 in Keystone Resort, Colo. (runs into tree while skiing). Am. astronomer Robert Jastrow (b. 1925) on Feb. 8. Am. actor Robert DoQui (b. 1934) on Feb. 9 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Police Chief Martin Brody in Jaws" actor Roy Scheider (b. 1932) on Feb. 10 in Little Rock, Ark. (cancer). Mexican playwright Emilio Carballido (b. 1925) on Feb. 11 in Xalapa, Veracruz (heart attack); dies after getting a civil union with his gay bud Hector Herrera approved in 2007. Hungarian-born Am. Dem. Jewish Holocaust survivor congressman Tom Lantos (b. 1928) on Feb. 11 in Bethesda, Md. (cancer). Am. "Lt. Lou Escobar in Chinatown" actor Perry Lopez (b. 1929) on Feb. 14 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (lung cancer). Am. "Hot Rod Lincoln singer Charlie Ryan (b. 1915) on Feb. 16 in Spokane, Wash. French writer-filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet (b. 1922) on Feb. 18 in Caen (heart failure). Am. "The Green Berets", "The French Connection" novelist Robin Moore (b. 1925) on Feb. 21 in Hopkinsville, Ky. Slovenian pres. (2002-7) Janez Drnovsek (b. 1950) on Feb. 23 in Zaplana. Am. historian George M. Frederickson (b. 1934) on Feb. 25 in Palo Alto, Calif. Am. conservative celeb William F. Buckley Jr. (b. 1925) on Feb. 27 in Stanford, Conn.: "I would rather be governed by the first two thousand people in the Boston telephone directory than by the first two thousand people in the Harvard faculty"; "A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!" Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (b. 1914) on Feb. 5 in Vlodrop, Netherlands. Canadian jazz musician Jeff Healey (b. 1966) on Mar. 2 in Toronto, Ont. (cancer). Am. physicist Frederick Seitz (b. 1911) on Mar. 2 in New York City. Am. Dungeons & Dragons game designer Gary Gygax (b. 1938) on Mar. 4 in Lake Geneva, Wisc. German-born Am. "ELIZA" computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum (b. 1923) on Mar. 5 in Berlin. Am. geophysicist Richard Doell (b. 1923) on Mar. 6 in Point Richmond, Calif. Am. economist David Gale (b. 1921) on Mar. 7 in Berkeley, Calif. Am. Eckanar leader Darwin Gross (b. 1928) on Mar. 8. Am. poet Jonathan Williams (b. 1929) on Mar. 16. Am. "Kinch in Hogan's Heroes" actor Ivan Dixon (b. 1931) on Mar. 16 in Charlotte, N.C. (kidney failure). Am. LAPD Capt. (1970-6) Mervin Paul King (b. 1914) on Mar. 18 in South Pasadena, Calif. English "The English Patient" film dir. Anthony Minghella (b. 1954) on Mar. 18 in London (cancer). English "2001: A Space Odyssey" sci-fi novelist Arthur C. Clarke (b. 1917) on Mar. 19 in Colombo, Sri Lanka (where he lived since 1956, contracting polio in 1959); pub. 100+ books. English "A Man for All Seasons" actor Paul Scofield (b. 1922) on Mar. 19 in Sussex (leukemia). Am. Popeyes Chicken founder Al Copeland (b. 1944) on Mar. 23 in Munich, Germany (Merkel cell carcinoma). Am. actor Richard Widmark (b. 1914) on Mar. 24 in Roxbury, Conn. Am. novelist Helen Yglesias (b. 1915) on Mar. 28 in New York City. Am. musician Sean Levert (b. 1968) on Mar. 30 in Cleveland, Ohio. Am. writer Johnny Byrne (b. 1935) on Apr. 3. Am. "Ben-Hur", "Ten Commandments", "Planet of the Apes" actor Charlton Heston (b. 1923) on Apr. 5 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Alzheimer's). Irish pres. #6 (1976-90) Patrick Hillery (b. 1923) on Apr. 12 in Dublin. Am. physicist John Archibald Wheeler (b. 1911) on Apr. 13 in Hightstown, N.J. English "The Nice" drummer Brian Davison (b. 1942) on Apr. 15 in Horns Cross, Devon. Am. singer Joe Feeney (b. 1931) on Apr. 16 in Carlsbad, Calif. (emphysema). Am. Butterfly Effect mathematician Edward Norton Lorenz (b. 1917) on Apr. 16 in Cambridge, Mass. Am. artist Joseph Solman (b. 1909) on Apr. 16 in New York City. Martinican poet-playwright Aime Cesaire (b. 1913) on Apr. 17 in Fort-de-France (heart failure). French ethnologist Germain Tillion (b. 1907) on Apr. 18 in Saint-Mande; buried in the Pantheon. Am. "Cool Night" singer Paul Davis (b. 1948) on Apr. 22 in Meridian, Miss. (heart attack). Am. jazz musician Jimmy Giuffre (b. 1921) on Apr. 24 in Pittsfield, Mass. (pneumonia). Canadian-born Am. spatial music composer Henry Brant (b. 1913) on Apr. 26 in Santa Barbara, Calif. Swiss LSD scientist Albert Hofmann (b. 1906) on Apr. 29 in Burg im Leimental - don't ask what made him live past 100? Am. "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey (b. 1956) on May 1 in Tarpon Springs, Fla. (suicide by hanging). Am. "Hazel" cartoonist Ted Key 9b. 1912) on May 3 in Tredyffrin, Penn. (bladder cancer and stroke). Canadian-born Am. Baskin-Robbins co-founder Irv Robbins (b. 1917) on May 5 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Am. country singer Eddy Arnold (b. 1918) on May 8 in Nashville, Tenn.; sold 85M records incl. 28 #1 hits. Am. "Wall of Sound", "A Taste of Honey", "Pet Sounds" audio engineer Larry Levine (b. 1928) on May 8. Polish WWII resistance hero Irena Sendler (b. 1910) on May 12 in Warsaw. Am. ENIAC mathematician Arthur Walter Burks (b. 1915) on May 14 in Ann Arbor, Mich. (Alzheimer's). Am. physicist Willis Eugene Lamb (b. 1913) on May 15 in Tucson, Ariz.; 1955 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. folk singer Utah Phillips (b. 1935) on May 23 in Nevada City, Calif. (heart disease). Am. poet-novelist George Garrett (b. 1929) on May 25 in Charlottesville, Va. (cancer). Am. mathematician (ENIAC pioneer) Arthur Walter Burks (b. 1915) on May 14 in Ann Arbor, Mich. (Alzheimer's). Am. "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In" comedian Dick Martin (b. 1922) on May 24 in Santa Monica, Calif. Am. poet Luis Omar Salinas (b. 1937) on May 25 in Sanger, Calif. Am. frozen french fries king J.R. Simplot (b. 1909) on May 25 in Boise, Idaho. Am. "Tootsie" dir. Sydney Pollack (b. 1934) on May 26 in Pacific Palisades, Calif. Am. comedian Harvey Korman (b. 1927) on May 29 in Los Angeles, Calif. French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent (b. 1936) on June 1 in Paris (brain cancer). Am. rock & roll founder Bo Diddley (b. 1928) on June 2. Am. "ABC's Wide World of Sports" TV host (1961-98) Jim McKay (b. 1921) on June 7 in Monkton, Md. Am. climate scientist Reid Bryson (b. 1920) on June 11. Am. country musician Danny Davis (b. 1925) on June 12 in Nashville, Tenn. (heart attack). Am. "Meet the Press" TV host (1991-2008) Tim Russert (b. 1950) on June 13 (Fri.) in Washington, D.C. (heart attack); after his funeral service a beautiful rainbow appears above Washington, D.C. Am. architect Walter A. Netsch (b. 1920) on June 15. Am. dancer-actress Cyd Charisse (b. 1922) on June 17 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart attack). Japanese serial murderer Tsutomu Miyazaki (b. 1962) on June 17 in Tokyo (hanged). Am. Hardee's founder Wilber Hardee (b. 1918) on June 20 in Greenville, N.C. Am. comedian George Carlin (b. 1937) on June 22 in Santa Monica, Calif. (heart failure): "Dan Quayle is all three: stupid, full of shit, and fuckin' nuts"; "Life is sacred? Who said so? God? Hey, if you read history, you realize that God is one of the leading causes of death"; "If everything that ever lived is dead, and everything that's alive is gonna die, where does the sacred part come in?"; "People say life begins at conception, I say life began about a billion years ago and it's a continuous process"; "Why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't want to fuck in the first place?" Am. "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" actress Dody Goodman (b. 1914) on June 22 in N.J. Am. "Muppets" costume designer Kermit Love (b. 1916) on June 21 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Russian-born Am. economist Leo Hurwicz (b. 1917) on June 24 in Minneapolis, Minn.; 2007 Nobel Economics Prize (oldest to receive a Nobel Prize until ?). Kazakhstani model Ruslana Korshunova (b. 1987) on June 28 in Manhattan, N.Y. (suicide) (murder?). Am. conservative Repub. sen. Jesse Helms (b. 1921) on July 3. Am. novelist Thomas Michael Disch (b. 1940) on July 4 in New York City (suicide). Am. supermodel Dorian Leigh (b. 1917) on July 7 in Falls Church, Va. (Alzheimer's). Am.-born British philanthropist Sir John Marks Templeton (b. 1912) on July 8 in Nassau, Bahamas. Dutch transvestite singer Charles Lucker (b. 1965) on July 9 (AIDS). Am. Internat. Harvester CEO (1977-82) Archie R. McCardell (b. 1926) on July 10 in Casper, Wyo. Indonesian serial murderer Ahmad Suradji (b. 1949) on July 10 (executed by firing squad). Chilean-born Am. dir. Claudio Guzman (b. 1927) on July 12 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. "The Trolley Song" singer Jo Stafford (b. 1917) on July 16 in Century City, Calif. (heart failure). Am. historian Richard Clement Wade (b. 1921) on July 18 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. actress (Maureen O'Hara's stand-in) Lucille House (b. 1910) on July 21 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Sophia Petrillo in The Golden Girls" actress Estelle Getty (b. 1923) on July 22 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. composer Norman Dello Joio (b. 1913) on July 24 in East Hampton, N.Y. Am. synthetic diamond process inventor Howard Tracy Hall (b. 1919) on July 25 in Provo, Utah. Am. computer scientist Randy Pausch (b. 1960) on July 25 (cancer). U.S. surgeon gen. #12 (1977-81) Julius Benjamin Richmond (b. 1916) on July 27 in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Am. "Grand Hotel" playwright Luther Davis (b. 1916) on July 29. Am. folk singer Erik Darling (b. 1933) on Aug. 3 in Chapel Hill, N.C. (lymphoma). Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918) on Aug. 3 in Moscow. Am. "Ferrante & Teicher" pianist Louis Teicher (b. 1924) on Aug. 3 in Highlands, N.C. (heart failure). English playwright Simon Gray (b. 1936) on Aug. 6 in West London (aortic aneurysm). Am. comedian Bernie Mac (b. 1957) on Aug. 9 in Chicago, Ill. (pneumonia). Am. singer-songwriter Isaac Hayes (b. 1942) on Aug. 10 near Memphis, Tenn.; found dead near his still-running treadmill. Zambian pres. #3 (2002-8) Levy Mwanawasa (b. 1948) on Aug. 19 in Paris, France (stroke). Chinese People's Repub. PM #2 (1976-80) Hua Guofeng (b. 1921) on Aug. 20 in Beijing. Am. country musician Buddy Harman (b. 1928) on Aug. 21 in Nashville, Tenn. Am. "Mac in Magnum, P.I." actor Jeff MacKay (b. 1948) on Aug. 22 in Tulsa, Okla. (liver failure). Am. virologist Thomas Huckle Weller (b. 1915) on Aug. 23 in Needham, Mass.; 1954 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. "Fletch" novelist Gregory Mcdonald (b. 1937) on Sept. 7 in Giles County, Tenn. German-born Am. military advisor Fritz G.A. Kraemer (b. 1908) on Sept. 8 in Washington, D.C. Am. "Talk Back" talk show host George Putnam (b. 1914) on Sept. 12 in Chino, Calif. (kidney failure); "Some people didn't like what he said, some people liked what he said, but everybody listened to George Putnam. That is why he has been one of the most influential commentators of our times." (Richard Nixon) Am. "Infinite Jest" novelist David Foster Wallace (b. 1962) on Sept. 12 in Claremont, Calif.; leaves the unfinished novel The Pale King, which is posth. pub. on Apr. 15, 2011. Am. country musician Charlie Walker (b. 1926) on Sept. 12 in Hendersonville, Tenn. (colon cancer). English Pink Floyd rocker Rick Wright (b. 1943) on Sept. 15 (cancer). Am. "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", "War" songwriter-producer Norman Whitfield (b. 1940) on Sept. 16 in Los Angeles, Calif. Canadian actor Peter Kastner (b. 1943) on Sept. 18 in Toronto, Ont. (heart failure). Am. Kingston Trio singer-songwriter John Stewart (b. 1939) on Sept. 19 in San Diego, Calif. (stroke); wrote "Daydream Believer" for the Monkees. Am. mob boss (retired in 1977) Frank J. Valenti (b. 1911) on Sept. 20 in Sugar Land, Tex. Am. "Cool Hand Luke" actor Paul Newman (b. 1925) on Sept. 26 in Westport, Conn. (lung cancer); retired from acting in 2007. Am. "Mr. Clean" actor Robert House Peters Jr. (b. 1916) on Oct. 1 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. Kingston Trio singer Nick Reynolds (b. 1933) on Oct. 1 in San Diego, Calif. English-born Kiwi actor Rob Guest (b. 1950) on Oct. 2 (stroke). English scholar Peter Avery (b. 1923) on Oct. 6. Romanian biologist George Emil Palade (b. 1912) on Oct. 7; 1974 Nobel Med. Prize. Jamaican musician Alton Nehemiah Ellis (b. 1938) on Oct. 10 in London, England (cancer). Austrian politician Joerg Haider (b. 1950) on Oct. 11 in Koettmannsdorf. Am. "Cookie in Stalag 17" actor Gil Stratton Jr. (b. 1922) on Oct. 11 in Toluca Lake, Calif. (heart failure). English sci-fi novelist Barrington J. Bayley (b. 1937) on Oct. 14 (bowel cancer). Am. singer Edie Adams (b. 1927) on Oct. 15 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). Am. TV game show host Jack Narz (b. 1922) on Oct. 15 in Los Angeles, Calif. (stroke). Am. singer Levi Stubbs (b. 1936) on Oct. 17 in Detroit, Mich. Canadian bodybuilding magnate Ben Weider (b. 1924) on Oct. 17 in Montreal, Quebec. Am. singer Dee Dee Warwick (b. 1945) on Oct. 18 in Essex County, N.J. Am. fashionista Mr. Blackwell (b. 1922) on Oct. 19 in Los Angeles, Calif.: "Unclean and unpleasant, it's also impossible for women over 35" (going braless). Am. "The Aquarius Conspiracy" psychologist Marilyn Ferguson (b. 1938) on Oct. 19 (heart attack). Am. "The Devil in Miss Jones" porno dir. Gerard Damiano (b. 1928) on Oct. 25 (stroke in Sept.). Am. cell phone inventor Amos E. Joel Jr. (b. 1918) on Oct. 25 in Maplewood, N.J. Am. writer Tony Hillerman (b. 1925) on Oct. 26 in Albuquerque, N.M. (pulmonary failure). Am. Joffrey Ballet co-founder Gerald Arpino (b. 1923) on Oct. 29 (prostate cancer). Am. "Birdy" novelist William Wharton (b. 1925) on Oct. 29 in Encinitas, Calif. English film producer John Daly (b. 1937) on Oct. 31. Am. writer Studs Terkel (b. 1912) on Oct. 31 in Chicago, Ill.; epitaph: "Curiosity did not kill the cat." Am. "Mothers of Invention" rock drummer Jimmy Carl Black (b. 1938) on Nov. 1 (lung cancer). Am. nurse Florence Wald (b. 1917) on Nov. 8 in Branford, Conn. Am. "Jurassic Park" novelist Michael Crichton (b. 1942) on Nov. 4 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). South African singer Miriam Makeba (b. 1932) on Nov. 9 in Castel Volturno (near Caserta), Italy (heart attack during a concert). French poet Charles Le Quintrec (b. 1926) on Nov. 14 in Lorient. English "The Miracle Worker" poet-playwright William Gibson (b. 1914) on Nov. 25. English historian Brian Pearce (b. 1915) on Nov. 25. Am. world's oldest living person (since Feb. 14, 2007) Edna Parker (b. 1893) on Nov. 26 in Ind. Am. guru Adi Da (b. 1939) on Nov. 27 in Naitaba, Fiji (cardiac arrest). Am. psychiatrist Louis A. Gottschalk (b. 1916) on Nov. 27 in Calif. Danish Sydney Opera House architect Jorn Utzon (b. 1918) on Nov. 29 in Copenhagen (heart attack). Am. "Harry Bentley in The Jeffersons" actor Paul Benedict (b. 1938) on Dec. 1 in Martha's Vineyard, Mass. Am. singer Odetta Holmes (b. 1930) on Dec. 2 in New York City (heart disease); doesn't live to achieve her dream of performing at Obama's inaguration. Am. celeb neuroscience patient Henry Molaison (b. 1926) on Dec. 2 in Windsor Locks, Conn. Polish-born Am. psychologist Robert Zajonc (b. 1923) on Dec. 3. Dutch actress Nina Foch (b. 1924) on Dec. 5 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "The Judge in The Natural" actor Robert Prosky (b. 1930) on Dec. 8 in Washington, D.C. (heart failure). Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Glazkov (b. 1939) on Dec. 9. Am. model Bettie Page (b. 1923) on Dec. 11 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. prion physician Daniel Carleton Gajdusek (b. 1923) on Dec. 12 in Tromso, Norway; 1976 Nobel Med. Prize; convicted in 1997 of child molestation. Am. actor Van Johnson (b. 1916) on Dec. 12 in Nyack, N.Y. Am. actor-playwright George Furth (b. 1932) on Aug. 11 in Santa Monica, Calif. Am. political scientist Samuel Phillips Huntington (b. 1927) on Dec. 24 in Martha's Vineyard, Mass. English playwright Harold Pinter (b. 1930) on Dec. 24 in West London (esophageal cancer); 2005 Nobel Lit. Prize. Am. actress-singer Eartha Kitt (b. 1927) on Dec. 25 in New York City (colon cancer). Palestinian terrorist George Habash (b. 1926) on Dec. 26 in Amman, Jordan (heart attack). Am. "Bonnie and Delaney" singer Delaney Bramlett (b. 1939) on Dec. 27 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. oldest African descent man George Rene Francis (b. 1896) on Dec. 28 (heart failure). Am. novelist Donald Edwin Westlake (b. 1933) on Dec. 31 in Mexico.
2009 Chinese Year: Ox. Time Mag. Person of the Year: Ben Bernanke (1953-) (first Federal Reserve head). This year has three Friday the 13ths: Feb., Mar., and Nov. This is the U.N. Internat. Year of Astronomy. The 2009-10 Eurozone Crisis causes the IMF, led by French economists Dominique Gaston Andre Strauss Khan (DSK) (1949-) (IMF dir. in 2007-11) and Olivier Blanchard (1948-) (chief IMF economist in 2008-) to drop neoliberal policy and return to progressive policy. Due to the 2008 global recession, world wealth drops 11.7% to $92.4T; bailouts received: Bank of America $45B, AIG $180B, Citigroup $50B, Gen. Motors $50.4B, Chrysler $12.5B, GMAC $12.5B, Chrysler $1.5B; China surpasses the U.S. as the largest consumer of the automobile, with sales of 12.8M cars and light trucks vs. 10.3M in the U.S., up by 40% since 2008. The percentage of Americans in poverty rises to 14.3%, worst in decades. For the first time 1B (1.02B) people worldwide go hungry according to the U.N. World Food Program (100M than in 2008), and on Nov 11 UNICEF pub. a report claiming that almost 200M children have stunted growth because of malnutrition. More than half of the U.S. Treasury Dept. is owned by foreign lenders, who also own a third of U.S. corporate bonds and a sixth of U.S. corporate assets; the percentage of U.S. treasury notes purchased by China and Hong Kong drops to 9% from a high of 55% in 2006; China's banking system has 25x the reserves of the U.S. Federal Reserves, vs. (1/2.5)x in 1990; the U.S. dollar comprises 19% of the world's money supply vs. 100% at the end of WWII; the U.S. income gap between rich and poor is the widest since 1917, with the top 10% receiving 49.7%; meanwhile China's economy grows 8.7% this year, and China has 130 billionaires, up from 101 in 2008 and zero in 2003, making it #2 after the U.S. U.S. GDP falls 3.9% this year, becoming the worst drop since records began to be kept in 1947; the U.S. loses 4.7M jobs, 3.1M held by men and 1.6M by women, causing U. of Mich. economist Mark Perry to coin the term Mancession; Mexico's GDP drops 10% in the 2nd quarter, worst since 1981; in the 3rd quarter the U.S. economy grows at an annual rate of 5.7%, fastest since the 3rd quarter of 2003, indicating that the recession is ending. This year the U.S. imports 13.1M barrels of oil a day, incl. 2M from Canada, 1.4M from Saudi Arabia, 1.1M from Mexico, 1M from Venezuela, .87M from Nigeria, .55M from Angola, and .52 from Iraq; shale gas is discovered in North Am., creating a new picture vis a vis oil. China's share of world exports reaches 10% for the first time, passing up Germany (9%) to become #1, and up from 3% in 1999; U.S.: 8%. Global CO2 emissions fall 1.3% compared to 2008. The U.S. deports a record 779K this year and next. This year 2,412 Afghan civilians are killed, a 14% increase from 2008, with the Taliban responsible for two-thirds after the U.S. restricts the use of airstrikes; meanwhile the U.S. deploys 75K airborne drones and 12K unmanned vehicles in Iraq, and the USAF trains more pilots for unmanned than manned aircraft this year for the first time. The U.S. delivers $13B worth of arms to Saudi Arabia between this year and 2014. World HIV/AIDS cases: 33.3M. There are 10,999 terrorist attacks worldwide this year (killing 14,971), down from a high of 14,443 in 2006 (killing 23K); meanwhile U.S. prosecutors charge more suspects with terrorism (54) than any year since 9/11. This year the Mexican Drug War causes vicious violence near the U.S. border, combined with massive govt. corruption, with 5.7K deaths last year and over 7K this year, causing the U.S. press to talk of Mexico becoming a failed state like Pakistan, bolstered by a Dec. 2008 U.S. Defense Dept. assessment; 2.6K are killed in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico (pop. 1.3M), along with 16K car thefts and 1.9K carjackings. Number of children born to illegal immigrants in the U.S.: 4M (vs. 2.7M in 2003); there are 450K illegal alien criminals in U.S. jails, and ? are deported, vs. 113K in 2008. Muslim pop. in W Europe: 15M, incl. 5M in France, 4M in Germany, and 2M in Britain; in 1950, there were virtually none; there are 200K Somalis in the U.S., incl. 70K in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. area. Total Third World origin pop. in Britain skyrockets from 180K in 1958 to 8M this year. There are now 27M slaves worldwide, most in history? This year Twitter (founded 2006) sweeps the U.S., incl. Congress, becoming a political and business tool; messages are limited to 140 chars. More U.S. women than men receive doctoral degrees this year for the first time ever, 28,962 vs. 28,469. The pop. of Fla. declines for the first time since 1946, dropping by 58K since last year. U.S. women become the chief breadwinners for the first time as 75% of all jobs lost since 2008 were held by men; in homes where both spouses work, 25% of wives earn more than their hubbies. This year the name Barack moves up 10,126 places in the list of U.S. baby names for boys to #2409; Miley moves up 152 places to #127, while Hannah moves down 8 places to #17; top boys names are Jacob, Ethan, Michael, Alexander, William, and Joshua; top girls names are Isabella, Emma, Olivia, Sophia, Ava, and Emily. The U.S. loses 611K private jobs by the end of Mar., creating an unemployment rate of 8.9%. There are 1,595 craft beer breweries in the U.S. (highest since before Prohibition), producing 9.1M barrels/year. On Jan. 1 USC defeats Penn State by 38-24 in the 2009 Rose Bowl, becoming their 3rd V in four straight appearances (except 2006), and 24th Rose Bowl title; USC QB Mark Travis John Sanchez (1986-) scores five TDs and is named MVP. On Jan. 1 the Israeli attack on Gaza continues, stinking themselves up on Jan. 15 by hitting the U.N. HQ and destroying bags of food aid. On Jan. 1 the U.S. officially gives control of Iraq to the Iraq govt., handing over the Green (Internat.) Zone in Baghdad. On Jan. 1 Russia turns off its natural gas tap to Ukraine for unpaid bills. On Jan. 1 Slovakia dumps the koruna for the euro. On Jan. 1 the Sri Lankan army captures Kilinochchi, capital of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, pushing them to the NE then cornering the rebels in a tiny sliver of land on the NE coast by early Apr.; meanwhile on Apr. 17 top U.N. official Vijay K. Nambiar (1943-) meets with Sri Lankan leaders to discuss the estimated 100K ethnic Tamil civilians that have been trapped by the civil war, of which 4.5K have been killed; sadly, it all started with religion, with the majority Buddhist Sinhalese vs. the minority Hindu Tamils. On Jan. 1 after giving him warning, which he ignores, the Israelis bomb the home of hardline cleric and Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan (b. 1959) along with his family for hiding an arsenal, pissing-off the Palestinians. On Jan. 1-Dec. 31 2009 Global Storm Activity incl. a severe drought in SW China along with Bolivia, Venezuela, Spain, Morocco, Mali, and Mauritania; meanwhile Victoria, Australia has a colder summer than usual; in June-Sept. the 2009 West Africa Floods see heavy rainfall cause the Niger, Penjari, Senegal, and Volta Rivers to overflow, affecting 940K in 12 countries, killing 193 and causing $152M damage, with 150K fleeing their homes in the Ougadougou area after one day of rainfall equals 25% of the annual avg. On Jan. 3 the 111th U.S. Congress convenes (until Jan. 3, 2011); it goes on to add more debt ($3.22T) than the first 100 congresses combined ($10,429 per capita); on Jan. 6 the Speaker Nancy Pelosi utters the soundbyte: "We need action and we need action now"' Repubs. pledge cooperation; new black Ill Dem. Sen. Roland W. Burris (1937-) (Obama's replacement) is denied his seat on the excuse that his credentials are not in order (no signature by the Ill. secy. of state) (really the fact that he was appointed by pariah Rod Blagojevich), causing him to threaten a lawsuit and pull in black and PC political muscle, after which he is allowed to sit. On Jan. 6 the U.S. Save America Comprehensive Immigration Act of 2009 is introduced in Congress, providing increased protections and elibility for family-sponsored immigrants. On Jan. 7 John Evans Fiifi Atta Mills (1944-2012) becomes pres. of Ghana (until July 24, 2012). On Jan. 9 U.S. House majority leader Steny Hoyer and minority whip Eric Cantor pub. an opinion piece, quoting Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak, who said "Think about what would happen if for seven years rockets had been fired at San Diego, California, from Tijuana, Mexico", comparing this to Israel's invasion of Gaza. On Jan. 9 Mahmoud Abbas' term as pres. of the Palestine Nat. Authority ends without elections being scheduled, and the constitutional successor, parliament speaker Aziz al-Duwaik (1950-) is elected on Jan. 18, 2006, but is kidnapped and imprisoned by the Israelis on Aug. 6, 2006 to keep Abbas in office, then released on June 22, 2009; meanwhile Bahar's deputy Ahmed Bahar claims that he should succeed in his place. On Jan. 10 Roman Catholic singer Fergie (Stacy Ann Ferguson) (1975-) marries Roman Catholic actor Joshua David "Josh" Duhamel (1972-) (until ?). On Jan. 11 a U.S. federal court orders Microsoft Corp. to stop selling its Word program and pay a Canadian software co. $290M for violating their patent, effective next Jan. 11; on Dec. 22 Microsoft's appeal is denied. On Jan. 13 Yahoo names Carol Ann Bartz (1948-) (CEO of Autodesk in 1992-2006) as its new CEO (until Sept. 6, 2011). On Jan. 13 Chopped debuts on Food Network (until ?), pitting four chefs against each other for a $10K prize. On Jan. 14 a new tape from guess-who Osama bin Laden calls for jihad against Israel, claims that the global financial crisis spells a coming end to U.S. influence in world affairs, and mentions Obama but not by name; meanwhile Obama says that it's no longer important to kill him - he got us umpteen trillion dollars without the people discovering that he's been dead for years? On Jan. 15 the U.S. Senate narrowly approves Barack Obama's request of the remaining $350B financial bailout money to expand lending and reduce foreclosures instead of handing it to the banks. On Jan. 15 the "Miracle on the Hudson" sees U.S. Airways Flight 1549 (Airbus 320) en route from LaGuardia Airport in New York City to Charlotte, N.C. run into a flock of geese, damaging an engine, after which capt. Chesley Burnett "Sully" Sullenberger III (1951-) successfully lands it in the Hudson River, saving all 155 aboard, causing him to become a new post-9/11 New York hero and giving desperate Americans hope of a lucky year to come; he later testifies to Congress how older pilots are treated like merde by the airlines, incl. how his pension was eliminated. On Jan. 15 black U.S. atty.-gen. designate Eric Himpton Holder Jr. (1951-) tells the Senate Judiciary Committee that "waterboarding is torture", cinching his nomination, and he is sworn-in on Feb. 3 as U.S. atty.-gen. #82 (until Apr. 27, 2015), pledging to expand the Justice Dept's civil rights div. (founded 1957). On Jan. 15 a fluke gets former Washington State U. provost Steven Hoch a part-time job at the univ. teaching one class on the 1917 Russian Rev. at $245K a year, vs. an avg. full history prof. salary of $75K - Karl Marx jokes here? On Jan. 17 Barack Obama goes on the Obama Express Whistle-Stop Tour from Philadelphia, Penn. to Washington, D.C. on the exact same train route used by his hero Abraham Lincoln before his 1861 inauguration. On Jan. 18 the 3-week Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip ends; too bad, after claiming for a year that all but 50 of the 1.3K killed by the Israelis were innocent civilians, on Nov. 1, 2010 Hamas interior minister Fathi Hamad admits that 250 Hamas fighters and 150 "security personnel" died in the conflict. On Jan. 18 Diablo Cody's comedy-drama United States of Tara debuts on Showtime for 36 episodes (until June 20, 2011), starring Australian-born Antonia "Toni" Collette (1972-) as suburban housewife-mother Tara Gregson, who is coping with multiple personality disorder., incl. Teenager T, 1950s Housewife Alice, beer-swigging Vietnam Vet Buck, and Gimme. On Jan. 19 (Mon.) the U.S. celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. Day; the nat. media create a Sunday religious sermon atmosphere in deference to the extraordinary event scheduled for Jan. 20; meanwhile in his last day in office Pres. George W. Bush commutes the prison sentences of U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos (1969-) and Jose Alonso Compean (1976-), who were serving 10+-year terms for trying to coverup a shooting; they had become poster boys for Americans against illegal immigration. On Jan. 19 Ramzi Binalshibh of Yemen and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (1964-) declare their guilt in the 9/11 attacks in what is believed will be the last session of the Guantanamo war crimes court. On Jan. 19 Britain announces its 2nd rescue plan for its ailing banks incl. the Royal Bank of Scotland to unfreeze lending. On Jan. 19 Morrocan-born Ahmed Aboutaleb (1961-) becomes the first Muslim mayor of Rotterdam, Netherlands (until ?). On Jan. 19 the Glenn Beck Program (on CNN from May 8, 2006 to Oct. 16, 2008) debuts on Fox Network (until ?), hosted by conservative Mormon commentator Glenn Lee Beck (1964-), becoming a nexus of anti-Obama sentiment and conservative commentary and a thorn in Obama's side. The first 99-44/100% pure president, a combination Lincoln, FDR, JFK, MLK Jr., and Gandhi, plus a disturbing Play-Do makeup incl. doses of Osama bin Laden, Idi Amin, Dorothy Gale from Kansas, and the Wizard of Oz from Emerald City? On Jan. 20 (Tue.) the 2009 (64th) U.S. pres. inaguration in Washington, D.C. sees 6'1" 170-190 lb. Hawaiian-born (Kenyan-born?) Harvard Law School grad. (black) (lefty) (Christian) (closet Muslim?) (closet Marxist?) Barack (Arab. "blessed") Hussein (Arab. "handsome") Obama (Kenyan "crooked") II (1961-) (Secret Service codename: Renegade) (known for saying "Well, Look" at the start of his answer to questions, along with "Let me be clear" and "Make no mistake") become Dem. U.S. pres. #44 (until Jan. 20, 2017) (first African-Am. and first urban pres.) (first U.S. pres. to have Internet access at his desk, have a BlackBerry, and use email daily) (first Pacific pres.) (3rd U.S. pres. to win the Nobel Peace Prize) (a stooge of the Zionist Illuminati?) (11th U.S. pres. to grow and/or use cannabis after Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Taylor, Pierce, Lincoln, JFK); Richard Tosaw, a lawyer from Modesto, Calif. sells 4K $20 printed cardboard periscopes called Obama-Scopes that "make you two feet taller" and help improve one's view of the proceedings; Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden Jr. (1942-) (Secret Service codename: Celtic) becomes the 47th U.S. vice-pres. (until ?) (first Roman Catholic vice-pres.); First Lady is Princeton-educated Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (1964-) (Secret Service codename: Renaissance); first children are Malia Ann Obama (1998-) (Secret Service codename: Radiance) and Natasha "Sasha" Obama (2001-) (Secret Service codname: Rosebud); Second Lady is Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden (1951-) (Secret Service codename: Capri); First Dog is Bo Obama (2008-) (Portuguese Water Dog or Portie), a gift from Sen. Edward Kennedy and his wife Victoria "Vicki" Kennedy, and named after R&B singer Bo Diddley; Obama takes his oath of office on the same velvet-bound Bible used at his hero Abrahama, er, Abraham Lincoln's first (1861) inaguration, and another Bible used by MLK Jr. before a record 1.9M crowd, who brave 17F weather (no arrests?); the inaugural theme is "A New Birth of Freedom", a phrase taken from Lincoln's Nov. 19, 1863 Gettysburg Address allegedly to celebrate the 200th anniv. of his birth year; Sen. Edward Kennedy experiences a seizure during a lunch for Obama, but recovers; Obama's 2009 Inauguration Speech, written by 27-y.-o. white guy Jonathan E. "Jon" Favreau (1981-) doesn't live up to expectations of being full of great JFK-caliber soundbytes, skips past Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln to George Washington, and flip-flops from promising to walk on water to calling for sacrifice and service from the pop., with the soundbytes: "A man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath. So let us mark this day with remembrance of who we are and how far we have traveled"; "On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics"; "We must pick ourselves up"; "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist"; Harlem, N.Y.-born black poet Elizabeth Alexander (1962-) recites her inaugural poem Praise Song for the Day, becoming the 4th poet to read at a U.S. pres. inauguration (Robert Frost in 1961, Maya Angelou in 1993, Miller Williams in 1997); Obama becomes the first U.S. pres. to address "the Muslim World", uttering the soundbyte that the U.S. is "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews, and Hindus and non-believers"; as he assumes office, 79% of Americans incl. 59% of those who voted for John McCain are optimistic about his admin.; the Dow Jones plunges 4%, becoming the worst inauguration day slide (until ?); he inherits a $1.3T deficit from the Bush admin., and by Mar. he increases the 2009 deficit to $1.8T, while his own spending programs will more than double the nat. debt from $8T to $17.3T ($15.4T?) by 2019, equal to 82.4% of the GNP, although he does promise to halve the 2009 deficit by 2014; Obama's look, funny ears, and intellectual style cause him to be compared to Star Trek's Spock; his political philosophy is a combo of Abe Lincoln and John Dewey?; too bad, a growing groundswell of anti-govt. hostility begins by Americans who fear that Obama is plotting to take the U.S. Socialist, Fascist, or Islamic, or foist a OWG on the U.S. complete with concentration camps, causing a fervor of frantic Internet postings by extremists incl. Tex. radio show host Alexander Emerick "Alex" Jones (1974-), leading to Tea Parties in the spring, town hall meeting disruptions in the summer, the Birther Movement, which questions the validity of his birth in U.S. territory, fears that the swine flu virus was manufactured, and fears that he is handing the U.S. over to Muslim Sharia; in the evening Obama hosts the first-ever pres. ball open to the residents of mainly-black Washington, D.C., sweetly dancing with his wife Michelle to music by African-Am. singer Beyonce (Beyoncé) Giselle Knowles (1981-), who sings the 1960 Etta James hit At Last; Obama begins going gray 44 days into his presidency?; after chief justice John Roberts flubs the oath of office, he gives it to Obama again in the White House before nine witnesses; on Jan. 20 Ariz. gov. (since 2003) Janet Napolitano (1957-) (former atty. of Anita Hill, known for being tough on illegal immigration while opposing the $3.9M-per-mi. U.S.-Mexico border fence, with the soundbyte: "You build a 50-ft. wall, somebody will find a 51-ft. ladder)) becomes U.S. homeland security secy. #3 (first woman) (until Sept. 6, 2013), Kenneth Lee "Ken" Salazar (1955-) becomes U.S. interior secy. #50 (until Apr. 12, 2013), Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu (1948-) becomes U.S. energy secy. #12 (until Apr. 22, 2013), Arne Duncan (1964-) becomes U.S. education secy. (until Jan. 1, 2016), former Iowa gov. #40 (since 1998) Thomas James "Tom" Vilsack (1950-) becomes U.S. agriculture secy. #30 (until Jan. 13, 017), and Eric Ken Shinseki (1942-) becomes U.S. veterans affairs secy. #7 (until May 30, 2014); on Jan. 21 Hillary Rodham Clinton (1947-) becomes U.S. secy. of state #67 (until Feb. 1, 2013), vowing to end the paranoia of the George W. Bush era by not worrying exclusively about the safety of the U.S., with the soundbyte "I don't get up every morning just thinking about the threats and dangers, as real as they are. I also get up thinking about who we are and what we can do"; Egyptian-born Dalia Mogahed (1974-) becomes the first veiled Muslim woman to serve in the White House; on June 23 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton appoints Kashmir-born Farah Pandith (1968-) as her special rep to reach out to Muslim communities; on Jan. 21 Pres. Obama signs Executive Order No. 13489, barring release of his birth certficate, fueling rumors that he wasn't really born in the U.S. and thus isn't eligible to become pres., meaning that every act of office he commits is legally void; his refusal to release a long list of other documents adds fuel to the fire and make him a mystery man; no wonder that his name all by itself causes many to think he's a Muslim plant, plus the funny way he hides his birth certificate and the fact that he might have been indoctrinated into Islam as a child (maybe the birth certficate is half and half too?; many note his startling resemblance to Osama bin Laden; in his first year, he receives 30 death threats a day (4x what GW Bush faced), stretching the Secret Service; a poster of Obama as the Joker (as portrayed by the late Heath Ledger) with the word "Socialism" at the bottom becomes a hit with conservatives; it was made by 20-y.-o. U. of Ill. history student Firas Alkhateeb (1979-) using Adobe Photoshop. On Jan. 22 Mary L. Schapiro (1955-), chief of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority becomes chmn. #29 of the Securities and Exchange Commission (until Dec. 14, 2012); Obama appoints Joshua DuBois (1982-) as dir. of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (until Feb. 2013), with the mission of stressing responsible fatherhood and downplaying homosexuality and abortion; on Jan. 20 retired USMC gen. James Logan Jones Jr. (1943-) becomes U.S. nat. security adviser #22 (until Oct. 8, 2010); on Jan. 20 Iranian-born Valerie Bowman Jarrett (1956-) becomes Obama's senior adviser and asst. for public engagement and intergovt. affairs; on Sept. 10 Harvard law prof. Cass Robert Sunstein (1954-) becomes head of the White House Office of Info. and Regulatory Affairs (until Aug. 21, 2012), stirring fears he will become the "Obama's Obama", seeking to use the courts to impose a "chilling effect" on Internet bloggers to stop them from hurting somebody's feelings. Speaking of chilling effect on free speech, Europe is 20 years ahead of the U.S.? On Jan. 21 speaking of hurting somebody, an appeals court in the Netherlands orders Dutch politician-filmmaker Geert Wilders (1963-) to stand trial for "insulting" and "spreading hatred" against sacred cow Muslims in his 2008 short film Fitna, with up to two years in priz as the punishment. On Jan. 21 Lie to Me (me*) debuts on Fox Network for 48 episodes (until Jan. 31, 2011), starring Tim Roth (1961-) as genius psychologist Dr. Cal Lightman, who can figure out what people are thinking via body and facial language - does it work on new Pres. Obama? On Jan. 22 Microsoft Corp. announces 5K layoffs (5% of total workforce), a first for the ever-profitable giant; their cruddy Windows Vista is blamed; meanwhile Sony Corp. announces their first annual loss in 14 years; on Jan. 23 Gen. Electric reports a 44% drop in quarterly profits; on Jan. 26 Caterpillar, Pfizer, Sprint Nextel, Home Dept and GM announce 45K job cuts; on Apr. 21 GM announces that they're dumping their Pontiac brand and cutting 21K jobs, along with a 9-week summer plant closing. On Jan. 23 Pres. Obama orders the closing of the POW detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by Jan. 22, 2010, causing state govts. to complain that they don't want the 240 prisoners to be moved to their states; meanwhile some EU leaders indicate that they will accept them; on Mar. 13 the Obama admin. drops the term "enemy combatant" as a justification for holding them, claiming the authority to hold them comes from Congress and the internat. laws of war, not the wartime powers of the U.S. pres. On Jan. 23 N.Y. Dem. gov. (since Mar. 17) David Paterson chooses U.S. Rep. (D-N.Y.) (since 2007) Kirsten Rutnik Gillibrand (1966-) to succeed Hillary Clinton as Dem. N.Y. Sen., and she is sworn-in on Jan. 26 (until ?). On Jan. 23 20-y.-o. Flemish man Kim De Gelder attacks a children's daycare center in Sint-Gillis-bij-Dendermonde, Belgium, stabbing a teacher and two babies to death and injuring 20. On Jan. 24 Pres. Obama orders yet another Socialist, er, 2009 Economic Stimulus Plan to double U.S. renewable energy capacity within three years and lay down 3K mi. of new electrical lines; it incl. the $4B Broadband Technology Opportunities Program to bring high-speed fiber optic Internet to rural areas; too bad, the tech community has no more clue how to create affordable energy from sources other than fossil fuels and nuclear energy than back in the days of Pres. Carter, whose energy plan created the Synthetic Fuels Corp. and promoted the conversion of corn to ethanol; meanwhile China launches a $586B stimulus plan, which it uses to buy independent steel and other private cos. and turn over to state-owned rivals; $823K ends up getting spent on an African Genital Washing Program for uncircumcised Africans. On Jan. 24 after Congo pres. Joseph Kabila invites troops from neighboring Rwanda in to help end the war in E Congo, rebel leader Laurent Nkunda (a former ally) is arrested along the Congo-Rwanda border, allowing many of his troops to disband, incl. child soldiers. On Jan. 24 a sports center in Barcelona, Spain collapses in high winds, killing four children and injuring 16 others. On Jan. 24 20-y.-o. Brazilian model Mariana Bridi (b. 1988) dies from a bacterial infection that caused her hands and feet to be amputated - the first of billions served by the Rusty Arches? On Jan. 25 an avalanche on 7.2K-ft. Mount Zigana in Turkey kills 11 of 17 hikers. On Jan. 26 after being nominated by pres.-elect Barack Obama on Dec. 1, and er, pacifying her Senate confirmation hearing chaired by Jesse Helms by nursing her infant son while they watched, Stanford-Oxford grad Susan Elizabeth Rice (1964-) (no relation to Condoleezza Rice) becomes U.S. U.N. ambassador #27 (until June 30, 2013) (first African-Am. woman), with Obama restoring the position to cabinet level. On Jan. 26 the impeachment trial of Ill. gov. Rod Blagojevich begins, which he boycotts, calling it unfair, while going to the media instead, dropping the bombshell that he considered appointing black TV host Oprah Winfrey to Obama's Sen. seat; on Jan. 29 he is impeached by a 59-0 vote; on Aug. 17, 2010 a federal jury finds him guilty of one count of lying to federal agents, but deadlocks on 23 other counts, making the feds look like grand inquisitors; he then stages a publicity tour to spin his V, claiming that the feds tried to get him to out Obama, offering him a deal for his cooperation. On Jan. 26 Pres. Obama announces that "It will be the policy of my administration to reverse our dependence on foreign oil", ordering new federal rules for more fuel-efficient cars and allowing Calif. and other states to target greenhouse gases in vehicle emission standards. On Jan. 26 after the country's banks collapsed in Oct. from over-expansion, the Saucepan Rev. (in which protesters clang pots and pans) results in the collapse of the coalition govt. of Icelandic PM Geir Haarde, who resigns. On Jan. 26 after weathering exposure for failing to pay $34K in taxes until his nomination, Federal Reserve Bank pres. #9 (since 2003) Timothy Franz "Tim" Geithner (1961-) becomes U.S. treasury sec. #75 (until ?). On Jan. 27-Feb. 1 the 9th World Social Forum in Davos, Switzerland, attended by five heads of state (Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Lula da Silva of Brazil, Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Evo Morales of Bolivia) blasts world capitalism, blaming it for the economic chaos, with the official theme "another world is possible", and the unnoficial theme "we told you so". On Jan. 28 despite Repub. opposition, the U.S. House by 244-188 (no Repubs. vote for it, and 12 Dems. vote against it) approves (without being given time to read it?) Pres. Obama's record-busting $819B Stimulus Bill, which is supposed to revive the economy despite its loads of pork, and incl. $275B in tax rebates; in practice it becomes a hog trough for every pet project, incl. a New Penn Station in New York City; U.S. banks reap $38B in overdraft fees this year because of the financial plight of consumers; it's really part of a sinister plan by world bankers to create a OWG controlled by a World Bank? On Jan. 28 Pres. Obama gives a speech, admitting to the U.S. role in toppling Iranian PM Mohammad Mossadegh on Aug. 19, 1953, which doesn't satisfy Iranian pres. Immadinajacket, who calls for a full apology. On Jan. 29 Pres. Obama calls the $18.4B in bonuses paid to Wall Street execs last year "shameful", and signs the U.S. Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to give workers more time to take their pay discrimination cases to court, named after Ala. woman Lilly Ledbetter (1938-), who was denied redress by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 in a 5-4 ruling; instead of having to file a claim within 180 days of the first too-low paycheck, they can file within 180 days of any paycheck. On Jan. 29 Turkism PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan utters his famous 56 Words to Shimon Peres in a debate over Gaza in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland: "You are older than me and your voice is very strong. The reason for your raising your voice is the psychology of guilt. I will not raise my voice that much. When it comes to killing, you know very well how to kill. I know very well how you hit and killed children on the beaches." On Jan. 30 former Md. lt. gov. (2003-7) Michael S. Steele (1958-) becomes the first African-Am. chmn. of the Repub. Nat. Committee. On Jan. 31 Sunni Sufi Muslim Sharif Sheikh Ahmed (1964-) becomes pres. of Somalia (until ?). On Jan. 31 after receiving fertility treatments, 33-y.-o. single "Octomom" Nadya (Nadia) Suleman (1975-) (who lives with her parents) gives birth to octuplets, giving her 14 children total, stirring outcries against the medical community as well as her, compounded by revelations that she spent her entire $100K disability on fertility treatments, and some of her children are receiving disability payments. In Jan. the U.S. govt. steps on its own dick again, deciding to begin prosecuting minors for "sexting", i.e., transmitting nude pics of themselves to their boy/girlfriends under federal child porno laws, messing up their entire lives as they are are manufactured into convicted state or federal felons that have to register as sex offenders wherever they go, causing them to spend their lives learning to hate the stinking Land of the Free and the various govt. abusers who did them in with Mickey Mouse abuse of the intent of the law, while real criminals, incl. them get away with major crimes all the time? In Jan. Am.-born freelance journalist Roxana Saberi (1978-) (1997 Miss North Dakota) (Iranian father, Japanese mother) is arrested in Iran for buying a bottle of wine, then accused of spying for the U.S. on Apr. 8, convicted and sentenced to eight years on Apr. 18, causing Pres. Obama to express disappointment with the medieval regime and say on Apr. 19 that he's "gravely concerned"; on May 11 after Mahmoud Ahmadeinejad writes them a letter urging the court to be fair, the appeals court rejects her sentence, allowing her to be freed - did she get wine in prison? In Jan. an election in the N Iraqi province of Nineveh gives control to Sunni Arabs, pissing-off the Kurds, who fight the election and refuse to recognize the new govt.'s sovereignty; on May 8 new gov. Atheel al-Nujaifi is prevented from entering Kurdish-controlled Bashiqa NE of Mosul by Kurdish troops, causing him to turn back. In Jan. the group weblog Stay LDS/Mormon is founded by John Parkinson Dehlin (1969-) et al. for Mormons experiencing a crisis of faith; the Internet becomes home to a wide spectrum of cultural Mormons, incl. New Order Mormons who have ditched the religious tenets but stick with the culture, and Humanistic Mormons, who identify with the history and culture but don't believe in God. In Jan. 598K jobs are lost in the U.S. On Feb. 1 Social Dem. Johanna Sigurdardottir (1942-), known for the slogan "My time will come" becomes PM of Iceland (until May 23, 2013), becoming the first female and first gay/lez. On Feb. 1 Super Bowl XLIII (43) is held in Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla.; the Pittsburgh Steelers (AFC) defeat the 9-7 Arizona Cardinals (NFC) by 27-23, becoming the first team to win 6 SBs; when the Cardinals were still in Chicago, they merged with the Steelers for one season in 1944 under the name Card-Pitt; an ad featuring devout Christian Fla. U. QB (#15) Timothy Richard "Tim" Tebow (1987-) (first college sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy) claiming that his mother disregarded physician advice to abort him becomes controversial; on Apr. 22, 2010 Tebow is selected as #25 in round 1 of the 2010 NFL Draft by the Denver Broncos in the hope he will become their next John Elway, only to see him become way too controversial from his habit of kneeling in Christian prayer on the field; they let him go after the 2011 season despite winning a playoff game. On Feb. 1 Gaza militants fire 10 rockets and mortar shells across the border nine days before scheduled Israeli parliamentary elections, causing an immediate retaliatory strike; on Feb. 4 armed Hamas police break into a Gaza warhouse and seize U.N. food aid, which the UNRWA condemns. On Feb. 2 Olympic swimming champ Michael Fred "Mike" Phelps II (1985-) is caught smoking a bong, causing his career as a role model to take a fast dive, starting with his Kellogg's cereal endorsement to be ended (not renewed), and thousands of boxes of cereal with his picture to be donated to food banks. On Feb. 3 U.S. Sen. (D-S.D.) Tom Daschle (1947-) withdraws his nomination for U.S. secy. of Health and Human Services after reports that he failed to disclose free limo services as income and owed the IRS $140K in taxes. On Feb. 4 Pres. Obama imposes a $500K cap on senior exec pay bonuses for the financial institutions receiving bailout money, and promises to end the system of "executives being rewarded for failure". On Feb. 5 elections in Iraq give Shiite PM Nouri al-Maliki a big V over the Sunnis and violent Shiites. On Feb. 5 Dem. Conn. atty. gen. #23 (1991-2011) Richard Blumenthal (1946-) along with 17 other states and two cities issue a joint letter calling on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Lisa P. Jackson to comply with an Apr. 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision ordering it to determine whether CO2 is a danger to human health and welfare and must be regulated, with Blumenthal writing the soundbyte: "I urge the new Obama EPA to declare carbon dioxide a danger to human health and welfare so we can at last begin addressing the potentially disastrous threat global warming poses to health, the environment and our economy. We must make up for lost time before it's too late to curb dangerous warming threatening to devastate the planet and human society"; on Dec. 7 the EPA issues its Endangerment Finding that greenhouse gas pollution threatens human health and the environment, putting it under Section 202(a) of the U.S. Clean Air Act, causing Blumenthal to comment: "No reputable climate scientist disputes the reality of global warming. It is fact, plain and simple. Dithering will be disastrous"; New York City-born geoscientist Michael Oppenheimer (1946-) supplies a lone affadavit claiming that CO2 influences sea level rise, going on to smear CO2 as responsible for global warming effects incl. damage to coral reefs and ice sheets, linking climate change to crop yields and U.S.-Mexico cross-border migration. On Feb. 5 Jennifer Figge (1952-) of Aspen, Colo. survives a 24-day ordeal to swim from the Cape Verde Islands off Africa to Trinidad off Venezuela, a total of 2,150 mi., mostly inside a shark cage; after the press reports that she swam across the entire Atlantic Ocean, which would require a 10 mph speed, she comes clean and admits that she only swam about 250 mi. and rode on her crew's catamaran the rest of the way - I don't care a figge jokes here? On Feb. 6 Pres. Obama names Chicago Muslim (of Gujarati Indian heritage) Eboo Patel to his advisory Concil on Faith-based Neighborhood Partnerships, who calls the U.S. an "ideal place for renewal of Islam". On Feb. 7 Ecuadoran pres. (since 2007) Rafael Correa (1963-) orders the expulsion of a top U.S. diplomat after accusing him of suspending $340K in annual aid because Ecuador wouldn't allow the U.S. to veto appointments to his drug-smuggling police. On Feb. 7 a small plane en route to Manaus crashes in the Amazon River in Brazil, killing 16 of 20 aboard. On Feb. 9 a car bomber in Mosul, Iraq hits a U.S. patrol and kills four GIs; meanwhile on Feb. 10 another car bomber in guess-where Mosul, Iraq wounds three policemen. On Feb. 10 (16:56 GMT) two large comm satellites, the 1997 Iridium 33 satellite and a 1993 Russian Cosmos 2251 satellite collide in orbit 500 mi. over Siberia, becoming the first satellite collision in a sea of space junk (until ?). On Feb. 10 the U.S. Senate passes a $838B stimulus plan, while treasury secy. Timothy Geither unveils a strategy to protect banks and clear a lending logjam using $350B of the fall 2008 bailout plus as much as $2T more; on Feb. 11 by a straight party-line 61-37 vote, the U.S. Congress agrees on a compromise $720B economic stimulus bill, of which more than one-third is a tax cut for middle-income families, but dropping a housing tax credit; on Feb. 17 Pres. Obama signs the stimulus bill in Denver, Colo., site of his pres. nomination. On Feb. 10 parliamentary elections in Israel give a V to the Likud Party; on Mar. 31 former PM (1996-9) Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (1949-) of the Likud Party becomes PM of Israel again (until ?), facing leftist and Arab hecklers at his inauguration. On Feb. 11 the Taliban hits the justice and education ministries in the heart of Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 20 and wounding 57, showing how bad the U.S. position is becoming. On Feb. 12 Zillur Rahman (1929-) of the Awami League becomes pres. of Bangladesh (until ?). On Feb. 12 Continental Airlines (Colgan Air) Flight 3407 en route to Buffalo from Newark crashes into a home in Clarence Center (near Buffalo), N.Y., killing all 49 aboard plus one in the house, and injuring four on the ground. On Feb. 12 Repub. N.H. Sen. (since 1993) Judd Alan Gregg (1947-) abruptly withdraws his nomination as U.S. commercy secy, citing "irresolvable conflicts" with Pres. Obama's handling of the economic stimulus and upcoming 2010 Census. On Feb. 12 a special federal court finds no link between vaccines and autism, rejecting 5.5K despite all the evidence that there might be a link and not enough scientific research has been funded. On Feb. 12 after comments by Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of St. Pius X, the Conference of Presidents of Major Am. Jewish Orgs. (founded 1956) meets with Pope Benedict VI to reassert the importance of good Jewish-Roman Catholic relations. On Feb. 12 Pakistani-born Am. Muslim banker Muzzammil Syed "Mo Steve" Hassan (1964-) of Orchard Park, N.Y. beheads his wife Aasiya Hassan (b. 1972) after she files for divorce, then turns himself in; he is charged with 2nd-degree murder; they had founded Bridge TV, the first Am. Muslim TV network broadcasting in English to counter Muslim stereotypes, claiming that Hollywood wasn't accurately portraying them - you can take a Muslim out of the Dark Ages, but? On Feb. 12 U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) admits that the CIA launches drones from bases inside Pakistan, not from across the border in Afghanistan as believed. On Feb. 13 Italian-Am. Dem. politician (Clinton's chief of staff in 1994-7) Leon Edward Panetta (1938-) becomes CIA dir. #3 (until June 30, 2011). On Feb. 13 Hillary Clinton receives an email from her chief of staff Cheryl Mills informing her that the NSA has denied her request for a more secure BlackBerry that she wants to use to circumvent normal classified info. security protocols. On Feb. 14 39,897 people lock lips in Mexico City to set a new world kissing record, besting Weston-super-Mare's 2007 record - if they did that in some Muslim countries, they'd set a new beheading record? On Feb. 14 a U.S. missile strike in Pakistan near the HQ of the Taliban chief near the Afghan border kills three. On Feb. 16 the Pakistani govt. caves in and agrees to implement medieval Sharia Law across a large part of NW Pakistan to placate the Taliban, who are growing stronger while the U.S. grows weaker. On Feb. 16 Obama's Trillion Dollar Week in the U.S. sees Pres. Obama travel to Denver, Colo. on Feb. 17 to sign the $877B stimulus package, putting a whopping $13 a week in each worker's paycheck. On Feb. 16 200 lb. 13-y.-o. Travis the Chimp (1995-2009), who was raised by humans from birth and starred in Old Navy and Coca-Cola ads goes beserk in Stamford, Conn. and rips the face and hands off 55-y.-o. Charla Nash (1953-), then attacks a police car, and is shot dead after his owner Sandra Herold wounds him with a butcher knife and shovel, later admitting to giving him Xanax before the rampage; on Feb. 18 the New York Post pub. a political cartoon caricaturing Obama as a crazed chimp gunned down by pigs, drawing out the PC er, police; Nash goes on to win $4M from the owner Sandra Herold, then sues the state for $150M, which is dismissed. On Feb. 17 Pres. Obama approves 17K more U.S. troops for Afghanistan, which has historically been known as "the Graveyard of Empires"; on Feb. 18 U.S. gen. David McKiernan warns that the new troops will take on emboldened Taliban insurgents who have "stalemented" the allies - and just why does Obama want to keep the U.S. in that wild hellhole when he's committing to pulling out of Iraq? On Feb. 17 Pres. Obama visits Phoenix, Ariz. On Feb. 22 (Sun.) a homemade bomb explodes in a 650-y.-o. bazaar in C Cairo, Egypt, killing a French woman and wounding 21, most of them infidel foreigners. On Feb. 22 a coal mine blast in Gujiao, Shanxi in N China kills 74 and injures 114. On Feb. 22 the 81st Academy Awards, hosted by Hugh Jackman are held at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, Calif.; 281 films are eligible for consideration; Danny Boyle wins the best dir. Oscar for 2008 for Slumdog Millionaire, which also wins best picture, cinematography, sound mixing, and four other Oscars; best actor goes to Sean Penn for Milk, best actress to Kate Winslet for The Reader, best supporting actor to Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight, best supporting actress to Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona; Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire wins best original song. On Feb. 23 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. tumbles to its lowest level since May 7, 1997, losing about half its value since its record high in Oct. 2007; meanwhile Pres. Obama vows to slash the deficit by half by the end of his 4-year term - leaving the U.S. set up with debt that triples or quadruples it after his successor is in office? On Feb. 23 the Obama admin. announces $900M in aid for Hamas to help rebuild Gaza after the Israeli attack; meanwhile U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton appoints longtime pres. adviser Dennis B. Ross (1948-) as special adviser for the Persian Gulf and SW Asia (until Nov. 10, 2011). On Feb. 23 Pope Benedict XVI names Timothy Michael Dolan (1950-) (archbishop of Milwaukee, Wisc. since 2002) as the new Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, the 2nd largest diocese in the U.S. after Los Angeles, Calif. On Feb. 23 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin's issues the soundbyte: "Any fourth grade history student knows socialism has failed in every country, at every time in history. President Obama and his fellow Democrats are either idiots or deliberately trying to destroy their own economy", which gets the reply: "We're trying to do socialism better." On Feb. 24 Obama admin. officials announce that Obama plans to order all U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Aug. 2010, slipping his campaign promise by 3 mo. and pissing-off anti-war activists who voted for him. On Feb. 24 a roadside bomb in S Afghanistan kills four U.S. troops, becoming the deadliest of the year so far. On Feb. 24 Pres. Obama delivers his We Will Recover Speech to a joint session of Congress, promising to lead the U.S. from a "day of reckoning" to a brighter future, saying "The time to take charge of our future is here"; "We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before"; "Now is the time to act boldly and wisely, to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. We are a nation that has seen promise and peril. Now we must be that nation again"; he also pushes his Guaranteed Access Health Care Plan, saying that it "cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year", and asks Congress for legislation that places a "market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America"; he concludes that there is no reason that the 21st cent. can't be "another American century"; a Repub. reply by La. gov. #55 (since Jan. 14, 2008) Piyush "Bobby" Jindal (1971-) is widely panned as inept; meanwhile Obama invites Leonard Abess Jr. (1948-) of City Nat. Bank in Fla. to the speech, calling him a hero for sharing $60M of his bonuses with 471 employees and retirees, making him America's 2nd big hero of the year. On Feb. 24 the rich are getting richer as the 733-piece art collection of Yves Saint Laurent and his gay partner Pierre Berge are auctioned in Paris for a record $484M. On Feb. 24-25 the Dhaka Mutiny sees Bangladeshi border guards mutiny, demanding higher pay, then surrender after 20 hours after being promised amnesty; too bad, after the govt. discovers that they massacred 148 army officers, they withdraw the amnesty and charge 1K+ border guards with murder and arson - because knowing is the first step to healing? On Feb. 25 Turkish Airlines Flight 1951 slams into a muddy field while attempting to land at Amsterdam's Schiphil Airport, killing 9 of 134 aboard. On Feb. 27 Pres. Obama gives a speech at Camp Lejune, N.C., telling U.S. Marines that he'll withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by Aug. 2010 and the rest by Dec. 2011, with his strategy based on the "achievable goal" of a "sovereign, stable, and self-reliant" Iraq. On Feb. 27 the Obama admin. says that Mexican drug violence is a big threat to the U.S., with battles between Mexican authorites and drug cartels killing 6K+ last year and 1K this year. In Feb. the U.S. Peanut Butter Scandal sees cockroach-ridden Peanut Corp. of Am. in Ga. exposed as knowingly shipping products tainted with salmonella, causing a giant recall of 1.9K items and congressional hearings - them Jawjaw cockroaches is as big as unshelled peanuts? In Feb. new U.S. Homeland Security secy. Janet Napolitan launches Operation Vigilant Eagle, an attempt to turn U.S. security upside-down by taking the focus off Islamic security threats to put a magnifying glass on white supremacists, the U.S. military and other patriot non-Muslims; on Apr. 7 she issues a dept. memo. In Feb. the U.S. State Dept. pub. its Human Rights Report on Libya; "Although there is no law prohibiting conversion from Islam, the government prohibits efforts to proselytize Muslims and actively prosecutes offenders." On Mar. 1 the U.S. govt. loans AIG another $30B to go with the $30B already loaned, the $40B purchase of preferred shares, and the $50B in Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) funds to buy up toxic debt, for a total of $150B; Harvard Law prof. Elizabeth Warren (1949-) chairs the congressional oversight panel for the Trouble Assets Program, and in 2007 developed the idea for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which Obama pushes; too bad, Congress later can't find out where all the TARP money went? On Mar. 1-4 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Rodham Clinton makes her first official visit to the Middle East, meeting with lame duck Israeli PM Ehud Olmert and PM-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, and declaring U.S. support for Israel "unshakeable" while saying that the Palestinian Authority is the "only legitimate government of the Palestinian people", and going after the Israelis for withholding aid to Gaza. On Mar. 2 the 21st Annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, Australia cruises on the buzz from the 2008 Hollyweird film Milk, and features Am. queen, er, comedian Joan Rivers. On Mar. 3 Pres. Obama commits a boo-boo, saying "profit and earning ratios" instead of price to earnings ratios, causing speculation about his preparation to be you know what. On Mar. 3 Britney Spears launches her Circus Tour, her first concert tour in five years in New Orleans, La. On Mar. 4 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-3 in Wyeth v. Levine that federal regulatory clearance of a medicine does not shield the manufacturer from liability under state law. On Mar. 5 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton proposes an internat. meeting on Afghanistan to incl. "key regional and strategic countries" incl. Iran, even though on Mar. 5 she accused its leaders of fomenting divisions in the Arab world, promoting terrorism, threatening Israel and Europe, and seeking to "intimidate as far as they think their voice can reach". On Mar. 5 Pres. Obama holds a Health Care Forum, telling 120 reps "If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of health care this year"; the U.S. spends $2.5T a year on health care while leaving 46M people uninsured and having higher infant mortality rates than other Western countries; Obama decides to set aside $634B in his 2010 budget for health care reform; the $3.6T budget is titled A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise; according to Newt Gingrich, 20-year-olds will owe $114,280.72 for the interest payments on this budget by age 70. On Mar. 5 a car bomb in a crowded livestock market in Hillah, Iraq S of Baghdad kills 12 and injures dozens. On Mar. 6 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton presents her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva with a mock reset button, but the label is misworded to read "overcharge" instead; it was swiped from a Jacuzzi in Geneva; on Mar. 20 a U.S. delegation led by Henry Kissinger meets with Russian pres. (since May 7) Dmitri Medvedev (1965-), calling it an attempt to "press the reset button" on U.S.-Russian relations. On Mar. 8 Pres. Obama announces that 12K U.S. soldiers will leave Iraq by Sept.; meanwhile the acne eruption keeps on as yet another suicide bomber in Bag Dead kills 30+. On Mar. 9 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. bottoms out below 6.5K, rising 20% by June 1. On Mar. 9 the U.S. and South Korea stage annual war games, causing the North Koreans to prepare for an invasion - like they don't deserve it? On Mar. 9 Michael McLendon (b. 1981) goes on a rampage in two counties in S Ala. killing 10, incl. his mother, then himself; he allegedly held a grudge against his former employer Pilgrim Pride. On Mar. 9 U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stinks herself up with the soundbyte "We have to pass the [health care reform] bill so that you can find out what is in it." On Mar. 9 the crime drama series Castle debuts on ABC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), starring Canadian-born Nathan Christopher Fillion (1971-) as famed mystery novelist Richard Castle, who suffers from a writer's block, and ends up helping the NYPD solve murders with hot babe detective Kate Beckett, played by Canadian-born Stana Jacqueline Katic (1978-). On Mar. 10 Students for a Free Tibet protesters march in New York City, Europe, and Asia to commemorate the 50th anniv. of the failed uprising that sent the Dalai Lama into exile. On Mar. 10 a suicide bomber in a market in Abu Ghraib, Iraq in W Baghdad attacks a group of Shiite and Sunni tribesmen and police officers, killing 133. On Mar. 11 17-y.-o. Tim Kretschmer (1991-) goes on a rampage at his former high school in Winnenden, Germany, killing 15. On Mar. 11 the 2009 Forbes Billionaire List is pub., with Bill Gates back at #1 after losing only $18B of his $58B net worth, with Warren Buffett slipping to #2 after losing $25B of his $62B; a record 332 people drop off the list, which falls from 793 to 1,125, with total net worth down from $4.4T to $2.4T. On Mar. 11 Pres. Obama creates the White House Panel on Women and Girls to advise him on the issues, invoking his white single mother and dead white grandmother. On Mar. 11 19-y.-o. Levi Johnston and 18-y.-o. Bristol Palin announce that they have split after he couldn't handle new baby boy Tripp (born Dec. 27). On Mar. 12 police arrest anti-govt. protesters in Islamabad, Pakistan as part of a plan by new pres. (since Sept. 9, 2008) Asif Ali Zardari (1955-) to detain anybody critical of his policies. On Mar. 13 (Fri.) Wall Street has its best week of 2009, with a 3-day rally after reports that the U.S. trade gap narrowed in Jan. to $36B (lowest since Oct. 2002), Bank of Am. reports profits in Jan. and Feb., and Citigroup claims its best quarter since 2007; the Dow gains 53 points (.9%) to close at 7,223, and Nasdaq gains 5 points to 1,431; on Mar. 17 the Dow is up 849 points (13%); the rally continues until ?; meanwhile Chinese PM (since 2003) Wen Jibao (1942-) utters the soundbyte: "We have loaned a huge amount of money to the United States. Of course, we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I'm a little bit worried. I would like for you [a Western reporter] to call on the United States to honor its word and stay a credible nation and ensure the safety of Chinese assets"; China has $2T in foreign reserves and is the #1 creditor of the U.S., holding $1T of its debt; he also outlines a $585B stimulus plan for China, claiming that the Chinese economy will grow by 8% this year - mighty capitalist of him? On Mar. 13 thousands of Protestants and Catholics unite at the funeral of constable Stephen Carroll (b. 1960), who was shot on Mar. 7 as he sat in his patrol car, becoming the first policeman shot in Northern Ireland since 1998; on Mar. 5 two unarmed soldiers were gunned down outside their base, becoming the first British troops killed since 1997; on Mar. 14 police arrest three IRA members, incl. Colin Duffy (1967-), "the IRA Godfather of Lurgan", causing more violence. On Mar. 14 (Sat.) bedlam breaks out in Manhattan, N.Y. at a crowded audition for "America's Next Top Model", injuring six and resulting in three arrests. On Mar. 14 a recording of Osama bin Laden is released on al-Jazeera TV, calling the Israeli offensive in Gaza a "holocaust" and lashing out at Arab leaders, accusing them of being hypocrites who are sacrificing Palestinians and collaborating with Israel; meanwhile on Mar. 13 Am. activist Tristan Anderson (1970-) of Oakland, Calif. is hit in the head by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops in the West Bank, fracturing his skull and putting him in the hospital. On Mar. 14 former DJ Andry Nirina Rajoelina (1974-), head of the opposition emerges from two weeks of hiding and on Mar. 17 declares himself pres. of Madagascar (until Jan. 25, 2014), but pres. Marc Ravalomanana refuses to quit. On Mar. 15 ex-vice-pres. Duck Shooter, er, Dick Cheney calls the actions of the Bush admin. after 9/11 "a great success story", and says that Americans are less safe after Pres. Obama overturned his policies; on ? he says that if his successor Joe Biden "wants to diminish the office of the vice-president, that's... his call." On Mar. 15 leftist former guerrilla Carlos Mauricio Funes Cartagena (1959-) of the Farabundo Marti Nat. Liberation Front (FMLN) wins elections in El Savador, defeating conservative Rodrigo Avila of the Arena Party. On Mar. 15-21 more than 500 protests against the Iraq War are held, complaining that Pres. Obama is stalling in his promise to pull out. On Mar. 17 Pres. Obama stays true to his Chicago roots and has the water in the fountain in front of the White House turned green; actually his wife put him up to it; meanwhile Congressional Dems. get pissed-off at news that Ain't I Greedy AKA AIG (Am. Internat. Group) has given its employees $169M in post-bailout bonuses, causing them to take emergency action to get them back and consider letting the outfit go into bankruptcy. On Mar. 18 the state of N.M. repeals its death penalty, effective July 1. On Mar. 19 Jewish-Am. Harvard Law School dean (since 2003) Elena Kagan (1960-) (who banned military recruiters from campus over their don't ask don't tell policy, and filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2009 arguing that the victims of 9/11 couldn't sue the Saudi govt. or royal family because they had "sovereign immunity") becomes U.S. solicitor gen. #45 (until ?), the first woman, going on to fight lawsuits questioning her boss Obama's citizenship and get paid back by a Supreme Court nomination. On Mar. 19 Barack Obama is the first guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. On Mar. 20 Pres. Osama, er, Obama releases a Special Video Message to the People of Iran: A New Year, a New Beginning, offering a "new day" in U.S.-Iraq relations, calling it the Islamic Repub. to stroke their leaders, who brush it aside with the reply that Washington must show concrete change first, then inaugurate their first nuclear fuel manufacturing plant on Apr. 8; meanwhile a U.S. delegation led by Henry Kissinger meets with Russian pres. (since May 7) Dmitri Medvedev (1965-), calling it an attempt to "press the reset button" on U.S.-Russian relations; on Mar. 6 Hillary Clinton presents her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Geneva with a mock reset button, but the label is misworded to read "overcharge" instead; on May 5 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates assures U.S. allies in the Middle East that their relationships with the U.S. won't be damaged by Obama's naive, er, open dialoguing efforts; meanwhile candidate Obama's aides meet in secret with senior Hamas and other Islamist group figures in Gaza, covering-it up so that McCain can't use it as ammo, and first revealed in Nov. 2011; was one of the aides Robert Malley (1963-), who was let go when his regular meetings with Hamas became public, then put back in the fold after the election? On Mar. 20 the 6th Anniv. of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq sees Sadrists burn U.S. flags and call for immediate pullout - they don't believe them Enzyte ads? On Mar. 21 Antananarivo mayor (since 2008) (former disc jockey) Andry Nirina Rajoelina (1974-) seizes power, becoming pres. of Madagascar (until ?). On Mar. 21 Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry (1948-) is reinstated as chief justice of Pakistan after being fired by ex-pres. Pervez Musharraf in 2007 for challenging his rule. On Mar. 21 Pope Bendedict XVI visits Luanda, Angola, uttering the soundbyte: "In today's Angola, Catholics should offer the message of Christ to the many who live in the fear of spirits, of evil powers by whom they feel threatened"; too bad, on his way to Africa he makes remarks about AIDS and condom use, saying that condoms aren't the answer to Africa's AIDS epidemic and could make it worse, and that the Church should promote abstinence and monogamy, bringing out the PC police, and causing the Belgian parliament on Apr. 2 to pass a resolution calling his remarks "unacceptable", which the Vatican counters on Apr. 17 by calling it an attempt to intimidate him into silence - stick your remarks up what? On Mar. 22 the U.S. Treasury Dept. announces the creation of the Public Investment Corp. to purchase up to $1T of toxic assets from banks. On Mar. 22 black parolee Lovelle Mixon kills four police officers in Oakland, Calif. before he is killed, raising the bar for suicide by cop wannabes? On Mar. 25 responding to U.S. criticism that the EU is not spending enough to stimulate demand, Czech PM (since 2006) Mirek Topolanek (1956-) (head of the EU) says that Pres. Obama's $2T economic stimulus plan is "the road to Hell". On Mar. 25 U.S. treasury secy. Timothy Geithner stuns global markets by stating that the Obama admin. is "quite open" to Chinese proposals for the gradual development of a global reserve currency run by the IMF to supersede the dollar. On Mar. 26 stinking corrupt prosecutors in Passaic, N.J. do what we coulda guessed and abused, er, arrested a 14-y.-o. girl on charges of child porno for posting nude pics of herself on MySpace.com, which will end up marking her for life in the system as a sex offender - the prosecutors should be sentenced to go around nude for a year, but who can prosecute a prosecutor in the stinking U.S.? On Mar. 26 Pres. Obama holds the first-ever White House Internet Forum; meanwhile his admin. issuing a warning to North Korea not to launch a rocket in orbit in Apr. after it was seen being put into position on its pad. On Mar. 26 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton admits that the U.S. shares responsibility with Mexico for its drug violence, with the soundbyte that traffickers "are motivated by the demand for illegal drugs in the United States, and are armed by the transfer of weapons from the United States"; meanwhile the U.S. DREAM (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors) Act is introduced into the U.S. Congress, providing undocumented immigrant students citizenship after they graduate from h.s. and earn a 2-year college degree or serve in the military for two years; too bad, it fails in the Senate by a 44-52 vote. On Mar. 27 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that the U.S. goal in Afghanistan and Pakistan is to "disrupt, dismantle, and eventually destroy al-Qaida". On Mar. 27 8-y.-o. Sandra Cantu is kidnapped in Tracy, Calif. by Sun. school teacher Melissa Huckaby (1981-), who rapes and murders her with a rolling pin, then stuffs her body in a black Eddie Bauer suitcase and thows it into a pond; on June 24, 2010 she is sentenced to life in prison. On Mar. 28 protesters march in London to protest the G20 meeting coming up on Apr. 2, which ends up wanting to bolt away from prior support of the U.S. and its jiffy capitalist system. On Mar. 28 (Sat.) a dam bursts outside Jakarta, Indonesia in the early morning hours, catching many asleep, killing 69. On Mar. 31 Pres. Obama rejects a $22B bailout request from GM and Chrysler after forcing GM CEO (since 1998) George Richard "Rick" Wagoner Jr. (1953-) to resign on Mar. 29, giving GM 60 days to roll-out a new plan that trims brands, jobs and dealers; Wagoner gets a $10M retirement package, effective Aug. 1; on Mar. 31 Frederick "Fritz" Henderson (1958-) becomes the new GM CEO (until Dec. 1); on May 11 he announces that he is open to moving the co. HQ out of Detroit (his birthplace), selling its U.S. plants, and renegotiating its restructuring plan with the UAW, and that GM is likely headed for bankruptcy by June 1 after missing a $1B debt payment; after it survives, Henderson is ousted on Dec. 1 for restructuring the co. too slowly, and is replaced by GM chmn. Ed Whitacre as interim CEO (until ?). On Mar. 31 yet another suicide bomber in Iraq strikes Mosul, Iraq, killing seven and wounding 25, most of them police officers; meanwhile a weekend Sunni uprising in Baghdad bodes poorly for the future of a U.S. pullout, and Britain hands over control of oil-rich S Iraq to the U.S. On Mar. 31 two ships smuggling North Africans to France run into a storm off Libya, capsizing one ship and drowning 200. In Mar. Afghanistan passes the Sharia Personal Status Law, effective in July, requiring wives to obtain their husband's permission just to leave home, granting child custody rights to fathers and grandfathers instead of mothers and grandmothers, requiring a woman to "make herself up" and have sex whenever the husband demands it, and giving the hubby the right to cut off her maintenance if she doesn't, while reducing the penalty for a man raping a child or elderly woman to a mere fine. In Mar. Wash. state by 56.7% passes a Death with Dignity Law, permitting assisted-suicide; on May 21 terminal cancer patient Linda Fleming (b. 1942) of Sequim becomes the first to die under the new law. In Mar. the Obama admin. gives Congress detailed plans behind closed doors to send up to 80 narcs (narcotic agents) to Afghanistan in an attempt to disrupt the main source of financing for terrorists - 80 more drug billionaires in the making? In Mar. the Mexican govt. imposes a retaliatory $2.4B tariff on the U.S. after Pres. Bush cancelled the program allowing Mexican trucks to cross the U.S. border under NAFTA, saying they are old and unsafe. In Mar. former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles "Chas" Freeman withdraws his nomination to head the Nat. Intelligence Council after financial ties to the bin Laden family are revealed, along with board membership in a Chinese-owned oil. co. making deals with Iran; in Nov. he makes a speech to a pro-Arab U.S. group claiming that Israel has long been assassinating peace-loving Palestinian leaders, that the 9/11 attack was caused by U.S. support for Israel, and that if Pres. Obama attempts to pressure Israel, its "American lobby" will use Congress to punish him. On Apr. 1 (April Fool's Day) new U.S. pres. Barack Hussein Obama bows to Saudi King Abdullah at the G20 summit in London, a giant protocol no-no and a terrific insult to his own office, probably an instinctive reaction, he won't do it again?; Saudi Arabia is known for their mutawas (morality police), who throw women into medieval dungeons and beat and gang-rape them for daring to drive a car or go out in public without a male escort, great ally the U.S. has there - imagine any preceding president doing it even to a good monarch? On Apr. 2 after new DNA tests, 72-y.-o. insurance adjuster John Floyd Thomas Jr. (1936-) is charged for murder, after which police say he is suspected of raping and strangling up to 30 older women over a 20-year period. On Apr. 3 Pres. Obama visits Strasbourg, France, where he utters the soundbyte "Instead of celebrating our dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive." On Apr. 3 unemployed Korean immigrant Jiverly Wong (Voong) (1967-) kills 13 and wounds four in a rampage at a citizenship class in an immigrant community center in Binghampton, N.Y. before killing himself. On Apr. 3 the Iowa Supreme Court legalizes same-sex marriage, licking the marital problem of Trish Varnum (1975-) and Kate Varnum (1966-). On Apr. 3 Dato Sri Haji Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak (1953-), son of PM #2 Abdul Razak and nephew of PM #3 Hussin Onn becomes PM #6 of Malaysia (until ?), going on to launch the 1Malaysia campaign. On Apr. 3-4 NATO celebrates its 60th anniv. with a NATO Summit in Strasbourg-Kehl, welcoming new members Albania and Croatia, and extending an open invitation to Macedonia; the membership of Turkey hotly is disputed, the fact that since 1974 it has occupied 40% of NATO member Cyprus with its army (that would be the 2nd largest in NATO after the U.S.) in point; the HQ of Turkey's EU efforts was seized from the Orthodox Christians in the 1990s? On Apr. 5 North Korea launches the Taepodong 2 comm sat to protests by Japan and the U.S.; too good, the 3rd stage fails, and it falls into the Pacific Ocean - there is only one Lord of the Ring? On Apr. 6 on the tail end of his trip to Europe, Pres. Obama visits Turkey, his first official pres. visit to a Muslim nation, and meets pres. Abdullah Gul, uttering the soundbyte "I'm trying to make a statement about the importance of Turkey, not just to the United States but to the world. I think that where there's the most promise of building stronger U.S.-Turkish relations is in the recognition that Turkey and the United States can build a model partnership in which a predominantly Christian nation, a predominantly Muslim nation - a Western nation and a nation that straddles two continents - that we can create a modern international community that is respectful, that is secure, that is prosperous, that there are not tensions - inevitable tensions between cultures - which I think is extraordinarily important"; he tells the Turkish parliament: "Some people have asked me if I chose to continue my travels to Ankara and Istanbul to send a message. My answer is simple: Evet (yes). Turkey is a critical ally"; he tells a press conference: "One of the great strengths of the United States is... we have a very large Christian population. We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation, we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values"; during a town meeting in Istanbul he makes a point of finishing a half hour before the Muslim call to prayer, acknowledging that it's no longer such a secular nation. On Apr. 6 an earthquake in C Italy causes bldgs. to collapse in and around L'Aquila, Abruzzo and other towns, killing 50+; six seismologists and a govt. official are charged with manslaughter for not alerting the public in time; on Nov. 10, 2014 six of them are acquitted. On Apr. 7 a gunman opens fire in a court in Landhut, Germany, kiling a woman then himself; in the last mo. crazed gunmen have killed a total of 57 in eight separate rampages, causing many to blame the economy. It takes two, baby? On Apr. 7 Vt. legalizes same-sex marriage, becoming the first state legislature to do it instead of a court - how do you like your sweetcakes? On Apr. 8 a bomb in a plastic bag explodes 100 yards from the Imam Mousa al-Kazim Shiite tomb in Baghdad, killing seven. On Apr. 8 British police arrest 12 men on suspicion of a "very big" terrorism plot, then release them on Apr. 22, seeking to deport 11 of them back to Pakistan while admitting embarrassment. On Apr. 9 Pres. Bush, er, Obama asks Congress for $83.4B for U.S. military and domestic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, pushing the cost of the two wars to $1T since 9/11; as a candidate, he opposed the same special troop funding. On Apr. 9 Shawn Merriman (1962-) of Aurora, Colo. is charged with running yet another Ponzi scheme, using $20M from 38 investors to fund a lavish lifestyle, incl. Rembrandts, which are soon put up to auction. On Apr. 9 an al-Qaida terrorist cell is arrested in Manchester and Liverpool, England, a few days before a planned Easter terrorist attack on Apr. 12. On Apr. 9 (Thur.) the sitcom Parks and Recreation debuts on NBC-TV for 125 episodes (until Feb. 24, 2015), starring Amy Meredith Poehler (1971-) as Leslie Knope, deputy dir. of Parks and Recreation in Pawnee, Ind. On Apr. 9 (Thur.) the crime drama series Southland debuts on NBC-TV for 43 episodes (until Apr. 17, 2013 afer switching to TNT on Nov. 2, 2009), about the LAPD and its officers' lives, starring Michael Cudlitz (1964-) as Officer John Cooper, who is a closet gay. On Apr. 10 a suicide bomber at a police station in Mosul, Iraq kills five U.S. soldiers and two policemen, and injures dozens, incl. 17 policemen and a U.S. soldier. On Apr. 11 a suicide vest bomber in Al-Iskandariya, Iraq 24 mi. S of Baghdad kills nine and injures 31 members of the anti-al-Qaida Sunni Sons of Iraq movement; meanwhile another suicide bomber in Jbala, Iraq 35 mi. S of Baghdad kills nine and wounds 30. 4/11 (Cry Me a River Day) becomes an anti-9/11 for millions in the Western world, lifting their spirits faster than the Twin Towers fell on 9/11? On Apr. 11 (Sat.) one of the most powerful reality TV moments ever sees Britain's Got Talent rocked by the stunning debut of 47-y.-o. never-married "never-kissed" Scottish soprano Susan Boyle (1961-) (contestant #432), who comes off at first like a frumpy bag lady or mental institution outpatient and endures degrading looks and wolf whistles, shaking her booty and uttering the soundbyte "And that's just one side of me", saying that she'd like to have a musical career like Elaine Paige (1948-) ("First Lady of Musical Theatre"), then displaying a voice like an angel with the discipline and art of a diva, singing a brilliant interpretation of I Dreamed a Dream from the 1980 musical "Les Miserables", bringing the entire audience to its feet and causing the "don't judge a book by its cover" lesson to be learned by millions; her voice is compared to Kate Smith and Barbra Streisand; the Cinderella story that is later revealed of being born with brain damage, losing her 91-y.-o. mother two years ago, and fighting back against insurmountable odds causes millions to weep as they play the video over and over, incl. celebs Demi Moore (1962-) and Patti LuPone (1949-), who first sang the song in London's West End; good sport Elaine Paige offers to sing a duet with her; the Western romantic fantasy of lowly commoner Susan Boyle revealing herself to really be Queen Susan de Balliol, descended from the kings of Scotland, who deigned to grace her audience of commoners with her royal presence causes even historyscoper TLW to weep, recalling less powerful moments in "Shrek" (Princess Fiona), Disney's Fairy Godmother, and Susan Osborne's "What If God Was One Of Us"; she goes on to zoom to the top with 60M+ views of her debut on YouTube by Apr. 19 (most viewed YouTube clip until ?), and 93.2M views on 650 different placements by Apr. 20, with fans worldwide listening to her video many times in a row and telling friends, and Susan Boyle Fan Sites springing up overnight, becoming the biggest music sensation since the Beatles?; ironically British viewers can't access YouTube videos because of a revenue dispute, and Sony Music, owner of the TV show fails to make any money from all the views; she soon signs a recording contract with tight-fisted Simon's Sysco Music Co., becoming the big music story of 2009, the waste of her talent finally ended; her cat Pebbles becomes the world's most famous cat?; her home province of West Lothian becomes an immediate travel destination ("It's a sort of collection of, it's a collection of, uh, villages, I had to think there"); too bad, in 1999 she recorded Cry Me a River and was overlooked, selling only 1K copies for charity, which become instant collectors items; on Apr. 22 she gets a new look, then on Apr. 24 dyes her hair for $50; meanwhile on Apr. 18 12-y.-o. Welsh-Iranian Shaheen Jafargholi (1997-) from Swansea appears on the show, causing a mini-stir with a rendition of "Who's Lovin' You" by the Jackson Five, followed on Apr. 25 by 10-y.-o. Hollie Steele (1999-), but at least the producers tried?; on May 25 buffed-up Susan sings Memory from Cats, the previous situation reversed, with all the hype of this big star putting her under tremendous pressure she isn't used to, causing her to start off-key, then regroup and finish strong again, going on to the finals on May 30 after the paparazzi put her through hell on May 27 in the Wembley Plaza Hotel in London, doing "I Dreamed a Dream" again well, but ending up #2 after the dance troupe Diversity, causing bookmakers to make a fortune with the unexpected outcome, after which on May 31 she is hospitalized, but later recovers and begins her hot career. On Apr. 12 French atheist self-appointed Messiah Rael Maitreya announces to the nation of Israel: "I, Yahweh, through the mouth of my prophet RAEL, your awaited Messiah, am sending you this ultimate message... you all need to unite to prepare the construction of the Third Temple, Our Embassy and the glorious return of our beloved son, our last and ultimate messanger, the Messiah Rael, who will bring centuries of peace on Earth with our return. Every minute counts and remember that you cannot say we did not warn you." On Apr. 13 U.S. Navy snipers kill three Somalian pirates holding freighter capt. Richard Phillips, who was kidnapped from his ship the Maersk Alabama on Apr. 8 and held in a lifeboat, embarrassing the U.S.; he is rescued unharmed; on Apr. 30 he calls for military protection and armed crew officers to thwart future attacks; meanwhile the pirates set up a lair at Haradheere (250 mi. NE of Mogadishu) to attract financiers for future lucrative operations; on Feb. 17, 2011 Abdulwali Abdukhadir Muse, sole survivor of the pirates is sentenced to 405 mo. in U.S. federal prison for his role in the Maersk hijacking. An Apr. 13 after folding to pressure, Pakistani pres. Asif Ali Zardari signs a regulation putting a NW district under Islamic Sharia law, appeasing militants who have been brutalizing the Swat Valley for two years. On Apr. 13 a fire in a 3-story shelter for homeless families in Kamien Pomorski burns down, killing 21. On Apr. 13 the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win, the two largest labor union federations in the U.S. announce unanimous support for a plan to legalize illegal immigrants in the U.S., along with a "worker verification program" and the erection of significant barriers to businesses attempting to bring in new foreign temp workers. On Apr. 15 (Tax Day) neo-Boston Tea Party Rallies are held in several U.S. cities, incl. Denver, Colo. against Obama's bailout policies, with some carrying signs calling him a traitor; Tex. Repub. gov. (since 2000) James Richard "Rick" Perry (1950-) tells a cheering crowd in Austin that the Obama admin. has abandoned the founding U.S. principles of limited govt., and strangled Americans with spending, debt, and taxation, and that if it keeps up the state of Texas might secede - who's had a Jimmy Dean breakfast this morning? On Apr. 15 U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano names former federal prosecutor Alan Bersin to be the new "border czar" to oversee U.S. efforts to end drug cartel violence along the U.S.-Mexico border and stem illegal immigration. On Apr. 15 300 Afghan women protest in Kabul a new law that imposes disgusting medieval Islamic Sharia law on women, esp. the right to marital rape; men respond by stoning them - they should have that infidel women's libber crap f*cked out of them? On Apr. 15 Time mag. goofs and sends incorrect eds. of the debut issue of its new mag. Mine, which lets subscribers tailor their issues by selecting five of eight mag. titles (really a printed RSS feed). On Apr. 16 Pres. Obama arrives in Mexico City and meets with Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon, who compares him to JFK, after which Obama says that he will not seek to renew the U.S. assault weapons ban but will instead work to stop their flow to Mexico, saying that the Mexican drug war is "sowing chaos in our communities"; Obama then attends the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, where the restoration of relations with Cuba is on the table, with Calderon wanting to play the matchmaker since Mexico is friendly with both countries, which Obama decides to pass on for now; on Apr. 20 the summit ends with Obama outlining a broad agenda incl. a more central role for the U.S. in global alliances, with the soundbyte "We do our best to promote our ideals and our values by our example"; after Obama calls for a "new beginning" with Cuba, Raul Castro says that he is willing to sit down with him and discuss "everything, everything, everything", causing his retired brother Fidel Castro to tell the press that Obama "misinterpreted" his remarks, and that freeing political prisoners is out of the question; on Apr. 17 Obama shakes hands with Venezuelan pres. (since 1999) Hugo Chavez, who is known for calling Pres. Bush a "devil"; Chavez hands Obama the 1971 book Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, by Uruguayan author Eduardo Hughes Galeano (1940-), which exposes U.S. and Euro imperialism in Latin Am. for the last five cents., and is written in Spanish, causing Obama to think it was written by Chavez; it becomes an immediate bestseller on Amazon.com, jumping from #54,295 to #2 in three days - did he feel amazingly boxed in or grateful to know what's wrong? Take our word for it, and ci ya later? On Apr. 16 Memos on Torture, a "Holy Grail of torture documents" written by CIA inspector gen. John Helgerson in 2004 during the Bush years describing inhumane torture techniques used by the CIA are pub. after the agents involved are shielded from prosecution; the CIA admits to destroying 12 tapes of particularly devilish interrogations, plus 80 others they claim weren't so bad; a 2005 Justice Dept. memo shows that they gave Abu Zubaydah 83 waterboardings in Aug. 2002 alone, all of which pisses-off lawmakers into calling for more extensive inquiries into the Beat the Bush admin., incl. calls for prosecution anyway, causing Obama on Apr. 21 to say he'll have the new U.S. atty.-gen. look into it, and recommend Congress to set up an independent commission rather than a congressional panel; too bad, ex-vice-pres. Dick Cheney steps in, delaying the declassification of the document until ?. On Apr. 18 after pleas by Pakistani pres. Asif Ali Zardari, who says "I still fear that the understanding of the danger that Pakistan faces does not register fully in the minds of the world... If we lose, you lose. If we lose, the world loses", the U.S., Japan, the EU, and Saudi Arabia promise $5B in aid to Pakistan. On Apr. 19 22 polo horses from the Venezuelan-owned Lechuza polo team collapse and die in West Palm Beach, Fla. shortly before the start of the U.S. Open after being given a botched Biodyl vitamin-mineral prescription, which was illegal to bring into the U.S., so they had it mixed locally. On Apr. 19 a U.S. missile strike in S Waziristan, Pakistan on the Afghan border kills three al-Qaida militants and destroys a truck filled with high explosives that could have been used in a suicide bombing; the incident shows the growing strength of al-Qaida in shaky Pakistan. On Apr. 19 U.S. homeland secy. (since Jan. 21) Janet Napolitano goes on CNN's State of the Union, and says that crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally isn't a crime; too bad, Section 8, Title 1325 of the U.S. Criminal Code says it is - call it on-the-job training? On Apr. 19 Prince Philip, duke of Edinburgh (b. 1921) becomes the longest serving consort in British history, 57 years and 71 days, passing up George III's consort Queen Charlotte. As smooth as a baby's behind? On Apr. 19 Donald Trump's Miss USA 2009 (58th) Pageant at the Theatre for the Performing Arts in Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nev. (known for not promoting tons of non-whites over the heads of whites but being mostly fair, until now?) is won by blonde-blue Miss N.C. Kristen Jeannine Dalton (1986-) (not to be confused with the redheaded actress Kristen Dalton, b. 1966) after gorgeous blonde-blue Miss Calif. Caroline Michelle "Carrie" Prejean (1987-) (a Bible-believing Creationist) honestly answers a question about same-sex marriage by ugly bigmouth gay celeb Perez Hilton (1978-), saying "I do believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there", after which Hilton gives away that he voted her down for her beliefs, calling her answer "the worst answer in pageant history", and adding on his blog "She lost not because she doesn't believe in gay marriage, she lost because she's a dumb bitch" (duh, like him?); on Apr. 21 Repub. state rep. (since 2002) Jay Love (1968-) introduces a resolution to the Ala. legislature to praise Prejean for standing by her beliefs; the gays then begin a systematic harassment campaign, announcing that she had breast implants and dredging up old photos to use against her, but Donald Trump intervenes, allowing her to keep her crown; meanwhile the U.S. liberal media takes to calling her comments "controversial"; too bad, after the heat dies down, Trump fires her anyway on June 10 on er, trumped-up excuses. On Apr. 20 British ambassador Peter Gooderham leads dozens of diplomats in walking out of a U.N. Conference on Racism in Geneva after Iranian PM Imadinnajacket calls Israel a "cruel and oppressive racist regime", and says that the state of Israel was created "on the pretext of Jewish suffering" in WWII; protesters dressed in clown wigs disrupt Dinnajacket, shouting "racist" in French and throwing something at him; meanwhile the U.S., Israel, Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands boycott the conference, which soon falls apart. On Apr. 20 Pres. Obama orders his cabinet to find ways to cut spending by $100B, er, $100M, admitting that it's a "drop in the bucket" but that there's a "confidence gap" that needs to be overcome; meanwhile he visits the CIA and gives them a pep talk, saying "I know the last few days have been difficult. You need to know you've got my full support", but adding that they have to follow all his new rules. On Apr. 20 a suicide bomber in Baqouba, Iraq wounds eight U.S soldiers - I'll be baaaq? Last year we had Made-Off, now we have Mark-Off? On Apr. 20 police arrest suspected "Craigslist Killer" Philip "Phil" Markoff (1985-), a medical student accused of contacting escort services in Craigslist then meeting with their hos in upscale hotels and robbing them to mark off, er, pay off gambling debts, collecting their panties as souvenirs and leaving his tracks all over the Internet, making him easy to catch after he went too far on Apr. 14 and killed 26-y.-o. Julissa Brisman, upping his police priority; his babe Megan McAllister stands by him at first, then cancels the Aug. 14 wedding on Apr. 27. On Apr. 21 Bank of Am. Corp. posts a first quarter profit of $2.81B. On Apr. 21 Pres. Obama signs the U.S. Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act (HR 1388), reauthorizing and expanding the Corp. for Nat. and Community Service (founded 1993); he appoints leftist activist Patrick Corvington as its new head, who is unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Feb. 11 (until ?). On Apr. 21 the College Board, known for its SAT test pub. a report calling on Congress to give illegal immigrants tuition aid to help them become educated illegal immigrants, er, citizens. On Apr. 21 animal rights activist Daniel Andreas San Diego (1978-) becomes the first domestic terrorist to make the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List - where in the world is Daniel San Diego? On Apr. 21 the U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Ariz. v. Gant that police may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle after the occupant is under arrest without a warrant only if it is reasonable to believe tht the person might access the vehicle at the time of the search, or that the vehicle contains evidence of the offense for which they are being arrested, unless there is an actual and continuing threat to officer safety, overturning New York v. Belton (1981) and Thornton v. U.S. (2004); Justices Alito, Roberts, Kennedy, and Breyer dissent. On Apr. 22 the IMF says that the world economy is going to shrink by 1.3% this year, the first shrinkage in 6 decades in a "Great Recession"; in Jan. they predicted 0.5% growth; as of Apr. the U.S. GDP shrunk 2.6% over the past 12 mo., compared to 9.5% for Russia, 9.1% for Japan, 6.9% for Germany, 4.1% for the U.K., and 3.2% for France. On Apr. 22 (morning) Freddie Mac CFO David Kellerman (b. 1967), who was blamed for causing the U.S. mortgage crisis is found dead by suicide by hanging in his $900K home in Fairfax County, Va. On Apr. 22 the FDA bows to a judge's order and agrees to make the "morning after pill" RU-486 available to 17-y.-os. On Apr. 22 the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on a reverse discrimination suit by white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., appearing divided; on June 29 in Ricci v. DeStefano they rule 5-4 in favor of the firefighters (even though the appeals court led by Sonia Sotomayor ruled against their case with the "disparate impact" excuse), with the soundbyte "an employer could not cast aside a selection method based on a statistical disparity alone"; Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissents, writing "Relying heavily on written tests to select fire officers is a questionable practice, to say the least." On Apr. 22 elections in South Africa (4th since the 1994 transition to black majority rule) give a V to the African Nat. Congress (ANC); despite corruption investigations and a rape acquittal, Zulu-born ANC pres. (since Dec. 18, 2007) Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma (1942-) becomes pres. #4 of South Africa, and is sworn in on May 9 (until Feb. 14, 2018); which of his six wives will be first lady? On Apr. 22-23 a fire in Myrtle Beach, S.C. causes evacuation. On Apr. 23 two suicide bomb attacks in Iraq kill 70; meanwhile the Iraqi govt. finally captures al-Qaida leader Abu Abdaullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi, leader of the Mujahideen Shura Council, who claims to be head of the Islamic State of Iraq, and shows photos on Aug. 28 to prove it. On Apr. 23 AP announces that it has computed that at least 110,600 Iraqis have been killed in the Iraqi War since 2003; meanwhile an AP poll reveals that 48% of Americans believe the U.S. is on the right track despite the trillions in debt and bailouts, and millions of jobless; 41% disagree; meanwhile the Obama admin. asks the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse its Apr. 1, 1986 decision in Michigan v. Jackson that police can't use confessions from suspects unless they have their lawyer present, pissing-off civil libertarians - get me a bent coathanger? What was that about Mexico becoming a failed state, and going to the swine? On Apr. 24 the World Health Org. (WHO) convenes an emergency meeting after reports of a deadly outbreak of 800+ "influenza-like" cases in Mexico caused by a new strain of swine flu combined with bird flu and human flu from a U.S.-co.-owned pig farm near Veracruz that killed 16-60 late in the flu season, incl. some young strong victims, stirring fears of a super pandemic to beat all pandemics like in 1919; Maria Adela Gutierrez (b. 1969), who died Apr. 13 in Oaxaca becomes the first known Mexican swine flu victim; is this the apocalyptic World's Seventh Killer Plague?; on Apr. 26 after 20 cases are confirmed in the U.S., the U.S. govt. declares the 2009 Mexican (North American) H1N1 Swine Flu Outbreak a public health emergency; on Apr. 27 the first U.S. death is a 23-mo. infant in Houston, Tex., which is officially confirmed on Apr. 29; cases are reported in Canada, Britain, Germany, Spain, Israel, Austria and New Zealand, but no deaths (until ?); after the flu proves less virulent than expected, Mexico City lifts its office bldg. and market closures after five days, with the death toll at only 42; on Aug. 11 Costa Rican pres. Oscar Arias (1931-) becomes the first head of state to contract it; on Sept. 4 WHO declares a pandemic, even though the flu has killed only 2,837 and has not mutated yet; did WHO do it to make pharmaceutical cos. billions, or were the latter just lucky? On Apr. 24 two female Sunni suicide purse bombers kill 66 and injure 120+ (incl. 80 Iranian pilgrims) outside the Shiite Imam Mousa al-Kazim Tomb in Kazimiyah, Iraq. On Apr. 24 Pres. Obama commemorates the anniv. of the 1915 Armenian genocide of 1.5M by the Muslim Turks with a written statement calling it "one of the great atrocities of the 20th century", but reneging on a campaign promise to label it as genocide, pissing-off Armenian-Ams.; on Oct. 10 they sign a historic agreement to establish diplomatic ties after a dramatic last-minute intervention by U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton to make it happen; the real reason Turkey wants to improve relations with Armenia is to get it to drop claims to the Nagorno-Karabakh region so they can pipe C Asian gas through Azerbaijan? - Armenians should all get govt.-paid fertility treatments and become octomoms and octodads to make up for the genocide? On Apr. 25 Obama's secretary, er, U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton makes a surprise visit to Baghdad, Iraq, and holds a town hall style meeting in the U.S. embassy, promising the Iraqi people that the Obama admin. will, er, won't abandon them as the U.S. begins pulling out troops; meanwhile four suicide bombings in the last two days kill 160+. On Apr. 26 Iraqi PM (since May 20, 2006) Nouri al-Maliki (1950-) denounces a predawn U.S. raid in S Iraq that killed two Iraqis, vowing to prosecute the soldiers involved, becoming the first such call. On Apr. 26 Pakistan launches a military operation against the Taliban in the Lower Dir region, ending their controversial peace deal. On Apr. 26 the Sri Lankan govt. mocks a unilateral ceasefire declared by entrapped Tamil Tiger rebels, who are balls to the wall with one foot in the Indian Ocean, and on May 17 defeat them in a bloody final battle, killing 250, incl. the rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, causing the remainder to surrender, ending Asia's longest civil war (begun 1983) after 70K are killed. On Apr. 26 German voters reject the Pro-Reli program to make teaching of religion in Berlin schools compulsary. On Apr. 27 a 5.6 earthquake hits Mexico City, shaking bldgs. in flutown. On Apr. 27 an Air Force One Photo Opp in Manhattan, incl. a flyover of Ground Zero for 9/11 causes panic, pissing-off New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who calls it "ill-conceived" and a "waste of taxpayers' money", after which Pres. Obama chews out the personnel involved, esp. White House military office dir. Louis Caldera (1956-), who resigns on May 8; after finding that it cost $328K, David Letterman asks them if they ever heard of Photoshop. On Apr. 27 Qasim Ahmed becomes the first Muslim imam to open a session of the Fla. House of Reps with a prayer; he is also the first polygamist? On Apr. 27 the Nelson Mandela Foundation invites the global community to celebrate Internat. Mandela Day (Nelson Mandela Internat. Day) on July 18; in Nov. the U.N. Gen. Assembly formally declares it. On Apr. 28 Penn. Jewish Sen. (since 1981) Arlen Specter (1930-) switches from Repub. to Dem., taking the Dems. to within one vote of a filibuster-proof Senate (60); 200K other Penn. Repubs. migrated to the Dem. Party already this year; meanwhile the Obama admin. celebrates its first 100 days. On Apr. 28 TLW pub. his essay The Megamerge Dissolution Solution on the Internet, advocating the dissolving of the U.S.-Mexico border and the megamerge of both countries into a 75-state U.S. - will it catch on or will Rodin's Thinker get another tattoo? On Apr. 29 Chrysler Corp. declares bankruptcy despite a last-minute deal with Fiat to pool technology and acceptance of a Treasury-brokered rescue package by unions and bank creditors after a group of hedge and investment funds refuse to cancel $6.9B in debt in return for a $2B cash payment; Chrysler plans to build the Fiat 500 minicar at a factory in Mexico; meanwhile on Apr. 27 a massive $30B restructuring plan for GM is laid out, which would make the U.S. govt. and the UAW majority stockholders; the UAW boon is a scandal because they donated over $23M to the Dem. Party and its candidates from 2000-8?; meanwhile China waits in the wings, poised to pass Japan and become the world's largest automaker; too bad, on June 8 U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg bows to Chrysler's creditors and delays the Fiat deal. On Apr. 29 the U.S. House by 249-175 passes the U.S. Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, giving special federal protection to gays and providing state and local authorities with federal funds; a weaker bill died two years ago under a veto threat by Pres. Bush; the bill was spurred by the 1998 killing of Wyo. college student Matthew Shepard; in the wrong hands it could be used to put people on trial for their beliefs and org. memberships?; too bad, it is snuck through the House on Oct. 8 in a defense authorization bill, passing by 281-146, and passed 68-29 by the Senate on Oct. 22, then signed by Pres. Obama on Oct. 28. On Apr. 29 conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court attack a key element of the 1965 U.S. Voting Rights Act, questioning whether Southern states should still be held to account for past racial discrimination; the law forces those states to get special approval before making changes in the way they conduct elections. On Apr. 29 the Wacky Warning Labels award goes to the Original Off-Road Commode, which attaches to a trailer hitch and features the label "Not for use on moving vehicles"; the award highlights how low U.S. manufacturers will go to fend off lawsuits. On Apr. 29 the number of words in the English language passes 1M; either that or on June 9 at 5:22 a.m., according to the Global Language Monitor, "Web 2.0". On Apr. 30 U.S. Supreme Court justice David Hackett Souter (1939-), who was appointed by pres. George H.W. Bush in 1990 for his conservative credentials, then flopped to stop the court from going conservative, becoming known as the liberals' 5th vote announces plans to retire at the end of the court's term in June, causing speculation that Pres. Obama will appoint a woman to fill the vacancy, although he only indicates that he will pick someone with "empathy", adding "I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a case book. It is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives"; on May 24 after flack over his empathy psychobabble, he adds that they have to understand the "practical day-to-day" implications of rulings - empathetically understand? On Apr. 30 Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri (1966-) pleads guilty to being a sleeper agent for al-Qaida; he arrived in the U.S. on the day before 9/11 - and has had plenty of time to sleep where they put him? On Apr. 30 (9:30 a.m) Georgian citizen Farda Gadyrov opens fire in the Azerbaijan State Oil Academy school in Baku, Azerbaijan, killing 12 and wounding 12 before killing himself. On Apr. 30 four Muslim men from Leeds, England abduct a 16-y.-o. boy over a drug debt, then torture him with a hot iron and boiling water; next Mar. 10 they receive sentences of 5-12 years. In Apr. a YouTube video of two Domino's Pizza workers, Kristy Lynn Hammonds (1978-) and Michael Anthony Setzer (1977-) doing gross things with food in the kitchen while saying "Do it again, do it again" causes an uproar and hurts Domino's business bigtime, after which it is revealed to be a hoax with the food never actually served, but that doesn't stop them from being fired and prosecutors from filing felony charges on them for food tampering. In Apr. three political leaders in Baluchistan, SW Pakistan are kidnapped and killed by Pakistani agents, sparking an insurgency that lasts until ?. In Apr. ex-Peruvian pres. (1990-2000) Alberto Fujimori (1938-) is convicted of human rights violations and sentenced to 25 years in prison for kidnappings and murders by the Grupo Colina, becoming the first elected head of state to be extradited to his home country, tried, and convicted of human rights violations; in July he gets another 7.5 years for giving $15M from the treasury to intel chief Vladimiro Montesinos; in Sept. he gets six more years for bribery, but his sentence is pegged at 25 years max. In Apr. the Dept. of Homeland Security report Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment by Daryl Johnson et al. is leaked, warning that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan can be drawn to radicalized movements in the U.S., pissing-off conservatives and Fox News, creating the first scandal in the Obama admin., tanking the career of DHS secy. Janet Napolitano and causing the Extremism and Radicalization Branch of the DHS (created in 2004) to be shut down, leaving the U.S. vulnerable for radicalized veterans? In Apr. the Nat. Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders calls for illegal aliens to boycott the 2010 U.S. Census until Congress passes comprehensive immigration reform. In Apr. an image of Our Lady of Guadelupe on a griddle in Calexico, Calif. causes over 100 faithful to flock to see it, incl. a group of masked Mexican wrestlers on Apr. 30 - or just regular wrestlers guarding against the flu? In Apr. mail order DVD rental co. Netflix delivers its 2 billionth movie. On May 1 "Turkish Henry Kissinger" Ahmet Davutoglu (1959-) is appointed foreign minister of Turkey, calling for Turkey to expand its role in world politics, stirring fears of re-Ottomanization. On May 1 hundreds of marchers in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif. brave rain to call for an end to immigration raids and legalization of the umpteen-million undocumented workers (don't say illegal aliens). On May 1 Scottish-born Carol Ann Duffy (1955-) becomes poet laureate of Britain (until ?), becoming the first bi, first woman, and first of the 21st cent. On May 2 a Sunni Iraqi soldier opens fire on U.S. troops, killing two near Mosul before being killed - let me do the work, you just get well? On May 3 news that Notre Dame U. in Repub.-leaning Ind. (which he carried in the pres. election) invited Pres. Obama to its graduation ceremony pisses-off Roman Catholic bishops because of his stand on abortion, and causes protests on three straight Fridays, on the last of which (May 15) black former Repub. candidate Alan Keyes is arrested; meanwhile a Gallup poll shows that 67% of Catholics and 79% of Jews support Obama; on May 17 (Sun.) Obama addresses Notre Dame grads amid abortion protesters shouting "Stop killing our children", calling for "open hearts, open minds, fair-minded words" in the public debate over the issue, and that neither should caricature or demonize the other; 37 protesters are arrested, incl. Norman McCovey, the Roe in the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court case, who was used by liberal attys. then came out against abortion. On May 3 grocery mogul Ricardo Martinelli (1951-) is elected pres. of Panama, taking office on July 1 (until ?). On May 4 the U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously in Flores-Figueroa v. U.S. that undocumented workers who use made-up Social Security numbers can't be prosecuted as identity thieves to make them kowtow and leave the country to avoid federal prison terms unless they knew the ID numbers were from real people. On May 4 the U.S. coalition battles the Taliban in the W Afghan Farah Province, with the Taliban using Afghan civilians as human shields, after which the pissed-off Afghan govt. comes down on the Talibanis, er, U.S. forces, claiming that they killed 147 civilians. On May 5 Brazilian officials announce that floods and mudslides in N Brazil have driven 186K from their homes and killed 19. On May 5 a French judge okays an investigation into African leaders Omar Bongo of Gabon, Denis Sassou-Nguesso of DRC, and Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guina for money-laundering of their ill-gotten gains in France. On May 5 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden tells the Am. Israel Public Affairs Committee that the Obama admin. is committed to a new Palestinian state, saying "The status quo of the last decade has not served the interests of the United States, or Israel, very well." On May 5 a 500-man tank battalion in Georgia mutinies, causing pres. Mikheil Sakashvili to accuse Russia of being behind it; the mutiny is ended in a few hours. On May 5 British home secy. Jacqueline Jill "Jacqui" Smith (1962-) pub. Britain's first shame list of 16 of 22 people barred from entering the Y.U.K., er, U.K. for exercising freedom of speech by allegedly fostering extremism or hatred, incl. Jewish-Am. talk-radio host Michael Savage (Michael Alan Weiner) (1942-), who told it like it is and called the Queer, er, Quran a "book of hate". On May 6 Maine passes a bill allowing gay marriage, followed by N.H., becoming state #6; of six New England states, only R.I. is holding out. On May 6 the Taliban wars with the Pakistani military over the NW Pakistan town of Mingora (Mangora) (Minagora), causing thousands to flee; the Pakistani military takes control on May 31. On May 6 U.S. Navy vet. (a Colo. resident) Stephen P. Morgan (1979-) guns down and murders Wesleyan U. student (also from Colo., where he met her in 2007) Johanna Justin-Jinich (b. 1987) in a cafe near the campus, after which his notebook is discovered, containing the soundbyte "Kill Johanna", plus notes about his grudges against Jews and "beautiful" and "smart" Wesleyan students; he gives himself up on May 7. On May 6 Pres. Obama meets with leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and states that "The security of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the United States are linked", calling for a joint strategy to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida militants. On May 7 U.S. regulators tell the 19 largest U.S. banks that they need $75B in extra capital to stay viable. On May 7 Manuel "Manny" Aristides Ramirez is banned for 50 games, costing him $7M, just because he took the prescription women's fertility drug human chorionic gonadotropin, which might help increase his testosterone level - real poontang does the same thing? On May 7 ex-police sgt. Drew Walter Peterson (1954-) is finally arrested for the death of his 3rd wife Kathleen Savio, who he claimed accidentally drowned in her empty bathtub in Bolingbrook, Ill., but was reinvestigated after his 4th wife Stacy Peterson disappeared mysteriously in Oct. 2007. On May 8 Pope Benedict XVI begins his First Trip to the Middle East, incl. Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories, becoming the first time that a pope has made an official visit to a Muslim country, Jordan; on May 11 he visits the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, saying the victims "lost their lives but they will never lose their names", pissing-off the Jewish PC police, who wanted him to use the hot button words "murder" and "Nazi" in his speech, and make a stand on Pope Pius XII, whom they claim didn't do enough to save Jews from guess what by guess what on his watch; on May 13 he is welcomed to the West Bank by Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas, since he shares his goal of a separate Palestinian state. On May 8 the May 2009 Southern Midwest Derecho consisting of 39 tornadoes hits SE Kan., S Mo., and SW Ill. On May 10 the Mexican govt. announces that it will not participate in a Shanghai trade fair on May 19-21, calling China's can give you swine flu? On May 10 human rights groups in the U.S. announce that they are investigating reports that U.S. troops have been illegally using white phosphorus as weapons against the Taliban in Afghanistan; it is legal to use it to illuminate a target or create smoke, but innocent civilians can get burned if it is used over populated areas, which constitutes a war crime. On May 10 ex-U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney breaks precedent and attacks the Obama admin., saying the U.S. has become more vulnerable to a terrorist attack since it took power. On May 10 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden insults Pres. Obama's new black-and-white (half black and half white?) hypoallergenic Portuguese water dog Bo (2008-), saying that his dog Champ is smarter. On May 11 the cost of a first-class U.S. stamp rises to 44 cents. On May 11 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates replaces gen. David D. McKiernan with lt. gen. Stanley Allen McChrystal (1954-) as top U.S. gen. in Afghanistan less than a year after he took over, indicating that the U.S. is in deeper doo-doo?; McChrystal assumes command on June 15 (until June 23, 2010); on June 21 he announces that the U.S. will sharply restrict airstrikes to situations in which they are needed to prevent coalition troops from being overrun in an effort to reduce civilian deaths. On May 11 after years of legal wrangling, ailing Ukrainian-born suspected Nazi guard "Ivan the Terrible", retired Ohio autoworker John (Ivan) Demjanjuk (1920-) is deported to Germany to face 27.9K counts of accessory to murder even though he's not Ivan the Terrible and at most was a low-level Nazi concentration camp guard. On May 11 stressed-out U.S. Sgt. John M. Russell (b. 1964-) of Sherman, Tex. fires on his comrades inside a combat stress clinic in Baghdad, killing five; meanwhile U.S. Army Specialist Zachary Boyd (1990-) is photographed in E Afghanistan fighting the Taliban dressed in pink boxer shorts reading "I Love NY" and flip-flops, drawing the praise of U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates, who says it takes "a special kind of courage", and "I can only wonder about the impact on the Taliban... What an incredible innovation in psychological warfare." On May 11 the U.S. health care industry agrees to cut $2T in costs over the next 10 years by using more info. technology etc.; in 1977 Pres. Carter got them to promise the same thing, and they never went through with it; meanwhile the White House releases hit-the-fan numbers showing that the U.S. budget deficit will reach $1.84T this year, $89B more than forecast in Feb., increasing the inaugural deficit of $1.2T by $600B; meanwhile in Apr. a Pew poll shows Obama having an overall approval rating of 64%, but just 49% approving his handling of the deficit, and a week earlier worldwide investors demanded higher interest for 30-year Treasury bonds. On May 11 King Abdullah II of Jordan issues an ultimatum, saying that the Obama admin.'s comprehensive Israeli-Arab peace plan must work, else "If we delay our peace negotiations, then there is going to be another conflict between Arabs or Muslims and Israel in the next 12-18 months." On May 11 Space Shuttle Atlantis blasts off on a mission to repair the aging Hubble Space Telescope, and returns on May 22; on May 23 Hubble senior project scientist David Leckrone posts on the NASA Web site, complaining that NASA is abandoning its capability of servicing scientific instruments in space. On May 11 African-Am. comedian Wanda Sykes (1964-) gives a performance at a Mon. night White House Correspondents' Dinner, pissing-off conservatives by accusing Rush Limbaugh of treason, and wishing that his kidneys would fail as a gotcha to his frequent comments that he wishes that the Obama admin. would fail. On May 11 former Minn. gov. (1999-2003) Jesse Ventura (1951-) appears on CNN's Larry King Live, calling George W. Bush the worst U.S. pres. of his lifetime and offering to waterboard Dick Cheney, then asking to be appointed U.S. ambassador to Cuba; meanwhile a CIA inspector-gen. report from May 7, 2004 that is finally being released reveals that waterboarding didn't produce the desired results, and that it is difficult "to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks." Priests go for Vitamin P, archibishops for Vitamin D? On May 12 Rembert George Weakland (1927-), former Roman Catholic archbishop of Milwaukee, Wisc. (1977-2002), who resigned in a sex and financial scandal announces that he is gay; meanwhile in May Puerto Rican-born Cuban Miami, Fla. Roman Catholic priest Father Alberto Cutie (1969-) (AKA Father Oprah) is photographed with a divorced woman that he's been hooking up with for two years, causing a firestorm of controversy about pussy power, er, celibacy of non-gay priests; in June he becomes an Episcopal priest and marries 35-y.-o. Ruhama Canellis (1974-). On May 12 the U.S. FDA threatens Gen. Mills Inc. over its Cheerios oats cereal, claiming that since it contains the slogan "You can lower your cholesterol 4 percent in six weeks", that makes it a drug, putting them in charge of approving it, which they haven't, so it's now "unauthorized" and subject to criminal action - this despicable overreaching of a federal regulatory agency makes me want to whinny and send a herd of horses stampeding onto their officials? I'm fed up with the FDA? Fight them all the way to the Supreme Stable? On May 12 up to 12 suicide bombers stage synchronized attacks on govt. buildings in Khost (E of Kabul) in Afghanistan, triggering scattered fighting that kills 20 and wounds three U.S. soldiers. On May 12 Pres. Obama threatens Britain that if it reveals the methods of torture of Ethiopian-born alleged terrorist Binyam Ahmed Mohamed (1978-) (who was arrested in Pakistan on Apr. 10, 2002, detained in Guantanamo Bay Prison until the charges were dropped on Oct. 21, 2008 then released, arriving in Britain on Feb. 23, claiming torture), he will reevaluate his intel-sharing relationship with them; Obama's decision to block the release of photos depicting torture of terrorism detainees causes ex-pres. Jimmy Carter to break with him, saying "I think... most of his supporters were hoping that he would be much more open in the revelation of what we've done in the past." On May 12 on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Bill O'Reilly (1949-) theorizes that legalization of gay marriage could lead to interspecies marriages, with the soundbyte "You would let everybody get married who want to get married. You want to marry a turtle, you can" - her sleek bristles reach deeper? On May 13 the European Commission fines Intel Corp. a record 1.06B Euros for abusing its dominance in the computer chip market vis a vis its rival Advanced Micro Devices. On May 13 Pres. Obama flip-flops his position, deciding to oppose the court-ordered release of photos of abuse of Muslim ragheads by U.S. forces after all. On May 13 Tiffany Toribio (1985-) of Albuquerque, N.M. smothers her 3-y.-o. son Tyruss "Ty" Toribio in a playground in a park, resuscitates him, smothers him again, then buries him there, the body found two days later, after which she is arrested on May 21, saying that since no one cared about her when she was growing up, she didn't want him to grow up that way. On May 14 U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (1940-) claims that the CIA lied to Congress in 2002 about whether waterboarding was being used on terrorists suspects, causing CIA dir. (since Feb. 13) Leon Panetta (1938-) to deny it on May 15, after which Pelosi wakes up and closes ranks with the Obama admin., shifting the blame to the Bush admin. but sticking with her story; too bad, the CIA officials who lied to her were career officials, not working for the Bush admin., and Repub. pundit Newt Gingrich (1943-) calls for her to step down, with the soundbyte, "If you were a young man or woman just starting out today, would you put on a uniform or become an intelligence officer to defend America, knowing that tomorrow a politician like Nancy Pelosi could decide you were a criminal?"; meanwhile White House spokesman Robert Gibbs tells the press he wishes they would focus on the future not the past, causing her to be compared on YouTube to Pussy Galore; the CIA has already been proven to have lied to Congress, so why try to cover for them now? On May 15 Pres. Obama revives the military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay detainees, while promising to make changes to give them stronger legal protections, pissing-off liberal supporters, who accuse him of reneging on campaign promises. On May 15 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder announces that the federal govt. will no longer pursue medical marijuana dispensaries or patients unless marijuana is illegal under both state and federal laws, becoming a V for marijuana legalization and states rights advocates; on May 22 Pres. Obama announces that he will reverse a Bush admin. rule known as preemption, where federal regs override state laws on environment, health, public safety et al., becoming another V for states rights. On May 16 Pres. Obama nominates Repub. Utah gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. as U.S. ambassador to China; he is fluent in Mandarin. On May 17 the Indian Nat. Congress Party of Italian-born Sonia Gandhi (Edvige Antonia Albina Maino) (1946-) (widow of PM Rajiv Gandhi) scores a stunning political coup in India, winning 205 of 543 seats, 12 shy of a majority, its best performance in 25 years. On May 18 the U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Ashcroft v. Iqbal that high-level U.S. officials incl. FBI dir. Robert Mueller and U.S. atty.-gen. John Ashcroft can't be sued by 9/11 terrorist detainee Javaid Iqbal of Pakistan for alleged torture and humiliation for being a Muslim without initial evidence (sans discovery) that they ordered the abuse personally; liberal justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and John Paul Stevens dissent, with Ginsburg saying they "messed up the federal rules" for civil suits, and Souter saying the decision could "upend" the civil litigation system; after hundreds of lower courts begin citing the decision as a pretext to get rid of civil cases they don't like at will, it becomes the most significant U.S. Supreme Court decision of the decade? On May 18 Pres. Obama meets with new Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, hinting at a timetable to resolve differences with Iran over their nuke program, with Netanyahu saying he won't negotiate with the Palestinians unless they recognize the right of the state of Israel to exist; on May 26 Obama meets with Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak, followed on May 28 by Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas. On May 18 Michelle Obama gives a speech at the opening night of the Am. Ballet Theater, saying that the arts can "express, enable and empower Americans of all ages". On May 18 prominent U.S. Civil War historian James M. McPherson (1936-) signs a petition asking Pres. Obama not to lay a wreath at the Confed. Monument Memorial at Arlington Nat. Cemetery, claiming it will encourage the neo-Confed. movement; he does it anyway, receiving praise from the Sons of Confed. Veterans. On May 19 Pres. Obama announces a plan to curb vehicle emissions by 2012 a la Calif. by mandating a fleet avg. of 35.5 mpg vs. 25 mpg this year, saying that the vehicles will cost more but pay off at the pump. On May 19 Sen. Dem. leaders announce that they will not provide the $80M requested by Pres. Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center, and on May 21 the U.S. Senate resoundingly rejects Obama, causing him on May 21 to give a speech at the Nat. Archives in Washington, D.C., giving further details about his plans for Guantanamo detainees, saying that he intends to transfer some to facilities in the U.S., and proposing "prolonged detention" for those who cannot be tried, calling it "the toughest issue we face"; afterward, saying that Obama "deserves an answer", ex-vice-pres. Obi Wan Kecheney delivers his own speech, defending Bush admin. policy along with the Gitmo prisoner camp, calling Obama's nat. security approach "recklessness cloaked in righteousness", and his opposition to torture "unwise in the extreme", with critics being guilty of "phony moralizing" and "feigned outrage", adding that Obama has "found that it's easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo", and that "The administration seems to pride itself on searching for some kind of middle ground in policies addressing terrorism. Triangulation is a political strategy, not a national security strategy", concluding with "When they see the American government caught up in arguments about interrogations, the terrorists see just what they were hoping for, our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity"; meanwhile an unreleased Pentagon Report is leaked, which found that about one in seven of 534 prisoners a lready transferred abroad from Gitmo are engaged in terrorism again; the report is a phony, with loose definitions used to make its point? On May 19 British House of Commons speaker (since 2000) Michael John Martin (1945-) becomes the first to be ousted from his job in over 300 years, promising to step down on June 21 after Am. freelance writer Heather Brooke (not to be confused with the porno queen at IDeepthroat.com) uses the new British FOI Act to dig up proof of his and other British politicians' greed, incl. using tax money to renovate and sell properties for profit, and pay for an electrical massage chair and the clearing of a country house moat. On May 19 Colombian lawmakers approve a measure to let voters decide whether popular pres. (since 2002) Alvaro Uribe may seek a 3rd term. On May 19 the U.S. Senate passes sweeping pro-consumer credit card legislation, ending some of the abuses of the industry; too bad, it allows the credit card cos. to continue to charge any interest rate they want, kowtowing to them and refusing to plug up they hole they made in 1979; it also contains a sneaky provision allowing visitors to nat. parks to carry loaded and concealed weapons, causing concerns about it passing the House or Obama signing it, but the House passes it on May 20, and Obama signs it on May 22, saying the new law won't take effect for 9 mo. (next Feb.). On May 19 while Gov. Terminator is visiting the White House, a special election in Calif. rejects measures to keep the reeling state solvent amid calls for a constitutional convention. On May 19 Glee debuts on Fox Network for ? episodes (until ?), about the William McKinley High School New Directions glee club, starring Matthew Morrison as club dir. Will Schuester, Jane Lynch (1960-) as cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, Jayma Mays as guidance counselor Emma Pillsbury, and Cory Monteith as hearthrob club member Finn Hudson. On May 20 an Indonesian Air Force plane carrying 100+ crashes into a residential area in Jakarta, killing 79. On May 20 a car bomb explodes in an ice cream parlor in a Shiite neighborhood of N Baghdad, Iraq, killing 34 and wounding 72. On May 20 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket slaps Pres. Obama in the face by announcing the test-firing of a solid-fuel medium range missile capable of hitting Israel and U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf. On May 20 Burmese democracy advocate and hero Aung San Suu Kyi (1945-), who has been under house arrest for 13 of the last 19 years is put on trial in Rangoon by the cruddy military dictatorship for allowing John W. Yettaw (1955-) of Falcon, Mo. to stay overnight at her house allegedly to help her escape from the military dictatorship shithole, this big crime in Aftershaveland carrying five years for Suu Kyi and seven for Yettaw; on Aug. 11 she is sentenced to 18 mo. detention, bringing internat. condemnation, but getting her out of the way of the 2010 elections; on Aug. 15 U.S. Sen. (D-Va.) (since 2007) James Henry "Jim" Webb Jr. (1946-) (Navy Sec. under Reagan) meets with Burmese military leader gen. Than Shwe and arranges Yettaw's release - hoping to ape fellow military shithole North Korea? On May 20 a 2.6K-page Report on Irish Reformatories released in Dublin reports physical, emotional, and sexual abuse of inmates by priests and nuns from the 1930s to the 1990s - when's the movie coming out starring Brangelina? On May 20 Muslim-Am. would-be terrorists James Cromitie (1967-), Onta Williams (1976-), David Williams (1981-), and Laguerre Payen (1982-) are arrested en route to Bronx, N.Y. synagogues to plant fake bombs after being set up by federal agents, later claiming entrapment; on Aug. 31 at their federal trial audio tapes are played where Cromitie utters the soundbytes "Muslims want to take the U.S. down. Believe me, we can do it with our regular Muslims here" and "I will kill 10 million [Jews] before I kill one Muslim"; next Oct. 18 they are convicted. On May 20 Repub. Pentecostal minister James A. Young (1955-) becomes the first black mayor of Philadelphia, Miss. (until ?), known for the slaying of three civil rights workers in 1964. On May 21 Pres. Obama delivers a Speech on Nat. Security, dissing the Bush admin. for going too far with Islamic (never mentions the word) terrorists, and slapping himself on the back for ending torture and planning on closing Gitmo, with the soundbytes: "My single most important responsibility as president is to keep the American people safe. It's the first thing that I think about when I wake up in the morning. It's the last thing that I think about when I go to sleep at night"; "We know that al-Qaida is actively planning to attack us again. We know that this threat will be with us for a long time, and that we must use all elements of our power to defeat it"; "I believe with every fiber of my being that in the long run we also cannot keep this country safe unless we enlist the power of our most fundamental values. The documents that we hold in this very hall, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, these are not simply words written into aging parchment. They are the foundation of liberty and justice in this country, and a light that shines for all who seek freedom, fairness, equality, and dignity around the world. I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents"; "After 9/11 we know that we had entered a new era, that enemies who did not abide by any law of war would present new challenges to our application of the law... Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions... based on fear rather than foresight, that all too often our government trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions"; "Let me be clear. We are indeed at war with al-Qaida and its affiliates"; after trying to wrestle over how to prosecute Islamics who have been detained at Gitmo, and whether to use military tribunals or civil courts, he utters the soundbyte "There may be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes, in some cases because evidence may be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States." On May 21 a new French Anti-Internet Piracy Law is passed, to take effect in the summer, allowing the govt. to snoop on Internet users and cut off access of those who download music and movies without paying; luckily on June 10 the constitutional court rules that only a judge can order Web access cut off, calling access a human right. On May 21 after a roundup of 99 of 1K members, and the confiscation of dozens of firearms, U.S. prosecutors charge 145 members of the 50-y.-o. Hispanic Varrio Hawaiian Gardens Gang of Hawaiian Gardens (E of Long Beach, Calif.), known for persecuting blacks and killing a sheriff's deputy in 2005; they call themselves the "Hate Gang" and take orders from the Mexican Mafia. On May 22 Leilani Neumann (1967-) is convicted in Wisc. of 2nd degree reckless homicide for relying on prayer to cure her 11-y.-o. daughter Madeleine of diabetes instead of medicine, after which she died on Mar. 23, 2008 - convict God too? On May 23 Pres. Obama nominates former Marine aviator and Space Shuttle astronaut maj. gen. Charles Frank "Charlie" Bolden Jr. (1946-) as the new head of NASA, becoming the first African-Am; he is confirmed by the Senate on July 15, taking office on July 17 (until Jan. 20, 2017). On May 25 (a.m.) (U.S. Memorial Day - thanks for thinking of us?) North Korea conducts its 2nd underground nuclear test in three years, drawing global condemnation, incl. from Russia, China, and the U.N. Security Council, which votes unanimously on June 12 for Resolution 1874, imposing sanctions on pesky North Korea, incl. authorizing ship searches on the high seas to look for nukes; their Apr. 5 launch of a long range missile compounds the condemnation, which doesn't stop them on May 27 from announcing that it no longer honors the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War, and that it will respond with "a powerful military strike" if any nation tries to stop it from exporting missiles and WMDs, calling such naval actions a "declaration of war"; on May 26 South Korea announces that it would join nations doing just that - they have decided that Obama is another Jimmy Carter already? On May 25 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton announces that partners of gay U.S. diplomats will be given the same benefits as spouses of hetero diplomats - I need to blow that dude, let me through now? On May 26 France opens its first military base in the Persian Gulf in Zayed Port, Abu Dhabi, its first permanent oversease military installation outside its former colonies in Africa in 50 years; in Mar. France returned to NATO after 43 years, signalling that it is trying to become a more active strategic partner of the U.S. On May 26 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules in 5-4 in Montejo v. La. that a defendant may waive his/her right to counsel during a police interrogation even after asserting it at an arraignment or similar court proceeding, reversing Michigan v. Jackson (1986). On May 26 after David Souter announces his retirement (June 29), Pres. Obama nominates New York City-born U.S. Appeals judge (since 1998) Sonia Sotomayor (1954-) (whose parents were immigrants from Puerto Rico, and who is known for ending the 1994 ML baseball strike) for the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first Hispanic nominated; Repubs. immediately dredge up her past statements showing she might be a budding judicial activist and/or Latin racist and vow to fight; in 2001 she uttered the soundbyte "Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases... I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement... I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life", causing Newt Gingrich to call her a "reverse racist" and call for her to withdraw, and Christian televangelist Pat Robertson to call her nomination an "outrage", calling her "one of the most left-wing judges that there is in the United States"; on May 29 the Obama admin. backs down a little, calling her choice of words "poor"; on Aug. 6 the U.S. Senate confirms her by a 68-31 vote, with 9 of 40 Repubs. voting for her, incl. Lamar Alexander of Tenn.; John McCain of Ariz. votes against her, and Jeff Sessions of Ala. says that at least Obama won't nominate any more judges who claim to be guided by empathy; new Dem. Sen. Al Franken presides over the Senate during the vote; on Aug. 8 she is sworn in as U.S. Supreme Court justice #111 (until ?), becoming the first Hispanic and Latina U.S. Supreme Court justice, 3rd female, and 12th Roman Catholic (until ?). On May 27 a Taliban suicide bomb attack at a police bldg. in Lahore, Pakistan kills 30 and wounds 250; a reprisal for the govt. offensive?; meanwhile the Obama admin. asks Congress for $736M to build a new U.S. embassy and housing complex in Islamabad; the one in Iraq cost $740M; on June 16 Pakistani warlord Baitullah Mehsud claims responsibility, and threatens to attack the White House and Washington, D.C.; on Feb. 5, 2013 Pakistan-born Am. Muslim Reaz Qadir Khan (1964-) of Portland, Ore. is arrested and charged with providing advice and financial help to Ali Jaleel, one of the three suicide bombers; on June 26, 2015 he is sentenced to 87 mo. in U.S. prison. On May 28 after Israel rejects U.S. overtures to stop settlement construction on the West Bank, Pres. Obama personally steps in and tries to pressure it while meeting with Palestinian pres. Mahmud Abbas; it was Hillary Clinton who demanded a freeze on new home construction in existing settlements, making a new issue of it, killing all peace talks? On May 28 a bomb in a mosque in Zahedan in SE Iran kills 25 and injures 125; the Iranian govt. blames the U.S. of putting the Sunni rebel org. Jundallah ("Soldiers of Allah") (founded 2003) up to it. On May 30 three white supremacist Minutemen vigilantes invade a home occupied by Mexican illegal immigrants in Arivaca in S Ariz., and kill 9-y.-o. Brisenia Flores and her daddy Raul Junior Flores, and seriously injure her mommy Gina Gonzalez; they were looking for drugs and cash to fund their anti-immigrant org.; police allege that the ringleader is Minuteman Am. Defense dir. Shawna Forde (1968-), who is arrested along with two others. On May 31 late-term abortion provider George Tiller is murdered at a church in Wichita, Kan. by pro-lifer Scott Roeder, who draws condemnation from pro-life groups. On May 31 (Sun.) the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards are stunk up by a stunt where "Borat" comedian (now "Bruno") Sacha Baron Cohen (1971-) flies over the audience dressed as an angel, then crash-lands in the audience, ending upside-down with his bare buttocks exposed in rapper Eminem's face, causing the latter to walk out while cussing. In May in the midst of his feuding with Nancy Pelosi, CIA chief Leon Panetta travels to Israel to "read the riot act" to them, warning them against attacking Iran to stop them from developing nukes; meanwhile the Obama admin. quietly accepts their inevitability, stirring fears of a coming Jewish holocaust. In May U.S. solicitor gen. Elena Kagan files an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court against the victims of 9/11, arguing that they have no right to sue the Saudi govt. or royal family in U.S. court because the latter have "sovereign immunity" - more evidence that Obama, like Bush, is a pawn and puppet of the Saudi royals, I bet he nominates her for the Supreme Court? In May the U.S. loses 345K jobs, bringing the total lost since the economic stimulus was passed 3 mo. ago to 1.5M, causing Sarah Palin to tell Sean Hannity of Fox News, "We told ya so". In May China, the world's #2 exporter records a 26.4% drop in exports since last May, becoming the worst since 1995; imports fall 25.2%. In May the U.S. military burns stacks of Bibles in Afghanistan to avoid Christian proselytizing of precious Muslims. On June 1 Gen. Motors AKA Generous Motors becomes Govt. Motors as GM (founded 1908) declares bankruptcy; the U.S. govt. now owns 60% of the co. in return for $50B, with Canada getting 12%, the UAW 17.5%, and bondholders 10%; on June 1 Pres. Obama gives a speech, calling the U.S. a "reluctant equity owner"; a Ramussen Poll shows support for the plan at 21%, with 67% opposed; meanwhile House Repub. leader (R-Ohio) (since Feb. 2, 2006) John Andrew Boehner (1949-) (pr. BAY-ner) calls the Obama takeover of GM "lunacy", and calls on Congress to create a watchdog oversight body after grumbling that Obama bypassed the Congress unlike with the 1970s Chrysler bailout; after an outcry, GM agrees to cover liability claims despite being in Chapter 11; on July 10 GM surprises by emerging from bankruptcy. On June 1 the land and sea portion of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) goes into effect; U.S. citizens are required to have a U.S. Passport Card to reenter their own country, raising the possibility that illegal aliens could kidnap them in the U.S., dump them over the border, and watch them try to get back in without success until they pay the coyotes to bring them in as illegal aliens; the biggest initial impact is at the U.S.-Canadian border, known for allowing crossers to merely state their nationality. On June 1 (4:15 a.m.) Air France Flight 447 (Airbus 330) disappears over the Atlantic en route from Rio to Paris, carrying 228 passengers and crew from 32 countries; it takes weeks to recover the wreckage, which suggests that the plane broke up in the air; on June 30 an Airbus A310-300 en route from Yemen to Comoros crashes into the Indian Ocean, killing 152 of 153 aboard. On June 1 (10:00 a.m. local time) African-Am. Muslim convert Abdulhakim Muhammad (1986-), formerly known as Carlos Leon Bledsoe from Tenn. (raised a Baptist) attacks a recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark. in a drive-by shooting, killing a soldier and injuring another; his father Melvin still calls him Carlos; in Jan. 2010 he writes a letter to the judge presiding over his case, claiming to be a member of al-Qaida in Yemen, and calling his spree a "jihadi attack" to get even for the killing of brother Muslims by U.S. troops - shoot me for treason too? On June 1 Tonight Show host (since May 25, 1992) Jay Leno retires, and Conan Christian O'Brien (1963-) takes over (until Feb. 22, 2010); the final episode of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" aired on Feb. 20. On June 2 Kim Jong-un (1982-), youngest son of Kim Jong-il is announced as his heir and given the sobriquet "Brilliant Conrade"; meanwhile Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law Jang Song Thaek (Chang Sung-taek) (1946-) waits in the wings. On June 2 anti-Semitic white supremacist N.J. Internet blogger Harold Charles "Hal" Turner (1962-) posts on his blog that three federal judges who are against the Nat. Rifle Assoc. "deserve to be killed', causing the FBI to arrest him on June 3, and he is denied bail to boot; too bad, on Aug. 11 prosecutors admit that Turner had been an FBI informant against radical right-wing orgs. - the FBI should be killed too? On June 2-7 375M people in the EU vote to fill 736 seats in the new European Parliament (EP), becoming the world's 2nd largest election on Earth after India; conservatives dominate the results; the British Conservative Party breaks from the European Peoples Party after two decades to form a new right-wing anti-federalist bloc, the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (EGR), becoming the 4th largest bloc in the EP. On June 3 the Obama admin. reverses a Bush admin. rule that illegal immigrants facing deportation don't have an automatic right to an effective lawyer, and on June 10 orders the FBI and CIA to inform terrorists overseas that they have the "right to remain silent" (Miranda warning) before torturing, er, probing them for info. to save perhaps thousands or millions of lives, which U.S. Rep. (R-Ark.) (since 2001) John Boozman (1950-) calls "the craziest idea I've ever heard in my life". On June 4 new U.S. pres. (2009-17) Barack Hussein Obama II (1961-) arrives in Riyadh and meets with Saudi King Abdullah; on June 4 after working with his Cairo-born adviser Dalia Mogahed (1974-), Obama delivers his Cairo Speech (Initiative) to the Arab World, titled "A New Beginning" at Cairo U., hoping to make a fresh start with Muslims by changing perceptions of the U.S. as not out to get Islam itself, making a clean break with George W. "Crusader" Bush, never mentioning the word terrorism, claiming that the U.S. acted "contrary to our traditions and our ideals", and uttering the soundbytes: "Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country"; "As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam - at places like Al-Azhar University - that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality"; "I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire"; his grasp of Muslim history is pure moose hockey?; Obama invited the Muslim Brotherhood to attend his speech, which backs women's rights, electrifying many in the Middle East, while others grumble that it's just a speech and they're still waiting for actions; he misquotes the Quran (Sura 9:119), saying "As the Holy Quran tells us, 'Be conscious of God and always speak the truth'", when what it really says is "Fear Allah and be with the truthful", i.e., Muslims, right before Muhammad commands "O you believers, fight those infidels who dwell around you, and let them find harshness in you" (9:123); he remarks that the U.S. has brought legal cases "to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab and punish those who would deny it", while saying nothing about protecting the right of Muslim women to not wear it; meanwhile many Jews get pissed-off at his remarks comparing the Israeli persecution of Palestinians with the WWII Holocaust; besides always adding the word "holy" to the horrible Quran, a telling nugget was his reference to Islam as a "revealed" religion, as in revealed by God, something only a Muslim could claim, Freud is showing his slip?; tarting with this speech Obama begins to implement his philosophy of Moral Equivalence, for example, the U.S. invasion of Iraq is morally equivalent to the Russian invasion of Georgia, pissing-off the right, who know that the U.S. is morally superior to the rest of the world, not even close to equivalent. The Aspen Institute promptly launches the Partnership for a New Beginning, headed by Madeleine Albright and incl. Walter Isaacson of the Aspen Institute, Muhtar Kent of Coca-Cola, John Mack of Morgan Stanley, John Chambers of Cisco Systems, and Kenneth Cohen of ExxonMobil Foundation, with the "common goal of building public-private partnerships in Muslim communities around the world to... help advance President Obama's Cairo vision"; speaking of Freudin slip, in his Cairo Speech Obama made an interesting Freudian slip, with the soundbyte "That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat", which Americans took for charity, when it actually means every Muslim's obligation to contribute to the fortification of the Ummah, incl. violent jihad, in other words, charity to other Muslims only for expanding Islam's worldwide domination. So, our new president is committed to working with American Muslims to betray America in favor of the nationless Ummah that seeks to take over the world, nice. On June 5 former U.S. state dept. official Walter Kendall Myers (1936-) and his wife Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers (1937-) are charged with spying for Cuba for the last 30 years, passing info. over shortwave radio and by switching shopping carts with Cuban agents in grocery stores; Walter's great-grandfather is Alexander Graham Bell. On June 5 Pres. Obama tours the WWII Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, uttering the soundbyte "Today there are those who insist the Holocaust never happened. This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thought, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history"; on June 6 Obama visits Omaha Beach in Normandy to commemorate the 65th anniv. of D-Day, uttering the soundbyte "Friends and veterans, what we cannot forget, what we must not forget, is that D-Day was a time and a place where the bravery and selflessness of a few was able to change the course of an entire century." On June 5 struggling 23-y.-o. white S.D.rancher Neal Wanless (1986-) claims the $232M Powerball prize (9th largest jackpot in game history), vowing to use his $88.5M after-tax fortune (out of the 1-time cash prize of $118M) to help others; he bought the ticket in a town called Winner, S.D. On June 5 "devout Muslim" Kareem Shora is appointed by Janet Napolitano to the U.S. Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). On June 6 Pres. Obama launches his grassroots campaign for health care reform via his massive Internet friends network; on June 15 he addresses the root of the, er, Am. Medical Assoc. (AMA), kissing, er, allying their fears by promising to curb malpractice lawsuits and cancel a proposed 21% cut in Medicare payments - no call for more medical schools to increase the supply of medical personnel and drive down their prices? On June 7 parliamentary elections in Lebanon result in a V for the pro-Western coalition over the militant Shiite Hezbollah, giving Hezbollah 58 seats and the coalition 70 seats out of 128. On June 8 a North Korean court sentences U.S. journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee to 12 years in a labor camp for illegal border crossing from China, increasing tensions with the U.S. On June 8 Alaska Repub. gov. Sarah Palin gives an interview to Fox News' Sean Hannity, saying that the Obama admin. is steering the U.S. toward Socialism, and that "Our country could evolve into something that we do not even recognize, certainly that is so far from what the founders of our country had in mind for us." On June 8 the medical dark comedy-drama series Nurse Jackie debuts on Showtime for 80 episodes (until June 28, 2015), starring Edith "Edie" Falco (1963-) as Jackie Peyton, an emergency dept. nurse at All Saints' Hospital in New York City. On June 9 10 U.S. banks incl. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase are deemed strong enough by federal regulators to return more than $68B in taxpayer aid, with interest; Goldman Sachs execs receive record bonuses this year. On June 9 a suicide bomb in the Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar, India kills five and wounds 70; considered the safest place for foreigners, the U.S. was planning to purchase it for a consulate. On June 9 Pres. Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright gives an interview to the Va. Daily Press, saying that he hasn't spoken to Obama since he became pres., with the soundbyte "Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office"; on June 11 he corrects himself, saying "I'm not talking about all Jews... I'm talking about Zionists". On June 8 world's longest-serving (since 1967) head of state Omar Bongo (b. ) dies of cancer, and on June 10 Rose Francine Rogombe (Rogombé) (1942-) becomes acting pres. of Gabon (until ?). On June 10 (9 a.m.) yet another car bomb in Bathaa, Iraq in S Iraq kills 30 and wounds 65. On June 10 anti-Semitic white supremacist (Navy officer in WWII) James W. Van Brunn (1920-2010) enters the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. and shoots and kills a guard before being shot and captured; he later dies in the hospital in which he was incarcerated; it is later revealedthat David Axelrod was one of his targets. On June 10 the U.S. Reuniting Families Act is introduced to the U.S. House of Reps., which would allow gays to sponsor "permanent partners" for residency. On June 10 U.S. rep. (D-Mich.) John Conyers introduces the U.S. Health Care Act, proposing to spend $2.5T to fund an all-govt. health care system. On June 10 the U.S. House of Reps. approves a resolution directing the Capitol architect to engrave the words "In God We Trust" along with the Pledge of Allegiance inside the new Capital Visitor Center (CVC). On June 11 the the U.S. Senate gives the FDA the first-ever official power to regulate cigarettes and other forms of tobacco; 17 Sens. vote against it, incl. top recipients of campaign contributions from the tobacco industry. On June 12 after it test-fires a barrage of ballistic missiles into waters off its E coast, the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 1874, imposing new sanctions on pesky North Korea in an effort to stifle its nuclear ambitions; by Sept. North Korea is going with the Iraqi flow and placing IEDs on roadsides. Iran, where everybody's got dark hair finally starts to get tired of its old non-democratic dinnajacket? On June 12 (6/6+6) Iranian elections result in both pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and right-wing reformist challenger Mickey Mouse, er, Mir Hussein (Hossein) Mousavi Khameneh (1941-) (PM in 1981-9) claiming a V until the govt. ministry gets to work, declaring a 63% landslide for Imadinnajacket, causing 1.3M Mousavi supporters (who like to wear green) to cry fraud and stage violent protests, taking on the govt. in the streets, with protesters shouting "We want freedom", and "Where is my vote?", becoming the biggest demonstrations since the 1979 rev., causing the 2009 Iranian Green Movement (until ?), a mini-rev. pumped up by people using the Internet, incl. YouTube and Twitter to bypass govt. control of the media; too bad, only the urban elite have the hi-tech devices, and the rest of the country doesn't 'get' it, seeing only a Western plot, dooming the budding rev. as the Mobilization Resistance Force (Nirou-ye Moqavemat-e Basij) of hardline univ. students springs into action to kick protester butt; on June 16 the govt. offers a stalling limited recount, which fails to appease the protesters, who stage a massive rally in Tehran on June 17, with the protester death toll reaching 32, and 392-1,135 arrested; on June 17 grand asahollah Hossein Ali Montazeri (1922-2009) (#2 cleric behind supreme leader Ali Khamenei and spiritual leader of the opposition) says that "no one in their right mind can believe" the reported election results, and singles out "evil" Britain as the #1 enemy of the Iranian Islamic Repub., since it controls the BBC, while the U.S. doesn't control CNN, both of which portray the protesters as fighting for democracy, when they're really fighting to demote clerics from ruling the govt. to advising elected rulers; another Green leader is cleric Mehdi Karroubi (1937-), an alleged advocate of women's rights and participation in politics along with Montazeri; meanwhile on June 16 unexplainably passive Pres. Obama says "I have deep concerns about the election. I think that the world has deep concerns about the election", then adds "Peaceful dissent should never be subject to violence", causing him to be criticized for being a whimp that won't speak out for democracy for fear of offending some slimy govt.; too bad, Mousavi is a hardline rightist who helped start Iran's nuclear program, found Hezbollah and direct the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut, but somehow attracts the 20-something pro-Western Twitter crowd, causing observers to tell Westerners to not expect any real change even if he wins; Mousavi's headscarf-wearing wife Zahra Rahnavard (1945-) has a Ph.D in political science, and has urged reforms incl. elimination of morality police and discrimination against women; on June 19 Iran's supreme assahola Ali Khamenei (1939-) (the Evil Emperor of the Shia Sith?) steps in, siding with Imadinnajacket and calling his election "an absolute and definitive victory", blaming the infidel West for the turmoil, and warning protesters to stop or else, while the govt. tries to coverup a bloody crackdown, causing the U.S. Congress on June 19 to condemn the crackdown; on June 20 (Sat.) a protest in downtown Tehran is put down by police with tear gas, water cannons and batons, along with warning shots, causing to Pres. Obama to call on the govt. to "stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people", while Moussavi says that his supporters are "facing unrighteous liars"; on June 21 (Iranian Bloody Sun.) the pigs step it up with shots into the crowd, and protester Neda (Farsi "voice") Agha-Soltan (b. 1983) is shot in the heart in the street by the pigs, and dies in her friends' arms, becoming a martyr for democracy after her death video is put on the Web; on July 9 despite the govt. intimidation, the protests resume; Rafsanjani's followers turn on the Russians for portraying the affair to Imadinnajacket as another U.S.-backed Color Rev. like in Ukraine; Islamic cleric Mehdi Karroubi (1937-) emerges as an opposition figure. On June 12 (midnight) the U.S. switches to digital TV; the date had originally been set to Feb. 17 until Obama gets it extended; too bad, individual stations are left free to decide which date to do the transition. On June 14 (Sun.) replying to Pres. Obama's call to Israel to help create a Palestinian state, Israeli PM (since Mar. 31) Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech in the Knesset where he publicly accepted a 2-state solution and agrees to the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian Arab state, provided they recognize Israel as a Jewish state; the news causes the Arab world to explode in rage, with aging Egyptian pres. Husni Mubarak, calling this proposal "scuppering the possibilities for peace", and Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat warning that Netanyahu "will have to wait a thousand years before he finds one Palestinian who will go along with him." On June 16 a summit in Yekaterinburg, Russia by leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and China, to which the U.S. is refused admittance announces the creation of BRIC, a new political bloc to challenge the global dominance of the U.S., incl. 40% of world pop. and 15% of world GDP; economist Michael Hudson calls it "the most important meeting of the 21st century so far", because they are planning on ending the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. On June 16 ex-U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter visits Gaza, and says that he had to "hold back tears" when he saw the destruction caused by the Jan. war. On June 16 U.S. Sen. (R-Nev.) (2001-) John Eric Ensign (1958-) admits to an extramarital affair with Cynthia Hampton, member of his campaign staff, and on June 17 he steps down as chmn. of the Repub. Policy Committee; on June 19 the Las Vegas Sun reports that Cynthia's hubby Doug Hampton had been complaining about it, and on July 9 Ensign admits that his parents had given Cynthia and her family $96K in Apr. 2008, calling them "gifts". On June 16 rabbit-scared South Korean pres. Lee Myung-bak visits the White House, and otains assurances that the U.S. will continue protecting his country from attack by North Korea, with Pres. Obama uttering the soundbyte that he doesn't think that North Korea "will or should be a nuclear power" - watch myung bak, okay? On June 17 Pres. Obama proposes sweeping changes, incl. the creation of a powerful independent Consumer Financial Product Safety Commission to regulate mortgages, credit cards, and other financial products, allegedly in the interests of the consumer not the banks. On June 17 100 Romanian Romas (Gypsies) are driven from their homes in Northern Ireland by racists after they stage a demonstration against racism; most of them announce they're leaving Northern Ireland, and only 14 decide to remain. On June 18 former PM #18 (2004-6) Tshakhiagiin Elbegdorj (1963-) becomes pres. #4 of Mongolia (until July 20, 2017). On June 18 the U.S. Senate approves a resolution apologizing for slavery, which House members of the Congressional Black Caucus promise to block because of its lack of restitution payments; it also passes a $105.9B emergency war-spending bill after the White House assured them that it will bar the release of photos of detained terrorism suspects by executive order if necessary - Obama is morphing into a Bush? On June 18 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Jack Gross v. FBL Financial Services Inc. to reverse a longstanding rule that employees suing employers for firing them because of age discrimination only have to show that age was one of the motivating factors, throwing the employer into the need to prove that it the employer a legitimate reason to fire them other than age, saying that now the employees must bear the full burden of proving that age was the deciding factor. On June 18 it is revealed that two Ohio police chiefs are being investigated for burglarizing the home of a surrogate mother carrying twins for Hollywood stars Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick. On June 19 by 405-1 the U.S. House passes House Resolution 560, titled "Expressing support for all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law, and for other purposes"; the sole dissenting vote is Tex. Repub. Rep. Ron Paul, who opposes economic sanctions against the Iranian regime. On June 19 a railroad train carrying ethanol derails in Rockford, Ill., exploding and killing a 41-y.-o. woman at a crossing, and injuring six. On June 19 Pres. Obama gives the keynote speech at the 2009 Nat. Hispanic Prayer Breakfast, promising to work for amnesty for 10M+ illegal Mexican immigrants this year, although 40+ House Dems. are against it, with the soundbyte that the U.S. is a "nation of Christians and Muslims and Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers". On June 21 Pres. Obama's approval index goes negative for the first time ever, with 32% of voters strongly approving of his performance and 34% strongly disapproving; meanwhile Obama says that the U.S. is "fully prepared for any contingencies" with madass North Korea, which is threatening a long-range missile test on July 4 in the direction of Hawaii. On June 21 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu appears on NBC-TV's Meet the Press, and after being asked "If the international community proves unable to stop Iran [for developing nukes], is it your view that Israel will have to?", responds that there's an "American commitment to make sure that that doesn't happen, and I think I'd leave it at that"; meanwhile a poll of Jewish Israelis by the Jerusalem Post reveals that only 6% see the Obama admin. as pro-Israel. On June 22 the New Yorker carries an article carrying a statement by CIA dir. (since Feb. 13) Leon Edward Panetta (1938-) that ex-veep Dick Cheney's criticism of Obama's terrorism policy suggests that "he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point"; after it leaks in advance, current veep Joe Biden tells NBC-TV's "Meet the Press" on June 14, "I think Dick Cheney's judgment about how to secure America is faulty. I think our judgment is correct." On June 22 two Red Line Metro subway trains slam into each other outside Washington, D.C. during afternoon rush hour, killing six and injuring 75. On June 22 Yunus-bek Yevkurov (1963-), pres. (since Oct. 30) of the Islamic Russian Repub. of Ingushetia between Georgia and Chechnya is hit in Nazran by a suicide bomber and seriously wounded; his aide is killed. On June 22 30+ are killed across Iraq, making the weekend total top 100 a week before the June 30 deadline for U.S. troop pullout from urban areas. On June 22 the U.S. Supreme Court rules 9-0 in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder that the district qualifies for the bailout provision of Section 5 of the 2006/1965 Voting Rights Act, and rules 8-1 that it is unnecessary to decide whether it is unconstitutional, Clarence Thomas being the dissenter; the language of the ruling causes observers to conclude that most justices feel the section is unconstitutional, signalling a sea change in the court. On June 23 Pres. Obama gives a press conference, toughening up his stance on Iran and trying to explain away his earlier hesitation, saying that he's "appalled and outraged", and "strongly condemn these unjust actions", and uttering the soundbyte "Those who stand up for justice are always on the right side of history", but can't do much since the U.S. has no formal relations with Iran; meanwhile brave Iranian babes begin the Lipstick Rev., defying the maniacal mullahs by parading around in public sans veils wearing Western makeup incl. lipstick; on June 25 after the assaholah's men brutally crack down on protesters, Imadinnajacket warns Obama to "avoid interfering" in Iranian affairs; meanwhile on June 22 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy makes a speech against the nasty Muslim practice of forcing women to bear head-to-toe burkas, saying that they are not welcome in France, and instead France should force them to adopt Western garb, particularly the miniskirt; in 2004 France banned the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols in public schools; on June 2 al-Qaida in North Africa threatens France with a bloodbath over it; France groans under the weight of 5M Muslims. On June 23 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates establishes the U.S. Cyber-Defense Command, to be led by NSA dir. Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander (1952-), who is to be promoted to 4-star gen.; on Aug. 3 Melissa Hathaway, the White House acting cybersecurity czar resigns - can I get a free decoder ring? On June 23 Pakistani Taliban leader Qari Zainuddin is assassinated by his own men under the orders of rival leader Baitullah Mehsud (1974-) as a U.S.-backed offensive is about to begin, ending hopes by Pakistan and the U.S. of using their rivalry against them; meanwhile on June 23 a U.S. Predator drone fires missiles into a Taliban training center in S Waziristan, then fires again into a funeral procession for the seven victims, killing 80 and maiming dozens, mostly civilians, becoming their deadliest attack so far. On June 23 Tenn.-born Christian Christopher Leggett (b. 1970) is shot and killed in Nouakchott, Mauritania by al-Qaida member Mohamed Abdallahi Ould Ahmednah for allegedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity; on Mar. 15, 2010 he is sentenced to death. On June 24 S.C. Repub. gov. (since 2002) Marshall Clement "Mark" Sanford Jr. (1960-), who mysteriously disappeared over Father's Day weekend, making nat. news, admits he has been having an extramarital affair with a 43-y.-o. divorced multilingual Maria Chapur (1966-) in Argentina while on a govt.-funded trip, dashing his hopes of running for U.S. pres. in 2012, and becoming another hit to be absorbed by the reeling Repub. Party. On June 25 the U.S. Supreme Court by 8-1 rules in Safford Unified School District #1 v. Savana Redding that school Ariz. officials violated her rights by strip-searching 13-y.-o. Savana Redding on the strength of a suspicion that she was hiding prescription-strength Advil; they then rule that the officials are immune from damages because they hadn't made it an official rights violation yet. On June 25 former U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North (1943-) gives an interview to Kathleen Walter of newsmax.com, slamming Pres. Obama for his foreign policy, saying that he needs to recognize "that they [the U.S.] have all but won in Iraq", claiming that waterboarding isn't torture because he was waterboarded during Marine training, calling apologizing for the U.S. response to 9/11 "unconscionable", and adding that the U.S. is forgetting the lessons of 9/11 by lowering surveillance of the Internet. On June 25 Hamas chief (since 2004) Khaled Mashaal (Mashal) (1956-) delivers a speech in Damascus, Syria, saying that he likes the "new language" from Pres. Obama; he carefully refrains from mentioning his sponsor state of Iran. On June 25 King of Pop Michael Jackson (b. 1958) dies of a prescription drug OD in his rented mansion in Holmby Hills in Los Angeles, becoming another JFK moment for legions of fans worldwide; he had been preparing for a 50-concert tour to restore his wasted fortune; his doctor Conrad Murray (1943-) finds him in bed not breathing and with a faint pulse, and administers CPR in vain, after which he is scrutinized for prescribing Demerol and/or OxyContin to him, which he denies; Jackson is later found to have OD'd on Propofol, which he illegally used to sleep; on July 7 his funeral at Staples Center in Los Angeles, attended by 18K turns into a Michael Jackson show, with Pastor Lucious Smith followed by Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Lionel Richie, Usher, John Mayer et al., plus eulogies by Berry Gordy (who calls him "the greatest entertainer that ever lived"), Smokey Robinson, Queen Latifah, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Brooke Shields; his $25K bronze Promethean casket is plated with 14-karat gold and lined with blue velvet, and he wears a single white glove on his right hand; Russian security sources allegedly tell pres. Dmitri Medvedev that Jackson was assassinated by the CIA with an electromagnetic pulse; reports later surface that Jackson wanted to clone himself; on Nov. 7, 2011 Conrad Murray is convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and sentenced to four years; meanwhile on June 25 Hollywood glam babe Farrah Fawcett (b. 1947) dies after a long struggle with cancer, making three top U.S. celebs to go down in the same week; on June 28 the 9th BET Awards honors Jackson, and his Queen of Pop sister Janet Jackson gives a speech; on June 30 Jackson's will names his mommy Katherine Jackson as the guardian of his mystery children (of whom it is rumored that he is not the biological father, and his ex-wife Debbie Rowe might not be the genetic mother of the eldest two), and cuts off his father Joe (whom he alleges beat him as a child), along with Debbie Rowe - he must have had a Marilyn complex? On June 26 the U.S. American Clean Energy and Security (Waxman-Markey) Act, sponsored by Dems. Henry Arnold Waxman (1939-) of Calif. and Edward John "Ed" Markey (1946-) of Mass. is passed 219-212 by the U.S. House, establishing a cap-and-trade plan for greenhouse gases to control climate change, becoming the first-ever U.S. legislation on the issue; the Senate approves it on ?. On June 26 Pres. Obama signs the U.S. Cash for Clunkers Act (Car Allowance Rebate System), giving purchasers of a new car up to $4.5K in exchange for having their gas-guzzling clunker disposed of; it starts on July 27, and is set to end on Nov. 1 or as soon as the $1B allocated runs out, which turns out to be July 31, causing $2B more to be authorized, causing Ford to reports its first sales increase in two years; the response is so huge (457K sales) that they end the program on Aug. 24 (Mon.) at 8:00 p.m. EST; meanwhile dealers grumble about late reimbursements from the govt.; the top trade-in is the Ford Explorer SUV; the top-selling new car is the Ford Focus, followed by the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic; the German program it's modelled on has less restrictions and more money ($5B euros); as usual, the Obama plan props up rich automakers while destroying the business of used car and parts dealers? On June 26 the U.S. House by 219-212 (incl. 8 Repubs.) passes the landmark American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES) (Waxman-Markey Bill), calling for greenhouse gas emissions to be cut 17% by 2020 and 83% by 2050 (by raising the price of energy), and for 20% of all electricity in the U.S. to be generated by renewable sources and/or more efficient methods by 2020 (via tax incentives), supposedly creating millions of new "green" jobs while costing the avg. U.S. household only $175 a year by 2020; Pres. Obama speaks out against a provision imposing trade penalties that don't accept global warming pollution limits, and adds the soundbyte that the legislation could make renewable energy "a driver of economic growth"; meanwhile House leaders complain that they won't have time to read the 1.2K-page monster before having to vote on it; critics call it a Soviet-style 50-year plan that foists Cap-and-Trade on U.S. industry; too bad, Thomas Crocker, who invented the idea in the 1960s, now says it's not a good idea, causing the Obama admin. to call his skepticism a "straw man" argument; it never reaches the floor of the Senate for a vote. On June 27 al-Qaida militants of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) detonate two IEDs under an Algerian police convoy escorting Chinese workers to a highway construction site near Bordj Bou Arreridj, Algeria E of Algiers, then ambush the disabled convoy, killing 18 policemen and one Chinese worker, and sounding six policemen and two workers, becoming the deadliest terrorist attack in Algeria since Aug. 19, 2008; the Islamic terrorists have been plaguing Algeria since 1998 as the civil war was ending. On June 27 the Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defense Assoc., two major Protestant paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland announce voluntary disarmament after killing 1K in their war with the Catholic IRA, which disarmed in 2001-5 after killing 1.8K over 27 years; the way is paved for the 1998 Good Friday Peace Accord to be implemented. On June 27 the English Defence League (EDL) is founded by Tommy Robinson (Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon) (1982-) and Trevor Kelway to fight Islamization of England, using street marches to attract attention; too bad, the leftist media keep trying to frame them as racists while using the pigs to arrest and imprison them on trumped-up charges. On June 28 (6 a.m.) after pushing for a constitutional amendment to allow him to run for a 2nd 4-year term, U.S.-backed Honduran pres. (since 2006) Jose Manuel "Mel" Zelaya (1952-) is ousted by the military, who arrest him in his pajamas and fly him to Costa Rica (without asking Costa Rican pres. Oscar Aras for permission?), causing him to utter the soundbyte: "They are creating a monster they will not be able to contain"; the army insists that it is not a coup but that they had an order by a supreme court judge to remove him for abuse of authority; Roberto Micheletti (1943-) is named interim pres. by the congress; meanwhile Obama calls for his return to office, placing himself in the same camp as a number of nearby leftist govts. incl. allies Venezuela and Nicaragua, along with the U.N., EU, and OAS, causing conservative U.S. pundit Rush Limbaugh to suggest that he is trying to get the 22nd Amendment repealed so that he can serve a 3rd term, pointing to his backing of Zelaya, who wanted to amend his constitution to serve another term, along with his refusal to stand up to the bogus Iranian election, plus the facts that his daddy was a Marxist, and his followers are "cult-like"; on July 26 Zelaya sets up a camp on the Honduran-Nicaraguan border, ignoring the call of foreign leaders to not force a confrontation; his wife Xiomara Castro de Zelaya (1959-) is blocked by Honduran soldiers from joining him; on Sept. 21 (night) Zelaya slips back into Honduras and takes refuge in the Brazilian embassy, claiming to want to talk to the interim govt. to "restore democracy", causing his supporters to demonstrate and clash violently with police; after U.S. diplomatic efforts, on Oct. 30 the Honduran govt. accepts a deal allowing Zelaya to return to power; all along U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton worked against Zelaya. On June 28 Argentine pres. Cristina Fernandez loses her majority in the lower house to the party run by billionaire businessman Francisco de Narvaez, while her hubby, former pres. Nestor Kirchner loses his congressional race. On June 28 Iranian pigs beat demonstrators in Tehran, while arresting nine Iranians working at the British embassy; on June 29 (Mon.) democracy in action not in Iran sees a recount begin, immediately claiming that Imadinnajacket got even more votes than before; meanwhile German chancellor Angela Merkel visits Pres. Obama at the White House, and says that the Iranian election results still need to be substantiated; meanwhile Scottish MP George Galloway stinks himself up by appearing on Iranian TV and blaming the BBC for fomenting unrest in Tehran. On June 28 Taliban fighters ambush Pakistani soldiers in N Waziristan while passing through the village of Inzar Kas, killing 16; the Pakistanis call it an unprovoked attack. On June 29 elections in Mexico return the Institutional Rev. Party (PRI) to power, with leader Beatriz Paredes saying "The PRI has learned from its errors and corrected itself"; meanwhile the Mexican economy is expected to contract by 5.5% this year. On June 30 Iraq celebrates Sovereignty Day as U.S. troops pull out of major cities, but remain available to back Iraqi troops up, with PM Nouri al Maliki uttering the soundbyte "Those who think that Iraqis are unable to defend their country are committing a fatal mistake"; Pres. Obama hails the authority transfer in the East Room of the White House, predicing more violence, with the soundbyte "There are those who will test Iraqi security. I'm confident that those forces will fail. The future belongs to those who build, not those who destroy"; meanwhile a bomb in the Kurdish sector of Kirkuk, Iraq kills 25 and wounds 40; on July 2 the first roadside bomb in post-U.S. Baghdad explodes near an Iraqi army patrol, killing one Iraqi soldier and wounding two soldiers and eight civilians; on July 7 bomb attacks in Baghdad and N Iraq kill 41; meanwhile Kurdistan pushes for a new constitution in defiance of Baghdad, claiming land and oil. On June 30 Al Franken (known for his SNL character "Stuart Smalley") is finally declared the winner of the Minn. Senate race, giving Senate Dems. a filibuster-proof majority of 60; Franken becomes the first comedian Senator; meanwhile a Rasmussen daily tracking poll shows Pres. Obama receiving his first negative approval index. On June 30 a freight train carrying LPG derails and explodes in Viareggio, Italy, killing 16 and injuring 50. On June 30 after the U.S. begins a major offensive in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, U.S. Pfc. Bowe Robert Bergdahl (1986-) of Hailey, Idaho (who wrote that he is "ashamed to be an American"?) goes AWOL, and is kidnapped in E Afghanistan by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani Network, who release a video of him on July 18, saying a "drunken American soldier had come out of his garrison"; another video is released on Xmas. On June 30 the Greek-flagged boat Spirit of Humanity carrying 21 activists of the Free Gaza Movement with humanitarian supplies for Gaza is seized by the Israelis; activists incl. black former U.S. rep. (D-Ga.) (1993-2003, 2005-7) Cynthia McKinney (1955-) (2008 Green Party candidate for U.S. pres., known for striking a Capitol police officer in the Longworth House Office Bldg. on Mar. 29, 2006, then apologizing on the House floor on Apr. 6, then introducing articles of impeachment against Pres. George W. Bush later in 2006), who arrives back in the U.S. on July 7 after a week in jail; the U.S. press stifles coverage? In June Goldman Sachs repays $10B in TARP loans while raising another $8.9B in equity, debt, and asset sales, paying its way out of the govt. bailout. In June the U.S. mortgage market begins rebounding, with a 11% increase in home sales. In JuneU.S. unemployment soars to 14.5M (16.5% counting part-time workers), losing 6.1M jobs since last June, and 467K jobs since Apr., becoming the biggest year-to-year June increase in four decades, up 70%; meanwhile U.K. unemployment reaches a 14-year high of 2.4M. In June a Christian woman is executed in North Korea for the crime of distributing Bibles. In June the world's ocean surface temp sets a record of 1.12F (0.62C), beating the previous high mark set in 2005; records began to be kept in 1880; June is also the 2nd warmest on record, and the Jan.-June avg. temp ties 2004 as the 5th warmest on record. In June the state of Maine fines the Christian Action Network (CAN) for mailings containing an "inflammatory anti-Muslim message", after which CAN goes to federal court and gets Maine to drop it. In June women hold 49.83% of the 132M jobs in the U.S., meaning that they are on the verge of becoming a majority. In the summer former Afghan PM (1995-6) Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai (1944-) brokers a meeting between the Taliban and U.S. Brig. Gen. Edward M. Reeder, where they agree to cut al-Qaida loose but won't accept U.S. access to three airbases. In the summer the JVC Jazz Festival in New York City is not held for the first time in 37 years because of financial difficulties; ditto jazz festivals in Chicago and Miami. On July 1 the govt. of China requires all home PCs to be sold installed with their new $5.8M Green Dam software, which blocks access to porno and anything else the govt. wants to censor, under the label "anti-revolutionary content"; in Aug. China ditches its plans after opposition by manufacturers and users. On July 1 the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announces that it is beginning to investigate workplaces in every state to check if they are hiring illegal workers in order to crack down on employers - Pres. Bush didn't do that because he's pro-business? On July 1 the Ariz. Senate by 16-11 okays an Illegal Immigrant Trespasser Bill, which would make Ariz. the only state to make its 500K illegal immigrants (out of 6.5M pop.) into trespassers; the House rejects it by 26-15. On July 1 three opposition leaders, incl. Mohammad Khatami, pres. candidate Mehdi Karroubi, and Mir Hossein Moussavi step it up and openly defy Iran's govt., vowing to resist the Imadinnajacket presidency. On July 1 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates tells the press that he is directing Pentagon lawyers to find ways to reinterpret the 1993 "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy to prevent gays from being blackmailed by threatening them with outing. On July 1 pregnant scarfed Muslim Egyptian pharmacist Marwa Ali El-Sherbini (b. 1977) is stabbed to death in a court in Dresden, Germany by a German man named Alex W., who was on trial for defaming her in a playground, shouting "You don't deserve to live", becoming a cause celebre among Muslims. On July 1 Pakistani Christian shopkeeper Imran Masih is tortured by a group of Muslims, then arrested for allegedly burning pages of the Quran; on Jan. 11 he is sentenced to life in prison for blasphemy against Allah. On July 1 Eric Lee Garner of Seattle, Wash. threatens a scarfed Muslim women carrying an infant and brandishes a knife, with the comment "You Muslim people scare people when you wear things like that", after which he is arrested, pleads guilty next Mar., and is sentenced to a maximum sentence of 13-17 mo. On July 1 a survey by WorldPublicOpinion.org finds that 80% of Pakistanis now consider terrorist groups a "critical threat" to their country; up from 34% in 2007. On July 1 Calif. begins its fiscal year with a $26.3B deficit, causing it to issue IOUs to state contractors, which on July 20 is handled by a budget deal brokered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that incl. $15.5B in spending cuts plus borrowing and shifting of state funds without raising taxes; on July 26 after a 24-hour session, the Calif. legislature approves the budget after cutting $1.1B and rejecting a measure allowing new drilling off the Calif. coast for the first time since 1969; meanwhile on Aug. 6 a federal court orders the release of 43K Calif. prisoners due to overcrowding; meanwhile Calif.'s budget gets in such bad shape that it begins auctioning state items off on eBay and Craig's List on Aug. 28-29 in the Great Calif. Garage Sale. On July 2 Amnesty Internat. says that Israel inflicted "wanton destruction" in the Gaza Strip during its Dec.-Jan. offensive against Hamas. On July 2 Italy approves a law criminalizing illegal immigration with a heavy fine plus prison terms for knowingly housing them, permitting unarmed citizens patrols to help the police. On July 2 India decriminalizes homosexuality. On July 3 Alaska gov. (since Dec. 4, 2006) Sarah Palin (1964-) announces her resignation effective July 26 after deciding that she won't run for reelection, and doesn't want to "embrace the conventional lame duck status", saying "I'm doing what's best for Alaska", mentioning the need to take care of her family, and adding the immortal soundbyte "We're fishermen. We know that only dead fish go with the flow"; this stuns the press, who expected her to announce a run for nat. office; after rumors, the FBI announces on July 5 that she's not being investigated, and she appears again on Facebook, saying that her move is part of a "higher calling" to "advance this country together". On July 30 journalist Lubna-Ahmed al-Hussein along with 12 other women is arrested in a restaurant in Khartoum for wearing trousers, and sentenced to 40 lashes. On July 4 Iranian diplomats attend 4th of July parties in the U.S. for the first time after the Obama admin. with its policy of "engagement" doesn't have the balls to rescind the invitations. On July 4 visitors are allowed to ascend into the crown of the Statue of Liberty for the first time since 9/11. On July 5 Uighur anti-Han riots in Xiangjian in NW China kill 140 and result in hundreds of arrests; on July 7 hundreds defy a govt.-ordered lockdown, causing the govt. to send in 20K troops on July 8. On July 6 Pres. Obama visits Russia to try and mend strained relations, and on July 6 signs a new nuclear arms control treaty agreeing to cut U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals by 25%, saying that the two countries are not destined to be adversaries, but that "Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected"; too bad, Russian pres. Dmitry Medeved immediately visits South Ossetia, which he calls a "new country". On July 6-7 a cyberattack targets govt. Web sites in the U.S. and South Korea; North Korea is suspected. On July 7 U.S. Defense Dept. lawyer Jeh Charles Johnson (1957-) tells a Senate committee that the govt. may keep terrorism detainees even if they're acquitted. On July 7 Warehouse 13 debuts on the Syfy Channel (until ?), about a secret govt. warehouse in S.D. that houses supernatural artifacts, starring Eddie McClintoch (1967-) as Secret Service Agent Pete Lattimer, Joanne Kelly (1978-) as his partner Myka Ophelia Bering, and Saul Rubinek (1948-) as warehouse chief Dr. Arthur "Artie" Nielsen. On July 7-10 the 35th G-88 Summit is held in Italy by the U.S., U.K., Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Canada, and Japan; on July 10 they agree to raise $20B over the next three years for food and farm aid; on July 7 Pope Benedict XIV issues the encyclical Charity in Truth (Caritas in Veritate) for the summit, backing the rights of workers to form unions, and calling for a "true world authority", despite the possibility of "a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature"; he is really backing the U.N.? On July 8 a U.S. drone attack kills 25 militants in South Waziristan, Pakistan. On July 8 the climbing jobless rate causes the Obama admin. to put out feelers for yet another stimulus package; on Aug. 10 Nobel laureate economics prof. Paul Krugman tells CNBC that the world economy needs a second stimulus if it wants to avoid the fate of Japan in the 1990s; on July 14 the Federal Reserve predicts that unemployment will reach 10% in the coming months, and that no net new jobs will created in five years; Obama admits that his earlier prediction that his stimulus package would prevent unemployment from exceeding 8% was wrong, and that it will likely reach 10% (vs. 4% in 2000); it takes 2% increase in GDP to reduce the unemployment rate by 1%, so to go from 10% to 5% it would take a $1.5T increase in GDP. On July 8 Greenpeace activists unfurl a banner on Mount Rushmore next to Abraham Lincoln's bust urging climate change action, resulting in their arrest. On July 8 the state of Mass. files a lawsuit against the U.S. govt. over its 1996 U.S. Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), claiming it undermines same-sex marriages and codifies an animus towards gays and lesbians. On July 8 Britain's Prince Charles gives a speech to industrialists and environmentalists at St. James's Palace, claiming that we have just 96 mo. left to save Earth from "irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse and all that goes with it", hence must give up capitalism and consumerism along with the "age of convenience" via "coherent financial incentives and disincentives", with the soundbytes: "We face the dual challenges of a world view and an economic system that seem to have enormous shortcomings, together with an environmental crisis – including that of climate change - which threatens to engulf us all", and "But for all its achievements, our consumerist society comes at an enormous cost to the Earth and we must face up to the fact that the Earth cannot afford to support it. Just as our banking sector is struggling with its debts – and paradoxically also facing calls for a return to so-called 'old-fashioned', traditional banking – so Nature's life-support systems are failing to cope with the debts we have built up there too. If we don't face up to this, then Nature, the biggest bank of all, could go bust. And no amount of quantitative easing will revive it." On July 9 Uzi Arad, an adviser to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel must have "tremendously powerful" weapons to destroy any enemy trying to nuke it, letting the cat out of the bag about its own nuke capability; last week one of its three German-made subs sailed from the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal to the Red Sea port of Eilat to send Iran a message. On July 10 Russian pres. Dmitry Medevedev warns the U.S. that if it deploys missile defense systems in Europe, Russia will deploy missiles in an enclave near Poland. On July 10 Pres. Obama visits the Vatican, discussing abortion and stem cell research with Pope Benedict XVI, promising to try to reduce the number of abortions in the U.S.; on July 11 he visits Ghana, where he is treated like a god and rock star, visiting the infamous Door of No Return at Cape Coast Castle, comparing it to Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp, and uttering the soundbytes: "We must start from the simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans", "The West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants", and "No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought by drug traffickers", adding "These things can only be done if you take responsibility for your future... But I can promise you this: America will be with you every step of the way, as a partner, as a friend"; too bad, Nigeria feels snubbed. On July 10 U.S. House Dems. announce that they will seek a huge $540B income tax increase to pay for a new Health Care Reform Plan (Obamacare), which they announce on July 14; the same day the Congressional Budget Office predicts that it will add more than $1T to the U.S. nat. debt over 10 years; despite House Dems. claiming that the plan will impose a 5.4% surtax on incomes above $350K a year to pay for it, affecting only the richest 2M taxpayers, U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) (since 2003) Michael Clifton Burgess (1950-) (a physician) predicts that it will boost costs for small business and force more people into the govt.-run health insurance program - can't we just borrow more money from China? On July 10 Alaska gov. Sarah Palin signs the unanimous House Joint Resolution 27, claiming sovereignty of Alaska, joining Tenn., Idaho, N.D., S.D., Okla., and La. as part of a movement to fight federal govt. encroachment, esp. the Real ID Act of 2005, and Obamacare. On July 11 insurgents detonate bombs in Baghdad and Mosul, Iraq, killing six and wounding 67. On July 13 the U.S. Senate begins confirmation hearings for judge Sonia Sotomayor, who claims that her guiding principle is "fidelity to the law"; hostile Sen. (since 2003) Lindsey Olin Graham (1955-) (R-S.C.) (successor to Strom Thurmond) utters the soundbyte: "Unless you have a complete meltdown, you're going to get confirmed", since the Dems. have enough votes to confirm her without Repub. help; four anti-abortion protesters are arrested, incl. original Roe v. Wade "Jane Roe" litigant Norma Leah McCorvey (1947-); on July 14 Graham questions her judicial temperament, saying that she "sticks out like a sore thumb" compared to other judges; she says that she will have an "open mind" on gun rights, adding "I have friends who hunt", says that she considers the question of abortion rights to be "settled law" along with a constitutional right to privacy, and attempts to defuse critics of her "wise Latina" remarks by calling it a "misunderstanding", and uttering the soundbyte: "To give everyone assurance, I want to state up front and without doubt, I do not believe that any racial, gender, or ethnic group has an advantage in sound judgment", adding "Life experiences have to influence you. We're not robots who listen to evidence and don't have feelings. We have to recognize those feelings, and put them aside"; she also contradicts Pres. Obama's "empathy" criterion, with the soundbyte "I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. He has to explain what he meant by judging. I can only explain what I think judges should do, which is judges can't rely on what's in their heart. They don't determine the law. Congress makes the laws; on July 15 it turns into a circus, with Sen. Al Franken asking her in which episode of Perry Mason he lost his only case; answer: The Case of the Deadly Verdict (Oct. 17, 1963) - but Latina women are wiser than white men, and her friends hunt fish with fishing poles? On July 13 after eight British soldiers are killed in Afghanistan, bringing the British death toll to 184, exceeding losses in Iraq, British PM Gordon Brown tells Parliament that the 9K British troops in Afghanistan have the "strongest possible plan", plus enough resources "to do the job". On July 13 the bodies of 12 Mexican federal agents are found dumped along a mountain road in Michoacan, W Mexico, becoming the highest 1-day death toll for federal forces in the 3-y.-o. drug war; on July 14 Mexican authorities blame the La Familia drug cartel. On July 13 a consortium of 20 cos. incl. Siemens, Deutsche Bank, E.On and Munich Re launch an initiative to build the $555B Saharan Mega Solar Plant (Desertec) in North Africa to supply 15% of Europe's electricity needs. On July 13 Pres. Obama nominates Regina Marcia Benjamin (1956-) as U.S. surgeon gen.; being black, which is taboo to discuss, critics focus on her being "too fat"? On July 14 Pres. Obama makes a speech at Macomb Community College in Warren (near Detroit), Mich., which suffers from 14% unemployment, proposing the Am. Graduation Initiative, with $12B to be pumped into community colleges to add 5M new grads by 2020. On July 14 U.S. HHS secy. Kathleen Sebellus announces that $350M is available to help states prepare for the 2009 flu season, adding that Mexican swine flu is "no more lethal than the seasonal flu". On July 15 the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee passes health care legislation written by Ted Kennedy, who calls it "the cause of my life"; too bad, he is too sick to be present, and dies on Aug. 25 of brain cancer. On July 16 Pres. Obama addresses the NAACP, uttering the soundbyte "Make no mistake, the pain of discrimination is still felt in America", with blacks "out of work more than just about anybody else", and "more likely to suffer from a host of diseases but less likely to own health insurance", adding "Government programs alone won't get our children to the Promised Land", and "One of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way we've internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect On July 16 African-Am. leftist academic Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (1950-) is harassed by the pigs in front of his own home in Cambridge, Mass. and arrested for mouthing off to them, causing the PC police to come out bigtime, after which the charges are dropped and Obama declares that the police "acted stupidly", and invites Gates and the white pig Sgt. James Crowley to a "Beer Summit" at the White House. so little from the world and from themselves, causing some blacks to criticize him for blaming them for the crisis and for resurrecting Daniel Patrick Moynihan's 1965 "culture of poverty" theory. On July 17 the U.S. Senate by 63-28 approves the ain't-he-cute U.S. Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act as a rider on the DOD bill, becoming the most sweeping expansion of federal hate crimes law since 1968, extending the definition of protected sacred cows in 18 USC 245 to those attacked because of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability; while noble in intent, its implementation at the federal level all because of one cute one-of-a-kind gay victim in Wyoming raises disturbing questions about Orwellian control of free speech and even thought, and whether the concept of states rights and state criminal codes is kaput; after the House approves it by 281-146, the Senate votes 68-29 on Oct. 22 to send it to Pres. Obama after it is attached to a $680B defense appropriations plan; Obama signs it on Oct. 28. On July 17 nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office dir. Douglas Elmendorf tells the U.S. Senate Budget Committee that Pres. Obama's health care proposals won't rein in skyrocketing govt. health care costs, but cost more, countering Obama's soundbyte that his plan will "bend the curve" with the soundbyte "The curve is being raised." On July 17 bombs detonate in the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton luxury hotels in Jakarta, India, killing eight and wounding dozens, embarrassing recently reelected (July 8) pres. (since 2004) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (1949-). On July 17 Pope Benedict XVI slips in his bath and breaks his right wrist while on holiday in N Italy. On July 18 oldest known British man so far Henry William allingham (b. 1896) dies in Ovingdean, East Sussex after becoming the oldest surviving member of the British Armed Forces, last survivor of the Battle of Jutland, last survivor of the Royal Naval Air Service, and last surviving founding member of the Royal Air Force (RAD), also the 12th known oldest man of all time. On July 19 the New York Times pub. an interview with U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in which she says that she thought the purpose of Roe v. Wade was to rid the U.S. of those "that we don't want to have too many of", causing a firestorm of controversy about whether she meant the poor or a race or ethnic group; too bad, the reporter doesn't follow up. On July 19 a Russian-owned civilian heli crashes and burns after takeoff in S Afghanistan's largest NATO base, killing 16 civilians. On July 19 CIT Group, a U.S. lender to small and midsize businesses obtains a $3B emergency loan. On July 19 former Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin calls on Congress and the U.S. people to use the memory of the Apollo 11 Moon landing (July 20, 1969) as an inspiraton for a manned landing on Mars. On July 20 New York City-born Michael B. Oren (Michael Scott Bornstein) (1955-) succeeds Sallai Meridor as Israeli ambassador to the U.S. 317 (until Sept. 30, 2013). On July 20 after Hillary Clinton's first trip to India paves the way, the U.S. and India sign a defense pact, allowing U.S. arm sales to India, to the applause of U.S. defense contractors. On July 20 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates bolsters U.S. troops in Afghanistan by 22K; meanwhile four GIs are killed by a roadside bomb in E Afghanistan, bringing the July coalition death toll to 55 incl. 30 from the U.S. On July 21 a report special U.S. inspector gen. Neil Barofsky says that the federal govt. has actually devoted $4.7T to bail out the financial sector, and that this could balloon to $23.7T (vs a U.S. GDP of $14T) under worst case conditions ($80K for every U.S. citizen), pissing-off the U.S. House, whose members vie to utter memorable soundbytes, incl. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) ("one fraud after another"), and Brian Bilbray (R-Calif.) ("a brave new world"). On July 21 a British judge rules that Google can't be sued for libel just because libelous comments appear in text blurbs in its search results, saying that it isn't publishing them but just "playing the role of a facilitator". On July 21 Pres. Obama tells PBS, "I think that we have stepped back from the abyss. I think we've put out the fire", but that a lot of work remains to do with "the limited resources" available; meanwhile a USA Today/Gallup Poll reveals disapproval of Obama's handling of the economy by 49% to 47%, and disapproval of his health care policy by 50% to 44%; his overall approval rating is down to 55%, lower than George W. Bush's at the same 6-mo. point into his presidency (56%). On July 21 bombs kill 21 and wound dozens in Baghdad, Ramadi, and Baqubah, Iraq. On July 21 Oakland, Calif. becomes the first U.S. city to tax medical marijuana and have a business tax category for pot merchants. On July 22 a 155-mi. (250km) wide 6 min. 39 sec. solar eclipse (longest of the cent. because the Earth is at the farthest part of its orbit) sweeps across India and China, stirring ancient superstitions. On July 22 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton visits Bangkok, Thailand, saying that the U.S. will consider creating a defense umbrella over the Persian Gulf region if Iran keeps developing nukes, and signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, originally drawn up by the Assoc. of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1976, then signed by China and India in 2003, Russia and South Korea in 2004, and Australia in 2005, with the soundybte that it is "a very strong statement on behalf of our administration that the United States intends to be a very active presence in the region." On July 22 despite intensive NRA lobbying, the U.S. Senate by one vote (58-39) defeats a tacked-on provision to their $680B defense authorization bill that would allow certain gun owners to carry concealed weapons across state lines - shoot? On July 22 Pres. Obama gives a press conference to boost his struggling health care reform program, in which he mentions the July 16 arrest of famed black Harvard prof. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (1950-) in his own house near the Harvard campus after being investigated for being a burglar and cleared after producing an ID, the white policeman Sgt. James Crowley trumping up "disorderly conduct" charges for "exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior" just for mouthing off to him and other trespassing gun-wagging cops who refuse to produce their badge numbers so he could identify them later, Obama saying that the police "acted stupidly"; although the charges were dropped, and no charges filed against the police, Gates goes on to speak out against police racial profiling and demand an apology, raising a nat. firestorm of controversy in the PC press, with Obama sticking to his guns and the police backing each other up, and Crowley calling Obama "way off base", after which Obama calls Crowley and says he should have used different words to avoid inflaming the controversy, but stops short of apologizing to Da Man, and on July 25 Obama invites both of them to the White House for a 1-hour Beer Summit on July 30 in an attempt to get it behind him; the open statements to the press by Crowley that he would arrest anybody who was "loud and boisterous" (i.e., mouths off to him) in the future raises profound constitutional questions (three strikes of mouthing off to a cop and you get life?); Gates goes for Red Stripe, Obama for Bud Light, and Crowley for Blue Moon; on July 30 Boston policeman Justin Barrett (1973-) is suspended for sending an email calling Gates a "jungle monkey", and later fired; meanwhile Lucia Whalen, who made the 9/11 call speaks to the press on July 29, saying she is pained by being called a racist and didn't actually know or describe Gates as black. On July 23 Georgian pres. (since 2004) Mikheil Saakashvili (1967-) asks visiting U.S. pres. Joe Biden for military aid, advanced weaponry and unarmed observers, but Biden won't bite, although he promises U.S. support. On July 23 44 N.J. politicians, incl. three mayors and five rabbis are arrested in a 10-year federal corruption sting called Operation Bid Rig. On July 24 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga. predict that up to 40% of Americans could get swine flu this year and next, and several hundred thousands could die without a successful vaccine campaign. On July 25 Pres. Obama tries to get back on track after the Gates incident, with the Congressional Budget Office saying that his program would save $2B over the next decade in Medicare costs. On July 25 Iran's Rev. Guards announce that they will hit Israel's atomic sites with its missiles if attacked first by any of Israel's three German-built subs, with RG CIC Mohammad Ali Jafari uttering the soundbyte that Iran "was not scared" of Israel's nukes, adding "It's part of the pyschological war that the West has launched against Iran." On July 26 supporters of Mir Hossei Moussavi hold rallies in dozens of cities worldwide demanding release of jailed activists and an end to the crackdown. On July 26 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton tells the press that the Obama admin. views Russia as a "great power" in an attempt to defuse statements by vice-pres. Joe Biden that it is saddled with deepening economic problems and backward-looking leadership. On July 26 Pawn Stars debuts on History Channel (until ?), set at the World Famous Gold and Silver Pawn Shop in Las Vegas, Nev., operated by Richard "Old Man" Harrison (1941-), his son Rick Harrison (1965-), his grandson Corey "Big Hoss" Harrison, and Correy's friend Austin "Chumlee" Russell (1982-), becoming the network's #1 show. On July 26-27 the largest gathering of the Scottish clans in 200 years sees 400K kilt-clad Scots from around the world make merry in Edinburgh to celebrate the 250th anniv. of the birth of poet Robert Burns; Prince Charles opens the event; 125 of 500 clans incl. 85 clan chiefs attend. On July 27-30 U.S. drug czar (since May 7) Richard Gil Kerlikowske (1949-) meets with Mexican atty.-gen. Eduardo Medina Mora (1957-) to discuss the Mexican drug war. On July 28 the U.S. and China conclude their first annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue, agreeing on a broad framework of cooperation, incl. maintaining stimulus spending and supporting free trade, with vice-PM Wang Qishan uttering the soundbyte "As a major reserve currency-issuing country in the world, the United States should properly balance and properly handle the impact of the dollar supply on the domestic economy and the world economy as a whole." On July 28 Google reaches an agreement with publishers to make scanned books available online in return for 63% of their revenue. On July 29 the U.S. Health Protection Agency sends a confidential letter to 600 senior neurologists warning that the new swine flu vaccine has been linked to the deadly nerve disease called the Guillain-Barre Syndrome; the public doesn't find out about it until Aug. 15. On June 29 Am. hikers Shane Bauer, Josh Fattal, and Sarah Shourd are arrested at the Iranian-Iraqi border in Iraqi Kurdistan and held in Tehran for 11 mo. before being released on May 21, 2010. On July 30 Nigerian security forces raid the compound of a militant Islamic sect in Maiduguri in N Nigeria, killing 100, incl. Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf (b. 1970); imam Abubakar Shekau Bin Muhammad becomes the leader of Boko Haram (until ?). On July 30 rumors that a Quran had been defaced at a Christian wedding in Korian, Pakistan in Punjab province causes a mob of 800 Muslims on Aug. 1 to attack Christians in the nearby town of Gojra, Pakistan, looting and burning homes and burning eight Christians alive, followed by Christmas death threats; since blasphemy carries the death penalty, they are just doing Allah's work? - another reason not to allow mass Muslim immigration into any Western country? On July 31 bombs explode near five Shiite mosques around Bag Dead during prayer services, killing 29 followers of anti-U.S. cleric Moqtata al-Sadr, who accuses the Iraq govt. of being behind it; between June 30 and Aug. 11 566 Iraqis have been killed, mostly Shiites; meanwhile longtime region underclass Shiites are talking their followers into showing retraint by not responding with violence? In July Pres. Obama nominates Francis S. Collins, co-leader of the Human Genome Project to head the Nat. Institutes of Health (NIH), stirring controversy because of his non-PC belief in God; meanwhile a Pew Research Center Survey reveals that 1 in 3 scientists believe in God, vs. 83% of the gen. pop., about the same as the 1920s. In July Microsoft Corp. and Yahoo Corp. launch a 10-year deal to challenge market leader Google with their Bing search engine; when the deal contains no upfront payments to Yahoo, its stock falls 12%. In July U.S. casualties drop to an all-time low of six soldiers and a U.S. Marine, only four in combat related circumstances. In July U.S. personal bankruptcy filings reach 126,434, the highest total since the implementation of the Oct. 2005 U.S. Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. In late July noctilucent clouds begin to be observed S of the the polar regions for the first time, incl. Paris, Seattle, and Omaha; the first were observed in 1885; a scientific explanation is not forthcoming; a sign of global warming? On Aug. 1 Switzerland begins a Big Brother program of intercepting all Internet traffic in real time from a central location. On Aug. 1 100 Iran puts 100+ political activists, incl. several prominent politicians on trial for protesting the election, where several give lengthy confessions praising Imadinnajacket and claiming that his June 12 election was legit - just take that soldering iron out of my anus? On Aug. 1 members of the Iraq-based People's Mujahedeen of Iran, dedicated to the overthrow of the 1979 Islamic rev. govt. in Tehran go on a hunger strike near the White House to protest the death of at least six members (ends ?). On Aug. 2 U.S. treasury secy. Timothy Geithner appears on This Week with George Stephanopoulos on ABC-TV, and reveals that the Obama campaign promise to not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $250K is now being reconsidered, causing the White House to backpedal and reaffirm the campaign promise. On Aug. 2 the White House announces that it will award a Pres. Medal of Freedom to former Irish pres. (1990-7) Mary Robinson (1944-), a longtime opponent of the state of Israel and backer of the 2001 Durban Conference Against Racism that came out against Israel and the U.S. walked out of, creating a firestorm of controversy, incl. the Repub. Jewish Coalition coming out against it. On Aug. 3 a tribal attack in a fishing village in SE Sudan over cattle and territorial rights kills 185+, making 1K for the year. On Aug. 3 a remote-controlled bomb set by the Taliban kills 10 civilians and two police and critically injures a police chief in Herat in W Afghanistan. On Aug. 3 Der Spiegel reveals that the Roman Catholic Pax Bank in Germany bought stocks in defense, tobacco, and birth control cos., causing it to issue a public apology since it had advertised that it never does such things. On Aug. 3 the Chinese govt. seals off the town of Ziketan in Tibet after three die and eight are infected with a pneumonic plague. On Aug. 3 Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez signs a letter of approval giving Iran financial help to build nukes. On Aug. 4 (Pres. Obama's birthday) ex-U.S. pres. Bill Clinton arrives in North Korea on his first diplomatic mission, quickly negotiating the release of U.S. Current TV journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling, succeeding where his wife Hillary (who on Aug. 26 called the North Koreans "unruly children") couldn't because old fart Dear Leader Kim Jong-il wanted to be seen with handsome in public, and he wanted a chance to get back in the spotlight, despite torpoeding all efforts at isolating North Korea? On Aug. 4 U.S. Sen. (R-N.H.) Judd Gregg of the Senate Budget Committee utters the soundbyte "We're going to be like a banana republic in 10 years" if the fiscal situation stays on the same track, saying that "Cash for Clunkers" and like programs could consume up to 80% of the total U.S. economic output via federal spending, adding "Sure, Americans want the program, but if you do stop and think about it, is it right to do for our children?" On Aug. 4 (8:15 p.m.) bald love-frustrated George Sodini walks into the LA Fitness gym in Bridgeville (near Pittsburgh), Penn., turns off the lights, and opens fire on a women's Latin dance class, firing 50 rounds and killing three and wounding 10 before committing suicide, leaving a blog at georgesodini.com, telling how no woman has wanted him for many years, and that unless he beds a babe soon he will soon see God and Jesus, and won't go to Hell because "Eternal life does not depend on works... Christ paid for every sin" - he should have been born a Muslim? On Aug. 4 two first-line Akula-class Russian subs are reported patrolling off the E coast of the U.S., raising eyebrows, because ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union the Russian Navy has been nearly kaput - another Hunt for Red October? On Aug. 4 Australian Muslims Wissam Mahmoud Fattal (1976-), Saney Edow Aweys (1983-), and Nayef El Sayed (1984-) are arrested for planning a jihadist attack on the Holsworthy army barracks in Sydney, planning to kill up to 500 before running out of ammo; they are convicted on Dec. 24, 2010; a Muslim who warned the govt. about it is found not guilty. On Aug. 5 Dem. Senate campaign chief Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) tells ABC News' "Top Line" that Repubs. are risking an electoral backlash by opposing the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor in large numbers, and that her "impeccable credentials" have contributed to "a moment of pride for the Hispanic community throughout this country"; she is confirmed on Aug. 6, and when only 9 of 40 Repub. Senators vote for her, Hispanic leaders go to work to make his warning come true? On Aug. 5 Iranian pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad takes his oath of office for his 2nd term despite all the protests and repression, incl. shouts of "death to the dictator". On Aug. 5 (1 a.m.) a U.S. Predator drone kills Pakistani tribal leader Baitullah Mehsud at his father-in-law's house in South Waziristan; it also takes out seven bodyguards, his wife, and 25 others; on Aug. 22 his deputy Hakimullah Mehsud (1979-2013) is appointed the new leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban by the 42-member shura (until Nov. 1, 2013). On Aug. 5 after resigning in Apr. to hold elections on June 6, Gen. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (1956-) becomes pres. of Mauritania (until ?). On Aug. 5 the Nat. Inst. on Drug Abuse (NIA) makes an offer to produce and distribute large quantities of marijuana cigarettes for purposes other than research. On Aug. 6 on an 11-day tour of seven countries in Africa, U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton speaks in Kenya, saying that it is a "great regret" that the U.S. is not a member of the Internat. Criminal Court that tries people for genocide and crimes against humanity - if it joined then every U.S. politician back to George Washington would be indicted? On Aug. 6 the super-popular Twitter Web site becomes the victim of a denial of service attack, causing a Tweetapocalypse and Tweet withdrawal systems for 45M visitors; as attacks continue for days, it is traced to attempts to shut down the Web pages of a prof. from the Repub. of Ga. who is trying to explain the history of the war with Russia? On Aug. 7 three more regional U.S. banks fail, bring the total to 72, almost tripling the 2008 total of 25. On Aug. 7 Typhoon Morakot hits Taiwan, killing 600 via mudslides. On Aug. 7 before leaving for Mexico, Pres. Obama meets with Hispanic media outlets and announces that he won't push immigration reform until next year despite his promise to do it this year; he also jokes about himself being called an illegal immigrant. On Aug. 7 Sarah Palin posts on Facebook, saying that Pres. Obama's health care plan that incl. regular physician consultations with the elderly will turn into a "death panel" that decides whether they should be euthanized; after many of her supporters call her comments nuts, she backs down a little, claiming she was talking about the Medical advisory Board and forecasted declines in Medicare spending, and tries to change the subject, only to see Sen. (R-Iowa) Charles Grassley tell voters: "You have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life, you should have done that 20 years before, should not have a government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma"; Rahm Emanuel's physician brother Ezekiel J. "Zek" Emanuel (1957-) (an Obama adviser) is a leading opponent of state-assisted suicide, and a backer of Obama's health care program, and known for a 1996 report in which he proposed that health services should be socially guaranteed to those who are capable of being participative citizens, and not guaranteed to those with dementia; on Aug. 11 Obama gives a town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., claiming that the Am. Assoc. of Retired Persons (AARP) backs his plan, causing them to state that they haven't endorsed it. On Aug. 8 a riot by 1.3K of 5.9K inmates at overcrowded Chino Prison 40 mi. E of Los Angeles, Calif. sparked by racial tensions between blacks and Latinos injures almost 200 inmates; a federal 3-judge panel ordered Calif. to reduce prison pop. less than 2 weeks earlier. On Aug. 8 (11 a.m.) a tourist heli and small plane collide over the Hudson River in New York City, killing nine, becoming the city's worst air disaster of the narrow air corridor there. On Aug. 9 Saudi al-Qaida member Abdullah Hassan al-Asiri (b. 1986) attempts to assassinate deputy interior minister Prince Muhammad bin Nayef bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, and is killed by his own 1 lb. anus bomb, leaving the prince with a bandage on two fingers of his left hand - imagine that? On Aug. 9 Mark Burnett's reality series Shark Tank debuts on ABC-TV for ? episodes, based on the 2001 Japanese show "Tigers of Money", featuring investor angels hearing pitches from entrepreneurs than fighting to invest at the lowest possible price; investors incl. Terence Thomas Kevin O'Leary (1954-), Robert Herjavec (1962-), and Daymond John (1969-). On Aug. 9-10 the 4th Annual North Am. Leader's (Three Amigos) Summit in Guadalajara, Mexico is attended by Pres. Obama, Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon, Canadian PM Stephen Harper, who discuss the H1N1 virus problem and trade issues, stirring fears of a horrible secret North Am. Union. On Aug. 10 yet more bombs hit Shiite areas of Baghdad, Iraq, killing 33 more, bringing the total to 100+ in four days in Irock. On Aug. 10 U.S. gen. Stanley McChrystal tells the press that the Taliban have advanced out of their old strongholds in S and E Afghanistan, and are gaining the upper hand as they move N and W; no surprise, in Sept. he releases a 66-page document saying that unless he gets 45K more troops within the next year, the 8-year conflict "will likely result in failure"; on Sept. 21 he orders the troops to pull out of rural areas and concentrate on protecting major urban centers; meanwhile U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, retired lt. gen. Karl W. Eikenberry thinks that more troops should be conditioned on the Afghan govt. meeting benchmarks. On Aug. 10 Hillary Clinton gets ballsy, er, testy after a Congolese univ. student asks what her hubby Bill thinks about a multibillion dollar Chinese loan offer to Congo, replying "My husband is not secretary of state, I am. I am not going to be channeling my husband"; Bill's recent triumph in North Korea has gotten under her skin?; later it is revealed that the translator made a mistake, and should have said Pres. Obama not Bill Clinton; on Aug. 11 she sees evidence of the brutality in E Congo, incl. violent rapes, and is visibly shaken, calling it "evil in its basest form". On Aug. 11 after a public outcry, the House cancels plans to spend $550M on passenger jets for lawmakers and senior govt. officials. On Aug. 11 the U.S. returns $2.4M to Mexico's tax admin. that it seized during an investigation into smuggled oil, revealing that U.S. refineries bought millions of dollars worth of oil stolen from Mexican govt. pipelines and smuggled by Mexican drug cartels, hurting the Mexican oil monopoly Pemex, whose production fell 7.5% in the first half of the year; meanwhile on Aug. 11 a federal indictment is brought against the Salt Lake City, Utah Alcala Law Firm and others for conspiring to get illegal visas for Mexican workers in Utah. On Aug. 11 Yemen launches Operation Scorched Earth in order to end the 5-y.-o. Iranian-backed Zaydi Shiite Houthi uprising in the N province of Sa'da; on Nov. 9 fighting in N Yemen between Shiite Houthi rebels and Saudi border guards erupts when Houthis attack a Saudi border post, killing one guard and injuring 11, drawing the Saudi govt. into the fight, which spends 3 mo. to clear the border area, with 100+ Saudi casualties, causing 240 villages to be evacuated and 50 schools to be closed; the Sunni-Shiite war could eventually drag the U.S. and Russia into war? On Aug. 12 U.S. Lt. Gen. Rick Lynch tells the press that he's urging the military to deploy more unmanned vehicles on the ground to go with the unmanned drones, with the soundbyte "Let's get those kids out of the vehicles" in Iraq and Afghanistan - one day the U.S. military will consist of robot soldiers commanded by human officers? On Aug. 12 a battle between Philippine troops and Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas in Basilan Island kills 53+, incl. 30 guerrillas. On Aug. 12 Bishop Edir Macedo and nine others linked to the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Brazil are charged with siphoning billions of dollars in donations from mostly poor followers for personal use. On Aug. 12 Pres. Obama awards the Medal of Freedom to 16 "agents of change", incl. Billie Jean King, Sidney Poitier, Ted Kennedy, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Sandra Day O'Connor, homeless medical care leader Pedro Jose "Joe" Greer Jr., Mary Robinson (protested by Jewish orgs.), Stephen Hawking, Chita Rivera, Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh, even two posth. ones to Harvey Milk and Repub. rep. Jack Kemp (token white guy?). On Aug. 13 a double suicide bombing in the Kurdish-speaking Yazidi city of Sinjar in a cafe packed with young people in NW Iraq kills 21; four suicide truck bombers already took out the nearby village of Qhataniya on Aug. 14, 2007, killing 500 Yazidis. On Aug. 13 25K demonstrate in Copenhagen, Denmark over the forced deportation of a group of 121 Iraqi refugees, who were arrested by the police as they took refuge in Brorson Church the previous night. On Aug. 14 the govt. of Russian-controlled South Ossetia asks residents to turn in their weapons, prosecuting 50 for illegal possession and offering a $300-$400 reward for each Kalashnikov rifle. On Aug. 14 Pakistan lifts a ban on political activity in its tribal regions near the Afghan border, granting them parliamentary rep in hopes of reducing the influence of the Taliban. On Aug. 14 the militant Islamist Jund Ansar Allah org. (founded Nov. 2008) based in Rafah, Gaza Strip declares an Islamic emirate in the Palestinian territories, causing Hamas to attack it, killing 24 incl. leader Sheikh Abdel Latif Moussa (b. 1959) on Aug. 15. On Aug. 14 Venezuela okays a new education law mandating the teaching of Hugo Chavez' Bolivarian Doctrine (based on Simon Bolivar, featuring nat. self-determination and Latin Am. unity), causing cries of indoctrination in Socialism. On Aug. 14 the Australian high court grants quadraplegic Christian Rossiter (1960-) the right to refuse food and water and die without his nursing facility being held criminally liable. On Aug. 15 a Taliban suicide car bomb near the main gate of the NATO-led internat. mission in Kabul kills three Afghans and wounds 70. On Aug. 15 despite the military retaking the area, a suicide car bomber in the Swat Valley of NW Pakistan kills five. On Aug. 15 Pres. Obama hosts a town-hall meeting in Grand Junction, Colo., being greeted by protesters outside, where a univ. student asks him how private insurers can compete with the govt., causing him to reply that the "public option" (a new govt. insurance program similar to Medicare) is only a small piece of his health care reform program, and he mainly wants to control costs, expand coverage, protect consumers, and improve efficiency; on Aug. 16 U.S. HHS secy. Kathleen Sebelius tells CNN Sun. Morning that the public option "is not the essential element"; too bad, later that day White House health reform comm. dir. Linda Douglass releases a statement saying "Nothing has changed. The president... believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals"; later U.S. Sen. (D-N.D.) (since 1987) Kent Conrad (1948-) proposes govt.-funded private cooperatives as an alternative to a govt. plan; meanwhile new Canadian Medical Assoc. pres. Anne Doig admits that Canadian patients get less than optimal care, and says that the system is "imploding". On Aug. 17 a Muslim suicide truck bomber at a police HQ in the main city of Nazran, Ingushetia kills 20 and wounds 118, becoming the deadliest attack in the North Caucasus region since 2005; the Muslims are lapping at the S flank of Russia? On Aug. 17 Sunni Muslim Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan militant party leader Ali Sher Haideri is shot and killed in a sectarian attack in Khairpur, Pakistan (150 mi. NE of Karachi). On Aug. 17 Albert Gonzales and two Russians are indicted for stealing 130M+ credit and debit card numbers in 2006-8 in the largest hacking and ID theft case ever prosecuted (until ?). On Aug. 17 John Morton, new head (since May) of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announces that he has ended quotas on illegal immigrants who have ignored deportation orders, and will target those who already have had their day in court. On Aug. 17 the Obama admin. announces that the 1996 U.S. Defense of Marriage Act that denies benefits to gay domestic partners of federal employees and allows states to reject same-sex marriages performed in other states should be repealed, er, repealed. On Aug. 17 Hurricane Bill (first hurricane of the 2009 Atlantic season) heads toward Bermuda; meanwhile Tropical Storm Ana dissipates. On Aug. 17 al-Qaida in Indonesia drops a planned Mumbai-style rifle-grenade assault on Indonesian pres. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and other nat. leaders on Indonesian independence day. On Aug. 17 the identity of anonymous blogger of Skanks in NYC is ordered revealed by New York Supreme Court judge Joan Madden for comments about Canadian-born model Luskula Cohen (1972-), incl. "skank", "ho", and "psychotic"; after Fashion Inst. of Tech. student Rosemary Port is unmasked, Cohen decides to drop her defamation suit, saying she just wanted to make a point, after which Port announces her intention of suing Google for $15M because it "breached its fiduciary duty to protect her expectation of anononymity". On Aug. 18 the Armed Dozen, a group of pro-gun rights demonstrators carry firearms outside Pres. Obama's health care rally in Phoenix, Ariz., where "open carry" is legal throughout the state; one named Chris carries an automatic AR-15 rifle, calling it a "publicity stunt", with the soundbyte "We will forcefully resist people imposing their will on us through the strength of the majority with a vote," Chris later tells an Obama supporter in the video... Just because you sic the government on people doesn't make it morally okay to steal money from people. Taxation is theft"; the NRA claims to be embarrassed by then; back in 1996 Pres. Clinton praised law enforcement for arresting the 12-man Viper Militia in Phoenix for doing even less? On Aug. 18 a suicide car bomber kills 7+ in Kabul, while a Taliban rocket hits the pres. palace grounds as violence across Afghanistan precedes the election; on Aug. 19 gunmen storm a bldg. in Kabul and battle police for hours, becoming the 3rd attack in Kabul in five days; on Aug. 20 elections in Afghanistan reelect pres. Hamid Karzai to a 2nd term, although his chief rival Abdullah Abdullah (1960-) also claims a V; Afghan women stay away from the polls; meanwhile the U.S. reveals a plan to make finance minister Ashraf Ghani into a chief exec serving beneath him; too bad, after a U.N. team does a recount and uncovers massive voter fraud of 1M votes for Karzai, lowering his total from 54% to 48.3% on Oct. 19, a new election is called for on Nov. 7, causing Karzai to question the reliability of the U.S. as a partner on Oct. 25; on Nov. 1 Double Abdullah drops out of the runoff election, and calls Karzai's reelection illegal. On Aug. 18 (07:40 GMT) South Korea launches its first satellite, the $400M Naro-1, pissing-off North Korea. On Aug. 18 Pres. Obama holds talks with Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak in Washington, D.C., hoping to unstall the Middle East peace process. On Aug. 18 a senior Iranian official announces that Iran is ready for negotiations with the West on its nuclear program based on mutual respect and without preconditions; meanwhile RPGs and other weapons are found on an Australian cargo vessel en route from North Korea that is searched by the UAE, which Iranian officials deny are bound for them, calling it all a "Zionist plot". On Aug. 19 a series of explosions kills 75+ and wounds 300+ in C Baghdad, Iraq, becoming the deadliest day since U.S. troops left in June, and showing that without the U.S. the Iraq govt. is doomed? On Aug. 19 an ABC News-Washington Post Poll reveals that a majority (51%) of the U.S. pop. thinks that the Afghanistan War is not worth fighting; 47% thinks it is. On Aug. 20 pres. Imadinnajacket picks Ahmad Vahidi as the new Iranian defense minister; he is suspected to be an internat. terrorist connected with the 1994 attack on a Jewish community center in Argentina; criticism of his appointment is called a "Zionist plot" - and now you get to obliterate Israel itself with our new nukes? On Aug. 20 Chilean authorities that they have detected the H1N1 swine flu in turkeys, becoming the first time it's been detected outside humans and pigs - the real Fifth Element? On Aug. 20 after thuggish threats from Muammar Gaddafi (revealed by WikiLeaks in Nov. 2010), Abdel Basset Ali Mohammed al-Megrahi, the only person convicted for the 1988 Lockerbie, Scotland jet bombing arrives in Libya to cheers after only serving eight years of his 27-year min. sentence for murdering 270 infidels because he has terminal prostate cancer, drawing criticism from FBI dir. Robert Mueller, U.S. JCS Adm. Mike Mullen et al., along with the victims' families, putting Scottish justice secy. Kenny MacAskill on the grill for making the decision to free the bum; in Dec. it is revealed that he had a Ł1.8M Swiss bank account, raising the suspicion of payoff money, although the evidence wasn't used at his trial; BP (British Petroleum) is later revealed to have lobbied for release of Libyan terrorist (but of course not him) in order to obtain a 2009 oil lease for the huge Rumaila oilfield (partnering with CNPC of China), which compensates them even when oil is not being produced; by 2010 it becomes obvious that the original 3-mo. lifespan prognostication is way off, causing renewed outcries; British ex-PM Tony Blair flew to Tripolo last June 10 to meet with Daffy to arrange a Ł400M arms export deal first?; meanwhile Libyan nutcase leader (since 1969) Muammar (al-) Gaddafi (1942-2011) (celebrating his 40th anniv. in power) plans to visit the U.S. for the first time in Sept., being refused permission to pitch his Bedouin tent in New York's Central Park then settling for Englewood, N.J., pissing-off state residents, who lost 38 in the Lockerbie bombing; meanwhile Daffy Duck quacks, er, calls for the dismemberment of Switzerland for mistreating his son Motassim "Hannibal" Bilal Gaddafi last year, then gives a nutty U.N. speech on Sept. 23, saying that Obama should be pres. for life, and that the H1N1 virus was created by the military, demanding $7.7T reparations to Africa for Euro colonialism, uttering the soundbyte "What's next, fish flu?" - they should have put a bomb on the bum's plane to Libya, and another on Daffy's plane to New York, and a 3rd guess where? On Aug. 20 a new Zogby Poll is released, showing Pres. Obama's voter approval sliding to 45.3%, with only 37.5% of independents approving of his handling of his job. On Aug. 20 Mexico enacts a new Drug Decriminalization Law, setting maximum "personal use" limits for LSD, marijuana, cocaine, meth, heroin et al.; too bad, they still require mandatory treatment if you're cited for a 3rd time, and actually make possession of all but miniscule amounts a prosecutable offense; meanwhile on Aug. 24 the supreme court of Argentina rules it unconstitutional to punish an adult for private use of marijuana. On Aug. 20 Hustler pub. Larry Flynt pub. an article titled Common Sense 2009, calling for a 1-day gen. strike throughout the U.S., with the soundbyte "The American government - which we once called our government - has been taken over by Wall Street, the mega-corporations and the super-rich. They are the ones who decide our fate. It is this group of powerful elites, the people President Franklin D. Roosevelt called "economic royalists", who choose our elected officials - indeed, our very form of government. Both Democrats and Republicans dance to the tune of their corporate masters. In America, corporations do not control the government. In America, corporations are the government. This was never more obvious than with the Wall Street bailout, whereby the very corporations that caused the collapse of our economy were rewarded with taxpayer dollars. So arrogant, so smug were they that, without a moment's hesitation, they took our money - yours and mine - to pay their executives multimillion-dollar bonuses, something they continue doing to this very day. They have no shame. They don't care what you and I think about them. Henry Kissinger refers to us as 'useless eaters'." On Aug. 20 (8:30 p.m.) millions in China claim to see two huge rotating glowing mist-shrouded saucer-shaped UFOs. On Aug. 21 the U.N. Refugee Agency expresses shock at reports that a sinking boat carrying illegal immigrants from Libya is ignored by passing vessels, causing 75 of 77 to die en route to Italy. On Aug. 21 White House press. secy. Robert Gibbs says that Pres. Obama is "quite comfortable" with the prospect of being a 1-term pres. if he gets all the spending, er, issues he's concerned about passed. On Aug. 23 (Sun.) the body of pastor Carol Daniele (b. 1938) is found brutally murdered in Christ Holy Sanctified Church in Anadarko, Okla., riling people up. On Aug. 24 the Obama admin. admits that the 10-year budget deficit will be $2T more than originally forecast, reaching $9T. On Aug. 24 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. wins his argument against CIA dir. Leon E. Panetta, getting cases of suspected torture by CIA officers during the Bush admin. reopened; after former vice-pres. Dick Cheney disses Obama for it, former Repub. U.S. atty.-gen. Alberto R. Gonzales comes out in support; meanwhile on Aug. 25 Pres. Obama renominates Ben Bernanke for a 2nd term as chmn. of the Federal Reserve. On Aug. 24 pres. panel announces that H1N1 swine flu could infect half of the U.S. pop. this fall and winter, causing up to 90K deaths and hospitalizing up to 1.8M. On Aug. 24 the CIA releases its Guidelines for Interrogating High-Value Detainees, detailing methods incl. slamming their head against the wall up to 30x. On Aug. 24 Muslim model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno (1977-) becomes the first person to be caned in Malaysia for drinking beer, receiving six lashes with a rattan cane. On Aug. 25 a 16-y.-o. neo-Nazi man is arrested in a Moscow bomb plot. On Aug. 25 Britain unveils proposed laws to cut off Internet access to people who repeatedly pirate films and music, raising an outcry. On Aug. 25 Rodolphe Adada of the Repub. of the Congo, head of the U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur resigns. On Aug. 26 Franklin, Ky. circuit judge Thomas Wingate strikes down a 2006 Ky. law requiring the Ky. state office of homeland security to stress "dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth". On Aug. 27 Taiwan pres. Ma Ying-jeou decides to allow the Dalai Lama to visit, pissing-off China, whom he pleased by refusing the same trip last Dec., saying that it would ease the pain from Typhoon Marakot. On Aug. 27 Iranian supreme assaholla Ali Khamenei says that there is no proof that the reformists are working with the West, pulling the rug from under pres. Imadinnajacket's prosecutors, but plays both sides by adding "There is no doubt that the events were planned, no matter whether their leaders knew it or not." On Aug. 27 Jaycee Lee Dugard (1980-), who was abducted while waiting for a school bus at age 11 in South Lake Tahoe 18 years ago wanders into a parole office in a town near San Francisco, Calif., telling a tale of her abuser, 58-y.-o. Philip Garrido (1951-), who is arrested, and will never get out of priz alive; Voices Are Real, his non-hit song recorded in the 1980s surfaces on YouTube. On Aug. 28 a suicide bombing at the main NATO border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan kills 18+ Pakistani security officials; meanwhile the Taliban make a comeback in N Afghanistan, incl. the Baghlan, Kunduz, and Taqhar Provinces, where mainly German troops guard the N supply route that supplements the more vulneratle routes through Pakistan. On Aug. 29 leaders of 12 Latin Am. nations hold a Union of South Am. Nations (Unasur) Summit in Argentina to discuss expanding U.S.-Colombia military ties; meanwhile Venezuelan pres. Hugo Chavez accuses the U.S. of plans to topple govts. and steal the region's resources. On Aug. 30 elections in Japan are a giant V for the opposition Dem. Party, ending 54 years of 1-party rule; they were called early by PM Taro Aso after his Liberal Dem. Party (LDP) coalition lost an election on July 12 in the Tokyo metropolitan assembly election, dethroning it as the assembly's largest party; the news causes stock markets in Japan (0.4%), Germany (0.7%), France (0.6%), and China (7%) to fall; Yukio Hatoyama (1947-) becomes PM of Japan (until ?), claiming that he's not anti-American and that his vision of a future Asian community doesn't exclude the U.S., but that he is against globalism; his wife Miyuki Hatoyama claims that she was abducted by aliens; too bad, he fights against the moving of a U.S. Marine base in Okinawa, and spins U.S. diplomats around to look good to his party? On Aug. 31 Turkey and Armenia agree to establish diplomatic relations despite that little old 1915-18 Armenian genocide thingie. On Aug. 31 Disney announces plans to buy Marvel Comics for $4B, putting Spider-Man in bed with Mickey Mouse. On Aug. 31 on its 6th day after their size doubles overnight, the Calif. Staton Fire N of Los Angeles threaten 12K+ homes and kill two firefighters, burning a quarter of the LA mountain backdrop before finally being extinguised in early Oct. In Aug. a strike wave sweeps Serbia, with 33K striking daily in 40-45 mostly privatized firms that aren't paying salaries or health insurance. In Aug. the Mid-Season Review, Budget of the U.S. Govt., Fiscal Year 2010 reveals that the U.S. govt. will have to borrow 39.9% of its total expenditures in 2010. In Aug. GM signs a $293M (2B yuan) deal with Chinese automaker FAW Group to produce light commercial vehicles in Changchun and Harbin in NE China. In Aug. the SRI Internat. Report on Online Education, commissioned by the U.S. Dept. of Education finds that online education beats classroom education; no surprise, home schooled students in the U.S. outscore other students on the ACT by 22.5 to 21.1. In Aug. the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports (in Sept.) that unemployment increased by 466K, giving the U.S. a 9.7% unemployment rate, highest since 1983; the Calif. rate is 12.2%, highest since 1940. In Aug. the U.S. strikes a deal with Swiss bank UBS to reveal the names of 4,450 secret bank account holders, signaling the beginning of the end of internat. tax cheating? In Aug. the New York Taxi Scam is exposed by Dr. Mitchell Lee, who suspects a rat and reports it, causing $8.3M in inflated fares by cabbies to be exposed, incl. $40K by Lee's driver Wasim Khalid Cheema. In Aug.-Sept. the U.S. and British govt. spend millions of dollars to try to persuade Afghan farmers to give up growing poppies and substitute wheat and fruit, offering them cheap credit and jobs; the poppy planting season begins in Oct. This summer is the 4th warmest in the U.S. on record. On Sept. 1 Category 5 Hurricane Jimena races toward Baja Calif., weakening to Category 1 then killing one, a 74-y.-o. man. On Sept. 1 the FCC prohibits robo-calls on the telephone except when agreed to by the recipient; too bad, there are so many exceptions incl. bill collectors and charities that it won't change anything. On Sept. 2 the Obama admin. proposes using $85B of the stimulus money to extend tax breaks for the working poor over the next decade, causing criticism that he pleged to use it to pay for new policies. On Sept. 2 a 7.0 earthquake in Indonesia kills 33 and forces thousands to evacuate Indonesia's main island. On Sept. 2 a Taliban suicide bomber attacks officials leaving a mosque E of Kabul, killing Afghanistan's chief deputy intel chief Abdullah Laghmani plus 22 others - Afghanistan is becoming Obama's Vietnam? On Sept. 2 a dozen hooded gunmen burst into a rehabiliation clinic in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico near the U.S. border, lining up and killing 17 and wounding three patients because these clinics allegedly protect dealers from rival gangs; 10K troops and police in the city don't stop them. On Sept. 2 Obama health care reform opponent William Rice (1934-) has his finger bitten off by an Obama supporter at a vigil in Thousand Oaks, Calif. organied by MoveOn.org. On Sept. 2 U.S. drug maker Pfizer agrees to a record $2.3B health care fraud settlement - to them that's chickenfeed? On Sept. 3 after Charlie Gibson announces his intention of resigning, ABC-News announces that Diane Sawyer will replace him. On Sept. 4 a NATO air strike against two Taliban-hijacked fuel tankers in Kunduz province in N Afghanistan kills up to 142, incl. civilians who are burned alive in a giant fireball, pissing-off the Afghanis; after Taliban activity drops off, the police force is cut by one-third in 2006, leaving a few thousand German peacekeepers; too bad, they begin a resurgence in 2007; on Nov. 27 former German defense minister Franz Josef Jung resigns as employment minister, along with gen. inspector Wolfgang Schneiderhan and state secy. Peter Wichert. On Sept. 6 after conservative commentator Glenn Beck puts on the pressure, admitted ex-Communist Anthony "Van" Jones (1968-), Obama's special adviser for green jobs (since Mar.) with the White House Council on Environmental Quality resigns after Repub. pressure linking him to the 2004 9/11 Truth Statement by 911Truth.org calling for Congress to investigate whether 9/11 was caused or allowed by the govt., plus derogatory comments about Repubs. On Sept. 6 Li Zhi, secy. of the Communist Party in Urumqi, China is removed after reports of bizarre needle attacks amid the mob violence. On Sept. 7 (Mon.) the U.S. celebrates Labor Day after losing 7M jobs since the start of the recession in Dec. 2007, incl. 12% unemployment in Calif. since July and 9.7% nationwide. On Sept. 8 Pres. Obama delivers his Address to Students Across America, becoming the first U.S. pres. to speak directly to the nation's school children. On Sept. 8 Vietnamese-Am. Yale U. pharmacology student Annie Le (b. 1985) disappears from a lab, with 60 cameras showing her entering but not leaving; on Sept. 13 police find her body stuffed in a wall on the day of her planned wedding. On Sept. 8 four U.S. Marines die in an ambush in the Battle of Gangjal in E Afghanistan; Dakota L. Meyer (1988-) wins the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle. On Sept. 9 (9/9/09 - lucky day to the Chinese) U.S. defense secy. Robert M. Gates gives his first interview to al-Jazeera TV network, admitting that the U.S. made a "serious strategic mistake" when it turned its back on Afghanistan after the Soviets were defeated there, and pledging that "both Afghanistan and Pakistan can count on us for the long term" - meaning how many months? On Sept. 9 NATO troops free British NYT reporter Stephen Farrell in N Afghanistan; too bad, his colleague Mohammad Sultan Munadi plus a British soldier and civilian are killed during the rescue. On Sept. 9 the French newspaper Le Figaro carries an interview with Venezuelan pres. Hugo Chavez in which he claims that the 22-day Israeli bombing of Gaza starting last Dec. 27 that killed 1.3K Palestinians was unprovoked, and accuses Israel of genocide, calling for sanctions to be imposed; meanwhile on Sept. 9-10 Chavez visits Moscow, predicting that U.S. influence in the world is "dying" and will be replaced in "the next decades" by a "multi-polar" world led by Russia. On Sept. 9 Uruguay permits same-sex couples to adopt children. On Sept. 9 after speaking at a memorial in New York City to Walter Cronkite and calling on the media to take his lead, Pres. Obama addresses a joint session of Congress to promote his health care reform program, saying it's the "season for action", and invoking the memory of late Sen. Edward M. "Ted" Kennedy, uttering the soundbytes "A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. 65 years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session"; "I will not sign it if it adds one dime to the deficit now or in the future"; "I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last"; he gives a nod to Sen. John McCain for wanting to insure the poor against catastrophic medical expenses, and gets applause from Repubs. for endorsing medical malpractice limits, but draws silence with the soundbyte "I will not waste time with those who have made the calculation that it's better politics to kill this plan than improve it"; when he asserts that his plan won't provide coverage for illegal immigrants, Repub. S.C. Sen. (2001-) Addison Graves "Joe" Wilson Sr. (1947-) yells out "You lie", breaking House Rules Section 370, and later apologizes amid talk of censure, but only in writing, and on Sept. 15 the House votes 240-179-5 (incl. 7 of 174 Repubs. and 233 of 250 Dems.) for a resolution of disapproval; on Sept. 15 (eve.) former U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter says that much of the vitriol against Obama's health reforms and spending plans is "based on racism"; Pres. Clinton tried a similar speech in 1993, and his plan was defeated sans heckling; too bad, public support for his program (42%) does not improve after the speech; on Sept. 16 Senate Finance Committee Chmn. Max Baucus unveils a $856B health care reform plan sans Repub. support. On Sept. 10 a U.N. report recommends a new global currency to replace the ever-weakening U.S. dollar, stirring fear among Americans who know how being the world's reserve currency gives the U.S. the ability to use it as a weapon. On Sept. 10-11 inmates at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq riot, demanding better living conditions. On Sept. 11 silence is observed at 8:46, 9:03, 9:59, and 10:29 in New York City in observance of the 8th anniv. of 9/11; meanwhile as Pres. Obama is traveling to observe it, an ill-timed Coast Guard training exercise in the Potomac River near the Pentagon pisses people off. On Sept. 11 Iranian supreme you know what Ali Khamenei warns the reformists that they will face a "harsh response" if they don't give up. On Sept. 11 Harlan James Drake (1976-) drives by a school in Owosso, Mich. and guns down abortion protester James Pouillon for carrying a sign showing a fetus, then drives to a grave pit and shoots owner Mike Fuoss, finally being captured before he can pull off a 3rd planned shooting. On Sept. 11 "Lebanese Bernie Madoff" Salah Ezzedine is charged with fraud in connection with his billion-dollar pyramid scheme; he has close ties to Hezbollah, tarnishing its image as a defender of the masses. On Sept. 12 two German merchant ships traverse the fabled Northeast Passage after melting ice opens a route from South Korea along Russia's Arctic coast to Siberia. On Sept. 12 police in Baghdad, Iraq find a bomb hidden inside a Quran outside the Musa al-Khadim Shiite mosque; meanwhile two bombs go off near another Shiite mosque. On Sept. 12 Thabet bin Laden (b. ?), brother of Osama bin Laden (one of 54 children of Yemeni-born Mohammed bin Laden, who moved to Saudi Arabia and got rich in the construction biz) dies. On Sept. 12 U.S. Census worker and schoolteacher William Edwin "Bill" Sparkman Jr. (b. 1958) is found hanged in Daniel Boone Nat. Forest in SE Ky. with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest. On Sept. 12 the Taxpayer March on Washington (9/12 Tea Party) sees 200K-800K march from Freedom Plaza to the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., protesting Pres. Obama's positions on federal spending, health care reform, taxation et al. On Sept. 13 200K-500K march on Washington, D.C., incl. 75K down Pennsylvania Ave. to protest the Joker, er, Pres. Obama and the leftward direction being taken by his admin., with many calling him a Socialist or Marxist, pointing to his advisers as proof. On Sept. 13 al-Qaida terrorist Saleh Ali Nabhan is killed by U.S. forces in S Somalia; meanwhile an audio message from Osama bin Laden to the U.S. people on the anniv. of 9/11 is released, warning them to quit support Israel or else al-Qaida will proceed "on all possible fronts". On Sept. 13 the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards are hosted by Russell Brand for the 2nd straight year; 9M watch; the show is dedicated to Michael Jackson, with a video montage tribute and speech by Janet Jackson; Taylor Swift is awarded best female video for "You Belong With Me", defeating Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)", causing cognac-swigging Kanye West to storm onstage and announce that Beyonce deserved to win, then utter the soundbyte "I'mma let you finish." On Sept. 14 Pres. Obama gives a speech at Federal Hall on Wall St. near the NYSE in New York City on the 1-year anniv. of the Lehman Bros. collapse (the end of the most wealthy and happy period in U.S. history, which began with the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, after which the U.S. begins its final slide toward Da End?), pushing for more financial regulation of Wall St., tasking it for "complacency", and uttering the soundbyte "The old ways that led to this crisis cannot stand. History cannot be allowed to repeat itself"; he arrogantly gave the speech while the markets were open? On Sept. 14 after conservative activists Hannah Giles (1989-) and James E. O'Keefe III (1984-) make hidden-camera recordings in its offices being given advice on how to engage in tax evasion, human smuggling, and child prostitution, the U.S. Senate votes to end funding for the Assoc. of Community Orgs. for Reform Now (ACORN) (founded 1973 for working and non-working poor, and growing to 400K members in 100+ cities, backing Obama's campaign last year); the House follows suit on Sept. 17 by a 345-75 bipartisan vote, with #2 House Repub. Eric Cantor of Va. calling it a "corrupt organization"; on Dec. 8 a 2-mo. internal investigation by ACORN finds no evidence of criminal conduct by employees; on Dec. 11 a federal court rules that the resolution cutting them off from federal dollars is unconstitutional; it disbands in Mar. 2010 although a Congressional investigation into alleged mishandling of $40M in federal funds clears them in June 2010. On Sept. 14 Pres. Obama nominates Jewish-Am. atty. Chai Rachel Feldblum (1959-) to the EEOC, becoming the first open lesbian or gay. On Sept. 15 Federal Reserve chmn. Ben S. Bernanke announces that the recession is "very likely over". On Sept. 15 JCS chmn. U.S. Adm. Michael Mullen tells the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that the U.S. "probably" needs to send more troops to Afghanistan. On Sept. 15 Omar Khalafe (b. 1940) is murdered by Islamic Al-Shabaab fighters near Merca, Somalia (45 mi. from Mogadishu) for distributing Christian Bibles; on Nov. 28 they seize a town close to the Kenyan border, driving out the rival Hizbu-Islam Islamic guerrilla separatist movement and consolidating control over the strategic Juba region, with Sheikh Mukhtar Abdurahman Abu Zubayr, leader of the Islamist group Al-Shabaab warning 5K African Union peacekeepers to leave Somalia or attacks will be intensified. On Sept. 15 after an investigation by the 3-person U.N. Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict incl. pro-Palestinian Desmond de Silva, who on Sept. 28 utters the soundbyte "Even if Bin Laden himself was on board the Mavi Marmara, it wouldn't have made the blockade legal", the 575-page Goldstone Report, by the U.N. Human Rights Council led by Jewish South African ex-judge Richard Joseph Goldstone (1938-) is released, accusing both Israel and Hamas of war crimes, saying that both sides had committed violations of the laws of war, and that while Israel had provocation it overreacted with disproportionate force, targeting Palestinian civilians and infrastructure, even using some as human shields, pissing-off the Israelis; it is approved on Sept. 29, after which in Oct. Palestinian Nat. Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas (a U.S. ally) is accused of colluding with both the U.S. and Israel by deliberately ignoring it; on Oct. 8 Libya asks the U.N. Security Council to consider it in an emergency session; on Oct. 16 British Col. Richard Kemp testifies before the U.N. Human Rights Council that "The Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population"; on Apr. 1, 2011 Goldstone recants the report, partly blaming israel for not cooperating with the HRC; meanwhile the Israeli govt. considers restricting travel by its officials and military personnel to Europe for fear of arrest as war criminals, and Hamas asks for postponement of a planned Oct. 24-26 ceremony in Cairo to sign a reconciliation pact with Fatah over the report, while Iranian pres. Inastraightjacket says that the West has been using psychological weapons that coverup how Palestians not Israelis are the real victims; on Oct. 12-16 Turkey pulls out of the EU, citing the Gaza atrocities, signaling the rejection of Kemal Ataturk's pro-Western secular Islam and the acceptance of radical fundamental Islam as it turns against its former allies Israel and the U.S. bigtime and openly courts Hamas, Syria, Iran, Hezbollah, and al-Qaida; the B'Tselem group in Israel, which is against Israeli anti-terror actions supplies info. to use in the study; in Oct. it is revealed that the Goldstone Report was initiated by the anti-Israel Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC) (founded 1969), known for trying to criminalize any criticism of Islam or Muslims worldwide as part of a "stealth jihad"; on Nov. 7 the U.S. Congress votes 344-36 to condemn the report, after which the Obama admin. pressures Israel to accept U.N. oversight of its military for the first time ever; on Dec. 14 a London court issues an arrest warrant for former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, causing her to cancel a planned visit, after which the British govt. apologizes and foreign secy. David Miliband says that the govt. will change its laws to prevent any more warrants being put out on Israeli officials, causing the Muslim Council of Britain to loudly complain; in May 2010 pro-Israeli activists ban him from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah in Johannesburg. On Sept. 16 Afghan-born Muslim Denver, Colo. shuttle bus driver Najibullah Zazi (1985-) and his aunt Rabia Zazi of Aurora, Colo. are questioned by the FBI about terrorist ties, and their homes searched; after hours of questioning he admits "possible" al-Qaida links, and on Sept. 24 he is charged with a conspiracy to use bombs made from chemicals purchased at beauty supply stores; on Feb. 22 he pleads guilty; on Mar. 5 Afghan-born Queens, N.Y. imam Ahmad Wais Afazli (1970-) pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about tipping them off about police investigation, and is deported - the Al-Shampoo Bomber? On Sept. 16 AFL-CIO head (since 1995) John Sweeny resigns, and his long-time lt. Richard Louis Trumka (1949-) (UMW pres. from 1982-95, who presided over its virtual destruction?) is elected to replace him as pres. #4 (until ?). On Sept. 16 the U.S. military announces the closing of Camp Bucca, a large prison in S Iraq, turning it over to the Iraq govt., who takes custody of all but 180 of the detainees. On Sept. 17 a suicide bomber attacks a convoy of Italian NATO soldiers in the heart of Kaboom, er, Kabul, Afghanistan, killing six, plus 10 civilians; 50+ are injured; the 3rd suicide bomb in Kabul in the last five weeks. On Sept. 17 the Obama admin. announces that it is shelving the Bush admin. plan for a missile defense system for Poland and the Czech Repub., saying that the Iranian Shish-Kebab, er, Shebab-3 ballistic missile isn't developed enough to be a threat, pleasing Russia greatly, with State Duma foreign affairs committee head Konstantin Kosachev uttering the soundbyte "The U.S. president's decision is a well-thought and systematic one. Now we can talk about restoration of strategic partnership between Russia and the United States"; U.S. Navy ships based in the Mediterranean and North Sea will plug the gap; Obama's ties to Gen. Electric are behind the decision? On Sept. 17 U.S. official Bisa Williams meets with Cuban officials to resume bilateral mail service, then is invited to stay for six days. On Sept. 18 suicide bombers from the Islamic Al-Shabaab insurgent group in cars with U.N. logos kill 11 at the main base of African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu, Somalia in revenge for a U.S. raid that killed al-Qaida leader Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in S Somalia on Sept. 14. On Sept. 18 a suicide car bomber in Kohat, Pakistan (100 mi. SW of Islamabad) kills 33 and wounds 80 shoppers stocking up for a holiday. On Sept. 18 Islamic terrorist leader Noordin Muhammed Top is killed in Solo, Indonesia to get even for the Bali night club bombings. On Sept. 18 tens of thousands of opposition protesters march in Tehran, Iran, hijacking a govt.-organized anti-Israel march. On Sept. 18 Obama foreign policy adviser Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski (1928-) suggests to The Daily Beast that Obama shoot down Israeli planes if they fly over Iraqi airspace to attack Iran, and complains that he is "diddling around", trying to reach an "evasive compromise" on the Israeli-Arab problem. On Sept. 19 al-Qaida releases a video warning the German people that unless they elect a govt. that withdraws its troops from Afghanistan on Sept. 27 they will stage attacks in Germany, causing rumor of a German 9/11. On Sept. 20 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, referring to his 2004 anti-nuke fatwa announces on TV that Iran isn't developing nukes, saying "We fundamentally reject nuclear weapons and prohibit their use and production"; the Obama admin.'s Euro shield was designed to protect against Iranian nuclear missiles. On Sept. 20 the nat. flag of the Communist People's Repub. of China is hoisted on the South Lawn of the White House to celebrate Red China's 60th anniv.; on Sept. 22 Pres. Obama meets with Chinese pres. Hu Jintao in New York City to discuss the new U.S. tariffs on Chinese tires - and we intend to stay? On Sept. 21 U.S. FCC chmn. Julius Genachowski proposes that his agency expand and take control, er, formalize rules to keep Internet providers from discriminating against certain content - the first step along the road to total govt. control of the Internet? On Sept. 21 the govt. of Paraguay names Augusto Noguera as its top diplomatic official in New York City, only to find out that he's an illegal U.S. immigrant and reverse the decision. On Sept. 22 three vans loaded with scores of Mexicans try to run the U.S.-Mexico border at San Diego, Calif., causing U.S. customs agents to fire on the van and close down the station, wounding the driver and a passenger, after which two Mexican men are arrested on federal human trafficking charges. On Sept. 22 the legal-political drama The Good Wife debuts on CBS-TV for 156 episodes (until May 8, 2016), starring Julianna Luisa Margulies (1966-) as atty.-turned-mother Alicia Florrick, whose hubby Peter is in jail for a political corruption and sex scandal, causing her to return to her old job. On Sept. 23 Pres. Obama delivers his first speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, saying that he intends to begin a "new era of engagement" with the world based on "mutual respect", and that the task of solving global crises "cannot be solely America's endeavor"; he meets with Russian pres. Dmitry Medvedev and gets a concession to consider tough new sanctions against Iran and support him on Sept. 27 as he chairs a historic meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council (5th time it has met at the heads-of-state level since 1946, and first chaired by a U.S. pres.), which unanimously approves the U.S.-drafted Resolution 1835 calling on nations with nukes to scrap their arsenals; China, who agrees to the resolution also tells everybody that stepping up pressure on Iran isn't an effective way to persuade them to halt its nuclear program, dissing the Sept. 23 resolution of the five permanent security council members that Iran has until Oct. 1 to prepare a "serious response" to its demands to halt or face consequences, which doesn't phase them, since on Sept. 27-28 Iran tests short and long-range missiles capable of hitting Israel and Europe; luckily, on Oct. 1 after a high-level meeting in Geneva, Iran agrees to ship its enriched uranium to Russia for processing so it can be watched. On Sept. 23 Iranian pres. (2005-13) Imajackass, er, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956-) delivers a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, which bashes Israel as usual, causing 11 countries to walk out, and Israeli pres. Benjamin Netanyahu to condemn the U.N. for allowing him to speak since he also denies the Holocaust; meanwhile on Sept. 25 Obama, Sarkozy, and Brown accuse Iran of building a secret underground nuke plant, causing him to cave and announce that he will open it to inspection. On Sept. 23 after being forced to live in a Bedouin tent on an estate owned by Donald Trump 40 mi. from the U.N. HQ, Libyan dictator (since Sept. 1, 1969) Col. Madman Daffy, er, Muammar Gaddafi (1942-2011) ignores the 15-min. limit to deliver a 100-min. speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, his first since 1969, forcing British PM Gordon Brown and other political leaders to wait while he rants and raves, calling the U.N. Security Council the "terror council", blasting the U.N. for failing to stop 65 wars since 1945, and praising "our Obama" while calling for a U.N. inquiry into the assassination of JFK; "After this speech, we will no longer have to obey the resolutions of the Security Council... Either we will continue to work together, or we will split into two camps: equitable united nations with their Security Council, and great powers with their Security Council and the right of veto that they use each other against a friend." On Sept. 23 the sitcom Modern Family created by Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan debuts on ABC-TV (until ?), about the Pritchett family of suburban Los Angeles, Calif., headed by Jay Pritchett (Ed O'Neill), with an ensemble cast and mockumentary style, incl. his way-younger hot wife Gloria Delgado-Pritchett, played by Colombian-born Sofia Margarita Vergara Vergara (1972-). On Sept. 23 the sitcom Cougar Town debuts on ABC for 102 episodes (until Mar. 31, 2015), switching to TBS in 2013, set in Gulfhaven "Cougar Town", Fla., starring Courteney Bass Cox (1964-) as recently divorced 40-something woman Jules Cobb, who goes out on the dating circle, dating younger men before turning to men her own age. On Sept. 24 an Indonesian woman gives birth to a record 19 lb. baby; the record is 22 lb. 8 oz. in Italy in Sept. 1955. On Sept. 24-25 the 2009 G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Penn. (which the Obama admin. considers a poster boy for economic recovery) works to reform the IMF amid mucho protesters; after it ends, Pres. Obama says that their actions "brought the global economy back from the brink"; Obama surrendered U.S. economic sovereignty by agreeing to submit all economic policies and programs to the IMF for approval? On Sept. 25 after the U.S., U.K., and France expose the existence of a secret uranium enrichment site inside a mountain in Qom, Iran under control of the Rev. Guard, designed to hold 3K centrifuges, enough to make nukes, Pres. Obama appears with French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy and British PM Gordon Brown to discuss it, giving Iran two weeks to admit to its existence; actually they had been dismantled 6 mo. earlier and moved to a new secret spot, causing IAEA inspectors to later find empty tunnels. On Sept. 25 (Fri.) (Dar ul Islam) a Muslim Nat. Prayer Day, organized by anti-Semitic Sheik Ahmed Dewidar and atty. Hassen Abdellah (who defended the Muslim terrorists accused in the 1993 WTC bombing) sees only 5K-8K of 50K promised Muslims show up in Washington, D.C. for a Jumu'ah prayer event in front of the U.S. Capitol, with signs saying "The White House will become the Muslim House" et al.; meanwhile illegal Jordani immigrant Hosam Maher Husein Smadi (1990-) is charged with attempting to use a WMD in Dallas, Tex. to blow up a skyscraper, and pleads guilty on May 25, 2010 in return for a 30-year prison sentence, uttering the courtroom soundbyte: "I truly say it that my dream is to be among God's soldiers, first for the support of Islam and my beloved Sheik Usama, may God give him long life. I don't know what is in me, but I love him as I love my father. I don't want to add to this. Now, my brother, the point is that thousands of Muslims have been killed at the hand of Jews - the dogs - and the silent disloyal backsliders. Those are the Arab kings and, God willing, their end will be the hanging rope and Hell." On Sept. 26 Tropical Storm Ketsana (AKA Ondoy) causing flooding in the N Phillipines, killing 240+ and driving 450K from their homes. On Sept. 27 German elections reelect center-right Angela Merkel, and are a D for the left-center Social Dem. Party, which has gets its lowest vote share since 1932 (32%). On Sept. 28 the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan is greeted with a string of bombings that kill 18 across Iraq, targeting Iraqi security forces, incl. a suicide bomber who slams his tanker truck into a police post in Ramadi (70 mi. W of Baghdad), killing seven and wounding 16. On Sept. 28 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. closes at 9,789.36, up 124.17 points. On Sept. 28 Pres. Obama announces that he's flying to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 to pitch his town of Chicago, Ill. for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, becoming the first time for a U.S. pres.; too bad, Chicago is eliminated in the 1st round of voting, and Rio de Janeiro is picked; the reason given is the "broken immigration system" and "anti-visitor policy" in the U.S., with Pakistani IOC member Syed Shahid Ali saying that entering the U.S. can be "a rather harrowing experience". On Sept. 28 a demonstration against the Dec. 2008 junta govt. by 50K in electricity-poor Conakry, Guinea in W Africa ends in a massacre and mass rape by the troops of dictator Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, killing 157, causing U.S. secy. of state Hillary Cinton to call it "criminality of the greatest degree", adding "Those who committed such acts should not be given any reason to expect that they will escape justice", calling for "appropriate actions" and saying that the Camara govt. "cannot remain in power". On Sept. 29 pop singer Andy Williams makes world news by accusing Pres. Obama of "following Marxist theory" and "wanting the country to fail". On Sept. 29 the U.S. Senate Finance Committee rejects the govt.-run public insurance option for the healthcare overhaul plan; too bad, that means that the rest of the plan is moving toward passage since it will keep Repubs. from mustering 60 votes to block it procedurally. On Sept. 29 a crowded passenger bus hits a roadside bomb in Kanadhar, Afghanistan, killing 30 incl. 10 children, and injuring 30+. On Sept. 29 the U.S. Govt. Accountability Office pub. A Nat. Strategy and Other Actions Would Strengthen TSA's Efforts to Secure Commercial Airport Perimeters, concluding that airport security remains largely vunerable and/or untested. On Sept. 30 the U.S. economy collapses not. On Sept. 30 the London Financial Times calls the rulers of Iran "cheats and deceivers" who "cannot be remotely trusted" in regard to its nuclear program. On Sept. 30 a typhoon causes a series of tsunamis that hit the Pacific island nations of Am. and Western Samoa, killing 100+; meanwhile Vietnam's central province gets its biggest floods in decades, killing 40; on Sept. 30-Oct 1 7.6-8.0 earthquakes hit Indonesia, killing 1.1K; on Oct. 1 another 6.3 earthquake and tsunami near Tonga kills 200. On Sept. 30 U.S. Gen. Ray Odierno tells Congress that 4K troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of Oct. as part of the plan to get them all out by Sept. 2010. On Sept. 30 a suicide bomber rams a military convoy of foreign forces in the Mandozai District of Khost Province in SE Afghanistan, killing one GI. On Sept. 30 U.S. transportation secy. Ray LaHood releases figures showing that 5.8K+ were killed and 515K injured in 2008 in car crashes in the U.S. tied to distracted driving, mainly texting behind da wheel; meanwhile on Sept. 30 (night) Pres. Obama signs an executive order banning federal employees from texting while driving, and encouraging them to pressure contractors. In Sept. 28-y.-o. Venezuelan-born wunderkind Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramirez (1981-) becomes dir. #11 of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (until ?), causing Dudamelomania, a resurgence of interest in classical music; on Oct. 3 he conducts his first concert called "Bienvenido Gustavo". On Sept. 30 the sitcom The Middle debuts on ABC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), about a working-class Ind. family, starring Patricia Helen Heaton (1958-) as Frances "Frankie" Heck (nee Spence), and Neil Richard Flynn (1960-) as her hubby Michael "Mike" Heck Jr.; cute little Atticus Ronald Shaffer (1998-) plays youngest child Brian. In Sept. after the worst crisis since independence, with inflation since 2008 at 231M%, the Govt. of Nat. Unity ie established in Zimbabwe, causing a quick turnaround of the economy; on Oct. 16 Zimbabwe PM Morgan Tsvangirai suddenly abandons shared rule with pres. Robert Mugabe, citing "persecution" of a top aide; too bad, after four years the Unity Govt is abandoned. In Sept. Joachim Crima, a black watermelon seller from Guinea Bissau bucks the rampant racism of Russia to run for public office in Srednyaya Akhtuba in S Russia, becoming the first black in Russian history to run for office. In Sept. the U.S. unemployment rate rises to 9.8%, and the economy loses 263K jobs despite all them gigabucks of stimulus. In Sept. a Draft Report on Sex Education by UNESCO recommends that children ages 5 and up be taught about masturbation, abortion, same-sex relationships, and STDs - by who, their parents? In Sept. the U.S. trade deficit widens by 18.2%, worst in 10 years. In Sept. King Abdullah U. of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia is inagurated in an effort to catch the backward Muslim Middle East up with the West; too bad, they allow women to mingle with men and drive, pissing-off Sunni clerics - spend a lifetime here filling your head, then they will lop it off? In Sept. the Muslim province of Aceh, Indonesia pauses a Sharia-based law mandating stoning to death for adultery; child rape is punished with 400 lashes. In Sept. Klout.com is launched to calculate peoples' Klout Scores based on their social media influence. On Oct. 1 Communist China celebrates its 60th anniv. with its biggest-ever military parade, incl. hundreds of thousands of soldiers complete with all the hardware - standing between the Chinese people and freedom? On Oct. 1 Tulsa World in Okla. reveals that Sabri Husibi, a Muslim who turned atheist and pub. an article criticizing Islam has received death threats from irate Muslims. On Oct. 2 a suicide bomber hits a U.S. convoy in S Afghanistan, killing two U.S. soldiers; meanwhile officials announce that they got a U.S. and a British soldier on Oct. 1 to say Happy October, Infidels. On Oct. 2 Germany's Turkish community expresses indignation over comments by Thilo Sarrazin (1946-), board member of the German Bundesbank that Germany's Turkish and Arab pop. are unwilling and unable to assimilate. On Oct. 3 (dawn) Egyptian police arrest some Christian Copts in Alexandria for being related to Rafaat Girges Habib (1989-), a father who freed his daughter Myrna Hanna (kidnapped 10 mo. earlier) from her Muslim husband Mohammad Hefnawy's home after she was forced to convert; after beating them they try to arrest their wives until neighbors' protests cause them to back off. On Oct. 3 the British Telegraph reveals that Iranian pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has Jewish roots, his family having been converted to Islam after his birth, and originally having the Jewish name Sabourjian ("cloth weaver"); his denial of the Holocaust is therefore an attempt to coverup his roots? - either that or he's a Jewish mole planted to give Israel an excuse to nuke it? On Oct. 3-4 the 12-hour Battle of Kamdesh in Nuristan Province, Afghanistan sees 53 U.S. soldiers defend ammo depot Combat Outpost Keating with no air cover from 350 Taliban fighters after 35 Afghan army soldiers flee, losing eight KIA and 22 injured after killing 150 Taliban, becoming NATO's biggest loss of life since 10 French troops were killed in an ambush in Aug. 2008, causing a Taliban spokesman on Oct. 6 to utter the non-surprising soundbyte "We are prepared for a long fight"; two Army staff sgts. earn the Medal of Honor; the base was poorly defended because troops were being diverted to search for AWOL soldier Bowe Bergdahl. On Oct. 5 (noon) a Tehrik-i-Taliban suicide bomber dressed as a Frontier Constabulary paramilitary soldier asks to use the bathroom then detonates at an office of the U.N. World Food Program in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing five, becoming their first successful attack in Islamabad since June 6, and the first anti-Western attack in Pakistan since June 9, becoming the start of a Taliban guerrilla war on Pakistan (ends ?), with the Taliban linking up with al-Qaida and other militant Muslim groups to come in for the kill and get their hands on Pakistan and its nukes during the whimpy wishy-washy Obama regime, making many reflect on the nightmare film "The Manchurian Candidate" about a planted U.S. president who works for the enemy?; on Oct. 5 Muhammad Aqeel (AKA Dr. Usman), the only militant surviving the attack turns out to be the leader, who led an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Mar., causing the press to reveal that the Pakistani police had warned the military that he was planning the attack back in July. On Oct. 5 David Letterman surprises his late-night talk show audience by revealing that he was blackmailed for $2M over his sexual affairs with subordinate employees by CBS "48 Hours" producer Joe Halderman (1958-), who was stung and caught. On Oct. 5 Brigitte, Germany's #1 women's mag. announces that starting next year it is dumping super-skinny prof. models for "real women" in order to combat the unhealthy standard of beauty. On Oct. 6 Russia announces that it has struck a $4B-$7B deal to sell its advanced S-400 anti-missile shield to Saudi Arabia, silencing objections by Israel that it was going to sell the less advanced S-300 system to Iran, making it harder for Israel to hit their nuke plants. On Oct. 6 the U.S. Supreme Court begins its new term, with the debut of the first Latino justice Sonia Sotomayor. On Oct. 6 Egypt's top Muslim cleric Sheikh Mohammed Tantawi announces that he's going to ban women from wearing the traditional head-to-toe niqab, saying that it "is a tradition, it has no connection with Islam". On Oct. 6 Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel is arrested for inciting a "religious war" in Jerusalem, then released with a warning to stay away for 30 days; on Oct. 7 the Israel govt. announces that it is considering banning his Islamic Movement. On Oct. 6 Algerian Muslim Hadron Collider physicist Adlene Hicheur (1977-) of CERN is arrested after being caught offering to work for al-Qaida in N Africa; he also worked at physics labs in the U.K. and U.S. On Oct. 6 the Obama admin. unexpectedly cuts off funding for the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. On Oct. 7 Am. Muslim Yousef al-Khattab (1968-) (formerly a Jew named Joseph Cohen) posts a pray on his Web site RevolutionMuslim.com calling for the murder of Jews and exhorting Muslims to "throw liquid drain cleaner in their faces", claiming it's a prayer to Allah and protected by the U.S. First Amendment. On Oct. 7 a court in Saudi Arabi convicts Mazen Abdul Jawad of insulting Islam for boasting on a TV program of his sexual exploits, and sentences him to 1K lashes and 5 years in prison. On Oct. 8 (8:40 a.m. local time) a bomb outside the Indian embassy in C Kabul, Afghanistan kills 17 and wounds 76 (2nd embassy suicide attack in 16 mo.), showing that the 8-year war against the Taliban is being lost. On Oct. 8 (11 a.m. local time) a 30-ft.-diam. asteroid explodes over an island region of Indonesia, becoming the biggest since the Marshall Islands fireball on Feb. 1, 1994. On Oct. 8 Pres. Obama snubbs the Dalai Lama during his first visit in 18 years to avoid upsetting China; meanwhile Iranian Rev. Guards official Mojtaba Zolnour tells the press that "Even if one American or Zionist missile hits our country, Iranian missiles will blow up the heart of Israel"; meanwhile a Taliban suicide car bomber in Peshawar, Pakistan kills 49. On Oct. 9 (4 a.m. EST) (First Dog Bo's birthday) Barack Obama is unanimously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, surprising the audience in Oslo because he was virtually unknown three years earlier and the Feb. 1 deadline for nominations was less than two weeks after he took office; really only the decision of Nobel Committee chmn. Thorbjorn Jagland (1950-), mainly for his opening of dialogue with the Muslim World, with the coverstory that it's for his work to restart the START agreements with Russia?; the committee praises him for calling for a nuclear weapon-free world in Prague in Apr., and for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" and for creating a "new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the U.N. and other internat. institutions can play"; being the first black U.S. pres. is not mentioned; 3rd U.S. pres. to win after Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1906; first to win for what he is going to do, not done?; really a slap on the G.W. Bush admin?; Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid mocks the award, citing Obama's troop hike in Afghanistan, saying he should have been given the "Nobel violence prize"; Am. conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh calls the Nobel win worse than the loss of the Olympics, saying that the Nobel Committee "suicide-bombed itself" over Obama; on Mar. 10 he announces that he's splitting the $1.4M prize money between 10 charities. On Oct. 9 a Uruguayan CASA212 U.N. peacekeeper surveillance plan crashes into a mountain in Haiti W of Fonds-Verrettes near the Dominican Repub. border, killing all 11 military personnel aboard. On Oct. 9-10 the Washington Green Festival in Washington, D.C. features 125 speakers incl. leftist radicals William "Bill" Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Amy Goodman, and Cornel West. On Oct. 10 Poland signs the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, leaving the Czech Repub. as the only one of 27 EU nations that hasn't done it yet; on ? Czech. pres. Vaclav Klaus finally signs it. On Oct. 10 Iran announces it has given death sentences to two election protesters, identified only as A.P. and N.A. On Oct. 10 Pres. Obama appears at the Human Rights Campaign dinner in Washington, D.C. and renews his pledge to end the military's ban on openly gay service members, with the soundbyte: "You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman"; on Oct. 11 (Nat. Coming Out Day) (11th anniv. of the murder of Matthew Shepard) the Nat. Equality March in Washington, D.C. (first in the city since the 2000 Millennium March) sees hundreds of thousands march for across-the-board equal federal protection for LGBTs throughout the U.S. On Oct. 10 North Korea fires five short-range missiles off its E coast and declares a "no sail" zone until Oct. 20. On Oct. 10 (eve.) self-described youthful anarchists dressed in black with plastic masks tear up the town of Poitiers, France. On Oct. 10-11 the Taliban sieges the Pakistan army HQ ("the Pakistan Pentagon") in Rawalpindi, Pakistan for 22 hours before being stopped after killing three of 42 hostages; 20 total are killed, incl. nine militants. On Oct. 11 a string of car bombings kill 19 in Iraq's Anbar Province that was once the scene of intense fighting and is now supposed to be a showcase for restored peace. On Oct. 11 after declaring it so poorly-run as to be "unsustainable", Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon makes good on his campaign promises and sends 1K federales in riot gear to occupy the office of the state-owned electricity monopoly Luz y Fuerza del Centro in an effort to clean up its union featherbedding and corruption; its 44K employees and 22K pensioners gobbled $3B a year while losing 30% of its power output to illegal connections and technical failures; no surprise, pissed-off union members take to the streets on Oct. 15. On Oct. 12 a 13-y.-o. Taliban suicide bomber attack on a military convoy in Shangla district near the Swat Valley kills 41 near where the army supposedly flushed the Taliban out after a fierce offensive; on Oct. 15 more brazen Taliban attacks all over Pakistan kill 39, incl. the Federal Investigation Agency in Lahore; on Oct. 16 yet another Allah Akbar Taliban suicide bomber kills 12 in Peshawar, Pakistan, while Pakistani forces pound a Taliban stronghold in South Waziristan in a new major offensive. On Oct. 12 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton urges Northern Ireland to push forward with its peace process begun by her hubby Bill. On Oct. 12 the State of Colo. becomes the first U.S. state to lower its minimum wage, from $7.28 to $7.24, one cent lower than the federal minimum wage. On Oct. 13 the U.S. Senate Finance Committee approves the $829B health care reform bill by 14-9, with Olympia Snow of Maine being the only Repub. who voted yes, saying she just wants it to go on through the system but won't necessarily vote for it later. On Oct. 13 thousands of immigrants hold a rally in Washington, D.C. to call for comprehensive immigration reform as U.S. Rep. (D-Ill.) Luis V. Gutierrez introduces a new immigration bill in the House; no mention of TLW's Megamerge Dissolution Solution yet. On Oct. 13 Pres. Obama calls on Congress to approve a $250 1-time payment to the elderly after the negative inflation rate causes them to not get a cost of living increase in their Social Security checks. On Oct. 13 the Pentagon announces that it has met all of its annual recruiting goals for the first time since the establishment of the all-volunteer force in 1973 as the bad economy causes youth to sign up by the hundreds of thousands even as they know they will go to war. On Oct. 13 17-y-o. Rifqa Bary, an Am. Muslim convert to Christianity is ordered by Fla. judge Daniel Dawson to return to her home state of Ohio despite her pleas that her Muslim family wants to kill her for insulting Islam by her conversion. On Oct. 13 Dutch right-wing MP Geert Wilders (1963-) defeats a decision by U.K. home secy. Jacqui Smith to prevent him from visiting to show his new film Fitna, which calls the Quran a "Fascist book", with the new PC word "Islamaphobe" applied to him to justify stifling his right to freedom of thought and speech. On Oct. 13 Russian foreign minister Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov (1950-) tells the U.S. that further sanctions against poker chip Iran would be "counterproductive", adding "all efforts must be focused on supporting the negotiating process"; too bad, on Oct. 23 Iran rejects a U.N.-drafted deal to cut its nuclear fuel stockpile that could be (is?) used to make nukes. On Oct. 13 Pres. Obama picks Minn. policewoman Sharon Lubinski as the first openly gay U.S. marshal - Marshall Dildo? On Oct. 14 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. tops 10K for the first time since Oct. 7, 2008; it hit a 12-year low of 6,547.05 on Mar. 9; meanwhile the Wall Street Journal announces that the major U.S. banks and financial firms are going to hand out $140B in pay this year, 20% from 2008. On Oct. 14 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton announces that the U.S. has reversed its longstanding opposition to an Internat. Arms Trade Treaty, pissing-off conservatives; after joining a 153-1 vote, the U.N. sets a conference to produce a final accord for 2012. On Oct. 14 it is revealed that the Obama admin. cut funding for pro-democracy and human rights programs in Iran, reversing the Bush admin. program, buckling to Iran's leaders who criticized him for seeking to fund a "velvet rev." during the June pres. elections. On Oct. 14 jewelry thieves rob three stores in Baghdad, Iraq in broad daylight, killing eight and wounding nine; at least they aren't terrorists? On Oct. 15 Islamic militants stage a string of attacks in the heart of Pakistan, incl. Lahore and Kohat, killing 31. On Oct. 15 Finland makes broadband Internet access at 1 megabit per sec. a legal right for its 5.2M citizen, with the goal of 100 megabits per sec. by 2015; 95% of the pop. is already wired; in June France declared Internet access a right, but didn't mandate a speed. On Oct. 15 leading British polar scientist Peter Wadham says that global warming will leave the Arctic Ocean ice-free during the summer within 20 years, hurting seals, polar bears et al. On Oct. 15 conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh is unceremoniously kicked out of a group trying to buy the St. Louis Rams after PC police incl. several black NFL players and owners force him out, and racist quotes are falsely attributed to him, stinking themselves up more than him? On Oct. 15 the "99 Red Balloons" by Nena Balloon Boy Hoax sees a home project to build a helium-filled weather balloon in Ft. Collins, Colo. go bad when a 6-y.-o. Falcon Heene (2003-) allegedly gets in it and untethers it when unattended, and the balloon sails across across Colo., causing a military alert and massive law enforcement involvement while viewers across the state watch on preempted TV with bated breath until it lands 50 mi. away in a field with no one aboard, after which a massive search turns up nothing until he is found hiding in a box in his attic, afraid he's in trouble; meanwhile the story becomes world news, and spreads like lightning on the Internet; too bad, after which the cover story that his mad scientist daddy Richard Heene yelled at him for trying to get in and he hid, after which daddy released it with 20-ft. tethers which broke, and the other sons told he he had climbed in, the real story that it was a pre-planned hoax staged by publicity-hound daddy to get his own reality TV show gets him criminal charges, along with former actress mommy Mayumi Heene; comedian Joy Behar calls it a floating Jiffy Pop bag, and says the kid will be grounded until he's 18; on Oct. 23 Mayumi admits in an affidavit that she and Richard planned it for two weeks as a stunt; on Nov. 11 he pleads guilty to a felony and she pleads guilty to a misdemeanor in order to avoid deportation to Japan; on Dec. 23 Richard Heene is sentenced to 90 days and a $42K fine, plus orders to not profit from the publicity for 4 years; even if he has to wait, Richard Heene is going to end up rich because he got maybe $100M worth of free publicity already, he's a self-marketing genius, watch for his bestselling book, true life movie, reality TV show, video game line, etc.? On Oct. 15 Bulgarian politician Irina Georgieva Bokova (1952-) becomes the first woman dir. of UNESCO (until ?). On Oct. 15 Pres. Obama visits a charter school in New Orleans, La., where 4th grade black boy Tyren Scott asks "Why do people hate you? And why aren't they supposed to love you, if God is love?", to which he replies "First of all, I did get elected president, so not everybody hates me. I got a whole lot of votes. A lot of it is what's called politics, where once one party wins, the other party feels like they've got to poke you a little bit to keep you on your toes. So you shouldn't take it too seriously." On Oct. 16 Bosnia, Lebanon, Gabon, Brazil, and Nigeria are elected to the U.N. Security Council for 2-year terms starting next Jan. On Oct. 16 an Allah Akbar suicide bomber hides in a Sunni congregation in a mosque in Tal Afar, Iraq, then sprays them with gunfire and blows up, wounding 95 and killing 15+ incl. the imam, who had spoken out against al-Qaida. On Oct. 18 a Sunni Jundallah suicide bomber kills 42, incl. five senior cmdrs. of the Iranian Rev. Guard in the Sistan-Balochistan Province in the Pishin District near the Pakistani border in SE Iran, pissing-off Imadinnajacket, who threatens retaliation against Britain and the U.S. On Oct. 19 hoaxers one-up Balloon Boy by an email claim that the Chamber of Commerce has announced that it's throwing its support behind climate change legislation in the U.S. Senate, which causes several major media orgs. to fall for it incl. CNBC. On Oct. 20 Saeed Jalili (1965-) becomes secy. of Iran's supreme nat. security council (until ?), in charge of pumping up their nuke program. On Oct. 20 Taliban suicide bombers rock the Internat. Islamic U. in Islamabad, Pakistan twice, killing two and wounding 20; meanwhile the 4th day of the Pakistani offensive in South Waziristan brings the Taliban death toll to almost 80. On Oct. 20 the Vatican surprises Anglicans by announcing plans to make it easier to convert, especially those who don't like female and gay bishops, permitting married hetero priests and other distinctive Anglican traditions; this despite 400 years of Anglicans calling the pope the Antichrist and his church the Whore of Babylon. On Oct. 20 a Muslim protester verbally assaults British Middle East envoy Tony Blair in a mosque in Hebron on the West Bank, saying "You are a terrorist", telling the guards who are cuffing him, "He is not welcome in the land of Palestine." On Oct. 20 a student protest begins at the U. of Vienna to protest the adoption of the Bologna process, growing into a gen. demonstration for free education by 15K-40K, with the slogan "Money for education not for the banks and big business." On Oct. 20 Faleh Almaleki of Glendale, Ariz. runs his 20-y.-o. daughter Noor Almaleki and another woman down in a parking lot for being "too Western", killing her; the prosecutor declines to seek the death penalty specifically because he's a Muslim, and wants to assure "that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs"; on Apr. 15, 2011 he is sentenced to only 34.5 years after judge Roland Steinle says that he is struck by his lack of remorse - giving all Muslims a blank check? On Oct. 21 after spending two weeks in a militant training camp in Yemen, then returning and translating and posting al-Qaida agitprop, U.S. federal authorities arrest and charge Penn.-born Muslim pharmacist Tarek Mehanna (1982-) of Sudbury, Mass. with conspiring with two others to carry out an Islamic holy war, incl. killing politicians, U.S. troops in Iraq, and shoppers in malls; on Dec. 26 his alma mater Mass. College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences bans Islamic head coverings; in Apr. 2012 he is sentenced to 7 years, arguing that he is being persecuting for his ideas not his actions - and the reason they let masses of non-secular Muslims immigrate to the U.S. is? On Oct. 21 Northwestern Airlines Flight 188 (Airbus A320) en route from San Diego speeds 150 mi. past its destination of Minneapolis, Minn., causing military jets to scramble as a terrorist hijacking is suspected; after the pilots Timothy B. Cheney (1956-) and Richard I. Cole (1955-) finally contact the authorities and land, it is found out that they were illegally using laptops and got so engrossed that they lost track of time, and their pilot's licenses are revoked. On Oct. 21-22 the U.S. Justice Dept. arrests 303 members of the ruthless La Familia Michoacana drug trafficking cartel (known for beheading its enemies) in 19 states in the last two days under 4-y.-o. Project Coronado, becoming the largest arrest of members of a Mexican drug cartel; too bad, no kingpins, only grunts. On Oct. 22 Ethiopia appeals for 159K tons of emergency aid to feed 6.2M hungry people. On Oct. 22 former U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney says that Pres. Obama is "dithering while America's armed forces are in danger" in Afghanistan, causing the White House to fire back "The vice-president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan. Ever more curious, given the fact than increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, incl. the vice-presidents for more than 8 mo., a resource request filled by Pres. Obama in March"; meanwhile on Nov. 3 the EU endorses a "step change" in policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, backing Obama's military plans. On Oct. 22 U.S. pay czar Kenneth Feinberg slashes compensation for top earners at seven bailed-out cos. for Nov.-Dec. by 50%, causing them to complain that they can't attract top talent, and rush to pay back their TARP loans without disposing of their original toxic mortgages or lending money to business or consumers in order to get out of govt. regulation and pay the execs their customary big bucks and go back to the risky betting-type loans that got them into trouble? - I'm available cheap? On Oct. 22 yet another Taliban suicide bomber kills eight outside the key Pakistan Aeronautical Complex in Kamra (45 mi. NW of Islamabad); an official denies that the facility contains nukes; earlier in Islamabad militants shoot and kill Brig. Gen. Ahmed Moinuddin, deputy comdr. of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sudan. On Oct. 22 the Minn. Supreme Court in a split decision rules that bong water is a drug, and possession of 25g or more can be prosecuted as a 1st degree drug felony. On Oct. 22 Islamic militants shell the airport in Mogadishu, Somalia, as pres. Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed boards a plane, sparking battles that kill 24 as return fire hits residential areas and a market. On Oct. 23 a fire begins in the Caribbean Gulf Refinery in Bayamon, Puerto Rico. On Oct. 23 Alyssa Bustamante (1994-) leads police to the body of her next-door neighbor, 9-y.-o. Elizabeth, whom she cut and stabbed to death just to see what it was like, burying her in one of two adjacent holes she dug. On Oct. 24 U.S. pres. Barack Obama declares the swine flu a nat. emergency, allowing emergency rooms to be moved offsite to protect non-infected patients. On Oct. 24 the Pakistani army captures the Taliban stronghold of Kotkai, home of Taliban leader Zulfiqar "Hakimullah" Mehsud (1981-). On Oct. 25 Iran sentences five anti-govt. protesters to death; four of them are members of the Iran Monarchy Committee, who were arrested before the elections. On Oct. 25 (Sun.) (8:00 a.m.) over 100 FBI agents raid the tiny town of Kinsman, Ill. (pop. 109) and surround a Muslim halal butcher shop, but do not reveal why for a week, then claim they were plotting to kill Danish anti-Muhammad cartoonist Kurt Westgaard, calling it the Mickey Mouse Project; they are later linked with Black Muslim H. Rap Brown AKA Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, who wants a separatist Islamic Am. state. On Oct. 25 two al-Qaida suicide car bombs detonate in front of the Iraq Justice Ministry and another govt. bldg. in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 155 and wounding 520, becoming the worst terrorist attack in two years (summer 2007); blast walls had been removed from the road a few weeks earlier; on Oct. 28 dozen of Iraqi security officials are arrested for collusion with the bombers - once the U.S. completely pulls out, total civil war? On Oct. 25 Jeffry M. Picower (b. 1942), business partner of Bernie Madoff, who is accused of raking in $7B from his Ponzi scheme is found dead in his mansion swimming pool in Palm Beach, Fla. On Oct. 25 masked Palestianian protesters hurl stones and plastic chairs at Israeli riot police outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, holing-up in the mosque for several hours, after which 18 are arrested. On Oct. 25 after converting to Judaism under the name Yael, Ivanka Trump marries New York Observer owner Jared Corey Kushner (1981-) (until ?). On Oct. 25-27 the Showdown in Chicago sees 5K union members and activists protest against the annual meeting of the Am. Bankers' Assoc. On Oct. 26 U.N. inspectors make their first inspection of an Iranian nuclear site in a mountain S of Tehran. On Oct. 26 a U.S. heli crash in W Afghanistan kills seven U.S. troops and three U.S. civilians, and injures 12 Americans and 14 Afghans; meanwhile two U.S. helis collide in flight, killing four and wounding two, all going to make Oct. the deadliest mo. for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, with 55, and 281 for the year. On Oct. 27 a court in Paris fines the French branch of the Church of Scientology 600K euros after finding it guilty of fraud, but doesn't order the org. kicked out of France because of a loophole in the law, although the next time they will be. On Oct. 27 Chinese-Mexican businessman Zhenli Ye Gon is arrested after police find $205M in cash in his Mexico City mansion, after which he confesses that he sold tons of a chemical used to make meth.; meanwhile U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates welcomes a top Chinese gen. to the Pentagon, calling for lasting dialogue after years of "on-again, off-again" talks. On Oct. 27 the Obama admin. unveils his landmark Systemic Risk Bill, incl. a measure for more govt. scrutiny of hedge funds; House Financial Services chmn. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) unveils a plan to force large banks and financial firms to contribute to a "financial superfund" to pay for future bailouts instead of the taxpayers; meanwhile Sen. Dems. introduce a health care reform bill that incl. the govt.-run insurance option, despite lack of support by some Dems. incl. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who says he may join a GOP filibuster. On Oct. 27 Bill and Melinda Gates appeal to U.S. govt. officials to continue funding global health initiatives and commit to half the number of child deaths worldwide by 2025, saying that the $11.9B they have donated is "tiny" in comparison to what is needed; meanwhile on Oct. 27 Pres. Obama announces $3.4B in stimulus funding to smart grid projects aimed at promoting green power. On Oct. 27 the New York Times reports the Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai has been on the CIA payroll for the last eight years despite being involved in the opium trade, helping to recruit a paramilitary force for the CIA in and around Kandahar. On Oct. 27 U.N. human investigator Philip Alston warns the U.S. that its use of drones to carry out targeted executions may violate internat. law against aribitrary extrajudicial executions. On Oct. 27 a 15-y.-o. girl is gang-raped for two hours outside Richmond H.S. in Calif. after a homecoming dance by suspects aged 15-21, with up to 20 either taking part or watching and doing nothing to stop or report it; five are arrested. On Oct. 27 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton breaks with Pres. Obama on his support of the hijacking of the U.N. by Muslims who seek to get a resolution passed against "defamation of religion" (really, only theirs), saying "An individual's ability to practice his or her religion has no bearing on others' freedom of speech." On Oct. 28 a car bomb detonates in the crowded market street of Peepal Mandi in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 100, mostly women just hours after Hillary Clinton arrives and pledges a fresh start in strained relations, becoming the deadliest terrorist attack since the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto. On Oct. 28 (5 a.m.) Taliban militants kill six U.N. foreign staff in an attack on an Internat. Bakhtar Guest House in Kabul, Afghanistan as part of their plan to disrupt Nov. 7 elections. The original John Wick? On Oct. 28 radical Sunni imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah (b. 1956) of the Masjid al-Haqq Mosque in Detroit is shot in a warehouse in Dearbon, Mich. by the FBI after he holes-up and resists arrest for illegal possession and sale of firearms, and allegedly shoots a police dog; 10 of his followers are also rounded up, after which it is revealed that he works for Ummah, a group of mostly Africa-Am. converts to Islam led by imprisoned former Black Panther H. Rap Brown (Hubert Gerold Brown), now known as Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (1943-), who want to set up a separatist Islamic State in the U.S.; the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) jumps in and denounces the FBI sans facts, after which all four FBI agents are cleared by three reviews. On Oct. 28 the U.N. votes 187-3 to denounce the 50-y.-o. U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, with only Israel and 21K-pop. Palau in the Pacific siding with the U.S. On Oct. 29 the govt. announces that the economy has grown for the first time in a year, with a 3.5% increase in GDP in the 3rd quarter; the White House announces that 650K jobs were crated or saved by $150B in stimulus funds. On Oct. 28-Nov. 4 the 105th World Series sees the New York Yankees defeat the Philadelphia Phillies 4-2 for their 27th win; in game 1 (6-1) Phillies lefty pitcher Clifton Phifer "Cliff" Lee (1978-) pitches the first complete WS game with 10+ strikeouts and no walks since Deacon Phillippe in game 1 of the 1903 WS, and first to do so without allowing an earned run; Japanese-born Hideki "Godzilla" Matsui (1974-) (highest paid Japanese player in baseball, first Yankee to hit a grand slam in his 1st game at Yankee Stadium in 2003, and first Japanese player to hit 100 MLB homers on Aug. 5, 2007) is series MVP, hitting .615, with 3 homers, incl. a record 6 RBI in game 6, becoming the first Japanese-born and first full-time designated hitter series MVP, and 3rd player to bat .500 or above and hit 3 homers in a series after Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig; on Dec. 16 he signs with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. On Oct. 29 U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveils the 1,990-page Dem. Health Reform Bill (Obamacare), which will cost $849B over 10 years and incl. a public option, allegedly cutting the deficit by $30B in the first 10 years. On Oct. 29 Hillary Clinton winds up her 3-day visit to Pakistan with a broadcast interview in front of a mainly female audience of several hundred, who task her about drone attacks; she surprises observers by asking why al-Qaida's leaders are being allowed to operate in the country, saying "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are, and couldn't get to them if they really wanted to"; too bad, despite $1.5B in aid, Pakistani leaders don't jump to endorse a friendship or alliance in the war on terror with the U.S., causing Clinton to say "We're not getting through". On Oct. 29 retired British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler, who disappeared on their 38-ft. yacht on Oct. 23 phone to their relatives, telling them that Somalian pirates are holding them for a $3M ransom. On Oct. 30 Columbia and the U.S. sign a military cooperation deal increasing U.S. access to seven Colombian military bases to help with anti-drug and counter-insurgency operations. On Oct. 30 top Taliban leader Mullah Brader Akhund delivers a message to Pres. Obama that U.S. attempts to lure Taliban fighters with money is "an old weapon that has already failed", adding "This war will come to an end when all invaders leave our country and an Islamic government based on the aspirations of our people is formed in the country." On Oct. 30 Pres. Obama signs the reauthorization of the 1990 U.S. Ryan White HIV/AIDS Act, named for Am. hemophiliac Ryan Wayne White (1971-90), who got infected with HIV from a blood transfusion in 1984, and was heavily discriminated against. On Oct. 30 Pres. Obama announces the end of a 22-year ban (since 1987) on travel to the U.S. by people with HIV. On Oct. 30 the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) unanimously approves the use of non-Latin characters in Internet addresses beginning on Nov. 16. On Oct. 30 Typhoon Mirinae hits Manilla, Philippines, killing seven. On Oct. 30 Hillary Clinton says that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has offered "unprecedented" concessions on West Bank settlement construction, but Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas rejects the offer since it excludes 3K housing units under construction and excludes East Jerusalem; the U.S. quietly drops its call for a settlement freeze while calling them illegal; on Nov. 4 after meeting with Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, she clarifies that the settlements are not legitimate but she wants to get talks going to achieve a freeze; on Nov. 5 Mahmoud Abbas announces that he's not going to seek reelection in Jan. after dismay over the whole affair. On Oct. 30 Calif. gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says that the encoded phrase "fuck you" in the initial letters of a line in one of his veto messages was "a wild coincidence". On Oct. 30 (night) a U.S. Coast Guard airplane on a rescue mission collides in midair with a U.S. Marine heli near San Clemente Island off San Diego, Calif., killing nine. On Oct. 30 the U.S. Nat. Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center is officially opened by U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano; it will serve as the central repository of cyber-protection efforts for the civilian side of the federal govt. and its private sector partners. In Oct. the Obama admin. orders the downgrading of intel gathering on China, causing a minor interagency war. In Oct. the U.S. unemployment rte as 10.2%, highest since 1983; the real rate is more like 17.5%, maybe as high as 22%? The month when U.S. home military bases were no longer safe from American Muslims? On Nov. 1 the Taliban blows up a girls school in Kari Gar in the Khyber tribal district, wounding four in neighboring homes; on Nov. 2 yet another Taliban attack in Pakistan close to the army HQ in Rawalpindi by a motorbike bomber in a Nat. Branch bank kills 34 and injures 30, causing Pakistani human rights activist Ghazal Bhatti to bemoan "Islamization" of Pakistan by the Taliban and call for a return to the principles of Pakistan founder Ali Jinnah, who championed freedom of religion. On Nov. 2 Ford Motor Co. announces that it earned a $997M profit in the 3rd quarter, paying off for not accepting govt. bailout funds. On Nov. 2-3 Hillary Clinton attends a forum with Arab leaders in Morocco, praising it as a model for dem. reform, while they diss the U.S. for backing down on the settlement freeze in Israel. On Nov. 3 La. justice of the peace Keith Bardell resigns after he is caught refusing to marry interracial couple Beth Humphrey (white) and Terence McKay (black), and the nat. PC police put on the screws. On Nov. 3 midterm U.S. elections are a V for the Repubs., who see gov. Robert F. McDonnell elected in Va., ending a decade of Dem. advances in the state; former U.S. atty. Chris Christie defeats Dem. gov. Jon S. Corzine in N.J. despite being outspent 3-1; Calif. Dem. rep. John Garamendi (1945-) is elected, immediately hiking to Washington, D.C. to help pass Obama's health care reform bill, giving the Dems. 257 House seats vs. 177 for the Repubs.; meanwhile voters in Maine overturn a same-sex marriage law by 53%-47%, making it the first state where it was approved by popular vote rather than legislatures and judges like in Conn., Iowa, Mass., N.H, and Vt.; 30 other states have rejected it by popular vote; Dominican-born William Lantigua is elected as the first Latino mayor of Mass. in Lawrence ("Immigrant City"), with 53% of the vote, defeating David C. Abdoo; an anti-immigrant measure in Denver, Colo. to force police to automatically impound cars of unlicensed drivers is rejected by 70%. On Nov. 3 an Afghan policeman shoots and kills five British soldiers in Helmand Province, then escapes, proving that the Taliban has infiltrated the police force. On Nov. 3 ABC-TV debuts the V sci-fi TV series for 22 episodes (until Mar. 15, 2011), a refilming of the 1983 Kenneth Johnson series about disguised reptilian aliens led by Anna, played by Brazilian-born Morena Baccarin (1979-) who come to Earth and try to seduce them into being eaten by promising universal health and happiness, causing viewers to see a parallel with Pres. Obama and his universal health care program. On Nov. 4 the 30th anniv. of the U.S. embassy takeover in Iran sees supreme assahollah Ali Khamenei diss Pres. Obama's efforts at reconciliation while the govt. fights anti-govt. protesters in Tehran, with the soundbyte "The American government is a really arrogant power and the Iranian nation will not be deceived with its apparent reconciliatory behavior." On Nov. 4 an Italian judge Oscar Magi sentences 23 Americans to up to eight years in prison and 1M euro fines for the abduction and torture of Egyptian-born Muslim cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr in a symbolic condemnation of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" flights, which captured terrorism suspects in one country them flew them to another where they could use harsher interrogation techniques; the U.S. tells Magi to take a hike and won't permit extradition. On Nov. 4 U.S. Army SSgt. Amy C. Tirador (b. 1980) of Albany, N.Y. (an interrogator) is shot in the back of the head and murdered in Kirkush, Iraq in a secure area of the base; the govt. covers it up by calling it a "non-combat related incident". On Nov. 4 22-y.-o. U.S.-born Muslim Abdul Walid Hamid (1987-) tears a crucifix from a shopper's neck at Stoneridge Shopping Center in Pleasanton, Calif. and shouts "Allah is power. Islam is great"; meanwhile on Nov. 3 hardcore Muslim extremist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan (1970-) goes to Stan's Shooting Range in Florence, Tex. for target practice for his big upcoming Yankee infidel safari. On Nov. 4 U.S. maj. gen. Anthony Cucolo issues a rule against women soldiers from becoming pregnant on active duty, punishing them and the male who impregnated them, with the soundbyte that he is "losing too many women with critical skills"; no surprise, the PC police come out, and on Dec. 23 he drops the rule. The first radical Islamic terrorist assault on U.S. soil since 9/11, and the U.S. govt. tries to portray it as pre-post-traumatic stress syndrome? On Nov. 5 Loomis France armored car driver Toni Musulin (1971-) steals his own armored car containing 11.6M euros, stashes it in a garage, rents a motorcycle and flees to Italy, then turns himself in after hearing that the loot was found, and pleads guilty, becoming a Robin Hood in a time of bank shenanigans, and receiving a 3-year prison sentence; 2.5M euros of the loot remains missing. On Nov. 5 (Thur.) after visiting a 7-Eleven store wearing a traditional South Asian chalwar camise popular with al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, devout Muslim Allah-Akbar-shouting U.S. Army psychiatrist (formerly working at Walter Reed Army Hospital counseling returnees from Iraq and Afghanistan) Nidal Malik Hasan (1970-) (son Palestinian immigrants, who was promoted to maj. from col. despite a poor performance review, and who closed his safety deposit box and handed out Qurans ahead of time) stages the Ft. Hood Massacre, pulling out two pistols and shooting 40x+ for 10 min., killing 13 unarmed fellow soldiers and wounding 30 at the Soldier Readiness Center at Ft. Hood, Tex., biggest military base in the world (53K soldiers) after being selected for deployment to Afghanistan before he is wounded and captured, becoming the worst shooting on a U.S. military base until ?; white female police officer Kimberly Denise "Kim" Munley (1974-) becomes an instant first U.S. military heroine as she is claimed to take him down with several shots, paralyzing him from the chest down and putting him into a coma, until it is revealed that Hasan took her down and seiously wounded her, and that it was her black male partner St. Mark Todd (1967-) who ended Hasan's rampage; the press and Pres. Obama purposely downplay if not attempt to coverup the jihadist angle, seeking to portray him as a victim of discrimination and even "pre-post-traumatic stress syndrome", with Obama uttering the soundbyte that "we cannot fully know" why Hasan did it, even after it is revealed that he worshipped at the Dar al-Hijra Mosque in Great Falls, Va. of radical pro-al-Qaida anti-U.S. "skirt-chasing mullah" imam Anwar al-Awlaki (1971-2011) (who fled to exile in Yemen) at the same time as two of the 9/11 terrorists, and exchanged emails with him in 2008-9, and later praises him and says "Fighting against the U.S. army is an Islamic duty today", and that U.S. intel agencies had been aware for months that he tried to electronically contact al-Qaida (hence the govt. is trying to keep them from being punished?); 18 mo. ago he warned senior Army physicians that the military should allow Muslim U.S. soldiers like him to be released as conscientious objectors instead of being sent to kill other Muslims to avoid "adverse events", and says "We love death more than you love life"; he gave a Power Point slide show titled "The Koranic World View as It Relates to Muslims in the U.S. Military", announcing his intentions of jihad in advance; he was recently spotted at the Starz strip club; his business card contains the legend SoA(SWT) (Soldier or Sword of Allah, Sharia Will Triumph); on May 20 he posted on the Internet the message: "Scholars have paralleled (a U.S. soldier's falling on a grenade to save surrounding troops) to suicide bombers whose intention, by sacrificing their lives, is to help save Muslims by killing enemy soldiers", and repeatedly asked his superiors to criminally prosecute U.S. soldiers he claimed had confessed to "war crimes" during his psychiatric counseling; U.S. Army Lt.Gen. Jerry Boykin later tells CBS that the Army knew that Hasan was an Islamic terrorist but was stopped from doing anything about him from the top, after which he is forced to retire; on Mar. 12, 2011 nine Army officers are reprimanded for failing to heed their own warnings about Hasan's behavior and judgment; the U.S. Defense Dept. under Pres. Obama's influence classifies the massacre as "workplace violence", causing U.S. Sen. Susan Collins to blast it on Dec. 8, 2011 for putting political correctness above nat. security; al-Awlaki issues the soundbyte: "Nidal Hasan is a hero. He is a man of conscience who could not bear living the contradiction of being a Muslim and serving in an army that is fighting against his own people... The U.S. is leading the war against terrorism which in reality is a war against Islam"; on Nov. 8 U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George William Casey Jr. (1948-) stinks himself up with the soundbyte "What happened at Ft. Hood was a tragedy, but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here", then later says he doen't rule out the possibility of terrorism, and calls for a "unified inquiry" into the Army's inability to recognize the warning signs of ticking time bomb Muslim jihadists in their ranks, and also calls it for it to be expanded "department-wide"; the U.S. Senate holds its first public hearing on the shooting on Nov. 19; in Oct. 2010 it is revealed that Pfc. Lance Aviles was ordered by his superior officer to destroy two videos he made of the shooting; Obama becomes the first U.S. pres. to be responsible for a jihadist attack on U.S. soil by his lax policy on Islam?; a clear warning of the dangers of allowing mass Muslim immigration?; there are more than 13K Muslims serving in the U.S. armed forces; on Nov. 8 Jewish U.S. Sen. (D-N.H.) Joe Lieberman, chmn. of the Senate Homeland Security Committee suggests that the Ft. Hood Massacre was an act of "Islamist extremism", drawing the PC police on him; if he had been outed as gay instead of radical Muslim he would have been removed from the military long before he could do it?; on Nov. 17 Pres. Obama asks Congress to slow down the investigation of the shootings, sparking denunciations from Repubs., who push to speed it up, and on Nov. 22 U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) John Carter introduces legislation to declare that the soldiers at Ft. Hood were killed "in a combat zone as the result of an act of an enemy of the U.S."; on Nov. 10, 2011 80 victims and family members file a lawsuit seeking $750M from the U.S.Army for willful negligence; it takes until Jan. 15 for an Obama admin. official to officially label the Ft. Hood Massacre "an act of terrorism". On Nov. 5 the U.S. Senate blocks a proposal by Sen. (R-La.) (2005-) David Bruce Vitter (1961-) to ask people on census forms whether they are U.S. citizens so that illegal immigrants can't skew the statistics used for apportionment of congressional seats; critics say that 400M of 600M forms have already been printed, and that it would require a constitutional amendment, which doesn't stop them from voting against it now. On Nov. 5 (4 a.m. local time) a car bomb explodes outside a military barracks in Burgos, Spain, injuring 60+ police officers, their families and neighbors. On Nov. 6 Italian interior minister Roberto Maroni says that Italy is susceptible to terror attacks by the al-Qaida network, and that terror cells have "authorization" to carry out attacks there who are not part of it but allied to it. On Nov. 6 fired engineer Jason Rodriguez (1969-) gets revenge at his old firm, killing one and wounding five before being arrested, saying "They left me to rot." On Nov. 7 (Sat.) (11 p.m.) after the AMA and AARP announce their support, and an amendment by Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) to bar federal funding for most abortions by 240-194 (incl. 176 Repubs. and 64 Dems.) passes, the U.S. House passes the Obama health care reform bill by 220-215; one of the loudest cheers ever heard in the chamber greets the deciding vote of Maxine Waters (D-Calif.); it requires virtually all Americans to obtain health insurance and creates a govt.-run health insurance plan; 39 Dems. vote against it, and only repub. Joseph Cao of La. votes for it; an alternative Repub. plan is rejected by 176-258, with only Repub. Timothy Johnson of Ill. voting against it. On Nov. 7 (the Taliban sets up an ambush for U.S. and Afghan troops in Zabul Province in E Afghanistan in "F.O.B. Nowhere", but they outsmart them, killing 17-20 Taliban instead with no losses of their own. On Nov. 8 Hurricane Ida triggers floods and mudslides in El Salvador, killing 124, then heads toward the U.S. over the Gulf of Mexico on Nov. 9. On Nov. 8 the severed head of kidnapped school principal Gabriel Canizares is found in a bag at a gas station on Jolo Island in the Philippines 22 days after he was abducted, causing the Philippine govt. to vow revenge against al-Qaida-linked Islamic militants - if it had been in the U.S. the govt. would have tried to excuse their behavior with psychobabble? On Nov. 8 the Dalai Lama arrives in the Buddhist monastery town of Tawang in N India near the Tibetan border for a a 5-day visit despite Chinese govt. disapproval. On Nov. 8 a suicide bomber in Adazai, a suburb of Peshawar, Pakistan kills 12, incl. anti-Taliban mayor Abdul Malik. On Nov. 8 Brazilian college student Geisy Arruda is expelled for wearing a short pink dress to class, causing her to become a celeb. On Nov. 9 billionaire Sunni Muslim Saad Hariri (1970-), 2nd son of assassinated PM Rafiq Hariri becomes PM of Lebanon (until ?). On Nov. 9 the 20th Anniv. of the Fall of the Berlin Wall in Berlin is snubbed by Pres. Obama, becoming "the most telling non-event of his presidency" according to Nat. Review ed. Rich Lowry; Angela Merkel and Mikhail Gorbachev cross the path of the Wall together to shouts of "Gorby, Gorby"; too bad, when it fell, the Communism on the East German side was replaced by naked capitalism not socialism, causing catastrophe and resulting in a generation of unhappy people? On Nov. 9 NATO and Afghan officials claim to have killed 130+ Taliban fighters in N Afghanistan, incl. eight cmdrs. during a 5-day operation. On Nov. 9 a suicide bomber in an auto-rickshaw kills three in Peshawar, Pakistan, while Islamist militants kill four soldiers in South Waziristan. On Nov. 9 Iran strikes again, charging three American hikers, Shane Bauer (b. 1982), Sarah Shourd (b. 1979), and Josh Fattal (b. 1982) who strayed over the border with N Iraq at the end of July with espionage. On Nov. 9 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket gives a speech at a meeting of the Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Turkey, calling for a NWO, claiming that capitalism is dead, and calling Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan his "friend". On Nov. 9 the Danish People's Party begins offering a 100K kroner incentive payment to "anti-social" foreigners who leave Denmark, mainly fundamentalist Muslims. On Nov. 9 10-y.-o. Will Phillips appears on CNN with his father Jay to explain that he will not say the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance again until gays and lesbians are given full rights like the pledge says, "liberty and justice for all". On Nov. 9 a court in Saudi Arabia sentences Lebanese TV journalist Ali Sibat to death for witchcraft for making predictions on TV after he is arrested last year on pilgrimage (hajj). On Nov. 9 Antonio Musumeci (1981-) of Edgewater, N.J. is arrested for taking photos of a federal courthouse in Manhattan; on Oct. 18 a settlement is announced by the N.Y. Civil Liberties Union that the Federal Protective Service will inform its employees in writing that people have a right to photograph the exterior of federal courthouses from publicly accessible spaces. On Nov. 10 Beltway Sniper John Allen Muhammad is executed after the Supreme Court clears the way. On Nov. 10 the North and South Korean navies exchange gunfire, becoming the first time in seven years. On Nov. 10 a car bomber outside a crowded market in Charsadda, 25 mi. N of Peshawar in NW Pakistan kills 20. On Nov. 10 the U.S. govt. announces that it will start using the USAF to combat drug trafficking at the U.S.-Mexico border. On Nov. 10 Pres. Obama gives a speech at Ft. Hood in memory of the victims of Maj. Nidal Hasan, with the soundbyte "No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts, no just and loving God looks upon them with favor", concluding "The killer will be met with justice in this world and the next" - guess he never read the Quran? On Nov. 10 a 5-day conference sponsored by the Vatican on the possibility of extraterrestrial life ends - their missionaries are already learning alien talk so they can move on in? On Nov. 10 Iranian physician Ramin Pouranarjani (b. 1983) dies in the Kahrizak Prison near Tehran after going public with reports of torture of protesters; the govt. takes days to acknowledge his death, and denies that they did it. On Nov. 11 anti-immigrant CNN anchor Lou Dobbs resigns after a massive campaign by pro-immigrant groups. On Nov. 11-22 the Second Continental Congress in Chicago, Ill. discusses the trampling of the U.S. Constitution by the Obama admin. and its unprecedented expansion of federal govt. power. On Nov. 12 Human Rights Watch releases a report accusing China of operating a network of secret "black prisons" in Beijing; the govt. denies it. On Nov. 12 the U.S. govt. begins seizing $500M in assets (incl. four mosques) of the nonprofit Muslim Alavi Foundation, claiming that it's a front for the Iranian govt. On Nov. 12 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy gives a speech at the Elysee Palace, saying that France is on the verge of losing its soul because of immigration of radical fundamentalist Muslims. On Nov. 13 (6:30 a.m. local time) a suicide car bomber in the Inter-Services Intelligence HQ in Peshawar, Pakistan kills seven and injures 35. On Nov. 12 English ex-Roman Catholic nun Karem Armstrong unveils A Charter for Compassion, which is signed by 83K incl. the city govt. of Seattle, Wash. On Nov. 13 (Friday the 13th) after extensive lobbying by the ACLU, the Obama admin. announces their decision to try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others in a New York City civil court, which House Repub. leader John Boehner of Ohio calls "irresponsible", and an attempt at "treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue", former Bush admin. atty. John Yoo says the trail would be an "intelligence bonanza" for the enemies of hte U.S., N.Y. Dem. gov. David A. Paterson says "This is not a decision that I would have made", former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani says this proves that Obama's soft on terrorism, Edwin Meese II calls a "tragic mistake", former asst. FBI dir. James Kallstrom says "adds dramatically to the possibility New York will be attacked, and former vice-pres. Dick Cheney says that this will make the Sheikh "as important or more important than Osama bin Laden"; U.S. Rep. (D-Ohio) Dennis Kucinich says that everybody, even Osama bin Laden should be given the same "basic rights", and U.S. Sen. (D-N.J.) Robert Menendez says ditto; U.S. Rep. (R-Ariz.) Trent Franks says that the Dem. idea to house Gitmo detainees in Ill. shows the Dems. have at least come up with "a jobs program"; U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder, who made the decision ignores Article 1 Section 8 Clause 10 of the U.S. Constitution, which gives Congress power "to define and punish piraces and felonies committed on the high sea, and offenses against the law of nations" via military commissions; since the West and the Quranic values of jihadists are totally incompatible, to grant U.S. constitutional rights to them could prove suicidal in the long run?; Obama did it to put the Bush admin. on trial instead of the terrorists?; he did it to show that he's Islam's friend and they should drop their jihad?; a petition urging Holder to move the trial out of New York gains 60+ signatures by Jan. 11. On Nov. 13 Pres. Obama visits Tokyo, calling himself "America's first Pacific president", and vowing that the U.S. "will not be cowed by threats" from North Korea, which he says for decades "has chosen a path of confrontation and provocation, incl. the pursuit of nuclear weapons"; continuing his new style, on Nov. 14 he bows to Japanese emperor Akihito; on Nov. 15 Obama becomes the first U.S. pres. in over 40 years to meet with the rulers of Burma (Myanmar). On Nov. 13 the British Holocaust (Stolen Art) Restitution Act is passed, giving nat. institutions in Britain and Scotland the power to return art stolen during the Nazi era. On Nov. 14 anti-terrorism expert Jean-Louis Bruguiere says that the Pakistani army ran training camps for the Muslim terrorist group Laskhar-e-Taiba with the acceptance of the CIA from 2001 until recently. On Nov. 14 a suicide car bomber at a police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar, Pakistan kills 11, incl. four children, bringing the month's score to 300+. On Nov. 14 NATO and Afghan forces kill several insurgents in Shinand District in Herat, W Afghanistan, incl. an armed woman. On Nov. 16 (soundbyte day?) Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket utters the soundbyte that "The Iranian nation's nuclear rights are not negotiable"; meanwhile on Nov. 15 Pres. Obama visits Shanghai, uttering the soundbyte: "I continue to believe that the greatest threat to the United States security are the terrorist networks like al Qaeda", along with the soundbyte: "We do not seek to contain China's rise. On the contrary, we welcome China as a strong and prosperous and successful member of the community of nations", adding that he sees no need to change the One-China Policy of regarding Taiwan as part of Red China; he gives his consent to a plan by the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Singapore to delay a binding agreement on climate change until next year; he also calls for greater Internet freedom in China, but in his Nov. 16 town hall meeting with 40 carefully-selected Beijing U. students, he refuses to discuss China's Internet censorship or meet with liberal leaders, many of whom were put under detention, which he doesn't object, then lets Chinese pres. Hu Jintao control a 30-min. news conference on Nov. 17, making the U.S. look like it's getting weak and whimpy; on Nov. 18 Obama tells the press in Beijing that the U.S. needs to contain its rising deficits (which have passed the $12T mark) in order to avoid "double-dip recession", and urges Hu Jintao to allow the yuan to rise, but is ignored; on Jan. 19 Obama visits Seoul, and says that he's willing to help North Korea with its economy and end its 50-year isolation if they finally move toward nuclear disarmament. On Nov. 15 Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi invites 200 women to a party in Rome during the global food summit, then tries to convert them to Islam. On Nov. 16 PLO leader Ahmed Qurei says that the Obama admin. has reached an understanding with the Palestinian Authority that won't stop efforts to unilaterally create a Palestinian state via a U.N. Security Council resolution, and on Nov. 17 Israel approves the building of 900 new homes for Jews on the West Bank, pissing-off the Obama admin. On Nov. 16 Shiite insurgents dressed in military uniforms kill at least 12 in a pre-dawn attack in the Sunni village of Zauba, Iraq W of Baghdad. On Nov. 16 Australian PM Kevin Rudd issues a historic apology to the 7K survivors of their program to ship 150K improverished British children to Australia for the past 3.5 cents. (until 1969), who were subjected to systematic abuse and neglect. On Nov. 16 internat. inspectors pub. a report, voicing suspicions that Iran has concealed nuclear facilities. On Nov. 16 (eve.) Russian anti-racist activist Ivan Khutorskoi is shot and killed in front of his Moscow apt. bldg.; on Nov. 17 (night) Russian atty. Sergei Magnitsky (b. 1972) dies in Butyrskaya Prison in Moscow of heart failure; he had been jailed after uncovering evidence of police involvement in a $230M theft from the govt.; his Am. partner Jamison Firestone accuses the authorities of murdering him. On Nov. 16 the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force releases new recommendations against annual mammograms for women between the ages of 40-49, pissing-off the Am. Cancer Society, Am. College of Obstetrics and Gynecology et al., whose physicians make a fortune, er, believe they need them anyway, after which the Obama admin. says that the new guidelines don't represent govt. policy. On Nov. 16-18 the 2009 U.N. Food Summit in Rome fails to secure substantial new funds to fight world hunger. On Nov. 17 the EU rejects calls for the Palestinian Authority to declare a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying that the conditions "were not there yet". On Nov. 17 Somalian woman Halima Ibrahim Abdirahman (b. 1980) is stoned to death Muslim style after being convicted of adultery. On Nov. 17 the Obama admin.'s Recovery.gov Web site is revealed to have listed non-existent Congressional districts and jobs in order to explain its spending of the billions in stimulus funds, some of which is revealed to be payoffs to its political allies; the bad info. only affects 1% of the data. On Nov. 17 Australian Sen. Nick Xenophon calls the Church of Scientology a "criminal organization" in the Australian federal parliament, citing letters detailing his claims and calling for an official investigation to end its tax-exempt status - no M:I sequels in Australia now? On Nov. 17 Mass. Dem. gov. (since 2007) Deval Patrick releases the New Americans Agenda for better integration of immigrants and refugees into the civic and economic life of the Mass. Commonwealth; too bad, it treats Muslims equally with non-Muslims? On Nov. 17 a dozen Muslim men in "full attire" spread out on AirTran Flight 297 from Atlanta to Houston, causing fears of a hijacking and an aborted flight; the airline later denies that it was an actual or dry run of a Muslim terrorist hijacking. On Nov. 18 a U.S. official reports that Afghan mine minister Mohammad Ibrahim Adel accepted a $30M bribe in Dec. 2007 in Dubai from the Chinese Metallurgical Group Corp. to approve a $2.9B copper extraction province in Logar Province. On Nov. 18 U.S. Sen. Dem. majority leader Harry M. Reid unveils the new Dem. $848B health care overhaul package, claiming it will reduce federal deficits by $130B over the next decade. On Nov. 18 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder endures four hours of hostile questions from 9/11 family members in the U.S. Senate over his decision to try the 9/11 terrorists in a Manhattan civil court rather than a military one, bringing up Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confession and desire to plead guilty and be executed, telling them it was his own decision not the terrorists', and not to fear them; Sen. Lindsey Graham asks Holder if he could cite one prior case where an enemy combatant like KSM was tried in a criminal court, and is given no response. On Nov. 18 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton visits Afghanistan, telling Hamid Karazi to clean up corruption. On Nov. 19 the Lithuanian parliament begins investigating a suspected secret CIA prison set up in 2004 in Antaviliai, Lithuania in a riding stable. On Nov. 19 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai is inaugurated amid a state of siege in Kabul, with no Western heads of state present, although Hillary Clinton did bring her 18M votes. On Nov. 19 a bill by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) to subject the Federal Reserve to unprecedented scrutiny passes; meanwhile both the House and Senate show signs of getting fed-up with Obama's handling of the economy and continuing unemployment, with Repubs. on the Joint Economic Committee going after treasury secy. Tim Geither, wich Rep. Michael C. Burgess (R.-Tex) uttering the soundbyte "I don't think that you should be fire, I thought you should have never been hired." On Nov. 19 the U.S. Senate Committee on Ft. Hood, chaired by Joseph Liebermann (I-Conn.) begins public hearings, focusing on the perils of political correctness; on Nov 20 it concludes that Maj. Nidal Hassan is a terrorist. On Nov. 19 a Fla. jury orders Philip Morrisa USA to pay $300M in damages to ex-smoker Cindy Naugle (1948-), who contracted emphysema. On Nov. 19 after ex-British PM Tony Blair's bid fails, Belgian Flemish PM (since 2008) Herman Achille Van Rompuy (1947-) becomes pres. of the EU (until), and British technocrat Catherine Margaret Ashton (1956-) becomes the foreign policy head (until ?); on Nov. 25 former PM (a Christian Dem.) Yves Letermine (1960-) replaces him as PM of Belgium (until ?). On Nov. 19 two Christian converts from Islam, Maryam Rustampoor (1982-) and Marzieh Amirizadah (1979-) are released by Iran from jail after 259 days after worldwide protests and petitions. On Nov. 20 a Taliban suicide bomber in Farah City in SW Afghanistan kills 17 incl. a senior police official, and wounds 29; meanwhile politician Abdul Rasul Sayyaf is targeted by a bomb under a bridge near Kabul, but escapes, although five of his bodyguards are killed; meanwhile a U.S. missile strike near Mir Ali in North Waziristan kills eight militants, a poll by Fritz Wendel finds that 65% of Americans are expecting a Muslim terrorist attack within 6 mo. On Nov. 20 Am. Roman Catholic cardinal Justin Rigali of Philly says that there's "no way" that Catholic members of Congress can support the proposed U.S. Senate health care reform bill as long as it incl. a provision allowing govt. funding of insurance plans covering abortion, causing liberal activist Phil Attey of Church Outing.com to say that he will out gays in the priesthood to "encourage" them to change their views on gay marriage, etc. On Nov. 20 former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs gives an interview to Maria Celeste of Telemundo, softening his stand on illegal immigration and causing hardcore anti-illegal immigration groups incl. Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) to dump him as a U.S. pres. or senate candidate - did the TLW's awesome Megamerge Dissolution Solution start to get to him? On Nov. 20 the Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience, drafted by Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson et al. is released, signed by 150+ U.S. religious leaders, calling on Christians to unite in upholding the sanctity of life, the historic understanding of hetero marriage, and religious liberty, receiving 551K signatures by July 18, 2015. On Nov. 21 a gas blast at the Heilongjiang Coal Mine in China kills 104 of 500; on Nov. 22 11 more are killed in a blast at a pit in Hunan; 3K were killed in mine disasters last year. On Nov. 21 a new U.S. law prohibits a co. from asking employees, a potential employee, or family members for a DNA sample. On Nov. 22 a report commissioned by the British Council claims that Pakistan will face a "demographic disaster" if it doesn't address the needs of its youth, who are split between wanting Western democratic-style and Muslim Sharia govt., and who consider themselves Muslims first and Pakistanis second. On Nov. 22 an overloaded ferry sinks in bad weather off Riao Islands, Indonesia, killing 29 of 274. On Nov. 22 Pakistani security forces attack Taliban forces in the village of Shahukhel in NW Pakistan, bordering the Taliban stronghold in Orakzai, killing 22 militants. On Nov. 22 the 2009 Am. Music Awards shock the audience when gay Am. Idol runner-up performer Adam Mitchel Lambert (1982-) shoves dance team members' faces into his crotch, leads other around on dog leashes, and passionately smooches his male keyboard player. On Nov. 22-26 Iran stages an air defense exercise to prepare against a possible Israeli strike against its nuclear facilities. On Nov. 23 a group of 100 gunmen surround a group of 50 journalists and women, and abduct, rape, torture, and kill (plus behead) 46 in Mindinao in S Philippines, incl. Genalyn Tiamzon-Mangudadatu to prevent her from filing her hubby Esmael (Ismael) Mangudadatu's nomination to run for provincial gov.; Philippine pres. adviser Jesus Dureza calls it "a gruesome massacre of civilians unequaled in recent history"; on Nov. 25 prominent politician Andal Amputuan Jr., a member of pres. Gloria Arroyo's governing coalition is named as a prime suspect by Philippine security forces; Esmael files his papers on Nov. 27. On Nov. 23 after the U.S. raised alarms about lack of security, pissed-off Libya refuses to let Russia take the last of its highly enriched uranium; on Dec. 20 after the U.S. makes concessions, the Russians return and take it. On Nov. 23 Hannah Rosenthal (1951-) becomes dir. of the Obama admin. office to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, becoming known as his anti-Semitism czar (until Oct. 5, 2012); next Jan. after Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren criticizes J-Street in Dec. and she calls his remarks "most unfortunate", the American Israeli Action Coalition (AIAC) calls for her ouster, but the Obama admin. backs her up. On Nov. 24 the U.K. begins the Chilcot Iraq War Inquiry going back to 2001, chaired by Sir John Chilcot; gen. Sir Michael Rose calls for Tony Blair to stand trial for war crimes; former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said that Pres. George W. Bush and Tony Blair behaved like 17th cent. witch hunters in their willingness to oust Saddam Hussein, and "misled themselves and then they misled the public", showing "very bad judgment". On Nov. 24 the Voice of Am. announces that it's expanding its audience to Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Nicaragua in order to counter Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, and Daniel Ortega. On Nov. 24 Honduran police arrest two Nicaraguans and two Hondurans along with several rifles, claiming they were plotting to assassinate pres. Roberto Michelette during the upcoming Nov. 29 election. On Nov. 24 Pres Obama holds his first official state dinner, hosting Indian PM Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur; 320 are RSVP'd; too bad, two party crashers, Tareq and Michaele Salahi from Va. make a fool of the Secret Service, who wave them in without checking for invites, making later talk of criminal charges seem ludicrous when it should be talk of firing them; a secret 2003 document detailing 91 Secret Service security breakdowns since 1980 is soon leaked to the press, causing White House social secy. Desiree Rogers to step down on Feb. 26, 2010; the couple have ties to pro-Palestinian prof. Rashid Khalidi (1948-), who is also close to Pres. Obama; later it is revealed that Harvey and Paula Darden from Hogansville, Ga. got into a White House breakfast on Veterans Day despite no invitations as a courtesy because Harvey is a Navy vet - I'll show you my invitation if you show me your birth certificate? On Nov. 24 the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, Penn. upholds a school district's ban on Christmas carols incl. "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World", while approving more pagan, er, secular songs incl. "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman"; meanwhile effective Dec. 1 after protests from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, religious holiday symbols incl. nativity creshes and menorahs are banned inside the Wash. state capitol in Mount Olympus, er, Olympia by gov. Chris Gregoire. On Nov. 25 a double bombing in Karbala, Iraq injures 25 civilians gathering for the 4-day Shiite holiday of Eid al-Adha starting on Nov. 27. On Nov. 25 Pres. Obama's grandmother (mother of his father) Sarah Obama (1922-) goes to Mecca on Hajj as a guest of King Abdullah along with Obama's cousin Omran; during his campaign, she was portrayed as a Christian - like him? On Nov. 25 Dubai announces that it's defaulting on $59B in loans for at least 6 mo., after which the govt. denies responsibility for the debts of its flagship conglomerate, and on Dec. 14 Abu Dhabi loans it $10B. On Nov. 25 Iran takes five British sailors hostage from a racing yacht owned by Sail Bahrain; it releases them on Dec. 1. On Nov. 26 Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) dir. gen. Mohamed ElBaradei says that Iran has stonewalled nuclear investigators, and that inquiry is at a "dead end"; on Nov. 30 he resigns after 12 years. On Nov. 27 Islamic extremists attack the home of prominent Pakistani columnist Kamran Shafi, firing six shots while he and his family are sleeping, but missing; five journalists have already been killed in Pakistan this year; Shafi blames the Pakistani govt. for the attack because he writes for the English-language Dawn paper. On Nov. 28 an amnesty protecting Pakistani pres. Asif Ali Zardari and thousands of others from graft charges expires, causing calls for him to resign; meanwhile he relinquished command of Pakistan's nukes to PM (since 2008) Yousuf Raza Gilani. On Nov. 29 the luxury Nevsky Express is bombed by Muslim Chechen rebels near Uglovka (250 mi. NW of Moscow) en route from Moscow to St. Petersburg, killing 26 and injuring 100 of 682 passengers and 29 crew, causing the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to call for a "powerful reply" by authorities, after which on Feb. 9, 2010 the Russian Supreme Court bans the Caucasus Emirate, largest Islamist separatist group in S Russia. On Nov. 29 Iran vows to expand its nuclear enrichment program to 10 new sites, stirring fears that they're rushing to get their hands on nukes. On Nov. 29 elections in Honduras are a V for conservative opposition candidate (landowner) Porfirio Lobo Sosa (1947-) by 56% vs. 38% for rival Elvin Santos, with a 60% voter turnout, causing the Manuel Zelaya controversy to fizzle as the U.S. and four Latin Am. countries recognize the result; he takes office next Jan. 27 (until Jan. 27, 2014); Hillary Clinton's U.S. State Dept. and U.S. Agency for Internat. Development (USAID) launch the $26M Honduras Convive (Sp. "Hondoruas Coexists") program to reduce violent crimes; it is really about erasing memories of the coup while bolstering the repressing regime that is owned by big corporations? On Nov. 29 leftist flower farmer and former 1970s Tupamaro rebel (who spent 14 years in prison) Jose Alberto "Pepe" Mujica Cordano (1935-) defeats Luis Alberto Lacalle by 52%-44% and is elected pres. of Uruguay, taking office next Mar. 1 (until ?). On Nov. 29 after a Stop Minaret Movement in Switzerland, where 400K Muslims (mainly secular) now live gathers momentum, with MP Ulrich Schuler uttering the soundbyte "They are symbols of a desire for power, of an Islam which wants to establish a legal and social order fundamentally contrary to the liberties guaranteed in our constitution", Swiss voters overwhelmingly approve a ban on minaret construction; four have already been built; no surprise, the Muslim world acts in anger and outrage, claiming discrimination, while trying to get the West to overlook its own gigantic dirty laundry, such destroying over 100 historic Christian churches in Kosovo since 2000; on Dec. 4 a group of Muslims in Turkey threaten to kill a Syriac Orthodox priest unless he tears down his bell tower; on Dec. 6 Muammar Gaddhafi of Libya gives a speech saying that the vote is an open invitation to al-Qaida to launch new attacks on Europe, and calling Switzerland "the Mafia of the world". On Nov. 29 (8 a.m.) a black gunman walks into Forza Coffee Shop near Tacoma, Wash. and guns down and murders four police officers before escaping; on Dec. 1 career criminal Maurice Clemons (1972-) is shot and killed by police; his sentence had been commuted earlier by Ark. gov. Mike Huckabee; in Nov. Swiss politician Daniel Streich, who worked to ban minarets suddenly flops, resigns, and convert to Islam. On Nov. 29 the Greek-flagged Maran Centarus tanker is hijacked 800 mi. off the coast of Somalia by Somalian pirates, along with $20M in crude oil. On Nov. 30 North Korea announces a devaluation of its currency by two zeroes. On Nov. 30 Ukrainian-born alleged Nazi guard John (Ivan Mykolaiovych Demianiuk) (1920-2012) goes on trial in Munich as accessory to forcing 27.9K Jews into gas chambers in Sobibor death camp in 1943; too bad, his role is more minor than ever before before prosecuted, making millions wonder if there's a limit to Jewish desires for revenge, as a whole new class of prosecutions of aging low-level grunts would open up; he dies on May 17, 2012 in Bad Felinbach, Bavaria a legally innocent free man. In Nov. Exxon Mobil and Occidental Petroleum become the first U.S. oil cos. to reach production agreements with the Iraq govt. since the 2003 invasion. In Nov. the 2009 Internat. Religious Freedoms Report of the U.S. State Dept. accuses Israel of "governmental and legal discrimination against non-Jews and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism." In Nov. the Lutheran Church of Sweden begins conducting same-sex marriages to go with the May law giving same-sex couples equal rights with hetero couples. In Nov. Osama bin Laden's son Omar Bin Laden says that he'd like a job at the U.N. - if Barack Obama can be U.S. president? In Nov. Negar Azizmoradi, atheist leader of the Raelian movement in Iran flees Iranian persecution to Turkey, where she is arrested for having no passport, after which authorities discuss returning her to Iran despite facing execution for apostasy. In Nov. Japan begins installing special blue LEDs over Tokyo railway platforms to help stop suicide attempts; the 2003 record was 34,427 deaths; in 2008 2K jumped in front of trains, 6% of all suicides. In Nov. U.S. SSgt. Calvin Gibbs arrives at Forward Operating Base Ramrod in Afghanistan, talking fellow soldiers into forming a "kill team" that goes on to murder Afghans and collect fingers as trophies; Gibbs is convicted by a military jury of 15 counts incl. murder, and sentenced to life in priz in Nov. 2011. On Dec. 1 disbarred Fla. atty. Scott Rothstein surrenders to the FBI after returning from Morocco, where he fled last Oct. to face charges of running a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors of $1B+. On Dec. 1 Pres. Obama gives a speech at West Point Military Academy on Afghanistan, announcing that he's sending 30K new troops to bring the total to 100K, with a time limit of July 2011 to stabilize the country and train the security forces to take over and begin withdrawing (without specifing a time limit for the last withdrawals), with the soundbytes: "I want the Afghan people to understand, America seeks an end to this era of war and suffering"; "I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future", adding that to achieve those goals "We need a stronger, smarter and comprehensive strategy", adding "I do not make this decision lightly. I make this decision because I am convinced that our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al-Qaida", calling it "our vital national interest" to deny al-Qaida safe bases to plan attacks on the U.S.; also "The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan", and "There have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little, or seeking accommodation with those who use violence"; too bad, on Aug. 30 Gen. Stanley McChrystal told him he needed 40K more troops (to be supplied by other nations?), the public setting of a time limit undermines Afghan and Pakistani confidence, and he never mentions the real problem of nuke-packing Pakistan; the key questions of whether the Taliban is a threat to the U.S. and/or is going to invite al-Qaida back into Afghanistan is sidestepped, or the idea of negotiating with the Taliban for an immediate withdrawal if they finally hand over Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida men; on Dec. 4 Rusell Wiseman, may of Arlington (near Memphis), Tenn. accuses Obama of timing his speech deliberately to block the airing of the "Peanuts" Christmas TV special, proving he's a Muslim; on Dec. 2 U.S. House majority leader Sten Hoyer (D-Md.) says that he supports a war surtax to offset the cost of the Afghanistan war; meanwhile since Aug. 30 the U.S. lost 116 troops in Afghanistan since Gen. McChrystal asked for the reinforcements, incl. 17 in Nov., 58 in Oct., and 37 in Sept.; on Dec. 4 NATO leaders pledge 7K troops to back Obama up; on Dec. 8 Gen. McChrystal tells the Afghan govt. that troops will only begin pulling out in July 2011, and it might take several years to complete; U.S. Sen. (D-Mich. Carl M. Levin says that "The surge that is needed is a surge of Afghan troops"; meanwhile on Dec. 3 the New York Times reports that the CIA is expanding its use of drones in Pakistan, incl. in Balochistan Province in S Pakistan where Taliban leader Mullah Omar is believed to be hiding in the provincial capital of Quetta, and U.S. nat. security adviser Gen. James R. Jones delivers a "blunt message" to the Pakistan govt. that it must become more aggressive in going after al-Qaida and the Taliban or the U.S. will do it for them; on Dec. 10 the U.S. conducts its first unmanned airstrike in South Waziristan since the mid-Oct. Pakistani Army offensive, hitting a Taliban stronghold in Tanga in the Ladha region, and killing two Taliban and four al-Qaida fighters. On Dec. 1-Feb. 28 the 2009-10 European Winter sees heavy snowfall and record low temperatures, leading to transport disruption, power failures, and 310+ deaths; meanwhile the 2009-10 North Am. Winter ends in the Feb. 5-6, 2010 Snowmageddon and the Feb. 9-10, 2010 North Am. Blizzard. On Dec. 2 Israeli foreign minister Yigal Palmor rejects a Swedish-led push for the EU to call for the division of Jerusalem and the recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, saying that "All it can do is to marginalize the European role" and "It will only convince the Palestinians that they can remain in the trenches"; EU foreign ministers meet on Dec. 7 to settle on a Middle East policy statement. On Dec. 2 147 years have passed since U.S. pres. Abraham Lincoln called the U.S. the "last best hope of Earth" (1862). On Dec. 2 Am. filmmaker Michael Moore (1954-) appears on Larry King Live, saying that he feels sorry for Obama for deciding to pump up the Afghanistan War because 15 of the 19 9/11 terrorists were mainly from Saudi Arabia, then turning around and lamenting that the job wasn't done as fast as with Hitler and Mussolini in WWII, and claiming it will become Obama's Vietnam, yet dissing the idea of setting a deadline - although the U.S. actually won the Vietnam War then unilaterally pulled out and let the Commies take the weak South Vietnamese govt. at jet speed while Americans got into disco? On Dec. 2 a suicide bomber explodes outside the Pakistan Naval HQ, killing a guard and critically injuring two navy personnel. On Dec. 2 the N.Y. State Senate rejects a bill to allow same-sex marriage by 38-24 despite over a year of lobbying by gays; meanwhile the first gay marriage in Argentina (first in Latin Am.) is delayed by Buenos Aires officials after conflicting judicial rulings. On Dec. 3 a Muslim Shabaab suicide bomber dressed as a veiled woman in Mogadishu, Somalia kills 19 incl. three govt. ministers at a graduation ceremony in a hotel. On Dec. 3 Pakistani PM Yusuf Raza Gilani says that Pakistan doesn't believe that Osama bin Laden is in their country, and wants more info. from the U.S. on the new Obama surge plan. On Dec. 3 the U.S. House by 225-200 (with 26 Dems. voting no) cancels the proposed repeal of the estate tax, keeping the 45% rate for estates over $3.5M, making the rich work harder to subvert the tax system to pass their wealth to their children; too bad, they give all estates a free pass for 2010, allowing the heirs of Tex. pipeline billionaire Dan L. Duncan (b. 1933-) to inherit his $9B estate tax-free. On Dec. 3 Comcast and NBC Universal announce their $30B merger. On Dec. 3 U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano utters the soundbyte that al-Qaida members or followers are inside the U.S. and would like to attack targets in the U.S. and other countries, and that a recent string of domestic arrests should "remove any remaining comfort that some might have had from the notion that if we fight the terrorists abroad, we won't have to fight them here", adding "The fact is that home-based terrorism is here, and like violent extremism abroad, it is now part of the threat picture that we must confront. Individuals sympathetic to al-Qaida and its affiliates, as well as those inspired by their ideology, are present in the U.S., and would like to attack the homeland or plot overseas attacks against our interests abroad." On Dec. 3 the U.S. IRS stinks itself up by auctioning 7.1K acres of Crow Creek Sioux ancestral land in S.D. for $3.1M after legal shenanigans void 1868 treaty protections; the first time in history? On Dec. 4 the U.S. govt. announces that only 11K jobs were lost in Nov., reducing the unemployment rate from 10.2% to 10%, causing Pres. Obama to say "the trend line right now is good". On Dec. 4 a Muslim suicide squad storms a mosque in Rawalpindi near the Pakistani army HQ during Fri. prayers, killing 35 with guns and grenades. On Dec. 4 the Bolivian govt. of Hugo Chavez arrests top banker Arne Chacon and removes his brother Jesse as science minister, broadening his purge of the Boligarchs. On Dec. 4 Google begins personalizing search results, making the Internet shrink as new material is systematically eliminated. On Dec. 4 (midnight) Am. college student Amanda Marie Knox (1987-) is convicted in an Italian court in Perugia and sentenced to 26 years for the murder of her British apt. flatmate Meredith Kercher, along with her former Italian beau Raffaele Sollecito despite lack of evidence, causing the U.S. govt. to call the jury prejudiced by publicity and anti-Americanism. On Dec. 4 Episcopalians in Los Angles, Calif. elect openly lesbian bishop Mary Douglas Glasspool (1954-), who becomes the first since Gene Robinson of N.H. in 2004. On Dec. 4 after telling a fellow student "I feel like just waking up and destroying the world", British Muslim Abdulsalam Al-Zahrani stabs Binghamton U. prof. Richard Antoun to death in the science bldg. On Dec. 5 CIA agent Alan P. Gross (1949-), working for Development Alternatives Inc. is arrested in Havana after being caught handing out laptop computers and cell phones to Cuban dissidents under the $10M 2008 U.S. Cuba Democracy and Contingency Planning Program; he is later revealed to have been helping Jewish groups gain unfiltered access to the Internet. On Dec. 5 former U.S. prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy III (who on Oct. 22, 2008 uttered the soundbyte "I believe that the issue of Obama's personal radicalism, incl. his collaboration with radical, American-hating Leftists, should have been disqualifying") comes out against prosecuting Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in a civilian court, saying "A war is a war. A war is not a crime, and you don't bring your enemies to a courthouse." On Dec. 6 10K+ demonstrate in Athens on the 1-year anniv. of the shooting of 15-y.-o. student Alexis Grigoropoulos by Greek police, pissing them off and causing them to call them "vandals" and sodom, er, brutalize them. On Dec. 6 Human Rights Watch releases a Report on Denial of Women's Rights in Afghanistan, containing the soundbyte: "Eight years after the fall of the Taliban, and the establishment of the [Hamid] Karzai government, Afghan women continue to be among the worst off in the world. Their situation is dismal in every area, incl. in health, education, employment, freedom from violence, equality before the law, and political participation." On Dec. 6 Veronica D. Deramous is arrested in Arlington County, Va. after she kidnaps a pregnant 29-y.-o. homeless woman then uses a razor blade and box cutters to cut out the fetus. On Dec. 7 Student Day in Iran sees anti-govt. protests despite the govt. arresting scores of students and mothers of children killed in the unrest since June 12 in advance and shutting down the Internet. On Dec. 7 a Taliban suicide bomber outside a court in Peshawar, Pakistan kills nine while it hears challenges to an amnesty order covering 8K incl. interior and defense ministers; meanwhile the Taliban bombs a market in Lahore, killing 49 and injuring 100; on Dec. 31 Pakistani police announce the arrest of senior Taliban cmdr. Khalil Ullah, saying he is the mastermind. On Dec. 7 the U.S. Environmental Protection Admin. (EPA) announces that greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare, opening the way for the Obama admin. to impose its own curbs on emissions with or without approval from Congress. On Dec. 7 the Hopenhagen.org Web site sponsored by Coca-Cola, Siemens, and SAP corps. opens, inviting the world's citizens to sign a petition demanding world leaders draft binding agreements on climate changes; meanwhile Europe has its coldest winter in 50 years, snowing uninterruptedly starting on Dec. 13; Coca-Cola spearheads a coalition of 100+ cos. pushing a U.N. climate treaty, which commits the world's wealthiest nations to $10T in foreign aid, and possible create an internat. "super-grid" for regulating and distributing electric power; on Dec. 7-18 the 2009 U.N. Climate Change (Copenhagen) Conference attended by 15K reps from 192 nations is held in Copenhagen, Denmark to attempt to reach an internat. agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions, with U.N. Climate Change Secretariat head Yvo de Boer uttering the soundbyte: "The clock has ticked down to zero. After two years of negotiations the time has come to deliver"; developing nations will be offered aid to cut emissions; on Dec. 8 a leaked document showing that world leaders will be asked to sign an agreement handing more power to rich countries and sidelining the U.N.'s role in all future climate negotiations causes an uproar, after which African reps. walk out on Dec. 14; on Dec. 14 Al Gore gives a speech, claiming that polar ice may vanish in 5-7 years (summer 2014), rather than in 2030 like other scientists estimate, citing Wieslav Maslowski, who later disclaims it; on Dec. 18 Pres. Obama visits it, originally planning to pledge a 17% emissions cut by 2020, and 83% by 2050, but ending up frantically trying to rescue it from a stalemate after China balks at a real deal, getting snubbed by the Chinese PM then crashing a meeting to work a last-minute toothless deal in order to claim a V; the last day of the conference is blanked with 4 in. of snow; Christopher Monckton, former science adviser to British PM Margaret Thatcher claims that the real purpose of the conference is to lay the foundation for a OWG, but since it was a dud he must have been mistaken?; on Dec. 12 Danish police arrest 968 of 100K pro-global-warming protesters in Copenhagen; next July U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer resigns. On Dec. 7 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket tells Dubai TV station Al Arabiya that the U.S. is attempting to thwart the return of the Muslim Mahdi, saying "We have documented proof that they believe that a descendant of the prophet of Islam will raise in these parts and he will dry the roots of all injustice in the world." On Dec. 7 the Los Angeles Times reports that the Obama admin. finally admits that the U.S. is confronting a rising threat from homegrown Muslim extremism. On Dec. 7 Virgin Galactic unveils SpaceShip Two, their commercial passenger spacecraft set to take its first tourists into space by 2011. On Dec. 7 the Yemeni army begins an offensive against Houthi rebels in Saada. On Dec. 7 after holding up a financial regulation bill supported by Pres. Obama for weeks, the 9-person U.S. Congressional Black Caucus, led by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) gets House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to steer $3B in TARP funds toward mortgage relief for the unemployed, plus $1B for a program to have state and local govts. buy foreclosed properties and use them for more productive purposes; other than Waters, several members continue to claim that Obama isn't going far enough to help African-Ams.; on Dec. 17 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton backs an annual $100B global fund by 2020 to support climate change needs of poor countries. On Dec. 8 (10:15 a.m.) Bloody Tuesday in Baghdad, Iraq sees a string of five bombings that kill 127 and wound 450; al-Qaida later claims responsibility for this attack plus the Aug. 19 attack, and threatens more to come. On Dec. 8 an early morning a U.S. Special Forces raid on the village of Armul in the Laghman Province of Afghanistan results in 13-15 civilians massacred, causing 5K to march on the provincial capital of Mehtar Lam shouting anti-Obama and anti-Karzai slogans, spreading to the neighboring province of Nangarhar, where 3K students occupy the main highway between Kabul and Jalalabad on Dec. 9. On Dec. 8 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erodgan meets with Pres. Obama in the White House, and refuses to support further sanctions against Iran, which it's becoming increasingly friendly with. On Dec. 8 the U.S. House passes H.R. 2278, AKA the U.S. Anti-Incitement Act, directing the U.S. pres. to transmit to Congress a report on anti-Am. incitement to violence in the Middle East, and calling for sanctions against satellite cos. providing services to TV channels that incite violence against the U.S., incl. Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV and Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV, as well as Iraqi Al-Rafidayn TV broadcasting from Egypt; on Dec. 9 the bill is read twice in the Senate and then referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations. On Dec. 8 Pres. Obama gives a speech on jobs at the Brookings Inst., saying he wants to spur new jobs and give more help to Main St. as opposed to Wall St., incl. tax breaks for new hires by small businesses, along with $50B more for roads, bridges, aviation and water projects. On Dec. 8 Stephen Bosworth, Pres. Obama's first envoy to North Korea arrives in Pyongyang to try and talk them into going back to the nuclear talks it walked out of a year ago - make it work was the answer? On Dec. 8 Biurny Peguero of N.J. pleads guilty to perjury for a false story of a gang rape that sent William McCaffrey to 20 years in prison; he was released in Aug. after DNA tests. On Dec. 8 U.S. gen. Stanley A. McChrystal tells the U.S. Senate that there are up to 27K Taliban in Afghanistan but that they can be defeated; meanwhile a joint press conference in Kabul by Hamid Karzai and U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates is held, in which Karzai predicts that it will take 15-20 years before the Afghan govt. can stand on its own against the Taliban, and Gates responds that "our government will not again turn our back on this country or the region", and "We will fight by your side until Afghan forces are large enough and strong enough to secure the nation on their own", adding that the July 2011 withdrawal date is "conditioned-based" and "gradual", and not a complete pullout but a "gradual change in the U.S. military's role". On Dec. 8 the White House releases a series of mandates requiring federal agencies to post public data online. On Dec. 8 the govt. of Guinea announces the arrests of 60 people for an assassination plot against junta leader Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara. On Dec. 8 the U.S. Supreme Court releases its first four decisions of the term, marking the debut of Sonia Sotomayor, who becomes the first on the court to use the term "undocumented immigrant" intead of the usual "illegal alien" in Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter (#08-678). On Dec. 8 the New York Times pub. a story about the proposed Ground Zero Mosque in Lower Manhattan 600 ft. from Ground Zero; it takes at least 6 mo. for a firestorm of controversy to build after work by heroic blogger Pamela Geller (1958-). On Dec. 8 the CBS-TV daytime soap opera As the World Turns (begun Apr. 2, 1956 airs its last episode, with Helen Wagner, who said "Good morning, dear" in episode 1 saying "Goodbye, dear"; meanwhile ABC-TV's "All My Children" moves from New York City to Los Angeles, Calif. to cut costs. On Dec. 8 CERN's Large Hadron Collider sets a record for highest energies of subatomic particles smashed, which allegedly are beamed via a radar facility in Ramfjordmoen, Norway intothe ionisphere, causing the Norway Spiral, which lights up the Norwegian sky; the Nov. 2010 WikiLeaks dump reveals that Pres. Obama is sent to 2012 ALICE Bunker because of it. On Dec. 9 violent protests by student separatists in Hyderabad, India in Andhra Pradesh, India are shut down by police, after which the govt. caves and agrees to set up a new state. On Dec. 9 British chancellor of the exchequer Alistair Darling announces a whopping 50% tax on bonuses made by U.K. bankers with 2008 bailout funds. On Dec. 9 a 1983 proposal to audit the Federal Reserve by Ron Paul (1942-) (R-Tex.) is voted on in the U.S. House. On Dec. 9 three British Muslims are found guilty of conspire to murder civilians in a "deadly terrorist attack" on passenger aircraft, incl. Adam Khatib (1986-), Nabeel Hussain, and Shamin Uddin, who were working for a terrorist cell run from Pakistan by Abdullah Ahmed Ali, whose wife Cossor Ali (1981-) writes in her diary is desperate to kill himself for his cause in order to achieve the highest level of Islamic martyrdom and receive 72 virgins in paradise. On Dec. 9 Umar Farooq, Waqar Hussain Khan, Ahmed Minni, Ramy Zamzam, and Aman Yemer, five Muslim men from Alexandria, Va. ages 18-24 who vanished in late Nov. from their homes and arrived in Karachi on Dec. 1 are arrested in Sargodha, Pakistan for possible jihadist ties and seeking terrorist training with the Islamic terrorist orgs. Jaish-e-Muhammad and Jamaat-ud-Dawa (a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba); some of them left farewell videos; both groups rejected their applications; on Feb. 2 they claim that they have been tortured in custody, then after facing life in prison in Pakistan on terrorism charges suddenly claim that they didn't really intend to attack anybody and aren't really jihadists; on June 24, 2010 they are sentenced to 10 years and $823 fines for conspiring against the state, plus 5 years for helping to finance a militant org. On Dec. 9 a report by Human Rights Watch on Brazil is pub., saying that police in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo shot and killed more than 11K suspects since 2003, and frequently carry out extrajudicial executions; meanwhile they are slated to host the 2016 Olympic Games. On Dec. 9 the Washington Post reports that the U.S. Transportation Security Admin. (TSA) accidentally pub. online its secret 93-page operating manual for screening passengers and baggage, complete with photos of govt. officials. On Dec. 9 the govt. of India announces that it's considering forming the new state of Telangana ("land of the Telugu people") in Andhra Pradesh in EC India; on Dec. 23 it tables its own motion (until ?). On Dec. 9 a mysterious Pyramid UFO appears over Moscow's Red Square. On Dec. 10 Pres. Obama delivers his Nobel Acceptance Speech in Oslo nine days after pledging 30K more troops for Afghanistan, incl. the soundbytes "Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize... my accomplishments are slight", and "I, like any head of state reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation", countering objections about being a war president and not being up to par with past recipients with "we can't be guided by their example alone", defending "just wars", with the soundbyte "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflicts in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations, acting individually or in concert will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified"; he then snubs the Norwegians by cancelling many of the usual events, incl. lunch with the king, pissing them off. On Dec. 10 U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gives a press briefing, admitting to finally dropping the public health care option. On Dec. 10 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erodan gives an interview to Egyptian journalist Fahmi Huwaidi, saying that if Israel violates Turkish airspace to do recon on Iran, it "will receive a response equal to that of an earthquake". On Dec. 10 the U.S. House by 221-202 approves a $447B spending bill filled with $3.9B in earmarks for 5,224 pet projects; on Dec. 13 the U.S. Senate approves it by 57-35. On Dec. 10 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases estimates that H1N1 swine flu has sicked 50M, hospitalized 200K, and killed 10K in the U.S. between Apr. and mid-Nov., equal to an entire winter flu season; previous estimates claimed 22M sickened and 4K killed - my hand shakes so when I'm around you? On Dec. 10 a Pew Forum on Religion and Life Poll finds that elements of Eastern faiths and New Age thinking have been adopted by 65% of U.S. adults, with many Protestants and Catholics getting into syncretism. On Dec. 11 Pope Benedict XVI meets with Irish church leaders and issues a statement that he shares the "outrage, betrayal and shame" felt by the Irish people over the govt. report detailing Church coverup of widespread sexual abuse of children for 30 years, and promising to write a pastoral letter to the Irish people, the first-ever about sexual abuse of children by clergy. On Dec. 11 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton warns Latin Am. countries that getting too close to Iran is "a really bad idea" that could have consequences, saying the U.S. is well aware that Iran has stepped up diplomatic activities with Venezuela and Bolivia, and adding that Iran is "the major supporter, promoter and exporter of terrorism in the world today". On Dec. 11 Muntader al-Zaidi, who became a celeb when he threw his shoes at Pres. Bush a year ago, has a shoe thrown at him by journalist Khayat, who says "Here's another shoe for you". On Dec. 11 oil cos. from China, Russia, Malayasia, Angola, and Europe beat out U.S. cos. for Iraqi oil exploration and development contracts, getting only one out of 10. On Dec. 11 Libyan-born Abu Yahya al-Libi (1963-), likely successor of Osama bin Laden is reported killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan; too bad, later reports ID the man killed as Saleh al-Somali. On Dec. 12 the govt. of Uganda bans female genital mutilation, with a sentence of 10 years to life. On Dec. 12 Houston, Tex. elects its first openly gay mayor Annise Danette Parker (1956-); she is sworn-in as Houston mayor #61 on Jan. 2, 2010 (until Jan. 2, 2016). On Dec. 12 (night) dozens of Islamic militants storm a jail in S Philippines, freeing 31 inmates. On Dec. 13 Syria and Iran sign a mutual defense agreement, meaning that if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear facilities they will get in a war with Syria. On Dec. 13 Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi is hit in the face with a statue at a rally in Milan, bringing back memories of the "Years of Lead" in the 1960s-80s. On Dec. 13 Pres. Obama appears on 60 Minutes on CBS-TV, saying "I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of, you know, fatcat bankers on Wall Street"; on Dec. 14 he meets with Wall St. bank heads in person, asking them to loan more to small businesses and approve more mortgage refinancing deals, although he has little power over them. On Dec. 13 Islamic Hizbul Islam militants in Afgoye, Somalia (20 mi. SW of Mogadishu) stone to death Mohamed Abukar Ibraham (b. 1961) for adultery, forcing his fellow villagers to watch, then shoot a man they claim is a murderer, after which a battle with rivals kills three; the woman involved gets 100 lashes. On Dec. 13 a 17-nation Conference on Harassment of Women in the Arab World in Cairo, Egypt ends with grumbling but no action about Muslim-inspired attempts to drive women out of public spaces. On Dec. 14 the U.S. House by 223-202 passes a sweeping financial regulatory reform bill designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 economic meltdown by creating a new consumer watchdog agency and new regulations on everything from credit cards to executive compensation - is this called Socialism? On Dec. 14 Pakistan refuses to crack down on the #1 Taliban warrior in Afghnistan Siraj Haqqani, saying that he's a spy for them in North Waziristan. On Dec. 14 al-Qaida #2 man Ayman al-Zawahri posts an Internet message accusing Pres. Obama of deceiving the Arab world and failing to advance Middle East peace, uttering the soundbyte that real struggle is "a war between Muslims and infidels", calling on all Muslims to join the jihad against the U.S., the West, and Israel. On Dec. 14 a BBC-TV interview with former British PM Tony Blair is broadcast, in which he admits that he would have supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq even if he had known they didn't possess WMDs, saying "It was the notion of him [Saddam Hussein] as a threat to the region, the fact of how that region was going to change whilst he was there", causing calls for him to be prosecuted as a war criminal; USAF Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper (1941-) claims that Iraq sent its WMDs to Syria in the weeks before the 2003 invasion, which is later backed up by satellite photos of a 200 sq. km area near Masyaf in NW Syria? On Dec. 14 the London Times pub. a secret document exposing that Iran was working on testing a nuclear bomb "neutron initiator" as far back as 2007, although Iran claimed to have suspended its nuke program in 2003; on Dec. 21 Imadinnajacket is interviewed by Diane Sawyer on "ABC World News", and he calls the document "a repetitive and tasteless joke", strongly denying that Iran wants the nuke, and saying that if the U.S. wants to impose sanctions "Then go and do it", adding "We don't welcome confrontation, but we don't surrender to bullying either"; on Dec. 28 former CIA counterterrorism official Philip Giraldi says that the document was forged, probably by the Israelis or Brits, blaming Rupert Murdoch for allowing the disinfo. to be disseminated by his chain. On Dec. 14 after hearing arguments from the Obama admin., the U.S. Supreme Court lets stand a lower court ruling that declared torture an ordinary expected consequence of military detention, and introducing a new precedent that anyone who is declared a "suspected enemy combatant" by the U.S. pres. of his designates is no longer a "person" with human rights or legal standing; the U.S. War Crimes Act of 1996 still makes torture a federal crime. On Dec. 14 a confidential U.S. diplomatic cable says that Iran has assassinated 180 Iraqi pilots who flew sorties against it during the Iran-Iraq War; revealed by WikiLeaks in Nov. 2010. On Dec. 15 a suicide car bomber in the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul near the home of former Afghan vice-pres. Ahmad Zia Massoud and the pro-West Heetal Hotel (owned by the son of former pres. Burhanuddin Rabbani) kills eight and wounds 40; Massoud's brother Ahmad Shah Massoud was an anti-Taliban fighter killed on Sept. 9, 2001 by al-Qaida. On Dec. 15 Pres. Obama hosts a last-minute meeting with Senate Dems. over the stalled health care reform bill, telling them that they are "on the precipice of an achievement that's eluded congresses and presidents for generations"; after the meeting, Dem. Nat. Committee chmn. Howard Dean says "The best thing to do right now is kill the Senate bill and go back to the House... You have the vast majority of Americans want the choices, they want real choices. They don't have them in this bill. This is not health care reform"; after mucho arm-twisting, on Dec. 21 the Senate votes 60-40 on straight party lines, followed on Dec. 24 (first Xmas Eve session since 1895) by a 60-39 vote, requiring it to be sent to the House to reconcile the two versions; on Dec. 21 (1 a.m.) U.S. Sen. (R-Okla.) (2005-) Thomas Allen "Tom" Coburn (1948-) gives a speech in the Senate, exposing the backroom arm-twisting and sweet money deals made to get the bill passed, saying "This process is not legislation, this process is corruption"; meanwhile the Shanghai Daily announces that China will not fund U.S. deficits. On Dec. 15 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai gives a speech at an anti-corruption in Kabul, where he tries to defend corrupt Kabul mayor Abdul Ahad Sahibi, calling for his charges to be overturned, showing that the corruption goes to the top and can never be ended, just an act put on to keep U.S. money flowing in? On Dec. 15 the Obama admin. announces its decision to house Guantanamo Bay POWs in the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson in NW Ill. On Dec. 15 the U.S. Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act (CIRASAP) is introduced in the U.S. House of Reps, with 87 co-sponsors led by Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Joe Baca (D.-Calif.), meeting instant death after Dems. balk at amnesty for 12M+ Mexican immigrants and the fact that Mexico's basic problems will generate new waves; they totally ignore TLW's Megamerge Dissolution Solution, as usual. On Dec. 15 (night) after a challenge from Centrepoint, a British homeless youth support org., British Prince William spends a night on the streets of London to understand the plight of the homeless - I'm cool like that? On Dec. 15 the Obama admin.'s Dept. of Homeland Security issues a fact sheet, touting the "Secure Flight" program and how it's protecting Americans from terrorists by pre-screening suspects. On Dec. 16 the U.S. House by 217-212 passes a $154B jobs bill funding more cops and firefighters, along with worker training; the Senate won't vote on it until next year. On Dec. 16 Iran tests the upgraded Sejil 2 missile, with a 1.2K-mi. range capable of hitting Israel and Europe, while dissing attempts to impose sanctions by cutting off gasoline supplies, since they have many more suppliers available. On Dec. 16 the Pakistan Supreme Court strikes down the Nat. Reconciliation Ordinance political amnesty law and orders corruption cases reinstated against pro-Western pres. Asif Ali Zardari and thousands of other politicans, throwing a monkey wrench into the govt.'s fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban; chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was removed in 2007 by Pervez Mushrraf heads a special new monitoring unit to make sure the cases are pursued; it's really a plot by the military to remove the civilian govt. and establish a military dictatorship? - Muslims never forgive and always keep score and get even? On Dec. 16 the British Supreme Court upholds a ruling that Jewish schools can't racially discriminate against students for having non-Jewish mothers, with the soundbyte "There can in future be no Jewish faith schools which give preference to children because they are Jewish according to Jewish religious law and belief." On Dec. 16 Yemeni security forces backed by (U.S.?) warplanes kill up to 30 al-Qaida militants in the S province of Abyan, and foil a planned series of suicide bombings. On Dec. 16 Mexican drug cartel "Boss of Bosses" Don Arturo Beltran Leyva (b. 1951) is killed along with five bodyguards by Mexican govt. forces, becoming a big V for the Felipe Calderon admin.; too bad, on Dec. 21 his gang kills the mother, brother, sister, and aunt of Mexican Marine Melquisedet Angulo, who died after taking part in the raid. On Dec. 16 the U.S. FTC sues chip maker Intel for anti-trust violations. On Dec. 16 Pres. Obama gives an interview to ABC-TV's Charles Gibson, playing his best card of claiming that if his health care reform program doesn't pass, the federal govt. will go bankrupt. On Dec. 16 two senior U.N. officials claim that the #2 U.S. U.N. official in Afghanistan Peter W. Galbraith tried to get the White House to help him replace Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai in Sept. when the election fraud was being exposed, and that Karzai got pissed-off after hearing about it, causing Galbraith to be expelled and fired; the #1 official Richard C. Holbrooke also clashes with Karzai over the election, but never got caught mentioning replacing him. On Dec. 16 Pres. Obama signs Executive Order - Amending Executive Order 12425, reversing restrictions placed on INTERPOL on U.S. soil in 1983 by Pres. Reagan, placing it beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement agencies incl. the FBI, and making it immune to Freedom of Info. Act (FOIA) requests. On Dec. 16 human rights group Iraq Body Count lists the civilian death toll in Iraq for 2009 at 4,497, lowest since the 2003 invasion; the 2008 toll was 9,226. On Dec. 17 on Pres. Obama's orders, the U.S. launches cruise missile attacks on suspected al-Qaida sites in Yemen, killing 120, showing that he's serious about bringing al-Qaida down wherever they hide. On Dec. 17 the U.S. House of Reps launches an investigation into U.S. funding of the Taliban by U.S. military contractors who are paying them protection money to not attack their convoys. On Dec. 17 U.S. officials admit that Iraqi militants have been using the $26 SkyGrabber software program to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, but claim they've fixed the problem with encryption. On Dec. 17 U.S. drones kill 16 in North Waziristan, indicating an escalation to take up the slack caused by the Pakistan military. On Dec. 17 a mob of 1K Muslims storm a Roman Catholic church near Jakarta, Indonesia in order to prevent its construction from being finished. On Dec. 18 the famous 16-ft.-long 90 lb. "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign over the entrance to Auschwitz is stolen; five common thieves are later arrested, and are traced to a militant Swedish Nazi group that wanted to sell it and use the funds to fight Islamization of Europe - it did say free, right? On Dec. 18 the U.S. announces plans to send six Yemenis from Guantanamo Bay prison back to Yemen; 97 of the 210 GB POWs are from Yemen. On Dec. 18 (dawn) Iranian forces sneak into Iraq and occupy a well in the East Maysan Oil Field; after an uproar, they withdraw. On Dec. 18 the U.S. govt. charges three alleged al-Qaida assocs., Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure, and Idriss Abdelrahman in New York City with conspiring to engage in narcoterrorism. On Dec. 18 the DC Marriage Equality and Religious liberty same-sex marriage law for Washington, D.C. is signed in a church during a blizard that blankets the NE U.S. On Dec. 19 the EU opens its borders to 10M Serbs, Montenegrins, and Macedonians, ending 20 years of demanding visas. On Dec. 19 the Iranian govt. acknowledges that three protesters were beaten to death by their jailers, blaming it on low-level grunts not the brass. On Dec. 19 Pres. Obama signs the Brownback Native Am. Apology Resolution apologizing to the Cherokees and all Native Am. tribes for past wrongs, sponsored by U.S. Sen. (R-Kan.) (1996-2011) Samuel Dale "Sam" Brownback (1956-). On Dec. 19 the Vatican declares a copyright on the figure of the pope - so it was about money all along? On Dec. 20 police clash with Maoist demonstrators in Katmandu, Nepal, arresting 70. On Dec. 20 a plane loaded with North Korean weapons is impounded in Bangkok; it is thought to have been heading for Iran. On Dec. 21 Cambodia signs 14 funding deals worth $850M with China; on Dec. 19 they deported 20 ethnic Chinese asylum seekers. On Dec. 21 elections for the gov. body of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt are won by the old guard, ending reform attempts. On Dec. 21 former Bush admin. adviser Howard A. Schmidt is named Pres. Obama's cyberczar (adviser on cybersecurity policy); in May Obama declared U.S. digital networks a "strategic national asset" and called their protection a "national security priority". On Dec. 21 blonde-blue white Diane Sawyer (1945-) (known for her loving eyes and manner - what Marilyn Monroe might have become if she lived?) debuts as anchor of ABC-TV's World News Tonight after Charles Gibson retired on Dec. 18. On Dec. 21 Mexico City legalizes same-sex marriages incl. adoptions by same-sex couples, becoming the 2nd major Latin Am. city after Buenos Aires in Nov.; they approved same-sex civil unions in 2007. On Dec. 21 the Franken Amendment to the 2010 U.S. Defense Appropriations Bill is signed into law, authorizing contracts with defense cos. that "restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court" to be withheld. On Dec. 21 a letter from former U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in New York City is pub., asking the Jewish community for forgiveness for any stigma he may have caused Israel for placing the burden of peacemaking on it, comparing its settlement policies to apartheid, and blaming the pro-Israel lobby for warping U.S. foreign policy. On Dec. 21 the Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll sees Pres. Obama's disapproval rating at 46%, the first time over 42%; 55% of voters oppose Obama's health care legislation. On Dec. 21 police in SW Houston, Tex. find an AT-4 shoulder-mounted rocket launcher in the apt. of Nabilaye I. Yansane along with Muslim jihadist writings, but decline to file charges, claiming no ties were found to terrorism and there was no threat found. On Dec. 22 a suicide bomber detonates at the gate of the Pakistan Press Club in Peshawar, killing three. On Dec. 22 Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov tells the press that Russia and the U.S. are on the verge of "a radical and unprecedented reduction in strategic offensive weapons"; the 1991 START I treaty, which was set to expire on Dec. 5 was extended while working on a new agreement. On Dec. 22 the FBI releases its Dossier on Michael Jackson, which incl. details of his er, little pedophile problem. On Dec. 22 after mucho internat. publicity and pressure and a 5-year court battle, Am. father David Goldman is granted custody of his 9-y.-o. son Sean Goldman by the Brazilian Supreme Court after his wife stole him away to Brazil then died, causing his well-connected Brazilian maternal relatives to abuse the court system to slow it down; on Aug. 8, 2014 Pres. Obama signs the U.S. Sean and David Goldman Internat. Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act. On Dec. 22 after voting against the stimulus, health care reform, energy bill, equal pay for women, etc., moderate new U.S. Rep. Parker Griffith (1942-) of Ala. switches from the Dem. to Repub. Party; he is known for the soundbyte "We have nothing to fear from radical Islam... if we are strong on our own beliefs... I think America's greatest enemy is America and its materialism." On Dec. 22 (night) Am. Airlines Flight 331 en route from Miami overshoots the runway in Kingston, Jamaica and skids to the edge of the Caribbean Sea, injuring 40+. On Dec. 23 the U.N. Security Council votes 13-1-1 (Libya, China) for Resolution 1907, imposing an arms embargo and sanctions on Eritrea for giving aid to Islamic insurgents in Somalia esp. Al-Shabaab. On Dec. 23 bombs targeted at Iraqi Christians and Shiites kill at least seven and wound three dozen during Shiite celebrations of Ashura. On Dec. 23 Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Aswat reports that Osama bin Laden's 17-y.-o. daughter Eman escaped from her guards in Iran and fled to the Saudi embassy in Tehran about 1 mo. ago. On Dec. 23 Islamic Al-Shabaab militants from Somalia seize five islands near the coast of Kenya, and set up Sharia. On Dec. 24 (early morning) an air strike in SE Yemen by Yemeni forces against an alleged al-Qaida hideout kills 30, incl. leader Nasser al-Wahayshi, his deputy Saeed al-Shehri, and possibly Ft. Hood-connected Anwar al-Awlaki; since al-Awlaki is a U.S. citizen, Pres. Obama gave personal authorization for the attack first; too bad, he survives. On Dec. 24 Russian pres. Dmitry Medvedev announces on TV that Russia is working on a new generation of nuclear missiles to keep up with the Amerikanskies. On Dec. 24 the U.S. Senate votes to raise the govt. debt ceiling to $12.4T. On Dec. 24 Pope Benedict XVI is attacked by mentally unstable Susanna Maiolo in St. Peter's Basilica, causing him to fall to the floor, then get back up unhurt; she tried the same thing a year earlier but was stopped by guards; on Jan. 13 he meets with her, and she apologizes and he forgives her. On Dec. 24 a suicide car bomber in Kandahar, Afghanistan kill eight Afghan civilians. On Dec. 24 as Shiite Muslims prepare to celebrate Ashura on Dec. 28, five attacks in and around Baghdad and Karbala in Iraq kill 27 and wound 100+, incl. Iraqi Brig. Gen. Talib Khalil; too bad, since Ashura falls near Christmas, Christians who happen to live around them are treated like merde, and are afraid to celebrate Christmas. On Dec. 24 (dawn) the MV Catalyn B Ferry collides with the 369-ton Anathalia fishing vessel vessel and sinks in Manila Bay, killing 24 of 73. On Dec. 24 an Iranian court sentences prominent reformist Abdollah Ramezanzadeh to six years in prison for post-election protests; meanwhile Iran simmers with disaffected people and the Imadinnajacket regime is at a crossroads? On Dec. 24 the U.K. grants Aso Mohammed Ibrahim (1978-) asylum despite a hit-run murder of 12-y.-o. Amy Houston in Nov. 2003 after his attys. talk the court into giving him the right to a "family life". On Dec. 24 Korean-Am. Christian missionary Robert Park (1981-) crosses into North Korea carrying a letter to Kim Jong Il calling attention to his tens of thousands of political prisoners; he is arrested, becoming another one, then is freed on Feb. 6, 2010 - he'll file the letter on the pile? On Dec. 24 Jamaican-born radical Muslim cleric Sheik Abdullah el-Faisal, who had been jailed in Britain for 9 years for soliciting the murder of Jews and Hindus and deported in 2007 enters Kenya from Tanzania despite being on an internat. watch list, and it takes until Jan. 4 to catch the mistake. On Dec. 24 Polish disc jockey Jakub Rene Kosik (1982-) begins receiving death threats for a YouTube video called Mekka, which he uploaded in tribute to Muslim culture - now he knows what Muslim culture really is? On Dec. 24 the Ft. Jackson Five, five Muslim soldiers at Ft. Jackson, S.C. are arrested for attempting to poison the food supply; it takes until mid-Feb. for it to be made public. On Dec. 25 China's #1 dissident Liu Xiaobo (1956-) is sentenced to 11 years of hard time for "inciting subversion to state power" - the U.S. should free him in a commando raid? On Dec. 25 the Great U.S. Blizzard of 2009 in the C U.S. kills at least 18 and causes a state of emergency to be declared in S.D., Tex., and Okla. On Dec. 25 Pope Benedict XVI delivers his 2009 Xmas Messsage in St. Peter's Square, urging "acceptance and welcome" of immigrants fleeing poverty and intolerance. Merry Christmas from Hate-filled Allah's Fruit of the Boom, You Yankee Infidel Dogs? On Dec. 25 (eight years after Shoe Bomber Richard Reid's failed aircraft bombing attempt) the Obama family spends Xmas in Hawaii in a $4K a night rental house; meanwhile al-Qaida says Merry Xmas to Great Satan as Nigerian "Christmas Burning Man", "Xmas Underwear Bomber", "Panty Bomber", "Condom Bomber" "Balls Bomber" (son of banking exec. Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, who turned him into the U.S. embassy in Nigeria on Nov. 19 for his "extreme religious views", saying that his nickname is "Islamic scholar", causing him to be put on the 400K-name Terrorist Watchlist not the 3.4K-name No-Fly List or 14K-name Selectee List, and who was allowed to board despite having no luggage and paying for the ticket in cash) Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (1986-) (who was allowed to board despite being on the U.S. govt. watch list) attempts to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 (Airbus A330) (278 on board) in Detroit after it arrived from Amsterdam with Shoe Bomber explosive PETN hidden in a condom in his underwear; luckily it's a dud and sets him on fire instead, and after passengers put out the fires and tackle him, he survives, and Allah's paradise will have to wait; after being questioned for 50 min. by the FBI, he is suddenly Mirandized and clams up, then allegedly opens back up in early Feb. after the FBI flies his relatives to the U.S. to urge him to cooperate; on Dec. 26 it is revealed that he was sent on his mission by al-Qaida in Yemen, where he was living from Aug.-early Dec., and whose 200-300 agents are training dozens more to blow up Western jets, causing Yemeni foreign minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi to tell the BBC that Yemen wants to defeat al-Qaida but is hampered by a lack of U.S. support; airport regs. are immediately modified to prohibit passengers from getting out of their seats for 1 hour before landing, although the govt. does no ideological testing of Muslims before letting them board to screen-out those who are radicalized, and it was thanks to the passengers getting out of their seats that the plane was saved, incl. hero (movie producer) Jasper Schuringa; on Dec. 27 U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano stinks herself up by claiming that the system "worked really very, very smoothly", and on Dec. 28 after an outcry admits that it failed miserably, while Pres. Obama after three days of silence finally addresses the press on Dec. 28 after al-Qaida in Yemen claims responsibility for the attack on a Web site, saying that terrorists "must know that the U.S. will do more than strengthen our defenses, we will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us", and will pursue them in "Yemen or Somalia or anywhere else"; too bad, Obama calls Mutallab an "isolated terrorist" despite all the links to al-Qaida; on Dec. 29 Obama speaks at the Hawaii Marine Corps Base in Kaneohe Bay, and calls the affair "a systemic failure" that is "totally unacceptable", adding "There was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security"; two of the al-Qaida leaders in Yemen behind the plot were released from Guantanamo Bay prison in 2007; U.S. intel agencies stopped the U.S. State Dept. from revoking his U.S. visa; Mutallab had earlier attempted to board the plane sans passport with a mysterious Indian Man in a nice suit who tried to talk the counter agent into it, who was witnessed by passenger Kurt Haskell, who claims a coverup; another PETN underwear bomber Abdullah Hasan Tali al-Asiri from Yemen tried to assassinate Saudi prince Mohammed bin Nayef in Aug.; the Obama admin. decides to try him in federal court and offer him a plea bargain in exchange for telling what he knows about al-Qaida operations in Yemen, and he is indicted on six counts on Jan. 6, the indictment never using the word "terrorism", and pleads not guilty; Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam starts full body scanning for all people travelling to the U.S. within three weeks, followed by Nigeria; neither Pres. Obama nor U.S. Nat. Counterterrorism Center dir. Michael Leitner interrupt their Xmas vacations after the bomber incident; on Jan. 24 an alleged audio message from Osama bin Laden claims responsibility, with the phrase "Peace be upon those who follow guidance" at the beginning and end indicating a possible new attack in the works, but Pres. Obama says that his false claiming of responsibility proves his weakness; meanwhile conspiracy theorists call the whole incident a hoax by the U.S. govt. to give it mojo to invade Yemen et al.; on Aug. 31 a Rasmussen Poll is pub. indicating that 58% believe that Mutallab should be waterboarded to get more info. out of him, and 71% would like to see the crime investigated by military rather than civilian authorities; Internet postings by Mutallab incl. "My jihad fantasy... Muslims will win and rule the world"; he is the 4th pres. of a London student Islamic society (Univ. College London) to face terrorist charges in the last three years; in Jan. it is revealed that a July report by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security contains the soundbyte "Not all known or reasonably suspected terrorists are prohibited from boarding an aircraft, or are subject to additional security screening prior to boarding an aircraft"; on Jan. 7 it is revealed that Nigeria had full body scanners installed at U.S. expense in 2007, and they didn't catch Mutallab; the 84-page Pentagon Report on the Ft. Hood Massacre completely ignores the Islamic jihadist angle; meanwhile in Feb. the Fiqh Council of North America declares body scanners un-Islamic, and on Feb. 22 Pope Benedict XVI utters the soundbyte: "In every action, it is above all essential to protect and value the human person in their integrity"; five U.S. Army soldiers at Ft. Hood in Va. are arrested for a plot to poison the base food supply, but they are later cleared, although four are discharged for petty crimes - Nigerian email scam jokes here? On Dec. 26 protesters in C Tehran in Imam Hossein Square et al. are attacked by police, incl. the Rev. Guard and paramilitary Basijis; protests continue until ?; meanwhile the Islamic Repub. of Iran stink it up with increasing violence, arresting 1K in massive protests on Dec. 28, the holy day of Ashura, which is also the 7th day after the death of Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, when his death is being mourned, killing some protesters, incl. Ali-Habibi Mousavi, a nephew of former PM Mir Houssein Mousavi on Dec. 27, making them more determined to bring the regime down, shouting "This is the month of blood, Yazid will fall", referring to Ayatollah Khamenei as the new Yazid, the killer of Hussein's son Ali, whose death is lamented on Ashura; meanwhile the govt. calls the protests a foreign-backed "masquerade". On Dec. 26 Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki says that Iran might be willing to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel with the West, but only on Turkish soil. On Dec. 26 the Israeli army kills three suspected Palestinian Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades terrorists in Nablus, plus three more near the Erez crossing, causing Britain to send Ł50M in aid to Palestine. On Dec. 26 Muslims attack Christian worshippers during prayers in Kalar Kahar Town, Pakistan 75 mi. from Islamabad, injuring 65; meanwhile two Pakistani Christians, Imran Masih (1989-) and Khushi Mashi (1985-) are shot with AK-47s by Muslims at their wedding after refusing to convert to Islam, but survive. On Dec. 26 German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg says that the West should abandon hopes of creating a democracy in Afghanistan because its backward Sharia-loving Muslims are unsuited to it, and the country's govt. has to incl. the Taliban. On Dec. 26 the Pakistan govt. restricts the activities of Americans, limiting them to Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Internat. Airport. On Dec. 27 another Nigerian on the same Amsterdam-Detroit Airbus 330 flight causes a bomb scare when he locks himself in the restroom; after being arrested, he is released by the FBI after they determine that he was just airsick. On Dec. 27 the first case of highly drug-resistant TB in the U.S. since the 1970s is announced, Peruvian immigrant Oswaldo Juarez (1980-), who came to "learn English". On Dec. 27 Gaza Freedom March of 1K internat. activists from 42 countries organized by U.S. activist group Code Pink sets out by bus from Cairo to Rafah on the Gaza border; too bad, Egyptian authorities stop and mistreat them. On Dec. 27 the govt. of Iran begins posting photos of protesters on the Internet in the hope that informants will finger them. On Dec. 27 the Lebanese TV channel Al-Quds features children holding guns and being taught the glories of Islamic martyrdom, with storyteller Abu Saleh uttering the soundbyte "There is not a single Palestinian village or city whose people do not know how to use a gun. Why? Because they have suckled this with their mother's milk." On Dec. 27-29 the Reviving the Islamic Spirit Convention in Toronto attracts 6.5K-17K Muslims, who cheer after a speaker says that Allah destroyed the Soviet Union for invading Afghanistan, and might do the same thing to the U.S. On Dec. 28 U.S.-led troops are accused of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a Dec. 27 night raid in Ghazi Khan villege in Kunar, E Afghanistan that killed 10, causing "Death to America" protests in Kabul and Jalalabad; NATO spokesmen initially call the victims insurgents until Afghan govt. investigators ID them as civilians, incl. eight children ages 11-17. On Dec. 28 Yemen announces that it arrested 29 suspected al-Qaida members in response to the Underwear Bomber incident. On Dec. 28 a suicide bomber in a Shiite Muslim procession in Karachi, Pakistan kills 30 and wounds dozen, causing the Shiite Ashura marchers to get violent and throw stones at the security forces for failing to prevent it. On Dec. 28 Christian girl Sarah Edmond Youhanna is kidnapped by an Islamic group at the U. of Mosul in Iraq as a warning to all Christians to leave Iraq. On Dec. 28 Jose Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre of Argentina become the first gays to wed in Latin Am., in Tierra del Fuego. On Dec. 29 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak, causing hopes of movement in the Middle East peace process. On Dec. 29 Russian PM Vladimir Putin threatens that Russia will go ahead with a new class of advanced offensive missiles if the U.S. continues to develop a defensive missile shield - and even if it doesn't, right, Tsar Vladimir? On Dec. 29 Pres. Obama begins a sweeping classified document secrecy overhaul, saying that "no information may remain classified indefinitely", and ordering govt. agencies to try to make more info. public; this incl. the sensitive Pres. Daily Briefs? On Dec. 29 an Afghan soldier turns jihadist at a military base in Badghis Province in W Afghanistan, killing one U.S. soldier and wounding two Italian soldiers with an explosives-laden vest. On Dec. 30 (10 a.m.) suicide bombers strike Anbar Province in W Afghanistan, ambushing local leaders and killing 24 and wounding 58; meanwhile Kuwait-born Jordanian Taliban double agent suicide bomber (a physician) Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi (b. 1977) is permitted to enter U.S. Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost Province in E Afghanistan sans body search, killing seven CIA employees, five Canadians, one Afghan, and one Jordanian intel officer, Sharif Ali bin Zeid (Zaid), and wounding six CIA officers, becoming the deadliest attack on U.S. intelligence personnel in the war, exposing the CIA fighting a dirty war on the Afghan border alongside its Jordanian allies?; his Turkish wife Defne Bayrak tells the AP that his hatred of the U.S. motivated him, and that the jihad must go on; he leaves a recording bragging on how he capitalized on the "stupidity" of Jordanian and U.S. intel officials, plus a posth. message calling on Muslims to wage jihad and become martyrs like him; CIA base chief Jessica Matthews, who only spent 3 mo. in Afghanistan or served in a war zone is a misguided result of affirmative action at the CIA?; he was paid by the Taliban? On Dec. 30 U.S. House Repub. leaders led by John Boehner of Ohio ask Pres. Obama to halt releases from Guantanamo, citing the news that one or more released detainees were linked to the Xmas Underwear Bomber; meanwhile Obama summons U.S. intel chiefs to a meeting next week at the White House to discuss how to prevent a repeat of Xmas Underwear Bomber, and U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano announces that she will send senior officials to meet with airport execs around the world to discuss how to screen passengers on U.S.-bound flights. On Dec. 30 it is revealed that India is preparing for a possible 2-front war with China and Pakistan. On Dec. 30 Kosovan-born ethnic Albanian Muslim gunman Ibrahim Shkupolli (b. 1966) kills five in a shopping mall in Helsinki, Finland incl. his ex-girlfriend, then kills himself. On Dec. 30 Islamic insurgents kidnap two French journalists, along with their driver and translator in Kapisa Province 75 mi. NE of Kabul. On Dec. 30 the U.S. govt. gives $3.8B more cash to GMAC Financial Services to help it survive huge loses in its home mortgage unit. On Dec. 30 a white 1992 Dodge mystery van sans license plans in Time Square on Broadway between 41st and 42nd Sts. causes a security scare, causing it to be blocked off from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.; it turns out to contain the contents of a peddler's stand. On Dec. 30 the Afghan govt. accuses U.S.-led troops of killing innocent children in Ghazi Khan village in Narang district in E Kunar Province during a night raid that killed 10, causing anti-U.S. demonstrations in Kabul and Jalalabad, with chants of "Death to America"; the U.S. responds that they were part of an Afghan terror cell manufacturing IEDs, and that they killed nine who who were shooting at them from several bldgs. On Dec. 31 (2:00 a.m.) Pakistan commandos raid a private clinic in Wana in South Waziristan, killing four foreign militants and a woman. On Dec. 31 U.S. federal judge Ricardo M. Urbina dismisses charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007, saying that the govt. improperly used their statements. On Dec. 31 U.S. Nat. Intel dir. Dennis C. Blair sends a letter to the 16-agency intel community saying that he will "commend those who did their jobs well and hold accountable those who did not"; meanwhile Obama's deputy nat. security adviser (since 2009) John O. Brennan (1954-) is granted a special ethics waiver by the White House to conduct a review of the intel and screening breakdown on the Xmas Underwear Bomber. On Dec. 31 China denounces a U.S. trade ruling on steel pipes by the Internat. Trade Commission that subsidized Chinese imports harm U.S. steel pipe manufacturers; between 2006 and 2008 they quadrupled from $681M to $2.8B. On Dec. 31 the high court of Malaysia rules that the Roman Catholic newspaper "The Herald" has the right to use the word Allah for God; on Jan. 6 it suspends the ruling pending appeal as the govt. claims only Muslims should be able to use it, and on Jan. 7 the Metro Tabernacle Christian church in Kuala Lumpur is fire-bombed, followed by several others; on Jan. 6 the High Court in Bombay rules that Islam can be criticized, but not "maliciously". On Dec. 31 Montana becomes the 3rd U.S. state to allow assisted suicide. On Dec. 31 U2 ends the year and the decade with $123M for its 360 Tour of sports stadiums in 16 cities, the only music act to top $100M; Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band comes in #2 at $95M, Elton John and Billy Joel's joint tour comes in #3 at $88M, and Britney Spears' Circus Tour comes in #4 with $83M. On Dec. 31 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. closes at 10428.05 (down 120.46), up 18.8% for the year and down 9% for the decade; Standard & Poor's closes at 1115.10 (down 11.32), up 23.5% for the year. On Dec. 3-Jan. 3 mudslides in Brazil kill 76+. On Dec. 31 (night) there is a rare Blue Moon. In Dec. claiming the need to push through financial measures to save the sagging economy, Jordanian king Abdullah II dismisses his PM and replaces him with a palace aide, then dissolves parliament and postpones legislative elections for a year. In Dec. 2009 the Pakistan Five, five of members of the large Dar al-Hijrah Mosque located in Falls Church, Va. near Washington, D.C. (home of imam Anwar al-Awlaki) are captured in Pakistan while attempting to join an Islamic terrorist group. In Dec. France confirms the discovery of the richest oil deposit in W Europe (40B barrels), which runs under the Eiffel Tower. In Dec. oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp. buys natural gas giant XTO Energy Inc. for $30B in stock. In Dec. Russia's first Sapsan (Russ. "peregrine falcon") high-speed train begins operation between St. Petersburg and Moscow; it is built by the Siemens Co. of the U.S. In Dec. U.S. employers unexpectedly cut 85K jobs, leaving the employment rate at 10%. In Dec. Chinese-made Zhu Zhu Pets are the rage in the U.S. for Christmas toys, despite containing antimony. In Dec. the Combating Terrorism Center of West Point pub. Deadly Vanguards: A Study of al-Qaida's Violence Against Muslims, revealing that only 15% of all victims of al-Qaida attacks from 2004-8 were Westerners, and that more Muslims than Westerners were killed. In Dec. the first remains of a house in the ancient town of Nazareth from the time of Jesus Christ are discovered. In Dec. the White House Christmas Tree, designed by Simon Doonan of Barney's New York features an ornament with the face of Mao Zedong, and another with the transvestite char. Hedda Lettuce; Pres. Obama doesn't regularly attend church in his first year, and skips it on Xmas also. In Dec. Polish police announce the foiling of an al-Qaida plot to bomb the Euro 2012 Football Tournament. In Dec. after talks with Dutch sports car maker Spyker fall through, GM announces plans to close down operations at Saab. In Dec. residents of Colo. Springs, Colo. erect a sign reading "Welcome to Obamaville" visible from the main highway. In Dec. the 1.5K San Francisco Sea Lions of Pier 39 suddenly vanish; the first began leaving the day after Thanksgiving. In late Dec. the three top Wall St. banks, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley decide to award $49.5B in year-end bonuses, causing a public outcry; they received a total of $45B in cash under TARP. In late Dec. the Obama admin. announces that it is overturning the Bush admin. policy of automatically arresting immigrants claiming to be fleeing torture or persecution, allowing them to freely live in the U.S. while their applications for permanent asylum are being considered - the Xmas Underwear Bomber did it wrong? In Dec. former lingerie model Angie Sanselmente Valencia is exposed as running one of the world's largest drug rings; a warrant for her arrest is issued in Feb. The U.S. Congress removes longtime budget restrictions preventing officials of Washington, D.C. from implementing a medical marijuana intiative approved by voters in 1998. The U.S. begins building the $400M Iron Dome System for Israel to protect Israeli towns from Palestinian rockets coming from the Gaza Strip (finished 2010). The Rand Corp. pub. a U.S. Army-funded Study on Civil Unrest that recommends an internal U.S. police force to combat unrest, causing 20K troops to be deployed in the continental U.S. in 2011. The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies gives the U.S. govt. a report showing that Iran's greatest vulnerability is inability to refine oil into gasoline, causing them to fold them into the sanctions, with good effect; too bad, Iran begins building facilities to turn natural gas into methane and convert vehicles to run on it. Saudi Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan issues a fatwa permitting an employee to kill his co-worker for not praying to Allah. The synthetic drug Mephedrone (AKA meow or miaow) becomes the #4 street drug in the U.K. behind marijuana, cocaine, and ecstasy; it is not made illegal in the U.K. until Apr. 16, 2010, and the U.S. until ?. Ben & Jerry's renames its popular Chubby Hubby flavor to Hubby Hubby to commemorate gay rights. Tasmania launches its first bank for women. After pressure by pro-Palestinian activists, Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. becomes the first U.S. univ. to divest itself from mutual funds tied to Israel. On Aug. 25 the Web site Ancient History Encyclopedia is launched. On Nov. 3 GPal is founded as a competitor to near-monopoly PayPal. The term Muffin top to describe flabby flesh spilling over the waistline of pants is coined in Australia. The first annual Brooklyn Folk Festival in N.Y. is held. Architecture: On Mar. 29 $850M City Field in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, N.Y. opens as the home of the NL New York Mets, replacing Shea Stadium (opened 1964). On Apr. 23 the 645-ft.-tall 58-story blue-gray glass late-modernist Millennium Tower in downtown San Francisco, Calif. in the South of Market district at the N end of the Transbay Transit Center opens, skipping floors 13 and 44 for superstitious reasons, which doesn't stop it from sinking and tilting by 2016. On May 27 $1.3B Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, Tex. opens as the home of the NFL Dallas Cowboys; the first pre-season home game is played on Aug. 21, and the first regular season home game on Sept. 20; on July 25, 2013 it is renamed AT&T Stadium. 1,811-ft. Chaotianmen Bridge in Chongqing, China opens, becoming the world's longest steel arch bridge (until ?). The Crooked House in Sopot, Poland is based on the works of Polish artist Jan Marcin Szancer and Swedish artist Per Dahlberg. The 2,265-seat Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, Calif., designed by Frank Owen Gehry opens on Oct. 23. The $700M U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq opens on 104 acres of land, with 21 bldgs. and 15-ft. thick walls to protect the staff of 5.5K, becoming the largest diplomatic facility on Earth, 10x larger than the next largest, the U.S. embassy in Beijing. The Flight 93 Nat. Memorial is begun on Nov. 8 in Stonycreek Township, Penn. (2 mi. N of Shanksville and 60 mi. SE of Pittsburgh) to honor the 40 victim-heroes of Flight 93 on 9/11. Sports: On Feb. 15 the 2009 (51st) Daytona 500 is won by Matthew Roy "Matt" Kenseth (1972-), becoming the first #17 car since Darrell Waltrip in 1989 to win. On May 2 the the indoor practice facility of the Dallas Cowboys in Irving, Tex. collapses in high winds, causing 12 to be hospitalized and permanently paralyzing scouting asst. Rich Behm (1975-). On May 24 (Sun.) the 2009 (93rd) Indianapolis 500 is won by Helio Castroneves (1975-) of Brazil (3rd win). On May 30-June 12 the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals see the Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the Detroit Red Wings 4-3, making Pittsburgh the only city to win the Super Bowl and Stanley Cup in the same year; Pittsburgh becomes the 2nd team after the 1971 Montreal Canadiens to win after losing the first two games on the road; MVP is 6'3" Penguins center Evgeni (Yevgeni) Vladimirovich "Geno" Malkin (1986-), who becomes the first Russian-born and Asian-born MVP. On June 4-14 the 2009 NBA Finals sees the Los Angeles Lakers (coach Phil Jackson) defeat the Orlando Magic (coach Stan Van Gundy) by 4-1: MVP is Kobe Bryant of the Lakers. On Nov. 27 (2:25 a.m.) Am. golf superstar Tiger Woods (1975-) crashes his Cadillac Escalde SUV into a fire hydrant outside his Fla. home, then locks himself up in his house until Nov. 29, when he admits responsibility, with the soundbyte "I'm human and I'm not perfect", after which he admits "transgressions" regarding allegations of extramarital affairs, after which at least 12 all-white mostly blonde babes come out of the er, woodwork to claim affairs with him, incl. high-priced hookers, giving his untarnished image mucho grass between the toes, causing his endorsement career to tank, with Gatorade being the first, dropping its Tiger Woods drink, although it claims it already decided to, followed on Dec. 12 by Accenture Pic, on Dec. 18 by Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer, and on Dec. 31 by AT&T; shareholders in cos. that sponsored him lose a total of $12B; after his Swedish-born white blonde-blue wife (since 2004) Elin Maria Pernilla Nordegren (1980-) leaves him, he announces his retirement from golfing until he gets his life back together; she demands half of his $600M wealth plus custody of their two children; meanwhile on Dec. 16 he is voted top athlete of the decade by the AP, with 64 tournament wins incl. 12 majors and 56 PGA Tour wins. Nobel Prizes: Peace: Barack Hussein Obama II (1961-) (U.S.); Literature: Herta Muller (Müller) (1953-) (Germany); Physics: Sir Charles Kuen Kao (1933-) (U.K.) (optical fibers), and Willard Sterling Boyle (1924-) (U.S.) and George Elwood Smith (1930-) (U.S.) (CCDs); Chem.: Venkatraman Ramakrishnan (1952-) (U.K.), Thomas Arthur Steitz (1940-) (U.S.), and Ada E. Yonath (1939-) (Israel) (first Israeli woman) [structure and function of the ribosome]; Med.: Elizabeth Helen Blackburn (1948-), Jack William Szostak (1952-), and Carolyn Widney "Carol" Greider (1961-) [telomerase]; Econ.: Elinor "Lin" Ostrom (1933-2012) (U.S.) (first woman) and Oliver Eaton Williamson (1932-) (U.S.) [economic governance, esp. the commons]. Sports: On Apr. 12 Angela "the Duck" Cabrera (1969-) becomes the first Argentine to win the Masters golf tournament. On May 2 (Sat.) 50-1 gelding Mine That Bird stages one of the most shocking upsets in the 135th Kentucky Derby on a muddy track, winning by 6-3/4 lengths, the largest winning margin in 63 years (Assault in 1946, who won by 8 lenghts); on May 16 Rachel Alexandra (2006-) (sired by Birdstone) (who won the Kentucky Oaks on May 1) becomes the first filly to win the Preakness since 1924, with Mine That Bird coming in 2nd by a length; on June 6 11-1 Summer Bird, another horse sired by Birdstone wins the 141st Belmont Stakes by 2-3/4 lengths, with Mine That Bird coming in 3rd; jockey Calvin Borel (1947-), who rode the winners in the first two races on different horses (a first) is thwarted in his bid to win an unprecedented personal Triple Crown. On July 19 Thomas Sturges "Tom" Watson (1949-) misses an 8-ft. par putt at the British Open, losing his chance to become the oldest major champion in history as Stewart Clink clinks it into the cup to win. On July 23 lefty Mark Alan Buehrle (1979-), #56 of the Chicago White Sox pitches a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays (5-0) at U.S. Cellular Field; on July 28 he strikes out a record 45 consecutive batters; on June 14 he hit his first ML homer off Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Braden Looper. On July 28 after winning the 400m freestyle on July 26, Paul Biedermann (1986-) of Germany defeats Michael Phelps in the 200m freestyle final at the world championships (his first defeat since 2005), wearing the Arena X all-polyurethane swimsuit, while Phelps has to stick with his Speedo LZR Racer due to contractual obligations, throwing the sport into a tizzy, as the Arena X-Glide suit will not be banned until next year. On Aug. 16 at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Usain "Lightning" Bolt (1986-) of Jamaica shatters the 100m world record from 9.76 to 9.58 sec., becoming the largest margin of improvement since the start of electronic timing. On Aug. 16 one of the greatest upsets in golf history sees South Korean golfer Y.E. Yang (Yang Yong-eun) (1972-) defeat Tiger Wins to wood, er, Tiger Woods to win the U.S. PGA title, becoming the first Asian-born player to win a major; Woods had not lost any tournament in nine years and was leading by two shots going into the final round. On Aug. 31-Sept. 14 the 2009 U.S. Open of Tennis (which runs to Mon. because of rain) sees Belgian wild card Kim Antonie Lode Clijsters (1983-), who left the game two years ago to start a family then returned to tennis a month ago defeat Serena Williams in the semi-final, who blows up at the end and threatens a judge, drawing a $10.5K fine and other disciplinary action, becoming Williams' 3rd tournament since returning; Clijsters defeats Caroline Wozniacki (1990-) (first Dane in a Grand Slam final in the Open Era) in straight sets 7-6, 6-3 to win her 2nd U.S. Open title (2005), becoming the first unseeded player and wild card to win, and first mother since Evonne Goolagong in 1980; on Sept. 14 Juan Martin (Martín) del Potro (1988-) of Argentina upsets five-time defending champ Swiss maestro Roger Federer in a four-hour match to win the men's singles title. Architecture: On May 27 $1.3B Cowboys Stadium in Dallas, Tex. opens as the home of the NFL Dallas Cowboys; on July 25, 2013 it is renamed AT&T Stadium. On ? the 682-ft. (208m) Great Beijing Wheel opens, becoming the world's tallest Ferris wheel (until ?), with passengers able to view the Great Wall of China on clear sunny days - about three seconds a year? The 274m 77-story twin-tower $450M City of Capitals in Moscow is finished, becoming the tallest bldg. in Europe (until ?) - the Russian WTC? The $30M 92.5K sq. ft. Grand Mosque of Marseille is built, with a light that shines during prayers instead of a loud broadcast; Marseille has 200K Muslims. Inventions: In Feb. researchers at the U. of Calif. San Diego (UCSD) demonstrate their Einstein Robot, which incl. the ability to smile. On Apr. 27 IBM announces the Question Answering (QA) system, which they plan to put in a human vs. computer test on TV's "Jeopardy!". In Apr. the Hitachi Ltd. Wooo H001 Cell Phone has a 3-D mode, but is too cumbersome and isn't marketed in the U.S. On May 28 Bing.com search engine is launched by Microsoft to compete with Google. On June 19 Manchester U. physicist Andre Geim announces the invention of Graphene, the thinnest and strongest known material in the Universe, one atom thick, made of pure carbon; it has the potential of beating silicon as the fastest material for computer chips. In June Mas Subamanian and his graduate student Andrew E. Smith of Ore. State U. released the new blue pigment YInMn (yttrium, indium, manganese) Blue. On July 8 Google announces that it is developing the Chrome Operating System in direct competition to Microsoft's bug-filled Windows Operating System for netbooks. On Oct. 22 Microsoft launches Windows 7, hoping to win back millions of pissed-off customers who bought their cruddy Vista Operating System. On Oct. 29 Samsung Electronics Co. displays their 10.1" color electronic paper (e-paper) device, which they plan to produce in 1-2 years. In Oct. the first genetically-engineered "Holy Grail of the plant breeding world" blue roses hit the market in Japan at $22 apiece, 10x the usual price. On Nov. 17 NEC Electronics Corp. and Soundpower Corp. announce a new type of vibration-driven remote control that doesn't require a battery and can be used with home electric appliances, generating electricity from the vibration caused by pressing the button. On Dec. 8 a Plain Paper Battery coated with carbon nanotubes and dipped in lithium electrolyte solution that reduces battery weight by 20% is described by Liangbing Hu. On Dec. 15 the twin-engine widebody 186-ft.-long Boeing 787 Dreamliner makes its first flight two years behind schedule. becoming Boeing's most fuel-efficient airliner by making use of carbon composite materials in the airframe, designed to be 20% more fuel efficient than the Boeing 767 that it replaces. On Dec. 24 the first 1-Molecule Transistor is announced in Nature by researchers from Yale U. and Gwangju Inst. of Science and Tech. in South Korea. In Dec. the 5-pasenger BYD E6 electric car from China is introduced, going 250 mi. on a single charge. In Dec. UCSD prof. Ricardo Dominguez announces the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a cell phone app to help illegal immigrants from Mexico find the best locations for food, water, and groups to help them sneak into the U.S. In Dec. MIT develops a new wheel for bicycles that captures the kinetic energy released when it brakes and saves it for when the rider needs a boost. Cloud computing Mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto (1975-) of Japan invents Bitcoin electronic cryptocurrency, inventing the first blockchain database and releasing the source code; in 2010 it is first used for illegal drug purchases on the Internet by hallucogenic mushroom farmer Ross William Ulbricht (1984-) of Tex., who creates the online black market site Silk Road in Feb. 2011 under the name Dread Pirate Roberts, which is shut down by the FBI in Oct. 2013, after which on May 29, 2015 a federal judge sentences Ulbricht to life in prison without parole. begins to threaten software giant Microsoft et al. by providing software as a service rather than a product, with leaders incl. Google. Ares (Assembling Reconfigurable Endoluminal Surgical System by Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy is swallowed by the patient in 15 separate parts, after which it self-assembles inside the body and helps surgeons carry out procedures. Blue Brain is built by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, attempting to duplicate the brain in silicon. The Eigenharp, an new electronic combo sitar-bassoon is marketed by Eigenlabs in Devon, England. Israel fields the Guardium unmanned ground vehicle, an armored golf cart. Nepalese science student Milan Karki (1991-) invents a solar panel made of human hair; a Ł23 panel produces 9V at 18W, 4x cheaper than current panels. Jeremy O'Brien, Jonathan Matthews, Alberto Politi et al. of the U. of Bristol build a siicon chip that implements the 1994 Peter Shor algorithm to crack the RSA algorithm, making the govt. and all computer users nervous. The USAF RQ-170 Sentinel is a stealth reconnaisance jet aircraft flying wing, AKA the Beast of Kandahar. The Ceramtek Wonder Battery, built in Salt Lake City, Utah crams 20-40 KWH of energy into a refrigerator-sized package, promising to revolutionize the world and end dependence on an energy grid. The DEKA Arm (AKA Luke after Luke Skywalker of "Star Wars") is developed with funds from the Pentagon. HP Labs announces a project to build the Central Nervous System for the Earth (CeNSE) as part of the emerging Internet of Things. Frank Guenter et al. of Boston U., Harvard U. and MIT develop the first thought-to-speech translator. The ErockIT electric pedal-assisted bicycle from Germany attains speeds of 50 mph. Tire manufacturer Yokohama begins marketing Super E-spec Tires, made with orange oil instead of rubber to save on petroleum. The Nao humanoid robot can surf the Web. British scientist Jon Spratley develops a "telepathic microchip" allowing paraplegics to control computers. Softkinetic and Optima of Belgium invent 3-D Gesture Recognition, allowing TVs and videogames to be controlled by a wiggle of the fingers. The hydrogen-powered Riversimple Car is leased at $315 a mo.; the first vehicles go into production in 2013. Nephelios, a solar-powered blimp is built by high school engineering students in France. Hiroshi Ishiguro of Japan creates a robot twin called Geminoid HI-1, which incl. his personal idiosyncrasies such as tapping its toes and fidgeting. The Bloodhound SSC supersonic car is developed, containing a rocket, a jet engine, and a V-12 gasoline engine; it will try to break the 1600 km/h (1000 mph) land speed barrier in 2011. Julie Sodem et al. of the U. of Ulster invent a Formula Three car made out of cashew nut cells and other recycled materials, which runs on bio-disel and has a top speed of 130 mph. Toyota develops the Brain-Machine Interface, allowing a person to control a wheelchair with his mind; an emergency stop is effected by puffing one's cheeks. The first slime mold biological robot (AKA Plasmobot) is built in Britain. Victor Gura of UCLA invents a portable kidney dialysis machine. Rickard Hederstierna (1982-) invents the Cocoon, a glass cooker that grows a meatlike material for food out of packets containing muscle cells, oxygen and other nutrients. The Rear Projection Urinal is invented by a pub in Melbourne, Australia. The Toyota Flowers, developed from the cherry sage plant and gardenia absorb harmful atmospheric gases and create water vapor on the grounds of their Prius plant in Toyota City, Japan. The YikeBike looks like a bar seat but can be turned into a "mini penny-farthing" that goes 10 mph. Russia announces that it is designing a nuclear ship to fly humans to Mars, and that the design will be ready by 2010, after which it will take nine years and 17B rubles ($600M) to build it. Coca Colla, containing cocaine is manufactured in Bolivia, becoming a hit in the region, but running afoul of internat. drug laws; it has a red-white label like Coca-Cola, and is marketed as an energy drink. Science: On Feb. 3 BioEssays pub. an article by Nick Lane, William Martin et al. of the Univ. College London, rejecting J.B.S. Haldane's 1929 "Primordial Soup Theory for the Origin of Life" in favor of origin in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, powered by hot gases incl. hydrogen, CO2, nitrogen, and hydrogen sulfide. On Feb. 24 NASA's $280M Orbiting Carbon Laboratory, designed to detect worldwide carbon emissions plunges into the ocean after launch from Vandenberg AFB in Calif. when the nose cone fails to come off, weighting it down; on July 2, 2014 NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 is launched to study CO2 concentrations and distribution in Earth's atmosphere. On Feb. 27 NASA launches the Lunar Reconnaisance Orbiter (LRO), which will look for places where water might be found by astronauts; meanwhile on Oct. 9 the $600M NASA Centaur Lunar Impactor smashes into the Moon at 5.6K mph in a frozen crater believed to contain ice, and on Nov. 13 NASA announces the discovery of a large lunar ice field at the S pole. On Mar. 5 NASA launches the Kepler spacecraft, which will orbit the Sun, becoming the first "planetary census taker", looking for "pale blue dots" (Carl Sagan), planets that could support life in constellations Cygnus and Lyra. On Mar. 8 Pres. Obama overturns Pres. George W. Bush's 8-year ban on stem cell research, limiting scientists to cells culled from fertility clinic embryos that otherwise would be thrown away on Apr. 17. On Mar. 17 the Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite is launched by the European Space Agency; in 2011 it becomes the first satellite to detect an earthquake from space, the Mar. 11, 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. In Mar. Christchurch, New Zealand-born Kevin Edward Trenberth (1944-) of the Nat. Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) (lead author of the 2001 and 2007 IPCC Assessment Reports) pub. the article Earth's Global Energy Budget in Proceedings of the Am. Meteorological Society, displaying a Global Energy Flow Diagram that purports to show how "back radiation" of 333 W/sq. m causes global warming, and is quickly adopted by climate scientists, even though the incoming solar radiation is only 341.3 W/sq. m; this is moose hockey because it ignores the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics and doesn't mention that convection overrides radiation in Earth's atmosphere, or that back radiation is mathematical science fiction that creates an imaginary second Sun along with a perpetual motion machine? On Apr. 4 the 3-year Study of the Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer (STEP) is pub. in the Am. Heart Journal, finding no evidence for divine intervention but detecting a possible proof for the power of negative thinking, with patients who were prayed for and knew it experiencing a higher rate of postsurgical heart arrhythmias (59% vs. 52%). On Apr. 5 the journal Motivation and Emotion pub. an article claiming that those who smile in their high school yearbook photos had a 5x lower divorce rate than those who frowned, not counting ever-smiley Hollywood celebs. On Apr. 10 researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center announce that TB4 (Tymosin Beta-4) encourages growth and repair of heart cells if injected after a heart attack. On Apr. 14 the United Arab Emirates claims the world's first cloned camel, the Arab version of Dolly the Sheep, a 1-humped female called Injaz born on Apr. 8 after five years of work. On Apr. 21 Swiss and French scientists from the European Southern Observatory in Chile led by Michel Mayor announce the most Earth-sized and temperate planet yet found beyond the Solar System, #4 orbiting Gliese 581, a dim red star 21 l.y. away, becoming the first of 340+ planets discovered since 1995 that might be able to support life. In Apr. Washington, D.C.-born former Rush Limbaugh aide Marc Morano (1968-) founds the climate change denial Web site Climate Depot, sponsored by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) of Washington, D.C. (founded in 1985), going on to spread news of the Climategate scandal, debate Bill Nye the Science Guy on CNN's "Piers Morgan Tonight" in Dec. 2012 and Sierra Club exec dir. Michael Brune on ditto in Jan. 2013, and produce the documentary Climate Hustle on May 2, 2016. On May 4 Jeff Kepner (1951-) of Augusta, Ga. undergoes the first-ever double hand transplant, asking for them to be removed in 2016 after the prove nonfunctional; on May 5 Connie Big Gulp, er, Connie Culp (1962-) (whose lowdown hubby shot off her face with a shotgun, then botches his own suicide and gets a lousy seven years for attempted murder) bravely steps forward in Cleveland, Ohio to show the results of the first U.S. face transplant (last year), by the Cleveland Clinic, uttering the soundbyte "I got me my nose" - transplant his face to his ass and vice-versa, what an ass? On May 21 Science Daily reports that so-called "junk DNA" isn't junk but performs vital functions, using genes called transposons to regroup the DNA at key phases in the lifecycle. On May 22 PLoS Genetics announces that HIF-1 (hypoxia-inducible factor 1), which helps survive by turning on when oxygen levels are low plays a role in human cancer, explaining why dietary restriction lengthens lifespan. On May 27 in an article in Nature, scientists in Japan led by Erika Sasaki announce the creation of the first genetically-modified "transgenic" monkeys that can pass their new genetic attributes to their offspring, producing baby marmosets Kei and Kou, whose skin glows green under UV light, causing concerns to be raised of it being used on humans - the answer to race, make everybody into pastel glow in the dark colors? On May 28 a team at the U. of New South Wales in Australia announces that they have used stem cells to help grow contact lenses for corneal patients. On June 9 the journal Genetic pub. a breakthrough by a team of scientists in Germany, Russia, and Sweden of locating the set of genetic regions responsible for animal tameness. On June 16 Nature Materials mag. announces that scientists at NYU have created a method to precisely bind nano and micrometer-sized particles together into large-scale structures after overcoming the problem of uncontrollable sticking. On June 19 German scientists announce official approval for Ununbium as chemical element #112; it was first announced in 1996. On June 19 researchers at the Montreal Neurological Inst. announce in Science the capturing of the protein translation mechanism underlying long-term memory formation. On June 19 Evolutionary Ecology mag. pub. the discovery of the first plant that feigns sickness to avoid insect attacks, Caladium steudneriifolium, found in the forests of S Ecuador. U. of Ga. researcher Jason Locklin et al. develop a method of growing molecular wire brushes that conduct electricity, becoming a first step toward developing biological fuel cells for pacemakers, cochlear implants, and prosthetic limbs. On June 24 the Proceedings of the Royal Society B in Britain reports that warmer environments cause faster microevolution in mammals; until now the effect was only shown for plants and ectothermic marine animals. On June 26 Nature pub. research by the Carnegie Inst. in Md. showing that adult rather than embryonic stem cells can be used to treat muscular disorders. On June 27 Nature Biotchnology pub. an article by Australian scientists Jennifer MacDiarmid and Himanshu Brahmbhatt that they have achieved a 100% survival in mice with human cancer cells using a new "trojan horse" therapy. In June students at Cambridge U. create the seven E. chromi strains of Escherichia colia, one in each color of the rainbow using BioBricks, pioneering synthetic biology; MIT later creates a Registry of Standard Biological Parts for them. In June Yale U. physicist Leonardo DiCarlo et al. make the first solid-state quantum processor, which uses quantum entanglement. In June satellite data reveals that the Earth's temp has dropped by 0.74F since former U.S. vice-pres. Al Gore released "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006, indicating that the Earth's fever has broken? On July 7 English scientists in Newcastle claim to have created the first human sperm in the lab using stem cells; men are doomed to obsolescence? On July 8 U. of Adelaide and Cambridge U. scientists announce a way of genetically modifying crops to allow them to grow in salty water, promising more food for hungry nations. On July 8 the NASA Cassini spacecraft obtains the first direct evidence of liquid methane lakes on Titan. On July 13 Nature Photonics pub. the discovery by a team at Yale U. of a repulsive force of light, which along with the attractive force can be used as mechanical switches on IC chips; the force is caused by two beams out of phase with each other, and is at right angles to the beams; "The light force is intriguing because it works in the opposite way as charged objects. Opposite charges attract each other, whereas out-of-phase light beams repel each other." (Wolfram Pernice) On July 16 Human Mutation pub. a study by scientists in Montreal, Canada that find a difference between the DNA of blood and tissue cells, shaking up the scientific world. On July 20 Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley alerts NASA to the presence of a new scar on Jupiter's atmosphere on July 19, caused by an unseen object hitting it, which turns out to be a Titanic-sized asteroid - Bernie Madoff's gigabuck loot capsule? On July 23 Taylor Perron et al. of UCB pub. an article in Nature that theoretically predicts the topographic wavelength of ridges and valleys, and explains whey they tend to be evenly spaced despite the underlying soil type. On July 23 the the first panda cub is born using frozen sperm, at Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in Sichuan, China; the mother is You You. On July 26 Nature pub. an article describing the Multiplex Automated Genome Engineering Method, which allows multiple genes to be edited in parallel. In July researchers at Northwestern U. report the first successful growing of mature human eggs in the lab. On July 26 Green Pea Galaxies that form stars 10x faster than the Milky Way despite being 10x smaller and 100x less massive are discovered by amateur astronomers. In July Nature pub. a report by Chinese scientists of the first use of induced pluripotent stem cells to clone mice from adult mouse skin cells. The July issue of the FASEB Journal reports the discovery of why bats live longer than closely rleated animals such as mice, namely, proper protein folding. In July Shihui Han et al. of Beijing U. pub. an article in the Journal of Neuroscience reporting research that shows that brains respond less strongly to the pain of strangers whose ethnicity is different compared to strangers of one's own race. In July opthalmologist John Marshall of King's College, London announces a new technique called Retinal Regeneration Therapy to reverse the onset of macular degeneration (AMD) using a laser to clean debris from Bruch's membrance behind the retina. In July Yizhi Jane Tao et al. of Rice U. pub. an article in the Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences reporting that they have described the atomic structure of the protein shell carrying the genetic code of hepatitis E (HEV). In July scientists at Oxford U. announce in Nature Physics the creation of transparent aluminium by using a powerful soft X-ray laser; the same material was made-up for the 1986 film "Star Trek IV". In July Moshe Shoham of the Technion Inst. in Israel develops the first micro robot that can crawl through the human body on micro legs. In July an article in Biogeosciences reports that satellite image studies reveal that the Sahara has been slowly regreening between 1982-2002. On Aug. 10 researchers at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern U. announce that schizophrenia is caused by a deficiency in the brain protein kalirin, causing a traffic jam in the frontal cortex. On Aug. 6 an article in Nature announces that the genetic structure of the HIV-1 virus has finally been decoded. On Aug. 10 scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab of the U.S. Energy Dept. announce a new high-throughput protein pipeline that determines protein structure in days rather than years. On Aug. 12 astronomers announce the discovery of WASP-17, a planet that orbits a star 1K l.y. from Earth in a direction backward compared to the rotation of the host star, becoming the first ever. On Aug. 12 the Journal of Biological Engineering pub. an article describing the use of bacteria to build a computer that can solve the Hamilton Path Problem by Todd Eckdahl et al. at Mo. Western State U. On Aug. 17 Joel Smoller of the U. of Mich. and Blake Temple of the U. of Calif. pub. the Big Wave Theory as an alternative to Dark Energy to explain the apparent expansion of the U as caused by an expanding wave in spacetime. On Aug. 17 Vladimir Shalaev et al. of Purdue U. announce the Spaser, the tinest laser ever made. On Aug. 24 Andrew Elefanty, Ed Stanley et al. at Monash U. pub. an article in Nature Methods describing how they have modified stem cells into ErythRED cells, which glow red when they become red blood cells. In Aug. 26 Shoukhrat Mitalipov et al. of the Ore. Health and Sciences U. in Portland announce that they have produced monkeys with DNA from two mothers, raising legal questions for human use. In Aug. Tom Ran and Ehud Shapiro of the Weizmann Inst. in Israel develop a DNA computer that can answer yes-no questions. In Aug. astronomers discover an interplanetary smash-up around young star HD 172555, where an object the size of Earth's Moon slams into a planet the size of Mercury. In Aug. NASA scientists discover glysine in comet Wild 2 (pr. vilt), becoming the first amino acid found in a comet. In Aug. Jay Shendure and Sarah Ng of the U. of Wash. discover the genetic cause of Miller Syndrome, which causes facial malformations et al. On Sept. 3 scientists at the Gladstone Inst. of Cardiovascular Disease pub. an article in Nature tracing the evolution of the 4-chambered human heart to a common genetic factor with turtles and other reptiles. NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) deploys spiderbots inside Mount St. Helens, becoming the first network of volcano sensors that can automatically communicate with each other and with satellites without using a base station. On Sept. 3 an article by Jonathan Morris et al. of the Helholtz Centre for Materials and Energy in Berling pub. a paper claiming experimental proof for magnetic monopoles. On Sept. 16 Laboratoire d'Astrophysique in Marseille, France announces the discovery of the first rocky world beyond the Solar System, CoRoT-7b. On Sept. 24 a report in Current Biology announces that researchers can tell what number of dots a person has seen by analyzing brain activity; another report in Neuron announces that they can reconstruct images from recorded neural activity. On Sept. 30 EMBO Molecular Medicine reports that old human muscle can be maintained and repaired by stem cells to restore youthful vigor. On Sept. 30 Nature pub. an article by Hong Sheng Zhao of the U. of St. Andrews in the U.K. reporting that measurements don't support the theory of dark matter. In Sept. the RV 144 AIDS vaccine is found to work on 30% of 16K volunteers from Thailand, becoming the first vaccine that works, although scientists don't know how. In Sept. scientists from Cal Tech report results from NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) (launched Aug. 25, 1997) that cosmic ray concentrations in 2009 are 19% higher than at any time in the last 50 years. On Oct. 2 Tim White of UCLA et al. announce in Nature the discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus AKA Ardi, a female skeleton dated at 4.4M years ago, about 4 ft. tall and 110 lbs., who can stand on two legs and swing through trees with opposable big toes, being 1M years earlier than Lucy and hence our mother, also the mother of chimps, finally ending the debate of whether humans are descended from chimpanzees? On Oct. 3 Anne Verbiscer of the U. of Va. et al. pub. an article in Nature announcing the discovery by of a new nearly invisible ring around Saturn. On Oct. 9 (4:30 a.m. ET) NASA crashes the LCROSS (Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite) into the Moon at 5.6K mph to blast a huge hole in search of hidden water, creating a 30-mi.-high plume observable from Earth with a 10-in. telescope; too bad, no plume was seen. On Oct. 10 scientists at Columbia U. announce in the Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences that they have created the first complex anatomically-sized bone from human adult stem cells, part of a human jaw bone. On Oct. 14 a study is pub. in Nature by Joseph Ecker of the Salk Inst. announcing the mapping of the first complete human epigenome, the first layer of genetic control. On Oct. 27 (8 a.m.) the prototype $450M NASA Ares I-X (Space Shuttle replacement), designed for the Constellation program that will return astronauts to the Moon by 2020 is launched less than one week after a blue-ribbon panel released its final report bringing the future of the human spaceflight program into question, and recommending that it be privatized; a large dent near the base is found on the rocket after it splashes into the Atlantic Ocean. In Oct. Geophysical Research Letters reveals that a vertical hole on the Moon has been discovered that's as big as a city block and as deep as a modest skyscraper. On Nov. 13 the Darwin Was Wrong Conference in Costa Mesa, Calif. presents evidence and arguments blasting Charles Darwin and Darwinian Evolutionary theory, calling him a great writer but not a great scientist, and claiming that the famous Lucy skeleton is really a human. On Nov. 17 Climategate starts when a hacker breaks into computers at the U. of East Anglia in England and finds emails of Climatic Research Unit (CRU) scientists faking global warming data at will and bragging about it, dogging the Dec. Copenhagen Summit; CRU dir. Philip Douglas "Phil" Jones (1952-) is in charge of the two key data sets used by the U.N. Intergovt. Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to draw up its reports, along with Australian climate scientist Tom Wigley, causing them to be known as Jones and Wigley; "Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip... So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean -- but we'd still have to explain the land blip... It would be good to remove a least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with 'why the blip'" (Wigley, Sept. 27, 2009); Los Alamos Nat. Lab researcher Petr Chylek sends an email titled "Open Letter to the Climate Research Community" to 100 of his climate research peers, containing the soundbyte that the climate science community has "substituted the search for truth with an attempt at proving one point of view", concluding "Let us drastically modify or temporarily discontinue the IPCC" and appealing for climate scientists to stop making "unjustified claims and exaggerated projections about the future even if the editors of some eminent journals are just waiting to publish them"; on Nov. 22 Climategate II sees another batch of email released, causing Myron Ebell, dir. of the Competitive Enterprise Inst. Center on Energy and Environment to utter the soundbyte: "If there were any doubts remaining after reading the first Climategate e-mails, the new batch of e-mails that appeared on the web today make it clear that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is an organized conspiracy dedicated to tricking the world into believing that global warming is a crisis that requires a drastic response"; too bad, it comes too near the Copenhagen Summit to stop it, despite U.N. climate scientist panel head Rajendra Pachauri uttering the soundbyte: "The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, incl. those individuals singled out in these email exchanges." On Nov. 20 Washington U. in St. Louis, Mo. announces the decoding of the corn (maize) genome. On Nov. 26 the New Journal of Physics describes a new plama disinfection device which works even on the hospital superbug MRSA. In Nov. Sasha Kashlinky et al. of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Md. announce that they believe that something big beyond the visible edge of the Universe exists that is causing 1K galaxy cluters to stream toward it at high speed. In Nov. NASA scientists reproduce uracil in the lab, becoming the first key component of RNA reproduced. Constantinos Daskalakis of MIT pub. a doctoral thesis in game theory that is a breakthrough on Nash equilibrium, proving that it belongs to the subset of NP called PPAD-complete (introduced in 1994 by Christos Papadimitriou), which is NP-complete with an equilibrium that always exists, becoming the biggest breakthrough in 10 years. On Dec. 2 the U. Bio-Medico of Rome announces a new brain-controlled bionic hand, which works successfully on patient Pierpaolo Petruzziello. On Dec. 14, 2009 the NASA Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) is launched from Vanderberg AFB, going on to perform an all-sky astronomical survey in Earth orbit that help discover the first Y Dward and Earth trojan asteroid before being placed into hibernation in Feb. 2011. On Dec. 16 Nature Genetics pub. research from the Babraham Inst. revealing that genes work together by huddling in clusters in the nucleus. On Dec. 16 British researchers Michael Stratton et al. of the Wellcome Trust announce the decoding of the genomes of lung and skin cancers; lung cancer DNA has more than 23K errors, with every 15 cigarettes causing one error; skin cancer (melanoma) has more than 30K errors. On Dec. 16 researchers announce the finding of the first known burial shroud from the time of Jesus in the 1st cent. C.E. in Jerusalem; the dude has leprosy and TB; its simple weave doesn't jive with the Shroud of Turin's complex design. On Dec. 17 Nature describes 4-Dim. Microscopy, developed at Caltech, allowing photons to be filmed with electrons. The ABCA13 Gene is discovered to be partially inactive in patients with severe psychological conditions incl. schizophrenia by an internat. team of scientists led by Edinburgh U. The World Digital Library Project is started by Tadahiro Kuroda et al. of Tokyo U. to attempt to preserve the contents of digital media in semiconductor memory chips that will last 1K years, vs. 10 years for CD-ROMs. George Ellis from the U. of Cape Town and Tony Rothman of Princeton U. propose a new Quantum Block Universe Model in which the past crystallizes out of the future, in which "The arrow of time arises simply because the future does not yet exist." Wasp-18b, a "hot Jupiter" planet orbiting the star Wasp-18 330 l.y. from Earth upends the physicists' understanding of celestial mechanics because it orbits so close that it should have been consumed by the star in less than 1M years. Human Genome Sciences of Rockville, Md. successfully tests the Lupus drug Benlysta. Nonfiction: Hamed Abdel-Samad (1972-), My Farewell from Heaven (autobio.); calls for an "Islam Light" version in Europe sans Sharia, jihad, gender apartheid, proselytism, and the "entitlement mentality, dissing the German govt. for appeasing Islam, and predicting Islam's collapse, pissing-off Egyptian imams, who issue a death fatwa on him. Peter Ackroyd (1949-), Venice: Pure City. Sam Adams, Understanding and Surviving Martial Law: How to Survive and even Prosper During the Coming Police State; conservatives fear what Obama's regime might come to. Liaquat Ahamed (1952-), Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World (Pulitzer Prize); from WWI to the Great Depression. Buzz Aldrin (1930-), Magnificent Desolation (autobio.). Ali A. Allawi, The Crisis of Islamic Civilization; why Christian-style Reformation won't work for Islam since it would take too long. Gabriel Calzada Alvarez et al., Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources; Univ. Rey Juan Carlos study finds that Spanish solar energy subsidies "destroyed 2.2 jobs for every 'green job' created". Jonathan Ames (1964-), The Double Life Is Twice As Good: Essays and Fiction. Andy Andrews, The Noticer: A Story of Perspective About Life's Greatest Challenges; goes from homeless to bestselling author. Thomas G. Andrews, Killing for Coal: America's Deadliest Labor War; the 1913-14 S Colo. coal strike. Julia Angwin, Stealing My Space: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America (Mar. 17); Rupert Murdoch's $600M purchase of MySpace.com from founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson. Shari Arison (1947-), Birth: When the Spiritual and Material Come Together; Israel's richest woman says "The old world is collapsing" and a new one arriving in which "the spiritual and material come together". Paul Armentano, Steve Fox, and Mason Tvert, Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? Karen Armstrong (1944-), The Case for God; "We are talking far too much about God these days." Reza Aslan (1972-), How to Win a Cosmic War War: God, Globalization and the End of the War on Terror; Islamic terrorists are really just misunderstood and will become lambs after being drawn into the Obama, er, political process? Seyran Ates (1963-), Islam Needs a Sexual Revolution; Turkish-born Kurdish writer in Germany disses Islam's horrible subjection of women. Peter H. Aykroyd, A History of Ghosts: The True Story of Seances, Mediums, Ghosts, and Ghostbusters; father of Dan Aykroyd of "Ghostbusters" fame. Sharlene Azam, Oral Sex is the New Midnight Kiss; white Canadian suburban girls ages 11-up are casual hos? Robert Baer (1952-), Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (July 15); former CIA officer tells how the center of the global economy is a "kingdom built on thievery, one that nurtures terrorism, destroys any possibility of a middle class based on property rights, and promotes slavery and prostitution", while sitting on one-quarter of the world's oil reserves and enjoying the full support and protection of the U.S. govt.; "An invasion and a revolution might be the only things that can save the industrial West from a prolonged, wrenching depression." Russ Baker, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America. Allen Barra, Yogi Berra: Eternal Yankee. Diana Butler Bass, A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story; Jesus was really a "religious revolutionary" who led a People's Crusade of "humility, hospitality, and love". Bruce Bawer (1956-), Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom; how the PC leftist establishment is silencing critics of Islam. Alan Beattie, False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World. Cari Beauchamp, Joseph P. Kennedy Presents His Hollywood Years. Glenn Beck, Common Sense; bestseller attacking liberal control of Washington, D.C. C. Fred Bergsten, Charles Freeman, Nicholas Lardy and Derek Mitchell, China's Rise: Challenges and Opportunities. Mary Frances Berry (1938-), And Justice for All: The United States Commission on Civil Rights and the Struggle for Freedom in America. Harold Bloom (1930-), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism (Nov. 24). Max Blumenthal (1977-), Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party; channels Erich Fromm, claiming that a "culture of personal crisis" defines the Am. "radical right". Philipp Freiherr von Boeslager et al., Valkyrie: The Story of the Plot to Kill Hitler, by its Last Member (May 12). John R. Bradley, Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis; why the Saudi pop. hates the U.S. even though so many of its elite get their education there. Taylor Branch, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President (Sept. 29). Ian Bremmer (1969-), The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing. Lily Burana, I Love a Man in Uniform: A Memoir of Love, War and Other Battles. James MacGregor Burns (1918-2014), Packing the Court: The Rise of Judicial Power and the Coming Crisis of the Supreme Court; "full of memorable details about the byzantine nominations and political peculiarities of famous and obscure justices during the past two centuries", arguing for term limits for Supreme Court justices. Thomas Cahill (1940-), A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green (Mar.); his losing fight to save the dude, who was executed on Oct. 26, 2004 after 12 years on death row. Christopher Caldwell, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West (July 28); in a West filled with history ignoramuses, his observations that the horrible Muslims are setting up shop in Europe and how that could lead to a different Europe go unheeded? Thanassis Cambanis, A Privilege to Die: Inside Hezbollah's Legions and Their Endless War With Israel (Sept.). Philip Caputo (1941-), Crossers; the Mexican borderlands of N.M. and Ariz. Peter Carlin, Paul McCartney: A Life. Richard Carrier (1969-), Not the Impossible Faith: Why Christianity Didn't Need a Miracle to Succeed (Feb. 10). Jimmy Carter (1924-), We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work; the 2-state solution is the only way? Rev. Cary Cash, A Table in the Presence: The Dramatic Account of How a U.S. Marine Battalion Experienced God's Presence Amidst the Chaos of the War in Iraq. Juanita Castro (1933-), Fidel and Raul, My Brothers: The Secret History; how Fidel's and Raul Castro's sister broke with them and began cooperating with the CIA before going into exile in 1964. Ron Charles, Charles Dickens, Defender of Civilization. Zev Chafets, Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame; built on a foundation of deceit? Henrik Raeder Clausen, The Bloody Truth About Cyprus (Mar.). Andrei Codrescu (1946-), The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess. Len Colodny (1938-) and Tom Schachtman, The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons, from Nixon to Obama; the role of German-born Fritz G.A. Kramer (1908-2003), mentor of Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig. Myles J. Connor Jr. and Jenny Siler, The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Art Thief, Rock-and-Roller, and Prodigal Son. Joseph Contreras, In the Shadow of the Giant: The Americanization of Modern Mexico; Monterrey, Mexico and drug violence. Jerome Robert Corsi (1946-), Why Israel Can't Wait: The Coming War Between Israel and Iran; America for Sale: Fighting the New World Order, Surviving a Global Depression, and Preserving USA Sovereignty - covers all the bases? Ann Coulter (1961-), Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America. Harvey Gallagher Cox Jr. (1929-), The Future of Faith. Dave Cullen, Columbine. William Dalrymple (1965-), Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India. John Darwin (1948-), The Empire Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830-1970 (Oct. 30). Nonie Darwish (1949-), Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law. Richard Dawkins (1941-), The Greatest Show on Earth; his own theory of evolution. David Denby, Snark: It's Mean, It's Personal, and It's Ruining Our Conversation. Adrian Desmond and James Moore, Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's Views on Human Evolution; ever since his voyage on the Beagle, Darwin set out to prove that all humans are one species? Colin Dickey, Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius. Huw Dixon (1958-), Surfing Economics: Essays for the Inquiring Economist (Dec. 4). Wendy Dobson, Gravity Shift: How Asia's New Economic Powerhouses Will Shape the 21st Century; the rise of China and India. Wendy Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative History. Dinesh D'Souza (1961-), Life After Death: The Evidence. Stephen Dubner (1963-) and Steve Levitt (1967-), SuperFreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance; eat more kangaroo instead of beef to save on CO2 emissions?; global warming can be solved by pumping CO2 to the stratosphere through an 18-mi. hose?; pisses-off global warming scientists with alleged oversimplifications. Tony Dungy (1955-) and Nathan Whitaker, Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance; he retires after the 2008-9 season. Martin Edmond, The Supply Party. Robert Morse Edsel (1956-), The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History (Sept.); filmed in 2014 by George Clooney. Elizabeth Edwards (1949-2010), Resilience: Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life's Adversities (autobio.). Timothy Egan, The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America; the 1910 Northwestern Fire. Barbara Ehrenrich (1941-), Bright-Sided; the positive thinking industry. Bart D. Ehrman (1955-), Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them) (Feb. 28); believing that the Bible is infallible is not a condition for being a Christian? Pepe Escobar, Obama Does Globalistan (Jan. 20). John L. Esposito (1940-) and Ibrahim Kalin, The 500 Most Influential Muslims (Jan. 16); first in an annual series (ends ?). Ali Eteraz, Children of Dust: A Memoir of Pakistan (autobio.) (Oct. 13). Steve Farber and Harlan Abrahams, On the List: Fixing America's Failing Organ Transplant System. Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot (Sept. 22). David Finkel, The Good Soldiers; the 2007 troop surge in Iraq and the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Div. AKA the Rangers; followed by "Thank You for Your Service" (2013). Charles Bracelon Flood, 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History; one of a spate of books pub. for the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals; turns Natalie Portman from a vegetarian into a vegan activist. Burton W. Folsom Jr., New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America (Nov. 17). William R. Fortschen, One Second After; bestseller about electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) and how they can cripple the U.S. Barbara Frale, The Shroud of Jesus Nazarene; claims to find the words "Jesus of Nazareth" in Greek on the Shroud of Turin, proving it's not a fake else it would have included "Son of God" or "Christ". Sarah Garland, Gangs in Garden City: How Immigration, Segregation, and Youth Violence Are Changing America's Suburbs; Latino gangs, incl. Mara Salvatrucha in Nassau County, Long Island, N.Y. P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry, Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America; the sinister Council on Am.-Islamic Relations (CAIR). George F. Gilder (1939-), The Israel Test (July 22); how support of Israel is the test for supporters of civilization, scientific-technological progress, freedom, etc. vs. barbarism, and that anti-Semitism is fueled by simple jealousy of Jewish success and prosperity. Newt Gingrich (1943-) and Jackie Gingrich Cushman, Gingrich Family's 5 Principles for a Successful Life: From Our Family to Yours; dream big, work hard, learn every day, enjoy life, be true to yourself. Mark Girouard (1931-), Elizabethan Architecture: Its Rise and Fall, 1540-1640. Malcolm Gladwell (1963-), What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures. Charles Glass (1951-), Americans in Paris: Life and Death under the Nazi Occupation, 1940-1944. Jamie Glazov (1966-), United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror; the left's romance with militant Islam is a continuation of their love affair with Stalin? Ariel Glucklich, Dying for Heaven: Holy Pleasure and Suicide Bombers: Why the Best Qualities of Religion Are Also Its Most Dangerous; they don't do it out of hatred but out of devotion. Bernard Goldberg, A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media (Jan. 26); accuses the media of liberal bias. Daniel Goldhagen (1959-), Worse than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity (Oct. 6). Gordon Goldstein, Lessons in Disaster; hawkish Vietnam War-era U.S. nat. security adviser McGeorge Bundy. Adam Gopnik (1956-), Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln and Modern Life; because they were both born in 1809, duh? Charles Goyette, The Dollar Meltdown. Robert Greene (1959-) and 50 Cent (1975-), The 50th Law. Steven Macon Greer (1955-), Contact: Countdown to Transformation. David Singh Grewal, Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization; how globalization is changing cultures. David Ray Griffin, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?; did he die of kidney failure in Tora Bora on Dec. 13, 2001? Eliza Griswold (1973-), The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam (Aug. 17). Stanislav Grof (1931-), LSD: Doorway to the Numinous: The Groundbreaking Psychedelic Research into Realms of the Human Unconscious. Ian Halperin, Unmasked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson (July 14); in Dec. 2008 author allegedly predicted that Jackson only had 6 mo. to live; his planned concert series at London's 02 Arena in July would have killed him anyway? David Boyce Hamilton, Cultural Economics and Theory (Oct. 22); a collection of his articles on institutional economics which stress the interaction of culture and technology in economic evolution. Victor Davis Hanson (1953-), How the Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security (Dec. 1); how Obama's is turning the U.S. from defender of the post-WWI order into an agent of global change, questioning everything that makes it strong. Rick Hanson and J. Richard Mendius, Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (Nov. 1). Mark Harris, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the New Hollywood. Thom Hartmann (1951-), Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture. Andrew Harvey (1952-), The Hope: A Guide to Sacred Activism. Elisabeth Hasselbeck (1977-), The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide; Susan Hasset sues her for copyright infringement. Lesley Hazleton (1945-), After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split. Chris Hedges (1956-), Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (July 14); The U.S. is splitting into a literate minority and non-literate majority; "Those captive to images cast ballots based on how candidates make them feel. They vote for a slogan, a smile, perceived sincerity, and attractiveness, along with the carefully crafted personal narrative of the candidate. It is style and story, not content and fact, that inform mass politics"; "At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or the possibility of totalitarianism as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. This is the bleak future. This is reality." Mark Helprin (1947-), Digital Barbarism: A Writer's Manifesto. Jennifer Love Hewitt (1979-), The Day I Shot Cupid (autobio.); talks about "vajazzling" her "vajayjay" with Swarovski crystal. Esther Hicks (1948-) and Jerry Hicks, Vortex: Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships. Charles Higham (1931-2012), In and Out of Hollywood: A Biographer's Memoir (autobio.). Lane Ryo Hirabayashi, Japanese American Resettlement Through the Lens; photos by Hikaru "Carl" Iwasaki. Peter Hitchens (1951-), The Broken Compass: How British Politics Lost Its Way. David E. Hoffman, The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy (Pulitzer Prize). James Hoggan (1946-) and Richard Littlemore, Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming (Sept. 29); "Explains how the propaganda generated by self interest groups has purposely created confusion about climate change. It's an imperative read for a successful future." - Leonardo DiCaprio Harold Holzer (ed.), The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now; debunks Lincoln myths. Thomas Horn, Apollyon Rising: The Lost Symbol Found and the Final Mystery of the Great Seal Revealed (Nov. 24); claims the clues are hidden in the occult symbolism of Washington, D.C. and the Vatican, and claims that the Jewish Messiah is predicted in the Zohar to appear in late 2012. Nick Hornby (1957-), Shakespeare Wrote for Money. David Joel Horowitz (1939-), A Cracking of the Heart (autobio.); his parent's grief at his going from leftist like them to rightist; Barack Obama's Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model; how Obama is trying to transform Am. society wholesale a la Chicago 1960s Jewish radical Saul Alinsky (1909-72), whose community social org. will lead not to salvation but chaos. Barney Hoskyns, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits. Mike Hulme (1960-), Why We Disagree About Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity ' (Apr. 30, 2009); "Climate change is not 'a problem' waiting for 'a solution'. It is an environmental, cultural and political phenomenon which is re-shaping the way we think about ourselves, our societies and humanity's place on Earth. Drawing upon twenty-five years of professional work as an international climate change scientist and public commentator, Mike Hulme provides a unique insider's account of the emergence of this phenomenon and the diverse ways in which it is understood. He uses different standpoints from science, economics, faith, psychology, communication, sociology, politics and development to explain why we disagree about climate change. In this way he shows that climate change, far from being simply an 'issue' or a 'threat', can act as a catalyst to revise our perception of our place in the world." Human Rights Watch, New Castro, Same Cuba; how Fidel Castro's brother Raul is just as abusive of human rights. Tristram Hunt (1974-), The Frock-Coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels. Martin Indyk (1951-), Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East (Jan. 6). Lynne Isbell, The Fruit, the Tree and the Serpent; claims that primates evolved keen vision to avoid snakes. Jonathan Israel (1946-), A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy. Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World; how the era of U.S. world economic hegemony is ending, and China is getting "willy-nilly drawn" into becoming its replacement as a "reluctant player"; claims that China is a civilization not nation state, and that Communism, a contemporary version of Confucianism was the West's last gasp at worldwide Westernization; doesn't grasp that for China to rule the world it must first have a revolution overthrowing its age-old belief that it is the center of the world, so that leaving its boundaries won't be like going into barbarian Hell? Emmanuel Jal and Megan Lloyd Davies, War Child: A Child Soldier's Story; "There was peace in Sudan for the first three years of my life, but I cannot remember it." Harold James, The Creation and Destruction of Value; how globalization is disintegrating old political parties. Haynes Johnson (1931-) and Dan Balz, The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election. Haynes Johnson (1931-) and Harry Katz, Herblock: The Life and Work of the Great Political Cartoonist; Herbert Lawrence Block (1909-2001), who coined the term "McCarthyism" in 1950. Malalai Joya (1978-) and Derrick O'Keefe, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice. William Kamkwamba (1987-) and Bryan Mealer, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope; Kamkwamba builds windmills from junk to make "electric wind", becoming a Third World hero. Jeff Kass, Columbine: A True Crime Story, A Victim, the Killers, and a Nation's Search for Answers. Marc Kaufman, Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Robin D.G. Kelley (1962-), Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy Sr. (1932-2009), True Compass: A Memoir (posth.) (Sept. 14); first memoir by a Kennedy family member; admits to sleeping with 1K+ women and paying $10M+ in hush money, but that part is cut out? John Kessel (1950-) and James Patrick Kelly (1951-), The Secret History of Science Fiction. Ronald Kessler (1943-), In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect (Aug. 4); pisses-off the Secret Service by exposing their hard times in trying to protect presidents and their families; claims that JFK had secret trysts with Marilyn Monroe in a loft above the 5th story office of his brother RFK at the Justice Dept., as well in New York City hotels - that will be zero extra dollars, wanna change your flight? Rashid Khalidi (1948-), Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East; attacks U.S. policies during the Cold War, claiming that although they were formulated to oppose the Soviets, they "consistently undermined democracy and exacerbated tensions in the Middle East"; "It may seem hard to believe today, but for decades the United States was in fact a major patron, indeed in some respects the major patron, of earlier incarnations" of radical militant Islam in order to help them win; "The Cold War was over, but its tragic sequels, its toxic debris, and its unexploded mines continued to cause great harm, in ways largely unrecognized in American public discourse." M.A. Khan, Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism, and Slavery (Jan. 26); why 9/11 was no fluke, and Islam is the West's greatest threat. Tracy Kidder (1945-), Strength in What Remains; a Rwandan refugee rises to doctor. Richard Kim and Betsy Reed (eds.), Going Rouge: Sarah Palin - An American Nightmare; satire of her book "Going Rogue". Jytte Klausen, The Cartoons That Shook the World (Sept.); Yale U. Press chickens out and removes the 12 anti-Islam cartoons, causing criticism. Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes, and Alexander Vassiliev, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (May 26); based on opened KGB archives, reveals the extent of KGB spying in the U.S., incl. Alger Hiss, I.F. Stone, and clears Robert Oppenheimer. Aaron Klein (1978-), The Late Great State of Israel: How Enemies Within and Without Threaten the Jewish Nation's Survival. Nancy Koehn (1959-), The Story of American Business: From the Pages of the New York Times. Jon Krakauer (1954-), Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. Jeremy Kuzmarov, The Myth of the Addicted Army: Vietnam and the Modern War. Lisa Lampanelli (1961-), Chocolate, Please: My Adventures in Food, Fat, and Freaks (autobio.). Carlotta Walls LaNier (with Lisa Frazier), A Mighty Long Way: Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School. Matthew Latimer, Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor (Sept. 22); conservative with Washington, D.C. experience tells why they will survive the Obama era; claims that Pres. G.W. Bush was not dumb but smart. Jonah Lehrer (1981-), How We Decide. Carol Leifer (1956-), When You Lie About Your Age, the Terrorists Win (Mar. 10). Mark R. Levin, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto (Mar. 24). Shawn Levy, Paul Newman: A Life; Newman's Luck. Michael Lewis (1960-), Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood. Hal Lindsey (1929-), The Everlasting Hatred: The Roots of Jihad. James Lovelock (1919-), The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can. Margaret MacMillan, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History; how she just figured out that history is written by writers with govt. or institutional biases. Eric Maddox (with David Seay), Mission: Black List #1; the U.S. SSgt. who tracked down Saddam Hussein via bodyguard Muhammad Ibrahim. Thomas Maier, Masters of Sex: The Life and Times of William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the Couple Who Taught America How to Love. Eric Maisel (1947-), The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods. Alia Malek, A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories (Oct. 6); the lives of a dozen Arab-Ams. from 1948 to 2000. Michelle Malkin (1970-), Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies (July 27); "What I have done is to help shatter completely the myths of hope and change in the new politics in Washington by scouring every nook and cranny, every inch of this administration, and showing how in a very short span of six months they have betrayed every principle and every promise that they have made by installing these influence peddlers, power brokers and very wealthy people." Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall; Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell. Jo Marchant, Decoding the Heavens: A 2,000-Year-Old Computer and the Century-Long Search to Discover Its Secret; the Antikythera Mechanism. of 80 B.C.E. Paule Marshall (1929-), Triangular Road: A Memoir. Gerald Martin, Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life. Johsh McDowell and Dave Sterrett, O God: A Dialogue on Truth and Oprah's Spirituality. Virginia McKenna (1931-), The Life in My Years (autobio.). Cindy Meston and David Buss, Why Women Have Sex; interviews with 1,006 women yield 237 different reasons. Stephen C. Meyer, Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design; DNA shows evidence of intelligent design? Ben Mezrich, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal (July 14). Dominique Moisi (1946-), The Geopolitics of Emotion: How Cultures of Fear, Humiliation, and Hope Are Reshaping the World (May 5); reply to Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations", adding you know what to cultural, social and economic factors as breeding political conflict. Patricia Monaghan (1946-2012), The Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines (2 vols.). Thomas Moore (1940-), Writing in the Sand: Jesus and the Soul of the Gospels (May). Edmund Sears Morgan (1916-2013), American Heroes: Profiles of Men and Women Who Shaped Early America (last book). Benny Morris (1948-), One State, Two States; the 2-state solution won't work, neither will the 1-state solution, but maybe a 3-state solution of a Palestinian confederation with Jordan will? Dick Morris (1948-) and Eileen McGann, Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress, and the Special Interests are Transforming a Slump into a Crash, Freedom into Socialism, and a Disaster into a Catastrophe, and How to Fight Back (June 23); Repub. who used to counsel Pres. Clinton them turned against him and Hillary predicts disaster for Obama too. Dambisa Moyo (1969-), Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is Another Way for Africa (Mar. 17); NYT bestseller; calls development aid "the single worst decision of modern developmental politics" that encourages corruption, kleptocracy, and aid dependency, creating a vicious downward spiral, with the soundbyte that easy money from other govts. "allows the state to abdicate its responsibilities toward its people", lobbying for micro-financing to build a country from the bottom-up; on May 28, 2013 world's richest man Bill Gates gives an interview to the Sydney Morning Herald, calling her "evil". Mildred Muhammad, Scared Silent; 2nd wife of Beltway Sniper John Allen Muhammad (Williams), who says he was a sgt. in the 84th Army Engineer Co. in the 1991 Gulf War, and suffers from Gulf War Illness, turning him into a Muslim jihadist mass murderer - instead of reading the Quran? Moorthy S. Muthuswamy, Defeating Political Islam: The New Cold War; shows that the "war on terror" is a sham because there is no benign Islam that was hijacked by extremists, and it all comes from the never-changing Quran. Andrew P. Napolitano (1950-), Dred Scott's Revenge: A Legal History of Race and Freedom in America (Apr.). Vali Reza Nasr (1960-), Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for Our World (Sept. 15); a new Arab middle class will counter extremism? Christiane Northrup, The Secret Pleasures of Menopause Playbook. John Julius Norwich (1929-) (ed.), The Great Cities in History (Nov. 2). Gianluigi Nuzzi, Vatican Ltd. (Vaticano Spa); corruption in the Vatican, incl. Mafia connections, bribery, and money laundering. Mark Obmascik, Halfway to Heaven: My White-Knuckled - and Knuckle-Headed - Quest for the Rocky Mountain High; climbing all 54 of Colorado's fourteeners. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (1986-), Influence; the people who influenced them, not the drugs. Suze Orman (1951-), Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan. Chad Orzel, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog; bestseller; the dog's name is Emmy; followed by "How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog" (2012). Marie Osmond (1959-), Might As Well Laugh About It Now (autobio.). Michael Jason Overstreet, 71 Days: The Media Assault on Obama (Feb. 23). Trevor Paglen, Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World. Elaine Paige (1948-), Memories (autobio.). Sarah Palin (1964-), Going Rogue: An American Life (autobio.) (Nov. 17); bestseller (300K on day #1) describing her Christian faith and conservative views; a nun taught her how to write the letter E, and it "seemed a naked letter to me so I was determined to reinvent it"; "I love meat. I eat pork chops, thick bacon burgers, and the seared fatty edges of a medium-well-done steak. But I especially like moose and caribous. I always remind people from outside our state that there's plenty of room for all Alaska's animals - right next to the mashed potatoes." Ron Paul (1935-), End the Fed (Sept. 21); calls for the Federal Reserve System to be abolished. Carlota Perez (1939-), Technological Revolutions and Techno-Economic Paradigms. Tom Peters (1942-) Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age. Mackenzie Phillips (1959-) and Hilary Liftin, High On Arrival: A Memoir (autobio.) (Sept.); her struggles with drug addiction; claims that her daddy John Phillips of the Mommas and the Poppas had a long-term incestuous relationship with her, and that when she turned 18 Mick Jagger did her. Robert Pinsky (1940-), Thousands of Broadways: Dreams and Nightmares of the American Small Town. Francis Pike, Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia Since World War II. Michael Collins Piper (1960-), The New Babylon: Those Who Reign Supreme: The Rothschild Empire; The Modern-Day Pharisees and the Historical, Religious and Economic Origins of the New World Order; the NWO is really the Jewish Utopia, and the U.S. is the New Babylon? Norman Podhoretz (1930-), Why Are Jews Liberals? (Sept. 8); Barack Obama is the "stealth candidate for the anti-Israel left"? S.L. Price, Heart of the Game: Life, Death and Mercy in Minor League Baseball. Allis Radosh and Ronald Radosh, A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel; despite advice pro and con from his advisers, Truman wanted to recognize Israel because he believed it fulfilled Biblical prophecy? Michael S. Radu (1947-2009), Islam in Europe (World of Islam) (Sept. 15). Raghuram Rajan (1963-), Cycle-Proof Regulation (Apr. 8); proposes a global regulatory system to avoid boom-bust cycles. Joshua Cooper Ramo (1968-), The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It (NYT bestseller); applies chaos theory to foreign policy. David Reynolds, Waking the Giant: America in the Age of Jackson; the Panic of 1819. Nayef Al-Rodhan, Sustainable History and the Dignity of Man: A Philosophy of History and Civilisational Triumph. Jean Rhodes and Shawn Boburg, Becoming Manny: Inside the Life of Baseball's Most Enigmatic Slugger (Mar. 10); Manny Ramirez (1972-). Joel Richardson, The Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth About the Real Nature of the Beast; more on the Antichrist-Mahdi connection. Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. Thomas E. Ricks (1955-), The Gamble: Gen. David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 (Feb. 10). Tom Ridge (1945-), America Under Siege... and How We Can Be Safe Again; how he was pushed to raise the security alert before the 2004 pres. election to help Bush's reelection, then resigned on Nov. 30, 2004 over it. Jennifer Ring, Stolen Bases: Why American Girls Don't Play Baseball. Andrew Roberts (1963-), Masters and Commanders: How Four Titans Won the War in the West, 1941-1945; The Art of War: Great Commanders of the Ancient and Medieval World (2 vols.). Sir Ken Robinson (1950-), The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything (Jan.). Jim Rogers (1942-), A Gift to My Children: A Father's Lessons for Life and Investing (Apr. 28). John Ross (1938-2011), El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City. John F. Ross, War on the Run: The Epic Story of Robert Rogers and the Conquest of America's First Frontier. Benjamin Roth, The Great Depression: A Diary; ed. James Leddbetter and Daniel B. Roth. Murray Newton Rothbard (1926-95), Economic Controversies (posth.). Acharya S (D.M. Murdock) (1961-2015), Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection; The Gospel According to Acharya S. Amin Saikal (1950-), The Rise and Fall of the Shah: Iran - From Autocracy to Religious Rule. Kamal Saleem, Blood of Lambs (Apr.); Muslim Brotherhood member tells why he quit. Joel Samberg, Grandpa Had a Long One: Personal Notes on the Life, Career, and Legacy of Benny Bell [1906-99]; by his grandson. Shlomo Sand (1946-), The Invention of the Jewish People (Oct. 19); internat. bestseller causes a firestorm of controversy with its claims that there never was a Jewish "nation-race", that many Jews are really descendants of converted Arabs, Berbers, Khazars, etc., and that Zionists have created the myth for "racist thinking"; "The ideal project for solving the century-long conflict... would be the creation of a democratic binational state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River" - great idea if they would all give up not Judaism but Islam? Martha A. Sandweiss, Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line; Am. West explorer Clarence King (b. 1842), a white man who chooses to pass as black so he can marry a black woman. William A. Schabas (1950-), Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes (2nd ed.) (Apr. 13); claims that the only real genocides in recent history were the Armenians, Jews, Gypsies, and Rwandans, denying that Stalin qualifies, or even the Slav-Soviet massacres by the Nazis, differentiating genocide from mere ethnic cleansing. Suzanne Schwalb, Tweet Nothings: The Lighter Side of Twitter (Dec. 1). Joan Schenkar, The Talented Miss Highsmith; "Ripley" novelist Patricia Highsmith (1921-95). Amartya Sen (1933-), The Idea of Justice. Maria Shriver (1955-), A Women's Nation Changes Everything. Paul Schneider, Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives Behind the Legend (Mar. 31); pub. on the 75th anniv. of the May 23, 1934 ambush near Gibsland, La. Lars Schoultz, That Infernal Little Cuban Republic: The United States and the Cuban Revolution. R.A. Scotti, Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa; the 1911 heist. Nicolai Sennels, Among Criminal Muslims: A Psychologist's Experience from Copenhagen; concludes that Muslims can't be assimilated into Danish or any Western society. Harvey Allen Silverglate (1942-), Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (Sept.). Peter Singer (1946-), The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty. Robert Slater, Soros: The World's Most Influential Investor. Mark Sloan, Birth Day: A Pediatrician Explores the Science, the History, and the Wonder of Childbirth. Grant F. Smith, Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy (Nov. 1); clandestine espionage conducted by the Israelis have cost the U.S. economy $71B? Sam Solomon and E Al Maqdisi, Modern Day Trojan Horse: Al-Hijra, the Islamic Doctrine of Immigration, Accepting Freedom or Imposing Islam? (Jan. 29); the 1400-y.-o. Islamic doctrine of hijra and how Western govts. play into their hands. Steven Solomon, Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization. Thomas Sowell (1930-), The Housing Boom and Bust. Candy Spelling (1945-), Stories from Candyland (autobio.). Tori Spelling (1973-), Mommywood (Mar. 11). Robert Spencer (1962-), The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran; finally Western thinkers are taking it on instead of the Bible. Ralph Stanley (1927-) and Eddie Dean, Man of Constant Sorrow (autobio.) (Oct. 15). Paul Starobin, After America: Narratives for the Next Global Age; promotes multicultural globalism for the world's only superpower because the Am. Century is almost kaput. Leslie Morgan Steiner, Crazy Love: A Memoir. Victor J. Stenger (1935-), Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos and the Search for Cosmic Consciousness; The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason (Sept. 22); claims that religion will fade away within generations under the light of you know what. Chris Stewart and Ted Stewart, Seven Miracles That Saved America (Oct. 14); Abe Lincoln's prayer saved the Union at Gettysburg? Mark Steyn (1959-), Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech and the Twilight of the West; the looming threat of Islamic takeover of the West with help from misguided Western govts. T.J. Stiles, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt (Apr. 21) (Pulitzer Prize). Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III (1951-), Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters (autobio.). Wafa Sultan (1958-), The God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman Who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks Out Against the Evils of Islam (Oct. 13); "The trouble with Islam is deeply rooted in its teachings. Islam is not only a religion. Islam is also a political ideology that preaches violence and applies its agenda by force"; "No one can be a true Muslim and a true American simultaneously. Islam is both a religion and a state, and to be a true Muslim you must believe in Islam as both religion and state. A true Muslim does not acknowledge the U.S. Constitution, and his willingness to live under that constitution is, as far as he is concerned, nothing more than an unavoidable step on the way to the constitution's replacement by Islamic Sharia law." Cass R. Sunstein (1954-), Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide; On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe, Them, What Can Be Done (Sept.); advocates laws to gag Internet bloggers. Graham Swift (1949-), Making an Elephant: Writing from Within. Stephan Talty, The Illustrious Dead: The Terrifying Story of How Typhus Killed Napoleon's Greatest Army. Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World; reverses her earlier belief in global warming. Baylis Thomas, The Dark Side of Zionism: The Quest for Security through Dominance (Feb. 16); paints the Jews as the bad guys and the Arabs as the good guys. Keith Thomas (1933-), The Ends of Life: Roads to Fulfilment in Early Modern England; some Ford Lectures from back in 2000 when he retired. Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton (with Erin Torneo), Picking Cotton: Our Memoir of Injustice and Redemption; black Ronald Cotton is unjustly jailed for rape for 11 years, after which his white accuser Jennifer gives, er, becomes his friend. Colm Toibin (1955-), Brooklyn; an Irish woman leaves her fragile mother behind in the early 1950s to live in Dodgerland. James Tooley, The Beautiful Tree; the lack of primary education in India. Norah Vincent, Voluntary Madness: My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin; the lezzie who posed as a man goes to the nuthouse. Richard Vinen, Thatcher's Britain. Nicholas Wade, The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures; are humans programmed for religious belief because it conferred an evolutionary advantage? Rembert George Weakland (1927-), A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop (June); former Roman Catholic archbishop of Milwaukee, Wisc. (1977-2002) admits that he's gay; he stepped down in May 2002 after the Church paid $450K to Marquette U. theology student Paul Marcoux to settle a sexual assault suit. Barry Werth, Banquet at Delmonico's: Great Minds, the Gilded Age, and the Triumph of Evolution in America; British philosopher Hebert Spencer, founder of Social Darwinism is greeted as a hero in the U.S. in 1882. Cornel West (1953-) Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud: A Memoir; "When arrested, threatened, or persecuted, I give myself permission to be full of righteous indignation and moral outrage but I try to never allow righteous indignation to degenerate into bitter revenge, or let moral outrage become hateful anger.. I retain a painful smile on my face even as I respond to the undeniable hurt with intense ethical energy." Stuart Wilde (1946-), Grace, Gaia and the End of Days; "Grace is a golden light seen coming from the inner spiritual world that is data-driven and laced with trillions of bytes of fractal information that offers you hope, good fortune and protection." William Julius Wilson (1935-), More Than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. Debra Winger (1955-), Undiscovered (autobio.); why she walked away from Hollyweird for 12 years to raise two sons with hubby Arliss Howard. Richard Wolffe, Renegade: The Making of a President; Barack Obama's rise to the White House. Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 (Oct. 28). Frosty Wooldridge, America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans; 100M more people in the U.S. by 2035? Evan Wright, Hella Nation: Looking for Happy Meals in Kandahar, Rocking the Side Pipe, Wingnut's War Against the Gap, and Other Adventures With the Totally Lost Tribes of America. Robert Wright (1957-), The Evolution of God; how the Bible God starts out in the pits at 1 Sam. 15:3 with Big J ordering the slaughter of the Amalekite tribe, then improves. William Yenner et al., American Guru: A Story of Love, Betrayal and Healing (Aug. 11); former students of Am. guru Andrew Cohen (1955-) speak out about his faults incl. pressuring students to give him large sums of money. Irfan Yusuf (1969-), Once Were Radicals: My Years As A Teenage Islamo-Fascist. Zhao Ziyang (1919-2005), Memoirs (posth.); admits that the May 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown and June 3 massacre were illegal, and claims that at the time he openly sympathized with the students. Phil Zuckerman, Faith No More: How and Why People Reject Religion. Art: Banksy (1974-), Devolved Parliament; 4m wide; auctioned by Sotheby's London in 2019 for Ł9,879,500. Robert Delaney (1951-), With (steel sculpture). Music: 311, Uplifter (album #9) (June 2) (#3 in the U.S.); incl. Hey You, It's Alright. 3OH!3, Don't Trust Me. AC/DC, Backtracks (box set) (Nov. 10). a-ha, Foot of the Mountain (album #9) (last album) (June 19) (#5 in the U.K.); they disband in 2010; incl. Foot of the Mountain, Nothing Is Keeping You Here, Shadowside. Lily Allen (1985-), It's Not Me, It's You (album #2) (Feb. 9) (#5 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. Not Fair, The Fear, 22, Back to the Start, Fuck You (orginal title "Guess Who Batman"). Tori Amos (1963-), Abnormally Attracted to Sin (album #10) (May 18) (#9 in the U.S., #20 in the U.K.); incl. Welcome to England, 500 Miles; Midwinter Graces (album #11) (Nov. 11) (#66 in the U.S.). Skunk Anansie, Smashes and Trashes (album #4) (Sept. 14). David Archuleta (1990-), Christmas from the Heart (album #2) (Oct. 13). India.Arie (1975-), Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics (album #4) (Feb. 10) (#3 in the U.S.) (325K copies); incl. Therapy, Chocolate High (w/Musiq Soulchild). Buju Banton (1973-), Rasta Got Soul (album #9) (Apr. 21); incl. Magic City; gets a Grammy nomination, which is protested by gay-lez groups because of his war with them. Beatallica, Masterful Mystery Tour (album #2) (Aug. 4); incl. Masterful Mystery Tour, Hero of the Day Tripper, Fuel on the Hill; Winter Plunderband (EP) (Nov. 17). Dierks Bentley (1975-), Feel That Fire (album #4) (Feb. 3); incl. Feel That Fire, Sideways, I Wanna Make You Close Your Eyes. Justin Bieber (1994-), One Time (debut) (May 18); My World (album) (debut) (Nov. 17) (#5 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.); incl. Love Me, Favorite Girl. The Notorious Big (1972-97), Notorious Soundtrack (album) (Jan. 13) (#4 in the U.S.). Mary J. Blige (1971-), Stronger With Each Tear (album #9) (Dec. 18) (#2 in the U.S., #33 in the U.K.); incl. The One, Each Tear (w/Jay Sean), We Got Hood Love (w/Trey Songz), Stronger, I Am. Third Eye Blind, Ursa Major (album #4) (Aug. 18) (#3 in the U.S.); first on their own Mega Collider label; incl. Sharp Knife. Butterfly Boucher (1979-), Scary Fragile (album #2) (June 2); incl. A Bitter Song, For the Love of Love. Susan Boyle (1961-), I Dreamed a Dream (album) (debut) (Nov. 24); sells 9M copies, incl. a record 700K sold in week #1. The Bravery, Stir the Blood (album #3) (Dec. 1); incl. Slow Poison. Backstreet Boys, This Is Us (album #7) (Sept. 30) (#9 in the U.S., #39 in the U.K.) (first group since Sade to have their first seven albums reach the Billboard top-10); incl. Straight Through My Heart. New Boyz, You're a Jerk. The Bravery, The Sun and the Moon (album #2) (May 22) (#24 in the U.S.); incl. Time Won't Let Me Go, Believe. Buckcherry, Live & Loud 2009 (album) (Sept. 29). Colbie Caillat (1985-), Breakthrough (album #2) (Aug. 25) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. Fallin' for You, I Never Told You. Mariah Carey (1970-), Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (album); incl. Obsessed (put-down of rapper Eminem). Cascada, Evacuate the Dancefloor (album #3) (July 6); incl. Evacuate the Dancefloor, Fever, Dangerous. Neko Case (1970-), Middle Cyclone (album #5) (Mar. 3); incl. People Got a Lotta Nerve. 50 Cent (1975-), Before I Self Destruct (album #4) (Nov. 9) (#5 in the U.S., #22 in the U.K.); incl. Baby by Me, Do You Think About Me. Metal Church, This Present Wasteland (album #9) (last album) (Sept. 23); features Rick Van Zandt on guitar; incl. Company of Sorrow, Breathe Again. Owl City, Ocean Eyes (album #2) (#8 in the U.S., #7 in the U.K.); incl. Fireflies. Kelly Clarkson (1982-), All I Ever Wanted (album #4) (Mar. 6) (#1 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.); incl. My Life Would Suck Without You, I Do Not Hook Up, Already Gone, All I Ever Wanted. Biffy Clyro, Only Revolutions (album #5) (Nov. 9) (#3 in the U.K.); named after the novel by Mark Z. Danielewski; incl. Mountains, The Golden Rule, The Captain, Many of Horror, Bubbles, God and Satan. Cheryl Cole (1983-), 3 Words (album) (debut) (Oct. 23); incl. 3 Words, Fight for This Love, Parachute. Elvis Costello (1954-), Secret, Profane, Sugarcane (album) (June 9). Creed, Full Circle (album #4) (Oct. 27) (#2 in the U.S.); incl. Overcome, Rain, A Thousand Faces. Death Cab for Cutie, The Open Door EP (album) (Mar. 31). Miley Cyrus (1992-), The Time of Our Lives (EP) (#2 in the U.S., #17 in the U.K.); incl. Party in the U.S.A. (#2 in the U.S.), When I Look at You. Dawes, North Hills (album) (debut) (Aug. 18); from North Hills, Los Angeles, Calif., incl. Taylor Goldsmith (1985-), Griffin Goldsmith (1991-), Wylie Gelbert (1988-), and Tay Strathairn (1981-); incl. When My Time Comes. Green Day, 21st Century Breakdown (album #8) (May 15) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (3.5M copies); incl. Know Your Enemy (#28 in the U.S., #21 in the U.K.), 21 Guns (#22 in the U.S., #36 in the U.K.); Last Night on Earth: Live in Tokyo (album) (May 28). Mos Def (1973-), The Ecstatic (album #4) (June 9) (#9 in the U.S.); incl. Life in Marvelous Times, Quiet Dog Bite Hard, Casa Bey, Supermagic, History (w/Talib Kweli). Snoop Dogg (1971-), Malce n Wonderland (#10) (Dec. 8) (#23 in the U.S.). I Fight Dragons, Cool Is Just A Number (album) (debut) (Feb. 6); Nintendo Game Boy/NES band from Chicago, Ill., incl. Brian Mazzaferri, Hari Rao, Laura Green, Packy Lundholm, Chad Van Dahm, and Bill Prokowpow; incl. Heads Up, Hearts Down, Money, No One Likes Superman Anymore, The Faster the Treadmill. Duran Duran, Live at Hammersmith 82! (album) (Sept. 21); recorded on Nov. 16, 1982. The Enemy, Music for the People (album #2) (Apr. 27) (#2 in the U.K.); incl. No Time for Tears, Sing When You're in Love, Be Somebody. Eminem (1972-), We Made You. Eminem (1972-), Dr. Dre (1965-), and 50 Cent (1975-), Crack a Bottle. Enya (1961-), The Very Best of Enya (album) (Nov. 23). Epica, The Classical Conspiracy (first live album) (May 8); Design Your Universe (album #4) (Oct. 16); incl. Design Your Universe, Unleashed. Escala, Escala (album) (debut) (May 25); female string quartet discovered by Simon Cowell. Europe, Last Look at Eden (album #8) (Sept.); incl. Last Look at Eden. Jackie Evancho (2000-), Prelude to a Dream (album) (debut) (Nov. 15). Eve (1978-), Flirt (album #4). Franz Ferdinand, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand (album #3) (Jan. 26) (#9 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); incl. Ulysses, No You Girls, Can't Stop Feeling, What She Came For; Blood: Franz Ferdinand (album) (June 1). Elysian Fields, The Afterlife (album #5). Ella Fitzgerald (1917-96), Twelve Nights in Hollywood (4 CD boxed set) (posth.); 76 songs sung at the Crescendo jazz club in LA in 1961-2. Foreigner, Can't Slow Down (album #9) (last in 1994) (Oct. 2). The Fray, The Fray (album #2) (Feb. 3) (#1 in the U.S., #8 in the U.K.); incl. You Found Me (#7 in the U.S., #35 in the U.K.), Never Say Never (#32 in the U.S., #87 in the U.K.); The Fray: Live from SoHo (album) (Apr. 7); Christmas EP (album) (Dec. 22). Nelly Furtado (1978-), Mi Plan (album #4) (Sept. 11); incl. Manos al Aire. Lady Gaga (1986-), The Fame Monster (album #2) (Nov. 19); incl. Bad Romance, Telephone (with Beyonce). Melody Gardot (1985-), Live from SoHo (album) (Mar. 24); My One and Only Thrill (album #3) (Apr. 29); incl. Who Will Comfort Me, Baby I'm a Fool, Over the Rainbow. Indigo Girls, Poseidon and the Bitter Bug (album #11) (Mar. 24). Lamb of God, Wrath (album #6) (Feb. 23) (#2 in the U.S.) (200K copies); incl. Contractor, Set to Fail. Selena Gomez (1992-) and the Scene, Kiss & Tell (album) (debut) (Sept. 29) (#9 in the U.S., #12 in the U.K.) (800K copies); from Hollywood, Calif., incl. Selena Marie Gomez (1992-), Ethan Roberts (guitar), Joey Clement (bass), Dane Forrest (keyboards), and Greg Garman (drums); incl. Falling Down (#82 in the U.S.), Naturally (#29 in the U.S.). Jay Greenberg (1991-), Skyline Dances: A Terpsichorean Couplet; Neon Refracted (ballet). P.J. Harvey (1969-) and John Parish, A Woman A Man Walked By (album #9) (Mar. 27) (#80 in the U.S., #25 in the U.K.). Men Without Hats, No Hats Beyond This Point (album #6) (last album) (last album in 1991) (Nov. 25). The Heavy, The House That Dirt Built (album #2) (Oct. 13); incl. How Do You Like Me Now?, Oh No! Not You Again!, Sixteen, No Time. Uriah Heep, Celebration (album #22) (Oct. 26). Levon Helm (1940-), Electric Dirt (album #5) (June 30); awarded first-ever Grammy for Best Americana Album. Hoobastank, Fornever (album #4) (Jan. 27) (#26 in the U.S.); incl. My Turn. Whitney Houston (1963-2012), I Look to You (album) (Aug. 31); incl. I Look to You. David Ippolito, Resolution (The Torture Song). Bon Iver, Blood Bank (EP) (Jan. 20) (#16 in the U.S.); incl. Blood Bank. Michael Jackson (1958-2009), This Is It (double album) (Oct. 26); sells 4M copies in the first five weeks. Pearl Jam, Backspacer (album #9) (Sept. 20) (#1 in the U.S., #9 in the U.K.); incl. The Fixer (#56 in the U.S., #93 in the U.K.). Jay-Z (1969-), The Blueprint 3 (album #11) (Sept. 8); his 11th #1 U.S. album, beating Elvis Presley's record; incl. D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune), Empire State of Mind (w/Alicia Keys), Run This Town (w/Rihanna and Kanye West), On To the Next One (w/Swizz Beatz). We Were Promised Jetpacks, These Four Walls (album) (debut); from Edinburgh, Scotland, incl. Adam Thompson, Michael Palmer, Sean Smith, and Darren Lackie; incl. Quiet Little Voices, It's Thunder and It's Lightning, Roll Up Your Sleeves, and Ships With Holes Will Sink. Jonas Brothers, Music from the 3D Concert Experience (album) (Feb. 24) (#3 in the U.S.); Lines, Vines and Trying Times (album #4) (June 16) (#1 in the U.S., #9 in the U.K.); incl. Paranoid, Fly with Me. Norah Jones (1979-), The Fall (album #4) (Nov. 17) (#3 in the U.S., #24 in the U.K.); incl. Chasing Pirates, Young Blood. Journey, Journey: Live in Manila (album) (Mar. 14). R. Kelly (1967-), Untitled (album #9) (Nov. 30) (#4 in the U.S.); incl. Number One (w/Keri Hilson), Echo, Religious. Ke$ha (Kesha Rose Sebert) (1987-), Tik Tok (debut) (Aug.); female single record 610K downloads in a single week. Alicia Keys (1981-), The Element of Freedom (album #4) (Dec. 11) (#2 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (4M copies); incl. Doesn't Mean Anything, Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart (w/Beyonce), Put It in a Love Song, Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down, Un-Thinkable (I'm Ready), Wait Til You See My Smile. The Black Keys et al., Blackroc (album) (Nov. 27) (#176 in the U.S.); in collaboration with several hip hop and R&B artists; incl. Ain't Nothing Like You (Hoochie Coo) (w/Mos Def and Jim Jones). The Killers, Live from the Royal Albert Hall (album) (Nov 9). K'naan (1978-), Troubadour (album #3) (Feb. 24); incl. Wavin' Flag, I Come Prepared. Adam Lambert (1982-), For Your Entertainment (album) (debut) (Nov. 23). Annie Lennox (1954-), The Annie Lennox Collection (album) (Feb. 17). Leona Lewis (1985-), Echo (album #2) (Nov. 9) (#13 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.) (2.6M copies); incl. Happy, I Got You. The Flaming Lips, Embryonic (album #12) (double album) (Oct. 13); incl. See the Leaves, Embryonic; The Flaming Lips and Stardeath and Whtie Dwarfs with Henry Rollins and the Peaches Doing the Dark Side of the Moon (album #13) (Dec. 22); cover of the 1973 Pink Floyd album. LMFAO, Party Rock (album) (debut) (July 7) (#33 in the U.S.); from LA, incl. Redfoo (Stefan Kendal Gordy) (1975-) and SkyBlu (Skyler Husten Gordy) (1986-), son and grandson of Berry Gordy; incl. I'm in Miami Bitch (Trick), Shots (w/Lil Jon), Yes, Get Crazy. Lindsay Lohan (1986-), Spirit in the Dark (album #3); incl. Playground. Demi Lovato (1992-), Here We Go Again (album #2) (July 21); incl. Here We Go Again. Florence + The Machine, Lungs (album) (debut) (July 6); from England, incl. Florence Leontine Mary Welch (1986-); incl. Kiss with a Fist, Dog Days Are Over, Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up), Drumming Song, You've Got the Love. Mae, Morning (EP) (Apr. 19); Afternoon (EP) (Sept. 24). Iron Maiden, Flight 666 - The Original Soundtrack (album) (May 22). Marilyn Manson, The High End of Low (album #7) (May 25); incl. We're from America, Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon, Running to the Edge of the World. John Mayer (1977-), Battle Studies (album #4) (Nov. 17) (#1 in the U.S., #35 in the U.K.); incl. Who Says, Heartbreak Warfare, Half of My Heart, Perfectly Lonely. Paul McCartney (1942-), Good Evening New York City (double album) (Nov. 17). Megadeth, Endgame (album #12) (Sept. 9) (#9 in the U.S., #24 in the U.K.)); first with Chris Broderick; last with James LoMenzo, who is replaced in 2010 by Dave Ellefson; incl. Head Crusher, The Right to Go Insane. Metric, Fantasies (album #4) (#76 in the U.S, #6 in Canada); incl. Help I'm Alive, Sick Muse, Gold Guns Girls, Gimme Sympathy. Mika (1983-), Songs for Sorrow (June 8) (album); incl. Blue Eyes; The Boy Who Knew Too Much (album #3) (Sept. 21); incl. We Are Golden, Blame It on the Girls. Millionaires, Just Got Paid, Let's Get Laid (EP) (June 23); incl. Just Got Paid, Let's Get Laid. Arctic Monkeys, Humbug (album #3) (Aug. 19) (#15 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. Crying Lightning, Cornerstone, My Propeller. Van Morrison (1945-), Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl (album) (Feb. 9). Modest Mouse, No One's First, and You're Next (EP) (Aug. 4); incl. Satellite Skin, Autumn Beds, Perpetual Motion Machine. Puddle of Mudd, Volume 4: Songs in the Key of Love & Hate (album #4) (Dec. 8) (#95 in the U.S.); incl. Spaceship, Stoned, Keep It Together. Mumford and Sons, Sigh No More (album) (debut) (Oct. 5); from England, incl. Marcus Mumford (vocals), "Country" Winton Marshall (vocals), Ben Lovett (keyboard), Ted Dwane (bass); incl. Little Lion Man, The Cave, Roll Away Your Stone, White Blank Page. Twisted Nixon, Mister Sick Money Man. Blue October, Approaching Normal (album #5) (Mar. 24); incl. Dirt Room, Say It, Should Be Loved, Jump Rope. Orianthi, Believe (album) (Oct. 26). Black Eyed Peas, The E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies) (album #5) (June 3) (7.5M copies); incl. Imma Be, Alive, Meet Me Halfway. Phantogram, Eyelid Movies (album) (debut) (Sept. 14); from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., incl. Sarah Bartel (vocals, keyboards) and Josh Carter (vocals, guitar); incl. When I'm Small, Mouthful of Diamonds, and Running from the Cops. Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (album #4) (May 25); incl. 1901 (Feb. 23) (used in Cadillac commercials), Lisztomania. Pitbull (1981-), Rebelution (album #4) (Sept. 1); incl. Krazy (w/Lil Jon) (#30 in the U.S.), I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) (#2 in the U.S.), Hotel Room Service (#8 in the U.S.), Shut It Down (w/Akon) (#42 in the U.S.), Can't Stop Me Now (w/The New Royales). Placebo, Battle for the Sun (album #6) (June 8); incl. For What It's Worth, The Never-Ending Why, Ashtray Heart, Bright Lights. Iggy Pop (1947-), Preliminaires (Préliminaires) (album) (May 25); inspired by Michel Houllebecq's novel "La Possibilite d'une Ile" (The Possibility of an Island); incl. Les Feuilles Mortes. Raveonettes, In and Out of Control (album #4) (Oct. 6); incl. Last Dance, Suicide, Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed). Lionel Richie (1949-), Just Go (album #9) (Mar. 13); incl. Just Go (w/Akon). Rihanna (1988-), Rated R (album #4) (Nov. 20) (#4 in the U.S., #9 in the U.K.); incl. Russian Roulette, Hard (w/Young Jeezy), Rude Boy, Rockstar 101, Te Amo. Asher Roth (1985-), Asleep in the Bread Aisle (album) (debut) (Apr. 20); I Love College (most annoying pop song of the year?), Be By Myself, She Don't Wanna Man, Lark On My Go-Kart. Eddi Reader (1959-), The Songs of Robert Burns Deluxe Edition (album #9); Love is the Way (album #10). Maxwell (1973-), Black Summer's Night (album) (July 6); incl. Help Somebody; Pretty Wings. Reba McEntire (1955-), Keep On Loving You (album #29) (Aug. 18); incl. Strange, Consider Me Gone. Depeche Mode, Sounds of the Universe (album #12) (Apr. 20); incl. Wrong, Peace, Fragile Tension/Hole to Feed. Maximo Park, Quicken the Heart (album #3) (May 11) (#6 in the U.K.); incl. Wraithlike, The Kids Are Sick Again, Questing, Not Coasting. Silversun Pickups, Swoon (album #2) (Apr. 14). Iggy Pop (1947-), Preliminaires (Préliminaires) (album) (June 2); "Definitely the weirdest record of the punk godfather's career" (Rolling Stone); incl. Nice to Be Dead. Manic Street Preachers, Album #9 Journal for Plague Lovers (album #9) (May 18) (#3 in the U.K.); features lyrics by disappeared (since Feb. 1, 1995) Richey Edwards; incl. Peeled Apples. Queensryche, American Soldier (album #10) (Mar. 31) (#25 in the U.S.) Red, Innocence & Instinct (album #2) (Feb. 10) (#15 in the U.S.); incl. Fight Inside, Never Be the Same, Death of Me. The All-American Rejects, Gives You Hell: The Remixes (EP) (Feb. 3); Soundcheck Vol. 2 (EP) (Feb. 10); The Wind Blows: The Remixes (EP) (June 2); Rhapsody Originals (EP) (June 2); I Wanna: The Remixes (EP) (Aug. 11). R.E.M., Live at the Olympia (album) (Oct. 27); recorded in Dublin, Ireland on June 30-July 5, 2007. My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade: The B-Sides (EP) (Feb. 3); Venganza! (album) (Apr. 10). Busta Rhymes (1972-), Back on My B.S. (album #8) (May 19) (#5 in the U.S.); incl. Arab Money, Hustler's Anthem '09 (w/T-Pain), Respect My Conglomerate, World Go Round. John Rich (1974-), Shuttin' Detroit Down; "They're living it up on Wall Street in that New York City town/ But in the real world, they're shuttin' Detroit down". Rihanna (1988-), Rated R (album #4) (Nov. 20); sells 3M copies; incl. Rude Boy, Russian Roulette, Te Amo. Guns N'Roses, Chinese Democracy (album) (Nov. 23); released after a hermit-like (since 1993) hiatus by Axl Rose, who ends up firing his mgr. Merck Mercuriadis for claiming his creative juices had dried up; the album costs $13M, and all original group members besides him are gone. La Roux, La Roux (album) (debut) (June 29); incl. In for the Kill (Mar. 16), Bulletproof. Shakira (1977-), She Wolf (Loba) (album #6) (Oct. 9); incl. Did It Again, Give It Up to Me. Harper Simon (1972-), Harper Simon (album) (debut) (Oct. 13); son of Paul Simon (1941-). Slayer, World Painted Blood (album #11) (Nov. 3) (#12 in the U.S., #41 in the U.K.); incl. Hate Worldwide, World Painted Blood, Psychopathy Red. Fatboy Slim (1963-) and David Byrne (1952-), Here Lies Love (album) (Apr. 6); about Imelda Marcos. Black Label Society, Skullage (album) (Apr. 21). Collective Soul, Collective Soul (Rabbit) (album #8) (Aug. 25) (#24 in the U.S.); back with Atlantic Records; incl. Staring Down, Welcome All Again, You. LCD Soundsystem, 45:33 Remixes (album) (Sept. 14). Jordin Sparks (1989-), Battlefield (album #2) (July 17); incl. Battlefield, S.O.S. (Let the Music Play). Regina Spektor (1980-), Far (album #5) (June 22); incl. Laughing With. Cobra Starship, Hot Mess (album #3) (Aug. 11) (#4 in the U.S.); incl. Hot Mess, Good Girls Go Bad (w/Leighton Meester). Al Stewart (1945-), Uncorked (Live with David Nachmanoff (album). Joss Stone (1987-), Colour Me Free! (album #4) (Oct. 20) (#10 in the U.S., #75 in the U.K.); incl. Free Me. Stratovarius, Polaris (album #12) (May 15). Testament, Live at Eindhoven '87 (album) (Apr. 14). Therion, The Miskolc Experience (double album) (June). Timbaland (1971-), Shock Value II (album #3) (Dec. 4) (#36 in the U.S., #25 in the U.K.). Train, Save Me, San Francisco (album #5) (Oct. 27) (#3 in the U.S., #33 in the U.K.); incl. Save Me, San Francisco, Hey, Soul Sister, If It's Love, Marry Me. Cheap Trick, The Latest (album #16) (June 23). The Fall of Troy, In the Unlikely Event (album #4) (last album) (Oct. 6); incl. Panic Attack!, Dirty Pillow Talk, Nature vs. Nurture. Jethro Tull, Jack in the Green: Live in Germany 1970-1993 (album). U2, No Line on the Horizon (album #12) (Feb. 27) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.) (5M copies); cover photo by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto; incl. Get On Your Boots, Magnificent, I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight, White as Snow. Usher (1978-), Monster (album #6). Nouvelle Vague, 3 (album #3) (June 16); incl. Blister in the Sun. The Veronicas, Revenge Is Sweeter Tour (album) (Sept. 1). Lil Wayne (1982-), The Rebirth (album #7); incl. Prom Queen. Sydney Wayser (1986-), The Colorful (album #2) (Apr. 22). Weezer, Raditude (album #7) (Nov. 3) (#7 in the U.S.); incl. (If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To, I'm Your Daddy. Westlife, Where We Are (album #10) (Nov. 27) (#2 in the U.K.); incl. What About Now. Great White, Rising (album #11) (Mar. 13); incl. I Don't Mind. The Whitest Boy Alive, Rules (album #2) (Mar. 30); incl. 1517. Wilco, Wilco (The Album) (album #7) (June 30); incl. One Wing, Sonny Feeling, You and I (with Feist). will.i.am (1975-), It's a New Day; celebration of Pres. Obama's election; video features Kevin Bacon; "No, Martin wasn't dreaming for nothing/ And Lincoln didn't change it for nothing/ And children weren't crying for nothing." Wisin and Yandel, La Revolucion (album #7). Yello, Touch Yello (album #13) (Oct. 2); incl. The Expert. Frank Zappa (1940-93), Lumpy Money (album) (Jan. 23). Kim Zolciak (1978-), Tardy for the Party (Sept. 11); talentless blonde "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" bimbo is backed by billionaire "Big Poppa", rumored to be Stefan Lemperle or Joe Francis. Movies: Hollywood resurrects 1950s 3-D movies with all-new technology, but it's expensive? Roland Emmerich's 2012 (Nov. 13) (Columbia Pictures) stars John Cusack and Amanda Peet in a silly Mayan end of the world exploitation flick with good SFX; Danny Glover plays U.S. Pres. Thomas Winslow, er, Wilson; after a threat of violence by Muslims, a scene showing Mecca being destroyed is switched to Rome; after North Korea declares 2012 (100th anniv. of the birth of Kim Il-sung) as "the year for opening the grand gates to becoming a rising superpower", it bans the film; does $769.7M box office on a $200M budget. Franny Armstrong's The Age of Stupid (Mar. 20) (Spanner Films) (Dogwood Pictures) is a documentary starring Pete Postlethwaite as a historyscoper living alone in the devastated world of 2055, watching archival footage from guess what year while asking "Why didn't we stop climate change when we had the chance?"; spawns the 10:10 Project in the U.K. to encourage everybody to reduce their carbon emissions by 10% in 12 mo. Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani's Ajami (May 22) tells five stories about the Muslim-Christian community in Tel Aviv. R.W. Goodwin's Alien Trespass (Apr. 3) is a parody of 1950s sci-fi B movies starring Eric McCormack and Robert Patrick. Phil Traill's All About Steve (Sept. 4) (20th Cent. Fox) stars Sandra Bullock as crossword puzzle writer Mary Horowitz, and Bradley Cooper as her blind date Steve Miller, whom she creates a crossword puzzle about while chasing him around the country; "If you love someone, set him free; if you have to stalk him, he probably wasn't yours in the first place"; earns Bullock a Razzie to go with her Oscar for "The Blind Side". Mira Nair's Amelia (Oct. 23) stars Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart, Ewan McGregor as Gene Vidal, Richard Gere as Amelia's hubby George Putnam, and Mia Waskikowska as Elinor Smith. Cherien Dabis' Amreeka (June 17) is about the troubles faced by a Palestinian immigrant family in Ill. Ron Howard's Angels and Demons (May 15), based on the Dan Brown novel stars Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon again, along with Ewan McGregor as the Camerlengo, Ayelet Zurer as Vittoria Vetra, and Stellan Skarsgard as Cmdr. Richter; grosses $485.9M worldwide. Lars von Trier's Antichrist (May 20) stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a therapist and his wife whose infant falls out of the nursery window while they're doing the wild thing, then flee to their cabin in the woods called Eden, where they become Adam and Eve and begin destroying each other. James Cameron's Avatar (Dec. 10) (20th Cent. Fox) is a 3-D sci-fi flick about the moon Pandora and its Na'vi pop., who get in a war with Earth in the 23rd cent., with Sam Worthington starring as paralyzed Marine vet Jake Skully, who inhabits a 10-ft.-tall blue alien avatar; Paul R. Frommer (1944-) invents the Na'vi language for the film; too bad, it costs $237M to make (most expensive in history to date) and $200M to market, and only takes in $73M at the U.S. box office in the first weekend, plus $159.2M overseas ($232.2M), benefiting from the $3-$5 extra added to each ticket for the 3-D fun, and coming in #1 for the year at $759.563M before reaching $2.788B. Todd Graff's Bandslam (High School Rock) (Aug. 6) (Summit Entertainment) (original titles "Will", "Rock On") stars Vanessa Hudgens, Lisa Kudrow, Gaelan Connell, and Aly Michalka, teenies who share a love of music; does $12.2M box office on a $20M budget. John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side (Nov. 20) (Warner Bros. Pictures), based on the 2006 book by Michael Lewis stars Sandra Bullock as wealthy white Memphis, Tenn. mother Leigh Anne Tuohy, who takes big black homeless Michael "Big Mike" Oher (Quinton Aaron) and adopts him, molding him into a pro football offensive left tackle and 2009 first round NFL draft pick for the Baltimore Ravens after conquering his academic problems with the help of tutor Miss Sue (Kathy Bates); Tim McGraw plays hubby Sean Tuohy, and Jae Head plays cute son Sean "S.J. Tuohy Jr.; grosses $256M in the U.S. (#8) and $309.2M worldwide on a $29M budget. Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces (Los Abrazos Rotos) (Mar. 18) stars Lluis Homar as blind writer Mateo Blanco AKA Harry Caine, who lives in the past with dead wife Lena (Penelope Cruz). Antoine Fuqua's Brooklyn's Finest (Jan. 16) (Thunder Road Pictures) Overture Films) stars Richard Gere as Officer Edward "Eddie" Dugan, Don Cheadle as Det. Clarence "Tanglo" Butler, and Ethan Hawke as Det. Salvatore "Sal" Procida, who take on bad guys Casanova "Caz" Phillips (Wesley Snipes); Shannon Kane plays Gere's ho Chantal; does $36.4M box office on a $17M budget. Larry Charles' Bruno (July 10) stars Sacha Baron Cohen as a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashionista. Jim Sheridan's Brothers (Dec. 4) stars Tobey Maguire as Capt. Sam Cahill, who gets PTSD in Afghanistan and returns to brother Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) and wife Grace (Natalie Portman). Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story (Oct. 2) goes after Wall Street, the mortgage crisis, and the U.S. govt. bailouts; proposes Ohio rep. Marcy Kaptur and Elizabeth Warren for the 2016 U.S. Dem. pres. ticket; the U.S. debut is at the AFL-CIO convention. Yilmaz Erdogan's A Cheerful Life (Neseli Hayat) (Dec. 25) is the first modern Xmas movie made for audiences in Turkey. Stephen Frears' Cheri (Feb. 10), set in 1920s Paris stars Michelle Pfeiffer as Lea de Lonval, a courtesan hired by Madame Peloux (Kathy Bates) to educate young aristocrat Cheri (Rupert Friend) in sensual pleasures, until he becomes too attached to her. Phil Lord's and Christopher Miller's Cloud with a Chance of Meatballs (Seot. 18) is a computer-animated film based on the 1978 children's book by Judi Barrett; grosses $124.87M. Anne Fontaine's Coco Before Chanel (Apr. 22) stars Audrey Tautou as Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel. Sophie Barthes' Cold Souls (Jan. 17) stars Paul Giamatti as an actor performing a monologue from Anton Chekhov's play "Uncle Vanya"; critics call it a "Being Paul Giamatti". Louie Psihoyos' The Cove (Apr. 25) is a documentary about a group of activists exposing dophin abuse in a cove near Taijii, Japan; features Rick O'Barry of "Flipper" fame. Scott Cooper's Crazy Heart (Dec. 6), based on the 1987 Thomas Cobb novel stars Jeff Bridges as down-and-out country music songwriter Bad Blake, who hooks up with young journalist Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Uwe Boll's Darfur (Nov. 6) stars Billy Zane, Noah Danby, and David O'Hara as journalists who get freaked out by the atrocities. Michael Spierig's and Peter Spierig's Daybreakers (Sept. 11), about a plague turning the Earth's pop. into vampires in the year 2019 stars Ethan Hawke as vampire hamatologist Edward Dalton, who tries to create a blood substitute before the human remnant runs out, while the latter, led by ex-vampire Elvis (Willem Dafoe) has a cure in the wings; Sam Neill plays Hawke's boss Edward Dalton of pharmaceutical co. Bromley Marks. Sherry Horman's Desert Flower (Sept. 24), based on the novel by Waris Darie stars Liya Kebede as a Somalian nomad who was circumcised as an infant and fled Africa to London to become a supermodel. Neill Blomkamp's District 9 (Aug. 14), produced by Peter Jackson in a reality show format is about an extraterrestrial race of 6-ft.-tall catfood-loving "prawns" forced to live for decades as illegal aliens in South Africa in an apartheid-style militarized slum by the evil Multinat. United (MNU) Corp., which makes the mistake of trying to evict them, causing Peters Sellers lookalike MNU rep Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) to get in the middle and cross-over. Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell (Mar. 15) (Ghost House Pictures) (Universal Pictures) stars Alison Lohman as loan officer Christine Brown, who refuses to extend the mortgage of elderly Hungarian gypsy Mrs. Sylvia Ganush (Lorna Raver), causing her to go down on her knees to beg, only to be shamed when security is called, vowing revenge by placing a death curse on her to suffer three days of torment then plunge into Hell to burn for eternity; does $90.8M box office on a $30M budget. Mike Judge's Extract (Sept. 4) stars Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, and Kristen Wiig in a comedy about a manufacturing plant. Dito Montiel's Fighting (Apr. 24) stars Channing Tatum as Shawn MacArthur, who is introduced to the underworld of bare-knuckle brawling by sleazy promoter Harvey Boarden (Terrence Howard). Jonah Tulis' The Flying Scissors stars Keong Sim as Bruce Wong, Devin Ratray as The Rock, Amy Stevens as Kerry O'Malley, Matthew Arkin as Alan Page, and Joseph Stalin as himself. Wyatt McDill's Four Boxes stars Justin Kirk as Trevor Grainger, Terryn Westbrook as Amber Croft, and Sam Rosen as Rob Rankus, avg. joes who run Go Time Liquidators on eBay, and stumble onto Fourboxes.tv, a secret WEbcam into the apt. of weird guy Havoc. Jimmy Nickerson's From Mexico With Love stars Steven Bauer as washed-up trainer Billy Jenks, who takes self-destructive boxer Hector Villa (Kuno Becker) under his wing to the big fight night. Judd Apatow's Funny People (July 31) stars Adam Sandler as comic George Simmons, who contracts terminal leukemia and takes novice comedian Ira Wright (Seth Rogen) under his wing. Hoyt Yeaman's G-Force (July 24), a 3-D animated Disney flick about a guinea pig special force squad does $32.3M on opening weekend, eclipsing Harry Potter. Todd Phillips' The Hangover (June 5) (Legendary Pictures) (Warner Bros.) stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis as Phil Wenneck, Stu Price, and Alan Garner, three buddies who lose their groom Doug (Justin Bartha) in Las Vegas before the wedding; Mike Tyson appears as himself, and when the movie does well financially and Tiger Woods gets in his big troubles, they suggest him for the sequel; grosses $277M in the U.S. and $467.5M worldwide on a $35M budget (#6). David Yates' Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 6) (Heyday Films) (Warner Bros.), #6 in the series based on the 2005 J.K. Rowling novels thrills true believers and bores everybody else; #3 for the year (grosses $302M U.S. and $934.4M worldwide on a $250M budget). Ken Kwapis' He's Just Not That Into You (Feb. 6) stars Ginnifer Goodwin as Gigi Haim, Jennifer Aniston as Beth Bartlett, and Jennifer Connelly as Janine Gunders. Tom Six's Dutch horror film The Human Centipede (Aug. 30) (Six Entertainment) (Bounty Films) stars Dieter Laser as mad Nazi, er, German surgeon Dr. Josef Heiter, an expert in separating conjoined twins, who gets the idea of joining three people mouth-to-anus to create a you know what who share a single digestive system, incl. Katsuro (Akihiro Kitamura) (front), Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) (middle), and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie) (rear); does $252K box office; "Their flesh is his fantasy". John Hamburg's I Love You, Man (Mar. 20) stars Paul Rudd as lonely Peter Klaven, who goes on a series of man-dates to find a best man for his wedding with Zooey (Rashida Jones), ending up with Sydney Fife (Jason Segel), which backfires with Zooey. Glenn Ficarra's and John Requa's I Love You Phillip Morris (Jan. 18), based on the true story by Steve McVicker stars Jim Carrey as gay con artist Steven Jay Russell, who escapes from jail 4x to be reunited with his gay bud Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor); gets too gross and alienates audience?; does $20.7M box office on a $10M budget. Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (May 22) is about a weird travelling theater co., incl. Johny Depp, Heath Ledger, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell, who all play Tony; Christopher Plummer plays Dr. Parnassus, whose deals with the Devil make him desperate to save his daughter Valentine (Lily Cole). Steven Soderbergh's The Informant (Oct. 9), based on the book by Kurt Eichenwald stars Matt Damon as Archer Daniels Midland agribiz whistleblower Mark E. Whitacre (1957-), Melanie Lynskey as his wife Ginger, and Scott Bakula as Brian Shepard. Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (Aug. 21) (Universal) (2 hours 32 min.) (title taken from a 1978 Enzo Castellari film), the ultimate Jewish fantasy flick (anti-Schindler's List?) about a group of Jewish-Am. Nazi assassins in WWII who stop the Nazis and the Holocaust after starting their own bloody Holocaust of Germans and killing Hitler and his entire high command stars Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine, and Austrian actor Christoph Waltz (1956-) as SS Col. Hans Landa "the Jew Hunter", who wins an Oscar for best supporting actor, the first acting Oscar for a Tarantino film and 2nd for playing a Nazi after Kate Winslet in "The Reader" (2008); does $321M box office on a $75M budget; garners eight Oscar nods; the inane lack of security for Hitler and his high command ruins the believability?; too bad, the so-called heroes are portrayed as sinking as low or lower than the Nazis in order to beat them, taking any moral high ground away?; proof that Hollyweird is run by Jews who are as savage and bloodthirsty as Nazis?; the Jews and Muslims are Siamese twins, so how did everybody else get in the middle?; why don't they follow with similar flicks for George Washington, Robert E. Lee, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot, or is there no fun in it for da Jews? Tom Tykwer's The International (Feb. 12) (Relativity Media) (Columbia Pictures) stars Clive Owen as Interpol agent Louis Salinger, who with DA Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) tries to expose Luxembourg-based bank IBBC's role in an internat. arms dealing ring; does $60M box office on a $50M budget. Armando Iannucci's In the Loop (Jan. 22) stars Peter Capaldi and Tom Hollander as a British intrnat. development chief, and James Gandolfini as a U.S. gen. in a satire about attempts to stop an Iraq-type war in the Middle East. Robert Gardner's Inside Islam: What A Billion Muslims Really Think (June 3) is a documentary pushing the PC "Islam Is A Religion of Peace" view, with Dalia Mogahed, John Esposito, and Madeline Algright. Ricky Gervais' The Invention of Lying (Sept. 25), narrated by Patrick Stewart is about a world where nobody has ever lied until Mark (Gervais) starts it to get the girl of his dreams Jennifer Garner. Clint Eastwood's Invictus (Dec. 11), named after the 1888 William Ernest Henley poem stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, who tries to unite South Africa by winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup with players Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) et al. Nancy Meyers' It's Complicated (Dec. 25) stars Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin in a silly Xmas chick flick. Karyn Kusama's Jennifer's Body (Sept. 18) stars Megan Fox as Jennifer Check, a cheerleader suffering from demonic possession. Derrick Borte's The Joneses (Sept. 13) is about a team of stealth marketers, incl. Demi Moore and David Duchovny. Nora Ephron's Julie & Julia (Aug. 7) (Columbia Pictures), based on the book by Julie Powell stars Meryl Streep as "bon appetit" Am. French chef Julia Child, and Amy Adams as govt. secy. Julie Powell, who decides to cook all 524 of her recipes in 365 days and blog about it; Stanley Tucci plays Julia's hubby Paul, and Chris Messina plays Julie's hubby Eric; does $129.5M box office on a $40M budget. Alex Proyas' Knowing (Mar. 20) (Summit Entertainment), based on an idea by novelist Ryne Douglas Pearson stars Rose Byrne/Lara Robinson as Lucinda Embry-Wayland, who is visited by ETs in 1959 and puts a sheet of numbers in her school's time capsule, which is opened in 2009 by fellow student Caleb Koestler (Chandler Canterbury), whose father Jonathan "John" Koestler (Nicolas Cage) is an MIT astrophysics prof.; the numbers turn out to be dates and coordinates of major disasters, the last one of which is "EE" (everyone else), after which a solar flare wipes out all life on Earth right before some ETs arrive in spaceships to rescue a lucky few; does $187.9M box office on a $50M budget; "Now, I want you to think about the perfect set of circumstances that put this celestial ball of fire at just the correct distance from our little blue planet for life to evolve, making it possible for you to be sitting here in this riveting lecture. But that's a nice thought, right? Everything has a purpose, an order to it, is determined. But then there's the other side of the argument, the theory of randomness, which says it's all simply coincidence. The very fact we exist is nothing but the result of a complex yet inevitable string of chemical accidents and biological mutations. There is no grand meaning. There's no purpose. What about you, Professor Koestler? What? Well, what do you believe? I think shit just happens. But that's me." Joel Hopkins' Last Chance Harvey (Jan. 16) stars Dustin Hoffman as jingle writer Harvey Shine, who is booted out of his daughter's wedding in London, and hooks up with lonely statistician Kate Walker (Emma Thompson). Michael Hoffman's The Last Station (Dec. 23) (Sony Pictures), based on the 1990 novel by Jay Parini stars Christopher Plummer as Count Leo Tolstoy in his last year (1910), and Helen Mirren as his wife Sofya, who fights Tolstoyan leader Vladmir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti) for the right to keep his copyrights; James McAvoy plays Tolstoy's new secy. Valentin Bulgakov; does $13.5M box office on an $18M budget. Samuel Maoz's Lebanon (Sept.), based on Maoz's experience in the 1982 Israeli-Lebanese War portrays an Israeli tank crew and their illegal use of phosphorus grenades. Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones (Dec. 11) (DreamWorks), based on the 2002 Alice Sebold novel stars Saoirse Ronan as 14-y.-o. Susie Salmon, who was raped and murdered then watches her family from heaven; does 93.6M box office on a $65M budget. Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail (Feb. 20) stars Perry as gum-flapping Southern grandma Madea Simmons, who goes to jail and meets a bunch of characters. Grant Heslov's The Men Who Stare at Goats (Nov. 6), Heslov's dir. debut based on a 2005 story by journalist Jon Ronson about the secret U.S. Army First Earth Battalion in the 1970s-80s who believed in the paranormal stars George Clooney as Lyn Cassady, Stephen Lang as brig. gen. Dean Hopgood, and Ewan McGregor as journalist Bob Wilton. Rob Letterman's and Conrad Vernon's Monsters vs. Aliens (Mar. 27) is an animated flick starring the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Rain Wilson, and Stephen Colbert; grosses $198M in the U.S. (#11). Duncan Jones' Moon (Jan. 23) stars Sam Rockwell as astronaut Sam Bell, who mans a helium-3 mining site on the far side of the Moon, and discovers he's being cloned to avoid paying him; Kevin Spacey plays the voice of GERTY the robot; Jones' dir. debut; does $9.7M box office on a $5M budget. Nick Cassavetes' My Sister's Keeper (June 26), based on the 2004 Jodi Picoult novel stars Abigail Breslin as Andromeda "Anna" Fitzgerald, who sues her parents Sara and Brian (Cameron Diaz and Jason Patric) to stop them from using her to keep their leukemia-stricken daughter Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) remain alive. Jonas Elmer's New in Town (Jan. 30) (Gold Circle Films) stars Renee Zellweger as consultant Lucy Hill, who tries to save a blue-collar plant in freezing you-betchya New Ulm, Minn. while courting union rep Ted Mitchell (Harry Connick Jr.); Siobhan Fallon Hogan plays Lucy's friend Blanche Gunderson; J.K. Simmons plays Stu Kopenhafer. does $29M box office on a $8M budget. Rob Marshall's Nine (Dec. 18), a musical based on Federico Fellini's "8-1/2" stars Daniel Day-Lewis as famous film dir. Gido Contini, Marion Cotillard as his wife, Sophia Loren as his mother, Penelope Cruz as his mistress, Nicole Kidman as his muse, and Judi Dench as his producer. Bahman Ghobadi's No One Knows About Persian Cats (May 14) is about Iranian rockers Hamed Behdad and Ashkan Kooshanejad, who have to go underground to form a rock band. Sam Taylor Wood's Nowhere Boy (Dec. 25), based on the memoir by Julia Baird is about the teenie years of Beatle John Lennon, played by Aaron Johnson, and his aunt Mimi Smith, played by Kristin Scott Thomas; Thomas Sangster plays Paul McCartney. Walt Becker's Old Dogs (Nov. 25) (Walt Disney Pictures) stars Robin Williams and John Travolta as sports marketers Dan Rayburn and Charlie Reed, and Kelly Preston as Dan's ex Vicki, who reveals that she bore him twins Zach (Conner Rayburn) and Emily (Ella Bleu Travolta); the last film appearance of Bernie Mac; dedicated to him and John Travolta's son Jett, who died in Jan.; Bryan Adams writes and sings the theme song "You've Been a Friend to Me"; does $97M box office on a $35M budget. Oren Peli's Paranormal was made for $15K, and grosses $62.5M in 1 mo., then ? after the Halloween weekend. Steve Carr's Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Jan. 16) stars Kevin James; grosses $146M. Jacques Audiard's A Prophet (Une Prophete) (May 16) is about young Arab Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim), who is sent to a French prison for six years with 50 francs, a cigarette and some old sneakers, and becomes a mafia kingpin; "You should leave this place a bit more intelligent than you were before". Lee Daniels' Precious (Jan. 16), based on the 1996 novel "Push" by Sapphire about obese black teenie Calireece "Precious" Jones, who is raped and gets pregnant by her father twice and has a psycho mother does $6M box office in its opening weekend despite a $10K budget. Ron Clements and John Musker's The Princess and the Frog (Dec. 11) set in Jazz Age New Orleans features Disney's first black princess Tiana; a "symbolic reparation" for the 1946 animation-plus-live-action hit "Song of the South" - they should have just refilmed that? Rebecca Miller's The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (July 10) stars Robin Wright, whose much older hubby Herb (Alan Arkin) moves to a retirement community, causing her to slide into a nervous breakdown. Anne Fletcher's The Proposal (June 1) (Touchstone Pictures) (Mandeville Films) (Walt Disney Studios) stars Sandra Bullock as bossy Canadian-born New York book editor Margaret Tate, who is pushed by the INS into marrying her secy. Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds) to keep from being deported to Canada, finding out that he's as rich as the Kennedys out in Sitka, Alaska, and falling in luuuv; Mary Steenburgen plays Andrew's mother Grace Paxton, Craig T. Nelson plays his father Joe Paxton, and Betty White plays his grandma Annie; grosses $164M U.S. and $317.4M worldwide on a $40M budget (#16). Michael Mann's Public Enemies (July 1), based on the book "Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI in 1933-34" stars Johnny Depp as John Dillinger. Harry "Doc" Kloor and Dan St. Pierre's Quantum Quest: A Cassino Space Odyssey (Sept.), an animated flick about the NASA/JPL Cassini Huygens mission to Saturn stars the voices of Scientologist John Travolta, Christian Slater et al. John Hillcoat's The Road (Oct.), based on the 2006 Cormac McCarthy novel stars Viggo Mortenson as the Father, Kodi Smit-McPhee as the Son, Charlize Theron as the Wife, and Guy Pearce as the Veteran, who try to survive in the apocalyptic remains of cannibal-filled Appalachia. Juan Jose Campanella's The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos) (Aug. 13) stars Ricardo Darin as Benjamin Esposito, who tries to solve the rape-murder of a young woman in Buenos Aires in June 1974. Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes (Dec. 25) stars Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Watson, who is given a more human treatment than previous flicks, and more like Arthur Conan Doyle intended; grosses $209M in the U.S.(#10). Jonas Pate's Shrink (Feb. 9) stars Kevin Spacey as pshrink-to-the-stars Henry Carter, LA's top celeb, who turns into a pothead; starts a trend with him getting saved by pot, starting with "American Beauty" (1999)? Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island (Oct. 2), based on the 2003 Dennis Lehane novel stars Leonardo DiCaprio as U.S. marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels, who investigates the Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island in Boston Harbor in 1954, loses his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), and ends up trapped by sinister head pshrink Dr. John Cawley (Ben Kingsley); "Which is better, to live as a monster, or die as a good man?" Joe Wright's The Soloist (Apr. 24), based on the 2007 book "Musicophilia" by Oliver Sacks and the LA Steve Lopez 60 Minutes Segment stars Robert Downey Jr. as Los Angeles reporter Steve Lopez, who discovers gifted black schizo musician and Juilliard dropout Nathaniel Anthony Ayers (Jamie Foxx) playing on skid row, and helps him. Brian Koppelman's and David Levien's Solitary Man (Sept.) (Millennium Films) stars Michael Douglas as 54-y.-o. car dealer Ben Kalmen, who goes on a binge of sexual affairs and spins down with daughter Susan (Jenna Fischer) and wife Nancy (Susan Sarandon), hooking up with student Allyson (Imogen Poots); Danny DeVito plays his college friend Jimmy Marino; does $15M box office on a $5M budget. Oliver Stone's South of the Border is a documentary about Venezuelan pres. Hugo Chavez. J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (May 8), an attempt to revive the series by rewinding to the early Starfleet days stars Chris Pine as Capt. Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Simon Pegg as Scotty, Karl Urban as Dr. Bones McCoy, John Cho as Lt. Hikaru Sulu, Zoe Saldana as Lt. Nyota Uhura, Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov, Bruce Greenwood as Christopher Pike, Ben Cross as Sarek, and Eric Bana as Nero; Leonard Nimoy appears as Old Spock, while Young Spock gets it on with Uhura in a horrible twisted time-travel travesty that makes fans of the original series gag?; earns $76.5M in its opening weekend, with glowing reviews saying that they've revived the 40-y.-o. series after all; grosses $257.7M in the U.S. (#7); next year Leonard Nimoy announces his retirement from Spock roles and Star Trek conventions - Trekkie sacrilege or Trekker salvation? Kevin Macdonald's State of Play (Apr. 17) stars Russell Crowe as newspaper reporter Cal McAffrey, who looks into a conspiracy involving Rep. Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) and Della Frye (Rachel McAdams). Cyrus Nowrasteh's The Stoning of Soraya M. (June 26), based on the 1994 novel by Freidoune Sahebjam is about a woman stoned in 1986 Iran after being framed by her hubby for adultery so he could marry a younger babe; shows the horror of stoning. Jonathan Mostow's Surrogates (Sept. 25), based on the 2005-6 comic book series stars Bruce Willias as FBI agent Tom Greer, who lives in a world of humanoid remote control vehicles; grosses $122.4M on an $80M budget. Jonah Tulis' The Superagent is a TV movie starring Matt Servitto as Steve Blank, Eddie Hargitay as Neil, and Devin Ratray as the announcer. Pierre Morel's Taken (Jan. 30) stars Liam Neeson as a former spy Brian Mills, whose daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) is kidnapped in Paris by Albanian sex slave traders, and who uses his super spy skills to rescue her, despite being over the hill; grosses $145M. Tony Scott's The Taking of Pelham 123 (June 12), a remake of the 1974 Joseph Sargent classic based on the 1973 John Godey novel stars John Travolta as criminal mastermind Ryder, who holds a New York City subway train hostage for big bucks, and Denzel Washington as subway dispatcher Walter Garber, who duels with him; grosses $65M in the U.S. Aleksa Gajic's Technotise: Edit & I (Sept. 28) is a Serbian animated film based on Gajic's graphic novel set in 2074 Belgrade about female psych student Edit Stefanovic, who keeps failing the same univ. exam, and has a chip implanted in her body to help, only to see it try to take her over. McG's Terminator Salvation (May 21), set in the year 2018 stars Christian Bale as John Connor, Bryce Dallas Howard as Kate Connor, Anton Yelchin as Kyle Reese, Sam Worthington as mystery man Marcus Wright, and Moon Bloodgood as Blair Williams. Kenny Ortega's This Is It (Oct. 28) wastes no time in exploting the death of "Thriller" superstar Michael Jackson and his planned 50-concert sold-out This Is It Tour at the O2 Arena in London from July 2009-Mar. 2010, featuring half-Greek Australian guitarist Orianthii Pangaris. Rajikumar Hirani's Three Idiots (Dec. 25) is a Bollywood megahit, raking in 1B rupees in its opening weekend. Robert Schwentke's The Time Traveller's Wife (Aug. 14), based on the Audrey Niffenegger novel stars Eric Bana as Chicago librarian Henre DeTample, who has a gene allowing him to time travel, jeopardizing his relationship with his wife Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams). Michael Bay's Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (June 24); stars Shia LeBeouf as Sam Witwicky, Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes, and Josh Duham as Maj. William Lennox; #2 U.S. box office for the year at $402M. Chris Weitz's The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Nov. 16) (Temple Hill Entertainment) (Summit Entertainment) continues the series based on the Stephenie Meyer novels, starring Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan, who turns 18, and Robert Pattinson as her chilly no-fun ever-17 vampire beau Edward Cullen; does $709.7M box office worldwide and $293.8M in the U.S. (#4) on a $50M budget. Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (Sept. 5) (DreamWorks Pictures) (Paramount Pictures) stars suave, well-dressed George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, an expert on termination assistance, who is about to earn 10M frequent flyer miles with Am. Airlines, Vera Farmiga as his ae Alex Goran, and Anna Kendrick as his ambitious young asst. Natalie Keener; does $166.8M box office on a $25M budget. Gregor Jordan's Unthinkable (Nov. 9) stars Samuel L. Jackson as CIA spook Henry Herald "H" Humphries, and Carrie-Ann Moss as Agent Helen Brody, who work over captured Muslim convert Yousef AKA Steven Arthur Younger (Michael Sheen) to make him divulge the location of three nukes he has put in major U.S. cities to force the U.S. to pull all troops out of the Muslim World; lame speculations of the Constitutionality of torture of this mass murderer ring hollow? Pete Docter's Up (May 29) is a computer-animated film by Pixar, featuring the voice of Ed Asner as elderly widower Carl Fredericksen, who flies to South Am. in a floating house suspended on helium balloons with young Wilderness Explorer stowaway Russell (Jordan Nagai); grosses $277M in the U.S.(#5) and $723M worldwide. Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (Dec. 25) stars George Clooney as corporate downsizing expert Ryan Bingham, whose job and 10M frequent flyer miles are threatened by video conferencing expert Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), whom he falls for. Marco Bellocchio's Vincere ("To Win") (May 20) is about Mussolini's 1st wife (1914-5) Ida Dalser (1880-1937) (played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and their son Benito Albino Mussolini (1915-42); Filippo Timi plays Mussolini, who marries another woman during WWI, treats them both like merde, and gets them locked up in insane asylums for life, trying to cover up his relationship with them. Zack Snyder's Watchmen (Mar. 6), based on the 1987 graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons set in a parallel Earth in 1985 filled with superheroes stars Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, Carla Gugino as Silk Spectre, Malin Akerman as Silk Spectre II, Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, Matthew Goode as Ozymandias, Jeffrey Dean Morgan as the Comedian, and Patrick Wilson as Nite Owl II; does $185M box office on a $130M budget. Woody Allen's Whatever Works (Apr. 22) stars Evan Rachel Wood as a Southerner who marries Manhattan Scrooge Larry David. Spike Jones' Where the Wild Things Are (Oct. 16) is based on the Maurice Sendak children's book about Max (Max Records) in a forest of wild creatures who make him their king. Drew Barrymore's Whip It (Oct. 2), about a roller derby league in Austin, Tex. stars Ellen Page as Bliss Cavendar AKA Babe Ruthless, who escapes the beauty pageant plans of her mother Brooke Cavendar (Marcia Gay Harden); also stars Barrymore as Smashley Simpson, Juliette Lewis as Iron Maven, and Kristen Wiig as Maggie Mayhem. Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band: Eine Deutsche Kindergeschichte) (May 21) is about a small village in N Germany before WWI where abused children made to wear white sleeve ribbons after being suspected of sexual thoughts or masturbation form a guerrilla group to fight back with ritual punishment, and are interrupted by the assassination in Sarajevo, after which we're supposed to see the parallels. Farid Haerinejad and Mohammad Reza Kazemi's Women in Shroud is a documentary about Iranian lawyers and activists working against the death penalty, esp. for women. Shirin Neshat's Women Without Men is set in 1953 Iran during the U.S.-engineered coup of Mohammed Mossadegh. Jean-Marc Vallee's The Young Victoria (Mar. 6) (GK Films) (Momentum Pictures) stars Emily Blunt as Queen Victoria, and Rupert Friend as Prince Albert, featuring authentic costumes and sets; Jim Broadbent plays William IV; Paul Bettany plays Lord Melbourne; Michael Maloney plays Sir Robert Peel; Mark Strong plays Sir John Conroy; Miranda Richardson plays the Duchess of Kent; Thomas Kretschmann plays Leopold I of Belgium; does $27.4M box office on a $35M budget. Ruben Fleischer's Zombieland (Sept. 25) (Relativity Media) (Columbia Pictures) updates zombie flicks starring Jesse Eisenberg as Austin, Tex. college student Columbus (his preferred destination), Woody Harrelson as Twinkie-loving Tallahassee, who likes to paint "3" on the sides of his vehicles, Emma Stone as Wichita, Abigail Breslin as Little Rock, and Amber Heard as 406; Bill Murray makes a cameo appearance as a non-zombie playing a zombie; Derek Graf plays Clown Zombie; "Rule #1: Cardio; Rule #2: Double Tap; Rule #7: Travel Light"; "Time to nut up or shut up"; grosses $60.8M in 17 days and $102.4M box office on a $23.6M budget to become the #1-grossing zombie film in the U.S. (until ?); "It's been two months since Patient Zero took a bite of a contaminated burger at a Gus 'n' Gulp, just two months and I might just be the last non-cannibal freak in the country." Plays: Richard Bean (1956-), England People Very Nice (Royal Nat. Theatre, London) (Feb.); four waves of immigrants in Bethnal Green. Caryl Churchill (1938-), Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza (Royal Court Theatre, London) (Feb. 10). Zayd Dohrn (1977-), Sick; a Manhattan family goes to extremes to shield themselves from pollution; by the 4-y.-o. kid who lived with Weather Underground leaders Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in Morningside Heights. Stephan Elliott (1964-) and Allan Scott (1940-), Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (musical) (Palace Theatre, West End, London) (Mar 10); based on the 1994 film about two drag queens and a transgender women who contract to perform a drag show at a resort in Alice Springs; stars Jason Donovan as Mitzi/Tick, Tony Sheldon as Bernadette, and Oliver Thornton as Adam/Felicia; on Mar. 20, 2011 it opens at the Palace Theatre in New York, starring Will Swenson as Mitzi/Tick, Tony Sheldon as Bernadette, and Nick Adams as Adam/Felicia. Margarita Espada, Who Killed Marcelo Lucero? (Stony Brook U.); an Ecuadorian immigrant to Long Island is attacked and killed by an anti-Hispanic teenie group. Will Ferrell (1967-), You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush (comedy) (Cort Theater, New York) (Feb. 5); on Mar. 14 it is broadcast live on HBO cable channel. Pam Gems (1925-), Winterlove (Drill Hall, London); Despatches (Drill Hall, London). Dan Gordon, Irena's Vow (Walter Kerr Theatre, New York) (Mar. 29); about WWII Polish nurse Irene (Irena) Gut (1918-2003), who saved 12 Jews. Adrian Grant, Thriller Live (musical revue) (Lyric Theatre, West End, London) (Jan. 21) (3.3K+ perf.); six actors play singer Michael Jackson. Teddy Hayes (1951-), Obama On My Mind (musical comedy); a flop; incl. the Oink Scene. Tina Howe (1937-), Chasing Manet. Michael Jacobs, Impressionism (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, New York) (Feb. 28); stars Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen. Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey, Next to Normal (musical) (Pulitzer Prize). Sarah Ruhl (1974-), In the Next Room (The Vibrator Play) (Lyceum Theater, New York) (Oct. 22); her Broadway debut. Joanna Murray-Smith (1962-), Rockabye (Melbourne) (Aug.). Joe Sutton, Complicit (Old Vic Theatre, London) (Jan. 7); stars Richard Dreyfuss as journalist Am. Ben Kritzer, Elizabeth McGovern as his wife Judith, and David Suchet as his defense lawyer Roger Cowan. Robert Wilson (1941-), Sonnets (Berlin). Poetry: Rae Armantrout (1947-), Versed (Pulitzer Prize). Thomas Michael Disch (1940-2008), Winter Journey (posth.). Rita Dove (1952-), Sonata Mulattica. Mary Oliver (1935-), Evidence. Katha Pollitt (1949-), The Mind-Body Problem (June 9). Peter Dale Scott (1929-), Mosaic Orpheus. George Starbuck (1931-96), The Works: Poems Selected from Five Decades (posth.); ed. Kathryn Starbuck and Elizabeth Meese. Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012), Here. J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun (posth.) (May). Charles Wright (1935-), Sestets. Novels: Peter Ackroyd (1949-), The Canterbury Tales: A Retelling. Monica Ali (1967-), In the Kitchen (Apr.). Niccolo Ammaniti, As God Commands. Alaa al Aswany, Chicago; Egyptian grad students at the U. of Ill. live under surveillance by Hosni Mubarak's secret police. Margaret Atwood (1939-), The Year of the Flood; sequel to "Oryx and Crake" (2003); God's Gardeners, survivors of the Waterless Flood caused by the evil corporations. Gwenaelle Aubry (1971-), Person (Personne); about her father who suffered from manic depression and left a diary. Paolo Bacigalupi (1972-), The Windup Girl (Sept.) (first novel); 23rd cent. Thailand is plagued by global warming, megacorporations pushing GMO "genehacked" food, and biotechnology. Clive Barker (1952-), Third Book of the Art. Nevada Barr, 13-1/2; Tulane U. prof. Polly Deschamps, Richard and Dylan Raines. Frederick Barthelme (1943-), Waveland. Greg Bear (1951-), Marisposa; sequel to "Quantico" (2005). Steve Berry (1955-), The Paris Vendetta; Cotton Malone #5. Maeve Binchy (1940-), Heart and Soul; a Dublin health center for heart patients. Chris Bohjalian, Secrets of Eden. T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948-), The Women. Anita Brookner (1928-), Strangers. Dan Brown (1964-), The Lost Symbol (Sept. 15); original title "The Solomon Key"; Robert Langdon and noetic scientist Dr. Katherine Solomon chase Freemason secrets in Washington, D.C. and bad guy Mal'akh; causes millions of people to Google "Apotheosis of Washington". James Lee Burke (1936-), In the Valley of Ancient Rain Gods. Robert Olen Butler (1945-), Hell (Sept.). David Caute (1936-), Marechera and the Colonel. Stephen L. Carter, Jericho's Fall; Rebecca DeForde does a pre-obit for cancer-stricken Jericho Ainsley. Mary Higgins Clark (1927-), Just Take My Heart. Paulo Coelho (1947-), The Winner Stands Alone; the "superclass" who stink up the Cannes Film Festival. Suzanne Collins (1962-), Catching Fire (Sept.); #2 in the Hunger Games Trilogy. Michael Connelly, The Scarecrow; Jack McEvoy. Intervention (Aug. 4). Bernard Cornwell, Agincourt; the big battle on St. Crispins Day, Oct. 25, 1415. Michael Crichton (1942-2008), Pirate Latitudes (Nov. 24) (posth.). James Crosbie, Ashanti Gold (June); Colin Grant. Michael Crummey (1965-), Galore; a "One Hundred Years of Solitude" set in Newfoundland? Sandra Dallas, Prayers for Sale. Diane Mott Davidson (1949-), Fatally Flaky; Goldy Schultz #15. Jude Deveraux (1947-), Lavender Morning; Days of Gold; first in the Edilean Series. Cory Doctorow (1971-), Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (first novel); first novel released under a Creative Commons license. Leonard Downie Jr. (1942-), The Rules of the Game (first novel) (Jan. 13); retired Washington Post exec ed. (1981-2008) dabbles in fiction about Washington, D.C. with Sarah Page of the Washington Capital during the admin. of U.S. Pres. Susan Cameron. Dominick Dunne (1926-2009), Too Much Money (Dec.) (posth.). James Ellroy (1948-), Blood's a Rover; #3 in the American Underworld Trilogy. William R. Fortschen, One Second After; a high-alt. nuke causes an EMP disabling all electrical devices worldwide, causing global catastrophe. Tim Gautreaux (1947-), The Missing. Miriam Gershow, The Local News (first novel); Lydia Pasternak tell about her disappeared brother. Matthew Glass, Ultimatum; the future of the U.S. and China fighting over global warming. Mary Catherine Gordon (1949-), Reading Jesus. Joe Gores (1931-), Spade & Archer: The Prequel to Dashiell Hammet's The Maltese Falcon. Seth Grahame-Smith (1976-), Pride and Prejudice and Zombies; NYT bestseller mixing Jane Austen's classic 1813 novel with zombies; filmed in 2016. Philippa Gregory (1954-), The White Queen; about Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV; #1 in the Cousin's War Series. John Grisham (1955-), The Associate. Lauren Groff (1978-), Delicate Edible Birds (short stories). Paul Harding, Tinkers (first novel) (Pulitzer Prize); George on his deathbed in Mass. channels his dead tinker mystic epileptic minister father Howard. Everette Lynn Harris (1955-2009), Basketball Jones. Steven F. Havill, The Fourth Time is Murder. Philip Hensher, The Northern Clemency; two families in Sheffield, England. John Irving (1942-), Last Night in Twisted River. Marlon James, The Book of Night Women; Leo of the ancient Mograns, who possess bodies via sex. Sally Jenkins and John Stauffner, The State of Jones: The Small Southern County That Seceded from the Confederacy; Jones County Miss. Denis Johnson (1949-), Nobody Move. Shelton Johnson, Gloryland (first novel); U.S. Civil War buffalo soldier Elijah Yancy. Stephanie Kallos, Sing them Home. Leslie Kohler, Sins of the Border (first novel). Joan Lehmann, Heaven Below (first novel). Brad Leithauser (1953-), The Art Student's War. Jeffrey Lent, After You're Gone; 50-something Henry Dorn loses his wife Olivia and son Robert to a car crash in Finger Lakes, N.Y., and hooks up with Lydia Pearce in 1922 Amsterdam. Jonathan Lethem (1964-), Chronic City; Chase Insteadman in Manhattan is engaged to stranded astronaut Janice Trumbull; Perkus Tooth. James Lever, Me Cheeta: My Life in Hollywood; fictional autobio. of Tarzan's chimp Cheeta. Elinor Lipman (1950-), The Family Man; gay atty. Henry Archer retires early because his daddy died young . Penelope Lively (1933-), Family Album. Attica Locke, Black Water Rising (first novel); atty. Jay Porter. Shahriar Mandanipout, Censoring an Iranian Love Story; predicts the street death of Neda Agha-Soltan in Tehran?; "The girl does not know that in precisely seven minutes and seven seconds, at the height of the clash between the students, the police, and the members of the Party of God, in the chaos of attacks and escapes, she will be knocked into with great force, she will fall back, her head will hit against a cement edge, and her sad Oriental eyes will forever close." David Marusek, Mind Over Ship (Jan. 20). Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin; about Philippe Petit's 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers in NYC. Colleen McCullough (1937-), The Independence of Miss Mary Bennett; sequel to Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" focusing on Elizabeth's unattractive tone-deaf sister. Anne Michaels, The Winter Vault. Christian Moerk, Darling Jim; Dublin postman Niall Cleary. Nicholas Mosley (1923-), God's Hazard. Herta Muller (1953-), Atemschaukel; German Romanians put in work camps after WWII by the Soviets. Nami Mun, Miles from Nowhere; 13-y.-o. Joon lives on the streets of 1980s New York City. Ralph Nader (1934-), Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us! (Sept. 22); twists Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" to make the Warren Buffet types into altruists. Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, From Nairobi to Shenzhen (first novel); half-brother of Barack Obama, who has lived in S China for the last seven years cashes in. Robert Olmstead, Far Bright Star; the hunting of Pancho Villa. James Patterson (1947-), I, Alex Cross. Matthew Pearl, The Last Dickens; Charles Dickens' son Frank, supt. in the Bengal Mounted Police. Ralph Peters (1952-), The War After Armageddon; life after Iran nukes Israel and the U.S. Jayne Anne Phillips (1952-), Lark & Termite. Gary R. Prisk, Digger Dogface Brownjob Grunt (Oct. 1); Vietnam War novel. Danny Scheinemann, Random Acts of Heroic Love (first novel); Leo Deakin must bury his Greek babe Eleni, while Moritz Daniecki and his son Fischel deal with Kristallnacht. Anis Shivani, Anatolia and Other Stories (Oct.). John Shors, Dragon House; Iris Rhodes fulfills her Vietnam War vet father's wish to found a home in Ho Chi Minh City for Vietnamese street children. Nicholas Sparks (1965-), The Last Song (Sept.). Danielle Steel (1947-), One Day at a Time; Matters of the Heart; Southern Lights. Chuck Palahniuk (1962-), Pygmy; a 13-y.-o terrorist moves in with a white middle-class family posing as an exchange student, with a plan to incite racial hatred in the U.S. by building an A-bomb for his Nat. Science Fair project. Robert Brown Parker (1932-2010), Chasing the Bear: A Young Spenser Novel; Spenser #37; The Professional; Spenser #38; Night and Day; Jesse Stone #8; Split Image; Jesse Stone #9; Brimstone; Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch #3. George Pelecanos, The Way Home; "Bad" Chris Flynn. Arthur Phillips (1969-), The Song is You; Julian Donahue and Cait O'Dwyer . Jodi Picoult (1966-), Handle With Care. Sharon Potts, In Their Blood (first novel); college Jeremy Strobe backpacks in Europe. Spencer Quinn, Dog On It; K-9 school dropout Chet. Kim Stanley Robinson (1952-), Galileo's Dream (Aug. 6). Joel C. Rosenberg (1967-), Inside the Revolution: How the Followers of Jihad, Jefferson and Jesus Are Battling to Dominate the Middle East and Transform the World. J.K. Rowling (1965-), The Tales of Beedle the Bard; the book that Hermione Granger was bequeath ed by Albus Dumbledore. Richard Russo (1949-), That Old Cape Magic. Jose Saramago (1922-2010), Cain; at the launch of his book in Lisbon, he calls the Bible a "handbook of bad morals". Lisa See, Shanghai Girls; sisters Pearl and May Chin in 1937 Shanghai, the Paris of Asia. Jane Smiley (1949-), The Georges and the Jewels. Patrick Somerville, The Cradle (first novel); Marissa and Matt are expecting in July 1997. Scott Spencer (1945-), A Ship Made of Paper. Brad Thor (1969-), The Apostle. Colm Toibin (1955-), Brooklyn. Lisa Tucker, The Promised World. Barry Unsworth (1930-2012), Land of Marvels. Carrie Vaughn (1973-), Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand (Feb.); Kitty Raises Hell (Mar.); Kitty Norville #5, #6. Abraham Verghese (1955-), Cutting for Stone (first novel); autobio. novel about identical twins Shiva and Marion Praise Stone; on Pres. Obama's summer 2011 reading list. Rebecca Wells (1952-), The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder. Elie Wiesel (1928-), A Mad Desire to Dance; Polish Jew Doriel Waldman survives the Holocaust by hiding in a barn with his father. Dirk Wittenborn and Mike Walsh, Pharmakon. Robin Yassin-Kassab, The Road from Damascus. Births: Deaths: Portuguese's world's oldest person (since Nov. 26, 2008) Maria de Jesus dos Santos (b. 1893) on Jan. 2 near Tomar. Am. basketball player Hank Dezonie (b. 1922) on Jan. 2. Am. "Commissioner James Gordon in Batman" actor Pat Hingle (b. 1924) on Jan. 3 in Carolina Beach, N.C. (cancer). English economist Sir Alan Arthur Walters (b. 1926) on Jan. 3 (Parkinson's). Spanish world's oldest living person (since Jan. 2) Manuela Fernandez Fojaco (b. 1895) on Jan. 6. Canadian-born Am. Roman Catholic priest (advisor of George W. Bush) Richard John Neuhaus (b. 1936) on Jan. 8 in New York City (cancer). French dir. Claude Berri (b. 1934) on Jan. 12 in Paris. Am. journalist Allen Zwerdling (b. 1922) on Jan. 12 in Rosendale, N.Y. Am. "The Bobby-Soxer" novelist Hortense Calisher (b. 1911) on Jan. 13 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. "Edward I Longshanks in Braveheart" actor Patrick McGoohan (b. 1928) on Jan. 13 in Santa Monica, Calif. Am. poet W.D. Snodgrass (b. 1926) on Jan. 13 in Madison County, N.Y. (lung cancer). Mexican "Mr. Roarke in Fantasy Island", "Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek" actor Ricardo Montalban (b. 1920) on Jan. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Helga" artist Andrew Wyeth (b. 1917) on Jan. 16 in Chadds Ford, Penn. Am. historian Robert B. Asprey (b. 1923) on Jan. 26. Am. novelist John Updike (b. 1932) on Jan. 26. Am. Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller (b. 1935) on Feb. 3. Am. "Capt. Edward Parmalee in Laredo", "Granny Goose potato chips" actor Philip Carey (b. 1925) on Feb. 6 in New York City (lung cancer). Am. "The Law and Mr. Jones" actor James Whitmore (b. 1921) on Feb. 6 in Malibu, Calif. (lung cancer). Dutch physician Willem Johan Kolff (b. 1911) on Feb. 11 in Newtown Square, Penn. Irish playwright Hugh Leonard (b. 1926) on Feb. 12 in Dalkey. Am. publisher Alfred A. Knopf Jr. (b. 1918) on Feb. 14. Am. inventor John S. Kanzius (b. 1944) on Feb. 18 in Fort Meyers, Fla. (cancer). Am. "Private Benjamin" dir. Howard Zieff (b. 1927) on Feb. 22 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Riverworld" novelist Philip Jose Farmer (b. 1918) on Feb. 25 in Peoria, Ill. Am. basketball player-announcer Norm Van Lier (b. 1947) on Feb. 26 in Chicago, Ill. Am. radio personality Paul Harvey (b. 1918) on Feb. 28 in Phoenix, Ariz. Am. actor Sydney Earle Chaplin (b. 1926) on Mar. 3 in Rancho Mirage, Calif.; 3rd son of Charles Chaplin and 2nd wife Lita Grey. Am. "To Kill a Mockingbird" screenwriter-playwright Horton Foote (b. 1916) on Mar. 4 in Hartford, Conn. Am. video game pioneer Thomas Toliver Goldsmith Jr. (b. 1910) on Mar. 5 in Lacey, Wash. (hip fracture). Canadian "Mrs. Hockey" Colleen Howe (b. 1933) on Mar. 6 in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. (Pick's Disease). Am. "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" singer Jimmy Boyd (b. 1939) on Mar. 7 in Santa Monica, Calif. (cancer). Am. ambassador-philanthropist Lee Annenberg (b. 1918) on Mar. 12 in Rancho Mirage, Calif.; her philanthropic work "left an indelible print on education in the United States." (Nancy Reagan) French writer Pierre Bourgeade (b. 1927) on Mar. 12 in Loches. Am. "The Runner Stumbles" playwright Milan Stitt (b. 1941) on Mar. 12 in New York City. Am. "Malcolm" novelist James Purdy (b. 1914) on Mar. 13 in Englewood, N.J. Am. "Bad Day at Black Rock" screenwriter (creator of Mr. Magoo) Millard Kaufman (b. 1917) on Mar. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart failure). Am. ML baseball player-coach-mgr. Whitey Lockman (b. 1926) on Mar. 17 in Scottsdale, Ariz. Am. Steppenwolf and Blues Image musician Kent Henry (b. 1948) on Mar. 18 in Portland, Ore. English actress Natasha Richardson (b. 1963) on Mar. 18 in New York City (subdural hematoma from skiing accident on Mont Tremblant in Quebec on Mar. 16. Am. political scientist Jeremy R. Azrael (b. 1935) on Mar. 19 in Sherman Oaks, Calif. (lymphoma). Am. historian John Hope Franklin (b. 1915) on Mar. 25 in Durham, N.C. Romanian-born Am. writer Michael S. Radu (b. 1947) on Mar. 25. Am. country singer Dan Seals (b. 1948) on Mar. 25 in Nashville, Tenn. (mantle cell lymphoma). Canadian skier Shane McConkey (b. 1969) on Mar. 26 in Italy; killed parachuting off a cliff in the Dolomite Mts. French "Lawrence of Arabia", "Doctor Zhivago" composer-conductor Maurice Jarre (b. 1924) on Mar. 29 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. photographer Helen Levitt (b. 1913) on Mar. 29 in New York City. Am. "Velda in Kiss Me Deadly" actress Maxine Cooper (b. 1924) on Apr. 4 in Los Angeles, Calif. English mathematician I.J. Good (b. 1916) on Apr. 5 in Radford, Va. Am. Dungeons & Dragons game designer Dave Arneson (b. 1947) on Apr. 7 in Saint Paul, Minn. Egyptian-born Am. Muslim Brotherhood leader Ahmed Elkadi (b. 1940) on Apr. 11 in Tampa, Fla. Am. porno star Marilyn Chambers (b. 1952) on Apr. 12 in Santa Clarita, Calif. (heart disease). Am. baseball pitcher Mark "the Bird" Fidrych (b. 1954) on Apr. 13 in Northborough, Mass.; dies after his clothes become entangled in the power takeoff shaft of a 10-wheeled dump truck at his home. Am. "The Blue Max" novelist Jack D. Hunter (b. 1921) on Apr. 13 in St. Augustine, Fla. French novelist Maurice Druon (b. 1918) on Apr. 14 in Paris. English "Crash", "Empire of the Sun" novelist J.G. Ballard (b. 1930) on Apr. 19 in London. Am. "Mr. Koreander in The Neverending Story" actor Thomas Hill (b. 1927) on Apr. 20 in Bloomington, Ind. Am. street photographer Vivian Maier (b. 1926) on Apr. 21 in Chicago, Ill.; dies unknown after taking over 150K photographs of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, after which in Oct. 2009 Chicago collector John Maloof publicizes her work on Flickr, making her go viral; on Sept. 9, 2013 Maloof debuts his documentary film Finding Vivian Maier (ITC Films) at the Toronto Internat. Film Festival, which is nominated for a best documentary feature Oscar. English UFO writer John Michell (b. 1933) on Apr. 24 in Stock-Abbott, Dorset. Am. actress Bea Arthur (b. 1922) on Apr. 25 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. country singer Vern Gosdin (b. 1934) on Apr. 28 in Nashville, Tenn. (stroke). English Pluto-naming celeb Venetia Burney (b. 1918) on Apr. 30 in Barnstead. Am. "The Women's Room" novelist-writer Marilyn French (b. 1929) on May 2 in Manhattan, N.Y. (heart failure). Am. consumer protection activist Robert Burnett Choate Jr. (b. 1924) on May 3 in Lemon Grove, Calif. Am. actor-dir.-producer-chef Dom DeLuise (b. 1933) on May 4 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. basketball coach Chuck Daly (b. 1930) on May 9 in Jupiter, Fla. (pancreatic cancer). Libyan al-Qaida member Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (b. 1963) on May 10 in prison (suicide) (murder?). Am. actor Frank Aletter (b. 1926) on May 13 in Tarzana, Calif. Am. basketball player-musician Wayman Tisdale (b. 1964) on May 15 in Tulsa, Okla. Am. historian David Herbert Donald (b. 1920) on May 17 in Boston, Mass. (heart failure). Am. biochemist Robert F. Furchgott (b. 1916) on May 19 in Seattle, Wash.; 1998 Nobel Med. Prize. U.S. Brig. Gen. Frederick Joseph Karch (b. 1917) on May 23. South Korean pres. #16 (2003-8) Roh Moo-hyun (b. 1946) on May 23 in Yangsan (suicide by leaping from cliff); leaves a note describing his agony over corruption allegations. British economist Sir Clive Granger (b. 1934) on May 27 in La Jolla, Calif.; 2003 Nobel Econ. Prize. English actor Terence Joseph Alexander (b. 1923) on May 28. Guinea-Bissau pres. #1 (1974-80) Louis Cabral (b. 1931) on May 30 in Torres Vedras, Portugal. Sudanese pres. (1969-85) Jaafar an-Nimeiry (b. 1930) on May 30 in Khartoum. Am. cultural historian Fr. Thomas Berry (b. 1914) on June 1 in Greensboro, N.C.: "The universe, the solar system, and planet earth in themselves and in their evolutionary emergence constitute for the human community the primary revelation of that ultimate mystery whence all things emerge into being"; "The universe is composed of subjects to be communed with, not objects to be exploited. Everything has its own voice, thunder and lightning and stars and planets, flowers, birds, animals, trees - all these have voices, and they constitute a community of existence that is profoundly related"; "Destroy what man makes, you're a criminal. Destroy what god makes, you're a sportsman." Am. historian Ernest Richard May (b. 1928) on June 1 in Cambridge, Mass. (cancer). Am. "Kung Fu", "Kill Bill" actor David Carradine (b. 1936) on June 3 in Bangkok, Thailand (suicide). French immunologist Jean Dausset (b. 1916) on June 6 in Palma de Mallorca, Spain; 1980 Nobel Medicine Prize. Gabonese pres. #2 (1967-2009) Omar Bongo (b. 1935) on June 8 in Barcelona, Spain (intestinal cancer). German-British political scientist Ralf Dahrendorf, Baron Dahrendorf (b. 1929) on June 17 in Cologne, Germany (cancer). Am. "Love of Life", "The Secret Storm" radio-TV announcer Ken Roberts (b. 1910) on June 19 in New York City. Am. "Heeere's Johnny" celeb Ed McMahon (b. 1923) on June 23 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Jill Munroe in Charlie's Angels" actress Farrah Fawcett (b. 1947) on June 25 in Santa Monica, Calif. (cancer); dies before she can marry longtime beau Ryan O'Neal. Am. superstar entertainer ("the King of Pop") Michael Jackson (b. 1958) on June 25 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart attack from OD); weighs 112 lbs. at death; sold 750M records; leaves three children, Prince Michael Jackson I (1997-), Paris-Michael Katherine Jackson (1998-), and Prince "Blanket" Michael Jackson II (2002-); news of his death rivals the death of JFK for shock value, causing Google, Twitter et al. to crash or bog down; his doctor later reveals that he had been suffering from lupus; a drug stash incl. the fatal anesthetic Propofol is found in his closet; at his funeral Stevie Wonder sings "Never Dream You'd Leave Me in the Summer"; on June 24, 2010 his brother Jermaine Jackson says that if Michael had converted to Islam it might have saved his life; a bust of an Egyptian woman from earlier than 1000 B.C.E. that has been on display at Chicago's Field Museum since 1988 attracts attention as a dead ringer for him - he dies too young after taking too many prescription drugs, like Elvis? Am. "The Seeds" singer Sky Saxon (b. 1937) on June 25 in Austin, Tex. Am. "My Little Margie" actress Gale Storm (b. 1922) on June 27 in Danville, Calif. Am. OxiClean, Orange Glo pitchman Billy Mays (b. 1958) on June 28 in Tampa, Fla.; found dead in his home after a plane he lands in blows out its front tires, and he tells a TV station that some objects "hit me on the head, but I got a hard head". Am. "Wade Gustafson in Fargo' actor-singer Harve Presnell (b. 1933) on June 30 in Santa Monica, Calif. Nicaraguan boxer Alexis Arguello (b. 1952) on July 1 in Managua (suicide?). Am. "Gen. Omar Bradley in Patton", "Lt. Mike Stone in The Streets of San Francisco" actor Karl Malden (b. 1912) on July 1 in Brentwood, Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "The Mothman Prophecies" writer John Keel (b. 1930) on July 3 in New York City. Am. actess Brenda Joyce (b. 1917) on July 4 in Santa Monica, Calif. Am. football QB Steve McNair (b. 1973) on July 4 in Nashville, Tenn. (shot dead by a woman in his condo, who shoots herself). U.S. defense secy. #8 (1961-8) Robert Strange McNamara (b. 1916) on July 6 in Washington, D.C. English conductor Sir Edward Downes (b. 1924) on July 10 in Switzerland (assisted suicide along with his wife). Am. Civil War historian Kenneth Milton Stampp (b. 1912) on July 10. Am. CBS Evening News anchorman (1962-81) Walter Cronkite (b. 1916) on July 17 at 7:42 p.m. in Manhattan, N.Y.; dies right before the 40th anniv. of the Apollo 11 launch he moderated. Polish anti-Marxist philosopher Leszek Kolakowski (b. 1927) on July 17 in Oxford, England: "We learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are." British world's oldest man Henry Allingham (b. 1896) on July 18 in Ovingdean, East Sussex. Am. "Angela's Ashes" writer Frank McCourt (b. 1930) on July 19 in Manhattan, N.Y. Scottish "Peter and Gordon" singer Gordon Waller (b. 1945) on July 17 in Norwich, Conn. Am. psychologist Mark Rosenzweig (b. 1922) on July 20 in Berkeley, Calif. (renal failure). Am. New Riders of the Purple Sage country rock musician John Dawson (b. 1945) on July 21 ini San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (stomach cancer). Am. novelist Everett Lynn Harris (b. 1955) on July 23 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. economist Stanley Lebergott (b. 1918) on July 24 in Middletown, Conn. English novelist Stanley Middleton (b. 1919) on July 25 (cancer). British last WWI vet Harry Patch (d. 1898) on July 25 in Wells, Somerset. Am. poet-playwright Turner Cassity (b. 1929) on July 26 in Atlanta, Ga. Philippine pres. #11 (1986-92) Corazon Aquino (b. 1933) on Aug. 1 in Makati (colon cancer). Am. first African-Am. supermodel Naomi Sims (b. 1948) on Aug. 1 in Newark, N.J. (breast cancer). Palestinian ex-terrorist politician-writer Shafiq al-Hout (b. 1932) on Aug. 2 in Beirut, Lebanon (cancer). Am. "On the Waterfront" screenwriter Budd Schulberg (b. 1914) on Aug. 5 in Westhampton, N.Y. Am. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Home Alone" dir. John Hughes (b. 1950) on Aug. 6 in New York City (heart attack). Am. lobbyist Anne Wexler (b. 1921) on Aug. 7 (cancer); first woman to own a lobbying firm (1981). Am. celeb Eunice Kennedy Shriver (b. 1921) on Aug. 11 in Hyannis, Mass. Am. guitar maker Les Paul (b. 1915) on Aug. 13 in White Plains, N.Y. Canadian hockey hall-of-fame player Ted Kennedy (b. 1925) on Aug. 14 in Port Colborne, Ont.; first NHL player to win the Stanley Cup 5x. South Korean pres. (1998-2003) ("the Nelson Mandela of Asia") Kim Dae-jung (b. 1925) on Aug. 18 in Seoul (heart failure from multiple organ dysfunction syndrome); 2000 Nobel Peace Prize. Ukrainian-born Am. economist Rose Friedman (b. 1910) on Aug. 18 in Davis, Calif. Am. TV producer ("60 Minutes" creator) Don Hewitt (b. 1922) on Aug. 19 in Bridgehampton, N.Y. (pancreatic cancer). Am. pastor Rev. Charles E. Blair (b. 1921) on Aug. 20 in Denver, Colo. (7:20 p.m.) Austrian Olympic skier Toni Sailer (b. 1935) on Aug. 24 in Innsbruck (laryngeal cancer). Am. Coors kidnapper Joseph Corbett Jr. (b. 1928) on Aug. 24 in Denver, Colo. (suicide). U.S. Sen. (D-Mass.) (1962-2009) Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (b. 1932) on Aug. 25 in Hyannis Port, Mass. (brain cancer); buried in Arlington Nat. Cemetery close to his brothers JFK and RFK; only Jean Kennedy Smith (1928-) is left from the original Kennedy family; his Portuguese water dog Splash (1997-2010) dies on Dec. 24, 2010. Am. writer-journalist Dominick Dunne (b. 1925) on Aug. 26 in Manhattan, N.Y.; known for covering the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995 and kidnap-robbery trial in 2008. English novelist-newspaper columnist Keith Waterhouse (b. 1929) on Sept. 4 in London. Danish nuclear physicist Aage Niels Bohr (b. 1922) on Sept. 8 in Copenhagen; 1975 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. world's oldest person (since Jan. 2) Gertrude Baines (b. 1894) on Sept. 11 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "The Basketball Diaries" poet-musician Jim Carroll (b. 1949) on Sept. 11 in Manhattan, N.Y. (heart attack). Am. agronomist Norman Borlaug (b. 1914) on Sept. 12 in Dallas, Tex.; 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. Am. "Det. Adam Flint in Naked City" actor Paul Burke (b. 1926) on Sept. 13 in Palm Springs, Calif. (cancer). Am. "Dirty Dancing", "Ghost" actor Patrick Swayze (b. 1952) on Sept. 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pancreatic cancer): "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Am. child psychiatrist Leon Eisenberg (b. 1922) on Sept. 15 in Cambridge, Mass. (prostate cancer). Am. "Peter, Paul and Mary" singer Mary Travers (b. 1936) on Sept. 16 in Danbury, Conn. (leukemia). Am. hall-of-fame bowler Dick Hoover (b. 1929) on Sept. 17 in Brunswock, Ohio. Am. "Godfather of Neoconservatism" writer-journalist Irving Kristol (b. 1920) on Sept. 18 in Falls Church, Va. Am. "Ferrante & Teicher" pianist Arthur Ferrante (b. 1921) on Sept. 19 in Long Boat Key, Fla.; dies at age 88, one year for each piano key; released 150 albums selling 88M copies. Am. "The Lone Ranger" actor John Hart (b. 1917) on Sept. 20 in Playas de Rosarito, Baja Calif., Mexico. Am. actor-dir. Robert Ginty (b. 1948) on Sept. 21 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). Am. actor Edward Albert (b. 1951) on Sept. 22 in Malibu, Calif. (lung cancer); dies 18 mo. after his father Eddie Albert. Am. writer-journalist William Lewis Safire (b. 1929) on Sept. 27 in Rockville, Md. Am. Okla. gov. #18 (1963-7) and #23 (1987-91) Henry Bellmon (b. 1921) on Sept. 29 in Enid, Okla. (Parkinson's). Soviet cosmonaut Pavel Popovich (b. 1930) on Sept. 29 in Gurzuf, Crimea, Ukraine. German publisher Reinhard Mohn (b. 1921) on Oct. 3 in Steinhagen. Argentine singer ("Voice of the Voiceless Ones") Mercedes Sosa (b. 1935) on Oct. 4 in Buenos Aires (kidney disease). Ukrainian-born Am. mathematician Israel Gelfand (b. 1913) on Oct. 5 in New Brunswick, N.J. Am. actress Pamela Blake (b. 1915) on Oct. 6 in Las Vegas, Nev. Am. photographer Irving Penn (b. 1917) on Oct. 7 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. "Blue Cheer" rocker Dickie Peterson (b. 1946) on Oct. 12 in Erklenz, Germany (cancer). Am. activist Tex. judge William Wayne Justice (b. 1920) on Oct. 13 in Austin, Tex. Am. aeronautical engineer Richard Travis Whitcomb (b. 1921) on Oct. 13 in Newport News, Va. Am. "Mayella Violet Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird" actress Collin Wilcox (b. 1935) on Oct. 14 in Highlands, N.C. (brain cancer). Am. record co. exec Alan Wendell Livingston (b. 1917) on Mar. 13 in Beverly Hills, Calif. Am. New Age leader Elizabeth Clare Prophet (b. 1939) on Oct. 15 in Bozeman, Mont. (Alzheimer's). Am. economist John R. Meyer (b. 1927) on Oct. 20. German-born English "The Slits" vocalist Ari Up (b. 1962) on Oct. 20 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. architect Lawrence Halprin (b. 1916) on Oct. 25. Am. Hawaiian singer George Na'ope (b. 1928) on Oct. 26 (cancer). Am. Sonic Drive-In founder Troy Smith (b. 1922) on Oct. 26 in Oklahoma City, Okla. (Alzheimer's). French anthropologist-ethnologist ("Father of Modern Anthropology") Claude Levi-Strauss (b. 1908) on Oct. 30 in Paris. Spanish novelist Francisco Ayala (b. 1906) on Nov. 3 in Madrid; last survivor of the Generation of 1927. Soviet physicist Vitaly Ginzburg (b. 1916) on Nov. 8 in Moscow; 2003 Nobel Physics Prize. English "The Equalizer" actor Edward Woodward (b. 1930) on Nov. 16 in Truro, Cornwall. Am. world's oldest living person Olivia Patrick "Pat" Thomas (b. 1895) on Nov. 16 in Buffalo, N.Y. English "Mythago Wood" novelist Robert Holdstock (b. 1948) on Nov. 29. Irish-born British actor Richard Todd (b. 1919) on Dec. 3 in Bourne, Lincolnshire (cancer). Irish folk singer Liam Clancy (b. 1935) on Dec. 4 in Cork. Am. "The Ugly American" writer William Lederer (b. 1912) on Dec. 5 in Baltimore, Md. (respiratory failure). Am. economist Arthur Goldberger (b. 1930) on Dec. 11. Am. economist Paul Samuelson (b. 1915) on Dec. 13 in Belmont, Mass.; 1970 Nobel Econ. Prize (first American): "To prove that Wall Street is an early omen of movements still to come in GNP, commentators quote economic studies alleging that market downturns predicted four out of the last five recessions. That is an understatement. Wall Street indexes predicted nine out of the last five recessions! And its mistakes were beauties"; "A growing nation is the greatest ponzi game ever contrived." Am. televangelist Oral Roberts (b. 1918) on Dec. 15 in Newport Beach, Calif. (pneumonia). Russian economist and PM (1992) Yegor Gaidar (b. 1956) on Dec. 16 in Moscow (pulmonary edema). Am. "The Song of Bernadette" actress Jennifer Jones (b. 1919) on Dec. 17 in Malibu, Calif. English gay Marxist film critic Robin Wood (b. 1931) on Dec. 18 in Toronto, Ont., Canada. Iranian dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri (b. 1922) on Dec. 19 in Qum; his funeral is attended by thousands of anti-govt. protesters wearing green and shouting "death to the dictator". Am. Big Brother and the Holding Co. rock musician James Gurley (b. 1939) on Dec. 20 in Palm Desert, Calif. (heart attack). Am. "Sin City" actress-singer Brittany Murphy (b. 1977) on Dec. 20 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cardiac arrest); on May 23, 2010 her British screenwriter husband Simon Monjack is found dead in his Los Angeles home of natural causes; in 2013 her father claims that the U.S. govt. murdered her. Am. biochemist Edwin G. Krebs (b. 1918) on Dec. 21 in Seattle, Wash.; 1992 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. "New York Review of Books" illustrator David Levine (b. 1926) on Dec. 29 in New York City. Kuwaiti-born Taliban suicide bomber Human Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi (b. 1977) on Dec. 30 in Khost, Afghanistan (suicide). Am. philanthropist Ruth Lilly (b. 1915) on Dec. 30 in Indianapolis, Ind. (heart failure). Am. folk musician Fred Gerlach (b. 1925) on Dec. 31 in San Diego, Calif. Am. Beltway Sniper John Allen Muhammad (b. 1960) on Nov. 10 in Greensville Correctional Center, Greensville County, Va. (executed).
2010 Doomsday Clock: 6 min. to midnight (+1 since 2007). Chinese Year: Tiger (Feb. 14) - as in Woods? This is the U.N. Internat. Year of Biodiversity and U.N. Internat. Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures. Generation A (Alpha) consists of people born in 2010-25, the first generation born exclusively in the 21st cent. Time Mag. Person of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg (1984-). World pop.: 6.8B, incl. 1.57B Muslims, 1.647M in Britain (2.7%), vs. 2.4% for Europe; U.S. pop.: 308,745,538 (9.7% increase since 2000); Tex. passes the 25M mark (25,145,561) (20.6% increase since 2000). Number of people fed by one U.S. farmer: 155 (v. 16 in 1950, 26 in 1960, 47 in 1970, 76 in 1980, and 100 in 1990). Americans have 4.4M births this year, exceeding the record 4.3M in 1957 at the peak of the 1946-64 Baby Boom (U.S. Census Bureau); for the first time non-white new births outnumber white (37% in 1990, 48% in 2008). The Twenty-Third (23rd) U.S. Census gives the U.S. pop. as 308.7M, a 9.7% increase since the 2000 census; the Hispanic pop. grew by 43%, from 35.3M (13%) in 2000 to 50.5M, an increase of 15.2M; Mexicans make up 63% of U.S. Hispanics (vs. 58% in 2000), vs. 9% Puerto Rican, and 4% Cuban; 75% of all Hispanics in the U.S. come from Mexico, Puerto Rico, or Cuba; the number reporting that they're both black and white grows to 1.8M from 785K in 2000; the U.S. immigrant pop. is 40M (highest ever), with 13.9 new immigrants since 2000; in 1970 it was 9.7M. Declining birthrates cause deaths to exceed births in the European Union, pop. growth becomes dependent entirely on immigration (EU); Sweden has 1.6M foreigners out of a total pop. of 9.3M (17%). This is the last year that Baby Boomers (born 1947-65) are the most represented age group in the U.S. pop.; in 2013 it is 22-year-olds. China replaces Japan as the #2 world economy after Japan's GDP falls 0.3% in Oct.-Dec. Hispanics outnumber African-Ams. in 191 of 366 large U.S. metro areas; a record 83.7% of the U.S. pop. lives in large metro areas. JPMorgan Chase reports record profits of $17.4B this year. This year and 2010 humans add about 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere, which is about 25% of all the CO2 put there by humanity since 1750. The total number of Internet users exceeds 2B this year, with 226M new users, 162M from developing countries; the total amount of new digital data generated per year reaches 1 zettabyte (1 billion trillion bytes); Internet usage catches up with TV in the U.S., and next year U.S. TV ownership declines for the first time since 1970; too bad, many suffer from govt. censorship. The S China Drought (ends 2011) affects 35M and causes billions in financial losses. The Mexican Drug War begun 2008 reaches a death toll of 22K by Apr. According to a study by Brandeis U., over the past 23 years, the white-black income gap rose from a median of $22K per family to $100K; black household wealth rose only from $2K to $5K; banks repossess 1M U.S. homes this year. Communist China makes its move to control the Western Pacific this year, despite expert predictions that it would take until 2025? Sudan punishes 40K women a year with a total of 600K lashes. Honor attacks in Britain reach 3K thanks to years of Muslim immigration. The Winter of 2010 (Dec. 2009 - Mar. 2010) is the coldest since 1963; on Jan. 5 Norway records a temp of -45.6C as hundreds die in Europe. This is the Mexican Double Anniv. Year, the 200th anniv. of independence and 100th anniv. of its rev. This year a record 25 of the 182 accredited ambassadors in Washington, D.C. are female, incl. Hunaina Sultan Al-Mughairy from Oman, the first female ambassador from an Arab country, and Meera Shankar, first female ambassador from India in over 50 years. Pop. of Mexico: 112.3M in June (vs. 97.4M in 2000), #11 in the world. Number of mosques in the U.S: 1,897 (vs. 1,209 in 2000). Number of Muslims in Germany tied to Islamist extremist groups: 37,470 (vs. 36,270 in 2009). The U.S. hurricane season is the first in 110 years with at least 10 hurricanes and none hitting the U.S. This is the Year of Islamist Infiltration in the U.S. according to Patrick Poole. This year Hamas arrests 150 witches in Gaza. Number of civilians murdered in Juarez, Mexico: 3,111 (vs. 2,421 in Afghanistan). This year 39 Muslims are tortured to death in Uzbekistan by the govt. (vs. 20 in 2008). World CO2 emissions reach a record 30.6 gigatonnes, up 5% from 2008; they had dipped to 29 gigatonnes in 2009. Total number of people allowed to leave Islam by the govt. of Indonesia since 2000: 135. Since 1999 2.8% (33K sq. mi.) of the Amazon Rainforest has been burned. Between this year and 2010 U.S. suicide rates for ages 35-64 rise by almost 30%. The 2010-12 Southern U.S. Drought. On Jan. 1 (Fri.) the 2010 Rose Bowl sees the 10-2 Ohio State Buckeyes defeat the 10-2 Oregon Ducks by 26-17. On Jan. 1 the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership goes into effect, seeking to expand the EU to North Africa, despite fears of Islamic immigration to and Islamization of Europe; meanwhile al-Qaida's #2 man Al-Zawahiri posts a video on the Internet praising members for kidnapping three Spanish volunteers and a French national and calling on them to reconquer Al-Andalus (Spain) after first "disinfecting" the Maghreb of all infidels. This year 663 illegal aliens from countries designated as "special interest" for ties with terrorism are arrested along the U.S.-Mexico border. On Jan. 1 Israeli officials announce support of Pres. Obama's decision to impose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, but criticize the measures being considered as too narrow, calling for "crippling" restrictions. On Jan. 1 North Korea issues a New Year Message calling for an end to hostility with the U.S. and a nuke-free peninsula, just week after sending signals that it wants to end its year-long boycott of nuclear disarmament talks - hold that tiger? On Jan. 1 a U.S. drone aircraft fires a missile that kills at least three militants in a car in Pakistan's North Waziristan region on the Afghan border; meanwhile a Taliban suicide car bomber in Shah Hasan Khel in NW Pakistan targeted at an anti-Taliban militia kills almost 100, pissing-off tribal elders; meanwhile on Jan. 1 a suicide bomber at a volleyball tournament near Lakki Marwat, Pakistan (in NW Pakistan near Waziristan) kills 75. On Jan. 1 the U.S. military celebrates their first month without a combat death in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003. On Jan. 1 China announces that it arrested 5,394 in 2009 for Internet porn, vowing to increase the crackdown. On Jan. 1 thousands march in Hong Kong to demand that Beijing grant full democracy. On Jan. 1 a new Irish Anti-Blasphemy Law passed last July comes into effect, causing Atheist Ireland to vow to fight it by publishing anti-religious quotes on its Web site. On Jan. 1 Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard (nee Vestergaard) (1935-), known for his Muhammad cartoons is attacked in his home by a mad 27-y.-o. Somalian Muslim Al-Shabaab terrorist wielding a knife and axe, who smashes his way through the glass door Jack-Nicholson-in-The-Shining-style but escapes by hiding in his panic room, after which the police shoot the intruder; meanwhile Muslim youths carbecue 1,137 cars across France as New Year's Eve celebrations turn violent, causing 549 to be detained overnight; 1,147 cars were burned in France last year, and 288 detained; 40K are burnt this year, and next the figures for next year are suppressed by the French authorities; meanwhile on Jan. 1 (night) French-Moroccan father Caude Sturni kills his three daughters ages 5, 11, 13 in Haguenau, then burns his house down with himself inside, all because of a separation; on Jan. 3 the Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC) issues a statement in English condemning the attack on Westergaard; on Jan. 8 the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten repub. six of the original 12 Muhammad cartoons, causing the OIC to condemn the paper on Jan. 10 in a statement in English, French and Arabic - the first one condemning the violence was meant for infidel consumption only? On Jan. 1 Pres. Barack Obama signs an executive order directing govt. agencies, local law enforcement and the U.S. Post Office to work on a plan for distributing medical countermeasures in the event of a biological attack. On Jan. 1 Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki issues an ultimatum to the West to accept Iran's low-enriched uranium for higher-enriched uranium for their U.S.-built reactor, or they will begin enriching theirs from 3.5% to 20%. On Jan. 1 the Y2.01K Crisis is smallish, with some ATM users getting locked out when the machines can't read the year 2010 properly. On Jan. 2 there is a rare palindromic day: 01022010. On Jan. 2 Pres. Obama gives a speech on Yemen, saying that Xmas Underwear Bomber was trained there, and vowing to hold those responsible "to account", answering former vice-pres. Dick Cheney's criticism that he doesn't recognize the struggle with terrorists to be a war with "Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred", and sending a message to Yemeni pres. (since 1978) Field Marshal (Fiver Shiite) Ali Abdullah Saleh (1942-) via U.S. Gen. David H. Petraeus congratulating him on his counterterrorism efforts and promising close cooperation; on Jan. 3 the U.S. and U.K. close their embassies in Yemen, signaling that they consider it a terrorist haven, and agree to fund a counterterrorism police unit for that country as well as fund Yemen's coast guard to fight Somalian pirates; U.S. military aid to Yemen will double from $70M to $150M; too bad, on Jan. 4 six trucks filled with explosives give security forces the slip and disappear into Sana'a. On Jan. 2 the Afghan parliament rejects 14 of 24 cabinet nominees by pres. Hamid Karzai as being cronies or under the influence of warlords, telling him to submit new acceptable ones. On Jan. 2 Mexican police capture Carlos Beltran Leyva, brother of drug lord Arturo Beltra Leyva in Culiacan, Sinaloa. On Jan. 2 four trains collide in two separate incidents in fog in India, killing 10 and injuring 47. On Jan. 3 (Sun.) the worst snowstorm since 1951 hits Beijing, China, dumping 8 in.; meanwhile a cold wave in N India kills 40, incl. 30 in the last 24 hours, and on Jan. 4 the worst snowstorm since 1937 hits South Korea. On Jan. 3 the Obama admin. still refusing to implement Muslim Ideological Profiling (MIP) as proposed by TLW et al., the Transportation Security Admin. instead issues orders that all travellers flying into the U.S. be given tightened random screening, and 100% from seven terrorism-prone countries (Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Mali, Pakistan, Syria, and Yemen) to be patted down and have carry-ons searched; the list is later increased to 14, incl. Cuba, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen; no surprise, Euro airports are slow to respond, Cuba and Sudan formally protest, and France wants to add 23 more countries to the risk list; meanwhile a 2008 report by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security about a rogue aviation network run by al-Qaida across the Atlantic Ocean that was buried resurfaces. On Jan. 3 human rights activist Josefina Reyes is killed in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico; on Jan. 9 police find two severed heads and the bullet-ridden bodies of two women and a man in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, the victims of drug cartels. On Jan. 3 a security scare at Newark, N.J. Airport shuts it down for hours and delays thousands of passengers after a man slips into a secure area to give a woman a goodbye kiss when a federal officer momentarily leaves his post. On Jan. 3 Brit Hume tells Fox News Sunday that Tiger Woods could make over his personal life by switching from Buddhism to Christianity, causing the PC police to come out. On Jan. 4 after a series of earthquake (up to 7.2) in the South Pacific since Jan. 3, a tsunami hits the Solomon Islands, but no injuries are reported. On Jan. 4 Yemeni security forces kill two suspected al-Qaida militants in Sa'ana, while the French, Czech, and Japanese embassies close like their U.S. and British counterparts; on Jan. 5 the Obama admin. announces that the U.S. govt. is suspending transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen, but continuing plans to close it, despite a new faulty report that one in five Gitmo prisoners released returns to terrorism. On Jan. 4 the U.S. Secret Service reports the discovery of a 3rd gate crasher at the Nov. 24, 2009 state dinner for Indian PM Manmohan Singh. On Jan. 4 the U.S. House Judiciary Committee holds hearings on NFL brain injuries; former NFL brain injury committee chmn. Ira Casson testifies that he sees no evidence that prof. football is linked to dementia. On Jan. 4 Bangladesh orders dozens of Islamic political parties to drop Islam from their name and stop using religion on the campaign trail per the constitution. On Jan. 4 after getting pissed of at the Social Security admin., black-clad gunman Johnny L. Wicks (1943-) hoots up the federal courthouse lobby in Las Vegas, Nev., then flees and is shot and killed by federal officers. On Jan. 5 Pres. Obama gives a press conference where he repeatedly admits that U.S. intel agencies failed with Xmas Condom Bomber and could have prevented it, and orders them to shape up, saying "This was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had... That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it." On Jan. 5 China warns the U.S. not to sell more arms to pesky Taiwan, which doesn't stop it from announcing $6B in arms sales on Jan. 29. On Jan. 5 a U.S. federal appeals court upholds a lower's court's 2008 decision that the govt. has sweeping authority to detain terrorism suspects linked to al-Qaida, the Taliban or affiliated groups. On Jan. 5 (night) 14 suspected Muslim terrorists die after their explosives-rigged bus blows up prematurely in Kunduz Province, Afghanistan. On Jan. 5 ESPN 3D debuts; on June 11 it broadcasts the Mexico-South Africa World Cup match in 3D; meanwhile Discovery, Imax and Sony announce a joint venture to create a 3-D TV channel next year. On Jan. 6 a U.S. military convoy travelling in the wrong lane hits a passenger van in Hillah, Iraq S of Baghdad, killing five Iraqis and injuring seven Iraqis and three U.S. soldiers. On Jan. 6 armed Nuer tribesmen kills 139 members of a rival tribe in a remote area of S Sudan. On Jan. 6 two U.S. drone strikes kill 12 in NW Pakistan. On Jan. 6 Calif. gov. Arnold Schwazenegger addresses the state assembly, asking the U.S. govt. to give Calif. $8B to help with its $20B deficit; he also shocks the Obama admin. by distancing himself from support of his health care reform bill, saying Calif. can't afford it. On Jan. 6 Xhosa tribal king Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo threatens to secede his 10M pop. Thembu tribal subgroup and take 60% of the land of South Africa with him if criminal charges against him aren't dropped. On Jan. 6 a Muslim suicide car bomber near Makhachkala, Dagestan in S Russia kills six police and injures 10 others. On Jan. 6 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton says that troubled countries like Yemen need development aid along with diplomacy and air strikes to fulfill U.S. security interests; on Jan. 6 Yemeni foreign minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi chimes in and says that Yemen doesn't welcome U.S. and foreign troops, even for training and logistical support. On Jan. 6 retiring Prague archbishop cardinal Miloslav Vlk (1932-) warns that Europe is letting itself be Islamized without a fight, adding "Today, when the fighting is done with spiritual weapons which Europe lacks while Muslims are perfectly armed, the fall of Europe is looming." On Jan. 6-7 a 20-hour gun battle in Srinagar, Kashmir, India between police and militants at a police outpost kills four. On Jan. 7 (midnight) Muslin gunmen stage a drive-by shooting outside a church in Nag Hamadi in Qena Province in S Egypt (40 mi. from the ruins of Luxor), killing six. On Jan. 7 an attempt to oust British PM (since 2009) Gordon Brown fails, but shakes his authority. On Jan. 7 a series of five bomb attacks on police in Hit, Iraq 120 mi. W of Baghdad kill eight and injure 10. On Jan. 7 in response to the Nov. 23 massacre of 57 in S Philippines, the Philippine govt. begins disbanding 132 militias used by politicians to intimidate rivals. On Jan. 7 the French govt. announces the deportation of radical Egyptian imam Ali Ibrahim El Soudany for issuing calls to violence - but not his followers? On Jan. 7 assembly line worker Timothy Hendron. (b. 1958), who has a pending lawsuit against them brings a rifle to electrical products co. ABB Power, killing three and wounding five workers before killing himself. On Jan. 7 after a 2-day trip to Turkey, German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle tells Turkey to press ahead with reforms to bring it closer to the EU, denying that Germany is blocking its bid to join. On Jan. 7 Iranian opposition leader Mahdi Karroubi is fired on by pro-govt. demonstrators in Qazvin (90 mi. W of Tehran). On Jan. 7 former archbishop of Canterbury (1991-2002) Baron George Carey (1935-) pub. a letter in the London Times warning that uncontrolled Islamic immigration will threaten the "very ethos or DNA" of Britain. On Jan. 7 suspected al-Qaida member Adis Medunjanin (1984-) of Queens, N.Y. crashes his car into the back of another at the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge after leading U.S. federal agents on a high-speed chase through Queens, N.Y. and uttering the soundbyte "We love death more than you love life." On Jan. 7 (eve.) the Nag Hammadi Massacre see Muslim jihadists kill seven Coptic Christians and a Muslim guard outside a church in Nag Hammadi, Egypt; on Jan. 17, 2011 Mohamed El-Kamouny is sentenced to death for it. On Jan. 7-8 race riots by underpaid African workers in Rosarno, Italy in Calabria (toe of the boot) cause more than 1K to be shipped to immigrant detention centers, after which Pope Benedict XVI urges Italians to respect their rights, with the soundbyte "An immigrant is a human being, different only in where he comes from, his culture and tradition"; on Jan. 11 the pope denounces the failure at the Dec. 2009 Hopenhagen Conference, saying that world peace depends on safeguarding God's creation. On Jan. 8 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai defends his record on corruption, calling it "blown out of proportion". On Jan. 8 Georgian Airways resumes direct flights to Russia for the first time since the 2008 war. On Jan. 8 only a handful of the promised thousands of "good" Muslims march in Dearborn, Mich. to protest Islamic terrorists, saying that they don't represent Islam; meanwhile the FBI arrests Adis Medunjanin (1984-) and Zarein Ahmedzay (1985-) in connection with the Najibullah Zazi domestic Muslim terrorism case; on Apr. 24 Ahmedzay pleads guilty. On Jan. 8 Portugal legalizes same-sex marriages, but still won't allow gay couples to adopt. On Jan. 8 Obama admin. spokesmen Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell change the U.S. Mideast peace approach, stepping up pressure on Israel and the Palestinians to resume stalled talks by moving straight to negotiations on the toughest issues, incl. borders of a Palestinian state and the status of Jerusalem; on Mar. 12 Hillary rebukes Israel for building new settlements in E Jerusalem, causing the Zionist Org. of Am. to send her a letter on Mar. 28 asking her to apologize to her former constituents in New York for promising to support an undivided Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and former New York mayor Ed Koch to say that he is "close" to "getting off the Obama train". On Jan. 8 police in Acapulco, Mexico discover a record 15 decapitated bodies outside a shopping mall; another 12 are killed by drug gangs around Mexico. On Jan. 9 (4:27 p.m. local time) a 6.5 earthquake strikes off the coast of N Calif., leaving 25K households without power. On Jan. 9 after his 2008 comment is pub. in the new book "Game Change", by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, U.S. Sen. majority leader (D-Nev.) Harry Reid personally apologizes for once predicting that Barack Obama would become the first black U.S. pres. because he is "light-skinned" and has "no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one"; Obama accepts the apology, saying "I know what's in his heart". On Jan. 9 a bus is attacked in Angola about 6 mi. from the Congo border, killing six and wounding Togo's nat. soccer team asst. coach , spokesman and eight players, causing the team to withdraw from the African Cup of Nations. On Jan. 10 Social Dem. Ivo Josipovic (1957-) is elected pres. of Croatia, taking office on Feb. 18 (until ?). On Jan. 10 250K protest in Madrid and 100K in Barcelona against the Israeli invasion of Gaza, followed on Jan. 11 by 25K in Paris and 100K in London, all orchestrated by the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood. On Jan. 11 an explosion outside the village of Nawa, Helmand in S Afghanistan kills a U.S. Marine, plus Rupert Hamer (b. 1960) of the Sunday Mirror, who becomes the first British journalist killed in the Afghan War. On Jan. 11 tearful retired ML baseball star Mark McGwire finally admits that he used steroids during his record-setting years, saying he needs to make the admission before becoming the hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals, and that he already apologized to Roger Maris' widow Pat; former ML commissioner Bud Selig proclaims the end of the steroid era. On Jan. 11 after 60-y.-o. born-again anti-gay-rights grandmother Iris Robinson (1949-) ' is exposed as having a 2008 affair with 19-y.-o. Kirk McCambley and helping him raise $81K to open a cafe, her hubby Peter David Robinson (1948-) temporarily steps down as first minister of the North Ireland assembly (until ?); on Jan. 13 she resigns as MP for Strangford; meanwhile the Simon and Garfunkel song "Mrs. Robinson" gets downloaded heavily in Northern Ireland. On Jan. 11 Pres. Obama signs an Executive Order Establishing a Council of Governors "to strengthen further the partnership between the federal government and state governments to protect our nation against all types of hazards... reviewing such matters as involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; civil support; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and civil support activities"; the news stirs fears of coming martial law in the U.S. On Jan. 11 N.J. passes a law legalizing medical marijuana, becoming the 14th state; on Jan. 12 Calif. begins efforts to legalize, tax and regulate it. On Jan. 11 a poll by ABC News, the BBC, and ARD German TV is released claiming that almost 70% of Afghans support the presence of U.S. military forces in Afghanistan, and 61% favor the troop buildup; 42% blame the Taliban for the violence. On Jan. 11 Osama bin Laden's former driver Salim Hamdan has a new boy son in Sana'a, Yemen 14 mo. after returning from Guantanamo Bay, where he was convicted of war crimes in Aug. 2008; the birth falls on the 8th anniv. of the prison camp's opening. On Jan. 11 Dutch brewing giant Heineken Internat. announces the purchase of Mexican Economic Development Inc. (FEMSA) in Mexico, the beer giant that produces Tecate, Dos Equis, Carta Blanca and other brands. On Jan. 12 (4:53 a.m.) the 7.0 Great 2010 Haiti Earthquake centered 10 mi. from Port-au-Prince kills 100K-316K and leaves most of the 3M city pop. homeless, becoming the worst earthquake in the area in 200+ years; the nat. penitentiary collapses, allowing inmates to escape; the H.Q. of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) (9K troops) in Port-au-Prince collapses, causing many personnel to be unaccounted for; the pres. palace collapses, along with the parliament bldg., causing Haitian pres. Rene Preval to flee to the Port-au-Prince airport and live there; the U.S. suspends deportations of illegal Haitian immigrants, and Pres. Obama promises "unwavering support" to rebuild the country, pledging $100M in immediate aid and sending thousands of troops; $5M in aid is donated in the first 48 hours via texting in $10 increments, and $22M within a week; U.S. televangelist Pat Robertson stinks himself up by calling the earthquake God's revenge because Haiti had made a "pact with the Devil" to throw out the French in 1791, followed by Rev. Bill Shuler, who claims that the "practice of witchcraft" caused God's wrath; a group of 10 U.S. Baptists are arrested for child trafficking and kidnapping for trying to cross the border to the Dominican Repub. with 33 Haitian orphans, some of whom turn out not to be orphans, and on Feb. 17 they are finally allowed to leave the country; by Oct. 1 not one cent of the $1.1B pledged by the U.S. for rebuilding arrives as 1M+ Haitians still live on the streets; after South Korean textile co. Sae-A Trading Co. donates $50K-$100K to the Clinton Foundation, several hundred farmers are evicted to make way for the 600-acre $300M Caracol Industrial Park in 2012, creating 8K jobs, although Bill Clinton claimed it would be 100K; conspiracy theorists claim that big oil caused the quake by secret drilling, but in Oct. scientists announce that a previously unmapped fault caused it, and that the originally blamed fault is ready to trigger another one; in 2012 Hillary Clinton's youngest brother Anthony Dean "Tony" Rodham (1954-) sits on the board of N.C.-based VCS Mining as it receives one of two "gold exploitation permits" from the Haitian govt. (the first issued in over five decades) for Morne Bossa, with options to renew for up to 25 years. On Jan. 12 NATO and Afghan security forces open fire during a demonstration in Garmsir in Helmand Province S Afghanistan, a former Taliban stronghold. On Jan. 12 Yemen begins negotiations with kidnappers holding a German family and a Briton hostage; on Jan. 11 German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle visit Sa'ana. On Jan. 12 China successfully tests an anti-missile system; meanwhile the People's Bank of China surprises investors by raising the required reserves of banks to tighten its monetary policy. On Jan. 12 Iranian nuclear physicist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, who is linked to opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is assassinated by a remote-controlled bomb; Iran blames Israel and the U.S. On Jan. 12 Iraqi forces bring parts of Baghdad to a standstill with a crackdown on insurgents, arresting 25 and seizing 880 lb. of explosives, claiming to stop a terrorist plot. On Jan. 12 protests in Kabul, Afghanistan triggered by rumors that internat. troops destroyed copies of the Quran kill six. On Jan. 12 French feminist Rayhana is doused with gasoline on the streets of Paris by two Arabic-speaking men after appearing in a show on the oppression of Algerian women, but oops, they fail to set her ablaze with a cigarette. On Jan. 12 Carmen Milagros Ortiz becomes the first woman and first Latina U.S. atty. in Mass. On Jan. 12 the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg rules U.K.'s stop and search powers under Sect. 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act are illegal because they violate the Convention on Human Rights. On Jan. 12 the Mexican govt. arrests drug lord Teodoro Garcia Simental AKA El Tedo in S Baja Calif., known for ordering massacres, beheadings, and dissolving bodies in acid. On Jan. 12 the Am. Israel Action Coalition calls for the firing of Obama's anti-Semitism czar Hannah Rosenthal for supporting the supposedly Jewish-run J Street lobbying org., saying that it's really funded by Arabs and is a fake Jewish front. On Jan. 12 TLW pub. his Winslow Plan to Defeat Islam, calling for all non-Muslim nations to unite, occupy, and disarm Muslim nations, then take the children away and raise them without seeing a Quran or a mosque before releasing them back into society on probation - nobody listens until ? On Jan. 13 (7:47 a.m. EST) a 33-to-50-ft.-wide mystery object whizzes by Earth, coming within 80K mi. On Jan. 13 Google Inc. announces that it discovered a massive attempt to hack into its email accounts of Chinese dissidents, and is responding by stopping its censoring of search results in China; China censors the news of it, after which on Jan. 14 its official spokesperson Jiang Yu claims that "China's Internet is open", and that the govt. prohibits e-mail hacking; on Jan. 21 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton gives a Speech on Internet Freedom, singling out China, drew analogies between the Iron Curtain and the free and unfree Internet, pissing them off and causing them on Jan. 22 to tell the U.S. govt. "to respect the truth and to stop using the co-called Internet freedom question to level baseless accusations", then on Jan. 24 they pub. an article in People's Daily accusing the U.S. of controlling the Internet in the name of Internet freedom and mounting a "hacker brigade" to foment unrest in Iran; on Mar. 22 after a Chinese official Googles himself and finds material critical of himself, ordering a crackdown, another official claims China can live without Google, and they get into a mini-war for 2 mo., Google announces that it's closing its China-based Web site and redirecting traffic to an uncensored site in Hong Kong, which the Chinese will censor; on July 9 China gives Google a green light to keep its search page. On Jan. 13 Yemeni forces announce the killing of al-Qaida leader Abdullah Mihzar in the mountainous region of Maysaa (230 mi. SE of Sana'a); on Jan. 14 Yemen declares war on al-Qaida, warning its citizens against aiding it and calling for help; meanwhile Islamic clerics threaten jihad if foreign military forces intervene. On Jan. 13 Israeli deputy foreign minister Daniel Ayalon formally apologizes to Turkish ambassador Ahmet Oguz Celikkol for humiliating him earlier in the week by making him sit on a low chair while Israelis towered over him in order to express anger at a Turkish TV series claiming that Israelis try to kidnap and convert Muslim children. On Jan. 13 veteran civil rights activist Larry Platt (1948-) appears on American Idol and performs his cool song "Pants on the Ground", about the silliness of low-rider pants. On Jan. 13 Dubai launches the OneWorld 2011 project to defeat stereotypes and misunderstandings between Islam and the West, despite there being no misunderstanding by TLW and other history students that Islam's values are totally opposed to those of the West?; meanwhile on Jan. 14 a group of 15 top Muslim clerics in Yemen incl. Sheikh Abdul Majeed al-Zindani (1942-) warn the U.S. of jihad if it sends troops - misunderstanders of Islam? On Jan. 14 Pres. Obama proposes a sharp increases in taxes paid by the largest financial institutions in the U.S. to raise $90B over the next decade and rein it in from taking large risks and giving out "obscene bonuses" - first they bail you out, then they tax you to death and tell you what to do? On Jan. 14 the Iraq govt. bans 570+ candidates from the Mar. 7 election, 400 of whom are discovered to be Sunnis, pissing-off Sunni politicians, who blame Shiite-run Iran, and causing U.S. vice-pres. Joseph Biden to rush to Baghdad to try to make them reconsider, telling them there will be no Baathist coup attempt following U.S. withdrawal, after which on Feb. 3 they flop and allow them to run, but they drop out anyway on Feb. 20, blaming Iranian influence on the vetting panel that blacklisted hundreds of candidates. On Jan. 14 the U.K. bans the Islamic group Islam4UK as a terrorist group after it tries to stage a march through Wootton Bassett (where the remains of British troops are received) and draws thousands of protests. On Jan. 14 500K celebrate the Kumbh Mela (Pitcher) Festival in India by bathing in the filthy Ganges River in Haridwar, with at least seven killed (incl. six women) in a stampede in West Bengal; 50M are expected to visit Haridwar over the next 4 mo. On Jan. 14 a suicide bomber at a market in Dihrawud in the ethnic Pashtun Uruzgan Province of Afghanistan 250 mi. SW of Kabul kills 20 incl. three children. On Jan. 14 (5:30 p.m.) three explosions rock the Shiite holy city of Najaf, Iraq 90 mi. S of Baghdad, becoming the first in the city since 2006; remnants of the Baath Party are blamed, causing provincial council member Jawad al-Garawi to vow to purge them from police and govt. positions. On Jan. 14 (5 p.m.) a roadside bomb explodes near a vehicle convoy carrying Israeli diplomats near the village of Naour, Jordan, 30 mi. W of Amman. On Jan. 15 hundreds of Muslims riot in Nairobi, Kenya after Jamaican cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal is jailed. On Jan. 15 a 5.6 earthquake hits Sucre, Venezuela 235 mi. E of Caracas. On Jan. 15 the FBI unveils a Times Square Digital Billboard to display suspects' mugs and other "security messages", stirring fears of George Orwell's Big Brother and the 1987 Arnold Schwarnegger film "The Running Man". On Jan. 15 al-Qaida leader Qasim al-Raymi (b. 1979), who orchestrated the Xmas Panty Bomber last year is killed in Yatama, Yemen by a Yemeni air strike; a statement by him later appears on the Internet, saying "We will blow up the earth from below your feet." On Jan. 17 U.S. drones fire four missles into a suspected Uzbek militant house in the Shaktoi area of South Waziristan, killing 20+. On Jan. 17 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzi announces a new peace plan featuring "economic incentives" to lure the Taliban to join his govt. ranks, saying that many Taliban fighters "have no ideological commitment to the principles, values or political movement led by Mullah Omar" and are "not supporters of the ideology of al-Qaida"; Pakistani army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani announces that Pakistan wants a role in the negotiations. On Jan. 17 the Saudi-based Islamic Solidarity Games Federation cancels the Islamic Solidarity Games after Persia refuses to call the Persian Gulf the Arabian Gulf. On Jan. 17 Spanish Communist politician Gaspar Llamazares threatens to sue the FBI for using his photo as the basis of a hypothetical image of Osama bin Laden as he would look now. On Jan. 17 Harvard-educated billionaire M.R. Sebastian Pinera Echenique (M.R. Sebastián Pińera Echenique) (1949-) is elected pres. of Chile, taking office on Mar. 11 (until ?), ending 20 years of leftist rule since the fall of Gen Augusto Pinochet in 1990; he promises to boost economic growth to 6% a year and create 1M jobs; Chile's economy shrank last year for the first time in a decade. On Jan. 17 Haitian-born Brooklyn resident Jules Paul Bouloute (1952-) is arrested at JFK Internat. Airport in connection with a security breach that caused an Am. Airlines terminal to be evacuated. On Jan. 17 U.S. atty. Preet Bharara announces the merging of drug and terrorism units to go after extremist Islamic groups. On Jan. 17 after they protest construction of a mosque, angry Muslim youths set a Christian church filled with worshippers on fire, starting a riot that kills 27 and wounds 300+ in Jos, Nigeria. On Jan. 17 (5:00 p.m.-8:00 p.m. PST) the 2010 (67th) Golden Globe Awards, presented at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. and hosted by Ricky Gervais (first live broadcast) award best picture to "Avatar" and "The Hangover", best dir. to James Cameron for "Avatar", best actor to Jeff Bridges for "Crazy Heart" and Robert Downey Jr. for "Sherlock Holmes", best actress to Sandra Bullock for "The Blind Side" and Meryl Streep for "Julie and Julia", best supporting actor to Christoph Waltz for "Inglourious Basterds", best supporting actress to Mo'Nique for "Precious", best foreign language film to "The White Ribbon", and best screenplay to "Up in the Air". On Jan. 18 the Taliban stages a brazen attack in C Kabul, Afghanistan, with suicide bombers at several locations along with a gun battle inside a shopping center. On Jan. 18 Somalian Muslim pirates free Greek-flagged tanker Maran Centaurus, seized Nov. 29 carrying 2M barrels of oil after they receive the biggest ransom yet paid, $5.5M-$7M. On Jan. 19 a U.S. drone fires two missiles at a house in the Datta Khel district 20 mi. W of Miranshah in Pakistan's North Waziristan region, killing six militants. On Jan. 19 Iran rejects an internat. plan to ship its low-enriched uranium abroad for further enrichment. On Jan. 19 Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun, Syria's top Muslim leader says that Islam commands its followers to protect Judaism, adding "If the Prophet Mohammed had asked me to deem Christians or Jews heretics, I would have deemed Mohammed himself a heretic", and "If Mohammed had commanded us to kill people, I would have told him he was not a prophet." On Jan. 19 Christopher Bryan Speight (1970-) fatally shoots eight people in Appomattox, Va., then hides in the woods overnight before surrendering. On Jan. 19 53 Haitian orphans land in Pittsburgh, Penn. to be placed in group homes until their adoptions are finalized. On Jan. 19 Repub. state sen. and former June 1982 Cosmopolitan model Scott Philip Brown (1959-) narrowly defeats Dem. Mass. atty.-gen. Martha Coakley (known for prosecuting British au pair Louise Woodward) for Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat, ending the 60-seat Dem. majority and throwing Obama's health care reform into trouble; he goes on to loses the Nov. 2012 election. On Jan. 19 the Washington Post reports that the FBI collected more than 2K records on U.S. telephone calls illegally by falsely invoking terrorism or strong-arming telephone cos. On Jan. 20 an 11-member Israeli squad with Euro passports kills senior Hamas cmdr. Mahmoud Abdel Rauf al-Mabhouh (b. 1960) in his hotel room in Dubai; on Feb. 1 the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees places bombs in barrels and sends them into the Mediterranean Sea from the Gaza coast, and three wash ashore in Israeli cities but are detonated on Feb. 19 Dubai police chief Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan calls for Interpol to issue a "red notice" to approve the arrest of Meir Dagan, head of the Israeli Mossad.; on Feb. 21 the UAE seeks U.S. govt. help in tracing prepaid credit cards used by the assassins; on Apr. 22 the EU condemns the Dubai killing and the use of fraudulent EU passports, but doesn't refer to Israel directly; on Feb. 24 Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni calls on the internat. community to stop criticizing them, saying "I don't expect the world to welcome the killing of terrorists, but I do expect the world to not criticize it"; the hit was actually a botched kidnapping attempt in order to use him as a bargaining chip to get Hamas to return captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit? On Jan. 20 Pres. Barack Obama has been in office one full year and the world is still here and he still hasn't held precondition-free talks with Iran. On Jan. 20 the 6.1 2nd 2010 Haitian Earthquake rocks Port au Prince, causing the 12K U.S. troops to step up aid efforts, while Hugo Chavez of Venezuela et al. loudly complain that the U.S. is "occupying" Haiti. On Jan. 20 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates tells the press that al-Qaida and its affiliates might be trying to start a war between India and Pakistan and spread it to all of South Asia; meanwhile U.S. Sen. (R-Ala.) Jeff Sessions, raking Repub. on the Senate Judiciary Committee "calls out" the Obama admin. for its lax approach to fighting the war with Islamic terrorists, incl. reading Miranda rights to terrorists, closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, and trying to rehabiliate and release them only to fight us again, with the soundbyte "On Christmas Day we narrowly escaped disaster. It was a harrowing reminder that we are faced with a ruthless enemy - one that will stop at nothing in its quest to kill American civilians." On Jan. 21 the govt. of South Korea turns off the lights at 7:00 p.m. and tells its workers to go home and make babies to help reverse the pop. decline. On Jan. 21 the U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corps. can spend freely on political campaigns, and don't have to go through PACs; justice John Paul Stevens writes the dissenting opinion, dissing the court for stretching its jurisdiction over the film "Hillary: The Movie" in order to create a broad sweeping opinion; the Obama admin. responds with the U.S. Disclosure Act to get around it, which Repubs. unite to stop from passing with a filibuster; in Mar. the IRS begins closely scrutinizing orgs. with certain words in their names that are applying for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(4), developing the "Be on the Look Out List" in Aug.; too bad, it flags the words "Tea Party", "patriots", "Israel", "occupy", "progressive", and "9/12 Project", leading to the 2013 IRS Scandal. On Jan. 21 Pres. Obama takes on Wall Street, proposing rules to prevent any bank from becoming "too big to fail", and barring them from making "reckless" investments that are little more than gambling, incl. hedge funds and private equity funds; his plan was proposed by Paul Volcker; Euro govts cautiously back his plan. On Jan. 21 Afghan CIC U.S. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal announces that he plans on tightening the rules on night raids in Afghanistan to avoid pissing-off the pop. and throwing them into the arms of the Taliban. On Jan. 21 after weeks of rumors, public jokes and negotiations, NBC-TV officially boots Conan O'Brien out, with a $32.5M buyout, and moves Jay Leno back to the Tonight Show. On Jan. 21 India puts its airports on high alert after getting info. that an al-Qaida attack is in the works; on Jan. 22 Britain raises its terror threat level to its 2nd highest possible level. On Jan. 21 a report by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee says that the U.S. should be put on heightened alert for attacks from Americans in Yemen, incl. ex-prisoners who converted to Islam in priz. On Jan. 22 the new Bolivia parliament meets, with a record 28% of seats occupied by women, incl. the pres. of the Senate, Ana Maria Romero; pres. Evo Morales is sworn-in for a 2nd term (until ?). On Jan. 22 U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Ryan T. Mathison steps on an IED and it fails to go off; on Jan. 23 a roadside bomb kills two U.S. soldiers in S Afghanistan, bringing the year's total to 22. On Jan. 22 Russian police officer Alexei Dymovsky from Novorossisk, who accused his bosses of corruption and abuse of office, and whose YouTube video got over 1M hits is arrested and charged with ditto to silence him, with a 10-year sentence hanging over his head for allegedly stealing $800. On Jan. 22 Guantanamo Bay Prison stays open despite Obama's campaign promise to close it by this date; it finally closes on ? On Jan. 23 tens of thousands demonstrate in Caracas, Venezuela against the regime of Pres. Hugo Chavez, blaming him for power blackouts, water rationing, and high crime. On Jan. 23 12-y.-o. Shazia Bashir (b. 1997) is murdered by her wealthy Muslim lawyer employer Chaudhry Mohammad Naeem, former pres. of the Lahore High Court Bar Assoc., which threatens to "burn alive" any lawyer who prosecutes her; meanwhile two Christian women are freed after their employer Muhammad Ikram kidnaps and tortures them for months to try to convert them to Islam. On Jan. 23 prof. and amateurs protest in Trafalgar Square in London over being intimidated into not taking pictures of public bldgs. On Jan. 24 torrential rains in Peru strand thousands of tourists in Machu Picchu. On Jan. 25 (3:10 a.m.) Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET409 (Boeing 737) catches fire and crashes into the Mediterranean Sea min. after takeoff from Beirut, killing all 90 aboard. On Jan. 25 Saddam Hussein's cousin Chemical Ali (Ali Hassan al-Majid) (b. 1941) is hung; meanwhile three big car bombs rock Baghdad hotels, killing 36 and ending a 6-week lull; on Jan. 26 another suicide bomber detonates in a police crime lab outside the Interior Ministry, killing 21 and injuring 80. . On Jan. 25 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai announces that Western allies back his plans to reconcile with Taliban fighters. On Jan. 25 Daniel Kerrigan (1939-), father of Olmpic skater Nancy Kerrigan dies of a heart attack after a fight with his hothead jailbird son who thought he was faking when he collapsed in their Stoneham, Mass. home. On Jan. 25 the worst Tex. oil spill since 1995 sees an 800-ft. tanker headed for an Exxon Mobil refinery in Beaumont, Tex. collide with another vessel, spilling 220K gal. of oil. On Jan. 26 elections in Sri Lanka for the first time since the end of the civil war reelect pres. Mahinda Rajapaksa with 57.8% of 10.4M votes cast; too bad, soldiers surround his chief rival Gen. Sarath Fonseka in a luxury hotel, causing him to call for the results to be nullified. On Jan. 26 the U.S. Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation issues a report saying that the U.S. isn't prepared for a bioterrorist attack. On Jan. 26 a French parliamentary committee pub. a 200-page report recommending a partial ban on women wearing Islamic face veils, calling the burqa "contrary to the values of the republic"; on Mar. 7 EU chief Thomas Hammarberg says that a ban on the full Islamic veil would be an invasion of privacy and would alienate Muslim women from French society; in Mar. a 31-y.-o. French Muslim woman is fined for wearing a full veil while driving; on Apr. 21 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy approves a ban; of 4M-6M French Muslims, only 1.9K women wear full burqas; on May 19 the French parliament imposes a $185 fine on women wearing a full-face Islamic veil in public; on Sept. 14 the French Senate overwhelmingly (246-1) votes to ban the full Islamic veil in public, and on Oct. 7 the French Constitutional Council approves it except in places of worship; a legal challenge in the European Court of Justice is planned. On Jan. 26 Mohamed Ali Harrath, head of Britain's Islam Channel is arrested in South Africa on terrorism charges, and faces deportation to Tunisia. On Jan. 26 Toyota suspends the manufacture and sale of eight of its most popular models after a flaw that causes sudden potentially fatal acceleration remains unsolved; on Feb. 5 after allegations of coverups, Toyota's pres. (since June, 2009) Akio Toyoda, grandson of the founder publicly apologizes; on Feb. 9 it recalls 400K hybrid Toyota Priuses, on top of the 8M vehicles in line for fixes, all causing U.S. automakers to dance with glee that they have their chance; on Feb. 24 Toyoda appears before a U.S. House oversight committee to offer a tearful apology; on Apr. 5 the U.S. Transportation Dept. announces a maximum allowable $16.4M fine for failing to promptly notify them about problems with accelerator pedals. On Jan. 27 Porfirio Lobo "Pepe" Sosa (1947-) of the center-right Nat. Party is sworn-in as pres. of Honduras (until ?). On Jan. 27 (9 p.m. ET) Pres. Obama delivers his 2010 State of the Union Address, saying "Jobs must be our number one focus in 2010", calling on Congress to send him a new jobs bill; he also announces plans to take $30B in repaid Wall St. bailout funds to create small business loans, and calls for a small business jobs credit to help 1M cos. to create jobs or raise wages; Obama asks Congress to abolish the "don't ask don't tell policy" for gays in the military, and bashes the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision permitting corps. to pay for political ads, causing justice Samuel Alito Jr. to mutter "Not true" from the audience at Obama's insistence that the ruling allows foreign corps. to influence U.S. campaigns, after which on Mar. 9 chief justice John Roberts calls it "very troubling", that the address has "degenerated to a political pep rally", and openly wonders whether the justices should attend in the future; a 2005 soundbyte by Sen. Barack Obama the week before Roberts' confirmation hearing is dug up by the press: "A political philosophy that typically errs on the side of the powerful rather than the powerless, that's a judicial philosophy that can make worse, can exacerbate some of the problems that we have in this country"; Obama also claims that there is "overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change", and that it "is not an intellectual luxury but an actual fact". On Jan. 27 German-born socialite Frederic Prinz von Anhalt (9th hubby of Zsa Zsa Gabor) announces his candidacy for gov. of Calif. On Jan. 27 Hany Mawla (1973-) becomes the first Muslim to be appointed to the N.J. superior court, and also the youngest. On Jan. 28 (8 a.m.) a U.S. soldier kills Islamic cleric imam Mohammad Yunis in E Kabul, pissing-off the local Muslim pop. and causing a U.S. military investigation. On Jan. 28 the U.S. Senate raises the U.S. debt ceiling by $1.9T to $14.3T, about $45K per capita, and confirms Ben Benanke for a 2nd term as head of the Federal Reserve by 70-30. On Jan. 28 world leaders meet in London, England to discuss the allied war effort in Afghanistan and discuss how to combat Islamic radicalization in Yemen. On Jan. 28 Iran hangs two anti-govt. activists for the crime of "waging war against Allah"; meanwhile on Jan. 27 Pres. Obama warns Iran that it faces "growing consequences" over its nuclear activities, and on Jan. 29 the U.S. Senate votes to cut off Iranian oil imports after the House voted a similar bill 6 weeks earlier. On Jan. 28 Ojore Nuru Lutalo (1945-) of Elizabeth, N.J. is arrested on an Amtrak passenger train in Colo. en route from L.A. to Chicago after passengers hear him talking about al-Qaida and making threats on his cell phone. On Jan. 29 former British PM Tony Blair defends the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, saying that after 9/11 the game rules changed, and Saddam Hussein had to be disarmed or removed, saying "This isn't about a lie, or a conspiracy, or a deceit, or a deception, this is a decision, and the decision I had to take was, given Saddam's history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over 1 million people whose deaths he caused, given 10 years of breaking U.N. resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons program? I believed... that we were right not to run that risk", adding that he was convinced that Sodamn Insane had WMDs at the time. On Jan. 29 another audio tape by Osama bin Laden is aired on Al Jazeera, and this time he urges the world to drop reliance on the U.S. dollar and blames industrialized countries for global warming. On Jan. 29 Bill Gates pledges $10B to fund research for a "Decade of New Vaccines" for the world's poorest countries, becoming the biggest charitable donation in history (until ?). On Jan. 29 Hillary Clinton warns China that it risks diplomatic isolation and disruption to its energy supplies unless it helps stop Iran from developing nukes. On Jan. 29 the U.S. Nat. Counterterrorism Center announces that it's creating new teams of specialists to connect the dots of emerging terrorist plots in an effort to prevent a repeat of the 2009 Xmas Underwear Bomber; meanwhile Obama admin. officials leak the news that they might not try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in New York City after all, and are are considering Guantanamo Bay; in Mar. after White House input, the Pentagon appoints retired Navy vice adm. Bruce MacDonald as the war crimes convening authority to bring criminal charges, select jury pools, etc., causing speculation that KSM will be tried by a war crimes tribunal. On Jan. 29 Pres. Obama stages an unusual meeting with House Repub. members in Baltimore, Md., saying that they're painting his health care program as a "Bolshevik plot". On Jan. 29 Islamic extremists set off a bomb in a mosque compound in S Thailand, then start a firefight with Thai soldiers, killing one and wounding two. On Jan. 30 (dawn) a joint U.S.-U.N. airstrike in Wardak Province SW of Kabul mistakenly targets an Afghan army post, killing four Afghan soldiers, pissing-off the Afghan govt.; meanwhile a U.S. drone strike in the Mohammad Khel area of North Waziristan kills five; meanwhile a suicide car bomber in Bajaur in NW Pakistan kills 14; meanwhile a suicide bomber at a falafel restaurant near a Shiite shrine in Sunni-dominated Samarra (60 mi. N of Baghdad) kills two; meanwhile critics diss the Obama admin. for never admitting to the strikes. On Jan. 30 Yemeni forces capture al-Qaida militant Saleh Abdul-Habib Saleh Shawash, who is wearing a bomb belt and planning suicide attack on "economic facilities. On Jan. 30 16 children are massacred in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico by gunmen in two trucks, who block off a dead-end street in the Villas de Salvarcar neighborhood and open fire on three houses; the mayor calls it a "random criminal act". On Jan. 30 former Iranian pres. (1989-97) Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani tells a meeting of the Iranian Expediency Council that Iran's nuclear program is "irreversible", a "symbol of national resolve", and that Iran will not be stopped by new sanctions. On Jan. 30 the 2010 Miss Am. Pageant is won by Caressa Cameron (1987-) of Va.; conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh is a judge. On Jan. 31 "unauthorized" anti-Kremlim protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg result in 100+ arrests incl. several opposition leaders. On Jan. 31 a test of a U.S. anti-ballistic missile system managed by Boeing fails; on Dec. 15 a 2nd test fails. On Jan. 31 U.S. and Pakistani officials announce that they believe that their strikes have killed Pakistan Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud; on May 3 two new videos by him surface, in which he utters the soundbyte "The time is very near when our fedayeen will attack the American states in the major cities", pointing to the Times Square bombing attempt. On Jan. 31 the U.S. announces that it is deploying a Patriot Missile Shield in the Persian Gulf to protect its allies incl. Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait. On Jan. 31 (Sun.) the NFL Pro Bowl is held for the 1st time in the continental U.S. at Dolphin Stadium in Miami, Fla., becoming the first Pro Bowl held before a Super Bowl. On Jan. 31 the 52nd Grammy Awards at Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif. are a big V for Beyonce (Beyoncé Giselle Knowles) (1981-), who wins a female artist record six awards; country singer Taylor Swift (1989-) wins four. In Jan. U.S. unemployment falls from 10% to 9.7%, losing only 20K jobs. In Jan. UCLA prof. Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda pub. a study suggesting that legalizing immigrants would produce a $1.5T increase in U.S. GDP over 10 years. In Jan. Prosy Katura of the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) announces that the U.S. is allowing 5.8K Muslim Ugandan refugees to immigrate, the reason given being that they don't get along with other refugee camps. In Jan. in accordance with Pres. Obama's June 4, 2009 speech at Cairo U., the Science Envoy Program is launched to send U.S. scientists to Muslim-majority countries from N Africa to SE Asia. In Jan. cyber criminals hack 75K computer systems at 2.5K cos. in 196 countries; the attack isn't discovered until mid-Feb. In Jan. U.S. defense secy. Robert M. Gates sends a secret memorandum to the White House warning that the U.S. has no effective long-range policy for dealing with Iran's nukes; it is leaked in Apr. In Jan. Italy opens the first prison for transgender inmates. In Jan. veterinarian Erhan Elibol delivers a human-faced lamb in Izmir, Turkey, saying that it must have been the result of sex with a man. In Jan. radical Islamic cleric Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal, who was convicted of inciting racial hatred in Britain returns from exile to Jamaica, causing U.S. concerns that he could turn Jamaica into an incubator for Islamic extremism. In Jan. China debates a law banning the eating of cat and dog meat despite their popularity. In Jan.-Feb. the U.S. experiences its coldest winter in 25 years, while Canada experiences its warmest winter on record. On Feb. 1 Pres. Obama unveils a blueprint for the $3.8T 2010 U.S. Budget, which incl. a record $708B in defense spending, and cuts out the planned $100B NASA 2020 Constellation Moon trip and the Ares 1 rocket, successor to the Space Shuttle; meanwhile he asks NASA head Charlie Bolden to "find ways [for NASA] to reach out to dominantly Muslim countries", incl. partnering with them in science missions. On Feb. 1 the U.S. Defense Dept. releases its 128-page 2010 Auadrennial Defense Review, which spends eight pages on climate change but doesn't even mention the threat of radical Islam. On Feb. 1 a female suicide bomber in Baghdad, Iraq in the middle of a procession of pilgrims in the well-named Shiite Boob al-Sham area kills 41 and wounds 106. On Feb. 1 Kazakhstan foreign minister Kanat Saudabayev begins a 5-day visit to the U.S., calling for a summit meeting of the Org. for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and warning the U.S. against quitting Afghanistan "without creating the conditions for the Afghans to turn away from arms and to move to plowshares". On Feb. 1 Pope Benedict XVI makes comments on the British Labour Party's proposed Equality Bill, saying it will limit religious freedom by forcing them to accept gays into Church ranks, saying "The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs." On Feb. 2 a bomb explodes on the railroad tracks in St. Petersburg, Fla., injuring one; the govt. calls it a terrorist attack. On Feb. 2 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai leads a delegation to Mecca, then on Feb. 3 holds talks with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to ask for spiritual and financial help against the Taliban, while Abdullah says that the Taliban must deny sanctuary to Osama bin Laden before they will agree to mediate in any peace deal. On Feb. 2 top Pentagon officials tell the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that they are scaling back the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, no longer aggressively pursuing disciplinary action against gay service members who are outed by 3rd parties, with JCS chmn. Adm. Mike Mullen saying that lifting the ban is "the right thing to do"; Ariz. Sen. John McCain comes out against the idea, telling them to "Keep the impact it will have on our forces firmly in mind"; Mullen also tells the committee that the next 12-18 mo. will be critical in reversing the momentum gained by the Taliban in Afghanistan, adding "Our future security is greatly imperiled if we do not win the wars we are in", asking for $192B for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next 18 mo., $33B to be used to send 30K more troops to Afghanistan by fall. On Feb. 2 CIA dir. #3 (since Feb. 13, 2009) Leon Panetta tells Congress that the U.S. an expect an al-Qaida attack in the next 3-6 mo.; on Feb. 3 White House counterintel chief John Owen Brennan (1955-) claims that none of the 48 Guantanamo Bay detainees released or transferred by the Obama admin. have turned back into jihadists, vs. 20% of the 540 detainees released by the Bush admin.; meanwhile on Jan. 28 the new High-Value Detainee Group is authorized under a classified charter that allows interagency interrogation teams to question key terrorism suspects. On Feb. 2 (night) the U.S. carries out its largest drone missile attack so far, launching 16-8 and killing 10+ in North Waziristan. On Feb. 2 Protestant clergyman Rev. Issavi (1944-) is arrested in Isfahan, Iran for converting Muslims, then tortured and threatened with execution. On Feb. 3 a bomb outside a girls school in Timergara, Pakistan kills three U.S. soldiers; the Taliban claims responsibility and threatens more attacks on Americans; another motorcycle bomb in Kerbala, Iraq kills 20+ Shiite pilgrims. On Feb. 3 Iranian pres. Mahmoud Imadinnajacket flip-flops and says that Iran is willing to ship enriched uranium abroad "for 4-5 months" in exchange for fuel for a Tehran medical reactor. On Feb. 3 Iran announces the launch of a Kavoshgar-3 rocket capable of carrying a satellite, bragging about breaking "the global domineering system". On Feb. 3 (6 p.m. local time) a U.S. UH-60 Black Hawk heli crashes in a wooded area near a highway near Heidelberg in SW Germany, killing three. On Feb. 3 a roadside bomb in Lower Dir, Pakistan destroys a girls' school and kills three U.S. soldiers, a Pakistani soldier, and three schoolgirls, and wounds 100+ incl. two U.S. soldiers. On Feb. 3 U.S. nat. intel dir. retired adm. Dennis C. Blair tells Congress that the intel community must first obtain high-level govt. approval before killing U.S. citizens who have joined al-Qaida. On Feb. 3 veiled U.S.-educated Pakistani female neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui (1972-) is convicted by a jury in New York City of shooting at U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in 2008, raising her arm after the verdict and uttering the soundbyte "Your anger should be directed where it belongs", referring to Israel, sparking angry protests in cities in Pakistan. On Feb. 4 Pres. Obama holds a Nat. Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., bemoaning the "erosion of civility" and saying there's a growing sense that "something is broken" in Washington, D.C.; he also takes a rare shot at the Birthers who question his U.S. citizenship, saying "Surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith, or for that matter, my citizenship." On Feb. 4 Romania approves a U.S. proposal to position anti-ballistic missile interceptors on its soil as part of a revamped U.S. missile shield, set to become operational in 2015. On Feb. 4 the White House announces that it will welcome the Dalai Lama later in Feb. despite Chinese pressure. On Feb. 5 the $550-a-seat 1.1K-delegate Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tenn. features speaker Tom Tancredo, who claims that Obama's voters couldn't even spell the word vote, or say it in English, and that Obama is a "committed Socialist idealogue"; on Feb. 6 Sarah Palin speaks, saying "America is ready for another revolution", and mocking Pres. Obama with "How's that hopey-changey thing workin' out for you", and "To win that war [against terrorism] we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law", using crib notes scribbled on her hand despite criticizing Pres. Obama for using a teleprompter, causing White House press secy. Robert Gibbs to mock her on Feb. 9 with his own hand notes; she responds by quoting the Bible, Isaiah 49:16: "I have engraved you on the palms of my hands". On Feb. 5 a twin car bombing targeting Shiite pilgrims in Karbala, Iraq S of Baghdad kills 32 and wounds 154; two bombs more targeting Shiites in Karachi, Pakistan kill 22 and wound 50. On Feb. 5 Pres. Obama attends a funeral in Washington, D.C. for the seven CIA employees killed in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, telling the CIA to "carry on their work, to complete this mission, to win this war and to keep our country safe"; on Feb. 5 the Obama admin. sends a cable to the U.S. embassy in Britain, ordering them to conduct outreach to "empower" the British Muslim community. On Feb. 5 Danish special forces storm the ship Ariella captured by Somalian pirates and free the 25 crew, becoming the first warship to intervene during a hijacking. On Feb. 5-6 and Feb. 9-10 the Snowpocalypse (Snowmageddon) buries the Washington, D.C. area in 30 in. of snow, causing govt. workers to be told to stay home on Feb. 8-10; a 3rd blizzard hits on Feb. 25-26. On Feb. 7 (11:37 a.m.) an explosion at a 620MW natural gas power plant in Middleton, Conn. kills two and injures several. On Feb. 7 Super Bowl XLIV ("the Who Bowl", with the Who Dat Saints vs. the Colts from the Hoosier State, and the Who playing the halftime show) is held in Dolphins Stadium in Miami, Fla.; the New Orleans Saints (NFL) defeat the Indianapolis Colts (AFC) by 31-17 (1st ever SB win); New Orleans QB Andrew Christopher "Drew" Brees (1979-) is MVP; a TV ad featuring Bible-thumping Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and his mother, who tells how she's glad she didn't abort him as a fetus pisses-off the pro-abortion crowd; meanwhile on Feb. 6 Dem. La. lt. gov. Mitchell Joseph "Mitch" Landrieu (1960-) is elected by a landslide as the first majority-black white mayor of New Orleans since 1978, when his daddy Maurice Edwin "Moon" Landrieu left office. On Feb. 7 Iranian supreme leader and CIC Ayatollah Ali Khameini utters the soundbyte "Israel is going downhill toward decline and fall and God willing its obliteration is certain" in a meeting with Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, adding that Iran will deliver a "punch" to its enemies on or before the Feb. 11 anniv. of the 1979 Islamic Rev.; meanwhile on Feb. 7 Iranian pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces that Iran will raise its uranium enrichment level to 20%, taking it weeks away from weapons-grade uranium (90%), which White House spokesman Robert Gibbs discounts as unbelievable; on Feb. 11 Imadinnajacket announces that the first batch of enriched uranium has been produced, but denies any intention of building nuclear weapons. On Feb. 7 elections in Ukraine give a V to pro-Russian opposition leader Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovich (1950-); his opponent, PM (since Dec. 18, 2007) Yulia Volodymyrivna Tymoshenko (1960-) claims election fraud, but he is sworn-in as pres. of Ukraine on Feb. 25 (until ?); on Apr. 25 he allows the Russian naval fleet to remain in Ukraine for another 25 years. On Feb. 7 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton gives an nterview to CNN, stating that she considers WMDs in the hands of Islamic terrorists to be the #1 security threat of the U.S., not a nuclear-armed Iran, calling al-Qaida "a very committed, clever, diabolical group of terrorists who are always looking for weaknesses and openings". On Feb. 7-8 Muslim taxi drivers in Oslo, Norway park their cars to protest some Prophet Muhammad cartoons that were pub. on Feb. 3 by the Norwegian "Dagbladet"; on Feb. 12 2.5K march in protest. On Feb. 8 the Obama admin. proposes the U.S. Climate Service, a new global warming agency to study and report on the climate. On Feb. 8 the Am. Bar Assoc. (ABA) calls on the U.S. Congress to create new independent immigration courts to handle the giant backlog. On Feb. 8 Tijuana, Mexico drug lords Raydel Lopez "El Muletas" Uriarte and Manuel Garcia "El Chiquillin" Simental are arrested in La Paz, Baja Calif., wiping out the leaders of the cartel headed by Teodoro Garcia Simental, who was arrested in Jan. On Feb. 8 six suspected Taliban militants carrying a suicide vest and grenades are arrested while allegedly on their way to attack the 5-star Pearl Continental Hotel in Lahore, Pakistan. On Feb. 8 British Christian teacher Nicholas Kafouris is fired after complaining about Muslim students who were praising the 9/11 hijackers as "heroes" and "martyrs" and claiming that when they grow up they want to be suicide bombers. On Feb. 8 Iranian-born Muslim Scotland Yard cmdr. (former pres. of the Nat. Black Police Assoc.) Ali Dizaei (1962-) is convicted of criminal misconduct and perversion of the course of justice, ending his reign of terror, becoming the highest official convicted since the 1970s. On Feb. 8 a group of Muslim students disrupt a speech given by Israeli ambassador Michael B. Oren at the U. of Calif. in Irvine; on Sept. 23 the Irvine 11 are convicted of conspiracy despite efforts of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) et al. On Feb. 9 Pres. Obama vows to impose "significant" new sanctions on Iran fairly quickly for stepping up its uranium enrichment activities, and wants to concentrate on the Islamic Rev. Guards. On Feb. 9 Pres. Obama meets with Repubs. for two hours to try to end the impasse on health care and other programs, accusing Repubs. of obstructionism while calling Dems. to "put aside matters of party for the good of the country". On Feb. 9 Russian Gen. Nikolai Makarov says that the revised U.S. plan to place Patriot missiles in Europe threatens Russia's security despite assurances that they're not directed at it. On Feb. 10 Israeli soldier Sgt. Maj. Ihab Khatib is killed by a Palestinian Muslim jihadist with a knife while sitting in his jeep stuck in a traffic jam. On Feb. 10 a British court decides to discover a U.S. confirmation that the CIA tortured Ethiopian terrorist suspect Binyam Mohamed, pissing-off the White House, which says this will "complicate" their intel relationship. On Feb. 10-? Operation Moshtarak by 15K U.S., British and Afghan troops targets Marjah, Afghanistan in Helmand Province, becoming the first major offensive of the Obama admin.; on Feb. 25 after heavy fighting the U.S. installs a new Afghan govt. in Marjah. On Feb. 11 Saudi religious (Sharia) police launch a nationwide crackdown on stores selling items related to Valentine's Day On Feb. 11 (11:44 EST) the Airborne Laser Testbed of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency successfully shoots down a boosting ballistic missile using a laser at the Naval Air Warfare Center at Point Mugu, Calif. On Feb. 11 the 31st Anniv. of the Iranian Islamic Rev. is marked by opposition protests, with Pres. Imadinnajacket telling a large trucked-in crowd in Tehran that Iran is now a nuclear nation. On Feb. 11 the U.S. and EU express dismay at the upholding of an 11-year prison sentence (2009-2020) for anti-Communist Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (1955-); on Oct. 8 he is awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for using nonviolence to fight for fundamental human rights and multiparty democracy, pissing off the Chinese govt., who call him a criminal, and declare that relations with Norway will be harmed, which they call a petty thing to do; last year's winner Pres. Obama calls for his release, which they respond to by placing Liu's wife under house arrest in Beijing; meanwhile almost to dozen elders in the Chinese Communist Party sign a petition demanding an end to govt. censorship. On Feb. 11 EU leaders hold a summit and express sympathy over the economic plight of Greece, which needs 53B euros, but fall short of offering them a financial bailout; meanwhile Germany talks about building a "firewall" to contain the crisis and keep it from dragging down other countries using the euro; on Mar. 26 all 16 Eurozone countries back a 20B euro plan to help them, incl. IMF funds. On Feb. 11 Pres. Obama warns that the U.S. economy recovery he's taking credit for won't be complete until citizens find work and the U.S. borrows less money from other countries, and calls on Congress to pass new measures to boost hiring. On Feb. 11 a suicide bomber in a border policeman's uniform in Paktia Province 35 mi. E of Gardez in Afghanistan wounds five Americans. On Feb. 11 the govt. of Yemen and its N Shiite rebels agree to end their war. On Feb. 11 Gordon D. Fox (1961-) (D-R.I.) becomes the first openly gay house speaker in the U.S. On Feb. 12 Iraqi security forces backed by U.S. troops raid suspected members of an Iranian-backed terrorist group, killing five. On Feb. 12 Obama admin. officials announce that Pres. Obama will step up his role in the debate over where to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed in order to thwart Congress from blocking funding for the trial, taking over the decision-making from atty.-gen. Eric Holder. On Feb. 12 (4:15 p.m.) after being denied tenure, Harvard-educated biology prof. Amy Bishop kills three and wounds three in Shelby Hall at the U. of Ala. in Huntsville. On Feb. 12 a Muslim bomb attack on a popular German bakery near a Jewish prayer house in Pune, India kills 9 and injures 45; al-Qaida 313 Brigade cmdr. Ilyas Kashmiri (-2011) claims responsibility, saying they warned the world to give self-determination to Kashmir, and warning against attending the 2010 World Cup of Cricket in Delhi or even visiting India; on July 7, 2011 Kashmiri is confirmed killed by a U.S. drone in NW Pakistan. On Feb. 12-28 the XXI (21st) Winter Olympic Games are held in Vancouver, B.C. Canada; too bad, before it begins Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili (b. 1988) is killed in a test run at too-fast Whistler Sliding Center, throwing a pall over the opening ceremony; the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security announces that it is monitoring social networking Web sites incl. Twitter and Facebook to gather info. on possible terror threats; on Feb. 20 Apolo Anton Ono (1982-) wins a record 7th medal, surpassing the record of Bonnie Blair; Lee Jung-Su (1989-) of South Korea wins his 2nd straight gold in short track skating, with Ohno winning silver; Kim Yu-Na (1990-) of South Korea wins gold in figure skating; too bad, 1 in 10 athletes are injured during the Winter Olympics, and 1 in 14 fall ill. On Feb. 13 Pres. Obama appoints Detroit-connected White House deputy counsel Rashad Hussain as his rep. to the Muslim World and special envoy to the 57-member Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the Muslim U.N.; he replaces Bush's appointee Sada Cumber. On Feb. 13 a Tex. highway is shut down for five hours overnight after two Muslims, Kimberly Suzanna (Asma) Al-Homsi (1964-) and Yasinul Alan Ansari (1991-) are arrested with a bomb in their truck; they are sentenced to 10 years in prison. On Feb. 14 an errant U.S. rocket strike in Helmand Province in Afghanistan hits a civilian compound, killing 10 incl. five children. On Feb. 14 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton visits Doha, Qatar as part of a 3-day regional visit, and calls for Iran's religious and political leaders to rise up against the Rev. Guards, saying that they're moving it toward a military dictatorship; on Feb. 15 she visits Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and suggests that evidence points to Iran seeking nuclear weapons, saying it would create "quite dangerous" problems if they get them; meanwhile Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket says that Iran will suspend its uranium enrichment in exchange for processed fuel rods from abroad, but says that the swap must be "simultaneous"; at a town hall meeting in the all-women's Dar Al Hekma College, Hillary Clinton is asked if she'd leave the U.S. if Sarah Palin becomes U.S. pres., and she says no, but "I will be visiting as often as I can"; on Feb. 17 Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accuses the U.S. of warmongering and of turning the Persian Gulf into an "arms depot". On Feb. 15 two suicide bombers in Bannu, Pakistan kill 15 incl. 7 policemen, and wound 25; one bomber hides in a mosque before emerging to attack the police. On Feb. 15 two commuter trains crash head-on near Brussels, Belgium, killing 10. On Feb. 15 a U.S. drone strike in the village of Tapi in North Waziristan, Pakistan kills three militants. On Feb. 15 Irish bishops meet in Rome with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the huge Irish clergy pedophilia scandal. On Feb. 15 five Australian Muslim men convicted of plotting to go on a violent jihad are sentenced to 23-28 years each, with the court saying that they were "motivated by intolerant, inflexible religious conviction". On Feb. 15 the U.S. govt. announces the capture of top Taliban military cmdr. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, #2 after Mullah Muhammad Omar; on Feb. 18 the Pakistan govt. announces the capture of more Taliban chiefs. On Feb. 15 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu meets in Moscow with Russian pres. Dmitry Medvedev, and presses for "severe sanctions" against Iran over its nuclear program. On Feb. 15 the U.N. Human Rights Council reviews Iran's human rights record, incl. mass arrests, torture, and executions, causing Western nations to line up on one side and Iran's Islamic and leftist allies incl. Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba to line up on the other as Iran tries to win a seat on the council in May elections. On Feb. 15 Scottish reporter Robert Green is arrested in Aberdeen for reporting on a ring of pedophiles in the Scottish and British govts. involving Dunblane mass child killer Thomas Hamilton. On Feb. 15 Libyan nutjob Muammar Gaddafi bans most Euros from Libya. On Feb. 15 Saudi prince Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud (1976-) (grandson of King Fahd) murders his servant Bandar Abdulaziz in the Landmark Hotel in London; he is convicted on Oct. 19 using a video of him attacking him in an elevator at the same hotel on Jan. 22; the prosecution alleges a sexual element, despite homosexuality being punishable by death in his home country; on Oct. 20 he is sentenced to 20 years. On Feb. 16 Pres. Obama announces a loan guarantee to allow construction of two nuclear reactors in Ga., becoming the first new construction since the 1970s. On Feb. 16 the Convention on Cluster Munitions is ratified by Burkina Faso and Moldavia, reaching 30 ratifications and making it internat. law effective Aug. 1. On Feb. 16 Pres. nominates William J. Burns as the first U.S. ambassador to Syria since 2005; on Feb. 17 he meets with Syrian pres. Bashar Assad in Damascus, ending a 5-year rift with the former state sponsor of terrorism. On Feb. 16 a 3-y.-o. baby girl is thrown from the Driscoll Bridge on the Garden State Parkway in N.J. by her Muslim immigrant father Abdur-Raheem (1988), who is arrested after visiting two mosques; he had been denied custody rights, and attack the child's grandmother before stealing the baby; the mother says "She is a very bubbly baby." On Feb. 17 Obama's Muslim-friendly nat. security deputy John O. Brennan (1954-) speaks at an Islamic student event at New York U., claiming that Islamic extremists twist real Islam, with the soundbyte: "They are not jihadists, for jihad is a holy struggle, an effort to purify for a legitimate purpose, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, holy or pure or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children"; also "We are not waging a war against terrorism because terrorism is but a tactic that will never be defeated, any more than a tactics of war will. Rather, such thinking is a recipe for endless conflict... We are at war with al-Qaida and its extremist allies, and any comment to the contrary is just inaccurate. We will destroy that organization"; he then goes on to praise the Obama admin. for using hate crime laws to prosecute anybody doing anything against Am. Muslims; he also fields a question from Sheikh Omar Shahin, leader of the flying imams of 2006. On Feb. 18 tax protester computer engineer Joseph Andrew Stack III (b. 1956) crashes his private plane into an IRS bldg. in Austin, Tex., killing two, while leaving an online manifesto explaining his reasons. On Feb. 18 Maoist rebels attack the village of Kasari in E India 125 mi. SE of Patna in Bihar state, killing 12 in revenge for police capture of their brothers. On Feb. 18 a U.S. missile strike on a militant compound near Miranshah in North Waziristan, Pakistan, kills three militants; meanwhile a bomb explodes in a mosque in the Aka Khel area of the Khyber tribal region of NW Pakistan, killing 29 (incl. some militants) and wounding 50, while U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke meets with Pakistani leaders in Islamabad to discuss the recent revelation that they have been arresting Afghan Taliban leaders on their soil. On Feb. 18 U.N. nuclear inspectors declare for the first time that they have extensive evidence of "past or current activities" by Iran to develop a nuclear warhead that continued "beyond 2004"; on Feb. 19 Russia issues the soundbyte that it is very alarmed that Iran might be working to develop nukes; Iranian supreme assaholla Ali Khamenei quickly trots out with his claims that Islam "is opposed to nuclear weapons" - what is this prisoner doing out of his cell? On Feb. 18 a coup in Niger by renegade soldiers results in pres. Mamadou Tandja being kidnapped and then appearing on state TV to declare the coup successful, afteer which Salou Djibo becomes head of the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Dem., saying they want to turn Niger into "an example of democracy and of good governance". On Feb. 18 Pres. Obama quietly meets off-camera with the Dalai Lama while trying to avoid offending pissed-off China more. On Feb. 18 the Obama admin. announces a $1.25B settlement with black farmers over past discrimination in USDA loan programs. On Feb. 18 U.S. vice-pres. Joseph Biden utters the soundbyte that the Obama admin. is moving ahead with Senate ratification of a treaty banning nuclear tests, and that its goal is the elimination of all U.S. nuclear arms, although it is spending $7B next year to repair its aging arsenal. On Feb. 18 ex-U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney appears at the Conservative Political Action Conference and utters the soundbyte "I think 2010 will be a phenomenal year for the conservative cause and I think Barack Obama is a 1-term president." On Feb. 18 Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) posts an online message claiming that it has prepared "dozens" more bombs like the one used by Xmas Panty Bomber. On Feb. 18 Moroccan Muslim Said Namou (1972-) is sentenced to life in prison in Montreal, Canada for plotting attacks in Germany and Austria while touting Islamic terrorism online from his basement apt. On Feb. 18 Miami businessmen Khaled T. Safadi, Ulises Talavera, and Emilio Gonzalez-Neira are arrested for conspiring to smuggle video game consoles to a shopping center in Paraguay that funds the Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah. On Feb. 18 the Iranian Web site Asr-e Iran posts an editorial stating that since Israel's raison d'etre is the illusion that it can provide absolute security for the Jewish people, once Iran has nukes it will result in the end of Israeli society even if they are never used. On Feb. 19 the Obama admin. announces that it's giving the Iraq War the new name Operation New Dawn to reflect the reduced U.S. role. On Feb. 19 the U.S. Justice Dept. releases a report on Bush admin. interrogation tactics for terrorism suspects, saying they used flawed legal reasoning but weren't guilty of prof. misconduct. On Feb. 19 golf champ Tiger Woods emerges from sex therapy and gives a public apology to the press; on Aug. 23 he divorces his wife Elin Nodegren - can I go back to making billions now? On Feb. 20 the Dutch govt. collapses over military deployment in Afghanistan; on Sept. 21 Dutch PM Jan Peter Balkenende announces that Dutch troops will begin leaving S Afghanistan in Aug. for lack of authority of his caretaker govt. to accept a NATO request to stay. On Feb. 20 U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke declares that al-Qaida is moving into C Asian countries Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. On Feb. 20-21 flash flooding and mudslides in Madeira Island kill 40 and injure 120. On Feb. 21 Iran's first Iranian-made destroyer the 1.5K-ton Jamaran makes its maiden voyage. On Feb. 21 Abu Sayyaf leader Albader Parad is killed along with five others in Barangay Karawan in Maimbung, Sulu, Philippines. On Feb. 21 Israel announces a new fleet of huge Boeing 737-sized drones that can fly as far as the Persian Gulf. On Feb. 21 after Muslim police kill a Muslim tractor driver, a Muslim mob burns down eight Christian churches in Kazaure in N Nigeria, along with several Christian shops, all of which had nothing to do with it. On Feb. 22 52 Turkish military cmdrs., incl. 21 gens. and adms. are arrested for allegedly planning to blow up mosques to precede a military overthrow of the Islamic-oriented govt., signalling a V against the secularist govt. founded by Kemal Ataturk in the 1920s, and which has ousted four govts. since 1960; 400 have been jailed since the July 2007 reelection of PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, although nobody has been convicted. On Feb. 22 a suicide bomber in a busy market in the district capital of Minora in the Swat Valley of NW Pakistan kills eight and wounds dozens, incl. British convert Belinda Khan (b. 1965). On Feb. 22 eight members of a Shiite family are killed in the Sunni-Shiite village of Wahda 20 mi. S of Baghdad; some are beheaded, raising fears of a resurgence of Sunni insurgents. On Feb. 22 a NATO airstrike in Day Kundi Province near the border with Uruzgan on a 3-vehicle convoy mistakenly kills 27 Afghan civilians, pissing-off the Hamid Karzai govt. off; meanwhile a suicide bomber in E Afghanistan kills 15, incl. tribal leader Haji Zaman (Mohammad Zaman Ghamshaik), who led the failed capture of Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Nangarhar Province in Tora Bora in 2001; meanwhile the U.S. govt. announces that NATO neglect has allowed the Taliban to build up its forces by 35% in the last two years. On Feb. 22 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls for an immediate embargo on Iran's energy sector, saying that the U.N. Security Council should be sidestepped if necessary. On Feb. 22 the U.S. Navy announces that it will end the exclusion of women on submarines, giving Congress 30 working days to bar it. On Feb. 22-24 shootouts in Oaxaca, Mexico kill 13, while more shootouts in Tamaulipas state kill 19, incl. a soldier and police officer, and on Feb. 23 gunman attack the police HQ in Miguel Aleman, kidnapping six police officers, causing the U.S. govt. to warn against traveling to Mexico. On Feb. 23 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 7-2 in Fla. v. Powell that police don't have to quote an official script but can ad-lib Miranda warnings - you have the right, to, you know? On Feb. 23 (3:15 p.m.) 32-y.-o. convicted felon Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood (1977-) arrives with a high-powered rifle and shoots students Reagan Weber and Matt Thieu at Deer Creek Middle School in Lakewood, Colo. on Columbine Dr. 3 mi. from infamous Columbine H.S. before he is tackled by 7th grade math teacher David Benke. On Feb. 24 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules unanimously in Md. vs. Shatzer that the its 1981 Edwards v. Ariz. Rule barring police from questioning a suspect once he asks to remain silent and speak with an atty. lapses after 14 days if he is on bail, and if he freely agrees to talk at that point, his statements can still be used against him. On Feb. 23 CIA-financed Sunni Jundullah (Arab. "Soldiers of Allah") rebel org. leader Abdolmalek Rigi, is captured in SE Iran in Sistan-Balochistan province by Iran (with Pakistani help?); on Feb. 26 he claims on Iranian TV that the U.S. promised him financial and military aid to overthrow the Iranian govt.; the real reason the U.S. Marjah offensive was announced in advance was to drive the Taliban into Pakistani Balochistan and wrest Chinese control of the port of Gwadar to seize it for themselves for a new supply line avoiding the Khyber Pass, and the capture of Rigi throws a monkey wrench into their plans? On Feb. 24 after the Obama admin. rules out an aerial bombing campaign in Iran in favor of measures to isolate it from the internat. financial system, Russia warns the U.S. against "crippling" sanctions on Iran, they will support only "Those that are directed at resolving non-proliferation questions linked to Iran's nuclear program"; meanwhile on Feb. 23 Imadinnajacket issues the soundbyte that "The Islamic revolution's final objective is global revolution", and that Iran will "cut the hands off" of any enemies who attack it, especially pesky Israel, whom Iran will go to war with it if it tries to do a repeat of its 1981 air raid on Iraq's Osriaq Nuclear Reactor on them, causing U.N. dir.-gen. Sergei Ordzhonikidze on Feb. 26 to say that calls for jihad by a head of state are unacceptable, and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Mar. 2 to say that there is still room for diplomacy rather than sanctions on Iran. On Feb. 24 a $15B jobs program is passed by the U.S. Senate by 70-28 incl. 13 Repubs. On Feb. 24 a court in Milan, Italy convicts three Google execs for violating the privacy of an Italian boy with autism by letting a video of him being be bullied be posted in 2006. On Feb. 24 2M Greek workers hold a gen. strike in response to govt. austerity measures. On Feb. 24 trainer Dawn Brancheau (b. 1969) is pulled underwater and killed by 30-y.-o. 6 ton killer whale (orca) Tilikum, who already a criminal record with humans but was allowed to slide because after all he's a killer whale and brings in big tourist bucks. On Feb. 24 Cuban pres. Raul Castro issues an unprecedented statement of regret over the starvation death of imprisoned dissident Orlando Zapata Tayamao, but blames the U.S. On Feb. 24 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket visits Damascus, Syria to visit his pal Bashar al-Assad, and says that Arab nations will establish a Middle East "without Zionists and without colonialists", and that Iran, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon will stand against Israel, causing U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton to tell the U.S. Senate that the Obama admin. is urging Syria to back off from its "deeply troubling" relationship with Iran, but will go through with its appointment of an ambassador to Syria for the first time since the 2005 assassination of Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri; al-Assad shrugs her off - I smell a coup? On Feb. 24 a Gallup poll shows support for Israel in the U.S. to be at a near record high of 63%; 15% side with the Palestinians. On Feb. 25 India and Pakistan hold their first talks in 15 mo. since the Nov. 26-29 2008 Mumbai Attacks. On Feb. 25 Pres. Obama hosts a televised Summit on Health Care Reform in a last-ditch attempt to save his stalled health care overhaul program; when it doesn't work, he reverts to bulldogging the program through on straight-party ticket votes. On Feb. 25 the Dem. leadership of the U.S. House stops a vote on a $50B classified intel budget after Repubs. and moderate Dems. balk at provisions banning degrading treatment of Islamic detainees and imposing fines and prison terms on intel officers. On Feb. 25 (Muhammad's birthday) Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi declares jihad against Switzerland over the minaret ban, leaving Western leaders puzzling over whether he's serious or just staging a publicity stunt - proof of the folly of permitting mass Muslim immigration to the West? On Feb. 25 a decision by the Israeli govt. to incl. the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron on the occupied West Bank (2nd holiest site in Judaism after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem), along with the burial site of Jacob's wife Rachel in Bethlehem on a list of 150 nat. heritage sites pisses-off Muslims and draws disapproval by the Muslim-friendly Obama admin., which calls the move "provocative", with PA chmn. Mahmoud Abbas warning that it could spark a "religious war"; on Apr. 29, 2015 UNESCO adopts two resolutions condemning Israel and siding with the PA; the U.S., Germany, and Czech. are the only countries to vote against one, and the U.S. alone against the other. On Feb. 25 English Muslim Rajib Karim (1979-) is arrested for planning suicide bombings by taking advantage of a strike by airline staff to become a temporary cabin crewmember. On Feb. 25 SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau (b. 1969) is grabbed by her long pony tail and dragged underwater to her death by Tillukum, largest Orca whale in captivity, his 3rd human kill; he is allowed back into the arena on Mar. 30, 2011, with new no-pony-tail rules for trainers. On Feb. 26 a 7.0 earthquake hits Okinawa, Japan, but only does minor damage. On Feb. 26 at a conference in Tallinn, Estonia, U.S. undersecy. for defense policy (since Feb. 9, 2009) Michele Flournay warns Russia against asserting its power in the Baltic. On Feb. 26 an insurgent suicide attack in Kabul kills 17, half of them foreigners. On Feb. 26 a group of three Indian Humanists are arrested in Pakistan for distributing a book critical of Islam titled "Crescent Over the World" after massive protests in Khammam. On Feb. 26 three Am. Muslims Mohammad Habibzada, Shafiq Hasheme, and Sayed Bassam (all b. in 1985) allegedly fire a BB rifle at the face of a man for being gay in San Francisco on 16th & Guerrero Sts., and are arrested, released on bail, then rearrested after police find a video in their car showing them attacking 11 other men and laughing as they fire. On Feb. 27 (3 a.m. local time) the 8.8 2010 Chile Earthquake (64x stronger than the Haiti earthquake), with epicenter 100 mi. N of the SW coastal city of Conception causes damage as far away as Santiage 200 mi. away, killing 551 destroying 220K homes, and causing tsunami warnings as far away as Hawaii, causing 100K to be evacuated, but turns out to be a false alarm; unlike Haiti, Chile was ready for an earthquake; on Feb. 28 Am. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan claims that the earthquake is a warning of "what's coming to America", adding "You will not escape"; the earthquake lengthens the day by 0.3 microsec. and moves the Earth's axis by 3 in. On Feb. 27 Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi says that a dictatorial cult is ruling Iran in the name of Islam, becoming his strongest statement to date. On Feb. 27 the U.S. Congress votes to extend the U.S. Patriot Act, incl. the civil rights-threatening provisions criticized by Dems. over the years. On Feb. 27 British environment minister Jim Fitzpatrick told the Sunday Telegraph that his Labour Party has been infiltrated by the fundamentalist Muslim group called the Islamic Forum of Europe, which wants to turn Britain and Europe into an Islamic state with Sharia. On Feb. 27-28 storms seep through W Europe, killing up to 50 in France. In Feb. Iran moves its nuclear fuel to an above-ground facility, surprising Western observers because of the ease with which it could be bombed. In Feb. Sri Lanka releases the last 136K of 300K Tamil refugees held in squalid crowded govt.-run camps. In Feb. French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy visits Rwanda for the first time since the 1994 genocide. In Feb. the Pentagon spends $6.7B on Afghanistan, compared with $5.5B on Iraq, putting Afghanistan on top for the first time; the cumulative cost for both wars is greater than $1T. In Feb. several top members of the Taliban Quetta Shura (leadership council) are detained by Pakistani intel, who agrees to repatriate them if they didn't commit any crimes in Pakistan. In Feb. videos taken by the Taliban Islamist Haqqani network showing them raping young women surface, with 2nd in command Sirajuddin "Siraj" Haqqani, his cousin Ishak, and uncle Ibraham photographing their rapes as they go from village to village to seek Taliban recruits, becoming known as the "Taliban Abu Ghraib". In Feb. the U.S. Defense Dept. pub. FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations, which is later leaked, detailing plans on rounding up political activists and putting them in reeducation camps Soviet-style, causing a firestorm of controversy. In Feb. Scott (Jessica) Moore (1979-) of Calif. becomes the 2nd woman-turned-man to give birth and still claim not to be a woman; his woman-turned-man wife Laura (1979-) is overjoyed. On Mar. 1 the govt. of Afghanistan announces a ban on news coverage of Taliban strikes, claiming they embolden them. On Mar. 1 Islamic militants blow up a fuel tanker near Peshawar carrying fuel for NATO troops; meanwhile Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gilani says that Islam has no room for terrorism - no, it has a million rooms? On Mar. 1 the govt. of Mexico begins requiring U.S. and Canadian visitors to present passports when entering Mexico except when visiting border regions and staying for less than 72 hours; U.S. citizens already have to have a passport to reenter the U.S. On Mar. 1 rain-caused mudslides in E Uganda kill 83+. On Mar. 1 a Pew Research Center poll shows that online news has become more popular than print newspapers. On Mar. 1 ex-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic gives a 4-hour opening statement at the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, saying that Muslim attacks are to blame for Serbian atrocities against them. On Mar. 1 six NATO service members are killed in separate attacks in Afghanistan, incl. near Kandahar City, and nine Afghan civilians die in four bombings in the S. On Mar. 2 Pakistani Sunni Sufi scholar Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri (1951-) pub. a 600-page Fatwa Against Terrorism incl. suicide bombing in the name of Islam; too bad, he's a Sufi, and why would non-Sufis listen to him?; on Mar. 3 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan backs him up, calling Islamic terrorism "the outcome of an ugly propaganda"; meanwhile real Muslims celebrate Muhammad's birthday by looting and burning shops and houses owned by Hindus and Sikhs in Bareili, India - terrorism isn't Islamic, jihad is? On Mar. 2 the U.S. Senate votes 78-19 to end a filibuster by Repub. Sen. Jim Bunning and restore highway money and jobless funds despite the giant budget deficit. On Mar. 2 Pakistan seizes a Taliban and al-Qaida network in the Bajaur tribal area in NW Pakistan along the Afghan border; during the night Taliban militants blow up a boys school in the Spin Qabar area of Kyber Agency, while others throw grenades at a univ. music concert, killing one student. On Mar. 2 the drama series Parenthood, based on the 1989 film debuts on NBC-TV for 103 episodes (until Jan. 29, 2015), set in Berkeley, Calif., starring Craig Theodore Nelson (1944-) as patriarch Zeke Braverman, Bonnie Bedelia (1948-) as matriarch Camille Braverman, Peter William Krause (1965-) as son Adam Braverman, Lauren Helen Graham (1967-) as daughter Sarah Braverman, Dax Randall Shepard (1975-) as son Crosby Braverman, and Erika Jane Christensen (1982-) as daughter Julia Braverman-Graham. On Mar. 3 Turkish-born imam Abdullah Antepli, Muslim chaplain since 2008 of Duke U. delivers the opening prayer for the U.S. House of Reps. On Mar. 3 triple suicide bombers in Baqouba, Iraq kill 32 in advance of the Mar. 7 elections, incl. police and at a hospital. On Mar. 3 same-sex marriage becomes legal in Washington, D.C., becoming #6 after Conn., Iowa, Mass., N.H., and Vt. On Mar. 3 Islamic separatist militants in Narathiwat in S Thailand shoot and kill a father and his young daughter; meanwhile a roadside bomb wounds five soldiers. On Mar. 4 a 6.4 earthquake in S Taiwan injures 64. On Mar. 4 a court in Punjab sentences Christian couple Munir Masih and Ruqqiya Bibi to 25 years in prison for blasphemy for touching a Quran without washing their hands first; after the court diddles on the issue, sparking massive pro-blasphemy riots, next Jan. 4 anti-blasphemy Punjab gov. Salman Taseer (1944-) is assassinated by his bodyguards in Islamabad, after which 500 Pakistani clerics and scholars praise him as a ghazi or Islamic warrior and warn against expressing sympathy for the dead infidel. On Mar. 4 John Patrick Bedell (b. 1973) shoots at and wounds two police officers at the entrance to the Pentagon before they shoot and kill him. On Mar. 4 the Vatican is rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict XVI's household after chorister Angelo Balducci is sacked for allegedly procuring male hos for a papal gentleman-in-waiting; meanwhile after archibishop Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops Conference apologized in Feb. for 100+ cases of sexual abuse of children by priests in elite Jesuit boarding schools, the pope's brother Rev. George Ratzinger is discovered to have led the cathedral choir in Regensburg in 1964-94, where some of the abuse occurred, but denies knowledge; on May 1 the pope takes over the scandal-plagued Legionaries of Christ after revelations that its Mexican-born founder Father Marcial Maciel Degollado (1920-2008) sexually abused young seminarians and fathered a child. On Mar. 5 the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee votes 23-22 to declare the 1915 WWI murder of 1.5M Armenians by the Turks as genocide, pissing Turkey off and causing it to recall its ambassador Namik Tan, and make diplomatic overtures towards Iran. On Mar. 5 the atheist Secular Coalition of Am. meets with Obama reps in the White House, becoming a first. On Mar. 6 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai calls on the Taliban to stop attacking schools so that the 5M Afghan children can reach their potential; meanwhile at 8:30 a.m. a car bomb in Najaf kills three and wounds 54. On Mar. 7 (Sun.) elections in Iraq see 55% turnout, despite violence, incl. 136 attacks and 100 projectiles and 13 bombs in Baghdad that kill 37 and injure 89; secular candidate Ayad Allawi (1945-) wins by two seats, signaling a V for secularism, although in 2004 he was PM of the interim govt. and viewed as a puppet of the U.S.; Shiite PM Nouri al-Maliki demands a recount; Allawi is alleged to have murdered six restrained men in 2004 while U.S. and Iraqi guards watched in shock. On Mar. 7 Pakistan announces the arrest of Am.-born Muslim terrorist Adam Yahiye Gadahn (1978-) in Karachi; the first Am. to be charged with treason since WWII, he has a $1M U.S. bounty on his head; they later admit it isn't him; a video by him is posted on the Web, calling for U.S. Muslims to follow the example of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasson and attack U.S. troops; he was the one producing fake videos of Osama bin Laden, and they couldn't retire him yet?; meanwhile the Taliban threatens to release 3K suicide bombers in Pakistan. On Mar. 7 Iran unveils the new short-range Nasr-1 Cruise Missile, which can destroy warships. On Mar. 7 Muslim herders attack three predominantly Christian settlements near Jos, Nigeria, killing several hundred; on Mar. 29 Muammar Gaddafi of Libya utters the soundbyte that Nigeria should be divided into separate Christian and Muslim states, causing Nigeria to recall its ambassador to Tripoli. On Mar. 7 an al-Qaida suspect tries to shoot his way out of a hospital in Sa'ana, Yemen, killing one intel agent and wounding another; meanwhile separatists battle security forces in S Yemen, wounding five. On Mar. 7 the 82nd Academy Awards are held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif.; The Hurt Locker wins best picture of 2009, and dir. Kathryn Bigelow wins best dir. (first female); the song "I Am Woman" is played as she exits the stage; Geoffrey Fletcher becomes the first African-Am. to win for best screenplay for Precious; Jeff Bridges wins best actor for Crazy Heart, and Sandra Bullock best actress for The Blind Side; Christoph Waltz wins best supporting actor for Inglourious Basterds, and Mo'Nique best supporting actress for Precious; meanwhile activist actor Sean Penn stinks himself up with statements that journalists who call his hero Hugo Chavez of Venezuela a dictator should be jailed; a week after the awards, Sandra Bullock's husband (since July 16, 2005) Jesse Gregory James (1969-) is caught cheating on her during the filming of "The Blind Side" with white supremacist ex-Amish tattoo artist Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, causing him to publicly apologize but ruining their relationship, becoming another example of the Oscar Curse. On Mar. 8 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden visits Israel, pledging support against a nuclear-armed Iran. On Mar. 8 a Taliban suicide car bomber on a police intel unit in rush hour in Lahore, Pakistan kills 13. On Mar. 8 a 6.0 earthquake in E Turkey kills 51. On Mar. 8 N.Y. Dem. rep. Eric J.J. Massa (1959-) resigns, citing a pending investigation by the House Ethics Committee plus cancer, and claiming it to be a conspiracy by White House chief of staff Rahm "Rahmbo" Emanuel because he voted against an earlier House version of the health care reform bill, calling him "the son of the Devil's spawn"; too bad, on Mar. 9 he interviews Glenn Beck on Fox News Channel, and utters the soundbyte: "Now they're saying him until he couldn't breathe and then four guys jumped on top of me. It was my 50th birthday." On Mar. 8 seven Muslims are arrested in the Irish Repub. over an alleged plot to assassinate Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks for drawing a doodle Muhammad with the body of a dog, causing Swedish newspapers to repub. it in protest; one of them is pregnant Am. Muslim convert Jamie Paulin-Ramirez (1978-) from Colo., who becomes known as Jihad Jamie, and who along with two other of the seven suspects are released after questioning, after which she is arrested on arrival in Philly, and charged on Apr. 2 with terrorism; since 2007 there has been a $100K bounty on Vilks by an al-Qaida-linked group; on May 11 angry Muslims attack Vilks again at Uppsala U. for showing a scene from an Iranian film depicting Muhammad entering a gay bar. On Mar. 8 Barre Ali Barre, cmdr. of the Hizbul Islamic group is murdered in Mogadishu by members of the rival al-Shabaab Islamic group; on Mar. 26 200 protest outside the Swedish embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia over the cartoon. On Mar. 9 4'11" Mich.-born blonde-blue Colleen Renee "Fatima" LaRose (1963-) from Philly, who has been under custody since Oct. 16 when she landed in Philly on a flight from the Netherlands is identified as Muslim terrorist Jihad Jane, who used the Internet to plan terrorist attacks, and charged with providing material support to terrorists; on Mar. 18 she pleads not guilty to four terrorist conspiracy charges, then on Jan. 28, 2011 announces that she will change her plea to guilty, which she does on Feb. 1, with the soundbyte that she still wants to murder Vilks, and "will make this my goal till I achieve it or die trying"; on Jan. 6, 2014 she is convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. On Mar. 9 after years of enjoying a rape-murder spree and flouting the legal system, then being convicted in Feb., 1978 "Dating Game" contestant Rodney James Alcala (1943-) is sentenced to death in Calif. on five counts of murder incl. four women and a 12-y.-o. girl; on Jan. 27, 2011 he is indicted for two more murders in N.Y. during the 1970s. On Mar. 10 Islamic militants attack the office of the British World Vision Aid Agency in the Mansehra district of Pakistan 40 mi. N of Islamabad, killing five. On Mar. 10 U.S. officials announce that the no-fly list has doubled in size since Xmas Panty Bomber to 6K names. On Mar. 10 the Inter-Am. Press Assoc. announces the kidnapping of eight journalists in Mexico, which they claim is the biggest wave of abductions in recent Western Hemisphere history. On Mar. 10 the U.S. House Appropriations Committee votes to limit the ability of lawmakers to add earmarks into spending bills to fund pet projects. On Mar. 11 a 7.2 earthquake hits guess where Chile during the inauguration of new pres. Sebastian Pinera. On Mar. 11 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejects challenges by Sacramento, Calif. atheist Michael Newdow that the use of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, and "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency are unconstitutional. On Mar. 11 six same-sex couples (4 women, 8 men) marry in Mexico City under the first law in Latin Am. allowing it; the thousandth same-sex marriage is performed on Aug. 15, 2011, 548 male, 452 women, 6% foreigners, 85% between partners age 31+. On Mar. 11-12 U.S. vice-pres. Joseph Biden visits Jordan, and meets with four Jordanian civil activists in the U.S. embassy in Amman, causing the Jordanian press to accuse him of interfering in Jordan's internal affairs and claim that he is exploring the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Jordan, wiping out the good impressions made by Pres. Obama's 2009 Cairo Speech; on Dec. 12 the Islamic Action Front of the Muslim Brotherhood accuses the govt. of Jordan of apostasy for assisting the U.S. in Afghanistan to fight against fellow Muslims. On Mar. 12 Israel seals off the West Bank amid tensions in Jerusalem over plans to build new homes for Jews, which U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden criticized during his recent visit; Hillary Clinton gives PM Benjamin Netanyahu a 43-min. telephone harangue, telling them that the Israeli govt. "needed to demonstrate not just through words but through specific actions that they are committed to this [bilateral] relationship and to the peace process." On Mar. 12 twin suicide bomb attacks in Lahore, Pakistan kill 45, becoming the 2nd attack of the week, proving that the Taliban is still going strong. On Mar. 12 after an imam tells them that they are planning to build a new church, a crowd of 3K Muslims attack a Coptic Christian community in Mersa Matrouh, Egypt, injuring 25 incl. women and children. On Mar. 12 British couple Charlotte Lewis (1984-) and Ayman Najafi (1985-) are arrested in Dubai for publicly kissing in a restaurant - they got a taste of Sharia? On Mar. 12 Natalie Randolph (1980-) becomes the only full-time h.s. varsity football coach in the U.S. (until ?). On Mar. 12 China pub. The Human Rights Record of the U.S. in 2009, attempting to reverse the charges - duh, where would China's people rather live if given the choice? On Mar. 13 another suicide attacker in Saidu Sharif in the Swat Valley in NW Paksitan kills 13+ and wounds 50+. On Mar. 13 Pakistani minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain addresses a conference in Peshawar, claiming that Islam is a religion of peace, brotherhood, and tolerance, and that there is no place in it for extremism and terrorism. On Mar. 14 a Taliban assault in Kandahar, Afghanistan described as a preemptive response to Western plans to eradicate them kills 35. On Mar. 14 Mexican authorities announce the murder by drug traffickers of a pregnant U.S. consulate worker and her hubby in Ciudad Juarez; during the weekend nearly 50 are killed in Mexico in drug-related violence, incl. Acapulco as U.S. college students arrive for spring break; on Nov. 27 suspected Aztecas gang leader Arturo Gallegos Castrellon, AKA El Farmero is arrested in Juarez. On Mar. 14 Indian police arrest two men for plotting a series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. On Mar. 14-? anti-govt. Red Shirt protesters in Bangkok, Thailand, who are pissed-off by the 2006 military coup that ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra cap it off on Mar. 16 by dumping their own blood at the gates of Govt. House. On Mar. 15 Israeli ambassador Michael B. Oren utters the soundbyte: "Israel's ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975... a crisis of historic proportions." On Mar. 16 Islamic Mayalsian religion minister Jamil Khir Baharom defends Islamic laws allowing girls under age 16 to marry, saying "Maturity is a subjective question". On Mar. 16 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder tells Congress that Osama bin Laden will never be captured alive, saying "The possibility of capturing him alive is infinitesimal"; he also claims that Islamic terrorists should be prosecuted in civil courts as "common criminals", comparing them to mass murderer Charles Manson; meanwhile U.S. Middle East cmdr. David Howell Petraeus (1952-) tells Congress that Iran is assisting al-Qaida by facilitating links between senior terrorist leaders and affiliate groups, and that al-Qaida has a safe haven in Iran "and the Iranian government knows it" - they look like you, they sound like you, they're not like you? On Mar. 16 the crime drama TV series Justified, based on the Elmore Leonard short story "Fire in the Hole" debuts on FX Network for 78 episodes (until Apr. 15, 2015), starring Timothy Olyphant as deputy U.S. marshal Raylan Givens, who turns to his home town of Harlan, Ky. to work for Marshal Art Mullen (Nick Searcy) to fight career criminal Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins). On Mar. 17 a U.S. missile strike in Mazoni in North Waziristan, followed by another in Datta Kheil kill 9+ militants. On Mar. 18 the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act comes into effect, requiring all U.S. citizens to report their offshore financial accounts, and requiring foreign financial institutions to do ditto. On Mar. 18 the number of deadly Muslim terrorist attacks since 9/11 tops 15K. On Mar. 18 Iranian-Am. businessman Hassan Nemazee, who raised campaign money for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama pleads guilty to defrauding Bank of Am. Corp., Citigroup Inc., and HSBC Holdings Plc of $292M by obtaining huge loans based on fake collateral documents; on July 15 he is sentenced to 12 years in prison. On Mar. 19 Kai Eide, former top U.N. official in Afghanistan complains that recent arrests by Pakistan of high-ranking Taliban figures have torpedoed secret talks with the West. On Mar. 19 Arshed Mashih is mrudered in Rawalindi, Pakistan for refusing to convert from Christianity to Islam; on Mar. 25 Pakistani potato trader Rasheed Masih (1974-) is murdered by Muslims in Khanewal, Punjab ditto. On Mar. 21 200K march for immigration reform in the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C. On Mar. 21 Dallas, Tex. Muslim Javid Kamal sends emails to Kansas legislators with a "call to Islam", a traditional prelude to jihad, causing him to later be arrested, discovered to be an illegal alien, and deported. On Mar. 21 (night) the U.S. House of Reps passes the Senate version of Obama's health reform program by a straight party ticket vote of 219-212, with zero Repubs. voting for it, and 34 Dems. voting against it; Obama utters the soundbyte "This is what change looks like", adding "This isn't radical reform, but it is major reform"; he signs it on Mar. 23, AKA Obama Care Sunday. On Mar. 22 British security minister Lord West announces that al-Qaida bomb makers from Afghanistan may already have the ability to produce a dirty bomb, and might plant it on a small craft and float it up the Thames River to London, causing him to set up a command center to track suspicious boats. On Mar. 22 the EU Times carries an article titled "World Mourns as Communist Darkness Falls Upon America", saying that Obama's power grab now incl. nationalization of the health care industry and student loan program, and takeover of the automobile, mortgage, and banking industries, claiming that the Internet is next in his sights. On Mar. 22 Christian Pakistani Arshed Mashih is burned to death by Muslims for refusing to convert to Islam, while a Muslim policeman rapes his wife Martha. On Mar. 23 Maoists derail the Rajdhani Express in E India, injuring dozens. On Mar. 23 Saudi king Abdullah II orders his senior clerics council to issue a Fatwa Against Funding Terrorism, which they dutifully issue in early May. On Mar. 23 the U.S. announces that Iran is helping train Taliban fighters within its borders. On Mar. 24 as part of Obama efforts to "restart" their relationship, the U.S. and Russia reach a deal on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) to replace the 1991 pact that expired in Dec., the most extensive in two decades, with reductions of long-range nukes from 2.2K to 1.5K-1.675K, along with platforms; Obama and Medvedev sign it in Prague on Apr. 8; James R. Schlesinger et al. of the Nixon Center claim that Russia bested the U.S. in it by avoiding cuts in short-range tactical nukes; Obama signs it on Feb. 2, 2011. On Mar. 24 the govt. of Saudi Arabia arrests 113 Islamic militants with tis to al-Qaida planning attacks against oil and security facilities in E Saudi Arabia. On Mar. 24 leftist guerrillas set off a car bomb in the port city of Buenaventura, Columbia, killing six and wounding 30+. On Mar. 24 Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi says that he feels that the longtime suspicion and mistrust of Pakistan and its commitment to fighting Islamic extremists has vanished, as proved by fast-tracking of requests for military equipment. On Mar. 24 the U.N. Human Rights Council votes 45-1 in favor of Palestinian self-determination, with only the U.S. voting against; a resolution to urge Israel to pay reparations to the Palestinian people for the 2009-10 invasion of Gaza is tabled by Pakistan; on Mar. 25 the Saudi-greased council passes another non-binding OIC-backed Resolution on Religious Defamation (really an attempt to foist Islamic Sharia on the world, which makes insulting Islam a capital offense), with 20 countries voting in favor, 17 against, and 8 abstaining, becoming the 11th time in 12 years (first in 2005), with the lowest victory margin yet; Zambia becomes the first African country to vote against it, and Cameroon, Burkina Faso, and Benin abstain; U.S. ambassador Eileen Donahoe calls it an "ineffective way to address" the issue, saying "We cannot agree that prohibiting speech is the way to promote tolerance, because we continue to see the defamations of religions concept used to justify censorship, criminalisation, and in some cases violent assaults and deaths for political, racial, and religious minorities around the world", adding "Contrary to the intentions of most member states, governments are likely to abuse the rights of individuals in the name of this resolution, and in the name of the Human Rights Council." On Mar. 24 Abdullah Mohammed Muslim (1972-), a white Am. convert to Islam formerly known as Johnnie Clagg pleads guilty to firearm and destructive device possession along with attempted identity theft and passport fraud; despite traveling to North Wazaristan he claims no terrorist connections. On Mar. 25 U.S. defense secy. Robert M. Gates takes the first steps to soften the military ban on openly gay service members, restricting the evidence that can be used against them while retaining the possibility of discharge. On Mar. 25 the top U.N. official in Afghanistan holds the first reconciliation talks with reps. of Taliban warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. On Mar. 25 a member of the Kenyan Parliament claims that Pres. Obama was born in Kenya. On Mar. 26 Chicago, Ill. Pakistani-born Muslim taxi driver Raja Lahrasib "Kojak" Khan (1954-) is arrested for attempting to send money to al-Qaida. On Mar. 26 the Islamic org. Hizb ut-Tahrir holds a meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia that brings together Islamists and secular nationalists, calling for China to defy the U.S. and its "neo-liberal" economic creed, despite Pres. Obama's Indonesian roots and praise of Islam, signalling a sea change in Indonesia, which has been anti-Chinese ever since China armed and financed Indonesian Communists in an attempted coup in 1965. On Mar. 26 the 1.2K-ton South Korean naval ship Cheonan sinks off Baengnyeong Island in South Korea, killing 26 marines; on May 21 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton condemns North Korea for the torpedo attack, promising to marshal an internat. response with Japan, China, and other countries, with the soundbyte that "provocative actions have consequences"; North Korea warns of war if punished. On Mar. 27 the FBI raids the Hutaree ("Christian warrior") militia group in Mich., Ohio, and Ind. for plotting to kill police officers and war on the U.S. govt., which it considers the Antichrist, and arrests eight men and one woman. On Mar. 27 Facebook summarily deletes TLW's account, destroying his social network, without an explanation or warning, most probably pressure by Muslim fanatics, causing TLW to launch a Boycott Facebook campaign; meanwhile Facebook began showing its true colors, an outrageous attempt to foist a monopoly in social networking, pissing-off many orgs., U.S. state govts., and the EU; on May 20 a poll by IT security firm Sophos shows tht 60% of Facebook users are thinking of quitting over privacy concerns; TLW launches a Boycott Facebook movement; on May 29 Bangladesh blocks Facebook over Muhammad cartoons, then allows it again after Facebook's geek ruler Mark Zuckerberg takes all offensive cartoon off to please them; after a threatened mass exit fails to materialize, Facebook gains its 500 millionth user on July 21. On Mar. 28 (Sun.) Pres. Obama makes a surprise visit to Kabul, Afghanistan, his first since taking office, meeting with pres. Hamid Karzai and dining with him and Taliban warlords; meanwhile U.S. gen. Stanley A. McChrystal (senior NATO cmdr. in Afghanistan) utters the soundbyte: "We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat", which is jumped on by war critics, who call for war crimes prosecutions. On Mar. 28 after two Israeli soldiers are killed there, Israeli finance minister Yuval Steinitz says that Israel will "sooner or later" have to destroy the Islamic Hamas regime that controls the Gaza Strip. On Mar. 28 former U.S. U.N. ambassador John Bolton says on Army Radio that the Obama admin. is willing to accept a nuclear Iran, which explains their "extraordinary pressure on Israel not to attack Iran"; on Jan. 12 he warns Israel that it "has to move in the next eight days" before Iran brings its first nuclear reactor online on Aug. 21 to avoid release of radiation, saying that otherwise Iran "will achieve something that no other opponent of Israel, no other enemy of the United States in the Middle East really has, and that is a functioning nuclear reactor." On Mar. 28 (7 a.m.) several bombs explode in Qaim, Iraq (200 mi. W of Baghdad) near a house linked to Sunni politician Sheik Murdi Muhammad al-Mahalawi (supporter of Ayad Allawi), killing five and wounding 26. On Mar. 28 several Islamic groups raid a hotel occupied by a number of gay and lesbian advocates in Surabaya, Indonesia attending an internat. conference on gay/lez issues, after which they call for police to arrest the Islamists. On Mar. 28 Israeli minister Uzi Landau outlines a new vision of a world no longer dependent on oil, calling it the best way to defeat "Islamic terror", saying "Whoever wants to fight radical Islam and terrorist organizations should know that by purchasing gasoline, he's giving terrorists increased motivation"; meanwhile Sheikh Tayseer Rajab Al-Tamimi, chief justice of Palestine calls on Palestinians to fight to protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. On Mar. 28 33-y.-o. Am. Muslim Norman Leboon (1976-) of Philly is arrested for threatening to kill Jewish Va. Repub. House Whip Eric Cantor in a YouTube video. On Mar. 29 (Mon.) (7:56 a.m. local time) two female suicide bombers, Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova from Dagestan and Markha Ustarkhanova from Chechnya detonate during rush hour in the Moscow Metro, killing 40 and injuring 102, becoming the deadliest attack in Moscow since 2004; Muslim Chechen warlord Doku Umarov claims responsibility, causing Russian PM (2008-) Vladimir Putin (1952-) to order the bombers "scraped from the sewers" and exposed; in 1999 he uttered the soundbyte about Chechen separatists that we wants to "rub them out in the outhouse"; the nearness of these Islamic militants to Sochi, site of the 2014 Winter Olympics makes their control more urgent; Alexander Tikhomirov is suspected of being the militant known as Sayid Buryatsky who trained the bombers; on Aug. 21 Russian forces kill Magomedali Vagabov, self-proclaimed emir of Dagestan, whom they claim was the mastermind. On Mar. 30 the 2010 CIA WINPAC Report says that Iran is poised to begin producing a nuke with a yield of a couple of kilotons of TNT despite problems with uraniuum centrifuges. On Mar. 30 U.S. district judge Robert Sweet strikes down a patent on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer, saying that genes can't be patented even in an isolated form. On Mar. 30 the U.S. announces the Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, who has been missing since June has defected to the U.S. and is helping the CIA assess Iran's nuclear program with $5M paid to him; on July 12 after claiming to be kidnapped in Saudi Arabia last summer by U.S. intel agents to question him about Iran's nuclear program, he appear appears in front of Iran's diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C. hopping mad and asking for a ticket back to Iran; he leaves on July 14, after which he is suspected of being an Iranian double agent trying to snow the U.S. about how far along the Iranian nuclear program is. The worst environmental disaster in U.S. history happens on Obama's watch? On Mar. 30 after saying that he was assured "that it would be absolutely safe", Pres. Obama announces that he is planning to open offshore areas along the Atlantic, E Gulf of Mexico, and N coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling, much of it for the first time; Pres. Obama officially announces it on Mar. 31; too bad, on Apr. 20 (anniv. of Hilter's birthday and the 1999 Columbine School Massacre) the mile-deep BP (formerly British Petroleum until 1998) Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig in the Gulf of Mexico 42 mi. S of the La.-Miss. coast explodes and begins spewing 35K-60K (100K?) barrels of petroleum a day (which is originally announced by BP as 1K a day, then increased on May 14 by the U.S. govt. over BP's objections to 5K a day, causing a mini-scandal) plus natural gas from the ocean floor, getting so bad that on Apr. 29 the U.S. Defense Dept. intervenes to control the 120-mi. oil slick, causing the Obama admin. to halt new offshore drilling until a study can be made; on May 8 an attempt to cap it with a 98-ton steel dome fails after becoming clogged with gas hydrates; on May 17 a small pipe (undersea straw) is inserted in the big broken pipe, siphoning off 20% of the oil, about 1K barrels a day; on May 26 drilling mud is poured into the leak in an attempt to end it; on May 27 the U.S. govt. admits it's the worst oil spill in history, and fires Susan Elizabeth "Liz" Birnbaum, dir. (since July 15, 2009) of the Minerals Mgt. Service Agency that oversees drilling operations, and announces a stop to all 33 offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico along with an extension of the moratorium on new permits for 6 mo. (Oct. 12) until a commission can investigate, causing billionare George Soros to be singled out for benefiting from this because he's heavily invested in the Brazilian oil co. Petrobras, and got the Obama admin. to loan them $2M for offshore drilling, and can now use the idle U.S. drilling rigs and crew; on June 22 after loud complaints that it will hurt the U.S., the 6-mo. deepwater oil drilling moratorium is overturned by federal judge (since 1983) Martin Feldman in New Orleans, La., who is later found to have extensive investments in the oil and gas industry; on June 8 eight of 15 experts who where consulted by the Interior Dept. write a letter complaining that they weren't informed of the moratorium; on May 29 an attempted top kill with junk shot fails, causing Obama to call the ongoing oil leak (18M-40M gal.) "enraging"; Chicago-based NALCO makes a fortune selling the U.S. oil dispersants; on June 1 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder announces a criminal investigation into the oil spill, causing BP's stock to go down 50% by June 9; Obama's slowness in taking on BP causes Sarah Palin et al. to point to the fact that Obama was the top recipient of money from it in the 2008 pres. race, collecting $71K; on June 4 an oil cap partially seals the leak, collecting 42K gal. a day; meanwhile on June 2 up to 34M gal. of oil has hit a 127-mi. stretch of La. coastline, and reaches the shores of Dauphin Island 35 mi. S of Mobile, Ala., threatening the Fla. Keys; on June 7 Pres. Obama disses BP CEO Tony Hayward (1957-), saying that he would have fired him by now, while refusing to speak with him personally; on June 8 Obama ramps up his rhetoric, saying that his talks with Gulf fishermen and oil spill experts were not an academic exercise but "so I know whose ass to kick", splitting opinion on whether he's finally showing a macho side or whether he's showing his badass street black side like Samuel L. Jackson in "Pulp Fiction" (1994); on June 15 after a 2-day visit to the Gulf, Pres. Obama gives a Speech on the BP Oil Spill from the Oval Office (his first), channeling FDR and promising to mobilize all available resources military-style to fight the oil spill, with the soundbyte "We will fight this spill with everything we've got for as long as it takes", and calling BP "irresponsible" and promising to make them pay for all the damages via an escrow account administered by an independent 3rd party, appointing former Miss. gov. #60 (1988-92) and U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia (1994-6) Raymond Edwin "Ray" Mabus Jr. (1948-) (current U.S. Navy secy. #75 since June 18, 2009) as the Gulf cleanup tsar, with the task of developing a long-term Gulf Coast Restoration Plan (to be funded by BP), along with Michael Bromwich as new dir. of the Minerals Mgt. Service, then using the spill as an excuse to push clean energy, saying it is "the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean energy future is now", and that the U.S. needs to end its "addiction to fossil fuels", because "we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water", pooh-poohing the costs by adding "I say we can't afford not to change how we produce and use energy, because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security and our environment are far greater"; all this despite Repub. leaders warning him not to use the disaster to further his political agenda; while touring the Gulf, his motorcade passed a billboard reading "Where's the birth certificate?"; the Repub. response to the speech is that Obama's decision to shut down offshore drilling makes it "a tragedy on top of a tragedy"; on June 16 Obama meets with BP execs, and they agree to cough up $20B for the escrow account, managed by 9/11 victim payout atty. Kenneth Feinberg (1945-); on June 16 BP chmn. Carl-Henric Svanberg apologizes for the spill and announces that BP won't pay any futher dividends this year, but uses the term "small people" for those hurt by the spill, causing him to later apologize; on June 17 BP exec Tony Hayward is grilled by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce, after which he is relieved of his job of managing the spill and cleanup, leaving him free to enter a yacht race on the Isle of Wight on June 19, drawing criticism by Rahm Emanuel until it is found out that Obama went golfing that day, causing deputy White House press secy. Bill Burton to respond that it "does us all good as American citizens"; meanwhile Tex. Repub. rep. (since 1985) Joe Linus "Joe" Barton (1949-) lambastes Pres. Obama for his "$20 billion shakedown", causing Repub. leaders to force him to apologize under threat of taking away his head ranking of the committee; on June 18 BP captures a record 25,290 barrels of oil from the well; BP continues its $58M sponsorship of the 2012 London Olympics; on June 23 the BP well begins spewing oil full force again after a robot sub accident; on June 23 an oil slick hits the beaches in Pensacola, Fla.; on July 6 La. the oil hits Lake Pontchartrain in La., while the BP oil spill cleanup effort hits the $3B mark, and the A-Whale is deployed to skim 25M gal. of oil a day; the leak is finally stopped on July 15, and declared officially dead on Sept. 19, the oil is cleaned up by ?; on July 26 BP posts a record $17B 2nd quarter loss, and announces the replacement of Hayward with American Robert "Bob" Dudley (1956-); the drilling moratorium is lifted on Oct. 12. On Mar. 30 pro-immigrant groups demand the ouster of John T. Morton, head of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after one of his underlings laments in a Feb. 22 memo that the pace of deportations is falling behind the goal of 400K per year; meanwhile U.S. Sen. (R-Ariz.) John McCain calls on homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano to send Nat. Guard troops to the "southern border region" to stop "the continued and apparently growing violence". On Mar. 30 the iFreedom Plus Mastercard is announced for Muslims, featuring no bills, no interest, and no credit card debt, financed by upfront deposits of up to $6K. On Mar. 30 Detroit, Mich. public schools official Robert Bobb meets with Arab-Am. spokesmen to discuss how to get more Arab-Am. children to stay in school by accomodating their Muslim faith, causing concerns of bowing to Islam. On Mar. 30 an Egyptian court dismisses a lawsuit filed by Christian Coptic mother Camilia Lutfi for refusing to remove the designation of Muslim from their birth certificates after their father converted; she utters the soundbyte "We refuse to be Muslims by force". On Mar. 31 suspected Islamic suicide bombers kill 12+ in Kizlyar, Dagestan, next door to Chechnya. On Mar. 31 a bicycle bomb near a crowd gathering to receive free vegetable seeds from the British govt. in return for giving up opium poppy growing near Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, capital of Helmand Province in Afghanistan kills 13 and wounds 45. On Mar. 31 the Belgian parliament unanimously votes against wearing face-covering veils in public, becoming the first Euro country. On Mar. 31 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 7-2 in Padilla v. Ky. that lawyers for people thinking of pleading guilty to a crime must advise their clients who are not citizens "that pending criminal charges may carry a risk of adverse immigration consequences" such as deportation. On Mar. 31 a U.S. district court judge in San Francisco, Calif. rules that the Nat. Security Agency illegally wiretapped the phones of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation without a search warrant, becoming a rare V for Islamic groups. On Mar. 31 Sarah Palin posts on her Facebook page that a nuclear-armed Iran would result in a "Second Holocaust" against Israel, and that "The Obama admin. has their priorities exactly backwards; we should be working with our friend and democratic ally to stop stop Iran's nuclear program, not throwing in the towel on sanctions while treating Israel like an enemy." On Mar. 31 the German ARD TV network broadcasts Until Nothing Remains, an expose of Scientology, pissing-off Scientologists. On Mar. 31 a U.S. federal judge rules that the U.S. Marine Corps can't ban car decals saying "Islam = terrorism" while allowing others that say "Islam is peace". On Mar. 31 former Israeli deputy defense minister Brig. Gen. Ephraim Sneh says that unless the U.S. and its allies enact "crippling sanctions that will undermine the regime in Tehran", Israel will be compelled to attack Iran's nuclear weapons facilities by Nov., adding that Iran will probably have "a nuclear bomb or two" by 2011, and that "An Israeli military campaign against Iran's nuclear installations is likely to cripple that country's nuclear probject for a number of years. The retaliation against Israel would be painful, but bearable"; he admits that "acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran during Obama's term would do him a great deal of political damage" in the Nov. elections, but that the damage to him resulting from an Israeli strike on Iran "would be devastating"; Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and Internat. Studies has already concluded that Israel would have to use small nukes (20KT) to destroy Iran's nuclear sites. On Mar. 31 a group of 100 Muslims try to pray in Cordoba Cathedral in Spain (a former mosque), and are ordered to stop by security guards, but they attack the guards, injuring two, after which police arrest two. In Mar. the U.S. unemployment rate stays at 9.7% for the 3rd straight mo. In Mar. Kuveyt Turk Bank of Turkey (based in Istanbul and Kuwait) opens the first Islamic bank in Germany in Mannheim, forbidding interest on loans or loans to enterprises flouting Sharia; borrowers must offer collateral and lenders receive a share of business profits. In Mar. a survey by Harris Interactive reveals that 57% of Americans who chose the Republican Party believe that Obama is a Muslim. In Mar. the Obama admin. requests $30.7M for the Dept. of Homeland Security's Visa Security Program, the same amount approved by Congress for 2009, causing Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) to introduce the U.S. Secure Visas Act, allocating $60M for the program to put VSP units in the 15 "highest risk" consulates on top of 14 already in place. In Mar. Wachovia admits to laundering Mexican drug cartel money for the last four years to the tune of $300B, causing it to be charged with violation of the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act. In Mar. Indonesian Muslims are ordered to pray in the wrong direction, W toward Africa instead of NW toward Mecca; they fix it on July 19. In Mar. Israel ambassador to London Ron Prosor meets with exiled croen prince Sheikh Khalid bin Saqr al-Thani of Ras al-Khaimeh (RAK), the northernmost member of the UAE 40 mi. from Iran to help him stage a coup; Israel accuses RAK of "aiding trafficking in nuclear parts" to Iran. In Mar. climate scientists report the most sea ice covering the Arctic since 2001 after cold weather over the Bering Sea, surprising them, although they won't drop their belief in global warming. In spring Garland, Tex.-born Am. Muslim convert U.S. Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo (1990-) (Am. Christian mother, Jordanian Muslim father) makes news for refusing to fight in Afghanistan, applying for conscientious objector status before deployment to Afghanistan, saying "I don't believe I can involve myself in an army that wages war against Muslims. I don't believe I could sleep at night if I take part, in any way, in the the killing of a Muslim", and "Islam is much more peaceful and tolerant religion than it is an aggressive religion. I don't believe that Islam allows me to operate in any kind of warfare"; too bad, in June child porno and bombmaking components are found in his belongings, causing him to go AWOL from Ft. Campbell, Ky. during the July 4 weekend; on July 28, 2011 he is caught trying to purchase guns in Killeen, Tex. near Ft. Hood, and is arrested for planning a jihadist attack on a restaurant near the base, being found with explosives; on May 24, 2012 he is convicted, and on July 29, 2012 as he is leaving the courtroom where he freely admits his guilt, he shouts "Nidal Hasan Ft. Hood 2009"; on Aug. 10, 2012 he is sentenced to two life terms plus 60 years. In Apr. U.S. home prices fall to a new recession low. On Apr. 1 U.S. Census Day sees thousands of census workers knocking on doors, with historic plans to photograph and fingerprint every citizen over age 15 and issue nat. ID cards; 2.5M census takers begin visiting 630K villages and 5K cities. On Apr. 1 dozens of drug cartel gunmen assault two army garrisons in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon border states in N Mexico, losing 18 attackers while wounding only one soldier, signaling an escalation of the Mexican Drug War. On Apr. 1 San Francisco, Calif. police chief George Gascon apologizes for remarks made on Mar. 25 that the U.S. faces the threat of domestic terrorism from Yemen and Afghanistan, and that significant numbers of people from those countries reside in the Bay Area, pissing-off the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) et al. On Apr. 1 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzi delivers a scathing sour grapes attack on the West, accusing the U.N. and the West of perpetrating a "vast fraud" in the 2009 pres. election in order to deny him reelection and/or make him "an ineffective president", drawing criticism from Afghan politicans and the White House. On Apr. 1 the conference Terrorism: Between Extremist Ideology and the Ideology of Extremism is held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to create a unified definition of terrorism that will "prevent the term being used as a cover to target Islam and portray Muslims wrongly, prevent foreign interference in Islamic countries' affairs, and prevent humanitarian aid to Muslim organizations being held up for terror-related reasons." On Apr. 1 after it successfully begins colliding particles, a self-described Man from the Future is arrested at CERN's Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, wearing a fluorescent bow tie and claiming his name is Eloi Cole and that he traveled back in time to prevent the LHC from destroying the world; his real name turns out to be Arthur Dent :). On Apr. 2 the U.S. govt. announces that travelers from 14 countries known as terrorist homes will no longer face automatic extra screening when trying to fly to the U.S., and will only undergo extra screening if they match descriptions provided by intel officials. On Apr. 2 Islamic gunmen dressed as soldiers execute 24 in Hawr Rijab, Iraq in a Sunni area - the religion of peace is baack? On Apr. 2 German soldiers in Afghanistan accidentally kill six Afghan soldiers in a firefight with the Taliban near Kunduz, Afghanistan, while losing three KIA. On Apr. 2 (Good Friday), Roman Catholic Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa gives a Good Friday sermon in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome attended by Pope Benedict XVI, saying that recent accusations about sexual abuse of priests reminds him of the "more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism", pissing-off Jewish and victims groups; meanwhile Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone claims that homosexuality not celibacy is behind clergy child sex abuse, drawing criticism from gay rights activists, and Mass. priest James Scahill calls for the pope to resign over the sexual abuse scandal. On Apr. 2 landslides caused by heavy rains hit two towns in NE Peru, killing 28, injuring 54, and leaving 25 missing. On Apr. 2 veiled Saudi babe Hissa Hilal becomes a celeb for reading anti-Islamic poetry on the Saudi TV show "The Millionaire Poet", causing death threat fatwas to be issued against her; she places 3rd; "I have seen evil in the eyes of the fatwas at a time when the lawful is condemned as unlawful; when I unveil the truth a savage monster comes out of its hiding place; barbaric in thought and action, angry and blind; wearing death as a robe with a belt over it. When I unveil the truth a savage monster comes out of his hiding place; barbaric in thought and action, angry and blind; wearing death as a robe with a belt over it." On Apr. 3 U.S. House Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.) attend a fundraising dinner for the radical Saudi-funded Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in falls Church, Va., which is tied to the 9/11 hijackers and Ft. Hood Massacre, causing outcries from watchdog groups; meanwhile in the U.K. the Islamic charity Muslim Aid, which was praised by British PM Gordon Brown and Prince Charles is investigated for paying hundreds of thousands of pounds to groups linked to Islamic terrorists. On Apr. 3 two German-born British women are arrested at John Lennon Airport in Liverpool for trying to smuggle their dead German relative onto a flight to Berlin without paying the extra costs. On Apr. 3 the 2010 Sahel Famine starts with drought in the Senegal River area in Feb.-Aug., killing 9-62 by Sept. 18. On Apr. 4 (Easter Sun.) Pope Benedict XVI delivers his 2010 Easter Sermon; meanwhile on Apr. 2 Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Dictrine of the Faith denies that the pope declined to punish pedophile priest Lawrence C. Murphy of Wisc., who is accused of abusing up to 200 deaf boys in the 1950s-1970s. On Apr. 4 three embassies in Iraq are bombed by suicide bombers, incl. the Iranian and German embassies and Egyptian consultate, killing 41 and wounding 237. On Apr. 4 despite appeals by the home minister to hold peace talks, a landmine attack by Maoist rebels in Orissa in E India kills 10 Indian policemen and injures another 10, making over 6K deaths since the rebels began fighting 20 years earlier. On Apr. 4 the 7.2 2010 Mexico Baja Earthquake with epicenter 20 mi. SE of Mexicali, Mexico kills two and is felt in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Las Vegas. On Apr. 4 Jewish-Am. Conn. independent Sen. Joseph "Joe" Lieberman appears on "Meet the Press", and says that the world is "at a turning point in history" because of Iran's drive to get nukes, and that the Obama admin. is "not going to do enough to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons quickly enough". On Apr. 4 a jailbreak in Reynosa, Mexico near the U.S. border sees 13 inmates escape, becoming the 2nd mass jailbreak in Tamaulipas state in less than two weeks; meanwhile Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, says that the Mexican govt. cannot win the drug war because millions of people are involved in the drug business. On Apr. 4 al-Qaida urges Islamic jihadists in the U.S. to build their own cruise missles and attack passenger jets. On Apr. 4 Iraqi police arrest three doctors and others in Mosul on charges of plundering body organs incl. kidneys. On Apr. 4 (Sun.) Pres. and Mrs. Obama attend Easter service at the black methodist Allen Chapel AME Church in SE Washington, D.C. On Apr. 5 Pres. Obama announces a new 5-10-year Nuclear Posture Review, substantially narrowing the conditions under which the U.S. will use nukes, even in self-defense, committing not to use them against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if they attack the U.S. with non-nuclear WMDs, with an exception for "outliers like Iran and North Korea"; it contains no mention of Islamic terrorism or jihad, and reverses the 2008 Bush policy document that says "The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century", causing Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman to call the move dishonest, wrong-headed, and disrespectful to the majority of non-terrorist Muslims; former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani calls nuclear disarmament a "left-wing dream", and Obama an "inept" leader; conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh says that Obama wants to blame the U.S. instead of its enemies, and that his plan to build Muslim hospitals and spend $200M for security for the 9/11 terrorists awaiting trial should outrage 9/11 victims; Sarah Palin compares Obama's plan to a kid asking to be punched in the face in the playground and vowing not to hit back, causing Obama on Apr. 8 to comment "Last time I checked, Palin's not an expert on nukes. If the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are comfortable, I'll take my advice from them and not Sarah Palin"; on Apr. 7 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket calls Obama an "inexperienced amateur" who is quick to threaten to use nukes on U.S. enemies, adding "American politicians are like cowboys. Whenever they have legal shortcomings, their hands go to their guns"; on Apr. 8 Imadinnajacket adds that he won't plead with opponents of Tehran's nuclear program to avoid sanctions; instead of planning on retaliating with nukes, the Obama admin. pumps up a program to create Prompt Global Strike weapons, non-nuclear IBMs that can hit any place in the world in less than an hour; on Apr. 20 Saudi Arabia announces the building of the first nuclear power plant in the Gulf states in Riyadh; while Obama shows signs of accepting a nuclear Iran, Israel will never accept it; Obama's unilateral disarmament approach will only provoke another nuclear arms race? On Apr. 5 a Pakistani Taliban bomb attack on the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, kills six, incl. two militants, but no Yankees. On Apr. 5 an Islamic attack in Karabulak, Ingushetia kills two police officers, spreading the Islamic war on Russia. On Apr. 5 100+ Chinese miners in Xiangning, China are rescued after being trapped in a flooded mine for over a week; meanwhile on Apr. 5 an explosion in the Upper Big Branch Mine owned by Massey Energy Co. in Montcoal (30 mi. S of Charleston), W. Va. kills 29, becoming the worst U.S. mine disaster since 1984. On Apr. 5 a U.S. appeal court rules that the FCC doesn't have the right to enforce Net Neutrality, effectively killing the movement without federal legislation. On Apr. 5 ABC News airs a segment about the Fishing and Hunting Tour Sex Trade that hooks up Yankees with hos in Brazil incl. preteen girls. On Apr. 6 the U.S. govt. announces that the Obama admin. has authorized operations to capture or kill U.S.-born Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is holing up in Yemen with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, calling him a "proven threat"; on Apr. 9 former U.S. atty.-gen. Michael Mukasey backs the decision. On Apr. 5 the heaviest rains in more than four decades cause floods and landslides in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing 110. On Apr. 6 British PM Harold Brown calls for new elections on May 6 against David Cameron (1966-) of the Conservatives and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Dems., which will feature a U.S.-style 3-part TV debate; actor Michael Caine wades into the political arena to support the Conservatives. On Apr. 6 (5:15 a.m.) the 7.7 2010 Sumatran Earthquake in Indonesia causes a brief tsunami warning. On Apr. 6 a series of seven bomb blasts markets and apts. in Shiite areas of Baghdad, Iraq kills 35+ and wounds 140+. On Apr. 7 after years of graft and corruption of pres. Kurmanbek Bakiyev, police fire on thousands of mainly pro-Russian protesters in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan as the govt. is on the verge of toppling and Bakiyev goes into hiding, and on Apr. 15 resigns and leaves the country; on Apr. 20 riots in Bishkek against the interim govt. kill several and injure scores; meanwhile the U.S. Manas military base near Bishkek is threatened. On Apr. 7 after anti-govt. protesters break into parliament and force lawmakers to flee by heli, Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva declares a state of emergency in Bangkok. On Apr. 7 Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb threatens to attack the World Cup games in South Africa this summer, with the soundbyte "How amazing could the match United States vs. Britain be when broadcasted live on air at a stadium packed with spectatorswhen the sound of an explosion rumbles through the stands, the whole stadium is turned upside down and the number of dead bodies are in their dozens and hundreds, Allah willing" - it's Lobsterfest? On Apr. 7 attempted shoe bomber Mohammed al-Modadi is subdued by federal air marshals on United Airlines Flight 663 en route from Washington, D.C. to Denver, Colo. with 157 passengers and six crew; he turns out to be a diplomat in the Qatar embassy with full diplomatic immunity, and isn't charged. On Apr. 7 Saudi Sunni cleric Sheik Mohammed al-Areefi cancels a historic visit to Jerusalem to support Muslim claims to the city after pressure from his kingdom. On Apr. 8 the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is signed in Prague, Czech. by U.S. Pres. Obama and Russian Pres. Dmitry Medvedev, to take effect on Feb. 5, 2011 and last until at least 2021, reducing the number of strategic missile launches by half, but not limiting the number of stockpiled nuclear warheads. On Apr. 8 the Equality Act of 2010 is enacted in the U.K., protecting people from "discrimination because of religion or religious or philosophical belief. To be protected, a person must belong to a religion that has a clear structure and belief system"; Britain opens itself up to takeover by the Muslim World without breaking into a sweat? On Apr. 8 a 24-y.-o. Muslim woman dies after her burka gets caught in a go-kart she is driving near Port Stephens, Australia (N of Sydney). On Apr. 8 13-y.-o. Yemeni girl Ilham Mahdi al Assi (b. 1996) dies five days after her wedding after her sex organs rupture and hemorrhage; she was used in a swap marriage, with her brother marrying the groom's sister. On Apr. 8 80+ gunmen in 15 pickup trucks attack the town of Maycoba in N Mexico, killing 4+. On Apr. 8 the British Muslim group Bradford Council of Mosques makes a publicity play by demanding the ministry of defense to apologize because its firing range in N England uses green-domed structures that they claim look like mosques; meanwhile after the Palestinian Authority announces the building of a pres. compound on a street in Ramallah named after Palestinian suicide bombmaker Yihye "the Engineer" Ayyash, Israel urges the U.N. to condemn them; meanwhile on Apr. 8 a poll by the IMAS Inst. shows that 54% of Austrians consider Islam "a threat to the West and our way of life", while 72% believe "Muslims don't adapt to the rules of community life", and 71% believe that Islam isn't compatible with Western concepts of democracy. On Apr. 9 U.S. Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens announces his retirement at the end of the session in June, leaving the court with no Protestants for the first time ever (until ?); he turns 90 on Apr. 20. On Apr. 9 Iran unveils a 3rd generation of domestically-built uranium centrifuges that do it faster. On Apr. 9 the high court of Bangladesh rules that women cannot be forced to wear a veil or hijab against their will, calling it a "flagrant violation of human rights enshrined in the Constitution". On Apr. 9 the U.S. removes Syria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and other Muslim nations from its airport watch list for augmented airport security imposed on Jan. 3, adding "This is not a system that can be called profiling in the traditional sense - it is intelligence-based"; meanwhile French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy warns that Pres. Obama is a "mad lunatic" for his systematic appeasement of Islam. On Apr. 9 after a coverup fails, U.S. Special Forces cmdr. vice-adm. William H. McRaven goes personally to Paktia in E Afghanistan to offer family head Haji Sharabuddin two sheep and $3K for the deaths of his two sons, who were accidentally killed along with two pregnant women and a teen girl by U.S. forces on Feb. 12; he follows ancient Pashtun tribal ritual for paying blood money. On Apr. 9 the Good Friday ed. of the German satire mag. Titanic pub. a cartoon of a Roman Catholic priest giving Jesus Christ a beejay while hanging on the cross, outraging the Church. On Apr. 9 (11:30 p.m.) the U.S. consulate in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico is bombed, breaking windows but causing no injuries. On Apr. 10 a Pakistani govt. airstrike in Tirah, Pakistan in NW Pakistan during a meeting of Lashkar-e-Islam kills 48 militants. On Apr. 10 the conference Islam in Italy: Fulfilling the Prophecy is held in London, England to celebrate the coming fulfillment of Prophet Muhammad that Islam will conquer first Constantinople then Rome. On Apr. 10 a Soviet-era Tupolev jet carrying an elite Polish delegation incl. Polish pres. (since 2005) Lech Kaczynski (b. 1949) and his wife Maria Kaczkynska crashes during landing in fog in Smolensk, Russia, killing all 95 aboard; they were scheduled to commemorate the 70th anniv. of the Katyn Massacre of 22K Polish officers by the Soviets; the cmdrs. of all four branches of the Polish military are lost, along with the head of the central bank and many of Kaczynski's top advisers, the cream of Poland's elite; a conspiracy by PM Vladimir Putin to humble Poland for trying to host U.S. missile defense systems is suspected. On Apr. 10 U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid tells a crowd in Las Vegas, Nev. that Congress will begin working on immigration overhaul after returning from recess this week. On Apr. 10-11 the govt. of Mexico disconnects 25.9M of 83.5M cell phone lines for not being registered as part of a plan to fight drug cartels. On Apr. 10-May 23 the Shroud of Turin is publicly exhibited, and Pope Benedict XVI visits it on May 2, all-but endorsing its authenticity, with the soundbyte "This is a burial cloth that wrapped the remains of a crucified man in full correspondence with what the Gospels tell us of Jesus." On Apr. 11 the TV reality series Basketball Wives debuts on VH1-TV for 61 episodes (until Oct. 21, 2013), filmed in Miami, Fla. and New York City, spawning Basketball Wives LA for 41 episodes on Aug. 29, 2011-Aug. 2012. On Apr. 11-16 elections in Sudan are the first since the 1989 Omar El-Bashir coup give him 88%+ of the vote; former U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter stinks himself up by calling them fair. On Apr. 12-13 Pres. Obama meets with 46 world leaders in Washington, D.C. (largest gathering of world leaders since the U.N. organizing meeting in San Francisco in 1945) at the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit; after hearing that Middle Eastern nations are waiting to task him for not signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Benjamin Netanyahu of #47 Israel bugs out; on Apr. 11 Obama, who has already called a nuclear attack by terrorists "the single biggest threat to U.S. security" admits that if al-Qaida acquired nukes, it "would have no compunction at using them", and says that it "could change the security landscape in this country and around the world for years to come", but doesn't incl. Iran in that assessment; on Apr. 13 Obama presses for tightened sanctions on Iran, but Russia balks at gasoline restrictions, and obtains a voluntary agreement to secure vulnerable nuclear materials within four years; Chile becomes the first nation to agree to surrender all its highly enriched uranium, 40 lbs. obtained from Britain and France for two research reactors; meanwhile an Apr. 11 report by Jane's Defense Weekly says that Israel has 100-300 nuclear warheads; on Apr. 12 Russian pres. (since 2008) Dmitry Medvedev (1965-) warns Israel that if they attack Iran it might lead to a nuclear war; on Apr. 13 China says that any sanctions must promote a diplomatic way out of the nuclear standoff, while continuing its transfer of nuclear technology ot Pakistan and Iran; on Apr. 14 U.S. Ariz. Rino Sen. John McCain says that the U.S. keeps pointing a loaded gun at Iran, which is going to get nukes unless the U.S. hurries up and "pulls the trigger", meaning on sanctions not guns; at the close of the summit, Obama utters the soundbyte "Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them", pissing-off McCain, who calls the remark a "direct contradiction to everything America believes in"; on Apr. 17-18 Iran holds its own nuclear disarmament conference in Tehran, attended by Russia; Ayatollah Ali Khameini calls the U.S. the world's "only nuclear scofflaw"; on Apr. 27 Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi calls the U.S. decision to not invite Libya a "political blunder" that will discourage Iran and North Korea from giving up their nuclear ambitions. On Apr. 12 a splinter group of the IRA detonates a car bomb outside British MI5 HQ in Belfast just minutes after the official transfer of police and justice powers from Britain to Northern Ireland. On Apr. 12 Indonesian pres. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono gives a speech at the Sixth Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy, claiming that "Islam, democracy, and modernization grow together". On Apr. 12 British atheists Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens announce that when Pope Benedict XVI enters Britain that they will attempt to arrest him for "crimes against humanity" a la Augusto Pinochet in 1998. On Apr. 12 a massive human smuggling ring in Ariz. that stretches the length of the U.S. is busted by ICE officials. On Apr. 13 the 6.9 2010 Tibetan Earthquake kills 1.1K and injures 8K. On Apr. 13 Israeli pres. Shimon Peres accuses Syria of giving 430-mi.-range Scud missiles to Hezbollah, shifting the balance of power in the region as the missiles could reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem instead of only targets in N Israel like in the 2006 war; Syria denies it; on Apr. 14 Jordanian king Abdullah III tells U.S. congressmen that war is imminent between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and that it could spread across the Middle East. On Apr. 13 nonprofit online newsroom ProPublica becomes the first online org. to win a Pulitzer Prize, along with its reporter Sheri Fink, for a story about a hospital after Hurricane Katrina. On Apr. 13 James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation criticizes Pres. Obama, saying that his cutting of conventional military capabilities and talk of pullouts from Iraq and Afghanistan is creating a dangerous environment vis a vis Iran. On Apr. 13 Ariz. passes SB 1070, the toughest state immigration law in the U.S., making all illegal aliens guilty of trespassing and requiring state and local police to arrest them, along with encouraging them to enter the state, causing outcries from pro-immigrant groups; John McCain drops opposition hours before its passage, saying "I think it is a good tool"; U.S. judge Andrew Napolitano says that the law will "bankrupt the Republican Party"; on Apr. 23 blonde-blue Ariz. gov. #22 (since Jan. 21, 2009) Janice Kay "Jan" Brewer (1944-) signs it, triggering protests, calls for boycotts of Ariz., lawsuits, etc.; it is set to goe into effect on July 29; on Apr. 27 Pima County sheriff Clarence Dupnik says that he has "no intention" of complying with the law, calling it "abominable" and a "national embarrassment"; on Apr. 26 Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon condemns the law as discriminatory, and warns that relations will suffer; on Apr. 30 Brewer signs a revised version that attempts to stop racial profiling; on May 1 Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahoney, archbishop of Los Angeles leads a march in downtown Los Angeles, Calif. by 50K, comparing the law to "German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation"; other anti-Ariz. rallies are held throughout the U.S., incl. 25K in Dallas, Tex. and 10K in Chicago, Ill.; on May 4 NBA Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver issues a statement that his team will wear "Los Suns" on their uniforms on May 5 to "honor our Latino community and the diversity of our league, the state of Arizona, and our nation"; on May 6 N.Y. Dem. Sen. Chuck Schumer calls for a 1-year delay on implementation of the law to give Congress time for federal-level immigration reform; on July 6 the Obama admin. Justice Dept. files a lawsuit challenging it in federal court on preemption grounds, claiming it steps on federal prerogratives; on July 11 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder announces that politics aren't behind the decision to sue, but "The basis for this was a legal determination by those of us at the Justice Dept. that the new law was inconsistent with the Constitution", holding out the possiblity of a racial profiling suit later; on July 28 a federal district judge Susan Bolton blocks the key parts of SB 1170 that angered opponents, with the soundbyte "Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked"; Mexico and 10 other Latin Am. countries ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court fo Appeals for permission to file friend-of-the-court briefs in Brewer's appeal of the ruling. On Apr. 13 Christian barber Marwat Masih (1981-) is beaten and sodimized by eight Muslims in Pakistan for trimming a Muslim's beard. On Apr. 14 hundreds of protesters armed with machetes battle security forces in Jakarta, Indonesia after hearing news that the govt. is going to remove the tomb of Islamic scholar Habib Hasan; they were only going to renovate it. On Apr. 14 U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama visits Mexico, where she meets with Mexican first lady Margarita Zavala and minimizes the danger of drug cartels and discusses drug treatment programs. On Apr. 14 U.S. undersecy. of state Judith A. McHale says that the Obama admin. is shifting focus of public diplomacy efforts to downplay the Bush admin. emphasis on countering violent extremists in order to avoid offending foreign audiences, which they believe only a tiny percentage of are at risk for becoming extremists; on Apr. 26 Roger L. Simon, CEO of Pajamas Media TV calls upon the U.S. Senate to launch an investigation into censorship by the Obama admin. of terminology about Islam, incl. the words "Islamic extremism", "jihad", "Sharia", "Hamas", and "Hizbollah". On Apr. 14 Kosovo bans headscarves (hijabs) in public schools, joining Tunisia and France. On Apr. 14 Quran-thumping Am. Muslim convert James A. Larry (1978-) of Madison, Wisc. shoots to death his pregnant wife, three children, and an adult in Chicago, Ill., then claims that "Allah told him to do it"; many news services incl. the AP sanitize the story to remove all mention of Islam. On Apr. 14 the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) criticizes Israel for incl. photos of the Western Wall in a tourism ad, saying that the site isn't within Israel's borders. On Apr. 14 Britain announces a secret deal to permit a small number of Yemeni Jews to immigrate to escape severe Islamic persecution. On Apr. 14-16 the members of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) meet in Brasilia to draw up a plan for a "new internat. order" for presentation at the G20 meeting in June; BRIC has 42% of the world pop. but only 15% of the GDP; the parallel BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) coalition is becoming increasingly alienated by U.S. efforts to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. On Apr. 15 after a U.S. woman summarily sent her violent troublesome 7-y.-o. adopted son back to Russia on a plane alone, the Russian foreign ministry suspends all adoptions by U.S. families. On Apr. 15 after erupting for the 2nd time in a mo. on Apr. 14, a giant volcanic ash cloud from the Eyjafjallajokull (Eyjafjallajökull) Volcano (pr. EYA-fyatla-yokl) (AKA E15) in Iceland causes Britain to suspend all air traffic for the first time ever, reopening it on Apr. 20 at 10 p.m. after it costs $1.7B; too bad, by May 8 the volcanic ash cloud drifts over Africa, closing airports there. On Apr. 15 another suicide bombing in Kandahar, Afghanistan kills three foreigners and three Afghan soldiers. On Apr. 15 Pres. Obama gives a speech at the Kennedy Space Center in Fla., calling another Moon mission redundant, and instead calling for missions to asteroids and Mars. On Apr. 15 Pres. Obama signs an executive order to the Dept. of Health ending discrimination in hospital visitation and power of atty. against same-sex partners. On Apr. 15 U.S. federal district court Barbara B. Crabb in Madison, Wisc. rules the U.S. Nat. Day of Prayer unconstitutional, along with a 1988 law giving the U.S. pres. authority to designate the first Thur. in May as one, causing Sarah Palin on Apr. 16 to call it "mind-boggling" to suggest that the U.S. isn't a Christian nation. On Apr. 15-16 Islamic jihadists murder four Russian officers in Chechnya. On Apr. 16 Roman Catholic bishop Richard Williamson is fined 10K euros by a German court for denying the magical 6M Holocaust victim figure and claiming it was really only 200K-300K; judge Karin Frahm declares "The statements by the accused represent a denial of the actions taken under the National Socialist regime" - was there a minimum number of victims that gave him a defense? On Apr. 16 the SEC accuses Goldman Sachs of civil fraud by failing to disclose conflicts of interest in mortgage investments during the housing market collapse, causing its stock to drop 15%. On Apr. 16 a suicide bomb attack outside a hospital emergency ward in Quetta, Pakistan kills nine, incl. two police officers and a TV cameraman. On Apr. 16 (Fri.) senior Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi gives a Fri. mosque sermon claiming that women who dress immodestly cause sexual immortality that leads to earthquakes, and is backed up by Guardian Council head Ahmad Jannati, causing worldwide scorn incl. a campaign to trigger a "Boobquake" by U.S. student Jennifer "Jen" McCreight AKA the Blag Hag. On Apr. 17 Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi praises Pres. Obama, saying "He is someone I consider a friend. He knows he is a son of Africa. Regardless of his African belonging, he is of Arab Sudanese descent, or of Muslim descent. He is a man whose policy should be supported, and he should be assisted in implementing it in any way possible, since he is now leaning towards peace." On Apr. 17 two suicide bombers dressed in burqas detonate in a refugee camp in Kacha Pukka, Kohat in NW Pakistan, killing 41 and wounding 62. On Apr. 17 snow falls in Tokyo, Japan, becoming the latest in the season since Apr. 17, 1969. On Apr. 18 U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, chmn. of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says that a U.S. strike against Iran would go a "long way" to delaying its nuclear weapons program, but that he considers it his "last option" right now; meanwhile Iranian pres. Madman Inastraightjacket boasts of Iran's military might and says that no country would dare attack it; he also orders the U.S. and its allies to leave Afghanistan. On Apr. 18 (night) al-Qaida in Iraq AKA ISI (Islamic State in Iraq) leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Bahgadi are killed by U.S. forces in their safe house near Tikrit, allowing Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (Ibrahim Awad Ibrahim al-Badri) (1971-) to claim leadership of ISI as emir #2, later claiming to be caliph because of alleged descent from Muhammad's Quraysh tribe. On Apr. 19 the U.S. Defense Dept. submits a Report to Congress on Iran, claiming that it could develop and test an ICBM capable of hitting the U.S. by 2015. On Apr. 19 the 15th anniv. of the Oklahoma City Bombing is marked by gun-toting protesters on federal land in N Va. On Apr. 19 the high court of Indonesia rules 8-1 that the 45-y.-o. law banning blasphemy against Islam and five other recognized religions is valid. On Apr. 19 the Islamic Web site RevolutionMuslim.com issues pseudo-threats against Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of the TV cartoon series South Park for airing an episode showing Muhammad in a bear suit, with the soundbyte: "We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them"; on Apr. 22 the threat causes the show to remove all references to Big M, which doesn't stop Malaysia from demanding a worldwide apology to show that they are submitting to Islamic superiority; the poster turns out to be 20-y.-o. Zachary Adam Chesser (1989-), AKA Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee from Centreville, Va., who tells FoxNews.com "It's not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome"; in June he is arrested for trying to go to Somalia to join al-Shabaab; on Apr. 24 the RevolutionMuslim.com Web site is hacked; Seattle, Wash. artist Molly Norris declares an Everybody Draw Muhammad Day for May 20, then gets scared and drops it, then picks it back up, then drops it again and apologizes to Muslims; on May 19 the govt. of Pakistan blocks Facebook for hosting her group, followed by YouTube, dropping the blocking on the latter after it buckles under and removes offensive videos; on May 23 Muslims in India ask the govt. to ban Facebook; on May 30 Bangladesh bans Facebook; on May 31 a Pakistani court removes the Facebook ban; in Sept. after the FBI warns her of Muslim death threats, she goes into hiding; on Feb. 26, 2011 Chesser is sentenced to 25 years in prison. On Apr. 20 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 8-1 in U.S. v. Stevens strikes down a 1999 federal law banning "crush videos" depicting graphic violence against animals (incl. crushing them to death by women with stiletto heels) as a violation of free speech for being overbroad, leaving open the possibility of a law limited to crush videos. On Apr. 20 New York City businessman Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari (AKA Michael Mixon) (1953-) is sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempting to funnel money to an Islamic terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. On Apr. 20 the Pentagon delivers its first Report to Congress on Iran's Military, saying that Iran is increasing its paramilitary Qods force in Venezuela (first official warning of Iranian paramilitary activities in the Western Hemisphere) while covertly supplying munitions to Taliban and other Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. On Apr. 20 the head of Saudi Arabia's religious police fires Ahmed bin Qassim al-Ghamidi, chief of the Mecca branch for suggesting the mixing of the sexes in an interview, saying that it "is just natural and there is no good reason to ban it". On Apr. 20 a Europol Report on Third World Immigration to the EU reveals that at least 900K illegal immigrants enter the EU each year, and 350K legal visitors overstay their visas, adding that Europe faces major criminal threats from them. On Apr. 20 a Report on Salt Intake by the Inst. of Medicine calls on the U.S. FDA to begin regulating salt levels in food to save 100K lives a year. On Apr. 21 Iraqi and U.S. officials announce that an Iraqi security force under PM Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's command held hundreds from N Iraq in a secret prison in Baghdad and tortured dozens until the U.S. intervened in Mar. and al-Maliki played dumb and closed it. On Apr. 21 white supremacist Richard Barrett (b. 1943) is stabbed and beaten to death and his house set on fire to cover it up by ex-con black neighbor Vincent McGee (1988-). On Apr. 21 nat. security adviser #22 (2009-) USMC Gen. James Logan Jones Jr. (1943-) stinks himself up with a Jewish stereotype joke at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in front of a crowd of mainly Jews. On Apr. 22 it is announced that Gita Sahgal has resigned from Amnesty Internat. after it refused to cut loose its ties with former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg and his group which supports "jihad in self-defense". On Apr. 22 worldwide Earth Day celebrations are marred by an announcement by Brazil of the $10B Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam (world's 3rd largest) on the Xingu River, which will flood a part of the Amazon River basin despite protests by Indians. On Apr. 22 Iran's Rev. Guards hold war games in the Hormuz Strait to flex their muscles. On Apr. 22 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton addresses a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, resisting their pressure to remove U.S. battlefield weapons from Europe unless Russia cuts its arsenal first, since it's 10x larger. On Apr. 22 the U.S. test launches two unmanned space vehicles, incl. the secret 30-ft. X-37B space plane, signaling a new era of space warfare. On Apr. 22 Lily-May Woods becomes Britain's first baby with two women parents on her birth certificate. On Apr. 22 Am. Christian evangelist Franklin Graham (1952-), son of Billy Graham is disinvited to speak at a May 6 Pentagon prayer service by the U.S. Army for remarks he made in 2001 describing Islam as evil, with spokesman Col. Tom Collins callins his remarks "not appropriate", adding "We're an all-inclusive military, we honor all faiths"; Graham replies that Obama is "giving Islam a pass", adding "Look at the violence that they have portrayed against women, it's just horrific"; on Mar. 1-9 a survey by LifeWay Research reveals that 4 in 10 U.S. Protestant pastors believe that Islam is dangerous and promotes violence; his affiliation with Shirley Dobson's Nat. Day of Prayer Task Force is in violation of govt. regs anyway?; on Apr. 27 the Council on Am.-Islamic Relations (CAIR) calls on Congress to ban Franklin also, after which on May 5 35 Repub. congressmen call on the U.S. Defense Dept. to reinvite him, and on May 6 he takes the podium at the Nat. Day of Prayer on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C On Apr. 22 the U.S. Office of Public Engagement meets with Arab-Am. leaders, incl. Hatem Abudayyeh, whose Chicago home is searched in late Sept. as part of an anti-terrorism probe after he is connected with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Rev. Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). On Apr. 22 the stream of data sent back to Earth by NASA's Voyager 2 suddenly changes, causing German academic Hartwig Hausdorf to claim that it has been taken over by ETs. On Apr. 23 a series of bombs in Shiite mosque areas of Baghdad, Iraq, incl. Sadr City kill 72; bombs in W Iraq in Sunni areas kill eight; on Apr. 25 Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr (1974-) calls on believers to join the Iraqi authorities to "defend their shrines, mosques, prayers, markets, houses and their towns", but not give the U.S. an excuse to postpone their withdrawal. On Apr. 23 the 57-member Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC) announces the creation of a human rights div., despite its idea of human rights being the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrines horrible Sharia as the norm. On Apr. 23 Swiss bank UBS AG client Jack Barouh (1945-) is sentenced to 10 mo. in U.S. federal prison for hiding his assets, despite his defense that his experience in fleeing the Nazi Holocaust caused him to become a compulsive hoarder. On Apr. 24 the worst tornado in decades in Miss. kills 10. On Apr. 24 gunmen ambush two police vehicles in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, killing seven officers plus a 17-y.o. passerby. On Apr. 24 Aygul Ozkan, Germany's first female Muslim state minister calls for crucifixes to be removed from state schools, citing headscarves to justify it. On Apr. 25 the 95th Anniv. of the Armenian Genocide sees Muslim-appeasing Pres. Obama renege again on his campaign promise to label the Christian Armenian Genocide of 1915 by Muslim Turkey a genocide, calling it "one of the worst atrocities" of the 20th cent. and a "devastating chapter" in history. On Apr. 25 seeing his chance with Pres. Obama's freezing relations with Israel, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas urges Pres. Obama to impose a Mideast peace deal. On Apr. 25 elections in Hungary give a V to the center-right opposition Fidesz Party of ex-PM (1998-2002) Viktor Orban (1963-), who on ? becomes Hungarian PM (until ?). On Apr. 25 Joseph McVey (1987-) of Ohio is arrested and charged with impersonating a police officer at Asheville, N.C. airport as Pres. Obama departs on Air Force One. On Apr. 25 Afghan troops kill three civilians in their home overnight, causing protesters to torch NATO trucks in Logar Province in E Afghanistan. On Apr. 25 English physicist Stephen Hawking says that we shouldn't try to contact extraterrrestrials because they might be looking to take us over like Christopher Columbus did the New World, pissing-off self-appointed E.T. Messiah Rael, who issues the soundbyte "With these views, Hawking demonstrates that he's not only physically handicapped but mentally handicapped by the degenerative disease of 'evolutionism' or 'Darwinism'. His fears about murderous, invading aliens are based on the theory of evolution – the myth of evolution, to be more precise. He's afraid humans are inferior to aliens who might invade. That's logical, but only if you accept the myth of evolution." On Apr. 25 over 1K Jewish protesters in Manhattan demonstrate against the Obama admin.'s call for a freeze on construction in occupied East Jerusalem, demanding unlimited rights to colonize the West Bank. On Apr. 25 a Chinese-Turkish team announces the discovery of Noah's Ark in E Turkey, with pieces of wood found at 12K ft. elev. that were dated to 4.8K years old. On Apr. 25-26 the White House convenes a World Summit on Entrepreneurship, with 250 participants from 60 mainly Muslim countries. On Apr. 26 accusing them of rushing the process Repubs. block Dem. legislation in the U.S. Senate to regulate the financial system, with the vote coming out at 57-41, three votes short of that needed to end a filibuster. On Apr. 26 a suicide bomber in Yemen targets the British ambassador, killing himself and three othrs, but missing the ambassador. On Apr. 26 the U.S. military cancels a major field exercise to test its reponse to a nuclear attack after the planned site Las Vegas, Nev. pulls out. On Apr. 26 Yemeni cleric Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani vows to gather a million signatures to protest a draft law banning child brides, saying that such a ban "threatens our culture and society and spreads immorality". On Apr. 26 a group of Islamic clerics in NE Kenya crack down on public broadcasts of soccer and films as un-Islamic. On Apr. 26 the documentary film Feathered Cocaine debuts at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, claiming that Osama bin Laden is hiding in Iran with help of the Iranian govt. On Apr. 26 British Labour candidate John Cowan is suspended after posting on the Internet that he wouldn't want his children to marry a Muslim - he means the same Muslim? On Apr. 27 former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega is extradited by the U.S. to France, where he is accused of laundering $7M in drug profits by purchasing luxury apts. with his wife in Paris; he was previously convicted in absentia, but is being given a new trial. On Apr. 27 Iranian Sharia police announce a crackdown on women who dare to display suntans in public. On Apr. 27 two human rights activists are ambushed and murdered in San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, Mexico by the Union de Bienestar de la Region Triqui; on May 16 12 women and children are kidnapped, then released. On Apr. 28 British PM Gordon Brown commits a political gaffe, calling a loyal Labour voter a "bigoted woman" in his limo over a live mike for expressing concerns over high taxation and immigration; despite apologizing, his chances for reelection fizzle to zero?; Brexit is born? On Apr. 28 thousands of enraged Muslims attack a Christian educational center in Bogor Regency, West Java Province, Indonesia after hearing rumors that they are going to build a church, Sharia forbidding even repairing one. On Apr. 28 Hollywood star Sandra Bullock reveals that she is divorcing her cheating hubby Jesse James, and is in the process of adopting 3.5-mo.-old black New Orleans child Louis Bardo Bullock. On Apr. 28 10 Israeli Prize winners send a letter to Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak asking him to lift the prohibition on students from Gaza Strip studying in West Bank univs. On Apr. 28 a McLaughlin & Assocs. Poll finds that only 42% of Jewish voters would vote to reelect Pres. Obama, vs. 78% who elected him. On Apr. 29 Moroccan terrorist suspects Mohammed Hlal and Errahmouni Ahmed are deported from Italy for allegedly plotting to kill Pope Benedict XVI. On Apr. 30 the U.S. House of Reps passes a bill allowing Puerto Ricans to vote on Puerto Rican statehood. On Apr. 30 a 26-y.-o. Tunisian woman is arrested and fined $650 for wearing a niqab (face veil) while walking to a mosque in Novara, Italy, home of the anti-immigration Northern League, stirring controversy. On Apr. 30 (night) Ariz. Pinal County sheriff's deputy Louie Puroll (1957-) is shot by a Mexican drug smuggler with an AK-7, inflaming anti-Mexican passions. In Apr. the U.S. adds 290K new jobs, leaving the unemployment rate at 9.9%. In Apr. the Islamic Solidarity Games (Muslim Olympics) are called off by Arab states because Iran inscribed "Persian Gulf" on the official logo and medals, and they want it called the Arab Gulf. In Apr. Iraqi police and veterinarians begin killing stray dogs in and around Baghdad, killing 58K by mid-July. In Apr. 15% of world Internet traffic is routed through servers in China, incl. from govt. and military sites; it is not made public until Nov. In Apr. USAF flight surgeon Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin of Colo. refuses to board his plane until he sees proof that Pres. Obama was born in the U.S., causing him to be court-martialed; on Dec. 15 a federal jury convicts him of disobeying orders to deploy to Afghanistan, and he is sentenced to 6 mo. in military prison and dismissal from the Army. In Apr.-Oct. the June 2009-May 2010 El Nino launches the 2010 Northern Hemisphere heat waves, which affects the U.S., China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Hong Kong, N Africa, and Europe incl. parts of E Australia, Canada, Russia, Indochina, South Korea, and Japan, receiving a boost from the 2010-11 La Nina, causing $500B damage, causing climate scientists to claim a V for their CO2-boosted climate models. On May 1 thousands protest Neo-Nazi marches across Germany. On May 1 it is announced that Islamic successionists in S Yemen have captured two U.S. soldiers and demand the release of two of their leaders in exchange for their release. On May 1 Islamic separatists bomb a horse race at the hippodrome in Nalchik in Kabardino-Balkaria, North Caucasus, killing one and wounding 29. On May 1 a tricycle bomb in Saryab, Quetta in SW Pakistan injures six. On May 1 a 3-vehicle convoy of drug cartel with 40 commandos ambushes the police in Morelia, Mexico, but they escape unharmed. On May 1 two explosions in the Abdala Shideya Mosque in the biggest market in Mogadishu, Somalia kill 30+ and injure dozens, becoming the first terrorist attack in a Somalian mosque; it is a gathering place for members of Al-Shabaab. On May 1 Pres. Obama gives a commencement speech at the U. of Mich., saying that partisan rants and name-calling pose a serious danger to Am. democracy that could incite "extreme elements" to violence, with the soundbyte "What troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad. When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us." On May 1 two bombs near buses carrying Christian students in Mosul, Iraq planted by Sunni insurgents kill one bystander and injure 100. On May 1 (eve.) after Sengalese Muslim vendor Alioune Niass alerts them, police find a smoking defective fertilizer-propane car bomb in a Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square set by the Times Square Bomber in New York City near Comedy Central, causing them to evacuate thousands; the Pakistani Taliban claims responsibility on the Internet as revenge for the killing of leaders al-Baghdadi and al-Mahajer "and Muslim martyrs"; the feds investigate possibile connections to the South Park case, then on May 3 night arrest Pakistani-born Am. Muslim Faisal Shahzad 1979-) of Shelton, Conn. at JFK Airport after tracing a discarded disposable cell phone, causing U.S. atty-gen. Eric Holder to announce "It was clear that the intent behind this terrorist act was to kill Americans"; he had just returned from a trip to Pakistan; U.S. Customs officer Daniel Donohue becomes a hero for finding Shahzad's name in time to stop his flight; an FBI test finds that the bomb would have killed thousands; on May 4 (morning) Pres. Obama gives a news conference, calling the incident a "sobering reminder of the times in which we live" and vowing that Americans "will not cower in fear"; the fact that he just spent 5 mo. in Pakistan causes the investigation to be expanded there, followed by several arrests, incl. former army maj. Adnan Ahmad, who is released on May 31; Shahzad is Mirandized, renewing the debate on Mirandizing terrorism suspects; despite attempts by the PC media to downplay his Muslim religion, claiming that a home repossession triggered the jihad, etc., Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman calls for a new law stripping Americans found to be involved in a foreign terrorist org. of their citizenship rights and shipping them to Guantanamo Bay; on May 7 U.S. Gen. David Howell Petraeus (1952-) says that Shahzad was a "lone wolf" with no connection to other terrorists despite his claiming to have attended a terrorist training camp; on May 9 Holder finally announces that the Pakistan Taliban is behind the bombing attempt, and "probably helped finance it"; on May 13 federal agents arrest two people involved in funneling money into the U.S. to pay for the truck and bomb materials; on June 21 Shahzad pleads guilty and brags about receiving 6 mo. of training in Pakistan, saying that he is a "Muslim soldier", and would plead guilty "100 times over" until the U.S. pulls its troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and stops drone attacks that are "terrorizing the Muslim nations and the Muslim people"; on Oct. 5 he is sentenced to life without parole, telling the judge "Brace yourself because the war with the Muslims has only just begun - we will keep terrorizing you - the defeat of the U.S. is imminent and will happen in the near future", and shouting Allahu Akbar, to which the judge responds that he should consider "carefully about whether the Quran wants you to kill lots of people" - Shahzad stamps the word dumbass on Obama's forehead? On May 1 the 2010 U.S. Commission on Internat. Religious Freedom Report concludes that Pres. Obama is failing to talk about or fight for religious freedom around the world incl. Nigeria, and expresses alarm at Pres. Obama and Hillary Clinton phasing-out the term "freedom of religion" for the Muslim superiority version "freedom of worship" in public pronouncements, despite the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment's wording about free exercise of religion - not Muslim salami baloneys in public with hog callers and prayer towers? On May 1 the Antarctic Volcanoes Project Blog is launched by TLW, who claims that global warming is good not bad, and more not less CO2 and H2O need to be pumped into the atmosphere to create more living space and food supplies, calling for a global scientific effort that starts with an evaluation of the potential of reactivating volcanoes in the Antarctic. On May 1-2 a Gallup Poll reveals that 9 out of 10 Americans want the U.S. govt. to secure the U.S.-Mexico border this year. On May 1-Oct. 31 the 2010 World Expo is held in Shanghai, China, receiving 70M visitors while featuring an online version called Expo Shanghai Online. On May 2 drug-related violence kills 25 in the state of Chihuahua near the U.S.-Mexico border; on May 4 the Mexican govt. says that the drug war that has already killed 23K could rage until 2014; meanwhile on May 4 U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano admits that the U.S.-Mexico border is not as secure as it could be, but praises the Obama admin. for an "absolute laserlike focus on that border". On May 2 Jewish-Am. Repub. Hawaii gov. (2002-) Linda Lingle (1953-) states that Pres. Obama was born in Kapi'olani Hospital in Honolulu. On May 2 Afghan cleric Mullah Adahdad is killed by a U.S. Army platoon from the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Div., after which it is revealed that he was unarmed and that they had a conspiracy to kill unarmed Afghan men, dismember the corpses, and pose for photo ops, becoming a war crimes scandal. On May 3 the U.S. govt. releases its classified statistics about the total size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal for the first time: 5,113 warheads. On May 3-28 the 189 signatories to the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty meet at the U.N. in New York City; on May 3 Iranian pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attends, claiming that the U.S. has failed its obligations, started a global nuclear arms race, and dismissing the prospect of "nuclear terrorism", causing the U.S., Britain, and France to walk out; later U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton gives a speech, dissing Iran for disregarding the treaty; U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon utters the soundbyte that "the onus is on Iran" to prove it's not building nukes; Egypt calls for a Middle East nuclear-free zone that incl. Israel; meanwhile David Hale, deputy of U.S. Middle Envoy envoy George Mitchell tells Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas that if there is "significantly provocative settlement activity" in E Jerusalem et al., the U.S. might allow U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning Israel to pass for the first time ever. On May 3 the U.S. Supreme Court announces that it will close the 44 marble steps and bronze doors to its great hall for the first time due to security concerns. On May 3 former CIA dir. James R. Woolsey says that the likelihood that Iran will have a nuke in a year or less is "extremely high". On May 3 Pres. Obama sends a letter to Congress calling Syrian support for terrorist orgs. "a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States", renewing the economic sanctions begun in 2003. On May 4 protests are held in Paris against Islamic persecution of women working in the oil city of Hassi Messaoud, where the imams incite violence against them as hos just for being independent, cuasing them to be robbed, beaten, raped and tortured. On May 3 Venezuelan foreign minister Nicolas Naduro addresses the 12-member Union of South Am. Nations in Buenos Aires, dissing the Ariz. "papers please" law, saying that it should be repealed and that the U.S. should give up its "old habits of racism". On May 4-5 North Korean leader Kim Jong-il visits Beijing, China; neither country admits to the visit. On May 5 Christian zoologist Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (1957-) becomes pres. #14 of Nigeria (until May 29, 2015). On May 5 Pres. Obama attends a Cinco de Mayo celebration, calling for immigration reform work to begin this year, incl. holding employers responsible for hiring illegals and making them pay for citizenship; meanwhile at Live Oak H.S. in Calif., asst. principal Miguel Rodriguez makes two students remove U.S. flag bandanas and turn t-shirts with U.S. flags on them inside-out, calling them "incendiary", while allowing other students to wear Mexican flags. On May 6 the news of the Greek crisis causes the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. to plummet 998 points before rebounding by nearly 400 points, closing at 10,520.32. On May 6 elections in Britain result in a hung Parliament although Conservatives make some gains; Labour comes in 2nd, and the Liberal Dems. 3rd; Labour candidates Shabana Mahmood (1980-), Rushanara Ali (1975-), and Yasmin Qureshi (1963-) become the first British female Muslim and Asian MPs; on May 10 Gordon Brown announces his intentions of resigning as MP in favor of Conservative David William Donald Cameron (1966-) (direct descendant of William IV and his mistress Dorothea Jordan) (5th cousin twice removed of Elizabeth II), who becomes British PM on May 11 (until July 13, 2016) (youngest British MP since the 1810s), heading a coalition govt. with the Liberal Dems. headed by Nicholas William Peter "Nick" Clegg (1967-); on May 13 George Gideon Oliver Osborne (1971-) becomes chancellor (until ?); English Muslim baroness Sayeeda Hussain Warsi (1971-) is promoted to chmn. of the Conservative Party, and on May 12 she is appointed to Cameron's cabinet as minister without portfolio (first Muslim woman), causing radical Islamist Anjem Choudary (1967-) (leader of the banned group Islam4UK) to comment "She may look like a Muslim and have a Muslim-sounding name but she does not represent Islam or anyone in this country who is a Muslim... She is a coconut, brown on the outside but white on the inside. In fact, she is whiter than most of the other white people in government. How can she be a Muslim and support the military involvement of the British Army in Islamic countries?"; on May 13 Pres. Obama announces that Cameron is committed to continuing British assistance in the battle against terrorism in Afghanistan for the long term. On May 6 U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tells the Catholic Community Conference on Capitol Hill to speak from the pulpit for immigration reform and tell the faithful that reform "is a manifestation of our living the gospels", adding "We can't say to people, 12 million of you, go back to whever you came from or go to jail"; on May 13 she calls for a "path to legalization" for illegal aliens now in the U.S. On May 7 Turkey passes a series of constitutional amendments giving the Islamic part of the govt. more power over the mainly secular judiciary. On May 7 the PLO announces that it accepts indirect peace talks with Israel, with U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell acting as broker, becoming the first time since talks were broken off after the offensive against Hamas in Gaza in 2008. On May 7 foreign domain names are launched on the Internet, incl. Arabic. On May 7 stone-throwing Palestinians attack Israel soldiers in Nabi Saleh near Ramallah in the West Bank, setting fire to a historic Jewish cemetery. On May 7 due to the Times Square Bomber, U.S. Afghan military cmdr. Stanley A. McChrystal meets with Pakistani military chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and urges him to speed up their offensive against the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida in North Wazaristan; meanwhile on May 8 Pakistan announces the test-firing of two nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, the Shaheen-1 (range 400 mi.), and the Ghazvani (range 180 mi.). On May 7 Islamic terrorists explode a bomb on a train station platform in Derbent, Dagestan, S Russia, killing one and injuring five. On May 8 two explosing rip through Russia's largest underground coal mine in Kemerovo, killing 12, injuring 58, and trapping 83. On May 8 Mexico extradites Mario Villanueva, former gov. (1993-9) of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo to the U.S. to face charges of helping a cartel smuggle cocaine through Cancun, becoming the first former Mexican state govt. to be extradited to the U.S. on drug charges. On May 8 the secret Trilateral Commission meets in Dublin, Ireland, causing enemies of a 1-world govt. to go nonlinear again. On May 9 a massive Red Square Military Parade (biggest since the collapse of the Soviet Union) marks the 65th anniv. of the defeat of Nazi Germany after losing 27M people, becoming the first time that soldiers from four NATO countries incl. China and the U.S. are allowed to take part, joining 10K Russian troops; the new Russian Mi-28 Havoc attack heli (test-flown in Jan. 1988), their answer to the U.S. Apache is rolled out, along with the Ka-52 Alligator gunship; meanwhile on May 9 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates complains that increasing health care costs, big-ticket weapons system, and a top-heavy mgt. force require the Pentagon to make tough choices to hold down spending despite angering "powerful people", and has ordered the Pentagon to shave off 2%-3% from their $550B budget. On May 9 Pres. Obama speaks at historically black Hampton U. in Va. (founded 1868), saying that giving all Americans access to education is the responsibility of all Americans, "to offer every single child in this country an education that will make them competitive in our knowledge economy"; he then disses modern info technology, incl. iPods, iPas, Xboxes and PlayStations as "a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation". On May 9 Iran hangs five members of the "anti-revolutionary" Kurdish Party of Free Life for Kurdistan (PJAK) on charges incl. "waging war against God" (moharebe). On May 10 Pres. Obama nominates New York City-born U.S. solicitor gen. #45 (since Mar. 19, 2009) (dean #11 of Harvard Law School since July 1, 2003, the first female) (never been a judge) (Jewish) (closet lesbian?) Elena Kagan (1960-) for the U.S. Supreme Court, calling her a "trailblazing lady" who was admired "across the ideological spectrum", and is known for a "habit of understanding before disagreeing"; she is known for the soundbyte "Someone suspected of helping finance al-Qaida should be subject to battlefield law - indefinite detention without a trial - even if he were captured in a place like the Philippines rather than a physical battle zone"; at Harvard she accepted a $20M gift from the Saudi royal family to establish a center for Islamic studies, incl. horrible Sharia law; the 850-member Rabbinical Alliance of Am. says that she is "not kosher" and "not fit to sit on this court or any court" because "she will function as a flame-throwing radical, hastening society's already steep decline into Sodom and Gomorrah"; on Aug. 5 she is confirmed by the Senate by 63-37, with five Repubs. for and one Dem. against; on Aug. 7 she is sworn-in as U.S. Supreme Court justice #112 (until ?), becoming the first Hispanic and Latina U.S. Supreme Court justice, 4th woman, and 12th Roman Catholic (until ?), also the youngest (until ?), giving the court a record three women members (one-third); she recuses herself from nearly half of the 51 cases before the Oct. 4 term because of potential conflicts of interest. On May 10 the G20 unleashes its $957B Shock and Awe Rescue Plan, causing a spectacular rally in Euro stocks and bonds, the biggest 1-day rise in 17 mo., reversing panic selling the week before. On May 10 Benigno Aquino III is elected pres. of the Philippines (until ?). On May 10 the Obama admin. changes a 76-y.-o. rule on union elections, making it easier for them organize workers at U.S. airlines and railroads. On May 10 insurgent attacks across Iraq kill 84+. On May 10 Fahim Ahmad, ringleader of the Toronto 18 suddenly reverses his plea to gilty in the first terrorism case in Canada to be decided by a jury. On May 10 British man Paul Chambers (1984-) is convicted of sending a menacing message over Twitter for texting that if his flight was delayed by snow he would blow up an airport; that he was joking didn't matter to mean judge Jonathan Bennett. On May 10 Bangladeshi-born Muslim Mohammed Miah (1981-) allegedly kills a swan for food on the Great Ouse River in Bedford, England, breaking an ancient English law that all of Britain's 30K wild swans belong to the monarch, and is charged. On May 11 a U.S. drone strike against the Tehrik-e-Taliban in North Waziristan (linked to Times Square Bomber Faisal Shahzad) kills 14 militants. On May 11 a bug on Twitter.com allows users to force other users to follow them, especially celebs like Oprah, Lady Gaga, Conan O'Brien, Perez Hilton, Justin Bieber, Barack Obama, and Britney Spears. On May 11 First Lady Michelle Obama unveils a 120-page White House Task Force Report on Solving Childhood Obesity, with the goal of returning the childhood obsesity rate to 5% by 2030, same as in the 1970s. On May 12 (8:20 a.m.) Wu Huanming (b. 1962) charges into Shengshui Temple Kindergarten in Hanzhong, C China with a cleaver and hacks seven children and two adults to death, then goes home and kills himself; the 5th school rampage in less than 2 mo. On May 12 a Libyan Afriqiyah Airways (Airbus A330-200) en route from Johannesburg crashes while trying to land at Tripoli airport, killing 103, incl. Dutch passengers; an 8-y.-o. Dutch boy is the only survivor; the aircraft is the same type as Air France Flight 447, which crashed in the Atlantic on June 1, 2009. On May 12 a NATO tanker carrying fuel for troops in Spin Boldak in S Afghanistan is blown up by a planted bomb. On May 12 the govt. of Yemen announces that it refuses to extradite U.S.-born jihadist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, saying he will be tried in the Arabian Peninsula when captured. On May 12 Pres. Obama and Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai make a joint appearance at the White House, and Obama says that U.S. military action in Afghanistan and the surrounding region is "in our national security interests" because of recent terrorist plots in the U.S. that have ties to the region, while seeming open to the idea of negotiating and reconciling with elements of the Taliban; on May 13 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton vows that despite Karzai's plan to reintroduce Taliban extremists into society, the U.S. will not abandon the women of Afghanistan to Sharia. On May 12 U.N. officials reveal that up to one-third of the Afghanistan poppy harvest has been destroyed by a mysterious disease, implicating the U.S. and NATO summer offensives. On May 13 renegade Thai Gen. Khattiya Sawatdiphol (Seh Daeng) (b. 1951) is shot in Bangkok during an anti-govt. demonstration; the govt. calls him the main obstacle to a compromise plan to end a 2-mo. sit-in in exchange for a Nov. election. On May 13 Afghan and NATO forces kill 18 militants in Helmand Province in S Afghanistan. On May 13 the Obama admin. announces that the U.S. will join the U.N.-backed Alliance of Civilizations (founded 2005) to ease strains between the West and Islam; the Bush admin. boycotted it for its anti-Israel and anti-West positions, and connections with the Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC). On May 13 China announces a deal to sell nuclear reactors to Pakistan to compensate for a U.S.-India nuclear deal, despite Pakistan never signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, leaving the U.S. with the decision whether to come out against it or keep trying to gain Chinese help against Iran's nuclear program. On May 13 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder testifies before the House Judiciary Committee, waffling about an answer as to whether radical Islam was a motivating factor for the recent radical Islamic attacks on U.S. soil, incl. the Xmas Condom Bomber and the Times Square Bomber. On May 13 Emirates Palace in UAE installs a gold-covered vending machine that dispenses gold bars up to 10g each. On May 14 Russia announces deals with Syria to sell them warplanes, anti-tank weapons, and air defense systems; at least their 2nd rate compared to U.S. models which they are prohibited from buying? On May 14 three suicide bombers at a sports field during a soccer game in the Shiite town of Tal Afar, Iraq in N Iraq kills 10+ and wounds 120. On May 14 after leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri (Abu Hamza al-Muhajir) and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi are killed, an al-Qaida group in Iraq names new war minister al-Nasser Lideen Allah Abu Suleiman, and threatens Shiites with "dark days covered in blood"; meanwhile the Pakistani Taliban repeats their claim of responsibility for the Times Square Bombing, and warns the U.S. that it will soon "burn", while calling for the overthrow of the govt. of Pakistan for following "America's agenda". On May 14 Sarah Palin keynotes the Celebration of Life Breakfast of the Susan B. Anthony List in Washington, D.C., saying that an "emerging feminist coalition" will produce a "better America in this exceptional country" after the Nov. elections, harkening back to the feminism of the Am. West frontier days. On May 14 British MP Stephen Timms is stabbed by British Muslim Roshanara Choudhary (1989-) for supporting the U.S. war in Iraq; she had been watching videos by Am. radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. On May 15 a spokesman for radical anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr announces that he won't stop Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki from keeping his job despite his not meeting a demand to release 2K of his followers; meanwhile former PM Iyad Allawi says that if violence continues in Iraq, civil war looms. On May 15 the Sudanese army seizes control of a key Justice and Equality Movement base in Jebel Moun in W Darfur, Sudan after killing 100+ and capturing 61. On May 15 former Mexican pres. candidate Diego Fernandez de Cevallos is reported missing after his car is found near his ranch in Queretaro state along with "signs of violence"; he is freed in Dec. after paying $30M of the $100M ransom demanded. On May 15 Iranian Ayatollah Mohammad Bagher Kharrazi (known for the Mar. 16, 2009 soundbyte "Whenever we develop the bomb then we will establish a relationship with the U.S. - if we shouldn't develop the bomb we shouldn't have a relationship, and if we can have a relationship we should make the bomb too") (also the soundbyte that the Quran was revealed in Arabic so that the Arabs, "the greatest infidels and hypocrites" could be reached "in the poorest of the world's languages", instead of Persian, "the most superior language of the dwellers of Paradise") calls for the creation of a Persian-speaking Greater Iran that he calls the Islamic United States, ruling the Middle East and C Asia from Afghanistan to Israel after destroying the Jewish state of Israel along with the pesky Sunni heretics incl. the Baathists in Iraq and Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia before or after the appearance of the Mahdi. On May 16 Arab-Am. Shiite Muslim Rima Fakih (1986-) of Dearborn, Mich. wins the Miss USA pageant in Las Vegas, becoming the 1st Arab and 2nd Muslim winner (first in 1983); judge Oscar Nunez tries to sink blonde-blue Miss Oklahoma Morgan Elizabeth Woolard with a question about the new Ariz. immigration law, causing the crowd to boo her, and causing many to think it prejudiced him against her and that she would have won otherwise; criticism of the winner as "Miss Hezbollah" are soon shot down when the real one disses her for her immodest dress etc.; Fakih gets into several scandals, incl. pole dancing photos from 2007 - oh how Donald Trump loves that Saudi oil money? On May 16 the Israeli govt. denies entry to leftist Jewish-Am. brain man Noam Chomsky (1928-) at the Allenby Bridge border crossing in the Jordan Valley, then claims it made a mistake - after checking on his background which incl. denial of the 6 million Holocaust figure and support for a 2-state solution? On May 16 Mary Glasspool (1954-) of Baltimore, Md. is ordained in Long Beach, Calif. as the Episcopal Church's 2nd openly gay bishop, following Gene Robinson of N.H. in 2003. On May 16 5'9" Lebanese Shiite Muslim (Miss Mich. USA) Rima Fakih (1985-) wins Miss USA 2010, becoming the first Muslim, first Mich. USA winner since 1993, and the first not from a Southern U.S. state since 2004; after numerous criticisms of her loose take on Islam, in Apr. 2016 she converts to Marionite Christianity for her wealthy Arab music producer fiance Wassim Salibi. On May 16-18 the 4th Internat. Conference on Climate Change in Chicago, Ill. questions the extend of manmade global warming. On May 17 Iran signs a surprise nuclear fuel swap deal with Western nations, brokered by Brazil and Turkey (who secretly want to go nuclear along with them?), the first since 2004, alleviating concerns that they're secretly building nukes, but not really, since the deal involves only 50% of their enriched uranium stockpile, while they continue to run the centrifuges; on May 18 the U.S. submits a draft Iranian sanctions resolution to the U.N. Security Council, targeting the Rev. Guards, causing Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki to tell the press "There is no chance for a new resolution", adding "A couple of the members of the Security Council have come up with a new recipe in the kitchen. It seems that this new dish they have prepared is not being given to the guests in a timely manner, and the guests have already had their lunch"; on June 21 Brazil announces that it is partially backing out of the Iran deal; meanwhile Congress pushes for unilateral gasoline sanctions. On May 17 a Pamir Airways local plane with 38 passengers and five crew crashes in the Hindu Kush region of Afghanistan near Kabul, Afghanistan, killing all aboard. On May 17 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Terrance Jamar Graham vs. Fla. that juveniles younger than 18 may not be sentenced to life without parole unless guilty of homicide, expanding on their 2005 decision that they can't be executed, saying that these practices have been "rejected the world over" (except in Sharia countries?); the court cites the 1959 U.N. Child's Rights Treaty, which was never adopted by the U.S. as relevant to its decision on a case, becoming a new low? On May 17 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 7-2 in U.S. v. Comstock that federal officials can indefinitely hold mentally-ill federal inmates labeled "sexually dangerous" even after their prison terms are served. On May 17 Pres. Obama's aunt (Barack Sr.'s half-sister) Zeituni Onyango (1953-), who ended up in rundown public housing in South Boston, applied for asylum in 2002, was rejected in 2004 and ordered to leave the U.S., but stayed illegally, until Obama's election changed things in her favor enormously, while he kept her at arms length and disavowed intervening in her situation, is granted asylum by an immigration judge, with the possibility of citizenship in six years. On May 17 most of the police force of La Union, Guerrero, Mexico quit after armed gunmen ambush and wound two officers. On May 18 a suicide bomber in a Toyota minivan explodes in a Nato convoy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 18 incl. five U.S. soldiers and one Canadian soldier, and wounding 47, mostly civilians in rush-hour traffic; on May 18 a brazen pre-dawn attack on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan N of Kabul kill seven Islamic guerrillas and wounds six foreign troops; the U.S. death toll in Operation Infinite Justice, er, Enduring Freedom tops the 1K mark. On May 18 Pres. Obama visits steel tubular goods manufacturer V&M Star in C Ohio, telling them that without his economic stimulus package the U.S. would be in a "deeper world of hurt", claiming the U.S. economy has begun generating jobs again despite "unified, determined opposition of one party". On May 18 a Pakistani Taliban attack in the NW town of Dera Ismail Khan kills 12, incl. a senior police officer they targeted. On May 18 authorities in Baghdad, Iraq announce that they will enclose the city with a 15-ft. wall to keep suicide bombers out, and are already constructing eight gateways. On May 18 a new U.S. Senate Report on the Christmas Condom Bomber blames nearly every facet of the U.S. intel community for failing to connect the dots and stop him, causing nat. intel dir. Dennis C. Blair to resign on May 20, which House intel committee ranking Repub. Pete Hoekstra of Mich. calls "the result of the Obama admin.'s rampant politicization of national security and outright disregard for congressional intelligence oversight." On May 18 (night) Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York (1960-) is filmed taking a Ł27K ($40K) downpayment on a Ł500K bribe from an undercover News of the World reporter to grant access to her trade envoy ex-hubby Prince Andrew. On May 19 the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee releases the proposed U.S. Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, aimed at regulating Internet sites that sell products or services with recurring charges. On May 19 200+ Pakistani Taliban fighters attack a security post in Orakzai in NW Pakistan, killing 40 militants and two Pakistani soldiers; meanwhile Pres. Obama sends his top nat. security advisers to Pakistan to reiterate the importance of cracking down on terrorists after the Times Square Bomber incident. On May 19 Dutch officials announce that terrorism suspect Abdullah Azam Saleh al-Qahtani, who was arrested in Iraq made comments leading them to believe that Islamic terrorists are planning an attack on Dutch or Danish fans at the World Cup in South Africa. On May 19 after a 6-week occupation of downtown Bangkok, the Royal Thai Army crushes the barricades of Red Shirt protesters, causing them to retreat and set fire to the stock exchange and other bldgs., all causing exiled former PM Thaksin Shinawatra to say that this could lead to guerrilla warfare, which causes a Thai court to order his arrest on terrorism charges on May 25. On May 19 Moroccan-born Muslim Kansas City auto parts dealer Khalid Ouazzani (1978-) pleads guilty to sending al-Qaida $23.5K in 2007-8; meanwhile popular Raleigh, N.C. Muslim leader Mohammed "Moe" El-Gamal, pres. of the Muslim-Am. Public Affairs Council is arrested on trrorism charges for exporting computer equipment to Libya. On May 19 Cyclone Laila hits Andhra Pradesh, India, killing 23 by May 21. On May 19-20 U.S. Pres. Obama and Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon stage a U.S.-Mexico Summit in Washington, D.C. to join in a push for a major overhaul of U.S. immigration rules, with Obama uttering the soundbyte that they have agreed to work toward a U.S.-Mexico border that is "modern, secure and efficient" and stops the flow of "drugs, weapons and cash" (not people?); after saying "In the 21st century, we are defined not by our borders but by our bonds" and calling the Ariz. law "a misdirected expression of frustration over our broken immigration system", and mentioning that his admin. is taking a close look at its civil rights implications, Obama calls for comprehensive immigration reform but admits that he needs Repub. support to pass it; on May 20 a partisan Congress greets Calderon, who calls for more money to control the gun flow over the border and a ban on assault rifles, and calling the Arizona Senate Bill 1070 "a law that not only ignores a reality but also introduces a terrible idea of racial profiling as the basis for law enforcement", becoming a first as a foreign leaders slaps Congress in the face and they clap and cheer; on May 20 7-y.o. 2nd grader Daisy (of Peruvian descent) makes nat. news by telling First Lady Michelle Obama that her hubby is "taking everybody away that doesn't have papers", and that her mother doesn't have any, after which the govt. says it won't deport them, and she asks to visit the White House; on May 25 Pres. Obama announces that he's requesting $500M to send 1.2K Nat. Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border,giving a total of 18K, or about 9/mi. On May 20 the U.S. Senate passes a sweeping U.S. Wall St. Reform Bill by 59-39, requiring it to be reconciled with the House version. On May 20 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket's chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei utters the soundbyte "If the Zionist regime attacks Iran, the Zionists will have no longer than a week to live." On May 20 German foreign minister Guido Westerwell meets with Google co-founder Larry Page over its Street View service and its threat to data privacy; meanwhile Google announces its new Google TV platform to bring "the Web to your TV and your TV to the Web". On May 20 (eve.) two Taliban militants blow themselves up in North Waziristan to kill two men they believe are U.S. spies. On May 21 after mo. of controversy the Texas State Board of Education by 9-5 approves new U.S. history curriculum standards with a conservative Christian emphasis, which will end up being taught in other states because nat. textbook publishers tailor their materials to big purchaser Texas. On May 21 a U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security document is pub. saying that "the number and pace of attempted attacks against the United States over the past nine months have surpassed the number of attempts during any other previous one-year period." On May 21 (eve.) an al-Qaida in Iraq suicide bomber in a pickup truck explodes in a commercial strip in the Shiite town of Khalis, Iraq in Diyala Province N of Baghdad, killing 21+ and wounding 50+ after the roof of a cafe collapses and other catch fire, burning victims. On May 21 Spanish matador Julio Aparicio slips while doing the faena (series of passes with cape and sword prior to the estocada or death blow) on 1.1K-lb. bull Opiparo at the Feria de San Isidor bullfighting event in Las Ventanas, Spain, and the bull sticks his horn through his jaw, tongue and roof of his mouth, leaving him in critical condition. On May 22 (dawn) an Air India Express (Boeing 737) arriving from Dubai overshoots the runway and crashes while trying to land in the rain at a tricky hilltop airport in Mangalore in S India, killing 159 of 166. On May 22 Pres. Obama delivers a commencement address at West Point Academy, pledging to shape a "new international order" based on diplomacy and engagement rather than Pres. Bush's policy of preemptive war. On May 22 (8 p.m.) Taliban fighters launch a ground assault against Kandahar Air Field 300 mi. SW of Kabul in S Afghanistan, wounding several coalition troops and civilian employees, becoming the 2nd attack on a major military installation this week. On May 22 Charles Djou becomes the first Repub. member of Congress from Hawaii in 20 years. On May 23 Sicilian Maria Vittoria Longhitano (1975-) becomes the first Roman Catholic woman to be ordained in Italy, by the breakaway Old Catholic Church, which broke with the RCC in the 19th cent. over papal infallibility, and is in full communion with the Anglicans. On May 24 Pres. Obama orders the U.S. military to coordinate with South Korea to "ensure readiness" for possible aggression by North Korea; on May 25 North Korea severs all ties with South Korea as tensions soar; on May 26 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton leaves Beijing after two days and arrives in Seoul in a show of support. On May 24 Pres. Obama asks Congress for a new version of the line-item veto so he can slice pork projects from spending bills. On May 24 Iran hangs Abdolhamid Rigi, brother of Pakistan-based terrorist group Jundallah's chief Abdolmalek Rigi, who is hanged on June 20. On May 25 Pres. Obama meets with small business owners in the White House, calling himself a "fierce advocate" for them, and calls on Congress to approve incentives for them. On May 25 gunmen rob a row of goldsmiths in Baghdad, Iraq in broad daylight, making off with gold and cash after killing 14. On May 25 Kamla Persad-Bissessar is elected as the first female PM of Trinidad and Tobago (until ?), leading a 5-party coalition. On May 25 Cancun mayor Gregorio Sanchez is arrested by Mexican federal police on drug and organized crime charges while on a leave of absence to run for gov. of Quintana Roo state. On May 26 Iran clashes with Russia over its support of draft U.N. sanctions against it, becoming one of their worst clashes since the Cold War. On May 26 the Red Cross admits to giving first aid kits and basic training to the Taliban. On May 26 after support by Mayor Bloomberg, New York City approves the controversial Ground Zero Mosque despite it being what amounts to a victory flag and come-follow signal for Sharia-loving Islamic jihadists; meanwhile the Greek Orthodox St. Nicholas Church near Ground Zero languishes as city officials refuse to approve reconstruction. On May 26 Pres. Obama's deputy nat. homeland security advisor John O. Brennan gives a speech at the Center for Strategic and Internat. Studies in Washington, D.C., praising his master Pres. Obama to the skies, and attempting to justify Obama's Cairo speech of June 2009, with the soundbytes: "Our enemy is not terrorism, because terrorism is a tactic. Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind, and as Americans we refuse to live in fear. Nor do we describe our enemy as 'jihadists' or 'Islamists' because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one's community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women, and children"; "Moreover, describing our enemy in religious terms would lend credence to the lie - propagated by al-Qaeda and its affiliates to justify terrorism - that the United States is somehow at war against Islam. The reality, of course, is that we never have been and will never be at war with Islam. After all, Islam, like so many faiths, is part of America. Instead, the President's strategy is clear and precise. Our enemy is al-Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates. For it was al-Qaeda who attacked us so viciously on 9/11 and whose desire to attack the United States, our allies, and our partners remains undiminished. And it is its affiliates who have taken up al-Qaeda's call to arms against the United States in other parts of the world." On May 26 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. closes under 1K for the first time since Feb. 8, falling 69 (0.7%) to 9,974. On May 27 the Obama admin. pub. its first formal Declaration of Nat. Security Goals, which break with the Bush policy and formalize Obama's new folly, er, approach that the U.S. is not at war with Islam, only al-Qaida and affiliates, and incl. the soundbyte "The burdens of a young century cannot fall on American shoulders alone. Indeed, our adversaries would like to see America sap our strength by overextending our power"; for the first time homegrown terrorists will be targeted; the report's main author is deputy nat. security adviser Benjamin J. "Ben Rhodes (1977-). On May 27 Apple passes Microsoft as the world's largest tech co. by market capitalization. Tell me, friend, when did Saruman the Wise abandon reason for madness? On May 27 the misnamed Gaza Freedom Flotilla of six cargo ships (three flying Turkish flags, incl. Mavi Marmara, carrying 400 Turks who are members of the Islamic terrorist Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) (Insani Yardim Vakfi), headed by Fehmi Bülent Yildirim (1966-), carrying 10 tons of humanitarian aid incl. bldg. materials and medical supplies sets sail from Cyprus for the Gaza Strip in a symbolic attempt by 680 Muslim and non-Muslim activists from 50 countries to break the 3-year Israeli blockade by refusing to stop at an Israel port for inspection and trucking of supplies by Israel into Gaza like is done every week with 10K tons of food and other supplies; Pres. Obama's associates Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn are closely associated with the Free Gaza Movement; Turkish activist Erdinc Tekir, who is wounded in the fighting is later found to have participated in an Islamic terrorist attack on a Russian ferry in the Black Sea in 1996; some activists chant Intifada songs; others chant the Islamic battle cry "Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return", and praise martyrdom before departure; on May 31 (U.S. Memorial Day) (pre-dawn hours of June 1 in Israel) the Israeli military boards the flotilla 75 mi. from the coast, initially carrying only paintball guns, then meeting violent resistance, the Turkish jihadists taking four Israeli marines hostage before other armed commandos storm aboard, killing nine activists and wounding 53 (incl. 37 members of the IHH or other Turkish Islamic orgs.), all on the Mavi Marmara, while getting two Israeli commandos wounded while trying to board, then tows it to Ashdod, later releasing the activists accused of attacking Israeli troops after an internat. outcry; causing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to apologize, expressing regret and cancelling a planned trip to the White House, later uttering the soundbyte: "The state of Israel faces an attack of international hypocrisy... it is our right and obligation to prevent arms from reaching Gaza. This was not a Love Boat, it was a Hate Boat"; Obama calls the raid "a tragic situation", adding "You've got a loss of life that was unnecessary", calling for an "effective investigation"; on May 31 10K march in Istanbul, Turkey to denounce Israel, along with other demonstrations in London, Athens, etc.; in London 800 protesters attempt to storm BBC Manchester; a women's rally near the Qalandiya Checkpoint between Rammalah and Jerusalem sees Am. journalist Emily Henochowicz loses an eye after being shot with a tear gas canister by Israeli border guards; Turkey threatens action against Israel, putting it on alert; meanwhile on May 31 the U.N. Security Council holds an emergency meeting to discuss the Israeli raid, while Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Liberman claims that the flotilla organizers wanted blood to be shed, saying "Everything proves that it was a group of terrorists who want to promote terror and cooperate with terror"; Arab-Israeli Knesset member Hanib Zoabi, who is aboard the Mavi Marmara calls the IDF operation "criminal"; meanwhile Hillary Clinton is emailed by anti-Israeli advisor Sidney Blumenthal, who compares the raid on the flotilla to the 1976 Entebbe raid, suggesting ways for the U.S. to respond to the incident, with the soundbyte: "Somebody in authority needs to read Israel the riot act"; on June 2 Israeli forces find 1M Euros on one of the ships, intended for use by Hamas, along with a weapons cache; on June 2 pro-Palestinian activists send another boat, the Irish-flagged Rachel Corrie to challenge the Israeli blockade, while Egypt opens a temporary crossing into Palestinian territory, causing thousands of Gazans to flock to it hoping to escape; on June 2 Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls for Israel's PM and defense minister to face trial for the raid; on June 2 two rockets are fired from Gaza Strip by the Islamic Jihad, causing a retaliatory Israeli air strike that kills five; on June 2 after warning Israel not to cause an incident, the Obama admin. sides with the flotilla, and announces that it considers the Israeli blockade of Gaza to be "untenable"; Turkish-born Furkan Dogan (b. 1990) is found among the dead activists, with four bullets in his head and one in his chest, all at close range, causing the Israelis to backpeddle; on June 5 after Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead McGuire says that the activsts are prepared to be arrested, the IDF intercept the Rachel Corrie 35 mi. W of Gaza and escort it to Ashdod without incident; this time the U.S. warns the flotilla not to cause an incident; on June 5 Arab foreign ministers meet in Cairo go discuss the flotillas, and decide to "break the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza", "in any legitimate way", incl. "resistance" (violence); on June 6 Iranian supreme assashollah Ali Khamenei offers the Iranian Rev. Guards to escort future cargo ships to break the blockade; on June 7 the Israeli Navy kills six Palestinian divers, claiming they are terrorists; meanwhle on June 7 Global Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi warns Israel of Allah's impending warath for having "killed God's prophets"; on June 9 48 trucks with the cargo of the Freedom Flotilla is still waiting at Kerem Shalom crossing after Hamas refuses to accept it, and on June 17 the U.N. agrees to oversee the transfer; on June 11 Turkish pres. Abdullah Gul says that Israel must apologize and compensate the Turkish victims or it might sever diplomatic relations; on June 14 Israel assembles a investigative commission, which on July 12 finds no wrongdoing; on June 15 the Internat. Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) calls Israel's Gaza Strip blockade "collective punishment" and a violation of the Geneva Conventions; on June 17 Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad says that the Israeli attack on the flotilla has increased the chances of war in the Middle East, and that the current Israeli admin. is a "pyromaniac" govt; on June 19 the Israeli cabinet bows to pressure and eases restrictions on Gaza Strip, reserving the right to inspect for military items; on June 20 Israel gives preliminary plans for razing Palestinian homes in E Jerusalem as a prelude to building Israeli homes, pissing-off the Obama admin. again; on Jan. 23, 2011 the Turkel Commission (Public Commission to Examine the Maritime Incident of 31 May 2010) finds that the blockade "was lawful and complied with the rules of international law, in view of the security circumstances and Israel's efforts to fulfill its humanitarian obligations." On May 27 the U.S. House by 234-194 (incl. 5 Repubs.) votes to let the Defense Dept. repeal their 1993 "don't ask don't tell" policy. On May 27 Pres. Obama signs the U.S. Daniel Pearl Act of 2009, an amendment to the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act requiring the U.S. State Dept. to expand its scrutiny of news media restrictions and intimidation as part of its annual human rights review in each country. On May 27 Pres. Obama hosts the first-ever White House (East Room) reception to mark Jewish Heritage Month; after being outed a videocam by Rabbi David Nesenoff, Lebanese-descent Arab-Am. veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas (1920-2013) (AKA the Sitting Buddha, who covered every U.S. pres. since JFK and has her own reserved seat in the White House press room) stinks herself up with remarks that the Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and return to Europe, causing the Repubs. to try to get her fired from Hearst Newspapers; on June 5 she apologizes, which doesn't stop her agency Nine Speaker Inc. from dumping her; on June 7 after the White blasts her remarks as "offensive and reprehensible" she announces her retirement; on Dec. 2 she retracts her apology, and adds that "Congress, the White House, and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists", causing Abraham Foxman, dir. of the Anti-Defamation League to call her a "vulgar anit-Semite", and call on all journalism schools and prof. orgs. to rescind all honors they granted her, causing her alma mater Wayne State U. to pull its Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award; in Feb. 2011 she utters the soundbyte that after WWII the Jews "didn't have to go anywhere, really, because they weren't being persecuted anymore, but they were taking other people's land." On May 28 two minority Ahmadiyya Muslim sect mosques in Lahore, Pakistan are hit by Muslim suicide bombers, killing 80 and wounding 110+. On May 28 10K-20K from around the U.S. march in Phoenix, Ariz. for and against the Ariz. immigration law. On May 28 Zakir Naik gives a public speech in Maldives renouncing Islam; too bad, after being arrested and threatened with death he claims to revert to Islam. On May 28 Hawaii becomes the first U.S. state to ban possession or sale of shark fins. On May 29 a grand council (jirga) of Afghans meets in Kabul, where the Afghan govt. offers Taliban leaders exile overseas if they agree to stop fighting, along with "de-radicalization" classes and thousands of new jobs for militants who renounce violence. On May 29 (4:00 p.m.) after snubbing Arlington Cemetery Memorial Day ceremonies for his hometown of Chicago, Pres. Obama visits the home of friend Marty Nesbitt for a backyard cookout, but since his house is across the street from Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, there is a confrontation between the Secret Service and Farrakhan's guard called the Fruit of Islam. On May 29-June 1 Tropical Storm Agatha in Central Am. kills 204 in Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, and causes $1.1B dmage; Guatemala evacuates 112K and puts 29K into temp shelters; a giant sinkhole opens up in Guatemala City after a landslide. On May 30 Israel announces that it is deploying three German-built subs in the Persian Gulf near the Iranian coastline to intercept missiles. On May 30 Turkish PM Recept Tayyip Erodgan cancels the Argentina leg of his Latin Am. tour after officials in Buenos Aires call off an event inaugurating a monument to Turkish secular hero Kemal Ataturk, blaming it on Armenian pressure over the 1915 genocide thang. On May 30 U.S. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says that Afghan insurgents are being trained and equipped inside Iran. On May 31 Pres. Obama's 2010 Memorial Day Address is rained out; vice-pres. Biden delivers his address at Arlington Nat. Cemetery in sunny weather. On May 31 World No Tobacco Day is sponsored by the Am. Lung Assoc. and WHO. On May 31 German pres. Horst Kohler announces his surprise resignation after suggesting that the country's mission in Afghanistan is partly motivated by commercial concerns. On May 31 the Mexican govt. removes the skulls and bones of a dozen historical figures incl. Father Miguel Hidalgo from the Angel of Independence monument in Mexico City as part of Mexico's bicentennial celebration. On May 31 the Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) pub. a report claiming that Iran has enough nuclear fuel to turn into two nuclear bombs after more refining. On May 31 #3 al-Qaida leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid (Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law) (an Egyptian) is reported to have been killed in Pakistan by a U.S. missile strike. On May 31 a judge in Mexico charges former "Survivor" producer Bruce Beresford-Redman with the murder of his wife during a vacation in Cancun. On May 31 Pope Benedict XVI appoints a high profile team of bishops incl. the archbishop of New York to investigate sexual abuse in Irish dioceses and seminaries. On May 31 Afghan Red Cross worker Sayed Mossa is arrested for converting from Islam to Christianity; the Red Cross stinks themselves up by cutting him loose? On May 31 the cable TV Cooking Channel, owned by Scripps Networks Interactive debuts, based in Knoxville, Tenn. In May Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei announces that he wants Iran to double its pop. to 150M, therefore families should have more then two children. In May 6'5" 280 lb. Israeli-born Arab Elias Abuelazam (Abullazam) (1976-) begins a murder spree on small-framed mostly black men in and around Flint, Gennesee County, Mich., followed by 16 more that kill four ending with 49-y.-o. Arnold Minor on Aug. 2 until his arrest on Aug. 11 while trying to board a plane in Atlanta for Tel Aviv, becoming known as "the Flint Serial Slasher/Stabber", getting convicted of Minor murder and receiving a life sentence without parole, after which prosecutors refuse to press any more charges. In May Ireland establishes the Laureate na nOg (Laureate na nÓg) position for best children's writer or illustrator; the first award goes to Niamh Sharkey. On June 1 the U.S. debt reaches $13T. On June 1 three gunmen attack a hospital in Lahore, Pakistan, killing eight then taking several hostages. On June 1 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Berghuis v. Thompkins that criminal suspects must explicitly invoke their right to remain silent to force police to stop questioning; new justice Sonia Sotomayor dissents, with the soundbyte: "Today's decision turns Miranda upside down. Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent - which, counterintuitively, requires them to speak." On June 1 Al Gore announces that he will separate from his wife of 40 years Tipper Gore. On June 1 a WWII bomb explodes in Goettingen, Germany while being defused, killing three. On June 1 Shamma al Qassim (1991-) becomes the first Emirati woman to become a NASA intern, followed on Sept. 1 by Reem Ketait (1987-). On June 1-Dec. 29 the 2010 West African (Nigerian) Floods leave 110K homeless in Niger after the Niger River reaches its highest level in 80 years and spreads into Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Benin. On June 2 Ala. U.S. Dem. Rep. (since 2003) Artur Genestre Davis (1967-) loses his bid to become the first African-Am. Ala. gov., losing a primary to agriculture commissioner Ron Sparks by 62-38 after alienating black voters by opposing Obama's health care reform package. On June 2 Joran van der Sloot (1989-), prime suspect in the June 2, 2005 disappearance in Aruba of Ala. teenie Natalee Holloway is named as the main suspect in the May 30 slaying of 21-y.-o. Stephany Flores in a hotel in Lima, Peru; on June 7 he confesses to killing Flores after he caught her looking up info. on his Aruba case on his laptop. On June 2 English taxi driver Derrick Bird (b. 1958) shoots 12 random victims at point blank range during a 3.5-hour spree in Cumbria, then kills himself. On June 2 ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney (1942-) receives the Gershwin Prize from the Library of Congress, singing "Michelle" to First Lady Michelle Obama, and dissing the intelligence of ex-pres. George W. Bush, with the soundbyte "It's great to have a president who knows what a library is", drawing jeers from Repubs. On June 2 weather forecasters predict that the 2010 Atlantic Hurricane Season will be more active than in 2009, with 10 hurricanes, five of them major, and a 76% change that a major hurricane will hit the U.S. coastline, bringing in all that oil. On June 3 Japanese PM Yukio Hatoyama resigns over his broken campaign promise to move a U.S. Marine base off the southern island of Okinawa; his resignation was due to pressure by Pres. Obama; on June 8 Naoto Kan (1946-) becomes Japanese PM #61 (until Sept. 2, 2011). On June 3 ministers from the U.S. and the EU promise to protect the rights of all religions, esp., er, incl. Islam in the fight against internat. terrorism - dooming the fight from the start? On June 3 Pres. Obama meets for a half hour with Ariz. gov. Jan Brewer over their controversial immigration law, and ease tensions. On June 3 U.S. Sen. Jim Webb cancels a visit to Burma after reports by a high-level defector that the Burmese military junta is mining uranium and working with North Korea to develop nukes. On June 3 Roman Catholic bishop (the pope's apostolic vicar in Anatolia) Luigi Padovese is stabbed to death in S Turkey in his house then beheaded a day before he is scheduled to leave for Cyprus to meet with the pope by Allah Akbar-shouting Islamic nutcase Murat Altun, who claims to have killed him for being homosexual and/or a "command from Allah"; the govt. tries to coverup by claiming he has psychological problems and that it wasn't about Islam. On June 3 Ohio residents Hor I. Akl (1973-) and Amera A. Akl (1973-) (dual citizens of the U.S. and Lebanon) are arrested on charges of conspiracy to provide money to Hezbollah. On June 3 Japan deploys the 200 sq. m (2.1K sq. ft.) solar sail Ikaros as part of an experiment to test its potential for space propulsion. On June 3 New Zealand bans the kosher slaughter of animals, pissing-off the Jewish community. On June 4 the U.S. govt. announces that 431K new jobs were created in May, dropping the unemployment rate to 9.7%; too bad, all but 20K of the jobs were temporary Census jobs. On June 4 African Union peacekeepers and Somalian govt. forces launch attacks against Islamic insurgent strongholds in N Mogadishu, Somalia, killing 17+ and wounding 61+ civilians. On June 4 Pres. Obama postpones a planned trip to Australia and Indonesia to concentrate on the Gulf oil spill. On June 4 U.S. atty. Eric Holder marks the first anniv. of Pres. Obama's Cairo Speech by vowing to prosecute horrible Islamic, er, hate crimes aimed at Muslims, Arabs, and Sikhs in the U.S. On June 4 U.S. defense secy. Robert M. Gates has a combative exchange with a Chinese gen. over arms sales to Taiwan, which caused China to cancel its military-exchange program with the U.S. earlier in the year, saying that the U.S. is turning China into an enemy. On June 5 after meeting with Orthodox archbishop Chrysostomos II the day before, Pope Benedict XVI meets with N Cyprus Muslim Sufi leader Sheik Mehmet Nazim Adil (1922-) outside the Vatican embassy in Cyprus to discuss the Turkish occupation since 1974, becoming the first pope to visit Cyprus, and uttering the soundbyte that the plight of Christians in the Middle East should be "a source of concern to all of Christ's followers"; meanwhile on June 6 the Vatican pub. The Catholic Church in the Middle East: Communion and Witness, which criticizes Israel, Egypt, Islam, and even Christian fundamentalists for using the Bible to justify Israeli occupation of Palestine. On June 5 Muslim "New Jersey Jihadists" Mohamed Mahmood Alessa (1990-) and Carlos Eduardo "Omar" Almonte (1986-) are arrested at JFK Internat. Airport in New York City en route to Somalia to "wage violent jihad" and commit violent acts in the U.S. by the U.S. anti-terrorism Operation Arabian Knight. On June 5 a riot in Srinagar, Kashmar begins after somebody is spotted with an undergarment allegedly containing a blasphemous image of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. On June 6 a car bomb explodes outside a police station in Al-Amil, Iraq near Baghdad, killing six. On June 6 JCS chmn. Adm. Mike Mullen says that al-Qaida in Iraq has been "devastated" by its string of recent setbacks. On June 6 Pamela Geller's and Robert Spencer's new org. Stop Islamization of America stages a 10K-person protest against the proposed Ground Zero Cordoba Mosque (AKA Park51 because it's going to be the first "green mosque" in the U.S.) which the Islam history ignoramus PC media ignores, pans, and/or smears, falsely claiming that Joseph Nassrallah, a Coptic Christian and SIOA supporter was beaten up by the crowd after being mistaken for a Muslim in order to paint the whole group as racist and Islamophobic. On June 16 blogger Khaled Saeed (Said) (1982-) is arrested and beaten to death in Alexandria, Egypt by two policemen who believe he has videotape evidence of their involvement in drug dealing; after lying that he died from swallowing a marijuana joint, they are sentenced to four days in prison, causing a protest, and on Mar. 3, 2014 they are sentenced to 10 years in jail each; on Jan. 27, 2010 after founding a Facebook page "We Are All Khaled Saeed", Google exec ("the Google Gandhi") Wael Ghonim is arrested, then after an outcry released on Feb. 7. On June 7 (2 a.m.) a 3.6 earthquake hits coastal waters W of downtown Los Angeles, Calif. On June 7 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai removes two top security officials, the interior minister and intel chief for failing to stop an attack on a major peace conference. On June 7 the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyassa reports the Osama bin Laden and six of his lts. have been hiding out for the past five years in the mountains of Sabzevar in Khorasan Province in NE Iran, guarded by Iranian troops. On June 7 10 NATO soldiers are killed in Afghanistan, becoming their deadliest day in months, incl. five U.S. soldiers killed in an IED blast in E Afghanistan; meanwhle the war in Afghanistan official becomes the longest war in U.S. history, 104 mo. On June 7 Yukiya Amano, head of the Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) singles out Iran as a "special case" for monitoring teams because of suspicions that it's secretly building nukes. On June 7 a former maj. in its army claims that Myanmar (Burma) is attempting to build a nuclear weapon; analysts claim their program is primitive and poorly planned. On June 7 the first lesbian couple weds in Portugal, Teresa Pires and Helena Paixao, 30-something divorcees, becoming the first gay marrieds there. On June 7 the Pew Research Center pub. a Study on Interracial Marriages, finding that one in seven U.S. marriages are interracial or interethnic, incl. 26% of Hispanics, 16% of blacks, and 9% of whites. On June 7 a Gallup Poll shows that 6.2M Mexicans say that they want to come to the U.S. permanently. On June 8 (Super Tues.) primary elections in the U.S. give a V to three candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin: Nikki Haley in S.C., Sharron Angle in Nev., and Carly Fiorina in Calif. On June 8 Iran opens its first women-only bank branch in Mashhad. On June 8 Egypt begins allowing Muslim Brotherhood MPs into Gaza as part of an indefinite opening of the Rafah crossing. On June 9 after Turkey and Brazil try an end-run that is rejected, the U.N. Security Council votes 12-2-1 (Brazil, Turkey, Lebanon abstaining) for Resolution 1929, imposing a 4th round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program; Iranian pres. Madman Inadinnajacket ridicules the new sanctions, calling them a "used tissue", and on June 11 saying that Israel is "doomed"; on July 7 opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi criticizes Imadinnajacket, saying "To say that this resolution is like a used hankie won't erase the hardships arising from demagogic policies, as it is clear to me that this resolution will affect our nation's security and economy"; the new sanctions incl. the power to inspect Iranian cargo, making war with Iran inevitable? On June 9 Pres. Obama announces a $400M aid package for Gaza, and tells Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas in the Oval Office "The current situation in Gaza is unsustainable", this despite Abbas having supported the blockade since he's anti-Hamas; on June 10 Abbas tells the Brookings Inst. that the prospects for a peaceful 2-state solution "I fear is beginning to erode". On June 9 Cairo-based Saudi prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud warns his country's royal family to flee before a military coup or uprising overthrows them a la the shah of Iran. On June 9 a suicide bomber at a wedding ceremony in Nagaan in Afghanistan's Kandahar Province kills 39 and wounds 73. On June 9 France bans Al-Aqsa TV. On June 10 Sen. Dems. by 53-47 defeat a Repub.-led effort to strip the EPA of authority to regulate greenhouse gases; sponsor Lisa Murkowski of Alaska issues the soundbyte "We need to be growing our economy, not paralyzing it". On June 10 Am. Muslim Gregory Houston Holt, who was once imprisoned for threatening pres. George W. Bush's daughters is sentenced to life in prison for cutting his girlfriend's threat; he wrote letters describing himself as the "American Taliban" and calling for death to America. On June 10 U.S. gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says that the planned Kandahar offensive in Taliban land in Afghanistan will take months longer than planned; meanwhile new British PM David Cameron visits Kabul, reaffirming British support for the effort. On June 10 the U.S. govt. announces the arrest of 2.2K in 19 states as part of Project Deliverance targeting violent Mexican drug cartels. On June 10 a bipartisan group in the U.S. House offers a resolution calling for the govt. of Iran to cease oppression of its people and political dissidents, with Calif. Repub. rep. Dana Rohrbacher uttering the soundbyte "Any enemy of the mullah is a friend of ours." On June 10-14 the Shah Wali Kot Offensive in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan is conducted by U.S., Afghan, and Australian forces. On June 11 16-y.-o. Abby Sutherland (1994-), who attempted a solo around-the-world voyage in a 40-ft. boat is rescued in the Indian Ocean after becoming stranded. On June 11 Pope Bendedict XVI begs forgiveness from God and victims for child sexual abuse by priests, and vows that the Church will do everything in its power to ensure that it never happens again - cancel the orders for the minidresses? On June 11 a suicide car bomb in Jalawla, Iraq 70 mi. NE of Baghdad hits a joint U.S.-Iraqi patrol, killing two U.S. and three Iraqi soldiers. On June 11-15 riots in Osh, Kyrgyzstan kill 223 (official story) or 2K and injure 1.8K; on June 14 400K minority Uzbeks fleeing mobs in Kyrgyzstan mass at the border; by June 15 31 Americans and 40 Europeans are evacuated to Bishkek. On June 12 Iran marks the 1st anniv. of Imadinnajacket's reelection with a heavy police presence to scare potential protesters, who scrapped plans to protest on June 10; 900+ are arrested in Tehran. On June 12 Pres. Obama urges Congress to approve $50B in emergency aid to state and local govts. to prevent "massive layoffs of teachers, police, and firefighters". On June 12 the London Times reports that Saudi Arabia is preparing to stand down its air defenses to allow Israeli jets to make a bombing raid on its enemy Iran's nuclear facilities. On June 12 Mexico has a record 85 deaths related to organize crime, the highest since pres. Felipe Calderon took office in Dec. 2006; on June 12-16 an explosion of Mexican drug violence kills hundreds, causing pres. Felipe Calderon to issue a 5K-word manifesto saying that the fight against organized crime must continue "or we will always live in fear"; on June 14 drug cartel hitmen in the Mexican state of Michoacan (home state of pres. Felipe Calderon) kill 12 police officers in a prison gun battle, along with 38+ inmates. On June 13 attackers in military uniforms storm the Central Bank of Iraq, causing a standoff that kills 15 and wounds 50. On June 13 a blast at a rally in Uhuru Park in Nairobi, Kenya kills three and injures 75. On June 13 Arab League chief Amr Moussa visits the Gaza Strip, becoming the first senior Arab official to do so since Hamas took over in 2007. On June 13 the U.S. announces the finding of vast mineral riches in Afghanistan, incl. iron, copper, cobalt, gold, and lithium, worth $1T-$3T, turning the country into the new El Dorado. On June 13 52-y.-o. Colo. Christian construction worker Gary Brooks Faulkner (1958-) is arrested in N Pakistan en route to Afghanistan carrying a pistol and 40-in. sword plus Bible materials, telling investigators that he is on a solo mission to kill Osama bin Laden; he is released on June 24 and arrives in Denver around midnight, being hailed as the Rocky Mt. Rambo - they should have helped him? On June 13 Rubicon debuts on AMC-TV for 13 episodes (until Oct. 17), about the Am. Policy Inst. in New York City and its war with a secret OWG society; the Aug. 1 2-hour debut draws 2M viewers; too bad, it soon tanks and is cancelled. On June 14 the U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who claims that U.S. officials deported him to Syria in 2002 knowing that he would be tortured. On June 14 the EU Foreign Affairs Council calls on Israel to open crossings into Gaza immediately to transfer humanitarian aid, but allows them the right to inspect for weapons. On June 14 a video showing N.C. Dem. congressman Bob Etheridge repeatedly asking "Who are you?" then assaulting a college student with a Webcam asking him "Do you support Obama's policies?" outside a fundraiser headlined by Speaker Nancy Pelosi surfaces, causing him to apologize, while the pro-Obama PC press buries the story. On June 14 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules that immigrants convicted of minor drug offense shouldn't face automatic deportation. On June 14 Barcelona, Spain announces a ban on Islamic face veils, becoming the first large city in Spain to do it. On June 14 Fox News reveals that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has been accepting bids for mgt. of the proposed 1,776-ft. One World Trade Center Freedom Tower by the Arab-owned Related Companies. On June 14 U.S. ambassador Luis C. deBaca says that African-Am. citizens have been enslaved in agricultural work in Fla. during the last six years. On June 14 Hamas ambushes a police van and kills Israeli policeman Yehoshua "Shuki" Sofer (b. 1971) and injures two more; Sofer was scheduled to be married on Sept. 20; in July the Israeli army announces the arrest of the Hamas cell on June 22, incl. some who had been arrested before but were not deported to Lebanon because of an internat. outcry. On June 15 U.S. gen. (prostate cancer survivor) David Petraeus collapses at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, blaming dehydration and a skipped breakfast; he calls the conflict a "roller coaster", and warns that the Afghan campaign could be heading toward a crisis". On June 15 the U.S. claims success after 56 countries on the U.N. Human Rights Council (less than a third) support a statement critical of Iran's human rights record. On June 15 Elton John shocks his gay fans by singing at the wedding of conservative anti-gay pundit Rush Limbaugh, for $1M. On June 16 two successive earthquakes (one 7.0) hit E Indonesia off the N coast of Papua province, killing two. On June 16 the U.S. House of Reps. by 233-169 passes the Puerto Rico Dem. Act, then by a 198-194 vote defeats an amendment requiring English as the sole official language as a condition for Puerto Rican statehood. On June 16 flash floods in the French Riviera kill over a dozen. On June 16 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket gives a Speech on the Jews in Shahre-Kord (near Isfahan), calling Jews "the filthiest and greatest of criminals, who only appear to be human", then adding "I hereby announce that from this point forward, one of the Iranian nation's main aspirations will be to deliver the American people from its undemocratic and bullying government." On June 16 despite his big speech on the oil spill the night before, a Rasmussen Poll finds Pres. Obama's approval rating dipping to an all-time low of 42%, with 44% strongly disapproving and 24% strongly approving, giving him a pres. approval index of -20; a Gallup Poll for June 7-13 gives him an all-time low 46% approval rating, with 46% disapproving, esp. those 65 and older, the married, and churchgoers; the middle class seems to be abandoning him, with a majority approval rating only from those making less than $24K a year. On June 17 plans to sell a Roman Catholic convent Staten Island, N.Y. for use as a mosque are scrapped after community opposition. On June 17 a nationwide alert is issued for 17 Afghan pilots who went AWOL from Lackland Air Force Base in Tex.; seven turn themselves in; on July 7 the number is increased to 46; they are being used for a false flag op by the U.S. in order to start another war? On June 17 a mine blast in Amaga, Colombia kills 16 miners and traps dozens. On June 17 the EU adopts new sanctions against Iran, causing it to threaten retaliation. On June 18 convicted murderer Ronnie Lee Gardner is executed by firing squad in Utah, becoming the first execution by that method in the U.S. in 14 years; the firing squad option was eliminated by Utah in 2004, but he was sentenced to death before that and chose it over lethal injection. On June 18 5-y.-o. Viktor Shmyakin (2005) is slaughtered by a knife-wielding Muslim fanatic shouting "Allahu Akbar" in Dneprovka, Ukraine on the Crimea. On June 18 Orlando, Fla. becomes the first city to name a road after Pres. Obama; it is paid for by an Obama stimulus. On June 18 four Christian evangelists are arrested for proselytizing Muslims at the Arab Internat. Festival in Dearborn, Mich., bringing cries of Sharia creeping into the U.S.; on Sept. 24 after the Muslim-friendly DA of Dearbornistan prosecutes, their trial results in acquittal. On June 19 Swedish Crown Princess Victoria weds commoner gym trainer Daniel Westling in a fancy $2.6M wedding attended by Europe's royalty, becoming the biggest royal wedding since the 1981 marriage of Prince Charles and Diana. On June 19 Turkish warplanes attack Kurdish rebels in N Iraq, killing 12. On June 19 al-Qaida gunmen shoot their way into intel HQ in Yemen, killing 11 and freeing several members. On June 19 Egypt announces that a naval flotilla of 11 U.S. and one Israeli warships passed thrugh the Suez Canal, while an Iranian flotilla approaches Gaza; on June 24 Iran sends a letter to the U.N. saying that the presence of Iranian and Lebanese ships in the Gaza area would be considered a declaration of war on Israel, and is backing down. On June 20 (11 a.m.) twin car bombs explode outside the state-run Trade Bank of Iraq in Baghdad, killing 27 and wounding 55. On June 20 two bombs in push carts explode in Lashkar Gah in Helmand Province, killing two and wounding 14 in the first blast, and injuring five in the 2nd blast, incl. an Afghan soldier. On June 20 former minister of trade, finance, and defense Juan Manuel Santos Calderon (Calderón) (1951-) is elected pres. #50 (#32) of Colombia with 69%, vowing to continue the fight against the FARC leftist guerrilla group; he is sworn-in on Aug. 7 (until ?), going on to successfully negotiate a peace treaty and win the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize anyway. On June 20 the British govt. announces the foiling of a Taliban plot to kill Afghan schoolchildren on their first day of school by planting bombs in the school. On June 20 Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar announces that Palestinians should begin firing rockets at Israel from the West Bank, not just Gaza. On June 20 ex-Mossad chief (1989-96) Shabtai Shavit tells a conference in Tel Aviv that Israel should launch a preemptive strike against Iran now to prevent it from getting nukes. On June 20 German development minister Dirk Niebel is denied entrance to Gaza Strip by Israel, who claims the visit is a publicity ploy by Hamas, causing an internat. flap. On June 21 voters in Fremont, Neb. pass a law prohibiting businesses and landlords from hiring or renting to illegal immigrants. On June 21 a train crash in Congo-Brazzaville kills 76. On June 21 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-3 in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project to uphold the Oct. 26, 2001 Bush era USA Patriot Act barring Americans from providing "material support" to foreign terrorist groups, incl. the help given to the Kurdistan Workers' Party in Turkey and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka by the Humanitarian Law Project, rejecting free speech and free association arguments; dissenter Stephen Breyer reads his dissent aloud in the courtroom: "Not even the serious and deadly problem of international terrorism can require automatic forfeiture of First Amendment rights"; the court ruling outlaws peaceful efforts, worrying ex-pres. Jimmy Carter that his Carter Center may be prosecuted for monitoring fair elections in Lebanon et al. A rolling stone finally gathers some moss? On June 22 U.S. gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is called to Washington to try to save his job after remarks dissing Obama and Biden to Rolling Stone mag. are publicized, incl. an aide calling vice-pres. Joe Biden "Joe Bite Me", tendering his resignation in advance of his June 23 meeting with Obama, who says that he "exercised poor judgment", while White House press secy. Robert Gibbs says that he made "an enormous mistake", adding "I think the magnitude and graveness of the mistake here are profound" but wants to talk to him before making a decision, "to see what in the world he was thinking", adding that Obama is questioning whether he is capable and mature enough for his job; on June 23 after the meeting with him Obama announces that McChrystal has resigned and is being replaced as CIC of Afghanistan by his boss David Betrayus, er, Petraeus, with the soundbyte "The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general. It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system, and it erodes the trust that's necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan"; Petraeus takes command on July 4, while McChrystal retires with 4 stars; Obama fires McChrystal despite Afghan leaders lobbying for him, saying that it could disrupt progress in the war and jeopardize the offensive against the Taliban in S Afghanistan; the article The Runaway General by Michael Hastings is officially pub. on June 25, but online articles are made available on June 22; on June 24 Obama disavows the July 2011 Afghan drawdown date, with the soundbyte "We didn't say we'd be switching off the lights, we said we'd begin a transition phase that would allow the Afghan government to take more and more responsibility" (before the Taliban takes it over along with all them billions of infrastructure?); the Taliban in Afghanistan says that the dismissal is aimed at hiding U.S. failure in Afghanistan, and that Petraeus is "no smarter"; on July 2 Robert Gates quietly changes the rules to require Pentagon approval before journalists can interview sensitive military or civilian officials, and on July 8 nominates USMC gen. James N. Mattis as Petraeus' replacement; meanwhile publisher Mort Zuckerman says that Obama is being increasingly viewed as incompetent by the rest of the world when it comes to foreign policy, especially with his ingenue view that the U.S. is not at war with the Muslim World, and the 25 Euro countries that have a combined 30K troops in Afghanistan see the firing as an indicating that Obama is losing the war and it's time to pull their troops out - never has a leftist antiwar rag got the chance to influence the war machine like this? On June 22 a bomb attack on a bus in Istanbul, Turkey kills four, one day after the Turkish military stepped up operations against Kurdish PKK rebels. On June 22 a female suicide bomber hiding the bomb beneath her burqa kills two U.S. soldiers in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, becoming Afghanistan's first female suicide bomber. On June 22 the U.S. Congress finalizes an Iran sanctions bill, and on June 24 votes 99-0 in the Senate and 408-8 in the House to approve them, with Dem. Mass. Sen. John Kerry uttering the soundbyte "A nuclear-armed Iran would pose an intolerable threat to our ally Israel, risk igniting an arms race in what is already one of the world's most dangerous regions, and undermine our global effort to halt the spread of nuclear weapons." On June 22 Sarah Palin-endorsed Nikki Haley (daughter of Indian immigrants) becomes the first Repub. woman nominated to run for gov. in S.C.; African-Am. Tim Scott defeats Paul Thurmond, son of late Sen. Strom Thurmond. On June 22 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton attends a Gay Pride Month celebration, and encourages U.S. State Dept. employees to let their teenie kids know that it's okay to be gay. On June 22 a Pew Research Center Poll finds that 40% of Americans believe that Jesus Christ will return by 2050, while 71% believe that cancer will be bured, 66% think that artificial limbs will work better than real ones, and 81% believe that computers will be able to converse with humans; 58% believe that WWII will happen by then, and 53% think there will be a nuclear terrorist attack on U.S. soil; only 64% are optimistic about life, vs. 81% in 1999. On June 23 Iran announces that it will send a ship carrying pro-Palestinian activists to break the Gaza blockade; Iran claims that the Israeli Air Force unloaded military equipment at a Saudi Arabian base, while a large U.S. forced is massed in Azerbaijan on the NW Iranian border. On June 23 the senate of Spain votes 131-129 to ban the burqa despite opposition by PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. On June 23 U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick says that a senior Mexican military officer told her that Hezbollah is teaching Mexican drug cartels how to make car bombs. On June 23 a federal judge sides with Google in the $1 Viacom Video Copyright Infringement Suit. On June 23 documents are released linking the govt. of Pakistan's Punjab province to $1M in donations to Jamaat ud Dawa, an Islamic charity on the U.N. terrorist list that is affiliated with the 2008 Mumbai attack. On June 23 a 5.0 earthquake strikes the Ontario-Quebec border of Canada. On June 24 Welsh-born atheist Julia Eileen Gillard (1961-) of the Labor Party becomes the PM #27 (first female) of Australia (until ?). On June 24 a new report by the U.S. Govt. Accountability Office (GAO) says that federal agencies are still failing to "connect the dots" on security threats to the U.S. On June 24 Pres. Obama meets with Russian pres. Dmitry Medveded in Washington, taking him to his favorite hamburger joint, Ray's Hell Burger for cheddar cheeseburgers with jalapeno peppers, mushrooms, and Coke, sharing french fries with him; Obama issues a 10-page factsheet claiming to have "reset" the relationship with Russia, and endorsing Russian membership in the World Trade Org. (WTO). On June 24 at the annual meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in New Zealand, China announces that it will provide Pakistan with more nuclear reactors, with the U.S. not opposing it because it wants China to help it impose harsher sanctions on Iran; this will give Pakistan reactors Chasma I through IV. On June 24 a high-speed train passing through a station hits a group of partiers in Castelldefels, Spain, killing 12 and injuring 14. On June 24 U.S. deputy White House nat. security adviser John O. Brennan says that dozens of Americans have joined terrorist groups and are posing a threat to the U.S. and its interests abroad. On June 24 a senior U.S. official is quotes as saying that a high level U.S. envoy will arrive in an Arab country this week to hold meetings with the leaders of Hamas and deliver a message from the Obama admin., which asks Hamas not to comment on it. On June 24 police raid a Roman Catholic Church HQ in Mechelen, Belgium during a child abuse investigation; on June 27 Pope Benedict XVI calls the raid "deplorable". On June 25 U.S. Congressional leaders agree on the most sweeping reform of financial regulations since the Great Depression of the 1930s, causing Pres. Obama to praise them for strengthening his hand at the upcoming G20 meeting; on June 30 the House passes them by 237-192; Obama signs it on July 21, calling it "the strongest consumer financial protections in history". On June 25 the first U.S. predator drone makes its first flights over the U.S.-Mexico border in W Tex. on an intel-gathering mission. On June 25 Hurricane Alex forms in the Caribbean, dumpingdumps heavy rain in Central Am. and Yucatan Peninsula, killing four, then moves into the Gulf of Mexico, attaining hurricane status on June 30 as it approaches NE Mexico, becoming the first hurricane of the season and first June hurricane in the Atlantic basin since Allison in 1995. On June 25-26 (night) the Israeli military bombs a weapons smuggling tunnel on the Gaza-Egypt border, killing two Palestinians. On June 25-27 the 36th G8 Summit in Huntsville, Ont., Canada; meanwhile on June 26-27 the 4th G20 Summit is held in Toronto, Ont., Canada; over 400 protesters are arrested; despite opposition by Pres. Obama, the G-20 nations reach a compromise and agree to cut budget deficits in half by 2013, with each country setting its own pace; Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi says that world leaders "believe absolutely" that Israel may take military action against Iran to prevent it from getting nukes, and urges Iran to "respect rule of law" and "hold a transparent dialog" over its nuclear program. On June 26 an armed mob attacks a political rally in Chiapas, Mexico, killing three and wounding six. On June 26 Venezuelan pres. Hugo Chavez calls Israel (which he turned against after the 2009 Gaza Strip offensive) "genocidal", and predicts that one day it will be "put in its place", adding "It has become the assassin arm of the United States... it is a threat to all of us" and that "the territory will one day return to Syrian hands" - how much money did that cost the Arabs? On June 27 a bomb blast in Bugojno, Bosnia (47 mi. SW of Sarajevo) kills a policeman and injures five others. On June 27 CIA dir. Leon Panetta says that the last time the CIA had good intel on the location of Osama bin Laden was in "the early 2000s", and that there are less than 100 al-Qaida still in Afghanistan after they moved to the tribal areas of Pakistan; he also admits that sanctions won't dissuade Iran from trying to get nukes. On June 27 Czech Repub. pres. Vaclav Klaus appoints center-right leader Petr Necas as PM, making the govt. pro-U.S. and focused on fiscal austerity. On June 27 after Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat approves the demotion of 22 illegally-built Arab homes, 150 stone-throwing Palestinian protesters in East Jerusalem in the Silwan neighborhood wound six border police officers, who respond with tear gas. On June 27 the Raelians declare World Swastika Rehabiliation Day, seeking to end Nazi ties and promote the ancient Indian symbol as good. On June 28 Pres. Obama signs a memorandum to nearly double the amount of federal and commercial spectrum available for smartphones and wireless Internet devices. On June 28 the U.S. Supreme Court by 5-4 in McDonald vs. Chicago strikes down the 28-y.-o. handgun ban in Chicago, Ill., extending rights to own guns to every state and city in the U.S., declaring that the right to self-defense with them as espoused in "District of Columbia v. Heller" (2008) is fundamental, becoming a giant V for pro-gun forces; Obama's appointee Sonia Sotomayor sides with the minority, as does retiring justice John Paul Stevens; the plaintiffs are represented by Israel-born DC v. Heller atty. Alan Gura. On June 28 the U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Christian Legal Society v. Martinez that a public law school (U. of Calif. Hastings) did not violate the First Amendment by withdrawing recognition from a Christian student group that discriminated against gay/lez students; dissenter Samuel A. Alito Jr. calls it "a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country." On June 28 after Pres. Obama urges the Chinese to take a stronger stance on the Mar. 26 warship sinking, North Korea accuses the U.S. of bringing weapons into the Panmunjom truce village in the DMZ, and threatens a "new" nuclear deterrent. On June 28 a group of 25 armed masked men attack and set fire to a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza. On June 28 the FBI announces the arrest of 10 alleged Russian spies in the 10-year Operation Ghost Stories, eight of them on deep-cover assignments in the Acela Corridor (Boston-New York City-Washington, D.C.), incl. redheaded femme fatale Anna Chapman (1982-); on June 29 Bill Clinton gives a speech in Moscow at the Kremlin-front Investment Bank for $500K for 1 hour to set up the uranium deal selling 20% of U.S. uranium to Russian control; after all 10 spies plead guilty on July 8, and Hillary Clinton makes a quick dirty deal with Vladimir Putin, they are deported to Russia, which promises to release four U.S. prisoners in exchange. On June 28 Rodolfo Torre of the PRI, the front-running candidate for gov. of the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas is assassinated by drug cartels; on June 26 anti-drug-war Mexican musician Sergio Vega is shot dead in Sinaloa hours after denying reports of his death; Torre's older brother Egidio Torre Cantu (1957-) is chosen to run in his place, and is elected on July 4. On June 28 French PM Francois Fillon urges French Muslims to reject full face veils, with the soundbyte: "The Islam of France, the Islam you practice daily, has nothing to do with this caricature that dims the lights of your faith. You should stand in the front line against this hijacking of the religious message... It's up to you to make intelligence triumph over obscurantism and tolerance over intolerance." On June 28 Hillary Clinton releases a video praising her "friend and mentor" Robert C. Byrd, a former KKK member, which is later trotted out by her enemies. On June 29 Pres. Obama meets in the White House with Saudi King Abdullah. On June 29 a U.S. Senate panel unanimously approves Gen. David H. Petraeus as new Afghan war cmdr., vowing to continue Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's strategy of trying to avoid civilian deaths; the full Senate confirms him 99-0 on June 30. On June 29 (Tue.) a Conference Board report that consumer confidence fell more than expected in June causes the Dow Jones to fall 268 points despite a press briefing by Pres. Obama and Federal Reserve chmn. Ben Bernanke in which Obama claimed that the economy is strengthening but much remains to be done to put Americans back to work. On June 29 a series of bombings and shootings in Iraq kill 13, incl. an Iraqi army gen., four policemen in Beiji, Iraq 155 mi. N of Baghdad, and a 9-y.-o. girl. On June 29 protests on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan over a reported U.S. attack on a madrassa that disrespected its sanctity by bringing in dogs and detaining people result in clashes with police that injure 20, incl. 15 police; Afghan authorities claim that only Afghan police were involved in the madrassa operation - what's your flavor? On June 29 a U.S. drones kills 6+ in Karikot village in Pakistan's NW tribal belt. On June 29 Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan sends a letter to Jewish leaders asking them to repair the damage they have caused blacks for cents., with the soundbyte "We could charge you with being the most deceitful so-called friend, while your history with us shows you have been our worst enemy." On June 29 Pres. Obama holds his 2nd meeting with Saudi King Abdullah in the Oval Office, assuring him that he intends to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where almost 20 Saudis remain; Saudi Arab has refused to accept Yemeni prisoners for its militant rehab program; they also discuss "efforts to prevent violent extremism", avoiding the term "radical Islam". On June 29 Maoist rebels in Chattisgarh, India kill 26 Indian security personnel in an ambush. On June 29 N.C. Repub. rep. Sue Myrick warns that Hezbollah terrorists might be hooking up with Mexican drug cartels to stage "Israel-like bombings" against customs officials or Nat. Guard units on the U.S.-Mexico border. On June 30 the U.S. Nat. Debt reaches a record 90.5% of GDP (vs. 74.1 under Bush on Dec. 31, 2008). On June 30 a 6.2 earthquake near Pinotepa Nacional (80 mi. SW of Oaxaca) in S Mexico shakes bldgs. as far away as Mexico City but does no serious damage. On June 30 Jalalabad Airfield, one of the biggest NATO bases in Afghanistan is attacked by the Taliban. On June 30 British defense secy. Liam Fox warns the U.S. and NATO against "premature" withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying "To leave before the job is finished would leave us less safe and less secure." On June 30 the French daily Le Figaro reports that Saudi King Abdallah told French defense minister Herve Morin: "There are two countries in the world that do not deserve to exist: Iran and Israel", which the Saudis deny; on July 3 the online daily Elaph reports that King Abdallah has postponed a scheduled July 11 visit to Paris to meet with pres. Nicolas Sarkozy to plan a Saudi exhibition at the Louvre, which had been planned during a 2006 Saudi visit by former French pres. Jacques Chirac. On June 30 Paul Ceglia of Westbrook, N.Y. files suit, caliming he owns 84% of Facebook under a 2003 work for hire contract with Mark Zuckerberg when he was a college freshman; he claims to have waited so long because he only dug up the paperwork while being investigated for fraud for his wood pellet startup. In June the 2010 E European/Russian Heatwave begins, hitting Russia especially hard, with daytime temps of 38.2C and devastating fires covering 1M hectares that cause crop failures of 25% ($15B). In June the Dancing Boys Scandal sees employees of U.S.-based DynCorp hired to train Afghan policemen exposed for paying young dancing boys to entertain them in N Afghanistan. In June the Stuxnet cyberworm is detected, becoming the first known cyber superweapon designed to destroy a real-world target incl. factory or nuclear power plant, causing speculation that it is aimed at Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant; top German computer expert Ralf Langer claims that it set Iran's nuclear program back two years, making it nearly as effective as a military strike. By the end of June 422 are killed and 1.1K+ are wounded in the N province Nineveh, Iraq, 3x the death doll in the Sunni Anbar Province. On July 1 Pres. Obama gives a Speech on Comprehensive Immigration Reform, calling for a "clear national standard" and "accountability", with the soundbyte "The system is broken and everybody knows it", adding "Unfortunately, reform has been held hostage to political posturing and special interest wrangling, to the pervasive sentiment in Washington that tackling such a thorny and emotional issue is inherently bad politics"; also "Our task now is to make our national laws actually work, to shape the system that reflects our values as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. That means being honest about the problem and getting past the false debates that divide the country rather than bring it together"; also "Americans are skeptical of amnesty but they're also skeptical of rounding up and deporting all these people" because that "would tear at the fabric of this nation because immigrants who are here illegally are already woven into that fabric"; Repubs. respond by demanding that Obama visit the U.S.-Mexico border to see for himself how bad it is and why it must be sealed - no mention of TLW's Megamerge Dissolution Solution? On July 1 Pres. Obama signs tough new U.S. sanctions on Iran, saying "With these sanctions, along with others, we are striking at the heart of the Iranian government's ability to fund and develop its nuclear programs"; "We are showing the Iranian government that its actions have consequences, and if it persists, the pressure will continue to mount, and its isolation will continue to deepen"; "There should be no doubt, the United States and the international community are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons"; too bad, China and Turkey soon take up the slack with fuel supplies to Iran. On July 1 al-Qaida in Yemen begins promoting its first online propaganda newspaper called Inspire to recruit new Xmas Condom and Ft. Hood Massacre jihadists. On July 1 Finland becomes the first country to make broadband Internet a legal right for every citizen. On July 1 a triple suicide attack on the Sufi Data Darbar Shrine in Lahore, Pakistan kills 35 and injures 175 of thousands visiting to see the remains of Sufi saint Abul Hassan Ali Hajvery. On July 1 Saudi mother Heila al-Qusayyer, known as "the First Lady of al-Qaeda" is arrested for running a cell of 60 Saudi militants incl. young women. On July 1 a Pew Research Center survey reveals that the U.S. recession that began 30 mo. earlier has caused 55% of all adults in the workforce to become unemployed, take a pay cut, have their work hours reduced, or reduced to involuntary part-time workers. On July 1 the town of Teaneck, N.J. makes history by appointing Muslim Mohammed Hameeduddin for mayor, and Orthodox Jew Adam Gussen as his deputy. On July 2 the number of combat-related U.S. casualties in Afghanistan during the Obama admin. (452) passes the total during the Bush admin. (448). On July 2 (3:30 a.m.) six suicide bombers storm a U.S. Agency for Internat. Aid (USAID) in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing four and wounding several. On July 2 a massive gun battle near Nogales, Mexico near the U.S.-Mexico border kills 21 and wounds six. On July 2 Pres. Obama announces that $795M of the economic stimulus will go toward expanding broadband Internet access across the U.S. On July 2 the U.N. creates U.N. Women, a billion dollar agency for radical feminism devoted to gender equality. On July 2 Rush Limbaugh says that Pres. Obama destroyed the economy on purpose as a "payback" for 230 years of white supremacy racism, and because he doesn't like America - do you want heartburn pain now or later? On July 3 Communist atheist Roza Isakovna Otunbayeva (1950-) becomes pres. of Kyrgyzstan (until ?), becoming the first female head of state in C Asia. On July 3 a fuel tanker flips and explodes in Sange, E Congo, killing 220+ and wounding 100+ villagers after they rush to siphon the vehicle illegally. On July 3 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton utters the soundbyte that intolerant govts. across the world are "slowly crushing" activist and advocacy groups, singling out Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Russia, China, Egypt, Ethopia, Zimbabwe, and Congo. On July 3 Saudi King Abdullah orders a halt to exploration for new oil fields, saying he wants to preserve the wealth for future generations. On July 3 the Presbyterian Church USA holds its annual meeting in Minneapolis, Minn., promoting the Kairos Palestine Document dissing Israel and cheering on the Palestinians. On July 3-4 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden visits Iraq to try talking them into picking a new PM; too bad, his visit is marred by nearby explosions, along with suicide bombers in Mosul and Ramadi who kill four and injure 25. On July 4 elections in Mexico are held amid fears of drug cartel violence, causing low voter turnout; pres. Felipe's Calderon holds on to governorships despite hopes by the PRI. On July 4 Christian teacher T.J. Joseph is kidnapped by the Muslim Popular Front of India in Muvattupuzha, Kerala, India, and his right hand amputated and his left hand nearly amputated for alleged blasphemy in questions on a test, after which his college fires him; the police side with the Muslims and arrest Joseph, then after pressure they reluctantly investigate the Muslims and make arrests; Joseph is acquitted on Nov. 15, 2013, and offered his job back. On July 4 the annual July Fourth Hot Dog-Eating Contest in New York sees prior champ Takeru Kobayashi jump up on the stage and get arrested Gestapo-style by the pigs, who charge him with a trainload of nothing while the sheeplike public doesn't get alarmed? On July 4 Taliban militants behead school headmaster Sakandar Shah Mohammadi, head of Berooni School in Qara Bagh district, Ghazni Province in S Afghanistan, and torch two schools - stop the symptoms of thought before they stop you? On July 4 after escaping a juvenile detention center for the 4th time in early 2008, 6'5 Wash.-born "Catch Me if You Can" wannabe Colton A. "Colt" Harris-More (1991-), known as the Barefoot Bandit for his modus operandi while stealing small aircraft, boats and cars and doing burglaries in the Pacific NW steals an airplane in Ind. and flees to the Bahamas, thumbing his nose at the authories by racking up 50K fans on three Facebook accounts, along with a tribute song on YouTube and more accounts on Twitter; too bad, they arrest him on July 11 in Harbor Town, Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas after a high-speed boat chase. On July 4 26-y.-o. Elnaz Babazadeh (b. 1984) is raped and murdered by Basij forces in Tabriz, Iran for not following the Sharia dress code - she asked for it? On July 5 Iran complains that Britain, Germany, and UAE are refusing to fuel its passenger planes as per the sanctions they said would be nothing. On July 5 Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad hold their first high-level talks in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem; meanwhile Israel rejects a demand by Turkey to apologize over the Gaza Freedom Flotilla under threat of cutting ties. On July 5 Lady Gaga reaches a record 10M friends on Facebook, incl. 14K new ones a day. On July 5 a Report on Terrorist De-Radicalization by the Nat. Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the U. of Md. et al. shows that prison-based programs show promise if well-run. On July 5 NASA chief (2009-) (first African-American) Charles Frank "Charlie" Bolden Jr. (1946-) utters the soundbyte to the Al-Jazeera network that Obama told him to reach out to the Muslim World and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their "historic contribution to science and engineering", which after a brouhaha White House press secy. Robert Gibbs denies, even though he said the same thing on Feb. 16, but only mentioned Indonesia. On July 6 (Tue.) during a 3-digit heat wave in the E U.S., Queen Elizabeth II of Britain makes her first address to the U.N. Gen. Assembly since 1957, when "Leave It to Beaver" was debuting, telling them "In my lifetime, the United Nations has moved from being a high-minded aspiration to being a real force for common good"; she also visits Ground Zero for the first time; on July 5 a fire at a transformer station in Toronto, Canada causes blackouts affecting 250K and disrupts a royal dinner. On July 6 after the U.S. State Dept. vetoes former Pres. Bill Clinton's request to meet with him, Pres. Obama meets with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House, and they pledge to work toward a new round of Mideast peace talks, with Obama uttering the sondundbyte: "Those are goals that have obviously escaped our grasp for decades now", adding "It's going to be difficult, it's going to be hard", affirming the "special relationship" between the U.S. and Israel; Netanyahu says that reports of a growing rift are "flat wrong"; in their first meeting, Obama left Netanyahu with his aides for hours in the West Wing to snub him over the East Jerusalem issue; right-wing Israelis incl. Druze deputy minister Ayoub Kara say that they still consider Obama "evil"; meanwhile Israel announces the first prosecutions of soldiers for killing civilians during the Dec. 2008-Jan. 2009 Gaza war, although it dismisses dozens of other cases. On July 7 Pres. Obama takes advantage of Congress being in a 2-week recess to appoint "Dr. Death Panel" Donald M. Berwick (1946-), a supporter of British socialized medicine, single-payer system, and death panels as admin. of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid; Congress had been considering his appointment and giving him questionnaires to fill out when they were sandbagged. On July 7 UAE ambassador to the U.S. Yousef al-Otaiba states that he endorses a military attacks on Iran's nuclear sites as preferable to the long-term risks, calling it a "cost-benefit analysis". On July 7 NATO troops mistakenly kill five Afghan army allies in an airstrike against insurgents in E Afghanistan incl. three U.S. soldiers. On July 7 a Sunni suicide bomber at a police checkpoint in a crowd of Shiite pilgrims to the gold-dome shrine of Kadhimiya in Bagdhad, Iraq kills 28+ and wounds 81; on July 7 another bomb targeting Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad kill seven, and a returning pilgram is shot dead outside Kirkuk. On July 7 the Turkish supreme court strikes down parts of a proposed govt. package aimed at restructuring the Turkish constitution to make it more like Western European democracies, clearing the way for a referendum in Sept. backed by the anti-Islamist Repub. People's Party, which claims that the changes are phony and an attempt to give the increasingly Islamist state more control over military and legal appointments. On July 7 Pres. Obama gives an interview to Israeli TV, and utters the soundbyte that Israel is suspicious of him because his middle name is Hussein; he finally reveals the truth about his reaching-out to the Muslims, saying that it is designed to reduce hostility toward Israel and the West, adding "The United States under my administration has provided more security assistance to Israel than any administration in history. And we've got greater security cooperation between our two countries than at any time in our history. And the single most important threat to Israel, Iran and its potential possession of a nuclear weapon has been my number one foreign policy priority over the course of the last 18 months"; he also mentions that his middle name Hussein "creates suspicion" among Israelis, countering that Rahm Emanuel's middle name is Israel, and adding "My closeness to the Jewish American community was probably what propelled me to the U.S. Senate." On July 7 Bangladeshi publisher Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, pub. of the anti-Islamist newspaper Weekly Blitz is hauled into court for the 150th time for being pro-American and pro-Israel. On July 8 Norway and Germany arrest three suspected al-Qaida members suspected of plotting to clone terrorist attacks in N.Y. and England. On July 8 Malaysia appoints the first two women Sharia judges; too bad, they are barred from hearing criminal cases. On July 8 Pres. Obama finally explains why he has been reaching out to Muslims, namely, to reduce hostility toward Israel and the West, saying that the fact that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is perceived as a hawk "can be helpful in the sense tha any successful peace will have to incl. the hawks and the doves, on both sides, and in the same way that Richard Nixon here in the United States was able to go to China because he had very strong anti-Communist credentials", adding "The United States under my administration has provided more security assistance to Israel than any administration in history. And we've got greater security cooperation between our two countries than at any time in our history. And the single most important threat to Israel, Iran, and its potential possession of a nuclear weapon has been my number one foreign policy priority over the course of the last 18 months." On July 8 white former Oakland, Calif. transit police officer Johannes Mehserle (1982-) is found guilty of involuntary manslaughter of handicapped suspect Oscar Grant (b. 1988) on Jan. 1, 2009 despite a videotape showing him pulling out his gun and shooting him in the back on the ground, causing neighborhood outrage and protests which turn violent, causing 50 arrests. On July 8 a federal judge in Mass. strikes down as unconstitutional the 1996 U.S. Defense of Marriage Act that blocks the federal govt. from recognizing same-sex marriage. On July 9 (7:05 a.m. PT) the U.S. military scrambles two F-16 jets after Obama's air space is violated during his visit to Las Vegas, Nev. On July 9 two suicide bombers explode outside a govt. office in Khar, Pakistan, killing 62 and wounding 111. On July 9, 2010 Obama meets with Palestinian Nat. Authority pres. (2005-) Mahmoud Abbas (1935-), expressing strong support for his "leadership on behalf of the Palestinian people and his commitment to peace", days after Abbas told the Arab League Summit "If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor. But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don't have the ability to do it." On July 9 four men are arrested at a gas station in Pretoria, South Africa while trying to sell a nuclear device for $9M. On July 9 Iranian woman Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani is temporarily spared death by stoning for alleged adultery via an announcement by the Iranian embassy in London, but the option of executing her remains on the table in the horrible Islamic Repub. of Iran as Iranian human rights judge Mohammad Javad Larijani, says that Iran's Sharia judicial system and the "sacred sentences of Islam" won't change under "Western attacks" and "media pressure"; on July 30 she is sentenced to hanging, and Brazilian pres. Lula offers her asylum; on Aug. 8 her Iranian atty. Mohammad Mostafaei seeks asylum in Norway; on Aug. 30 a state-run newspaper in Iran calls French First Lady Carla Bruni a prostitute for speaking out and signing a petition for Sakineh's release, and also calls for her death; on Sept. 5 the Vatican calls stoning "brutal" and raises the possibility of secret diplomacy; meanwhile on Sept. 5 she is sentenced to 90 lashes for posing in a photo without a headscarf - send in James Bond 007? On July 9 a bomb in a box of chocolates left at the home of a Tex. oil exec in Houston, Tex. explodes, injuring no one - the start of a new trend? On July 10 the Obama admin. opens up 1.8M acres of the Alaskan Nat. Petroleum Reserve, an important area for bird migration, pissing-off environmentalists. On July 10 Pres. Obama makes it easier for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to receive federal benefits. On July 10 ear-chewing Am. boxer (Muslim convert) Mike Tyson visits Mecca, posting a photo of himself in front of the Kaaba on the Internet. On July 10 five U.S. troops and a dozen civilians are killed in battles in E and S Afghanistan. On July 10-11 a surprise raid by Colombian forces on the camp of FARC leader Guillermo Seanze kills twelve bodyguards and their top female cmdr. Magaly Grannobles. On July 11 a total solar eclipse is visible in an 11km arc over the Pacific. On July 11 Pres. Obama reaches 537 days in office without issuing a pardon or commuting a sentence, passing John Adams; on Nov. 24 he will reach Clinton's record of 672 days; the avg. is 133 days. On July 11 Bangladesh jails 11 policeman on suspicion of carrying out an extrajudicial killing two years ago, becoming a first. On July 11 Al-Shabaab sets off two bombs among fans watching the World Cup final in Kampala, Uganda, killing 64. On July 11 a taped conversion is aired between often-drunk Hollywood star Mel Gibson (1956-) and his babe Oksana Grigorieva, admitting to hitting her while carrying her 8-mo.-o. daughter Lucia, making threats, and uttering the N-word, all of which causes the PC police to call for his career to end pronto; later L.A. detectives investigate allegations of extortion by Grigorieva. On July 11 Alan Simpson (Repub.) and Erskine Bowles (Dem.), head of Obama's nat. debt commission tell the Nat. Governors Assoc. that the federal debt next year is expected to exceed $14T ($47K per capita), and "is like a cancer", requiring new measures incl. curtailing of popular tax breaks like the home mortgage deduction and instituting a financial trigger mechanism for gaining Medicare coverage. On July 12 Russian pres. Dmitry Medvedev says that "Iran is nearing the possession of the potential which in principle could be used for the creation of a nuclear weapon"; on June 11 Iranian atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi announces that Iran has produced 20kg of 20% enriched uranium. On July 12 the 1.3K-member Shinnecock Nation wins a 32-y.-o. lawsuit giving them ownership of 750 acres of land in the rizty Hamptons of Long Island, N.Y., allowing them to set up a reservation. On July 12 Israel's Labor Party threatens to leave Benjamin Netanyahu's govt. coalition if he doesn't make serious progress toward a final-status agreement with the Palestinians on a 2-state solution in the upcoming months. On July 12 the Internat. Criminal Court issues a 2nd arrest warrant for Sudanese pres. Omar Bashir, charging him with three counts of genocide in Darfur. On July 12 Ustad Ahmad Farooq, al-Qaida official in charge of the Da'wah and Media Dept. for Pakistan releases an interview claiming that their war in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a bona fide jihad per Islamic Sharia law, with the soundbyte: "The battle which is being fought here in Pakistan... cannot be described as khurooj [rebellion against an Islamic state] - it is jihad. The way we are confronting America in Afghanistan and any army that is siding with America, whether it be the Afghan National Army or different tribal chieftains, is the same way we are confronting America in Pakistan and the Pakistani Army that is aiding America. That is jihad, and this too is jihad. It is a duty incumbent upon every individual." On July 12 London, England religious studies teacher Gary Smith is brutally beaten with an iron rod and brick by four Muslims for "mocking Islam". On July 12 the police procedural crime drama series Rizzoli & Isles, based on the novels by Tess Gerritsen debuts on TNT for ? episodes (until ?), starring Angela Michelle "Angie" Harmon (1972-) as Boston, Mass. police detective Jane Rizzoli, and Sasha Alexander (Suzana S. Drobnjakovic Ponti) (1973-) as medical examiner Maura Isles. On July 13 (eve of Bastille Day) France's lower house of parliament by 335-1 finally approves a ban on face veils (niqabs) in public, subject to a 150 euro fine, with men who force a woman to wear them subject to a 30K euro fine and a year in jail; the law never mentions any religion; the senate will vote on it in Sept.; leading Saudi cleric Sheikh Aed al-Qarni condemns France for their face veil ban, but approves of Muslim women going without them if they're illegal because "We must not confront people in their own country or other countries, or bring hardship on ourselves". On July 13 news surfaces from Iraqi civilians that Iranian trucks filled with missiles have recently passed through Iraq en route to Syria. On July 13 the NAACP passes a resolution condemning the Tea Party for not expelling "racists from the ranks", causing Sarah Palin to respond that it doesn't allow them in the first place. On July 13 U.S. Army Gen. Ray Odierno warns reporters that Iranian-supported militants might try to attack U.S. soldiers as they try to leave Iraq this summer. On July 13-14 Taliban attacks in S Afghanistan kill 8+ members of the U.S.-led NATO forces, incl. three who are killed in a night assault on a police post in Kandahar. On July 14 the U.S. hands over Tariq Aziz and 28 other officials of Saddam Hussein's regime to the Iraq govt. On July 14 90 mph Typhoon Conson hits the Philippines, killing 26, with 38 missing. On July 14 (9:30 a.m.) a fire at the Clairton Cook Works of U.S. Steel in Allegeny Cpunty, Penn. injures 15. On July 14 a quarterly report shows that Pres. Obama's Recovery Act created between 2.5M-3.6M jobs, more than expected, even though the U.S. is lagging far behind other major economies in restoring lost jobs; Obama meets with Warren Buffett to discuss the economy. On July 15 Sunni Baluchi Jundullah insurgents stage a double suicide bombing in a Shiite mosque in Zahedan in SE Iran to avenge the execution of their leader, killing 27, incl. members of the Rev. Guard, and wounding 169; Iranian cleric Hujjat al-Islam Kazem Sadiqi charges the U.S. with putting them up to it. On July 15 (8 p.m.) a Ford Focus owned by the La Linea drug gang rams two federal police vehicles in Juarez, Mexico, then explodes, killing two police officers and a paramedic, becoming the first car bomb attack by Mexican drug trafficers; 4K have been killed in Ciudad Juarez since Jan. 1, 2009; the explosive used was Tovex. used in mining. On July 15 Venezuela charges Luis Enrique Acosta Oxford (1969-) and Carmen Cecilia Nares Castro (1975-) with "disseminating false rumors" to "destabilize the banking system" via Twitter. On July 15 a Jordanian Gaza Aid Convoy of 25 trucks and 150 activists leaves Amman; on July 18 it is turned back by Egypt at the port of Nuweibeh; unlike when Israel turns back a convoy, there is no internat. outcry; meanwhile Olympia Food Co-op in Wash. becomes the first U.S. store to boycott Israeli goods. On July 15 Muslim-Am. Yahya Wehelie (1984-) is allowed to fly back to Va. from Yemen on a waiver, but remains on the no-fly list. On July 15 Pres. Bush's top political adviser Karl Rove says that his biggest mistake was not fighting back against the Dems. who accused Bush of lying to support the Iraqi invasion. On July 16 Pres. Obama's approval rating for handling the Afghanistan War hits a record low of 43%, down from 52% in Dec.; former Carter nat. security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski tells MSNBC's Morning Joe: "I think we're now going through a phase in which there is a sense of pervasive malaise which affects different groups in society in different ways... There's no grand mobilizing idea. And I have a sense that Obama, who started so well, and who really captivated people - he captivated me - has not been able to generate yet some sort of organizing idea for an age which combines a malaise that's pervasive and percolating." On July 16 a fire in the 5-story Soma Hotel in Sulaimaniyah in N Iraq kills 29, nearly half foreigners. On July 16 U.S. federal authorities arrest dozens in the largest Medicare Fraud Bust in history, with a total of $251M allegedly scammed. On July 16 the Federal Election Commission finances the 2008 pres. campaign of Joe Biden $219K for violations. On July 16 Russia and Iran sign a "roadmap" to future economic cooperation in oil, gas, and petrochemicals. On July 16 a Jerusalem Post poll reveals that only 10% of Jewish Israelis believe that the Obama admin. is more pro-Israel than pro-Palestinian. On July 17 the U.S. Treasury Dept. places Las Cruces, N.M.-born Anwar al-Awlaki (1971-2011) on its global terrorist list, prohibiting Americans from doing business with him et al.; on July 20 a message from him appears on Islamic Web sites, warning that Pres. Obama will get U.S. forces stuck in Yemen the same as Pres. Bush in Afghanistan. On July 17 Muslims in Grenoble, France riot after armed Muslim casino robber Karim Boudouda (b. 1983) is killed by police while fleeing and shooting at them; the rioters also shoot at police - great idea Muslim immigration, eh? On July 17 Muslim jihadists murder seven Christians in Maza village near Kos, Nigeria. On July 17 a gay pride parade by 8K in Warsaw, Poland is the first held in a former Communist bloc country; it is met with jeers from some in the crowd. On July 17 a luxurious new shopping mall operated by Hamas opens in Gaza, selling mainly cheap Chinese goods, and a supermarket filled with Israeli goods. On July 17-23Tropical Storm Caloy (Typhoon Chanthu) causes floods and landslides killing 700+ in S China. On July 18 a predawn attack on partygoers by drug dealers in Torreon, Mexico kills 17 and injures 10; they are later revealed to be prisoners in Gomez Palacio the guards let out and armed for the mission; on July 26 prison guard Ofelia Veronica Lares Rodriguez (1965-) is stabbed to death by inmates during a demonstration; on July 28 four journalists covering the prison protests are reported missing. On July 18 militants armed with assault rifles ambush a civilian convoy in Char Khel village in the tribal region of Kurran in NW Pakistan, killing 16. On July 18 yet another suicide bombing in Radwaniya, Iraq SW of Baghdad kills 48+, most of them members of the formerly (until 2006) pro-al-Qaida Sunni Awakening militia who are waiting in line for their paychecks. On July 18 a suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan kills three civilians three days before the 60-nation Kabul Conference on July 21, where Hamid Karzai calls for all foreign troops to pull out by 2014. On July 18 the 6.7 2010 Alaska Earthquake is centered 27 mi. W of Nikolski in the Aleutian Islands; no tsunami results. On July 18 after U.S. special envoy George Mitchell brokers it, a Cairo Summit is held by Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas, and Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak; too bad, Netanyahu and Abbas won't meet together, and see Mubarak separately. On July 18 to maintain its secular lifestyle Syria bans the face veil (niqab) in public univs. On July 18 Sarah Palin coins a new word and asks Muslims to "refudiate" the proposed Ground Zero Mosque in New York City on Twitter.com, tweeting "Doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate"; she later re-tweets "Peaceful New Yorkers, pls refute the Ground Zero mosque plan if you believe catastrophic pain caused". On July 19 (2 a.m.) the Uttarbanga Express and Vanachal Express collide in Kolkata, India, killing 49 and injuring 150+. On July 19 Hina Rabbani Khar (1977-) becomes the first female and the youngest person to head the Pakistani ministry of foreign affairs (until ?). On July 19 Pres. Obama tasks Repub. lawmakers for blocking a $34B extended unemployment benefits package for millions of Americans because of insistence of commensurate spending cuts, after which on July 20 after Carte Patrick Goodwin (1974-) is sworn-in as the replacement for Robert Byrd, the filibuster is broken and it passes the Senate 59-39 on July 21. On July 19 Hillary Clinton announces $500M in new development projects for Pakistan to help it fight the Taliban and al-Qaida - or to finance them? On July 19 longtime dictator (since 1980) Desire (Desiré) "Desi" (Dési) Delano Bouterse (1945-) is elected pres. of Suriname; he is sworn-in on Aug. 3 (until ?). On July 19 Christian brothers Rashid Emmanuel (b. 1978) (a pastor) and Sajid Emmanuel (b. 1986), charged with capital blasphemy for writing a pamphlet containing statements against Muhammad are shot dead outside court after being acquitted, causing clashes in their Christian community and police refinforcments to be called in. On July 19 Germany launches the HATIF (Arabic for phone) Program for Islamic extremist radicals who want to quit; there are 36K+ in Germany out of a Muslim pop. of 3.8M-4.3M (4.6%-5.2% of the pop.). On July 19 Israel's outgoing U.N. ambassador Gabriela Shalev tells the press that the #1 threat to Israel is not Iran but efforts by EU courts and U.N. committees to delegitimize the Jewish state, which she calls "the most isolated, lonely country in the world". On July 19 a video clip of African-Am. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture official (first black head of the Ga. office) Shirley Sherrod on the Web site of Andrew J. Breitbart (1969-) (former associate of Arianna Huffington) talking about wittholding help to a white farmer in Douglas, Ga. on Mar. 27 causes her to resign; it incl. the soundbyte: "I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him. I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough"; too bad, it dates back to 1986 when she was working for a private firm, and she was using it to illustrate how she changed and gave up racism, the video having been edited to sucker-punch her; the NAACP initially supports her firing, but then flops, claiming to have been "snookered"; on July 21 White House press secy. Robert Gibbs apologizes to her, and agriculture secy. Tom Vilsack reinstates her; she claims to have been directly pressured by the White House to resign before Glenn Beck's Fox News show comes on at 5 p.m. ET via phones to her in her car before she can leave Ga.; on July 22 Pres. Obama apologizes to her; on July 28 she announces that she plans to sue Breitbart. On July 19 the U.S. Senate unanimously passes the U.S. SPEECH Act, stopping the Muslim jihad practice of "libel tourism, such as in the case of Dr. Rachel Ehrenfield, who was sued by a Saudi financier in England over 23 copies of her book on Islamic terror financing sold in the U.K.; the act bars enforcement of foreign libel judgements against U.S. persons if they would not have been found liable in a U.S. court applying First Amendment protections. On June 19 the U.K. introduces an immigration cap; on Dec. 17 the high court rules the cap unlawful for lack of following proper parliamentary procedures. On July 19 Amazon.com announces that ebooks have outsold hardcover books 143-100 for the past 3 mo., signalling the end of the paper-based book?; paperbacks are still #1. On July 20 Russia announces that it won't sell "large missile systems" to Iran. On July 20 an explosion in a 3-story bldg. near Sana'a, Yemen kills two and injures four; 500 detonators are found in the site. On July 20 a record heat wave in Russia sees 71 drown in a single day in reservoirs and ponds, with over 90 injured. On July 20 a new Israeli Report on the 2008-9 Gaza War says that the Israeli army is taking steps to reduce the number of civilian casualties in future wars incl. restricting the use of white phosphorus. On July 21 Kurdish PKK rebels blow up an Iranian-Turkish natural gas pipeline in N Kurdistan. On July 21 the U.S. announces new sanctions on North Korea, warning it of serious consequences if it attacks South Korea. On July 21 Sudanese Jem rebels in Darfur sign an agreement to stop using child soldiers. On July 21 an al-Qaida in Mesopotamia car bomb in crowds near a Shiite mosque in Abe Sayeda, Iraq kills 13 and wounds 24. On July 21 Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Royal Dutch Shell commit $1B to create a rapid-response system to deal with future deepwater oil spill a la BP's. On July 21 Am. Muslim converts Paul Rockwood and his wife Nadia are charged with lying to federal officials about compiling a hit list of 15 people they believed had harmed Muslims and deserve to die. On July 21 after proposing it in June 2009, Pres. Obama signs the U.S. Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a response to the Great Recession, becoming the greatest change in U.S. financial regs since the Great Depression, restricting financial institutions, consolidating regulatory agencies and creating a new oversight council, bringing derivates onto exchanges to make them more transparent, implementing a resolution regime to complement the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) in handling bankrupt firms, requiring the Federal Reserve to obtain authorization from the U.S. Treasury Dept. for extensions of credit in "unusual or exigent circumstances", and tightening regulation of credit rating agencies; in Jan. the Volcker Rule was added, restricting U.S. banks from making certain kinds of speculative investments that don't benefit customers, incl. proprietary trading by commercial banks. On July 22 the Internat. Court of Justice rules 10-4 that the declaration of independence from Serbia of Kosovo was legal according to internat. law. On July 22 a rocket attack at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in the Green Zone kills three guards and wounds 15 incl. two Americans; meanwhile Iraqi officials disclose that four al-Qaida suspects escape from a prison that the U.S. handed over to their control a week earlier; on July 23 al-Qaida in Iraq claims responsibility for suicide recent suicide bombings in Qom and elsewhere, saying it hopes they will inspire others to martyrdom. On July 22 Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah makes a surprise announcement that his party is likely to be implicated in the Feb. 14, 2005 assassination of Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri. On July 22 a House investigative committee charges former House Ways and Means Committee chmn. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) with 13 counts of ethics violations; on Nov. 16 after walking out of the House ethics subcommittee a day earlier, U.S. Rep. (D-N.Y.) Rangel is found guilty of 11 of the 13 counts relating to personal finances and fundraising efforts for a New York college; on Nov. 18 the subcommittee votes 9-1 to censure him, followed by the entire House by 337-79 on Dec. 2, the first time in 29 years. On July 22 U.S. Sen. Dems. pull the plug on Cap and Trade legislation until after the midterm elections in Nov., preferring a limited bill targeted at electric utilities and responding to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. On July 22 the U.S. freezes the assets of Gul Agha Iskakzai, head of the Taliban's financial commission, along with two others who raised money for the Taliban and its Pakistan-affilate the Haqqani Network, and calls on Pakistan to follow suit. On July 22 a Gallup Poll indicates that Bill Clinton is more popular than Barack Obama by 61%-52%; George W. Bush comes in at 45%. On July 23 Mauritanian commandos backed by French troops raid a terrorist camp at night in the Sahara Desert, killing six members of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb; four members escape. On July 23 North Korea threatens the U.S. and South Korea with "nuclear deterrence" if they go ahead with naval maneuvers on July 26 in the Sea of Japan. On July 23 the U.S. State Dept. announces to the Palestinian Nat. Authority that it is upgrading its status from bureau to gen. delegation, allowing its office to fly their flag. On July 23 a NATO rocket in Sangin District in Helmand Province, Afghanistan kills 52 civilians, incl. women and children, causing Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai on July 26 to condemn the strike and call on NATO to make avoiding civilian casualties their top priority. On July 23-25 the United Nat. Antiwar Conference in Albany, N.Y. sees 850 turn against Israel, demanding an end to all U.S. aid, and backing the Palestinian cause - Arab oil money gets results? On July 24 a bombing in S Afghanistan kills five U.S. service members; meanwhile two U.S. troops are abducted by the Taliban after leaving Kabul. On July 24 a panic among partygoers in an overcrowded tunnel in Duisburg, Germany after the Love Parade ("world's largest techno music party") kills 19 and injures 342. On July 25 a cache of 90K secret records of U.S. screwups in the Afghan War from Jan. 2004 to Dec. 2009 from WikiLeaks is announced after they gave them to several major newspapers incl. the New York Times, the U.K. Guardian, and Der Spiegel; the records reveal that the Pakistani govt. helps the Taliban, that an incident in 2007 shows they might have acquired SAMs, that the U.S. set up a secret black unit to hunt down and "kill or capture" sans trial Taliban leaders, and that Iran helps smuggle arms to the Taliban; on July 26 White House press secy. Robert Gibbs says that the leaked documents pose a security threat to the U.S.; despite the fallout; on July 29 Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid says that his men are studying the leaked reports so they can hunt down informants; on July 27 Jon Stewart expresses outrage that the U.S. gave Pakistan $6.6B in aid in 2002-8, and pledged another $7.5B over the next five years, even as it financed, trained, and colluded with the Taliban against the U.S. On July 25 radical Israeli Arab Islamic movement leader Raed Salah receives a 5-mo. jail sentence for spitting at a border policeman during a protest in East Jerualem in 2007; his 9-mo. sentence was shortened. On July 25 a suicide bomber in a white minibus detonates in front of the office of Al Arabiya in Baghdad, killing six and wounding 16. On July 25 a bus explodes at a bus stop in Bangkok, Thailand, killing one and wounding 10. On July 25 the 2010 African Union Summit convenes in Kampala, Uganda, becoming dominated by discussion of attacks by the Islamic group Al-Shabaab. On July 26 the EU tightens its sanctions on Iran, with new steps to block oil and gas investment and curtail its refining and natural gas capability. On July 26 the road used by Shia pilgrims to Najaf in Karbala, Iraq is hit by twin car bombs, killing 19. On July 26 Cuban Rev. Day celebrations in Santa Clara are held sans Fidel Castro, while his brother Raul doesn't speak, and Hugo Chavez cancels his trip to Cuba, becoming the first in which neither Castro speaks. On July 26 a U.N.-backed tribunal sentences Khmer Rouge chief jailer Kaing Guek Eav (Duch) (pr. doik) to 35 years for overseeing 16K deaths, of which he will only serve 19, becoming the first senior KR member to be convicted - 1 year in priz per 1K deaths? On July 26 an epidemiological study pub. by the Internat. Journal of Environmental Studies and Public Health reports higher rates of cancer in Fallujah than those in the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, pointing to the use of depleted uranium by U.S. forces. On July 26 Hollywood dir. Oliver Stone gives an interview, claiming that Jews are "the most powerful lobby in Washington, D.C., and dominate the media, also defending Hitler and Stalin, saying "Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr. Frankenstein, German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support", also "Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people - 25 or 30 [million killed]"; he adds that Stalin "fought the German war machine more than any person"; in actual fact, Jews do control Jewywood? On July 26 the U.S. Defense Dept. announces that it can't account for $8.7M of $9.1B in Iraqi oil revenue entrusted to it from 2004-7. On July 26 Iranian pres. Madmaninastraightjacket announces that he expects the Great Satan U.S. to launch a military strike in the next 3 mo. on "at least two countries" in the Middle East, without specifying which; meanwhile Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls Iran "the ultimate terrorist threat". On July 26 the 101st Airbone 4th Brigade Combat Team, the last brigade of Pres. Obama's Afghan surge prepares to head for Afghanistan. On July 26 anti-Mexican-immigrant former Colo. rep. Tom Tancredo leaves the Repub. Party to run for Colo. gov. on the ticket of the Am. Constitution Party to run against Dem. John Hickenlooper, mayor of Denver, insuring the latter's big V? On July 26 an Israeli AF heli (Sikorsky Yasour CH-53) crashes over the Carpathian Mts. in Romania, killing six; it had been doing high-risk drill attacks on mountain tunnels like are found with Iran's nuclear facilities. On July 27 the House passes a $59B war funding bill by a 308-114 vote, with 102 Dems. voting against, revealing a split with Pres. Obama. On July 27 British PM David Cameron visits Turkey, and calls Gaza a "prison camp", saying "the situation in Gaza has to change", calling for Israel (but not Egypt?) to lift its blockade; this despite a new luxury mall opening in Gaza earlier in July; Cameron also also calls for new special relationship with its former colony India - a family that saves together stays together? On July 27 (a.m.) a boat strikes an oil well, causing a new oil-gas leak in Bayo St. Dennis, La. On July 27 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden releases a video in which he claims that $600B in stimulus funds have already been spent, adding "Americans deserve a government that actually works" and "We're building a government that delivers more bang for the buck than ever before." On July 27 U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson launches a campaign to renew the Bush tax cuts, saying that it would be "devastating" and "castrophic" not to; Donald Trump chimes in about Obama that "He's taking away a lot of incentives from a lot of people that produce a lot of taxes". On July 27 French PM Francois Fillon says in a radio broadcast that France is "at war against al-Qaida" after Aqmi (al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb) claimed to have executed a French humanitarian worker, adding "These people are indescribably cruel", and "France does not practice revenge, however, we have agreements with regional governments, especially Mauritania to track these terrorists and bring them to court." On July 27 Master Chef debuts on Fox-TV, starring chef-judges Gordon Ramsay (1966-), Joe Bastianich (1968-), and Chicago, Ill.-based Graham Elliot (Bowles) (1977-), who loves to wear square white eyeglasses; in season 6 Christina Tosi replaces Joe Bastianich; on Sept. 27, 2013 MasterChef Junior debuts on Fox-TV (until ?), starring the same three original chef-judges. On July 28 47 (nearly one-third) of House Repubs. led by Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) introduce a resolution backing an Israeli strike on Iran. On July 28 Pres. Obama snubs the 100th anniv. of the Boy Scouts of Am. to appear on July 29 on the ABC-TV daytime show The View (first U.S. pres. to visit a daytime talk show), which helped him get elected with its daily pro-Obama propaganda to a mainly woman audience, where he admits that the wasn't invited to Chelsea Clinton's wdding, and never heard of Snooki (Nicole Polizzi), star of the MTV reality show "The Jersey Shore", and calls Am. blacks as a race "mixed up", saying "We are sort of a mongrel people. I mean, we're all kinds of mixed up. That's actually true of white people as well, but we just know more about it." On July 28 the U.S. House votes to reduce the 1986 disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine that make 5g of crack equal to 500g of powder, raising it to 28g of crack. On July 28 a passenger jet crashes into the hills overlooking Islamabad, Pakistan in poor weather, killing all 152 aboard. On July 28 #2 al-Qaida man Ayman al-Zawahri releases a recording slamming France's face veil ban, calling Muslim women who defy it "holy warriors" against the "secular Western crusade", and urging all Muslims to continue their jihad against the West. On July 28 24-y.-o. Latvian-born Jewish Tex. beautician Anna Fermanova is arrested for allegedly spying for the Kremlin by smuggling night vision weapons. On July 28 the Japanese Mitsui O.S.K. Lines oil tanker M. Star is rocked by an explosion near the mouth of the Persian Gulf, causing a "huge wave" to be blamed, after which Islamic terrorists are blamed. On July 28 the Slovenian malware writer whose code infected 12M computers worldwide is arrested. On July 28 retired Pakistani gen. Hamid Gul denies allegations that he was a key link between the Taliban in Afghanistan and their backers in Islamabad. On July 28-Aug. ? floods in Pakistan affect 20% of the country (62K sq. mi.), kill 2K, and maroon 4M in three of five provinces plus 8M in the Punjab; U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki Moon calls it a "slow motion tsunami"; the internat. community pledges $800M in assistance, incl. $100M from the U.S., which sends in the military to help bring food and medicine; the floods are caused by a rogue weather system that wandered hundreds of mi. too far W? On July 29 Moscow, Russia suffers a record 37.7C (99.86F) temp, 0.2C higher than on July 26, and the hottest in 130 years. On July 29 the former supt. of Arlington Nat. Cemetery admits that as many as 6.6K graves might have been mixed-up with the wrong bodies or names. On July 29 Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel lord Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel (b. 1954) is killed by the Mexican army. On July 29 Catalonia, Spain votes 68-55 to end bullfighting, the first time it has been outlawed in Spain. On July 29 two Armenians file a class action suit against Turkey over the Armenian genocide, seeking hundreds of millions in damages. On July 29 Pres. Obama appears on The View daytime TV show, saying that African-Ams. are "sort of a mongrel people". On July 29 Repub. leader Newt Gingrich (1943-) gives a Speech on Banning Sharia in the U.S. at the Am. Enterprist Inst., becoming the first U.S. politician to wake up to the threat of Islam and its horrible Muslim-supremacy Sharia and its threat to the U.S. Constitution. On July 30 the Iranian resistance Mujahedeen Org. of Iran (PMOI) is taken off the U.S. State Dept. list of foreign terrorist groups after a long court battle. On July 30 Pres. Obama visits Detroit, Mich. to tout the revival of the U.S. auto industry and his bailout of GM and Chrysler, uttering the soundbyte "If some folks [the GOP] had their way... your jobs might not exist." On July 30 Gaza militants fire a rocket into the Israeli city of Ashkelon N of Gaza City, causing damage but no injuries, causing Israel to retaliate with air strikes in Gaza City on three rocket manufacturing sites, injuring eight in a Hamas-run police training center, and killing senior Hamas member Saed Al Bitran; an explosion at the home of bomb-maker Abu Anas el-Danaf in C Gaza is caused by an accidental detonation according to the Israelis; meanwhile the Arab League endorses direct Palestinian talks with the Israelis, but leaves the timing to the former, causing Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to diss the Arabs, after which on Aug. 1 Pres. Obama warns Mahmoud Abbas that unless the Palestinian Nat. Authority agrees to joint direct peace talks with Israel within weeks it might downgrade its relationship. On July 30 Afghan protesters shout "Death to America" and set fire to vehicles in Kabul after a SUV accident kills four Afghans. On July 30 the U.S. House by 209-193 passes offshore oil drilling reforms On July 30 King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad meet in Beirut to calm tensions over the Lebanese PM assassination scandal; Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and King Abdullah II of Jordan reiterate their support for a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria; meanwhile on July 30 a Gallup poll shows U.S. support of Israel at a near all-time high of 67%, and support for the Palestinian Nat. Authority at only 20%. On July 30 a 5.6 earthquake in NE Iran S of Neyshabur 445 mi. E of Tehran injures 110+. On July 30 senior U.N. official Jean-Paul Laborde says that terrorism in Africa is increasingly linked to organized crime, and calls for stronger steps to break the connection. On July 30 Mexican Roman Catholic priest Carlos Salvador Wotto (b. 1927) is found dead in Oaxaca with signs of torture on his body, incl. cigarette burns; meanwhile Mexico's biggest TV network Televisa cancels its popular news show after four reporters are kidnapped by drug gangs. On July 30 German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle angers conservatives by leaving the possibility of EU membership for pesky Turkey, calling them to have a "privileged partner" rather than full member status. On July 30 "The Vampire Chronicles" author Anne Rice (who shocked fans in 1998 by returning to Roman Catholicism) announces that "Today I quit being a Christian -I'm out", adding "I remain committed to Christ as always, but not to being 'Christian' or to being part of Christianity. It's simply impossible for me to 'belong' to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I've tried. I've failed. I'm an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else." On July 31 the $5M wedding of Chelsea Clinton (1980-) and Marc Mezvinsky (1977-) (a Jew) in the 50-acre Astor Courts estate in Rhinebeck, N.Y. is the affair of the year; Pres. Obama isn't invited. In July the U.S. Agency for Internat. Development (USAID) secretly creates ZunZuneo, a "Cuban Twitter" social network that they try to use to organize "smart mobs" to trigger a Cuban spring; it peaks at 40K users; when its cover is blown, USAid won't say who approved the program or whether the White House had knowledge, becoming a potential scandal for U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton. In July at least 66 U.S. troops are killed in Afghanistan, the deadliest mo. in the 9-year Afghanistan War; 270 Afghan civilians are killed. In July the U.S. loses 131K jobs, incl. 143K census jobs; private employment only rises 71K (vs. 31K in June). In July U.S. home sales fall 27%, the weakest showing in 15 years. In July the U.S. govt. begins shutting down Web sites TVShack.net, Movies-Links.TV, FilesPump.com et al. for streaming copyright-protected videos, and announces a gen. crackdown in the works. In July a total of 34 U.S. citizens or residents have been charged with ties to internat. Islamic jihadists in the past 18 mo. In July the U.S. reestablishes the U.S. Navy's 10th Fleet, and stations four upgraded Ticonderoga class cruisers equipped with Aegis ballistic missile systems in the Persian Gulf? In July the state of Israel stinks itself up with a conviction of "rape by deception" of Palestinian man Saber Kushour for having consensual sex with a Jewish Israeli woman after passing himself off as a Jew. In July 24-y.-o. Augusta State U. grad student Jennifer Keeton (1986-) sues her univ. after being told she must undergo a remediation program due to her Christian beliefs on homosexuality and transgenered persons. In July the Tucker Carlson Web site Daily Caller reveals emails from the private e-mail list JornoList, showing how liberal-leftist journalists conspired to get Obama elected by refusing to cover Rev. Jeremiah Wright et al. In July a record 41.5M Americans receive food stamps, up 18% from a year earlier. In July U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano launches a See Something, Say Something campaign to encourage commuters in Washington, D.C. subway stations to report behavior suspicious of terrorism; in Dec. it's expanded nationwide. In July Syrian pres. Bashar Assad bans the full head-covering niqab in univs.; next June he transfers hundres of niqat-wearing school primary school teachers in govt. schools to admin. posts., pissing-off conservative Muslims, and causing the govt. to let them return. On Aug. 1 1.2K Nat. Guard troops begin arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border; the buildup takes several weeks; they aren't used for law enforcement against border-crossers, pissing-off anti-immigration forces. On Aug. 1 Pres. Obama says that his goal for the Afghanistan War is not to turn it into a "model of Jeffersonian democracy" but to keep it from returning to being a terrorist haven, calling it "difficult, very difficult, but it's a fairly modest goal"; meanwhile Netherlands becomes the first NATO to country pull its troops out of Afghanistan; U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff adm. Mike Mullen says that the U.S. has a plan to attack Iran, but thinks it's a bad idea, although their getting nukes is unacceptable, causing Rev. Guard deputy chief Yadollah Javani to say that "if Americans commit the slightest mistake" security in the Persian Gulf will be jeopardized, not mentioning prior threats to target Tel Aviv. On Aug. 1 the Islamic Jihad announces that is resuming suicide attacks on Israel from the West Bank. On Aug. 1 an entire hemisphere of the Sun erupts, the first time ever observed. On Aug. 2 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket calls on Pres. Obama for a televised debate to see who's got the best solution to the world's problems. On Aug. 2 struggling Newsweek mag. is sold for $1 to Jewish-Am. billionaire Sidney Harman (1919-) and his wife Jane. On Aug. 3 Israeli and Lebanese forces exchange fire near the Lebanese border, injuring two on the Israeli side and one on the Lebanese side, becoming the first border clash since the 2006 war. On Aug. 3 the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service stinks itself up by announcing that undocumented immigrants trying to leave the U.S. could face arrest at the border. On Aug. 3 five rockets fired from the Sinai Peninsula are fired at Eilat, Israel, and miss, killing a taxi driver in Aqaba, Jordan. On Aug. 3 Pakistani official Raza Haider is murdered while attending a funeral at a mosque in Karachi, causing street violence that kills 45, injures 93, and torches dozens of stores and vehicles. On Aug. 3 after being caught stealing beer from a warehouse where he worked as a driver, Am. Muslim Omar Thornton (b. 1976) goes on a shooting spree, killing eight and wounding two before committing suicide. On Aug. 3 Am.Muslim Shaker Masri (1984-) is arrested for trying travel to Somalia to become a suicide bomber for al-Qaida. On Aug. 4 an explosion near the convoy of Iranian pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Hamadan (280km SW of Tehran) is later claimed to be a firecracker. On Aug. 4 a controversial new 2010 Kenyan Constitution enacting Islamic Sharia is passed, and signed into law on Aug. 27; despite supposedly not being a citizen of Kenya, Obama personally campaigned for it as far back as 2006; outlaw Sudanese pres. Omar al-Bashir is present at the signing. On Aug. 4 federal judge Vaughn Walker rules that Calif.'s 2008 Proposition 8 banning gay marriage is unconstitutional because he says so, despite the will of millions of voters, pissing many off, and causing Pres. Obama to finally state that he's against gay marriage but in favor of civil unions. On Aug. 4 Pres. Obama celebrates his 49th birthday; it later comes out that he dialed three Christian pastors to pray with him as he flew on Air Force One to Chicago. On Aug. 5 retired USAF lt. gen. James R. Clapper Jr. (1941-) becomes U.S. nat. intel dir. #4 (until ?). On Aug. 5 Russian PM Vladimir Putin bans wheat exports after a summer drought causes millions of acres to wither, pushing world wheat prices up; in Aug. Russian wildfires spread across six provinces contaminated by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, bringing poisonous smog to Moscow. On Aug. 5 the U.S. Dept. of Justice announces four separate indictments charging 14 with terrorism for providing aid to Al-Shabaab (al-Shebaab) in Somalia. On Aug. 5 the U.S. Senate approves $600M for border security, incl. 1.5K new agents; Pres. Obama signs in on Aug. 13. On Aug. 5 Tariq Aziz, leading lt. of Saddam Hussein accuses the U.S. of "leaving Iraq to the wolves", calling Pres. Obama a hypocrite who promised "to correct some of the mistakes of Bush" and is about to "leave Iraq to its death". On Aug. 5 Harvard senior Caroline Giuliani (1990-), daughter of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani is arrested for shoplifting $100 worth of makeup at Sephora on E. 86th St. in Manhattan; after they find out who she is, the store owners drop the charges. On Aug. 5 the San Jose Mine in the Atacama Desert in Chile collapses, trapping 33 miners 2K ft. underground for 68 days (until Oct. 13) until they can be rescued with U.S. aid and equipment, during which time they become reality TV stars and end up showered with money and honors as South Am. heroes; they still celebrate the Sept. 18 Chile Bicentennial. On Aug. 5-9 First Lady Michelle Obama goes on a controversial trip to Spain, causing critics to compare her to Marie Antoinette; on Aug. 7 she visits Ronda in S Spain, favorite haunt of Orson Welles and Ernest Hemingway; on Aug. 8 she meets with King Juan Carlos I in Mallorca; meanwhile on Aug. 8 Pres. Obama plays pick-up basketball with some NFL pros at a birthday-weekend White House BBQ. On Aug. 6 rapper Wyclef Jean announces his candidacy for pres. of Haiti on Larry King Live; on Aug. 20 Haiti's electoral council rules him ineligible because he didn't live in Haiti for five years before the elction. On Aug. 6 the U.S. sends its first delegation led by ambassador John Roos to Hiroshima, Japan to observe the anniv. of the U.S. atomic bomb attack, causing an outcry that Pres. Obama is about to apologize for it; U.N. secy.-gen. Ban K-Moon also attends, calling for Obama to attend personally. On Aug. 6 mudslides in Kashmir, India kill 125+. On Aug. 6 a new poll of Arab opinion finds that a majority now believe that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a positive development in the Middle East. On Aug. 7 the Taliban announces the murder of eight "Christian missionary" medical doctors in Afghanistan, who were found shot dead on Aug. 6, incl. British surgeon Karen Woo, who was set to get married in two weeks, and Colo. dentist Thomas Grams (b. 1959-); the internat. Christian aid group Internat. Assistance Mission denies that the medics were proselytizing. On Aug. 7 Saudi Arabia reaches a deal with BlackBerry on granting access to user data so they can monitor messages to stop them from banning it in their country as a security risk. On Aug. 7 Fidel Castro makes his first official govt. appearance since his emergency surgery in 2006, calling on Pres. Obama to prevent a global nuclear war. On Aug. 7 a power generator explosion in Basra, Iraq kills 25+. On Aug. 7 politicians in Lebanon get pissed-off at calls from Israel to restrict U.S.sale of advanced weapons to their army after the recent border incident. On Aug. 7 Pakistani pres. Asif Ali Zardari visits Birmingham, England and addresses a political rally, where protesters incl. one shoe-thrower criticize him for touring overseas while floods are devasting his country; meanwhile Carl Moeller, pres. of Open Doors USA claims that some Pakistani Christian families are being denied flood aid unless they convert to Islam. On Aug. 8 Sky News reports that British couple Gul and Bagum Wazir of Birmingham, England have been murdered in a suspected "honor killing". On Aug. 8 Gen. Sebhattin Isik Kosaner (1945-) becomes CIC of the Turkish army (until July 29, 2011). On Aug. 9 the U.S. announces a 10-year $30B deal to sell F-15 aircraft to the Saudis, minus advanced long-range weapons systems opposed by Israel. On Aug. 9 the Masjid Taiba Mosque in Hamburg Germany, once frequented by the 9/11 attackers Mohammed Atta et al. is shut down by the govt. for being involved in violent extremism again. On Aug. 9 radical Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir (Baasyir) (1939-), who was sentenced to 30 mo. for the 2002 Bali bombs and served 26 mo. is arrested for supporting a terrorist group that runs a training camp in Aceh, and next June 16 is sentenced to 15 years, blaming it on the U.S., and saying "This verdict is contrary to Sharia, and I cannot accept it because to me it is against the law." On Aug. 9 Ed Stafford (1976-) becomes the first to walk the length of the 4K-mi. Amazon River after 859 days, starting on Apr. 2, 2008. On Aug. 10 Pres. Obama signs the U.S. Securing the Protection of our Ending and Established Constitutional Heritage (SPEECH) Act, preventing Americans from being sued for libel by individuals from other countries with inadequate First Amendment rights, protecting those speaking out against Islam et al. On Aug. 10 the U.S. House adjourns after passing by 247-161 a $26B state aid bill to prevent layoffs of 160K teachers and cuts to Medicaid. On Aug. 10 white radio personality Dr. Laura Schlesinger draws the PC police for saying the n-word 5x on the air during a call with an African-Am., after which she is forced to resign. On Aug. 11 Sudanese-born Ibrahim al-Qosi, former cook and driver for Osama bin Laden is sentenced to 14 years in prison by a Guantanamo Bay tribunal. On Aug. 11 Iran and Russia issue a surprise joint announcement that Russia will load the nuclear fuel to activate Iran's first nuclear reactor on Aug. 21, causing speculation of an Israeli airstrike; meanwhile AP reports that Arab nations are urging the U.S. to end its support of Israel's nuclear secrecy and push for an internat. inspection program. On Aug. 11 White House press secy. Robert Gibbs sticks his foot in his mouth, complaining about the "professional left" and claiming "those people ought to be drug tested." On Aug. 12 shocking photos surface of Turkish chemical weapon attacks on Kurdish PKK rebels. On Aug. 13 (Fri. the 13th) Pres. Obama gives his 2010 Iftar Speech to commemorate the Muslim holy day of Ramadan, defending the super-controversial Ground Zero Mosque, with the soundbyte "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable", and full of history ignoramus remarks, incl. "Islam has always been part of America and American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country", and has been a major force in "advancing justice, progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings", causing an outcry, after which on Aug. 14 he backs down a bit, saying that he upholds the principle that govt. should treat everyone equal, regardless of religion, but wasn't commenting on this particular project, with the soundbyte "I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding"; on Aug. 18 a Gallup Poll finds that 37% of Ams. disapprove of Obama's comments and only 20% approve; on Aug. 16 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) comes out against the mosque, saying to build it elsewhere; meanwhile Ground Zero Mosque (soon renamed Park51 to diffuse opposition) imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (a Kuwaiti-born Egyptian Sufi), who claims it is "about promoting integration, toleration of differences, and community cohesion through arts and culture" (like in Saudi Arabia?) and later claims that it's only a community center with a small mosque inside, until an ad they placed for it says it must accomodate 1K at one time, and who claims that the U.S. Constitution is based on Sharia principles is exposed as having attended a 2007 conference in Indonesia of the terrorist group Hizb-ut Tahrir al Islami (Islamic Party of Liberation), which seeks a global caliphate and is banned in several countries; Rauf also uttered the soundbyte "In a true peace it is impossible that a purely Jewish state of Palestine can endure... In a true peace, Israel will, in our lifetimes, become one more Arab country, with a Jewish minority"; on Dec. 8, 2009 the NYT ran a pro-mosque article quoting Rauf as saying "New York is the capital of the world, and this location close to 9/11 is iconic"; apparently choosing to ignore this, on Aug. 19 Assoc. Press (AP) tells its staff to quit using the term "Ground Zero Mosque" because it's two whole blocks (600 ft.) away; on Aug. 19 N.Y. Roman Catholic archbishop Timothy Dolan says that he prays for compromise, offering to help relocate the mosque; Manhattan developer Sharif el-Gamal (1973-), whose co. Soho Properties owns the former site at 45 Park Place where there was an old Burlington Coat Factory for $4.8M in 2009 used to be a Manhattan waiter at Serafina on the Upper East Side; on Sept. 12 Imam Rauf appears on ABC's "This Week", calling Sarah Palin's opposition to the GZ Mosque "disengenuous", saying that he had known it would cause such controversy he would never have started it, denying that the site is on hallowed ground, and adding "My major concern with moving it is that the headline in the Muslim World will be 'Islam is under attack in America'. This will strengthen the radicals in the Muslim World, help their recruitment, this will put our people, our soldiers, our troops, our embassies, our citizens under attack in the Muslim World and we [would] have expanded and fueled terrorism"; on Sept. 26 60 Minutes airs a segment on the Ground Zero Mosque, and reveals that a mosque has already been functioning there for over a year; in Sept. the bldg. design is released, appearing to be a giant crushed Star of David - has closet Muslim Pres. Obama finally succeeded in turning a critical mass of the American people against him with his submission to every Islamic demand? On Aug. 13 25-y.-o. Libyan imam Abrahim Ghait (1985-) allegedly exposes himself to a 28-y.-o. woman in Castle Park in Bristol, England, followed on Aug. 16 by a 12-y.-o. girl, saying his genitals are named "Lexie". On Aug. 14 Fatah al-Islam terrorist group leader Abed al-Rahman Awad is killed in Lebanon in a shootout with Lebanese troops. On Aug. 14 three incl. a policeman are killed in Yala, Thailand by Muslim separatists, who have killed 4K+ in the rubber-rich region bordering Malaysia, which was a Muslim sultanate until its annexation in 1909 by Buddhist Thailand. On Aug. 15 al-Qaida #2 man Ayman al-Zawahiri releases an audio tape calling for Turkey to cut all ties with Israel and withdraw their NATO forces from Afghanistan. On Aug. 15 a Rasmussen Poll reveals that 76% of Americans believe it likely that a terrorist group will detonate a nuke on Am. soil in the next 25 years, with 45% believing it very likely. On Aug. 15 Israel begins dismanting a barrier wall in Jerusalem that had been erected to protect residents from Palestinian sniper fire from the West Bank. On Aug. 15 Turkey allows Orthodox Christians to worship at Sumela Monastery after 88 years of closure. On Aug. 15 the Taliban orders the stoning for adultery of a young couple in the NE province of Kunduz, Afghanistan, sparking outrage incl. Pres. Hamid Karzai. On Aug. 16 5 mo. after an inconclusive vote the party that won the most seats in Iraq's Mar. election suspends talks on forming a coalition. On Aug. 16 Iran announces that it will build 10 new uranium enrichment plants inside mountain strongholds starting in Mar. - I can give you what you want? On Aug. 16 Mexico's supreme court upholds a law permitting gay adoption on Aug. 9 it upheld gay marriage; meanwhile gunmen kidnap and murder Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of Santiago in N Mexico, after which six police offers are arrested for involvement. On Aug. 16 Pres. Obama holds a Hollywood fundraiser, saying that he and Congressional Dems. have passed the most progressive legislation in decades - the beautiful people? On Aug. 17 U.S. treasury secy. Timothy Geithner raises basic questions about the govt.'s long-standing role in subsidizing the $10.7T housing market, saying "It is not tenable to leave in place the system we have today." On Aug. 17 a suicide bombing among Iraqi army recruits outside the army's 11th div. HQ in downtown Baghdad, Iraq kills 51 and wounds 119. On Aug. 17 (eve.) a Palestinian Arab man enters the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel and begins firing before he is shot by staff; he had earlier tried to take hostages at the British embassy using a fake gun; the Turkish govt. complains to Israel to increase the security at the embassy. On Aug. 17 France rejects a petition calling for it to pay $17B in reparations to Haiti for its oppression 2 cents. earlier. On Aug. 17 former Israeli soldier Eden Aberjil (1984-) stirs up a firestorm of controversy after posting photos of herself in uniform smiling among blinded Palestinian prisoners on Facebook. On Aug. 17 two Muslim suicide bombings target vacationers in Pyatigorsk in the Caucasus region of Russia. On Aug. 17 Amin Al-Hindi, last surviving planner of 1972 Munich Massacre dies in Jordan, and Palestinian Authority chmn. Mahmoud Abbas stinks himself up by giving him a military funeral and calling him a "patriotic leader" and "martyr". On Aug. 17 an Open Letter to Republican Leaders by Arab-Am. and Muslim-Am. leaders expresses concern about Repub. opposition to the Manhattan Ground Zero Mosque. On Aug. 18 Pres. Obama promises that he won't privatize Social Security while he's in office. On Aug. 18 business leaders of Monterrey, Mexico, the country's wealthiest, most modern and safe city take out a newspaper ad begging pres. Felipe Calderon to send in more soldiers to stem the increasing drug violence. On Aug. 18 Newsweek pub. a list of the world's most respected leaders, which incl. Saudi king Abdullah, causing Iranian Rev. Guards pub. Sobh-e Sadeq on Aug. 30 to call it a joke, since the Saudi regime is the most tyrannical in the world. On Aug. 19 the U.S. troop death count in Afghanistan reaches 575, the same as during the Bush years, making it Obama's war? On Aug. 19 the Obama admin. convinces ' Israel that Iran's ability to make a "dash" for a nuke will take at least another year. On Aug. 19 ML baseball star pitcher Roger Clemens is indicted by a federal grand jury for lying to Congress about steroid use; he continues to deny it and vows to fight the charges. On Aug. 19 Pew Poll finds that 18% of Americans believe that Pres. Obama is a Muslim (incl. 31% of Repubs.); on Aug. 19 a Time mag. poll raises the figure to 24% (incl. 46% of Repubs.); on Aug. 27 a new Gallup Poll shows Muslims giving Obama the highest rating of any religious group (78%), with Mormons the lowest (24%); Jews slide from 77% in early 2009 to 61%; on Aug. 29 to silence all objections, Obama appears on "NBC Nightly News", and claims that he isn't worried about the polls, saying "the facts are the facts" and still claiming to be Christian, adding that he can't go around with his "birth certificate plastered on his forehead", and that he has faith in "the American people's capacity to get beyond all this nonsense"; on Aug. 29 Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright gives a Sun. sermon claiming that anybody who believes that Obama is a Muslim is a "psychopath". On Aug. 20 Hillary Clinton announces new Israeli-Palestinian talks, with Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas promising a 1-year time limit, and Pres. Obama to invite them to Washington on Sept. 2; too bad, on Aug. 24 leftist Palestinian factions meet in Ramallah to protest Mahmoud Abbas' decision to accept the U.S. invitation, causing a security crackdown; on Aug. 27 Mahmoud Al-Habbash gives a Fri. sermon with Abbas in the audience, with the soundbyte "Jerusalem can ignite a thousand and one wars", and that there will never be peace until Jerusalem becomes the capital of the Palestinian people; on Sept. 1 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu utters the soundbyte "President Abbas, you are my partner in peace"; too bad, on Sept. 7 Mahmoud Abbas tells the press that he will not recognize a Jewish state, adding that his position is no different from Yasser Arafat's, and his staff is the same; on Oct. 13 the Palestinians demand that the U.S. and Israel provide a map of the borders of the proposed state of Israel that they want them to recognize, knowing they won't since it might cause a Jewish civil war? On Aug. 20 Pakistan announces that it will clamp down on charities linked to Islamic militants who are seeking to exploit flood relief. On Aug. 20 a Saudi judge stirs internat. outrage by asking several hospitals to damage a man's spinal chord as punishment for paralyzing another man with a cleaver; on Aug. 23 the high court in Tabruk reverses him, saying the victim should accept monetary compensation. On Aug. 21 Russia helps fuel-up the Bushehr Reactor, Iran's first nuclear reactor, promising to monitor and remove spent fuel that could be used to build nukes; meanwhile Israel announces that reactor is "totally unacceptable", and that a country that "so blatantly violates U.N. resolutions, IAEA decisions should not enjoy the fruits of using nuclear energy"; meanwhile former top U.N. nuclear official Olli Heinonen admits that Iran has enough uranium for 1-2 bombs, but claims that they wouldn't try it with only this amount. On Aug. 21 Sweden revokes an arrest warrant for Australian-born WikiLeaks founder Julian Paul Assange (1971-) for rape, but keep him under suspicion of a lesser charge of molestation, which turns into a real stretch charge of having sex with a feminist without a condom; after Interpol places him on its red notice list on Nov. 30 (dating police?), he is finally arrested on Dec. 7 in London, and released on $316K bail after Am. leftist filmmaker Michael Moore poneys up some of the dough, saying that the Am. Founding Fathers would have been Wikileakers. On Aug. 21 a stray bullet hits El Paso, Tex. from the Mexican side of the border, causing a furor. On Aug. 21 the Third Annual Topless Sat., founded by Rael is held in nine U.S. cities incl. Denver, Chicago, and Miami to fight for equal rights for women. On Aug. 21 a 19-y.-o. migrant farm worker from Mexico who was bitten in Michoacan, Mexico on July 15 dies in La., becoming the first death from a bite from a vampire bat in the U.S. On Aug. 22 Iranian pres. Myishouldbe Inastraightjacket inaugurates Iran's first domestically-built unmanned drone aircraft bomber, calling it an "ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity", with "a main message of peace and friendship"; it can carry four cruise missiles and has a 1K km (600 mi.) range; on Aug. 23 Iran announces that it will also step up production of the new Zolfaghar and Seraj (Light) assault boats carrying cruise missles. On Aug. 22 Bangladesh bans all enforced Islamic dress codes, incl. veils and skull caps in public places. On Aug. 22 retired Calif. engineer Gregory Luke (1946-) barges into a mosque in Lombok Island, Indonesia to tell t hat their nightly Ramadan prayer reading is too loud, causing a mob to attack his home; he is then arrested for blaspheming Islam, and given 7 mo. in jail. On Aug. 23 the Pentagon refutes the Taliban claim that Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl has converted to Islam and joined their cause. On Aug. 23 Iraq announces that it is tightening security around oil installations after news that al-Qaida plans to attack them when U.S. forces leave. On Aug. 23 U.S. Gen. David Petraeus claims that the Taliban's momentum has been reversed in S Afghanistan. On Aug. 23 the ever-less-sovereign U.S. makes its First Report to the U.N. Human Rights Council on internal conditions, saying that the U.S. doesn't have a perfect record esp. with minorities and women, and that "Although we have made great strides, work remains to meet our goals of ensuring equality before the law for all"; it also claims that the U.S. is committed to closing Gitmo and "fixing our broken immigration system" - what should we do next, masters? On Aug. 23 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden addresses the Ind. VFW, and makes the statement "Iranian influence in Iraq is minimal. It's been greatly exaggerated." On Aug. 23 white New York City college student Michael Enright asks a cab driver if he's a Muslim, then after receiving an affirmative answer stabs him; after leftists try to use it as ammo in favor of the Ground Zero Mosque, it is revealed the he supports it too, and the cabbie didn't - and that's why he stabbed him? On Aug. 23 Frank Johansson, head of the Finnish branch of Amnesty Internat. calls Israel a "scum state", stirring controversy, after which under pressure he (insincerely?) apologizes; on Aug. 24 British former PM Tony Blair utters the soundbyte that any attempt to delegitimize Israel is an affront to people "everywhere, in every part of humanity who share the values of a free and independent spirit". On Aug. 23 Miss Mexico Jimena "Ximena" Navarrete Rosete (1988-) of Guadalajara wins the Miss Universe contest in Las Vegas Nev.; Miss USA Rima Faikh (first Muslim-Am. winner) doesn't make it to the final round; it was rigged because this is the centennial of Mexico's independence? On Aug. 24 the Mexican military discovers 72 massacred bodies of migrants from Central and South Am. in a ranch in ever-violent Tamaulipas,Mexico, and get into a gunfight with Zeta drug cartel members, who flee after one Mexican marine and three gunmen are killed; on Aug. 27 a car bomb explodes in San Fernando, Mexico in front of a major TV station in the same N Mexican state, and a prosecutor investigating the massacre disappears,while a string of four bombings in 24 hours injures 17. On Aug. 24 (13th day of Ramadan) a suicide attack in a hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia by Al-Shabaab kills 32 incl. six parliamentarians; U.S. State Dept. spokesman Phillip Crowley utters the soundbyte: "The attack occurring during Ramadan highlights al-Shabaab's complete disregard for human life, Somalian culture, and Islamic values". On Aug. 24 a Henan Airlines ERJ-190) en route from Harbin to Yichin, China overruns the runway after landing in fog, breaking up and catching fire, killing 43 of 91 passengers and all but one crew. On Aug. 25 a string of attacks against the Iraqi govt. kills 43. On Aug. 25 an attempted suicide attack against an army barracks near Nouakchott, Mauritania is foiled when soldiers shoot the driver of the truck. On Aug. 25 former U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter arrives in Pyongyang, North Korean on a private mission to free imprisoned African-Am. Aijalon Gomes (1979-) of Boston, Mass., who is serving eight years for illegal entry via China; he arrives in Boston with Carter on Aug. 27. On Aug. 25 a day after Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah asks Lebanon to seek their assistance, Iran announces that it's ready to sell arms to Lebanon. On Aug. 25 Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak announces that Egypt's first nuclear power plant will be built at El Dabaa on the Mediterranean coast - there goes the neighborhood? On Aug. 25 Canadian police arrest three Islamic terror suspects, Hiva Alizadeh, Misbahuddin Ahmed, and Khurram Syed Sher, who appeared on Canada's version of "American Idol". On Aug. 26 EU foreign policy chief Lady Catherine Ashton rebukes Israel for convicting Palestinian protester on Aug. 23 of inciting protests in the West Bank village of Bilin plus not having a permit. On Aug. 26 Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon proposes legislation to stop money laundering by organized crime. On Aug. 26 aging demented Cuban dictator Fidel Castro pontificates that documents posted on WikiLeaks.org prove that Osama bin Laden is a paid CIA agent that Pres. Bush made pop-up when needed to scare the world, saying "Bush never lacked for bin Laden's support. He was a subordinate." On Aug. 28 conservative Mormon talk show host Glenn Beck holds his Restoring Honor to America rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the 47th anniv. of MLK Jr.'s "I Have a Dream Speech", which he claims is accidental; 87K-500K attend to hear about how the U.S. needs to return to God; the crowd is not all-white but racially diverse; MLK Jr.'s niece Alveda King speaks at the rally, along with Sarah Palin; the rally raises $5.5M for wounded soldiers; on Aug. 29 after murmurs about his Mormonism, Beck appears on Fox News Sunday, and utters the soundbyte that despite his claim to be a Christian, the American people don't recognize "Obama's version of Christianity". On Aug. 28 the Iraq govt. goes on high alert against terrorist attacks as the U.S. combat mission winds down. On Aug. 28 Islamic jihadists in U.S. Army uniforms launch pre-dawn attacks at Forward Operating Base Salerno, a major NATO base in Khost province in E Afghanistan 60 mi. SE of Kabul near the Pakistan border and the nearby camp where seven CIA employees were killed last year in a suicide attack; this time they are repelled with no casualties. On Aug. 28 Israel places its largest-ever order for military fuel with the U.S., increasing speculation of a planned attack on Iran; on Oct. 7 it signs a $2.75B deal with the U.S. for 20 Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets. On Aug. 28 Israeli rabbi Ovadia Yosef, head of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party gives a Sat. evening sermon with the soundbyte "May God strike them [Palestinians] down with the plague along with all the nasty Palestinians who persecute Israel", causing an outcry and the U.S. State Dept. to condemn his remarks. On Aug. 28 after they dismantle 100+ illegal camps and send hundreds back to E Europe, the U.N. tells France to stop the forced expulsion of Roma (Gypsies). On Aug. 28 Belgian cardinal Godfried Danneels is revealed to have tried to stop a sex abuse victim from going public, causing an outcry. On Aug. 29 a bus runs off a highway and overturns 55 mi. S of Quito, Ecuador, killing 36 and injuring 12. On Aug. 29 a 50-y.-o. gunman opens fire in Bratislava, Slovakia, killing six and injuring 14 before committing suicide. On Aug. 29 Mt. Sinabung on Sumatra Island in Indonesia erupts for the first time in 400 years. On Aug. 29 Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi calls for Europe to convert to Islam, saying that "Islam should become the religion of all of Europe", causing the Vatican to call that disrespectful to the pope and Catholic Italy. On Aug. 29 the U.S. birth rate for 2009 is announced at 13.5 per 1K, down from 14.3 in 2007, and the lowest in U.S. history; in 1820 it was 55.2. On Aug. 30 prosecutors in Clark County, Nev. file felony cocaine possession charges on Paris Hilton after a weekend arrest. On Aug. 30 Mexico fires 3.2K federal police officers, 10% of the force for suspected corruption. On Aug. 30 "Pepto-Bismol terrorist" Muslims Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi and Hezem al Murisi arriving in Amsterdam from Chicago are arrested at the airport for a "dry-run" terrorist attack, complete with "mock bombs" in their luggage, incl. box cutters, a wad of cash, and a Blackberry duct-taped to a bottle of Pepto-Bismol; al Soofi is from Detroit, Mich., and al Murisi is an illegal immigrant from Yemen; after the authorities can't prove anything they are released - did they put them on the watch list? On Aug. 30 the German Social Dem. party (SPD) begins expulsion proceedings for central bank officer Thilo Sarrazin over comments in his new book "Deutschland Schaaft Sich Ab" (Germany Does Away With Itself", claiming that Muslim Arabs and Turks are ruining the country by swamping it then having lower IQs combined with higher birthrates; a remark that Jews have a common gene is distorting to make him look anti-Semitic, when he also said that he would prefer immigration "if it was by Eastern European Jews with a 15% higher IQ than the German population". On Aug. 30 Pres. Obama broadens U.S. financial sanctions on North Korea, and freezes the assets of four North Korean citizens and eight firms to punish it for the sinking of the South Korean warship. On Aug. 30 four Ugandan peacekeepers are killed in Mogadishu, Somalia by Islamist rebels firing mortars at the pres. palace. On Aug. 30 the ACLU et al. sue the Obama admin. over its program they claim illegally tries to kill U.S. citizens believed to be terrorists living abroad, incl. Anwar al-Awalaki; the suit is brought in the name of his father Nasser al-Awlaki, claiming violation of the U.S. Constitution and internat. law. On Aug. 30 the U.S. Justice Dept. files a 2nd lawsuit against Arizona for its community colleges requirements that non-citizens provide green cards to be hired for jobs. On Aug. 30 after returning from his vacation, Pres. Obama arranges a hasty media event at the White House on the economic crisis, pushing a $30B small business package; too bad, his microphone doesn't work, becoming a magic moment for the public that he's clueless and out of control?; meanwhile the Oval Office gets a makeover incl. new carpet, furniture, and wallpaper, some of which bears a striking resemblance to furniture seen in TV series The Jeffersons, making Obama seem smaller? On Aug. 30 Mexican drug lord Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez (1973-) is captured by Mexican authorities. On Aug. 30 a Gallup Poll reveals that 51% of registered voters say they will vote for the Repub. candidate in their district if the election were held now, vs. 41% for the Dem. candidate, the biggest Repub. lead since 1942 and the 4th straight weak that the Repubs. have the edge on the Dems. On Aug. 30 Repub. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisc. warns that the U.S. economy faces a "lost decade" like Japan had in the 1990s if it continues to spend. On Aug. 30 insurgents attack Afghan civilians praying at a mosque in Marjah in Helmand Province, killing two and wounding one. On Aug. 31 (10:45 a.m.) Pres. Obama gives a Speech to the Troops at Ft. Bliss Army Base in El Paso, Tex., thanking them for making the U.S. safer, and uttering the soundbyte that his coming evening speech won't be a "victory lap, it's not going to be self-congratulatory"; it contains the soundbytes "As we wind down the war in Iraq, we must tackle those challenges at home with as much energy, and grit, and sense of common purpose as our men and women in uniform who have served abroad", "They have met every test that they faced. Now, it's our turn"; he also announces new loosened rules on export of sensitive military and other technology; at ? p.m. Pres. Obama gives his End of the U.S. Mission in Iraq Speech, with the soundbyte "Tonight I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended", announcing the End of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which began 89 mo. earlier on Mar. 20, 2003 and totalled 4,421 killed (incl. 3,492 in combat and nine civilian DOD employees), one every 15 hours; the deadliest mo. was Nov. 2004 (139 troops killed); the deadliest period was Oct. 2006-June 2007 (805 troops killed); only 18 killed this year; the last brigade team, the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Div. left on Aug. 18, after which the troop level fell below 50K on Aug. 24, down from a max of 165K in 2007; meanwhile a Gallup Poll reveals that more Iraqis approved of U.S. leadership under Bush than Obama, by 35% to 33%, and another Iraqi poll shows that almost 60% don't want U.S. soldiers to leave now, and 53% oppose Obama ending the combat mission; meanwhile a CBS Poll shows that 70% of Americans approve of Obama's decision. On Aug. 31 the Coordinating Council of Muslim Orgs. (CCMO) sends 25 leaders of 20 nat. Muslim groups to a special workshop presented by the White House and U.S. govt. agencies to provide them with "funding, government assistance, and resources" and "cut through red tape"; this despite the CCMO having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood whose explicit goals incl. subversion and takeover of the U.S. by Islam? On Aug. 31 a Palestinian gunman opens fire on an Israeli vehicle near Hebron in the West Bank, killing four Jewish settlers, incl. a pregnant woman; Hamas praises the shooter but doesn't claim responsibility until Sept. 1; Hebron has 500 Jewish settlers living among 100K Palestinians, causing PM Benjamin Netanyahu to utter the soundbyte: "Terrorism will not determine the fate of Judea and Samaria residents or borders - these issues and others will be determined during negotiations"; meanwhile on Aug. 31 10 settlers fire at and chase three Palestinian farmers in Deir Istiya village in Nablus, and on Sept. 1 3K Palestinians celebrate the Hebron murders in Gaza, with Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida saying "The Qassam Brigades announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron"; meanwhile on Aug. 31 former Israeli foreign minister and ambassador to the U.S. Moshe Arens pub. an article in Ha'aretz, saying that Mahmoud Abbas "does not have the backing of all Palestinians, not even of most of them. As far as Hamas is concerned, he has no right to represent the Palestinians in the upcoming negotations.... But most important, he does not have the authority to carry out any agreement he might arrive at with Netanyahu... Abbas may or might not want to conclude a peace with Israel, but he cannot." On Aug. 31 North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il returns from a trip to China, where he met with pres. Hu Jintao, leaving observers clueless about who his successor will be - a rocket man? On Aug. 31 a drug cartel attack in the Castillo del Mar Bar in Cancun, Mexico kills eight Mexicans. On Aug. 31 the U.S. Dept. of Justice Web site takes down its red-white-blue banner and replaces it with a plain black-white one, along with the quote "The common law is the will of mankind, issuing from the life of the people" by 1930s globalist lawyer C. Wilfred Jenks. On Aug. 31 Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christian leader Pope Shenouda III (1923-2012) is charged with detaining Camillia Shehata, wife of a Coptic cleric after she converted to Islam; he claims the conversion was forced. On Aug. 31 a new Newsweek poll reveals that 52% of Repubs. believe that Pres. Obama sympathizes with Islamic fundamentalists and wants to impose Islamic Sharia worldwide. On Aug. 31 after Hurricane Danielle fizzles, My Name is Hurricane Earl reaches category 4, threatening the U.S. E coast. On Aug. 31 Pres. Obama signs Executive Order No. ?, amending the rules for court martials. In Aug. after minister Tony Muhammad is beaten by LAPD police for holding a prayer vigil for a young man killed in a drive-by shooting, and claims that Scientology saves his life, turning on white-hating Jew-hating leader Louis Farrakhan Sr. (Louis Eugene Walcott) (1933-) (AKA Louis X), who finds similarities between Xenu and mad scientist Yakub, who allegedly created the devil white race, the Nation of Islam sends hundreds of members to a seminar on Dianetics in Rosemont, Ill., after which Farrakhan tells everyone to become a certified auditor. In Aug. U.S. unemployment rises to 9.6%, a net job loss of 54K, although private employment increased by 67K jobs. In Aug. the Big Am. Egg Recall sees 500M eggs sold under 24 brands recalled for salmonella infestation, after which federal inspectors uncover unspeakably filthy conditions, causing an outcry. In Aug. Pres. Obama's Summer of Recovery proves a bust as a Reuters poll shows that 75% of Americans are very worried about joblessness, and 67% are very concerned about massive govt. spending; unemployment remains hovering near 10%. In Aug. 2010 aging Fidel Castro gives an interview to Jeffrey Goldberg, in which he criticizes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran for always slamming the Jews, with the soundbyte that the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism, saying "This went on for maybe two thousand years. I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything." He adds that the Iranian govt. should understand that the Jews "were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world", adding "The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust." In Aug. Ethiopian Christian Tamirat Woldegorgis is arrested after his Muslim co-worker accusing him of writing "Jesus is Lord" in a copy of the Quran; he is jailed until ? On Sept. 1 the U.S. draws down to 50K troops in Iraq. On Sept. 1 three bombs explode in a Shiite religious procession in Lahore, Pakistan, killing 18 and wounding 150. On Sept. 1 Hamid Karzai's brother Mahmoud Karzai calls for the U.S. to intervene to head off a meltdown of Kabul Bank, Afghanistan's biggest bank, which he is a major shareholder in, after which depositors throng its branches, causing Hamid on Sept. 2 to tell Afghans not to panic; on Sept. 7 Mahmoud Karzai's Kabul Bank assets are frozen. On Sept. 1 a poll by the Arab World for R&D shows that most Palestinians don't want a state next to Israel, with 78.2% wanting Israel to be gone, only 17.7% accepting a 2-state solution, and a tiny 9.6% accepting a joint state. On Sept. 1 former U.S. Sen. (R-Wyo.) (1979-97) Alan Kooi Simpson (1931-), co-chair of Pres. Obama's fiscal commission apologizes for an Aug. 24 e-mail to Nat. Older Women's League exec dir. Ashley Carlson calling Social Security "a milk cow with 310 million tits". On Sept. 1 former British Labour PM (1997-2007) Tony Blair (1953-) releases his new memoir "A Journey"; on Sept. 3 he gives an interview on it, calling radical Islam the greatest threat facing the world, saying that after 9/11 he didn't understand it yet, but that its roots go far deeper than he thought, and "If they could, they would use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons" and kill 300K not just 3K, saying "This is actually more like the phenomenon of revolutionary Communism", and "It's the religious or cultural equivalent of it, and its roots are deep, its tentacles are long, and its narrative about Islam stretches far further than we think into even parts of mainstream opinion who abhor the extremism, but sort of buy some of the rhetoric that goes with it"; on Sept. 4 he holds the first public signing of his memoir in Dublin, Ireland, where protesters hurl shoes and eggs at him; on Sept. 5 he warns that Iran's nuclear program must be stopped by tougher sanctions followed by a military action. On Sept. 1 Iranian consul Hossein Alizadeh resigns in Oslo, and requests asylum in Finland. On Sept. 1 the Pentecostal Dove World Outreach Center in Gainsville, Fla., led by pastor Terry Jones (1951-) (who posted a sign outside his church in 2009 reading "Islam is of the Devil") gains mass media attention for his July announcement of a public burning of 200 Qurans on 9/11, calling it Internat. Burn a Koran Day, complete with a Facebook page, causing Pope Benedict VI, Hillary Clinton, U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder, U.S. Gen. David Petraeus, Sarah Palin, Franklin Graham, and Pat Robertson, along with Pres. Obama (who calls it a "stunt" that is "contrary to American values") to ask them not to do it; on Sept. 6 hundreds of Afghans protest the planned action outside Kabul, shouting "Death to America"; the FBI announces that an Islamic extremist relatiatory attack is likely; Terry Jones is revealed to have led a 1K-member congregation in Cologne, Germany, where he preached hatred of Islam, and got a 3K Euro fine in 2002 for claiming a fake doctorate before he was kicked out by the church in 2008 for financial irregularities; Sept. 9 after FBI agents visit him and tells him about a blizzard of death threats, Terry Jones cancels the planned Quran BBQ after being told that the Ground Zero Mosque will moved, calling it "a sign from God", which Imam Rauf denies, saying "We're not here to barter", after which Fla. imam Muhammad Musri claims he only told him he'd go to New York with him and discuss moving it, pissing Jones off, causing him to say "I've been lied to", and that the event is only suspended not cancelled; meanwhile Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. vows to hold a Quran BBQ if they don't, then flops and vows never to do it; on Sept. 12 two Iranian grand ayatollahs issue fatwas calling for death for all who insult the Quran or burn it; on Sept. 9 the Council on Am.-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announces it will distribute 200K Korans, and on Sept. 10 Iraqi Muslim al-Qaida leader Abu Suleiman Al-Naser (al-Nassir) posts a call on the Web for Am. Muslims to murder Terry Jones; Jones' 225 Qurans are given to the Christian Defense Coalition, who distributes them to Christian churches as a reminder to pray for Muslims and share the love of Christ with them; meanwhile reports that authorities in Iran have have intercepted and burned hundreds of Bibles are ignored by the PC media; in Oct. it is announced that Jones received a free $13K 2011 Hyundai for calling the Quranicue off; on Jan. 20, 2011 Jones is banned from Britain by babyproof home secy. Theresa May; on Mar. 21, 2011 Jones burns a Quran anyway, by which time his 15 min. of fame is up and nobody cares, which doesn't stop irate Muslims from issuing a $2.3M fatwa on his head. On Sept. 2 a shootout between soldiers and drug cartel members in Ciud Mier in Tamaulipas, Mexico kills 25 cartel gunmen. On Sept. 2 EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht warns on a Flemish radio show that the Jewish lobby has a grip on U.S. politics so there is no point in more Middle East peace talks; on Sept. 3 she is forced to issue a clarification that her views are personal. On Sept. 2 the shallow water Mariner Energy facility S of Vermillion Bay in La. explodes; there are no injuries; some report seeing an oil slick. On Sept. 2 Middle East expert Arnaud de Borgegrave tells Newsmax.TV that the odds of an Israeli strike on Iran is "a 50-50 proposition", adding "It seems to be moving up the ladder." On Sept. 2 (1 p.m.) leftist eco-terrorist James Jay Lee (b. 1967) takes three hostages at the Md. HQ of Discovery Channel, saying that he has been inspired by Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and is pissed-off at their rejection of his ideas for a new show; he is shot dead by police. On Sept. 2 Pakistan state minister for industries Ayatullah Durrani publicly asks Pres. Obama to offer Eid prayers at the Sept. 11 Eid-ul-Fitr festival and declare himself the leader (caliph) (Amur-ul-Momineen) of all Muslims, saying "This is a golden opporunity, Muslims badly need it", and that Obama's elevation to the caliphate would be the "key to success". On Sept. 3 Iranian armed forces chief of staff Hassan Firouzabadi announces that if Israel attacks its nuclear facilities it will retaliate by attacking theirs. On Sept. 3 Turkey grants limited military concessions to the U.S. to use its territory, allowing them to move technical and logistical military equipment while withdrawing from Iraq; in 2003 it refused to allow U.S. troops to invade Iraq via its SE border. On Sept. 3 World Qods (Jerusalem) Day sees massive rallies in Iran calling for the "ignominious annihilation" of the "usurper Zionist regime" in Israel; meanwhile on Aug. 29 Arab League head Amr Moussa, who earlier had doubted that the Israeli-Palestinian talks would be successful says that they will be the last round of negotiations because Arabs are ready for full peace with Israel in exchange for a pullout of the lands occupied in 1967 incl. East Jerusalem; on Sept. 5 foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman warns Israelis to remember what happened after the Oslo peace talks with the 2nd Intifada, and says that there will be no peace in our time; meanwhile U.S. envoy Michael B. Oren warns that Hezbolllah has 15K rockets on the Lebanese border hidden under homes, hospitals and schools with enough range to hit Eilat, Israel. On Sept. 3 after Arab pressure, Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Yukiya Amano invites Israel "to consider to accede" to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, causing foreign minister Avigdor Liberman to call it a political ploy to divert attention from the "real proliferation challenges" of Iran and Syria. On Sept. 3 a car bomber in Tajikistan kills two police and wounds 25, becoming the first Islamic suicide bombing in the country since 2005. On Sept. 3 an explosion in a Shiite procession in Quetta, Pakistan kills 65 and wounds 150. On Sept. 3 a mudslide buries a bus in Guatemala, killing 28 and injures 30, with 40 missing. On Sept. 3 U.S. district judge Richard Kopf overturns a Neb. law banning flag mutilation, clearing the way for protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church of Kan. to trample U.S. flags at religiously-motivated military funeral protests; the members also announce that they burn Korans - nyaa? On Sept. 4 (4:35 a.m.) a 7.1 earthquake hits 19 mi. W of Christchurch, New Zealand, causing $1.4B damage and injuring two. On Sept. 4 Christians announce their concern about Muslim plans to pour tons of concrete on top of a wall above Jesus' Garden Tomb in Jerusalem for a Muslim cemetery. On Sept. 4 top Iranian grand ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi calls the Holocaust a "superstition", and says that "Zionists say that people of the world should be forced to accept this." On Sept. 4 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karazi announces the formation of a High Council for Peace to hold talks with the Taliban. On Sept. 5 an early morning car bomb at a military HQ in Baghdad, Iraq kills 12 and wounds 20, and is followed by a 2.5 hour gun battle as two men in explosive vests slip into the old defense ministry bldg. and throw grenades at Iraqi soldiers until they are killed. On Sept. 5 an Islamic suicide bomber on a Russian military base in Dagestan kills five soldiers and wounds 36. On Sept. 5 Iranian pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits Qatar, and utters the soundbyte "The U.S. and the Zionist entity will not be able to hit Iran right now. This is a wish... Any Israeli attack against Iran means the elimination of the Zionist entity from the world map"; meanwhile it is revealed that at least five Iranian cos. in Afghanistan have a $1K bounty on the head of any U.S. soldier killed by a Taliban member, also paying them monthly salaries of $233 and offering them $6K to blow up a U.S. military vehicle, and that Hezbollah is hitting U.S. targets in Iraq as a subcontractor for Iran and Syria. On Sept. 6 (Labor Day) Pres. Obama announces a 6-year $50B Infrastructure Plan to revamp aging roads, railways, and runways. On Sept. 6 a Taliban suicide bomber rams his car into a police station in Lakki Marwat in NW Pakistan, killing 19; meanwhile the Taliban threatens violent attacks on polling places in the Sept. 18 Afghanistan parliamentary elections. On Sept. 6 the Palestinian Nat. Authority objects to holding internat. meetings in Jerusalem, calling it a "provocation" because most of the world doesn't recognize it as Israel's capital. On Sept. 6 the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency IAEA releases a report saying that Iran is "hampering" their work, and possesses 2.8 tons of enriched uranium; the White House calls it "troubling". On Sept. 6 Pres. Obama gives a speech in Milwaukee, Wisc., where he utters the immortal soundbyte "Some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time and they're not always happy with me, they talk about me like a dog. That's not in my prepared remarks, but it's true." On Sept. 6 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy vows to go ahead with plans to strip French citizenship from Muslim immigrants who attack police, but rules it out for those who only practice polygamy or promote female circumcision. On Sept. 6 a fire at a private stable near Charles Town Races in W. Va. kills 27 thoroughbred racehorses. On Sept. 6-13 a wildfire burns 6.4K acres in Four Mile (Fourmile) Canyon near Boulder, Colo., burning 159 homes incl. the homes of four firefighters, becoming the worst fire in Colo. history.; it starts in a fire pit of a volunteer fireman. On Sept. 7 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton hosts a Ramadan dinner with Muslims on Capitol Hill - does she wear a burqa? On Sept. 7 former Obama Office of Mgt. and Budget (OMB) dir. Peter Orszag breaks with Obama and recommends extending the expiring Bush tax cuts for two years. On Sept. 7 Pres. Obama issues a Rosh Hashana Message to the Jewish community, urging them and Arabs to "seize peace", adding "We had an opportunity to move forward, toward the goal we share — two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security." On Sept. 7 prominent Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders hold an "emergency summit" in Washington, D.C. to denounce "the derision, misinformationa and outright bigotry" over Am. Muslims, esp. in the Ground Zero Mosque debate - they never denounce the intolerance, bigotry, supremacy, anti-Semitism etc. of Muslims worldwide? On Sept. 7 a bomb in a residential compound for police in Islamabad,Pakistan kills 18, incl. children, and injures 50. On Sept. 7 the govt. of Iraq announces the return of hundreds of Iraqi antiquities from the U.S.; meanwhile 632 pieces repatriated last year are announced as missing. On Sept. 7 transit strikes cripple London and France. On Sept. 7 Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley announces that he won't run again; Pres. Obama okays Rahm Emanuel to go for it, and he resigns on Oct. 1. On Sept. 7 (7 p.m.) 300 Egyptian security forces attack the St. Macarius of Alexandria Monastery in Wadi Rayan, Fayoun Province 90 mi. S of Cairo to stop them from building new limestone brick cells for the monks. On Sept. 8 Sri Lanka removes term limits for the pres., causing critics to say this could lead to a dictatorship. On Sept. 8 Italian Roman Catholic priest Piero Gheddo says that the low birth rate in Europe coupled with mass Muslim immigration will lead to Islam "sooner rather than later conquering the majority in Europe". On Sept. 8 it is announced that the Obama. admin. increased the federal debt by $2.526T, more than the cumulative total of all U.S. presidents from Washington to Reagan combined. On Sept. 8 Danish 2005 Muslim-offending Muhammad cartoonist Kurt Westergaard is awarded the M100 Media Prize in Berlin, Germany by chancellor Angela Merkel. On Sept. 8 Gaza terrorists launch a mortar attack on children and parents in S Israel hours before the start of the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah. On Sept. 8 the U.S. blacklists the German-based European-Iranian Trade Bank AG, claiming that it finances weapons proliferation. On Sept. 8 the city council of Hartford, Conn. begins kicking-off meetings with Islamic prayers from the Quran to show solidarity with Muslims, sparking outrage. On Sept. 8 the Obama admin. wins a major victory from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, allowing it to shield Bush-era crimes from judicial review as "state secrets". On Sept. 8 a survey carried out by the Palestinian Authority claims that 63.1% of 1.5M Palestinians in Gaza live below the poverty line, a higher percentage than the same size pop. in Rwanda. On Sept. 9 Calif. U.S. district judge Virginia A. Phillips overturns the U.S. military ban on openly gay service members. On Sept. 9 an Islamic suicide car bomber in Rostov-on-Don, Russia kills 17 and wounds 130+. On Sept. 9 a federal jury convicts Peter Seda, co-founder of the Islamic charity Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation in Ashland, Ore. for helping smuggle $150K to Islamic terrorists in Chechnya. On Sept. 9 an Iranian dissent group claims that Iran is developing a secret nuclear site called Behjatad-Abyek (Code Name 311) near Qazvin, 120 mi. W of Tehran. On Sept. 9 a natural gas line ruptures in San Francisco, Calif., causing a massive fireball and destroying 50+ homes. On Sept. 9 Muslim-Am. Yvonne Hiller shoots and kills two co-workers and injures a 3rd at a Kraft plant in NE Philly using a .357 Magnum. On Sept. 9 Forbes mag. pub. a cover story article from Dinesh D'Souza titled How Obama Thinks, containing the soundbytes "Barack Obama is the most antibusiness president in a generation, perhaps in American history. Thanks to him the era of big government is back", and claiming that he adopted "the cause of anti-colonialism" from his dead Kenyan father, which is praised by Newt Gingrich, causing White House Press secy. Robert Gibbs and call it a "publication you would see in a dentist's office, so lacking in truth and fact. I think it represents a new low." On Sept. 9-11 the Muslim Eid al-Fitr date falls near 9/11 for the first time since 2001, causing Am. Muslims to tone down festivities. On Sept. 10 Pres. Obama holds a news conference (first since May), fielding questions on the dismal chances for Dems. in the Nov. election, dissing Repubs. for "holding middle class tax relief hostage because they're insisting we've got to give tax relief to millionaires and billionaires, which would cost, over the course of 10 years, $700 billion and economists say is probably the worst way to stimulate the economy. That's an example of what this election is all about"; he also pontificates about Pastor Terry Jones' "stunt" and how it threatens American lives abroad, reminding us that he's commander in chief and seeming to regret not ordering U.S. marshals to arrest him for endangering troops, saying "You don't play games with that", and repeating his support of Muslims' right to build a mosque anywhere they can get away with, esp. Ground Zero, never mentioning that he could work with the Muslims to move it in a compromise, cautioning Americans not to "turn on each other", and uttering the soundbyte: "We are not at war against Islam, we're at war against terrorist organizations that have distorted Islam or falsely used the banner of Islam to engage in their destructive acts - we've got to be clear about that"; he also announces the appointment of Austan Dean Goolsbee (1969-) chmn. of the Council of Economic Advisers (until ?); meanwhile thousands protest the Pastor Terry Jones Koran Burning media stunt in Afghanistan, burning effigies of Terry Jones, and resulting in at least one death as German troops shoot a protester outside a NATO base; meanwhile Iranian pres. Imanutjob says that Quran burning is a "Zionist plot" that will hasten Israel's annhilation, and Newt Gingrich calls on Obama to come out against the Ground Zero Mosque to show the Am. people some "even-handedness"; meanwhile CIA dir. Leon Panetta tells his employees in a 9/11 memorial message that "The enemy is defined not by any religion, but by their actions, their atrocities", saying "We are united by our shared belief in liberty, equality, tolerance, fairness, and better lives for our children" (so we are at war with Islam?); meanwhile a new U.S. Terror Report from the former heads of the 9/11 Commission says that the U.S. has been slow to take seriously threats posed by homegrown Islamic radicals and failed to put systems into place - duh, no brainer with a president like Obama? On Sept. 10 former Osama bin Laden comrade Norman Benotman calls for al-Qaida to stop its U.S. campaign, saying that the 9/11 attacks only brought sufferings to ordinary Muslims. On Sept. 10 a record 25 are killed by drug gangs in Juarez, Mexico; meanwhile 85 inmates scale the walls of Reynosa Prison and escape, while Pres. Felipe Calderon denies a statement by Hillary Clinton that Mexico resembles Colombia in the 1990s, saying "We face an increasing threat from a well-organized network, drug-trafficking threat that is, in some cases, morphing into, or making common cause with, what we would consider an insurgency." On Sept. 11 Pres. Obama marks the 9th Anniv. of 9/11 at the Pentagon, giving a speech with the soundbyte "We define the character of our country", continuing his act of pretending Islamic jihad doesn't exist by calling al-Qaida "some small band of murderers", while vice-pres. Joe Biden attends services at Ground Zero which begin with a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m when the first plane hit the North Tower of the WTC, and First Ladies Michelle Obama and Laura Bush mark it at the Shanksville, Penn. Flight 93 Memorial Site; New York anti-mosque activists Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller of Stop the Islamization of Am. and the Freedom Defense Initiative lead 40K in a protest against the Ground Zero Mosque (Cordoba House) (Park51) in New York City, where Dutch politician Geert Wilders delivers his No Mosque Here Speech, with the soundbytes "A tolerant society is not a suicidal society", "We must draw the line so that New York, rooted in Dutch tolerance will never become New Mecca", and "We must not give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us"; too bad, the already-subjugated major media skunk it despite giving unlimited publicity to the 1-man band Pastor Terry Jones; N.J. Transit worker Derek Fenton bravely burns pages from his Quran at Ground Zero, and is taken away by the pigs for questioning, then released, two days later getting fired, after which the ACLU takes up his cause, getting his job back with damages and lost wages by Apr. 2011; six men from Gateshead, Tyneside, England are later arrested for filming themselves burning Qurans on 9/11. On Sept. 11 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu demands that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, saying "That is the real basis of the end of demands from the state of Israel and the end of the conflict between the two peoples", but adds that he will not make it a precondition of talks; he also says that Israel won't continue the freeze on Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria beyond Sept. 26; on Sept. 15 the 2nd round of talks in Sharm e-Sheikh ends with no movement on the construction moratorium issue. On Sept. 11 Saudi diplomat Ali Ahmad Asseri asks the U.S. govt. for asylum because the Saudi govt. refused to renew his diplomatic passpart and fired him discovering he has a Jewish woman friend and is gay, saying he fears for his life and that if he returns "they will kill me openly in broad daylight". On Sept. 12 Pres. Obama extends the 9/11 state of emergency for another year. On Sept. 12 Turkish voters by 58-41 pass a sweeping constitutional reform package, veering it toward Sharia and away from secularism by reining in the possibility of secular military coups while protecting individual and women's rights on paper, but with no teeth for enforcement, allowing Islamist officers expelled from the military to appeal to the courts, which are controlled by Islamists; no surprise, Pres. Obama praises Turkey for this move, while Israeli defense minister Amos Gilad says that "If there is not a change in personality, then Turkey will become Iran number two". On Sept. 12 in an effort to save midterm elections for the Dems., Pres. Obama flops and backs extending the Bush-era tax cuts, but only for the 98% of Ams. making less than $250K a year. On Sept. 12 Repub. leader Newt Gingrich says that Pres. Obama harbors a deep-seated animosity toward the West coming from his daddy's rebellion against British rule in Kenya, calling him "factually insane", and his worldview "outside the comprehension" of most Americans. On Sept. 13 the Obama admin. closes a $60B arms deal with retro Sharia country Saudi Arabia, the biggest U.S. arms deal in history, incl. 84 F-15 Strike Eagles, 70 Apache helis, 72 Black Hawk helis, and 36 Little Bird helis; Pres. Obama's Nobel Peace Prize isn't even 1 year old; a plan to train Saudi pilots at Mountain Force AFB in Idaho in 2014-19 pisses-off the locals; meanwhile a U.S. envoy to the IAEA Glyn Davies urges Arab states to withdraw a resolution calling on Israel to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, saying it would give a negative signal to peace talks. On Sept. 13 deadly riots in Kashmir kill 16 after Iranian TV broadcasts images of Ams. desecrating the Quran, causing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer to jump and claim that Quran-burning is like "shouting fire in a crowded theater" and hence can be banned, not mentioning that it should be the press that is punished not the individual for broadcasting the event worldwide and creating the crowded theater; the next day he flops and says that the Constitution does protect book burning, with the soundbyte "We protect expression that we hate" - so he loves the holy Quran and wants everybody to imbibe its evil ideology? On Sept. 13 Cuba announces that its bad economy is forcing it to fire 1M state by employees by next Mar. On Sept. 13 the FBI bans 16-y.-o. English teenie Luke Angel (1993-) from the U.S. for life for sending a drunken email to Pres. Obama that calls him a "punk". On Sept. 13 Italy announces that it's presenting a resolution to the U.N. to protect the rights of religious minorities in Pakistan from Muslims. On Sept. 13 the decision of the city council of Hartford, Conn. to reverse its decision to host an Islamic prayer in favor of an interfaith moment of silence pisses-off area Muslims, who demand Islamic prayer sessions. On Sept. 13 an Australian jury hears testimony about a planned attack by five Muslim men on Holsworth Army Base. On Sept. 13 blonde Mexican reporter Ines Sainz receives catcalls in the New York Jets locker room, causing the PC police to come out. On Sept. 13 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police pub. their annual report for 2010-1, containing the first mention of a possible coup d'etat. On Sept. 14 Sarah Shourd of the U.S. is released after 400 days in solitary confinement in Iran (July 2009) for alleged spying after paying Ł500K bail. On Sept. 14 Mexican immigration minister (since 2006) Cecilia Romero Castillo resigns three weeks after the massacre of 72 Central and South Am. migrants. On Sept. 14 (9 p.m.) a bomb alert at the Eiffel Tower in Paris causes 25K to be evacuated. On Sept. 14 a panel of U.S. nat. security experts releases a report saying that Pres. Obama is abandoning the U.S. to Muslim Sharia by his policy of delinking Islam to terrorism et al., threatening subversion of the U.S. Constitutional govt. On Sept. 14-18 Category 3 Hurricane Karl forms off the coast of Venezuela then hits the Yucatan Peninsula, killing three. On Sept. 15 Western govts. accuse Iran of trying to intimidate the IAEA by barring some nuclear inspectors; the U.S. warns them of possible diplomatic consequences. On Sept. 15 U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano tells the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that the U.S.-Mexico border is largely secured, and asks lawmakers to quit "moving the goalposts". On Sept. 15 Gaza militants fire mortars and rockets at S Israel to stop peace talks, causing Israeli aircraft to bomb a smuggling tunnel at the Egyptian border, killing a Palestinian. On Sept. 15 Iranian pres. Madmaninastraightjacket interviews head-covered Andrea Mitchel on NBC Nightly News, saying that "Muslims do not hate America" - just the non-Muslims in it? On Sept. 15 Pres. Obama addresses the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Inst. 33rd Annual Award Gala in Washington, D.C., and omits the word "Creator" from the Declaration of Independence. On Sept. 15 Austrian diplomat's daughter Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff is charged with "hate speech" and "denigration of religious teaching" by the Islam ignoramus Austrian govt. for speaking against Islamic Sharia, with the soundbyte "Sharia is a definite no-no. We want no gender apartheid, no ghettoes, no social and cultural discrimination, no polygamy, no theocracy, no hate." On Sept. 16 ailing Mexico celebrates its bicentennial, complete with a $40M celebration - how long till the Megamerge Dissolution Solution? On Sept. 16 South Korean pres. Lee Myung-bak names Kim Hwang-sik as PM of South Korea (until ?). On Sept. 16 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton leaves the Middle East with no sign of breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks after three days. On Sept. 16 (5:20 p.m.) a 100 mph tornado-like storm hits Brooklyn, N.Y., killing one and leaving 25K without power. On Sept. 16-19 Pope Benedict XVI visits Britain (at a cost of 10M pounds to the British govt.), offering to "extend the hand of friendship", and urging it to resist "more aggressive forms of secularism" after the queen welcomes him at Holyroodhouse in Edinbugh, praising Britain for fighting Hitler's "atheist extremism", and saying that though it had a "great history of anti-Catholicism" it also had a "great history of tolerance"; he also expresses a "great sadness" for the pedophile priest scandal, saying "It is difficult to understand how this perversion of the priestly ministry was possible", and why the "authority of the Church" was not "sufficiently vigilant"; the Vatican is shocked at the hostile British reaction to him; on Sept. 15 six Algerian Muslims are arrested for a plot to kill him, then released after the police decide there's "no credible threat"; during his flight from Rome, he said the child sex abuse scandal by the clergy was a great personal shock to him; the pope meets with the secy.-gen. of the Muslim Council of Britain; on Sept. 18 the Raelians file suit against the pope, claiming that he violated human rights by claiming that condoms don't stop the spread of AIDS. On Sept. 17 Pres. Obama announces the appointment of Harvard law prof. (consumer advocate) Elizabeth Warren as the head of a new consumer financial protection bureau. On Sept. 17 Ark. Repub. leader Mike Huckabee says that Pres. Obama treats Muslims better than Jews or Christians, adding "it certainly would be helpful if he would show a little love to the people that are unapologetically Christian." On Sept. 18 Chile celebrates its bicentennial. On Sept. 18 elections in Afghanistan are attacked by the Taliban with 739 attacks as 2.5K candidates incl. 400 women run for the 249 seats of the lower house; the results are announced on Oct. 8. On Sept. 19 Pres. Obama makes his first appearance in a church since Easter Sun. at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C.; it later is revealed that the church also invited Jerusalem-born Muslim guest speaker Dr. Ziad J. Asali (1942-), 2003 founder of the Am. Task Force on Palestine, which promotes a 2-state solution, with Asali known as the official U.S. delegate to the funeral of Yasser Arafat; ask the PC media why they tried to cover it up, although Obama left before he spoke; meanwhile his moderate Repub. point man Colin Powell appears on NBC's "Meet the Press", calling all the talk of his secret Muslim leanings and foreign birth "nonsense", saying "Let's not go down low... Let's attack him on policy, not nonsense." On Sept. 19 Islamist gunmen kill 23 in Racht Valley in Tajikistan 150 mi. E of Dushanbe. On Sept. 19 a Somali-descent Muslim British citizen from Liverpool is arrested on a plan en route to Entebbe, Uganda for suspected terrorism. On Sept. 20 after the worst U.S. recession since the 1930s is officially declared to be over last June (begun Dec. 2007) by the Nat. Bureau of Economic Research, Pres. Obama holds a town hall meeting hosted by CNBC, and commiserates with his mainly disappointed supporters, saying "Even though economists may say the recession officially ended last year, obviously for the millions of people who are still out of work... It is still very real for them"; he adds "I am confident that the American dream will continue. There is not a country in the world that would not want to change places with us." On Sept. 20 France announces that it is stepping up vigilance against terror threats, incl. one against the Paris transport network. On Sept. 20 Turkish pres. Abdullah Gul abruptly cancels a planned meeting with Israeli pres. Shimon Peres at Bill Clinton's Millennium Challenge after Peres won't apologize for the Gaza Flotilla incident, but meets with Israel-hating Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket, who on Sept. 21 addresses the U.N. Gen. Assembly, saying that Capitalism is failing, and that a "pure, righteous and glorious" NWO should be created, and warning the U.S. that if its nuclear facilities are attacked, it will start a war "without boundaries", and that "war is not just bombs", also calling Hillary Clinton "an enemy of Iran", and saying that "the Zionist regime is finished" and can't attack Iran, so they're not even planning for an attack; meanwhile French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy vows a fight on world poverty, pledging to boost aid to the world's poorest by 20% over three years and inviting other nations to join. On Sept. 20 three U.S. drone attacks in South Waziristan,Pakistan kill 25+. On Sept. 20 Lebanese Muslim Sami Samir Hassoun of Chicago, Ill. is charged in federal court with trying to blow up a bomb in Wrigley Field after the FBI targeted him and set him up. On Sept. 20 a report by the U.N. World Meteorological Org. (WMO) says that the ozone level is recovering and will return to pre-1980 levels by 2048, while the annual springtime ozone hole over the Antarctic will recover by 2073. On Sept. 20 (Mon.) Mark Roberts' sitcom Mike & Molly debuts on CBS-TV for 127 episodes (until May 16, 2016), starring William "Billy" Gardell (1969-) and Melissa Ann McCarthy (1970-) as fat couple Mike Biggs and Molly Flynn, who met in a Chicago Overeaters Anonymous group. On Sept. 20-21 the Earth is at its closest approach to Jupiter in a decade, and brighter than any night sky object other than the Moon. On Sept. 21 a U.S. Army Black Hawk heli crashes in Zhari District in Zabul Province in S Afghanistan, killing nine coalition service members, becoming the deadliest coalition heli crash since 2006, and bringing the yearly death total to 529 (2.1K since the start of the war), making it the deadliest year of the war. On Sept. 21 U.S. Sen. Dems. fail to break a Repub. filibuster of a defense authorization bill that also would have allowed the repeal of the DREAM ACT that would give citizenship to illegals who go to college, and the military's 17-y.-o. Don't Ask Don't Tell policy prohibiting openly gay men and women from serving in the armed forces; the bill is defeated in a largely party-line vote of 56-43, with no Repubs. voting for it, and three Dems. voting against it. On Sept. 21 German chancellor Angela Markel admits that Muslim immigration is transforming Germany, and that Germans should get used to more mosques than churches. On Sept. 21 Italian authorities seize 23M euros of Vatican bank assets from the Rome branch of the Credito Artigiano Spa bank as part of an investigation into money laundering. On Sept. 21 Palestinian Authority PM Salam Fayyad walks out of a U.N. meeting after refusing to acknowledge to the Israeli rep that the "2-state solution" he claims to accept is "two states for two peoples", i.e., a Jewish and a Muslim state. On Sept. 21 U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy introduces the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) that would allow the U.S. govt. to order Internet domains shut down, with the U.S. Dept. of Justice being able to get around judicial review, disturbing civil libertarians. On Sept. 21 (well-named?) well-built black Lithonia, Ga. New Birth Missionary Baptist Church (25K members) anti-gay bishop Eddie Lee Long (1953-) (who once called homosexuality a "spiritual abortion") is sued for preying sexually on teenie boys, exposing him as a closet gay even though he is a prominent spokesman against homosexuality; he is caught sending photos of himself in a muscle shirt to 16-y.-o. congregation boys to entice them; his congregation covers for him for years? On Sept. 21 Chinese PM Wen Jiabao threatens retaliation against Japan unless it releases a trawler capt. accused of ramming two Japanese coast guard ships near disputed islands; on Sept. 23 it blocks export of rare earth metals to Japan. On Sept. 21 a bomb explodes in a crowd watching a military parade in Mahabad in NW Iran in a Kurdish area near the Iraq-Turkey border, killing 12 and injuring dozens. On Sept. 21 Russia officially bans the sale of S-300 missile systems to Iran 3 mo. after U.N. sanctions were imposed. On Sept. 21 al-Qaida in North Africa claims responsibility for abducting five French nationals in Niger the week before. On Sept. 22 (early a.m.) a bomb explodes 100M from the U.S. embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia; next July it is is traced to Russian GRU officer Maj. Yevgeny Borisov of Abkhazia. On Sept. 22 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton congratulates Saudi King Abdullah on Saudi Arabia's nat. day, praising him for his Arab Peace Initiative calling for Israeli withdrawal to pre-1967 boundaries, with East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state. On Sept. 22 a 56-page report by the 3-member U.N. Human Rights Council fact-finding mission concludes that Israel's naval blockade Gaza is unlawful because of the humanitarian crisis there, and calls the IDF raid on the flotilla brutal and disproportionate, accusing the IDF of murder of two, incl. 19-y.-o. Turkish-Am. citizen Furkan Dogan (1991-2010); causing the Israeli Foreign Ministry to respond that the council has a "biased, politicized and extremist approach." On Sept. 22 Iranian pres. Madmaninastraightjacket gives an interview with CNN's Lary King, calling Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu "a skilled killer" who "should be put on trial for killing women and children", and saying that Iran has "no interest" in nukes and that nobody is concerned about the issue other than "the Zionist regime and some American authorities"; he gives another interview to Christane Amanpour, saying that he's open to working with the U.S. against the Taliban. On Sept. 22 an appeals court in Miami, Fla. rules 3-0 that the 33-y.-o. Fla. law banning adoption by gays and lesbians is unconstitutional; the Fla. supreme court will rule next. On Sept. 22 18-y.-o. Rutgers U. student Tyler Clementi (b. 1991) commits suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge in New York City after a video of him having sex with a dude is put on the Internet by roommate Dharun Ravi. On Sept. 22 U.S. homeland secy. Janet Napolitano releases the DHS Official Statement on Terrorism in America, cataloging one example of Islamic terrorists bent on destroying the U.S. after another then denying that Islam has anything to do with it, as per her boss Obama's orders; meanwhile FBI dir. Robert S. Mueller III tells Congress that the spike in recent homegrown terrorist cases is evidence of an evolving threat as "Groups affiliated with al-Qaida are now actively targeting the United States and looking to use Americans or Westerners who are able to remain undetected by heightened security measures." On Sept. 22 Euro airports are put on high alert amid report of planned attacks by female Algerian suicide bombers, according to Israeli Web site Debka. On Sept. 22 an Israeli contractor kills two Palestinians in East Jerusalem, causing mass protests. On Sept. 23 Teresa Lewis (b. 1970) is executed in Va. after being convicted of hiring two men to kill her husband, becoming the first execution of a female in Va. since 1912. On Sept. 23 U.S. House Repubs. announce their conservative 21-page Pledge to America, promising to reverse Obama's programs and shrink the size of govt.; Pres. Obama calls it "irresponsible". On Sept. 23 one week after the Senate passes it,the U.S. House by 237-187 passes a $42B small jobs bill. On Sept. 23 Pres. Obama gives an address to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, promoting human rights and democracy, with the soundbyte: "Part of the price of our own freedom is standing up for the freedom of others - that belief will guide America's leadership in this 21st century", and challenging delegates to support an Israeli-Palestinian peace and accept the Jewish state of Israel, saying "Israel's existence must not be a subject for debate. Israel is a sovereign state, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people. It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel's legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States"; he also calls for the Israeli building moratorium to be extended, and adds that Israel "must understand that true security for the Jewish state requires an independent Palestine – one that allows the Palestinian people to live with dignity and opportunity"; "If an agreement is not reached, Palestinians will never know the pride and dignity that comes with their own state. Israelis will never know the certainty and security that comes with sovereign and stable neighbors who are committed to co-existence. The hard realities of demography will take hold. More blood will be shed. This Holy Land will remain a symbol of our differences instead of our common humanity." On Sept. 23 Iranian pres. Madman Inadinnajacket gives a speech at the U.N., where he backs the 911 Truther Movement that claims that the U.S. not Islam did 9/11 in order "to reverse the declining American economy and its grip on the Middle East, and in order to save the Zionist regime" (he won't admit the existence of Israel), causing the U.S. and 31 other nations to walk out, incl. all 27 EU nations, Australia, New Zealand, and Costa Rica, while the rest of the 192 nations applaud, after which Pres. Obama calls his claims about 9/11 ""offensive" and "hateful", adding "Particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan,just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost theirloved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable"; Ahmadinejad asks the U.N. to proclaim 2011 as the Year of Nuclear Disarmament, with the slogan "Nuclear energy for all, nuclear weapons for none"; too bad, Obama also says "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger", causing some to claim that not only did the U.S. govt. do 9/11 but that it's planning a nuclear followup; the U.S. org. Muslims of the Americas supports Dinnerjacket's speech. On Sept. 23 the children's TV show Sesame Street pulls an episode featuring singer Katy Perry in a dress that some claim shows too much cleavage. On Sept. 23 to counter his bad image in the new movie "The Social Network", new billionaire Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donates $100M to the schools of Newark, N.J. - should be 20 times that? On Sept. 23 the U. of Ill. unanimously denies emeritus status to Obama's friend-acquaintance Bill Ayers after board chmn. Christopher George Kennedy (1963-) (son of RFK) gave a speech containing the soundbyte "I intend to vote against conferring the honorific title of our university to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father, Robert F. Kennedy." On Sept. 23 the Taliban blows up two more girls schools in Peshawark, Pakistan, bring the total to 1K+ over the last five years. On Sept. 23 the world's northernmost mosque arrives by barge in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. On Sept. 24 Turkish interior minister Besir Atalay calls on Germany to stop harboring separatist Kurdish rebels. On Sept. 24 comedian Stephen T. Colbert testifies in full character on immigration reform for 5 min. in front of a U.S. House subcommittee, which Dem. House majority leader Steny H. Hoyer calls "not appropriate - I think it was an embarrassment for Mr. Colbert more than the House." On Sept. 24 an Arab-backed measure to force Israel to accede to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is narrowly defeated at the annual meeting of the IAEA in Vienna. On Sept. 24 concerned about textbooks that contain glowing descriptions of Islam while ignoring or dissing Christianity, the Texas State Board of Education by 7-5 adopts a resolution urging textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books. On Sept. 24 two Mexican mayors, Prisciliano Rodriguez of Doctor Gonzalez, and Ricardo Solis of Gran Morelos are murdered, bringing the yearly total to four; on Sept. 27 Gustavo Sanchez (b. 1981), mayor of Tancitaro is stoned to death along with an aide; on Sept. 25 U.S. border inspector Oscar Obaldo Ortiz Martinez is charged with taking $50K to wave-in drug-laden vehicles; meanwhile on Sept. 22 Mexican pres. Felipe Calderone announces a new plan to protect journalists, who say it won't be enough to protect press freedom. On Sept. 24 Hamas PM Ismail Haniya appears on Al-Jazeera TV and reaffirms support for the "Iraqi resistance", with the soundbyte: "The Quran is our constitution, Allah is our destination, the Prophet Muhammad is our leader, Jihad is our path, and death for the sake of Allah is our most supreme desire." On Sept. 24 lesbian USAF flight nurse Maj. Margaret Witt is ordered reinstated by a federal judge, making her the first openly gay U.S. military member and challenging the Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy; on Oct. 12 U.S. District Court Judge Virginia Phillips of Riverside, Calif. suspends enforcement of the DADT policy after a lawsuit by gay GOP grop Log Cabin Repubs., requiring the govt. to appeal to reinstate it; meanwhile on Oct. 19 they announce that they will begin admitting openly gay recruits, subject to a court reversal. On Sept. 24 the Washington Times reveals that despite denials, the J Street lobby org. was heavily funded by George Soros; on Sept. 30 it reveals that it facilitated meetings been members of Congress and South African judge Robert Goldstone, author of the U.N.-sponsored Goldstone Report slamming Israel. On Sept. 24 the police procedural drama Blue Bloods debuts on CBS-TV for ? episodes (until ?), about the Irish-Am. Reagan family of NYPD police officers, led by former USMC officer and Vietnam vet Francis X. "Frank" Reagan, played by Thomas William "Tom" Selleck (1945-). On Sept. 25 Jordanian king Abdullah II appears on "The Daily Show" and says that if Israel restarts settlement construction there could be a war by the end of the year. On Sept. 25 a shipment of 8,080 computers worth $1.8M for schoolchildren in Babil (Babylon), Iraq that arrived at the main seaport in Feb. officially disappears. On Sept. 25 Egyptian grand imam Ahmed al-Tayyeb leads an extraordinary meeting of the Islamic Research Center to express shock and dismay at comments by Coptic bishop Bishoy criticizing the Quran, saying it "threatens national security", causing Coptic Pope Shenouda III to apologize. On Sept. 25 the Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC) uses the coverstory of "Islamophobia" to call for the U.N. to develop a "legally binding institutional instrument" to muzzle free speech about Islam; meanwhile U.S. officials announce that they want sweeping new regulations allowing them to wiretap the Internet. On Sept. 26 former Mass. Repub. gov. Mitt Romney calls the first two years of Pres. Obama's admin. "an abject failure"; meanwhile on Sept. 22 Obama is heckled by gay activists at a fundraiser in New York City for not getting the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy overturned and fornot getting for funding for AIDS programs, causing him to tell them to blame the Repubs. not him. On Sept. 26 a Jewish Freedom Flotilla consisting of the British-flagged Irene sets sail from Turkish-occupied Famagusta, Cyprus to Gaza carrying nine, incl. members of the U.K. group Jews for Justice for Palestinians; it is intercepted by the IDF and steered to Ashkelon without incident. On Sept. 26 (midnight) the 10-mo. new housing moratorium in the West Bank ends, and Mahmoud Abbas reneges on his threat to quit peace negotiations, causing the U.S. State Dept. to say that it is disappointed, and offer security guarantees to Israel in exchange for a 60-day freeze renewal. On Sept. 27 (11:22 GMT) a 6.1 earthquake in Konar Takhteh, W of Shiraz, Iran kills one and injures three. On Sept. 27 rumors circulate that the U.N. is appointing Malaysian astrophysicist Mazlan Othman of the U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs as its official extraterrestrial greeter. On Sept. 27 the 35-member U.N. Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) votes for Pakistan to chair its governing board despite its widely-condemned nuclear bomb tests in 1998. On Sept. 27 ICANN (Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers) drops their policy of doing background cheps for new Top Level Domain applicants after Muslims complain and demand submission. On Sept. 27 Venezuelan pres. Hugo Chavez announces that Venezuela is thinking about starting a nuclear energy program. On Sept. 27 Disney Corp. caves into a Chicago Muslim woman who demands to be allowed to wear an Islamic hijab head scarf to work, but she agrees to wear a beret over it. On Sept. 27 WikiLeaks suffers a mass defection after founder Julian Paul Assange (1971-) refuses to cancel an Oct. release of 392K more classified U.S. documents from the Iraq War. On Sept. 27 a plan to build a mosque in Tekstilshchiki, Moscow causes mass protests. On Sept. 27 a Politico/George Washington U. Battleground Poll reveals that only 38% of U.S. voters would vote to reelect him, and 44% have already decided to vote for someone else; meanwhile Sen. Dems. quietly agree to block recess appointments by Obama. On Sept. 27 gold hits a record high of $1308.50 an oz., while silver hits its highest price in 30 years of $21.70 an oz. On Sept. 28 former U.S. U.N. ambassador John Bolton blasts Pres. Obama in the Washington Times, saying that his appeasement of Islamists in Sudan may rekindle genocide; meanwhile Obama gives a backyard chat in Albuquerque, N.M., dissing the Repubs. for not having "good answers" on how to pay for their economic plans, incl. cutting education spending by 20%, and asking questions about his faith with the soundbyte "I'm Christian by choice", admitting that his mother "didn't raise me in the church" and that his family doesn't attend church every week, adding "I came to my Christian faith later in life", and that his "understanding that... Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we're sinful and we're flawed and we make mistakes, and that... we achieve salvation through the grace of God. But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find... their own grace. And so that's what I strive to do. That's what I pray to do every day. I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith"; too bad, at a campaign stop in 2007 he said the opposite, namely, that he became a Christian through his mother, with the soundbyte "My mother was a Christian from Kansas... I was raised by my mother, so I've always been a Christian"; he also takes pains to point out that the U.S. "is still predominantly Christian. We have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and... their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own"; meanwhile on Sept. 2 conservative Christian pundit Ann Hart Coulter (1961-) says that maybe he's really an atheist playing the crowd. On Sept. 28 mudslides in Oaxaca, Mexico bury a village, trapping hundreds while they sleep. On Sept. 28 Kim Jong-il's son Kim Jong-un (1983-) officially becomes 2nd in command in nuke-powered North Korea. On Sept. 28 a plot by eight German and two British Muslims to launch Mumbai-style terrorist attacks on Britain and other Euro countries is exposed and stopped by intel agencies, causing the U.S. to step-up drone attacks in Pakistan per Pres. Obama's doctrine that "the cancer is in Pakistan"; Osama bin Laden personally directed the plot?; on Oct. 5 French police arrest 12 suspected terrorists. On Sept. 28 Octavio Garcia Von Borstel (1981-), mayor of Nogales, Mexico is arrested on bribery and corruption charges. On Sept. 28 the govt. of Kenya announces its intention of going nuclear by 2017, with the U.S. giving them $25M to get started. On Sept. 28 Colton J. Tooley (1991-) runs through the U. of Tex. campus in Austin firing an AK-47, then killing himself. On Sept. 28 non-practising Muslim Ed Husic becomes the first Muslim Australian MP; his parents are Bosnian immigrants. On Sept. 28 Sacred Heart Primary School in Blackburn, England becomes the first to go Muslim as the Catholic students plunge from 91% to 3% in 10 years. On Sept. 28 the German Gothaer Insurance Co. apologizes for trying to avoid paying a male Muslim accident victim for a maid while recovering by citing the Quran. On Sept. 28 Eric Lewis, atty. for a rival Saudi family tells the U.S. House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversights and Investigations that the leading Saudi Al Sanea family has laundered up to $1T through U.S. banks. On Sept. 28 the first snow falls in Britain, becoming the earliest cold snap since 2003. On Sept. 28 Claude Heller of Mexico urges the U.N. Gen. Assembly to ratify an internat. convention protecting the rights of migrant workers and their families. On Sept. 28 as part of a midwest tour, Pres. Obama addresses students at the U. of Wisc., telling them "We can't sit this one out", referring to the upcoming nat. elections. On Sept. 28 the Viva Palestina convoy of 150 vehicles headed by U.K. lawmaker George Galloway departs from Istanbul, Turkey for Gaza with 5 tons of supplies; it arrives on Rafa on Oct. 21 after the Egyptians pass them through. On Sept. 28-30 the Conference on Islam and Muslims in America is held in Chicago, Ill., with the goal of establishing a new caliphate along with Sharia in the U.S.; the White House sends special envoy Rashad Hussein and Dalia Mogahed. On Sept. 29 Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak addresses the U.N. Gen. Assembly and calls for a "global movement of the moderates" in the Islamic world who will openly take a stand against Islamic extremism. On Sept. 29 U.S. citizen (of Algerian descent) Mohamed Omar Debhi (1967-) is arrested in Spain for sending 60K euros to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. On Sept. 29 the Obama admin. slaps financial and travel sanctions on eight Iranian officials accused of human rights abuses. On Sept. 29 Hossein Derakhshan, "the Father of Blogging in Iran" is sentenced to 19 years in jail. On Sept. 30 the Dutch Liberal Party and Christian Dems. join with the anti-Islam Freedom Party of Geert Wilders to form the first minority govt. in the Netherlands since WWII (until ?); a Taliban spokesman threatens an attack by a "jihadist group" if Wilders keeps influencing Dutch policies; meanwhile a poll in Germany reveals that a majority believe that the country's 4M Muslims are an economic burden. On Sept. 30 a 7.2 earthquake hits E Indonesia off Papua Province underneath the ocean floor. On Sept. 30 Ecuadoran pres. Rafael Correa is assaulted and kidnapped by rebel police and held in a police hospital in Quito until he is rescued by soldiers, after which the police chief resigns for failing to stop it. On Sept. 30 Muslims and Hindus agree to divide the holy site of Ayodhya. On Sept. 30 Pakistan cuts a key NATO supply route for its forces in Afghanistan after a NATO aircraft crosses into Pakistani airspace to fight Afghan rebels, and kills three Pakistani troops; despite a U.S. apology, they refuse to reopen it; on Oct. 1 militants attack NATO fuel convoys in Pakistan, burning 27 tankers - Obama's foreign policy is coming apart? On Sept. 30 Repub. Calif. gov. candidate Meg Whitman claims that she didn't know that her longtime housekeeper Nicandra Diaz Santillan was an illegal immigrant until June 2009, when she promptly fired her, causing her to say that Whitman "treated her like a dog". On Sept. 30 Czech Repub. pres. Vaclas Klaus says that the EU is "weakening" free markets and democracy with massive regulations, comparing it to the "authoritative, oppressive, and nonfunctioning" Commie regime in Czech's past. On Sept. 30 Calif. gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs a Calif. law partly decriminalizing marijuana, making possession of up to 1 oz. an infraction with a max fine of $100. On Sept. 30 the Washington Times reports that the allegedly Jewish lobbying org. J Street facilitated meetings with South African judge Richard Goldstone and members of the U.S.Congress in Nov. 2009, causing pres. Jeremy Ben-Ami to downplay it; meanwhile the Obama admin. begins distancing itself from the org. On Sept. 30 Calif. gov. Ahnuld Terminator signs SB 1317, a statewide anti-truancy law designed to curb absenteeism, allowing state officials to prosecute parents when their kids don't show up for school, to go into effect next Jan. 1; the law was created by "female Obama" Kamala Harris; too bad, it makes a misdemeanor of missing just three days of school in a year, with up to a $2.5K fine and a year in jail for the parents, who will most likely be disproprionately black and Hispanic, breeding disrespect for the law? On Sept. 30 the new Chinese Shanghai-Hangzhou High-Speed Train sets a world record of 259 mph (416.6 km/h). On Sept. 30 the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture announces a plan to rid Guam of brown tree snakes by dropping frozen mice laced with acetaminophen. On Sept. 30 Colo. residents David Hartley (1980-) and Tiffany Hartley (1981-) are ambushed by Mexican pirates while jet-skiing on Falcon Lake in Tex. near the Mexican border, and David is shot in the head and killed, after which an investigator is beheaded and his head delivered in a suitcase. In Sept. the magnificent $578M 24-acre ($140K per student) Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools Complex in Wilshire, Los Angeles, Calif. opens, the most expensive public school in U.S. history, becoming a monument to Ahnuld's debt to the Kennedy family at the expense of education and the ailing Calif. economy?; the Los Angeles Staples Sports and Entertainment Center cost $375M. In Sept. the U.S. Agency for Internat. Development (AID) gives a $250K grant to the H.L. Education for Peace (Geneva Initiative) to pay for an ad campaign in Israel with the slogan "We are partners - what about you?" In Sept. the U.S. loses a net 95K jobs, leaving the unemployment rate at 9.6%. In Sept. after pressure by LGBT orgs. on health minister David Chiriboga Allnutt, 200 illegal "reparative therapy clinics" designed to cure homosexuality are shut down by the govt. of Ecuador. In Sept. U.S. home foreclosures exceed 100K for the first time, with 930,437 since July. In Sept. an AP-MTV Poll finds that college students are cooling to Pres. Obama, with 44% approving of the job he's doing, and 27% unhappy, compared to 60% and 15% in May 2009. On Oct. 1 Rahm "Rahmbo" Emanuel tearfully resigns to run for mayor of Chicago, and Peter Mikami "Pete" Rouse (1946-) becomes interim White House chief of staff, the first of Asian descent (his mother is a 2nd gen. Japanese-Am.), who negotiated the terms of Pres. Clinton's impeachment to make sure that no evidence against him would be entered in the Sen. trial, and convinced Obama to vote against John Roberts in his U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing; Emanuel is presented a gift of a dead Asian carp by new Council of Economic Advisers chmn. Austan Goolsbee, alluding to the legend that he sent a dead fish to a pollster he didn't like a la "The Godfather". On Oct. 1 two car bombs explode in Abuja, Nigeria on its 50th independence anniv., killing seven. On Oct. 1 three grenades explode near the U.S. consulate in Monterrey, Mexico; meanwhile the Mexican govt. prepares to put all local police under a "unified command" to restore public trust, closing 2.2K local police depts. On Oct. 1 the Pentagon's new Cyber Command becomes operational. On Oct. 1 an independent, er, the White House releases a Report on the Economic Stimulus Package, claiming that it is coming in on time and under budget, with strikingly few claims of fraud or abuse. On Oct. 1 the Security Policy Inst. of George Washington U. and the Center for Assymetric Threat Studies of the Swedish Nat. Defense College release a report saying that the U.S. and EU need to work together to stop homegrown terrorists. On Oct. 1 former Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf announces that he's returning to politics to battle corruption, revive the economy, and fight Islamist militants; meanwhile a new tape allegedly by Osama bin Laden criticizes Pakistan relief efforts and calls for action against climate change, claiming that it caused the Pakistani floods - finally giving away that he's a CIA plant? On Oct. 1 the U.S. govt. admits to infecting hundreds of Guatemalans with syphilis in 1946-8. On Oct. 1 Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr publicly backs struggling Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki in a bid to give his own anti-U.S. bloc political legitimacy. On Oct. 1 the U.S. Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2010 is introduced by U.S. Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). On Oct. 1 a protest against the Stuttgart 21 project in Stuttgart, Germany injures 116. On Oct. 1 (11:00 GMT) China launches the Chang'e-2 Moon probe. On Oct. 2 a double train crash in C Indonesia kills 36 and injures 26. On Oct. 2 Britain finally recognizes it ancient religion of Druidry as a religion and gives it charitable status. On Oct. 2 Calif. gov. Ahnuld signs a law decriminalizing possession of up to 1 oz. of marijuana. On Oct. 3 Iranian pres. Madman Inastraightjacket calls for U.S. leaders to be "buried" for threatening its nuke program militarily, with the classic Iranian insult "May the undertaker bury you, your table and your body, which has soiled the world." On Oct. 3 the labor union and NAACP-led One Nation Rally on the Mall in Washington, D.C., meant to counter Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally slams the Repubs. and conservatives for racism and bigotry; too bad, the crowd is tiny, and the Communist Party USA openly endorses it. On Oct. 3 Germany finally makes its last payment on its WWI reparation debt; meanwhile German pres. Christian Wulff gives a speech celebrating two decades of reunification, weighing in on the immigration debate and the 4M Muslim in Germany, saying that "Islam also has a place in Germany" (belongs to Germany) along with Christianity and Judaism, pissing-off conservatives incl. fellow Christian Dems.; on Oct. 6 chancellor Angela Merkel (who praised the German soccer team this year for its multiethnicity) says that multiculturalim has "utterly failed", and that Muslims must obey the German constitution and not Sharia law if they want to live in Germany, and "must not only obey our laws, they must also master our language', adding "Our culture is based on Christian and Jewish values and has been for hundreds of years, not to say thousands", adding that after inviting foreign workers in, they made them mistake of thinking they wouldn't stay; on Oct. 27 Merkel disses Geert Wilders for praising her, saying she in no way wants to express "criticism of Islam"; on Oct. 18-22 Wulff visits Turkey, becoming the first official visit by a German pres. in 10 years, and tells the Turkish parliament "Christianity too undoubtedly belongs to Turkey", to stony silence - at least they're anti-Semites like us? On Oct. 3 the Indian Mujahideen of Assam threaten to launch a biological war in Assam if their supporters aren't released from jail within 24 hours. On Oct. 3 two Israeli Givati soldiers (unidentified) are convicted of using a 9-y.-o. Palestinian boy as a human shield in the 22-day 2008-9 Gaza War; on Nov. 21 they are given suspended sentences of 3mo. and demotions from staff sgt. to sgt. On Oct. 3 a Non Sequitur comic strip by Wiley Miller satirizing U.S. media hesitancy to offend Islam is pulled by many newspapers for fear of you know what. On Oct. 4 a Hungarian Toxic Sludge Spill of iron, silicon and aluminum oxide begins in Kolontar, Hungary 45 mi. S of the Danube River, spreading deadly ochre red sludge there on Oct. 7, becoming as big as the Gulf Oil Spill. On Oct. 4 Iraq raises its proven oil reserves figure by 25% to convince OPEC to grant it a higher output quota in an effort to match the clout of #1 producer Saudi Arabia. On Oct. 4 Pakistani intel officials announce a successful drone strike that killed eight German nationals in Waziristan; meanwhile Europe stiffens security with high expectation of an al-Qaida attack. On Oct. 4 a Gallup Poll reveals that 57% of 18-to-29-year-olds still support Pres. Obama, along with 91% of African-Ams., 79% of Dems., and 75% of liberals, which doesn't stop 56% of likely voters from supporting the Repubs., vs. 38% for Dems., giving Repubs. an "enthusiasm advantage"; on Oct. 5 a ABC News/Washington Post Poll shows 49% for the Repubs. vs. 43% for the Dems. (vs. 53-40 in Sept.), the lartest GOP lead over the Dems. since their first poll in 1982; 71% are dissatisfied with the federal govt. On Oct. 4 the Am. Sociological Review pub. a study claiming that predatory lending aimed at racially-segregated minority neighborhoods led to the mass foreclosures that fueled the U.S. housing crisis. On Oct. 4 former senior U.N. official Antonio Maria Costa claims that Taliban sleeper cells have been set up inside Afghan police and army forces, and are waiting for orders to strike. On Oct. 4 the U.S. State Dept. issues a travel alert warning of Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe, incl. the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, and Hotel Adlon near the Brandenburg Gate in Germany, causing German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere to dismiss them as "alarmist", claiming that they help the terrorists spread fear. On Oct. 4 the U.S. Justice Dept. sues Am. Express, Visa, and MasterCard for violating antitrust laws for trying to prevent customers from getting a discount for not using a credit card. On Oct. 4 former U.S. vice-pres. Walter Mondale says that Pres. Obama relies too much on teleprompters, calling them "idiot boards" tht keep him from connecting with audiences; meanwhile on Oct. 5 a poll for the Arab Am. Inst. by Zogby Internat. reveals that Arab-Ams. will vote Dem. by 2-1, and are pro-Ground Zero Mosque, the controversy reinforcing their Dem. leanings. On Oct. 4 In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF) pioneer Robert Geoffrey "Bob" Edwards (1925-) is awarded the Nobel Med. Prize, causing the Vatican to diss it. On Oct. 4 the hate speech circus trial begins for Danish anti-Islamization leader-hero Geert Wilders (1963-), who gives a speech with the soundbyte "We will not accept Islamization"; British EU MP Gerard Batten braves the PC police to stand up for him, saying "He's standing up for Western liberal democracy in the face of an ideology that wants to destroy it"; on Oct. 15 after the farce continues as far as they can get away with, all of the weapon-like Sharia-compliant charges are recommended by prosecutors to be dropped, which doesn't stop the court, which allows the ridiculous Dutch-hating Muslim "aggrieved parties" to take them over on Oct. 19; on Oct. 22 after a motion by Wilders claiming that judge Tom Schalken tried to influence Arabist Hans Jansen during a dinner, a retrial is ordered; on June 22, 2011 he is finally acquitted, which doesn't stop them from plotting against him. On Oct. 5 despite opposition from Islamic states, the U.N. Human Rights Council passes a resolution on women's rights, establishing a 5-person working group to advise govts. on eliminating laws and practices discriminating against women. On Oct. 5 the Obama admin. announces plans for solar panels on the White House by next spring, despite the fact that 1-term Dem. pres. Jimmy Carter did it first. On Oct. 5 Gavriel Avital was fired as Israel's education ministery chief scientist for his views favoring creationism and denying global warming - you can't believe in Jehovah and be a top scientist in Israel? On Oct. 5 Islamic terrorist Istaq Ahmed in Maoist-dominated Purulia in West Bengal, India carrying 1kg of uranium with a market value of $7M. On Oct. 5 former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf admits that Pakistan trained underground militant groups to fight in Kashmir, the first such admission by a top leader. On Oct. 6 the Nat. Commission on the DP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling releases a report revealing that govt. scientists who wanted to tell the public early on how bad the spill could be were muzzled by the White House. On Oct. 6 Germany announces that it is bowing out of its nuclear sharing agreement with the U.S., under which its fighter jets could be used to drop U.S. nukes, as soon as it decommissions its Tornado fighter jets in 2013 or sooner; the Tornado base in Buchel houses 22 U.S. nuclear bombs, guarded by U.S. soldiers. On Oct. 6-10 the 62nd Annual Frankfurt Book Fair is attended by 7,533 exhibitors from 111 countries, stubbornly holding out on ebooks, and featuring a $100K 6'x9' 128-page Atlas by Australian publisher Gordon Cheers (world's largest atlas, beating the record set by the 1660 Klencke Atlas), who utters the soundbyte "This will still be around in 500 years." On Oct. 7 the Abdullah Shah Ghazi Shrine Sufi mosque in Karachi, Pakistan is blown up, killing seven and injuring dozens; the Taliban claim responsibility. On Oct. 7 Israeli police arrest a 17-y.-o. resident of Hebron, Israel for uploading a video to YouTube exposing a top Shin Bet agent. On Oct. 7 Pres. Obama says he will pocket-veto the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act, saying it will make it easier for banks to foreclose on homeowners. On Oct. 7 a group of Nobel scientists warn the British govt. that its permanent cap on immigration slated for next Apr. would threaten the country's future as a center of scientific excellence. On Oct. 7 at a rally in Md., Pres. Obama brings up the Chamber of Commerce, complaining that their donors are secret and waxing lyrical about foreign monies used by them to push domestic political activism; too bad, when challenged the White House can't prove it; meanwhile Obama conveniently sidesteps his own foreign donations received in his 2008 campaign, incl. from Hamas-controlled sections of Gaza. On Oct. 7 Forbes mag. pub. its annual list of the world's most powerful women, sliding Michelle Obama past Angela Merkel to the #1 spot; #1 for four years, Merkel slides to #4 past Kraft Foods CEO Irene Rosenfeld and Oprah Winfrey. On Oct. 7 the Vatican calls for a special conference of 172 bishops from Islamic countries to discuss the rise of radical Islam, causing Syed Munawar Hasan, head of the Jamaat e Islami Islamic org. in Pakistan to call the entire talk of interfaith dialog and tolerance a farce, claiming that Pastor Terry Jones was part of a Vatican plot, and explaining that Islam had its own political system, its own culture and civilization, besides also delivering an economic system based on equity and service to the humanity; meanwhile U.S. asst. secy. of state Philip Crowley meets with 30 Muslim reps from Indianapolis, Ind. at the HQ of the Islamic Society of North Am. (ISNA) to discuss U.S. foreign policy, despite it being suspected of being part of the Muslim Brotherood, whose agenda is to "eliminate and destroy Western Civilization". On Oct. 8 deputy nat. security adviser Thomas E. "Tom" Donilon (1955-) replaces Gen. James L. Jones as U.S. nat. security adviser #23 (until June 30, 2013). On Oct. 8 Israeli troops kill two senior Hamas militants in an early morning raid in Hebron in the West Bank. On Oct. 8 Pres. Obama signs Rosa's Law requiring the terms "mentally retarded" and "mental retardation" to be removed from all U.S. laws. On Oct. 9 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy meets with Pope Benedict XVI over recent French actions against the Roma (Gypsy) pop. of clearing several illegal camps in Aug. and forcing repatriation. On Oct. 9 Iran acknowledges espionage for the West occurred at their nuclear facilities. On Oct. 10 (10/10/10) the Netherlands Antilles is dissolved. On Oct. 10 the World Day Against the Death Penalty is sponsored by Amnesty Internat., who claims there are 137 countries with capital punishment, and only 60 of them implement the sentence; the top bad guys are China and Iran. On Oct. 10 U.K. aid worker Linda Norgrove (b. 1974) is killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan during a rescue attempt by U.S. forces after being held hostage since Sept. 26. On Oct. 10 a book is thrown at Pres. Obama during a campaign rally in Philly, narrowly missing his head. On Oct. 10 leftist Green Party leader Femke Halsema shocks the PC police with a statement that leftist and progressive thinkers should start criticizing Islam and not succomb to radical Muslim pressure, concentrating on the position of women and gays within Islamic communities just as much as they do within Christian ones. On Oct. 10 Catholic archbishop of Khartoum Cardinal Gabriel Zubeir Wako narrowly escapes an assassination attempt by Islamists. On Oct. 10 double arm amputee piano player Liu Wei (1987-) wins "China's Got Talent". On Oct. 10 Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy is found beheaded in his apt. in Chandler (near Phoenix), Ariz., causing fears of Mexican drug cartel violence crossing the border. On Oct. 11 Pres. Obama signs the $58B NASA Authorization Act of 2010, defining a long-term goal for a permanent human presence beyond low Earth orbit incl. full use of the Internat. Space Station (ISS) in fiscal years 2011-13. On Oct. 11 Chinese energy giant CNOOC announces that it's buying 600K acres of S Texas oil and gas fields for $2.2B. On Oct. 11 the Israeli cabinet okays a loyalty oath for non-Jews to require them to swear loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state; after an internat. uproar, it is amended to incl. non-Jews. On Oct. 11 Bavarian PM Horst Seehofer says that Turkish and Arab migrants who can't assimilate are no longer needed in Germany, causing the Angela Merkel admin. and German Turkish community to diss him. On Oct. 11 a dozen genetics experts release their DNA to the public to challenge the view that such info. should be kept private. On Oct. 11 (night) a Muslim jumps up and dances on the altar of Florence Cathedral in Italy. On Oct. 12 drug cartel hitmen ambush a police convoy in you-guessed-it Sinaloa, Mexico, killing eight officers. On Oct. 12 a Nat. Air Cargo cargo plane crashes outside Kabul, Afghanistan, killing six Filipinos, one Indian, and a Kenyan. On Oct. 12 Hollywood actor George Clooney meets with Pres. Obama in the White House to discuss the plight of S Sudan. On Oct. 12 250 Lebanese politicans and others issue an Open Letter to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, asking him not to meddle in Lebanese affairs. On Oct. 12 after Repub. U.S. Senate candidate in Nev. Sharron Angle pisses-off the PC police with observations that Dearborn, Mich. ("Dearbornistan") is now ruled by Muslim Sharia law, Muslim activist Tarek Beydoun of guess where pays for 250K robo-calls to Nev. voters to oppose her. On Oct. 12 the Union for a Popular Movement Party of French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy cancels a planned debate on "Immigration, Islamism: Is France Threatened?" for fear of you know what; meanwhile on Oct. 12 the al-Qaida mag. Inspire pub. an article urging Islamic terrorists to target crowded restaurants in Washington, D.C. in order to massacre U.S. govt. workers; another article suggests using a pickup truck as "the ultimate mowing machine" to mow down the enemies of Allah; another calls on Muslims to emulate the Ft. Hood treason jihadist; meanwhile on Oct. 1 clueless dhimmi Diane Sawyer of clueless ABC-TV's "20/20" hosts a segment on Islam portraying it as peaceful and misunderstood, hoping for a "reconciliation" between Americans and American Muslims, and on Oct. 3 CNN internat. correspondent Christiane Amanpour (1958-) (Persian Muslim father, British mother) hosts Town Hall Debate: Should Americans Fear Islam?, both of which whitewash Islam and portray those who are warning of its dangers incl. Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer as intolerant "Islamophobes" - my pickup truck or yours? On Oct. 13 the legislature of Ga. votes to ban illegal immigrants from the U. of Ga., Ga. Inst. of Tech, and three other top public colleges, making it the 2nd state after S.C. On Oct. 13 an explosion at an Iranian Rev. Guard base in Lorestan kills 18 and injures 14 - Bond, James Bond? On Oct. 13 Canada becomes the first country to declare Bisphenol A (used to make polycarbonate baby bottles and epoxy resins) to be a toxic substance and environmental hazard. On Oct. 13 a study released by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, associated with the Social Dem. Party finds that one third of Germans feel that Germany is "overrun by foreigners", 60% would "restrict the practice of Islam", 17% think Jews have "too much influence", and 13% would welcome another Fuehrer. On Oct. 14 Mark Rutte (1967-) of the conservative Liberal People's Party for Freedom and Dem. (VVD) becomes PM of the Netherlands (until ?). On Oct. 14 Iranian pres. Madman Inastraightjacket visits S Lebanon, calling the village of Bint Jbeil the "capital of freedom, resistance and victory", and saying "The Zionists will not last long", calling for Palestine to be "forcefully freed" and the Zionists to "go back where they came from", adding "Lebanon is an example... for the unwavering resistance to the world's tyrants and a university for jihad", and "Our world today stands on the verge of change, a change that is starting from our region", and predicting that "the Mahdi will come here, accompanied by Jesus Christ" to help his side; he receives a warm reception from Lebanese pres. Michel Suleiman and other Lebanese leaders; on Oct. 17 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu says that Lebanon is increasingly becoming a satellite of Iran, with the soundbyte "This is a tragedy for Lebanon, but we in Israel will know how to defend ourselves and continue to build our country"; meanwhile the European Jewish Congress warns that some Jewish communities in Europe are "teetering on the brink" due to nat. endorsement and/or neglect of anti-Semitism, with pres. Moshe Kantor uttering the soundbyte "We are entering a very dark period for Jews in Europe." On Oct. 14 a new U.S. military tally claims that 77K Iraqis were killed from Jan. 2004 to Aug. 2008, disputing the Iraq govt. tally of 85,694. On Oct. 14 Turkish attys. representing pro-Palestinian activists file a criminal complaint with the Internat. Criminal Court in The Hague claiming that Israeli troops committed war crimes against the Fake Freedom Flotilla. On Oct. 14 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga. pub. a study showing that Latinos outlive whites by two years and blacks by almost eight years, with a Hispanic born in 2006 having a life expectancy of 80 years 7 mo. On Oct. 15 a 3.1 earthquake in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Calif. puzzles scientists since it's not on a known fault line. On Oct. 15 Russian signs a deal with Venezuela to build its first nuclear power plant and buy $1.6B of oil assets in a move to end U.S. global dominance; on Oct. 19 Pres. Obama says he has no objection to them developing nuclear power for civilian energy purposes. On Oct. 15 Israel ends its unofficial construction freeze in East Jerusalem, with plans to build 238 housing units. On Oct. 15 a gold mine collapses in S Ecuador, trapping four miners 490 ft. underground. On Oct. 15 Am. Muslims hold a Jummah Prayer on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., with the slogan "Jesus: The Messiah of Jerusalem"; despite being billed as a meeting for 100K, only a few hundred show up. On Oct. 17 the Arab League calls on countries belonging to the Org. for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to boycott a tourism confrence in Jerusalem to protest the existence of, er, policies of Israel. On Oct. 17 a jewel heist in Baghdad, Iraq sees three shop owners, two robbers, and three security personnel killed. On Oct. 17 unemployed Staten Island, N.Y. house painter Juan Rodriguez (1986-) receives $100K of a $1M reward offered by media mogul Alki David Thursday for streaking past Pres. Obama at a rally in Philly after failing to fulfill all the requirements. On Oct. 17-20 violence in Karachi, Pakistan kills 52; meanwhile on Oct. 20 the Obama admin. announces that Pres. Obama will visit Pakistan next year to shore up the relationship. On Oct. 18 a NATO official claims that Osama bin Laden is hiding in NW Pakistan under protection of the govt., and lives in a house not a cave. On Oct. 18 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates says that the U.S.-Turkey alliance is still strong despite tensions. On Oct. 18 the Obama admin. files a brief in support of the construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn., saying that it is a recognized religion covered by the First Amendment, and not saying that despite Sharia making it a govt. system and potential enemy of the Constitution, Obama wants to use federal power to open the gates of America to it and its mosques because Congress hasn't officially passed a law yet? - Daniel Boone rolls over in his grave? On Oct. 18 Greece signs a civil aviation agreement with Israel, their first bilateral pact since 1950. On Oct. 18 Hamas PM Isma'il Haniyah reaffirms that Hamas will not recognize Israel. On Oct. 18 the Obama admin. announces that it has asked China to quit helping Iran improve its missile technology and develop nukes. On Oct. 18 Mexican authorities seize 105 tons of marijuana in Tijuana, becoming the biggest bust in Baja Calif. history; on Oct. 20 the U.S. Coast Guard seizes a ton of marijuana tossed from a boat 40 mi. from San Diego, Calif. On Oct. 18 The Talk daytime talk show debuts on CBS (until ?), produced by Sara Gilbert, sister of "Little House on the Prairie" star Melissa Gilbert. On Oct. 18-22 Super Typhoon Megi kills three in the Philippines, followed by seven in Taiwan. On Oct. 18 Hassan Karami, police chief of Esfahan, Iran announces that it is a crime for women to cycle or roller-skate in public. On Oct. 18 Chinese vice-pres. Xi Jinping is named to a top military command post, positioning him as heir apparent. On Oct. 18 Yemeni blogger Nashwan Ghanem allegedly commits suicide after posting that the Yemeni military was complicit in the Sept. 2008 attack on the U.S. embassy. On Oct. 18 Israel announces that Hamas now has anti-aircraft missiles, threatening the Israeli air force. On Oct. 18 20-y.-o. mother and college student Marisol Valles Garcia (1990-) becomes the police chief of Guadalupe Distrito Bravo in Chihuahua after nobody else will take the dangerous job in N Mexico; in Oct. Hermila Garcia becomes police chief of Meoqui (43 mi. from Chihuahua), and on Nov. 30 is killed while driving to work; in Mar. 2011 Marisol quits and flees across the border after receiving death threats. On Oct. 19 (5 a.m.) multiple shots hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., doing no damage to bulletproof windows; meanwhil more shots are fired at the Nat. Marine Corps Museum in Triangle, Va. (36 mi. S of Washington, D.C.). On Oct. 19 an Islamic suicide attack on parliament bldgs. in Grozny, Chechnya kills six. On Oct. 19 Iranian pres. Madman Inadinnajacket greets Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki in Tehran, congratulating him on his 2nd term, and telling him to "get rid of America". On Oct. 19 over 1M begin daily protests in France to protest a change of the retirement age from 60 to 62, which is approved by the French Senate on Oct. 22 by a 177-153 vote, which doesn't stop the strikes that cost the economy up to 400M euros ($557M) a day; on Oct. 29 the unions end their strikes at oil refineries and major ports - it's about joie de vivre not Yankee capitalism? On Oct. 19 the German govt. charges eight German Muslim members of the Global Islamic Media Front with supporting Islamic terrorist orgs. incl. al-Qaida by spreading propaganda on the Internet; on Oct. 20 the German Federal Crime Office announces that Germany has over 1K potentially violent Islamists; in Oct. the U. of Osnabrueck in Germany begins a program to train German Muslim imams in an attempt to create a pro-democratic tolerant brand of German Islam - not likely? On Oct. 19 20+ violent Muslims occupy a Christian chapel at Gordon College in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, claiming ownership. On Oct. 19 a ABC News/Yahoo! News Poll finds that 63% of Americans think that the media is to blame for the widening nat. political divide instead of Pres. Obama. On Oct. 19 Mary Bale (1965-) of Coventry, England pleads guilty to animal cruelty for a summer incident where she grabbed 4-y.-o. cat Lola and threw into a trash bin then shut the cover and walked off, which was videotaped and went viral on the Internet, outraging animal lovers, some of whom threaten her. On Oct. 19 ground is broken for the first mosque in Alaska by the nat. dir. of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) - you betcha? On Oct. 20 Britain announces the biggest spending cuts since WWII. On Oct. 20 the Turkish parliament defeats a motion to lift a ban on wearing Islamic head scarves at univs. On Oct. 20 White House Press Secy. Robert Gibbs tries to explain why Pres. Obama has omitted the word "Creator" when reciting the Declaration of Independence at least three times, saying that "he believes in the Declaration of Independence" - how about a Creator, and which one? On Oct. 20 U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon (1944-) warns against "a dangerous trend" of polarizing Europe over Muslim immigrants by accusing them "of violating European values", saying "Too often it is the accusers who subvert these values and thus the very idea of what it means to be a citizen of the European Union"; meanwhile 250 Roman Catholic bishops meet at the Vatican in the 2-week Special Assembly for the Middle East for the Synod of Bishops, and discuss Muslim aggression and murder and how it is driving Christians out of the Middle East, with Antioch patriarch archbishop Raboula Beylouni uttering the soundbyte "The Koran gives Muslims the right to judge Christians and kill them with Jihad. It gives orders to impose religion with force, with the sword. For this reason, Muslims don't recognise the freedom of religion among themselves or others"; after trying to draw a sharp distinction between extremist and moderate Muslims, the synod adds "but for Christians on the ground in Muslim-run countries, such distinctions are often hard to maintain"; on Oct. 23 the bishops close the meeting with a statement that Israel shouldn't try to use the Bible to justify "injustices" against the Palestinians, with Pope Benedict XVI on Oct. 24 uttering the soundbyte "Peace is possible. Peace is urgent. Peace is the precondition for a life worthy of human beings and society"; meanwhile a report by the Christian group the Gift Foundation claims Christian asylum seekers fleeing Muslim countries to the Netherlands are often threatened or physically abused by fellow refugees who are Muslims, and a proposed giant mosque near the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, England is canceled after local opposition. On Oct. 20 after a call by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), African-Am. Nat. Public Radio (NPR) commentator, er, news analyst Juan Williams is fired for agreeing with Bill O'Reilly about Muslims, with O'Reilly stating "The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations is the biggest threat on the planet", to which Williams replies "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous"; NPR CEO Vivian Schiller stinks herself up with varying reasons for summarily firing him, incl. that his comments should have been "between him and his psychiatrist or his publicist", which Williams calls "low", after which a backlash by Whoopi Goldberg., Sarah Palin et al. results in Fox News signing him to a $2M deal along with calls of ending NPR's federal funding by U.S. Sen. (R-S.C.) Jim DeMint et al.; the first major Am. leftist attack on a fellow leftist over Islam?; Williams claims they fired him for telling the truth; on Jan. 6 after the dust settles, NPR dumps senior VP Ellen Weiss, who engineered Williams' firing. On Oct. 20 the Obama admin. agrees to pay up to $680M to Am. Indian farmers to settle a 11-y.-o. discrimination suit. On Oct. 20 NATO officials announce that U.S. and Afghan forces have been routing the Taliban in Kandahar Province in recent weeks. On Oct. 20 Egyptian Copts rally at the U.N. to protest Egyptian Muslim persecution. On Oct. 20 Hollyweird star Mel Gibson is fired from "The Hangover 2" after dir. Todd Phillips and co-star Zach Galifianakis complain about his history of un-PC remarks. On Oct. 21 U.S. agriculture secy. Tom Vilsack says that in order for the Obama admin. to reach its goal of 36B gal. of renewable fuel by 2012, it may blend algae and grass with gasoline. On Oct. 22 UNESCO passes a series of resolutions regarding archeological excavations of Jewish holy sites in Bethlehem, Hebron, and Jerusalem, which the Anti-Defamation League calls "politicized and one-sided", favoring the Palestinians. On Oct. 21 a Gallup Poll shows Pres. Obama's approval falling to a new low of 44.7%; it has been declining each quarter since he took office, when it was at 63%. On Oct. 22 WikiLeaks releases 400K U.S. intel reports on the Iraq War, becoming the largest intel leak in U.S. history, with Daniel Ellsberg uttering the soundbyte "I've waited 40 years for this"; the reports expose a longstanding Iranian war on the U.S., and that Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki ran his own private army. On Oct. 22 after the Obama admin. told him what to do, U.S. Appeals Court judge Jorge Solis removes the unindicted co-conspirator status of CAIR along with the Islamic Society of North Am., Northern Am. Islamic Trust, and 243 other orgs. and individuals, all on the technicality that the govt. forgot to seal the list. On Oct. 22 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu addresses world Jewish leaders at the Israeli Museum in Jerusalem, saying "Israel must do all in its power to ward off the goals of radical Islam while doing all it can to reach true peace. Iran continues to deny the Holocaust and call for Israel's destruction. Today, its influence is apparent in Gaza, Lebanon, Afghanistan, South America and Africa. This is what they are doing without a nuclear weapon – imagine what they would do with a nuclear weapon." On Oct. 22 Haitian authorities announce a cholera outbreak has killed 150+. On Oct. 22-23 finance officials from the G20 meet to issue a statement setting a target of 4% of GDP for account surpluses and deficits, aimed at China, which balks, causing conspiracy theorists to call it the beginning of the end of the cent.-old Anglo-Am. conspiracy to create a OWG. On Oct. 22 gunmen massacre 13 young partygoers in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. On Oct. 22 Hollywood actor Randy Quaid appears in a Canadian court seeking refugee asylum along with his wife Evi Quaid, claiming that he's fearful of being murdered in Hollywood like Heath Ledger, Chris Penn, and David Carradine. On Oct. 22 outgoing New York office dir. of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Andrew Whitely utters the soundbyte "The right of return is unlikely to be exercised to the territory of Israel to any significant or meaningful extent", suggesting that UNRWA help resettle them in Arab territories, pissing-off the Arabs and causing him to flip-flop, with the soundbyte "It is definitely not my belief that the refugees should give up on their basic rights, incl. the right of return." On Oct. 23 Staten Island, N.Y. Muslim Abdel Hameed Shehaden is arrested after trying to join the Taliban then join the U.S. Army so he could defect in Iraq and kill U.S. soldiers. On Oct. 23 the New York Times reveals that Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai has been receiving bagfuls of cash from Iranian ambassador Feda Hussein Maliki via Karzai's chief of staff Umar Daudzai. On Oct. 23 four Taliban suicide bombers dressed in burqas attack the main U.N. compound in Herat in W Afghanistan, but score no casualties before they are killed. On Oct. 23 11 people jump out of a 2nd story window in La Verriere W of Paris after claiming to see the Devil, who turned out to be a naked man tending his crying baby. On Oct. 23 a Newsweek Poll shows that 48% of registered voters will more likely vote for Dems., vs. 42% for Repubs.; Obama's approval ratings jump to 54% (vs. 48% in Sept.), and those who disapprove of him drop to 40%, lowest since Feb. On Oct. 23 "I Kissed a Girl" Am. singer Katy Perry (1984-) marries British playboy comedian Russell Edward Brand (1975-) in a Hindu ceremony in Rajasthan, India (until ?). On Oct. 24 Afghanistan announces its first TV soap opera The Secrets of This House. On Oct. 24 Calif.-born Muslim terrorist Adam Gadhan urges Muslims living in "the miserable suburbs of Paris, London, and Detroit" to begin a jihad in defense of Islam, causing Dawud Walid, head of the Mich. branch of CAIR to say "He obviously doesn't know Muslims in Detroit". On Oct. 24 Britain has its coldest Oct. night in 17 years as it reaches -6C. On Oct. 24 Tony Blair's journalist sister-in-law Lauren Booth (1967-) announces her conversion to Islam six weeks earlier after after a "spiritual experience" in the Fatima a-Masumeh Shrine in Qom, Iran, saying that she's all the way up to page 60 in the Quran; meanwhile Iranian authorities publicly cut the hand off a thief to signal a new era of Islamic law and order. On Oct. 25 EU ministers decide to open the path to EU membership to Serbia despite it refusing to help arrest former Bosnian Serb gen. Ratko Mladic. On Oct. 25 the EU for the first time begins sending border guards to Greece to stop Muslim illegal immigrants from Turkey, many of whom claim to be Afghanis; meanwhile ever-backsliding Turkey begins action to ban BlackBerry smartphones. On Oct. 25 Pres. Obama announces to Congress his plans of allowing 80K immigrants, most from Islamic countries to immigrate to the U.S. during fiscal year 2011, calling it "justified by humanitarian concerns or otherwise in the national interest", despite record deporations to Mexico, high unemployment, etc. - Saudi oil money at work to fill up all the new mega-mosques? On Oct. 25 the East London borough of Tower Hamlets elects its first Islamic mayor, Lutfur Rahman, who is linked with the Islamic Forum of Europe. On Oct. 25 a bomb planted on a motorcycle explodes at the gate of the Sufi Farid Shakar Ganj Shrine in Pak Pattan, Pakistan (125 mi. W of Lahore), killing five. On Oct. 25 a 7.7 earthquake earthquake hits Indonesia 13 mi. off the coast of Sumatra, causing a tsunami that kills 113, which is combined with a volcano on Mt. Merapi in C Java that erupts 3x and kills 430. On Oct. 25 Naheed Nenshi (1972-) becomes mayor of Calgary, becoming Canada's first Muslim mayor; he likes to wear a Stetson cowboy hat. On Oct. 25 it is announced that Aleida Guevara, daughter of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara visited Lebanon and voiced support for Hezbollah, embracing them in a common struggle with Communism, with the soundbyte "If we do not conduct resistance, we will disappear from the face of the Earth." On Oct. 26 Robert Serry, U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process says that if Israel doesn't renew its new settlement construction freeze, the Obama-backed U.N. Security Council could approve the Palestinians' unilateral bid for statehood, making the first rocket they fire at Israel be an official act of war? On Oct. 26 Pope Benedict VI delivers his Message for the Church's World Day of Migrants and Refugees, saying that all states have the right to regulate immigration and defend their borders as long as they treat immigrants with dignity. On Oct. 26 Iraq War protester Paeter Gray throws his shoes at former Australian PM John Howard on Australian TV. On Oct. 26 Va. Muslim Farooque Ahmed (1976-) is arrested for helping al-Qaida plan terrorist attacks around the Washington, D.C. area, incl. the DC Metro; the tip leading to his arrest came from the Muslim community. On Oct. 26 the entire police force of Los Ramones in N Mexico resign after their HQ is attacked by drug cartel gunmen; meanwhile on Oct. 25 a group of non-govt. orgs. (NGOs) announce that drug violence in Mexico has killed 1.2K children since Dec. 2006. On Oct. 26 the Berlin-based TI Annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) moves the U.S. down from 19th to 22nd least corrupt of 178 nations. On Oct. 26 (1:33 a.m.) Hollyweird actor Charlie Sheen goes on a naked cocaine-fuled frenzy in a New York City Plaza hotel, causing his date, porno actress Christina Walsh (AKA Capri Anderson AKA Alexis Capri) (1988-) to lock herself in the bathroom; meanwhile Sheen's ex-wife Denise Richards and their two young daughters sleep across the hall; Sheen is hospitalized, is not charged, and pays the hotel $7K for damages. On Oct. 27 South Africa's Cape Town Opera turns down an appeal from Bishop Desmond Tutu to cancel a planned tour of Israel on his theory that it's an apartheid state. On Oct. 27 Germany makes forced marriages (mainly an Islamic practice) illegal, with up to five years in prison; meanwhile a survey by SingleMuslim.com of London reveals that 26.2% believe that polygamy is legal within Islam; meanwhile it is revealed that Muhammad is now the most popular infant boy name in England, ahead of Jack and Harry. On Oct. 27 Asma Jahangir becomes the first woman pres. of the Supreme Court Bar Assoc. in Pakistan. On Oct. 27 an online report by the U.S. Inspector Gen. admits that the U.S. Dept. of Defense got $9B+ from the sale of Iraqi oil to be used for reconstruction, but has lost the documentation for $8.7B of those funds. On Oct. 27 Sheikh Saqr bin Mohammad al-Qassimi (b. 1918) dies,and his 4th son Sheikh Saud bin Saqr al Qasimi (1956-) becomes emir of Ras al-Khaimah in the UAE (until ?). On Oct. 27 Hampshire College in Mass. announces a new center for the study of science in Muslim societies. On Oct. 27 the Somalian Islamist Shabaab executes two teen girls in Beledweyne after deciding that they're spies. On Oct. 27 a poll by Doug Schoen shows that 56% of likely voters want to see Pres. Obama fired, with only 42% approving of his job performance, while 48% think he's a nice guy. On Oct. 27-Nov. 1 the 106th World Series sees the New York Giants (NL) defeat the Texas Rangers (AL) 4-1, the first Giants win since 1954, and first since relocating from New York City in 1958; Giants pitcher Timothy "Tim" Lincecum (1964-) is the key to the big V, but Giants SS ("the Barranquilla Baby") Edgar Enrique Renteria Herazo (1975-) becomes MVP after game-hitting homers in Games 2 and 5. On Oct. 28 Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) chief John Sawers delivers the first public speech by a U.K. espionage chief, saying that terrorists might hit the West again "at huge human cost", but that nuclear proliferation is a more far-reaching danger, singling-out Iran. On Oct. 28 Muslim students at a Roman Catholic primary school in Malawi tear up New Testaments being distributed by Gideons Internat., and begin howling at their teachers; 13% of Malawis are Muslim, vs.28% Catholic and 52% Protestant. On Oct. 28 Jordan orders all Israelis entering the country to take off their yarmulkes for "security reasons". On Oct. 28 Pres. Obama announces that in his upcoming visit to Indonesia he'll visit Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, largest mosque in SE Asia and 3rd largest in the world - I'm home? On Oct. 28 gunmen in three vehicles fire on a car wash in Tepic, Mexico, killing 15 and injuring three. On Oct. 28 the Dutch parliament passes a motion to "proclaim in word and deed that fighting Islamization is not a goal of the policy [of the govt.]"; parties in opposition incl. the PVV and Christian SGP; meanwhile Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Al-Zahar tells the West that it should be ashamed to support Israel, because "You do not live like human beings. You do not live like animals. You accept homosexuality, and now you critize us?"; he adds "We have the right to control our life according to our religion, not according to your religion. You have no religion, you are secular." On Oct. 28 former U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter vows to push for U.S. and internat. sanctions against Israel and for the Obama admin. to open dialog with Hamas. On Oct. 28 drug cartel gunmen ambush a police convoy in Jalisco, Mexico, killing nine of 20 policemen; earlier buses taking people home from work are ambushed in Ciudad Juarez, killing five women and wounding 14, and six youths are killed in a gang feud in Mexico City. On Oct. 28 Rene Stadtekewitz, ex-member of German chancellor Angela Markel's Christian Dem. Union forms Die Freiheit (Freedom Party) to "combat political Islam". On Oct. 28 Hezbollah conducts a military exertise to test its ability to take over Lebanon and "corner" PM Saad Hariri in the event that the internat. tribunal on the assassination of former PM Rafiq Al-Hariri indicts them; meanwhile leader Hassan Nasrallah gives a speech that's tantamount to a declaration of war. On Oct. 28 UNWRA official Andrew Whitley says that Palestinian refugees should be resettled in Arab countries such as Jordan, causing Jordanian official Wajih Azaizeh to criticize him. On Oct. 28 Australian Islamic school dir. Anwar Sayed (1960-) of Perth is found guilty of massive fraud with govt. grants; earlier the case made news when judge Shauna Deane ruled that a Muslim woman giving evidence had to remove her burqa. On Oct. 28 Israel-hating Iran bans weightlifter Hossein Khodadadi for life for daring to stand next to an Israeli weightlifter on the platform in Poland. On Oct. 29 the women's rights group Sisters of Islam in Malaysia, known for speaking out against caning of women wins the right to use their name after a challenge by Muslim activists. On Oct. 29 the U.S. govt. releases the total cost of U.S. intel for the first time: $80B for 2010, incl. $27B for military intel and $53B for the CIA and 16 other intel agencies; only $51B is spent on foreign aid. On Oct. 29 Pakistani lt. gen. Khalid AhmedKidwai says that Pakistan has the right to use its nukes should the need arise. On Oct. 29 Chinese PM Wen Jiabao tells Indian PM Manmohan Singh that the world is big enough for both countries to develop and cooperate. On Oct. 29 Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf refuses a call by Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Taleed to move the Ground Zero Mosque. On Oct. 29 the Muslim, er, Obama admin. exempts, Yemen, Sudan, Chad, and DRC from U.S. penalties under the 2008 Child Soldiers Accountability Act, allowing those involved in their recruitment or use to become admissible aliens and/or avoid deportation. On Oct. 29 a tip that al-Qaida in Yemen placed explosive devices in packages on a cargo plane causes Emirates Flight 201 to be escorted by fighter jets into JFK Airport; the packages are addressed to synagogues in Chicago, Ill., and contain PETN like the Christmas Underwear Bomber inside HP printers, with Nokia cell phones as detonators; Pres. Obama calls them a "credible terrorist threat", and says they are powerful enough to bring down a plane; a medical student and her petroleum engineer's wife mother are arrested in Yemen in connection with the plot, which is traced to language schools; Saudi intel provided U.S. intel with their initial tip; they bombs are later found to have been designed to detonate in flight 17 min. after being defused, and are traced to Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri (1982-) (AKA Abu Saleh), the same person who made the Christmas Underwear Bomber's PETN bomb, who planted a bomb on his brother in Aug. 2009 to kill a Saudi prince, which blew up prematurely; a dry run of the cargo plane bomb was intercepted in Sept.; on Nov. 1 British PM David Cameron utters the soundbyte "It's clear that we must take every possible step to work with our partners in the Arab world to cut out the terrorist cancer that lurks in the Arabian Peninsula"; on Nov. 20 the al-Qaida mag. Inspire pub. an article bragging that it was their work and only cost $4.2K, promising the U.S. "death by a thousand cuts". On Oct. 29 North Korean troops fire two rounds toward South Korea at the border, who immediately fire back; a repeat happens on Nov. 3. On Oct. 29 Britain issues a 5-pound John Lennon Coin. On Oct. 29 25-y.-o. Pakistani Christian Fayaz Masih (1985-) is jailed after his Muslim boss Zafar Iqbal Ghuman calls on villagers to torture him for refusing to work in the fields for him for free, then frames him on having sex with his own niece; Ghuman allegedly regularly subjects Christians to slavery. On Oct. 29 eight members of a Muslim-dominated drug-smuggling operation in Oldham, England are sentenced to a total of 46 years in prison. On Oct. 29 the Fake Old White Man becomes a celeb for boarding Air Canada Flight AC018 in Hong Kong en route to Vancouver, then going to the restroom and emerging as a young Asian male, making a joke out of all the elaborate airline security. On Oct. 30 army chiefs in Turkey boycott an official ceremony at the pres. palace celebrating the creation of modern secular Turkey in 1923 because pres. Abdullah Gul's wife wears an Islamic headscarf (hijab) in the non-secular fashion, covering the neck to indicate adherence to Islamic Sharia. On Oct. 30 the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C. is hosted by comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (in character), and attended by 215K, becoming a spoof of Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally and Al Sharpton's Reclaim the Dream Rally; it features surprise guests Yusuf Islam AKA Cat Stevens and Ozzy Osbourne; Ariana Huffington leases 200 buses from Manhattan to bring in supporters, but there are far less than at Glenn Beck's rally. On Oct. 30 50 members of the English Defence League demonstrate in Amsterdam in support of Geert Wilders; the police arrest 34, incl. five English. On Oct. 30-31 four U.S. citizens are killed in El Paso, Tex. near the Mexico border, indicating that the violence is spilling over. On Oct. 31 a final USA Today/Gallup Poll finds that 52%-55% of likely voters prefer a Repub. candidate, vs. 40%-42% who prefer a Dem. candidate. On Oct. 31 leftist Dilma Rousseff (1978-) is elected pres. of Brazil (first woman) with 56% of the vote to succeed Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and is sworn-in on Jan. 1 (until ?). On Oct. 31 Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed "Farmajo" (1962-) becomes PM of Somalia (until June 19, 2011). On Oct. 31 Islamic gunmen take dozens of hostage in a Christian infidel church in Baghdad, Iraq, threatening to kill them unless al-Qaida POWs are released, after which police storm it, and two attackers set off explosive vests, resulting in 36 hostages and 17 security officers along with five gunmen killed and 75 wounded, who killed the two priests the moment the police stormed the bldg; the Islamic State of Iraq (al-Qaida in Iraq) claims responsibility, posting on their Web site that: "The Mujahedeens raided a filthy nest of the nests of polytheism, which has been long taken by the Christians of Iraq as a headquarters for a war against the religion of Islam", tying the attack to claims that the Coptic Church in Egypt is holding women who have converted to Islam, causing the Egyptian govt. to beef up security for them; Iraqi Christian archbishop Athanasios Dawood calls on Iraqi Christians to leave the country. On Oct. 31 Saudi King Abdullah calls on the leaders of Iraq to meet in Riyadh, and is overwhelmingly rejected. On Oct. 31 the terrorist group Islamic Jihad holds a rally in Gaza City attended by 100K out of 2M pop., with chants of death to America and Israel; meanwhile British foreign secy. William Hague signs the first treaty with the non-existent country of Palestine. On Oct. 31 Palestinian atheist blogger Walid Husayin (1984-) is arrested amid calls his death for calling Allah a "primitive Bedouin" and Islam a religion of "irrationality and ignorance"; on Nov. 29 he posts an apology from jail, but despite an internat. outcry isn't released until ?. On Oct. 31 the horror drama series The Walking Dead, based on the comic books by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard debuts on AMC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), featuring phony zombies being massacred en mass, becoming super-popular the more bloody and stupid it gets until audiences begin to tire?; stars Andrew Lincoln (Andrew James Clutterbuck) (1973-) as former sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes, leader of Alexandria, a group of survivors. In Oct. the U.S. adds 151K jobs but the unemployment rates stays at 9.6%; the news isn't announced until after the elections. In Oct. 34M sockeye salmon return to spawning grounds in the Fraser River in British Columbia, Canada despite only 1M last year. In Oct. Nigerian authorities discover weapons hidden in shipping contains, and trace them to the Iranian Rev. Guards; next Feb. 16 they begin prosecuting guard member Azim Aghajani and his Nigerian associate Usman Abbas Jega. In Oct. Moslim Vandaag (Muslim Today) begins pub. as the first Muslim newspaper in the Netherlands. On Nov. 1 Islamist insurgents set three Christian churches on fire in Karachayevo-Cherkessia, North Caucasus. On Nov. 1 shots are fired into a Coast Guard recruiting center in Woodbridge, Va. On Nov. 2 Yemen puts U.S.-born Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki on trial in absentia along with two others for membership in al-Qaida and plotting to kill foreigners, becoming their first formal legal action against him. On Nov. 2 (Tues.) a wave of Islamic terror hits Iraq, Greece, and Germany, incl. a parcel bomb delivered to German chancellor Angela Merkel, 10 bomb blasts in Shiite public places in Iraq that kill 64 and wound 360, and more bomb blasts at embassies in Athens. On Nov. 2 an Ipsos MORI Survey in eight countries finds that people in the U.S., U.K., and India see war and terrorism as the top global challenges, while those in China are more worried about climate change. On Nov. 2 Calif. gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger bans the use of state-issued debit cards at businesses "inconsistent with the intent" of the welfare program, incl. medical marijuana shops and mediums. On Nov. 2 (Tue.) U.S. nat. elections are a big V for Repubs., who take control of the U.S. House in the biggest turnover of seats (63) since 1948, and retain control of the Senate after the Repubs. gain six seats; a record nine new Repub. women gain seats in the House; the fewest seats held by Dems. in the House since 1947; despite spending $100M of her own fortune, former eBay CEO (1998-2008) Margaret Cushing "Meg" Whitman(1956-) loses to former gov. (1975-83) Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown Jr. (1938-) (Dem.) for Calif. gov. to succeed Arnold Schwarzenegger (Repub.); House Armed Services Committee chmn. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) is defeated, along with House Transportation Committee chmn. James Oberstar (D-Minn.); 18-year veteran Wisc. Dem. Sen. Russ Feingold is defeated by Ron Johnson (1955-); World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda Edwards McMahon (1948-) is defeated by Dem. atty.-gen. Richard M. Blumenthal (1946-) for retiring Chris Dodd's Sen. seat; Dem. gov. Joseph "Joe" Manchin III (1947-) wins late Sen. Robert C. Byrd's Sen. seat in S.C.; after Latinos go for him by 90% to 8%, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) survives a challenge from Sharron Angle, allowing the Dems. to retain control of the House; Nimrata Randhawa "Nikki" Haley (1972-) (daughter of Indian Sikh immigrants) becomes the first woman gov. of S.C.; Tea Party Sen. candidates Randal Howard "Rand" Paul (1963-) (Tenn.) and Marco Antonio Rubio (1971-) (Fla.) (son of Cuban immigrants) win, while Tom Tancredo (Colo.) loses; Mark Steven Kirk (1959-) defeats Dem. state treasurer Alexi Giannolias to take Pres. Obama's former Senate seat, handing him his lunch, and completing the Rust Belt Massacre, which incl. Pat Toomey defeating Joe Sestak in Penn., John Kasich becoming Ohio govt.; on Nov. 17 in Alaska, despite opposition from Sarah Palin-backed Tea Party candidate Joe Miller (who beat her in the primary), Repub. Sen. (since 2002) Lisa Ann Murkowski (1957-) becomes the first Sen. candidate in 50+ years to win a write-in campaign; Calif. voters reject Proposition 19, a measure to legalize marijuana that was opposed by Obama; Okla. becomes the first state to pass a law (State Question 755) banning judges from using Sharia or internat. law in their decisions, causing the Muslim Brotherhood front CAIR to file a lawsuit, after which on Nov. 8 Clinton-apointee U.S. district judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange (1953-) issues a temporary restraining order against the amendment, with the non-sequitur soundbyte "We are humbled by this opportunity to show our fellow Oklahomans that Muslims are their neighbors and that we are committed to upholding the U.S. Constitution and promoting the benefits of a pluralistic society"; on Nov. 29 she makes it permanent; Pres. Obama never speaks out on the constitutional issues involved, particularly that any attempt to enact Sharia is sedition?; on Nov. 5 Forbes mag. pub. its list of the most powerful people on Earth, demoting Obama from #1 to #2 after Chinese pres. Hu Jintao; Facebook mogul Mark Zuckerberg comes in #40. On Nov. 3 stupified Pres. Obama holds a news conference, taking responsibility for the election disaster, admitting that "it feels bad", calling it a "shellacking" that "every president needs to go through", referring to Reagan and Clinton, appealing for "common ground" with Repubs., and saying "I've got to do a better job" - he's totally clueless? On Nov. 3 after secret pre-prepared orders of Obama on event of losing the election?, the Federal Reserve decides to pump $600B into the banking system because the recovery is "disappointingly slow", causing concerns of hyperinflation bringing the U.S. to its knees, to which Obama replies that the Fed "doesn't take orders from the White House". On Nov. 3 Army of Islam senior field cmdr. Mohammed al-Nemnem (al-Namnam) (b. 1983) is killed when his car explodes near a Hamas police station in Gaza City after direct hit by a missile fired by a U.S. warship in the Mediterranean, becoming the first target assassination in Gaza by the U.S., who claims he worked for al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to plan terrorist attacks on U.S. targets after a tip by Egyptian intel. On Nov. 3 fear of more bombings empties Baghdad streets. On Nov. 3 Mexican authorities find a massive 1.8K-ft.-long smugglers tunnel in Tijuana, Mexico that links with warehouses in Otay Mesa, Calif.; it incl. its own rail system. On Nov. 3 after the RIAA and major music labels bring suit, a jury orders single Minn. mother Jammie Thomas-Rasset to pay $1.5M in damages for downloading 24 copyrighted songs, $62.5K each - should be more like $1 each? On Nov. 3 the Palestinian Authority arrests a Palestinian from Bethlehem for purchasing wood products from Israeli Jews located beyond the 1949 armistice line, continuing their ban on all economic contact between Palestinians and Jews living and working beyond the line, incl. Judea and Samaria; by the end of the year thousands are arrested. On Nov. 4 police invade a private home in Muslim-run Qusar, Azerbaijan and arrest four Baptists for the crime of praying together. On Nov. 5 West Vancouver, Canada Muslim convert Khadija Abdul Qahaar (Beverly Giesbrecht) dies in Taliban captivity after being captured and held for ransom despite her conversion. On Nov. 5 Yves Rossy becomes the first human to fly with a jet-fitted wing above Lake Geneva near Bercher, W Switzerland. On Nov. 5 yet another Islamic suicide bomber explodes in a mosque in Darra Adam Khel, Pakistan, killing 66 worshippers, and injuring 200. On Nov. 5 Somalian national Basaaly Saeed Moalin and two others living in San Diego, Calif., along with three others in the U.S. are indicted by federal authorities for funneling funds to al-Shabaab. On Nov. 5 bankrupt Norfolk Island in the Pacific, home of descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers gives up independence in return for financial aid. On Nov. 5 Mexican drug lord Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen is killed by Mexican marines. On Nov. 5 Am. non-Muslim Ilya Sobolevskiy (1985-) of Md. is sentenced to 12 mo. in prison and fined $3K for "violating the civil rights" of sacred cow Muslim members of the central Ill. Mosque and Islamic Center of Urbana, Ill. merely for sending them an email promising to "do whatever it takes to eradicate Islam"; the prosecutor proposed probation with electronic monitoring but judge David G. Bernthal was harsh, claiming that prior emails probing into the mosque's connections with CAIR "escalated" the crime into "an act of terror", giving him the max; Obama shows his true colors by enforcing Sharia in the U.S.?; all patriotic Americans should declare their intentions of doing whatever it takes to eliminate Islam, starting by ousting these officials? On Nov. 5 a combined Afghan-coalition forces captures the Haqqani terrorist network's shadow gov. for the Spera district of Khost Province in Afghanistan. On Nov. 5-14 Pres. Obama makes an Asian Tour, featuring stops by a president from the country with the most Christians in countries with the most Hindus (India) and most Muslims (Indonesia), fending off possible Islamic foul play with an unprecedented escort of 34 war ships, 400 cars, 3 helis, 3 luxury jets, 800-person entourage, etc., costing $200M a day; a military sniffer dog pisses-off Indian Muslims with its name of Khan, which they claim is a Muslim name and hence a deliberate provocation; on Nov. 7 Obama talks with students at St. Xavier's College in Mumbai, saying that India has assumed a greater role on the world stage, saying that it is a job creator for the U.S. not a job vacuum, invoking Gandhi, saying that his ideal eludes modern India, and answering a student question about Pakistan (which he snubs) and why he doesn't put it on the terrorist nation list with "We want nothing more than a stable, prosperous and peaceful Pakistan... But I'm also going to say something that may surprise you. The country that has the biggest stake in Pakistan's success is India"; he answers a student question about his opinion on Islamic jihad with the soundbyte: "The phrase jihad has a lot of meanings within Islam and is subject to different interpretations. Islam is one of the world's great religions. More than a billion people who practise Islam, the overwhelming majority view their obligations to their religion as ones that reaffirm peace, fairness, tolerance. All of us recognize that this great religion in the hands of a few extremists has been distorted to violence, which is never justified. One of the challenges we face is how do we isolate those who have these distorted notions of religious war. We can all treat each other with respect and mutual dignity. We should try to live up to universal principles and ideals that Gandhi so fought for. We live in nations of diverse religious beliefs. It's a major challenge in India and around the world. Young people can make a huge impact in reaffirming that you can be a strong observer of your faith, without putting somebody else down or visiting violence on somebody else. I think a lot of these ideas are formed very early and how you respond to each other is going to be as important as any speech that a president makes in encouraging the kind of religious tolerance that is so important, in a world that is getting smaller and smaller. More and more people of different background and different territories and ethnicities are interacting and learning from each other. All of us have to fundamentally reject the notion that violence is the way to mediate our differences"; on Nov. 6 Obama and his family visit the 16th cent. Muslim Tomb of Humayun, while snubbing Buddhist and Hindu tombs and shrines; on Nov. 8 Obama announces his support of a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council for India, and says that he's ready to play "any role" requested by India and Pakistan to foster peace between them; on Nov. 9 Obama stops in Indonesia, where he tells them that his efforts to improve relations with the Muslim World are an "incomplete project", but never mentions the horrible Muslim atrocities against Christians in East Timor; he also says that the Israeli announcement of 1K new housing units for East Jerusalem "is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations", causing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to reply that "Jerusalem is not a settlement. Jerusalem is the capital of the state of Israel", which has "never agreed to limit its construction in any way in Jerusalem where 800,000 inhabitants live"; Obama becomes the first to use a teleprompter inside the Indian parliament; Muslim Hizbut Tahrir protesters take the streets in Jakarta; Indonesian pres. Yudhoyono presents Obama with a gold model on behalf of his late mother Ann Dunham; Michelle Obama raises eyebrows for shaking hands with info. minister Tifatul Sembiring, exposing Obama as clueless when he claims Indonesia as a role model for moderate and progressive Islam; on Nov. 10 Obama visits the Istiqial Mosque in Jakarta, where Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket was greeted as a rock star in 2006, and later gives a Speech on Islam, repeating the soundbyte "America is not and never will be at war with Islam"; Michelle wears an animal print scarf into the mosque; before the Obamas arrive, on Nov. 8 China announces a $6.6 investment in Indonesia's infrastructure. On Nov. 6 leading U.S. Senate Repub. Lindsey Graham of S.C. says that the U.S. should consider "neutering" Iran's navy and air force if it doesn't stop trying to get nukes, adding that a surgical strike on nuclear facilities would bring military retaliation on U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and is probably already too late anyway. On Nov. 6 the Sunday Telegraph in Britain pub. an Andrew Gilligan exposing the British govt. as whitewashing reports on Muslim schools to censor that they "oppose the lifestyle of the West". On Nov. 7 (Sun.) the 41st 2010 New York City Marathon features rescued Chilean miner Edison Pena. On Nov. 7 the first elections in 20 years in Burma (Myanmar) are rigged by the military rulers. On Nov. 7 Islamists murder two more Christians in Iraq, incl. Louay Daniel Yacoub (b. 1961). On Nov. 7 the U.S. carries out two airstrikes in North Waziristan, killing 14 terrorists, five of them "foreigners". On Nov. 7 Israel charges Imam Nazim Mahmoud Salim of Nazareth with inciting violence against Pope Benedict XVI and supporting al-Qaida and global jihad. On Nov. 7-8 minority ethnic Karen Buddhist guerrillas attack Burmese troops, causing 15K to flee E Burma. On Nov. 8 mayor-elect Gregorio Barradas Miravete of Juan Rodriguez Clara in Veracruz, Mexico is kidnapped and murdered along with two companions by drug gunmen. On Nov. 8 U.S.-born radical Yemeni Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki issues a video, telling mujahideen that their best option is an all-out war against the corrupt West, saying that there is no need for a fatwa to be issued because "killing Satan does not require any fatwa". On Nov. 9 a Somalian sex-trafficking ring operating in Minn., Tenn., and Ohio is indicted. On Nov. 9 a district court in Pakistan sentences Christian woman Asia Bibi (Aasiya Noreen) (1971-) to death by hanging for blasphemy, causing a world outcry; meanwhile Pakistani cleric Maulana Yousef Qureshi offers a reward on her head of 3.7K pounds ($5.8K), and religious minorities minister Clement Shabhaz Bhatti (198-2011) (a Roman Catholic) has another fatwa put on his head for speaking out against the death sentence, and is assassinated on Mar. 2, 2011 in Islamaad by Tehrik-i-Taliban; meanwhile on Jan. 4, 2011 liberal gov. #26 of Punjab (since 2008) Salmaan Taseer (1944-2011) is assassinated in the Kohsar Market in Islamabad by his bodyguard Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri (1985-2016), who is hanged on Feb. 29, 2016 in Rawalpindi, after which Taseer's son Shahbaz Taseer, who was kidnapped in Aug. 2011 in Lahore by the Pakistani Taliban is released in Kuchlak, Balochistan on Mar. 8, 2016. On Nov. 8 a mystery missile takes off near the coast of Southern Calif.; the govt. can't or won't explain it for days, then claims it is a jet airplane, and clams up completely after it is revealed that the Nat. Geo-Spatial Intel Agency warned about missiles fired in that area; it's really a Chinese missile? On Nov. 9 the curator of a French parish in Avignon, France complains to the police that a Muslim youth entered his church during a Mass On Nov. 10 after fierce opposition from the U.S. and human rights groups, the U.N. rejects a bid by misogynistic Iran for a seat on the new U.N. Women's Rights Panel, but accepts far worse Saudi Arabia - how much did that cost them? On Nov. 10 the first Global Indian Music Awards (GIMA) are held in Mumbai. On Nov. 11 the Sunnis walk out of the Iraqi parliament after the pres. gives Shiite PM Nouri al-Maliki the nod to form a new govt. On Nov. 11 Osama bin Laden appoints Saif el-Adel (Arab. "Sword of the Just") as new chief of internat. ops to lead the attack on the West. On Nov. 11 an Armistice Day silence in London is disrupted by three 2nd-gen. radical Muslim protesters Asad Ullah, Abu Yahya, and Abu Hifzudeen of Muslims Against Crusades, who burn a giant poppy and demand Sharia law implementation in the U.K., causing nationwide revulsion. On Nov. 12 the G20 Summit strikes an agreement that major economics will abide by common standards; weakened by the midterm elections Obama fails to secure a $10B annual free-trade agreement that would have supported 70K U.S. jobs. On Nov. 12 after "Gate Rape" AKA "enhanced pat down" is quietly put into effect by the TSA in Oct., CAIR issues a travel warning to Muslim passengers in U.S. aircraft, telling women in hijad to insist that they only be searched around the head and neck etc.; on Nov. 13 non-Muslim computer programmer ("Junk Man") John Tyner (1979-) refuses a full-body scan in San Diego, and tells the TSA agent trying to search him, "Don't touch my junk or I'll sue you", causing a firestorm of support, after which he faces a $11K fine for refusing the "enhanced patdown" (as if American non-Muslims are now true dhimmis with no rights compared to Muslims?); on Nov. 19 (12:00 p.m.) the TSA stinks itself up by strip-searching a young non-Muslim boy; on Nov. 24 it stinks itself up again by fondling a menstruating woman's vulva after her panty liner obscures the X-ray; on Nov. 22 TSA Chief John Pistole tells the press that no immediate changes are planned, although "there is a continual process of refinement and adjustment to ensure that best practices are followed", and that the groping is "as minimally invasive as possible"; on Nov. 22 a Washington Post-ABC News Poll shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans support the 400 new full-body security screening machines in use at 70 of 450 U.S. airports since Oct., but less than half support the new groping procedures; on Nov. 15 U.S. Homeland Security Dept. head Janet Napolitano lamely defends heightened airport security screening measures for non-Muslims incl. revealing full-body scans on "porno-scanners" and junk-touching pat-downs; on Nov. 16 a lawsuit is filed against Napolitano and the Transportation Security Adm. by John Whitehead of the Rutherford Inst. alleging that the invasive airport security procedures are "profane, degrading, intrusive and indecent", and violate the Fourth Amendment. On Nov. 12 Prince George County, Md. exec Jack B. Johnson is arrested by the feds on corruption and obstruction charges. On Nov. 12 ABC News air a segment revealing a sting on the Better Business Bureau (BBB) that shows them giving better grades for pay, incl. giving an "A" to Hamas, bringing a call from the U.S. atty.-gen. to end the "deceptive practice". On Nov. 12 the leftist Talking Points Memo (TPM) org. is founded by journalist Josh Micah Marshall (1969-). On Nov. 13 a huge suicide bomb blast in the HQ of the main anti-terrorist agency in Karachi, Pakistan kills 18 and wounds 130, showing that the Taliban is gaining ground. On Nov. 13 the Burmese military dictatorship releases reformer Aung San Suu Kyi. On Nov. 13 a mob of 2K+ Muslims attack a police outpost in Hazaribagh, Jharkand, India during Chhath celebrations after police fail to turn down a loudspeaker during Fri. prayers. On Nov. 13 300+ residents of the colonial ranching town of Ciudad Mier flee drug gang violence between the rival Zetas and Gulf Cartel. On Nov. 14 a huge blast at the 676-room Grand Riviera Princess Hotel in Playa del Carman (S of Cancun), Mexico caused by a leaking gas line kills five Canadians and two Mexican workers; security guards keep ambulances from entering, causing criminal charges to be considered. On Nov. 14 radical Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, AKA the Tottenham Ayatollah is captured in his home in Tripoli, Lebanon after he being convicted on Nov. 12 of working with al-Qaida and vowing never to be captured. On Nov. 14 French embassy in Tehran is blocked, causing France to accuse Iran of "unacceptable acts of violence". On Nov. 14-16 3M Muslims attend the 2010 Hajj in Mecca, which culminates by throwing pebbles at three stone walls representing Satan; during a ceremy in the Arafat Desert 12 mi. from Mecca, pilgrims chant "Death to Israel" and "Death to America"; Saudi King Abdullah is a no-show for the start of the hajj, causing speculation that he's about to kick off and there will be a succession struggle. On Nov. 15 the Mexican navy rescues 10 migrants (incl. a baby) who had been kidnapped by a drug gang in Tamaulipas state. On Nov. 15 a fire in a high-rise apt. bldg. in Shanghai, China kills eight and injures 90+. On Nov. 15 U.S. citizens Arquimedes Bautista (1990-) and Rosalba Artimas (1964-) of Colo. file a lawsuit against ICE for an incident in Apr. when they were taking a bus to an Amway convention and were arrested for speaking Spanish; ICE later explains they suspected human trafficking. On Nov. 16 Walid al-Bustani of the radical Sunni group Fatah al-Islam escapes from prison in Rumieh, Lebanon; 2nd inmate Munjid al-Fahham fails to escape. On Nov. 16 a Muslim mob sets fire to 10 Coptic Christian-owned homes in S Egypt. On Nov. 16 U.S. defense secy. Robert M. Gates says that the internat. sanctions on Iran has caused a rift between Pres. Imadinnajacket and Supreme Leader Assahola Khameini. On Nov. 16 Pres. Obama awards U.S. Army SSgt. Salvatore Giunta the Medal of Honor, becoming the first for the Afghanistan War, and the first awarded since the Vietnam War. On Nov. 16 after years of lawsuits, Apple finally begins selling Beatles music downloads. On Nov. 16 2K+ aborted fetuses are discovered at a Buddhist temple in Bangkok, Thailand, causing the govt. to crackdown on illegal abortion clinics. On Nov. 16 an Iraqi Christian and his 6-y.-o. daughter are killed in a bombing in Mosul, Iraq; on Nov. 15 two Christian men are killed in their homes by intruders; on Nov. 17 Iraqi pres. Jalal Talabini advises Christians to seek refuge in Kurdistan in N Iraq until the govt. can guarantee their security; on Nov. 22 two more are murdered in the Sina'a neighborhood of Baghdad; on Nov. 25 the Vatican holds a mass in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome to commemorate the 58 killed in Baghdad in Oct.; in the Obama era of covering-up everything bad about Islam, the world doesn't seem to notice the systematic Muslim jihad on Iraqi Christians? On Nov. 17 U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Thomas J. Donahue scolds the Obama admin. for its "regulatory tsunami", calling it "the biggest single threat to job creation" in the country. On Nov. 17 a shootout in a mosque between rival Muslim factions over who should lead prayers during Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice) in Khuzdar, Pakistan injures 18. On Nov. 17 Israel agrees to withdraw troops from part of the disputed Lebanese border village of Ghajar and hand control to a U.N. peacekeeping force. On Nov. 17 a federal grand jury returns a 14-count indictment against the Muslim owners of Sunrise Equities in Chicago, Ill., which allegedly cheated investors out of $43M while claiming to be compliant with Sharia law. On Nov. 17 1998 U.S. embassy bombing suspect Ahmed Ghailani (1974-) (first Gitmo POW to be tried) is acquitted on 284 of 285 charges in a civil trial, causing Sen. Repub. leader Mitch McConnell to rally critics of the Obama admin. for their "deeply misguided" and "potentially harmful" approach to prosecuting Islamic terrorists; on Nov. 19 Obama says that he still wants to close the Gitmo terrorist prison because it's a recruiting tool for al-Qaida. On Nov. 18 after buckling to pressure by the recording industry and Hollywood, and ignoring all the concerns of civil libertarians, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approves the U.S. Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which would give the U.S. Atty. Gen. the right to shut down Web sites via court order if copyright infringement is deemed "central to the activity" of the site. On Nov. 18 a survey shows that 81% of Kosovo Albanians favor unification with Albania, where support for unification fell from 68% to 62.8%. On Nov. 18 the Egyptian govt. denies Israeli reports of a joint effort to eliminate leaders of the al-Qaida-affiliated Army of Islam in Gaza and Sinai. On Nov. 18 hundreds of Muslims march in Athens, Greece, damaging shops and cars to protest an alleged desecration of a Koran by a Greek policeman. On Nov. 18 Russian serial murderer Sergei Kashfulgayanovich Martynov (1962-) AKA the Torso Killer is arrested without resisting after a crime spree that began with his release from prison in 2005 for a 1992 murder, for a total of nine known victims W and C Russia, incl. seven women (two minor girls) and one man, often mutilating the females by removing their genitalia and breasts, leaving letters at crime scenes and making no effort to conceal evidence, later claiming his motivation was "cleaning of society"; after being convicted of eight murders, he receives a life sentence. On Nov. 19 an explosion at the Pike River Coal Mine in New Zealand traps 29 miners, who are all killed; on Nov. 24 there is a 2nd explosion. On Nov. 19 Palestinians fire three mortars and four phosphorous shells at Negev, causing the Israeli air force to bomb targets in Gaza Strip. On Nov. 19 the German govt. announces a nationwide alert against a Mumbai-style Islamic attack. On Nov. 19 U.S. officials announce that the military is sending its first contingent of heavily-armored battle tanks to Afghanistan. On Nov. 19 Pres. Obama visits Lisbon, Portugal for a NATO summit, where he discusses Portugal's economic problems with pres. Anibal Cavaco Silva. On Nov. 19 46-y.-o. Muslim Carnita Matthews (1964-) is sentenced to 6 mo. in jail for falsely accusing a police officer of forcibly removing her veil, the magistrate calling her crime "deliberate, malicious, and ruthless". On Nov. 19 the number of cartel-related murders in Mexico's drug war for the year passes the 10K mark (10,514), with 230 more each week, headed for 12K by the end of the year. On Nov. 20 a NATO-Russia Summit on missile defense reaches an agreement sans details; on Dec. 1 Russian pres. Dmitri Medvedev warns that if its proposals for a joint defense aren't followed, "Russia will have to ensure its own security", and refers to the WikiLeaks revelations, warning the U.S. to stay out of Russian internal affairs. On Nov. 20 a poll by the Israeli Project finds that 55% of Palestinians want a 2-state solution only as a stepping-stone to a 1-state solution under Islamic Sharia; meanwhile Hezbollah announces that Iran has provided them with Fatah-110 rockets, which have a range of 300km and come with guidance systems, turning Hezbollah into a military not just terrorist threat. On Nov. 20 Taliban suicide bombers in bicycles kill four and wound 31 in Mehtar Lam, E Afghanistan. On Nov. 20 Pope Benedict XVI elevates 24 new cardinals in a ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica, and unwraps, er, opens up the subject of condoms, saying they are the "first step" of assuming morality for male hos in order to reduce the risk of infection, even though they are not a moral solution to stopping AIDS; he wades into the debate on Islam on Europe with "Christians are tolerant, and in that respectthey also allow others to have their self-image", and "As for the burqa, I can see no reason for a general ban" - or else they'll ban nuns' habits? On Nov. 20 Tex. Muslim businessman Samir Mahmoud Itani of Am. Grocers Ltd. agrees to pay $15M to settle federal allegations of relabelling old food and selling it to the U.S. military. On Nov. 21 U.S. scientist Siegfried Heckler claims that North Korea showed him a covert uranium enrichment facility. On Nov. 21 Ireland becomes the 2nd EU country after Greece to ask for a multibillion-euro emergency loan; in Nov. 28 the EU agrees to give $89.4B in bailout loans to struggling Ireland. On Nov. 21 a 20-something Saudi woman defying the ban on female driving is killed along with three female friends in a driving accident. On Nov. 21 N.Y. joins Mich., Wash., Utah and Okla. in banning Four Loko, a potent drink that combines alcohol and caffeine. On Nov. 21 the World Mayors Council on Climate in Mexico City sees reps from 135 cities around the world sign the Mexico City Pact, establishing a monitoring and verification mechanism for cities to address climate change; on Nov. 20 Mexican marines bust a gang of suspected kidnappers with detailed plans of security arrangements for the U.N. climate change talks in Cancun on Nov. 29. On Nov. 21 after a march against Muslim extremism, masked men throw taboo beer and bacon at the Kingston Mosque in England, pissing-off the PC establishment, after which top political and police leaders address the 1K congregation on Dec. 6 to reassure them. On Nov. 22 a stampede at a festival near the royal palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia kills 339 and injures hundreds. On Nov. 22 admit fears of new Islamic terrorist attacks, Germany closes the famous glass dome at the Reichstag in Berlin. On Nov. 22 an arms convention is signed in Brazzaville in an attempt to stem the flow of small arms in C Africa. On Nov. 22 the BBC-TV program Panorama exposes a network of 40+ unregulated weekend Islamic schools in Britain that teach anti-Semitism along with draconian forms of Sharia, incl. execution for homosexuality. On Nov. 22 Israel passes the Referendum Law, requiring either a two-thirds Knesset majority or a nat. referendum to approve any peace deal involving the ceding of land from sovereign Israel. On Nov. 22 it is revealed that talks being held for months by the Afghan govt. with Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour were actually being held with an imposter. On Nov. 22 Melanie and Aaron Richman en route from Colo. to Mo. see their car hijacked at a gasoline station in Kansas City, Mo. with their 6-mo.-old baby in the back seat, turning them into heroes who doggedly pursue and board the car until he crashes and flees, leaving the baby unharmed. On Nov. 22 a man in a burqa robs Jadee Jewellers in Manchester, England. On Nov. 23 North Korea fires artillery shells at Yeonpyeong Island, causing South Korea to respond with its own artillery fire; White House deputy press secy. Bill Burton says that Pres. Obama "is outraged by this action" and that "We stand shoulder to shoulder with South Korea"; on Nov. 24 a U.S. aircraft carrier group takes off for Korean waters; on Nov. 25 South Korea sends troops to fortify the island and border, while South Korean defense minister Kim Tae-young resigns after criticism that the response was too slow. On Nov. 23 China admits that it's the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. On Nov. 23 China and Russia announce that they are renouncing the U.S. dollar in favor of their own countries for bilateral trade. On Nov. 23 the annual OIC-sponsored draft Resolution Against Religious Defamation passes by 12 votes, 76-64 with 42 abstentions, the smallest margin ever, showing that it's losing steam. On Nov. 23 the Dalai Lama receives an honorary degree from Jamia Millia Ilamia U. in Delhi, calling Islam "one of the great religions of the world", and claiming that true jihad is "a struggle within ourselves against all negative emotions like anger, hatred, attachment, that creates problems in society", adding "I defend Islam. We should not generalize Islam due to a few mischievous people. Such mischievous people are there among Hindus, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and all religions"; "Islam is one of the very important religions for many centuries, in the past, present and future it is the hope of millions of people." On Nov. 23 Pres. Obama visits an Chrysler Plant in Kokomo, Ind. to announce a new $800M investment in the facility by Chrysler, and tells auto workers "Don't bet against America". On Nov. 23 former Russian counterterrorism agent Col. Sergey Ignatchenko testifies that the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation charity once headquartered in Ore. was financing Islamic jihadists in Chechnya. On Nov. 23 the U.S. DEA decides to use its emergency powers to ban the herbal product K2 AKA "fake marijuana" for one year while Congress considers making it permanent. On Nov. 23 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton suggests at a State Dept. meeting that WikiLeaks man Julian Assange be killed with a drone, calling him a "soft target", after which aides settle on a $10M reward for his capture and extradition to the U.S. On Nov. 23-27 the first-ever Arab-European Young Leaders Forum is held in Vienna, Austria. On Nov. 24 Pakistani federal minister Maulana Attaur Rehman calls the Taliban "true followers" of Islam, sparking controversy. On Nov. 24 in a major shift toward Islamism, Coptic Christian demonstrators in Cairo,Egypt are tear-gassed after authorities refuse a permit for a new church; four are killed, 78 wounded, and hundreds are arrested, with 170 charged with 10-15-year felonies. On Nov. 24 a Sunni car bomb explodes in a Shiite religious procession in Al-Jawf Province in N Yemen, killing 47; on Nov. 25 officials announce that escalating fighting between Houthi-led Shia rebels and pro-govt. militia in Yemen has caused dozens of families to cross the border into Saudi Arabia. On Nov. 24 Mexican police arrest La Barbie's successor Carlos Montemayor in Mexico City. On Nov. 24 Jordanian-born Muslim Mohammad Alkaramla (1985-) of Chicago, Ill. is sentenced to 25 mo. in prison for mailing a letter threatening to blow up a Jewish high school. On Nov. 24 al-Qaida explodes a car bomb in N Yemen against Houthi Shiites in Al-Jawf, killing 23 and wounding dozens; on Nov. 26 another bomb kills two and injures 14; a gen. war on Shiites begins (ends ?). On Nov. 24 Sarah Palin responds to a statement by former First Lady Barbara Bush that "She's beautiful. She's very happy in Alaska, and I hope she'll stay there", calling them "bluebloods" who are trying to thwart the "will of the people". On Nov. 25 (Thur.) (Thanksgiving) the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat claims that WikiLeaks documents show that NATO member Turkey allowed weapons to be smuggled to al-Qaida forces in Iraq. On Nov. 25 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatens Israel in the event it goes to war with Lebanon or Hamas, saying that Turkey will not "remain silent"; on Nov. 26 hundreds of Lebanese of Armenian descent protest his visit to Beirut, clashing with army troops. On Nov. 25 three teenage boys Edward Nasau (1996-), Samu Perez (1995-), and Filo Filo (1995-), who had been presumed dead after 50 days of sea are rescued NE of Fiji. On Nov. 25 Canada withdraws from the planned Sept. 2001 U.N. Conference on the Escalation of Islamophobia, saying that it will spend much of its time condemning Israel as racist and criminal. On Nov. 25 former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert says that Israel should agree to the U.S. demand to halt settlement construction on the West Bank in order to restart peace talks. On Nov. 26 the British Muslim group Engage (iEngage) announces that it will be acting as the secretariat to a new All-Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia. On Nov. 26 Pres. Obama gets inadvertently elbowed in the upper lip by Rey Decerega during a friendly basketball game at Ft. McNair in Washington, D.C., requiring 12 stitches. On Nov. 26 world-renowned rabbi David Rosen of the Am. Jewish Congress warns that Europe risks being "overrun" by Islam unless it returns to its Christian roots. Merry Christmas Infidels, Boom? On Nov. 26 the FBI arrests Muslim Somali-Am. student Mohamed Osman Mohamud (1991-) for trying to set off a car bomb at a Christmas tree lighting in Portland, Ore.; he is found guilty on Jan. 13, 2013. On Nov. 27 U.S. forces have been in Afghanistan one day longer than the Soviet Union when it completed its 1989 withdrawal. On Nov. 27 the 5K-strong English Defence League stages three demonstrations against Sharia in England. On Nov. 27 (5:40 p.m.) after leaving an Osama-style pre-attack video railing against his parents for "holding me back from jihad in the cause of Allah", former Ore. State U. student Mohamed Osman "Mo Mo" Mohamud (1991-) AKA the Christmas Tree Bomber is arrested by the FBI after trying to use a cell phone to set off a van full of explosives in a crowd of 25K in Pioneer Courthouse Square in Corvallis, Ore. during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony while shouting "Allahu Akbar"; the FBI was tipped off by his father, and strung him along and put fake explosives in the van, allowing Muslim disinfo. artists to claim he was framed, despite many statements he left along the way that he hates America and wants to kill Americans for Allah; in 2005 city officials voted to now allow local law enforcement to participate in the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, which foiled the plot; on Nov. 28 angry arsonists set fire to the Salman Al-Farisi Islamic Center that he frequented, his imam issuing the soundbyte: "There wasn't anything that would prompt me to think he would plan this. It's completely, clearly, textually denounced in the Islamic religion" - and the stupid PC press focuses on that instead of the jihadist, the violent intolerant supremacist passages in the Quran, and the stupidity of mass Muslim immigration? On Nov. 27 Amir Hossein Shirana, an abducted employee from a secret Iranian nuclear plant claims they were enriching uranium to build a nuclear weapon. There are no bathrooms out there, you know? On Nov. 28 250K embassy cables, some as recently as this Feb. are released by Julian Assange's WikiLeaks revealing a long list of U.S. foreign strategies and secrets, incl. spying on allies, messages from Saudi King Abdullah calling on the U.S. to "cut off the head of the snake" with an air strike on Iran, and warnings from Israel that Iran is close to getting nukes; it also reveals that Iran had used Red Crescent to smuggle weapons and agents into Lebanon, and reveals that "Saudi donors remains the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like al-Qaida"; Iranian officials lied to the IAEA about their nuclear plants; the Saudi king urged the U.S. to implant chips in Gitmo inmates to track them "like horses, falcons"; Arab leaders called Iranian pres. Madmaninastraightjacket "evil" and an "existential threat"; Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai pardoned cops caught dealing drugs incl. heroin, repeatedly threatened to join the Taliban; Armenia sent arms to Iran that were used to kill U.S. troops; future pope Benedict XVI wanted Muslim Turkey kept out of the EU; the U.S. set up an intel unit in Barcelona, Spain after calling Catalonia "the greatest center of radical Islamist activity in the Mediterranean"; U.S. diplomats conclude that Britain made "little progress" in fighting Islamists after the 7/7/2005 London Bombings despite investing considerable time and resources; Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi told U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates in Feb. that no one could stop Israel from attacking Iran if it feels an existential threat; Sudanese pres. Omar al-Bashir has stuffed up to $9B in U.K. banks; a survey of 30 univs. in Britain found that 32% of Muslim students support killing for Islam, and 40% want Sharia law; Israeli Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi told a U.S. Congressional delegation in late 2009 that Israel was preparing for a large war against Hamas or Hezbollah; the U.S. fears that Saudi Arabia has overstated its oil reserves by 40% (300B barrels); Turkey allowed the U.S. to use its Incirlik airbase as a refueling stop despite official denials; U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder promises to prosecute anybody who broke U.S. law by leaking secret diplomatic cases, and U.S. Rep. Peter King (in line to be the next House Homeland Security Committee chmn.) calls for Assange to be prosecuted under the U.S. Espionage Act and for WikiLeaks to be designed as a foreign terrorist org.; Sarah Palin disses the Obama admin.'s handling of the documents release as "incompetent"; Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy calls for Assange to be put on the U.S. kill list like Anwar al-Awlaki; after Amazon shuts down their site, they get new hosting from Banhof, which is located inside a Cold War bunker in a Swedish mountain; on Dec. 9 Russia chimes in, suggesting that Assange be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize; the leaked cables spark the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen? On Nov. 28 after Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak rejects U.S. demands for monitors to observe them on Nov. 25, parliamentary elections in Egypt are marked by massive fraud in favor of Mubarak's Nat. Dem. Party, causing protests by the Muslim Brotherhood - little does he know about next Jan. 25? On Nov. 28 pres. elections in Ivory Coast. On Nov. 28 voters in Switzerland approve harsher laws for immigrants, incl. automatic deportation for those convicted of serious crimes. On Nov. 28 U.S. authorities announce that Mexico has become the #1 source for all meth sold in the U.S. On Nov. 28 suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels shoot and kill Bejunson Basnillo, a driver for the U.N. World Food Program in Marantao in S Philippines. On Nov. 28 clashes between Islamic al-Shabab fights and the Somalian govt. in Mogadishu begin (until ?). On Nov. 29 Pres. Obama proposes a freeze on civilian pay for federal employees for 2011-12 to save $28B over five years. On Nov. 29 an Afghan border policeman kills six U.S. servicemen during a training mission near the Pakistani border. On Nov. 29 four Islamist militants clash with govt. forces in Osh, Kyrgyzstan; at least four are killed. On Nov. 29 secy.-gen. of the Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu warns that the West has hatched plots to spread Islamophobia in order to block conversions to Islam, and calls on member nations to work to defuse them - kafirophobia? On Nov. 29 15-y.-o. Wisc. h.s. student Samuel Hengel (1995-) takes his teacher and 23 classmates hostage for six hours, then commits suicide. On Nov. 29 the annual U.N. Gen. Assembly discussion on the Middle East sees Libyan nutcase Moammar Gaddafi propose a new binat. state called Isratine. On Nov. 29-Dec. 10 the 2010 U.N. Climate Change Conference in Mexico, attended by 15K is dominated by global warming proponents, who call for an end to the developed world's growth for the next 20 years - the U.N. is a criminal enterprise of haters of the developed world? On Nov. 30 the U.S. Senate by 73-25 passes the U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act, SB-510, the biggest overhaul to U.S. food safety laws since the 1950s, giving vast new power to the FDA, placing new responsibilities on farmers and food cos. to prevent contamination, and setting safety stds. for imported foods; it makes it illegal to grow, share, or sell homegrown food? On Nov. 30 the U.S. House votes 256-152 to approve the $4.6B Pigford II and Cobell settlement of class-action suits from Indians and 70K African-Am. farmers, the latter getting $1.25B of it, and Alaska Natives getting $3.4B; in 1999 15,640 black farmers received $1B under Pigford I. On Nov. 30 the U.S. Senate votes 39-56 against a proposal from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to ban congressional earmarks. On Nov. 30 Pres. Obama meets with Repub. and Dem. leaders in a White House bipartisan summit to discuss extending the Bush tax cuts, ratifying the new START treaty etc. On Nov. 30 Iraqi security forces foil a plot to bomb the French embassy in Baghdad, arresting 12 suspected al-Qaia members connected with the Oct. 31 church assault. On Nov. 30 al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb denies Mauritanian military reports that 30 members defected - it was 29? On Nov. 30 the Turkish military suspends its longstanding practice of dismissing Islamists. On Nov. 30 the Pentagon releases a Review of the Proposed Repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal, which concludes that it is unlikely to hurt the effectiveness of U.S. troops, with a low risk after a short term "limited and isolated disruption to unit cohesion and retention". On Nov. 30 the U.S. and Mexico announce a frequent flyer program with streamlined procedures through immigration and customs for pre-screened flyers. On Nov. 30 Egyptian police use live ammo on unarmed Christian Coptic protesters in Cairo, killing four. On Nov. 30 Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi demands Ł4B from the EU to fight illegal immigration, claiming that otherwise Europe will "turn black" and be swamped by Muslims. On Nov. 30 after an outcry, the Nat. Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Inst. announces that it will remove a video exhibition showing Jesus Christ on a cross being eaten alive by ants, but will keep other homoerotic artworks. In Nov. Peru launches its first nanosatellite from Russia. In Nov. Sweden decides to send Kurdish lesbian couple Pari and Dilsa back to Iraq, despite facing execution for homosexuality. In Nov. the U.S. unemployment rate increases to 9.8%, although the economy adds 39K jobs, setting a record of unemployment above 9% for 19 straight mo. In Nov. the U.S. loses 45 troops killed in Afghanistan, the deadliest Nov.in the 9-year Afghanistan War. In Nov. Norway suffers its coldest Nov. since 1919. In Nov. Colombia, Peru, and Chile agree to merge their stock exchanges, with a total of 600 stocks and a combined GDP of $500B. In Nov. the $40B Indian Telecom Scandal sees the govt. get into a faulty cell phone licensing deal. On Dec. 1 a cold spell in N Europe sees Moscow ' have its coldest day since 1931, -23.6C (-10.5F); on Nov. 30 Trondheim, Norway has its coldest temp since 1788; meanwhile Italy suffers from floods and high tides; on Dec. 3 12 freeze to death in Poland. On Dec. 1 Spanish police arrest seven men in Barcelona for stealing passports for radical Islamic cells in Thailand and Pakistan. On Dec. 1 residents of the village of Fureidis near Haifa, Israel are indicted for spying for Hamas and planning to create a terror cell made up of Arab-Israelis. On Dec. 1 Palestinian Authority chmn. Mahmoud Abbas finally calls for the unconditional release of 24-y.-o. Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit (1986-), who was captured by Hamas in 2006 and held on the demand of the release of 1K terrorists, with Abbas backing them up until now. On Dec. 1 the U.S. Treasury Dept. cites five Iranian corporate officials and 10 businesses serving as fronts for Iran's shipping co. Iran Shipping Lines. On Dec. 1 Pres. Obama's fiscal commission releases a final report recommending sharp cuts in military spending, a higher retirement age, and reforms costing taxpayers an avg. of $1.7K a year; on Dec. 2 the U.S. House votes on partisan lines 234-188 to extend the Bush tax cuts for low and middle income taxpayers only (less than $250K per year); on Dec. 4 the Senate votes 53-36 to reject further debate on that plan; on Dec. 3 it falls three votes short of 14 votes needed to pressure Congress to quickly vote it in; on Dec. 15 the Senate by 81-19 passes a $858B package preserving the Bush era tax breaks for all income levels for two years, and extending emergency unemployment for more than a year; on Dec. 16 despite liberal opposition the Houses passes it by 277-148. On Dec. 1 the cases of Maj. Nidal Hasan and others cause former U.S. Defense Dept. inspector gen. Gen. Joseph Schmitz calls on Congress to oversee and vet the process for Muslim clerics nominated to serve as U.S. miitary chaplains. On Dec. 1 Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu denies reports that Turkey listed Israel as a threat in a key policy paper and that he had questioned Israel's long-term viability; meanwhile ex-PM Necmettin Erbakan (1926-2011) claims that PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP (Justice and Development Party) are stooges of the Zionists. On Dec. 2 Abdel Hamid Shaari, head of the Mosque of Viala Jenner becomes the first Muslim mayoral candidate of a major Italian city, Milan. On Dec. 2 a 3.7K-acre fire in Carmel Forest near Haifa, Israel (worst in Israeli history until ?) kills 40 cadets and the driver on a bus en route to Damon Prison to rescue prisoners; after the Lions of the Mujahideen in Palestine claim responsibility, two teen brothers from Usfiya admit doing it through negligence. On Dec. 2 Al-Shabaab takes over the Burhakaba District in Somalia from Huzbil-Islam, the last they control in the Bay region. On Dec. 2 U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano calls on the lame duck Congress to pass the U.S. DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act that grants legal status to 2.1M illegal immigrant students at a cost of up to $20B; on Dec. 8 it passes the House by 216-198 incl. 8 Repubs; on Dec. 18 the Senate kills it after a 55-41 vote fails to achieve the necessary 60 votes. On Dec. 2 Pres. Obama celebrates Hanukkah at the White House. On Dec. 2 Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh insists that there is no al-Qaida presence in Gaza. On Dec. 2 the U.S. House passes a bill that would force the FCC to set new lower volume stds. for pesky TV ads. On Dec. 2 a Pew Research Center Poll of six Muslim countries shows that only a minority of world Muslims support al-Qaida; too bad, the total comes to 130M of 1.5B. On Dec. 3 amid growing tensions in the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. and Japan launch their biggest-ever joint military exercises off Japan's S islands near South Korea. On Dec. 3 Pres. Obama makes a surprise holiday visit to Afghanistan to join the Taliban, er, to visit the troops at Bagram Air Base, telling them that we're "tired of playing defense"; he talks with Hamid Karzai only by phone. On Dec. 3 U.S. Marine commandant Gen. Jim Amos and USAF chief of staff Gen. Norton Schwartz tell the Senate that they don't recommend that Congress allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. On Dec. 3 Turkish pres. Abdullah Gul says that Israel and Turkey are no longer friends, and any cooperation between NATO and Israel is out of the question. On Dec. 3 U.S. Gen. David Petraeus addresses his troops at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and pisses-off Afghans with a statement that corruption has been a part of their history and culture for "however long this country has probably been in existence". On Dec. 3 Pres. Obama issues his first pardons since taking office, all involving minor offenses. On Dec. 3 Mexican police arrest 14-y.-o. U.S.-born hitman Edgar Jimenez Lugo (1996-) AKA El Ponchis (The Clock), who confesses to doing at least four decapitations; on July 27, 2011 he is given the max minor sentence of three years. On Dec. 3 the lit. elite of Baghdad protest a govt. order banning liquor in restaurants and hotels under Islamic influence. On Dec. 3 Am. Muslim convert Maria Hardman, a student at the U. of Colo. refuses to remove her headscarf for a mugshot, causing judge Noel Blum to come down on her, but after Muslim pressure he folds on Dec. 15 and allows her to wear the scarf provided she exposes her hairline and ears. On Dec. 4 Brazilian pres. Lula da Silva recognizes a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, causing Israel to say they are "saddened"; on Dec. 6 Argentina follows suit, joining 100+ other nations incl. Cuba, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. On Dec. 4 Palestinian pres.Mahmoud Abbas warns that if peace talks fail he might ask Israel to resume full control of the West Bank. On Dec. 4 Anaheim, Calif. Muslim Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud (1975-) is indicted for conspiracy to provide material support to al-Shabaab. On Dec. 4 Qatar is selected over the U.S. for the 2022 World Cup, which Pres. Obama calls a "mistake", causing Egyptian scholar Shikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi to call it a V for Muslims worldwide over the U.S. On Dec. 4 gunmen kill 10 in two attacks in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, incl. four police officers in an ambushed police car. On Dec. 4 the Brazilian govt. announces that it has been "closely monitoring" about 20 people linked to Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad. On Dec. 4 the marriage of 23-y.-o. Muslim schoolteacher Abdul Manan Othman to a 14-y.-o. girl in Malaysia stirs calls for reform. On Dec. 4 Egyptian minister of family and pop. Moushira Khattab says that Egypt is seeking internat. support to urge the U.N. Gen. Assembly to issue a resolution against female genital mutilation (FGM). On Dec. 5 the govt. of Albania announces that floods the past week have caused 11K to be evacuated and 7.8K houses damaged. On Dec. 5 Iran announces that it can produce yellow cake, allowing it to freely convert local or African uranium ore into nuclear fuel. On Dec. 5 Muslims murder yet two more Christians in Iraq, an elderly coupe in Baladiyat, Iraq in E Baghdad. On Dec. 5 a 22-y.-o. N African is arrested in Italy on suspicion of the kidnapping-murder of 13-y.-o. Yara Gambirasio in Brembata Sopra (near Bergamo); the same day a 21-y.-o. Moroccan DUI driver kills seven cyclists and injures three in Lamezia Terme in S Calabria; the incidents cause outcries over the stupidity of mass Muslim immigration. On Dec. 5 WikiLeaks reveals that Obama admin. officials admit that they have failed to shut down the money pipeline to Islamic terrorists after nine years of trying, with Hillary Clinton sending a classified memo saying: "It has been an ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority. Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide." On Dec. 6 two Islamic suicide bombers in the Mohmand Agency in NW Pakistan near the Afghan border kill 50 and wound 100. On Dec. 6 Pres. Obama makes a deal with Repubs. to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for rich, er, all Americans for two years at a cost of $620B in tax revenues in return for a $120B 2011 tax cut and $56B renewal of jobless benefits for 13 mo.; he holds a surprise press conference to defend the deal amid criticism from Dems. that he caved in too quickly, saying that tax cuts for the wealthy are the Repubs.' "Holy Grail" and that he couldn't get them to budge, dissing Dems. for being "sanctimonious" and reminding them that "this country was founded on compromise"; on Dec. 9 House Dems. vote not to accept his deal as-is; on Dec. 10 Bill Clinton tries to get Dems. to support Obama, who bails out of the White House press conference as if Clinton is back as the boss? On Dec. 6 a survey is released revealing that George W. Bush is the most unpopular living U.S. pres. On Dec. 6 Awais Younis (AKA Sundullah "Sunny" Ghilzai and Mokhammed Khan) is charged with posting threats on Facebook to bomb the Washington, D.C. Metro Subway. On Dec. 6 (11 p.m.) Karen Leuders (1953-) kisses her hubby Willard and bites off half his tongue; her hubby doesn't want to press charges - maybe his tongue had been bad? On Dec. 6-7 the U.S. and Iran hold their first direct talks on Iran's nuclear program in over a year in Geneva, and they agree to meet again next Jan. after no substantive progress - did they serve yellow cake? On Dec. 7 the 2010 PISA (Program for Internat. Student Assessment) scores put Shanghai at the top of 65 countries in math, reading, and science, and the U.S. way down at #23 or #24 in most subjects and #31 in math. On Dec. 7 (6:30 p.m.) an Islamic terrorist explosion in Varanasi, India in retaliation for the Babri Masjid demolition 18 years earlier kills a 1-y.-o. child and injures 20+. On Dec. 7 Pres. Obama abandons his 2-year policy of trying to persuade Israel to stop settlement construction; on Dec. 8 Palestinian Authority official Yasser Abed Rabbo says that "Israeli obstinacy" made Washington give up on efforts to freeze Jewish settlements, and questions whether the U.S. can help them attain independence. On Dec. 7 an Indian Muhamideen bomb explodes during a Hindu ceremony at the Ganges River in Lucknow, India, killing a 2-y.-o. infant and causing a stampede that injures 19. On Dec. 7 the U.S. dir. of nat. intel releases an intel assessment revealing that 150 of 598 (25%) former Gitmo detainees are either "confirmed or suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities". On Dec. 7 Amnesty Internat. condemns a religious ruling by Israeli ultra-orthodox rabbis banning rental or sale of homes to non-Jews; on Dec. 10 top ultra-orthodox rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv slams the ruling, saying that the other rabbis should "have their pens taken away". On Dec. 7 a new meningitis A vaccine is released in Burkina Faso. On Dec. 7 the U.S. Surgeon gen. releases the 30th Report on Tobacco, which claims that even one puff of tobacco smoke is harmful. On Dec. 8 (5:30 a.m.) a fire in the overcrowded San Miguel Prison S of Santiago, Chile kills 81 inmates and injures 14. On Dec. 8 the U.S. Senate votes unanimously to convict U.S. district judge G. Thomas Porteous (9147-) of La. of four impeachment charges, removing him from the bench, the 8th in U.S. history. On Dec. 8 the $600M private Dragon space capsule is launched on a Falcon 9 rocket by SpaceX (Space Exploration Technologies Corp.), founded by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk. On Dec. 8 Baltimore, Md. Muslim convert Muhammad Hussain (Antonio Martinez) (1989-) is arrested for a plot to blow up an Armed Forces recruiting center in Cantonsville (near Baltimore), Md. with a car bomb; he was allegedly "grinning from ear to ear" and shouting "Allahu Akbar" while trying to detonate a fake bomb; on Jan. 26 he pleads guilty, saying he was motivated by his belief that the U.S. is at war with Islam. On Dec. 8 Britain okays the sale of meat and milk from offspring of cloned animals sans special labelling. On Dec. 8 WikiLeaks reveals that U.S. TV shows and movies incl. "Desperate Housewives" are doing more to diffuse Islamic extremism in Saudi Arabia than official U.S. efforts. On Dec. 8 New York transportation police officer Eddie Crespo (1982-) breaks up an altercation involving a Muslim and non-Muslim Albert Melendez in lower Manhattan, the latter uttering anti-Muslim statements, causing CAIR to get them both charged with trumped-up charges; on Dec. 16 prosecutors drop the charges against Crespo, while Melendez is indicted by a grand jury on a misdemeanor. On Dec. 8 (night) vandals cut down the Glastonbury Holy Thorn Tree in England shortly after a sprig was cut to put on Queen Elizabeth II's Christmas table. On Dec. 9 a U.N. report urges Afghanistan to protect women's rights and give up child marriage, honor killings, and the giving away of girls to settle disputes. On Dec. 9 a defense bill containing a repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is blocked from the Senate floor after a 57-40 vote falls three votes of the 60 votes needed to overcome a Repub. filibuster. On Dec. 9 students stage mass demonstrations in C London against increased tuition fees, assaulting the car of Prince Charles and Camilla. On Dec. 9 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder finally stands up to the Muslim-Am. community who are pissed-off at the FBI's use of informants, saying that sting operations are an "essential law enforcement tool in uncovering and preventing terror attacks", and not entrapment as they claim; his speaking at a Muslim event is a first, the annual dinner of Muslim Advocates in Millbrae (near San Francisco), Calif.; too bad, he takes the Obama line that the main concern of the Justice Dept. is not to protect non-Muslims but to protect Muslims from "violence, threats, vandalism and arson", "to ensure that members of every religious community enjoy the ability to worship and to practice their faith in peace, free from intimidation, violence or suspicion". On Dec. 9 a woman in Sudan receives 40 lashes from a police officer for the crime of wearing pants inside her long dress; a male audience laughs at her pain and suffering. On Dec. 9 Bahama Buck's in Lubbuck, er, Lubbock, Tex. makes the world's largest snow cone, 15 ft. tall and weighing 25,095 lbs. On Dec. 10 Venezuelan pres. Hugo Chavez announces that he's moving into a Bedouin tent given to him by Muammar Gaddafi to show solidarity with the homeless from the recent floods. On Dec. 10 a gun battle between rival drug gangs in Tacalitlan, W Mexico kills 11 during a Virgin of Guadalupe celebration. On Dec. 10 Monica Marquez becomes the first Colo. Supreme Court justice who is openly gay, and the first who is Latina. On Dec. 10 Bolivia passes a law lowering the retirement age to 5 and nationalizes the pension system to extend coverage to the 60% of the pop. who work in the informal economy. On Dec. 10 the Rolls Royce carrying Prince Charles and Camilla is attacked by a street mob in London during a protest over tuition hikes, smashing windows and splattering it with paintballs; since 1997 tuition had been free. On Dec. 11 a roadside bomb planted by the Taliban in Khan Neshin District of Helmand Province, Afghanistan kills 15 civilians; meanwhile a shootout with NATO troops kills seven, causing 500 to gather in Paktia to shout "Death to Americans". On Dec. 11 N Sudanese army troops drop bombs on Kiir Adem in S Sudan to hinder upcoming elections, then deny it. On Dec. 11 Jordanian-born Allah Akbar-shouting Islamic suicide bomber Timur Abd Al-Wahab al-Abdaly (b. 1981) sets his car on fire, walks 200m, then detonates prematurely amid sparse Xmas shoppers in Stockholm, Sweden (first terrorist attack in three decades), killing one along with himself, and injuring two; he pre-sent an email to the Swedish news agency TT with the soundbyte "Now your children, daughters and sisters die like our brothers' and sisters' children die... as long as you don't stop your war against Islam and degrading the prophet and your stupid support of that pig Vilks", exhorting fellow Muslims to "stop sucking up to and degrading", and calling on "all the mujahedeen in Europe and Sweden"; three years earlier he was thrown out of a mosque in Luton, England for trying to recruit extremists, and named his son Osama; on Dec. 13 senior al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Suleiman al-Nasser warns that this attack is "only the beginning of a new era in jihad"; on Dec. 13 Finnish pres. Tarja Halonen says that it's only a matter of time before there is an Islamist terror attack in Finland; Muslim groups in Luton had been handed Ł550K since 2008 to combat extremist but failed to supply a single tipoff to police. On Dec. 12 a suicide bomber outside govt. offices in Ramadi, Iraq, kills 17 incl. women and elderly waiting to collect welfare checks. On Dec. 12 Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel is released from prison after serving a 5-mo. sentence for spitting at an Israeli police officer during a 2007 demonstration at Al-Aqsa Mosque; on Dec. 12 Iranian Muslims demonstrate at the tomb of Jewish Biblical queen Esther in W Iran and threaten to destroy it if Israel damages Al-Aqsa. On Dec. 12 Pakistani authorities announce the arrest of Muslim physician Nausahad Valiyani in Hyderabad for throwing away a business card of a man named Muhammad - Islam stinks? On Dec. 13 Iranian pres. Imadinnacket fires foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki after five years. On Dec. 13 Va. federal judge Henry E. Hudson strikes down the part of the Obama health care program that forces Americans to buy health insurance; Congress doesn't have the power to force people to buy something from a private co. On Dec. 13 Yale Law School librarian Fred Shapiro picks the soundbyte "I am not a witch" by Christine O'Donnell as best quote of 2010. On Dec. 13 a cold wave in the E U.S. causes the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minn. to collapse from snow. On Dec. 13 Marie Le Pen utters the soundbyte that the Muslim crowds who take over the streets of Paris for daily prayers are like the Nazi occupation; a poll on Dec. 13-14 finds that 39% agree. On Dec. 13 a South Korean fishing boat sinks in the Antarctic Ocean, with 22 killed and 20 rescued. On Dec. 13 Muslim airport shuttle driver Muhammad Teshale (1985-) drives his SuperShuttle up to 95 mph, striking at least six vehicles; he claims he did it "to be famous". On Dec. 14 a 20-something Saudi woman is arrested after fleeing her husband in Al-Qunfudha and living for 2 mo. disguised as a man. On Dec. 14 Ayad Allawi, head of a Sunni-backed political party joins the Shiite-led govt. of Iraq, ending months of near-anarchy. On Dec. 14 German authorities raid two Salafist Islamist groups in three cities and charge them with sedition for seeking to overthrow the govt. and establish an Islamic state. On Dec. 14 Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi narrowly wins a vote of confidence, causing violent riots in Rome. On Dec. 14 a fire in a garment factory in Ashulia, Bangladesh 16 mi. N of Dhaka kills 25 and injures 100+. On Dec. 14 right-wing Danish MP Jesper Langballe pleads guilty to defamation for accusing Muslim families of rape and honor killings; in Denmark the truth is no longer a defense? On Dec. 14 USMC top gen. James E. Amos says that allowing gays in the military could result in more casualties because they will create a "distraction"; on Dec. 15 the House by 250-175 passes an end to the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy; meanwhile on Dec. 15 ex-U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter says that the U.S. is ready for a gay pres., mentioning a black female (Condoleezza Rice?). On Dec. 14 Senate Repubs. announce their intention of forcing a reading of all 1,924 pages of a $1.1% omnibus spending bill ($575M per page) that has 6K "shameful" and "outrageous" earmarks - ho ho ho, Merry Christmas? On Dec. 14 the Venezuelan parliament approves 1-year decree powers for pres. Hugo Chavez, pissing-offthe opposition, who call it an "ambush" on democracy; meanwhile banks and landowners brace for nationalization. On Dec. 14 Clay Duke (1954-) pulls a gun on a school board in Fla., causing board member Ginger Littleton to attack him with her purse; after repelling her, he fires at the panel and misses, then is hit by a bullet from security guard Mike Jones and kills himself. On Dec. 14 after being arrested and jailed for refusing to remove her hijab before entering a courthouse in Douglasville, Ga., Muslim-Am. woman Lisa Valentine files a federal lawsuit against the city. On Dec. 14 after complaints from a prominent Muslim family that they don't want to pray next to a Christian grave, the remains of Canadian diplomat Hans-Joachim Himmselsbach (1945-2010) are removed from a cemetery in Turkey. On Dec. 14 Dubai's grand mufi Ahmad 'Abd-al-'Aziz al-Haddid releases a fatwa saying that it's okay for men to use makeup as long as "they don't look like women". On Dec. 15 the U.S. House passes a Resolution Opposing the Unilateral Declaration of a Palestinian State, introduced by Dem. Howard Berman, reaffirming "strong support for a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulting in two states, a democratic, Jewish state of Israel and a viable, democratic Palestinian state." On Dec. 15 foreign ministers of the Arab League say that they will resume failed U.S.-brokered Israel-Palestine negotiations only after a guarantee of progress. On Dec. 15 a Joint U.S.-Mexico Committee meets for the first time to address border violence. On Dec. 15 two Sunni suicide bombers outside the Imam Hussein Mosque in Chabahar, Iran kill 39+, incl. a newborn baby during a Shiite mourning ceremony; an Iranian parliamentarian blames Zionists and the U.S.; on Dec. 20 11 members of the Sunni Jundallah (Arab. "soldiers of Allah") group are hanged. On Dec. 15 two white British men, Gerry Smith (b. 1985) and Abu Bakar (Stephen) (1962-) are killed fighting alongside al-Qaida in Pakistan, becoming the first. On Dec. 15 incoming House Foreign Affairs Committee chmn. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen blasts the Obama admin. for giving the Palestinian Authority a "blank check" while pressuring Israel. On Dec. 15 NASA's Mars Odyssey (launched 2001) breaks the record for longest-serving spacecraft on Mars, beginning day #3,340 at 5:55 p.m. PST. On Dec. 16 a White House Review of Pres. Obama's Afghan War Strategy is released, which concludes that it is "showing progress", but that "the challenge remains to make our gains durable and sustainable". On Dec. 16 Pres. Obama meets with leaders of 500 Native Am. tribes, and tells them that efforts to strengthen their communities and improve relationships with the federal govt. have already borne fruit; he also gives belated U.S. endorsement to the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. On Dec. 16 the Obama admin. calls for an Online Privacy Bill of Rights. On Dec. 16 a Gallup Poll shows Pres. Obama's support among liberals dipping below 80% for the first time, to 79%. On Dec. 16 some of the last sanctions on Iraq from the Sodamn Insane era are lifted. On Dec. 16 U.S. Predator drones strike the Khyber Agency in Pakistan for the first time in almost six years, killing seven Taliban members. On Dec. 16 Marisela Escobedo Ortiz is gunned down in front of a governor's office in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico while demanding justice for her slain daughter Rubi Frayre Escobedo, who was found burned and dismembered in a trash bin on June 18 after going missing for a year. On Dec. 16 Sunni-run Malaysia arrests 200 Shiites for the crime of deviating from true Sunni Islam, blowing its cover story of religious tolerance. On Dec. 16 supporters of opposition leader Alassane Quattara clash with security forces in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, killing 18 and causing talk of another civil war. On Dec. 16 ABC News reports that Houston-based Iranian-Am. Muslim businessman Farid Seif left a loaded Glock pistol in his computer case and it sailed through security untouched. On Dec. 16 British MP Bob Ainsworth tells Parliament that it's time to legalize all drugs in order to take them away from criminals and hand them to doctors and pharmacists. On Dec. 16 after pressure from law enforcement and lawmakers over the slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, Janet Napolitano visits the Ariz.-Mexico border. On Dec. 16 a fight in the Ukrainian Parliament sends six to the hospital. On Dec. 17 (3:00 a.m.) TLW's Mo.-born angelic mother Wilma Louise Winslow (b. 1925) dies peacefully in her sleep in her home in Denver, Colo. On Dec. 17 Pres. Obama signs the U.S. Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act, extending the Bush-era tax rates for high-income taxpayers, and ending the Making Work Pay Credit. On Dec. 17 Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah addresses large crowds in Lebanon during the Shiite holy day of Ashura, and predicts that the U.N. court on how they, er, on who murdered Rafiq Haria would "disappear with the wind". On Dec. 17 191+ prisoners walk out of a prison in Nueva Laredo, Mexico across the border from Laredo, Tex.; staff help is suspected. On Dec. 17 after much opposition, the Dubai-funded Essalam Mosque in Rotterdam opens, becoming the largest mosque in the Netherlands. On Dec. 17 a French court convicts 13 former officials of Chilean dicator Augusto Pinochet for roles in the disappearance of four French nationals; one defendant is acquitted; all 14 are tried in absentia, two receiving life sentences. On Dec. 17 the Jasmine Rev. in Tunisia begins when univ. graduate street peddler Mohamed Bouazizi sets himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia to protest police confiscating his fruits and vegetables, and a policewoman slapping him, triggering demonstrations; he dies on Jan. 4; on Jan. 7 the U.S. summons its ambassador to express concerns about continuing protexts. On Dec. 18 the U.S. Senate by 65-31 repeals the 17-y.-o. Don't Ask Don't Tell policy for the military - kisses for Christmas? On Dec. 18 Saudi police arrest 38 in Medina after Sunni-Shiite fighting erupts near the Al-Quba Mosque on the Shiite holiday of Ashura. On Dec. 18 the Iraqi parliament lifts a ban on three Sunni politicians, clearing the way for a unity govt. On Dec. 18 the top CIA spy in Pakistan is pulled after U.S. officials claim that Pakistan's intel service deliberately exposed him/her; meanwhile Pres. Obama gives a speech warning Pakistan's leaders that "terrorist safe havens within their borders must be dealt with". On Dec. 18 40-y.-o. U.S. tourist Kristine Luken, member of the Church's Ministry Among Jewish People (CMJ) (a Christian evangelist org. founded in 1809 specializing in converting Jews) is kidnapped while hiking with friend Kaye Susan Wilson, and found bound and suffering from knife wounds near Beit-shemesh, Israel; authorities say she was attacked by two Arabs. On Dec. 18 anti-Muslim groups from left to right gather in Paris to protest the Islamization of Europe. On Dec. 18 a 35-y.-o. veiled Muslim convert woman Shayna Bharuchi (1975-) in Clapton, East London is arrested for cutting out the heart of her 4-y.-o. daughter Nusayba while listening to a recorded chanting of the Quran. On Dec. 19 an explosion at an oil pipeline in Texmelucan in C Mexico kills 10 and injures 12. On Dec. 19 the Iranian parliament cuts ties with Britain after statements by British ambassador Simon Grass criticizing Iran's human rights record. On Dec. 19 the U.N. high commissioner on human rights announces that post-election violence in Ivory Coast has killed 50+ and injured 200+; the EU gives Laurent Gbagbo until Dec. 20 to concede defeat or face sanction. On Dec. 19 chief magistrate Howard Riddle becomes the first judge in British history to permit live updates to be sent from his court via Twitter during the trial of Julian Assange. On Dec. 20 Alexander Lukashenko is reelected to a 4th term as pres. of Belarus, causing hundreds of opposition supporters to protest election fraud, and seven opposition pres. candidates to face up to 15 years in prison. On Dec. 20 Palestinian leaders tell the Obama admin. that they are ready to accept nearly any security arrangements for a Palestinian state demanded by Israel short of Israeli troops on their soil. On Dec. 20 Benzion Evers, son of prominent Dutch rabbi Raphael Evers announces plans to leave Amsterdam for Isrel over increased anti-Jewish sentiment; meanwhile Coptic Egyptian priest Rafic Greische tells Vatican Radio that radical Muslims are trying to rid the Middle East entirely of Christians. On Dec. 20 British police arrest 12 Muslims with links to Bangladesh and Pakistan in the biggest anti-terrorist sweep in nearly two years, accusing them of plotting large-scale attacks inside the U.K.; on Dec. 21 Bangladeshi PM Sheikh Hasina announces that the govt. will show zero tolerance to those who are smearing the name of Islam, the religion of peace. On Dec. 20 Pres. Obama issues a memo asking federal officials to draft "appropriate workplace" accomodations for federal employees who are doing breastfeeding. On Dec. 21 (winter solstice) there is a total lunar eclipse. On Dec. 21 China urges North Korea to allow U.N. nuclear monitors to alleviate internat. tensions. On Dec. 21 Israeli defense forces chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi admits that a massive Kornet anti-tank missile has been fired at an Israeli tank earlier in Dec. by Hezbollah in Lebanon, penetrating its outer shell, becoming a quantum leap in their military power. On Dec. 21 gay Muslim man Azwan Ismail comes out to the AP, telling them that he fears for his safety after coming out on the Internet and receiving death threats and condemnations by Muslim religious authorities. On Dec. 22 Pres. Obama signs the 2010 U.S. Don't Ask Don't Tell Repeal Act. On Dec. 22 the U.S. Senate by 71-26 ratifies the new START treaty with Russia. On Dec. 22 explosions rock the Swiss and Chilean missions in Rome, Italy, wounding two. On Dec. 22 (100th anniv. of the Chicago Union Stockyards fire) two firefighters in Chicago, Ill. are killed and 12+ are injured at an abandoned warheouse blaze after the roof collapses. On Dec. 22 after a 12-year lobbying effort wins unanimous approval from the House, the Senate kills a bill to empower whistleblowers. On Dec. 22 former Argentine dictator Jorge Videla is sentenced to life in prison for the torture-murder of 31 prisoners in 1976. On Dec. 22 Roman Catholic bishop Thomas Olmsted tells St. Joseph Hospital in Phoenix, Ariz. that it can no longer call itself a Catholic hospital because it permitted an abortion. On Dec. 23 protester Adrian Sobaru jumps from a 22-ft. balcony of the Romanian parliament during a speech by PM Emil Boc. On Dec. 23 after repeated Muslim attacks, hundreds of Iraqi Christians flee N to the semi-autonomous Kurdish town of Ankawa. On Dec. 24 Iran bans opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi, and Mohammad Khatami from leaving the country. On Dec. 24 Dutch police arrest 12 Somalis in Rotterdam for planning a terrorist attack in the Netherlands. On Dec. 24 the Jama'atu ahlus-Sunnah Lidda'awati wal Jihad stages Xmas Eve bomb blasts in Jos, Nigeria and Borno State that kill 32. On Dec. 24 Taliban insurgents launch coordinated assaults in NW Pakistan, killing 11 soldiers and 24 militants; on Dec. 25 a woman throws a hand grenade at a crowd and then blows up in their midst at a U.N. food distribution center in Bajaur Agency (near Khar in NW Pakistan near the Afghan border), killing 45 and injuring 70, becoming the first female suicide bomber in Pakistan; Pres. Obama calls it "outrageous" and "an affront to the people of Pakistan". On Dec. 24 illegal Mexican immigrant Quelino Ojeda Jimenez, who fell from a roof and became a quadriplegic is shipped back by Oak Lawn Hospital in Ill. to Oaxcaca without his consent, causing an uproar. On Dec. 24 Indian police search Mumbai for four men believed to be planning a terrorist attack. On Dec. 25 (7:15 a.m.) Abu Sayyaf Islamics set off a bomb in a church during Chritmas Mass in Jolo Island in S Philippines, injuring six. On Dec. 25 Dutch queen Beatrix delivers a Christmas speech calling for her people to be more understanding and tolerant towards Muslim immigrants; too bad, a plot by 12 Somalis to shoot down an Apache attack heli at Gilze-Rijen AFB is exposed, causing her to feel foolish. On Dec. 25 52-y.-o. Iraqi farmer Al-Najem Ambagui (1958-) hands his 19-y.-o. daughter Shakhla in Mandali in Diyala Province after discovering that she had joined al-Qaida and was planning a suicide bombing. On Dec. 25 an Indian rocket carrying the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) explodes after lift-off, becoming the 2nd launch failure for India this year. On Dec. 25 white gay couple Steven Adams and Kevin Powell are murdered in their home Wilton Manors, Fla. by white convicted felon Peter Avsenew (1984-), who is turned in by his mother, writes the soundbyte: "It is my duty as a white man to cull the weak and timid from existence. I will always stand up for what I believe in and eradicate anything in my way. Homosexuals are a disgrace to mankind and must be put down. These weren't the first and won't be the last. I must secure an existance (sic) for white people and a future for white children. I regret nothing and am proud of every choice I've made in my life... I will not ask for mercy and am not sorry"; in June 2018 he utters the soundbyte: "I have no consequences for my actions. I plan on hurting people... I wholeheartedly have nothing to lose, and I’m going to take it out on everybody I can"; on Aug. 28, 2018 he is sentenced to death, and gives the victims' family the middle finger. On Dec. 26 a bus collides head-on with a van carrying mourners from a funeral near Badaun in Uttar Pradesh state in N India, killing 35 and injuring 14. On Dec. 26 a tour bus en route from Asway to Abu Simbel collides with a truck in S Egypt killing eight U.S. tourists and injuring 21 other. On Dec. 27 Philippine citizen Madhatta Asagal Haipe, founding member of the Abu Sayyaf Group is sentenced to 23 years. On Dec. 27 the Fox Network game show Million Dollar Money Drop stinks itself up when it refuses to give Gabe Okoye and Brittany Mayti the $800K they won after they wrongly dropped their money then admitted they made a mistake, and only offered them a do-over. On Dec. 28 Jesse Quinn Harrison (1977-) of Tulsa, Okla. is arrested and charged for sending a letter dissing Islam to a local mosque, then held in a mental health facility while the Obama-owned prosecutors try to make the charges sound real instead of like oppression and de facto Sharia in Okla. On Dec. 30 Russia exonerates the Jehovah's Witnesses of extremism, saying that its pubs. "do not contain any statements in the form of a call or incitement against any social, racial, national, ethnic or religious group or its representatives". On Dec. 31 an Islamic bomb attack in a popular market inside an army barracks in Abuja, Nigeria kills 30 celebrating New Year's Eve. On Dec. 31 the Black Widow Islamic suicide bomber is foiled in an attempted attack near Red Square in Moscow when a text message sets her suicide belt bomb off early. On Dec. 31 the U.S. nat. debt tops $14T. In Dec. the U.S. unemployment rate falls to 9.4% and adds 103K jobs, although 150K were expected. In Dec. the Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) council of the Muslim World League reiterates its demand that religious films worldwide ban images of Muhammad and his companions. In Dec. Syrian blogger Tal al-Mallouhi (1992-) is arrested and put on a secret trial, causing internat. outcries. In Dec. Israel announces the discovery of an immense natural gase field in its territorial waters. The U.S. Justice Dept. begins the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative to try to spot potential terrorists, collecting reports from citizens and law enforcement agencies at "fusion centers" in several U.S. cities incl. Boston, Chicago, and Houston. Pres. Obama issues Pres. Study Directive 11 (PSD-11), ordering an assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood and other "political Islamist" movements, ultimately concluding that they should be courted in preference to propping up "stable regimes" like Egypt; the govt. keeps it classified until ? Hesham Aborea becomes the first Muslim Arab officer in the Israeli military; Christian Cpl. Eleanor Joseph becomes the first female Arab combat soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). According to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, this is the final year. Israel completes its Security Barrier. Nevada's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site opens. NFL football legend Jim Brown gives an interview to Graham Bensinger, saying that there is more racism in the U.S. now than at any time in history. The privacy-conscious open source social networking site Diaspora is launched by Ilya Zhitomirskiy, Daniel Grippi, Maxwell Salzberg, and Raphael Sofaer of NYU's Courant Inst. of Mathematical Science to take on Facebook; too bad, Zhitomirskiy dies prematurely on Nov. 14, 2011 at age 22. The Wikistrat geostrategic analysis site is founded in New York City by by Joel Zamel and Daniel Green to become a combination of Facebook and Wikipedia. The U.K. phases out analog TV broadcasts; Australia phases out analog TV broadcasts and the incandescent light bulb. French thinker Renaud Camus (1946-) warns about the Great Replacement (Grand Remplacement) of native French by Muslim immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East, giving a speech on Nov. 13, 2012, causing the leftist overlords who run the French govt. to convict him in 2014 of telling the truth, er, inciting racial hatred. The 2010-11 U.S. TV season features a record 3.9% of gay characters. 281-ft. $82M Cakewalk is launched in Oct., becoming the largest yacht built since the 1930s, owned by Denver, Colo. investor Charles Gallagher. In June Uber (originally UberCab) is founded in San Francisco, Calif. by Travis Cordell Kalanick (1976-) and Garrett M. Camp (1978-) to allow people to become taxi drivers after customers use a smartphone (iPhone) app to issue ride requests, growing to 300 cities in 58 countries and doing $10B a year by 2015. Revenge Porn gets popularized by the Web site Is Anyone Up?, which pub. explicit photos of girlfriends taken by spurned beaus. The word refudiate is accepted by the New Oxford Am. Dictionary after Sarah Palin uses it in a Tweet in July and her critics pan her; "From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used 'refudiate', we have concluded that neither 'refute' nor 'repudiate' seems consistently precise, and that 'refudiate' more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of 'reject'." Sports: On Jan. 21 Kobe Bryant of the LA Lakers becomes the youngest NBA player to reach 25K points. On Jan. 24 Union Township, N.J.-born Kelly Kulick (1977-) defeats Chris Barnes 265-195 in the PBA Tournament of Champions in Las Vegas, Nev., becoming the first female winner of a nat. PBA Tour event. On Feb. 14 the 2010 (52nd) Daytona 500 is won by James Christopher "Jamie" McMurray (1976-), who goes on to win the 2014 Brickyard 400. On May 1 Super Saver (jockey Calvin Borel) wins the 136th Kentucky Derby by 2-1/2 lengths over Ice Box, becoming the first win for trainer Todd Pletcher after a record 24 failures. On May 9 lefty Dallas Lee Braden (1983-) of the Oakland Athletics becomes the 19th ML pitcher to pitch a perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays, winning by 4-0; on May 29 Harry Leroy "Roy" "Doc" Halladay III (1977-) of the Philadelphia Phillies becomes the 20th to you know what against the Florida Marlins, winning by 1-0; on Oct. 6 he pitches a no-hitter in a 4-0 win over Cincinnati in game 1 of their MLB playoff series, the 2nd ever (first in ?); too bad, on June 2 Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers is robbed of a perfect game by a bad call by umpire Jim Joyce, who calls Jason Donald of the Cleveland Indians safe, then later apologizes; the Tigers win 3-0. On May 29-June 9 the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals see the Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Philadelphia Players 4-2, becoming their 4th title and first since 1961; MVP is 6'2" Blackhawks center Jonathan Bryan Toews (1988-), who passes Peter Forsberg to becoming the youngest player to join the Triple Gold Club. On May 30 (Sun.) the 2010 (94th) Indianapolis 500 is won by George Dario Marino Franchitti (1973-) (2nd win), with Dan Wheldon coming in 2nd, and Marco Andretti coming in 3rd; Tony Kanaan starts in the final position but runs as high as 2nd before finishing 11th; the first Indy 500 with four female drivers. On June 3-17 the 2010 NBA Finals sees the Los Angeles Lakers (coach Phil Jackson) defeat the Boston Celtics (coach Doc Rivers) by 4-3; Kobe Bryant of the Lakers is MVP. On June 6 Francesca "the Lioness" Schiavone (1980-) defeats Samantha Stosur to win the French Open, becoming the first Italian woman to win a Grand Slam tennis title. On June 8 super-hyped pitcher Stephen James Strasburg (1988-) (#1 draft selection in June 2009, who signed a record $15.1M contract) debuts with the Washington Nationals against the Pittsburgh Pirates, striking out a record 14 batters in 7 innings for a 5-2 win; luckily he starts the ML season too late to be selected for the All-Star Game, which was a jinx to Mark Fidrych in 1976, Fernando Valenzuela in 1981, and Hideo Nomo in 1995; too bad, on Aug. 26 he tears an elbow ligament, causing him to miss 12-18 mo. after Tommy John surgery. On June 11-July 11, 2010 19th FIFA World Cup of Soccer is hosted by the South African Bafana ("boys") Nat. Football Team, becoming the first African country to host it; the crowds blow noisy vuvuzelas, causing team confusion and ear damage, but are allowed by the officials, although the UAE issues a fatwa against their use; on June 18 the U.S. ties Slovenia 2-2 after U.S.-hating referee Koman Coulibaly (1970-) of Mali (known as Sleepy Eyes for his heavy eyelids) denies U.S. midfielder Maurice "Mo" Edu (1986-) a tie-breaking goal in the 84th min. with an unsupportable call that he never tries to explain, and FIFA later orders him not to explain, making him wildly unpopular in the U.S.; on June 22 South Africa becomes the first host team not to survive the initial round, although it knocks France out in its last match; on June 26 Ghana knocks the U.S out of the match for the 2nd straight time; on July 11 Spain defeats Netherlands 1-0 in OT to win; on July 11 Al-Shabaab sets off two bombs among fans watching the World Cup final in Kampala, Uganda, killing 64; Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket dumps on Paul the Octopus (2008-10) of the Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany (who predicted the outcome) as a symbol of "Western propaganda and superstition"; Paul dies on Oct. 26. On June 17 the Los Angeles Lakers defeat the Boston Celtics 83-79 at home in Game 7 to win the NBA title. On June 18 Tiger Woods begins sobbing uncontrollably on the 5th hole of the U.S. Open, saying "What the hell is going on with my life" and "Oh God", also "What are you all staring at?"; four min. later his playing partner Ernie Els also begins sobbing. On June 21 Jenny Higgs (1947-) becomes the first woman chief ump at Wimbledon, in charge of 310 umps; on June 22-23 Nicolas Mahut (1982-) of France and John Robert Isner (1985-) of the U.S. play the longest match in Assoc. of Tennis Profs. (ATP) history; after being suspended at 59-59 for darkness, Isner defeats Mahut 70-68 in the 5th set after 11 hours of play; on June 24 Queen Elizabeth II makes her first Wimbledon appearance since 1977; on June 29, 2009 winner (6-time winner) Roger Federer is stopped in four sets by 12th seed Tomas Berdych of Czech. Repub., who becomes the first Czech man to reach the final four since Ivan Lendl in 1990; on July 3 Serena Williams of the U.S. wins the women's singles title, and on July 4 Rafael Nadal of Spain wins the men's singles title. On July 3-25 the 2010 Tour de France is won by Alberto Contador Velasco (1982-) of Spain (3rd win), who is later found to have 8x the allowable amount of a chemical indicating doping in his system. On July 13 the 2010 ML All-Star Game is the first win for the NL since 1996, with Ubaldo Jimenez of the Colo. Rockies pitching two scoreless innings, and Brian McCann of the NL Atlanta Braves hitting a 3-run double in the 7th inning to win 3-1. On July 8 after seven seasons, two NBA MVPs, and six All-Star picks, superstar 6'8" forward (#23) LeBron Raymone "King" James (1984-) leaves the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat (#6) (until 2014), as announced in the ESPN special The Decision. On Aug. 4 Alex Rodriguez hits his 600th homer. On Aug. 10 Am. jockey Russell A. Baze (1958-) becomes the first to reach 11K wins at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds in Santa Rose, Calif. on first-time starter Separate Forest. On Aug. 14-26 the 2010 Summer Youth Olympic Games in Singapore are held; FIFA bans headscarves for women, drawing protests from Iran and other Muslim Sharia countries, and causing it on May 1 to flop and permit them. On Aug. 22 a horse race at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, N.J. features a hilarious finish between My Wife Knows Everything and The Wife Doesn't Know. On Sept. 24 Ardolis Chapman of the Cincinnati Reds throws a record 105 mph fastball against the San Diego Padres. In Oct. Cigar Guy steals the show from golfer Tiger Woods, standing in the crowd near him wearing a mustache and wig; he turns out to be 30-y.-o. investment analyst Rupesh Shingadia of S London, who claims he's paying tribute to Spanish golfer Miguel Angel Jimenez. On Nov. 13 5'-6-1/2" southpaw Filipino boxer Emmanuel Dapidran "Manny" "Pac-Man" Pacquiao (1978-) defeats Antonio Margarito to clinch the WBS super welterweight title at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium, becoming the first 8-div. boxing champion (until ?). On Dec. 4 Oklahoma U. defeats Nebraska U. 23-20 in their last football game until Sept. 18, 2021, with a series lead of 45-38-3. China holds the first Internat. Robot (Humanoid) Olympics in Harbin. Architecture: On Jan. 4 the $1.5B 160-story 2,717K-ft. (800m) (1/2 mi.) Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai (renamed after the leader of neighboring Abu Dhabi, which saved it from a financial meltdown) opens, becoming the world's tallest bldg. (until ?), along with a $20B new shopping district incl. 1.2K-shop Dubai Mall and 30K apts.; meanwhile the Dubai economy is in the pits. On Mar. 11 Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. is begun as the home of the NBA New Jersey Nets. On Apr. 22 worldwide Earth Day celebrations are marred by an announcement by Brazil of the $10B Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam (world's 3rd largest) on the Xingu River, which will flood a part of the Amazon River basin despite protests by Indians. On May 9 the Guangzhou Opera House in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China opens, designed by Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid. On May 11 the $160M NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C. opens. On July 4 the 100K sq. ft. 6-story Nat. Museum of Am. Jewish History in Philadelphia, Penn., directly across from the Liberty Bell opens, tracing Am. Jewish history from 1654. Mainz Synagogue in Germany is guilt er, built on the site of the one destroyed by the Nazis. The Russia-China Oil Pipeline is completed. The 185m (610 ft.) Great Berlin Wheel is finished. The $300M 300-ft. stainless steel Statue of Responsibility is unveiled on the W coast of the U.S., as proposed by Jewish concentration camp survivor pshrink Dr. Viktor Frankl (1905-97) in 1970, creating a bookend effect with the Statue of Liberty in New York City (liberty + responsibility = freedom). The $1.3B New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. opens in Aug. as the new home of the NFL New York Jets and New York Giants. Israel builds the world's largest emergency underground hospital under Rambamn Health Care Campus in Haifa. Nobel Prizes: Peace: Liu Xiaobo (1955-) (China); Lit.: Jose Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (1936-) (Peru); Chem.: Richard Fred Heck (1931-) (U.S.), Ei-ichi Negishi (1935-) (Japan), and Akira Suzuki (1930-) (Japan) [new ways of linking carbon atoms together]; Physics: Sir Andre Konstantin Geim (1958-) (U.K.) and Sir Konstantin Sergeevich "Kostya" Novoselov (1974-) (U.K.) (graphene); Med.: Robert Geoffrey "Bob" Edwards (1925-) (U.S.) (IVF); Econ.: Peter Arthur Diamond (1940-) (U.S.), Dale Thomas Mortensen (1939-) (U.S.), and Christopher Antoniou Pissarides (1948-) (Cyprus) [theory of search frictions in unemployment]. Inventions: A feminine hygiene product for robots? On Jan. 27 (13:00 ET) Apple unveils the $499 iPad tablet computer, releasing the first one on Apr. 3 for $629 with AT&T data; on June 10 the FBI opens a probe into a security breach of Apple's iPad that exposed personal info. of AT&T customers incl. several high-ranking govt. officials. On Jan. 29 the Russian single-seat twin-jet Sukhoi PAK FA (T-50) 5th-gen. stealth fighter makes its first flight, becoming the first Russian stealth aircraft, intended as the successor to the MiG-29 and Su-27; it goes into service in 2018. On Feb. 8 (4:14 EST) NASA launches Space Shuttle Endeavour, carrying six astronauts to install the lat two main pieces of the Internat. Space Station (ISS); meanwhile a U.S. judge in Calif. sentences Chinese-born ex-Boeing engineer Dongfan Chung to 15+ years for economic espionage, telling China to "stop sending your spies here". On Feb. 21 the Bloom Box is unveiled on 60 Minutes, which can power a corp. for $700K-$800K by transforming a flow of methane and oxygen into electricity after being heated to 100C; inventor K.R. Sridhar claims that the unit will be in every home one day. On Apr. 1 Space Shuttle Discovery takes off from Kennedy Space Center in its final flight, STS-13, after which the U.S. Space Shuttle fleet is retired and replaced by Project Constellation, with new space vehicles Orion and Ares, capable of eventually travelling to Mars. On Apr. 2 George Wills (b. 1942) of San Pedro, Calif. is sentenced to 6 mo. in federal court for selling the Whizzinator, a prosthetic penis designed to help men beat urinalysis drug tests. On Apr. 20 a test-flight of the $308M Falcon HTV-2 burns up in the atmosphere after 9 min. of flight, bringing into question the Obama admin. plan to develop a non-nuclear weapon that can strike anywhere on Earth in 1 hour. On May 26 the NASA Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) makes its first flight. In June the European aerospace firm EADS launches its first algae-powered airplane. On July 13 Apple debuts the iPhone4; on July 16 Steve Jobs holds a surprise conference to admit problems with the antenna; meanwhile rival Microsoft all-but drops out of the mobile phone biz, while its stock is valued less than Apple's. On July 29 STS-134, the final mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour launches; NASA replaces it with Project Consellation, incl. space vehicles Ares I and Ares V, and the Orion. In July the govt. of India releases a prototype $35 touchscreen tablet computer. On Aug. 24 Niek van Hulst of the Inst. of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona announces the development of a new nano-antenna that can transmight light in a single direction and resembles a tiny directional TV antenna. On Aug. 27 engineers at Tel Aviv U. announce the development of an organic LED light source. On Sept. 9 the Here You Have E-Mail Virus attacks major corps. and govt. orgs. incl. Comcast and NASA. On Sept. 15 NASA launches ARTEMIS-P1, the first spacecraft to achieve a kidney-shaped Earth-Moon libation orbit around the L1 and L2 Lagrangian points. On Sept. 27 Research In Motion (maker of the BlackBerry) introduces the BlackBerry PlayBook, its first tablet computer. In Sept. the FDA approves the Zerona low energy cold laser light (658 nm) device that shrinks fat cells. On Oct. 1 Instagram mobile photo and video sharing social networking service is launched, gaining 300M users by Dec. 2014; in Apr. 2012 Facebook acquires it for $1B even though it has no revenue and only a dozen employees. On Oct. 13 scientists at Berlin's Free U. unveil a self-driving car, with Prof. Paul Rojas predicting "In the future it will be forbidden for safety reasons for people to drive cars." On Oct. 26 China unveils its Hongqiao-Hangzhou High-Speed Rail Line that sets a new record of 260 mph. On Oct. 28 China passes the U.S. in supercomputers, with its Tianhe-1A beating the top U.S. computer in speed by 1.4x; the U. of Fla. Novo-G reconfigurable supercomputer is faster for some important science applications? In Oct. the LCD 20 in. Toshiba Regza GL1 3-D TV is introduced, becoming the first that doesn't require glasses by using a double convex sheet and parallax, requiring the viewer to be close to the screen. In Dec. the Nissan Leaf debuts as the first all-electric car from a major auto co.; the U.S. govt. offers a $7.5K federal tax credit for purchasers, along with a free $3K home-charging unit from the U.S. Dept. of Energy; Tenn. offers a $2.5K cash rebate. Complete Genomics Inc. begins offering low-cost human genomes, sequencing thousands this year and promising 1M over the next five years. Microsoft releases Windows 7 client operating system. The EU Sartre (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) project is launched to create the technology for 6-8 cars to create a road train that automatically drives them to their common destination, all within 10 years. The U. of Ariz. develops the first Skinput, which allows the arm to be used as a touchscreen. Hewlett Packard scientists create the first real-time holographic telepresence that can project a 3-D moving image without the need for special eyewear. memristors as first proposed in 1971 by Leon Ong Chua, making fast more efficient computers a possibility. The U. of Tuebingen in Germany develops a retinal implant that allows blind people to see shapes and objects within three days of installation. Engineers from Southeast U. in Nanjing, China invent an Illusion Media, which can act as an invisibility cloak plus generate virtual images on top of the background. The European robot Nao becomes the first robot that can allegedly detect and express emotions. An MIT computer program that translates ancient languages cracks ancient Ugaritic in a few hours by comparing it with Hebrew. Researchers at Stanford U. develop glass wall-climbing robots. The Neuneu Project funded by the EU's Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) Proactive Initiative builds a massive parallel computer out of lipid BZ (Belousov-Zhabotinskii) Bubbles. Zhong Lin Wang et al. of Georgia Inst. of Tech. in the U.S. develop paper clip-sized plastic-encased nanogenerators that put out as much voltage as a AA battery when squeezed, bent, or shaken. Science: On Jan. 4 the Journal of Sexual Medicine pub. a study of 1.8K women that concludes that the female G-spot doesn't really exist but is subjective. On Jan. 4 the Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Science pub. an article describing a computer method to spot art fakes by "sparse coding", which builds a virtual library of an artist's works and breaks them down into the simplest possible visual elements. On Jan. 6 Dutch physicist Erik Peter Verlinde (1962-) pub. the article "On the Origin of Gravity and the Laws of Newton", claiming that the force of gravity doesn't exist and is just a result of entropy, "an entropic force caused by changes in the information associated with the positions of material bodies", i.e., an emergent force like temperature, announcing the theory of Entropic Gravity. On Jan. 8 Radu Colea et al. of Oxford U. and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin fur Materialien und Energie in Germany pub. an article in Nature claiming to have seen signs of the Golden Ratio at the quantum level, becoming the first observation of hidden symmetry in a material. On Jan. 8 the Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences pub. a study by Mauro Santos of the U. of Barcelona rejecting the "metabolism first" theory that life originated from a system of self-catalytic molecules capability of Darwinian evolution sans the need of RNA or DNA. On Jan. 10 Reuben Harris et al. of the U. of Minn. pub. an article in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology announcing the discovery of the human immune cell enzyme APOBEC3A that deactivates and degrades foreign DNA. On Jan. 10 Astrophysical Journal Letters pub. an article explaining the mysterious Space Ribbon at the outer boundary of the Solar System as a reflection of solar wind particles by a galactic magnetic field. On Jan. 14 William Peterson of the U. of Iowa et al. pub. an article in Nature reporting the detection of the first magnetic field from a star other than the Sun, a giant magnetic loop sweeping out from the Algol binary pair 93 l.y. from Earth. On Jan. 20 Nature pub. an article announcing that scientists have made a "microbial clock" consisting of bacteria that count time together. On Jan. 25 Martin Dominik of the U. of St. Andrews leads a conference at the Royal Society in London to develop a framework for responding to a possible discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence. On Jan. 27 scientists at Stanford U. announce that they have turned skin into nerve cells without intermediate steps. In Jan. A. Welfore Castleman Jr. et al. of Penn State U. announce the creation of superatoms with electronic signatures of more expensive or exotic atoms. In Jan. AraNet is announced, a new computational model to predict gene function of uncharacterized plant genes, with over 19.6K genes and 1M links. In Jan. Anna Tampiere et al. of Istec Lab of Faenza (near Bologna), Italy announce a new process for turning rattan wood into bone-like material. On Feb. 2 Thomas Nystrom of the U. of Gothenburg et al. pub. research poving that old and damaged mother cells produce health daughter cells by using a conveyor belt machanism to offload damaged proteins. On Feb. 3 Nature pub. an article by Gregory Scholes of the U. of Toronto et al., that algae and bacteria can perform quantum calculations. On Feb. 4 the Hubble Space Telescope reveals a weird bright spot on Pluto near the equator, perhaps caused by carbon monoxide frost. On Feb. 11 NASA launches the Solar Dynamics Laboratory to observe the Sun for 5+ years, producing new high-detail images incl. extreme closeups of surface activity. On Feb. 11 Neuron pub. an article by Cosimo Urgesi et al. of the U. of Udine in Italy linking a specific area of the human brain with the personality trait of self-transcendence. On Feb. 14 Nature Photonics pub. research by Andrew MacRae et al. of the U. of Calgary on constructing 2-story "quantum toy houses" using photons. On Feb. 19 Cell pub. research by Susan Golden of UC San Diego et al. describing how the cell's biological clock works. On Feb. 21 U. of Colo. researchers Margaret Murnane and Henry Kapteyn announce the creation of a tabletop X-ray laser, which can be used for super hi-res imaging. In Feb. Lori Marino et al. of Emory U. pub. their research on dolphins, claiming they are the 2nd most intelligent species to humans and that they should be treated as "non-human persons" and not kept in zoos. In Feb. Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention pub. a study by Noel Mueller et al. indicating that drinking two or more soft drinks a week doubles the risk of pancreatic cancer. On Mar. 1 the Journal of Animal Behavior pub. a study by Markus Knaden et al. of the Max Planck Inst. for Chem. Ecology in Jena, Germany, proving that some ants navigate by stereo smell. On Mar. 4 a panel of 41 world scientists announces that the theory of extinction of the dinosaurs by an asteroid has been proven, and the volcano theory disproven. On Mar. 9 researchers at the City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Inst. (ESPCI) pub. an article in Physical Review Letters announcing research showing that it's possible to focus light through opaque materials and detect objects behind them using the material's transmission matrix. On Mar. 24 Michael West pub. research showing how to turn any adult cell into a completely rejuvenated stem cell; the same week, the Internat. Stem Cell Corp. announces a breakthrough with parthenogenic stem cells. On Mar. 27 Universe Today pub. an article by Matthew Hayes announcing that observations with the HAWK-I telescope camera show that 90% of galaxies have gone undetected. On Mar. 29 Nature pub. research by the U. of Tex. MD. Anderson Cancer Center that a 2-drug combo can destroy precancerous colon polyps. In Mar. Eleanor Maguire et al. at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuromaging at the Univ. College London announce the creation of a computer algorithm that can predict which of three short films a person is thinking about by analyzing brain activity. On Apr. 6 Theodor W. Hansch et al. of the Max Planck Inst. announce in Nature the first multi-particle entanglement in a Bose-Einstein Condensate on a microchip. On Apr. 7 Thomas Werner et al. of the U. of Wisc.-Madison announce in Nature that the protein called Wingless helps fruit flies produce 16 colored spots in their wings, leading to theorizing that it controls all complex animal color patterns. On Apr. 8 Robert Danovaro et al. of Marche Polytechnic U. in Ancona, Italy announce the Spinoloricus Cinzia and two other new species of the Loriciferans group, the first animals that can survive and reproduce entirely without oxygen, who live on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea. On Apr. 8 Am. paleoanthropologist Lee R. Berger pub. a report in Science on the new hominid species Australopithecus sediba (Sotho for fountain or wellspring) that lived in South Africa 1.78M to 1.95M years ago and might be the missing link. On Apr. 11 Howard Kaufman et al. of Rush U. in Chicago, Ill. announce a new cure for melanoma (skin cancer) using a vaccine treatment. On Apr. 13 the first direct recording of mirror neurons in the human brain is announced by Itzhak Fried et al. of UCLA in Current Biology. On Apr. 13 the RAS Nat. Astronomy Meeting in Scotland announces that a new group of 27 exoplanets contains six with retrograde orbits; 452 exoplanets have been identified. On Apr. 14 scientists at Newcastle U. in Britain announce in Nature the first three-parent IVF to prevent inherited disease by preventing damaged DNA in mitochrondria from being passed on by the mother. On Apr. 19 scientists at the NIST in Boulder, Colo. set a record for measuring the smallest force ever, 174 yoctonewtons (10^-24 newtons); the old record was in the attonewton (10^-18) range. On Apr. 22 scientists at Columbia U. announce the first lab-grown human jawbone using human stem cells. On Apr. 22 Scripts Research Inst. and the Genomics Inst. of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) pub. an article in Nature Neuroscience identifying a region of the protein TRPV1 that enables temperature sensitivity. On Apr. 22 the USAF launches the Boeing X-37B Space Drone into orbit from Cape Canaveral, which can loiter in space for 270 days. On Apr. 23 IBM scientists announce the world's smallest 3D map, with 1K begin able to fit on a grain of salt. On Apr. 23 the first full face transplant is announced by a team of 30 Spanish doctors at Vall d'Hebron U. Hospital in Barcelona. On Apr. 30 Cell announces that researchers at UCLA led by Hong Zhou have used a new type of cryo-electron (cryo-EM) microscope to see atoms for the first time in a virus with 3.3 angstrom resolution. In Apr. Stephen R. Quake (1969-) becomes the first scientist in history to decode his own genome with a machine he invented. In Apr. Wake Forest U. School of Medicine in N.C. announces a bioprinter that sprays skin cells onto burn wounds to speed healing. In Apr. NASA unveils SOLO-TREC, a wax-filled buoy that is powered by temp differences in the ocean water. On May 2 Nature Genetics reports the cloning of the hemoglobin protein from mammoth blood, and that it oxygenates blood at lower temperatures than modern elephants. On May 18 the Fermi Nat. Accelerator Lab in Batavia, Ill. announces that 1% more muons than antimuons arise from the decay of B mesons, allegedly explaining why the Universe exists. On May 20 scientists at the J. Craig Venter Inst. announce the first organism controlled by completely manmade DNA, the first synthetic cell, a Mycoplasma bacterium with DNA made with four bottles of chemicals in a chemical synthesizer using computerized info., causing the word "Frankenstein" to be mentioned. On May 20 the Japanese Akatsuki (Jap. "dawn") (Venus Climate Orbiter) (Planet-C) space probe is launched; too bad, on Dec. 6 it fails to enter Venus orbit, and goes into orbit around the Sun until Dec. 7, 2015, when engineers place it into an alternative elliptical Venusian orbit using its attitude control thrusters. On May 26 scientists at UC Irving announce the creation of a retina from human embryonic stem cells. On June 7 Steve Squyres et al. of Cornell U. announce that the rock outcrop Comanche on Husband Hill near Home Plate Plateau on Mars show evidence of a past wet non-acidic environment that may have been favorable for life. On June 14 scientists at the Geophysical Lab of Carnegie U. announce that the water content of the Moon may be up to 5 parts per million, two orders of magnitude higher than previously thought. On June 18 Science pub. an article by Christopher Bronk Ramsey et al. of Oxford U. and Cranfield U., reporting that radiocarbon measurements from 211 different plants have given a more accurate dating of ancient Egyptian kings, making Pharaoh Djoser's reign 50-100 years earlier than before. On June 23 Ivan Schwab et al. of UCD announce a new stem cell treatment for blindness, with a 75% cure rate. On June 24 Laura Niklason et al. of Yale U. announce the building of the first functioning lung in a lab animal (rat) by growing cells on the skeleton of a donor lung. On July 9 Anthony S. Fauci of the Nat. Inst. of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the Nat. Insts. of Health announces the discovery of two antibodies that can prevent 90% of known HIV strains from infecting human cells in the lab. On July 9 Geophysical Research Letters pub. an article by Noath Diffenbaugh of Stanford U., predicting that by 2039 most of the U.S. will experience four seasons as exceptionally long heat waves become commonplace. On July 22 astrophysicist Paul Crowther et al. discover R136a1, the most massive star yet discovered, which may once have weighted 320 solar masses. On July 23 Gregor Weihs et al. from the U. of Innsbruck and U. of Waterloo experimentally confirm the 1926 Born's Rule that quantum interference only occurs in pairs of probabilities, not higher order. On July 23 Buckyballs are detected by Jan Cami of the U. of West Ontario 6.5K l.y. from Earth in the cosmic dust of Tc 1. On July 23 it is announced that 100+ Earth-like planets have been discovered in the past few weeks via the Kepler space telescope; scientists believe there might be 100M such planets in the Milky Way. On Aug. 9 researchers at UCI, UCSD, and Harvard announce the regeneration of nerve connections that control voluntary movement after spinal cord injury in rodents. On Aug. 19 scientists at the Nat. Insts. of Health announce the discovery of three antibodies that neutralize a broad range of HIV strains, making an HIV vaccine closer to reality. On Aug. 19 Abraham Loyter et al. of Hebrew U. announces the development of a new technique to eliminate HIV by targeting killing of only HIV-infected cells, becoming the first treatment that doesn't merely inhibit replication and delay onset. On Aug. 20 researchers at Loyola U. announce the discovery of a protein called TRIM5a that destroys HIV in rhesus monkeys; meanwhile other researchers isolate the protein BRCA2 that is involved in inherited cases of breast and ovarian cancer. On Aug. 23 Am. Chem. Society scientists report the first evidence that eating blueberries, strawberries, acai berries, and possibly walnuts may help the aging brain stay healthy by activating its "housekeeper" mechanism that cleans up and recycles toxic proteins related to age-related memory loss et al. On Aug. 23 Genome Research pub. a new study of Vitamin D that finds that it influences over 200 genes. On Aug. 23 researchers in the U.K. announce the successful use of drugs to restart the natural 24-hour body clock in lab mice. On Aug. 24 researchers at the European Science Observatory announce the discovery of the "richest" system of exoplanets yet found, five planets orbiting star HD 10180, 127 l.y. away in the southern constellation Hydrus. On Aug. 25 the first artificial corneas are announced by May Griffiths et al. of Linkoping U. in Sweden. In Aug. 26 Angewandte Chemie pub. work by MIT prof. Christopher Cummings et al. that instead of using chlorine, phosophorus can be attached to organic compounds using UV light. On Aug. 27 Nature announces the creation of the first 3-D atomic views of genetic processes by Song Tan et al. of Penn State U. On Aug. 27 British scientists announce the cracking, er, of the genetic code for wheat, and release it for free to help growers develop new better strains. On Aug. 30 the Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences announces the discovery in Romania of Balaur bondoc (stocky dragon), a kick-boxing cousin of Velociraptor that was unearthed in 2019 by Transylvanian geologist Mtys Vremir. In Aug. scientists find a treatment for the rare birth disorder congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which causes girls to develop ambiguous genitals and facial hair and fail to menstruate, causing an outcry from lesbians that this could lead to engineering in the womb to control sexual orientation. On Sept. 1 scientists in Utah announce that they can read words inside a human mind. On Sept. 5 Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences pub. an article by the U. of Ore. that determined the fine-scale genetic structure of the first animal to show an evolutionary response to rapid climate change, the pitcher plant mosquito Wyoeomyia smithii. On Sept. 7 BioMed Central's Genome Biology reports the first sequencing of the entire genome of an Irish person; meanwhile PLoS Biology reports the 90%-sequencing of the genome of the turkey. On Sept. 17 David Grennan of Dublin, Ireland becomes the first amateur astronomer to discover a supernova. On Sept. 22 a team led by Daniel Meulemans Medeiros of the U. of Colo. pub. an article in Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Science tracing the genes for jaw development to lampreys. On Sept. 30 Bruce Kane of the U. of Md. announces the fastest-spinning object ever created, a speck of levitating graphene spinning at 60M rpm. On Sept. 30 Nature announces the first 3-qubit entanglement by a team at Yale U. On Sept. 30 Nature pub. an article by Peter B. McIntyre of the U. of Wisc. revealing that the world's rivers are in a crisis state. In Sept. astronomers announce the discovery of Gliese 581g (20 l.y. from Earth), the first exoplanet that can support liquid water and hence potentially life. In Sept. Global Rainmakers Inc. signs a contract with the city of Leon, Mexico to become the first city secured through biometric identification, via iris-scanning technology. Beatrice H. Hahn completes an analysis of great ape dung samples and discovers that the most dangerous form of malaria originated in gorillas not chimps. On Oct. 1 a study on breast cancer screening on women aged 40-49 in Cancer finds that annual mammography screening reduces the death rate by nearly 30%. On Oct. 3 Nature pub. an article by scientists Brandt Eichman of Vanderbilt U. et al. announcing discovery of a new way that DNA-repair enzymes detect and repair damageto the chemical bases that form the letters of the genetic code. On Oct. 4 the Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences pub. a study showing that storing fat in the thighs lowers the risk of metabolic disease, while ' storing it in the abdomen raises it. On Oct. 5 Lan Zhou et al. of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio pub. research showing that inflammation helps heal wounds by producing insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), increasing the rate of muscle regeneration, revolutionizing treatment of sports injuries. On Oct. 11 Yuk Ting Ma et al. from the Inst. of Cancer Studies in Britain report the first link proved between smoking and epigentic changes associated with the development of cancer. On Oct. 14 Mark Brodwin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics pub. a paper in Astrophysical Journal announcing the discovery of a record galaxy cluster with 800T Suns and hundreds of galaxies 7B l.y. from Earth. On Oct. 15 a study of Egyptian mummies by Michael Zimmerman of Manchester U. finds no trace of cancer, suggesting that it is a manmade modern disease. On Oct. 18 the 2010 Living Planet Report of the World Wildlife Federation is pub., showing "an alarming rate of biodiversity loss in low-income, often tropical countries while the developed world is living in a false paradise, fuelled by excessive consumption and high carbon emissions", and claiming that humanity's demands on natural resources are skyrocketing to 50% more than the Earth can sustain. On Oct. 21 NASA reports vastly more water on the Moon than previously believed, along with mercury, gold and silver. On Oct. 21 Science pub. an article by scientists from Imperial College London et al., revealing that two strains of the Anopheles gambiae mosquito appear to becoming different species. On Oct. 25 a report by investigators at the U. of Mich. indicates that statin use is associated with a statistically significant reduction in colorectal cancer. On Oct. 25 Kevin Choe et al. of the U. of Tex. report that men with prostate cancer who take aspirin plus radiation therapy or surgery may cut their risk of dying by more than half. On Oct. 25 Susanne Dams of Eindhoven U. of Tech. reports that laser heat shocks of 45C on wrinkled skin causes the cells to produce more collagen, restoring firmness and elasticity. On Oct. 26 the Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab announces the discovery of six new isotopes of the superheavy elements. On Oct. 29 the U.S. Dept. of Justice files a brief saying that human and other genes should not be patentable because they are part of Nature and aren't manmade. On Oct. 31 Douglas Keszler et al. of Oregon State U. announce the creation of the first metal-insulator-metal diode, which could spawn a new industry. In Oct. Gary Miller et al. of Carnegie Mellon U. announce a breakthrough algorithm for solving systems of linear equations that promises a revolution in image processing, logistics and scheduling problems et al. On Nov. 10 the VIRUS-W spectograph sees "first light" at the Harlan J. Smith Telescope in Tex. with images of a spiral galaxy 30M l.y. from Earth. On Nov. 17 scientists from Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab and UCB announce the first successful trapping and storing of antimatter atoms. On Nov. 18 Rainer Klement of the Max Planck Inst. announces the discovery of the first planet of extragalactic origin in the Milky Way galaxy; still no planets outside it. On Nov. 24 scientists at the U. of Nottingham announce a breakthrough allowingthem to build 3-D nanomolecular structures on a 2-D surface. On Nov. 24 NASA's JPL pub. a study claiming that the Earth's largest lakes have warmed over the last 25 years due to climate change. On Nov. 25 NASA's Cassini probe discovers oxygen on Saturn's moon Rhea, becoming the first outside Earth. On Nov. 25 Christina Smolke of Stanford U. et al. announce the creation of a programmable genetic "circuit" that can make cells respond to signals to transform to different cells or die. On Dec. 2 Ed Weiler of NASA announces the discovery of the first known microorganism on Earth that can thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic, located in Mono Lake in Calif. On Dec. 2 Calestous Juma of Harvard U. pub. an article claiming that African can feed itself in a generation. On Dec. 3 Cell Stem Cell pub. an article by Shen Ding of Scripps Research Inst. that a new cocktail of small drug-like molecules assisted by gene Oct4 enables reprogramming of human skin cells into stem cells. On Dec. 6 Vaccine pub. a study showing that flu vaccine can be grown in bacteria instead of eggs, allowing those allergic to eggs to take it. On Dec. 6 NASA ejects NanoSail-D from the Fast, Affordable, Science and Technology Satellite (FASTSAT), becoming the first nanosatellite (cubesat) successfully ejected from a free-flying microsatellite. On Dec. 7 Charite Hospital in Berlin announces the first machine that can create MRI images of a baby being born. On Dec. 8 a team led by MIT verifies the discovery of the first planet with a carbon-enriched atmosphere, WASP-12b, 1.2K l.y. from Earth. On Dec. 8 Slovenian scientists Matjaz Humar and Igor Musevic announce the first practical 3-D laser, which uses spherical drops holding dye molecules. On Dec. 12 James Wells et al. of Cinainnati Children's Hospital in Ohio announce the first time that human intestinal tissue has been created in the lab from stem cells. On Dec. 17 the first Quantum Machine is announced, the first to move according to the laws of quantum mechanics not classical mechanics. On Dec. 18 the IceCube, the world's largest neutrino observatory located at the South Pole is completed. Polish-born Am. physicist Nikodem Janusz Poplawski (1975-) of Indiana U. proposes that the Universe came from a wormhole in another Universe. Two Fermi Bubbles each 25K l.y. tall above and below the disk of the Milky Way are first detected by NASA's Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. The first Quark Soup (quark-gluon plasma) is created at Brookhaven Nat. Lab, becoming the densest matter ever seen on Earth. Francesco Belgiorno et al. of the U. of Milan make the first desktop black hole, and claim that it has produced Hawking radiation; other physicists question the whole thing. The Joint Inst. for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia discovers the synthetic radioactive element Ununseptium (Uus) (#117). Nonfiction: Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, Militant Islamist Ideology: Understanding the Global Threat; claims that only the militant Islamists are a threat to the U.S. - the rest only want blasphemers beheaded? Gilbert Achcar, The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives; how 20th cent. Arabs split into liberal Westernizers, Marxists, nationalists, and pan-Islamists. Talmiz Ahmad, Children of Abraham at War: The Clash of Messianic Militarisms (Sept. 20); a refutation of Samuel Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations". Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Jan. 5); how Reagan's 1982 war on drugs ended up creating a new de facto black slave caste. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Nomad: From Islam to America - been there, done that? Nujood Ali (1998-), I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced (Mar.); Yemeni girl makes history by getting a divorce. Sami Alrabaa, Veiled Atrocities: True Stories of Oppression in Saudi Arabia (Mar. 23). John Amato and David Neiwert, Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane (June 1). Andrew J. Bacevich (1947-), Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War (Aug.). Rene Backmann, A Wall in Palestine (Feb. 2). Philip Ball, The Music Instinct: How Music Works and Why We Can't Do Without It. Mitchell Bard, The Arab Lobby: The Invisible Alliance That Undermines America's Interests in the Middle East (Aug. 31). Daniel Benjamin (ed.), Europe 2030. Paul Berman (1948-), The Flight of the Intellectuals (Apr. 27); rejects the motives of Western Islam reformer Tariq Ramadan, calling him a gateway drug for radical Islam, and disses Am. liberals incl. Timothy Garton Ash and Ian Buruma for trying to make him respectable. Kai Bird (1951-), Crossing Mandelbaum Gate: Coming of Age Between the Arabs and Israelis, 1956-1978 (autobio.). Edwin Black, The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust. Tony Blair (1953-), A Journey (autobio.) (Sept. 1); bestseller. Howard Bloom (1943-), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism. Derek Bok, The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being. Anthony Bourdain (1956-), Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook (June 8); criticizes fellow TV chefs as having never worked in a real restaurant. Susan Boyle (1961-), The Woman I Was Born to Be: My Story (autobio.) (Oct. 12). Mark Braverman, Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land (Feb. 16); Am. Jew who was radicalized after a 2006 trip to the West Bank claims that it's not "anti-Semitic" to stand up for justice for Palestinians; forward by Am. leftist Protestant theologian Walter Brueggermann (1933-), who once supported Israel but flops and blames it for exploiting "ancient promises" to create a "toxic ideology". Timothy H. Breen (1942-), American Insurgents - American Patriots: The Revolution of the People. Ian Bremmer (1969-), The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations; pivot states (Canada) vs. shadow states (Mexico). Pascal Bruckner, The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism (Feb. 21); how multiculturalism is destroying Europe. Robert Buchar, And Reality Be Damned... Undoing America: What the Media Didn't Tell You About the End of the Cold War and Fall of Communism in Europe; just because the Soviet Union is kaput doesn't make Russia the friend of the U.S. Carol Burnett (1933-), This Time Together: Laughter and Reflection (autobio.). Rhonda Byrnes (1951-), The Power (Aug. 17). Belinda Carlisle (1958-), Lips Unsealed: A Memoir (June 1). David Caute (1936-), Politics and the Novel During the Cold War. Zev Chafets, Rush Limbaugh: An Army of One. G. Paul Chambers, Head Shot: The Science Behind the JFK Assassination. Ha-Joon Chang (1963-), 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism. Phyllis Chesler, The History and Psychological Roots of Anti-Semitism Among Feminists: Their Gradual Palestinization and Stalinization (Aug. 25). Ron Chernow (1949-), Washington: A Life (Pulitzer Prize); his life was a struggle to contain his emotions? Noam Chomsky (1928-), Hopes and Prospects. Angelo M. Codevilla, The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It (Sept. 12); intro. by Rush Limbaugh; it's all about the political elites vs. those who feed them? Paul Collier (1949-), The Plundered Planet: Why We Must, and How We Can, Manage Nature for Global Prosperity. Ray Comfort, Nothing Created Everything: The Scientific Impossibility of Atheistic Evolution. Christopher Corbett, The Poker Bride; the Chinese immigrants during the 1848 Calif. Gold Rush. Phil Cousineau (1952-), The Oldest Story in the World (Jan.); Wordcatcher: An Odyssey into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words (Apr.). Tad Daley, Apocalypse Never: Forging a Nuclear Weapon-Free World (Apr. 30). Theodore Dalrymple (1949-), The New Vichy Syndrome: Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism (Mar. 9); how Europe is allowing itself to be Islamized without a whimper. Antonio Damasio (1944-), Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain; how the brain constructs the mind. Benjamin Dangl, Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America. Sefik Dinc, The Mavi Marmara Incident; Turkish journalist who was on the ship claims that radical jihadists on the Gaza Flotilla planned to attack Israeli forces and provoke a confrontation. Wendy Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative History; banned in India. James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters; the CIA got too powerful, and still is? John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9-11, Iraq. Dinesh D'Souza, The Roots of Obama's Rage (Sept. 27); claims his ultimate motivation is rage against Western dominance that he got from his father. Paul Driessen (1948-), Eco-Imperialism: Green Power Black Death (Jan. 1) (first book); slams the environmental movement as a group of affluent Westerners imposing their views on backward impoverished Third World peoples, violating their basic rights and denying them economic opportunities, going on to promote the use of fossil fuels and pooh-pooh climate change alarmists. Mark Durie, The Third Choice: Islam, Dhimmitude, and Freedom (Apr. 15); the modus operandi of Islam and how the West must fight it. Jonathan Eig, Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster (Apr. 27). Tom Engelhardt, The American Way: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's (July 1). Abigail R. Esman, Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (May 20). John L. Esposito, The Future of Islam; is there a middle ground? R. Tripp Evans, Grant Wood: A Life (Oct.). Tarek Fatah (1949-), The Jew Is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths That Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism (Oct.). Jules Feiffer (1929-), Backing into Forward: A Memoir. Niall Ferguson (1964-), High Financier: The Lives and Times of Siegmund Warburg (June 24). Norman Finkelstein, This Time We Went Too Far: Truth and Consequences of the Gaza Invasion. Jerry Fodor, What Darwin Got Wrong; atheist academic uses Science to prove Darwin wrong, claiming that genes are too tied together to be used in natural selection. Michael Fried (1939-), The Moment of Caravaggio; the rise of the "gallery picture" ca. 1590 and the influence of the violence and realism of brawl-loving Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610), precursor of modern painting; followed by "After Caravggio" (2016). Paul Froese and Christopher Bader, America's Four Gods: What We Say About God - And What That Says About Us (Sept.); ABCD: Authoritative, Benevolent, Critical, and Distant. Graham E. Fuller, A World Without Islam. Pamela Geller (1958-) and Robert Spencer (1962-), The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America (July 27). Martin Gilbert, In Ishamael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands. Newt Gingrich (1943-), To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine (May 17). David Goldberg and Jeff Blomquist, A User's Guide to the Universe: Surviving the Perils of Black Holes, Time Paradoxes, and Quantum Uncertainty (Feb. 22). Ken Gormley, The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr. J.D. Greear, Breaking the Islam Code: Understanding the Soul Questions of Every Muslim; N.C. Christian minister claims that a majority of Christians would agree with the five core beliefs of Islam. Tanni Grey-Thompson (1969-), Seize the Day (autobio.). Tom Grimes, Mentor: A Memoir (Aug.); his relationship with Frank Conroy at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Alex Grobman, The Palestinian Right to Israel (Mar.); proves that there isn't one. Stanislav Grof (1931-), Holotropic Breathwork: A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy. Osman Nuri Gundes, Witness to Revolution and Near Anarchy (Dec.); retired Turkish intel official claims that U.S.-based Turkish imam Muhammed Fethullah Gulen (Gülen), who has 4M followers and 600 schools is a CIA front, drawing strong denials from ex-CIA officials. Stefan Halper (1944-), The Beijing Consensus: Legitimizing Authoritarianism in Our Time (Apr.). Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime (Jan. 11). Chelsea Handler (1975-), Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (Mar. 9). Sam Harris (1967-), The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (Oct. 5); claims that science esp. neuroscience has something to say about morals. Brian Haughton, History's Mysteries: People, Places and Oddities Lost in the Sands of Time (Apr. 20). Stephen Hawking (1942-) and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design (Sept. 9); claims that God didn't create the Universe; "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist"; "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going." Chris Hedges (1956-), Death of the Liberal Class (Oct. 17); the liberal class has failed to confront the corporate state?; "The real division in America today is not between Democrats and Republicans, but between average citizens and the corporate and financial elite"; "The election of Obama was one more triumph of illusion over substance. It was a skillful manipulation and betrayal of the public by a corporate power elite. We mistook the style and ethnicity - an advertising tactic pioneered by Calvin Klein and Benneton for progressive politics and genuine change"; "The creed of 'impartiality' and 'objectivity' that has infected the liberal class teaches, ultimately, the importance of not offending the status quo. the 'professionalism' demanded in the classroom, in newsprint, in the arts or in political discourse is code for moral disengagement." Stephane Hessel (1917-), Indignez-Vous! (Oct.); political pamphlet that becomes a bestseller in France (1.5M copies). Laura Hillenbrand (1967-), Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (Nov. 16); Louis Zamperini and the USAF bomber that crashed into the Pacific Ocean in May 1943. Henry Holt, The Last Train from Hiroshima (Jan.); claims a secret A-bomb accident that killed one American, irradiated others, and greatly reduced its destructive power, based on recollections of Enola Gay observation pilot Joseph Fuoco (1924-2008); after historians call him an imposter, Holt says he will rewrite the book. Mitch Horowitz, Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation. Toby E. Huff, Intellectual Curiosity and the Scientific Revolution: A Global Perspective. Arianna Huffington, Third World America; dedicated to "the millions of middle-class Americans fighting to keep the American Dream alive". Earl Ofari Hutchinson, How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge (Jan.). Lewis Hyde (1945-), Common As Air (Aug.); argues against intellectual property. Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of MI6. Ian Johnson, A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West (May 4); how a group of ex-Soviet Muslims defected to Germany during WWII and set up shop, giving radical Islam its first toehold in the West. Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From; Bldg. 20 at MIT. Terry Jones, Islam is of the Devil: Know the Spiritual Truths That Will Bring the Christian Church Back to Its God-Given Position (Aug. 3). Gabriel Josipovici, What Ever Happened to Modernism? (Sept.). Tony R. Judt (1948-2010), Ill Fares the Land (last book). Daniel Kahneman (1934-), Thinking, Fast and Slow. Efraim Karsh (1953-), Palestine Betrayed; reverses the Western academic PC moose hockey about the Palestinians being an oppressed people who were run out of their homeland by Nazi-like Israelis, showing that they did it to themselves, strategically withdrawing to leave an open field for Arab armies to wipe Israel off the map before triumphantly returning, only to see it backfire then manufacture a victim narrative to gain sympathy. Eric Kaufmann, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?; secularists are blowing it with low birth rates. Meb Keflezighi (1975-) and Dick Patrick, Run to Overcome (autobio.). Kitty Kelley (1942-), Oprah; sanitizes rather than sensationalizes her, but admits her wild child teen days and time as a ho, affair with John Tesh, and sexual obsession with Diane Sawyer. Robert Louis Kemp, Super Principia Mathematica: The Rage to Master Conceptual and Mathematical Physics. Piper Kerman (1969-), Orange Is the New black: My Year in a Woman's Prison (autobio). Abeed Khalid, Islam After Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia; the revival of Islam after decades of atheistic indoctrination. Eli Kintisch, Hack the Planet: Science's Best Hope - or Worst Nightmare - for Averting Climate Catastrophe (Apr. 19). David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company That is Connecting the World. Aaron Klein and Brenda J. Elliott, The Manchurian President: Barack Obama's Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists (May 3); bestseller chronicling Obama's dirty laundry; too bad, Klein's earlier expose of Pres. George W. Bush makes him unpopular with Republicans, who need him most now? Edward Klein (1937-) and John Le Boutillier, The Obama Identity. James T. Kloppenberg, Reading Obama: Dreams, Hope, and the American Political Tradition (Oct. 31); the first philosopher pres. since Woodrow Wilson?; heir of Lincoln, J.Q. Adams, Madison, Jefferson, and John Adams? Michael Muhammad Knight, Journey to the End of Islam (autobio.). Nancy Koehn (1959-), Ernest Shackleton: Exploring Leadership. Joel Kotkin (1952-), The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050; "The America of 2050 may not stride the world like a hegemonic giant, but it will evolve into the one truly transcendent superpower in terms of society, technology and culture. Its greatest power will be its identification with notions of personal liberty, constitutional protections and universalism." Matthew Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfer and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Apr. 1); countries export nuclear technology in a desperate search for hard currency? Scott Kugle, Homosexuality in Islam: Islamic Reflections on Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Muslims. David Kupelian, How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces That Are Transforming America (Feb. 16). Nelly Lahoud, The Jihadis' Path to Self-Destruction (Nov.). Gideon Levy (1953-), The Punishment of Gaza. Michael Lewis (1960-), The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. David Liepert, Muslim, Christian, and Jew: Finding a Path to Peace Our Faiths Can Share (June 1). David Limbaugh (1952-), Crimes Against Liberty: An Indictment of President Barack Obama (Aug.); Obama is trying to bankrupt the U.S. with trillion-dollar deficits, and wouldn't mind being a 1-termer to do it? Alex Malarkey, The Boy Who Came Back from heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond This World (autobio.) (July 2); bestseller about visiting a Christian heaven after a traffic accident; on Jan. 13, 2015 he admits it's fictional. Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cuppers, Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews in Palestine (July 1); the Nazi plan that went awry. Salim Mansur, Islam's Predicament: Perspectives of a Dissident Muslim. Harry Markopolis, No One Would Listen; Bernie Madoff whistleblower tells how he contemplated killing him. Moshe Ma'oz, Muslim Attitudes To Jews and Israel: The Ambivalances of Rejection, Antagonism, Tolerance and Cooperation. Mark Matousek (1957-), Ethical Wisdom: What Makes Us Good; the Dalai Lama's secret. Andrew C. McCarthy III, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America (May 25); how it's not just the radical Islamists but Islam itself that's the threat. William McGowan, Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of the New York Times Means for America (Nov. 16); how it has degenerated into liberal PC propaganda. Bill McKibben (1960-), Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tought New Planet; about climate change. Corinne McLaughlin (1947-) and Gordon Davidson, The Practical Visionary: A New World Guide to Spiritual Growth and Social Change. Edwin Meese III (1931-), One Nation Under Arrest; the overgrowth of criminal laws that don't require criminal intent, incl. 4K total federal criminal laws and 300K federal regulations. Giulio Meotti, A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism. Kenneth Minogue (1930-2013), The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life. Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), Ludwig von Mises on Money and Inflation (posth.). Raymond Moody (1944-) and Paul Perry, Glimpses of Eternity: Sharing a Loved One's Passages from This Life to the Next. Thomas Moore (1940-), Care of the Soul in Medicine (Apr.); The Guru of Golf. Markos Moulitsas, American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right (Sept. 1). Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: How We Invented Human Rights. Andrew P. Napolitano (1950-), Lies the Government Told You: Myth, Power, and Deception in American History. Phillip Nelson, LBJ: Mastermind of JFK's Assassination (July 23). Jorgen S. Nielsen (ed.), Shari'a as Discourse: Legal Traditions and the Encounter with Europe; Muslim claims that Euro judges should recognize Sharia. Barack Obama (1961-), Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters (Nov.). Naomi Oreskes (1958-) and Erik M. Conway (1965-), Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (June 3); filmed in 2004 by Robert Kenning. Suzie Orman (1951-), Suze Orman's 2010 Action Plan (Mar.). David M. Oshinsky (1944-), Capital Punishment on Trial: Furman v. Georgia and the Death Penalty in Modern America. Nicholas Ostler (1952-), The Last Lingua Franca: English until the Return to Babel (Nov. 23); claims that the days of English as a universal language are numbered, but there will be no replacement because computer translation will take over. Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (Mar. 15). Sarah Palin (1964-), America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith and Flag (Nov.). Robert Pape, Cutting the Fuse: The Explosion of Global Suicide Terrorism and How to Stop It; claims that Islamic suicide attacks are caused by occupations not Islam. Col. Robert "Buzz" Patterson, Conduct Unbecoming: How Barack Obama Is Destroying the Military and Endangering Our Security (Sept. 7). Tom Pauken, Bringing America Home: How America Lost Her Way and How We Can Find Our Way Back; the U.S. middle class won't last another decade? Roger Penrose (1931-) and Vahe Gurzadyan (1955-), Cycles of Time: An Extraordinary New View of the Universe; proposes Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, in which the U iterates through infinite cycles where the future timelike infinity of each iteration becomes the Big Bang singularity of the next; "Concentric circles in WMAP data may provide evidence of violent pre-Big-Bang activity." Tom Peters (1942-), The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence. Walid Phares, The Coming Revolution: Struggle for Freedom in the Middle East; predicts that Islamists will try to take over. Melanie Phillips (1951-), The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth, and Power (Apr. 20). Sasha Polakow-Suransky, Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship with South Africa (May 25); claims that Apartheid-era South Africa and modern Israel are kissing cousins because of their alleged apartheid of Muslim Arabs. Andrew Potter, The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves (Apr. 13); Facebook "friends" et al. Stephen Prothero, God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World - and Why Their Differences Matter. Philip Pullman, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. Michael S. Radu (1947-2009), Europe's Ghost: Tolerance, Jihadism, and the Crisis in the West (Jan. 12); how Muslim immigration threatens Euro civilization. Richard Reeves, Daring Young Men: The Heroism and Triumph of the Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949. Robert Reich, Aftershock: The Following Economy and America's Future (Sept.). Robert R. Reilly, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist (May 17); "Those involved in training Middle Eastern military forces have encountered a lackadaisical attitude to weapons maintenance and sharp-shooting. If God wants the bullet to hit the target, it will, and if He does not, it will not. It has little to do with human agency or skills obtained by discipline and practice." Keith Richards (1943-), Life (autobio.). Sir Christopher Ricks (1933), True Friendship: Geoffrey Hill, Anthony Hecht and Robert Lowell Under the Sign of Eliot and Pound. Sir Matt Ridley (1958-), The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves (May 18); "The average human being is richer, healthier, and kinder". Paul Rosenzwieg and Brian W. Walsh, One Nation Under Arrest: How Crazy Laws, Rogue Prosecutors, and Activist Judges Threaten Your Liberty; horror stories of govt. abuse in the U.S. David Rubin, The Islamic Tsunami: Israel and America in the Age of Obama (Oct.); "uncovers the true nature of Islam: a dangerous, violent ideology that strives for world domination through terrorism, as well as what Rubin calls non-violent aggression. Rubin uncovers the reason why Islam chooses terror over peace and explores Israel and America's vital roles in combating the rampant spread of Islam throughout the world." Daniel Ruddy, Theodore Roosevelt's History of the United States (Apr. 20). Don Miguel Angel Ruiz (1952-), The Fifth Agreement: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery (A Toltec Wisdom Book) (Mar. 9); 5) Be skeptical but learn to listen. Erik Rush, Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal: America's Racial Obsession (June 15); "the undue and inordinate affinity for blacks (as opposed to antipathy towards them) that has been promoted by activists, politicians and the establishment press for the past 40 years". Thaddeus Russell, A Renegade History of the United States. Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality (How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships); bestseller claimins that humans evolved in egalitarian hunter-gatherer bands in which sex was a shared resource like food. Oliver Wolf Sacks (1933-), The Mind's Eye (Oct. 26). Claude Salhani, While the Arab World Slept; what could the Middle East accomplish if it dropped its endless religious conflicts? Stephan Salisbury, Mohamed's Ghosts: An American Story of Love and Fear in the Homeland (Apr. 27). Thilo Sarrazin, Deutschland Schaaft Sich Ab (Germany Does Away With Itself); claims that immigrants esp. Muslims and Jews are ruining the country and making Germans "strangers in their country", stirring a firestorm of controversy. Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra: A Life (Nov.): NYT bestseller. Peter Dale Scott (1929-), American War Machine: Deep Politics, the CIA Global Drug Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan (Nov.). John Selby (1945-), Tapping the Source: Using the Master Key System for Abundance and Happiness. Tom Segev, Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends (Sept.); claims that he was a Mossad agent. Richard Seymour, The Meaning of David Cameron (June 3). Anthony Shaffer, Operation Dark Heart: Spycraftand Special Ops on the Frontlines of Afghanistan - and The Path to Victory; its Aug. 31 pub. date is delayed by the U.S. govt. to censor classified material. Gen. Hugh Shelton, Without Hestitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior (Oct.); U.S. JCS chmn. from 1997-2001; "President Bush and his team got us enmeshed in Iraq based on extraordinarily poor intelligence and a series of lies purporting that we had to protect Americans from Saddam's evil empire because it posed such a threat to our national security"; reveals that Pres. Clinton lost his nuclear "biscuit" containing the nuclear codes while pres. for months in 2000. Stephen Shen, America Is Also Ridiculous (Sept. 27) (autobio.). David Shields, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto; defends plagiarism and faked memoirs, and declares fiction dead, causing a firestorm of controversy in the lit. world. Clay Shirky (1964-), Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age; a world without TV? Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story. Kenneth Silverman (1936-), Begin Again: A Biography of John Cage. Joseph Morrison Skelly (ed.), Political Islam from Muhammed to Ahmadinejad: Defenders, Detractors and Definitions. Lee Smith, The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations. Wesley Smith, A Rat Is a Pig Is a Dog Is a Boy: The Human Cost of the Animal Rights Movement; the animal rights movement has an anti-human agenda? Howard Sounes, Fab: An Intimate Portrait of Paul McCartney. Thomas Sowell (1930-), Intellectuals and Society (Jan. 5); expounds on "the fatal misstep of intellectuals", viz., their assumption that superior ability within some superspecialist subject gives them superior wisdom and morality in everything, causing these "idea workers" to manufacture public demand for more of themselves by making alarming predictions about economics, nat. defense, and the environment incl. climate change, ending up exercising profound influence on public opinion and policy makers even though they are not only regularly wrong but personally unaccountable for the results, using their "undue influence" and "vulgar pride" to cause disaster for societies. Robert Spencer (1962-), Pamela Geller, and John Bolton, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America (July 27). Victor J. Stenger (1935-), The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning: How the Universe is Not Designed for Humanity. Jennifer Stevens, The Historical Jesus and the Literary Imagination, 1860-1920. Terry Greene Sterling, Illegal: Life and Death in Arizona's Immigration War Zone. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960-), The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms; "The opposite of success isn't failure, it is name-dropping"; "To bankrupt a fool, give him information"; "The person you are most afraid to contradict is yourself." Marc A. Thiessen, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack (Jan. 18); speechwriter for Pres. George W. Bush claims that CIA interrogations were highly effectiving in foiling al-Qaida attacks, and how stupid Pres. Obama is in shutting down their program and releasing secret documents aiding the enemy plus trying to prosecute CIA members. Fred Dalton Thompson (1942-), Teaching the Pig to Dance: A Memoir of Growing Up and Second Chances (autobio.) (May 18). Mark Twain (1835-1910), Autobiography, Vol. 1 (Nov.); withheld for 100 years per his wishes. Douglas Valentine, The Strength of the Pack; the U.S. DEA is a function of nat. security and defends America's traditional values of race, class and gender while expanding its influence abroad? Shankar Vedantam, The Hidden Brain; how racism is unconscious. Jesse Ventura (1951-), American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Lies that the Government Tells Us (Mar. 8). John Walbridge, God and Logic in Islam: The Caliphate of Reason. Ibn Warraq (1946-), Virgins? What Virgins? And Other Essays. Jeffrey Wasserstrom (1960-), China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know; 2nd ed. in 2013. Steven Weber and Bruce W. Jentleson, The End of Arrogance: America in the Global Competition of Ideas (Sept. 30); the world is changing from a Ptolemaic to Copernican reality vis a vis the U.S., and thanks to the Internet is becoming a marketplace of ideas not war? Brent White, Underwater Home: What Should You Do If You Owe More on Your Home Than It's Worth? Stuart Wilde (1946-), Plum Red: Taoist Tales of Old China. Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Sons (Sept. 1); the Great Southern Migration of 6M blacks to the North in 1915-70. Garry Wills (1934-), Bomb Power. G. Willow Wilson (1982-), The Butterfly Mosque (autobio.) (June); N.J.-born woman converts to Islam, goes to Egypt, and marries an Egyptian man. Robert S. Wistrich, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad. Fred Alan Wolf (1934-), Time Loops and Space Twists. Roger J. Woolger (1944-2011), Healing Your Past Lives: Exploring the Many Lives of the Soul. Bob Woodward (1943-), Obama's Wars; Pres. Obama's sad struggle to win in Afghanistan in two years to pacify progressives back home, and how gens. in civilian posts were the toughest critics of his surge; incl. Biden's soundbyte to Obama not to "get locked into Vietnam", and Obama's soundbytes "We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan", and "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We'll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever... we absorbed it and we are stronger." Bat Ye'or, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. Andrew Young (1932-), The Politician: An Insider's Account of John Edwards' Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down; former aide who helped him coverup his affair with pregnant lover Rielle Hunter then was cut loose fights back. Mosab Hassan Yousef (1978-), Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices (Mar. 2); eldest son of Hamas founding member Sheikh Hassan Yousef breaks with it, works as a Shin Bet agent in 1997-2007, when he turns Christian and flees to Calif. and tells all; after an outcry, a deportation attempt is cancelled on July 1; "All Muslims, moderate Muslims and fanatics to me are the same. At the end of the day they believe in the God of the Koran and they believe that this Koran is from God"; "The most criminal terrorist Muslim has morality, a minimum of humanity more than his god. Their god is a terrorist and ignorant"; "The God of Koran is trying to unskin Muslims from their humanity. Muslims are good people, but their God is absolutely bad"; some suspect he's a double-agent working against Israel. Howard Zinn (1922-2010), The Bomb (posth.); claims to have been involved in the first U.S. use of napalm in 1945 on a French town, burning anyone it touched. James Zogby, Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us and Why It Matters. Music: Saving Abel, Miss America (album #2) (June 8) (#24 in the U.S.); incl. Miss America, Stupid Girl (Only in Hollywood), The Sex Is Good. AC/DC, Iron Man 2 Soundtrack (album) (Apr. 19). Lady Antebellum, Need You Now. Aerosmith, Aerosmith's 15th Album (album #15). Apocalyptica, 7th Symphony (album #7) (Aug. 20); incl. End of Me (w/Gavin Rossdale). David Archuleta (1990-), The Other Side of Down (album #3) (Oct. 5); incl. Something 'Bout Love. Natasha Bedingfield (1981-), Strip Me (album #3) (Dec. 7) (#103 in the U.S.); incl. Touch. Justin Bieber (1994-), My World 2.0 (album #2) (Mar. 19) (#1 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.); incl. Baby (w/Ludacris), Somebody to Love (w/Usher), U Smile, Never Let You Go. Mary J. Blige (1971-), My Life II, The Journey Continues (album #10) (Sept. 3); incl. Someone to Love Me (Naked). James Blunt (1977-), Some Kind of Trouble (album #3) (Nov. 8) (#11 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.) (1M copies); incl. Stay the Night. B.o.B., Nothin' on You (w/Bruno Mars), Airplanes. Brandon Boyd (1976-), The Wild Trapeze (album) (solo debut) (July 6); incl. Runaway Train. Susan Boyle (1961-), The Gift (album #2) (#1 in the U.S.) (#1 in the U.K.) (2.18M copies). Michelle Branch (1983-), Everything Comes and Goes (album #3) (Aug. 27); incl. Sooner or Later (#46 in the U.S.) Buckcherry, All Night Long (album #5) (Aug. 3); incl. All Night Long, Dead, It's a Party. Bush, The Sea of Memories (album #5) (Sept. 13) (#18 in the U.S.) (first album since 2001); first with Chris Traynor and Corey Britz; incl. The Sound of Winter. Owl City, All Things Bright and Beautiful (album #3) (June 14); incl. Alligator Sky (w/Shawn Chrystopher). New Young Pony Club, The Optimist (album #2) (Mar. 8); incl. Stone, The Optimist. Joe Cocker (1944-2014), Hard Knocks (album #21) (Oct. 1); incl. I Hope (by the Dixie Chicks). Cheryl Cole (1983-), Messy Little Raindrops (album #2) (Nov. 1); incl. Promise This. Susan Cowsill (1959-), Lighthouse (album #2) (May). Sheryl Crow (1962-), 100 Miles from Memphis (album #7) (July 20). Taio Cruz, Break Your Heart. Cults, Go Outside (debut); from New York City, incl. Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin. Miley Cyrus (1992-), Can't Be Tamed (album #2) (June 18) (#3 in the U.S., #8 in the U.K.); incl. Can't Be Tamed, Who Owns My Heart, Every Rose Has Its Thorn. Green Day, Awesome As Fuck (F**k) (album) (Mar. 22). Deftones, Diamond Eyes (album #6) (May 4) (#6 in the U.S.) (original title "Eros"); first with Sergio Vega; incl. Diamond Eyes, Rocket Skates, You've Seen the Butcher, Sextape. Disturbed, Asylum (album #5) (Aug. 31, 2010) (#1 in the U.S., #7 in the U.K.) (first band with four consecutive #1 U.S. albums since Dave Matthews Band and Metallica); incl. Another Way to Die, Asylum, The Animal, Warrior. Goo Goo Dolls, Something for the Rest of Us (album #9) (Aug. 28); incl. Home, Notbroken. As I Lay Dying, The Powerless Rise (album #5) (May 7) (#10 in the U.S.); incl. The Plague. Finger Eleven, Life Turns Electric (album #6) (Oct. 5); incl. Living in a Dream. Eminem (1972-), Recovery (album #7) (June 18) (#1 in the U.S.); sells 741K copies in week #1; incl. Not Afraid, Love the Way You Lie. Eve 6, Horrorscope (album #2) (July 25); incl. Promise (#25 in the U.S.), Here's to the Night (#30 in the U.S.), On the Roof Again. Exodus, Exhibit B: The Human Condition (album #9) (May 7) (#114 in the U.S.); incl. Burn, Hollywood, Burn, Class Dismissed (A Hate Primer). Extreme, Take Us Alive (album) (May 5). Filter, The Trouble with Angels (album #5) (Aug. 17) (#64 in the U.S.); incl. The Inevitable Relapse. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs (album #3) (Aug. 2) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); incl. The Suburbs/Month of May, We Used to Wait, Ready to Start. Maroon 5, Hands All Over (album #3) (Sept. 21) (#2 in the U.S., #6 in the U.K.) (500K copies); incl. Misery, Give a Little More, Never Gonna Leave This Bed. The Flobots, Survival Story (album #2) (Mar. 16); incl. White Flag Warrior (w/Tim McIlrath). Lady Gaga (1986-), Telephone. Godsmack, Oracle (original title "Saints & Sinners") (album #5) (May 4) (#1 in the U.S.) (500K copies in the U.S.); incl. Cryin' Like a Bitch, Love-Hate-Sex-Pain, Saints and Sinners. Selena Gomez (1992-) and the Scene, A Year Without Rain (album #2) (Sept. 17) (#4 in the U.S., #14 in the U.K.); incl. A Year Without Rain, Round & Round, Live Like There's No Tomorrow. Macy Gray (1967-), Beauty in the World. Nina Hagen (1955-), Personal Jesus (album #15) (July 16); incl. Personal Jesus (by Depeche Mode). Heart, Red Velvet Car (album #14) (Aug. 31) (#10 in the U.S.); incl. WTF, Hey You. Jimi Hendrix (1942-70), Valleys of Neptune (album) (posth.) (Mar.9); incl. Valleys of Neptune. Crowded House, Intriguer (album #6) (June 13) (#50 in the U.S., #12 in the U.K.); incl. Saturday Sun. Emily Howell (2004-), Classical Music from a Computer (album) (debut); a classical music program. Jessie J (1988-), Do It Like a Dude (debut) (Nov. 18) (#2 in the U.K.). Jimmy Eat World, Invented (album #7) (Sept. 28) (#11 in the U.S.); incl. My Best Theory. Jack Hody Johnson (1975-), To the Sea (album #5) (May 26) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); incl. You and Your Heart, At Or With Me, From the Clouds. Jonas Brothers, Jonas L.A. (album) (July 20) (#7 in the U.S.); Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (album) (Aug. 10) (#3 in the U.S.); Sonny with a Chance (album) (Oct. 5) (#163 in the U.S.). Norah Jones (1979-), ...Featuring (album) (Nov. 16). Midnight Juggernaut, The Crystal Axis (album #2) (May 2); incl. Lemuria, This New Technology. R. Kelly (1967-), Love Letter (album #10) (Dec. 14) (#6 in the U.S.); incl. Love Letter, When a Woman Loves. Ke$ha (1987-), Animal (album) (debut) (Jan. 5); incl. Tik Tok, Your Love Is My Drug. The Black Keys, Brothers (album #6) (May 18) (#3 in the U.S.); incl. Tighten Up, Next Girl, Howlin' for You. Korn, Korn III: Remember Who You Are (album #9) (July 13) (#1 in the U.S., #23 in the U.K.); first with drummer Ray Luzier; incl. Oildale (Leave Me Alone), Let the Guilt Go. Barenaked Ladies, All in Good Time (album #9) (Mar. 23) (#23 in the U.S., #20 in Canada); first sans Steven Page; incl. You Run Away. Chloe Lattanzi (1986-), Wings and A Gun (debut) (Oct.); daughter of Olivia Newton-John. Cyndi Lauper (1953-), Memphis Blues (album #11) (June 22). Avril Lavigne (1984-), Goodbye Lullaby (album #4) (Mar. 2) (#4 in the U.S., #9 in the U.K.); incl. What the Hell, Smile. Ludacris (1977-), Battle of the Sexes (album #7) (Mar. 9) (#1 in the U.S.k, #58 in the U.K.); incl. How Low, My Chick Bad (w/Nicki Minaj), Sex Room (w/Trey Songz), Everybody Drunk (w/Lil Scrappy). Madonna (1958-), Sticky & Sweet Tour (album) (Mar. 26) (#10 in the U.S., #17 in the U.K.). Iron Maiden, The Final Frontier (album #15) (Aug. 16); incl. El Dorado. Paul McCartney (1942-), Paul McCartney: Live in Los Angeles (album) (Jan. 17). Katie Melua (1984-), The House (album #4) (May 24); incl. The Flood, I'd Love to Kill You, A Happy Place. Natalie Merchant (1963-), Leave Your Sleep (double album); based on 26 poems by Robert Graves, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ogden Nash, and Christina Rossetti. M.I.A. (Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasm) (1975-), Maya (album #3) (July 7); incl. The Message, XXXO, Born Free. Millionaires, Stay the Night (EP) (July 25); incl. Stay the Night; Cash Only (EP) (Sept. 7); incl. Party Like A Millionaire, and Microphone ("No one will ever know I wanna touch your microphone"). Nicki Minaj (1982-), Pink Friday (album) (debut) (#1 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); incl. Your Love, Right Thru Me, Moment 4 Life (w/Drake), Check It Out (w/will.i.am), Roman's Revenge (w/Eminem), Did It On'em, Girls Fall Like Dominoes, Super Bass, and Fly (w/Rihanna); first artist with seven singles on the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously. Kylie Minogue (1968-), Aphrodite (album #11) (June 30) (#19 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. All the Lovers, Get Outta My Way, Better Than Today, Put Your Hands Up (If You Feel Love). Paddy Moloney and the Chieftains, San Patricio (album); the St. Patrick Battalion in the 1846-8 U.S.-Mexico War. Motorhead, The World (Wörld) Is Yours (album #20) (Dec. 14); incl. Get Back in Line. Far East Movement, Like a G6 (#1 in the U.S.); samples Booty Bounce, uploaded to MySpace by Dev (Devin Star Tailes) (1989-), who wins a contract with Universal Records. Dropkick Murphys, Live on Lansdowne, Boston MA (album) (Mar. 16). The National, High Violet (album #5) (May 10) (#3 in the U.S.); incl. Bloodbuzz Ohio, Conversation 16, Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks. Vomito Negro, Skull & Bones (album #14) (Jan. 22); incl. Black Tie White Shirt, Darkmoon. Nelly (1974-), 5.0 (album #6) (Nov. 12) (#10 in the U.S.); incl. Just A Dream, Move That Body (w/T-Pain and Akon), Gone (w/Kelly Rowland). Stevie Nicks (1948-), In Your Dreams (album #7) (May 3); first since 2001; dedicated to fan who died of cancer; incl. Secret Love, Moonlight (A Vampire's Dream). Wild Nothing, Gemini (album) (debut) (May 25); Jack Tatum. Oasis, Time Flies... 1994-2009 (album) (June 14) (#131 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. Whatever, Lord Don't Slow Me Down. Omarion (1984-), Ollusion (album #3) (Jan. 12). Linkin Park, A Thousand Suns (album #4) (Sept. 14) (#1 in the U.S., #2 in the U.K.); incl. The Catalyst (#1 in the U.S., #40 in the U.K.), Waiting for the End (#42 in the U.S., #90 in the U.K.), Burning in the Skies, Iridescent. Black Eyed Peas, Imma Be. Katy Perry (1984-), Teenage Dream (album #3) (Aug. 24) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); 9th album in Billboard history with four #1 hits (5th by a female artist); incl. California Gurls (w/Snoop Dogg) ("California girls/ We're unforgettable/ Daisy dukes, bikinis on top/ Sun-kissed skin, so hot, will melt your popsicle"), Firework, E.T. (w/Kanye West), Peacock. Wilson Phillips, Christmas in Harmony (album #4) (Oct. 12); first album since 2004. Stone Temple Pilots, Stone Temple Pilots (album #6) (May 21); first albums since 2001; incl. Between the Lines, Take a Load Off, Cinnamon. Pitbull (1981-), Armando (album #5) (Nov. 2). The New Pornographers, Together (album #5) (May 4) (#18 in the U.S.); incl. Moves (used in T-Mobile commercials), Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk (used in Amazon Kindle ads), Crash Years, Your Hands (Together). Manic Street Preachers, Postcards from a Young Man (album #10) (Sept. 20) (#3 in the U.K.); incl. Postcards from a Young Man, (It's Not War) Just the End of Love, Some Kind of Nothingness. Nathaniel Rateliff (1978-), In Memory of Loss (album #2) (May). Ratt, Infestation (album #7) (Apr. 20) (#30 in the U.S.); first with guitarist Carlos Cavazo; incl. Best Of Me, Eat Me Up Alive. My Chemical Romance, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (album #4) (Nov. 19) (#8 in the U.S., #14 in the U.K.); incl. Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na), Sing, Planetary (Go!); The Mad Gear and Missile Kid (EP) (Nov. 22); incl. F.T.W.W.W., Mastas of Ravenkroft, Black Dragon Fighting Society. Busta Rhymes (1972-), Anarchy (album #4) (June 20); incl. Fire, Get Out! Rihanna (1988-), Loud (album #5) (Nov. 10) (#3 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. Only Girl (In the World), What's My Name? (w/Drake), S&M . Sade (1959-), Soldier of Love (album #6) (Feb. 8) (#1 in the U.S., #4 in the U.K.); first original album since 2000; incl. Soldier of Love, Babyfather. Seal (1963-), Commitment (album #7) (Sept. 20) (#11 in the U.K.); incl. Secret, Weight of My Mistakes. Belle and Sebastian, Belle & Sebastian Write About Love (album #8) (Oct. 11); incl. Write About Love (with Carey Mulligan). Shakira (1977-), Sale el Sol (The Sun Comes Out) (album #7) (Oct. 19) (#7 in the U.S.) (4M copies); incl. Loca (w/Dizzee Rascal), Sale el Sol, Rabiosa. Trombone Shorty (1986-), Backatown (#3 jazz), (album #7) (Apr. 20); incl. Backatown. Skrillex (1988-), My Name is Skrillex (EP) (debut) (June 7); incl. WEEKENDS!!! (w/Sirah); Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites (EP) (Oct. 22); incl. Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites. Fatboy Slim (1963-) and David Byrne, Here Lies Love (album #5) (Feb. 23); about Imelda Marcos of the Philippines. Ringo Starr (1940-), Y Not (album #15) (Jan. 12) (#58 in the U.S.). Stornoway, Beachcomber's Windowsill (album) (debut) (#14 in the U.K.); from Oxford, England, incl. Brian Briggs (vocals), Jon Ouin, Oli Steadman, and Rob Steadman (drums); incl. Zorbing, Unfaithful, and I Saw You Blink. The White Stripes, Under the Great White Northern Lights (album) (Mar. 16). The Strokes, Angles (album #4) (Mar. 18) (#4 in the U.S., #3 in the U.K.); incl. Under Cover of Darkness (#28 in the U.S., #47 in the U.K.). Sugarbabes, Sweet 7 (album #7) (Mar. 15); incl. Get Sexy, About a Girl, Wear My Kiss. Nada Surf, If I Had a Hi-Fi (album #6) (June 8); all covers. Taylor Swift (1989-), Speak Now (album #3) (Oct. 25) (#1 in the U.S.) (4.8M copies); incl. Mine (#3 in the U.S.), Back to December, Mean, The Story of Us. Tinie Tempah (1988-), Disc-Overy (album) (debut) (Oct. 4) (#21 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. Pass Out (#1 in the U.K.), Written in the Stars (w/Eric Turner) (#1 in the U.K.), Frisky, Miami 2 Ibiza. Therion, Sitra Ahra (album #14) (Sept. 17); incl. Cu Chulainn, Kali Yuga III, The Shells Are Open. KT Tunstall (1975-), Tiger Suit (album #3) (Sept. 24) (#43 in the U.S., #5 in the U.K.); incl. Fade Like A Shadow, (Still A) Weirdo). Six Feet Under, Graveyard Classics III (album) (Jan. 19). Usher (1978-), Raymond v. Raymond (album #6) (Mar. 26) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. OMG, Hey Daddy (Daddy's Home), Lil Freak, There Goes My Baby; Versus (album) (Aug. 24); incl. DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love, Hot Tottie. Suzanne Vega (1959-), Close-Up Vol. 1, Love Songs (album #8) (Feb. 2); Close-Up Vol. 2, People and Places (album #9) (Oct. 12). Weezer, Hurley (album #8) (Sept. 10) (#6 in the U.S., #49 in the U.K.); cover featres actor Jorge Garcia, who played Hugo "Hurley" Reyes on the TV series "Lost" from 2004-10; incl. Memories, Hang On; Death to False Metal (Odds and Ends) (album #9) (Nov. 2). Kanye West (1977-), My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (album #5) (Nov. 22) (#1 in the U.S.) (1M copies in the U.S.); incl. Power, Runaway, Monster, All of the Lights (w/Rihanna, Kid Cudi). Westlife, Gravity (album #11) (Nov. 22) (#3 in the U.K.); incl. Safe. Chely Wright (1970-), Lifted Off the Ground (album #7); on May 3 she becomes the first major country music artist to come out as gay. Art: Anne Wallace, Talking Cure. Movies: Michael Perlin's 3 Magic Words is a spirituality documentary based on the 1954 book by Uell Stanley Anderson. Danny Boyle's 127 Hours (Jan. 28) is about mountain climber Aron Ralston (James Franco), who became trapped under a boulder in Blue John Canyon in Moab, Utah, and amputated his arm to survive. Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (Mar. 5), written by Linda Woolverton based on the Lewis Carroll books turns the story into female teen Goth, starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Anne Hathaway as the White Queen, and Mia Wasikowska as Alice; does a record $116.3M at the box office on opening weekend, passing the $70.9M mark set by "300"; a secret White House party featuring an Alice in Wonderland State Dining Room room decorated by Burton is held, and not revealed until Jan. 2012. Anton Corbijn's The American (Sept. 10) (Smokehouse Pictures) (Focus Features) stars George Clooney as hit man Jack, who hides out in Castelvecchio, Italy and hooks up with hot ho Clara (Violante Placido) while playing head games with hit woman Mathilde (Thekla Reuten); Johan Leysen plays his handler Pavel; Paolo Bonacelli plays Father Benedetto; does $67.9M box office on a $20M budget. Janus Metz Pedersen's Armadillo (May 27) is an anti-war flick about a group of Danish soldiers in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Joel Gilbert's Atomic Jihad: Ahmadinejad's Coming War for Islamic Revival and Obama's Politics (Feb. 23) is a documentary tasking Pres. Obama for playing into his hands. Richard J. Lewis' Barney's Version (Sept. 10) stars Paul Giamatti as un-PC Barney Panofsky. Mike Mills' Beginners (Sept. 11) stars Ewan McGregor as young man Oliver Fields, who is shocked by the news that his elderly father Hal (Christopher Plummer) has terminal cancer and a young male lover, causing him to go for French actress Anna Wallace (Melanie Laurent); does $14.3M box office on a $3.2M budget. Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (Sept. 1) stars Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers, who lands the role of the Swan Queen, and has to compete against Lily (Mila Kunis), who lands the Black Swan role. Will Gluck's Easy A (Sept. 11) (Olive Bridge Entertainment) (Screen Gems) is a teenage exploitation flick starring Emma Stone as Olive Penderghast, who fakes losing her virginity and ruins her rep, and has trouble getting it back; also stars Amanda Bynes as Marianne Bryant, Penn Badgley as Olive's real beau Woodchuck Todd, Aly Michalka as Rhiannon Abernathy, Stanley Tucci as Olive's father Dill, Patricia Clarkson as her mother Rosemary, Malcolm McDowell as Principal Gibbons, and Lisa Kudrow as Mrs. Griffith; does $75M box office on an $8M budget; "The rumor-filled totally false account of how I ruined my flawless reputation"; "If there's one thing worse than chlamydia, it's Florida." Albert Hughes' and Allen Hughes' The Book of Eli (Jan. 10), set in Calif. 30 years after a nuclear apocalypse stars Denzel Washington as Eli, who carries the last copy of the Bible to a group on Alcatraz Island while defending it with Samurai-style swordwork, running into lizardlike saloon owner Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who lusts after his book; Mila Kunis plays Eli's disciple Solara; too bad, the group starts cranking out copies of the Bible, but only to place alongside copies of the Quran; does $157M box office on a $80M budget. George Hickenlooper's Casino Jack (Dec. 17) stars Kevin Spacey as crooked Washington, D.C. lobbyist Jack Abramoff, becoming Hickenlooper's last film after he dies on Oct. 29. Brad Peyton's Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (July 30) is an animated film about the war between cats and dogs and a rogue cat spy; "Just like real spies... only furrier." Neil Marshall's Centurion (Apr. 22) stars Michael Fassbender as Roman centurion Quintus Dias, who marches with with Gen. Titus Flavius Virilus' (Dominic West) 9th legion into Pict territory in Britain in 117 C.E. to destroy Pictish chief Gorlacon (Ulrich Thomsen) and instead get massacred, then must return with a small group of soldiers while being chased all the way; Olga Kurylenko plays vicious Celtic she-wolf Etain; Imogen Poots plays she-angel witch Arianne. Michael Apted's The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Dec.), based on the C.S. Lewis novels stars Ben Barnes as King Caspian. Shana Feste's Country Strong (Nov. 8) (Screen Gems), produced by Tobey Maguire stars Gyneth Paltrow and Garrett Hedlund as country singers Kelly Canter and Beau Hutton, who have a fling while she's in rehab cheating on hubby James Canter (Tim McGraw); Leighton Meester plays man-stealer country singer wannaba Chiles Stanton; "Love and fame can't live in the same place" (Kelly); features the songs Country Strong by Jennifer Hanson, Tony Martin, and Mark Nesler, performed by Gwyneth Paltrow (#30 country) (#81 in the U.S.), Coming Home by Tom Douglas, Hillary Lindsey, and Troy Verges, Me and Tennessee by Tim McGraw and Gwynteth Paltrow (#34 country) (#63 in the U.S.), and Kissin' in Cars (Stephen Barker Liles and Jesse Lee); does $20.5M box office on a $15M budget. John Madden's The Debt (Sept. 4) (Mav Films) (Focus Features) (Miramax), based on the 2007 Israeli film "Ha-Hov" stars Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain as Mossad agent Rachel Singer, who searches for "the Surgeon of Birkenau" Nazi butcher Dieter Vogel (Jesper Christensen), and captures him in Argentina 1965, only to let him escape and lie that they killed him, becoming big heroes; meanwhile they quietly search for him again until 1997, finding him in Kiev, Ukraine; also stars Sam Worthington and Cairan Hands as David Peretz, and Marton Csonkas and Tom Wilkinson as Stefan Gold; does $45.6M box office on a $20M budget. Pierre Coffin's and Chris Renaud's Despicable Me (July 9) is an animated film about three orphan girls who cause the despicable Gru (Steve Carell) to rethink his plan to steal the Moon. Jay Roach's Dinner for Schmucks (July 30), based on the 1988 French comedy "Le diner de Cons" (Dinner of Cunts) stars Steve Carrell as IRS employee Barry Speck and mouse taxidermist, and Paul Rudd as exec Tim Conrad; Zach Galifianakis plays Barry's boss Therman Murch; the Chiodo Brothers create elaborate mouse dioramas and "mouseterpieces". Troy Nixey's Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (Nov. 6) (Miramax Films), a remake of the 1973 ABC-TV movie written by Matthew Robbins and Guillermo del Toro based on the book by Nigel McKeand and filmed in the Drusilla Mansion in Mount Macedon, Victoria, Australia stars Katie Holmes as Kim Raphael, Guy Pearce as Alex Hurst, and Bailee Madison as 8-y.-o. Sally Hurst, who move into the 19th cent. Blackwood Manor mansion in Providence County, R.I., where evil creatures begin emerging from a sealed ash pit in the basement; does $36M box office on a $25M budget. Ryan Murphy's Eat Pray Love (Aug. 13) (Plan B Entertainment) (Columbia Pictures), based on the 2006 bestseller by Elizabeth Gilbert stars Julie Roberts as Gilbert, and Javier Bardem as her lover Felipe; does $204.6M box office on a $60M budget. David Slade's Eclipse (June 30), #3 in the series based on the Stephenie Meyer novel stars Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan, who must choose between vamp beaus Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Martin Campbell's Edge of Darkness (Jan. 29) stars Mel Gibson as Boston homicide detective Thomas Craven, whose activist daughter Emma is killed before his eyes, turning him into a mean human wrecking vengeance machine a la Mad Max; Ray Winstone plays bad guy Darius Jedburgh, and Danny Huston plays corporate spin doctor Jack Bennett. Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables (Aug. 13), about a team of aging mercenaries stars Stallone as Barney "the Schizo" Ross, Jet Li as Bao Thao, Jason Statham as Lee Christmas, Dolph Lundgren as Gunnar Jensen, and Eric Roberts as Monroe, and features a small role for Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger, causing speculation about a reprisal of his movie career after he leaves politics. David O. Russell's The Fighter (Dec. 17) stars Mark Wahlberg as middleweight boxer Micky "Irish" Ward, whose older half-brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) helps train him to go pro in Lowell, Mass. in the mid-1980s; Melissa Leo plays their mother; Amy Adams plays Micky's babe. Sean Tretta's The Frankenstein Syndrome (Experiment) (July 5) stars Scott Anthony Leet as security guard David Doyle, who is murdered and reanimated, acquiring psychic powers and superhuman strength. Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer (Feb. 12), based on the Robert Harris novel stars Ewan McGregor as a ghost writer hired to write the memoirs of disgraced former British PM Alan Lang (Pierce Brosnan); released while Polanski is under house arrest in Switzerland awaiting extradition to the U.S.; on July 12 the Swiss govt. announces that it won't allow him to be extradited. Noah Baumbach's Greenberg (Apr. 1), based on a story by Jennifer Jason Leigh stars Ben Stiller as a burned-out New Yorker who moves to L.A. to housesit for his brother Philip Greenberg (Chris Messina), and begins eating, er, dating his asst. Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig). Brian Helgeland's Green Zone (Mar. 12), based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran's 2006 book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" stars Matt Damon as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, who is sent into Iraq in 2003 to find the WMDs and instead discovers it was all a lie; also stars Brendan Gleeson, Greg Kinnear, Amy Ryan, and Yigal Naor, and Khalid Abdalla. Chris Sanders' and Dean DeBlois' How to Train Your Dragon (3D) (Mar. 26) is a computer animated film by DreamWorks about a Viking teenager named Hiccup, who decides to become a dragon slayer and instead falls in love with them; grosses $500M worldwide. Christopher Nolan's Inception (July 8) (Warner Bros.) stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Dominick "Dom" Cobb, a thief who enters people's dreams and steals ideas from rivals, and is then asked to try planting ideas by energy magnate Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), with a special assignment involving business magnate Robert Michael Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy); Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Cobb's partner Arthur; Ellen Page plays dreamscape builder Ariadne; Tom Hardy plays Cobb's associate Eames; does $825.5M worldwide box office on a $160M budget. Josh Appignanesi's The Infidel (May 5) stars Omid Djalili as Mahmud Nasir, a British Muslim who discovers he was born a Jew, launching an identity crisis; an attempt at making a "Monty Python's Life of Brian" about Islam that falls flat? Charles Ferguson's Inside Job (Feb. 2) is a documentary about the big financial meltdown. James Wan's Insidious (Sept. 14) (Blumhouse Productions) (FilmDistrict) is about couple Josh and Renai Lambert (Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne), whose son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) goes comatose and becomes a vessel for ghosts; "It's not the house that's haunted, it's your son"; does $97M box office on a $1.5M budget; inspires sequels incl. "Insidious: Chapter 2" (2013), "Insidious: Chapter 3" (2015), and "Insidious: The Last Key" (2018). Gregg Araki's Kaboom (May 15) is a sci-fi story about the sexual awakening of some college students. Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass (Apr. 16), based on the Mark Millar comic books stars Aaron Johnson as comic book fan Dave Lizewski, who decides to become a superhero sans super powers; "I can't fly, but I can kick your ass." Lisa Cholodenko's The Kids Are All Right (July 30) stars Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson as Joni and Laser, children of married lezzie parents Nic and Jules (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore), who were conceived by artificial insemination and set out to find their sperm donor father Paul (Mark Ruffalo). Shahriar Bahrani's The Kingdom of Solomon (Oct. 5) stars Amin Zendegani as King Solomon in the Islamic version of his life. Tom Hooper's The King's Speech (Sept. 6) (U.K. Film Council) (Momentum Pictures), written by David Seidler stars miscast Colin Firth as English king George VI (Prince Albert, Duke of York), and Geoffrey Rush as Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue, who helps him overcome his stuttering p-p-problem; Helena Bonham Carter plays Queen Elizabeth (Duchess of York), Guy Pearce plays Edward VIII (Prince Edward of Wales), and Timothy Spall plays PM Winston Churchill; does $414.2M box office on a $15M budget; first release of See-Saw Films and Bedlam Productions of London, England. Michael Winterbottom's The Killer Inside Me (Jan. 24), based on the Jim Thompson novel about a psycho 1950s West Tex. deputy sheriff stars Casey Affleck as Lou Ford, Kate Hudson as his girl Amy Stanton, Jessica Alba as ho Joyce Lakeland, and Ned Beatty as Chester Conway. James Mangold's Knight and Day (formerly "Wichita and Trouble Man") (June 16) (Regency Enterprises) (Dune Entertainment) (20th Cent. Fox) is an action comedy starring Tom Cruise as crazy secret agent Roy Miller/Matthew Knight, who hooks up with classic car restorer June Havens (Cameron Diaz) and shanghais her on his run from the CIA; does $261.9M box office on a $117M budget. Daniel Stamm's The Last Exorcism (June 24) (Strike Engertainment) (StudioCanal) (Lionsgate) is about evangelical rev. Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) of Baton Rouge, La., who wants to expose exorcism as a fraud, and has filmmakers Iris Reisen (Iris Bahr) and Daniel follow him during his last one, on farmer's daughter Nell Margaret Sweetzer (Ashley Bell), which turns into a nightmare; does $67.7M box office on a $1.8M budget; followed by "The Last Exorcism: Part II" (2013). Scott Stewart's Legion (Jan. 22) (Bold Films) (Screen Gems) stars Paul Bettany as Archangel Michael, who falls to Earth in L.A., cuts off his wings, and becomes a heavenly Terminator of a legion of demon-possessed, getting into a ridiculous fight with Archangel Gabriel (Kevin Durand) after sprouting new wings, all pissing-off Christian groups; Adrianne Palicki plays Charlie, a waitress pregnant with humanity's savior in a ripoff of "The Terminator"; Jeanette Miller plays possessed old hag Gladys Foster, who walks on the ceiling; Doug Jones plays a possessed ice cream man; does $67.9M box office on a $26M budget. Ethan Maniquis' and Robert Rodriguez' Machete (Sept. 3) stars Danny Trejo as Mexican vigilante Machete Cortez, Steven Seagal as drug lord Rogelio Torrez, Cheech Marin as pacifist priest Padre Cortez, and Robert De Niro as corrupt Texas Sen. John McLaughlin in an open borders propaganda fest; also features Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Alba, and Don Johnson; does $44M box office on a $10.5M budget. Michel Leclerc's The Names of Love (July 10) stars Sara Forestier as leftist activist Baya Benmahmoud, who has sex with right-wingers incl. Muslims for freedom until she meets her match in Arthur Martin (Jacques Gamblin). Mark Romanek's Never Let me Go (Sept. 3), based on the 2005 Kazuo Ishiruo novel about an alternate Universe of 100-year lifespans and organ donors stars Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield as Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy in a love triangle; "We all complete." Laura Poitras' The Oath is a documentary about Gitmo POW Salim Hamdan, AKA Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, and his Yemeni taxi driver brother Abu Jandal. Francois Ozon's Potiche (Fr. "trophy wife") (Sept. 4) is a French feminist farce set in 1977, starring Catherine Deneuve as submissive wife Suzanne Pujol, who gets to run her hubby Robert (Fabrice Luchini)'s umbrella factory after the employees rebel against tyrannical mgr. Maurice Babin (Gerard Depardieu); Jeremy Renier plays son Laurent Pujol; does $28.8M box office on a $11.2M budget. Nimrod Antal's Predators (July 9) stars Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, and Topher Grace as a group of killers who are selected to be hunted by alien predators in a jungle world. Christoper Cain's Pure Country 2: The Gift (Oct. 15) (Warner Bros.), sequel to "Pure Country" (1992) stars Katrina Elam as Nashville hopeful Bobbie, who makes it big then loses her voice; also stars Dean Cain as the music video dir., Bronson Pinchot as Joseph, Cheech Marin as Pedro, Michael McKean as Peter, Travis Fimmel as Dale Jordan, and George Strait as himself. Robert Schwentke's Red (Sept. 29) (Di Bonaventura Pictures) (Summit Entertainment) is an action comedy based on the DC Comics series by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner, starring Bruce Willis as ex-CIA agent Frank Moses AKA Retired Extremely Dangerous, who lives in Cleveland, Ohio and shanghais pension clerk Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker) while being chased by a CIA assassination squad; also stars Morgan Freeman as Joe Matheson, John Malkovich as Marvin Boggs, Helen Mirren as Victoria Winslow, and Karl Urban as William Cooper; does $199M box office on a $58M budget; followed by "Red 2" (2013). Miguel Spochnik's Repo Men (Mar. 19) (Universal), based on the novel "The Repossession Mambo" by Eric Garcia, set in 2025 stars Jude Law and Forest Whitaker as Remy and Jake, employees of The Union, who reclaim biomechanical organs from people who miss their payments; does $18.M box office on a $32M budget. Allen Coulter's Remember Me (Mar. 12) stars Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin as lovers who have to cope with family tragedies. Ridley Scott's Robin Hood (May 12) (Imagine Entertainment) (Universal Pictures) stars Russell Crowe as Robin Longstride, Cate Blanchett as Marion Locksley, Max von Sydow as her father Sir Walter Locksley, Mark Addy as Friar Tuck, Oscar Isaac as nutso Prince John, and Danny Huston as his older brother Richard the Lionheart; does $321.7M box office on a $200M budget. Quentin Dupieux's Rubber (May 15) is a French horror comedy about a killer tire with psychic powers, starring Stephen Spinella as Lt. Chad. Philip Noyce's Salt (July 23), written by Kurt Wimmer stars Angelina Jolie as sexy muscle-free drink of water female rogue super CIA agent Evelyn A. Salt (originally Edwin A. Salt until Jolie is offered a part as a Bond girl and replies that she'd rather play Bond), who turns out to be a double, no triple, no quadruple, who knows sleeper agent in a U.S. that's been infiltrated extensively by Russian sleeper agents starting with Lee Harvey Oswald; also stars Liev Schreiber as her CIA boss Ted Winter, Chiwetel Ejiofor as CIA agent Peabody, August Diehl as Salt's lovey-dovey hubby Mike Krause, and Daniel Olbrychski as sinister Russian agent Orlov; the news of the arrest in the U.S. of Russian spies incl. a woman turns out to be perfect timing to boost the box office; grosses $118M in the U.S. and $293M worldwide. Edgar Wright's Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (July 27), based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley stars Michael Cer as Pilgrim, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona, his new babe, who comes with seven evil exes. Srdan Spasojevic's A Serbian Film (June 11) (Contra Film) (Jinga Films) is an erotic horror film about porn star Milos, his wife Marija, and 6-y.-o. son Peter, and his corrupt police office brother Marko, who wants Marija; the film bill itself as an art film, but has so many disgusting graphic scenes of rape, child sexual abuse, and necrophilia that it ends up banned in seven countries, making it more popular? Burhan Qurbani's Shahada (Faith) is about three young Muslims in Berlin who struggle with their faith. The Brothers Strouse's Skyline (Nov. 11) (Rogue) (Universal Pictures) stars Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel, Crystal Reed, David Zayas, and Donald Faison in a sci-flick about brain-sucking aliens from outer space invading Earth; does $68.3M box office on a $20M budget. David Fincher's The Social Network (Oct. 1), based on the 2009 novel "The Accidental Billionaires" by Ben Mezrich about the founding of Facebook stars Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg, along with Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, and Brenda Song; grosses $23M its first weekend; meanwhile the real Facebook reaches 517M members, 7.6% of the Earth's pop., causing TLW to warn that it is fast positioning itself to become the Beast Antichrist 666 as in Rev. 3:16, taking away your family's privacy and forcing you to have its mark on your forehead to buy or sell etc.; TLW's Boycott Facebook Web page gets a total of 568 visitors by Oct. 4; "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies". John Curran's Stone (Sept. 10) (last from Overture Films) stars Robert De Niro as parole officer Jack Mabry, who is gamed by convicted arsonist Gerald "Stone" Creeson (Edward Norton) and his hot wife Lucetta (Mila Jovovich), while loyal wife Madylyn (Frances Conroy) waits in the wings; does $9.5M box office on a $22M budget. Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe (May 18) (BBC Films) (Momentum Pictures), based on the Moira Buffini comic strip and Thomas Hardy's novel "Far from the Madding Crowd", set in Ewedown, Dorset, England is about young journalist Tamara Drewe (Gemma Arterton), who gets a nose job and returns to her hometown to sell her dead mother's house, turning on the local men incl. Andy Cobb (Luke Evans), Ben Sergeant (Dominic Cooper), and Nicholas Hardiment (Roger Allam), who is killed by stampeding cows; does $11.9M box office on a Ł6M budget. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's The Tourist (Dec. 10) is a remake of the 2005 French film "Anthony Zimmer" starring Angelina Jolie as beautiful Interpol agent Elise Clifton-Ward, who hooks up with Am. tourist Frank Tupelo (Johnn Depp) on a train in Venice, getting him mistaken for super thief Alexander Pearce by Inspector John Acheson (Paul Bettany) and gangster Reginald Shaw (Steven Berkoff); Timothy Dalton plays Chief Inspector Jones. Ben Affleck's The Town (Sept. 8) (Legendary Pictures) (GK FIlms) (Thunder Road Pictures) (Warner Bros. Pictures), based on Chuck Hogan's novel "Prince of Thieves" stars Affleck as Douglas "Doug" MacRay, Jeremy Renner as James "Jem" Coughlin, Slain as Albert "Gloansy" MacGloan, and Owen Burke as Desmond "Dez" Edlen, four lifelong friends from Charlestown, Boston who rob Penway Park of $3.5M; Rebecca Hall plays Doug's babe Claire Keesey; Jon Hamm plays FBI agent Adam Frawley; Chris Cooper plays Doug's imprisoned dad Stephen; Pete Postlethwaite plays crime boss Fergus "Fergie" Colm; does $154M box office on a $37M budget. Ethan Coen's and Joel Coen's True Grit (Dec. 22), a more realistic remake of the 1969 John Wayne flick stars Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, Matt Damon as LaBoeuf, Josh Brolin as Tom Chaney, and Barry Pepper as Lucky Ned Pepper. Tony Scott's Unstoppable (Oct. 26) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the May 15, 2001 CSX 888 (Crazy Eights) Incident in Ohio stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pine as Frank Barnes and Will Colson, two railroad men who try to stop a runaway freight train; Scott's final feature film; does $167.8M box office on a $95M budget. Gregor Jordan's Unthinkable (June 14) stars Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Sheen, and Carrie-Anne Moss in a thriller about a man is tortured after threatening to detonate three nukes in three U.S. cities. Davis Guggenheim's Waiting for Superman (Jan. 22) is a documentary about the Harlem Children's Zone and dir. (1990-) Geoffrey Canada (1952-). Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Sept. 24) is a sequel to the 1987 flick starring Michael Douglas as recently-released Gordon Gekko, Shia LeBeouf as young trader Jacob "Jake" Moore, Josh Brolin as hedge fund mgr. Bretton James, and Carey Mulligan as Gekko's estranged daughter (Jake's fiance) Winnie. Joe Johnston's The Wolfman (Jan. 27) (Relativity Media) (Universal Pictues), a remake of the 1941 film stars Benicio del Toro as Lawrence Talbot the Wolfman, Anthony Hopkins as his father Sir John Talbot, Emily Blunt as Lawrence's babe Gwen Conliffe, and Hugo Weaving as Inspector Francis Aberline; does $139.8M box office on a $150M budget. Plays: Denis Johnson (1949-), Vagtastic Voyage. Tod Machover, Death and the Powers (Sept. 24) (Monaco); 1-act robot opera. Rain, Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles (musical revue) (Neil Simon Theatre, New York) (Oct. 26) (Brooks Atkinson Theatre, New York) (Feb. 8, 2011) (300 perf.), recreating their career starting at the Cavern Club in 1962. Beatles cover band founded in 1975 as Reign in Laguna Beach, Calif. James Strahs, North Atlantic. Poetry: Ai, No Surrender (Sept.). Julie Carr, Sarah - Of Fragments and Features (Sept.). Thomas Sayers Ellis, Skin, Inc.: Identity Repair Poems (Aug.). Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Reliquary Fever: New and Selected Poems (Oct.). Steve Healey, Ten Mississippi (Sept.). Seamus Heaney (1939-), Human Chain (Sept.). Major Jackson, Holding Company (Aug.). Gjertrud Schnackenberg, Heavenly Questions (Oct.). Philip Schultz (1945-), The God of Loneliness: Selected and New Poems. Charles Simic (1938-), Master of Disguises (Oct.). Richard Wilbur (1921-2017), Anterooms: New Poems and Translations (Nov. 12) (last poetry book); incl. A Measuring Worm; "This yellow-striped green/ Caterpillar, climbing up/ The steep window screen,/ Constantly (for lack)/ Of a full set of legs) keeps/ Humping up his back./ It's as if he sent/ By a sort of semaphore/ Dark omegas meant/ To warn of Last Things./ Although he doesn't know it,/ He will soon have wings,/ And I too don't know/ Toward what undreamt condition/ Inch by inch I go." Novels: ?, The Silicon Jungle; the data mining operation of Ubatoo and its Terrorist-o-Meter. Greg Bear (1951-), Hull Zero Three; about a lost spaceship; The Mongoliad; set in Foreworld, created by the Subutai Corp. Glenn Beck (1964-), The Overton Window (June); NYT bestseller about the Founders' Keepers led by Noah Gardner and Molly Ross staging a civil war in the U.S. to save it from Saul Alinsky-thumping leftists. Steve Berry (1955-), The Emperor's Tomb (Nov. 23); Cotton Malone #6; The Balkan Escape; Cassiopeia Vitt #1. Maeve Binchy (1940-), Minding Frankie. T. Coraghessan Boyle (1948-), Wild Child and Other Stories. Tina Brown (1953-), The Clinton Chronicles; by now she looks more like Hillary than Princess Diana? Jim Carroll (1949-2009), The Petting Zoo (posth.) (first novel). Lan Samantha Chang, All Is Forgotten: Nothing Is Lost (Sept.). Tom Clancy (1947-2013), Dead or Alive (Dec.); first Jack Ryan Jr. novel since "The Teeth of the Tiger" (2003). Paul Coelho (1947-), Aleph. Suzanne Collins (1962-), Mockingjay (Aug. 24); #3 in the Hunger Games Trilogy. Jerome Robert Corsi (1946-), The Shroud Codex; Father Paul Bartholomew turns into the Shroud Man. Justin Cronin, The Passage (June 8); bestseller clone of Stephen King's "The Stand"; first of a trilogy. Jenny Erpenbeck, Visitation (Sept.). Ken Follett (1949-), Pillars of the Earth; #2 in the Century Trilogy; the carnage of WWI via 100+ main chars., incl. Billy and Ethel Williams, and Earl Fitzherbert. Margaret Forster (1938-), Isa and May. Esther Freud (1963-), Lucky Break. William Gibson (1948-), Zero History. Rebecca Goldstein (1950-), 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction; Cass Seltzer and his dream babe Lucinda Mandelbaum, the Goddess of Game Theory, proposer of Mandelbaum Equilibrium. Nadine Gordimer (1923-), Life Times: Stories (Nov.). Seth Grahame-Smith (1976-), Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (Mar. 2); after vampires kills his mommy, Lincoln goes on a lifelong vendetta against them and their slave-owning allies, sparking the U.S. Civil War. Eliza Griswold, The Tenth Parallel. Michael Guber, The Good Son. Barry Hannah (1942-2010), Long, Last, Happy: New & Selected Stories (Nov.) (posth.). Helene Hegemann (1992-), Axolotl Roadkill; features her new technique of "mixing", lifting passages from other books without attribution, pissing-off the authors, despite the technique being considered OK for music? Peter Hitchens (1951-), The Cameron Delusion; The Rage Against God. Amil Imani, Obama Meets Ahmadinejad (July 1). Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question (Aug.); BBC radio producer Julian Treslove, Jewish philosopher Sam Finkler, and Czech teacher Libor Sevcik have a My Dinner With Andre Part II? Ismail Kadare (1936-), The Accident (Nov.). Millard Kaufman (1917-2009), Misadventure (posth.). Brooks William Kelley, The Martyr's Prize: A Tale of American Exceptionalism and Ruthlessness in the Age of Religiously Inspired Terrorism (Feb. 8). Michael Knight, The Typist (Aug.). Nicole Krauss (1974), Great House (Oct. 12). Amitava Kumar, A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Bomb. Yiyun Li, Gold Boy, Emerald Girl (Sept.). Annabel Lyon (1971-), The Golden Mean (Mar. 9) (first novel); Aristotle and his pupil Alexander the Great. Gregory Maguire (1954-), The Next Queen of Heaven; the Scales family matriarch is driven half-mad by a blow to the head by a statue of the Virgin Mary; gay choirmaster Jeremy fights local nuns to find a practice room for his band. Steve Martin (1945-), An Object of Beauty (Nov. 23); New York artist Lacey Yeager. Dinaw Mengestu (1978-), How (Easy Methods) to Read the Air (Oct.). Patrick Modiano (1945-), L'Horizon. Robyn Okrant, Living Oprah: My One-Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk (Jan. 4). Cynthia Ozick (1928-), Foreign Bodies (Nov. 1); reimagining of Henry James's "The Ambassadors". Charles Pellegrino, The Last Train from Hiroshima; details of the horrors of the A-bomb. Ralph Peters (1952-), Endless War. Jim Powell, The Breaking of Eggs: A Novel (first novel) (July 27); 61-y-o. Polish leftist Feliks Zhukovski in France. John Reimringer's Vestments (Sept.). Salman Rushdie (1947-), Luka and the Fire of Life (Nov.); sequel to "Haroun and the Sea of Stories". Gary Shteyngart (1972-), Super Sad True Love Story (July 27); Lenny Abramov and Eunice Park. Mona Simpson, My Hollywood (Sept.). Jane Smiley (1949-), Private Life. Lee Smith (1944-), Mrs. Darcy Meets the Blue-Eyed Stranger (Mar.). Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006), The Abyss of Human Illusion (posth.). Danielle Steel (1947-), First Sight; Family Ties. Steve Stern (1947-), The Frozen Rabbi. Brad Thor (1969-), Foreign Influence; The Athena Project. Anne Tyler (1941-), Noah's Compass; 5th grade teacher Liam is fired and gets hit on the head. Teddy Wayne, Kapitoil (first novel); computer whiz Karim Issar from Qatar flies to New York City to help Schrub Equities survive the Y2K bug in 1999. Xiaoda Xiao, The Visiting Suit: Stories from My Prison Life (Nov. 1). Charles Yu, How to Live Safetly in a Science Fictional Universe (Sept. 7). Births: Icelandic "L7" actress Freyja Sif Arnarsdottir on Apr. 1 in Reykjavik. Am. "Blue Winslow in The Smurfs" actor Nicholas Martorell Jr. on May 7 in Philadelphia, Penn. Am. "Lucy in All My Children" actor Phoenix Nicholson on Dec. 23 in Los Angeles, Calif. Deaths: Am. Johnson & Johnson heiress Casey Johnson (b. 1979) on Jan. 4 in Los Angeles, Calif. (OD). Am. abstract painter Kenneth Noland (b. 1924) on Jan. 5 in Port Clyde, Maine (kidney cancer). Am. Gumby clay animator Art Clokey (b. 1921) on Jan. 8 in Los Osos, Calif.: "The essence of Gumby is that he makes children feel safe. He's their greatest pal." Am. geneticist Marshall Warren Nirenberg (b. 1927) on Jan. 15 in New York City; 1968 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. Taco Bell founder Glen Bell (b. 1923) on Jan. 16 in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. Am. "Davy Crockett", "Daniel Boone" actor Fess Parker (b. 1924) on Mar. 18 in Santa Ynez, Calif. Am. R&B singer Teddy Pendergrass (b. 1950) on Jan. 13 in Philadelphia, Penn. (colon cancer). Am. jazz drummer Ed Thigpen (b. 1930) on Jan. 13 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Am. country singer Carl Smith (b. 1927) on Jan. 16 in Franklin, Tenn. Indian Marxist politician Jyoti Basu (b. 1914) on Jan. 17 in Kolkata, West Bengal. Am. "Love Story" novelist Erich Segal (b. 1937) on Jan. 17 (heart attack). Am. "Spenser" novelist Robert B. Parker (b. 1932) on Jan. 18 in Cambridge, Mass. Am. historian Louis Rudolph Harlan (b. 1922) on Jan. 22 in Lexington, Va. (liver cancer). Am. "Adam Cartwright in Bonanza", "Dr. Trapper John MacIntyre" actor Pernell Roberts (b. 1928) on Jan. 24 in Malibu, Calif. (pancreatic cancer). U.S. Sen. (R-Md.) (1969-87) Charles Mathias Jr. (b. 1922) on Jan. 25 in Chevy Chase, Md. Iraqi minister ("Chemical Ali") Ali Hassan al-Tikritieh (b. 1941) on Jan. 25 (hanged). U.S. lt. col. (Tuskegee Airmen ace) Lee Archer (b. 1919) on Jan. 27 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. "The Catcher in the Rye" novelist J.D. Salinger (b. 1919) on Jan. 27 in Cornish, N.H. Am. historian Howard Zinn (b. 1922) on Jan. 27 in Santa Monica, Calif. (heart attack): "Historically, the most terrible things - war, genocide, and slavery - have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience." Am. basketball player-coach Dick McGuire (b. 1926) on Feb. 3 in Huntington, N.Y. Am. serial murderer Janie Lou Gibbs (b. 1932) on Feb. 7 in Douglasville, Ga. Am. Dem. politician John Murtha (b. 1932) on Feb. 8 in Arlington, Va. U.S. gen. Frederick C. Weyand (b. 1916) on Feb. 10 in Honolulu, Hawaii. Am. Dem. politician Charlie Wilson (b. 1933) on Feb. 10 in Lufkin, Tex. English gay fashion designer Alexander McQueen (b. 1969) on Feb. 11 in Mayfair, London (suicide). Am. Frisbee inventor (1946) Fred Morrison (b. 1920) on Feb. 9 in Monroe, Utah. English fashion designer Alexander McQueen (b. 1969) on Feb. 11 in Mayfair, London (suicide); dies 9 days after his mother Joyce (age 75). U.S. secy. of state (1981-2) gen. Alexander Haig Jr. (b. 1924) on Feb. 20 in Baltimore, Md. Am. artist Ruth Kligman (b. 1930) on Mar. 1. English Conservative politician Winston Spencer Churchill (b. 1940) on Mar. 2 in Belgravia, London (prostate cancer). Am. meteorologist Joanne Simpson (b. 1923) on Mar. 4 in Washington, D.C. Am. oldest person in the U.S. and 2nd oldest in the world Mary Josephine Ray (b. 1895) on Mar. 7 in Westmoreland, N.H.; 5th oldest person in the world and oldest living black person Daisey Bailey (b. 1896) dies the same day in Detroit, Mich. Indonesian Muslim terrorist Dulmatin (b. 1970) on Mar. 9 in Pamaulang, Jakarta (killed by police). Candian actor Corey Haim (b. 1971) on Mar. 10 in Burbank, Calif. (OD). Egyptian grand imam (since 1996) Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi (b. 1928) on Mar. 10 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (heart attack); he is succeeded by Sheikh Ahmed Muhammad Ahmed el-Tayeb (1946-) (until ?), becoming the most influential Muslim on Earth? Am football player-actor Merlin Olsen (b. 1940) on Mar. 11 in Duarte, Calif. (cancer). Am. "Jim Phelps in Mission: Impossible" actor Peter Graves (b. 1926) on Mar. 14 in Pacific Palisades, Calif. (heart attack). Am. "Box Tops" singer-songwriter Alex Chilton (b. 1950) on Mar. 17 in New Orleans, La. (heart attack). Scottish pharmacologist Sir James Whyte Black (b. 1924) on Mar. 22 in London, England; 1988 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. hall-of-fame bowler Bill Beach (b. 1931) on Mar. 22 in Hermitage, Penn. Am. music photographer Jim Marshall (b. 1936) on Mar. 23 in New York City. Am. "Kelly Robinson in I Spy" actor Robert Culp (b. 1930) on Mar. 24 in Los Angeles, Calif. (dies from a fall outside his home). Am. Miss America 1952 Colleen Kay Hutchins (b. 1926) on Mar. 24 in Newport Beach, Calif. Soviet world chess champ #7 (1957-8) Vasily Smyslov (b. 1921) on Mar. 27 in Moscow. Am. jazz guitarist Herb Ellis (b. 1921) on Mar. 28 in Los Angeles, Calif. Canadian-Am. actress June Havoc (b. 1912) on Mar. 28 in Stamford, Conn. Am. "Stand and Deliver" math teacher Jaime Escalante (b. 1930) on Mar. 30 in Reno, Nev. (bladder cancer). Am. "Blake Carrington in Dynasty", "Charlie Townsend in Charlie's Angels" actor John Forsythe (b. 1918) on Apr. 1 in Santa Ynez, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. PC pioneer engineer Ed Roberts (b. 1941) on Apr. 1 in Cochran, Ga. (pneumonia). Am. "Velvet Brown in National Velvet" actress Lori Martin (b. 1947) on Apr. 4 in Oakhurst, Calif. English Sex Pistols founder Malcolm McLaren (b. 1946) on Apr. 8 in New York City (cancer). Zimbabwean PM #1 (1979) Bishop Abel Muzorewa (b. 1925) on Apr. 8 in Borrowdale, Harare. Am. "Julia Sugarbaker in Designing Women" actress Dixie Carter (b. 1939) on Apr. 10 in Houston, Tex. (endometrial cancer). English parapsychologist Tony Cornell (b. 1924) on Apr. 10. Polish pres. (2005-10) Lech Kaczynski (b. 1949) on Apr. 10 near Smolensk, Russia (airplane crash while attempt to land to celebrate the 70th anniv. of the Katyn Massacre). Pakistani Islamist leader Israr Ahmad (b. 1932) on Apr. 14 in Lahore. Polish psychologist Alice Miller (b. 1923) on Apr. 14 in Saint-Remy de Provence, France. Am. "Type O Negative singer Peter Steele (b. 1962) on Apr. 14 in ? (heart failure). Am. cannabist activist Jack Herer (b. 1939) on Apr. 15 in Eugene, Ore. (Sept. 12, 2009 heart attack). Am. NAACP dir. (1977-92) Benjamin Lawson Hooks (b. 1925) on Apr. 15 in Memphis, Tenn. Am. L.A. police chief (1978-92) Daryl Gates (b. 1926) on Apr. 16 in Dana Point, Calif. (bladder cancer). Am. hall-of-fame bowler Marion Ladewig (b. 1914) on Apr. 16 in Grand Rapids, Mich. Indian-born Am. mgt. consultant C.K. Prahalad (b. 1941) on Apr. 16 in San Diego, Calif. (lung failure). Am. civil rights activist Dorothy Irene Height (b. 1912) on Apr. 20 in Washington, D.C. Spanish Internat. Olympic Committee pres. #7 (1980-2001) Juan Antonio Samaranch (b. 1920) on Apr. 21 in Barcelona (heart failure). English "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" novelist Alan Sillitoe (b. 1928) on Apr. 25 in London. Czech-born Anthora paper cup inventor Leslie Buck (b. 1922) on Apr. 26 in Glen Cove, N.Y. (Parkinson's). English "Georgy Girl" actress Lynn Redgrave (b. 1943) on May 2 in Manhattan, N.Y. (breast cancer). Am. Detroit Tigers sportscaster Ernie Harwell (b. 1918) on May 4 in Novi, Mich. Nigerian pres. #2 (2007-10) Umaru Musa Yar'Adua (b. 1951) on May 5 in Aso Villa, Abuja (pericarditis). Am. singer Lena Horne (b. 1917) on May 9 in New York City. Am. historian Norman Arthur Graebner (b. 1915) on May 10 in Charlottesville, Va. Am. Jewish Bible scholar Moshe Greenberg (b. 1928) on May 15 in Jerusalem, Israel. Am. rocker Ronnie James Dio (b. 1942) on May 16 in Houston, Tex. (stomach cancer). Am. All-Am. Girls Prof. Baseball League star Dottie Kamenshek (b. 1925) on May 17 in Palm Desert, Calif. Am. Jews for Jesus founder Moise Rosen (b. 1932) on May 19 (prostate cancer). Am. recreational math writer Martin Gardner (b. 1914) on May 22 in Norman, Okla. Canadian-Am. TV personality Art Linkletter (b. 1912) on May 26 in Bel Air, Los Angeles, Calif. Am. dir. George Hickenlooper (b. 1963) on Oct. 29 in Denver, Colo. (OD). Am. "Arnold in Diff'rent Strokes" actor Gary Coleman (b. 1968) on May 28 in Provo, Utah. Am. actor Dennis Hopper (b. 1936) on May 29 in Venice, Calif. (prostate cancer). French spider sculptor Louise Bourgeois (b. 1911) on May 31 in New York City: "Art is restoration; the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented - that is what fear and anxiety do to a person - into something whole." Canadian Trivial Pursuit co-creator Chris Haney (b. 1950) on May 31 in Toronto, Ont. Am. "Blanche Devereaux in The Golden Girls" actress Rue McClanahan (b. 1934) on June 3 in New York City (stroke). Am. UCLA basketball coach (1948-75) John Wooden (b. 1910) on June 4 in Los Angeles, Calif. English "The Pied Piper" singer Crispian St. Peters (b. 1939) on June 8. Am. "Big Bad John" singer-actor-sausage king Jimmy Dean (b. 1928) on June 13 in Varina, Va. Soviet cosmonaut Leonid Denisovich Kizim (b. 1941) on June 14. Am. jazz musician Bill Dixon (b. 1925) on June 16. Portuguese novelist Jose Saramago (b. 1922) on June 18 in Tias, Las Palmas, Spain; 1998 Nobel Lit. Prize. Sudanese basketball player Manute Bol (b. 1962) on June 19 in Charlottesville, Va. (kidney failure). Norway-born Am. sociologist Elise Boulding (b. 1920) on June 24. Am. Tex. gov. #41 (1973-9) Dolph Briscoe Jr. (b. 1923) on June 27 in Uvalde, Tex. U.S. Sen. (D-W. Va.) (1959-2010) Robert Byrd (b. 1917) on June 28 in Falls Church, Va. Egyptian liberal Muslim theologian Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (b. 1943) on July 5 in Cairo. Am. New York Yankees announcer (1951-2007) Bob Sheppard (b. 1910) on July 11 in Baldwin, N.Y. Am. "The Fugs" co-founder Tuli Kupferberg (b. 1923) on July 12 in New York City (kidney failure): "Nobody who lived through the '50s thought the '60s could've existed. So there's always hope." Am. "American Splendor" comic book writer Harvey Pekar (b. 1939) on July 12 in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Am. New York Yankees owner. George Steinbrenner (b. 1930) on July 13 in Tampa, Fla. (heart attack). U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia (1973-6) James Elmer Akins (b. 1926) on July 15 in Mitchelville, Md. (heart attack). Am. "Make the World Go Away' country singer-songwriter Hank Cochran (b. 1935) on July 15 in Nashville, Tenn. Am. musician Fred Carter Jr. (b. 1933) on July 17 in Nashville, Tenn. (stroke). Am. climate scientist Stephen Henry Schneider (b. 1945) on July 19 in London, England (pulmonary embolism). Am. TV journalist Daniel Schorr (b. 1916) on July 23 in Washington, D.C. Am. "Nero Wolfe" actor Maury Chaykin (b. 1949) on July 27 in Toronto, Ont. (heart prolblems). Am. football player Jack Tatum (b. 1948) on July 27 in Oakland, Calif. (heart attack). English-born Am. food writer Michael Batterberry (b. 1932) on July 28 in Manhattan, N.Y. (cancer); "not survived by Gourmet magazine, which ceased publication in November" (NYT). Am. "Sing Along with Mitch" bandleader Mitch Miller (b. 1911) on July 31 in New York City. Ugandan pres. #5 (1979-80) Godfrey Binaisa (b. 1920) on Aug. 5 in Kampala; at his death he is Uganda's only surviving former pres. British historian Tony R. Judt (b. 1948) on Aug. 6 in Manhattan, N.Y. (ALS). U.S. Sen. (R-Alaska) (1968-2009) Ted Stevens (b. 1923) on Aug. 9 in Aleknagik, Alaska (airplane crash). Am. "Hud" actress Patricia Neal (b. 1926) on Aug. 8 in Edgartown, Mass. U.S. Rep. (D-Ill.) (1959-95) Dan Rostenkowski (b. 1928) on Aug. 11 in Wisc. Am. economist Arnold Zellner (b. 1927) on Aug. 11. Am. TV journalist Edwin Newman (b. 1919) on Aug. 13 in Oxford, England (pneumonia). Am. "Penny in Sky King" actress Gloria Winters (b. 1931) on Aug. 14 in Vista, Calif. Am. conservative newspaper journalist James J. Kilpatrick (b. 1920) on Aug. 15 in Washington, D.c. (congestive heart failure). Italian PM #63 (1979-80) and pres. #8 (1985-92) Francesco Cossiga (b. 1928) on Aug. 17 in Rome. British WWII Pvt. Bill Millin (b. 1922) on Aug. 17 in Torbay. U.S. deputy secy. of state (1974-6) Robert Stephen Ingersoll (b. 1914) on Aug. 22 in Evanston, Ill. Am. singer Natalie Nevins (b. 1925) on Aug. 23 in Langhorne, Penn. Am. astronaut William Benjamin Lenoir (b. 1939) on Aug. 26 in Sandoval County, N.M. (head injuries from a bicycle accident). Am. "Bonnie Blue Butler in Gone With the Wind" actress Cammie King (b. 1934) on Sept. 1 in Ft. Bragg, Calif. (lung cancer). German spy Erich Gimpel (b. 1910) on Sept. 3 in Sao Paulo, Brazil. English writer Elizabeth Jenkins (b. 1905) on Sept. 5 in Hampstead, London. English "What's New Pussycat?" dir. Clive Donner (b. 1926) on Sept. 6 in London (Alzheimer's). German-born Am. TV mogul John Werner Kluge (b. 1914) on Sept. 7. Danish chess grandmaster Bent Larsen (b. 1935) on Sept. 9 in Buenos Aires, Argentina (cerebral hemorrhage from diabetes). Canadian "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" voice actress Billie Mae Richards (b. 1921) on Sept. 10 in Toronto, Ont. (stroke). English "The Dumarest Saga" novelist Edwin Charles Tubb (b. 1919) on Sept. 10 in London. Am. African-Am. scholar Ron Walters (b. 1938) on Sept. 10 in Bethesda, Md. (cancer). Am. "Martin Morgenstern in Rhoda" actor Harold Gould (b. 1923) on Sept. 10 in Woodland Hills, Calif. North Korean defector Hwang Jang-yop (b. 1923) on Oct. 10 in Seoul, South Korea. Am. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" actor Kevin McCarthy (b. 1914) on Sept. 11 in Hyannis, Mass. (pneumonia). Am. statistician Joseph Bernard Kruskal Jr. (b. 1928) on Sept. 19 in Princeton, N.J. Belgian U.N. asst. secy.-gen. Robert Muller (b. 1923) on Sept. 20. Am. singer Eddie Fisher (b. 1928) on Sept. 22 in Berkeley, Calif. (hip surgery). Am. "100-y.-o. Rose in Titanic" actress Gloria Stuart (b. 1910) on Sept. 26 in Brentwood, Calif. (lung cancer); oldest person to be nominated for an acting Oscar (until ?). Am. "Bonnie and Clyde" dir.-producer Arthur Hiller Penn (b. 1922) on Sept. 28 in New York City. French physicist Georges Charpak (b. 1924) on Sept. 29 in Paris; 1992 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. writer Eustace Mullins (b. 1923) on Feb. 2 in Hockley, Tex. Am. "Some Like It Hot" actor Tony Curtis (b. 1925) on Sept. 29 in Las Vegas, Nev. (heart attack); buried with a Stetson hat, Armani scarf, driving gloves, iPhone, model of a Trans-Am, and a copy of his favorite novel "Anthony Adverse", which inspired his stage name. Am. TV writer-producer Stephen J. Cannell (b. 1941) on Sept. 30 in Pasadena, Calif. (melanoma). Am. "The Scalphunters" screenwriter William W. "Bill" Norton (b. 1925) on Oct. 2 in Santa Barbara, Calif. South African-born Australian historian Rhys Llywelyn Isaac (b. 1937) on Oct. 6 in Blairgowrie, Victoria. Am. astronomer John Peter Huchra (b. 1948) on Oct. 8. Azeri-born Am. "The 12th Planet" writer Zecharia Sitchin (b. 1920) on Oct. 9 in New York City. Polish-born French-Am. mathematician ("Father of Fractal Geometry") Benoit B. Mandelbrot (b. 1924) on Oct. 14 in Cambridge, Mass. Am. "June Cleaver in Leave It to Beaver" actress Barbara Billingsley (b. 1915) on Oct. 16 in Santa Monica, Calif. Am. "Howard Cunningham in Happy Days" actor Tom Bosley (b. 1927) on Oct. 19 in Palm Springs, Calif. (lung cancer). Am. Penthouse mag. founder Bob Guccione (b. 1930) on Oct. 20 in Plano, Tex. Am. cartoonist Alex Anderson (b. 1920) on Oct. 22 in Carmel, Calif. (Alzheimer's). Am. folk singer Tom Winslow (b. 1940) on Oct. 23 in Albany, N.Y. Am. actress Lisa Blount (b. 1957) on Oct. 27 in Little Rock, Ark. Israeli archeologist Ehud Netzer (b. 1934) on Oct. 28 in Jerusalem. Am. basketball player Maurice Lucas (b. 1952) on Oct. 31 in Tigard, Ore. Am. JFK adviser Ted Sorensen (b. 1928) on Oct. 31: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Russian conductor-violinist Rudolf Barshai (b. 1924) on Nov. 2 in Basel, Switzerland. Am. publicist Ronni Chasen (b. 1946) on Nov. 16 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (murdered in her car near Whitter Dr. and Sunset Blvd.). Am. Libertarian Party founder David Fraser Nolan (b. 1943) on Nov. 20 in Tucson, Ariz. (stroke while driving). Am. anthropologist Covington Scott Littleton (b. 1933) on Nov. 25 in Pasadena, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. physicist Samuel Theodore Cohen (b. 1921) on Nov. 28 in Brentwood, Calif. (stomach cancer). Am. "The Naked Gun" actor Leslie Nielsen (b. 1926) on Nov. 28 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (pneumonia). U.S. Rep. (D-N.Y. (1975-93) Stephen Joshua Solarz (b. 1940) on Nov. 29 in Washington, D.C. (esophageal cancer). Am. baseball player Ron Santo (b. 1940) on Dec. 2 in Ariz. (diabetes). Am. "Turn out the lights!" NFL sportscaster Don Meredith (b. 1938) on Dec. 5 in Santa Fe, N.M. Am. atty. Elizabeth Edwards (b. 1949) on Dec. 7 in Chapel Hill, N.C. (cancer). Am. "Burke's Law" actor Gene Barry (b. 1919) on Dec. 9 in Woodland Hills, Calif. Am. philanthropist-murderer John du Pont (b. 1938) on Dec. 9 in Laurel Highlands, Penn. (COPD); dies in prison. Am. chemist John Bennett Fenn (b. 1917) on Dec. 10 in Richmond, Va.; 2002 Nobel Chem. Prize. Turkish-born Armenian-Am. filmmaker J. Michael Hagopian (b. 1913) on Dec. 10 in Thousand Oaks, Calif.; spent 40 years gathering evidence on the Armenian Genocide by Turkey. Am. diplomat Richard Holbrooke (b. 1941) on Dec. 13 in Washington, D.C. (torn aorta); last words: "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan." Am. "The Pink Panther", "Breakfast at Tiffany's" dir. Blake Edwards (b. 1922) on Dec. 15 in Santa Monica, Calif. (pneumonia). Am. baseball pitcher Bob Feller (b. 1918) on Dec. 15 in Cleveland, Ohio (pneumonia). Am. "Arthur P. Dietrich in Barney Miller" actor Steve Landesberg (b. 1945) on Dec. 17 (cancer): "Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense." Am. musician Capt. Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) (b. 1941) on Dec. 17 in Glendale, Calif. (multiple sclerosis). French scholar Jacqueline de Romilly (b. 1913) on Dec. 18 in Boulogne-Billancourt. English journalist Anthony Howard (b. 1934) on Dec. 19 in London (ruptured aneurysm). Italian soccer player-mgr. Enzo Bearzot (b. 1927) on Dec. 21 in Milan. Am. "The Lone Ranger" radio-TV announcer Fred Foy (b. 1921) on Dec. 22 in Woburn, Mass. Venezuelan pres. (1974-9, 1989-93) Carlos Andres Perez (b. 1922) on Dec. 25 in Miami, Fla. Am. nuclear scientist Albert Ghiroso (b. 1915) on Dec. 26 in Berkeley, Calif. Am. R&B singer Teena Marie (b. 1956) on Dec. 26.
2011
Chinese Year: Cat (Rabbit) (Feb. 3).
This is the U.N. Internat. Year of Forests.
World pop: 7B on Oct. 31 (U.N.) or next Mar. 12 (U.S. Census Bureau),
1B new people since 1999; five babies are born each sec.
Time Mag. Person of the Year: The Protester (Dec. 14).
Babies
who are non-Hispanic white are the minority of new U.S. infants for the first time.
The Afghan drug war
begins failing as opium prices soar and the allies focus on the Taliban not opium farmers.
U.S. aid to the Middle East: Afghanistan: $3.9B, Pakistan: $3.1B, Israel: $3B, Egypt: $1.5B ($63B since 1948).
Renewable energy
overtakes nuclear energy in the U.S.; China uses more concrete in 2011-13 than the
U.S. did in the entire 20th cent.
The 2011 Tex. wildfire
sees 31,453 fires burning 4M acres, exacerbated by the 2010-13 Southern U.S. and Mexico Drought.
For the first time the Internet
overtakes newspapers as America's top choice for news.
China becomes #1 in patent application filings.
The Russian Navy launches an extensive rearmament program, incl. 20 new subs, 35 new corvettes,
15 frigates, and 100 new warships by 2020.
Mexico deports
46.7K immigrants from Central Am., almost half from Guatemala.
China passes the U.S. to become the world's largest smartphone market.
On Jan. 1 a half hour into the New Year an al-Mujahidin (al-Qaida affiliate) car bomb explodes outside the Saints Church Coptic Christian church in
Alexandria, Egypt, killing 23 and injuring 97 of 1K emerging from Mass, after which angry Christians clash
with Muslims on the streets, causing Egyptian pres. #4 (since Oct. 14, 1981) Muhammad Hosni Sayyid Mubarak (1928-2020)
to utter the soundbyte: "We will cut off the hands of terrorists and those plotting against Egypt's security", adding: "This terrorist act has shaken the conscience
of the nation. All Egypt was targeted, and terrorism does not distinguish between Copt and Muslim"; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu utters the soundbyte "All nations
which support freedom stand together in the war against terrorism", scheduling a meeting with Mubarak on Jan. 4; Pres. Obama surprises no one by
condemning
the attack while taking pains to point out that Muslims were injured in it too, meaning the attackers themselves maybe, since none but Christians were injured; witnesses
claim that Egyptian security guards withdrew an hour before the blast; on Jan. 3 the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
drops its opposition to a Coptic presidency, but not really?
On Jan. 1 Dem. N.Y. atty. gen. #64 Andew Mark Cuomo (1957), son of former N.Y. gov. #52 (1983-94) Mario Cuomo becomes N.Y. gov. #56 (until ?).
On Jan. 1 former Marxist guerrilla Dilma Vana Rousseff (1947-) becomes pres. #36 of Brazil (until Aug. 31, 2016), becoming the first woman.
On Jan. 1 a Russian Tu-154 passenger aircraft explodes in Surgut, Siberia
(1.35K mi. E of Moscow), killing three and injuring 43 of 128.
On Jan. 1 the 2011 Rose Bowl sees the 12-0 TCU Horned Frogs defeat the 11-1 Wisc. Badgers by 21-19.
On Jan. 1 Estonia adopts the euro.
On Jan. 1 three U.S. missile strikes in the Khyber
tribal region near the Afghan border kill 54 alleged militants during a meeting.
On Jan. 1 the biggest income tax increase in U.S. history takes effect, falling mostly on small business owners and high-income taxpayers, along
with a 60% capital gains tax increase from 15% to 23.8%, incl. new universal health care taxes, and an increase on taxes on dividends from 15% to 39.6%,
followed by another 3.5% in 2013; 18K new IRS agents are planned on being hired to help force compliance.
On Jan. 1 a Tenn. law requiring jailers to check the citizenship of new inmates to see if they're
in the U.S. illegally goes into effect.
On Jan. 2 (Sun.) a 7.1 earthquake strikes
S Chile.
On Jan. 2 Goldman Sachs invests $500M in Facebook
after valuing it at $50B - the Beast cometh, or just a great capitalist success story?
On Jan. 2 a Russian Orthodox church is set afire with a grenade in Muslim-majority
Ordzhonikidze in N Caucasus.
On Jan. 2 Pakistan's governing coalition splits as the
Muttahida
Qaumi Movement (MQM) leaves Pres. Asif Zardari's govt., leaving him 12 seats short of a majority in the 324-seat parliament and threatening the full-blown operations against Taliban
insurgents in NW Pakistan; on Jan. 7 it reverses its decision and rejoins.
On Jan. 3 former gov. #34 (1975-83) Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown (1938-)
becomes Dem. Calif. gov. #39 (until ?), going on to become the longest-serving Calif. gov. (until ?).
On Jan. 3 the 112th U.S. Congress convenes (until Jan. 3, 2013); the
Tea Party comes to power in the U.S. as several freshman legislators arrive in Washington, D.C.; the first time that women reps decline since 1978;
Eric Ivan Cantor (1963-) of Va. becomes House majority leader (until July 31, 2014), the highest-ranking Jewish member of Congress in history
(until ?).
On Jan. 3 after raunchy videos from 2006-7 surface, U.S. Navy Capt.
Owen Honors is temporarily relieved of duty as 2nd in command of the
aircraft carrier USS Enterprise - he's just keeping the tradition of Capt. Kirk alive?
On Jan. 3 Father Christmas (Dennis Jackson)
is banned from a children's nursery in Minn. after a Muslim family complains.
On Jan. 4 a partial solar eclipse is visible over Europe, the Arabian peninsula, North Africa and W Asia.
On Jan. 4 Iran announces the arrest of several suspected Christian missionaries in Tehran.
On Jan. 4 a study
by Kevin Brice of Swansea U. in Britain is pub., revealing that up to 100K Britons converted to Islam since 2001, with white women leading the charge.
On Jan. 4 Pres. Obama's Gallup approval rating rises back up to 50%.
On Jan. 5 Ohio Repub. rep. (1991-) John Andrew Boehner (1949-)
is elected speaker #53 of the House by 241 votes (vs. 173 for Nancy Pelosi), uttering the soundbyte: "It's still just me".
On Jan. 5 the World Bank issues its first Chinese yuan bonds in Hong Kong.
On Jan. 5 a gang of 15-y.-o. teenies shoot it out with police in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
On Jan. 5 six Hamas members are released from a Palestinian Authority prison in Hebron, after which the IDF arrests them; on Jan. 8 the PA
announces that is has been holding Hamas members prisoner to prevent Israel from capturing them.
On Jan. 5 former U.S. atty.-gen. Ramsey Clark
(known for being on Saddam Hussein's legal defense team) visits Hamas in Gaza in a solidarity mission.
On Jan. 5 U.S. defense secy. Robert Gates
announces
that the Pentagon will cut spending by $78B over the next five years, the first military spending freeze since 9/11.
On Jan. 6 Pres. Obama selects former Clinton admin. commerce secy. William Daley (brother of mayor Richard J. Daley) (an exec at
J.P. Morgan Chase) as his new White House chief of staff, replacing Robert Gibbs, who announced his resignation on Jan. 5.
On Jan. 6 (12:30, 12:45) two packages addressed to Md. gov. Martin O'Malley blow up inside two govt. office bldgs. in
Md.; one has a message indicating anger at the
govt.'s terror warnings; on Jan. 7 another package addressed to
Janet Napolitano ignites in a Washington, D.C. postal facility.
On Jan. 6 Moroccan analyst Mohamed Darif
says that al-Qaida is plotting revenge on Morocco for supporting U.S. efforts against Islamic terror after 9/11 king Mohammed VI pledged support for Bush's war on terror.
On Jan. 6 (first day of session) the Repub.-dominated U.S. House of Reps
reads the Constitution on the floor for the first time in history;
a screaming Birther interrupts the reading and is ejected.
On Jan. 6 two young Pakistani men are arrested in Nottingham for a series of rapes and sexual assaults on vulnerable white girls picked up on the streets; on Jan. 9
ex-British Labor justice secy. Jack Straw
accuses young Pakistani immigrants of viewing vulnerable white girls as "easy meat" for sexual abuse, causing a PC backlash.
On Jan. 6 a Gallup Poll
shows that only 31% of Americans identify themselves as Dem., the lowest in 22 years.
On Jan. 6 Iranian nuclear chief vice-pres. Ali Akbar Salehi
announces that Iran has 40kg of 20%-enriched uranium, up from 30kg in Oct.
On Jan. 6 senior Hamas leader
Mahmud Zahar
accuses Israel of "countless holocausts" against the Palestinians, while claiming that the Nazi genocide of the Jews was a "lie".
On Jan. 7 a predawn raid by Israeli troops in
Hebron
results in a 65-y.-o. Palestinian man being mistakenly shot and killed in his bed,
causing street demonstrations; they thought he was wanted militant Wael Mahmoud Said Bitar.
On Jan. 7 a suicide bomber in a public bathhouse in
Spin Boldak
in S Afghanistan on the Pakistani border kills 17 and wounds 20+ washing for weekly prayers.
On Jan. 7 Pres. Obama
reiterates strong support for U.S. civilian trials of Gitmo jihadists, vowing to overturn language in a new
defense bill that blocks them.
On Jan. 7 al-Qaida attacks Yemeni troops near
Lawadar
in S Yemen, killing 10 and injuring six.
On Jan. 7 hundreds of protesters in Kabul
accuse Iran of stopping fuel tanks from crossing the border into Afghanistan.
On Jan. 7 illegal immigration hardliner Steve King (R-Iowa) is passed over as chmn. of the House immigration subcommittee for Calif. Repub.
Elton Gallegly.
On Jan. 7 Germany orders the closure
of 4.7K farms after finding dioxin in animal feed.
On Jan. 7 Italian RAI public broadcasting employee Nello Rega is fired on by
a suspected radical Muslim in S Italy, causing the dir. to call for the govt. to protect him.
On Jan. 7 Amen Ahmed Ali of Bakersfield, Calif.
is sentenced to five years in federal prison for spying for Yemen.
On Jan. 7 Al-Shabaab mlitants murder 60-y.-o.
Mohamed Muhumed (1950-)
in Hamey village for refusing to pay his yearly 5-camel jizya tax for infidels.
On Jan. 7 Israeli intel chief Meir Dagan
revises previous estimates and says that Iran can't acquire a nuke before 2015.
On Jan. 7 Taliban leader Mullah Omar has a heart attack,
and is treated in a Karachi hospital for several days with the help of Pakistan's spy agency.
On Jan. 8 (Sat.) U.S. Rep. (D-Ariz.) (2007-) Gabrielle Dee "Gabby" Giffords (1970-),
first Jewish congresswoman from Ariz. is shot in the head during a public event in Tucson, Ariz. outside a Safeway store by er, lone gunman
Jared Lee Loughner (1988-),
a mixed-up white leftist-rightist pothead whose favorite books are the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf, and is against the abandonment of the gold standard;
he is captured; six others are killed, incl. federal judge (since Nov. 25, 1991) John McCarthy Roll (b. 1947)
and 9-y.-o. Christina-Taylor Green; 13 are injured; on Dec. 6 Gifford read the First Amendment to the House;
Gifford's last Tweet said "My 1st Congress on Your Corner starts now. Please stop by to let me know what is on your mind or tweet me later"; the leftist PC media knee-jerks
by blaming the Tea Party and/or Sarah Palin for the shooting, causing her on Jan. 11 to release a
video
calling the politicization of the shooting a "reprehensible... blood libel"; 20-y.-o. gay political intern
Daniel Hernandez (1990-)
becomes a hero for helping save Giffords by applying pressure to her wounds; on Jan. 10 U.S. secy. of state
Hillary Clinton
gives a townhall interview in Abu Dhabi, and comments that Gifford's shooter is like Islamic extremists in other countries, pissing them off and causing her to flop; on
Jan. 12 Pres. Obama delivers a eulogy
before an overflow crowd at Ariz. Stadium at the U. of Ariz., with the soundbytes:
"Gabby opened her eyes for the first time", and "The hopes of a nation are here tonight. We mourn with you for the fallen"; after dissing leftist comments that the shooter was
motivated by rightist politics, he calls on the country to start "talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds"; the speech is his biggest hit ever, causing his
popularity rating
to go positive for the 1st time since last May 18; N.Y. Dem. Rep.
Carolyn McCarthy
uses the shooting as an excuse for introducing legislation prohibiting high-capacity gun magazines; on Jan. 15 shooting victim
James Eric Fuller
is arrested at a town hall meeting for shouting "You're dead" to Tea Party spokesman Trent Humphries, and is committed for psychiatric evaluation.
On Jan. 8 Shiite Iraqi cleric Moktada al-Sadr
celebrates his return after three years of voluntary exile in Iran with a speech in Najaf in support of the U.S.-supported Iraq govt. while calling for U.S. troops
to leave; too bad, he makes his support of the govt. conditional on its effectiveness.
On Jan. 8 Mexican police find 14 decapitated bodies and one with a head outside a shopping center in
Acapulco.
On Jan. 8 rioting in Nigeria around
Jos
kills 11; on Jan. 9 jihadis storm a bar and kill seven.
On Jan. 8 Islamist insurgents
ban
unrelated men and women from shaking hands, speaking, or walking together.
On Jan. 9 a referendum in
Southern Sudan
on independence from the Arab Muslim north has a large turnout despite threats by Islamic militants, who on
Jan. 10 kill 30 in
Abyei,
then on Jan. 11 ambush and kill 10;
no surprise, there is a 99% vote for secession.
On Jan. 9 (5:00 a.m.) there is a "small explosion" at the
Tunisian consulate
in a suburb of Paris.
On Jan. 9 50K march in
Karachi, Pakistan
in support of blasphemy laws and in support of Mumtaz Qadri, the assassin of Punjab gov. Salman Taseer; on
Jan. 10 Pope Benedict XIV
calls
on Pakistan to repeal its blasphemy laws, saying that they serve as a pretext for acts of injustice and violence
against religious minorities, and calling on Middle East govts. to do more to protect Christian minorities,
causing Egypt to recall
its ambassador to the Vatican for "unacceptable interference"; meanwhile on Jan. 11 Pakistan jails Muslim imam
Mohammed Shafi
(1965-) and his 20-y.-o. son Mohammad Aslan (1990-) for life for damaging a poster
containing verses from the Quran as part of a rivalry between the Deobandia and Barelvi sects.
On Jan. 9 a
vulture
tagged by Israeli scientists flies into Saudi Arabia, where it is arresting for being a Mossad spy; it is later
cleared
and released.
On Jan. 9 suspected al-Qaida militants kill two Frenchmen in
Niger,
causing France to warn that the African Sahel region is no longer safe for its citizens.
On Jan. 9 an
Iran Air jet
(Boeing 727) en route from Tehran to Orumiyeh crashes near Orumiyeh in NW Iran (460 mi.
NW of Tehran), killing 77 and injuring 27 of 104 passengers and crew.
On Jan. 9 (Sun.) the animated sitcom
Bob's Burgers
debuts on Fox Network for ? episodes (until ?), about the Belcher family, incl. Bob and Linda, and
their children Tina, Gene, and Louise, who run a hamburger restaurant on Ocean Ave. in Seymour's Bay, N.J.
near Wonder Wharf Amusement Park, and compete with Jimmy Pesto's Pizzeria.
On Jan. 10 Turkish pres. Abdullah Gul stages a historic visit to
Yemen
to establish relations, followed on Jan. 11 by U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton.
On Jan. 10 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden makes an unannounced trip to Kabul
to discuss Obama admin. strategy, saying
that U.S. troops will stay beyond 2014 if the Afghans want them to.
On Jan. 10 Warrensburg, Mo.-born Repub. Mary Fallin (1954-)
becomes Okla. gov. #27 (until ?), going on to push for increased use of lethal injection in executions, convene a task force to reform the state criminal justice
system, unsuccessfully support the Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Okla. State Capitol, seek to expand sales tax and eliminate state income tax,
order Nat. Guard facilities to deny spousal benefits to same-sex couples, refuse to comply with EPA regs to combat climate change, sign a law in Apr. 2014 prohibiting
Okla. cities from establishing min. wage and sick leave reqts., along with another law in May 2015 prohibiting local govt. from enacting local bans on oil and gas drilling,
sign a law in Apr. 15 expanding charter schools statewide, and sign 20 anti-abortion laws while vetoing a 2016 bill making it a felony to perform an abortion.
On Jan. 11 (1 p.m.) the Sun rises over
Greenland
two days earlier than expected, baffling scientists.
On Jan. 11 prominent Iranian human rights atty.
Nasrin Sotoudeh,
who was arrested Sept. 4 is convicted of security crimes and sentenced
to 11 years in prison.
On Jan. 11 Japan
promises to buy EU bonds to help with its debt crisis; meanwhile Portugal says it doesn't need outside help.
On Jan. 11 a 71-y.-o. Christian Coptic man is shot and killed by an Allahu-Akbar-shouting Muslim policeman on a train in
Upper Egypt,
who wounds five more Copts, causing a clash with protesters at the hospital.
On Jan. 11 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls for a "credible
military option against Iran" to force it to end its nuclear energy program, saying it should be an internat. effort headed by the U.S.
On Jan. 11 after U.S. interior secy. Ken Salazar endorses him, Dem. Denver, Colo. mayor #41 (since July 21, 2003)
John Wright Hickenlooper Jr. (1952-)
becomes Colo. gov. #42 (until ?), waiting in the wings to succeed Pres. Obama.
On Jan. 11-13 floods in Southern Queensland.
On Jan. 12 the Nov. 2009 Lebanese govt. falls, and on June 13 Muslim billionaire
Najib Mikati (Miqati) (1955-)
becomes PM of Lebanon (until ?) after uttering the soundbyte that his govt. will go to work "liberating land that remains under the occupation of the Israeli enemy."
On Jan. 12 after John Hickenlooper resigns to become Colo. gov., Camaguey, Cuba-born Dem. deputy mayor
Guillermo "Bill" Vidal (1951-)
becomes mayor #44 of Denver, Colo. (until July 18).
On Jan. 12 Saudi Arabia
enacts new regs for bloggers, requiring them to obtain licenses and promote Islam.
On Jan. 12 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden
meets with leaders of Pakistan, and says that extremists and militants inside the country are violating its sovereignty, not the U.S.
On Jan. 12 U.S. House Repubs. vote to repeal Obamacare.
On Jan. 12 Hezbollah abruptly withdraws from the Lebanese cabinet, forcing the collapse of the govt. of PM
Saad Hariri just moments after he finishes a meeting with Pres. Obama; on Jan. 17 the
first indictment
in the assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri is filed by a U.N. tribunal, but it is sealed.
On Jan. 12 continued deadly protests in Tunisia
kill 10, causing the U.N. to call for a probe into the police; on Jan. 13 Tunisian army CIC Gen.
Rachid Ammar (1947-), splits with dictator
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
and refuses to shoot protesters; on Jan. 14 Ben Ali flees to Saudi Arabia after an army coup, and the foreign minister takes power; some of Ben Ali's
relatives take refuge in the Disneyland Hotel
in Paris; on Jan. 16 Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad
holds a security meeting over concerns of a copycat uprising; on Jan. 17 amid protests Tunisia
announces
a new govt. that is open to opposition parties; on Jan. 26 Tunisia issues an
internat. arrest warrant
for Ben Ali and six relatives for taking money out of the country illegally; on Feb. 13 Italy
intercepts
1K Tunisian illegal immigrants and announces a plan to deploy more security forces; on Mar. 7
Beji Caid el Sebsi
heads the 3rd govt. since Ben Ali's overthrow; in June Ben Ali is convicted
in absentia along with his wife for embezzlement, and sentenced to 35 years in prison and fined $64M; on July 4 Ben Ali is convicted of smuggling and
sentenced to 15 years and fined $72K.
On Jan. 12 the Mexican govt. announces
that 34,612 people have died in the Mexican drug war since pres. Felipe Calderon
launched it four years earlier.
On Jan. 12 a Muslim mob in
Pakistan beats
and humiliates two Christian women over alleged blasphemy, causing them to go
into hiding with their families.
On Jan. 13 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton
tells
Arab leaders in Doha, Qatar that unless they enact political and economic reforms and deal with
other problems like depleting oil and water reserves, they will face consequences incl. radical
extremist rebellion; meanwhile Turkish PM Tayyep Recep Erdogan
calls
the Israeli govt. of PM Benjamin Netanyahu the worst in the history of Israel, and urges the Israeli
public to "get rid" of him, denying that Hamas is a terrorist org.
On Jan. 13 Danish Muslim-to-Christian convert
Massoud Fouroozandeh
is caught with Christian crosses hanging inside his family cars in Odense, causing angry Muslims
to smash them and him to flee with his family.
On Jan. 13 the
Am. Heart Assoc.
issues a call to the public to reduce salt consumption to a max of 1.5g a day.
On Jan. 14 U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano
cancels
the $1B virtual border fence with Mexico after only 53 mi. are finished.
On Jan. 14 Afghan education minister Farooq Wardak
announces
that the Taliban is no longer opposed to female education, and is putting away the face acid.
On Jan. 14 12 al-Qaida militants walk out of a prison in
Basra, Iraq
dressed in police uniforms.
On Jan. 14 a shootout with gang members in Veracruz kills 14; on Jan. 15 Mexico police cmdr.
Raul Espinoza
and his bodyguard are abducted while on patrol in the port city of Boca del Rio, Veracruz.
On Jan. 14 Al-Shabaab militants arrest Muslim father
Mo'alim Mohamud Aw-Omar
in Kismayo, Somalia after two of his teenage sons convert to Christianity.
On Jan. 14 (night) a pilgrim stampede in
Kerala, India
kills 100+ and injures 25.
On Jan. 15 a Muslim jihadists smuggles live bullets into a training exercise in
Mosul, Iraq,
and kills two U.S. soldiers; meanwhile a group of jihadists enter the
Rabi'a Hospital
in Mosul and shoot and seriously wound a Christian doctor.
On Jan. 16
Jean-Claude
"Baby Doc" Duvalier returns to Haiti after 24 years (1986); on Jan. 18 he is arrested
in Port-au-Prince.
On Jan. 17 Israeli defense minister
Ehud
Barak abruptly announces that he's leaving the Labor Party to form his own political
block called Atzmaut (Heb. "independence").
On Jan. 17 Pakistani Sunni jihadists explode a minibus full of Shiites in
Hangu
in NW Pakistan, killing 17 and injuring 11.
On Jan. 17 restaurant owner
Abdo
Abdelmoneim sets himself on fire outside the Cairo parliament because he can't afford to
buy bread in a copycat of the event that sparked the Tunisian revolt. causing Islamic scholars at
Al-Azhar U.
to declare that self-immolation is forbidden under Islamic law.
On Jan. 18 the FCC by 4-1 approves a merger between Comcast and NBC Universal.
On Jan. 18 a suicide bomber in the Sunni town of Tikrit, Iraq
N of Baghdad blows up in a crowd of aspiring police recruits, killing 50+ and wounding 150.
On Jan. 18 34 religious and political leaders in Mauritania
sign a fatwa banning female genital mutilation (FGM).
On Jan. 18 the Central Bank of Ireland prints its own notes, dumping the Euro.
On Jan. 18 an Ariz.-style immigration status check law passes in
Miss.
On Jan. 18 a radio-controlled pipe bomb is found in a backpack along the Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade route in
Spokane, Wash. minutes before the parade is scheduled to start.
On Jan. 18-19 Chinese pres. Hu Jintao
visits the White House; on Jan. 20 he holds closed-doormeetings
with Congressional leaders, who jawbone him about human rights abuses.
On Jan. 19 a 7.2 earthquake hits Baluchistan Province, Pakistan.
On Jan. 19 the Repub.-controlled U.S. House votes 245-189 to repeal the Obama health care law of 2010; on Feb. 2 the U.S. Senate votes 81-17 to scrap the 1099 reporting requirement,
then by 47-51 the Dems. unanimously defeat a Repub. attempt to repeal the health care law.
On Jan. 19 Andrew Ryan (1979-) of Summerhill, Carlisle, England is
arrested for burning a copy of the Quran in front of a monument, after which the judge sentences him to 80 days for "theatrical bigotry", and because he stole the book from a library.
On Jan. 20 Tunisian Liberation Party leader Osman Bakach
utters the soundbyte "Muslims are fed up with these dictatorial regimes and we will not stop until Islam and only Islam is back in power."
On Jan. 20 the Largest Roundup in FBI History
arrests 127 worldwide incl. 30 made men from seven crime families; they are held on an army base.
On Jan. 20 Birmingham imam Shaykh Asrar Rashid
tells Muslims not to fight in the British armed forces due to their presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and calls Queen Elizabeth II a "disgusting woman" for knighting writer Salman Rushdie.
On Jan. 21 the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
threatens to foment a Tunisian-style uprising in Egypt if its demands for political reform aren't met; meanwhile retired U.S. Gen.
Stanley McChrystal
denies that he is part of a religious order waging war on Islam as claimed by journalist Seymour Hersh, who names Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta.
On Jan. 21 anti-govt. clases outside the PM's office in Tirana, Albania
kills three and injure dozens.
On Jan. 22 a mass demonstration is held in
Algeria
against the govt. of pres. Abdelaziz Bouteflika;
George Soros funds opposition groups
and lobbies for Bouteflika to incl. Islamist political parties in his govt. incl.
those linked to al-Qaida incl. GSPC, Houmat Daawa Salafia (HDS), and the Salafist Group
for Preaching and Combat.
On Jan. 22 Irish PM Brian Cowen resigns as leader of the Fianna Fail Party,
but vows to stay PM until the Mar. 11 election.
On Jan. 24 Pres. Obama appoints former Rhodes College prof. Quintan Wiktorowicz
to the Nat. Security Council; his research found that the most religious Muslims are least susceptible to radicalization.
On Jan. 24 a Hezbollah-backed PM Najib Miqati
takes office in Lebanon, causing angry protests as the Shiites gain mo' powah.
On Jan. 24 U.S. Border Patrol catches
Mexican drug smugglers using a Medieval-style catapault to launch drug packages over the U.S.-Mexico border fence.
On Jan. 24 (4:32 p.m.) a Muslim terrorist suicide bomber at the Domodedovo Airport
in Moscow sets of a device with the equivalent of 15 lbs. of TNT in a crowded internat. arrival zone, killing 35 and wounding 160+; the bomber is
Magomed Yevlovyev (1990-); the initial suspect is Russian Muslim convert
Vitaly Razdobudko, who works for Chechen leader Doku Umarov; imam
Abdullah Stepanenko,
who converted him was convicted of holding a man captive in 2006 and was found with Wahhabist lit. and a manual on explosives in his home; Russian media link the attack to the computer game
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.
On Jan. 24 gunmen open fire at a soccer game in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,
killing seven and wounding two.
On Jan. 24 machete-wilding Islamic attackers kill six in two Christian villages in
C Nigeria,
in retaliation for a New Year's attack on a van full of Muslims that killed eight.
On Jan. 25 (Egyptian Nat. Police Day) the 2011 Egyptian (Papyrus) Rev.
in Tahrir (Liberation) Square in Cairo
begins with Tunisian-copycat violent demonstrations against the govt. of Egyptian pres. #4 (since Oct. 14, 1981)
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak (1928-),
sparked by a video blog by activist Asmaa Mahfouz (1985-);
they are followed by calls for a 2-day nat. strike; Coptic pope Shenouda III
orders
Copts to not participate for fear of a Muslim Brotherhood takeover; on Jan. 25 Mubarak's son and heir
Gamal Mubarak
flees to Britain with his family; on Jan. 26 IAEA dir.-gen. (1997-2009) (mistruster of the U.S., accused of pro-Iranian ties) (Gandhi lookalike?)
Mohamed ElBaradei (1942-) returns to Egypt, expecting to lead the protesters; on Jan. 27 the
Egyptian stock exchange plunges 6.25% in 15 min., causing trading to halt
and the Egyptian govt. to cut off Internet access
(first time in Internet history?) (restored on Feb. 2); on Jan. 27-28 U.S. homeland security secy. Janet Napolitano secretly
meets
with Muslim, Arab, and Sikh "community leaders, incl. three orgs. associated with the Muslim Brotherhood; on Jan. 28 after several vehicles are
stolen
from the locked-down U.S. embassy in Cairo and used to run people over, fanning riots, the Egyptian military
deploys
in Cairo under curfew, killing Egyptian protester Sally Zahran (b. 1987-),
causing NASA to name a spaceship after her; police use U.S.-made tear gas canisters;
after police use rubber bullets and pellet guns on the protesters, 3.8K suffer
serious eye injuries, and 1.5K lose one eye; on Jan. 28 Mubarak
dismisses his govt., then names a new one on Jan. 29, causing
U.S. stocks
to take a dip on Jan. 28; on Jan. 29 mobs ignore
curfew and set fire to Mubarak's ruling party HQ and state security bldgs., confronting the military, with a
Tiananmen Square deja vu moment;
Mubarak's wife Suzanne and sons Alaa and Gamal flee to London, while Israel severs
diplomatic relations and flies out 200 members of Israeli diplomatic families, and several Arab nations
do ditto; on Jan. 29 (Day 5) after giving the order for police to fire on crowds, only to see troops switch sides to the protesters, Mubarak appoints his first-ever pres. and successor,
intel head Gen. Omar Mahmoud Suleiman (1936-2012)
(known for orchestrating the brutal interrogation of terror suspects abducted by the CIA, then passing intel info. to the U.S.)
after passing over his groomed son Gamal Mubarak, sacking Egyptian PM #4 (since July 14, 2004) Ahmad Nazif (1952) in favor of
Ahmed Mohamed Shafik Zaki (1941-), who becomes Egyptian PM #49 (until Mar. 3),
while IAEA dir. gen. Mohamed ElBaradai announces that "the state of Egypt is in a state of collapse", calling upon the Egyptian army
"to take the side of the people" and for Mubarak to step down; on Jan. 29 an escape attempt at
Abu Zaabal Prison
in Cairo results in eight killed and 123 wounded; on Jan. 29 an assassination attempt
is made on Omar Suleiman, killing two bodyguards; on Jan. 28 White House press secy.
Robert Gibbs
calls for Egypt to turn the Internet and social media back on, after which
Chip Reid
of CBS asks him "why is the president not standing where you're standing right now?", after which Pres. Obama
speaks
from the White House State dining room, revelaing that he spoke with Mubarak and told him that "he has a responsibility to give meaning" to the words of his recent speech, and calling on the
Egyptian govt. to "refrain from any violence on peaceful protesters"; on Jan. 28 Iranian Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami says that
the U.S. dream of creating a new Middle East it dominates isn't coming true, and that a new Middle East based on Islamic principles is taking shape; on Jan. 28 after looters break into the
King Tutankhamen
collection and destroy two Pharonic mummies, the Egyptian army storms the
Egyptian Nat. Museum
at Tahrir Square in Cairo to protect it from looters, after which students form a
human chain
to help them as the army starts disappearing and anarchy reigns; on Jan. 28 leading Egyptian Islamic scholar Saeed Amer of Al Azhar
says that protests that cause violence are forbidden (haram) in Islam; on Jan. 29 the Egyptian army
surrounds
the U.S. and U.K. embassies to prevent a repeat of 1979 Iran?; on Jan. 29 Saudi king
Abdullah
slams Egyptian protesters as "infiltrators", and says Mubarak "reassured" him about the situation, then begins opening his checkbook and
spending $130B in his own country to forestall any Egypt-style revolt; on
Jan. 30 the U.S. tells
its citizens to leave Egypt as soon as possible, while the Egyptian govt. pulls the license for Al Jazeera Network,
which had been broadcasting the protests lives on the Internet; on Jan. 30 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton calls
for the Egyptian govt. to conduct elections, while protesters in
Alexandria
begin shouting anti-U.S. and anti-Israel slogans, and armed gunmen from
Hamas
cross from Gaza into N Sinai to attack and push back Egyptian forces on orders of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in order to open a new front against the Mubarak regime,
causing Hamas to close the Rafah border crossing after Egyptian guards flee their posts; on Jan. 31
Cairo Airport
is jammed with foreigners trying to escape, while Hillary Clinton convenes an unprecedented
mass meeting
of U.S. ambassadors from nearly all of its 260 embassies and other posts in 180 countries; on Jan. 31 Mubarak swears in a
new cabinet, while Hamas shoots Grad rockets from Gaza to the S Israeli cities of
Ofakim and Netivot,
and a Qasam rocket to Eshkol, and Israeli security officials report
that "something big" was smuggled from Egypt into the Gaza Strip; on Jan. 31 former U.S. ambassador to Egypt Frank Wisner holds a
secret meeting
in Cairo with senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Issam El-Erian; on Feb. 1 White House press secy.
announces
that the new Egyptian govt. must incl. a "whole host of important non-secular actors", becoming the first time that the U.S. govt. supports granting a govt. role to
the Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to exterminate Israel, and calls for a referendum on the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty;
meanwhile the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
waits in the wings for a possible Islamist takeover, with leader Mohamed Ghanem calling on Egypt to stop pumping gas to Israel and prepare for a war with it;
polls show that only 27% of Egyptians support modernizers, while 59% support Islamists
incl. Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, causing commentators to
conclude
that Egyptians want Mubarak ousted because of his non-belligerent stance toward Israel and U.S. ties; on Feb. 1 Pres. Obama's envoy
Frank Wisner
suggest to Mubarak not to run for reelection, which he accepts, insisting on stay in power until Sept. elections, while U.S. ambassador
Margaret Scobey
talks with Mohamed ElBaradei; Pres. Obama gives a news conference, calling for an "orderly transition" which "must begin now", saying that Mubarak "recognizes that the status quo
is not sustainable and that a change must take place"; too bad, the protesters want Mubarak out immediately, and vow to stay in the streets until he goes; on Feb. 2 (Bloody Wed.)
Mubarak and anti-Mubarak forces clash
in Tahrir Square, with anti-Mubarak protesters claiming that some of
the opposition protesters are security personnel dressed in civilian clothing, while
others
ride camels
and horses and are armed with clubs, injuring 1.5K and killing three; CNN's
Anderson Cooper
gets caught in the middle of the protesters and punched 10x; four Israeli journalists are
arrested
in Cairo; on Feb. 2 ElBaradei orders
Mubarak to leave Egypt by Feb. 5 (Fri.) or he'll be a "dead man walking", to which Mubarak replies "This dear country is my country... and I will die on its land"; on Feb. 2
Iranian spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast claims that the
U.S. is trying "to prevent the tremendous movement of Egypt's magnanimous nation", calling the dispatch of Frank Wisner part of a scheme aimed at "devising deviatory plots"; on
Feb. 3 ("Day of Departure") anti-govt. protesters take over the Oct. 6 Bridge,
while chaos grips Cairo, causing the army to move in and the U.S. to recall
envoy Frank Wisner, while Omar Suleiman invites
the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to a nat. dialog, and the U.S. Senate unanimously approves a
resolution calling on
Mubarak to create a caretaker govt. but not step down; on Feb. 3 former Israeli cabinet minister
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer
says that the U.S. doesn't realize the catastrophe they're pushing the Middle East into because Mubarak kept the peace with Israel; on Feb. 3 Mubarak grants an
exclusive interview
with ABC-TV's Christiane Amanpour, telling her that he'd like to resign but can't because the country would plunge into chaos; on Feb. 4 (Departure Fri.) while
journalists
are being rounded up, beaten, and threatened, Pres. Obama gives a press conference on Egypt,
saying that the "entire world is watching", that the U.S. can't decide Egypt's fate, that "suppression is not going to work", and Mubarak "cares about his country - he is proud,
but he's also a patriot", and should be asking himself "How do I leave a legacy behind in which Egypt is able to get through this transformative period... and my hope is that he will end up
making the right decision"; on Feb. 5 (a.m.) masked men attack the Israeli-Egyptian gas pipeline in
El-Arish, Egypt in N Sinai,
causing Israel to deploy military forces to demilitarized Sinai, and more on Feb. 16; on Feb. 5 Mubarak
meets
with his economic ministers in the hopes that curing the unemployment and food price problems might save him; on Feb. 5
France announces that it
has suspended sales of arms and riot equipment to Egypt; on Feb. 6 Suleiman forms a
constitutional reform committee
with opposition groups incl. the liberal Wafd Party, the leftist Tagammu Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood, and agrees to end the 30-y.-o. emergency law, permit press
freedom, and release those detained during the protests, with Hillary Clinton saying "Today we learned the Muslim Brotherhood decided to participate, which suggest they at
least are now involved in the dialogue that we have encouraged", saying she would "wait and see"; meanwhile Mohamed ElBaradei
slams
the talks because he wasn't invited, and says they lack credibility; on Feb. 6 Jordanian prince
El-Hassan bin Talaal urges that the Muslim Brotherhood not be excluded from a future Egyptian govt.; on Feb. 7
Human Rights Watch announces that 297 were killed during the protests; on
Feb. 8 new crowds
in Tahrir Square celebrating the release of Wael Ghonim incl. middle class protesters; on Feb. 8 Iranian defense minister Brig. Gen.
Ahmad Vahidi claims that the Egyptian uprising is inspired by the 1979 Iranian Rev.; on Feb. 9
strikes erupt around the country, while
Al-Qaeda in Iraq
urges Egyptians to wage jihad and establish an Islamist govt.; on Feb. 10 Pres. Obama
calls for an "orderly and genuine"
transition to democracy, and claims that Mubarak will step down; on Feb. 10 Mubarak delivers an
Address to the Egyptian People,
saying he won't quit and needs to stay in power until the Sept. elections, causing pissing-off the crowd in Tahrir Square, who angrily wave their shoes at him, after which Pres.
Obama questions
whether his pledge to shift power to his vice-pres. is "immediate, meaningful or sufficient"; on Feb. 10 Iran puts opposition leader
Mahdi Karroubi
under arrest for asking permission to hold a rally on Feb. 14 in support of the uprisings; meanwhile
rumors
of the death of Saudi King Abdullah after a phone call with Pres. Obama in which he warned him not to humiliate Mubarak surface; on Feb. 11 (Day 18) after protesters move to the
Ittihadiya pres. palace in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis and threaten massive protests in Tahrir Square, more
rumors
surface that Mubarak and his family have fled Cairo for Sharm el-Sheikh, followed by an announcement
that he has stepped down and transferred power to the military supreme council, with the soundbyte
"In the name of Allah the Merciful, the Compassionate: Citizens, during these very difficult circumstances Egypt is going through, President Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down
from the office of president of the republic and has charged the high council of the armed forces to administer the affairs of the country. May Allah help everybody";
Rachel Maddow of MSNBC calls it "a Berlin Wall moment"; vice-pres. Joe Biden calls it a
"pivotal moment in history", adding "The United States has largely spoken with one voice"; before stepping down, Mubarak
called
former Israeli minister Benjamin Ben-Elizier and slammed the U.S., saying that the U.S. push for democracy will result in an Islamist takeover; on Feb. 11 Pres. Obama delivers a
Speech on the Resignation of Mubarak,
praising the protesters for changing "the arc of history" (from a quote by MLK Jr.), through non-violence not "terrorism and mindless killing", saying that by stepping down, Mubarak
"responded to the people's hunger for change", but "this is not the end", adding "What is clear... is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be
peaceful, and it must begin now"; Robert Gibbs resigns the same day, with Obama uttering the soundbyte that he's not the biggest resignation news of the day;
Switzerland wastes no time in freezing
Mubarak's assets; on Feb. 11 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket praises
the Egyptian uprising as proof that a new Middle East is emerging that will break free of U.S. "interference" and doom Israel; on Feb. 11 South African CBS reporter
Lara Logan (1971-)
is assaulted by a 200-man Muslim mob shouting "Jew! Jew!", who beat and sexually assault her; on Feb. 12 the Egyptian military
pledges
to hand power to a civilian grovt. and abide by its peace treaty with Israel, then on Feb. 13 after large demonstrations of police, public and private sector workers, along with
rallies to attempt to clear the name of the police for use of force against protesters, it
dissolves parliament,
suspends the constitution, and calls for elections in 6 mo., and on Feb. 14 issues
Communique No. 5
to dozens of remaining protesters to leave Tahrir Square, calling for them to go back to work for nat. solidarity and to restore the economy; on Feb. 15 the Muslim Brotherhood
announces
the formation of a new political party, but pledges it won't field a pres. candidate in the next election; too bad, the committee appointed to draw up a new constitution in 10 days
is headed by a fundamentalist Islamic judge, who refuses
to remove Article 2 that makes Islam the state religion and makes Sharia the main source of law, becoming a V for the Muslim Brotherhood; meanwhile the British
Guardian claims that the Mubarak regime disappeared thousands of demonstrators; meanwhile
Arab govts.
in Jordan, Yemen, Syria et al. raise subsidies on food and heating oil, and raise salaries and lower taxes in an attempt to stave off more unrest; after a govt. shakeup in early Feb.
in Jordan, new justice minister Hussein Mjali
utters the soundbyte that Israel is a "terrorist state that will be destroyed"; meanwhile leftist Jewish billionaire
George Soros
calls Israel an obstacle to Egyptian reform, pissing-off the Anti-Defamation League (ADL); meanwhile
Gamaa Islamiya,
Egypt's largest extremist org. resurfaces; Egyptian protester
Jamal Ibrahim
names his newborn daughter Facebook; on Feb. 18 Victory Fri. sees hundreds of thousands demonstrate in Cairo to celebrate one week sans Mubarak, while tens of thousands of Egyptian
migrant workers in Libya begin returning; on Mar. 2 a constitutional referendum is announced for Mar. 19; on Mar. 3
PM Ahmed Safik steps down to prevent planned protests against him the next day, and
Essam Sharaf
is appointed the new PM of Egypt (until ?); on Mar. 5 protesters raid several State Security Investigations (SSI) offices across Egypt to find evidence of crimes
committed during the Mubarak regime; on Mar. 22 an interior ministry bldg. catches on fire during police demonstrations outside it; on Mar. 23 a new law is announced outlawing protests
and strikes, with a fine up to $100K; on Mar. 29 the military council postpones parliamentary elections until Sept.; on Apr. 1 Save the Rev. Day sees tens of thousands demonstrate to
demand the military council to dismantle the old regime faster; on Apr. 5 the U.N. high commissioner on human rights urges the military council to move towards dem. reform; on Apr. 8
protesters stage a "Friday of Cleansing" in Tahrir Square, calling for a new constitution, removal of the emergency law, an end to military rule, and Mubarak's arrest; on
Apr. 9 protesters in Tahrir Square calling for Mubarak's arrest are fired on by security forces, killing two and injuring dozens; on Apr. 10 Egyptian blogger
Maikel Nabil
is sentenced to three years in prison for criticizing the military; on Apr. 11 Egyptian ex-PM (2004-11) Ahmed Nazif is called in for questioning on corruption allegations; on
Apr. 13 while in the hospital for heart problems, Mubarak is arrested
for corruption, abuse of power, and the killing of protesters, along with his two sons.
On Jan. 25 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton announces
$500M in additional aid to Mexico this year to fight crime.
On Jan. 25 (9:00 p.m. EST) Pres. Obama delivers his 2011 State of the Union Address,
claiming that 1M private sector jobs have been added over the past year, vowing to veto all bills containing earmarks, and calling for bipartanship on job creation, along with a 5-year
freeze
on non-security discretionary spending; the 2nd time since Truman's 1948 State of the Union Address that poverty or the plight of the poor isn't mentioned by a Dem. pres.
On Jan. 26 Lauren Booth,
sister-in-law of former British PM Tony Blair turns against him and says he should be tried for war crimes over the invasion of Iraq.
On Jan. 26 an Islamist car bomb in front of a cafe in Dagestan, Russia
kills four and injures six.
On Jan. 26 the 2011 Syrian Uprising (ends ?) begins with protests, which escalate to a full uprising by Mar. 15.
On Jan. 26 the Carlyle Group
agrees to purchase AlpInvest Partners, giving it $150B in assets under mgt., up from $98B, making it the world's largest buyout firm.
On Jan. 27 Janet Napolitano announces the retirement of the color-coded
Homeland Security Advisory System
(introduced Mar. 11, 2002) in favor of the
Nat. Terrorism advisory System.
On Jan. 27 tens of thousands participate in rival rallies by pro and anti-govt. parties in
Sana'a, Yemen,
causing the ruling party on Jan. 28 to
call
for talks with the opposition; on Feb. 2 Yemeni pres.
Ali
Abdullah Saleh announces that he won't seek to become pres. for life or stand for another term,
causing simultaneous
pro and anti govt. protests
in Sana'a on Feb. 3.
On Jan. 27 Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon signs a new
asylum law
bringing Mexico in line with internat. agreements on handling of refugees.
On Jan. 27 Israeli strategic affairs minister
Moshe Yaalon claims that Hezbollah
has infiltrated agents from Lebanon to the Gaza Strip to train Palestinian militants.
On Jan. 27 a Sunni car bomb outside a funeral tent in a Shiite area of
Baghdad
kills 48+.
On Jan. 27 CIA contract security officer
Raymond Allen Davis
shoots two men trying to rob him in Lahore, Pakistan, causing the Pakistani govt. to arrest him and
hold him as a political hostage, terrorist, and spy; on Feb. 19 a Pakistani court
orders the arrest
of another U.S. consular employee for driving a car that run over another robber while
trying to pick Davis up; on Mar. 16 he is
released
after the families of the victims pardon him in return for $2.34M in blood money, causing
countrywide protests; the
money was arranged by
Saudi Arabia?
On Jan. 27
Amazon.com
announces that it sells more Kindle ebooks than paperbacks, 115 for every 100.
On Jan. 27 the White House outlines an ambitious
plan
to put 1M electric cars on the road by 2015.
On Jan. 28 anti-govt. demonstrations in
Tirana, Albana sees three killed
by police, causing EU to urge rival political leaders to defuse the crisis.
On Jan. 28 3K Islamists and leftists protest in
Amman, Jordan
against the govt., shouting "We want change".
On Jan. 28 the women's wing of the Islamic Jamaat-e-Islami movement demonstrates in
Karachi, Pakistan
in support of Pakistan's Islamic blasphemy law.
On Jan. 28 40K Cypriots demonstrate in
Nicosia, Cyprus
against cuts in public spending by the Turkish govt.
On Jan. 28 the
German parliament
votes to extend Germany's military mission in Afghanistan by one year despite
polls showing the war's unpopularity.
On Jan. 28 it is announced that Mark Zuckerberg's fan page was
hacked,
with a message appearing under his name reading "Let the hacking begin. If
Facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn't Facebook
let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook
into a 'social business' the way Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus described it?"
On Jan. 28 White House senior adviser
David M. Axelrod (1955-)
leaves, and 2008 Obama campaign mgr.
David
Plouffe replaces him.
On Jan. 28 (01:00) a UFO is spotted on the
Dome of the Rock
on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
On Jan. 29 Pope Benedict XVI launches a new outreach called the
Courtyard of the Gentiles
as an outreach to atheists, starting with a 3-day event in Paris in Mar.
On Jan. 29 the Islamic Jamiya org. asks Singapore minister
Lee Kuan Yew
to explain statements in a recent book that Islam is a difficult religion to integrate.
On Jan. 29 the Yemeni al-Qaida cmdr. declares
jihad against the Houthi-led Shiite fighters in N Yemen.
On Jan. 29 Pres. Obama announces
his determination to "spark the minds of innovators" in the U.S. to produce new products and technologies to make the country more competitive.
On Jan. 29 Tunisian technocrat PM (since 1999) Mohamed Ghannouchi (1941-)
(who serves as pres. on Jan. 14-15) vows a transition to democracy, while hundreds of pro-Islamists protest in
Tunisia,
shouting "We want freedom for the hijab, the niqab, and the beard", and hundreds of women
march
in Tunis to express fears of a new Islamist regime that keeps them down; on Jan. 30 exiled Tunisian Islamist Hizb al-Nahdah (Renaissance Party) leader
Rachid Ghanouchi (Rashid al-Ghannushi) (1941-)
arrives from Britain with 70 party members, and is greeted by crowds cheering Allah Akbar, causing him to
utter
the soundbyte "I'm no Khomeini" and claim that his views are more moderate; military chief of staff Rachid Ammar becomes Tunisia's powerbroker.
On Jan. 29 Dutch-Iranian protester Zahra Bahrami (b. 1965)
is executed in Tehran on ambiguous charges, causing the Dutch govt. to cut off diplomatic contact with Iran.
On Jan. 29 a cargo train and passenger collide near Hordorf,
Germany (near Magdebug), killing 10 and injuring 23.
On Jan. 30 the anti-corruption protest fever spreads to India,
with marches in New Delhi and other cities.
On Jan. 30 Pres. Obama appoints new deputy budget and mgt. dir.
Jeffrey Zients
to oversee the biggest reorg. of the federal govt. in over 50 years to allow the U.S.
to adapt to global economic cooperation.
On Jan. 30 Cyprus becomes the first EU country to recognize Palestinian statehood.
On Jan. 30 14-y.-o. Bangladeshi girl Hena Gegum (b. 1996)
is raped by a 40-y.-o. married man; on Jan. 31 a Muslim Sharia court sentences her to 100
lashes for having an illicit affair, and she bleeds to death in the hospital.
On Jan. 31 the Arab Spring begins in Baghdad, Iraq
as 100 march in Firdos Square, and 100 more march in Tahrir Square near the Green Zone. On Jan. 31
Oman claims to have uncovered a spy network in its midst run by the UAE.
On Jan. 31 Nigerian security officials thwart an Islamist attempt to bomb a Christian church in
Bauchi, Nigeria.
On Jan. 31 two Islamist bomb explosions in Peshawar, Pakistan
kill six incl. a deputy supt. of police.
On Jan. 31 the New York Times and Washington Post reveal that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal
is estimated at 100+ deployed nukes, having doubled since Obama took office, and is surging and set to overtake Britain as the world's #5 nuclear weapons power.
On Jan. 31 the U.S. State Dept. issues
an updated warning on the "continuing threat of terrorist actions" for U.S. citizens worldwide, along with a 2nd advisory cautioning against travel to Britain.
On Jan. 31-Feb. 2 the 2011 North Am. Winter Storm (Blizard), AKA the Storm of the Cent.
and the 2011 Groundhog Day Blizzard hits three-quarters of the U.S. with record snowfalls and low temps.
In Jan. the British Health Protection Agency
announces that a fatal superbug called NDM-1 has invaded Britain from India and Pakistan.
In Jan. a U.S. extradition treaty with El Salvador goes into effect.
In Jan. the Bombay Stock Exchange and the Istanbul Stock Exchange debut Sharia-compliant equity indexes.
In Jan. Muslim GOP activist Subhail A. Khan is outed as a
radical Muslim Brotherhood suporter, along with his mother.
In Jan. the heartwarming story of homeless African-Am. DJ
Ted Williams,
who was discovered on the street complete with a golden voice, made it big with a viral video and TV morning show interviews and showered with job offers becomes the Susan Boyle story of 2011.
In Jan. world food prices
surge 3.4% for the 7th straight mo., reaching a new record.
In Jan. two Kurdish mass graves
are discovered in SE Turkey, the result of Turkey's war with the Kurdish rebel group PKK.
In Jan. Romania
begins taxing witches and fortune tellers, causing some to celebrate that they're now legalized.
In Jan. Wash.-born Phil Hill (1970-)
announces plans for an alien refueling station on the summit of Pikes Peak in Colo., featuring a 480-ft. pyramid sans visitors center and coffee shop (no room).
In Jan. after finding that the number of sexual assault cases in Palestinian terrority has increased 7x from 2006-9, the Palestinian Authority launches a
plan to combat violence against women with funding from the U.S. and Spain.
In Jan. Israel tests its Magic Wand
intermediate-range anti-missile system that fills the gap between its Iron Dome system for short-range missiles and its Arrow system for long-range missiles; it
begins operation in S Israel on Mar. 27, 2011.
In Jan. the U.S. Nat. Security Agency begins the $1.2B Utah Spy Data Center
25 mi. S of Salt Lake City to complement the one in Ft. Meade, Md.
In Jan. radical Canadian Muslim imam Said Jaziri, who was deported to Tunisia
in 2008 is caught trying to sneak into the U.S. over the Mexican border inside the trunk of a BMW near San Diego, Calif.
In Jan. the U.S. unemployment rate falls from 9.4% to 9%, adding 36K new jobs.
In Jan. the Ground Zero Mosque org. replaces Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf with Abdallah Adhami,
who goes on to call homosexuality a disease, claim that true Muslims follow Sharia, and
utters
the soundbyte "We have more of a right to Moses" than Jews do; he is
fired on Feb. 4.
In Jan. the govt. of Tajikistan
begins closing mosques on various pretexts, reaching 1.5K by June.
In Jan. 25 Islamic scholars Meet
to argue in favor of reviving Islam's doctrine of Ijtihad, i.e., reevaluation fo basic teachinges, incl. jihad, women's rights, secularism, etc.
On Feb. 1 after the army promises not to get violent 1M+ protest in Cairo
against Hosni Mubarak; other protests are held throughout Egypt, incl. 250K in Sinai.
On Feb. 1 after protests over poor living conditions and high food prices, Jordan king
Abdullah II fires PM Samir Rifai and his cabinet, and asks ex-PM (2005-7) Marouf al-Bakhit to form a new
one that will launch reforms.
On Feb. 1 Iran human rights activist (Baha'i member) Navid Khanjani
is sentenced to 12 years, their heaviest sentence to a human rights activist so far; it also issues
five death sentences for others for obscene Web sites and other Islamic offenses; Iran also
announces that it will segregate male and female students at Allameh Tabatabai U.
On Feb. 1 EU foreign minister Baroness Ashton
of Britain scuttles a EU attempt to agree on a statement condemning attacks on Christians in the Islamic word because she won't use the word Christian.
On Feb. 1 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. closes above 12K for the first time since June 2008.
On Feb. 2 the German state of Hesse and state employees from wearing the burka.
On Feb. 2 British Muslim minister
Mohammed
Hanif Khan is convicted of raping a 12-y.-o. boy, and sexually abusing another at a
mosque in Stoke-on-Trent; he had been honored by Princess Anne for his work.
On Feb. 2 IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn
warns
that the weakened world economy and joblessness could bring war within more nations than
Tunisia and Egypt, and calls for a new world currency to challenge the
U.S. dollar.
On Feb. 3 Category 3 (180 mph)
Cyclone Yasi
slams into N Queensland, Australia, causing $3.5B damage.
On Feb. 3 police chief Manuel Farten of
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico
is killed along with two bodyguards after holding the job for 33 days.
On Feb. 3 the Homeland Security and Govt. Affairs Committte chaired by Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) release their
Report on the Ft. Hood Massacre, concluding that the "ticking time bomb" massacre could have been prevented.
On Feb. 3 Pres. Obama addresses the Nat. Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.,
claiming his Christian faith as "a sustaining force" in his life, and praying for an end to violence in Egypt.
On Feb. 3 after residents of a former squat are evicted, 1.5k leftists riot in Berlin, Germany injuring 61 police officers, who arrest 82.
On Feb. 4 hundreds of protesters, incl. leftists and the Muslim Brotherhood march in
Amman, Jordan
against the govt. and in support of the Egyptian Rev.
On Feb. 4 a Gallup Poll shows that Pres. Obama
has the most polarizing 2nd year in office since Ike in 1953, with a 68% gap between Dems. and Repubs.; Reagan's 2nd year gap was 56%.
On Feb. 4 140+ Roman Catholic theologians from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland call for an end to celibacy for priests.
On Feb. 4 the Jewish People Policy Inst. of Jerusalem claims that
Hamas hacked its Web site.
On Feb. 4 British PM David Cameron
launches a war on 30 years of failed multiculturalism with a new policy of "muscular liberalism", telling Muslims that he is declaring an end to "passive tolerance" of divided communities,
and they must integrate and accept core British values and speak English or else they will lose public money.
On Feb. 4 Asteroid 2011 CQ1
passes within 5.5K km of Earth, close enough to change its orbit; it is first discovered the same day.
On Feb. 5 the New START Treaty goes into force, limiting the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550;
it is expected to last until 2021.
On Feb. 5 the French senate votes 182-156 to reject a tough Sarkozy-backed
immigration bill
that would strip citizenship if they have been citizens for less than 10 years and threaten the police, place an "unreasonable" strain on the welfare state, or are guilty of
"aggressive begging"; critics liken it to the Vichy regime.
On Feb. 5 hundreds of members of the English Defence League
stage an anti-Islam demonstration in Luton (N of London), shouting "No more mosques", "Never surrender", and "Islam is of the Devil".
On Feb. 5 three teen boys are shot to death in
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,
two of them U.S. citizens.
On Feb. 5 the Vatican announces
that Pope Benedict XVI doesn't carry an organ donor card - because his organs are too holy to donate to lesser mortals?
On Feb. 5 Sheikh 'Ahed Ahmad 'Abd Al-Karim Al-Sa'idani (AKA Abu Al-Walid Al-Maqdisi), leader of the Salafist jihadi group Jama'at Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad issues a
fatwa, saying that while the Quran prohibits the killing of innocents, it is permissible to kill
Jewish and Christian civilians in a jihad since they are "fundamentally not innocent" - judge now that ye be not judged - not?
On Feb. 5 British Special Forces seize
a shipment of 48 Iranian rockets in Nimruz Province, S Afghanistan en route to the Taliban.
On Feb. 6 the U.N. celebrates Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Day.
On Feb. 6 a machete-wielding mob of 1.5K Muslims attacks the home of an Ahmadiyah Muslim sect leader along with 20 members in
Banten Province, Java, Indonesia,
killing three and wounding six.
On Feb. 6 Pres. Obama gives a pre-Super Bowl interview
with Bill O'Reilly, laughing off the millions who hate him with "What they hate is whatever funhouse mirror image of you that's out there - they don't know you", and pooh-poohing the
Muslim Brotherhood, saying they don't have majority support, but that there's "no going back" for Egypt.
On Feb. 6 20K rally in Lahore, Pakistan
over Kashmir, calling for jihad and nuclear war against India.
On Feb. 6 a Turkish parliamentary commission releases a report
that claims that the Swiss ban on minarets is responsible for increasing xenophobia and Islamophobia in Switzerland.
On Feb. 6 a military clash begins on a disputed border by Thailand and Cambodia.
On Feb. 6 a video posted by Chechen emir Doku Umarov,
Russia's most wanted terrorists claims credit for the Moscow airport massacre, and warns the pop. of Moscow to brace for a "year of blood and tears"; he controls up to 60 suicide bombers in N Caucasus.
On Feb. 6 Super Bowl XLV (45) (2011) is played in Arlington, Tex.; the Green Bay Packers defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25;
Christina Aguilera
flubs a line while singing the U.S. nat. anthem; Packers QB (#12) Aaron Charles Rodgers (1983-) is MVP;
Pres. Obama serves White House Honey Ale
at his Super Bowl party, becoming the first U.S. pres. to home-brew beer in the White House.
On Feb. 7 Pres. Obama delivers a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
in an attempt to mend fences.
On Feb. 7 AOL agrees to buy the leftist pro-Islam
Huffington Post
(founded May 2005) for $315M; it has 25M monthly visitors, and blocked TLW from posting.
On Feb. 7 Afghan Red Cross activist
Said Musa
(1965-) is sentenced to death for converting to Christianity; he can only
save himself by reconverting to Islam.
On Feb. 7 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton announces that the U.S. is starting the process of removing Arabic-speaking
Sudan
from its list of state sponsors of terrorism following the finalization of the referendum on independence for Dinka-speaking
South Sudan,
which becomes the first new country of the decade, and up-and-coming U.N. member #193;
too bad, the secession of oil-rich South Sudan causes a
depression in Sudan.
On Feb. 7 24-.y.-o. Christian
Imran
Masih (b. 1986) is found dead at his Muslim employer Chaudhry Masqood Cheema's farmhouse,
and he claims suicide, which is backed up by the hospital and police, causing Christian protests.
On Feb. 8 police in
Burundi
arrest eight Pakistani Muslim preachers for preaching jihad.
On Feb. 8 hundreds of Islamists storm a courthouse in
Temanggung, Indonesia
and set two churches on fire to protest a lenient 5-year sentence for Antonius Richmand Bawengan,
a Christian convicted of blaspheming Islam, which they think merits the death penalty.
On Feb. 8 U.S. House majority leader
Eric Cantor
(R-Va.) says that the primary goal of U.S. policy in Egypt should be to "stop the spread
of radical Islam".
On Feb. 8 a Jordanian official
discloses
that senior Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials incl. Mahmoud Abbas and his two sons
have been given Jordanian citizenship, despite Jordan revoking the citizenship of thousands
of other Palestinians.
On Feb. 8 the U.S. House votes 277-148 to
reject
a 9-mo. extension of counterterrorism survillance powers under the U.S. Patriot Act.
On Feb. 9 a suicide bomber posing as a dairy deliveryman strikes a Kurdish security HQ in
Sulaimaniyah, Iraq,
killing seven and wounding 80.
On Feb. 9-10 the govt. of
Malayasia
resumes talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Clap on, clap off, it's the Clapper?
On Feb. 10 U.S. nat. intel dir. #4 (since Aug. 5, 2010)
James R. Clapper (1941-)
tells Congress that he didn't miss warning signs of turmoil in Egypt, and
tells
Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) that the horrible Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is "a very
heterogeneous group, largely secular, which has eschewed violence and has decried
al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam", that it has "pursued social ends, a betterment
of the political order in Egypt" and "There is no overarching agenda, particularly
in pursuit of violence, at least internationally"; its violent record 60 years ago
is forgotten, along with its slogan "God is our objective, the Quran is our Constitution,
the Prophet is our leader, struggle is our way, and death for the sake of God is the
highest of our aspirations", and its
handbook
which incl. the soundbyte "Prepare yourself and train in the art of warfare, and embrace the causes
of power. You must learn the ways and manners and laws of war. You must learn them and embrace
them and adhere to them, so that your Jihad will be the one accepted by Allah"; hours before his
testimony the real Muslim Brotherhood
admits that Sharia
in Egypt is "not its immediate end, but we will work for it in future", the opposite of secular;
Clapper spokesman Jamie Smith later releases a clarification:
"In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood makes efforts to work through a political system that has been, under Mubarak's rule, one that is largely secular in its orientation. He is well aware that the
Muslim Brotherhood is not a secular organization"; meanwhile FBI dir.
Robert Mueller
tells Congress that the Muslim Brotherhood has supported internat. terrorism, and that its ideology inspired Osama bin Laden and other terrorists; last Dec. 23 Clueless Clapper was
caught
being unaware of British anti-terror raids when questioned by Diane Sawyer of ABC-TV; on Mar. 10 Clapper tells the
Senate Armed Services Commitee that "over the longer term Qaddafi will prevail", causing the Obama admin. er, to contradict him; on May 29, 2011 Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh
Sheikh Hazem Abu Ismail announces his candidacy for pres. of Israel, promising to turn Egypt into an Islamist state
complete with Sharia, and to go to war with Israel.
On Feb. 10 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy
joins other world leaders, declaring that multiculturalism has failed, with the soundbyte "Of course we must all respect difference, but we do not want... a society where
communities coexist side by side... If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community...and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France"; on Feb. 15
Dutch Christian Dem. leader Maxime Verhagen does ditto, followed on Feb. 18 by
Australian Liberal politician Cory Bernardi, who says "Islam itself is the problem, it's not Muslims"; in Feb. France's governing party
announces
plans for a nat. debate on the role of Islam and respect for secularism among Muslims; on Mar. 11 Sarkozy fires Muslim diversity head
Abderrahmane Dahmane for calling on Muslims not to support his governing UMP party.
On Feb. 10 the U.S. Treasury
announces
that Lebanese Canadian Bank SAL has been laundering millions of dollars in drug money
for Hezbollah.
On Feb. 10 the
Islamic Umma Party
is founded as the first political party in Saudi Arabia as a sop to the
Arab revs. in other countries?
On Feb. 10-12 fighting in
Southern Sudan
between the army and rebels under Gen. Athor kills 105, mostly civilians.
On Feb. 10-12 the first regional Conservative Political Action Conference
is held in Orlando, Fla., attended by 11K; surprise guest Donald Trump (his first appearance since its 1973 founding) comes out as a conservative in a
speech,
hinting at a White House Run (decision by June), with the soundbyte:
"America is becoming a whipping post for the rest of the world... America today is missing quality leadership, and foreign countries have quickly realized this. It's for this reason
that the United States is becoming the laughing stock of the world... And I can tell you this, if I run and if I win, this country will be respected again... If I decided to run, I will
not be raising taxes. We'll be taking back hundreds of billions of dollars from other countries that are screwing us, we'll be creating vast numbers of productive jobs, and we'll rebuild
our country so that we can be proud. Our country will be great again"; of course he can't help talking about himself, with the
soundbyte:
"Over the years I've participated in many battles and have really almost come out very, very victorious every single time. I've beaten many people and companies, and I've won many wars.
I have fairly but intelligently earned many billions of dollars, which in a sense was both a scorecard and acknowledgment of my abilities", adding "I may be willing to put that to work",
although "Frankly I wish there was a candidate that I saw that would be fantastic, because I love what I'm doing."
On Feb. 11 Pres. Obama meets
with Canadian PM Stephen Harper to agree on a common "perimeter" around the two countries along with a biometric system to track North Ams.
On Feb. 11 the New York Times Bestseller List finally incl. ebooks.
On Feb. 11 the Iran-Balkan News Agency IRBA pub. a list of 24 NATO bases in Turkey.
On Feb. 11 the Umatilla native Am. tribe is permitted to hunt and harvest bison outside Yellowstone Nat. Park per an 1855 treaty.
On Feb. 12 a planned speech at the annual Jewish Keren Hayesod dinner by ex-pres.
George W. Bush
is cancelled after the Swiss govt. issues an arrest warrant for alleged war crimes.
On Feb. 12 anti-govt. demonstrations in
Algiers, Algeria
result in 400 arrests, while the govt. shuts down the Internet, and an anon. group stages a
cyberattack
on the Web site of the Algerian Interior Ministry.
On Feb. 12 more govt. vs. anti-govt. demonstrations in
Sa'naa, Yemen
end with police beating anti-govt. protesters.
On Feb. 12 armed men hurl a grenade into a crowded nightclub in
Guadalajara, Mexico,
killing six and woundin 37; hours earlier a shootout between the cartel and the army in Monterrey killed eight.
On Feb. 12 Egyptian-born Muslim cab driver
Sam Hassan Daly
(1958-) plows into a crowded sidewalk in the Gaslamp District of San Diego, Calif., injuring 25.
On Feb. 13 U.S. House Speaker John Boehner
says that though he believes that Pres. Obama was born in Hawaii and is a Christian, he won't tell Americans what to think who question it, and that it's not just a ploy to
delegitimize and weaken him as a foreign-born closet Muslim.
On Feb. 13 a drive-by shooting on the outskirts of Mexico City kills seven.
On Feb. 13 the 53rd Grammy Awards
sees African-Am. singer-bass player Esperanza Spalding (1984-)
become the first jazz artist to win the best new artist award.
On Feb. 14 Pres. Obama proposes a
2012 federal budget
that will cut the deficit by $1.1T over 10 years.
On Feb. 14 suspected Fatah al-Islam member
Ghaleb
Taleb is arrested in Athens while allegedly planning attacks in Europe.
On Feb. 14 Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir (1938-) is put on trial for being the leader of a terrorist network
based in Aceh, to which he replies "I was only defending Islam"; on June 16 he is convicted of supporting a jihadist terrorist camp, and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
On Feb. 14 Columbian authorities announce
the seizure of the first fully submersible drug-smuggling submarine capable of reaching the Mexican coast.
On Feb. 15 Libyan human rights atty. Fathi Terbil,
who represents the families of 1.2K detainees killed in a 1996 massacre in Abu Salim Prison in Tripoli is arrested, causing a day of rage on Feb. 17, escalating into an armed revolt
starting in Benghazi in E Libya, causing Libyan ambassador to the U.S. (since Jan. 2009)
Ali Suleiman Aujali (known for working to get Abdelbaset al-Megrahi returned to Libya) to resign; the
2011 Libyan Civil War (Revolt) (Feb. 17 Rev.) begins (ends Oct. 23) on the 100th anniv. of the
1911 Libyan War to oust the Ottoman Empire; in Feb. Pres. Obama signs a secret pres. directive authorizing
the State Dept. and CIA to begin Operation Zero Footprint
to arm the Libyan rebels, giving command authority to NATO Adm. James G. Stavidris not the U.S. military?
On Feb. 15 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton warns
that nations that restrict the Internet to hold back popular demand for dem. reforms in the Middle East do so at their own risk, and that the U.S. is ready to help the dissidents evade the restrictions.
On Feb. 15 Islamic rebels clash with police in Karachayeva-Cherkessia
and Stavropol in the Russian Caucasus, killing three police and three rebels.
On Feb. 15 opposition protests in Tehran
anger Iranian lawmakers, who shout and chant for them to be executed, causing the
Rev. Guard to issue
a letter on Feb. 18 promising not to shoot at protesters.
On Feb. 15 oil industry sources
announce
that drug cartel gunmen are threatening to attack isolated natural gas well drillers in N
Mexico unless they pay protection money.
On Feb. 15 the U.S. reverses itself and
informs
Arab govts. that it will support a U.N. Security Council statement reaffirming that it "does not
accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity".
On Feb. 15 Ghaybullo Avzalov,
head of Tajikistan's S Khatlon Province announces new measures to combat the spread of
radical Islam, starting by distributing 400K free copies of the Quran - spreading more?
On Feb. 16 a U.S. ICE agent Jaime Zapata
is killed and his partner Victor Avila wounded 100 mi. N of Mexico City en route to Monterey; on
Feb. 24 Mexican authorities capture Julian Zapata Esponza AKA Tweety Bird (El Piolin)
along with five other suspected Zeta members in San Luis Potosi, and
arrest
700 suspects, confiscating drugs, weapons and $8M in cash.
On Feb. 16 after visiting the Saudi port of Jeddah in the Red Sea, two Iranian warships, the frigate
Alvand and the supply ship Kharq head for Syria via the
Suez Canal
for the first time since 1979 en route to their ally Syria, causing Israel to declare a high alert,
suspecting
them of carrying weapons for Hezbollah, and Iranian supreme assaholah
Ali Khamenei
to issue the soundbyte "The fake Zionist government is a cancerous tumor and the
cause of different diseases and political, economic calamity in the region"; he also issues the
soundbyte:
"The main problem in the Muslim World is the presence of the United States. It is the biggest problem...
We need to remove the United States from the Islamic world."
On Feb. 17 (night) police in
Bahrain crack down on peaceful
anti-govt. protesters in Manama's Pearl Square, shooting them with shotguns while they sleep and
firing guns at them in the street; on Feb. 20 thousands of protesters
return
after the troops pull out.
On Feb. 17 Hillary Clinton
pledges
$150M to assist Egypt's dem. transformation.
On Feb. 18 Islamic fundamentalist cleric
Yusuf al-Qaradawi
returns from Qatar to address a rally of hundreds of thousands in Cairo's Tahrir Square, telling them
"The revolution isn't over. It has just started to build Egypt... Guard your revolution", and
calling for the conquest
of Al-Aqsa (i.e. Jerusalem); despite the rev. being owed to his Internet activity, he
bans
non-Islamist leftist Wael Ghonim from the stage.
On Feb. 18 Yemeni protesters hold a
Friday of Fury.
On Feb. 18 Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) protesters in
Jakarta, Indonesia
against the Ahmadiyah minority Muslim sect demand that pres. Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono outlaw it, threatening another march next mo.
On Feb. 18 Pres. Obama visits an
Intel
plant in Hillsboro, Ore. along with CEO Paul Otellini.
On Feb. 18 the the U.N. Security Council votes 14-1 to pass a
resolution
condemning Israeli settlements as illegal and calling for an immediate halt to all settlement
building; U.S. ambassador Susan Rice says that the U.S. "regrettably" vetoes it, because "This
draft resolution risks hardening the positions of both sides... We reject in the strongest terms
the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity. While we agree with our fellow council
members and indeed with the wider world about the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli
settlement activity, we think it unwise for this council to attempt to resolve the core issues
that divide Israelis and Palestinians"; on Feb. 25 German chancellor
Angela Merkel
talks with Benjamin Netanyahu on the phone, and after he slams her for supporting the
resolution she responds "How dare you? You are the one who disappointed us - you
haven't made a single step to advance peace."
On Feb. 18 Tunisia's transitional govt.
approves
a gen. amnesty of political prisoners, incl. convicted terrorists.
On Feb. 18 an Afghan soldier turns jihadist in
Pul-e-Khumri
and fires on German troops, killing three and wounding six.
On Feb. 18 four men are tied and thrown 600 ft. over a bridge to their deaths in
Chilpahcingo, Mexico.
On Feb. 18 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton expresses the
hope
that military action will split the Taliban from al-Qaida, laying the groundwork for a political solution
in Afghanistan.
On Feb. 19 Somalian pirates hijack the yacht
Quest,
with four Americans aboard.
On Feb. 19 the house of reps. of
Utah
by 58-15 passes a law giving law enforcement officials the power to check the immigration status
of those suspected of being in the u.S. illegally, with it being mandatory if they are charged
with class A misdemeanors and felonies.
On Feb. 19 Islamic jihadists
kill four tourists
from Moscow in N Caucasus en route to a ski resort.
On Feb. 19
George Soros
tells CNN that he doesn't expect the regime in Iran to survive the year.
On Feb. 20 Libyan troops fire machine guns at mourners marching in a funeral for anti-govt. protesters in
Benghazi, Libya,
after which they
seize
some army vehicles, and the fighting erupts into a
civil war
to oust Muammar Gaddhafi, with troops joining armed protesters while the govt. tries
to hang on by clamping down on news and the Internet far better than in Egypt, and Daffy's
bald son Saif Gaddhafi
gives an impromptu TV speech promising 100K deaths, vowing to "fight until the last man, the last woman, the last bullet, then offering a new govt. in 48 hours;
Madman Daffy is worth $200B?;
he orders soldiers who refuse to shoot protesters to be tied up and set on fire, while rounding up mercenaries; on Feb. 21
Libyan airplanes bomb protesters in Tripoli, while two Libyan Mirage jets
escape
to Malta to avoid carrying out the orders; meanwhile the Libyan ambassador to London resigns and joins the protesters, and rumors spread that Daffy himself has fled the country for Switzerland
or Venezuela; on Feb. 21 Hillary Clinton condemns the govt. violence
and tells Gadhafi to "stop this unacceptable bloodshed"; on Feb. 22 Col. Daffy gives a
speech
on state TV, rejecting demands to resign, saying "I will not leave the country, and I will die as a martyr" on Feb. 23 Egyptian Muslim cleric
Yusuf al-Qaradawi
calls on Libyan soldiers to kill Daffy; on Feb. 23 the African Union
joins in condemning the use of force against protesters in Libya; on Feb. 23 Pres. Obama
"strongly condemns"
the violence in Libya but doesn't call for Daffy's resignation, causing Libyan rebels
to begin shouting "Send Bush!"; on Feb. 23 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket tells
the Daffy to allow free speech and "let their peoples express their opinions and then follow their noations", while simultaneously suppressing his own peoples' free speech; on Feb. 23
Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini
expresses fears that up to 300K Libyans might flee to Italy, while Malmo U. prof. Anne Sofie Roald
utters the soundbyte "We can't deny that today Islam is regarded as the biggest threat to Europe for many Europeans"; on Feb. 24 Daffy
blames
Osama bin Laden for the uprising; on Feb. 25 after his troops fire on demonstrators, bizarre ranter Daffy appears in
Green Square,
proclaiming "I am here" and telling the crowd "Dance, sing, live your lives... Ghadafi is here among his people"; meanwhile on Feb. 25 the
Islamic Emirate of Libya
is proclaimed in Derna in NE Libya; on Feb. 25 Pres. Obama finally
imposes
sanctions on Libya minutes after the U.S. flies its diplomats out of the country, with the soundbyte:
"We will stand steadfastly with the Libyan people in their demand for universal rights and a government
that is responsive to their aspirations. Their human dignity cannot be denied"; on Feb. 26 Obama finally
calls for Daffy to step down immediately, and hours later the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopts
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1970,
condemning the use of lethal force by Daffy's govt. and imposing sanctions, referring the matter to the Internat. Criminal Court, causing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to
criticize
Obama for hypocrisy for not doing ditto with Iran; on Feb. 28 British and German military planes
rescue
hundreds of stranded oil workers and civilians in E Libya; on Mar. 1 Hillary Clinton
tells
Congress that Libya is collapsing into "protracted civil war"; meanwhile rumors
spread in the Arab press that Daffy is a secret Jew; on Mar. 2 Daffy's forces launch a counteroffensive against the rebel-held E half of the country, and battle for control of the
Brega Oil Port,
while the U.S., Britain and France send hundreds of advisers to train
and support anti-Daffy forces in E Libya, and India sends three warships, and U.S. warships
USS Kearsarge and USS Ponce
the Suez Canal en route to Libya; on Mar. 3 the Internat. Criminal Court in The Hague
announces
that they're going to investigate Daffy and his inner circle incl. his sons for crimes against humanity; on Mar. 4 Pres. Obama
ramps up
the strength of his remarks, saying that the U.S. is keeping "all options open", incl. considering enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya, and insisting
that Daffy leave office because he has lost his authority to lead; on Mar. 5 Pres. Obama sends U.S. defense secy.
Robert Gates
to Cairo as the unrest veers out of control and seize the HQ of the security police in Alexandria and Cairo, while the military leaders start losing their grip; on Mar. 6 there are brutal
battles in Bin Jawwad; on Mar. 11 in Addis Ababa the African Union Peace and Security (PSC)
rejects any use of force on Libya; on Mar. 12 Daffy's forces tighten
their grip on the coastal road linking his territory to the rebel-controlled E, while the Arab League
in Cairo recognizes the rebels
and calls on the U.N. security Council to impose a no-fly zone to protect the rebels, which the White House
hails as an "important step"; on Mar. 13 Al Jazeera cameraman
Ali Hassan al-Jaber
is killed in S Libya in an ambush; on Mar. 13 U.S. defense secy. Robert M. Gates
says that the U.S. would have no trouble enforcing a Libyan no-fly zone if Pres. Obama orders one; on
Mar. 15 the G8
rejects a no-fly zone over Libya in favor of stringer economic sanctions; on Mar. 15 four New York
Times journalists go missing win Libya; on Mar. 16 Daffy
warns
the rebels in Benghazi that they will be shown "no mercy", after which on Mar. 16 the U.S. ramps up to
pushing
for U.N. authorization for a full military attack; on Mar. 17 by 10-0-5 the U.N. Security Council passes
U.N. Security Resolution 1973,
calling for an immediate ceasefire in Libya and authorizing member states "to take all necessary measures... to protect
civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack", setting up a no-fly zone (first U.N. resolution to
authorize military action to protect civilians), causing celebrations in Benghazi, after which Libya declares a
ceasefire while Daffy's son Seif al Islam al Qadhafi
says that the Daffy family is "not afraid", and claims the resolution is "unfair" because they have
"proved to everybody that there have bee no air strikes against civilians"; on Mar. 19 (8th anniv. of U.S. invasion
of Iraq) French fighter jets deploy over Libya,
firing on and destroying four
Libyan tanks near rebel-held Benghazi, which is under attack by Daffy's forces, while the U.S. launches
Operation Odyssey Dawn,
starting with U.S. warships in the Mediterranean firing 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles to destroy 20
Libyan air defense sites, putting the U.S. into its 3rd simultaneous war in a Middle Eastern Muslim
country; Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte "I want the American people to know that the use of force
is not our first choice, and it's not a choice that I make lightly, but we can't stand idly by when
a tyrant tells his people that there will be no mercy"; unfazed, Daffy sets up a human shield of supporters
at his compound, and vows
a "long war" in Libya, and opens his armories to issue 1M guns to his loyal followers to fight
a civil war, which doesn't stop the compound from being hit by "accidental" U.S. airstrikes; on Mar. 22 a U.S. F-15 jet
crashes
in NE Libya after a technical failure after both crewmembers eject safely; discord in
NATO
emerges on Mar. 21 as Turkey blocks participation, Italy issues a veiled threat to withdraw use of its bases, and Vladimir Putin of Russia calls the Security Council resolution "flawed",
saying it is "reminiscent of a medieval call for a Crusade", because "it allowed intervention in a sovereign state"; on Mar. 24 NATO
assumes
partial control over the no-fly operations; on Mar. 25 Libyan rebel cmdr.
Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi
admits that his fighters have al-Qaida links, having fought against Allied troops
in Iraq; on Mar. 27 Pres. Obama give a
Speech on Libya,
saying that the Libya mission saved "countless" civilian lives; on Mar. 30 the rebels retreat from the oil port of
Ras Lanouf,
blaming lack of air support; on Mar. 30 Libyan foreign minister Musa Kusa
defects to Britain; on Mar. 31 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan
says that sending weapons to the Libyan rebels could feed terrorism because Daffy has unleashed war between Christians and Muslims; on Apr. 2 NATO "friendly fire"
kills 13 Libyan rebels; on Apr. 2 Hillary Clinton's aid Sidney Blumenthal sends her an
email
confirming that the real reason for removing Col. Daffy is that his govt. "holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount of silver", not to mention all his oil; on Apr. 4
Italy recognizes the opposition Libyan Nat. Transitional Council; on Apr. 5 Daffy sends a
letter to Pres. Obama, addressing him as "Dear Son", and asking him to stop the NATO airstrikes,
which he calls an "unjust war against a small people of a developing country", asking for a ceasefire; on Apr. 14 al-Qaeda #2 man
Ayman al-Zawahiri issues a video telling Arab nations
to intervene militarily in Libya to eject Daffy before "Western aid... turns into invasions"; on Apr. 15 Daffy's forces shell
Misrata, the only remaining rebel stronghold in W Libya, while his daughter Aisha
gives a defiant speech; on Apr. 20 the Obama admin. announces
$25M in nonlethal aid to the rebels; on Apr. 25 NATO forces bomb Daffy's compound,
flattening a bldg. inside it; on May 19 NATO air strikes hit eight warships belonging
to Daffy in Tripoli, Al Khums, and Sirte.
On Feb. 20 thousands of protesters march in Rabat, Morocco,
demanding a new constitution and more democracy.
On Feb. 20 authorities in China
stage a show of force to stop a planned Jasmine Rev.-style protest as called for via the Internet.
On Feb. 20 Kamal Helbawi,
leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood gives a speech in Iran settling the issue by saying
that the Egyptian Rev. was Islamic not democratic.
On Feb. 20 hundreds of Copts protest
in front of the state TV bldg. in Cairo to call for Egypt's constitution to be amended to establish a secular not Islamic state.
On Feb. 20 singer
Pat Boone
says that Christians must mobilize now to defeat Pres. Obama in 2012.
On Feb. 21 (09:15 a.m.) Mount Bulusan
in the Philippines erupts.
On Feb. 21 Egypt's public prosecutor asks
for a freeze on Hosni Mubarak's foreign assets, which the EU agrees to on Feb. 25,
along with a travel ban on Libya's leadership, and an arms embargo.
On Feb. 21 a group of 90 Islamic preachers and scholars around the Muslim World issues a statement supporting
the revs. in Tunisia and Egypt and slamming democracy and "un-Islamic" political parties - if you're not holy in Allah's eyes you can never have the right to rule by sheer numbers?
On Feb. 21 Christian Union Sen.
Roel Kuiper
announces his goal of amending the Dutch constitution to ban Islamic Sharia law.
On Feb. 21 U.S. Gen. David H. Petraeus
stinks himself up with a comment that Afghans caught up in a coalition attack in NE Afghanistan may have burned their own children to exaggerate civilian casualties.
On Feb. 21 a 6.3 earthquake near Christchurch, New Zealand
kills 75, with 300 missing.
On Feb. 21 Repub. pres. contender
Mike Huckabee
criticizes Islam as "the antithesis of the gospel of Christ"; on Feb. 24 he adds that Am. Muslims
are receiving special treatment "at the expense of others", and that this is "un-American".
On Feb. 22 Egyptian Coptic priest
Daoud Boutrus
is found dead in Shatab, increasing tensions between Copts and Muslims.
On Feb. 22 Israeli archeologist
Eilat 'Mazar
announces the discovery of a wall in Jerusalem dating to 1K B.C.E., which he claims bolsters
the Biblical account of the reign of Solomon.
On Feb. 23
oil prices
on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $100 a barrel for the first time since 2008.
On Feb. 23 a group of 180 police in
Yangdang
in Hubei Province, China raid a Christian legal center and arrest a group of Christians.
On Feb. 23 the Council on Am.-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and ACLU
sue
the FBI over surveillance at Calif. mosques, claiming their First Amendment rights
were violated by targeting the most devout and likely to engage in terrorism; on Mar. 18
FBI dir. Robert Mueller
testifies
to Congress that "We have no formal relationship with CAIR because of concerns with regard
to the national leadership."
On Feb. 23 Amir Kabir U.
and the Industrial U. of Isfahan in Iran open two supercomputer centers in a ceremony led by Pres. Imadinnajacket.
On Feb. 23 (night) a Palestinian Grad rocket hits Beersheva, Israel, injuring 14.
On Feb. 23-24 Egyptian army forces storm the 5th cent.
St. Bishoy Monastery
in Wadi el-Natroun (66 mi. from Cairo), injuring 19; meanwhile a 2-day
meeting
between the Vatican and the Egyptian Inst. of Sunni Islam set for Feb. 23-24 is suspended because the Muslims want the pope to apologize first, causing Pope Benedict XVI
to refuse and reply that the dialogue will continue on God's time.
On Feb. 24 20-y.-o. Saudi Tex. student Khalid Aldawsari (1990-)
is arrested on terrorism charges, incl. plans to build a bomb and target the Dallas residence of Pres. George W. Bush along with dams and nuclear power plants;
meanwhile the FBI sends a warning letter to fertilizer stores.
On Feb. 24 gunmen open fire on six children playing in front of a home in
Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, killing three.
On Feb. 25 hundreds of thousands
protest
across the Middle East in solidarity with the Libyans.
On Feb. 25 high-ranking Juarez drug gang boss
Luis Humberto Peralta Hernandez
(AKA El Condor) is killed in a gun battle with police in Chihuahua, Mexico; meanwhile three gunmen
are killed in a failed attack on Garcia mayor
Jaime Rodriguez Calderon.
On Feb. 25 Pres. Obama names
Jeremy Bernard
as the first openly gay White House social secy.
On Feb. 25 U.S. federal officials announce an investigation of
Tri-Valley U.
in Calif. for luring hundreds of foreign students by promising to take care of their visa problems.
On Feb. 25 the U.N. Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
announces that it has received info. indicating that Iran is "not engaging with the agency in substance on issues concerning the allegation that Iran is developing a nuclear payload
for its missile program."
On Feb. 25 Christian Dior suspends its Gibraltar-born head designer (since 1997)
John Galliano (Juan Carlos Antonio Galliano-Guillen) (1960-)
for an alleged anti-Semitic speech in a Paris bar, incl. "I love Hitler" - you're under arrest, drop that fascinator?
On Feb. 26 Facebook-planned demonstrations in Mauritania
are staged by up to 1.5K.
On Feb. 26 elections in Ireland
become the worst D since 1932 for the ruling Fianna Fail party, and a V for Fine Gael.
On Feb. 26 the U.N. Security Resolution votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 1970,
condemning the use of lethal force by the Libyan govt. against protesters in the civil war, and imposing a series of internat. sanctions, becoming the first time a country is
unanimously referred to the Internat. Criminal Court by the council; France is accused of violating the resolution by parachuting weapons to Libyan rebels.
On Feb. 27 after three weeks of debate, the EU issues a
statement
denouncing the persecution of Christians by Muslims, albeit in a timid fashion; meanwhile Turkish PM
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
is given a hero's welcome in Germany by Turkish immigrants, telling them to infiltrate, er, integrate
into German society but not assimilate, learning the Turkish language before German.
On Feb. 27 Muslims throw a bomb at the car of prominent Gaza Strip Christian surgeon
Maher Ayyad (1955-)
for preaching Christianity.
On Feb. 27 Am. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan
says that the revolts in the Middle East and North Africa are imminent in the U.S.; he also refuses to cut loose his old buddy Col. Daffy.
On Feb. 27 the 83rd Academy Awards,
presented at the Kodiak Theatre in Hollywood, hosted by James Franco and Anne Hathaway awards the best picture Oscar for 2010 to
The King's Speech, along with best dir. to Tom Hooper, best actor to Colin Firth, and best original screenplay to David Seidler;
Natalie Portman wins best actress for Black Swan; Christian Bale wins best supporting actor for The Fighter, and
Melissa Leo wins best supporting actress for ditto; The Social Network wins best adapted screenplay and best original score;
We Belong Together by Randy Newman from Toy Story 3 wins best original song.
On Feb. 28 Iran arrests opposition leaders Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi.
On Feb. 28 British Airways Muslim computer expert Rajib Karim (1980-)
is found guilty of conspiring with Anwar al-Awlaki to blow up a plane.
On Feb. 28 four people storm the Libyan embassy in Berlin,
vowing to kill Col. Daffy and shouting Allah Akbar.
On Feb. 28 Osama bin Laden's #2 man Ayman al-Zawahri
issues a message urging Tunisians and Egyptians to create Islamic states.
On Feb. 28 (night) Muslims storm the Christian village of Dabwak
in C Nigeria near Jos and murder a mother and her four children.
In Feb. the U.S. unemployment rate drops to 8.9%.
In Feb. Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic movement in Israel is arrested in Jerusalem on suspicion of starting a forest fire to protest
the Jewish Nat. Fund; on May 24 he addresses students at Tel Aviv U. and utters the soundbyte: "We must keep fighting until we remove the Israeli occupation and free
holy Jerusalem"; on June 28 after entering the country illegally and giving a lecture, British authorities arrest him, pissing-off Palestinians and Arab Israelis, who accuse Israel of being behind it.
In Feb. the U.S. begins sending spy drones
into Mexico to monitor the drug trade; on Mar. 3 after it helps locate suspects in the murder of U.S. ICE agent Jaime Zapata, Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon agrees to allow it to continue; in Mar.
it is revealed that they really began sending them in 2009.
In Feb. an arrest warrant is issued for former Pakistani pres. (2001-8) Gen. Pervez Musharraf for involvement in the 2007
assassination of former PM Benazir Bhutto, causing him to live in self-exile in London.
In Feb. the Obama admin. accuses the secretive Lebanese Canadian Bank
of financing Hezbollah, causing it to be shut down and sold.
In Feb. the first Islamic TV channel in Russia debuts.
In Feb. the Borders
chain of bookstores files for bankruptcy and closes 200 of its 642 stores.
On Mar. 1 the funeral of former Islamist Turkish PM
Necmettin Erbakan (b. 1926),
who died on Feb. 27 draws thousands of Allah Akbar-shouting protesters.
On Mar. 1 more massive protests across
Yemen
cause embaddled pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh to offer to form a unity govt., blaming it all on
the West, with the soundbyte that there is "an operation room in Tel Aviv with the aim of
destabilizing the Arab world", and "It is all run by the White House"; on Apr. 30 Saleh
backs out of a mediated deal
that would have allowed him to step down in exchange for immunity, and his forces shoot at
demonstrators, killing four.
On Mar. 1 Am. Muslim Brahim Lajqi (1960-)
is convicted of falsifying immigration documents and sentenced to five years, but is not charged with threats to blow up the White House and other federal bldgs. and vowing
to "slaughter the enemies of Islam".
On Mar. 1 Taliban gunmen on motorbikes wound 15 girls at a college party in
Marden, Pakistan,
25 mi. NE of Peshawar.
On Mar. 1 German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg
resigns after revelations that he plagiarized large parts of his doctoral thesis in law at the U. of Bayreuth; on Mar. 2
Hans-Peter Friedrich succeeds him, on Mar. 5 uttering the soundbyte
that Islam is not part of Germany.
On Mar. 1 in response to Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's treatment of protesters in the civil war,
U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution 65/265 is adopted, suspending Libya's right to take part
in the U.N. Human Rights Council.
On Mar. 2 Pakisani minority affairs minister (Christian)
Shahbaz Bhatti
is killed by Muslim gunmen for opposing their sick Muslim blasphemy laws.
On Mar. 2 two U.S airmen are killed and two more seriously injured by Allah Akbar-shouting 21-y.-o. Kosovan Albanian Muslim gunman
Arid Uka (1989-)
in a bus outside Frankfurt Airport
in Germany, becoming the first successfully Islamic terrorist assassination in Germany, causing Pres. Obama to
condemn
the attack, saying "I am saddened, I am outraged by this attack"; Uka receives a life sentence, with possible deportation to Kosovo in 15 years;
as usual, the PC press tries to coverup the Muslim angle, and the German govt. claims he acted as a "lone wolf", until they arrest German Muslim
Rami Makanesi (1985-)
whom they suspect of working for al-Qaida to develop a Euro support network - lone wolf or known wolf?
On Mar. 2 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 8-1 in Snyder v. Phelps
that protests by the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. at military funerals where they shout that God is killing
U.S. soldiers to punish the U.S. for homosexuality are constitutionally protected, trumping a jury verdict that they're offensive;
Samuel Alito is the lone dissenter, saying a family has a right to bury their dead sons in peace.
On Mar. 2-3 an Obama-Calderon Summit
sees Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon also meet with House Speaker John Boehner and U.S. business leaders; on Mar. 3 Calderon
announces
that cables released by WikiLeaks have caused "severe damage" to the U.S.-Mexico relationship, and that he can no longer work with U.S. ambassador (since Aug. 9, 2009)
Carlos Pascual (1959-),
causing him to resign on Mar. 19; on Mar. 4 the two countries unveil a deal to resolve their 19-year
cross-border trucking feud,
and Calderon utters the soundbyte
that organized crime in Mexico jeopardizes the prosperity of North Am.
On Mar. 3 British radical Islamist Anjem Choudary
holds a protest in front of the White House demanding that Sharia be enacted, causing a counter-protest.
On Mar. 3 Pres. Obama expresses
"deep regret" over a NATO airstrike that killed nine Afghan boys in the Pech Valley in Kunar Province on Mar. 1.
On Mar. 3 Egyptian PM Ahmad Shafiq resigns in favor of transportation minister Essam Sharaf,
who plans to form a caretaker cabinet.
On Mar. 3 Am. Muslims Mohamed Mahmood Alessa (1989-) and Carlos Eduardo Almonte (1986-)
plead guilty to planning to join al-Shabaab in Somalia to kill U.S. troops; it is later revealed that 21 Muslims jihadists were recruited from
Minn. to join al-Shabaab.
On Mar. 4 London School of Economics dir. Sir
Howard Davis
resigns for accepting a Ł300K research grant from a foundation run by Col. Daffy's son Saif al Islam Gaddafi.
On Mar. 4 a Muslim Appreciation Day at the mosque of the Islamic Society of Tulsa, Okla.
is made mandatory for police officers; Capt. Paul Fields is suspended for two weeks for refusing to order his officers to attend.
On Mar. 5 a Sunni bomb in a Sufi shrine in Nowshera
in NW Pakistan kills 10 incl. a child, and injures 30.
On Mar. 5 the Gulf Cooperation Council
meets to prepare a Marshall Plan for Oman and Bahrain in an attempt to quell the unrest there; on Mar. 14 Saudi Arabia sends
troops into Bahrain to quell the uprising, pissing-off the U.S.; on Mar. 15 Bahrain's king imposes
a 3-mo. state of emergency and gives the military wide authority to battle the protesters.
On Mar. 5 4K Muslims attack Coptic Christian homes in Soul, Atfif
in Helwan Governate, Egypt (30 km. from cairo), and burn down the Church of St. Mina and St. George.
On Mar. 6 (4 a.m.) Muslim New York City cabbie Mohammed Azam (1983-)
runs over two of four men hailing a cab in Manhattan.
On Mar. 6 the History Channel debuts the 8-part miniseries The Kennedys
in Canada after canceling the U.S. debut because it isn't historically accurate enough.
On Mar. 6 Obama's new deputy nat. security adviser (since Oct. 22)
Denis McDonough (1969-)
releases a statement titled "Partnering with Communities to Prevent Violent Extremism", touting American tolerance and religious freedom, and parroting Obama's Cairo speech, saying that Islam
has nothing to do with violent extremism and that the Egyptian Rev. was commendable for "the moral force of nonviolence - not terrorism, not mindless killing".
On Mar. 7 the price of oil
jumps to $106 in Europe amid fierce Libyan fighting.
On Mar. 7 Space Shuttle Discovery
reenters Earth's atmosphere for the last time, ending its 39th and final voyage after 5,750 orbits and 150M mi.
On Mar. 7 protesters outside the U.S. embassy in Manama, Bahrain
are greeted by an embassy official who offers them a box of doughnuts.
On Mar. 8 the Mar. 8 Coalition
in Lebanon sees Hezbollah, Amal, and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) unite against PM Najib Mikati and Walid Jumblatt.
On Mar. 8 the Obama admin. finally admits that it will quit trying to close Guantanamo Bay,
and resumes military trials there.
On Mar. 8 a car bomb outside the office of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Faisalabad, Pakistan
kills 30+ and wounds 100+; it was set by the Islamist Al Tawhid Wal Jihad org. in revenge for killing one of their own.
On Mar. 8 the Black Hawks
self-proclaimed anti-Islamist terrorist commando group announces a war on them in North Caucasus.
On Mar. 8 zillions of dead fish wash up along a marina in Redondo Beach, Calif..
On Mar. 9 a video of Betsy Liley and Ron Schiller, an exec of
Nat. Public Radio (NPR)
calling the Tea Party racist and saying that NPR would be better off without federal money causes his resignation; the PC media covers up the real story that the investigative journalists
James O'Keefe
et al. were stinging him while posing as a Muslim Brotherhood connected org., which they were very friendly to; on Mar. 17 the U.S. House
votes
along party lines to block federal funding for NPR.
On Mar. 9 responding to an Iranian call for protest marches there, Saudi foreign minister Prince
Saud Al-Faisal
says that Saudi Arabia won't permit foreign intervention in its internal affairs.
On Mar. 9 the Peter King Hearings on Islamic Radicalization in the U.S.
("The Extent of Radicalization in the American Muslim Community and That Community's Response"), chaired by U.S. Rep. (R-N.Y.) (1993-)
Peter T. King (1944-)
(a longtime supporter of the IRA) begin; Minn. Dem. Rep. (Muslim)
Keith Ellison
(known for support of the Nation of Islam and financing of a trip to Mecca by the Muslim Brotherhood) puts on a
crying act
at the injustice of singling out one group, which happens to be the group responsible for radical extremist Muslims, namely Muslims, American and not;
Tex. Dem. Rep. (1995-) Sheila Jackson Lee (1950-)
gives a long ranting speech
mixing Islam up with the KKK et al., calling for the committee to take up "cold cases" from the civil rights era, and thumping the Constitution to try to stop the hearings.
On Mar. 9 three Shiite opposition groups call for an end to the monarchy in
Bahrain, and replacement by a "democracy".
On Mar. 9 Ill.
becomes U.S. state #16 to abolish the death penalty; the last execution in Ill. was in 2000.
On Mar. 9 the Dalai Lama
gives up his political role in Tibet's govt.-in-exile in favor of an elected rep.
On Mar. 9 a Pew Research Center Poll
shows that 40% of Americans think that the Islamic religion is more likely to encourage violence
than others, while 42% don't; Republicans and Tea Partyers are on the winners team, thinking that it does.
On Mar. 9 the Ninth (Unity) Wave
begins, ending on Oct. 28 with the achievement of Unity Consciousness, according to Swedish Mayanist
Carl Johan Calleman (1950-).
On Mar. 10 Saudi police open fire at a Shiite protest in Qatif, Saudi Arabia; on
Mar. 11 a planned Day of Rage in Saudi Arabia
is a dud, with several hundred protesting
in heavily Shiite E Saudi Arabia; the fall of the Saudi royals will bring a
worldwide recession?
On Mar. 11 the 9.0 2011 Tohoku Japan Earthquake
(biggest ever) strikes off Senai (near Tokyo), causing tsunami alerts in 20+ countries, with a 33-ft. wall of water swamping town in N Japan,
killing 10K and causing $35B in damage; an explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi (No. 1) Power Plant
nuclear reactor 170 mi. NE of Tokyo causes radiation to hit 1Kx the safe level, causing a 6-mi. exclusion zone to be placed around it, after which
a 2nd power plant explodes; on Mar. 14 the 3rd nuclear power plant explosion
occurs, causing panicked residents of Tokyo to flee as the U.S. braces for possible radioactive fallout;
the earthquake shortens the length of the day by 1.8 microsec.; on Mar. 15 100K protesters throughout Germany
call for closing of nuclear power stations; on Mar. 17 German chancellor Angela Merkel
orders Germany's older nuclear reactors to be temporarily shut down for a safety check; on Mar. 18 Pres. Obama
orders
a review of nuclear power plants, while standing strong on the need for more; on Mar. 26 after radioactive iodine spikes 1.2Kx higher than normal in nearby seawater,
Japanese authorities order
the evacuation zone to be expanded to 18 mi.; on Apr. 12 Japan raises
the crisis level at Fukushima to 7 (highest), equal to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
On Mar. 11 a Rasmussen Poll
of U.S. voters shows that 63% think that gaining control of the U.S.-Mexico border is more important
than legalizing undocumented workers already in the U.S.
On Mar. 12 (night) Palestinian Arab terrorists infiltrate a Jewish town in the N West Bank settlement of
Itamar
near Nablus in Samaria and brutally stabs and kills the sleeping
Fogel Family
of five, incl. a child and an infant; Palestinians in Gaza
celebrate
the murders and pass out candy; on Mar. 15 two members of Mahmoud Abbas's official security forces
are arrested for it, causing Israeli
foreign minister
Avigdor Lieberman
to accuse the Palestinian Authority of perpetuating terror attacks via incement against Israelis; on
Mar. 16 Palestinian pres.
Mahmoud Abbas
offers to visit Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for the first time in four hears to reunite Fatah with Hamas;
on Mar. 21 20K attend the Fogel Family funeral; on Apr. 19 the Israelis
arrest
Amjad Awad (19) and Hakim Awad (18) of the nearby village of Awarta; U.S. PC media is strangely silent
about the whole affair.
On Mar. 12 the Malaysian govt.
blocks
the import of 35K Bibles in the Malay language from Indonesia, then releases them on Mar. 16.
On Mar. 13 gunmen ambush a van in
Parachinar
in NW Pakistan and kill 11, incl. eight civilians before police kill three gunmen.
On Mar. 13 tens of thousands demonstrate the 6th anniv. of the uprising against Syria in
Beirut
demanding that Hezbollah be disarmed.
On Mar. 13 after preaching against secular violence in Nigeria Muslim imam
Ibrahim Ahmed Abdullahi
is murdered in his mosque in Maiduguri by Boko Haram gunmen.
On Mar. 13
Philip J. Crowley
resigns as U.S. asst. secy. of state for public affairs for remarks that pre-trial detention
of WikiLeaker PFC Bradley Manning is "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid".
On Mar. 13 it is
revealed
that Pres. Obama told his aides that it would be much easier to be pres. of China.
On Mar. 14 Pres. Obama addresses the
Kenmore Middle School
in Arlington, Va., saying "In the 21st century, it's not enough to leave no child behind.
We need to help every child get ahead."
On Mar. 14 (2 p.m.) a suicide bomber in Kunduz Province
in N Afghanistan kills 33 and wounds 42, most of them volunteers trying to enroll in the nat. army.
On Mar. 14 Pervez Musharraf
appears on BBC-TV, saying that he believed that Britain gave him "tacit approval" to torture terrorism suspects.
On Mar. 14 a bomb explodes at the office of the moderate
Liberal Islam Network (JIL)
in Jakarta, Indonesia, injuring four incl. a police officer.
On Mar. 14 it is announced
that the Egyptian army shelled 6+ vehicles attempting to smuggle weapons into Egypt from Sudan.
On Mar. 14 a 35-y.-o. man in Grand Cayman
stages a 9/11 phone prank claiming to be an Islamic jihadist planting C4, getting him arrested.
On Mar. 15 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton arrives in Cairo;
she is snubbed by a coalition of six youth groups from the Egyptian rev.; after pledging $90M in emergency economic aid, she
visits
Tahrir Square with PM Essam Sharaf, saying that she's "deeply inspired" by the rev., with the soundbyte:
"To see where this revolution happened and all that it has meant to the world is extraordinary for me. It's just a great reminder
of the power of the human spirit and universal desire for human rights and democracy. It's just thrilling to see where this happened."
On Mar. 15 the Israeli navy seizes the Liberian flagship Liberia
320 km off the Israeli coast, claiming that it carries Iranian weapons destined for Hamas et al. in Gaza Strip.
On Mar. 15 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police charge
two Canadian Muslims incl. Ferid Imam and ? with terrorism-related offenses involving al-Qaida, incl. training Najibullah Zazi.
On Mar. 15 the African Union Summit
in Ethiopia discusses the formation of an African Union Authority to replace the African Union Commission as the next step towards a U.S. of Africa.
On Mar. 15 Canadian Liberal MP
Justin Trudeau
blasts a Discover Canada guide calling honor killings "barbaric", saying "there needs to be a little bit of an attempt at responsible neutrality"; after a Tory firestorm, he
apologizes.
On Mar. 15 WikiLeaks whistleblower Julian Paul Assange (1971-)
claims
that the U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks helped spur the Arab uprisings because it made it difficult for the U.S. to continue supporting the regimes while trying to explain to
them that they couldn't rely on U.S. support if they used military force on protesters.
On Mar. 15 protests in Damascus demanding dem. reforms and the release of political prisoners are met with security forces firing on them, triggering the
Syrian Civil War (ends ?) between the Syrian govt. of Bashar al-Assad, rebel groups incl. the Islamic Front, Al-Nusrah Front et al.,
and Hezbollah.
On Mar. 17 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu criticizes
Europe's "strange fusion" of radical Islam and the far left, saying "There is a new boiling anti-Semitism of radical Islam that sweeps Europe as a whole, and there's a strange fusion –
it's the only word I can use to describe it – a fusion with the anti-Semitism of the radical far far left"; meanwhile
Ehud Barak
warns that Israel faces a "diplomatic tsunami" for its indecisiveness about a new Palestinian state, which has been recognized by 110+ countries.
On Mar. 17 British Muslim former hospital dir. Saeeda Khan
is convicted of trafficking Tanzanian woman Mwanahamisi Mruke (1963-) then using her as a slave.
On Mar. 18 thousands protest in Sana'a, Yemen;
govt. forces fire on them from rooftops, killing 52 and wounding 200.
On Mar. 18 hundreds of Saudi Shiites protest in E Saudi Arabia
in support of Shiites in Bahrain, causing King Abdullah to offer them $93B more in benefits while strengthening security forces.
On Mar. 18 (Fri.) Syrian rebels begin naming Fridays for their rev. cause; the first one is "Day of Dignity".
On Mar. 18 an ABC News - Washington Post Poll
finds that for the first time over 50% (53%) of Americans say it should be legal for gays and lesbians to marry; in 2004 it was 32%; 44% are opposed, vs. 62% in 2004.
On Mar. 18 Visa announces a new peer (person-to-person) payment system.
On Mar. 18 masked men open fire in a bar in Acapulco, Mexico,
killing 10 and injuring four.
On Mar. 19 elections in Egypt
on a referendum on changes to the constitution to reduce the powers of the pres. and ensure fair elections see a crowd throw stones at Mohamed ElBaradei in Cairo while trying to vote,
calling him a U.S. agent; article #2 of the constitution making Islam the official religion is not up for vote; after Islamist groups incl. the
Salafists declare plans to establish political parties for the coming pres. elections, the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
announces that Egypt won't "fall into the hands of Islamists"; Christian Copts begin
fleeing
Egypt, reaching 93K by late Sept.
On Mar. 19 Pres. Obama makes a trip to
South Am.,
starting with Brasil, announcing that he wants to put the two nations "on a path toward
even greater cooperation for decades to come",
pledging
that the U.S. will be a "major customer" for Brazilian oil in coming years; on Mar. 18 (eve.) an
anti-Obama protest in Rio
causes the police to use rubber bullets; on Mar. 20 Obama gives a
speech in Rio,
praising Brasil's democracy as an example to his, er, the Arab world; on Mar. 21 (Mon.) he
visits Chile,
and talks about expanding economic copper, er, cooperation; on Mar. 23 he ends by visiting
El Salvador, saying
that the best strategy for curbing illegal immigration to the U.S. is to create economic growth there.
On Mar. 19
Palestinian militants
fire 50+ rockets into Israel, the heaviest barrage in two years; meanwhile Hamas police beat up
reporters and confiscate their reporters.
On Mar. 19 Muslims spray
Sri Mandir Hindu Temple
in Auburn, Australia with bullets.
On Mar. 21 U.S. Sen. (D-Va.)
James Webb
issues a press release, saying that the U.S. mission in Libya "lacks clarity".
On Mar. 21 Pfizer begins selling
Viagra Jet,
a new chewable form in Mexico.
On Mar. 22 German finance minister
Wolfgang Schauble
says that Islam is a part of German society and that Germany must not discriminate.
On Mar. 22 Venezuelan pres.
Hugo Chavez
utters the soundbyte that capitalism may have ended life on Mars.
On Mar. 22 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton gives an
interview
to Diane Sawyer of ABC World News, revealing that Libyan Col. Madman Daffy is exploring exile options.
On Mar. 22/23 (midnight) after 15 boys aged 10-15 imitate the Arab Spring protesters by placing
graffiti on public bldgs., and the secret police under Bashar al-Assad's cousin Gen. Atef Najeeb
torture them by pulling their fingernals, outraging the pop., Syrian forces attack the
Al-Omari Mosque
in Deraa 70 mi. S of Damascus near the Yarmuck River border with Jordan, killing six protesters.
On Mar. 23 a bomb tied to a telephone pole near a bus stop outside the Internat. Convention Center
in C Jerusalem wounds 25.
On Mar. 23 clashes between pro and anti govt. tribesmen in
Al-Jawf
in N Yemen kill 40+.
On Mar. 23 Palestinian militants in
Gaza
fire a new barrage of rockets deep into Israel, causing the Jerusalem Post to declare it the start of
the Third Intifada.
On Mar. 24 U.S. attys. Stephen W. Preston, Mary B. DeRosa, Jeh Johnson, and Rear Adm. James W. Crawford III
meet
in secret to develop a legal rationale to take out Osama bin Laden, paving the way for the SEAL hit.
On Mar. 24 by 22-7-14 the U.N. Human Rights Council
in Geneva adopts a resolution on combating intolerance based on religion, finally dropping all reference to Islam in revulsion against
Pakistan's infamous blasphemy laws, dropping restrictions on peaceful free expression and calling on member nations to adopt "measures to criminalize the
incitement to imminent violance based on religion or belief"; after Iran fails to heed a Gen. Assembly call to improve their record, it also creates its first-ever
special rapporteur for human rights in Iran
after the Org. of the Islamic Conference bloc splits ranks; on June 17 ex-foreign affairs minister of Maldives (Muslim)
Ahmed Shaheed (1964-) is appointed (until ?).
On Mar. 24 the U.S. Census Bureau
announces that the new mean center of pop. is 2.7 mi. NE of Plato, Mo. (pop. 109);
in 2000 it was in Edgar Springs, Mo., 40 mi. NE.; U.S. pop. is 308M;
Hispanic pop.
is up to 50M.
On Mar. 25 10K protest in
Syria,
causing the govt. to crack down, with troops killing 37 in Daraa in S Syria as they try to topple a
statue of ex-dictator Hafez Assad; the 10K-man
Iranian Rev. Guard Corps
is put in charge of ending the uprising; on Apr. 8 Syrian soldiers are
shot
for refusing to shoot at protesters in Banias; on Apr. 13 hundreds of women march in protest
after mass arrests in Baida.
On Mar. 25 after being criticized for refusing to help the NATO mission in Libya, the German Bundestag
votes to broaden the German mission
in Afghanistan.
On Mar. 25 U.S. prosecutors
admit
that a human smuggling ring brought in an undetermined number of potential Somalian Muslim jihadists via Brazil.
On Mar. 25 Muslims in
London, England protest to demand
Sharia law for the U.K.
On Mar. 25 a report by the Swiss-based
Displacement Monitoring Center
claims that 230K+ have been displaced by drug violence in Mexico, and about half may have taken refuge
in the U.S.; meanwhile
Mexico
finally repeals federal criminal penalties for adultery.
On Mar. 25 the Asia Times reports that Osama bin Laden
was recently spotted in the Hindu Kish Mts. of Pakistan-Afghanitan; meanwhile Al-Qaida in Libya
steals some SAMs from an arsenal in Libya.
On Mar. 26 Syrian pres. Bashed Ass, er, Bashar al-Assad issues an amnesty
for 260 prisoners in Sednayya Prison outside Damascus; too bad, they are mainly islamists, who join Islamist terrorist orgs. like ISIS and al-Nusrah Front.
On Mar. 27 Islamic militants seize a weapons factory in Abyan, S Yemen.
On Mar. 27 Taliban fighters abduct 50 off-duty Afghan policemen in an ambush in the
Chapa Dara
district of NE Kunar Province.
On Mar. 27 an Israeli strike on a Palestinian rocket squad in Gaza Strip
kills two militants.
On Mar. 27 former U.S. defense secy. Donald H. Rumsfeld
says that he is worried that the Muslim Brotherhood will hijack the Egyptian Rev.
On Mar. 27 Hillary Clinton's advisor Sid Blumenthal sends her an email
informing her that U.S.-backed Libyan Arab rebels are exterminating anybody with black skin, and does nothing about it?
On Mar. 28 the New York Times
puts up a firewall on the Internet to block non-paying subscribers.
On Mar. 28 Repub. pres. hopeful Newt Gingrich
gives a speech at Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Tex., and says that he's worried that the U.S. could turn into "a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists".
On Mar. 28 an unusual air attack is staged by the Russians against a militant Islamist base in North Caucasus, after which on Mar. 29 pres. Dmitri Medveyev
warns
the separatist fighters to surrender or "be destroyed".
On Mar. 28 the Mansfield City School District
in Ohio withdraws permission for a Tea Party group to stage an event on school grounds featuring a speaker who urges Muslims to convert to Christianity, causing them to sue.
On Mar. 29 the govt. of Syria resigns;
Hillary Clinton condemns it for its harsh treatment of pro-democracy protesters.
On Mar. 29 uniformed jihadists in military trucks blast their way in a provincial govt. HQ in
Tikrit, Iraq,
killing 55+ and injuring 95.
On Mar. 29 the first-ever hearings on
Discrimination Against Muslims in the U.S.
are held by the Senate Judiciary Committee's panel on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights,
chaired by asst. Sen. Dem. majority whip (2007-15)
Richard Joseph "Dick" Durbin (1944-),
who claims it's not an attempt to counter Pete King's House hearings, and utters the soundbyte:
"We should all agree that it is wrong to blame an entire community for the wrongdoing of a few";
Sen. Jon Kyl
(R-Ariz.) questions the need for the hearings in light of the fact that most religious hate crimes
in the U.S. are committed against Jews, and says he's "stunned" that Muslim Advocates dir.
Farhana Khera
gives advice to Muslims to not speak to the FBI or infidel law enforcement sans an atty.
On Mar. 29 a German govt. conference on Islam
in Berlin is boycotted by Germany's main Muslim group the Central Council of Muslims.
On Mar. 29 after many complaints from the Israeli govt. et al., Facebook shuts down the
Third Intifada Group,
calling for Muslims to launch another war against the Jews.
On Mar. 29 ABC-TV's Diane Sawyer
interviews
Pres. Obama, and compares him to Abe Lincoln who prayed when "his own wisdom and that around
him was insufficient for the day", and got him to respond "I do a lot of praying" - to Allah?
On Mar. 29 U.S. HUD secy. Shaun Donovan
says that no other pres. "better understands" the need for public housing than Obama, and that the admin. will fight House Repubs. over proposed cuts.
On Mar. 29 the London Conference on Libya
sponsored by Britain and France in hopes of building a consensus sees several Arab states back out, incl. Egypt.
On Mar. 29 the moderate Muslim Am.-Islamic Leadership Coalition
is founded to defend the U.S. Constitution, religious pluralism, U.S. security, and diversity in Islam as a counter to CAIR etc.
On Mar. 30 Pres. Obama calls
for a one-third cut in oil imports by 2020.
On Mar. 30 Ugandan pres. Tamale Mirundi
says that Libyan dictator Col. Daffy is welcome to live in his country - today and tamale?
On Mar. 30 Syrian pres. Bashar Assad
blames "conspirators" for the wave of protests against his authoritarian rule.
On Mar. 30 a suicide bomber on a motorbyke blows up in a crowd in Swabi, Pakistan (44 mi. from Islamabad)
as they gather to meet hardline Islamist leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman of Jamiat Uleme-e-Islam.
On Mar. 30 a massacre in Blolequin, Ivory Coast
sees 85 men, women and children seeking refuge in a govt. bldg. killed.
On Mar. 30 Yemeni-Am. Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki
breaks his silence on the Arab Spring, saying that Islamists are elated by the revolts against govts. they have long despised.
On Mar. 30 a new poll
by Quinnipiac U. finds that 50% of voters say that Pres. Obama doesn't deserve a 2nd term, with 41% saying he does.
On Mar. 30 the U.S. House Oversight and Govt. Reform Committee issues a
report
alleging that the Dept. of Homeland Security has politicized the way it responds to
FOIA request for info. from the public and press.
On Mar. 30 new German interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich hosts a
Conference on Islam
with Muslim leaders in Berlin, saying that he wants to "work together on preventing radicaliation and extremism"; he
proposes
a "security partnership" with German Muslims, causing a firestorm of controversy.
On Mar. 30 the 9/11 Commission
tells the Senate Homeland Security Committee that the U.S. is still unprepared for terrorist attacks.
On Mar. 30 the Ł8M Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies
at Cambridge U. in Britain opens.
On Mar. 30 U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.)
introduces legislation to order secy. of state Hillary Clinton to designate Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist orgs.
On Mar. 30 the LA Times reports White House comments that
"CIA officers on the ground in Libya are coordinating with rebels and sharing intelligence."
On Mar. 30 (midnight) Camp Pendleton, Calif.
issues a security alert after three Middle Eastern Muslim men in two vehicles drive to it under suspicious circumstances - Islamophobia?
On Mar. 31 Israel releases a
map
showing how Lebanon has been booby-trapped with 1K underground military sites by Hezbollah,
which they call "resistance tunnels"; on Mar. 31 Hamas member
Hasan Abyu Jaser
is killed in a tunnel collapse.
On Mar. 31 Nation of Islam leader
Louis Farrakhan
gives a speech praising Libyan dictator Col. Daffy and thanking him for lending them $8M
over the years, giving the Nation of Islam its first headlines in years.
In Mar. the U.S. Army is exposed for its
Afghanistan Kill Team
that posed for photos of murdered civilians.
In Mar. Ntrepid Corp.
of the U.S. is awarded a $2.76M contract to develop sock puppet software to manipulate social media on non-English speaking Web sites incl. Arabic, Farsi, Urdi, and Pasho as
part of the $200M Operation Earnest Voice Program.
In Mar. billionaire real estate celeb
Donald Trump (1946-)
begins making moves to announce his Repub. candidacy for U.S. pres., saying that "I have some real doubts" that Obama was born in the U.S., and dissing him for
not releasing his birth certificate, saying there might be something on it he doesn't want people to see, such as that it lists him as Muslim, or worse, maybe
Obama originally had a different surname and father; Trump reportedly sent investigators to Hawaii on the trail of it, stay tuned; he also
claims
that Obama spent $2M+ trying to keep his birth certificate, college transcripts, etc., sealed, when actually that number is little more than speculation;
Orly Taitz claims that it was more than $5M, paid to nat. law firm
Perkins Cole,
but then, signing Executive Order 13489
(Jan. 21, 2009) sealing all his records didn't cost him a cent, did it?
In Mar. the U.S. economy
adds 216K job, leaving unemployment at 8.8%.
In Mar. 51% of Americans ages 12+ have profiles on Facebook.
In Mar. the U.S. military begins issuing 13K
Individual Gunshot Detectors
that can tell where a shot was fired from, incl. distance and direction in less than 1 sec.
In Mar. Tibetan Buddhist monks begin
self-immolation
to protest Chinese govt. opression; by Nov. 9 monks and one attempt suicide.
On Apr. 1 after reports that Christian pastor Terry Jones burned a Quran in Fla. in Mar., a
mob of enraged Muslims in
Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan
turns violent, killing eight at a U.N. operational center, beheading two of them, after
which Jones calls on
the U.N. to take "immediate action" against Muslim nations to hold them accountable for
the deaths, urging them to "alter the laws that govern their countries to allow for
individual freedoms and rights, such as the right to worship, free speech and to move
freely without fear of being attacked or killed"; instead, Pres. Obama extends condolences
to the families of the murdered, and
calls
desecration of the Quran "an act of extreme intolerance and bigotry"; on Apr. 2 the Muslims
continue
their rampage in Kandahar, killing 10 and wounding 83, causing U.S. gen.
David Petraeus
to condemn Jones, calling Quran burning "hateful", "intolerant", and "extremely disrespectful",
adding "we condemn it in the strongest manner possible"; a
2nd and 3rd day
of rage sees more marches and mayhem, followed by a 4th and 5th; meanwhile officials in Pakistan
send a letter
to Interpol demanding the arrest of Jones for his "violent crime", and U.S. Sens. Harry Reid
(D-Nev.) and Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) call for Quran burning to be criminalized, with Graham uttering the soundbyte "Free speech is a great idea, but we're in a war."
On Apr. 1 protests in Douma, Syria
(near Damascus) cause 10 to be killed; on Apr. 3 thousands march in Douma to mourn those killed in protests; meanwhile pres. Bashar Assad appoints a former agriculture minister to form a new govt.
On Apr. 1 British security and counter-terrorism minister (since May 13, 2010) baroness
Lilian Pauline Neville-Jones (1939-)
tells the Daily Telegraph that the govt. needs to persuade the Muslim pop. that the U.K. is a single nation, and that they don't just "rub along together" but must be persuaded that their
longterm future lies in Britain - but not in becoming British?
On Apr. 2 a massacre of 1K+ in Duekoue, Ivory Coast
in an area controlled by forces fighting to install pres. Alassane Ouattara is reported by a Catholic charity.
On Apr. 3 a group of Islamists stage a protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh
against a govt. policy giving women equal rights to inheritance, and throw stones, causing police to open fire and use tear gas, killing one and injuring 25.
On Apr. 3 the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood gets more vocal and demands
that the govt. establish Saudi-style modesty police.
On Apr. 3 an Islamist suicide attack in the Sufi
Sakhi Sarwar Shrine
in Punjab, India kills 41.
On Apr. 3 the Obama admin. flops,
dropping support
of pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh; Yemeni officials announce that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula
has seized the city of
Jar
and declared an Islamic Emirate; pres. Saleh let them in to bolster his tenuous grip on power?
On Apr. 3 Somalia declares the new state of
Azania.
On Apr. 3 Ai Weiwei,
the Chinese artist known for the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing is arrested for criticism of the govt.
On Apr. 3-10 the miniseries The Kennedys
debuts on History Channel, starring Greg Kinnear as JFK, Katie Holmes as Jacqueline Kennedy, Barry Pepper as RFK, and Tom Wilkinson as Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.
On Apr. 4 (4th day of 4th mo. of the 44th anniv. of the assassination of MLK Jr.), U.S. pres. #44 Barack Obama (born on Aug. 4 and elected pres. on Nov. 4, 2009)
launches his reelection campaign.
On Apr. 4 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder finally announces
that he's cleared military prosecutors to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others accused in the 9/11 case for military trials at Gitmo, flopping on his Nov. 2009 decision to try them in a civil court in
New York City; knowing how bad it makes Obama looks, he tries to blame
Congress for forcing him to do it.
On Apr. 4 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket
utters
the soundbyte: "A Mideast without Israel and America is now possible"; on Apr. 7 he adds:
"You should know that the Zionist regime has reached the end of the line and no one can save this regime."
On Apr. 4 the U.S. Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights releases a
letter
headed "Dear Colleague" that dramatically changes procedures for handling alleged sexual assault cases, making suspects guilty
until proven innocent and bypassing the police to please hardcore feminists.
On Apr. 5 the Obama admin. gives Congress a
report
on Pakistan, saying that its military has "no clear path toward defeating the insurgency" by al-Qaida.
On Apr. 5 the Wall Street Journal
reports
that the U.S. has frozen military aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces, which are controlled by Hezbollah.
On Apr. 5 a
Debate on the Practice of Islam
is held by France's ruling party in an attempt to stem the growing influence of the far right party
of Marie Le Pen; meanwhile French interior minister
Claude Gueant
is prosecuting for declaring that the "growing" number of Muslims in France poses a "problem" - suicide in Eurabia?
On Apr. 5 the legislative house in
Ala.
passes an Ariz.-style immigration crackdown law by 73-28, sending it to the Ala. senate.
On Apr. 5 Israel
attacks
Sudan, killing 100+ in an air strike.
On Apr. 5 renewed clashes in
Yemen in Sana'a and Taiz
kill three and injure 400+; on Apr. 6 tens of thousand siege the HQ of the governate of
Taiz; meanwhile 15 are arrested in Aden after clashes with police; on Apr. 8 ("Fri. of
Determination") hundreds of thousands protest in 15 of Yemen's 21 governates; on Apr. 10
clashes between protesters and police in Taiz result in four killed and 43 injured, with
500 becoming ill from tear gas; on Apr. 11 Saleh announces acceptance of a 30-day exit
plan offered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC); on Apr. 12 hundreds of thousands protest
the GCC proposals; on Apr. 13 the 1st Armored Div. defects from Yemen's army; on Apr. 15
("Fri. of Tolerance") hundreds of thousands protest throughout Yemen; on Apr. 17 GCC
ministers meet with Saleh's opposition in Riyadh, while two protesters are killed and 45
injured in Sana'a; on Apr. 21 Saleh's eldest son Ahmad leads the Repub. Guards against
armed tribesmen in the S governate of Lahj, killing 15, incl. 13 soldiers; on Apr. 22
("Last Chance Fri.") hundreds of thousands protest in main cities; on Apr. 27 protesters
advancing towards the state TV bldg. in Sana'a are attacked by police, who kill seven
and injure 100+; on Apr. 29 ("Fri. of Loyalty with Martyrs") hundreds of thousands
demonstrate in 17 governates, while Saleh dismisses atty.-gen. Abdullah al-Ulifi for
demanding an investigation of the Repub. Guards; on May 4 tens of thousands protest
in major cities after the govt. bombs the Yafea district of the Lahj governate; meanwhile
the govt. accuses protesters of cutting out the tongue of a poet loyal to Saleh; on May 5
tens of thousands demonstrate, demanding that Saleh step down; on May 6 ("Fri. of Loyalty
with People of the South") hundreds of thousands demonstrate throughout Yemen, while
Saleh vows a crackdown on "opposition-backed bandits" for hitting oil pipelines and a
power plant in Marib Governate; on May 8 protests in Taiz and Hodeidah governates kill
three and injure 20 protesters; on May 9 "rev. youth" close offices in Ibb, Taiz, and
Hodeidah; meanwhile four are killed and 100+ injured in Taiz by govt. troops dispersing
protesters sieging govt. offices; on May 11 thousands march toward the Council of
Ministers bldg. in Sana'a, killing 12 and injuring 150, plus another eight killed in
Taiz, Hodeidah and Ibb; on May 13 ("Fri. of Decisiveness") hundreds of thousands protest
throughout Yemen, which Saleh counters by calling it the "Fri. of Unity"; meanwhile
fights between the 1st Armoured Div. and the Repub. Guards in Ban Matar District 40 km
W of Sana'a kill three soldiers; on May 14 five Repub. Guardsmen are killed in an ambush
by tribesman in Marib governate 180 km E of Sana'a, along with six govt. security forces
in Rada in Beida governate 150 km SE of Sana'a.
On Apr. 6 the Obama admin. reaches an agreement with
Colombia
regarding violence against labor leaders, enabling a free trade agreement negotiated by the
Bush admin. to win approval although Obama campaigned against it in 2008.
On Apr. 6 U.S. defense secy. Robert M. Gates
visits
Saudi Arabia to mend fences with King Abdullah and discuss the $60B arms deal.
On Apr. 6 Syria
reverses
its ban on teachers wearing the Islamic veil, and closes the country's only casino in a bid
to appease Islamists amid calls for more pro-dem. demonstrations; meanwhile Tunisia
announces
that women will be allowed to wear hijan on photographic IDs.
On Apr. 6 Mexican police uncover a mass grave near San Fernando (80 mi. S of Brownsville, Tex.) in
Tamaulipas
containing 183 bodies; on Apr. 15 16 police officers are arrested for covering for the drug cartel, which kidnapped bus passengers en route to Matamoros, where 400 unclaimed suitcases are reported.
On Apr. 6 the U.S. Govt. Accountability Office (GAO) tells
Congress that the TSA failed at least 23x to stop terror suspects who boarded planes at U.S. airports; on Apr. 7 the U.S. govt.
announces
that its new style of terror alerts will be seen on Facebook and Twitter.
On Apr. 6 Acorn (Assoc. of Community Orgs. for Reform Now)
is convicted in Las Vegas, Nev. of felony "compensation" for registration of voters, becoming their first criminal conviction.
On Apr. 7 former PM (1993-4) Mahamadou Issoufou (1952-)
becomes pres. of Niger (until ?), inheriting the 2011-2 Sahel Food Crisis, and launching the
3N (Nigerians Feeding Nigerians) Initiative next year.
On Apr. 7 the Taliban attack a police compound in
Kandahar, Afghanistan,
killing six Afghan security personnel, who kill four Taliban jihadis;
the use of an ambulance
by the attackers is later lamented by the Taliban, who promise an investigation and that
it won't happen again.
On Apr. 7 a Muslim gunman opens fire on students at
Tasso da Silveira Primary School
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, killing 20.
On Apr. 7 French interior minister
Claude Gueant
warns that humanitarian permits granted to thousands of Tunisians are temporary,
and that France won't tolerate a "wave of Tunisian immigration".
On Apr. 7 the Iraqi army clashes with the
People's Mujahedeen,
an Iranian exile group at Camp Ashraf N of Baghdad, killing 33, then blocks humanitarian aid.
On Apr. 7 the first-ever Islamic univ. in
Albania
opens in Tirana.
On Apr. 7 the Hawaiian Appeals Court
rejects a request by Robert V. Justice to "inspect and copy" Obama's birth certificate, saying he must be a close family member - duh, so why doesn't a close member
request it to satisfy everybody? Because Obama told them he's got nothing to hide, or the reverse? The burden of proof is on Obama if he wants the issue to go away,
else it shouldn't, it could be a major scandal in U.S. history, if anybody still cares about the Constitution that is, because his entire presidency could become like
the Lost Season of Dallas, when Pam wakes up and finds Bobby in the shower?
On Apr. 8 Pres. Obama signs an executive order
to continue the nat. emergency with respect to Somalia declared on Apr. 12, 2010.
On Apr. 8 N.Y. Repub. U.S. sen.
Gregory R. Ball,
chmn. of the Senate Committee on Veterans, Homeland Security and Military Affairs
holds another hearing on Muslims and terrorism, hearing a talk by ex-Muslim Nonie Darwish; a
Curious George doll
with Star of David stickers on it and a hate-filled Muslim letter is sent to him, which on Apr. 14 is traced to
Jameela Barnette
of Marietta, Ga. who also sent the bloody pig's foot to Peter King.
On Apr. 8 1K non-Iranian Shiite clerics and students from Qum, Iran
demonstrate
outside the U.N. HQ and Saudi embassy in an attempt to get the Iranian govt. to support
the protesters in Bahrain, shouting Death to America and Death to the Saud Family; meanwhile
demonstrations are held
in several Iraqi cities calling for the departure of PM Nouri Al-Maliki, and an end to corruption.
On Apr. 8 1M stage a protest
in Liberation Square in Cairo demanding that the Egyptian govt. abandon the peace treaty with Israel and lift the blockade on Gaza Strip.
On Apr. 8 the
Izzadin Kassam Brigades
of Hamas shoot an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus, injuring
a student and the driver, causing Israel to respond with air attacks in Gaza Strip, killing five;
meanwhile Hamas ramps up
the rocket attacks on Israel.
On Apr. 8 prominent Muslim cleric
Moulvi Showkat Ahmad Shah,
who denounced stone-throwing protests as un-Islamic is murdered outside a mosque in Srinagar.
On Apr. 8 (Fri. night) Dems.
surrender
$38.5B in cuts to Repubs. to avert a U.S. govt. shutdown.
On Apr. 8 NASA astronaut
Cady Coleman
aboard the Internat. Space Station performs the first Space-Earth flute duet with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.
On Apr. 8-11
Bretton Woods II
is held in Bretton Woods, N.H., sponsored
by leftist billionaire George Soros, who wants a NWO OWG with a global currency under U.N. rule.
On Apr. 9 a Muslim opens fire with an automatic weapon at a crowded shopping mall outside
Amsterdam, Netherlands,
killing six and wounding 11.
On Apr. 9 the U.S.
criticizes
Saudi Arabia for putting restrictions on the Internet.
On Apr. 9-10 Am. rock star
Bob Dylan
performs in China and Vietnam after allowing the govt. to preapprove his playlist - the 1960s are dead?
On Apr. 10 1K Muslims and leftist anti-war activists protest in
Union Square
in New York City, carrying signs that read "Stop War/Terrorism/Islamophobia".
On Apr. 10 a 21-.y.-o. Jew in Villeurbanne (near Lyon), France
is attacked by anti-Semites and seriously wounded as he returns from a Torah course.
On Apr. 10 an Islamic jihadist in Dagestan
in N Caucasus is killed when his suicide vest prematurely detonates.
On Apr. 10 Welsh British Nat. Party candidate Sion Owens (1970-)
is arrested for burning a Quran in his garden; the charges are dropped, but the investigators state that "almost certainly other proceedings will ensue".
On Apr. 11 tens of thousand protest Mexico City
to demand an end to the war on drugs, chanting "No More Blood" and calling for pres. Felipe Calderon's resignation for sending the army on the cartels in late 2006, causing 35K deaths.
On Apr. 11 France's new anti-veiling law
comes into effect, making it illegal to hide one's face in public or encouraging another to do so, whether a Muslim or not, causing
protests
outside Notre Dame Cathedral, with two arrested; only 2K women bear the burqa or niqab in France; on Apr. 11 the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood issues a
warning, calling the French veil ban "the beginning of a dangerous battle".
On Apr. 11 Ivory Coast pres. #4 (since Oct. 26, 2000) Laurent Gbagbo
is arrested at his residence in Abidjan by French and U.N. troops after a battle; in Nov. he is extradited to The Hague and charged with four counts of crime against humanity in the
Internat. Criminal Court (ICC) in connection with post-election violence.
On Apr. 12 an Egyptian man declares himself to be the Mahdi (Muslim Messiah) at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, and is immediately arrested.
On Apr. 11 female deputy police chief Atifete Jahjaga (1975-) is elected pres. of Kosovo (until Apr. 7, 2016).
On Apr. 11 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton gives a news conference with Finnish foreign minister Alexander Stubb in Washington, D.C., and
decries
the marginalization of women in the Islamic world, saying they must be empowered for true democracy in the Middle East.
On Apr. 12 the 50th anniv. of first astronaut in space Yuri Gagarin causes Russian pres. Dmitri Medvedev to gush.
On Apr. 12 the U.N. declares the Palestinian Authority largely ready to govern a Palestinian state.
On Apr. 12 an Egyptian man declares himself to be the Mahdi
(Muslim Messiah) at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, and is immediately arrested.
On Apr. 13 Pres. Obama gives a Speech on the Deficit,
calling for it to be reduced by $4T over the next 12 years.
On Apr. 13 the FBI announces the dismantling of the giant internat. Coreflood
botnet that commandeered 2.3M Windows PCs (1.8M in the U.S.), and stole up to $100M.
On Apr. 13 U.S. Rep. (R-N.C.) Sue Myrick,
chmn. of the Intel subcommittee begins holding hearings on the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood.
On Apr. 14 Pres. Obama, British PM David Cameron, and French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy pub. an
op-ed in
the New York Times, with the soundbyte: "There is a pathway to peace that promises new hope
for the people of Libya - a future without Qaddafi that preserves Libya's integrity and
sovereignty, and restores her economy and the prosperity and security of her people."
On Apr. 14 after their gang leader Abu al-Walid al-Maqdisi was arrested by Hamas on Mar. 2, Italian pro-Palestinian activist
Vittorio Arrigoni (b. 1975)
is kidnapped in Gaza by members of al-Qaida-linked Tawhid wal-Jihad,
then hanged on Apr. 15 after their ransom demands aren't meant; Hamas denies involvement, as does Tawhid wal-Jihad.
On Apr. 14 350 Islamist Salafi hardline protesters in Zarqa, Jordan
clash with supporters of Jordan's king, wounding dozens.
On Apr. 14 a delegation from the British Foreign Office led by consul-gen. Marie-Louise Archer
meets in Alexandria, Egypt with the Muslim Brotherood.
On Apr. 14 Obama interviews
fan George Stephanopoulos of ABC-TV, and utters the soundbyte: "I think that over the last two and a half years there's been an effort to go at me in a way that is politically
expedient in the short term for Republicans, but creates, I think, a problem for them when they want to actually run in a general election where most people feel pretty confident
the president was born where he says he was, in Hawaii. He doesn't have horns... We're not really worrying about conspiracy theories or birth certificates" - that settles it -
the president says he was born in Hawaii - which president, Clinton?
On Apr. 14-16 the U.S. tornado outbreak of Apr. 14-16, 2011)
produces 178 confirmed tornadoes across 16 days, killing 38 and causing $2.1B damage, becoming the deadliest since the 2008 Super Tues. tornado outbreak.
On Apr. 15 leaders of BRICS (Brazil,
Russia, India, China, South Africa) meeting in S China unanimously criticize the West for waging war on Libya and causing civilian casualties.
On Apr. 15 Islamists armed with swords, daggers and clubs attack police in
Zarqa, Jordan,
wounding 51; 32 others are treated for tear gas inhalation, while eight civilians are injured.
On Apr. 15 a suicide bomber in a mosque in
Ciberon, West Java
(180 mi. from Jakarta) detonates, wounding 28 incl. several policeman, becoming the first Islamist suicide bomb in Indonesian history.
On Apr. 15 the Egypt govt. appoints 20 new governors, incl. Emad Mikhail, a Copt for the city of
Qena, causing Islamist protests.
On Apr. 15 protests by Sunnis in
Ahwaz, Khuzestan, Iraq
result in 12+ killed.
On Apr. 15 (night) hundreds of Egyptians rally outside the Israeli consulate in
Alexandria, Egypt,
calling for a new intifdada aginst the Jews in Israel.
On Apr. 15 (night) non-Muslim Kashmiri candidate
Haseena Akhtar
is pulled out of her home and murdered by suspected Muslim rebels.
On Apr. 15 U.S. comedian
Jerry Seinfeld
appears on the BBC-TV morning show Daybreak, and calls the upcoming royal wedding
a "circus act" for people who think they're "special".
On Apr. 16 hundreds of mad Muslims attack the Christian village of
Gurjarnwala, Punjab
after a bag with torn pages of the Quran is found hidden near a home.
On Apr. 16 top U.S. congresswoman
Kay Granger (R-Tex.)
warns that if the Palestinians pursue a unilateral statehood declaration with the U.N. that the U.S. could reduce aid to both.
On Apr. 16 a suicide bomber in an Afghan military uniform kills five NATO and four Afghan soldiers at
Forward Operating Base Gamberi
in Laghman Province, E Afghanistan.
On Apr. 16 Roman Catholic protesters destroy the hated Piss Christ
by Andres Serrano while on display in a museum in former papal seat Avignon, France.
On Apr. 17 a poll
of Repubs. in Iowa show that 48% believe that Pres. Obama wasn't born in the U.S.
On Apr. 17 the XXX porno-filled medieval fantasy series Game of Thrones,
based on George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novel series debuts on HBO (until )?, set in the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, about noble families who vie for
control of the Iron Throne, as Littlefinger, Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen, and Diana Rigg as Olenna Tyrell.
On Apr. 18 after the U.S. debt
tops $14.3T for the first time ever, Standard & Poors
lowers its outlook on the U.S. to negative for the first time since it started assigning outlooks in 1989, causing stocks to slide.
On Apr. 18 (8 a.m.) Islamist suicide bombers detonate two cars outside the
Green Zone
in Baghdad, killing nine and wounding 23.
On Apr. 18 thousands of protesters in Homs, Syria
demand the resignation of pres. Bashar Assad.
On Apr. 18 in response to the election of Christian pres. Jonathan Goodluck, Muslims in
N Nigeria
kill 100+ Christians and burn 40+ churches; meanwhile two al-Shabaab militants murder newly-converted Christian
Hassan Adawe Adan (b. 1990)
in Shalambod, Somalia as part of a campaign to exterminate Christianity from Somalia.
On Apr. 19 Pres. Obama holds an Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House in Washington, D.C., with the soundbyte:
"I wanted to host this breakfast for a simple reason, because as busy as we are, as many tasks as pile up, during this season, we are reminded that there's something about the resurrection,
something about the resurrection of our savior Jesus Christ that puts everything else in perspective."
On Apr. 19 a Boeing 737 carrying First Lady Michelle Obama and Second Lady Jill Biden has a close call
with a Boeing C-17 military transport jet that gets within 2.94 mi. as they are about to land at Andrews AFB near Washington, D.C.
On Apr. 19 Repub. Ariz. gov. Jan Brewer vetoes
a law requiring pres. candidates to prove their citizenship before their names can be placed on the state ballot.
On Apr. 19 a mill outside
Kabul, Afghanistan
that recycles worn-out Qurans into toilet paper draws an angry stone-throwing mob of 1K, causing the govt. to arrest three and shut it down.
On Apr. 20 U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen
is interviewed on Pakistani TV, accusing Pakistan's spy agency of supporting the Hawwani network of Islamic militants in Afghanistan, who are killing U.S. and NATO troops.
On Apr. 21 300 Israeli leftist intellectuals incl. 17 Israel Prize winners in Tel Aviv
announce:
"We are here to welcome the expected announcement of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, according to the borders of our independence, fixed during the 1949 armistice";
it also calls for a complete Israeli pullout from the West Bank.
On Apr. 21 police uncover a 330 lb. bomb buried near a church near
Jakarta, Indonesia
set to to off on Easter Sun. (Apr. 24).
On Apr. 21 Israel warns
the U.N. that a planned new Gaza flotilla has organizers tied to Hamas and other Islamist jihadist groups.
On Apr. 21 Israeli authorities rearrest Palestinian activist
Ahmed Qatamesh (1950-),
who was detained for six years in the 1990s.
On Apr. 22 Fla. pastor Terry Jones is briefly
jailed
for refusing to pay protection money to the city of Dearbornistan, Mich. in the event of Muslim violence at his planned
protest outside a mosque.
On Apr. 22-24 Tex. Gov. Rick Perry declares Days of Prayer for Rain in Tex.
On Apr. 23 hundreds of Russian nationalists and racists stage a rally in
Moscow
to demand an end to social welfare payments for Muslim repubs. of North Caucasus.
On Apr. 24 (Sun.) Easter falls on the latest date since 1943 C.E.
On Apr. 24 an Islamist bomb at Sacred Heart Church
in Karradah, Baghdad wounds three civilians and three policemen.
On Apr. 24 Allah-Akbar-shouting Palestinian police open fire on pilgrims visiting Joseph's Tomb in Nablus.
On Apr. 24 Pres. Obama and his family attends Easter Sun. service at
Shiloh Baptist Church
in Washington, D.C., which was founded in 1863 by freed slaves from Fredericksburg, Va.
On Apr. 25 a daring jailbreak by the Taliban in Kandahar, Afghanistan
sees 488 escape in a tunnel that took 5 mo. to dig.
On Apr. 25 ProPublica
becomes the first non-print journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism, for its series "The Wall Street Money Machine".
On Apr. 25-28 the 2011 Super Tornado Outbreak in the S, midwest, and NE U.S. produces 360 confirmed tornadoes,
killing 324 and causing $12.2B damage, with up to 210 mph winds; on Apr. 27 4.5 in. hail falls in Saltville, Va.
On Apr. 26 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi meet
in Rome to discuss the influx of North African (mainly Muslim) immigrants.
On Apr. 26 the world's
last typewriter factory, Godrej & Boyce in India shuts down.
On Apr. 27 the legislative house of
Mo.
passes a law banning state courts from making rulings based on foreign (read Sharia) laws.
On Apr. 27 the
Fatah-Hamas Accord
is signed; the Islamic Jihad
refuses to join the unity govt.; the Obama admin. says they won't support the new govt.
unless it commits to peace conditions spelled out by the Quartet (U.S., Russia, EU, U.N.),
but continues plans to send the Palestinian Authority $550M in U.S. aid
despite
bipartisan opposition; Likud leader
Moshe Kahlon
said that if there is a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, Israel should
annex the West Bank; on Apr. 30 Gaza PM
Ismail Haniyeh
calls on the PLO to withdraw its recognition of Israel; on May 4 a
Palestinian Nat. Accord is signed by all Palestinian factions;
after Mahmoud Abbas says that he will continue pursuing peace talks with Israel,
Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar says that Hamas will stick to its stance of not recognizing
or negotiating with Israel, but "if Fatah wants to negotiate with Israel over trivialities,
they can"; the unity is a sham to help their appeal in the U.N. for Palestinian statehood in Sept.?
On Apr. 27 an Afghan Air Corps pilot gets in an argument with nine Am. trainers
at Kabul Airport,
then leaves, returns with a rifle and methodically slaughters them.
On Apr. 27 two Christian Afghan asylum seekers,
Ahmed Faizi and Ali Hussani
are deported from the U.K. despite fears that they will be killed for apostasy by the Taliban or other Muslims.
On Apr. 27 after a 4-year battle backed by the ACLU, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney
rules
that CAIR can't have access to FBI files on it because of nat. security concerns.
On Apr. 27 after the pressure by Donald Trump mounts, the White House finally
releases
a certified copy of the long form birth certificate, saying that the nation was being "distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers", causing Trump to claim "I won",
and say that he's "proud" of forcing the release, dropping out of the race in May; no surprise, the birth certificate lists the place of birth as
Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu, the father as Barack Obama Sr., and the delivering physician as Dr. Richard Kimble, er,
David A. Sinclair,
who conveniently died in 2003 without telling anybody; too bad, it's only a copy, dated Apr. 25, 2011 and signed by the state registrar, not the real birth certificate made in 1961,
which has never been forensically tested,
and the serial number is out of sequence with the Nordyke Twins,
born in you know what hospital a day after Obama, leading to more doubts, although the ball is now in the Birthers' court?; for starters, it's got plenty of evidence of being
PhotoShopped,
actually, created with Adobe Illustrator,
with multiple typefaces,
and shows evidence that the original birth certificate was scanned while still in its
binder, complete with curved surfaces, while the information on the form doesn't curve with
the printed text, and worse, the certificate purports to be a color scan of an actual piece of paper,
but it has no chromatic artifacts;
tt also goofs
and lists Obama's daddy's race as African instead of Negro, a modern PC terminology; nationally
recognized Adobe and Microsoft computer expert Mara Zebest
has stated that "The PDF file released by the White House contains evidence of manipulation suggesting that one or more forgers utilized existing Hawaiian birth certificates to assemble fraudulently
for Barack Obama a document the president presented to the world as authentic." And why did mommy wait to sign it until Aug. 7, and Sinclair until Aug. 8? Who is the registrar, it looks
a lot like "Ukelele"?; why did a purported Kenyan birth certificate have the exact same time of birth if it was a fake and the authors didn't have access to the real one, aha, it's starting
to make sense?; did mommy have a premature delivery in the British colony of Kenya, then fly back to Honolulu, walk into the hospital with the infant Messiah,
and ask for them to help make him a legal alien quick, maybe telling them she had it at home in Honolulu, meanwhile telling her mother to place an ad in the local paper as a cover story, and now
the hospital has to go along with the fraud to avoid criminal charges?; how convenient that all key witnesses are now dead, incl. mommy, daddy, grandparents, and Sinclair; bada bing, bada boom,
the name of the hospital was Kauikeolani Children's Hospital until 1978, when it merged with Kapi'olani Maternity Home?;
wrong, it was called
that by the Hawaii legislature in 1954; funny how Obama jumped and released the certificate right before the
immigration file of his daddy Barack Sr. was released, showing how he was suspected of never
divorcing his first wife in Kenya, which would make his marriage to Ann a sham for the purpose of securing immigration status, and make Obama the illegitimate child of a foreign bigamist - somebody
take my pulse?
On Apr. 27-28 a tornado-thunderstorm outbreak in the U.S. South
does $5B damage and kills 343 in five states, becoming the 2nd deadliest in U.S. history since the Mar. 1932 Ala. twister outbreak
that killed 332; three TVA nuclear reactors are knocked out; on Apr. 29 Pres. Obama
visits Ala. to survey the damage and offer condolences.
On Apr. 28 a Sunni suicide bomber kills 10 in the Imam al-Hussein Mosque
in Baladruz in C Iraq 50 mi. NE of Baghdad.
On Apr. 28 a remote-controlled bomb in a cafe in Marrakesh, Morroco
kills 11 foreigners and three Moroccans.
On Apr. 29 (early a.m.) a Pentecostal Christian church in Sleman, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
is firebombed.
On Apr. 29 (Fri.) (11 a.m. BST) the royal wedding
of Prince William, duke of Cambridge, and Catherine "Kate" Middleton in Westminster Abbey (16th royal wedding there) is watched by 2B; she becomes the first commoner to become heir
to the British throne in over three cents.; her wedding dress is designed by English fashion designer Sarah Burton (1974-),
formerly of Alexander McQueen's fashion house; she is heir to the Party Pieces
fortune; a group of extremist Muslims threaten to disrupt it, then back off.
On Apr. 29 Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru sign
a trade agreement, creating one of the biggest trading blocks in Latin Am.; meanwhile the Mexican Senate unanimously
votes
to overhaul Mexico's anti-trust law to stiffen fines and add prison sentences for monopolistic practices.
On Apr. 29 Egyptian foreign minister Nabil al-Arabi announces
that Egypt is permanently opening the Rafah border crossing to ease the Israeli blockade on Gaza.
On Apr. 29 German authorities arrest
three Moroccan al-Qaida suspects in North Rhine-Westphalia carrying a "large amount of explosives".
On Apr. 29 soldiers fire on protesters carrying olive branches in Banias, Syria, killing 16+.
On Apr. 29 a U.S. appeals court overturns
an order to suspend federal funding for stem cell research, becoming a V for the Obama admin.
On Apr. 29 a Biannual Report to Congress on the Afghanistan War
claims that the 2009 surge has produced "tangible security progress".
On Apr. 29 Saudi king Abdallah issues a decree making it a crime to insult public figures, incl. religious clerics.
On Apr. 29 (eve.) pastor Terry Jones stages an Anti-Islam Rally
outside city hall in Dearborn, Mich., which is cut short by loud counter-demonstrators who outnumber his and
storm the barricades, causing mayor
John O'Reilly Jr.
to call the Muslims, er, Jones a troublemaker.
On Apr. 30 police break up 300 angry Muslims threatening to burn a church in
Gujranwala
in E Pakistan after rumors of a Quran burning.
On Apr. 30 the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
announces
the formation of the Freedom and Justice Party, headed by Dr.
Muhammad Morsi,
and that it will contest up to half of the parliamentary seats in the Sept. elections, but will not field
a pres. candidate.
On Apr. 30 the U.S. places sanctions
on senior Syrian officials Maher Assad, his cousin Atif Nijab, and intel dir. Ali Mamluk.
On Apr. 30 the Syrian military seizes the landmark
Omari Mosque
in Daraa from protesters, killing 6+.
On Apr. 30 the
2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner
sees Pres. Obama roast
Donald Trump, chiding him for questioning his birth certificate and comparing that with being a UFO nut etc., dissing his credentials and experience;
the real reason Trump later runs for U.S. pres.? - 30 months later he has Obama's job?
On Apr. 30 (night) a NATO airstrike
on Tripoli narrowly misses Libyan Col. Madman Daffy and kills his youngest son Saif al-Arab (b. 1982);
Daffy fabricates
a claim that three grandchildren were also killed; after the bombing attack frenzied Libyans
sack
the U.S., U.K. and U.N. embassies; on May 1 Turkish PM Erodgan
urges
Daffy to leave Libya.
In Apr. the Iranian Rev. Guards Web site pub. an
article
about the day after Iran tests its first nuclear bomb, saying it "will be an ordinary day for us
Iranians but in the eyes of some of us there will be a new sparkle"; it turns out to be a
hoax.
In Apr. unemployment in the U.S. rises 0.2% to 9.0%; in
Germany it drops to a 20-year low;
employment among
black men
drops to the lowest point in 40 years; meanwhile U.S. taxes
are at the lowest level since 1958.
In Apr. Mt. Tambora
in Indonesia, scene of the humongous 1815 earthquake begins getting active again, with 200+ quakes/mo., spewing ash and smoke as high as 4.6K ft. (1.4km).
In Apr. British Astronomer Royal (since 1995) Martin John Rees (1942-)
is awarded the Ł1M Templeton Prize, pissing-off the British scientific establishment, which doesn't want to have anything to do with Christianity.
On May 1 (Sun.) after Pope Benedict XVI signs off on his first miracle on Jan. 14, Pope John Paul II is
beatified.
On May 1 suspected al-Qaida gunmen kill seven soldiers in Abyan and Sayoun E of Yemen.
On May 1 a 12-y.-o. suicide bomber kills three incl. a district council head in Shaken Ditrict
of Paktika Province, Afghanistan on Day One of the Taliban's spring offensive.
On May 1 New York city mayor Michael Bloomberg
appears on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press", and suggests that "you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agreed to go to Detroit and live there for five or ten years, start businesses,
take jobs, whatever."
Ding, dong, the witch is dead?
On May 1 (23:40 p.m. EDT) (12:40 a.m. local time) 66 years after the announcement of Adolf Hitler's death) Pres. Obama
announces
that pesky al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden (b. 1957) was killed by 23 U.S. Navy SEALs, an interpreter, and a tracking dog named Cairo in
Operation Neptune Spear
around 3:30 p.m. EDT in a $200K (20M rupee) 10-bedroom 3K sq. ft. mansion compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan ("City of Pines",
founded as a British garrison town in the 1840s and named after deputy commissioner Maj. James Abbott) in the Hazara district of the NW Frontier Province 31 mi. NE of Islamabad
and 93 mi. E of Peshawar, located only a few hundred yards from the elite Kakul Military Academy, the Pakistani equivalent of West Point or Sandhurst;
Pres. Obama remote-views the hit from his Situation Room along with secy. of state Hillary Clinton, deputy nat. security advisor John O. Brennan et al., with Brennan calling Obama's
decision to green-light the hit one of the "gutsiest calls of any president in memory", later claiming that the U.S. troops had been "met with a great deal of resistance", and that
bin Laden had used a woman as a human shield, later finding out that he misunderstood Am. William McRaven and that he was unarmed; on Nov. 6, 2014 bin Laden's killer is revealed to be
Robert O'Neill (1976-);
the town is HQ of a brigade of the 2nd Div. of the Northern Army Corps, and home to many retired officers; the $1M mansion built in 2006
is surrounded by 18 ft. walls topped with barbed wire(an ISI safe house?); in Aug. the U.S. got a tip about the mansion by tracking his personal couriers;
Osama moved there in 2006 after U.S. drones drove him out of the mountains?; the CIA set up a spy house nearby to watch, and kept it secret
from the Pakistani govt.; fabled Seal Team Six stages Operation Neptune's Spear
with two special ops super-secret stealth helis and an unmanned drone; one heli hard-lands in the compound after mechanical failures;
four are killed besides bin Laden, incl. his oldest son Hamza, a female used as a shield, courier Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti (only one to return fire) and his brother;
the first shot at bin Laden misses, and he shoves a wife at the SEALS before being killed; four of his children and two wives are arrested,
and his computer disks captured (the original al-Qaida or database?); on May 6 al-Qaida
and the Taliban confirm bin Laden's death, promise retaliation;
Pres. Obama remote-views the hit from his Situation Room along with secy. of state Hillary Clinton, deputy nat. security advisor John O. Brennan et al., with Brennan calling Obama's
decision to green-light the hit one of the "gutsiest calls of any president in memory", later claiming that the U.S. troops had been "met with a great deal of resistance", and that
bin Laden had used a woman as a human shield;
bin Laden leaves a will giving $29M to continue global jihad; on May 6
Yemen praises bin Laden's killing, while the
Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas condemn it;
Jordan says that it hopes Osama's death will end the "terror era"; on hearing the good news,
thousands swarm Ground Zero in New York City to celebrate; in Nov. 2011 Navy Seal cmdr.
Chuck Pfarrer
pub. a book about the mission, saying that bin Laden was killed within 90 sec. of entering his home, only 12 bullets were fired, and they would have
captured him if he had surrendered; the Pakistani govt. is not officially involved in the operation although it is suspected they helped locate the
compound and knew of it, with elite Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) kept out of the loop on suspicion they were on bin Laden's side; in
Mar. 2014 it is revealed that Ahmed Shuja Pasha,
head of the ISI knew bin Laden's whereabouts along with other top officials; hundreds flock to
Ground Zero to cheer his death; the intel community
warns
of possible retaliatory attacks; the first of five nat. security meetings about
the compound was held on Mar. 14, and the attack was
originally
authorized in Mar. as a B2 stealth bomber strike, but Obama changed his mind since he wanted evidence that bin Laden was dead; bin Laden's Yemeni former teenie wife
Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah (1983-)
tries to protect him by rushing the SEALs and is shot in the leg, then is left behind when there is no room on the only remaining heli; the news causes
U.S. financial markets to surge; on May 1
Pres. Obama gives a Speech on the Late Osama bin Laden,
issuing the soundbyte "Justice has been done"; too bad, he repeats
his dumbass soundbyte: "The United States is not and never will be at war with Islam", and adds the double dumbass soundbyte:
"Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader, he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al-Qaida slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries including or own,
so his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity" (he should know, he's a true Muslim?);
also: "As we have stated repeatedly since the 9/11 terror attacks, bin Laden never represented Muslims or Islam"; on May 2 Obama adds that
"This is a good day for America", adding "The world is safer. It is a better place because of the death of Osama bin Laden. Today we are reminded that as a nation,
there's nothing we can't do when we put our shoulders to the wheel, when we work together. And we remember the sense of unity that defines us as Americans"; on May 4
Obama ends speculation by announcing
that he won't release bin Laden's death photo, saying he has been ID'd by his wife and children and doesn't want to stir Muslim anger, "That's not who we are",
"We don't need to spike the football"; an
NBC Poll
reveals that 64% agree with his decision; under Osama bin Laden's leadership, al-Qaida was
responsible for 10K deaths and injuries in a dozen years; bin Laden's clothing had
two phone numbers sewn into it, along with 500 Euros; on Obama's orders his body is quickly (within 24 hours of death) buried in the North Arabian Sea after
ritual burial rites
in accordance with Islamic practice, incl. the reading of Quran Sura 1 and its curse on Jews and Christians, despite Obama claiming he isn't a real Muslim, and despite
Sunni doctrine
that it's a "sin"; devout Muslims begin calling the site the "Martyr's Sea"; the quick disposal raises suspicions that it's all a
hoax
to save Obama's presidency despite govt. claims of DNA verification; on May 5 archbishop of Canterbury
Rowan Williams
say that the killing of unarmed bin Laden left a "very uncomfortable feeling"; on May 5 Pakistani army chiefs eat crow, er,
warn
the U.S. not to violate Pakistani sovereignty or face "the direst consequences", and call for
cuts
in U.S. military personnel inside the country, which doesn't stop the U.S. from staging a predator drone strike in NW Pakistan on May 6 that kills eight Talibani;
analysis of the captured material from his compound shows that bin Laden was considering an
attack
on U.S. commuter trains on the 10th anniv. of 9/11; on May 6 Pres. Obama tells cheering solders of the 101st Airborne Div. at
Ft. Campbell, Ky.,
awarding the Pres. Unit Citation to SEAL Team Six, calling them "the finest small fighting force in the history of the world", and
shaking
the hand of the lucky SEAL who killed bin Laden, uttering the soundbyte:
"We're making progress in our major goal... of disrupting and dismantling, and we are going to ultimately defeat al-Qaida. We have cut off their head and
we will ultimately defeat them"; meanwhile the U.S. Congress gets pissed-off at the complicity of the Pakistan govt., and
prepares
a list of sanctions incl. cutting aid; the initial lead of bin Laden's courier's nickname came from
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
after waterboarding, causing the debate on waterboarding to resume; on May 7 the CIA
releases
photos and five videos found in bin Laden's compound showing him
preening
while shooting propaganda films, describing him as thinking of himself as a "head coach" to al-Qaida; on May 8 Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S.
promises
that "heads will roll" as Pakistan investigates how bin Laden could hide for years in his country, and also promises "zero tolerance"; on May 9 Pakistani PM
Yousuf Raza Gilani
calls bin Laden's killing "indeed justice done", but warns against any more unilateral strikes, saying they will be met with "full force";
it is revealed that after 9/11 the U.S. and Pakistan struck a
secret deal
to permit the U.S. to hunt and kill bin Laden on Pakistani soil; on May 11 the
U.S. Senate Armed Forces Committee
is allowed to view photos of dead bin Laden; a stash of porno
is found in bin Laden's computer drives; on May 17 U.S. Sen. Majority Leader (D-Nev.)
Harry Reid
says that the U.S. needs a "good relationship" with Pakistan, and now "isn't the time to start flexing our muscles"; Pakistani army chief Gen.
Ashfaq Parvez Kayani
faces a colonel's revolt by the 11-man Corps Commanders for letting the U.S. raid happen; Calif. diver
Bill Warren
announces plans to spend $400K searching for bin Laden's body; Pakistan arrests
the CIA informants who helped locate Obama, causing deputy CIA dir. Michael J. Morrell to rate Pakistan's cooperation with the U.S. on counterterrorism operations
as 3 on a scale of 1-10; in 2013 Pakistan begins building a $30M amusement park
in Abbottabad.
Free speech is dead in Europe, and now the pop. is defenseless against mass Muslim immigration?
On May 3 the Danish high court reverses the acquittal of
Lars Hedegaard,
pres. of the Free Press Society, and fines him 5K kroner for making anti-Muslim comments in Dec. 2009 incl. "Girls in Muslim families are raped by their uncles,
their cousins, or their fathers", and "When a Muslim man rapes a woman, it is in his right to do so."
On May 3 five Muslims are arrested under anti-terrorism laws near a nuclear waste-processing plant in
Seallafield, England.
On May 3 Ammar Qurabi,
head of the Nat. Org. for Human Rights in Syria claims that 1K+ have been arrested in the latest sweep by the forces of pres. Bashful Asshole.
On May 3 Jordanian PM Ma'rouf Al-Bakhit says that Jordan won't consent to the establishment of a Palestinian state
that doesn't incl. a guarantee of the "historic right" of return, and that it will fight any attempt to eliminate this issue or undermine Jordanian interests.
On May 3 the Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami (Arab. "helpers of the global jihad") send a message to jihadist forums around the world to
prepare a jihad against the "Zionist-Crusader alliance" for the killing of Osama bin Laden;
its head is Abu Suleiman al-Naser (al-Nassir) of al-Qaida in Iraq.
On May 4 Queens, N.Y.-born Jewish Princess, er, U.S. Rep. (D-Fla.) (1993-2001, 2003-) Debbie Wasserman Schultz (1966-)
becomes chmn. #52 of the Dem. Nat. Committee (until July 28, 2016), succeeding Tim Kaine.
On May 4 Pres. Obama meets
at the White House with Britain's Prince Charles, offering his best wishes to the newlyweds, and praising his work on environmental issues.
On May 4 Sandlin Matthew Smith (b. 1964),
wanted for the bombing of a mosque in Jacksonville, Fla. almost a year earlier is shot and killed by the FBI after he pulls a weapon during his arrest.
On May 4 the Great Mississippi River Flood of 2011 begins, cresting on May 10 near Memphis, Tenn. before ending on
June 20 after killing 20 and causing $2B-$4B damage.
On May 5 Pres. Obama visits
Ground Zero in Manhattan, N.Y., and lays a wreath, uttering the soundbyte: "When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say"; 49 of 50 9/11 family members
accept
an invitation to be with him, the 50th John Vigiano saying he didn't like the way it was addressed to "Dear 9-11 family member - no names".
On May 6 the U.S. goes for two in a row and launches
a drone strike in Yemen aimed at Anwar al-Awlaki, killing two aides.
On May 6 (Martyrs Day) Syrian pres. Bashar Assad lays a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier in Damascus
while surrounded by supporters; meanwhile protests throughout
Syria
see security forces fire on protesters, killing 30, causing the U.N. to send a team to
investigate, while the EU places sanctions on Syria.
On May 6 Francesc Antich,
pres. of the Balearic Islands issues the first official Spanish apology for the execution of Jews
during the Spanish Inquisition.
On May 7 after rumors of a mixed romance, Muslims and Christians fight on the street in
W Cairo,
killing five.
On May 7 thousands of Muslim Salafists stage three protests in
Cairo,
demanding the prosecution of Coptic Pope Shenouda III and the release of the wives of two priests
they claim converted to Islam; during the night Muslim mobs set two Coptic churches on fire in
Cairo
during Muslim-Christian clashes that kill 12 and injure 200+;
St. Mary's Church
in Imbaba near Cairo is torched, but on May 26 the Egyptian army orders its reconstruction.
On May 7 protesters in Kuwait
demand
the execution of a blasphemer who insulted Aisha, Mother of Believers, and Omar bin Al-Khattab,
a companion of Muhammad via graffiti inside a mosque.
On May 7 after an 11-stay strike ends with 25 associates of Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket being
arrested
for sorcery, the growing rift with Ayatollah Khamanei results in
street fights
between their supporters.
On May 7 rock star Madonna splits
with Muslim boy toy hip hop dancer Brahim Zaibat after 9 mo. after her devotion to Jewish Qaballah conflicts with his religion and causes arguments.
On May 7-8 U.S.-Taliban Talks in Germany are mediated by the Germans.
On May 8 the king of Bahrain orders
the end of emergency rule (began in mid-Mar.) on June 1.
On May 8 Yemeni pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh announces
that he won't resign until the protests end.
On May 8 the Syrian govt. broadens
its military crackdown on protesters, killing 14 in Homs, and arresting hundreds.
On May 8 Mexican authorities catch drug lord
Jose Zarco (1979-).
On May 8 (night) the crew of
Am. Airlines Flight 1561
en route to San Francisco tackle and arrest Muslim man
Rageh Almurisi (1972-),
who has a Yemeni passport and Calif. ID, and was banging on the cockpit door while shouting
"Allahu Akbar", which the PC press attempts to coverup.
On May 9 reps of 25 towns in
Libya
meet in Abu Dhabi in a show of unity.
On May 9 NATO announces
that it has significantly weakened the Taliban insurgency by capturing or killing thousands of
militants in Afghanistan in the past 3 mo.
On May 9 a ship carrying up to 600 trying to flee Tripoli, Libya
sinks
off the N coast of Libya.
On May 9 the U.S. Navy announces that it will soon
authorize
chaplains to perform same-sex marriages in Navy chapels; on May 11 after howls from Congress, it
suspends
the idea.
On May 9 Bashar al-Assad's adviser and spokeswoman
Bouthaina Shaaban
claims that the Syrian govt. has gained the upper hand in the 7-week uprising.
On May 10 a 7.1 earthquake hits off New Caledonia in the South Pacific.
On May 10 Microsoft agrees to purchase 170M-user Skype
for $8.5B, becoming the biggest deal in Microsoft history (until ?).
On May 10 Galleon Group co-founder Raj Rajaratnam
is found guilty of 14 counts of insider trading, becoming the biggest case in a generation.
On May 10 Pres. Obama visits El Paso, Tex.,
becoming his first visit to the U.S.-Mexican border since being elected with 67% of the Hispanic vote, and brags about cracking down on illegal immigration,
calling for Repubs. to join him in legalizing border-crossers; he makes fun of Pres. Bush with the soundbyte:
"All the stuff they (Repubs.) asked for, we've done... I suspect that there will be some who will try to move the goalposts on us... Or they'll want a higher fence.
Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they'll want alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied"; Hispanic disillusionment
with Obama causes Dem. Fernando Romero to found the
Tequila Party,
which holds is kickoff event on June 4 in Tucson, Ariz. meanwhile on May 10 the Tex. legislature passes a
law
that restricts cities providing sanctuary to illegal immigrants.
On May 10 hundreds of Taliban militants launch a large-scale attack on Afghan police near
Parun, Afghanistan.
Osama bin Laden has been taken out, so his action movie career is kaput on the home front?
On May 10 Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver announce
that they're separating after a quarter cent. of marriage; on May 7 they celebrated the graduation of their nephew, but Maria wasn't wearing her wedding ring; she moves out on him.
On May 10 federal officials in Manhattan announce
that cell phone users in New York City and Washington D.C. will soon be able to receive emergency alerts via text message.
On May 10 the supreme court of India recommends
the death penalty for honor killers, calling the practice "barbaric" and "feudal".
On May 10 U.S.-born Yemeni al-Qaida jihadist
Anwar al-Awlaki
issues a letter calling on U.S. Muslims to embrace jihad and war against the U.S. govt.
On May 11 German police raid the homes in
Ulm and Bonn
of two alleged Islamic extremists suspected of raising funds for terrorists in Pakistan's border region.
On May 11 Turkish opposition politicians
Bulent Didinmez and Ihsan Baratcu
resign 1 mo. before the gen. election, bringing the total to four who had to resign over secret sex tapes
are posted on the Internet showing them in extramarital affairs.
On May 11 an
AP Poll
reveals that Pres. Obama's approval rating has reached 60%, highest in two years, and over half
believe he should be reelected; too bad, a
Rasmussen Poll
has Obama's approval rating at 48%, and a Gallup Poll has it at 52%.
On May 11 NATO forces capture several suspected insurgents in
Kandahar, Afghanistan.
On May 11 after a 2-mo. siege Libyan rebels seize the city of
Misurata.
On May 11 the Times of India
reports
that Lashkar-e-Tayyiba is obtaining biological weapons incl. anthrax from al-Qaida.
On May 11 (eve.) Pres. Obama hosts controversial rapper
Common (Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr.) (1972-)
at the White House.
On May 12 the Am. Journal of Public Health pub. a
report
claiming that 1.1K+ women are raped daily in the Dem. Repub. of Congo (DRC).
On May 12 Dutch MP
Geert Wilders
visits Toronto, Canada, and tells Canadians that they should ban immigration from the Muslim World,
with the soundbyte: "What happened in Europe will also happen here. We should wake up to the fact
that Islamisation means less freedom to us and our children... Freedom is the most precious thing
we have. (Canadian soldiers) didn't give their lives to free Europe, (so that) not 50, 60, 70 years
later we would face another totalitarianism ideology called Islam."
On May 12 two Muslim men from North Africa
Mohamed Mamdough and Ahmed Ferhani (1984-)
(Morocco and Algeria) are arrested in Manhattan, N.Y. for allegedly talking about attacking Jewish synagogues
and attempting to purchase AK-47s and hand grenades.
On May 12 the U.S. District Court holds its last oversight hearing on its antitrust lawsuit
against Microsoft.
On May 12 seven top Mexican Immigration Inst. officials are
fired
amid allegations of being involved in kidnapping migrants.
On May 13 the first revenge for the killing of Osama bin Laden sees two explosions in a paramilitary
training center in
Charsadda District, Pakistan
kill 69.
On May 13 the
Pakistan Parliament
holds a 10-hour session and decides that all U.S. incursions incl. drone strikes must
end or it will impede free passage of NATO materials headed for Afghanistan.
On May 13 a Palestinian refugee protest to mark Nakba Day sees IDF forces fire on protesters
crossing from Syria onto the
Golan Heights,
killing six and wounding 71.
On May 13 Joseph Jeffrey Brice (1990-)
of Clarkston, Wash. is arrested for attempting to aid Islamic terrorists by creating a jihadi website
and posting bombmaking tips; after pleading guilty in Sept. 2012, he is sentenced to 12 years in
federal prison on June 12, 2013.
On May 14 IMF dir. Dominique Strauss-Kahn
is arrested at Kennedy Internat. Airport and accused of a sexual attack on maid
Nafissatou Diallo
at the Midtown Manhattan Sofitel New York Hotel; on July 1 after it comes out that the maid is involved in criminal activity and isn't on the up-and-up,
changing her story and lying, he is released
without bail and charges dismissed, only to have Tristane Banon,
daughter of Moroccan Jew Gabriel Banon accuse him of attempted rape in France; on Aug. 23 the charges
are finally dropped
after the prosecution says no jury will believe Diallo; the DA's press conference is interrupted by the big 2011 East Coast Earthquake.
On May 14 Arab rioters storm Jewish homes in the Moscowitz housing project in
Old Jerusalem
following the funeral of a Palestinian teen shot the day before in rioting.
On May 15 Allah-Akbar-shouting Muslim truck driver
Issa Islam
plows into cars in Tel Aviv, killing one and injuring 17; he is charged with murder and
seven counts of attempted murder.
On May 15 the decapitated bodies of 27 farm workers are discovered in
Peten, N Guatemala;
the Los Zetas drug cartel is suspected.
On May 16 the U.S. hits its
debt limit
of $14.294T.
On May 16 the Internat. Criminal Court issues
warrants
for the arrest of Libyan Col. Daffy, his son Seif, and Libyan intel head Abdullah al-Sanoussi.
On May 16 Iran sends an
aid flotilla
from the S port city of Bushehr to Bahrain to express solidarity with the Shiite pop.; after
opposition by the Gulf Cooperation Council, it turns back.
On May 16 motorcycle gunmen kill Saudi diplomat
Hassan M. al-Kahtani
in Karachi, Pakistan; retribution for the killing of Osama bin Laden?
On May 16 former Obama White House #23 (Jan. 20, 2009 to Oct. 1, 2010) Rahm Israel Emanuel (1959-)
becomes Dem. mayor #55 of Chicago, Ill. (until May 20, 2019), going on to see his approval ratings tank in late 2015 for protecting cops from justice, esp. the killer of 17-y-o.
Laquan McDonald.
On May 17 mixed-up Pakistan ground forces
exchange fire
with a NATO heli in Datta Khel near the Afghan border, with Pakistan claiming that the heli attack their checkpoint; meanwhile Pakistan announces the arrest of a senior al-Qaida operative.
On May 17 the "Berlin patient" Timothy Ray Brown (1966-)
of San Francisco, Calif. becomes the first known AIDS patient to be cured after a stem cell bone marrow transplant.
On May 17 British PM David Cameron announces
that the first 450 troops will withdraw from Afghanistan this year.
On May 17 a U.N. Report on China
claims that for more than a decade China has been aiding Iran and North Korea in developing ballistic missiles and nukes and getting around sanctions.
On May 17 a Pew Poll
shows low confidence in Pres. Obama by world Muslims, with the highest being Indonesia, at 63%, and the lowest
being Turkey, at 14%; Palestinian Territories: 15%, Jordan: 25%, Pakistan: 16%, Lebanon: 55%, Egypt: 27%.
On May 17-20 British Queen Elizabeth II visits Ireland.
On May 18 Pres. Obama issues an
executive order
imposing sanctions on Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad and six senior Syrian govt. officials, incl. a freeze on U.S. assets and a ban on cos. doing business with them.
On May 18 violence in Afghanistan in Taloqan
in Takhar Province and other locations kills 28.
On May 18 Sol Lineas Aereas Flight 5248
crashes in S Patagonia, Argentina, killing all 22 aboard.
On May 19 (12:15 p.m. EDT) Pres. Obama gives his
2011 Speech on the Middle East at the
U.S. State Dept. in Washington, D.C., hailing the "extraordinary change" taking place, and stating that "The United States believes... the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the
1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps", reversing longstanding U.S. policy that this was only the Palestinians' goal, becoming the first U.S. pres. to require it as a starting point for negotiations
with Palestinians, with the soundbyte:
"We know that our own future is bound to this region by the forces of economics and security, by history, and by faith"; "A new generation has emerged, and their voices tell us that chance cannot
be denied"; "The status quo is unsustainable. A lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples", adding "Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create
an independent state", and that the "future of Jerusalem" remains to be worked out; he adds:
"The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. The
duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated", meaning that Obama's plan is for Israel to first unilaterally withdraw
to the 1967 borders, then later negotiate some border swaps; he also calls for Syrian pres. Bashar Assad to "lead that transition [to democracy] or get out of the way"; he also
pledges
$1B in aid to the Muslim Brotherhood-infested Egyptian regime; Jews do a double-take when he says that Israel must be able to defend itself "by itself", and calls for a "full and phased
withdrawal of Israeli military forces"; the speech causes former Mass. gov. Mitt Romney
to say that Obama "threw Israel under the bus"; Obama then meets
with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, who even before the meeting voices his displeasure with the speech, calling Israel's pre-1967 borders "indefensible", and calling on him to
reaffirm the U.S. commitments made to Israel in 2004, with the soundbyte "Among other things, those commitments relate to Israel not having to withdraw to the 1967 lines which are both indefensible
and which would leave major Israeli population centers in Judea and Samaria beyond those lines. Those commitments also ensure Israel's well-being as a Jewish state by making clear that Palestinian
refugees will settle in a future Palestinian state rather than in Israel. Without a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem outside the borders of Israel, no territorial concession will bring peace";
"Equally, the Palestinians, and not just the United States, must recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, and any peace agreement with them must end all claims against Israel";
he says that Israel also needs a military presence along the Jordan River, and won't deal with the terrorist org. Hamas; Obama's speech causes
U.S. Jews to begin to turn on him; after the speech, Obama allegedly flew into a
rage with his people, shouting "What the fuck was that?"; on May 21 the Palestinians
defy Obama, pressing on for a Sept. U.N. declaration of statehood, while Obama gives a
speech to AIPAC, assuring them that his commitment to Israel is "ironclad", that the U.S. demands Hamas to recognize
Israel's right to exist, and that the borders he's talking about are not identical to the June 4, 1967 lines, although he fails to recognize that they were never borders, only
armistice lines dating back to 1949; AIPAC member
Mort Zuckerman later utters the soundbyte "For the first time since their state's founding Israelis feel
Americans aren't behind them"; U.S. Sen. majority leader (D-Nev.) Harry Reid
utters the soundbyte "The place where negotiating will happen must be the negotiating table, and nowhere else. Those negotiations will not happen, and their terms will not be set, through
speeches, or in the streets, or in the media. No one should set premature parameters about borders."
On May 19 the U.S. State Dept. tells
Turkey that sending another flotilla to Gaza will not be "helpful".
On May 19 China issues an ultimatum
to the U.S. that any attack on Pakistan will be interpreted as aggression against them, harkening back to the 1958-61 Berlin Crisis.
On May 19 thousands of Salafi Muslims surround the Coptic St. Mary and St. Abraham Church in
Ain Shams, Egypt
to prevent its reopening; the police do nothing.
On May 20 a convoy of N Sudanese soldiers and U.N. peacekeepers are ambushed near
Goli, Sudan (near Abyei) by unknown attackers.
On May 20 Syrian security forces fire
on protesters around the country, killing 27.
On May 20 a gun battle between Mexican soldiers and CDG drug cartel gunmen in
Matamoros
kills three gunmen.
On May 20 a suicide vest strapped to a 12-y.-o. boy in
Nooristan, Afghanistan
prematurely explodes, killing him along with several other insurgents, causing
the Afghan Nat. Intel Directorate to detain 100 other boys 12-17 for their safety.
On May 21 a suicide bomber in an Afghan military uniform detonates inside the main military hospital
in Kabul, Afghanistan,
killing six medical students.
On May 21 Taliban militants blow up a tanker carrying oil for NATO forces in Afghanistan in the
Landi Kotal
area of Pakistan's Khyber tribal region; a secondary explosion kills 15 trying
to siphon fuel; another bomb damages 14 tankers in a nearby town.
On May 21 Iranian authorities raid 30 homes of members of the
Baha'i
sect in a crackdown.
On May 21 Saudi Arabia
pledges
$4B to the Egyptian ruling council in order to shore it up.
On May 21 (6 p.m.) Armageddon (Judgement Day)
is supposed to arrive via a worldwide earthquake starting in Fiji and New Zealand, after which
mass graves will open while 200M lucky saved people ascend to Heaven, after which the remainder
live on an anarchic Earth for 5 mo. until God annihilates it, according to U.S. Christian broadcaster
(ex-civil engineer) Harold Camping (1921-2013)
of Oakland, Calif., gaining thousands of true believers before it goes bust; he then resets
the date to Oct. 21.
On May 22 the first Islamic halal restaurant in Italy opens in
Bologna.
On May 22 Saleh loyalists seize the UAE embassy in
Sana'a, Yemen, taking U.S. and other
diplomats hostage; on May 26 big blasts
rock
Sana'a as Yemen nears civil war.
On May 22 a dozen bomb attacks in and around
Baghdad
kill 18 and wound 80.
On May 22 the EU opens
a diplomatic office in rebel-held E Libya, pledging support for a dem. Libya where Col. Daffy
"will not be in the picture".
On May 22 Islamic jihadists attack the Mehran naval aviation base in
Karachi, Pakistan,
killing four.
On May 22 Chinese police announce a search for a man who threw eggs and shoes at
Fang Bingxing,
architect of China's Great Internet Firewall.
On May 22 Saudi police arrest
Manal al-Sharif (1979-),
a female Internet consultant for Armco, who defied Saudi law and drove a car in Al-Khobar
while wearing a black abaya, then posted a video of it on YouTube;
they then jail her for a week and force her to sign a document agreeing not
to talk to the press or continue her protests, and crack down on others allied with her
in her campaign and shut down their Facebook page; in early June princess
Reem al-Faisal,
granddaughter of King Faisal speaks out in the Arab News, jokingly suggesting
that women at least be allowed to drive camels; billionaire prince Alwaleed bin Talal
bin Abdulaziz al-Saud also speaks out for women, saying that the pilot of his private
jet is a woman, and that his wife gets away with driving; on June 17 a
protest
sees Saudi women driving openly in droves; on June 22 Huma, er,
Hillary Clinton
expresses support for the Saudi women, but takes pains to deny that the U.S. has anything to
do with their movement; meanwhile in June the Saudi committee for religious edicts issues a
fatwa
banning men and women from mingling at offices and educational institutions "until the
Day of Judgment", while King Abdullah
ends
the practice of male-only clerks at lingerie shops, which caused them to guesstimate sizes by
staring at their abayas; too bad, on Jan. 24, 2012 Manal al-Sherif is
killed
in a car crash.
On May 22 elections in Spain
are a V for the conservative Popular Party over the ruling Socialist Workers Party
by 10% (2M votes); in 2007 the Popular Party lost by 100K votes.
On May 22 the market cap for IBM
surpasses Microsoft, $207.52B vs. $206.52B; at one point Microsoft's value was 3x higher.
On May 23 a slew of 70 tornadoes in seven states hit the U.S. Midwest
(worst tornado outbreak in 1958 years), the worst one, an EF-4 (200 mph) killing 116 in
Joplin, Mo.
On May 23 Pres. Obama begins a week-long European tour,
starting with his mother's ancestral homeland in Ireland,.
where he utters the soundbytes: "There's always been a little green behind the red, white, and blue", "My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas";
"I've come home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way"; on May 24 he after leaving Ireland early to avoid the volcanic ash from
Grimsvotn Volcano in Iceland, Obama visits
Buckingham Palace, receiving a royal welcome from the queen and royal family along with a 62-gun salute;
too bad, he signs the guestbook at Westminster Abbey with the date "24 May 2008".
On May 23 Afghanistan reports that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar
has been killed in Pakistan while in the custody of the Pakistani ISI; they deny it.
On May 23 the U.S. and U.K. launch a new Nat. Security Strategy Board.
On May 23 armed clashes break out in yummy
Sana'a, Yemen
between police and tribes loyal to opposition leader Sadiq al-Ahmar; on May 25 the
U.S. orders
nonessential diplomats to leave Yemen; on May 27 Ali Abdullah Saleh's forces use helis and
MiG fighter jets
to attack bases of a rival tribal group after they seize an army camp; meanwhile on May 27
tens of thousands gather for the
Fri. of Peaceful Rev., carrying the coffins
of 30 killed in clashes and releasing white doves.
On May 23 clerics in Aceh, Indonesia
criticize a call from Amnesty Internat. to stop the practice of caning.
On May 23 Switzerland
stops refueling Iran Air jets.
On May 23 a Hill Poll
reveals that 61% of voters believe that the Arab uprisings will make things more difficult for the U.S.
On May 24 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu addresses
a joint session of Congress, telling them he will accept uprooting Jewish settlements in a "generous" peace deal with Palestinians, but not accept a return to the 1967 borders, or
share Jerusalem, or deal with Hamas, demanding a permanent Israeli military presence along with the Jordan River, with the soundbytes "I am willing to make painful compromises to achieve
this historic peace. As the leader of Israel, it is my responsibility to lead my people to peace. This is not easy for me. I recognize that in a genuine peace, we will be required to
give up parts of the Jewish homeland. In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We are not the British in India. We are not the Belgians in the Congo.";
"This is the land of our forefathers, the Land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace.
No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond, between the Jewish people and the Jewish land. But there is another truth: The Palestinians share this small land with us.
We seek a peace in which they will be neither Israel's subjects nor its citizens. They should enjoy a national life of dignity as a free, viable and independent people in their own state.
"They should enjoy a prosperous economy, where their creativity and initiative can flourish. You have to ask it. If the benefits of peace with the Palestinians are so clear, why has peace
eluded us? Because all six Israeli Prime Ministers since the signing of Oslo accords agreed to establish a Palestinian state. Myself included. So why has peace not been achieved? Because
so far, the Palestinians have been unwilling to accept a Palestinian state, if it meant accepting a Jewish state alongside it. You see, our conflict has never been about the establishment of
a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state. This is what this conflict is about."
On May 24 Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi
accuses the left wing of wanting to change Milan into "an Islamic city full of Roma", adding "Milan cannot be allowed to become an Islamic city, a Romopolis full of Roma camps and
encircled by foreigners whom the left even wants to give the right to vote."
On May 24 a roadside bomb in Kandahar, Afghanistan
kills 10 road workers and injures 28.
On May 24 (a.m.) NATO conducts its heaviest bombardment so far of Tripoli, Libya, striking 15+ targets.
On May 24 Labour councillor Naveeda Ikram becomes the first Muslim woman lord mayor in the U.K. in Bradford.
On May 24 a massive refinery blast in Abadan, Iran
during a visit by pres. Imadinnajacket kills two - shaken not stirred?
On May 24 Libyan ambassador to Brazil Salem Omar Zubeidy gives a speech at the HQ of the ABI in Rio, claiming that the CIA was behind the
riots in Libya in recent months, starting with the one on Feb. 17; on May 25 the African Union meets in Addis Ababa, and issues a decision
calling for peaceful resolution of the Libyan crisis, starting with a ceasefire.
On May 25 Pres. Obama gives a Speech to the British Parliament,
saying that Western influence remains strong in the world despite emerging powers incl. China, India, and Brazil, and that Western powers have a responsibility to uphold
"universal rights" via multilateral forums incl. the G20, with the soundbyte: "Ultimately freedom must be won by the people themselves, not imposed from without"; he gives a
joint press conference with British PM David Cameron, saying that he believes a 2-state solution for Israel
and Palestine is achievable, urging Palestinians to negotiate with Israel over statehood instead of seeking U.N. recognition first.
On May 25 a suicide bomber in a pickup truck levels a police bldg. in Peshawar, Pakistan,
killing five and wounding 30 officers; only the bomber's finger is found.
On May 25 former Bosnian Serb war criminal gen. Ratko Mladic
is captured in a small town near Belgrade living under an alias; he is extradited to the Netherlands to stand trial for genocide et al. on his 1995 indictment after his men
massacred 8K Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica.
On May 25 the Taliban kills Khan Mohammad,
head of the Porak girls' school in Logar Province, Afghanistan.
On May 25 new European laws on Web browser cookies require the user to give explicit consent first.
On May 26 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-3 in Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting
to uphold the 2007 Ariz. law revoking licenses of businesses knowingly employing illegal aliens, becoming a big D for the Obama admin.;
dissenters incl. Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor; Kagan recused herself.
On May 26 Belgium
becomes the 2nd country after France to ban the burqa.
On May 26 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton
visits
Pakistan in an attempt to salvage relations after the killing of Osama bin Laden, and pressures
them to help find four militant Islamic leaders incl. Osama's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri; on May 27
she says that Pakistani officials have
conceded
that bin Laden had a support network in Pakistan to remain undetected for at least five years in
Abbottabad; in exchange for a clean bill of health regarding bin Laden, the Pakistan military
promises to start a military offensive in North Waziristan, but soon
reneges.
On May 26 fighting among rival drug gangs in W Mexico
kills 28, causing 700+ to flee villages.
On May 26-27 the G8 Summit
is held in Deauville, France; on May 27 they meet
with Egyptian PM Essam Sharaf and Tunisian PM Beji Caid Essesbi; on May 27 the summit ends with Russia acknowledging that Libyan Col. Daffy has to go, and agreeing to mediate his exit; G8 nations
issue a statement expressing support for the dem. uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, and unveil the
Deauville Partnership,
pledging $20B for economic aid, mainly to Tunisia and Egypt, with no conditions about democratization; Canadian PM
Stephen Harper
blocks the G8 from issuing a statement calling for Israel to return to its 1967 "Auschwitz" borders; on
May 27 Obama visits
Poland,
meeting with Polish pres. Bronislaw Komorowski before returning to the U.S., and
praising
it as an example for pro-dem. movements in North Africa and the Middle East to follow.
On May 27 a suicide car bomb attack in
Hangu
in NW Pakistan kills 36, incl. 10 policemen, and injures 50+.
On May 27 two Italian U.N. peacekeepers are killed by an IED near
Sidon, S Lebanon.
On May 27 Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi claims that the ouster of two autocratic leaders
proves that Islam is compatible with democracy, with the
soundbyte:
"The principle has been established that democracy is not only compatible with Western countries and their
civilizations, and I believe this is very important."
On May 27 Egypt
reopens
its border with Gaza Strip at the Rafah crossing after four years, then implements a series of
restrictions on
May 31, causing angry Palestinians on June 4 to
storm the gates; on May 28 hundreds
of thousands demonstrate in
Tahrir Square in Cairo
to denounce the military govt., calling for a "2nd rev."
On May 27 a Jerusalem Post poll
reveals that 40% of Jewish Israelis believe that the Obama admin. is pro-Palestinian.
On May 28 hundreds protest in
Amman, Jordan,
calling for closure of the Israeli embassy and nullifcation of the peace treaty with Israel.
On May 28 police arrest several people at the
Jefferson Memorial
in Washington D.C. for protesting a recent court decision upholding a ban on dancing.
On May 29 (Sun.) pres. (since May 5, 2010)
Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan (1957-)
is sworn-in for a 4-year term as pres. of Nigeria (until Mayh 29, 2015); meanwhile the new
Muslim Personal Law Bill
gives more power to Islamic Kadhi courts for Muslims in matters of marriage, divorce, and inheritance,
pissing-off Christians, who claim it promotes Islamic fundamentalism.
On May 29 French Conservative minister
George Tron (1958-)
resigns over rape allegations after two women encouraged by the Dominique Strauss-Khan case come forward.
On May 29 a NATO air strike in
Helmand Province, Afghanistan
inadvertently hits two civilian homes, killing two women and 12 children.
On May 29 three Greenpeace activists board the Leiv Eiriksson Oil Rig
off the coast of Greenland to protest deepwater drilling in Arctic waters; dozens of environmental activists climb on top of the
Brandenburg Gate
in Berlin to demand an end to the use of atomic energy.
On May 29 the MV First Ocean bulk carrier ship is attacked by Muslim pirates in the Gulf of Aden, and is saved by the Iranian navy,
its 12th confrontation since late Mar.
On May 29 former Egyptian Bank of Alexandria CEO Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar
is arrested for a sexual attack on a maid at the Pierre Hotel on 5th Ave. in Manhattan, N.Y.
On May 29 the Wallow Fire
in Apache Sitgreaves Nat. Forest in E Ariz starts, burning for more than 1 mo. and destroying 840 sq. mi. of forest, displacing 10K, and doing $79M damage; on June 18
U.S. Repub. Sen. John McCain suggests that it was started by illegal immigrants, causing Hispanic groups to demand he apologize after non-Hispanic campers Caleb Joshua Malboeuf (26) and
David Wayne Malboeuf (24) are charged by federal authorities.
On May 29 (10:45 p.m.) United Airlines Flight 990 (Boeing 767) en route from Washington, D.C. to Ghana
with 144 passengers is disrupted when a passenger lowers his seat too far, causing the person behind him to start a fight, ending in the flight returning to Dulles Airport while U.S. F-16 jets are
scrambled.
On May 30 the city of Zinjibar, S Yemen falls to Islamist militants, their 2nd.
On May 30 19-y.-o. Russian Christian girl Katya Koren (1992-)
is stoned to death in her village in the Ukraine after participating in a beauty contest, causing reports that she was Muslim and was executed for violating Muslim Sharia;
it turns out to be a classmate, Bilal Gaziyev, a Crimean Tatar.
On May 30 an Egyptian security official claims
that over 400 al-Qaida members have made their way into the Sinai Peninsula.
On May 30 the First Gathering of European Muslim and Jewish Leaders
in Brussels, Belgium, organized by two U.S. Jewish groups declares that Muslims have "deep roots" in the European continent, and that Muslims are as imperiled by Islamophobia as Jews are by anti-Semitism;
a dozen Muslim leaders sign the declaration.
On May 30 a Gallup Poll
reveals that Pres. Obama's approval rating is just 37% among active military or veterans, vs. 48% among non-military personnel.
On May 31 Israeli strategic affairs minister Mose Ya'alon
calls on the "entire civilized world... to take joint action to avert the nuclear threat posed by Iran", with a military strike being on the table.
On May 30 the Sydney Morning Herald reports
that billboards reading "Jesus: Prophet of Islam" are being paid for by Muslims in Australia, causing an uproar, with Roman Catholic bishop
Julian Porteous calling them "provocative and offensive".
On May 30 Muslim clerics of Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islam
hold a press conference in Karachi, Pakistan to demand that the Bible be banned for containing "immoral stories".
On May 31 Pres. Obama nominates former Edison Internat. CEO
John Bryson
as commerce secy.
On May 31 the U.S. Supreme Court by 8-0
throws out
the lawsuit against former U.S. atty.-gen. John Ashcroft by Am.-born Muslim Abdullah al-Kidd, with justice Antonin Scalia writing:
"Qualified immunity gives government officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments about open legal questions."
On May 31 the U.S. govt. refiles
charges against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 conspirators to allow prosecution before
a military commission in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
On May 31 defying the Daghestani authorities, the
Congress of the Nogays
is held by 3K in Terkli-Mekteb, demanding a new Nogay motherland composed of Daghestan, Stavropol, and Checnya.
On May 31 Maulana Salimullah,
senior leader of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party is gunned down and killed in the Latambar area of NW Pakistan;
four others are injured.
On May 31 Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad issues a
decree
granting a gen. amnesty to political opposition parties incl. the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood; meanwhile
the story emerges of
Hamza Ali al-Khateeb (b. 1998),
who was tortured to death and castrated by Syrian security forces.
On May 31 Bangladeshi PM
Sheikh Hasina
announces her support for restoring Islam as the state religion after abolishing the 1972 secular constitution;
meanwhile a 40-y.-o. woman in the Jhalakathi district of
Dhaka, Bangladesh
cuts off the penis of a man trying to rape her in her shanty, then takes it to the police
as evidence; meanwhile Moldovan PM
Vlad Filat
pledges to review the recent registration of Islam as one of the country's recognized religions.
On May 31 Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai issues an
ultimatum
to NATO to stop air strikes on Afghan homes, warning them that if they don't then the Afghan
people will drive them out as occupying enemy forces, warning that if they continue "We will
be forced to take unilateral action".
On May 31 Pakistani journalist
Syed Saleem Shahzads,
who wrote the week before about infiltration of the Pakistan navy by al-Qaida is found murdered.
On May 31 a bus plunges into a river in
Assam State
in NE India, killing 31.
In May Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter are all visible within the same 6 deg. area of sky.
In May Taiga Ishikawa
of Tokyo's Toshima ward becomes the first openly gay political office holder in modern Japan.
In May authorities in Tatarstan, Russia
warn of radical Islam spreading into their region, which had been known for Muslim-Christian mutual tolerance.
In May Iraqi Muslim immigrants
Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi
are indicted by the U.S. govt. for trying to obtain and ship Stinger missiles and money to al-Qaida in Iraq.
In May Cuban-born Hillary Clinton favorite Carlos Pascual (1959-)
(U.S. ambassador to Ukraine in 2000-3) succeeds David L. Goldwyn as dir. of the U.S. State Dept. Bureau of Energy Resources, working to draw
Ukraine into the Western sphere while pissing-off Vladimir Putin.
In May the U.S. unemployment rate rises to 91%, with the economy adding only 54K jobs.
In May Saudi Arabia announces
plans to build 16 nuclear reactors by 2030.
In May Nepal
census takers recognize a "third gender" for gay and transgender people; they decriminalized gay sex in 2008.
In May-June after record snowfall in the Rocky Mts. of Mont. and Wyo. and near-record spring rainfall in C-E Mont., the
2011 Missouri River Flood results after six major dams are opened to prevent overflow,
flooding towns and cities from Mont. to Mo. incl. Bismarck, N.D., Pierre, S.D., Dunes, S.C., South Sioux City, Neb., Sioux City, Iowa, Omaha, Neb., Council Bluffs, Iowa,
Kansas City, Mo., and Jefferson City, Mo.
On June 1 Dutch politician Geert Wilders delivers his
final remarks
at his misguided hate speech trial in Amsterdam, saying "I am risking my life in defense
of freedom in the Netherlands", and "The Netherlands is threatened by Islam. Islam is an ideology
of hate and destruction. Islam threatens Western values and norms.", and "Acquit me. I do not
encourage hatred, I do not encourage discrimination."
On June 1 the state of
Ill.
declares the Islamic calendar month of Ramadan "green", becoming the 1st U.S. state.
On June 1 the first of
three eclipses, a midnight solar eclipse
in the high Arctic occurs, followed on June 15 by a full lunar eclipse, and on July 1
by a partial solar eclipse over the Antarctic.
On June 1 El Salvador defense minister Gen.
David Munguia
says that Mexican drug cartels are trying to buy high-powered army weapons in Central Am.;
meanwhile Mexican police arrest 25 drug cartel members in
Hidalgo, Mexico,
incl. a police chief.
On June 1 a plague of
tornadoes
hits the U.S., incl. N Calif., Kan., Neb., and Mass.
On June 1 the biggest protest so far in
Syria sees
hundreds protest in Abdoun holding placards calling Bashful Asshole a butcher; ex-Muslim Brotherhood
pres. Salem Falahat calls on the Syrian army to shoot at Israel rather than their own people; on June 3
a protest by 50K in Hama
sees security forces fire on the protesters, killing 34.
On June 1 former Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan
says that Israel only has the capability to delay Iran's nuclear ambitions, not stop them, and that "Israel would not withstand a regional conflict ignited by an Israeli strike of Iran's
nuclear facilities".
On June 1 the Washington, D.C. think tank Center for Global Development
recommends that the U.S. delay the $7.5B Kerry-Lugar-Berman aid package to Pakistan authorized in 2009.
On June 1 the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture releases the MyPlate
icon to replace the Food Pyramid.
On June 2 200 Taliban militants dressed in Afghan military uniforms cross the border and ambush a security checkpoint in
Upper Dir, Pakistan, killing 25 Pakistani troops.
On June 2 Japanese PM Naoto Kan
narrowly survives a no-confidence vote over the post-tsunami crisis.
On June 2 Palestinian Authority chmn. Mahmoud Abbas
tells his people on TV in Arabic: "We refuse to recognize a Jewish state".
On June 2 German pres. Christian Wulff
says that Islam is part of a modern changing Germany, and necessary to develop a vibrant society, with the soundbyte: "If one is not open to other religions, one cannot expect Muslim societies
to be receptive to freedom of religion" - and when did Muslim countries agree to their part of this bargain?
On June 2 White House counsel Bob Bauer resigns,
causing Birthers to claim it's because he knows the certificate can't stand up to a criminal investigation.
On June 3 (Fri.) the Muslim Youth League in the West Bank sponsors a march
toward Jerusalem to mark the 1967 Israeli occupation; they repeat on June 5.
On June 3 former U.S. Sen. John Edwards
is indicted by a federal grand jury in Raleigh, N.C. for misuse of $1M in campaign finance funds to coverup his affair and child with former campaign staffer Rielle Hunter.
On June 3 the pres. palace in Yemen
is shelled by members of the Hashed tribe of Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar; rockets slam
into a mosque where Ali Abdullah Saleh is praying, wounding his PM and killing four others,
and giving him severe burns,
after which on June 4 Saleh flees to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment; his brother
?,
cmdr. of the Yemeni Repub. Guard is behind the palace massacre?
On June 3 al-Qaida "military brain" Ilyas Kashmiri
is killed in Pakistan in a NATO drone stroke in NW Pakistan; his death is confirmed on July 7.
On June 3 about 300 protest in Tahir Square in Cairo, demanding Sharia law for Egypt.
On June 3 Islamist militant David Murashev (1977-)
is arrested for hacking North Ossetian poet Shamil Dzhikayev to death for denouncing Muslim pilgrims on Hajj who allegedly urinated on a memorial to children slain in the 2004 Beslan School Siege.
On June 3 a U.N. Report on the Internet
declares Internet access a human right, dissing France and Britain for passing laws removing access of accused copyright scofflaws, and other countries for blocking access to quell political unrest.
On June 3 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton receives an
email
from Anne-Marie Slaughter, with the title "Google email hacking and woeful state of civilian technology".
On June 4 the U.N. Security Council calls for Sudan to pull out of the disputed Abyei region.
On June 4 Pres. Obama decides
not to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, citing nat. security interests; the Palestinian Authority welcomes it as "encouraging"; meanwhile thousands of Israelis mark the
44th anniv. of the 1967 Six-Day War by demonstrating
in Tel Aviv against the continued occupation of the Palestinian territories.
On June 4 Syria shuts down the Internet.
On June 4 a CNN Poll
reveals that American support for Israel over the Palestinians is 67%, up from 60% in 2009, vs. 16%; 65% say that the U.S. shouldn't take sides in the conflict, 35% say it should take Israel's side,
and 1% wants it to take the Palestinian side.
On June 5 hundreds of Palestinians and Syrians storm the Israeli border near the
Golan Heights,
causing Israeli forces to open fire, killing 20 and wounding 350, causing Syrian police to
hold them back on June 6; on June 6 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu utters the
soundbyte
that the attempt to break Israel's borders proves that "The argument is over the fact of the establishment of the state of Israel."
On June 5 the IAEA warns Iran that its nuclear program has "possible military dimensions", with new info. revealing
secret activity since 2004 and as recently as 2010; it also calls out Syria for ditto.
On June 5 Tijuana mayor
Jorge Hank Rhon,
one of Mexico's richest men is arrested in a military raid that uncovers an arsenal in his home.
On June 6 120 security personnel are killed in Jisr al-Shughour, Syria,
causing the govt. to vow to deal "decisively" with the gunmen.
On June 6 (Khordaad 14) the Shiite Mahdi is due to arrive in Medina.
On June 7 U.K. home secy. Theresa May
unvieils PM David Cameron's new violent extremism prevention policy, which finally recognizes that the goal of jihad is the establishment of Sharia, hence those who advocate Sharia may be
non-violent but fail to "reflect British mainstream values".
On June 7 a rocket barrage in a Shiite neighborhood of
Baghdad
kills five U.S. soldiers, becoming the most fatalities in a single day since May 11, 2009.
On June 7 NATO rejects a
Russian missile defense proposal
that would have required NATO to share details.
On June 7 former U.S. secy. of state
Henry Kissinger
attends a global affairs conference in Berlin, and says that Dem. change in Bahrain is not
in the interest of the U.S. because Shiites might take over, leading to "the breakup of Saudi Arabia".
On June 7 moderate Muslim prof.
Maksud Sadikov (b. 1963)
is shot dead at his home in Makhachkala, Dagestan after criticizing radical Islamists.
On June 8 after the Obama admin. allows some deepwater drilling, ExxonMobil
announces
the discovery of 700M barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, becoming the largest find in 12 years.
On June 8 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan
announces
that Turkey won't close its door to Syrians fleeing unrest.
On June 9 Chihuahua atty.-gen.
Carlos Manuel Salas
says that the drug cartels have 14K armed men in the N Mexico cities of Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua.
On June 9 the U.S. issues
sanctions
on Iran for attacking 2009 election protesters.
On June 9 the
Palestinian Authority
says that it may postpone plans for seeking unilateral recognition of statehood in the U.N. in Sept. in exchange
for U.S. guarantees that Israel will refrain from "creating facts on the ground".
On June 9 the U.S. govt. announces a plea bargain deal with accused NSA spy
Thomas Drake,
dropping 10 felony charges in exchange for a guilty plea to one misdemeanor, with no prison time.
On June 9 Iranian parliament speaker
Ali Larijani
utters the soundbyte that Iran will use its missiles to defend other Muslim nations if threatened.
On June 10 Pres. Obama signs an executive order creating the
White House Rural Council
to strengthen the rural U.S. economy.
On June 10 outgoing U.S. defense secy.
Robert Gates
delivers a speech in Brussels, saying that the U.S. military alliance with NATO faces a
"dim if not dismal future", dissing its penny-pinching and lack of political will, with
the soundbyte: "Future U.S. political leaders, those for whom the Cold War was not the formative
experience that it was for me may not consider the return on America's investment in NATO worth the cost."
On June 10 gay rights activists target a mosque in
East London, England
for harboring homophobic clerics, claiming a 21% rise in gay hate crime in the area.
On June 10 Malaysian PM
Datuk Seri Najib Razak
warns Malaysian Muslims not to accept foreign doctrines based on violence and intolerance,
and instead stick with moderate Islam.
On June 10 the
Barnabas Fund
reports that Eritrean Christians fleeing persecution in Eritrea face imprisonment, torture, beatings,
and sexual assault after they arrive in Egypt.
On June 10 stone-throwing Muslim Arabs on the
Temple Mount
in Jerusalem force hundreds of Jewish worshippers to flee.
On June 10 Somalian minister
Mohamud Abdullahi Weheliye
is killed by his suicide bomber niece, who works for al-Shabaab, and is also killed; meanwhile soldiers
open fire on stone-throwing protesters angry at an agreement to oust the country's PM, killing two.
On June 10 Pres. Obama
presses
Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu to accept his policy that Israel's pre-1967 border should be the basis of peace talks.
On June 10 CIA dir.
Leon Panetta
visits Islamabad, Pakistan, and tells them that security officials colluded with militants, tipping them off
to an IED factory raid.
On June 10 the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services issues
warnings,
adding eight substances to its Report on Carcinogen, listing formaldehyde as a carcinogen, and styrene as a possible carcinogen.
On June 11 Syrian troops come under fire as they attack the rebel town of
Jisr al Shughur.
On June 11 tens of thousands protest nuclear power in
Tokyo, Japan.
On June 11 crazed Muslim
Abdullah Mohammed (1960-)
gets mad at elderly shopper William Perry (1941-) in a Pathmark store in Harlem, N.Y., steps on his
foot at the Lotto desk, leaves, returns with a razor, and slashes his neck in a meat aisle.
On June 12 elections in
Turkey
are a V for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), who win 50% of the vote and 325 seats in parliament,
a 90-seat margin over the secular opposition, giving resurgent Islamism another boost.
On June 12 Hamas rejects Fatah's nomination of
Salam Fayyad
for PM of the transitional Palestinian govt., accusing him of cooperating with the Israeli
blockade of the Gaza Strip.
On June 12 Jordanian king Abdullah II
announces
sweeping reforms in a nationally-televised address, promising to establish a parliamentary majority govt. et al.
On June 12 Bahrain begins trying former Shiite MPs
Matar Matar and Jawad Favrouz
for calling for regime change in mid-Mar.
On June 12 Mexican authorities discover
210 migrants
from Central and South Am. crammed in a truck heading to the U.S. in S Mexico.
On June 12 Israel Radio
reports
that Pres. Obama has given Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu an ultimatum of 1 mo. to decide whether to accept
his proposal to resume talks with the fake so-called Palestinians based on the 1967 lines.
On June 12
South Korea
announces that North Korea can likely miniaturize a nuke for placing on a rocket.
On June 12 Am.-Israeli tourist
Ilan Chaim Grapel (Grappelli)
(AKA Ilan Goren) is
arrested
in Egypt as an alleged Mossad spy; he is released on Oct. 27 and returns to Israel.
On June 12 Yemeni acting pres.
Abdullah Oubal
agrees with opposition parties to begin discussions on transferring power from embattled pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh.
On June 12 multimillionaire FIDE pres. (since 1995)
Kirsan Nikolayevich Ilyumzhinov (1962-)
(known for claiming to be taken for a ride of the galaxy by E.T.'s in Sept. 1997) plays a game of chess
with Libyan dictator Col. Daffy Duck.
On June 13 the U.S. Congress Govt. Accountability Office pub. a
report
that reveals that the U.S. govt. still doesn't have a foolproof way to check foreign visitors
in and out of the U.S., leaving an unknown number unaccounted for.
On June 13 a roadside bomb in
South Waziristan
kills three Pakistani soldiers.
On June 13 a 51-y.-o. hijabbed Muslim woman from McLean, Va. causes a panic on the
Red Line
when she shouts "Praise Allah, I'm going to kill the world" and throws a backpack onto the
train at Rockville, Md. before exiting; she ends up in a mental health facility.
On June 13 former Fatah strongman (Mahmoud Abbas' rival)
Muhammad Dahla
is voted out of the party after allegations of corruption and crimes.
On June 13 Germany and the UAE
recognize
the Libyan rebel Transitional Nat. Council; meanwhile Daffy's forces flank Misrata in a pincer movement.
On June 13 Buffalo, N.Y. Muslim
Saddam Hussein Mohsin (1981-)
is charged with attempted murder of Detroit police officer Charles Armour with his car after
he tries to stop him from driving the wrong way down a 1-way street.
On June 13 Indonesian authorities announce that they have foiled a jihadist
plot
to poison police with cyanide, arresting 16 suspects.
On June 13 Lebanese PM Najib Mikati
announces
a new cabinet dominated by Hezbollah and its allies; Hezbollah has 18 of 30 sets in parliament.
On June 13 Boko Haram Islamists shoot and kill four at a beer garden in
Bulunkutu, N Nigeria.
On June 13 74-y.-o. Libyan-born Jew
Raffi Cohen (b. 1937)
is murdered in Rome, shocking the city's Jews.
On June 13 the U.S. Dept. of Education releases the
2010 Nat. Assessment of Educational Progress,
which reveals that only 12% of h.s. seniors have a firm grasp of U.S. history; 2% understand the meaning of
Brown v. Board of Education.
On June 13-23 the
Unexpected Israel
exhibit in the Duomo Piazza of Milan, Italy takes place despite protests from pro-Palestinian activists.
On June 14 after Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi condemns attempts to "delegitimize and boycott" Israel,
Italy and Israel
sign
eight bilateral agreements.
On June 14 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton issues a
statement
comparing the unrest in Syria to the 2009 Iranian protests, claiming that "Iran is supporting
Syrian assaults on protesters".
On June 14 U.S. House Speaker John A. Boehner sends a
warning
to Pres. Obama that unless he gets authorization from Congress for his military action in Libya,
he will be in violation of the War Powers Resolution, giving him until June 17 to prove a clear
justification; too bad, Obama overrides
the usually binding conclusion of his own Office of Legal Counsel and tells Congress that what the U.S. is
doing in Libya doesn't fit the definition of "hostilities".
On June 14 Knesset members visit
Joseph's Tomb
in Shechem for the first time since 2000.
On June 14 Pres. Obama visits
Puerto Rico
for 4.5 hours, becoming the first U.S. pres. to visit since JFK in Dec. 1961; meanwhile Obama gives an
interview
with NBC-TV's "Today" show, saying that his family "are not fully invested" in a 2nd term.
On June 14 after pressure from within the military, Pakistani army chief gen.
Ashfaq Kayani
meets with pres. Asif Zardari and PM Yousuf Raza Gilani and decide not to come under
"foreign" (U.S.) pressure in their military operations in North Wazaristan; meanwhile the
Pakistan Daily warns
that "A break with the U.S. might go in favor of Al-Qaeda's plans to impose a 'nuclearized' theocracy on Pakistan."
On June 14
S.C.
passes a law requiring employers to use the federal online E-Verify program to verify that their
employees can legally work in the U.S., with suspension of the business license as the punishment
for failure to cooperate; a similar law was passed on June 9 in
Ala.
On June 15 25-y.-o. Austrian Islamist
Thomas M.
is arrested in Vienna and accused of planning a 9/11-style attack on the Reichstag.
On June 15 Kuwaiti Shiite
Nasser Abul
is arrested for posting criticism of the ruling families of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia on Twitter.
On June 15 Yemen claims to intercept financial transfers made through
Qatar
to fund dissidents, warning it to stop.
On June 15 U.S. Muslim soldier Pfc.
Naser Abdo (1990-),
who was approved as a conscientious objector to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is charged with possession of child porno.
On June 15
Tajikistan
passes a law banning children and adolescents from attending mosques - they're way smarter than the rest of the world?
On June 15 the Obama admin. claims that its deeper engagement with the U.N. has helped counter its anti-Israel bias; on
June 17 the Arab-dominated U.N. Human Rights Council passes a
resolution
retaining Israel as the only one of its 192 member states that is the target of a dedicated permanent item
on its agenda, ignoring human rights abuses in Muslim countries.
On June 15-16 U.S. rep. (R-N.Y.) Peter King chairs hearings on
Radical Islam Infiltrating U.S. Prisons,
sparring with
Sheila Jackson,
who tells him to turn the spotlight instead on "Christian militants", Rep. (D-Mi.)
Hansen Clarke,
who gives an irrelevant speech about prison reform, and Rep. (D-Calif.)
Laura Richardson,
who accused King of racism for focusing on one particular group, causing King to
utter the soundbyte "The fact is that this committee was set up to combat terrorism, it
was set up after September 11. There are already procedures in place that follow gangs
in prison. Unfortunately because [of] too many instances of political correctness, we
do not have protocols put in place to follow those who had trained in jihad in the prison
systems. And that's why this is unique.", then adds "Your party had control of this
committee for four years and had not one hearing on prisons, on skinheads, on Nazis, on
Aryan Nation, on white supremacists, at all. Suddenly this issue emerges when we start
talking about Muslim radicalization... If we find out that neo-Nazis are coordinating
with a foreign power to attack this country, then we will investigate it."
On June 16 Pakistan lobbies for membership in the China-dominated
Shanghai Cooperation Org.,
and urges Afghanistan to join also.
On June 16 Lebanon mufti Sheikh
Mohammed Rashid Qabbani
tells Palestinian reps. in Beirut that they are "trash" that are no longer
welcome in his country.
On June 16 al-Qaida
announces
that former #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri is now #1, causing the U.S. to announce that they will hunt him down
and kill him like they did Osama bin Laden; al-Qaida
announces
that it will "never recognize any legitimacy for the alleged" state of Israel".
On June 16 (10:55 a.m.) a Boko Haram suicide bomber at the police HQ in
Abuja, Nigera
becomes Nigeria's first?
On June 16 an Islamist bomb in
Netanya, Israel
kills three and wounds 12.
On June 16 the Taliban warns
Prince Harry
that if he is captured in Afghanistan on his 2nd tour of duty next year, he will be shown no mercy and will be "destroyed".
On June 16 an
Australia-Malaysian people swap deal
sees 4K refugees go to Australia while 800 go back to Malaysia, which alredy has 93K refugees from Myanmar.
On June 16 the OIC (Muslim)-financed
Council of Europe
pub. a Report on Racism,
calling for horrible laws against online "hate speech" to be pumped up by stronger laws making it "impossible" to even use it.
On June 17 Spain freezes
33M euros of assets held by a detained associate of ousted Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak et al.
On June 17 a suspicious vehicle outside the Pentagon containing ammonium nitrate is identified as
belonging to Muslim U.S. Marine lance cpl.
Yonathan Melaku,
who is found carrying a notebook containing phrases incl. "Taliban rules" and "Mujahid defeated
Croatian forces"; later a
videotape
showing firing shots at the U.S. Marine Corps museum while shouting "Allahu Akbar" along with documents on
bombmaking are found in his home; under Obama influence, the Washington Post reports "motive unclear" - Semper Fi?
On June 17 protests across Syria sees Syrian security forces
shoot
and kill eight protesters; meanwhile a Syria-allied Lebanese politician is killed by gunmen shooting at people
holding an anti-Assad protest in N Lebanon.
On June 17 protesters in
Guangzhou Province, China
protest the treatment of a pregnant migrant worker by police, who forced her to move her food stand off a road
in Xiantang and pushed her to the ground.
On June 17 the U.S. Human Rights Council issues its first
condemnation of discrimination against gays, lebians, and transgender people,
which is supported by the U.S. and opposed by Islamic and African countries.
On June 17 White House communications dir.
Dan Pfeiffer
is heckled and booed at the liberal activist Netroots Nation conference in Minneapolis, Minn.
On June 17 London-based
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
reports that Hamas vetoed a "good deal" offered by Israel for the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
On June 17 a report in Der Spiegel
claims that the June-July Women's World Cup of Football
in Germany may bring Islamist violence because they regard it as decadent.
On June 17 U.S. Rep. (R-Calif.)
Darrell Issa
says that he believes that Obama's Justice Dept. is covering up a scandal where they allowed
Mexican drug cartels to purchase guns in the U.S., causing Obama to fire ATF Bureau chief Kenneth Melson.
On June 17 the new
2011 Moroccan Constitution
with dem. reforms is unveiled; on July 3 a referendum approves it by a 98.5% vote.
On June 17 the
U.S. Conference of Mayors
introduces a resolution calling for a quicker end to the Afghan War and a speedier withdrawal of troops,
becoming their first anti-war resolution since the Vietnam War.
On June 18 NewsMax reports
that North Korea may have tested a "Super EMP" weapon that produces a large electromagnetic pulse.
On June 18 Syrian troops attack a Syrian refugee camp near the Turkish village of
Boynuyogun
in Hatay province near the Syrian border.
On June 18 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai
acknowledges
that the Afghan and U.S. govts. have been holding talks with the Taliban; meanwhile
Taliban suicide attacks in Kabul kill nine.
On June 18 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder makes the
claim
that lawyers are America's "most effective terror-fighting weapon", pissing-off nat. security experts.
On June 19 (Sun.) (Father's Day) Pres. Obama sends his
first Tweet:
"Being a father is sometimes my hardest but always my most rewarding job. Happy Father's Day
to all the dads out there."
On June 19 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai accuses U.S.-led NATO troops of remaining in the country
"for their own national interests", causing outgoing U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan
Karl Eikenberry
warns that the U.S. people are growing weary of being viewed as occupiers, saying "My people
in turn are filled with confusion and they grow weary of our effort here."
On June 19 a NATO airstrike in the Souk al-Juma
neighborhood of Tripoli accidentally kills civilians, incl. a child.
On June 19 9-y.-o. Pakistani girl Sohana Jawed (2002-),
who was kidnapped en route to school and forced to wear a suicide vest escapes her captors as they tried to get her to attack a paramilitary checkpoint in NW Pakistan.
On June 19 Miss Calif. Alyssa Marie Campanella (1990-)
of LA is crowned Miss USA, saying "I'm a huge history geek", as well as a "science geek".
On June 19 Falling Skies
debuts on TNT-TV for 52 episodes (until Aug. 30, 2015), starring Will Patton as Capt. Dan Weaver, and Noah Wyle as history prof. Tom Mason, 2nd-in-command of the
2nd Mass. Militia Regiment, who help a group of civilians flee Boston after an alien invasion by brown 6-legged Skitters, Mech attack drones, and the Overlords (Espheni).
On June 20 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejects a class action for gender discrimination in
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes,
but splits 5-4 over the scope of the decision.
On June 20 the 9-ship
Freedom Flotilla II,
led by the Audacity of Hope (after a book by Pres. Obama) leaves for Gaza from various Mediterranean
ports carrying 1.5K activists from 100 countries, incl. leftist writer Alice Walker; this despite the May 27
Egyptian decision to reopen its border at Rafah with Gaza; flotilla coordinator
Mohammed Sawalha is a Hamas leader in the U.K.;
writer Alice Walker is aboard; 1,150 of 1,500 activists drop out; on July 1 after a new pro-U.S.
Greek-Israeli-Turkish alliance is created,
Greek authorities detain the Audacity of Hope, and on July 2
arrest
the capt. when he tries to slip away; on July 4 Hamas
blows up
Egypt's gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan in protest (3rd time in 6 mo.); on July 7 the flotilla gives
up and disperses.
On June 20 the Israeli govt. announces the building of a new wall on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights
to block infiltration of Palestians through the border town of
Majdal Shams.
On June 20 (6:30 p.m.)
Egypt Air 986
(B777) comes dangerously close to a mid-air collision after failing to follow ATC instructions.
On June 20 16-y.-o. Faheen Abdul-Jaleel of Rochester, N.Y. brutally stabs his 13-y.-o. cousin
Samina Qasim
in an attempted honor killing, which he tries to cover up by calling it an argument.
On June 21 tens of thousands demonstrate again in
Yemen
against Ali Abdullah Saleh, demanding the departure of his sons Ahmad and Khaled Saleh.
On June 21 a Russian Tupolev Tu-134 crash-lands in
Karelia, Russia,
killing 40.
On June 21 La Familia cartel drug lord
Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas,
AKA El Chango (The Monkey) is captured in Aguascalientes, Mexico.
On June 21 the Wall Street Journal exposes
anti-black ethnic cleansing
in Misurata, Libya by the Brigade for the Purging of Slaves and Black Skin.
On June 21 (eve.) Pres. Obama gives a
Speech on Afghanistan
titled "The Way Forward in Afghanistan", saying that he will withdraw 33K troops
by the end of Aug. 2012 in time for the pres. election season, starting with 5K in July and 5K by
the end of 2011; "This decade of war has caused many to question the nature of America's engagement
around the world. When threatened, we must respond with force, but when that force can be targeted,
we need not deploy large armies overseas. We stand not for empire, but for self-determination";
his own top military advisers are against his plan, and NATO doesn't plan on turning over the war
to the Afghan army until the end of 2014.
On June 21 Boston, Mass. crime boss
James "Whitey" Bulger (1920-)
is arrested in Santa Monica, Calif. after being on the run since 1994 from charges of 21 killings and racketeering.
On June 21-26 First Lady
Michelle Obama,
her daughters Malia and Sasha, and mother Marian Robinson visit Africa, starting with Johannesburg, followed by Gaborone.
On June 22 a jailbreak in
Mukalla, Yemen
sees 62 al-Qaida members overpower guards while others attack the prison from the outside.
On June 22
S.C.
passes a new immigration law requiring police to check the immigration status of anybody they arrest; on Oct. 31 the U.S. Dept. of Justice
sues
them over it after the Dept. of Homeland Security announces that it has cancelled long-standing checks of
transportation hubs for illegal immigrants; meanwhile Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Jose Antonio Vargas
outs himself as an illegal U.S. immigrant in the New York Times, risking prosecution to influence the debate.
On June 22 Gig Harbor (near Tacoma), Wash. man
Brooks Papineau
aims a gun loaded with armor-pierced bullets at a police officer after a traffic stop, and is killed;
his truck is carrying a large ammount of ammo, a Quran, and books on converting to Islam; the
40th Islamic terrorist attack
against the U.S. foiled since 9/11.
On June 22 after a tipoff from a convicted Seattle Muslim, Am. Muslim converts
Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif (Joseph Anthony Davis) (1978-)
of Seattle, Wash., and Walli Mujahidh (Frederick Dominigue Jr.) (1979-) of LA are arrested for plotting to attack
a military recruiting station with machine guns a la Ft. Hood.
On June 22 the Pakistani army questions four majors about links to the banned
Hizb ut-Tahrir
global Islamist party, causing members to stage a demonstration on July 1 calling for Islamic rule.
On June 24 the U.S. House of Reps. votes down a
resolution
to grant Pres. Obama authority to continue supporting the NATO mission in Libya by 123-295, with 70 Dems.
and eight Repubs. switching sides.
On June 24 a suicide bomber in
S Yemen
kills four, incl. three soldiers, and injures 10.
On June 24 former Rwandan minister for family and women affairs
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko
becomes the first woman convicted of genocide for her part in the 1994 Rwanda genocide; her son
Arsene Ntahobali is also convicted; they receive life sentences.
On June 24 Pres. Obama launches the Nat. Robotics Initiative,
part of the Advanced Manufacturing Initiative, with the soundbyte:
"You might not know this, but one of my responsibilities as Commander in Chief is to keep an eye on robots. And I'm pleased to report that the robots you manufacture here seem peaceful,
at least for now."
On June 25 N.Y.
becomes state #6 to legalize gay marriage, along with Washington, D.C.
On June 25 German interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich
meets with Muslim community leaders and urges them to prevent the radicalization of Muslim youth, causing the usual PC firestorm.
On June 25 a car bomb in a hospital in Logar Province, Afghanistan kills 27 and injures 52.
On June 25 six Taliban militants, some of them in burqas, incl. a husband-wife pair detonated in a police station in
Kolachi, NW Pakistan, killing 10 policemen.
On June 25 Egyptian finance minister Samir Radwan
says that Egypt won't borrow from the IMF despite prior loan agreements.
On June 26 hundreds of Muslim youths burn a Jehovah's Witness hall in
Dakar, Senegal during a meeting; local imam
Thierno Mbeugne
tries to justify the attack by claiming that the JWs were handing out crosses, when their cult doesn't believe in them.
On June 26 a Boko Haram Islamist attack in a beer garden in
Maiduguri, Nigeria
kills 25+.
On June 26 Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas
announces
that he will go to the U.N. for recognition of an independent Palestinian state in Sept.
On June 26 Pakistani Taliban deputy cmdr.
Waliur Rehman
tells the AP that it will avenge Osama bin Laden's death by carrying out 10 new terrorist attacks incl.
in the U.S. and Europe; meanwhile former Fadayeen-e-Islam Taliban cmdr.
Shakirullah Shakir
is killed in Miramshah, North Waziristan.
On June 26 U.S. churches embrace
Chrislam
via the Faith Shared group?
On June 26 a Gallup Poll
shows that only 45% of Americans in the lowest income bracket ($24K a year or less) approve of the job
that Pres. Obama is doing, vs. 47% of Americans in the highest bracket ($90K a year or more).
On June 27 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court by 5-4 in McComish v. Bennett
strikes down a key provision of an Ariz. public financing law, giving those who opt for campaign funds from the govt. to apply for more
if their privately-financed opponents spend more than they get, saying that a "trigger mechanism" violates the free speech rights of the opponents.
On June 27 the Internat. Criminal Court in The Hague issues
warrants
for Libyan Col. Daffy, his son Saif al-Islam, and his brother-in-law Abdullah al-Sanussi
for crimes against humanity incl. murder and persecution.
On June 27 Iran tests the long-range
Sajiil
missile, which has a range of 2K km, allowing it to strike Israel; on June 29
British foreign secy.
William Hague
says that Iran has been secretly testing ballistic missiles capable of delivering nukes, violating
U.N. Resolution 1929, causing Saudi prince
Turki al-Faisal
to say that if Iran comes close to developing nukes it will follow suit and "pursue policies which
could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences".
On June 27 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 7-2 in
Brown (Schwarzenegger) v. Entertainment Merchants Assoc.
that states don't have the power to act as parents and censor violent games for minors, voiding a 2005 Calif. law.
On June 27 Kurdish militants attack Turkish troops in
Orenburch, Turkey
in the Van region, killing one soldier and wounding three; meanwhile a
Turkish gay pride march
is held in Istanbul.
On June 27 Turkish-born ex-boxing champ
Fuat Sanac
is elected head of Austria's Islamic community, succeeding Anas Schakfeh (since 1999).
On June 27 Space Rock 2011 MD
passes 7.5K mi. above the Earth's surface over the S Atlantic Ocean.
On June 28 France confirms
that it has supplied weapons to the Libyan rebels despite a U.N. arms embargo; meanwhile on June 29 Britain
decides against arming them.
On June 28 Rinderpest
is officially declared wiped out by the U.N. in a ceremony in Rome.
On June 28 (night) a Taliban suicide attack at the Intercontinental Hotel
in Kabul, Afghanistan sees six attackers storm it during a conference of Afghan provincial govs. and go through the rooms targeting the 300 Afghans and foreigners staying there,
killing six until they are killed, showing that they can get the Yankee infidels where they live.
On June 29 the U.S. Senate passes Resolution 185,
calling on Palestinians to halt their bid for unilateral recognition by the U.N. and threatening to suspend financial aid.
On June 29 the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security pub. a
new list of specially designated countries
that support terrorism, adding Israel for the first time while dropping North Korea; meanwhile the Obama admin. resumes formal contact with the
Muslim Brotherhood,
whose avowed goal is Islamist takeover of the U.S., while U.S. deputy nat. security advisor
John Brennan
says that the new Obama admin. counterterrorism strategy will be to focus on would-be terrorists in the U.S. who are inspired by al-Qaeda's "hateful ideology", and adds that this
is the first strategy to "designate the homeland as a primary area of emphasis in our counterterrorism efforts", adding the
immortal soundbytes:
"Our strategy is... shaped by a deeper understanding of al-Qaida's goals, strategy and tactics... I'm not talking about al-Qaida's grandiose vision of global domination through
a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism polices against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen"; on
June 30 Hillary Clinton in Budapest says that the Obama admin. is loosening criteria for interaction with the Brotherhood, permitting diplomats to deal directly with low-level officials; on
July 2 Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan
says that they are "ready for dialogue", but only "within a framework of mutual respect", calling for the Obama admin. to "side with the rights of the people and their demands and to stop
supporting the corrupt and tyrannical regimes, backing the Zionist occupation and using double standards"; meanwhile the Obama admin.
imposes
financial sanctions on Syrian and Iranian domestic security forces for killing of peaceful anti-govt. protesters in Syria.
On June 29 the Yemeni air force mistakenly bombs a bus in Zinjibar,
killing four; meanwhile clashes with rebels kill 23 on both sides.
On June 29 two Chinese warplanes chase a U.S. U-2 spy plane over the 100-mi.
Taiwan Strait,
becoming the first direct conflict since 2001.
On June 29 French journalists Herve Ghesquiere and Stephane Taponier
are released, becoming the longest-held Western hostages in Afghanistan; they were kidnapped on Dec. 30, 2009 in Kapisa NE of Kabul.
On June 30 the U.N. Special Tribunal for Lebanon
issues
arrest warrants for four members of Hezbollah, incl. senior official Mustafa Badreddine for the 2005 assassination of Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri.
On June 30 U.S. State Dept. official Daniel Benjamin
tells the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the Obama admin. doesn't think that Hezbollah is doing anything in Venezuela other than fundraising, pissing-off Repubs., who think
they're into terrorism.
On June 30 after a Coptic Christian couple is attacked at a bus terminal, and the man has the
effrontery to fight back, a Muslim mob of thousands attacks Christian homes and business in 75% Coptic
W Kolosna, Egypt
in Minya Province, injuring 10.
On June 30 a panel of FDA experts votes that the world's best-selling cancer drug
Avastin
is unsafe to use on breast cancer patients.
On June 30 thousands protest in
Dhaka, Bangladesh
to protest the new 2011 Bangladesh Constitution
that proclaims it an Islamic state.
On June 30 Iranian supreme assatolah
Ali Khamenei
holds a meeting with Iranian officials where he warns that the U.S. is in a Zionist plot
to stir up trouble with Syria, after which he sends a letter to the Obama admin. warning
them not to pressure the Syrian leadership or Iran will retaliate against U.S. troops in Iraq.
On June 30 Kabul Bank ex-chmn.
Sherkhan Farnood
and ex-CEO Khalilullah Fruzi are arrested for $900M in fraudulent lending activities.
On June 30 Atlanta, Ga. public school suptd.
Beverly Hall
resigns days before a report is released that she encouraged teachers and principals to change student
test answers to get higher scores on standardized tests so she could get a bonus.
On June 30 (4 p.m.) a bus strikes a Taliban IED in Khash Rod District
in the SW Nimroz Province of AFghanistan, killing 20 civilians.
In June the first Arctic-crossing algae
from the Pacific to the N Atlantic in 800K years are accompanied by a whale native to the Pacific.
In June a huge E. coli outbreak in Germany
starts in Hamburg, killing 22 and sickening 2K; it is traced to bean sprouts.
In June the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N)
begins fighting the Sudanese army in the Nuba Mts. of South Kordofan.
In June the
Central Bank of Nigeria
announces plans to switch to non-interest Islamic banking.
In June the
Anthony Weiner Scandal
sees Dem. N.Y. U.S. rep. (1999-)
Anthony David Weiner (1964-)
get caught sending photos of his wiener to love mates on the Internet despite having married Saudi-raised
(puppet?) Muslim Hillary Clinton deputy chief of staff
Huma Mahmood Abedin (1976-)
11 mo. earlier on July 10, 2010 (officiated by Bill Clinton), compounded by lying before
a complete confession, causing calls for his resignation, incl. from Pres. Obama despite
support from pregnant Huma, after which he finally resigns on June 16; Huma's marriage is
a sham arranged for convenience by her Saudi puppetmasters, and is not recognized by Sharia?;
Huma was once rumored to be Hillary's
lesbian lover,
and her mother Saleha Abedin
belonged to the Muslim Sisterhood, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, while her brother
Hassan Abedin
works at the infamous Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, whose board is loaded with
Muslim Brotherhood members, and who has aspiring Turkish caliph
Muhammad Fethullah Gulen (Gülen)
among its trustees; the Clintons helped Gulen flee to the U.S. after being indicted in Turkey in 2000.
In June the 57-member Org. of Islamic Cooperation (Conference) (OIC) sets up the 18-member
OIC Permanent Commission on Human Rights (OICCHR);
too bad, it reverses the Western logic of human rights to protect Islam, advocating "the non-use of the universality
of human rights as a pretext in the state;s internal affairs and diminish their national sovereignty", and calling
upon OIC members to work together to "increase Islamic solidarity to confront any initiative that may lead to use
of human rights as a means of exercising pressure on any member state"; nothing but a Saudi tool to foist a world
Islamic blasphemy law on infidels?
In June the first Christian-Muslim gay marriage in the Nordic countries sees
Knut Egil Asprusten (1967-) and Kaltham Alexander Lie (1962-)
get hitched in Oslo, Norway.
In June the
Gary Becker Milton Friedman Inst. for Research in Economics
is established at the U. of Chicago by Lars Peter Hansen et al.
In June the
U.S. unemployment rate
rises to 9.2%, adding only 18K jobs.
On July 1 another protest in
Tahrir Square
sees thousands protest the slow pace of change.
On July 1 300K protest in
Hama, Syria
(2nd largest since start og uprising in Mar.), while the police and military give them a
wide berth, after which pres. Bashar al-Assad fires gov.
Ahmed Abdul-Aziz
on July 2, and sends tanks
into the city on July 4, arresting dozens.
On July 1 1M-1.7M protest in
Tripoli, Libya
in support of Col. Daffy and against NATO.
On July 1 Moroccans vote for
constitutional changes
proposed by King Mohammed VI, incl. full equality of women, the rights of minorities incl. Jews and Berbers,
criminialization of torture, and the independence of the judiciary; they also invest executive authority in the
head of the party that wins the most seats in parliament.
On July 1 the Internat. Community of Democracies meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania sees U.S. secy. of state
Hillary Clinton liken the Arab Spring to the democratization of E Europe in the 1990s, and utter the
soundbyte:
"Today there are new democracies fighting for life, there are vicious autocrats clinging to power.
This is an hour of need, and every democracy should stand up and be counted."
On July 1 the 17th African Union Summit
in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea sees the leaders wrestle with what to do about once-impregnable Libyan dictator Col. Daffy, who
threatens
to attack European civilians, causing U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton to
call for him to stand down.
On July 1 the govt. of Bolivia
renounces the U.N. Anti-Drug Convention because it objects to classifying coca leaf as an illegal drug.
On July 1 the Sudanese army
seizes Kufra in S Libya, which is the gateway to Libyan oil fields.
On July 1 the U.S. embassy in Pakistan
holds a gay pride celebration, pissing-off the Muslim establishment, incl. Jamaat-i-Islami leader Ameer Munawar Hassan, who claims the U.S. "has violated the rules and laws of the land".
On July 1 Monaco prince Albert II (b. 1958) marries South African swimmer
Charlene Lynette Wittstock (1978-),
who becomes princess of Monaco and is set to work producing an heir.
On July 2 R.I.
authorizes same sex civil unions, but no gay marriage.
On July 2 a planned rally by
Stop Islamisation of Europe
in Strasbourg, France, seat of the EU Parliament is cancelled by EU authorities - making their point?
On July 2-3 (night) Boko Haram jihadists kill a politician, three retired police officers, and six others, then set off a bomb at a police beer garden in
Maiduguri, N Nigeria, killing 10.
On July 3 the first free elections in Thailand
since 2006 gives a landslide V to Yingluck "Pu" (crab) Shinawatra (1967-),
sister of exiled ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra, who becomes PM of Thailand on Aug. 5 (until ?).
On July 3 a Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) attack on a construction vehicle in
Bingol, E Turkey
kills one Turkish soldier and injures another.
On July 3 U.S. Sen. (I-Conn.)
Joe Lieberman
tells Fox News Sunday that Iran has a "day of reckoning coming", and that the U.S. should
"retire our ambiguous mantra about all options remaining on the table" and make sure that
defense secy. nominee Leon Panetta has a plan for attacking them.
On July 4 Turkish foreign minister
Ahmet Davutoglu
reverses policy on Libyan col. Daffy, pledging $200M in additional aid for the rebels on top of
the $100M they pledged under U.S.-EU pressure.
On July 4 a statue of U.S. Pres. Ronald Reagan is
unveiled
in Grosvenor Square in London, England.
On July 4 the Indian govt. announces the discovery of a $22B gold-jewel treasure trove in the
16th cent.
Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple
in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
On July 5 Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde (1956-)
of France becomes the first woman dir. of the IMF (until ?).
On July 5 after a 6-week trial in which the defense portrayed her as a slut and liar to a T, Fla. mom
Casey Anthony
is found not guilty of murder or manslaughter over the death of her 2-y.-o. daughter Caylee, causing massive outrage; she is convicted of
four misdemeanors of providing false info. to law enforcement, and is released from jail on ?.
On July 5 the U.K.-based
Muslims Against the Crusades
Islamist group calls on U.K. to establish three independent "emirates" that are completely under Sharia, incl. Bradford and Dewbury in Yorkshire,
and Tower Hamlets in East London.
On July 5 German chancellor Angela Merkel comes under fire for a $1B
arms deal with Saudi Arabia to supply it with 200 Leopard 2 battle tanks,
but lawmakers fail to override it.
On July 5 an Azerbaijani tanker plane
crashes in Afghanistan en route from Baku to Bagram Air Base, killing nine crew.
On July 5 Zetas drug gang leader (Mexican army deserter)
Jesus Rejon Aguilar
(AKA El Mamito), suspected in the slaying of U.S. agent Jaime Japata is captured.
On July 5 (11 p.m. local time) white Muslim convert jihadist
Saifullah (b. 1961),
key aide to Osama bin Laden is killed by a U.S. drone in Mir Ali, N Waziristan, Pakistan
along with five other militants.
On July 5-8 protests in
Karachi, Pakistan
kill 71, causing security forces to be authorized to shoot gunmen on sight.
On July 6 after his enemies seek to arrest his closet aides, Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket issues a
warning
that if they try it he will expose corruption in the Rev. Guards, incl. smuggling of cigarettes.
On July 6 the U.S. and Mexico end a 15-year cross-border trucking dispute by signing a
pact,
lifting punitive tariffs on $2.4B on U.S. goods in exchange for Mexican trucks complying with all
U.S. federal motor vehicle safety standards and install monitoring systems to track hours on the road.
On July 6 the Obama admin. decides to try Somalian Islamic militant
Ahmed Abdulkadir Warseame
in the U.S. civil courts, pissing-off Repubs.
On July 7 after Saudi al-Qaida military cmdr.
Walid Mashafi Ali Asiri
(AKA Abu Khaled Al Asiri) is killed along with 40 others in Zinjibar, al-Qaida militants ambush Yemeni soldiers in
S Yemen, killing 10.
On July 7 surprise appearance on state TV by Yemeni pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh
sparks a wave of violence.
On July 7 rapist-murderer Humberto Leal Garcia Jr.
of Mexico is executed in Tex. despite a last minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court by the Obama admin.; his last words are "Viva Mexico".
On July 7 News Corp. chief exec Rupert Murdoch announces plans to shut down the 168-y.-o.
News of the World,
Britain's largest circ. newspaper after a scandal about hacking into the phones of thousands of
British citizens and payoffs to police for info.; his deputies Lee Hinton and Rebekah Brooks resign by July 15; on July 17 Sir
Paul Stephenson, head of Scotland Yard resigns; on July 19 Rupert's wife
Wendi Murdoch (1969-)
becomes a hero after she smacks an assailant on the head after he throws a foam pie at him.
On July 7 1K secular Muslims protest in
Tunisia
to protest creeping takeover by Islamists bent on Sharia.
On July 7-8 scores of pro-Palestinian activists trying to fly into Israel are
blocked
at airports in Europe; two Am. activists who arrive in Israel are deported on July 8.
On July 8 (12:28 a.m. ET) Space Shuttle Atlantis
takes off on its final flight, returning before dawn on July 21.
On July 8 (Fri.) protests in Egypt
sees tens of thousands demand justice for victims of Hosni Mubarak's regime and a clear transition plan to democracy, shouting "No parties, no Muslim Brotherhood",
causing Egyptian maj. gen.
Mohsen El-Fangary
to tell the protesters on July 12 that they won't allow public life to be disrupted or their authority to be "hijacked"; meanwhile 500K protest in Orontes Square in
Hama, Syria,
greeting U.S. and French ambassadors Robert Ford and Eric Chevalier, while other demonstrations take place throughout Syria; July 9 Syrian forces raid
Homs; on July 11 protesters in Damascus
break into
the U.S. embassy, and attack the French embassy, but are repelled by gunfire; on July 12 the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for
Resolution 1998,
condemning attacks on schools and hospitals as subject to being placed on a list of those committing "grave violations" against children.
On July 8 killer bees
attack 46-y.-o. Oscar Navarro and his dog and kill them in Tucson, Ariz.
On July 8 Calif.
begins requiring Amazon.com and other large out-of-state retails to collect sales tax on online purchases made by Calif. customers.
On July 8-9 a killing spree in
Mexico
by the Zetas drug cartel kills 40+.
On July 9 (9:57 local time) (00:57 GMT) a 7.1 earthquake in guess-where
NE Japan
off Honshu Island is needed like a hole in the head.
On July 9 after a decades-long struggle to free itself from Muslim-run N Sudan, oil rich
South Sudan officially becomes a nation #54 in Africa; on July 9 pres. (since July 30, 2005)
Salva Kiir Mayardit (1951-)
becomes pres. #1 (until ?), visiting Israel in Dec. to thank it for its help during the first civil war (1956-72), uttering the soundbyte:
"Only we can determine how our vision will be read in history books generations from now. Will we let our challenges define us, or will we rise as a nation and define our own future?...
If we work together, the story of South Sudan will inspire the world"; Sudan exports 150K barrels of oil a day via a pipeline running through Sudan, providing $1K a year for each
of its 8M citizens; too bad, his son Salva Kiir converts to Islam; on July 13 the U.N. Security Council adopts
Resolution 1999 without vote to admit South Sudan (#193).
On July 9 a senior Iranian Rev. Guard cmdr.
threatens
the U.S. with attack on its aircraft carriers if Iran is attacked over its nuke program.
On July 9 the Obama admin. announces that it is
suspending
up to $800M in military aid to Pakistan for expelling U.S. military trainers and to spur it into
fighting the Taliban more effectively, causing Pakistani defense minister
Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar
on July 12 to say that Pakistan might withdraw thousands of troops from the border areas in response.
On July 9 Nigeria bans motorbikes in
Maiuguri
to stop Boko Haram attacks.
On July 9 Iranian Rev. Guards brig. gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh
announces that they have tested long-range nuke-capable ballistic missiles during the month of Bahman (Jan. 21 - Feb. 20).
On July 10 a Muslim immigrant destroys the image of the patron saint in the sanctuary of St. Calogero in Sicily.
On July 10 Newt Gingrich calls the dismal U.S. economy the Obama Depression.
On July 10 the Middle East Quartet meets
in Washington, D.C., and endorses Pres. Obama's May 19 speech.
On July 10 U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta utters the soundbyte
that weapons supplied by Iran have become a "tremendous concern" for the U.S. in Iraq, which saw more combat deaths of U.S. troops in June than in any mo. since June 2008.
On July 10 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan issues a message
to Pres. Obama to redefine terrorism in the Middle East and use it as the basis for a new foreign policy, i.e., accept Hamas and Hezbollah.
On July 10 after NATO's air war on him gets nowhere, French defense minister Gerard Longuet
gives a speech on TV saying that NATO has "stopped the hand that was striking" Libyan Col. Daffy, and that the rebels should begin direct negotiations with him.
On July 10 France becomes the first nation to ban the fracking technique for oil and natural gas extraction.
On July 10 the govt. of Australia announces
a $24.74 per metric ton tax on carbon emissions.
On July 10 the Kalka Mail
passenger train derails near Fatehpur in Uttar Pradesh, India, killing 67.
On July 10 Karamakhi village imam Magomed Makhdiyev
is shot and killed in his mosque in Dagestan, Russia by a Muslims who didn't like his opposition to hijabs.
On July 11 the Middle East Quartet
(U.S., EU, U.N., Russia) meets in Washington, D.C. to discuss ways to revive the stalled Palestinian-Israeli negotiations; Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas utters the soundbyte
that the U.S. should not have veto power over its decisions; U.S.-Israeli relations reach a historic new low?
On July 11 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton utters the soundbyte
that Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad has lost his legitimacy, pissing-off him and his govt.
On July 11 hundreds protest in Tunis, Tunisia,
calling for the govt. to refrain from establishing diplomatic ties with "Zionist Israel".
On July 11 a bomb attack in Battagram, Pakistan
in Peshawar kills six incl. three policemen, and wounds 10.
On July 11 Israel passes a controversial ban
on settlement boycotts, allowing settlers to sue Israelis who promote boycotts of settlements, which is even
opposed
by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as a disservice to Israel's democratic rep.
On July 11 an overloaded cruise ship in a reservoir on the Volga River
sinks in wind and rain, killing 55.
On July 11 (night) 30-y.-o. teacher Firdaus, who is showing students how to build a terrorist bomb in the Islamic Umar bin Khatab school in
Bima, West Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia
on Sumbawa Island sets it off accidentally, killing himself, causing a 2-day standoff by
machete-wielding students and teachers with police, who
arrest
the headmaster on July 15, who is accused or running a terrorist training camp for the Islamist
Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid group headed by Abu Bakar Bashir; more than two dozen homemade pipe bombs are
found
in the school.
On July 11 Egyptian politician Ahmed Ezz El-Arab
makes statements denying the Holocaust and claiming that 9/11 was an inside job, pissing-off human rights groups.
On July 11 the U.S. House of Reps. votes 233-193 to preserve
their scheduled phase-out of incandescent light bulbs under the 2007 U.S. Better Use of Light Bulbs (BULB) Act.
On July 11 a contingent of 600 Hindus arrives in the border town of
Attari, India
after fleeing Islamist jihadists in Sindh province, Pakistan.
On July 11 (5:30 p.m. local time) Muslim passenger
Saleh Ali S. Alramakah (Alramaleh) (1990-)
of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia disrupts United Airlines Flight 944 en route from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany,
causing it to land in Cleveland, Ohio by repeatedly using an electronic device in the bathroom despite warnings,
then getting belligerent, kicking and spitting at passengers.
On July 11 Alphas
debuts on Syfy Channel (until ?), starring David Strathairn as Dr. Lee Rosen, head of a team of people with ESP
who fight a renegade criminal team.
On July 12 Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai's half-brother
Ahmed Wali Karzai,
head of the Kandahar provincial council is assassinated by police official Sardar Muhammad
at his home in S Afghanistan, leaving a power vacuum in S Afghanistan; the Taliban
claims
responsibility, calling it "one of our biggest achievements"; on July 14 his funeral is hit by another suicide bomber,
killing four incl. Kandahair's chief cleric.
On July 12 Egyptian deputy PM Yehia el-Gamal
resigns as protests in Tahrir Square enter day #5; on July 13 the military govt. announces
the early retirement of 600 senior Mubarak-era police officers to mollify protesters.
On July 12 the U.N. stinks itself up by making North Korea
the pres. of the Conference on Disarmament, joining China, Iran, and Pakistan to stop the arms race.
On July 12 Pres. Obama threatens to cut off Social Security checks after Aug. 3 if there is no agreement on an increase in the U.S. debt ceiling, causing Sen.
(R-Fla.) Marco Rubio to call him an incompetent pres.; on July 13 Obama
walks out
of debt limit talks, with the soundbyte "I've sat here long enough. No other president, including Ronald Reagan would sit here like this."
On July 12 Norway files terrorist charges against Iraqi-born Islamic cleric
Mullah Krekar,
founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam for threatening Norwegian politicians with death if he's deported.
On July 12 Israel opens the traditional baptism site of Jesus
on the Jordan River after removing mines, pissing-off Palestinian officials; it has been closed since the 1967 war.
On July 12 Neptune completes its first full orbit since its 1846 discovery.
On July 13 three Islamist explosions in Mumbai, India kill 20 and injure 81.
On July 13 diplomatic sources reveal that Iran is planning
to install centrifuges for higher-grade uranium enrichment in an underground bunker.
On July 13 Turkish police arrest 14 in Ankara
for plotting to get even for the death of Osama bin Laden by attacking U.S. installations.
On July 13 drug cartel gunmen kill 11 in Monterrey, Mexico in a turf war.
On July 13 a blog post in the Canadian anti-consumerist org. site Adbusters launches the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement,
calling for a peaceful demonstration for people regardless of their access to wealth, which is held on Sept. 17, attended by 1K, spreading around the U.S. and the world.
On July 14 the Arab League announces that it will ask the U.N. to recognize a Palestinian state in Sept.
On July 14 the U.S. Defense Dept.
announces
that 24K computer files were stolen by "foreign intruders" from a defense contractor in the spring, causing it to begin
designating
cyberspace as an "operational domain", with a more robust defense.
On July 14 Calif. gov. Jerry Brown signs a controversial law
requiring public schools to teach gay history in social studies classes - this in a nation of history ignoramuses?
On July 14 a group of seven illegal immigrant students get arrested in a street protest in in
San Bernardino, Calif.
to see what the Obama admin. will do with them.
On July 15 ("Fri. of the Last Ultimatum or Call") thousands protest in
Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, calling for faster reforms,
and end to military trials of civilians, and an end to the military govt.
On July 15 1M demonstrate in
Damascus, Syria
in the suburbs of Douma and Qaboun; 28 are killed and scores are wounded around Syria.
On July 15 Pres. Obama
appears
on morning TV, and says "The American people are sold" on tax increases, pushing
a deal with Repubs. to trade them for raising the debt ceiling.
On July 15 the U.S. govt. formally
recognizes
the Libyan rebels as the legitimate govt., and backs them with $30B in frozen Libyan assets in the U.S.
On July 15 drug gunmen ambush police on a highway in
Sinaloa, Mexico,
killing 12 plus a bystander; meanwhile a riot in the
Sanctions Enforcement Center
in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas kills seven prisoners, while 59 escape; meanwhile Mexican authorities
announce the discovery of one of the largest
marijuana plantations
ever found in Mexico, 200 mi. S of San Diego in Baja Calif.
On July 15 Boko Haram members throw a bomb at a police car in
Maiduguri, N Nigeria,
wounding seven.
On July 15 after asserting Muslim superiority until officials crack,
Kulsoom Abdullah
becomes the first woman to compete in the U.S. weightlifting championships (in Council Bluffs, Iowa)
while wearing Muslim clothing covering her arms, legs, and head.
On July 15 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton
addresses
the Org. of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Istanbul, Turkey, with the soundbyte:
"The Human Rights Council has given us a comprehensive framework for addressing this issue on the
international level. But at the same time, we each have to work to do more to promote respect for
religious differences in our own countries. In the United States, I will admit, there are people
who still feel vulnerable or marginalized as a result of their religious beliefs. And we have seen
how the incendiary actions of just a very few people, a handful in a country of nearly 300 million,
can create wide ripples of intolerance. We also understand that, for 235 years, freedom of expression
has been a universal right at the core of our democracy. So we are focused on promoting interfaith
education and collaboration, enforcing antidiscrimination laws, protecting the rights of all people
to worship as they choose, and to use some old-fashioned techniques of peer pressure and shaming,
so that people don't feel that they have the support to do what we abhor"; on July 16 she speaks
at a coffee house in Istanbul, and
criticizes
Turkey's human rights record, incl. lack of religious freedom, censorship of the Internet, and
improper detention of 50 journalists during the Sledgehammer Coup last year, but adds that it is
"one of the most exciting places in the world" because of ties to both Eastern and Western cultures.
On July 16 after new rocket strikes, an Israeli air strike
wounds
a Gaza gunman; meanwhile medics find the remains of another man killed in an earlier attack in Hamas-controlled territory.
On July 16 an Afghan army soldier kills a NATO soldier near
Lashkar Gah
in S Afghanistan, which is scheduled to be one of the first places NATO will hand
security control to Afghan forces.
On July 16 al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) suicide bombers detonate a car bomb outside a police HQ in
Bordj Menaiel
in E Algeria; another suicide bomber on a motorcycle detonates among rescue workers; four are killed.
On July 16 Iranian forces begin shelling the self-ruled Kurdish region of
N Iraq,
displacing 200+ families.
On July 17 (1 a.m.) Australian Muslim convert
Chris Martinez
of Sydney is whipped by four fellow Muslims for drinking alcohol; he still claims that Islam is peaceful.
On July 18 a new Egyptian cabinet is sworn-in by the
military govt. amid reports of Hosni Mubarak being in a coma, pissing-off protesters.
On July 18 Malaysia
agrees to establish diplomatic ties with the Vatican after a meeting between
PM Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and Pope Benedict XVI in Castel Gandolfo outside Rome.
On July 18 former EU commissioner
Frits Bolkenstein
releases a book which claims that due to anti-Semitism among young Moroccans, Jews have no future in the Netherlands and should emigrate to the U.S. or Israel,
causing Dutch politician Geert Wilders to reply that it's the anti-Semitic Moroccans who should emigrate; meanwhile the death of a 22-y.-o.
Turkish man in a jail cell in
Beverwij, Netherlands
causes accusations of police brutality.
On July 18 (12 p.m. local) 14 rioting Chinese Muslims attack a police station in
Hotan
in Xianjiang Uygur province in NW China, hacking security guard Memet Eli to death, taking six civilians
and some staff hostage, and trashing the station while shouting Allah Akbar, after which police kill them.
On July 18 Iranian weightlifter (Iran's strongest man)
Ruhollah Dadashi
is stabbed to death in Tehran after taking pres. Imadinnajacket's side in the power struggle with supreme leader Asahollah Ali Khameinei.
On July 18 Fort Hood, Tex.-born Dem. Michael Hancock (1969-)
becomes mayor #45 of Denver, Colo. (until ?) (2nd African-Am.); on May 5, 2015 he is reelected with 80.16% of the vote.
On July 19 Russian authorities claim to foil a major terror attack in
Moscow,
arresting four from the N Caucasus.
On July 19 the FBI arrests Fairfax, Va. man
Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai (1949-),
chmn. of the Kashmiri Am. Council for working for decades as a secret agent of Pakistan to funnel
millions of dollars from the Pakistani govt. to U.S. elected officials to help drive India out of
the disputed Kashmir territory; they also issue an arrest warrant for Zaheer Ahmad (1948-), who is in Pakistan.
On July 19 Israel intercepts the French Gaza Flotilla ship
Dignite al Karama
containing 15 leftists et al. as it tries to break the blockade; it is the last ship of the original 10-ship flotilla.
On July 20 Iranian pres. Madman Inastraightjacket
threatens
to destroy the U.S. and Israel if attacked, saying "Resistance will continue until Iran sends its enemies
to the morgue", calling the U.S. and Israel "on the verge of collapse and gasping for their last breaths."
On July 20 Brian Ross
of ABC World News reports that the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security is concerned about potential attacks by insiders at U.S. utility plants, incl. nuclear plants.
On July 20 Irish PM Enda Kenny attacks the Roman Catholic Church in parliament, praising the
Cloyne Report for showing how allegations of sexual abuse by priests in Cork has been covered up by the Church, and saying that the
historic relationship between church and state in Ireland cannot be the same again.
On July 20 the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security releases its
See Something, Say Something
video, for its new $10M program to encourage Americans to report "suspicious activity", pointedly characterizing the most likely suspects as white middle class Americans not Muslims or Arabs.
On July 21 Palestinian Authority info. minister Nabil Amr
becomes the first Palestinian official to go on record that they should defer statehood another year; meanwhile Hamas foreign minister
Mahmoud al-Zahar
gives a TV interview, in which he utters the soundbyte "Palestine in its entirety is Islamic waqf land, which cannot be relinquished."
On July 22 (7/22/11) (3:26 p.m. local time) (13:26 GMT) (65th anniv. of the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem by the Jewish Irgung?) two bombs in
Oslo, Norway
(home of the Nobel Peace Prize) damage several bldgs. incl. the office of PM Jens Stolgenberg, killing eight and injuring 10; at 4:50 p.m.
the same man disguised as a police officer opens fire at a summer youth camp for members of the ruling Labor Party on Utoya Island 25 mi. from Oslo, where
Stolgenberg is scheduled to attend a Labor Party conference, calling people to come to him them shooting them with a rifle, incl. those fleeing by
jumping in the water, killing 68 and injuring 309 by the time police arrive at 6:20 p.m.; after initial speculation that it's an al-Qaida attack, and the
jihadist group Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami taking credit for it briefly, the killer turns out to be blonde-blue Norwegian
Anders Behring Breivik (1979-)
(AKA Andrew Berwick), a nationalist non-fundamentalist pro-Israel pro-gay Protestant Christian,
son of a retired Norwegian diplomat who has been estranged for over 16 years and later says
he should have killed himself, who has posted on anti-Islam Web sites, and claims to be one of 15-80 secret
Justiciar Knight Commanders
devoted to ridding Europe of Marxists and multiculturalists, and saving it from becoming Islamized
by sparking a Christian war against Islam; he leaves an unexploded bomb and a romantic but unrealistic 1.5K-page manfesto
2083: A European Declaration of Independence
under the alias Andrew Berwick; hours before the attack he emailed to his friends a
list
of Euro traitors, whom he claims deserve the death penalty for permitting the spread of Islam in Europe, incl. Gordon Brown,
Prince Charles, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, and European Commission pres. Jose Manuel Barroso; he was delayed both ways
from Oslo to Drammen by accident caused by Muslim truck driver
Mohamed (1991-),
messing up his timetable; under Norway's permissive laws he faces a max of 21 years in prison; the Utoya Island meeting incl.
"Break the Israel Blockade" games, causing Am. blogger Wayne Madsen
to blame the Mossad for the attack; Glenn Beck compares
the Norway Camp to the Hitler Youth, with the soundbyte "Who does a camp for kids that's all about politics?"; on July 25 100K hold a
rose march
in Oslo; on July 26 Norway's ambassador to Israel
Svein Sevje
says that Norwegians consider the "occupation" to be the cause of the terror against Israel, and that Breivik's attack won't change
their minds; on July 26 Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi ally
Mario Borghezio
describes some of Breivik's ideas as "excellent", saying he agrees with his "opposition to Islam and his explicit accusation that Europe
has surrendered before putting up a fight against its Islamization"; on July 27 Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg
speaks
at the Central Jamaat Mosque in Oslo to attend a memorial ceremony for the two Muslim victims of Breivik's attack, Bano and Ismail, saying
"We will be one commnity, across religion, ethnicity, gender, and rank. Bano is Norwegian, Ismail is Norwegian, I am Norwegian. We are Norway,
and I am proud of this"; on Aug. 4 the blogger
Fjordman,
who is repeatedly referencesdin Breivik's manifesto reveals himself to be 36-y.-o. Peter Jensen; in Jan. 2014 Breivik
flops
and disowns the anti-Islam movement, claiming to have been trying to discredit it and spark a neo-Nazi movement.
On July 22 Pres. Obama signs an order to end the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy in the military, effective Sept. 20.
On July 22 Belgium
becomes the 2nd EU nation after France to ban the full Islamic face veil in public.
On July 22 1M demonstrate in
Hama and Deir Ezzor, Syria;
eight are killed.
On July 22 Islamists stage demonstrations in
Ramsis, Egypt
to demand that secularists leave Egypt; on July 23 armed men clash with pro-reform protesters marching toward the
Egyptian ministry of defense in
Cairo,
injuring dozens.
On July 22 a NATO-U.S. strike on a Haqqani Network training camp in
Sar Rowzah District
in Paktika Province, E Afghanistan kills 80.
On July 22 the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee
cuts
the Obama admin.'s $51B 2012 budget request for the State Dept. and foreign aid for the Palestinians,
Egypt, Lebanon, and Yemen by $6.4B, while leaving Israel's $3B in military aid unchanged.
On July 22-23 activists for the rival Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and the Mohajir Qaumi Movement-Haqiai (MQM-h)
battle in E Karachi, Pakistan,
killing 12 on July 22, and eight more on july 23.
On July 23 (early a.m.) a rebel-Nato strike on
Tripoli, Libya
incl. an RPG hit near Col. Daffy's Bab al-Aziziya compound during a meeting between him and his son, intel chief, and PM.
On July 23 gunmen on motorcyles kill Iranian physicist
Darioush Rezaei (b. 1976)
in front of his home in NE Tehran, causing Iranian brig. gen.
Mohammed-Reza Naghdi
to blame Israel and the U.S., and utter the soundbyte: "In order to protect the security of our country,
we have no option but to have the Zionist regime wiped off the map"; on Aug. 2
Der Spiegel
blames the Israeli Mossad, caliming that in recent months it has engineered "the virtual decimation of the
Islamic republic's elite physicists".
On July 23 former Peruvian armed forces chief of staff gen.
Francisco Contreras
warns that Iran is supporting terrorist orgs. throughout South Am.
On July 24 clashes in Cairo, Egypt injure 298.
On July 24 the state of N.Y.
allows the first same-sex couples to marry, with New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg officiating the wedding of staff members Jonathan Mintz and John Feinblatt along with their
two daughters Georgia and Maeve - watch where you kiss me?
On July 24 Peoria, Ariz. Muslim Ajaz Rahaman (1969-)
plows into the Surprise shopping center in Sun City West in his Porsche Cayenne SUV, hitting three cars
and injuring a pedestrian before crashing into a nail salon; he dies in the hospital - vehicular jihad?
On July 24 (night) 300K leftists protest rising housing prices in
Tel Aviv, Jerusalem,
shouting "Revolution", and "Muabarak, Assad, Netanyahu", resulting in 42 arrests.
On July 25 a group of Libyan diplomats storm the Libyan embassy in
Sofia, Bulgaria,
smashing statues and portraits of Col. Daffy and declaring it under control of opposition forces.
On July 25 Pres. Obama addresses the
Nat. Council of La Raza,
promising to fight for immigration reform while blaming the Repubs.
On July 25 Israeli authorities
seize
a boat in the Dead Sea carrying arms to Palestinians from Jordan.
On July 25 Pres. Obama delivers a
speech on the budget impasse
which is threatening on Aug. 2 and can cause the nation's AAA credit rating to be downgraded et al., calling it
a "dangerous game" and calling on the people to deluge congresspersons with pleas to compromise; House majority leader
John Boehner responds that Obama just wants to continue increasing spending.
On July 25 the Taliban shoots down a NATO Chinook heli near the
Nangalam Base
in the Pech River Valley in E Afghanistan.
On July 25 a Muslim mob attacks Coptic Christians in
Ezbet Jacob Bedawi, Egypt
(near Samalout) with rods and pipes over their installation of a new church bell.
On July 26 the U.S. returns 33 Mexican soldiers who accidentally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border over the
Donna-Rio Bravo Internat. Bridge in S Tex.
On July 26 the
Fourth Conference of the Arab-Palestinian Resistance Front
in Cairo, Egypt calls for a massive Arab uprising to save Palestine from the pesky Jews, saying that the
Arab Spring is a good start.
On July 26 Hamas
executes a father in son in Gaza for aiding Israel; Fatah calls the execution "illegal".
On July 27 a Taliban suicide bomber with an exploding turban assassinates Kandahar, Afghanistan mayor
Ghulam Haider Hamidi (b. 1946);
meanwhile top U.S. cmdr. Navy SEAL Adm.
Eric T. Olson
says that al-Qaida has been bloodied and is "nearing its end", with the killing of Osama bin Laden being a
near-fatal blow, and the Arab Spring proving that the Muslim World doesn't need it to overthrow Muslim dictators,
although a new generation of militants can make it necessary for special ops to fight them for a decade.
On July 27 English Christian churchgoer
John White (1948-)
is jailed for leaving pork products outside a mosque - just free samples?
On July 28 the Obama admin. accuses
Iran
of a "secret deal" with al-Qaida to provide money, recruits, and transit for attacks
in Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying "This network serves as the core pipeline through
which al-Qaida moves money, facilitators and operatives from across the Middle East to
South Asia"; the U.S. Treasury Dept. indicts six members incl. Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil,
Atiya Abd al-Rahman, Salim Hasan Khalifa Rashid al-Kuwari, Abdallah Ghanim Mafuz Muslim al-Khaar,
and Ali Hassan Ali al-Ajmi; Treasury spokesman David S. Cohen says "Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world today."
On July 28 after winning a runoff election over Keiko Fujimori, left-winger
Ollanta Moises Humala Tasso (1962-),
who led an usuccessful military revolt against pres. Alberto Fujimori in Oct. 2000 becomes
pres. of Peru (until?), causing the largest 1-day plunge in the Peruvian stock market because of his opposition to the
Conga
open mine pit project of the Yanacocha Co., owned by Newmont Corp. in Denver, Colo.
On July 28 German Muslim converts
Robert Baum (1978-) and Christian Emde (1973-)
are arrested as they enter Britain with jihadist lit., bombmaking manuals etc.
On July 28 Abu Sayyaf jhihadists kill five soldiers, behead two of them, and wound 26 in
S Philippines.
On July 28 Fatah security forces raid the home of Fatah official
Muhammad Dahlan (Abu Fadi) (1961-)
to stop him from blocking a reconciliation with Hamas.
Oh July 28 children in Gaza fly a record
15K kites,
their 4th world record this summer.
On July 29 a
million man march
called for by the Muslim Brotherhood takes place in Tahrir Square and other cities in Egypt.
On July 29 Pres. Obama
announces
new fuel economy regs. for 2025; cars must get 54.5 mpg.
On July 29 5K Syrian soldiers of the 7th Armored Regiment defect in
Deir ez-Zor and take over the airport.
On July 29 tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood members let the cat out of the bag
and call for an Islamic Sharia state in
Tahrir Square
in Cairo, Egypt in the largest demonstration since Feb., with banners reading "Sharia above
the constitution"; on Aug. 1 the military
clears the remnants
of a 3-week sit-in protesting the slow pace of change, with
help
from mobs of ordinary citizens.
On July 29 tens of thousands protest in several cities in
Yemen
again, with a defector gen. giving them protection in Sana'a with a large military vehicle convoy; on
July 30 opposition tribesmen threaten to strike
Sana'a Internat. Airport
in retaliation for attacks on their villages in Arhab, 20 mi. to the N.
On July 29 after a court charges 22 suspects incl. several gens. and military officers of carrying out
an Internet campaign to undermine the govt. Turkey's top four senior military cmdrs., led by
CIC Isik Kosaner resign
in protest over the detention of 250 officers for conspiring against the govt. of
PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, allowing him to tighten Islamist, er, civilian control over the
longtime secular military by
appointing
a new top military brass on July 30-Aug. 8 led by new CIC #28 (until ?) Gen.
Necdet Ozel (Özel) (1950-) (until Aug. 18, 2015).
On July 30 (2 p.m.) Islamists burn down a Christian church in
Fuoni, Zanzibar
while shouting "We do not infidels to spoil our community, especially our children."
On July 31 allegedly secular Syria launches the Islamic religious TV satellite channel
Noor al-Sham (Light of Syria)
in an attempt to appease the religious pop.
On July 31 Bloody Sun. in Hama, Syria sees Syrian tanks storm it and kill 136 civilians; on Aug. 1 they attack it
again and kill eight, while demonstrations erupt in other parts of Syria in support,
causing Italy on Aug. 2 to recall
its ambassador and urge other Euro nations to do ditto, while Russia announces that it won't oppose a U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn the violence, which is
issued on Aug. 3,
causing Bashar al-Assad on Aug. 4 to issue a decree
permitting a multi-party political system, while having his troops round up and execute hundreds in Hama via firing squad; on Aug. 5 Syria
announces that it has captured (and pulverized) Hama, and stopped the 5-mo.-old rebellion.
On July 31 Hezbollah
announces that it has carried out 19 operations against U.S. forces in Iraq.
On July 31 former Mexican federal police officer Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez,
accused of ordering 1.5K drug killings and masterminding the attack on the U.S. consulate employee last year is arrested.
On July 31 Pres. Obama announces
a last-min. deal on the budget and debt crisis before the Aug. 2 deadline, causing U.S. Rep. (D-Mo.)
Emanuel Cleaver,
chmn. of the Congressional Black Caucus to call it a "sugar-coated Satan Sandwich"; on Aug. 1 Russian PM Vladimir Putin issues the
soundbyte
about the U.S.: "They are living beyond their means and shifting a part of the weight of their problems to the world economy... They are living like parasites off the global economy
and their monopoly of the dollar... Thank God that they had enough common sense and responsibility to make a balanced decision"; on Aug. 1 the U.S. House votes 269-161 to approve it
and raise the debt ceiling by $14.3T, with Gabrielle Giffords returning to vote for it; on Aug. 2 the Senate approves it by 74-26, and Pres. Obama signs it into law; it
slashes
the defense budget by $350B; on Aug. 4 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. drops 512 points, erasing the year's market gains; on Aug. 5 after the Obama admin. spends 60% of the $400B initial budget
increase in one day (largest in history), the
U.S. federal deficit
tops $1T, 2nd largest in history, with the govt. in its 34th straight mo. in the red, causing Standard and Poor's to
downgrade the U.S. debt from AAA to AA for the first time in U.S. history (same as 1917 rating), with the soundbyte
"The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to
stabilise the government's medium-term debt dynamics. More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and
political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges"; on Aug. 8 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg.
plunges
by 634.76 (5.6%) points, ending at 10,809.85, worst 1-day loss since Dec. 1, 2008, and first below-11K close since Oct. 2010; the total loss since Aug. 1 in 1.3K points, dropping like a stone,
causing ditto to world stock markets, causing a reaction against Standard & Poor's; on Aug. 8 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte "Markets will rise and fall, but this is the United States of America...
The U.S. will always be a triple-A country, despite what rating agencies say"; on Aug. 9 after the Federal Reserve Board announces that it will keep interest rates at the current historic
low through 2013, the Dow rebounds
by 429.9 points - the Titanic has scraped the iceberg?
On July 31 a suspected Islamist attack in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China kills 11.
In July the U.S. economy
creates 117K new jobs, lowering the unemployment rate to 9.1%.
In July Al-Shabaab
begins blocking starving people from fleeing S Somalia, setting up a camp to imprison and starve them to death.
In July Google launches their Facebook-killer
Google+
social network service - let's hope?
In July the Mexican newspaper
El Milenio
exposes a program by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security to monitor the Internet,
incl. social media sites, blogs, and forums worldwide.
In July Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan establish a
Customs Union.
On Aug. 1 Hezbollah deputy secy.-gen. (#2 in charge) (since 1992)
Naim Qassem
utters the soundbyte: "Billions of dollars have been offered to us to rebuild the deprived
south Lebanon and in return to surrender our arms and stop the work of the resistance. But
we told them we're not in need [of their money] and the resistance will go on regardless of
the consequences."
On Aug. 1 Israeli forces raid a refugee camp in
Kalandia, West Bank
and kill two after being set upon by stone-throwing Palestinians.
On Aug. 1 the U.S. Congress creates a special envoy for Middle East religious minorities
to highlight persecution of Christians and Jews by Muslims.
On Aug. 1 Pres. Obama and First Lady Michelle issue a
Statement on the Occasion of Ramadan,
sending "best wishes to Muslim communities in the United States and around the world", and urging people to help the humanitarian crisis in Somalia.
On Aug. 2 the U.N. Human Rights Committee issues a Report on Blasphemy Laws,
saying that they are incompatible with the U.N.'s Internat. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that came into force in 1976 and was ratified by 167 states; meanwhile the
Geneva-based Human Rights Council is still controlled by the Muslim OIC.
On Aug. 2 (5:30 a.m.) a bomb at a Christian church in Kirkuk, Iraq
injures a priest and 19 others, and damages 40 homes.
On Aug. 2 a Muslim plot to kill 45+ Hindu Amarnath pilgrims in a bus in
Kakizund, India.
On Aug. 2 female Kurdish nationalist Turkish MP
Aysel Tuglik
is convicted of spreading terrorist propaganda for making a speech in Yuksekova in SE Turkey on Mar. 17, 2010 supporting the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
On Aug. 2 Mohammed Moussaoui,
pres. of the Muslim Council of France announces that almost 150 new mosques are under construction in France; there are now more practising Muslims than Roman Catholics in the country.
On Aug. 2-5 ethnic violence in Karachi, Pakistan
kills 47; 240 were killed in July.
On Aug. 3 Champaign, Ill.-born Daniel B. "Dan" Shapiro (1969-)
becomes U.S. ambassador #19 to Israel (until ?).
On Aug. 3 the British govt. announces
the arrest of six and seizure of 2.6K lbs. of cocaine in June, worth $490M, becoming the largest drug bust in British history.
On Aug. 3 the number of Americans on food stamps reaches a record 46M.
On Aug. 3 N.J. gov. Chris Christie nominates Indian-born
Sohail Mohammed (1964-)
to be the 1st Indian-Am. and 2nd Muslim judge in N.J.,
telling
reporters: "Sharia law business is just crap... and I'm tired of dealing with the crazies... It's just unnecessary
to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background."
On Aug. 3 Col. Daffy's son
Saif al Islam Qaddafi
announces that his regime is breaking down and forging an alliance with radical Islamists, giving
them the town of Darna to become "an Islamic zone like Mecca".
On Aug. 3 a
Gallup Poll on Muslim-Ams.
assisted by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Center headed by Dalia Mogahed finds that they are more optimistic
about their future than other faith groups, and that their views are highly similar to Jews;
meanwhile the Muslim-infested Obama admin. releases the
Nat. Strategy on Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States
(AKA the Obama Doctrine), masterminded by Nat. Security Council extremism expert
Quintan Wiktorowicz,
announcing a new policy for fighting radical Islam by stopping the use of material by well-studied
Islam expert Robert Spencer because it isn't "accurate", and replacing it by Muslim disinfo. propaganda
designed to undermine the U.S., because although al-Qaida has a "bankrupt ideology", claiming that accusing
the entire Am. Muslim community of complicity in terrorism could "feed the sense of disenchantment and
disenfranchisement that may spur violent extremist radicalization."
On Aug. 4 former Iranian Rev. Guard cmdr. (2007-11)
Rostam Ghasemi (1950-)
becomes head of OPEC (until ?).
On Aug. 4 the U.S. govt. announces that the
2011 Somalian Famine
has killed 29K children under age 5 in the last 90 days.
On Aug. 4 the entire 20-man police force of
Ascension, Mexico
quits after drug cartels kill the police chief and five officers over the last 3 mo.
On Aug. 5 the
U.S.-Bahrain Defense Pact
(signed Oct. 28, 1991) is renewed for another 10 years.
On Aug. 5 the Western-backed Somalian govt. of pres. Sheikh
Sharif Ahmed
ousts 3K Al-Shabaab fighters from Mogadishu.
On Aug. 5 five New Orleans police officers
in La. are found guilty by a federal jury for shooting six citizens (killing two) and trying to cover
it up during the Hurricane Katrina aftermath.
On Aug. 5 a jilted Muslim
Mehmet Y (1985-)
shoots the 45-y.-o. mother and 22-y.-o. sister of his 24-y.-o. ex-wife in a busy public square in Berlin, Germany.
On Aug. 6 (a.m.) a decrepit Vietnam-era U.S. twin-rotor Ch-47 Chinook heli is
shot down
in Wardack Province in E Afghanistan by the Taliban, killing all 38 aboard incl. five Army troops,
seven Afghan commandos and their interpreter, three AF controllers, and 22 Navy SEALs of the
300-member bin Laden-killing Team 6, becoming the largest U.S. military loss since the Jan. 2005 heli
crash in Anbar Province; on Aug. 6 a bomb hits a convoy of NATO supply tankers in
Peshawar, Pakistan,
destroying 16; on Aug. 9 Pres. Obama makes a surprise visit to
Dover AFB
to pay his respects to the heroes; on Aug. 10 U.S. special forces
claim
to hunt down and kill the Taliban cmdr. and shooter responsible for the heli attack;
the SEAL raid on Osama bin Laden was a fake because he had been dead for years, and Obama gave
the Taliban the info. and weapons needed to assassinate
the SEALs who went on the raid to silence them?
On Aug. 6 the
Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI)
condemns Muslim arson attacks on three Christian churches in Riau Province, Indonesia during the past week.
On Aug. 6 rioting in the poor area of
Tottenham, N London
begins after a fatal police shooting of 29-y.-o. black Mark Duggan, spreading to Enfield
5 mi. to the N, followed by Manchester, Nottingham, Salford, and Birmingham, killing one; 16K
police are called out, and 1.2K are arrested, causing PM David Cameron to utter the soundbyte:
"The sight of those young people running down streets, smashing windows, taking property, looting,
laughing as they go, the problem of that is a complete lack of responsibility, a lack of proper
parenting, a lack of proper upbringing, a lack of proper ethics, a lack of proper morals"; it's
really a race riot but the PC media covers it up?
On Aug. 7 the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
retracts
its position that it will accept a secular govt. in Egypt, wanting an Islamist govt.
On Aug. 8 arrest warrants are issued for 14, incl. seven senior pro-secular gens. in
Turkey
for setting up Web sites to disseminate free speech, er, anti-govt. propaganda.
On Aug. 8 (11 p.m. local time) (21:00 GMT) a NATO airstrike in
Majer
S of Zlitan 100 mi. E of Tripoli in Libya kills 85 civilians.
On Aug. 8 Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait pull their diplomats out of blood-soaked
Syria,
with Kuwaiti foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed Al-Sabah uttering the soundbyte "No one can
accept the bloodshed in Syria", and King Abdullah calling on Assad to stop "the killing
machine and end the bloodshed"; the body count is up to 1.6K since Mar.
On Aug. 8 tapes
recorded by Jackie Kennedy Onassis months after JFK's assassination are released
by the JFK Library in Boston, revealing that she believed that LBJ and other
"influential individuals" orchestrated it; too bad, that was only an advance report;
when the tapes come out in Sept., they only talk about how JFK thought LBJ shouldn't
becomes pres. but still was going to keep him on the ticket.
On Aug. 9 radical Shiite cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr
calls on U.S. troops to pull out of Iraq on his Web site.
On Aug. 10 China tests its first aircraft carrier,
after refurbishing an old one obtained from Russia, causing the U.S. to ask it explain why it needs one - to conquer Taiwan?
On Aug. 11 Pres. Obama hosts a
White House Ramadan Dinner
1 mo. before the 10th anniv. of 9/11, uttering the soundbyte:
"There's no them and us - it's just us".
On Aug. 12 Muslim gunmen ambush some police accompanying terror suspects to the dentist at the
U. of Peshawar
in Pakistan, killing three police then freeing the terror suspects, who incl. a Taliban cmdr.
On Aug. 13 Muslim gunmen use Ramadan as a ruse to break into the house of U.S. embassy official
Warren Weinstein
in Lahore, Pakistan and kidnap him.
On Aug. 13 after high winds, the main stage at the
Ind. State Fair
collapses prior to a performance by Sugarland, killing five and injuring 45.
On Aug. 13-16 the Syrian army assaults the Palestinian enclave of
Latakia,
causing 10K residents to flee.
On Aug. 14 a suicide bomber at a police HQ in
Tizi Ouzou, Algeria
(60 mi. E of Algiers) injures 29.
On Aug. 14 six suicide bombers storm a provincial governor's compound in
Charikar, Afghanistan
(50 mi. N of Kabul), killing 22.
On Aug. 14 Pakistan
launches
its first comm satellite from a facility in China.
On Aug. 14 Chinese army chief of staff Gen.
Chen Bingde
makes a state visit to Israel, a first.
On Aug. 14 after expressing support for Israel via a poem in Arabic on a Web site, St. Louis, Mo. Muslim
Alaa Alsaegh
is attacked by two Muslims, who carve a Star of David on his back.
On Aug. 15 bombs in a dozen cities in
Iraq
kill 60+ incl. seven Sunnis who used to be aligned with al-Qaeda but turned on them, who are pulled
from a mosque in Baghdad
by gunmen who execute them.
On Aug. 15 Am. billionaire Warren Buffett
calls on the "mega-rich" to pay more in taxes, saying that he would raise taxes on households making $1M or more, plus additional for those making $10M or more.
On Aug. 16 Seattle, Wash.-born former Dem. Wash. gov. #21 (1997-2005) Gary Faye Locke (1950-)
becomes U.S. ambassador to China #10 (until Mar. 1, 2014).
On Aug. 16 the Obama admin. denies to
Taiwan
its request for new Lockheed Martin F-16C/Ds, instead forcing them to retrofit older F-16A/Bs.
On Aug. 16 Pres. Obama utters the
soundbyte
that a "lone wolf terrorist, somebody with a single weapon being able to carry out wide-scale
massacres of the sort that we saw in Norway recently" is more likely than a coordinated 9/11-type
attack, especially an Islamist one.
On Aug. 16-21 the
XXVI World Youth Day
in Madrid, Spain is attended by 1M-1.5M.
On Aug. 17 Dubai
admits to monitoring social media for signs of coming protests and strikes.
On Aug. 17 the separatist Freedom Party (FP) holds a protest in
Srinagar;
police detain senior leader Shabir Ahmad Shah, "the Nelson Mandela of Kashmir".
On Aug. 17 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton
orders
Israel to apologize to Turkey over the flotilla attack last year or face strained ties, to which Israel replies stuff it.
On Aug. 17 the Am. Psychological Assoc. (APA) holds a Conference on Pedophilia
in Baltimore, Md., seeking to normalize pedophiles as "minor-attracted persons".
On Aug. 18 Pres. Obama finally calls
for bashful Syrian dictator Bashar al-Sosad, er, Assad to "step aside"; coordinated messages
for his resignation come from Britain, France, Germany, and the EU, along with a U.N. recommendation that Syria be referred to the Internat. Criminal Court for investigation.
On Aug. 18 24 Al-Qaida in the Sinai Peninsula gunmen aided by the Popular Resistance Committee and Jaish al-Islam cross the Egyptian border into
Eilat, S Israel,
and kill eight Israelis and wound 20+, with five gunmen killed, after which on Aug. 19 Israel retaliates and kills five Palestians dressed as Egyptian policeman on the Eliat Road, which
causes Egypt to threaten to recall its ambassador and end the 1979 peace accord until defense minister Ehud Barak publicly
apologizes and offers a joint investigation on Aug. 20 (night). On Aug. 19 on the anniv. of Afghan independence from Britain in 1919 Taliban suicide bombers attack the British Council in
Kabul, Afghanistan, killing eight; meanwhile a turban bomber in
Helmand Military Corps Center wounds three policeman.
On Aug. 19 a Ramadan suicide bombing at a mosque in Ghundi, NW Pakistan
in the Khyber tribal region near the Afghan border kills 48 and injures scores; they were trying to get anti-Taliban elders.
On Aug. 19 a storm at the outdoor Pukkepop Rock Festival
in Hasselt, Belgium kills five.
On Aug. 19 Bill Clinton receives a
$1M check
for his birthday from the pro-ISIS Islamist state of Gutter, er, Qatar.
On Aug. 20 Pakistani army troops kill 12 militants infiltrating the
Gurez Sector
near the dividing line between India and Kshmir.
On Aug. 20 Am. celeb
Kim Kardashian
marries New Jersey Nets player
Kris Humphries (1985-);
they break up in 72 days.
On Aug. 21 Iran sentences the three Am. hikers
Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Joshua Fattal
(captured near the N Iraq border on July 31, 2009) to eight years in priz for espionage, causing singer
Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)
of England to call for their release; Sarah Shourd was freed on $500K bail in Sept. 2010.
On Aug. 21 Col. Madman Daffy's sons Saif al-Islam, Saadi, and Mohammed are reported
captured,
and his personal guard surrenders to rebel forces who are closing in on Tripoli, while his troops begin
deserting, causing Daffy to appear on TV to exhort his supporters and tribes to rise up and defend him;
meanwhile Pres. Obama issues the
soundbyte
"Tripoli is slipping from the grasp of a tyrant", French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy
calls
on Daffy to give up "immediately what power he has left" because a rebel V is "no longer in doubt",
and U.S. Repub. Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.)
praise
Daffy's fall but task Obama for his limited use of airpower; too bad, on Aug. 22 after allegedly being
allowed to escape by the rebels, Saif al-Islam Daffy
reappears,
and rallies loyalists; on Aug. 23 the rebels take Daffy's
Bab Al-Aziziya
fortress compound in Tripoli.
On Aug. 21 Sharia is abolished for Muslims in
Greece,
incl. polygamy.
On Aug. 21 Bloomberg News pub. an
article claiming that the
Wall St. aristocracy got $1.2T in secret loans from the U.S. govt. in 2007-10.
On Aug. 22 battles in S Yemen kill 80 al-Qaida militants.
On Aug. 23 (1:51 p.m. EST) the 5.8 2011 U.S. East Coast Earthquake
(worst in 67 years) centered in Mineral, Va. S of Washington, D.C. is felt all the way to Boston and Chicago, causing the White House, Pentagon, and other govt. bldgs. and memorials to be evacuated; an
unrelated 5.3 earthquake hit S Colo. just before the bigger quake.
On Aug. 24 Steve Jobs
announces that he's stepping down as CEO of Apple, and names Mobile, Ala.-born gay bud
Timothy Donald "Tim" Cook (1960-) as his successor, while seeking to become the chmn. of the board; in 2014 he becomes the first
Fortune 500 CEO to come out.
On Aug. 24 in response to Apple's motion for a preliminary injunction in its iPad patent infrigement suit over the Galaxy Tab 10.1 smartphone, Korean manufacturer
Samsung
cites the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey as prior art for tablet computers.
On Aug. 25 (4 p.m.) a grenade attack at the Casino Royale
in Monterrey, Mexico kills 40+.
On Aug. 25 Syrian anti-Assad cartoonist Ali Farzat (1951-)
is pulled out of his car in Ummayad Square, Damascus by masked gunmen and viciously beaten, breaking both of his hands then ordering him to quit it.
On Aug. 26 a Muslim suicide bomber attacks the U.N. HQ in Abuja, Nigeria,
killing 10+ and injuring scores.
On Aug. 26 after pressure from the Arab League, Honduras
officially recognizes Palestine as an independent state.
On Aug. 28 Palestinian Authority chmn. Mahmoud Abbas declares
that they won't recognize a Jewish state of Israel, and tells the internat. community to stuff it.
On Aug. 28 an Allah Akbar-screaming Nablus-area Muslim in Tel Aviv
steals a cab, rams border police outside a nightclub, gets out, and stabs seven, incl. five police officers.
On Aug. 29 Afghan and coalition security forces kill and capture multiple insurgents in a Haqqani terrorist network attack cell in
E Afghanistan.
On Aug. 30 Rye Playland
in Westchester County, N.Y. is disrupted by 15, incl. three scarved Muslim women who got pissed-off at being barred from rides.
In Aug. Russia announces that its 5th-gen. stealth fighter, the PAK FA
will become operational in 2015.
In Aug. police inspector
Bernard Witthaut
tells the Westdeutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung that Muslim no-go areas beyond police control are spreading throughout Germany.
In Aug. for the first time since 1945 the U.S. has zero job growth.
In Aug. the U.S. has its 2nd warmest Aug.
on record (1st in 1983) at 75.7F; the avg. summertime temp is 74.5F.
In Aug. zero U.S. troops are killed in Iraq, the first time since Mar. 2003.
On Sept. 1 Libyan Col. Madman Daffy reaches 42 years in power.
On Sept. 2 Turkey expels
Israeli ambassador Gaby Levy and cuts military ties over the 2010 Gaza Fake Freedom Flotilla incident; on Sept. 2 the 105-page
U.N. Report on the 2010 Gaza Fake Freedom Flotilla Incident
is released, concluding that the blockade is legal but that the Israeli commandos used excessive force; on Sept. 5 Turkey
humiliates 40 Israeli passengers after they land in Turkey en route from tel Aviv to Istanbul; on
Sept. 4 Israel and Greece sign a mutual defense pact,
then on Sept. 16 invoke it against Turkish naval-air movements in the E Mediterranean.
On Sept. 2 Pres. Obama announces
that he will not raise federal air pollution ozone standards, pissing-off environmentalists.
On Sept. 2 Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon delivers a state of the nation speech,
in which he will continue his fight against drug cartels and vows to clean up the cops.
On Sept. 2 the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) pub. a
Survillance Report on Mental Illness Among American Adults,
with the soundbyte: "Published studies report that about 25% of all U.S. adults have a mental illness and that nearly 50% of U.S. adults will develop at
least one mental illness during their lifetime", calling for "surveillance efforts at the national or state level... directed toward documenting anxiety disorders."
On Sept. 3 1M protest in Tel Aviv, Israel
to protest against the govt.
On Sept. 3 Iranian pres. Madman Imadinnajacket meets
with Qatari emir Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, during which the emir gives him a request by Pres. Obama to obtain his consent to maintaining 15K troops in Iraq for another two years, along with a request
to stop hostile operations against U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, to which Madman replies that if Syria is attacked, "the first missile will fall on you."
On Sept. 7 (10:14 a.m. local time) a suitcase bomb explodes outside the high court of
New Delhi, India,
killing 11 and injuring 66.
On Sept. 7 the Second Global Conference on World Religions After September 11
in Montreal, Canada sees the Dalai Lama, Tariq Ramadan et al. speak.
On Sept. 8 Iranian pres. Madman Inastraightjacket finally joins the chorus and calls
for an end to the Syrian crackdown.
On Sept. 8 amid low opinion poll ratings, Pres. Obama calls for an end to the "political circus", and delivers a speech pitching his $447B
U.S. American Jobs Act stimulus bill.
On Sept. 8 the U.S. govt. announces
that three suspected jihadists waltzed into the U.S. in Aug. and plan to launch a "vehicle-borne attack" on 9/11, triggering heightened security.
On Sept. 8 after exposing the regime of PM Nouri al-Maliki for foisting fear a la Saddam Hussein, Iraqi journalist
Hadi al-Mahdi is assassinated at his home.
On Sept. 9 the U.S. Senate by 89-9 passes the U.S. America Invents Act,
changing the patent system from first-to-invent to first-to-file, with a new bureaucracy to review patent applications.
On Sept. 9 (5 p.m. local time) as the authorities observe without interfering, a Muslim mob of 5K from Tahrir Square storms storms the
Israeli embassy
in Cairo, Egypt, tears down a protective wall, and ransacks it, causing the Israel ambassador and staff to flee at 9:30 to Tel Aviv, leaving six Israeli security guards, who lock themselves in a room,
and are rescued at 4 a.m. by Egyptian commandos;
on Oct. 31 71 Egyptians get 6-mo.
suspended sentences
for the attack.
On Sept. 11 (9/11/11) the U.S. Nat. Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum at the old WTC site in in Manhattan, N.Y.
opens on the 10th anniv. of 9/11, incl. the biggest manmade waterfall on Earth, and the Tribute in Light;
Pres. Obama delivers a 9/11/11 Speech
that carefully avoids
blaming Islam for 9/11, and even implies
that it was an act of God by quoting Psalms 46:8: "Come behold the works of the Lord, how he has wrought desolations in the Earth"; no surprise, the weekend event
A Call to Compassion
at the Nat. Cathedral in Washington, D.C. features a Muslim imam and a Buddhist nun, but no evangelical Christians, pissing-off Frank Page, pres. of the Southern Baptist Convention;
American fear of an imminent terrorist attack is near the low point, at 38%;
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech
in Jerusalem, warning of Islamic radicals achieving the "ultimate terrorist nightmare" of getting nukes.
On Sept. 11 an Islamist suicide truck bomber at a NATO base in
Wardak Province
in C Afghanistan kills four civilians and injures 77 troops, becoming the worst suicide bombing in the Afghan war; the same province where the Navy SEALs heli was shot down in July.
On Sept. 11 about 100 Islamists protest
near the U.S. embassy in Cairo demanding the release of Egyptian "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman,
mastermind of the 1993 WTC bombing.
On Sept. 11 lifelong friends Brendan Mess (25), Erik Weissman (31), and Raphael Teken (37)
are brutally murdered in Mess' apt. in Waltham, Mass.; the murders are later traced to Boston Bombers Tamerlan and Djokar Tsarnaev, along with Ibrahim Todashev.
On Sept. 12 Yukiya Amano, head of the U.N. IAEA nuclear agency announces
plans to pub. new info proving that Iran is building nukes.
On Sept. 13 U.S. Rep. (R-N.Y.) Peter King
testifies
on Muslim-Am. radicalization before a British Parliamentary committee, saying the he won't be stopped by political correctness.
On Sept. 13 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erodgan visits
Egypt, where he is given a hero's welcome; the Muslim Brotherhood tasks him for telling Egypt to erect a secular govt. like in Turkey, and
warns
Turkey not to seek Middle East domination; on Sept. 16 he visits Libya, and gives a speech
in Martyrs' (Green) Square in Tripoli, saying that the Syrian regime that inflicts repression on its people won't survive.
On Sept. 13 Lloyd's of London sues
Saudi Arabia for $215M for terrorist attacks and jihad in the Balkans.
On Sept. 13-14 the Taliban Haqqani Network stages a 19-hour rocket attack on the U.S. embassy in
Kabul
that kills 14 and wounds 77, showing the U.S. that when they leave they shouldn't have even arrived; on
Sept. 14 U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta warns Pakistan that he blames them for it, and that the U.S.
will "do everything we can" to defend its forces; on Sept. 23 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chmn. Adm. Mike Mullen
accuses
the Pakistani intel community of connections to the embassy attack, saying "The Haqqani Network... acts as a
veritable arm of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency."
On Sept. 15 Pres. Obama decides to sell a $4.2B arms package to
Taiwan,
incl. an upgrade to its F-16s, causing China to
threaten
the U.S. with "disaster", with the soundbyte "Don't play with fire".
On Sept. 15 the Islamist
Syrian Nat. Council
is formed in Istanbul to help overthrow Bashar Assad and set up an Islamist govt.
On Sept. 16 France finally
outlaws
Muslims praying in the street; on Sept. 16
Netherlands
becomes the 3rd country after France and Belgium to draft legislation banning the burka, with a max fine of 380 Euros.
On Sept. 16 Britain
amends
its universal jurisdiction law to allow Israelis accused of war crimes to enter the U.K. without risk of arrest,
pissing-off leftists.
On Sept. 16 a plane crashes near the grandstand at the
Reno Air Races
in Nev., killing three and injuring 50.
On Sept. 16 Financial Times of Britain
reports
that Pres. Obama personally warned Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan that if it doesn't change its position
towards Israel, the U.S. will not sell weapons to Turkey.
On Sept. 16 the U.S. announces the killing of top al-Qaida man in Pakistan
Abu Hafs al-Shahri.
On Sept. 16 Israel becomes an assoc. member of CERN
in Switzerland as a prelude to full membership.
On Sept. 17 the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement goes activist with 24/7 occupation of part of Lower Manhattan, N.Y.
On Sept. 17 Maldives
criminalizes the preaching of any religion other than Islam.
On Sept. 18 Turkish deputy PM Besir Atalay
warns that Turkey will freeze its ties with the EU if Cyprus occupies the rotating EU presidency in the 2nd half of 2012, causing Hans van Baalen of Netherlands to declare that Turkey has disqualified
itself for EU membership.
On Sept. 18 the Palestinian Authority uses
Latifa Abu Hameid,
mother of four terrorists who killed seven Israeli civilians and attempted to kill 12 others as their poster girl for their statehood campaign with the U.N.
On Sept. 18 Islamist insurgents explode multile bombs in the Thai border town of
Su-Ngai Golok,
known for its brothels, killing five and wounding 110.
On Sept. 19 Pres. Obama proposes
a debt reduction plan that calls for $3 in new taxes for $1 in new spending cuts.
On Sept. 19 Saudi Arabia announces
that 41 suspects will be tried for forming a cell linked to al-Qaida that planned to attack U.S. forces in Kuwait and Qatar; meanwhile Saudi Arabia
pays
$200M to the Palestinian Authority to help it apply for full U.N. membership.
On Sept. 19, the sitcom 2 Broke Girls
debuts on CBS-TV for 138 episodes (until Apr. 17, 2017), about roommates Max Black (poor, brunette), played by
Kat Dennings (Katherine Litwack) (1986-),
and Caroline Channing (nouveau pauvre, blonde), played by Beth Behrs (1985-),
who work in a diner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, N.Y. to raise $250K to start a cupcake business, with the running tally shown at the end of each episode.
On Sept. 20 a Kurdish rebel car bomb explodes near a high school in
Ankara, Turkey, killing three and wounding 34.
On Sept. 20 after being lured by a false offer of a Taliban peace offer, former Afghan pres.
Burhanuddin Rabbani (b. 1940),
head of the Afghan high peace council is assassinated by a Taliban (Haqqani Network?) suicide turban bomber
in Kabul, causing Pres. Obama and Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai to issue a joint condolence statement at the U.N., and claim it won't set peace talks back.
On Sept. 20 Palestinians hold mass demonstrations
on the eve of the U.N. gen. assembly vote on Palestinian statehood.
On Sept. 20 Pres. Obama tells
the Libyan rebels "We will stand with you", pledging support for a post-Daffy Libya.
On Sept. 20 the Obama admin. announces
that it has sharply warned Pakistan to cut ties with the Miranshah-based Taliban Haqqani Network in the tribal region along the Afghan border (which it blames for the Sept. 13 attack
on the U.S. embassy in Kabul) and help eliminate its leaders, else the U.S. will act unilaterally.
On Sept. 20 four U.S. Marines are killed in an ambush in Ganjgal, Afghanistan.
On Sept. 20 the sitcom New Girl
(working title "Chicks & Dicks") debuts on Fox Network for ? episodes (until ?), starring
Zooey Claire Deschanel (1980-)
as Los Angeles middle school teacher Jessica "Jess" Christopher Day, who moves into a loft with three men, Nick, played by
Jake Johnson (Mark Jake Johnson Weinberger) (1978-), Schmidt, played by
Max Greenfield (1980-),
and has-to-be-black Winston, played by Lamorne Morris (1983-).
On Sept. 21 Pres. Obama gives a speech
to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, opposing the Palestinian Authority's bid for statehood through the U.N. Security Council, with the soundbytes:
"One year ago, I stood at this podium and I called for an independent Palestine. I believed then, and I believe now, that the Palestinian people deserve a state of their own";
"Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the U.N. If it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now"; French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy gives a
speech to the gen. assembly and calls for a resolution to upgrade the PA to "observer status", claiming that failure
will spark Muslim violence, with the soundbyte "Let us cease our endless debates on the parameters. Let us begin negotiations and adopt a precise timetable"; meanwhile pro-statehood
protests
by Palestinians in the West Bank result in a 16-mo.-o. Israeli baby being struck by a stone in the head; Obama poses for a group photo, and
blocks the face of
Mongolian pres. #4 (since June 18, 2009) Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj (1963-) with his hand.
On Sept. 21 the Arab League
calls for freezing Syria's and Yemen's membership until they stop violence against protesters.
On Sept. 21 Iran finally releases convicted U.S. spies Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal on bail.
On Sept. 21 Syria's SANA news agency accuses
Turkish camps housing 7.5K Syrian refugees of being "centers of isolation full of rape and torture".
On Sept. 21 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears
on U.S. TV, and says that the term "moderate" doesn't need to be used with Islam because it excludes all extremists - what about the sultans?
On Sept. 21 the U.S. military finally allows
openly gay service members to serve.
On Sept. 21 a McClatchy Newspapers and Marist College Poll
shows Pres. Obama just 5 points ahead of Sarah Palin, 49% to 44%; Obama's approval rating falls
to its lowest at 39%, while for the time time a majority (52%) of registered voters disapprove of him.
On Sept. 21 (10:53 p.m. local time) after a 2-decade legal battle
Troy Davis
is executed in the state prison at Jackson, Ga. for the murder of off-duty police officer Mark McPhail in 1989.
On Sept. 22 the Federal Reserve Board announces
Operation Twist,
a plan to shift debt holdings to spur growth, causing the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. to fall 391 points,
wiping out all the gains of the year amid rumors of a coming 2nd double-dip recession; billionaire George Soros
announces
"I think we are in it already."
On Sept. 22 Iranian pres. Madman Inastraightjacket gives a U.N. speech,
taking on 9/11 ("mysterious"), the Holocaust ("excuse to pay ransom... to Zionists"), etc., causing 30 nations incl. the U.S., U.K., France, and Germany to walk out; Israel boycotts his speech entirely;
meanwhile former U.S. pres. Bill "Bubba" Clinton
blames Benjamin Netanyahu for sabotaging the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
On Sept. 22 British fitness instructor Lucy Misch (1984-)
becomes the first pole dancer in Saudi Arabia.
On Sept. 22 Jonathan Nolan's sci-fi crime drama series Person of Interest
debuts on CBS-TV for ? episodes (until ?), starring James Patrick "Jim" Caviezel (1968-)
as ex-CIA agent John Reese, who is presumed dead, and hooks up with mysterious billionaire genius Harold Finch,
played by Michael Emerson (1954-), who uses his AI system The Machine to prevent violent crimes.
On Sept. 23 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech to the U.N.,
noting the "malignancy [that] is growing between East and West" of militant Islam, and bemoaning "Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon now presides over the U.N. Security Council";
meanwhile just before Netanyahu's speech, after rebuffing last-minute U.S. pressure, Mahmoud Abbas gives a
speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly asking for it to accept Palestine as a member state, with the soundbyte:
"It is a moment of truth, and my people are waiting to hear the answer of the world"; meanwhile top Hamas official
Ghazi Hamad says that Hamas wasn't consulted about the bid, and is ill-prepared for it.
On Sept. 23 Yemeni pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh
makes a surprise return to Yemen after 3 mo. of medical treatment in Saudi Arabia.
On Sept. 23 Operation Mountain Gardian,
a large-scale DEFCON 1 "cocked pistol" maximum readiness terrorism alert drill involving 81 agencies is held in 10 locations in Denver, Colo., and joined by Pres. Obama; simulated weapons,
smoke, emergency vehicles, and other equipment.
On Sept. 23 Pope Benedict XVI calls
for Christianity and Islam to forge a relationship based on "dialogue and mutual esteem", claming they could enjoy a "fruitful collaboration".
On Sept. 24-25 the Fiqh Council of North Am. (FCNA)
adopts a resolution at its gen. meeting in Va. that the U.S. Constitution is compatible with Sharia law - like two scorpions in a bottle?
On Sept. 25 Libyan rebels announce the finding of the remains of 1.7K prisoners slain in
Abu Salim Jail
during Col. Madman Daffy's rule.
On Sept. 25 Saudi King Abdullah
announces
that women can now vote in municipal elections and have limited political power, but not until 2015,
and not vote, but only nominate themselves and participate in the nomination of candidates - still can't drive though?
On Sept. 25 Britain
charges
six Pakistani Muslims with planning to unleash suicide bomb attacks.
On Sept. 25 Al-Shabaab militants behead 17-y.-o. Somalian Christian
Guled Jama Muktar (b. 1994)
near Deynile (12 mi. from Mogadishu).
On Sept. 25 (eve.) an Afghan employed by the U.S. govt. kills one American and wounds another in
a CIA office in
Kabul.
On Sept. 26 a
Gallup Poll
finds that a record 81% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country is being governed.
On Sept. 26 the food and lifestyle TV talk show
The Chew
debuts on ABC-TV (until ?), replacing the soap opera All My Children, hosted by chefs
Mario Francesco Batali (1960-),
Michael D. Symon (1969-), and
Carla Hall (1964-),
along with fashion consultant
Clinton Kelly (1969-)
and nutrition consultant
Daphne Oz (1986-).
On Sept. 27 the Israeli govt. approves 1.1K new housing units in
East Jerusalem.
On Sept. 27 Turkey officially accepts delivery of its first domestically manufactured warship, the 300-ft. stealth corvette
TCG Heybeliada.
On Sept. 28 26-.y.-o. Mass. Muslim
Rezwan Ferdaus
is arrested for a plot to bomb bldgs. in Washington, D.C. with remote-controlled aircraft filled with plastic explosives.
On Sept. 28 Mexico's Supreme Court votes
7-4 to reject a decision to legalize abortion.
On Sept. 29 a suicide bomber near a bank where policemen are picking up their salaries in Kirkuk, Iraq
kills two and wounds 60.
On Sept. 29 China launches the unmanned 8.5 ton Tangong-1 ("Heavenly Palace")
space station.
On Sept. 29 the first Hajj flight arrives at the new King Abdulaziz Internat. Airport (KAIA)
in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. On Sept. 29 the White House calls for the release of Muslim convert Christian pastor
Youcef Nadarkhani,
who is scheduled for execution in Iran for not reconverting to Islam.
On Sept. 29 the U.S. Treasury Dept. announces sanctions against brothers
Faizullah and Malik Noorzai
from Afghanistan for raising millions for the Taliban.
On Sept. 29 the
Islamic Defender Front (FPI)
in Indonesia appeals on its Web site that all "un-Islamic" statues in the country be destroyed,
esp. those in public places; meanwhile on Nov. 2 Salafists veil a mermaid statue in
Alexandria, Egypt.
On Sept. 30 the U.S. finally whacks al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader
Anwar al-Awlaki (b. 1971)
in the mountains of Yemen, along with al-Qaida mag. ed. Samir Khan; they wanted to kill him on 9/11, but there were too many
civilians around.
On Sept. 30 a car bomb at a Shia funeral in
Hilla, Iraq
57 mi. S of Baghdad kills 18 and wounds several.
On Sept. 30 3K Salafist Muslims burn the
Mar Gerges Church
in Aswan, Egypt, then loot and burn nearby Christian homes and businesses.
On Sept. 30 Afghanistan holds
Sound Central,
its first rock festival since 1975.
On Sept. 30 the Pentagon
announces
that military chaplains may perform same-sex weddings, even in states where it is illegal,
causing U.S. Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) to say that the Obama admin. is "bordering on lawlessness";
meanwhile on Oct. 3 White House press secy. Jay Carney
dodges
a question about a letter written by U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops pres.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York, who wrote Obama in late Sept. warning him that
his Justice Dept.'s argument that federal courts should hold that opposing same-sex
marriage is the legal equivalent of racial discrimination will precipitate an enormous
nat. conflict between church and state.
In Sept. Iran announces the launch of its first Spanish language TV channel
HispanTV,
which debuts on the Web then goes broadcast by the end of the year.
In Sept. the
Tevatron
at the Fermi Nat. Accelerator Lab. in Batavia, Ill. is shut down after 27 years of searching
for the elusive Higgs Particle.
In Sept. NASA implements no-fly zones on the Moon
to protect Apollo historical sites - keep the coverup going?
In Sept. the U.S. unemployment rate
remains at 9.1%, with 103K jobs added.
In Sept. niqab-clad woman Kenza Drider announces her bid for pres. of France.
On Oct. 1 control
of U.S. forces in Iraq switches from the military to the U.S. State Dept.
On Oct. 1 the U.S. Congress blocks
$200M in aid to the Palestinians over their statehood bid; meanwhile Iranian supreme assaholla
Ali Khamanei
rejects the Palestinian U.N. statehood bid, saying that any deal that accepts the existence of Israel would leave a "cancerous tumor" threatening the security of the Muslim Middle East.
On Oct. 1 senior Haqqani Network leader in Afghanistan Haji Mali Khan,
uncle of network leaders Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani is captured in Paktiya Province by a NATO-Afghan operation.
On Oct. 1 a mob of 150 shoots and hacks to death 19 and injures six in Lingyado in NW Nigeria.
On Oct. 1 Pakistani bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri
is sentenced to death in Rawalpindo for murdering Punjab gov. Salman Taseer despite invoking the Quran to justify it, triggering bloody riots in major cities on Oct. 1-2.
On Oct. 1 Occupy D.C. begins in McPherson Square in Washington, D.C. with two encampments; on Oct. 29 Howard U. students join; on Nov. 22
a group who set out from New York City arrive; on Feb. 4, 2012 police raid them, arresting 11 but leaving 15 tents; on June 10, 2012 they vacate.
On Oct. 2 the Syrian state-run Al Baath newspaper tells
U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford to quit supporting the protesters or expect more rotten egg attacks.
On Oct. 2 New York City police arrest
700+ demonstrators from the Occupy Wall Street protests on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City.
On Oct. 2 Egyptian ambassador to Ramallah Yasser Othman
tells the Bethlehem-based Ma'an news agency that Egypt fears that Israel might seize control of the Sinai Peninsula.
On Oct. 2 the Unknown Soldiers of the Hidden Imam
in Iran sends emails to 11 Iranian ex-Muslim Christians who left the country, threatening them to
return to Islam or be killed.
On Oct. 2 seven bullet-ridden bodies are dumpbed at a downtown bus stop in the resort city of
Zihuatanejo, Mexico;
drug violence results in 20 killed along a stretch of coastal vacation spots.
On Oct. 2 (Sun.) the political thriller series
Homeland
debuts on Showtime for ? episodes (until ?), starring
Claire Catherine Danes (1979-)
as CIA officer Carrie Mathison, and
Damian Watcyn Lewis (1971-)
as her USMC hubby Sgt. Nicholas Brody, who is held captive by al-Qaida and is suspected of turning;
"The nation sees a hero. She sees a threat"; episode 1 of season 5 has CIA man in Syria Peter Quinn
debriefed by his bosses, who ask him how their strategy is working, to which he
replies:
"What strategy? We have no strategy."
On Oct. 3 Minn. Muslim woman
Amina Farah Ali (1976-)
is arrested in U.S. court in Minneapolis for refusing to stand for the judge for a 2nd time, claiming
to recognize only Islamic law, not U.S. law; she and Hawo Mohamed Hassan are on trial
for raising money to funnel to Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
On Oct. 4 Syrian pres. Bashar Assad warns
that he will set the Middle East on fire if NATO attacks Syria, with the soundbyte:
"If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv",
causing Israel to respond via Turkey that if he starts a war with them to divert attention from his domestic problems, they will target him personally.
On Oct. 4 Russia and China veto
a U.N. resolution condemning Syria and threatening sanctions, causing British foreign secy.
William Hague
to call it "deeply mistaken and regrettable", and French foreign minister Alain Juppe to call it a "sad day for the Syrian people", while Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erodogan
says that Turkey and other nations will press ahead with sanctions.
On Oct. 4 Al-Shabaab militants detonate a truck bomb in front of the education ministry in
Mogadishu, Somalia,
as students and parents wait for scholarship info., killing 100+ and wounding dozens.
On Oct. 4 a mosque in Tuba-Zangariyee, Upper Galilee
near Safed is burned by Jews, causing a day of rage by Muslims, followed by the arrest of 20 Palestinians on Oct. 5 at dawn.
On Oct. 4 all of Iraq's political parties but the Sadrists agree
to keep U.S. trainers past the 2011 withdrawal deadline, but don't grant them immunity
from prosecution as requested by the U.S.; Sadrist leader Moqtada al-Sadr announces that starting on
Jan. 1 he's reviving his Mehdi Army to exterminate all of the 3K-4K U.S. soldiers remaining in Iraq.
On Oct. 4 Rusian PM Vladimir Putin floats the idea of a new
Eurasian Union
to compete with the EU; in Nov. Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus sign an agreement to launch it by 2015 - call it PU?
On Oct. 5
AsiaNews
claims that the Saudis are plotting to use their oil money to bring Egypt under Islamist rule and
expel all other religions incl. Coptic Christians.
On Oct. 7 Syrian Kurdish leader
Mashaal Tammo
is killed in his apt. in Qamishli by masked gunmen; on Oct. 8 police fire on the funeral procession,
causing 50K to mourn at his funeral on Oct. 9 amid calls for the 1.7M Syrian Kurds join the rising against
Bashar Assad by his son Fares Tammo.
On Oct. 7 surging Repub. pres. candidate Herman Cain is caught with his pants down with a question about
Uzbekistan,
with the soundbyte: "When they ask me who's the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan
I'm going to say, 'You know, I don't know. Do you know?' And then I'm going to say, 'how's that going to create one job?'"
On Oct. 8 bombs strike two oil pipelines in
S Iraq,
causing temporary production halts.
On Oct. 9 (Black Sun. in Cairo) riots break out in
Cairo, Egypt
after Coptic Christians protest the attack on their church in Merinab village by Muslims, after
which police take on the Copts, firing into the crowd and running over it in armored vehicles, killing 24
and injuring 270; no surprise, Pres. Obama
calls
on the Muslims, er, all sides to show restraint so that the elections can go on.
On Oct. 9 police in
Tunisia
arrest dozens of 300 Islamist demonstrators who are attacking the offices of a TV channel showing the film
"Persepolis" and trying to set it on fire.
On Oct. 9 Hamas enacts new entry restrictions for
Gaza,
requiring most foreigners to obtain a visa.
On Oct. 9 U.S. special rep for Pakistan and Afghanistan
Marc Grossman
admits that 19K Pakistani civilians have been killed in terrorist attacks since 2003.
On Oct. 9 the anti-clerical party of
Janusz Palikot (1964-)
captures a record 10% of the popular vote and 40 seats in Poland's lower house of parliament.
On Oct. 10 Dutch MP (Middle East expert) Wim Kortenoeven
blasts the govt. of Turkey for "sliding into an abyss of Islamic extremism" and for its "belligerence" against Israel.
On Oct. 11 U.S. officials claim to have disrupted an Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi Arabian ambassador (since 2007)
Abdel Al-Jubeir (1962-)
along with bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C., and arrest Am. Muslim Manssor Arbabsiar; on Oct. 13
Pres. Obama says
that there is no doubt that members of the Iranian govt. knew of the plot, and warns that they will be held accountable for their "reckless behavior";
the Obama admin. also accuses Iran of trying to recruit a Mexican drug cartel member into the plot, and ramps up its internat. sanctions on Iran, with vice-pres. Joe Biden saying
that "Nothing has been taken off the table"; Iranian foreign minister
Ramin Mehmanparast
calls the claims "ludicrous", and blames Zionists; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
shows that this plot is a "very embarrassing and difficult moment" for the Obama admin., and shows that Obama is clueless about Iran; did the Obama admin. break the news to divert attention
from the Fast and Furious scandal that's putting heat on U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder?
On Oct. 11 the Israeli cabinet approves a deal to return kidnapped Israeli soldier
Gilad Shalit
after 1,934 days in captivity, in return for 1,027 Arab POWs, 477 of them convicted terrorists; no surprise, Saudi cleric
Awad al-Qarni
issues a $100K reward to any Palestinian who kidnaps another Israeli soldier, after which Saudi prince
Khaled bin Talal
(brother of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal) pledges $900K more; on Nov. 5 Saudi king Abdullah
provides
his private plane to ferry them to the hajj in Mecca free of charge, while Mahmoud Abbas
promises to build homes for them.
On Oct. 11 (Tue.) the sitcom Last Man Standing
debuts on ABC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), starring Tim Allen as sporting goods store exec Mike Baxter of Denver, Colo., Nancy Travis as his geologist wife Vanessa Baxter, Alexandra Krosney/Amanda Fuller
as daughter Kristin Beth Baxter, Molly Ephraim as daughter Amanda Elaine "Mandy Baxter, and Kaitlyn Dever as daughter Eve Baxter.
On Oct. 12 a slew of coordinated bomb attacks targeting police in Iraq
kills 25 and wounds dozens.
On Oct. 12 Underwear Bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
stuns prosecutors by abruptly pleading guilty and issuing a rant about Islam on the 2nd day of his trial, calling his bomb a "blessed weapon to save the lives of innocent Muslims"
and that the purpose was to retaliate against the U.S. for supporting Israel, adding:
"Participation in jihad against the United States is considered among the most virtuous deeds in Islam and is highly encouraged in the Quran", pissing-off CAIR spokesman Dawud Walid,
who says 'The Quran clearly states whoever kills an innocent soul has committed an act like murdering all of humanity', and the Quran commands Muslims not to kill themselves."
On Oct. 12 Serbia
receives EU candidate status; Albania is rejected, and Turkey is put on hold.
On Oct. 13 two bomb blasts in Baghdad, Iraq kill 16.
On Oct. 13 the
King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Internat. Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICID)
in Vienna, Austria is established by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Austria, and Spain.
On Oct. 14 U.N. human rights commissioner Navi Pillay
calls for "immediate measures" to protect civilians in Syria.
On Oct. 14 Pres. Obama announces the deployment of 100 troops to
C Africa
to advise forces fighting the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army.
On Oct. 14 the U.S. Dept. of Justice announces a V for Am. Muslim teacher
Safoorah Khan,
who was denied 19 days unpaid leave to go on Hajj to Mecca; she will receive $75K.
On Oct. 14 (7:00 p.m. local time) Tunisian Islamists firebomb the home of Nessma private TV chief
Nabil Karoui for broadcasting the film "Persepolis" on Oct. 7, which they claim violates Islamic values.
On Oct. 14 Ahmed (Saif) Omar Abdul Rahman,
son of Blind Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman is killed by a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan.
On Oct. 15 an Islamist suicide attack at the Provincial Reconstruction Team base in
Panjshir, Uzbekistan
kills two security guards; on Oct. 17 the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) claims credit, and also claims that they had help from the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban).
On Oct. 16 Comet Elenin
passes within 21M mi. of Earth.
On Oct. 16 a riot in Matamoros Prison
in Mexico, known for housing drug gang members kills 20.
On Oct. 16 U.S. forces announce
that they have been taking increasing rocket fire from Pakistan in the past month; officers allege
that the jihadists are operating in sight of the Pakistani military.
On Oct. 16 Operation Linda Nchi
(Swahili "protect the country") begins as Kenyan troops cross into Somalia to help the Somalian army
pursue Al-Shabaab militants, gaining more help from the Ethiopian military; it ends in June 2012.
On Oct. 16 the daytime TV talk show
Super Soul Sunday,
hosted by Oprah Winfrey debuts on the Oprah Winfrey Network (until ?).
On Oct. 17 a bomb near a liquor store in
Baghdad, Iraq
kills seven and injures 18.
On Oct. 18 two 18-y.-o. men from
Cardiff, Wales
are detained by Kenyan police for attempting to join the Somalian jihad.
On Oct. 18 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton makes an unannounced
visit
to Tripoli, Libya after the Defense Dept. positions assets off the Libyan coast in case it needs to rescue her - unlike the diplomats in Benghazi?
On Oct. 19 the
Third Papuan Peoples' Congress
in Indonesia sees police invade and disperse attendees, then arrest 300, charging five with rebellion and incitement.
On Oct. 19 the Swiss study
The Network of Global Corporate Control
by Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, and Stefano Battiston is pub. in New Scientist,
exposing a small group of 1,318 central banks and other financial institutions as a cartel controlling
the global economy through control of the 43K transnational cos.; 80% of the control is in the hands of 737 of them; 40% of the total wealth is controlled by 147 of them.
On Oct. 19-28 the 107th World Series
sees the St. Louis Cardinals (NL) defeat the Texas Rangers (AL) 4-3 in the first 7-game WS since 2002; St. Louis 3B player
David Richard Freese (1983-) is MVP.
On Oct. 20 five 20-something French Moroccan Muslims are arrested after breaking into the
Bexar County Courthouse in San Antonio, Tex.
On Oct. 20 after NATO bombers destroy his convoy, causing him to hole-up in a drainage pipe,
Libyan dictator (since Sept. 1, 1969) Muammar al-Gaddafi (b. 1942)
is captured hiding under a manhole, dragged by a mob, and killed near Sirte, shot several times while begging for his life, sparking large outbursts of joy; he was
sodomized by a bayonet first?;
Pres. Obama calls it a "momentous day in the history of Libya", adding "Today we can definitely say that the Gaddafi regime has come to a end. One of the world's
longest dictators is no more"; Hillary Clinton utters the soundbyte:
"We came, we saw, he died", pissing-off Vladimir Putin and increasing his hatred for her; on Oct. 23 transitional nat. council chmn.
Abdel-Jail
declares to a large crowd that the Libyan Rev. has ended, and vows that the new govt. will be based on Sharia; on Oct. 21 German chancellor
Angela Merkel
says that Daffy's death clears the way for a new era of peace and democracy in Libya; on Oct. 26 U.S. Nation of Islam leader
Louis Farrakhan
says that those rejoicing Daffy's death will come to sorrow, and predicts that the U.S. is unprepared for the backlash from his
worldwide supporters; during his last days Daffy
wrote
to Italian PM Silvio Berlusconing, asking for help in stopping the bombing; on Oct. 28 NATO
announces
the end of its 7-mo. Libya mission; too bad many local militia leaders
renege
on their pledge to give up their weapons so they can act as "guardians of the rev.", and instead loot Daffy's arsenals; Daffy's
female bodyguards
are hunted down, raped, and murdered.
On Oct. 21 Pres. Obama triumphantly announces the
Iraq pullout
by the end of the year, with the soundbyte "After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over"; on Oct. 23 retired Army gen.
John M. Keane
(author of the 2007 troop surge) calls the plan an "absolute disaster"
that puts Iraq at risk of an Iranian "strangling"; meanwhile the Obama admin.
begins planning
for a military buildup in the Persian Gulf - you can be my wing man
anytime?
On Oct. 21 top Obama U.S. Justice Dept. officials
invite
a gaggle of Muslim activists to tell them what to do, giving them their chance to
vigorously lobby for cutbacks in anti-terror funding, changes in federal agent training
programs, new curbs on investigators, and above all, a legal declaration that any
criticism of Islam constitutes racial discrimination - yes, naked Sharia, even
though they have to stoop to the pretext that the ideology of Islam is a race, when
it wants to absorb all races whether you like it or not, clearly the First
Amendment is going to get its biggest test since ever; on Oct. 24 the
Obama admin. takes off the rubber mask and
announces
that the U.S. govt. will begin removing all references to Islam in connection
with terrorism, and revamp the FBI and other agencies' training programs to
gut them of all the valuable knowledge about Islam and jihad that moi and so many
others have been publishing on the Internet for free; on Oct. 25 Pres. Obama issues an
executive order
to give it force, if he's not a Muslim plant he should get an Oscar for playing one
in the White House, eegads, the truth is now banned from the top; FBI
agent Kenneth Moore
in Knoxville, Tenn. approved the FBI memo detailing the info. purged from
FBI training programs.
On Oct. 21 Quebec Muslim
Mouna Diab
(1985-) is charged with trying to export assault rifle parts to Lebanon for jihad.
On Oct. 21 the
world ends,
according to Harold Camping, whose original date May 21 has been corrected.
On Oct. 22 Saudi crown prince
Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz Al Said
(b. 1930) dies, causing a scramble to reestablish the succession, resulting
in King Abdullah naming 77-y.-o. Prince
Nayef (Naif) bin Abdul-Aziz (1934-2012)
as new crown prince on Oct. 27, who vows that Saudi Arabia would "never sway from and
never compromise on" adherence to Wahhabi doctrine, removing religious authorities who
objected to the mingling of men and women in public spaces.
Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud
as the new crown prince and deputy PM on Oct. 27
On Oct. 22 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton visits
Dushanbe, Tajikistan,
and warns Tajikistan and Uzbekistan that their efforts to crack down on religious freedom might backfire
with increased sympathy for radical Islamist views in C Asia.
On Oct. 22 Afghan Ores. Hamid Karzai
announces
that if the U.S. invades Pakistan, Afghanistan will support Pakistan not the U.S.
On Oct. 22 an Al-Shabaab suicide bomber wounds two AU peacekeepers in
Mogadishu, Somalia;
meanwhile Al-Shabaab warns
Kenya
of an imminent jihad, with the soundbyte "Your skyscrapers will be destroyed, your
tourism will disappear"; on Oct. 23 Kenyan forces join an offense against them,
advancing toward their stronghold of
Kismayu; on
Nov. 4 Al-Shabaab rebels
announce
that they are going to plunge Kenyan forces into an "endless war".
On Oct. 22 an Egyptian court sentences
Ayman Yusef Mansur
to three years of hard labor for insulting Islam in postings on Facebook.
On Oct. 22 a mass
Rally to Defend Islam Against Christian Proselytization
is held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
On Oct. 23 elections in Tunisia
are a V for Islamic Ennahdha Party, which wins 91 of 217 assembly seats, and calling for a coalition with secular groups on Oct. 26 after claiming a lead, incl. the
secularist Congress for the Repub. (CFR), and the Ettakatol (Dem. Forum for Labour and Liberties); on Oct. 28 the moderate Islamist party
An-Nahda agrees to supply 42 of the 49 women elected to the nat. unity govt.;
Tunisian Jews
are discouraged by the Islamic V.
On Oct. 23 the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood (Islamic Action Front) (IAF) declines an offer from King Abdullah II to join Jordan's new cabinet,
headed by squeaky clean PM-designate Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh (1950-), who becomes PM of Jordan on Oct. 24 (until May 2, 2012).
On Oct. 23 the 2011 Iranian Aria Embezzlement Scandal
state trading scandal sees Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket accused of being involved in the emblezzelement of 2.8B toman from seven banks via his aide
Mahafarid Amir Khosravi (1969-2014), causing Imadinnajacket to threaten to resign;
341 Shiite scholars are accused, making it the largest fraud in Iranian history.
On Oct. 23 Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas gives a TV interview,
saying that he will never recognize a Jewish state of Israel, and that the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was a good thing.
On Oct. 23 the fairy tale drama series Once Upon a Time debuts on ABC-TV for 155 episodes (until May 18, 2018),
set in seaside Storybrook, Maine, starring Jennifer Morrison as Emma Swan; season 7 moves to Hyperion Heights in Seattle, Wash., starring Jared S. Gilmore as Emma's son Henry Mills;
also stars Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White, Lana Parrilla as the Evil Queen, and Josh Dallas as Prince Charming.
On Oct. 24 the SE Turkey Earthquake
kills 264; on Oct. 26 Israel begins
sending civilian planes with earthquake relief despite tensions between the govts.
On Oct. 24 citing "credible threats" against his safety, the U.S. pulls its envoy Robert Ford out of
Syria, causing Damascus to follow suit.
On Oct. 24 elections in Switzerland
give the far-right Swiss People's Party (SVP) its first drip in 20 years, from 28.9% in 2007 to 25.9%.
On Oct. 24 seven new mosques are officially recognized in Flanders, Belgium, making a total of 24.
On Oct. 24 a YouGov-Cambridge Poll
conducted in July finds that 73% of Iraqis believe that it is likely that Iran will act aggressively toward Iraq after the U.S. troops leave in Dec.; 51% say
that the security situation within Iraq will worsen.
On Oct. 25 ethnic Malay Muslim rebels in predominantly Buddhist
Yala, Malaysia
shoot soldiers dead then explode a bomb that kills three and wounds 34.
On Oct. 25 Islamists in Malaysia call for the country to ban a Nov. concert by gay English pop star Sir
Elton John,
saying that he promotes "hedonism".
On Oct. 25-26 (night) protests in Sana'a, Yemen
incl. hundreds of women burning their veils in protest against violence.
On Oct. 26 Pres. Obama visits Colo.
to push student loan relief.
On Oct. 26 Germany announces
that it's "reconsidering" deal to sell Israel a 6th Dolphin class sub over chancellor Angela Merkel's disapproval of new housing plans for E Jerusalem.
On Oct. 26 10th grader Mehnez is killed by her fiance on her way to school in
Pishtakhara, Peshawar, Pakistan
after she refuses to abandon her education.
On Oct. 27 (7 p.m. local time) twin bomb blasts in Baghdad, Iraq kill 18 and injure 37.
On Oct. 27 Pope Benedict XVI speaks
at a gathering of 300 world religious leaders in Rome, and acknowledges "with great shame" that Christianity has used force in its long history, but claims that violence in God's name
has no place in the modern world.
On Oct. 27 in the case of Taner Akcam v. Turkey,
the European Court of Human Rights unanimously rules that Turkey can't criminalize recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
On Oct. 27 Saddam Hussein's home region of
Salahuddin
N of Baghdad declares regional autonomy in Iraq.
On Oct. 27 Al-Shoula, a
consortium of 12 Spanish cos. beats French rivals to win a 6.7B euro
($9.3B) contract to build a high-speed railway on the Mulim hajj route
between Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
On Oct. 27 U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton gives an
interview
to BBC Persia, saying that the State Dept. is planning to set up a "virtual embassy" in Tehran
to facilitate Iranian student visas.
On Oct. 27 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg.
closes above 12K for the first time since Aug.
On Oct. 28 a French court cancels a permit for a mega-mosque in Marseille, France
that was touted as a symbol of Islam in France.
On Oct. 28 a car bomb near Aden, Yemen kills Ali al-Haddi, head of Yemen's anti-terror force.
On Oct. 28 (5:00 a.m. local time) Wahhabist gunman Mevlid Jasarevic
opens fire at the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and is wounded after wounding a policeman; 17 are arrested.
On Oct. 28 after advice by her Saudi attache Huma Abedin, U.S. state secy. Hillary Clinton
announces
that the U.S. is now ready to negotiate with Taliban leader Mullah Omar, and regards his involvement as crucial to peace prospects in Afghanistan.
On Oct. 28 Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas gives a speech
on Israeli TV, where he admits that the Arab world erred in rejecting the 1947 U.N. Partition Plan.
On Oct. 28 Syrian forces open fire on protesters in Homs and Hama, killing 30.
On Oct. 28 Iran sends a diplomatic note
to the U.S. complaining about its claims that it was involved in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., and demanding an apology.
On Oct. 28 three niaq-wearing women with shielded faces are denied entry to a
courtroom in Gothenburg, Sweden
for the trial of Lars Vilks attempted murderer Abdi Aziz Mahamud.
On Oct. 28 Palestinian Nat. Authority foreign minister (since 2006) Mahmoud al-Zahar (1945-) utters the
soundbyte
about Western civilization: "This civilization will not be able to withstand the great and glorious Islam, with its great humane platform."
On Oct. 29 a Taliban (Haqqani Network?) suicide bomber rams his van into an armored NATO bus in
Kabul, Afghanistan,
killing 17, incl. five ISAF troops, becoming the deadliest attack on coalition forces in over 2 mo.; the Taliban
claims
that the bomber was a Kabul-born 23-y.-o. European Afgahan; meanwhile an Afghan soldier turns his weapons on Australian NATO soldiers in
Nish, Kandahar Province, killing three.
On Oct. 29 the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood visits Gaza Strip, allegedly for the first time.
On Oct. 29 Minneapolis, Minn. Muslim Abdisalan Hussein Ali (b. 1989)
and one other stage a suicide attack on African Union troops in Mogadishu, killing scores of peacekeepers, becoming the 3rd Am. Muslim used by Al-Shabaab.
On Oct. 29 officials of the Obama admin. meet with hundreds of parents, teachers, and community leaders at a
Bullying Prevention Summit, claiming that one-third of 40M students are bullied each year;
no surprise, the summit focuses on Muslim students, despite
statistics
showing that it's Jews who are victims of most bias incidents.
On Oct. 29 members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Assoc.
in Britain begin helping the Royal British Legion collect money for the annual Poppy Appeal.
On Oct. 29 (7 p.m.) immigrant Arab Muslims stone Roman Catholic festival-goers at the
Joyeuse
Union Don Bosco in Nimes, France.
On Oct. 29-30 Muslim protests against Islamophobia in
Berne, Switzerland
anger Jews when some protesters wear a yellow Star of David with the intent of
comparing themselves to persecuted Jews.
On Oct. 30 Israeli pres. Shimon Peres
calls
the spate of recent rocket attacks from Gaza a "declaration of war"; meanwhile an
Israeli airstrike in
Gaza Strip
kills one, causing calls for a ceasefire by the Palestinians.
On Oct. 30 Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad gives his first
interview
with a Western journalist since the beginning of the 7-mo. uprising, saying
that Western intervention will cause "another Afghanistan, or tens of Afghanistans"
because "Syria is the hub now in this region - it is the fault line, and if you play
with the ground you will cause an earthquake."
On Oct. 30 an Israeli court sentences former Israeli soldier
Anat Kamm (1987-)
to 4.5 years in prison for leaking classified military documents about a
policy of assassinating Palestinian fighters to a newspaper.
On Oct. 30 a twin bombing at a music store in a Shiite neighborhood of
Baghdad, Iraq
kills 32 and wounds 71.
On Oct. 30 Iranian pres. Madman Imadinnastraightjacket
hails
the U.S. troop exit from Iraq as a "golden" victory.
On Oct. 30 Libyan interior PM
Mahmoud Jabril
confirms the presence of chemical weapons in Libya, and says that foreign inspectors will arrive later in the week to deal with them.
On Oct. 30 Pakistani cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan
holds a large rally in Lahore, causing established political parties concern.
On Oct. 30 the Iran-sponsored Press Union of the Islamic World
is launched by 38 countries.
On Oct. 31 by 107-14-52 (U.S., Israel, Canada, Germany, Sweden, and Australia against, France in favor, Britain abstains)
UNESCO
becomes the first U.N. agency to grant the Palestinians full membership, causing the U.S. to stop their $80M annual financing (22%) of it under 1990 Public Law 101-246
that prohibits them from funding any U.N. body that admits Palestine as a member state before a negotiated settlement with Israel; Israel
retaliates
by building 1,650 more homes in E Jerusalem and 350 in the West Bank settlements of Gush Eztion and Maaleh Adumim, and withholding tens of millions of dollars/mo. of custom
and sales tax revenue collected for the Palestinian Authority at Israel-controlled checkpoints; Palestinian chief negotiator
Saeb Erekat
claims that Israel should have been the first to congratulate them.
On Oct. 31 a 4-man Taliban suicide team attacks a U.N. HQ in Kandahar City, Afghanistan, killing five.
On Oct. 31 the Tashnaq Party in Lebanon organizes an expulsion of all Syrian Kurds from the predominantly Armenian district of
Burj Hammud.
On Oct. 31 elections in Kyrgyzstan
retain PM Almazbek Atambayev's party in power.
On Oct. 31 the Jund Al-Khalifah
(Soldiers of the Caliphate) based on the Afghan-Pakistan border claim credit for two bombings in the city of Atyrau in Kazakhstan in retaliation for banning the veil.
On Oct. 31 a mosque in Wichita, Kan.
is heavily damaged by fire after receiving anti-Islam letters.
On Oct. 31 the 7th billion person on Earth is born.
In Oct. a total of 23 U.S. soldiers are killed in Afghanistan, making the war total 1,720.
In Oct. the U.S. unemployment rate falls from 9.1% to 9.0%, with only 80K new jobs added.
In Oct. the Obama admin. makes mosques
off-limits to FBI survillance incl. undercover sting operations without special approval from the Sensitive Operations Review Committee of the U.S. Justice Dept.
On Nov. 1 700 rebel fighters attack Kadugli and Teludi, South Kordofan, killing hundreds of SPLN-North fighers.
On Nov. 1 dual U.S.-Libyan citizen Abdurraheem el-Keib
is chosen by the Libyan Nat. Transitional Council as PM of Libya (until ?) to replace Mahmoud Jibril, who resigned on Oct. 23.
On Nov. 1 Israeli strategic affairs minister Moshe Ya'alon
says that Israel must confront Iran's attempts to get nukes, and not depend on others to do it.
On Nov. 1 South African Judge Richard Goldstone
pub. an op-ed in the Washington Post (after the New York Times
turns him down), blaming himself for his Goldstone Report, and going on
to blast those who claim Israel is an apartheid state, with the soundbyte
"It is important to separate legitimate criticism of Israel from assaults
that aim to isolate, demonize and delegitimize it", calling the apartheid charge
"an unfair and inaccurate slander against Israel."
On Nov. 1 Greek PM George Panadreau
announces
that Greece will hold a referendum on the $180B Greek bailout announced by
EU leaders the week before, pissing them off, after which on Nov. 3 he
drops it.
On Nov. 1 Israeli strategic affairs minister
Moshe Ya'alon
says that Israel must confront Iran's attempts to get nukes, and not depend
on others to do it, testing its new
Jericho
ICBM in a show of strength against Iran.
On Nov. 1 the U.S. House of Reps votes to reaffirm the motto "In God We Trust",
to which Pres. Obama responds "I trust in God, but God wants to see us help
ourselves", accusing them of wasting time.
On Nov. 1 2.5M Muslim pilgrims begin flocking to Mecca for the annual
hajj,
which starts on Nov. 4 (Fri.); Pres. Obama utters the
soundbyte
that the Hajj is "one of the world's largest and most diverse gatherings" -
except that non-Muslims who enter Mecca are executed?
On Nov. 1 Turks and Kurds clash in
Paris, France,
wounding 15; meanwhile Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu
urges
Iraqi Kurds to cooperate with Turkey in fighting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK),
saying otherwise Turkey has the right to invade Iraqi territory to prevent attacks
on Turkish targets.
On Nov. 1 an oil conference in Cape Town, South Africa claims that the breakaway nation
of Somaliland
has huge unexplored oil potential.
On Nov. 1 Russian foreign minister
Sergei Lavro
tells the Serbian press that if its objections to NATO's planned missile defense
system are not heeded, Russia could take steps of "a technically military nature".
On Nov. 2 Syrian-born Baton Rouge, La. Muslim
Jamal M. Roman (1960-)
is convicting of defrauding state and local govts. of $726K in sales taxes and
funneling $700K to Syria, and is sentenced to 53 mo. in federal prison plus two
years of post-prison supervision.
On Nov. 2 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan
visits
Germany to celebrate the 50th anniv. of the guest worker agreement, and issues
the soundbyte "German politicians do not acknowledge the contribution of the three
million Turks in Germany enough."
On Nov. 2 the offices of the French satirical mag.
Charlie Hebdo
are firebombed the day it is set to pub. an issue with a cover satirizing Muhammad,
causing French PM
Francois Fillon
to speak out against the attack; on Nov. 3 they go offline after death threats,
then on Nov. 4 pub. the Muhammad cartoon that pisses-off the Muslims in a special supplement
distributed with the left-wing newspaper
Liberation,
after which on Nov. 8 it runs another
issue
showing a cartoonist kising a bearded Muslim man, with the caption "Love is stronger than hate".
On Nov. 2 Syria claims to fully accept peace proposals by the
Arab League,
incl. troop pullout from cities and meetings with the opposition.
On Nov. 2 senior religious official
Jamel Oueslati
claims that radical Islamists have seized control of 150-200 of Tunisia's
5K mosques since the Jan. Rev.
On Nov. 2 after extensive natural gas discoveries,
Mexico
scraps plans to build up to 10 nuclear plants.
On Nov. 2 as Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu lobbies the Knesset to strike Iran's nuclear
facilities, Iran's top military official maj.-gen.
Hassan Fayrouz Abadi
says that if this happens Iran will cause serious damage to Israel and the U.S.
On Nov. 2 a U.S. Congressional committee approves tougher sanctions on Iran,
focusing on the central bank of Tehran.
On Nov. 2 the 2-ship
Freedom Waves for Gaza
flotilla, consisting of the Tahrir and the Saoirse leaves
Turkey to try to run the Gaza blockade, carrying 27 activists from nine countries
incl. the U.S.; on Nov. 4 the Israeli navy
seizes
the ships 50 mi. from Gaza.
On Nov. 2 a jury awards $7.5M in damages to Iranian-born Am. Muslim
Shawn Esfahani,
owner of Eastern Shore Toyota after a competitor calls his business
"Taliban Toyota" and accuses him of being a terrorist.
On Nov. 2
Tel Aviv
holds a massive civil defense drill.
On Nov. 2 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan
accuses Germany
of letting it down in its bid for EU membership, claiming it should show much
more solidarity; it also fails to recognize Turks' efforts to integrate
into German society.
On Nov. 2 a liquor store in
Assi Youcef,
Algeria is burned down by a group of Muslims terrorists; they first
enter the shop and steal their mobile phones to get their IDs.
On Nov. 2 PAN member
Ricardo Guzman Romero,
mayor of La Piedad in Michoacan, Mexico is shot and killed while campaigning
for a Nov. 13 election.
On Nov. 2 the 12K-member
Bosnian Islamic Society
becomes the first Muslim in Sweden to begin receiving the "church tax" along with the Church of Sweden.
On Nov. 2 China
docks
two space vehicles for the first time, the unmanned Shenzhou 8
and the Tiangong-1 space lab.
On Nov. 2 the
G-20 Summit
in Cannes, France is attended by Pres. Obama, who shakes the hands of Euro
leaders then gives Turkish Islamist PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan a
big hug.
On Nov. 3 the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Oversight Subcommittee votes
14-9 to subpoena internal White House documents on the solar co.
Solyndra,
which filed for bankruptcy after receiving a $535M federal loan guarantee;
the White House
rebuffs
the subpoena, claiming it is politically motivated.
On Nov. 3 Italy pub. a
Survey on Antisemitism,
which finds that 44% of Italians harbor some prejudice or hostile attitude
towards Jews.
On Nov. 3 a triple bombing in oil hub
Basra, Iraq
kills eight and wounds dozens.
On Nov. 3 Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu
orders
in investigation into an info. leak about Israel's plans to attack Iran,
blaming the heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin, as
well as opposition Kadima Party leader Tzipi Livni; meanwhile Hezbollah leader
Hassan Nasrallah
announces that his forces have 10K rockets ready to fire at Tel Aviv, and can handle the Israeli military without aid from Iran or Syria.
On Nov. 3 women's groups in Galkayo, Somalia
in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland announce a drive to lobby authorities to ban female genital mutilation (FGM).
On Nov. 3 France, Britain, and Colombia announce
their decision to abstain from any vote on Palestinian membership in the U.N.; the U.S. has already pledged to veto it in the 15-member U.N. Security Council.
On Nov. 3 after their fight over the Church's handling of sex abuse cases earlier in the year, Ireland
closes its embassy to the Vatican, claiming it "yields no economic return", becoming the first major Roman Catholic country to do so.
On Nov. 3 a cleaning woman at Ostwall Museum
in Dortmund, Germany mistakes a $1.1M Kippenberger installation titled "When It Starts Dripping from the Ceiling" for a mess and destroys it.
On Nov. 3-4 U.S. drone raids in Somalia and Pakistan kill 120.
On Nov. 4 Israeli soldiers exchange fire with Palestinian terrorists at the N Gaza border fence after they are ambushed.
On Nov. 4 U.S. Afghanistan cmdr. Gen. Peter Fuller
is relieved by Internat. Security Assistance Force cmdr. Gen. John R. Alolen for making comments against pres. Hamid Karzai and calling his govt. "isolated from reality".
On Nov. 4 Pres. Obama announces
that he would be "satisfied" if the Muslim Brotherhood won the Egyptian elections, say that he will judge elected parties based "on what they do, and not what they're
called"; he adds that in his last visit to Cairo he didn't meet with Muslim Brotherhood officials, but would have given the chance.
On Nov. 4 10K march in Moscow, Russia
against Muslim immigrants, calling for ethnic Russians to "take back" Russia.
On Nov. 4 Germany passes a new law
that forces employers to recognize qualifications of immigrants, effective next Mar. 1.
On Nov. 4 former Mossad dir. Ephraim Halevy
says that Iran poses no "existential threat" to Israel, thus attack it must be a last resort, and that an attack "will impact the region for 100 years".
On Nov. 4 St. Louis, Mo. cab driver Mohamud Abdi Yusuf (1980-)
pleads guilty to funneling $6K to Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
On Nov. 4 Pres. Obama admits that U.S. pilots
flew French fighter jets off a French carrier in the Mediterranean Sea during the final strike on Daffy's convoy in Sirte.
On Nov. 4 officials of Jefferson County, Ala.
vote to file the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history (until ?).
On Nov. 5 FARC's guerrilla leader Guillermo Leon Saenz Vargas (b. 1948)
(AKA Alfonso Cano) is killed in combat by Colombian forces.
On Nov. 5 former U.N. head Kofi Annan
says that the West should not fear the rise of Islamic political parties in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings, with the soundbyte "Islam doesn't mean terrorism."
On Nov. 5 Obama admin. spokesman William Taylor, vice-pres. of the Inst. of Peace utters the
soundbyte
that they'd be "satisfied" with a Muslim Brotherhood V in Egypt; meanwhile the U.S. State Dept.
requests
$2B from Congress to train parties of "all ideologies" for the elections - U.S. taxpayer money for Islamist enemies of the U.S.?
On Nov. 5 YouTube removes a video posted by Minn. Congressional candidate
Gary Boisclair
warning voters about his Muslim opponent Keith Ellison swearing his oath on the Quran, which teaches Muslims to regard non-Muslims as infidels and fight them, claiming
it as shocking and disgusting content.
On Nov. 5 Iranian supreme assaholah Ali Khamenei
calls on the Muslim nations of the world to form an "internat. Islamic power bloc".
On Nov. 6 a series of blasts at a market in Baghdad, Iraq kill six.
On Nov. 6 Israeli pres. Shimon Peres
warns that an Israeli strike is "now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option"; causing Libertarian Tex. Rep. Sen. and pres. candidate
Ron Paul
to call concern over Iran's nuke program "blown out of proportion", and that instead the U.S. should be "offering friendship" to Death to America Iran.
On Nov. 6 the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture announces a new 15% Christmas Tree Tax
on large farmers to support a federal program to improve their image and marketing; although it was initiated by tree farmers during the Bush admin., Fox commentator
Tammy Bruce
can't resist using it as more evidence that Pres. Obama is a secret Muslim who hates Christmas.
On Nov. 6 the Western series Hell on Wheels
debuts on AMC for 57 episodes (until July 23, 2016), about the building of the Union Pacific Railroad after the 1865 assassination of Pres. Lincoln, starring
Anson Adams Mount IV (1973-) as chief engineer Cullen Bohannon,
Colm J. Meaney (1953-) a mean investor Thomas "Doc" Durant, and
Common (Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr.) (1972-) as freed slave Elam Ferguson.
On Nov. 7 despite the Arab League agreement, Syria launches a bloody assault to retake
Homs.
On Nov. 7 the IAEA releases a Report on Iran's Nuclear Capability,
saying that Iran has mastered the critical steps for building nukes after receiving help from foreign scientists, and is on the brink of getting nukes; no surprise, the
Obama admin. only seeks
to impose more sanctions; U.N. sanctions are also unlikely because of Russian and Chinese opposition, the
Russian foreign ministry
saying that the IAEA presented no new facts, and deliberately politicized existing ones, ignoring Iran'a willingness to cooperate, with the soundbyte
that the IAEA "had a set goal to deliver a guilty verdict"; meanwhile the Israelis
ex-IAEA chmn. Mohamed ElBaradei of being an Iranian agent who covered-up their nuke program during his term; he denies it; on Nov. 10 Imadinnajacket utters the
soundbyte
"This nation won't retreat one iota from the path it is going... Why are you ruining the prestige of the (U.N. nuclear) agency for absurd U.S. claims?",
and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini warns
the U.S. and Israel that "Anybody who takes up the idea of an attack on Iran should get ready to receive a strong slap and an iron fist"; on Nov. 11 Hillary Clinton
demands
that Iran respond within days to the IAEA report, and says that the U.S. is seeking to marshal internat. support for more sanctions; on Nov. 13 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
claims
that the full extent of Iran's nuclear program isn't reflected in the IAEA report.
On Nov. 7 Islamic Relief Worldwide releases its 2010 Annual Report,
showing an 89% increase in zakat donations since 2006, to Ł64M; the IRW had been caught giving assistance to Hamas, and accepting $50K from an agent of Osama bin Laden in 1999.
On Nov. 7 the Taliban posts a
message
on its Web site celebrating the U.S. troop withdrawal as a big V, and calling the U.S. the "greatest enemy of Islam", mocking Pres. Obama's soundbyte that
the U.S. is not and never will be at war with Islam.
On Nov. 7 Hamza Abu Fas
is appointed Libyan minister for religious affairs, responsible for returning Libya to traditional 4-wives-at-a-time Sharia.
On Nov. 7 the former office of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi
is invaded by security forces, who confiscate equipment.
On Nov. 7 sources in Israel reveal
that the U.S. Congress plans to unfreeze some of the $200M in assistance to Palestine, causing it to follow suit and plan to renew its funds transfer.
On Nov. 7 the Penn State U. Pedophile Sexual Abuse Scandal
begins with a grand jury report about football asst. Jerry Sandusky, spreading to icon coach
Joe Paterno for
his role in the coverup, who is fired on Nov. 10 along with univ. pres. Graham B. Spanier;
Paterno utters the soundbyte: "This is a tragedy. It is one of the great sorrows of my life. With the benefit of hindsight I wish I had done more"; on Nov. 9-10 (night)
thousands of Penn State students riot in protest.
On Nov. 7 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton gives an address at the Nat. Dem. Inst., and utters the
soundbyte
that the claim that "Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy" is "insulting, dangerous, and wrong, and promising
that the Obama admin. will work with ascendant Islamist parties in the Muslim World - they do it in this
country every day" - like when her hubby claimed that he didn't have "sex with that woman"?
On Nov. 8 Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi
tenders his resignation effective Nov. 13 on the condition that parliament pass the austerity measures demanded by the EU, with the soundbyte that he feels "liberated"; on Nov. 14
former EU commissioner Mario Monti
becomes PM of Italy (until ?).
On Nov. 8 (Tues.) Hattiesburg, Miss. mayor Johnny DuPree,
first black Miss. gov. candidate since Reconstruction loses 59-49 to Repub. lt. gov.
Phil Bryant;
Miss. voters also reject 58-41 a measure which would have defined "personhood" as beginning at fertilization; powerful Ariz. politician
Russell Pearce,
author of the Ariz. immigration law is recalled; a measure in Ohio to continue the work of Repub. gov. John Kasich in curbing the power of unions is rejected.
On Nov. 8 the U.S. Bureau of Land Management
criticizes a congressional proposal to add FDR's June 6, 1944 D-Day Prayer to the WWII Memorial in Washington, D.C., saying that it would "dilute" its "central message",
along with its ability to "inspire" visitors.
On Nov. 8 U.S. atty.-gen. Eric Holder tells
Congress that the recently banned FBI training on Islam as violent and Muslims as terrorist sympathizers is not only "flat-out wrong" but undermines govt. efforts to stop terrorism
because it has a "negative impact on our ability to communicate effectively" with Am. Muslims.
On Nov. 8 to fight global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions, the Clean Energy Act of 2011,
introduced by the Labor govt. of Australian PM #27 (2010-13) Julia Eileen Gillard (1961-) is passed,
establishing an emissions trading scheme preceded by a 3-year period of fixed carbon pricing, with the goal being to "drive substantial changes in patterns of energy production and energy use"; on
July 1, 2014 it is repealed by the Labor govt. of Tony Abbott.
On Nov. 8 the public school district of Cambridge, Mass.
schedules a holiday to recognize the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha; a first.
On Nov. 8 (Eid al-Adha) Muslim gunmen shoot dead three Hindu doctors in
Shikaripur,
Pakistan after a dispute over a dancing girl.
On Nov. 8 CAIR publicly blasts Somali-born anti-terrorism activists
Omar Jamal and Abdi Bihi
as "anti-Muslim" for blowing the whistle on terrorist efforts to recruit Somalis from Minn. for Al-Shabaab.
On Nov. 8 Saudi cleric
Aidh al-Qarni
calls on the Arabs to manufacture nukes to take on the West, with the soundbyte "The world respects no one but the strong."
On Nov. 9 coalition forces defeat a massive assault by the Haqqani Network
in Paktika Province, Afghanistan
near the Pakistani border, killing 60-70 terrorists.
On Nov. 9 ethnic Serbs Albanians clash in N Kosovo,
killing two and wounding one.
On Nov. 9 the Pentagon announces the new Air Sea Battle Concept,
a Cold War posture on China with the goal of denying its military access to areas near its territory and in cyberspace.
On Nov. 9 a Repub. Pres. Debate
sees Tex. gov. Rick Perry fail to remember one of the three federal agencies he had vowed to close if elected, badly hurting his candidacy; the debate is a V for Newt Gingrich, who
surges in the polls despite poor funding.
On Nov. 9 the U.S. govt. charges seven Estonians with a Web scam
that swaps their ads onto users' pages on 4M computers and made them $14M.
On Nov. 9 the U.S. military warns
Congress that budget cuts by the Obama admin. are seriously weakening the U.S. defense.
On Nov. 9 the Obama admin. stages
a 3-min. test to seize all the airways in the U.S., which fails miserably.
On Nov. 9 Praveen Togadia,
secy.-gen. of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in India calls for beheading of those who convert Hindus to other religions; meanwhile 31 Hindus who burned 33 Muslims
alive in Gujarat
state are sentenced to life in prison.
On Nov. 9 a U.S. Commission on Internat. Religious Freedom releases a
Report on Pakistani Schools,
saying that they teach Hindu hatred and view non-Muslims as "enemies of Islam".
On Nov. 9 the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung pub. a
Report on Forced Marriages
by the German ministry for family affairs, which finds that almost half of forced marriage brides are German, and a third are minors.
On Nov. 9 Honduran pres. Porfirio Lobo
begins the session of the council of ministers with a Quran reading and Muslim prayer to welcome female members of the Islamic community.
On Nov. 9 Venezuelan-born Minn. Twins catcher Wilson Abraham Ramos (1987-)
is abducted near his home in Valencia, Venezuela and held for ransom; on Nov. 11 police raid the kidnapper's home and rescue him.
On Nov. 9-23 the Occupy Wall Street Movement marches from New York City to Washington, D.C., demonstrating at a congressional committee that's deciding whether to keep Pres. Obama's
extension of tax cuts enacted under Pres. George W. Bush, which they claim only benefit the rich.
On Nov. 10 the 2nd 2011 Turkish Earthquake in E Turkey.
On Nov. 10 bowing to environmental activists, the Obama admin. delays a decision on the 1.7K-mi.
Keystone XL Oil Pipeline
from Alberta, Canada to Okla. and the Gulf Coast until after the 2012 election.
On Nov. 10 Repub. pres. candidate Mitt Romney pub. an op-ed
in the New York Times saying that if elected he'd "prepare for war" with Iran,
starting by deploying more warships in the Persian Gulf.
On Nov. 10 U.S. Rep.
Allen West
denounces the "five-star resort" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba after a report claims
the U.S. spends $800K a year for each of the 171 prisoners.
On Nov. 10 Britain home secy. Theresay May bans the extremist Muslim
Muslims Against Crusades (MAC)
after they plan to protest Armistice Day on Nov. 11; on Nov. 14 British Muslim (Conservative party co-chmn.)
Lady Warsi
utters the soundbyte that extremist Muslims such as Anjem Choudry forfeit the
right to call themselves Muslims.
On Nov. 10 Libyan rev. spiritual leader
Sheikh Ali Salabi (al-Sallabi), spiritual guide of
announces
that he's forming a new political party to rule Libya based on the "moderate" Islamic laws of Turkey and Tunisia.
On Nov. 10 Human Rights Watch releases a
Report on Mexico claiming widespread human rights violations in the war on drugs.
On Nov. 11 (11/11/11) the superstitious hold marriages at 11:11 a.m. all over the world; Egypt closes
the pyramids, claiming that pesky Jews, Freemasons, and numerologists are planning to hold un-Islamic rituals there.
On Nov. 11 (11/11/11) the U.N. Security Council votes on full membership in the U.N. for the Palestinians.
On Nov. 11 (Veteran's Day) The Call,
a 24-hour Christian prayer meeting hosted by Lou Engle is held in Ford Field in Detroit, Mich. despite calls by CAIR to beef up security in Muslim-filled Dearbornistan.
On Nov. 11 Labour Party pres. (since 2003) Michael Daniel Higgins (1941-) becomes pres. #9 of Eire (until ?), going on to
make the first state visit by an Irish pres. to the U.K. in Apr. 2014 and win election to a 2nd term in 2018 by a landslide, with the largest personal mandate in the history of Eire
(822,556 first preference votes).
On Nov. 11 a U.S. federal grand jury indicts suspected al-Qaida member Abdeladim El-Kebir,
AKA Abi al-Barra, who was arrested in Germany in Apr. with conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaida.
On Nov. 11 30K attend an Al-Aqsa Rally
to celebrate the Palestinian POW release.
On Nov. 11 Mexican interior minister Francisco Blake Mora (b. 1966)
is killed in a heli crash near Mexico City.
On Nov. 11 U.S. Sgt. Calvin Gibbs (1985-) is sentenced to life in prison for
encouraging his troops to kill three Afghan civilians; cutting fingers and yanking teeth from corpses to keep as trophies didn't help his case.
On Nov. 11 Niger announces that late Libyan Col. Madman Daffy's son Saadi Gaddafi
is being granted asylum; the other son Saif al-Islam's whereabouts are still unknown.
On Nov. 11 Rabbi Dan Martzbach
is shot and killed by Israeli forces who mistake his vehicle for terrorists; two women are wounded; the Israeli govt. classifies the incident as an act of terror so his family can receive nat. insurance.
On Nov. 11 would-be Muslim robber Jordy is shot dead in Liege, Belgium,
causing Muslims to go on a rampage the same night.
On Nov. 11 Pres. Obama opens
a college basketball game between Mich. State and the U. of N.C. aboard the Osama bin Laden-killing aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson.
On Nov. 11 Hungary reports a higher than usual concentration of iodine-131 prticles in the atmosphere, along with Czech, Poland, Slovakia, and Austria; the source is
Pakistan,
which had a leak at the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant on Oct. 19?
On Nov. 11 Israel announces
that it's rushing the installation of laser anti-missile defenses on its airlines after news of Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb acquiring SAMs from Libya.
On Nov. 11 (12:35 EST) a bullet is fired at the White House, entering a window,
after which Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez
is arrested on Nov. 16 at a hotel in Indiana, Penn.
On Nov. 11 Boko Haram militants storm the town of Damaturu, Yobe, Nigeria,
and destroy 10 churches and kill 150, incl. 130 Christians who wouldn't recite the Islamic shahada statement of belief.
On Nov. 11 the site of a planned mosque in Gretchen, Switzerland
is found to have pig parts and blood in an effort to desecrate the ground and prevent its construction; the Muslims say they will build it anyway.
On Nov. 12 after the Syrian govt. fails to quit oppressing the protesters, an urgent meeting of the
Arab League
called by Qatar to discuss the situation in Syria; it calls on Syria to stop the killing of civilians, and suspends it from the league, causing armed crowds
to storm the Saudi, French, and Turkish consulates in Latakia, Syria;
Pres. Obama congratulates the league; on Nov. 13 Jordan's
King Abdullah
becomes the first Arab leader to call for Bashar al-Assad to step down.
On Nov. 12 an explosion at a weapons factory near
Tehran, Iran
kills 17 and wounds 16, incl. senior weapons industry officer
Hassan Tehrani Moqaddam.
On Nov. 12 Pres. Obama's chief Middle East adviser
Dennis Ross
resigns after working for five U.S. presidents.
On Nov. 12 a suicide bomber attack in
Taraz, S Kazakhstan
kills five.
On Nov. 12 the govt. of
Bahrain
claims that Iranian-linked terror cells linked with the Rev. Guard
planned attacks against the Saudi embassy and a Gulf causeway linking
Bahrain with Saudi Arabia.
On Nov. 12
Ahmed Rezaie (b. 1980),
son of high-ranking Iranian official Mohsen Rezaie is found dead in Gloria Hotel in Dubai.
On Nov. 12 the Salafist jihadist Web site Minbar Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad pub. a
fatwa
by Sheikh Abu Mundhir Al-Shinqiti allowing mujahideen to join rebel forces
in Arab countries, and encourages them to form their own forces.
On Nov. 12 the
Asian
Human Rights Commission (AHRC) condemns forced conversions of young Pakistani
Hindu women to Islam, saying that such a "malicious campaign is in full swing" there.
On Nov. 12-21 Pres. Obama goes on an
Asian Tour,
starting with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in
Honolulu, where he pokes fun at Birthers, and
announces
that China and Russia are united with the U.S. on the need to prevent Iran from getting nukes; on
Nov. 18 he attends an
East Asian Summit
in Bali, Indonesia; on Nov. 19 Obama has a surprise meeting with Chinese PM
Wen Jiabao,
confronting him with China's claims to the South China Sea.
On Nov. 13 the TLC show
All-American Muslim
debuts (until), attempting to whitewash them as just plain average boring Am. Joes
who happen to dress funny.
On Nov. 14 the govt. of Yemen
announces
the release of three French aid workers held hostage by al-Qaida for 6 mo.
after help from the sultan of Oman.
On Nov. 14 the EU decides to impose additional sanctions on
18 Syrians
connected with repression in Syria.
On Nov. 15 the Israeli Knesset
approves
two new bills that critics say threaten the independence of the supreme court.
On Nov. 15 the Iranian govt. disses a claim by the Iranian Christian news agency
Mohabat News
that young Iranians are converting to Christianity, with the soundbyte: "While Western media keep reporting that people in Europe and America are
converting to Islam, the agents of Western political cliques claim that Iranian youth show a sincere interest in Christianity. These claims are
being made to cover up the fact that Western people are coming towards Islam."
On Nov. 16 the U.S. nat. debt
reaches $15T.
On Nov. 16 Pres. announces a new security agreement with
Australia
to counter the growing aggressiveness of China, which Obama says the U.S. doesn't fear, starting by setting up a Marine base with 2.5K Marines.
On Nov. 16 a bomb explodes at the Queen Elissa Hotel
in Tyre, Lebanon, which is frequented by U.N. staffers; no casualties.
On Nov. 16 Syrian army defectors attack military and intel bases near
Damascus.
On Nov. 16 a Loya Jirga
(assembly of elders) called by Hamid Karzi to discuss the Afgan-U.S. Strategic Partnership Agreement is rejected by the Ittehad-e-Ulema
Afghanistan alliance of orthodox clerics, who call for jihad against the U.S. and its allies, and urges other Muslim clerics to issue fatwas for jihad.
On Nov. 16 Tex. Muslim Barry Walter Bujol Jr. (1981-)
is convicted of attempting to provide material support to Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
On Nov. 16 Benetton clothing co. in Italy starts an ad campaign featuring a
PhotoShopped photo
of Pope Benedict VI kissing Egyptian #1 imam Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayed, pissing-off the Vatican and causing them to threaten legal action.
On Nov. 16 protesters storm the Kuwaiti Parliament during a debate on corruption.
On Nov. 17 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan utters the soundbyte
that the world must "hear screams" from Syria and do something to stop the bloodshed.
On Nov. 17 the long-banned
2012 Chinese Year: Dragon (Jan. 23). Doomsday Clock: 5 min. to midnight. Time Mag. Person of the Year: Barack Obama (1961-) (first time 2008). The Alan Turing Year in the computer world (born June 23, 1912). U.S. foreign aid: two-thirds goes to Muslim nations, of which half goes to Arab nations. Facebook hits 1B users on ? Asian pop. in U.S.: 18.9M (2.9%); Hispanic pop.: 53M (2.2% increase). Oil production in Iraq reaches 3M barrels/day for the first time since 1990, reaching 3.4M barrels by the end of the year, becoming the world's #3 oil exporter, on a course to pass Saudi Arabia. The U.S. exports $110B worth of goods to China, which exports $425B to the U.S., becoming the largest trade deficit one nation has with another so far in history (until ?). The U.S. Border Patrol makes 356,873 arrests, up 9% from 2011 (327,577). World poverty fell by 50% since 2000. The obesity rate in Mexico is 32%, vs. 9.5% in 1988, with 70% of the pop. overweight. Abortions in New York City: 42.4% black (31,328, vs. 24,758 black babies born). Attacks by Afghan insiders on U.S. and NATO troops: 47, killing 61 (vs. 20 in 2011). 30K+ elephants are killed in Africa, mainly by Al-Shabaab. The city of Manama, Bahrain is declared the capital of Arab culture by the Arab League. The 2012-14 North Am. Drought is an expansion of the 2010-2012 Southern U.S. Drought; the Calif. drought is the worst in 1.2K+ years. On Jan. 1 (Sun.) a 7.0 earthquake hits Honshu, Japan; the Fukushima Daichi Power Plant isn't affected. On Jan. 1 a new gay history law (SB48) takes effect in Calif., along with a law giving financial aid to illegal immigrant college students. On Jan. 1 new French citizenship law stiffens the reqts. On Jan. 1 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announces the building of a new security fence along the border with Jordan to go with the one along the Egyptian border. On Jan. 1 a string of arson attacks on a mosque, Hindu temple, and Muslim-owned convenience store in Queens, N.Y. by Ray Lazier Lengend, who later tells police that he wanted to take out "as many Muslims and Arabs as possible" pisses-off Muslims and PC police, who forget about everything but the mosque, which he attacked for not letting him use the bathroom. On Jan. 1 Muslims in Dushanbe, Tajikistan shouting "infidel" murder Parvis Davlatbekov for walking around in a Santa Claus suit. On Jan. 1 the "majoritarian" right wing Fidesz Party 2012 Hungarian Constitution goes into effect, banning same-sex marriage and discriminating against all but mainline Roman Catholicism; on Jan. 2 tens of thousands demonstrate against it in Budapest, Hungary. On Jan. 2 the U.S. announces a $3.5B missile defense equipment sale to UAE. On Jan. 2 Gazan Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh visits Turkey and "salutes the martyrs and families of the liberty ship Mavi Marmara"; on Jan. 5 he visits Tunisia, and is greeted by Islamist throngs in Tunis, telling them "We shall not relinquish Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River", to which they chant "Killing the Jew is a duty", causing Ghannouchi to later apologize. On Jan. 2 the 2012 Rose Bowl sees the Oregon Ducks defeat the Wisc. Badgers 45-38, becoming their first win in 95 years; the Rose Parade ends with 5K Occupy protesters escorting it. On Jan. 3 the 2012 Iowa Repub. Caucus is a narrow 8-vote V (30,015 votes to 30,007) for Mitt Romney over formerly last-place Rick Santorum, with Ron Paul #3, Newt Gingrich #4, and Rick Perry #5; Michele Bachmann comes in #6 (last) and drops out of the race; on Jan. 19 the final vote count puts Santorum ahead of Romney by 34 votes (29,839 vs. 29,805), with the results from eight precincts missing. On Jan. 3 Israeli negotiator Yitzhak Molcho and and Palestinian Authority negotiator Saeb Erekat meet in Amman, Jordan for the two parties' first direct talks in over a year; the Palestinians start out by handing their borders and security positions to the Israelis; meanwhile Iranian pres. Madman Inastraightjacket utters the soundbyte that "Israeli attempts to Judaize Jerusalem will bring about its end", calling their occupation of "Palestinian land" "the most important topic in the world". On Jan. 4 the Obama admin. agrees to release Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay in return for the Taliban's agreement to set up a negotiation office in Gutter, er, Qatar; too bad, they release Ibrahim al Qosi, who becomes a top cmdr. of AQAP. On Jan. 4 the Obama admin. announces the creation of the U.S. Bureau of Counterterrorism, focusing on foreign terrorists; on Jan. 5 Pres. Obama personally unveils at the Pentagon the 2012 defense strategic review titled Sustaining United States Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defined, presenting a new defense strategy that places more emphasis on military capabilities in Asia and the Pacific, and no surprise, less on the Muslim World, incl. the largest defense cuts since the end of the Cold War so that the military won't be able to carry out any more large land wars without using reserves, on the shaky assumption that it can rebuilt fast enough if it needs to. On Jan. 4 Pres. Obama uses the Senate recess to appoint Jay Carney and two other Dems. to govt positions; too bad, the Senate isn't officially in recess. On Jan. 4 a prison fight in Altamira Prison in Ciudad Victoria, Mexico kills 31. On Jan. 4 a bus slips off an icy bridge in Guizhou Province, China, killing 18 and injuring 37 of 57 aboard. On Jan. 4 Chinese pres. Hu Jintao pub. an article complaining that Red China and the West are engaged in an escalating culture war, containing the soundbyte: "We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of westernizing and dividing China." On Jan. 5 a wave of bombings in Shiite areas of Baghdad, Iraq kill 73 and wound scorses, incl. 44 killed and 81 wounded at a police checkpoint W of Nassiriya. On Jan. 5 Turkey arrests retired Gen. Ilker Basbug, former army CIC (until 2010) for plotting against the AKP govt.; he joins 300 other military officers and 98 journalists in jail. On Jan. 5 U.S. State Dept. spokesman Victoria Nuland announces that the U.S. trusts the good intentions of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, saying that statements by deputy leader Rashad Bayoumi that the Camp David Accord with Israel isn't binding and that the Muslim Brotherhood won't recognize Israel under any circumstances can be discarded because he's only one member; on Jan. 18 U.S. ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson meets with Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Mohammed Badie to congratulate him for their victory in the parliamentary elections, and after he tells her that Sharia "ensures personal freedoms for all", she apologizes for past U.S. mistakes and promises that the U.S. will "learn from them to avoid their recurrence in the future." On Jan. 6 a suicide attack on a bus carrying police in Damascus, Syria kills 25. On Jan. 7 Coptic Christians in Egypt celebrate Christmas amid reps. of the unfriendly Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), with Pope Shenouda III appealing for nat. unity with the soundbyte: "For the first time in the history of the cathedral, it is packed with all types of Islamist leaders in Egypt. They all agree... on the stability of this country, and in loving it and working for it, and to work with the Copts as one hand for the sake of Egypt." On Jan. 7 exiled Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf, who has announced plans to return to Pakistan despite threats of prosecution utters the soundbytes that Israel "is not going away", and "There is nothing to lose by trying to get on Israel's good side." On Jan. 7 Kenyan troops in Somalia fighting al-Shabaab officially become part of the African Union Somalia Peacekeeping Force, replacing Ethopian forces. On Jan. 7 U.S. forces rescue 13 Iranian fishermen kidnapped by pirates; on Jan. 10 they rescue six more off Iraq. On Jan. 7 the Miss Calif. USA Pageant, run by Donald Trump is won by Natalie Pack; it features the first two openly lesbian contestants, Jenelle Hutcherson (26), and Mollie Thomas (19). On Jan. 7-8 Mahmoud Abbas visits Uganda. On Jan. 8 Iran announces its 2nd uranium enrichment site, the Fordo Plant near Qum, buried deep underground; U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta says that Iran hasn't decided to build a nuclear bomb yet, and calls for continuing pressure to make sure they don't, warning against a strike by Israel, which could trigger Iranian retaliation against the U.S. On Jan. 8 a gunman in an Afghan army uniform opens fire on a group of Americans in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, killing one soldier and wounding another. On Jan. 8 Russian troops and Islamists clash in Chechnya, killing four soldiers and four militants. On Jan. 8 Ala. Muslim convert Luis Ibarra-Hernandez (1990-) is arrested after he shoots out windows of businesses in Alabama City in order to lure police into a shootout to draw attention to himself and Islam. On Jan. 9 the U.S. debt of $15.23T becomes as big as the entire U.S. economy ($15.17T). On Jan. 9 3M Roman Catholics hold their annual day-long procession in Manila, Philippines despite a pres. warning that Muslim terrorists might be targeting it; meanwhile Pope Benedict XVI delivers his 2012 State of the World Address, claiming that same-sex marriage undermines the family, and "threatens human dignity and the future of humanity itself". On Jan. 9 Kosovo-born Fla. Islamist Sami Osmakac (1986-) is charged with plotting to go on jihad in Tampa Bay; he had posted on YouTube under the alias Abdul Samia, promising that Muslims will work to "fight the Christians, to close down the churches, to divide, to destroy, take down the cross, to kill all the swine"; meanwhile Muslim convert and ex-U.S. Army soldier Craig Baxam of Md. is charged with attempting to join al-Shabaab in Somalia; he utters the soundbyte: "We all have to die, so why not die the Islamic way?" On Jan. 9 Israel passes a new Law to Prevent Infiltration, providing up to three years in jail without trial for illegal immigrants or those helping them after they enter. On Jan. 9 an Afghan soldier fires a U.S. military personnel playing volleyball in Qalat, S Afghanistan, killing one and wounding three before being killed. On Jan. 9 (eve.) three car bombs in Baghdad, Iraq aimed at Shiites kill 17+; on Jan. 12 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan warns Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki that this actions in removing Sunnis from the govt. are retreating Iraq from democracy; on Jan. 14 al-Maliki criticizes Turkey for its "surprise interference" in its internal affairs. On Jan. 9 a U.S. News and World Report Poll finds that Americans fear Pres. Obama's election by 2-1 (33% to 16%). On Jan. 9-14 Iranian pres. Madman Inastraightjacket visits Latin Am., incl. leftist Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Ecuador, and Guatemala; on Jan. 10 he jokes with Hugo Chavez "That hill will open up and a big atomic bomb will come out"; on Jan. 12 he attends the inaguration of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. On Jan. 10 Scotland is granted the right to vote on independence by Britain; too bad, Scottish Nat. Party head Alex Salmond wants to delay the vote for several years. On Jan. 10 Syrian dictator-pres. Bashed Head, er, Bashar Assad gives his first speech since June, refusing to step down and blaming foreigners for the unrest, vowing to use an "iron hand" against them; meanwhile Turkey intercepts a suspected military shipment to Syria. On Jan. 10 a car bomb in a market in Jamrud, Paksitan kills 35 and wounds 69. On Jan. 10 the 2012 N.H. Repub. Pres. Primary is a V for Mitt Romney, with Ron Paul #2, and Jon Huntsman #3. On Jan. 10 Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan is killed in a car bomb attack in Tehran, becoming the 4th in the last two years; the Iranians send a letter to the U.S. and U.K. claiming to have evidence that it was done by the Mossad in league with the CIA and MI6. On Jan. 10 former U.S. Marine Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, who worked on the reality-based war game "Assault on Iran" by Kuma Games and was arrested last Aug. is convicted of spying in Iran, and sentenced to death. On Jan. 11 a 7.6 earthquake in Sumatra, Indonesia near Padang in West Sumatra kills 1.1K+. On Jan. 11 tens of thousands demonstrate in Nigeria over a doubling of gas prices. On Jan. 11 U.S. deputy secy. of state William Burns becomes the highest U.S. official to meet with the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, with political arm head Mohamed Morsi (1951-2019) "hailing" its new ties with the U.S., saying that relations between the U.S. and Egypt "must be balanced", that past U.S. support of Israel has been "biased and not in its interest", because the U.S. should adopt "a positive position concerning Arab and Muslim causes"; meanwhile former U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter says that he's pleased with the Egyptian elections, and that he and George Soros, er, the U.S. govt. have "no problem" with Islamists coming to power, and on Jan. 12 meets with Morsi in Cairo. On Jan. 11 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 9-0 in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that churches have the right to make employment decisions free from govt. interference over discrimination laws with the "ministerial exception", handing the Obama admin. a big D. On Jan. 11 the first U.S. drone strike since the Nov. snafu kills four Islamist militants in North Waziristan, Pakistan. On Jan. 11 the govt. of Tajikisan announces that it has clamped down on the Islamist Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), arresting 200 and convicting 168. On Jan. 11 (Joan of Arc Day) French Green Party pres. candidate Eva Joly calls for France to honor Muslim and Jewish festivals, not just Christian ones. On Jan. 11 the city council of Los Angeles, Calif. passes a law making it mandatory for porno actors to wear condoms. On Jan. 12 AP reveals that the U.S. has created a $5M Pakistan Counter-Extremism Unit running out of its embassy. On Jan. 12 Pakistani PM Yusuf Raza Gilani fires defense chief lt. gen. Naeem Khalid Lodhi after first criticizing army chief (since Nov. 29, 2007) Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and ISI chief (since Oct. 2008) Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, causing fears of a military coup; on Jan. 25 Gilani and Kayani announce that they've reconciled. On Jan. 12 Pissgate (Abu Ghraib II) (Abu Piss?) sees a video circulating on the Internet showing four U.S. Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, pissing-off Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai and bringing out the PC police, causing Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James F. Amos to appoint a 3-star gen. to investigate after Pres. Obama spokesmen Leon Panetta, Hillary Clinton et al. condemn it; the Marines are identified and prosecuted; meanwhile there is a groundswell of support for them since Talibanis are barbarians who do far worse to their enemies, incl. splashing acid in their faces - I thought Obama said that Talibanis are not true Muslims because they pervert the religion? On Jan. 12 the Iraeli supreme court by 6-5 upholds a law banning Palestinians married to Israelis from living in Israel, with judge Asher Grunis uttering the soundbyte "Human rights are not a prescription for national suicide." On Jan. 12 a U.S. drone strike in Dogga, North Waziristan (near Miramsham) kills six militants. On Jan. 13 after sweeping political and economic changes, and a cease-fire with ethnic rebels, Myanmar (Burma) frees hundreds of its most famous political inmates to court the West to lift sanctions, and on Jan. 13 the U.S. restores full diplomatic relations. On Jan. 13 after they tell him that he's not welcome to visit Lebanon because of support for Israel, U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon demands the disarmament of Hezbollah. On Jan. 13 the giant Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia carrying 4.2K hits a reef off Isola del Giglio (Goat Island), Tuscany near the Italian coast, killing 32 of 4,252 passengers and 1,023 crew, with 200 initially trapped onboard; ship capt. Francesco Schettino is arrested for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning ship. On Jan. 13 Swedish-Lebanese suspected Hezbollah member Atris Hussein is arrested for allegedly targeting Jews and Americans in Bangkok. On Jan. 13 fifteen Turkish academics sign a declaration in Ankara protesting the Info. and Communications Technology Authority (BTK) Act, which is due to be implemented in Aug., which filters out offensive content, incl. words like "sex" and "gay", Darwinian evolution sites, and "separatist propaganda". On Jan. 14 Otto Fernando Perez (Pérez) Molina (1950-) of the Patriotic Party becomes pres. #36 of Guatemala (until Sept. 3, 2015), going on to call for the legalization of drugs. On Jan. 14 a Sunni suicide bomber detonates among a group of Shiite pilgrims near Basra, Iraq, killing 53. On Jan. 14 hundreds of protesters screaming for a Sharia state attack the offices of the home ministry in Jakarta, Indonesia. On Jan. 14-19 Chinese PM Wen Jiabao visits Saudi Arabia (first trip by a Chinese PM in two decades), Qatar (first-ever), and the UAE (first-ever); on Jan. 15 Jiabao meets with Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, secy.-gen. of the Org. of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), announcing an agreement on strategic relations between China and the Muslim World; China is thinking of ending its long relationship with Iran and getting a new oil source? On Jan. 14 Palestinians for Dignity becomes the first group of Palestinians to protest in front of the Palestinian Authority compound Al-Muqata'a, saying that they are tired of the farcical "negotiations about negotiations" in Amman. On Jan. 15 Sunni suicide bombers in military uniforms attack a mainly Shiite police HQ in Ramadi, Iraq, killing 10. On Jan. 15 a remote-controlled bomb blast near a Shiite Muslim procession in Khanpur, Pakistan kills 18 and injures 30. On Jan. 15 al-Qaida militants seize control of Radda, Yemen SE of Sana'a, and raise the al-Qaida flag over the citadel in the name of Ayman al-Zawahiri. On Jan. 15 the Austere Challenge 12 joint U.S.-Israeli war games are called off by Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak for 6 mo., causing speculation of an imminent attack on Iran. On Jan. 15 Pres. Obama attends mosque, er, Zion Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., his 3rd church attendance in 1 mo. On Jan. 15 the 2012 Golden Globes are broadcast from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. by NBC-TV and hosted by Ricky Gervais (3rd straight year); "The Artist" wins three awards, and "The Descendants" wins two awards. On Jan. 16 Saudi Arabia announces that if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz it will make up any oil shortfall by increasing production, causing Iran to reply that they will face "consequences". On Jan. 16 U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-Moon calls on the U.N. Security Council to act with "seriousness" on Syria; meanwhile 11 are killed across Syria, while Bashar Assad offers the protesters amnesty for the 10-mo. uprising if they give up; on Jan. 22 Arab foreign ministers meet to discuss the situation. On Jan. 16 British deputy PM Nick Clegg meets with Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas, and utters the soundbyte that Israeli settlement construction is "vandalism". On Jan. 16 "Arab hackers" take down the Israeli Stock Exchange and El Al Web sites, and promise to bring down more until "Israel apologizes to the people of the Gaza genocide." On Jan. 16 the Research Center for Islamic Legislation and Ethics (CILE) is founded in Qatar, backed by Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi, and headed by Swiss Muslim Tariq Ramadan. On Jan. 16 after Jon Huntsman of Utah drops out and throws his support behind front runner Mitt Romney, the Repub. pres. debate in S.C. sees Newt Gingrich receive three standing ovations (first time since Ronald Reagan in N.H. in 1980); Tex. Gov. Rick Perry calls Turkey a country "ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamic terrorists", calling for it to be kicked out of NATO and foreign aid cut off, causing Turkish ambassador to the U.S. Namik Tan to respond "The Turkey described in the debate simply does not exist"; on Jan. 19 Perry drops out of the race and endorses Newt Gingrich as "a conservative visionary who can transform our country". On Jan. 16 Germany opens its first univ. dept. of Islamic theology; three more are scheduled. On Jan. 17 37 more are killed in Syria by security forces, causing Pres. Obama to call on Pres. Bashar Assad to step down and end the crackdown. On Jan. 17 Iraq accuses Turkey of meddling with Iraqi politics. On Jan. 17 Iraq's Shiite-majority cabinet suspends Sunni Iraqiya bloc ministers after they boycott it to protest the arrest warrant for Sunni vice-pres. Tareq al-Hashemi. On Jan. 17 Pakistan turns down a request by the U.S. to permit special envoy Marc Grossman visit, citing the "prevailing situation" in the nation; meanwhile on Jan. 19 Pakistani PM Yusuf Raza Gilani appears before the Pakistani supreme court to answer contempt of court charges for not pursuing the prosecution of exiled Pervez Musharraf, whom he claims has full immunity so he can't; his hearing is adjourned until Feb. 1. On Jan. 17 Boko Haram militants attack a military checkpoint in Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing two soldiers; four militants are killed. On Jan. 18 the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Protest becomes the largest in Internet history, led by Wikipedia; on Jan. 20 the bill is pulled from the House by sponsor Lamar Smith. On Jan. 18 two Katyusha rockets are fired at the Turkish embassy in Baghdad, Iraq; one hits, causing no injuries. On Jan. 18 Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov warns that a military attack on Iran would cause "extremely grave" consequences and trigger a "chain reaction" that would destabilize the world, while the new sanctions will "stifle" Iran's economy and hurt its people; on Jan. 17 British PM David Cameron accuses Iran of supplying weapons to Syria, saying that intel reports confirm that Hezbollah is involved, with the soundbyte that Iran and Hezbollah are propping up that "wretched tyrant"; meanwhile Russia announces that it is planning Iran war games for Sept. in case of a spillover into the Caucasus. On Jan. 18 Assad forces withdraw from Al-Zabadini 19 mi. from Damascus, giving the rebel Free Syria Army control of some territory for the first time. On Jan. 18 Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak utters the soundbyte that Israel is "very far off" from a decision about attacking Iran over its nukes, saying that he believes that Iran hasn't decided whether to make them yet; on Jan. 18 Iranian MP Ali Motahhari announces that Pres. Obama sent a secret letter to the Iranian govt. saying that any attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz is a red line, meaning war, but that his willingness to negotiate shows that he is afraid of Iran; meanwhile the U.S. disputes a statement by PM Benjamin Netanyahu that current sanctions on Iran are ineffective, saying that they must be imposed gradually, and U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta says that the U.S. military is fully prepared to deal with the Iranian threat. On Jan. 18 Iran arrests prominent woman reformist journalists Marzieh Rasouli, Parastoo Dokouhaki, and Samahoddin Bourghani. On Jan. 18 an Israeli strike against a group of suspected Palestinian militants along the Gaza Border kills two and wounds two, causing Hamas to call them innocent civilians; meanwhile on Jan. 18 Switzerland hosts three spokesmen from Hamas, incl. Musheer Al Masri. On Jan. 18 Bosnian prosecutors halt their investigation into alleged war crimes by Muslims in 1992 that killed 42 and wounded 73, pissing-off Bosnian Serbs. On Jan. 18 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton appoints Muslim-convert basketball star Kareem Abul-Jabbar as a U.S. cultural ambassador; on Jan. 22-28 he meets in Brazil with impoverished youth. On Jan. 18 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-2 in Golan v. Holder that Congress has the power to renew copyrights beyond their expiration dates, throwing the works of Sergei Prokofiev et al. back under copyright. On Jan. 19 Pres. Obama rejects TransCanada's application for the 1.7K mi. Keystone Oil XL Pipeline, blaming the Repub.-controlled Congress for an "abritrary deadline" that didn't give the State Dept. enough time to gather info.; Canada announces that it may turn to China instead. On Jan. 19 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chm. Gen. Martin Demsey visits Israel to discuss concerns over an Israeli attack on Iran. On Jan. 19 Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan establish a trade union over the next four years. On Jan. 19 Eastman Kodak Co. files for bankruptcy after two decades of layoffs and downsizing. On Jan. 19 after the U.S. govt. shuts down the Megaupload.com file sharing Web site, Anonymous stages a denial of service attack on the Web sites of the FBI, U.S. Dept. of Justice, U.S. Copyright Office, Universal Music Group, Warner Music, BMA, and RIAA. On Jan. 19 the U.K. admits to spying on Russia using a fake hollowed-out rock. On Jan. 19 Thailand recognizes a Palestinian state, which Israel calls "diappointing". On Jan. 20 a Taliban-recruited gunman in an Afghan army uniform kills four French soldiers and wounds several others in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan, causing the French to suspend training operations and threaten to leave Afghanistan early; meanwhile on Jan. 19 a U.S. heli crash kills six U.S. Marines; the Afghan military is increasingly showing its contempt for all infidel soldiers? On Jan. 20 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy warns that a military strike on iran could "trigger war and chaos in the Middle East". On Jan. 20 Boko Hara attacks against govt. bldgs. in Kano, N Nigeria kill 143. On Jan. 20 the Obama admin. announces that most health care plans will be required to cover birth control without charging co-pays or deductibles, incl. church hospitals, who must comply by Aug. 1, 2013. On Jan. 21 the 2012 S.C. Repub. Pres. Primary is a V for Newt Gingrich, who attributes to the American people waking up that "they have elites who hav been trying for a half-century to force us to quit being American and become some kind of other system", and calling Obama the "food stamp president", while claiming he will be the "best paycheck president"; Mitt Romney comes in #2 by 12 points. On Jan. 21 (3 p.m. local time) after a fight with Dutch authorities, 16-y.-o. Dutch teen Laura Dekker (1995-) arrives in St. Maarten, completing a 518-day (Aug. 21, 2010) solo sailboat journey, making her the youngest. On Jan. 22 Human Rights Watch exec dir. Kenneth Roth calls for Western countries to overcome anti-Islamist sentiments and respect the people's choice for new Islamist govts. in Egypt, Tunisia, and Morocco. On Jan. 23 after Mohamed ElBaradei withdraws his pres. candidacy on Jan. 14, claiming rigged elections, the new 2012 Egyptian parliament holds its first session; the Muslim Brotherhood alliance has 235 of 498 seats (47%), and the puritanical Salafist Nour Party has 125 (25%); MP Mamduh Ismail keeps adding "and abide by Sharia" to his vow despite repeated orders not to by chmn. Mahmud al-Saqqa. On Jan. 23 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 9-0 in U.S. v. Jones that law enforcement must get a warrant to use GPS devices to track suspects. On Jan. 23 the U.S. charges former CIA officer (1990-2004) and Dem. staffer John Kiriakou (1974-) with repeatedly leaking classified info. to al-Qaida, incl. identities of CIA operatives; he was among the first to leak info. about the CIA's use of waterboarding to the New York Times et al. On Jan. 23 Saudi authorities arrest nine Shiite Saudis suspected of instigating anti-govt. riots in Qatif, E Saudi Arabia. On Jan. 23 the 27-member EU imposes an embargo on Iran, effective in July; on Jan. 25 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket increases bank rates in an attempt to halt inflation caused by the new Western sanctions; on Jan. 26 he announces that he's ready to resume nuclear talks but refuses to drop the uranium enrichment program. On Jan. 23 Saudi Arabia issues its first govt.-backed Islamic bond (sukuk), 15B riyals ($4B). On Jan. 23 the Salafist Islamist group Jabhat al-Nusrah (Jabhat an-Nusra li-Ahl ash-Sham) (Support Front for the People of the Levant) is formed in Syria by Sheikh Abu Muhammad Al-Joulani (Osama Al-'Absi Al-Wahedi) (1981-) becoming al-Qaida's official rep in Syria on Apr. 8, 2013. On Jan. 24 a wave of car bombings in Baghdad, Iraq kills 14 and wounds 70+; this makes 170+ killed since Jan. 1 after U.S. soldiers left on Dec. 18. On Jan. 24 Pres. Obama delivers his 2012 State of the Union Speech, uttering the soundbyte "Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30% in taxes" (an attempt to defeat Repub. pres. candidate Mitt Romney, who revealed he only pays 14%, in advance?); also the soundbytes "We will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits"; "America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal." On Jan. 24 an Al-Shabaab suicide bomber in Beledweyne, Ethiopia hits an Ethiopian troop compound, killing 33. On Jan. 24 Ecuadorian pres. Rafael Correa appoints lesbian activist Carina Vance Mafla as health minister (until ?). On Jan. 24 (midnight) a shooting at the El Ranchon Nightclub in Villa Nueva (near Guatemala City), Guatemala kills eight and wounds 20. On Jan. 24-25 fighting between Shiite Houthi rebels and govt.-backed Sunni Salafi gunmen in Hajjah, NW Yemen kill 46+. On Jan. 25 the 1st anniv. of the 2011 Egyptian Uprising sees more demonstrations in Tahir Square in Alexandria against the military despite a warning by field marshal Hussein Tantawi that it will protect Egypt against "grave dangers"; Islamists and liberals gather on different sides of Tahrir Square. On Jan. 25 a combined Afghan-coalition security force kills several insurgents in Kot District, Faryab Province, Afghanistan during a search for a Taliban leader. On Jan. 25 Osama bin Laden-killing U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 rescues Am. hostage Jessica Buchanan and Danish hostage Poul Hagen Thisted in Adado, Somalia, and kills nine kidnappers. On Jan. 26 a car bomb in Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan targeting NATO aid workers kills three and wounds 31. On Jan. 26 Hamburg, Germany becomes the first German federal state to make an official agreement with Islamic orgs., involving mosque construction, funerals, instruction, and day care center admin. On Jan. 26-27 in Syria security forces kill 120 as Euro and Arab nations call on the U.N. Security Council to pressure Bashar Assad to stand down; on Jan. 27 after the Free Syria Army captures it, massive demonstrations are staged in Saqba (near Damascus). On Jan. 27 leaders of the Arab Spring meet the world's elite in Davos, Switzerland, and assure them that Islamism isn't a threat to democracy, pleading for money to create jobs and elminate hunger. On Jan. 27 former IDF chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi warns that Israel can't afford to cut its defense budget but must prepare for war because of Egypt. On Jan. 27 an al-Qaida suicide car bomber at a Shiite funeral procession in Baghdad, Iraq kills 33 in an effort to provoke a counterattack by Shiite militias on Sunnis. On Jan. 27 an anon. group of members of the Nat. Islamic Front (NIF) in Sudan releases a memo calling for the end of the rule of the Nat. Congress Party (NCP) and the establishment of a secular dem. state. that treats "the principles of freedom and justice as inalienable rights". On Jan. 29 Hamas head Khaled Meshaal visits King Abdullah of Jordan, and utters the soundbyte: "Hamas stands firm against Israel's schemes to turn Jordan into a substitute homeland. Jordan is Jordan and Palestine is Palestine. We insist on restoring Palestinian rights." On Jan. 29 Canadian Muslims Mohammed Shafia (1953-), his 2nd wife Tooba Yahya Shafia (1969-), and their son Hamed Shafia (1990-) are convicted of the honor killing of Mohammed's first wife Rona Mohammed Amir (50), and Tooba's three daughters Zainab (19), Sahar (17), and Geeti (13) for refusing to wear the hijab and preferring Western-style clothing, "dishonoring" and "betraying" both "their family and Islam". On Jan. 30 the EU adopts a ban on Iranian oil, ignoring their threat to close the Strait of Hormuz; the U.S. has banned it since 1979. On Jan. 30 tens of thousands welcome Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Tavoy (Dawei) in her first rally outside Yongon for the Apr. 1 election. On Jan. 30 Afghan authorities announce that after giving birth to a 3rd straight daughter and no sons, an Afghan woman was killed by her husband and mother-in-law a week earlier. On Jan. 31 433 Eros passes the Earth at a distance of 0.179 AU (16.6M mi.). On Jan. 31 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu comfortably wins reelection as head of the Likud Party, defeating Moshe Feiglin. On Jan. 31 China claims that 29 of its citizens were abducted while working on a construction project in Sudan, asking the govt. of South Sudan for help on Feb. 2; they are released on Feb. 7. On Jan. 31 the Arab League calls on the U.N. Security Council to back its proposal for Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad to hand over power to his deputy and announce elections. On Jan. 31 Taliban insurgents attack a Pakistani military outpost in Jogi, Pakistan, with 10 Pakistani soldiers KIA and seven injured. On Jan. 31 six aid workers are kidnapped in Al Mahwit Governate, Yemen; they are released on Feb. 2. On Jan. 31 the IAEA approves nuclear reactor safety checks made by Japan, which approves a bill to put a 40-year cap on the life of nuclear reactors. In Jan. Iran closes down all toy shops selling infidel Barbie Dolls as "symbols of immoral Western culture". In Jan. the U.S. unemployment rate drops to 8.3%, lowest in three years, adding 240K jobs. In Jan. the U.S. begins phasing-out incandescent light bulbs, starting with the 100-watt bulb this year, followed by the 40-watt bulb in 2014; too bad, compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) are labor-intensive to manufacture, causing U.S. plants to shut down and Chinese plants to expand. In Jan. Japan holds $1T in U.S. govt. debt for the first time. In Jan. the secular middle class Yesh Atid Party is founded. On Feb. 1 Facebook files for an IPO. On Feb. 1 Am. Airlines announces a workforce reduction of 13K jobs (15%). On Feb. 1 Queen Elizabeth II revokes the knighthood of former Royal Bank of Scotland CEO Frederick Anderson "Fred" Goodwin (1958-) for the bank's near collapse in 2008. On Feb. 1 a riot after a soccer match between Al-Masry and Al Ahly in Port Said, Egypt kills 79+ and injures 1K+. On Feb. 1 Pakistan jets bomb militant positions in the Orakzai and Kurram Agency areas near the Afghanistan border, killing 31. On Feb. 1 Canadian Muslim Naser Basder al-Raas (1983-) is arrested in Bahrain for attending a rally in the 2011-2 Bahraini Uprising; after the charges are dropped, he is returned to Canada on Feb. 16. On Feb. 1 Nigerian troops arrest Boko Haram leader Abul-Qaqa; on Sept. 18 after being released, he is shot dead by the military during a shootout in the outskirts of Kano. On Feb. 1 25 Chinese cement factory workers held captive in Sinai, Egypt are released one day after being taking hostage by Bedouin tribesmen. On Feb. 1 the Times of London reports that a secret NATO report claims that the Pakistan-backed Taliban is set to regain control over Afghanistan when coalition forces leave. On Feb. 1 the state senate of Wash. state legalizes same-sex marriage, and gov. Christine Gregoire signs it on Feb. 13. On Feb. 2 )a.m.) passenger ferry MV Rabaul Queen sinks off the coast of Finschhafen District, Papua New Guinea; 237 of 558 are rescued. On Feb. 2 a cold spell across Europe kills 110+. On Feb. 2 heavy rains and floods in Australia cause the towns of Bellingen and Moore in New South Wales to be evacuated, the town of Mitchell, Queensland declared a disaster. On Feb. 2 parliamentary elections in Kuwait are a V for the opposition, causing PM Sheikh Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah to resign on Feb. 5. On Feb. 2 4K Mexican troops are sent to Michoacan to quell violence. On Feb. 2 the govt. of Philippines claims to have killed Abu Sayyaf leader Umbra Jumdail, Jemaah Islamiyah leader Zulkifi bin Hir (AKA Marwan) of Malaysia, and Abdullah Ali of Singapore. On Feb. 2 Prince William of England arrives in the Falkland Islands for a tour of duty as an RAF search and rescue pilot. On Feb. 3 Egyptian police kill two Port Said Stadium protesters in Suez; 400 are injured in protests in Cairo; a total of five are killed and 1.7K are injured across Egypt. On Feb. 3 Taliban insurgents attack a Pakistani military outpost in Shidano Dand, Kurram Agency, Pakistan killing seven soldiers and 18 Taliban fighters; four Pakistani soldiers are captured. On Feb. 3 the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims 100+ were killed by shelling in Homs, causing the U.N. Security Security Council on Feb. 4 to vote on an Arab League proposal, which is veoted by China and Russia; meanwhile on Feb. 4 Tunisia withdraws recognition of the Syrian govt., the Arab Parliament calls for Arab countries to do ditto, 12 are arrested at the Syrian embassy in London, and more protests are staged at Syrian embassies in Germany, Australia, Greece, Kuwait, and Egypt. On Feb. 3 Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov orders his fighters to stop attacks on Russian civilians and target only military and security personnel. On Feb. 3 a passenger train derails in Kamrup District, Assam, India, killing three and injuring 50. On Feb. 3 heavy snowfall in E. Colo. causes I-70 to be closed. On Feb. 3 the Nasdaq index reaches its highest level since 2000, while the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. reaches its highest levels (13K) since 2008. On Feb. 3 the Al-Monitor ("The pulse of the Middle East") media Web site is launched via partnership with 17 major new orgs. in the Muslim World. On Feb. 4 protesters against military rule burn the tax authority bldg. in Cairo, Egypt. On Feb. 5 an explosion hits the gas pipeline in Arish, Egypt running between Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. On Feb. 5 an explosion in Kandahar, Afghanistan kills 3+. On Feb. 5 the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta attacks the Eni SpA oil pipeline between Brass, Nigeria and Port Harcourt. On Feb. 5 heavy snow in the U.K. leads to mass cancellation of flights at Hearthrow Airport; meanwhile Bosnia declares a state of emergency due to the cold, and the town of St. George, Queensland, Australia is evacuated due to flooding. On Feb. 5 Josefina Vazquez Mota (191-) of PAN becomes the first woman endorsed as a pres. candidate by a major party in Mexico. On Feb. 5 the Syrian gov. launches a 26-day offensive in rebel-held Bab Amr, Homs (until Mar. 1), causing U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon on Feb. 9 to condemn its "appalling brutality"; on Feb. 11 a draft resolution is circulated at the U.N. by Saudi Arabia calling for an end to the violence; on Feb. 13 U.N. high commissioner for human rights Navanethem Pillay accuses the Syrian govt. of "indiscriminate attack" on civilians; on Feb. 13 the Syrian Free Army repels an attack on Rastan. On Feb. 6 Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Diamond Jubilee (60th anniv.). On Feb. 6 Romanian PM Emil Boc and his entire cabinet resign after major unrest. On Feb. 6 a 6.9 earthquake off the coast of Negros Island in the Philippines kills 13+, with 29 missing. On Feb. 6 a 3-story factory in Lahore, Pakistan collapses after a gas explosion, killing 21 and trapping dozens. On Feb. 6 a 13-passenger passenger van collides with an 18-wheel truck near Hampstead, Ont., Canada, killing 11 incl. the van driver and 10 Peruvian migrant workers. On Feb. 6 Syrian govt. shelling of Homs kills 17+; meanwhile the hacker group Anonymous pub. hundreds of emails from Pres. Bashar al-Assad, the U.S. closes its embassy in Damascus, and the U.K. recalls its ambassador, and Turkish foreign affairs minister Ahmet Davutoglu says that Turkey is "open to all Syrians who want to flee from oppression." On Feb. 6 gunmen kill five refugees from Tawergha, Libya in a camp outside Tripoli. On Feb. 6 a police strike in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil causes 1K army and police to surround the legislative assembly bldg. On Feb. 6 the Wang Lijung Incident sees Chongqing vice-mayor Wang Lijun attempt to defect at the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, leading to the downfall of his up-and-coming boss Bo Xilai (1949-) (Communist Party secy. of Chongqing since Nov. 2007) (son of Communist Party founder Bo Yibo), who is removed as Chongqing party chief in Mar. and suspended from the Politburo in Apr., then expelled from the Communist Party; next Sept. 22 he is found guilty of corruption, stripped of all assets, and sentenced to life in prison. On Feb. 26 the musical drama series Smash debuts on NBC-TV for 32 episodes (until May 26, 2013), based on the 1980 Garson Kanin novel about the creation of a new Broadway musical, starring Debra Messing and Christian Borle as the writing team of Julia Houston and Tom Levitt, who create the new musical "Bombshell" based on the life of Marilyn Monroe; Jack Davenport plays dir. Derek Wills; Katharine McPhee plays lead actress Karen Cartwright; Anjelica Huston plays producer Eileen Rand. On Feb. 7 Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov visits Damascus and meets with Bashar al-Assad, claiming that he commits to end the violence; meanwhile France, Spain, Italy, the Gulf Arab States, and Netherlands recall their ambassadors. On Feb. 7 after weeks of police protests over the arrest of a senior judge by the army, Maldives pres. Mohamed Nasheed resigns at gunpoint, and Mohammed Waheed Hassan Manik (1953-) becomes pres. of Maldives (until ?), while Nasheed supporters riot. On Feb. 7 the U.S. Congress approves legislation allowing expanded drone flights over the U.S., giving the FAA until Sept. 2015 to open up more airspace to them. On Feb. 7 U.N. high commissioner for refugees Adrian Edwards reports that 22K have fled fighting in Mali to neighboring countries; by June 2015 50K flee to SE Mauritania; too bad, after al-Qaida militants seize control of Mali, they impose Sharia, threatening the library of ancient Arabic texts in Timbuktu of Abdel Kader Haidara, who spent 30 years tracking them down and preserving them, causing him to sneak all 350K vols. out of the city to safety in S Mali; religious police chief Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud is later indicted by the Internat. Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity. On Feb. 7 the Iranian parliament summons pres. Imadinnajacket over economic policy, becoming the first since the 1979 Iranian Rev. On Feb. 7 Argentine pres. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announces that Argentina will file a complaint with the U.N. over militarization around the Falkland Islands by the U.K. On Feb. 7 French Socialist opposition MP Serge Letchimy accuses right wing interior minister Claude Gueant of Nazism for his statement "Not all civilizations are of equal value", causing the French cabinet to walk out of the nat. assembly. On Feb. 7 the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals overturns Calif.'s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage. On Feb. 8 the Danube River freezes for over 100 mi., becoming the first freeze in 25 years. On Feb. 8 FBI dir. Robert Mueller has a meeting with Islamic orgs. and assures tham that all "offensive" material has been removed from FBI offices and training courses, incl. 876 pages and 392 presentations that link the Muslim Brotherhood to terrorism, tie al-Qaida to the 1993 WTC and Khobar Towers bombings, and suggest that "young male immigrants of Middle Eastern appearance... may fit the terrorist profile best." On Feb. 8 U.S. drones kill 10 in Spalga, North Waziristan; another five are killed on Feb. 16. On Feb. 8 an al Al-Shabaab bomb near a cafe in Mogadishu, Somalia kills 15+ and injures 20+. On Feb. 9 Canadian PM Stephen Harper visits China, signing $3B in trade agreements. On Feb. 9 the U.S. Defense Dept. issues new guidelines removing restrictions on women in combat near front-line troops in support jobs. On Feb. 10 another strike by tens of thousands in Manama, Bahrain; on Feb. 14 the first anniv. of the uprising. On Feb. 10 protesters march towards the defense ministry in Cairo, Egypt, demanding return of a civilian govt.; on Feb. 11 the first anniv. of the toppling of pres. Hosni Mubarak features a dud turnout by activists. On Feb. 10 an alleged plot by cardinals to assassinate Pope Benedict XVI is alleged in the Italian newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. On Feb. 12 18-y.-o. Tibetan Buddhist nun Tenzin Choedon (b. 1993) immolates herself in Suchian Province, China in protest against Chinese rule; a Tibetan monk does ditto in W China on Feb. 14. On Feb. 12 a plane crash near Bukavu, DRC kills finance minister Matata Ponyo Mapon and a senior aide to pres. Joseph Kabila. On Feb. 12 Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, head of the suspended Arab League's observer mission in Syria resigns. On Feb. 12 Turkmenistani pres. Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow is reelected with 97% of the vote. On Feb. 12 Saudi journalist Hamzar Kashgari is deported from Malaysia for insulting Muhammad in a tweet. On Feb. 12 Walgett, N.S.W., Australia is evacuated due to floods. On Feb. 12 Iran claims that Azerbaijan has been helping Israeli spies; Azerbaijan denies it. On Feb. 12 tribal fighting between the Tobu and Zuwayya tribes begins in Kufra, Libya, killing 100+ by July 1. On Feb. 12 the 54th Annual Grammy Awards in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif. is hosted by LL Cool J (1st time); Adele wins all six of her nominations (most by a female artist in a single night, passing Beyonce), incl. record of the year and song of the year for "Rolling in the Deep", and album of the year for "21"; Foo Fighters wins five awards, and Kanye West four. On Feb. 13 an explosion in an Israeli diplomat's car near the embassy in New Delhi, India injures a woman; explosives are found near the Israeli embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia. On Feb. 13 a 5.5 earthquake near Weitchpec, Calif.. On Feb. 13 Islamic extremist preacher Abu Qatada is reeased from prison in the U.K. per a ruling of the European Court of Human Rights. On Feb. 13 Chinese vice-pres. Xi Jinping meets with Pres. Obama in the White House. On Feb. 13 the senate of N.J. legalizes same-sex marriages by a 24-16 vote. On Feb. 13 ITV1 airs the first-ever British advertisement aimed specifically at dogs, featuring high-pitched sounds and satirizing the 1969 film "The Italian Job". On Feb. 13-14 thousands protest against the govt. in Manama, Bahrain; meanwhile three U.S. senators and 18 reps. (all Dems.) send a letter to secy. of state Hillary Clinton protesting an Obama admin. decision to sell arms to Bahrain. On Feb. 14 Anonymous hacks U.S. tear gas co. Combined Systems Inc. of Jamestown, Penn. for supplying tear gas to regimes fighting Middle East protesters. On Feb. 14 activist actor Sean Penn meets with Argentine pres. Cristina Fernandez de Kircher, urging Britain to end its "archaic commitment to colonialist ideology". On Feb. 14 Ugandan minister for ethics and integrity Simon Lokodo raids a workshop for gay activists and attempts to arrest organizer Kasha Jacqueline Nabagesera; meanwhile an anti-gay bill in the parliament attempts to increase penalties for homosexual acts from 14 years to life. On Feb. 15 OIC secy.-gen. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu calls for the internat. community to rule out military invervention in Syria. On Feb. 15 a fire at a prison in Comayagua, Honduras kills 358. On Feb. 16 the Syrian army attacks Free Syrian Army positions in Deraa. On Feb. 16 Boko Haram attacks a prison in Kogi State, Nigeria, freeing 119 inmates. On Feb. 16 a head bus collision in Bauchi, Nigeria kills 32. On Feb. 16 underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is sentenced to life in prison. On Feb. 17 Moroccan imam Amine El Khalifi is arrested on attempted terrorism charges. On Feb. 17 thieves break into the Archeological Museum of Olympia in Greece, stealing 60+ artifacts from the ancient Olympic Games. On Feb. 17 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. closes at 12,950, highest since May 2008. On Feb. 18 a funeral procession in Damascus, Syria for those killed in protests is fired on by security forces; meanwhile China urges all sides to end the violence. On Feb. 18 75% of voters in Latvia reject a constitutional referendum to make Russian the 2nd official language. On Feb. 18 an anti-govt. protest in Dakar, Senegal ends in violence, with the mayor's office burned down. On Feb. 18 a bus crash in Yuannan Province, China kills 9+ and inures 24. On Feb. 18-20 Chinese vice-pres. Xi Jinping visits Ireland, signing trade pacts. On Feb. 19 Iran suspends all oil exports to Britain and France, causing the price of oil to reach an 8-mo. high on Feb. 20. On Feb. 19 hundreds of cars circle Moscow to demand free elections. On Feb. 19 a prison brawl in Apodaca, Nuevo Leon, Mexico kills 44+, causing public safety secy. gen. Jaime Castaneda to be fired on Feb. 24. On Feb. 19 a bomb near the Christ Embassy Church in Suleja, Nigeria near Lagos injures five. On Feb. 19 a suicide bomber outside a police academy in NE Baghdad, Iraq kills 19+ officers and injures 26, becoming the deadliest since Jan. 27. On Feb. 19 two gas explosions in a nightclub in Sighetu Marmatiei, Romania injure 17. On Feb. 19 a bus carrying school children home from a ski trip in Italy crashes near Chalons-en-Champagne, France, killing a teacher and injuring 20+. On Feb. 19 (noon) an avalanche near Stevens Pass, Wash. kills three expert skiers. On Feb. 20 an Islamic attack in Maiduguri, Nigeria kills 30+. On Feb. 21 Eurozone finance ministers agree to a 2nd bailout of Greece at 130B euros. On Feb. 21 Tell Mama (Measuring Muslim Attacks) U.K. is founded to record anti-Muslim attacks. On Feb. 22 U.S. soldiers burn Islamic religious materials at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan, causing protests, causing U.S. Gen. John R. Allen to launch in inquiry, which only makes them madder, with protests continuing until Feb. 27; on Feb. 22 the U.S. embassy in Kabul goes into lockdown; on Feb. 24 11+ are killed in more protests; on Feb. 25 two senior U.S. NATO officers are killed in the ministry of interior bldg. in Kabul, while four more are killed in protests in Kunduz; on Feb. 27 a suicide car bomber at Jalalabad Airport kills nine; on Mar. 2 the investigation reports that five U.S. service personnel were involved in an accidental Quran burning. On Feb. 21 a blast at a steel plant in Liaoning, China kills 13 and injures 17. On Feb. 21-22 a riot at Kerobakan Prison in Bali, Indonesia ends with two prisoners injured. On Feb. 22 Australian foreign minister Kevin Rudd resigns after attacks on his credibility. On Feb. 22 U.S. journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik are killed in Homs, Syria; meanwhile Syrian army shelling intensifies in rebel-held Baba Amr District. On Feb. 22 Operation Linda Nchi (begun Oct. 16, 2011) captures the the al-Shabaab base inBaidoa, Somalia. On Feb. 22 a train crash in Buenos Aires, Argentina kills 50+ and injures 600+, becoming the worst in Argentina in 40 years. On Feb. 24 the 70-nation Friends of Syria hold their first meeting in Tunisia; on Apr. 1 they hold meeting #2 in Istanbul; on July 6 100+ nations attend meeting #3 in Paris; on Dec. 12 114 nations attend meeting #4 in Marrakesh; next Feb. 28 11 nations attend meeting #5 in Rome; next Apr. 20 11 nations attend meeting #6 in Istanbul; on Apr. 21 they hold meeting #7 in ?. On Feb. 24 a Palestinian man is shot and killed during clashes at an Israeli checkpoint near Ramallah, West Bank. On Feb. 24 a Taliban Abdullah Azzam Brigade suicide team attacks a police station in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing four officers. On Feb. 25 an al-Qaida suicide bombing in Mukalla, Yemen kills 26+. On Feb. 25 1K+ protest in Tel Aviv, Israel over a proposed plan to deport hundreds of migrant workers. On Feb. 25 Pakistani authorities demolish Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. On Feb. 26 Am. neighborhood watch coordinator George Michael Zimmerman (1983-) fatally shoots 17-y.-o. Trayvon Martin (b. 1995) in Sanford, Fla., and is not charged after alleging self-defense under the Fla. Stand your Ground Law; after the PC police move in, he is charged on Apr. 11 with 2nd deg. murder, and acquitted on July 13, 2013. On Feb. 26 a suicide bomber in Jos, Nigeria kills 2+. On Feb. 26 the Rev. Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announces that it will give up kidnapping and release its remaining captives, which it does on Apr. 2. On Feb. 26 voters go to the polls to vote on a referendum for a new constitution. On Feb. 26 China lifts On Feb. 26, 2012 the 84th Academy Awards, presented at the Hollywood and Highland Center Theatre (formerly the Kodak Center), hosted by Billy Crystal (9th time) awards the best picture Oscar for 2011 to The Artist, along with best dir. to Michel Hazanavicius and best actor to Jean Dujardin; best actress goes to Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady; best supporting actor goes to Christopher Plummer for The Beginners, and best supporting actress to Octavia Spencer for The Help; best original screenplay goes to Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris; Rango wins for best animated feature; A Separation wins best foreign language film; Man or Muppet from The Muppets, sung by Bret McKenzie wins best original song. On Feb. 27 after continued protests, Ali Abdullah Saleh is succeeded by his vice-pres. Abd Rabbur Mansur Al-Hadi (1945-) as pres. #2 of Yemen (until ?). On Feb. 27 Russian and Ukrainian authorities announce the foiling of an alleged plot to assassinate Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. On Feb. 27 a shooting at Chardon H.S. in Ohio kills three students and injures two. On Feb. 27 9-story apt. bldg. in Astrakhan, Russia collapses after a natural gas explosion, killing 12+. On Feb. 27 WikiLeaks leaks 5M emails from the private intel co. Stratfor. On Feb. 28 the U.N. announces the death toll in Syria as 7.5K. On Feb. 28 non-military leaders of Hamas flee Syria for Egypt and Qatar. On Feb. 28 gunmen fire on a passenger bus in Kohistan, Pakistan, killing 18. On Feb. 28-29 the 2012 Leap Day Tornado Outbreak in the Ohio Valley and Central Plains kills 15 and does $475M damage. On Feb. 29 separatist riots in Xingjiang, China kill 20. In Feb. U.N. Jerusalem official Kulhood Badawi releases a photo on Twitter claiming to be of a dead Palestinian girl killed by the IDF during its shelling of Gaza, which proves to really be from 2006, causing the U.N. to let him go in Feb. 2013. In Feb. African-Am. economist William A. "Sandy" Darity Jr. (1952-) of Duke U. (critic of Pres. Obama for being too pro-private sector) calls for the creation of a Nat. Investment Employment Corps that would guarantee all U.S. citizens over the age of 18 a job at a min. salary of $20K plus $10K in benefits incl. medical coverage and retirement savings. In Feb. 18-y.-o. Welsh-born British chef Luke Thomas (1993-) becomes the youngest head chef in the U.K., taking over Sanctum on the Green in Cookham, which is filmed by the BBC for Britain's Youngest Chef. On Mar. 1 jet strikes kill 18 militants in Orakzai Agency, Pakistan. On Mar. 1 after 26 days (Feb. 5) the Syrian army takes Bab Amr, Homs from the rebels; the U.N. Security Council demands immediate access for its humanitarian chief Valerie Amos to inspect the area; on Mar. 2 the Red Cross is denied access. On Mar. 1 a remote-controlled bomb on a police bus in Istanbul, Turkey injures 16. On Mar. 1 heavy rains and flooding in N.S.W. and Victoria, Australia cause the towns of Cooma, Goulburn, Queanbeyan, and Tallygaroopna to be evacuated. On Mar. 1 Sauli Vaiknamo Niinisto (Niinistö) (1948-) becomes pres. #12 of Finland (until ?), becoming Finland's first conservative pres. since Juho Paasikivi in 1956. On Mar. 1 the EU economic summit reappoints Herman Van Rompuy as Euro Council pres., and nominates Serbia for EU membership; on Mar. 2 25 of 27 EU members (excl. U.K. and Czech.) sign a new fiscal compact. On Mar. 1 Md. gov. Martin O'Malley signs a law legalizing same-sex marriage in Md. On Mar. 1-27 the Mar. 2012 North Am. Heat Wave sees 7K+ daily temperature records tied or broken, with Chicago, Ill. reching 80F+ every day between Mar. 14-18; S Canada also sees record-breaking high temps. On Mar. 2 parliamentary elections in Iran. On Mar. 2 a battle between the Pakistan army and Islamic militants in the Tirah Valley in Bara, Khyber, NW Pakistan kills 33+, resulting in a push. On Mar. 2 the Russian army kills two Islamic militants in Mutsalaul, Dagestan. On Mar. 2 NASA admits that it was hacked 13x last year. On Mar. 2 a stand collapses in Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm, Sweden during an Avicii concert, injuring 30. On Mar. 3 a suicide bomber in Deraa, Syria kills 2+ and injures several. On Mar. 3 a bomb at the Repub. Guard bldg. in Badya, Yemen kills 3+. On Mar. 3 two trains collide head-on in Szczekociny, Poland (near Zawiercie), killing 16 and injuring 58. On Mar. 3 a truck carrying people to a weekly market crashes in E Guinea, killing 50 and injuring 27. On Mar. 3 authorities in Tajikistan close Facebook and other Web sites containing material critical of pres. Emomali Rakhomon. On Mar. 4 a series of explosions at a munitions dump in Brazzaville, Congo kill 250+. On Mar. 4 elections in Russia reelect PM Vladimir Putin as pres. for a 3rd term; fraud is alleged, and dozens of protesters are arrested in Moscow. On Mar. 5 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Pres. Obama in the White House, telling him: "My supreme reponsibility as prime minister of Israel is to ensure that Israel remains the master of its fate", and calling a nuclear Iran "unacceptable". On Mar. 5 Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon asks U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden to help stop the flow of money and weapons into Mexico. On Mar. 5 gunmen disguised as police in Haditha, Iraq kill 27 security personnel. On Mar. 5 an explosion in N Mogadishu, Somalia kills an African Union soldier from Burundi. On Mar. 5 a shooting in a hair salon in Bucharest, Romania kills two and injures six. On Mar. 6 Super Tues. sees voters in 10 U.S. states go to the polls. On Mar. 6 oil-rich Cyrenica (E Libya) announces a bid for semi-autonomy, with Ahmed al-Senussi, relative of ex-king Idris as leader of the Cyrenaica Transitional Council. On Mar. 6 French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy announces a plan to cut French immigration by almost half, saying that France has too many foreigners, and that the system for integrating them is "working worse and worse". On Mar. 6 the European Commission withdraws a video promoting EU enlargement after it accused of being racist. On Mar. 6 authorities in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland arrest six senior members of the Lulz Sec hacking group, incl. FBI member Sabu (Hector Xavier Monsegur). On Mar. 6 fired employee Shane Schumerth kills headmistress Dale Regan of the Episcopal High School in Jacksonville, Fla., then kills himself. On Mar. 6 Saudi diplomat Khalaf Al Ali (b. 1967) is killed in Dhaka, Bangladesh. On Mar. 6 Iran promise to permit IAEA inspectors access to its Parchin military complex. On Mar. 6 Lehman Brothers emerges from bankruptcy. On Mar. 6 Turkish Airlines begins regular service to Somalia, the first outside the region in 20 years. On Mar. 6 9K residents of Wagga Wagga, N.S.W., Australia are evacuated as the Murrumbidgee River floods. On Mar. 6 a 5.2 earthquake near Masbate City, Philippines. On Mar. 6 the biggest solar flare in five years leaves the Sun, hitting Earth on Mar. 8. On Mar. 7 the widow of an Islamic militant detonates in Karabudakhykent, Dagestan, Russia (25 mi. S of Makhachkala), killing five policemen. On Mar. 8 Syrian deputy oil minister Abdo Hussameddin resigns and joins the opposition. On Mar. 8 a gunman at the U. of Penn. Medical Center in Pittsburgh kills one and injures seven before killing himself. On Mar. 9 another anti-govt. protest by tens of thousands in Manama, Bahrain. On Mar. 9 Popular Resistance Committees secy.-gen. Zohair al-Qaisi and two others are assassinated in Gaza by the Israeli air force. On Mar. 9 a fire at a hotel in Bangkok, Thailand kills one and injures 21. On Mar. 10 parliamentary elections in Slovakia are a V for the leftist opposition Direction-Social Dem. (Smer-SD) Party over the ruling Christian Union-Dem. Party coalition. On Mar. 10 130+ Qassam rockets are fired from Gaza into Israel; 12 Palestinian militants are killed; on Mar. 11/12 (night) 31 more rockets are fired into Ashdod and Gedera, while Israeli reprisals kill five. On Mar. 10 18-25 al-Qaida militants are killed in air raids in Bayda, Yemen. On Mar. 10 a grenade attack by al-Shabaab in Nairobi, Kenya kills 6+ and injures 60+. On Mar. 10 a fire in Lima, Peru destroys 500K school textbooks and 60K laptop computers; meanwhile hundreds of nude cyclists protest unsafe road conditions. On Mar. 11 the Kandahar Massacre sees amok U.S. soldier Staff Sgt. Robert Bales kill 16 civilians incl. nine children in Panjawi District, Afghanistan near Kandahar, causing the Taliban to vow revenge, followed by student protests on Mar. 13; on Mar. 13 Taliban militants fire on an Afghan govt. delegation visiting the massacre site; on Mar. 14 the soldier is moved to Kuwait while U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta arrives in Afghanistan to placate anger; the soldier's identity is withheld until Mar. 16. On Mar. 11 Pakistani govt. bans the Islamist group Ahle Sunnah Wal Jamaat. On Mar. 11 despite new tough gun regulations passed on Mar. 6, after getting pissed-off at Muslims joining the infidel French army, the Mohamed Merah Affair sees Algerian-born French Islamist Mohamed Merah (b. 1988), armed with an AK-47, Uzi, Sten gun, and several pistols kill a French soldier in Toulouse; on Mar. 15 he shoots three more in Montaubon, killing two; on Mar. 19 at Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse, France he kills a rabbi, his two children, and the daughter of the principal; on Mar. 21-22 French police siege an apt. bldg. in Toulouse and kill him; on Mar. 25 Merah's brother is charged with complicity; of 7M Muslims in France, one-third are radical? On Mar. 12 the Shiite Rida Mosque in Brussels, Belgium is torched just before evening prayers by Sunni Muslim Rachid El-Boukhari (1989-), killing Imam Abdellah Dahdouh (b. 1965). On Mar. 12 223+ are killed in cattle raids in South Sudan. On Mar. 12 the Syrian army massacres 45+ incl. children in Homs; on Mar. 13 the Syrian army shells Idlib, killing dozens; meanwhile a rebels ambush kills 10+. On Mar. 12 tens of thousands demonstrate in Dhaka, Bangladesh demanding new elections. On Mar. 12 German chancellor Angela Merkel makes an unannounced visit to Afghanistan to see German troops, questioning the planned pullout by the end of 2014. On Mar. 12 avalanches in Poshan and Ghadoor, Nuristan, Afghanistan trap 45+. On Mar. 12 a jewelry heist in East Baghdad, Iraq sees al-Qaida robbers kill 9+ and injure 14; more attacks kill 5+ more. On Mar. 12 the U.S. Census Bureau officially estimates world pop. at 7B. On Mar. 13 an attack on a bus near Obang, Ethiopia kills 19. On Mar. 13 the Nigerian military announces that Boko Haram as killed 1.2 since the end of 2009. On Mar. 13 a truce goes into effect in the Gaza Strip. On Mar. 13 a Belgian bus crash in a tunnel near Sierre, Valais, Switzerland kills 28+ Belgians. On Mar. 13 the MV Shariatpur 1 Ferry carrying 200 collides with an oil tanker and capsizes on the Meghna River near Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 32+. On Mar. 13 Encyclopaedia Britannica discontinues its print ed. after 244 years. On Mar. 14 British PM David Cameron meets with Pres. Obama in the White House. On Mar. 14 U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta visits Afghanistan; 200 Marines are asked to leave their weapons outside the tent where he is speaking to not offend the 20+ Afghan unarmed soldiers already there. On Mar. 14 authorities in Azerbaijan arrest 22 for allegedly spying for Iran. On Mar. 14 10K+ illegal Peruvian gold miners clash with police in Puerto Maldonado, Peru, who kill 3+. On Mar. 14 a 6.8 earthquake off the coast of Japan causes a tsunami that hits Aomori, Hokkaido. On Mar. 14 unemployment in the U.K. is announced at 2.67M, most since 1995. On Mar. 15 former Ill. gov. Rod Blagojevich enters Supermax federal prison in Florence, Colo. to begin his 14-year sentence for corruption. On Mar. 15 Ethiopian forces attack three militant camps inside Eritrea. On Mar. 15 Turkish intel reports that 20K Syrian soldiers have deserted in the last 1 mo.; meanwhile Turkey threatens to launch a military operation into Syria to protect refugees, and the U.N. announces a humanitarian mission, while thousands demonstrate for Assad in Damascus. On Mar. 15 a drive-by shootingkills two French soldiers and injures one in S France. On Mar. 15 a flash flood of the Vaisigano River in Apia, Samoa kills a family of six. On Mar. 15 thousands of students protest in Santiago, Chile demanding educational reforms. On Mar. 15 a free trade agreement comes into effect between the U.S. and South Korea. On Mar. 15 after 16-y.-o. Amina El-Filali commits suicide over a forced marriage to her rapist, Morocco announces that it's amending a law allowing rapists to marry their victims. On Mar. 16 Pres. Obama signs Executive Order 13603, delegating authority for allocation of resources to promote nat. defense; it actually authorizes martial law and abolition of private property under the guise of nat. security? On Mar. 16 (Fri.) the Fri. for Internat. Military Intervention sees protests spread from Aleppo, Syria to Hama, Homs, and Daraa Province. On Mar. 16 a Turkish NATO heli crashes into a house on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 14 incl. a woman and two children. On Mar. 16 actor George Clooney is arrested at a protest at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C. along with Nick Clooney, MLK III, NAACP pres. Ben Jealous, and several congressmen. On Mar. 16 Nicolae Timofti (1948-) is elected pres. #4 of poor Moldova, taking office on Mar. 23 (until ?), becoming the first elected leader in nearly three years. On Mar. 17 Egyptian Coptic Pope #117 (since 1971) Shenouda III (b. 1923) dies in Cairo; on Nov. 18 Tawadros II (1952-) becomes Coptic pope of Alexandria #118 (until ?). On Mar. 17 two bombings in Damascus, Syria kill several police and civilians; meanwhile Saudi Arabia announces that it's sending weapons to the Syrian rebels. On Mar. 17 Burma signs an agreement with the Internat. Labor Org. to end forced labor by 2015. On Mar. 17 (night) a St. Patrick's Day riot by students in London, Ont., Canada results in 11 arrests. On Mar. 18 former Lutheran pastor and anti-Communist leader Joachim Gauck (1940-) is elected pres. of Germany (until ?). On Mar. 18 two gunmen on motorbikes kill an American working at a language school in Taez, Yemen for spreading Christianity. On Mar. 18 police kill five suspected terrorists in Bali, Indonesia. On Mar. 19 the Somali Nat. Theatre in Mogadishu opens after 20+ years of civil war. On Mar. 19 Wendy's overtakes Burger King as the #2 hamburger chain in the U.S. after McDonald's. On Mar. 19 the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rules that an FDA regulation requiring every tobacco co. to put graphic anti-smoking images on their packages is constitutional. On Mar. 19 a gravel ship sinks off the coast of Taiwan, killing six crew members. On Mar. 19 an avalanche in Kaafjord, Norway kills five foreign tourists. On Mar. 19-20 (night) rebels stage a mortar attack on the pres. palace in Mogadishu, Somalia. On Mar. 20 (9th anniv. of the U.S. invasion) a wave of terrorist attacks in 10 cities in Iraq kills 50+ and injures 240+. On Mar. 20 the Pakistani parliament calls for an end to NATO drone strokes along with an apology for the NATO attack on Nov. 26, 2011 that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. On Mar. 20 a 7.4 earthquake in Guerrero and Oaxaca, Mexico On Mar. 20 a train collides with a packed vehicle in Uttar Pradesh, India, killing 15. On Mar. 21 an Al-Shabaab car bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia injures two. On Mar. 21 after it pledges allegiance to ISIS on its Web site, Boko Haram militants attack a police station and bank in Kano, Nigeria, losing nine to Nigerian troops. On Mar. 21 reports that Islamists in Iraq are killing Emos (Westernized youths) by crushing their skulls with cement blocks to terrorize them. On Mar. 21 the reality show Duck Dynasty debuts on A&E (until ?), about the hirsuite Robertson family of West Monroe, La., incl. Phil (patriarch and creator of the Duck Commander duck call), Si, Jase, Willie, and Jep; "That sounds like a Chinese food place" (Willie). On Mar. 21-22 the 2012 Malian Coup sees Mali pres. (since June 8, 2002) Amadou Tournani Toure (Touré) (1948-) ousted in a coup by mutinous soldiers led by Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo (1973-), who becomes leader of the Nat. Committee for Recovering Democracy and Restoring the State (CNRDRE) until Apr. 12, when Dioncounda Traore (Traoré) (1942-) becomes interim pres. of Mali (until Sept. 4, 2013); meanwhile on Apr. 6 thousands of armed Tuareg returning from service in Muammar Gadhafi's military under the name of Nat. Movement for the Liberation of Azawad in N Mali declares independence from Mali, leading to a power vacuum in N Mali that causes al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb to see its chance and move in. On Mar. 22 Turkish forces attack Kurdish PKK rebels in SW Turkey, killing six Turks and six rebels; on Mar. 24 they kill 15 Kurdish militant women in Bitlis Province. On Mar. 22 200K students protest tuition hikes in Montreal, Quebec, becoming the biggest protest in Quebec history (until ?). On Mar. 22 a fire destroys Hatibagan Market in Calcutta, India. On Mar. 22 the Beatles' debut album Please Please Me falls out of copyright? On Mar. 23 Pope Benedict XVI visits Guanajuato, Mexico; on Mar. 26-28 he visits Cuba. On Mar. 23 Hillary Clinton personally signs a deal allowing her top aide Huma Abedin to simultaneously work for the U.S. State Dept. and the private Teneo Group in New York City, trying to get the federal govt. to pay for the cost of her commuting to/from Washington, D.C.; on Sept. 20 Huma Abedin is paid by the private Teneo Holdings consulting firm to help stage a star-studded reception at the Essex House in New York City, where Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, British PM Tony Blair are speakers, giving access to wowed potential Teneo clients; in 2015 U.S. Rep. (R-Iowa) Charles Grassley, chmn. of the Senate Judiciary Committee investigates whether this was a conflict of interest. On Mar. 24 after the Al-Masry Club is banned for two seasons over the Port Said Stadium disaster, Egyptian security forces clash with protesters in Port Said, Egypt, killing one and injuring 18. On Mar. 24 Canada and Denmark suspend aid to Mali; on Mar. 25 the Tuareg Ansar Dine insurgents announce that they will erect Sharia in captured northern towns; on Mar. 28 coup leaders announce a new constitution. On Mar. 24 China announces that it is phasing-out its practice of selling organs from executed prisoners in 3-5 years. On Mar. 24 a house fire in Charleston, W. Va. kills two adults and six children. On Mar. 24 former U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney receives a heart transplant from an unknown donor. On Mar. 24 the Reason Rally in the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C. sees 20K demonstrate for secularism and religious skepticism, becoming known as the "Woodstock for atheists and skeptics"; it is followed by Reason Rally 2016 at the Lincoln Memorial on June 2, 2016. On Mar. 25 Pres. Obama and Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan hold talks concerning transitioning Syria to a "legitimate government" by aiding the rebels; meanwhile Kofi Annan and Dmitry Medevedev discuss a harder stance on Assad's regime, while the rebels attack a military base near Damascus and the Syrian army continues its bombardment of Homs. On Mar. 25 a roadside bomb in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan kills six Afghan police, one U.S. soldier, and a translator in a joint Afghan-NATO convoy. On Mar. 25 a student is shot and killed on the campus of Miss. State U. by three suspects in a blue Ford Crown Victoria, who escape. On Mar. 26 a green-on-blue attack in Afghanistan sees an Afghan police officer kill two British soldiers before being killed. On Mar. 26 Chinese pres. Hu Jintao visits New Delhi, India; Tibetan protester Jampa Yeshi immolates himself before he arrives. On Mar. 26 Somali pirates hijack the Iranian-owned MV. Eglantine cargo ship off Maldives, becoming the first pirate hijacking in their waters. On Mar. 26 London-based Tullow Oil discovers oil in Kenya. On Mar. 26 at a nuclear summit in South Korea, Pres. Obama is caught talking to Russian PM Dmitry Medvedev,uttering the soundbyte: "On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it's important for him [Putin] to give me space." On Mar. 26 Canadian "Titanic", "Terminator" filmmaker James Cameron becomes the first in 50 years to visit the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean in the Deepsea Challenger. On Mar. 26-27 tribal clashes in S Libya kill 50, causing the Nat. Transitional Council to admit it faces a nat. crisis. On Mar. 27 a bomb set by Maoist insurgents in Maharashtra, India kills 15 policeman and injures 13. On Mar. 27 Afghan authorities foil alleged suicide bombings in Kabul, Afghanistan, arresting several people and seizing 11 suicide jackets. On Mar. 27 a nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea sees Japan slam North Korea. On Mar. 27 Sudanese pres. Omar Hassan al-Bashir cancels planned meetings with South Sudan; on Mar. 28 South Sudanese troops pull out of the oil-rich Heglig area of Sudan. On Mar. 27 Zain-ul-Abdeen (Zainul Abideen), leader of the Pashtun Awami Nat. Party is assassinated in Karachi, Pakistan, causing riots killing six by Mar. 29. On Mar. 28 Syrian troops attack Qalaat al-Madiq, Syria. On Mar. 28 Fiji seizes a controlling interest in subsidiary Air Pacific from Qantas. On Mar. 28 the U.S. Mega Millions jackpot hits a world record $500M, reaching $60M on Mar. 30. On Mar. 29 the 2012 BRICS Summit in New Delhi, India. On Mar. 29 a prison riot in San Pedro Sula Prison in Honduras kills 13. On Mar. 29 thousands demonstrate in Ankara, Turkey against a govt. plan to boost the influence of Islamic schools, causing police to use tear gas and water cannons. On Mar. 29 Swedish defense minister Sten Tolgfors resigns over allegations that he knew about plans to help Saudi Arabia build a weapons plant. On Mar. 29 an explosion in a coal mine near Baishan, China kills 28; another explosion on Apr. 1 kills six more. On Mar. 30 the Syrian govt. announces that the revolt against Bashar al-Assad has ended, but that it's keeping soldiers in cities "for security"; meanwhile they keep shelling opposition areas. On Mar. 30 a U.S. drone kills two alleged Haqqani Network militants in Miran Shah, North Waziristan, Pakistan. On Mar. 30 the Israeli army kills one and injures three Palestinians trying to breach the Gaza border fence near the Erez Crossing, while thousands commemorate Land Day amid a failed call for a Global March to Jerusalem. On Mar. 30 Visa and MasterCard announce a "massive" security breach of 10M+ credit card numbers. On Mar. 30 (dawn) French police arrest 19 suspected Islamists; on Apr. 4 they arrest 10 more. On Mar. 30 Huanglongbing (citrus greening) disease, known for killing millions of trees in Brazil and Fla. is discovered in Los Angeles, Calif. On Mar. 30 2.6K young Saudis sign the online Statement of Saudi Youth Regarding the Guarantee of Freedoms and Ethics of Diversity, questioning the kingdom's right to impose its strict version of Islam on all Saudis. On Mar. 30 Tuareg rebels take Kidal, N Mali, followed on Mar. 31/Apr. 1 by Gao 177 mi. SW. On Mar. 31 Papua New Guinea PM Peter O'Neill orders troops to Hela Province to quell illegal miners. On Mar. 31 battles between army troops and al-Qaida militants in S Yemen kill 29+. On Mar. 31 three explosions in Yala Province, Thailand kill 10+. On Mar. 31 Chinese police arrest six and shut down 16 Web sites for spreading rumors of military vehicles on the streets of Beijing in a coup. On Mar. 31 the Screen Actors Guild and Am. Federation of Television and Radio Artists merge to form SAG-AFTRA. On Mar. 31 the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood nominates Mohammed Khairat Saad El-Shater (1950-) as their candidate for the May pres. election, who resigns from the MB to get around the party promise not to run a candidate; too bad, on Apr. 14 he is disqualified by the armed forces supreme council for not being out of prison for six years. In Mar. an Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight becomes the first with an all female African-Am. flight crew. On Apr. 1 after capturing Gao on Mar. 31, Tuareg rebels surround and cpture Timbuktu, Mali; on Apr. 5 they declare the indepence of the nation of Azawad, which collapses on July 12. On Apr. 1 elections in Burma give a V to Aung San Suu Kyi and her Nat. League for Democracy; on Apr. 4 the 20th ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia calls for sanctions to be lifted; on Apr. 16 Australia relaxes sanctions; on Apr. 21 Japan writes off $3.7B in debt and resume development aid; on Apr. 23 the EU suspends most trade sanctions for a year but leaves their arms embargo in place. On Apr. 2 after his doctorate is revoked for plagiarism, Hungarian pres. Pal Schmitt resigns. On Apr. 2 the 30th anniv. of the Falklands War sees British PM David Cameron call the 1982 invasion "a profound wrong"; meanwhile Argentina threatens action against British and U.S. banks. On Apr. 2 Osama bin Laden's three widows and two daughters are convicted of illegally living in Pakistan, and sentenced to 45 days in jail and a $114 fine each; on Apr. 27 they are deported to Saudi Arabia. On Apr. 2 (10:30 a.m local time) 43-y.-o. former student One L. Goh shoots up Korean Christian Oikos U. in Oakland, Calif. killing seven and injuring three. On Apr. 2 UTair Flight 120 (twin-engine ATR-72) en route from Tyumen to Surgut, Russia crashes shortly after takeoff from Roschino Internat. Airport near Tyumen, Siberia, killing 33 of 39 passengers and 4 crew aboard. On Apr. 3 thousands demonstrate in Mauritania, calling for the resignation of pres. Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz. On Apr. 3 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses the U.N. Security Council of standing by with "hands and arms tied" and indirectly supporting the oppression of the Syrian people. On Apr. 3 Tropical Cyclone Daphne and Tropical Depression 17F kills 5+ in Fiji, leaving 8K homeless. On Apr. 3 a fire in a market in Moscow, Russia kills 17 migrant workers. On Apr. 3 the Apr. 3, 2012 Tornado Outbreak hits the Dallas-Ft. Worth, Tex. area. On Apr. 3 Repub. pres. candidate Mitt Romney wins primaries in Md., Wisc., and Washington, D.C., while Pres. Obama secures the Dem. nomination with wins in Wisc., Md., and Washington, D.C. On Apr. 4 a suicide bomber in the recently reopened Somalian Nat. Theater in Mogadishu, Somalia kills 10+ incl. the pres. of the Somali Olympic Committee and the pres. of the Somali Football Federation. On Apr. 4 a suicide bomber in Faryab Province, Afghanistan kills 12+. On Apr. 5 the U.S. Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act is signed by Pres. Obama, encouraging funding of small businesses by easing security regulations. On Apr. 5 Syrian troops begin shelling Douma, Damascus (until ?). On Apr. 5 a rocket fired from the Sinai desert in Egypt hits Eilat, Israel, causing no damage. On Apr. 5 Malawian pres. (since May 2004) Bingu wa Mutharika (b. 1934) dies of a heart attack, and on Apr. 7 People's Party founder (2011) Joyce Hilda Banda (nee Mtila) (1950-) becomes pres. #4 of Malawi (until ?); on Apr. 5 the Azawad Nat. Liberation Movement of Mali declares their own state, ceasing military activities. On Apr. 5 a ceasefire is declared in Zuwara, W Libya. On Apr. 5 after a 77-y.-o. pension commits suicide outside parliament, protesters clash with police in Athens, Greece. On Apr. 5 a Chinese co. stops insuring tankers carrying Iranian oil as part of world sanctions. On Apr. 5 the hacker group Anonymous begins targeting Chinese Web sites to protest censorship. On Apr. 5 the political thriller series Scandal debuts on ABC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), starring black actress Kerry Marisa Washington (1977-) as Olivia Caroyn "Liv" Pope, head of a Washington, D.C. crisis mgt. firm, based on Pres. George H.W. Bush press aide Judy Smith, and white actor Anthony Howard "Tony" Goldwyn (1960-) as her flame and former client and Repub. Calif. gov., now U.S. Pres. Fitzgerald Thomas "Fitz" Grant III; Washington becomes the first African-Am. female lead in a U.S. network TV drama since Teresa Graves in "Get Christie Love" (1974); the first series where race is ignored as part of a character? On Apr. 6 (1:00 a.m.) a shooting attack in Tulsa, Okla. kills three blacks and injures two; on Apr. 8 police arrest white men Jake England and Alvin Watts. On Apr. 6 Yemeni pres. (since Feb.) Abed Rabbo (Abd-Rabbu) Mansour Hadi fires four governors and 12+ military cmdrs. incl. Gen. Mohammed Saleh al-Ahmar, half-brother of former pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was head of the air force; he leaves Saleh's son, nephew, and other allies in positions of power; on Apr. 7 the Sana'a airport is closed after al-Ahmar threaten an attack. On Apr. 6 the U.K. bans the display of tobacco products by retailers. On Apr. 6 a U.S. Navy FA-18 Hornet crashes into an apt. complex in Virginia Beach, Va., causing no fatalities. On Apr. 6 a fuel tanker overturns in Panjwai, Afghanistan, killing seven civilians. On Apr. 7 Burmese pres. Thein Sein meets with reps from the Karen Nat. Union to end their longstanding conflict. On Apr. 7 an avalanche near the Slachen Glacier in the Himalayan Mts. near the Indian border buries 120+ Pakistani soldiers. On Apr. 7 Hamas executes three men in the Gaza Strip for collaboration with Israel. On Apr. 7 the Anonymous hacker group attacks the U.K. Home Office. On Apr. 8 (Easter Sun.) Pope Benedict XVI delivers his 2012 Easter Message, calling for "an end to the bloodshed" in Syria. On Apr. 8 a Muslim car bomb in Kaduna, Nigeria kills 16 and wounds dozens after being stopped from approaching a church. On Apr. 8 former KGB head Leonid Tibilov (1952-) is elected pres. #3 of South Ossetia; he is sworn-in on Apr. 19 (until ?). On Apr. 8 the U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agrement is signed, giving Afghanistan more control over night raids effective July 4. On Apr. 8 Israeli internal affairs minister Eli Yishai declares German poet Gunter Grass a persona non grata for his Apr. 4 poem "What Must Be Said", which equates Israel and Iran on the matter of nukes. On Apr. 8 Pakistan pres. Asif Ali Zardari makes a religious pilgrimage to India, visiting the Suti Ajmer Sharif Shrine in Ajmer 250 mi. SW of New Delhi after meeting with Indian PM Manmohan Singh for the first pres. visit in seven years. On Apr. 9 Syrian forces fire across the Turkish border near a Syrian refugee camp in Kilis, Turkey, killing two and wounding 23+, becoming the first action in Turkey; meanwhile a TV cameraman from Al Jadeed is killed by the Syrian army at the Syria-Lebanon border. On Apr. 9 protesters in Tunis, Tunisia are tear-gassed by police. On Apr. 9 North Korea positions a rocket on a launch pad, drawing protests from the West, who claim it might be a ballistic missile; on On Apr. 13 (centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung) North Korean Earth observation satellite Kwangmyongsong-3 explodes 90 sec. after launch; on Apr. 15 new North Korean Dear Leader Kim Jong-un gives his first public speech in Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang, calling for "final victory"; on Apr. 19 North Korea vows retaliation after the U.S. scraps food aid over the failed rocket launch, claiming that it's no longer bound by a bilateral agreement to halt testing of nuclear missiles and long-range missiles; on Apr. 23 North Korea threatens to reduce South Korea "to ashes"; on Apr. 23 China stops deporting North Korean defectors; on Apr. 24 U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta warns North Korea against "any further provocations" against South Korea, saying that another nuclear test would create "greater instability in a dangerous part of the world". On Apr. 9 clashes between the Yemeni army and al-Qaida militants in S Yemen kill 21+. On Apr. 9 Facebook buys photo-sharing application Instagram for $1B. On Apr. 10 four suspected Mexican Sinaloa Cartel members are captured in Spain. On Apr. 10 Libyan army gen. Mohammed Hadia al-Feitouri is shot and killed in Benghazi while returning home from Fri. prayers. On Apr. 10 14 decomposing bodies are found in a van in ?; on Apr. 11 a dozen decomposing bodies are found inside an abandoned vehicle in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Mexico. On Apr. 10 the U.S. announces plans to help clean up herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. On Apr. 11 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton arrives in Istanbul for talks on the Syrian civil war; meanwhile Britain announces plans to give Ł5M worth of equipment to the Syrian rebels. On Apr. 11 two suicide bombers ram their vehicle into a govt. compound near Herat, Afghanistan, killing 15. On Apr. 11 protests in Mumbai, India against religious riots in Assam and Myanmar turn violent, killing two and injuring 18. On Apr. 11 two 6.4 earthquakes near Tabriz and Ahar, Iran kill 250+ and injure 1.8K. On Apr. 11 a bus crash in a deep gorge near Rajera, Himachal Pradesh, India kills 51+ and injures 46. On Apr. 12 a military mutiny in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau arrests interim pres. Raimundo Pereirs and pres. candidate Carlos Gomes Junior in the midst of the campaign. On Apr. 12 Edgar Morales Perez, mayor-elect of Matehuala, San Luis Potosi, Mexico is shot and killed by gunmen while riding in his vehicle; meanwhile the state police cmdr. of Chihuahua, Mexico is killed by gunmen in Ciudad Juarez. On Apr. 12 the HBO series Girls debuts, created by and starring Lena Dunham (1986-) as Hannah Horvath, about a group of 20-somethings in New York City, making Dunham into the voice of Gen. Y. On Apr. 14 police in Bahrain shoot 15-y.-o. Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Aziz (b. 1996) during a funeral procession for another protester in Salmabad (near Manama). On Apr. 14 the U.S. Secret Service announces that it has put 11 agents on leave while being investigated for misconduct with 20 hos before a summit in Cartagena, Colombia attended by Pres. Obama; five soldiers are also investigated; the scandal begins when one of the agents gives his ho only $30 of the agreed $800 fee and she rats him out. On Apr. 15 the 100th anniv. of the sinking of RMS Titanic is celebrated worldwide. On Apr. 15 China loosens controls on the yuan, allowing it to fluctuate up to 1% in trading against the U.S. dollar, up from 0.5%. On Apr. 15 Taliban militants launch multiple coordinated attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan and other cities to launch their spring offensive, killing two Afghan security personnel and 17 militants. On Apr. 15 150 Islamist militants spring 400 of their brothers from prison in NW Pakistan. On Apr. 15 the Sudanese air force attacks South Sudan-held Heglig, Sudan, along with Rubkona, South Sudan; on Apr. 17 the Sudanese parliament calls for the overthrow of the govt. of South Sudan. On Apr. 15 Israeli blocks the Welcome to Palestine campaign by blocking flights for 40+ activists. On Apr. 16 the first U.N. military observers of the U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria arrive in Damascus to monitor the ceasefire, and on Apr. 20 Syria allows them freedom of movement; meanwhile on Apr. 16 26 are killed in Idlib, Syria, followed by 50 more on Apr. 20; on Apr. 21 the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 2043 to send 300 more observers. On Apr. 16 an Islamist militant throws a hand grenade into a coed school near Peshawar, Pakistan, killing one child and wounding two. On Apr. 16 a 6.7 earthquake hits Valparaiso, Chile, doing no serious damage. On Apr. 16 Dartmouth College pres. (since 2009) Jim Yong Kim (Kim Yong) (1959-) is selected as pres. #12. of the World Bank, taking office on July 1 (until ?). On Apr. 16 the trial of Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik begins, allowing him to use it as a platform to declare that his actions were needed to save Norway from multiculturalism while giving the Nazi salute; on Apr. 19 he claims that he planned to behead former Norwegian PM Gro Harlem Brundtland and post the video on the Internet. On Apr. 17 the U.S. cedes control of the military of the Repub. of Korea after 50 years, dissolving the Combined Forces Command. On Apr. 17 Australian PM Julia Gillard announces that Australian troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan by Dec. 31, 2013, a year earlier than planned. On Apr. 17 Prisoners' Day in the West Bank and Gaza Strip sees Palestinian inmates in Israeli jails go on hunger strike while thousands of rally in the streets; Israeli soldier Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner hits a Danish protester in the face with his rifle, and is dismissed from his post; meanwhile Mahmoud Abbas sends a delegation to meet with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu bringing a letter listing his demands for restarting peace talks; they have not met personally since Sept. 2010. On Apr. 17 Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah offers to mediate the Syrian civil war in an interview with Julian Assange on his new show The World Tomorrow. On Apr. 18 thousands protest in Tubli, Bahrain calling for democracy and an end to the regime, also chanting against the 2012 Bahrain Formula 1 Grand Prix scheduled for Apr. 22; meanwhile a rally in Manama calls for the release of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is being fed intravenously; on Apr. 19-22 more protests don't stop the race. On Apr. 18 Cuba calls Pres. Obama out for using his "imperial veto" at the Summit of the Americas after it voted to end the U.S. embargo. On Apr. 18 U.S. officials condemn graphic photos pub. by the Los Angeles Times showing troops posing with mangled corpses of alleged Afghan suicide bombers. On Apr. 19 bombings in Iraq kill 33+ and injure dozens. On Apr. 19 a U.S. UH-60 Black Hawk heli crashes in S Afghanistan, killing all four aboard. On Apr. 19 Dylan Moran (1971-) of Ireland becomes the first prof. English-speaking comedian to perform in Russia, dissing laws banning gay propaganda et al. On Apr. 20 tens of thousands demonstrate against military rule in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt. On Apr. 20 a plane crashes in a residential area near Benazir Bhutto Internat. Airport in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 127. On Apr. 20 a tractor trailer collides with a bus near Alamo, Veracruz, Mexico, killing 43 and injuring 18. On Apr. 21 a head-on collision between two trains near Sloterdijk, Netherlands (W of Amsterdam) injures 125+. On Apr. 22 Egypt cancels its unpopular agreement with Israel to supply it with natural gas. On Apr. 22 the French 2012 pres. election results in a 2nd round on May 5-6, with Socialist mayor of Tulle (2001-8) Francois Gerard (Gérard) Georges Nicolas Hollande defeating Nicolas Sarkozy by 51.6% to 48.4% to become pres. #24 of France (2nd Socialist after Francois Mitterrand in 1981-95); he is sworn-in on May 15 (until ?). On Apr. 22 the political comedy series Veep debuts on HBO for ? episodes (until ?), starring Julia Scarlett Elizabeth Louis-Dreyfus (1961-) as Dem. vice-pres. Selina Meyer, who gets to be pres.; "The buck stops somewhere near here". On Apr. 23 a malware attack hits the Iranian Oil Ministry and Nat. Iranian Oil Co. On Apr. 23 Kazakhstan issues an official thank you to actor Sacha Baron Cohen for his char. Borat, reversing their ban. On Apr. 23 former Icelandic PM Geir Haarde is found not guilty of negligence for the 2008 economic meltdown. On Apr. 23 the world's first wild adult white orca is found off the coast of Kamchatka, Russia; they name it Iceberg. On Apr. 24 Bahrain arrests Zainab al-Khawaja, daughter of hunger striker Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. On Apr. 24 a car bomb in central Damascus, Syria injures three. On Apr. 24 a new case of mad cow disease surfaces in Calif., causing South Korean retailers to stop selling U.S. beef on Apr. 25, followed by Indonesia on Apr. 26. On Apr. 24 the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) establishes the U.S. Defense Clandestine Service to ramp up spying on Iran, North Korea, and China. On Apr. 24 Israeli PM legalizes the West Bank settlements of Bruchin, Rechelim, and Sansana. On Apr. 24 South Sudanese pres. Salva Kiir visits China to get assistance in building an oil pipeline, claiming that Sudan has declared war on it; on Apr. 25 South Sudan releases Sudanese POWs as border clash ramp down. On Apr. 24 British police arrest five suspected (Muslim?) terrorists in Luton, England. On Apr. 24 Fitch Ratings upgrades Ford Motor Co. to investment grade status. On Apr. 25 Syrian troops break the ceasefire and begin shelling Douma, Syria. On Apr. 25 Pakistan successfully tests the Shaheen-1A nuclear-capable ballistic missile, which is capable of targeting India. On Apr. 25 U.K. announces an economic decline of 0.2% in Jan.-Mar., indicating a double-dip recession. On Apr. 26 Syrian army rocket attacks on Hama kill 69 incl. several children. On Apr. 26 a suicide car bomber at the This Day newspaper office in Abuja, Nigeria kills seven. On Apr. 26 a bombing in E Afghanistan kills three USAF personnel; meanwhile an Afghan kills a U.S. service member and interpreter in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. On Apr. 26 a Kamov Ka-32 Ukrainian heli crashes in Ostrov, Romania en route to Turkey, killing all five fire fighters aboard. On Apr. 26 former Liberian pres. Charles Taylor is found guilty of 11 counts of aided and abetting war crimes, but acquitted of all counts of ordering them. On Apr. 26 40K demonstrate for the victims of Anders Breivik in Youngstorget, Oslo, Norway. On Apr. 27 blind Chinese dissident "barefoot lawyer" Chen Guangcheng (1971-) escapes house arrest and flees to the U.S. embassy in Beijing; on May 19 he and his wife and two children are granted U.S. visited and emigrate to New York City. On Apr. 27 four explosions in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine injure 27. On Apr. 27 a suicide bomber at a mosque in Damascus, Syria kills nine. On Apr. 27 the Rev. Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) kills eight incl. an infant in two attacks; on Apr. 29 they kill four Colombia soldiers trying to destroy their cocaine labs in Caqueta. On Apr. 28 the Syrian army kills 10 in Bakha, Syria N of Damascus; meanwhile the rebels stage their first seaborne assault, using inflatable dinghies, and Syria accuses U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon of "encouraging" attacks. On Apr. 28 a protest in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for electoral reforms is dispersed by police. On Apr. 28 the Lebanese navy seizes Sierra Leone-registered ship Lutfallah II from Libya allegedly carrying weapons bound for the Syrian rebels. On Apr. 28 shoe bomb attack by two insurgents on the gov.'s compound in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan kills them along with two bodyguards; U.S.-educated gov. Tooryalai Wesa is uninjured. On Apr. 28 a tent collapses in a storm at a restaurant near Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Mo., killing one and injuring 16. On Apr. 29 (Sun.) several explosions near a Christian service at Bayero U. in Kano, Nigeria kill 20; meanwhile an attack on the Church of Christ in Maiduguri, Nigeria kills four. On Apr. 29 a 3-way drug cartel shootout in Sinaloa, Mexico kills seven. On Apr. 29 rebels kill four officials in N Burma; meanwhile U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon visits Burma to press for more reforms. On Apr. 29 a vehicle flips over in the Bronx River Pkwy. near the Bronx Zoo in Bronx, N.Y., killing seven incl. three children. On Apr. 29 a bus crash en route to Tokyo Disneyland in Gunma Prefecture, Japan N of Tokyo kills 7+. On Apr. 29 the deadline for the destruction of all chemical weapons under the Internat. Chemical Weapons Convention is reached. On Apr. 30-May 1 govt. troops clash with troops loyal to ex-pres. Amadou Toumani Touri in Bamako, Mali, killing 14+; on May 3 the Economic Community of West African States pledges to send troops. In Apr. Obama admin. agriculture secy. Tom Vilsack announcing the new Forest Planning Rule for the 155 U.S. nat. forests and grasslands, heavily influenced by leftist environmentalists, with plan components incl. "Restore and maintain forests and grasslands", "Provide habitat for plant and animal diversity and special conservation" et al., in practice making forest fires more likely by prohibiting the clearing of brush and cutting of dead trees since environmentalists can't stand the sight of a logger in a nat. park? In Apr. the U.S. opens Ft. Aguayo Naval Base in Concon, Chile to train Latin Am. soldiers for peacekeeping missions, causing protests by human rights orgs., who claim it will be "clearly oriented toward the control and repression of the civilian population". In Apr.-May JPMorgan Chase loses $2B ($6.2B?) betting on credit default swaps tied to corporate debt, paying illegal bribes to get the business then lying about the losses. On May 1 Occupy May Day sees tens of thousands march in New York City, Europe, and Asia. On May 1 Pres. Obama makes an unannounced visit to Afghanistan on the 1st anniv. of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, signing a 10-year accord with Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai defining the U.S. role after 2014. On May 1 Egyptian security forces announce the arrest several months earlier of three Iranians for an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador Ahmed Qattan in Cairo. On May 1 Chinese vice-PM Li Keqiang visits Moscow and signs a $15B strategic trade deal with Russia. On May 1 as a result of the News of the World phone hacking scandal, a govt. media committee in Britain finds that News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch is "not a fit person" to run a major internat. business. On May 2 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton makes a high-level state visit to China, criticizing the govt. for their treatment of blind dissident Chen Guangcheng, who leaves the U.S. embassy a week after fleeing house arrest, phoning the U.S. Congress on May 3 for help in leaving China. On May 2 Chinese vice-PM Li Keqiang visits Hungarian PM Viktor Orban in Budapest. On May 2 a protest in Cairo, Egypt is attacked by unknown violent attackers using shotguns, rocks, clubs, and firebombs, who kill 20+; meanwhile the military agrees to hand over protest to any outright winner of the May 24 pres. elections. On May 2 French pres. candidates Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande hold their first and only televised debate, trading insults. On May 2 Repub. pres. candidate Newt Gingrich suspends his campaign, leaving Mitt Romney as the presumptive nominee. On May 2 after Pres. Obama leaves, a suicide bombing in a suburb of Kabul, Afghanistan kills seven. On May 2 a shootout between the army and drug cartel gunmen in Sinaloa, Mexico kills 12. On May 2 the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 2046, threatening sanctions if the Sudanese border conflict doesn't end within 48 hours. On May 2 a court in Mannheim, Germany bans Microsoft Xbox 360 gaming consoles and its Windows 7 operating system from Germany for infringing on Motorola Mobility's patents. On May 2 a version of Edvard Munch's 1895 painting The Scream sells for $119,922,500 in an auction in Sotheby's in New York City, becoming a world record for a work of art (until ?), besting the $10.65M at Christie's in 2010 for Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust". On May 3 explosions near a police post in Makhachkala, Dagestan kill seven and injure 30; on May 16 special ops police kill the mastermind. On May 3 anti-govt. demonstrations at Aleppo U. in Syria are stopped by police, who kill four and arrest 200. On May 3 the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, and China reiterate their call to Iran to cooperate with the IAEA over its nuclear program. On May 3 after a crowd begins burning one of their colleagues alive at a cattle market, cattle robbers in Potiskum, Nigeria kill 24. On May 3 a bus en route from Rawalpindi to Skardu plunges into a mountain ravine in Kohistan, Pakistan, killing 15+ and injuring 21. On May 4 after a 2-mo. standoff, the chamber of deputies appoints foreign affairs minister Laurent Salvador Lamothe (1972-) as PM of Haiti (until ?). On May 4 demonstrators near the defense ministry in Cairo, Egypt are attacked by armed forces with tear gas, water cannons, and rocks, killing 1+ and injuring 370+; a midnight curfew in the defense ministry district is imposed. On May 4 an explosion at a political rally in Yerevan, Armenia injures 144. On May 4 a suicide bomber in a crowded market in Bajaur Agency, Pakistan kills 8+. On May 4 23 bodies incl. 14 headless and nine hanging from a bridge are found in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and identified as members of the Gulf Cartel, killed by Los Zetas; meanwhile three the bodies of three journalists are dumped in plastic bags in a canal in Boca del Rio, Veracruz, Mexico. On May 4 the trial of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed begins in Guantanamo Bay. On May 5 a U.S. drone attack in North Waziristan, Pakistan kills nine insurgents. On May 5 an explosion in Aleppo, Syria kills five. On May 5 a fire at a drug rehabilitation center in Lima, Peru kills 14. On May 5 a fire at a karaoke bar in Busan, South Korea kills nine and injures 10. On May 5 a flash flood of the Seti River near Annapurna, Nepal kills 17, with 47 missing. On May 6 hundreds of dolphins and 1K+ birds incl. 500+ pelicans are found dead of the coast of N Peru. On May 7 a NATO air strike in Badghis Province, Afghanistan kills 14 civilians and injures six, causing Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai to summon U.S. envoy Ryan Cocker and NATO cmdr. Gen. John Allen to discuss it. On May 7 elections in Bahamas are a landslide V over the ruling Free Nat. Movement Party of Hubert Ingraham by the Progressive Liberal Party of ex-PM (2002-7) Perry Gladstone Christie (1943-) who is sworn-in as PM of Bahamas on May 8 (until ?). On May 7 Victor-Viorel Ponta (1972-), leader of the Social Dem. Party (PSD) is appointed by pres. Traian Basescu as PM of Romania (until). On May 7 Vladimir Putin is sworn-in for a 3rd 6-year term as pres. of Russia. On May 7 the Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar Tomb in Timbuktu, Mali is burned by al-Qaida-linked Islamist fighters. On May 7 the Malaysian Nat. Fatwa Committee issues a fatwa against Muslims participating in "unproductive demonstrations". On May 7 the CIA announces the foiling of a plot by al-Qaida-inked Fahd al-Quso of Yemen to explode an improved underwear bomb on a U.S.-bound airliner; on May 8 U.S. officials admits that the wannabe suicide bomber is a CIA double agent. On May 8 200 former anti-Gaddafi rebels attack the office of interim PM Abdurrahim El-Keib in Tripoli, Libya, but he escapes unharmed. On May 8 after China expels its reporter Melissa Chan, Al Jazeera closes its English-language bureau in Beijing, China. On May 8 the New York Court of Appeals rules in People v. James Kent that merely viewing or storing child porno is not illegal as long as one isn't aware of the content and didn't download it in order to view it, pissing-off legislators, who vow to close all loopholes. On May 8 Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is given her first passport in 24 years. On May 8 (Tues.) N.C. by 61%-39% approves a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. On May 8-? the Air India Pilots' Strike. On May 9 Pres. Obama flip-flops and comes out in support of same-sex marriage, very gay of him, hard to imagine a closet Muslim now except the gay kind of closet; this indicates he's really a New Ager? On May 9 the 2012 Jalisco Massacre sees the chopped-up remains of 18 bodies found inside cars near Chalapa (S of Guadalajara), Jalisco, Mexico. On May 9 a bomb explodes near a convoy of U.N. observers in Daraa, Syria, injuring 3+ Syrian soldiers. On May 9 U.S. missile strikes at an al-Qaida stronghold in Jaar, Yemen kill eight militants. On May 9 Mark Rothko's 1961 Orange, Red, Yellow sells for $86.9M at a Christie's auction in New York City; meanwhile Andy Warhol's 1963 Double Elvis sells for $37M at a Sotheby's auction in New York City. On May 9 a Russian Sukhoi Superjet 100 with 44 aboard disappears after takeoff from Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia; the wreckage is found on May 10 in a mountainous area. On May 10 400K U.K. public sector workers strike over pensions. On May 10 two nearly-simultaneous explosions (1kg of explosives) near the military intel HQ in Qazaz, Damascus, Syria kill 55 and injure 372. On May 10 a U.S. airstrike in Jaar, Yemen kills Anshar al Sharia fighters. On May 10 the Internat. Red Cross suspends operations in Pakistan over the abduction and killing of health program mgr. Khalil Rasjed Dale four months earlier. On May 10 the U.S. Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 is introduced by U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) (1995-) William McClellan "Mac" Thornberry (1958-) to amend the 1948 U.S. Smith-Mundt Act prohibiting the domestic dissemination of propaganda produced for foreign audiences; it passes on Dec. 28. On May 11 the Obamagon, er, Pentagon suspends the U.S. military online course Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism, which teaches that Islam is the irreconcilable enemy of the U.S., and that Mecca and Medina might have to be nuked - but it's the truth? On May 11 a missing piece of the Mayan Calendar is announced, proving that the Mayans didn't believe that 2012 would be da end of da world after all. On May 11 (11 p.m.) drug cartel gunmen attack the offices of the El Manana newspaper in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. On May 12 Syrian opposition leader Shadi al-Moulawi (1987-) is arrested in Tripoli for planning terrorist attacks in Lebanon, setting off violent protests that kill 8+, causing him to be released on May 22. On May 12 two U.S. drone strikes in SE Yemen kills 11 suspected al-Qaida fighters; on May 13 a Yemeni army offensive kills 10+ more, followed by 44 more in Zinjibar and Jaar on May 15. On May 12 four NATO soldiers die in separate incidents in S Afghanistan. On May 12 the European Commission announces that the EU economy is going to contract by 0.3% this year. On May 12 the Spanish Indignants Movement celebrates its 1st anniv. with 100K protesting in Spanish cities, combined with more protests in Lisbon, London, Frankfurt, and Tel Aviv. On May 12 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket calls Israel "nothing more than a mosquito". On May 12 Repub. pres. candidate Mitt Romney condemns same-sex marriage in a speech at Liberty U. in Lynchburg, Va. On May 12 Center for Am. Progress pres. Neera Tanden tweets to Hillary Clinton that she attended a Democracy Alliance meeting with leftist billionaire George Soros, and he told her that he regretted backing Barack Obama in the U.S. pres. primary because of lack of access to him in the White House, but that he thinks that Hillary would give him more. On May 12-Aug. 12 the 2012 World Expo (Expo 2012) in Yeosu, South Korea has the theme "The Living Ocean and Coast". On May 13 the Cadereyta Jimenez Massacre sees the discovery of 49 dismembered bodies near Monterrey, Mexico; the Los Zetas drug cartel is suspected. On May 13 violent clashes in Tripoli, Lebanon between pro and anti-Assad forces kills several. On May 13 South Korean pres. Lee Myung-bak makes the first official pres. visit to Burma since 1983. On May 13 Afghan peace negotiator Arsala Rahmani is assassinated in W Kaboom. On May 13 Caesar Achellam, senior cmdr. of the Lord's Resistance Army is captured in the Central African Repub. (CAR) by Ugandan troops. On May 13 (10:00 GMT) a 6.2 earthquake on the S Peruvian-Chilean Border. On May 13 rains and floods in Pingjiang County, Hunan Province, China destroys 3.5K homes, causing 28K to be evacuated. On May 13 an Agni Air flight crashes while trying to land at Jomsom Airport in N Nepal, killing 15 of 21 aboard incl. Indian child actress Taruni Sachdev and her mother. On May 14 fighting between govt. troops and rebels in Rastan, Syria kills 30+, incl. 23 govt. soldiers, becoming a major V for da rebels. On May 14 a hunger strike by 1.5K Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons ends. On May 14 Repub. candidate Ron Paul ends his pres. campaign. On May 15 govt. troops open fire on a funeral procession in Idlib, Syria, killing 20. On May 15 an assassination attempt in Bogota, Colombia injures former interior minister Fernando Londono (Londońo), killing his driver and a police officer. On May 15 thousands of Palestinians demonstrate on the 64th anniv. of the Nakba (Catastrophe), the 1948 Israeli declaration of independence. On May 15 a man sets himself on fire outside the courthouse in Oslo, Norway where Anders Behring Breivik is on trial. On May 17/18 masked gunmen kidnap Mexican journalist Marcos Antonio Avila Garcia (b. 1973) in Ciudad Obregon for talking too much; his tortured corpse is found in a plastic bag in Empalme. On May 18 Queen Elizabeth II hosts a lunch at Windsor Castle for 20+ monarchs, getting criticized for permitting the king of Bahrain to attend in the midst of repression of protesters; a dinner hosted by the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall draws protesters although neither he nor the queen attend. On May 18 the Group of Eight meets at Camp David to discuss the Greek debt crisis. On May 18 Facebook stages its IPO, which closes nearly flat at $38.23 a share; the Dow Jones, NSDAQ, and S&P 500 close at their lowest levels of the year. On May 18 the Olympic Flame arrives in the U.K. on board a flight from Athens to start the torch relay. On May 18 Am. psychiatrist Robert Leopold Spitzer (1932-) apologizes for for his "fatally flawed" 2001 study that claimed that gays could be "cured". On May 19 a car bomb near a military complex in Deir ez-Zor, Syria kills nine. On May 19 a suicide bomber at a police checkpoint in Khost Province, Afghanistan kills 10. On May 19 an IED explodes in front of a vocational school in Brindisi, Italy, killing a 16-y.-o. female student. On May 19 an explosion in a road tunnel in Zhuzhou, Hunan Province, China kills 20. On May 19 a rally car plows through spectators in Var, France, killing two and injuring 17. On May 19 atheist celeb Richard Dawkins announces support for a plan by British education secy. Michael Grove to send free King James Bibles to state schools. On May 20 an annular solar eclipse can be seen from N China to Calif. On May 20 a roadside bomb explodes near a U.N. convoy in Douma, Damascus, Syria, killing 34. On May 20 a 6.0 earthquake in N Italy centered in Emilia Romagna kills 6+ and injures dozens. On May 20 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu warns his cabinet of "illegal infiltrators flooding the country", saying that the current 60K African immigrants could grow by 10x. On May 20 Tomislav Nikolic (1952-) of the Serbian Progressive Party is elected pres. of Serbia, taking office on May 31 (until ?). On May 21 IAEA dir.-gen. Yukiya Amano visits Tehran, Iran for talks to make them cooperate. On May 21 a NATO summit in Afghanistan is attended by Pres. Obama, who assures Afghanistan that it won't be left on its own after NATO troops leave. On May 21 a suicide bomber at an army rehearsal for the Unity Day parade in Sana'a, Yemen kills 120+ and injures 350+. On May 21 pro and anti Assad protesters clash in Beirut, Lebanon, killing two. On May 21 FARC rebels ambush Colombian soldiers near the border with Venezuela, killing 12. On May 21 a bus plunges 260 ft. off a cliff in Albania, killing 11 and injuring 22, mostly students. On May 22 the Hampi Express collides with another train in Andhra Pradesh, India, killing 14 and injuring 30. On May 22 Cmdr. Sarah West (1972-) becomes the first female officer to take command of a major British warship, the Royal Navy frigate HMS Portland. On May 22 four aid workers are kidnapped by Taliban militants in the N Afghan province of Badakhshan; they are rescued by ISAF forces on June 2. On May 23 a U.S. drone attack in N Waziristan, Pakistan kills five. On May 23 Pakistani physician Shakil (Shakeel) Afridi (1962-), who helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden via DNA samples from a fake vaccine program is sentenced to 33 years in prison for treason. On May 23 U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton attends the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) trade show in Tampa, Fla., sharing her vision of "smart power" and the crucial role her State Dept. is playing in extending the power of America's "international counterterrorism network". On May 23-24 the 2013 Egyptian pres. election On May 24/25 Scarborough, Ont., Canada-born gay pinup model Luka Rocco Magnotta (Eric Clinton Kirk Newman) (1982-) kills and dismembers Chinese internat. student Lin Jun (b. 1978) with an ice pick and kitchen knife, then mails his limbs to elementary schools and federal political party offices, posting a video of the murder online, complete with scenes of necrophilia and cannibalism, leaading to his arrest in an Internet cafe in Berlin on June 4; on Dec. 23, 2014 he is convicted of first-degree murder, and given a life sentence with possible parole in 19 years. On May 25 a Los Zetas car bomb in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico injures 10 police officers. On May 25 the Syrian army massacres 108 incl. dozens of women and children in Houla, Syria, causing Turkey, Germany, Canada et al. to expel Syrian diplomats; meanwhile Russia announces that it is "categorically against" foreign intervention in the conflict; on June 1 the U.N. Human Rights Council votes to condemn the massacre despite Russia, China, and Cuba voting against the resolution. On May 25 French pres. Francois Hollande makes a surprise visit to Afghanistan to see his troops, defending his decision to withdraw them by the end of the year. On May 26 British army capt. Stephen James "Steve" Healey (b. 1982) is KIA by an IED in Helmand Province, Afghanistan; meanwhile CNN announces that the NATO death toll in Afghanistan has reached 3K. On May 26 Ansar Dine and the Nat. Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad form an independent Islamic state in N Mali. On May 26 a landslide at an illegal gold mine in Bogor, West Java kills 6+. On May 26 gunman Eero Samuli Hiltunen (1953-) in Hyvinkaa, Finland (near Helsinki) kills two and injures eight. On May 26 China releases an oxymoron annual report on human rights, pointing to the U.S. for arresting Occupy Wall Street protesters. On May 27 Tropical Storm Beryl hits Jacksonville, Fla. On May 27 a NATO air strike in Suri Khail, Afghanistan kills a family of eight incl. six children. On May 27 40K rally in Tbilisi, Georgia calling for the ouster of pres. Mikheil Saakasvilii. On May 28 Indian PM Manmohan Singh makes the first official visit to Burma since 1987. On May 28 a heli crashes in E Afghanistan, killing two ISAF troops. On May 28 a fire at a shopping mall in Doha, Qatar kills 19. On May 28 a bomb in a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya injures 33. On May 28 two Tibetans immolate themselves in Lhasa, Tibet, the first time ever. On May 29 North Korea reports its worst drought in 50 years. On May 29 a 5.8 earthquake in Bologna, Italy kills 24. On May 29 an assassination attempt on Somali pres. Sheikh Sharif Ahmed by Al Shabaab leaves him unharmed. On May 29 after 2K protest, Brett Murray's painting The Spear is taken down from a gallery in Johannesburg, South Africa. On May 29 U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta calls for the U.S. to strengthen its naval presence in Asia to counter China. On May 30 a gunman opens fire in Seattle, Wash., killing three and injuring two before committing suicide. On May 31 a series of bombings in Bagdead, Irock kills 14. On May 31 Egypt formally ends its 31-year state of emergency. On May 31 a suicide bomber at a police HQ in Kandahar, Afghanistan kills five policemen. On May 31 German engineer Edgar Fritz Raupach, held hostage by Islamists in Kano, Nigeria since Jan. is killed by his captors during a botched rescue operation. On May 31 Am. conservative Christian lobby group One Million Moms launches a campaign against DC and Marvel Comics over their decision to include openly gay chars. In May three top Mexican military men incl. Gen. Tomas Angeles Dauahare are arrested on suspicion of working for a drug cartel; on Apr. 20, 2013 Dauahare is released. On June 1 an armed Palestinian infiltrator and an Israeli soldier are killed during an exchange of fire along the Gaza border, and at least three militants are injured during an Israeli air strike on Gaza. On June 1 Venezuela bans private gun ownership. On June 2 Google displays a special Diamond Jubilee Google Doodle featuring the queen's profile, corgis, and diamonds; on June 3 the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant features 1K+ boats, the largest flotilla seen on the island in 350 years; on June 4 the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert features Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, and Robbie Williams; the Sex Pistols re-release "God Save the Queen", which was banned by the BBC. On June 2 clashes between pro and anti Assad forces kill 12 and injure 25 in Tripoli, Lebanon. On June 2 a U.S. drone attack in South Waziristan, Pakistan kills two suspected militants incl. "good" Taliban leader Mullah Nazir. On June 2 a court in Cairo, Egypt convicts former pres. Hosni Mubarak and former interior minister Habib al-Adly of complicity in the killings of demonstrators in the 2011 Egyptian Rev.; both receive life sentences; Mubarak and his two sons Gamal and Alaa are acquitted on separate corruption charges. On June 2 an Allied Air cargo plane crashes into a minibus after overshooting the runway at Kotoka Internat. Airport Accra, Ghana, killing 12. On June 2 a shooting in the food court of the Toronto Eaton Centre in Toronto, Canada kills one man and injures seven others. On June 3 a U.S. drone attack in South Waziristan, Pakistan kills 10 suspected militants. On June 3 a suicide car bombing outside Living Faith Church in Bauchi, Nigeria kills 15 injures 42. On June 3 a plane crashes in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, killing all 153 aboard plus 10 people on the ground. On June 3 U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta visits a former U.S. base in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, becoming the first visit by a U.S. official of cabinet rank to Vietnam since the Vietnam War, signalling growing ties, and serving cold lunch to the Chinese; meanwhile Chinese authorities crack down on political activists marking the 23rd anniv. of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and on June 4 it slams the U.S. for calling for them to free those imprisoned for them. On June 3 demonstrations are held in Istanbul, Turkey against a plan to limit the time for abortions. On June 4 gunmen kill 11 at a rehab clinic in Torreon, Coahuila. On June 4 a U.S. drone attack kills 15 suspected militants in North Waziristan, Pakistan, incl. #2 al-Qaida man Abu Yahya al-Libi; al-Qaida later admits that the 9/11/2002 Benghazi Attack was done in revenge for his murder. On June 4 a car bomb near govt. offices in Baghdad, Iraq kills 26 and injures 190. On June 4 a Buddhist mob attacks a bus in W Myanmar, killing nine Muslims; on June 9 Bengali Rohingya riots in W Myanmar kill 20 and burn 300 homes. On June 4 armed members of the Al-Awfia Brigade take over a runway in Tripoli, Libya demanding their leader's release before they are chased away by troops. On June 4 a bus carrying a wedding party plunges into a ravine near Islamabad, Pakistan, killing 23 incl. six children and injuring 60. On June 4 three Armenian soldiers are killed on the Azerbaijani border; on June 5 Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of killing five of its soldiers. On June 4 China blocks terms on the Internet related to the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. On June 5 authorities discover seven dismembered bodies in Sinaloa, along with a message tying them to the Los Zetas cartel. On June 5 Der Spiegel pub. an article claiming that Israel is arming German-supplied subs with nuclear-tipped missiles, sparking a debate about whether it is Germany's duty to help Israel defend itself. On June 5 (22:09 UTC) - June 6 (04:49 UTC) a solar transit of Venus occurs (not visible from North Am.), becoming #2 and the last of the cent.; next: 2117, 2125. On June 5-6 17 militants and two govt. soldiers are killed in clashes in S Yemen. On June 5-7 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin visits China, which claims that Beijing and Moscow have been playing a "positive role" on Syria, and reiterate their opposition to foreign intervention in the conflict. On June 6 NATO stages an air strike in Logar Province, Afghanistan, allegedly killing 18 civilians incl. women and children. On June 6 two suicide bombers in a market in Kandahar, Afghanistan kill 22 and injure 50. On June 6 Mexican pres. Felipe Calderon signs a law making Mexico only the 2nd country to introduce binding targets on climate change. On June 6 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announces 300 new settler homes for the Jewish settlement of Beit El in the West Bank; on June 7 an additional 550 are announced by Israeli construction minister Ariel Attias. On June 6 a video by Baptist pastor Charles Worley of Maiden, N.C. outlining plans to round up gays and imprison them behind an electric fence until they die causes a firestorm of controversy. On June 7 U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta makes an unannounced trip to Kabul, Afghanistan, warning that the U.S. is "reaching the limits of our patience here" with regard to pesky Pakistan. On June 7 an Israeli court approves the deportation of hundreds of illegal immigrant "infiltrators" from South Sudan. On June 7 a school bus plunges into a ravine N of La Paz, Bolivia, killing 16 students and injuring 32. On June 7-9 (night) F1 protesters clash with riot police in Montreal, Canada near the Grand Prix events on the corner of Sainte-Catherine and Crescent. On June 8 Amnesty Internat. issues a report claiming that Israel is guilty of torture, unfair detainment, and other human rights violations; the alleged involvement of an anti-Israel activist is used to discredit it. On June 8 clashes in a pro-Syrian govt. neighborhood of Tripoli, Lebanon kill one and injures three. On June 8 seven U.N. peacekeepers are killed in an ambush in Ivory Coast. On June 8 a bus carrying govt. employees near Peshawar, Pakistan is bombed, killing 19. On June 8 a pro-dem. rally in support of Nabeel Rajab in Bahrain is broken-up by police with tear gas. On June 8 protesters in Cairo, Egypt demand the ban of ex-PM Ahmed Shafiq from the pres. runoff election. On June 8 demonstration in Amman, Jordan protests a govt. decision to raise fuel and electricity prices to ease budget deficit. On June 8 14 dismembered corpses are found inside a vehicle in Ciudad Mante, Tamaulipas, Mexico 250 mi. from the Texas border. On June 9 four foreign soldiers are killed by the ISA in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan. On June 9-10 a Syrian army offensive in Homs, Syria kills 35. On June 9-30 the High Park Fire in the mountains of Larimer County, Colo. W of Fort Collins burns 87,284 acres and destroys 259 homes, becoming the 2nd largest fire in Colo. history contaminates the Poudre River, forcing the city of Fort Collins to drain its reservoirs to meet demand, causing the New Belgium Brewery to hire a sensory panel to test water for smokiness before putting it in their beer; the fire drives a small herd of elk into downtown Loveland, Colo., becoming a tourist attraction until they decide to return. On June 10 Kenyan cabinet minister George Saitoti and five are killed in a heli crash in the Ngong Hills near Nairobi. On June 10 a 6.0 earthquake near the Aegean Sea resort of Oludeniz (Ölüdeniz) in S Turkey injures dozens esp. in the city of Fethiye. On June 11 an ambulance hits a roadside bomb in Sar-e-Pul Province, Afghanistan; meanwhile a Taliban attack in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan kills four. On June 11 a landslide triggered by two quakes in N Afghanistan kill 80+. On June 11 the U.S. announces sanctions on Somalis who stand in the way of a U.N.-supervised roadmap for peace in Somalia. On June 11 after the U.S. announces rewards of $3M-$7M for info. about Al-Shabaab cmdrs., it offers a reward of 10 camels for info. about the whereabouts of Pres. Barack Obama, and 10 chickens and 10 roosters for info. on Hillary Clinton. On June 11 the U.S. withdraws a team of supply route negotiators from Pakistan, with the Pentagon announcing: "The decision was reached to bring the team home for a short period of time." On June 11 the U.S. exempts seven countries on three continents from economic sanctions in return for cutting imports of Iranian oil. On June 15 after the DREAM Act fails to pass in Congress, Pres. Obama announces the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, allowing certain undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors to receive a renewable 2-year period of deferred action from deportation along with eligibility for a work permit. On June 16 the Chinese Shenzhou 9 spacecraft blasts off from Jiuquan Launch Center, carrying Jing Haipeng (1966-), Liu Wang (1969-), and Liu Yang (1978-) (first Chinese female astronaut), returning on June 29. On June 19 after a cross-border attack on Israel, the pro-al-Qaida Majlis Shura al-Mujahidin fi Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis group is formed in the Sinai Peninsula to practice Islam the Salafist way, considering Hamas and Alwawite Syria as enemies, although lesser ones than Israel. On June 20 Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison gets fellow billionaire David Murdock to sell his his 98% of Lana'i (Lanai) Island, known as "the Pineapple Island". On June 22 pres. left-leaning Fernando Lugo is impeached by parliament, and vice-pres. Luis Federico Franco Gomez (1962-) of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party becomes pres. of Paraguay (until Aug. 15, 2013); the right-wing coup was about making a deal with Montreal-based mining co. Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA) for a $4B aliminum plant on the Parana River? On June 22-25 the Alan Turing Centenary Conference at the U. of Manchester. On June 23 the Waldo Canyon Fire 4 mi. NW of Colorado Springs, Colo. (ends July 10) causes 32K to flee, destroying 346 homes and causes $453.7M damage, becoming the most destructive fire in Colo. until the Black Forest Fire next year. On June 23-30 Tropical Storm Debby starts in the C Gulf of Mexico, making landfall near Steinhatchee, Fla. with 40 mph winds, dropping 28.78 inc. of rain in Curtis Mills, Fla causing the Sopchoppy River to flood 400 bldgs. in Wakulla County, the Anciote and Pithlachascotee Rivers to flood 106 homes, and Black Creek in Clay County to flood 587 homes, killing 10 and causing $250M damage. On June 24 Lonesome George (b. 1911?), the last Pinta Island Tortoise dies at Galapagos Nat. Park. On June 24 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 7-2 in Miller v. Ala. that mandatory sentences of life without parole are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders, extending Graham v. Fla. (2010), which had allowed it for murder; on Jan. 25, 2016 they rule 6-3 in Montgomery v. La. that this ruling must be applied retroactively, affecting 2.3K cases. On June 24 Aaron Sorkin's political drama series The Newsroom debuts on HBO for 25 episodes (until Dec. 14, 2014), starring Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels (1955-) as anchorman Will McAvoy, with an ensemble cast. On June 28 a Taliban missle attack in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan injures 10 civilians. On June 28 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Nat. Federation of Independent Business v. Sibelius to uphold the 2010 U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) AKA Obamacare along with the 2010 U.S. Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA), finding tht the individual mandate to buy health insurance by 2014 is an exercise of Congress' taxing power regardless of the Commerce Clause and Necessary and Proper Clause; it also finds that the planned expansion of Medicaid that would coerce states by threatening the loss of existing Medicaid funding is unconstitutional; a betrayal of conservative principles by Chief Justice Roberts, or an affirmation of them?; dissenters incl. Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito, meaning that a Jew (Stephen Breyer) and three women (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan) threw it for Pres. Obama? On June 29-30 the 240-mi.-wide 100 mph June 2012 North Am. Derecho (Sp. "straight ahead") "land hurricane" devastates 10 states from Ill. to the U.S. East Coast, killing 22 and causing $2.9B in property damage, leaving 4M without power. On June 30 after winning the election on June 24 with 51.73% of the vote, Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohamed Morsi (Morsy) (1951-), who holds a doctorate in materials science from USC becomes Egyptian pres. #5 (until July 3, 2013); too bad, in late Nov. he issues a temporary constitutional declaration granting himself unlimited powers, pissing-off the people, who call it an Islamist coup and begin 2012 Egyptian protests on Nov. 22. In June the Nat. Security Five led by U.S. Rep. (R-Minn.) Michele Bachmann call attention to U.S. govt. infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood; too bad, after criticism by both parties their request for investigations is ignored by the pro-MB Obama admin. In June the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade (Liwa Shuhada al-Yarmouk) in Syria is formed by Al-Khal (Arab. "the Uncle") (-2015), who changes it from another Free Syrian Army group to pro-ISIS after clashes with Jabhat al-Nusra at the end of the year. On July 1 the deadline is reached to impose a full embargo of Iranian oil by the U.S. and EU. On July 7 Enrique Pena (Peńa) Nieto (1966-) of the ever-corrupt PRI is elected, and on Dec. 12 he becomes pres. #57 of Mexico (until ?), causing protests. On July 7 Libyans vote in free elections for the first time since 1969. On July 18 a Muslim terrorist attacks a bus full of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, killing six plus himself. On July 19 Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee debuts on Crackle Web TV for ? episodes (until ?); episode #42 "Just Tell Him You're the President" (Dec. 30, 2015) features Barack Obama and Jerry Seinfield in a 1963 Corvette Sting Ray. On July 20 brilliant science student James Eagan Holmes (1987-) (who likes to die his hair orange) unleashes an attack on a Century movie theater in Aurora, Colo. during a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises", killing 12 and injuring 58; the police later find that he booby-trapped his apt.; the political backlash results in Colo. Gov. John Hickenlooper signing new gun control laws next Mar. 20, the day after the Colo. Dept. of Corrections head is shot to death at his home; meanwhile Holmes converts to Islam. On July 23 a coordinated series of 37 attacks in Iraq On July 24 John Atta Mills (b. 1944) dies, and his vice-pres., historian John Dramani Mahama (1958-) becomes pres. of Ghana (until ?). On July 25 snow falls in Colo. On July 25 Taliban fighters in Kunar Province, Afghanistan fire a new generation U.S.-made Stinger missile at a U.S. Army Chinook CH-47 heli, but they forget to arm it, and it lands safely and a U.S. gunship destroys the fighters; the missile ID is traced to the CIA, who are keeping a cache in Qatar; U.S. ambassador John Christopher "Chris" Stevens (1960-2012) is sent to Benghazi, Libya to retrieve U.S. Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional permission that he brokered for Hillary Clinton through arms dealer Marc Turi? On July 27 asst. U.S. atty. gen. Tom Perez refuses to promise the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution that his org. will never entertain or advance a Sharia-type anti-blasphemy law. On July 27-Aug. 12 the XXX (30th) Summer Olympics are held in London, England; 10,820 athletes from 204 countries participate; the games are opened by Queen Elizabeth II; Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor (since 1992) Esa-Pekka Salonen carries the Olympic Flame; Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Brunei enter female athletes for the first time; women's boxing makes its debut, making it the first Olympics at which every sport has female competitors; the U.S. wins 104 medals, followed by China (88), Russia (82), the U.K. (65), and Germany (44); Michael Phelps of the U.S. wins his 22nd medal, becoming the most decorated Olympic athlete ever (until ?); the World Shakespeare Festival, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Co. accompanies the games; South African sprinter Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius (1986-) becomes the first double-leg amputee to participate in the Olympics. On July 28 Hizbollah stages a terrorist attack in Burgas, Bulgaria that kills the Bulgarian bus driver along with five Israelis. On July 30-31 the 2012 India Power Blackouts leave 620M without power. In July the U.S. Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colo. Civil Rights Commission begins when same-sex couple Charlie Craig and David Mullins order a custom wedding cake from Masterpiece Cakeshop in Denver, Colo., and Christian anti-gay owner Jack Phillips refuses their business because of their sexuality, and they decline to seek another cake shop, instead going straight to the Colo. Civil Rights Commission, which comes down on the shop bigtime, showering them with bureaucratic demands, causing Phillips to fight back in court while threatening to go out of biz rather than comply; on Dec. 5, 2017 the U.S. Supreme Court takes oral arguments. In July the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations pub. a report exposing the role of HSBC (Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp.) in money-laundering and global narcotics and terrorism financing, incl. its ties to Al-Rajhi Bank, the largest private bank in Saudi Arabia, founded by the Al-Rajhi brothers, led by Sulaiman Abdul Aziz Al-Rajhi. In late July Rashad Hussain, Pres. Obama's special envoy to the Org. of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) meets in Mauritania with Abdallah bin Bayyah, an associate of Muslim Brotherhood leader Youssef Qaradawi on the topic of "challenges faced by religious minorities in Muslim-majority communities". On Aug. 4 47 Shiite Iranian pilgrims are massacred by gunmen in Sayeda Zeinab 10 mi. S of Damascus. On Aug. 5 (10:30 a.m.) (Sun.) the Sikh Temple of Wisc. near Milwaukee, Wisc. is attacked by white supremacist Army vet Wade Michael Page (b. 1971), who kills six and injures four before committing suicide. On Aug. 6 NASA'a Curiosity rover lands on Mars. On Aug. 11 (5 p.m. local time) a 6.4 earthquake rocks Iran, killing 50 and injuring 400+; a 6.3 earthquake follows at ?. On Aug. 11 (night) teen jocks rape an incapacitated female student at Steubenville H.S. in Ohio; Ma'lik Richmond and Trent Mays are later convicted of rape. On Aug. 12 Egyptian armed forces CIC (since 1991) Gen. Mohamed Hussein Tantawi is replaced by Gen. Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi (1954-), who also becomes defense minister (until ?), keeping the secularist military in safe hands out of the reach of the Muslim Brotherhood and their pal Pres. Obama. On Aug. 12 Egyptian forces kill six suspected militants near El-Arish, Sinai; meanwhile on Aug. 12 Egyptian pres. Mohamed Morsi fires armed forces CIC Mohamad Hussein Tantawi, and cancels constitutional amendments by the military restricting pres. powers, causing crowds in Cairo to praise him; meanwhile Qatar announces that it will deposit $2B in the Egyptian Central Bank to support the economy. On Aug. 13 the police procedural seies Major Crimes debuts on TNT for ? episodes (until ?) as a spinoff of "The Closer", starring Mary Eileen McDonnell (1952-) as Capt. Sharon Raydor of the Major Crimes Div. of the LAPD. On Aug. 15 two grenades explode in a mosque in Kabul, injuring 23 civilians. On Aug. 15 after looking them up on the Southern Poverty Law Center Web site, Floyd Lee Corkins II (b. 1985) attempts to enter the HQ of the anti-same-sex-marriage Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., shooting guard Leonardo Johnson in the left arm before being wrestled to the ground; on Sept. 19, 2013 he is sentenced 25 years in prison. On Aug. 21-Sept. 1 Category 1 Hurricane Isaac kills 34 and causes $2.4B damage in the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Cuba, the Bahamas, and the SE U.S. On Aug. 21 after a fight at Silk's Gentlemen's Club, British Muslim Aqab Hussain (1991-) plows his car into a group of revelers in Manchester, England, leaving a blind man brain-damaged; on Oct. 2, 2013 he is convicted of four counts of attempted murder. On Aug. 22 Russia becomes member #156 of the World Trade Org. (WTO), and Vanuatu becomes member #157. On Aug. 22 the Syrian army shells parts of Damascus, Syria, killing 47; meanwhile the U.N. estimates that 18K have been killed in the 17-mo. Syrian civil war, and China accuses the U.S. of using "red line" remarks as a questionable "calculus" to intervene militarily in yet another Middle East country. On Apr. 22 clashes between the Pokomo and Orma tribes in Kenya over cattle grazing rights kill 48+. On Aug. 22 a tourist plane crashes in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in SW Kenya, killing four and injuring three. On Aug. 31 after Azerbaijan pardons Ramil Safarov, convicted of killing an Armenian soldier in Hungary in 2004, Armenia severs diplomatic relations with Hungary. On Sept. 5 Reynolds, Ga.-born Samuel Little (1940-) is arrested, and convicted of the murders of three women in Calif. in 1987-89 and another woman in Tex. in 1994, and is linked to 60+ murders and confirmed to be involved in 50 in 19 states in 25+ years ending in 2005, while claiming 93, making him the most prolific serial murderer in U.S. history. On Sept. 7 Canada cuts diplomatic ties with Iran over its support for Syria et al. Onu Sept. 9 Afghanistan declares the first Massoud Day in honor of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the martyred U.S. ally in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida. On Sept. 11 fires in garment factories in Karachi and Lahore, Pakistan kill 257 and injure 600+. The Second 9/11 shows Pres. Obama asleep at the switch worse than Pres. George W. Bush? On Sept. 11 (9/11/2012) after a mass protest against the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt inflamed by a U.S.-made anti-Islam video shown on Egyptian TV, the Sept. 11 (9/11), 2012 Benghazi Attack sees the U.S. consulate in Libya attacked by al-Qaida terrorists, torturing and killing (gay?) U.S. ambassador (since June 7) John Christopher Stevens (b. 1960) and three other Americans by Sept. 12, becoming the first U.S. ambassador killed in the line of duty since 1981; diplomatic security agent David Ubben and ex-Navy SEALS turned CIA contractors Tyrone Snowden "Rone" Woods (b. Jan. 15) and Glen Anthony "Bub" Doherty (b. 1970) attempt to save Stevens in a 13-hour battle after they learn of an order to stand down from somebody up high, and Woods and Doherty are KIA; Stevens is carried through the streets by the jihadists for five hours, while Obama heads to Las Vegas, Nev. to raise funds and leaves it to his subordinates to make it into a case of Islamophobia to help his friends at CAIR?; the Obama admin. at first blames it on a Muslim mob enraged by a YouTube video titled Innocence of Muslims: The Crimes of Prophet Mohammed by Calif. filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula (Mark Basseley Youssef) (Sam Bacile) (1957-) (although there is no mob in Benghazi, only Cairo), with the White House personally telephoning YouTube to take it down; meanwhile Woods and Doherty are KIA, and Ubben's leg is shredded, and he has to suffer for 20 hours before a rescue plane arrives; on Sept. 15 Nakoula is arrested on trumped-up charges, becoming the first in U.S. history arrested for violating Muslim anti-blasphemy laws, then held for violating probation on a 2010 bank fraud conviction; he is not released until Aug. 6, 2013, on supervised probation; no surprise, the Obama admin. stubbornly refuses to blame it on Islamic terrorism, doing nothing to respond until ?; Nakoula is a Muslim and agent for the U.S. Justice Dept., and the video is Obama agitprop created by govt.-connected Stanley Associates?; the White House originally tried to blame the Bible exposition video God vs. Allah by Pastor Jon Courson of Ore. before switching to Nakoula's, probably because the latter name sounds Muslim?; on Sept. 12 Obama gives an interview to Steve Krofts of 60 Minutes, in which he utters the soundbyte: "You're right that this is not a situation that was exactly the same as what happened in Egypt, and my suspicion is, is that there are folks involved in this who were looking to target Americans from the start"; they don't air it for over amonth; meanwhile the Repubs. begin asking questions, ramping up a full investigation; on Sept. 14 Hillary Clinton tweets to her Muslim aide Huma Abedin: "I'm giving you credit for inspiring the 'peaceful' protests"'; the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohammed Morsi were behind the attack?; Pres. Assad and Hezbollah were behind the attack to get even for Stevens' role in smuggling weapons into Syria?; on Dec. 29, 2013 an article in the New York Times by David D. Kirkpatrick whitewashes the massacre, blaming it on the movie again; in 2013 retired U.S. Adm. James Lyons claims that the kidnapping was orchestrated by Obama so he could negotiate his release in return for freeing Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman; in early May 2014 a smoking gun email is discovered, showing White House political operatives telling U.N. ambassador Susan Rice to claim the attack was the result of the Internet video, and Hillary Clinton uttering the soundbyte: "We are going to have the filmmaker arrested"; on May 20, 2015 it is revealed that the U.S. govt. knew on Sept. 12 that the attack was planned 10 days in advance by an al-Qaida affiliate called Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BCOAR); meanwhile on May 20 despite all their b.s. about not wanting to attack First Amendment rights by banning a boring badly-made satire video, the 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court rules that it was a violation of the you know what Amendment to force YouTube to take it down. On Sept. 15 anti-U.S. demonstrations by Muslims are staged throughout the Muslim world and Europe, incl. riots in Sydney, Australia; in 2013 retired U.S. Adm. James Lyons claims that the kidnapping was orchestrated by Obama so he could negotiate his release in return for freeing Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman; in May 2016 Trey Gowdy concludes that there was no way for help to reach Benghazi on the night of the attack. On Sept. 15 the Islamist rebel Seleka (Séléka) coalition emerges in Central African Repub. (CAR), initially called CPSK-CPJP, going on to work to overthrow the regime of pres. Francois Bozize. On Sept. 16 a green-on-blue attack in Mizan District, Zabul Province, Afghanistan by six Afghan policemen pissed-off at the Youtube video "Innocence of Muslims" kills four Internat. Security Assistance Force members and a policeman. On Sept. 25 U.S. Pres. Obama gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, uttering the soundbyte: "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam", adding: "But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied" - whadya gonna do, kill me? On Sept. 26 (Yom Kippur) while thousands protest outside the bldg., Iranian pres. (2005-13) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956-) gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, criticizing the U.S. for the manner of Osama bin Laden's killing and questioning the motives of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney for running for U.S. pres, calling Israelis "uncivilized Zionists"; the U.S. boycotts his speech. On Sept. 27 Robert Doherty's crime drama series Elementary, based on the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle and set in New York City debuts on CBS-TV for ? episodes (until ?), starring London, England-born Jonathan "Jonny" Lee Miller (1972-) as recovering drug addict Sherlock Holmes, and Lucy Liu (1968-) as Dr. Joan Watson, who assist the NYPD in solving crimes. In Sept. the Lakota Sioux Nation under Russell Means (b. 1939) declares that it is seceding from the U.S.; means dies on Oct. 22. On Oct. 2 Boko Haram gunmen open fire on mourners at a Christian funeral in Mubi, Nigeria, killing 20 and injuring 15, after which 2K enraged non-Muslim youths in Sapele, Nigeria go on a rampage, injuring 50+ Muslims. On Oct. 2 Calif. gov. Gerry Brown signs a law banning therapy aimed at making gay teenagers straight, effective Jan. 1. On Oct. 8-13 the Battle of Maarrat al-Nu'man in Syria is a V for the rebel Free Syrian Army over the Syrian army, with 60 civilians killed and major property damage. On Oct. 9 15-y.-o. Pakistani student Malala Yousafzai (1997-) is shot in the head and neck by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus; on Oct. 12 a group of 50 Islamic clerics issue a fatwa against her attempted assassins, while the Taliban reiterates its intent to kill her and her father, causing an internat. outcry, causing her to become a celeb. On Oct. 10 King Abdullah appoints Abdullah Nsur as PM of Jordan (until ?). On Oct. 10 Callie Khouri's Nashville debuts on ABC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), starring Connie Britton as fading country music superstar Rayna James, and Hayden Panettiere as rising star Juliette Barnes. On Oct. 10, 2012 the series Arrow debuts on The CW for ? episodes (until ?), based on the DC Comics Green Arrow of Mort Weisinger and George Papp, starring Stephen Adam Amell (1981-) as billionaire playboy Oliver Queen slash Green Arrow. On Oct. 14 the Moroccan navy escorts an abortion vessel filled with activists trying to help women receive abortions out of the port of Smir. On Oct. 14 Austrian skydiver Felix Baumgartner becomes the first person to break the sound barrier without machine assistance during a space dive from the Red Bull Stratos helium balloon at alt. 24 mi. over Roswell, N.M. On Oct. 16 seven paintings worth $25M are stolen from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, Netherlands. On Oct. 17 Muslim Bangladeshi immigrant Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis (1991-) is arrested in connection with a plot to blow up the Federal Reserve in Manhattan, N.Y. as part of a jihad. On Oct. 22-31 Category 3 Hurricane Sandy devastates portions of the Caribbean and E U.S. and Canada, killing 209+; it shuts down Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, N.Y., but power remains on in the HQ of Goldman Sachs. On Oct. 24-28, 2012 the 2012 World Series sees the San Francisco Giants (NL) defeat the Detroit Tigers (AL) 4-0 in the first NL sweep of the AL since 1990; Giants infielder Pablo Eisler "Kung Fu Panda" Sandoval (1986-), who hit three homers in Game 1 is MVP. On Oct. 25 Leo Krim (b. 2010) and Lucia "Lulu" Krim (b. 2006) are stabbed to death with a kitchen knife by their Domnican Repub.-born nanny Yoselyn "Josie" Ortega in Upper West Side, Manhattan, N.Y., who tries to slit her own throat after mother Marina Krim and her 3-y.-o. daughter Nessie Krim arrive from a swimming lesson a few blocks away; on Apr. 18, 2018 she is found guilty of 1st and 2nd degree murder; subject of the 2016 novel "Chanson Douce" (The Perfect Nanny) by Leila Slimani. In Oct. Pres. Obama issues Pres. Policy Directive 20, ordering Offensive Cyber Effects Operations (OCEO) to draw up a list of potential overseas targets for U.S. cyberattacks. On Nov. 3 the Million Puppet March in Washington, D.C. in support of continued funding for public TV draws 1.5K, becoming the largest puppet march in history (until ?). On Nov. 6 (Tues.) (Obama's reelection day) billionaire real estate playboy Donald John Trump (1946-) tweets the soundbyte: "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive"; on Sept. 26, 2016 Trump denies he said that in a debate with Hillary Clinton; this is Trump's first of 20 strong climate skeptic statements before becoming Repub. U.S. pres. #45 on Jan. 20, 2017. On Nov. 6 (Tues.) the 2012 U.S. Pres. Election is a V for Pres. Barack Obama over wealthy Mormon Repub. challenger Willard Mitt Romney (1947-) (not officially backed by the LDS Church), with 332 vs. 206 electoral votes, and 26 vs. 24 states, plus Washington, D.C.; Obama wins 65.9M votes (51%) vs. 60.9M (47.2%) for Romney; $6B is spent by both sides on the election; Latinos comprise 10% of the electorate for the first time; Pat Buchanan utters the soundbyte: "White America died last night. Obama's reelection killed it. Our 200 plus year history as a Western nation is over. We're a Socialist Latin American country now. Venezuela without the oil"; Colo. and Wash. become the first U.S. states to legalize recreational marijuana use. On Nov. 6 Measure B passes, requiring condoms to be used on all porno sets in Los Angeles County, causing the adult film industry to start fleeing. On Nov. 8 CIA chief Gen. David H. Petraeus resigns over an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell. On Nov. 12 an Islamist mob in Zanzibar crying "We want the heads of all the church pastors" destroys 25 Christian churches and convents. On Nov. 13 there is a total solar eclipse visible in N Australia and the South Pacific. On Nov. 14 after 100+ rockets are launched at it over a 24-hour period, an IED explodes near Israeli soldiers, and Gaza militants attack an Israeli military jeep inside Israeli borders, Israel launches Operation Pillar of Defense against Hamas in the Gaza Strip (ends Nov. 21); on Nov. 15 Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari is killed by an Israeli missile strike; it ends on Nov. 21 after 140 Palestinians and five Israelis are killed; on Nov. 14 11-mo.-o. Omar Mishrawi, son of BBC reporter Jihad Mishrawi, plus a man and woman are killed and three injured in Al-Zaitoun, Gaza, which Hamas blames on Israeli air strikes; in Mar. 2013 the U.N. Human Rights Council exonerates Israel, saying that it was really a Hamas rocket that fell short. On Nov. 20 15-nation Asian summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia announces a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership excluding the U.S. On Nov. 22 Am. freelance photojournalist James Wright Foley (1974-2014) is kidnapped by Islamists in Binesh, Syria; he is beheaded in Aug. 2014 to retaliate for U.S. air strikes in Iraq, becoming the first U.S. citizen killed by ISIS (ISIL). On Nov. 25-Dec. 9 Category 5 Typhoon Bopha (Pablo) hits Palau, followed on Dec. 3 by Mindanao with 160 mph winds, killing 1,067+, with 838 missing. On Nov. 28 the U.N. Gen. Assembly declares Mar. 21 as the Internat. Day of Forests. On Nov. 29 (Internat. Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People) in response to Operation Piller of Defense, U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution 67/19 is adopted by 138-9-41 (Israel and the U.S. vote against), upgrading Palestine to non-member observer state status, elevating it to a status equal to the Holy See, and implicitly recognizing its sovereignty, giving it status to begin proceedings against Israel in the Internat. Criminal Court; former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert supports the measure. On Dec. 1 Enrique Pena (Peńa) Nieto (1966-) becomes pres. #57 of Mexico (until ?), marking the return of the Inst. Rev. Party (PRI). On Dec. 1 Russia assumes the presidency of the Group of 20 (G20) for the first time (until ?). On Dec. 3 homeless Muslim man Naeem Davis (1982-) shoves 59-y.-o. Korean Queens resident Ki-Suck Han in front of an oncoming Q subway train in the W 49th St. station in Times Square in New York City, and is photographed by another Muslim, the photo going viral; he later claims he did it because somebody threw away his treasured Timberlands boots. On Dec. 10 the Central African Repub. Civil War of 2012-14 begins (ends Juy 24, 2014), ending in a stalemate supervized by a U.N. peacekeeping force. On Dec. 8 the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Qatar agrees to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2020. On Dec. 12 Christ returns according to Internet prophet Steve Fletcher. On Dec. 14 the U.S Russia and Moldova Jackson-Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act is passed, extending nondiscriminatory treatment to products of Moldova and the Russian Federation. On Dec. 14 after shooting and killing his mother Nancy, 20-y.-o. lone gunman Adam Lanza (b. 1992) attacks Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., killing 20 children and six women at his mother's kindergarten classroom, along with himself; the Anders Breivik attack in Norway was his inspiration?; it was a govt. false flag? On Dec. 15 the Arizona Bill of Rights Monument is dedicated, the first in the U.S. dedicated to the Bill of Rights. On Dec. 16 four young men gang-rape a 23-y.-o. univ. student on a bus in New Delhi, India, causing internal injuries that kill her, sparking outrage; on Sept. 13, 2013 they are sentenced to death by hanging. On Dec. 17 the U.S. State Dept. announces that their boss Hillary Clinton sustained a concussion after a fall at home (Dec. 15?), causing Karl Rove in May 2014 to claim that she's suffering from brain damage and shouldn't run for pres. On Dec. 21 (12/21/12) (should have been 12/12/12?) the 2012 Phenomenon occurs based on the end date of a 5,125-year cycle in the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar marking a Great Cycle of 13 baktuns of 144K days completed since Creation, with some New Agers incl. John Major Jenkins (1964-) claiming that it marks the true start of the Age of Aquarius; they are off by 50-100 years? On Dec. 25 female Afghan Sgt. Nargis kills U.S. police adviser Joseph Griffin in an insider killing. On Dec. 30 a hit man wearing a Muslim niqab throws acid in the face of 20-y.-o. Victoria's Secret shop asst. Naomi Oni in Dagenham, East London, causing an outcry to ban all niqabs. On Dec. 31 the Kyoto Protocol expires. On Dec. 31 Newsweek mag. discontinues its print ed., going online only. In Dec. China pulls even with the U.S. on oil imports at 6M barrels a day. In Dec. the Syrian Civil Defense AKA the White Helmets are organized by 20 Syrians, led by British army officer James Le Mesurier, reaching 3K members. In Dec. Hillary Clinton falls and suffers a brain trauma, resulting in a blood clot in her skull, causing her to have to wear special glasses, later using this as an excuse for not remembering how to preserve classified materials, causing speculation that she has severe brain damage or narcissistic personality disorder; meanwhile Hillary Clinton is named the most admired woman by Americans for the 11th straight time and the 17th time overall by Gallup's most admired man and woman poll. The U.S. replaces its 1970s vintage W-76 nuclear bombs with new Reliable Replacement Warheads that can be produced easily without testing; the U.S. is down to 5K nukes from 10K nukes in 2000, Russia down to 5.7K nukes from 15K; France has 350, Britain 200, and China 100 (20 can reach the U.S.). The city of Stockton, Calif. declares bankruptcy, becoming the most populous U.S. municipality to file for Chapter 9; in 2018 it begins an experiment with Universal Basic Income (UBI), giving 300K randomly-selected residents an income of $500/mo. The Ten Commandments Monument is erected in front of the Okla. State Capitol in Oklahoma City after a bill sponsored by state rep. Mike Ritze is passed, causing the ACLU to sue, resulting in the 7-2 Okla. Supreme Court decision Prescott v. Capitol Preservation Commission on July 27, 2015 that it is unconstitutional, causing it to be moved to private property in Oct. 2015, leading to calls for changing the Okla. Constitution; in 2014 a vandal destroys it, causing the New York-based Satanic Temple to cancel plans for their own Baphomet statue to be placed beside it on capitol grounds. Mexico City retires the last of its Volkwagen Beetle taxis known as "vochos". A massive solar storm hits Earth with the force of 100M hydrogen bombs? One-third to one-half of the world's pop., incl. more than half of the non-white pop. will be killed by infectious agents, biological weapons, and man-made diseases, according to Dr. Len Horowitz. Remote-viewing Tibetan monks see the world plunging into total nuclear war this year. The picturesque SW French village of Bugarach is the only one to survive the Dec. 21 Armageddon? Grumpy Cat (real name Tardar Sauce), owned by Red Lobster waitress Tabatha Bundesen of Morristown, Ariz. becomes a hit, allowing her to incorporate and quit her job. GlaxoSmithKline pleads guilty to federal charges to resolve a slew of criminal and civil issues stemming from its use of kickbacks, misbranding and other misconduct to market drugs such as Paxil, Wellbutrin and Advair, paying a $3B fine, largest by a drug co. (until ?). A worldwide "greatest recession" will mark the "decline of empire America" as the U.S. will experience food riots, ghost malls, mob rule and terror, according to Gerald Celente of TrendsResearch.com. Virgin Galactic launches its first commercial satellite via its space tourism vehicle WhiteKnightTwo. The Zumba Latin dance-fitness craze sweeps the U.S., spawning a contest for the best moves to Shakira's "Dare (La La La La). Mondelez Internat. ("world" + "delicious") is spun-off by Kraft Foods to market crackers (Triscuit), cookies (Oreo, Chips Ahoy!), chocolate (Cadbury), and gum and candy (Chiclets, Dentyne, Trident, Cadbury, Toblerone), with HQ in Deerfield, Ill. Sports: On Jan. 8 (Sun.) the NFL wild card John 3:16 Game sees the Denver Broncos defeat the Pittsburgh Steelers 29-23 after Bible-thumping QB (#15) Timothy Richard "Tim" Tebow (1987-) throws a bomb to WR (#88) Demaryius Antwon Thomas (1987-) that goes for an 80-yard TD on the first play of OT (shortest in NFL history, 11 sec.); Tebow throws for 316 yards in the game, and averages a playoff record 31.6 yards per throw, with a 31.6% audience share during the final 15 min., causing Christians to pull out his favorite Bible verse, John 3:16; too bad, the Broncos trade Tebow in the offseason for Peyton Manning. On Jan. 13-22 the First Winter Youth Olympics is held in Innsbruck, Austria. On Feb. 5 Super Bowl XLVI (46) is played in the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind.; the New York Giants defeat the New England Patriots 21-17; Eli Manning is MVP. On Feb. 27 after being delayed one day because of rain, the 2012 (54th) Daytona 500 becomes the first aired during prime time; the winner is Matthew Roy "Matt" Kenseth (1972-), with Dale Earnhardt Jr. coming in 2nd. On Mar. 2 the NFL announces the New Orleans Saints Bounty Scandal (Bountygate), where defensive players were paid bonuses for inflicting injuries on opposing players since 2009; on Mar. 21 head coach Sean Payton is suspended for 1 year, and defensive coordinator Greg Williams is banned from the NFL indefinitely. On Mar. 25 Tiger Woods wins the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, Fla., becoming his first PGA Tour victory since 2009. On Mar. 27 a consortium led by NBA star Magic Johnson buys the Los Angeles Dodgers MLB team for a record $2.15B. On Apr. 8 6'5" Gerry Lester "Bubba" Watson Jr. (1978-) of the U.S. defeats Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa on the 2nd sudden death playoff hole to win the 2012 Masters Tournament. On Apr. 17 Jamie Moyer (1962-) of the Colorado Rockies becomes the oldest pitcher in MLB history to win a game (until ?); on May 16 he becomes the oldest player to record an RBI (until ?); he retires after his last appearance on May 27. On Apr. 21 Philip Gregory Humber (1982-) of the Chicago White Sox pitches a perfect game against the Seattle Mariners, becoming #21 in ML history and #3 for the team. On May 5 the 138th Kentucky Derby is won by I'll Have Another in 2:01.83. On May 27 the 2012 (96th) Indianapolis 500 becomes the first with all entries having new model-year chassis and turbocharged engines, and is won by George Dario Marino Franchitti (1973-) (3rd win) after Takuma Sato challenges him for the lead in turn one, loses control, and crashes into the outside wall. On May 27-June 11 Rafael Nadal of Spain (3rd time in a row, and 7 times in 8 years) and Maria Sharapova of Russia win the 2012 (116th) French Open singles titles; Sharapova returns to #1 world ranking after a 4-year major title drought caused by a shoulder injury in 2008. On May 30-June 11 the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals see the Los Angeles Kings defeat the New Jersey Devils 4-2 to win their first title, becoming the 2nd time since 1996 in which no Canadian teams advance past the first round; MVP is 6'1 Kings goalie Jonathan Douglas Quick (1986-). On June 9 Maria Sharapova defeats Sara Errani in the 2012 French Open women's singles final, returning to #1 world ranking after a 4-year major title drought caused by a shoulder injury in 2008; on June 11 Rafael Nadal of Spain wins the men's singles title for the 3rd time in a row (7x in 8 years). On June 12-21 the 2012 NBA Finals sees the Miami Heat defeat the Oklahoma City Thunder by 4-1; LeBron James of Miami is MVP. On June 24 the 2012 NFL Referee Lockout begins; it ends on Sept. 26. On June 25-July 8 Roger Federer of Switzerland and Serena Williams of the U.S. win the 2012 (126th) Wimbledon singles titles. On Aug. 27-Sept. 10 Andrew Barron "Andy" Murray (1987-) of Scotland (first from the U.K. to win a Grand Slam singles tournament since 1936) and Serena Williams of the U.S. win the 2012 (116th) U.S. Open singles titles. On Aug. 29 the 2012 Summer Paralympics. On Sept. 24 the Fail Mary Game sees the Seattle Seahawks defeat the Green Packers 14-12 after a last-sec. Hail Mary ends up in both teams' hands simultaneously despite a flag thrown that should have given the Packers the win, causing a firestorm of controversy about the inferior replacement officials. On Oct. 14 Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner falls to Earth from 24 mi. alt., becoming the first human to break the sound barrier sans vehicle. On Nov. 22 (Thanksgiving) a game between the New England Patriots and New York Jets at MetLife Stadium sees the Butt Fumble, in which Jets QB Mark Sanchez collides with the backside of teammate Brandon Moore and fumbles the ball, which is recovered and returned for a TD by Steve Gregory of the Patriots; the Patriots go on to win 49-19. Architecture: On Mar. 5 $634M Marlins Park in Miami, Fla. opens as the home of the ML Miami Marlins. On May 16 the bizarre 44-story Central China TV HQ (begun June 1, 2004) in Beijing opens; in Feb. 2016 the China State Council announces that it will no longer approve "bizarre architecture". On May 22 634m Tokyo Skytree opens, becoming the tallest self-supporter tower on Earth (until ?). On Sept. 21 $1B Barclays Center multipurpose indoor arena in Brooklyn, N.Y. opens as the home of the NBA Brooklyn Nets and NHL New York Islanders. The 2K ft. (609.6m) 150-floor Chicago Spire is finished, becoming the tallest bldg. in North Am. (until ?). The $4.4M Galactic Suite Space Resort opens, becoming the first hotel in space, where guests can watch the Sun rise 15x a day as they orbit the Earth every 80 min. The 260K sq. ft. $100M Louvre Abu Dhabi art museum on Saadiyat Island opens with a 30-year agreement with the French govt., concentrating on the gap between Eastern and Western art. The 105-floor 1.1K ft. (330m) Ryungyong ("capital of willows") Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea is completed. 108 ft. Elwha Dam and 210 ft. Glines Canyon Dam are removed from the Elhwa River in Wash. state, becoming the largest dam removal project in history (until ?). Nobel Prizes: Peace: European Union (EU); Lit: Mo Yan (Guan Moye) (1955-) (China); Physics: Serge Haroche (1944-) (France) and David Jeffrey Wineland (1944-) (U.S.) [experimental methods for quantum systems]; Chemistry: Robert Joseph Lefkowitz (1943-) (U.S.) and Brian Kent Kobilka (1955-) (U.S.) [G-protein-coupled receptors]; Medicine: Sir John Bertrand Gurdon (1933-) (U.K.) and Shinya Yamanaka (1962-) (Japan) [pluripotent cells]; Economics: Alvin Elliot Roth (1951-) (U.S.) and Lloyd Stowell Shapley (1923-2016) (U.S.) [theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design]. Inventions: On Apr. 1 Tokyo U. unveils a Smelling Screen that uses gel pellets to eject smells from different parts of the screen. On Apr. 24 Google announces its new Penguin algorithm, designed to penalize Web sites that use black-hat SEO to inflate their page rankings. On May 8 Nev. approves the first self-driven vehicle license in the U.S. for Google. On May 25 (12:02 p.m. EDT) the unmanned SpaceX Dragon becomes the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the Internat. Space Station (ISS). On June 24 China's Shenzou 9 spacecraft carrying three astronauts incl. the first-ever female docks with orbiting module Tiangong 1, making them country #3 after the U.S. and Russia. In June IBM builds the Sequoia 20 petaflop supercomputer; meanwhile IBM and the Bavarian Academy of Science build the SuperMUC 3 petaflop supercomputer; Intel and SGI build the Pleiades 10 petaflop supercomputer. The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile becomes operational. Science: On Feb. 21 scientists regenerate 31.8K-y.-o. specimens of the Arctic flower Silene stenophylla, a record. On Mar. 1 Barbel Honisch et al. of Columbia U. pub. an article in Science announcing that the Earth's oceans may be turning acidic from human carbon emissions faster than during the last four major extinctions over 300M years. On Mar. 2 Lee Hooper et al. of Norwick Medical School pub. an article in Am. Journal of Clinical Nutrition reporting that 42 studies indicate that people who eat chocolate have lower rates of heart risks incl. high blood pressure. On Mar. 12 Harvard Medical School pub. a Report on Red Meat, saying that a study of 120K suggests that eating it increases the death risk from cancer and heart problems. On Mar. 16 Euro scientists announce that neutrinos don't travel faster than light as formerly believed from a Sept. experiment. On Apr. 24 scientists at the Swiss Federal Inst. of Tech. demonstrate the first Thought-Controlled Robot. On Apr. 10 Michel Poulin and Anneke Buffone of the U. of Buffalo, and E. Alison Holman of UCI pub. an article in Psychological Science, announcing the possible discovery of a "niceness gene". On May 7 Dave Wilkinson et al. at Liverpool John Moores U. pub. an article in Current Biology claiming that dinosaur farts may have caused global warming. On May 11 physicists at the U. of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai announce that they've broken a 2-y.-o. record of 10 mi. by quantum teleporting photons 97 km. On May 12 an article in Science claims that 70% of the world's languages are found in biodiversity hotspots, and that the languages and cultures disappear with the loss of diversity. On May 14 scientists at Stanford U. announce a working bionic eye (light-powered retinal implant). On May 15 the U.S. announces a nat. plan to find an effective treatment for Old Timer's Alzheimer's by 2025. On May 15 Seung-Wuk Lee et al. of UCB announce a device that uses genetically-engineered viruses to generate piezoelectricity. On May 30 chemical elements #114 Flerovium (Fl) (#114) (discovered in 1998 by the Flerov Lab of Nuclear Reactions in Dubna, Russia) and Livermorium (Lv) (#116) (discovered in 2000 by the Lawrence Livermore Lab in the U.S. and the Joint Inst. for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia) are officially named by the Internat. Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). In June Wei Pan et al. pub. an article in Nature Communications that claims that city living generates super-linear productivity because of increased social ties. On Dec. 18 a team of doctors at John Hopkins U. perform the first successful double arm transplant on veteran Sgt. Brendan Marrocco (1986-). On Dec. 27 scientists in Leeds, England perform the first human hand transplant. The first successful mother-to-daughter womb transplant is performed at Sahlgrenska U. Hospital at Gothenburg U. in Sweden by Mats Brannstrom et al. Am. paleontologist Mary Higby Schweitzer (1955-) of N.C. State U. discovers soft tissue in a T-rex bone, shocking the scientific world and pleasing Creationists with the theory that dinos lived no more than a few tens of thousands of years ago; she goes on to prove that the dino was a pregnant female, and find molecular similarities between the T-Rex and chicken. Pluto's moons Kerberos and Styx are discovered by using the Hubble Space Telescope. The $3M Breakthrough Prizes in life sciences, fundamental physics, and mathematics are founded by Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Yuri Milner et al. Nonfiction: Eben Alexander III (1953-), Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife (Oct. 23); his 2008 coma causes a near-death experience which he claims proves the existence of an afterlife complete with angels, clouds, departed relatives, butterflies, and beautiful babes in peasant dress. Claude Allegre (1937-), No Need to Panic About Global Warming (June 27) (Wall Street Journal); causes Am. economist William Dawbney "Bill" Nordhaus (1941-) to come out swinging in a series of articles in New York Review of Books, incl. Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong (Mar. 22, 2012), In the Climate Casino: An Exchange (Apr. 26, 2012), and The Climate Contrarians (Aug. 16, 2012). History's easy, anybody can do it? David Barton (1954-), The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You've Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson (Apr. 10); claims that Jefferson wasn't a Deist but an evangelical Christian who believed that church-state separation was unidirectional; in Aug. numerous negative reviews cause the publisher Thomas Nelson to withdraw it, after which it is picked up by Glenn Beck; voted Least Credible History Book in Print by users of History News Network, beating Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". Ian Bremmer (1969-), Every Nation for itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World (May). David Jay Brown, Psychedelic Drug Research: A Comprehensive Review (Oct. 25). Peter Brown (1935-), Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 A.D.; minor bestseller (13K copies); the changing attitudes towards wealth among early Christians that transformed the Church into a super-rich welfare state for the clergy after abandoning the idea that wealth is inherently sinful as stated by Jesus in his parable about the camel and the you know what. Jeb Bush and Clint Bolick, Immigration Wars: Forging an American Solution. Richard Carrier (1969-), Proving History: Bayes's Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus (Apr. 24). Ethan Casey, Bearing the Bruise: A Life Graced by Haiti. Prasanna Chandrasekhar, Navlipi (2 vols.); (Sansk. "new script"); the world's first practical phonemic script; patented on Aug. 20, 2013. David Hatcher Childress and Brien Foerster, The Enigma of Cranial Deformation: Elongated Skulls of the Ancients (Feb. 1); explores why ancient Peruvians et al. used head-binding to create elongated skulls, suggesting that they tried to imitate ET ancestors. Sir Christopher Clark (1960-), The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 German trans. pub. in 2013; challenges the "war guilt" of the Germans for WWI, relieving the German govt. of responsibility by claiming that they were engaging in risks that had been taken before without catastrophic consequences which just chanced to come out bad, becoming a hit in Germany despite Volker Ullrich's criticism that it ignores the pressure from Germany's powerful military establishment, and Hans-Ulrich Wehler's criticism that the book "eliminates [Germany's war guilt] with bewildering one-sidedness"; in 2015 he receives a British knighthood for his services to Anglo-German relations. James Hal Cone (1938-), The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Sept. 1); Jesus' crucifixion was a black lynching?; disses U.S. Christians for not doing enough to stop black lynchings. William Dalrymple (1965-), Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan; the 1839-42 British occupation of Afghanistan. E.J. Dionne (1952-), Our Divided Political Heart: The Battle for the American Idea in an Age of Discontent. Moorpheus El, The Secret of Secrets (Lifting of The Veil) (Dec. 21); claims that the Universe is a vast quantum computer; "Imagine for a moment that you are physically connected to planets in the universe; saturn, mars, jupiter, venus, and earth; then, that they are in fact hardware, simply waiting for your command... This is the How! How to program reality the same way you would a computer; the hidden technology to change your fate; the One Secret behind all the Law of Attraction books, that is never revealed." M. Stanton Evans and Herbert Romerstein, Stalin's Secret Agents (Nov.). John Feffer, Crusade 2.0: The West's Resurgent War on Islam (Mar. 20); his concern about Islamophobia. Robin Gaby Fisher, The Woman Who Wasn't There: The True Story of an Incredible Deception; Spanish woman Tania Head, who fakes being a 9/11 survivor. Cammy Franzese, This Thing of Ours: How Faith Saved My Mafia Marriage (Jan. 3); her hubby Michael turns out to be a Mafia don. Ben Goldacre (1974-), Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients (Sept. 25); "The whole edifice of medicine is broken." Amit Goswami, God Is Not Dead: What Quantum Physics Tells Us About Our Origins and How We Should Live. Stanislav Grof (1931-), Healing Our Deepest Wounds: The Holotropic Paradigm Shift. Tenzing Gyatso (1931-), Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World (Nov. 6). Sam Harris (1967-), Free Will. Michael Hastings, The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan (Jan. 5). Chris Hedges (1956-), Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt; illustrated by Joe Sacco; NYT bestseller. Peter Hitchens (1951-), The War We Never Fought (Sept.); calls the war on drugs nonexistent. Tom Holland (1968-), In the Shadow of the Word: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World; claims that Islam arose not in 7th cent. Arabia but cents. later on the Syrian-Palestinian border. David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin, The New Leviathan: How the Left-Wing Money Machine Shapes American Politics and Threatens America's Future; "self-sufficient and self-perpetuating... an aristocracy of wealth whose dimensions exceed any previous accumulations of financial power, whose influence already represents a massive disenfranchisement of the American people and whose agendas pose a disturbing prospect for the American future." James Inhofe (1934-), The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future (Feb. 7); chmn. of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) in 2003-7 and 2015-17 claims on the Senate floor that "manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people", once bringing a snowball with him to disprove global warming, and claiming that schools are "brainwashing" children about climate change, making it necessary to "unbrainwash them when they get out", earning him the top position on the Top Ten Climate Deniers List. Rael Jean Isaac (1933-), Roosters of the Apocalypse: HOw the Junk Sience of Global Warming Nearly Bankrupted the Western World (Feb. 24). Hugh Iwanicki and Dave Bailey, Shock & Alarm: What It Was Really Like at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq; "The challenge Islam presents is not going to go away, and our igorance can only cause us to lose a monumental battle of ideas." Sadakat Kadri, Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Sharia Law. Robert Kagan (1958-), The World America Made (Feb. 14). Robin D.G. Kelley (1962-), Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times (May 13). Ashraf Khalil, Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation (Jan. 3). William Kirkpatrick, Christianity, Islam and Atheism: The Struggle for The Soul of The West (Nov. 26). Edward Klein (1937-), The Amateur: Barack Obama in the White House. Ray Kurzweil (1948-), How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed (Nov. 13). Jeremy Kuzmarov, Modernizing Repression: Police Training and Nation Building in the American Century. Jonah Lehrer (1981-), Imagine: How Creativity Works. Bernard Lewis (1916-), Notes on a Century: Reflections of a Middle East Historian (autobio.). Michael Lind (1962-), Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States (Apr. 1); "What is good about the American economy is largely the result of the Hamiltonian... tradition, and what is bad about it is largely the result of the Jeffersonian... school"; "The neo-Jeffersonians trim back accomplishments of the previous Hamiltonian generation - national banking, emancipation, New Deal social programs - but usually fail to repeal them. As a result, the U.S. progresses at a pace of two steps forward, one step back." Fredrik Logevall (1963-), Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam (Pulitzer Prize); shows how the U.S. blundered into Vietnam and misjudged the reaction of the South Vietnamese people to the U.S. as yet another colonialist power. Jenna M. Loyd, Matt Michelson, and Andrew Burridge (eds.), Beyond Walls and Cages: Prisons, Borders, and Global Crisis. Jonathan Lyons, Islam Through Western Eyes: From the Crusades to the War on Terrorism; tries to rescue the bad image of Islam in the West with historical arguments; too bad, he ignores the first horrible 3 cents. from the death of Muhammad. Benoit B. Mandelbrot (1924-2010), The Fractalist (autobio.) (posth.). David Maraniss, Barack Obama: The Story; Washington Post assoc. ed. exposes Obama's memoir "Dreams of My Father" as full of false anecdotes, causing Obam to tell him, "David, you called my book fiction", to which he answes "No, Mr. President, I actually complimented you. I called it literature." Garry Marshall (1934-), My Happy Days in Hollywood: A Memoir (autobio.); dir. of "The Odd Couple", "Happy Days", "Laverne & Shirley", "Mork & Mindy", "The Flamingo Kid", "Beaches", "Pretty Woman", "The Princess Diaries". Jonathan Matusitz, Terrorism & Communication: A Critical Introduction. Jon Ellis Meacham (1969-), Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power. Dambisa Moyo (1969-), Winner Take All: China's Race for Resources and What It Means for the World (June 5); NYT bestseller. Barbara Natterson-Horowitz, Zoobiquity: What Animals Can Teach Us About Health and the Science of Healing (June 12); reindeer seek escape in hallucenogenic mushrooms? Harry Ostrer, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People; concludes that all Jews incl. Ashkenazi Jews are one people. Elaine Pagels (1943-), Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation; trivializes it to anti-Roman propaganda, no need to worry about any nasty Armageddon or Last Judgment. Joseph Chilton Pearce (1926-), The Heart-Mind Matrix: How the Heart Can Teach the Mind New Ways to Think. Nobert G. Pressburg, What the Modern Martyr Should Know: Seventy-Two Grapes and Not a Single Virgin: The New Picture of Islam (June 23); exposes the non-historicity of Muhammad. Raghuram Rajan (1963-), The True Lessons of the Recession: The West Can't Borrow and Spend Its Way to Recovery (May); gets into a debate with Paul Krugman, advocating supply-side solutions to the Great Recession, while Krugman sticks with the Keynesian stimulus solution. Johnny Ramone (1948-2004), Commando: The Autobiography of Johnny Ramone (posth.) (Apr. 2). Bob Reiss (1951-), The Eskimo and the Oil Man: The Battle at the Top of the World for America's Future (May 15); the fight over offshore drilling in the Arctic as seen through the eyes of a Shell Oil exec and an Eskimo leader in Alaska; "The Arctic century is upon us." Tom Reiss (1964), The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo (Sept. 18) (Pulitzer Prize). Paul Craig Roberts (1939-), The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West. Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power Seth Rosenfeld, Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power (Aug. 21); secret FBI involvement at UCB with Calif. gov. Ronald Reagan, radical Mario Savio, and UCB pres. Clark Kerr. Alice Schwarzer (1942-), Autobio. Deborah Scroggins, Wanted Women: Faith, Lies and the War on Terror: The Lives of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Aafia Siddiqui. Rupert Sheldrake (1942-), The Science Delusion: Freeing the Spirit of Enquiry. Joseph Stiglitz (1943-), The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future (June 11); NYT bestseller about the top 1%; "Their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live... It does not have to be this way." Cheryl Strayed (1968-), Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail (autobio.) (Mar. 20); NYT #1 bestseller; Tiny Beautiful Things: Advance on Love and Life from Dear Sugar (essays) (July 10); NYT bestseller. Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III (1951-), Making a Difference: Stories of Vision and Courage from America's Leaders (May). Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), The World Happiness Report 2012; first in an annual series. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (1960-), Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder; incl. fasting, mythology, urban planning, plus biological, cultural, economic, and technological systems. Roger Trigg, Equality, Freedom and Religion; "There has been a clear trend for courts in Europe and North America to prioritise equality and non-discrimination above religion, placing the right to religious freedom in danger." Fritz Vahrenholt (1949-) and Sebastian Luning (1970), "Die Kalte Sonne: Warum die Klimakatrasphoe nicht Statfindet", which is pub. in English on June 15, 2015 as The Neglected Sun: Why the Sun Precludes Climate Catastrophe, which claims that the Sun and four concurrent solar cycles control weather on Earth, not CO2, making the doomsday global warming predictions of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change into moose hockey, a castle built on sand, because a future ice age is a possibility after the Earth cools 0.2-0.3 C by 2035; their book is heavily criticized by climate scientists. Brian Weiss (1944-), Miracles Happen: The Transformational Healing Power of Past-Life Memories (Oct. 2). Henry Wiencek, Master of the Mountain; depicts Thomas Jefferson as a greedy racist slave-owner. Robert Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel. Donald N. Yates, Old World Roots of the Cherokee: How DNA, Ancient Alphabets and Religion Explain the Origins of America's Largest Indian Nation (July 11); the Cherokees came from W Europe? Larry Young and Brian Alexander, The Chemistry Between Us; claims that men are attracted to womens' breasts because of their infantile breast-feeding circuitry. Art: Christo and Jeanne-Claude erect the Over the River Project, panels of shimmering silver-colored panels covering the Arkansas River in Colo.; meanwhile they plan the Mastaba Project, a 500-ft.-tall flat-top pyramid of 400K stacked oil barrels in Abu Dhabi. Music: Shawn Colvin (1956-), All Fall Down (album #8) (June 5). Deftones, Koi No Yokan (album #7) (Nov. 12) (#11 in the U.S.) (180K copies); incl. Swerve City, Leathers, Tempest. Imagine Dragons, Night Visions (album) (debut) (Sept. 4) (#2 in the U.S.) (1.9M copies); from Las Vegas, Nev., incl. Dan Reynolds (vocals), Wayne "Wing" Sermon (guitar), Ben McKee (bass), and Daniel Platzman (drums); incl. It's Time, Hear Me, On Top of the World, Radioactive, Demons, Amsterdam. Aaron Lewis (1972-), The Road (Nov. 13) (album) (#7 country) (#30 in the U.S.); incl. Endless Summer (#39 country), Forever (#50 country), Granddaddy's Gun. Macklemore (1983-), Ryan Lewis (1988-), and Mary Lambert (1989-), Same Love (#11 in the U.S., #6 in the U.K.). Bruno Mars (1985-), Album #2 Unorthodox Jukebox (album #2) (Dec. 7, 2012) (#2 in the U.S.) (#1 in the U.K.); incl. Locked Out of Heaven (#1 in the U.S.). Kip Moore (1980-), Up All Night (album) (debut) (Apr. 24) (#3 country) (#6 in the U.S.); incl. Beer Money (#7 country, #51 in the U.S.), Hey Pretty Girl (#8 country) (#41 in the U.S.). Frank Ocean (1987-), Channel Orange (album) (debut) (July 10); incl. Thinking Bout You (#32 in the U.S., #(4 in the U.K.), Pyramids (#31 R&B in the U.K.), Sweet Life. Indian Ocean, 16/330 Khajoor Road (album #5) (Aug. 30); named after the 100-y.-o. bungalow where they rehearse; in 2013 Susmit Sen leaves the band, and is replaced by Nikhil Rao. Rita Ora (1990-), Ora (album) (debut) (Aug. 27) (#1 in the U.K.); incl. Hot Right Now, How We Do (Party), and R.I.P. (w/Tinie Tempah). Psy (Jae-sang Park) (1977-), Gangnam Style; on Dec. 21 (15:50 UTC) it becomes the first music video to reach 1B views on YouTube; on Oct. 23, 2012 he met U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon at U.N. HQ. Sydney Wayser (1986-), Bell Choir Coast (album #3) (Mar. 27). Movies: Timur Bekmambetov's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (June 18) (Tim Burton Productions) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 2010 Seth Grahame-Smith novel and filmed in La. stars Benjamin Walker and Lux Haney-Jardine as Lincoln, Dominic Sturges as his mentor Dominic Cooper, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Mary Todd Lincoln, Jacquelin Fleming as Harriet Tubman, John Rothman as Jefferson Davis, Marton Csokas a plantation owner-vampire Jack Barts, and Joseph Mawle as Lincoln's father Thomas Lincoln; does $116.4M box office on a $99.5M budget. Joe Wright's Anna Karenina (Sept. 17), based on the 1877 Leo Tolstoy novel stars Keira Knightley as Anna, Jude Law as Alexei, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Vronsky. Michael Haneke's Amour (May 20) stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva as retired music teachers Georges and Anne, who has a stroke. Ben Affleck's Argo (Oct. 12), based on the 1981 TV movie "Escape from Iran: The Canadian Caper" about CIA operative Tony Mendez leading the rescue of six U.S. diplomats from Tehran in 1979 stars Affleck as Mendez, and Alan Arkin as Lester Siegel. Craig Moss' Bad Ass (Apr. 13), based on the AC Transit Bus Fight Internet Video stars Danny Trejo as 67-y.-o. decorated Vietnam War vet Frank Vega, who becomes famous after he beats up two skinheads on a bus; Charles S. Dutton plays drug lord Panther, and Ron Perlman plays Mayor Williams. Peter Berg's Battleship (Apr. 3) (Universal), based on the Hasbro board game stars Liam Neeson as Adm. Terrance Shane, and Peter MacNicol as the U.S. secy. of defense, who deal with invading aliens from Planet G, who are attracted by a signal sent from Hawaii by NASA; does $303M box office on a $209M budget. Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild (Jan. 20) (Fox Searchlight Pictures), based on the 1-act play "Juicy and Delicious" by Lucy Alibar about the Bathtub in La. stars 9-y.-o. Quevenzhane Wallis (b. 2003) as 5-y.-o. Hushpuppy, who becomes the youngest Academy Award best actress nominee (until ?); Dwight Henry plays Wink; does $21.9M box office on a $1.8M budget. Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod's Bel Ami (Feb. 17) (Redwave Films), based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant stars Robert Pattinson as Georges Duroy, who rises to power in Paris by manipulating wealthy women. Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods (Mar. 9) (Mutant Enemy Productions) (Lionsgate) is about a group of college students incl. Kristen Connally as Dana Polk, Chris Hemsworth as Curt Vaughan, Anna Hutchison as Jules Louden, and Fran Kranz as Mary Mikalsi, where a menagerie of monsters is imprisoned, turning into a sendup of virtually every horror movie ever made; also features Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, and Sigourney Weaver; does $66.5M box office on a $30M budget. George Sluizer's Dark Blood (Sept. 27) stars River Phoenix as Boy, who retreats to the desert after his wife dies of radiation from nuclear tests, and waits for the end of the world while carving Kachina dolls; meanwhile couple Harry and Buffy (Jonathan Pryce and Judy Davis) break down in their car and are rescued by Boy, who holds them prisoner; it was canned after Phoenix's 1993 death until now. Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises (July 16) features Tom Hardy as Bane, and Anne Hawthorne as Catwoman Selma Kyle; does $1B on a $230M budget. Henry Alex Rubin's Disconnect (Sept. 11), about life in the cyberorld stars Jason Bateman, Hope Davis, and Frank Grillo, and is the acting debut of fashionista Marc Jacobs. Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (Dec. 11) (A Band Apart) (The Weinstein Co.) (Columbia Pictures), a stylized tribute to Spaghetti Westerns esp. the 1966 film "Django" by Sergio Corbucci, set in the antebellum Deep South and Old West stars Christoph Waltz as a bounter hunter chasing freed slave Jamie Foxx, who's trying to rescue his wife Kerry Washington from cruel plantation owner Leonardo DiCaprio, turning the Western inside-out and upside-down; "Django" star Franco Nero has a cameo; does $425.4M box office on a $100M budget. Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Jan. 20), based on the Jonathan Safran Foer novel stars Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock as Thomas and Linda Schell, and Thomas Horn as their 11-y.-o. son Oskar in a flick about 9/11; Zoe Caldwell plays Oskar's grandmother, and Max von Sydow plays the mysterious Renter. Robert Zemeckis' Flight (Oct. 14) stars Denzel Washington as airline Capt. William "Whip" Whitaker Sr., who crashes SouthJet Flight 227 to Atlanta while high on cocaine, heroically saving the crew, and is treated as a hero until the drug test comes back; Bruce Greenwood plays union rep Charlie Anderson; John Goodman plays drug dealer Harling Mays; Kelly Reilly plays Denzel's babe Nicole Maggen; does $161.8M box office on a $31M budget. Juan Antonio Bayon's The Impossible, (Sept. 9) based on a the true story of Maria Belon and her family in the Dec. 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami stars Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor as Marria and Henry Bennett. Steven Soderbergh's Haywire (Jan. 20) stars martial arts star Gina Carano as freelance spy Mallory Kane, who kicks the ass of hunk Aaron (Channing Tatum); Ewan McGregor plays Kenneth, Michael Fassebender plays Paul, and Bill Paxton plays John Kane. Sacha Gervasi's Hitchcock (Nov. 23), based on "Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" by Stephen Rebello stars Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as his wife Alma Reville, and Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh. Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Nov. 28) (New Line Cinema) (MGM) (WingNut Films) (Warner Bros.), based on the 1937 J.R.R. Tolkien novel stars Ian Holm and Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins, Ian McKellen as Gandalf, Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey, Richard Armitage as Thorin Oakenshield, Andy Serkis as Gollum, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug the Dragon; does $1,021M box office on a $315M budget; followed by "The Desolation of Smaug" (2013) and "The Battle of the Five Armies" (2014). Gary Ross' The Hunger Games (Mar. 12), based on the 2008 Suzanne Collins novel stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, and Donald Sutherland in the future post-apocalyptic nation of Panem, where boys and girls ages 12-18 are forced to fight to the death on TV; it brings in $692M on a $78M budget. Roger Michell's Hyde Park on Hudson (Aug. 310 (Daybreak Pictures), based on the Richard Nelson play stars Murray as FDR, and Laura Linney as his 6th cousin and lover Margaret "Daisy" Suckley; does $8.9M box office. Andrew Stanton's John Carter (Mar. 9), a Walt Disney Pictures production based on the novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs stars Taylor Kitsch as John Carter, Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas, and Lynn Collins as Princess Dejah Thoris of Barsoom; does $282.8M box office on a $250M budget. Tom Hooper's Les Miserables (Dec. 5), based on the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo stars Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, Russell Crowe as Javert, Anne Hathaway as Fantine, and Isabelle Allen as Cosette. Ang Lee's 3-D Life of Pi (Sept. 28) (20th Cent. Fox), written by David Magee based on the 2001 novel by Yann Martel about a 16-y.-o. boy trapped on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger stars Ayush Tandon, Suraj Sharma, and Irrfan Khan as Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel; does $609M box office on a $120M budget. Steven Spielberg's Lincoln (Oct. 8) (DreamWorks Pictures) (20th Cent. Fox) (Walt Disney Studios), written by Tony Kushner based on "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln" by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2005) about the last 4 mo. of his life as he twists arms and offers political patronage jobs to get the 13th Amendment passed stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln, Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, David Strathairn as William Seward, Bruce McGill as Edwin Stanton, Hal Holbrook as Francis Preston Blair, Peter McRobbie as Dem. slavery proponent George H. Pendleton of Ohio, and Tommy Lee Jones as Radical Repub. leader Thaddeus Stevens, who swallows his pride to argue for equality before the law instead of racial equality and endure taunts by Tammany Hall N.Y. Rep. Fernando Wood (played by Lee Pace), then gets into bed with his African housekeeper Lydia Hamilton Smith (played by S. Epatha Merkerson) at the end, uttering the soundbyte that the amendment was "passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America"; the film is full of moose hockey, but Spielberg admits that "this resurrection is a fantasy... a dream... one of the jobs of art is to go to the impossible places that history must avoid"; it's really just the Day-Lewis show, as he channels Lincoln admirably incl. the high-pitched voice; does $275.3M box office on a $65M budget. Rian Johnson's Looper (Sept. 6) has the tag line "Hunted by your future. Haunted by your past"; after time travel is invented in 2074 and outlawed, criminal orgs. send those they want killed back into the past with silver bars strapped on, where they are killed by loopers, who get the bars, esp. 25-y.-o. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in 2044 Kansas City; too bad, when Joe retires, his older self (Bruce Willis) is sent back with gold bars strapped on to close the loop. Martin Villeneuve's Mars et Avril (Mars and April) (July 2) is based on the graphic novels of Sid Lee and La Pasteque; stars Caroline Dhavernas as Avril, Jacques Languirand and Paul Ahramani as her lovers Jacob Obus and Arthur, and Robert Lepage as Arthur's father Eugene Spaak. Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike (June 24) (Warner Bros.) stars Channing Tatum as 18-y.-o. stripper Mike Lane in Tampa, Fla., who teams with Adam the Kid (Alex Pettyfer) while hooking up with Brooke (Cody Horn); does $167M box office on a $7M budget; followed by "Magic Mike XXL" (2015). Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master (Sept. 1) stars Joaquin Phoenix as WWII vet Freddie Quell, who joins the Cause of Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black 3 (May 14) (Columbia Pictures) stars Will Smith as Agent J, Tommy Lee Jones as Agent K, Josh Brolin as the 1969 Agent K, Emma Thompson as Agent O, Alice Eve as 1969 Agent O, and Jemaine Clement as Boris the Animal in a time travel adventure centering on the Apollo 11 liftoff; does $624M box office on a $215M budget. Ava DuVernay's Middle of Nowhere (Jan. 20) (Participant Media) stars Emyatzy Corinealdi as a promising medical student whose hubby gets an 8-year prison sentence; does $237K box office on a $200K budget. Tarsem Singh's Mirror Mirror (Mar. 30) is a retelling of Snow White starring Lily Collins as Snow White, Julia Roberts as Clmentianna, Armie Hammer as Prince Andrew Alcott, Nathan Lane as servant Brighton, and Sean Bean as the king. Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom (May 16) is a romantic comedy drama set on New Penzance Island in New England, with an ensemble cast incl. Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Kara Hayward, and Jared Gilman. Pablo Larrain's No (May 18) stars Gael Garcia Bernal as Rene Saavedra, an ad man in Chile during the 1988 plebiscite on Gen. Pinochet. Atiq Rahimi's The Patience Stone (Oct. 11), based on Rahimi's 2008 novel stars Golshifteh Farahani as an Afghani woman whose jihadist hubby was shot in the neck, turning him into a vegetable, allowing him to confide her deepest secrets to him to turn him into a sang-e savour (magic stone) that shields her from unhappiness and suffering. Ole Bornedal's The Possession (Aug. 30) (Ghost House Productions) (Lionsgate) stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick as recently-separated Clyde and Stephanie Brenek, whose children Emily "Em" Breneck (Natasha Calis) and Hannah Brenek (Madison Davenport) get messed up by an old wooden box with Hebrew letters engraved on it they got at a yard sale that is possessed by a dybbuk named Ayzou (Taker of Children); "Once the box is open people die"; does $78.5M box office on a $14M budget. Ridley Scott's Prometheus (May 30) (20th Cent. Fox), originally a prequel to "Alien" (1979), about a late 21st cent. spaceship that follows a star map to discover the origins of humanity stars Noomi Rapace as archeologist Elizabeth Shaw, Michael Fassbender as android David, Charlize Theron as Weyland Corp. employee Meredith Vickers, and Idris Elba as Capt. Janek; Guy Pearce plays egomaniac Weyland Corp. founder Peter Weyland; does $403M box office on a $130M budget. Spike Lee's Red Hook Summer (Aug. 10) (40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks) (Chronicles of Brooklyn #6) stars Clarke Peters as Da Good Bishop Enoch Rouse of Red Hook, Brooklyn, whose pampered grandson Flik Royle (Jules Brown) is sent to live with him, only to see his covered-up past of sexual molestation of a boy go public, causing his congregation to turn against him; does $339K bo office. Jake Schreier's Robot and Frank (Jan. 20) stars Frank Langella as an aging jewel thief whose son buys him a domestic robot, which he teaches to pull heists. Nikolaj Arcel's A Royal Affair (Feb. 16) stars Mikkel Folsgaard as crazy Danish King Christian VII, Alicia Vikander as Queen Caroline Mathilde, and Mads Mikkelsen as her physician lover Johann Friedrich Struensee. Jacques Audiard's Rust and Bone (De rouille et d'os) (May 17) (Canal+), based on the short stories by Craig Davidson stars Marion Cotillard as Stephanie, a killer whale trainer who falls for unemployed 20-something wannabe-kick boxer Alain van Versch (Matthias Schoenaerts) in Antibes and loses her legs in an accident; does $25.8M box office on a $20M budget. Daniel Espinoza's Safe House (Feb. 7) (Universal Pictures) stars Denzel Washington as rogue ex-CIA agent Tobin Frost, who steals a data storage device containing info. on dirty dealings by U.S, British and other intel agencies from rogue MI6 agent Alex Wade (Liam Cunningham) and is chased by undercover CIA mercenaries led by Vargas (Fares Fares) until he surrenders himself to the U.S. consulate in Cape Town, South Africa, who put him in a safe house, where he is waterboarded by agent Daniel Kiefer (Robert Patrick), until Vargas and his men attack and kill everybody except rookie agent Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds), who escapes, taking Frost with him, after which Frost escapes, and they play cat and mouse; Brendan Gleeson plays CIA superior David Barlow; Vera Farmiga plays CIA operative Catherine Linklater; Nora Arnezeder plays Weston's babe Ana Moreau; does $208M box office on a $85M budget. Lorene Scafaria's Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (June 22) (Mandate Pictures) (Focus Features) (title taken from the Chris Cornell song "Preaching the End of the World") stars Steve Carell as Dodge Petersen, and Keira Knightley as Penelope "Penny" Lockhart, who find out that the world will be destroyed by an asteroid in three weeks; does $9.6M box office on a $10M budget. Ben Lewin's The Sessions (Jan. 23) stars John Hawks as paralyzed poet Mark O'Brien, who hires sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen (Helen Hunt-Greene). David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook (Sept. 8), based on the 2008 novel by Matthew Quick stars Bradley Cooper as bipolar Patrizio "Pat" Solitano Jr., and Jennifer Lawrence as recovering sex addict Tiffany Maxwell; Robert De Niro plays Pat Sr., who loses his job and becomes a bookie to make enough money to start a restaurant; does $236M box office on a $21M budget; first film to have actors nominated for Oscars in all four categories since "Reds" (1981); Jennifer Lawrence trips on her way to the stage at the Oscars. Sascha Hartmann's Sir Billi (Apr. 13), the first CGI animated flick from Scotland is about an aging skateboarding veterinarian who fights a war to save Bessie Boo, the last beaver in Scotland; the final role for Sean Connery as Sir Billi. Sam Mendes' Skyfall (Oct. 23) (Eon Productions) (MGM) (Columbia Pictures) (James Bond 007 film #23), named after his Scottish estate stars Daniel Craig as James Bond 007, and Javier Barden as Julian Assange clone blonde bad guy Raoul Silva, a former MI6 agent gone cyberterrorist out to kill M (Judi Dench); Ben Whishaw plays Q, and Naomie Harris plays a black Miss Eve Moneypenny; Albert Finney (after the idea of casting Sean Connery is discarded) plays Kincade the gamekeeper; Ralph Fiennes plays Gareth Mallory, who takes over the M job at the end of the film; the Skyfall Theme Song is performed by Adele; features the reappearance of the original Aston Martin DB5; does $1.1B box office on a $200M budget, #7 of all time, and #1 in the U.K. Rupert Sanders' Snow White and the Huntsman (May 30) charles Kristen Stewart as Snow White, Charlize Theron as Queen Ravenna, Chris Hemsworth as Eric the Huntsman, Sam Claflin as William, and Bob Hoskins as Muir the blind elder dwarf in his last film role. Olivier Megaton's Taken 2 (Oct. 3), the sequel to the 2008 film stars Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, and Famke Janssen; does $376M box office on a $45M budget. Judd Apatow's This Is 40 (Dec. 21) (Universal Pictures) stars Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann as Pete and Debbie, married who turn 40; does $88.1M box office on a $35M budget. The Farrelly Brothers' The Three Stooges (Apr. 13) (20th Cent. Fox.) stars Chris Diamantopoulos as Moe, Sean Hayes as Larry, and Will Sasso as Curly; Jane Lynch plays Mother Superior, and Kirby Heyborne plays their orphanage friend Theodore J. "Teddy" Harter; does $54.8M box office on a $30M budget. James Watkins' The Woman in Black (Feb. 3) (Alliance Films) (Hammer Films) (Momentum Pictures) (CBS Films), based on the 1983 Susan Hill novel set in the English village of Crythin Gifford in 1910 stars Daniel Radcliffe as lawyer Arthur Kipps, Ciaran Hinds as landowner Sam Daily, Janet McTeer as his wife Elizabeth, and Liz White as Jennet Humfrye, the Woman in Black; does $127M box office on a $15M budget. Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (Dec. 19) (30 min. after midnight) (original title: "For God and Country") (Columbia Pictures), about the manhunt for Osama bin Laden culminating in his May 2, 2011 assassination stars Jessica Chastain as Obama-obsessed sexless (Crusader-like?) CIA agent Maya, Jason Clarke as her fellow intel officer Dan, Jennifer Ehle as doomed CIA analyst Jessica, Kyle Chandler as Islamabad CIA station chief Joseph Bradley, Joel Edgerton as Navy SEAL team leader Patrick, and Chris Pratt as fellow SEAL Justin; Ricky Sekhon plays Osama bin Laden; "The greatest manhunt in history" does $132.8M box office on a $40M budget. Plays: Ayad Akhtar, Disgraced (New York) a dinner party turns into a heated debate about Islam between Pakistani-born Amir and his wife Emily and the rest incl. Jory and her hubby Isaac. Stafford Arima, Bare (Dec. 9) (New York) (86 perf.); coming of age rock musical set in a Roman Catholic boarding school. Harvey Fierstein (1954-) and Cyndi Lauper (1953-), Kinky Boots (musical) (Chicago); based on the 2005 film. Simon Stephens (1971-) and Mark Haddon (1962-), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Royal Nat. Theatre, London) (Aug. 2) (Apollo Theatre, West End, London) (Mar. 12, 2013) (Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York) (Oct. 5, 2014); austistic Christopher John Francis Boone investigates the death of a neighbor's dog with the help of mentor Siobhan. Poetry: Sharon Olds (1942-), Stag's Leap (Sept. 4) (Pulitzer Prize; about her 1997 divorce. Novels: Ayad Akhtar, American Dervish (Jan.) (first novel); a Pakistani Muslim kid grows up in Wisc. James S.A. Carey, Caliban's War. Paul Coelho (1947-), Manuscript Found in Accra. Gillian Flynn (1971-), Gone Girl (June); #1 NYT bestseller (2M copies) about Nick Dunne and his vanished wife Amy; filmed in 2014. Lisa Genova (1970-), Love Anthony (Sept.); a boy with autism. John Green (1977-), The Fault in Our Stars (Jan. 10); 16-y.-o. cancer patient Hazel Grace Lancaster; NYT bestseller; filmed in 2014. Mark Helprin (1947-), In Sunlight and In Shadow (Oct. 12); Jewish business Heir Harry Copeland and Catherine Thomas Hale AKA Catherine Sedley meet on a Staten Island ferry in the late 1940s. Adam Johnson, The Orphan Master's Son; "In North Korea, you weren't born, you were made." Patrick Modiano (1945-), Night Grass (L'Herbe de Nuit). Zahra Noorbakhsh (1980-), Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women (Jan. 24). Kim Stanley Robinson (1952-), 2312 (May 23); Earth has been ravaged by climate change, and the Solar System has been colonized. J.K. Rowling (1965-), The Casual Vacancy. John Scalzi (1969-), Redshirts: A Novel with Three Codas. Charles Stross (1964-) and Cory Doctorow (1971-), The Rapture of the Nerds. Brad Thor (1969-), Black List. Patrick White (1912-90), The Hanging Garden (Apr. 2) (posth.) (unfinished). Tom Wolfe (1930-2018), Back to Blood (4th and last novel); Cuban immigrants in Miami. William Paul Young (1955-), Cross Roads (Nov. 13); egotistical businessman Anthony "Tony" Spencer is struck comatose and discovers the world of Christian faith through the eyes of black nurse Maggie Saunders. Births: Deaths: Am. photojournalist Eve Arnold (b. 1912) on Jan. 4 in London, England. Am. bowler Don Carter (b. 1926) on Jan. 5 in Miami, Fla. (emphysema). Indian rock mag. publisher Amit "Papa Rock" Saigal (b. 1965) on Jan. 5 in Goa. Soviet WWII spy Gevork Vartanian (b. 1924) on Jan. 10 in Moscow. Am. Cracker Barrel founder Dan Evins (b. 1935) on Jan. 14 in Lebanon, Tenn. Am. musician Johnny Otis (b. 1921) on Jan. 17 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "At Last" singer Etta James (b. 1938) on Jan. 20 in Riverside, Calif. Am. agronomist Sylvan Harold Wittwer (b. 1917) on Jan. 20. Japnese costume designer Eiko Ishioka (b. 1938) on Jan. 21 in Tokyo. Am. football coach Joe Paterno (b. 1926) on Jan. 22 in State College, Penn. (lung cancer). Am. actor James Farentino (b. 1938) on Jan. 24 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart failure). Am. archbishop of Philly (1988-2003) and bishop of Pittsburgh (1983-88) Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua (b. 1923) on Jan. 31 in Wynnewood, Penn. Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (b. 1923) on Feb. 1 in Cracow; 1996 Nobel Lit. Prize. English "The Tripods" sci-fi novelist Samuel Youd (b. 1922) on Feb. 3 in Bath, Somerset (bladder cancer). British last veteran of WWII (Women's RAF) Florence Beatrice Green (b. 1901) on Feb. 4 in North Lynn, West Norfolk. Am. "Nick Barkley in The Big Valley" actor Peter Breck (b. 1929) on Feb. 6 in Vancouver, B.C., Canada (dementia). Am. "I Will Always Love You" singer Whitney Houston (b. 1963) on Feb. 11 in Beverly Hills, Calif.; found dead in the bathtub in the Beverly Hills Hilton (OD?). Am. journalist Anthony Shadid (b. ?) on Feb. 16 in Syria (asthma attack while attempting to leave running behind camels). Am. biologist Eugene F. Stoermer (b. 1934) on Feb. 17. Italian virologist Rene Dulbecco (b. 1914) on Feb. 19 in La Jolla, Calif.; 1975 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. black teen Trayvon Martin (b. 1995) on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla. (killed by George Zimmerman). Am. theologian William Hamilton (b. 1924) on Feb. 28 in Portland, Ore. (congestive heart failure). English Monkees singer Davy Jones (b. 1945) on Feb. 29 in Stuart, Fla. (heart attack). Am. conservative pundit Andrew James Breitbart (b. 1969) on Mar. 1 in Westwood, Los Angeles, Calif.: "I am at war with the mainstream media because they portray themselves as objective observers of reality, when they're no such thing. They're partisan critical theory hacks... They have nothing but contempt for the American people". Am. serial murderer William Heirens (b. 1928) on Mar. 5 in Chicago, Ill.; dies after recanting his confession and claiming coercion. U.S. rep. (D-N.J.) (1989-2012) Donald Milford Payne (b. 1934) on Mar. 6 in Livingston, N.J. Am. chemist Frank Sherwood Rowland (b. 1927) on Mar. 10 in Newport Beach, Calif.; 1997 Nobel Chem. Prize. Am. Mr. Coffee co-creator Samuel Glazer (b. 1923) on Mar. 12 in Cleveland, Ohio (leukemia). Ukrainian-born Am. accused war criminal John Demjanjuk (b. 1920) on Mar. 17 in Bad Feilnbach, Bavaria; his criminal record is cleared. Egyptian Coptic pope #117 (1971-2012) Shenouda III (b. 1923) on Mar. 17 in Cairo (cancer). Tongan king (2006-12) George Tupou V (b. 1948) on Mar. 18 in Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong. Am. "Diving into the Wreck" writer-poet Adrienne Rich (b. 1929) on Mar. 27 in Santa Cruz, Calif. Am. banjo player Earl Scruggs (b. 1924) on Mar. 28 in Nashville, Tenn. Am. physicist Dale Raymond Corson (b. 1914) on Mar. 31 in Ithaca, N.Y. Am. economist Halbert L. White Jr. (b. 1950) on Mar. 31. Mexican pres. #52 (1982-8) Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado (b. 1934) on Apr. 1 in Mexico City (COPD). Malawian pres. #3 (2004-12) Bingu wa Mutharika (b. 1934) on Apr. 5 in Lilongwe (heart attack). Am. poet Reed Whittemore (b. 1919) on Apr. 6 in College Park, Md. Algerian pres. #1 (1963-5) Ahmed Ben Bella (b. 1916) on Apr. 11 in Algiers. English-born Australian Olympic swimmer Murray Rose (b. 1939) on Apr. 15 in Sydney. Am. "American Bandstand" MC Dick Clark (b. 1929) on Apr. 18 (heart attack). Australian Men at Work musician Greg Ham (b. 1953) on Apr. 19 in Melbourne. Am. "The Band" musician Levon Helm (b. 1940) on Apr. 19 in New York City (cancer). Am. Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson (b. 1931) on Apr. 21 in Falls Church, Va. English writer Charles Higham (b. 1931) on Apr. 12 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. football linebacker Junior Seau (b. 1969) (San Diego Chargers #55, 1990-2002) on May 2 in Oceanside, Calif. (suicide). Am. Beastie Boys musician Adam Yauch (b. 1964) on May 4 in New York City (salivary gland cancer). Am. "Goober in The Andy Griffith Show" actor George Lindsey (b. 1928) on May 6 in Nashville, Tenn. Yemeni al-Qaida member Fahd al-Quso (b. 1974) on May 6; killed by a U.S. drone strike. U.S. atty. gen. #65 (1965-6) Nick Katzenbach (b. 1922) on May 8 in Skillman, N.J. Am. "Where the Wild Things Are" children's novelist Maurice Sendak (b. 1928) on May 8 in Danbury, Conn. (stroke). Am. automobile designer Carroll Shelby (b. 1923) on May 10 in Dallas, Tex. Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes (b. 1928) on May 15 in Mexico City. Am. Go-go musician Chuck Brown (b. 1936) on May 16 in Baltimore, Md. (heart failure). Am. singer Donna Summer (b. 1948) on May 17 in Naples, Fla. (lung cancer); sold 130M+ records. Am. basketball player Bob Boozer (b. 1937) on May 19 in Omaha, Neb. English Bee Gees musician Robin Gibb (b. 1949) on May 20 in London (colorectal cancer). Am. musician Doc Watson (b. 1923) on May 29 in Winston-Salem, N.C. Am. basketball player Jack Twyman (b. 1934) on May 30 in Cincinnati, Ohio (cancer). Indian astrophysicist J.C. Bhattacharyya (b. 1930) on June 4 in New Delhi. English novelist Barry Unsworth (b. 1930) on June 4 in Italy. Am. "Fahrenheit 451" novelist Ray Bradbury (b. 1920) on June 5 in Los Angeles, Calif. French philosopher Roger Garaudy (b. 1913) on June 13 in Paris. Am. chemist William S. Knowles (b. 1917) on June 13 in Chesterfield, Mo.; 2001 Nobel Chem. Prize. Saudi crown prince Nayef (b. 1934) on June 16 in Geneva, Switzerland (heart failure). Am. artist LeRoy Neiman (b. 1921) on June 20 in New York City. Canadian hockey hall-of-fame player Fernie Flaman (b. 1927) on June 22 in Westwood, Mass. Am. taxi driver Rodney King (b. 1965) on June 27 in Rialto, Calif. Am. gay activist psychiatrist Richard A. Isay (b. 1934) on June 28 in New York City (carcinoma). Am. football player Ben Davidson (b. 1940) on July 2 in San Diego, Calif. Am. "Sheriff Andy Taylor", "Matlock" actor Andy Griffith (b. 1926) on July 3 in Manteo, N.C. Am. physicist Kenneth Ross MacKenzie (b. 1912) on July 4 in Los Angeles, Calif. Haitian anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot (b. 1949) on July 5 in Chicago, Ill.: "Any historical narrative is a bundle of silences." "But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." "But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past - or more accurately, pastness - is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." Am. "McHale's Navy" actor Ernest Borgnine (b. 1917) on July 8 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Bewitched" dir. William Asher (b. 1921) on July 16 in Palm Desert, Calif. Am. writer Stephen Covey (b. 1932) on July 16 in Idaho Falls, Idaho (bicycle accident in Rock Canyon Park). English Deep Purple musician Jon Lord (b. 1941) on July 16 in London (pancreatic cancer). Am. country singer Kitty Wells (b. 1919) on July 16 in Madison, Tenn. (stroke). Egyptian gen. Omar Suleiman (b. 1936) on July 19 in Cleveland, Ohio (heart attack) (assassinated by the CIA or Mossad?). Am. cognitive psychologist George Armitage Miller (b. 1920) on July 22 in Plainsboro, N.J. Am. astronaut Sally Ride (b. 1951) on July 23. Am. "Dr. Joe Gannon in Medical Center" actor Chad Everett (b. 1937) on July 24 in Los Angeles, Calif. (lung cancer). Ghanaian pres. (2009-12) John Atta Mills (b. 1944) on July 24 in Accra (throat cancer). Am. "The Rat Patrol" actor Justin Tarr (b. 1940) on July 26 in Hawaii. Am. singer-actor Tony Martin (b. 1912) on July 27 in Los Angeles, Calif. English archeologist James Mellaart (b. 1925) on July 29 in London. Am. "Myra Breckenridge" writer Gore Vidal (b. 1925) on July 31 in Hollywood Hills, Calif. (pneumonia): "For those who haven't read the books, I am known best for my hair preparations." Am. basketball player Dan Roundfield (b. 1953) on Aug. 6 in Aruba (drowned). Am. social scientist Robert Duncan Luce (b. 1925) on Aug. 11. Am. astronaut Neil Armstrong (b. 1930) on Aug. 12 in Cincinnati, Ohio; buried at sea. Polish-born comic book artist Joe Kubert (b. 1926) on Aug. 12 in Morristown, N.J. (multiple myeloma). Am. sci-fi writer Harry Harrison (b. 1925) on Aug. 15 in Brighton, England. Am. "Cmdr. Matt Decker in Star Trek: TOS" "actor William Windom (b. 1923) on Aug. 16 in Woodacre, Calif. (congestive heart failure). English "Top Gun" dir.-producer Tony Scott (b. 1944) on Aug. 19 in San Pedro, Los Angeles, Calif. (suicide by jumping off the Vincent Thomas Bridge). English "Carrie's War" children's writer Nina Bawden (b. 1925) on Aug. 22 in London. Am. basketball player Art Heyman (b. 1941) on Aug. 27 in Clermont, Fla. English historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke (b. 1953) on Aug. 29. Soviet minister of defence (1984-7) Sergey L. Sokolov (b. 1911) on Aug. 31 in Moscow; dies three days after his wife of 70 years Maria Samojilovna Sokolova (b. 1920). Am. "Alfie", "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" lyricist Hal David (b. 1921) on Sept. 1 in Los Angeles, Calif. (stroke). Am. "John Coffey in The Green Mile" actor Michael Clarke Duncan (b. 1957) on Sept. 3 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart attack). South Korean Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon (b. 1920) on Sept. 3 in Gapyeong. Am. NFL Cleveland Browns owner (1961-96) Art Modell (b. 1925) on Sept. 6 in Baltimore, Md. Am. "Power vs. Force" psychiatrist David R. Hawkins (b. 1927) on Sept. 19 in Sedona, Ariz. Am. AZT scientist Jerome Phillip Horowitz (b. 1919) on Sept. 6. U.S. ambassador John Christopher Stevens (b. 1960) on Sept. 12 in Benghazi, Libya (KIA). Am. New York Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger (b. 1926) on Sept. 29 in Southampton, N.Y. Canadian figure skater Barbara Ann Scott (b. 1928) on Sept. 30 in Fernandina Beach, Amelia Island, Fla. English historian Eric Hobsbawm (b. 1917) on Oct. 1 in London. British "The Railway Man" WWII officer Eric Lomax (b. 1919) on Oct. 8 in Berwick-upon-Tweed. Danish jazz musician John Tchicai (b. 1936) on Oct. 8 in Perpignan, France (brain hemorhage). U.S. Rep. (D-Fla.) (1963-97) Sam Gibbons (b. 1920) on Oct. 10 in Tampa, Fla. Am. psychologist John Garcia (b. 1917) on Oct. 12. Am. actor Gary Collins (b. 1938) on Oct. 12 in Biloxi, Miss. Am. politician Arlen Specter (b. 1930) on Oct. 14 in Philadelphia, Penn. Canbodian king (1941-55, 1993-2004) Norodom Sihanouk (b. 1922) on Oct. 15 in Beijing, China. Am. Earth Day founder John McConnell (b. 1915) on Oct. 20. Am. Oglala Sioux activist Russell Means (b. 1939) on Oct. 22 in Porcupine, S.D. (esophageal cancer). Am. 5Rhythms dance instructor Gabrielle Roth (b. 1941) on Oct. 22 in New York City (lung cancer). French "From Dawn to Decadence" cultural historian Jacques Barzun (b. 1907) on Oct. 25 in San Antonio, Tex.: "Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball"; "Old age is like learning a new profession. And not one of your own choosing"; "History cannot be a science; it is the very opposite, in that its interest resides in the particulars." English New Age writer Murry Hope (b. 1929) on Oct. 25 in Emsworth, West Sussex. Am. historian Richard N. Current (b. 1912) on Oct. 26 in Boston, Mass. (Parkinson's). Am. historian Thomas Kincaid McCraw (b. 1940) on Nov. 3 in Cambridge, Mass. Irish-Am. feminist writer Patricia Monaghan (b. 1946) on Nov. 11 in Black Earth, Wisc. Am. psychiatrist Daniel N. Stern (b. 1934) on Nov. 12 in Geneva, Switzerland. Am. chemist James Bassham (b. 1922) on Nov. 19 in El Cerrito, Calif. Soviet sci-fi novelist Boris Strugatsky (b. 1933) on Nov. 19 in St. Petersburg. Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab (b. 1987) on Nov. 21 in Pune, India (hanged). Am. "J.R. in Dallas" actor Larry Hagman (b. 1931) on Nov. 23 in North Dallas, Tx. (throat cancer). Puerto Rican boxing champ Hector "Macho" Camacho (b. 1962) on Nov. 24 in San Juan (car shooting). Am. surgeon Joseph E. Murray (b. 1919) on Nov. 28 in Boston, Mass.; 1990 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. motivational speaker Zig Ziglar (b. 1926) on Nov. 28 in Plano, Tex. (pneumonia). Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer (b. 1907) on Dec. 5 in Rio de Janeiro. Am. physician William Fouts House (b. 1923) on Dec. 7 in Aurora, Ore. German-born Am. economist Albert Otto Hirschman (b. 1915) on Dec. 10 in Ewing Township, N.J. Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar (b. 1920) on Dec. 11 in San Diego, Calif. French mountain climber Maurice Herzog (b. 1919) on Dec. 13 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. U.S. Sen. (D-Hawaii) (1963-2012) Daniel Inouye (b. 1924) on Dec. 17 in Bethesda, Md. Am. judge Robert Bork (b. 1927) on Dec. 19 in Arlington, Va. (heart disease). Am. headmistress Jean Harris (b. 1923) on Dec. 23 in New Haven, Conn. Am. actor "Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple" Jack Klugman (b. 1922) on Dec. 24 in Woodland Hills, Calif. U.S. gen. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. (b. 1934) on Dec. 27.
2013 Chinese Year: Snake (Feb. 10). Doomsday Clock: 5 min. to midnight. Time Mag. Person of the Year: Pope Francis (1936-). This is the 666th anniv. of the arrival of the bubonic plague in Europe (1347). Since the Age of Aquarius began on Dec. 12, this is the Year of Prosperity? In 2012-13 the coldest winter in 50 years in Russia, with abnormally cold weather in Europe, India, China, and the U.S.; China has its coldest winter in 30 years; Moscow has its deepest snowfall in 134 years; in Jan. 2013 New Delhi records its lowest temperature in 44 years; in Mar. 2013 Britain experiences its 2nd coldest Mar. since 1910; in Apr. 2013 3,318 places in the U.S. record their lowest temps ever. Italy's pop. begins to decline from low birth rates; the pop. of Japan falls by a record 244K. The combined GDP of emerging countries exceeds that of advanced economies for the first time ($44.4T vs. $42.8T). Mexico becomes the first country to use iris scans on ID cards. The worldwide Internet-phone network creates 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data per day. The U.S. black budget (spy agencies): $52.6B. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) releases 36,007 criminal aliens from detention incl. 193 convicted of murder and 303 convicted of kidnapping. Russian pres. Vladimir Putin passes U.S. pres. Obama to become #1 on the Forbes list of the world's most powerful people. Civilian death toll in Iraq: 7,818; incl. security forces: 8,868. 17,958 are killed in terrorist attacks this year (61% increase over 2012); 80% happen in five Muslim countries, incl. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, and Nigeria. Thanks to Pres. Obama scaring people into thinking he's going to confiscate their guns, FBI background checks for guns soar to 21M, 8% more than 2012. 10% of babies born in U.K. are Muslim; in the 85+ age group, it's 0.5%. Saudi Arabia begins a campaign to detain and deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrant workers (ends ?). In early Jan.-Mar. after a pool of hot air settles over the center of the continent in Sept. combined with lack of cloud cover, the 90-day Australian Angry (Extreme) Summer sees 123 weather records broken incl. hottest Jan., hottest summer, hottest week (avg. of 39C or 102F), and hottest day in Australia (Jan. 7, 40.30C or 104.54F); no surprise, the U. of Melbourne claims a link to anthropogenic global warming. On Jan. 1 the 2013 Rose Bowl sees Stanford defeat Wisc. 20-14. On Jan. 2 Tim Scott (1965-) becomes a Repub. S.C. Sen., becoming the first African-Am. sen. from S.C., going on to win reelection in 2014, becoming the first black Repub. elected to the U.S. Senate since Edward Brooke in 1966, and the first elected from a Southern U.S. state since 1881. And you thought Obama has funny ears? On Jan. 3 Calgary, Alberta, Canada-born Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (1970-) (former domestic policy advisor to George W. Bush) becomes Repub. sen. from Tex. (until ?). On Jan. 3 Ladda Tammy Duckworth (1968-) becomes Dem. U.S. Rep. for Ill. (until ?), the first Thailand-born and first disabled woman U.S. rep. On Jan. 3 Okla.-born Elizabeth Ann Warren (nee Herring) (1949-) becomes Dem. U.S. Sen. from Mass. (until ?), the first woman. On Jan. 3 St. Louis, Mo.-born Maxine Waters (nee Maxine Moore Carr) (1938-) becomes Dem. U.S. Rep. from Calif. (until ?), representing the South Los Angeles area, becoming a leading critic of Repub. U.S. presidents George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Donald J. Trump. On Jan. 3 the Council on Am.-Islamic Relations (CAIR) asks journalists to stop using the right-on term "Islamist" - they can ask? On Jan. 4 French minister Bernard Kouchner gives an interview on Al-Arabiya TV, saying that if Iran gets nukes it won't hesitate to use them on Israel. On Jan. 5 200 Palestinians attack Jewish residents in Esh Kodesh, Samaria, destroying their vineyards. On Jan. 5 the weekly 3-hour CMT Hot 20 Countdown debuts on CMT (until ?). On Jan. 7 Pres. Obama nominates John O. Brennan as CIA dir. #5, causing the ACLU to call for the Senate to not confirm him until they have verified that "all of his conduct was within the law" when he worked under Pres. George W. Bush in 2003-5 and supported the transfer of terror suspects to countries that might torture them. On Jan. 7 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court dismisses an appeal from scientists trying to block federal funding of stem cell research on human embryos. On Jan. 7 police in Thailand arrest Algerian cyber criminal suspect Hamza Bendelladj en route from Malaysia to Egypt, accusing him of hacking 217+ banks and financial cos. worldwide, causing $10M losses. On Jan. 8-9 wild cold wet weather hits the Middle East, with snow in Jordan. On Jan. 9 a pro-govt. militia of Zakhakhel tribesmen in the lawless tribal belt of Peshawar, Pakistan murder two Sikhs, bringing protests. On Jan. 9 Norway rejects a demand to allow female Muslim police officers to wear a hijab on duty. On Jan. 9 Mexican pres. Enrique Pena Nieto signs a Victim Compensation Law for victims of crime and human rights violations. On Jan. 9 the Saudi govt. beheads Sri Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek for allegedly strangling her employer's 4-mo.-o. son after a trial sans lawyer, bringing worldwide protests after she claims he choked on his milk. On Jan. 9 three Kurdish activists are murdered in Paris, France; the Turkish govt. is suspected. On Jan. 10 (11:00 a.m.) al-Qaida rebels led by Algerian-born cigarette smuggler Mokhtar Belmokhtar "the One-Eyed" "Mr. Marlboro" (1972-), Dec. founder of the Signers in Blood take control of Kenna, Mali 55km from Mopti. On Jan. 10 twin suicide attacks in Quetta, Pakistan kill 115 Shiites at a snooker hall. On Jan. 10 two Indian soldiers are killed on the border between Jammu and Kashmir, causing Pres. Obama to ask India and Pakistan to cool off and talk. On Jan. 10 three Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) activists are assassinated in Paris, incl. a party co-founder. On Jan. 10 a judge sets $90K bail for Caleb Russell (1989-) of Chicago for threatening "jihad against the white devil" aboard a CTA bus. On Jan. 10-11 the Support for the Ahwaz People Conference in Cairo, Egypt is the first-ever conference expressing solidarity for Iran's Arab-Sunni minority. On Jan. 11 (6:30 a.m.) disgruntled coal miner Gao Wanfeng (1958-) bombs a commuter bus in Heilongjiang Province, killing 11 and wounding 30+, after which there is an attempted govt. coverup. On Jan. 11 Pres. Obama meets with Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai in the White House to discuss ending the Afghan War. On Jan. 11 Saudi Arabia king Abdullah allows women to sit on the nat. advisory council for the first time ever. On Jan. 11 after establishing diplomatic relations in 2011, the Vatican opens its first embassy in Malaysia. On Jan. 14 Pres. Obama meets with Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai in the White House, and they agree to let the Taliban open an office in Qatar to facilitate possible reconciliation. On Jan. 16 the Taliban attacks the Afghan inel service in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing one guard and wounding dozens. On Jan. 16 an al-Qaida spinoff from N Mali calling themselves the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), led by Omar Oud Hamaha (1965-) seize 41 Western soldiers at a BP oil installation in In Amenas, Algeria near the Libyan border, vowing to kill them one by one, incl. Am., British, French, and Japanese hostages, killing 39 hostages before being stormed at dawn by Algerian troops on Jan. 19, killing 29 terrorists, capturing three, and freeing 685 Algerian workers and 107 foreigners; some of the attackers also took part in the 9/11/12 attack on Benghazi. On Jan. 16 Pres. Obama gives a speech outlining his 23 new executive orders on gun control and pledging an all-out war on guns; one order asks doctors to query patients about guns they have at home. On Jan. 16 55 are killed and 288 wounded in a suicide attack and bombings in Baghdad and N Iraq. On Jan. 16 U.S. Staff Sgt. Edward Deptola pleads guilty to urinating on the corpse of a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, and is demoted one rank under a plea agreement. On Jan. 17 U.S. ambassador Sherry Rehman is accused of blasphemy in a petition to the Pakistan Supreme Court, with a death sentence possible. On Jan. 18 the U.S. Transport and Security Admin. (TSA) announces that will remove its 174 naked airport scanners after mucho controversy. On Jan. 18 a whopping 10 in. of snow falls in non-globally-warmed Moscow, becoming known as teh Russian Snowpocalypse. On Jan. 18 Turkish police arrest 18 Muslims for plotting to attack a Christian church in Izmit, Turkey. On Jan. 19 Nigerian soldiers en route to Kachia, Nigeria are ambushed by Islamist Boko Haram terrorists, who kill two and injure five. On Jan. 20-21 after announcing that he's converting his campaign org. into a permanent lobby org., the 65th U.S. Pres. Inauguration is held in Washington, D.C.; Pres. Obama's 2nd Inaugural Address lays out an unabashedly liberal agenda, making climate change his #1 priority; it incl. the soundbytes: "My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it, so long as we seize it together. For we, the People understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it"; "Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms"; "We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that failure to do so would betray our children and future generations"; it features the first-ever layperson invited to give the invocation, Myrlie Evers-Williams (1933-); Obama makes the first-ever reference to gay rights; during his first term Obama increased the nat. debt by $50,521 per household, more than the first 42 presidents in 53 terms combined; the number of Americans "not in the labor force" increased by 8,332,000; the number of Americans collecting disability increased by 1,385,418 (1 per 13 full-time workers, vs. 1 in 51 in Dec. 1968); Obama's first term approval rating averaged 49.1%, among the least for post-WWII presidents. On Jan. 21 after a family of five is slain by Syrian forces, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius says that Bashar al-Assad "must go as quickly as possible", announcing that Syrian opposition backers will meet in Paris on Jan. 28. On Jan. 21 French minister Arnaud Montebourg et al. announce a visit to Saudi Arabia to discuss selling them nuclear reactors - groan? On Jan. 21 Egypt announces the discovery of large deposits of uranium, along with its intention to mine it for use in nuclear reactors. On Jan. 21 after two suicide bombers detonate to open the gate, three Taliban militants siege a traffic police HQ in Kabul, Afghanistan for nine hours, wounding four policemen and 10 civilians. On Jan. 21 the first of six U.S. Patriot missile batteries arrive in Turkey from Germany to protect it from potential Syrian attacks. On Jan. 21 McDonald's Restaurants settles a $700K suit over allegations of falsely claiming to prepare foods according to Muslim dietary law in Detroit, Mich. On Jan. 22 despite prosecutors asking for a 15-year sentence, a court in Bali sentences British woman Lindsay June Sandiford (1956-) to death for smuggling cocaine in her suitcase. On Jan. 22 the reality competition TV show The Taste debuts on ABC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), featuring amateur and prof. chefs; judges incl. Anthony Michael Bourdain (1956-), Nigella Lucy Lawson (1960-), Ludovic "Ludo" Lefebvre (1971-), and Marcus "Joar" Samuelsson (Kassahun Tsegie) (1970-). On Jan. 23 U.S. defense secy. Leon Panetta lifts the ban on women serving in combat, overturning a 1994 prohibition; cmdrs. have until 2016 to "seek special exceptions". On Jan. 23 exiting U.S. secy. of state (Feb. 1) Hillary Clinton is questioned by the U.S. Senate about the 9/11/2012 Benghazi attack, growing angry and combative, taking responsibility for security lapses related while defending her lack of personal actions in regard to the matter, asking "What difference does it make?" why four Americans were killed, claiming "I did not say it was the video" that caused the attack, and finally admitting "We now face a spreading jihadist threat, we have to recognize this is a global movement", with Sen. Rand Paul saying "If I'd been president at the time and I'd found that you did not read the cables from Benghazi... I would have relieved you of your post"; the questions were pre-scripted? On Jan. 23 elections in Jordan are a V for King Abdullah II and his plan for gradual transition to parliamentary democracy, and a D for the Muslim Brotherhood. On Jan. 23 a suicide bomber at a funeral in a Shiite mosque in Samarra, Iraq kills 42 and injures 75. On Jan. 23 the U.S. Navy helps the coast guard in Yemen seize the mysterious ship Jihan1 carrying 40+ tons of munitions incl. Iranian-made missiles to Al Houthi Shiite rebels in Saada, N of Yemen; eight sailors are captured. On Jan. 23 after 16-y.o. rape victim Amina Filali (b. 1996) is forced to marry her rapist and commits suicide, Morocco outlaws rape marriage of children. On Jan. 25 the 113th U.S. Congress convenes; it incl. six openly gay or bi members in the House. On Jan. 25 Kosovo appoints its first ambassador to Serbia since the 1998-9 war. On Jan. 25 a suicide attack on a NATO convoy in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan kills five civilians. On Jan. 25 Egyptian protesters burn the HQ of the Muslim Brotherhood in Ismailia, Egypt, signaling the founding of the Black Bloc, causing Pres. Morsi to announce the formation of a White Bloc to counter it; on Jan. 26 riots in Port Said cause the police to kill 30 after 21 local soccer fans are given death sentences for a previous riot, while seven police officers are acquitted; on Jan. 27 Morsi declares a state of emergency in three major cities. On Jan. 26 Kathleen O'Day Wynne (1953-) becomes leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, followed on Feb. 11 by PM #25 of Ontario (until ?), becoming the first openly gay head of govt. in Canada. On Jan. 27 a prison riot at the Uribana Jail near Barquisimeto, Venezuela kills 61. On Jan. 27 a fire at the Kiss Nightclub in Santa Maria, Brazil kills 233. On Jan. 27 a court in Iran sentences Iranian-born Am. Muslim convert pastor Saeed Abedini to eight years in prison for leading underground house churches; meanwhile Iran arrests more than a dozen journalists, claiming they're linked to the BBC and Western govts. On Jan. 27 a 9-y.-o. girl Dafne gives birth to a 5.95 lb. baby daughter in Zappan, Mexico; the 17-y.-o. father flees after being accused of rape; meanwhile the same day 12-y.-o. ? gives birth to 3 lb. 4 oz. twins in Chilecito, Argentina. On Jan. 28 an explosion in the Fordow Nuclear Facility in Iran traps 240 personnel deep underground. On Jan. 28 Iran launches the Pishgam (Pioneer) rocket 72 mi. into space carrying a monkey, which safely returns to Earth. On Jan. 28 the bipartisan Gang of Eight (U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer, John McCain, Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, Robert Mendez, Marco Rubio, Michael Bennett, and Jeff Flake) announce yet another plan for comprehensive immigration legislation, emphasizing border security before granting amnesty. On Jan. 29 Dem. Mass. Sen. John Kerry is confirmed as U.S. secy. of state by the U.S. Senate by a 94-3 vote. On Jan. 29 a private SCAT passenger jet (Canadian-built Bombardier Challenger CRJ2000) crashes in heavy fog outside of Almaty, Kazakhstan, killing 21. On Jan. 29 at least 65 are found shot dead with hands bound in Aleppo, Syria. On Jan. 29 a suicide bomber in Mogadishu, Somalia kills two outside the residence called Villa Somalia. On Jan. 29 an Egyptian court upholds the death penalty for seven Coptic Christians for the film The Innocence of Muslims after it causes widespread protests and violence across the Muslim World last Sept.; on Feb. 9 an Egyptian court blocks YouTube for 30 days for carrying it. On Jan. 29 rain-driven floods in Mozambique kill 40+ and displace 150K. On Jan. 29 Bremen becomes the 3rd German state to officially recognize Islam. On Jan. 29 Nigerian Boko Haram cmdr. Sheik Abu Mohammed ibn Abdulazeez declares a unilateral ceasefire in Maidiguri. On Jan. 29 Pres. Obama gives a talk on his immigration reform proposals at Del Sol H.S. in Las Vegas, Nev. On Jan. 29 the First CELAC (Community of Latin Am. and Caribbean States) Summit in Santiago, Chile is attended by reps of 33 countries, pledging integration of Latin Am. and Caribbean states. On Jan. 29 the bizarre Defenders of Christ sex slavery ring is along the U.S.-Mexico border is busted in Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. On Jan. 29 Boomtown Rats star Bob Geldof utters the soundbyte: "The rock and roll age is essentially over. Rock and roll needs a context in which to exist. The context is there but I'm not sure rock and roll is any longer the right vehicle for it. That's a personal point of view but I think that's true. You see the declining sales, you see less fascination, it's less central a thing to a young person's life... You can have the teeny kids, the One Direction kids which is fantastic and important. You can have The X Factor generation but that is great television, it's great entertainment, it's great TV; it's not much good for music. Certainly, great voices come out but it isn't much good for articulating the moment. And if you don't articulate the moment, how can it therefore be popular music? How can it be pop music?" On Jan. 30 South Korea launches its first satellite from its own soil. On Jan. 30 (04:30 GMT) Israeli forces attack a convoy on the Damascus-Beirut Highway on the Syrian-Lebanese border, causing Syria on Jan. 31 to threaten retaliation; Israel claims that they hit a bldg. containing "game-changing" SA-17 ground-to-air anti-tank missiles headed for Hezbollah. On Jan. 30 Mexican police find 17 bodies in a well in Nuevo Leon, incl. 14 belonging to the Kombo Kolombia band, who were kidnapped in Hidalgo on Jan. 25. On Jan. 30 Syria opposition head Muaz Al-Khatib offers talks with Bashar al-Assad's govt. outside Syria if it releases tens of thousands of detainees. On Jan. 30 a U.N. panel issues a Report on Israeli Settlements, calling them "creeping annexation" that violates the human rights of Palestinians. On Jan. 30 French labor minister Francois Hollande describes France as "totally bankrupt", leaving citizens in a "state of shock". On Jan. 30 the U.S. announces that the economy shrank in Oct.-Dec. at an annual rate of 0.1%, becoming the first quarterly drop since 2009. On Jan. 30 "Gomer Pyle" actor-singer Jim Nabors announces that he's gay, and married his partner of 38 years Stan Cadwallader on Jan. 15. On Jan. 30 Joe Weisberg's period drama series The Americans debuts on FX Network, starring Keri Lynn Russell (1976-) and Matthew Rhys Evans (1974-) as Soviet KGB officers Nadezhda and Mischa, who are posing as married Amerikanskies Elizabeth and Philip Jennings and living in the suburbs of Washington, D.C in the early 1980s, whose two children don't suspect, while their neighbor Stan Beeman, played by Noah Nicholas Emmerich (1965-) is an FBI agent who is onto them. On Jan. 31 an explosion in the basement of the HQ of Pemex in Mexico City kills 14 and injures 80. On Jan. 31 al-Qaida issues a chilling new threat on its Web site, promising "earth-shattering" attacks on the U.S. and Western targets; meanwhile on Jan. 23 a jihadist issues a call to Muslims in France to become a "Trojan Horse" and attack French civilians. On Jan. 31 U.S. defense secy. nominee Chuck Hagel holds a Senate confirmation hearing, stating that the U.S. is pursing a policy of "containment" toward Iran, which vice-pres. Biden corrects on Feb. 2 at the Munich Security Conference, saying that it is only "to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon", and offering bilateral talks. On Jan. 31 (1:50 p.m.) a student opens fire at Price Middle School in Atlanta, Ga., wounding a 14-y.-o. in the neck before an armed officer working at the school disarms him. On Jan. 31 Volgograd votes unanimously to restore the Soviet-era name Stalingrad for six days each year. On Jan. 31 Burger King flops and admits that their stores in the U.K. have been selling hamburgers tainted with horsemeat. On Jan. 31 Iran announces their use of 3K IR-2M centrifuges, which can enrich uranium 4x faster than their previous ones, allowing them to turn 20% enriched uranium into weapons grade uranium in only a week. In Jan. Greek Orthodox priest Father Jabra'il (Gabriel) Nadaf; on June 25 Israeli deputy defense minister Danny Danon announces that the govt. will help Arab Christians who wish to serve in the IDF, and "have their backs". In Jan. a teachers' strike in Dadaab, Kenya over unpaid salaries affects 40K primary school children. In Jan. Am. cycling tourists Jamie Neal (1985-) and Garrett Hand (1987-) go missing in Peru until ?. In Jan. Muslim militants from Sudan begin poaching elephants in Cameroon to fund their jihad. In Jan. Linc Energy Ltd. of Australia releases two reports announcing that the 30K sq. mi. Arckaringa Basin near Coober Pedy, Australia may have as much as 233B barrels of oil, rivaling Saudi Arabia - the real Road Warrior? In Jan. the U.S. economy adds 157K jobs while unemployment rises to 7.9%. On Feb. 1 convicted released suicide bomber Ecevit Sanli (b. 1972) explodes outside the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkey, killing himself and a Turkish guard; the Turkish govt. blames it on leftist militant group Rev. People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C). On Feb. 1 Australian Maj. Gen. Richard Burr is apointed deputy commanding gen. of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command (USARPAC), becoming the first non-American in such a high-ranking position in this type of command. On Feb. 1 Kuwait acquires the Euro HQ of London's Bank of Am., signalling an intention of moving away from a petroleum-based economy. On Feb. 1 Beau Willimon's House of Cards debuts on Netflix for 73 episodes (until Nov. 2, 2018), based on the BBC TV mini-series and novel by Michael Dobbs, starring Kevin Spacey (Fowler) (1959-) as S.C. Dem. House majority whip Francis "Frank" Underwood, who is passed-over for secy. of state, causing him to launch a plan to gain power, reaching the White House at the end of season 2; on Dec. 4, 2017 after sexual misconduct allegations emerge, Spacey is removed, but the series goes on, not lasting a year. On Feb. 2 anti-Morsi protests in Cairo, Egpt kill one and injure dozens. On Feb. 2 Park Geun-hye (1952-) (pr. pahk kuhn-YEH) becomes pres. #11 of South Korea (until ?) (first woman). On Feb. 2 French pres. Francois Hollande visits Timbuktu, Mali six days after French forces liberate it from Islamists. On Feb. 2 Iran unveils its new 3rd gen. Qaher-313 (Conqueror-313) fighter jet. On Feb. 3 the Israelis use tear gas and stun grenades to evict a group of rock-throwing Palestinians from the Al Manatir camp in Burin in the disputed West Bank territories 40 mi. from Jerusalem. On Feb. 3 the secular Islamic Ennahda Party in Tunisia threatens to quit the govt. unless it drops to religiously conservative ministers; meanwhile 70 constituent assembly lawmakers protest a visit by Kuwaiti preacher Kamil Alh Awhadi, who poses with little girls dressed in Islamic veils, calling it "a clear intention to indoctrinate the population". On Feb. 3 Syrian opposition leader Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib meets with Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Munich; Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov holds his first meeting with him also. On Feb. 3 a Pew Research Poll reveals that for the first time a majority (53%) of Americans believe that the federal govt. threatens their own personal rights and freedoms. On Feb. 3 ex-LAPD cop Christopher Jordan "Chris" Dorner (b. 1979) begins a shooting rampage against police officers, causing one of the largest manhunts in LAPD history; on Feb. 12 he is killed while holed-up in a cabin in Big Bear, Calif. after it is set on fire by incendiaries; burned alive? On Feb. 3 (8:00 a.m. local time) a truck ploughs into a bus carrying maintenance workers in Al Ain, UAE kills 24 and injures 24, becoming the country's deadliest road tragedy (until ?). On Feb. 3 Lobsang Namgyal (b. 1975) commits Tibet's 100th self-immolation since 2009 in W Tibet in a protest against Red Chinese occupation. On Feb. 3 Super Bowl LXVII (47) (AKA the Harbaugh Bowl, HarBowl, Super Baugh, Brother Bowl, Superbro) in the Mercedez-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, La. sees the Baltimore Ravens, led by QB (#5) Joseph Vincent "Joe" Flacco (1985-) and coached by John Harbaugh (1962-) defeat the San Francisco 49ers, led by QB (#7) Colin Rand Kaemernick (1987-) and coached by his younger brother James Joseph "Jim" Harbaugh (1963-) by 34-31; first SB in which both teams are undefeated in prior SB appearances; last game for Super Bowl XXXV MVP Ray Lewis; after a halftime show by big bouncing Beyonce and Destiny's Child, the power goes out in the stadium for 34 min., throwing the momentum of the game and causing the Ravens' 28-6 score to dwindle steadily until they make a final goal line stand and run out the clock; 108.4M U.S. viewers watch it; CBS-TV charges $4M for each 30-sec. commercial; Flacco is named MVP. On Feb. 4 Egyptian anti-Morsi activist Mohammed El-Gindy (b. 1984) dies in Cairo after being tortured by police, causing yet more protests. On Feb. 4 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket announces that he wants to be Iran's first astronaut, saying "I'm ready to be the first Iranian to sacrifice myself for our country's scientists." On Feb. 4 an al-Qaida suicide bomber in Taji, Iraq N of Baghdad kills 19 Awakening members and three Iraqi soldiers, and wounds 44 people. On Feb. 4 Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai and Pakistan pres. Asif Ali Zardari pledge to reach a peace settlement within 6 mo. On Feb. 4 the all-girl Kashmiri rock band Pragaash disbands after Grand Mufti Bashiruddin Ahmad issues a fatwa on Feb. 3 declaring singing un-Islamic. On Feb. 4-? a massive protest against Islamists in Dhaka, Bangladesh sees hundreds of thousands demand the execution of Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Qader Mollah and others convicted of war crimes during the 1971 independence struggle. On Feb. 5 Pakistan agrees to hand control over the deepwater port of Gwadar, Pakistan 250 mi. from the Strait of Hormuz to China. On Feb. 5 Afghanistan and Norway sign a 14-year strategic partnership agreement that will give Afghanistan $136M aid every year until 2017. On Feb. 5 a suicide bomber kills four and injures 14 at an army checkpoint in Taji, Iraq N of Baghdad. On Feb. 5 a U.S. Justice dept. memo titled Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who is a Senior Operation Leader of al Qaeda or an Associated Force surfaces, concluding that it is legal to target U.S. citizens with drone strikes under certain circumstances. On Feb. 5 the Brussels Conference on Mali is attended by reps from the African Union, U.N., EU, and ECOWAS. On Feb. 5 the U.S. House of Reps. begins holding hearings on immigration reform, chaired by Bob Goodlatte; on Feb. 5 House Repubs. say they're open to legal residency but not citizenship. On Feb. 5 Cuban-Am. U.S. Sen. (D-N.J.) Robert "Bob" Menendez denies reports that he hired hos in the Dominican Repub. On Feb. 5 the British House of Commons by 400-175 approves same-sex marriage; over half of Conservative Party MPs vote against it or abstain. On Feb. 5 Danish anti-Islam historian-journalist Lars Hedegaard (1942-) is attacked in his home in Copenhagen by a Muslim gunman, who misses. On Feb. 5 Dell Computer Co. announces a $24.4B deal to go private, the largest such deal since 2007. On Feb. 5 Rochester, N.Y. Muslim Omer Fadhel Saleh Mohammed (1981-) is charged with making 21 false bomb threats against Kodak Corp. On Feb. 5 the Assoc. for Electronic Music (AFEM) is formed to represent electronic musicians, who are often snubbed by rock musicians. On Feb. 5 the U.S. House of Reps. Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa holds a hearing on Fatah-Hamas reconciliation. On Feb. 5-7 the Council of European Bishops' Conferences meets in Warsaw, Poland; secy.-gen. Rev. Guy Liagre says that Islam in Europe is being "more radical"; "You can see the fundamentalist tendencies"; there are 558M Christians in Europe vs. 44M Muslims. On Feb. 6 an 8.0 earthquake in the Solomon Islands destroys three villages along the Lata coast and triggers a tsunami. On Feb. 6 Tunisian leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid is assassinated outside his home in Tunis, causing massive protests, causing PM Hemadi Jebali on Feb. 7 to announce the formation of a new govt. of technocrats to prepare for elections "as soon as possible"; on Feb. 11 interim pres. Moncef Marzouki announces that the party has "frozen" its withdrawl from the coalition govt. to continue talks. On Feb. 6 two suicide car bombings at a military intel HQ in Palmyra, Syria kill 19 members of Syria's security forces. On Feb. 6 Muslims shoot and kill four fruit traders in Rayong, Thailand because they are Buddhists. On Feb. 6 the U.S. imposes yet more sanctions on Iran to "significantly restrict Iran's ability to make use of the oil revenue that it's earning", and clamp down on its media orgs. and cyber police for human rights abuses. On Feb. 6 the Cairo Egyptian Summit in Egypt is opened by pres. Mohammed Morsi; Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket makes the first official visit to Egypt since the 1979 Iranian Rev.; on Feb. 6 a Sunni Salafist Syrian is arrested for throwing a shoe at Imadinnajacket outside a mosque where he is praying; on Feb. 7 Ayatollah Khamenei rejects direct nuclear talks with the U.S., with the soundbyte: "The U.S. is pointing a gun at Iran and wants us to talk to them. The Iranian nation will not be intimidated by these actions." On Feb. 6 Boko Haram fighters kill six park rangers in Sambisa Reserve in Nigeria in reprisal for govt. attacks on two of their training camps last week that killed 17. On Feb. 6 the Boy Scouts of Am. delay a vote on allowing homosexuals to join. On Feb. 6 Liberian pres. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf issues a proclamation declaring a day of "intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilation". On Feb. 6 the Israeli govt. appoints former Soviet dissident Nathan Sharansky to mediate a dispute between women who want to pray at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and ultra-orthodox rabbis, who call it an "abomination". On Feb. 6 the U.N. Internat. Labor Org. (ILO) releases a report saying that youth unemployment in the Arab region is 23.2%, highest in the world, compared to an avg. of 13.9%. On Feb. 6 74-y.-o. pensioner Maria Frank (1938-) is convicted in Munich of hate speech for displaying a sign at a Sept. 8 rally against Muslim immigration. On Feb. 6 Gambia ratifies a motion from the Org. of the Islamic Conference (IC) to create an Islamic court of justice. On Feb. 7 after a secret White House memo is leaked authorizing the killing of U.S. citizens abroad, and U.S. Sen. (D-Calif.) Dianne Feinstein defends drone strikes with the soundbyte that "the civilian casualties that result from these strikes each year have typically been in the single digits", the Senate Intelligence Committee holds a confirmation hearing for CIA nominee John O. Brennan, which is interrupted by protesters from Code Pink 5x; Brennan defends Pres. Obama's drone program, lying that not one single civilian ws killed in almost a year of drone strikes, and agreeing with U.S. Sen. (D-Ore.) Ron Wyden that the U.S. govt. should publicly acknowledge drone strikes when they happen, waffling on whether enhanced interrogations yield meaningful intel, waffling again on whether waterboarding qualifies as torture while expressing disgust and saying that it will not happen on his watch at the CIA. On Feb. 8 former congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr. signs a plea agreement with federal prosectors over misuse of campaign funds. On Feb. 8 Boko Haram militants kill nine female polio vaccinators in two shootings in Kano, Nigeria. On Feb. 8 the U.S. military denies allegations made by a U.N. committee that U.S. attacks killed hundreds of children in Afghanistan in the past five years. On Feb. 8 a suicide bomber at a checkpoint in Gao, Mali goofs and kills only himself. On Feb. 8 protesters against Georgian pres. Mikhail Saakashvili attack parliamentarians and senior officials outside the Georgian Nat. Library in Tbilisi while he is preparing to deliver his annual address to the nation; he blamed it on PM Bidzina Ivanishvili. On Feb. 9 the Nemo Snowstorm rocks the NE U.S., leaving 650K without power. On Feb. 9 the FBI arrests Taliban supporter Matthew Aaron Llaneza (1984-) for attempting to bomb an Oakland, Calif. branch of Bank of Am. back in Nov. On Feb. 9 after it was defeated in 2011 and 2012, the Fla. House Civil Justice Subcommittee approves an anti-Sharia bill restricting and/or denying the use of religious law for matters involving marriage, divorce, or child custody. On Feb. 9 Pakistani security forces and Muslim hardliners torture and rape Christian women in Punjab. On Feb. 9 Islam-watching ex-FBI agent John Guandolo (1966-) makes the claim that John Brennan, Pres. Obama's nominee for CIA dir. converted to Islam while in Saudi Arabia. On Feb. 10 Iran celebrates the Ten Day Dawn of the 1979 Islamic Rev., attempting to take credit for the Arab Spring, defying the U.S., and predicting the elmination of Israel. On Feb. 10 U.S. Gen. John Allen is replaced by U.S. Marine Gen. Joseph F. Dunford as NATO cmdr. of the Internat. Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan (until ?), with Allen uttering the soundbyte "We are winning." On Feb. 10 former U.S. vice pres. Dick Cheney utters the soundbyte that Pres. Obama's performance in picking a nat. security team is "dismal", because John Kerry, John Brennan, and Chuck Hagel are "second-rate people". On Feb. 10 Malian troops regain control of Gao, Mali after rebels stage a canoe raid. On Feb. 10 the 55th Annual Grammy Awards in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif. is hosted by LL Cool J (2nd time); Mumford & Sons wins album of the year for "Babel"; Gotye and Kimbra win record of the year for "Something That I Used to Know"; Fun and Jeff Bhasker win song of the year and best new artist for "We Are Young"; Kelly Clarkson wins est pop vocal album for "Stronger" (first to win 2x). On Feb. 11 Pope (since 2005) Benedict XVI announces that he's resigning on Feb. 28 (8:00 p.m.) due to ill health, with the soundbyte: "My strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine Ministry", becoming the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415; he decided to resign after his Mar. 2012 Mexico-Cuba trip; at 6:00 p.m. hours after his resignation lightning strikes the dome of St. Peter's Basilica; black African Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson (1948-) of Ghana i s a crowd favorite for next pope; another candidate is Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, an anti-Israel pro-Palestine borderline anti-Semite; on Feb. 21 the Italian newspaper La Repubblica claims that Benedict XVI resigned because "various lobbies within the Holy See were consistently breaking" the 6th and 7th Commandments "thou shalt not commit adultery" and "thou shalt not steal", referring to a gay underground network; on Mar. 12 the papal conclave convenes, and on Mar. 13 on the 5th vote it selects cardinal (since 2001) Jorge Mario Bardoglio of Argentina (of Italian roots, who came in #2 in the 2005 voting) as pope #266 Francis I (1936-) (until ?), becoming the first pope in 600 years to take office after another pope resigns, first South Am. pope, first from the American continent, first non-European pope since Gregory III (731-41), and first Jesuit pope; he appears on the balcony 66 min. after the white smoke; a strategic move to prepare South Am. as a haven for when the Muslims take over Europe?; he refuses to live in the papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace, moving into St. Martha's guesthouse next to St. Peter's Basilica, where he often dines in the common dining room; on Oct. 30 the Italian news mag. Panorama claims that the NSA spied on the conclave - a New Age plant? On Feb. 11 North Korea stages its 3rd nuclear test for "self-defense against the U.S.", which Pres. Obama calls a "highly provocative act", causing the U.N. Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on Feb. 11. On Feb. 11 a shooting in New Castle County Courthouse in Del. kills three incl. the shooter and injures two. In Feb. 11 al-Qaida affiliate Al Nusrah Front for the People of the Levant militants capture a major dam in Thawra, Raqqa Province, Syria, and stages a suicide attack on Syrian intel HQ in Palmyra; on Feb. 14 they seize control of al-Shadadi in NE Hasakah Province. On Feb. 12 the anniv. of Mubarak's fall is marked by protests by policemen in Cairo, Egypt On Feb. 12 (Lincoln's birthday) Pres. Obama delivers his 2013 State of the Union Address, calling for a "smarter government", calling for the minimum wage to be raised to $9 an hour so nobody with a full-time job is below the poverty line, and asking Congress to vote on immigration reform, and promising to withdraw 34K troops (out of 66K) from Afghanistan within a year; he also signs two executive orders on cybersecurity, On Feb. 12 U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay announces that the death toll in Syria has exceeded the "truly shocking" figure of 60K. On Feb. 12 Muslim jihadists kidnap Armenian Catholic priest Father Michael and another Orthodox clergyman in Aleppo, Syria. On Feb. 12 (10:00 p.m.) a NATO airstrike in Shigal District, Kunar Province, Afghanistan kills four Afghan insurgents and nine civilians incl. five children, coming just as Pres. Obama announces the big troop withdrawal. On Feb. 13 amid rumors that he is too Muslim-friendly and Israel-hostile, Sen. majority leader Harry Reid files a cloture motion to end a Repub. filibuster, becoming the first for a U.S. defense secy. On Feb. 13 a Tibetan monk shouting anti-Chinese slogans self-immolates on the street in Katmandu, Nepal. On Feb. 13 global warming scientist James A. Hansen of NASA is arrested outside the White House along with Sierra Club dir. Michael Brune, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben, civil rights activist Julian Bond, and actress Daryl Hannah while protesting the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. On Feb. 14 Syrian rebels shoot down to Syrian warplanes in Idlib Province, Syria; meanwhile U.S. secy. of state John Kerry announces that he will try to convince Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad to step down, saying that he "must end this killing". On Feb. 14 (2nd anniv. of the Bahrain uprising) protests in Manama, Bahrain kill a 16-y.-o. boy and injure dozens. On Feb. 14 South African amputee sprinter ("Blade Runner") ("the Fastest Man on No Legs") Oscar Leonard Carl "Oz" Pistorius (1986-) fatally shoots his model girlfriend Reeva Rebecca Steenkamp (b. 1983) in his bathroom in Pretoria, winning an Oscar for his piss story that he thought she was an intruder, after which next year he is found guilty of culpable homicide, receiving a 5-year prison sentence; on Dec. 3, 2015 after prosecutors appeal the lenient sentence, the appeals court convicts him of murder, extending the sentence to six years after voiding the usual min. sentence of 15 years; on Nov. 24 the supreme court doubles the sentence to 13 years 5 mo. - piss on that? On Feb. 14 the U.S. FDA approves the artificial retina for blind people, giving them limited vision. On Feb. 15 after the 2013 Shahbag Protests begin in Shahbag, Bangladesh over anti-Islamic blogs, Bangladeshi atheist blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider AKA Thaba Baba is killed by Ansarullah Bangla Team (ATB) jihadists in Dhaka, who hack him to death with machetes. On Feb. 15 Asteroid 2012 DA14 flies by the Earth; an unrelated 10K-ton 55-ft. meteor enters the atmosphere undetected over the Ural Mts. of Russia, exploding with the strength of 25 Hiroshima A-bombs, injuring 1.2K in Chelyabinsk, becoming the biggest meteor to strike Earth since 1908. On Feb. 15 200 Palestinian Arabs riot in the West Bank calling for the release of Samer Issawi, who is on a hunger strike. On Feb. 15 Turkey announces the arrest of eight retired generals for involvement in the ouster of the Islamic govt. in the late 1990s. On Feb. 15 Egypt accuses Israel of looting it of oil during its 1967-82 occupation of Sinai, dimanding $480B in compensation, and canceling their gas agreement. On Feb. 15 anti-Islam blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider (b. 1977) is murdered by students of North South U. in Dhaka, Bangladesh for organizing protests against leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami Party on trial for war crimes; five are later arrested. On Feb. 16 a bomb blast in Quetta, Pakistan kills 65+ near a market in a mainly Shiite neighborhood, causing mass Shiite protests. On Feb. 17 the Forward on Climate movement holds protests in major U.S. cities incl. 35K in Washington, D.C., calling for Pres. Obama to act on his inaugural pledge about climate change and reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline. On Feb. 17 elections in Ecuador give pres. Rafael Correa a 3rd term, with 56.7% vs. right-wing candidate Guillermo Lasso's 23.3%. On Feb. 17 for the first time Imran Khan, head of Pakistan's Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) party calls on the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) Party to give up territorism in the name of Islam. On Feb. 17 after hacking Assemblies of God minister Pastor Mathayo Kachili to death in early Feb. in the Geita region of Lake Victoria, Muslim gunmen kill Roman Catholic Father Evaristus Mushi in Zanzibar; on Feb. 19 they burn the Evangelical Church of Siloam. On Feb. 18 the 2013 Brussels Diamond Heist sees eight gunman make off with $50M worth. On Feb. 18 after resigning months earlier, top British cardinal the resignation of Keith O'Brien is accepted by Pope Benedict XVI; it is not announced until Feb. 25, one day after being accused of "inappropriate acts" with priests; he opts out of electing the new pope. On Feb. 19 Iranian spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast agrees to nuclear talks if the West agrees to their right to enrich uranium. On Feb. 19 Islamic militants kidnap a French family incl. three adults and four children in Waza Nat. Park, Cameroon. On Feb. 19 unemployed Muslim Ali Syed (1992-) goes on a shooting spree in Orange County, Calif., killing three and injuring two others on the freeway. On Feb. 19 Russian lawmaker Mikhail Pakhomov is found dead cemented in a barrel. On Feb. 19 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules unanimously in Fla. v. Harris that police may use dogs to sniff for undercover illegal drugs if they ae tested and certified. On Feb. 20 the govt. of Bulgaria resigns after nationwide protests over high electricity prices. On Feb. 20 U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, chmn. of the House Select Committee on Intelligence utters the soundbyte "I can't tell you how serious" the threat of Chinese hackers are to the security of the U.S., calling it "breathtaking, it's serious, and it will cost us the next generation of prosperity if we don't do something about it". On Feb. 20 a Boko Haram suicide bomb attack in Maiduguri, Nigeria kills three and wounds two. On Feb. 20 three Muslims are jailed in Kazakhstan for a plot to blow up a factory for manufacturing "Allah Vodka". On Feb. 20 Bangladesh begins cracking down on anti-Islam blogs for "hurting religious feelings". On Feb. 20 Mexico announces that it has records of 27K+ "disappeared people". On Feb. 20 36-y.-o. Bulgarian photographer Plamen Goranov (b. 1976) burned himself to death in front of the city hall in Varna, causing five copycats by the end of Mar., and nine by Aug. On Feb. 20 Google and Facebook announce the creation of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, five annual $3M prizes to those making research breakthroughs. On Feb. 21 a car bomb in Damascus, Syria near the HQ of the ruling Baath Party and the Russian embassy kills 4+. On Feb. 21 two bombs on parked bicycles in Dilsukhnagar, Hyderabad, India kill 13 and injure 84. On Feb. 21 three Muslims are convicted in Britain of a plot tokill hundreds by using eight suicide bombers with backpacks and guns. On Feb. 21 Austrian ambassador Axel Wech marries Pakistani TV journalist Sadia Afzaal and converts to Islam. On Feb. 22 Tunisia's ruling Islamist party names interior minister Ali Larayedh as new PM (until ?). On Feb. 22 U.S. State Dept. spokesperson Victoria Nuland warns Pakistan against signing "deals with Iran that may be sanctionable", referring to a gas deal. On Feb. 23 F23 Demonstrations in Spain see hundreds of thousands of leftists demonstrate in 80+ cities on the 32nd anniv. of the attempted coup by Francoist Lt. Col. Antonio Tejero. On Feb. 23 Anas Urbaningrum, head of Indonesia's ruling Dem. Party resigns a day after an anti-corruption commission names him as a suspect in a case. On Feb. 23 Stockholm, Sweden allows public recitation of the Muslim adhan (call to prayer) for the first time ever in Botkyrka via speakers. On Feb. 23 Muslims loot and burn 200 homes in Bengal, India. On Feb. 23 Muslim gunmen attack Aduwan Gida Village in Southern Kaduna, Nigeria, killing six. On Feb. 24 Louis Farrakhan gives a speech at the U. of Ill. in Chicago calling on blacks to curb spending, pool resources, and buy land. On Feb. 24 former White House press secy. Robert Gibbs admits that was told not to publicly acknowledge the U.S. drone program. On Feb. 24 11 African countries sign a Dem. Repub. of Congo (DRC) Peace Deal at the African Union HQ in Addis Ababa. On Feb. 24 the India-Sri Lanka Fishing War ramps up when Tamil Nadu media accuse the Sri Lankan navy of attacking Indian fisherman in the Palk Straits. On Feb. 24, 2013 the 85th Academy Awards, presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., hosted by Seth Macfarlane awards the best picture Oscar for 2012 to Argo, which also wins best adapted screenplay; Ang Lee wins best dir. for Life of Pi; Daniel Day-Lewis wins best actor for Lincoln (first actor to win 3x); Jennifer Lawrence wins best actress for Silver Linings Playbook; Christoph Waltz wins best supporting actor for Django Unchained, and Quentin Tarantino wins best original screenplay; Anne Hathaway wins best supporting actress for Les Miserables; Skyfall by Paul Epworth, performed by Adele Adkins wins best original song; Brave wins best animated feature; Amour wins best foreign language film; Seth Macfarlane stinks the show up with We Saw Your Boobs (The Boob Song). On Feb. 25 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry opens his first official trip abroad in London with British PM David Cameron, saying that Iran can't be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. On Feb. 25 Mexican pres. Enrique Pena Nieto signs an education reform, the most sweeping in seven decades, designed to weaken the powerful teacher's union; on Feb. 26 Elba Esther Gordillo, head of the Mexican Teachers' Union is arrested for embezzling union funds; in May the reforms knock Carlos Slim off the world's richest man spot, with $69.1B in wealth, compared to new #1 Bill Gates at $69.8B. On Feb. 25 the EU gives Ukraine 3 mo. to reform its justice and electoral systems before free trade and political assoc. deals signed in 2012 will be ratified. On Feb. 26 amid protests, Gaza militants fire a rocket into S Israel, breaking the Nov. ceasefire. On Feb. 26 the 4th Round of Nuclear Talks with Iran and six world powers begin. On Feb. 26-27 the P5+1 Summit in Almaty, Kazakhstan (known for renouncing nukes) incl. reps from Iran. On Feb. 26 a hot air balloon crashes in Luxor, Egypt, killing 19 and injuring two, hurting tourism. On Feb. 26 Human Rights Watch announces that the Syrian govt. fired at least four ballistic missiles into Aleppo during the past week, killing 140 incl. 70 children. On Feb. 27 despite Repub. opposition over his friendliness to Iran and Islam, and ambivalent stand toward Israel, after a 58-41 vote (greatest number of no votes against a secy. of defense, #2=George C. Marshall in 1950 with 11) Chuck Hagel becomes U.S. secy. of defense (until ?); he slides through primarily because the Am. Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) refuses to take a stand? On Feb. 27 a report by Brandeis U. claims that the wealth gap between U.S. blacks and whites balooned 8x between 1984 and 2009, with median white household net worth of $265K vs. $28.5K for blacks. On Feb. 28 Jacob Joseph "Jack" Lew (1955-) succeeds Timothy Geitner as U.S. treasury secy. #76 (until ?), becoming the most powerful Jew in the Obama admin? On Feb. 28 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes remarks comparing Zionism and Islamophobia with anti-Semitism, and calling them "a crime against humanity", causing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and the White House to condemn him. In Feb. the U.S. economy adds 236K jobs while employment drops to 7.7%. In Feb. Dutch politician Arnoud Van Door announces his conversion to Islam, shocking his party boss, anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders. In Feb. Japanese military forces engage in Operation Iron Fist in response to increasing aggressiveness by China, shifting further away from pacifism. On Mar. 1 the 2013 U.S. Sequestration comes into effect under a plan by Pres. Obama, with automatic federal spending cuts of $1.2T over 10 years, incl. $85B in 2013; on Mar. 5 the White House cancels tours for lack of funds. On Mar. 1 elections in Britain are a big D for the ruling Conservative Party, and a V for the Liberal Dem. Party and UK Independence party that wants Britain to leave the EU and supports a crackdown on immigration laws. On Mar. 1 interior minister Ali Laarayedh (1955-) becomes PM of Tunisia(until ?). On Mar. 1 Russian PM Vladimir Putin announces a new system of Islamic higher education in Russia to counter extremism. On Mar. 1 a protest by 160 women and children in Buraidah, Saudi Arabia demanding that their imprisoned husbands and fathers be freed from endless imprisonment while accused ob being part of a "deviant group" of al-Qaida sympathisers or Islamist political opposition groups is quashed by security forces, causing a Twitter campaign by Shiites in the E and liberals in Jidda and Riyadh, causing the govt. two weeks later to announce a plan to ID Twitter accounts. On Mar. 2 more violent protests erupt in Cairo, Egypt are greeted by police, who use excessive force and kill one by crushing him with an armored vehicle. On Mar. 2-3 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry visits Egypt, pledging $250M to support "democracy", cautioning Pres. Mohammed Morsi to heal political rifts. On Mar. 3 twin explosions in Karachi, Pakistan On Mar. 4 Pres. Obama picks nuclear physicist Ernest Jeffrey Moniz (1944-) for energy secy., Regina "Gina" McCarthy (1954-) for EPA head, and Sylvia Mary Mathews Burwell (1965-) for OMB head on Apr. 11; on May 16 the U.S. Senate unanimously confirms Moniz, who is sworn in on May 21 (until Jan. 20, 2017); McCarthy isn't confirmed by the Senate until July 18 after a record 136-day fight over her support of Obama's global warming and climate change initiative, and is sworn in as EPA head #13 on July 18 (until Jan. 20, 2017); Burwell is sworn in as OMB dir. on Apr. 24 (until June 9, 2014), then nominated by Obama on Apr. 11, 2014 for HHS secy., and confirmed 78-17 by the Senate on June 5 before being sworn in as U.S. HHS secy. #22 on June 9 (until Jan. 20, 2017). near Abul Hassan Isphahani Rd. kill 45+ and injure 130+. On Mar. 4 Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai rails against Pakistan, accusing it of a weak resolve to battle terrorism after ?, head of the Pakistani clerics council declared suicide attacks in Afghanistan lawful. On Mar. 4 a policy change signed by Pres. Obama on Feb. 2 shortens the visa wait for illegal aliens with U.S. spouse. On Mar. 4 a locust plague in Egypt puts Israel on high alert ahead of Passover for a possible locust invasion; meanwhile Iran fights a plague of 10-lb. rats. On Mar. 4 Fla. imam Hafiz Khan (1935-) is convicted of funneling $50K to the Pakistani Taliban. On Mar. 4 Islamist gunmen attack a Christian church in Benghazi, Libya, assaulting two priests. On Mar. 4 dozens of Syrian troops are ambushed in Iraq while seeking refuge, killing 48; Syrian rebels take 21 U.N. peacekeepers hostage, releasing them on Mar. 9. On Mar. 4 Fla. Repub. gov. Jeb Bush appears on USA Today, saying that he's flopped on allowing illegal immigrants citizenships, favoring permanent residence passes. On Mar. 5 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. closes at an all-time high of 14,253, passing the Oct. 2007 record of 14,164. On Mar. 5 U.S. atty. gen. Eric Holder sends a letter to U.S. Sen. (R-Ky.) Rand Paul, saying that drone strikes on U.S. soil are "possible". On Mar. 6 the U.N claims that there are 1M Syrian refugees. On Mar. 6 Stuart Bowen, special inspector gen. for Iraq reconstruction pub. his final report to Congress, sayyng that after 10 years and $60B spent in postwar reconstruction, Iraq is still unstable, making the effort a waste. On Mar. 6 a report from UNICEF claims that practices by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) of arresting Palestinian youth are "cruel, inhuman, or degrading". On Mar. 6 the EU fines Microsoft $733M for reneging on its promise to offer users a choice of browsers. On Mar. 6 a criminal court in Bruges, Belgium sentences a man to 4 mo. in prison and a 600 Euro fine for shredding a Quran. On Mar. 6 (night) Norwegian interior designer Marte Deborah Dalelv (1988-) is raped by a coworker in Dubai, and after she reports it she is arrested and convicted of having sex outside marriage and drinking alcohol without a license, and sentenced to 16 mo. in prison; her attacker is sentenced to 13 mo.; after an internat. uproar they are both pardoned. On Mar. 7 after a 13-hour filibuster by Sen. Rand Paul (R-K.Y.), the U.S. Senate approves the nomination of Arabic-speaking North Bergen, N.J.-born John Owen Brennan (1955-) as CIA dir.; on Mar. 8 he asks to be sworn-in on a copy of the U.S. Constitution instead of the Bible to "reaffirm his commitment to the rule of law", becoming CIA dir. #5 (until Jan. 20, 2017). On Mar. 7 after U.S.-South Korean military drills piss it off, and the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 2094 to place new sanctions on it, the govt. of North Korea warns of a preemptive nuclear strike on the U.S., causing shockwaves. On Mar. 8 after being captured on ?, Osama bin Laden's loudmouthed son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith is arraigned in New York City on terrorist charges, with a possible life sentence; he allegedly talks in custody. On Mar. 8 former PM #3 (1998-2002) Milos Zeman (1944-) of the Czech Social Dem. Party becomes pres. #3 of the Czech Repub., becoming the first directly-elected pres. in Czeh history; he is reelected in 2018 despite going against EU migrant quotas and supporting Pres. Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. On Mar. 9 new U.S. defense secy. Chuck Hagel makes his first official visit to Afghanistan, and is greeted by two suicide attacks by militants, killing nine outside the Afghan Defense Ministry, plus a policeman and eight civilians, mostly children at a police checkpoint in Khost. On Mar. 9-10 150+ Christian homes and schools in Lahore, Pakistan are looted and torched by a Muslim mob outraged at allegations of blasphemy against Muhammad. On Mar. 10 Afghan pres. Karzai gives a nationally-televised speech accusing the U.S. and Taliban of collusion in order to keep U.S. troops there; he also accuses U.S.-led forces of "abusing" univ. students after the CIA arrests a student on Mar. 9, banning them from entering campuses. On Mar. 10 due to a shortage of swordsman, Saudi Arabia announces that it is considering firing squads for executions. On Mar. 12 U.S. nat. intel dir. James Clapper tells Congress that Al-Qaida no longer poses a major threat, and adds that the Arab Spring has benefited Islamists instead of democracy advocates, providing openings for terrorists. On Mar. 12 a suicide bomber in Konduz Province, Afghanistan kills six and injures several fans watcing a buzkashi (dead goat polo) game. On Mar. 13 a Lashar-e-Taiba suicide attack on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camp near a public school in Bemina, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir kills five CRPF and two militants; on Mar. 19 they attack again, killing 18-y.-o. school dropout Suhail Ahmed Sofi hiding in the fireplace of a mosque Baramulla District; on Mar. 21 they attack again in Methain Bypass near Srinagar, firing on a Border Security Force (BSF) vehicle. On Mar. 13 al Nusra Front Wahhabi militants bomb the Shrine of Ammar ibn Yasir in al-Raqqah, Syria, pissing-off orthodox Sunni Muslims. On Mar. 13 the flow of gas from Israel's Tamar Reservoir in the Mediterranean Sea is initiated, promising Israel energy independence. On Mar. 14 Xi Jinping (1953-) becomes pres. #7 of the People's Repub. of China (until ?); on Mar. 15 former Young Communists leader Li Keqiang (1955-) becomes PM #7 of China (until ?); Jinping goes on to consolidate power in the party's hands, announcing a reorg. in late Mar. 2018 transferring control of key govt. bureaus to party organs, undoing the party-state divide set up by Den Xiaoping in the 1980s, and cracking down on univs., increasing ideological control with a 2016 directive from the ministry of education calling for more "patriotic education"; in 2017 he urges overseas Chinese students to set up Communist party cells. On Mar. 14 the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 2095, "reaffirming its strong commitment to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, and national unity of Libya", calling for full and equal participation of women, youth, and minorities in the political process, and expressing deep concern over reports of sexual violence and lack of judicial process for detainees. On Mar. 15 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that Iran is only a "year or so" away from having a nuclear bomb. On Mar. 15 a freak storm buries E and C Europe in deep snow, causing 10 ft. deep snowdrifts in Hungary. On Mar. 15 the U.S. announces that it's spending $1B to bolster missile defenses along the Pacific Coast against North Korea. On Mar. 15 SAC Capital Advisors run by Steven A. Cohen is fined a record $602M by the SEC for insider trading. On Mar. 15 after learning that his son is gay, Ohio Repub. Sen. Robert Portman announces that he's flopped about marriage of same-sex couples, and believes that the govt. "shouldn't deny" them the right, becoming the first Repub. Sen. to support gay marriage. On Mar. 15 a Swiss tourist is gang-raped in Madhya Pradesh, India. On Mar. 15 Pres. Obama visits the Argonne Nat. Lab in Chicago, Ill., and announces a $2B trust to be formed from royalties from offshore dirlling to support energy research into alternatives to gasoline. On Mar. 16 the EU rejects a request by the U.K. and France to lift an arms embargo to Syrian rebels. On Mar. 17 Family Guy debuts the episode i>Turban Cowboy, showing Peter surviving a near-death experience (NDE) then embracing Islam via fellow patient Mahmood, then skewering Muslims. On Mar. 17, 2013 the History Channel defines Obama's presidency by portraying him as looking like the Devil in its weekly series The Bible (Mar. 3-31); it's really Moroccan actor Mohamen Mehdi Ouazanni. On Mar. 18 Cyprus announces that it's going to confiscate 9.9% of all bank accounts; on Mar. 13 Dutch finance minister Jeroen Bijsselbloem announces that this scheme will be the template for future Euro bank bailouts, causing a furor that makes him retract it; on June 26 the EU announces that its 27 finance ministers have agreed on a plan shifting the responsibility for bank losses from govts. to bank investors, creditors, and uninsured depositors. On Mar. 18 Pope Francis meets with Argentine pres. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner at the Vatican. On Mar. 18 former secy. of state Hillary Clinton announces that she now supports same-sex marriage; her hubby Bill Clinton already endorsed it while she was serving in Pres. Obama's cabinet after Chelsea talked him into it. On Mar. 18 the Nat. Dialogue Conference (NDC) in Yemen, mediated by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is attended by 565 delegates incl. all political and other parties in a landmark attempt at political transition. On Mar. 19 (10th anniv. of the U.S.-led invastion) a series of attacks across Baghdad, Iraq kills 65, becoming the deadliest day in Iraq since Sept. 9. On Mar. 19 U.S.-educated Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood supporter Ghassan Hitto is elected by the Syrian Nat. Council as head of an interim govt. in Syria to administer areas seized by rebel forces. On Mar. 19 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte about Iran that it needs to take "immediate and meaningful steps... toward an enduring, long-term settlement" over its nuke program. On Mar. 20 (10th anniv. of U.S.-led Iraq invasion) after touching down at Ben Gurion Airport, Pres. Obama visits Israel, with the soundbyte "It's good to be back in The Land. The United States is proud to stand with you as your strongest ally and your greatest friend", vowing eternal support, calling it the "work of generations", with the soundbyte "In this work, the state of Israel will have no greater friend than the United States." On Mar. 20 Jordanian king Abdullah interviews CNN's Jake Tapper, warning of a "Muslim Brotherhood Crescent" rising in Egypt and Turkey. On Mar. 20 Muslim man Derron Black AKA Shahid Abdullah storms the stage during a speech by Kansas City, Mo. mayor Sly James, and is removed by security after short speech and a scuffle. On Mar. 20 Burmese Buddhist monk Shin Thawbita is burned alive by a Muslim mob in Meikhtilar. On Mar. 21 (a.m.) an Afghan policeman kills five colleagues in Qadis District, Badghis Province, Afghanistan. On Mar. 21 Pres. Obama gives a Speech in Israel, finally calling Hezbollah a terrorist group, adding "Peace is far more preferable to war", adding that there is no "unconditional" U.S. support for Israel because they might disagree from time to time, and that the "only way" for peace and security for Israel is an "independent and viable" Palestine, "two states for two people" because "neither occupation nor explusion is the answer", but that "Palestinians must recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state"; he adds that the U.S. will do everything it has to do to prevent a nuclear Iran. On Mar. 21 U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly holds a Pentagon news conference, telling reporters that Iranian influence is increasing in Latin Am. enough to be worrisome, and that a potential connection between crime syndicates and terrorists in Latin Am. would constitute a clear danger to the region. On Mar. 21 Syrian Sunni Muslim cleric (last one to support Bashar al-Assad) Mohamed Saeed Ramadan al-Bouti is killed in a suicide attack in a mosque in Damascus, causing thousands to mourn at his funeral along with 40 others; meanwhile opposition activists get pissed-off at his burial beside the tomb of Saladin. On Mar. 21 the Obama admin. admits to the New York Times that they stalled in producing a metric to determine whether the U.S.-Mexico border is secure so that they could push citizenship paths for illegal aliens; on Mar. 20 Dept. of Homeland Security officials admitted to congress that they still have no official way to measure whether the border is secure. On Mar. 22 new humble Pope Francis I gives his first foreign policy address, calling for a dialogue with Islam and offering an olive branch to China. On Mar. 22 after Pres. Obama puts him up to it, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu makes a surprise apologizes for Turkish flotilla deaths, and agrees to compensate victims, causing Turkey to begin restoring trade; meanwhile Obama arrives in Jordan after visiting Israel and the West Bank, pledging $200M aid for the 450K+ Syrian refugees; too bad, on Mar. 24 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erodogan issues the soundbyte that the Gaza blockade must be lifted before full normalization with Israel. On Mar. 22 Lebanese PM Najib Mikati resigns after dissolving the govt. On Mar. 22 deadly clashes between Buddhists and Muslims in Meikhtila, Burma cause a state of emergency to be declared. On Mar. 22 an anti-Muslim Brotherhood protest in Cairo, Egypt results in a Mar. 25 order to arrest of five anti-MB activists, putting the MB on "high alert" about a possible crackdown. On Mar. 22 a U.S. Marine shoots and kills a female and male Marine then kills himself at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va. On Mar. 22 19-y.-o. Tunisian woman Amina Tyler (1993-), founder of the feminist FEMEN org. posts topless photos of herself on Facebook, bringing out the Muslim establishment, who calls for her death by stoning, causing her supporters to declare Topless Jihad Day on Apr. 4, while she goes into hiding; meanwhile a Tunisian sheikh calls for young girls to perform sexual jihad by offering themselves to Syrian fighters; too bad, on May 22 Tyler is caught and arrested. On Mar. 22-24 new Chinese pres. Xi Jinpig makes his first official foreign visit to Russia to highlight strengthening ties; his wife Peng Liyuan becomes China's Michelle Obama. On Mar. 23 Pope Francis meets with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at Castel Gandolfo. On Mar. 23 Saudi cleric Muhammad Ali Shanqiti posts a lecture on the Internet that claims that each lucky Muslim will get not 72 but 19,604 virgins in Paradise. On Mar. 24 after overthrowing pres. Francois Bozize, Russian-educated Michel Am-Nondokro Djotodia (1949-), head of the Islamist Seleka rebel coalition becomes the first Muslim pres. (#7) of mostly Christian Central African Repub. (CAR) (until Jan. 10, 2014); too bad, on Apr. 13 the CAR Conflict begins between his Muslim minority Seleka (Séléka) coalition rebels and mainly Christian Anti-balaka coalition forces, who forcibly convert Muslims to Christianity. On Mar. 24 outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) chief Abdullah Ocalan calls for a ceasefire after almost 30 years and 35K killed. On Mar. 25 the U.S. military cedes control of its last military facility in Afghanistan as John Kerry and Hamid Karzai make a show of unity in Kabul. On Mar. 25 Muslim Brotherhood supreme guide Muhammad Badie meets with James Watt, British ambassador in Cairo for the first time. On Mar. 26 Pres. Obama selects Julia Pierson as the first female head of the FBI (until ?). On Mar. 26 another suicide bomber in Damascus, Syria kills three and wounds dozens. On Mar. 26 the Arab Summit in Doha convenes, with the soundbyte that the first summit discussed the single problem of the Palestinian problem, but this one is convening under the shadow of "a political, security, and economic earthquake, and raging storms of chaos, upheaval, and fitna" in almost all Arab countries incl. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen. On Mar. 26 the U.S. Monsanto Protection Act slips through the U.S. Congress, protecting genetically-modified seeds from litigation, pissing-off anti-GMO groups. On Mar. 26 Okla. permits the operation of horse slaughterhouses. On Mar. 26-27 the 5-nation "emerging powers" 2013 BRICS Forum sees Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad appeal for help against "acts of terrorism backed by Arab, regional and Western nations"; decisions are made to fund anti-Bashar rebels in Syria, and establish a $1B fund to strength the Arab and Muslim character of Jerusalem; they announce that they oppose military threats against Iran, with the soundbyte "We are concerned about threats of military sanctions as well as unilateral sanctions." On Mar. 26-30 the 11th World Social Forum is held for the first time in Tunisia. On Mar. 27 Egyptian naval forces capture three scuba divers trying to cut an undersea Internet cable in Alexandria, Egypt belonging to Telecom Egypt. On Mar. 27 the Worst Attack in the History of the Internet is caused by a war between an anti-Spam group and a Dutch hosting co. On Mar. 27 1.5KK armed vigilantes in Tierra Colorado, Guerrero, Mexico take control of the town and arrest homes, searching homes after a vigilante leader was killed, and firing on cars headed to Acapulco. On Mar. 27 a 16-y.-o. Afghan teenie stabs and kills U.S. Army Sgt. Michael C. Cable (b. 1986) while playing with children near the Pakistan border, then escapes to Pakistan and joins the Taliban. On Mar. 27 Hilde Raastad, Norway's first pastor (since 1997) (a Lutheran) quits over the "exclusionary" church; church and state were officially separated in 2012; same-sex marriage was legalized in 2009; ordination of gays was officially authorized in 2007. On Mar. 28 mortar shells crash into an outdoor cafe at Damascus U. in Syria, killing 15+ students and wounding 20. On Mar. 28 a bomb blows up the Sufi Sidi Al-Andhusi Mausoleum (a nat. monument) in Tajoura, Libya near Tripoli. On Mar. 28 the U.S. announces that it has sent two nuke-capable B-2 bombers to South Korea after threats from North Korea. On Mar. 28 the Red Chinese People's Daily pub. an article blasting Apple Computer Inc., with the headline "Destroy Apple's Unparalleled Arrogance", accusing it of "Westerners' traditional sense of superiority" in its policies towards China for only having a 1-year warranty instead of a 2-year warranty. On Mar. 28 (Passover) the Jewish pop. of Israel passes the symbolic 6M mark. On Mar. 28 (Holy Thurs.) Pope Francis I performs a foot-washing ceremony at a prison in Rome on 12 incl. a teenage boy, teenage boy, and two Muslims. On Mar. 28 British Muslim Lord Ahmed apologizes for comments that his imprisonment over a fatal car crash was caused by Jews. On Mar. 29 four car bombs in Shiite mosques in in Baghdad, Iraq kills 19 and wounds 72. On Mar. 29 Afghanistan cancels joint military training with Pakistan after claiming cross-border fire; Pakistan calls it "over-reaction". On Mar. 29 Syrian rebels kill Sunni cleric Sheikh hassan Seifeddin in Aleppo, behead him, drag his body through the streets, and lay his head on a minaret. On Mar. 29 a study is pub. by Harvard U. claiming that the combined costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars is $4T-$6T counting future health care costs for veterans. On Mar. 29-30 the Battle of In Arab between Anefif and bourem, Mali is a V for the MNLA (Movement for the Nat. Liberation of Azawad) over the MOJWA (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa); in Aug. some MOJWA members led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar and Ahmed Ould Amer (Ahmed al-Tilemsi) split off as the Al-Mourabitoun, joining AQIM on Dec. 4, 2015. On Mar. 30 North Korea warns that it's entering a "state of war" with South Korea. On Mar. 30 2K ethnic Albanians take to the streets in Mitrovica, Kosovo to protest ongoing talks with Serbia. On Mar. 30 (a.m.) a NATO heli strike in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan kills nine Taliban militants and two children. On Mar. 30 deadly floods hit Port Louis, Mauritius. On Mar. 30 Kaufman County, Tex. DA Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia are found assassinated in their home. On Mar. 31 (Easter Sun.) after being flown for a week to mark the sesquicentennial of the U.S. Civil War and mark how the Old Capital appeared in 1863, the Confederate flag comes down in Raleigh, N.C. after objections by civil rights orgs. On Mar. 31 Muslims slaughter 50 Christians in Barkin Ladi, C Nigeria - happy Easter? On Mar. 31 Muslims bomb a building housing a women's rights org. in Peshawar, Pakistan. On Mar. 31 Iranian brig. gen. Mohammad Reza Naghdi utters the soundbyte "The American empire will all in 2013", saing that he's backed by supreme leader Assahollah Khamenei. On Mar. 31 extremist Muslims stone Jews attempting to access the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on the 7th day of Passover. On Mar. 31 Am. Muslim ? drives his pickup trup through a parking lot in San Jose, Calif., hitting parked cars, then drives it into the front of a Walmart store, getting out and assaulting shoppers until police arrest him. On Mar. 31 police in Azerbaijan arrest Muslim theologian Taleh Bagirzadeh (1982-) and charge him with drug possession, causing a Muslim protest on Apr. 1 in Imam Hussain Square in Baku, and another on Apr. 2 in Lenkoran. In Mar. 2013 the Peterborough Ditch Murders in Cambridgeshire, England see the bodies of three dumped in ditches outside Peterborough during a 12-day killing spree by sadistic "man woman" Joanna Dennehy (1982-) ("Uma Thurmna from Kill Bill"), who is sentenced to life in prison; her accomplices in disposing of the bodies 7'3" Gary Stretch (1976-) and Leslie Layton (1986-) are also convicted. In Mar. the Coalition for the Homeless pub. the report State of the Homeless 2013, claiming that 50K homeless are sleeping in New York City's municipal shelter system, incl. 21K children, greatest since the Great Depression, up 19% in one year. On Apr. 1 a suicide attacker at a police HQ in Tikrit, Iraq kills nine and injures 17. On Apr. 1 Lebanese Sunni gunmen kidnap eight Alawite Syrians and demand a hostage exchange. On Apr. 1 Palestinian Authority Chmn. Mahmud Abbus signs an agreement with Jordanian king Abdullah II confirming their "common goal to defending" Jerusalem, and their opposition to efforts to "Judaize" it. On Apr. 1 Syrian rebel fighters blast the Muslim Brotherhood for "delaying victory" by trying to dictate their politics. On Apr. 1 the North Korean parliament meets to shift away from warlike rhetoric, appointing new PM Pak Pong Ju (until ?), who focuses on economic development in a country where two-thirds of the 24M pop. face regular food shortages. On Apr. 1 the Police Service of Scotland is created from eight regional police forces. On Apr. 1 the historic Jobar Synagogue in Damascus, Syria is looted. On Apr. 1 the Indian Supreme Court rules against Swiss pharmaceutical co. Novartis, paving the way for cheap generic drugs in India. On Apr. 1 an anon. hacker releases a draft statement from Hillary Clinton, claiming that in her 2016 pres. run she will become the first candidate to formally endorse legalizing polygamy, polyamory, and adultery. On Apr. 1 the Mogadishu Music Festival in Somalia takes aim at Al-Shabaab. On Apr. 1 Burma allows privately-own newspapers to be sold for the first time since 1964. On Apr. 1-6 Turkey breaks its truce with Kurdish separatists by bombarding Kurdish positions. On Apr. 2 after being launched in 1997 by Costa Rican pres. Oscar Arias, the U.N. Gen. Assembly votes 154-3-23 (Iran, North Korea, Syria) to adopt the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) regulating internat. trade in conventional weapons, effective Dec. 24, 2014 after 50 states ratify it; it is eventually signed by 94 states, with 41 signing but not ratifying it, incl. the U.S., which signs on Sept. 25 but is swayed by a chain email claiming that Pres. Obama is trying to take the "first major step in a plan to ban all firearms in the U.S." On Apr. 2 North Korea announces the intention to resume activities in the Youngbyon Nuclear Complex, which has been closed since 2007; U.S. officials announce concerns that pesky North Korea can explode a nuke over the U.S. with their "space launch vehicle", positioning warships closer to North Korea, and also reveal that China has been increasing its military presence on the North Korean border since mid-Mar. along with naval drills in the Yellow Sea, while experts reveal that the 2013 North Korean nuclear test may have been conducted with a uranium nuke rather than a plutonium one. On Apr. 2 Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants attack a power station in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 7+ and taking 10 hostages. On Apr. 2 after an outbreak of food poisoning at Al-Azhar U. that hospitalizes 500, hundreds of Egyptian students storm the offices of Al-Azhar Mosque grand imam Ahmed el-Tayed. On Apr. 2 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails stage protests over the alleged maltreatment of Maysara Abu Hamdiya (b. 1948), who died on Apr. 2 of throat cancer. On Apr. 2 yet another protest in Dhaka, Bangladesh. On Apr. 2 police find nine mutilated bodies in a SUV with Tex. license plates in Tamaulipas, Mexico. On Apr. 2 quarry collapse in Arusha, Tanzania kills 13. On Apr. 2 police arrest three Sinhalese Buddhist monks in Colombo, Sri Lanka for burning down a Muslim-owned clothing store. On Apr. 2 Hamas reelects Khaled Meshaal as its leader, and orders gender segregation in Gaza schools starting in Sept. On Apr. 2 a fire at a Muslim religious school in Yangon, Burma burns 75 orphans alive. On Apr. 2 (night) after three missiles are fired at Israel, Israeli jets carry out strikes on Jabal al Rayes, Gaza, the first Gaza strike since the Nov. 21, 2012 Pillar of Defense ceasefire. On Apr. 2 the Associated Press (AP) drops the term "illegal immigrant" from its stylebook. On Apr. 3 sudden floods in Argentina kill 46+. On Apr. 3 Mingo County, W. Va. sheriff Eugene Crum, known for his war on illegal drugs is killed in front of a courthouse in Williamson by 37-y.-o. Tennis Melvin Maynard. On Apr. 3 Christian pres. of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance Sindh Chapter Saleem Khursheed Khokhar is unsuccessfully attacked by a drive-by shooter en route to Karachi from Badin. On Apr. 4 hours after the U.S. announces the deployment of an ABM defense system to Guam, North Korea threatens a nuclear attack on the U.S., causing the U.S. to respond by more redeployment of military forces, announcing that if attacked, it will seek a regime change there. On Apr. 4 thousands of Palestinians protest in East Jerusalem over the death of Mai-sara Abu Hamdiyeh, who died on Apr. 2 of throat cancer while serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail. On Apr. 4 French pres. Francois Holland makes his first state visit to Morocco. On Apr. 4 Maj. Gen. Ralph Baker of U.S. Africa Command is fired for alcohol and sex charges. On Apr. 4 topless feminists stage anti-Islamist oppression rallies in front of mosques and Tunisian embassies in Berlin, Germany and across Europe, protesting Islamist crackdowns on Arab women's rights. On Apr. 4 a tower block collapses in Mumbai, India, killing 47 incl. 17 children, and injures 70, causing a police search for the builders. On Apr. 4 the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) becomes the first academic union in Europe to academically boycott Israel to please the Palestinians, calling it an "apartheid state". Pres. Obama becomes the Emperor With No Clothes vis a vis his Muslim appeasement policy? On Apr. 4-7 Iran holds nuclear talks with six world powers, which results in no end to Iran's nuclear ambitions; instead, on Apr. 9 (Iranian Nat. Day of Nuclear Technology) Pres. Imadinnajacket announces two new nuclear-related projects. On Apr. 5 Pres. Obama pledges to return 5% of his salary to the U.S. Treasury to show solidarity with federal workers facing $85B in spending cuts. On Apr. 5 the U.N. announces that it's cutting food distribution to Gaza for "days or even weeks" in protest of its HQ being stormed by protesters. On Apr. 5 a fight between Muslim and Buddhist detainees in Myanmar kills eight. On Apr. 5 supporters of Sunni Islam's top religious authority al-Azhar clash with supporters of Muslim Brotherhood pres. Mohammed Mursi in Alexandria, Egypt, injuring dozens. On Apr. 5 Pres. Obama pledges $200M to Jordan to take care of Syrian refugees. On Apr. 5-6 (anniv. of the Apr. 6 Yough Movement) Muslim-Christian clashes near Cairo, Egpt kill five and injure eight. On Apr. 6 a suicide car bomb in S Afghanistan kills three U.S. soldiers and two U.S. civilians incl. U.S. ambassador Anne Smedinghoff, becoming the deadliest attack against U.S. forces so far this year. On Apr. 6 a U.S. air strike against Taliban leaders in Shigal, Kunar Province, Afghanistan kills 17 civilians incl. 12 children; Hamid Karzi holds both the Taliban and the U.S. responsible. On Apr. 7 (Sun.) (Holocaust Remembrance Day) the hactivist group Anonymous launches its 2nd cyberattack on Israel. On Apr. 7 Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu meets with U.S. secy. of state John Kerry in Istanbul, and surprises him with a demand that Israel end all restrictions on Palestinians and lift the Gaza blockade before Turkey will restore ties. On Apr. 7 a battle in Kunar Province, Afghanistan between U.S.-backed Afghan forces and Taliban forces kills 20 incl. a U.S. civilian adviser and 11 Afghan children. On Apr. 8 WikiLeaks announces the Public Library of U.S. Diplomacy (PlusD), "the world's largest searchable collection of United States confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications." On Apr. 8 South Africa announces a single-dose $10 a mo. AIDS treatment drug. On Apr. 9 after his opponent Raila Odinga unsuccessfully contests the election, Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta (1961-), son of pres. #1 Jomo Kenyatta becomes pres. #4 of Kenya (until ?). On Apr. 9 a 6.3 earthquake in S Iran near Iran's only nuclear power station in Bushehr kills 30 and injures 800. On Apr. 9 the Nat. Iranian Am. Council (NIAC) is order to pay $183K in sanctions after losing a defamation suit against Iranian-Am. writer Hassan Daioleslam for allegedly defaming them by claiming that they lobbied U.S. officials on behalf of Iran. On Apr. 10 Ghabagheb, Syria and nearby al-Sanamayn are attacked by Syrian forces. On Apr. 10 Mark Zuckerberg launches the lobbying group Fwd.us to influence education and immigration legislation. On Apr. 11 Uruguay legalizes same-sex marriage, making it #3 in America after Canada and Argentina. On Apr. 11 Pres. Obama's approval rating drops to 47%, vs. 51% when he was reelected, and the first under-50 rating since last Aug. On Apr. 11 a Syrian army assault in Daraa Province, S Syria kills 57 incl. six children, 16 rebels, and 12 army troops. On Apr. 11 an unclassified Pentagon report reveals that North Korean may have nuclear-tipped missiles. On Apr. 12 the IMF recognizes Somalia after 22 years. On Apr. 12 Israeli Pres. Shimon Peres utters the soundbyte: "I have no doubt that if diplomatic talks fail with Iran and Tehran doesn't stop accelerating its nuclear development, U.S. Pres. Barack Obama will conduct a military attack against Iran." On Apr. 12 the historical fantasy series Da Vinci's Demons debuts on Starz Network for (until Dec. 26, 2015), starring Tom Riley as young Leonardo da Vinci, who is implicated in the political schemes of the Medici and Pazzi families and get hooked up with the Sons of Mithras cult on his quest to uncover the "Book of Leaves". On Apr. 12-14 the Muslim World League (MWL) holds its first-ever conference in Nigeria (Sokoto). On Apr. 13 despite U.S. pressure, Palestinian Authority PM Salam Fayyad resigns, and on June 6 English prof. Rami Hamdallah (Abu Walid) (1958-) becomes PM #15 of the Palestinian Authority (until ?), but it is disputed, and on June 20 he offers to resign; on June 2, 2014 his incumbency is no longer disputed. On Apr. 13 Syrian forces destroy the Omari Mosque in Daraa, where the uprising erupted two years earlier. On Apr. 14 (10:25 p.m.) a 5.2 earthquake near Fukushima, Japan. On Apr. 14 Turkey becomes the first country with an ambassador to Palestine, Sakir Ozkan Torunlar. On Apr. 15 (Patriots Day) (101st anniv. of the birthday of Kim Il Sung) (2:49 p.m. EDT) the Boston Marathon Bombings see two bombs packed with ball bearings go off 10 sec. and 90m apart at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring 176 incl. eight children, leaving many runners without legs after finishing the 26.2 mi. marathon (23K runners); at 4:30 p.m. another explosion occurs at the JFK Pres. Library and Museum 1 mi. away, but it was planned by authorities as part of a drill?; Muslims in Gaza dance in the streets at news of the bombing; after being tackled by bystanders, Saudi Muslim Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi (1993-) is arrested, then released and deported after Pres. Obama holds an emergency meeting on Apr. 17 with Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal; at ? p.m. Pres. Obama gives a televised speech, with the soundbyte that those responsible will "feel the full weight of justice"; on Apr. 16 he gives a press conference, calling the bombings an "act of terror"; on Apr. 19 after they hijack the Mercedes of Chinese-Am. engineer Dun "Danny" Mengin, and he escaped to a Mobil gas station on Memorial Dr. in Cambridge, the FBI publicizes a photo showing two Muslim Chechen suspects, Dzhokhar Anzorovich "Jahar" Tsarnaev (1993-) and his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who is killed in a shootout with police overnight on Apr. 18 that kills MIT police officer Sean A. Collier; Dzokhar runs over his older brother Tamerlan in his car while trying to escape, then is caught hiding in a boat behind a man's home, leaving a confession note that contains the soundbyte "When you attack one Muslim you attack all Muslims"; they build pressure cooker bombs using instructions given in the al-Qaida Inspire mag. article "How to Cook a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom"; on May 30 Inspire, Issue #11 is released, claiming credit for motivating the bombing, and promising more; the whole affair torpedoes Pres. Obama's lalaland rhetoric about Islam, and reveals how he's shackled the FBI and DHS so they can't do their jobs? On Apr. 15 Iraq's Bloody Mon. sees 75 killed and 356 wounded, incl. 30 dead and 92 wounded in Baghdad. On Apr. 15 Turkish pianist Fazil Say (1969-) is sentenced to 10 mo. suspended for insulting Islam on Twitter. On Apr. 15 a 5-y.-o. girl is kidnapped from her home in New Delhi, India by 22-y.-o. Manoj Kumar, who rapes and tortures her, causing outrage and protests against police. On Apr. 16 a 7.7 earthquake (biggest in 50+ years) hits Iran, killing 46+ and swaying skyscrapers as far as New Delhi. On Apr. 16 the Islam and Just Transition in Syria Conference in Istanbul convenes; Syrian nat. coalition pres. Ahmaz Moaz al-Khatib utters the soundbyte that he's against calls for an Islamic state because Syria is a country where moderate Islam dominates. On Apr. 16 the Pathways to 100% Renewable Energy in San Francisco, Calif. convenes. On Apr. 16 the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approves a resolution to assist Israel it it's forced to take action against Iran. On Apr. 16 the price of gold falls below $1.4K, sparking a buying frenzy in India and China. On Apr. 16 letters are sent to Pres. Obama and U.S. Miss. Sen. Robert Wicker containing ricin; on Apr. 17 Paul Kevin Curtis of Corinth, Miss. is arrested, and released on Apr. 27, and James Everett Dutschke (1971-) of Tupelo, Miss. is arrested. On Apr. 17 Iraq executes 21 nationals on terror charges, drawing internat. condemnation. On Apr. 17 Muslim militants from the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt fire two rockets into the southern resort town of Eilat, Israel; nobody is hurt. On Apr. 17 New Zealand becomes the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. On Apr. 17 a series of explosions at the West Fertilizer plant in West, Tex. injure 160+. On Apr. 17 200+ mostly Bangladeshi strawberry workers demanding back pay are fired on by supervisors in Manolada, Greece, injuring 20+. On Apr. 17 the U.S. Senate by ?-? defeats background checks for guns legislation, pissing-off Pres. Obama, who calls his opponents deliberate liars and says it is "a pretty shameful day for Washington". On Apr. 18 after a Pakistan court revokes his bail and order his arrest on treason charges, former military leader (1999-2008) Pervez Musharraf flees the court with his security team to a protected compound outside Islamabad, which doesn't stop them from arresting him, which he calls "politically motivated". On Apr. 18 the U.S. House passes the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which makes it easier for the federal govt. to get Internet user personal info. On Apr. 18 U.S. state secy. John Kerry tells the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the 2-state solution in Israel maybe dead within two years. On Apr. 18 suicide bomber in Amiriya, Iraq kills 32 and wounds 65; others kill 15 more and wound 12 more. On Apr. 18 New York City police arrest Muslin teen Stephan Stowe (1995-) for taunting a Jewish subway rider, causing a wild melee. On Apr. 18-23 the 2nd Internat. Psychedelicscience 2013 Conference is held in Oakland, Calif. On Apr. 19 a suicide bomber in a cafe in Baghdad, Iraq kills 27. On Apr. 19 Mexico passes a telecommunications bill aimed at increasing competition. On Apr. 19 a 7.0 earthquake in Sichuan, China kills 156 and injures 5.5K. On Apr. 19 thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters demand the removal of justice minister Ahmed Mekki, who resigns on Apr. 22. On Apr. 19 Okla. gov. Marry Fallin signs an Okla. Anti-Sharia Bill, which passed by 70%. On Apr. 19 Garry Trudeau's political satire series Alpha House debuts on Amazon TV, based on real Dem. legislators who share a row house in Washington, D.C. (Sen. Dick Durban of Ill., Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., and Rep. George Miller of Calif.), starring John Stephen Goodman (1952-) as U.S. Sen. Gil John Biggs (R-N.C.), J. Clark (Clarque) "Slappy" Johnson (1954-) as U.S. Sen. Robert Bettencourt (R-Penn.), Matt Mallow (1963-) as Mormon U.S. Sen. Louis Laffer (R-Nev.), and Mark Andrew Conseuelos (1971-) (husband of Kelly Ripa since 1991) as U.S. Sen. Andy Guzman (R-Fla.); comedian Bill Murray guest-stars as Sen. Vernon Smits. On Apr. 20 a female suicide bomber detonates outside a hospital in Khar, Bajaur, Peshawar, killing four. On Apr. 21 elections in Iraq are the first since the U.S. military withdrawal. On Apr. 21 an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo is signed normalizing relations. On Apr. 21 80+ corpses are found in Jdeidet al-Fadel, Syria near Damascus, revealing a massacre. On Apr. 21 tobacco magnate Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara (1956-) of the conservative Colorado Party is elected pres. #50 of Paraguay, and is sworn-in on Aug. 15 (until Aug. 15, 2018). On Apr. 21 45K march against a same-sex marriage proposal sponsored by Pres. Francois Hollande in Paris, France; on Apr. 23 French lawmakers ? On Apr. 21-23 Elmar Mammady becomes the first Azerbaijani foreign minister to visit Israel. On Apr. 22 Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib resigns, and Christian George Sabra becomes interim chief of the Syrian Nat. Coalition, uttering the soundbyte that Bashar al-Assad's ally Hezbollah is "at war with the Syrian people", accusing them of fighting in Qusayr in Homs Province near the Lebanese border. On Apr. 22 Canadian police arrest Muslim jihadists Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser, accusing them of planning an al-Qaida style terrorist attack on an Amtrak-Via rail train. On Apr. 22 a heli carrying seven Turkish workers, two Russian pilots, and an Afghan is seized by the Taliban in Logar Province, Afghanistan after it is forced down by bad weather. On Apr. 22 Taliban militants attack a girls' school with poison gas in Taluqan, Afghanistan, injuring 74. On Apr. 22 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry in Brussels calls for a dialogue with "moderate Islam", saying "We have to speak to moderate Islam and find ways to get moderate Islam to fight and stand up for real basis of their religion rather than allowing it to be hijacked by people who completely misinterpret and misapply it and diminish the voice of moderation that is there. The vast majority are moderate." On Apr. 22 the Running for Boston Marathon in Jakarta, Indonesia sees Muslims running in solidarity with the Boston Marathon Massacre victims. On Apr. 23 (a.m.) a car bomb at the French embassy in Tripoli, Libya wounds two French guards and a Libyan teenager. On Apr. 23 (a.m.) Iraqi security forces raid a Sunni protest camp in Hawija, Iraq (near Kirkuk), causing a gunbattle that kills 23 incl. three soldiers. On Apr. 23 25K British Muslims gather in Aton Park to call for legislation to silence critics of Islam. On Apr. 23 Syrian Catholic metropolitans Boulos Yazigi and Youhanna Ibrahim are kidnapped outside Aleppo, and their driver murdered. On Apr. 23 a U.S. Congressional Report on the Benghazi Attack traces it to al-Qaida in the Maghbreb and al-Qaida-linked Ansar al-Sharia. On Apr. 23 France becomes country #14 to legalize same-sex marriage. On Apr. 24 after 2 mo. of political paralysis Enrico Letta is appointed interim PM of Italy (until ?). On Apr. 24 a shoddy 8-story clothing factory in Rana Plaza in Savar, Bangladesh (20 mi. from Dhaka) collapses, killing almost 400 and injuring hundreds, causing owner Sohel Rana (1977-) to be arrested. On Apr. 24 a clash between govt. forces and Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang, China kills 21. On Apr. 24 Bill Gates kicks off the First Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi, saying that "zero is the number we need to get to". On Apr. 24 the Jerusalem District Court grants a victory to Women of the Wall (WOW), permitting them to pray at the Wailing Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem; they filed their lawsuit in 1989. On Apr. 25 Israel shoots down a Hezbollah drone over the N coast while PM Benjamin Netanyahu is on a heli tour of the area. On Apr. 25 U.S. defense secy. Chuck Hagel announces that the U.S. has evidence that Syria has used chemical weapons against insurgents, passing the so-called "red line". On Apr. 25 the George W. Bush Pres. Library in Dallas, Tex. is dedicated by Pres. Obama. On Apr. 25 (Maundy Thur.) Pope Francis I washes the feet of a woman Muslim prisoner. On Apr. 26 a poll of 14K people in 13 countries by the German Bertelsmann Stiftung for Die Welt indicates broad-based concern about Islam and its compatibility with Western civilization, with 57% of East Germans and 49% of West Germans calling Islam a "threat", and 21% of East Germans and 31% of West Germans callit an "enrichment". On Apr. 27 the Taliban announce the start of their Drawn Sword of Allah spring offensive. On Apr. 27 the Jerusalem district court finally rules that women may wear prayer shawls (tallitot) to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. On Apr. 27 Salafi Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir gives a sermon in Abra, Lebanon calling for volunteers for his new Free Resistance Brigade to wage jihad against the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. On Apr. 27 Russian authorities arrest 140 suspected Islamist extremists at a mosque in Moscow. On Apr. 27 a riot in San Luis Potosi Prison kills 17 and injures 65. On Apr. 27 Obama addresses the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner, making a joke where he says he was once a "strapping young Muslim Socialist"; the PC media deletes the word Muslim. On Apr. 28 a report by Brown U.'s Eisenhower Research Project claims that the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan cost $4T and killed 225K. On Apr. 28 Iraq suspends Al Jazeera and nine other satellite TV channels for "unprofessional reporting". On Apr. 28 Gaza militants fire another rocket at S Israel, causing an Israeli retaliatory air strike. On Apr. 28 missiles from Syria cross the border and hit in Thneibat, Jordan, causing no casualties; on Apr. 30 the Israeli Air Forces carries out an airstrike against terrorist Hithem Ziad Ibrahim Masshal in the Gaza Strip. On Apr. 28 Russian foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov meets with Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, creating a new alliance. On Apr. 28 the Ghriba Synagogue in Tunisia opens its doors for the first time since protests broke out in 2011. On Apr. 29 an assassination attempt against Syrian PM Wael Al-Halqi in Mazzeh, Damascus fails, killing his bodyguard. On Apr. 29 five car bombs across Shiite areas of Iraq kill 26. On Apr. 29 Yemeni journalist Farea al-Muslimi testifies before a U.S. Senate subcommittee, telling them that "Drone strikes are the face of America to many Yemenis". On Apr. 29 Am. Muslim Ramineh Beehbehanian (1962-) is arrested for trying to sneak orange juice bottles spiked with a lethal dose of rubbing alcohol into a Starbucks coffee joint in San Jose, Calif., and charged with attempted murder. On Apr. 29 the May 6 issue of Sports Illustrated mag. carries a cover of Jason Paul Collins (1978-), 7'0" center for the NBA Washington Wizards, who becomes the first openly gay prof. athlete in North Am.; on Apr. 29 (night) Pres. Obama calls him to congratulate him for his courage. On Apr. 29 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket is arrested by the Rev. Guard and held for questioning for seven hours. On Apr. 29 Japan and Russia finally agree to end World War II. On Apr. 30 queen (since 1980) Beatrix of the Netherlands abdicates in favor of her eldest son (prince of Orange) Willem-Alexander (1967-) (chmn. of the advisory committee on water, duh?), who becomes king of the Netherlands (until ?). On Apr. 30 the Arab League for the first time explicitly offers Israel land swaps and recognition, causing Israeli justice minister Tzipi Livni to call the news "very positive... it could allow the Palestinians to enter the room and make the needed compromises and it sends a message to the Israeli public that this is not just about us and the Palestinians". On Apr. 30 Muslim-friendly Netherlands Queen Beatrix abdicates in favor of her Muslim-friendly son Willem-Alexander who becomes king (until ?). On Apr. 30 Pres. Obama gives a talk on Syria, amending his red line talk to add that more verification is needed before he considers it to have been crossed. On Apr. 30 Israeli actor Evyatar "Napo" Borovsky is stabbed to death while waiting for a ride at the Tapuach Junction in Ariel S of Nablus in the West Bank; Fatah's Facebook page glorifies the event. On Apr. 30 Israeli jets bomb a chemical compound near Damascus, Syria. On Apr. 30-May 1 UAE pres. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan makes his first state visit to the U.K. at the invitation of Elizabeth II, who visited UAE with hubby Prince Philip in 2010 to reaffirm their 1971 Treaty of Friendship; on May 1 Khalifa tells Prince Charles that Islam is a message of peace. On Apr. 30 Tokyo gov. Naoki Inose apologizes for saying that Muslim countries have nothing in common but Allah and "fighting with each other". On Apr. 30 Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah utters the soundbyte that "Syria has real friends in the region and in the world who will not allow Syria to fall into thehands of America or Israel or the Takfiris", admitting to supporting Bashar al-Assad. In Apr. Arie Perliger of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point pub. a Report on Extremists that labels the "violent far-right" as the enemy, citing the infamous far-left Southern Poverty Law Center. In Apr. Iraq has its deadliest month since June 2008, with 712 killed incl. 117 Iraqi security forces. In Apr. the names of 50 former guards at Auschwitz are dug up to continue prosecution. In Apr.-May after a 17-year hiatus, billions of cicadas infest the U.S. E coast. On May 1 14 members of the anti al-Qaida Sunni Awakening Council militia are killed in two attacks by militants near Fallujah, Iraq. On May 1 the Taliban assassinates Malim Shah Wali, a member of the Afghan High Peace Council in Helmand, making three members since fall 2011. On May 1 Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad makes a rare public appearance at a power station in Damascus; meanwhile two bombs explode in C Damascus, killing one and wounding 24+. On May 1 three Kazakh Muslim college students are arrested on suspicion of aiding the Boston Marathon bombers. On May 1 two teenage boys attempt to open a cardbox near a store in Makhachkala, Dagestan, Russia, and it explodes, killing them. On May 1 Google recognizes a Palestinian state, changing the name of the page at www.google.ps from "Google - Palestinian Territories" to "Google - Palestine". On May 2 Syrian forces advance into Homs, and attack Baniyas, killing 60+. On May 2-3 Pres. Obama visits Mexico, touting border security, claiming that the U.S. has put "enormous resources" into it, and promoting the Senate's immigration bill; on May 3 he speaks in Mexico City, claiming that the U.S. is responsible for much of the crime and violence in Mexico because of the demand for drugs and illegal smuggling of guns across the border. On May 2 Rhode Island becomes state #10 to legalize same-sex marriage. On May 3 the U.S. Terror Watch List grows to 875K from 540K in 2008 due to rule changes caused by the 2009 Underwear Bomber. On May 3-July 6 the Solar Impulse by Swiss designers Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg makes the first solar-powered airplane flight across the U.S. from San Francisco, Calif. to Washington, D.C. in 105 hours 41 min. (33.14 mph avg.). On May 5 Israel stages airstrikes on Syria for the 2nd time in three days, causing Repubs. to ramp up calls for Pres. Obama to take stronger action; meanwhile Egypt and the Arab League condemn Israel. On May 5 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan utters the soundbyte about the pro-Assad militia massacre of 62+ Sunni civilians along with 200 in the Syrian coastal towns of Banias and Baida: "If Allah permits, we will see this criminal, this murderer [Assad] receive his judgment in this world, and we will be grateful to Allah for it." On May 6 a new report by the Heritage Foundation claims that granted amnesty to illegal immigrants would cost the U.S. $9.4T in costs of benefits and services. On May 7 U.S. state secy. John Kerry visits Moscow to hold talks with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, announcing a new push to get Assad's regime and rebels to end their conflict. On May 6 the Dallas Morning News reports that Latino students have surpassed white students in yee-haw Tex. On May 7 hardcore Muslis demolish homes of Ahmadiya Muslims in West java, causing gov. Ahmad Heryawan to utter the soundbyte that the violence would stop if the minority group disappears. On May 7 Syria goes dark on the Internet (until ?). On May 7 the Somalia Conference 2013 in London is hosted by PM David Cameron in an attempt to counter growing Turkish influence in Somalia. On May 8 after 20 intellectuals led by Noam Chomsky send him a letter urging him to boycott Israel, British physicist Stephen Hawking announces that he's cancelling his participation in the annual Israeli Pres. Conference. On May 8 at a conference at Catholic U. of the Sacred Heart celebrating Emperor Constantine's 313 Edict of Milan, Milan archbishop Cardinal Angelo Scola calls for abolition of blasphemy laws worldwide. On May 9 (a.m.) Malcolm Shabazz (b. 1984), grandson of Malcolm X is killed in a bar fight in Mexico City. On May 10 after denying it, the IRS admits that it targeted conservative and Tea Party groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election, causing Pres. Obama on May 13 to call the IRS actions "outrageous" and vow a full investigation; on May 15 he demands and receives the resignation of IRS dir. Steven Miller; too bad, he is replaced by Sarah Hall Ingram, who was in charge of tax-exempt orgs. in 2009 when the targeting of the Tea Party was going on. On May 10 Muslims bomb the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Arusha, Tanzania during its first-ever Mass, killing three and injuring 60+. On May 10 a bombing near a Sunni mosque near Baghdad, Iraq kills three and wounds seven. On May 10 Sudan's High Committee for Mobilization and Alert meets with imams over recent attacks in Kordofan by the rebel Sudan Rev. Front (SRF), asking them to call for jihad. On May 10 ex-Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman utters the soundbyte that it's not just al-Qaida but "violent Islamic extremism" that drives terrorists like the Tsarnaev brothers. On May 10 a Pew Poll reveals that 79% of Palestinian Arabs view the U.S. unfavorably, vs. 16% of Israelis; 15% believe that the Palestinian Authority has a good relationship with the U.S. govt., vs. 94% of Israelis; 61% of Palestinians believe that there are no prospects for Palestinian statehood, vs. 38% of Israelis; 41% of Palestinians believe that Pres. Obama should have an increased role in the conflict, vs. 49% of Israelis. On May 11 two car bombs in Reyhanli, Turkey near the Syrian border kill 43 and wound 143; Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames it on Syrian refugees who "want to agitate sensitivities"; Turkish interior minister Muammer Guler says it was "linked to the Syria regime and intelligence agency"; on Apr. 4, 2014 Turkish ambassador Tacan Ildem admits it was carried out by al-Qaida. On May 11 elections in Pakistan are marred by bombings that kill 16; 40-y.-o. woman Badam Zari beomes the first woman to run for parliament in Pakistan's NW tribal region; Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Party is the winner, becoming PM of Pakistan for the 3rd time on ? (until ?), questioning Pakistan's cooperation with the U.S.-led war on Islamic extrmists and critizing the use of drones. On May 11 Coptic social studies teacher Demyana Emad (1989-) is arrested in Luxor, Egypt for insulting Prophet Muhammad in front of her class. On May 11 U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey fires Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley for teaching a course to soldiers on how to fight Islam and jihad. On May 11 Egypt arrests three militants tied to al-Qaida for planning attacks on Egptian cities and the U.S. embassy in Cairo. On May 11 (night) the roof of a mosque under construction in UAE collapses, killing one and injuring 17. On May 12 (Sun.) a shooting at the New Orleans Mother's Day Parade injures 18 incl. 2 children. On May 12 Israeli jets attack Damascus, pissing-off Russian PM Vladimir Putin, who warns that further attacks won't be tolerated; meanwhile he plans on selling S-300 AA systems and nuclear-capable 9K720 Iskander (SS-26 Stone) surface missiles to Syria, causing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu tries to reason with him; Israel's attacks on Syria are meant to lure Iran into responding so they can counterattack its nuclear facilities? - Russia is Magog in the Bible? On May 12 a suicide vehicle bomb in Quetta, Balochistan, Pakistan kills six and injures 40+, narrowly missing the police chief. On May 12 an explosion at the Taozigou Mine in Luzhou, China kills 27 and injures 16. On May 12 Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield (1959-) records a cover of David Bowie's 1969 "Space Oddity" on the Internat. Space Station, altered so that Major Tom lands safely, becoming the first music video shot in space. On May 13 Pres. Obama holds a joint press conference with British PM David Cameron, calling the Benghazi investigation by the House Oversight Committee a "political circus". On May 13 Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket accompanies his hand-picked successor Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei to register for the June 14 pres. election; a violation of Iranian law, he could face 74 lashes? On May 13 after a gruesome trial that pisses-off abortion foes, Philly abortionist doctor Kermit Gosnell (1940-) is found guilty of 1st degree murder of three later-term babies who were delivered alive before he snipped their necks with scissors, and one female patient that ODed during an abortion operation; he receives three er, life sentences. On May 13 Minn. Somali Muslim Kamal Said Hassan is sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the Minn. Pipeline that funneled young Minn. Muslims to Somalia to fight in the civil war; Mahamud Said Omar is sentenced to 20 years; seven more are sentenced the same week. On May 13 a car bomb near a hospital in Benghazi, Libya kills 10. On May 13 a Lebanese man is sentenced to 300 lashes and 6 years in priz for helping Saudi woman Maryam the Girl of Khobar convert to Christianity in Saudi Arabia; a Saudi men gets 200 lashes and 2 years for helping her escape to Sweden. On May 13 a roadside bomb in Helman District, Afghanistan kills three Georgian soldiers. On May 13 2nd Lt. Niloofar Rhmani (1991-) becomes the first female pilot in the Afghan Air Force in 30 years. On May 13 a Yemeni Sukhoi SU-22 fighter jet crashes, causing Yemeni Gen. Rashed al-Janad to claim sabotage, pointing to another crash on Feb. 19 in Sana'a that killed 12 incl. the pilot. On May 13 (8 p.m.) French priest Father Gregoire is assaulted and battered by a madass Muslim in Saint-Ruf; on May 14 Monsignor Cattenoz, archbishop of Avignon denounces the attack, saying that "People of the Muslim faith are taking control of the district." On May 13 U.S. diplomat Ryan Christopher Fogle is arrested in Russia and expelled for being a spy; he was trying to recruit an expert on Dagestan because of the Boston Marathon Bombing? On May 14 Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi visits the Gaza Strip with 50 Muslim leaders from 14 countries to express support for Hamas and diss the moderate Fatah faction of Mahmoud Abbas. On May 14 Jerusalem mufti is arrested for throwing chairs at Jews on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, causing the Jordanian parliament on May 15 to demand that King Abdullah expel the Israeli envoy and scrap the peace treaty with Israel. On May 14 a roadside bomb in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan kills three U.S. soldiers. On May 14 an audit by the U.S. govt. finds that Australia ripped-off U.S. contractors for nearly $1B with phony taxes and fees. On May 14 the U.S. stages the first-ever successful carrier drone launch, a bat-winged X-47B stealth drone. On May 14 Fatah and Gaza announce that they've agreed to form a unity govt. within 3 mo., ending their 6-year split. On May 14 the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims that the death toll in Syria is between 94K and 120K, incl. 41K Alawites. On May 14 Saudi Arabia confirms six new cases of the SARS-like coronavirus in its Eastern Province, adding to 24 cases since last year that killed 15. On May 14 (7:30 p.m.) Boko Haram assassinates Rev. Ayo Oritsajafor, pres. of the Christian Assoc. of Nigeria (CAN). On May 14 the Internat. Energy Agency (IEA) releases its 2013 Medium-Term Oil Market Report (MTOMR), saying that the surge in North Am. oil production is creating a supply shock that will transform the market over the next five years as much as the rise of Chinese demand over the last 15 years. On May 14 the EU begins pushing Swiss banks to end their secrecy to go after tax evaders; ditto Liechtenstein banks. On May 15 after terrorist violence, Nigerian pres. Goodluck Jonathan declares a state of emergency in the N states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa; too bad, on May 18 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry butts in, with the soundbyte: "We are... deeply concerned by credible allegations that Nigerian security forces are committing gross human rights violations, which, in turn, only escalate the violence and fuel extremism." On May 15 after mortar shells hit in the area of Mount Hermon, and Arabic newspapers talk about Hezbollah opening a "new front" against them on the Golan Heights, Israel sends an unprecedented warning to the Syrian regime that if it retaliates against any Israeli airstrikes it will bring down his regime. On May 15 British PM Cameron pledges a clampdown on immigration to counter the rise of the right-wing UK Independence Party (UKIP). On May 15 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan lays the foundation stone for a super-mosque in Lanham, Md., which will be the largest in the W hemisphere. On May 15 (Nakba Day) the Arab Am. Civic Org. raises the Palestinian flag at city hall in Paterson, N.J. to push for Palestinian statehood, starting an annual tradition until ?. On May 16 a suicide car bomber attacks a NATO convoy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 15 incl. two U.S. soldiers and four civilian contractors, and wounding dozens. On May 16 former Egyptian finance minister Samir Radwan says that Egypt is "suffering the worst economic crisis since the 1930s." On May 16 the Mexican Superior Court reverses a Nov. 2012 ruling against Yahoo in favor of the Mexican Yellow Pages for $2.75B, reducing it to $172.5K. On May 16 the LulzSec Hackers are sentenced to prison in the U.K. for 24-32 mo. for their 2011 cyber attacks. On May 16 New York police break a $55M cigarette smuggling ring of 15 Palestinians linked to Muslims with ties to Hamas and other Islamic groups. On May 16 topless Femen protesters crash the opening the Barbie Dreamhouse Experience in Berlin, claiming it objectifies women. On May 16 federal authorities in Idaho arrest Uzbekistan national Fazliddin Kurbanov (1982-) for conspiring with a designated terrorist org. in his home country in a scheme to use a WMD. On May 16 a report by the Asian Center for Human Rights claims that India has 3K child soldiers. On May 16 Pres. Obama breaks protocol (and exceeds his authority?) by ordering a U.S. Marine to hold an umbrella over him during a Rose Garden press conference with Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which they downplay their differences over Syria and announce they want to see Bashar al-Assad pave the way for a political transition. On May 16 U.S. asst. secy. of defense Michael Sheehan tells a Senate hearing that the war against al-Qaida will last "at least 10 or 20 years" more. On May 16 Mexican Gen. Alberto Reyes assumes control over all police and military operations in the chaotic drug-ridden state of Michoacan as part of a new strategy by pres. Enrique Pena. On May 16 Moroccan Muslim Mohamed jarmoune (1990-) is sentenced to 5 years for plotting a terrorist attack on the main Milan synagogue and Jewish school. On May 17 two bombs outside a Sunni mosque in Baquba, Iraq as worshippers leave after Fri. prayers kill 43+; other attacks kill 76+ in the Bagdead area, bringing the 3-day death toll to 130+. On May 17 the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) reports that 1.5M+ have fled Syria and registered with them, incl. 1M since Jan.; meanwhile the German govt. calls for a ban on jihadists returning from Syria for 2 years. On May 17 the Office for Nat. Statistics (ONS) in the U.K. announces that an analysis of the 2011 census which shows that one in 10 people under 25 are Muslim combined with the decline in Christians means that Islam will be the dominant religion in the U.K. in 10 years. On May 17 thanks to Pres. Obama, new Dept. of Homeland Security guidelines bow to Islam, making it official policy to consider specifically Islamic criticism of the U.S. system of govt. legitimate, with the warnings "Don't use training that equates radical thought, religious expression, freedom to protest, or other constitutionally-protected activity, including disliking the U.S. government without being violent", and "Trainers who equate the desire for Sharia law with criminal activity violate basic tenets of the First Amendment"; "Don't use programs that venture too deep into the weeds of religious doctrine and history. While interesting, such details will only be of use to the most specialized law enforcement personnel; these topics are not necessary in order to understand the community"; Pres. Obama has handed the DHS over to the Muslim Brotherhood?; His Majesty's, er, Obama's Justice Dept. is on the verge of ending First Amendment rights by prosecuting all who criticize or show disrespect to Islam, like the Muslim world wants? On May 17 Colo. sheriffs from 54 of 64 counties file a federal lawsuit contesting new gun restrictions by the Obama admin. justified by recent mass shootings. On May 17 a tornado in Tex. 70 mi. W of Dallas kills 6+. On May 17 (night) district police chief Abdul Ghani is killed by two Taliban motorcyclists in Charbagh, W Farah Province, Afghanistan. On May 18 hundreds of Muslims storm the office of Chinese man Lee Ping in Pakistani-administered Kashmir for allegedly desecrating a Quran by throwing it on the ground, causing his arrest. On May 18 lawmakers in Afghanistan block legislation protecting women's rights, citing Islamic Sharia. On May 18 Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas visits Egypt, giving a press conference in Cairo, where he utters the soundbyte that Israel "must choose between building settlements and negotiating peace... Israel can easily leave settlements, as it has in the past. Israel gave up settlements in Sharm el-Sheikh and the Sinai, and removed 20 of them in just 24 hours" - and you Muslims can do ditto? On May 18 a string of attacks in Iraq kill 16; eight policemen guarding a highway between Jordan and Syria are kidnapped. On May 18 U.S. drones launch their first strike in Yemen in a month, killing four militants in a vehicle carrying explosives. On May 18 Raha Muharraq (1987-) becomes the first Saudi woman to summit Mt. Everest. On May 19 the al-Qaida affiliated Al-Nusra Front defaces and virtually obliterates Prophet Abraham's Place historical site in Ayn al-Urous near Ar-Raqqah; on ? they demolished the tomb of Prophet Muhammad's companion Hajar bin Adi, pissing-off Muslims worldwide. On May 19 Kenyan police kill Al-Shabaab "terror" couple" Felix Otuko and his wife after they throw grenades and wound five officers in an overnight standoff. On May 19 the govt.-banned 3rd Ansar Al-Shari'a Conference is held in Al-Qayrawan (Kairouan), Tunisia, with attendance of 40K+, organized by Sami Essid, former head of al-Qaida in Italy. On May 19 Iran hangs alleged spies Mohammad Heidari and Kourosh Ahmadi for allegedly working for the Mossad and CIA, respectively. On May 19 three newspaper employees are stabbed to death Media House in Agartala, India. On May 20 (5:49 a.m. local time) a 6.8 earthquake strikes off the coast of Puerto Quellon, Chile. On May 20 (3:00 p.m.) the EF5 2013 Moore Tornado hits Moore, Okla. with peak winds of 210 mph (340 km/h), killing 24 and injuring 377; on Mar. 25, 2015 the fifth tornado in five years hits Moore. On May 20 the Syrian gov. captures Qusayr from insurgents, opening the route from Damascus to Lebanon. On May 20 Yahoo acquires Tumblr for $1.1B in cash, promising to "not screw it up" like they did with Flickr and Geocities, making 26-y.-o. founder David Karp $250M. On May 20 two Pakistani nationals Sheikh Waseem Ul Haq (1972-) and Tahir Saeed (1961-) are extradited to the U.S. from the U.K. to face charges of illegal pharmaceutical shipments totalling $2M, incl. $780K to U.S. customers. On May 20 a massive 2-mi.-wide EF5 tornado in Oklahoma City, Okla. kills 91 incl. 20+ children. On May 20 Russian police raid a Taliban-trained Muslim terrorist hideout in Orekhovo-Zuyevo, killing two and arresting the third, with one commando wounded. On May 20 Muslim gunmen attack a polio team in Bajur Tribal Area, Pakistan along the Afghan border, killing a policeman escorting health workers. On May 20 leaders of the Mexican Nat. Action Party (PAN) stink themselves up by openly bickering. On May 20 a report by the U.S. State Dept. says that countries around the world have been using laws against blasphemy and apostasy to suppress political opposition, singling out China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan. On May 20 the CSCOPE curriculum system is ditched by Tex. after complaints that it's anti-Am. and pro-Islam. On May 20 a wave of bombings in Iraq kills 70+ Shiites. On May 20 a double bombing in Makhachkala, Dagestan kills 4 and injures 44. On May 20 the U.S. signs a letter of intent with Jordan pledging $200M to aid Syrian refugees. On May 20 the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee by 13-5 approves the Gang of Eight Immigration Reform Bill S.744 sans gay rights and other side issues; five Repubs. vote against it, three for incl. Lindsey Graham, Orrin Hatch, and Jeff er, Flake. On May 20 radio station technician Mohammad Hassin Hashemi (1982-) is found murdered in Kapisa Valley, Afghanistan 18 days after disappearing. On May 20 a week of Palestinian violence in Judea and Samaria ends with 98 rock attacks and 17 firebombings. On May 20-22 Syrian forces fire on Israeli forces in the Golan Heights, causing Israeli Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz to warn Bashar al-Assad after an Israeli military vehicle is fired upon that Israel won't allow the Golan Heights "to bedome a comfortable sphere for Assad to operate from", and that if the situation worsens, Assad "will have to bear the consequences". On May 20 a gang of Muslims use machetes to attack two men at a barber shop in Accrington, England, seriously injuring them. On May 20-24 (night) after police shoot a man wielding a knife, 200 Muslims riot in Stockholm, Sweden, burning cars and injuring seven police officers. On May 20-28 the 2013 U.N. World Health Org. (WHO) assembly meets in Geneva; on May 22 it passes the resolution "Health Conditions in the Occupied Palestinian Terrority Including East Jerusalem, and in the Occupied Syrian Golan", singling out Israel; meanwhile it ignores the bloody mess in Syria. On May 21 another wave of seven bombings in Iraq kills 12+. On May 21 NATO begins equipment withdrawal from Afghanistan. On May 21 a poll by Fritz Wenzel finds that a majority of Americans want Pres. Obama impeached for the IRS scandal, the Benghazi scandal, and the AP phone record scandal. On May 21 Egyptian troops mistakenly fire on a Bedouin funeral in Sinai, during a search for kidnapped security personnel. On May 21 Saudi Arabia finally allows women to sit in soccer stadiums in special segregated areas; there are still no public physical education or sporting facilities for women. On May 21 the Peace Corps allows gay couples to volunteer together. On May 21 far-right historian Dominique Vesser (b. 1934) commits suicide over same-sex marriage and Islamization; on May 22 FEMEN topless activist Inna Schevchenko is arrested in Notre Dame Cathedral with "May Fascists Rest in Hell" tattooed on her body after the group places a call on its Facebook page to "all European Nazism... to follow the example... and immediately commit suicide of their believes excluding theirselves from the political arena in Europe... Hurry up, there is not so much place left on the sacrificial altar of Notre-Dame de Paris." On May 21 Iranian forces raid the Central Assemblies of God Church in Tehran, arresting Rev. Robert Aserian. On May 22 (a.m.) unarmed Chechen immigrant Ibragim Todashev is brutally shot and killed by the FBI and Mass. state police in Orlando, Fla. after eight hours of questioning about Tamerlan Tsnarnaev; his father Abdulbaki Todashev calls the killing "execution-style", demanding an investigation. On May 22 in a morning Mass, Pope Francis utters the soundbyte that the good deeds of atheists might get them to Heaven. On May 22 (2:20 p.m. local time) the Woolwich Beheadings see two Allah Akbar-shouting British-Nigerian Muslim jihadists Michael Olumide Adebolajo (1984-) (Muslim convert in 2003, who changed his name to Mujaahid) and Michael Adebowale (1990-) run over British soldier (drummer) Lee Rigby (b. 1987) with their car, then hack and behead him with a machete on the streets of Woolwich (SW London), England 200 yards from an army barracks he was heading to, then tell the ITV crew filming them his political reasons for it, with the soundbyte: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth... There are many many ayah throughout the Quran that say we must fight them as they fight us" before being shot by police, causing anti-Islamists protests by the English Defence League (EDL) et al., whose leader Tommy Robinson utters the soundbytes "We're justified in our anger", and "I' don't care if they're offended. I'm offended every day", along with a coverup attempt by the PC media led by PM David Cameron, who calls the attack a "betrayal of Islam" then holds a special meeting of the Cobra security cabinet; deputy PM Nick Clegg utters the soundbyte that the attack "flies in the face of the peace and love that Islam teaches"; London mayor Boris Johnson utters the soundbyte "It is completely wrong to blame this killing on Islam"; ex-PM Tony Blair utters the Tony Blair utters the soundbyte: "There is not a problem with Islam. For those of us who have studied it, there is no doubt about its true and peaceful nature... But there is a problem within Islam, from the adherents of an idology that is a stain within Islam... It is not the province of a few extremists... The world view goes deeper and wider than it is comfortable for us to admit""; scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett (1964-) becomes a hero for talking the jihadists into stopping before police arrive; the jihadists were influenced by British radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed?; radical British cleric Anjem Chaudhry utters the soundbyte that most Muslims would agree with the jihadists; on May 24 British authorities arrest two in conjunction with the beheading while tightening security; on May 25 7K EDL members march in Newcastle; in Nov. 2010 Adebolajo was detained in Kenya for trying to join Al-Shabaab in Somalia; on May 26 Cameron goes on vaction in Ibiza with his family, pissing-off many. On May 22 IRS head Lois Lerner testifies before Congress on the IRS scandal targeting conservatives for audits, taking the Fifth Amendment; too bad, she gives an opening statement first, claiming she did no wrong, causing S.C. rep. Trey Gowdy to point out that she has waived her Fifth Amendment privilege. On May 22 U.S. atty. gen. Eric Holder sends a letter to Congress, affirming that U.S. drones have killed four Americans, only one of whom was "specifically targeted". On May 22 Vt. legalizes assisted suicide. On May 22 (night) hordes of termites swarm New Orleans, La. On May 23 Pres. Obama gives a Speech on Counterterrorism, at the Nat. Defense U. in Ft. McNair, acknowledging what Eric Holder claimed on May 22 about Americans killed by U.S. drones, claiming that al-Qaida is nearly defeated since he took office ans is on "a path to defeat", that no "large scale" terrorist attacks have been staged in the U.S. since he took office, and promising to reduce drone strikes in places that are not overt war zones, incl. Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, raising the standard for foreign targets to the same level used for U.S. citizens, viz., those who pose "a continuing imminent threat to Americans" and can't feasibly be captured; he adds that America isn't at war with Islam, and that Muslims are a fundamental part of the Am. family, with the soundbytes "Force alone cannot make us safe. We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root, and in the absence of a strategy that reduces the wellspring of extremism, a perpetual war, through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways"; "In fact, the success of American Muslims and our determination to guard against any encroachments of their civil liberties is the ultimate rebuke to those who say that we're at war with Islam"; during his speech he's heckled over Guantanamo Bay prison by Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, saying her voice "is worth listening to" before she's dragged away; on May 26 Repubs. slam obama's revamped counterterrorism plan, with S.C. Sen. Lindsey Graham uttering the soundbyte "At a time when we need resolve the most, we're sounding retreat"; meanwhile a Pentagon official utters the soundbyte that the war against al-Qaida could last up to 20 more years. On May 23 gunmen kill four Iraqi soldiers and wound four in Taji, Iraq 12 mi. N of Baghdad, then kill three more in Karma (near Fallujah). On May 23 a pair of suicide bombers from the al-Qaida-linked Movement for Tawhid and Jihad attacks a military barracks and French-run uranium mine in Arlit, Niger (N of Agadez), killing 19 incl. 18 soldiers. On May 23 the Boy Scouts of Am. opens its ranks to gay Scouts but not scout leaders. On May 23 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry meets with Israeli pres. Shimon Peres Jerusalem; on May 24 he meets with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, telling them to take "hard decisions" to revive the peace process; on May 26 he offers $4B in private investment to build Palestine. On May 23 a court in Ukraine bans Ukraine's first-ever gay pride rally. On May 23 (7:00 p.m.) the I-5 bridge in Mount Vernon, Wash. (60 mi. N of Seattle) collapses. On May 23 white British Muslim convert Ashraf Islam (1982-) is arrested after threatening to kill Prince Harry. On May 24 (2:30 a.m.) a massive train collision in Mo. collapses a highway overpass. On May 24 a 7.4 and 6.3 earthquake strike off the coast of Tonga. On May 24 (a.m.) Pres. Obama forgets to salute a Marine guard en route to the U.S. Naval Academy to give the commencement speech, and returns to do it over and shake his hand. On May 24 the Taliban attacks an Army police and army post in Syed Karam, Paktia, Pakistan; four Taliban fighters are KIA. On May 24 two Pakistani-descent British Muslims threaten to blow up Pakistan Internat. Airlines flight from Lahore to Manchester, England, causing the airliner to be intercepted by two RAF jets and the passengers arrested after landing in Stansted. On May 24 San Antonio, Tex. Muslim Wissam Allouce (b. 1968) is charged with lying on his entry application and trying to coverup his affiliation with Hezbollah when attempting to get a job with the Dept. of Defense. On May 24 the Turkish Parliament passes anti-alcohol legislation to please Islamists. On May 24-30 the rare Dance of the Planets occurs. On May 25 a car bomb on the Balad-Samarra Highway N of Baghdad, Iraq kills five Iranian pilgrims and wounds nine in a bus. On May 25 security officials announce that at least 28 were killed and 250 wounded in Sunni-Alawite clashes in Tripoli, Lebanon during the past week. On May 25 explosives being transported by Taliban militants prematurely denotate in front of a mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 12. On May 25 a gas cylinder explodes on a school bus in Gujrat, India, killing 16+ children. On May 25 female suicide bomber Madina Alieva (b. 1987), wife of two dead Islamists detonates in Makhachkala, Dagestan, injuring 18 incl. two children and five police officers. On May 25 2M worldwide march in protest of Monsanto Corp. for its production of genetically-modified organisms (GMO). On May 25 the Taliban stages an attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing one policeman and losing five of their own. On May 25 a mother flushes her newborn baby ("Baby 59") down a squat toilet in Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province, China, and is rescued by the authorities; on May 30 the boy is released into the custody of his maternal grandparents; the mother is not charged. On May 25 (6 p.m.) French soldier Cedric Cordiez on "anti-terrorist duties" in La Defence, Paris is stabbed in the throat by a North African Muslim wearing a hijab; after capture, he admits that he did it "on religious grounds". On May 25 Afghan authorities intercept an explosive-ladedn tractor in Daman District of Kandahar Province, Afghanistan. On May 25 Iran tells the U.S. that it has no need for U.S. bases in Afghanistan after 2014 despite Pres. Hamid Karzai stating on May 9 that it wants nine bases. On May 25 Hezbollah secy.-gen. Hassan Nasrallah admits that Hezbollah is fighting to support Bashar al-Assad's regime, causing Sunnis to begin calling for jihad against Hezbollah and Shiites. On May 26 clashes between Syrian rebels and Kurds in Ras el-Ein, Syria near the Turkish border kill 11. On May 26 two rockets hit the Hizbollah stronghold in Chiyah in S Beirut, wounding four Syrian workers; the Free Syrian Army denies responsibility, but one officer calls it a warning. On May 26 Columbia and FARC reach their first agreement on rural land reform, leaving five points on the agenda. On May 26 12 young people are kidnapped in broad daylight in the upscale Heaven Bar in Mexico City; their bodies are found in Aug. in a mass grave in a rural area; on Sept. 25 four police officers are arrested. On May 26-27 clashes between the Philippine army and Islamic Abu Sayyaf rebels in Mindanao kill 20 soldiers and seven militants in Sulu Province. On May 27 Myanmar (Burma) pres. Thein Sein becomes the first to visit the White House since 1966; meanwhile after Buddhist attacks on Muslims, Burma's Buddhist govt. limits Muslim immigrants to limit themselves to two children. On May 27 after a 9-day offensive (begun May 19), Syrian troops gain ground in Qusair; a Syrian TV journalist is killed covering the fighting; meanwhile Turkish deputy PM Beikir Bozdag utters the soundbyte that Hezbollah ("Party of Allah") should change its name to Party of Satan after killing thousands of Syrian civilians. On May 27 a report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) claims that one-fifth of U.S. kids have mental disorders, costing $247B a year. On May 27 the Iranian govt. closes a Central Assemblies of God Church in Tehran and imprisons the pastor. On May 27 inspired by the Woolwich Beheaders, three Muslim inmates at Full Sutton Prison in East Yorkshire, England led by al-Qaida lifer Parviz Khan kidnap and stab the warden in a 4-hour standoff with guards after the warden calls on inmates to pray to Allah, er, God for Lee Rigby. On May 27 (night) a green-on-green attack Kandahar, Afgahnistan kills seven sleeping Afghan policemen. On May 27 (night) Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli pres. Shimon Peres meet at the World Economic Forum in Jordan. On May 28 Nigerian pres. Mahamadou Issoufou utters the soundbyte that the Islamists who staged the twin attacks in Niger the week before are also planning assaults in Chad. On May 28 the World Health Org. suspends its polio eradication campaign in Peshawar, Pakistan after two workers are shot by the Taliban. On May 28 Alexander Michael Herrera (1989-) is arrested after he tries to open the door during an Alaska Airlines flight from Anchorage to Portland. On May 28 after a reports that a Muslim had set fire to a Buddhist woman, hundreds of enraged Buddhists burn a Muslim mosque and orphanage in Lashio, Myanmar (Burma). On May 28 6-7 Somali Muslim men randomly attack two joggers in Minneapolis, Minn.. On May 28 Ethiopia announces a planned diversion of the Blue Nile to facilitate the new Renaissance Dam, causing Egyptian pres. Muhammad Morsi on May 28 to announce that Egypt won't allow their share of the Nile to be diminished by "one drop". On May 28 Vatican spokesman Monsieur Silvano Maria Tomassi tells the U.N. Human Rights Council that 100K Christians are killed each year because of their faith. On May 29 the U.S. launches its first drone strike in Pakistan in six weeks, killing Waliur Rehman, #2 cmdr. of the Pakistani Taliban, who has a $5M bounty on his head by the U.S. On May 29 (3:00 a.m.) a Taliban suicide assault penetrates the governor's compound in Bazarak, Panjshir Province, Afghanistan, killing one policeman before being wiped out. On May 29 (5:30 p.m.) a suicide at a Red Cross office in Jalalabad, Afghanistan kills the guard; the Taliban denies responsibility. On May 29 Shanghui Internat. Holdings Ltd. buys Smithfield Foods Inc. for $4.72B, becoming the largest Chinese takeover of a U.S. co. On May 29 Vincent Aubin and Bruno Boileau take part in the first same-sex wedding ceremony in France in Montpellier amid massive protests, making France country #14 to permit same-sex marriage. On May 29 the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France rejects the appeals of three British Christians who claimed workplace discrimination. On May 29 three Femen activists are arrested in Tunisia after staging the first topless demonstration in an Islamic state. On May 29 Wal-Mart agrees to pay a $81.6M fine for "environmental crimes" incl. improper disposal of hazardous waste and pesticides. On May 29 the U.S.-based Uighur Human Rights Project pub. a study that claims that China has imposed a "bewildering" array of regulations on the practice of Islam by its minority Uighur pop. On May 30 a bomb in Bahrain injures seven policemen, causing 10 suspects to be arrested. On May 30 Saudi Arabia decides to confiscate all 'V for Vendetta' masks in the country. On May 30 Lebanese-Am. Muslim Sami Samir Hassoun is sentenced in Chicago, Ill. to 23 years in prison for attempting to blow up the Chicago Cubs baseball stadium. On May 30 after an internat. outcry, Iran amends its stoning law for convicted adulterers to permit judges to impose other forms of execution; the way the law worked was that women are buried up to their shoulders, but men only up to their waists, and if you can free yourself before dying, you are spared; meanwhile on May 31 the Pakistan Council of Islamic Ideology rules that DNA tests are not acceptable as evidence in rape cases because they're not mentioned in the Quran, which requires four male witnesses (24:13). On May 30 Indonesian pres. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is awarded the World Statesman Award by the New York City-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation, causing protests. On May 30 Turkish authorities confiscate 2kg of sarin gas from safe houses in Adana in S Turkey 150 km from Syria. On May 30-? the Powerhouse Fire in Angeles Nat. Forest N of Santa Clarita, Calif. On May 31 Syrian Nat. Coalition pres. George Sabra utters the soundbyte that they will not take part in proposed internat. peace talks in Geneva until Hezbollah forces withdraw from the conflict. On May 31 Nigerian Christian militant group MEND begins counterattacks against Muslims to protect Christians in S Nigeria. On May 31 1.7-mi.-long Asteroid 1998 QE2 flies by the Earth; it has its own moon. On May 31-June ? anti-Islamist protests in Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey against plans to Islamize Gezi Park by rebuilding an Ottoman military barracks used in 1909 by Sultan Abdul Hamid II to stop liberal reforms escalate into protests against the oppression of the Erdogan govt. and in favor of a return to the reforms of Kemal Ataturk, spreading to Ankara, causing talk of a Turkish Summer; on June 11 (a.m.) riot police invade and disperse the protesters; on June 18 labor unions join with a 1-day strike. On May 31 the 50-delegate Pakistan Christian Congress (PCC) meets in Lahore, vowing to end reserved seats for minorities in parliament and fight for equal rights for Christians. On May 31 another tornado in Oklahoma City, Okla. kills five and injures 50, littering I-40 with wrecked cars. On May 31 after finding that Monsanto GMO wheat has gotten loose and spread to non-GMO fields in Ore., Japan cancels a large contract to purchase U.S. wheat. On May 31 Manssor (Mansour) Arbabsiar (1954-) is sentenced in New York City to 25 years in prison for a plot to murder the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. On May 31 R. Guy Erwin becomes the first gay priest in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Am., becoming the 2nd denomination after the Episcopal Church. In May the Russian Pacific Fleet enters the Mediterranean for the first time in decades, forming a permanent task force. In May Chinese PM Li Keqiang gives a speech announcing that the govt. is going to allow private businesses and market forces to play a larger role in the economy to improve living conditions for the middle class and increase global competitiveness. In May Bradford County Courthouse in Fla. signs an agreement with Am. Atheists to allow them to place their Atheist Ten Commandments next to the Biblical one. In May al-Qaids sets up a complaint dept. in Raqqa, N Syria. In May Pakistan-born students Rehana Kausar (1978-) and Sobia Kamar (1983-) become the first Muslim lesbians to wed in the U.K. In May Am. rocker Tom Petty calls contemporary country music "bad rock with a fiddle". On June 1 U.S. drones in Yemen kill eight AQAP militants in their frist strike in 12 days. On June 1 British-educated al-Najah U. dean Ram Hamdullah becomes Palestinian Authority PM (until ?). On June 1 the govt. of Iraq announces the breakup of an al-Qaida chemical weapons cell. On June 2 a new Pakistan Nat. Assembly is sworn in, becoming the first transition of power between democratically-elected civilian govts. in the nation's 66-year history. On June 2 the Egyptian supreme court rules that the Maglis al-Shura election law and other laws governing the election of the Islamist-dominated Senate (Shura Council) and constitution panel are illegal and have no legal authority, and that a new parliament must be elected. On June 2 the Gulf Cooperation Council unanimously declares Hezbollah a terrorist org. On June 2 an appeals court in Hamm, Germany rules that anybody who marries according to Muslim Sharia in a Muslim country and seeks a divorce in Germany must abide by the original terms. On June 2 (night) Hezbollah ambushes Syrian rebels in Ain el-Jawzeh 3km E of Baalbeck, killing 12. On June 3 Iran cuts off aid to Hamas for renouncing Bashar al-Aassad. On June 3 a suicide bomber at a boys' h.s. in Paktia Province, Afghanistan kills 10 Afghan students, two U.S. soldiers, and a policeman. On June 3 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Md. v. King that police can take DNA from arrestees without a warrant, with Anthony Kennedy calling it "a legitimate police booking procedure"; Antonin Scalia sides with the women (Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan) in dissenting. On June 3 AQAP cmdr. Qasim al-Rimi releases an audio "Message to the American Nation", blaming the people as well as the govt., and promising mass casualties until the U.S. stops "attacking and oppressing" Muslim countries. On June 4 the Obama admin. imposes new sanctions on Iran, targeting its currency and auto industry. On June 4 the EU in Brussels balks at request by the U.K., U.S., and Israel to blacklist Hezbollah, with several govts. claiming that it would increase instability in the Middle East, and/or that its terrorist side hasn't been proven. On June 4 heavy rains in C Europe cause flooding in Prague, Czech., Passau, Germany and other cities, forcing thousands to evacuate, and killing 10. On June 4 a large U.S. military force disembarks at Aqaba, Jordan to be deployed on the Syrian border. On June 4 Obama sock puppet U.S. atty. William C. "Bill" Killian of Tenn. holds a public meeting in Manchester, Tenn. to a packed house and hostile crowd of 2K, giving a speech titled "Public Disclosure in a Diverse Society" threatening federal prosecution to anybody threatening Muslims, coming close to adding mere criticism or insulting of Islam a la Sharia, with the soundbytes "Some inflammatory material on Islam might run afoul of federal civil rights laws", and "We need to educate people about Muslims and their civil rights, and as long as we're here, they're going to be protected"; he makes the crowd listen to local Muslims lecturing down to them; activist Pamela Geller leads a protest against the event. On June 5 the strategic border town of Qusayr is captured by Bashar al-Assad's forces allied with Hezbollah, ramping up Sunni calls for jihad against Hezbollah and all Shiites; on June 6 al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri calls for the overthrow of the Assad regime, followed by jihad against Israel "to liberate Palestine in order to set up an Islamic state, even if the West hates that and calls it terrorism and extremism." On June 5 Ft. Hood jihadist Maj. Nidal Hasan (1970-) appears in court as his own lawyer, uttering the soundbyte that he did it to protect "the leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban", exposing the Obama admin., which refused to charge him with terrorism and treason, allowing him to boast about it in court with impunity; on Aug. 6 his court-martial begins; on Aug. 28 after being convicted of 13 counts of premeditated and 32 counts of attempted murder, a panel unanimously recommends the death sentence; on Sept. 4 after he is forced to shave his Islamic beard upon arrival at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., his lawyer threatens a lawsuit. On June 5 radical Hindus beat 20 Christian pastors in Andhra Pradesh, India, accusing them of forceful conversion of Hindus to Christianity. On June 6 the U.S. House of Reps votes along party lines 224-201 to reject Pres. Obama's policy of ending deportation of immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. On June 6 a Taliban suicide attack in Helmand Province, Afghanistan kills six Georgian soldiers, causing Georgia to close three bases in Helmand Province. On June 6 Syrian troops recapture the crossing between Syria and the Golan Heights; meanwhile Israeli forces are put on alert on the Syrian border. On June 6 the Washington Post reports that the U.S. govt. has been running the secret Project Prism that mines data directly from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and other servers. On June 6 Austria announces that it's pulling its U.N. peacekeeper force out of the Golan Heights after battles there between Syrian forces and rebels; on June 7 the U.N. rejects an offer from Russia to replace its Golan peacekeepers - not Gog and Magog Time? On June 6 Russian police arrest Yulay Davlatbayev in Moscow, alleging that his Islamist cell is planning a series of attacks. On June 7 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan returns from the U.S., and is greeted by 10K supporters at the airport in Istanbul, telling them that the protests must end. On June 7 U.S. drones kill six in N Waziristan. On June 7 ?, dressed in black with a vest and carrying an AR-15 shoots and kills seven and injures two near Santa Monica College minutes after Pres. Obama's motorcade passes by, and is later hunted down and killed by police. On June 7 an Iraqi Sunni bomber rams his car into a bus carrying Iranian Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 9+. On June 7 six men in burkas armed with axes rob Selfridges Dept. Store in London. On June 7 a Muslim mob attacks the Roman Catholic Jisu Niloy Seminary in Bolakipur, India, beating the rector and some students. On June 7 Taliban cmdr. Bahadar (Mutaqi) Khan is killed in Shawal, North Waziristan as he is preparing to lead his fighters into Afghanistan. On June 7 the gov. of N.H. signs a bill granting 14 slaves who petitioned the N.H. legislature for it back on Nov. 12, 1779 their freedom. On June 7-8 Pres. Obama and new Chinese Pres. Xi Jingping have a summit at Sunnylands Retreat in Palm Springs, Calif.; Obama urges Jingping to cooperate on cybersecurity. On June 8 British PM David Cameron et al sign the Global Nutrition for Growth Compact, pledging $4.15B by 2020 to fight malnutrition. On June 8 Afghan soldiers fire on U.S. troops in E Afghanistan, killing two plus a civilian, and wounding three; meanwhile an Afghan policeman kills seven colleagues at a checkpoint in Helmand Province. On June 8 Boko Haram jihadists in Maiduguri, Nigeri pull their assault rifles from a coffin and kill 13 before being killed by security forces, who kill another eight. On June 9 the 2013 IRS Scandal begins when U.S. Rep. (D-Md.) Elijah Cummings releases portions of an IRS interview transcript that House Oversight and Govt. Reform Committee chmn. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) previously refused to release, revealing abuses of the Be on the Look Out List (established Aug. 2010) targeting conservative and Tea Party groups for audits, causing an attempt to link it to Pres. Obama; on Sept. 23 after refusing to testify before Congress, IRS exempt orgs. div. head Lois Lerner retires after an internal investigation finds her guilty of neglect of duties. On June 9 a pro-Hezbollah rally in Martyr Square in Beirut, Lebanon is attacked by anti-Hezbollah protesters, injuring 11. On June 9 a Taliban attack on the Kabul Airport in Afghanistan sees seven gunmen killed. On June 9 Booz Allen employee (ex-CIA/NSA worker) Edward Joseph Snowden (1983-) goes public as the source of numerous leaks about the top secret NSA PRISM surveillance program (established 2007) and how it records U.S. telephone metadata and Internet clicks en masse, taking his chances with prosecutors, er, fleeing to Red China, er, Ecuador via Russia, causing a mixup about whether he is a hero or traitor; "I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building." On June 9 (7 p.m.) (Sun.) a Muslim on a motorcycle throws a bomb into the Earthquake Miracle Church in Mombasa, Kenya, injuring 15. On June 9 15-y.-o. Mohammad Qataa (1998-) is executed in front of his parents by Nusra Front Islamists in Amman, Syria for cursing Muhammad. On June 10 the flooding Elbe River breaches a levee and surges into E Germany. On June 10 a wave of car bombings in Iraq kill 57+. On June 10 two boys in Afghanistan are beheaded by the Taliban for trading food with police. On June 10 the U.S. Senate by 66-27 passes a $500B 5-year farm bill that sets aside $76B a year for food stamps. On June 10 Taliban suicide bombers in Kabul and Qalat kills five Taliban members in Kabul, and another in Qalat, along with wounding 15 civilians and three policemen. On June 10 Pres. Obama names Daniel Baer as U.S. ambassador to the Org. for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna, becoming the first open homosexual U.S. ambassador to a multilaterial inst.; he follows by naming four more openly homosexual foreign ambassadors within a week, making eight. On June 10 a report by the Special Inspector Gen. for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGAR) claims that the U.S. has given the Afghan army over $1B in ammunition, plus $288M to the Afghan police. On June 11 the Obama admin. drops its opposition to over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill sans age restrictions. On June 11 two suicide bombers in Al-Marjeh Square in Damascus, Syria kill 14 and injure 31. On June 11 a Taliban suicide bomber in the Afghan Supreme Court in Kabul kills 14-16 civilians. On June 11 nearly 15M in Egypt sign an Anti-Morsi Petition to hold early pres. elections to oust him. On June 11 Mahmoud Abdel Gawad, an envoy from Al-Azhar U. in Egypt calls on Pope Francis I to declare Islam a "peaceful religion" as a requirement for restoring interfaith ties; too bad, he adds that he "will not take part in any meeting with Israelis". On June 11 Hamas forces arrest a Salafi preacher in Tel al Hawa, Gaza City, the first since early May. On June 11 U.S. Rep. (R-Kan.) Mike Pompeo tells the U.S. House that Muslim leaders in the U.S. are "potentially complicit" in terrorist acts if they fail to speak out against them. On June 11 by 436-0 Russia passes a law banning "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" among minors, incl. any that tries to equate straight and gay relationships, along with material on gay rights. On June 11-20 the Black Forest Fire in Colo. burns 14,280 acres, destroys 511 homes and kills two, causing 38K to be evacuated from 13K homes, becoming the most destructive fire in Colo. history (until ?). On June 12 the Obama admin. "strongly objects" to a proposed amendment to the Nat. Defense Authorization Act sponsored by La. Repub. Rep. John Fleming that protects Christians from being punished for keeping a Bible on their desks or objecting to homosexuality; earlier officials at Ft. Campbell sent out an email instructing officers to treat the "religious right in America" as a "domestic hate group" a la the KKK for opposition to homosexuality. On June 12 the U.S. and Colombia meet in the Pentagon to discuss an Action Plan on Racial and ethnic Equality. On June 13 the U.N. reports the death toll in Syria since 2011 as almost 93K; meanwhile anon. Obama admin. officials announce that it has concluded that Bashar al-Assad's regime crossed the red line and used chemical weapons against the rebels, and finally authorizes military support for the rebels despite al-Qaida connections; meanwhile on June 14 Syria denies it used chemical weapons, calling it a frame-up, and Russian foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov says the info. provided by U.S. officials "didn't look convincing"; on June 11 ex-pres. Bill Clinton disses Obama for inaction, saying that if he refuses to act, he will look "like a total fool"; meanwhile anybody questioning why the U.S. should arm rebels who are mainly pro-al-Qaida and/or Muslim Brotherhood is blacked-out. On June 13 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court unanimously rules in Assoc. for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics Inc. that human genes cannot be patented, but permits patenting of synthetic DNA; meanwhile it fails to announce rulings on affirmative action, voting rights, and gay marriage. On June 13 the Inst. for Economics and Peace (IEP) reports that global peace has declined 5% since 2008, and the least peaceful country on Earth in 2012 was Afghanistan. On June 13 the U.S. Census Bureau reports that for the year ending last July 1 the number of deaths of non-Hispanic white Americans exceeded births for the first time in a cent., indicating that the total number will begin declining by the end of the decade, and they will become a nat. minority within three decades; meanwhile 188K immigrate from abroad. On June 13 U.S. Sen. (R-Ky.) Rand Paul utters the soundbyte: "There is a war on Christianity. Not just from liberal elites here at home, but worldwide. And your government, or more correctly, you, the taxpayer, are funding it. You are being taxed to send money to countries that are not only intolerant of Christians, but openly hostile. Christians are imprisoned and threatened with death for their beliefs." On June 13 (3:00 p.m.) Qari Mohammad Halim, the Taliban shadow district gov. of Dasht-e-Archi District in Kunduz Province, Afghanistan is killed by Afghan security forces. On June 13 Pres. Obama's Nat. Security Council meets with Sheikh Abdallah Bin Bayyah (1935-) in the White House to discuss countering the legitimacy of al-Qaida and/or the arming of Syrian rebels; too bad, Big Bad Bayyah is a Muslim Brotherhood member affiliated with the Internat. Union of Muslim Scholars of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who issued a fatwa in 2004 calling on Muslims to "resist" U.S. soldiers in Iraq. On June 14 the 2013 Iranian pres. election sees 686 candidates apply and only eight allowed to run, of whom two drop out in the last days; Iranian supreme leader Assahollah Ali Khamenei utters the soundbyte: "Recently I have heard that a U.S. security official has said they do not accept his election. Okay, the hell with you"; he also utters the soundbyte: "The U.S. president is being elected from only two parties while Zionist regime is controlling everything behind the scenes. In Iran, there have been many presidents being elected in a pure democratic process from ordinary people even without any affiliation to a party"; on June 15 moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani (1948-) (former head of the nuclear negotiating team) wins with 19M of 37M votes (50.7%), defeating nat. security adviser Saeed Jalili and Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf; Rouhani was involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires? On June 14 a military judge orders the first closed session of Pres. Obama's secret war court, involving a pre-trial hearing over the USS Cole bombing. On June 14 a Tunisian court sentences rap artist Alaa Yacoub (1989-) to two years in jail for calling police "dogs" in a song. On June 14 the Norwegian parliament votes to conscript women into the armed forces, becoming the first Euro and first NATO country with compulsory military service for both genders. On June 14 the Ecuadorian nat. assembly passes the Ecuadorian Communications Law, clamping down on free speech. On June 15 Lashkar-e-Jhangvi stages a suicide assault on female univ. students in Quetta, Pakistan, killing 14 on a bus and 11 at a hospital. On June 15 dozens of rockets are fired at Camp Liberty for Iranian dissidents near Baghdad Airport, killing two and injuring three dozen, drawing condemnation from the U.N. and the Obama admin. On June 15 hottest team in paradise, Saudi women's rights activists Wajeha Al-Huweidar and Fawzia Al-'Uyouni were convicted of trumped-up charges and sentenced to 10 mi. in prison, followed by a 2-year ban on leaving the real prison, Saudi Arabia. On June 15 Egyptian pres. Mohammad Morsi attends a rally in Syria packed with hardcore Islamists that calls for jihad against the "infidels" (incl. non-Islamist Muslims and Shiites) in Syria, becoming the tipping point turning the army against him? On June 15 spoiled rich drunk teenie Ethan Anthony Couch (1997-) plows his car into a group of people standing in the street, killing four and injuring nine; in Dec. after his attys. raise the "Affluenza Defense", Judge Jean Hudson Boyd gives him 10 years probation plus therapy, starting a firestorm of controversy; too bad, in Dec. 2015 he skips to Mexico, and is arrested on Dec. 28 in Puerto Vallarta with his rich mother, who are both extradited back to the U.S. On June 16 Egyptian pres. Mohammad Morsi appoints Adel el-Khayyat, a co-founder of Gamaa Islamiya, which claimed responsibility for the 1997 Luxor Massacre as gov. of Luxor, pissing-off the tourist industry. On June 16 (night) a huge explosion rocks the Damascus Airport in Syria; rebel fighters blame Israel. On June 17 the G8 Summit in Belfast, Northern Ireland focuses on Syria, with Pres. Obama and Russian PM Vladimir Putin backing opposite sides, and Putin getting in a soundbyte about how Western govts. can back cannibals. On June 17 Salafi preacher Abu Islam is sentenced to 11 years in jail in Egypt for burning a Bible, insulting Christianity, and threatening public security. On June 17 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Salinas v. Tex. that prosecutors can use a person's silence in court against them if it comes before he's read his Miranda rights; Justice Alito was the force behind this insane travesty? On June 17 the Obama admin. announces the selection of defected Syrian gen. Salim Idriss as the sole conduit of U.S., Saudi, and Qatar military assistance to rebels. On June 17 a CNN/ORC Poll shows Pres. Obama's approval dropping 8 pts. to 45%, and his disapproval rating climbing to 54%, with only 49% believing he's honest, the first time he rates below 50%. On June 18 NATO formally hands over command of security to Afghan forces; a suicide bomber attempts to kill Afghan Hazara politician Ustad Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq in W Kabul just before the ceremony (his 4th assassination attempt), killing three and injuring 20 incl. four guards; about 100K troops incl. 68K from the U.S. are set to withdraw by Dec. 31; on June 19 after the U.S. announces that it will meet with the Taliban, Afghan PM Hamid Karzai suspends security talks with the U.S. when the Taliban office in Qatar refused to drop the title "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan". On June 18 Boko Haram militants fire on Ansarudeen School in Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing nine students, the 2nd school attack in three days. On June 18 AP obtains details of the Pentagon's plans for training women for elite combat roles, incl. Army Ranger training by 2015, and Navy SEAL training in 2016. On June 18 clashes between armed supporters of Salafi Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir and members of the Sous family in Abra (near Sidon), Lebanon kill one and injure four. On June 18 the U.S. deploys 1.5K Marines to Al-Anad military base in Yemen. On June 18 300 Western converts to Islam incl. 6-7 Italians fighting to overthrow Bashar al-Assad are captured in Syria. On June 18 (night) a rocket attack on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan kills four NATO coalition service members. On June 18 the Russian Duma votes overwhelmingly to ban gay adoption for couples abroad, and for singles living in countries where same-sex marriage is legal. On June 19 Al-Shabaab militants attack a U.N. base in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing 15. On June 19 Pres. Obama visits Berlin, speaking at the Brandenburg Gate and meeting with German chancellor Angela Merkel. On June 19 a rare total solar eclipse of Jupiter. On June 19 FBI dir. Robert Mueller testifies beore the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, saying that al-Qaida is a "terrorist threat" to the U.S. On June 19 several political parties in Tunisia sign a nat. charter against terrorism. On June 19-July 12 the 2013 Alberta Floods in S and C Alberta, Canada displaces 100K, kills five, and causes $5B damage, becoming the worst flood in Alberta history (until ?), and the costliest disaster in Canadian historyy until the 2016 Fort McMurray Wildfire. On June 20 after massive demonstrations, officials in Brazil reverse a 10-cent transit fare hike, only to face a 1M-person protest on June 21 in scores of cities, with some military police officers joining protesters in Sao Paulo. On June 20 Del. gov. Jack Markell signs the Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Act, giving equal protection to transgender people. On June 20 the U.S. House of Reps votes 225-200 to legalize the farming of industrial hemp. On June 20 six Muslim siblings assault and attempt to kidnap white lesbian Sarah Harrison (1977-), who is in a relationship with their sister Nazma Ditta (1984-) as she leaves her workplace in Blackburn, Lancashire, England; in Jan. 2014 they are sentenced to 3-6 years in prison. On June 21 Spanish authorities arrest a ring of eight suspected al-Qaida members in Ceuta, Spain, who are training jihadist fighters for Syria. On June 21 a suicide attack inside a Shiite mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan kills 15+. On June 21 tens of thousands of pro-Morsi Islamists demonstrate in Cairo, Egypt ahead of anti-Morsi protests. On June 22 French journalists Pierre Torres and Nicolas Henin are kidnapped in Syria, making four. On June 23 Islamic Jundullah jihadists kill 10 incl. nine foreign tourists at a hotel in a base camp in Kashmir near Mt. Nanga Parbat in Gilgit-Baltistan. On June 23 police remove a flagpole from the Taliban office in Qatar. On June 23 Syrian Ahrar al-Sham Brigade rebels renew the fight for Aleppo, detonating a car bomb that kills 12 soldiers; meanwhile Syrian hermit priest Francois Murad (b. 1964) is beheaded by Syrian rebels. On June 23 a mob of Takfiri Sunni extremists in Abu Mussalam, Egypt near Cairo kills Shiite Sheikh Hassan Shehata and four followers. On June 23 a Sudanese Muslim stabs six people with a large knife in Tel Aviv, Israel. On June 23 Egyptian army chief Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi warns that the army will "not watch the country descend into uncontrollable conflict" or allow "an attack on the will of the people". On June 23 Iraq passes the Provincial Powers Law to encourage decentralization. On June 23 Syrian clergyman Father Francois Mourad is killed in the Christian village of Jisr al-Shughur in Ildib Province. On June 24 Qatar emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani announces that he's transfering power to his son Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani. On June 24 bombs in and around Baghdad, Iraq kill 42+. On June 24 U.S. secy. of John Kerry warns Russia that it's "on notice" regarding accused traitor-spy Edward Snowden, demanding that they quit harboring him. On June 24 the Am. Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) releases a policy statement recommending pediatricians to create offices that are "teen-friendly and welcoming to all adolescents, regardless of sexual orientation or behavior", and to do more to fight "heterosexism" and "homophobia". On June 24 Pope Francis tells the Internat. Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC): "Because of our common roots, a true Christian cannot be anti-Semitic." On June 25 (a.m.) the Taliban stages a suicide attack near the pres. palace in Kabul, Afghanistan as talks with the U.S. get more iffy. On June 25 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Shelby County v. Holder to strike down Section 4 of the 1965 U.S. Voting Act, designating "covered jurisdictions" of the U.S. that must have changes to their voting laws cleared by the federal govt., because the "pervasive... flagrant... widespread... rampant" discrimination in 1965 is kaput, and "today's statistics tell an entirely different story"; the real statistics prove otherwise? On June 25 Pres. Obama gives a Speech on Climate Change, announcing an extensive plan to prepare for global warming and tackle pollution, incl. the first-ever federal regs. on heat-trapping gases from power plants "to put an end to the limitless dumping of carbon pollution", and dissing climate change deniers with the soundbyte "We don't have time for a meeting of the flat-earth society"; he announces that he's instructing the State Dept. to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline only if it won't increase greenhouse gas emissions. On June 25 French police arrest six suspected radical Islamists in Paris. On June 25 FEMEN topless protesters jump on the car of Tunisian PM Ali Laryedh in Brussels, Belgium; meanwhile the European Commission urges Tunisia to reform criminal laws from its prior authoritarian regime. A new meaning for "to have and to hold" in America? On June 26 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in U.S. v. Windsor to strike down the 1996 U.S. Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) for violating the Fifth Amendment by depriving people of equal liberty, meaning that legally married (in their state) gay married couples can't be treated differently than legally married straight couples by the federal govt.; John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Bryer, and Elena Kagan are opposed by Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Sonia Sotomayor; John Roberts writes for the majority that the private proponents of Calif. Proposition 8 don't have standing to defend the measure in federal courts, but that same-sex couples are entitled to federal benefits; Anthony Kennedy writes the soundbyte that DOMA "violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the federal government", and calls it "an intrusion on states' traditional role defining marriage", adding "DOMA undermines both the public and private significance of state-sanctioned same-sex marriages, for it tells those couples, and all the world, that their otherwise valid marriages are unworthy of federal recognition"; Pres. Obama calls DOMA "discrimination enshrined in law", uttering the soundbyte: "It treated loving, committed gay and lesbian couples as a separate and lesser class of people. The Supreme Court has righted that wrong, and our country is better off for it. We are a people who declared that we are all created equal, and the love we commit to one another must be equal as well"; Obama announces that he has directed his admin. to "review all relevant federal statutes to ensure this decision, including its implications for federal benefits and obligations, is implemented swiftly and smoothly", adding "The laws of our land are catching up to the fundamental truth that millions of Americans hold in our hearts: when all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free"; he calls the plaintiffs in the Calif. Proposition 8 case from Air Force One en route to Senegal to congratulate them, with the soundbyte: "It's because of your leadership things are heading the right way." On June 26 Iran burns 100 tons of drugs, complaining of lack of Western cooperation in drug enforcement efforts. On June 26 the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announces that 100K+ have been killed in Syria since the start of the uprising in Mar. 2011. On June 27 former PM (2007-10) Kevin Michael Rudd (1957-) becomes PM of Australia (until ?). On June 27 Pres. Obama visits Senegal. On June 27 the U.N. Security Council extends the peacekeeping force in the Golan Heights for 6 mo., requesting secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon to ensure that it has the ability to fulfill its mandate. On June 27 the U.S. Senate by a 68-32 desk vote (incl. all 54 Dems. and 14 Repubs.) passes the 1.2K-page omnibus U.S. Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 (S.744), pushed by Nev. Dem. Sen. Harry Reid, passing it to the Repub.-controlled House, with Ariz. Repub. Sen. John McCain uttering the soundbyte: "Shouldn't we give them the same chance that we've given wave after wave of immigrants?"; meanwhile House Speaker John A. Boehner utters the soundbyte that the bill is "dead on arrival", adding "The House is not going to take up and vote on whatever the Senate passes", calling it too weak on border security, pointing to the failure of the 1986 Reagan amnesty, even though McCain said on June 25 that the Senate bill's Corker-Hoeven Amendment would transform the U.S.-Mexico border into "the most militarized border since the fall of the Berlin Wall". On June 27 New England Patriots tight end (#81) (since 2010) Aaron Josef Hernandez (1989-2017) is arrested and charged with the first degree murder of his friend Odin Lloyd, a semi-pro football player who was dating the sister of Hernandez' fiancee; in 2015 he is found guilty, and sentenced to life without parole; he is also indicted for the 2012 double homicide of Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado, and acquitted in 2017; five days later he is found dead hanging in his cell, which is ruled a suicide; since his murder conviction is under appeal, it is vacated; his autopsy reveals a whopping case of CTE from playing football. On June 27 anti-jihad bloggers Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are banned from entering the U.K. by spineless home secy. Theresa May, calling it a "blow against freedom", with the soundbyte "The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead." On June 27 after pressure from CAIR, ACLU, Seattle mayor Mike McGinn et al., the FBI removes Seattle, Wash. bus ads titled "Faces of Global Terrorism", listing the 16 top terrorists, all Muslim. On June 27/28 (night) pro and anti-Moris protesters clash in Alexandria, Egypt, killing one U.S. citizen and injuring dozens of others, causing Egyptian clerics to warn of a coming civil war. On June 28 after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down DOMA, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifts its stay on same-sex marriage, making Calif. state #11, causing a rush of applications. On June 28 after a 2-week siege, Syrian rebels capture a major army outpost in Daraa, Syria. On June 28 Vatican official Monsignor Nunzio Scarano is arrested for bringing 20M euros in cash into Italy from Switzerland on an Italian govt. plane; he was already under investigation for a money-laundering lot involving the Vatican Bank. On June 28 (Serbian nat. holiday) Albanian Muslim jihadists attack a column of school buses in Kosovo. On June 28 Eugene K. Pettis becomes the first African-Am. pres. of the 95K-member Fla. Bar Assoc., 2nd biggest in the U.S. On June 29 a suicide bomber in the Bab Sharqi Christian neighborhood in Damascus, Syria kills four, #23 in Syria for the year. On June 29-30 the 240-mi.-wide 100 mph June 2012 North Am. Derecho (Sp. "straight ahead") "land hurricane" devastates 10 states from Ill. to the U.S. East Coast, killing 22 and causing $2.9B in property damage, leaving 4M without power. On June 29 a Muslim roadside IED in S Thailand kills eight soldiers. On June 30 topless FEMEN protesters invade a mosque in Stockholm, Sweden, shouting "No Sharia" and "Free Women", and are allegedly called "whores from Hell". On June 30 millions protest in Cairo, Egypt and other cities, calling for pres. (since June 30, 2012) Mohammed Morsi to resign, attacking the HQ of the Muslim Brotherhood; seven are killed incl. two in Cairo; U.S. ambassador to Egypt (since June 30, 2011) Anne Woods Patterson (1949-) is singled-out by the crowds for being to cozy with Mubarak and the Muslim Brotherhood; on July 1 the Egyptian army threatens to intervene in 48 hours and topple Morsi; on July 1-2 several Egyptian ministers resign incl. PM Hisham Qandil, while Pres. Obummer, er, Obama refuses to withdraw support for Morsi, saying he came to power in a "legitimate" election, putting U.S. Marines in Spain and Italy on standby to protect U.S. citizens on July 2, causing Morsi to rebuff the ultimatum, putting the country on edge; on July 3 Egyptian armed forces CIC and defense minister (since Aug. 12, 2012) Gen. Abdel Fatah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi (1954-) arrests and removes Morsi from power, suspending the Egyptian constitution, and making chief justice Adly Mahmoud Mansour (1945-) the interim pres. (until June 30, 2016); on July 3 the military shuts down three Islamist TV stations incl. one operated by the Muslim Brotherhood; on July 3 pissed-off Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that he's "very concerned" about the overthrow, and is ordering his admin. to review U.S. military aid; on July 3 Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad utters the soundbyte: "The summary of what is happening in Egypt is the fall of what is called political Islam"; on July 4 liberal Egyptian diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei says that he worked hard to convince Western powers to oust Morsi for bungling Egypt's transition to an inclusive democracy, and on July 6 he is named interim PM (until ?); meanwhile Egyptian-born al-Qaida leader Muhammad al-Zawahiri announces a jihad to save Morsi, and on July 5 tens of thousands of Islams begin protests in Cairo, which turn violent at night, killing 30 and injuring 1K+ throughout the country. On June 30 Pres. Obama visits Cape Town, South Africa, announcing a multi-billion dollar plan to double electricity in sub-Saharan Africa, and visiting Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years; meanwhile Mandela lies gravely ill in a Johannesburg hospital. On June 30 three bombings in Pakistan kill 49 as British PM David Cameron visits Islamabad pledging to help fight extremism, with the clueless soundbyte: "The enemies of Pakistan are enemies of Britain, and we will stand together and conduct this fight against extremism and terrorism together." On June 30 a missile hits Muhammad al-Baqir Mosque in Qaterji, Aleppo, Syria, killing 10 incl. several children. On June 30 the Yarnell Hill Forest Fire SW of Prescott, Ariz. burns 2K acres and kills 19 firefighters, becoming their highest death toll since 1983. In June Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum is upheld by the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals, charging Boston U. swtudent Joel Tenenabum (1983-) $675K for illegally downloading 30 songs, which comes to $22.5K/song. In June U.S. unemployment remains at 7.6% while adding 195K jobs. In June according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural org. (FAO), Mexico officially becomes the world's fattest nation, with a 32.8% adult obesity rate, passing the U.S. (31.8%). In early July Red China and Russia hold massive war games. On July 1 Eric Michael Garcetti (1971-) becomes Dem. mayor #42 of Los Angeles, Calif. (until ?), becoming its first elected Jewish mayor, 2nd straight Mexican-Am. mayor, and youngest mayor (until ?); too bad, he makes campaign promises he doesn't keep, incl. getting rid of the homeless problem, causing impeachment efforts in 2019. On July 1 Del. becomes state #12 to legalize same-sex marriage. On July 1 Croatia joins the EU. On July 1 China accuses the U.S. of encouraging "terrorism" in Xinjiang by encouraging Muslim violence in Uighuristan. On July 1 DHS head Janet Napolitano issues a directive ordering the U.S. Immigration Service to consider same-sex visa petitions. On July 1 the pop. of Azaz, N Syria protests the entry of fighters for the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISI); on July 5 there is a counter-protest. On July 1 S.D. becomes the first U.S. state to allow teachers to possess firearms at school. On July 2 (a.m.) Taliban militants detonate a truck bomb at a NATO supplier compound in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing five security guards. On July 3 a U.S. drone strike in Sarai Darpa Khel, North Waziristan, Pakistan kills 16 militants and injures two. On July 3 the plane of Bolivian pres. Evo Morales is delayed as he tries to leave Europe over suspicions that he is hiding Edward Snowden aboard, pissing-off Latin Am. leaders. On July 3 Islamists take over the town of Dalga, Minya Province, Egypt, pop. 120K incl. 20K Coptic Christians, targeting their homes and businesses. On July 3 the Calif. Senate by a partisan (Dem.) 21-9 vote by passes AB 1266, a transgender rights bill for students in public schools. On July 3 the Center for Immigration Studies releases a Report on U.S. Immigration and Employment, which reports that 22.4M immigrants held jobs on Jan. 1, up 5.3M since 2000, vs. 113.5M native-born workers, down 1.3M from 2000. On July 4 the Statue of Liberty, closed since Hurricane Sandy reopens. On July 4 Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and his deputy Khairat el-Shater are ordered arrested by the Egyptian prosecutor for inciting violence outside their Cairo HQ; meanwhile the Muslim Broterhood begins targeting Christian Copts for blame in Morsi's ouster, launching a month of pogroms. On July 5 China and Pakistan sign an Economic Corridor Agreement linking NW China to the Arabian Sea. On July 5 more bombings against Shiites N of Baghdad in Iraq kill 19+ and injure 38, making 2K killed since Apr. 1. On July 5 suicide bombers in S Afghanistan kill 18 Afghan police in two attacks. On July 5 the Syrian army launches a heavy barrage on Homs, Syria. On July 5 after an outcry, the cabinet of Malaysia decides to withdraw a proposal to allow the conversion of minors to Islam with just one parent's approval. On July 5 Popes Benedict XVI and Francis I issue a religious co-text, saying that faith should serve the "common good" and restating their opposition to same-sex marriage. On July 6 (1:15 EDT) the Lac-Megantic (Lac-Mégantic) Rail Disaster in the Eastern Townships region of Quebec, Canada sees an unattended 74-car freight train carrying crude oil roll down a 1.2% grade from Nantes and derail, causing multiple tank cars to explode, killing 42 (five missing) and destroying half of the downtown area incl. 30 bldgs. in the town center, becoming the 4th deadliest rail accident in Canadian history (until ?), and deadliest non-passenger train accident (until ?); footage from the disaster is used in the 2018 film "Bird Box", causing an outcry. On July 6 Korean Asiana Airlines Flight 214 (Boeing 777) en route from Singapore and Seoul crashes on landing in San Francisco, Calif., killing two of 291 passengers and 16 crew; rookie pilot Lee Kang-kook had never landed a 777 before, although he had 10K hours on other planes; co-pilot Lee Jeong-min had 3K hours on the 777. On July 6 90+ gay Girl Scouts and their families march in the San Francisco, Calif. Gay Pride Parade for the first time ever. On July 6 Qatar expels Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi and closes their offices, becoming a big blow to the Islamist cause. On July 6 Boko Haram ("Western education is forbidden") militants burn a school in Mamudo, Nigeria, killing 30+ of 1.2K children. On July 6 CAIR-CAN changes its name to Nat. Council of Canadian Muslims. On July 6 (night) a referee fatally stabs a soccer player in Maranhao, Brazil, then is stoned to death and his body quartered and decapitated by angry fans. On July 6 (night) an oil train derails in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada, killing three, causing 2K to evacuate. On July 7 (a.m.) the Egyptian army fires on Muslim Brotherhood supporters praying outside the Repub. Nat. Guard HQ in Cairo where ex-pres. Morsi is being held, killing 51+ and injuring 400+. On July 7 100+ Muslim guerillas attack army troops in S Philippines, killing 12+. On July 7 Muslim terrorist bomb the Buddhist shrine Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya, India. On July 7 Muslim Brotherhood followers attack Coptic Christians in Luxor, Egypt, killing four and injuring 32. On July 7 ex-Iranian pres. Imadinnajacket gives a farewell speech, saying that publicizing Holocaust denial was his greatest achievement; "That was a taboo topic that no one in the West allowed to be heard. We put it forward at the global level. That broke the spine of the Western capitalist regime." On July 7 a train en route from Novosibirsk to the Black Sea derails in Kuschevsky, Russia , injuring 100+. On July 7 after he is expelled from the U.K., Jordan charges Muslim preacher Abu Qatada as a suspected al-Qaida terrorist. On July 7 Benjamin Medrano (1966-) is elected mayor of Fresnillo, Zacatecas, becoming Mexico's first openly gay elected mayor. On July 8 Pope Francis makes his first trip as pontiff to Lampedusa Island, Italy to visit Muslim asylum seekers on the first day of Ramadan, uttering the soundbyte "The Church is close to you in the search for a more dignified life for you and your families." On July 8 the worst thunderstorm in ? years in Toronto, Canada cuts power to 300K and leaves 1K passengers stranded on a commuter train. On July 9 a Muslim militant bomb in Ban Rawo, Thailand kills injures eight soldiers. On July 9 an Afghan soldier opens fire on Slovak troops at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan, killing one and wounding 2+. On July 9 a roadside bomb in W Afghanistan kills 17 aboard a motorcycle-drawn cart. On July 9 the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child demands that the Vatican release info. on child abuse cases by clergy. On July 9 Femen leader Inna Shevchenko (model for a new French postage stamp honoring Marianne, the feminine symbol of France) issues a tweet reading: "what can be more stupid than Ramadan? What can be more uglier than this religion?", stirring a firestorm of controversy. On July 10 after Mohamed ElBaradei's nomination is withdrawn, former finance minister Hazem el-Beblawi is named Egyptian PM (until ?); meanwhile dozens of pro-Mursi demonstrators are killed by the Egyptian army outside the Repub. Guard HQ in Cairo, causing a group of Saudi intellectuals to go against their own govt. and pub. a comminique condemning the shooting; on Aug. 8 56 Saudi clerics pub. another communique condemning Morsi's ouster. On July 10 Dubai pledges a $3B aid package for ever-broke Egypt, dwarfing the $1.5B a year aid received from the U.S., which is in jeopardy because of the military takeover. On July 10 Pakistani security chief Bilal Shaikh is killed in a suicide attack in Karachi. On July 11 after a deadly crime wave in Chicago Ill. Rep. Booby Rush calls for the Nat. Guard to be called in to stop the "mayhem". On July 11 a poll by Quinnipiac U. finds that only 40% of U.S. voters approve of Pres. Obama's approach to foreign affairs, and 52% disapprove; 48% disapprove of his handling of Syria. On July 11 Syrian rebel Free Syrian Army cmdr. Abu Bassir Al Ladkani is assassinated by al-Qaeda, causing them to declare war. On July 11 the comedy drama series Orange Is the New Black (OITNB) debuts on Netflix for ? episodes (until ?), based on the 2010 Piper Kerman memoir "Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison" about Litchfield (FCI Danbury) Prison, starring Taylor Schilling (1984-) as Piper Chapman; it becomes the first TV series nominated for both outstanding comedy series (2014) and outstanding drama series (2015) at the Emmys. On July 12 DHS head Janet Napolitano resigns to become pres. of the U. of Calif. On July 12 by a 127-31 vote, formerly Roman Catholic Ireland legalizes abortion when physicians deem the woman's life at risk. On July 12 a suicide vehicle rams a peacekeeping convoy in Mogadishu, Somalia killing two civilians. On July 12 (10 p.m.) a bomb in a full cafe ending the Ramadan fast in Kirkuk, Iraq kills 19 and wounds 26+. On July 12 12K Palestinians hold a pro-Morsi demonstration in Kafr Kanna, Israel; meanwhile a huge banner of Morsi is hung over the entrance to Al-Aqsa Mosque Plaza in Jerusalem. On July 12 gay men hold protests in 52 U.S. cities calling for an end to the FDA's gay blood bank ban. On July 13 the disbanded Egyptian upper house of parliament demands the reinstatement of ousted pres. Mohammed Morsi, while his supporters vow to stay on the streets. On July 13 a 6-person jury acquits white (German-Peruvian with some black descent) neighborhood watch volunteer George Michael Zimmerman (1983-) in the Feb. 26, 2012 shooting death of 17-y.-o. African-Am. Trayvon Benjamin Martin (1995-2012) in Sanford, Fla., causing nationwide riots and protests and launching the Black Lives Matter movement to be founded on Twitter with the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. On July 13 (night) riots in Belfast, Northern Island are caused by pro-British Protestant marches, continuing nightly until ?. On July 15 the Egyptian govt. freezes the assets of 14 Muslim Brotherhood leaders accused of inciting violence. On July 15 Zetas drug cartel leader Miguel Angel Trevino Morales is captured by Mexican Marines in Nuevo Laredo. On July 15 the Nigerian military announces that its 2-mo. offensive in NE Nigera has "substantially achieved" the goal of destroying most Boko Haram bases. On July 15 the world's last commercial electric telegraph system, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. shuts down. On July 15/16 overnight classes between Morsi supporters and police in Cairo, Egypt kill seven and injure 261. On July 16 the EU issues an Embargo on Israel for its 28 member states, barring them from dealings with Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in any territories occupied by Israel since June 1967, causing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in an emergency cabinet meeting to utter the soundbyte: "We will not accept any outside diktat about our borders." On July 16 Egyptian interim PM Hazem el-Beblawi swears-in a new cabinet that incl. women and Christians but no Islamists. On July 16 clashes between Kurds and Jahbat al-Nusra in Ras al-Ain, Syria kill 4+. On July 16 a roadside bomb in Lebanon is the first retaliation against Hezbollah for supporting the regime in Syria. On July 16 Bangladeshi Islamist leader Ghulam Azam is sentenced to 90 years for crimes against humanity, causing a Muslim riot in Dhaka that kills four and injures dozens. On July 16 23 children die after being served a free school lunch laced with insecticide in Grandaman, Bihar, India, causing a riot; headmistress Meena Kumar is arrested; her hubby ?, who sold the oil to the school is also arrested. On July 17 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry meets with Arab leaders in Amman, Jordan, where the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is called "the core issue of instability in the region". On July 17 Iranian pres.-elect Hassan Rouhani utters the soundbyte that it is "laughable" that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said that Tehran is getting close to the "red line" over its nuclear program, deriding Israel's ability to strike Iran. On July 17 the Thomas Aquinas Ferry in Cebu, Philippines collides with a cargo ship and sinks, killing 24+ of 870 passengers and crew. On July 18 police fire on Kashmiri protesters in Srinagar, India, killing 4+ and injuring dozens. On July 18 the city of Detroit, Mich. (pop. 700K) files for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, with $20B owed to 100K+ creditors ($25K per capita); there are only 27K manufacturing jobs left, vs. 296K in 1950. On July 18 two weeks after Qatar is removed as leader in place of a group of tribal, secular Muslim Brotherhood reps, Saudi Arabia becomes the sole patron of the Syrian Nat. Coalition (SNC). On July 18 a policeman in Trappes, France (near Versailles) stops a Muslim woman and asks her to remove her niqab, after which her French-born Muslim convert husband tries to strangle him and he is arrested, triggering Muslim riots by 10K of the town's 30K inhabitants that last until ? On July 18 the U.S. announces a $200M program to help women in Breaking Bad Afghanistan. On July 19 after shuttling between Amman and the West Bank, John Kerry announces that new Israeli-Palestinian talks will soon begin in Washington, D.C., restarting the 2008 talks; in return Israel will release some "hardcore" Palestinian prisoners. On July 19 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan utters the soundbyte: "Strong Turkey is making its influence felt more in this region every day. Our agenda was determined by others in the past, but there is no longer a Turkey whose agenda is determined by others. There is now a Turkey that determines the agenda. That is to say, there are so many developments taking place in Iraq and Syria. It will be all good at the end. Don't forget, whatever happens, happens for some good. What's important is that Turkey continues its path with its strong economy." On July 19 U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) Louis Gohmert utters the soundbyte on the House Floor that we are witnessing "the rise of a new Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, which, unfortunately, the Obama Administration has helped jumpstart"; he adds that the rising of the people of Egypt against a radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood government has caused the "grand scheme of building a great caliphate" to become a "huge problem", and calls on the U.S. govt. to once again be seen as supporting and defending those seeking true infidel freedom and democracy. On July 19 the senate of N.C. passes a law prohibiting courts from recognizing foreign laws, esp. Sharia; on Aug. 26 gov. Pat McCrory lets it become law sans his signature. On July 21 (night) jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant assault two Iraqi jails in Abu Ghraib and Taji, Iraq, killing 26 policemen and freeing 500+ prisoners. On July 22 (7:45 a.m. local time) two earthquakes (5.6, 5.9) in Dingxi,Gansu, C China kill 95 and injure 2.3K. On July 22 after Arnold Schwarzenegger talks Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann into it, the 28-member EU unanimously declares the military wing of Hezbollah a terrorist org.; 6 of the 28 refuse to label all of Hezbollah as a terrorist org.; it also calls for the release of ousted Egyptian pres. Mohammad Morsi; Hizbullah issues the soundbyte that it has no military arm, but is one org.; the Legal Forum for Israel's Internat. Div. sends the EU a petition signed by 1K lawyers, ambassadors, and academics from 30 countries protesting their actions. On July 22 after an internat. outcry, the Soldtenkaffee Nazi-themed cafe in Bandung, West Java closes. On July 22 Buenos Aires, Argentina experiences its first major snow since June 22, 1918. On July 23 former Office for Civil Rights dir. and Md. Dept. of Labor secy. Thomas Edward "Tom" Perez (1961-) (of Dominican descent) becomes U.S. labor secy. #26 (until Jan. 20, 2017). On July 23 an attack at a police station in Daqahliya, Egypt in the Nile Delta kills one and injures 29. On July 23 (anniv. of the 1952 Egyptian rev.) Egyptian interim pres. Adly Mansour gives a speech calling for nat. reconciliation, which the Muslim Brotherhood and El Nour Party reject; on July 24 Egyptian military chief Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sissi gives a speech calling for mass demonstrations to support the army and police to help them deal with "violence and terrorism", meaning supporters of Morsi; on July 26 hundreds of thousands oblige with patriotic demonstrations across Egypt; on July 27 (Sat.) more demonstrations see police and armed civilians fire on protesters on the same parade ground where Pres. Anwar Sadat was assassinated, killing 70+ and injuring 800+; Pres. Obama makes no comment, but John Kerry calls for Egypt's leaders "to step back from the brink"; the U.S. declines to declare a coup. On July 23 the Great 2013 Jihadi Jailbreak occurs starting with 500-1K from Taj Prison and Abu Graibh Prisons in Afghanistan, followed on July 27 by 117 from Koufia Prison in Benghazi, followed on July 29 by 243 Taliban from Dera Ismail Khan Prison in Pakistan; they are all coordinated? On July 24 German businessman Rudolf M. et al. are put on trial for smuggling specialized valves to Iran that can be used to make nukes. On July 25 (a.m.) leftist Tunisian Arab nationalist Popular Front Coalition opposition leader Mohammed Brahmi (b. 1955) is assassinated outside his home, becoming the 2nd assassination this year after Chokri Belaid. On July 25 jihadists on pickup trucks open fire on a checkpoint in Shura, Iraq 35 mi. S of Mosul, killing nine policemen. On July 25 a speeding train derailment in Santiago de Compostela, Spain kills 78. On July 25 Pope Francis kicks off World Youth Day at Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; on July 25 he receives reps of the Afro-Brazilian Candomble religion in the Municipal Theatre, a first; on July 28 (a.m.) he addresses 3M at a final Mass at Copacabana Beach, and utters the soundbyte "Who am I to judge a gay person?" to reporters on the plane back to Rome, er, "If a person is gay and accepts the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge them?", adding that this only applies if they don't engage in active homosexuality, adding "The tendency is not the problem... they're our brothers." On July 25 the U.S. govt. files a grand jury indictment against SAC Capital Advisors, a $15B hedge fun run by billionaire Steven A. Cohen, accusing it of "insider trading... on a scale without known precedent in the hedge fund industry." On July 26 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry utters a blooper, referring to the country of Palestine. On July 26 Syrian opposition leaders led by Syrian Nat. Coalition (SNC) pres. Ahmed Jarba come to the New York City to lobby the U.N. Security Council for support. On July 26 double suicide bombers on motorcyles detonate outside Shiite mosques in Parachinar, Pakistan, killing 57 and injuring 167; the Ansarul Mujahideen claims credit. On July 26 (eve.) the Pakistani Taliban attack a busy market in a town near the Afghan border, killing 50+ and injuring 100+. On July 26 U.S. federal election regulators vote to treat political contributions from same-sex couples the same way as married hetero couples. On July 26 Pres. Obama issues an executive order that overrides Congress and authorizes $148M to be sent to the Palestinian Authority, calling it "the most immediate and efficient means of helping the Arabs of Palestine maintain and build the foundations of a viable, peaceful Palestinian state"; he did ditto in Mar. for $600M. On July 26 an ABC News/Washington Post Poll finds that 67% of Americans think that the Afghanistan war was not worth the cost; 28% think it was; 43% think it has contributed to the country's long-term security; 53% favor keeping a residual force, and 43% want total evacuation. On July 27 elections in Kuwait are held to elect a new 50-member parliament for the 2nd time in 8 mo. On July 27 an bombing attack on the Turkish embassy in Mogadishu, Somalia kills six and injures nine; al-Shabaab claims responsibility. On July 27 a jail break at Koyfiya Prison near Benghazi, Libya sees 1K escape; meanwhile protesters storm the offices of political parties in Libya's main cities. On July 28 Mexican vice adm. Carlos Miguel Salazar is ambushed and killed by drug cartel members in Michoacan, Mexico. On July 28 an armed robbery at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes, France nets $53M worth of jewelry. On July 28 a U.S. drone strike in the Shawal Valley of North Waziristan Pakistan kills eight militants incl. three Arab al-Qaida trainers from Lashkar al Zil (Shadow Army). On July 29 (7 p.m.) two trains collide head-on in Switzerland, injuring 44. On July 29 a wave of bombings in and around Baghdad, Iraq kills 36+. On July 29 Palestinian Nat. Authority leader Mahmad Abbas makes his first official visit to Cairo since the ouster of Muhammad Morsi; on July 30 he tell reporters in Egypt the soundbyte "In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli, civilian or soldier on our lands"; on July 30 Hamas leader Salah Al-Bardaweel produces documents showing that Abbas and Fatah are running an anti-Hamas propaganda campaign in Egypt, which Fatah calls "fabricated and falsified". On July 29 a Boko Haram bomb attack in two churches in Kano City, Nigeria kills 45+. On July 29/30 (night) the Pakistani Taliban attacks the prison in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, freeing 200+ Sunni prisoners, and killing Shiite prisoners. On July 30 (a.m.) the defense ministry of Tunisia issues a warning about al-Qaeda-allied extremists staging an imminent terrorist attack after eight soldiers were murderedand mutilated in Jebel Chaambi and their uniforms and equipment were stolen. On July 30 a series of bombs in bars in Kano, Nigeria kills 28+. On July 30 the Inst. for Science and Internat. Security (ISIS) report that claims that Iran will have the "critical capability" to produce weapons-grade plutonium by mid-2014 without being detected. On July 31 after Imam Talib Shareef of Masjid Muhammad Mosque opens Congress with a Muslim prayer to Allah, five Repubs. cross the aisle to vote with all 54 Dems. to break a filibuster (53-42), and B. Todd Jones becomes the first dir. of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate; prior to 2006, the pres. appointed the dir. directly. On July 31 Saudi intel chief Bindar bin Sultan meets secretly with Russian pres. Vladimir Putin, and offers a $15B Russian arms deal if Putin will drop his backing of Bashar al-Assad, which he declines; they agree that the entire Middle East from North Africa to Chechnya and Iran to Syria has turned into an open U.S.-Russian faceoff, and that it is "not unlikely that things will take a dramatic turn in Lebanon, in both the political and security senses in light of the major Saudi decision to respond to Hezbollah's involvement in the Syrian crisis". In July the death toll in Iraq is 1,057 Iraqis killed and 2,326 wounded, the highest since June 2008 (975 killed). In July the U.S. unemployment rate drops to 7.4%, adding 162K jobs. On Aug. 1 Minn. becomes state #13 to legalize same-sex marriage. On Aug. 1 the Egyptian govt. offers "safe passage and protection" for supporters of ousted pres. Mohammed Morsi if they end their two sit-ins in Cairo. On Aug. 1 despite intense U.S. pressure, Russia grants 1-year asylum to whistleblower Edward J. Snowden, pissing-off the Obama admin. bigtime, and causing Pres. Obama to cancel a planned Moscow summit, the first time since 1960. On Aug. 1 the U.S. House of Reps by 400-20 passes a crackdown on Iran's oil exports by 1M barrels over the next year, pissing-off Russia. On Aug. 1 former Goldman Sachs trader Fabrice Tourre is found guilty by a federal jury on six counts of civil securities fraud. On Aug. 1 after Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman pub. a 500-page report on the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, the U.S. State Dept. writes a letter to U.S. Sen. (R-Ill.) Mark Kirk saying that it has asked the U.S. intel community to take a new look at Iran's terrorist activities in Latin Am. On Aug. 2 (Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr) Pope Francis speaks at the Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro, giving a Speech to World Muslims, calling for "mutual respect" between Christianity and Islam, and an end to "unfair criticism" - did I say what I think I said? On Aug. 2 76 U.S. Senators sign a letter to Pres. Obama calling for Iran sanctions despite the election of new PM Hassan Rouhani. On Aug. 3 suicide bombers in a car outside the Indian consulate in Jalalabad, Afghanistan kill eight and injure 22. On Aug. 3 a car plows down pedesrians at the boardwalk at Venice Beach, Calif., killing one and injuring 11. On Aug. 3 deposed Egyptian PM Mohamed Morsi begins cracking and offering to talk with the Nat. Salvation Front, but keeps up the daily sit-ins; on Aug. 4 UAE foreign minister sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed joins the high-level talks in Cairo as a mediator, along with Qatar, the U.S., the EU, and the African Union; too bad, on Aug. 8 the mediation talks fail, with interim pres. Adly Mansour blaming the Muslim Brotherhood for the "failure" of the talks, warning that his govt. won't make any concessions to them. On Aug. 3 new Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani is officially sworn-in in Tehran, giving a speech vowing to lift the "oppressive sanctions" crippling the economy, receiving official backing from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. On Aug. 4 (Sun.) the U.S. closes its embassies in the Muslim World after receiving an unspecified terror threat from Ayman al-Zawahiri and AQAP, incl. a planned attack on Yemeni oil pipelines and ports; Yemen deploys tanks and special forces outside the U.S. embassy in Sana'a; too bad, the disclosure of the messages causes the terrorists to quit using their comm channel, hurting U.S. intel. On Aug. 4 46 U.S. reps send a letter to Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasting him for making anti-Semitic statements, and calling on him to "publicly condemn the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric by government officials." On Aug. 4 two militant attacks in North Nigeria kill 35+. On Aug. 4 according to Human Rights Watch on Oct. 11, 20 groups of Syrian rebels launch an offensive in Latakia Province, Syria that kills 190+ civilians seizes 200+ hostages, some remaining in captivity until ?. On Aug. 4 (night) a bomb at the front door of the Ekayana Buddhist Vihara in West Jakarta, Indonesia injures one of 300 devotees. On Aug. 5 S Thai Muslim leader Imam Yacob Raimanee of Pattani Central Mosque is assassinated. On Aug. 5 a bombing in a busy commercial street in Cotabato, Philippines kills six and injures 29+. On Aug. 5 Turkish Army Gen. Ilker Basbug is sentenced to life in prison for the Ergenekon Conspiracy, becoming a big V for Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan in his war against the secularist deep govt.; 16 more are sentenced to life; all but 17 of 275 defendants are convicted. On Aug. 5 Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos purchases the Washington Post for $250M. On Aug. 5 the U.S. Postal Service ends Sat. mail delivery in order to save $2B a year. On Aug. 5 Samantha Jane Power (1970-), wife (since 2008) of Cass Sunstein becomes U.S. U.N. ambassador #28 (until Jan. 20, 2017). On Aug. 6 U.S. federal prosecutors file the first charges in the 9/11/2012 Benghazi Consulate Attack on Libyan militia leader Ahmed Khattalah. On Aug. 6 Syrian rebels led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant capture the Minnigh Airbase in Aleppo; meanwhile a large weapons cache is destroyed in Homs; it's really a tactical nuclear strike? On Aug. 7 the Syrian army ambushes rebel troops near Adra, Syria E of Damascus, killing 62; it recaptures the rebel district of Khaldiyeh in Homs. On Aug. 7 a motorcycle bomb in Karachi, Pakistan kills 11 child soccer players and injures 24+. On Aug. 7 a massive fire engulfs Nairo Airport in Kenya. On Aug. 7 a Muslim attack on the Coptic Evangelical church in Ain Shams, Egypt (near Cairo) kills 10-y.-o. Jessi Paulis Issa and injures dozens leaving Sunday school class. On Aug. 7 Pres. Obama addresses Marines at Camp Pendleton, Calif., telling them that the Afghanistan War has entered its final chapter. On Aug. 8 a suicide bomber at a funeral in Quetta, Pakistan kills 30 incl. 21+ policemen. On Aug. 8 an explosion in a graveyard in Ghani Khel, Nangarhar, Afghanistan kills 10+ women. On Aug. 8 gunmen ambush a van carrying Turkish Airlines crew in Beirut, Lebanon, kidnapping a pilot and co-pilot. On Aug. 8 Pres. Obama hosts Internet execs and civil liberties leaders for a closed-door meeting on govt. surveillance, stirring fears of a coming police state. On Aug. 8 Pres. Obama posth. awards the Pres. Medal of Freedom to black gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin (1912-87). On Aug. 10 a bombing wave in Bagdead, Iraq kills 33 celebrating Eid al-Fitr. On Aug. 10 the U.S. State Dept. condemns attacks on Kurdish civilians in the Aleppo area of Syria by groups affiliated with al-Qaida. On Aug. 11 First Dog Bo is airlifted on his own heli on a First Family vacation to Martha's Vineyard. On Aug. 12 U.S. atty. gen. Eric Holder announces a push by the U.S. Dept. of Justice to overhaul federal minimum sentencing laws, esp. those aimed at blacks, er, low-level drug offenders. On Aug. 12 Calif. gov. Jerry Brown signs a law ordering public schools to accomodate transgender students, incl. use of bathrooms, effective Jan. 1, affecting 6.2M students. On Aug. 14 (Bloody Wed.) the 2013 Rabaa Massacre sees Egyptian forces clear the pro-Morsi camps, killing 600-817 civilians incl. 149 in Rabaa al-Adawiya Square, causing Egyptian vice-pres. Mohammad ElBaradei to resign in protest; on Aug. 14 pissed-off Pres. Obama holds a press conference, and cancels joint military exercises; on Aug. 14-16 the Muslim Brotherhood attacks Coptic churches and monasteries throughout Egypt, incl. Gharbeya, Giza, Suez, Fayoum, Beni Suef, Minya, Asyut, Sohag, and Qena. On Aug. 14 the Al Nusra Battalion assassinates Col. Mohammed al Komi along the Cairo-Ismailia Rd. in Egypt as part of its program of killing "apostates" and "criminals". On Aug. 14 Doctors without Borders announces that it's leaving Somalia in frustration after 20+ years. On Aug. 14 U.S. federal Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange rules that Okla.'s Nov. 2010 law banning Islamic Sharia is unconstitutional. On Aug. 14 WWE wrestler Darren Young (Fredrick Douglas "Fred" Rosser) becomes the first prof. wrestler to come out as gay. On Aug. 14-16 the Bahrain Tamarod (Tamarrod) sees more protests. On Aug. 15 a car bomb in S Beirut, Lebanon kills 20 and injures 212, becoming the deadliest since Rafik Hariri's 2005 assassination. On Aug. 17 Mohammed al-Zawahri, brother of Ayman al-Zawahri is arrested in Giza, Egypt near Cairo. On Aug. 17 Egyptian troops storm a mosque in Cairo, Egypt and battle Muslim Brotherhood supporters; 173 are killed throughout Egypt in violence; meanwhile govt. rep. Mostafa Hegazi announces that the govt. is considering "dissolving" the Muslim Brotherhood movement; meanwhile EU high rep. for foreign affairs Catherine Ashton strongly condemns the violence, saying that it has left Egypt "in a state of emergency and heading into an uncertain future", calling on the Egyptian govt. to "exercise utmost restraint and on all Egyptian citizens to avoid further provocations and escalation." On Aug. 18 Muslim Brotherhood supporters attempt to escape from a prison outside Cairo, Egypt, and 38 are killed. On Aug. 18 Libyan interior minister Col. Mohammad al-Sheikh resigns after less than 2 mo. in office; meanwhile the Barqa Youth Movement declares E Libya an autonomous federal province subject to Islamic Sharia. On Aug. 19 British authorities announces the arrest of the biggest child sex ring in U.K. history, 45 men in West Yorkshire. On Aug. 19 Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal issues a Statement on Egypt, warning the West that "we will not hesitate to help Egypt" throw off the Muslim Brotherhood. On Aug. 19 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chmn. Gen. Martin Dempsey writes a letter to Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), telling him that the Obama admin. opposes any military intervention in Syria because even if they win the rebels won't support U.S. interests, and there would be no strategy for peace. On Aug. 19 Turkish officials Bekir Bozdag and Huseyin Celik ask Org. for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu to resign for failing to speak out against the coup in Egypt. On Aug. 20 Qatar-owned Al Jazeera launches its U.S. affiliate, while the Arab World disses them for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. On Aug. 20 the Egyptian govt. arrests Muslim Brotherhood supreme leader Muhammad Badie; meanwhile madass Muslim Brotherhood supporters attack and damage 82 churches across Egypt by Aug. 21. On Aug. 20 Pakistani authorities bust al-Qaida's internat. technical hub in Lahore, Pakistan, which is linked to the abduction of U.S. aid worker Warren Weinstein. On Aug. 21 a chemical weapons attack in the outskirts of East Ghouta, Syria (near Damascus) by ? kills 494+ (1,429?), becoming the worst in the 21st cent. (until ?); on Aug. 22 the Syrian army bombs the same rebel-held suburbs; on Aug. 23 Pres. Obama calls the chemical attack a "big event of grave concern", and on Aug. 23 utters the soundbyte "We do have to make sure that when countries break international norms on chemical weapons they are held accountable"; on Aug. 30 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry releases a report that claims that 1,429 were killed incl. 426 children, that Assad's regime is responsible, and that the U.S. won't wait for U.N. weapons inspectors to finish work before deciding to take military action. On Aug. 21 after far-right extremists mount protests in Berlin on Aug. 20 against the resettling of 400 refugees from Afghanistan, Serbia, and Syria in a former h.s., Angela Merkel visits Dachau, becoming the first German chancellor to visit it, uttering the soundbyte: "How could Germans go so far as to deny people human dignity and the right to live based on their race, religion, their political persuasion or their sexual orientation? Places such as this warn each one of us to help ensure that such things never happen again"; too bad, she fails to recognize that Islam is the real far-right? On Aug. 21 the U.S. sanctions Jamia Taleem-Ul-Quran-Wal Hadith Madrassa in NW Pakistan for ties to al-Qaida; in Oct. Russian diplomatic sources claim that the attack was done by a Saudi black ops team; famed journalist Seymour Hersh alleges that a secret agreement was made in 2012 between the Obama admin. and Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar to have rebels stage a sarin gas attack in Syria and frame Assad. On Aug. 21 Michael Brandon Hill brings an AK-47 and 500 rounds of ammo to Ronald McNair Discovery Learning Center in Decatur, Ga., and is talked into surrendering by Antoinette Tuff, who becomes a big hero. On Aug. 21 after news breaks that the NYPD has designed mosques as terrorist orgs. for purposes of surveillance, New York City mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio tweets the soundbyte that he is "deeply troubled NYPD has labelled entire mosques & Muslim orgs terror groups with seemingly no leads. Security AND liberty make us strong." On Aug. 21 Facebook launches Internet.org to spread Internet connectivity to the two-thirds of the world's pop. that still don't have it; privacy is a secondary concern? On Aug. 22 outgoing FBI dir. Robert Mueller gives an interview to Pierre Thomas of ABC News, warning of U.S.-based jihadis bringing jihad home from Syria. On Aug. 22 hundreds of striking teachers in Zocalo Plaza in Mexico City try to block the entrances to the Congress and Senate to prevent lawmakers from voting on a set of rules to apply their newly-overhauled education system. On Aug. 23 bombs explode outside two mosques in Tripoli, Lebanon, killing 27 and wounding 350+, becoming the deadliest attack since the Lebanese civil war. On Aug. 23 U.S. warships begin heading towards Syria while Pres. Obama considers military options. On Aug. 25 a bomb attack on a bus carrying air force personnel to their base in Sana'a, Yemen kills 6+ and injures 25. On Aug. 25 yet another Bloody Sunday sees insurgent attacks around Iraq kill 41+. On Aug. 25-7 Oman Sultan Qaboos bin Said visits Iran, causing speculation that Oman is going to mediate between Iran and the U.S. On Aug. 26 (6:30 a.m.) a Taliban suicide assault at the Afghan army base in Kapisa, Afghanistan kills two Taliban fighters and injures 10. On Aug. 26 Israeli forces raid a refugee camp in N Jerusalem, killing three. On Aug. 28 Iranian supreme leader Ali Khameini utters the soundbyte that a U.S. attack on Syria would be a "disaster for the region... Such warmongering is like a spark in a gunpowder depot, and its dimensions and consequences cannot be estimated"; on Aug. 28 Iranian Rev. Guards cmdr. Mohammad Ali Jafari utters the soundbyte: "Syria will become a second Vietnam for the U.S." On Aug. 28 hundreds land in Israel in the Final Ethiopian Aliyah, bringing to an end the decades-long effort of the Jewish Agency. On Aug. 28 Syrian ambasssador Bashar Jaafari demands that U.N. weapons inspectors investigate alleged rebel chemical attacks on Aug. 22, 24, and 25 in Jobar, Sahnaya, and al-Bahariya. On Aug. 29 the largest-ever fast-food strike in the U.S. targets 58 cities, with workers demanding $15 an hour. On Aug. 29 Edward Snowden releases a document to the Washington Post exposing the funding of the huge U.S. spy network, which spies on Russia, Cuba, Red China, Iran, and yes, Israel. On Aug. 29 after the Obama admin. reveals its plan to "punish" Syria for using chemical weapons, the British Parliament votes to nix British participation despite PM Gordon Brown's support due to doubts as to who really used them. On Aug. 29 the U.S. Treasury Dept. announces that legally-married same-sex couples must file jointly, and may request refunds back to 2010. On Aug. 29 the U.S. govt. announces that it will no longer stand in the way of states legalizing marijuana as long as they keep it away from children and federal property. On Aug. 29 Saudi Arabia passes its first-ever Domestic Abuse Law. On Aug. 29 an ambush by the Taliban in Farah Province, Afghanistan kills 15 Afghan policemen. On Aug. 30 pro-Morsi anti-military protests in Cairo, Egypt see crowds only in the thousands, sporting a new 4-finger R4BIA symbol. On Aug. 30 Peruvian pres. Ollanta Humala announces a state of emergency in the S Andean region of Puno afer it's hit with the coldest temperatures in a decade, killing 250K alpacas. On Aug. 30 a suicide bomber in a mosque in Kunduz Province, Afghanistan kills 20 incl. district chief Sheikh Sadruddin. On Aug. 30 the first reported U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 20 days kills AQAP cmdr. Kaid al Dhabab and two other fighters. On Aug. 30 Tunisia sentences two rappers to 21 mo. in prison for "insulting the police". On Aug. 30 (Fri.) night Pres. Obama flops on his decision to attack Syria. On Aug. 31 Pres. Obama gives a Speech on Syria in the White House Rose Garden, saying that he's decided and ready to punish Syria with a military action, but calling on Congress to approve it first to abide by the Constitution - smartest move of his career? In Aug. Germany becomes the first country to recognize Bitcoin. In Aug. floods in Pakistan affect 7,693 villages and 1.47M people, destroying 21,133 houses. In Aug. India launches the INS Vikrant, its first home-built aircraft carrier, making it nation #5. In Aug. Sham al-islam is formed in Salma, Syria by Brahim Benchekroune (Abu Ahmad al-Muhajir), spreading to North Africa, with the soundbyte: "We consider democracy to be kufr against God Almighty and a doctrine that is in contradiction to God's Sharia." In Aug. the U.S. unemployment drops to 7.3%, adding 169K jobs. In Aug. Belgium begins buying U.S. Treasury bonds (until ?), buying $215B worth by May 2014, equal to half the country's GDP. On Sept. 1 the Million Muslim March, organized by the Am. Muslim Political Action Committee. On Sept. 1 an IED blast in Boya, North Waziristan kills 9+ soldiers. On Sept. 1 gunmen using U.S. weapons attack Iranian dissident haven Camp Ashraf in Iraq, killing 52; on Oct. 30 a report claims that the Iraqi govt. was complicit; the U.S. govt. denies it. On Sept. 2 militants attack a U.S. base in Torkham, Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, shutting down a supply road while losing three militants. On Sept. 2 Vatican spokesman Monsignor Mario Toso warns that U.S. intervention in Syria could result in a world war. On Sept. 3 a series of car blasts in Shiite neighborhoods in Baghdead, Iraq kills 49+. On Sept. 3 al-Qaida linked terrorists stop a bus en route from Tartus to Ras al-Ain, Syria, beheading all 24 passengers incl. a mother and infant. On Sept. 3 Antioch Patriarch Gregory III says that a U.S. strike on Syria would be "a criminal act which will only reap more victims." On Sept. 3 Sweden announces that it is granting blanket asylum to all Syrian refugees, putting it in line to become the first Muslim country in Europe? On Sept. 3 Pres. Obama meets with Swedish PM Frederik Reinfeldt in Stockholm in the first-ever bilateral meeting between the nations' two top leaders. On Sept. 3 Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad tells a French newspaper: "For us, a strong man prevents rather than starts a war. Obama is weak because he is facing pressure from within the United States." On Sept. 3 Egyptian security forces carry out strikes in the Sinai Peninsula, killing 8+ Islamic militants. On Sept. 3 the World Bank pays the Palestinian Authority $72.2M for continuing support. On Sept. 3 Somali pres. (since 2012) Hassan Sheikh Mohamud survives an assassination attempt in Merca, Somalia. On Sept. 3 the first-ever minaret in Copenhagen, Denmark is built as part of a $26M grant from Qatar to build the biggest mega-mosque in Scandinavia. On Sept. 3 U.S. Vice Adm. Tim Giardina, 2nd highest nuclear weapons cmdr. in the U.S. military is fired for transferring nukes in S.C. without a paper trail; on Oct. 11 the USAF announces that Maj. Gen. Michael Carey, also in charge of nuclear weapons is suspended for personal misbehavior, causing a scandal, with conspiracy theorists warning of a possible false flag attack. On Sept. 4 Jabhat al-Nusra and other Islamists briefly capture the historic Aramaic-speaking Christian town of Ma'loula, Syria. On Sept. 4 after being appointed by Pres. Obama in June, and confirmed by the Senate on July 29, 6'8" former U.S. deputy atty. gen. (2003-5) James Brien "Jim" Comey Jr. (1960-) becomes FBI dir. #7 (until May 9, 2017). On Sept. 4 at the G-20 Summit Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that not he but "the world set a red line" on Syria's actions, adding "My credibility's not on the line. The international community's credibility is on the line, and America and Congress' credibility is on the line"; Russia hands out bugged goodie bags? On Sept. 4 Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (1945-) becomes pres. of Mali (until ?). On Sept. 4 Syrian deputy foreign minister Faisal Muqdad says that Syria is ready for a U.S. military strike and has taken "every measure" to retaliate, and "The Syrian government will not change position even if there is World War III." On Sept. 4 Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai issues the soundbyte that the Taliban defames Islam by killing Muslim scholars and damaging mosques; on Sept. 5 (a.m.) the Shiite Shia Dashte Barche Mosque in W Kabul is attacked by Taliban fighters wearing police uniforms. On Sept. 5 an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Egyptian interior minister Mohammed Ibrahim in Cairo becomes the first since Morsi was toppled in July; on Sept. 8 Ansar Jerusalem (Ansar Bayt al Maqdis) takes credit. On Sept. 5 elections in Australia are a V for the anti-immigration Liberal-National Party coalition over the Labor Party for the first time in six years. On Sept. 5-6 the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg sees Pres. Obama and Pres. Putin spar on Syria; meanwhile Pope Frances utters the soundbyte that the G20 leaders should abandon the "futile pursuit" of a military solution in Syria. On Sept. 6 a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan, Pakistan kills four suspected Haqqani Network fighters incl. cmdr. Mullah Sangeen Zadran, shadow gov. of Paktika Province. On Sept. 6 Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani surprises Israel by offering Rosh Hashanah greetings to all Jews, followed by foreign minister Javad Zarif tweeting that he "never denied" the Holocaust, and "The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone." On Sept. 6 (11:27 p.m. EDT) (03:27 GMT) NASA launches its LADEE Moon probe; a few hours later its reaction wheels shut down, which is corrected on Sept. 7. On Sept. 7 militants detonate a car bomb and suicide bomber at The Village restaurant in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing 15+ and wounding 20+. On Sept. 7 a U.S. Congressional panel posts Syria attack videos online showing gross scenes of suffering from the Aug. 21 attack outside Damascus. On Sept. 8 the biggest offensive by the Egyptian army in the Sinai Peninsula since the 1973 Yom Kippur War begins against Islamist terrorists (ends ?). On Sept. 8 Anthony John "Tony" Abbott (1957-) of the conservative Liberal Party is elected PM #28 of Australia, taking office on Sept. 18 (until Sept. 15, 2015). On Sept. 8 the Internat. Olympics Committee (IOC) selects Tokyo to host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, passing over Turkey. On Sept. 8 the Taliban stages a car bomb and gun attack outside an Afghan intel office in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing four soldiers and wounding 80; meanwhile Afghan officials accuse NATO of killing civilians in an airstrike in E Afghanistan that kills 10+. On Sept. 8 Bangladesh charges four bloggers with defaming Islam, facing up to seven years in jail each. On Sept. 9 elections in Norway are a V for the Conservative Party of Erna Solberg over the incumbent Labour Party of PM Jens Stoltenberg. On Sept. 9 Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad gives an interview to Charlie Rose of CBS-TV, saying that there is no evidence that his regime used chemical weapons on his own people, and that if the U.S. attacks, it and its allies should "expect every action" in response, adding "Not necessarily from the government"; meanwhile secy. of state John Kerry utters the soundbyte that Assad can resolve the crisis by turning "every single bit" of his chemical weapons arsenal over to the internat. community by the end of the week, which becomes a plot-twister when it is welcomed by Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem, and accepted after negotiations with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov; the idea was originated by Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski. On Sept. 9 Hindu-Muslim violence in Muazaffarnagar, India kills 28+. On Sept. 9 (early a.m.) 300 Muslim rebels take Zamboanga, Philippines, killing nine, and hold it against police and military until ?; on Sept. 20 Philippine pres. Benigno Aquino III issues an ultimatum to the rebels to surrender or else. On Sept. 9 the 1000-year 2013 Colo. Front Range Flood begin with heavy rain along the Colo. Front Range in 17 counties from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins, giving Boulder County 17 in. of rain by Sept. 15 (vs. the avg. annual precipitation of 20.7 in.), causing Colo. Gov. John Hickenlooper to declare a disaster emergency in 14 counties on Sept. 12, expanded to 14 on Sept. 15; the flood kills eight and causes 11K evacuations, with 19K homes damaged and 1.5K destroyed, along with 30 state highway bridges. On Sept. 10 the Philippine army blocks the Moro Nat. Liberation Front (MNLF) from entering the city of Zamboanga, Philippines, killing 8+ and taking 20 hostages. On Sept. 10 Quebec releases a proposed Charter of Quebec Values to ban govt. workers from wearing "overt and conspicuous" religious symbols, and require the public to uncover their faces when dealing with the govt. On Sept. 10 the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade announces that it will resume terrorist attacks on Israelis starting on Sept. 13 because of Jewish visits to the Temple Mount. On Sept. 11 (9/11) (a.m.) an explosion at the Libyan Foreign Ministry in Benghazi. On Sept. 11 al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri sends an audio message calling for more strikes on U.S. soil to "bleed" America's finances. On Sept. 11 (9/11) 1M-2M bikers roll through Washington, D.C., while the announced Million Muslim March fizzles, with less than a dozen Muslims showing up. On Sept. 12 (11?) Am.-born Islamist terrorist Omar Hammami is murdered by his rivals in Al-Shabaab in Somalia. On Sept. 12 (a.m.) 104 women incl. 20+ illegal aliens are arrested on Capitol Hill while protesting for amnesty and immigration reform. On Sept. 12 Calif. passes a law approving driver's licenses for illegal aliens. On Sept. 12 liar thug ex-KGB Russian pres. Vladimir Putin pub. an op-ed in the New York Times, claiming that the rebels not Assad's regime set off the chemical weapons, and dissing Pres. Obama for saying that the U.S. is exceptional, claiming that it's dangerous to think so. On Sept. 12 (night) gunmen attack a NATO oil tanker convoy in Soorab, Kalat, Pakistan, killing a driver and torching eight vehicles. On Sept. 13 (a.m.) a bomb at the U.S. consulate in Herat, Afghanistan kills three and injures 10. On Sept. 13 (a.m.) a fire at a psychiatric hospital N of Moscow, Russia kills 37. On Sept. 13 230km-wide Asteroid 324 Bamberga flies by Earth. On Sept. 13 Pakistani sen. Mushahid Hussain Sayed announces that the U.S. and NATO will keep 20K troops in Afghanistan in nine bases. On Sept. 13 Central African Repub. (CAR) pres. Michel Djotodia announces the "dissolution" of the 25K-man Islamist Seleka rebel coalition that put him in power on Mar. 24; when they won't dissolve, he calls them bandits, raping the countryside and engaging in selective attacks on Christians. On Sept. 13 Obabiyi Aishah Ajibola is crowned the first Muslimah World (Muslim alternative to Miss World) in Jakarta, Indonesia. On Sept. 14 the U.S. and Russia reach a deal on Syria to force it to account for and destroy its chemical weapons by July 2014 after allowing internat. inspectors in by Nov., leaving open the possibility of U.N. sanctions on military action for violations. On Sept. 14 militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) capture an air defense base in Hama, Syria. On Sept. 14 Muslims lay the foundation for the first mosque in Slovenia. On Sept. 15 the Pakistani Taliban assassinate Pakistani maj. gen. Sanaullah Niaza and two soldiers in Dir. On Sept. 15 9+ NATO fuel tankers headed for Afghanistan are destroyed by a blast in Quetta, Pakistan. On Sept. 15 Nina Davuluri (1989-) of N.Y. becomes the first Miss America of Indian descent, spurring a racist backlash against "Miss Al-Qaida"; she becomes the first contestant to perform a Bollywood dance routine. On Sept. 16 (8:16 a.m.) the Washington Navy Yard Shooting sees 34-y.-o. African-Am. Navy reservist (Buddhist) Aaron Alexis (b. 1979) of Ft. Worth, Tex. enter the Naval Yard in Washington, D.C. near the White House and shoot and kill 12 employees and injure three with a Remington 870 12-gauge shotgun before being killed, becoming the 2nd deadliest mass murder on a U.S. military base after the 2009 Fort Hood Shooting. On Sept. 16 a suicide car bomber at a police station in Chechnya kills three police and injures five. On Sept. 16 Iranian vice-pres. Ali Akbar Salehi addresses the opening session of the 57th Gen. Conference of the IAEA in Vienna, issuing the soundbyte that Iran now wants to cooperate more closely. On Sept. 16 U.N. inspectors release their Report on the Alleged Use of Chemical Weapons in the Ghouta Rea of Damascus on Aug. 21, 2103, concluding that sarin gas was used, but not fingering either side conclusively; on Sept. 19 Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov pooh-poohs the report, and claims that Assad has given them evidence that the rebels did it; on Sept. 20 a video of the rebel al-Reeh al-Sarsar Brigade doing it emerges. On Sept. 16 Pres. Obama waives a ban on arming terrorists to allow aid to Syrian rebels, who are mainly Islamist jihadists. On Sept. 16 Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani addresses a nat. gathering of Rev. Guard cmdrs., issuing the soundbyte: "You, the uninvited guest in our region, leave the region and then you will see that it becomes heaven", accusing the West of hatching plots incl. the Syrian civil war, and "has plans for the whole region". On Sept. 16 after their permits are ruled invalid, Israeli authorities demolish Bedouin homes in Khirbet al-Mahkhul, then maltreat French diplomat Marion Fesneau-Catain, causing an internat. incident. On Sept. 16 the supernatural drama series Sleepy Hollow debuts on Fox Network, based on the short stories of Washington Irving, set in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., starring Surrey, England-born Thomas James "Tom" Mison (1982-) as the resurrected Capt. Ichabod Crane, who chases the resurrected Headless Horseman Abraham Van Brunt. On Sept. 16-20 the Workshop on Human Space Technology is organized by the China Manned Space Agency and U.N. Office for Outer Space Affairs. On Sept. 17 a suspected bomb maker is killed in Antananarivo, Madagascar when his bomb blows up prematurely. On Sept. 17 a court in Novorossiysk, Russia rules that (a trans. of) the Quran is hate literature, and orders it placed on the federal extremist materials list, pissing-off Russian Islamist clerics, who warn of unrest if they don't reverse da decision. On Sept. 17 the action comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine debuts on Fox Network for ? episodes (until ?), about the 99th Precinct of the NYPD in Brooklyn, starring has-to-be-black Andre K. Braugher (1962-) as Capt. Raymond "Ray" Holt, Andrew "Andy" Samberg (1978-) as Det. Jacob "Jake" Peralta, Terry Alan Crews Jr. (1968-) as Sgt. Terry Jeffords, and Dennis Dirk Blocker (1957-) (son of Dan Blocker) as Det. Michael Hitchcock. On Sept. 18 (8:45 a.m.) two Taliban motorcycle gunmen kill senior Afghan election official Mohammad Amanullah then brag about it on Twitter. On Sept. 18 seven illegal aliens handcuff themselves to the White House to protest lack of legal status and call for an end to deportations. On Sept. 18 for a 2nd time the U.S. House of Reps. overwhelmingly (402-22) passes legislation to establish a special envoy on the Middle East to focus on religious minorities incl. Christians; too bad, Pres. Obama opposes it; the first vote in 2011 was passed by 402-20. On Sept. 18 a madass Muslim repeatedly stabs firefighter Dominic Parker (b. 1968) in the head at a cafe in Toronto, Canada, killing him. On Sept. 18 the Internat. News pub. an article claiming that in the past 18 mo. the Taliban has collected at least 650M rupees in ransoms from kidnapping businessmen in Islamabad and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. On Sept. 18-19 Hurricane Manuel hits NW Mexico, killing 80+. On Sept. 19 al-Qaida Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants capture the strategic Oncupinar border crossing between N Syria and Turkey after pushing moderate rebels out of Azaz; meanwhile a truce is reached between ISIS and the Syrian Nat. Coalition, who says that the push for an Islamist state undermines their struggle for a free Syria. On Sept. 19 after a rally by thousands of pro-Mori supporters shouting "Down with Sisi", the Egyptian army retakes Islamist-held Kerdassa, Egypt, killing 55 and losing Egyptian police gen. Nabil Farag (Nabeel Farrag). On Sept. 19 a Tex. appeals court overturns the money laundering conviction of former House Majority leader Tom DeLay, cancelled his 3-year sentence. On Sept. 19 Iran releases two dozen+ political prisoners incl. human rights atty. Nasrin Sotoudeh, but fails to release Am. pastor Saeed Abedini. On Sept. 19 (17:25 GMT) a 5.3 earthquake near the Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan. On Sept. 19 the Repub.-controlled U.S. House votes by 217-210 to cut food stamps (SNAP) by $40B over 10 years starting in 2014. announce a push for tough new requirements for coal-fired power plants to stave off alleged global warming, although environmentalists admit that even if they were all shut down, global CO2 would only be reduced by 0.2%. On Sept. 19 Pres. Obama's buddies at the Hamas-connected Council of Am.-Islamic Relations (CAIR) pub. Same Hate, Same Target, claiming that anybody critical of Islam is a bigoted "Islamophobe"; on Sept. 20 U.S. Inspector Gen. Michael Horowitz reveals that the FBI has been engaging in outreach activity with CAIR despite a 2008 policy banning it, causing U.S. Rep. (R-Va.) Frank Wolf to demand that the agents be punished; meanwhile on Sept. 19 prominent blogger Pamela Geller pub. an article revealing that 501c(3) nonprofit CAIR failed to file required Form 990s for three consecutive years. On Sept. 19 Tunisian interior minister Lofti Bin Jeddo utters the soundyte that Tunisian girls on "sex jihad" had returned after being sexually "swapped between 20, 30, and 100 rebels and they come back bearing the fruit of sexual contacts in the name of sexual jihad and we are silent doing nothing and standing idle." On Sept. 19 Pope Francis utters the soundbyte that the Church has become "obsessed" with gays, abortion, and contraception to the detriment of its basic mission to be a "home for all", and that the Church can share its views but should not "interfere spiritually" with fags and dikes, er, gays and lesbians. On Sept. 20 al-Qaida militants kill 56 soldiers and policemen in two attacks at al-Nashama and Maifaa in S Yemen. On Sept. 20 clashes between anti-Indian protesters and govt. forces in Srinagar, Kashmir injure 7+. On Sept. 20 Taliban fighters ambush Afghan policemen in Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan, killing 20+. On Sept. 20 the Repub.-dominated U.S. House votes to defund Obamacare, attaching it to a bill to keep the govt. in operation, knowing that when it's rejected by the Senate the federal govt. could shut down. On Sept. 20 the Obama admin. announces a policy change that limits access to the Gitmo military commission hearings to five leftist orgs. only, kicking out right-of-center Judicial Watch. On Sept. 20 an IAEA resolution backed by the Arab League and Iran criticizing Israel for its nuclear arsenal is defeated 43-51-32; meanwhile a draft resolution submitted by Egypt passes, calling for all Middle East countries to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty et al.; meanwhile Israeli strategic affairs minister Yuval Steinitz utters the soundbyte "There is no more time to hold negotiations" with Iran over its nukes, adding "If the iranians continue to run, in another half a year they will have a bomb capability", and Benjamin Netanyahu's office issues the soundbyte "One must not be fooled by the Iranian president's fraudulent words. The Iranians are spinning in the media so that the centrifuges can keep on spinning." On Sept. 20 Abdel hameed Shehadeh (1990-) is sentenced by a federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y. to 13 years for lying to the FBI about plans to team up with the Taliban or al-Qaida. On Sept. 20 Pakistan passes amendments containing sweeping changes to its antiterrorism laws, incl. empowering security forces to hold suspects for 90 days without court approval, and the creation of new antiterrorism courts. On Sept. 20 Canada revokes the charitable status of the Islamic Society of North Am. for giving $280K to an org. linked to terrorism in Pakistan. On Sept. 20 42-y.-o. Palestinian Nidal Amar lures and kidnaps Israeli soldier Sgt. Tomer hazan (b. 1993) in Beit Amin (near Qalqiliya), West Bank, then murders him. On Sept. 20 Spiegel Online reports that Iran pres. Hassan Rouhani is prepared to dismantle the Fordo Nuclear Plant to pacify the West. On Sept. 20 Norwegian Progress Party leader Christian Tybring-Gjedde makes news for refusing to renounce the phrae "creeping Islamization", first used by party leader Siv Jensen in 2009. On Sept. 21 (noon) after telling Muslims that they can leave unharmed, 15 Al-Shabaab gunmen attack the upscale Westgate Shopping Center in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 68 incl. six soldiers and 62 civilians incl. 31 Americans and three Brits, and injuring 250+ in a standoff with the army that ends on Sept. 24; on Sept. 23 British PM David Cameron utters the soundbyte: "These appalling terrorist attacks that take place, where the perpetrators claim they do it in the name of a religion - they don't. They do it in the name of terror, violence and extremism and their warped view of the world"; rumors spread that it is led by 7/7 fugitive British "White Widow" Samantha Lewthwaite (who rented a house near the mall), and incl. British Muslims Liban Adam and Ahmed Nasir Shirdoon, along with Am. Muslims from Ill., Maine, Ariz., Minn., and Kan.; victims are slaughtered if they can't prove they're Muslim; non-Muslims suffer horrific torture; the last jihadist sets fire to the bodies of his comrades to stop identification; Nigerian pres. Uhuru Kenyatta's nephew is killed; al-Shabaab uses Twitter to broadcast the entire event blow-by-blow; on Sept. 27 Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abi Mohamed Godane utters the soundbyte that there will be an "abundance of blood" until Kenyan troops leave Somalia; an Al-Shabaab Operations Manual discovered in 2011 on the body of dead al-Qaida cmdr. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed in Mogadishu lists targets incl. shopping malls in the London suburbs of Golders Green and Stamford Hill. On Sept. 21 two suicide bomber at two Shiite funerals in Baghdad, Iraq kill 92+. On Sept. 21 an Afghan soldier stages a green-on-blue attack in Paktia Province, Afghanistan, killing three ISAF special forces troops. On Sept. 21 Afghan Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is released from jail in Pakistan to negotiate a peace deal with the Afghan govt. On Sept. 21 billionaire George Soros (b. 1930) marries health care consultant Tamiko Bolton (1971-), his 3rd marriage. On Sept. 22 (Sun.) Bundestag elections in Germany are a V for the conservative bloc of pres. Angela Merkel, with 41%; Cemile Giousouf (1988-) (daughter of Turkish immigrants) becomes the first Muslim German MP (until ?); Senegal-born Karamba Diaby (1962-) becomes the first black German MP (until ?). On Sept. 22 a suicide attack on the historic All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan during a Sun. service attended by 600 kills 75+ and injures 100+. On Sept. 22 U.S. drones kill seven militants in North Waziristan, Pakistan, #2 this mo. On Sept. 22 Israeli Sgt. Gabriel Koby (b. 1993) is killed by a sniper in Hebron, causing Israel to permit the immediate resettlement of the nearby Beit Hamachpela (House of the Patriarchs) near the Cave of the Patriarchs. On Sept. 22 voters in the Italian-speaking region of Ticino, Switzerland ban full-face veils, pissing-off the Muslim community and Amnesty Internat. On Sept. 22 the crime drama series The Blacklist debuts on NBC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), starring James Todd Spader (1960-) as Raymond "Red" Reddington, "the Concierge of Crime", a U.S. Navy officer turned high-profile criminal, who surrenders to the FBI after eluding capture for decades, and barters a list of the world's most dangerous criminals for immunity on the condition he work with rookie FBI profiler Elizabeth Keen, played by Megan Boone (1983-); "Never trust a criminal... until you have to." On Sept. 23 an Egyptian court bans the Muslim Brotherhood and orders it assets confiscated; it moves its HQ to London; meanwhile the Islamic Council Alliance is formed to replace it. On Sept. 23 Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard, and Alcoa are dropped, and Goldman Sachs, Visa, and Nike are added to the 30-stock Dow Jones Industrial Avg. On Sept. 24 Pres. Obama gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, focusing on the Middle East, defining the Obama Doctrine of avoiding long entanglements and nation-building equally with isolationism, with the soundbytes: "The United States has a hard-earned humility when it comes to our ability to determine events inside other countries", and "I believe America must remain engaged for our own security. I believe the world is better for it. Some may disagree, but I believe that America is exceptional, in part because we have shown a willingness, through the sacrifice of blood and treasure, to stand up not only for our own narrow self-interest, but for the interests of all", saying that "There must be a strong Security Council resolution to verify that the Assad regime is keeping its commitments", and saying that the U.S. doesn't seek regime change in Iran, and leaving the door open for nuclear talks, with the soundbyte "I firmly believe the diplomatic path must be tested"; he adds that Israel security depends on a Palestinian state, and claims "a growing recognition within Israel that the occupation of the West Bank is tearing at the democratic fabric of the Jewish state", causing Israeli minister Yisrael Katz to utter the soundbyte: "I believe this is one of the most disturbing statements that a United States president has ever made"; later, after snubbing a meeting invitation from Obama, Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, denying that Iran ever sought to develop nukes, and dissing the "warmongers", with the soundbyte "Iran poses absolutely no threat to the world or the region"; Israel boycotts it, with PM Benjamin Netanyahu uttering the soundbyte that the speech is "cynical", and he's just stalling for time to build nukes; British foreign minister William Hague meets with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, thawing two years of ice. On Sept. 25 a dinner party with Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani is attended by Louis Farrakhan at the One UN Hotel in New York City. On Sept. 24 U.S. Sen. (R-Tex.) (2013-) Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (1970-) begins a filibuster against Obamacare (Affordable Care Act), promising to keep speaking "until I am no longer able to stand"; he lasts 22 hours; on Sept. 27 the Senate by 79-19 incl. 25 Repubs. passes a spending bill with full funding for Obamacare; on Sept. 29 the House passes a bill keeping the govt. funded but delaying Obamacare one year; on Sept 30 the Senate votes 54-46 tables all proposals, holding firm to their demand to fund Obamacare. On Sept. 24 Brazilian pres. Dilma Rousseff gives a speech at the U.N. Gen. Assembly which breaks U.N. protocol to blast the U.S. for spying on Brazilian interests, as revealed by Am. journalist Glenn Greenwald (1967-). On Sept. 24 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stages a suicide attack in Haditha, Iraq, killing nine policemen. On Sept. 24 Boko Haram gunmen attack travellers on the Maiduguri-Damaturu road near Benisheik, Borno, Nigeria, killing 161. On Sept. 24 (4:29 p.m.) (11:29 GMT) a 7.8 earthquake off the coast of Pakistan creates a new island off Gwadar. On Sept. 25 the main Syrian rebel factions reject the authority of the Western-backed Syrian Nat. Council and Free Syria Army, demanding a Sharia state. On Sept. 25 a grenade attack at a market in North Eastern Province, Kenya kills one and injures four. On Sept. 25 despite opposition by the NRA et al., U.S. secy. of state John Kerry signs the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. On Sept. 25 the Chinese Communist Global Times newspaper announces that China has the military capability to strike anywhere in the W Pacific incl. Japan, SE Asia, and Australia. On Sept. 25-30 a reunion of 100 people from South Korea and 100 from North Korea is held at a North Korean mountain resort. On Sept. 26 (early a.m.) Islamic militants burn a Christian church in Dorawa, Nigeria, killing the pastor and his son. On Sept. 26 (a.m.) a twin suicide attack by three Pakistan-based LeT militants in Jammu and Kashmir kills 10 incl. an army officer. On Sept. 26 militants attack police and govt. bldgs. in N Iraq, killing 33. On Sept. 26 an Afghan soldier in Paktia, E Afghanistan fires on his NATO trainers, killing one and injuring several. On Sept. 26 two explosions on a busy street in Sana'a, Yemen injure 20. On Sept. 26 the U.N. Security's five permanent members agree on the core elements of a resolution requiring Syria to give up its chemical weapons, but the U.S. and Russia disagree on details, keeping it from being finalized until Sept. 27; meanwhile on Sept. 26 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry meets with Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, becoming the highest level organized meeting between the U.S. and Iran since 1979. On Sept. 26 an attack by Saudi-backed Salafists in Saravan, Iran kills 14 Iranian border guards and injures five. On Sept. 26 Turkish EU affairs minister Egemen Bagis utters the soundbyte that Turkey is unlikely to ever become a member of the EU, but might enter into a Norwegian-type relationship with it. On Sept. 26 the city council of Reykjavik, Iceland approves a permit for the first mosque in Iceland. On Sept. 27 Palestinian riots erupt in the West Bank, Gaza Strip border, and Jerusalem on the 13th anniv. of the Second Intifada. On Sept. 27 after Hillary Clinton's policy adviser Jake Sullivan arranges it, Pres. Obama speaks on the phone with Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani, becoming the first pres.-to-pres. communication since 1979; they agree to pursue a deal on Iran's nukes - leading directly to WWIII? George Soros is behind it? On Sept. 27 Pres. Obama declares the month of Nov. Nat. Muslim Appreciation Month, with the soundbyte: "The Muslim community deserves our full acceptance and respect. We have killed millions of Muslims overseas since the September 11th attacks. They are not all bad. In fact most of them are good. So from now on, November will be a month to celebrate the Muslim community, the Sunnah and the Quran"; the traitor, er, chief executive then announces that he will be pushing Congress to make it easier for Muslims to get a green card and earn citizenship, with the soundbyte: "There are too many background checks in place and I plan to fix that." On Sept. 27 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry and Turkish secy. of state Ahmet Davutoglu announce the establishment of the Global Fund for Community Engagement and Resilience, funded by $200M over 10 years to combat violent Muslim extremism by undercutting its ideological and recruiting appeal - that's the biggest load of crap I ever saw? On Sept. 27 Bolivian pres. Evo Morales gives a speech at the U.N. Gen. Assembly, calling for the U.N. to be moved out of the U.S., and calling Pres. Obama a war criminal who should face an internat. trial; "They arranged for the president to be killed, and they usurped Libya's oil." On Sept. 27 the U.N. Human Rights Council adopts a Resolution to End Child Marriage, which is co-sponsored by 107 countries; India refuses; it also overwhelmingly adopts a resolution banning intimidation and reprisals against individuals who cooperate with U.N. human rights mechanisms; too bad, on Dec. 18 it suspends it. On Sept. 27 a poll finds that 6 in 10 U.S. Hispanics feel closer to the Dem. Party than in the past, while only 3 in 10 feel closer to the Repub. Party; 48% have negative associates about the Repubs. vs. only 22% about the Dems. On Sept. 27 MasterChef Junior debuts on Fox-TV (until ?), starring chef-judges Gordon Ramsay (1966-), Joe Bastianich (1968-), and Chicago, Ill.-based Graham Elliot (Bowles) (1977-), who loves to wear square white eyeglasses. On Sept. 27-29 the Eastern Christians in Light of the Arab Spring Conference in Amman, Jordan, attended by 50+ bemoans their persecution by Muslims. On Sept. 28 explosions in outdoor markets in and around Baghdead, Iraq kill 23+. On Sept. 28 a shoe is thrown at the car of Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani by 60 hardliners as he arrives in Tehran from his U.N. trip; another 200-300 shout "Thank you, Rouhani." On Sept. 28 Malaysian PM Najib Tun Razak gives a speech at the U.N. Gen. Assembly, warning that Islamic violence is tearing the Muslim World apart, with the soundbyte: "I believe the greatest threat to Muslims today comes not from the outside world, but from within." On Sept. 29 (1 a.m.) Boko Haram militants murder 65 sleeping Yobe State Agriculture College students in Gujba, Nigeria. On Sept. 29 Turkish chief justice Hasim Kilic gives a speech at Alparslan U., pointing to violence in Muslim countries, with the soundbyte: "If this is what it means to be a Muslim, then I am no Muslim." On Sept. 29 the Al Nushrah Front and the Free Syrian Army take the Daraa Border Crossing to Jordan. On Sept. 29 a suicide attack in Erbil, Kurdistan kills 62 policemen and injures 42, plus 20 civilians, becoming the first suicide attack in Kurdistan in six years. On Sept. 29 a car bomb on a crowded street in the oldest bazaar in Peshawar, Pakistan kills 40 and injures 90. On Sept. 29 a Syrian air strike on a school in rebel-held Raqqa, Syria kills 16+, mostly students. On Sept. 29 Syrian foreign minister Walid Moallem rejects negotiations with the U.S.-based Nat. Coalition of Syrian Opposition and Rev. Forces, and utters the soundbyte "There is no civil war in Syria", calling it a fight against terrorism; meanwhile its spokesman Khalid Saleh announces that it is preparing for the Geneva II Conference on Syria, and will provide support for U.N. teams destroying Syria's chemical weapons; meanwhile 43 rebel groups in Syria form the Army of Islam, rivaling the Free Syrian Army. On Sept. 29 Iran passes a law permitting men to marry their adopted daughters as young as 13 y.o. On Sept. 29 Yunka Mihura (20) and Joana Palhares (18) are arrested in Sao Sebastiao, Brazil for kissing during an evangelical event. On Sept. 29 Michelle Ashford's period drama series Masters of Sex debuts on Showtime for ? episodes (until )?, based on the 2009 book by Thomas Maier, starring Michael Christopher Sheen (1969-) as Dr. William Mastur, er, Masters, and Elizabeth Anne "Lizzy" Caplan (1982-) as Virginia Johnson. On Sept. 29-30 the U.S. stages two drone strikes in North Waziristan, Pakistan, pissing-off the Pakistani govt. On Sept. 30 Miami Beach, Fla.-born Ronald "Ron" Dermer (1971-) succeeds Michael B. Oren as Israeli ambassador to the U.S. #18 (until ?). On Sept. 30 a wave of bombings in Shiite neighborhoods in Baghead, Iraq kill 51+ and injures dozens. On Sept. 30 AQAP fighters dressed in govt. uniforms capture a military base in Mukallah, Yemen in Hadramout Province. On Sept. 30 a series of bombings in Irbil, Kurdistan kills six. On Sept. 30 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erodgan gives a speech announcing that the ban on wearing the hijab in state institutions will be ended. On Sept. 30 the Vatican announces the decision to canonize Popes John XIII and John Paul II next Apr. 27. On Sept. 30 6-y.-o. Lulu becomes the first transgender child in Argentina to have her name officially changed under the May 2012 Gender Identity Law. On Sept. 30 the 2013 Fiscal Year U.S. Budget Deficit is $680.276B vs. $1.089193T in 2012, $1.296791T in 2011, $1.294204T in 2010, and $1.415724T in 2009; in 2008 when Bush was pres. it was $454.798B. In Sept. the anti-Western Al-Tahaluf al-Islami (Islamic Alliance/Coalition) incl. Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham is formed in Aleppo, Syria to oppose pro-West Syrian rebel groups. In Sept. the 58km Kirkuk Trench in Iraq is begun to defend it from terrorist attacks. In Sept. the U.S. unemployment rate falls to 7.2%, lowest since Pres. Obama was elected in Nov. 2008, adding 148K jobs; too bad, a record 90.6M adult Americans are not in the labor force anymore. In Sept. the first commercial hemp crop in almost 60 years is harvested in Colo. In Sept. 39.9K of the new hires in the U.S. tech industry since Jan. are women, outnumbering men for the first time ever. On Oct. 1 after Congressional deadlock over funding Obamacare, the U.S. begins a partial shutdown, incl. the Statue of Liberty; a group of WWII vets storm the WWII Memorial in the Washington, D.C. Mall after they find it barricaded; meanwhile Obamacare itself begins. On Oct. 1 a mortar shell lands near the Chinese embassy in Damascus, Syria, injuring one, pissing-off the Chinese govt. On Oct. 1 Syrian Muslim rebels attack the historic Chrisian town of Sednaya, Syria N of Damascus. On Oct. 1 Washington, D.C. mayor Vincent C. Gary issues a proclamation declaring Oct. as America's Islamic Heritage Month. On Oct. 1 an agreement is signed to officially recognize Islam in Lower Saxony, Germny. On Oct. 1 a U.N. Report on the Libyan Brigades details widespread torture of jailed Libyans. On Oct. 2 (dawn) the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) begins a battle in Bab al-Salam on the Turkish border against Syria's Northern Storm Brigade in order to solidify its own border from Raqqa. On Oct. 2 the 45th anniv. of the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre in Mexico City, Mexico sees demonstrators clash with police, injuring 40. On Oct. 2 the Obama admin. begins a disengagement from Syria, cutting off non-lethal aid to the Syrian rebels; meanwhile al-Qaida blocks the receipt of any aid in N Syria. On Oct. 2 the $15M Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard U. opens, headed by Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. On Oct. 2 gunman attack the Russian embassy in Tripoli, Libya; no injuries. On Oct. 3 a rickety trawler carrying 500+ African migrants is set afire when they pour gasoline on a blanket and light it as a signal, then capsizes 1/4-mi. off Sicily, killing 111+; on Sept. 8 senior EU official Cecilia Malmstrom calls for expanded patrols of Mediterranean waters to prevent such disasters. On Oct. 3 (Day 3 of the govt. shutdown) Conn. black woman Miriam Carey (b. 1979), allegedly with mental problems goes beserk in her black Infiniti on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., charging DC authorities and ending up gunned down and killed; she had an 18-mo.-o. infant in her back seat; it is Obama's love child? On Oct. 3 Iranian cyberwarfare program head Mojtaba Ahmadi is assassinated in Tehran. On Oct. 3 Hamid Karzai's buddy Ustad Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf (1946-), who brought al-Qaida to Afghanistan announces his candidacy for the Afghan presidency. On Oct. 3 (German Unity Day) 100K participate in an open house in mosques in Germany, while politicians call for more of the 4M Muslims (mainly from Turkey) to have the vote. On Oct. 3 the U.N. Gen. Assembly elects Iran to a senior seat on the U.N. nuclear disarmament committee as rapporteur, causing Israel to strenuously object. On Oct. 3 Pres. Obama holds a press conference to announce that he's using his private funds to open the federally-funded Internat. Museum of Muslim Cultures during the govt. shutdown. :) On Oct. 3 former Detroit, Mich. mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is sentenced to 28 yearsin prison for "astonishing... devastating" corruption. On Oct. 3 Abdirisak Aden and Mahamed Hasan win a religious discrimination case in Bedford, becoming the first religious discrimination case won by Muslims in England. On Oct. 4 Turkish pres. Abdullah Gul issues a warning to the Muslim World, saying they face the possibility of returning to the darkness of the Euro Middle Ages because of sectarian violence. On Oct. 4 mentally-ill N.J. man John Constantino (1949-) sets himself on fire with gasoline on the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C., and is put out by the crowd before being airlifted to MedStar Washington HospitalCenter, where he dies hours later. On Oct. 4 the Times of Israel reports that Beith Shalom Synagogue in Surabaya, Java, last Jewish synagogue in Indonesia was destroyed early in the year; it was sealed in 2009 after anti-Israel protests by hardline Muslims; only 20 Jews remain in Indonesia, world's largest Muslim nation. On Oct. 4 Chinese state media announce that the govt. employs 2M people to monitor microblogs. On Oct. 5 the Day of Dignity and Respect features 150+ protests in 40 states by millions, er, 50K to pressure Congress into passing Obama's immigration reform legislation; too bad, the federal govt. shutdown upstages them. On Oct. 5 thousands protest in the streets of Tehran, Iran, shouting "Death to Israel and America", smudging the shine of Hassan Rouhani's charm mission. On Oct. 5 Georgia and Moldova sign a pledge of cooperation in their Euro integration process; meanwhile outgoing Georgian pres. Mikheil Saakashvili is reelected as chmn. of the United Nat. Movement at its congress in Tbilisi. On Oct. 5 a U.S. Navy SEAL team attacks an Al-Shabaab stronghold in Barawe, Somalia, killing leader Abu Zubeyr (Ahmed Abdi Godane). On Oct. 5 the Zamzam Initiative is launched by moderate Muslim Brotherhood members in Jordan "to renew the Islamic discourse and present Islam as a cultural framework that encompasses the nation while emphasizing religious, sectarian, political and racial pluralism"; Muslim Brotherhood brass boycotts it. On Oct. 5 a contract security guard in S Afghanistan kills a senior ISAF member in a green-on-blue attack. On Oct. 5 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that Iran is still "a year or more away" from building a nuke. On Oct. 5 Irish voters reject a proposal to abolish the senate despite backing by PM Enda Kenny. On Oct. 5 (early a.m.) U.S. forces raid Baraawe, Somalia looking for al-Qaida leader Abdikadir Mohamed Abdikadir, but fail to capture him; in Tripoli, Libya they capture al-Qaida leader Anas al-Libi (Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai), known for his role in the 1998 Tanzanian and Kenyan U.S. embassy attacks, with a $5M bounty on his head, then questioning aboard USS San Antonio, causing U.S. secy. of state John Kerry on Oct. 6 to utter the soundbyte that al-Qaida "can run, but can't hide"; meanwhile pissed-off Libya demands his return, causing U.S. officials to claim that it authorized the raids. On Oct. 5 Calif. gov. Jerry Brown signs the Calif. Trust Act, prohibiting illegal aliens from being turned over to ICE authorities for possibile deportation unless they have been charged and/or convicted of a serious offense; on Oct. 7 he vetoes a bill that would make Calif. the first state to allow illegal aliens to serve on juries, saying that the responsibility should come only with citizenship; altogether he signs eight immigration reform bills incl. one permitting illegal aliens to get a law license. On Oct. 5 (night) a 9-y.-o. Israeli girl is shot in the neck and seriously injured by a Palestinian terrorist in Benyamin, Israel. On Oct. 6 (Sun.) two suicide bombers in N Iraq at a police station and primary school kill 15 incl. children; another blast in the Turkmen Shiite village of Qabat near the Syrian border injures 44. On Oct. 6 mortar fire in the Qassaa Christian neighborhood of Damascus, Syria kills eight and injures 24. On Oct. 6 a Taliban suicide attack in Zhari District, Kandahar, Afghanistan kills four U.S. soliders. On Oct. 6 (40th anniv. of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War) clashes in Cairo, Egypt between Morsi supporters and security forces kill 48, plus nine more in other cities; 200+ Muslim Brotherhood supporters are arrested in Cairo; meanwhile Egyptian interim pres. Adly Monsour announces the renewal of the Egyptian nuclear power program. On Oct. 6 a protest in Biru, Tibet is shut down by Chinese police, who fire on the crowd and use tear gas. On Oct. 6 Saudi Arabia begins issuing the first-ever law licenses to women. On Oct. 6 Hollyweird actor Steven Seagal attends a gala concert in Grozny, Chechnya for the birthday of pres. Ramzan Kadyrov; in May he visited him Kadyrov at his residence, causing Kadyrov to say that Seagal is "almost a Chechen". On Oct. 7 (4 a.m.) Boko Haram militants lure fellow Muslims to a mosque in Damboa, Nigeria, then kill seven. On Oct. 7 (12th anniv. of the U.S.-led NATO invastion) Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai gives an interview to the BBC's Newsnight, saying that NATO created "no gains" for Afghanistan, and that Afghan women have nothing to fear from a return of the Taliban; he also disses the Bilateral Security Agreement, pointing to repeated violations of Afghan sovereignty, and rules out signing a security deal with the U.S. until the issue is resolved. On Oct. 7 700K line the funeral procession of ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Ovadia Yousef in Jerusalem. On Oct. 7 Egyptian interim pres. Adly Mansour makes his first visit to ally Saudi Arabia, followed by a short visit to Jordan, which is condemned by the Muslim Brotherhood. On Oct. 8 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. slumps 160 points, then rebounds by 322 points on Oct. 10. On Oct. 8 despite the federal govt. shutdown, the Obama admin. authorizes the Camino Americano: March for Dignity and Respect at the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C.; eight lawmakers are arrested. On Oct. 8 Morsi supporters destroy a satellite dish in the Mahdi District of Cairo, calling it an "infidel mouthpiece". On Oct. 8 English Defense League (EDL) co-founders Tommy Robinson and Kevin Caroll announce that they're resigning because the org. has been infiltrated by racists and anti-Semites; too bad, they join the Muslim-front Quilliam Foundation, with Robinson uttering the soundbyte: "I believe that the revolution needs to come from within the Islamic community and they need to stand up, and I believe this is a step forward not a step back." On Oct. 9 Pres. Obama nominates economist Janet Louise Yellen (1946-) to succeed Ben Bernanke as chmn. of the Federal Reserve; she is confirmed next Jan. 6 by 56-26, taking office on Feb. 1 (until ?). On Oct. 9 the Obama admin. announces that it's scaling back assistance to Egypt, incl. suspending $260M in cash aid and holding delivery of F-16 aircraft, M1A1 tank parts etc. On Oct. 10 Libyan PM Ali Zeidan is briefly kidnapped, accusing a "political party" of organizing it; on Oct. 11 a car bomb explodes outside the Swedish consulate in Benghazi, Libya. On Oct. 10 31 Muslim bombs planted on ATMs explode in the four southernmost provinces of Thailand incl. Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat, and Songkhla. On Oct. 10 the EU signs a 45B Euro currency swap agreement with China. On Oct. 10 Turkey's Council of Ministers announces a decision to confiscate the assets of 349 persons and 67 legal entities linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban. On Oct. 12-14 Hezbollah deputy Ali Fayyed of the Lebanese Parliament visits France, telling them that the EU was wrong in July to list its military wing as a terrorist org. On Oct. 11 (a.m.) dozens of truck drivers block the inner loop of the Washington, D.C. Beltway to protest Obamacare; 3K drivers were originally planned. On Oct. 11 the U.N. Security unanimously votes to extend the NATO-led force mandate through 2014, probably the last extension; meanwhile U.S. secy. of state John Kerry makes an unnanounced visit to Kabul for talks with Afghan pres. Hamid Karzi over the looming end of Oct. deadline for completing a security deal to allow U.S. troops to remain after the end of the NATO-led mission. On Oct. 11 a 2nd boat carrying 250 immigrants from North Africa capsizes 60 mi. S of Lampedusa Island between Sicily and Tunisia, killing 50+. On Oct. 11 a court in Iran sentences Miriam Naqqash to four years in prison for converting from Islam to Christianity, claiming she is guilty of "endangering national security by spreading religious propaganda in the country". On Oct. 11 Am. Muslims Humayoun Ghoulan Nabi (27) and Ismail Alsarabbi (32) of Queens, N.Y. are charged with "building a small army" to help the Taliban, with one saying that he was so angry about the killing of Osama bin Laden that he wanted to "kill and cut [U.S. soldiers] to pieces". On Oct. 11 (night) Israeli reserve col. Sariya Ofer is murdered in his home in B'rosh Habika, Jordan Valley by two Palestinians who use metal rods and axes, becoming the 3rd Israeli killed in the West Bank in the last mo.; Ofer's brother Maj. Yitzchak Ofer was KIA on Oct. 11, 1973 in the Yom Kippur War. On Oct. 12 World Bank Pres. Jim Yong Kim issues the soundbyte: "We're now five days away from a very dangerous moment. I urge U.S. policymakers to quickly come to a resolution before they reach the debt ceiling deadline. Inaction could result in interest rates rising, confidence falling, and growth slowing." On Oct. 12 Pres. Obama delivers his weekly radio address, with the soundbyte that Congress needs to end the govt. shutdown so it can pass comprehensive immigration reform; meanwhile Obama meets with 16-y.-o. Pakistani hero-activist Malala Yusfzai, who utters the soundbyte that U.S. drone strikes are "fueling terrorism" and asks him to stop them. On Oct. 12 the Syrian army opens the road between Hama and Aleppo, and regains full control of 40 villages; the Muslim-Muslim fighting goes on despite the Muslim holy days. On Oct. 12 the Egyptian daily Al Youm al-Sabaa reports a secret meeting between the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida in Jordan. On Oct. 12-13 Cyclone Phailin hits the E coast of India, causing 550k to be evacuated. On Oct. 13 (Sun.) the anti-Muslim-immigration Nat. Front Party of Marine le Pen wins a V in local elections in Var (near Toulon), France. On Oct. 13 Syrian Nat. Council pres. George Sabra announces that they're boycotting the proposed peace conference in Geneva, and would quit the Syrian Nat. Coalition if it participated. On Oct. 13 another green-on-blue attack in E Afghanistan kills one ISAF soldier. On Oct. 13 the Million Vet March sees WWII vets attack the "barrycades" surrounding the WWII and Lincoln Memorials on the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C. On Oct. 13 EBT (SNAP food stamp) cards stop working in 17 U.S. states, causing a mini-panic. On Oct. 13 a riot outside a vegetable warehouse in Biryulovo, Moscow, Russia begins after an Azerbaijani Muslim immigrant allegedly stabs ethnic Russian Yegor Shcherbakov (b. 1988), causing 1.2K to be arrested by Oct. 14; Russia is in danger of going Muslim by the middle of the cent.? On Oct. 13 tribal leader Faisal al-Mikhlafi is assassinated in Taiz, Yemen. On Oct. 13 Malaysian Muslim Lawyers Assoc. pres. Datuk Zainul Rijal Abu Bakar urges the govt. to ignore the Coalition of Malaysian NGOs (Comango) for recommending reforms to improve Malaysia's human rights record, saying it would usurp Islam and Malaysian sovereignty. On Oct. 13 the Sunday Times of Britain pub. an article revealing that ÂŁ1.95bn in Euro aid to the Palestinian occupied territories in 2008-12 may have been lost to corruption, according to the Luxembourg-based European Court of Auditors. On Oct. 14 TLW announces the NASA Knowledge Ark Project, a plan for NASA to save civilization after an atomic war by setting up a long-lived Internet in space; on Oct. 25 six astronauts hold a conference hosted by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, calling for a global effort to defend the Earth from asteroids. On Oct. 14 a car bomb in Darkush, Syria near the Turkish border kills 27+ incl. three children. On Oct. 14 bomb is found in Mamora, Beirut in the same area that a car bomb killed 20 2 mo. earlier. On Oct. 14 a stampede during a festival in Ratangarh, Madhya Pradesh, India kills 115. On Oct. 14 (eve.) seven members of Ansar al-Sharia are killed in Sirte, Libya when their bomb goes off prematurely. On Oct. 15 a 7.2 earthquake in the C Philippines kills 4+. On Oct. 15 Arsala Jamal, gov. of Logar Province in Afghanistan is assassinated by a bomb planted in his microphone inside a mosque while speaking for Eid al Adha prayers. On Oct. 15 Capt. William Swenson is awarded the Medal of Honor by Pres. Obama. On Oct. 15 Tex. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst calls for Pres. Obama's impeachment for abusing his authority over immigration and Obamacare, as well as his screwup in the 2012 Benghazi Consulate Scandal. On Oct. 15 Great Raft Brewing Co. in Shreveport, La. sells its first beer, going on to produce Southern Drawl, Reasonably Corrupt, and Commotion Pale Ale brands. On Oct. 16 the U.S. Senate announces a last-min. deal to end the govt. shutdown before the Oct. 17 date on which it would default on its loans; House stenographer Dianne Reidy is forcibly removed from the House chamber during the voting after ranting about God and the Freemasons, incl. the soundbyte "The House is divided"; on Oct. 18 the U.S. debt ceiling jumps to $17T. On Oct. 16 the Turkish army announces that it fired on al-Qaida-linked fighters over the N Syrian border for the first time ever. On Oct. 16 the U.N. appoints Sigrid Kaag of Netherlands to head the Syrian chemical weapons removal project. On Oct. 16 a Taliban suicide bamber in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan kills provincial minister Israrullah Gandapur and seven others. On Oct. 16 Canadian Muslim Mohamoud Jimale (1968-) is arrested for leaving a suspicious package on Parliament Hill in Toronto ahead of a speech by PM Stephen Harper. On Oct. 17 Chad and Saudi Arabia are elected for 2-year terms to the 15-member U.N. Security Council, causing UN Watch to call for the U.S., EU, and Ban Ki-moon to protest because of their human rights abuses; after protests, Saudi Arabia declines their seat; Chile, Lithuania, and Nigeria are also elected, effective Jan. 1; on Dec. 6 Jordan is elected instead. On Oct. 17 Syrian intel official Maj. Gen. Jameh Jameh (Jama'a Jama'a), blacklisted by the U.S. and EU for the 2005 assassination of Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri is killed in an ambush by Syrian rebels, causing the Syrian air force to retaliate by bombing Deir al-Zor on Oct. 18. On Oct. 17 the first Global Slavery Index is pub. by the Walk Free Foundation, claiming that 29M around the world live in slavery on every continent. On Oct. 18 it is revealed by Page Six that Arnold Schwarzenegger announced that he will try to part the waves and run for the White House in 2016. On Oct. 19 an AQAP suicide car bomber on a military training base in Abyan, S Yemen kills 12 soldiers and injures six. On Oct. 19 a car bomb outside the military intel bldg. in Ismailia, Egypt injures 5+. On Oct. 19 a suicide bomber at a cafe in Baladweyne, Somalia 210 mi. N of Mogadishu kills 16+ and injures 33. On Oct. 19 Tunisian forces kill nine alleged terrorists in Mt. Taouyer, Tunisia 40 mi. W of Tunis, and seize two tonnes of explosives. On Oct. 20 an internat. conference in Geneva to end the Syrian civil war is announced for late Nov.; meanwhile a suicide bomber in Hama, Syria kills 30+. On Oct. 20 Egyptian police fire tear gas at hundreds of Morsi supporters at Al-Azhar U. in Cairo, Egypt. On Oct. 20 Boko Haram Islamists in military uniform block the highway near Logumani, Nigeria near the border with Cameron, killing 19 Christians, 14 by hacking to pieces. On Oct. 20 Christian pastors Charles Matole and Ebrahim Kidata are murdered in Kenya. On Oct. 20 four Christians are sentenced in Rasht, Iran to 80 lashes each for drinking wine during a communion service. On Oct. 21 (a.m.) a 12-y.-o. male student opens fire at Sparks Middle School near Reno, Nev., killing a teacher and injuring two students before committing suicide - we've got a thing that's called radar love? On Oct. 21 Islamist militants invade Sadad, Syria, massacring 45 Christians. On Oct. 21 the French govt. summons U.S. ambassador Charles Rivkin after an article in Le Monde accuses the NSA of massive spying on French citizens; on Oct. 28 an article in Le Monde claims that the spying ws really done by Israel. On Oct. 21 (2:00 p.m.) female suicide bomber (recent Muslim convert) Naida Asyalova detonates in a bus in Volgograd, Russia, killing six and injuring 37, causing Russian pres. Vladimir Putin on Oct. 22 to accuse foreign rivals of using Islam "to weaken our state and create conflicts on Russian soil that can be managed from abroad". On Oct. 21 the residents of Mouadamiya, Syria send a letter to the world to "save us from death". On Oct. 21 N.J. gov. Chris Christie drops an appeal, making N.J. state #14 to allow same-sex marriage - the sound of a unisex hand clapping? On Oct. 21 New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg receives the first-ever $1M Genesis Prize AKA the "Jewish Nobel Prize". On Oct. 22 Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei announces the gradual introduction of harsh Sharia punishments, incl. stoning, amputation, and flogging. On Oct. 22 Saudi intel chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan announces a "major shift" in relations with the U.S. in protest at its inaction in Syria, lack of support for Bahrain, and overtures to Iran. On Oct. 22 Amnesty Internat. claims that U.S. drone strikes killed a Pakistani grandmother and 18 civilian laborers lst year. On Oct. 22 Israeli U.N. ambassador Ron Prosor addresses the U.N. Security Council, saying that Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani's strategy should be called SLY, for Smile, Lie, Yield minor concessions. On Oct. 22 300 al-Qaida prisoners attempt to escape from Sana'a Prison in Yemen. On Oct. 22 mayoral elections in Jerusalem see incumbent Ramez Jaraisi defeated by his deputy Ali Salam by 22 votes. On Oct. 23 India accuses Pakistan of attacking 50+ Indian border posts overnight in disputed Kashmir, calling it their most serious cease-fire violation in a decade. On Oct. 23 announces that pres. Angela Merkel had angrily called Pres. Obama to ask him if the NSA was tapping her cell phone based on leaks by Edward Snowden that claims they did it to 35 countries. On Oct. 23 a planned visit by Brazilian pres. Dilma Rousseff to the White House is canceled after documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal heavy U.S. spying on Brazil, pissing them off, and causing them to announce the BRICS Cable, a new Internet system independent of the "U.S.-centric Internet". On Oct. 24 Lee Harvey Oswald's ex-wife Marina Oswald sells her wedding ring for $90K at auction in Boston, Mass.; the one he left before the JFK assassination, inscribed with a tiny hammer and sickle. On Oct. 24 the U.S. Census Bureau reports that means-tested govt. benefit recipients in 2011 outnumbered full-time year-round workers by 108,592,000 to 101,716,000. On Oct. 24 billionaire leftist internat. mystery man George Soros (1930-) announces his backing for Hillary for U.S. pres. in 2016, which means mucho since he backed Obama and looky. On Oct. 25 Syrian govt. troops ambush rebels near Damascus, Syria, killing 40+. On Oct. 25 Ukrainian immigrant Pavlo Lapshyn is sentenced to 40 years in prison for a terror campaign against Muslims in Britain. On Oct. 26 a green-on-blue attack in a military base in Kabul, Afghanistan kills an Afghan soldier and injures two NATO soldiers; #5 in five weeks. On Oct. 26 gunmen in Dura, S Baghdad, Iraq kill a family of seven. On Oct. 26 a Rally Against the NSA and its spying on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. is attended by 2K, with protesters carrying signs saying "Stop Mass Spying", "Thank you, Edward Snowden", and "Unplug Big Brother". On Oct. 27 drug cartels blow up nine electrical power plants in Michoacan, Mexico, then use the blackouts to burn gasoline stations. On Oct. 27 10 car bomb blasts in Iraq kill 55, incl. 40+ in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. On Oct. 27 a bus carrying people to a wedding is bombed in Andar District, Afghanistan, killing 20+. On Oct. 27 multiple blasts rock the Gandhi Maidan Rally in Patna, India, killing five. On Oct. 27 thousands of Islamists rally in Kashmir, Pakistan against India and its occupation of the Himalayan region. On Oct. 27 the CBS-TV show 60 Minutes broadcasts a report with security contractor Morgan Jones (Dylan Davies), who claims to have entered the U.S. compound last Sept. 11 and seen the body of ambassador Chris Stevens in a hospital; on Nov. 8 after the story falls apart, Lara Logan apologizes, admitting "We were wrong." On Oct. 28 (12:05 p.m.) a possible terrorist attack in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China kills five and injures 38; Uighur Muslims are suspected. On Oct. 28 the Egyptian govt. announces the arrest of 27 suspected of involvement in the attempted assassination last month of interior minister Mohamed Ibrahim. On Oct. 28 Hamas stages a rocket attack on Israel, causing Israeli jets on Oct. 30 to blow up two concealed rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip. On Oct. 28 U.S. drones kill two Al-Shabaab militants in Jilib, Somalia. On Oct. 28 Hillary Clinton speaks at the Vanguard Luncheon of the Jewish United Fund of Chicago, Ill., uttering the soundbyte: "Jordan can't possibly vet all the Syrian refugees and the jihadists who are coming in with them"; she is paid $400K. On Oct. 29 Israel ends its 1.5-year boycott of the Islamist-dominated U.N. Human Rights Council, sending reps to a session to discuss its human rights record. On Oct. 29 U.N.-Arab league envoy Lakhdar Brahimi visits Syria, warning of its "Somalization". On Oct. 29 the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) announces that four women (in a batch of ?) have passed the infantry test for the first time ever. On Oct. 29 Turkey opens the Marmaray Railroad Tunnel, the first-ever underground tunnel linking Europe and Asia - ready for the coming jihad? On Oct. 29 Hillary Clinton speaks at the Goldman Sachs Builders and Innovators Summit, uttering the soundbyte: "I would like to see more successful business people run for office. I really would like to see that because I do think, you know, you don't have to have 30 billion, but you have a certain level of freedom. And there's that memorable phrase from a former member of the Senate: You can be maybe be rented but never bought." On Oct. 30 a suicide bomber detonates in front of the Riadh Palm Hotel in the tourist resort of Sousse, Tunisia, injuring only himself; a 2nd bomber is arrested before he can detonate. On Oct. 30 HHS secy. Kathleen Sebelius apologizes for the "miserably frustrating experience" people are having with the govt. Obamacare enrollment Web site HealthCare.gov, an expensive Thanksgiving turkey that crashes minutes before her testimony, and only signs up six people on its first day; meanwhile deep-blue-state Pres. Obama gives a speech at Faneuil Hall in deep-blue Boston, Mass., admitting that it looks like he lied when he said that everybody could keep their existing plan if they liked it, when millions face cancellation, saying that they will end up with a better plan somehow; on Nov. 7 after more fit hits the shan, Obama apologizes again, with the soundbyte "I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me"; on Nov. 27 the Obama admin. announces that it's delaying sign-up for small businesses by 1 year - the govt. knows what's best for you and I can lie to get you to vote it in? On Oct. 30 Israel releases 26 Palestinian prisoners in preparation for peace talks. On Oct. 30 pro-Muslim Brotherhood riots at Al-Azhar U. in Egypt are quelled by police. On Oct. 30 Iraq PM Nouri al-Maliki visits the White House, asking for U.S. help in fighting terrorism. On Oct. 30 the Pakistani govt. announces that only 3% of the people killed in U.S. drone strikes since 2008 were civilians. On Oct. 30 U.S. spokesman Martin Nesirsky announces that he has received assurances from the U.S. govt. that its communications "are not and will not be monitored". On Oct. 30 a hospital in Muslim-dominated S Thailand apologizes for a photo showing Muslim nurses flashing a victory sign in front of slain bomb squad officer Sgt. Nimit Deewong (b. 1978). On Oct. 30/31 a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan, Pakistan kills three militants. On Oct. 31 the Org. for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announces that Syria has destroyed all of its declared chemical weapons production and mixing facilities on schedule. On Oct. 31 Israel strikes a military base near Latakia, Syria; meanwhile a gun battle in a tunnel complex near Khan Younis in S Gaza kills four terrorists and injures five IDF soldiers. On Oct. 31/Nov. 1 (night) a U.S. drone strike kills Pakistan Taliban (Tahreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi) chief Hakimullah Mehsud (b. 1979) in North Waziristan along with five others, causing the Taliban to vow "unprecedented" revenge; on Nov. 7 it elects new chief Mullah ("the Butcher of Swat") Maulana "Radio Mullah" Fazlullah (1974-), son-in-law of founder Sufi Muhammad. In Oct. China surpasses the U.S. as the world's largest importer of crude oil; on Oct. 12 Bernhard Zand pub. an article in Der Spiegel calling on China to "take on responsibility as a world power". In Oct. the U.S. secretly deploys troops (trainers and advisers) to Somalia, becoming the first since 1993. In Oct. billionaire George Soros becomes co-chmn. of the nat. finance council for the Ready for Hillary super-PAC working for her 2016 Dem. pres. run. In Oct. Norfolk, Va.-born Nadia Crow becomes the first African-Am. TV news anchor in Utah, at KTVX-4 in Salt Lake City. On Nov. 1 Pres. Obama signs Executive Order No. ?, ordering the federal govt. to prepare for climate change - you can call me any day or night? On Nov. 1 unemployed assault rifle-packing drifter Paul A. Ciancia (b. 1990) shoots up Los Angeles Internat. Airport (LAX) in Calif., killing TSA agent Gerardo I. Hernandez (first-ever KIA on duty) and injuring several before being killed by officers - I didn't like the way you frisked my grandmother? On Nov. 2 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry makes his first visit to Cairo, Egypt since the removal of Mohammed Morsi, saying that the U.S. govt. endorses the interim govt.'s promise to restore full democracy; meanwhile students linked to the Muslim Brotherhood attack the Church of the Virgin Mary in Zaytoun, Cairo, but are prevented from entering by some young Christians sans injuries. On Nov. 2 after reports of blasphemy, a Muslim attacks a minority Hindu neighborhood in Pabna, Bangladesh, burning down 26 houses. On Nov. 3 (Sun.) U.S. state secy. John Kerry meets with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh. On Nov. 4 tens of thousands stage an anti-U.S. protest outside the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran. On Nov. 4 (Nat. Unity Day) thousands march in cities across Russia, protesting immigration, mainly Muslim. On Nov. 4 Richard Shoop (b. 1993) of Teaneck, N.J. shoots up Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, N.J., then commits suicide. On Nov. 4 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin rescinds his 2011 order for cooperation with NATO on its missile defense shield. On Nov. 5 (Tues.) after campaigning for economic equality under the slogan "Tale of Two Cities", populist Dem. Bill de Blasio (Warren Wilhelm Jr.) (1961-) is elected mayor of New York City, and is sworn-in as mayor #109 on Jan. 1 (until ?), becoming the first Dem. since 1989, succeeding Michael Bloomberg, going on to end the stop-and-frisk policy of the NYPD, institute deescalation training, and require them to wear body cameras, turning the NYPD Union against him. On Nov. 5 plans for a Geneva 2 Conference peace summit on Syria collapse, with U.N./Arab League special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi blaming it on the Syrian opposition's perpetual disarray. On Nov. 5 the house of reps in Ill. votes 61-54 to legalize same-sex marriage, with lawmakers citing Pope Francis' recent comments in support; on Nov. 20 Dem. Gov. Pat Quinn signs it, making Ill. state #16. On Nov. 5 (Tues.) the 2013 Colo. Secession Vote sees 11 of 64 Colo. counties, incl. 10 in the NE corner unsuccessfully attempt to secede from Colo. and its evil leftist Denver-Boulder Axis and become the new state of North Colorado, with the 11th county in the NW corner (Moffatt County) joining Wyo. On Nov. 5 Donald Trump is presented with the T. Boone Pickens Award by The American Spectator at the annual Robert L. Bartley Dinner, giving a speech in which he brags about his ability as a negotiator, along with his "love of this country", which is "going in the wrong direction", dissing foreign countries for "laughing at us", and blasting Obamacare, speaking of what could happen "if you let this great country go", predicting that the Repubs. will have many opportunities in the 2016 U.S. pres. election but worrying about them not sticking together. On Nov. 6 Russian Duma member Vladimir Pligin utters the soundbyte that there's no place for Sharia in Russia, breaking ranks with Western govts. who blow, er, bow to it daily. On Nov. 6 U.S. Navy Cmdr. Jose Luis Sanchez is charged with accepting cash, hookers, and Lada Gaga concert tickets from a foreign defense contractor in exchange for classified info. On Nov. 6 the Internat. Rescue Committee awards George Soros its Freedom Award; meanwhile he pledges $1M (10 cents per capita) for Syrian humanitarian aid, while U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon complaining that the min. required is $4.4B. On Nov. 7 Twitter.com launches its IPO. On Nov. 7 a 7-power conference in Geneva incl. Iran meets to discuss their nuclear program. On Nov. 7 the U.S. Senate by 64-32 passes the ENDA gay rights anti-discrimination bill, sending it to the House, where it's DOA. On Nov. 7 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin signs a law making the families of terrorists financially responsible to victims. On Nov. 7 after Swiss forensic tests prove that Yasser Arafat died from radioactive polonium poisoning in 2004, Israeli energy minister Silvan Shalom denies responsibility, suggesting it might have been anybody. On Nov. 7 a group of Egyptian lawyers submits a complaint to the Internat. Criminal Court charging Pres. Obama with crimes against humanity for being an accessory to the Muslim Brotherhood in its widespread violence in Egypt. On Nov. 8 Pres. Obama signs an Executive Order on Climate Change, giving himself unlimited powers? On Nov. 8 yet more clashes between anti and pro Morsi supporters in Cairo, Egypt kill two. On Nov. 8 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry visits Israel; as Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu sees him off at Ben Gurion Airport, he informs him that he knows that the U.S. is about to sign "a very bad deal" with Iran that retreats from lines they themselves had drawn. On Nov. 9 Category 5 Typhoon Haiyan hits the Philippines, killing 6K, injuring 27K, leaving 1.8K missing, and leaving 4M homeless after damaging 1M homes in the Philippines; it is so severe that scientists begin calling for a new Category 6? On Nov. 10 France steps in and halts the Iran nuclear deal, with foreign minister Laurent Fabius uttering the soundbyte that France won't accept a "sucker's deal"; on Nov. 11 Iran signs a joint statement on future cooperation with the IAEA. On Nov. 10 the Brave German Woman Heidi Mund confronts a Muslim imam invited to give the Islamic call to prayer inside the Memorial Church of the Reformation in Speyer, Germany, uttering Martin Luther's famous 1521 statement: "Here I stand. I can do no other", along with "Save the church of Martin Luther", proclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord over Germany; she is thrown out of the church to allow him to continue. On Nov. 11 (9th anniv. of the death of Yasser Arafat) the Fatah-packed Tamarod (Tamarrud) movement in Gaza holds protests to bring down Hamas; too bad, they never happen despite media coverage of the announcements. On Nov. 11 a mortar attack by FSA rebels on the Christian St. John of Damascus School kills nine children and injures 27. On Nov. 12 the U.S. Army hosts the Chinese Red Army in Hawaii for "simulating humanitarian assistance and disaster relief to a fictional third country". On Nov. 12 the Syrian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood announces the formation of a new political party, with a Christian deputy leader. On Nov. 12 the U.N. Gen. Assembly elects China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Cuba, and 9 others to 3-year terms to the 47-member Human Rights Council, causing a firestorm of controversy - the fox guarding the henhouse? On Nov. 12 the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee votes to give the market a "decisive role" in their economy, and to consolidate new decision-making authority in the hands of reformer (wannabe Gorbachev?) pres. Xi Jinping. On Nov. 12 the senate of Hawaii votes to legalize same-sex marriage, making Hawaii state #15; after being signed by Gov. Neil Abercrombie on Nov. 13, it takes effect Dec. 2, with Pres. Obama uttering the soundbyte that the move "exemplifies the values we hold dear as a nation." On Nov. 12 Jeff Koons' sculpture Balloon Dog (Orange) sells for $58.405M at auction by Christie's in New York City. On Nov. 13 the lameass Obama admin. finally designates Boko Haram as a terrorist group, as well as its splinter group Ansaru. On Nov. 13 16-y.-o. Palestinian Hussein Sharif Rawarda stabs Israeli army trainee Eden Atias (b. 1994) as he sleeps on a bus en route to Tel Aviv, causing Hamas to applaud him. On Nov. 13 Christian missionary David Dina Mataware is murdered by Boko Haram in Ashigashia, Cameroon near the Nigerian border; French priest Georges Vandenbeusch is kidnapped, then released on Jan. 1 on compassionate grounds after he tends to sick militants; he denies it, saying "They have no compassion for anyone." On Nov. 13 a Gallup Poll reveals that a record 47% of the Am. pop. doesn't believe that Pres. Obama is an honest and trustworthy man, vs. 50% who do; on Mar. 14-16, 2008 it was 29% who didn't believe, 63% who did. On Nov. 13-14 the GridEx U.S. Electric Grid Failure Drill tests the U.S. power grid. On Nov. 14 after a massive backlash, Pres. Obama folds and resigns, er, announces that Americans can renew their existing health plans for one year even if they don't meet Obamacare coverage standards, with the soundbyte that he "fumbled" the rollout. On Nov. 14 after being totally turned off by Pres. Obama, Egyptian CIC Gen. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi meets with a Russian delegation on military cooperation. On Nov. 14 the U.S. puts a $1M bounty on wildlife traffickers, and prepares to destroy its stockpile of illegal ivory. On Nov. 14 Albania refuses a request from the U.S. to host Syria's chemical weapons stockpile for destruction. On Nov. 15 China announces a loosening of its 1979 one-child policy, allowing couples in which at least one parent is an only child to have to offspring. On Nov. 15 despite a veto threat, the House votes 261-157 (incl. 39 Dems.) to defy Pres. Obama and let Americans keep their health plans for one year even if they don't comply with Obamacare; the Senate On Nov. 15 the U.S. State Dept. announces that it has been offering rewards of up to $10M since Jan. for info. leading to the arrest of persons involved in the 9/11/2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. On Nov. 15 attendees at the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) debate whether "killer robot" development should have the plugged pulled. On Nov. 15 a Gallup Poll reveals that 61% of Americans don't believe the Lone Gunman Theory about JFK. On Nov. 16 a suicide car bomber in a compound in W Kabul, Afghanistan kills 6+ and injures 22 near a giant tent where 2.5K tribal elders and civic leaders are set to gather and debate a security pact on Nov. 21. On Nov. 16 a group off nine Muslim jihadists armed with axes and knives attack a police station in Serikbuya, China, killing two and injuring two. On Nov. 17 a massive bomb blast in an admin. bldg. in an army transport base in Harasta, Syria NE of Damascus kills 31+ troops incl. three gens. and a brig.-gen. On Nov. 17 French Pres. Francois Holland visits Jerusalem and Ramallah, promising to help prevent Iran from obtaining nukes. On Nov. 17 several tornadoes touch down in C. Ill., killing 6+ and causing widespread damage, delaying a Chicago Bears football game. On Nov. 17 a Tatarstan Airlines Boeing 737 crashes in gusty weather in C Russia, killing all 44 passengers and six crew aboard. On Nov. 17 Mustafa Noah, Libyan deputy intel chief is abducted from the airport parking lot in Tripoli as a gen. strike against military rule shuts down the city. On Nov. 17 Egyptian senior nat. security officer Lt. Col. Mohammed mabrouk is attacked in Cairo by Ansar Jerusalem (Ansar Bayt al Maqdis) gunmen. On Nov. 18 days before a meeting set by the country's elite to debate it, Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai rejects a key provision of the proposed U.S.-Afghan Security Pact, putting it in jeopardy; an Nov. 19 after Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai demands it as a condition for support, U.S. nat. security adviser Susan Rice announces that Pres. Obama won't make a written apology to the Afghan people for "mistakes" made, as John Kerry puts it in a phone call to AP. On Nov. 18 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. briefly passes the 16K mark. On Nov. 18 French pres. Francois Hollande makes the first-ever French pres. visit to the tomb of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, West Bank. On Nov. 18-Dec. 7 the Lockheed Martin NASA Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (Maven) Mars Orbiter is launched to study Mars' upper atmosphere and its interaction with the Sun, with two instrument suites supplied by the Lab for Atmospheric and Space Physics of the U. of Colo. On Nov. 19 (a.m.) designated al-Qaida terrorist Mohammad Al Ahmady of Yemen, dir. of the Geneva-based NGO Al Karama is expected to brief Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.); too bad, the State Dept. denies him a visa. On Nov. 19 twin blasts from a car bomb and motorcycle suicide bomber near the Iranian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon kill 23 and injure 146; the Abdullah Azzam Brigades claim responsibility. On Nov. 19 an Al-Shabaab suicide car bomb attack at a police station in Beledweyne, Somalia kills 21+. On Nov. 19 the NASA MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission) robotic Mars explorer is launched from Cape Canaveral. On Nov. 19 more protesters in Tahrir Square, Cairo calling for an end to military control as well as the Muslim Brotherhood in favor of democracy; on Nov. 20 a car bomb in Al-Arish, Sinai kills 11 Egyptian soldiers and injures 34, causing defense minister Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to vow to avenge them; another explosive device thrown at a police checkpoint in N Cairo injures four policemen. On Nov. 21 (early a.m.) a U.S drone strike in Hangu, Pakistan kills 6+ and injures several, becoming the first in the settled area outside the tribal regions. On Nov. 21 after the Repubs. filibuster one Obama judicial nominee after another, the Dem.-controlled U.S. Senate votes 52-48 to invoke the Nuclear Option, requiring only a simple majority vote to confirm pres. nominations except for Supreme Court nominations, while leaving the filibuster option intact for legislation, with Chancellor, er, Pres. Obama explaining that "There is a pattern of obstruction in Congress"; too bad, in Apr. 2005 he argued against it. On Nov. 21 Iraq launches six mortar bombs into N Saudi Arabia as a warning to stop meddling in its affairs - no place to go on Black Friday? On Nov. 21 a suspected U.S. drone kills a senior Haqqani militant Maulvi Ahmad Jan in the Hangu District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, North Waziristan. On Nov. 21 Pope Francis meets with Eastern Orthodox leaders, and utters the soundbyte: "Syria, Iraq, Egypt and other areas of the Holy Land sometimes overflow with tears. We won't resign ourselves to a Middle East without Christians who for two thousand years confess the name of Jesus, as full citizens in social, cultural and religious life of the nations to which they belong." On Nov. 22 (Fri.) the 50th Anniv. of Who Killed JFK is marked by a solemn ceremony in Dallas, Tex. On Nov. 22 seven Syrian Islamist groups announce their merger to better fight Assad, under the name Islamic Front; they are not backed by the West. Pres. Obama's Neville Chamberlain Moment? The New Munich Agreement? On Nov. 24 (early a.m.) U.S. and Iranian reps in Geneva annnounce a deal regarding their nuclear program, freezing parts of it for 6 mo. in exchange for easing economic sanctions worth $9B, with Pres. Obama uttering the soundbyte "For the first time in nearly a decade, we have halted the progress of the Iranian nuclear program, and "cut off Iran's most likely paths to a bomb"; the U.S. does not recognize Israel's right to enrich uranium without mutual agreement; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls the deal "an historic mistake", announcing that Israel "won't be bound by it", reserving the right of self-defense; meanwhile Iran's 19K centrifuges are left whirling; the U.S. and Iran bypassed Israel and held secret meetings in Oman since Mar.; meanwhile Iran and North Korea hold secret meetings to help Iran build ICBMs; U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer utters the soundbyte that he's "disappointed" by the deal "because it does not seem proportional"; the deal causes a rift between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, throwing off all of TLW's theories that Obama is a Saudi puppet; TLW calls for Israel to declare a Zero Tolerance for Centrifuge Policy then nuke Iran for their own self-preservation - what card am I holding? On Nov. 23 China declares the East Asian Air Defense Zone, its first ever, threatening war with the U.S. and Japan. On Nov. 23 al-Qaeda rebels seize control of Al-Omar Oilfield in Deir al-Zor Province, Syria's largest, cutting Bashed Sadass off from almost all but local crude reserves. On Nov. 23 Boko Haram gunmen attack a village in Borno, Nigeria, killing 12. On Nov. 24 after Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemns repression of Morsi supporters, Egypt expels Turkey's ambassador. On Nov. 24 Angola becomes the first African nation to ban the practice of Islam, ordering all mosques destroyed immediately; it later turns out to be a hoax - they've been reading my stuff? On Nov. 25 a senior Afghan official announces that stoning for adulterers is being written into Afghan law - after how many trillion wasted there by the U.S.? On Nov. 25 Sheikh Khalifa of Abu Dhabi sends a letter to the U.N. expressing solidarity with the Palestinians in "their just and legitimate struggle to end Israeli occupation of their homeland". On Nov. 25 U.S. nat. security adviser Susan Rice meets with Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai in Kabul. On Nov. 26 France announces that it's sending hundreds of new troops to Muslim-threatened Central African Repub. (CAR). On Nov. 26 Pope Francis issues the encyclical Evangelii Gaudium, calling for a renewal of the Church, and attacking the "idolatry of money", stinking himself up with misguided lenient generalizations about Islam, incl.: "Faced with disconcerting episodes of violent fundamentalism, our respect for true followers of Islam should lead us to avoid hateful generalisations, for authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence"; meanwhile the Obama admin. announces that they're closing down their diplomatic post at the Vatican, and merging it with the Italian embassy, citing security concerns. On Nov. 26 TLW announces to Israel that they should nuke Iran's nuclear facilities and not worry about the flak; also that the Muslim World is headed for a great apostasy. On Nov. 26 Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai gives an interview to Radio Free Europe, in which he claims that Pres. Obama told him: "The Taliban are not our enemies and we don't want to fight them." On Nov. 26 (eve.) Israeli forces kill three Salafi terrorists in the hills near Hebron, Israel. On Nov. 27 the roof of Sao Paulo Soccer Stadium in Brazil collapses, killing two. On Nov. 28 (Thur.) (Thanksgivingukkah) Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Hanukkah for the first time since 1888; next time in 79,043 years? On Nov. 28 (night) a U.S. drone kills three suspected Islamist militants in North Waziristan, Pakistan. On Nov. 29 a turban bomber injures Afghan lawmaker Hamidullah Tokhi of Zabul Province at his house in Kabul. On Nov. 29 after alleged violations in the last pres. election by the nat. intel services, South Korean Protestants call on pres. Park Geun-hye. On Nov. 29 a Christian-Muslim clash in Deir Muwass, Egypt kills one and injures six. On Nov. 30 new Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif makes his first visit to Afghanistan, meeting with PM Hamid Karzai in Kabul to discuss selling out to, er, negotiating with the Taliban. In Nov. the U.S. unemployment rate adds 203K jobs, dropping to 7% (60 straight mos. at 7% or higher); youth unemployment is 20.8%. In Nov. Germany becomes the first country in Europe to allow parents to opt out of determining their baby's gender with an indeterminate gender designation for birth certificates. On Dec. 1 (Sun.) 300K protest in Kiev, Ukraine against a govt. decision to freeze integration with the West; dozens are injured; on Dec. 17 Ukraine agrees to stay out of the EU in exchange for $15B plus lower gas prices from Russia, becoming a big V for Russian pres. Vladimir Putin. On Dec. 1 the Egyptian parliament approves a more liberal proposed constitution, albeit with some Sharia; meanwhile more violent protests go on in Tahrir Square in Cairo. On Dec. 1 a sniper in Tripoli, Lebanon kills three, making nine in 24 hours. On Dec. 1 a train derails in Bronx, N.Y., killing four and injuring 63. On Dec. 1 Congressional intel committee chmn. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) give an interview on CNN, in which they insist that the terrorist threat to Americans has grown in the last couple of years, with Feinstein uttering the soundbyte: "The statistics indicate that the fatalities are way up", and Rogers adding that al-Qaida has been "metastasizing" into more groups that engage in smaller attacks, with Feinstein adding: "There is a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist jihadist Islamic community, and that is that the West is responsible for everything that goes wrong and that the only thing that's going to solve this is Islamic Sharia law"; meanwhile Obama admin. personnel are gagged and threatened with termination for mentioning any connection between jihadism and Sharia and terrorism. On Dec. 1 the Winter 2013-14 E North Am. Cold Wave begins with record cold temps across the E U.S. on Dec. 6-10, setting 150+ daily precipitation records and almost 100 daily snowfall records; on Dec. 2 a Pacific storm system hits the W U.S., spreading heavy rain and snow to the Rocky Mts., bringing 30 in. or more in Idaho, Wyo, and Mont. and 60 mph winds; on Dec. 19 the Dec. 2013 North Am. Storm Complex brings freezing rain and snow, damaging trees and power lines, killing power to 1M+ residents along with $200M damage and 27 deaths; on Dec. 20 the Early Jan. 2014 Nor'Easter brings frigid temperature and snow to the U.S. East Coast, incl. 2 ft. around Boston, Mass. before dissipating on Jan. 6, 2014; on Jan. 2, 2014 the Early 2014 North Am. Cold Wave affects the NC and upper E U.S. and parts of Canada, bringing record low temps into late Mar. before dissipating on Apr. 10; on Jan. 19-24, 2014 the Jan. 2014 North Am. Blizzard moves fast through the Mid-Atlantic U.S., dumping up to 1 ft. around the New York City area along with frigid temperatures; on Jan. 27 the Jan. 2014 Gulf Coast Winter Storm hits the E and S U.S. incl. the Gulf Coast Region and Mexico, bringing up to 10 in. of snow before dissipating on Jan. 31; on Feb. 11, 2014 the Mid-Feb. 2014 North Am. Winter Storm hits the U.S. S and East Coast, bringing up to 27.5 in. snowfall in Mount Storm, W. Va. and causing Delta Air Lines to cancel 2K+ flights on Feb. 13, killing 22 and causing 1.2M bldgs. to lose power before dissipating on Feb. 24. On Dec. 2 (1:30 a.m.) China launches its Chang'e-3 lunar probe, which incl. the Yutu or Jade Rabbit buggy. On Dec. 2 (a.m.) hundreds of Boko Haram gunmen attack Maiduguri, Nigeria. On Dec. 2 12 Greek Orthodox nuns and three domestic workers are kidnapped from St. Thecla Monastery in Maaloula (N of Damascus), Syria are kidnapped by Syrian rebels; they are released on Mar. 9, 2014 near rebel-held Yabroud and transported to the Lebanese border town of Arsaal. On Dec. 3 the Mexican Senate passes major political reforms allowing reelection of federal legislators, creating new election oversight, and making the atty. gen.'s office independent from the executive. On Dec. 3 Britain sends Ajay Sharma, their first diplomat to Iran since they closed their embassy in 2011. On Dec. 3 the South Korean intel agency claims that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un fired his uncle Jang Song Thaek as vice-chmn. of the powerful Nat. Defense Commission, and had him and his two closest aides Lee Yong-ha and Jang Soo-keel executed in mid-Nov.; he killed his uncle by feeding him to starving dogs? On Dec. 3 a Pew Center survey is released, revealing that Pres. Obama has a less than 40% approval rating for 9 of 10 foreign policy issues, and disagree with his overall handling of foreign policy by 56% to 34%; 6 of 10 believe Iran can't be trusted. On Dec. 4 19 days after suggesting on air that someone should take a shit in Sarah Palin's mouth, Martin Bashir resigns from MSNBC. On Dec. 4 Christian convert Bishoy Armia Boulous (1983-) (formerly Mohammed Hegazy) is arrested in Minya, Egypt on trumped-up charges. On Dec. 4 (night) senior Hezbollah cmdr. Hassan al-Laqis is assassinated by Sunnis outside his home in S Beirut. On Dec. 5 while observing the maiden voyage of China's new aircraft carrier Liaoning, USS Cowpens almost collides with a Chinese vessel, becoming the most serious U.S.-Chinese naval incident since 2009. On Dec. 5 the U.N. Security Council votes unanimously to adopt Resolution 2127 to establish the French-backed African-led African-Led Internat. Support Mission to the Central African Repub. (MISCA) (Mission Internationale de Soutien a la Centrafique sous Conduite Africaine) peacekeeping force for Central African Repub. (CAR) (until ?). On Dec. 5 an attack on the defense ministry in Yemen kills 52 and injures 167; al-Qaida claims responsibility; on Dec. 22 they apologize for hitting a hospital. On Dec. 5 Ukrainian pres. Viktor Yanukovych and Chinese pres. Xi Jinping sign a bilateral treaty proclaiming that they're "strategic partners", with China promising to protect Ukraine under its nuclear umbrella. On Dec. 5 Pres. Obama gives a speech to the Center for Am. Progress, announcing that for the rest of his term he will address income redistribution, er, inequality. On Dec. 6 a roadside bomb detonates on an Israeli jeep near the Israeli-Syria border, becoming the first attack on Israeli troops since the Syrian civil war began. On Dec. 6 the police dept. of Edmonton, Ont., Canada announce a new hijab female officer unform for Muslim officers, not that they have any yet. On Dec. 6 the new Islamic Front of pro-Al-Qaida groups in Syria drives the Free Syrian Army (FSA) out of its bases in Babisqa, Syria, and the Bab-al-Hawa border crossing into Turkey. On Dec. 7 40+ bodies are discovered in the Damascus suburb of al-Nabk, Syria. On Dec. 7 14 anti-Morsi protester women from Alexandria, Egypt are freed after their 11-year sentences are cut to 1 year probation. On Dec. 7 senior leaders incl. Abdel Rahim Malouh resign from the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). On Dec. 7 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry gives a speech at the Saban Forum proposing that the U.S. police an independent Palestinian state while protecting it and Israel from each other. On Dec. 8 (Sun.) 51 are killed and 191 injured in attacks across Irock. On Dec. 8 Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai meets in Tehran with Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani, agreeing to a longterm friendship cooperation pact. On Dec. 8 thousands march in Paris against Islam and its incursions in France. On Dec. 9 U.S. drones kill three AQAP fighters in Hadramout, Yemen. On Dec. 9 Israel, Jordan, and Palestine sign a $2.5B agreement to begin phase one construction of the Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal to pump seawater from the Gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea to the Dead Sea through water desalination plants and a hydropower plant. On Dec. 10 Gen. Motors appoints Mary Teresa Barra (nee Makela) (1961-) as CEO (until ?), becoming the first-ever female head of a major U.S. automaker. On Dec. 10 100+ world leaders attend the Mandela Memorial in Johannesburg, South Africa, with Pres. Obama calling him "a giant of history", and raising eyebrows by shaking hands with Cuban dictator Raoul Castro, also by taking a selfie. On Dec. 10 Iran rejects an offer from Israeli pres. Shimon Peres to meet with PM Hassan Rouhani, calling it a "propaganda ploy". On Dec. 11 U.S. officials announce that FSA Gen. Salim Idris, leader of the moderate Syrian rebels, who posed for a photo-opp with John McCain has fled Syria after being chased out by Islamists, who seize warehouses along the Syrian-Turkish border, causing the shocked U.S. to suspend non-lethal military aid to Syrian rebels. On Dec. 11 after fruit is found wrapped in pages of the Quran in Liaquat Bazaar in Quetta, Pakistan, and anti-Shiite mob kills one and injures three. On Dec. 11 Uruguay becomes the first country to completely legalize marijuana; meanwhile on Dec. 9 the city council of Denver, Colo. votes 10-3 to legalize smoking of pot on private property. On Dec. 11 the Obama admin. announces that an upcoming ballistic missile test by Iran won't kill their appeasement deal. On Dec. 11 Pres. Obama appoints George Soros man John Podesta, founder of the Center for Am. Progress and former chief of staff for Pres. Clinton as his advisor for Obamacare, climate change, gun control, and closing the gap on income inequality. On Dec. 11 the supreme court of India reinstates a colonial-era law criminalizing homosexuality, pissing-off multitudes of gays and non-gays. On Dec. 11 U.S. State Dept. and Pentagon experts testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, stunning members with their lack of basic knowledge of the cost of the war or lives lost on the battlefield. On Dec. 11 Conn. passes the first GMO labeling law in the U.S. On Dec. 11 (night) two topless Femen protesters storm the stage of the Markus Lanz Show in Germany to protest the treatment of workers building football facilities for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. On Dec. 12 a car bomb in Ismailiya, Egypt injures 25 policemen. On Dec. 12 15 en route to a wedding party in al-Bayda Province, Yemen are killed by a U.S. drone after being mistaken for an al-Qaida convoy. On Dec. 12 Mexico passes historic new oil privatization legislation. On Dec. 12 the U.S. House by 332-94 (169 Repubs., 163 Dems.) passes "the first divided-government budget agreement since 1986", according to co-sponsor Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.); the other is Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). On Dec. 12 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin delivers his 2012 State of the Nation Address, saying that Russia is not trying to be a superpower or "encroach on anyone's interest", and that the world needs to make collective, responsible decisions when it came to Syria, urging political leaders in Ukraine to come up with a solution that best suits the interests of the people, saying they are under no obligation to join a customs union; he adds that while once the U.S. blasted the Soviet Union for being a "godless nation", now the situation is reversed; "Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values. Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation." On Dec. 13 (Fri.) (5:40 a.m.) avionics technician (Muslim convert) Terry Lee Loewen (1955-) is arrested at the airport in Wichita, Kan. in a vehicle full of explosives; he had been under surveillance online, having written the soundbyte: "I have become 'radicalized' in the strongest sense of the word, and I don't feel Allah wants me any other way." On Dec. 13 (12:30 p.m.) after becoming pissed-off at a librarian, shotgun-toting Repub.-hating Keynesian Socialist student Karl Pierson walks into Arapahoe H.S. in Centennial (S of Denver), Colo. and shoots two students then commits suicide 80 sec. later. On Dec. 13 the execution of 1971 war criminal Abdul Quader Mollah ("the Butcher of Murpur") triggers riots in Bangladesh, killing three. On Dec. 13 Iran withdraws from nuclear talks in protest of an expanded sanction list issued by the U.S. On Dec. 13 U.S. District Court judge Clark Waddoups strikes down portions of Utah's anti-polygamy law on First Amendment grounds - big V for Mormons and Muslims? On Dec. 13-14 the Muslim terrorist group ADF-Nalu rape and hack to death 21 women and children in Musuku, Uganda. On Dec. 14 the heaviest snowfall in decades hits the Holy Land incl. Jerusalem, where Palestinians throw snowballs packed with rocks at Jewish drivers. On Dec. 15 (Sun.) a new wave of terrorist attacks across Iraq kills 19 incl. female TV journalist Nawras al-Nuaimi. On Dec. 15 Syrian troops drop barrel bombs in Aleppo, Syria, killing 76 incl. 28 children. On Dec. 15 the pissed-off parliament of Yemen bans U.S. drone strikes. On Dec. 15 in Tunisia Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi and former PM Beji Caid Essebsi, leader of Tunisia's secular Nidaa Tounes Party strike a political deal that promises stability to the whole can. On Dec. 15 ex-intel chief Saudi prince Turki al-Faisal criticizes the Obama admin. for indecision and lack of credibility among Middle East allies, with the soundbyte: "We've seen several red lines put forward by the president, which went along and became pinkish as time grew, and eventually ended up completely white." On Dec. 15 Muslims riot in Xinjiang, China, causing the police to kill 14. On Dec. 16 the govt. of Sudan announces a coup attempt led by former vice-pres. Riek Machar. On Dec. 16 the Senate by 78-16 confirms Jeh Charles Johnson (1957-) as Dept. of Homeland Security secy. #4; he is sworn-in on Dec. 23 (until Jan. 20, 2017), becoming the first African-Am. On Dec. 16 a U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon rules that NSA's phone surveillance program is unconstitutional, justifying the actions of leaker Edward Snowden; on Dec. 17 (a.m.) a bevy of hi-tech cos. incl. Microsoft, Google, and Twitter hold a closed-door meeting with Pres. Obama over it, demanding that he reign the NSA in. On Dec. 16 after a Lebanese army sniper kills an Israeli soldier along the border, Israeli troops shoot two Lebanese soldiers. On Dec. 16 Turkey and the EU sign the Readmission Agreement, giving Turkish national visa exemptions, phased-in over the next 3.5 years - Allahu akbar? On Dec. 16 the U.N. asks for $6.5B in aid for Syrian refugees, its largest appeal so far (until ?). On Dec. 16 Syrian rebels score a V in East Ghouta, Damascus, Syria, claiming to kill 800 Syrian soldiers. On Dec. 16 Russia announces that after years of threats it's deploying missiles near NATO borders with Poland and Lithuania, pissing-off the U.S. On Dec. 16 the Am. Studies Assoc. votes to boycott Israel, causing a firestorm of controversy; on Dec. 23 the Washington Post pub. the soundbyte: "Schools including Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Princeton, and Boston universities and the Universities of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Texas at Austin and others have slammed the boycott." On Dec. 17 (a.m.) a bomb goes off near a Hezbollah base in E Lebanon. On Dec. 17 a U.S. Army Blackhawk heli is downed by the Taliban in Zabul Province, S Afghanistan killing six U.S. troops. On Dec. 17 violence begins in South Sudan between military factions, killing 500 by Dec. 18. On Dec. 18 the Taliban suicide bombers attack a NATO fuel convoy in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, killing one Afghan policeman and wounding three. On Dec. 18 the Federal Reserve Board announces that it will begin scaling back its controversial Quantitative Easing Program from $85B of Treasury and mortgage bonds each mo. to only $75B starting in Jan. On Dec. 18 India passes a landmark anti-corruption law that empowers independent ombudsmen to investigate; meanwhile Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade is arrested in New York City by U.S. authorities over a nanny dispute, and strip-searched, pissing-off India, which revokes privileges of U.S. diplomats in India. On Dec. 18 the U.N. votes 86-36-61 to condemn Iran's human rights violations. On Dec. 18 Islam-loving British Prince Charles issues a statement of concern about how Christians are being "deliberately targed" by Muslims in the Middle East, and are being threatened with extinction - like back home in Britain? On Dec. 18 Duck Dynasty star Phil Alexander Robertson (1946-) is suspended by A&E for voicing his opinion that homosexuality is a sin; the work of GLAAD?; after massive public backlash, they reverse their decision on Dec. 27. On Dec. 18 (midnight) Egyptian police storm the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR) in Cairo. On Dec. 19 13 Repub. and 13 Dem. Senators introduce the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2013, calling for new sanctions on Iran in the event that a deal on its nuclear program isn't reached within 6 mo.; Pres. Obama threatens to veto it. On Dec. 19 Al-Nusra Front leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani tells al-Jazeera that he will "not recognise any results that come out of the Geneva II conference". On Dec. 19 Target announces that 40M customer credit card records have been stolen by hackers. On Dec. 19 the Supreme Court of N.M. legalizes same-sex marriage, making it state #17. On Dec. 19 a panel of three federal judges rules that 9/11 families can sue Saudi Arabia, reversing a 2002 ruling. On Dec. 20 a judge in Utah strikes down the state's same-sex marriage ban, making it state #18. On Dec. 21 an al-Qaida suicide attack in Anbar Province, Iraq kills 17 Iraqi officers and a gen. On Dec. 21 rebels fire on a U.S. military aircraft in South Sudan, injuring four. On Dec. 21 the Syrian army stages a heli attack on Aleppo, Syria, killing 25+. On Dec. 22 a suicide truck bomber at a security checkpoint in Benghazi, Libya kills 13+. On Dec. 22 two days after a suicide attack, Pakistani troops in Mir Ali, North Waziristan, Pakistan kill 23 militants. On Dec. 22 after his French Muslim convert brother Jean-Daniel is killed in Syria in Aug., Nicolas Bons is ditto in a suicide truck bombing in Homs. On Dec. 22 the #240 bus from Bnai Brak to Bat Yam (near Tel Aviv), Israel carrying 12 is bombed with a pressure cooker device, but is evacuated before it explodes. On Dec. 22 a bus accident in Sao Paulo, Brazil kills 14 and injures 32. On Dec. 22 the son of Turkish interior affairs minister Muammer Guler, the son of economy minister Zafer Caglayan, the head of the state-owned Halkbank and 20 others are arrested and accused of taking or facilitating bribes; police seize $2.5M in cash stashed in shoe boxes from the bank chief's home; meanwhile 25 police chiefs are removed for being followers of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen; on Dec. 25 three cabinet ministers resign admit calls for PM Erdogan's resignation. On Dec. 22 Amnesty Internat. admits to working with Swiss-based human rights group Al Karama, whose co-founder Abdul Rahman Bin Umair Al Nuaimi raised millions of dollars a month for al-Qaida and its affiliates in Syria, Iraq, Somalia, and Yemen. On Dec. 24 (1:00 a.m.) an explosion at the Daqahliya police station in Mansoura, Egypt (N of Cairo) kills 16 and injures 140; Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem) claims responsibility, which doesn't stop the Egyptian govt. from blaming the Muslim Brotherhood, declaring it a terrorist org. on Dec. 25 and banning all its activities incl. demonstrations. On Dec. 24 investigators uncover a mass grave of 34 bodies in Bentiu, South Sudan; meanwhile the U.N. announces an increase in South Sudan peacekeepers to 12.5K. On Dec. 24 after an Israeli civilian is shot along the border fence, Israeli stages an air strike on Gaza Strip, killing two and injuring nine. On Dec. 24 Iran and UAE sign an agreement over the disputed islands of Greater and Lesser Tunbs, returning them to UAE, with Abu Musa Island to be decided later; meanwhile Oman grants Iran a strategic location on Mt. Ras Musandam on the tip of the Straits of Hormuz in return for free gas and oil after a pipeline is built in the next two years. On Dec. 25 (Wed.) bomb attacks in Christian areas of Baghdad, Iraq kills 34. On Dec. 25 Pope Francis delivers his first Christmas message, (Urbi et Orbi), praying for protection for Christians under attack, battered women and trafficked children, peace in the Middle East and Africa, and dignity for refugees fleeing misery and conflict around the globe. On Dec. 25 Free Saudi Liberals blogger Raif Badawi (1984-) is sentenced to death for apostasy after his 7-year sentence in July is found too lenient; after being sentenced to 10 years and 1K lashes, the first 50 lashes are given to him on Jan. 9, 2015, causing an internat. outcry. On Dec. 25 the U.S. announces that it's rushing Hellfire missiles and surveillance drones to Iraq to fight al-Qaida-backed Syrian insurgents. On Dec. 25 the Afghan govt. announces that it freed 500+ Taliban and Afghan POWs during the past 18 mo. On Dec. 25 Egyptian authorities foil a Hamas-Muslim Brotherhood plot to bomb Christian churches on Christmas. On Dec. 26 (a.m.) a bus is bombed outside Azhar U. in Cairo, Egypt, killing one and injuring four. On Dec. 26 Pres. Obama signs a $625B defense authorization bill for 2014 that incl. a 1% military pay raise and changes in how the military deals with sexual assault allegations, continuing the current ban on transferring detainees at Guantanamo Bay to the U.S., which Obama calls "unwise". On Dec. 26 a CNN Poll reveals that two-thirds of Americans say that the recently-adjourned 113th Congress is the worst in their lifetime. On Dec. 26 (midnight) a U.S. strike kills four militants in North Waziristan, Pakistan. On Dec. 27 (Fri.) a Christian mob destroys a mosque in Bangui, Central African Repub. (CAR), their 3rd. On Dec. 27 Iran announces that it's building a new generation of uranium centrifuges - go Israel? On Dec. 27 a Taliban suicide bomber in Kabul, Afghanistan kills three ISAF soldiers. On Dec. 27 a bomb at a restaurant in Mogadishu, Somalia kills 10. On Dec. 27 a large bomb in downtown Beirut, Lebanon kills five incl. Sunni ex-finance minister (1997-2000) Mohamad Chatah. On Dec. 27 the first U.S. drone strike in Yemen since mid-Dec. kills two AQAP fighters in E Yemen. On Dec. 27 U.S. District Judge William Pauley rules that the massive NSA phone-tapping is legal because people don't own their own phone records, and is reasonable because it helps eliminate al-Qaida networks. On Dec. 27 the Electronic Army Of the Caucasus Emirate threatens cyberwar against Russia unless it cancels the Sochi Olympics. On Dec. 27-28 fighting in S Philippines kills 17 Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF). On Dec. 28 the 2008 emergency federal program providing up to 47 weeks of supplemental unemployment insurance payments ends for 1.3M jobless workers. On Dec. 28 a Syrian air strike at a crowded vegetable market in Aleppo, Syria kills 21. On Dec. 28 Bahraini main Shiite opposition leader Sheikh Ali Salman is arrested. On Dec. 28 China votes to abolish its infamous 4-year Communist reeducation labor camps. On Dec. 28 the Vatican announces that Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad sent a private message to Pope Francis, his first since the 2011 start of the civil war. On Dec. 28 Boko Haram militants attack a Christian wedding reception in Tashan-Alede, Borno, Nigeria, killing eight; on Dec. 29 they do ditto in Kwajffa, killing four. On Dec. 29 a female (Chechen?) suicide bomber in Volgograd, Russia kills 14; another suicide bomber on an electric trolley bus during rush hour kills 16; Russian pres. Vladimir Putin announces that he vows to fight terrorists to "their total destruction"; meanwhile clueless Obama admin. spokesman Marie Harf utters the soundbyte: "In terms of security for Sochi, U.S. citizens planning to attend should remain alert regarding their personal security at all times. I think our security experts have said that criminal activity in Sochi is similar to other cities of comparable size. Obviously, major events such as the Olympic games are an opportunity for thieves or for other folks who want to cause mischief." On Dec. 29 Saudi Arabia pledges $3B for the Lebanese military to purchase French weapons. On Dec. 30 (6:30 a.m.) nine Muslim terrorists attack a police station in Xinjiang, China, killing eight. On Dec. 30 (a.m.) the home of German ambassador Wolfgang Dold in Athens, Greece is attacked by gunfire; there are no injuries. On Dec. 30 a suicide bomber in Sharkiya, Egypt injures four security personnel. On Dec. 30 the Lebanese military fires on Syrian aircraft after they enter their airspace, becoming the first such action since they threatened last summer to attack any troops, vehicles, or warplanes that violate Lebanese territory. On Dec. 30 an erupting volcano in W Indonesia causes 19K to flee. On Dec. 30 fighting erupts when police break up a Sunni protest camp in Anbar Province, Afghanistan. On Dec. 30 Iranian billionaire Babak Zanjani (1974-), who greased palms to help Iran avoid sanctions is arrested on on corruption charges. On Dec. 31 a ceasefire is declared in South Sudan. On Dec. 31 the Sinai gas pipeline is blown up for the umpteenth time; next Jan. 17. On Dec. 31 Egypt seizes the assets of 500+ Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist leaders. On Dec. 31 U.S. Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor puts a temporary stay on the Obama admin. from forcing some religious-affiliated groups to provide health insurance coverage of birth control or face penalties. On Dec. 31 (eve.) an Islamist terrorist attack at the Coptic St. George Church in Ain Shams, Egypt kills one. In Dec. Egypt establishes Darl Al-Ifta, an official inst. to fight radical Islam by issuing fatwas responding to radical fatwas; in 2015 they issue a fatwa prohibiting destruction of ancient ruins and monuments. In Dec. the gay mag. The Advocate names Pope Francis its Person of the Year. In Dec. there are 2,822 breweries in the U.S., incl. 2,768 craft breweries employing 43K in 1,237 brewpubs, 1,412 microbreweries, and 119 regional craft breweries; the state of Colo. The U.S. Agency for Internat. Development (USAID) sets up the secret $175M U.S. Afghan Incentive Fund to entice Afghan govt. officials to embrace Western-style reforms. Al Murabitoon is formed from a merger of Ahmed al Tilemsi's Movement for Oneness and Jihad in Africa (MUJAO) and Algerian al-Qaida cmdr. Mokhtar Belmokhtar's Al Mulathameen Brigade, swearing allegiance to al-Qaida emir Ayman al-Zawahiri; a faction operates in Mali under command of Sultan Ould Bady. Israel erects a Monument to Gay Holocaust Victims. Nigerian atty. Dola Indidis petitions the Internat. Court of Justice to overturn Jesus Christ's conviction and death penalty. Ala. and Miss. become the last U.S. states to legalize homebrewing; Alaska continues allowing a local govt. prohibition option. The planet Nibiru returns, and the shape-shifting reptilians who have been here secretly for 400K years come out of hiding to rule - (Saurco: Apollo Royale by TLW). After an atomic apocalypse, a nameless drifter poses as a U.S. postal carrier to give hope to the hopless townfolk terrorized by the hooligans of Gen. Bethlehem - (The Postman by David Brin). Tablet devices outsell laptops for the first time. Compressorhead becomes the first robot rock band. Alpha Lamda Nu is founded at the U. of Tex., becoming the first Muslim fraternity in the U.S. Architecture: On Mar. 28 the Queen Alia Airport in Jordan opens, featuring an energy-efficient design modeled after palm fronds. On July 1 the 328 ft. x 1,640 ft. x 1,312 ft. New Century Global Center in Chengu, China (begun 2010) opens, becoming the bldg. with the most floor space on Earth (420 acres). The Chechnya-funded Abu Ghosh Mosque 6.2 mi. W of Jerusalem opens. After petitioning the Holy See in 2004 and 2006 to allow Muslim prayers in the Cathedral of our Lady of the Assumption in Cordoba, Spain (formerly a mosque), and demanding it during a 2007 summit in Cordoba on "Ialamophobia" by the Org. for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Platform for the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, backed by the Spanish Socialist newspaper El Pais presents a petition with 350K signatures, with the ultimate goal of seizing it for exclusive Muslim use? The Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw opens. The 410-ft. 215-step Selaron Steps (Escadaria SelarĂłn) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by Chilean-born Jorge Selaron (SelarĂłn) (1947-2013) (begun 1990), ending at the Convent of Santa Teresa are finished when he is found dead there on jan. 10. Nobel Prizes: Peace: Org. for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW); Lit.: Alice Ann Munro (nee Laidlaw) (1931-) (Canada); Physics: Francois, Baron Englert (1932-) [Belgium}, and Peter Ware Higgs (1929-) (U.K.) [Higgs Mechanism]; Chemistry: Martin Karplus (1930-), Michael Levitt (1947-) [U.S.-U.K.-Israel], and Ariel Warshel (1940-) [U.S.-Israel] [multiscale models for complex chemical systems]; Med.: James Edward Rothman (1950-) , Randy Wayne Schekman (1948-), and Thomas Christian Sudhof (SĂĽdhof) (1955-) (U.S.) [machinery regulating vesicle traffic]; Econ.: Eugene Francis "Gene" Fama (1939-), Lars Peter Hansen (1952-), and Robert James "Bob" Shiller (1946-) (U.S.) [asset pricing]. Sports: On Jan. 17 cyclist Lance Armstrong gives an interview with Oprah Winfrey, finally admitting to drug use and lying, causing calls for him to retestify under oath; his earlier Congressional testimony is beyond the statute of limitations. On Jan. 19-27 the PBA League begins operation at Thumderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, Mich., using the Baker format with 5-player teams incl. the Dallas Strikers, Philadelphia Hitmen, L.A. X, Barbasol Motown Muscle, Geico New York City WTT Kingpins, Brooklyn Styles, Silver Lake Atom Splitters, and Pittsburgh Jack Rabbits; on Nov. 9, 2012 the First PBA League Draft in Las Vegas, Nev. saw Ryan "Rhino" Page (1983-) selected #1 overall by Dallas Strikers team head Norm Duke. On Feb. 17 Danica Patrack becomes the first woman to win the pole position at the Daytona 500, first for any NASCAR pole position. On Feb. 24 the 2013 (55th) Daytona 500 is won by Jimmie Kenneth Johnson (1975-) (2nd win); Danica Patrick becomes the first woman to achieve the pole position at the start, and to lead the race (5 laps), but comes in #8. On Mar. 27 Tiger Woods regains his #1 internat. golf rank after winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational. On Apr. 12 5'8" Chinese amateur golfer Guan Tianlang (1998-) becomes the youngest player to make the cut in PGA history in the 2013 Masters. On Apr. 22 Joe Scarborough (1962-) of Charlotte, N.C. becomes the first bowler to roll a 900 series in a PBA Tour event in his first three games in the PBA50 Sun Bowl Tournament at Spanish Springs Lanes in The Villages, Fla. On May 26 (Sun.) the 2013 (97th) Indianapolis 500 is won by Tony Kanaan (Antoine Rizkallah Kanaan Filho) (1974-) of Brazil, who beats Carlos Munoz by 0.12 sec. On May 26-June 9 the 2013 (117th) French Open at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France sees 3-time defending champ Rafael Nadel defeat fellow countryman David Ferrer 6-3, 6-2, 6-3 to become the first man to capture the same Grand Slam title 8x, becoming his 59th win in 60 matches in Paris; a topless protester against same-sex marriage interrupts the 2nd set; on June 8 #1-ranked Serena Williams defeats defending champ Maria Sharapova to win the women's single title 6-4, 6-4, becoming her 16th Grand Slam title, and her first French Open win since 2002. On June 6-20 the 2013 NBA Finals sees the Miami Heat defeat the San Antonio Spurs by 4-3; MVP is LeBron James of Miami. On June 8 the 2013 Belmont Stakes is won in 2:30.70 by Palace Malice (2010-), who next year wins the 2014 Metropolitan Handicap on the same track for older horses. On June 12-24 after a lockout causes the season to be shortened to 48 games, the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals see the Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Boston Bruins 4-2 to win their 2nd NHL title in four years; MVP is 5'10-" Blackhawks right winger Patrick Timothy Kane II (1988-). On June 21 the Royal Ascot Gold Cup horserace sees the Queen's horse Estimate (4-y.-o. filly) win for the first time in the race's 207-year history. On June 24-July 7 the 2013 (12th) Wimbledon Championships see Marion Bartoli (1984-) of France defeat Sabine Lisicki of Germany on July 6 to win the ladies' singles title; on July 7 (7/7) Andrew Barron "Andy" Murray (1987-) of Britain (coach Ivan Lendl) defeats Novak Djokovic of Serbia to win the gentlemen's singles title 77 years after Fred Perry (1936). On Aug. 6 ML baseball's highest-paid star Alex Rodriguez is suspended for the 2014 season (211 games) for using performance-enhancing drugs, effective in Nov.-Dec. when arbitrator Fredric Horowitz makes his final ruling; All-Stars Nelson Cruz, Johnny Peralta, and Everth Cabrera are suspended for 50 games each. On Aug. 29 the NFL agrees to a $765M settlement in a concussions lawsuit brought by former players. On Sept. 29 QB Peyton Manning (#18) leads the Denver Broncos to a record 52-point win over the Philadelphia Eagles (52-30), setting an NFL record of starting the season with 16 touchdowns without an interception in only four games; on Oct. 13 the 5-0 Broncos defeat the 0-5 Jacksonville Jaguars by 35-19 after being favored by a record-tying 28 points, largest spread since the 1960 NFL-AFL merger; on Oct. 20 the 6-0 Broncos are defeated 39-33 by the Indianapolis Colts in Manning's long-anticipated return to his old home field. On Oct. 23-30 the 2013 World Series sees the Boston Red Sox (AL) defeat the St. Louis Cardinals (NL) 4-2; the first home field (Fenway Park) clincher since 1918. On Nov. 17 9-y.-o. Hannah Diem (2004-) of Seminole, Fla. becomes the youngest bowler in USBC history to roll a 300 game, using a 12-lb. ball at Liberty Lanes in Largo, Fla. On Nov. 22 (50th Anniv. of Who Killed Kennedy Day) Norwegian grandmaster Sven Magnus Oen (Ăen) Carlsen (1990-), "the Harry Potter of Chess" (Garry Kasparov) defeats chess champ (since 2007) Viswanathan Anand to become world chess champ #16 (until ?), going on to win the world rapid chess championship and world blitz chess championship in 2014, reaching a record rating of 2,882. On Dec. 8 #5 Matthew Phillip "Matt" Prater (1984-) of the Denver Broncos kicks a record 64-yard field goal in a game against the Tenn. Titans, which the Broncos win 51-28. On Dec. 22 QB (#18) Peyton Manning of the Denver Broncos beats Tom Brady's 2007 record of 50 TDs in a regular season with 51 in a 4-TD 37-13 win over the Houston Oilers; on Dec. 29 Manning raises the TD record to 55 in a 34-14 win against the San Diego Chargers, passing Drew Brees' 2011 record of 5,476 passing yards with 5,477; the Broncos become the first team to score 600+ points in a season (606); Manning scores 31 points in the first half, then retires for the game. In 2013 the first NBA Twyman-Stokes Teammate of the Year Award, named after Rochester/Cincinnati Royals teammates (1955-8) Jack Twyman and Maurice Stokes is awarded to Chauncey Billups of the Los Angeles Clippers for the 2012-13 season, followed in 2013-4 by Shane Battier of the Miami Heat. Inventions: On Jan. 5 India launches the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-D5) from the space port at Sriharikota in coastal Andhra Pradesh. On Jan. 26 the Chinese Xian Y-20 "Chubby Girl" strategic military transport aircraft makes its first flight, going into service on Dec. 26, 2015; by 2016 1K are planned. On Mar. 1 the Center for Copyright Info. (CCI) launches the Copyright Alert System (CAS) that overrides Internet access for users detected of infringing copyrights, and implements a 6-strikes program to hamper their Internet access. On Mar. 17 Iran launches its first destroyer in the Caspian Sea, the Jamaran-2. On May 3 the USAF successfully tests the X-51A WaveRider hypersonic unmanned aircraft, which goes 3K mph (Mach 5.1) at 60K ft. using an exotic scramjet, meaning it can reach any point on Earth in less than 8 hours. On June 6 Russia tests the RS-26 missile, with multiple supersonic maneuvering warheads, upsetting the balance of power in Europe. On June 11 the Chinese Shenzhou 10 spacecraft takes off on a Long March 2F rocket from Jiuquan Launch Center, carrying Nie Haisheng (1964-), Zhang Ziaoguang (1966-), and Capt. Wang Yaping (1978-) (2nd Chinese woman in space), docking with the Tiangong-1 space lab module on June 13 and returning on June 26. On June 19 Daniel Smalley et al. of MIT pub. an article in Nature about using waveguides to create color holographic video displays that are cheaper than monochromatic displays and can increase the resolution of 2-D displays. On July 7 the unmanned X-47B makes the first-ever arrested landing at sea aboard USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) off the Va. coast. On Sept. 26 Google announces their new Hummingbird algorithm, which makes use of natural language queries, making reliance on keywords obsolete. On Sept. 26 the USAF and Boeing successfully test the first pilotless F-16 Drone. In Sept. the TomTato is launched by Thomson & Morgan Co., a single plant that produces both cherry tomatoes and potatoes. In Sept. Ibon Odriozola et al. at CIDETEC Centre for Electrochemical Technologies produce the world's first self-healing polymer. On Nov. 5 the Indian Space Research Org. (ISRO) Mangalyaan (Sansk. "Mars craft") Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) is launched, attaining Mars orbit on Sept. 24, 2014, becoming the 4th country after the Soviet Union, U.S., and European Space Agency, and first Asian, as well as the first to do it on the first attempt. On Nov. 22 the Xbox One home video console is introduced by Microsoft as a successor to the Xbox 360 of 2005. The Boeing 787 Battery Scandal sees mercury batteries new Boeing 787 jets catch fire, causing orders to plummet. The infrared James Webb Space Telescope (formerly the Next Generation Space Telescope) is launched by NASA as a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope; er, after massive cost overruns it is launched in Oct. 2018; it incl. the daisy-shaped star shade to fly 15K mi. ahead of it and block light to allow distant planets to be searched for. Turkey launches its Gotkturk spy satellite, its first, pissing-off Israel. Israel and China establish the XIN (Chin. "New") Center to do research in nanotechnology. The BigDog walking donkey is developed by Boston Dynamics; it can carry up to 400 lbs. into battle at 7-8 mph. Science: World production of digital data reaches 4.4 zettabytes, expected to grow to 44 zettabytes by 2020. On Jan. 11 the White House announces that it won't pursue a Moon-sized Death Star :). On Jan. 28 geneticists at USC announce that they've extended the lifespan of baker's yeast by 10x, equivalent to 800 years for humans by knocking out the RAS2 and SCH9 genes and putting it on a calorie-restricted diet. In Jan. six hypervelocity stars of Solar size racing through the Milky Way at up to 2M mph are discovered. On Feb. 17 Hungarian physicist Albert-Laszlo Barabasi pub. a paper claiming that every one of the 1T Web documents (14B Web pages plus images, videos, and files) is connected with every other by at most 19 clicks. On Feb. 25 the New England Journal of Medicine pub. a study that finds that 30% of heart attacks, strokes, and deaths from heart disease can be prevented by the Mediterranean diet consisting of olive oil, nuts, beans, fish, fruits, vegetables, and wine drunk with meals. On Feb. 27 a study pub. in Nature reports that the bacteriophage virus can steal the immune system of bacteria and use it against its host. In Feb. scientists at the Nat. Research Council in Canada pub. an article in Nature Photonics indicating that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle might be wrong. On Mar. 3 Deborah Persaud of John Hopkins U. announces the first documented case of a child being cured of HIV using antiretrovirals. On Mar. 6 a report by researchers at Yale Medical School identifies table salt as a trigger for autoimmune diseases. On Mar. 7 Shaun Marcott et al. of Oregon State U. pub. an article in Science which claims that global temps are the warmest in 4K years. On Mar. 7 a team of Chinese physicists announce that Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" is at least 10Kx faster than light. On Mar. 9 the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) reveals evidence of a Martian megaflood. On Mar. 14 after announcing its discovery last July physicists at CERN announce confirmation of the discovery of the Higgs Boson AKA the God Particle, first predicted in 1964, which explains what gives electrons and matter size and shape; this is actually the greatest intention experiment ever conducted, where thousands of scientists find what they want to find by skewing the data? On Mar. 15 a British team of doctors announce that they have kept a human liver alive outside the body for the first time ever. On Mar. 28 Stanford U. bioengineers pub. an article in Science reporting the first biological transistor made from DNA and RNA, which they call the transcriptor. On Mar. 28 Alexei A. Sharov and Richard Gordon pub. the paper Life Before Earth, which claims that an reverse extrapolation of genetic complexity suggests that life originated 9.7B years ago, before the Earth was born. In Mar. the NASA Messenger spacecraft makes the first complete map of Mercury. On Apr. 2 Pres. Obama launches the $100M BRAIN Initiative to unlock the mysteries of the human mind, starting with $40M in FY 2014. On Apr. 2 an article in Lancet claims that there is a continuum among neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, which should be considered as different manifestations of a common "developmental brain dysfunction". On Apr. 4 researchers in Japan report in Science that they can predict dream imagery with 60% accuracy using fMRI scans. On Apr. 7 T.L. Winslow (TLW) announces that the human mind is a quantum entanglement device. On Apr. 10 Tor Wager et al. pub. a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine claiming that they can pinpoint what pain looks like in the brain using fMRI brain scans. On Apr. 11 neuroscientists at Karolinska Inst. in Sweden pub. a paper claiming that they can create the sensation of a phantom hand in a non-amputated patient. On Apr. 15 physicians at Va. Commonwealth U. Medical Center become the first to successfully implant a telescope in a patient's eye to treat macular degeneration. On Apr. 15 the first NASA Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (HI-SEAS) mission begins, with eight food scientists staying on Mauna Loa in Hawaii (alt. 8.2K ft. or 2.5km) for 120 days (until Aug. 13, 2013) in a Mars-like environment; HI-SEAS II sees six people try it from Mar. 28, 2014-July 25, 2014; HI-SEAS III sees six people try it from Oct. 15, 2014-June 13, 2015; HI-SEAS IV runs from Aug. 29, 2015 to Aug. 28, 2016; HI-SEAS V runs from Jan. 19, 2017-Sept. 18, 2017; HI-SEAS VI in 2018. On Apr. 16 Ralph Curry et al. of the U. of Mo. announce Open-Air Containment of Plasma. On Apr. 16 William P. King et al. of the U. of Ill. announce the creation of 3-D microbatteries that outpower supercapacitors and recharge 1Kx faster. On Apr. 16 scientists at Stanford U. announce the location of a brain "hot spot" responsible for numeral recognition. On Apr. 17 Chinese-born Am. mathematician (former Subway sandwich shop worker) Yitang "Tom" Zhang submits a paper to Annals of Mathematics, which is pub. a record three weeks later, announcing a breakthrough in prime number theory by proving that there are infinitely many prime number pairs differing by less than 70M, helping close in on the Twin Prime Conjecture that there are infinitely many differing by 2. On Apr. 17 neuroscientsts at Case Western Reverse U. announce an efficient and reliable method of analyzing brain activity to detect autism in children. On Apr. 17 researchers at the U. of Tex. announce the identification of a protein that can block the brain's response to the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin. On Apr. 24 a study is pub. by Jean Decety et al. of the U. of Chicago that uses fMRI to find that psychopaths lack basic neurophysiological hardwiring to have concern for others. On Apr. 25 the Harvard Stem Cell Inst. announces the discovery of the hormone betatrophin, which spurs beta cell production, promising a new treatment for diabetes. On Apr. 29 the atmospheric CO2 concentration at NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory reaches 400 ppm for the first time after increasing 2.1 ppm per year for the last 10 years. In Apr. the Beijing Spectrometer Collaboration (BESII) announces the discovery of the mysterious 4-quark Zc(3900) particle, which they believe will lead to a whole new family of 4-quark subatomic particles. On May 1 Nassim Haramein of the Hawaii Inst. for Unified Physics (HIUP) pub. the paper Quantum Gravity and the Holographic Mass, which discusses his Connected Universe Theory, a new explanation of gravity and the source of mass, claiming that everything in the Universe is connected, and that space defines matter not vice-versa. On May 1 scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine pub. a study that indicates that the hypothalamus may be the body's "fountain of aging". On May 2 scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College pub. a study that finds that Thrombospondon 1 (Tsp-1) stops human cancers from metastisizing. On May 7 after research by scientists at the U. of Southern Denmark, British surgeons announce that 40% of patients with chronic back pain could be cured with antibiotics that treat Proprionibacterium acnes, the bacteria that causes acne, being hailed as a major breakthrough. On May 8 Alison L. Barth of Carnegie Mellon U. pub. an article in Journal of Neuroscience revealing that neuronal development has an intermediate phase during which repeated exposure to a stimulus shrinks rather than lengthens synapses, showing the futility of all-night cram sessions. On May 8 Princeton U. physicist William "Will" Happer (1939-) and former NASA astronaut (geologist) and U.S. Sen. (R-N.M.) (1977-83) Harrison Hagan "Jack" Schmitt (1935-) pub. the op-ed article In Defense of Carbon Dioxide in The Wall Street Journal, arguing that "the demonized chemical compound is a boon to plant life and has little correlations with global temperature", pissing-off the global warmists and causing the Columbia Journalism Review to call the article "shameful, even for the dismal standards" of the WSJ (journalism standards or scientific standards?); Happer later gives an interview claiming that "temperature always changes first, and CO2 follows", there has been no global temp increase since 1998, and "A thousand parts per million of CO2 would actually help the planet... If you look around the world, many greenhouse operators put several thousand parts per million into their greenhouses"; in 2017 Happer meets with new Pres. Trump to discuss being appointed as his science adviser. On May 9 Kerd Kempermann of the DZNE in Dresden, Germany announces experimental proof that experience leads to growth of new brain cells, which leads to individuality. On May 15 Cell announces the first verified creation of human stem cells through cloning by the same technique that produced Dolly the Cloned Sheep in 1996. On May 15 Michael Fanselow and Moriel Zelikowsky of UCLA and Bryce Vissel of the Garvan Inst. of Medical Research pub. a paper revealing that parts of the prefrontal cortex take over when the hippocampus is disabled, becoming the first demonstration of neural circuit plasticity. On May 15 after years of papers attempting to estimate scientific support for anthropogenic global warming/climate change, Australian cognitive scientist John Cook (2007 founder of the climate science blog Skeptical Science) et al. pub. the paper Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature in Environmental Research Letters, which reports on an examination of 11,944 climate abstracts pub. in 1991-2011, finding that "Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming", which is given a super boost on May 16 by Pres. Obama in a tweet; on Apr. 13, 2016 Cook, Am. historian of science Naomi Oreskes (1958-), Am. geologist Peter T. Doran et al. pub. the paper Consensus on consensus: a synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming in Environmental Research Letters, which concludes that "The consensus that humans are causing recent global warming is shared by 90%-100% of publishing climate scientists according to six independent studies by co-authors of this paper", and that "the finding of 97% consensus [that humans are causing recent global warming] in published climate research is robust and consistent with other surveys of climate scientists and peer-reviewed studies." On May 24 an article in Science by Swiss Federal Inst. of Technology (ETH) in Zurich describes the first experimental observation of quantum magnetism. On May 26 researchers at the U. of Hawaii pub. an article in Nature Geoscience revealing that El Nino is dependent on an unusual wind pattern that straddles the equatorial Pacific and has a 15 mo. cycle. On May 27 researchers at Argonne Nat. Lab pub. an article describing a formula to turn cement into metal by heating it in a way to trap electrons. On May 28 researchers at the U. of Adelaide pub. an article in ACS Synthetic Biology describing Clonetegration, a 1-step bacterial genetic engineering process. On May 28 Peter Walter of UCSF et al. pub. a study in eLife, reporting that the chemical ISRIB counters the effects of ElF2 alpha inactivation inside brain cells of mice, boosting memory. On May 29 Wellcome Trust in London announces the result of a preliminary trial indicating that an Avatar can help schizophrenics manage imaginary voices. On May 29 researchers at the U. of Tex. Galveston pub. a paper tying brain injury to a toxic form of tau units called oligomers. On May 29 radar data of Asteroid 1998 QE2 3.75M (6M km) from Earth reveals that it has its own moon. On May 30 researchers from Purdue U. pub. a paper in Science confirming the theory that mascons on the Moon are caused by ancient massive asteroid impacts. On May 31 Shoukhrat Mitalipov of the U. of Ore. pub. an article in Science announcing the production of the first cloned human embryonic stem (ES) cells. In May NASA pub. the SABER Study, which finds that carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide in the upper atmosphere actually reflects solar energy, cooling the Earth, throwing global warming scientists into a tizzy. On June 3 Idan Shalev et al. of Duke pub. an article in Psychological Science, reporting that the width of blood vessels in the retina may indicate brain health years before the onset of dementia. On June 3 researchers pub. an article in Am. Journal of Primatology supporting the universal existence of five personality dimensions in chimpanzees: reactivity/undependability, dominance, openness, extraversion, and agreeableness, with a possible 6th dimension of methodical. On June 5 scientists at the Nat. Inst. of Standards and Technology (NIST) report observing the Spin Hall Effect in a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). On June 5 researchers from UCLA announce the discovery of Multi-lineage Stress-Enduring (MUSE-AT) Stem Cells in adipose tissue, which can differentiate into virtually every human cell type without modification - a new meaning to the term fathead? On June 5 doctors at Duke U. Hospital implant the first bioengineered blood vessel into a kidney patient's arm. On June 5 chemists at the U. of Pittsburgh pub. their development of titanium dioxide on a stick of carbon nanotubes which might be used to create a sensor to measure blood sugar from human breath samples. On June 5 researchers at Oxford U. pub. a study that finds that a "belief in science" helps non-religious/atheist people deal with adversity by giving them comfort and reassurance. On June 6 researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College pub. an article in Cell reporting the discovery of a mechanism that guides the wiring of neural circuits in a developing brain. On June 6 Jonas Frisen et al. of the Karolinska Inst. pub. an article in Cell reporting the use of C14 dating to establish that about 1.4K new neurons are created in the hippocampus each day during adulthood, with the rate declining modestly with age. On June 7 astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) pub. an article in Science announcing the first observation of a "dust trap" around a young star which generates planets, comets, etc. On June 7 Dennis O'Leary et al. of the Salk Inst. for Biological Studies pub. an article in Science announcing that input from the thalamus is required to determine how the cerebral cortex grows into separate functional areas, not genes alone. On June 9 Steve Finkbeiner et al. of Gladstone Insts. pub. an article in Nature Neuroscience reporting that the protein called Arc controls homeostatic scaling of synapses to form long-term memories without causing epileptic seizures. On June 10 Leon Petchkovsky pub. an article in Journal of Analytical Psychology that reveals a 3-sec. conflict between the left and right brain caused by some trigger words, after which the left brain takes over to ensure that the "hot buttons" will continue to be active. On June 12 researchers at the U. of Penn. pub. a study in the Journal of Neuroscience that finds that a father's life stress exposure leaves a mark on his sperm that can affect the brain development of his offspring. On June 12 Sara C. Mednick of UCR, and Erik J. Kaestner and John T. Wixted of UCD pub. an article in Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience that finds that sleep spindles (burst of brain activity for 1 sec. of less) play a role in emotional memory, and that zolpidem (Ambien) heightens the recollection of and response to negative memories. On June 13 Yu Fu and Richard Depue of Cornell U. pub. an article in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience that an experiment on 70 people using Ritalin showed that extroverts prefer immediate gratification and focus more on faces than introverts, who are overwhelmed by too much stimulation, pay more attention to detail, and have increased brain activity when processing visual info. On June 15-16 Oxford U. prof. Roger Penrose presents a theory at the Global Future 2045 Internat. Congress in New York City that the brain might act like a quantum computer, with the fibers inside neurons forming the basic units of quantum computation. On June 17 Stuart A. Lipton et al. at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Inst. announce NitroMemantine, the first experimental drug to boost brain synapses lost in Alzheimer's disease. On June 17 Stefan Ropke et al. of the Charite Dept. of Psychiatry pub. an article in Journal of Psychiatric Research that finds using MRI that persons suffering from narcissistic personality disorder have a deficit of thickness in the region of the cerebral cortex involved in the processing and generation of compassion. On June 18 an article in Nature reports the observation of the first 4-quark particle, called Zc(3900) in the Belle Detector of the High Energy Accelerator Research Org. in Japan. On June 19 scientists at the U. of Calgary pub. an article in Nature Immunology that reprots that platelets actively search for bacteria and seal it off from the body. On June 19 Don Arnold and Richard Roberts of USC pub. an article in Neuron that reports how they have created microscopic probes that light up synapses in a living neuron in real time by attacking fluorescent markets to synaptic protons. On June 19 scientists at Carnegie Mellon U. pub. an article in PLOS ONE reporting that they have identified which emotion a person is experiencing based on brain activity as measured by functional MRI. On June 19 Bruce Donald et al. of Duke U. pub. an article in PLOS ONE reporting that they can use carbon nanotubes like harpoons to record electrical signals from individual neurons. On June 20 physicists at UTA pub. an article in Nature Communications announcing the invention of a tabletop particle accelerator that can accelerate electrons to 2GeV at a distance of only 1 in. On June 20 Niek van Hulst et al. of the U. of Glasgow and the ICFO-Inst. of Photonic Sciences pub. an article in Science reporting the first direct observation of the quantum effects in photosynthesis, revealing that coherence maintains high levels of transport efficiency and adapts to environmental influences. On June 20 Lara Gundel et al. of Lawence Berkeley Nat. Lab pub. an article that proves that third-hand smoke (noxious residue from second-hand smoke) causes DNA damage in humans. On June 21 researchers from Germany and Canada pub. an article in Science announcing BigBrain, a 3-D digital model of the human brain at a spatial resolution of 20 microns. On June 21 scientists at the Scripps Research Inst. (TSRI) pub. an article in Journal of Neuroscience that a single gene mutation can destroy a key "window" of brain development permanently. On June 25 astronomers announce that Gliese 667C has 3-4 potentially habitable planets orbiting a triple-star system 22 l.y. from Earth, a first. On June 25 scientist pub. an article in Nature announcing the discovery of the mechanism that points transcription in the right direction and tells it to skip over junk DNA. On June 26 Albert Newen and Luca Barlassina of Ruhr-Universitat Bochum pub. an article in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research announcing their new theory that emotions are a separate kind of mental state arising through the integration of feelings of bodily processes and cognitive contents. On June 27 Christopher Berger of the Karolinska Inst. in Sweden pub. an article in Current Biology describing a study that found that what a person imagines hearing or seeing can change actual perception of the other sensory organ. On June 27 Robert Hanlon et al. of Northwestern U. pub. an article in Criminal Justice and Behavior finding that impulsive murderers are much more cognitively impaired than premeditated murders, who may also suffer from psychiatric disorders. On June 27 Anatol Kreitzer of Gladstone Inst. and Edward Callway of Salk Inst. pub. an article in Neuron anouncing a high-resolution mapping technique that uncovers the underlying circuit architecture of the brain. On June 28 Randy Bruno and Christine Constantinople of Columbia U. pub. an article in Science that reports that sensory info. travels two places at the same time, not only to the brain's mid-layer for deeper transmission in a serial fashion, but directly to the deeper layers. In June 2013 Gastroenterology pub. a study by scientists at UCLA proving that bacteria ingested in food can affect brain function in humans. In June Richard Crooks of UTA and Ulrich Tallarek of the U. of Marburg pub. an article in Angewandte Chemie describing their new technique of electrochemically-mediated seawater desalination, which uses a small electrical field to desalinate seawater sans membranes. On July 1 Michael S. Gaffrey et al. at Washington U. in St. Louis pub. an article in Journal of the Am. Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry revealing brain differences in preschoolers who are depressed. On July 1 Roger Godschalk et al. of Maastrich U. pub. an article in The FASEB Journal reporting a pilot study indicating that gene mutations caused by a father's lifestyle can be inherited by his children and passed to grandchildren. On July 3 Elizabeth Gould et al. of Princeton U. pub. an article in Journal of Neuroscience that reports that mice allowed to exercise regularly reorganize their ventral hippocampuses to reduce anxiety in response to stress. On July 4 astronomers Hongsheng Zhao et al. present a new theory of gravity at the U. of St. Andrews, claiming that dark matter might not exist, and that a mysterious unknown force is at work. On July 5 Matthew Lieberman, Emily Falk et al. of UCLA pub. an article in Psychological Science describing a study that indicated that the temporoparietal junction and dorsomedial prefontal cortex are associated with the successful spread of ideas AKA buzz. On July 8 psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the U. of Kent pub. What About Building 7? A Social Psychological Study of Online Discussion of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, which finds that those labelled conspiracy theorists are saner than those who accept the official versions of contested events. On July 9 Jimo Borjigin et al. of the U. of Mich. pub. an article in the Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences reporting a "transient surge of synchronous gamma oscillations" for 30 sec. in the brains of rats after cardiac arrest. On July 12 Toshiyuki Hirabayashi et al. of the U. of Tokyo pub. an article in Science revealing that the brain processes complex stimuli more cumulatively than previously thought, attaining detailed representations of objects not by building up representations in a single area, but by emergence of these representations in a hierarchically prior area and subsequent transfer to the brain region that follows until they become sufficiently prevalent for the brain to register them; the study also reveals that the brain activity involved in recreating visual stimula emerges in a hierarchically lower brain area than previously thought. On July 15 Georg Heinze, Christian Hubrich, and Thomas Halfmann of the Inst. fur Angewandte Physik pub. an article in Phys. Rev. Lett. reporting that they have stopped a light beam and stored an image by electromagnetically-induced transparency for a record 1 min. On July 16 Christof Wetterich of the U. of Heidelberg pub. an article proposing a new cosmology in which the Universe isn't expanding but the mass of everything has been increasing, making the Big Bang singularity unnecessary. On July 16 Mark Scott of the U. of British Columbia pub. an article in Psychological Science revealing evidence that a brain signal called corollary discharge plays an important role in experiences of internal speech. On July 17 Jeanne B. Lawrence et al. at UMass Medical School pub. an article in Nature showing that a naturally occurring X chromosome "off switch" can be rerouted to neutralize the extra chromosome causing Down Syndrome (Trisomy 21). On July 18 Stuart Hameroff et al. of the U. of Ariz. pub. an article in Brain Stimulation reporting that transcranial ultrasound affects mood, with 30 sec. at 2Mhz giving the best positive mood change. On July 19 researchers at Peking U. and Beijing Vitalstar Biotechnology pub. an article in Science reporting on their creation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from mouse somatic cells using a combination of seven small-molecule compounds sans genetic manipulations. On July 22 Marco Catani et al. of King's College, London pub. an article in Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Science reporting their mapping of the neural pathways involved in word learning in humans, finding that the arcuate fasciculus, which connects auditory regions in the temporal lobe with the motor area of the left hemisphere frontal lobe allows the sound of a word to be connected to the regions responsible for its articulation. On July 23 Birgit Wagner, Andrea B. Horn, and Andreas Maercker at the U. of Zurich pub. an article in the Journal of Affective Disorders providing evidence that Internet-based psychotherapy is as good or better than the face-to-face kind. On July 29 researchers at UCLA and UNC pub. a study that indicates that happiness affects one's genes in their immune cells. On July 29 Amit Sahai et al. of UCLA pub. a Mathematical Jigsaw Algorithm to encrypt software so that someone can use it without being able to uncover the code behind it. On July 31 British researchers send a balloon to an altitude of 27km alt. which collects the cell wall of a diatom, claiming it as proof of the extraterrestrial origin of life. On Aug. 1 researchers at UCB and Princeton U. pub. an article in Science reporting a study with massive data indicating that the Earth's changing climate is implicated in increased domestic violence, crime, ethnic violence, and political strife throughout history. On Aug. 2 scientists at the U. of Colo. pub. an article in Science announcing a new solar-thermal system that can split water with sunlight, "the Holy Grail of a sustainable hydrogen economy". On Aug. 5 John Rasko, William Ritchie et al. at Centenary Inst. in Sydney, Australia pub. an article in Science reporting that 97% of so-called human junk DNA can actually play a significant roll in cell development. On Aug. 6 Mark Post of Maastricht U. unveils the first test tube hamburger in London, which cost 250K euros to create. On Aug. 8 Dolores Albarracin of the U. of Penn. and Justin Hepler of the U. of Ill. pub. an article in Cognition reporting that subliminal messages can unconsciously save a person from temptation. On Aug. 9 Simon Baron-Cohen et al. of Cambridge U. pub. an article in Brain reporting that autism affects different parts of the brain in women and men, and that females with autism show neuroanatomical "masculinization". On Aug. 9 Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State U. and James Dent of the U. of La. pub. an article in Physical Review Letters proposing that the Grand Unified Scale might create another background field in addition to the Higgs Field that would account for dark energy and explain why its density is so small, 120 orders of magnitude less than expected based on fundamental physics. On Aug. 12 Michael Argyle of the U. of Rochester pub. an article in Personality and Social Psychology Review reporting a study of 1.5K gifted children going back to 1921 which finds that the more intelligent ones turned away from religion even in old age. On Aug. 13 Shyam Gollakota et al. of the U. of Wash. pub. an article in Data Communication reporting a new technique to repurpose wireless signals as a source of power to allow wireless devices to go battery-free. On Aug. 14 Jeff Anderson et al. of the U. of Utah pub. an article in PLOS ONE reporting that brain imaging experiments find no evidence that some people are "right-brained" or "left-brained". On Aug. 15 Smithsonian scientists pub. an article in ZooKeys describing the olinguito (Bassaricyon neblina), native to Ecuador and Colombia, a relative of the olingo, becoming the first new carnivore species to be discovered in the W Hemisphere in 35 years. On Aug. 15 scientists at the U. of Md. claim that NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft left the Solar System last year, despite NASA claims that it's passing through a transition zone. On Aug. 20 Alexander B. Niculescu III et al. of Indiana U. pub. an article in Molecular Psychiatry reporting the finding of a series of RNA biomarkets in blood that might help identify people at risk for committing suicide. On Aug. 22 Peter Liddle et al. of the U. of Nottingham pub. an article in Neuron that the severity of symptoms incl. delusions and hallucinations in schizophrenics is caused by a disconnect between two regions in the brain, the insula and the lateral frontal cortex. On Aug. 27 U. of Wash. researchers Rajesh Rao and Andrea Stocco perform the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one sending a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of the other. On Aug. 27 Mazahir T. Hasan of the Max Planck Inst., Jose Maria Delgado-Garcia of the U. of Pablo de Olavide in Seville, Spain et al. pub. an article in Nature Communications reporting that some long-term memories are stored in the cortex not the hippocampus. On Aug. 29 Norman M. Weinberger et al. of UC Irvine pub. an article in Neuroscience reporting that specific memories can be made by directly altering brain cells in the cerebral cortex of rodents. On Sept. 1 researchers at Macquarie U., the U. of Adelaide, and Peking U. pub. an article in Nature Nanotechnology announce the SuperDot, a nanocrystal with a special optical fiber that enables light to interact with nanoscale volumes of liquid, becoming a breakthrough in nanoscale measurement of living cells. On Sept. 6 pub. B.M. Harvey of the U. of Utrecht et al. pub. an article in Science reporting the discovery of small brain area which represents numerosity along a continuous "map". On Sept. 8-13 the 2013 European Planetary Science Congress presents evidence that Mars was quite wet once, and had two wet eras. On Sept. 26 Shehan Hettiaratchy of Imperial College in Fuzhou, China announces the world's first replacement nose grown on a patient's forehead. On Sept. 26 NASA's Curiosity Rover discovers that Mars' surface soil contains 2% water by weight. On Sept. 27 the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is released, concluding that: "It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century"; the report Observations: Atmosphere and Surface in "Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change", by lead authors Lisa Victoria Alexander of the U. of New South Wales in Australia, Stefan Bronnimann (Brönnimann) of the U. of Bern, Yassine Abdul-Rahman Charabi (1972-) of the Sultan Qaboos U. in Oman, Franciscus Johannes (Frank J.) Dentener of the Netherlands, David R. Easterling of NOAA, Alexey Kaplan of Columbia U., Peter William Thorne of the Hadley Centre, Martin Wild of ETH Zurich, and Panmao Zhai (1962-) of the China Meteorological Admin. contains the soundbyte: "Current data sets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century and it remains uncertain whether any reported long-term increases in tropical cyclone frequency are robust, after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities... No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes, and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin"; it also admits that the global warming in 1998-2012 was just 0.05C/decade, only one-quarter of the predicted 0.2C/decade. On Sept. 27 after calling AR5 a "death warrant written in stark, black-and-white data", Am. blogging meteorologist ("the Rebel Nerd of Meteorology") Eric Holthaus (1981-) announces his decision to never fly again; meanwhile U. of Ala. atmospheric scientist John Christy announces that an analysis of all 73 climate models used in the AR5 reveals that five of them confirm that there has been no statistically significant global warming for the past 17 years, and none accurately predicted that the global temp. would remain flat since Oct. 1, 1996. On Sept. 27 researchers at UCLA et al. pub. an article reporting the first-ever measurement of the energy of magnetic reconnection in the magnetosphere that drives space weather using six aligned Earth-orbiting spacecraft and NASA's ARTEMIS dual lunar orbiter. On Sept. 27 researchers from the U. of N.C. pub. an article in Science reporting that faulty wiring in BNST cells in the brain can interfere with hunger or satiety signals, leading to eating disorders. On Oct. 7 Lawrence Livermore Labs in Calif. announce the first-ever fusion reaction where the energy released exceeded the amount absorbed by the fuel, just one step short of ignition, where it releases as much energy as the lasers supply. On Oct. 8 Aleksey Komogorov of Binghamton U. pub. an article in Physical Review Letters announcing the successful synthesis of the first superconductor designed entirely on a computer. On Oct. 10 Rebecca Todd et al. of the U. of British Columbia pub. an article in Psychological Science reporting that the ADRA2b gene variant can cause people to perceive emotional events more vividly than others, predisposing them to focus on the negative. On Oct. 14 Dale Greenwalt et al. of the U.S. Nat. Museum of Natural History pub. an article in Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences reporting the discovery of the first-ever fossile of a female mosquito containing traces of blood in its abdomen a la Jurassic Park. On Oct. 26 Spencer Smith et al. of UNC pub. an article in Nature reporting that dendrites in the brain actively process info., multiplying the brain's computing power - I'm Doctor Dendrite? On Oct. 28 Jerry Qi et al. of the U. of Colo. Boulder announce the incorporation of "shape memory" polymer fibers into the composite materials used in traditional 3-D printing to create a form of 4-D printing where an object fixed in one shape can later be changed to take on a new shape. On Nov. 4 Erik Petigura of UCB releases a study that finds that based on data from the Kepler space telescope, the Milky Way galaxy is home to 10B potentially habitable worlds. On Nov. 4 Adrian Kent et al. of Cambridge U. pub. an article in Physical Review Letters announcing the first transmission of info. in a quantum "sealed envelope" with perfect security. On Nov. 8 a team at the U. of Ala. performs the first virtual surgery using Google Glass, which they call Virtual Interactive Presence in Augmented Reality (VIPAAR). On Dec. 11 Nitin Tandon of UTHealth et al. pub. an article in Journal of Neuroscience illustrating a technique for enhancing the brain's inhibiting or braking system with electrical stimulation. On Dec. 13 P. Michael Conn of the Oregon Primate Research Center et al. announce the discovery of pharmacoperones, which fix misfolded proteins. On Dec. 17 researchers at Oregon U. pub. an article in Vaccine describing research proving that consuming moderate amounts of alcohol boosts the immune system. On Dec. 18 Keith Martin and Barbara Lorber of Cambridge U. pub. an article in Biofabrication announcing the first successful printing of cells taken from the eye using inkjet printing technology. On Dec. 18 researchers at pub. an article in PLOS ONE describing a way to transmit binary info. molecularly using alcohol molecules. On Dec. 22 researchers at the U. of Edinburgh pub. an article in Nature GeoScience claiming that a historical study of climate disproves the theory that the Sun has a major influence - except if it goes dead? In Dec. researchers at Cornell U. 3-D print the first working loudspeaker, complete with cone, coil, and magnet. Art: Martin Martensen-Larsen, The Unifier; the body of Tex. death row inmate Travis Runnels painted gold and posed a la Daniel Chester French's statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. Music: David Bowie (1947-), The Next Day. Brandy Clark (1977-), 12 Stories (Oct. 22) (album) (debut) (#28 country) (#163 in the U.S.) (Slate Creek Records); features Vince Gill; incl. Stripes (co-written by Shane McAnally), Pray to Jesus, Hungover. Cults, Static (album #2) (Oct. 15); incl. I Can Hardly Make You Mine, High Road. Imagine Dragons, Live at Independent Records (Aug. 31) (live album); recorded Aug. 31, 2012 in Dirty Denver, Colo. Filter, The Sun Comes Out Tonight (album #6) (June 4) (original title Gurney and the Burning Books); incl. What Do You Say. Ariana Grande (1993-), The Way (Mar. 27) (debut); Yours Truly (Aug. 30) (album) (debut) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. The Way (#9 in the U.S.); "Baby I love the way,/ The way I love you." Ke$ha (1987-), Dancing with the Devil; causes rumors that she's an outed Satanist. Pearl Jam, Mind Your Manners. Macklemore (1983-) and Ryan Lewis (1988-), Thrift Shop (w/WANZ) (#1 in the U.S.); Can't Hold Us (w/Ray Dalton) (#1 in the U.S.). Tim McGraw (1967-), Two Lanes of Freedom (album #12) (Feb. 5) (#2 in the U.S.) (#1 country); first for Big Machine Records; incl. Highway Don't Care (w/Taylor Swift and Keith Urban) (#22 in the U.S.) (#4 country), One of Those Nights (#32 in the U.S.) (#3 country), and Southern Girl (#42 in the U.S.) (#4 country). On Apr. 21, 2006-Sept. 1, 2007 he and Faith Hill go on the Soul2Soul II Tour, which plays 74 shows in 56 cities and sells 1.1M tickets, grossing $89M, becoming the highest-grossing tour in country music history (until ?). He goes on to release 13 albums incl. 10 #1 albums, and 50+ singles incl. 25 #1s. John Newman (1990-), Tribute (album) (debut); Love Me Again (May 17) (#1 in the U.K.); featured in the 2014 film "Edge of Tomorrow". Manic Street Preachers, Rewind the Film (album #11) (Sept. 16); incl. Show Me the Wonder, Anthem for a Lost Cause. Thomas Rhett (1990-), It Goes Like This (album) (debut) (Valory Music Group) (#2 country) (#6 in the U.S.); incl. It Goes Like This (#2 country) (#25 in the U.S.), Get Me Some of That (by Cole Swindell) (#4 country) (#41 in the U.S.), Something to Do with My Hands (#15 country) (#93 in the U.S.), Beer with Jesus (#26 country) (#101 in the U.S.). Nathaniel Rateliff (1978-), Falling Faster Than You Can Run (album #3) (Sept. 17). Black Sabbath, 13 (album) (#1 in the U.S.); first full-length release with Ozzy Osbourne since 1978. Trombone Shorty (1986-), Say That to Say This (album #9); incl. Say That to Say This. Spinal Tap, This Is Spinal Tap (June 11); LP reissue with black cover and black inner sleeve in a gatefold package with original liner notes. Robin Thicke (1977-), Blurred Lines (album #6) (July 12) (#1 in the U.K.); incl. Blurred Lines (w/T.I. and Pharrell Williams) (#1 in the U.S.); "I know you want it/ You're a good girl/ Can't let it get past me/ You're far from plastic/ Talk about getting blasted/ I hate these blurred lines"; becomes subject of copyright infringement suit regarding Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up" and Funkadelic's "Sexy Ways". Justin Timberlake (1981-), The 20/20 Experience (album #3) (Mar. 15) (#1 in the U.S., #1 in the U.K.); incl. Suit & Tie ("I be on my suit and tie, shit tie, shit tie"), Mirrors, Tunnel Vision. Keith Urban (1967-), Fuse (album #8) (Sept. 10) (#1 in the U.S.) (#1 country) (480K copies); incl. We Were Us (w/Miranda Lambert) (#26 in the U.S.) (#1 country). Movies: Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave (Aug. 30), based on the 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup, a N.Y.-born free negro who was kidnapped in Washington, D.C. in 1841 and sold into slavery stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Northrup, Lupita Nyong'o as Patsey, Michael Fassbender as plantation owner Edwin Epps, Paul Dano as carpenter Tibeats, Brad Pitt as Canadian laborer Samuel Bass, and Benedict Cumberbatch as plantation owner William Ford; does $140M box office on a $20M budget. Carl Erik Rinsch's 47 Ronin (Dec. 6), based on a Japanese legend stars Keanu Reeves as Ka, Tadanobu Asano as Lord Kira, and Rink Kikucho as Lady Mizuki. Paul Weitz' Admission (Mar. 22) (Focus Features), based on the novel by Jean Hariff Korelitz stars Tina Fey as Princeton U. admissions officer Portia Nathan, who falls for former college classmate John Pressman (Paul Rudd), and tries to finagle her gifted son Jeremiah Balakian (Nat Wolff) into the univ.; does $18.6M box office on a $13M budget. M. Night Shyamalan's After Earth (May 31) (originally titled "1000 A.E.") stars Will Smith and his real son Jaden Smith as Gen. Cypher Raige and his young recruit Kitai Raige on Nova Prime 1K years after humanity chucks Earth for new digs. David O. Russell's American Hustle (Dec. 8) (Columbia Pictures), based on the ABSCAM sting stars Christian Bale and Amy Adams as con artists Irving Rosenfeld and Sydney Prosser, who are forced by FBI agent Richard "Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper) to infiltrate the N.J. mob; Jennifer Lawrence plays Irving's wife Rosalyn Rosenfeld; Jeremy Renner plays mayor Carmine Polito. John Wells' August: Osage County (Sept. 9) (The Weinstein Co.), based on the 2007 Tracy Letts play stars Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts as narcotics-addicted Beverly Weston in hot Pawawhuska, Okla., whose alcoholic ex-poet hubby Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard) skips out and drowns, causing her to call for support from her dysfunctional family incl. sister Mattie Fae (Margo Martindale) and her hubby Charles Aiken (Chris Cooper), daughters Ivy (Julliane Nicholson) and Barbara Weston-Forham (Julia Roberts) and her hubby Bill Fordham (Ewan McGregor) and 14-y.-o. daughter Jean Fordham (Abigail Breslin), and Karen Weston (Juliette Lewis), only to see them fight and leave too; does $74.2M box office on a $37M budget. Gabriela Cowperthwaite's Blackfish (Jan. 19) (Magnolia Pictures) follows the captivity of Tilikum the Orca, who killed trainer Dawn Brancheau in Feb. 2010, questioning the merit of captivity of er, killer whales, pissing-off SeaWorld San Diego et al., who claim it's a distorted picture. Carl Franklin's Bless Me, Ultima (Feb. 22), based on the 1972 novel by Rudolfo Anaya stars Luke Ganalon, Joseph A. Garcia, and Miriam Colon. Abdellatif Kechiche's Blue is the Warmest Color (May 23) stars Adele Exarchopoulos and Lea Seydoux as lezzie lovers Adele and Emma. Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine (July 26) (Sony Pictures) stars Cate Blanchett as rich fashionable Manhattan housewife Jeanette "Jasmine" Francis, whose money mgr. hubby Hal (Alec Baldwin) is busted for a Madoff Ponzi scheme after she turns him in, and commits suicide, causing her to become alcoholic and talk to herself, moving into her sister Ginger's (Sally Hawkins) working class apt. in San Francisco, Calif. along with her hubby Augie (Andrew Dice Clay), who are among the victims; does $97.5M box office on an $18M budget. Lee Daniels' The Butler (Aug. 16), written by Danny Strong based on the life of Eugene Allen stars Forest Whitaker as White House butler Cecil Gaines, Oprah Winfrey as Gloria Gaines, Cuba Gooding Jr. as Carter Wilson, and Terence Howard as Howard; last film produced by Laura Ziskin. Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips (Oct. 11) stars Tom Hanks as Richard Phillips, capt. of Maersk Alabama, which was hijacked by Somali pirates in 2009. James Ward Byrkit's Coherence (Sept. 19) (Byrkit's dir. debut) stars Emily Baldoni as Emily, who sights a comet and goes through several bizarre experiences at a Calif. dinner party that are caused by a parallel Universe. James Wan's The Conjuring (July 19) stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who help the Perron family (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) with their haunted farmhouse in 1971 Harrisville, R.I. Kirk DeMicco's and Chris Sanders" The Croods (Feb. 15) (20th Cent. Fox), set in the Croodaceous Era stars the voices of Nicolas Cage and Emma Stone; does $587M box office on a $135M budget. Jean-Marc Vallee's Dallas Buyers Club (Nov. 1) is based on the true story of AIDS patient Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey), who smuggles unapproved drugs into Texas and distributes them to fellow patients; does $30M box office on a $5M budget. Alexander Payne's The Descendants (Sept. 10), based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings stars George Clooney as Hawaiian atty. Matt King, Shailene Woodley as his daughter Alex, and Beau Bridges as his cousin Hugh. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Don Jon (Jan. 18) (Voltage Pictures) (HitRecord Films) (Relativity Media) (Gordon-Levitt's dir. debut) is a romantic dramedy starring Gordon-Levitt as Italian-Am. Jon Martello, a Don Juan living in N.J., who has a bad habit of masturbating to porno, and hooks up with Barbara Sugarman (Scarlett Johansson), wh tries to cure him, failing and preparing for the next girl Esther (Julianna Moore); does $41.3M box office on a $5.5M budget. Neill Blomkamp's Elysium (Aug. 9) stars Matt Damon and Jodie Foster as downtrodden worker Max Da Costa and Defense Secy. Delcaourt in 2145, when overpopulated Earth is a mess and the rich live on a luxurious space station that is plagued with illegal immigrants; Sharlto Copley plays sleeper agent Kruger; does $286M box office on a $115M budget. Gavin Hood's Ender's Game (Oct. 24), based on the 1985 Orson Scott novel stars Asa Butterfield as Ender Wiggin, Harrison Ford as Col. Graff, Hailee Steinfeld as Petra Arkanian, Abigail Breslin as Valentine Wiggin, and Ben Kingsley as Mazer Rackham. Fede Alvarez's Evil Dead (Mar. 8) (GhostHouse Pictures) (FilmDistrict) (TriStar Pictures), produced by Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, and Robert Tapert (#4 in the Evil Dead franchise) stars Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessi Lucas, and Elizabeth Blackmore in a super-gory superntural horror flick about five friends in a cabin in the woods who are possessed in turn by the Abomination after summoning him via the Naturom Demonto, which carries the warning: "Leave this book alone"; Alvarez's dir. debut; does $97.5M box office on a $17M budget; watch trailer. Luc Besson's The Family (Sept. 10) (TF1 Films Production) is a black comedy starring Robert De Niro as Mafia boss Giovanni Manzoni, who is on the run with his family under U.S. govt. protection and settles in Normandy, soon disrupting the whole town before having to move on; does $78.4M box office on a $30M budget. Bill Condon's The Fifth Estate (Sept. 5) stars Benedict Cumberbatch as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Walt Disney's Frozen (Nov. 19), based on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" features Kristen Bell as the voice of Princess Anna of Arendelle, and Idina Menzel as the voice of Elsa the Snow Queen, her older sister; does $1.28B box office on a $150M budget. Ruben Fleischer's Gangster Squad (Jan. 11) (Warner Bros.), based on Paul Lieberman's "Tales from the Gangster Squad, about the 1940s LAPD unit fighting gangster Mickey Cohen stars Josh Brolin as Sgt. John O'Mara, Ryan Gosling as Sgt. Jerry Wooters, and Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen; does $105M box office on a $75M budget. Amin Dora's Ghadi (Oct.) stars Emmanuel Khairallah as a Lebanese boy with Down Syndrome whose father Leba (Georges Khabbaz) invents a story that he's an angel. Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity (Heyday Films) (Esperanto Filmoj) (Warner Bros.) (Aug. 28) stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock as NASA astronauts Matt Kowalski and Ryan Stone, who are stranded on the damaged Space Shuttle mission STS-157 at 372 mi. alt., and must engage in hair-raising space acrobatics to make it to the ISS and the Chinese Tiangong space station to make it back to Earth; does $723.2M box office on a $100M budget; "Don't let go." Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (May 10) (3-D), based loosely on the 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald novel stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, and Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan; does $351M box office on a $105M budget. Eli Roth's horror film The Green Inferno (Sept. 8) (Worldview Enertainment) (Open Road Films) (Universal Pictures) is about a group of activists who travel to the Amazon rainforest to stop logging and crash-land, ending up being captured by a tribe of cannibals; does $7.2M U.S. and $12.9M worldwide box office on a $5M budget; "They will eat you alive." Spike Jonze's Her (Oct. 13) stars Joaquin Phoenix as lonely introverted Theodore Twombly, who is about to divorce Catherine (Rooney Mara), and decides to purchase a talking AI OS with a female identity he calls Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), falling in love with her until she decides she's too good for him; does $31M box office on a $23M budget. Alexandre Aja's Horns (Sept. 6), bsed on the Joe Hill novel stars Daniel Radcliffe as Ignatius "Ig" Perrish, who is accused of raping and murdering his girlfriend, and develops paranormal abilities to find the real killer; does $3.9M box office. Yotam Feldman's The Lab exposes the Israeli military-industrial complex. Jason Reitman's Labor Day (Aug. 29) (Paramount Pictures), based on the 2009 Joyce Maynard novel stars Kate Winslet as depressed single mom Adele Wheeler, who harbors escaped con Frank Chambers (Josh Brolin), who is captured after they fall in love; does $20.2M box office on an $18M budget. Ruairi Robinson's The Last Days on Mars (Dec. 6) (British Film Inst.), based on the short story "The Animators" by Sydney J. Bounds and shot in Jorden and Elstree Studios stars Liev Schreiber, Elias Koteas, Romola Garai, Johnny Harris et al. as crewmembers of Martian research base Tantalus, who are 19 hours away from the arrival of their rescue spacecraft Aurora when crewmate Marko Petrovic (Goran Kostic) discovers a life form that turns them into zombies; does $24M box office on a $10.6M budget. Kim Jee-woon's The Last Stand (Jan. 18) (Lionsgate) stars Arnold Schwarzenegger in his first acting role since "Terminator 3" in 2003 as small town Sommerton Junction, Ariz. sheriff Ray Owens, who lost his job on the LAPD after bungling an operation and getting his team decimated, taking on racing car driver drug lord Gabriel Cortez (Eduardo Noriega) and his souped-up Chevy Corvette C6 ZR1; does $48.8M box office on a $45M budget - the has-been star really knows how to pick movie titles? Gore Verbinski's The Lone Ranger (June 22) (Walt Disney Pictures) stars Armie Hammer as Tex. Ranger John Reid AKA the Lone Ranger, and Johnny Depp as Tonto in a PC version twisted against the palefaces; does $260.5M box office on a $250M budget, making it a big flop after spending $150M on marketing. Andy Muschietti's Mama (Jan. 18) (Universal Pictures) stars Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nelisse as two young sisters Victoria and Lilly Desange abandoned in a forest cabin by insane stockbroker Jeffrey Desange (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) that is haunted by cherry-dispensing Mama (Javier Botet), who becomes their caretaker and follows them to their new suburban home where foster parents Annabel and Luke Desange (twin brother of Jeffrey) (Jessica Chastain and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) are waiting, discovering they've gone feral; Muschietti's dir. debut; does $146.4M box office on a $15M budget. Zack Snyder's 3-D Man of Steel (June 12) (Warner Bros.) stars English actor Henry Cavill as Superman, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Michael Shannan as Gen. Zod, Laurence Fishburn as Perry White (first African-Am. in the role), Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Jonathan and Martha Kent, and Russell Crowe as Jor-El; does $668M box office on a $225M budget. Peter Farrelly's Movie 43 (Jan. 25) is a black comedy with 14 different storylines that is a box-office dud; "The Citizen Kane of awful" (Chicago Sun-Times). Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion (Apr. 10), set in 2077 stars Tom Cruise as Tech 49 Jack Harper, one of the last drone repairmen on Earth 60 years after the Scavengers (Scavs) invaded and destroyed the Moon, almost taking over the Earth until nukes defeated them, leaving the planet unlivable, causing the remnant to flee to Titan; too bad, he comes to realize that he's working for the wrong side; grosses $258.8M on a $120M budget. Mike Flanagan's Oculus (Sept. 8) (Blumhouse Productions) (Relativity Media) stars Karen Gillan and Brenton Thwaits as adult siblings Kaylie and Tim Russell, who try to destroy an antique mirror harboring a malevolent entity that killed their parents along with 40+ others in four cents.; does $44M box office on a $5M budget. Antoine Fuqua's Olympus Has Fallen (Mar. 18) (Millennium Films) (Nu Image) (FilmDistrict) is an action thriller starring Gerard Butler as Secret Service agent Mike Banning, who helps rescue Pres. Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) from terrorists holding him in the White House; Morgan Freeman plays Speaker Allan Trumbull; Angela Bassett plays Secret Service head Lynne Jacobs; does $170.2M box office on a $70M budget. Jim Jarmusch's Only Lovers Left Alive (May 25) (Recorded Picture Co.) (Pandora Film) (Soda Pictures) stars Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston (after Michael Fassbender drops out) as rock and roll-loving ancient vampires and lovers Eve and Adam, and John Hurt as Christopher Marlowe, who faked his 1693 death and claims to have written most of Shakespeare's plays; features music by Dutch lute player Jozef van Wissem; does $7.6M box office on a $7M budget; Sam Raimi's Oz the Great and Powerful (Feb. 14) (Walt Disney Pictures), a prequel to the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz" set 20 years earlier stars James Franco as the Wizard of Oz, Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, Michelle Williams as Glinda the Good Witch of the South, Mila Kunas as Theodora the Wicked Witch of the West, and Rachel Weisz as Evanora the Wicked Witch of the East; does $493.3M box office on a $215M budget. Guillerrmo del Toro's Pacific Rim (July 1) (Warner Bros.) is a sci-fi monster film set in the future, when the gigantic Kaiju monsters begin emerging from the Breach, an interdimensional portal on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and terrorize the coasts, causing humanity to fight back with Jaegers, gigantic humanoid mechas with "drift compatible" dual pilots joined mentally by a neural bridge; stars Charlie Hunnam as Jaeger pilot Raleigh Becket, Rinko Kikuchi as Jaeger pilot Mako Mori, and Idris Elba as commanding officer Stacker Pentecost; does $101.8M U.S. and $411M worldwide box office on a $190M budget; followed by "Pacific Rim: Uprising" (2018). James DeMonaco's The Purge (May 2) (Blumhouse Produtions) (Why Not Productions) (Universal Pictures) is set in 2022 U.S., which achieves a low crime rate and 1% unemployment by sponsoring the annual 12-hour Purge starting on June 7 evening, where all criminal laws are suspended by the New Founding Fathers of America, making the homeless into fair game; too bad, a stranger (Edwin Hodge) begs to be let into the fortified house of James Sandin (Ethan Hawke), and they wing it from there; does $89.3M box office on a $3M budget, becoming the lowest-budget film to hit the top of the box office charts in 25 years; spawns sequels incl. "The Purge: Anarchy" (2014), "The Purge: Election Year" (2016), and "The Purge: The First Purge" (2018); Ron Howard's Rush (Sept. 20), about the 1976 Formula One season stars Brad Pitt clone Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt, and Daniel Bruhl as Niki Lauda. John Lee Hancock's Saving Mr. Banks (Oct. 20) stars Emma Thompson as "Mary Poppins" author P.L. Travers, and Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, who talks her into selling the film rights. Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects (original title: "The Bitter Pill") (Feb. 8) (Open Road Films) stars Jude Law as pshrink Jonathan Banks, who treats mental patient Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) with the experimental drug Ablixa, after which she kills her insider-trading convict hubby Matin Taylor (Channing Tatum), later discovering that she has a lesbian thang going with her previous pshrink Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones), along with a plot to use the scandal to make a killing on the stock market; does $66.7M box office on a $30M budget. Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer (Stillking Films) (CJ Entertainment) (July 20), based on the 1982 French graphic novel "Le Transperceneige" by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand, and Jean-Marc Rochette about a future world where botched climate engineering causes an ice age, causing the remnant of humanity to live on a massive perpetual motion-powered train that travels on a circumnavigational track, where the elite live in the opulent front cars and the scum live in the back cars under the brutal bootheel of Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton), causing a revolution led by Curtis Everett (Chris Evans) and Gilliam (John Hurt); Ed Harris plays engine creator Minister Wilford; does $86.8M box office on a $40M budget. J.J. Abrams' 3-D Star Trek Into Darkness (May 16) has the same cast as the 2009 film, with Benedict Cumberbatch playing Cmdr. John Harrison, who turns out to be Khan Noonien Singh, who woke up after 300 years in cryosleep. Evan Goldberg's and Seth Rogen's This Is the End (June 12) stars James Franco and Jonah Hill in a comedy about a group of bachelors in LA who are awaiting the apocalypse. Mikael Hafstrom's The Tomb (Oct. 18) stars Sylvester Stallone as structural engineer Ray Breslin, who is wrongly convicted and sent to a maximum security prison he designed, allowing him to plot his escape with cellmate Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger); Jim Caviezel plays evil warden Hobbs. Jonathan Levine's Warm Bodies (Jan. 16), a paranormal romantic zombie comedy loosely based on Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" by Isaac Marion stars Teresa Palmer as Julie Grigio, and Nicholas Hoult as her zombie lover R; Rob Corddry plays R's friend Marcus AKA M, and John Malkovich plays Col. Grigio; "He's still dead but he's getting warmer"; does $117M box office on a $35M budget. Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street (Dec. 17) (Paramount Pictures), based on the 2007 memoir by stock broker Jordan Belfort stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort, Jonah Hill as his buddy Donnie Azoff (modeled after Danny Porush), Margot Robbit as his babe Naomi Lapaglia, Matthew McConaughey as Mark Hanna, and Kyle Chandler as FBI agent Patrick Denham; first Hollywood film released entirely through digital distribution; most uses of the word "fuck in a mainstream non-dcumentary film (506+ times); does $392M box office on a $155M budget; it is financed by Red Granite Pictues, run by DiCaprio's drinking buddy Riza Aziz, stepson of the PM of Malaysia, which is later accused of using funds embezzled from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Edgar Wright's The World's End (July 10) stars Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie Marsan in a sci-fi comedy film about a group of friends who discover an alien invasion during a pub crawl. Nonfiction: Akbar Ahmed, The Thistle and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam. Bill Ardolino, Fallujah Awakens: Marines, Sheikhs and the Battle Against al-Qaeda. Rick Atkinson (1952-), The Guns at Last Light: The War in Western Europe, 1944-1945; Liberation Trilogy #3. Andrew J. Bacevich (1947-), Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country; disses the neverending U.S. military mobilization. Sami Benjamin (Samir Amin Abdellatif), The Unknown History of Islam: A Theological, Linguistic, Historical, and Sociological Study (Apr. 20). James C. Bennett and Michael J. Lotus, America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity in the 21st Century - Why America's Greatest Days Are Yet to Come. A. Scott Berg (1949-), Wilson (Sept. 10) (NYT bestsller); bio. of Pres. Woodrow Wilson. Daniel Bergner, What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire. Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America. Max Blumenthal (1977-), Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel; pisses-off the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which accuses it of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel slurs, pointing to the chapter titles that "equate Israel with the Nazi regime" and quote "approvingly characterizations of Israeli soldiers as 'Judeo-Nazis'." Alexander Bolonkin, What to Do Now for Your Immortality or a Resurrection in the Future (Dec.); electronic immortality. Tara Brach (1953-), True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart (Jan. 22). Mathias Broeckers (1954-), JFK: Coup d'Etat in America. David Jay Brown, Mavericks of the Mind Live! Roundtable Discussions with Timothy Leary, John Lilly, Laura Huxley, Robert Anton Wilson, Nick Herbert, Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, Ralph Abraham, and Others (Feb. 9); The New Science of Psychedelics: At the Nexus of Culture, Consciousness, and Spirituality (May 5); too bad, on Nov. 19, 2012 rogue Wikipedia editor Qworty (Robert Clark Young) deletes his Wikipedia page. James MacGregor Burns (1918-2014), Fire and Light: How the Enlightenment Transformed Our World (Oct. 29) (last book). Ethan Casey, Home Free: An American Road Trip. Ben Caspit, Evasive: Ehud Barak, the Real Story; calls him "a dangerous man"; "Barak is a person who is convinced that he is what is good for the State of Israel. He suffers from megalomania, which is sad, because he had all the necessary skills to become a leader." David Caute (1936-), Isaac and Isaiah: The Covert Punishment of a Cold War Heretic; Isaac Deutscher and Isaiah Berlin. Jocelyne Cesari, Why the West Fears Islam: Exploration of Islam in Western Liberal Democracies (June); claims that Muslims are no threat to the West, and it's just a Western hangup that can be cured by integrating Muslims better like blacks. Phyllis Chesler (1931-), An American Bride in Kabul (autobio.) (Oct. 1). Nicholas David Christian (1946-) Cynthia Brown, and Craig Benjamin, Big History: Between Nothing and Everything (Aug. 9) backed with $10M by Bill Gates to put in public schools in the U.S. and Australia. Michael S. Coffman and Kate Mathieson, Radical Islam At the Door In the House: The Plan to Take America for the Global Islamic State. Tod Cooppee, Light Bulb Baking: A History of the Easy-Bake Oven. John Darwin (1948-), Unfinished Empire: The Global Expansion of Britain (Feb. 12). Eran Elhaik, The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypothesis (Dec.). pub. in Genome Biology and Evolution; claims that Ashkenazi Jews originate in the Caucasus not the Middle East, with any genetic marker in Jews coming from Iran not Judea. Sandra Espinet (1964-), The Well-Traveled Home (first book) (Aug. 1). Niall Ferguson (1964-), The Great Degeneration; How Institutions Decay and Economies Die. David Finkel, Thank You for Your Service; sequel to "The Good Soldiers" (2009), about the 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Baghdad, Iraq in 2007-8 and their struggles to readjust to civilian life; filmed in 2017. Daniel J. Flynn, The War on Football: Saving America's Game. Allen Frances, Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life (May 14). Oded Galor (1956-) and Quamrul H. Ashraf, Genetic Diversity and the Origins of Cultural Fragmentation (May); The Out of Africa Hypothesis: Human Genetic Diversity and Comparative Development. Kim Ghattas (1977-), The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power (Mar. 5). George F. Gilder (1939-), Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How It is Revolutionizing Our World (June 10); attempts to reformulate economics in terms of info. theory. Ben Goldacre, Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients (Feb. 5). Doris Kearns Goodwin (1943-), The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism (Nov. 3); about the birth of muckraking journalism; causes the New York Times to call her "America's historian-in-chief". Billy Graham (1919-), The Reason for My Hope: Salvation (Nov.). Temple Grandin (1947-), The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum (Apr. 30); "Ignorance has become part of a society's belief system." Gary Greenberg, The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry (May 2); the long tortuous road to DSM-5; "In my practice, it has virtually no clinical value. Its primary value is its ability to help patients use their insurance to pay for therapy." John Guandolo (1966-), Raising a Jihadi Generation: Understanding the Muslim Brotherhood Movement in America (Sept. 10). Sam Harris (1967-), Waking Up: Science, Skepticism, and Spirituality. Murray Holland, A Nation in the Red: The Government Debt Crisis and What We Can Do About It. David Albert Hollinger (1941-), After Cloven Tongues of Fire: Protestant Liberalism and Modern American History; examines how liberal Protestantism grew in the U.S. while yielding their symbolic capital to the conservative evangelicals. Raymond Ibrahim (1973-), Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians. Neil Irwin, The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire. Henry Jackson Society, Al-Qaeda in the United States: A Complete Analysis of Terrorism Offenses (Feb. 25). Ian Johnson, A Mosque in Munich. Brian Jay Jones, Jim Henson: The Biography; NYT bestseller. Walter Johnson Jr. (1966-), River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom. Gary Kamiya, Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco. Eric Kandel (1929-), The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present. Rashid Khalidi (1948-), Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East; lets it all out. William Kilpatrick, Christianity, Islam, and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West; calls on Christians to take the fight to the Muslims by evangelizing them. Michael Muhammad Knight, Tripping with Allah: Islam, Drugs, and Writing. Ray Kurzweil (1948-), How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed; claims that the human mind works like a computer, complete with algorithms and data. Brian Latell, Castro's Secrets: Cuban Intelligence, the CIA, and the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (July 9); claims that Lee Harvey Oswald had close ties Cuba, which the CIA covered-up. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Mark Levin (1957-), The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic (Aug. 13) (NYT #1 bestseller); proposes 11 new U.S. Constitutional amendments incl. SCOTUS justice term limits, a federal balanced budget, photo IDs requirements for voting. Wendy Lower, Hitler's Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields (Oct. 10). John Lukacs (1924-), A Short History of the Twentieth Century. Margaret Macmillan (1943-), The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914 (Oct. 29); WWI can happen again? Daniel Markey, No Exit from Pakistan: America's Tortured Relationship with Islamabad; U.S.-Pakistan ties a condition to be managed, not a problem to be solved? Ryan Mauro, Raising a Jihadi Generation: Understanding the Muslim Brotherhood Movement in America; "Part of the problem in getting Americans to see the imminent threat... they, like the U.S. security services, are completely focused on the kinetic stuff – bombings, shootings, etc. We need to worry about these, but it isn't how they intend to defeat us." Barr McClellan, The Verdict: Justice for John Kennedy, Justice for America (Nov. 5). David McRaney, You Are Now Less Dumb. Morrissey (1959-), Autobiography (Oct. 17). Douglas Murray, Islamophilia: A Very Metropolitan Malady. Greg Muttitt, Fuel on Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq. Graham Nash (1942-), Entitled Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life (autobio.). Vali Reza Nasr (1960-), The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat; disses Pres. Obama in favor of Hillary Clinton and Richard Holbrooke. Ara Norenzayan, Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict; belief in judgmental "big gods" was the key to building a large complex Egyptian society? Christiane Northrup, Beautiful Girl. John Julius Norwich (1929-) (ed.), Darling Monster: The Letters of Lady Diana Cooper to Her Son John Julius Norwich. Laurent Obertone, France Clockwork Orange; the "veritable cultural revolution" France is undergoing as a result of mass immigration, esp. Muslim, with crime worse than in the Apaches era of 1900. Peter Oborne and David Morrison, A Dangerous Delusion; challenges U.S. claims about Iran's push to get nukes. Bill O'Reilly, Killing Jesus. Sam Parnia, Erasing Death: The Science That is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death. John Parker and Richard Reid (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Modern African History. Andrea Pitzer, The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov. David Perlmutter, Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar - Your Brain's Silent Killers; disses gluten in the diet. Alan Power, The Princess Diana Conspiracy (Aug. 29); claims that she was assassinated by the Increment, a top-secret unit of British MI6 to keep her from talking about Prince Charles' sex life. Karl H. Pribram (1919-), The Form Within. Adrian Raine, The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime (Apr. 30). Barbara Res, All Alone on the 68th Floor: How One Woman Changed the Face of Construction (July 10); first woman to oversee construction of an Am. skyscraper, the Trump Tower in NYC. Joel Richardson, The Islamic Antichrist; it won't be Rome? Linda Ronstadt (1946-), Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir (autobio.); "I don't care" (response to Rock Hall of Fame induction). Howard Rotberg, TOLERism: The Ideology Revealed (Dec. 16); the new age of tolerance without limits, except for certain marked people incl. racists, Islamophobes, and Zionists. SQuire Rushnell, Divine Alignment: How Godwink Moments Guide Your Journey (Mar. 12); claims that each person is born with a built in GPS, God's Positioning System. Sally Satel and Scott O. Lilienfeld, Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience (June 4); the abuse of fMRI. Walid Shoebat, The Case for Islamophobia (Mar. 15). Robert O. Smith, More Desired than Our Owne Salvation: The Roots of Christian Zionism. Lee Smolin, The Reborn (Apr.); claims that time is real rather than an illusion, and that the Universe might have been born inside a black hole. Thomas Sowell (1930-), Intellectuals and Race. Denise A. Spellberg (1958-), Thomas Jefferson's Qu'ran: The Founders and Islam (Oct. 1); Am. leftist Islamophile tries to frame Jefferson on being pro-Islam, even claiming the Quran as the source of the DOI, gag. Robert Spencer, Not Peace But A Sword: The Great Chasm Between Christianity and Islam. Daniel Stahl, Nazi Hunt: South America's Dictatorships and the Avenging of Nazi Crimes (Jan.); the half-hearted efforts of the "coalition of the unwilling" of postwar govts. to track down Nazi war criminals. Bob Stanley, Saint Etienne, Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop. Erik Stakelbeck, The Brotherhood: America's Next Great Enemy. Roger Stone (1951-), The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ (Oct.). Viktor Suvorov, The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II (Mar. 15); Stalin deliberately prepared for WWII to bring a Commie Paradise to Europe, helping Germany rearm so they would chew up France and Britain and soften them up for Commie takeover?; Red agitprop made the Red Army appear weak and outdated, when it was in fact the best equipped in the world?; the surprise German attack on Stalin was initially successful because Stalin was preparing for a surprise attack on them, and there were only offensive troops, with no defensive preparations? Meredith Tax, Double Blind: The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left, and Universal Human Rights; British leftist disses fellow leftists for aligning themselves with Islamists. Alan Shaw Taylor (1955-), The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832 (Pulitzer Prize). Elizabeth F. Thompson, Justice Interrupted: The Struggle for Constitutional Government in the Middle East. Ben Urwand, The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pactwith Hitler (Sept. 9). Jesse Ventura (1951-), Dick Russell, and David Wayne, They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons to Believe There Was a Conspiracy to Assassinate JFK (Oct. 1). Frans de Waal, The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates; claims that human morality is a product of evolution not religion. Eric Walberg, From Postmodernism to Postsecularism: Re-Emerging Islamic Civilization. Ibn Warraq (1946-), Sir Walter Scott's Crusades and Other Fantasies; incl. "George Eliot, Daniel Deronda, and Zionism: Some Observations". D.C. Watson, Through These Views: A View from Inside the Political Jihad Arena. Brian Glyn Williams, Predators: The CIA's Drone War on al Qaeda (July); The Last Warlord: The Life and Legend of Dostum, the Afghan Warrior Who Led US Special Forces to Topple the Taliban Regime (Sept.). Lawrence Wright (1947-), Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief (Jan. 17); expose of Scientology as a mind control cult; filmed in 2015. Malala Yousafzai (1997-) and Christina Lamb, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban (autobio.) (Oct. 8). Plays: Douglas McGrath (1958-), Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (jukebox musical) (Curran Theatre, San Francisco) (Oct. 8) (Stephen Sondheim Theatre, New York) (Jan. 12, 2014) (Aldwych Theatre, West End, London) (Feb. 10, 2015); tells the life story of singer Carole King; the Broadway production stars Jessie Muller as King, Jake Epstein as Gerry Goffin, Anika Larsen as Cynthia Weil, and Jarrod Spector as Barry Man; the West End production stars Katie Brayben/Cassidy Janson as King, Alan Morrissey as Gerry Goffin, Lorna Want as Cynthia Weil, and Ian McIntosh as Barry Mann. Marc Shaiman (1959-), Scott Wittman (1954-), and David Greig (1969-), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (musical) (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, West End, London) (June 25) (1,293 perf.) (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York) (Apr. 23, 2017); the West End production stars Douglas Hodge/Alex Jennings as Willy Wonka; based on the 1964 Roald Dahl novel. Berry Gordy (1929-), Motown: The Musical (musical) (Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, New York (Apr. 14) (738 perf.) (Shaftesbury Theatre, West End, London) (Feb. 11, 2016); based on Gordy's 1994 autobio. "To Be Loved: The Music, the Magic, the Memories of Motown"; features 66 songs; "The beat of a generation. The soul of a nation." Poetry: J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973), The Fall of Arthur (posth.); his take on the King Arthur legend. Novels: Margaret Atwood (1969-), MaddAddam (Aug.); sequel to "The Year of the Flood" (2009). Noah Beck, The Last Israelis; Israeli-Iranian nuclear holocaust. Dan Brown (1964-), Inferno; middle age Langdon solves a mystery about Dante. James S.A. Corey, Abaddon's Gate. Michelle Cohen Corasanti, The Almond Tree; Palestinian boy genius Ichmad takes on the evil Israelis. John Daniels, The Coming: A True Story of Horror; Marie Darrieussecq (1969-), It Takes a Lot to Love Men (Il faut beaucoup aimer les hommes) (Prix Medicis). Philippa Gregory (1954-), The White Princess (Aug. 1); about Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Henry VII and mother of Henry VIII; turned into a TV series in 2016 by Starz. Mohsin Hamid, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. Elijah Jones, Storm Front; a Lutheran prof. from Minn. digs up a stele in Israel that concerns King Solomon, and steals it. Stephen King (1947-), Joyland (June 4); Doctor Sleep: A Novel (Sept.); sequel to "The Shining" (1967). Kevin Kwan, Crazy Rich Asians; internat. bestseller about rich people in Singapore flocking to a wedding; filmed in 2018; followed by "China Rich Girlfriend" (2015), "Rich People Problems" (2017). David Mamet (1947-), Three War Stories. Megan Marshall (1954-), Margaret Fuller: A New American Life (Pulitzer Prize). Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow (June 4); Dominika Egrova is forced by her uncle to enroll at the Sparrow School, which teaches how to seduce the enemy. filmed in 2018. Colum McCann, TransAtlantic. Colleen McCullough (1937-), Bittersweet. Scott Rempell, Five Grounds; asylum seekers in the U.S. J.K. Rowling (1965-), The Cuckoo's Calling; pub. under alias Robert Galbraith. John Scalzi (1969-), The Human Division (May); Old Man's War #5. Eric Siegel, Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die (Feb.). Charles Stross (1964-), Neptune's Blood; sequel to "Saturn's Children" (2008). Roger Stone (1952-), The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Case Against LBJ (Nov. 4); reveals new info. incl. LBJ's alleged complicity in 6+ other murders incl. his own openly bisexual sister Josefa Johnson, and an alleged personal remark by Richard Nixon in 1989 that "Both Johnson and I wanted to be president, but the only difference was that I wouldn't kill for it", adding when pressed that it was "Texas" that killed Kennedy. Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement. Daniel H. Wilson (1978-), Amped (Feb. 12); about a world where amplified humans are discriminated against. Rick Yancey (1962-), The 5th Wave (May 7); 16-y.-o. Cassie Sullivan fights an ET invasion by the Others; the "Twilight" for aliens?; followed by "The Infinite Sea" (2014), "The Last Star" (2016). Births: English royal heir prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge on July 22 (16:24 p.m.) in London; son of Prince William (1982-) and Princess Catherine (1982-); Carole Middleton is their first nanny. Deaths: Austrian-born Am. historian Gerda Lerner (b. 1920) on Jan. 2 in Madison, Wisc. Am. "The Warriors" novelist Sol Yurick (b. 1925) on Jan. 5 in Brooklyn, N.Y. Am. novelist-poet Evan S. Connell (b. 1924) on Jan. 10 in Santa Fe, N.M. Chilean-born Brazilian artist Jorge Selaron (b. 1947) on Jan. 10 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (found dead on the Selaron Steps). Indian-born Am. musician Harihar Rao (b. 1927) on Jan. 13. French Etch A Sketch inventor Andre Cassagnes (b. 1926) on Jan. 16 in Paris. Am. tennis player Gussie Moran (b. 1923) on Jan. 16 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. columnist Pauline Esther Friedman Phillips (AKA Ann Landers) (b. 1918) on Jan. 16 in Minneapolis, Minn. (Alzheimer's). Am. baseball player Stan Musial (b. 1920) on Jan. 19 in Ladue, Mo. Am. baseball hall-of-fame player-mgr. Earl Weaver (b. 1930) on Jan. 19 in the Caribbean; dies aboard the Celebrity Silhouette. Polish cardinal Jozef Glemp (b. 1929) on Jan. 23 in Warsaw. Am. scientist-activist Dan Massey (b. 1942) on Jan. 26 in Washington, D.C. (cancer). Am. journalist-historian Stanley Abram Karnow (b. 1925) on Jan. 27 in Potomac, Md. (heart failure). South African industrial psychologist John E. Karlin (b. 1918) on Jan. 28. Am. Remote Viewing co-creator Ingo Swann (b. 1933) on Jan. 31 in New York City. Am. New York City mayor #105 (1978-89) Ed Koch (b. 1924) on Feb. 1 in New York City (heart failure). Am. "American Sniper" Navy SEAL vet Chris Kyle (b. 1974) (150+ kills) on Feb. 2 in Erath County (near Chalk Mountain), Tex.; killed on a shooting range along with Chad Littlefield by fellow Marine vet Eddie Ray Routh, who suffers from PTSD, and is charged with two counts of murder and given a life sentence without parole; subject of the 2014 film "American Sniper" dir. by Clint Eastwood, starring Bradley Cooper. U.S. Rep. (D-Ill.) (1973-97) Cardiss Collins (b. 1931) on Feb. 3 in Alexandria, Va. South African model Reeva Steenkamp (b. 1983) on Feb. 14 in Pretoria; shot by Paralympic athlete beau Oscar Pistorius, who is convicted of culpable homicide on Sept. 12, 2014. Am. writer Debbie Ford (b. 1955) on Feb. 17 in San Diego, Calif. (cancer). Chinese ping-pong champ Zhuang Zedong (b. 1940) on Feb. 10 in Beijing. Am. country singer Mindy McCready (b. 1975) on Feb. 17 in Heber Springs, Ark. (suicide); kills herself on the same front porch where her ex-boyfriend killed himself 1 mo. earlier. Am. economist Armen Alchian (b. 1914) on Feb. 19 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. pianist Van Cliburn (b. 1934) on Feb. 27 in Fort Worth, Tex. (bone cancer). Am. actor Dale Robertson (b. 1923) on Feb. 27 in La Jolla, San Diego, Calif. Venezuelan pres. (1999-2013) Hugo Chavez (b. 1954) on Mar. 5 in Caracas (cancer); dies after reducing poverty from 55.4% in 1998 to 27% in 2012; on Mar. 13 new pres. Nicolas Maduro announces an investigation into foul play (poisoning by the CIA). English Yes guitarist Peter Banks (b. 1947) on Mar. 7 in London (heart failure). German celeb Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin (b. 1922) on Mar. 8 in Munich; last surviving member of the July 20, 1944 Plot. Bangladeshi physicist Jamal Nazrul Islam (b. 1934) on Mar. 16 in Chittagong. Am. immigration reform adviser Lawrence Fuchs (b. 1927) on Mar. 17 in Canton, Mass. (Parkinson's). Am. porn star Harry Reems (b. 1947) on Mar. 19 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Am. opera singer Rise Stevens (b. 1913) on Mar. 20 in Manhattan, N.Y. Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe (b. 1930) on Mar. 22 in Boston, Mass. Am. basketball player Ray Williams (b. 1954) on Mar. 22 in New York City. Russian exiled businessman Boris Berezovsky (b. 1946) on Mar. 23 in Surrey, U.K. Canadian bodybuilding magnate Joe Weider (b. 1919) on Mar. 23 in Los Angeles, Calif. Norwegian Olympic speed skater Hjalmar Andersen (b. 1923) on Mar. 27 in Oslo. Am. Crawdaddy! rock journalist Paul S. Williams (b. 1948) on Mar. 27 in in San Diego, Calif. (Alzheimer's). English "Vernon Dursley in Harry Potter" actor Richard Griffiths (b. 1947) on Mar. 28 in Coventry (heart failure). Am. record producer Phil Ramone (b. 1934) on Mar. 30 in Manhattan, N.Y. (brain aneurysm). Am. Olympic sprinter Ronnie Ray Smith (b. 1949) on Mar. 31 in Los Angeles, Calif. German-born Anglo-British "Howards End" novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (b. 1927) on Apr. 3 in New York City. Am. #1 film critic Roger Ebert (b. 1942) on Apr. 4 in Chicago, Ill. (cancer). Am. Atlanta Hawks gen. mgr. (1954-70) Marty Blake (b. 1927) on Apr. 7 in Atlanta, Ga. Am. fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer (b. 1931) on Apr. 7 in Palm Beach, Fla. Am. Mousketeer singer-actress Annette Funicello (b. 1942) on Apr. 8 in Bakersfield, Calif. (MS). British "Iron Lady" PM (1979-90) Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925) on Apr. 8 in London (stroke): "There is no such thing as society"; "The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." Am. comedian Jonathan Winters (b. 1925) on Apr. 11 in Montecito, Calif. Am. "Lumpy in Leave it to Beaver" actor Frank Bank (b. 1942) on Apr. 13 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. (prostate cancer). Am. actress Christine White (b. 1926) on Apr. 14 in Washington, D.C. French biologist Francois Jacob (b. 1920) on Apr. 19 in Paris. Am. USA Today founder Al Neuharth (b. 1924) on Apr. 19 in Cocoa Beach, Fla. Am. country singer George Jones (b. 1931) on Apr. 26 in Nashville, Tenn. Am. singer-actress Deanna Durbin (b. 1921) on Apr. 20 in Neauphle-le-Chateau, France. Am. Slayer thrash metal guitarist Jeff Hanneman (b. 1964) on May 2 in Los Angeles, Calif. (liver failure from a spider bite in a hot tub?). Belgian biochemist Christian de Duve (b. 1917) on May 4 in Grez-Doiceau; 1974 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. FBI agent Robert K. Ressler (b. 1937) on May 5 in Spotsylvania County, Va. (Parkinson's). Am. "Angie Baby" songwriter Alan O'Day (b. 1940) on May 17 in Westwood, Calif. (brain cancer). Am. "Wes Parmalee in Dallas" actor Steve Forrest (b. 1925) on May 18 in Thousand Oaks, Calif. Am. Doors organist Ray Manzarek (b. 1939) on May 20 in Rosenheim, Germany (cancer). Am. novelist Jack Vance (b. 1916) on May 26 in Oakland, Calif. Am. "Edith Bunker in All in the Family" actress Jean Stapleton (b. 1923) on May 31 in New York City. Am. hall-of-fame football player Deacon Jones (b. 1938) on June 3 in Anaheim Hills, Calif. Am. "Million Dollar Mermaid" swimmer-actress Esther Williams (b. 1921) on June 6 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. serial murderer Richard Ramirez (b. 1960) on June 7 on death row in Greenbrae, Calif. (B-cell lymphoma). Scottish "Consider Phlebas" sci-fi novelist Iain Banks (b. 1954) on June 9 in Kirkcaldy, Fife (gallbladder cancer). Japanese world's oldest living person Jiroemon Kimura (b. 1897) on June 12 in Kyotango, Kyoto. Canadian historian Donald Mackenzie Schurman (b. 1924) on June 16 in Kingston, Ont. Kiwi writer Michael Baigent (b. 1948) on June 17 in Brighton, England. Am. "Tony Soprano in The Sopranos" actor James Gandolfini (b. 1961) on June 19 in Rome, Italy (cardiac arrest). Am. blues singer Bobby Bland (b. 1930) on June 23 in Memphis, Tenn. Am. "Family Ties", "Spin City" writer-producer Gary David Golberg (b. 1944) on June 22 in Montecito, Calif. (brain cancer). Am. "I Am Legend" novelist-screenwriter Richard Matheson (b. 1926) on June 23 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. plant psychiatrist Cleve Backster (b. 1924) on June 24 in San Diego, Calif. Australian political philosopher Kenneth Minogue (b. 1930) on June 28. Am. "Enter the Dragon", "Black Belt Jones" actor Jim Kelly (b. 1946) on June 29 in San Diego, Calif. (cancer). Am. historian Edmund Sears Morgan (b. 1916) on July 8 in New Haven, Conn.: "History at its best is vicarious experience"; "I would say that my ideal of writing history is to give the reader vicarious experience. You're born in one particular century at a particular time, and the only experience you can have directly is of the place you live and the time you live in. History is a way of giving you experience that you would otherwise be cut off from." Iraqi secret service head Sabawi Ibrahim al-Tikriti (b. 1947) on July 8 in Baghdad (cancer); dies awaiting a sentence of death by hanging. Am. "Cochise in Broken Arrow" "Kang in Star Trek" actor Michael Ansara (b. 1922) on July 31 in Calabasas, Calif. (Alzheimer's). Canadian "Finn Hudson in Glee" actor-singer Cory Monteith (b. 1982) on July 13 in Vancouver, B.C. (OD); found dead in his hotel room. Am. bluesman T-Model Ford (James Lewis Carter Ford) (b. 192?) on July 16 in Greenville, Miss. Am. "Kazuo Kim in Hawaiian Eye" actor Poncie Ponce (b. 1933) on July 19 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. journalist Helen Thomas (b. 1920) on July 20 in Washington, D.C. Am. architect Natalie de Blois (b. 1921) on July 22 in Chicago, Ill. (cancer). Am. "Joe Fontana in Law & Order" actor Dennis Farina (b. 1944) on July 22 in Scottsdale, Ariz. (blood clot in lung). Kiwi archeologist Mike Morwood (b. 1950) on July 23 in Darwin, Australia. Am. installation artist Walter De Maria (b. 1935) on July 25 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "After Midnight" songwriter J.J. Cale (b. 1938) on July 26 in La Jolla, Calif. (heart attack). Am. Penn. gov. #38 (1963-7) William Scranton (b. 1917) on July 28 in Montecito, Calif. (cerebral hemorrhage). Am. basketball player (first basket in NBA history) Ossie Schectman (b. 1919) on July 30 in Delray Beach, Fla. Am. singer Eydie Gorme (b. 1928) on Aug. 10 in Las Vegas, Nev. Am. "Laurie on That '70s Show" actress Lisa Robin Kelly (b. 1970) on Aug. 13 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cardiac arrest from multiple drug intoxication). Am. "Laurie Forman in That '70s Show" actress Lisa Robin Kelly (b. 1970) on Aug. 14 in Altadena, Calif. Spanish billionaire Rosalia Mera (b. 1944) on Aug. 15 in A Coruna, Galicia. Am. economist-historian David Saul Landes (b. 1924) on Aug. 17 in Haverford, Penn. Am. jazz critic Albert Murray (b. 1916) on Aug. 18 in Harlem, N.Y. Am. jazz musician Cedar Walton (b. 1934) on Aug. 19 in Brooklyn, N.Y. Am. "Get Shorty" novelist Elmore Leonard (b. 1925) on Aug. 20 in Bloomfield Hills, Mich. (stroke). Am. "Dash Riprock in The Beverly Hillbillies" actor Larry Pennell (b. 1928) on Aug. 28. Irish poet Seamus Heaney (b. 1939) on Aug. 30 in Dublin; 1995 Nobel Lit. Prize. English TV host David Frost (b. 1939) on Aug. 31; dies aboard MS Queen Elizabeth en route from Southampton to Rome. Am. boxer Tommy Morrison (b. 1969) on Sept. 1 in Neb. (AIDS). British-born Am. economist Ronald Coase (b. 1910) on Sept. 2 in Chicago, Ill. Am. historian Lacey Smith (b. 1922) on Sept. 8 in Greenboro, Vt. Am. car dealer Cal Worthington (b. 1920) on Sept. 8 in Orland, Calif. U.S. Rep. (D-Penn.) (1979-91) William Herbert Gray III (b. 1941) on July 1 in London, England. Am. electrical engineer Ray Dolby (b. 1933) on Sept. 12 in San Francisco, Calif. (leukemia). Spanish-born Am. world's oldest man Salustiano Sanchez (b. 1901) on Sept. 13 in Grand Island, N.Y. Am. Colo. gov. #37 (1973-5) John David Vanderhoof (b. 1922) on Sept. 19 in Glenwood Springs, Colo. English rocker Jackie Lomax (b. 1944) on Sept. 15. English engineer George Alfred Hockham (b. 1938) on Sept. 16. Upper Volta pres. #3 (1980-2) Saye Zerbo (b. 1932) on Sept. 19. Canadian filmmaker Michel Brault (b. 1928) on Sept. 21 in Toronto, Ont. Am. "Caligula in The Robe" actor Jay Robinson (b. 1930) on Sept. 27 in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, Calif. Italian cookbook writer Marcella Hazan (b. 1924) on Sept. 29 in Longboat Key, Fla. Am. basketball player Bob Kurland (b. 1924) on Sept. 29 in Sanibel Island, Fla. English filmmaker Anthony Hinds (b. 1922) on Sept. 30. Am. "Patriot Games" novelist Tom Clancy (b. 1947) on Oct. 1 in Baltimore, Md. Vietnamese gen. Vo Nguyen Giap (b. 1901) on Oct. 3 in Hanoi. Am. skier Mike Gallagher (b. 1941) on Oct. 3 in Pittsfield, Vt. Iraqi-born Israeli Sephardic chief rabbi (1973-) Ovadia Yosef (b. 1920) on Oct. 7 in Jerusalem. U.S. Sen. (R-Minn.) (1995-2001) Rod Grams (b. 1948) on Oct. 8 in Crown, Minn. Am. astronaut Scott Carpenter (b. 1925) on Oct. 10 in Denver, Colo. English-born Australian New Age writer Nevill Drury (b. 1947) on Oct. 15 (liver failure). English auto racer Dan Wheldon (b. 1978) on Oct. 16 in Las Vegas, Nev. (collision at the 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championship at Las Vegas Motor Speedway). U.S. House Speaker #57 (1989-95) Tom Foley (b. 1929) on Oct. 18 in Washington, D.C. English actor-singer Noel Harrison (b. 1934) on Oct. 19 in Exeter, Devon (heart attack). English abstract sculptor Sir Anthony Caro (b. 1924) on Oct. 23 in London (heart attack). French spy novelist Gerard de Villiers (b. 1929) on Oct. 31; sold 100M copies worldwide. Am. basketball player Walt Bellamy (b. 1939) on Nov. 2 in College Park, Ga. English "The Grass is Singing" novelist Doris Lessing (b. 1919) on Nov. 17 in London; 2007 Nobel Lit. Prize. Am. psychic Sylvia Browne (b. 1936) on Nov. 20 in San Jose, Calif. Am. serial murderer Joseph Paul Franklin (b. 1950) on Nov. 20 in Bonne Terre, Mo. (executed by lethal injection). Am. basketball player Vern Mikkelsen (b. 1928) on Nov. 21 in Wayzata, Minn. Am. historian Michael G. Kammen (b. 1936) on Nov. 29. Am. "Brian O'Conner in The Fast and the Furious" actor Paul Walker (b. 1973) on Nov. 30 in Santa Clarita, Calif.; crashes into a tree. South African pres. (1994-9) Nelson Mandela (b. 1918) on Dec. 5 in Johannesburg; the U.S. lowers its flag for him, making him the 3rd foreigner after Winston Churchill and Pope John Paul II; the memorial on Dec. 10 is attended by 100+ world leaders incl. Pres. Obama and Raoul Castro, who shake hands; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu begs off, citing cost: "Never again shall it be that this beautiful land will again experience the oppression of one by another." Australian chemist Sir John Cornforth (b. 1917) on Dec. 8 in Sussex, England; 1975 Nobel Chem. Prize. Irish "Lawrence of Arabia" actor Peter O'Toole (b. 1932) on Dec. 14 in London. Am. evangelist Harold Camping (b. 1921) on Dec. 15 in Alameda, Calif. Am. "Release Me" country singer Ray Price (b. 1926) on Dec. 16 in Mount Pleasant, Tex. (pancreatic cancer). Canadian Seagrams Ltd pres. (1971-94) Edgar Bronfman Sr. (b. 1929) on Dec. 21 in Manhattan, N.Y. Russian AK-47 rifle designer Mikhail Kalashnikov (b. 1919) on Dec. 23 in Izhevsk; wrote a letter in 2012 to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, asking if he was responsible for all the deaths. Am. computer engineer Gary W. Boone (b. 1945) on Dec. 12 in Colorado Springs, Colo
2014 Chinese Year: Horse (Jan. 31). Doomsday Clock: 5 min. till midnight. Time Mag. Person of the Year: Ebola Fighters. On Jan. 1 the U.N. Internat. Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People begins; the vote on Nov. 26, 2013 was 110-7 with 56 abstentions; the no votes incl. the U.S., Canada, and Australia; on Jan. 16 Israeli ambassador to the U.N. (since June 8, 2011) Ron Prosor (1958-) utters the soundbyte: "The U.N. continues to oil the Palestinian propaganda machine and produce highly publicized events on their behalf. Rather than putting an end to Palestinian incitement, the U.N. is now the primary platform for Palestinian propaganda. The organization allocates endless resources to advancing lies and half-truths of the Palestinian leadership instead of dealing with pressing issues facing the international community and the Middle East region. While they seek +solidarity, the Palestinians continue to educate an entire generation to hate Israel. The terrorism from the PA's territories into Israel has doubled in the past year, and I have yet to hear the UN propose solidarity with the Israeli victims of terror." Illegal immigrants living in the U.S.: 42.4M (13.3%), highest in 94 years. Four blood moons on Jewish feast days this year and next is the first time since 1967 (1948, 1492). A world-shaking event is due this year to keep up with previous cents., e.g., 1914 (WWI), 1815 (Congress of Vienna), 1618 (30 Years' War), 1517 (Martin Luther's 95 Theses)? The first day of the Jewish Passover falls during a blood-red moon; last 1492, 1948, 1967; next 2015. Tanks to shale oil, the U.S. passes Russia to become the #1 world oil producer; it is also the #2 largest oil consumer after China. The economy of China surpasses the U.S. ($17.6T vs. $17.4T). A good year to launch a human mission to Mars because of an alignment of planetary bodies insuring an escape route back to Earth? China surpasses the U.S. in GDP based on purchasing power parity (PPP), becoming #1, with $17.6T vs $17.4T GDP, and 16.48% vs. 16.28% PPP. U.S. job growth is 2.65M, most since 1999. The first year in which more than half of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires. The greatest U.S. job growth since 2000 has been with non-natives (5.7M jobs). The number of Islamic suicide bombings is 592, killing 3.4K, vs. 305 killing 2.2K in 2013; 15 are carried out by women vs. five in 2013. Death toll in Iraq: 15,538, vs. 6,522 in 2013, worst since 2007 (17,956); civilian death toll: 12,282. CO2 emissions from world energy producers level-off for the first time in 40 years since measurement started. On Jan. 1 the 2014 Rose Bowl sees Michigan State defeat Stanford 24-20; the 2014 Rose Parade contains a gay marriage float that features Aubrey Loots and Danny Leclair getting hitched. On Jan. 1 TLW predicts a Great Muslim Apostasy (GMA) AKA Good Morning America, brought about by the Internet, which will cause hundreds of millions of Muslims to finally chuck Islam, Allah, Muhammad and his Great Jihad and dance in the streets with Jews seeking forgiveness for their crimes, causing the lines to be redrawn in the Middle East forever and the region to become a credit to the world instead of its asshole. On Jan. 1 the U.K. lifts restrictions on immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania, causing concerns of a tide of new immigrants. On Jan. 1 the Boy Scouts of Am. begin accepting gay youths. On Jan. 1 the Russian Supreme Court upholds a ban on Muslim hijabs (headbags). On Jan. 1 Lebanese authorities arrest Majid bin Muhammad Al Majid, leader of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades in Sidon for questioning; he dies in custody. On Jan. 1 the announced release of 88 Taliban prisoners by Afghanistan is pissing-off the U.S., according to the New York Times. On Jan. 1 a bomb at a New Year's party in Sumisip, Philippines kills seven and injures five. On Jan. 1 a suicide car bomber attacks a passenger bus carrying Shiite pilgrims in Akhtarabad, Pakistan (near Quetta), killing two and injuring 17. On Jan. 1 madass Muslims set 1,067 carbecues in France, 10% less than in 2013. On Jan. 1 the first legal recreational marijuana stores in the U.S. open in Dirty Denver, Colo.; the first legal sale is one-eighth oz. of Bubba Kush. On Jan. 1 the controversial Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act comes into effect in formerly Roman Catholic Ireland, allowing abortions where doctors believe there is a threat to the life of the mother. On Jan. 1 Latvia adopts the Euro as its official currency, dropping the lat - everybody Wang Chung tonight? On Jan. 1 a truck is stopped in Hatay, Turkey en route to Syria, allegedly carrying goods from the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), but actually carrying members of the Turkish Nat. Intelligence Agency (MIT). On Jan. 1-Dec. 13 the 2014 Calif. Wildfires, caused by the 2012-14 North Am. Drought and Santa Ana winds burn 555K acres, cause $184M damage, kill two and injure 146. On Jan. 2 a large explosion rocks a Hezbollah neighborhood in S Beirut, Lebanon. On Jan. 2 explosives in the embassy safe kill Palestinian ambassador Jamal al-Jamal (b. 1957) in Prague, Czech.; it is officially called a work accident. On Jan. 2 the Italian navy rescues 233 migrants from an overcrowded smugglers' boat in rough seas S of Sicily. On Jan. 2 after Israel approves the release of 26 Palestinian mass murderers from prison on Dec. 28, U.S. secy. of state John Kerry visits Israel for the 14th time for Mideast peace talks; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu utters the soundbyte: "I know that you're committed to peace, I know that I'm committed to peace, but unfortunately, given the actions and words of Palestinian leaders, there's growing doubt in Israel that the Palestinians are committed to peace"; on Jan. 3 he visits the West Bank to talk with Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas. On Jan. 2 after the new law takes effect on Jan. 1, the Calif. Supreme Court unanimously rules to permit Sergio Garcia to practice law enough though he's an illegal immigrant. On Jan. 2 Israel appoints its first female battalion cmdr., Maj. Oshrat Bachar. On Jan. 2 German environment minister Barbara Hendricks becomes the first German lesbian cabinet minister to come out. On Jan. 2-8 Winter Storm Hercules, based on a life-threatening Polar Vortex blasts North Am. with the lowest temps in decades, reaching -53F in Winnipeg, and creating Chiberia in the Chicago area; on Jan. 2-Apr. 10 the Early 2014 North Am. Cold Wave, caused by a southward shift of the North Polar Vortex breaks low temperature records across the U.S. from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, killing 21 and doing $5B damage; record low temperatures continue into Mar.; meanwhile Calif. has its warmest winter on record, 4.4F above average. On Jan. 3 the warring factions in Sudan hold a peace parley. On Jan. 3 gunmen disguised as officials storm a prison in Iguala, Guerrero, Mexico, starting a shootout that kills five attackers and four inmates. On Jan. 3 Muslim Brotherhood protests in Cairo and Alexandria, Egypt kill 11 and result in 122 arrests. On Jan. 3 after it strikes first, and Saudi Arabia and Qatar send money to help, rebel militias in Syria led by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), expelling them from Idlib Province, Aleppo et al.; after the Islamic Front (IF) flees to Turkey rather than kill Islamist brothers, ISIS recaptures Raqqa, Jarablus, al-Bab, and Manbij E of Aleppo, and solidifies its control of Deir az-Zour by establishing alliances with local tribes, making it the #1 enforcer of Sunni Sharia in Syria, with sights set on Israel; meanwhile Saudi cleric Abdullah al-Muhaysini proposes the Al-Umma Initiative, calling for cessation of violence and establishment of a neutral Islamic court to arbitrate all disputes according to Sharia, which is accepted by Jabhat an-Nusra, the SRF, the IF, the Mujahideen Army et al., cooling the fighting; ISIS is really an Assad front?; in Feb. U.S. lt. gen. Michael Flynn, dir. of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) briefs the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on the emerging threat of ISIS, uttering the soundbyte that it "Probably will attempt to take territory in Iraq and Syria to exhibit its strength in 2014, as demonstrated recently in Ramadi and Fallujah, and the group's ability to concurrently maintain multiple safe havens in Syria. Since the departure of U.S. forces at the end of 2011, [ISIS] has exploited the permissive security environment to increase its operations and presence in many locations and also has expanded into Syria and Lebanon to inflame tensions throughout the region"; too bad, Pres. Obama ignores him, and on Dec. 8, 2016 as a lame duck on his way out blames his intel agencies for failing to warn him properly. On Jan. 3 an al-Qaida force captures Fallujah, Iraq; on Jan. 5 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry utters the soundbyte: "This is a fight that belongs to the Iraqis … We are not contemplating returning. We will help them in their fight, but this fight, in the end, they will have to win and I am confident they can." On Jan. 3 Pres. Obama issues two new executive actions "aimed at building up federal background record assessments for gun buyers, with a particular focus on restricting gun access for those with mental health issues." On Jan. 4 a Taliban suicide assault team kills an ISAF soldier at a joint NATO-Afghan base in Ghani Khail, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan before being gunned down by troops. On Jan. 4 lawmakers in Tunisia reject Islam as the main source for the country's laws. On Jan. 5 in Anbar Province, Iraq 34 are killed, along with 20 in Baghdad as Iraqi troops try to oust al-Qaida from Ramadi and Fallujah. On Jan. 5 a young girl in a suicide vest (daughter of a Taliban cmdr.) is stopped in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. On Jan. 6 Boko Haram gunmen attack the village of Berom Shanong, Nigeria, killing 30. On Jan. 6 U.N. undersecy.-gen. for political affairs Jeffrey Feltman warns that the civil war in Central African Repub. (CAR) has Muslim-Christian overtones and could turn into a full religious war. On Jan. 6 Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki issues a call for the residents and tribes of Fallujah, which had fallen under al-Qaida's contro, to expel the "terrorists" from their city to avoid "armed confrontations"; meanwhile the Anbar Province Council calls on Maliki to withdraw troops. On Jan. 6 14-y.-o. Aitzaz Hasan (1999-) becomes a hero by stopping a suicide bomber from entering his school in Hangu, NW Pakistan. On Jan. 6 the Utah Supreme Court halts the granting of same-sex marriages pending review by the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. On Jan. 7 Bulgaria announces the construction of a 33km fence on the border with Turkey to stop illegal immigration. On Jan. 7 gunmen kill seven women and five men at a brothel in Baghdad, Iraq. On Jan. 7 Kyrgyzstan's grand mufti Rakhmatullah-Hajji Egemberdiyev resigns after a sex tape of him and a young woman are released, becoming the 6th to be replaced in four years. On Jan. 7 actress Meryl Streep blasts Walt Disney at an awards ceremony for "Saving Mr. Banks", calling him sexist and anti-Semitic. On Jan. 8 U.S. drones kill two AQAP fighters in Hadramout, Yemen. On Jan. 8 basketball star Dennis Rodman, in North Korea to stage a basketball exhibition stinks himself up with comments about imprisoned U.S. missionary Kenneth Bae; on Jan. 9 he apologizes, claiming drunkenness. On Jan. 8 Thomas Hitzlsperger (1982-) of Germany becomes the first prominent prof. soccer player to come out as gay. On Jan. 8 Bridgegate sees N.J. Repub. gov. Chris Christie rocked by leaked emails that suggest his admin. caused a massive traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge at Ft. Lee for political payback against the town's Dem. mayor for failing to endorse him; on Jan. 9 he fires patsy, er, aide Bridget Kelly - Christie's Chappaquiddick? On Jan. 8 (eve.) Fidel Castro makes his first appearance in 9 mo., looking frail, stooped, and carrying a cane. On Jan. 9 (a.m.) Palestinians fire mortar shells into Israel near the border with S Gaza, causing an Israeli counterstrike. On Jan. 9 an ISIS suicide bomber at a military recruiting center near Baghdad, Iraq kills 21. On Jan. 9 all 135 members of parliament of Central African Repub. (CAR) meet in N'Djamena, Chad to discuss the fate of rebel-turned-pres. Michel Djotodia, who is under fire for failing to prevent sectarian violence in the CAR; meanwhile 20K refugees of Chadian origin have fled back to Chad in recent weeks. On Jan. 9 Pres. Obama announces a list of Promise Zones around the U.S. to help the poor. On Jan. 9 Russian authorities go on high alert after six bodies are found in bomb-laden cars in Pyatigorsk, Russia. On Jan. 9 Iraqi troops clash with al-Qaida troops in On Jan. 9 the Taliban assassinates Chaudhry Aslam Khan, police chief of Karachi, Pakistan. Anbar Province, Afghanistan. On Jan. 9 (night) Kenyan troops strike an Al-Shabaab camp in Gedo, Somalia. On Jan. 10 (a.m.) three Americans (two troops and a civilian) aboard a U.S. military MC-12 plane are killed in a crash in E Afghanistan; meanwhile U.S. Marines in Helmand Province, Afghanistan mistakenly kill a 4-y.-o. Afghan boy. On Jan. 10 after 1K are killed in Muslim-Christian fighting, Muslim Central African Repub. (CAR) pres. Michel Djotodia resigns along with his PM. On Jan. 10 after Christian-Muslim fighting leads to a a ceasefire and a summit to select a candidate with no links to either group of fighters, CAR pres. ( since Mar. 24, 2013) Michel Djotodia resigns, and on Jan. 23 Catherine Samba-Panza (1954-) becomes pres. of Central African Repub. (CAR) (until ?), the first woman, after which people relocate to religiously-cleansed neighborhoods incl. Bouar as the U.N. warns of potential genocide. On Jan. 10 the U.S. designates three groups calling themselves Ansar Al-Sharia as terrorist orgs., contradicting the recent NYT story that blames the 9/11/2012 Benghazi Attack on a YouTube video. On Jan. 10 Israel approves 1.4K new housing units in Judea, Samaria, and E Jerusalem, pissing-off the Palestinian Authority. On Jan. 11 four detained Shiite Iraqi soldiers are murdered by the Sunni Al Dalim tribe in Anbar Province, Iraq, increasing sectarian tensions. On Jan. 11 Wall Street Journal reporter David Bird (b. 1958) goes missing; on Jan. 26 banker William Broeksmit (b. 1955), first in a string of banking-connected suicides; it's a conspiracy-coverup? On Jan. 12 Israel passes a law banning use of Nazi symbols or calling someone a Nazi. On Jan. 12 a mortar attack in a pro-govt. neighborhood of Homs, Syria kills 19. On Jan. 12 Iran and six major powers (U.S., U.K., Russia, France, Germany, China) reach an agreement to implement a Nov. 24 nuclear agreement, curtailing Iran's nuclear activities for a 6-mo. period starting on Jan. 20 in exchange for sanctions relief; meanwhile U.S. Senate majority leader Harry Reid blocks a sanction bill from being voted on; on Jan. 13 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden assures Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. is committed to enforcing its "sanctions architecture"; on Jan. 14 Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani tweets the soundbyte that "world powers" incl. the U.S. have "surrendered" to the "Iranian nation's will"; a secret 30-page document attached to the deal that the West won't acknowledge the existence of stirs concerns that Pres. Obama has allowed Iran to proceed with nuke production. On Jan. 13 a car bomb on a crowded street in Baghdad, Iraq during a visit by U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon kills six and injures 13. On Jan. 13 armed vigilantes surround the town of Apatzingan, Michoacan, Mexico to combat the Knights Templar drug cartel. On Jan. 13 Human Shields, er, Hamas interior minister (since Apr. 2009) Fathi Hamad utters the soundbyte that Israel will cease to exist in eight years (by 2022). On Jan. 13 retired Tampa, Fla. police capt. Curtis Reeves (1942-) gets pissed-off at Chad Oulson texting in a movie theater in Wesley Chapel, Fla., and pulls out his gun and shoots him. On Jan. 14 an Egyptian labor ministry official and three trade union activists are kidnapped in Sinai. On Jan. 14 Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya'alon issues the soundbyte that U.S. secy. of state John Kerry is "obsessive" and "Messianic". On Jan. 14 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry visits the Vatican, whose spokesman Pietro Parolin urges an unconditional ceasefire in Syria and the involvement of all regional players incl. Iran in peace talks on Jan. 22. On Jan. 14 Nigerian pres. Jonathan Goodluck signs a law giving up to 14-year prison sentences for homosexuality and banning same-sex marriages, causing U.S. secy. of state John Kerry to utter the soundbyte that the U.S. is "deeply concerned". On Jan. 14 Turkey raids the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) in Kilis near the Syrian border (known for the infamous Gaza Fake Freedom Flotilla) for suspected al-Qaida ties - the U.N. owes Israel an apology? On Jan. 14 Israeli ambassador Yoram Ettinger utters the soundbyte: "Iran is now at the last lap of the nuclear marathon." On Jan. 14 Moscow city hall rejects a Muslim petition to hold a rally against Islamophobia and Caucususophobia. On Jan. 14-15 a referendum on Egypt's constitution sees 98% of 20M voters approve the new constitution, vs. 10M who approved the Muslim Brotherhood constitution in 2013. On Jan. 15 a protest in support of Russian dissident Alexey Navalny in Manezhnaya Square, Moscow causes the Russian govt. to begin censoring the Internet. On Jan. 15 a wave of bombings in Love Shack Iraq kill 44. On Jan. 15 a sweep for Muslim terrorists in S Russia results in a shootout that killtThree Russian servicemen and four militants. On Jan. 15 a U.S. drone in Hadramout Province, Yemen accidentally kills a farmer in the dell, er, village of Houta near Shibam. On Jan. 15 after Pres. Obama bows to Muslim and Hispanic pressure groups, the U.S. Justice Dept. announces new guidelines that prohibit federal agents from considering religion, national origin, gender, and sexual orientation in their investigations - there's no middle ground, or that's how it seems? On Jan. 16 an Al Nusrah Front suicide bomber in Hermel, Lebanon kills five. On Jan. 16 the U.S. State Dept. holds a meeting by 30 nations on the future of space exploration - and no mention of the Knowledge Ark Project? On Jan. 16 Muslim Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov is killed by Russian security forces - don't need no Maybelline cause you're a beauty queen? On Jan. 16 a planned first-ever speech by a woman by Masoumeh Ebtekar (1959-), Iranian vice-pres. for environmental affairs at the Mosalla, Tehran's biggest mosque is cancelled at the last minute. On Jan. 16 a court in Tokyo, Japan rules that police may profile Muslims. On Jan. 17 Pres. Obama announces an end to U.S. govt. control of phone data from hundreds of millions of Americans, ordering intel agencies to get a secretive court's permission before accessing records, and directing them to stop spying on friendly internat. leaders, also calling for extending some privacy protections to foreign citizens whose communications are monitored by the U.S., calling it a "special obligation" to reexamine intel capabilities because of the potential for trampling on civil liberties; "This debate will make us stronger. In this time of change, the United States of America will have to lead" - I'm swimming around in a vagina, I try to make a princess? On Jan. 17 after Israeli ambassadors to the EU are called in over settlements, Israel calls in the ambassadors of U.K., France, Italy, and Spain, and tells them that "their perpetual one-sided stance against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians is unacceptable and creates the impression they are only seeking ways to blame Israel"; meanwhile Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu utters the soundbyte that those who criticize him are out of sync; "They should go to some of the countries in the Middle East who now support Israel, who think about Israel in different terms... Many of Israel's Arab neighbors share a common goal of peace in the region, as well as concern over a nuclear-armed Iran. Other Arab countries see a bigger threat in hardline Islamist groups, so I say to those who criticize a pro-Israel position in Canada, I ask them, come to the Middle East. Go to the Arab world and you'll discover, you'll discover a lot of people are reconsidering their positions", adding that many Arab countries now "see Israel not as an enemy but as a friend" - but never turn your back on them? On Jan. 17 a suicide attack in Kaboom, Afghanistan kills 14 incl. two Canadians. On Jan. 17 the first attack of the year on the Sinai gas pipeline is at El-Riysan by Ansar Jerusalem; the 2nd attack is on Jan. 27 near el-Arish. On Jan. 18 a stampede at a Muslim funeral in Mumbai, India kills 18 and injures 46. On Jan. 19 (Sun.) Turkish security forces stop and search three trucks heading for Syria that are carrying Turkish intel officers, finding Russian munitions headed for Syrian rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad, which are later traced to Turkish pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who on Nov. 24 utters the soundbyte: "What does it matter if it was arms or not." On Jan. 19 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin utters the soundbyte that the way Russians love Elton John proves they don't discriminate against gays, with the soundbyte: "People have different sexual orientation. We will welcome all athletes and all guests of the Olympics", telling other reporters: "We do not have a ban on non-traditional sexual relationships. We have a ban on the propaganda of homosexuality and paedophilia. I want to underline this. Propaganda among children. These are absolutely different things, a ban on something or a ban on the propaganda of that thing... We are not forbidding anything and nobody is being grabbed off the street, and there is no punishment for such kinds of relations. You can feel relaxed and calm [in Russia], but leave children alone please"; meanwhile Elton John performs in Beijing, shocking the audience by announcing that he's dedicating his performance to dissident Ai Weiwei. On Jan. 19 Pres. Obama gives an interview to The New Yorker, with the soundbyte: "As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol." On Jan. 19 (eve.) an unmarried woman in West Bengal, India is gang-raped on the orders of a village elder for having an affair with a Muslim man. On Jan. 19 (night) a Boko Haram attack in Alau Ngawo Fatie, Nigeria kills 18 and burns several houses. On Jan. 20 the implementation of the Geneva Accord by Iran begins with them dismantling its most sensitive (20%) uranium enrichment devices, er, just not operating them, with foreign minister Javad Zarif on Jan. 22 uttering the soundbyte "We're not dismantling anything", causing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Jan. 26 to utter the soundbyte that there is "no chance" of a final deal; "If Iran will stand by that statement, that means that a permanent agreement "which is the goal of the entire diplomatic process with Iran cannot succeed." On Jan. 20 Russian deputy defense minister Gen. Pavel Popov warns that war can be expected to erupt between the U.S., China, and Japan "within weeks" due to a power struggle "exploding" within the Communist Party of China (CPC). On Jan. 20 after the U.N. issues a last-min. invitation to Iran to attend the Geneva II Conference on Syria, the Syrian Nat. Coalition issues an ultimatum to Iran to commit publicly by 7 p.m. GMT to withdraw its "troops and militias" from Syria and abide by a 2012 transitional roadmap, or else the U.N. should withdraw its invitation for Tehran to take part in a peace conference, else it will boycott the conference, causing the U.N. to uninvite Iran. On Jan. 20 al-Qaida attacks across Iwreck kill 26; meanwhile on Jan. 19 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that al-Qaida is totally JV (juvenile varsity). On Jan. 20 a Taliban suicide attack at an ISAF base in Zhari, Kandahar Province, Afghanistan kills one soldier. On Jan. 21 a Syrian defector produces evidence of Nazi-like mass industrial killing by the Assad regime. On Jan. 21 Iran sends two warships on their navy's first-ever mission to the Atlantic Ocean. On Jan. 21 Iraqi provincial affairs minister Torhan al-Mufti announces that the Iraqi govt. has agreed to transform two Turkmen-majority districts, Talafar in Ninevah Province and Tuz Khurmato in Salahuddin Province into their own provinces. On Jan. 22 (Wed.) the Geneva II Conference on Syria. On Jan. 22 amid violent protests that kill three, Ukrainian pres. Viktor Yanukovich holds talks with opposition leaders. On Jan. 22 during a hunt for Islamic black widows, Russian police kill Islamist Elgar Magatov in a shootout in North Caucasus. On Jan. 22 Iraqi airstrikes in Anbar Province, Iraq kill 50+ Islamist militants. On Jan. 22 the Israeli air force kills Palestinian terrorist Ahmed Za'anin along with family member Mohammed Za'anin near Beit Hanoun in N Gaza. On Jan. 22 Israel announces the thwarting of an al-Qaida attack on the Jerusalem Convention Center and U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. On Jan. 23 al-Qaida head Ayman al-Zawahiri releases an audiotape calling on Islamists in Syria to quit infighting and attack Assad, and surprisingly opposing attacks on Christians. On Jan. 23 (9:05 a.m. EST) NASA launches its 3.8-ton TDRS L satellite to speed up the system. On Jan. 23 after three weeks of talks in Addis Ababa, pro and anti govt. forces in South Sudan sign a ceasefire agreement; too bad, it is broken within 24 hours. On Jan. 23 U.S. atty. Eric Holder announces that U.S. Treasury and law enforcement agencies will soon issue regs opening banking services to state-sanctioned marijuana businesses even though cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under federal law. On Jan. 24 Chinese pres. Xi Jinping is named chmn. of the nat. security commission, giving him ever-greater powah over the gigantic police state. On Jan. 24 a string of anti-govt. attacks in Cairo, Egypt incl. a bomb at the main police station near the pyramids kills five and injures 100; al-Qaida-linked Ansar Beit al-Maqdis claims credit; the Muslim Brotherhood denies involvement. On Jan. 24 after being given orders to kill rather than capture terrorists, Iraqi forces in Baquba, Iraq kill six men they claim are planning a suicide bombing on a govt. bldg. On Jan. 25 19-y.-o. Darion Marcus Aguilar (b. 1994) kills two young employees and injures another in the Columbia Town Center in Howard County, Md. before killing himself. On Jan. 25 a mass grave with 169+ bodies is uncovered in Baluchistan, Pakistan, victims of Pakistani intel agencies, causing the govt. to attempt a coverup. On Jan. 25-26 (Sat.-Sun.) Boko Haram attacks in Borno and Adamawa, Nigeria kill 74. On Jan. 26 the 3rd anniv. of the Arab Spring uprising in Cairo, Egypt sees police clash with protesters, killing 29. On Jan. 26 four Egyptian soldiers are killed and nine injured in North Sinai. On Jan. 26 after progress at the talks, women and children are allowed to leave Homs, Syria. On Jan. 26 the 2014 Tunisian Constitution is passed by the nat. assembly, and signed on Jan. 27 by Pres. Moncef Marzouki, becoming a rare V for the Arab Spring as it makes Islam the state religion but furnishes protections for freedom of belief and sexual equality, banning takfirs (religious edicts against apostates from Islam). On Jan. 26 the 56th Grammy Awards in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif. is hosted by LL Cool J (3rd time); Jay-Z receives nine nominations (the most); album of the year goes to Daft Punk for "Random Access Memories"; record of the year goes to Daft Punk, and Pharrell Williams for "Get Lucky"; a mass wedding of gay and hetero couples is presided over by Queen Latifah, to the singing of "Same Love" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, who win best new artist. On Jan. 26 large-scale political demonstrations in Paris, France see the first explicitly anti-Semitic slogans being shouted since WWII? On Jan. 27 former secy. of state Hillary Clinton addresses the Nat. Automobile Dealers Assoc. in New Orleans, La., and calls the 9/11/2012 Benghazi Attack the "greatest regret" of her tenure; she also admits that the last time she drove a car was in 1996. On Jan. 27 Boko Haram militants slaughter 30 Christian churchgoers in Waga Chakawa, Adamawa, Nigeria. On Jan. 27 the Mexican govt. strikes a deal with vigilantes in Michoacan to share policing and military duties to fight the Knights Templar drug cartel. On Jan. 28 after the govt. announces that troops won't be used to quell continuing pro-West protests and riots, Ukrainian PM Mykola Azarov resigns; amid calls for his resignation, pres. Viktor Yanukovych goes on sick leave; on Feb. 5 first deputy PM Sergei Arbuzov is made acting PM (until ?); meanwhile EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton offers support for Ukraine's constitutional reform plans plus help to investigate alleged abuses against protesters. On Jan. 28 a group of armed Muslims attacks the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary in Cairo, Egypt, killing one. On Jan. 28 Pres. Obama's 2014 State of the Union Message calls 2014 "a year of action" and "a breakthrough year for America", promotes raising the min. wage, and stumps for Obamacare and immigration reform, saying that the immigration system is "broken" and leaving room for Repubs. to make a deal with Dems.; he warns Congress that he will veto any Iran sanctions. On Jan. 28 Palestinian Authority chmn. Mahmoud Abbas announces to Israel that it has three years to withdraw from Judea and Samaria, with the soundbyte: "Those who are proposing 10 to 15 years do not want to withdraw at all." On Jan. 28 the Turkish lira collapses, causing the central bank to raise interest rates in defiance of PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan's longstanding pledge to keep them low and his frequent denunciation of an "interest rate lobby" that sought to bring down his Turkish economic miracle. On Jan. 28 Fatah deputy secy. Jibril Rajoub makes a visit to Tehran, surprising many since Iran formerly mainly befriended its enemy Hamas. On Jan. 28 after the military announces that they're backing him for pres., newly-promoted field marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi gives a speech, with the soundbyte: "Religious discourse is the greatest battle and challenge facing the Egyptian people, pointing to the need for a new vision and a modern, comprehensive understanding of the religion of Islam, rather than relying on a discourse that has not changed for 800 years", referring to the 1258 declaration by the mujtahids that the gates of ijtihad (independent reasoning on Islam) are closed, making him the new Martin Luther of Islam?; on Mar. 28 he resigns from the military and announces his candidacy for pres. On Jan. 28 a snowstorm in Atlanta, Ga. brings 3 in. of snow, paralyzing the city, with cars abandoned, the airport closed, 12 killed in traffic accidents, etc.; a worse icestorm hits on Feb. 11, with all 50 U.S. states except Fla. receiving snow. On Jan. 28 after they fire a grenade into Turkish territory, Turkish troops return fire against ISIS rebels in Cobaney (al-Ra'i), Syria. On Jan. 28-30 Philippine troops occupy a Muslim rebel stronghold in Maguindanao, Philippines, killing 50 Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement fighters. On Jan. 29 Libyan deputy PM Sadiq Abdulkarim survives an assassination attempt in Tripoli. On Jan. 29 U.S. nat. intel dir. James Clapper writes a report to the Senate intel committee, claiming that Iran has the capacity to make a nuke if it wishes, but that the U.S. would detect it. On Jan. 29 industry minister (since Mar. 14, 2013) Mehdi Jomaa (1962-) becomes PM of Tunisia (until Feb. 6, 2015), running a technocratic govt. On Jan. 30 six ISIS suicide bombers break into the transportation ministry bldg. in Bagdead, Iraq, killing 12 plus themselves. On Jan. 31 two roadside bombs explode near a police car in Cairo, Egypt, injuring a policeman. On Jan. 31 the U.S. State Dept. releases a 2K-page report giving the 1.7K-mi. Keystone XL Pipeline a green light. On Jan. 31-Feb. 2 the 50th Munich Security Conference is attended by about 20 govt. heads and 50 foreign and defense ministers; German pres. Joachim Gauck utters the soundbyte that the German govt. is proclaiming "the end of military restraint" becuase it has to defend its interests more decisively around the world, stirring fears of a new aggressively militarized Germany. In Jan. a tape is recorded in which actor Tom Sizemore claims to two pals that in a 1998 White House screening of the film Saving Private Ryan, Pres. Clinton pulled him aside from the crowd of celebs incl. Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Ed Burns, and Dennis Farina, asking if he'd like to see the Lincoln Bedroom, and after shaking his Secret Service detail, asks him, "Did you go with Liz Hurley for four years? Do you still see her?", then demands her phone number so he can call her for a date, flying her to Washington D.C. and bedding her in the White House in a room next to where First Lady Hillary sleeps; on Feb. 5 Sizemore recants, claiming drug use. In Jan. the African Am. Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) is founded at the U. of N.C. in Charlotte, N.C. In Jan. the U.S. unemployment rate rate drops to 6.6%, adding 113K jobs. In Jan. the death toll in Iraq is 733. On Feb. 1 World Hijab Day celebrates women who are very, very modest. On Feb. 1 an Al-Nusra Front suicide bomber in a Jeep Cherokee detonates in the Hezbollah stronghold of Hermel, E Lebanon killing four and injuring 15. On Feb. 1 two election workers for Abdullah Abdullah are murdered in Herat, Afghanistan. On Feb. 1 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry meets with leaders of the Ukrainian opposition, and utters the soundbyte: "Nowhere is the fight for a democratic, European future more important today than in Ukraine. While there are unsavory elements in the streets in any chaotic situation, the vast majority of Ukrainians want to live freely in a safe, prosperous country... They are fighting for the right to associate with partners who will help them realize their aspirations, and they have decided that means their futures do not have to lie with one country alone, and certainly not coerced. The United States and EU stand with the people of Ukraine in that fight." On Feb. 2 Boko Haram gunmen in Unguwar Kajit, Nigeria kill a Christian family of seven, causing Christian reprisals against Muslims. On Feb. 2 group of 20 Muslims in S Thailand disrupt elections, killing three soldiers and a district election official in a bomb attack. On Feb. 2 Saudi Arabia passes a new Counterterrorism Law that incl. anybody calling for reforms or regime change, allowing protesters to be jailed at will; on Feb. 3 King Abdullah issues a decree dishing out 5-30 years in prison to any citizen who leaves the kingdom to fight in conflicts. On Feb. 2 elections in Thailand are disrupted, causing protesters on Feb. 3 led by Suthep Thaugsuban to march toward downtown Bangkok, Thailand, demanding the ouster of PM Yingluck Shinawatra. On Feb. 3 an armed student in School No. 263 in Moscow kills a teacher and policeman before being arrested. On Feb. 3 Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif gives an interview to German TV station Phoenix, and utters the soundbyte: "If the Palestinians are happy with the solution [an Israel-Palestinian peace deal] then nobody outside Palestine would prevent that from taking place", and the soundbyte: "Once the Palestinian problem is solved the conditions for an Iranian recognition of Israel will be possible", stunning Israelis by seeming to accept the existence of the Little Satan. On Feb. 4 a standoff between Tunisian forces and militant Salafists in Raoued, Tunisia kills eight. On Feb. 4 Hyderabad, India-born Satya Narayana Nadella (1967-) is named CEO of Microsoft Corp., replacing Steve Ballmer; Bill Gates is replaced as chmn. by John W. Thompson (1949-). On Feb. 4 New York City mayor Bill de Blasio announces special treatment for Muslims, closing schools for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, along with the Lunar New Year, but not the Hindu festival Diwali. On Feb. 4 the New York Times claims that Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai has been holding secret peace talks with the Taliban. On Feb. 4 U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon pub. a report on rape and torture of Syrian rebel children by Syrian troops, along with recruitment of child soldiers by rebel troops. On Feb. 4 alawsuit against Google for hosting an anti-Islam video on YouTube filed last Feb. by the Jordan Bar Assoc. is adjourned. On Feb. 5 three explosions rock Bagdead, Iraq, killing 16. On Feb. 5 the British govt. announces that membership in the Muslim Brotherhood is not proof of extremism, and that its members are free to operate in the U.K. as long as they respect its laws. On Feb. 5 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry utters the soundbyte that the chemical weapons deal didn't strengthen Bashar al-Assad, but that happened because of support from Iran and Hezbollah, and infighting among the opposition. On Feb. 5 Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani gives an interview on Iranian TV, grumbling that it had been blocked by the network, then bragging how he "broke the chains around Iran" and struck a blow against "Iranophobia". On Feb. 5 mass protests in Bosnia-Herzegovina start in Tuvla, spreading across the country, becoming the biggest since 1992. On Feb. 5 a U.N. Report on Sex Abuse by Roman Catholic Clergy accuses the Vatican of systematically placing its own interests over those of victims by enabling priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children through its own policies and code of silence recommending that the Vatican immediately remove any priest suspected or known to have abused children, open its archives on abusers and the bishops who covered up for them, and turn the cases over to law enforcement; on Feb. 7 the Vatican responds that it's none of your business. On Feb. 6 the 10th Internat. Day for Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation sees Saudi cleric Sheikh Mohamad Alarefe tweet the soundbyte that FGM is a "noble act" to do to lesb, er, women. On Feb. 6 Turkey passes a new Internet censorship law, further restricting freedoms in the increasingly Islamist country, causing protests in Istanbul on Feb. 8. On Feb. 6 by 96-0 the U.S. Senate confirms U.S. Sen. (D-Mont.) (since 1978) Max Sieben Baucus (nee Enke) (1941-) as U.S. ambassador to China #11, taking office on Mar. 20 (until Jan. 20, 2017). On Feb. 6 U.S. envoy to Sudan Joseph D. Stafford resigns after converting to Islam. On Feb. 6 (night) Jay Leno hosts his last episode of The Tonight Show, featuring Billy Crystal, his first guest in May 1992. On Feb. 6-23 the XXII (22nd) Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Krasnodar, Russia sees Russia spend $51B to host it w/beefed-up security incl. a 60 mi. x 25 mi. Ring of Steel with 40K security personnel; the debut of snowboarding slopestyle, which is won by Sage Kotsenburg (first gold of the games) and Jamie Anderson of the U.S. On Feb. 7 Syrian rebels free hundreds of prisoners in a prison near Aleppo, Syria; meanwhile hundreds of thousands of residents evacuate Aleppo, leaving it a "city of ghosts". On Feb. 7 a passenger claiming to have a bomb tries to hijack a plane to Sochi en route from Kharkov, Ukraine to Istanbul. On Feb. 7 thousands of Muslims flee Bangui, Central African Repub. (CAR) as Christians jeer them. On Feb. 7 Salah I. Salahadyn and Universal K. Allah are charged with the attempted theft on Jan. 28 of a $6M-$10 Stradivarius violin; K. stands for Knowledge. On Feb. 7 a 3-day truce allows civilians to be evacuated from Damascus, Syria, while the Syrian govt. agrees to peace talks on Feb. 10 in Geneva. On Feb. 7 the U.S. announces the sailing of warship USS Donald Cook for Rota Spain to strengthen its ballistic missile shield, to be followed within two years by USS Ross, USS Porter, and USS Carney. On Feb. 7 new U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson gives his first major speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., uttering the soundbyte about the 11.5M+ illegal immigrants: "They're here, and they're not going away." On Feb. 8 U.S. atty. gen. Eric Holder announces that the U.S. Justice Dept. will vigorously enforce same-sex marriage rights on a level with hetero marriages, and on Feb. 24 tells state attys. gen. to fall in line regardless of state laws; on Feb. 25 the Coalition of African-Am. Pastors calls for him impeachment for violating his oath of office by trying "to coerce states to fall in line with the same-sex 'marriage' agenda." On Feb. 8 Iran announces that it's sending its warships to U.S. waters for the first time, causing the U.S. to pooh-pooh the claim - I'm the last of the good old-fashioned steam-powered trains? On Feb. 8 U.S. Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson succeeds Lt. Gen. Mark Milley as head of the Internat. Security Assistance Force Joint Command, the #2 military position in Afghanistan. On Feb. 9 a Maoist landmine in Sukma District, Chhattisgarh, India kills two police and injures 12. On Feb. 9 Mo. Tigers defensive lineman Michael Sam announces his homosexuality on Twitter, becoming the first openly gay NFL draft pick on May 10, by the St. Louis er, Rams, weeping and kissing his white boyfriend on TV. On Feb. 9 (Sun.) CBS-TV airs The Beatles: The Night That Changed America - A Grammy Salute in honor of the 50th Anniv. of the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, featuring Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon, Olivia and Dhani Harrison, Maroon 5, John Legend, Alicia Keys, Katy Perry, John Mayer, Stevie Wonder, Imagine Dragons, Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, Pharrell Williams et al.; Julian Lennon snubs it. On Feb. 9 a Gallup Poll finds that for the first time more than half (53%) of Americans don't believe that Pres. Obama is respected by other world leaders, vs. 43% last year. On Feb. 10 Iraqi militants accidentally denote their own bomb in a training camp N of Baghdad, Iraq, killing 21. On Feb. 10 voters in Switzerland vote to end treaties allowing anybody in the EU to immigrate, causing the EU to threaten loss privileged access to the EU single market. On Feb. 10 Panama Canal officials fine North Korea $693,333 for trying to sneak Cuban arms through. On Feb. 10 the Wall Street Journal claims that the U.S. has decided to wait until Afghan pres. Hamid Karzai leaves offices to complete a long-term security deal. On Feb. 11 (early a.m.) Islamists blow up a gas pipeline to Jordan in Sinai, Egypt. On Feb. 11 an army plane crash in E Algeria kills 103. On Feb. 11 a grenade attack in a movie theater in Peshawar, Pakistan kills 11. On Feb. 11 the Baghdad, Iraq offices of Al-Sabah Al-Jadid ("New Morning") newspaper are bombed after hundreds protest an allegeldy insulting depiction of Ayatollah Khamenei pub. on Feb. 7. On Feb. 11 Taiwan mainland affair council head Wang Yu-chi and Zhang Zhijun, dir. of China's Taiwan Affairs Office meet in Nanjing, China, a historic first meeting of official reps. On Feb. 11 a grenade attack at the Shama porno theater in Peshawar, Pakistan kills 12 and injuring 24. On Feb. 11 a Boko Haram attack in Konduga, Nigeria kills 39. On Feb. 11 Salafist groups Ahrar ash-Sham (AS) and al-Qaida branch Jabhat an-Nusra (JN) declare war on ISIS in E Syria; on Feb. 12 ISIS occupies Raqqa, and is surrounded by AS and JN, but AS withdraws because they don't want to encourage fitna (civil strife) among Muslims, leaving JN to be mopped-up. On Feb. 11 Cobra Gold 2014 opens at Camp Akatosarot 230 mi. N of Bangkok, with 14K troops from the U.S. and Asia-Pacific countries participating; the first-ever participation by Chinese troops. On Feb. 11 despite 19 of 28 EU states voting against it, the European Commission approves the growing of TC 1507 GMO corn by DuPont. On Feb. 11 (eve.) Pres. Obama holds a state dinner (2.5K calories) at the White House for French pres. Francois Holland, who arrives sans Valerie Trierweiler, who recently separated; both criticize Russian pres. Vladimir Putin, saying that they are united in backing rebel forces in Syria's civil war and that Putin has the blood of the Syrian people on his hands. On Feb. 12 the first green-on-blue-attack of the year in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan kills two coalition soldiers. On Feb. 12 Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Chile sign an agreement to eliminate tariffs on 92% of trade amont their countries, which Mexican pres. Enrique Pena Nieto calls the "largest [Mexico] has signed since the Free Trade Agreement with the United States"; Childean pres. Sebastian Pinera says that it is "not against anybody, only in favor of increasing the quality of life in our countries"; Colombian pres. Juan Manuel Santos admits that there will be "winners and losers", with the winners incl. Cemex in Mexico and Antofagasta in Chile, and the losers being mainly the poor. On Feb. 12 (night) an Islamist attack in Pattani, Thailand kills five incl. a Buddhist monk and child, and injures six. On Feb. 13 a Boko Haram ambush in Izhe, Nigeria kills six Nigerian soldiers. On Feb. 13 an Al-Shabaab attack outside Mogadishu, Somalia unsuccessfully targets a U.N. convoy outside the airport. On Feb. 13 the parliament of Belgium votes 86-44-12 to permit child euthanasia with no min. age limit. On Feb. 14 2K protest in Plovdiv, Bulgaria over a court-ordered return of Muslim property seized during the expulsion of the Ottomans in the 19th cent. On Feb. 13 Hillary Clinton addresses the No Ceilings Project, uttering the soundbyte that women who want to get ahead in politics or other high-profile jobs should "grow skin like a rhinoceros." On Feb. 13 a trilateral meeting between the U.S., Russia, and the Arab League in Geneva, Switzerland during the 2nd round of negotiations between the Syrian govt. and rebels achieves nada? On Feb. 14 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that he'd like to pass immigration reform before he leaves office in Jan. 2017, and "I'd like to get it done this year." On Feb. 15 a Boko Haram attack on the Christian village of Izghe, Borno, Nigeria kills 106. On Feb. 16 (Sun.) U.S. secy. of state John Kerry visits the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia accompanied by grand imam (2005-) Ali Mustafa Yaqub (1952-), beating a huge drum to call Muslims to prayer, uttering the soundbyte that the largest mosque in the world's most populous Muslim country is an "extraordinary place... I am very privileged to be here and I am grateful to the grand imam for allowing me to come"; Pres. Obama already visited him on Nov. 10, 2010. On Feb. 16 an IED on the Unnar Wah Railway in Jacobabad, Pakistan kills seven and injures 30; Baluch separatists claim responsibility. On Feb. 16 a bomb on a South Korean tourist bus in Saba, Sinai, Egypt kills five and inures 20. On Feb. 16 a bus bombing in Taba, Egypt kills three South Korean tourists and their Egyptian driver; Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis claims responsibility, and warns all travellers to leave Sinai by Feb. 20. On Feb. 16 security forces thwart an al-Qaida attack in Aden, Yemen, arresting 27. On Feb. 16 U.S. secy. of state Kerry releases a statement welcoming a new Lebanese govt. even if it incl. Hezbollah. On Feb. 17 the U.N. releases a Report on Human Rights in North Korea, documenting "widespread, systematic abuses". On Feb. 17 amidst continuing anti-govt. protesters, Venezuela expels three U.S. diplomats for conspiring with the protesters. On Feb. 17 Pakistani negotiators cancel a scheduled meeting with the Taliban after they claim to have killed 23 soldiers they kidnapped in 2010. On Feb. 17 riots at an asylum seeker detention center in Papua, New Guindea kill one and injure 77. On Feb. 17 Naglaa Mahmoud, wife of ousted Egyptian pres. Mohamed Morsi claims to have been close friends with Hillary Clinton since the 1980s, claiming that the Muslim Sisterhood has regular dealings with her and her hubby Bill. On Feb. 18 final talks with Iran on the nuclear deal. On Feb. 18 protests in Bangkok, Thailand sees police and anti-govt. protesters engage in gun battles, killing one police officer and injuring dozens of police and protesters. On Feb. 18 Pres. Obama names Robert Malley (1963-) as senior dir. of the Nat. Security Council despite firing him from his campaign in 2008 for ties to Hamas, the PLO et al; his father was an Egyptian-born Jewish Communist who supported the Palestinian cause. On Feb. 18 a Economist Poll reveals that 71% of Obama voters and 55% of Democrats regret their votes. On Feb. 19 an Abdullah Azzam Brigades twin suicide attack in Beirut, Lebanon kills five and injures 12+. On Feb. 19 Saudi Crown Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud meets with Japanese Emperor Akihito in Tokyo; meanwhile the newspaper Al-Arab reports that Saudi Arab has threatened to close its border and airspace with Qatar if it doesn't stop supporting the Muslim Brotherhood. On Feb. 19 Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani utters the soundbyte that Jerusalem "should be liberated from the yoke of Israel". On Feb. 19 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan makes a phone call to Pres. Obama, asking him to do something about Turkish Islamic cleric Fetullah Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in rural Penn., misunderstanding his response as an okay. On Feb. 19 a Gallup Poll reveals that 49% of Americans say that involvement in Afghanistan was a mistake, compared to 48% who say it wasn't, becoming the first time the initial massive support has become a push. On Feb. 19 the Three Amigos North Am. Summit in Toluca, Michoacan, Mexico, attended by Pres. Obama, Mexican Pres. Enrique Pena Nieto, and Canadian PM Stephen Harper produces no results - did they discuss my Megamerge Dissolution Solution or play video games? On Feb. 20 violence in Kiev, Ukraine sees troops fire on protesters, becoming the worst in two decades; meanwhile Pres. Obama warns Ukraine of possible sanctions; on Feb. 21 pres. Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders sign an agreement for early elections; on Feb. 22 Yanukovych flees the pres. palace as protesters take control, ending up in Sevastopol, home of a Russian naval base; on Feb. 24 an arrest warrant is issued for him by the acting govt. for crimes against protesters.; meanwhile on Feb. 23 the U.S. warns Russia to keep its military out of Ukraine, calling it a "grave mistake" to try it, which doesn't stop Russian troops from massing at Belgorod 25 mi. N of the Ukrainian border; on Feb. 26 kiss-me-again Russian pres. Vladimir Putin orders massive military exercises in W Russia, and docks a Russian warship in Havana, Cuba; on Feb. 27 armed men seize the Ukrainian parliament bldg. in Simferopol and raise the Russian flag; on Feb. 28 Yanukovych appears on TV for the first time in Rostov-on-Don, with the soundbytes "I intend to keep fighting for the future of Ukraine" and "Any military action in this situation is unacceptable"; meanwhile Swiss authorities announce an investigation into money laundering by Yanukovych. On Feb. 20 Facebook buys Internet startup WhatsApp for a record $19B, or $45 for each of its 450M users. On Feb. 20 as the Knesset debates ending Hashemite control and replacing it with Israelite control, pissed-off Muslims clash with Israeli security guards at Al-Aqsa Mosque; on Feb. 23 King Abdullah II of Jordan issues an order promoting the possibility of making Jordan an alternative homeland to Palestinians; on Feb. 27 the Jordanian parliament unanimously decides to expel the Israeli ambassador in Amman and recall Jordan's envoy in Tel Aviv. On Feb. 21 (6:20 a.m.) a 4-man Taliban assault at a police HQ in Surobi District, Kabul Province, Afghanistan kills two policemen. On Feb. 21 10 Al-Shabaab militants stage a suicide assault on the pres. compound in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing several govt. officials. On Feb. 21 a new law goes into effect forcing the U.S. Defense Dept. to only buy U.S. flags made in the U.S., in an attempt to curtail purchase of Chinese-made flags. On Feb. 22 Mexican Sinaloa cartel drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is arrested in Mazatlan after running from authorities for 13 years while controlling 25% of the action in the U.S. On Feb. 22 Florence mayor (since 2009) Matteo Renzi (b. 1975) becomes PM #56 of Italy (until Dec. 5, 2016), going on to prove a centrist that tries to reform the hopelessly socialist constitution in vain. On Feb. 22 the Ragnarok (Viking Apocalypse) sees Norse gods Thor, Loki, Odin, Freyr, Hermodr fight; Odin will be killed by Fennir and the other creator gods will fall; Earth will fall into the sea, and life as we know it will cease to be; the world will re-emerge anew and fertile, and two human survivors will be in charge of repopulating the Earth :) On Feb. 22-23 a weekend of violence in Honduras kills 39. On Feb. 23 (01:10 a.m.) Prague-born Theresienstadt Concentration Camp survivor Alice Herz-Sommer (b. 1903) dies in London, becoming the oldest known Jewish Holocaust survivor; her 2013 bio. film The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life, about her 100+ camp piano concerts of Chopin's etudes is nominated for best short documentary at the 2014 Academy Awards. On Feb. 23 Pres. Obama eases immigration restrictions on Muslims, offering asylum to "minor" terrorist who only provided "limited" material support to terrorism; meanwhile thousands of Christians fleeing Muslim attacks in Egypt, Syria et al. are put back in line. On Feb. 23 Taliban militants overrun a military outpost in Ghaziabad District, Kunar Province, Afghanistan killing 20 Afghan soldiers and capturing eight. On Feb. 23 after being given an ultimatum by the Islamists who control it, Christians in Raqqa, Syria sign a dhimmi document prohibiting them from practicing Christianity in public. On Feb. 23 top al-Qaida cmdr. Abu Khaled al-Soury (Abu Omair al-Shamy) of the Salifist group Ahrar al-Sham is killed with six others by ISIL in Syria in a suicide attack, causing Al Nushrah Front emir Abu Muhammad al Julani on Feb. 25 to warn ISIS to end attacks on jihadist and rebel units in Syria or face destruction. On Feb. 24 Egyptian PM Hazem el-Beblawi announces the resignation of his cabinet, a surprise move paving the way for Field Marshal Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi to leave his defense minister post and run for pres.; on Feb. 25 Adly Mansour names Ibrahim Mehlib as new PM (until ?) - I'd rather live in his world than mine? On Feb. 24 the pissed-off Iranian parliament summons foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for making comments calling the Jewish Holocaust a "tragedy". On Feb. 24 Libyan police find eight dead Egyptian Christians near Benghazi, Libya, the 2nd execution-style killing of the year. On Feb. 24 Ugandan pres. Yoweri Museveni signs a harsh anti-gay law that gives out sentences of up to life in priz for sucking er, and drinking er, homosexuality, pissing-off the Obama admin., with secy. of state John Kerry calling it "a tragic day for Uganda and for all who care about the cause of human rights", announcing "an internal review of our relationship with the government of Uganda"; on Feb. 25 the Ugandan newspaper Red Pepper pub. a list of the Uganda's "200 top homosexuals", outing several incl. a Roman Catholic priest; on Aug. 7 the Ugandan supreme court strikes down the law on a technicality based on how it was passed in parliament. On Feb. 24 the New York Times reports that the Pentagon is planning to reduce the size of the U.S. Army to its smallest size since before WWII, down to 440K-450K troops; the peak since 9/11 was 570K. On Feb. 24 (eve.) Israeli warplanes hit Hezbollah targets near the Lebanese-Syria border. On Feb. 25 after the Iraqi govt. refuses to pay govt. employees in the region their wages, Kurdistan Regional Govt. (KRG) pres. Masoud Barzani utters the soundbyte that it's a "declaration of war". On Feb. 25 (7:50 a.m.) after an attempted break-in on Feb. 6 causes 15 of 250 to be drowned on the coast, 500 sub-Saharans crash their way from Morocco into Melilla, Spain. On Feb. 25 Boko Haram militants kill 43 boys at the Federal Govt. College secondary school in Buni Yadi, Yobe, Nigeria by closing the doors and burning them alive, sparing the girls. On Feb. 25 German chancellor Angela Merkel visits Israel while riots by Palestinian youths break out on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem over a planned Knesset debate about its sovereignty; too bad, a photo-opp of Benjamin Netanyahu pointing something out to her causes a Hitler mustache shadow on her lip. On Feb. 25 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-3 in Fernandez v. Calif. that although an objecting co-resident may stop police from searching a dwelling, if he is removed via a lawful arrest and another co-resident consents, police may do the search, giving them the option of you know what to get what they want. On Feb. 25 (eve.) a gas pipeline in el Arish in Sinai, Egypt is blown up, becoming #4 of the year. On Feb. 26 the monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announces that 3.3K have been killed in fighting between Syrian rebels since Jan. 3. On Feb. 26 (dawn) a Syrian army ambush kills 175 rebels in E Ghouta, Syria. On Feb. 26 Pakistan announces that it is ending its 7-mo.-old policy of trying to retaliate against every Taliban strike in NW tribal areas, but won't end its attempt to engage them in peace talks. On Feb. 26 after intense pressure by the PC establishment, Ariz. Gov. Jan Brewer vetoes the Senate Bill 1062 ("the Religious-Freedom Bill"), which would have allowed businesses to refuse to serve gays on religious grounds. On Feb. 27 the European Parliament votes to allow the UAE to join the Schengen Agreement, allowing their citizens visa-free travel in the EU. On Feb. 27 the U.S. rejects a request for a 100-day extension on the U.N.-backed deadline for destroying its chemical weapons, calling any further delays "unacceptable". On Feb. 27 a suicide attack at a busy restaurant near a security checkpoint at the entrance to Habar-Khadijo Intel Base in Mogadishu, Somalia kills 12. On Feb. 28 3,546 pages of documents are released by the Clinton Pres. Library, giving Hillary's political opponents mucho ammo. On Feb. 28 after the 2011 conviction of John Demjanjuk emboldens a new "grandchildren generation" of German prosecutors of ex-Nazis, the case against Auschwitz cook Hans Lipschis (1909-) is dismissed due to dementia, pissing-off prosecutor Ralf Dietrich, who created 3-D models of the camp to prove he could see what was going on from his kitchen window. On Feb. 28 the Ahmadiyya Muslim Caucus representing 15K-20K Ahmadis living in the U.S. is officially unveiled. In Feb. during a drought in Calif., U.S. rep. (R-Calif.) (2013-) Devin Gerald Nunes (1973-) pooh-poohs any connection with global warming, uttering the soundbyte: "Global warming is nonsense", becoming one of the top climate skeptics in Congress; in Aug.-Sept. 2018 after a series of wildfires in Calif., he pub. a series of official podcasts funded by his campaign featuring classicist historian Bruce S. Thornton (1953-), who says that he isn't sure if global warming exists, mocking "the hysteria over this imagined two degrees centigrade warming that is going to make the oceans rise", and blaming the wildfires in Calif. on "the environmental movement, Earth Day, federal laws, species protection, etc." In Feb. after receiving help from Tex. Muslim Asher Abid Khan and Australian Muslim Mohamed Zuhbi, Tex. Muslim Abdullah Ali (-2014) AKA SRG flies from Houston, Tex. to Syria via London and Turkey to fight for ISIS before being KIA by the end of the year. In Feb. U.S. unemployment rises to 6.7% as 175K new jobs are added. On Mar. 1 (1:00 a.m.) the Ukrainian ministry of defense announces a Russian military attack on Ukrainian military installations, along with the receipt of an ultimatum to surrender by 2:00 a.m.; at 2:00 a.m. the military airfield at Kirovske is captured; on Mar. 1 pres. Vladimir Putin asks and receives approval from the Duma to send troops into the Crimea, causing the U.S. to call it a "violation of international law" that will lead to "greater political and economic isolation"; on Mar. 1 10 Ukrainian Black Sea Fleet ships leave the naval base in Sevastopol and head to Odessa; on Mar. 2 the White House announces a $1B loan guarantee package to bolster the Ukrainian govt., along with technical support; on Mar. 4 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry visits Kiev, while Putin orders tens of thousands of Russian troops participating in military exercises near the Ukrainian border to return to their bases, and troops loyal to Moscow fire warning shots against Ukrainian soldiers in the Crimea; meanwhile the U.S. sends warships to the Crimea, and hundreds of NATO troops land in W Ukraine, while former Ukrainian PM Yulia Tymoshenko appeals to the West to intervene. On Mar. 1 the Pakistani Taliban announces a 1 mo. ceasefire with the Pakistani govt. On Mar. 1 (9:20 p.m.) "China's 9/11" sees a gang of 10 black-dressed knife-wielding Uighur Muslims at Kunming Railway Station in Yunnan Province, China kill 29 ethnic Chinese and injure 130, causing officials to call it an attempt at jihad. On Mar. 1 (night) two Boko Haram explosions in a crowded marketplace in Kawuri, Maiduguri, Nigeria kill 51, incl. several children watching a soccer match; in the evening more gunmen hit the nearby village of Mainok, burning houses and killing 51+. On Mar. 1 (night) an Islamist car bomb prematurely explodes in Logar Province, Aghanistan, killing nine Islamists and four civilians. On Mar. 2 Spanish journalist Marc Marginedas is freed after being kidnapped in Syria in early Sept. On Mar. 2 knife-wielding Muslim Uighur jihadists at a railway station in Kunming, China kill 29 and injure 130 before four are shot dead and one arrested. On Mar. 2 Pres. Obama gives an interview to Jeffrey Goldberg of Bloomberg View, with the soundbyte: "If you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction. If Palestinians come to believe that the possibility of a contiguous sovereign Palestinian state is no longer within reach, then our ability to manage the international fallout is going to be limited"; Goldberg later paraphrases Obama as saying "Israel is going more isolated and we can't defend it in the same way", saying: "I took it to be a little bit of a veiled threat... It's almost up there with, you know, nice little Jewish state you got there, I'd hate to see something happen to it. It was, look, I want to help you, but you're not helping me help you, and, therefore, there's only so much political capital I'm going to spend in the U.N., with the EU, with the Arab League, on your behalf. I think it was all couched very carefully but it's there and certainly the government in Israel feels like it's there." On Mar. 2 the 86th Academy Awards, presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., hosted by Ellen DeGeneres (first time 2007) awards the best picture Oscar for 2013 to 12 Years a Slave, which also wins for best adapted screenplay; "Possibility No. 1, '12 Years a Slave' gets Best Picture. Possibility No. 2, you're all racists" (Ellen); Alfonso Cuaron (first Latino) wins best dir. for Gravity, which wins a total of seven awards; Matthew McConaughey wins best actor for Dallas Buyers Club; Cate Blanchett wins best actress for Blue Jasmine; Jared Leto wins best supporting actor for Dallas Buyers Club; Lupita Nyong'o wins best supporting actress for 12 Years a Slave; Spike Jonze wins best original screenplay for Her; Frozen wins best animated feature, and Let It Go by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez from Frozen wins best original song; American Hustle loses all 10 nominations; Ellen tweets a selfie that becomes the most retweeted message in Twitter.com history, overloading the site for a short time, with the caption: "If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever." On Mar. 3 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Pres. Obama in the White House, telling him that stopping Iran from getting nukes is the "greatest challenge" facing their two countries. On Mar. 3 new Islamist group Ahrar-ul-Hind stages a suicide attack at a courthouse in Islamabad, Pakistan, killing a judge and 10 others. On Mar. 3 Emirati police officer Tariq Al Shehi and two Bahraini policeman are killed by a homemade bomb in Daih, Bahrain; on Mar. 5 two children are injured while trying to plant another bomb in the same village. On Mar. 3 (eve.) the Israeli air force attacks a terror cell in Gaza, killing two and injuring two. On Mar. 3 a Gallup Poll reveals 72% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Israel, vs. only 19% for the Palestian Authority, highest in 23 years since the 1991 Gulf War (79%). On Mar. 4 an ISIS suicide squad in Iraqi military uniforms attacks a govt. complex in Samarra, Iraq, killing four policemen and three civilians, and injuring 47. On Mar. 4 Pres. Obama proposes a $3.901T budget that seeks $651B in new revenue from the wealthy, incorporates Warren Buffet's tax code rule, expands social programs and cuts the military size and pay. On Mar. 5 (early a.m.) the Israeli navy raids ship KLOS C in the Red Sea and seizes dozens of advanced Syrian-made M-302 rockets from Iran destined for Gaza. On Mar. 5 Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Bahrain withdraw their ambassadors from Qatar for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, signalling a rift in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) (founded 1981); on Mar. 6 Egypt does ditto. On Mar. 5 U.S. drones kill four militants in Khalka, Al Jawf, N Yemen, incl. al-Qaida cmdr. Ali Saleh Juraym Al Olyan. On Mar. 5 a PKK IED kills Turkish soldier Sgt. Musay Somay near Orasu, Turkey near the Iraqi border. On Mar. 5 the U.S. Senate by 52-47 (incl. seven Dems.) rejects Debo P. Adegbile as head of the Justice Dept.'s civil rights div. for his past defense of a cop-killer et al. On Mar. 5 ex-U.S. secy. of state Hillary Clinton compares Russian pres. Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine to Adolf Hitler, giving conservative critics a field day. On Mar. 6 the Crimean Parliament announces a referendum on Mar. 16 on whether to break away from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. On Mar. 6 al-Qaida militants execute a suspected U.S. spy in Shahr, Yemen, then crucify his body on some soccer goalposts. On Mar. 6 the Dalai Lama opens a session of the U.S. Senate with a prayer to "Buddha and all other gods". On Mar. 6 Leah McGrath of Newsweek pub. an article revealing the identity of the mysterious creator of Bitcoin as 64-y.-o. Japanese-Am. Satoshi Nakamoto (1949-); meanwhile Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, founded by Mark Karpeles files for bankruptcy. On Mar. 7 Saudi Arabia officially designates the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group. On Mar. 7 the first Nat. Summit to Reassess the U.S.-Israel Special Relationship is held by the Nat. Press Club in Washington, D.C. On Mar. 8 Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 (Boeing 777) vanishes 1 hour after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur en route to Beijing, carrying 239, then can't be located until ?, causing conspiracy theorists to have a field day; devout Muslim pilot Capt. Zaharie Ahmad Shah (1960-) was a fanatical supporter of Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, whose trial and 5-year jail term he witnessed hours before takeoff; residents of Kudahuvadhoo Island in the Maldives reporting seeing a low-flying jumbo jet four hours after the plane vanishes from radar. On Mar. 8 Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi utters declares a "red line" on North Korea, saying that China will not permit chaos or war on the Korean Peninsula, and that peace can only come through denuclearization. On Mar. 8 two dozen Iraqi women protest in Baghdad, Iraq against a draft law that would permit the marriage of 9-y.-o. girls a la Muhammad and give custody to their fathers. On Mar. 9 a suicide minibus at a crowded security checkpoint in the Shiite town of Hillah, Iraq kills 42 and injures 57. On Mar. 9 (10:18 p.m. local time) a 6.8 earthquake hits 52 mi. W of Eureka, Calif. causing little damage. On Mar. 9 (midnight) after Qatar agrees to pay $16M ransom and release 150 female Syrian prisoners, the 13 kidnapped Syrian Maaloula Nuns are freed. On Mar. 10 Ukrainian MP Pavlo Rizanenko warns that if the U.S. et al. refuse to enforce a security pact obligating them to reverse the Russian takeover of the Crimea, Ukraine may go nuclear again. On Mar. 10 after he attacks them with a metal pole and shouts "Allahu Akbar", Israeli border guards fatally shoot Jordanian judge Raed al-Zaytar (b. 1975), shaking ties between the two countries. On Mar. 10 (night) a U.S. drone strike in Marib Province, Yemen (E of Sana'a) kills four al-Qaida cmdrs. and fighters. On Mar. 11 an ISIS suicide bombing in Qamishli, Syria, unofficial capital of the Kurdish regions kills nine civilians. On Mar. 11 Ansar Jerusalem (Ansar Bayt al Maqdis) founder Abu Abdullah (Tawfiq Mohammed Freij) is killed along with Mohamed al Sayed Mansour al Toukhi by Egyptian authortities in Ain Shams, Cairo. On Mar. 12 (a.m.) after hijacking a SUV with a 4-y.-o. boy inside in Longmont, Colo., wanted man Ryan Stone (1985-) leads police in the Denver, Colo. area on a wild car chase before being apprehended as viewers watch on TV from a heli cam. On Mar. 12 the Israeli Knesset by 67-1-52 passes an Ultra-Orthodox Draft Law, no longer exempting the 8% of Israeli citizens who are ultra-Orthodox. On Mar. 12 tens of thousands mourn in Istanbul, Turkey for teenie Berkin Elvan, who was killed in summer street protests. On Mar. 12 Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades et al. launch 130 rockets from Gaza into S Israel, with 64 landing in 24 hours causing retaliatory strikes by the Israelis; On Mar. 13 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu slams PA Pres. Mahmoud Abbas for failing to condemn them; on Mar. 14 PIJ head Ramadan Abdullah Shallah announces that the attack was coordinated with Hamas, and that Egypt had contacted them offering to mediate; video released by the PIJ warns Israelis to "get out of our country" and not try invading Gaza. On Mar. 12 Bihkek, capital of Kyrgyzstan is declared the 2014 capital of Islamic culture. On Mar. 12 the U.S. Council of Muslim Orgs. (USCMO) is founded in Washington, D.C. as an umbrella org. by 10 Muslim-Am. groups incl. the Muslim Am. Society (MAS), Council on Am.-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and Am. Muslims for Palestine to give Muslims greater clout in U.S. politics; on June 10 it holds its inaugural banquet at the Hilton Hotel in Crystal City, Va. - but Islam is just a religion? On Mar. 12 Minyon Moore, former asst. of Hillary Clinton in her 2008 pres. campaign is accused of illegally channeling $600K into the campaign. On Mar. 13 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry utters the soundbyte to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that it's a "mistake" for Israel to demand recognition by the Palestinian Authority in order to achieve peace. On Mar. 13 New York rapper Le1f (Khalif Diouf) becomes the first openly gay rapper to perform on a late night TV show when he debuts on the Late Show with David Letterman. On Mar. 14 yet another jihad stabbing attack by a Uighur Muslim in Changsha, China kills six before police kill him. On Mar. 14 Sunni rebels in Syria release a video announcing the kidnapping of 94 women and children belong to Assad's Alwawite sect and demanding a swap for 2K prisoners. On Mar. 14 the U.S. Commerce Dept. announces that after pressure over reports about NSA surveillance, it's relinquishing its 2000 contract with the Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers in fall 2015. On Mar. 15 a Palestinian Arab driver runs over four Israeli border policemen near Beit Ummar in Gush Ezion, Israel. On Mar. 15 U.S. State Dept. spokesperson Jen Psaki tells Al-Quds that Palestinians don't have to recognize the Jewish state of Israel as a condition for peace negotiations; another spokesperson Mary Hart announces that the U.S. is in regular contact with the Muslim Brotherhood. On Mar. 16 (a.m.) N.J. teenie Justin Alexander Casquejo (1997-) sneaks into 1,776-ft.-tall Freedom Tower on top of the old WTC in New York City and works up to the antenna, roaming the top floor for two hours before being caught, exposing the lack of working surveillance cameras. On Mar. 16 the 2014 Crimean Status Referendum votes overwhelmingly in favor of seceding from Ukraine and annexing to Russia, pissing-off the U.S., which rejects the vote as illegal; on Mar. 21 Vladimir Putin formally annexes it; the Muslim Tatars don't waste time in demanding their own autonomous region in Crimea. On Mar. 16 after rumors of desecration of a Quran, a Muslim mob burns a Hindu temple and community center in Larkana, Pakistan. On Mar. 16 Vatican spokesman Monsignor Vittorio Formenti utters the soundbyte in L'Osservatore Romano: "Islam has now become the world's largest religion. For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top. Muslims have overtaken us." On Mar. 17 the U.S. House by 233-181 passes the ENFORCE Act, giving either chamber of Congress the authority to bring a civil action in U.S. district court alleging that the the "President, the head of any department or agency of the United States, or any other officer or employee of the United States" has failed to enforce the law pursuant to the Constitution. On Mar. 17 U.S. Navy SEALs seize stolen Libyan oil tanker Morning Glory carrying $38M (200K barrels) of oil from the rebel-held port of Sidra. On Mar. 17 Fulani Muslim herders attack three Christian villages in Kano, Nigeria, killing 100+ and burning hundreds of thatched-roof huts. On Mar. 17 ISIS begins sieging Kobani (Ain al-Arab), Syria opposite Suruc, Turkey, which is defended by Syrian Kurds as a critical link of their 3-canton autonomous region. On Mar. 17 2-y.-o. Mohammed al-Hamadin (b. 2011) dies from injuries sustained when a rocket explodes during assembly at his home in Gaza, killing his father and three other Hamas al-Qassam Brigades members. On Mar. 17 Mick Jagger's girlfriend L'Wren Scott is found dead in her Manhattan, N.Y. apt. of suicide. On Mar. 18 (dawn) a suicide bomber at a military intel HQ in Lahj Province, Yemen injures five soldiers and eight civilians. On Mar. 18 (a.m.) despite Muslim riots, right-wing Israeli housing minister Uri Ariel visits the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for Purim; meanwhile Israeli bulldozers take possession of the Har Homa (Jabal Abu Ghneim) hilltop in SE Jerusalem. On Mar. 18 a Taliban suicide bomber on a rickshaw outside a checkpoint near a market in Maymana, Faryab Province, Afghanistan kills 15 and injures 46. On Mar. 18 the U.S closes its embassy in Syria and orders diplomats out of the country. On Mar. 18 Russian soldiers kill their first Ukrainian soldier in Crimea shortly after Russian pres. Vladimir Putin officially asks his Parliament to accept Crimea into the Russian Federation; on Feb. 19 Russian troops storm and occupy Ukraine's naval HQ in Sevastopol. On Mar. 18 a roadside bomb hits an Israeli patrol at the Syrian border, injuring four, causing retaliatory airstrikes. On Mar. 18 North Korea test-fires 25 short-range rockets into the sea off the E coast, causing South Korea to urge them to stop the "provocative activities". On Mar. 18 83 U.S. senators sign a letter to Pres. Obama spelling out conditions for a final deal on Iran; a less restrictive letter is signed by 395 U.S. reps.; a clear V for Obama? On Mar. 19 Iran holds talks with six countries in Vienna, which EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton calls "substantive and useful". On Mar. 20 a Taliban suicide assault on a police HQ in Jalalabad, Nangarhar, Afghanistan kills 18 incl. 10 Afghan policemen, a district police chief, a student, and seven Taliban fighters. On Mar. 20 as dozens of wounded cross during heavy fighting, Syria closes its border with Lebanon. On Mar. 20 Pres. Obama delivers a statement on Ukraine, announcing a new round of economic sanctions on individuals in Russia incl. Vladimir Putin. On Mar. 20 after damaging tweets piss him off, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erodagan bans Twitter in Turkey; too bad, it fails, as pres. Abdullah Gul nixes the idea on his own Twitter account. On Mar. 21 Taliban gunmen with minipistols in their socks storm the luxury Serena Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing nine incl. four foreigners and two children. On Mar. 21 gunmen ram an explosives-laden tanker into a police HQ in Sulaiman Pek, Iraq 100 mi. N of Baghdad, killing ?. On Mar. 21 Muslims massacre 80 Christians in the Armenian village of Kessab, Syria after being put up to it by Turkey? On Mar. 21 Pakistan announces a $1.5B "no strings" grant from Saudi Arabia, raising suspicions about a secret deal to provide weapons to Syrian rebels. On Mar. 21 the supreme court of Thailand annuls last month's gen. election, leaving the country in limbo. On Mar. 22 (early a.m.) Israeli forces in coordination with the Palestinian Authority storm the Jenin Refugee Camp, killing three and injuring 14. On Mar. 22 (10:37 a.m.) a major mudslide 4 mi. E of Oso, Snohomish County, Wash. kills 28 and injures 30 - that's why they call it Washington, a ton of mud will wash out your town? On Mar. 22 residents of Venice, Italy vote overwhelmingly (89%) to form a new independent repub. On Mar. 22 Glenna DeJong (53) and Marsha Caspar of Lansing become the first gay couple to marry in Mich. one day after the 2004 landslide ban was overturned by a federal judge. On Mar. 22 member of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) execute a Christian man in Raqqa, Syria and leave his body crucified on public display with a sign reading: "This criminal's deed is that he killed and robbed a Muslim man." On Mar. 22 60+ Palestinian, Israeli, and other journalists working with media outlets in Israel receive threatening text messages on their Israeli mobile phones from the al-Qassam Brigades of Hamas. On Mar. 23 foreign ministry employees in Israel declare their first-ever strike, paralyzing the Israeli diplomatic system (until ?). On Mar. 23 hooded Muslim gunmen kill six Christian worshippers in a church service near Mombasa, Kenya, injuring 20+. On Mar. 23 150 Israeli Christians gather in front of the EU embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel to demand that the EU do more to help Middle East Christians, who are being snuffed out by Muslims. On Mar. 23 Nigerian state govs. meet in the White House with U.S. nat. security adviser Susan Rice, accusing Pres. Goodluck Jonathan of being in collusion with Boko Haram to perpetuate the conflict. On Mar. 24 Egypt sentences 529 Mohammed Morsi supporters to death out of 545 on trial for killing a single police officer, causing U.S. secy. of state John Kerry to issue the soundbyte that he is "deeply troubled", calling for the Egyptian govt. to "remedy the situation". On Mar. 24 after its illegal annexation of Crimea, Russia is suspended from the G8 Summit, which is moved from Sochi to Brussels, becoming the G7. On Mar. 24 the Armenian Christian town of Kassab, Syria 3 km. from the Turkish border is captured by Islamic fighters; on June 14-15 the Syrian army recaptures it, destroying all the Armenian Christian churches - when it comes to Christians all Muslims are on the same team? On Mar. 24 an earthquake swarm begins hitting C Idaho, with hundreds incl. a 4.9 one on Apr. 12, strongest in the state since 2005, followed by a 4.4 one on Apr. 14 in Challis. On Mar. 24 Towson U. students Ruffin and Korey Johnson become the first African-Am. women to win a U.S. nat. college debate tournament, the Cross Examination Debate Assoc. (CEDA) championships at Indiana U. On Mar. 25 Ukrainian defense minister Igor Tenyukh resigns as thousands of Ukrainian troops withdraw from Crimea under Russian orders; meanwhile far-right Ukrainian leader Oleksander Muzychko (AKA Sashko Billy) is shot dead by police in Rivne. On Mar. 25 the sunny-side-of-life Taliban stages three suicide attacks in Afghanistan incl. Kabul, Kunduz, and Kunar Province. On Mar. 26 federal agents arrest 28 defendants incl. Dem. lawmakers Calif. state sen. Leland Yin Yee (1948-), Charlotte, N.C. mayor Patrick Cannon, and N.Y. state assemblyman William Scarborough on bribery charges in connection with marijuana legislation and conspiracy to traffic in firearms from the Philippines; Yee was a well-known gun control advocate. On Mar. 26 (midnight) same-sex marriage becomes legal in the U.K. (England and Wales). On Mar. 26 Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, known for appearing with Osama bin Laden in a video on Sept. 12, 2001, and the June 2002 soundbyte: "Al Qaeda has the right to kill four million Americans, including one million children, displace double that figure, and injure and cripple hundreds and thousands" is convicted in New York City of terrorism charges. On Mar. 27 after seven sessions of the U.N. Security Council result in draft Resolution 204/189, sponsored by 42 countries, only to be vetoed by Russia, the non-binding U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution 58/262 is adopted by 100-11-58, titled "Territorial Integrity of Ukraine", affirming commitment to the territorial integrity of Ukraine and rejecting the 2014 Crimean Status Referendum. On Mar. 27 Taliban fighters storm a guest house used by ? in Kabul, Afghanistan, taking four (incl. three U.S. citizens) hostage before four insurgents blow themselves up and one is killed by security forces. On Mar. 27 al-Qaida-linked Sunni ISIS militants bomb the Shiite Shrine of Ammar bin Yasser and Owais al-Qarni in Raqqa, Syria, raising Sunni-Shiite tensions. On Mar. 27 Saudi King Abdullah appoints ex-intel chief Prince Muqrin as deputy crown prince, putting him in line for the throne after Prince Salman. On Mar. 28 clashes between police and Morsi supporters in Ein Shams, Cairo, Egypt kills four and injures dozens; Egyptian journalist Mayada Ashraf is shot in the head by a sniper. On Mar. 28 Pres. Obama visits Saudi Arabia for talks over their fears about what he's doing with Iran, Syria et al.; too bad, he fails to discuss human or women's rights with Da King; on Mar. 29 (a.m.) he ends his trip by presenting an Internat. Women of Courage award to Dr. Maha Al-Muneef, dir. of the Nat. Family Safety Program. On Mar. 28 ex-Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg is chosen as new NATO secy.-gen., to succeed Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Oct. 1. On Mar. 28 Pope Francis issues a call to the Church to "intensify" its dialogue with Islam. On Mar. 28 Muslims returning from mosque prayers attack the Virgin and Archangel Michael Coptic Church in Ein Shams (near Cairo), Egypt, killing five Christians. On Mar. 29 Libyan state TV airs a video of Madman Daffy's son Saadi Gaddafi apologizing to the nation from prison "for the disturbance and destabilization I have caused". On Mar. 29 7+ terrorists are killed while making IEDs in a mosque in E Ghazni Province, Afghanistan. On Mar. 29 Israel balks at releasing the last of four bathces of Palestinian prisoners, causing U.S. secy. of state John Kerry to rush to Israel on Mar. 31 to "salvage" the peace process. On Mar. 30 Muslim gunmen in Benue, Nigeria kill 19 and kidnap 15. On Mar. 30 Chadian troops escorting a convoy of Muslims back to Chad fire on Christian civilians in Bangui, Central African Repub., killing 10+ and injuring dozens. On Mar. 30 municipal elections in France give a big V to the anti-Muslim-immigration Nat. Front Party of Marine Le Pen over the ruling Socialist Party of Francois Hollande, which holds Paris with first-ever female mayor Anne Hidalgo (1959-); Socialist French PM Jean-Marc Ayrault resigns, and on Apr. 1 Socialist Manuel Valls (1962-) becomes French PM (until ?); many Muslims vote for the NFP because of their stand against homosexual marriage. On Mar. 30 local elections in Turkey are a V for PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamist agenda, with 44% of the popular vote. On Mar. 31 an attempted jailbreak in Nigeria kills 21. On Mar. 31 North and South Korea exchange artillery fire into each other's waters. In Mar. the U.S. unemployment rate remains at 6.7%, with the economy adding 192K jobs. In Mar. a group of 27 Palestinian college students led by Mohammed S. Dajani visits Auschwitz Concentration Camp, stirring up a firestorm of controversy. In Mar. China wins a $2B contract to build the Red-Med, a 300km freight railway between Eilat on the Red Sea and the Mediterranean port of Ashdod; on June 19 they win another $1B contract to build a new Israeli port on the Mediterranean. In the spring the Bureau of Economic Analysis introduces the Gross Output (GO) measure of economic production, the first new economic aggregate since the GDP was introduced by Simon Kuznets in 1934. On Apr. 1 an 8.2 earthquake off the coast of Chile creates a tsunami, and kills six; 300 women inmates escape in the chaos. On Apr. 1 after rumors of a blasphemous comment about Muhammad, angry Muslims burn two Christian churches in Katsina, Nigeria; meanwhile Muslim suicide bombers at a Nigeria Nat. Petroleum Corp. facility in Mule, Nigeria kill 15 civilians. On Apr. 1 protester Eric Brazau is sentenced to 9 mo. in jail by Ontario judge S. Ford Clements for distributing flyers criticizing Islam, plus shouting "in a tone of voice that suggested he was very angry and had little interest in debate", causing a firestorm of controversy about Canada kowtowing to Sharia; fellow protesters dressed in a burqa et al. are not prosecuted?; one had a sign saying "Expose jihad with free speech or die". On Apr. 1 Pres. Obama gives his Pope Francis-blessed rosary to House minority leader Nancy Pelosi one week after she is honored with the Margaret Sanger Award for her support for abortion; Obama carries another rosary in his pocket along with a lucky metal poker chip - proving he's no Muslim? On Apr. 1 (night) Palestinian Authority Pres. Mahmoud Abbas pulls an April Fool's Surprise on the U.S. and Israel by taking steps to join 15 U.N. agencies in violation of their July 2013 agreement to refrain from unilateral moves in an end-around run for statehood, causing U.S. secy. of state John Kerry to cancel an Apr. 2 trip to extend negotiations through 2015 after the U.S. releases spy Jonathan Pollard and Israel frees hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and slows down Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank; meanwhile on Apr. 3 Israel announces that it's sanctioning the Palestinian Authority, suspending high-level contacts et al. On Apr. 2 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission that the First Amendment invalidates aggregate contribution limits to nat. party and federal candidate committees; Justice Clarence Thomas decries all contribution limits. On Apr. 2 non-Muslim soldier Ivan Lopez (Iraq vet) opens fire at Ft. Hood, killing three and injuring several before committing suicide; meanwhile self-professed Muslim jihadist John Thomas Booker (1994-) of Topeka, Kan., who enlisted in the U.S. Army in Feb. and was scheduled to report for basic training on Apr. 7 is interviewed by the FBI and discharged on Mar. 28. On Apr. 2 NATO secy.-gen. Anders Fogh Rasmussen utters the soundbyte that further Russian intervention in Ukraine would be a "historic mistake" that would further its internat. isolation. On Apr. 2 buried bombs near Cairo U. in Egypt kill a brig. gen. and injure five others; the new jihadist group Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt) claims responsibility. On Apr. 2 an al-Qaida suicide assault on an army HQ in Aden, Yemen. On Apr. 2 former U.S. pres. Bill Clinton appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live, claiming that as pres. he had aides look into Area 51 to see if there were E.T.'s there, not finding any, but that he wouldn't be surprised if we were visited by them one day. On Apr. 2 during March Madness UMass guard Derrick Gordon comes out, becoming the first openly gay male athlete in NCAA Div. 1 basketball. On Apr. 3 Brendan Eich (1961-), creator of JavaScript steps down as CEO of Mozilla after online dating service OKCupid urges a boycott because he donated $1K to support Proposition 8 in 2008 that opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage in Calif., which passed by a slim majority after pres. candidate Barack Obama came out in support. On Apr. 3 the EU passes a Resolution on EU Strategy Towards Iran, proposing the opening of a delegation in Tehran, economic and academic cooperation, and political cooperation vis a vis the Syrian civil war and Afghanistan, with possible lifting of nuclear-related sanctions after a final agreement on the nuclear issue. On Apr. 4 a Taliban suicide bomber in Gelan, Ghazni, Afghanistan kills 15 of his own commanders and injures nine in an attempt to keep them from disrupting the upcoming elections. On Apr. 4 Tunisian caretaker PM Mehdi Jomaa becomes the first Tunisian leader to visit the White House since Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 1990, securing a $500M loan guarantee. On Apr. 4 Allah-Akbar-screaming Afghan policeman Naqibullah murders AP photographer Anja Niedringhaus (b. 1965) in E Afghanistan, and injures AP correspondent Kathy Gannon. On Apr. 4 the U.S. Inspector Gen. issues a report claiming that the State Dept. under Hillary Clinton misplaced or lost $6B due to improper filing of contracts over the past six years. On Apr. 4 after giving them a safe haven from the Egyptian govt. with a HQ in London, British PM David Cameron orders British security services to look into the Muslim Brotherhood incl. planned terrorist attacks in Britain, causing them to move their HQ to Ahnuldtown Graz, Austria; not really, it was just a rumor? On Apr. 5 pres. elections in Afghanistan. On Apr. 5 after an Egyptian man sexually assaults a woman, a family feud is triggered in Aswan, Egypt, killing 23 until the military intervenes. On Apr. 6 Muslim insurgents launch a wave of attacks in Yala, Tahiland, killing one and injuring 24. On Apr. 6 an explosion in Homs, Syria kills 50+ rebel fighters incl. dozens of senior officers. On Apr. 6 former Fla. Repub. gov. Jeb Bush utters the soundbyte that many who come illegally to the U.S. do so out of an "act of love" for their families, and should be treated differently than those who don't; on Apr. 13 fellow Repub. Rand Paul calls him "inarticulate", saying that those immigrants "are not bad people" but that the U.S. "can't invite the whole world" to move on in. On Apr. 7 famed activist Dutch Jesuit priest Francis Van Der Lugt (1938-) is assassinated in Homs, Syria after being kidnapped and beaten. On Apr. 7 the U.S. Senate unanimously votes to bar new Iranian U.N. ambassador Hamid Aboutalebi from entering the U.S. because of his involvement in the 1979 hostage-taking affair. On Apr. 7 U.S. defense secy. Chuck Hagel visits China's first aircraft carrier; on Apr. 8 Chinese Gen. Chang Wanquan utters the soundbyte about the Chinese military: "With the latest developments in China, it can never be contained." On Apr. 7-9 more talks between Iran and the six world powers in Vienna. On Apr. 8 Pres. Obama attempts to force equal pay for women by issuing two executive orders forcing federal contractors to report what their employees earn broken down by race and sex; on Apr. 9 the Senate blocks the Paycheck Fairness Act, aimed at narrowing the gender pay gap. On Apr. 8 an al-Qaida attack at a military checkpoint in E Hadramout Province, Yemen kills four Yemeni soldiers. On Apr. 8 a bomb on a train in Baluchistan Province, Pakistan kills 13 and injures 40; the United Baluch Army (UBA) claims responsibility. On Apr. 8 Jordanian King Abdullah II arrives in Vienna, Austria to hold talks with pres. Heinz Fischer one week after a visit by Shimon Peres. On Apr. 8 Germany bans the Orphan Children Project Lebanon as a front for Hezbollah. On Apr. 8 famed investigative reporter Seymour Hersh announces that high-level U.S. sources told him that it wasn't Assad but the Turkish govt. that carried out the chemical weapons attacks in Syria, and that the U.S. has been sending Libya's spare weapons to the Syria rebels through Turkey. On Apr. 9 1-y.-o. British Prince George of Cambridge goes on his first royal tour, 19 days in Australia and New Zealand. On Apr. 9 legislative elections in Indonesia see the vote for Islamic parties to rise from 29% in 2009 to 32%. On Apr. 10 Boko Haram jihadists attack three towns in Borno, Nigeria, killing eight schoolteachers in a teacher training college, and 60+ in another village. On Apr. 10 HHS secy. Kathleen Sebelius resigns over the Obamascare, er, Obamacare rollout scandal, and is succeeded by OMB dir. Sylvia Matthews Burwell (until ?). On Apr. 10 Israel launches the Ofek 10 spy satellite to monitor Iran's nuclear activities. On Apr. 10 the U.N. Security Council unanimously votes for Resolution 2149, approving a 12K-man peacekeeping force for Central African Repub. (CAR). On Apr. 10 after lobbying by Muslim convert prof. Joseph E.B. Lumbard, world-famous feminist atheist ex-Muslim crusader Ayaan Hirsi Ali (1969-) has an offer of an honorary degree withdrawn by Brandeis U., stinking it up. On Apr. 10 protester Alison Ernst (1977-) of Phoenix, Ariz. throws a shoe at Hillary Clinton during a keynote speech for the Inst. of Scrap Recycling Industries at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nev., who utters the soundbyte: "My goodness, I didn't know that solid waste management was so controversial. Thank goodness she didn't play softball like I did"; Ernst is charged with two federal counts, facing two years in federal prison - convicted of throwing like a girl? On Apr. 11 a ship carrying weapons for al-Qaida successfuly docks and unloads in Aden, Yemen. On Apr. 12 less than a week with being charged with forming a new cabinet, and just weeks after his predecessor was ousted by parliament for being unable to stop rising lawlessness, Libyan interior minister Abdullah al-Thani and his family are targeetd in an armed attack, causing him to resign on Apr. 13. On Apr. 12 a Russian fighter jet repeatedly buzzes destroyer USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea for 90+ min. On Apr. 12 new U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power utters the soundbyte that the "systematic targeting" of the Muslim pop. in Central African Repub. (CAR) is "heatbreaking"; she doesn't forget to mention "retaliatory attacks against Christians", as if the Christians started it and the Muslims are the good guys? On Apr. 12-13 Boko Haram outdoes itself with the slaughter of 200+ students on the way to take state-sponsored exams. On Apr. 13 former KKK Grand Dragon Frazier Glenn Miller (1940-) kills a man and his grandson at a Jewish community center near Kansas City, Kan., then kills a woman at a nearby Jewish assisted living facility, yelling "Heil Hitler" while being arrested; too bad, while he thought he was killing Jews, they were all Christians. On Apr. 13 actress Roseanne Barr tweets the soundbyte: "If Israel doesn't nuke Iran, then nothing makes sense anymore." On Apr. 14 Muslims blow up the Nyanya Motor Park bus station in Abuja, Nigeria, killing 88 and injuring 200. On Apr. 14 after the number of schools investigated in Operation Trojan Horse (Muslim subversion) in Birmingham, England increases to 25, the Bradford Council sacks all of the governors at Laisterdyke Business and Enterprise College; on Apr. 20 British PM David Cameron utters the soundbyte that Britain "is a Christian country", and on Apr. 21 former home secy. Jack Straw utters the soundbyte that Muslims must accept that Christianity "permeates our sense of citizenship"; on May 4 David Cameron pledges to wipe out extremism and Islam from U.K. schools; too bad, Cameron "defenestrates" education secy. Michael Gove, whom Damian Thompson, assoc. ed. of The Spectator calls "the only minister who understands Islamism". On Apr. 14 a Passover ceremony is held in Kaifeng, China, attended by 100 of the city's 500-1K Jews. On Apr. 15 (7:30 a.m.) a missile hits an Armenian Catholic school in Bab Tuma, Damascus, Syria, killing one child and injuring 61. On Apr. 15 Ukrainian troops sent in to Kramatorsk in E Ukraine to take control from pro-Putin militiamen trade gunfire. On Apr. 15 the Chibok Schoolgirls Kidnapping sees 276 female students in Chibok, Borno, Nigeria kidnapped by Boko Haram for sexual fun and games, causing an internat. outcry, but of course it has nothing to do with Islam?; they are finally released on ?. On Apr. 15 India's supreme court issues a landmark ruling recognizing transgender rights as human rights, giving them the right to identify themselves as a third gender on official documents. On Apr. 15 the Washington Times reports that secret U.S. State Dept. assessments show that the Afghan govt. is woefully unprepared to govern after the U.S. withdraws its troops, and is in danger of collapsing. On Apr. 16 (9:00 a.m.) the MV Sewol Ferry en route from Incheon to Jeju Island in South Korea capsizes, killing 304 of 476 aboard, mostly h.s. students from Ansan; on Apr. 21 South Korean pres. Park Geun-hye utters the soundbyte that some crew members committed "unforgivable, murderous acts"; on Nov. 10 the captain is sentenced to 36 years. On Apr. 16 Israeli police storm the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to disperse a protest by Palestinian Muslims, injuring 30+. On Apr. 16 Muslim religious scholars in Karachi, Pakistan issue an edict declaring that terrorism and violence in the name of Islam is haram. On Apr. 17 corrupt Algerian pres. Abdelaziz Bouteflika runs for a 4th term. On Apr. 17 Pres. Obama announces that 8M have signed up for Obamacare, with 28% of them in the 18-34 age bracket. On Apr. 18 a car bomb outside a mosque in Homs, Syria kills 14+. On Apr. 18 Syrian fighter jets strike a rebel refugee camp in Quneitra on the Golan Heights near the Israeli border, causing Israeli jets to be scrambled. On Apr. 18 Am. Muslim Mohammed Whitaker is charged in Kansas City, Mo. with 18 felony counts of highway sniper shootings in nine separate incidents - Safari USA? On Apr. 18 senators and govs. of nine Western states hold their first summit in Salt Lake City, Utah to win control over the federal land within their borders. On Apr. 18 the CIA announces that it will pay the Red Hot Chili Peppers band $200K for illegally using their music to torture Gitmo prisoners. On Apr. 19 a rush-hour jihad bomb at a bus station in Abuja, Nigeria kills 75+ and injures 141. On Apr. 19 a U.S. drone strike in Baydah Province, Yemen kills 16 AQAP fighters and five civilians. On Apr. 19-20 the annual 420 Denver Weed Rally in the Denver, Colo. Civic Center celebrates state marijuana legalization and protests remaining restrictions. On Apr. 20 (early a.m.) Boko Haram gunmen attack the Govt. Girls Secondary School in Yana, Nigeria, firing buildings and killing a 5-y.-o. girl. On Apr. 20 an avalanche on Mt. Everest kills 12 Sherpa guides and injures three, becoming the deadliest single accident (until ?). On Apr. 20 Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau releases a video bragging about the Abuja bombing and telling Pres. Obama and Ban ki-Moon to go "to hell". On Apr. 20 Palestinian pres. Mahmoud Abbas utters the soundbyte that the Holocaust was the "single greatest tragedy in modern-day history" during a meeting with U.S. Rabbi Marc Schneier in Ramallah; too bad, he really means that it was a crime by Zionist Jews against Euro Jews? On Apr. 21 a U.S. drone strike in Shabwa Province, Yemen kills three suspected al-Qaida militants; more strikes over 24 hours kill 50+ of the buggers. On Apr. 21 the U.S. conducts a spy flight over Russia - stop questioning me? On Apr. 21 Julia Collins (1983-), "the Giant of Jeopardy" begins appearing on Jeopardy, becoming the highest-winning woman, winning 20 shows and $428,100 until losing on June 2, turning her into a women's lib icon. On Apr. 22 a group of Jewish children and their founders are assaulted by mad Muslims as they ascend the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. On Apr. 22 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-2 in Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action that voters in Mich. have the right to ban race-based preferences in college admissions, upholding the 2006 Mich. Civil Rights Initiative. On Apr. 23 600 U.S. Army paratroopers arrive in Poland to support as a chess move against Russia's aggression in Ukraine. On Apr. 23 Palestinian orgs. Hamas and Fatah sign the Palestinian Nat. Reconciliation Agreement, forming a nat. unity govt. within five weeks, causing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to utter the soundbyte: "Whoever chooses Hamas does not want peace"; on Apr. 24 the Israeli govt. unanimously votes to impose economic sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, and suspends negotiations after 9 mo. of talks brokered by U.S. secy. of state John Kerry, causing chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat to utter the soundbyte: "The Palestinian leadership will look into all options"; too bad, Hamas won't give up its military wing; on Apr. 30 the hardcore Islamic Jihad predicts that the reconciliation will fail; on Nov. 30 Hamas announces that the unity govt. with Fatah has collapsed. On Apr. 23 after U.S. U.N. ambassador Samantha Power fails to object, Iran is reelected to the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) despite its dismal record on women's rights. On Apr. 23 Hamas agrees to pay $60M to families of people killed in the 2006 Gaza Coup. On Apr. 23 Maher Abdul-Hafiz Hajjar becomes the first candidate to register for the Syrian pres. election. On Apr. 23 Luxemburg Income Study (LIS) pub. new data showing that Canada's middle class has passed up the U.S. middle class as the world's most affluent - I've discovered that you have to work twice as hard when it's honest? On Apr. 23 former British PM Tony Blair delivers a speech at Bloomberg's HQ in London, complaining about Western complacency on Islamic extremism, with the soundbyte: "The Middle East matters. What is presently happening there still represents the biggest threat to global security of the early 21st century... At the root of the crisis lies a radicalised and politicised view of Islam, an ideology that distorts and warps Islam's true message... It is not Islam itself that gives rise to this ideology. It is an interpretation of Islam, actually a perversion of it which many Muslims abhor. There used to be such interpretations of Christianity which took us years to eradicate from our mainstream politics..." - sorry but political Islam is set in concrete in the Quran, and can't be bleached out? On Apr. 24 a Muslim police officer murders three Am. Christians in a hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, incl. humanitarian pediatrician Dr. Jerry Umanos, a father and a son. On Apr. 24 the White House announces the hiring of two Muslim chaplains for active U.S. military service, Sgt. Mustapha Rahouchen of the U.S. Army and Capt. Rafael Lantiqua of the USAF. On Apr. 24 Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erodogan issues a surprise condolence message to descendants of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, without using the G word. On Apr. 24 U.S. Repub. senators incl. senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) write a letter to Pres. Obama dissing him for threatening the "entire constitutional system" with his immigration "enforcement review" that threatens to "nullify" U.S. immigration laws. On Apr. 24 Latvian foreign affairs minister Edgars Rinkevics visits Tehran, Iran, indicating an EU desire to overlook Iran's nuclear program. On Apr. 24 Vt. becomes the first state to pass a law requiring the labeling of GMO foods. On Apr. 25 heavily polluted China passes sweeping new environmental protection laws, becoming the first since 1989. On Apr. 25 explosions at a Shiite election rally for the Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq Party in Baghdad, Iraq kill 31. On Apr. 25 an explosion at a fishing competition in Saiburi District, Thailand kills three policemen and injures 17 others. On Apr. 25 the Deputies Committee of senior U.S. policy officials meets in Washington, D.C. to discuss the deteriorating situation in Iraq; meanwhile the U.S. quietly expands the number of intel officers in Iraq - it's safe to dance? On Apr. 26 a British Army heli crash near Kandahar, Afghanistan kills five U.S.-led troops; on Apr. 27 the Taliban claim to shoot down a USAF AC-130 gunship in Logar Province, Afghanistan. On Apr. 26 Sharia Watch UK is launched at the British House of Lords to campaign for the recognition of the danger of Sharia esp. to women's rights; meanwhile Liberty GB Party leader Paul Weston is arrested on the steps of Winchester Guildhall for quoting excepts from Winston Churchill's book "The River War" slamming Islam as barbaric; after an internat. outcry charges are dropped on June 11 - how low can once-proud Britain sink to appease Islam? On Apr. 26-27 Pres. Obama becomes the first U.S. pres. since LBJ in 1966 to visit Malaysia, praising its "moderate brand of Islam" and visiting the Malaysian Nat. Mosque on Apr. 27, replying from a request from the imam Ismail Muhammad to end oppression against Muslims worldwide with "Pray for me"- cause I'm a liar? On Apr. 27 Popes John XXIII and John Paul II are canonized at the Vatican in the first-ever double sainthood ceremony attended by two living popes. On Apr. 27 tornadoes kill 16 in Ark. and one in Okla. On Apr. 28 (11:20 a.m.) a bomb inside a mosque in Karachi, Pakistan kills four seminary children and injures 16 others. On Apr. 28 (11:30 a.m.) after leaflets are distributed calling for all Jews to register a la the Nazi era, and ultranationalists clash with anti-govt. protesters on Apr. 27, injuring 14, Gennady Kernes, Jewish mayor of Kharkiv, E Ukraine is shot in the back by unidentified gunmen. On Apr. 28 the U.S. and the Philippines sign the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), permitting U.S. forces to operate on Philippine military bases and hold joint training. On Apr. 28 an Egyptian court sentences to death Muslim Brotherhood guide Mohamed Badie and 682 others, reducing the sentences of the 529 Mar. defendants to life in prison, upholding only 37 death penalties. On Apr. 28 the White House imposes a new round of target sanctions against Russian pres. Vladimir Putin's cronies and 17 cos. over its aggression in Ukraine. On Apr. 28 al-Qaida head Ayman al-Zawahiri issues a tape calling on his followers to kidnap Westerners, esp. Americans to exchange them for jailed jihadists incl. Blind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman. On Apr. 28 militant strikes on polling stations et al. in Iraq kill 46. On Apr. 29 a car bomb in an Alawite neighborhood of Homs, Syria kills 36 and injures 85. On Apr. 29 a car bomb near a special forces barracks in Benghazi, Libya kills two and injures two. On Apr. 29 the deadline for Israeli-Palestinian talks is reached, and nada happens. On Apr. 30 a Muslim bomb-knife attack at a train station in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China kills three and injures 79. On Apr. 30 Afghan and Coalition forces beat back an assault by 300 Haqqani Network fighters in Paktika, Afghanistan. On Apr. 30 Robert George of the U.S. Commission on Internat. Freedom announces that the U.S. State Dept. should double the number of countries blacklisted for violating religious freedom, starting with Pakistan. On Apr. 30 the U.S. unemployment rate drops to 6.3%, adding 288K jobs; a record 92,594K Americans (62.8%) are not in the labor force, lowest percentage in 36 years; a record 55,116K women are not in the labor force. In Apr. the Flint, Mich. Water Contamination Crisis sees the city change its water supply from treated Detroit water coming from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the stinkin' Flint River, contaminating it with lead and causing serious corrosion and health problems affected 6K-12K children, possible causing an outbreak of Legionnaires' Disease; on Jan. 5, 2016 Mich. Gov. Rick Snyder declares the city to be in a state of emergency, sending $28M for a fix; it is finally fixed in ?. On May 1 a total of 19,793 U.S. service personnel have been wounded in the Afghanistan War since it began on Oct. 7, 2001, with 17,095 (86.4%) wounded on Pres. Obama's watch. On May 1 a Taliban suicide bombing at a busy checkpoint in Panjshir Province, Afghanistan kills 12+. On May 1 the U.S. offers to help Nigeria "find and free" 200+ mostly Christian schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram 18 days earlier (Apr. 15). On May 1 China sets up an oil rig in the South China Sea in waters claimed by Vietnam, increasing tensions by ramming Vietnamese ships and firing water cannons. On May 1 Brunei begins ramping up Sharia with punishments for promoting religions other than Islam and pregnancy outside marriage, ramping up to amputation for theft and stoning of adulterers and homosexuals, causing Hollywood stars Ellen DeGeneres, Jay Leno, Patrick Stewart et al. to boycott the Beverly Hills Hotel, which is owned by Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah; too bad, the sultan gave $1M-$5M to the Clinton Foundation through 2013. On May 2 U.S. House speaker John Boehner proposes the U.S. House Select Committee on Benghazi, which is approved after seven Dems. vote with Repub., with the Dem. Nat Committee calling it a "ploy" and "political stunt"; on May 12 U.S. Sen. (R-Tex.) Ted Cruz proposes that the Senate form a joint select committee, but they reject it. On May 2 (eve.) the worst violence in Ukraine so far sees 42 killed in Odessa, Ukraine after a pro-Ukrainian govt. march is attacked by pro-Russia militants, with civil war looming. On May 2 a day after accusing the Obama admin. of potentially criminal behavior by withholding emails from deputy nat. security adviser Ben Rhodes, U.S. House Oversight Committee Chmn. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) issues a subpoena to secy. of state John Kerry to testify about the 2012 Bengazi Attacks on May 21, while House Speaker John Boehner utters the soundbyte that a special committee is needed to investigate Benghazi chaired by S.C. Repub. Rep. Trey Gowdy, with Boehner uttering the soundbyte: "With four of our countrymen killed at the hands of terrorists, the American people want answers, accountability, and justice"; on May 8 the House votes 232-186 to create the committee. On May 2 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces the first confirmed case of Middle East Respiratory Virus (MERS) in the U.S. On May 3 twin landslides in Afghnistan kill 2K+. On May 3 Malaysian authorities arrest 11 terrorists with links to al-Qaida in connection with the disappearance of Flight MH370. On May 4 after criticizing Sharia groups for beheadings, Syrian rebel cmdr. Col. Ahmed Nehmeh (chief of the Deraa Military Council) is kidnapped in Deraa, Syria by Jabhat Al Nusrah. On May 4 ISIS occupies the village of Jadid Bakkara, Syria, imposing Sharia, going on to take control of oil-rich Deir ez Zor Province from Jabhat Al Nusra and force Syrian rebels to join its ranks. On May 4 Hillary Clinton tweets about the 200 Nigerian girls kidnapped by Beaucoup Harm, er, Boko Haram, with the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls; too bad, she spent two years as head of the State Dept. fighting to keep Boko Haram off the official list of foreign terrorist orgs.? On May 5 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin signs an anti-pornography law, effective July 1, banning profanity in all new works of art, and requiring existing works to carry warning labels. On May 5 talks on Iran's nuclear program resume in New York City; on May 13 the next round of talks in Vienna begin for drafting a comprehensive agreement, with target date of July 20. On May 5 the World Health Org. (WHO) declares a global health emergency over the spread of polio to several countries, the first since 2007. On May 5 a 3K-person Muslim mob attacks a Hindu temple and households in Comilla District, Bangladesth after rumors spread over loudspeakers that two youths had slandered the prophet of Islam Obama style. On May 5 (eve.) Egyptian army chief Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi gives his first televised interview, saying that the Muslim Brotherhood is "finished" and will not return if he is elected, and that if elected he would respect the peace treaty with Israel and consider a state visit; "I see that the religious discourse in the entire Islamic world has cost Islam its humanity. This requires us, and for that matter all leaders, to review their positions", saying that there is no such thing as a "religious state"; on May 11 he utters the soundbyte: "If we are asked to make amendments to the peace treaty with Israel, we will do it", and that if Israel won't recognize the "state of Palestine" with capital in Jerusalem he will never visit Israel. On May 5 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Town of Greece v. Galloway that legislative sessions may be begun with prayers. On May 6 the Nat. Climate Assessment 2014 Report is unveiled by the White House, claiming that the climate has already changed, with the soundbyte: "Climate change, once considered an issue for a distant future, has moved firmly into the present"; on May 18 a group of scientists pub. a rebuttal, calling it a "masterpiece of marketing" that crumbles like a "house of cards" under real-world evidence. On May 6 China and Iran announce that they're "strategic partners", pissing-off the U.S. On May 6 German pres. Joachim Gauck and Turkish pres. Abdullah Gul open the Turkish-German U. in Istanbul, with Gauck calling it the start of a "new chapter" in relations. On May 6 two timed Muslim rebel explosions in Hat Yai, Thailand injure five. On May 6 a Muslim mob at St. George's Orthodox Church near Beit Jala, Israel stabs one and injures several. On May 7 a huge explosion in Qazvin, Iran; related to their nuclear program? On May 7 Boko Haram attacks the village of Gamboru Ngala, Nigeria on the Cameroon border, killing 300+, burning some alive; the area had been used by troops as a base to search for them. On May 7 after revealing the location of their booby traps, 1.2K rebels and civilians are permitted to evacuate Homs, Syria. On May 7 a year after revelaing that the IRS gave inappropriate scrutiny to Conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, former IRS head Lois Lerner is voted in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify; six Dems. join the Repubs.; two dozen Dems. later join Repubs. to vote to ask the Justice Dept. to name a special prosecutor to look into IRS targeting. On May 7 undeclared 2016 U.S. pres. candidate Hillary Clinton speaks to the Nat. Council for Behavioral Health, uttering the soundbyte that the U.S. "gun culture" has gotten "way out of balance"; "We've got to rein in what has become an almost article of faith that anybody can have a gun anywhere, anytime. I don't believe that this is in the best interest of the vast majority of people." On May 8 a huge explosion levels the historic Carlton Hotel in Aleppo, Syria, killing ? soldiers using it as an army base. On May 8 former head of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission Uzi Eilam utters the soundbyte: "The Iranian nuclear program will only be operational in another 10 years... Even so, I am not sure that Iran wants the bomb", contradicting PM Benjamin Netanyahu. On May 9 U.S. officials reveal that a kidnap attempt by two armed Yemeni civilians in Sana'a, Yemen was foiled by a U.S. Special Ops commando and a CIA officer, who shot and killed them before being flown out of the country. On May 11 the 2014 Google Mother's Day Massacre sees Google bow to Islam and shut down the popular Historyscoper's Islam Watch Blog without notice or explanation, then fail to respond to requests for explanation; Google's promise of being above politics and censorship proves a lie, and Google loses its reason to exist, and is living on borrowed time as the free world races for something better?; on May 30 they restore service without notice or explanation, but the shine is off their apple as the search engine ranking is greatly lowered? On May 11 U.S. defense secy. Chuck Hagel gives an interview to ABC-TV's "This Week", saying that the prohibition on transgender people in the U.S. military should be "continually" reviewed, floating the possibility with "I'm open to that." On May 12 a U.S. drone strike in S Yemen kills six al-Qaida militants. On May 12 the Taliban launch their summer offensive, starting with the U.S. Bagram Airbase near Kabul, Afghanistan. On May 12 a Satanic Black Mass scheduled for the evening at the cultural studies club of Harvard U. is canceled after an uproar. On May 13 ex-Israeli PM Ehud Olmert is sentenced to six years in prison for bribery and corruption, becoming the first Israeli PM to be sent to prison. On May 13 a wave of Sunni car bombings in Shiite areas of Baghdad, Iraq kills 34. On May 13 the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg rules that online users have a right to be "forgotten" by search engines like Google, which should erase links to Web pages unless there are "particular reasons" not to, turning the concept of a search engine on its head. On May 13 a Soma Holding Co. coal mine explosion-fire in Soma, Turkey 70 mi. NE of Izmir kills 282+ out of 787, becoming Turkey's deadliest mining accient since the 1992 Zonguidak gas explosion, the lame govt. response incl. comments by PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan that such accidents are "normal" causing riots throughout Turkey. On May 13 U.S. judge Candy Dale rules that Idaho's 2006 same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional; Repub. Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter vows to appeal. On May 13 (night) anti-China protests in Vietnam see thousands of protesters set fire to factories. On May 15 the M.V. Miraj-4 ferry capsizes in stormy weather in the Methna River in Rasulpur, Bangladesh (27km from Dhaka), killing ? of 200 aboard. On May 15 thousands of steelworkers in Mariupol, Ukraine, take to the streets to oust pro-Russian militants. On May 15 pregnant Christian physician Meriam (Maryam) Yahya Ibrahim Ishaq (1987-) is sentenced to death by hanging in Sudan for apostasy for embracing the faith of her mother rather than her Muslim father, causing an internat. outcry; on June 3 a bipartisan U.S. Senate unanimously votes to approve a resolution demanding the "immediate and unconditional release" of Meriam and her two children from prison in Sudan; on June 23 she is acquitted, then released on June 24, then rearrested hours later on June 25 at Khartoum Airport as she tries to leave the country, then freed again on June 26 after a row with the U.S. ambassador - there's no compulsion in what? On May 15 Anglican canon Eric Woods, vicar of Sherborne, England pub. an article in the Western Gazette lamenting the "invasion of halal meat" and "the creeping Islamisation of our country". On May 15 a federal judge upholds registration requirements for hand guns in Washington, D.C.; on July 26 federal judge Frederick J. Scullin rules that a ban on carrying handguns in public in Washington, D.C. is unconstitutional, invalidating a 2008 law requiring handguns to be kept at home. On May 16 Russia and Cuba sign a security deal. On May 16 two Muslim (Boko Haram?) bombs rock a market in Nairobi, Kenya, killing 10 and injuring 70, causing hundreds of British tourists to be evacuated. On May 16 a clash between the Libyan militia and Islamists in Benghazi, Libya kills 12. On May 16 after allegations that treatment delays in veterans hospitals have led to preventable deaths, along with a coverup attempt, the 2014 Veterans Admin. Scandal of 2014 sees undersecy. of health Dr. Robert Petzel resign amid calls for the resignation of Veterans Admin. secy. Eric Shinseki, who resigns on May 30 after firing mucho subordinates. On May 16 (night) Boko Haram militants from Nigeria kidnap a Chinese national and 10 others in N Cameroon. On May 16-19 massive floods in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia cause 2K landslides. On May 17 leaders of Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, Niger, and Benin meet in Paris, France, agreeing to wage "total war" on Boko Haram, with Nigerian pres. Jonathan Goodluck uttering the soundbyte: "Boko Haram is no longer a local terrorist group. It is operating clearly as an al-Qaida operation. It is an al-Qaida of West Africa." On May 17 Hillary Clinton holds her first campaign fundraising event of 2014 to benefit the congressional campaign of her daughter Chelsea's mother-in-law Marjorie Margolies (1942-); too bad, on May 20 she loses the Dem. Penn. primary. On May 17 the Jewish holiday of Lag BaOmer sees a public debate over permission given to Jews from Israel to visit the El Ghriba Synagogue on Djerba Island in SW Tunisia, which was attacked by terrorists in 2002. On May 17 an ISIS jihadist posts a video calling for the conquering of Jerusalem and Rome. On May 17 members of the Afghan parliament accuse Iran of "forcibly sending Afghan refugees to Syria" to fight for Pres. Bashar al-Assad. On May 18 forces loyal to renegade Libyan gen. Khalifa Haftar (Hifter) attack the Gen. Nat. Congress in Tripoli, Libya, targeting Islamist legislators, causing them to flee under fire; on May 27 after Ansar al-Shariah declares war on him, with leader Mohammed al-Zhawi calling him an "American agent", military assets are positioned in Sicily and the amphibious assault ship USS Bataan is moved to the Mediterranean Sea, the U.S. State Dept. issues a warning to Am. citizens not to travel to Libya and urges those there to leave immediately. On May 18 retired former NSA dir. (2005-14) Gen. Keith Alexander pub. an interview in the New Yorker, claiming that the U.S. could be attacked by terrorists again; "The number of attacks that are coming, the probability, it's growing. What I saw at NSA is that there is a lot more coming our way." On May 18 Syrian Islamist rebels issue a manifesto calling for the downfall of the Assad regime and its replacement by an anti-Western Islamist state; on May 19 they pub. a video calling on Muslims to wage jihad in Ukraine, Poland, and Russia. On May 18 Iranian actress Leila Hatami appears at the Cannes Film Festival, and is publicly bussed on the cheek by the pres. of the festival, pissing-off Iranian deputy culture minister Hoseyn Nushabadi. On May 18 after the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth pub. a report of a proposed bill by Labor Party MK Yehiel (Hilik) Bar to grant freedom of movement, religion, and worship on the Temple Mount to Jews and Arabs alike causes a firestorm among Muslims, causing him to withdraw it on May 23. On May 19 the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights pub. a report claiming that the 3-y.-o. Syrian conflict has a death toll of 160K+. On May 19 the U.S. govt. charges five Chinese army personnel with hacking into computers of U.S. cos. incl. U.S. Steel, Alcoa, and Westinghouse, becoming the first time that criminal charges have been filed by one country against another for computer espionage, pissing-off China, who on May 20 suspends cooperation with the U.S. in a joint cybersecurity task force, calling the U.S. "the biggest attacker of China's cyberspace". On May 19 Credit Suisse pleads guilty to a tax evasion scheme that "spanned decades", and agrees to pay $2.6B in fines and hire an independent monitor for two years, becoming the first guilt to plead guilty to criminal wrongdoing in over 20 years. On May 19 Egyptian Islamist preacher Mustafa Kamel Mustafa (1958-) is convicted in U.S. federal court of providing material support to terrorist orgs. On May 19 U.S. district judge Michael J. Shane strikes down the 2004 marriage amendment in Ore., saying that it has no "rationally related government purpose"; on May 20 U.S. district judge John E. Jones III strikes down the 1996 marriage law in Penn., with the soundbyte: "We are a better people than what these laws represent. It is time to discard them into the ash heap of history". On May 19 (night) a Boko Haram suicide bomber in the Christian quarter of Kano, Nigeria kills 20. On May 20 twin bombings in a bus station and market in Jos, Nigeria kill 100+. On May 20 the Internat. Labour Org. (ILO) pub. Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labour, claiming that the internat. slave trade generates $150B in annual profits, $99B of it from sexual exploitation. On May 20 a group of young Iranians are arrested for uploading their "Happy in Tehran" video based on the Pharrell Williams hit song, the govt. calling it "A vulgar clip which hurt public chastity." On May 20 Taliban fighters storm checkpoints in Badakhstan Province, Afghanistan; on May 21 the decapitated bodies of eight policeman kidnapped two weeks earlier are found in Zabul Province, Afghanistan. On May 20 the Islamic Front, the Army of the Mujahedeen, the Al-Sham Legion et al. in Syria sign a rev. code of honor for Syrian rebels, stating that "the political objective of the Syrian revolution is to topple the regime, its icons and pillars". On May 21 Pres. Obama declares the 500K-acre Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Nat. Monument in S New Mexico, pissing-off local ranchers who say it will create a safe haven for drug cartels. On May 21 a court in Cairo sentences ex-Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak to three years in prison for stealing $17M from the govt. On May 21 the IAEA and Iran issue a joint statement that they have agreed on a further set of practical measures within the framework of their Nov. 11, 2013 cooperation agreement. On May 21 Russia and China sign a $400B energy deal, allowing the Russian Gazprom oil monopoly to export gas to China for 30 years. On May 21 courts in Xinjiang, China jail 39 Uighur Muslims for spreading "terrorist videos" et al.; on May 22 a Muslim Uighur car and bomb attack on a busy street market in Urumqi, China kills 31 and injures 90+, causing the Obama admin. to finally uses the word "terrorism" to describe an attack by Muslim Uighurs. On May 21 (eve.) gay buds Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) get married on an episode of the ABC-TV sitcom Modern Family. On May 22 European Elections in the U.K. are a big V for UK Independence Party leader Nigel Paul Farage (1964-), with 27.5%, vs. Labour Party leader Ed Miliband with 25.4%, and Conservative Party leader David Cameron with 23.9%, becoming the first for a third party since 1906. On May 22 the U.S. House of Reps votes 303-121 to halt NSA bulk data collection incl. phone record snooping. On May 22 the Egyptian cabinet passes a law proposed by interim pres. Adly Mansour to annul all pardons issued to Islamist prisoners by ousted pres. Mohamed Morsi. On May 22 a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution to refer the widespread human rights violations in Syria to the ICC, submitted by France and co-sponsored by 65 countries is vetoed by Russia and China. On May 22 a military coup in Thailand suspends the constitution, dissolvies the govt. and imposes a curfew, becoming the 2nd bloodless coup in eight years. On May 22 Jordanian-born Houston, Tex. Muslim Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan (1957-) is charged with killing 30-y.-o. Iranian student Gelareh Bagherzadeh for helping his daughter convert to Christianity and find a non-Muslim boyfriend. On May 22 (night) rebels in Deraa, Syria shell a tent packed with supporters of pres. Bashar al-Assad, killing 21; meanwhile leaflets are dropped telling them it's their "last chance" to surrender or be sent "to Hell". On May 23 four gunmen attack the Indian consulate in Herat, Afghanistan, planning to take the staff hostage until they are killed after a 9-hour gunfight. On May 23 a 67-y.-o. Vietnamese woman self-immolates in Ho Chi Minh City to protest China's May 1 deployment of an oil rig in disputed waters. On May 23 a massive rally by Hizb ut-Tahrir on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to mark the 93th anniv. of the end of the caliphate calls for Arab nations to destroy the Jewish state of Israel. On May 23 (Fri.) (9:27 p.m.) after filming a video vowing to kill "blond sorority sluts" for never giving him any, along with lucky men who get it regularly, 22-y.-o. "virgin gunman" Elliot Oliver Robertson Rodger (b. 1991) stages a drive-by shooting spree at the UCSB campus in Isla Vista (near Santa Barbara), Calif., killing six and injuring 14 before killing himself during a shootout with police; he leaves a 141-page manifesto plus several YouTube videos calling himself an "incel" (involuntary celibate). On May 24 an anti-Semitic shooter at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels kills four; at night two Jewish men are attacked as they are leaving a synagogue in Creteil, France outside Paris; on May 27 Czech pres. Zilos Zeman utters the soundbyte that Islamic ideology is to blame for the "hideous attack"; on June 1 French police arrest Kalashnikov rifle-carrying Muslim suspect Mehdi Nemmouche (1985- in Marseilles. On May 24 (eve.) Muslim insurgents stage simultaneous bomb attacks at 15 locations in Pattani, Thailand, killing three and injuring 73. On May 24-26 Pope Francis visits the Holy Land incl. Bethlehem and Jerusalem, where he declares himself the "Che Guevara of the Palestinians", becoming the first pope to fly directly into the West Bank and refer to the "State of Palestine"; on May 25 he makes an unscheduled stop at the security fence in Bethlehem, with "Free Palestine" in large letters facing him, issuing an invitation to host the Israeli and Palestinian presidents for a prayer summit meeting in Vatican City. On May 25 (Sun.) former trade minister (2012) "Chocolate King" billionaire Petro Oleksiyovych Poroshenko (1965-) is elected pres. of Ukraine with 55% of the vote; meanwhile the pro-Russia separatist movement bloodily clashes with Ukrainian troops. On May 25 the 2014 European Earthquake sees elections for 751 EU seats give the center-right European People's Party 214, the center-left Socialists and Dem.s 189, and the far-right parties 36; elections in France give a V to the anti-Muslim-immigration Nat. Front of Marie Le Pen, with 26%, giving them 25 seats, while the conservative party of former pres. Nicolas Sarkozy gets 20.6%; meanwhile elections in Denmark give a V to the anti-Muslim-immigration Danish People's Party; elections in Britain are a V for the guess-what U.K. Independent Party (UKIP); the Finns Party in Finland wins a 2nd EU seat; the Sweden Democrats Party wins its first EU seats; the Jobbik Party in Hungary wins four seats; the Golden Dawn Party in Greece wins three seats; the FPO in Austria wins four seats. nt On May 25 Pres. Obama makes a surprise visit to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan for Memorial Day weekend, telling troops that they'll be out of the country by the end of the year as their presence will be brought to "a responsible end"; on May 27 he announces that he plans to keep 9.8K troops for training and to fight al-Qaida, pissing-off conservatives incl. Fox News journalist Charles Krauthammer, who calls it "an act of personal narcissism", retired USAF Gen. Michael Hayden, who utters the soundbyte that it's "fairy dangerous", and might lead to making Afghanistan look like Iraq, and Ariz. Repub. Sen. John McCain, who on May 28 utters the soundbyte that Obama is sending a signal to the Taliban and al-Qaida that amounts to "Hang on, we're leaving." On May 25 Boko Haram militants attack Kamuyya, Nigeria, killing 20. On May 25 Iranian supreme assaholah Ali Khamenei gives a speech to members of parliament, saying that negotiations over their nuclear program are over and that the Islamic republic's ideals incl. destroying America, with the soundbyte: “Battle and jihad are endless because evil and its front continue to exist... This battle will only end when the society can get rid of the oppressors' front with America at the head of it, which has expanded its claws on human mind, body and thought... This requires a difficult and lengthy struggle and need for great strides." On May 25 a massive landslide in Mesa County, Colo. is 4 mi. x 2 mi. x 250 ft. deep. On May 25 after learning that his firm bought $24.3M worth of shares of the Israel-based SodaStream co., the BDS movement calls for a boycott of its own benefactor George Soros. On May 26 Hindu nationalist Gujarat state minister (since 2001) (former tea vendor) Narendra Damodardas Modi (1950-) becomes PM #16 of India (until ?); Muslim jihadists vow revenge attacks worldwide. On May 26-28 elections in Egypt give a V to Field Marshal Abdel Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi (1954-), who on June 8 becomes Egyptian pres. #6 (until ?). On May 27 after mass protests by Muslim Uighurs for detaining 20+ women and girls for wearing headscarves in Xinjiang, China, police fire on the crowd, killing two, injuring five, and detaining 100. On May 27 members of a U.N. fact-finding mission into alleged chlorine attacks in Syria are ambushed and briefly held captive by gunmen in rebel-held Kfar Zeita in Hama Province. On May 28 Pres. Obama gives the commencement speech at West Point Military Academy, telling grads that while "American isolationism is not an option", a "willingness to rush into military adventures" since 9/11 has produced "some of our most costly mistakes", and the U.S. must lead by "empowering partners" with our values to meet threats, announcing a $5B "counterterrorism partnership fund" to defeat the "diffuse threat" of decentralized al-Qaida affiliates worldwide, and giving conspiracy theorists ammo with a mention of plans to create a new "international order"; he got a reception described as "pretty icy". On May 28 the U.S. House of Reps passes new sanctions on Venezuela for its handling of ongoing anti-govt. protests. On May 28 Muslim jihadists storm the Roman Catholic Church of Fatima in Bangui, Central African Repub. (CAR), killing 30. On May 28 the city council of Houston, Tex. pass an ordinance prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. On May 28-? elections in Syria. On May 29 (night) a group of madass members of the Islamist Jafar Umar Thalib org. attack a group of Roman Catholics holding a home prayer meeting in Java, Indonesa, telling them not to do it again or else. On May 30 Jay Carney resigns, and on ? deputy press secy. Josh Earnest (1975-) becomes White House press secy. #30 (until ?). On May 30 Pres. Obama issues a proclamation declaring June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month; meanwhile speaking outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City, U.S. interior secy. Sally Jewell announces that the Nat. Park Service will begin marking places of significance for LGBT Americans to mark their contributions to er, history. On May 30 the Nat. Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia announces that it has agreed to return a portrait to the heirs of its original owner, Jewish industrialist Richard Semmel, becoming the first successful Nazi restitution claim in Australia. On May 30 (04:00 a.m.) Spanish authorities raid a Muslim terrorist cell in Melilla, Spain, arresting six. On May 30 police in Perth, West Australia arrest six for running a drug ring, incl. Rateb Jneid, pres. of the West Australian Islamic Council. On May 30 Turkish Twitter user Ertan P. is sentenced to 15 mo. in prison for using the handle "Allah C.C." because it "humiliates the religious values accepted by a part of the people". On May 30 the U.S. House of Reps votes 219-189 to block the federal govt. from interfering with state medical marijuana laws. On May 30 the Spanish supreme court rules that Pakistani ex-Muslim refugee (since Oct. 2006) Imran Firasat, author of the film "The Innocent Prophet: The Life of Mohammed from a Different Point of View" should be deported for criticizing Islam, calling it "a danger to the security of Spain"; he calls it a death sentence - is that what they call Islamophobia? On May 31 (10:30 a.m.) Sgt. Bowe Robert Bergdahl (1986-), the only U.S. POW in Afghanistan (since June 2009) is handed over by the Taliban in exchange for five Gitmo POWs sent to Qatar, pissing-off Congress at Pres. Obama for not consulting with them first and observing a 30-day waiting period, esp. since they already rejected the idea in 2011 and 2012; on June 2 the Afghan govt. protests the deal, arguing that it violates internat. law; Bergdahl converted to Islam in captivity under the name Abdullah, and declared jihad?; Bergdahl's Pashto-speaking (Muslim?) father Robert Bowe Berdahl, who grew a Taliban-style beard in sympathy for his son issues the Islamic war cry "Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim" (In the Name of Allah the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful"), causing Pres. Obama to smile?; daddy also tweeted that he wants all Taliban POWs freed to pay for all the Afghan children killed by the U.S., with the soundbyte: "God will repay for the death of every Afghan child, ameen." On May 31 the Slender Man Stabbing see two 12-y.-o. girls in Waukesha, Wisc., Anissa Weler and Morgan Geyser stab a 12-y.-o. classmate 19x to become proxies of the Slender Man, an online char. created on June 10, 2009 on the online forum Something Awful, a tall faceless man in a black suit with tentacles growing out of his back that can cause amnesia, coughing bouts, and paranoid behavior, becoming the first publicized creepypasta (horror-related stories or images copy-pasted around the Internet); after the victim recovers, they are found not guilty by reason of insanity, facing up to 65 years in prison each. In May a treaty launching the don't-say-Soviet Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) in Jan. 2015 is signed in Astana, creating a free trade zone incl. Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan. In May the U.S. unemployment rate remains at 6.3%, adding 217K jobs; unemployment among women increases by 60K; there are now 138.5M on non-farm payrolls, a new high topping the record of 138.4M set in Jan. 2008, signaling a recovery from the recession?; meanwhile the number of disability beneficiaries tops 11M for the first time (11,004,507). On June 1 a Christian militia defends the villages of Attangara and Agapalwa, Borno, Nigeria, killing 37 Boko Haram fighters and losing nine; Boko Haram ashholes behead a 6-y.-o. boy for being a Christian; more attacks on Attagara kill 88, for a total of 168. On June 2 hundreds of women protest in gettin'-lucky Lucknow, India after two teenage girls are gang-raped and hung from a mango tree; they belonged to the Maurya subcaste, while the three suspects belong to the higher Yadav subcaste? On June 2 the U.S. EPA announces that existing power plants must cut greenhouse gas pollution to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030, causing Repub. to decry Pres. Obama's "war on coal". On June 2 fighting between Shiite Houthi rebels and govt. forces in Omran Province, Yemen kills 100 Houthis and 20 soldiers. On June 2 after 47,017 children sans parents are caught crossing the SW U.S. border since Oct. 1, mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, citing an "urgent humanitarian situation", Pres. Obama issues an order to provide special services for the tens of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the U.S. border from Mexico. On June 2 the city council of Seattle, Wash. raises the min. wage to a whopping $15 an hour. On June 3 Pres. Obama visits Warsaw, Poland, telling Pres. Bronislaw Komorowski that he is planning to spend $1B to boost its military presence in Europe, calling on Congress to provide the funding. On June 3 pres. elections in Syria are a no-surprise V for Bashar al-Assad. On June 3 Turkey designates designates Jabhat al-Nusra a terrorist org. On June 4 (a.m.) Chester Nez (b. 1920), last of the WWII Navajo Code Talkers dies. On June 4 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry visits Lebanon, meeting with PM Tammam Salam in Beirut and pledging more aid for the 1M Syrian refugees in Lebanon. On June 4 Rambo wannabe Justin Bourque (1989-) goes on a shooting spree in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, killing three mounties and wounding two; he is captured on June 5 (12:10 a.m.) hiding in a backyard. On June 4 the Rand Corp. releases a report contradicting Pres. Obama's view of the terrorist threat to the U.S., claiming that it isn't waning but growing by leaps and bounds, with the world experiencing a 58% increase in Islamist terrorist groups since 2010, along with a doubling of Muslim terrorists and tripling of al-Qaida affiliates. On June 5 Sylvia Mary Mathews Burwell (1965-) is confirmed by the U.S. Senate as U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) secy. #?, taking office on June 9 (until ?). On June 5 rage shooter Aaron Ybarra at $15 min. wage Seattle Pacific U. kills one before being subdued by student Jon Meis while trying to reload. On June 5 the govt. of Australia announces that it will no longer refer to East Jerusalem as "occupied territory", pissing-off Palestinians. On June 6 world leaders meet to commemorate the 70th Anniv. of D-Day, becoming the first meeting between Pres. Obama and Pres. Putin since the Ukraine crisis; Obama raises eyebrows by chewing gum during the ceremonies; 1M rose petals are released over the Statue of Liberty; Obama becomes the 2nd U.S. pres. to visit the D-Day Monument on D-Day twice (200-9). On June 6 the convoy of leading Afghan pres. candidate Abdullah Abdullah is hit by two bombs in Kabul, killing six civilians and injuring ?; he is uninjured; the Pakistani govt. blames Lashkar-e-Taiba and an unnamed "foreign country". On June 6 two ISIS (ISIL) car bombs in Shabak, Iraq (E of Mosul) kill 25 and injure 35; on June 6 Iraqi troops repel an ISIS assault on Mosul, Iraq; on June 9 after the 30K-man U.S.-trained Iraqi army cuts and runs, 2K ISIS militants led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi overrun parts of Mosul and seize the provincial govt. HQ along with $429M in gold and a large store of weapons incl. 2.3K Humvees, causing PM Nouri al-Maliki to ask parliament to declare a state of emergency while thousands flee; on June 10 ISIS captures Mosul; on June 11 ISIS abducts 49 members of the Turkish consulate, while occupying Tikrit; on June 12 ISIS issues a decree ordering unmarried women into "sex jihad" with the fighters; on June 12 Iraqi Kurds seize control of Kirkuk while ISIS rebels advance toward Baghdad and Iraqi troops cut and run, causing Pres. Obama to consider air-drone strikes and other aid short of troops, while Iran sends 150 elite Rev. Guard troops to defend Baghdad, and on June 13 Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani issues a call to Iraqis to take up arms against the Sunni rebels; on June 13 (Fri.) Pres. Obama gives a press conference outside the White House with his big heli in the background, saying that the U.S. won't send troops to Iraq because the Iraqis must take full responsibility for their own security, with the soundbyte "We can't do it for them", although he is looking at a "range of options"; on June 15 a video is pub. showing Shiite Iraqi soldiers rounded up and shot Nazi-style in Salahuddin Province N of Baghdad, pissing-off Shiites and pumping them up to resist; meanwhile 440K+ are displaced by the fighting in Anbar Province; 39 Indian Sikh construction workers on the univ. campus in Mosul are kidnapped and murdered, then buried in a mass grave near the village of Badush. On June 7 (Sat.) the first-ever U.S. military color guard marches in the gay pride parade in Washington, D.C.. On June 7 Pres. Obama gives a radio address on student loans, announcing his intention to "keep doing whatever I can without Congress" to help "responsible" young people pay them off, with the soundbyte: "Protect young people from crushing debt, or protect tax breaks for millionaires." On June 7 (8:00 p.m.) three inmates at the Orsainville Detention Centre near Quebec City, Canada escape via heli, becoming the 2nd heli escape in two years. On June 8 (lunchtime) the Las Vegas Killers, white supremacist couple Jerad and Amanda Miler, shouting "This is the start of a revolution" shoot and kill Las Vegas police officers Alyn Beck and Igor Soldo lunching in CiCi's Pizza in Las Vegas, Nev.; after killing another person in a nearby Walmart, they commit prearranged suicide as the police close in. On June 8 at Pope Francis' instigation, Muslim prayers will be heard from the Vatican for the first time ever supposedly to usher in peace between Israelis and Palestinians to go along with his invitation to Israeli pres. Shimon Peres and PA pres. Mahmoud Abbas to pray with him, which they do on June 8; the Muslim prayer calls for victory over the infidels? - Francis will be the last pope after all? On June 8 a Gallup Poll finds that 51% of Americans don't believe that the phrase "honest and trustworthy" applies to Pres. Obama. On June 8 (night) 300+ Pakistani pilgrims returning from ceremonies marking the 25th anniv. of Ayatollah Khomeini are attacked by Jeish Al-Islam in a hotel in Taftan, Pakistan near the Iranian border, killing ? and injuring ?. On June 8 (night) 10 Muslim terrorists attack Jinnah Internat. Airport in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 28 incl. eight security personnel, and injuring 24; the Taliban claims responsibility; on June 10 more gunmen attack a training facility for airport police. On June 9 a friendly fire incident in S Afghanistan kills five U.S. service members. On June 9 (eve.) Hillary Clinton gives an interview to Diane Sawyer on ABC News for her new book Hard Choices, trying to explain away her inaction during the Benghazi attack, with the soundbyte: "I'm not equipped to sit and look at blueprints to determine where the blast walls need to be, where the reinforcements need to be. That's why we hire people who have that expertise"; on June 10 (a.m.) after remarking that she and her Bubba were "dead broke" when they left the White House, causing a firestorm of controversy, Hillary gives an interview to Robin Roberts on Good Morning America, uttering the soundbyte: soundbyte: "Let me just clarify that I fully appreciate how hard life is for so many Americans today. It's an issue that I've worked hard on and cared about my entire adult life." On June 10 after PM Benjamin Netanyahu tries in vain to prevent it, former Knesset speaker Reuven "Rubi" "Ruvi" Rivlin (1939-) of the Likud Party (known for backing the 1-state solution) is elected pres. #10 of Israel, taking office on July 28 (until ?). On June 10 the U.S. ambassador to Israel hoists a gay pride flag over the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv for the first time ever. On June 10 (Tues.) after Conservative radio blasts him for wanting immigration reform, House majority leader (since Jan. 3, 2011) Eric Ivan Cantor (1963-) is defeated in the Va. Repub. primary by Tea Party candidate Mad Hat, er, David Brat, becoming the first House majority leader to be defeated in a primary since the office was created in 1899; on June 11 he resigns, effective July 31. On June 10 student Jared Padgett shoots up Reynolds H.S. in Troutdale, Ore., killing one student before committing suicide. On June 10-13 an Internat. Summit on Rape of Women in War Zones attended by 100+ countries is opened by U.N. envoy Angelina Jolie and British foreign secy. William Hague, who calls rape in war zones one of the "great mass crimes" of the last 2 cents. On June 11 the U.S. launches its first strike in North Waziristan, Pakistan since late Dec. 2013, killing six jihadists incl. four Uzbeks. On June 11 after a Hamas rocket strike into S Israel, an Israeli strike in N Gaza Strip kills one Palestinian and injures two. On June 12 three Israeli teens, Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaar, and Naftali Frankel are kidnapped near Hebron, Israel by Palestinians, causing the Israelis to arrest 150+ Palestinians in a crackdown on Hamas; on June 30 their bodies are found in Halhul (near Hebron), causing efforts to be ramped-up to capture the perps Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisha; Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that the killings were a "senseless act of terror against innocent youth"; meanwhile Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu blames Hamas, which denies responsibility, and responds that it will "open the gates of Hell" if Israel attacks it; on Jan. 6 mastermind Hassam Hassan Kawasme (1974-) is sentenced to three life terms for the murders. On June 12 U.S. Sen. (D-Mass.) Ed Markey introduces the Internat. Human Rights Defense Act of 2014, to establish a special envoy at the U.S. State Dept. to coordinate America's "global response" on LGBT issues and to allow LGBT persons "who have a well-founded fear of persecution... to seek protection in the United States." On June 13 (Fri.) Pres. Obama makes his first visit to an Am. Indian rez, pledging to partner with tribes 'on just about every issue that touches your lives." On June 13 the Guardian UK pub. an article revealing the $1M U.S. Defense Dept. Minerva Research Initiative to study ways to deal with large-scale civil unrest, giving conspiracy theorists grist for their mills. On June 13 Ansar al Sharia in Tunisia pub. a statement calling for reconciliation between ISIS and other jihadist groups based on their Vs in Iraq. On June 14 for the 2nd time in 10 weeks, pres. elections in Afghanistan sees former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani. On June 14 U.S. drones in Al Saeed, Shabwa Province, S Yemen kill AQAP cmdr. Mussad al Habashi and four other AQAP fighters. On June 14-21 the 221st Gen. of the Presbyterian Church (USA) votes to join the anti-Israel BDS movement; a resolution to replace the word "Israel" in prayers and hymns doesn't pass. On June 15 Benghazi 9/11/2012 terrorist attack suspect Ahmed Abu Khatallah is captured near Benghazi by U.S. troops working with the FBI. On June 15 a bus filled with Jewish kindergartners is attack by a mob of rock-throwing Muslim teenies in Antwerp, Belgium; no one is hurt. On June 15 (night) an offensive in NW Pakistan near the Afghan border, causing 80K to flee. On June 16 ISIS captures the town of Tal Afar, Iraq 260 mi. NW of Baghdad. On June 16 Al-Shabaab militants attack Mpeketoni, Kenya (near Lamu Island), targeting hotels and businesses and killing dozens before the army repels them, becoming the deadliest attack on Kenyan soil since Westgate Mall. On June 16 Hillary Clinton gives a speech in Toronto, Ont., Canada, telling the audience that she supports Pres. Obama's decision to work with the Palestinian Authority's new unity govt. even though it incl. the Hamas terror org. because the new officials are "largely technocrats... academics and business people. They don't represent sort of what you might call hardcore Hamas leadership." On June 16 (night) a double tornado in Pilger, Neb. levels it, killing two and injuring 19. On June 17 U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) Ted Cruz utters the soundbyte: "You cannot win a battle against radical Islamic terrorism if youre unwilling to utter the words"; meanwhile U.S. state secy. John Clueless, er, Kerry utters the soundbyte that "extreme poverty" breeds terrorism - he's got an extremely poor brain, he should know? On June 17 (eve.) a Boko Haram suicide bomber in a tricycle taxi kills several people watching a World Cup match in Yobe, N Nigeria. On June 18 U.S. Joint Chiefs chmn. Gen. Martin Dempsey tells Congress: "It is in our national security interests to counter ISIL wherever we find them." On June 18 UAE recalls its ambassador to Iraq, demanding an end to discrimination against the Sunni minority. On June 18 Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman meets in Nairobi with Kenyan pres. Uhuru Kenyatta, saying that the internat. community has proven unable to respond effectively to the global terror threat, and proposing an info. exchange between Middle East and African countries as a remedy. On June 19 76-y.-o. king (since Nov. 22, 1975) Juan Carlos of Spain (b. 1938) abdicates in favor of his 46-y.-o. son Crown Prince Felipe of Asturias, who becomes king Felipe VI (1968-) of Spain (until ?). On June 19 after the surprise June 10 defeat of Eric Cantor, House Repubs. choose Calif. Repub. rep. (since 2007) Kevin Owen McCarthy (1965-) as new House majority leader, taking office on Aug. 1 (until ?). On June 19 Pres. Obama holds a press conference, saying that U.S. troops "are not going to be fighting in Iraq again... Ultimately this is going to have to be solved by the Iraqis", with the soundbyte: "There's no military solution inside of Iraq, not one that's led by the United States", announcing that up 300 JFK, er, military advisers will be sent to Iraq, along with "targeted and precise" military action. On June 19 Pres. Obama makes a phone call to Mexican pres. Enrique Pena Nieto, telling him that the hordes of children from Central Am. crossing the U.S. border illegally won't qualify for legal status or deferred deportation, asking him for help in developing a "regional strategy" to address the surge. On June 19 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry issues a soundbyte that the U.S. govt. recognizes same-sex marriages of foreign diplomats, and expects all other countries to follow suit, calling any effort to deny visas for gays "discriminatory... unacceptable... no place in the 21st century." On June 19 the Pew Research Center pub. a report revealing that immigrants make up 49.7% of Latino workers in the U.S., down from 56.1% in 2007. On June 19 (night) fighting with pro-Russian rebels in E Ukraine kills seven Ukrainian troops. On June 20 Pres. Obama issues an executive order granting the same benefits to same-sex couples as hetero couples, incl. in the majority of states where gay marriage is still against the law. On June 20 the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR issues a report revealing that for the first time since WWII the number of world refugees exceeds 50M. On June 20 pissed-off at Pres. Obama's decision to release five Taliban leaders, the Repub.-controlled U.S. House by 340-73 approves a $570B defense bill that halts transfers from Guantanamo Bay for one year, and pulls back on NSA spying, limiting Obama's authority. On June 20 the White House promises an enforcement surge on the SW U.S. border in response to the children flood, promising to add more judges to allow border-crossers to be deported faster, along with tax funding to help Central Am. countries El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala warn their people against making the journey. On June 20 the U.S. govt. reveals that Joint Chiefs of staff Gen. Martin Dempsey met with Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Rashad Mahmood in the Pentagon, becoming the first such high level meeting since 2007. On June 20 after attacks on them by smart, er, extremist Buddhists, Muslim businesses in Sri Lanka close in protest. On June 20 Muslim Uighur terrorists kill five police guarding a checkpoint in Qaraqash (Moyu), Hotan, China; on June 21 police kill 13 in Kargilik County, Kashgar, Kinjiang after they drive into a police bldg. and set off an explosion. On June 21 Muslim jihadists in Xinjiang, China attack a police station, explosives-laden vehicles into it; the police kill 13 of them. On June 21 Syrian jets attck the ISIS stronghold in Muhassan in Deir Ezzor Province, killing 16+. On June 21 ISIS gains control of the Syrian border town of Al-Qaim (Al Qa'im), Iraq, giving the ability to ship weapons into Iraq.; meanwhile Moqtada al-Sadr's Shiite Jaish al-Mahdi paramilitary force stages a demonstration in E Baghdad pledging to fight ISIS. On June 21 Pope Francis excommunicates all members of the Mafia, calling it an example of "the adoration of evil"; a spokesman later says that the ecommunication is theological only. On June 21 ISIS captures the oil refinery in Baiji, Iraq, Iraq's largest, which supplies 320K barrels of oil a day, and one-third of its fuel oil. On June 21 the Pentagon declassifies a report from the Nat. Ground Intelligence Center, which contains the soundbyte: "Since 2003 Coalition forces have recovered approximately 500 weapons munitions which contain degraded mustard or sarin nerve agent. Despite many efforts to locate and destroy Iraq's pre-Gulf War chemical munitions, filled and unfilled pre-Gulf War chemical munitions are assessed to still exist" - Bush didn't lie, he just withheld intel even though it made him look like an ass? On June 22 (Sun.) Rev. Dr. Cameron Partridge becomes the first openly transgender priest to deliver a sermon from the Canterbury Pulpit at the Nat. Cathedral in Washington, D.C.; presiding over the service is the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, Right Rev. Gene Robinson - Sodom and Gomorrah jokes here? On June 22 Pres. Obama gives a speech defending his handling of the Iraq crisis, saying that he rejects a "whack-a-mole strategy" for fighting Islamist extremists. On June 22 (a.m.) a cross-border military attack in Israel kills 15-y.-o. Israeli boy Muhammad Karaka and injures two men, causing a retaliatory Israeli air strike on the Syrian military on June 23. On June 23 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry visits Baghdad, and meets with Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki, urging him to give more govt. power to Sunnis before the Sunni insurgency "sweeps away hopes for lasting peace". On June 23 a suicide bomber outside Abou Assaf Cafe near a Lebanese army checkpoint in Beirut, Lebanon injures several; they were watching the Brazil v. Cameroon World Cup game. On June 23 a U.S. federal appeals court releases a classified memo that concludes that it's okay to kill Americans suspected of terrorism overseas if they're part of the forces of an enemy org. On June 23 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules that the Obama admin. has no authority to require some cos. to draft new plans for cutting CO2 emissions as part of the permit process for expanding or building new facilities; the more ambitious program to cut CO2 emissions from new power plants by 30% by 2030 is unaffected. On June 24 former Pres. Reagan budget dir. (1981-5) David A. Stockman pub. the article WWI and the United States: Woodrow Wilson's Wisdom or Folly? in The Globalist, arguing that if the U.S. had stayed out of WWI the world would be a better place. On June 25 the U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously in Riley v. Calif. that warantless cell phone searches are unconstitutional; it also rules 6-3 in Am. Broadcasting Cos. v. Aereo Inc. that a video-streaming device allowing users to capture and view broadcast TV content on portable devices violates copyright law. On June 25 the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, Colo. rules regarding a Utah case that states can't prevent same-sex marriages, causing Boulder, Colo. county clerk Hillary Hall to begin issuing marriage licenses, pissing-off Repub. Colo. atty. gen. John Suthers, who sends her a letter ordering her to stop without specifying consequences; on July 1 six gay couples file a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Colo. gay marriage ban. On June 25 Iraqi-Am. ex-Muslim Ali Hassan Al-Assadi (1964-) of Detroit, Mich. is arrested for burning a Quran in front of the Karbalaa Educational Center in Dearborn, Mich., and charged with "unlawful escape of soot" and littering. On June 26 a Mexican police heli crosses into Ariz. onto the Tohono O'Odham Indian Nation and fires two shots at U.S. border agents; Tomas Zeron of the Mexican atty. gen. office claims they were attacking smugglers in Altar, Sonora, and denies they crossed the border or fired any weapons. On June 26 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules that Pres. Obama overstepped his authority by trying to circumvent the U.S. Senate and install recess nominees to key positions, saying that he must wait for Congress to break for at least 10 days before he can use his recess powers, and that the lawmakers get to decide what constitutes a recess. On June 26 Pres. Obama promises to send the Free Syrian Army (FSA) $500M; too bad, on June 27 the high command is disbanded over corruption charges. On June 27 Ukrainian pres. Petro O. Poroshenko signs a trade pact with the EU, defying Russia and declaring that Ukraine would like to become a full EU member. On June 27 to counter Serbia's official commemoration of the June 28, 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Nebojsa Radmanovic, a Serb member of Bosnia-Herzegovina's tripartite presidency unveils a 2m bronze Statue of Gavrilo Princip in majority Serb E Sarajevo. On June 27 police arrest 17 in the U.S. and U.K. for membership in a khat distribution ring based in Flatbush, Brooklyn, N.Y. On June 27 Pres. Obama visits, Minn., and utters the soundbyte: "By every economic measure we are better off now than we were when I took office. You wouldn't know it, but we are." On June 28 the 100th Anniv. of the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. On June 28 the Iraqi army claims to rout Sunni militants in Tikrit, Iraq; the rebels deny it. On June 29 (Sun.) Boko Haram jihadists attack Kwada, Nigeria (near Chibok), burning five churches during Sun. service and killing 100+. On June 29 (1st day of Ramadan) the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria/Levant (ISIS/ISIL) releases an audio message by Abu Muhammad Al-'Adnani declaring a new Islamic caliphate under the name Islamic State (ISIS) (Daash), with leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai) (1971-) as caliph, ordering all Muslims to pledge allegiance "so that you may return to [the position] you once held for ages", becoming the first such declaration in the Arab world since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, announcing "the end of Sykes-Picot"; on July 1 Al-Baghdadi announces that all Muslims capable of immigration to the Islamic State are required to do so; meanwhile the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announces that ISIS crucified eight rebel fighters in Aleppo Province, Syria on June 28 for being too moderate; on June 30 the Islamic State raises its flag in Tell Abyad, Syria near Akcakale, Turkey; at the start of Ramadan Adnani announces a plan to reconquer Spain by 2020. On June 29 an annual rally by 30K held by the Nat. Council of Resistance of Iran in Villepinte, France calls for regime change in Iran, backing the dissident Mujahedin-e Khalq opposition group. On June 30 days after Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt) announces that it has planted bombs to target security forces, then aborts the mission due to concern for civilian safety, but is unable to remove them all, an explosion near the pres. palace in Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt kills one police officer and injures several. On June 30 Pres. Obama announces that he will respond to Congress' inaction on immigration legislation by using executive orders, starting with a border surge to stop border-crossers, followed by a, er, decrease in deportations, pissing-off Repubs. On June 30 the deadline for the complete destruction of Syria's chemical weapons program is missed. On June 30 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. that closely-held corps. can opt out of a regulation for religious objections incl. providing contraception coverage under Obamacare. In June the Ice Bucket Challenge raises $115M for research to cure amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), 5x more than in 2013. In June violence in Iraq kills 2.4K. In June U.S. crude oil production begins to eat into OPEC's market share, creating an oil glut that cuases prices to begin declining sharply from $110/barrel. In June U.S. labor force non-participation reaches a record high of 92.12M (62.8%). On July 1 the first session of the Iraqi parliament since Apr. sees Sunni Muslim and Kurdish members walk out. On July 1 the Strasbourg-based European Court by 15-2 rules that the French ban on full face coverings doesn't violate religious freedom, okaying it. On July 1 Japanese PM Shinzo Abe announces a reinterpretation of Japan's pacifist constitution, freeing its military for the first time since WWII to thwart expansionist China, allowing it to come to the aid of friendly countries incl. the U.S. who are under attack; after election Vs in Dec., Abe pledges to turn Japan into "one of the greatest powers in the world" via the new foreign policy approach of "proactive pacifism". On July 1 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin utters the soundbyte that the West should stop forcing its principles on other countries and making a "world barracks" out of the internat. stage. On July 1 federal judge John G. Heyburn II strikes down the ban on same-sex marriage in Ky., with the soundbyte: "In America, even sincere and long-held religious beliefs do not trump the constitutional rights of those who happen to have been outvoted", d issing Ky. Dem. Gov. Steve Beshear for arguing that the ban preserves the state's birth rate and contributes to economic stability, with the soundbyte "These arguments are not those of serious people." On July 1 Michelle Janine Howard (1960-) becomes the U.S. Navy's first female 4-star adm. On July 1 Massimo Bitonci, mayor of Padua, Italy orders all public bldgs. and schools to display a crucifix, and bans Muslims from praying in them. On July 1 ISIS releases a video promising to liberate Spain, with the soundbyte: "Spain is the land of our forefathers, and Allah willing, we are going to liberate it, with the might of Allah." On July 1 a report from the Pew Research Center reveals that 74% of Americans don't believe they need to give up privacy and freedom in order to be safe from terrorism. On July 2 Iraqi Shiite PM Nouri Al-Maliki offers amnesty to Sunni tribes who "return to their senses", but refuses to step down. On July 2 pissed-off residents of Murietta, Calif. block buses carrying illegal immigrants, continuing until ?; orders from the Obama admin. to use force against the protesters are resisted by the U.S. Border Patrol? On July 4 a suicide car bomber in Al-Wadia, Yemen kills one Yemeni soldier and injures another; on July 5 militants attack a border post between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, killing two soldiers and three militants. On July 6 Fatah begins firing rockets into Ashkelon and Sederot, Israel, causing worries of the U.S. Congress cutting off their funding. On July 7 the first red poppy is placed by Yeoman Warder YS Crawford Butler on the Tower of London to commemorate the centennial of the WWI; the installation officially opens on Aug. 5, the day Britain entered the war. On July 7-8 Operation Protective Edge sees Israeli air strikes hit 150 targets in Gaza, followed by 160 more on July 9, becoming the first large wartime use by Israel of drones; on July 8 Hamas attempts to infiltrate a terrorist team into Zikim; on July 9 (night) an Israeli air attack kills Islamic Jihad senior cmdr. Hafiz Hamad; meanwhile the Israeli Iron Dome intercepts 56 of 255 rockets fired out of Gaza in the last few days; meanwhile moderate Israeli leftists found Smola (Heb. "leftward") movement to try to find a way to keep supporting the IDF; in Apr. 2015 Defense for Children Internat.-Palestine pub. a report accusing Israel of deliberately targeting and murdering Palestine children during the Gaza offensive. On July 8 Iraq U.N. ambassador Mohamed Ali Alhakim circulates a letter with the news that "armed terrorist groups" have seized a former chemical weapons facility NW of Baghdad. On July 8 Pres. Obama requests $3.7B from Congress as emergency appropriations to handle the influx of Central Am. child immigrants. On July 8 a Taliban suicide bomb attack near a school in ?, Afghanistan kills 18 incl. 11 students and four U.S. soldiers who were giving out pens and exercise books; another suicide attack in Parwan Province, Afghanistan kills 16 incl. four Czech soldiers, injuring one. On July 8 Al-Shabaab militants attack the pres. palace in Mogadishu, Somalia. On July 8 Boko Haram raid a police border post in Zina, Cameroon as part of a gen. incursion into N Cameroon. On July 8 (night) Muslims launch a rocket attack against Jerusalem, causing hundreds of Arabs to celebrate atop the Temple Mount. On July 9 the 2014 Indonesian Pres. Election is a V for Barry Soetoro wannabe Joko "Jokowi" Widodo (1961-) over Gen. Prabowo Subianto by 53%-47%; he is sworn in on Oct. 20. On July 9 Iraqi officials discover 50 mainly blindfolded bodies of men aged 25-40 in an agricultural area outside the Shiite city of Hillah, Iraq 60 mi. S of Baghdad. On July 9 French authorities announce that they've foiled a Muslim plot by AQIm leader Ali M to blow up the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and a nuclear power plant. On July 9 Islamic Jihad launches rockets at Tel Aviv, Hadera, Hof Hacarmel S of Haifa, and Zichron Yaakov 73 mi. N of Gaza Strip. On July 9 Hamas launches long-range Iranian M-75 rockets towards the nuclear reactor at Dimona, Israel. On July 9 Glenn Greenwald and Murtaza Hussain pub. Under Surveillance: Meet the Muslim-American Leaders the FBI and NSA Have Been Spying On, complaining that Muslims with terrorist ties are being spied on. On July 10 (a.m.) a U.S. drone strike in Datta Khel, North Waziristan, Pakistan kills six militants; meanwhile the Pakistani army occupies the capital of Miranshah, North Waziristan. On July 10 U.S. Berlin CIA station chief ? is expelled from Germany for alleged spying. On July 10 a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan-Pakistan kills six al-Qaida militants. On July 10 (p.m.) three police officers are ambushed and murdered by Muslim terrorists in Yala Province, Thailand while returning from a peace conference at a mosque during Ramadan. On July 11 the Zelenopillya Rocket Attack (Battle of Zelenopillya) sees a single Russian artillery fire strike almost destroy two Ukrainian mechanized battalions in a few min., killing 23 and injuring 93. On July 11 the U.S. House of Reps passes Resolution 657, affirming Israel's right to defend itself against rockets fired from Gaza; the U.S. Senate passes a similar resolution on ?. On July 12 gunmen attack two apt. bldgs. in Zayouna, Baghdad, Iraq killing 33 incl. 29 women. On July 14 the Church of England Gen. Synod votes to allow women to become consecrated bishops. On July 15 (9:00 a.m.) an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire begins, but Hamas continues to fire 50 rockets, causing the Israelis to retaliate at 3:00 p.m., ending the ceasefire; on July 15 Dror Hanin (b. 1975) is killed by a Hamas mortar shell while handing out gift bags to Israeli soldiers at the Erez Crossing near Gaza, becoming the first Israeli death. On July 15 rebels shell the airport in Tripoli, Libya, destroying 90% of the planes parked there, causing the U.N. to withdraw its staff. On July 15 citizens of Oracle, Ariz. take the streets to block a bus carrying Central Am. illegal aliens. On July 15-16 a conference in Amman, Jordan by 150 opposition Iraqi figures is held, which calls on the internat. community to "end its support for the current government" and "back the people's revolution and its demands", pissing-off Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki. On July 16 Pres. Obama imposes a new batch of economic sanctions on Russia for its aggression in the Ukraine. On July 16 pro-Palestinian protests in Paris turn violent with attacks on synagogues and Jewish-owned stores, causing authorities to ban further protests, becoming the first country to ban prop-Palestinian protests, pissing-off leftists. On July 16 Russian separatists shoot down Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 with a Russian-made Buk SAM 30 mi. inside the Ukrainian border near Russia, killing all 298 aboard, incl. Joep Lange and several other AIDS researchers, causing Ukrainian pres. Petro Poroshenko to call it an "act of terrorism"; on July 17 Pres. Obama calls for a ceasefire and full internat. investigation; on July 25 after Russian pres. Vladimir Putin tries to blame Ukraine, Hillary Clinton utters the soundbyte that he "bears responsibility". On July 17 (3:45 p.m.) African-Am. citizen Eric Garner is murdered in broad daylight in Staten Island, N.Y. by police officer Daniel Pantaleo et al. via a chokehold as they claim to be arresting him for selling untaxed cigarettes; on July 13, 2015 the city of New York agrees to pay Garner's family $5.9M; the officers are not indicted until ? - the police are now completely above the law? On July 17 (eve.) after the Hamas rocket attack fizzles, Israeli forces invade Gaza. On July 17 (night) riots in Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey at the Israeli embassy and consulate cause Israel to recall its diplomats and their families, blaming speeches by PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan accusing Israel of killing women and children. On July 18 after ISIS captures Mosul, Iraq, Christians begin fleeing after an ultimatum to leave or convert to Islam, causing Chaldean Patriarch Louis Sako to utter the soundbyte: "For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians"; deputy dir. Zuhair Shurba announces that fleeing Christians can find refuge in the Shrine of Imam Ali in Karbala. On July 18-19 a group of Muslim women led by atty. Nadia Shahram hold a convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y., issuing the Declaration of the Equalities for Muslim Women. On July 20 the deadline for reaching a deal on Iran in the P5+1 negotiations. On July 20 Tex. Repub. gov. Rick Perry visits Clear Lake, Iowa, and utters the soundbyte that if the federal govt. doesn't send more troops to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, the state of Texas will. On July 21 Pres. Obama signs an executive order prohibiting discrimination against LGBT employees working for the federal govt. or its contractors. On July 22 a Hamas rocket lands 1 mi. from the Tel Aviv Airport, causing the FAA to impose a travel ban, pissing-off Repubs. Ted Cruz, who calls it an economic boycott of Israel, causing the FAA to flop and resume flights on July 24 (p.m.) after 48 hours, during which time Hamas calls the flight ban to Tel Aviv a "great victory". On July 22 Iranian-Am. journalist Jason Rezaian and his wife Salehi are arrested in Iran on unknown charges, and imprisoned (until ?); in Oct. Salehi is released on bail; in Mar. 2015 boxing legend Muhammad Ali asks Iran to free him. On July 23 (1:30 p.m.) Russian separatists shoot down two Ukrainian Sukhoi-25 fighter jets in Savur Mogila. On July 23 the U.S. House by 404-0 passes the Hezbollah Internat. Financing Prevention Act, sponsored by Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), enacting strong sanctions and restricting its access to the global financial system. On July 23 to counter Obama's $3.7B proposal, U.S. House Repubs. propose a $1.5B border security plan that incl. setting up repatriation centers in Central Am. countries and sending troops. On July 23 the U.N. Human Rights Council passes a resolution condemning Israel for its Gaza offensive and establishing a 3-member commission of inquiry, headed by Canadian genocide scholar William A. Schabas (1950-), known for the 2011 soundbyte that Benjamin Netanyahu should be "in the dock of an international court" because he is "the single individual most likely to threaten the survival of Israel"; despite Pres. Obama, the U.S. is the sole no vote, with 17 members abstaining; on Aug. 13 Netanyahu replies, with the soundbyte: "UNHRC gives legitimacy to murderous terror organizations like Hamas and Daash (Islamic State)", accusing them of overlooking "massacres" committed elsewhere in the Middle East. On July 23 three men and two women are charged in Alexandria, Va. with funneling money to Al-Shabaab in Somalia. On July 24 Air Algerie Flight 5017 en route from Burkina Faso to Algiers crashes, killing all 110 passengers and 6 crew aboard incl. 50 French nationals. On July 24 gunmen attack a prisoner convoy N of Baghdad, Iraq, with 52 prisoners and eight soldiers killed in the gun battle. On July 24 a UNRWA school in S Gaza is hit by munitions, killing 15 and injuring dozens; the Israelis and Hamas blame each other; Canadian foreign minister John Baird calls for an investigation of weapons caches at UNRWA-run schools in Gaza. On July 24 ISIS blows up the 8th cent. B.C.E. Mosque of the Prophet Younis (Jonah) in Mosul, Iraq. On July 24 U.S. Repub. Rep. Michele Bachmann introduces the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2014 to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist org. On July 24 (night) 10K+ riot near the Kalandia Checkpoint in the West Bank between Jerusalem and Ramallah, protesting the Israeli military operation, becoming the biggest mass protest since the last intafada; on July 25 Mahmoud Abbas urges mass Gaza solidarity protests in the West Bank, citing a Quran verse permitting those who are wronged to fight for Allah. On July 25 ISIS uploads its first beheading video, of 75 Syrian soldiers; on Aug. 15 a video is uploaded showin Australian-born Khaled Sharrouf with his 7-y.-o. son holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier; on Aug. 19 a video showing Jihadi John beheading Am. journalist James Wright Foley (b. 1973) is uploaded, becoming his first victim; several more follow through Aug. 20, 2017, Iranian soldier Mohsen Hojjaji. On July 26 amid violent clashes, the U.S. closes its embassy in Tripoli, Libya, and evacuates its personnel to Tunisia. On July 26 ISIS captures a large military base in Raqqa, Syria, beheading several captured soldiers. On July 26 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry meets in Paris with Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Qatari foreign minister Khaled al-Attiyah regarding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which neither side accepts. On July 27 (Sun.) after Hamas rejects a 24-hour Eid al-Fitr ceasefire requested by the U.N., the Israeli military resumes fighting in Gaza. On June 27 heavy fighting in Benghazi, Libya between the Islamist Misrata Brigade and and forces loyal to Gen. Khalifa Hifter kill 37. On July 27 Boko Haram militants kidnap the wife of Cameroon vice-PM Amadou Ali and her maid. On July 27 (Sun.) to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Fitr, closet Muslim Pres. Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama release a statement thanking Muslim-Ams. for their many "achievements and contributions... to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy"; he should have thanked Christian-Ams. and Jewish-Ams. instead?; afterwards he chows down on pork spare ribs in a Kansas City restaurant. On July 27 the Internat. Union of Muslim Scholars calls for a "global uprising by free people, especially Arabs and Muslims" in support of the Gaza Strip; meanwhile on July 23 the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade of Fatah declares "open war" on the "Zionist enemy". On July 28 the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rules 2-1 that the Va. ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, joining the 10th Circuit in Denver, which did ditto for Okla. On July 29 Pres. Obama announces a new round of U.S. sanctions against Russia incl. the Bank of Moscow, VTB Bank, and Russian Agricultural Bank, with the soundbyte: "Today is a reminder that the United States means what it says. It didn't have to come tot his. There continues to be a better choice", adding that it's "not a new Cold War". On July 29 Boko Haram militants attack two mosques in Potiskum, Yobe, Nigeria, killing six and injuring several. On July 29 Molotov cocktails are thrown at the synagogue in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany; on Jan. 14, 2014 three Palestinians admit to the attack. On July 29 Italian Muslim cleric Sheikh Abd Al-Barr Al-Rawdhi delivers a sermon in San Dona di Piave, calling for Jews to be killed "to the very last one", causing him to be removed from the Italian ministry and expelled from Italy. On July 30 after speaking out against anti-Muslim extremists Jume Tahir (b. 1940), imam of the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar (China's largest) is murdered by three anti-Muslim extremists. On July 30 (eve.) the U.S. House votes 225-201 along party lines to sue Pres. Obama over his abuse of pres. power, with House Speaker John Boehner calling him a tyrant while denying that Repubs. have plans to pursue impeachment, claiming that Dems. would use it as a fundraising tactic. On July 30 (night) Israeli uses new drone technology to demolish 40 mosques in Gaza that are suspected of storing rockets. On July 30 an investigation confirms that the CIA hacked into computers used by the U.S. Senate. On July 30 (p.m.) Ansar al-Sharia seizes complete control of Benghazi, Libya, declaring it an Islamic emirate. On July 31 an independent panel appointed by Congress and the Pentagon announces that Pres. Obama's downsizing of the U.S. military leaves it too weak to handle global threats. On July 31 in an unprecedented move, six top grand ayatollahs announce public support for Iraqi Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Sistani, indirectly calling for PM Nouri Al-Maliki to go take a liki, er, hiki. In July Hillary Clinton aide Cheryl Mills sends an email inquring about the identity of The Energizer, a secret lover of Bill Clinton. In July venture capitalist Tim Draper unsuccessfully attempts to put the secessionist Six Californias incl. the states of Silicon Valley, West Calif. on the Nov. 2016 Calif. ballot despite claiming 1.3M signatures. In July the U.S. unemployment rate increases to 6.2%, adding 209K jobs; so far 11.472M working age Americans have left the workforce since Pres. Obama took office in Jan. 2009. On Aug. 1 (Operation Protective Edge Day 25) Israel and Hamas agree to a 3-day humanitarian ceasefire as Egypt tries to broker a peace deal; too bad, less than three hours after it goes into effect, Hamas terrorists emerge from a tunnel, detonate a suicide bomb, then kill two Israeli soldiers and kidnap Israeli soldier 2nd Lt. Hadar Goldin, ending the ceasefire, with Benjamin Netanyahu telling John Kerry that "Hamas will pay", and telling the Obama admin. "not to ever second-guess me again", with Pres. Obama calling for the soldier to be "unconditionally released as soon as possible", with the soundbyte: "No country can tolerate missiles raining down on its cities... No country can or would tolerate tunnels being dug under their land"; on Aug. 1 the U.S. Senate passes legislation sponsored by Repub. leader Mitch McConnell allocating $225M for Israel's Iron Dome; meanwhile Israel continues destroying infiltration tunnels from Gaza; on Aug. 2 after the Israeli army triggers the Hannibal Protocol, killing 130 Palestinian civilians in Rafah to try to ensure that he doesn't remain in their hands, Goldin is confirmed dead? On Aug. 1 a new law in Colo. takes effect allowing illegal aliens to sign up for drivers licenses and ID cards; meanwhile the U.S. House votes 216-192 to halt the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that gave 600K young adult illegal immigrants work permits, and votes 223-189 (one Dem. for it, four Repubs. gainst it) to pass a $694M emergency funding bill reimbursing state govs. who deploy Nat. Guard troops to the border, both of which the Dem.-controlled Senate (which is on a 5-week summer vacation) opposes. On Aug. 1 U.N. high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay slams Israel for committing war crimes against her darling boy Hamas, and suggests that they should share their Iron Dome defensive system with it. On Aug. 1 Pres. Obama appoints German Brig. Gen. Markus Laubenthal as chief of staff of U.S. Army Europe, becoming the first non-Am. officer to hold the position. On Aug. 3 the Israelis allegedly shell a UNRWA school in S Gaza sheltering 3K civilians, killing 10 and injuring 35, causing U.S. State Dept. spokesperson Jen Psaki to call it "disgraceful"; the incident was staged by Hamas, with an Israeli shell hitting outside the school and bodies moved into the courtyard? On Aug. 3 an Israeli missile kills three Hamas fighters riding a motorcycle in Rafah, the shrapnel killing 10 civilians near a school, causing the U.S. State Dept. to send a decree to the Israeli military telling it how it may or may not target Hamas terrorists, pissing-off Israel. On Aug. 4 a construction vehicle rams an Israeli bus in Jerusalem, killing one pedestrian before the Muslim driver is killed by police; a speech had been given on July 30 by Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum calling for rage attacks "to avenge the blood of Gaza", with the soundbyte: "Don't you have bulldozers? Don't you have trucks? Anyone who has a knife, a club, a weapon, or a car, yet does not use it to run over a Jew or a settler, and does not use it to kill dozens of Zionists, does not belong to Palestine." On Aug. 4-5 Pres. Obama holds the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. for 50 African heads of state amid hundreds of protesters. On Aug. 5 Rafiqullah, an Afghan soldier being trained to take over for the U.S. opens fire at Camp Qargha W of Kabul, Afghanistan, killing U.S. 2-star gen. Harold J. "Harry" Greene (b. 1959), who becomes the highest-ranking U.S. officer killed in the Afghanistan War (begun 2001), and highest-ranking since the Vietnam War; 15 are injured incl. U.S. troops and a German brig. gen.; Greene was working for the British-run Marshal Fahim Nat. Defense U., whose first class graduates at the end of Aug.; the killer is a disgruntled Afghan soldier not a Taliban member? On Aug. 5 a ferry capsizes on the Padma River near Dkhaka, Bangladesh, killing 125. On Aug. 5 it is announced that Russian hackers have stolen 1.2B passwords, but just which sites have been robbed isn't revealed to prevent them from bidding up the price. On Aug. 5 a 72-hour ceasefire is called in Gaza, which is broken as soon as it expires by Hamas two rockets fired into S Israel, followed by 57 more after Israel waits 2.5 hours than resumes air campaign. On Aug. 5 after a month-long siege to starve them out, causing some women to throw their children from the top of Sinjar Mt., ISIS fighters begin exterminating thousands of 30K heterodox Muslim Yazidis trapped on Mt. Sinjar, Iraq, incl. a smattering of Christian families; on Aug. 6-7 200K Christians flee the Nineveh Plain in Iraq; on Aug. 7 calling the situation "close to a humanitarian catastrophe", Pres. Obama authorizes air drops to save the Yazidis, authorizing air strikes on "barbaric" ISIS to protect the Kurdish city of Erbil (Irbil); on Aug. 8 (6:45 a.m.) the first U.S. airstrike is performed against ISIS positions near Erbil; on Aug. 9 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that the airstrikes may continue for months; on Aug. 13 after sending in advisors along with humanitarian food-water airdrops, the Pentagon announces that the Mt. Sinjar siege is over, stopping the rescue mission. On Aug. 6 Boko Haram militants kill 100 Christians in Gwoza, Nigeria; later reports indicate 1K shot, hacked to death, and burned alive. On Aug. 7 a U.N.-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia sentences Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea for crimes against humanity in the 1970s reign of terror that killed 2M, the only two surviving leaders. On Aug. 7 ISIS captures the Kurdish-held city of Qaraqosh, Iraq, Iraq's largest Christian city (pop. 50K). On Aug. 9 Peter Leahy, former head of the Australian army warns that Australia needs to fight a 100-year war against radical Islam. On Aug. 9 (12:00 p.m.) in Ferguson, Mo. (near St. Louis) a police officer shoots and kills unarmed 6'4" 290 lb. black teenie (strongarm robbery suspect of a handful of Swisher Sweets cigars at a convenience store) Michael "Mike" Brown (b. 1996) after a scuffle, shooting him 6x from the front incl. two to the head, pissing-off the mainly black town pop., who begin rioting, bringing in massive police power incl. military equipment; only 3 of 53 police officers are black; on Aug. 11 the FBI opens an investigation; on Aug. 12 Pres. Obama offers his condolences; on Aug. 14 Pres. Obama gives a press conference, expressing concern over the "violent turn", urging calm and saying that people need to "come together", lamenting excessive police force, and calling on police to be "open and transparent" in the investigation, saying that he will work with federal and local authorities to ensure that "justice is done", uttering the soundbyte: "Police should not be bullying or arresting journalists who are just trying to do their job; meanwhile police chief Thomas Jackson refuses to reveal the name of the shooter until Aug. 15, and it turns out to be 6-year white vet Darren Wilson (1986-), sparking more protests and rioting, causing the Nat. Guard to be called in (until ?); on Aug. 18 Pres. Obama holds another press conference, calling for calm, and announcing that he's sending U.S. atty. gen. Eric Holder to personally take over the big investigation; on Nov. 24 a grand jury refuses to indict Wilson, sparking protests and riots. On Aug. 9 (12:01 a.m.) Israel and Hamas accept another 72-hour ceasefire, brokered by Egypt, who invites them to resume talks after 2K have been killed; on Aug. 13 a 5-day extension is announced; too bad, Hamas fires five rockets into Gaza 2 hours before the first ceasefire's scheduled end. On Aug. 10 the Egyptian supreme court dissolves the banned Muslim Brotherhood party, and orders its assets liquidated. On Aug. 10 Hillary Clit, er, Clinton gives an interview to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic Mag., calling Pres. Obama's "don't do stupid shit" foreign policy approach not "an organizing principle" worthy of "great nations". On Aug. 10 U.S. Sen. (R-S.C.) Lindsey Graham utters the soundbyte that it isn't enough for Pres. Obama to provide limited military aid to Iraq, because if he doesn't crush ISIS now "then he will have committed a blunder for the ages." On Aug. 10 a photo of the 7-y.-o. son of Sydney, Australia-based jihadist Khaled Sharrouf holding up the head of a decapitated Syrian soldier while daddy coos "That's my boy" is posted on Twitter, causing an internat. sensation and helping turn people against the Islamic State. On Aug. 11 Pres. Obama calls to offer his support to Haider Al-Abadi (1952-), the nominee to take over as PM of Iraq, urging him to form an inclusive govt. along with Sunnis and Kurds. On Aug. 11 an ISIS instructor in a falafel shop near the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, Iraq demonstrating suicide bombing accidentally detonates his suicide belt, killing himself and 21 students, injuring 15 more. On Aug. 13 Iranian mathematician Maryan Mirzakhani becomes the first woman to win the Fields Medal in mathematics for "contributions to the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces." On Aug. 13 the U.N. declares the situation in Iraq a Level 3 Emergency. On Aug. 14 clashes between ISIS and Iraqi troops W of Baghdad, Iraq kill at least four children. On Aug. 15 EU ministers meet in Brussels, Belgium, offering to take charge of Gaza's border crossings, saying that a return to the status quo is "not an option". On Aug. 15 after giving them option of converting to Sunni Islam or dying, ISIS kills 80 Yazidis in Sinjar, Iraq. On Aug. 15 U.S. Army manual ATP 3-39.33 is pub., calling for use of deadly force on peaceful protesters? On Aug. 16 U.S. planes carry out air strikes in N Iraq near the ISIS-held Mosul Dam, with Iraqi and Kurdish Peshmerga forces following up, capturing it on Aug. 17. On Aug. 18 Pres. Obama announces that the U.S. won its mission in Iraq, and is only sending a token force to kick the butts of the "savages" in asshole, er, ISIL (ISIS). On Aug. 18 Pope Francis endorses the use of force to stop Islamic militants from attacking religious minorities in Iraq, but leaves it to the internat. country to decide how, adding that it is legitimate to "stop the unjust aggressor", but that "to stop" doesn't mean "to bomb". On Aug. 19 rocket fire from Gaza breaks the umpteenth ceasefire, bringing retaliatory Israeli strikes. On Aug. 19 after the U.S. refuses to pay $100M ransom and botches a rescue attempt, ISIS releases a video showing the beheading of missing (for 636 days) Am. journalist James Wright Foley (b. 1974), with a warning to the U.S. to stay out of their turf and threatening to behead Am. hostage Michael Sotloff (b. 1983) if Pres. Obama doesn't meet their demands, causing angry disgusted Obama to hold a press conference on Aug. 20, saying "Today the entire world is appalled", "No just God would stand for what they did yesterday", calling ISIL a "cancer", and promising that the U.S. will be "relentless" to "do what's necessary to see justice is done"; Obama adds a typical lie covering for his lethal pet Islam: "ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents"; on Aug. 23 British authorities identify the masked beheader as British rapper Abdel_Majed Abdel Bary (1991-) AKA Jihadi John of Maida Vale, W London, son of Egyptian militant Abdel Abdul Bary, who was granted political asylum in 1993, then extradited to the U.S. in 2012 in connection with the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa; in Feb. 2015 he is identified as Kuwaiti-born West London computer programmer Mohammed Emwazi (1988-); the ransom demands incl. the release of "Lady Al-Qaida" Aafia Siddiqui; too bad, on Sept. 2 they release a video of the beheading of Sotloff, threatening the life of 3rd hostage David Cawthorne Haines of Britain, causing Pres. Obama on Sept. 3 to utter the soundbyte that the U.S. objective is now to "degrade and destroy" ISIS so that it no longer poses a threat to the civilized world; it later is revealed that Sotloff was Jewish and an Israeli citizen, and concealed it from his captors; on Sept. 13 ISIS releases a video showing the beheading of Haines and threatening to behead fellow Brit Alan Henning; on Sept. 19 the U.S. Senate approves a $10M reward for info. on the murderers of Sotloff and Foley. On Aug. 19 a ballot initiative to legalize personal consumption of marijuana passes in Alaska. On Aug. 19 thousands of protesters led by Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri protest at the house of Indian PM Nawaz Sharif, demanding that he step down; by the end of Aug. the continuing anti-govt. protests cause the army's 11 corps cmdrs. to decide to force Sharif to resign, meeting in Rawalpindi, but army chief Raheel Sharif talks them out of it. On Aug. 20 ISIS soldiers attack the Syrian govt.-held Taqba Air Base in NE Syria. On Aug. 20 a riot is sparked in Monrovia, Liberia after govt. troops seal off a seaside slum to prevent the spread of Ebola. On Aug. 21 (early a.m.) the Israelis assassinates three top Hamas cmdrs.; too bad, they miss al-Qassam Brigades cmdr. Mohammed al-Daif. On Aug. 21 ISIS reaches the outskirts of the Syrian rebel-held town of Marea, Syria N of Aleppo. On Aug. 21 U.S. defense secy. Chuck Hagel gives a press conference, saying that ISIS is "beyond any terrorist group. They marry ideology, sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded. This is beyond anything that we've seen, so we must prepare for everything, and the only way you do that is you take a cold, steely hard look at it and get ready"; meanwhile U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee ranking Repub. member Jim Inhofe (Okla.) utters the soundbyte that the U.S. is now in "the most dangerous position we've ever been in... They're crazy out there, and they are rapidly developing a method of blowing up a major U.S. city"; meanwhile on Aug. 22 U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey utters the soundbyte that ISIS has an "apocalyptic, end-of-days strategic vision", and cannot be defeated without a coalition of partners confronting it head-on in Syria, adding: "They can be contained, not in perpetuity." On Aug. 21-22 Chinese pres. Xi Jinping visits Mongolia (his 2nd visit), signing 26 agreements for a "comprehensive strategic partnership". On Aug. 22 (p.m.) Shiite gunmen attack a Sunni mosque in Diyala Province, Iraq during Fri. prayers, killing 40 and injuring 30. On Aug. 22 two teenie French Muslim girls are indicted for conspiracy to blow up the Great Synagogue in Lyon. On Aug. 23 a suicide bomber in the interior ministry bldg. in Bagdead, Iraq kills 11+. On Aug. 23 a group of WWII Holocaust survivors pub. an open letter in the New York Times dissing Israel for trying to "justify the unjustifiable: Israel's wholesale effort to destroy Gaza and the murder of more than 2,000 Palestinians", also dissing Elie Wiesel for playing the "Holocaust trump" card in a prior open letter calling upon "President Obama and the leaders of the world to condemn Hamas's use of children as human shields". On Aug. 23 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie finally wed in Chateau Miraval in Correns, Provence, France. On Aug. 24 (eve.) after 2K Christian families abandon Bartella, Iraq to join 60K Christians who also fled there, a bomb explodes in a busy thoroughfare in Erbil, Iraq, becoming the Islamic State's first attack, shocking the city. On Aug. 24 (3:20 a.m. local time) a 6.0 earthquake rocks San Francisco, Calif., waking residents of wineland Napa Valley. On Aug. 24 Arab foreign ministers led by Saudi Arabia meet in Abu Dhabi, UAE to discuss the problem of the Islamic State, pledging to maintain "security and stability". On Aug. 24 Islamists of Fajr Libya (Operation Dawn) seize control of the airport in Tripoli, Libya, leaving another govt. holding on in the E; on Aug. 25 the Islamic State captures Tabqa Air Base in NE Syria. On Aug. 24 after pressure by Qatar, Am. freelance writer Peter Theo Curtis (1969-) is unexpectedly freed after two years in captivity by Al Nusrah Front. On Aug. 24 Iran claims to shoot down an Israeli drone over Iran, causing Iranian Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami to utter the soundbyte: "Our response to this aggression will not be diplomatic. We will retaliate in the battlefield, but will not necessarily announce it." On Aug. 24 African-Am. Muslim Douglas McArthur McCain of San Diego, Calif. becomes the first American to be KIA fighting for ISIS. On Aug. 24 Saudi Christian convert Khalid Muidh Alzahrani is kidnapped from his home in New Zealand and flown back to Saudi Rabies, er, Arabia. On Aug. 25 the U.S. announces that Egypt and the UAE secretly launched air strikes against Islamist militias in Tripoli, Libya, keeping it from them. On Aug. 25 200+ Hollywood celebs incl. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Roseanne Barr, Kelsey Grammer, Minnie Driver, Kathy Ireland, and Ziggy Marley sign a statement condemning Hamas's and its charter (article 7) as an "ideology of hatred and genocide". On Aug. 25 Mexican pres. Enrique Pena Nieto visits Calif., complimenting Gov. Jerry Brown for legalizing drivers licenses for illegal aliens, and calling for immigration reform, uttering the soundbyte: "We want to be a factor of cohesion, not division, with full respect for the sovereignty of the United States. This, at the end, is about, and only about a matter of justice for those who contribute so much to the development of the American society." On Aug. 26 another Gaza ceasefire (#12 in 50 days) is announced, to go in effect in the evening, with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas calling it "permanent"; too bad, before evening a massive rocket barrage from Gaza kills one Israeli and injures six. On Aug. 26 the Rotherham Child Sexual Exploitation Scandal in Britain sees a coverup end with a report by a commission led by Prof. Alexis Jay that 1.4K children had been sexually exploited by gangs of Pakistani Muslim immigrant men in 1997-2013, but that the govt. was afraid of "giving oxygen" to racism. On Aug. 27 after plotting to bomb Oprah Winfrey's Chicago studios in the Sears Tower in 2009, Am. Muslim Emad Karakrah (1965-) of West Lawn is arrested in Chicago, Ill. after a high-speed chase in his car with an ISIS flag waving from it, after which he lies to officers that his car is rigged with explosives to prevent search; he goes on to become an FBI informant before going rogue, helping expose a narco-terrorist network based in El Paso, Tex. and N.M.; too bad, after the FBI intervenes, he is released in 2015 and put in the Lincoln Correctional Center min. security facility 165 mi. S of Chicago, with discharge set for July 13, 2020. On Aug. 28 PM (since Mar. 14, 2003) Recep Tayyip Erogan (1954) becomes pres. #12 of Turkey (until ?); he goes on to sue 1.8K+ people for allegedly insulting him. On Aug. 28 Pres. Obama holds a press conference, with the soundbyte that "We don't have a strategy yet" for defeating ISIL - can't hack the Winslow Plan? On Aug. 28 U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) Louie Gohmert calls for a "declaration of war against radical Islam". On Aug. 28 a new study is pub. that reveals that Mohammed (Mohammad) is the most common name for newborn boys in Oslo, Norway. On Aug. 29 Bardabunga Volcano in C Iceland begins erupting (until Feb. 27, 2015), emitting large amounts of sulfur dioxide but little or no volcanic ash, extruding basaltic lava covering 33 sq. mi. of terrain in 6 mo., becoming the largest basaltic lava flow since 1783, driving rapid global warming in 2014-16. On Aug. 29 as Sept. 11 approaches, British PM David Cameron raises Britain's terrorism threat level to severe. On Aug. 29 NATO calls on Russia to cease its "illegal" military operations in Ukraine; meanwhile the Russian foreign ministry warns Poland that its closure of its airspace for the plane of defense minister Sergey Shoygu won't go without an "appropriate response"; meanwhile NATO is planning on sending 10K troops from seven member states if necessary. On Aug. 30 the U.S. launches air strikes at ISIS fighters sieging the ethnic Turkmen town of Amerli, Iraq, creeping from its original mission of protecting U.S. personnel in Erbil. On Aug. 30 Al Nusrah Front announces the kidnapping of 45 Philippine U.N. observers at the Quneitra border crossing between Syria and Golan Heights; luckily they all escape to Israel; another group is surrounded and holds out until ?. On Aug. 30 a Taliban suicide assault at the Nat. Directorate of Security in Jalalabad, Afghanistan kills four intel service members and two civilians. On Aug. 30 Indian security forces fire on peaceful protesters in Ukhrul, Manipur, India, killing two and injuring 10+. On Aug. 31 an Al-Shabaab suicide team hits a govt. intel HQ in Mogadishu, Somalia. On Aug. 31 Pres. Obama gives a White House briefing, with the soundbyte that he has no strategy to defeat ISIS; he wears a tan suit, drawing snickers from journalists; every year on this day the PC press celebrates Obama's admin. as scandal-free. On Aug. 31 a BBC Pool finds that 95% believe that Muslim, er, multiculturalism in Britain has failed. In Aug. conservative Am. activist James E. O'Keefe III (1984-) crosses the U.S. border into Mexico wearing an Osama bin Laden disguise, then sneaks back into Tex.; too bad the Dept. of Homeland Security begins persecuting him, stopping him for questioning every time he tries to reenter the U.S. In Aug. U.S. unemployment falls to 6.1%, with 142K new jobs added to the economy. On Sept. 1 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden gives a speech at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, with the soundbyte that the U.S. will follow ISIS "to the gates of Hell". On Sept. 1 the 56-point Tokyo Declaration is issued by India and Japan as a blueprint for future collaboration. On Sept. 1 (night) a U.S. Hellfire missile air strike kills Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, in an encampment 105 mi. S of Mogadishu, Somalia; he is succeeded by Abu Ubeid Ahmed Omar (until ?). On Sept. 2 English-born Am. citizen Luke Somers (1981-) is kidnapped in Yemen by AQAP; on Dec. 4 AQAP releases a video giving Pres. Obama three days to save him, while the U.S. admits it made a failed rescue attempt in Nov., personally authorized by Pres. Obama; too bad, on Dec. 5 he is killed by AQAP during another rescue attempt; South African teacher Pierre Korkie is killed hours before he is due to be released for $200K ransom, pissing-off his U.K.-based family; the U.S. claims it didn't know about the ransom agreement. On Sept. 2 Arnold Schwarzenegger's 2006 campaign strategist Matthew John Dowd (1961-) reveals to the New York Post that he had a love affair with Maria Shriver during the 2006 campaign that Ahnuld knew about but wanted hushed-up. On Sept. 2 the 24m blue Glass Wall Memorial in Berlin to the 300K mentally ill and disabled victims of the Nazi regime is unveiled. On Sept. 2 Israel-based CYBERTINEL announces the uncovering of the Harkonnen Operation, an internat. cyber espionage ring targeting 300+ orgs. in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. On Sept. 2 the first same-sex marriage in Turkey hitches Ekin Keser and Emrullah Tuzun. On Sept. 3 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin calls on insurgents in E Ukraine to "stop advancing", and urges Ukrainian troops to withdraw; meanwhile Pres. Obama visits Estonia in a show of solidarity with NATO allies who fear Russian aggression. On Sept. 3 U.S. District Judge Martin L.C. Feldman upholds the same-sex marriage ban (by a 78% vote) in La., calling the concept "inconceivable until very recently". On Sept. 3 to counter the bad rep ISIL/ISIS is giving to Islam, U.S. secy. of John Kerry appoints Pakistani-born Shaarik H. Zafar as the U.S. State Dept.'s special rep to Muslim-Am. communities, with the soundbyte: "The real face of Islam is a peaceful religion based on the dignity of all human beings. It's one where Muslim communities are leading the fight against poverty. It's one where Muslim communities are providing basic healthcare and emergency assistance on the front lines of some of our most devastating humanitarian crises. And it is one where Muslim communities are advocating for universal human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the most basic freedom to practice one's faith openly and freely. America's faith communities, including American Muslims, are sources of strength for all of us. They're an essential part of our national fabric, and we are committed to deepening our partnerships with them" - teacher's pet needn't be ashamed of his grades? On Sept. 3 after arriving in Mexico from Istanbul via Paris, four Turkish men are captured by the border patrol in Tex. while trying to cross the U.S. border; U.S. homeland secy. Jeh Johnson claims they are Kurdish resistance fighters not terrorists. On Sept. 4 the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals issues a ruling that the same-sex marriage bans in Wisc. and Ind. are unconstitutional; meanwhile 31 states ask the U.S. Supreme Court to settle the issue. On Sept. 4 Abu Hajar al-Souria, top lt. for ISIS is killed in an air strike in Mosul. On Sept. 4 Nigerian-born recent Muslim convert Fat Nicholas beheads 82-y.-o. Italian Cafe owner Palmira Silva in Edmonton, London, England. On Sept. 4 after being indicted on Jan. 21, former Repub. gov. #71 of Va. (2010-14) Robert Francis "Bob" McDonnell (1954-) is found guilty on 11 counts of corruption for accepting $177K in gifts in cash from vitamin exec Jonnie Williams. On Sept. 4 low-wage fast food workers strike in 100 cities throughout the U.S., demanding a pay raise to $15 an hour. On Sept. 4 11 Muslims in Wuppertal, Germany are arrested for trying to implement a Sharia-Controlled Zone, patrolling around in uniforms reading "Shariah Police". On Sept. 5 after his letter to the New York Times blaming rising anti-Semitism in Europe on Israel draws a firestorm of controversy, Yale chaplain Bruce Shipman resigns. On Sept. 4-5 the Wales NATO Summit sees the 28 members acknowledge that their formal role in Afghanistan is coming to an end with an official declaration, and pledge to spend at least 2% of their GDPs on defense, approving a rapid response team to counter the Russian threat. On Sept. 5 an Afghan coalition chartered plane en route from Bagram Air Base to Dubai is forced to land in Bandar Abbas, Iran. On Sept. 6 ISIS releases photos showing the beheading of two Lebanese soldiers, causing families to stage demonstrations. On Sept. 7 Nabil Elaraby, head of the Arab League calls on members to fight ISIS "militarily and politically", and to consider an attack on any member as an attack on all members. On Sept. 7 (night) Arab riots in Jerusalem injure several Israelis and cause light rail service to be curtailed. On Sept. 8 it is announced that Egyptian pres. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has proposed that the Palestinians in Gaza move to a new 1.6K sq. km Palestinian state in Sinai and drop the demand to return to the 1967 borders. On Sept. 8 Jordanian Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein (1964-) (Jordanian ambassador to the U.S. in 2007-10, and claimant to the throne of Iraq) becomes the first Muslim U.N. human rights chief (until ?), issuing a warning to world powers of a "house of blood" in Iraq and Syria if they don't protect women and minorities, calling the conflict "increasingly conjoined". On Sept. 8 a bomb explodes outside an underground train station in Santiago, Chile, injuring 10+; anarchists are suspected. On Sept. 8 Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar U. in Egypt denounces ISIS, calling its members "criminal tarnishing the image of Islam", and calling ISIS and allied groups "products of colonialism serving Zionism". On Sept. 8 on the 40th anniv. of his movie "Young Frankenstein", Hollyweird celeb Mel Brooks puts his handprints in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd., using a prosthetic finger to give his left hand six fingers. On Sept. 9 Al Nusrah Front captures the town of Naba Al-Sakhr, Syria in Quneitra on the Israeli border. On Sept. 9 a mysterious blast rocks the leaders of Syrian rebel group Ahrar al Sham. On Sept. 9 the U.S. House votes by 249-163 (incl. 11 Dems.) to officially condemn Pres. Obama for releasing five Taliban POWs in exchange for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl without Congressional notification. On Sept. 9-11 the In Defense of Christians Conference in Washington, D.C. sees Eastern and Western church leaders bemoan the fate of Christians in the Middle East; too bad, one of the organizers is James Zogby, pres. of the Israel-hating Arab Am. Inst., and on Sept. 10 U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) Ted Cruz is booed off the stage by anti-Israel elements of the audience, with the soundbytes: "Those who hate Israel hate America, and those who hate Jews hate Christians", "Christians "have no greater ally than Israel", and "Antisemitism is a corrosive evil, and it reared its ugly head tonight." On Sept. 9 Yemeni police open fire on Hawthi rebel-led protesters marching toward the PM's office in Sana'a, Yemen, killing four and injuring 10. On Sept. 9 a Washington Post-ABC News Poll finds that Pres. Obama's approval ratings for handling of foreign affairs dip to a new low of 38%, with 56% disapproving. On Sept. 9 7K Md. students from 56 schools build the largest U.S. flag ever on the grounds of Francis Scott Key's tourist trap Ft. McHenry. On Sept. 10 Lebanese troops recapture the town of Arsal, Lebanon from ISIS, which they held since Aug. On Sept. 10 Pakistani planes strike five Taliban hideouts in North Waziristan, Pakistan near the Afghan border, killing 65. On Sept. 10 Arvada, Colo. Muslim convert Shannon Conley (1995-) pleads guilty in Denver federal court to trying to help ISIS. On Sept. 10 the British Trades Union Congress, led by Muslim bus driver Mohammed Taj (6M members from 54 unions) votes in Liverpool to adopt a Statement on Gaza, which condemns Israel and calls for stopping arms shipments to them. On Sept. 10 U.S. Rep. (D-Tex.) Beto O'Rourke tells the Homeland Security Committee that the U.S. is already at war with Iraq. On Sept. 10 Pres. Obama gives his ISIS Speech, outlining his plans for air strikes in Syria and deployment of 475 more military advisers in Iraq (joining the 1K+ already there), but denying that the U.S. is renewing the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, saying that the U.S. is building a global coalition to "degrade and ultimately destroy" ISIS, which won't incl. Syria ("an Assad regime that terrorizes its own people"), warning that "eradicating a cancer" like Isis will be a long-term challenge even at the risk of some U.S. troops, with the soundbyte: "This is a core principle of my presidency: If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven", and adding that the er, crusade "will not involve American combat troops fighting on foreign soil", asking Congress for $500M to train and equip anti-Assad and anti-ISIS Syrian rebels, with Saudi Arabia agreeing to host their training camps. On Sept. 11 (9/11) Turkey refuses a U.S. request to let its 10 Arab-nation coalition use its bases for attacks on ISIS, and also refuses to join, as does Germany, with Britain waffling; meanwhile U.S. secy. of state John Kerry meets with the Gulf Cooperation Council in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where 10 members pledge a united front against ISIS; meanwhile Syria warns that it must approve any foreign intervention else it would constitute an act of aggression. On Sept. 11 Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a Taliban splinter group releases a graphic celebrating al-Qaida's big V on 9/11/2001. On Sept. 11 mass demonstrations by 1.5M (20% of the pop.) in Catalonia, Spain for independence on the 300th anniv. of the loss of sovereignty. On Sept. 11 Pres. Obama meets with Eastern Orthodox patriarchs in the White House, surprising them with the soundbyte that Syrian pres. Bashed Ass, er, Bashar al-Assad "protected the Christians in Syria". On Sept. 11 Islamic jihadists raid a village office in Pattani Province, S Thailand, killing four. On Sept. 12 the EU imposes new sanctions against Russia for its aggression against Ukraine; the U.S. does ditto. On Sept. 13 Iranian Peshmerga forces clash with Iranian forces; the Peshmergas claim that they acted in self-defense. On Sept. 14 (Sun.) U.S. secy. of state John Kerry gives an interview to CBS-TV's Face the Nation, admitting that the U.S. is at "war" with ISIS. On Sept. 14 Ugandan police arrest 19 for planning an Al-Shabaab terrorist attack on Kamapala, Uganda. On Sept. 14 (a.m.) a Taliban bomb in Kabul, Afghanistan kills 1+. On Sept. 15 a meeting in Syria of 50 senior cmdrs. of a coalition of Islamic moderates opposed to ISIS are killed by an explosion in their secret command bunker. On Sept. 15 hundreds of Taliban fighters storm Ajristan District in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, capturing several villages and beheading civilians. On Sept. 15 the Internat. Conference on Peace and Security in Iraq in Paris is attended by leaders of 30+ countries, incl. French pres. Francois Holland, who utters the soundbyte about ISIS: "With these terrorists you can't reason, you have to conquer them." On Sept. 16 Pres. Obama announces the deployment of 3K U.S. troops with their own general to Liberia to handle the Ebola crisis, which he says is "spiraling out of control." On Sept. 16 the FBI announces that its Next Generation Identification System facial recognition system is fully operational. On Sept. 16 the U.S. Army Rangers announce that the first female volunteers will be considered next spring. On Sept. 16 Pres. Obama unknowingly rides in an elevator with a man carrying a gun during a visit to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga.; he turns out to be a CDC security officer who wanted to take pictures. On Sept. 17 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte to U.S. troops at MacDill AFB that they "do not and will not have a combat mission" against ISIS", adding "As your commander in chief, I will not commit you and the rest of our armed forces to fighting another ground war in Iraq." On Sept. 17 the U.S. House votes 273-156 to back Pres. Obama's plan to train Syrian rebels. On Sept. 17 Dept. of Homeland Security secy. Jeh Johnson announces that most of the 6K unaccounted-for foreign students who had overstayed visas as announced earlier in the mo. have been tracked down and concerns allayed. On Sept. 17 the Muslim-infiltrated U.N. Human Rights Council by 30-12-1 votes to remove beheading, mass shootings, and mass starvation from its purview, deeming such acts not worthy of their attention, unless it involves Israel; Britain abstains, and Obama's rep isn't present. On Sept. 17 800 police in Sydney, Australia stage raids in 12+ places to stop an ISIS plot to kidnap and behead infidels, arresting 15. On Sept. 18 ISIS stages an unsuccessful attack on Adala Prison in Kadhmiya, N Baghdad, Iraq, and another in the Iskan neighborhood of Baghdad, home of the offices of the Shiite Badr Org. On Sept. 18 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry utters the soundbyte that the Islamic State is "not a state and they do not represent Islam", calling it "the order of Satan".
Fish jokes here? On Sept. 18 (Thur.) the 2014 Referendum on Scottish Independence sees 55%-45% vote to stay in the U.K. after a 84.6% turnout, highest in the U.K. since Jan. 1910 over universal suffrage, causing Scottish PM #4 (since May 16, 2007) Alex Salmond to resign, and Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon (1970-) to become Scottish PM #5 on Nov. 20, becoming the first woman. On Sept. 19 a mass Muslim protest in Germany sponsored by the Coordination Council of Muslims (2K mosques) calls for peace and tolerance and against the alleged misuse of the name of Islam by ISIS et al. On Sept. 19 (Fri.) Pres. Obama walks out of a Pentagon meeting about ISIS over remarks made about Islam, with the soundbyte that it "inappropriate" to "try and paint all of Islam with the same brush"; he then heads to Camp David for the weekend. On Sept. 19 (7:20 p.m. local time) intruder Omar J. Gonzalez (an Iraq War vet with PTSD) jumps a fence and runs into the White House before being tackled. On Sept. 20 (6:30 a.m.) 46 Turkish hostages taken on June 11 by ISIS are freed. On Sept. 20 the Lebanese army shells ISIS positions near Indrajith, Lebanon, killing 11 and arresting two. On Sept. 20 Qatar expels senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders. On Sept. 20 the IAEA in Vienna votes 58-? against an Arab-backed draft resolution calling on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). On Sept. 21 Climate Change Protests are held in hundreds of cities worldwide, incl. 310K in New York City. On Sept. 21 ISIS closes in on the N border town of Ayn al-Arab, Syria, causing 100K Syrian Kurds to flee into Turkey. On Sept. 21 a riot caused by Allah Akbar-shouting Muslims in Goulburn Jail in N.S.W., Australia becomes the worst riot in the country in 10 years. On Sept. 21 British politician Paul Weston gives a speech in London calling PM David Cameron a "coward" and "traitor" for calling for more Muslim faces in govt. On Sept. 21 (night) Israeli authorities arrest seven Palestinians near Hebron, Israel for plotting a Rosh Hashana attack near Jerusalem. On Sept. 21 Pres. Obama gives his Latte Salute to the U.S. Marine Corps while stepping off a heli in New York City. On Sept. 21 Pope Francis gives a Speech on ISIS, with the soundbyte: "May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman, above all, the right to life and the right of everyone to religious freedom." On Sept. 22 China and Iran begin their first-ever joint naval exercises in the Persian Gulf. On Sept. 22 Jordan arrests 11 ISIS members for planning "terrorist operations". On Sept. 22 the Obama admin. confirms that the FBI is only monitoring American Muslims who have returned to the U.S. after fighting for ISIS. On Sept. 22 (night) the U.S. stages its first bombing missions in Syria against ISIS targets, becoming the first combat missions for the new F-22 Raptor; Pres. Obama orders night missions to minimize terrorist deaths? On Sept. 22 Calif. gov. Jerry Brown signs a law that deletes the terms "husband" and "wife" from the state marriage law, and substitutes "spouse" in order to accommodate same-sex marriages. On Sept. 22 the Algerian jihadist Jund al-Khilafah (Soldiers of the Caliphate) group kidnaps French citizen Herve Gourdel, then on Sept. 24 releases showing him beheaded after its demand that French airstrikes on Iraq halt is not met. On Sept. 23 China sentences Muslim Uighur leader Ilham Tohti to life in prison. On Sept. 23 the 2014 U.N. Leader's Climate Summit in New York City tries to get world leaders to unite in actions toward closing the emissions gap and achieving a low carbon emission paradise, aiming for a 2C limit but really wanting a 1.5C increase, resulting in the New York Declaration of Forests, written by Washington, D.C.-based Climate Advisers, pledging to halve the deforestation rate by 2020 and end it by 2030, while restoring a degraded land area larger than India; it is signed by 37 govts., 20 sub-nat. govts., 53 multi-nat. corps., 16 indigenous community groups, and 63 NGOs; on Sept. 23 Pres. Obama gives a speech at the U.N. Climate Conference in New York City, calling for an internat. effort to combat global warming, and dissing China and India, with the soundbyte: "Nobody gets a pass. We have to raise our collective ambition." Clueless in New York? On Sept. 24 Pres. Obama gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, vowing to lead a coalition to dismantle ISIS, which he calls a "network of death", with the soundbytes: "We come together at a crossroads between war and peace, between disorder and integration, between fear and hope", with "a sense that the very forces that have brought us together have created new dangers, and made it difficult for any single nation to insulate itself from global forces"; the world's problems demand attention but "are also symptoms of a broader problem, the failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world when it's "inconvenient"; but "All of us, big nations and small must meet our responsibility to observe and enforce international norms"; "America is not the same as it was 100 years ago, 50 years ago, or even a decade ago because we fight for our ideals, and we are willing to criticize ourselves when we fall short, because we hold our leaders accountable, and insist on a free press and an independent judiciary, because we address our differences in the open space of democracy, with respect for the rule of law, with a place for people of every race and every religion, and with an unyielding belief in the ability of individual men and women to change their communities and their circumstances and their countries for the better"; "In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri... And like very country, we continually wrestle with how to reconcile the vast changes wrought by globalization and greater diversity with the traditions that we hold dear"; "[W]e have reaffirmed that the United States is not and never will be at war with Islam. Islam teaches peace. Muslims the world over aspire to live with dignity and a sense of justice. And when it comes to America and Islam, there is no us and them, there is only us, because millions of Muslim Americans are part of the fabric of our country." On Sept. 24 after trying to convert co-workers and being fired from Vaughan Foods in Moore, Okla. for preaching Sharia incl. stoning of women, Muslim convert Jah'Keem Yisrael (Alton Alexander Nolen) (1984-) goes on a killing spree, stabbing employee Tracy Johnson and beheading employee Colleen Hufford (b. 1960) before being shot by COO Mark Vaughan; in Oct. 2017 Nolen is convicted of murder and sentenced to death; meanwhile an Obama official flies in from Washington, D.C to thank Nolen's Muslim congregation in Okla. City, with the soundbyte: "Your service is a powerful example of the powerful roots of the Abrahamic faiths and how our communities can come together with shared peace with dignity and a sense of justice." On Sept. 25 ISIS overruns ? Army Base near Baghdad, executing 300 Iraqi soldiers. On Sept. 26 the Iguala Massacre sees police fire on protesting student teachers (normalistas) in Iguala, Guerrero State, Mexico, killing three and disappearing 43, who the Mexican atty. gen. announces are dead on Nov. 7, launching the Mexican Autumn, a nat. protest movement that verges on a rev.; on Oct. 22 50K march in Mexico City to protest corruption in Guerrero state. On Sept. 26 the U.N. Human Rights Council by 25-14 passes a landmark LGBT Rights Resolution backed by the gay U.S., condemning violence and discrimination, which Pakistan calls a "divisive and controversial initiative". On Sept. 26 Palestinian Pres. Mahmoud Abbas gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, dissing Israel for its Gaza "genocide", with the soundbyte "We will not forget, and we will not forgive." On Sept. 28 Pres. Obama gives an interview to Steve Kroft of CBS-TV's 60 Minutes, with the soundbyte: "Well, I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria"; meanwhile Repub. House Speaker John Boehner utters the soundbyte that the U.S. may "have no choice" but to send combat troops to fight ISIL. On Sept. 28 Shiite suicide bombers attack Majzar, Yemen E of Sana'a, killing 15 and injuring 50+. On Sept. 29 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, dissing Mahmoud Abbas for "the brazen lies spoken from this very podium against my country and the brave soldiers who defend it", saying that Israel's fight against hamas is part of a global fight against militant Islam which is "on the march", adding that "Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas", and that they share a "fanatical creed"; "The Nazis believed in a master race, militant Islamists believe in a master faith"; "To disarm ISIS but leave Iran with the bomb would be to win the battle but lose the war"; "Would you let ISIS enrich uranium... develop ICBMS? Of course you wouldn't. Then you mustn't let Iran do those things either." On Sept. 29 U.S. State Dept. spokesman Jen Psaki utters the clueless soundbyte: "The Palestinian people are friends of the United States". On Sept. 30 (dawn) with assistance from British warplanes and Sunni tribal forces, Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga forces seize the strategic Rabia border crossing with Syria. On Sept. 30 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP) announce that the first case of Ebola has been diagnosed in the U.S., in Thomas Eric Duncan (b. 1972) of Dallas, Tex., who dies on Oct. 8; on Oct. 12 Dallas, Tex. nurse Nina Pham (1988-) becomes the first person to contract Ebola within U.S. borders, fanning the flames of an Ebola scare; on Oct. 14 Amber Joy Vinson becomes nurse #2. On Sept. 30 new (since Sept. 29) Afghan pres. Ashraf Ghani signs the bilateral U.S.-Afghan Security Agreement, which continues past the end of the year, allowing 10K U.S. troops to remain; the agreement pisses-off the Taliban, which threatens "Sharia judgment and punishment". In Sept. Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) announces its formation. In Sept. Bulgaria completes the first 20-mi. section of a border fence with Turkey to stop illegal immigration, mainly Muslim. In Sept. the article Ten Percent Is Not Enough, condemning the effort to integrate African slaves into Am. white society as futile is pub. in the American Renaissance Blog, after which it circulates slowly until it is attributed to the Baltimore Sun and renamed "The Black Dilemma", after which it goes viral; it contains the soundbytes: "The experiment has failed. Not because of culture, or white privilege, or racism. The fundamental problem is that white people and black people are different. They differ intellectually and temperamentally. These differences result in permanent social incompatibility"; "Our rulers don't seem to understand just how tired their white subjects are with this experiment. They don't understand that white people aren't out to get black people; they are just exhausted with them. They are exhausted by the social pathologies, the violence, the endless complaints, the blind racial solidarity, the bottomless pit of grievances, the excuses, the reflexive animosity. The elites explain everything with 'racism', and refuse to believe that white frustration could soon reach the boiling point"; "They will be the only ones who are surprised when real revolution comes to the United States, and that it is white people who lead the revolt." In Sept. the U.S. unemployment rate falls to 5.9%, adding 248K jobs. On Oct. 1 two car bombs near a school in Homs, Syria kill 48 incl. 41 children; meanwhile ISIS releases videos of the beheading of nine Kurish fighters incl. three women. On Oct. 1 a car bomb near some markets in Baghdad, Iraq kill 15 and injure 40. On Oct. 1 former U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter gives an interview to CNBC, saying that he couldn't beaten Ronald Reagan if he had been "more manly" and bombed Iran. On Oct. 2 the parliament of Turkey votes to authorize cross-border military operations against ISIS and to permit U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition forces to use Turkish military bases; too bad, their real goal is not to defeat ISIS but to oust Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad? On Oct. 4 (a.m.) al-Qaida-linked militants ambush U.N. peacekeepers in Mali, killing nine, becoming the deadliest peacekeeper attack in Mali since their mission was launched in July 2013. On Oct. 4 the Pakistani Taliban declares allegiance to ISIS, then backtracks with the statement that it's loyal to supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. On Oct. 5 an explosion at the Iranian Fordow Nuclear Plant kills two; a Mossad operation? On Oct. 5 (night) the Al Nusrah Front raids Qunyeh, Syria in NW Syria and kidnaps a Franciscan priest and 20 other Christians. On Oct. 6 (Mon.) the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court begins its session, promptly denying seven petitions regarding same-sex marriages, allowing them to to proceed in five states incl. Va. On Oct. 7 Hezbollah bombs Israeli troops in the Shebaa Hills on the Lebanon border, injuring two. On Oct. 7 London police arrest four Muslims for plotting to behead people on the streets of London. On Oct. 7 protests by Kurds throughout Europe draw attention to the ISIS attack on Kobani; on Oct. 10 (a.m.) protests in Hamburg turn violent when local Salafis confront them. On Oct. 8 a blood moon. On Oct. 9 two suicide bombings targeting Houthis in Sana'a, Yemen kill 67. On Oct. 10 Sweden recognizes the state of Palestine; not to be outdone, on Oct. 13 the British Parliament votes 274-12 to do ditto. On Oct. 12 three suicide car bomb attacks in Kurdish-controlled Baquba, Iraq kill 25 Kurdish veterans lining up to reenlist. On Oct. 12 U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Burgess strikes down the same-sex marriage ban in Alaska, calling the legislature's actions "irrational". On Oct. 12 after her 78-y.-o. patient Rosa Calderoni at Umberto I Hospital in Lugo is found dead on Apr. 8 with abnormally high blood levels of potassium, along with two more the same day, Italian nurse Daniela Poggiali (1972-) is arrested for kiling up to 38 patients for being "annoying" with "pushy relatives". On Oct. 13 U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon criticizes Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for going ahead with plans to build 2.5K new Jewish homes in Givat Hamatos in East Jerusalem, calling it a "clear violation of international law", causing Netanyahu to respond that "Israel doesn't occupy Gaza. Israel left Gaza to the very last centimeter, to the the very last inch." On Oct. 13 the city council of Seattle, Wash. votes unanimously to change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day. On Oct. 14 Iran and six major powers begin a new round of nuclear negotiations in Vienna, Austria to try and reach a draft final agreement before the Nov. 24 deadline. On Oct. 14 Turkey denies the U.S. permission for use of Incirlik Air Base to fight ISIS, embarrassing Obama admin. officials Susan Rice et al., who had announced a deal; instead Turkey announces that it's not interested in fighting ISIL, only the Assad regime, and bombs Kurds instead of ISIS? On Oct. 15 the Pentagon officially names its Combined Joint Task Force campaign against ISIS Operation Inherent Resolve, backed by 60+ countries. On Oct. 16 the U.N. Gen. Assembly elects Angola, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain, and Venezuela to serve as non-permanent members of the U.N. Security Council for two years starting on Jan. 1; Venezuela's election pisses-off the U.S., with Samantha Power uttering the soundbyte: "Venezuela's conduct at the U.N. has run counter to the spirit of the U.N. Charter, and its violations of human rights at home are at odds with the Charter's letter." On Oct. 17 Ariz. and Alaska become U.S. states #30 and #31 to recognize same-sex marriage. On Oct. 17 Pres. Obama appoints Al Gore's former chief of staff Ron Klain as the new U.S. Ebola czar. On Oct. 17-? the Big Swedish Sub Hunt sees Swedish forces stage the biggest sub hunt since the dying days of the Soviet Union in the Stockholm Archipelago after a foreign sub is suspected of illegally entering; Russia denies involvement. On Oct. 18 100K protest in Piazza Duomo in Milan, Italy against the immigrant rescue operation Mare Nostrum and all Muslim immigration. On Oct. 18 Roman Catholic bishop in the Vatican scrap a landmark welcome to gays after breaking ranks with Pope Francis. On Oct. 19 Comet Sliding Spring skims Mars, bombarding it with thousands of fireballs an hour. On Oct. 20 Sunni attacks on Shiites in Baghdad, Iraq kill 33+. On Oct. 20 Kenyan soldiers kill five suspected Al Shaab militants in Moyala, Kenya near the Ethiopian border. On Oct. 20 Muslim convert Marin Couture-Rouleau (1989-) runs down two Canadian soldiers in his car in Quebec before rolling, er, running, chasing police officers with a knife, and being shot; one soldier is killed. On Oct. 20 Nigeria declares itself officially Ebola-free. On Oct. 20 (9:57 p.m.) African-Am. Laquan McDonald is shot 16x and killed by white police officer Jason Van Dyke (1978-) in Chicago, Ill. while walking down the street carrying an unopened 3 in. folding knife, after which the officers lie about the incident, claiming that McDonald lunged at them, and end up charged with first-degree murder after a public outcry and protests; in Jan. 2017 the U.S. Dept. of Justice releases a report describing the Chicago police as having a culture of "excessive violence" esp. against blacks, plus poor training and supervision; on June 27, 2017 three officers are indicted for their attempted coverup; on Jan. 18 after they are declared not guilty, Jason Van Dyke is sentenced to 81 mo. for 2nd degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery. On Oct. 21 Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announces that Turkey will permit Kurdish fighters from Iraqi Kurdistan to cross into Syria to defend Kobani, but not Turkish Kurds. On Oct. 21 three Am. Muslim (Somali, Sudanese) teenie girls missing since Oct. 17 from their homes in Colo. are arrested in Germany while en route to Syria to join ISIS. On Oct. 21 a judge upholds the same-sex marriage ban in Puerto Rico. On Oct. 22 Sinai-based Ansar Bait al-Maqdis terrorists attack and injure two Israeli soldiers near the Egyptian border. On Oct. 22 an explosion outside Cairo U. in Egypt injures nine incl. five policemen. On Oct. 22 (10:00 a.m.) Muslim convert gunman Michael Abdul Zehaf Bibeau opens fire at the Canadian Parliament and War Memorial in Ottawa, killing Cpl. Nathan Cirillo (b. 1990) before being killed. On Oct. 22 British PM David Cameron awards Ł8M to the Charity Commission to "confront the menace of extremism" by policing bogus charities that divert money to terrorists. On Oct. 22 (eve) a Hamas terrorist rams a light rail station near the nat. police HQ at Guzh Etzion in Jerusalem, Israel, killing 3-mo.-o. baby Chaya Zisel Braun and injuring 7+ pedestrians before being killed; on Oct. 26 1K new Israeli security forces arrive in Jerusalem. On Oct. 23 masked Muslims throw rocks at a kindergarten in Ma'ale ha-Zeitim, Jerusalem, Israel On Oct. 23 (2:00 p.m. EDT) the 2014 Queens Hatchet Attack in Jamaica, Queens, N.Y. sees recent Am. Muslim convert Zale H. Thompson (b. 1982) attack four police officers, injuring Kenneth Healey and Joseph Meeker on a crowded street corner in Jamaica, Queens, N.Y. with an 18 in. hatchet before he is killed by the officers, who injure a female civilian with a stray bullet. On Oct. 23 New York physician Craig Spencer tests positive for Ebola, becoming #4 in the U.S. On Oct. 23 China launches the Chang'e 5 T1 lunar probe, which returns on Oct. 31. On Oct. 24 Palestinian-Am. teenie Orwa Abd al-Wahhab hammadi (b. 1997) is killed by Israeli troops while trying to throw a gasoline bomb in Silwad (near Ramallah). On Oct. 24 a car bomb in Sinai Peninsula in Egypt kills 26 soldiers and injures 28 more; hours later three security forces are shot dead at a checkpoint near El Arish, causing Egypt to close the Gaza crossing until Nov. 26. On Oct. 24 "1-man crime spree" Marcelo Marquez (1980-) of Salt Lake City, Utah shoots three N Calif. sheriff's deputies, killing two, and injures a civilian before being captured in a massive manhunt. On Oct. 26 the first-ever elections in Tunisia see voters pick 217 legislators from 13K candidates in 90 parties. On Oct. 26 (Sun.) the U.S. and British close their last bases in Afghanistan, Camp Leatherneck and Camp Bastion; on Oct. 27 Taliban militants attack a court in Kunduz, Afghanistan, killing 7+. On Oct. 26 the police dept. of Boston, Mass. promotes Habeeb Hosein (1962-) to captain, becoming the first Muslim. On Oct. 27 an ISIS suicide bomber in Jurf al-Sakhar, Iraq kills 27 Shiite militiamen. On Oct. 28 the $200M unmanned NASA Antares rocket explodes seconds after liftoff from Wallops Island, Va. On Oct. 28 an anon. "senior Obama administration official" gives an interview to Atlantic mag. journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, calling Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu a "chickenshit" - and these are your friends? On Oct. 29 ISIS executes 46 fighters from the Albu Nimr tribe in the street in Heet, Iraq in Anbar Province. On Oct. 29 an assassination attempt against prominent right-wing Jewish activist Yehuda Glick (1965-) on the Temple Mount (Al-Aqsa) of Jerusalem leads to Israel closing it on Oct. 30, causing Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas to call it a "declaration of war"; the area is reopened on Oct. 31; on Nov. 7 Palestinians in Jerusalem stage a Day of Rage against Israel to protest entry restrictions on the Temple Mount. On Oct. 29 30 Islamic jihadists kill French commando Thomas Dupuy in a firefight in Kidal Province, Mali; 20 jihadists are killed. On Oct. 30 a firefight with al-Qaida militants kills nine troops in Niger. On Oct. 30 mass graves containing 220 victims of ISIS are found in Anbar Province, Iraq. On Oct. 30 after pres. (since Oct. 15, 1987) Blaise Comparore tries to change the constitution to stay in office, the Burkinabe (BurkinabĂ©) Uprising in Burkina Faso begins, with rioters burning the nat. assembly and other govt. bldgs., causing Compaore to dissolve the govt. and declare a state of emergency, which doesn't stop them, after which on Oct. 31 he flees to Cote d'Ivoire. On Oct. 31 Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket crashes in the Mojave Desert in Calif. during a test flight, killing pilot Donny Youngblood. On Oct. 31 Mexico frees U.S. Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi after 7 mo. (214 days) in prison on trumped-up charges while the Obama admin. yawns. In Oct. the Russian inventory of nukes passes that of the U.S. for the first time since 2000, 1,643 to 1,642; both are in violation of the 2010 START treaty, which prescribes a limit of 1,550. In Oct. PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the Occident) is founded in Germany by former cook Lutz Bachmann (1974-), gaining 10K members by Dec. who march in Dresden and other German cities against Islamization of Germany, becoming known as the Pinstriped Nazis for their middle class middle aged membership; meanwhile chancellor Angela Merkel ostriches and wallows in the racist label, saying that there is "no place in Germany" for hatred of Muslims, and "no alternative" to freedom of movement within the EU for Muslims et al.; in 2015 Bachmann steps down as leader after a photo of him posing as Adolf Hitler goes viral - love them even though the Quran teaches them to hate you and rule you? In Oct. the U.S. unemployment rate drops to 5.8%, with 9M unemployed, and nonfarm payroll employment rising to 214K. On Nov. 1 (Feast of All Saints) Pope Francis gives a speech to a crowd in St. Peter's Square in Rome, calling for the faithful to pray for violence-soaked Jerusalem. On Nov. 1 the Pan-Arab Nat. Movement in the Palestinian Interior AKA Kifah (Arab. "struggle"), founded by Ayman Hajj Yahya and Ghassan 'Athamla holds its organizing meeting with the goal of returning all Palestinian refugees to the Holy Land and delegitimizing Israel. On Nov. 1 (night) moderate Syrian Harakat Hazm rebels surrender to Jabhat al-Nusra in N Idlib Province, capturing U.S. TOW missiles. On Nov. 2 a suicide blast at the Pakistani-Indian border in Punjab kills 55+; Pakistani Taliban splinter group Jundallah takes credit. On Nov. 3 U.S. oil prices fall to below $80 a barrel (lowest in two years) after Saudi Arabia cuts prices in response to the U.S. oil drilling boom, which has increased production by 70% in the last six years and reduced OPEC imports by 50%; U.S. retail gasoline prices fall below $3 a gal. for the first time since 2010. On Nov. 3 German police announce that the infamous iron "Arbeit macht frei" gate in Dachau Concentration Camp has been stolen. On Nov. 4 anti-Shiite violence in Saudi Arabia results in 15 arrests in six cities and two killed. On Nov. 4 after hearing that a BBQ briquet, er, Quran has been desecrated, a Muslim mob beats and burns pregnant Christian mother Shama and her Christian husband Shahzad to death in a kiln in Kot Radha Kishan, Pakistan 60 km SW of Lahore; 44 are arrested; on Nov. 6 (5:00 a.m.) Pakistani police officer Faraz Naveed hacks Tufail Haider (b. 1959) to death in his cells after he is heard blaspheming Islam. On Nov. 4 (Tues.) the 2014 U.S. nat. elections are a landslide for the Repubs., who take complete control of the House and Senate; the worst election performance by a sitting president's party since Truman; the first Congress with 100 women concurrently serving; marijuana is legalized in Washington, D.C., Ore., and Alaska; meanwhile in Iraq the annual Shiite Ashoura celebration takes places sans murders. On Nov. 4 Calif. passes Proposition 2: the Rainy Day Budget Stabilization Fund Act, which fills-up fast, reaching $13.5B by July 1, 2019. On Nov. 4 U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree rules that the same-sex marriage ban in Kan. is unconstitutional, citing the 10th Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court. On Nov. 4 (night) a drone strike in C Yemen kills Ansar al-Sharia leader Nabil al-Dahab and four other al-Qaida members incl. Shawki al-Badani, a leader of AQAP. On Nov. 5 (noon) Hamas jihadist Ibrahim al-Akari driving a van rams pedestrians along the light rail line in Jerusalem, Israel, killing one border patrol officer and injuring 14; hours later a vehicle driven by a Palestinian rams and injures three IDF soldiers near a refugee camp in al-Arroub (near Hebron), Israel. On Nov. 5 mortars fall on a school in Qaboun, Damascus, Syria, killing 11 children. On Nov. 5 Canadian immigration minister Chris Alexander announces the new Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act, banning entry of migrants who practice "barbaric" polygamy. On Nov. 6 Muslim Brotherhood leader Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi posts a message on his Web site calling on Muslims to fight "the greatest battle of liberation" against Israel and the Jews. On Nov. 6 ISIS fires a Russian-made scud missile from Kobane, Syria, which Turkish defenses fail to stop, raising concerns. On Nov. 7 a column of 32 Russian tanks cross into E Ukraine. On Nov. 7 police in the U.K. arrest four suspected Islamist terrorists in London, England, foiling an attack planned for Remembrance Day (Nov. 11) to stab Elizabeth II to death. On Nov. 8-11 U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura presents the De Mistura Plan to Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad, calling for a freeze in fighting and preservation of the status quo. On Nov. 10 an Arab terrorist stabs an IDF soldier near the central bus station in Tel Aviv, Israel; later a second attack in Alon Shvut, Samaria injures two. On Nov. 10 a Boko Haram suicide bomber in a student uniform detonates at a h.s. assembly in Potiskum, Nigeria, killing 48 and injuring 79 students of 2K; a suicide bomb a week earlier in the same city killed 30 moderate Muslims during a religious procession. On Nov. 10 Pres. Obama arrives in Beijing, China to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, where Chinese pres. Xi Jinping uses the loaded term "Asia-Pacific dream"; on Nov. 11 Obama and Jinping announce a joint pledge to make steep cuts in carbon emissions by 2030. On Nov. 11 Germans celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall with lights and (99 red?) balloons. On Nov. 12 (early a.m.) a U.S. drone strike in Azzan, Shabwa, Yemen kills seven AQAP terrorists gathered under a group of trees. On Nov. 12 (1:00 p.m.) a Dutch suicide bomber detonates at a police HQ in Baghdad, Iraq, killing five and injuring 10. On Nov. 12 protesters in Istanbul, Turkey attack three U.S. sailors, attempting to place plastic bags over their heads while shouting "Yankee go home". On Nov. 12 Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu announces that Russia is sending long-range bombers to maintain a military presence in the W Atlantic and E Pacific incl. the Caribbean (Cuba, Mexico). Muslim infiltration of the federal govt. proceeds at jet speed? On Nov. 13 (Thur.) the U.S. House of Reps in Washington, D.C. allows Muslim imam Hamad Ahmad Chebli of the Islamic Society of N.J. to deliver the opening prayer; on Nov. 14 (a.m.) (Fri.) (after Muslim Brotherhood influence?) (100th anniv. of the last call to jihad by the Ottoman caliphate) the first-ever Muslim prayer service (Jumu'ah) is held at Wash. Nat. Cathedral in Washington, D.C., run by Rev. Canon Gina Campbell; Christian woman Christine Weick (1964-) of Tenn. yells "Jesus Christ is Lord", and is ejected; Rev. Franklin Graham calls it "sad to see". On Nov. 16 (a.m.) an explosion targets female Afghan lawmaker Shukria Barekzai in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing four and injuring 20; she survives. On Nov. 16 ISIS releases a video showing the beheading of Am. Islam convert (2013) hostage Peter "Abdul-Rahman" Kassig (b. 1988) (former U.S. Army Ranger) in Dabiq, Syria, causing Imam, er, Pres. Obama to utter the soundbyte: "ISIL's actions represent no faith, least of all the Muslim faith, which Abdul-Rahman adopted as his own. Today we grieve together, yet we also recall that the indomitable spirit of goodness and perseverance that burned so brightly in Abdul-Rahman Kassig, and which binds humanity together, ultimately is the light that will prevail over the darkness of ISIL", calling the murder "an act of pure evil by a terrorist group that the world rightly associates with inhumanity"; radial Jewish-Am. lawyer Stanley Cohen almost gets al-Qaida to unite with ISIS in an attempt to free Kassig? On Nov. 16 a female suicide bomber at a mobile phone market in Azare, Bauchi, Nigeria kills eight. On Nov. 16 the UAE designates 85 orgs. incl. the Am. Muslim groups CAIR and Muslim Am. Society (MAS) as terrorist groups, pissing-off the latter bigtime, since they've worked so hard to infiltrate U.S. society and govt.; British groups on the list incl. Islamic Relief, Muslim Assoc. of Britain (MAB), and Cordoba Foundation. On Nov. 16 leaders of the G20 Group of Nations give permission for banks to pledge depositor accounts as collateral to make leveraged derivative bets, AKA worldwide bail-ins. On Nov. 17 Palestinian bus driver Yusuf Hasan al-Ramouni (b. 1982) from al-Tur, East Jerusalem, Israel is found hanged to death in his vehicle by an Israeli lynch mob at the Har Hotzvim bus terminal NW of Jerusalem; meanwhile Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon celebrate the Jerusalem synagogue attack. On Nov. 17 the Chinese govt. announces the arrest of 288 people for corruption, claiming that 18K officials have fled in the past 20 years taking $129B with them. On Nov. 17 Mo. Gov. Jay Nixon declares a state of emergency in Ferguson, Mo. on the eve of the grand jury decision about white killer cop Darren Wilson and his Aug. 9 killing of black resident Mike Brown. On Nov. 17 Pres. Obama disavows knowledge of the statements by MIT prof. Jonathan Gruber that ObamaCare is a con game based on the stupidity of the Am. people because it's not insurance it's yet another tax on the rich to give to the poor. On Nov. 18 (a.m.) the 2014 Jerusalem Synagogue (Haredi Har Nof) Massacre sees two gun-and-axe-wielding Palestinians burst into a synagogue during morning prayers in Jerusalem, killing three American and one British Israeli immigrant, and wounding eight, incl. an Israeli Druze police officer, who later dies; seven worshipers are injured; the police kill the attackers, becoming the deadliest terrorist attack in Jerusalem since the Mar. 2008 Mercaz HaRav Massacre; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) claims responsibility; meanwhile a vote in Spain recognizes a Palestinian state. On Nov. 18 all 50 U.S. states experience a cold wave, hitting freezing temps incl. 30F on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, smashing 1,360 daily low records across the U.S. in a single week, incl. a record 76 in. of snow near Buffalo, N.Y.; meanwhile Pres. Obama devotes his final two years in office to combating global warming :) On Nov. 20 a Boko Haram attack in Azaya Kura, Borno, Nigeria kills 45+. On Nov. 20 senior ISIS leader Radwan Taleb al-Hamdouni is killed in an air strike in Mosul, Iraq. On Nov. 20 a gunman at the Strozier Library at Fla. State U. in Tallahassee, Fla. injures three students before being killed by campus police. On Nov. 20 Pres. Obama issues an executive order for "deferred action", which would allow 45% of illegal immigrants in the U.S. to legally stay and work, taking the heat off 5M illegal immigrants but not granting them amnesty, pissing-off Repubs., who are looking for any excuse to impeach him for overreaching; on Dec. 16 U.S. federal judge Arthur J. Schwab finds it unconstitutional, overstepping lawful pres. authority. On Nov. 20 Am. country music star Ty Herndon (1962-) comes out as gay, followed hours later by country singer Billy Gilman (1988-). On Nov. 22 Al-Shabaab militants massacre 28 infidels on a bus near the Somalian border of Kenya. On Nov. 22 Allied Dem. Forces (ADF) Islamists massacre 50 near the Ugandan border with axes in 90% Christian Beni, DRC. On Nov. 22 (3:30 p.m.) after reports that a black male "keeps pulling a gun out of his pants and pointing it at people", 12-y.-o. Tamir Rice (b. 2002) is gunned down by police officers Timothy Loehmann (1988-) and Frank Garmback (1968-) at the Cudell Recreation Center in Cleveland, Ohio; the gun is later found to be a toy lacking the usual orange markings, causing a public outcry and protests, which whip-up after a grand jury decision on Nov. 24 not to indict the shooter; on Dec. 28 a grand jury decides to not indict either officer; on Dec. 5 Rice's family files a wrongful death suit, which is settled on Apr. 25, 2016 for $6M. On Nov. 23 Boko Haram militants kill 48 fish vendors in Doron Baga, Borno State, Nigeria on the shores of Lake Chad near the border with Chad. On Nov. 23 a suicide bomber at a volleyball game in Paktika Province, Afhanistan kills 50 spectators and injures 60 incl. children. On Nov. 24 after being asked by Pres. Obama on Nov. 21 because of a lack of a skill set for dealing with ISIS, U.S. defense secy. Chuck Hagel offers his resignation. On Nov. 24 the deadline for nuclear negotiations with Iran lapses, and a new date of June 30 is set. On Nov. 24 U.S. Sen. Rand Paul calls for a 1-year official declaration of war against ISIS, the first war declaration since WWII. On Nov. 25 (early a.m.) a U.S.-led raid rescues eight hostages held by al-Qaida in a cave in E Yemen. On Nov. 25 two female suicide bombers in a market in Maiduguri, Nigeria kill 44. On Nov. 26 the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announces that Syrian govt. air strikes on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa has hit 95. On Nov. 27 a roadside bomb near a bus station in Yola, Nigeria kills 40 incl. five soldiers. On Nov. 27 the Taliban begins sieging Camp Bastion in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. On Nov. 27 the Rev. Command Council (RCC) is formed in Syria to lead the Syrian revolt, headed by Qays al-Sheikh. On Nov. 27 the centrist Kulanu Party in Israel is founded by Moshe Kahlon, focusing on economic and cost-of-living issues. On Nov. 28 Pope Francis visits Turkey, meeting with pres. Recep Tayyip Erogan and top cleric Mehmet Gormez; on Nov. 29 he visits the Blue Mosque in Constantinople amid the Muslim call to prayer, and prays with his head bowed in the direction of Mecca, going on to betray his predecessor by claiming that Islam shouldn't be equated with violence, and calling for Europe to open up to mass Muslim immigration. On Nov. 28 two bombs explode outside Emir's Palace Mosque in Kano, Nigeria during Fri. prayers, killing 36. On Nov. 28 after a complaint from a Muslim, the Ethiopian govt. demolishes the Heaven's Light Church in Harar. On Nov. 29 former Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak is acquitted of murder and corruption charges. On Nov. 29 Taliban suicide bombers in Kabul, Afghanistan attack a foreign guesthouse. On Nov. 30 Iraqi PM Haidar al-Abadi announces the discovery of 50K "ghost soldiers" on the military payroll, cutting off the funds. On Nov. 30 the Swiss people vote on the Gold Initiative, prohibiting gold sales, requiring the Swiss Nat. Bank to hold 20% of its assets in gold, and requiring the return of Swiss gold to the country, reversing the 1999 federal constitution which removed the 40% gold backing of the currency. On Nov. 30-Dec. 12 180 mph Typhoon Hagupit hits the Caroline Islands, Palau, Philippines, and Vietnam, killin 18 and causing $114M damage. In Nov. Microsoft purchases Mojang, maker of the online game Minecraft for $2.5B, making 35-y.-o. Markus Alexej Persson (1979-) AKA xNotch a world billionaire #1415. In Nov. ISIS caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdad calls on followers to "erupt volcanoes of jihad everywhere", claiming Saudi Arabia and other states as part of his caliphate; they finally strike on May 22, 2015? In Nov. 1,232 Iraqis are killed and 2,434 injured, incl. 296 Iraqi and Kurdish troops, according to the U.N, vs. 1,273 in Oct. In Nov. the U.S. unemployment rate was 5.8%, with 321K new jobs. On Dec. 1 unknown Muslim assailants invade the home of a Jewish family in Creteil, Paris, France, rape the 19-y.-o. woman, and rob them, with the soundbyte "because you are Jewish" - that means get the hell out? On Dec. 1 a female suspect dressed in a Muslim burqa stabs Am. mother of 11-y.-o. twin boys Ibolya Ryan (b. 1967) to death inside a mall restroom in Abu Dhabi; after she is arrested the authorities announce that she is not a lone wolf because her home was a "base of operations". On Dec. 2 (1:00 a.m.) Al-Shabaab kills and beheads 36 Christians in Koromey, 15km from Mandera, Kenya. On Dec. 2 France votes 339-151 to recognize a Palestinian state. On Dec. 2 Jewish, Roman Catholic, Anglican, orthodox, Buddhist, Hindu, Sunni, and Shiite leaders sign a Vatican initiative to end slavery by 2020 incl. human trafficking, organ trafficking, forced labor, and prostitution, declaring them crimes against humanity. On Dec. 2 (dawn) ISIS stages its first-ever attack on an Egyptian missile ship at the N end of the Suez Canal 40nm N of Damietta. On Dec. 3 a suicide car bomber attacks the Iranian ambassador's residence in Sana'a, Yemen, killing three; AQAP claims responsibility. On Dec. 3 a grand jury clears white NYPD cop Daniel Pantaleo for his July 17 chokehold murder of 6'3" 350 lb. African-Am. illegal cig seller Eric Garner (b. 1970), sparking massive protests; U.S. atty. gen. Eric Holder announces a civil rights investigation. On Dec. 3 (night) Muslim terrorists attack govt. bldgs. in Grozny, Chechnya, killing 10 police officers and injuring 28 while losing nine. On Dec. 4 the U.S. House votes along partisan lines 219-197-3 to stop Pres. Obama's immigration action in a measure sponsored by Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.); the Senate doesn't plan to take it up. On Dec. 4 Pres. Obama meets at the White House with Jordanian King Abdullah II, who is seeking U.S. support to handle Syrian refugees and ISIS; Obama pledges an increase of aid to Jordan from $600M to $1B. On Dec. 4 (4:15 p.m.) a 16-y.-o. Palestinian Muslim teenie terrorist stabs two Jewish shoppers in the Rami Levy Market E of Jerusalem before police shoot him. On Dec. 5 Pres. Obama nominates physicist Ashton Baldwin "Ash" Carter (1954-), U.S. deputy secy. of defense #30 (since Oct. 5, 2011) as new U.S. defense secy. to succeed Chuck Hagel, becoming his 4th defense secy. On Dec. 5 after Lebanese authorities arrest the wives of ISIS cmdr. Abu Ali Al Shishani and Abu Bakr Al Bahgdadi, Al Nusra execute captured Lebanese police officer Ali Al Bazzal to get even. On Dec. 5 the Nut Rage Incident (Nutgate) (Nut Return) sees Korean Air vice-pres. Heather Cho go nonlinear at the way nuts are served her by a flight attendant, ordering the plane to taxi back to the gate before takeoff, after which she resigns, is found guilty in Korea of obstructing a flight and given a 12-mo. prison sentence. On Dec. 5 (eve.) twin blasts in Baidoa, Somali kill 15 and injure dozens. On Dec. 6 Interpol issues arrests warrants for 40+ senior Muslim Brotherhood figures incl. Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, who is holed-up in Doha, Gutter, er, Qatar. On Dec. 7 the U.S. Congress unanimously passes a law stripping expatriate U.S. Nazis of federal benefits. On Dec. 8 the U.S.-NATO Internat. Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Joint Command lowers its flag for the last time in Afghanistan after 13 years; the ISAF mission officially ends on Dec. 31, and will be replaced on Jan. 1 by Resolute Support, a narrow-mandate mission to train, advise, and assist the Afghan Nat. Security Forces. On Dec. 8 the U.S. Dept. of Justice announces new stricter policies forbidding racial profiling by federal officers and agents. On Dec. 8 Rolling Stone mag. retracts a story of alleged gang rape at the U. of Va., saying that accuser Jackie's credibility is in doubt. On Dec. 8 Greenpeace activists deface the 1.5K-y.-o. Nazca Lines archeological site with large yellow cloth letters reading "Time for change! The future is renewable Greenpeace!"; the Peruvian govt. refuses to accept their apology. On Dec. 9 Calif. Dem. Sen. Dianne Feinstein releases the Senate Report on CIA Torture of Terrorism Suspects, revealing not only waterboarding but sexual humiliation, even of cleared suspects, with Pres. Obama uttering the soundbyte that the investigation "reinforces my long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as a nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests"; the CIA denies the report's conclusion, saying that torture thwarted terror plots. On Dec. 9 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry informs Congress that Pres. Obama wants expansive war powers to fight ISIS incl. ability to commit troops. On Dec. 9 the Internat. Criminal Court (ICC) accepts Palestine as a "non-state observer", allowing it to be able to request investigation of alleged war crimes by Israel. On Dec. 9 Palestinian Fatah minister Ziad Abu Ein (b. 1959) dies in Turmus Aya near Ramallah, Israel after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers, causing allegations of murder, which Israel dies, er, denies; on Dec. 11 thousands attend his funeral. On Dec. 9 after pressure by the OIC-controlled U.N., U.S. govt. official Anne C. Richard announces a plan to resettle 9K Muslim Syrian refugees in the U.S., ignoring the fact that they will bring Muhammad's jihad with them. On Dec. 9 (night) a Muslim bomb on a bus in Maramag, Philippines near the main gate of Central Mindanao U. kills 11 and injures 34. On Dec. 10 Ireland announces that it's considering parliamentary recognition of a Palestinian state, pissing-off Israel, which gets even more pissed-off at news that all mention of it is being banned from the Jan. 27 Holocaust Memorial Day. On Dec. 10 a Pew Research Center Poll fins that for the first time more Americans (52%-46%) believe that protecting their gun rights is more important than gun control. On Dec. 11 the Taliban stages two suicide attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing six German soldiers in one, and another in an auditorium watching a drama condemning suicide attacks, injuring 16 and killing a German man. On Dec. 11 after a 5-mo.-long campaign by U.S. Sen. (D-Va.) (since 2013) Tim Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations committee by 10-8 approves a measure authorizing the use of military force gainst ISIS, but barring the use of ground troops. On Dec. 11 (eve.) two bombs explode near a bus station in Jos, Nigeria, with the 2nd one killing 40+. On Dec. 11 10:00 p.m. the U.S. House of Reps votes 219-206 (incl. 57 Dem. yes votes) to pass an Obama-backed $1.1T spending bill to keep the U.S. govt. running. On Dec. 11 (midnight) French troops kill Movement for Tawhid and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) co-founder Ahmed el Tilemsi in a raid in Gao, Mali, along with a dozen terrorists. On Dec. 12 (early a.m.) terrorists fire dozens of bullets at the Israeli embassy in Athens, Greece; no injuries. On Dec. 12 the U.S. Senate by 89-11 passes the 2015 Defense Policy Bill, which passed the House earlier on a 300-119 vote; on Dec. 13 the Senate votes 56-40 to send it to Pres. Obama; it funds the govt. through Sept. and sets up a Feb. showdown over Dept. of Homeland Security funding. On Dec. 12 a Palestinian hitchhiker throws acid at an Israeli family in a car in Gush Etzion, Israel S of Israel before being shot by a passerby and arrested by police. On Dec. 13 two Taliban attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan kills two U.S. troops, 12 workers clearing mines, and a top Afghan court official; a third attack brings the body count to 19. On Dec. 13 ISIS storms Al-Wafa, Iraq 27 mi. W of Ramadi in Anbar Province, killing 19+ policemen. On Dec. 13 ISIS shoots down an Iraqi heli in the Shiite city of Samarra, Iraq 60 mi. N of Baghdad. On Dec. 13 Yemeni security forces kill several AQAP militants disguised as veiled women in a border crossing in Hawdh, Yemen. On Dec. 13 Indian manufacturing exec Mehdi Masroor Biswas (1990-) is arrested by police in Bangalore for running the #1 pro-ISIS Twitter account. On Dec. 13 after they fire at a soldier inspecting their Saudi-bound bus, Yemeni troops kill five and injure one al-Qaida suspect disguised as women in robes and niqab in Harad, Yemen. On Dec. 14 Boko Haram gunmen kidnap 100+ women and children and kill35 in Gumsuri, Nigeria. On Dec. 14-15 an attack by al-Nusra Front in Idleb, Syria kills 180+. On Dec. 15 (9:45 a.m.) hours after two suspects were arrested in a terror raid, Iranian-born armed Muslim terrorist Sheikh Haron (Man Haron Monis) (Manteghi Boroujerdi) (b. 1965 (ISIS preacher) takes over Lindt Chocolate Cafe in Martin Place, Sydney, Australia, taking 40+ hostages and forcing them to hold a black shahada flag against the window, demanding to speak to PM Tony Abbott, until five hostages break free, and commandos storm the cafe after a 16-hour siege and kill the bum, with two killed and four injured. On Dec. 15 ISIS pub. a new legal code enforcing Quranic Sharia incl. death for blasphemy of stinkin' Muhammad and Allah. On Dec. 15-16 the U.S. and Iran hold a bilateral meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. On Dec. 16 (5:00 a.m.) 6-9 uniformed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants attack the Army Public High School (500 teachers and students, mainly children of Pakistani military members) in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing and beheading 148 incl. 132 school children, mainly girls, injuring 122 and taking hostages after burning a teacher alive with gasoline in front of students; on Dec. 17 Zabihullah Mujahid of the Afghan Taliban releases a statement condemning the attack; ditto Usama Mahmood, spokesman for Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS); senior Pakistan Taliban leader Latif Mehsud was released by Pres. Obama on Dec. 8, making it his fault?; on Dec. 17 a U.S. airstrike in Nangarhar, Afghanistan kills 11 Pakistani and Afghan Taliban members. On Dec. 16 (Black Tues.) the Russian ruble falls to 80 to the U.S. dollar; by Fri. the ruble is restored to its previous value of 58 to the dollar. On Dec. 17 (noon) Pres. Obama gives a Speech on Cuba, announcing a "new chapter" incl. reestablishment of diplomatic relations and relaxing restrictions, causing U.S. Sen. (R-Fla.) Marco Rubio (son of Cuban immigrants) to slam him, calling him "wilfully ignorant" and "the worst negotiator" the U.S. has had in decades; meanwhile Cuba releases Am. Jewish hostage Alan Gross (accused of bringing computers to Jews) after five years in jail in exchange for three hardened Cuban spies. On Dec. 17 the first-ever battle between ISIS and U.S. ground troops near Ein al-Asad Base in Iraq is a huge V for 100 U.S. military advisers supported by fighter jets, who send them running. On Dec. 17 a European court rules that Hamas should be temporarily removed from the EU's terrorism blacklist, although it still consider it a terrorist org., pissing-off Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who calls it an example of "staggering" European "hypocrisy" which "grants a prize to extremist, Islamic terror", saying that he expects the EU to correct their mistake quickly. On Dec. 17 the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France votes 489-88 to support statehood for Palestine, without recognizing it yet; meanwhile in the eve. the Palestinians submit a draft resolution calling for peace with Israel within one year followed by Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank by the end of 2017, which Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Liberman says is a "gimmick" that is "meant solely to taunt Israel" and will only worsen the conflict, and which Israel intel minister Yuval Steinitz calls an "act of war" because it doesn't mention Israel's status as a Jewish state, saying that it's time to cut ties with the Palestinian Authority and even dismantle it; meanwhile Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas orders the arrest of Palestinian Legislative Council secy.-gen. Ibrahim Khraisheh in Ramallah for criticizing PM Rami Hamdallah for arresting public employees union head Bassam Zakarneh, then after criticism cancels the order, but sends police to the parliament bldg. to block Ramallah from entering. On Dec. 17 after North Korean-backed hackers hack their Web site and release personal info. to embarrass them, threatening more attacks, Sony Corp. removes its Xmas movie "The Interview" (about a plot to kill North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un) from theaters. On Dec. 17 an AQAP car bomb near a Shiite Houthi rebel checkpoint in Radaa, Bayda Province, Yemen kills 25 incl. 15 children; another goes off near the home of a Houthi leader. On Dec. 17 amid reports of the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, Kurdish Peshmerga forces launch an offensive against ISIS in N Iraq, taking Mount Sinjar by Dec. 19, free 1.5K Yazidi families. On Dec. 18 Indonesian army chief Gen. Moeldoko gives an interview, saying that Indonesia wants to join the fight against ISIS, which it considers a grave global threat. On Dec. 19 the annual U.N. Gen. Assembly resolution condemning human rights abuses in Iran drops in support to 83 nations out of 186 (45%), down from 86 in 2013 and 2012, 89 in 2011; 78 in 2010, 74 in 2009, and 69 in 2008. On Dec. 19 forgetting about Cuba, Pres. Obama signs the U.S. Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act, sanctioning Venezuelan officials for human rights abuses during anti-govt. protests earlier this year. On Dec. 19 Pres. Obama gives a year-end press conference, saying that it was wrong for Sony to pull "The Interview" from theaters because they should have "spoken to me first", which pisses-off Sony CEO Michael Lynton, who blames theater owners. On Dec. 19 WHO announces that 1M have been wounded so far in the civil war. On Dec. 19 Turkey issues an arrest warrant for U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen after Pres. Erdogan accuses him of subversion of his govt. On Dec. 19 the U.N. Gen. Assembly passes a non-binding resolution demanding that Israel pay Lebanon $850M. On Dec. 19 NYPD cops Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos are assassinated (shot in the head in their cop car) by Arabic-speaking Quran-quoting Am. Muslim Ismaaiyl Brimsley, who commits suicide to avoid capture; he did it for jihad, or in revenge for Eric Garner and Michael Brown?; on Dec. 27 hundreds of cops turn their backs on NYC mayor Bill de Blasio at Ramos' funeral, where vice-pres. Joe Biden gives a speech with the soundbyte that the "assassin's bullet" touched the "soul of an entire nation". On Dec. 20 knife-wielding Muslim Bilal (nee Bertrand) Nzohabonayo (1994-) shouting Allahu Akbar is shot dead at the entrance to a police station in Joue-les-Tours, France after injuring two; on Dec. 21 a Muslim driver shouting you know what runs over 11 bystanders in Dijon, France, seriously injuring two. On Dec. 20 two (Muslim?) car bombs in Malmo, Sweden cause no injuries. On Dec. 20 a U.S. drone fires two missiles at a Taliban hideout in NW Pakistan, five militants; in a separate operation Pakistani forces kill five terrorists on the outskirts of Peshawar. On Dec. 21 (Sun.) elections in Tunisia are a V for veteran politician Beji Caid Essebsi by 55.68% vs. 44.32% for rival Moncef Marzouki. On Dec. 22 (night) a madass Muslim in a Christmas market in Nantes, France drives into a crowd, injuring 10 before jumping out with a knife and getting arrested; officials blame mental illness not ties to Islamist groups. On Dec. 23 the U.S. FDA announces that it's lifting its 31-y.-o. ban on gays donating blood as long as they haven't sucked, er, had sex for one year. On Dec. 23 the Dow-Jones Industrial Avg. tops 18K for the first time ever, reaching 18,051.14, up 75% from the 12-year low of Mar. 9, 2009. On Dec. 23 (night) after pointing a gun at him, 18-y.-o. black teenie Antonio Martin is shot and killed by police officers at a Mobil gas station in Berkeley, Mo., sparking protests. On Dec. 24 Hamas snipers attack Israeli forces working on a border fence at the Gaza Border, injuring one soldier. On Dec. 24 Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath Kassasbeh (Kaseasbeh) (Moaz al-Kasasba) (1977-2015) is shot down in NE Syria and captured by ISIS; the U.S. denies that ISIS shot the plane down; after ransom demands fall through, a video of him being burned alive in a cage is released on Feb. 3; he was killed on Jan. 3 before starting phony ransom negotiatons. On Dec. 24 a suicide bomber in Madaen, Iraq (15 mi. S of Baghdad) kills 33 and injures 55. On Dec. 24 Saudi Sheikh Abdulrahman Al-Sudais appoints Fatimah Al-Rashoud as head of the women guidance committee, becoming the first woman to hold a leading position in the gen. presidency of the two holy mosques. On Dec. 24 the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) (ratified by 50 nations on Sept. 25) goes into effect; a snare for the people of the U.S.? On Dec. 24 dozens of Roman Catholic priests march in Ciudad Altamirano, Mexico to protest a series of robberies, kidnappings, and murders of priests, and to demand the release of kidnapped priest Rev. Gregorio Lopez Gorostieta. On Dec. 24 police in Australia arrest Australian Muslim Sulayman Khalid (1994-) and another man for plotting a Christmas terror plot in the Blue Mountains. On Dec. 25 after an announcement by PM Narendra Modi, India celebrates its first Good Governance Day. On Dec. 26 a U.S. drone strike in two compounds in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan kills seven militants. On Dec. 26 a new law comes into Sweden criminalizing criticism of Muslim immigration or even a politician's unwillingness to stop it. On Dec. 27 (7:24 a.m.) AirAsia Flight 8501 carrying 155 passengers is lost en route from Surabaya, Indonesia to Singapore; the last words of the pilot are "Allahu Akbar". On Dec. 27 Chinese vice-PM Wang Yang gives a speech, with the soundbyte: "The United States is the guide of the world; China is willing to join this system... China and United States are global economic partners, but America is the guide of the world. America already has the leading system and its rules; China is willing to join the system and respect those rules and hopes to play a constructive role" - more saving, more doing, that's the power of Home Depot? On Dec. 28 as a ceremony is held in Kabul, Pres. Obama issues a statement marking the end of the U.S. Afghanistan war, touching a 90% troop reduction on his watch, with the soundbyte: "For more than 13 years, ever since nearly 3,000 innocent lives were taken from us on 9/11, our nation has been at war in Afghanistan Now, thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion." On Dec. 28 (night) a Greek ferry en route to Italy catches fire off Albany, killing 10. On Dec. 29 Jordan submits a final draft of a Palestinian Authority-backed statehood resolution to the U.N., calling for a peace deal with Israel within a year and an end to occupation of Palestinian territories by the end of 2017; the capital will be in Jerusalem; the U.S. opposes the bid, calling it "not constructive"; Mahmoud Abbas' own Fatah Party also opposes it; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu utters the soundbyte: "Israel will oppose conditions that endanger our future"; too good, on Dec. 30 the U.N. Security rejects the resolution, with the U.S. and Australia voting against, Nigeria abstaining, and France and Russia for; Hamas supports the bid; on Dec. 31 Mahmoud Abbas signs papers to join the Internat. Criminal Court so it can sit in judgment of Israeli officials, along with an Israeli war crimes probe request - the abomination of desolation sits where? On Dec. 31 the Italian coast guard rescues a cargo ship carrying 970 illegal Syrian immigrants after its crew abandons ship and sets it to crash into the coast off Puglia, Italy. On Dec. 31 U.S. unemployment is 5.6% (vs. 5.8% in Nov.), adding 252K jobs. On Dec. 31 (midnight) Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad inspects his troops on the front line in Joubar, Damascus after 76K have been killed. All U.S. public school students above the 2nd grade are proficient in reading and math, thanks to Pres. G.W. Bush's 2002 No Child Left Behind Law? The 2nd scout mission to Mars returns surface samples to Earth (NASA). As he is about to flee his country, Yemeni pres. Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi signs a 99-year lease of Socotra Island with UAE to use as their main military base. The new city of Songdo, South Korea opens on a manmade island 40 mi. SW of Seoul. The Nakba Museum Project of Memory and Hope in Washington, D.C. is founded by Bshara Nassar to "bring the Palestinian refugee story to Washington, D.C." The Facebook page Olim L'Berlin (Let's Immigrate to Berlin) is created, protesting the high cost of living in Israel and urging Israelis to move to Germany, raising a firestorm of protest. Chicken passes beef to become the #1 most popular meat in the U.S. By this year five beer cos. control 51% of the global beer market, incl. Anheuser-Busch InBev, SABMiller, Heineken, Carlsberg, and China Resources Enterprise; in 2015 Anheuser-Busch InBev merges with SABMiller, giving them a 30% share. Sports: On Jan. 13 the Chicago Cubs debut their new mascot Clark. On Jan. 26 the 2014 NFL Pro Bowl at Aloha Stadium in Hololulu, Hawaii becomes the first with a "fan-friendly" format aimed at fantasy football nuts; Team Jerry Rice defeats Team Deion Sanders by 22-21. On Feb. 2 Super Bowl LXVIII (48) (2014) ("Marijuana Bowl" because Colo. and Wash. are the only two states to permit recreational marijuana use) at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. (first outdoor SB in a cold weather city) sees the 13-3 Seattle Seahawks (NFC), led by QB (#3) Russell Carrington Wilson (1989-) and coached by Peter Clay "Pete" Carroll (1951-) defeat the 13-3 Denver Broncos (AFC), led by QB (#18) Peyton Williams Manning (1976-) (first to lead two different teams to the SB) and coached by John Fox (1955-) by 43-8 as Seattle's Legion of Boom shuts Denver's offense down; Denver muffs the first snap of the game to give Seattle a safety at 00:12; the score is 22-0 at halftime; Seattle linebacker (#53) Malcolm Smith (1989-) is named MVP; a U.S. TV record 111.5M viewers watch it; ads sell for $4M for 30 sec.; Manning blames fan noise, but Seattle already defeated Denver in the preseason by 40-10; Denver loses a record 5th Super Bowl. On Feb. 23 the 2014 (56th) Daytona 500 is won by "Pied Piper of Daytona" Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr. (1974-), who breaks a 55-race winless streak, becoming his 2nd win (2004). On Feb. 23 basketball center Jason Paul Collins (1978-) becomes the first openly gay athlete in North Am. pro sports, signing with the New York Nets of the NBA for a 10-day contract, then getting two rebounds in a 108-102 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers. On Mar. 26 NLRB regional dir. Peter Sung Ohr rules that college athletes at Northwestern U. can unionize. On Apr. 21 the 118th (2014) Boston Marathon takes back the streets from Muslim jihadists; Ethiopian immigrant Mebrahton "Meb" Keflezighi (1985-) becomes the first U.S. male to win since 1983; a Kenyan has won 19x since 1991. On Apr. 29 after recorded racist comments are released by his ex-girlfriend V. Stiviano, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling (Tokowitz) (1934-) is banned from the NBA for life and fined $2.5M by the NBA; on May 22 citing the quick action by the NBA on Sterling, 49 U.S. Dem. Senators send a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Gooddell to change the Washington Redskins' name, calling it a racist slur; on May 30 Microsoft's Steve Balmer buys the Clippers for a record $2B. On May 20 a group of retired NFL players incl. Jim McMahon, Richard Dent, and Keith Van Horne of the Chicago Bears, and Jeremy Newberry of the San Francisco 49ers file a lawsuit alleging that the NFL illegally supplied them with narcotics and other drugs to mask injuries to keep them playing, leading to medical complications after retirement. On May 25 (Sun.) Dallas, Tex.-born Ryan Hunter-Reay (1980-) (who drives IndyCar No. 28 to show support for the 28M living with cancer worldwide) of Andretti Autosport wins the 2014 (98th) Indianapolis 500 by .06 sec. over Helio Castroneves, the 2nd closest finish since 1992 and first Am. winner since 2006. On June 5-15 the 2014 NBA Finals sees the San Antonio Spurs defeat the Miami Heat by 4-1, after which LeBron James returns to the Cleveland Cavaliers; MVP is small forward Kawhi Anthony "the Klaw" Leonard (1991-) (#2) of the Spurs. On June 7 the 2014 Belmont Stakes and Triple Crown #12 are won by ("the People's Horse") (fans are called Chromies, known for wearing purple band-aids on their noses) California Chrome (2011-) (jockey Victor Espinoza), who was on a 6-game winning streak and hoping to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978; er, he comes in a tie for 4th in a field of 11 with Wicked Strong, and Tonalist (2011-) wins in 2:28.52, with Commissioner and Medal Count coming in 2-3, causing owner Steve Coburn to grumble that California Chrome was targeted by the other owners, who ran fresh horses that didn't have to run the other two legs of the Triple Crown, calling for reform, with the soundbyte: "It's all or nothing. This is not fair to these horses and to the people that believe in them. This is the coward's way out." On June 18 after debuting in 2011 as the youngest player in the MLB, Dallas, Tex.-born lefty pitcher Clayton Edward Kershaw (1988-) of the Los Angeles Dodgers (#22) becomes the 22nd Dodger to pitch a no-hitter, going on to become the first-ever pitcher to lead the ML in ERA for four straight seasons (2011-14). On June 23-July 7 2014 (128th) Wimbledon Championship sees defending champion Andy Murray lose in the quarterfinals to Grigor Dimitrov, and defending champ Marion Bartoli retire before the match; Novak Djokovic of Serbia wins the gentleman's singles title, and Petra Kvitova (Kvitová) (1990-) of Czech. Repub wins the ladies' singles title. On Sept. 8 after a video of him knocking out his fiancee Janay Palmer in an elevator at the Revel Casino in Atlantic City, N.J. on Feb. 15 emerges, the Baltimore Ravens fire star running back Raymell Mourice "Ray" Price (1987), who is banned by the NFL; previously on Mar. 27 a grand jury indicts him for 3rd deg. assault, on Mar. 28 Rice and Palmer are married, and on July 25 Rice is suspended for the first two games of the 2014 NFL season, the video release causing mgt. to backpedal at jet speed. On Oct. 19 (Sun.) Denver Broncos QB Peyton Manning bests Brett Favre's career TD record of 508 with 510 in a 42-17 blowout of the San Francisco 49ers in Denver, with four TDs to his credit, plus two more running TDs. On Oct. 21-29 the 2014 (110th) World Series sees the San Francisco Giants (NL) defeat the Kansas City Royals (AL) 4-3; Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner throws a complete game shutout in Game 5, then closes with 5 straight shutout innings in Game 7 after a 2-day rest; the 2nd WS after the 2002 one to feature two wild card teams. On Nov. 23 (Sun.) New York Giants rookie WR (#13) Odell Beckham Jr. (1992-) makes The Amazing Catch on Sun. Night Football on NBC-TV, which many call the greatest of all time. Architecture: On Feb. 13 $2.2B Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojhave Desert of Calif. 40 mi. SW of Las Vegas, Nev. opens, designed to produce 392MW; too bad, in Nov. 2014 AP reports that it is only producing "about half of its expected annual output". On May 21 the 911 Museum in New York City opens. In June the 20M euro Copenhagen Grand Mosque opens, becoming the first in Scandinavia. On July 17 Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. (cap. 68.5K-75K) opens as the home of the San Francisco 49ers; on Aug. 7 their first game is a 23-3 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, followed by a 34-0 loss on Aug. 17 to the Denver Broncos; on Feb. 7, 2016 it hosts Super Bowl 50 (L), which is won by the Broncos. On Sept. 20 the Wangjing Galaxy SOHO complex of three assymetric curvilinear skyscrapers in Wangjing, Beijing, China opens, designed by Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid. The Citadel in the Netherlands opens, becoming the world's first floating apt. bldg. The Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Seoul, Korea, designed by Zaha Hadid opens. The Guangzhou Circle in Guangdong, China opens, becoming the world's tallest circular bldg. (until ?). Nobel Prizes: Peace: Kailash Satyarthi (Sharma) (1954-) (India), and Malala Yousafzai (1997-) (Pakistan); Lit.: Jean Patrick Modiano (1945-) (France); Physics: Isamu Akasaki (1929-), Hiroshi Amano (1960-), and Shuji Nakamura (1954-) (Japan) [blue LEDs]; Chem.: Robert Eric Betzig (1960-) (U.S.), Stefan Walter Hell (1962-) (Germany), and William Esco Moerner (1953-) (U.S.) [super-resolved fluorescence microscopy]; Med.: John O'Keefe (1939-) (U.S.), May-Britt Moser (1963-) (Norway), and Edvard Ingjald Moser (1962-) (Norway) [hippocampus place cells]; Econ.: Jean Tirole (1953-) (France) [market power and regulation]. Inventions: On Feb. 21 Khashayar Khoshmanesh et al. of RMIT U. in Australia pub. an article in Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences announcing the first liquid metal-enabled pump, which will enable microfluidic lab-on-a-chip technology. On May 24 NASA launches the Colo. High-Resolution Echelle Stellar Spectograph (CHESS) to study atoms floating between stars. On July 24 Google announces their Pigeon algorithm, which warps search rankings to give preference to local listings. On Sept. 24 the Indian Mangalyaan Mars Orbiter Mission enters Mars orbit, making India the first Asian country to reach Mars. On Nov. 12 (11:00 a.m. EST) the Philae lander of the ESA's Rosetta mission makes the first-ever spacecraft soft landing on a comet, Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The SolarEagle developed by Boeing is a solar-powered unmanned aircraft that can fly nonstop for over five years while sending surveillance data to the ground. The Precision-Guided Firearm (PGF) from TrackingPoint Inc. uses Google Glass technology to help a firearm hit targets behind corners. The 2014 Honda Odyssey minivan features the first built-in vacuum cleaner for a vehicle. The NeuroLife chip is implanted into the brain of quadraplegic man Ian Burkhart (22) in Ohio by surgeons from Ohio State U., allowing him to pick up objects, stir beverages, play video games, etc. Science: On Jan. 2 Japanese scientists Kazuya Iwamoto et al. pub. an article in Neuron announcing that a class of junk DNA retrotransposons called Long Interspersed Nuclear Elements (LINE) might be responsible for schizophrenia. On Jan. 9 Martin Leeb et al. of Cambridge U. pub. an article in Neuron describing a fast and comprehensive method for determining the function of genes using transposons (jumping genes). On Jan. 14 Jan van Hest and Ruud Peters of Ribaud U. Nijmegen pub. an article in Angewandte Chemie announcing the creation of the first artificial cell containing organelles capable of carrying out the various steps of a chemical reaction. On Jan. 15 s Bijan Pesaran et al. of NYU pub. an article in Nature revealing that humans use both sides of their brains for speech. On Jan. 28 Matthew Rushworth et al. of Oxford U. pub. an article in Neuron announcing the discovery of the lateral frontal pole prefrontal cortex, which is unique to humans and is connected with higher level thinking. On Jan. 29 researchers at Amherst College and Aalto U. pub. an article in Nature reporting the creation of an artificial magnetic monopole. On Jan. 30 researchers at Nanjing Medical U. and Yunnan Key Lab of Primate Biomedical Research in Kunming, China pub. an article in Cell reporting the creation of genetically-modified monkeys using a new method of DNA engineering known as CRISPR. On Feb. 7 Ali Tavassoli et al. of the U. of Southampton pub. an article in Angewandte Chemie International Edition announcing the first workable Click Chemistry, the artificial joining of oligonucleotides. On Feb. 14 researchers at the U. of Tex. announce the first human lungs grown in a lab. On Feb. 21 Boris Vinatzer pub. an article in PLoS ONE proposing a new naming system for all organisms based on their genome sequence. In Feb. NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory detects low-energy X-rays emanating from Pluto, detecting ditto 3x more by Aug. 2015. On Mar. 10 after irregularities are found, Japanese scientist Teruhiko Wakayama calls for his study on stem cells that claims they can be created by putting mature animal cells in an acid bath to be withdrawn. On Mar. 17 using data from the BICEP2 microwave telescope at the South Pole, physicists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announce the discovery of gravity waves from the Big Bang, proving the Theory of Inflation; William Jones of Princeton U. et al. announce that the conclusion overreaches the data; it's really just ashes from an exploding star? In Mar. an internat. team synthesizes SynIII, the first synthetic chromosome for yeast; only 15 more to go. On Apr. 3 scientists at the U. of Va. announce the first fish embryo grown from stem cells. The James Webb Space Telescope becomes operational, with 10x the light-gathering power of the Hubble Space Telescope. On Apr. 3 the Nat. Inst. of Standards and Technology announces NIST-F2, their new atomic clock, replacing NIST-F1 (1999) with 3x the accuracy, about 1 sec. per 300M years. On Apr. 8 scientists at the U. of Edinburgh announce the first successful regeneration of a living organ, a thymus in a mouse. On Apr. 17 Garry Taylor and Helen Connaris of St. Andrews U. announce the discovery of Kepler-186f, the most Earth-like planet yet discovered, and potentially habitable. On Apr. 17 after a study reveals the limited effectiveness of Tamiflu, scientists at St. Andrews U. announce a new nasal spray that could protect against any kind of flu. On Apr. 17 scientists in South Korea pub. an article announcing the first therapeutic cloning of adults, creating stems cells from the skin cells of two adult men. On Apr. 21 scientists at MIT announce a revolutionary advance in Crispr, a rev. genome-editing technique that can correct adult genes and cure diseases. On Apr. 30 scientists using ESO's Very Large Telescope (VOT) announce the first determination of the rotation rate of an expoplanet, Beta Pictoris b (8 hours). On May 7 Floyd Romesberg et al. of the Scripps Research Inst. pub. an article in Nature announcing the first viable organism with two artficial DNA building blocks. On May 8 Siegfried Hekimi et al. of McGill U. pub. an article in Cell reversing the "free radical theory of aging", proving that free radical production increases during aging because they combat aging. On June 1 Hrvoje Petek et al. of the U. of Pittsburgh pub. an article in Nature Physics announcing the detection of the exciton, which makes reflection of light from a metal mirror possible. On June 4 physicians at Am. Family Children's Hospital in Madison, Wisc. pub. an article in the New England Journal of Medicine reporting the first successful use of quick DNA sequencing to diagnose an illness. On June 7 the 1950 Turing Test was allegedly passed for the first time by supercomputer Eugene Goostman at the Royal Society in London, convincing 33% of human judges that it was human (30% required); simulating a 13-y.-o. boy, Eugene was developed in St. Petersburg, Russia by Vladimir Veselov and Eugene Demchenko. On June 7 an infant born to grad student Razib Khan in Calif. becomes the first healthy person born in the U.S. with their entire genome deciphered in advance. On June 17 a UNSW Australia-led team pub. an article in Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Science reporting a discovery of how algae can switch the quantum phenomenon that occurs in photosynthesis on and off to survive in very low light levels. On June 17 the first scentgrams (champagne and macaroons) are sent from New York City to Paris. In June Battelle Inst. and Ohio State U. Wexner Medical Center announce Neurobridge, which allows a paralyzed person to move his extremities with his thoughts. In June after Steyer launches NextGen America in 2013 to support climate change policies and candidates, the Risky Business Project, founded by billionaire hedge fund mgr. Thomas Fahr "Tom" Steyer (1957-), billionaire New York City mayor (2002-13) Michael Rubens Bloomberg (1942-), and former U.S. treasury secy. #74 (2006-9) Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr. (1946-) to combat climate change pub. its Nat. Report, followed by the Midwest Report (Jan. 2015), and the Calif. Report (Apr. 2015), examining the economic risks and opportunities of climate change. On July 9 the U.S. Air Force issues a request for proposal for the $550M Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) nuclear-capable heavy payload strategic stealth aircraft, giving the U.S. the capability of striking deep inside China or Russia for the first time since the B-17; 80-100 are planned; on Oct. 28, 2015 the $80B contract is awarded to Northrop Grumman, beating out the team of Boeing and Lockheed-Martin. On July 21 Jonathan Thorn et al. of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Mass. announce a new way to make fully functional human platelets using human stem cells and a bioreactor. On Aug. 11 Outernet begins beaming free Wi-Fi to Earth from satellites; too bad, it's only a 1-way data service. On Sept. 1 Alvaro Pascual-Leone et al. of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center pub. an article in PLOS ONE reporting the first direct brain-to-brain communications in humans via the Internet. On Oct. 20 George Fraser et al. of the U. of Leicester pub. an article in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society announcing the first detection of axions, Dark Matter particle candidates by the XMM-Newton Observatory. In Oct. after protests by nativists who claim they want to build it on sacred land, the $1.5B Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii is delayed by the courts, with each new attempt to build it being blocked by more protests (Apr. 2 and June 24, 2015); in Dec. 2015 the Hawaiian Supreme Court invalidates the building permits. On Nov. 6 Nature Communications pub. an article announcing that the 1999 conjecture by Asher Peres that the weakest form of quantum entanglement can never result in the strongest manifestation of the phenomenon has been proven false by scientists at the U. of Geneva and Hungarian Academy of Sciences. On Nov. 13 Timothy Lu et al. of MIT pub. an article in Science announcing the first successful method for storing memory in bacterial genomes. On Nov. 17 the 3D Printing in Zero-G Technology Demonstration sees the first object 3-D printed in space aboard the ISS. On Nov. 27 Daniel Baker of the U. of Colo. pub. an article in Nature reporting the discovery of a boundary layer in the Van Allen belts that blocks "killer electrons". On Dec. 5 the NASA Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) makes its first flight atop a Delta IV Heavy rocky, er, rocket; too bad, massive cost overruns delay the first mission until 2023? On Dec. 11 doctors at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa perform the world's first successful penis transplant on a 20-.y.-o. man from Cape Town who had his penis amputated three years earlier in a botched circumcision ceremony; after he begins intercourse five weeks after the procedure, next June 13 Anthony van der Merwe of the U. of Stellenbosch announces that he has conceived his first baby with a partner. Art: Nonfiction: Youssef H. Aboul-Enein (ed.), Reconstructing a Shattered Egyptian Army: War Minister Gen. Mohamed Fawzi's Memoirs, 1967-1971. Sonia L. Alianak, Transition towards Revolution and Reform: The Arab Spring Realized? David C. Archibald (1955-), The Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutiish, and Short (Mar. 24); warns of a future prolonged global cooling period, and how nuclear power and transformation of coal into liquid fuels can help survive it, going on a book tour that pisses-off global warming advocates, who call him a fringe scientist. Vladimir Avdeyev, Raciology: The Science of the Hereditary Traits of Peoples and Races; attempts to take on anthropology. Rick Atkinson (1952-), D-Day: The Invasion of Normandy, 1944. Mohammed Ayoob, Will the Middle East Implode? Tim Ball (1938-), The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science (Jan. 21); disses the progressive left for politicizing what should only be a science. Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. Mitchell Bard, Death to the Infidels: Radical Islam's War Against the Jews. Ofra Bengio, Kurdish Awakening: Nation Building in a Fragmented Homeland. Kai Bird (1951-), The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames. Brian Robert Calfano (ed.), Assessing MENA Political Reform, Post-Arab Spring: Mediators and Microfoundations. Nicholas Carr, The Glass Cage: Automation and Us; automation is making the world less interesting? Richard Carrier (1969-), On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason for Doubt; "The concept of Jesus we're supposed to believe existed is actually getting more confused the more people study it"; Hitler Homer Bible Christ: The Historical Papers of Richard Carrier, 1995-2013. Christopher Catherwood, From the Ashes of War: The Creation of the Middle East (May 29). Hillary Clinton (1947-) and Edward "Ted" Widmer, Hard Choices (June 10); 656 pages; sells 85,721 in week #1 vs. 467,604 for Sarah Palin's; "I will not be a part of a political slugfest on the backs of dead Americans... Those who insist on politicizing the tragedy will have to do so without me." Alan Dershowitz (1938-), Terror Tunnels: The Case for Israel's Just War Against Hamas (Sept. 10). John Dunn, Traditionalism: The Only Radicalism (Aug. 11); blames the world's troubles on usury. Russell Edwards, Naming Jack the Ripper (Sept. 9); claims that he's Polish Jewish immigrant Aaron Kominski. Barbara Ehrenreich (1941-), Living With a Wild God: An Unbeliever's Search for the Truth About Everything (autobio.) (Apr. 8); her childhood quest for the truth of life. Alex Epstein (1980), The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (Nov. 13); NYT bestseller making the case for fossil fuels as a great benefit to humanity and knocking wind, solar, and biofuels as too expensive and unreliable while dissing climate alarmists; "If our goal is human flourishing and we look at the full context there is a strong moral case for using more fossil fuels, not less"; "This is not a debate over facts. It's a debate over philosophy and our assumptions." Eve Epstein and Leonora Epstein, X vs. Y: A Culture War, a Love Story (Mar. 18); Gen. X and Y siblings. Thomas Erikson, Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business (and in Life); internat. bestseller (1.5M copies); Red, Blue, Green, Yellow; a pseudoscientific scam? Elizabeth Anne Fenn (1959-), Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People (Pulitzer Prize). Alain Finkielkraut, The Unhappy Identity (L'Identite Malheureuse); the failure of multiculturalism in France is threatening French civilization. Robert M. Gates (1943-), Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (Jan. 14); claims that Pres. Obama and secy. of state Hillary Clinton told him that they opposed the Iraq surge because of politics. Glen Greenwald (1967-), No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State (May 13). Stephen Green, Reluctant Meister: How Germany's Past Is Shaping Its European Future (Dec. 15). Larry Hancock and Stuart Wexler, Shadow Warfare: The History of America's Undeclared Wars (Mar. 18). Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (Jan. 31). Gerald Horne, The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America; the U.S. was founded on slavery, and the liberty-equality b.s. is just window dressing to keep whites in power? Raymond Ibrahim (1973-), Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians. Abdisaid Abdi Ismail, The Rule of Apostasy in Islam: Is It True? (Sept.) (Kenya); questions the concept of the death penalty for apostasy in Islam, causing him to be called "Somalia's Salman Rushdie". Salim Ismail, Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, cheaper than yours (and what to do about it) (Oct. 18). Raphael Israeli, Hatred, Lies, and Violence in the World of Islam. Jang Jin-sung (1970-), Dear Leader: Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look Inside North Korea. Kent A. Kiehl, The Psychopath Whisperer: The Science of Those Without Conscience; "Symptoms should be present by age 10... as early as age 5." George Frost Kennan (1904-2005), The Kennan Diaries (posth.). David I. Kertzer (1948-), The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe (Feb.) (Pulitzer Prize); claims that Pius XI played a significant role in supporting the rise of Fascism in Italy, but started to flop after the rise of Nazi Germany, causing future Pope Pius XII to struggle to restrain him from breaking with Mussolini until he could take over and play Vatican footsie with Hitler. Ronald Kessler (1943-), The First Family Detail: Secret Service Agents Reveal the Hidden Lives of the Presidents (Aug. 5); NYT bestseller; retired Secret Service agents tell all about former presidents and First Ladies, incl. all-time worst Hillary Clinton: "When in public, Hillary smiles and acts graciously. As soon as the cameras are gone, her angry personality, nastiness, and imperiousness become evident. Hillary Clinton can make Richard Nixon look like Mahatma Gandhi." Aaron Klein, The Real Benghazi Story: What the White House and Hillary Don't Want You to Know; claims that Hillary Clinton signed waivers the doomed ambassador Christopher Stevens et al. Edward Klein (1937-), Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas (June 23); claims a feud between the Obama and Clinton clans, with Bill Clinton despising Pres. Obama, and Michelle Obama calling Hillary Clinton the "Hildebeest". Naomi Klein (1970-), This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Sept.), a NYT bestseller claiming that capitalism has waited too long to address climate change, and that neoliberal market fundamentalism and its profligate consumption, mega-mergers, and trade agreements immune to concerns about the environment stands in the way of the solution, making it necessary to cross "the river of fire" and dump it and start an ecological rev.; filmed in 2015 by her hubby Avi Lewis. Elizabeth Kolbert (1961-), The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Pulitzer Prize); climate alarmist hit predicting that humans are next, starting with 20%-50% of "all living species on earth" by 2100. Joseph Morgan Kousser (1943-), Do the Facts of Voting Rights Support Chief Justice Roberts's Opinion in Shelby County?. Arun Kundnani, The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror (Mar. 18); claims that Muslims are all innocent victims entrapped by the FBI, but never explains why they so often take the bait if it isn't because it's what's Islam is really about? Mark LeVine and Mathias Mossberg (eds.), One, Two States: Israel and Palestine as Parallel States; the parallel sovereignty solution. Eric Lichtblau (1965-), The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men (Oct. 28); NYT bestseller; how they recruited and harbored former Nazis to use against the Russians, incl. a possible invasion of the Soviet Union, and covered it up into the 1990s. James Lovelock (1919-), A Rough Ride to the Future. Andrew C. McCarthy, Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case for Obama's Impeachment (May 20); "All presidential lawlessness is not the same....and real impeachment will never happen unless the people are convinced, by the nature of the president's lawlessness, that it must be stopped and that it will not be stopped unless the President is removed from office." Seyed Hossein Mousavian, Iran and the United States: An Insider's View of the Failed Past and the Road to Peace (May). D.M. Murdock (AKA Acharya S) (1960-2015), Did Moses Exist? The Myth of the Israelite Lawgiver (Mar. 27). Mike O'Connor, A Commercial Republic: America's Enduring Debate Over Democratic Capitalism (May 28). Leon Panetta, Worthy Fights; claims that the U.S. should have used more force in Iraq and Syria to stave off ISIS. Amie Parnes and Jonathan Allen, HRC: State Secrets and the Rebirth of Hillary Clinton (Feb. 11); reveals that during the 2008 campaign Hillary Clinton kept an enemies hit list. Michael Paulkovich, No Meek Messiah; cites the lack of mention by 126 1st cent. authors to claim that Jesus Christ never existed. Thomas Piketty (1971-), Capital in the 21st Century (Mar. 10); brilliantly marshals 250 years of economic data to show that ever-increasing inequality is the inevitable outcome of free market capitalism, calling for the global taxation of capital to prevent social upheaval, which becomes an instant internat. bestseller, causing a flood of "Piketty Porn" by his eager believers. Sidney Powell, Licensed to Lie: Exposing Corruption in the Department of Justice (May 1). Akif Princci, Germany Out of Her Senses: The Mad Cult Around Women, Homosexuals, and Immigrants (Mar.). Gareth Porter, Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare. Nomi Prins, All the Presidents' Bankers. Paul Craig Roberts (1939-), How America Was Lost: From 9/11 to the Police/Warfare State. Lisa Robinson, There Goes Gravity: A Life in Rock and Roll (autobio.). Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Jan.). Saxonshieldwall, Rivers of Blood: Why Enoch Powell Was Right! (Nov. 26). Daniel Schulman, Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty (May 20); first bio. of the Koch brothers Frederick, Charles, David, and Bill. Fred Schruers, Billy Joel: The Definitive Biography. Nicolai Sennels, Among Criminal Muslims: A Psychologist's Experience from the Copenhagen Muncipality; "Islam creates monsters." George Soros (1930-) and Gregor Schmitz, The Tragedy of the European Union: Disintegration or Revival?; whining about resurgent xenophobia among Euro whites, who still don't see anything wrong in Europe staying white, but never advocating mass white migration to non-white countries. Robert Spencer (1962-), Arab Winter Comes to America: The Truth About the War We're In (Apr. 14). Roger Stone, Nixon's Secrets: The Rise, Fall and Untold Truth about the President, Watergate, and the Pardon (Aug. 11); the CIA tried to assassinate Nixon like they did JFK? Morten Storm, Paul Cruickshank, and Tim Lister, Agent Storm: My Life Inside Al Qaeda and the CIA. Sir Hew Strachan, The Direction of War; British defense strategist claims that Pres. Obama's foreign policy is a mess; "If anything it's gone backwards instead of forwards... Bush may have had totally fanciful political objectives in terms of trying to fight a global War on Terror, which was inherently astrategic, but at least he had a clear sense of what he wanted to do in the world. Obama has no sense of what he wants to do in the world." Margarita Torres and Jose Manuel Ortega del Rio, Kings of the Grail (Mar.); claims that the real Holy Grail is on display at the San Isidro Basilica in Leon, Spain. Nicholas Wade (1942-), A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History (May 6); claims that race is real, not a social construct, and subject to natural selection, and that political correctness is making the subject of race and genetics taboo in the West, allowing mono-race China to pass it up; too bad, it brings out the PC police. Peter Townsend, Questioning Islam: Tough Questions & Honest Answers About the Muslim Religion (June 26). Stephen Ulph and Patrick Sookhdeo (eds.), Reforming Islam: Progressive Voices from the Arab Muslim World. Richard Vinen, National Service: Conscription in Britain, 1945-1963 (Aug. 28); wins a Wolfson History Prize and Templer Medal. Ibn Warraq (1946-), Christmas in the Koran: Luxenberg, Syriac, and the Near Eastern and Judeo-Christian Background of Islam (Aug. 26). Elizabeth Warren (1949-), A Fighting Chance (autobio.) (Apr. 22); launches her U.S. pres. candidacy? William J. Watkins Jr. and William F. Shughart II, Patent Trolls: Predatory Litigation and the Smothering of Innovation (Aug. 18). Alison Weir, Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel (Feb. 21). Allen West (1961-), Guardian of the Republic (Apr.) (first book). Carrie Rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement. Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957), Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography (posth.); ed. Pamela Smith Hill. Naci Yorulmaz, Arming the Sultan: German Arms Trade and Personal Diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire Before World War I. Eric Zemmour (1958-), The French Suicide (Le Suicide francais); makes him an internat. star; the 3D Theory of Derision, Deconstruction, and Destruction is seen in French politics from 1970-present; since the fall of Napoleon "France is no longer a predator but a prey". Mitchell Zuckoff, 13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi (Sept. 9); filmed in 2016 by Michael Bay. Plays: Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields, The Play That Goes Wrong (comedy) (Duchess Theatre, West End, London) (Sept. 14) (Lyceum Theatre, New York) (Mar. 9, 2017); a production that's plagued with disasters. Alan Menken (1949-), Chad Beguelin (1969-), Howard Ashman (1950-91), and Tim Rice (1944-), Aladdin (musical) (New Amsterdam Theatre, New York) (Mar. 30) (Delfont Mackintosh Theatres, West End, London) (June 15, 2016); based on the 1992 Disney animated film. Poetry: Louise Gluck (1943-), Faithful and Virtuous Night: Poems (Nat. Book Award). Marilyn Hacker (1942-) and Deema Shehabi (1970-), Diaspo/Renga: a collaboration in alternating renga. J.R.R. Tolken (1892-1973) (tr.), Beowolf (posth.); finished in 1926. Novels: M.R. Carey (1959-), The Girl with All the Gifts; bestseller about a world infected with a fungus that turns people into mindless cannibal zombies, but some hybrid children don't lose their minds; filmed in 2016. Robin Cook (1940-), Cell (Feb. 4). Lela Gilbert and W. Jack Buckner, The Levine Affair: Angel's Flight. Liane Moriarty (1966-), Big Little Lies (July); NYT bestseller. B.J. Novak, One More Thing. Joseph O'Connor, The Thrill of It All; Robbie Goulding. J.K. Rowling (1965-), The Silkworm; pub. under alias Robert Galbraith. Charles Stross (1964-), The Lambda Functionary; sequel to "Rule 34" (2011). Akhil Sharma, Family Life; an Indian immigrant family to suburban U.S. in the late 1970s. Timur Vermes, He's Back Again (Er Is Wieder Da); Hitler wakes up in modern-day mongrelized Muslimized multicultural Berlin. Music: AC/DC, Rock or Bust (album); first sans Malcolm Young. Dierks Bentley (1975-), Riser (album #7) (Feb. 25) (#1 country) (#6 in the U.S.); incl. Riser (#8 in the U.S.) (#24 country), I Hold On (#3 country) (#40 in the U.S.), Drunk on a Plane (#3 country) (#27 in the U.S.), Bourbon in Kentucky (#40 country). Johnny Cash (1932-2003), Out Among the Stars (posth.) (album) (Mar. 25) (#1 country) (#3 in the U.S.) (#4 in the U.K.); incl. Out Among the Stars, Baby Ride Easy (w/June Carter), She Used to Love Me a Lot, I'm Movin' On (by Hank Snow) (w/Waylon Jennings). Dan + Shay, Where It All Began (album) (debut) (Apr. 1) (Warner Bros. Records) (#1 country) (#6 in the U.S.); from Nashville, Tenn., incl. Dan Smyers (1987-) (Wexford, Penn.) and James Shay Mooney (1991) (Natural Dam, Ark.) (formerly hooked up with Veronica Ballestrini); incl. 19 You + Me (#7 country) (#42 in the U.S.) (700K copies), Show You Off (#29 country) (100K copies), What You Do to Me (#39 country). Morgan Evans (1984-), Morgan Evans (album) (debut) (#20 ARIA) (#1 Australian country). Phoebe Killdeer (1977-), Fade Out Lines (Sept. 26) (#1 in Germany) (#3 in France); a reworking of "The Fade Out Line", featured in the film "Colombiana" (2011). Maddie and Tae, Maddie & Tae (album) (debut) (Nov. 4) (Dot Records); Maddie Marlow (Sugar Land, Tex.) and Taylor Elizabeth Dye (Ada, Okla.); incl. Girl in a Country Song (#8 country) (#62 in the U.S.) (250K copies). Eric Paslay (1983-), Eric Paslay (album) (debut) (Feb. 4) (#4 country) (#31 in the U.S.) (EMI Records); incl. Friday Night (#6 country) (#47 in the U.S.) (500K copies), Song About A Girl (#18 country) (#12 in the U.S.) (200K copies), She Don't Love You. Bob Seger (1945-), Ride Out (album #14) (Oct. 14) (#172 in the U.S.); incl. It's Your World, about climate change, uttering the soundbyte: "There are a lot of culprits in climate change, and everybody's responsible, myself included. Nobody gets a free pass on this one. We've got to change our ways and change them fast." Blake Shelton (1976-), Bringing Back the Sunshine (album #9) (Aug. 18) (#1 in the U.S., #1 country); incl. Neon Light (#43 in the U.S.) (#1 country), Sangria (#38 in the U.S.) (#1 country). Taylor Swift (1989-), 1989 (album #5) (Oct. 27); (#1 in the U.S.) (9.5M copies); her "first documented official pop album", ditching country; incl. Shake It Off (#1 in the U.S.) (#58 country) (2M copies), Blank Space (#1 in the U.S.), Style (#6 in the U.S.), Bad Blood (w/Kendrick Lamar) (#1 in the U.S.). Cole Swindell (1983-), Cole Swindell (album) (debut) (Feb. 18) (#2 country) (#3 in the U.S.) (Warner Bros. Records); incl. Chillin' It (#1 country) (#28 in the U.S.), Hope You Get Lonely Tonight (#7 country) (#50 in the U.S.). U2, Songs of Innocence (album) (Sept. 9); free distribution by Apple pisses-off millions for clogging their equipment. Movies: Dille Woodruff's Addicted (Oct. 10), based on the bestselling novel by Zane stars Sharon Leal as married nympho Zoe Reynard, Boris Kodjoe as her hubby Jason, Tyson Beckford and William Levy as her lovers, and Tasha Smith as sexual addiction pshrink Dr. Marcella Spencer; does $17.4M box office on a $5M budget. Clint Eastwood's American Sniper (Nov. 11) (Warner Bros.) stars Bradley Cooper as Tex.-raised U.S. Navy SEAL sniper champ Chris Kyle (1974-2013); does $547.4M box office on a $58.8M budget. Jennifer Kent's The Babadook (Jan. 17) (Screen Australia) (Entertainment One) (Umbrella Entertainment) debuts, starring Essie Davis as widow Amelia Vanek, whose 6-y.-o. Samuel "Sam" becomes plagued by an imaginary monster after asking mommy to read the pop-up storybook "Mister Babadook", about a tall pale-faced humanoid monster with taloned fingers who wears a top hat and torments anybody who becomes aware of its existence; "A rumbling sound then three sharp knocks, ba BA-ba DOOK! DOOK! DOOK! That's when you'll know that he's around. You'll see him if you look"; "You can't get rid of the Babadook"; Kent's dir. debut; does $7.5M box office on a $2M budget. Don Hall's and Chris Williams' Big Hero 6 (Oct. 23) is the first Disney animated film to feature Marvel Comics chars.; stars 14-y.-o. robotics genius Hiro Hamada of San Fransokyo, who has to build a superhero team to fight a masked villain; does $546M box office on a $165M budget. Alejandro Inarritu's Birdman or (the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Aug. 27) (Regency Enterprises) (Fox Searchlight Pictures) stars Michael Keaton as washed-up Hollyweird Birdman actor Riggan Thomson, who hopes to revive his career via a Broadway adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story; Emma Stone plays Riggan's daughter Emma Stone; Zach Galifianakis plays his atty. Jake; Edward Norton plays actor Mike Shiner; Naomi Watts plays Mike's girl Lesley; does $103.2M box office on an $18M budget. Richard Linklater's Boyhood (Jan. 19) stars Patricia Arquette as single mom Olivia, who moves to Houston, Tex. to complete her degree, taking 6-y-o. son Mason Evans Jr. (Ellar Coltrane) and older sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater), causing father Ethan Hawke to visit the children, while she hooks up with Prof. Bill Welbrock (Marco Perella), after which the family really becomes dysfunctional over the next 12 years. Michael Almereyda's Cymbeline (Anarchy) (Sept. 3) (Lionsgate), based on the Shakespeare play turned into a war between a biker gang and dirty cops stars Ed Harris as drug kingpin King Cymbeline, Mila Jovovich as Queen, Ethan Hawke as Iachimo, John Leguizamo as Pisanio, and Penn Badgley as orphan Posthumus, who secretly marries Cymbeline's daughter and is banished, while Queen schemes to put her son from a previous marriage onto the the throne in their place; Anton Yelchin plays Cloten, son of Queen by a former hubby; Dakota Johnson plays Imogen, daughter of Cymbline from a previous marriage. Louise Osmond's Dark Horse: The Incredible True Story of Dream Alliance is a British documentary set in South Wales about a racehorse who wins the Welsh Grand National. Neil Burger's Divergent (Mar. 18), based on the 2011 novel by Veronica Roth and set in a future dystopian Chicago stars Shailene Woodley as Beatrice "Tris" Prior, and Theo James as Tobias "Four" Eaton; followed by "Insurgent" (2015), "Allegiant" (2016), "Ascendant" (2017). Bobby Farrelly's and Peter Farrelly's Dumb and Dumber To (Nov. 14), a sequel to "Dumb and Dumber" (1994) stars Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels as Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne, who search for the long-lost children and a new kidney; does $129M box office on a $40M budget. Doug Liman's Edge of Tomorrow (May 28) (Warner Bros.), based on the 2004 novel "All You Need Is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka stars Tom Cruise as Maj. William Cage, Emily Blunt as Pvt. Rita Vrataski, and Bill Paxton as MSgt. Farrell Bartolome, who fight an invasion of W Europe by aliens called Mimics, with Cage getting a dose of alien blood that allows him to loop back in time one day until he hunt down the Omega hive mind; does $370.5M box office on a $178M budget; "Live. Die. Repeat." Joe Lynch's Everly (Sept. 20) (iTunes) stars Salma Hayek (after Kate Hudson bows out)( as a Yakuza sex slave who is caught being a police mole, causing mob boss Taiko (Hiroyuki Watanabe) to order the murder of her entire family incl. mother Edith (Laura Cepeda) and cute young daughter Maisey (Aisha Ayaman); Togo Igawa plays Tako's asst. The Sadist. Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods & Kings (Dec. 12) (20th Cent. Fox) stars TLW, er, Christian Bale as Moses, Joel Edgerton as Rameses II, John Turturro as Seti I, Aaron Paul as Joshua, Sigourney Weaver as Tuya, and Ben Kingsley as Nun; banned by Egypt, with the soundbyte "Jews didn't build pyramids"; does $107M box office on a $140M budget. Amy J. Berg's Every Secret Thing (Apr. 20) (Hyde Park Entertainment), based on the 2004 Laura Lippman novel and produced by Frances McDormand stars Dakota Fanning and Danielle Macdonald as preetens Ronnie Fuller and Alice Manning, who kidnap and murder the 3-y.-o. biracial granddaughter of the county's first black judge; Diane Lane plays mother Helen Manning. Josh Boone's The Fault in Our Stars (May 16) (Temple Hill Entertainment), based on the 2012 John Green novel stars Shailene Woodley as 16-y.-o. cancer patient Hazel Grace Lancaster; does $256M box office on a $12M budget. Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher (May 19) (Sony Pictures) stars Steve Carrell as big-nosed philanthropist John E. du Pont, ignoring his mother Jean du Pont (Vanessa Redgrave), who disses wrestling as a "low sport" and helping the U.S. Olympic wrestling team recruit the Schultz brothers Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) to train on his 800-acre Foxcatcher Farm near Philly to win medals at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, after which in Jan. 1996 he freaks and murders Dave after his mother dies; does $13.6M box office on a $24M budget; "Ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist". David Ayer's Fury (Oct. 15) (Columbia Pictures) stars a U.S. Army 2nd Armored Div. Sherman Easy Eight tank named Fury, manned by U.S. SSGt. Don "Wardaddy" Collier (Brad Pitt), gunner Boyd "Bible" Swan (Shia LaBeouf), Grady "Coon-Ass" Travis (Jon Bernthal), Trini "Gordo" Garcia (Michael Pena), and raw recruit Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), painting Nazis as patriotic gung-ho vermin and Americans as superheroes; does $211.8M box office on a $68M budget. Rupert Wyatt's The Gambler (Nov. 10) (Paramount Pictures), based on the 1974 film stars Mark Wahlberg as L.A. lit. prof. Jim Bennett, who suffers from a severe gambling addiction, ending up owing big bucks to Frank (John Goodman) and Lee (Alvin Ing); Brie Larson plays his babe Amy Phillips; the final film role of George Kennedy as Ed; does $39.3M box office on a $31M budget. Phillip Noyce's The Giver (Aug. 15), based on the 1993 Lois Lowry novel stars Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites, and Taylor Swift. Gareth Edwards' Godzilla (May 15) returns to the terrifying force of nature theme a la the original Toho series. Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (Feb. 6), filmed in Germany stars Ralph Fiennes as concierge M. Gustave H., who teams up with one of his employees to prove his innocence after he is framed for murder. Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (Dec. 1) (New Line Cinema) (MGM) (WingNut Films) (Warner Bros.) stars Martin Freeman and Ian Holm as Bilbo Baggins, Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey, Richard Armitage as dwarf king Thorin Oakenshield, Orlando Bloom as Legolas Greenleaf, Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel, Lee Pace as elf king Thranduil (who rides on a domesticated elk), Billy Connolly as dwarf leader Dain Ironfoot (who rides on a giant boar), and Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman; Smaug goes down way too fast and easy at the beginning, and all the giants fall too easy and fast later?; does $956M box office on a $250M budget. Tommy Lee Jones' The Homesman (May 18) (Saban Films), based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout stars Hilary Swank as homely single middle age Neb. woman Mary Bee Cuddy, and Jones as claim jumper George Briggs, who escorts her to Iowa; John Lithgow plays Rev. Dowd. Lasse Hallstrom's The Hundred-Foot Journey (Aug. 8) (Touchstone Pictures), based on the 2010 novel by Richard C. Morais about feuding restaurants located 100 ft. apart stars Helen Mirren as French restaurant owner Madame Mallory, Om Puri as rival Indian restaurant owner Papa, Manish Dayal as Chef Hassan Haji, and Charlotte Le Bon as Chef Marguerite; does $88.9M box office on a $22M budget. Stuart Beattie's I, Frankenstein (Jan. 24) (Lakeshore Entertainment) (Lionsgate), based on the graphic novel by Kevin Grevious set in 1795 stars Aaron Eckhart as monster Adam, created by Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Aden Young), who chases him to the Arctic after he kills his wife Elizabeth (Virginie Le Brun), where he gets into a war between demons, led by Prince Naberius (Bill Nighy) and gargoyles, led by Queen Leonore (Miranda Otto) and Cmdr. Gideon (Jai Courtney); does $71.2M box office on a $65M budget. Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game (Aug. 29) (Black Bear Pictures) (Weinstein Co.) stars Benedict Cumberbatch as British cryptoanalyst Alan Turing, and Keira Knightley as his babe Joan Clarke, attempting to cover-up his homosexuality?; does $233.6M box office on a $14M budget. Christopher Nolan's Interstellar (Oct. 26) (Paramount Pictures) (Warner Bros.), co-written by Jonathan Nolan stars Matthew McConaughey as Joseph "Coop" Cooper, Anne Hathaway as Amelia Brand, David Gyasi as Romilly, and Wes Bentley as Doyle, a crew of astronauts traveling through a wormhole orbiting Saturn provided by 5th Dimensional aliens to find a new habitable planet before Earth's pop. implodes; Jessica Chastain plays Cooper's daughter Murph(y); Michael Caine plays Prof. Brand; John Lithgow plays Donald; Casey Affleck plays Tom Cooper; does $675.1M box office on a $165M budget. Evan Goldberg's and Seth Rogen's The Interview (Dec. 11) (Columbia Pictures), written by Dan Sterling stars Rogen and James Franco as Am. journalists on a mission to assassinate North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un (Randall Park) during an interview; after hacker threats against parent co. Sony Pictures, it is pulled from theaters on Dec. 17; on Dec. 19 the FBI announces that North Korea is behind the hacking, after which North Korea claims that the U.S. shut down its Internet, denying the Sony incident and calling Pres. Obama a monkey on Dec. 27; too bad, the film portrayed Jong-un as a likeable guy? Chad Stahelski's and David Leitch's John Wick (Sept. 19) (Thunder Road Pictures) (Summit Entertainment), a Gun-Fu hit starring Keanu Reeves as a retired hitman known as Baba Yaga (the Boogeyman) whose vintage car is stolen and his new puppy killed that his recently-deceased wife Helen (Bridget Moynahan) left him by Russian gangster Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen), son of crime boss Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist), causing him to go on a revenge tour and end up killing 76 people to get to the one he wants; also stars Ian McShane as Continental Hotel owner Winston, John Leguizamo as chop shop owner Aurelio, Dean Winters as Viggo's lt. Avi, Willem Dafoe as Wick's mentor Marcus, and Adrianne Palicki as hit woman Ms. Perkins; does $88.8M box office on a $30M budget; followed by "John Wick: Chapter 2" (2017); Wick has the Latin inscription "Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat" tattooed on his back, which the movie claims means "Fortune Favors the Bold", when it actually is an ancient pagan saying that means that the Goddess Fortuna helps only the strong, the exact opposite of the Biblical saying "The meek shall inherit the Earth". Renny Harlin's The Legend of Hercules (Jan. 10) (Millennium Films) (Summit Entertainment) stars studly Kellan Lutz as Alcides, son of bad king Amphitryon of Tiryns ca. 1200 B.C.E. who falls for Princess Hebe of Crete (Gaia Weiss), who is betrothed to Iphicles (Liam Garrigan), and finds out that his real name is you know what; does $61.3M box office on a $70M budget. Ira Sachs' Love Is Strange (Sony Pictures) (Jan. 18) stars John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as gay couple Ben and George, who get married after 39 years together, causing George to be fired from his Roman Catholic school, causing them to split. Luc Besson's Lucy (July 25) (Universal) stars Scarlett Johannson as 25-y.-o. Am. woman Lucy, who lives in Taipei, and is tricked into become a drug mule by her beau, getting a massive dose of new synthetic drug CPH4, which turns her into a telepathic Amazon babe; does $270M box office on a $40M budget. Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight (July 25) stars Colin Firth as medium-exposing skeptic Stanley Crawford, who investigates gorgeous medium Emma Stone, and falls for her as well as her act; does $51M box office on a $16.8M budget. Wes Ball's The Maze Runner (Sept. 19) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 2007 James Dashner novel and filmed in Baton Rouge, La. stars Dylan O'Brien as 16-y.-o. Thomas, who is given amnesia and sent in the Box (a rusty elevator) to the Glade, a clearing inside a gigantic moving stone maze, where 30+ other boys are trapped and have to live like primitives, led by Alby (Aml Ameen), incl. Chuck (Blake Cooper), Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), Gally (Will Poulter), Minho (Ki Hong Lee), and Ben (Chris Sheffield); each day a door opens into the maze, allowing Runners to be sent in to try and find a way out; at night it closes, and anybody trapped inside is killed by giant spiders called Grievers; after Thomas becomes the first to kill a Griever, the first girl, Teresa (Kaya Scodelario) arrives, helping Thomas to regain his memory and remember that he and her were working for the creators, and that it is all a test, after which they finally find a way out of the maze and end up in the lab, where terrorists have killed all the personnel, and rescue them, taking them outside, revealing that the world is a vast desert with a scorching Sun; does $150M on a $34M budget. Karen Leigh Hopkins' Miss Meadows (Apr. 21) stars Katie Holmes as tap-dancing suburban first grade school teacher Mary Meadows, who is also a pistol-packing vigilante with issues with her mama, causing her to wear old-fashioned dresses and speak old-fashioned speech while popping-off perverts, hooking up with local sheriff James Badge Dale, who makes her pregnant and proposes, while suspecting her; meanwhile released pervert Skylar (Callan Mulvey) hovers over her kids, tying the plot into a neat bow; "Be careful" (sheriff); "I always am" (Meadows). Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner (May 15) (Film4) (Focus Features Internat.) (Thin Man Films) stars Timothy Spall as English Romantic painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) in his last 25 horny crotchety years; does $17.8M box office on an ÂŁ8.4M budget. George Clooney's The Monuments Men (Feb. 7), based on a book by Robert M. Edsel about an Allied group tasked with saving artwork from Hitler at the end of WWII stars Clooney as George Stout, Matt Damon as Lt. James Rorimer, Bill Murray as Capt. Rich Campbell, and John Goodman as Capt. Walter Garfield. Roger Donaldson's The November Man (Aug. 27) (Relativity Media), based on the novel "There Are No Spies" by Bill Granger stars Pierce Brosnan as ex-CIA agent Peter H. Devereaux, who must protect witness Alice Fournier (Olga Kurylenko) from his former CIA boss John Hanley (Bill Smitrovich) and his henchman David Mason (Luke Bracey); Will Patton plays CIA station chief Perry Weinstein; does $34.8M box office on a $15M budget; "Know what we used to call you Peter? The November Man. Cause after you passed through, nothing lived. You were one bleak motherfucker my friend." (Hanley) Edward Zwick's Pawn Sacrifice (Sept. 11) (Gail Katz Productions) stars Tobey Maguire as chess champ Bobby Fischer, Liev Schrieber as his arch-rival Boris Spassky, and Peter Sarsgaard as Fischer's second Father William Lombardy; "You have Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon calling Bobby Fischer; you have Brezhnev and the KGB agents following Boris Spassky. Both of these men were pawns of their nations" (Zwick); does $5.6M box office on a $19M budget. Luis Estrada's The Perfect Dictatorship (Oct. 16) (Bandidos Films); Mexican state gov. Carmelo Vargas (Damian Alcazar) pays TV network MX to coverup his corruption, getting elected pres. of Mexico, channeling Enrique Pena Nieto and Televisa; "Any resemblance or similarity to reality is not mere coincidence"; #1 box office hit in Mexico ($14M box office). James DeMonaco's The Purge: Anarchy (July 18) (Platinum Dunes) is a sequel to the 2013 film; does $111M box office on a $9M budget. Ava DuVernay's Selma (Dec. 25) (Harpo Films), based on the 1965 Selma-Montgomery Marches stars David Oyelowo as MLK Jr., Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, and Tom Wilkinson as LBJ. Sergei Bodrov's Seventh Son (Dec. 17) (China Film Group) (Legendary Pictures) (Universal Pictures) stars Jeff Bridges as roving witch hunter John Gregory AKA the Spook, last member of the Falcon knights, Ben Barnes as Tom Ward, the 7th son of a 7th son, Julianna Moore as evil witch Mother Malkin, and Alicia Vikander as Tom's babe Alice Deane; Antje Traue plays Malkin's sister Bony Lizzie, mother of Alice; does $114.2M box office on a $95M budget. Richard Glatzer's and Wash Westmoreland's Still Alice (Sept. 8), based on the 2007 novel by Lisa Genova stars Julianne Moore as a Columbia U. linguistics prof. diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, showing her systematically turning into sponge cake; Alec Baldwin plays her hubby John. James Marsh's The Theory of Everything (Sept. 7) (Focus Features) (Universal Pictures), written by Anthony McCarten based on the memoir "Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen" by Jane Wilde Hawking stars Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking, and Felicity Jones as his babe Jane Wilde; does $123.7M box office on a $15M budget. Wally Pfister's Transcendence (Apr. 18) stars Johnny Depp as terminally-ill AI genius Dr. Will Caster, who creates a god machine and uploads his mind into it. Marjane Satrapi's The Voices (Jan. 19) (1984 Private Defense Contractor) (Lionsgate) is a dark comedy starring Ryan Reynolds as bathtub factory worker Jerry, who lives above an abandoned bowling alley with his dog Bosco and cat Mr. Whiskers, who talk to him while he goes on a killing spree with Lisa (Anna Kendrick), Fiona (Gemma Arterton), Alison (Ella Smith), cutting up their bodies and storing their heads in his refrigerator so they can talk him to, while he bares his soul to pshrink Dr. Warren (Jacki Weaver); does only $444K box office on an $11M budget. Scott Frank's A Walk Among the Tombstones (Sept. 19) (Cross Creek Pictures) (Universal Pictures), based on the 1992 novel by Lawrence Block is a film noir starring Liam Needson as retired detective Matthew "Matt" Scudder, who searches for the brutal murderers of women in New York City; Laura Birn plays victim Leila Andresen; Dan Stevens play drug dealer Kenny Kristo; Brian "Astro" Bradlay plays black vegeterian T.J.; Olafur Darri Olafsson plays cemetery groundskeeper Jonas Loogan; does $62.1M box office on a $28M budget. Thomas Carter's When the Game Stands Tall (Aug. 4) (TriStar Pictures), based on the 2003 book by Neil Hayes about the 1992-2003 De La Salle H.S. football team in Concord, Calif. stars Jim Caviezel as coach Bob Ladouceur, Laura Dern as his wife Bev, Michael Chiklas as asst. coach Terry Eidson, and Alexander Ludwig as RB Chris Ryan; does $30M box office on a $15M budget. Damien Chazelle's Whiplash (Jan. 16) (Bold Films) (blumhouse Productions) (Sony Pictures Classics), based on a jazz piece by Hank Levy stars Miles Teller as jazz drummer Andrew Neiman, who attends the Shaffer Conservatory in New York City and aspires to become a jazz great under the brutal regime of teacher Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons); "I will gut you like a pig. You are a worthless pansy who is now weeping and slobbering over my drum set like a 9-year-old girl"; "I'd rather die drunk, broke at 34 and have people at a dinner table talk about me than live to be rich and sober at 90 and nobody remembered who I was"; stars Miles Teller as jazz drummer Andrew Neiman, who attends the Shaffer Conservatory in New York City and tries to become a jazz great under the brutal regime of teacher Terence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons); "I will gut you like a pig. You are a worthless pansy who is now weeping and slobbering over my drum set like a 9-year-old girl"; "I'd rather die drunk, broke at 34 and have people at a dinner table talk about me than live to be rich and sober at 90 and nobody remembered who I was"; "I don't think people understood what it was I was doing at Shaffer. I wasn't there to conduct. Any fucking moron can wave his arms and keep people in tempo. I was there to push people beyond what's expected of them. I believe that is an absolute necessity. Otherwise, we're depriving the world of the next Louis Armstrong. The next Charlie Parker"; "Are you a rusher, or are you a dragger, or are you gonna be on my fucking time?"; "There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job"; "Full Metal Juilliard"; features a cool jazz drum solo; does $49M box office on a $3.3M budget. Births: Swedish heiress Princess Leonore of Sweden, Duchess of Gotland on Feb. 20 in New York City; eldest child of Princess Madeleine and Christopher O'Neill; holds dual Swedish-U.S. citizenship. Deaths: Am. "Annie Johnson in Imitation of Life" actress Juanita Moore (b. 1914) on Jan. 1 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. Everly Brothers singer Phil Everly (b. 1939) on Jan. 3 in Burbank, Calif. Am. black activist poet Amiri Baraka (b. 1934) on Jan. 9 in Newark, N.J. Israeli PM #11 (2001-6) Ariel Sharon (b. 1928) on Jan. 11 in Ramat Gan; dies after an 8-year coma; his death will signal the return of the Jewish Messiah, according to Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri. Am. "The Professor in Gilligan's Island" Russell Johnson (b. 1924) on Jan. 16 in Bainbridge Island, Wash. (kidney failure). Canadian-born Am. "Reuben Kincaid in The Partridge Family" actor Dave Madden (b. 1931) on Jan. 16 in Jacksonville, Fla. (cancer). Russian climate scientist Yuri Izrael (b. 1930) on Jan. 23 in Moscow. Am. basketball player Tom Gola (b. 1933) on Jan. 26 in Philadelphia, Penn. Am. folk singer Pete Seeger (b. 1919) on Jan. 27 in New York City. Am. poet-artist Rene Ricard (b. 1946) on Feb. 1 in New York City (cancer). Am. "Capote" actor Philip Seymour Hoffman (b. 1967) on Feb. 2 in Manhattan, N.Y. (OD); Broadway dims its lights in his honor - aw shucks, he missed the Super Bowl? Israeli journalist Barry Rubin (b. 1950) on Feb. 3 in Tel Aviv (lung cancer). Am. baseball hall-of-fame player Ralph Kiner (b. 1922) on Feb. 6 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Am. poet Maxine Kumin (b. 1925) on Feb. 6 in Warner, N.H. Am. child movie star Shirley Temple (b. 1928) on Feb. 10 in Woodside, Calif. Am. comedian Sid Caesar (b. 1922) on Feb. 12 in Beverley Hills, Calif. Am. "Ralph Monroe in Green Acres" actress Mary Grace Canfield (b. 1924) on Feb. 15 in Santa Barbara, Calif. South African geneticist Anthony Clifford Allison (b. 1925) on Feb. 20 in Belmont, Calif. Armenian astronomer Grigor Burzadyan (b. 1922) on Feb. 22 in Yerevan. Am. "Ghostbusters" actor Harold Ramis (b. 1944) on Feb. 24 in Chicago, Ill. (vasculitis). Spanish flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia (b. 1947) on Feb. 25 in Playa del Carmen, Mexico (heart attack). Am. writer Justin Kaplan (b. 1925) on Mar. 2. Am. political scientist Rudolph Rummel (b. 1932) on Mar. 2 in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Am. surgeon Frank Jobe (b. 1925) on Mar. 6 in Santa Monica, Calif. Am. "Alice Kramden in The Jackie Gleason Show" actress Sheila MacRae (b. 1921) on Mar. 6 in Englewood, N.J. Am. diplomat Samuel Winfield Lewis (b. 1930) on Mar. 10. Am. Korean War hero Col. Ola Lee Mize (b. 1931) on Mar. 12. U.S. defense secy. #12 (1973-5) James Rodney Schlesinger (b. 1929) on Mar. 27 in Baltimore, Md. U.S. Adm. Jeremiah Denton (b. 1924) on Mar. 28 in Virginia Beach, Va. English "Caress Morell in Dynasty" actress Kate O'Mara (b. 1939) on Mar. 30 in Sussex (ovarian cancer). Am. comic book artist Fred Kida (b. 1920) on Apr. 3. Am. actor Mickey Rooney (b. 1920) on Apr. 6 in Los Angeles, Calif. English TV journalist Peaches Geldof (b. 1989) on Apr. 7 in Wrotham, Kent. Am. prof. wrestler the Ultimate Warrior (b. 1959) on Apr. 8 in Scottsdale, Ariz. (heart attack). Am. writer Gregory White Smith (b. 1951) on Apr. 10 in Aiken, S.C. (brain cancer). Am. basketball player Lou Hudson (b. 1944) on Apr. 11 in Atlanta, Ga. (stroke); served as an ambassador for the Power to End Stroke org. French writer Pierre Autin-Grenier (b. 1947) on Apr. 12 in Lyon. Romanian poet Nina Cassian (b. 1924) on Apr. 15 in New York City (cardiac arrest). Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez (b. 1927) on Apr. 17 in Mexico City, Mexico: "Think of love as a state of grace not as a means to anything... but an end in itself." English playwright-actor Anthony Marriott (b. 1931) on Apr. 17. Am. boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (b. 1937) on Apr. 20 in Toronto, Ont., Canada. Am. Mr. Coffee co-inventor Edmund Abel (b. 1921) on Apr. 21 in Rocky River, Ohio. English "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" actor Bob Hoskins (b. 1942) on Apr. 29 in London (pneumonia). Am. "Stu Bailey in 77 Sunset Strip" actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (b. 1918) on May 2 in Solvang, Calif. Ukrainian-born British tennis player Elena Baltacha (b. 1983) on May 4 (liver cancer). Swiss "Alien" artist H.R. Giger (b. 1940) on May 12 in Zurich; dies of injuries from a fall. Am. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" poet Maya Angelou (b. 1928) on May 28 in Winston-Salem, N.C.: "One would say of my life, born loser, had to be, from a broken family, raped at eight, unwed mother of sixteen"; "History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." Canadian basketball player Bob Houbregs (b. 1932) on May 28 in Olympia, Wash. Am. "The Godfather" cinematographer Gordon Willis (b. 1931) on May 18 in North Falmouth, Mass. (cancer). Czech-born Am. climate scientist George Kukla (b. 1930) on May 31 in Suffern, N.Y. (heart attack). Am. "Alice Nelson in The Brady Bunch" actress Ann B. Davis (b. 1926) on June 1 in San Antonio, Tex. Polish-born Am. world's oldest man Alexander Imich (b. 1903) on June 8 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. baseball pitcher Bob Welch (b. 1956) on June 9 in Seal Beach, Calif. Am. American Top 40 disc jockey Casey Kasem (b. 1932) on June 15 in Gig Harbor, Wash. Am. "Flowers for Algernon" novelist Daniel Keyes (b. 1927) on June 15 in Boca Raton, Fla. (pneumonia). Am. baseball hall-of-fame player Tony Gwynn (b. 1960) on June 16 in Poway, Calif. (cancer from snuff). Australian businessman Ray Evans (b. 1939) on June 17 in Melbourne. Am. country singer Jimmy C. Newman (b. 1927) on June 21 in Nashville, Tenn. Italian physicist Bruno Zumino (b. 1923) on June 21 in Berkeley, Calif. Lebanese-born Am. scholar Fouad A. Ajami (b. 1945) on June 22 in Maine (prostate cancer). English science writer Nigel Calder (b. 1931) on June 25. Spanish novelist Ana Maria Matute (b. 1925) on June 25 (heart attack). Am. Repub. politician Howard Baker (b. 1925) on June 26 in Huntsville, Tenn. (stroke). Am. musician Bobby Womack (b. 1944) on June 27 in Tarzana, Calif. German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler (b. 1931) on July 5 in Bielefeld. Polish-born Canadian real estate tycoon David Azrieli (b. 1922) on July 9 in Montreal, Quebec. English "Help!" "Superman II/III" film composer Ken Thorne (b. 1924) on July 9 in West Hills, Calif. Am. writer Curt Gentry (b. 1931) on July 10 in San Francisco, Calif. Am. historian James MacGregor Burns (b. 1918) on July 15 in Williamstown, Mass. Am. "Bret Maverick" actor James Garner (b. 1928) on July 19 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. country singer George Riddle (b. 1936) on July 20 in Indianapolis, Ind. English economist John Blundell (b. 1952) on July 22. Am. nightclub owner Manny Roth (b. 1919) on July 24 in Ojai, Calif. Am. White House press. secy. #15 (1981-9) (gun control symbol) Jim Brady (b. 1940) on Aug. 4 in Alexandria, Va. U.S. Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene (b. 1959) on Aug. 5 in Qamp Qargha, Kabul, Afghanistan (KIA). Israeli dir.-producer Menahem Golan (b. 1929) on Aug. 9 in Jaffa. Am. "Good Morning, Vietnam" actor-comedian Robin Williams (b. 1951) on Aug. 11 in Paradise Cay, Calif.; commits suicide by hanging in his home near Tiburon, Calif.; he had been experiencing depression from alcoholism rehabiliation, and was recently diagnosed with Parkinson's, although he really had Lewy body dementia; "Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien, but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us cry. He gave his immeasurable talent freely and generously to those who needed it most - from our troops stationed abroad to the marginalized on our own streets" (Pres. Obama): "Cocaine is God's way of telling you you are making too much money." Am. actress Lauren Bacall (b. 1924) on Aug. 12 in New York City (stroke). Am. diplomat John Edwin Mroz (b. 1948) on Aug. 15 in Manhattan, N.Y. (cancer). Am. serial murderer Robert Christian Hansen (b. 1939) on Aug. 21 in Seward, Alaska. English composer Sandy Wilson (b. 1924) on Aug. 27 in Taunton. Am. Survivor lead singer Jimi Jamison (b. 1951) on Aug. 31 in Raleigh, Memphis, Tenn. (heart attack). Argentine rocker Gustavo Cerati (b. 1959) on Sept. 4 in Buenos Aires (stroke and coma on May 14, 2010). Am. comedian Joan Rivers (b. 1933) on Sept. 4 in Manhattan, N.Y. (cardiac arrest). Am. Chick-fil-A founder Samuel Truett Cathy (b. 1921) on Sept. 8 in Clayton County, Ga. Am. jazz musician Gerald Wilson (b. 1918) on Sept. 8 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. musician-producer Bob Crewe (b. 1930) on Sept. 11 in Scarborough, Maine. English actor Sir Donald Sinden (b. 1923) on Sept. 12 in Wittersham, Isle of Oxney, Kent (prostate cancer). Irish Protestant leader Rev. Ian Paisley (b. 1926) on Sept. 12 in Belfast. Am. country musician George Hamilton IV (b. 1937) on Sept. 17 in Nashville, Tenn. (heart attack). Israeli spy Mike Harari (b. 1927) on Sept. 21 in Tel Aviv. Am. mountaineer Barbara Washburn (b. 1914) on Sept. 25. Haitian pres. (1971-86) Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier (b. 1951) on Oct. 4 in Port-au-Prince (heart attack). Am. Paul Revere and the Raiders founder Paul Revere Dick (b. 1938) on Oct. 4 in Caldwell, Idaho. French novelist Claude Ollier (b. 1922) on Oct. 18. Dominican-born Am. fashion designer Oscar de la Renta (b. 1932) on Oct. 20 in Kent, Conn. (cancer). Am. Washington Post executive ed. (1968-91) Ben Bradlee (b. 1921) on Oct. 21 in Washington, D.C. Scottish Cream rocker Jack Bruce (b. 1943) on Oct. 25 in Suffolk, England (liver disease). Dominican baseball outfielder Oscar Taveras (b. 1992) on Oct. 26 in Puerto Plata (automobile accident). Am. poet Galway Kinnell (b. 1927) on Oct. 28 in Sheffield, Vt. Am. economist Gordon Tullock (b. 1922) on Nov. 3 in Des Moines, Iowa. German physicist Gerhard Gerlich (b. 1942) on Nov. 8. Am. screenwriter Ernest Kinoy (b. 1925) on Nov. 10 in Townshend, Vt. Am. Chicago mayor #40 (1979-83) Jane Byrne (b. 1933) on Nov. 14 in Chicago, Ill. (stroke). Am. film critic Charles Champlin (b. 1926) on Nov. 16 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. KFC franchisee #1 (1952) Pete Harman (b. 1919) on Nov. 19 in Los Altos, Calif. Am. "The Graduate" dir. Mike Nichols (b. 1931) on Nov. 19 in New York City (heart attack). Am. Washington, D.C. mayor (1979-91, 1995-9) Marion Barry (b. 1936) on Nov. 23 in Washington, D.C. English Small Faces musician Ian McLagan (b. 1945) on Dec. 3 in Austin, Tex. (stroke). Belgian queen (1960-93) Fabiola (b. 1928) on Dec. 5 in Laeken. German-born Am. video game developer Ralph Henry Baer (b. 1922) on Dec. 6 in Manchester, N.H. Am. Miss America 1959 Mary Ann Mobley (b. 1937) on Dec. 9 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (breast cancer). Am. Miss America 1945 Bess Myerson (b. 1924) on Dec. 14 in Santa Monica, Calif. Am. writer Carleton Mabee (b. 1914) on Dec. 18. Welsh Profumo Affair model-showgirl Mandy Rice-Davies (b. 1944) on Dec. 18 London, England (cancer). Am. basketball coach Frank Truitt (b. 1925) on Dec. 21 in Columbus, Ohio. English singer Joe Cocker (b. 1944) on Dec. 22 in Crawford, Colo. (lung cancer). Am. Denver, Colo. mayor #39 (1963-8) Tom Currigan (b. 1920) on Dec. 27 in Chicago, Ill. Am. "narrator of The History Channel" actor Edward Herrmann (b. 1943) on Dec. 31 in Manhattan, N.Y. (brain cancer).
2015 Doomsday Clock: 3 min. to midnight. Chinese Year: Ram (Sheep) (Goat) (Feb. 19). Time Mag. Person of the Year: Angela Merkel (1954-). This is the U.N. Year of Soils. The U.S. nat. debt reaches $18T this year, greater than its GDP. Tokyo becomes the largest city in the world, with a pop. of 29M, followed by Mumbai (Bombay) 22.6, Lagos 25, Delhi 20.9, Mexico City 20.6, Sao Paulo 20, Istanbul 12, Paris 10, Manila 10, Rio de Janeiro 10, Moscow 9; the number of cities with 5M inhabitants reaches 61 (46 in 2003) (U.N. Dept. of Economic and Social Affairs). U.S. Muslim pop.: 3.5M (1%). By this year China has 100 nuclear missiles aimed at the U.S. (CIA). In the U.S. 527K of 45M illegals overstay their visas, incl. 14K of 900K from India. By the middle of this year the middle class becomes a minority in the U.S.? The Great Muslim Immigration to Europe begins, backed all the way by globalist billionaire George Soros, with the general plan of breaking the back of all nationalist govts. and disintegrating the solid white core that he blames for Fascism, esp. in guess-where Germany; Greece suffer 815K illegal migrants coming in over the Aegean Sea in dangerous ships or over the Turkish border, which goes down to 30K in 2017 after the EU talks the govt. of Turkey into stepping up containment efforts aided by a multi-billion-euro bribe partly financed by the U.K.; in 2018 the migrants shift to the Evros River in East Thrace. The Year of Anti-Christian Jihad; the most Islamist terrorist cases in the U.S. this year since 9/11, causing the terror threat level to skyrocket. 9K Jews leave France for Israel, vs. 1,920 in 2012. Germany receives 890K refugees, mostly from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, plus some from Africa. There are 2,602 acid attacks in Britain between now and May 2018, an avg. of 15/week, vs. 100 in 2007-2011; 73% are in Muslim-filled Londonin 2017 London is crowned the World Acid Attack Capital; the first prosecution for a deadly acid attack doesn't take place until 2018. The Taliban perpetrates 1,093 terrorist attacks this year, passing ISIS (with 931), although the latter's are more deadly (6,050 vs. 4,512 deaths); Boko Haram stages 491 terrorist attacks, killing 5,450. The Am. Dialect Society selects "they" as the word of the year for the way it can get around having to use him/her with gays, transsexuals etc. The first day of the Jewish Passover falls during a blood-red moon; last 1492, 1948, 1967, 2014. Iraq increases crude oil production to 4M barrels/day, making it the world's #2 OPEC oil producer behind Saudi Arabia. Germany accepts 1M+ refugees from the Middle East, incl. Syria, Iraq, and Turkey. The richest 1% control more wealth than the rest of the world for the first time. This year no one summits Mount Everest (last year of no summits: 1974). On Jan. 1 the 2015 Rose Bowl sees the U. of Oregon defeat Florida State 59-20. On Jan. 1 the first day of the Afghan security takeover is marred by an Afghan army rocket attack on a wedding party in Lashkar Gah, Afghanistan, which kills 28 incl. many women and children; the Afghan govt. launches an investigation. On Jan. 1 a stampede during a New Year's event in Shanghai, China kills 36 and injures 47. On Jan. 1 a video is released claiming to show two Italian women being held by the Al Nusra Front in Syria. On Jan. 1 Egyptian pres. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi gives a New Year's Day Speech, in which he calls for a reform of Islam, with the soundbyte that the "corpus of [Islamic] texts and ideas that we have sacralized over the years" are "antagonizing the entire world", and that it is not "possible that 1.6 billion people should want to kill the rest of the world's inhabitants so that they themselves may live"; also that the Muslim World "is being torn, is being destroyed, it is being lost - and it is being lost by our own hands." On Jan. 1 Gen. Hulusi Akar (1952-) becomes CIC #29 of the Turkish army (until ?). On Jan. 2 Palestinian Authority U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour officially requests membership in the Internat. Criminal Court (ICC), with the soundbyte: "We are seeking justice for all the victims that have been killed by Israel, the occupying power"; Israel retaliates by withholding $127M in tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority, while the U.S. Congress threatens action; on Jan. 7 U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon announces that they will join the ICC on Apr. 1. On Jan. 2 Pres. Obama announces new sanctions on North Korea for its hacking of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. On Jan. 2 Al-Shabaab militants attack a military base near Baidoa, Somalia two days after the U.S. announces the killing of its intel chief Tahlil Abdishakur in a drone strike. On Jan. 2 the U.N. Security Council orders the rebel Dem. Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) in Congo to surrender by this date or face the DRC army and U.N. peacekeepers; when they refuse, the attack begins in late Feb. On Jan. 3 the Repub.-dominated 114th U.S. Congress convenes (until Jan. 3, 2017), becoming the worst nightmare of Pres. Obama in his final two years in office; on Jan. 3 U.S. Sen. (R-Ky.) (1985-) Addison Mitchell "Mitch" McConnell Jr. (1942-) becomes Senate majority leader (until ?); on Jan. 6 U.S. Repub. House Speaker John Boehner is reelected for a 3rd term despite a Tea Party challenge that produces the most no votes against a sitting speaker since 1923; Cory Scott Gardner (1974-) becomes U.S. Repub. Sen. from Colo. (until ?); Joni Kay Ernst (nee Culver) (1970-) becomes U.S. Repub. Sen. from Iowa (until ?), becoming the first female military vet in the U.S. Senate. On Jan. 3 Boko Haram seizes a key military base in Baga, Nigeria on the border with Chad, massacring the town and killing 2K, becoming their deadliest massacre; the 16th town razed. On Jan. 4 (Sun.) Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas announces that he will resubmit his resolution calling for the creation of a Palestinian state to the U.N. Security Council, "perhaps after a week", causing Franc to warn him against escalating a diplomatic battle with Israel. On Jan. 5 after crude oil dips below $50 a barrel, the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. falls 350 points. On Jan. 5 Saudi Brig. Gen. Oud Awad Al Balawi is killed in a suicide attack near the Saudi-Iraqi border, becoming the first deadly attack since the Saudis joined the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS. On Jan. 5 a suicide car bomber hits an EU police vehicle in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing one passerby. On Jan. 5 OIC secy.-gen. Iyad Madani of Saudi Arabia visits the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, declaring the "Islamic Tourism Year" for Jerusalem, pissing-off Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, who call for a boycott on Israeli tourism and for attacks on the city, which they can't do if it's thronged with Muslims. On Jan. 6 after months of rumors, Qatar expels Hamas politburo chief (George Clooney lookalike?) Khaled Mashaal along with Muslim Brotherhood members; they head to Hamas-loving Turkey. On Jan. 6 Pres. Obama meets with Mexican pres. Enrique Pena Nieto at the White House, asking him to work harder to stop illegals from crossing da big bad border. On Jan. 6 a female suicide bomber detonates at a police station in Istanbul, Turkey, killing one policeman and injuring another. On Jan. 7 (11:30 a.m. local time) the Charlie Hebdo Massacre sees a terrorist attack by black-hooded vest-wearing Allah Akbar-shouting Kalashnikov-carrying Muslim al-Qaida members Said Kouachi, Cherif Kouachi, and Hamyd Mourad at the Charlie Hebdo newspaper HQ in Paris N of Notre Dame Cathedral and E of the Arc de Triomphe, known for satirizing Muhammad kills 10 staffers incl. ed.-in-chief Stephane (StĂ©phane) "Charb" Charbonnier (b. 1967), and cartoonists Cabu, Wolinski, and Tignous, along with two police officers, incl. married Muslim officer Ahmed Merabet (b. 1965), injuring 11, becoming the worst terrorist attack in France since 1995; they were in an editorial meeting before the attack; Amedy's armed dangerous Muslim convert wife Hayat Boumeddiene remains on the loose; the lights on the Eiffel Tower are extinguished in memorial; one of the terrorists shouts "The Prophet has been avenged"; the offices were firebombed in 2011; Pres. Obama calls the attack "cowardly" and "evil"; French PM Francois Hollande calls it "an exceptional act of barbarism committed against a newspaper", and notes that France is in "shock", adding "We need to show we are a united country", but ostriching with the statement that the attacks "have nothing to do with Islam"; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu utters the soundbyte: "The main goal of Islamic terrorism is to destroy societies, and countries, to stamp out human civilizations based on freedom and the culture of choice, and to impose in its place a fanatical dictatorship which returns humanity to another era"; 100K demonstrate across France to protest the killings; at 10:40 p.m. police raid the last known addresses of the terrorist brothers and arrest relatives; on Jan. 8 Donald Trump issues the tweets: "If the people so violently shot down in Paris had guns, at least they would have had a fighting chance... Isn't it interesting that the tragedy in Paris took place in one of the toughest gun control countries in the world?... Remember, when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns!"; on Jan. 9 the Kouachi brothers hole-up in a printing complex in Dammartin-en-Goele before being killed by police, while 3rd suspect Amedy Coulibaly takes five hostages at the Hyper Cacher Jewish kosher supermarket in Porte de Vincennes, killing four before the police kill him, justifying the massacre as revenge for attacks on ISIS, while 30 others hide in the freezer for five hours, causing French pres. Francois Hollande to call it "an appalling anti-Semitic act"; al-Qaida (AQAP) in Yemen announces that it planned the attacks, and claims that more are coming in Europe and the U.S., causing the FBI to issue new terror warnings for Americans; maps of Jewish schools in Paris are found in Amedy's car, causing 5K police to be deployed to protect them; on Jan. 11 1.5M (biggest since Victor Hugo's 1885 funeral) attend a rally in Paris, incl. 50 world leaders (except Pres. Obama and Vladimir Putin) (incl. some known for suppressing free speech); Francois Hollande asks Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas not to attend; on Jan. 11 French PM Manuel Valls declares war "against terrorism, against jihadism, against radical Islam, against everything that is aimed at breaking fraternity, freedom, solidarity", bemoaning the ever-growing exodus of Jews from France with the soundbyte that if the Jews all leave France in the wake of anti-Semitic terror, "The French Republic will be judged a failure"; too bad, he blames France's "apartheid regime" for terrorism, while the French govt. rushes to pass tough new laws against freedom of speech, along with a new surveillance law in May that gives the govt. broad powers to monitor phone and Internet traffic; meanwhile ex-French PM Dominique de Villepin claims that the West created Islamic terrorism, with the soundbyte that ISIS is "the monstrous child of inconstancy and arrogance of Western policy", and that "In 2001 there was only one central terrorist group, today there is a dozen" because "we have multiplied them... The war against terrorism is just like adding fuel to the fire"; on Jan. 11 the Hamburger Morgenpost in Germany is firebombed after it reprints the Muhammad cartoons; on Jan. 12 White House press secy. Josh Earnest utters the soundbyte that Pres. Obama (who was against Charlie Hebdo's cartoons in 2012) will try to stop anti-jihadist articles from being pub. when it might cause a jihadist attack against U.S. forces; too bad, French Muslims celebrate the massacre, and Muslim schoolchildren treat a moment of silence in the classroom with contempt; the survivors crank out the next issue on its regular date of Jan. 15, with a circ. of 3M in 16 languages instead of the usual 60K, with another 6M printed after the first ed. sells out, with French pres. Francois Hollande declaring the mag. "reborn", with the soundbyte "You can murder men and women, but you can never kill their ideas"; it contains another caricature of Muhammad, causing Pope Francis on Jan. 15 to put his foot in his mouth with the soundbyte: "You cannot provoke, you cannot insult the faith of others... "If my good friend says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It's normal"; on Jan. 16 Mali immigrant Muslim kosher grocery employee Malian Lassana Bathily, who helped a dozen Jewish shoppers hide in a cold storage room is granted French citizenship; on Jan. 17 19K French Web sites are targeted by an unprecedented denial of service attack, incl. the French defense ministry; in May Charlie Hebdo suspends journalist Zineb El Rhazoui after she receives death threats for writing articles critical of radical Islam, causing a firestorm of criticism, which doesn't sway them, showing that Islamic intimidation as a preparation for full Sharia is working?; speaking of intimidation working, on July 17 Charlie Hebdo ed. Laurent Sourisseau announces that the mag won't pub. any more Muhammad cartoons, with the dhimmibyte: "We've done our job. We have defended the right to caricature." On Jan. 7 Russia signs an economic pact with Belarus and Kazakhstan. On Jan. 7 a car bomb outside a police college in Sana'a, Yemen kills 38 and injures 12. On Jan. 7 (1:00 p.m.) 41-y.-o. Ohio Muslim Hashim Hanif Ibn Abdul-Rasheed (b. 1963) is killed at the Columbus Airport by police after being caught using a fake ID to buy a plane ticket and lunging at them with a knife; he had more knives taped to his legs, "consistent with someone who intended to hijack an aircraft". On Jan. 7 (Wed.) the musical drama series Empire debuts on Fox Network for ? episodes (until ?), about hip hop music co. Empire Entertainment, starring Terrence Howard as CEO Lucious Lyon, and Taraji P. Henson as his wife Loretha "Cookie" Lyon, who just got back from serving a 17-year prison sentence. On Jan. 8 (7:45 a.m.) a 2nd terror attack in Montrouge, France S of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris sees a Muslim suspect with body armor and machine gun kill a female police officer and a street cleaner; at 1:00 p.m. two suspects are surrounded after they rob a gas station; at 11:00 p.m. Hamyd Mourad turns himself in. On Jan. 8 Pres. Obama announces a proposal to pay for the first two years of every student's community college. On Jan. 9 an al-Qaida Ansar Dine IED attack on U.N. troops near the airport in Kidal, Mali injures seven peacekeepers. On Jan. 9 after stunning Beijing by winning an election against pro-Beijing pres. Mahinda Rajapaksa, Maithripala Sirisena (1951-) becomes pres. #7 of Sri Lanka (until ?). On Jan. 9 (8:20 p.m.) a machete-wielding Muslim in East London, England jumps on the roof of a black, er, block of flats and holds police off for four hours, shouting "Allah Allah" and "I'm going to stab all white people" before being arrested for attempted murder. On Jan. 10 a 10-y.-o. girl suicide bomber kills 20 in a market in Maiduguri, Nigeria. On Jan. 10 (eve.) a suicide bomber in a crowded cafe in Tripoli, Lebanon kills nine and injures 30+. On Jan. 11 Miss Israel Doron Matalon posts a selfie of herself with Miss Lebanon Saly Greige, pissing-off the Lebanese people and govt. On Jan. 12 ISIS' Libyan branch announces the kidnapping of 21 Egyptians in Libya, which it calls "Christian Crusaders". On Jan. 12 Pope Frances gives his yearly address to the Vatican diplomatic corps, with the soundbyte that religious (Islamic) fundamentalism is a "deviant form of religion... born of a corrupt heart, a heart incapable of recognizing and doing good, of pursuing peace"; "Religious fundamentalism, even before it eliminates human being by perpetrating horrendous killings, eliminates God himself, turning him into a mere ideological pretext", adding "A unanimous response is needed"; "I appeal to the entire international community, as I do to the respective governments involved, to take concrete steps to bring about peace and to protect all those who are victims of war and persecution, driven from their homes and their homeland." On Jan. 12 ISIS hacks the Web site of CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command). On Jan. 12 U.S. District Court Judge Karen E. Schreier overturns the same-sex marriage ban in S.D. On Jan. 13 funeral ceremonies are held for seven of the people killed in the Charlie Hebdo Massacre. On Jan. 14 Pres. Obama issues new methane regs., with the goal of reducing them by 45% over the next decade. On Jan. 14 the Repub.-dominated U.S. House votes 237-190 (seven Repubs. defecting) to cancel Pres. Obama's deportation amnesties. On Jan. 14 the 2014 Secret Service Shakeup sees four senior officials forced out and two more forced to retire. On Jan. 14 authorities arrest Ohio Muslim convert Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah (Christopher Lee Cornell) for plotting to bomb and shoot-up the U.S. Capitol ISIS-style. On Jan. 14 it is revealed that Duke U. plans to force students to listen to the Muslim call to prayer weekly, causing a nat. outcry that makes them cancel the plans on Jan. 15; too bad UCLA has been doing it for some time. On Jan. 14 the first woman reports to a U.S. Navy attack sub, in Minn. On Jan. 14-18 Pope Francis visits the Philippines, greeting a record crowd of 6M in Manila on Jan. 18. On Jan. 15 a counterterrorism raid in Verviers, Belgium kills two Muslim terrorists. On Jan. 15 a U.S. drone strike in Wacha Dara, South Waziristan, Pakistan kills seven militants incl. two Uzbeks, becoming the first attack since Jan. 4. On Jan. 15 U.N.-sponsored last-chance Libyan peace talks begin in Geneva; too bad, the Gen. Nat. Congress (GNC) fails to show up. On Jan. 15 the Arab League meets to discuss the failed Palestinian Authority draft resolution at the U.N. Security Council. On Jan. 15 a federal judge orders Mich. to recognize 300+ same-sex marriages performed during a 1-day window of opportunity 10 mo. earlier. On Jan. 15 Pope Francis announces that in Sept. he will canonize 18th cent. Spanish Franciscan Junipero Serra. On Jan. 16 French and German authorities arrest 12+ suspected terrorists amid heightened security. On Jan. 16 British PM David Cameron and Pres. Obama hold a joint press conference in the White House; Obama warns that new economic sanctions against Iran could lead directly to war; Cameron utters the soundbyte: "We face a poisonous and fanatical ideology that wants to pervert one of the world's major religions, Islam, and create conflict, terror and death"; both call for more integration of Muslims into their societies without apostasizing first; neither mention the vital need to disarm all Muslims to ensure that they're moderate; Obama also waxes lyrical about Am. Muslims, claiming that "Our biggest advantage is that our Muslim populations, they feel themselves to be Americans", hence aren't likely to go jihadist like in Europe, refusing to use the term Islamic with extremism, while Cameron calls Islamic extremism a "death cult". On Jan. 16 violent demonstrations anti-Charlie Hebdo protests in Algeria, Niger, and Pakistan kill four. On Jan. 16 NASA's Goddard Inst. for Space Studies (GISS) releases a report claiming that 2014 was the warmest year on record since 1880, 0.02C over 2010. On Jan. 17 Houthi militants kidnap Yemeni pres. chief of staff Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak before he can attend a meeting on a new proposed constitution they oppose. On Jan. 18 (Sun.) Tom Lanting (34) and Iain Robertson (39) hold the first pagan same-sex marriage in the U.K. in Marlin's Wynd, Edinburgh. On Jan. 18 negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 group (U.S., U.K. France, Germany, Russia, China) go nowhere as usual. On Jan. 18 an Israeli airstrike in Syrian Golan kills 11 incl. Iranian Gen. Mohamed Allahdadi, Mohammad Issa, leader of Hezbollah in Syria and Iraq, and Jihad Mughniyeh, son of former Hizbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh, pissing-off Iran's Rev. Guard, which warns of "destructive" retaliation. On Jan. 19 as Houthi militants close their grip on Sana'a, Yemen, surrounding the palace of pres. Abdrabu Mansur (Abed Rabbo Mansour) Hadi and threatening a coup, a ceasefire is called.; too bad, on Jan. 21 Hadi is captured, causing the U.S. Navy to move USS Iwo Jima and USS Fort McHenry to the Red Sea to protect the U.S. embassy. On Jan. 19 days after accusing Argentine pres. Cristina Fernandez of secretly negotiating with Iran to avoid punishments for those in Iran and Hezbollah behind the 1994 Argentine-Israel Mutual Assoc. (AMIA) bombing in Buenos Aires that killed 85 and injured 300, prosecutor Alberto Nisman, known for exposing Iranian and Hezbollah cells in 12 South Am. countries is found dead from a gunshot wound in his apt.; on Jan. 20 an Argentine official finds no gunpowder on Nisman's hands, raising suspicions of a murder and a govt. conspiracy; on Feb. 13 special prosecutor Gerardo Pollicita files a complaint against pres. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and foreign minister Hector Timerman; too bad, on Feb. 26 the original charges brought by Nisman are dismissed. On Jan. 19 La. Repub. Gov. Bobby Jindal gives a speech in London, raising the issue of Muslim no-go zones in Europe, pissing-off the PC press; he also calls for Muslim immigrants to the West to accept assimilation. On Jan. 19 Egptian pres. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi gives a speech at the Wolf Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, saying that the fight against terrorism needs a new Muslim discourse in addition to security and military measures. On Jan. 19 a "Death to Charlie" protest is held outside the French embassy in Tehran, Iran, backed by the govt.; another is held outside the French Cultural Inst. in Gaza. On Jan. 20 ISIS releases a video showing two Japanese hostages, Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto, threatening to behead them unless the Japanese govt. gives them a $200M ransom within 72 hours; the video is later believed to have been faked; on Jan. 25 Yukawa is beheaded, and the demand changes to release of Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi from Jordanian captivity, which falls through, causing Kenji Goto to be beheaded on Jan. 31, causing Japanese PM Shinzo Abe to utter the soundbyte: "To the terrorists, we will never, never forgive them for this act." On Jan. 20 Russia and Iran sign a military cooperation agreement to develop a "long-term and multifacted" military relationship incl. expanded use of each other's ports. On Jan. 20 (Tues.) Pres. Obama delivers his 2015 State of the Union Speech, acting as if his party hadn't just lost a nat. election, calling climate change the greatest threat to future generations, and calling for $320B in new taxes without explicitly mentioning it, which incl. a $3K/year child care tax credit, an expanded earned income tax credit, seven days of paid sick leave, two years of free community college, a bipartisan infrastructure plan et al., praising the middle class, becoming the first SOTU speech since 9/11 to not mention al-Qaida, and first to mention LGBTs, calling same-sex marriage "America at its best", asking Congress to officially approve military action against ISIS, and ending with an appeal for "a better politics" that crosses party lines; Repubs. call his proposals income redistribution, and declare them dead on arrival; "The shadow of crisis has passed, and the state of the Union is strong"; "At this moment - with a growing economy, shrinking deficits, bustling industry, and booming energy production - we have risen from recession freer to write our own future than any other nation on Earth. It's now up to us to choose who we want to be over the next 15 years, and for decades to come"; "Will we accept an economy where only a few of us do spectacularly well, or will we commit ourselves to an economy that generates rising incomes and chances for everyone who makes the effort?"; too bad, although decrying anti-Semitism, he keeps covering for Islam, declaring that he will veto any new sanctions on Iran, with the soundbytes: "As Americans, we respect human dignity, even when we're threatened, which is why I've prohibited torture, and worked to make sure our use of new technology like drones is properly constrained. It's why we speak out against the deplorable anti-Semitism that has resurfaced in certain parts of the world. It's why we continue to reject offensive stereotypes of Muslims, the vast majority of whom share our commitment to peace. That's why we defend free speech, and advocate for political prisoners, and condemn the persecution of women, or religious minorities, or people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. We do these things not only because they're right, but because they make us safer"; "2014 was the planet's warmest year on record. Now, one year doesn't make a trend, but this does – 14 of the 15 warmest years on record have all fallen in the first 15 years of this century. I've heard some folks try to dodge the evidence by saying they're not scientists; that we don't have enough information to act. Well, I'm not a scientist, either. But you know what – I know a lot of really good scientists at NASA, and NOAA, and at our major universities. The best scientists in the world are all telling us that our activities are changing the climate, and if we do not act forcefully, we'll continue to see rising oceans, longer, hotter heat waves, dangerous droughts and floods, and massive disruptions that can trigger greater migration, conflict, and hunger around the globe. The Pentagon says that climate change poses immediate risks to our national security. We should act like it." On Jan. 20 after defeating incumbent Mary Landrieu, Bill Cassidy becomes Repub. Sen. of La., becoming the first Repub. since 1883. On Jan. 20 Wichita Falls, Tex.-born Tex. atty. gen. #50 (since Dec. 2, 2002) Gregory Wayne "Greg" Abbott (1957-) becomes Repub. Tex. gov. #48 (until ?); his Mexican-Am. wife Cecilia Phalen Abbott becomes the first Latina First Lady of Tex. On Jan. 21 (7:30 a.m.) a 23-y.-o. Muslim Palestinian from Tulkarem stabs passengers on the No. 40 Dan Bus in Tel Aviv, Israel, injuring 17 Israelis before being shot and arrested. On Jan. 21 U.S. House Speaker John Boehner annouces that he's inviting Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress "on the grave threats of radical Islam and the threat that Iran poses, to not only the Middle East but frankly to the world", pissing-off the Obama admin., which complains that they weren't informed first. On Jan. 22 after 37 countries sign an Oct. 1 letter decrying the "alarming outbreak of antisemitism worldwide", the first-ever U.N. Gen. Assembly meeting devoted soley to the question of anti-Semitism is held by U.N. gen. assembly pres. Sam Kutesa; the keynote address is delivered by French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, who boils it down to demonization of Israel, Holocaust denial, and "the modern scourge of competitive victimhood", and utters the soundbyte: "Even if the Palestinians had a state, as is their right - even then, alas, this enigmatic and old hatred would not dissipate one iota." On Jan. 23 Saudi king (since 2005) Abdullah (b. 1924) dies, and is succeeded by his half-brother Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (1935-) (until ?). On Jan. 23 Jamaican-born USMC Lt. Gen. Vincent R. Stewart becomes dir. #20 of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, the first African-Am. and first U.S. Marine. On Jan. 23-31 the Great 2015 N.E. U.S. Blizzard AKA Snowmageddon 2015 drops 26.2" of snow in Mass. and 36" in New York City, shutting down New York City subways, causing 8K flights to the region to be canceled. On Jan. 24 a Muslim bomb explosion in S Philippines kills two and injures 54. On Jan. 25 (6 a.m.) a truck bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan injures two. On Jan. 25 Edgar Chagwa Lungu (1956-) becomes pres. #6 of Zambia (until ?); too bad, in Apr. 2017 Lusaka archbishop Telesphore Mpundu utters the soundbyte: "Our country is now all, except in designation, a dictatorship; and if it is not yet, then we re not far from it." On Jan. 25 elections in Greece are won by the radical left Syriza Party with 36% of the vote, gaining 149 of 300 seats in parliament, shocking the EU despite assurance by leader Alexis Tsipras that "there is absolutely no case for a Grexit". On Jan. 25 NASA's 2006 New Horizons deep space probe begins sending its first images of Pluto and its dwarf moon Charon; on it rendezvouses with Pluto at 8K mi. distance. On Jan. 26 a new offensive by Russian-backed rebels in E Ukraine breaks the 5-mo. ceasefire. On Jan. 26 the FBI arrests Russian spy Evgeny "Zhenya" Buryakov. On Jan. 26 the 5K-man anti-Taliban anti-ISIS Marg (Dari for death) army in Balkh Province, N Afghanistan announces its formation, visiting the provincial council and offering its services. On Jan. 27 the 70th Anniv. of the Liberation of Auschwitz Camp is attended by 300 survivors; on Jan. 28 the Iranian Fars News Agency pub. the article The Holocaust: An Example of the West's Rewriting of History Based on Superpower Interests, claiming that the Holocaust never happened, and was just invented to promote the creation of Israel. On Jan. 27 Pres. Obama cuts his visit to India short to visit Saudi Arabia, meting with new King Solomon, er, Salman while ignoring the many U.S. gripes about their horrible Sharia incl. beheadings, hand-loppings, and suppression of women; Michelle Obama pisses-off the Saudis by appearing in public sans headscarf, and is blurred-out of official photos. On Jan. 27 ISIS terrorists attack the luxury Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli, Libya, killing eight incl. five foreigners and taking hostages. On Jan. 27 (night) after a double rocket attack on the Israeli Golan Heghts by Hezbollah in the afternoon, Israeli planes strike Syrian bases in Quneitra, Damascus, Syria as a "warning to Beirut". On Jan. 28 a Hezbollah attack in Rosh Hanikra, Israel on the Lebanese border kills two Israeli soldiers and injures seven. On Jan. 28 a delegation of senior members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, plus two open Hamas supporters meet with Obama's State Dept. and with several U.S. senators to seek help in returning Mohamed Morsi to power. On Jan. 29 despite veto threats from Pres. Obama, the U.S. Senate votes 62-36 (9 Dems.) to approve the $8B Keystone XL pipeline; on Feb. 11 it passes the House by 270-152 (all but 1 Repubs. and 29 Dems.), passing it to Pres. Obama, who vetoes it on Feb. 24. On Jan. 29 former U.S. secy. of state Henry Kissinger appears before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, uttering the soundbyte: "Nuclear talks with Iran began as an international effort... to deny Iran the capability to develop a military nuclear option. They are now an essentially bilateral negotiation over the scope of that capability through an agreement that sets a hypothetical limit of one year on an assumed breakout. The impact of this approach will be to move from preventing proliferation to managing it"; when pink-clad protesters interrupt the proceedings, chmn. John McCain utters the soundbyte: "You're gonna have to shut up or I'm gonna have you arrested. Get of of here, you low-life scum." On Jan. 29 (eve.) a Taliban member dressed in an Afghan military uniform stages an attack at the internat. airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing three U.S. contractors and injuring Afghan police cmdr. Maj. Gen. Haq Nawaz Haqyar; 2nd green-on-blue attack on Apr. 8. On Jan. 29 (night) ISIS attacks in El-Arish, Egypt and other towns in the Sinai Peninsula kill 25 and injure dozens. On Jan. 30 (11 a.m.) Mitt Romney announces that he won't run for U.S. pres. in 2016. On Jan. 30 a massive fire at the INION Library in Moscow, Russia rages for 27 hours and destroys 1M books. On Jan. 31 senior AQAP official Harith bin Ghazi al Nadhari is killed by a U.S. drone strike in S Yemen. In Jan. illegal U.S. immigrant Jean Jacques (1975-) of Haiti is released by ICE three years after being released from prison after 17 years for attempted murder after Hillary Clinton's State Dept. refuses to put pressure on Haiti to take him back, after which on June 15 he murders 25-y.-o. Casey J. Chadwick (1990-) in Norwich, Conn., and is sentenced to 60 years in prison, which is used as ammo by Donald Trump in his 2016 pres. campaign. In Jan. U.S. drone strikes kill AQIS deputy emir Ustad Ahmad Farooq and shura council member Qari 'Imran. In Jan. U.S. unemployment is 5.7% (vs. 5.6% in Dec.), adding 257K jobs. In Jan. violence in Iraq kills 1,375 and injures 2,240. On Feb. 1 (Sun.) Super Bowl XLIX (49) at the U. of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. sees the New England Patriots (coach Bill Belichick) defeat the Seattle Seahawks (coach Pete Carroll) by 28-24 after Seahawks QB Russell Wilson throws a slant pass to Ricardo Lockette in the end zone that is intercepted by rookie Patriots CB (#21) Malcolm Terel Butler (1990-) on 2nd and goal from the Patriots' 1 yard line with 20 sec. left in the game; right before that Seahawks WR (#15) Jermaine Kearse (1990-) makes a miracle catch of a tipped ball inside the 10-yard line; Katy Perry and Lenny Kravitz perform the halftime show; a 30-sec. commercial costs $4.5M; Patriots QB Tom Brady is MVP, setting a record of 12 Super Bowl career TDs; all they had to do was give the ball to Seahawks RB (#24) Marshawn "Beast Mode" Lynch (1986-)? On Feb. 1 South Sudan pres. Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar sign an areas of agreement for a future transitional govt. of nat. unity. On Feb. 2 the state of Tex. declares Chris Kyle Day, named after the Odessa, Tex.-born U.S. Navy Seal sniper hero Christopher Scott "Chris" Kyle (1974-2013), AKA the Devil of Ramadi. On Feb. 3 after the Jordanians demand proof of life, a video of Jordanian Pilot Lt. Muath Kassasbeh (Kaseasbeh) (Moaz al-Kasasb) (b. 1977) being burned alive in a cage is released, after which it revealed that he was killed on Jan. 3 before starting phony ransom negotiations, causing protests in Jordan and promises of revenge by Jordanian king Abdullah II, starting with the execution of ISIS prisoners Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouli at dawn, followed on Feb. 5 by airstrikes (in which the king suits up and flies his own plane after a visit to Kassasbeh's mourning tent, which ends in a pro-war rally, with his family calling for the destruction of ISIS), with the pilots flying over the dead pilot's home in Ay, Syria on their return, accidentally killing ISIS' only Am. female hostage Kayla Mueller, known for backing the anti-Israeli pro-Palestinian Internat. Solidarity Movement (ISM); on Aug. 15 after news surfaces that she was repeatedly raped by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi et al., and that ISIS believes that the Quran gives them the right to do is because it pleases Allah, Am. evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham issues the soundbyte "The god of Islam is not the one true God of the Bible"; no surprise, on Feb. 4 Pres. Obama holds a closed meeting on "anti-Muslim bigotry" with 14 Am. Muslim leaders at the White House of questionable loyalty to the U.S. and the U.S. Constitution, incl. Imam Mohamed Magid (whose North Va. mosque had its trustees' homes raided by federal agents after 9/11 on suspicion of funding terrorists), Farhana Khera, Farhan Latif, Azhar Azees (pres. of the Islamic Society of North Am.), Hoda Hawa (nat. policy adviser of the Muslim Public Affairs Council), Hoda Elshishtawy, and female Muslim basketball star Bilqis "Qisi" Abdul-Qaadir (1990-) of Indiana State U. (first player in NCAA history to play in a hijab in 2009), promising to ban Muslim terrorist profiling by federal law enforcement and provide more Muslim outreach programs; they ask him to appoint the first Muslim federal judge; the infamous CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) is not invited. On Feb. 3 Los Angeles, Calif.-born TV broadcaster Robert "Bob" "Zoey" Tur (1960-) (inventor of the TV news helicopter) is hired by Inside Edition, becoming the first transgender TV reporter. On Feb. 3 knife-wielding Muslim Mousa Coulibaly attacks three soldiers on anti-terror patrol in front of a Jewish community center in Nice, France. On Feb. 3 the U.S. House of Reps by 239-18 votes to repeal and replace Obamacare; meanwhile Dems. in the U.S. Senate by 51-48 filibuster the $39.7B Dept. of Homeland Security funding bill because of provisions rolling back Pres. Obama's immigration actions. On Feb. 4 the U.S. House of Reps Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, chaired by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) holds a hearing on suspending aid to the Palestinian Authority for joining the Internat. Criminal Court (ICC). On Feb. 4 (11:00 a.m. local time) TransAsia Airways Flight 235 clips a bridge and crashes into the Keelung River shortly after takeoff from Taipei, Tawan, killing 43 of 53 passengers and crew aboard. On Feb. 4 Egypt sentences 2013 secular activists in the 2011 uprising to life in prison incl. leader Ahmed Douma; 30 minors are sentenced to 10 years. On Feb. 4 (Wed.) TLW interviews to become a contestant on the TV game show "Jeopardy!" at the Magnolia Hotel in downtown Denver, Colo. (17th & Stout), along with 23 others; he is never picked. On Feb. 4 after the African Union authorizes a 7.5K-man 5-nation army from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Benin, Boko Haram militants go on a rampage, killing 90 civilians in Cameroon; on Feb. 6 the Nigerian military announces that it has recovered the weapons stolen by Boko Haram in Jan. On Feb. 4 after soldiers protest, NBC News anchor Brian Williams admits to making up a story that he was in a U.S. heli that was attacked by RPGs in Iraq in 2003, when he actually was safe in another heli; on Feb. 7 he takes a temporary leave of absence; on Feb. 10 he is suspended without pay for 6 mo. On Feb. 4 U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruther Bader Ginsburg utters the soundbyte at Georgetown U. that there will be enough women on the court when "there are nine". On Feb. 5 #2 U.S. health insurer Anthem announces that hackers stole personal info. on 80M customers, becoming the largest known data breach in U.S. history (until ?). On Feb. 5 Radio Hack, er, Shack files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. On Feb. 5 Imam, er, Pres. Obama presides over the 2015 Nat. Prayer Breakfast, attempting to excuse the atrocities of the Islamic ISIS group by telling Americans to get off their "high horse" and remember how Christians have been guilty of atrocities too, but referring to ISIS as a "death cult"; NASCAR star Darrell Waltrip gives the keynote address, saying that if you don't know Christ you'll go to Hell; former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani utters the soundbyte about Obama: "He's as week as a history as he is as a president, and a weak a theologian." On Feb. 6 Shiite rebels take over Yemen, dissolving parliament and setting up a transitional council. On Feb. 6 (his 49th birthday) after his girlfriend Maria Antonieta Luna Avalos delivers some chocolate cake to him, Mexican Knights Templar cartel leader Servando Gomez "La Tuta" Martinez is captured in his hideout in Morelia. On Feb. 6 the Canadian Supreme Court rules that the govt. must permit doctor-assisted suicide. On Feb. 6 the White House releases a new nat. security strategy, which changes the objective on war with ISIS (ISIL) from "destroy" to "defeat"; meanwhile the U.S. Army finally rules that the Ft. Hood Massacre is an act of terrorism and not workplace violence. On Feb. 7 Paul Weston of Liberty GB gives a speech against the "traitors of the BBC" and its promotion of Islam in Britain. On Feb. 8 Paul Gaugin's 1892 painting When Will You Marry? sells for a record $300M to Qatar Museums. On Feb. 8 1K Muslims demonstrate in London, England against Muslim cartoons; meanwhile a petition signed by 100K British Muslims is presented to 10 Downing St. On Feb. 8 the 57th Annual Grammy Awards in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif. are a big V for Sam Smith, who wins four. On Feb. 8 Vince Gilligan's Better Call Saul debuts on AMC-TV for ? episodes (until ?) as a prequel to "Breaking Bad", about the rise of super-interesting schuyster lawyer Saul Goodman AKA James Morgan "Jimmy" McGill, played by Berwyn, Ill.-born Robert John "Bob" Odenkirk (1962-), who starts out as a small-time conman in Cicero, Ill. and takes a correspondence course in law, moving to Albuquerque, N.M., featuring Jonathan Ray Banks (1947-) as his ex-cop partner Mike Ehrmantraut; the Better Call Saul Theme by Junior Brown is a keeper. On Feb. 9 Pres. Obama meets with German chancellor Angela Merkel at the White House to discuss Russian aggression in Ukraine; on Feb. 11 leaders of Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia meet in Minsk to discuss a cease-fire and restoration of the Sept. 2014 Minsk Protocol, which is agreed to on Feb. 12. On Feb. 9 hooded Muslim gunmen fire Kalashnikov rifles at police in Marseille, France. On Feb. 9-10 amid the dust storms of Amshir, Russian PM Vladimir Putin visits Cairo, Egypt to talk with Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisis on enhancing their strategic partnership, viewing U.S. hegemony as a common enemy. On Feb. 10 Pres. Obama makes a phone call to Russian PM Vladimir Putin to ask him to make a peace deal with the Ukrainian govt., after which the White House issues the statement: "If Russia continues its aggressive actions in Ukraine, including by sending troops, weapons, and financing to support the separatists, the costs for Russia will rise", indicating that Obama is about to agree to sending weapons to Kiev. On Feb. 10 the U.S. Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act is introduced in the House of Reps by Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) and Juan Vargas (D-Ca.), seeking to battle efforts to boycott Israel by linking rejection of BDS to the massive free trade deal being negotiated with the EU. On Feb. 10 after suspending them in Dec. with the capture of Lt. Muath Kassasbeh, the pissed-off UAE resumes air strikes against ISIS from Jordan. On Feb. 10 French justice minister Christiane Taubira announces that it has dismantled 15 Islamic terrorist networks (out of 1,500?). On Feb. 11 U.S. Marines evacuate the embassy of Yemen after being ordered by the U.S. State Dept. to surrender their rifles to Yemeni troops (rebels?) at the airport along with 20 vehicles; on Feb. 12 Saudi Arabia does ditto. On Feb. 11 Pres. Obama asks Congress for expanded war powers to fight ISIS. On Feb. 11 (5:00 p.m.) avowed atheist (pro-Ground Zero Mosque) Craig Stephen Hicks (1968-) shoots and kills three Muslims in a condominium parking lot near the U. of N.C. over a parking dispute, causing the PC police move in a call for a federal hate crime investigation, causing Pres. Obama to issue a statement on Feb. 13, with the soundbyte: "No one in the United States of America should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship"; Mohammed Abu Salha, father of two of the victims is a leader in a mosque that hosted a pro-ISIS cleric and was raided for a plot to murder U.S. Marines. On Feb. 12 the U.S. Senate votes 93-5 to confirm Ashton Carter as U.S. defense secy. On Feb. 12 the U.S. announces that it will keep extra forces in Europe to bolster NATO and monitor developments in E Ukraine. On Feb. 12 U.S. ambassador Keith Harper and Pakistani ambassador Zamir Akram hold a discussion on free speech vs. blasphemy in Geneva in regard to the OIC-proposed U.N. Resolution 16/18. On Feb. 12 the PC press-snubbed Defeat Jihad Summit in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the Center for Security Policy to rebut Pres. Obama's upcoming Countering Violent Extremism Summit features speakers incl. Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Newt Gingrich, Steven King, and Scott Perry from the U.S., Geert Wilders from Denmark, Israeli ambassador Yoram Ettinger, and Lord Malcolm Pearson from Britain. On Feb. 13 (Fri.) Ain al-Asad Air Base W of Baghdad, Iraq is surrounded by ISIS, trapping 320 U.S. Marines; on Feb. 16 a video surfaces showing ISIS burning 45 people alive in W Iraq. On Feb. 13 a Sunni gun-bomb attack on a Shiite mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan kills 19. On Feb. 13 the 4K-man Colo. 3rd Brigade Team is sent to Kuwait, becoming the largest ground force in the region. On Feb. 13 Canada confirms its first case of mad cow disease since 2011, but claims the food supply is unaffected. On Feb. 13 after the Italian govt. warns citizens to "temporarily leave" Libya, Italian foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni warns that "Italy is under threat from the situation in Libya 200 nautical miles away", noting that ISIS militants may be as close as Sirte. On Feb. 14 (Valentine's Day) (4:00 p.m.) a free speech (art vs. blasphemy) debate at the Krudttoenden Cafe in Copenhagen, Denmark attended by Muhammad-caricaturing Swedish artist Lars Vilks is attacked by a Muslim gunman, who kills one civilian and injures three police; Vilks and the French ambassador are unharmed; on Feb. 15 (early a.m.) another jihadist kills a civilian and injures three police near a synagogue in the Krystalgade area of Copenhagen; on Feb. 15 after a long chase the suspect is killed by police; meanwhile on Feb. 14 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu issues a call for all Euro Jews to come home to Israel, and on Feb. 15 the Israeli cabinet approves a $46M plan to finance their arrival. On Feb. 14 after asking them if they are Muslims and getting the wrong answer, Detroit, Mich. Muslim Terrence Lavaron Thomas pulls out a knife and stabs two infidels at a bus stop, causing a federal hate crime investigation while the PC media labors to spin it. On Feb. 15 the FAA releases rules for unmanned aircraft (drones), setting a 55 lb. weight limit, min. age of 17 for operators with required test, and requirement that the drones stay within visual line of sight, pissing-off Amazon.com et al., who want to use them to deliver products. On Feb. 15 ISIS releases a video claiming to show the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya, pissing-off Egyptian pres. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who vows to respond; on Feb. 16 (dawn) Egyptian jets bomb ISIS targets in Libya; on Feb. 17 al-Sisis calls for U.N.-backed internat. intervention in Libya to fight ISIS, causing the U.N. Security Council to meet on Feb. 18, and the Arab states to call on it to lift the Libyan arms embargo; the start of WWIII? On Feb. 15 Bangladeshi blogger Ahmed Rajib Haider is killed by Ansarullah Bangla Team (ATB) jihadists in Dhaka; on Feb. 26 Bangladeshi-Am. atheist secularist anti-Islam writer Avijit Roy (b. 1972) is hacked to death with machetes in Dhaka, Bangladesh by Islamists; his wife Rafida Ahmed Bonna is injured; on May 12 anti-Islam blogger Ananta Bijoy Das (b. 1982) is hacked to death with cleavers by four Muslims as he leaves his home in Sylhet, Bangladesh; on Aug. 6 Niloy Neel Chatterjee of Dhaka becomes secular blogger #4 to be hacked to death this year in Bloody Bangladesh. On Feb. 16 Brownsville, Tex. U.S. federal judge Andrew Scott Hanen (1953-) halts Pres. Obama's deportation amnesty two days before applications are to be accepted by 4.3M illegal aliens, ruling that Obama is trying to give legal status to them when the law mandates that they be deported. On Feb. 16 U.S. State Dept. spokeswoman Marie Harf interviews Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball", uttering the soundbyte: "We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need in the medium to longer term to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups, whether it's a lack of opportunity for jobs, whether we can work with countries around the world to help improve their governance. We can help them build their economies so they can have job opportunities for these people." On Feb. 17 the govts. of the U.S., U.K., France, Italy, Germany, and Spain issue a Joint Statement on Libya, strongly condemning all acts of terrorism incl. the murder of the 21 Egyptian Copts, which it only calls citizens. On Feb. 17 Iraqi police chief Col. Qasim al-Obeidi announces the burning alive of 50 people by ISIS in Hit, Iraq 85 mi. W of Baghdad. On Feb. 18 Ore. Gov. John Kitzhaber resigns over allegations of misconduct by fiancee Cylvia Hayes, allowing Katherine "Kate" Brown (1960-) to become gov. of Ore. (until ?), becoming the first openly bisexual U.S. state gov., and in 2016 the highest-ranking bisexual elected official in the U.S. On Feb. 18 Pres. Obama selects acting Secret Service dir. Joseph "Joe" Clancy as the permanent dir. after he replaced Julia Pierson last year for two embarrassing security breaches; he also names big data expert DJ Patil as the first-ever chief data scientist and deputy chief technology officer for data policy, with a mission to focus on health care. On Feb. 18-20 the White House holds a Global Summit on Countering Violent Extremism to "show the world the power of peaceful communities instead of extremist violence", purposely avoiding mention of the words Muslim or Islam in connection with terrorism, with the soundbyte: "They try to portray themselves as religious leaders, holy warriors in defense of Islam. We must never accept the premise that they put forward, because it is a lie. They are not religious leaders, they're terrorists. And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam"; Obama appoints Rashad Hussain as special envoy and coordinator for strategic counterterrorism communications to combat ISIS and al-Qaida propaganda; ex-CIA dir. R. James Woolsey utters the soundbyte that Obama "looks scared" to call ISIS and other Islamic terrorist orgs. Islamic; on ? homeland security secy. Jeh Johnson utters the soundbyte: "My job is to give voice to the plight of Muslims in this country"; on Feb. 19 the White House hosts a Muslim prayer (which proclaims Muslim supremacy over America?), causing ex-New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani to utter the soundbyte: "I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America", causing a firestorm of controversy. On Feb. 20 Al-Shabaab rebels detonate two bombs near the Central Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing 10+, injuring the deputy PM. On Feb. 20 ISIS militants unleash a series of suicide bombings in Qubba, Libya, killing 40+; they are now poised to invade Italy? On Feb. 20 British officials announce a search for three British Muslim teenie girls (Shamima Begum, Kadiza Sultana, ?) who boarded a plane for Turkey on Feb. 17, fearing they're trying to join ISIS; in early Mar. a video of a suspected Canadian intel spy assisting them surfaces. On Feb. 20 Uighur Muslims wielding knives and guns in Aksu Prefecture, Xianjiang, China injure four, causing the police to kill nine attackers and four bystanders. On Feb. 20 the Islamic State Hacking Div. posts a list on the Internet containing 100 names, photos, and addresses of U.S. service members, presumably a hit list, becoming a first. On Feb. 21 former Yemeni pres. Abdrabu Mansur Hadi flees house arrest in Sana'a by Shiite militia to Aden. On Feb. 21 Turkish men protest in Taksim Square in Istanbul wearing skirts to support victimized women. On Feb. 22 Australian PM Tony Abbott gives a speech, announcing that Muslim jihadists who fight for ISIS will be stripped of citizenship; meanwhile in Britain, counterterrorism chief Anthony Layden resigns over his inability to deport Islamic terrorists, whose lawyers use the Human Rights Act to coddle them, causing zero to be deported in the past year and 12 in the past 10 years vs. 129 in France; meanwhile former Mecca Grand Mosque imam Sheikh Adel Al-Kalbani gives a speech attacking the extremism of ISIS and other groups, saying that it will require a reform movement in Islam to restore its original tolerant character. On Feb. 22 after taking PC flak for its all-white list of nominees for best actor and actress, and snubbing of "Selma" dir. Ava DuVernay, the 87th Academy Awards, presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., hosted by Neil Patrick Harris (first openly gay man) awards the best picture Oscar for 2014 to Birdman, along with best dir. and best original screenplay to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, best actor to Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything, best actress to Julianne Moore for Still Alice, best supporting actor to J.K. Simmons for Whiplash, best supporting actress to Patricia Arquette for Boyhood (giving her a chance to lobby for equal pay for women), best animated feature film to Big Hero 6, best foreign language film to Ida, best original score to The Grand Budapest Hotel, and best original song to Glory (John Legend and Common) from Selma; gay bud Harris arrives on the red carpet with his husband David Burtka, and after passing "Whiplash" star Miles Teller playing drums comes onstage in his gay white briefs as a tribute to "Birdman", after which Inarritu in his accepance speech claims that he's wearing Michael Keaton's "tighty-whitey" underwear that "smells like balls"; the In Memoriam segment outrageously snubs Joan Rivers; Lupita Nyong'o wears a $150K dress with 6K hand-sewn pearls, which is stolen from her hotel room, then returned, causing tests to reveal fake pearls. On Feb. 23 in the case of Sokolow et al. v. Palestine Liberation Org., a federal jury in Manhattan, N.Y. finds the Palestinian Authority and the PLO liable for six terrorist attacks in Israel in 2002-4 in which Americans were killed and injures, with $218.5M in damages award, tripled to $655.5M by a special terrorism law; on Aug. 31, 2016 a federal appeals court throws out the verdict, saying that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction because the attacks were aimed at random targets, not the U.S. On Feb. 24 suicide bombers at two bus stations in Potiskum and Kano, Nigeria kill 16 + 10. On Feb. 24 the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announces that ISIS has kidnapped 90+ Assyrian Christians in NE Syria. On Feb. 24 after the jury doesn't buy his insanity defense, ex-U.S. Marine Eddie Ray Routh is found guilty of the Feb. 2013 murder of "American Sniper" Chris Kyle and his friend at a shooting range. On Feb. 24 Afghan-born Am. Muslim Sohiel Omar Kabir and Philippine Muslim convert Ralph Deleon are sentenced to 25 years in prison for a plot to go on jihad and kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan et al. On Feb. 25 a new Austrian Islam Bill governing the 600K Muslims in the 8.6M pop. to create an "Islam with an Austrian character" declares infidel Austrian law as superior to Muslim Sharia an prohibits foreign funding for mosques and Muslim orgs., but allows Muslim clerics to visit hospitals and prisons, and requires schools to offer halal food, pissing-off Muslims, who want it all. On Feb. 25 videos are released showing ISIS destroying the Mosul Museum in Iraq, smashing priceless Assyrian antiquities; meanwhile in Feb. Iraq's Nat. Museum in Baghdad reopens after 15K items were stolen in 2003. On Feb. 25 Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announces that she'll defy congressional Repubs. and implement D.C.'s new local law allowing residents to smoke pot, even if they try to put her in jail. On Feb. 26 FCC chmn. Tom Wheeler announces approval of Obama's Net Neutrality Plan by a 3-2 party line vote, which Repubs. diss as a power grab, reclassifying broadband Internt as a utility, giving them regulatory power over it. On Feb. 26 a protest in Zocalo Square in Mexico City to demand justice for the 43 missing students of Ayotzinapa Teacher Training College results in hundreds of arrests. On Feb. 26 after the Albeto Nisman scandal causes pres. Cristina Kirchner to ask congress to restructure the intel service, they pass a bill creating a new Federal Intelligence Agency. On Feb. 27 U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters capture Tel Hamees, Syria from ISIS near the Iraqi-Turkish border. On Feb. 27 after tiring of dealing with waves of migrants from Syria and Libya, the Italian coast guard calls for its govt. to provide them with weapons to stop ISIS from "humiliating" its personnel. On Feb. 27 (night) the day before a major scheduled protest, Russian opposition leader (Vladimir Putin's #1 critic) Boris Nemtsov is assassinated from a car on a bridge near the Kremlin in Moscow, shocking Russia, causing Putin to disavow knowledge and order an investigation despite everybody knowing he ordered it; on Mar. 8 ex-Chechen policeman Zaur Dadayev (who confesses) is charged along with another man with the murder; three more are in custody. On Feb. 28 an Egyptian court declares Pres. Obama's alma mater Hamas a terrorist org.; another court sentences top Muslim Brotherhood leaders to life in prison over a violent clash in Cairo in June 2013; meanwhile Egypt keeps sealing off tunnels between Gaza and N Sinai, strangling Hamas and causing it to become like a cornered wild beast, denouncing Egypt and calling for the destruction of Israel; on June 6 the ruling branding Hamas a terrorist group is overturned. On Feb. 28 Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida announces that Pres. Obama threatened to shoot down Israeli jets last year if they tried to attack Iran; the White House denies it; it was all fabricated? In Feb. to deal with hundreds of thousands of Muslims incl. 10% radicals, Spain enacts a new penal code, with 35-year sentences for anyone carrying out a terrorist attack, 20 years for supplying weapons to terrorists, and 10 years for funding terrorist networks. In Feb. U.S. unemployment drops to 5.5%, adding 295K new jobs. In Feb. Japan passes China as the top foreign owner of U.S. govt. debt., $1,224.4B vs. $1,223.7B. On Mar. 1 former non-jihadist Syrian rebel org. Hazzm joins the jihadist Shamiyah Front in Aleppo. On Mar. 1 Iraq announces that it has sent 27K troops to retake Tikrit from ISIS. On Mar. 1 a U.N. report is released, which claims that the internat. Libyan arms embargo is "almost nonexistent". On Mar. 1 Psychology Today announces that it will no longer carry ads for gay conversion therapy, and is deleting medical practitioners whose profile lists such therapy. On Mar. 1 the comedy series The Last Man on Earth debuts on Fox TV for 67 episodes (until May 6, 2018), set in post-apocalyptic 2020 Tucson, Ariz., starring ever-horny bank employee Orville Willis "Will" Forte IV (1970-) as Phil Tandy Miller, Kristen Joy Schaal (1978-) as Carol Pilbasian, January Kristen Jones (1978-) as Melissa Shart, and Oliver Hardy lookalike Melvin Dimas "Mel" Rodriguez (1973-) as Todd. On Mar. 2 ISIS militants shell the Bahi and Mabrouk Oilfields in Libya, damaging a pipeline to the port of Es Sidra. On Mar. 2 a bomb explosion outside the Egyptian supreme court bldg. in Cairo, Egypt kills two and injures nine incl. seven policemen. On Mar. 2 ISIS releases a video showing them executing four Sunni tribesmen from the Tikrit region for collaboration with the Iraqi govt. On Mar. 2 after Twitter shuts down accounts promoting ISIS, they upload a post with the soundbyte: "Your virtual war on us will cause a real war on you", warning that co-founder Jack Dorsey and his employees have "become a target for the soldiers of the Caliphate and supporters scattered in your midst!" On Mar. 2 ISIS releases a message claiming that U.S.-born Abu Dawoud al Amriki conducted a suicide attack in a vehicle against Iranian-backed Shiite troops in Samarra as they staged for their offensive in Tikrit. On Mar. 2 U.S. authorities unseal an affidavit revealing a stink operation on You Win USA, a maternity tourism business targeting pregnant Chinese women to come to the U.S. on fraudulent tourism visits and have their child, expecting it to have U.S. citizenship. On Mar. 2 after Feb. 23 was made an official day off and Ukraine cancels their celebration, the 2015 Day of the Defenders of the Motherland (creation of the Red Army in 1918 by Leon Trotsky) parade in Red Square in Moscow, Russia features a big green fake ballistic missile with "To be delivered to Obama in person" inscribed on it; it is also Men's Day, followed on on Mar. 8 by Women's Day. On Mar. 2 Colombian journalist Edgar "Quentin" Quintero (b. 1957) is murdered in Palmira as he enters a bakery near his office, becoming the 2nd journalist killed in Colombia in three weeks. On Mar. 2 the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal breaks with an article in the New York Times revealing that in Aug. 2010 as secy. of state she had her own private server and private email account hdr22@clintonemail.com registered under the name Eric Hoteham (who uses the same P.O. box as the Clinton Foundation) to hide her actions from the public instead of a govt. account that can be examined by the public later, and that in Nov. 2012 the email account was reconfigured to use Google's server as a backup, and reconfigured again in July 2013 (5 mo. after she resigned) to use Denver, Colo.-based commercial email provider MX Logic, owned by McAfee Inc.; on Mar. 3 U.S. Rep. (R-S.C.) Trey Gowdy announces that she was using multiple personal email accounts, and that she used it to email aide Huma Abedin on her personal account; on Mar. 4 she tweets that she wants the public to see them all of a sudden, handing 55K pages over to the U.S. State Dept.; on Mar. 10 Hillary speaks to the press at the U.N. Bldg. in New York City, trying to explain it away for 21 min.; it was Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett who leaked the scandal to the press?; too bad, at a Take Back America Conference in 2007 she uttered the soundbyte about Pres. George W. Bush: "We know our Constitution is being shredded. We know about the secret wiretaps, the secret military tribunals, the secret White House email accounts"; Peter J. Kadzik sends an email to Hillary's friend John Podesta, with the title "Heads up", tipping him off about the email investigation; on ? the AP reports that it was registered to the Clinton home in Chappaqua, N.Y., and that her ex-U.S. pres. hubby Bill Clinton paid for it; on July 24 the New York Times announces that Hillary Clinton's email account and private server had classified info. in them that wasn't properly labelled, contradicting her statements incl. "I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received"; on Aug. 11 the intel community's inspector gen. tells Congress that her emails contained security violations; on Aug. 12 she relents and hands over the server; it turns out to contain top secret email; on Mar. 7, 2015 Pres. Obama lies on CBS Evening News, saying that he didn't know about her private email server, although later several emails interchanged between them are admitted. On Mar. 2 the Washington Post pub. an article by Anne Gearan revealing that Israel's top secret plans to sneak-attack Iran have been leaked, blaming it on the Obama admin.; it was Hillary Clinton? On Mar. 3 (1:00 a.m. EST) after an invitation by speaker John Boehner sans consultation with the White House, pissing it off and causing 58 Dems. to boycott it, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech to a cheering U.S. House of Reps. (first foreign leader to speak to Congress 3x after Winston Churchill), laying out the case against Iran, saying that Israel and the U.S. are in it together, that the current deal paves the path to a nuclear Iran, and that no deal is better than this deal; "We've been told that no deal is better than a bad deal. Well this is a bad deal, a very bad deal. We're better off without it"; referring to Purim, which stars on Mar. 4, he utters the soundbyte: "Again, another Persian potentate wants to destroy us. Khamenei tweets in English that Israel must be destroyed"; he also utters the soundbytes: "Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam. Both want to impose a militant Islamic empire. In this deadly game of thrones there is no place for America or Israel, no peace for Christians, Jews, or Muslims who don't share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone"; "When it comes to Iran and ISIS the enemy of your enemy is your enemy"; "The world should demand that Iran do three things. First, stop its aggression against its neighbors in the Middle East. Second, stop supporting terrorism around the world. And third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel, the one and only Jewish state"; "We must all stand together to stop Iran's march of conquest, subjugation, and terror"; "If Iran wants to be treated as a normal country, let it act like a normal country"; "As far as ISIS and Iran are concerned, the enemy of you enemy is your enemy"; "If the deal now being negotiated is accepted by Iran, that deal will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, it will all but guarantee that Iran will get those nuclear weapons, lots of them"; "This deal is so bad, it doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb, it paves Iran's path to the bomb"; Dem. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi utters the soundbyte: "I was near tears throughout the prime minister's speech, saddened by the insult to the intelligence of the United States as part of the P5+1 nations, and saddened by the condescension toward our knowledge of the threat posed by Iran and our broader commitment to preventing nuclear proliferation"; prior to the speech Pres. Obama allegedly leaks a classified 1987 Inst. for Defense Analysis (IDA) report proving that the U.S. assisted Israel in developing the H-bomb; after the speech Obama comments that it offers "nothing new"; in July 2016 it is revealed that Obama tries to unseat Netanyahu with a $350K donation of OneVoice this year. On Mar. 3 amid continuing protests, the U.S. Dept. of Justice announces an upcoming Report on the Ferguson, Mo. Police Dept., which finds that it routinely discriminates against blacks and violate federal law; it is released on Mar. 5, causing police chief Thomas Jackson to resign on Mar. 11, triggering another violent protest in which two police officers are shot. On Mar. 3 South Korea and Saudi Arabia conclude an agreement to explore building two more small and medium size nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia for $2B. On Mar. 3 Rev. Ann Kansfield (1975-) becomes the first female and first openly gay chaplain in the New York Fire Dept. On Mar. 4 mayor Bill de Blasio announces that New York City will become the largest U.S. city to close public schools for the two biggest Muslim holidays Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha; why is he snubbing Hindus et al.? On Mar. 4 (early a.m.) Mexican Zetas cartel head Servando Gomez Martinez AKA Z-42 is captured by Mexican authorities in San Pedro Garza Garcia along with his finance chief Carlos Arturo Jimenez Encinas and four others; his brother Miguel Trevino Morales (Z-40) was head of the Zetas until his 2013 capture. On Mar. 4 Nigeria passes the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, outlawing female genital mutilation (FGM), forceful ejection of widows et al. On Mar. 4 (night) after a retirement party at a nearby bar, two intoxicated Secret Service agents crash barricades at the White House, causing a stink. On Mar. 5 U.S. ambassador to South Korea (since Oct. 20) Mark William Lippert (1973-) is slashed in the face and hands with a razor blade while giving a speech on reunification in Yonhap; the attacker shouts "No to war training" before attacking him. On Mar. 5 the Madrid Declaration on Developing Energy Interconnections is signed by Spain, France, Portugal, and the EU. On Mar. 5 ISIS militants bulldoze the ancient Nimrud archeological site near Mosul, Iraq, causing the Iraqi govt. to utter the soundbyte that they "defy the will of the world and the feelings of humanity" with their actions, and UNESCO head Irina Bokova to call it a "war crime"; on Mar. 7 UNESCO announces the destruction by ISIS of the ancient Roman fortress city of Hatra, Iraq. On Mar. 5 at a press conference attended by John Kerry, Saudi foreign minister Saud Al-Faisal calls on the U.S. to put "boots on the ground" to fight ISIS to prevent Iran from taking over Iraq. On Mar. 5 U.S. Dir. of Nat. Intel James Clapper releases a report which confirms that 116 detainees released from the Gitmo prison in Cuba have returned to terrorism. On Mar. 5 authorities raid a mosque in Bremen, Germany after a 4-man terror commando cell from France tries to make contact; after no weapons are found, the two suspects are released. On Mar. 6 (10:00 a.m.) (Purim) Palestinian Mohammed Mahmoud Abdel Razek Salaima (1992-) rams his car into pedestrians near a border patrol base in the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood of Jerusalem, Israel, injuring five people incl. four female security personnel before he is shot and captured. On Mar. 6 the NASA Dawn spacecraft enters orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres. On Mar. 7 the 50th anniv. of the Edmund Pettus Bridge march in Selma, Ala. sees Pres. Obama lead the marchers, then give a speech with the soundbyte that the history of racial conflict "still casts its long shadow", and that it is a "common mistake" to believe that "racism is banished". On Mar. 7 a hooded Muslim terrorist shouting Allah Akbar attacks La Terrasse Nightclub in Bamako, Mali with a rifle and grenades, killing five incl. a Frenchman and a Belgian, and injuring nine; Algerian al-Qaida Al Murabitoon leader Khalid Abu al Abbas (Mokhtar Belmokhtar) claims responsibility. On Mar. 7 Ivana Hoffmann is KIA in the Tel Temir area 200 km E of Kobane, Syria, becoming the first German killed fighting ISIS. On Mar. 7 Boko Haram leader Abu Bakr Shekau pledges allegiance to ISIS caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who calls himself Caliph Ibrahim, causing ISIS to announce an expansion of the caliphate to Nigeria, with Boko Haram renamed to Islamic State West Africa (ISWA). On Mar. 7 a video of members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity at the U. of Okla. singing a white racist song with the lyric "You can hang them from a tree, but they'll never sign with me. There will never be a nigger at SAE" gets on the Internet, causing a PC reaction leading to the fraternity and two students being expelled from campus by PC pres. David Boren; the rest are suspended; too bad, the mother org. cuts them loose instead of defending their rights to freedom of speech. On Mar. 8 (Sun.) 50K demonstrate in Tel Aviv, Israel against the govt. of PM Benjamin Netanyahu, with ex-Mossad dir. Gen. Meir Dagan, calling it more frightening than all of Israel's enemies. On Mar. 8 militants fire 30+ rockets into the U.N. base in Kidal, Mali, killing three and injuring 12; another rocket attack hits a nearby camp for Tuareg and Arab nomads, killing two children and injuring many. On Mar. 8 European Commission (EC) head Jean-Claude Juncker calls for an EU army to deal with Russia et al., signaling that the EU is "serious about upholding the values of the European Union". On Mar. 8 ISIS launches an offensive on Kurdish-held Tal Tamr, Syria in Hasakeh Province, killing 40 Kurdish fighters; a govt. air raid on the rebel-held town of Irbin NE of Damascs kills 11 civilians. On Mar. 8 47 Repub. senators led by Tom Cotton of Ark. pub. An Open Letter to the Leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran, warning Iran that any deal Pres. Obama makes with them can be revoked "with the stroke of a pen" once he leaves office in Jan. 2017; Pres. Obama responds that the senators are making "common cause with the hardliners in Iran", causing Cotton to reply "There are nothing but hardliners in Iran"; Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif utters the soundbyte: "In our view, this letter has no legal value and is mostly a propaganda ploy." On Mar. 8 Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Calif. becomes the first accredited Islamic inst. of higher learning in the U.S., offering a bachelor of arts in Islamic law and theology degree. On Mar. 8 Pope Francis demotes ultraconservative Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, the highest-ranking U.S. cardinal in the Vatican for his stance against homosexuality. On Mar. 8 (Sun.) (Internat. Women's Day) St. John the Evangelist Church in Southwark, London becomes the first active Christian church in England to hold a Muslim prayer service, which is illegal under canon law, with the vicar exhorting his flock to worship "the god that we love, Allah". On Mar. 9 Greek police begin raids to smash an internat. trafficking ring that made $8M smuggling Syrians into Europe, arresting 16 by Mar. 17. On Mar. 10 riot police attack students protesting a new education law in Letpadan, Myanmar, arresting 120 and ending a week-long standoff. On Mar. 10 the Iranian exile group Nat. Council of Resistance of Iran accuses the Iranian govt. of conducting secret nuclear weapon research in the Lavizan-3 underground lab in suburban Tehran. On Mar. 10 MexicoLeaks is launched to fight corruption in Mexico. On Mar. 11 Iraqi forces enter ISIS-held Tikrit, Iraq; meanwhile ISIS forces overrun an Iraqi army HQ in Thar Thar, Iraq N of Fallujah. On Mar. 11 Russian Expedition 42 lands in Kazakhstan ater a 167-day mission to the Internat. Space Station. On Mar. 12 a collection of the world's largest NGOs incl. Save the Children, World Vision, and Oxfam pub. a report card claiming that the U.N. Security Council has failed the Syrian people, allowing 7.6M to become displayed and 3.8M to become refugees. On Mar. 12 the U.S.-Cuba Direct Phone Link is reestablished, causing a new wave of immigrants to the U.S. from Cuba, largest since the 1990s. On Mar. 13 (Fri.) Pope Francis releases an interview with Argentine news outlet La Carcova, with the soundbyte: "I have the feeling that my pontificate will be brief, 4 or 5 years, I do not know, even 2 or 3... Two have already passed. It's a somewhat strange sensation... I feel that the Lord has placed me here for a short time, and nothing more." On Mar. 14 (3/14/15)(9:26 a.m.) Pi Day. On Mar. 14 White House chief of staff Denis McDonough sends a letter to Senate Foreign Relations Committee chmn. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), warning them to hold back on Corker's Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, saying that it would "likely have a profoundly negative impact on the ongoing negotiations -- emboldening Iranian hard-liners, inviting a counter-productive response from the Iranian majiles; differentiating the U.S. position from our allies in negotiations; and once again calling into question our ability to negotiate this deal. Put simply, it would potentially make it impossible to secure international cooperation for additional sanctions, while putting at risk the existing multilateral sanctions regime." On Mar. 14 Hamas launches its 5-day #AskHamas campaign on Twitter to sell its claim of not really being terrorist org. On Mar. 14 ISIS blows up the 10th cent. Chaldean Catholic St. George Monastery near Mosul, Iraq. On Mar. 15 (Sun.) (a.m.) two Taliban suicide bombers attack Christian churches in Lahore, Pakistan, killing 14 and injuring 70, causing 4K Christians to take to the streets in anger, smashing vehicles and attacking a bus station, then setting a terrorist on fire. On Mar. 15 (Sun.) Pope Francis gives a speech in St. Peter's Square, lamenting the news of Muslim suicide bombings of churches in Pakistan, and suggesting that the world plays down the fact that Christians are being targeted, with the soundbyte: "Our brothers shed blood only because they are Christians." On Mar. 15 retired U.S. Adm. Mike Mullen, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chmn. gives an interview to NBC-TV's "Meet the Press", admitting that he fears Iran more than ISIS, with the soundbyte: "I think Iran is a much more difficult challenge, an incredibly complex country that we don't understand very well. We've had no relations with them for 35 years." On Mar. 15 three male teenies from Britain are arrested in Turkey en route to Syria and returned on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks. On Mar. 15 the 2015 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community is pub., excluding Iran and its network of terrorist groups incl. Hezbollah from the terrorist section for the first time, leaving only Sunni orgs. incl. al-Qaida and ISIS. On Mar. 15 gay fashionistas Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana give an interview to Italian mag. Panorama, expressing support for the traditional hetero family, calling IVF children "synthetic" and claiming that Nature "should not be changed." On Mar. 16 ISIS kidnaps 20 foreign mainly Filipino doctors and nurses in Sirte, Libya as they wait for a bus to take them to Tripoli. On Mar. 16 USAF veteran Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh is indicted by a federal grand jury in Brooklyn, N.Y. for trying to join ISIS last May. On Mar. 16 (10:15 p.m.) United Flight 1074 (Boeing 737) takes off from Dulles Internat. Airport in Washington, D.C. en route to Denver, Colo., after which Muslim passenger ? shouts "Jihadis in the cargo hold" and begins running toward the cockpit until he is subdued by other passengers, after which he starts crying "I'm sorry". On Mar. 17 as Iran begins producing more natural gas from the giant South Pars Field (North Dome) co-owned by Qatar, Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani utters the soundbyte that the pressure from internat. sanctions is over. On Mar. 17 after a 71.8% turnout (highest since 1999), gen. elections in Israel are a V for Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling Likud Party, which wins 30 of 120 seats in the Knesset; Isaac Herzog's and Tzipi Livni's Zionist Union wins 24 seats; Ayman Odeh's Joint List representing four Arab parties (20% of the pop.) wins 14 seats; Moshe Kahlon's upstart center-right Kulanu Party wins 10 seats; Zahava Gal-On's leftist crypto-Zionist Meretz Party wins 4 seats; Netanyahu's alliance with right and center-right parties gives him 65+ seats and a clear majority; after the election, Pres. Obama has an aide congratulate the Israelis not Netanyahu, finally congratulating him personally on Mar. 19 and dressing him down for allegedly rejecting Palestinian statehood as "walking back", and again for accusing opponents of busing Israeli Arabs to the polls "in droves". On Mar. 18 former U.S. vice-pres. Dick Cheney grants an interview to Playboy mag., saying that Barack Obama is an even worse president than Jimmy Carter, and has endangered nat. security, with the soundbyte: "I look at Barack Obama and I see the worst president in my lifetime, without question, and that's saying something. I used to have significant criticism of Jimmy Carter, but compared to Barack Obama and the damage he is doing to the nation, it's a tragedy, a real tragedy, and we are going to pay a hell of a price just trying to dig out from under his presidency." On Mar. 18 a suicide bomber wearing a burqa detonates in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing pro-Coalition Uruzgan Province police chief Matiullah Khan. On Mar. 18 (11:00 a.m. GMT) two Islamist gunmen attack the Bardo Museum in Tunis, Tunisia, killing 21 incl. 19 foreigners, none from the U.S.; ISIS claims responsibility; ISIS, which uses Tunisia as its main recruiting ground along with al-Qaida is making a statement?; on Jan. 4, 2018 the U.S. Dept. of state designates AQIM member Wanas al-Faqih (Wanas Bin Hasin Bin Muhammad al-Faqih Husin) as the mastermind. On Mar. 19 Pres. Obama signs an executive order to cut federal greenhouse emissions. On Mar. 19 peace talks on Libya begin in Skhirat, Morocco, led by U.N. special envoy Bernardino Leon. On Mar. 19 two Muslims armed with assault rifles open fire at the Var Krog Och Bar in Gothenburg, Sweden; jihad or gang warfare? On Mar. 19 27-y.-o. Afghan woman Farkhunda Malikzada (b. 1987) is stoned, beaten, and murdered by an angry mob for allegedly burning a Quran; all she really did was denounce the custodians of Shah-do Shamshira Shrine for selling amulets? On Mar. 19 a counterterrorism conference in Jaipur, India is held, with home minister Rajnath Singh concluding: "Indian Muslims are patriots and are not swayed by fundamentalist ideologies. Extremism is alien to their nature." On Mar. 19 Pope Francis erects the new Diocese of Nogales in Sonora, N Mexico. On Mar. 20 an air raid on his pres. palace in Aden causes Yemeni pres. Abdrabu Mansur Hadi to flee. On Mar. 20 (08:30 GMT) (Fri.) (equinox) a full-supermoon-vernal-equinox-solar eclipse knocks out solar-generated electricity in Europe, where 100x as much power is generated from the Sun than during the last eclipse in 1999; first total solar eclipse to coincide with the northern spring equinox since 1662; next on Mar. 20, 3034; the 2:47 eclipse causes Svalbard Island in Norway to experience a sudden temperature drop from 8F to -7F, disproving that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and proving Henrik Svensmark right? On Mar. 20 ISIS attacks Syrian Kurds in Hasakeh, Syria et al. as they celebrate their new year, killing 45 incl. five children; a total of 120+ are killed across Syria. On Mar. 20 multiple suicide bombings of Shiite (Houthi) mosques during midday prayers in Sana'a, Yemen kills 137 and injure hundreds. On Mar. 22 the ISIS Hacking Div. releases a list of 100 names and addresses of U.S. military personnel; the Pentagon claims they didn't really hack their computers. On Mar. 22 elections in France are a V for ex-pres. Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative UMP, which edges out Marie Le Pen's Nat. Front; Pres. Francois Hollande's Socialists come in 3rd. On Mar. 22 the U.S. pulls its last forces out of Yemen, following the example of Britain; meanwhile on Mar. 25 Yemeni pres. Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi asks the U.N. Security Council to authorize military invention to oust the Houthi rebels. On Mar. 22 Syrian Islamist anti-Assad group Suqor al-Sham merges with bigger Islamist anti-Assad group Ahrar al-Sham. On Mar. 22 Nobel Prize-winning writer V.S. Naipaul pub. a Warning About ISIS in the U.K. Daily Mail, calling ISIS the most dangerous threat to the world since the Nazis, labeling it the Fourth Reich, claiming it is "dedicated to a contemporary holocaust" based on its belief in its own "racial superiority", and calling for its "military annihilation". On Mar. 23 (10:00 A.M. ET) Calgary, Alberta, Canada-born conservative Tex. Repub. Rafael Edward "Ted" Cruz (1970-) becomes the first Repub. (first Hispanic Repub. ever) to announce his candidacy for U.S. pres. at Rev. Jerry Falwell's Liberty U. in Lynchburg, Va., promising an end to the IRS, gun control, and Obamacare, with the soundbyte: "God isn't done with America yet." On Mar. 23 White House chief of staff Denis McDonough calls for an end to Israel's "50-year occupation" in a speech at the J Street Conference in Washington, D.C. On Mar. 23 367 U.S. House members led by Calif. Repub. Rep. Ed Royce and N.Y. Dem. Rep. Eliot Engel send a bipartisan Letter on Iran to Pres. Obama, expressing concern with the "grave and urgent" issues involved in the Iranian nuclear negotiations, esp. whether they are blocking or paving a path to Iranian nukes. On Mar. 23 Pakistan National Day is celebrated without invited guest Chinese pres. Xi Jinping (who canceled a 2014 trip due to anti-govt. protests in Islamabad), pissing them off. On Mar. 23 British Muslim convert Brusthom Ziamani (1995-) is sentenced to 22 years in prison for planning a copycat beheading of a British soldier in the streets of London, getting arrested walking through Whitechapel carrying a hammer, knife, and black Islamic flag. On Mar. 23 British home secy. Theresa May gives a Speech on Islamist Terrorism, vowing to tackle it with a new partnership called the Foundation for Peace; later British Islamist leader Anjem Choudary, Abu Izzadeen, and Abu Baraa hold a press conference telling her and PM David Cameron to "go to Hell", saying they'd be happy if they were deported to Syria. On Mar. 24 (10:45 a.m.) Germanwings Flight 9525 (Airbus A320) carrying 144 passengers and 6 crew en route from Barcelona to Duesseldorf crashes in the French Alps in Prads-Haute-Bleone near Meolans-Revels, France, killing all aboard; the cockpit voice recorder reveals that the pilot was locked out of the cockpit and banging on the door, leaving mentally ill co-pilot Andreas Lubitz a free hand to crash it; eerily similar to the Argentinean-Spanish film Wild Tales. On Mar. 24 Pres. Obama announces that 9.8K U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan through the end of 2015. On Mar. 24 the U.N. Human Rights Council holds Hate Israel Day, with 30 mainly Islamic Israel haters praising six reports presented to the council by U.N. officials. On Mar. 25 a Russian-made Syrian scud explodes near the Reyhanli district in Hatay, Turkey; Turkish defenses fail to stop it, raising concerns. On Mar. 26 air strikes by a 10-nation Sunni coalition led by Saudi Arabia on Houthi rebels in Yemen called Operation Decisive Storm kill 18 civilians and injure 24, shocking Iran and causing it to call for Houthis to attack Saudi oil wells and tankers and operate in Saudi territory incl. the Straits of Bab al-Mandeb and Hormuz, claiming that they will cause the Saudi regime to collapse; the Saudis end the operation on Apr. 21 (midnight), and begin Operation Restoring Hope to revive political talks, repatriate foreign nationals, and provide aid while keeping the pesky Houthis down. On Mar. 26 the U.S. Senate votes 100-0 to approve sanctions on Iran if it reneges on its upcoming nuke deal; meanwhile a letter is sent to the House Appropriations Committee by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) et al., asking them to prohibit funding for continuing Iranian talks with the P5+1. On Mar. 26 the offices of pro-ISIS Turkish mag. Adimlar (Turk. "steps") in Istanbul are bombed, injuring ed. Ali Osman Zor and two others, and killing his brother. On Mar. 28 (Sat.) pres. elections in Nigeria see retired Muslim Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (backed by David Axelrod's AKPD) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) defeat Christian pres. Ebele Goodluck Jonathan, promising to enact Sharia; during the first 100 days of his admin. 1K mainly Christians are slaughtered by Boko Haram. On Mar. 29 (Sun.) Iran reneges on its agreement to ship nuclear materials out of the country, hanging-up negotiations. On Mar. 30 (a.m.) a vehicle tries to ram the Nat. Security Agency (NSA) HQ in Fort Meade, Md., causing guards to kill one and injure another, finding that they are dressed in drag, and have been partying all night. On Mar. 30 a Saudi air strike on a camp for displaced families in Al Mukalla, N Yemen kills dozens. On Mar. 31 Pres. Obama ends his 2013 arms embargo on Egypt, authorizing $1.3B in U.S. weapons. On Mar. 31 an internat. aid conference in Kuwait City, Kuwait sponsored by emir Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed Al Jaber Al Sabah pledges $3.8B aid for Syrians, with UAE pledging $100M. On Mar. 31 the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is founded by Britain, Australia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and all of China's Asian neighbors except Japan, forming a rival to the World Bank and Asia Development Bank. On Mar. 31 Iraqi PM Haider Al Abadi announces that Tikrit has been liberated from ISIS. On Mar. 31 the state legislature of Ark. approves their own version of Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, sending it to gov. Asa Hutchisnson for signing; too bad, the PC police cause him to waffle. On Mar. 31 the city council of Madison, Wisc. adds nonreligion to its list of protected classes, becoming the first U.S. city to ban discrimination against atheists. In Mar. the Islam-loving U. of N.M. passes Resolution 6s, banning "prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force" - meaning Sharia? In Mar. 1.5K moderate Syrian rebels begin U.S. training to fight ISIS at bases in Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. In Mar. researchers at discover a German WWII Hideout in the jungles of Argentina in Teyu Cuare Park SE of Misiones on the Paraguayan border; a local legend claims that Hitler's private secy. Martin Bormann used it. In Mar. U.S. unemployment is 5.5% (same as Feb.), with the economy adding 126K new jobs. On Apr. 1 the iffy Muslim state of Palestine achieves full membership in the Internat. Criminal Court (ICC), allowing them to wage jihad against Israel by accusing them of war crimes. On Apr. 1 ISIS captures most of the Yarmouk Palestinian Refugee Camp in Damascus, Syria, battling Palestinian faction Aknaf Beir al-Madqis for control; on Apr. 2 they take back large parts of the camp. On Apr. 1 Calif. gov. Jerry Brown orders a 25% cut in urban water use, becoming the first-ever mandatory statewide reductions, even though urban water use accounts for only 10% of state water usage, while 48% is reserved for environmental uses incl. saving the delta smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. On Apr. 2 (13th and last day of the Iranian Nowruz holidays) after a week of negotiations with the P5+1 in Lausanne, Switzerland, Iran reaches a basic agreement (framework that will supposedly become final on June 30) on nukes, with details incl. reducing centrifuges from 19K to 6.1K, reducing Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, shipping spent fuel from nuclear reactors out of the country, keeping Iran one year away from producing a nuke while gradually relieving sanctions et al.; on Apr. 2 Pres. Obama gives a Speech on the Nuclear Deal with Iran in the White House Rose Garden, calling it "a good deal" that will "cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon", and that if there is no deal it will inexorably lead to war, with the soundbyte: "I am convinced that if this framework leads to a final deal, it will make our country and the world safer.... This deal is not based on trust. It's based on unprecedented verification"; the U.S. was backing down to Iran until France stepped in and kicked them in the ass; on Apr. 3 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announces that he and his cabinet "strongly oppose" the deal, saying that Israel can't be trusted; on Apr. 5 Pres. Obama gives an interview to the New York Times, saying that this is a "once in a lifetime opportunity", with the soundbyte: "This is our best bet by far to make sure Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon", adding "We've got their backs", referring to Israel; on Apr. 6 Saudi Arabia announces that it welcomes the deal, hoping that it will ensure a "Middle East and the Arabian Gulf free of all weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons." On Apr. 2 (5:00 a.m.) Muslim Al-Shabaab jihadists from Somalia raid Garissa U. in 80% Christian Kenya, sieging it for 8 hours, killing 147 and injuring dozens of the 815 students for being Christian while letting Muslim students go, sniping at police as they arrive; five jihadists are captured; Kenya offers a $220K bounty on mastermind Mohammed Mohamud AKA Dulyadin AKA Gamadhere, after which on Apr. 4 they threaten another bloodbath in Kenya; on Apr. 17 Kenya begins building an anti-terror wall along its border with Somalia to prevent repeats. On Apr. 2 Pres. Obama makes his first pres. trip to Utah incl. Salt Lake City and Hill AFB; later news surfaces that a FBI sniper rifle had been stolen from an agent's car days before the visit. On Apr. 2 coordinated Islamist attacks against five military posts in Sheikh Zuweid City in N Sinai kill 10 Egyptian soldiers and injure 17. On Apr. 2 the last two women are cut from the USMC Combat Endurance Test, causing their historic experiment to end in failure for women's libbers. On Apr. 2 Tunisian foreign minister Taieb Baccouche announces that a Syrian ambassador would be welcome in Tunis, and that Tunisia wants to send an ambassador to Syria; too bad, on Apr. 3 pres. Beji Caid Essebsi takes it back, saying that it's his prerogative not the foreign minister's. On Apr. 3 mistaken Saudi air strike near Sana'a, Yemen kills 9+ in the Yemeni Okaish family. On Apr. 3 the U.S. State Dept. rejects a plea from Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to make recognition of Israel's right to exist a condition for any Iranian nuclear agreement. On Apr. 3 Va. gov. Terry McAuliffe signs an executive order banning cos. from including questions about criminal history in job applications. On Apr. 4 a lunar eclipse. On Apr. 4 unarmed running black man Walter Lamar Scott (b. 1965) is shot in the back and killed in North Charleston, N.C. by white police officer Michael Thomas Slager (1981-), who lies in his police report and gets caught with his own video, causing a public outcry and a grand jury indictment for murder in June; too bad, after a 5-week trial a hung jury results in a mistrial, and in May 2016 Slager is indicted on federal charges, pleading guilty in May 2017 and drawing a 20-year prison sentence; his family settles a wrongful death lawsuit for $6.5M. On Apr. 5 (Easter Sun.) Pope Francis gives an Easter sermon in St. Peter's Square in Rome, condemning indifference and "complicit silence" about jihadist attacks on Christians like in Kenya; on Apr. 6 he utters the soundbyte that there are more martyrs today than in the first centuries. On Apr. 5 ISIS blows up the historic Assyrian Church of the Virgin Mary in Tel Nasri (near Tel Temir), Syria. On Apr. 6 Al-Nusrah Front kidnaps 300 Kurdish civilians in a bus en route from Afrin to Aleppo at a checkpoint in NW Syria. On Apr. 6 Iran announces that it has confirmed news of a sexual assault of two young Iranian men in Jeddah Airport in Saudi Arabia while en route to Mecca, after which Iranian deputy foreign minister Hassan Ghashghavi calls it a "quasi-rape", and Ayatollah Khamenei's rep Ali Qazi Askar calls the news of the rape "a lie", describing it as "an attempt at assault and sexual harassment". On Apr. 7 Repub. Ky. Sen. Rand Paul announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. On Apr. 7 an explosion near the Hamas internal security HQ in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza is linked to the arrest of an ISIS fight in Gaza connected to the Yarmouk beheadings. On Apr. 7 U.S. deputy secy. of state Antony J. Blinken in Riyadh announces that it's expediting weapons deliveries to Saudi Arabia to help it fight the Houthis, and establishing a "joint coordination planning cell". On Apr. 7 the 2015 White House Prayer Breakfast features Pres. Obama uttering the soundbyte: "On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love, and I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less-than-loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned. But that's a topic for another day." On Apr. 7 North Charleston, S.C. police officer Michael T. Slager (1981-) is charged with murder for shooting an unarmed fleeing black man Walter L. Scott (b. 1964) in the back 8x then trying to cover it up, not knowing that a bystander in the bushes is making a video; this time the mayor cuts him loose quick on TV to avoid racial riots like in Ferguson, Mo. et al. On Apr. 7 Shiite Muslim Azerbaijani pres. Ilham Aliyev (son of Heydar Aliyev) makes a pilgrimage to Mecca, going inside the Qaaba, and meeting with Saudi King Salman to discuss business ventures incl. oil, gas, agriculture, and tourism. On Apr. 8 (early a.m.) authorities arrest 11 people at 17 locations in Spain on suspicion of planning a jihadist attack in Catalonia. On Apr. 8 an Afghan soldier stages a green-on-blue attack on U.S. troops in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, injuring three before being killed; meanwhile U.S. Army Specialist John M. Dawson (b. 1992) becomes the first U.S. soldier to die in Afghanistan after the U.S. mission ended. On Apr. 8 Muslim Joker Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is found guilty on all 30 counts of terrorism et al., incl. 17 carrying the death penalty. On Apr. 8 U.S. defense secy. Ashton Carter announces that AQAP has been taking advantage of the fall of the Yemeni govt. by seizing of territory in Yemen. On Apr. 8 ISIS hacks French TV network TV5Monde; on Apr. 9 it hacks the BBC. On Apr. 9 14 Palestinian Arab factions announce a deal with the Syrian govt. to expel ISIS from the Yarmouk neighborhood of S Damascus, Syria. On Apr. 10 (a.m.) a suicide car bombing in Jalalabad, Afghanistan injures several Afghans and U.S. troops. On Apr. 10 USMC capt. Katie Higgins becomes the first-ever female Blue Angels pilot. On Apr. 10 the Quran is read by a Muslim cleric in the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul for the first time in 85 years. On Apr. 10 Syrian govt. forces repel an ISIS attack on the key military Khalkhalah Airport in Sweida Province, losing 20 soldiers vs. 15 ISIS jihadists. On Apr. 10 the White House issues the Obama Rainbow Tweet, which makes Obama into a messianic figure, giving his critics much hay to fork. On Apr. 10-11 the 2015 (7th) Summit of the Americas in Panama City, Panama is attended by 30+ nations from the Org. of Am. States (OAS); on opening day Pres. Obama repudiates the Monroe Doctrine, with the soundbyte: "The days in which our agenda in this hemisphere so often presumed that the United States could meddle with impunity, those days are past"; Cuban pres. Raul Castro attends for the first time, meeting with Pres. Obama on Apr. 11, becoming the first personal meeting of the leaders of the two countries, sucking up to Obama as a great guy even if the U.S. people aren't, with the soundbyte: "What President Obama has just said, it's practically the same as we feel"; on Apr. 14 Pres. Obama announces that he's removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which he does on May 29. On Apr. 11 (Sun.) Pope Francis beats Pres. Obama to the punch and labels the killing of 1.5M Armenians a century ago "genocide", the "first genocide of the 20th century". On Apr. 11 pres. elections in Nigeria sees incumbent Goodluck Jonathan and All People's Congress candiate Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari? On Apr. 11 rocket attacks in Aleppo, Syria kill eight and injure 47. On Apr. 11 shots are fired at the U.S. Capitol Bldg. in Washington, D.C., causing it to be put on lockdown. On Apr. 13 Baloch Liberation Front forces kill 20 construction workers in Turbat, Kech District, Balochistan, Pakistan; on Apr. 13 Pakistani forces kill 13 suspected Baloch Liberation Front militants. On Apr. 11 UAE foreign minister Anwar Gargash criticizes Pakistan (which gets most of its oil from the UAE and Saudi Arabia) for refusing to intervene in Yemen, calling it "dangerous and unexpected", pissing-off Pakistani interior minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, who calls it a "violation of all diplomatic norms"; Gargash warns that "Contradictory and equivocal positions have a high cost in this crucial affair." On Apr. 12 (Sun.) a U.S. drone strike (#7 this year, vs. 25 last year)) kills 4+ suspected Taliban militants working for Khan Said Sajna in Shawal Valley in North Waziristan, NW Pakistan; meanwhile a spokesman for al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) announces that leaders Ustad Ahmed Farooq (Obaid Ullah) and Cmdr. Qari Imran were killed in drone strikes in mid-Jan. On Apr. 12 (Sun.) weeks after longtime consultant Doug Band resigned from the beleaguered Clinton Foundation, Dem. Hillary Clinton announces her candidacy for U.S. pres. her first try since 2008, with the soundbyte: "Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion"; on Apr. 13 the headstone of her father Hugh Rodham in Scranton, Penn. is toppled by vandals; the first org. to endorse her is Lesbians4Hillary, co-chaired by tennis star Billie Jean King; her campaign logo of two H's with a left-to-right arrow going through them gives critics a field day, with comparisons to the Twin Towers, WikiLeaks logo, etc.; New York City mayor Bill De Blasio refuses to endorse her, pissing her off. On Apr. 12 Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal rejects a call by Iran to pull out of Yemen, accusing it of messing with it also. On Apr. 12 Italian authorities rescue 8.5K North African migrants, with reports of up to 400 perishing. On Apr. 12 25-y.-o. African-Am. career criminal Freddie Carlos Gray Jr. (b. 1990) is arrested by the Baltimore, Md. police dept. for allegedly possessing an illegal knife, after which he falls into a coma in a police van and dies on Apr. 19 of spinal cord injuries, pissing-off the local pop. who demand justice, causing the six police officers involved (Caesar R. Goodson Jr., William G. Porter, Brian W. Rice, Edward M. Nero, Garrett Miller, Alicia D. White) to be suspended with pay on Apr. 21; on Apr. 25 a major protest in downtown Balimore results in 34 arrests and injures to 15 police officers; on Apr. 27 Gray's funeral causes rioting, looting, and burning, causing Md. Gov. Larry Hogan to declare a state of emergency and call out the Md. Nat. Guard, establishing a curfew, which is lifted on May 3; on Apr. 27 "Baltimore Riot Mom" Toya Graham becomes a nat. hero for bitch-slapping her 16-y.-o. son for throwing rocks at cops; on Apr. 29 the rioting spreads to New York City; on May 1 after he medical examiner's office rules the death a homicide, Baltimore city atty. Marilyn Mosby announces the filing of charges of 2nd deg. "depraved-heart" murder and lesser crimes from illegal arrest to manslaughter "through acts of omission" for failure to secure him during transport; on May 21 a grand jury indicts them, dropping false arrest and illegal imprisonment and adding reckless endangerment; in Sept. 2015 it is decided to try the defendants separately, after which officer William Porter's trial ends in a mistrial, officers Nero, Goodson, and Rice are found not guilty, and the remaining charges are dropped on July 27, 2016; on Sept. 12, 2017 the U.S. Dept. of Justice announces that it will not bring federal charges; on Oct. 5, 2017 internal disciplinary trials are announced; city of Baltimore settles with Gray's family for $6.4M. On Apr. 13 Repub. Fla. Sen. Marco Rubio announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. in Miami, Fla., calling himself "uniquely qualified" to make the GOP "the party of the future", and dissing Hillary Clinton as a "leader from yesterday". On Apr. 13 Russia lifts its ban on delivering advanced S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran; on Apr. 21 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that the U.S. can "penetrate" this system, pissing-off Iran, who see it as a signal that Obama is trying to prevent them from their own military option against Iran. On Apr. 13 hundreds of thousands protest govt. corruption across Brazil, alleging that the governing Workers' Party is involved in bribery with the state oil firm Petrobas when pres. Dilma Rousseff was its head. On Apr. 13 Hungary's far-right Jobbik Party wins its first individual constituency seat in parliament, the Tapolca seat, by 300 votes. On Apr. 13 Pakistani forces raid Orangi Town in Karachi, killing five militants incl. two AQIS cmdrs, Noorul Hassan and deputy cmdr. Usman (Irfan) (Abdullah). On Apr. 13 Iranian interior minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazil utters the soundbyte that Iran is willing to "carry out joint operations against terrorists with Pakistan and Afghanistan inside their territory", admitting that "occasional acts of sabotage" in Iran have happened due to the "lack of control" in neighboring countries. On Apr. 13 the new micro-state Liberland, located on the Danube River between Croatia and Serbia and founded by Nigel Farage is proclaimed; on May 1 it welcomes its first citizens; the first ruler is anti-EU Czech politician Vit Jedlicka. On Apr. 13-16 the Nat. Space Symposium of the Space Foundation features new European Space Agency leader Johann-Dietrich Worner announcing his desire for a permanent colony on the dark side of the Moon as the successor to the ISS. On Apr. 14 the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee by 19-0 approves the bipartisan Corker Bill, sponsored by Repub. chmn. Bob Corker, allowing Congress to review and reject Pres. Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, causing him to cave and drop a threat to veto it; on Apr. 28 the U.S. Senate votes 39-57 incl. 12 Repub. to table an amendment by Sen. (R-Wisc.) Ron Johnson that would require Pres. Obama to submit a deal for congressional review as a treaty but would not require them to approve it; on May 14 the House approves the amendment by 400-25. On Apr. 14 Chilean pres. Michelle Bachelet signs a same-sex marriage law, to come into effect in Oct., recognizing civil unions but not full marriage rights like in Argentina and Uruguay. On Apr. 15 Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi makes his first official visit to Washington, D.C., getting into a pissing contest with the Saudis, criticizing their air campaign in Yemen, with a Saudi official responding that there is "no logic to those remarks". On Apr. 15 New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez is found guilty of first degree murder of Odin Lloyd and sentenced to life in prison, uttering the soundbyte "You're wrong". On Apr. 15 U.S. House and Senate leaders present the Congressional Gold Medal to the WWII Doolittle Raiders, known for bringing the war to Tokyo on Apr. 18, 1942. On Apr. 15 Fla. postal carrier Doug Hughes (1953-) flies his Road Warrior style gyrocopter onto the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol with 535 2-page letters for every member of Congress demanding that they stop corruption. On Apr. 15 after Hillary resigned from the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation board last week, the board announces that it will continue accepting foreign donations from Australia, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, and the U.K. On Apr. 16 the Vatican unexpectedly ends the probation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents 80% of U.S. nuns and takes a soft line on birth control and homosexuality while lobbying for Obamacare et al. On Apr. 16 U.S. Joint Chiefs chmn. Gen. artin Dempsey announces that the U.S. is focusing its military efforts against ISIS in the strategic oil-refining center of Baiji N of Tikrit in order to cut off its revenue sources in Iraq. On Apr. 16 Cleveland, Ohio Muslim Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud (1991-), who returned in June 2014 from a visit to Syria where he was trained by Jabhat al-Nusrah is indicted for plotting to attack a military base in Tex. and kill 3-4 U.S. soldiers execution style. On Apr. 16 a legislative committee in clueless Maine votes 8-2 to reject a bill rejecting Muslim Sharia law in courts and making the U.S. and state constitutions the only law to be used, with Maine Dem. atty. gen. Janet Mills calling it "confusing and unnecessary" - Islam loves infidels to underestimate it? On Apr. 17 the U.N. releases a call for $274M in aid to save lives in hot hot hot Yemen. On Apr. 17 FBI dir. James Comey utters the soundbyte that he requires every new special agent and intel analyst to go to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. as part of their training. On Apr. 17 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that the deal he's trying to cut with Iran is a "political agreement" and "not a formal treaty"; on Apr. 19 Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) utters the soundbyte that any agreement that does not incl. "anytime, anywhere inspections" of Iranian sites will never be approved by Congress. On Apr. 18 (Sat.) (Holocaust Remembrance Day) Billy Graham's son Rev. Franklin Graham issues a post on Facebook that claims that mass Muslim immigration in "Europe, the United States, and other Western countries" could cause another Holocaust because of their anti-Semitism. On Apr. 18 an ISIS suicide bomber on a motorcycle attacks a crowd gathered outside the new Kabul Bank branch in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, killing 35 and injuring 125, after which the Taliban denies responsibility and Afghan pres. Ashraf Ghani blames ISIS. On Apr. 19 (Sun.) parliamentary elections in Finland. On Apr. 19 ISIS releases a video showing 30 captive Ethiopian Christians being shot and/or beheaded. On Apr. 19 a boat carrying Muslim illegal aliens for Italy capsizes 60 mi. off the Libyan coast 120 mi. S of Lampedusa Island, killing 700, becoming the worst North African illegal alien smuggling accident (until ?). On Apr. 19 ISIS releases a flashy video showing ritual execution of 28 Ethiopian Christians in Libya. On Apr. 19 (Sun.) the 50th Academy of Country Music (ACM) Awards in AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Tex., hosted by Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton sets a world record attendance for an awards show of 78K; Luke Bryan wins entertainer of the year; Jason Aldean wins male vocalist of the year; Miranda Lambert sets the record for most wins for female vocalist of the year; Taylor Swift is presented with a milestone award although in Aug. she announced that she was going pop with her album "1989". On Apr. 20 the U.S. deploys aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt AKA the Big Stick to the coast of Yemen to confront two Iranian warships and stop arms shipments to the Houthis, which doesn't stop them from arriving in Aden on Apr. 23; either that or they turn and head back to Iran without incident, until on Apr. 28 (4:00 a.m. ET) an Iranian ship fires at and boards Marshall Islands-flagged Maersk Tigris in the Strait of Hormuz, prompting the U.S. to rush to its defense; it is released on May 7. On Apr. 20 U.S. federal authorities announce the arrest of six Muslim-Ams. in Minn. and Calif. on terrorism charges, accusing them of planning to travel to Syria to join ISIS. On Apr. 20 journalist Eli Lake pub. an article in Bloomberg View, claiming that Pres. Obama has known for years that Iran is only 2-3 mo. away from making a nuke; U.S. energy secy. Ernest Moniz confirms it, saying that the estimate was declassifed on Apr. 1; meanwhile Pres. Obama claimed 28x that Iran was one year away; in 2016 it is revealed that the Obama admin. planned the Nitro Zeus operation to launch a massive cyberattack on Iran if it's nuclear negotiations fell through. On Apr. 20-21 the new U.S. Council of Muslim Orgs. (USCMO) (founded in June 2014) (front for the Muslim Brotherhood?) blitzes Capitol Hill, becoming the first nat. Muslim political party in the U.S. On Apr. 21 Egypt sentences ex-pres. Mohamed Morsi to 20 years in prison for ordering the imprisonment and torture of prisoners during his presidency; his former chief of staff Refaa al-Tahtawi is given three years in prison for abuse of power. On Apr. 21 former WWII Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp SS bookkeeper Oskar Groening (Gröning) (1921-) goes on trial in Luneburg, Germany for complicity in the murder of 300K Hungarian Jews in summer 1944, freely admitting his guilt incl. witnessing atrocities; to this date of 6.5K SS members who worked at the camp, only 49 have been convicted of war crimes; on July 15 he is found guilty of being an accessory to 300K murders and sentenced to four years in prison. On Apr. 22 a report by U.S. House Repubs. concludes that the IRS "deliberately" cut its customer service this year while wasting millions of dollars on pet projects; wait times reach 34.4 min. per call. On Apr. 22-24 the Israelis strike Syrian and Hezbollah targets in the Walamoun Mts. on the Syrian-Lebanese border. On Apr. 23 after being nominated by Pres. Obama in Nov., the U.S. Senate votes 56-43 to confirm Loretta Elizabeth Lynch (1959-) as U.S. atty. gen., becoming the first black woman; she is sworn-in on Apr. 27 - she would have to be named Lynch? On Apr. 23 Pres. Obama announces that a drone strike against al-Qaida in Jan. in North Waziristan, Pakistan accidentally killed Am. hostage Dr. Warren Weinstein and Italian national Giovanni Lo Porto, becoming the first CIA drone operation to kill an American; al-Qaida's top Am. traitor Adam Gadahn (b. 1978) was killed in a separate strike. On Apr. 23 a Eu Summit on the Mediterranean Refugee Crisis, called by European Council pres. Donald Tusk. On Apr. 23 the inspector gen. of the Dept. of Homeland Security announces that the Secret Service left broken alarms at the Houston, Tex. home of former Pres. George H.W. Bush unrepaired for 13 mo., stinking it up more than ever. On Apr. 23 (night) a rocket is fired from a Palestinian enclave in S Israel, causing a retaliatory strike against Hamas near Beit Hanoun. On Apr. 24 a proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable is called off after the FCC and U.S. Justice Dept. threaten anti-trust prosecution. On Apr. 24 Italian authorities arrest 18 suspected jihadists for planning a bomb attack on the Vatican. On Apr. 24 N.Y. Gov. George Pataki gives the opening speech for the Repub. Jewish Coalition Spring Conference, with the soundbytes that "BDS is not a human rights movement, it is anti-Semitic", and he advocates "The Jackson Rule: Anyone involved in recruiting or fundraising for ISIS, Hamas, or any other terrorist org. will face criminal charges in the U.S." On Apr. 24 ISIS fighters ambush an Iraqi army convoy with an explosives-packed bulldozer N of Fallujah, Iraq, killing an Iraqi gen. and three staff officers. On Apr. 24 (1 day after Israeli Independence Day) Palestinians clash with police in the At-Tur neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Israel; in the eve. another Palestinian terrorist stabs an Israeli border policeman in the head near the Cave of the Patriarchs; at night a car driven by Palestinian Fadi Saleh (1983-) hits a police car in injuring one of four; at night terrorist Ali Said Abu Ranem (b. 1988) is shot and killed at the A-Zaim Checkpoint in N Jerusalem after he tries to stab security forces. On Apr. 24 clueless leftist dhimmi British Labour Party leader Ed Miliband gives an interview to Ahmed J. Versi of The Muslim News, uttering the soundbyte about "Islamophobia": "We are going to make it an aggravated crime. We are going to make sure it is marked on people's records with the police to make sure they root out Islamophobia as a hate crime." On Apr. 25 (11:56 NST) 7.8 earthquake in Nepal kills 5K. On Apr. 25 China and Pakistan sign the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Agreement for a project linking the Xinjian region of NW China to Port Gwadar in SW Pakistan; the al-Qaida-linked mag. Zarb-e-Momin ("Strike of the Faithful Muslim") claims that the project could lead to WWIII since the U.S. and India "will not tolerate the emerging Chinese economy's access to Middle East markets". On Apr. 25 Turkish pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls ISIS a "virus" that is working to destroy the Muslim community. On Apr. 25 the 2015 White House Correspondents Dinner features Comedy Central comedians Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key doing a skit playing Pres. Obama and his "anger translator" Luther, who acts out what Obama is really thinking. On Apr. 25 former U.S. pres. George W. Bush gives a speech to Jewish Repub. donors at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev., dissing pres. Obama's foreign policy, saying that the U.S. is in "retreat" and not taking vigorous enough action against Islamic terrorists, with the soundbyte: "In order to be an effective president... when you say something, you have to mean it, you gotta kill 'em", calling ISIS "al-Qaida's second act", and slamming Obama's coddling of Iran, with the soundbyte: "You think the Middle East is chaotic now? Imagine what it looks like for our grandchildren. That's how Americans should view the deal." On Apr. 26 (Sun.) ousted Egyptian pres. Hosni Mubarak utters the soundbyte that there are "fateful decision" that need to be made by pres. Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, and that Egyptians should stand behind him. On Apr. 26 after Burundi pres. (since Aug. 26, 2005) Pierre Nkurunziza announces his run for a 3rd term despite it being barred by the constitution, street demonstrations begin, with police killing 6+ in the first two days, causing the govt. to crack down, shutting down radio stations and arresting protest leader Pierre-Claver Mbonimpa; by the end of Apr. 24K flee Burundi; on May 13 while Nkurunziza is attending a summit in Tanzania, Maj. Gen. Godefroid Niyombareh (1969-) (who was dismissed as head of intel in Feb.) declares a coup, preventing him from returning by taking over the airport in Bujumbura until his troops quash the coup on May 14; on July 21 pres. elections reelect him with 69.4% of the vote in a 30% turnout, and he is sworn-in on Aug. 20, pissing-off the U.S., EU, U.N. et al.; on Aug. 2 Nkurunziza ally Gen. Adolphe Nshimirimana is assassinated, and on Aug. 3 Mbonimpa is shot and seriouslyh injured; in Oct. Mbonimpa's son-in-law is killed, followed by his son on Nov. 6 after being arrested. On Apr. 26 six PEN Internat. writers incl. Peter Carey, Teju Cole, Rachel Kushner, Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose, and Taiye Selasi protest a decision to give an award for "Freedom of Expression Courage" to the survivors of the Charlie Hebdo Massacre, cause ex-PEN pres. Salman Rushdie to call them "six authors in search of character", with the soundbyte: "If PEN as a free speech organization can't defend and celebrate people who have been murdered for drawing pictures, then frankly the organization is not worth the name"; on Apr. 26 leftist dhimmi "Doonesbury" cartoonist Garry Trudeau gives an interview to Chuck Todd of NBC-TV's "Meet the Press", responding to critics of a speech given earlier in Apr. where he seemed to blame the victims (fellow cartoonists) for the Charlie Hebdo attacks, uttering the soundbytes: "I was as outraged as the rest of the world at the time; I mourn them deeply", and "I certainly wouldn't draw pictures of the Prophet. However, I've done many cartoons satirizing in the specific: terrorists, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, the PLO, and have never received any blow-back from the Muslim community. They understand that I'm separating out the two"; by Apr. 30 144 (4%) of the mainly leftist PC membership sign a protest petition. On Apr. 28 Saudi king Salman removes Mogren bin Abdul Aziz bin Saud as heir and deputy PM, and replaces him with interior minister Mohammed bin Nayef; meanwhile seven Saudi airstrikes cripple the main runway at the Sana'a Airport in Yemen to prevent Iranian planes from landing. On Apr. 28 Nigeria announces the rescue of 200 girls and 93 women from Boko Haram in the Sambisa Forest; too bad, none of them are among the 219 Christian Chibok girls kidnapped in 2014, who have probably all been sold into sexual slavery. On Apr. 29 Japanese PM Shinzo Abe becomes the first to give a speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, urging support for a 12-nation Pacific Rim deal led by #3 Japan and #1 U.S., excluding pesky #2 China. On Apr. 29 Homeland Security secy. Jeh Johnson utters the soundbyte to the U.S. Senate that "We should not profile at airports", telling a sob story about Somali immigrants preferring to drive 400 mi. rather than fly. On Apr. 30 dem. socialist Vt. Indep. Sen. Bernie Sanders announces his intention to run for U.S. pres. on the U.S. Capitol lawn; he officially launches his campaign on May 26 in Burlington, Vt., with the soundbyte: "I don't believe that the men and women who defended American democracy fought to create a situation where billionaires own the political process"; after announcing that he will not pursue Super PAC funding, he raises $1.5M within 24 hours, and $3M by May 30 (avg. $43 per donation); on July 2 his campaign announces that it has raised $15M from 250K donors (vs. 180K donors at the same point in Barack Obama's 2007 campaign). On Apr. 30 several U.S. publishers donate $250M in free e-books to low-income students for Pres. Obama's ConnectED Library Challenge. In Apr. 700+ Chinese peacekeepers arrive in South Sudan. In Apr. the Clinton Uranium Deal surfaces, in which Canadian co. Uranium One gives $145M to the Clinton Foundation then gets U.S. State Dept. approval for Russia to acquire it, giving them ownership of 20% of U.S uranium resources. In Apr. a Gallup Survey finds that 0.8% (2M) of 243M U.S. adults are part of a same-sex couple. In Apr.-May the U.S.-Iraqi Mosul Offensive by 20K-25K mainly Iraqi and Kurdish troops takes on 1K-2K ISIS fighters, who took Mosul last June; too bad, after criticism about giving the plan away in Feb., the offensive is suspended indefinitely at the end of Feb. On May 1 Russian ambassador Vitaly I. Churkin criticizes the West for blocking a U.N. Security Council resolution seeking "humanitarian pauses" in the Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen; on May 8 Saudi Arabia announces a 5-day bombing cessation, to begin at 11:00 p.m. on Tues. Apr. 12. On May 1 the new micro-state Liberland, located on the Danube River between Croatia and Serbia, founded by English politician Nigel Farage welcomes its first citizens; its first ruler is anti-EU Czech politician Vit Jedlicka. On May 3 the Nat. Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang (NSCN-K) stages two ambushes of Indian security forces in Mon District, India along the Myanmar border kills eight and injures nine, becoming the first major incident since Apr. 7, 1998. On May 3 World Press Freedom Day is a self-parody? The first ISIS attack in the U.S., or, Don't mess with Texas? On May 3 (6:50 p.m. local time) Jewish-Am. anti-jihad pro-Israel activist Pamela Geller (1958-) hosts the First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest at Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Tex., with a $12.5K prize offered for the best caricature, won by ex-Muslim cartoonist Bosch Fawstin, which depicts Big M wielding a sword while saying "You can't draw me", and the artist's hand drawing a balloon saying "That's why I draw you"; too bad, at 6:36 P.M. CT two Muslims on jihad arrive and shoot security guard Bruce Joiner in the ankle, after which a police officer shoots and kills wounds them, after which a SWAT team arrives and kills them, becoming the 68th Islamist terrorist plot or attack against the U.S. since 9/11; one of them is later identified as Elton Simpson of Phoenix, Ariz., who was convicted of lying to federal agents about traveling to Africa in 2010, and his roommate Nadir Soofi, who ran a Twitter account called Shariah is Light, and tweeted about the attack in advance at 6:35 p.m. CT, with the hashtag "texasattack"; on May 5 ISIS tweets a death threat against Pamela Geller, with the soundbyte: "Our lions will achieve her slaughter"; on June 12 3rd Muslim suspect Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem (Decarus Thomas) (1971-) is arrested and charged with supplying weapons to the two shooters, claiming that he was also planning an attack on the Super Bowl; in Oct. 2017 David Wright (1979-) of Mass. is convicted of leading the plot, and on Dec. 19 is sentenced to 28 years in prison; in Mar. 2018 undercover FBI agent Steven Jane, who was in the car behind the jihadists admits he told them to "tear up Texas", and did nothing to stop them. On May 3-9 Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani visits Pres. Obama at the White House, requesting assistance in fighting ISIS. On May 4 a Taliban attack on checkpoints in Badakhshan, Afghanistan kills 16 policemen. On May 3-15 Siil-2015 Hedgehog, Estonia's largest-ever military drills are held by 13K personnel incl. 7K reservists, supported by forces from the U.S., U.K., Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Belgium, Poland, and Netherlands. On May 4 Repub. former Johns Hopkins pediatric neurosurgeon Benjamin Solomon "Ben" Carson Sr. (1951-) announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. in Detroit, Mich., supporting a $2T stimulus plan and a flat tax to "heal, inspire, and revive" the U.S.; so does Repub. former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (1954-), who claims to understand the economy, bureaucracies, and technology simultaneously. On May 4 Pres. Obama speaks at Lehman College in Bronx, N.Y., announcing My Brother's Keeper Alliance for mentoring young black men, saying he will devote himself to the org. after leaving the White House, "not just for the rest of my presidency, but for the rest of my life". On May 4 French pres. Francois Hollande signs a 6.3B Euro military deal with Qatar to supply it with 24-36 state-of-the-art Rafale fighter jets. On May 5 the 70th Anniv. of the End of WWII is celebrated; Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor gives a speech at the U.N., comparing radical Islamists to Nazis; on May 9 Russia holds their official ceremony in Moscow; German chancellor Angela Merkels snubs it because of tensions over Ukraine. On May 5 Repub. Ark. Gov. and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. (2nd time) in his home town of Hope, Ark., vowing to fight threats against Christianity worldwide and "conquer" radical jihadists and send a message to the ayatollahs "that Hell will freeze over before they ever get a nuclear weapon". On May 5 the French nat. assembly by 438-86-42 passes the French Patriot Act, giving the govt. sweeping powers to spy on citizens. On May 5 Hillary Clinton speaks at a Cinco de Mayo campaign event in Las Vegas, Nev., calling for "a path to full and equal citizenship" for the 12M+ illegal immigrants in the U.S., stunning immigration advocates but puzzling White House press secy. Josh Earnest, who says that Pres. Obama has already done everything he can do within his legal authority. On May 6 Iranian IRGC deputy cmdr. Hossein Salama gives an interview on Iranian TV Channel 1, uttering the soundbyte: "We welcome war with the Americans. The U.S. aircraft carriers would be destroyed, its air bases in the region burned, and the skies set ablaze.. We have built our strength for the purpose of long, extended wars... more than for the purpose of peace, compromise, and dialogue with them." On May 6 Laodicean Church pastor Rick Warren and gay English pop star Elton John appear in Congress to ask for more money for AIDS research, holding hands, with Warren telling John that if they kiss it will be "the kiss heard 'round the world", pissing-off conservative Christians. On May 6-7 a 5-member delegation from the Iranian parliament (Majles) led by Kazem Jalali visits Brussels, Belgium, becoming the first time in seven years, getting a warm welcome from EU Parliament pres. Martin Schultz of Germany et al., signalling possible rapproachment? On May 7 elections in Britain are a surprise V for PM David Cameron and his Conservative Party, who win 331 of 650 Commons seats; the Scottish Nat. party wins 56 of 59 available seats; the anti-immigration anti-EU U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) wins one seat. On May 7 the U.S. Senate votes 98-1 to force Pres. Obama to submit any nuclear deal he reaches with Iran to Congress; meanwhile a letter signed by 150 House Dems. led by Jan Schakowsky of Ill., Lloyd Doggett of Tex., and David Price of N.C. expresses support for sustaining an Obama veto of legislation disapproving a deal. On May 7 the U.S. Court of appeals rules that the NSA's bulk collection of telephone metadata is unlawful. On May 7 AQAP announces that their leader Nasr Ibn Ali al-Ansi, who claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack has been killed by a U.S. drone strike. On May 7 a planned concert in Israel by singer Lauryn Hill is cancelled after pressure by Palestinians. On May 8 a Pakistan army heli is shot down in Gilgit Baltistan, Pakistan, killing the Norwegian and Philippine ambassadors; Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claims responsibility. On May 8 the largest anti-govt. in Iran since 2009 break out in the Kurdish city of Mahabad, iran in Western Azerbaijan after Iranian woman Farinaz Khosrawani (b. 1990) falls to her death from the 4th floor of a hotel trying to escape from an Iranian official trying to rape her; Pres. Obama fails to mention it. On May 8 after FBI Dir. James Comey admits that ISIS has thousands of sympathizers living in the U.S. ready to go on jihad, and is putting 100+ of them on 24/7 surveillance, the Pentagon raises the threat level of all military installations in the U.S. to "Force Protection Bravo". On May 8 John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono visits Los Angeles, Calif. to present a collections of cups and saucers to the Museum of Modern Art, and utters the soundbyte that in the 1970s she had a lezzie "fling" with Hillary Clinton, and that her erection, er, election "would be a great advancement for LGBT and women's rights in America." On May 9 a riot-jailbreak in Khalis, Iraq 40 mi. N of Baghdad kills 12 policemen and 50+ prisoners, allowing 200+ to escape. On May 9 deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak and his two sons are sentenced to three years in prison for corruption. On May 9 Fla. Repub. Gov. Jeb Bush gives a commencement speech at Liberty U. in Lynchburg, Va., blasting Pres. Obama for using "coercive federal power" to quash religious freedom and "demanding obedience in complete disregard of religious conscience", adding that "the Christian voice" isn't heard enough in the world. On May 9-10 an "armed terrorist group" battles police in Kumanovo, Macedonia near the Kosovo boder, killing five police and injuring 30+. On May 11 Heather Elizabeth Coffman (1985-) of Glen Allen, Va. is sentenced to 54 mo. in federal prison for lying to FBI agents about Facebook posts and conversations supporting ISIS. On May 11 former Fla. gov. Jeb Bush gives an interview to Megyn Kelly of Fox News, saying that he would have authorized the invasion of Iraq, but once Sodam Insane was removed there wasn't enough focus on security. On May 11 Christie's auctions Pablo Picasso's 1955 painting "Les Femmes d'Alger (Version 'O') for a record $179.4M, the auctions Alberto Giacometti's bronze sculpture "L'Homme au Doigt" (The Pointing Man) for a record $141.3M, becoming the first auction selling two works at over $120M each. On May 12 the U.S. Senate Dems. filibuster Pres. Obama's Trans-Pacific Partnership Asian trade deal, questioning whether it will help U.S. workers; meanwhile he calls for a rewrite of the U.S. Patriot Act to end NSA's phone-snooping program et al.; on May 13 Senate leaders reach a deal to proceed with the trade deal with separate votes on priority items incl. helping U.S. workers; on May we the U.S. Senate votes 57-42 to reject the Patriot Act. On May 12 (9:30 p.m.) after reaching 106 mph, Amtrack Northeast Regional train 188 derails in Philly, killing seven; engineer Brandon Bostian (1982-) has no recall. On May 13 Sunni Muslim ISIS or Jundalah gunmen execute 43 bus commuters in Karachi, Pakistan for being Shiite Ismailis. On May 13 the Vatican announces that it plans to recognize a Palestine state, switching relations from the PLO; on May 16 Pope Francis welcomes Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas, calling him an "angel of peace". On May 13 Repub. pres. candidate Marco Rubio of Fla. outlines his Rubio Doctrine at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), with three pillars incl. Am. strength, protection of the Am. economy in a globalized world, and moral clarity regarding core Am. values - listen up, I'm reworking the menu? On May 13-14 Pres. Obama hosts leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) despite Saudi King Salman et al. snubbing him, promising them more military aid to defend themselves from Iran, calling his commitment to their security "ironclad"; they end up signing a joint statement endorsing a comprehensive, verifiable Iran nuclear deal that fully addresses the regional and international concerns", believing it will serve the security interests of GCC member states. On May 14 after Iraqi troops drop their weapons and run, allowing them to rearm, ISIS begins occupying Ramadi, Iraq 70 mi. from Baghdad, capturing the police HQ and the Ramadi Great Mosque, taking the whole town by May 17; the U.S. allowed ISIS to capture it?; on May 21 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte: "We're not losing the war against ISIS" - no, but it is winning? On May 14 a blast in an Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades terrorist training camp in Beit Lahya, Gaza injures 50+. On May 14 (Nakba Day) Fatah issues a post on their Facebook page calling for Israel to be retaken by force, with the soundbyte: "What was taken by force can only be regained by force, the 67th anniversary of the Nakba." On May 14 Spanish interior minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz gives a speech at the African Security Conference in Niger, revealing that Spain has arrested a total of 558 jihadists over the past 10 years in 124 separate operations, preventing another attack similar to the Mar. 2004 Madrid train bombers that killed 200 and injured 2K; too bad, he estimates the probability of a future attack at 70%; at a 2-day terrorism conference on Apr. 23-24 he said that at least 115 Spaniards have joined ISIS, and 14 returned to Spain, of whom nine are in prison; in Jan. he said that there are 70 Spanish jihadists abroad, vs. 51 in Aug. 2014. On May 15 despite a veto threat by Pres. Obama, the U.S. House by 269-151 passes a $612B defense policy bill that skirts 2011 caps on defense and domestic spending by putting $89B into an emergency war fund. On May 15 the Boston Joker Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is sentenced to death despite a show put up by his defense team that he was just a "kid", woo woo woo. On May 15 USMC Brig. Gen. Thomas D. Weidley utters the soundbyte that the strategy to defeat and dismangle, er, dismantle ISIS is on track and working. On May 15 Socialist mayor of Venelles, France Robert Chardon is arrested and put in a hospital for Tweets saying "The Muslim religion must be banned in France", and Muslims "immediately escorted to the border", forecasting the ban will be implemented by 2027; according to coverup, er, authorities, he has been undergoing treatment for mouth cancer for weeks, so that why they er, shut him up. On May 15 (night) U.S. commandos kill senior ISIS cmdr. Abu Sayyaf, dir. of oil, gas, and financial operations in Syria, and capture his wife Umm Sayyaf, freeing a young Yezidi slave girl and capturing a treasure trove of electronic intel. On May 16 (05:57 GMT) the Russian Proton rocket fails 10 min. after launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. On May 16 former Egyptian pres. Mohammad Mursi and 105 other members of the Muslim Brotherhood incl. Yusuf al-Qaradawi are sentenced to death in connection with a mass jailbreak in 2011, causing jihadists to warn the world to expect a backlash, while the U.S. and Turkey condemns Egypt, and the EU denounces Egypt, calling the trial flawed and "not in line with Egypt's obligations under international law"; hours after the verdict is announced, Muslim Brotherhood terrorists kill two Egyptian judges and Egypt's top prosecutor N of El-Arish, Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula, also killing a driver and injuring another prosecutor; ex-special forces cmdr. turned terrorist Hisham al-Ashmawy is suspected; on May 21 ISIS threatens the Egyptian death sentence judges with er, death; on May 27 159 pro-Muslim Brotherhood clerics and 10 pro-MB religious bodies post a document on the Internet calling for the overthrow of the al-Sisi regime and return of Morsi to power; on June 16 after consultations with the Egyptian Grand Mufti, Morsi's death sentence is upheld, along with five others incl. Mohammed Badie. On May 17 (Sun.) Jerusalem Day celebrations see 30K Israelis march to the Western Wall while being attacked by rock-throwing Palestinians. On May 17 ISIS sieges the ancient city of Palmyra, Syria after overrunning the adjacent town of Tadmur on May 16, causing UNESCO dir.-gen. Irina Bokova to call for its archeological treasures to be saved; on May 20 ISIS blows up notorious Tadmur Prison, used by the Syrian govt. to torture political prisoners; on May 24 ISIS murders 400+ collaborators and mutilates their bodies, laying them out on the street; on May 27 Syrian govt. aircraft begin heavy bombing; on June 23 syrian antiquities chief Maamoun Abdulkarim announces that ISIS has mined the ancient ruins in Palmyra. On May 17 a U.S. MV-22 Osprey crashes ("hard-lands") at Bellows AFB, Hawaii, killing one Marine and injuring 21; a 2nd Marine dies on May 20. On May 17 (12:27 p.m.) the 2015 Waco, Tex. Shootout at Twin Peaks Restaurant between members of several motorcycle gangs incl. the Bandidos and Cossacks causes a police SWAT team to open fire, killing nine and injuring 18 before arresting 177. On May 18 Pakistani army spokesman Asim Bajwa announces an intel-sharing pact between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Afghanistan's Nat. Directorate of Security (NDS) to train NDS officials et al. On May 19 twin bomb attacks at the regional HQ of the People's Dem. Party (HDP), the main pro-Kurdish party in Adana, Turkey injures six. On May 19 the 200th Anniv. of Geneva's Accession to the Swiss Confederation. On May 19 top Vatican adviser Jeffrey Sachs, dir. of the Earth Inst. at Columbia U. utters the soundbyte that when Pope Francis visits the U.S. in Sept. he will directly challenge the "American idea" of God-given rights embodied in the Declaration of Independence, calling for a OWG and its priorities to eclipse them. On May 20 a madass Arab rams his car into a group of police officers on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, injuring two. On May 20 five major banks incl. Citicorp, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, and UBS AG plead guilty to felony charges of manipulating the U.S. currency market in a "brazen display of collusion" (U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch), agreeing to pay $2.5B in fines. On May 21 U.S. inspector gen. Michael E. Horowitz utters the soundbyte that the FBI tripled its bulk collection of data under Section 215 of the U.S. Patriot Pact, yet didn't crack any new major terrorism cases. On May 21 a bombshell report on Josh Duggar, claiming that he molested five minor girls incl. some sisters 10+ years ago brings an apology, but shuts down his reality TV show "19 Kids and Counting". On May 22 ISIS seizes Al-Tanf (Al-Waleed), the last Syrian govt.-controlled border crossing to Iraq. On May 22 ISIS suicide bomber Abu Amer al-Najdi detonates at a Shiite mosque in Qatif, E Saudi Arabia, killing 22 and injuring 80, becoming the deadliest suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia in nearly a decade; the terror cell incl. two 15-y.-olds and one 16-y.-old, causing a firestorm of controversy about Saudi culture being saturated with sectarian hatred and admiration of violence, calling for fundamental changes. On May 22 Palestinian worshippers disrupt a Fri. sermon at Al-Aqsa Mosque by Jordanian chief qadi Ahmad Hulail, pissing-off the Jordanian public; meanwhile Jibril Rajoub, pres. of the Palestinian Football Assoc. refuses to back the Jordanian candidate for pres. of FIFA Prince Ali Bin al-Hussein, King Abdallah's half-brother, pissing them off more. On May 22 Pres. Obama gives a speech at the Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C., uttering the soundbyte: "I can say that no U.S. president, no administration, has done more to ensure that Israel can protect itself." On May 22-26 the 2015 Texas-Okla. Flood and Tornado Outbreak sees a week of heavy rain incl. super rain on the nights of May 24-26 trigger record floods in Tex. and Okla., along with 75 EF3-max tornadoes incl. in Mexico, becoming the wettest mo. on record in Okla. (until ?), with Oklahoma City receiving 19.48 in. On May 23 Ireland votes to legalize same-sex marriage, becoming the first to do it with an amendment to the nat. constitution. On May 24 Turkey announces that it and the U.S. have agreed in principle to provide air protection for 15K Syrian rebels being trained to reenter Syrian territory. On May 24 Pope Francis pub. the Socialist encyclical Laudato Si, co-written by pantheist climate scientist Hans Schellnhuber, calling for solutions to global climate change that are rooted in our "deepest convictions about love, justice, and peace", with the soundbytes: "We have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor"; "Obstructionist attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference, nonchalant resignation, or blind confidence in technical solutions"; "The economy accepts every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings"; "In light of these considerations, we believe it is both unwise and unjust to adopt policies requiring reduced use of fossil fuels for energy. Such policies would condemn hundreds of millions of our fellow human beings to ongoing poverty. We respectfully appeal to you to advise the world's leaders to reject them"; "We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels... needs to be progressively replaced without delay"; "A true 'ecological debt' exists, particularly between the global north and south... In different ways, developing countries, where the most important reserves of the biosphere are found, continue to fuel the development of richer countries at the cost of their own present and future"; on Apr. 27 An Open Letter to Pope Francis on Climate Change is pub., organized by Carl Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance and signed by 202 mainly scientists, urging Pope Francis to reconsider his views on climate change before issuing the encyclical, containing the soundbytes: "Good climate policy must recognize human exceptionalism, the God-given call for human persons to 'have dominion' in the natural world (Genesis 1:28), and the need to protect the poor from harm, including actions that hinder their ascent out of poverty"; "The models are wrong. They therefore provide no rational basis to forecast dangerous human-induced global warming, and therefore no rational basis for efforts to reduce warming by restricting the use of fossil fuels or any other means." On May 27 former U.S. Sen. (R-Penn.) Rick Santorum (known for giving speeches while wearing sweater-vests) announces his candidacy for U.S. pres., railing against "big government" and "big money", vowing to get rid of executive orders and the "corrupt federal tax code", and focus on working families. On May 27 ISIS executes 20 men in Palmyra, Syria in the old Roman theater before a crowd. On May 28 al-Qaida-affiliated Jaish al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) troops capture Idlib, Syria, the last govt.-held city in the NW province of Idlib. On May 28 Iraqi health minister Adila Hammoud announces that 470 bodies executed by ISIS last year in the Speicher Massacre in Tikrit have been exhumed. On May 29 U.S. District Court Judge Donald Middlebrooks of Fla. announces that Klayman v. Hillary Clinton et al., a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Criminal Org.) trial will begin on Jan. 25. On May 29 former Repub. U.S. House Speaker #59 (1999-2007) John Dennis "Denny" Hastert (1942-) resigns from the CME Group Inc. after being indicted on federal charges of structuring bank withdrawals to evade bank reporting requirements and making false statements to federal investigators during an investigation for paying $3.5M hush money to coverup past crimes of molesting three students back in his teacher days; he denies everything; the stinkin' bureaucrats can't prove his real crime so they abuse their power and charge him with withdrawing and spending his own money in a suspicious way, when it should be none of their business? In May the Clinton Global Initiative meets in Morocco; in Jan. Hillary Clinton's aide Huma Abedin emails her about her idea of speaking at the meeting after a $12M donation by king Mohammed VI, which is revealed by WikiLeaks on Oct. 20, 2016. In May the 2015 Indian Heat Wave begins, killing 2.5K by June 3 esp. in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, with high demand for electricity to power air conditioning leading to power outages; in May 2016 a new high temp record is set in Phalodi; the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) blames air conditoners for causing heat waves. In May U.S. unemployment reaches 5.5% (vs. 5.4% in Apr.), adding 280K new jobs. On June 1 after a stand by Sen. (R-Ky.) Rand Paul, the U.S. Patriot Act expires; on June 2 the U.S. Senate by 67-32 passes a revamped 2015 USA Freedom Act after taking out bulk collection of Americans' data and adding more transparency checks to the er, secret court that oversees intel; the NSA phone metadata program is given 6 mo. to shut down and expunge its databanks. On June 1 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 8-1 in EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch that employers must accommodate job applicants and employees with religious needs incl. wearing a hijab even if they don't reveal their religion and the employer at least has an idea. On June 1 U.S. Sen. (R-S.C.) Lindsey Graham announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. in Central, S.C., stressing his humble roots, and pledging to fight radical Islam with a platform of pragmatism at home and "security through strength", fearing that the world is "exploding in terror and violence", with the soundbyte: "We will never enjoy peaceful coexistence with radical Islam." On June 1 Melvin Carraway, acting chief of the U.S. Transportation Security Admin. (TSA) is fired after a new report reveals that airport security officers badly failed a test, allowing people to sneak prohibited items through screeners into secure areas. On June 1 after an interview with Diane Sawyer on 20/20 on Apr. 24 where he reveals his open secret, Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner (1949-) introduces his new transgender persona, Caitlyn Jenner on ABC-TV's 20/20, complete with a Vanity Fair cover shot by Annie Leibovitz, setting a record by amassing 1M new Twitter followers in 4 hours (vs. 4.5 hours for Pres. Obama in Apr.). On June 1 Pope Senseless, er, Francis gives a speech on tolerance, claiming that the spiritual teachings of the Quran are just as valid as those of the Bible, with the soundbyte: "Jesus Christ, Jehovah, Allah, these are all names employed to describe an entity that is distinctly the same across the world. For centuries blood has been needlessly shed because of the desire to segregate our faiths. This, however, should be the very concept which unites us as people, as nations, and as a world bound by faith. Together we can bring about an unprecedented age of peace. All we need to achieve such a state is respect each others beliefs, for we are all children of God regardless of the name we choose to address him by. We can accomplish miraculous things in the world by merging our faiths, and the time for such a movement is now." On June 1 a Washington Times poll finds that 64% of U.S. voters think that the U.S. and its allies are losing the fight against ISIS, vs. 17% who think it's winning; 64% think that the U.S. is doing too much around the world, vs. 32% who don't. On June 2 Boston, Mass. Muslim Usaama Rahim (b. 1988) is shot by police after lunging at them with a military-style Bowie knife; he had considered beheading anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller then decided to kill cops instead. On June 2 the New York Times pub. an article claiming that Iran's nuclear fuel stockpiles increased 20% in the last 18 mo. while Pres. Obama was claiming they had been frozen, causing the White House to run for cover. On June 2 Pres. Obama gives an interview to an Israeli TV station, raising the possibility that the U.S. would allow a U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood if Netanyahu, er, the two sides fail to make a meaningful movement toward resolution. On June 2 Pres. Obama welcomes a group of leaders from the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) Fellows Program, uttering the soundbyte: "People don't remember, when I came into office, the United States in world opinion ranked below China, barely above Russia. And today, once again, the United States is the most respected country on Earth, and part of that I think is because of the work that we did to reengage the world and say that we want to work with you as partners, with mutual interests and mutual respect." On June 3 U.S. Gen. John Allen praises a new fund set up by UAE and Germany to restore infrastructure in parts of Iraq cleared of ISIS. On June 3-7 the insidious evil 57-member Org. of Islamic Cooperation (IOC) holds a Conference on Combatting Religious Intolerance and Discrimination in Jeddah, Saudia Aabia near the site where a blogger is being flogged for blasphemy; meanwhile U.S. Reps. Joseph Pitts (R-Penn.) and Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) introduce a bill calling for the global repeal of blasphemy laws, with the soundbyte: "Saudi Arabia has used criminal charges of blasphemy to suppress discussion and debate and silence dissidents." On June 4 the U.S. govt. announces a major data breach of govt. background investigation records, giving hackers personal info. on 21M current and former federal employees; on July 10 after having told Congress that the breach affected less than 18M people, Office of Personnel Mgt. dir. Katherine Archuleta resigns; the Chinese did it? On June 4 the Communist Party of Russia demands that the Soros Fund be incl. on the list of undesirable foreign orgs. after a hacked Ukrainian govt. document dated Mar. 12 reveals George Soros telling Ukrainian pres. Petro Poroshenko how to rearm and resume the war in the Donbass region of E Ukraine. On June 4 Iranian supreme assaholah Ali Khameinei gives a televised speech, declaring that the U.S. and Israel support al-Qaida and ISIS, with the soundbyte: "Today, we are as much opposed to the savage and oppressive behavior of DAESH in Iraq and Syria as we are to the oppressive behavior of America's federal police inside their own country. Both of them are the same", while the audience chants: "Allah Akbar [3x], Khameinei is our leader! Death to America, death to England... death to Israel". On June 4 the Obama admin. releases a major study that says that fracking poses no direct threat to drinking water supplies. On June 4 Iran Rev. Guards cmdr. Akil Bakhtiyari is KIA in Qalamoun, Syria fighting for Bashar al-Assad. On June 4 USAF Gen. Hawk Carlisle announces that a stupid ISIS member posted a selfie online, allowing them to bomb his HQ in Syria. On June 4 the U.S. embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia celebrates U.S. Independence Day 1 mo. early to avoid pissing-off Muslims who are celebrating Ramadan. On June 4 a CNN/ORC Poll shows former U.S. pres. George W. Bush getting a higher favorability rating than Pres. Obama, 52% vs. 49%. On June 5 the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases a report stating that the number of foreign-born workers employed in the U.S. reached 25,098,000 in May, vs. 21,375,000 in Jan. 2009 when Pres. Obama took office, an increase of 3,723,000. On June 6 (early a.m.) convicted murderers Richard William Matt (1966-2015) and David Sweat (1980-) escape from the 2015 Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemore, N.Y., causing a huge manhunt involving N.Y. gov. Andrew Cuomo; on June 26 Matt is killed by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Franklin County, N.Y.; on June 28 Sweat is shot 2x and captured by a N.Y. state trooper in a field near Constable, N.Y. 16 mi. N of where Matt was killed, and 1.5 mi. from the Canadian border; prison employee Joyce Mitchell and prison guard Gene Palmer are later charged and convicted of aiding their escape. On June 6 "Sophia Burset in Orange Is the New Black" star Laverne Cox becomes the first openly transgender person to appear on the cover of Time mag; on June 26 Madame Tussauds unveils a wax figure of her, becoming their first transgender wax figure. On June 7 legislative elections in Turkey give the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) 40.8% of the vote, vs. 50% in 2011, leaving it with 258 seats in parliament, 18 below the min. required to rule alone, depriving of a majority for the first time since 2002, becoming a direct slap to Pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who ignored the law requiring him to be neutral in the election to personally campaign; the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Dem. Party (HDP) gets 13% of the votes, winning 80 seats in parliament; meanwhile on June 8 the Turkish foreign ministry announces the recall of its ambassador to Brazil on June 3 after the Brazilian senate passed legislation recognizing the WWI Armenian Massacre as genocide. On June 7 midterm federal elections in Mexico elect independent Jaime Rodriguez Calderon AKA El Bronco as the new gov. of Nuevo Leon, becoming a first, showing increased voter dissatisfaction with the established PRI and PAN parties. On June 7 U.S. treasury secy. Jacob Lew is booed at the annual Jerusalem Post Conference in New York City when he utters the soundbyte that Pres. Obama and his admin. have done more than any of his predecessors to advance the security of Israel, citing $20B in military support, heckling him for trying to portray a nuclear agreement with Iran as the only way to prevent Iran from getting nukes. On June 7 (night) Hillary Clinton gives a speech to the Service Employees Internat. Union (SEIU) convention, expressing support for raising the federal min. wage from $7.25 to $15, with the soundbyte: "It is wrong that so many people stand against you, thinking that they can steal your wages with no consequences. That... stacks the deck higher for those at the top." On June 8 Syrian hackers announce the infiltration of the official U.S. Army Web site, causing it to go down for several hours, causing acting U.S. undersecy. for defense Brad Carson on June 9 to blame inability to pay top cyber professionals enough to keep them from leaving for the private sector. On June 8 Pres. Obama attends the G-7 Summit in Kruen, Germany, uttering the soundbyte: "We don't yet have a complete strategy" for fighting ISIS "because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis." On June 8 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court sides with Pres. Obama and criticizes Congress for "overstepping its bounds", rejecting an appeal from Menachem Binyamin Zivotofsky to have his passport list "Jerusalem, Israel" as his birthplace, causing Palestinian Authority spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh to issue the soundbyte: "The decision sends an obvious message that Israel is an occupying power of East al-Quds, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip"; Israeli immigration minister Ze'ev Elkin replies that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and "will remain that for eternity." On June 8 Zainab Bangura, U.N. envoy on sexual violence utters the soundbyte that ISIS is selling kidnapped teenie girls for "as little as a pack of cigarettes". On June 8 Krissie K. Davis (b. 1961) of Ala. becomes the 3rd U.S. military member to die in Afghanistan after the U.S. combat mission ended during an indirect fire attack at Bagram AFB. On June 8-12 the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) sponsors a conference in Washington, D.C. held by the Obama admin. that incl. members of the Muslim Brotherhood, causing Egypt to ask U.S. ambassador Stephen Beecroft to answer for it in Cairo. On June 9 a series of bombing in and around Baghdad, Iraq kill 20 and injure dozens. On June 9 the 2015 Pentagon 4th Gay Pride Celebration in Washington, D.C. features top brass incl. U.S. defense secy. Ashton Carter, U.S. Army secy. John McHugh, transgender Army Office of Energy Initiatives exec dir. Amanda Simpson et al.; MC is U.S. Brig. Gen. Randy S. Taylor, who introduces his husband Lucas; meanwhile seven oepely gay U.S. ambassadors, along with Randy Berry, the U.S. State Dept.'s first special envoy for LGBTI persons pub. a joint letter in The Advocate, which is reposted on the White House Web site, calling for internat. free trade agreements to help export U.S. values incl. human and LGBTI rights. On June 9 Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop utters the soundbyte that ISIS is believed to have acquired radioactive materials and tools needed to make a variety of chemical weapons, raising fears that it can build a dirty bomb. On June 9 U.S. air marshal Robert MacLean testifies before Congress, uttering the soundbyte that flight crews and law enforcement should have the legal authority to "deputize and indemnify vetted able-bodied passengers to protect themselves" in the event of a terrorist attack. On June 9 (night) ISIS affiliate Sinai Province fires rockets at the U.N. airport in Sinai Province (Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis), Egypt. On June 10 Pres. Obama announces that he is sending up to 450 more U.S. troops to Iraq to help with training of Iraqi security forces to fight ISIS at Al-Taqqadum Air Base. On June 10 U.S. State Dept. spokesman Jeff Rathke announces that American Keith Broomfield was killed in Syria near the border town of Kobani while fighting alongside the Kurdish People's Protection Union (YPG) against ISIS. On June 10 a suicide bomber detonates steps away from the ancient Egyptian Temple of Karnak in Luxor, Egypt, after which two gunmen arrive and are killed by police after wounding four incl. two policemen, becoming the first Islamist attack on Luxor since Nov. 17, 1997. On June 10 Pope Francis approves a new Vatican tribunal for trying bishops accused of covering-up or failing to act in cases of child sexual abuse by priests. On June 10 Mich. gov. Rick Snyder signs the Mich. LGBT Adoption Bill, permitting faith-based agencies that contract with state agencies to refuse service to prospective parents on religious grounds and refer them to other state child placement agencies. On June 10 the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa holds a hearing on why the Obama admin. leaves ballistic missiles out of the Iranian nuke talks; Pres. Obama's former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) chief (2012-4), retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn (1959-) testifies, calling Obama's framework deal with Iran "wishful thinking", with the soundbyte: "Iran has every intention to build a nuclear weapon... It is clear that the nuclear deal is not a permanent fix but merely a placeholder"; former U.S. undersecy of state for arms control and internat. security Robert Joseph also testifies, uttering the soundbyte: "In my view, if there is an agreement along the lines that has been described by the White House and by the Iranian leadership, I believe it will represent perhaps the single greatest strategic mistake in the national security area in the past 35-plus years of my career." On June 10 the Wall Street Journal pub. a story claiming that sophisticated Duqu spyware of Israeli origin targeted three Euro hotels that had been venues for negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. On June 10 a coalition of religious groups incl. the Common Good Foundation, Liberty Council, and Vision America Action pub. a full-page ad in the Washington Post, which vows that they will not accept a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, with Common Good Foundation founder (Roman Catholic deacon) Keith Fournier uttering the soundybte: "One of the silver linings of this dark cloud, and it is a dark cloud is that we're coming together, Evangelicals, Protestants out of the mainstream traditions, Catholics and Orthodox, and faithful Jews and other people of good will are coming together to stand up again for what cannot be changed, and that is the nature of marriage." On June 10 the city council of San Francisco, Calif. unanimously votes to require warning labels on all ads for sugary beverages, becoming the first in the U.S.; too bad, on Jan. 31, 2019 the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocks it as a violation of First Amendment rights. On June 11 the legislature of N.C. overrides the governor's veto of S.B. 2, a bill to protect the religious liberty of state civil servants by allowing them to refuse to perform same-sex marriages or issue marriage license. On June 11 N Va. Muslim h.s. student Ali Shukri Amin pleads guilty to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists after helping his 18-y.-o. friend Reza Niknejad fly to Turkey to join ISIS; he also secretly ran a popoular pro-ISIS Twitter account. On June 11 Syrian rebels seize Al-Thaala Military Airport in govt.-controlled Sweida Province, becoming their first advance into Druze territory. On June 11 Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas inaugurates a new embassy in Belgrade, Syria. On June 11 in celebration of Gay Pride Week, Boston, Mass. mayor Martin Walsh signs an executive order making all bathrooms in city hall "gender-neutral". On June 11 after 4.5K U.S. coalition air strikes, ISIS releases a 29-min. propaganda film celebrating the first anniv. of the capture of Mosul, Iraq, which it considers the founding moment of the caliphate. On June 11-12 the 10th Internat. Conference on Climate Change in Washington, D.C. is attended by the world's leading climate change skeptics, sponsored by the Chicago-based Heartland Inst. (founded 1984). On June 11 former Chinese security chief Zhou Yongkang is sentenced to life in prison after a secret trial. On June 11-13 the 2011 Bilderberg Conference in the Austria Alps, attended by 140 people from 22 nations incl. Henry Kissinger, Richard Perle, and David Petraeus discusses Russia, terrorism, globalization, cybersecurity et al. On June 12 (early a.m.) an explosion in the Al Qasimi neighborhood in the Old City of Sana'a, Yemen destroys a 2.5K-y.-o. U.N. cultural heritage site; the Saudis are accused of doing it with air strikes, but deny it. On June 12 ISIS loses control of Derna, Libya, its primary Libyan stronghold after local Islamist groups expel it to get even for their assassination of a local leader. On June 12 after minority leader Nancy Pelosi utters the soundbyte "This is not a good deal", and Dem. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on June 10 declares it "not a trade deal that we can trust", House Dems. defy Pres. Obama and kill his push for fast-track negotiating powers with a 126-302 vote to defeat the Trade Adjustment Assistance measure to help displaced workers. On June 12 pure white Spokane, Wash. NAACP leader Rachel Anne Dolezal (1977-) comes under fire for pretending to be black incl. wearing dreadlocks and semi-blackface, causing her to resign on June 15 after her parents complain along with other NAACP members; she's just using fraud to advance herself personally by building a web of lies, and once exposed she just keeps building the web bigger? On June 12 Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner suspends the processing of asylum requests in a bid to pressure other EU member states, with the soundbyte "Stop the Austrian asylum express." On June 12 former U.S. pres. George W. Bush gives an interview with the Israel Hayom newspaper, uttering the soundbyte: "My position was that you need to have boots on the ground" to fight ISIS, adding "The president will have to make that determination." On June 12 (night) the Taliban ambushes police checkpoints in Musa Qala, Helmand Province, Afghanistan killing 20 and injuring 10 police officers. On June 13 (12:30 a.m.) a shootout at the Dallas Police Dept. HQ in Tex. starts after four suspicious bags are found, one is exploded by an explosive ordinance robot, and shooters arrive and begin firing, then escape; hours later a police sniper kills suspect James Boulware. On June 13 (Sat.) (noon) Hillary Clinton holds a rally in Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park in Roosevelt, N.Y. before a meager 2K fans, posing as a populist who champions the working class and fights the "1 percent", promosing to restore "shared prosperity" for all Americans, and declaring the Four Fights, incl. building the economy, strengthening families, defending the country from global threats, and reforming govt.; the FAA declares a "national defense airspace" no-fly zone over Roosevelt Island during the event. On June 13 two commanders and 57 soldiers of the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) and Tanzeem Lahkar-e-Balochistan (TLB) groups surrender to Pakistan Muslim Leage leader Nawab Sanaullah Zehri in Khuzdar District, vosing to join the "national mainstream". On June 13 100K gather in Villepinte near Paris, France for the annual Regime Change in Iran Rally sponsored by the Nat. Council of Resistance of Iran, with U.S. lawmakers joining, incl. Ariz. Repub. Sen. John McCain, who utters the soundbyte: "The Iranian regime is the true epicenter of Islamic extremism in the world." On June 13 an internal State Dept. memo is leaked, which reveals that top officials don't have confidence in Pres. Obama' strategy of "countermessaging" the ISIS to defeat its social media agitprop, concluding that ISIS has "trumped" the U.S. On June 13 the Christian town of Maalula, Syria unveils a new statue of the Virgin Mary, replacing one destroyed by rebels in 2013. On June 14 the Pentagon announces a proposal to send heavy weapons incl. battle tanks for up to 5K troops in several Baltic and E Euro countries to deter future Russian aggression; if approved it will be the first time for ex-Soviet NATO member states. On June 14 Jabhat al-Nusra announces that it will put its own members on trial for massacring 20 Druze civilians in Idlib, Syria last week. On June 15 (Mon.) former Repub. Fla. gov. Jeb Bush announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. at Miami Dade College i Miami, Fla., promising to "run with heart... run to win", with plans to take the U.S. off its "very bad course", blaming Dems. for "the slowest economic recovery ever, the biggest debt increases ever, a massive tax increase on the middle class, the relentless buildup of the regulatory state, and the swift, mindless drawdown of a military that was generations in the making", adding that he is "not eager to see what another four years would look like under that kind of leadership." On June 15 British royals incl. Elizabeth II celebrate the 800th anniv. of the signing of the Magna Carta (Charta). On June 15 the Colo. Supreme Court rules that cos. can fire employees for smoking pot regardless if they do it off-duty and despite the drug being legal in the state in accordance with the precedent that state laws do not override federal law. On June 15 U.S. undersecy. for human rights Sarah Sewall gives a speech in Geneva, Switzerland, in which she tries to explain the lure of Islamic terrorism without mentioning the word Islam by citing Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - she needs a toupee with some brains in it? On June 15 Israeli MK Michael Oren (former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.) gives a speech in the Leonardo Hotel in Jerusalem, saying that the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement poses a "strategic threat" to Israel, which needs to fight it "like a war, which it is"; he also warns that the U.S. is gambling with Israel's future over Iran, saying that the U.S. "can afford to make a mistake" with them, while "Israel has zero room for error". On June 15 the FBI announces the "biggest Medicare takedown in FBI history", arresting Muslim-Am. physicians et al. from Miami, Fla. to Los Angeles, Calif., incl. 16 from Metro Detroit, Mich., who stole over $100M from taxpayers. On June 15 a U.S. air strike in Mosul, Iraq kills Benghazi Massacre suspect Ali Awni al-Harzi, calling him a "person of interest" linked to ISIL. On June 15 (night) U.S. Rep. (D-Fla.) Debbie Wasserman Schultz becomes the first voting member of Congress to officiate a same-sex marriage in Washington, D.C. in Fla. House near the Supreme Court Bldg. and U.S. Capitol; the lucky suckers are Robert Wolfarth and Alex Fernandez. On June 16 after ending his Celebrity Apprentice reality TV show to run, billionaire Repub. real estate mogul Donald John Trump (1946-) announces his candidacy for U.S. pres., promising to become "the greatest jobs president that God ever created" and bring back the American Dream after dissing the current political leaders because they will "never make America great again"; he hires Corey Lewandowski (1973-) as his campaign mgr.; his speeches average-out at a 4th grader level; after accusing Mexico of "not sending their best... They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems to us. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people", to solve the leaky border he promises to build a Great Wall along it, and make Mexico pay for it, causing Univision TV network on June 26 to ban Trump's Miss Universe contest, causing him on June 27 to ban their employees from his Trump Nat. Doral Resort and Golf Club near their HQ in Miami, Fla.; on June 29 NBC-TV cuts all business ties for ditto, followed on July 1 by Macy's, which he counters are soft on immigration, adding that he's not beholden to anybody, and that he doesn't like stores that sell apparel manufactured in China anyway; Trump announces his net worth at $8.7B, then on July 16 ups it to $10B, despite Forbes mag. claiming it's only $4B; on July 23 a report by the Tex. Dept. of Public Safety is leaked that reports that illegal aliens committed 611,234 crimes in Tex. in 2008-14 incl. nearly 3K homicides. On June 16 the U.S. Senate fails to approve an amendment that would allow the Obama admin. to go around the Iraqi govt. and directly arm Kurdish forces. On June 16 the U.S. FDA announces that artificial trans fats have to be off U.S. grocery shelves within three years. On June 16 after Senate Foreign Relations Committee chmn. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) writes him a letter on June 15 expression alarm about reports in erosion in Obama admin. positions in the negotiations, U.S. suck, er, secy. of state John Kerry announces that the U.S. is dropping its longstanding reqt. for Iran to come clean on its history of nuke development in order to reach a final deal, while acknowledging that "we have absolute knowledge with respect to certain military activities they were engaged in"; on Feb. 2, 2014 Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Iran will be required to "come clean on its past actions as part of any comprehensive agreement." On June 16 al-Qaida releases a video confirming that a U.S. drone strike in Mukalla, Yemen on June 12 killed AQAP leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi (b. 1976), and that Qasim al-Raymi (Qasm al-Rimi) (1979-) has been chosen as his successor (until ?), threatening revenge on the U.S. On June 19 the U.S. State Dept. issues its 2015 Country Reports on Terrorism, admitting that global terrorist attacks increased 35% between 2013-14, and that the total killed increased by more than 90%, with the vast majority of attacks and deaths occurring in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and India, highlighting Iran's role as a leading state sponsor of terrorism. On June 16-19 peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland by the warring parties in Yemen end without even agreeing to a 2-week humanitarian truce for Ramadan. On June 17 Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas announces the dissolution of the unity govt. formed with Hamas last year. On June 17 Queens, N.Y. Muslim engineering student Munther Omar Saleh is charged by federal authorities with plotting with ISIS to blow up New York City landmarks and tourist attractions using pressure cooker bombs; meanwhile Fort Lee, N.J. Muslim Samuel Rahamin Topaz is arrested as his co-conspirator, making for four Am. Muslims arrested in a week. On June 17 the U.S. Treasury Dept. announces that Alexander Hamilton will be replaced on the $10 U.S. bill by a woman to be announced later, with new bills coming out by 2020, the 100th anniv. of the 19th Amendment giving women the vote - who voted for this? On June 17 the U.S. House votes 288-139 votes down a resolution to remove U.S. armed forces from Iraq and Syria by Dec. 31. On June 17 (eve.) after attending a Bible class there for 1 hour to case them, white supremacist Dylann Storm Roof (1994-) shoots up the all-black Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., killing nine incl. pastor and state sen. Clementa C. Pinckney while shouting "You rape our women and you're taking over our country"; on June 18 he is arrested at a traffic stop in Shelby, N.C., before which new U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch announces a federal hate crimes investigation, and after which Pres. Obama calls for gun control, with the soundbytes: "Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times", and "Let's be clear. At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries." On June 18 the 200th Anniv. of the Battle of Waterloo. On June 18 (1st day of Ramadan) Saudia, er, Saudi Arabia and Russia sign a nuclear agreement for peaceful use of nuclear technology - look at the footwork, as peaceful as Iran? On June 18 local media report that Jordan is gearing up to fight a possible invasion by ISIS. On June 18 after Pres. Obama attends her investiture ceremony at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. on June 17, new U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch addresses LGBT activists of Lambda Legal in Washington, D.C., uttering the soundbyte: "We are finally witnessing the cascade of equality... that will forever reshape this country", adding that the U.S. Justice Dept. and Pres. Obama back them 100%. On June 18 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Walker v. Texas Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans that license plates are govt. speech and subject to more content restrictions than private speech under the First Amendment; the decision comes one day after the Charleston church shooting, causing three state govs. (Va., N.C., Md.) to announce on June 23 plans to discontinue Confederate flag specialty license plates. On June 19 Hezbollah annoucnes the killing of two ISIS cmdrs. and seven ISIS terrorist in two separate attacks near Arsal, Lebanon; meanwhile on June 18 Kassem Hejeij, head of the Middle East Africa Bank (MEAB) in Lebanon resigns in favor of his son Ali Hejeij after the U.S. Treasury charges him with direct links to Hezbollah. On June 19 the U.S. State Dept. releases its 2015 Report on Global Terrorism, admitting that "Iran's state sponsorship of terrorism worldwide remained undiminished", claiming to be "very, very concerned" while staying committed to a nuclear deal with the loonies; "We think it's essential that we pursue these negotiations." On June 19 British PM David Camero gives a speech at a security conference in Slovakia, with the soundbyte that the ideology of ISIS is "quietly condoned" by some British Muslims. On June 20 a Day Against Muslim Immigration in Calais, France sees protesters carrying signs reading "Calais clean, dirtied by immigration"; another protest in Bratislava, Slovakia is organized by Stop Islamisation of Europe and the People's Party-Our Slovakia, with protesters shouting "Muslims are always the enemy"; another protest in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. On June 20 a Bosnian Muslim in Graz, Austria plows his car into a crowd of shoppers then gets out and stabs elderly bystanders, killing three and injuring 34. On June 21 WikiLeaks begins pub. the Saudi Cables, 500K leaked top-secret emails between the Saudi govt. and its embassies. On June 21 an Israeli air strike near Saghbine, E Lebanon destroys a crashed drone. On June 21 the Iranian parliament passes a Nuclear Rights Bill banning internat. access to its military sites while permitting the IAEA to inspect nuclear sites. On June 21 after a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius announces a new French Israeli-Palestinian peace effort in Ramallah, seeking a U.N. Security Council Resolution dictating a time frame for a settlement, warning of an "explosion" unless the deadlock is broken; in the past the Obama admin. has threatened to veto such a measure, but Fabius utters the soundbyte: "Our American friends have made statements which are maybe more open than before." On June 22 (a.m.) explosions hit the Afghan Parliament as defense minister Massoom (Mohammed) Stanekzai is being sworn-in, followed by several Taliban fighters, who fight it out with army special forces; meanwhile the Taliban captures two key stricts, Dash-e-Archi and Chardara in Kunduz Province, and sets up a 24-hour hotline for Afghan officials wanting to defect to them, while holding talks with Iranian officials to obtain support from ISIS, which the Afghan govt. denies. On June 22 the Schabas Report on the 2014 Gaza War is released by the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC), trying to lower Israel down to the level of Hamas by accusing it of war crimes and accepting the Palestinian death count of 1,462 out of 2,251 Palestinians who were killed being mere civilians; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls the report "biased", adding "Israel is not perpetrating war cimes but rather protecting itself from an organization that carries out war crimes. We won't sit back with our arms crossed as our citizens are attacked by thousands of missiles"; on June 29 retired British army Col. Richard Kemp accuses the UNHRC of allowing itself "to become a tool of Hamas' murderous strategy" that sought to maximize Palestinian casualties during the Gaza conflict in order to paint Israel in a bad light, with the soundbyte: "By unjustly condemning Israel, by refusing to condemn Hamas' repeated and unprovoked aggression, this council has consistently validated and encouraged Hamas tactics." On June 22 Egypt announces the appointment of a new ambassador to Israel, Hazem Hayrath (1957-), becoming the first since Atef Salem in Nov. 2012, who was recalled by Pres. Mohamed Morsi to protest Israel's Gaza operation. On June 22 a secret meeting between Israeli foreign minister Dore Gold and Turkish foreign minister Feridun Sinirlioglu in Rome results in a reconciliation agreement? On June 22 N.C. Muslim Justin Nojan Sullivan (1995-) is charged with plotting to kill 1K Americans for ISIS. On June 22 ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani releases a speech online calling for jihad of all Sunnis against Shiites, claiming that slackers are heretics who need to repent - listen to your taste buds? On June 22 ISIS hangs two youths in Vayadeen, Deir Ezzor Province, Syria for eating during fasting hours in Ramadan. On June 22 the 15K-man jihadist group called the Caucasus Emirate in Chechnya pledges loyalty to ISIS, with leader Aslan Byutukayev uttering the soundbyte: "We need to hurry up and unite so we can cut off the heads of the infidels." On June 22 after the govt. bans fasting during Ramadan by Muslim civil students, students, and teachers, an attack on police by Uighurs at a traffic checkpoint in Kashgar, China kills 18. On June 22 Egyptian security forces kill 22 suspected terrorists near Sheikh Zuwayed, North Sinai, Egypt. On June 22 taxi drivers in Paris, France begin protests against Uber for putting them out of work. On June 22 a Druze mob attacks an Israeli military ambulance carrying wounded Syrians for treatment in Israel near Majdal Shams, Syria. On June 23 former British chief of defense Lord Richards of Herstmonceux utters the soundbyte that Muslim extremism is a "real threat" tot he world, and Britain must stop "sleepwalking" and prepare to tackle it as seriously as it planned for WWII in the 1930s. On June 23 WikiLeaks reveals that the U.S. spied on French leaders in 2006-12, pissing-off the French govt., causing U.S. ambassador Jane Hartley to be called by the French Foreign Ministry to answer questions, after which Pres. Obama personally calls French pres. Francois Hollande on June 24 to lie, er, reassure him while stonewalling the press. On June 23 Iranian supreme assahollah Ali Khamenei gives a speech ruling out any lengthy freezing of nuclear work. On June 23 (night) Am. Black Panther leader Malik Shabazz gives a speech at a Save the Black Church rally in Marian Square near Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., calling for blacks to finish the job started by slave Denmark Vessey in 1822 and rise up and kill all whites in their beds. On June 24 Pres. Obama is heckled at a gay pride event in the East Room of the White House by illegal alien and transgender activist Jennice Gutierrez, causing Obama to order him/her removed after uttering the soundbyte: "As a general rule I am fine with a few hecklers, but not when I am up in the house." On June 24 U.N. special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed warns that Yemen is "one step" from famine, with 31M in need of humanitarian assistance, compared to 7M two years ago. On June 24 ISIS suicide bombers near a children's hospital in Hasakeh, Syria near Damascus kill 10 Syrian soldiers and injure 16 in two attacks. On June 24 after a nationwide protest sparked by the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church massacre, which incl. S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley on June 22 calling for it to be taken down from a monument at the S.C. State Capitol and relegated to a museum, amd Walmart, Sears, and Amazon discontinuing sales of Confed. flags, and Apple banning any app displaying it, even historical games, Robert Bentley of Ala. becomes the first Southern gov. to order the removal of Confederate banners from the state capitol; the Confed. flag still flies high outside the S.C. statehouse near an open casket ceremony for slain state sen. Rev. Clementa Pinckney; on June 26 Pres. Obama delivers a eulogy, calling him a "man of God who lived by faith", lobbying for gun control, singing "Amazing Grace" and uttering the soundbyte about the Confederate flag: "By taking down that flag we express God's grace"; on June 27 African-Am. protester Brittany "Bree" Newsome climbs the 30-ft. flagpole in front of the S.C. State Capitol and removes the Confed. flag herself before surrendering the police on charges of defacing public property; on June 30 S.C. Repub. Sen. Lindsey Graham calls for the flag's removal on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press", calling it a "roadblock to the future of my state". On June 24 Pope France speaks at St. Peter's Square in Rome, uttering a soundbyte referring to the Gospel of Matthew, where Christ said that marriage is the indissoluble union of a man and a woman, and that those who harm children would be better if a millstone were hung around their necks and they were cast into the sea. On June 24 Spain passes Law 12/2015 permititng Sephardi Jews with Spanish roots to apply for citizenship after a residency, causing U.S. crypto-Jews to race to beat the deadline. On June 25 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-3 to uphold Obamacare despite contested language in the fine print, essentially rewriting the law at will; so-called conservative Chief Justice John Roberts saves Obamacare for the 2nd time; Justice Anton Scalia issues a scathing dissent, with the soundbytes: "Having transformed two major parts of the law, the Court today has turned its attention to a third. The Act that Congress passed makes tax credits available only on an 'Exchange' established by the State. This Court, however, concludes that this limitation would prevent the rest of the Act from working as well as hoped. So it rewrites the law to make tax credits available everywhere. We should start calling this law SCOTUScare... And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites"; "Perhaps sensing the dismal failure of its efforts to show that 'established by the State' means 'established by the State or the Federal Government', the Court tries to palm off the pertinent statutory phrase as 'inartful drafting. This Court, however, has no free-floating power 'to rescue Congress from its drafting errors'." On June 25 a sightseeing plane crashes in the mountains in SE Alaska, killing all nine aboard; before the crash the cry "Allahu Akbar" is heard amind screams of passengers; ISIS did it? On June 25 50+ leading physicians and health researchers pub. an open letter in the U.K. Guardian calling for divestment from fossil fuel cos. to avert global warming; "Divestment rests on the premise that it is wrong to profit from an industry whose core business threatens human and planetary health." On June 25 ISIS releases a video of yet another mass beheading, this time of 12 men from rival Syrian rebel groups accused of fighting against them. On June 26 (10:00 a.m.) Muslim (ISIS?) jihadist Yassin Salhi (1979-) rams his car into the U.S.-owned Air Products gas factory in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier, France (SE of Lyon), plowing into gas canisters and causing an explosion, injuring two and killing his boss Herve Cornara (b. 1960) then beheading him and placing his covered with Arabic graffiti and draped with a pair of ISIS flags on a post at the entrance 30 ft. from his body before being captured - be afraid, be very afraid, even if they call you an Islamophobe? On June 26 (Fri.) the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-3 in Obergefell v. Hodges that all states must issue same-sex marriage licenses, and recognize those from other states, citing the "fundamental right to marry"; there are 390K married same-sex couples in the U.S. already, and 37 states that permit same-sex marriage; after calling gay plaintiff Jim Obergefell, Pres. Obama praises the decision as "a victory for America", saying that it's an example of a day when justice "arrives like a thunderbolt", with the soundbyte: "This morning the Supreme Court recognized that the Constitution guarantees marriage equality. In doing so, they've reaffirmed that all Americans are entitled to the equal protection of the law, that all people should be treated equally regardless of who they are or who they love"; Repub. appointee Anthony Kennedy joins the liberal wing of Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan to back the ruling, with Kennedy delivering the majority opinion, with the soundbyte: "No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say that disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right"; dissenter Chief Justice John Roberts sets a precedent by reading his dissent from the bench, saying that gays should celebrate their ruling, but "do not celebrate the Constitution. It had nothing to do with it. This court is not a legislature. Whether same-sex marriage is a good idea should be of no concern to us"; Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas issue a scating dissent calling the decision a "putsch", and Kennedy's lightweight reasoning "the mystical aphorisms of a fortune cookie" and a "threat to American democracy" threatening the main principle of the Am. Rev., viz. "the freedom [of the People] to govern themselves", destroying the age-old definition of marriage as one man and one woman "in an opinion lacking even a thin veneer of law", "a naked judicial claim to legislative - even super-legislative -power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government", dissing the "notorious nine" as "hardly a cross-section of America", all people from elite law schools sans a single person from middle-America, or a single Protestant, which has turned the U.S. govt. 180 degrees from "no taxation without representation" to "social transformation without representation", comparing it with the Pearl Harbor Attack by saying the decision will live in infamy, implying that the Court is drunk with power and is moving "one step closer to being reminded of our impotence"; "Today's decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact - and the furthest extension one can even imagine - of the Court's claimed power to create 'liberties' that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves"; Scalia writes the soundbyte: "If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: 'The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity', I would hide my head in a bag"; dissenting Justice Clarence Thomas writes the soundbyte that the court's "decision threatens the religious liberty our Nation has long sought to protect... In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well. Today's decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter. It appears all but inevitable that the two will come into conflict, particularly as individuals and churches are confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sex couples. The majority appears unmoved by that inevitability"; Michelle Cretella, pres. of the Am. College of Pediatricians utters the soundbyte: "The SCOTUS has just undermined the single greatest pro-child institution in the history of mankind: the natural family. Just as it did in the joint Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton decisions, the SCOTUS has elevated and enshrined the wants of adults over the needs of children"; on Apr. 11, 2017 the Uphold Historical Marriage Act is introduced into the N.C. legislature, declaring the Obergefell v. Hodges decision "null and void" in the state in preference to Sect. 6 Article XIV of the 2012 N.C. Constitution, which defines marriage as only between one man and one woman - it's all the women's fault, hence it's time to not only impeach the justices but repeal the 19th Amendment? ;) On June 26 the Vatican legally recognizes the "State of Palestine" and signs a treaty with it, claiming this will stimulate peace with Israel and become a model to follow; the signers are Vatican foreign minister Paul Gallagher and Palestinian foreign minister Riad al-Malki. On June 26 laughing Tunisian jihadist Seifeddine Yacoubi posing as a swimmer with an AK-47 hidden in a beach umbrella opens fire at a beach outside the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel in Sousse, Tunisia (87 mi. S of Tunis), killing 39, mainly Brits (most since the 2005 Islamic bombing), causing the govt. to order the closing of 80 "propagandist" mosques accused of inciting, while foreigners scramble to leave; ISIS claims responsibility, displaying a picture of Abu Yahya Qayrawani and calling for more Ramadan attacks. On June 26 an ISIS suicide bomber at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait kills 27 and injures 227, becoming the first suicide attack on Shiite mosques in Kuwait, causing Kuwait to declare a day of mourning and declare an "all-out confrontation" with "black terror". On June 26 ISIS massacres 164 Kurds in Kobane, Syria in reprisal for Vs by Kurdish militia. On June 26 after help from the Imbonerakure thug youth wing, elections in Burundi are a V for pres. Pierre Nkurunziza. On June 26 after the European Central Bank (ECB) caps its emergency funds, Greek PM Alexis Tsirpas announces the closing of all Greek banks on June 29, causing a run on ATM machines. On June 26 Queen Elizabeth II of Britain makes her first visit to Bergen-Belsen Camp in Germany, becoming her first visit to any former concentration camp. On June 27 (a.m.) al-Qaida-linked jihadists attack a town and military camp 19 mi. from the Mauritanian border in Nara, Mali, killing 12 incl. two soldiers, one civilian, and nine jihadists. On June 27 (Sat.) British authorities report the foiling of a planned ISIS pressure-cooker bomb attack on the Armed Forces Day Parade in S London targeting soldiers from the same unit as Lee Rigby, causing Britain to be put on red alert. On June 27 a delegation from the Internat. Criminal Court at The Hague arrives in Israel to look into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Palestinian territories. On June 29 a car bomb attack on a convoy in Cairo, Egypt kills chief prosecutor Hisham Barakat. On June 29 the Israeli navy intercepts the remnant of Freedom Flotilla III AKA Floating Terror-Tilla AKA Ship of Fools, a single Swedish-registered boat called Marianne of Gothenburg; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu writes them a letter, with the soundbyte: "Welcome to Israel! It seems you got lost. Perhaps you meant to sail to a place not far from here - Syria." On June 29 the Syrian army kills a group of 30 Chechen snipers entering Daraa, Syria. On June 29 Hudson County, N.J. Muslim Alaa Saadeh (1981-) is arrested on charges of providing material support to ISIS, becoming the 5th in the tri-state area in June. On June 29, 2015 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Mich. v. EPA to block Pres. Obama's EPA mercury and air toxic standards, saying that the admin. failed to adequately consider the $10B price tag, and that it must consider costs in the future when making a finding that it is necessary and appropriate to issue regulations. On June 29 UNESCO condemns ISIS for its "barbaric assaults" on World Heritage sites in Syria and Iraq, saying that they may amount to war crimes. On June 30 Repub. N.J. Gov. Chris Christie announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. at Livingston H.S. in Trenton, N.J., bringing the field to 14. On June 30 the charter of the U.S. Export-Import Bank expires. On June 30 the deadline for the Iranian nuclear deal passes, causing the P+5 to give Iran another week; meanwhile Pres. Obama threatens to "walk away" if Iran reneges on the Apr. interim agreement in Lausanne. On June 30 ISIS beheads its first women civilians, two Syrian women accused of sorcery. On June 30 a Pentagon Report on Afghani Forces reveals a 59% increase in battlefield casualties in the last 6 mo. compared to 2014, and concludes that the 300K-man force is inadequate to fight the Taliban or hold recaptured territory. On June 30 a CNN Poll finds that 43% of Americans think that race relations have gotten worse under Pres. Obama, vs. 20% who think they've gotten better, and 36% who think they've stayed the same; with blacks it's 33% for better, 35% for worse, and 32% for the same; with whites it's 17% for better, 47% for worse, and 35% for better; 55% of Americans approve of Obama's handling of race relations, vs. 42% who disapprove, incl. 84/14 for blacks and 48/47 for whites. In June the Great Celebrity Breakup Summer of 2015 begins; casualties incl. Kermit and Miss Piggy, Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, and Brangelina (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie), er, it was a false story. In June U.S. unemployment is 5.3% (vs. 5.5% in May) (lowest since the 2008 recession), with the economy adding 223K jobs; the number of Americans working or searching for a job is the lowest in 38 years, with only 62.6& of working age Americans participating in the labor force. In June/July the Liwa Usud al-Hussein (Lions of Hussein Brigade) militia is formed in Latakia, Syria to fight with the Assad regime's new Coastal Shield. On July 1 a wave of 15 simultaneous Islamist attacks in Sinai Peninsula, Egypt kills 100+ militants and 50 soldiers, causing Egypt to retaliate with F-16 air strikes. On July 1 Jose Inez Garcia Zarate, an illegal Mexican alien with seven felony convictions and five deportations back to Mexico who was allowed to run free by the Obama admin. murders a 32-y.-o. Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco, Calif. while walking at the waterfront for no apparent reason, causing an outcry about San Francisco's self-declared status as a "sanctuary city" that make it ignore an ICE detainer while he was in jail; on July 23 House Repubs. pass a bill, dubbed the Donald Trump Act by Dems. to strip federal grants from jurisdictions that shield illegal immigrants from arrest by federal immigration authorities. On July 1 Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal announces his intention to give away his entire $32B fortune to charitable causes a la Bill Gates; too bad, the money will go to "foster cultural understanding" of Islam in the West, meaning Islamization? On July 1 China passes the 2015 New Nat. Security Law along with a series of other laws that stifle dissent; 140+ attys., activists and their relatives in 24 cities are arrested or questioned by police to kick it off. On July 1 Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever gives a speech at the 65th Lindau Nobel Laureate Metting in Lindau, germany, saying that Pres. Obama is "dead wrong" on global warming, referring to his Jan. 20 State of the Union Message in which he said "No challenge poses a greater threat to future generations than climate change", and retorting "How can he say that? I think Obama is a clever person, but he gets bad advice. Global warming is all wet", adding, "I would say that global warming basically is a non-problem. Just leave it alone and it will take care of itself"; meanwhile Nobel Prize-winning physicist Brian Schmidt introduces the 2015 Mainau Declaration on Climate Change, signed by 36 Nobel laureatse, which contains the soundbyte: "We believe that the nations of the world must take the opportunity at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015 to take decisive action to limit future global emissions." On July 1 Ryan Mauro of the Clarion Project releases a report based on four recent polls indicating that ISIS is supported by 42M+ Muslims, with the soundbyte: "ISIS is only a fraction of what it could potentially become"; "If we don't act quickly, this is still going to grow - and what we're looking at today is going to look like the good old days compared to the future." On July 2 the U.S. announces that a coalition air strike in Syria killed senior ISIS leader Tariq bin Tahar al-Awni al-Harzi of Tunisia, "the emir of suicide ombers" in June. On July 2 the Trump Campaign releases the soundbyte: "Fox News poll just put us at the top nationally. Yesterday, CNN confirmed our national lead and verified our momentum in New Hampshire. And now Quinnipiac shows us at the top in Iowa. Numbers don't lie. We are a top-tier campaign and we can win. We will bring common sense to Washington!"; "I am the leading candidate on promoting smart trade deals, border security, rebuilding our military, and taking care of our veterans"; "I cannot be bought. Neither my allegiance nor discretion can be traded in exchange for high dollar donations from private interest groups. I am the only candidate who can say this. I will not shy away from my promise to work with Americans to rebuild America." On July 3 Saudi authorities in Jeddah announce the thwarting of an ISIS plot by arresting three suspects; one policeman is killed. On July 3 Russia announces a $200 military loan to Armenia incl. sophisticated weapons that will cover through 2017. On July 4 (Sat.) the U.S. military and homeland security are on high alert for a possible ISIS attack. On July 4 ISIS releases a video showing several dozen Syrian govt. soldiers allegedly being executed on May 21 by children and teenies in a Roman theater in Palmyra, Syria. On July 4 Hamas and Islamic Jihad hold talks to form a new unity govt., which the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) opposes. On July 4-17 five U.S. air strikes on ISIS in Iraq and Syria result in the death of only two civilians and injures to four more, with USAF Col. Pat Ryder calling Operation Inherent Resolve (begun Aug. 2014) the most precise aerial campaign in history. On July 4 after his Boston, Mass. police chief father turns him in, Muslim convert Alexander Ciccolo AKA Ali Al Amriki is arrested after posting jihadist info. on his Facebook page and telling FBI informants about plans to stage a jihad at a univ. campus using pressure cookers et al.; on Sept. 5, 2018 he is sentenced to 20 years in prison. On July 5 two Boko Haram bombs at the crowded Yantaya Mosque and elite Muslim Shagalinku restaurant in Jos, Nigeria kill 44 and injure 67. On July 6 the Palestinian Authority (PA) announces the arrest of a large Hamas cell it claims was planning to attack it. On July 6 45 ISIS terrorists are killed by food poisoning after taking their Iftar meal in Mosul, Iraq. On July 6 rallies in Nairobi, Kenya are held against homosexuality, while a lawmaker warns Pres. Obama not to push his pro-gay agenda when he visits the country later in July. On July 6 Pres. Obama gives a press briefing about the ISIS, uttering the soundbyte: "So the additional steps I ordered last month, we're speeding up training of ISIL forces including volunteers from Sunni tribes in Anbar Province", after which the White House Web site changes ISIL to Iraqi. On July 6 ISIS announces that 14-y.-o. suicide bomber Hamidi al-Muhammadi killed 50+ Kurdish PKK militiamen S of Ras al-Ayn, Syria on the Turkish border. On July 6 (night) an Al-Nusra Front suicide bomber at a Syrian army outpost in Aleppo, Syria kills 25 soldiers. On July 7 Hillary Clinton gives the first nat. TV interview of her campaign, with the soundbyte that voters are increasingly distrusting her because of the pesky Republicans, who are pummeling her with "unsubstantiated attacks". On July 7 FBI agents and Ind. State Police raid the Ziopnsville (near Indianapolis), Ind. home of Subway restaurant spokesman Jared Fogle searching for evidence 2 mo. after the exec dir. of his foundation was arrested on child porno charges, causing Subway to cut ties with him. On July 7 former U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter gives an interview to HuffPost Live, uttering the soundbyte: "I believe that Jesus would approve gay marriage... I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don't see that gay marriage damages anyone else", adding: "The only thing I would draw a line on, I wouldn't be in favor of the government being able to force a local church congregation to perform gay marriages if they didn't want to. But those two partners should be able to go to the local courthouse or to a different church and get married"; Carter adds that he does have a "problem with abortion", saying: "I have a hard time believing that Jesus, for instance, would approve abortions, unless it was because of rape or incest, or if the mother's life was in danger. So I've had that struggle, but my oath of office was to obey the Constitution... as interpreted by the Supreme Court." On July 8 the U.S. Army announces that it will cut 40K soldiers over the next two years along with 17K civilian employees due to the U.S. Budget Control Act, leaving it with 420K soldiers, which a Feb. Govt. Accountability Office (GAO) report says "lacks the capacity to conduct simultaneous major combat operations while defending the nation at home, sustaining minimal presence in critical regions, and retaining a Global Response Force at the direction of the commander in chief." On July 8 the Sawab (Arab. "right and spiritual path") Centre to combat the message of ISIS among young Arabs is launched in Abu Dhabi; U.S. undersecy. of state Richard Stengel attends the launch with foreign affairs minister Anwar Gargash. On July 9 U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynn, er, Lynch announces that the U.S. govt. will make federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples. On July 9 after a poll reveals that more than two-thirds of French citizens are against it, former French pres. Nicolas Sarkozy signs a petition against a proposal to convert empty churches into mosques; do they know that once it is done it is owned by Allah forever and can never be used for anything else? On July 11 Donald Trump speaks at the FreedomFest in Las Vegas, Nev., after which he holds a news conference to discuss immigration et al., saying "You can't be great if you don't have a border, no matter what you do... And you can't be great if China is taking all your jobs." On July 12 a suicide car bomber outside a U.S. base in Khost, Afghanistan kills 25+ incl. seven CIA operatives and injures 15. On July 12 authorities in Pristina, Kosovo cut off the water supply due to fears of an ISIS plot to poison its source at Badovac Lake 6 mi. SE. On July 12 after Mexican drug lord El Chapo escapes from his Mexican prison, Donald Trump begins sending tweets about it, incl. "Can you envision Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton negotiating with 'El Chapo', the Mexican drug lord who escaped from prison"; "The joke around town is that I freed El Chapo from the Mexican prison because the timing was so good w/ my statements on border security", and "El Chapo and the Mexican drug cartels use the border unimpeded like it was a vacuum cleaner, sucking drugs and death right into the US." On July 13 Wisc. Repub. Gov. Scott Walker announces his candidacy for U.S. pres.; he drops out on Sept. 21. On July 13 28-y.-o. black woman Sandra Annette Bland (1987-) from Naperville (near Chicago), Ill. known for posting videos protesting police brutality against blacks and joining the Black Lives Matter movement is found hanged in a jail cell in Waller County, Tex. after alleged misconduct state trooper Brian Encinia at a traffic stop on July 10; the death is ruled a suicide by the county coroner; despite an outcry the pigs are never charged with a speck of dust, er, Encina is indicted for perjury and fired, then gets the charge dropped in June 2017 in return for not seeking to be rehired; in Sept. 2016 Bland's mother settles a wrongful death lawsuit agains the police dept. and county jail for $1.9M. It's just like a bad dream and I can't wake up? On July 14 after 12 years of talks incl. 18 days of intensive sessions in Vienna, Iran reaches a landmark deal on nukes with the U.S. and other world powers after the Obama admin. folds and allows them the right to object to internat. inspections of military sites, with a 24-day notice, allowing them 5,060 centrifugues at one location (vs. 164 in 2005 and 19K today), freaking-out Republicans because in return Iran gets relief from billions of dollars in internat. sanctions and access to $100B in frozen assets, and its ominous ICBM program remains untouched, along with its support for Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist orgs., its repression of human rights, and its repeated calls for death to America and Israel; the U.S. promises to train Iranians to defend their nuclear facilities, esp. from Israeli attack?; Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls the deal "an historic mistake for the world"; former Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman utters the soundbyte: "History will remember the Iran deal just like the Munich Agreement and the agreement with North Korea"; U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk (co-sponsor of the Senate-approved sanctions against Iran) calls the deal "unremitted garbage", "the greatest appeasement since Chamberlain gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler", saying: "Tens of thousands of people in the Middle East are gonna lose their lives because of this decision by Barack Hussein Obama.. This agreement condemns the next generation to cleaning up a nuclear war in the Persian Gulf. It condemns our Israeli allies to further conflict with Iran"; Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan pub. an article blasting the deal, saying "It will wreak havoc in the Middle East which is already living in a disastrous environment in which Iran is a major player in the destabilization of the region", comparing it to Pres. Clinton's mistake with North Korea, only this time Obama "knows what President Clinton didn't know when he made his deal";on July 14 Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani delivers an address to the Iranian people, with the soundbyte: "The superpowers officially recognized Iran's nuclear activity"; on July 14 (night) Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer gives an interview to Megyn Kelly of Fox Mews, with the soundbyte: "I think you have given up everything. Yesterday Iran had an illegal nuclear program and was facing a headwind of sanctions. This deal gives them a legal nuclear program and gives them a tail wind of sanctions relief that they're going to use to continue their march of conquest and terrorism throughout the Middle East... in Syria, in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Yemen. And during this deal, Iran will be able to continue to do research and development on advanced centrifuges and to develop their intercontinental ballistic missiles. On July 14 IAEA secy.-gen. Yukio Amano and Atomic Energy Org. of Iran chief Ali Akbar Salehi sign a roadmap agreement to provide the IAEA with clarifications and explanations of PMD (Possible Military Dimensions) of their nuclear program. Those ICBMs are for you" - want a blowjob, then visit Obama's List dot com today? On July 14 two blasts rock a petrochemical plant in Bouches-du-Rhone, France. On July 14 Pres. Obama gives a speech on prison reform at the annual NAACP convention in Philly, calling for reductions in overcrowding, gang activity, solitary confinement, and rape, uttering the soundbyte that the $80B a year spent on prisons could be used to "provide universal preschool for every 3-year-old and 4-year-old in America, double the salary of every high school teacher in America, finance new roads, bridges, and airports, job training programs, research and development, eliminate tuition at every one of our public colleges and universities." On July 14 the gigantic winter 2015 snow pile in Boston, Mass. finally melts. On July 14 a tweet from the Trump campaign features Donald Trump's face on a U.S. flag, with a small insert showing some Waffen-SS soldiers that were put in by mistake; it is quickly deleted. On July 15 Canadian online adultery service Ashley Madison announces that hackers stole all of its 30M customers' data and is threatening to post it online if it doesn't shut down; on Aug. 18 they carry out their threat; on Aug. 24 after extortion attempts and suicides, Canadian police hold a press conference in Toronto, Ont., offering a $500K reward for info. on the hackers. On July 15 Pres. Obama gives a Speech on His Iran Nuke Deal, defending the proposed deal while playing safe with soundbytes like "It's not the job of the president to solve every problem in the Middle East... But I think I can provide that next president at least a foundation for continued progress"; meanwhile despite lobbying by vice-pres. Joe Biden et al., the opposition builds, while Saudi Arabia warns Iran that any economic gains from the lifting of sanctions must be used to improve the lives of Iranians "rather than using them to cause turmoil in the region."; when CBS reporter Major Garrett suggests that Pres. Obama doesn't care about Americans held hostage by Iran, he utters the immortal soundbyte: "That's nonsense and you should know better"; meanwhile Obama pisses-off Congress by obtaining quick approval from the U.N.; too bad, he first has to get the U.N. Security Council to rescind six resolutions against Iran (2006-10), but he pulls it off easily on July 20 with a unanimous 15-0-0 vote for U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 endorsing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), with the statement "The country's ballistic missile program and capability... fall outside the scope and the jurisdiction of the UNSC resolution and its annexes", which causes the Iranian govt. to issue the soundbyte: "The Islamic Republic of Iran considers science and technology, including peaceful nuclear technology, as the common heritage of mankind. At the same time, on the basis of solid ideological, strategic and international principles, Iran categorically rejects weapons of mass destruction and particularly nuclear weapons as obsolete and inhuman, and detrimental to international peace and security. Inspired by the sublime Islamic teachings, and based on the views and practice of the late founder of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini, and the historic Fatwa of the leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei, who has declared all weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, to be Haram (strictly forbidden) in Islamic jurisprudence, the Islamic Republic of Iran declares that it has always been the policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran to prohibit the acquisition, production, stockpiling or use of nuclear weapons." On July 15 (night) after escaped Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo threatens to make him "swallow" his words about Mexico dumping its worst citizens on the U.S., Donald Trump gives an interview to Sean Hannity, uttering the soundbyte: "You know, what I'm bringing up is much more important than Donald Trump. My life, you know, frankly, what I'm doing is so important for the country", adding "First of all, I appreciate your question, the way you worded it, because the truth is, we wouldn't be talking about illegal immigration if it weren't for me. I brought it up. They hammered me, and then they found out they were wrong. And so many people have apologized to me over the last week because, you know, when I made my statement, they didn't read my statement. They read little pieces of my statement and tried to make me look bad." On July 16 (10:45 a.m. local time) Kuwait-born Am. Muslim Muhammad Youssuf Abdulazeez (b. 1992) (U. of Tenn. electrical engineering grad) drives up to a military reserve center on Lee Hwy. in Chattanooga, Tenn. in a silver Ford Mustang with a drop top and pulls out a big black rifle and starts shooting, then drives 8 mi. to another station on Amnicola Hwy., killing four Marines and injuring three before being killed; a 5th Marine dies on July 18; at 10:34 an ISIS-related Twitter account tweets the message: "O American dogs soon YOU will see the wonders"; on July 22 (p.m.) after dragging his feet until pressure from lawmakers forces him, he orders flags lowered to half-staff at the White House and "all public buildings and grounds" until July 25, issuing a proclamation honoring the victims. On July 16 Pres. Obama becomes the first U.S. pres. to visit a prison while in office, El Reno Federal Correctional Inst. near Oklahoma City, Okla., uttering the soundbyte that the inmates are people "who made mistakes that aren't that different than the mistakes I made"; he enters Cell No. 123, commenting "Three full-grown men in a 9 x 10 cell." On July 16 the U.S. Senate by 81-17 passes a bipartisan overhaul of the No Child Left Behind Act, restoring power over low-performing schools to states. On July 16 the U.S. State Dept. warns Israel against demolishing an illegal Palestinians settlement in Sussiya, West Bank, claiming that it "would be harmful and provocative", threatening any peace agreement - they should be helping Israel resettle all Muslims far away in Arab lands to create a wide defensible DMZ and forget about any peace with Quran-thumping jihadists? On July 16 AQIM jihadists ambush Algerian soldiers in Ain Defla, Algeria (W of Algiers)., killing 11. On July 16 a Fox News Poll gives Donald Trump the lead among Repub. pres. candidates with 18%, up from 7% in June and 15% in Mar.; Wisc. Gov. Scott Walker is #2 at 15%, and former Fla. gov. Jeb Bush is #3 at 14%; Dem. candidate Hillary Clinton leads Bernie Sandrers by 59% to 19%. On July 17 the exiled Yemeni govt. announces that Saudi-backed forces have "completely liberated" Aden from Houthi rebels. On July 17 an ISIS suicide bomber in a cut-rate ice truck at a hot crowded mostly Shiite market in Khan Bani Saad, Iraq kills 115 and injures 100+. On July 17 the Empire State Bldg. in New York City lights green to commemorate the end of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim month of jihad. On July 18 Saudi Arabia announces the arrest of 431 suspected members of ISIS who are allegedly planning to attack Saudi mosques, causing the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars to praise Saudi security, saying that the "deviant groups" are only aiding the foes of true Islam; meanwhile Turkey announces the arrest of 45 Turks attempting to cross into Syria to join ISIS in Gaziantep. On July 18 after Ariz. Repub. Sen. John McCain calls Trump's Ariz. followers "crazies", causing him to call McCain a "dummy", Donald Trump tees off on McCain, with the soundbytes "He's not a war hero. He's a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren't captured", mocking him for graduating at the bottom of his class at the U.S. Naval Academy and calling him a "loser" for failing in the 2008 U.S. pres. race, pissing-off Repubs., with former Tex. Gov. Rick Perry calling Trump "unfit to be commander-in-chief", and 2012 Repub. pres. nominee Mitt Romney tweeting: "The difference between @SenJohnMcCain and @realDonaldTrump: Trump shot himself down"; on July 20 after Trump refuses to apologize to him, McCain replies that Trump doesn't owe an apology to him, but "to the families of those who have sacrificed in conflict and those who've undergone the prison experience in certain countries". On July 19 (Sun.) a bomb explosion in a tunnel near the Aleppo Citadel in Syria damages a wall that is part of the World Heritage Site Old City. On July 19 a string of bomb explosions incl. two suicide attacks in Shiite neighborhoods Baghdad, Iraq kill 21 and injure 62. On July 20 the U.S. and Cuba reestablish diplomatic relations. On July 20 Japanese automaker Mitsubishi apologizes to U.S. POWs it used as forced labor during WWII; only 94-y.-o. James Murphy is able to attend the ceremony in Los Angeles, Calif. On July 20 an ISIS suicide bomber near the Syrian border in Suruc, Turkey 6 mi. from Kobani, Syria kills 30+, mainly young univ. students planning to help rebuild Kobani, and injures 100+. On July 20 a Washington Post-ABC New Poll shows Trump favored by 24% of Repubs. and Repub.-leaning independents, leading the Repub. nomination race, with Wisc. Gov. Scott Walker at 13% and former Fla. Gov. Jeb Bush at 12%, while if he runs as an independent he will lose with 20% vs. 46% for Hillary Clinton and 30% for Jeb Bush, taking more support from Bush, who would only be behind by 50% to 44% in a head-to-head with Hillary; on July 22 Trump gives an interview to The Hill, saying that he "absolutely" would launch a third-party run for the White House if treated unfairly by the Repub. Nat. Committee, saying "They were always supportive when I was a contributor. I was their fair-haired boy." On July 20 Israeli passes the 2015 Rock Attack Law, giving a penalty of up to 20 years in prison for throwing rocks at moving vehicles. On July 21 Repub. Ohio Gov. #69 (since Jan. 10, 2011) John Richard Kasich Jr. (1952-) announces his candidacy for U.S. presidency at the student union of his alma mater Ohio State U., going on to refuse to support Donald Trump and to attend the Repub. Nat. Convention and vote for John McCain. On July 21 a double suicide bombing in Salqin, Syria kills Ahrar al-Sham rebel group senior member Abi Kaled El Sory along with six others. On July 21 the Obama-run U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announces modifications to the Oath of Allegiance that immigrants must take before becoming naturalized, allowing them to opt out of the phrase "bear arms on behalf of the United States", allowing Muslims with no intention of taking up arms against other Muslims an open door. On July 22 two suicide bombers in a busy marketplace in the Brituetterie district of Yaounde, Cameroon kill 20+. On July 22 (5:30 p.m.) a Stop Iran Now Rally is held in Times Square, New York City, becoming the biggest in the history of the Big Apple (until ?). On July 22 U.S. oil prices drop to below $50 a barrel for the first time in 4 mo.; on July 29 the price falls below $45, close to the 6-year low reached in Mar.; on Aug. 11 the price drops to $43.08, followed to $38.60 on Aug. 26 , lowest since Feb. 2009, then rebounding on Aug. 27 to $47, with retail gasoline going for $2.56/gal., lowest since 2004. On July 23 U.S. pres. candidate Donald Trump visits the U.S.-Mexico border at Laredo, Tex., refusing requests to apologize for claiming that many who have crossed the border illegally are rapists, saying "They weren't insulted because the press misinterprets my words", reiterating his call for a border wall, throwing hints out about "merit system", adding "The first thing we do is take the bad ones of which there are unfortunately quite a few, we take the bad ones and get 'em the hell out"; MSNBC-Telemundo anchor Jose Diaz Balart tells him: "Many feel that what you said, when you said that people that cross the border are rapists and murderers...", which Trump cuts off, responding: "No, no, we're talking about illegal immigration and everybody understands it. And you know what? That's a typical case of the press with misinterpretation. They take half a sentence, then they take a quarter of a sentence. They put it all together. It's a typical thing. You're with Telemundo and Telemundo should be ashamed", at which the crowd cheers approval; the Nat. Border Patrol Council Local 2455 Executive Board pulls out of a planned meeting with him at the airport; Trump answers more questions about a possible third party run, saying "I am a Republican. I'm a conservative. I want to run as a Republican. The best way to win is for me to get the nomination"; meanwhile former Tex. gov. Rick Perry (2% in the polls) calls a Trump "small-minded... a divisive figure... propelled by anger... appealing to the worse instincts in the human condition, a barking carnival act that can best be described as Trumpism, a toxic mix of demagoguery and mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued. Let no one be mistaken. Donald Trump's candidacy is a cancer on conservatism that must be diagnosed, excised, and discarded." On July 23 (8:00 p.m.) lone gunman John Russell House (b. 1955) opens fire at the Grand 16 Lafayette movie theater in Lafayette, La., killing three incl. himself and injuring nine, becoming the 23rd mass shooting of the Obama admin. On July 23 the Obama admin. limits the power of inspectors-generals, requiring them to obtain permission by their agency heads to gain access to grand jury, wiretap, and fair credit info. On July 23 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry appears before the U.S. Senate, uttering the soundbyte that the proposed Iranian nuclear deal will require the U.S. to defend Iran from Israel; GOP senators blast him for getting "fleeced" by Iran: on July 24 during an interview on NBC-TV's "Today Show" he warns Israel that trying it would be a "huge mistake", then gets into an "intense exchange" with skeptical Jewish leaders at the Conference of Presidents of Major Am. Jewish Orgs.; he also meets with the Council on Foreign Relations, saying that if Congress votes the deal down it would be Israel's fault and "could actually wind up being more isolated and more blamed"; "We've seen the prime minister draw a cartoon of a bomb at the U.N. and so on and so forth. But what's happened? What has anyone done about it? Anybody got a plan to roll it back?" On July 24 U.S. defense secy. Ashton Carter announces that senior al-Qaida cmdr. Abu Khalil Al-Sudani, head of suicide operations was killed along with two others on July 11 in E Afghanistan by a U.S. air strike. On July 24 Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif warns U.S. secy. of state John Kerry of threatening military action if the nuke deal falls through, calling U.S. military capability a "rotten rope", saying that such "empty threats" should be consigned "to the last century". On July 24 Turkey begins mass arrests of members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Islamists involved in the war in neighboring Syria. On July 24 ISIS hits an Egyptian patrol ship with a rocket in the Mediterranean Sea off N Sinai, setting it on fire. On July 24 after a mag. report that shows that a hacker can take control of some functions of a Jeep Cherokee, Fiat Chrysler agrees to recall 1.4M vehicles. On July 24 after agreeing to open its S air bases to the U.S., the Turkish Air Force launches its first attack ISIS targets in Syria, with the intention of clearing a 60-mi. buffer zone along the border to use as a "safe zone" for displaced Syrians; on July 25 they bomb Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) positions in N Iraq, causing the Kurds to claim that the war on ISIS is a screen for attacking them; on July 30 after a Turkish soldier is killed by ISIS forces in the border town of Suruc, Turkey pounds ISIS positions. On July 24 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry gives a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, with the soundbyte that Israel "could actually wind up being more isolated and more blamed" if Congress rejects Pres. Obama's Iran deal, pissing-off the Israelis. On July 24 conservative pundit Ann Coulter announces her support for Donald Trump, saying that he can win the White House by continuing to tap into the electorate's anger over the broken U.S. immigration system, either as a Repub. or a third party candidate, pointing to H. Ross Perot, whom she calls "really funny looking", and whose entry into the pres. race she claims came when Repub. Pres. George H.W. Bush lied to the people about not raising taxes, saying "It has been another 20 years of lies from the Republicans, so Trump is a way more attractive candidate." On July 25 Pres. Obama visits (his birthplace?) Kenya, opening a U.S.-sponsored business summit and saying that Africa is "on the move... one of the fastest growing regions of the world... People are being lifted out of poverty"; too bad he gives a speech calling for equal rights for gays, pissing them off, causing Kenyan pres. Uhuru Kenyatta to reply that gay rights "is not really an issue". On July 25 two suicide bombers at a crowded swimming pool in Tuz Khurmatu, Iraq (110 mi. N of Baghdad) kill 12 and injure 45, mainly Turkmeni Shiites. On July 25 Bahrain recalls its ambassador from Tehran after claiming to boil an attempt to smuggle in high-grade explosives plus hostile statements by Iranian officials. On July 25 Egypt makes its first trial run of its 45-mi. Suez Canal Axis, designed to speed-up traffic. On July 25 the Satanic Temple in Detroit, Mich. unveils an 8-ft. 1-ton bronze statue of Baphomet, becoming the "largest public satanic ceremony in history". On July 26 (Sun.) U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch gives an interview to ABC-News, saying that ISIS is "as serious, if not more serious a threat as al-Qaeda" because it recruits lone wolf jihadists, er, terrorists using social media platforms and the govt. can't keep track of them all; ISIS has 20K English language Twitter followers. On July 27 AP reports the discovery of 60+ mass graves and 129 bodies in Guerrero, Mexico after an investigation into the case of the 43 missing college students. On July 27 the Pentagon announces that a U.S. Army lab accidentally shipped live anthrax to at least 192 labs over the past decade due to faulty sterlization methods. On July 27 the exec committee of the Boy Scouts of Am. (BSA) votes to lift its restriction on "openly gay adult leaders and employees". On July 27 Repub. pres. candidate Mike Huckabee utters the soundbyte that the proposed Iran nuke agreement will "take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven". On July 28 acting deputy DEA admin. Jack Riley testifies before Congress, backing up Donald Trump's comments about Mexico sending criminals over the border, saying that the Mexican drug cartels are doing "tremendous harm to our communities". On July 28 NATA hlds an emergency meeting and announces full support for Turkey in its fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq; several nations urge Turkey not to squeeze the Kurds. On July 28 top Egyptian Sunni Muslim scholar Yusuf al-Qaradawi issues a post on his Web site reversing his support of suicide bombers for those under Israeli occupation, saying that they should only use rockets, missiles, and mortars. On July 28 (eve.) Pakistani police in Muazaffargarh kill Malik Ishaq, leader of al-Qaida-linked Lashkar-e-Jhangv after releasing him from custody in 2011. On July 28 according to a report released by the Congressional Research Service on Aug. 18, as of this date 6,855 Americans were killed and 52,251 wounded since Oct. 7, 2001. On July 28 Donald Trump issues a Tweet: "While I'm beating my opponents in the polls, I'm also beating lobbyists, special interests & donors that are supporting them with billions", referring especially to ex-Fla. gov. Jeb Bush. On July 28 billionaire Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban praises Donald Trump, with the soundbytes: "I have to honestly say he is probably the best thing to happen to politics in a long, long time. I don't care what his actual positions are. I don't care if he says the wrong thing. He says what's on his mind. He gives honest answers rather than prepared answers"; "Smart people who didn't live perfect lives could never run. Smart people who didn't want their families put under the media spotlight wouldn't run. The Donald is changing all that. He has changed the game and for that he deserves a lot of credit. Now maybe we will accept candidates warts and all and look at what they do rather than what headlines they create. Congrats Donald." On July 29 an Israeli air strike in Al-Hadar, Quneitra Province, Syria near Golan Heights kills three Syrian fighters. On July 29 the Taliban overruns Now Zad, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. On July 29 the Afghan govt. announces that Taliban leader Mullah Omar was killed 2 mo. earlier, causing the Taliban to appoint Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour as its new leader, with Sirajuddin Haqqani as #2. On July 29 the Huffington Post launches a new Arabic-language Web site headed by Muslim Brotherhood-connected Anas Fouda, giving them away as owned by the MB?; it ceases pub. in 2018. On July 30 Saudi Arabia and Egypt sign the 2015 Cairo Declaration, a military-economic pact to help them fight Iran and ISIS incl. a joint Arab military force for regional crises and mutual investment in energy and transport. On July 30 Hillary Clinton utters the soundbyte that the "two-state solution" is the "best outcome" for both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian war. On July 30 Iranian state TV announces that U.S. and Canadian inspectors will be banned from inspecting its nuclear facilities because they don't have diplomatic relations with Iran - they should open up the facilities for inspection - with nukes? On July 30 U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee chm. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) (chmn.) and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) (ranking member) introduce a nonbinding Anti-BDS Resolution, calling on the Obama admin. "to increase the use of its voice, vote, and influence in international organizations and other appropriate international forums to actively oppose politically motivated acts of boycott, divestment from, and sanctions against Israel." On July 30 (eve.) ultra-orthodox Jew Yishai Schlissel stabs six at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem; he was convicted of stabbing three at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem in 2005. On July 31 U.S. Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan pub. an op-ed in the New York Daily News, blasting Donald Trump as a "nativist", with the soundbyte that he's reviving "an organized, white, Protestant antagonism towards the Catholic immigrant", asking himself rhetorically, "Who could ever believe now that immigrants are dirty, drunken, irresponsible, dangerous threats to clean, white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxon America?... I wish I were in the college classroom again, so I could roll out my 'Trump card' to show the students that I was right. Nativism is alive, well - and apparently popular!" On July 31 supermodel Gisele Bundchen (wife of star New England Patriots QB Tom Brady) stirs a backlash for wearing a black Muslim burqa as a disguise to get plastic surgery in Paris during Ramadan. On July 31 there is a Blue Moon, going with a full Moon on July 2. On Aug. 1 the family jet plane of Osama bin Laden explodes while landing in London, killing four incl. his stepmother Rajaa Hashim, half-sister Sana bin Laden, and brother-in-law Zuhair Hashim. On Aug. 2 (Sun.) thousands demonstrate in Mexico City to protest the death of investigative photojournalist Ruben Epinosa (b. 1984), who was found in his apt. on July 31 along with four women after he fled from threats in Veracruz. On Aug. 2-3 Yazidis hold rallies in Germany, Iraq, France, Switzerland, Armenia et al. to protest and stop genocide by ISIS in Iraq. On Aug. 3 Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov meets Doha-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Qatar, and invites him to visit Moscow for his first official visit since 2010. On Aug. 3 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry meets with the Gulf Cooperation Council in Abu Dhabi, gaining their support for the Obama admin. nuclear deal with Iran, with Qatari foreign minister Khalid Al Attiya uttering the soundbyte: "We are confident that what they undertook makes this region safer and more stable." On Aug. 3 Pres. Obama unveils the Clean Power Plan ("Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units"), designed to lower carbon dioxide emissions by power generators, requiring a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions by states by 2030, mainly affecting coal-fired plants, pissing-off Repubs., who launch court challenged; on Oct. 4, 2017 the Trump admin. announces that they intend to end it. On Aug. 3 (night) Hamas announces that Iran has cut them off completely as a result of Pres. Obama's, er, their refusal to support Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad. On Aug. 5 the Gold King Mine in Silverton, Colo. sees EPA personnel release toxic wastewater, accidentally spilling 3M gal. of gold-colored acidic water filled with cadmium, lead, arsenic et al. into the Animas River, causing Colo. gov. John Hickenlooper to declare the area a disaster zone; the spill continues until ?. On Aug. 5 Pres. Obama gives a televised Address on Iran, with the soundbyte: "Congressional rejection of this deal leaves any US administration that is absolutely committed to preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon with one option: another war in the Middle East. I say this not to be provocative. I am stating a fact." On Aug. 5 by a 3-2 vote the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) finalizes a rule requiring all publicly-traded cos. to pub. the ratio between the CEO pay and the median employee salary, starting in 2017. On Aug. 6 Raelian Movement leader allegedly receives a revelation from the godlike alien Elohim that they're ending their protection of Israel. On Aug. 6 (night) Fox News holds a 2-hour GOP Pres. Candidate Debate in Cleveland, Ohio (viewed by 24M households, a 16.0 rating, biggest cable TV audience ever) with the top 10 contenders, led by Donald Trump, of whom Ohio Gov. John Kasich says: "People are frustrated, they're fed up, they don't think the government's working for them. People who want to tune him out are making a mistake"; Trump refuses to rule out running as an independent, scaring Repubs.; moderator Megyn Kelly grills him with her toughest question: "You've called women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?", to which he replies: "Only Rosie O'Donnell", drawing cheers, adding: "The big problem this country has is being politically correct. I've been challenged by so many people and I don't frankly have time for total political correctness and to be honest with you this country doesn't have time either", causing the adoring crowd to go wild; after fielding questions about his bankruptcies (he used the laws to his own maximum advantage like any smart businessman), the Mexican border and how the Mexican gov. is sending criminals over the border (because U.S. leaders are "stupid"), his past support of single-payer health care (which he claims works well in Canada and Scotland), abortion (he now is against it), and past campaign donations to Hillary Clinton (who paid him back by attending his wedding, along with other politicians he donated to, showing how they can be bought but he can't), he utters the soundbyte: "The questions to me were not nice. They were inappropriate. But you know what? The answers were good, obviously, because everyone thinks I won"; too bad, Trump on Aug. 7 he gives an interview to CNN, with the soundbyte about Megyn Kelly: "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever", pissing-off the PC police, who have dirty minds, causing er, RedState leader Erick Erickson (1975-) to disinvite him and invite her, calling it "a bridge too far", causing Trump on Aug. 8 to comment "I think only a degenerate would think that I would have meant that"; the incident causes his adviser Roger Stone to leave; her past appearance on Howard Stern where she discusses her hubby's penis size proves that she's the degenerate?; speaking of degenerate, Erickson told Tex. women to "go get some coat hangers", and called a Supreme Court justice a "goat-fucking child molester"; on Aug. 10 Hillary Clinton utters the soundbyte: "What Donald Trump said about Megyn Kelly is outrageous", saying his contributions didn't make her attend his wedding, but the fact that "it is always entertaining" - duh, he said you could SEE blood coming out of wherever, excluding her you know what, and didn't even hint at you know what, hence her critics have stamped the word DUMBASS on their foreheads by putting words in his mouth that only show their filthy minds, then trying to use it for their own personal advancement, disqualifying themselves from public office? On Aug. 7 a suicide bomber in a police uniform detonates outside the gates of a police academy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 20+ recruits and injuring 25; earlier at 1 a.m. a truck bomb near a military base in Kabul kills 15+ and injures 240 after flattening a city block and leaving a 30-ft. crater. On Aug. 7 Syrian Orthodox community leaders announce that ISIS is holding dozen of Christians in Homs Province, Syria after seizing Qaryatain on Aug. 5. On Aug. 7 after pissing-off Repub. lawmakers by comparing them to Iranian hardliners, Pres. Obama doubles down, refusing to apologize, with the soundbyte "What I said is absolutely true factually. The reason that Mitch McConnell and the rest of the folks in his caucus who opposed this jumped out and opposed this before they even read it, before it was even posted, is reflective of an ideological committment not to get a deal done." On Aug. 7 by a 156-1 vote the Am. Psychological Assoc. (APA) bars psychologists from participating in nat. security interrogations at sites violating internat. law, causing the Pentagon to order the number of pshrinks at Gitmo to be reduced in Dec. On Aug. 8 (Sat.) (1st anniv. of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.) Bernie gives a speech in Seattle, Wash. on Social Security and Medicare, and is shut down by #BlackLivesMatter activists Mara Jacqueline Willaford and Marissa Johnson, causing him to release a racial justice platform on Aug. 9; meanwhile on Aug. 8 (night) Ferguson police shoot three protesters incl. Brown's friend Tyrone Harris Jr., who is critically injured. On Aug. 8 Pope Francis approves a decree beatifying Syrian Catholic bishop Flavien-Michel Malke (Malké) (1858-1915), who was murdered on Aug. 29, 1915 in Turkey for refusing to convert to Islam. On Aug. 10 Google announces that it's creating a new holding co. called Alphabet. On Aug. 10 Bernie Sanders gives a speech to the Nat. Nurses United in Oakland, Calif., saying that as pres. he will fight to enact legislation making all public colleges and universities in the U.S. tuition-free. On Aug. 11 (1:30 p.m. local time) a bomb explodes in a crowded market in Borno, Nigeria, killing 50 and injuring 52. On Aug. 11 U.S. Dem. pres. candidate Hillary Clinton meets with Black Lives Matter activists (coined in 2013 by Alicia Garza) backstage at an event in N.H. in a tense confrontation where they accuse her of "victim blaming", and cite a "white problem of violence"; meanwhile Hillary's puppetmaster George Soros donates $650K to the group. On Aug. 12 Miss. State U. students Jaelyn Delshaun Young (19) and Muhammad Dakhlalla (22) are arrested at the Golden Triangle Regional Airport in Miss. for attempting to join ISIS via a flight to Istanbul. On Aug. 12 (11:30 p.m. local time) a massive warehouse explosion rocks Tianjin, China, killing 44 incl. 12 firefighters and injuring 520, spreading chemical contamination. On Aug. 12 Switzerland announces that it will lift economic sanctions on Iran imposed since Jan. 2014. On Aug. 13 (early a.m.) a truck bomb in a market in the Shiite-majority Sadr City area of Baghdad, Iraq kills 38 and injures 74; ISIS claims responsibility. On Aug. 13 a Fox News Poll reveals that only 2% of Americans believe that Hillary Clinton told the truth about her private email server; 58% believe she knowingly lied; 33% believe there is another explanation; only 7% don't know if she lied. On Aug. 14 the U.S. reopens its embassy in Havana, Cuba, which was closed in 1961; the same four Marines do the flag service. On Aug. 15 Turkey announces that it has killed 260 Kurds in its N Iraq air offensive in the last week. On Aug. 15 Japanese PM Abe Shinzo marks the 70th anniv. of the announcement of unconditional surrender by Emperor Hirohito at a summit of Asian and African leaders in Jakarta, Indonesia, expressing "deep remorse", but not apologizing; he did ditto to a joint session of the U.S. Congress in Apr. On Aug. 15 Hillary Clinton speaks to 2K at the Iowa Dem. Wing Ding in Clear Lake, Iowa, joking about accusations that she had her private email server professionally wiped before turning it over to the U.S. Justice Dept., saying the investigation is just about politics, adding "You may have seen that I recently launched a Snapchat account. I love it. I love it. Those message disappear all by themselves." On Aug. 16 (Sun.) Donald Trump releases a Position Paper on Immigration, proposing a 3-pronged plan to combat illegal immigration and reform the system, incl. making Mexico pay for a border wall, ending birthright citizenship, implementing a nationwide e-verify system, defunding sanctuary cities, criminalizing visa overstays, and making use of tariffs and foreign aid cuts, with the soundbyte: "In short, the Mexican government has taken the United States to the cleaners. They are responsible for this problem, and they must help pay to clean it up"; on Aug. 16 Ann Coulter calls it "the greatest political document since the Magna Carta", adding that she doesn't care if Trump "wants to perform abortions in the White House after this immigration policy paper." On Aug. 16 days after Turkey agrees to allow the U.S. to launch air strike against ISIS in Syria from Incirlik AFB, the U.S. announces that it's pulling its Patriot missile systems out of Turkey out of concern for Turkish bombing of Kurds in Iraq. On Aug. 16 Punjab home minister Shuja Khanzada is killed along with several others in a terrorist attack in front of a Hindu shrine during a jurga in his home village. On Aug. 16 Repub. pres. candidate Carly Fiorina (ex-Hewlett-Packard CEO) appears on ABC-TV's "This Week", uttering the soundbyte that Hillary Clinton's "lies" about her email server make her unfit for the White House, addding "the cover-up is worse than the crime"; another Repub. candidate Dr. Ben Carson says that Clinton exercised "bad judgment", asking "Would you take someone with judgment like that and hand them the keys to the White House?" On Aug. 17 a ()Muslim separatist?) bomb explodes at the Erawan Shrine (a Hindu shrine frequented by Buddhists) in Bangkok, Thailand, killing 16 and injuring 81. On Aug. 17 the Obama admin. gives approval to Dutch Shell to drill for gas and oil in the undersea Arctic, pissing-off environmental groups who thought they had them in their pocketses, and embarrassing Hillary Clinton, who on ? said that she had "doubts" about allowing it. On Aug. 17 the Am. Media Inst. (AMI) announces the discovery in Pakistan of a secret ISIS document that blames the need to exterminate Israel for its rise and calls Pres. Obama the "mule of the Jews", being compared to Hitler's "Mein Kampf". On Aug. 17 Iranian supreme assahola Ali Khamenei gives a speech, in which he utters the soundbytes: "The U.S. is the perfectly clear embodiment of the concept of the enemy", and "We must combat the plans of the arrogance with jihad for the sake of Allah." On Aug. 18 Italian foreign minister Paolo Gentiloni warns that Libya runs the risk of turning into "another Somalia" after ISIS makes inroads. On Aug. 18 ISIS #2 man Fadhil Ahmad al-Hayali (Hajji Mutazz) is killed by a U.S. air strike near Mosul, Iraq along with ISIS media operative Abu Abdullah. On Aug. 18 the U.S. Army Ranger School announces that the first two women have graduated, 1st Lt. Kristen Griest and Capt. Shaye Haver; they passed only because the Obama admin. forced them to lower their standards? On Aug. 18 the White House appoints its first transgender staff member Raffi (Rafael) Freedman-Gurspa (1987-) as dir. for outreach and recruitment for pres. personnel. On Aug. 18 Hillary Clinton attends a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nev., then speaks to reporters, answering the question "Did you wipe the server?" with "What, like with a cloth or something?" On Aug. 18 Glenn Beck issues a Facebook post dissing Donald Trump for only going to church on Christmas and Easter, adding that "the First Lady would be the first to have posed nude in lesbian porno shots." On Aug. 19 AP announces that the Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) made a secret deal with Iran to allow it to conduct its own nuclear inspections, contradicting the assertions of Pres. Barefaced O'Pathological Liar that "This deal is not based on trust, it's based on unprecedented verification", and the whopper: "International inspectors will have unprecedented access not only to Iranian nuclear facilities, but to the entire supply chain that supports Iran's nuclear program - from uranium mills that provide the raw materials, to the centrifuge production and storage facilities that support the program. If Iran cheats, the world will know it. If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it. Iran's past efforts to weaponize its program will be addressed. With this deal, Iran will face more inspections than any other country in the world." On Aug. 19 after the rise of ISIS caused a flood of 20M refugees to begin streaming into Europe, and the leftist overlords of Europe did little or nothing to stop them, with German chancellor Angela Merkel actually welcoming them and dissing nativist PEGIDA (Patriotische Europaer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes) protests against them, German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere announces that 800K (1% of Germany's pop.) are expected to arrive in 2015, incl. 83K in July, 4x the 2014 figure; meanwhile Slovakia announces that it will accept 200 Syrian refugees, not only Christians, with the excuse that "In Slovakia we don't have mosques", therefore "We act in the spirit of the EU treaties that prevent any kind of discrimination." On Aug. 19 (eve.) Donald Trump hosts a town hall meeting in N.H., where he promises to build his Trump Wall "first thing" and make Mexico pay for it, with the soundbyte: "I'm talking about a wall. See that ceiling up there? A little higher. You do a beautiful, nice, pre-cast plank with beautiful everything, just perfect... I want it to be so beautiful, because maybe some day they're going to call it the Trump Wall, maybe. So I have to make sure it's beautiful, right? I' ll be very proud of that wall. If they call it the Trump Wall, it has to be beautiful"; "Here's what is happening. A woman is going to have a baby. They wait on the border. Just before the baby, they come over to the border. They have the baby in the United States. We now take care of that baby. Social Security, Medicare, education. Give me a break. It doesn't work that way. The parents have to come in legally"; he then exhorts Pres. Obama and secy. of state John Kerry to read his book "The Art of the Deal", urging them "Quickly, quickly, quickly." On Aug. 20 (early a.m.) a large car bomb explodes near a nat. security bldg. in Shubra, Cairo, Egypt, injuring six. On Aug. 20 rockets are fired into N Israel from Syria, causing the Israeli army to fire several artillery shells into Syria in response. On Aug. 20 ISIS releases images showing them demolishing the Mar Elian Monastery in Al-Qaryatayn, Homs, Syria. On Aug. 20-28 the Joint Sea 2015 II< joint war games by the Russian and Chinese navies are the largest ever. On Aug. 21 a train en route from Amsterdam to Paris is attacked by lone ISIS-trained Muslim gunman Ayoub El Khazzani (1990-) from Morocco armed with an AK-47 rifle, injuring three incl. two U.S. Marines before they and a Briton overpower him before he can massacre passengers, the train stopping in Arras; after talking to his atty., he says he's "dumbfounded" by terrorist charges, claiming he was merely staging a robbery after stumbling on a weapons stash; on Aug. 24 the heroes are awarded the French Legion of Honor. On Aug. 21 (Black Fri.) after China devalues its currency by 3%, the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. plunges by 500 points (3.12%), becoming the largest 1-day loss in four years; the slide going back over 2 mo. has wiped out the gains of the last 12 mo, while over the past five years it remains strongly up; in Nov. the IMF designates the Chinese yuan (renminbi) as a reserve currency. On Aug. 21 a CNN/ORC Poll reveals that 51% of adults disapprove of Pres. obama, vs. 47% in July, becoming the first time voer the 50% mark. On Aug. 21 (eve.) Donald Trump speaks before 40K at the Ladd Peebles Stadium in "Redneck Riviera" (Chris Matthews) Mobile, Ala., wowing the crowd sans TelePrompter and notes. On Aug. 22 a suicide car bomb attack on NATO convoy in Kabul, Afghanistan, kills 12 incl. three U.S. contractors, and injures dozens. On Aug. 22 Iran unveils its new Fateh 313 short-range surface-to-surface missile, with pres. Hasan Rouhani uttering the soundbyte that only when Iran is "powerful and capabale" can it negotiate constructively with other countries. On Aug. 23-23 violent anti-Muslim immigration protests are held in Dresden, Germany, dissing chancellor Angela Merkel for her pro-immigration policies; on Aug. 26 she is booed by a crowd of 50+ at the Heidenau Refugee Centr in Dresden. On Aug. 23 (Sun.) the U.K. led by foreign secy. Phillip Hammond reopens its embassy in Tehran, Iran (shut down amid violent protests in Nov. 2011) amid violent protests. On Aug. 23 North Korea deploys most of its subs toward South Korea, moving special forces amphibious landing craft closer to the front line on Aug. 24, racheting up tensions and worrying the U.S. about a possible war. On Aug. 24 after the deadline passes for forming a new govt. Turkish pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls for new elections on Nov., reappointing PM Ahmet Davutoglu to form an interim govt. On Aug. 24 the U.N. Security Countil holds its first-ever meeting on the persecution of gays by ISIS, sponsored by the U.S. and Chile, with U.S. ambassador Samantha Power uttering the soundbyte: "We're getting this issue into the DNA of the United Nations." On Aug. 24 Iran supreme assahola Ali Khameini pub. an article on his Web site titled "The Iron Fist", with the soundbyte: "Those who levelled sanctions against us yesterday are dying today, because Iran has become the region's foremost military power. The Islamic Republic of Iran has proven that it works diligently to defend itself. The entire nation unites as a solid fist, standing fast against the aggressors who lack all reason." On Aug. 24 radio shock jock Howard Stern predicts that Donald Trump will win the Repub. pres. nomination, because voters "like the idea of a successful businessman running the country who might actually be able to get shit done"; "I'll tell you why I think he's going to be the nominee. He's proven that no matter what he says, people dig him"; "But the problem with it is, and Donald Trump will find this, being the president isn't like being the president of a corporation. You still got to go through Congress for everything you want to do. And that's the tough part. You've got to be one who can consolidate on both sides of the aisle, some sort of coalition. And it's very difficult." On Aug. 25 mass protests begin in Beirut, Lebanon over uncollected garbage, calling for the resignation of the govt., obtaining backing from Hezbollah. On Aug. 25 ISIS blows up the World Heritage site Temple of Baalshamin in Palmyra, Syria. On Aug. 25 the Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) holds a meeting Vienna, Austria, defending its inspection scheme for Iranian nuclear sites despite the provision allowing them to collect their own evidence. On Aug. 25 after closing the border with Colombia and ordering 1K Colombians deported, Socialist Venezuelan pres. Nicolas Maduro vows to continue his crackdown on illegal aliens. On Aug. 25 Donald Trump holds a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, saying that TelePrompters should be banned for Obama, er, U.S. pres. candidates; in the press conference he orders Univision-Fusion anchor Jorge Ramos expelled after he tries to speak out of order; he is later readmitted and allowed to ask questions. On Aug. 25 former ML baseball pitcher Curt Schilling is fired from the Little League World Series by ESPN for a re-Tweet drawing comparisons between extremist Muslims and Nazis that reads: "Only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How'd that go?" - truth is the new hate speech? On Aug. 26 (6:45 a.m.) WDBJ-TV Roanoke (Va.) reporter Alison Parker (24) and cameraman Adam Ward (27) are shot and killed by 41-y.-o. disgruntled gay black ex-TV reporter Vester Lee Flanagan II (who goes by the stage name Bryce Williams) while filming a live broadcast at Bridgewater Plaza near Smith Mt. Lake in Moneta, Bedford County, Va., who posts videos of the murders on social media; interviewee Vicki Gardner is wounded; after failing to elude police, he fatally shoots himself in his car; he had accused them of racist comments, and claimed that Allah, er, Jehovah ordered him to do it as payback for the Charleston shooting. On Aug. 26 South Sudan pres. Salva Kiir signs a power-sharing agreement with the rebels aimed at ending the 20-mo. civil war. On Aug. 27 a 6-man ISIS suicide assault on a military HQ near Ramadi, Anbar Province, Iraq kills senior Iraqi gens. Abdel Rahman Abu Raghif and Safin Abdel Majid. On Aug. 27 214 retired U.S. gens. and adms. sign a letter urging Congress to reject Pres. Obama's iran nuclear deal, saying the "agreement will enable Iran to become far dangerous", and "introduce new threats to American interests". On Aug. 27 U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee chmn. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) demands that the Obama admin. explain why it allowed Hillary Clinton to be the only U.S. secy. of state in over 50 years without a permanent independent watchdog inspector gen. On Aug. 27 a Quinnipiac Poll finds that U.S. voters classify Trump with the top words "arrogant, blowhard, idiot, businessman, clown, honest, ego, money", Hillary Clinton with the words "liar, dishonest, untrustworthy, experience, strong, Bill, woman, smart, crook", and Jeb Bush with "family, honest, weak, brother, dynasty, experience". On Aug. 28 (8:30 p.m.) Harris County, Tex. sheriff's deputy Darren Goforth (b. 1968) is murdered at a Chevron gas station in Cypress, Tex. (25 mi. from Houston), by 30-y.-o. African-Am. Shannon Jaruay Miles (1985-), who shoots him in the back of the head execution-style than pumps 14 more shots into his back. On Aug. 29 Donald Trump gives an I Love the Tea Party Speech in Nashville, Tenn. On Aug. 30 (Sun.) Germany, France, and Britain issue a joint call for an EU meeting to find "concrete" measures to deal with the flood of illegal immigrants from the Muslim World, which Luxembourg sets for Sept. 14 in Brussels; meanwhile Danish gen. secy. for refugee help Andreas Kamm utters the soundbyte: "We are risking that conflicts between refugees and migrants on the one side and local populations on the other goes awry and will escalate, and in my eyes we face an Armageddon scenario." On Aug. 30 Saudi coalition airstrikes at a water plant in Mukalla, Hajja Province N Yemen kill 13+ civilians and injure 11+. On Aug. 30 the Iranian armed forces hold a celebration of its victory in the nuclear agreement, with defense minister Hossein Dehghan uttering the soundbyte: "Today, Iran has attained such status that the superpowers have surrendered to it, because of its majesty, its steadfastness, its resistance, and its unity. Despite their great pride, the regime of the arrogance [the West, led by the U.S.] sat humbly behind the negotiating table and obeyed the rights of the Iranian nation." On Aug. 30 The Guardian in Britain pub. an article that claims that former British armed forces head Gen. Lord Richards of Herstmonceaux said that British PM David Cameron lacked "the balls" to take military action in Syria that could have prevented the rise of ISIS by rejecting a "coherent military strategy" in 2012 to oust Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad which would have seen Islamic extremists "squeezed out of existence", with his approach being "more about the Notting Hill liberal agenda rather than statecraft". On Aug. 31 Pres. Obama ignores Ohio citizens and Congress and officially renames 20,237-ft. Mount McKinley in Alaska (tallest mountain in North Am.) to Mount Denali ("the great one"), reversing Congress, which renamed it in 1917, pissing-off native Alaskans, but now pissing-off Congress, which cries abuse of authority and end-around run; on Aug. 31-Sept. 2 Pres. Obama visits Alaska, starting with a climate change conference hosted by U.S. secy. of state John Kerry; on Sept. 2 he visits Kotzebue, becoming the first sitting U.S. pres. to travel N of the Arctic Circle. On Aug. 31 the U.S. State Dept. releases "6,106 or more pages" of Hillary Clinton's emails to satisfy a FOIA lawsuit filed by Vice News; at least 150 emails are found to contain classified info. On Aug. 31 women in Saudi Arabia begin registering to vote for the first time in history, and 70 women are permitted to run as candidates in local elections. In Aug. ISIS begins distributing "Wanted Dead"" posters for several al-Qaida leaders incl. Ayman al-Zawahiri. In Aug. Slovakia bucks the Euro dhimmi trend and announces that it will only be accepting Christian refugees from the Syrian civil war. In Aug. U.S. employment is 5.1% (vs. 5.3% in July), adding 173K new jobs; a record 94,031,000 Americas are not in the labor force, with labor force participation stuck at 62.6% for a 3rd straightmo., a 38-year low. On Sept. 1 Pope Francis announces that all priests will be given the discretion to forgive women who have had abortions during the upcoming Jubilee Year (Dec. 8-Nov. 26), whose theme of mercy he announced in Mar. On Sept. 1 2K-7K incl. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Liberman and former CIA dir. James Woolsey stage a protest in New York City against the Obama admin.'s Iran deal. On Sept. 2 (early a.m.) despite being safe in Turkey, 3-y.-o. Alan (Aylan) Kurdi (b. 2012) from Kobani, Syria drowns in the Mediterranean Sea when his 15-ft. boat en route from Bodrum, Turkey to Kos, Greece capsizes, killing 12; the photos of his cute body by Nilufer Demir go global, and becoming an issue in the 2015 Canadian federal election when it is revealed that his parents were trying to reach Canada; father Abdullah later admits that he wanted to get to Greece to get a full set of free teeth implants. On Sept. 2 Donald Trump disses Jeb Bush (who has a Mexican wife) for speaking Spanish in an address, with the soundbyte: "He should really set the example by speaking English while in the United States", pissing-off La Raza spokesperson Lisa Navarrette, who utters the soundbyte: "Every time Donald Trump opens his mouth he widens the gulf between the Republican Party and Latino voters. Today is no exception." - why did she say this in English? On Sept. 3 the Obama admin. announces that it's halting deportation of thousands of mostly Muslim Yemenis, grating them temporary legal status for 18 mo. On Sept. 3 China (70th anniv. of the end of WWII) China puts on a massive military parade in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, showing their massive piracy of Western technology. On Sept. 3 Iranian supreme assaholah Ali Khamanei issues the soundbyte that all sanctions be "lifted", not merely "suspended". On Sept. 3 Donald Trump patches things up with Repub. Nat. Committee chmn. Reince Priebus by signing a loyalty pledge to the GOP, ruling-out a third party run; too bad, he later grants an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, exposing his ignorance of basic foreign policy facts incl. the difference between Hamas and Hezbollah, Quds and Kurds, Hassan Nasrallah (Hezbollah), Ayman al-Zawahiri (al-Qaida), Abu Mohammed al-Juliani (al-Nusra Front), and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (ISIS), answering the direct question "Do you know the players without a scorecard yet, Donald Trump?" with the smug reply: "No, you know, I'll tell you honestly, I think by the time we get to office, they'll all be changed... You know, those are like history questions. Do you know this one, do you know that one" - the difference between a man who spent his life making money, and one who spent his life gaining knowledge, like TLW? On Sept. 4 a ABC/Washington Post Poll reveals that less than 50% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Hillary Clinton, and 41% have a favorable rating, lowest in two decades; meanwhile a Survey USA Poll reveals that Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton in a head-to-head matchup by 45% to 40%, which incl. 25% of the black vote. On Sept. 5 the UAE govt. announces that 45 of its soldiers were killed fighting Houthi rebels E of Sa'ana, Yemen. On Sept. 5 former Taliban cmdr. Mullah Mansour Dadullah, brother of ex-cmdr. Mullah Dadullah Lang releases a video rejecting Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour as the new emir of the Taliban, and accusing Pakistan's ISI Directorate of ordering him to conduct assassinations and attacks in Afghanistan. On Sept. 6 Pres. Obama meets in the White House with Saudi King Salman. On Sept. 6 as Muslims immigrants flood Europe, Pope Francis calls for a new Crusade, er, orders all Roman Catholic churches in the EU to take in one migrant family each in a gesture of solidarity, starting with Vatican City. On Sept. 7 after accepting 20K Muslim immgirants over the Labor Day weekend, with 11K more expected today, German chancellor Angela Merkel utters the soundbyte that the immigrants will change Germany forever, urging all EU states to share the benefits, er, burden, with Germany and France accepting 60K of the 120K immigrants stranded in Greece, Italy, and Hungary; French pres. Francois Hollande has already pledged to admit 24K; meanwhile the Arab states and Turkey don't want them, and the clueless EU doesn't even suggest keeping them in the Muslim World rather than importing the Muslim World to Europe, changing it forever for the worse; too bad, on Sept. 10 German chancellor Angela Merkel urges the EU to accept unlimited numbers of migrants, saying that Germany will accept 800K this year and 500K each year thereafter for several years, only to have Germany announce on Sept 13 that it's instituting emergency border protections, and the pres. of Upper Bavaria announce that Munich is at the limit of its capacity after 12.2K arrive; meanwhile Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, whose country is busy building a wall to keep Muslim immigrants out warns of a coming Muslim majority in Europe, with the soundbyte: "If Europe allows for competition between cultures, Christians will lose", calling for the stopping of Muslim immigration. On Sept. 7 Pres. Obama signs an executive order requring federal contractors to give employees one hour of sick leave for every 30 hours worked, up to seven days per calendar year. On Sept. 7 Pakistani Gen. Asim Bajwa announes that Pakistan has made its first strike with its Burraq armed drone. On Sept. 7 a NBC-TV Poll reveals that Bernie Sanders is beating Hillary Clinton in N.H. by 9 points, and closing in on her in Iowa (11 points); on Sept. 12 a poll shows him leading Hillary in N.H. by 52%-30%. On Sept. 8 two PKK bombings kill 16 Turkish police officers in E Turkey near the Iraqi border, becoming the deadliest attack since the end of the 2-y.-o. ceasefire, causing angry crowds to attack Kurdish newspapers and party offices; meanwhile Turkish jets strike PKK position in Iraq; meanwhile the Istanbul and Ankara offices of Hurriet are attacked by with stones and clubs less than 48 hours after an attack by AKP supporters on Sept. 7. On Sept. 8 after decling an offer from NBC News on Sept. 4, and telling AP on Sept. 7 that an apology isn't necessary because the State Dept. "allowed"" her to do it, Hillary Clinton finally apologizes for using a private email account, with the soundbyte: "That was a mistake. I'm sorry about that. I take responsibility, and I'm trying to be as transparent as I possibly can." On Sept. 8 (1st anniv. of displacement of Christians from Iraq and Syria by ISIS) U.S. Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and Jerry Fortenberry (R-Neb.) introduce a resolution declaring the persecution of Mideast Christians to be genocide. On Sept. 8 U.S. Sen. (R-S.C.) Lindsey Graham calls for the U.S. to take 'its fair share of Syrian refugees" , else the U.S. "should take the Statue of Liberty and tear it down"- as if he never heard of the words Sharia and jihad? On Sept. 8 Hillary Clinton announces her plan to overhaul campaign finance laws, vowing to break the "stranglehold that wealthy interests have over our political system." On Sept. 8 a Pew Research Center Poll finds that only 21% of Americans approve of Pres. Obama's nuke deal with Iran, and 49% disapprove. On Sept. 9 after a 2-year siege, Al-Nusra Front captures Abu al-Duhur Military airport in Idlib Province, Syria, the Syrian govt.'s last stronghold in the province. On Sept. 9 the Tea Party-sponsored Stop the Iran Deal Rally is held on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.; speakers incl. Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Glenn Beck, who announces a plan to bring in "vetted" immigrants from Syria, with the soundbyte "We can save more people by Christmas than Oscar Schindler", and Sarah Palin, who utters the soundbyte that Pres. Obama doesn't trust Americans to "change our own light bulb of our own choosing", but does trust a "death cult" in Iran, adding: "This treaty will not bring peace. You don't reward terrorism - you kill it. You don't lift sanctions, you crack down on their assets. You cut off their oil and drill baby drill for our own." On Sept. 9 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu visits London, being greeted by violent anti-Israeli pro-Palestinian protesters calling for his arrest. On Sept. 9 Australian PM Tony Abbott announces that Australia will take in 12K Syrian refugees; meanwhile European Commission pres. Jean-Claude Juncker delivers his state of the union address, calling for "bold concerted action" to deal with 120K new asylum seekers in addition to the 40K in May. On Sept. 9 Iranian supreme assahollah Ruhollah Khomeini gives a speech at the tomb of Assaholah Khomeini, uttering the soundbyte: "In 25 years there will be no such thing as the Zionist regime in the region." On Sept. 9 the Obama amin.'s U.S. Justice Dept. rules that Hillary Clinton had the right to delete emails from her private account when she left office. On Sept. 9 a U.S. federal district court rules in U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell that the U.S. House of Reps has standing to challenge a U.S. pres. executive action. On Sept. 9 Donald Trump gives an interview to Rolling Stone mag., in which he utters the soundbyte about opponent Carly Fiorina: "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president? I Mean, she's a woman, and I'm not supposed to say bad things, but realy folks, come on, are we serious?", causing the PC police to come out and go at him again, to which he responds that he was only talking about her "persona" - he meant imagine that face over his gold-plated zipper giving him a beejay? On Sept. 10 the Syrian army aided by Hezbollah repels an attack on Zabadani, Syria, killing or injuring 30. On Sept. 10 by a 42-58 straight party ticket vote (incl. 4 Dem. no votes) the U.S. Sen. votes to end a filibuster and sustain Pres. Obama's nuclear deal, preventing an up-down vote and clearing the way for the lifting of $150B in sanctions on Iran next week; on Sept. 11 the U.S. House by 162-269 votes against the deal, which won't stop it from taking effect next week, causing Am. pundit Mark Levin to utter the soundbyte: "I told you last year this was the start of World War III, and here we go, slowly but surely" - if Iran can't build a bomb, they can buy one on the black market? On Sept. 10 Defense Intel Agency chief Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart utters the soundbyte that Iraq and Syria may have been permanently torn asunder and might not survive as states, adding "I see a time in the future where Syria is fractured into two or three parts." On Sept. 10 La. Repub. Gov. Bobby Jindal gives a speech at the Nat. Press Club in Washington, D.C., uttering the soundbyte about Donald Trump: "He is shallow. There is no substance. He doesn't know anything about policy. He has no idea what he is talking about. He makes it up on on the fly", adding: "Donald Trump's never read the Bible... [because] he's not in the Bible", causing Trump to reply: "I only respond to people that register more than 1% in the polls. I never thought he had a chance and I've been proven right"; Jindal drops out of the pres. race on Nov. 17. On Sept. 11 (/11) Lansing, Mich. mayors Virg Bernero and Nathan Triplett host the 9th Annual Mayor's Ramadan Unity Dinner, pissing-off everybody but them and the local Muslims, causing them to change it to Sept. 19. On Sept. 11 after pressure the 20-org. Refugee Council USA, 72 Dems. in Congress pub. a letter calling on the Obama admin. to "resettle a minimum of 200,000 refugees by the end of 2016, including 100,000 Syrian refugees". On Sept. 11 50+ intel officials of the U.S. Central Command announce that the Obama admin. altered intel reports to make the war on ISIS seem more successful. On Sept. 11 lightning hits a crane, causing it to crash into the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, killing 65+ and injuring 150 - payback's a bitch? On Sept. 11 Rick Perry drops out of the U.S. pres. race after 97 days, becoming the first Repub. to quit, leaving 16. On Sept. 12 Dem. Socialist Bernie, er, Jeremy Bernard Corbin (1949-) becomes head of the British opposition Labour Party, vowing to nationalize key industries, scrap Britain's nuclear missile system, and generally reverse the centrist policies of Tony Blair et al., pleasing Bernie; too bad, he's anti-American and anti-Israel, and a friend of Islamists. On Sept. 12 10K protest in Warsaw, Poland to protest their govt.'s decision to admit 2K Muslims from Syria and North Africa by 2017; signs read "Poland, free of Islam", and "Today refugees, tomorrow terrorists"; meanwhile thousands protest in London, England in favor of admitting refugees; meanwhile Saudi Arabia won't take any refugees, although it has 100K air-conditioned tents that can house 3M. On Sept. 12 a Ferrari and a Porsche bearing Qatari plates engage in a hi-speed street race in a residential neighborhood of Beverly Hills, Calif., which eneds when the Ferrari's engine begins smoking, after which they pull into their $10M luxury home then tell police that they claim diplomatic immunity. On Sept. 13 (Sun.) two Femen protesters take off their tops at a conference on Muslim women near Paris, France, exposing slogans incl. "No one subjugates me" and "I am my own prophet". On Sept. 13 Palestinians begin rioting at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, causing Israeli forces to enter the compound on Sept. 15; meanwhile Saudi king Salman condemns Israel for violating Islam's 3rd holiest site; meanwhile Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas issues a soundbyte: "Al-Aqsa is ours... and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet", causing Israeli Gen. Dore Gold to reply "By saying that the 'filthy feet' of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount desecrate it, Mahmoud Abbas has now clarified on which side he stands." On Sept. 13 (2:00 p.m.) Tex. Muslim Rasheed Abdul Aziz (1975-) enters the Corinth Missionary Baptist Church in Bullard near Lake Palestine in Cherokee County, Tex. with a gun in his pocket and tells the congregation that Allah had told him to "slay infidels", changing his mind after the pastor Rev. John D. Johnson III talks him out of it and leaving before being arrested. On Sept. 13 Dem. pres. candidate Bernie Sanders utters the soundbyte that he is against "perpetual warfare" in the Middle East, and that Saudi Arabia, Turkey et al. will have to "get their hands dirty" to settle unrest in Iraq and Syria. On Sept. 14 the European Council meets and decides to adopt provisional measures protecting 40K refugees in Greece and Italy; meanwhile on Sept. 15 Hungary declares a state of emergency, and onSept. 16 1.5K migrants riot, causing police to use tear gas. On Sept. 14 Yale U. accepts a $10M donation from Abdallah S. Kamel of Saudi Arabia to establish a Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization, which supposedly won't be treated as a joke like at Harvard U. but will be integrated with the law school. On Sept. 14 openly Socialist pro-gay anti-abortion Bernie Sanders gives a speech at supposedly evangelical Liberty U., drawing cheers when stating how his views differ from theirs. On Sept. 14 14-y.-o. 9th grader Am. Muslim "Clock Boy" Ahmed Mohamed (2001-) is arrested at his school in Irving, Tex. after he brings a homemade digital clock to school and the admins. call it into the police as a bomb threat hoax, and he refuses to tell them his engineering teacher had already seen it and told him not to carry it to other classes, after which he is released, and his publicity-hound daddy Elhassan goes to the PC police, who cause it to go viral, making him the poster boy for Islamophobia, earning him an invite to the White House science fair (Astronomy Night) on Oct. 19 and TV shows despite all kinds of kids arrested for toy guns etc. not being selected because they're not Muslim; h is father Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed is a Muslim activist who set it all up as a publicity stunt with the backing of the insidious Muslim Brotherhood front CAIR?; on Oct. 13 after visiting Saudi Arabia, Clock Boy visits Sudanese dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir; on Oct. 19 (night) he meets with Pres. Obama in the White House, with his daddy Mohamed E. Mohad tweeting that this will help spread Islam in the U.S.; on Oct. 20 he announces that he's moving to Qatar. On Sept. 14 Hillar8y Clinton utters the soundbyte: "To every survival of sexual assault... You ahve the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed. We're with you" - unless you're Juanita Broaddrick, Monica Lewinsky et al.? On Sept. 15 the U.N. Gen. Assembly 70th Session begins (ends Sept. 2016). On Sept. 15 Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (1954-) of the Liberal Party becomes PM #29 of Australia (until Aug. 24, 2018). On Sept. 15 the Vatican releases a statement supporting the P5+1 nuclear agreement, calling for Israel, er, a Middle East free of nukes. On Sept. 15 CIA dir. John Brennan testifies before the U.S. House Intel Committee, saying that the U.S. is afraid that Iran may be outsourcing its secret nuke program to North Korea, or attempting to secretly purchase some Death to Israel and America nukes. On Sept. 15 the Collective Security Treaty Org. (CSTO) Collective meets in Dushanbe, Kyrgyzstan, pleding to fight terrorism esp. ISIS. On Sept. 15 Hillary Clinton gives an interview to the syndicated TV show "Extra", saying that making her hubby Bill her vice-pres. has "crossed her mind", with the soundbyte: "He would be good, but he's not eligible under the Constitution. He has served his two terms and I think the argument would be as vice-president it would not be possible for him to ever succeed to the presidency, at last that's what I've been told." On Sept. 16 the 2015 Burkina Faso Coup sees the regiment of pres. security of ex-pres. Blaise compaore arrest pres. Michel Kafando, PM Isaac Zida et al., shutting down the govt. before releasing them on Sept. 18 and nameing Gen. Gilbert Diendere (DiendĂ©rĂ©) (1960-) as new leader. On Sept. 16 the city council of Reyjjavik, Iceland decides to boycott Israeli products, causing a firestorm of controversy and calls for Jews to boycott them, causing them on Sept. 19 to limit their boycott to products from the so-called Occupied Territories; meanwhile on Sept. 17 Iceland's foreign ministry disavows support for the city council. On Sept. 16 Syrian govt. barrel bomb attacks in Aleppo, Syria kill 45+. On Sept. 16 the 2nd GOP Candidate Debate between 11 candidates at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif. gives them all a chance to look good, esp. Carly Fiorina, who tasks Donald Trump for his remarks about her face, with her soundbyte "I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said", causing him to blushingly reply: "I think she's got a beautiful face, and I think she's a beautiful woman." On Sept. 17 an anti-Kurdish (PKK) demonstration in Ankara, Turkey is attended by thousands, who call them terrorists; on Sept. 20 another anti-Kurd demonstration in Yenikapi Square in Istanbul, Turkey is attended by tens of thousands. On Sept. 17 after a latch-ditch Senate Repub. attempt to stop it by tying sanctions relief to Iran's recognition of Israel's right to exist and release of U.S. citizens, which is blocked by every Senate Dem. but one, the deadline is reached for the U.S. Congress to vote for or against Pres. Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, allowing the Obama admin. to wave sanctions. On Sept. 17 Donald Trump gives a speech at a town hall meeting in Rochester, N.H., after which the first question is what he will do about Muslims amd their jihadist training camps in the U.S., calling Pres. Obama a Muslim, to which Trump responds "We need this question", and "A lot of people are saying that bad things are happening. We're going to be looking that and many other things", pissing-off the PC media, which disses him for "Islamophobia", with Bernie Sanders tweeting that he must apologize, and Hillary Clinton tweeting: "Donald Trump not denouncing false statements about POTUS & hateful rhetoric about Muslims is disturbing, & just plain wrong. Cut it out"; on Sept. 19 Trump responds that it's not his obligation to defend Imam, er, Pres. Obama. On Sept. 18 ISIS-linked Sheikh Omar Hadid Brigades stage a rocket attack on S Israel, causing Israeli planes to bomb three terror targets on Sept. 19 (early a.m.); on Sept. 19 (night) Palestinian terrorists bomb Israeli soldiers near Beit Fajar village in Gush Etzion, Israel, resulting in no injuries. On Sept. 18 the 2015 Volkswagen Scandal begins when the U.S. EPA announces that Europe's biggest automaker used software on some of its cars to manipulate the results of direct emissions tests to make them pass, causing them to have to refit 11M vehicles and pay an $18B fine in the U.S., causing its market to tank. On Sept. 18 Pres. Obama appoints Eric Fanning as new U.S. Army secy., to succeed John McHugh, who has announced his departure on Nov. 1, becoming the first openly gay secy. of a U.S. military branch. On Sept. 18 the supreme court of Ala. refuses to recognize a lesbian adoption. On Sept. 18-19 Saudi alliance airstrikes in Yemen kill 57 and injure 130 civilians. On Sept. 19 Manfred Schmidt, head of Germany's refugee office resigns as the number of refugees entering the country doubles in 24 hours and controls are extended to the Czech border. On Sept. 20 (Sun.) Repub. pres. candidate Ben Carson gives an interview to Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, uttering the soundbyte that no Muslim should be U.S. pres. because Islam is an ideology that's incompatible with the U.S. Constitution, bringing out the PC press prodded by insidious Muslim Brotherhood front CAIR, then granting an interview to The Hill, with the soundbyte that whoever takes the White House should be "sworn in on a stack of Bibles, not a Quran", making him more popular with non-Muslims?; meanwhile on Sept. 19 Donald Trump says "I love the Muslims. I think they're great people.", clarifying "We do have a problem with radical Muslims, there's no question about that." On Sept. 20 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry announces that the U.S. will accept 85K refugees next year (vs. 70K in 2015), and 100K in 2017. On Sept. 20 the deadline for establishing a unity govt. in Libya with the parliament in Tobruk and the Gen. Nat. Congress in Tripoli lapses. On Sept. 20 former Algerian foreign minister Abderrahmane Belayat gives a speech with the soundbyte that Algeria should obtain nukes to drive the Jews out of Palestine. On Sept. 20 the U.S. Border Patrol arrests two Pakistanis with ties to terrorism at the U.S.-Mexico border near Tijuna, Muhammad Azeem and Mukhtar Ahmad; they wait until late Dec. to reveal it to the public. On Sept. 20-26 the World Week for Peace in Palestine Israel, sponsored by the World Council of Churches (WCC). On Sept. 21 the 2015 U.N. Internat. Day of Peace. On Sept. 21 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian pres. Vladimir Putin meet to "prevent misunderstandings between IDF units and Russian forces" in Syria and avoid accidential exchanges of fire. On Sept. 21 after reports that it had let Iran gather its own environmental samples, U.S. State Dept. spokesman John Kirby utters the soundbyte that the Obama admin. won't "micromanage" the IAEA. On Sept. 21 a Gallup Poll reveals that 49% of U.S. citizens believe that the federal govt. is an "immediate threat" to their rights and freedoms, up from 305 in 2003. On Sept. 22-27 Pope Francis visits the U.S., landing in Washington, D.C. and meeting with Pres. Obama in the White House on Sept. 23 (the 266th pope meeting Obama on the 266th day of the year, which is also the period of human gestation?), during which Obama utters the soundbyte: "So we stand with you in defense of religious freedom and interfaith dialogue, knowing that people everywhere must be able to live out their faith free from fear and free from intimidation"; on Sept. 23 after a popemobile tour of Washington, D.C., where he kisses a baby, Francis becomes the first pope to perform a mass in the U.S. at the Nat. Cathedral; on Sept. 24 he becomes the first pope to address the U.S. Congress (joint session), telling them to seek the "common good", after which Rep. Bob Brady (D-Penn.) grabs his half-full drinking glass and swipes it, drinks from it, and saves the rest for sprinkling on his children; (George Washington and Thomas Jefferson roll over in their graves?); after Obama invites prominent gay and pro-abortion activists to the pope's reception, Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee utters the soundbyte that the decision is "classless" and a "new low", saying that the Obama admin. "will go down as the most anti-Christian in American history"; on Sept. 25 the pope delivers an address to the 70th U.N. Gen. Assembly in New York City, and visits the 9/11 Memorial before giving a mass at Madison Square Garden for 18K; on Sept. 26 the pope gives a speech outside Independence Hall in Philly, standing at the same lectern that Pres. Lincoln used to deliver the Gettysburg Address, addressing illegal immigrants, with the soundbytes: "Please don't ever be ashamed of your traditions", "You remind American democracy of the ideals for which it was founded, and you remind us that society is weakened whenever and wherever any injustice prevails; "Do not forget what happened here more than two centuries ago. Do not forget that Declaration that proclaimed all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and that governments exist to protect and defend these rights", adding that the Catholic invaders, er, immigrants "bring many gifts to the U.S"; while in the U.S., Pope Francis visits with Ky. clerk Kim Davis, later taking pains to deny that it "be considered a form of support for her position"; he also secretly meets with gay couples incl. Yayo Grassi and Iwan Bagus. On Sept. 23 a EU Summit shows EU leaders divided over the mass Muslim invasion, with German chancellor Angela Merkel leading the pack wanting more, while Hungarian PM Viktor Orban criticizes her "moral imperialism" of saying that Germany is Islam's, and that they must atone for Hitler, which causes her own people to boo her in speeches and call her a traitor, to which she responds that they should imbibe more about their Christian faith to engage the Muslims in dialogue. On Sept. 23 the U.S. govt. announces that 5.6M fingerprints of U.S. citizen were stolen by hackers from the Office of Personnel Mgt., along with SSNs and home addresses of 21M current and former govt. employees; China is suspected. On Sept. 23 U.S. State Dept. spokesman Mark Toner utters the soundbyte that the U.S. "would welcome" Saudi Arabia heading the U.N. Human Rights Council, causing an outcry, which doesn't stop the U.N. from doing it; meanwhile on Sept. 23 a super-rich Saudi Muslim is arrested in Beverly Hills, Calif. for forcing a woman to blow him. On Sept. 24 a stampede in Mecca, Saudi Arabia kills 717 pilgrims on Hajj and injures 863 while trying to get their turn to throw stones at the Devil in Mina, becoming the deadliest tragedy since 1990; on Sept. 27 Iranian supreme assasholla Khameini gives a speech, with the soundbyte: "Instead of laying the blame on others, the Saudis should accept the responsibility and apologize to the grieving Iranian families and the Muslim World", causing Saudi foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir to respond: "The Iranians should know better than to try to play politics with a tragic event", after which the Saudis refuse to allow Iranian officials to travel to Mecca, pissing-off the ayatollah, who begins veiled threats about the use of the Iranian Rev. Guard to retaliate. On Sept. 24 a suicide attack at a mosque in Sana'a, Yemen kills 25+ worshippers celebrating Eid al-Adha. On Sept. 24 the U.S. Nat. Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin. (NOAA) announces that no Category 3 or above hurricanes have struck the continental U.S. in a record 119 mo., with records going back to 1851. On Sept. 24 after things aren't going well for him, Fla. Repub. Sen. Marco Rubio utters the soundbyte about opponent Donald Trump that he is "insecure", lashes out at opponents when things aren't going well for him, and "can't have more than a 10-second soundbyte on any key issue." On Sept. 25 Chinese pres. Xi Jinping visits the White House in Washington, D.C. for the first time just as Pope Francis leaves town for New York City; he and Pres. Obama announce a global climate change agreement approved by the pope, and a pact to stop state-sponsored cyberattacks; on Sept. 26 Xi Jinping meets in Seattle, Wash. with tech corp. CEOs incl. Tim Cook of Apple, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, and Satya Nadella of Microsoft to discuss Chinese cyber espionage and rook them into pressuring Washington, D.C. into not imposing sanctions; on Sept. 28 Jingping hosts a meeting on women's rights at the U.N., causing Hillary Clinton to call him "shameless" when he is persecuting women's activists at home, causing China to respond that she's a "demagogue" like "big mouth" Donald Trump; on Sept. 25-27 the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is approved by the U.N. Gen. Assembly to bring the internat. community "to the cusp of decisions that can help realize the... dream of a world of peace and dignity for all" (U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon), containing 17 sustainable development goals incl. an end to world poverty and hunger, gender and wealth equality, action against climate change et al.; it's really an insidious Satanic plan for a New World Order (NWO)? On Sept. 25 after inviting Pope Francis to address the House, crying when he begins speaking, former altar boy and Repub. U.S. House Speaker John Boehner announces his resignation effective Oct. 30; he was pressured into quitting by conservative Repubs. as a RINO who kept selling-out to Pres. Obama on the budget et al.? On Sept. 25 the U.S. House by 233-170 passes the U.S. Reponsibly and Professionally Invigorating Development (RAPID) Act of 2015, sponsored by Rep. (R-Penn.) Tom Marino, forbidding federal agencies from incl. the "social cost of carbon" in environmental reviews. On Sept. 26 the Obama admin. opens a dialogue with Iran over the crises in Syria and Yemen. On Sept. 27 (Sun.) the conservative Austrian People's Party (OVP) wins the Austrian election with 36.4%, followed by the anti-immigrant Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) (slogans: "Mehr Mut fur Wiener Blut" [More Courage for Viennese Blood]) and "Too many foreigners does no one any good") at 30.4% and the Social Dems. (SPO) at 18.4%. On Sept. 27 (Sun.) (night) a super blood moon, occurs, becoming the last of a lunar tetrad, sending Bible-thumpers into a rapture. On Sept. 27 the thriller series Quantico debuts on ABC-TV for 44 episodes (until ?), starring India-born Priyanka Chopra (1982-) as FBI recruit Alex Parris, who is framed for committing a terrorist attack. On Sept. 28 Pres. Obama gives a speech at the 70th U.N. Gen. Assembly, with the soundbyte: "If we cannot work together more effectively, we will all suffer the consequences. That is true for the United States, as well, no matter how powerful our military... We understand the United States cannot solve the world's problems alone", adding "I lead the strongest military the world has ever known. I will never hesitate to protect my country and our allies unilaterally and by force when necessary"; he then complains about Donald Trump et al., with the soundbyte: "We see greater polarization, more frequent gridlock... movements on the far right, and sometimes the left, that insist on stopping the trade that binds our fates to other nations, calling for the building of walls to keep out immigrants", and "Most ominously, we see the fears of ordinary people being exploited through appeals to sectarianism, or tribalism, or racism, or anti-Semitism, appeals to a glorious past before the body politic was infected by those who look different, or worship God differently, a politics of us versus them"; no surprise, he adds that there must be a "rejection by non-Muslims of the ignorance that equates Islam with terrorism", bragging about increasing the yearly quota of Muslim immigrants; Russian pres. Vladimir Putin gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, calling on the world to join Russia's fight against terrorism while preserving Bashed Ass in power in Syria; Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani gives anspeech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, along with Russian pres. Vladimir Putin; meanwhile Pres. Obama meets with Putin at the U.N., becoming their first meeting in 15 mo.; on Sept. 29 Obama hosts a counter-terrorism summit at the U.N., uttering the soundbyte that Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad must go before ISIS can be defeated; British PM David Cameron tasks Obama for trying to get the foreign leaders to stop profiling Muslims because "violent extremism is not unique to any faith", with the soundbyte: "Barack, you said it and you're right, every religion has its extremists. But we have to be frank that the biggest problem we have today is the Islamist extremist violence that has given birth to ISIL, to al-Shabaab, to al-Nusrah, al-Qaida, and so many other groups." On Sept. 28 King Abdullah of Jordan delivers an address to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, blaming Israel for troubles on the Temple Mouth, and warning that Jordan will "prevent any threat" to the "holiness" of the city, and "reject any threat to the Arab character of the holy city". On Sept. 28 (night) three jihadists on a motorcycle assassinate Italian citizen Cesare Tavella in the diplomatic quarter of Dkhaka, Bangladesh; ISIS claims responsibility; on Oct. 3 after warning that they will target more foreigners, they murder Japanese national Kunio Hoshi in Rangpur 180 mi. from Dhaka. On Sept. 28-Oct. 15 Category 4 Hurricane Joaquin forms SW of Bermuda and hits Cuba, Haiti,, Greater Antilles, and Bermuda, killing 34 and causing $200M damage while failing to make landfall in the U.S. and bringing record-breaking rains and floods across N.C. and S.C., causing floods in S.C. that kill 19 in Charleston and Columbia and cause $2B damage. On Sept. 29 the Inst. for the Study of War announces that the Taliban now control Kunduz Province in Afghanistan. The beginning of worldwide Islamic Sharia law enforcement? On Sept. 29 the Strong Cities Network is launched, with the U.N., the U.S. atty. gen., and the mayors of several U.S. cities uniting to fight ISIS; on Oct. 7 U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch at the U.N. announces the Strong Cities Network (SCN), a global law enforcement initiative to fight extremism in U.S. cities; in Oct. the Justice Dept. announces that a new position is being created to investigate lone-wolf domestic extremists - part of Pres. Obama's insidious plan to bypass Congress and the U.S. Constitution to surrender U.S. sovereignty to the U.N.? On Sept. 29 U.S. defense secy. John Kerry utters the soundbyte that a "complete ceasefire" could be put in place in Syria if pres. Bashar al-Assad announces that he doesn't want to stay in power and will "help manage Syria out of this mess and then go off into the sunset". On Sept. 30 Russia launches its first air strikes in Syria after the Russian Federation Council approves it 162-0; Vladimir Putin orders U.S. planes and personnel to get out of the way, and doesn't give Pres. Obama prior warning; too bad, the targets aren't ISIS but Assad's Syrian opposition, which the U.S. is partially friendly with, causing White spokesman Josh Earnest to utter the soundbyte: "We are seeing the Russians ramp up support for President Assad. They've been supporting him for quite some time, and it's clear the athey've made a significant military investment now in further propping him up. The fact that Russia has to take these noteworthy steps... is an indication of how concerned they are about losing influence in the one-clinet state that they have in the Middle East"; on Oct. 1 the U.S. and Russia begin deconfliction talks; meanwhile Iran sends hundreds of troops to Syria to back Russia and Assad up, and ISIS vows to set Moscow ablaze. On Sept. 30 Palestinian Authority (PA) pres. Mahmoud Abbas delivers an address to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, announcing that the PA no longer adheres to the 1993 Oslo Accords because "we won't work as employees for Israel", "with the soundbyte: "Our patience for a long time has come to an end", and that Israel "must fully assume all its responsibilities as an occupying power." In Sept. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is overheard talking on a hot mic at a U.N. development summit in New York City with German chancellor Angela Merkel, telling her "we need to do some work" on the issue of suppressing "offensive posts" on the refugee crisis, meaning anybody complaining about the evils of Islam and Muslim immigration to the West, answering "Yeah" to her question "Are you working on this?" In Sept. Google fixes their search engine algorithm that supplies the answer "Jews" to the question "Who runs Hollywood?" In Sept. U.S. unemployment is 5.1%, unchanged from Aug., adding 142K jobs; a record 94.61M Americans are no longer in the labor force, with only 62.4% of the U.S. pop. holding a job or actively looking for one. On Oct. 1 an ISIS roadside bomb in El-Arish, Egypt in N Sinai kills two Egyptian soldiers and injures 16. On Oct. 1 (10:38 a.m. PDT) ISIS-loving organized religion-hating "Pagan Wiccan" half-black half-white U.S. Army reject Chris Sean Harper-Mercer (1989-), whose MySpace page is full of praise for Islamic jihadists attacks Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., asking victims if they're Christian then shooting them in the head if they say yes and in the leg if they say no, killing nine and injuring nine before killing himself in a shootout with police; the Obama-run PC media tries to hide his identity then coverup his Muslim connections, and meanwhile Pres. Obama gives a speech politicizing the massacre, blaming it on the Second Amendment and calling for more gun control, failing to show sympathy for the victims or even wait for all the facts to come in, pissing-off the victims' families; on Oct. 7 Repub. pres. Ben Carson utters the soundbyte: "Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me. I would say, 'Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can't get us all'; on Oct. Pres. Obama visits the victims, with the town divided over his anti-gun stand, and some armed protesters declaring an Obama Free Zone. On Oct. 1 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu delivers an address to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, berating it for its silence in the face of the death threats against Israel by Iran, glaring at the members for 45 sec., calling the Iran nuke deal a "marriage certificate for that unholy union" of radical Islam and nukes. On Oct. 1 Pope Francis releases his message for the 2016 World Day of Migrants and Refugees, titled Migrants and Refugees Challenge Us: The Response of the Gospel of Mercy. On Oct. 1 an Iranian-born Australian Muslim teenie enters a police HQ on Charles St. in Parramatta, N.S.W., Australia, killing two before being killed. On Oct. 1-2 George Soros' Open Society Foundation holds a board meeting in New York City, later releasing a report revealing that Soros personally lobbied Pres. Obama to raise the Syrian refugee quota for 2017 from 70K to 100K. On Oct. 2 (12:01 a.m.) a USAF C-130 military transport plane crashes at Jalalabad Air Base in E Afghanistan, killing six U.S. airmen; the Taliban claims credit. On Oct. 2 Amnesty Internat. disses the U.N. Human Rights Council for bowing to Saudi pressure and passing a resolution shunning an internat. investigation into reported abuses in Yemen by Saudi-led forces and Houthi rebels, calling for the U.K. to stop supplying them with arms. On Oct. 2 a scout for the MLB Arizona Diamondbacks reveals that several ML baseball clubs have been sending talent scouts to the West Bank to observe Palestinian stone-throwers for signs of a new Sandy Koufax; ditto Jewish settler stone-throwers. On Oct. 3, 2015 (Sat.) as she sags in the polls, Hillary Clinton appears in a comedy skit on Saturday Night Live in an attempt to prove she's not a robot; meanwhile a fake Donald and Melania Trump appear in another comedy skit. On Oct. 3 Eitam and Naama Henkin from Nera (near Ramallah) are killed in front of their four children in their car by Hamas terrorists in Samaria, Israel; on On Oct. 3 a Russian MiG-29 fighter jet crosses into Turkish airspace near the Syrian border, causing Turkey to scramble two F-16s; ditto on Oct. 4. Kunduz, Afghanistan accidentally hits a Doctors Without Borders (DWB) hospital, killing 22 incl. 12 workers, some by burning alive, causing them to call it a war crime, and the U.S. govt. to launch an investigation despite U.S. Afghanistan cmdr. Gen. John F. Campbell uttering the soundbyte that Afghan forces requested the air strike; on Oct. 7 after stalling, Pres. Obama apologizes for the bombing, which doesn't stop Dr. Joanne Liu from DWB pres. calling for an independent investigation by the Internat. Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission. On Oct. 3 the Vatican fires Monsignor Kryzsztof Charamsa after he comes out as gay; he and his boyfriend Eduard hold a news conference in downtown Rome. On Oct. 3 (eve.) a Palestinian terror knife attack by 19-y.-o. Muhannad Shafeq Halabi in Old City Jerusalem, Israel kills two men and injures an infant before the terrorist is killed by police; both are praised by Hamas. On Oct. 3 a U.S. an AC-130 gunship crashes in E Afghanistan, killing 11. On Oct. 5 a series of car bombings across Iraq kills 63 and injures dozens. On Oct. 5 ISIS blows up the 1.8K-y.-o. Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria. On Oct. 6 ISIS kills 15 coalition soldiers in coordinated suicide bombings in Aden, Yemen; meanwhile 50+ Saudi clerics call on Muslim countries to wage jihad against heretic Bashar al-Assad and its allies Russia, Iran et al., and support fellow Sunnis in ISIS. On Oct. 6 U.S. top Afghanistan cmdr. Army Gen. John F. Campbell recommends to Pres. Obama that U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan past the Dec. 2016 deadline. On Oct. 6 Calif. Dem. Gov. Jerry Brown signs the Calif. Fair Pay Act, allowing women to sue claiming that they are being paid less than male employees for "substanially similar work" (not just equal work), and placing the burden of proof on the employer; it goes into effect on Jan. 1. On Oct. 7 (Wed.) Black Oct. begins? On Oct. 7 a huge oil discovery is announced in Golan Heights in Israel, containing enough reserves to last for decades. On Oct. 8 the U.S. military announces that USS Theodore Roosevelt has been pulled out of the Persian Gulf, leaving it without a U.S. aircraft carrier for the first time since 2007. On Oct. 8 two hours after he announces he has enough votes and goes into a meeting, heir apparent Kevin McCarthy abruptly pulls out of the race to replace John Boehner as U.S. House Speaker. On Oct. 8 Repub. pres. candidate Ted Cruz gives an interview to Fox News, dissing the "weakness of the Obama-Clinton foreign policy" that makes Vladimir Putin consider Pres. Obama a "laughingstock" and makes the world a more dangerous place, uttering the soundbyte: "We should stop engaging in the fiction in trying to find these moderate rebels and support them. We should stop the fiction of trying to bring together the Sunnis and Shias to put down their arms and embrace like brothers. Instead we should defend U.S. national security interests and do what works to defeat ISIS." On Oct. 9 (Fri.) (The Day of Rage) sees Israeli troops fire on Palestinian protesters along the Gaza border fence, killing six, Hamas leader Ismail Haniya declares a new Third Intifada AKA the Knife Intifada against Israel, which incl. videos calling it the Knife Intifada, with insructions on how to stab Jews, incl. the advice "poison the knife before you stab". On Oct. 9 U.S. defense secy. Ashton Carter announces that the U.S. will end the failed $500M Syrian rebel training program and begin working with Kurdish fighters. On Oct. 9 ISIS announces the killing of Iranian brig. gen. Hossein Hamedani in Syria, becoming their 3rd. On Oct. 9 the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passes a resolution regarding "the safety and security of Jewish communities in Europe", noting increased anti-Semitic activity. On Oct. 9 the U.N. Security Council votes 14-0-1 (Venezuela) for Resolution 2240 to enable Operation Sophia, with six EU warships patrolling off the coast of Libya to turn back boats transporting refugees to Europe. On Oct. 9 Swedish PM Stefan Lofven (Löfven) utters the soundbyte that Muslim immigrant-filled Sweden is in a state of crisis. On Oct. 9 masked men attack four Muslim immigrant invader boats in the Aegean Sea off Lesbos. On Oct. 10 the 70th Annov. of the Workers' Party of Korea is celebrated with a big military show in Pyongyang, attempting to coverup the terrible economy et al. On Oct. 10 a double suicide bombing before a scheduled peace rally in Ankara, Turkey kills 98 and injures 190 mostly Kurds, becoming the most deadly terrorist attack in Turkish history; ISIS is suspected; the Turkish govt. really did it? On Oct. 10 an anti-mosque protest in Bendigo, Australia sees 400+ police arrest four. On Oct. 10 (Sat.) the Justice or Else Rally in the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C. celebrates the 20th anniv. of the Million Man March, with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan hogging the microphone for 2 hours, praising #BlackLives Matter and damning the white devil establishment, with the soundbyte: "Moses was not an integrationist and neither are we. Let me be clear, America has no future for you or for me. She can't make a future for herself, much less a future for us." On Oct. 10-11 the Global Rally for Humanity sees anti-Islam protests in front of mosques in 20 cities across the U.S., led by USMC vet Jon Ritzheimer; "The world is saying no to Islam"; "Standing up against Islam does not mean you're a racist or a bigot, it simply means you're not an idiot and can see the reality of Islam around the world." On Oct. 11 a NATO heli crash in Afghanistan kills two British service members, two Americans, and one French contractor; on Oct. 12 Afghan officials report two crashes of military flights, one involving a small plane and the other a transport heli. On Oct. 12 ISIS supporters begin leaving messages in Gothenburg, Sweden declaring a new caliphate, incl. "The caliphate is here", and "Convert or die" - friends, football, food, King Soopers can? On Oct. 12 Communist Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli (1952-) becomes PM #38 of Nepal (until July 24, 2016), resigning after a no confidence motion. On Oct. 12 after circ. falls from 5.6M in 1975 to less than 1M, Playboy mag. announces that it's going to stop pub. photos of nude women, reversing the decision in early 2016. On Oct. 13 Bahrain severs diplomatic ties with Iran after accusing it of interfering in its affairs and terrorism. On Oct. 13 a madass Palestinian Muslim Baha Alyan plows his vehicle into some Jews at a bus stop in Jerusalem, Israel, then jump out and attempt to murder them with a meat cleaver, killing three and injuring four until he is shot and killed by security, causing hundreds of Israeli troops to be deployed to stop the wave of Palestinian attacks across Israel; on Oct. 13 Middle East Forum dir. Gregg Roman appears on Al-Jazeera America, saying that Mahmoud Abbas must stop "turning attackers into martyrs". On Oct. 13 (9 p.m. ET) the First 2015 Dem. Pres. Candidate Debate in Las Vegas, Nev. on CNN, moderated by Anderson Cooper is watched by a record 15.3M viewers; Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters come out backing them more than ever, with more switching to Bernie than vice-versa; Cooper asks Hillary "Will you say anything to get elected?"; Hillary utters the soundbyte that the NRA and Republican Party are her "enemies"; Bernie utters the crowd-pleasing soundbyte: "The American people are sick and tired of hearing about your damned emails." On Oct. 14 Hamas announces that it will recognize same-sex marriages performed in the smuggling tunnels in Gaza Strip; meanwhile a Gaza judge orders all women living under Hamas rule to cover-up in public Muslim-style. On Oct. 14 the Obama admin. announces plans to deploy 300 U.S. troops to Cameroon for intel ops. On Oct. 14 FBI dir. James Comey utters the soundbyte that ISIS is recruiting new members in all 50 U.S. states "24 hours a day". On Oct. 14 U.S. State Dept. spokesman John Kirby utters the soundbyte that the Obama admin. views an incident in which a Jewish Israeli was arrested for stabbing four Bedouin Arabs as "an act of terrorism", pissing-off Ted Cruz, who calls on him to disavow his remarks or resign. On Oct. 15 Pres. Obama announces that he plans to keep 9.8K troops in Afghanistan through most of 2016, keeping 5.5K when he leaves office in Jan. 2017, reneging on his campaign promise to end the war during his presidency, calling it a "modest but meaningful" extension of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan; his generals recommended 11K not 5.5K. On Oct. 15 (night) Queens, N.Y. Muslim Alija Kucuk is arrested for threatening to blow up JetBlue Airways Flight 153 en route from JFK to Palm Beach Internat. Airport. On Oct. 15 (night) Palestinians torch Joseph's Tomb in Israel, causing it to prepare for war; on Oct. 16 Israel rejects calls from the Palestinians for an internat. police force in E Jerusalem. On Oct. 16 The New York Times pub. a map showing that the Taliban controls 35 and contests another 35 of Afghanistan's 398 districts. On Oct. 17 Palestinian madasses carry out five stabbing attacks on Jews in Jerusalem and the West Bank in Jerusalem, causing Palestinian Authority (PA) pres. Mahmoud Abbas to issue a directive to stop attacks in Jerusalem and switch to the West Bank esp. Gush Etzion and Hebron before reversing himself and demanding more attacks in Jerusalem on Oct. 26, causing a madass attack on Oct. 27, followed by another on Oct. 30. On Oct. 18 (Sun.) Swiss nat. elections are won by the anti-Muslim-immigration Swiss People's Party (SVP) with 29.4% (up from 26.6% in 2011), with the pro-business Liberal Party (FDP) also making gains; the SVP gains 11 seats in the house, for a total of 65 of 200, the highest ever. On Oct. 18 Adoption Day for the July 24 nuclear agreement with Iran. On Oct. 18 Donald Trump gives an interview to Fox News Sunday, explaining why he dissed Pres. George W. Bush for 9/11, saying that if he had been president back then his tough immigration policies wouldn't have allowed raghead foreign Muslims to run around loose planning jihadist attacks in the first place, causing brother Jeb Bush to attack him and lamely defend his brudder as if it's personal not politics; too bad, Jeb had earlier admitted that "leaky" immigration led to 9/11; after the interview Chris Wallace utters the soundbyte: “All of us dismissed Trump early on. A summer fling, momentary amusement. As I watch that interview and I heard what he had to say about the country and about trade and about losing and just the sheer force of his personality, I am beginning to believe he could be elected president of the United States." On Oct. 18 the 2014 Internat. Religious Freedom Report slams Pakistan et al for "general failure to investigate, arrest, or prosecute those reponsible for religious freedom abuses" incl. use of blasphemy laws against Ahmadiyya Muslims et al.; it also slams Nigeria for failure to take on Boko Haram. On Oct. 18 Dan Alexander of Forbes mag. pub. an article that reveals the net worth of Bill and Hillary Clinton to be $230M. On Oct. 19 2015 Canadian federal elections are a big V for the Liberal Party (39.5%) under Justin Pierre James Trudeau (1971-) (son of former PM Pierre Trudeau), who win 184 of 338 seats in Parliament; Stephen Harper's Conservatives (32%) win 99 seats; Trudeau becomes Canadian PM #23 on Nov. 4 (until ?), immediately announcing that Canada will pull its RCAF CF-18 Hornets out of Iraq. On Oct. 20 "All in the Family" producer Norman Lear gives an interview to Jeanne Wolf's Hollywood Blog, saying that Donald Trump's popularity represents Americans giving the establishment political class a "middle finger". On Oct. 21 (early a.m.) the Bosporus Restaurant in Dubai is bombed; no one is injured. On Oct. 21 after months of waffling, U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden announces that he won't be running for U.S. pres., with the soundbyte: "I believe we're out of time"; he had earlier taken a swipe at Hillary Clinton's remark that Repubs. are her "enemies", with the soundbyte: "We have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart." On Oct. 21 Marty McFly arrives from 1985 to learn about all the cool new technology incl. flying cars, freeways in the sky, drones, hoverboards, and home-office teleconferencing - 1985 film Back to the Future :) On Oct. 21 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu utters the soundbyte that Adolf Hitler only wanted to expel the Jews from Europe, and that the idea to exterminate them came from madass Muslim Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, pissing-off German chancellor Angela Merkel, who replies: "We abide by our responsibility for the Shoah." On Oct. 22 the Hillary, er, Hillary Clinton testifies (her 2nd time) for 11 hours (10 a.m.-9 p.m.) before the U.S. House Select Committee on Benghazi, chaired by Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), where she is grilled about her actions and statements, esp. her public blaming of an anti-Islam video for the attack when she knew that it was a terrorist assault; too bad, despite being caught lying to the public, the exposure only boosts her campaign. On Oct. 22 the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passes a bipartisan condemnation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) for inciding violence against Israelis. On Oct. 22 the Obama admin. announces the Let Girls Learn Initiative to provide $70M in aid to 200K teenie girls ages 10-19 in Pakistan. On Oct. 23 U.S., Kurdish, and Iraqi comandos free 70 histages from an ISIS prison near Hawija, Iraq; Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler becomes the first U.S. soldier KIA against ISIS. On Oct. 23 Pres. Obama appoints U.S State Dept. official Brett McGurk as special envoy to the anti-ISIS coalition, succeeding retiring Gen. John Allen. On Oct. 23 ISIS releases a new video showing a Hebrew-speaking jihadists threatening attacks on Jews worldwide, with the soundbyte: "Soon there will be no more Jews in Israel", calling Jews a "disease" - welcome to LA? On Oct. 25 (Sun.) elections in Poland see the anti-immigrant anti-EU Law and Justice Party, led by Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Beata Szydlo win 39% of the vote, ousting the ruling centrist party and winning 242 of 460 seats in parliament, while the Civic Platform Party wins 133, leaving parliament with no left-wing members. On Oct. 25 a mass rally in Casablanca, Morocco in support of the Palestinian Intifada sees children shouting "We will sacrifice our soul and our blood for you" while splattered in blood, calling for a "Million-Martyr March to Jerusalem"; meanwhile next Jan. PA Authority intel chief Gen. Majid Farad admits that the PA has foiled 200 attacks on Israelis since the intifada began. On Oct. 26 a 7.5 earthquake in N Afghanistan rocks bldgs. from Kabul to Delhi, India, killing 150+ and injuring 800 in Afghanistan and Pakistan. On Oct. 26 (10:30 p.m.) Saudi coalition warplanes destroy a hospital in N Yemen run by Doctors Without Borders, pissing them off. On Oct. 27 for the 14th straight time (since 1992) the U.N. Gen. Assembly votes to condemn the 55-y.-o. U.S. embargo on Cuba; this time it's 191 to 2 (U.S. and Israel); in 2014 Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau abstained. On Oct. 27 U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees #19 (since June 15, 2005) Antonio (António) Manuel de Oliveira Guterres (1949-) of Portugal warns of the coming "amputation in the DNA of Christianity... in... the Middle East"; Guterres leaves office on Dec. 31. On Oct. 27 U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) introduces legislation to defund the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) for being "tied to foreign terrorist orgs', incl. storing rockets used by Islamist jihadists to attack Israel. On Oct. 27 the USS Lassen carries out the first Freedom of Navigation Patrol to challenge China's territorial claims to the 12 naut. mi. region surrounding its artificial islands in the South China Sea. On Oct. 27 Walgreens announces that it is acquiring competitor Rite Aid for $7.15B, leaving only CVS to compete with them in the drugstore biz. On Oct. 27 the Cyber Threat Alliance pub. a report announcing that hackers made $325M from victims using its CryptoWall malware. On Oct. 27- Nov. 2 the 2015 (111th) (2015) World Series sees the Kansas City Royals defeat the New York Mets 4-1; Royals shortstop (#2) Alcides "El Mago" (the Magician) Escobar (1986-) scores an in-the-park homer as the leadoff hitter in Game 1 off the first pitch thrown by Mets pitcher (#33) Matthew Edward "Matt" "the Dark Knight" Harvey (1989-), becoming the first inside-the-park WS homer since 1929, the first ever to lead off Game 1 of a WS, and the first leadoff WS homer since Patsy Dougherty in Game 2 of the 1st (1903) WS. On Oct. 28 (3:15 a.m.) African-Am. property mgr. Corey Lamar Jones (b. 1984) (brother of ex-NFL player C.J. Jones) is shot by plainclothes officer Nouman K. Raja (of South Asian descent) while waiting by his disabled Hyundai Santa Fe SUV at an exit ramp of I-95 in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. after pulling up in an unmarked white van and failing to identify himself as a police officer, causing Jones (who has a concealed weapons permit) to pull a handgun, resulting in Raja firing 6x; on June 1, 2016 a grand jury charges Raja with manslaughter and attempted 1st degree murder, causing him to be fired; on Jan. 17, 2017 the Fla. state atty.'s office released a reporting stated that Raja lied to investigators; on Aug. 23, 2018 the Fla. state appeals court rejects Raja's stand your ground defense. On Oct. 28 a spokesman for Inherent Resolve announces that the anti-ISIS coaliation has conducted 7,712 airstrikes since operations began, the majority in Iraq. On Oct. 28 U.S. House Repubs. by 200-43 nominate Paul Davis Ryan Jr. (1970-) as new House speaker over Daniel Webster of Fla.; on Oct. 29 he is elected to succeed John Boehner. On Oct. 28 China announces and end to its 36-y.-o. one-child policy of 1979, permitting couples to have up to two children. On Oct. 28 after support by House Speaker John Boehner along with secret talks, the U.S. House votes 266-167 (all Dems. plus 79 Repubs.) to pass a sweeping budget deal that raises spending levels and expands borrowing authority by $1.5T causing conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh to predict that the deal will help Hillary Clinton be elected U.S. pres., with the soundbyte: "So, the idea that the Democrat party and their nominee, most likely Hillary clinton, pose a grave threat to the country's future because of their runaway spending... we can't say that anymore"; U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) begins a filibuster. On Oct. 28 after criticizing Hungary for building a border fence, Austria flops and decides to build its own at its main crossing with Slovenia. On Oct. 28 officials of the Nat. Oceanic Atmospheric Admin. (NOAA) refuse to hand over records explaining why they suddenly decided to eliminate the 20-year global hiatus in global warming from the official climate record, pissing-off chmn. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), who utters the soundbyte: "It was inconvenient for this administration that climate data has clearly showed no warming for the past two decades. The American people have every right to be suspicious when NOAA alters data to get the politically correct results they want and then refuses to reveal how those decisions were made." On Oct. 28 the 2-hour 2nd Repub. Pres. Debate in uber-leftist Boulder, Colo., aired by CNBC, with liberal hosts Becky Quick, John Harwood, and Carl Quintanilla throwing circus-like questions at the 10 candidates, pissing them all off; on Oct. 30 the Repub. Nat. Committee announces that it's dropping the planned Feb. 26 debate, saying of NBC News that "its handling of the debate was conducted in bad faith". On Oct. 28 Dem. U.S. pres. candidate Bernie Sanders stinks himself up with the soundbyte that he is going to lead the fight against "Islamophobia" because his ancestors died in Nazi concentration camps; he never heard that Adolf Hitler was a big supporter of Jerusalem Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, who helped plan the Holocaust with him and mentored Jew-killer Yasser Arafat? On Oct. 29 Wisc. Repub. Rep. (1999-) Paul Davis Ryan (1970-) (2012 U.S. vice-pres. nominee) replaces John Boehner, becoming U.S. House Speaker #54 (until ?) (first from Wisc.). On Oct. 29-30 a Summit on Syria in Vienna, Austria is attended by the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, and Iran; the Syrian press. pub. an article that claims that U.S. secy. of state John Kerry acted as a mediator and blocked a discussion of the removal of Bashar al-Assad, and that Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif was the dominant player. On Oct. 30 the Obama admin. announces the deployment of up to 50 U.S. special ops forces to fight ISIS in Kurdish-controlled Syria; on Nov. 2 after being reminded of his pledge not to put "boots on the ground" in Syria, he explains that they won't be on the front lines. On Oct. 31 (Halloween) the world's first Blood Rave is held in Amsterdam, Holland, in which blood-filled sprinklers shower the participants. On Oct. 31 Russian Kogalymavia Flight 7K9268 (Airbus A-321) en route from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt to St. Petersburg, Russia carrying 224 passengers and crew crashes in Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, killing all aboard; ISIS claims responsibility, which Russia denies, after which U.S. intel chief James Clapper utters the soundbyte that there is "no direct evidence" pointing to ISIS, but he wouldn't rule it out; investigations point to an on-board bomb, and after Pres. Obama announces that a bomb is suspected, and flight data recorder data confirm it, Russian pres. Vladimir Putin halts Russian air traffic with Egypt and evacuates Russian nationals; meanwhile Egypt suspends flights for British nationals; on Nov. 17 Russia announces that the plane was indeed brought down by a homemade bomb equivalent to 2 lbs. of TNT, and offers a $50M reward for info. on the terrorists. In Oct. U.S. unemployment is 5% (vs. 5.1% in Sept., with the economy adding 271K jobs. On Nov. 1 (Sun.) gen. elections in Turkey (last on June 7) are a V for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which increases its share in the nat. vote by 9% and its parliamentary seats by 11%, giving it back its majority; the AKP rigged the election? On Nov. 2 Pres. Obama visits Rutgers U., and announces that federal agencies will no longer require applicants to check a box declaring that they have criminal records AKA "ban the box"; he also visits Newark, N.J. and announces an $8M federally-funded construction job apprentice training program, pissing-off unions. On Nov. 2 the govt. of Libya threatens the EU to recognize its Islamist govt. or face millions of illegal immigrants; meanwhile U.N. high commissioner for refugees Antonio Guterres announces that 218,394 illegally migrated to Europe in Oct., vs. 219K for 2014. On Nov. 2 (98th anniv. of the Balfour Declaration) Hamas issues an official statement demanding that Britain apologize for it, calling it null and void and calling on the world to pressure Britain to submit. On Nov. 3 (Tues.) Hamtramck, Mich. becomes the first city in U.S. history to elect a Muslim-majority city council - it's on the wrong tramck? On Nov. 3 Kurdish intel expert Lahur Talabini annonces that Kurdish peshmerga fighters have not been paid for 3 mo. and are badly in need of winter gear and ammo if they are to hold ground seized from ISIS. On Nov. 4 U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) utters the soundbyte about the mass migration of Muslims to Europe: "What we are witnessing is the destruction of Western civilization, not by an armed invasion, but by envelopment." On Nov. 4 (8:00 a.m.) Muslim freshman Faisal Mohammad (b 1997) goes on a stabbing spree at UC Merced in Calif. "with a smile on his face", stabbing four before police shoot and kill him. On Nov. 4 U.S. Senators accuse the Pentagon of "paid patriotism" for paying prof. sports teams to hold ceremonies honoring U.S. troops. On Nov. 5 the U.N. Gen. Assembly votes 117-21 to allow Israel to join the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space; Egypt votes for Israel for the first time since 1948. On Nov. 5 the Mormon Church announces that same-sex couples will be considered as apostates, and that their children cannot be baptized. On Nov. 6 Antioch Maronite patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi issues the soundbyte that Muslims want to conquer Europe "with faith and the birthrate". On Nov. 6 Mass. Repub. Gov. Charlie Baker issues an executive order making Mass. the first state adding LGBT-owned businesses to its affirmative action Supplier Diversity Program (SDP). On Nov. 7 a 6.8 earthquake rocks Chile 66 mi. SW of Coquimbo. On Nov. 7 Chinese pres. Xi Jinping and Taiwanese pres. Ma Ying-jeou formally meet for the first time. On Nov. 8 elections in Burma (Myanmar) are a landslide V for the Nat. League for Democracy of Aung San Suu Kyi, who won 390 seats in parliament, more than two-thirds. On Nov. 8 a madass Palestinian rams his vehicle into a group of Israelis at a hitchhiking station near Nabus, West Bank, Israel, injuring four before he is killed by security forces. On Nov. 8 a Gallup Poll indicates that 64% of Americans disapprove of the way that Pres. Obama is dealing with ISIS. On Nov. 9 police across Europe raid an Iranian hacking group affiliated with the Islamic Rev. Guard Corps (IRGC), saying it had targed 1.6K high-profile targets incl. Israeli nuclear scientists, NATO officials, Iranian dissidents, and members of the Saudi royal family. On Nov. 9 police capt. Anwar Abu Zaid (b. 1986) (nephew of former Muslim Brotherhood MP Suleiman Al-Sa'ad) opens fire at the Al-Muwaqqar police training facility E of Amman, Jordan, killing two Jordanians, two Americans, and a South African before being killed; the weapons used are later discovered to have been stolen by Jordanian intel aents from shipments by the CIA intended for Syrian rebels. On Nov. 9 Pres. Obama meets with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who surprises reporters with his willingness to pursue peace talks with the Palestinians and his assertion that he is still committed to a 2-state solution. On Nov. 9 after 30 black players refuse to play for its football team, combined with protests over racial incidents, U. of Mo. pres. Tim Wolfe resigns. On Nov. 10 Pres. Obama makes the cover of Out mag. becoming the first U.S. pres. on the cover of a gay mag. On Nov. 11 thousands of protesters in Kabul, Afghanisan storm the pres. palace carrying the coffins of seven minority Hazara Shiite civilians beheaded by ISIS, accusing Pres. Ashraf Ghani of incompetence and shouting "Death to the Taliban", "Death to the Islamid State", "Death to Pakistan", and "Down with the Government". On Nov. 11 the EU approves a measure requiring the labeling Jewish-made goods from Judea and Samaria, which Israel calls "anti-Semitic". On Nov. 12 ABC News announces that ISIS executioner Jihadi John has been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Syria. On Nov. 12 twin suicide bombings at a busy shopping street in a Hezbollah Shiite section of Beirut, Lebanon kill 43 and injure 239; ISIS claims responsibility. On Nov. 12 Pres. Obama gives an interview to George Stephanopoulus of ABC-TV, uttering the soundbyte about ISIS "We have contained them". On Nov. 13 (Fri.) Hamas stages another Day of Rage in Judea and Samaria; meanwhile a Palestinian terrorist kills a father and son Israeli and injures another youth in South Hebron, Israel. On Nov. 13 ISIS detonates a suicide bomb at the funeral procession of a pro-govt. Shiite fighter in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 18 and injuring 41, calling Shiites "rejectionist Hashid". On Nov. 13 U.S. sec. of state John Kerry visits Tunisia for the 2nd U.S.-Tunisia Strategic Dialogue (first in Apr. 2014). After years of not closing the doors to Islamists, France finally gets its 9/11? On Nov. 13 (9:20 p.m.) (Friday the Thirteenth) one day after senior Iraqi intel officials warn anti-ISIS coalition forces of the attack in vain, and hours afer Montpellier, France imam Mohamed Khattabi gave a sermon portraying Muslims as victims, with the soundbyte: "We dream of seeing our children become ministers and dignitaries, and even presidents. Why not? We want them to rule France one day, to rule Belgium, Germany, and Britain... You will never get [your children] there through the means of Islam. No. You must get them there through their [Western] rules, not yours", seven Allah Akbar-shouting ISIS terrorists freshly returned from Syria (one a French national, three from Brussels, Belgium) stage six attacks in Paris, France, incl. Bataclan Concert Hall (where Eagles of Death Metal are playing), Stade de France in Saint-Denis (where a soccer match is being played and French pres. Francoise Hollande is in attendance), Caffe Bonne Biere, Le Petit Cambodge, la Belle Equipe, and Avenue de la Republique, killing 129 and injuring 352 before detonating their suicide belts, becoming the deadliest attack in Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombing, and the deadliest attack in Paris since WWII, causing Pres. Francois Hollande to declare martial law for the first time since you know what after calling the attacks "an act of war", and U.S. law enforcement to go on high alert; ISIS claims responsibility, calling them "the first of the storm" and mocking France as a "capital of prostitution and obscenity"; Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte "We've seen an outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians", calling it "an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share", as if history isn't all about warring civilizations with warring values; Pope Francis calls it part of the "Piecemeal Third World War"; Hillary Clinton tries to cover for Islam Obama-style, refusing to admit that the West is at war with radical Islam, with the soundbytes: "Let's be clear. Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism", and "I don't think we are at war with Islam. I don't think we are at war with all Muslims. I think we are at war with jihadists"; Belgian-born Abdelhamid Abaooud (b. 1987) is identified as the mastermind of the attacks; German chancellor Angela Merkel utters the soundbyte; "We believe in the rights of every individual to seek his fortune, in respect for others, and in tolerance. Let us reply to the terrorists by declaring world war", er, "by resolutely living our values and by redoubling those values across all of Europe - now more than ever"; on Nov. 14 (night) a rally in solidarity with France is held in Tel Aviv, Israel; meanwhile Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya'alon utters the soundbyte; "In Europe, the balance between security and human rights has until now leaned in favor of human rights, but there is no longer any choice. The balance must now be tipped toward security to defend democracy"; on Feb. 15 a candelight vigil for the victims is interrupted by Nat. Front demonstrators crying "Out with the Muslims" and "Throw out Islamists"; Russian pres. Vladimir Putin utters the soundbyte: "This tragedy is another proof of the barbarian nature of terrorism, which challenges human civilization", calling for Western leaders to bury their differences and join Russia to strike at ISIS militants in Syria; TLW's Winslow Plan for Defeating Islam Forever is never mentioned; on Feb. 16, 2016 CIA Dir. John Brennan gives an interview to CBS-TV's "60 Minutes", saying that the "system was blinking red" shortly before the attacks, and knew that ISIS was plotting an attack days before. On Nov. 14 the Ulema High Council of Morocco issues a fatwa delineating the distinction between jihad and terror, with only the ruler having the authority to declare jihad. On Nov. 15 France uses 12 aircraft incl. 10 fighter jets to drop 20 bombs on the ISIS capital of Raqqa, Syria, causing Israelis to complain how they were criticized for doing ditto when they were attacked by Palestinian terrorists. On Nov. 15-16 the G20 Summit in Belek, Antalya, Turkey; Pres. Obama gives a speech, in which he declares that ISIS "does not represent Islam; it is not representative in any way of the attitudes of the overwhelming majority of Muslims", in which he calls it "shameful" to suggest that the U.S. only admit Christian Syrian refugees, sticking to his plans to immigrate 10K-65K Muslims even if they are seeded with ISIS terrorists, pooh-poohing calls by Russia and France as well as U.S. Repubs. to form an anti-coalition, with the soundbyte: "We are going to continue to pursue the strategy that has the best chance of working, even though it does not offer the satisfaction, I guess, of a neat headline or an immediate resolution", dismissing Repubs. with "I'm too busy for that", adding "What I'm not interestedi n doing is posing or pursuing some notion of American leadership, or American winning or whatever other slogans they come up with that has no relationship to what actually is going to work to protect the American people"; Am. commentator Michael Savage comments that Obama's refusal to recognize the Islamic part of Islamic terrorism proves he's insane, with the soundbyte: “How insane is a man who at a time like this not only says he is not going to stop the influx of male, Muslim, Syrian refugees of military age, but he's going to double down and bring in more?"; meanwhile Russian pres. Vladimir Putin issues the soundbyte that ISIS is financed by 40 countries incl. some G20 member states, calling on them to curb their illegal oil trade that brings them in $40M/mo.; meanwhile Donald Trump disses Obama for wanting to admit Muslims into the U.S. while denying entry to persecuted Christians, with the soundbyte: “If you're from Syria and you're a Christian, you cannot come into this country. If you're Islamic, you can come in so easily", which is bolstered by statistics released on Nov. 16 the U.S. State Dept. showing that of 2,184 Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. so far, only 53 are Christians. On Nov. 16 ISIS releases a video warning that any "Crusader" country staging air strikes against them will suffer the same fate as in Paris, threatening to attack the U.S.; meanwhile Yazidis torch Muslim homes in recaptured Sinjar in revenge. On Nov. 16 the U.S. Congress passes the U.S. Space Resources and Utilization Act of 2015, permitting private cos. to own natural resources they mine from celestial bodies incl. asteroids and the Moon. On Nov. 16 British PM David Cameron delivers a Speech on the Fri. the 13th Paris Massacre in London, saying that Islamist ideology needs to be defeated, but leaving the sacred cow of Islam itself untouched. On Nov. 17 police evacuate a soccer stadium in Hanover, Germany after finding an explosive device, then evacuate the TUI Arena for safety. On Nov. 17 (4:25 a.m.) a woman detonates her suicide vest as French commandos raid an apt. in Saint-Denis, France, killing two, with seven arrested after a 6-hour standoff; the woman is later identified as former party girl-turned-radical "Cowgirl" Hasna Aitboulahcen (b. 1989), a cousin of Paris Massacre mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud (b. 1987), who is also killed, making her Europe's first female suicide bomber; meanwhile the hacker group Anonymous posts a video declaring war against ISIS; meanwhile France and Russia engage in their first joint air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria, while whimpy Pres. Obama does nil over there, instead stumping to import Syrian refugees to the U.S. heartland by mocking Repubs., asking if they're afraid of 3-y.o. orphans to gain sympathy, saying "Nobody said there should be a religion test", calling it "shameful", and launches the #REFUGEESWELCOME Twitter hashtag; he wouldn't limit immigration to women and children but wants grown males to have an open door?; conservative commentator Mark Levin utters the soundbyte that persecuted Christians in the Middle East "have nowhere else to go"; Hollywood actor James Woods tweets the soundbyte: "How exactly do Dems propose to vet the potential terrorists hidden among the horde? The same way they vetted the Tsnarnaevs?"- poor little Topsy? On Nov. 17 Russia announces that the plane down on Oct. 31 in the Sinai Peninsula was downed by a bomb that was equivalent to 2 lbs. of TNT, and offers a $50M reward; meanwhile ISIS releases a photo they claim is of the bomb, which fits in a pineapple juice can. On Nov. 17 Obama's gal U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch testifies before the House Judiciary Committee about bringing Gitmo POWs to U.S. soil, with the soundbyte "The law currently does not allow that", but that this won't stop the Obama admin. from closing Gitmo. On Nov. 17 Obama's boy John Kerry stinks himself up with the soundbyte about the Charlie Hebdo Massacre that "there wasa sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of - not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they're really angry because of this and that", but not the Friday the Thirteenth Paris Massacre, which was "absolutely indiscriminate... They kill people because of who they are and they kill people because of what they believe", causing an outcry, with Tex. Repub. Sen. Ted Cruz uttering the soundbyte that Kerry should resign for being "apologists for radical Islamic terrorists" along with Pres. Obama and Hillary Clinton. On Nov. 17 Ohio Repub. Gov. John Kasich calls for a new U.S. govt. agency to promote "core Judeo-Christian Western values that we and our friends and allies share". On Nov. 18 three ISIS supporters stab a Jewish school teacher in Marseilles, France. On Nov. 18 the U.S. American Safety Against Foreign Enemies Act of 2015 is introduced by House Repubs. Mike McCaul (R-Tex.) and Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), requiring the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the U.S. intel community to sign-off on every Syrian refugee admitted to the U.S. in an attempt to "pause" Pres. Obama's planned influx, causing Obama to threaten a veto; on Nov. 19 after several Dems. break with Obama, the bill is passed by 289-137 incl. 47 Dems.; meanwhile on Nov. 18 French pres. Francois Hollande announces that despite the Paris massacre, "life must go on", and France will accept 30K more Syrian refugees - how do robots work? On Nov. 18 five young Syrian males with stolen Greek passports are arrested in Honduras; meanwhile Turkey arrests eight Europe-bound ISIS militants posing as refugees. On Nov. 18 Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte that Syrian refugees are no more dangerous to the U.S. than tourists, dissing Repubs. for xenophobia and adding that they shouldn't fear the closing of the Gitmo terrorist detention center either - what universe does he live in? On Nov. 18 Hillary Clinton gives an interview with Fareed Zakaria of CNN, saying that the U.S. must lead the fight against ISIS, but calling on Arab nations to supply most of the troops, backing Pres. Obama with the soundbyte: "Turning away orphans, applying a religious test, discriminating against Muslims, slamming the door on every Syrian refugee, that is just not who we are. We are better than that." On Nov. 18 ISIS announces the execution of Chinese captive Fan Jinghui and Norwegian captive Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad , causing the Chinese govt. to vow justice. On Nov. 19 U.S. Homeland Security Committee chmn. Rep. Michael McCaul utters the soundbyte that far from being 'contained" like Pres. Obama said, ISIS is "expanding globally and plotting aggressively", and "is now responsible for more than 60 terrorist plots against Western targets, including 18 in the United States", adding "Here at home we have arrested more than 70 ISIS supporters over the last year... more than one per week, and the FBI says it has nearly 1,000 ISIS-related investigations in all 50 states. If this is not a war, then I don't what is." On Nov. 19 (p.m.) a madass Palestinian stabbing attack in Tel Aviv, Israel during midday prayers kills two Israelis and injures another; another madass Palestinian stages a shooting attack in the Gush Etzion, West Bank, killing three incl. an 18-y.-o. tourist from Sharon, Mass. and injuring three. On Nov. 19 after 30 U.S. govs. announce that their states will not allow resettlement of Syrian refugees, pissing-off Pres. Obama, Donald Trump utters the soundbyte that Obama is deliberately sending the refugees to Repub.-majority states. On Nov. 20 after being paroled on July 29, Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard is released after almost 30 years in U.S. prison, allowing him to emigrate to Israel; too bad, the U.S. won't allow it. On Nov. 20 10 Allah Akbar-shouting al-Murabitoun (al-Qaida affiliated) Islamists attack the 5-star Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, Mali where French troops are stationed, killing 27 and taking 170 hostages incl. six Americans, killing only non-Muslims. On Nov. 20 justice and home affairs ministers of the EU hold a meeting in Paris, er, Brussels, Belgium to discuss new security measures against ISIS, incl. a passenger name registry; on Nov. 21-25 Brussels is placed in lockdown while police search for terrorist Saleh Abdeslam et al. in the Molenbeek neighborhood; on Nov. 25 Brussels regional pres. Rudi Vervoor says "It's not the end, just the beginning". On Nov. 20 the 2015 Hurricane Season ends with only 11 storms, of which only three are classified as hurricanes, none reaching the U.S. mainland, the closest being the S Bahama Islands; total Atlantic hurricane activity has dropped 80% from 2005, pissing-off climate alarmists. On Nov. 23 the sci-fi series The Expanse, based on the novels by Daniel Abraham and James S.A. Corey (Ty Franck) debuts on Syfy for ? episodes (until ?), starring Sohreh Aghdashloo as U.N. exec Chrisjen Avasarala, Thomas Jane as police detective Josephus Miller, and Steven Strait as ship's officer Holden, who unravel a conspiracy threatening peace between Earth, Mars, and the Outer Planets Alliance (OPA). On Nov. 24 a Russian Sukhoi Su-24M fighter jet is shot down near the Syrian border after violating Turkish airspace for only 17 sec. on the personal orders of Obi Wan Kenobi Erodogan, pissing-off the Russians and raising tensions sky high. On Nov. 26 Socialist Party secy.-gen. (since Nov. 22, 2014) Antonio Luis Santos da Costa (1961-) becomes PM #119 of Portugal (until ?). On Nov. 27 after the U.S. Dept. of the Interior proposes a framework for an independent political structure for Native Hawaiians if it "forms a unified government that seeks a formal government-to-government relationship with the United States", the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocks a month-long election (Nov. 1-Dec. 1) for delegates to a constitutional convention for the purpose of Hawaiian self-determination after critics call it unconstitutional and racially exclusive. On Nov. 30-Dec. 12 the 2015 U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP21) (CMP 11) in Paris, France, attended by leaders from 147 nations negotiates the Paris Climate Agreement (Accord), signed by reps of 196 parties, agreeing to a goal of a 1.5C limit to global temperature increase by 2030 at a cost of $100T, but only reducing global temps by .086C; the U.S. agrees to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26%-28% (below the 2005 level) by 2025, reducing GDP by $150B/year (6M jobs), while reducing global temps by 1/15,000th of 1C by 2100, postponing global warming by 8 mo.?; on Nov. 30 Pres. Obama gives a Speech on Climate Change, urging world action, with the soundbytes: "Our understanding of the ways human beings disrupt the climate advances by the day. Fourteen of the fifteen warmest years on record have occurred since the year 2000 - and 2015 is on pace to be the warmest year of all. No nation - large or small, wealthy or poor - is immune to what this means", calling the COP21 climate change conference in Paris an "act of defiance" against terrorists who attacked Paris earlier in the month; "For I believe, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., that there is such a thing as being too late. And when it comes to climate change, that hour is almost upon us. But if we act here, if we act now, if we place our own short-term interests behind the air that our young people will breathe, and the food that they will eat, and the water that they will drink, and the hopes and dreams that sustain their lives, then we won't be too late for them"; the only real goal of the U.N. is to sock U.S. taxpayers $150B/year to give to poor countries?; on Nov. 30 Bill Nye the Science Guy backs up Obama on the Paris terrorist attack, calling it "a result of climate change", adding" You can make a very reasonable argument that climate change is not that indirectly related to terrorism. This is just the start of things. The more we let [climate change] go on, the more trouble there's going to be"; of course out pop more so-called experts claiming that global climate change threatens the world's poor directly. In Nov. after France warns him they won't send special forces to protect him after the Fri. the 13th Attacks, Pope Francis visits Africa, incl. CAR and Uganda. In Nov. Kazakhstan and India sign a memorandum of understanding to build a railway terminal in Port Mundra in W India to provide maritime service to Port Bandar Abbas in Iran, and railway service from there N to Kazakhstan, ending its status as a landlocked country. On Dec. 2 (10:58 a.m.) the 2015 San Bernardino Massacre sees married American jihadists Syed Rizwan Farook (born in U.S.) and Tashfeen Malik (born in Pakistan) shoot up the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, Calif. during a Christmas party attended by 80 employees, killing 14 and injuring 21, then drive away and die in a shootout with police, becoming the worst shooting in Calif. since the 1984 San Ysidro McDonald's Massacre, and the deadliest in the U.S. since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre; Pakistani-born Malik pledged alliance to ISIS and its caliph on her Facebook page at 11:00 a.m., one minute after the terrorist attack began; Muslim convert Enrique Martinez Jr. is later found to have purchased two rifles for them in 2011-12, and is charged on Dec. 18; ISIS claims responsibility for the massacre; the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security modifies its Nat. Threat Advistory System (NTAS) "an intermediate level... which describes general developments or trends regarding threats of terrorism" (U.S. Homeland Security Secy. Jeh Johnson); too bad, it doesn't label threats with terms like Islamic terrorism or ISIS. On Dec. 2 Internat. Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) secy.-gen. Yukiya Amano releases their Report on the Possible Military Dimensions (PMD) of Iran's Nuclear Program, finding nothing to stop the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - a coverup On Dec. 3 former Ark. Repub. gov. Mike Huckabee utters the soundbyte: "No American president should ever put the pressure on Israel to give up land that God gave them the title deed to." On Dec. 3 police in Lucknow, India arrest Hindu Kamlesh Tiwari for claiming that "the Prophet Muhammad was the first homosexual", after which Muslims stage anti-blasphemy protests across India and call for his beheading. On Dec. 4 a firebomb attack at a nightclub in Cairo, Egypt kills 16 and injures three. On Dec. 4 OPEC decides at its semi-annual meeting in Vienna not to cut production in order to try to recover market share lost to the U.S. et al. On Dec. 4 amid low oil prices caused by less U.S. dependence, OPEC meets in Vienna. On Dec. 5 a madass Muslim at Leytonstone Tube Station in East London, England cuts a passenger's throat and injures two other while screaming "This is for Syria". On Dec. 6 elections in France give a V to the anti-Muslim-immigrant Nat. Front Party of Marine Le Pen, who receives 27.8%, vs. 27.3% for ex-pres. Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative Les Republicains Party, and Pres. Francois Hollande's Socialist Part (23.3%); on Dec. 13 more elections see the two establishment parties join forces to defeat Le Pen. On Dec. 6 a large bomb in Sana'a, Yemen kills the gov. of Aden Province and six bodyguards; ISIS claims responsibility. On Dec. 6 a triple suicide bombing by Boko Haram on an island on Lake Chad kills 30 and injures 80. On Dec. 6 German vice chancellor Sigmar Gabriel calls on Saudi Arabia to stop funding Wahhabi mosques, with the soundbyte: "In Germany, many dangerous Islamists come from these communities." On Dec. 6 (eve.) Pres. Obama delivers an Address on Terrorism from the Oval Office, his 3rd from the Oval Office, finally calling the San Bernardino Massacre terrorism, with the clueless soundbyte: "The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world", claiming that the Islamic jihadists adopted a form of violence that is "all too common" in the U.S., while hedging as usual by cluelessly calling it a "perversion of Islam", with the soundbyte: "The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it", ending with his usual moose hockey that Muslim-Ams. are just as good as non-Muslim Ams., and that it will play into ISIS' hands to blame Islam itself for jihad, not forgetting to make a play for more gun control laws; "Here's what else we cannot do. We cannot turn against one another by letting this fight be defined as a war between America and Islam. That, too, is what groups like ISIL want. ISIL does not speak for Islam. They are thugs and killers, part of a cult of death, and they account for a tiny fraction of more than a billion Muslims around the world, including millions of patriotic Muslim Americans who reject their hateful ideology"; "But just as it is the responsibility of Muslims around the world to root out misguided ideas that lead to radicalization, it is the responsibility of all Americans of every faith to reject discrimination. It is our responsibility to reject religious tests on who we admit into this country. It's our responsibility to reject proposals that Muslim Americans should somehow be treated differently. Because when we travel down that road, we lose. That kind of divisiveness, that betrayal of our values plays into the hands of groups like ISIL. Muslim Americans are our friends and our neighbors, our co-workers, our sports heroes - and, yes, they are our men and women in uniform who are willing to die in defense of our country. We have to remember that"; "If we are to succeed in defeating terrorism, we must enlist Muslim communities as our strongest allies in rooting out misguided ideas that lead to radicalization." On Dec. 6-7 the Muslim Reform Movement to combat Islamic extremism is announced at a summit in Washington, D.C. , with Danish delegate Naser Khader uttering the soundbyte: "We cannot say that the Islamic State are not Muslims. That is what they call themselves. If we the Muslims do not face the problem of violence that links to Islam in our time, how will we ever succeed in ripping Islam out of the hands of these destructive powers and lift our religion into the 21st century?" On Dec. 7 (Pearl Harbor Day) Repub. pres. candidate Donald Trump calls for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on", with the soundbyte: "Our country cannot be the victims of horrendous attacks by people that believe only in Jihad, and have no sense of reason or respect for human life", pissing-off the PC police (who can't stand to hear the truth?), causing White House press secy. Josh Ernest on Dec. 8 to ridicule Trump for his "fake hair" and compare him to a "carnival barker", saying "What Donald Trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as president.", adding "The Trump campaign for months now has had a dustbin-of-history quality to it", claiming that his proposal would violate his oath of office to defend the U.S. Constitution; the Muslim World begins pulling every string they have to start a war to defeat Trump and open the gates wide to mass Muslim immigration, with Pres. Obama and Hillary Clinton leading the charge along with their Deep State backed by evil globalist puppetmaster George Soros, a war that takes no prisoners and seizes on any subterfuge to lie to the American people and trample the Constitution to get what they want, and doesn't end until ?: meanwhile on Dec. 7 U.S. Homeland Security secy. Jeh Johnson gets busy kissing Muslim butt at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society Center in Sterling, Va., asking Muslims to betray Allah and report fellow Muslims suspected of going jihadist, while a massive petition drive in Britain to ban him from entering gains 360K signatures in 24 hours before being killed by the govt.; meanwhile another petition drive to close the borders of the U.K. until ISIS is defeated gains 450+ signatures since Nov. 28; too bad, it's a basic absolute power of the U.S. Congress to bar entry of persons they deem a threat to nat. security, with the Bill of Rights being irrelevant for foreign nationals outside U.S. borders, so the blizzard of so-called scholars in the PC media sanctimoniously pronouncing Trump's plan as unconstitutional are full of moose hockey?; CIA dir. John O. Brennan is a key player in the anti-Trump war that tries to make it about him rather than about Muslims, but is about Muslims all along, revealing the irony in the anti-Trump shaming slogan "It's not who we are". On Dec. 8 China issues its first-ever smog alert for Beijing. On Dec. 8 a New York Times Poll reveals that only 44% of Americans favor an assault weapons ban, while 50% oppose a ban, becoming the first time they don't want it since their first poll on Jan. 3, 1995 (67% for). On Dec. 9 during arguments over Fisher v. Texas questioning affirmative action, U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia utters the soundbyte that maybe it's a good thing to exclude African-Am. students from top-tier universities because they could go to a "less advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well", adding "Most black scientists do not come from advanced schools. It does not benefit them. They benefit from a slower track", pissing-off the PC police. On Dec. 11 North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un issues the soundbyte that North Korea has the H-bomb. On Dec. 10 Donald Trump announces his intention of signing an executive order mandating the death penalty for cop killers. On Dec. 11-13 Japanese PM Shinzo Abe visits New Delhi, India for talks with Indian PM Narendra Modi. On Dec. 12 women in Saudi Arabia go to the poll for the first time ever to elect local reps. On Dec. 12-13 the annual World Raki Fstival in Adana, Turkey is canceled after pressure by Islamist groups. On Dec. 13 elections in Saudi Rabid, er, Arabia; 12+ women win local council seats, less than 1% of the total. On Dec. 13 Angela Merkel flops and announces that she now wants to limit the inflow of asyulum seekers to Germany. On Dec. 14 in response to critics, Pres. Obama gives a Speech on ISIS at the Pentagon, with the soundbyte that the U.S. is attacking the Islamic State "harder than ever. harder than ever. As we squeeze its heart, we'll make it harder for ISIL to pump its terror and propaganda to the rest of the world", adding "We're also taking out leaders, commanders, and killers one by one", and "The point is, ISIL cannot hide. And our next message to them is simple: You are next." On Dec. 14 the FAA announces that all owners of drones must register them for a $5 fee to force them to be accountable for their use. On Dec. 14 (11:55 p.m.) the Arab coalition against Houthi rebels in Yemen begins observing a 7-day ceasefire to coincide with U.N.-brokered peace talks in Switzerland; too bad, a missile attack by Houthis in Taiz Province kills dozens hours before the ceasefire is to take effect, and the truce is off. On Dec. 15 the Muslim Council of Elders in Abu Dhabi announces a new coalition of 34 Arab nations to fight ISIS, headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. On Dec. 15 the school district of Los Angeles, Calif. closes schools for 500K students after a Muslim terrorist email threat, which turns out to be a hoax, sent to many U.S. cities, spelling Allah with a lowercase a. On Dec. 15 Boko Haram militans kill 30 and injure 20 in three villages in Borno State, Nigeria. On Dec. 15 Hillary Clinton gives a speech unveiling her strategy for fighting Islam, stressing that "Islamophobia" stands in her way. On Dec. 15 (eve.) the Fifth 2015 Repub. Debate on CNN is a V for frontrunner Donald Trump after his opponents barely lay a glove on him; Trump surprises by claiming that he's made-up with the Repub. Party and isn't planning a third party run, and will avoid a brokered convention by a clear majority of delegates from the primaries. On Dec. 15-18 the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Org. (WTO) in Nairobi, Kenya (first in Africa). On Dec. 16 as a signal to Iran, the U.S. House of Reps votes 425-0 to pass the Hezbollah Internat. Financial Prevention Act of 2015, increasing sanctions on Hezbollah incl. banks linked to it. On Dec. 16 the U.S. Federal Reserve raises interest rates for the first time since June 2006. On Dec. 16 German chancellor Angela Merkel flops at her party's annual convention and utters the soundbyte that multiculturalism is "a living lie", and she must act quick to prevent Germany from being overrun by more Syrian and other Muslim refugees. On Dec. 16 U.S. defense secy. Ash Carter visits Baghdad, Iraq and offers more U.S. troops and attack helis to help them fight ISIS, but they decline. On Dec. 16 Calif. issues new proposed regulations for self-driving vehicles, requiring a licensed human driver to be on board. On Dec. 16 the TV series The Magicians debuts on Syfy Channel for ? episodes (until ?), based on the 2009 novel by Lev Grossman, starring Jason Ralph (198-) as Quentin Coldwater, student at Brakebills U. for Magical Pedagogy, who discovers that his childhood favorite the "Fillory and Further" series is real and poses a danger to the world. On Dec. 17 after extended talks in Morocco, Libya's rival govts. in Tobruk and Tripoli sign a U.N.-sponsored peace deal. On Dec. 17 U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution 70/175 is adopted, promulgating the Nelson Mandela Rules (U.S. Std. Min. Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners). On Dec. 17 British PM David Cameron announces a ban on entry visas for Muslim Brotherhood officials who have made extremist statements, with the soundbyte: "Aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology and activities... run counter to British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs." On Dec. 17 after the Repubs. cave-in, the U.S. Congress passes a $1.1T budget bill that funds 200K Syrian immigrants in exchange for lifting their ban on oil from the U.S., and pisses-off conservatives by a surprise provision upping caps on H-2B visas for foreign blue-collar workers from 66K/year to 264K/year; it also awards $10K/day compensation to the 1979 Iran hostages. On Dec. 17 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin praises Donald Trump, calling him "a bright and talented person without any doubt", and an "outstanding and talented personality", calling him "the absolute leader of the presidential race"; Trump replies: "It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond. I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect." On Dec. 17 the city council of New Orleans, La. votes to remove four Confed. monuments, incl. statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, and pres. Jefferson Davis, with mayor Mitch Landrieu uttering the soundbyte: "The Confederacy, you see, was on the wrong side of history and humanity." On Dec. 18 (Fri.) Pres. Obama gives his last weekly address of 2015, uttering the soundbyte that he's "never been more optimistic about a year head", citing his slam-dunk of the Repub.-dominated Congress on the Iran nuke deal, the reset with Cuba, the $1T spending bill et al., calling them the Christmas Miracles, finally using the term ISIS instead of ISIL, then ending the questions to attend a special screening of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens"; meanwhile Michelle Obama pisses-off patriots by having a U.S. Marine open the door for R2-D2. On Dec. 18 the U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 2254, softening its position on the Assad regime in Syria and setting a timetable for talks between the parties. On Dec. 18 the U.S. Congress makes changes to the visa waver program, barring nationals and visitors over the last five years from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, and Syria, pissing-off Iran et al. On Dec. 18 after one of his staffers is caught peeking at confidential voter files owned by Hillary Clinton, causing the Dem. Nat. Committee to cut off his campaign from their voter database, Bernie Sanders sues them in federal court, after which they restore access fast. On Dec. 19 (night) the 3rd 2015 Dem. Pres. Debate at St. Anselm College in N.H., hosted by ABC News is a big bore, with Bernie Sanders uttering the soundbyte: "I'm running because we need to address the planetary crisis of climate change", and Hillary Clinton claiming that Donald Trump's insulting of Muslims helps ISIS recruit radical jihadists, which he later calls for her to apologize for, and she refuses. On Dec. 19 (night) Hezbollah terrorist Samir Kuntar is killed in Syria while planning an Iran-ordered attack on Israel. On Dec. 21 the Grateful Dead Farewell Dead Tour at Soldier Field in Chicago, Ill. caps 50 years and $55M in tour receipts. On Dec. 20 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin utters the soundbyte that Russia is not trying to bring back the Soviet Union, but "nobody wants to believe it". On Dec. 20 Canadian immigration minister John McCallum announces plans to resettle 50K Syrians by the end of 2016, starting with 10K by the end of Dec. and 15K by the end of Feb. On Dec. 20 a group of orthodox rabbis in Israel pub. a declaration affirming their "partnership" with Christianity, with the soundbyte that it is "the willed divine outcome and gift to the nations", urging Jews and Christians to "work together as partners to address the moral challenges of our era." On Dec. 20 (night) after Donald Trump sells-out in June amid controversy over his statements about Mexicans, the 2015 Miss Universe Pageant sees host Steve Harvey blunder and mistakenly name Miss Colombia Ariadna Gutierrez instead of Miss Philippines Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach (1989-), causing an awkward scene; meanwhile Miss Puerto Rico Destiny Velez is suspended for tweeting the truth that the "Islamic God is not the same God as Christians and Jews". On Dec. 20 (night) homeless African-Am. woman Lakeisha N. Holloway (1991-) living in her sedan with her toddler plows into pedestrians on the Strip in Las Vegas, Nev. near the site of the Miss Universe beauty pageant, killing one and injuring 35 before parking and asking a valet to call police; she was screaming "Allah Akbar", and it was a Palestinian-style car jihad?; a virtually identical jihadist attack occurred 1 year earlier in Dijon, France? On Dec. 20 (night) a mullah shoots and kills U.S. Army veteran Lisa Akbari at her apt. complex in Kabul, Afghanistan. On Dec. 21 the U.N.-sponsored COP 21. internat. climate change talks. On Dec. 21 a Taliban suicide motorcycle attack near Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan kills six U.S. soldiers and injures two more, plus a contractor, becoming the deadliest attack on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in three years; Pres. Obama doesn't consider it worth missing his golfing trip to Hawaii; just before the attack the Obama admin. uttered the soundbyte that the U.S. is no longer pursuing counter-terrorism ops against the Taliban because it considers it a peace partner. On Dec. 21 USAF Maj. Adrianna Vorderbruggen becomes the first openly gay female U.S. service member to be KIA. On Dec. 21 an Al-Shabaab attack on a bus in NE Kenya sees the Muslim passengers protect the Christians. On Dec. 21 govt. security forces kill 19 in Djibouti to get them out of the way for the coming elections in Apr.; leading opposition figure Ahmed Yusuf is wounded, along with an opposition MP and dozens of civilians. On Dec. 21 the U.S. FDA lifts its ban on gays and bis donating blood, as long as they have been abstinent for the past year. On Dec. 21 leaders of Am. Muslim orgs. incl. CAIR, the Am. Muslim Alliance et al. threaten Donald Trump et al. at the Nat. Press Club, with the impotent soundbyte: "Let it be heard, and clear, to all political candidates, be it Donald Trump or whoever else, that indeed, if you engage in Islamophobia, if you engage in demagoguery and bigotry, you will pay a political price because we're going to register our people and we're going to use our ballot and we/re going to 'take our souls to the polls' and make sure you are out of there." On Dec. 21 Donald Trump makes a campaign stop in Mich., where he pisses-off the PC police by using the word "schlonged" with reference to Hillary Clinton's defeat by Pres. Obama. On Dec. 21 (night) Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) holds a mass rally in Dresden, Germany on the banks of the Elbe River to protest mass immigration of Muslims to Germany. On Dec. 22 a mortar shell at a girls' school in Deir Ezzor, Syria kills nine students. On Dec. 22 Seymour Hersh pub. an article in The London Review of Books that claims that the U.S. Dept. of Defense has been secretly sharing intel with Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad's govt., undermining Pres. Obama. On Dec. 23 authorities in Bosnia arrest 11 for suspected links with ISIS. On Dec. 24 (a.m.) Chinese authorities lock down parts of Sanlitun, Beijing, China after info. about possible Christmastime terrorist attacks. On Dec. 24-27 Iraqi forces retake Ramadi, Iraq from ISIS after a street-by-street fight., becoming the first major V for the U.S.-trained Iraqi army since the start of the ISIS offensive 18 mo. earlier; on Dec. 28 Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi visits Ramadi, giving a televised speech with the soundbyte: "The year 2016 will be the year of the big and final victory, when [ISIS's] presence in Iraq will be terminated. We are coming to liberate Mosul and it will be the fatal and final blow." On Dec. 24 a fire in the Jazan Gen. Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills 31 and injures 107. On Dec. 24 the Philippine govt. announces that Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters guerrillas in Mindanao, S Philippines have murdered seven Christian farmers. On Dec. 24 the Obama admin. announces that the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security is preparing to deport hundreds of newly-arrived illegals from Central Am. in early Jan., pissing-off Dems., and causing Donald Trump to claim he got to them and should get the credit. On Dec. 24 the 224-song back catalog of the Beatles is finally released for streaming, gaining 50M downloads in 48 hours. On Dec. 25 (6:11 a.m. ET) a full moon dawns on Christmas skies for the first time since 1977. On Dec. 25 Syrian rebel Salafist Islam Army cmdr. Mohammed Zahran Alloush (AKA Abu Abdullah) (b. 1971) is killed in a Syrian (Russian?) air strike near Damascus, changing the balance of power in the Ghouta region. On Dec. 25 banks and govt. Web sites in Turkey suffer massive cyberattacks from Anonymous for alleged ties with ISIS. On Dec. 26 a 6.2 earthquake strikes NW Afghanistan near the Pakistan-Tajikistan bordfer. On Dec. 26 ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi releases an audio message calling on all Muslims to join ISIS and dissing the Saudi-led Military Alliance to Fight Terrorism, adding that his mujahideen are getting closer to Israel and will soon siege them; Saudi Arabia grand mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Asheikh utters the soundbyte that ISIS "cannot be considered followers of Islam, rather, they are an extension of Kharijites, who rose in revolt against the Islamic caliphate for the first time by labeling Muslims as infidels and permitting their bloodletting", adding "The threat against Israel is simply a lie. Actually, ISIS (Daesh) is part of the Israeli soldiers." On Dec. 26 an Iranian rocket comes within 1.5K yards of aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Strait of Hormuz - lightning's striking again? On Dec. 27 the Chinese Communist Party passes China's first counterterrorism law. On Dec. 27 Amir Ohana of Likud becomes the first openly gay member of the Knesset in Israel. On Dec. 27 U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) utters the soundbyte that Pres. Obama's 16-mo. bombing campaign against ISIS "has had minimal impact"; he also calls for more and better surveillance of mosques, with the soundbyte: "The fact is, [mosques are] where the threat is coming from", telling civil liberties whiners that they can "cry all they want" because they have a "blind political correctness". On Dec. 28 billionaire globalist George Soros pub. an op-ed in The Guardian in Britain, blaming the "hysterical anti-Muslim reaction to terrorism" for helping jihadist groups recruit new fighters - he has it backwards, it's the hysterical Muslim reaction to weak infidels within reach that drives recruitment? On Dec. 29 a Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan suicide bomber outside a govt. office in Mardan, Pakistan kills 22 and injures 45. On Dec. 29 flooding of the Mississippi River affects Ill. and Mo., and causes Mo. gov. Jay Nixon to declare a state of emergency. On Dec. 30 after two Muslims are arrested at the city's Grote Markt main square for planning an attack, the mayor of Brussels, Belgium cancels New Year's Eve festivities and raises the terror threat level from 2 to 3 out of 4. On Dec. 30 Hamas announces a ban on New Year celebrations in Gaza Strip to "minimize as far as possible phenomena that contravene the heritage, customs, values and directives of Islam", pissing-off restaurant owners et al. On Dec. 30 U.S.-trained commandos kill 10 out of 300 al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militants in Jolo Island, Philippines; eight Philippine soldiers are killed or injured. On Dec. 30 a report that Pres. Obama authorized spying on Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu during the Iran nuke negotiations pisses-off Repubs. et al. On Dec. 31 the town of Arnsberg, Germany bans fireworks near Muslim refugee shelters to avoid causing flashbacks. On Dec. 31 police evacuate two train stations in Munich, Germany after ISIS terror threats. On Dec. 31 a dramatic fire breaks out on the 20th story of the 5-star 63-story Address Downtown Dubai Hotel near the Burj Khalifa in Dubai just before New Year's Eve festivities, injuring 16. On Dec. 31 1K mainly North African Muslim refugee New Year's rioters in front of the train station in Cologne, Germany launch fireworks into crowds of infidels and sexually molest 200+ German women, resulting in only five arrests, after which the PC media tries to cover it up, along with more mass sex attacks in Hamburg, Stuttgart, and across Europe that see 2K men sexually assault 1.2K women, first reported on July 10 after a coverup attempt claiming 1K men and 90 women the Muslims are playing the sex game of Taharrush?; meanwhile Slovakia vows to refuse entry to Muslim immigrants to prevent sex and jihadist attacks. On Dec. 31 Muslims in France torch 804 cars, vs. 940 in 2014, 1,067 in 2013, and 1,193 in 2012. In Dec. several Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) cadres in Maharashtra, India surrender to the Indian govt., indicating a gen. losing streak. In Dec. Judicial Watch reports that the total cost of Pres. Obama's vacations exceeds $70M; this is after an elaborate campaign speeches promising to never take any while in the White House. In Dec. Hillary Clinton's confidant John Podesta devises a "slaughter Trump" plan to divert attention to Hillary's sale of one-fifth of U.S. uranium to Russia by framing Donald Trump on colluding with Russia instead. In Dec. U.S. unemployment is 5% (vs. 5% in Nov.), with the economy adding 292K new jobs. 21 youth plaintiffs represented by Our Children's Trust file the lawsuit Juliana et al. vs. U.S. et al., claiming that the U.S. govt. violated their rights by allowing activities that harmed the climate, asking it to adopt methods for reducing CO2 emissions; in 2016 U.S. Ore. District Court judge Ann Aiken allows the case the proceed, after which the U.S. Supreme Court dismisses a govt. request to stay the trial. The Zohr Gas Field off the coast of Egypt is discovered by an Italian co., with estimates of up to 3T cu. of gas, becoming the largest discovery in the Mediterranean region, 30% larger than the Israeli Leviathan Gas Field. The high-speed Turin-Lyons Rail Link under the Alps is completed. Google+ creates a software glitch giving outside developers access to private profile data, which isn't correct until Mar. 2018; Google execs fail to disclose it to the public until Oct. 2018. There are 4,656 craft breweries in the U.S., with 21% of total beer sales; Rocky Mountain High marijuana-loving state Colo., "the Napa Valley of Craft Beer" has 358 craft breweries employing 7,776 (12,085 after economic impact), growing by almost 50% in one year to $1.7B sales. Architecture: The Rohtang ("pile of corpses") Pass Tunnel through the Pir Panjal range in the Himalayas in India (begun 2010) is completed. Kistefos Museum in Norway opens, combining a bldg. with a bridge to link two banks of a river with different heights. Daxing Airport near Beijing, China is completed, becoming the world's busiest airport. Sports: On Jan. 12 the 2015 College Football Playoff Nat. Championship sees #4 Ohio State U. defeat #2 Oregon U. by 42-20. On Jan. 11 the 2014 AFC Title Game sees the 12-5 Indianapolis Colts led by QB Andrew Luck defeat the 12-5 Denver Broncos led by QB Peyton Manning by 24-13, causing doubts about Manning, who is suffering from thigh injuries returning next year; after the game, Denver fires coach John Fox and hires former John Elway backup QB Gary Kubiak as new head coach (until 2017). On Feb. 22 the 2015 (57th) Daytona 500 is won by Joseph Thomas "Joey" Logano (1990-) (#22) of Team Penske. On Mar. 23 after being arrested in Calif. in 2014, five-time Pro Bowler Darren Mallory Sharper (1975-) (#42) (Green Bay Packers, 1997-2004) (Minnesota Vikings, 2005-8) (New Orleans Saints, 2009-10) pleads guilty to nine counts of date rape, receiving nine years in prison, plus another 20 years in La. On Apr. 5 (Sun.) the ML baseball season begins, with all 30 ballparks running the new Statcast electronic tracking system, which uses cameras, radar, and AI to measure, compute, and store every relevant stat incl. ball spin rate, exact trajectory of the ball and players, and route efficiency. On Apr. 8 the NFL hires its first female official (zebra), Pascagoula, Miss.-born Sarah Bailey Thomas (1973-) (#153). On Apr. 12 Jordan Alexander Spieth (1993-) wins the Masters 18 under par, tying Tiger Woods' best record. On Apr. 16 the NFL reinstates Minnesota Vikings RB Adrian Peterson after missing most of the 2014 season due to child abuse charges in Tex. over spanking his child with a switch. On Apr. 28 the Nat. Football League (NFL) announces that it will finally begin paying taxes. On Apr. 29 due to racial rioting the Baltimore Orioles play the first-ever ML game in an empty stadium, defeating the Chicago White Sox by 8-2. On May 2 the 2015 (141st) Kentucky Derby is won by American Pharoah (2012-) (named after Pres. Obama?) in 2:03:02, becoming the 3rd win for Mexican-born jockey Victor Espinoza (1972-); on June 6 he wins the 2015 (147th) Belmont Stakes gate-to-wire by 5-1/2 lengths (3rd biggest margin) in 2:26:65, becoming the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978, and 12th total. On May 2 47-0 Am. welterweight boxer Floyd "Pretty Boy", "Money", "T.B.E." (The Best Ever) Mayweather Jr. (Floyd Joy Sinclair) (1977-) decisively defeats 57-6-2 Philippine lefty boxer Manny "Pac-Man" Pacquiao in 12 rounds by decision at the MGM Grand Garden in Paradise (near Las Vegas), Nev., becoming the highest-grossing boxing match in history (until ?), with a $100M purse for Mayweather, who is now one short of Rocky Marciano's 49-0 record. On June 3-15 the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals see the Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning (2nd appearance) 4-2, becoming their 6th title and 3rd in six seasons; Tyler Johnson and Patrick Kane each score 23 points; MVP is 6'1" Blackhawks defenceman Duncan Keith (1983-). On June 4-16 the 2015 NBA Finals see the Golden State Warriors (coach Steve Kerr), led by 2014-15 NBA MVP Wardell Stephen "Steph" Curry II (1988-) (#30) defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers (coach David Blatt), led by 4x NBA MVP LeBron James by 4-2, becoming their first title in 40 years (1975) and 4th ever, becoming the first time since the 1990-1 Chicago Bulls for a team having no players with finals experience to win the finals; the Cavaliers haven't won since 1971; first finals with two first-year head coaches; James becomes the first NBA player since the Boston Celtics in the 1960s to make five consecutive finals appearances; MVP is Warriors small forward-guard (#9) Andrew Tyler Iguodala (1984-). On June 1 5'9" Camarillo, Calif.-born former Olympic softball star Jessica Ofelia Mendoza (1980-) becomes the first female broadcaster in the booth for ESPN's College World Series; on Aug. 24 she becomes the first female analyst for a ML baseball game (St. Louis Cardinals vs. Arizona Diamondbacks); on Oct. 6 she becomes the first female analyst in MLB postseason history, experiencing mucho misogynist feedback. On June 25 the 2015 NBA Draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. sees 30 teams select 60 players in two rounds; 6'11" center-forward Karl-Anthony Towns Jr. (1995-) is selected #1 by the Minn. Timberwolves (first Dominican). In June after Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer talked him into it, New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft brings a group of 19 NFL Hall of Famers to visit Israel in a week-long Touchdown in Israel trip. On July 8 U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee cancels the six trademarks of the NFL Washington Redskins after five Native Ams. claim that they're derogatory, finding that they "may disparage a substantial composite of Native Americans", causing the team mgt. to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. On July 15 the 2015 ESPY Awards features Caitlyn Jenner receiving the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage; too bad, Brett Favre is dissed for not clapping hard enough. On Aug. 16 Australian golfer Jason Day (1987-) wins the 2015 PGA Championship with a majors record 20 under par. On Aug. 31-Sept. 13 the 2015 (13th) U.S. Open sees defending champ Marin Cilic defeated by Novak Djokoic for the men's singles title; on Sept. 11, 2015 unseeded Roberta Vinci (1983-) of Italy upsets 3-time defending champ Serena Williams in the semifinals, ending her hopes of a triple crown, meeting fellow Italian Flavia Pennetta (1982-) in the final on Sept. 12, which is won by Pennetta 7-6, 5-2. On Oct. 11 Calif. passes the Calif. Racial Mascots Act, becoming the first U.S. state to ban the use of the word "Redskin" for public school nicknames and mascots. Nobel Prizes: Peace: Tunisian Nat. Dialogue Quartet; Lit: Svetlana Alexandrovna Alexievich (1948-) (Belarus) (first); Physics: Takaaki Kajita (1959-) (Japan) and Arthur Bruce McDonald (1943-) (Canada) [neutrino experiments]; Chem.: Tomas Robert Lindahl (1938-) (Britain), Paul Lawrence Modrich (1946-)<;/a> (U.S.), and Aziz Sancar (1946-) (U.S.) [DNA mismatch repair]; Med.: William Cecil Campbell (1930-) (U.S.) and Satoshi Omura (1935-) (Japan) [avermectins], and Tou Youyou (1930-) (China) (first Nobel Prize from PRC) [artemisinin]; Econ.: Sir Angus Stewart Deaton (1945-) (Scotland) [analysis of consumption, poverty, and welfare]. Inventions: In spring after her sister is assaulted, former schoolteacher Jacqueline Ros of Denver, Colo. and Andrea Perdomo found Revolar to manufacture hand-held panic button devices, obtaining crowdfunding and venture capital; too bad, next June 28 Security5 of San Diego, Calif. files a patent infringement lawsuit, and the company ends up in bankruptcy by late 2017. On Apr. 21 Boeing patents (#9,010,678) a flying submersible drone ("rapid deployment air and water vehicle") that turns into a submarine. On May 27 Paris-born Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio (1964-), Wimbledon, London-born Canadian computer scientist Geoffrey Everst Hinton (1947-), and French-born Am. computer scientist Yann LeCun< (1960-)/a> pub. the article Deep learning in Nature mag., making them stars known as "the Godfathers of AI"; too bad, deep learning is full of limitations and sucks? On July 13 after Otsuka's patent on aripiprazole (Abilify) expires on Oct. 20, 2014 the U.S. FDA approves the atypical antipsychotic drug Brexpiprazole (brand name Rexulti), developed by Otsuka and Lundbeck for the treatment of schizophrenia and depression. In the last quarter of the year sales of Apple Watch smartwatch passes those of expensive Swiss watches, 8.1M vs. 7.9M. On Sept. 25 the $188M Boeing KC-46 Pegasus military aerial refueling and strategic military transport aircraft makes its first flight. On Oct. 5-9 the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress in Bordeaux, France is held after a PSA Peugeot Citroen driverless vehicle travels 360 mi. (580km) from Paris to attend it. On Oct. 11 Iran tests the precision-guided Emad (Pillar)) surface-to-surface missile, becoming the first with the range to reach Israel. On Oct. 29 Sikorsky successfully tests its first robotic self-flying U.S. Army UH-60A Black Hawk heli at its development center in West Palm Beach, Fla. On Dec. 22 (night) the 23-story-tall SpaceX Falcon-9 spacecraft takes off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., reaching an alt. of 125 mi. (200km) and sending 11 satellites into orbit before making an upright landing, becoming a first. Dyson releases its handheld Dyson V6 Mattress Cleaner, with a digital motor and HEPA filtration to get rid of dust mites. NASA's Lunar Plant Growth Habitat project aims to grow plants on the Moon. Deep Space Industries launches its first small prospector mission to mine asteroids. Science: On Jan. 8 Wei-Hock "Willie" Soon, Lord Christopher Monckton, David Legates, and William "Matt" Briggs pub. Why Models Run Hot in China's "Science Bulletin", claiming that climate computer models of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) tend to exaggerate global warming, with the soundbyte: "The impact of anthropogenic global warming over the next century... may be no more than one-third to one-half of IPCC's current projections", pissing-off the global warming set. On Jan. 9 Michael Bowling et al. pub. an article in Science announcing the first perfect computer algorithm for solving heads-up limit hold'em poker. On Feb. 24 Oskar Aszmann et al. of the Medical U. of Vienna in Austria announce the first bionic reconstruction, replacing injured hands with bionic ones after undergoing voluntary amputation and transplantation of nerves and muscles. On Mar. 12 Vladimir Mironov of Russia-based 3D Bioprinting Solutions announces the first bioprinting of a thyroid gland for an animal. In Mar. CERN's Large Hadron Collider attempts to recreate the Big Bang, causing Stephen Hawking and Neil de Grasse to warn that this could destroy the Universe, while New Agers warn that it's really an attempt to open the Gates of Hell to permit the spirit of the Antichrist through. On Apr. 1 scientists from Bristol U., Tokyo U., Southampton U., and NTT Device Technology Labs pub. an article in Nature Photonics announcing the first silicon microchip that generates and detects perfect quantum teleportation (entanglement). On Apr. 10 U. of Ariz. astronomet Peter A. Milne et al. pub. an article in Astrophysical Journal announcing that Type Ia supernovae, used as distance markers actually fall into different populations, modifying the distances and throwing off the calculation of Universe expansion. On Apr. 23 an internat. team of scientists pub. an article in Current Biology, announcing the first sequencing of the complete genome of the woolly mammoth. On May 14 scientists at the Nat. Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin. (NOAA) pub. an article in Science announcing the first warm-blooded fish, the opah. Astronomers Istvan Szapudi et al. of the U. of Hawaii discover the Supervoid, a spherical blob measuring 1.8B l-y. across. On May 19 John Dueber et al. of UCB pub. an article in Nature Chemical Biology announcing the creation of a genetically modified yeast that can convert sugar to morphine, and might be used in home beer brewing kits. On May 22 doctors at MD Anderson Cancer Center and Houston Methodist Hospital in Tex. perform the first skull and scalp transplant on 55-y.-o. software programmer Jim Boyson from Austin, Tex. On June 3 Stefan Remy et al. of the U. of Bonn pub. an article in Neuron reporting that neural circuits in the brains of mice have been identified that are pivotal for movement and navigation in space. On June 4 the U.S. FDA approves the "female Viagra" drug Flibanserin, which increases female sexual desire. On June 4 Stephen J. Elledge of Harvard Medical School announces a new $25 blood test that can detect exposure to 1K+ strains of viruses from 206 species in a single drop of blood, covering all viruses known to infect people. On June 8 NASA launches its Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD) flying saucer, intended for use on Mars, which reaches 180K ft. at Mach 4 before deploying the doughnut-shaped Supersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (SIAD) airbag to help cushion its landing; too bad, the chute has a snafu. On June 11 the Nat. Institutes of Natural Sciences announces the discovery of a gene named foxl3 that determines whether germ cells become sperm or eggs in vertebrates in the small medaka fish. In June Supernova ASASSN-15lh appears in the Southern Hemisphere, growing to 20x the brightness of the Milky Way, puzzling astronomers at its source of energy. On July 9 researchers from NASA's JPL and UCLA pub. an article in Science that reports extra heat from greenhouse gases has in recent years been trapped in subsurface waters in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, explaining a slowdown in global surface temperature increase during the past decade. On July 14 after a 9.5-year 3B-mi. journey NASA's New Horizon spacecraft makes it closest approach to Pluto (7,750 mi.), sending back the first-ever photos of Pluto's surface, which reveal a young (100M-y.-o. surface) sans craters, the icy Sputnik Planum plains region, and 11K-ft. ice mountains. On July 15 Li Jinsong et al. of the Shanghai Inst. for Biological Sciences pub. an article in Cell Stem Cell announcing the first mass production of high-quality artificial sperm, sans tails and the ability to swim. On July 16 Warren Ruder of Va. Tech pub. an article in Scientific Reports reporting that he used a mathematical model to demonstrate that bacteria can control the behavior of an inanimate device like a robot. On July 17 researchers at Eindhoven U. of Technology and FOM Foundation pub. an article in Nature Communications announcing the new material gallium phosphide, which can enable a solar cell to produce hydrogen gas from liquid water and sunlight. On July 20 billionaire Yuri Milner, joined by Stephen Hawking et al. at the British Royal Society announcess the $100M Breakthrough Initiatives to reinvigoriate the search for E.T. life with a survey of the 1M closest starts to Earth, the center of our galaxy, and the entire galactic plane, plus the 100 closest galaxies; their optical sensor can detect a 100W laser up to 25T mi. away. On July 23 Bas Rokers of the U. of Wisc. et al. pub. an article in Current Biology announcing the discovery of the point in the human brain where it combines the dual views of the eyes into a single view. On July 28 Intel and Microsoft announce their new 3D XPoint non-volatile memory, which is up to 1,000x faster than NAND and is 10x denser, with 1,000x greater endurance, with one wafer able to store 128GB of data with nanosec. access. On July 30 Pres. Obama signs an executive order for the Nat. Strategic Computer Initiative (NSCI), with the goal of building the world's fastest supercomputer by 2025. On Aug. 27 Brian Nosek of the U. of Va. et al. pub. an article in Science revealing that only 39 of 100 studies pub. in major psychology journals could be replicated. In Aug. NASA scientists record atmospheric infrasound (below 20 Hz) using a helium balloon at 123K ft. alt., with U. of N.C. grad student uttering the soundbyte: "It sounds kind of like 'The X-Files'." On Sept. 1 researchers at Montreal Neurological Inst. pub. an article in Cerebral Cortex, reporting that the human brain region where musical talent resides has been discovered. On Sept. 8 researchers at the U. of Mass. pub. an article in PLOS Biology reporting that it's possible to reverse the behavior of an animal by flipping a switch in neuronal communication. On Sept. 10 researchers at Yale U. announce that there are 3.04T trees on Earth, 422 for every human; the previous estimate was 400B. On Sept. 14 an article is pub. in Clinical Infectious Diseases, announcing a new 100% HIV prevention pill. On Sept. 14 Google rep Rachel Potvin announces that Google's Internet services comprise a total of 2B lines of code, maintained by 25K programmers. On Sept. 16 the World Wildlife Fund reports that the world fish pop. has halved since 1970, mainly due to overfishing. On Sept. 28 NASA scientist Lujendra Ohja pub. an article in Nature Geoscience announces "smoking gun" evidence for liquid water on Mars. in tear-stain lineae. In Sept. Matthew Lai of Imperial College London creates the neural network AI machine Giraffe that chucks brute force for deep learning to evaluate board positions like humans, reaching the internat. master level. The F-type main-sequence star KIC 8462852 is announced by citizen scientists of the Planet Hunters project, becoming known as Tabby's Star or Boyajian's Star after LSU astronomer Tabetha Suzanne Boyajian (1980-); it has unusual light fluctuations of up to 22%. On Oct. 5 Jan Brascamp et al. Mich. State U. pub. an article announcing that the brain's visual cortex makes decisions like higher level areas. On Oct. 16 scientists at Guangzhou Insts. of Biomedicine and Health pub. an article in Journal of Molecular Cell Biology reporting the first gene-edited dogs, a pair of beagles named Hercules and Tiangou, who have their myostatin genes deleted to make them more muscular and athletic. On Oct. 23 Corinna E. Lockenhoff et al. of Cornell U. pub. an article in Evolution & Human Behavior revealing a study of 1K hetero men and women that finds that people with certain extreme pathological personality traits have more mates and children - wish I could fly like Superman? On Oct. 29 French mathematicians of the Paris-based Societe de Calcul Mathematique pub. a Paper on the Costly and Pointless Crusade Against Global Warming, with the soundbyte: "You would probably have to go quite a long way back in human... history to find (such a) mad obsssion", pointing out that "There is not a single fact, figure... or observation that leads us to conclude the world's climate is in any way 'disturbed'. It is variable, as it has always been." On Oct. 30 NASA scientist H. Jay Zwally pub. a paper in Journal of Glaciology revealing that ice sheet growth in E Antarctica of 147B tons/year outweighs the losses in W Antarctica, pissing-off warmist scientists, who pub. a paper on June 13, 2018 in Nature claiming that Antarctica is losing a net of 200B tons of ice/year, adding 0.02" (0.5mm) a year to the sea level, which he claims is moose hockey. On Nov. 16 an article is pub. in Circulation reporting that a 30-year study of coffee drinking has found that those who drink 3-5 cups a day have reduced death risks from cardiovascular disease, diabetes, Parkinson's and other neurological diseases, and suicide, and no increased cancer risk. On Nov. 16 an article is pub. in Annals of Internal Medicine reporting that a thick waistline indicates worse health than normal obesity. On Dec. 10 the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator fusion machine is first put into operation. On Dec. 15 the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan with $3B each to "advance human potential and promote equality", incl. curing disease by the end of the cent. On Dec. 21 Michael Johnson et al. at Imperial College London pub. an article in Nature Neuroscience announcing the discovery of brain gene clusters M1 and M3, which are linked to human intelligence. The world synthetic biology market reaches $4.5B. The complete control of matter at the atomic level is achieved (Arthur C. Clarke). Art: Jennifer Angus, In the Midnight Garden (cochineal). Gabriel Dawe, Plexus At (thread, wood, hooks and steel). Patrick Dougherty, Shindig; willow saplings. John Grade, Middle Fork (Cascades); reclaimed old growth Western red cedar. Maya Lin, Folding the Chesapeake (marbles). Music: Adele (1988-), 25 (album #3) (Nov. 20) (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.); sequel to "21" (2011); incl. Hello (#1 in the U.S. and U.K.), When We Were Young (#14 in the U.S.) (#9 in the U.K.). Blur, The Magic Whip. Luke Bryan (1976-), Kill the Lights (album #5) (Aug. 7) (#1 country) (#1 in the U.S.) (350K copies); incl. Kick the Dust Up, Strip It Down, Home Alone Tonight, Huntin', Fishin' and Lovin' Every DayMove, Fast, all of which go #1, a Billboard Country Airplay chart first. Cam (1948-), Welcome to Cam Country (EP) (debut) (Mar. 31) (#88 in the U.S., #31 country); incl. Burning House (#47 in the U.S., #3 country) (500K copies). Jana Kramer (1983-), Thirty One (Oct. 9) (album #2); incl. I Got the Boy (#5 country) (#56 in the U.S.) (#22 Canada) (600K). Rachel Platten (1981-), Fight Song (Feb. 19) (#6 in the U.S.) (#1 in the U.K.). Rat Boy (1996-), Sign On (debut) (#1 in the U.K.); Fake ID (#4 in the U.K.); Move (#5 in the U.K.). Nathaniel Rateliff (1978-), Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats (album #4) (Aug. 21); incl. S.O.B.. Movies: Cameron Crowe's Aloha (May 27) (Columbia Pictures) stars Bradley Cooper as military contractor Brian Gilcrest, who works for billionaire Carson Welch (Bill Murray) to develop a new space center in Hawaii, hooking up with USAF Capt. Allison Ng (Emma Stone); Rachel McAdams plays Tracy Woodside, wife of John "Woody" Woodside (John Krasinski), whose eldest daughter Grace (Danielle Rose Russell) is Brian's daughter; way too white for Hawaii?; does $26.3M box office on a $52M budget. Peyton Reed's Ant-Man (June 29) (Walt Disney), based on the Marvel Comics chars. stars Paul Rudd as cat burglar Scott Lang AKA Ant-Man, who defends Dr. Hank Pym's (Michael Douglas) shrinking technology and plots a heist; features Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne; does $454.7M box office on a $130M budget. Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash (Sept. 6) (Desire Trilogy #2) (Fox Searchlight Pictures), based on the 1969 Jacques Deray film "La Piscine" and named after the David Hockney painting, set on the Italian island of Pantelleria stars Tilda Swinton as rock singer Marianne Lane on holiday with her filmmaker lover Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts), until uninvited guest Harry Hawkes (Ralph Fiennes) arrives along with his teenie daughter Penelope "Pen" Lanier (Dakota Johnson), starting a love triangle; does $7.5M box office. Mike Binder's Black or White (Jan. 30), produced with $9M of Costner's money stars Kevin Costner as widowed Elliot Anderson, who fights to keep custody of his granddaughter Eloise against her black grandmother Rowena Jeffers (Octavia Spencer). Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies (originally St. James Place) (Oct. 4) (DreamWorks Pictures) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 1964 book "Strangers on a Bridge: The Case of Colonel Abel and Francis Gary Powers" stars Tom Hanks as Brooklyn insurance atty. James Britt Donovan (1916-70), who must represent Soviet spy Rudolf Abel and negotiate his trade for U.S. pilot Francis Gary Powers after his U-2 spy plane is shot down over the Soviet Union; does $165.5M box office on a $40M budget. John Crowley's Brooklyn (Jan. 26) (BBC Films) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 2009 Colm Toibin novel set in 1951-2 stars Saoirse Ronan as young Irish woman Ellis Lacy, who emigrates from Enniscorthy, County Wexford to Brooklyn, N.Y., hooking up with Anthony "Tony" Fiorello (Emory Cohen); Jim Broadbent plays Father Flood; does $62.1M box office on a $11M budget. Neill Blomkamp's Chappie (Mar. 4) (Columbia Pictures) is about an AI law enforcement robot in Johannesburg, starring Sharlton Copley; does $102M box office on a $49M budget; "Humanity's last hope isn't human". Peter Landesman's Concussion (Dec. 25), based on the 2009 GQ article by Jeanna Marie Laskas stars Will Smith as Nigerian-born forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu, who fights to expose brain damage in the NFL; David Morse plays football star Mike Webster; Albert Brooks plays Omalu's boss Dr. Cyril Wecht; Alec Baldwin plays sympathetic colleague Dr. Julian Bailes. Dan Fogelman's Danny Collins (Mar. 20) (Bleecker St.), based on folk singer Steve Tilston stars Al Pacino as aging 1970s rocker Danny Collins, who attempts to connect with his grown-up son Tom Donnelly (Bobby Cannivae), his pregnant wife Samantha (Jennifer Garner) and their 7-y.-o. daughter Hope (Giselle Eisenberg) while hooking up with hotel mgr. Mary (Annette Benning); does $10.8M box office on a $10M budget. Tom Hooper's The Danish Girl (Sept. 5) (Focus Features) (Universal Pictures), based on the 2000 novel by David Ebershoff and the lives of Danish painters Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener, starring Alicia Vikander (after Charlize Theron, Gwyneth Palstrow, and Marion Cotillad pass it up) as 1920s Copenhagen portraitist Gerda Wegener, who asks her hubby Einar (Eddie Redmayne) to pose in drag, causing him to realize he's really a woman named Lili Elbe, causing them to relocate to Paris and sell the portraits to art dealer Hans Axgil (Matthias Schoenaerts), starting a love triangle that screws with their heads, causing Lili and Gerda to seek the help of German Dr. Kurt Warnekros (Sebastian Koch), who performs a pioneering sex reassignment surgery on Lili, which proves fatal; does $64.2M box office on a $15M budget. Alistair Legrand's The Diabolical (Mar. 16) is a combo sci-fi and horror film starring Ali Larter as Madison, and Arjun Gupta as her beau Nikolai, who fight a mysterious paranormal bald man from the future in their home, learning about Project ECHO of the CamSET research lab. Glenn Ficarra's and John Requa's Focus (Feb. 27) (Warner Bros. Pictures) stars Will Smith and Margot Robbie s black-white grifters Nicky Spurgeon and Jess Barrett, who try not to lose focus as they swindle their marks and titillate viewers with a hot black-white romance; does $159.1M box office on a $50.1M budget. Rob Letterman's Goosebumps (June 24) (Sony Pictures Animation), a horror comedy based on the R.L. Stine book series stars Jack Black as Stine and Slappy the Dummy, Dylan Minnett as Stine's new neighbor Zachary "Zach" Cooper, Odeya Rush as Stine's daughter Hannah, and Amy Ryan as Zach's mother Gale; does $150M box office on an $84M budget; followed by "Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween" (2018). Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful (H8ful) Eight (Dec. 7) (The Weinstein Co.), his 2nd Western after "Django Unchained" (2012), filmed in Telluride, Colo. stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh et al. in a yarn set in Wyo. after the U.S. Civil War, about eight you know whats seeking refuge in a stagecoach stop on a mountain pass during a blizzard; music by Ennio Morricone; does $155.8M box office on a $54M budget. Woody Allen's Irrational Man (May 16) (Sony Pictures) stars Joaquin Phoenix as a New England philosophy professor Abe Lucas, who is hung-up on Kierkegaard and finds reason to live by murdering a judge, dragging others down with him, incl. student Jill Pollard (Emma Stone) and fellow prof. Rita Richards (Parker Posey). Colin Trevorrow's Jurassic World (June 10), #4 in the Jurassic Park series about a revamped dino theme park on Isla Nublar stars Chris Pratt as Velociraptor trainer Owen Grady, Bryce Dallas Howard as park mgr. Claire Dearing, Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins as Claire's nephews Zach and Gray Mitchell, Vincent D'Onofrio as InGen security head Vic Hoskins, Irrfan Khan as park owner Simon Masrani; B.D. Wong reprises his role as chief geneticist Dr. Henry Wu; Trevorrow plays the voice of Mr. DNA; becomes the first film to gross $500M in its opening weekend. Michael Dougherty's Krampus (Nov. 20) (Legendary Pictures) (Universal Pictures) debuts, a scary Xmas movie about the dysfunctional Engel family, incl. Tom (Adam Scott), Sarah (Toni Collette), and Max (Emjay Anthony), who are chased by a you know what (Gideon Emery) to punish them for losing the Xmas spirit; does $61.5M box office on a $15M budget. Yorgos Lanthimos' The Lobster (May 15) (Element Pictures) (Film4 Productions) is a black comedy starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz about single people given 45 days to find a romantic partner or be turned into animals; does $18M box office on a $4M budget. Ridley Scott's The Martian (Sept. 11) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 2011 Andy Weir novel stars Matt Damon as Ares III astronaut-botanist Mark Watney, who is presumed dead and left behind on Mars in The Hab, forcing him to farm spuds in his own shit until help arrives; also stars Jessica Chastain as Melissa Lewis, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, and Chewitel Ejiofor; does $331.5M box office on a $108M budget. Edward Zwick's Pawn Sacrifice (Sept. 16) stars Tobey Maguire as Bobby Fischer, Lily Rabe as Joan Fischer, and Liev Schreiber as Boris Spassky. Don Cheadle's Miles Ahead (Oct. 11) (Sony Pictures) stars Cheadle in his dir. debut as jazz trumpeter Miles Davis in his silent period 1975-9; Emayatzy Corinealdi plays his first wife Frances Taylor; Ewan McGregor plays music reporter Dave Braden; does $5M box office. John Erick Dowdle's No Escape (Aug. 17) (Bold Films) (The Weinstein Co.) stars Owen Welson as ex-pat civil engineer Jack Dwyer, who is trapped by a coup d'etat in a SE Asian country with his wife Annie (Lake Bell), daughters Lucy (Sterling Jerins) and Briegel (Claire Geare), and British Secret Service agent Hammond (Pierce Brosnan); does $54.4M box office on a $5M budget. Steve Martino's 3-D computer-animated comedy The Peanuts Movie (Nov. 1) (Blu Sky Studios) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the Charles M. Schulz comic strip features the voices of Troy "Trombone" Shorty Andrews (1986-) as Miss Othmar and Mrs. Little Red-Haired Girl, Kristin Chenoweth as Snoopy's babe Fifi, Noah Schnapp as Charlie Brown, and Bill Melendez as Snoopy and Woodstock; does $246M box office on a $99M budget. Alejandro G. Inarritu's The Revenant (Dec. 16) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 2002 Michael Punke novel about Am. frontiersman Hugh Glass in 1823 Missouri Territory stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Glass, who is mauled by a bear and left for dead by John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), and gets revenge; does $533M box office on a $135M budget. Jonathan Demme's Ricki and the Flash (Aug. 7) (TriStar Pictures) stars Meryl Streep as failed rock star Linda Brummel, who abandoned her family to chase stardom, and returns to help her suicide-prone daughter Mamie Gummer (Julie Brummel), and meets her hubby's 2nd wife Maureen (Audra McDonald), and attends the wedding of her son Joshua Brummel (Sebastian Stan); does $41.3M box office on an $18M budget. Lenny Abrahamson's Room (Sept. 4), based on the novel by Emma Donoghue stars Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay as Joy Newsome and her 5-y.-o. son Jack, who are held captive in an enclosed space in Akron, Ohio for seven years; does $24M box office on a $13M budget. Jaurne Collet-Serra's Run All Night (Mar. 9) (RatPac-Dune Entertainment) (Vertigo Enterainment) (Warner Bros. Pictures), based on the Brad Intelsby script "The All-Nighter" stars Liam Neeson as retired mob hitman Jimmy "the Gravedigger" Condon, who tries to rescue his retired prof. boxer estranged son Michael "Mike" Conlon (Joel Kinnaman) from mob boss Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris), running you know how long to do it; Common plays Mr. Price; Vincent D'Onofrio plays Det. Harding; does $71.7M box office on a $61.6M budget. Brad Peyton's San Andreas (may 27) (Warner Bros.) stars Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson and Carla Gugino in a story about an earthquake that devastates San Francisco Bay; too bad, they don't show Calif. falling into the sea and turning Utah into beachfront property?; does $474M box office on a $110M budget. Denis Villenueve's Sicario (Mexican for hitman) (Sept. 15) (Thunder Road) (Lionsgate) stars Josh Brolin as CIA special joint task force leader Matt Graver, who goes after Sonora Cartel lt. Manuel Diaz (Bernardo Saracino) with partners Alejandro Gillick (Benicio del Toro) and FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt); does $84.9M box office on a $30M budget; followed by "Sicario: Day of the Soldado" (2018). Parvez Sharma's A Sinner in Mecca (Apr. 29) is about his pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia; too bad, he's a gay activist, causing him to receive death threats. Laszlo Nemes' Son of Saul (May 15) (Hungarian Nat. Film Fund) stars Geza Rohrig as Hungarian Jewish Auschwitz POW Saul Auslander, who escapes to avoid being gassed; does $6.2M box office on a 1.5M Euro budget. Antoine Fuqua's Southpaw (July 24) (The Weinstein Co.) stars Jake Gyllenhaal as world light heavyweight champion boxer Billy Hope, Forest Whitaker as his trainer Titus "Tick" Wills, Rachel McAdams as his babe Maureen Hope, and Miguel Gomez as his opponent Miguel "Magic" Escobar; does $45.2M box office on a $25M budget. Sam Mendes' Spectre (Oct. 26) (Eon Productions) (MGM) (Columbia Pictures) (James Bond 007 film #24) stars Daniel Craig as 007 (4th time), and Christoph Waltz as Spectre head Ernst Stavro Blofield, who turns out to be Bond's stepbrother; Dave Bautista plays Spectre assassin Mr. Hinx; Jesper Christensen plays traitor MI6 agent Mr. White, and Lea Seydoux plays his pshrink daughter Madeleine Swann; Ben Whishaw plays Q; Naomie Harris plays Eve Moneypenny; opens with a Day of the Dead Parade in Mexico City, which they didn't actually have, causing them to start one on Oct. 29, 2016; does a record $529 worldwide ($248M in the U.S.) on its opening weekend; does $881M box office worldwide on a $245M budget; the theme is Writing's on the Wall, performed by Sam Smith, winning a best original song Oscar. J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Dec. 14) (Disney), set 30 years after "Return of the Jedi" stars John Boyega as Finn AKA Stormtrooper FN-2187, Daisy Ridley as Jakku scavenger Rey, Adam Driver as First Order cmdr. Kylo Ren (AKA Ben Organa, son of Han Solo and Princess/Gen. Leia Organa), Oscar Isaac as Resistance pilot Poe Dameron (w/droid BB-8), Andy Serkis as First Order Supreme Leader Snoke, and Domnhall Gleeson as Gen. Hux, cmdr. of First Order Starkiller Base, and Mark Hamilly as old fart Luke Skywalker; does $2.068B on a $258.6M budget. Alan Taylor's Terminator Genisys (June 22) (Paramount Pictures) (Terminator #5) stars aging Arnold Schwarzenegger as the T-800 Terminator (Model 101), and the Guardian, Jason Clarke as John Connor (T-3000), Emilia Clarke as Sarah Connor, Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese, Lee Byung-hun as a T-1000, and Matt Smith as Skynet/T-5000; does $440M box office on a $155M budget. James Vanderbilt's Truth (Sept. 2) (Sony) is a docudrama based on Mary Mapes' memoir "Truth and Duty: The Press, the President and the Privilege of Power" about the Killian documents controversy, which gets Dan Rather (Robert Redford) ousted; Cate Blanchett plays Mapes; does $5.4M box office on a $9.6M budget; Vanderbilt's dir. debut. Mark Neveldine's The Vatican Tapes (July 24) (Lakeshore Entertainment) (Lionsgate), written by Christopher Borrelli stars Olivia Taylor Dudley as Angeloa Holmes, who is suspected of being possessed by her pshrink Dr. Richards (Kathleen Robertson), causing the Vatican to investigate, Father Oscar Lozano (Michael Pena), Cardinal Bruun (Peter Andersson), and Vicar Imani (Djimon Hounsou), who find out that she is possessed by the Antichrist and is too hot to handle; does $13.5M box office on a $13M budget. M. Night Shyamalan's The Visit (Sept. 8) is a comedy horror film starring Oliva DeJonge and Ed Oxenbould as Rebecca and Tyler, who visit their weird grandparents John and Dorris (Peter McRobbie and Deanna Dunagan). Ken Kwapis' A Walk in the Woods (Jan. 23) stars Robert Redford as popular writer Bill Byrson, who returns after 20 years in Britain to N.H., and goes for a walk on the Appalachian Trail with friend Stephen Katz (Nick Nolte), finding that they're not in shape for it; Emma Thompson plays Redford's wife. Robert Zemeckis' 3-D The Walk (Sept. 26) (TriStar Pictures), bsased on Petit's book "To Reach the Clouds" stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as French high-wire artist Philippe Petit, who walked between the Twin Towers of the WTC on Aug. 7, 1974; does $61.2M box office on a $45M budget. Alex Kendrick's War Room (Aug. 28) is a Christian-themed film about Tony and Elizabeth Jordan (T.C. Stallings and Priscilla Shirer) and their strained marriage, who are helped by Miss Clara (Karen Abercombie). Robert Eggers' The Witch (THE VVITCH) (Jan. 27) (A24) stars Anya Taylor-Joy as Thomasin, daughter of a 1630s English settler Separatist family that encounters evil witches outside their New England farm and is dragged down to their level; Eggers' writing-dir. debut; does $40.4M box office on a $4M budget. Nonfiction: Yossi Alpher, Periphery: Israel's Search for Allies in the Middle East; the history of Israeli PM David Ben Gurion's Periphery Doctrine, that Israel should seek regional partners against the Arab core of states led by Egypt. Rick Atkinson (1952-), Battle of the Bulge. Abdel Bari Atwan, Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate. Moustafa Bayoumi, This Muslim American Life: Dispatches from the War on Terror; "To be a Muslim American today often means to exist in that slightly absurd space between exotic and dangerous and between victim and villain simply because of people's assumptions about you." Battle of the Bulge. Glenn Beck (1964-), It IS About Islam: Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran, and the Caliphate (Aug. 18). J.M. Berger and Jessica Stern, Isis: The State of Terror. Ilan Berman, Iran's Deadly Ambition: The Islamic Republic's Quest for Global Power (Aug. 11). David Bernstein, Lawless: The Obama Administration's Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law (Nov.). Elizabeth Alexander (1962-), The Light of the World: A Memoir (autobio.). Carmen Boullosa and Mike Wallace, A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the "Mexican Drug War". Joy Brighton, Sharia-Ism Is Here: The Battle to Control Women and Everyone Else. Kate Andersen Brower, The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House; NYT #1 bestseller about the maids and butlers. Dick Cheney (1941-) and Liz Cheney, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America. Phyllis Chesler (1940-), Living History: On the Front Lines for Israel and the Jews 2003-2015 (essays). Ta-Nehisi Paul Coates (1975-), Between the World and Me (July) (autobio.); based on James Baldwin's 1963 book "The Fire Next Time"; white supremacy is an indestructible force that Am. blacks will always struggle against? Stephen Coughlin, Catastrophic Failure: Blindfolding America in the Face of Jihad; tells the truth about Islam, warning that the Islamic Society of North Am. (ISNA) is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, causing him to be \ fired from the Pentagon in Jan. 2008 after complains by suspected Islamist Hesham Islam, who calls him "a Christian zealot with a pen". Ann Coulter (1961-), Adios, America! The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country into a Third World Hellhole. Theodore Dalrymple, The New Vichy Syndrome: Why European Intellectuals Surrender to Barbarism; their kowtowing to Islamists et al. Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler, Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World (Feb. 3); exponential digital chutzpah. Thomas Dixon, Weeping Britannia: Portrait of a Nation in Tears (Nov. 3); Britain's myth of the stiff upper lip. Warren Dockter, Churchill and the Islamic World: Orientalism, Empire and Diplomacy in the Middle East. Mark Durie, Which God? Jesus, Holy Spirit, God in Christianity and Islam; disputes the claim that Islam is an Abrahamic faith along with Judaism and Christianity; "Islam has no family resemblance with Christianity and Islam. The similarities are appropriated, not inherited." Mona Eltahawy, Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution (Apr. 21). Ronald L. Feinman, Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama (Aug.). Timothy R. Furnish, Ten Years Captivation with the Mahdi's Camps: Essays on Muslim Eschatology, 2005-2015 (Nov. 23). Pamela Haag, The Gunning of America: Business and the Making of American Gun Culture; oddball gun co. heir Sarah Winchester. Stephen Harding, Last to Die: A Defeated Empire, a Forgotten Mission, and the last American Killed in World War II. Yuval Noah Harari (1976-), Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. Andrew Hartman, A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars (Apr. 14). Christine Leigh Heyrman, American Apostles: When Evangelists Entered the World of Islam. Van Hipp, The New Terrorism: How to Fight It (Feb. 23). Peter Hoekstra, Architects of Disaster (Oct. 13); accuses Pres. Obama and Hillary Clinton of wrongfully removing Col. Daffy Duck, allowing Libya to become a jihadist training site. Larry Holcombe (1943-), The Presidents and UFOs: A Secret History from FDR to Obama (Mar. 17). David Horowitz (1939-), The Black Book of the American Left, Vol. IV: Islamo-Fascism and the War Against the Jews. David Horspool, Richard III: A Ruler and His Reputation (Dec. 15); tries to be neutral. Lynn Hunt, Writing History in the Global Era; advocates a unified global-neuro approach. Imre Kertesz (1929-), The Last Refuge; "Europe will soon go under because of its previous liberalism which has proven childish and suicidal. Europe produced Hitler, and after Hitler there stands a continent with no arguments: the doors are wide open for Islam; no longer does anyone dare talk about race and religion, while at the same time Islam only knows the language of hatred against all foreign races and religions." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (1939-), Palestine (July); calls himself "the flagbearer of Jihad to liberate Jerusalem"; pub. just at the wrong time, when Pres. Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is still on the table? Menachem Klein, Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron. Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America; claims it only goes back to the 1930s to oppose FDR's New Deal, led by cynical Capitalists who gained the full support of Pres. Eisenhower and took it to the top. David Kupelian, The Snapping of the American Mind; "The Left never tires of manipulating americans' historical national guilt over slavery and segregation, persistently keeping the fires of guilt and shame alive in present-day Americans for sins committed generations ago by people long since dead." William Edward Leuchtenberg (1922-), The American President: From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton; Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clintonl; "Persuaded that twentieth-century America was significantly shaped by its presidents." Michelle Malkin (1970-), Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America's Best & Brightest Workers (Nov. 10). Javier Manjarres, Brown People: Hispanic Politics and the Disunited State of Amigos (Feb. 19); attempts to break stereotypes. Catherine Mayer, Born to Be King: Prince Charles on Planet Windsor (Feb. 17); why the bozo is 66 and still not king. Will McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. David McCullough (1933-), The Wright Brothers (May 5). Ian Millhiser, Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted (Mar. 24); the Howard Zinn treatment of the U.S. Supreme Court. Kirsty Milne, At Vanity Fair: From Bunyan to Thackeray (May 12); how John Bunyan's metaphor went from a religious sin to a showcase for the elite. Michael Morrell and Bill Harlow, The Great War of Our Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism from al Qa'ida to ISIS; the rise of Islamism against the U.S. from WWII to the present. Viet Thanh Nguyen (1971-), Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of the War. Grover Norquist (1956-), End the IRS Before It Ends Us: How to Restore a Low Tax, High Growth, Wealthy America (Apr. 7); claims that the admin.-ordered IRS persecution of the Tea Party saved Pres. Obama's reelection by depriving Mitt Romney of the needed 4,262,296 votes. Michael B. Oren (1955-), Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide (June 23); former Israeli ambassador (2009-13) claims that Pres. Obama isn't anti-Israel, but his lack of belief in Am. exceptionalism caused him to do all he could to bully Israel into complying with his naive agenda in the Middle East; "More alarming for me still were Obama's attitudes towards America. Vainly, I scoured 'Dreams from My Father' for some expression of reverence, even respect, for the country its author would someday lead. Instead, the book criticizes Americans for their capitalism and consumer culture, for despoiling their environment and maintaining antiquated power structures. Traveling abroad, they exhibited 'ignorance and arrogance' - the very shortcomings the president's critics assigned to him." Daniel Pipes (1949-), Nothing Abides: Perspectives on the Middle East and Islam (June 10). Gerald Posner, God's Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican (Feb. 3). Kirsten Powers (1967-), The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech (May 11); she hasn't seen anything yet? Greg Proops, The Smartest Book in the World: A Lexicon of Literacy, A Rancorous Reportage, A Concise Curriculum of Cool (May 5). Leah Remini (1970-), Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology (Nov. 3); NYT bestseller about her highly publicized July 2013 split with the Church of Scientology; on Nov. 29, 2016 she debuts her documentary TV series Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath on A&E Network (until ?), which exposes its dirty laundry. Sir Matt Ridley (1958-), The Evolution of Everything: How Ideas Emerge. Mark Riebling, Church of Spies: The Pope's Secret War Against Hitler. Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans; the Ottomans didn't enter WWI on the wrong side because they were afraid that the Great Powers would dismember it, because they had been shoring it up for over a cent., and both sides guaranteed their territorial integrity if they stayed out of the war, and the Ottomans made the initial overtures to make a secret alliance with the Germans; "The truth of the matter is that the Ottoman Empire was neither forced into the First World War in a last-ditch attempt to ensure its survival, nor manoeuvred into it by an overbearing German ally and a hostile Entente, but rather plunged head on into the whirlpool." Jack Ross, The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History. Michael Savage (1942-), Government Zero; "There is a dance of death in the West and actual death in the Middle East, courtesy of the Islamofascists. Meanwhile, the Caesar in the White House entertains himself with a thousand sycophants, partying on behind closed doors as if the Islamofascist hand will not touch him. He thinks he's protected from this new plague, the Black Death of radical Islam." Peter Schweizer, Clinton Cash (May 5); how the Clinton State Dept. traded favors for big donations to the Clinton Foundation and speaking fees for Bill Clinton from Canadian mining mogul Frank Giustra et al., a "pay to play" scheme; he admits that evidence is based on timing not on a smoking gun, and calls for investigations. John Seabrook, The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory (Oct. 5); one hook every 7 sec. David Sehat, The Jefferson Rule: How the Founding Fathers Become Infallible and Our Politics Inflexible (May 19). Uriya Shavit (1975-), Shari'a and Muslim Minorities: The Wasati and Salafi Approaches to Fiqh al-Aqalliyyat al-Muslima. Christopher Shaw, The Two Degrees Limit for Climate Change: Public Understanding and Decision Making; questions how it was arrived at. Geoff Shepard, The Real Watergate Scandal: Collusion, Conspiracy, and the Plot That Brought Nixon Down (Aug. 3); the wrongdoing of the Watergate prosecutors and judges was worse than the original scandal? Gerald L. Smith, Karen Caotten McDaniel, and John A. Hardin (eds.), The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia (Aug.); "A significant step toward understanding the history of all Kentuckians." Robert Spencer (1962-), The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS (Aug. 24). T.J. Stiles (1964-), Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America (Pulitzer Prize). Roger Stone and Robert Morrow, The Clintons' War on Women (Oct. 13); details Hillary's abusive behavior dating back to her hubby Bill's days as gov. of Ark.; “Hillary Clinton has a long history of being domestically violent with Bill. Hillary has beaten Bill, hit him with hard objects, scratched and clawed him, and made him bleed"; "There's only one Hillary Clinton. She's the Ice Queen, that's the real Hillary. The one you see in her campaign, that's the fake"; Hillary's HQ in Brooklyn, N.Y. floods Amazon.com with negative reviews of the book? Evan Thomas (1951-), Being Nixon: A Man Divided. Gil Troy, The Age of Clinton: America in the 1990s (Oct. 6). Hamid Akin Unver, Turkey's Kurdish Question: Discourse and Politics Since 1990 (June 18). Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (Feb. 17). Chad Wellmon, Organizing Environment: Information Overload and the Invention of the Modern Research University (Mar. 11). Leif Wenar, Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World. Colin Woodard, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures in North America; Yankeedom, New France, New Netherland, Tidewater, Midlands, Greater Appalachia, Deep South, Far West, Left Coast, El Norte, First Nation. Warren Zanes, Tom Petty: The Biography. George Zarkadakis, In Our Own Image; six different metaphors used to explain human intelligence. Plays: Steven Levenson, Benj Pasek, and Justin Paul, Dear Evan Hansen (Arena Stage, Washington, D.C.) (July 10) (Music Box Theatre, New York) (Dec. 4, 2016); stars Ben Platt as a h.s. senior suffering from social anxiety who is told by his therapist to write letters to himself about why each day will be good; first Broadway musical to focus on teens and social media; nominated for nine Tonys, winning six. Shishir Kurup, Merchant of Vembley (Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone, London) (Oct. 12); based on Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice", set in the Asian-infused Wembley-Harrow area of London. Lin-Manuel Miranda (1980-), Hamilton: An American Musical (musical) (The Public Theater, New York) (Feb. 17) (Richard Rodgers Theatre, New York) (July 13); based on the 2004 bio "Alexander Hamilton" by Ron Chernow; PC casting features black and Hispanic actors playing White Am. Founding Fathers; the show's popularity causes the U.S. Treasury Dept. to cancel plans of replacing Hamilton's portrait on the $10 bill with Harriet Tubman, switching to Andy Jackson and the $20 bill. Poetry: Margaret Hacker (1942-), A Stranger's Mirror: New and Selected Poems 1994-2014. Novels: Margaret Atwood (1969-), The Heart Goes Last. Steve Berry, The Patriot Threat (Mar. 31); Cotton Malone of the Justice Dept.'s Magellan Billet, his boss Stephanie Nelle, and secrets of the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Christopher Buckley, The Relic Master (Dec. 8); relic hunter Dismas and his friend Albrecht Durer in 1517. Ernest Cline (1972-), Armada (July 14); h.s. student Zack Lightman and the Earth Defense Alliance (EDA) vs. attacking aliens from Europa. Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling) (1965-), Career of Evil (Oct. 22); Cormoran Strike #3; title based on a Blue Oyster Cult song. Michel Houellebecq (1956-), Submission (Jan. 17); 2022 France is Islamicized; pub. same day as the Charlie Hebdo Massacre, boosting sales. Harper Lee (1926-), Go Set a Watchman (July 14); shocks readers with its revelation that Atticus Finch was a white supremacist who just happened to love justice, as he crumbles about integration 20 years later; "The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people... Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?"; Scout is grown up and living in York City, and is the hero of the novel. Gregory Maguire (1954-), After Alice; a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. Viet Thanh Nguyen (1971-), The Sympathizer (Apr.) (first novel) (Pulitzer Prize); Commie double agent emigrates to the U.S. after the fall of Saigon. Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life (Mar. 10); four college friends incl. Jude, victim of abuse. Births: English princess (Anglican) Charlotte Elizabeth Diana of Cambridge on May 2 (4:24 p.m.) in Paddington, London; first daughter of Prince William and Duchess Catherine; 4th in line to the throne after Charles, William, and George. Swedish prince (Lutheran) Nicolas Paul Gustaf Bernadotte, Duke of Angermanland on June 15 in Danderyd; first son of Princess Madeleine and Christopher O'Neill. Deaths: Am. N.Y. gov. #52 (1983-94) Mario Cuomo (b. 1932) on Jan. 1 in Queens, N.Y. Am. "Elly May Calampett in The Beverly Hillbillies" actress Donna Douglas (b. 1932) on Jan. 1 in Zachary, La. Am. poet Miller Williams (b. 1930) on Jan. 1 in Fayetteville, Ark. (Alzheimer's). Am. country singer Little Jimmy Dickens (b. 1920) on Jan. 2 in Nashville, Tenn. (cardiac arrest). U.S. Sen. (R-Mass.) (1967-79) Edward Brooke (b. 1919) on Jan. 3 in Coral Gables, Fla. English actor-comedian-singer Lance Percival (b. 1933) on Jan. 6 in London. French Charlie Hebdo caricaturist Stephane "Charb" Charbonnier (b. 1967) on Jan. 7 in Paris (murdered). Yugoslavian-born Swiss virologist-immunologist Jean Lindenmann (b. 1924) on Jan. 15 in Zurich. Am. "It Was a Very Good Year" songwriter Ervin Drake (b. 1919) on Jan. 15 in Great Neck, N.Y. Am. biologist-chemist Andrew Benson (b. 1917) on Jan. 16 in La Jolla, Calif. Am. economist Henry Manne (b. 1928) on Jan. 17. Saudi king (2005-15) Abdullah (b. 1924) on Jan. 23 in Riyadh. Am. physicist Charles Hard Townes (b. 1915) on Jan. 27 in Oakland, Calif. Am. poet Rod McKuen (b. 1933) on Jan. 29 in Beverly Hills, Calif.; sold 60M books of poetry and 100M recordings worldwide. Congolese Simba rebel leader Christophe Gbenye (b. 1927) on Feb. 3 in Kinshasa. British historian Sir Martin Gilbert (b. 1936) on Feb. 3. Am. physicist Val Logsdon Fitch (b. 1923) on Feb. 5 in Princeton, N.J.; 1980 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. golfer Billy Casper (b. 1931) on Feb. 7 in Springville, Utah. Am. basketball coach Dean Smith (b. 1931) on Feb. 7 in Chapel Hill, N.C. Australian climate scientist Michael Robin Raupach (b. 1950) on Feb. 10. Am. TV journalist Bob Simon (b. 1941) on Feb. 11 in Manhattan, N.Y. (auto accident). Am. poet Philip Levine (b. 1928) on Feb. 14 in Fresno, Calif.; the album "The Poetry of Jazz" by Levine and Benjamin Boone is released on Mar. 16, 2018. Am. singer Lesley Gore (b. 1946) on Feb. 16 in New York City (lung cancer). English diplomat Sir Robert Wade-Gery (b. 1929) on Feb. 16. Am. jazz trumpeter Clark Terry (b. 1920) on Feb. 21 in Pine Bluff, Ark. Am. Notre Dame U. pres. #15 (1952-87) Rev. Theodore Martin Hesburgh (b. 1917) on Feb. 26 in Notre Dame, Ind.; his funeral-memorial service are attended by Pres. Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter, Condoleezza Rice et al., with a video message from Pres. Obama. Am. basketball player (first black to play in the NBA) Earl Lloyd (b. 1928) on Feb. 26 in Crossville, Tenn. Am. actor Richard Bakalyan (b. 1931) on Feb. 27 in Elmira, N.Y. Am. "Spock in Star Trek" actor-dir. Leonard Nimoy (b. 1931) on Feb. 27 in Bel Air, Los Angeles, Calif. (COPD); William Shatner snubs his funeral to attend the Red Cross Ball. Cuban baseball player Minnie Minoso (b. 1925) on Mar. 1 in Chicago, Ill. Am. bowler Fred Joseph Riccilli (b. 1921) on Mar. 3 in Seal Beach, Calif. Am. "The Simpsons" writer-dir.-producer Sam Simon (b. 1955) on Mar. 8 in Pacific Palisades, Calif. (cancer). Iraqi cleric Sheikh Harith al-Dhari (b. 1921) on Mar. 12 in Istanbul, Turkey. Am. Denver Public Library architect Michael Graves (b. 1934) on Mar. 12 in Princeton, N.J.; became paraplegic in 2003 from a spinal cord infection. English Free rock musician Andy Fraser (b. 1952) on Mar. 16 in Temecula, Calif. Am. blues musician Samuel Charters (b. 1929) on Mar. 18 in Arsta, Sweden (bone marrow cancer). Australian PM #22 (1975-83) Malcolm Fraser (b. 1930) on Mar. 20 in Melbourne, Victoria. Am. actor Gregory Walcott (b. 1928) on Mar. 20 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. Pet Rock inventor Gary Dahl (b. 1936) on Mar. 23 in Jacksonville, Ore. (COPD). Canadian "Madeline in La Femme Nikita" actress Alberta Watson (b. 1955) on Mar. 23 in Toronto, Ont. (cancer). Am. actor Robert Z'Dar (b. 1950) on Mar. 30 in Pensacola, Fla. Japanese world's oldest person (since Jan. 12, 2013) Misao Okawa (b. 1898) on Apr. 1 in Higashisumiyoshi-ku, Osaka (117 years 25 days). Canadian hockey hall-of-fame player Elmer Lach (b. 1918) on Apr. 4 in Kirkland, Quebec. Am. "Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in The Dukes of Hazzard" actor James Best (b. 1926) on Apr. 6 in Hickory, N.C. (pneumonia). Am. "John Arlington in Any Which Way You Can" actor Geoffrey Lewis (b. 1935) on Apr. 7 in Woodland Hills, Calif. Congolese politician Albert Kalonji (b. 1929) on Apr. 20 in Mbuji-Mayi. Am. "Rosie the Riveter" model Mary Doyle Keefe (b. 1923) on Apr. 21. Canadian politician Christine Stewart (b. 1941) on Apr. 25 in Cobourg, Ont. Am. "Tracy in The Partidge Family" actress Suzanne J. Crough (b. 1963) on Apr. 27 in Laughlin, Nev. (heart failure). Am. astronomer Peter A. Wehinger (b. 1938) on Apr. 27 in Tucson, Ariz. (lung cancer). Am. folk singer Guy Carawan (b. 1927) on May 2 in New Market, Tenn. Am. writer William Bast (b. 1931) on May 4 in Los Angeles, Calif. Australian serial murderer William MacDonald (b. 1924) on May 12 in Randwick, N.S.W. (dies in the Prince of Wales Hospital while serving a life sentence). Am. singer B.B. King (b. 1925) on May 14 in Las Vegas, Nev. U.S. Repub. Second Lady (1974-7) Happy Rockefeller (b. 1974) on Jan. 20 in Pocantico Hills, N.Y. Am. comedian Anne Meara (b. 1929) on May 23 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. (b. 1928) on May 23 in Monroe Township, N.J. (automobile accident on the New Jersey Turnpike). Am. folk singer-songwriter Jean Ritchie (b. 1922) on June 1 in Berea, Ky. Am. football kicker Garo Yepremian (b. 1944) on May 15 in Media, Penn. Iraqi deputy PM (1979-2003) Tariq Aziz (b. 1936) on June 5 in Nasiriyah (dies in prison hospital). Am. folk singer Ronnie Gilbert (b. 1926) on June 6 in Mill Valley, Calif. English "Saruman in The Lord of the Rings" actor Sir Christopher Lee (b. 1922) on June 7 in Chelsea, London. Am. jazz musician Ornette Coleman (b. 1930) on June 11 in New York City. Am. prof. wrestler Dusty Rhodes (b. 1945) on June 11 in Orlando, Fla. (kidney failure). Yemeni AQAP leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi (b. 1976) on June 12 in Mukalla (KIA). Am. actor George "Foghorn" Winslow (b. 1946) on June 13 in Camp Meeker, Calif. (heart attack); dies in his home along with 25 cats. Chinese leader Qiao Shi (b. 1924) on June 14 in Beijing. Am. conservative writer Alan Caruba (b. 1937) on June 15 in South Orange, N.J. English "John Steed in The Avengers" actor Patrick Macnee (b. 1922) on June 25 in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Australian Olympic runner Ron Clarke (b. 1937) on June 17 in Southport, Queensland. Turkish pres. #9 (1993-2000) and PM #12 (1991-3) Suleyman Demirel (b. 1924) on June 17 in Ankara. Am. "Titanic" film composer James Horner (b. 1953) on June 22 in Los Padres Nat. Forest, Calif. (airplane crash). English Yes rock bassist Chris Squire (b. 1948) on June 28 in Phoenix, Ariz. (leukemia). African tame lion Cecil the Lion (b. 2002) on July 1 in Hwange District, Zimbabwe; killed with an arrow by Am. dentist Walter Palmer, sparking internat. outrage. British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton (b. 1909) on July 1 in Slough, Berkshire. Am. poet James Tate (b. 1943) on July 8 in Amherst, Mass. Egyptian "Doctor Zhivago" actor Omar Sharif (b. 1932) on July 10 in Cairo (heart attack). English actress Nova Pilbeam (b. 1919) on July 17 in London. Canadian prof. wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper (b. 1954) on July 31 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart attack). Am. Mr. Coffee co-creator Vincent Marotta (b. 1924) on Aug. 1 in Pepper Pike, Ohio. British-Am. historian Robert Conquest (b. 1917) on Aug. 3 in Stanford, Calif. Am. NFL star and "ABC's Monday Night Football" sportscaster Frank Gifford (b. 1930) on Aug. 9 in Greenwich, Conn. Am. civil rights activist Julian Bond (b. 1940) on Aug. 15 in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Pakistani spymaster Gen. Hamid Gul (b. 1936) on Aug. 15 in Murree, Punjab. Am. "Batgirl in Batman" actress Yvonne Craig (b. 1937) on Aug. 17 in Pacific Palisades, Calif. English auto racer Justin Wilson (b. 1978) on Aug. 24 in Allentown, Penn.; dies from brain injury received in an accident on Aug. 23 at the Pocono Raceway in Penn. Am. "Your Erroneous Zones" writer Wayne Walter Dyer (b. 1940) on Aug. 29 in Maui County, Hawaii (heart attack). Am. "A Nightmare on Elm Street" dir. Wes Craven (b. 1939) on Aug. 30 in Los Angeles, Calif. (brain cancer). British "Awakenings" neurologist Oliver Wolf Sacks (b. 1933) on Aug. 30 in Manhattan, N.Y. (cancer). Am. "The Love Bug" actor Dean Jones (b. 1931) on Sept. 1 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Sock it to me!" actress Judy Carne (b. 1939) on Sept. 3 in Northampton (pneumonia). Am. "Route 66", "Adam-12" actor Martin Milner (b. 1931) on Sept. 6 in Carlsbad, Calif. (heart failure). Am. "Our Gang" actor Dickie Moore (b. 1925) on Sept. 7 near Wilton, Conn. Am. basketball hall-of-fame player Moses Malone (b. 1955) on Sept. 13 in Norfolk, Va. Am. Subway co-founder Fred DeLuca (b. 1947) on Sept. 14 in Lauderdale Lakes, Fla. British-Am. novelist Jackie Collins (b. 1937) on Sept. 19 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (breast cancer); pub. 32 novels, all NYT bestsellers (500M+ copies in 40 languages), with eight filmed. Am. "Jimmy Olsen in The Adventures of Superman" actor Jack Larson (b. 1928) on Sept. 20 in Brentwood, Los Angeles, Calif. Am. poet C.K. Williams (b. 1936) on Sept. 20 in Hopewell, N.J. (multiple myeloma). Am. hall-of-fame baseball catcher Yogi Berra (b. 1925) on Sept. 22 in West Caldwell, N.J. Egyptian "My Drive to Israel" playwright-writer Ali Salem (b. 1936) on Sept. 22 in Mohandessin. English "King Arthur in Excalibur" actor Nigel Terry (b. 1945) on Sept. 30 in Newquay, Cornwall (emphysema). Am. chef Paul Prudhomme (b. 1940) on Oct. 8 in New Orleans, La. Am. "Pac-Man" actor Marty Ingels (b. 1936) on Oct. 21 in Tarzana, Calif. (stroke). Irish-born Am. actress Maureen Fitzsimons (b. 1920) on Oct. 24 in Boise, Idaho. Iraqi politician Ahmed Chalabi (b. 1944) on Nov. 3 in Kadhimiya, Baghdad (heart attack). Am. actor-politician Fred Thompson (b. 1942) on Nov. 1 in Nashville, Texn. (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma). Am. computer engineer Gene Amdahl (b. 1922) on Nov. 10 in Palo Alto, Calif. (pneumonia and Alzheimer's). Belgian ISIS terrorist Abdelhamid Abaaoud (b. 1987) on Nov. 18 in Saint-Denis, France (killed). Canadian oil exec Maurice Strong (b. 1929) on Nov. 27 in New Edinburgh, Ottawa, Ont. English Motorhead musician Lemmy Kilmister (b. 1945) on Dec. 24 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). Am. "The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold" writer Acharya S. (Dorothy Milne Murdock) (b. 1960) on Dec. 25 (breast cancer). Am. basketball player Meadowlark Lemon (b. 1932) on Dec. 27 in Scottsdale, Ariz. Am. "Unforgettable" singer Natalie Cole (b. 1950) on Dec. 31 in Los Angeles, Calif. (congestive heart failure); sold 30M+ records. Am. "Trapper John in M*A*S*H" actor Wayne Rogers (b. 1933) on Dec. 31 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pneumonia).
2016 Chinese Year: Fire Monkey (Feb. 8). Time Person of the Year: Donald Trump (1946-) (Dec. 7). Doomsday Clock: 3 min. to midnight. Speaking of fire monkey, by this year a total of 120M people have contracted HIV since the first diagnosed cases in June 1981? - a single chimp in WC Africa did all this? The global avg. life expectancy increased 5.5 years since 2016, becoming the fastest increase since the 1960s. The U.S. death rate from cancer has fallen 27% since 1991. his is the warmest year on record according to NASA and NOAA, 1.78F warmer than the mid-20th cent. mean, and third straight record year in a row. Number of refugees entering the U.S. this year: 85K incl. 38,901 Muslim and 37,521 Christian (44%) (first time that there are more Muslim than Christian refugees). Of 150,272,172 U.S. tax returns filed for this year, 50,219,667 (33.4) pay $0 or less in income taxes. By this year most name brands are controlled by just 10 multinat. corporations, incl. Coca-Cola, General Mills, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg's, Kraft, Mars, Nestle, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever. Chinese banks incl. ICBC, China Construction Bank, Agricultural Bank of China, and Bank of Communications rise to account for 50% of the top banks in the world. The cumulative trade deficit of the U.S. with Mexico between Jan. 1994 and Nov. of this year: $986.5B. Losses to terrorism since 2004 (Euros): EU: 180B, UK: 43.7B, France: 43B, Spain: 40.8B, Germany: 19.2B. China begins reducing direct U.S. investment, from $45.6B this year to $2B in 2018. A famine in Sri Lanka affects crops, causing 900K-1.2M to be in need of food assistance. The U.S. drops 26,171 bombs in seven countries this year, an avg. of 3/hour. There are 556 legally-recognized Native Am. tribes in the U.S., down from 1K+ before the Euro palacefaces first moved in. by Jan. 1 global refugee pop. peaks at 65.3M, becoming the first time over 60M or 10% of world pop. On Jan. 1 (12:01 a.m.) Luis Valenicia Jr. (b. 2016) is born in San Diego. 2 min. after his twin sister Jaelyn Valenicia, becoming the first newborn of 2016 - a prophecy of the Trump-Hillary contest? On Jan. 1 Hawaii becomes the first U.S. state to raise the legal age for smoking to 21. On Jan. 1 (night) Muslims in Copenhagen, Denmark begin setting cars on fire, continuing throughout the year in 100+ cities. On Jan. 1 the 2016 Rose Bowl sees 11-2 Stanford defeat 12-1 Iowa by 45-16; all 64.5K tickets are sold at $150-$186 each. On Jan. 1 Israeli Arab citizen Nashat Milhelm opens fire on cafes and bars on Dizengoff St. in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing two and injuring seven in Sinta Bar then killing Arab taxi driver Amin Shaaban while trying to escape; he is killed on Jan. 8 by police in his hometown of Arara; on Jan. 9 (night) Italian Jewish immigrants and reps of Project Dreyfus in Italy hold a silent demonstration to protest the world holding Israel to a double standard in its handling of Muslim terrorists, with Project Dreyfus pres. Alex Zarfati uttering the soundbyte: "They didn't condemn it, even though it's clear that this is the same kind of terror as the Paris terrorist attacks and the other radical Islamic terrorist attacks that theaten the Western world"; a Quran is found in the gunman's backpack; the work of ISIS? On Jan. 1 Iran becomes a member of the executive board of the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (U.N. Women) along with the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. On Jan. 1 ISIS massacres 300+ West African migrants in Tripoli, Libya before they can be trafficked to Italy. On Jan. 1 certifiable German chancellor Angel Merkel gives a 2016 New Year's Day Speech demanding that Germans not have "coldness in their hearts" but instead embrace the 1.1M+ Muslim arrivals - who all want in their hearts to kill infidels? On Jan. 1 the Calif. Fair Pay Act goes into effect, mandating wage parity for men and women doing "substantially similar" work, with the burden of proof on employers. On Jan. 1 U.S. defense secy. Ash Carter's Dec. deadline for all service chiefs to submit plans to incl. women in all combat positions incl. elite special forces units arrives, and U.S. Navy secy. Ray Mabus sends a memo to the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, scolding him for delays in integrating women, forbidding the use of the word "man" in a job title, requiring at least two women officers per ground combat battalion, causiing U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) (former USMC officer) to call it "ridiculous. This is too critical to rush"; this don't stop Carter from approving final plans on Mar. 11. On Jan. 2 Saudi Arabia executes 47 alleged terrorists, incl. Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, drawing condemnation from the U.S. and EU, pissing-off Iran and causing protesters to set ransack and set fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran, after which on Jan. 3 Shoddy, er, Saudi Arabia cuts diplomatic ties with Iran, followed on Jan. 4 by Bahrain, UAE, and Sudan; Donald Trump utters the soundbyte: "One thing I see out there just happened today in Tehran. They're burning down the Saudi embassy, you see that? Now what that is, is Iran wants to take over Saudi Arabia. They already have. They want the oil, okay? They've always wanted that"; Trump also accuses Pres. Obama and Hillary Clinton of creating ISIS. On Jan. 2 (2:00 p.m.) after violations by Houthi militants, the Saudi-led coalition announces the end of the Dec. 15 ceasefire in Yemen. On Jan. 2 Pakistani Jaeish-e-Mohammed terrorists dressed in Indian Army fatigues attack Pathankot Air Force Station in NW India, killing seven security personnel and losing six terrorists in a 17-hour gun battle. On Jan. 4 (Mon.) the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. plunges by 411 points to 17,015. On Jan. 4 reps of major Arab Palestinian orgs. meet in Ramallah, Palestine to discuss how to escalte their Al-Quds Intifada - I'd like to fly like Supeman? On Jan. 4 Egypt resumes diplomatic relations with Israel for the first time since Nov. 2012; meanwhile Egypt's invasion of Sinai to fight ISIS violates their 1979 treaty with Israel, destabilizing relations. On Jan. 4 (first day of trading in 2016) China's domestic A-share stock market declines by 7%, causing transactions to halt and prompting govt. intervention to prop-up stocks, becoming the start of a stock market bubble burst following an unchecked rise until last summer. On Jan. 4 Saudi Arabia carries out a mass execution of 47 people, incl. 43 by beheading and four by firing squad, mainly for speaking out against the regime, becoming their largest mass execution since 1980. On Jan. 4 the U.S. Postal Service introduces a new purple-gold Muslim Eid a-Fitr/Eid al-Adha stamp, along with one celebrating Kwanzaa. On Jan. 5 Pres. Obama gives a tearful speech to a cheering crowd and releases executive orders (his 230th time) expanding mandatory background checks on private gun sales et al., with the soundbyte: "Anybody in the business of selling firearms must get a license and conduct background checks or be subject to criminal prosecutions", pissing-off Repubs., who claim he's exceeding his Constitutional authority by passing his own laws. On Jan. 5 fighting with the Taliban near Marja, Helmand, Afghanistan near the Pakistan border kills one U.S. soldier and injures two. On Jan. 5 Iran unveils a new underground missile base which incl. nuclear warhead-ready Emad precision-guided missiles, which violate a 2010 U.N. Security Council resolution. On Jan. 5 Pope Francis releases his first-ever video message on his monthly prayer intentions, claiming that all faiths are the same and that "we are all children of God". On Jan. 5 Brig. Gen. Diana Holland becomes the 76th commandant of West Point Military Academy, and the first woman. On Jan. 6 (12:30 p.m. local time) North Korea announces that it has conducted a successful H-bomb test, which they call "the H-Bomb of Justice"; the U.S. calls it a dud. On Jan. 6 Christian preacher James McConnell of County Antrim, Ireland is acquitted of "grossly offensive speech" for preaching that Islam is Satanic and a doctrine spawned in Hell, which doesn't stop Irish Muslims for lobbying for Islamic blasphemy laws like in the Muslim World. On Jan. 6 Saudi jets bomb the Iranian embassy in Sana'a, Yemen; meanwhile a car bomb at a police training center in Zliten, Libya kills 65. On Jan. 6 Hurricane Alex starts over NW Cuba, becoming the first hurricane of 2016. On Jan. 7 gunmen fire at security personnel at a hotel in Haram, Giza, Egypt during the annual Coptic celebration of Christmas. On Jan. 7 (11:30 a.m.) an Allah Akbar-shouting Muslim attacks a police station in N Paris with a meat cleaver and fake explosives but being you know what. On Jan. 7 Israel's Shin Bet intel service announces that it foiled a Hamas plan to kidnap and kill Israelis; meanwhile Egypt contacts Israel, requesting them not to normalize ties with Turkey. On Jan. 7 the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security announces that it has deported 77 of 121 illegal immigrants from Central Am. rounded up over the weekend in Tex., Ga., and N.C. On Jan. 8 escaped Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is captured after a shootout in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, Mexico after almost 7 mo. after he makes the mistake of trying to contact producers and actresses to make a film bio., holding an interview in the jungle with Sean Penn and Kate del Castillo last Oct. On Jan. 8 Philly police officer Jesse Hartnett (1982-) is shot 11x in his car on the street with a stolen police revolver by Am. Muslim Edward Archer (1985-), who tells police that "he pledges his allegiance to Islamic State, follows Allah, and that is the reason he was called upon to do that", namely, "He believed that the police defend laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Quran", which doesn't stop Philly mayor Jim Kenney from uttering the clueless soundbyte about the shooting: "It's terrible and it does not represent the religion [of Islam] in any way shape or form or any of its teachings". On Jan. 8 al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) releases an audio message by leader Ibraham al-Qusi calling for jihadist attacks against the West incl. France and the U.S. On Jan. 8 Philippine Islamist group Abu Sayaaf releases a video pledging allegiance to ISIS. On Jan. 8 Am. Muslim flight attendant Rose Hamid (1959-) (wearing a t-shirt saying "Salam, I come in peace") is ejected from a Donald Trump rally in Rock Hill, S.C. after standing up to protest Trump's views that Syrian refugees might be ISIS recruits, with the soundbyte: "There is hatred against us that is unbelievable. It's their hatred, it's not our hatred", to which she responds: "I figured that most Trump supporters probably never met a Muslim so I figured that I'd give them the opportunity to meet one... The ugliness really came out fast and that's really scary". On Jan. 9 7K-10K Kurds from across Europe march in Paris, France to protext the killing of three female Kurds there three years earlier, blaming it on Turkey. On Jan. 9 3K anti-Islamization group PEGIDA holds a peaceful rally in Cologne, Germany to protest Syrian immigration and mass sex attacks; other rallies are held in Germany, Austria, Belgium, and France; the upside-down German govt. sends 1.7K police to the Cologne rally, vs. only 150 when the 1K Muslims were rioting, using tear gas and water cannons ] and arresting 15; "Rapefugees not welcome"; "Muhammad not welcome." On Jan. 9 after land-based attacks on the oil terminals of As Sidr and Ras Lanuf on Jan. 4-6, three ISIS boats attack the oil port of Zueitina, Libya, but are repelled. On Jan. 9 massive throngs of 1.4M at the annual Feast of the Black Nazarene in Manila, Philippines kill two and injure hundreds. On Jan. 10 (Sun.) three Muslim men attempt a Paris-style mass shooting at the Ten X Nightclub in Calgary, Ont., Canada, injuring one; the PC press attempts another coverup. On Jan. 10 Afghan peace process talks are held in Islamabad, Pakistan by reps from Pakistan, Afghanistan, the U.S., and China, focusing on the need for talks with the Taliban. On Jan. 10 the U.S. military blows up a bldg. full of ISIS money in Mosul, Iraq. On Jan. 11 (14th anniv. of the arrival of the first Afghanistan War detainees) Saudi-born Mohammad al Rahman al Shumrani is released after being held sans charges and trial; he was admitted on Jan. 16, 2002. On Jan. 11 after a German official meets with Hassan Nasrallah a week earlier in vain, Hezbollah stages an IED attack on the border of Lebanon near Israeli forces in N Israel, causing Russia to ask it to cool it as Israeli shells locations near farms in Shebaa. On Jan. 11 coordinated Taliban suicide attacks in Jalalabad, Afghanistan are foiled by Afghan security forces; meanwhile a secret NATO report is leaked to Der Spiegel, revealing that the Afghan army is incapable of fighting the Taliban, with only 1 of 101 infantry battalions ready for battle, and 38 with "massive problems", incl. 10 with 600 soldiers each "not operational at all". On Jan. 11 (eve.) the 3rd Dem. Pres. Forum at Drake U. in Des Moines, Iowa, aired on Fusion focuses on minority issues. On Jan. 12 an ISIS suicide bomber from Saudi Arabia detonates in a crowd of German tourists in the Sultanahmet District near the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 10 and injuring 15, hurting Turkey's tourist industry, becoming the 4th bombing on Turkish soil since June, and the first targeting all Turks instead of Turkish Kurds; Turkey responds by shelling ISIS positions in Syria and Iraq, killing 200. On Jan. 12 Iran captures two U.S. Navy boats carrying 10 crew after they stray too far into the Persian Gulf en route from Kuwait to Bahrain, and are hauled to Farsi Island; after being accused of spying, they are freed on Jan. 13 after film is taken of them and aired to humiliate the U.S., incl. Lt. David Nartker (1988-) being forced to apologize; the boats really were captured on Dec. 29, and were on a top secret mission to transfer a top-level ISIS cmdr. to Kuwait so that he could travel to Syria to replace Zahran Alloush, who was killed on Dec. 25?; on May 12 squadron cmdr. Eric Rasch is fired. On Jan. 12 Pres. Obama delivers his (last) 2016 State of the Union Speech (watched by 31.3M viewers), ignoring the taking of U.S. Navy hostages by Iran and waxing lyrical about the United States of America, with the soundbytes: "The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth, period. It's not even close. We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined", "Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected to this office, and when it comes to every important international issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead, they call us", and "Anyone claiming that America's economy is in decline is peddling fiction", dissing Repub. climate deniers with the soundbyte: "Look, if anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it. You'll be pretty lonely, because you'll be debating our military, most of America's business leaders, the majority of the American people, almost the entire scientific community, and 200 nations around the world who agree it's a problem and intend to solve it", then strangely admitting that failure to heal the Dem.-Repub. divide is "one of the few regrets of my presidency", heating the divide up himself by slapping at Donald Trump with the Muslim appeasing soundbyte claiming that singling out Muslims "betrayed" America's identity: "When politicians insult Muslims... that doesn't make us safer. It's just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. it makes it harder to achieve our goals", dismissing ISIS as "killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed", adding: "We don't need to build them up to show that we're serious, nor do we need to push away vital allies in this fight by echoing the lie that ISIL is representative of one of the world's largest religions"; Obama reserves an empty chair for the victims of gun violence; Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) walks out before the speech starts; as Obama begins his last year in office, he has purged U.S. military brass and attempted to fill the ranks with LGBTs and Muslims, you judge a tree by its fruit- and in absolute contradiction to what liar Obama says, the U.S. was only possible because it was free of the Muslim World and Islam, as well as the Roman Catholic world? On Jan. 14 CNN reveals that Ted Cuz failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in Wall St. bank loans during his 2012 Senate campaign, incl. $1.43M from Goldman Sachs and $500K from Citibank, causing Donald Trump to claim that this proves that they own him; too bad, his own disclosure form shows him indebted to several Wall St. banks for way bigger bucks. On Jan. 14 (10:30 a.m. local time) ISIS sets off six coordinated explosions in the C business district of Jakarta, Indonesia before unleashing an arsenal of weapons on police, killing 17. On Jan. 14 comedian James "Jimmy" Ernesto Morales Cabrera (1969-) becomes pres. of Guatemala (until ?). On Jan. 14 the Obama admin. quietly transfers 10 Yemeni detainees from Gitmo to Oman, pissing-off Repubs. On Jan. 14 (eve.) the 6th Repub. Pres. Debate in Charleston, N.C., aired by Fox Business Channel is a V for Donald Trump, who edges Ted Cruz by invoking 9/11 to defend Cruz's slamming of Trump's "New York values"; Cruz tries a little too hard to defend his elibility to run for U.S. pres. despite being born in Canada by reminding Trump that his mother was born in Scotland, even though Trump was born in er, New York. On Jan. 15 al-Qaida terrorists attack Splendid Hotel in Ougadougou, Burkina Faso, vowing to "punish cross worshippers", killing 23, incl. 10 in the Cappuccino Cafe, starting a siege that ends with four jihadis killed. On Jan. 15 (dawn) Al-Shabaab militants attack an African Union (AU) base in El-Ade, Somalia, killing ? and injuring ?. On Jan. 15 the Obama admin. imposes a moratorium on new coal development on federal land. On Jan. 15 Canada's supreme court allows physician-assisted suicide. On Jan. 15 Pope Francis meets in a closed door meeting with top Google exec Eric Schmidt, giving conspiracy theorists ammo. On Jan. 16 oil prices fall below $30 ($29.42) a barrel for the first time since 2003, helping er, fuel a U.S. and Chinese stock market slide. On Jan. 16 Tsai Ing-wen (1956-) of the Beijing-skeptical LGBT-friendly Dem. Progressive Party (DPP) wins pres. elections in Taiwan with 56% of the vote, becoming their first female pres. on May 20 (until ?). On Jan. 16 Pres. Obama pardons three Iranian-Ams. charged with violating sanctions against Iran, and prosecutors drop charges against four Iranians outside the U.S., while Iran frees five Americans incl. a Washington Post reporter and Christian minister Saeed Abedini in anticipation of the announcement of the end of internat. sanctions on Iran, with Pres. Obama saying that it "marks a fundamental shift in circumstances with respect to Iran's nuclear program"; meanwhile the U.S. imposes sanctions against those involved in Iran's ballistic missile program that test-fired a medium-range missle.; in Aug. it is revealed that the U.S. secretly paid Iran a $400M cash ransom, and that the payment had to be made for the prisoners to be released. On Jan. 17 the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq confirms that "several" Americans have gone missing. On Jan. 17 (eve.) the 4th 2016 Dem. Pres. Debate in Charleston, S.C., aired on NBC News, hosted by Lester Holt and Andrea Mitchell and sponsored by the Congressional Black Caucus sees Hillary Clinton portray herself as Pres. Obama's heir, and Bernie Sanders call for a "political revolution" to break the power of the big corporations, becoming a V for Sanders after Hillary "did nothing in the debate to slow the momentum that Sanders is building in Iowa and New Hampshire" (Chris Cillizza, Washington Post). On Jan. 18 after a wave of 600+ attacks, Pres. Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia signs a new law that closes a loophole allowing acid attackers of women to go scot-free, with a min. sentence of 12 years, and 50 if the victim is permanently disfigured. On Jan. 18 the Iraqi govt. announces thei killing of ISIS 2nd deputy Assi Ali Mohammed Nasser al-Obeidi in an air strike in Barwana (E of Haditha), Iraq. On Jan. 18 the British Parliament debates a petition signed by 500K to ban Donald Trump from entering the country, but doesn't go through with it for fear of turning him into a martyr (losing Trump's planned $1B investment there?); meanwhile Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell Jr. endorses Trump at a campaign speech at Liberty U. in Lynchburg, Va., where he vows to "protect Christianity", giving him a boost with evangelicals. On Jan. 18 the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland announces that robots and AI will cause a net loss of 5.1M jobs in 15 leading countries by 2020, 7.1M minus 2M. On Jan. 18 Libyan former intel official Ahmad Qadhaf Al-Dam gives an interview to Egyptian Dream TV Network, claiming that ISIS and other Islamist terrorist groups have gotten hold of the chemical weapons left by dead duck dictator Muammar Qaddafi. On Jan. 18 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announces their 20 nominations for 2015, who are all-white for the 2nd straight year, causing dir. Spike Lee to speak out against the "lack of diversity" and call for radical changes, getting support from Chris Rock et al.; others incl. Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith support the #OscarsSoWhite boycott; on Jan. 22 AMPAS holds a special meeting and announces radical changes to increase the diversity of its membership, with the goal of doubling female and black members by 2020; on Feb. 11 Hollywood bigwig Steven Spielberg utters the soundbyte that there's no "inherent or dormant racism" in AMPAS. On Jan. 19 Chinese pres. Xi Jinping visits Saudi Arabia for two days, meeting with King Salman to discuss trade and other ties, after which he continues to Egypt and Iran (until Jan. 23). On Jan. 19 the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq announces that the Iraq War has killed 18.8K and injured 36.2K civilians since the start of 2014, internally displacing 3.2M. On Jan. 19 Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump for pres. in a speech at Iowa State U. in Ames, with the soundbyte: "Are you ready to make America great again?"; "No more pussyfooting around. Our troops deserve the best, you deserve the best"; "You ready for a commander in chief who will let our warriors do their job and kick ISIS' ass?" On Jan. 19 NBC News announces that Hillary Clinton's home server contained intel classified beyond top secret, causing he to increase her blanket denials of wrongdoing. On Jan. 19 the British govt. announces that it sold Saudi Arabia more than Ł1B worth of weapons to fight Yemen in July-Sept. 2015. On Jan. 20 (5:30 a.m. EDT) there is a planetary alignment of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn as seen from Earth, continuing until Feb. 20, becoming the first in 10 years. On Jan. 20 Taliban militants storm the campus of Bacha Khan U. in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing 30+, mainly students. On Jan. 20 the Pentagon announces that satellite photos confirm that ISIS has destroyed the 1,400-y.o. St. Elijah's Monastery in Mosul, Iraq, the country's oldest, with U.S. Col Steve Warren calling it "a battle of savagery against decency". On Jan. 20 Venezuela is reelected to a 3-year term on the U.N. Human Rights Council despite its Socialist govt. ruining the economy, with 700% inflation causing a dozen eggs to sell for $150. On Jan. 21 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry utters the soundbyte that "the fight's ove" between the Israeli and U.S. govt. over the Iranian nuke deal. On Jan. 21 the govt. of Germany admits that it can't account for 600K of its 1.1M Muslim so-called refugees. On Jan. 21 (night) conservative journal Nat. Review pub. a Special Issue on Donald Trump, with essays by 22 conservative thinkers incl. Glenn Beck, Brent Bozell, Thomas Sowell, Cal Thomas, Edwin Meese, Michael Mukasey, Andrew c. McCarthy et al., who call him "a menace to American conservatism who would take the work of generations and trample it underfoot in behalf of a populism as heedless and crude as The Donald himself"; Trump responds that the Nat. Review is a "dying paper". On Jan. 22 the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that journalists Hamdi al-Bokari (Al-Jeezera) and Abdul Aziz al-Sabri (Al-Masdar) and their driver Munair al-Suabaie have been abducted on Jan. 18 (10:00 p.m.) in Taiz, Yemen. On Jan. 22 Chinese pres. Xi Jinping announces support for a Palestinian state with E Jerusalem as its capital, based on the pre-1967 borders. On Jan. 23 Donald Trump is endorsed by the Nat. Black Repub. Assoc., and utters the soundbyte that he's so impervious to his rivals that he could stand on New York City's Fifth Ave. "and shoot somebody" and still not lose voters. On Jan. 25 four Boko Haram suicide bombers at the central market in Bodo, Cameroon kill 25 and injure 65. On Jan. 25 (eve.) the 4th Dem. Pres. Forum at Drake U. in Des Mones, Iowa, moderated by Chris Cuomo of CNN sees Hillary Clinton square-off against frontrunner Bernie Sanders, with also-ran Martin O'Malley tagging along; Hillary utters the soundbyte that her email setup wasn't "an error in judgment" because "nothing that I did was wrong". On Jan. 25-27 several hundred Muslim religious leaders and 50 non-Muslim observers meet in Marakesh, Morocco to discuss and promote the Marrakesh Declaration on the Rights of Religious Minorities in Predominantly Muslim Majority Countries. On Jan. 26 Al Gore's Global Warning Doomsday arrives when greenhouse gases cause the Earth to go into runaway heat death. :) On Jan. 26 100+ separate strikes are held in France over pay and other issues, incl. taxi drivers and air traffic controllers. On Jan. 26 by 68-42 the legislature of S.C. passes a bill "to prevent a court or other enforcement authority from enforcing foreign law including, but not limited to, Sharia Law". On Jan. 26 (eve.) after they refuse to dump host Megyn Kelly and hire anti-Trump Muslim spokesman Nabela Noor, Donald Trump announces that he won't participate in the Fox News debate set for Jan. 27, with the soundbytes: "What's wrong over there, something's wrong", and "They can't toy with me like they toy with everybody else. Now let's see how many people watch", causing Fox News to respond that Trump'a campaign mgr. Corey Lewandoski made "threats" and "terrorizations", but then turns around and says that Trump is still welcome; meanwhile Ted Cruz offers to debate him one-on-one; meanwhile on Jan. 26 Megyn Kelly hosts leftist filmmaker Michael Moore, who utters the soundbyte; "You asked a great question, by the way. The war on women. God bless you, Megyn Kelly"; Kelly utters the soundbyte: that she "made him run, shut him down." On Jan. 27 (Internat. Holocaust Remembrance Day) France and Italy host Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani, pissing-off Jewish leaders, who call it "hypocrisy". On Jan. 27 the Guardian of London pub. an article citing a U.N. panel's findings of "widespread and systematic" attacks on civilians by Saudi air strikes in Yemen. On Jan. 27 the World Health Org. (ORG) announces that the Zika virus from Africa is spreading rapidly in Latin Am. and has "explosive pandemic potential" because it's spread by mosquitoes, and "You don't need to travel to get the disease", with up to 4M cases possible. On Jan. 27 Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Greek PM Alexis Tsipras sign a 3-way alliance with Cyprus. On Jan. 28 Iranian pres. Hasan Rouhani visits Paris, France, where he is greeted by a group of protesters (Femen et al.) carrying a banner reading "Welcome Rouhani, executioner of freedom". On Jan. 28 Toast Ale is founded in London, England by Tristram Stuart to produce beer from surplus bread, donating profits to charity. On Jan. 28 (eve.) the 8th 2016 Repub. Pres. Debate on Fox News, snubbed by Donald Trump gets 12.5M viewers; meanwhile Trump holds a rally for veterans across town 2 mi. away, claiming to raise $6M; opponents Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee attend. On Jan. 29 the U.S. Special Inspector Gen. for Afghan Reconstruction (SIGFAR) releases a report that claims that Afghanistan is "even more dangerous than it was a year ago." On Jan. 29 indirect talks between the Syrian govt. and opposition begin in Geneva, Switzerland. On Jan. 29 French foreign minister Laurent Fabius announces that France will recognize a Palestinian state if its efforts in the coming weeks to break the deadlock between Israelis and Palestinians fil, causing Israel to reply that it will reject any initiative to restart peace negotiations, accusing France of encouraging Palestinian intransigence. On Jan. 29 the U.S. State Dept. announces that it is withholding 22 emails from Hillary Clinton's email account for containing "top secret" material, plus another 18 she exchanged with Pres. Obama, calling them protected communications - smell the aroma of the indictments? On Jan. 29 the U.S. nat. debt hits $19T for the fist time ever; it was $18T 13 mo. earlier on Dec. 15, 2014. On Jan. 30 after her support slips bigtime, German chancellor Angela Merkel announces that most refugees from Syria and Iraq will have to return there once the conflicts there have ended. On Jan. 30 ISIS attacks Deir Ezzor, Syria, kidnapping 400+ civilians incl. women and children, all Sunni Muslims. On Jan. 30 (night) Islamist Boko Haram maniacs attack a village and two camps housing 25K refugees in Dalori, Nigeria (3 mi. from Maiduguri), burning children alive and killing 100+. In Jan. Hollyweird celebs Jane Fonda, Rosie O'Donnell et al. found Dump Trump, dissing Trump for "inciting hatred against Muslims, immigrants, women, the disabled", "unleasing a lynch mob mentality", and "bullying and fear-mongerng", with the soundbyte: "We pledge ourselves to speak out in every way possible against the politics of hate and exclusion he represents" - the Muslims already beat Trump to it? In Jan. Ben and Jerry's creates Bernie's Yearning ice cream, mint topped by a big disk of chocolate, uttering the soundbyte that Hillary Clinton is not a true progressive. On Jan. 31 after street protests and armed insurgency, the African Union (AU) votes to dismiss a proposal by U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon, U.N. ambassador Samantha Power, the EU et al. to deploy troops to Burundi to prevent possible genocide and prepare for a transitional govt. after the ouster of 3-term (since 2005) pres. Pierre Nkurunziza. In Jan. despite winter weather, 91,671 Muslim migrants enter Germany. In Jan. Pope Francis appoints Barbara Jatta as the first female dir. of the Vatican Museums (until ?). In Jan. Ayahuasca Healings opens the first legal Ayahuasca retreat in the U.S. in Wash. 90 mi. N of Seattle-Tacoma Airport. On Feb. 1 Alphabet Inc. (Google) passes Apple as the most valuable co. in the wold ($568B vs. $535B). On Feb. 1 U.N. secy.-gen. Ban Ki-moon pub. the op-ed. Don't Shoot the Messenger in the New York Times, scolding Israel for criticizing his earlier comments about the justness of the Palestinian cause while condemning "Palestinians targeting Israeli civilians", containing the soundbyte: "As oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism", adding that "History proves that people will always resist occupation". On Feb. 1 U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland disses Ted Cruz for repeatedly promising to "carpet bomb" ISIS, with the soundbyte: "Indiscriminate bombing where we don't care if we are killing innocents or combatants is just inconsistent with our values.... At the end of the day, it doesn't matter only if you win, it matters how you win." On Feb. 1 four members of Hezbollah are arrested in France for running an internat. drug network to fund the org.'s military activity in Syria. On Feb. 1 (Mon.) after Donald Trump disses Canadian-born Ted Cruz as an "anchor baby" who's ineligible to be pres., then steps on his own trunk by saying that as president he'll work with Dems., the 2016 Iowa Primary is a push for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, with Hillary edging him out by a fraction of 1 point; Ted Cruz (28%) wins the Repub. race (first Latino to win a primary), with Donald Trump (24%) coming in er, #2, and Marco Rubio (23%) 3rd; Hillary claims a V before the vote is counted, relieving a meltdown as the primary approached?; Chris Christie comes in 10th, and says that Rubio is "the boy in the bubble"; Martin O'Malley, Mike Huckabee, and Rand Paul soon drop out of the pres. race; on Feb. Trump accuses Cruz of voter fraud for misleading voters that Ben Carson is dropping out. calling for a new election. On Feb. 1 a Panels Politics Poll taken in Tel Aviv finds that 63% of Israelis rank Pres. Obama the worst for Israel in the last 30 years, with Jimmy Carter coming in #2 at 16%. On Feb. 1 Norwegian army chief Gen. Odin Johannessen gives a speech to the Oslo Military Society, warning that Euro countries can no longer count on preserving their values without being ready and willing to fight radical Islam, with the soundbyte: "I think we must be ready to fight, both with words, actions, and if necessary weapons to preserve the country and the values we have in common." On Feb. 2 (eve.) the U.S. House of Representatives votes to reaffirm "In God We Trust" as the U.S. motto, causing Pres. Obama on Feb. 3 to utter the soundbyte: "I trust in God, but God wants to see us help ourselves by putting people back to work." On Feb. 2-Apr. 5 the FX series The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story debuts, based on the 1997 Jeffrey Toobin book "The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson", starring Cuba Gooding Jr. as O.J., Kenneth Choi as Judge Lance Ito, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark, John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, and Courtney B. Vance as Johnnie Cochran. On Feb. 3 the Syrian army backed by Russian air cover captues Nubl and Al-Zahra, Syria in NW Aleppo Province, breaking a 40-mo. siege and causing Syrian peace talks to be suspended. On Feb. 3 former Dem. pres. Jimmy Carter visits the British Parliament, uttering the soundbyte that he's rather have Donald Trump win the White House than Ted Cruz, because "Trump has proven already that he's completely malleable. I don't think he has any fixed opinions that he would really go to the White House and fight for", giving Cruz some campaign fodder to use against Trump. On Feb. 3 lame duck supposedly Christian Pres. Obama visits the Islamic Society of Baltimore, Md., becoming the first U.S. pres. to visit a U.S. mosque, spewing 20 lies about Islam, starting with "We're all one family", "Muslim Americans keep us safe", "An attack on one religion is an attack on all religions", Muslims (like the ones in Nigeria who recently burned children alive?) aren't to blame for Islamic terrorism, and "For more than a thousand years people have been drawn to Islam's message of peace" (on their unconditional surrender terms), lying about the Am. Founding Fathers to make them seem pro-Muslim, incl. how John Adams and Thomas Jefferson kept copies of the Quran, when actually they read them to learn how best to fight two wars against them, with Jefferson writing the soundbyte: "Thou wilt wonder that such absurdities have infected the best part of the world and wilt avouch that the knowledge of what is contained in this book will render that [Islamic Sharia] law contemptible", then playing both ends with the soundbyte: "By the way, Thomas Jefferson's opponents tried to stir things up by suggesting he was a Muslim", not refraining from the past lie that Muslims have always been part of the U.S., telling Hollyweird to feature more Muslims chars. "that are unrelated to national security"; of course he paints Am. Muslims as victims of hate and discrimination, never mind that the mosque he chose has deep extremist ties, that Muslims are virulently anti-Semitic, and that the Muslim World regards him as a Muslim because he was born one?; his constant praising of Islam isn't what a Christian would do, only a Muslim?; real Christian, Am. evangelist Franklin Graham utters the soundbyte: "The foundations of this nation have nothing to do with Islam"; meanwhile on Feb. 2 new House Speaker (since Oct. 29) Paul Ryan meets with Pres. Obama for the first time, questioning him about his admin.'s losening of visa waiver restrictions imposed by Congress in response to the threat of Islamist jihadists traveling to the U.S. in order to appease Iran. On Feb. 3 Hillary Clinton speaks at a Dem. primary town hall in Derry, N.H. sponsored by CNN, ducking a question by Anderson Cooper whether being paid $675K by Goldman Sachs for three speeches was excessive, asking voters to "name one thing" on which Wall Street money has influenced her, with the soundbyte: "I'm out here every day saying I'm going to shut them down, I'm going after them, I'm going to jail them if they should be jailed, I'm going to break them up. I mean they're not giving me very much money now, I can tell you that much. Fine with me, I'm proud to have 90 percent of my donations from small donors"; meanwhile her Super PAC collected $15M of $25M raised in the 2nd half of 2015 from Wall Street, nearly half from insidious billionaire mystery man George Soros. On Feb. 3 the Catholic Bishop's Conference of Ghana announces that they're pissed-off at the Obama admin. decision to transfer prisoners from Gitmo there, calling them "time bombs" and calling for them to be sent back. On Feb. 4 Nat. Border Patrol Council pres. Brandon Judd testifies before Congress, telling them that the Obama admin. has revised the Bush admin. catch-and-release police for illegal immigrants. On Feb. 4 the 2016 Nat. Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. features a speech by supposedly Christian Pres. Obama, who reverses 1,400 years of history by claiming that Christians don't need to fight their worse enemy Islam, making it about us rather than them, with the soundbyte: "Fear does funny things. Fear can lead us to lash out against those who are different, or lead us to try to get some sinister other under control", adding that "a good cure for fear" is Jesus. On Feb. 4 the European Parliament passes a resolution designating atrocities committed by ISIS against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities as genocide. On Feb. 4 Brazil inaugurates a new Palestinian embassy in Rio de Janeiro; meanwhile it rejects Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's nomination for the vacant Israeli envoy position. On Feb. 4 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announce that gay men make up 67% of all new HIV diagnoses, even though they are 2% of the U.S. pop. - they suck? On Feb. 4 the 5th 2016 Dem. Pres. Debate in Durham, N.H. sees Hillary Clinton demand that Bernie Sanders explain his "artful smears" about receiving campaign donations from Wall Street, with Sanders answering that there is an inherit "quid-pro-quo"; on Feb. 8 Hillary speaks at a community college in Manchester, N.H., uttering the soundbyte that Sanders accepted $200K from the main Senate fundraising arm of the Dem. Party, which receives money from Wall Street, and that she doesn't accuse him of letting that influence his opinions, so he should do ditto. On Feb. 5 Bernie Sanders speaks at the Politics and Eggs event in Manchester, N.H., uttering the soundbyte that he's not "Santa Claus", who wants to provide "a bunch of free stuff" for everyone. On Feb. 6 a 6.4 earthquake in Taiwan. On Feb. 6 former U.S. secy. of state Madeleine Albright speaks at a Hillary Clinton rally in Concord, N.H., uttering the soundbyte; that there's a special place in Hell for women who don't help other women, refusing to apolotize; meanwhile feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem utters the soundbyte that young women are flocking to Bernie Sanders only because "the boys are with Bernie", pissing-off Bernie supporters, causing her to womansplain er, apologize. On Feb. 6 (night) the First 2016 Repub. Primary Debate on ABC-TV draws 13.2M viewers (best night for ABC in 14 years), beating Fox News (12.5M) because of the reappearance of frontrunner Donald Trump; Marco Rubio stinks himself up by repeating the same soundbye about Pres. Obama knowing exactly what he's doing by trying to permanently change the U.S. into just another country despite Chris Christie calling him out for being a parrot repeating memorized soundbytes. On Feb. 7 Super Bowl 50 (not L) (Golden Anniv.) at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. sees the 12-4 Denver Broncos (AFC) (8th SB appearance) (coach Gary Kubiak) defeat the 15-1 Carolina Panthers (NFC) (coach Ron Rivera) (first SB with former SB players as head coaches) (3rd straight season played by #1 seeds) by 24-10 after a super boa-constrictor-like performance by the 2000's Orange Crush defense (#1 in the NFL), led by linebacker (#58) Vonnie B'Vsean "Von" Miller (1989-), who sack 6'5" 245 lb. Panthers QB (#1) (since 2011) Cameron Jerrell "Cam" Newton (1989-) (NFL MVP) 7x after he came into the game calling himself Superman and got so much Kryptonite and was knocked on his cam so many times that he turned back into Clark Kent (a classic Greek tragedy?), walking out of the post-game interview and later admitting that he's a "sore loser"; Miller was drafted #2 in the 2011 NFL draft after #1 Newton; Broncos WR (#11) Jordan Shea Rashad Norwood (1986-) sets a SB record for longest punt return (61 yards); Broncos 6'5" 230 lb. QB (#18) (since 2012) Peyton Williams "the Sheriff" Manning (1976-) (known for frequently shouting "Omaha" before snaps) wins his 2nd SB (XLI) (first QB to win with two different teams) (oldest QB to play in a SB after John Elway of the Broncos) (largest age difference between opposing SB QBs at 13 years, 48 days), and sets a record for winning 200 games; Miller is named SB MVP, going on to sign a record $114M contract with the Broncos with a $70M guarantee on July 15, 2016, making him the highest paid defensive player in NFL history; a 30 sec. commercial costs $5M; the nat. anthem is sung by Lady Gage; the halftime show features Coldplay, Beyonce, and Bruno Mars w/Mark Ronson; Beyonce's performance of her new single "Formation" pays tribute to the Black Lives Matter movement, and apparently pays tribute to the Black Panthers; Manning gives a free plug to Budweiser brand beer in his victory speech; Manning retires on Mar. 6 after earning a record $250M plus endorsements. On Feb. 7 former U.S. DHS agent Jerry Holbrook blows the whistle on the Obama admin. for ordering the destruction of classified documents linking radical Islamists to terrorist orgs. On Feb. 7 (a.m.) North Korea launches a half-ton payload ICBM with a range of 8K mi., supposedly to put a satellite into orbit, pissing-off the U.S. On Feb. 7 (Sun.) Donald Trump gives an interview to George Stephanopoulos on ABC-TV's "This Week", repeating his call for the waterboarding of terrorists, with the soundbyte: "I would approve waterboarding, and if you go beyond it, I'm okay with that." On Feb. 8 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin meets with King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain in Moscow to discuss trade cooperation. On Feb. 8 al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) seizes the last of four towns in S Yemen after taking Houta, capital of Lahj Province on Jan. 26, incl. Azzan on Feb. 1, Mahfid on Feb. 4, and Shoqra and Ahwar on Feb. 8. On Feb. 8 the Internat. Civil Aviation Org. (ICAO) proposes draft rules for greenhouse gas emissions for most commercial and business aircraft, requiring minimal changes to aviation design until 2028. On Feb. 8 Pres. Obama signs Internat. Megan's Law to Prevent Child Exploitation and Other Sexual Crimes Through Advanced Notification of Traveling Sex Offenders, requiring the notification of foreign govts. when a U.S. citizen registered as a sex offender involving a minor is about to travel to their country. On Feb. 8 a supporter at a Donald Trump rally calls Ted Cruz a "pussy", giving Trump a green light to repeat the word over and over in mock disapproval, pissing-off low energy opponent Jeb Bush, who utters the soundbyte: "I think how you lead your life as a president is as important as the five-point plan you have to deal with whatever subject it is, and restoring decency back to the public life." On Feb. 8 the late-night TV talk-satire show Full Frontal with Samantha Bee debuts on TBS-TV (until ?), starring Canadian-Am. comedian Samantha Bee (1969-) (Jon Stewart Show graduate), going on to delight in lampooning Donald Trump. On Feb. 9 the 2016 N.H. Pres. Primary sees a record Repub. voter turnout with 263K, vs. 231K Dems, with 15% first-timers, most voting for Trump or Sanders; Donald Trump wins the Repub. vote with 35%, vs. 16% for John Kasich, 12% for Ted Cruz, 11% for Jeb Bush, 11% for Marco Rubio, and 7% for Chris Christie; Bernie Sanders wins the Dem. vote with 60%, vs. 38% for Hillary Clinton. On Feb. 9 Donald Trump gives an interview to MSNBC, uttering the soundbyte that the U.S.-Mexico Border Wall will cost "probably $8 billion, which is a tiny fraction of the money that we lose with Mexico"; adding: "So it's $8 billion, and what we're doing is we have 2,000 miles, right? 2,000 miles. It's long, but it's not 13,000 miles like they have in China. And of the 2,000, we don't need 2,000, we need a thousand because of natural barriers, etcetera, etcetera, and I'm taking a price per square foot and a price per square mile, and it's a very simple calculation", adding it will have "big, beautiful doors to allow people to come into the country"; after Trump keeps emphasizing that Mexico will pay for it, former Mexican pres. Vicente Fox tells CNBC that the Mexican people won't pay a single cent for Trump's "fucking wall"", calling him "ignorant... crazy... egocentric... nasty... false prophet", causing Trump to utter the soundbyte: "I heard he said that we will not pay. Guess what? The wall just got higher"; on May 5 after Trump clears the road to the Repub. nomation, Vicente Fox apologizes, inviting Trump to come to Mexico to see the border from their side. On Feb. 9 Iranian pres. advisor Fahimeh Farahmanpour tells the Islamic Society of North Am. (ISNA) that there is widespread disqualification of women running for parliament (12K), esp. outside the main cities, usually under Article 28 Paragraph 1, lack of practical commitment to Islam; only 1,234 are left, up from 458 in the last election. On Feb. 9 a new U.S. federal commission to enhance U.S. cybersecurity is created to develop recommendations for protecting govt. and private sector data from hackers; on Feb. 17 Pres. Obama appoints former nat. security adviser Tom Donilon as chmn., and former IBM CEO Sam Palmisano as vice-chmn. On Feb. 9 (night) the first Roman Catholic Church service is held in Henry VIII's Hampton Court Palace since the reign of his daughter Queen Mary in 1553-8. On Feb. 10 Chris Christie and Carly Fiorina drop out of the Repub. pres. race. On Feb. 10 (Ash Wed.) Pope Francis dispatches an army of 1K super-confessor priests called the Missionaries of Mercy around the world to forgive sins during the Vatican's Jubilee Year, which ends in Nov. On Feb. 11 Fox News reveals that a battalion of 500 U.S. Army infantrymen are being sent to the Helmand Province of S Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, becoming the first since the late 2014 pullout. On Feb. 11 (6:00 p.m. EST) machete-wielding Am. Muslim Guinea immigrant Mohammed Barry (1986-) attacks the Israeli-owned Nazareth Restaurant and Deli in Columbus, Ohio, injuring four before being killed by police. On Feb. 11 (8:00 p.m. CST) the 6th 2016 Dem. Pres. Debate at the U. of Wisc. in Milwaukee, Wisc., aired on PBS and CNN and anchored by Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill sees Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton square off on several issues incl. Henry Kissinger and Pres. Obama; after Hillary claims that she is better able to form the kind of coalition needed to advance the Dem. agenda incl. tax increases and racial, ethnic, or sexual equality, Sanders utters the soundbyte: "You're not in the White House yet", dissing her for insulting voters' intelligence by claiming that she's not affected by the millions of dollars going to PACs. On Feb. 12 (Abe Lincoln's birthday) Pres. Obama designates three new nat. monuments in Southern Calif. totaling 1.8M acres, incl. Mojave Trails Nat. Monument and Castle Mountains Nat. Monument in the Mojave Desert, and Sand to Snow Nat. Monument in the Sonoran Desert. On Feb. 12 Pope Francis meets with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Cuba, becoming the first meeting between the leaders of the two churches since their split in 1066, er, 1054, with Pope Francis telling him "We are brothers". On Feb. 12 the Quartet meets in Munich, Germany to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian problem, expressing "serious concern" that "continued acts of violence against civilians, ongoing settlement activity, and the high rate of demolitions of Palestinian structures" are "dangerously imperiling the viability of a two-state solution"; King Abdullah of Jordan gives a speech, calling the Israeli-Palestine stalemate "a festering wound" that is "exploited" by ISIS. On Feb. 13 Pope Francis visits Mexico City, Mexico, giving a speech to his bishops denouncing the "insidious threat" of the drug lords. On Feb. 13 Pakistani pres. Mamnoon Hussain utters the soundbyte: "Valentine's Day is part of the Western culture. There is no room for it to be celebrated in Islam and Pakistani culture." On Feb. 13 (eve.) the 9th Repub. Pres. Debate in Greenville, S.C., aired by CBS News and hosted by John Dickerson sees Donald Trump task Jeb Bush for his brother's mistakes with al-Qaida, with Jeb uttering the soundbyte: "My brother helped keep America safe", and Trump countering with the soundbyte: "The World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign." On Feb. 12/13 (night) Antonin Scalia (b. 1936), conservative pillar of the U.S. Supreme Court unexpectedly dies of a heart attack on a hunting trip in Tex., throwing conservatives into a panic and changing the stakes of the pres. election; he dies after attending a meeting of the secret Internat. Order of St. Hubertus linked to the all-male Bohemian Grove?; his death is a leftist conspiracy? On Feb. 14 the world ends, according to an alien at a Holiday Inn in Paramus, N.J. - 1989 film Ghostbusters II. On Feb. 14 Hillary Clinton comforts a crying 10-y.-o. illegal immigrant "DREAMer" in Las Vegas, Nev. who says that she's scared her parents are going to be deported, telling her "Let me do all the worrying." On Feb. 15 Pres. Obama opens the ASEAN Summit. On Feb. 15 the Obama admin. misses a deadline to deliver a strategy for fighting ISIS and al-Qaida to Congress. On Feb. 15 an airstrike on a hospital in N Syria kills 9+, causing Russia to deny on Feb. 16 that it was their fault. On Feb. 15 Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally in Nev., entertaining all by barking like a dog to signal that a lie has just been told. On Feb. 15-16 Pres. Obama holds a summit with 10 Asian nations in Rancho Mirage, Calif. On Feb. 16 Belgian police arrest 10 membes of an ISIS terror cell in Belgium incl. Molenbeek. On Feb. 16 the U.S. govt. approves the first U.S. factory in Cuba in 50 years, a 2-man business that will assemble 1K small tractors a year using Cuban workers. On Feb. 16 Pres. Obama disses the entire GOP pres. candidate field, singling out Donald Trump and publicly hoping that he won't become pres., with the soundbyte: "He may up the ante in anti-Muslim sentiment, buf if you look at what the other Republicans have said, that's pretty troubling too", going after Marco Rubio for abandoning his immigration bill, and blasting them all for denying climate change; Trump responds "He's done such a lousy job as president." On Feb. 17 Pope Francis visits the U.S.-Mexico border town of Juarez, Mexico, dissing U.S. immigration policy, capitalism, etc., walking up a ramp covered with flowers towards a cross "erected... in memory of migrants who have perished trying to reach the United States just a stone's throw away", uttering the soundbyte: "The flow of capital cannot decide the flow of people"; on Feb. 18 Pope Francis disses Donald Trump, uttering the soundbyte "A person who thinks only about building walls, whatever they may be, and not of building bridges is not Christian", causing Trump to respond that it's "disgraceful" to question a person's religion (except when he does it?), and that when ISIS comes for him he will wish that he was U.S. pres.; meanwhile since 846 the Vatican has been surrounded by high walls to keep out Muslims. On Feb. 17 Hollyweird actress Susan Sarandon tweets that it is "insulting" to think that women should vote for Hillary Clinton just because of her gender, expressing her support for Bernie Sanders with the soundbyte "I don't vote with my vagina." On Feb. 18 the Munich Agreement by members of the Internat. Syria Support Group (ISSG) promises to end hostilities and deliver aid. On Feb. 18 the Dinka Sudan People's Liberation Army attacks the U.N.-run camp in Malakal, South Sudan, killing 25 Nuers. On Feb. 19 the U.S. stages an air strike on an ISIL training camp near Sabraha, Libya, calling it necessary for nat. security. On Feb. 19 Saudi Arabia cuts off payment on $4B in military aid to Lebanon for failing to condemn attacks on its embassies in Iran. On Feb. 19 Donald Trump calls for a boycott of Apple Inc. until it unlocks the iPhone 6 of one of the San Bernardino jihadists, Syed Rizwan; Apple stands its ground on privacy principles; Libertarian Party pres. candidate John McAfee pub. an op-ed. supporting Apple, and offers to decrypt the phone for free so they don't have to put a back door into their products. On Feb. 20 the 2016 Nev. Dem. Caucus is a V for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders by 52%-47%; she actually only got 6,316 votes after spending millions of dollars, going from 40 points to 25 points 30 days earlier to 5 points ahead of Bernie at the end; the 2016 S.C. Repub. Primary is a V for Donald Trump over Marco Rubio (despite an endorsement by S.C. gov. Nikki Haley) and Ted Cruz, causing pathetic loser Jeb Bush to drop out of the race after squandering $150M. On Feb. 22 the U.S. Congress returns from recess. On Feb. 22 after receiving millions of dollars in ransom, ISIS releases the last 42 of 230 Assyrian Christians kidnapped a year ago. On Feb. 22 a Russian-backed ceasefire is announced in Syria (until ?); too bad, it doesn't cover al-Qaida, ISIS and other Islamist groups. On Feb. 22 ((27th anniv.) Iran offers a new reward for the murder of novelist Salman Rushdie - thanks to Obama giving them all that dough? On Feb. 22 Russia requests U.S. permission to overfly the U.S. with its advanced high-powered digital cameras under the Open Skies Treaty, worrying the Pentagon, who think the cameras are too good. On Feb. 22 Ted Cruz fires campaign staffer Rick Tyler for spreading a false rumor about rival Marco Rubio questioning the Bible, which Rubio cites as an example of the "culture" of lies in Cruz's operation. On Feb. 23 Pres. Obama unveils his plan to close the military detention center in Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay, Cuba), claiming that leaving it open undermines nat. security, and if you don't buy that, it's contrary to Am. values. On Feb. 23 Jordan secures $1.7B in grants for its Syrian Response Plan for 2016-18. On Feb. 23 the Israeli Knesset holds its first-ever LGBT Rights Day, supported by PM Benjamin Netanyahu. On Feb. 23 the 2016 Nevada Repub. Caucus is a big V for Donald Trump with 45.9%, vs. 23.9% for Marco Rubio, and 21.4% for Ted Cruz; Ben Carson gets only 4.8% despite his soundbyte that Pres. Obama was raised by whites like a white, and he'd be the real first African-Am. U.S. pres. On Feb. 24 failed Repub. pres. candidate Mitt Romney calls for all pres. candidates to release their tax returns, saying that he believes there might be a "bombshell" in Donald Trump's returns; he replies that they're being held up in audit, which has been going on for years because he believes he's being discriminated against for being a "strong Christian". On Feb. 24 after record low oil prices ($33/barrel) the UAE announces a new 5% value-added tax starting Jan. 1, 2018, causing other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members to follow suit. On Feb. 25 (eve.) the 14th 2016 Repub. Pres. Debate at the U. of Houston in Tex. sees Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz gang up on Donald Trump in a last-ditch effort to save their campaigns; Rubio criticizes Trump for hiring illegal aliens, causing Trump to respond: "You haven't hired anybody"; on Feb. 26 N.J. gov. Chris Christie endorses Trump, becoming his first major endorsement, with the soundbyte: "I've experienced that over my friendship with him, and what the American people and our allies around the world are going to understand is that Donald Trump is someone who keeps his word, and that means America will keep its word again." On Feb. 26 elections for the Assembly of Experts in Iran elect a new generation that might choose a new assaholah; legislative elections in Iran see 12K run for office and 5.2K get rejected by the Guardian Council; they are followed by a 2nd round on Apr. 29 for 68 vacant seats are a V for Pres. Hassan Rouhani; for the first time more women than clergymen are seated. On Feb. 26 N.J. gov. Chris Christie endorses Donald Trump for U.S. pres., dissing Marco Rubio as a junior senator that Hillary could "run around the block", and praising Turump as the best person to defeat her. On Feb. 28 U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions endorses Donald Trump, with the soundbyte: "We need to make America great again", becoming a big blow to Ted Cruz; meanwhile Trump comes under fire for declining to disavow ex-KKK leader David Duke, who called him "by far the best candidate". On Feb. 28 the 2016 (88th) Academy Awards, presented at Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. are hosted by Chris Rock, who turns it into an #OscarsSoWhite pity party; Lady Gaga sings for victims of campus sexual assault; the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award is won by Debbie Reynolds; the best picture Oscar for 2015 goes to Spotlight, which also wins for best original screenplay; the best dir. Oscar gove to Alejandro Inarritu for The Revenant; Leonardo DiCaprio wins the best actor Oscar for The Revenant, and Brie Larson wins the best actress Oscar for Room; DiCaprio uses his acceptance speech to push climate change legislation, with the soundbyte: "Climate change is real. It's happening right now"; Mark Rylance wins the best supporting actor Oscar for Bridge of Spies, and Alicia Vikander wins the best supporting actress for The Danish Girl; The Big Short wins for best adapted screenplay; Ennio Morricone wins for best original score for The Hateful Eight; Spectre's "Writing's on the Wall", sung by proudly gay Sam Smith wins for best original song; "Mad Max: Fury Road" wins six Oscars for sound editing, sound mixing, production design, costume design, makeup and hairstyling, and film editing; Ex Machina wins for best visual effects. On Feb. 29 Pakistan executes Malik Mumtaz Qadri for assassinating liberal Punjab province gov. Salman Taseer after he advocated reforming Pakistan's Islamist blasphemy laws, causing massive protests in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Hyderabad et al. organized by Islamist clerics. In Feb. the 2016-18 Big Chill begins (ends Feb. 2018), seeing global avg. temps drop 0.56C, greatest since 1982-4 (0.47C), becoming the greatest 2-year cooling event in a cent. In Feb. U.S. unemployment is 4.9% (vs. 4.9% in Jan.), adding 242K jobs. In Feb. 670 people incl. 400+ civilians are killed in Iraq. On Mar. 1 2016 Super Tuesday is a big V for Hillary Clinton, who wins Ala., Ark., Ga., Mass., Tenn., Tex, and Va., and Donald Trump, who wins Ala., Ark., Ga., Mass., Tenn., and Vt.; Ted Cruz wins Tex., Okla., and Alaska (despite Sarah Palin endorsing Trump), keeping his campaign alive; Bernie Sanders wins Colo., Minn., Okla., and Vt.; Marco Rubio wins only Minn.; John Kasich stays alive with 2nd place finishes in several states; Cruz calls on the other candidates to drop out and join him to take on Trump; Ben Carson drops out of the next debate, and out of the race by Mar. 5; CIA dir. John O. Brennan freaks and launches an anti-Trump spying operation, going on to involve other intel agencies incl. the FBI. On Mar. 1 the aircraft carrier USS John S. Stennis begins patrolling the disputed South China Sea, pissing-off China, which claims almost all of it. On Mar. 1 Repub. S.D. Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoes legislation that would have prohibited public school students from using opposite-sex restrooms, shocking conservatives. On Mar. 2 U.S. Army Gen. John W. "Mick" Nicholson takes command of U.S.-NATO forces in Afghanistan from U.S. Army Gen. John F. Campbell. On Mar. 2 the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee passes a bipartisan resolution declaring ISIS to be guilty of genocide "against Christians, Yezidis, and other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria". On Mar. 2 in reponse to its 4th nuke test on Jan. 6 and its long-range missile test on Feb. 7, the U.N. Security Council votes 15-0-0 for Resolution 2270, imposing new sanctions on North Korea; on Mar. 3 North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un orders his military to be ready to use nukes "at any moment", threatening to carry out a "preemptive attack" on his enemies. On Mar. 3 Repub. pres. loser Mitt Romney attacks Donald Trump in a speech in Mormonland Utah, calling him "a phony, a fraud", warning that a Trump presidency could lead the U.S. into a dark abyss, urging Repubs. to rally around another candidate; meanwhile Trump beats him to the punch with an anti-Romney ad, followed by speech at a rally in Maine, where he calls Romney "a choke artist" and a "disaster" who "was begging" for his endorsement in 2012, and is too chicken to run against him now; in 2012 Romney uttered the soundbyte: "Donald Trump has shown an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works, to create jobs for the American people. He's done it here in Nevada. He's done it across the country"; in the evening the 11th 2016 Repub. Pres. Debate sees Trump's opponents come out er, swinging, with Marco Rubio previously uttering the soundbyte: "You know what they say about men with small hands - you can't trust 'em", to which Trump replies: "He referred to my hands. If they are small, something else must be small. I guarantee you, there's no problem"; at the end they grudgingly admit that they'd support him if nominated because he's at least better than Hillary; meanwhile Repub. nat. security leaders release an open letter blasting Trump, claiming that "as president, he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe, and which would diminish our standing in the world." On Mar. 3 Pope Francis delivers a speech to French Christians, with the soundbyte: "We can speak today of Arab invasion. It is a social fact.... How many invasions has Europe experienced in the course of its history! But it has always been able to overcome and go ahead, finding themselves increased by the exchange between cultures", adding: "A healthy secularism includes an opening to all forms of transcendence, according to the different religious and philosophical traditions." On Mar. 4 a nursing home founded by Mother Teresa in Aden, Yemen is attacked by four gunmen, who tie up and kill 16 incl. six nuns; 60 residents are unharmed. On Mar. 4 the Turkish govt. seizes the opposition newspaper Zaman, causing talk of Recep Tayyip Erogan becoming a dictator or even the Antichrist. On Mar. 4 former Brazilian pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is indicted on corruption and money laundering charges, causing the popularity of his successor and protege Pres. Dilma Rousseff to tank alond with that of the Workers' Party, which has won every pres. election since 2003. On Mar. 5 the U.S. stages an air strike in Raso Camp 120 mi. N of Mogadishu, Somalia, killing 150+ Al Shabaab fighters. On Mar. 5-6 the Org. of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) holds a Summit on Palestine in Jakarta, Indonesia, the fifth in its 47-year history, to devise a "strategy to counter the continuous illegal occupation and apartheid policies by the Israeli government, as well as to advance the peace process and to resolve the situation in Al-Quds Al-Sharif [Jerusalem]." On Mar. 6 a suicide bomber at a security checkpoint S of Baghdad, Iraq kills 47 and injures dozens. On Mar. 6 (Sun.) the 7th 2016 Dem. Pres. Debate in Flint, Mich. sees Hillary Clinton utter the soundbyte: "I think we have to try everything that works to try to limit the numbers of people and the kinds of people who are given access to firearms", causing Bernie Sanders to reply: "What you're really talking about is ending gun manufacturing in America. I don't agree with that." On Mar. 6 (Sun.) Donald Trump grants an interview to CBS-TV's "Face the Nation", responding to a question on his postiion on torture of Islamic savages with the soundbyte: "We have to beat the savages. You have to play the game the way they're playing the game", adding that ISIS savages are chopping off heads and drowning prisoners in cages; "We have an enemy that doesn't play by the laws. You could say laws, and they're laughing, they're laughing at us right now." On Mar. 7 Fox-TV sportscaster Erin Jill Andrews (1978-) is awarded $55M damages in a lawsuit over nude bathroom videos of her shot by stalker Michael David Barrett in the Nashville Marriott in Tenn. and posted on the Internet, finding him 51% to blame, and the hotel 49% - and zillions of more beautiful women give it away on the Internet for free? On Mar. 7 after polls show Roman Catholic support, a group of Roman Catholic leaders pub. an article in Nat. Review urging "our fellow Catholics and all our fellow citizens to reject" Donald Trump's candidacy. On Mar. 7 billionaire Michael Bloomberg announces that he won't buy, er, run for U.S. pres., claiming that his campaign could help put Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in the White House. On Mar. 8 a supermoon combines with a solar eclipse and the flyby of asteroid TX 68 by 19K mi., giving conspiracy theorists ammo. On Mar. 8 a Palestinian jihadist stabs and kills an Am. tourist and injures 10+ others in Tel Aviv, Israel, becoming the 3rd Palestinian attack of the day, with a total of one killed and 14 injured. On Mar. 8 Iran announces that it has test-fired several ballistic missiles (in violation of U.N. sanctions), with one inscribed with the Hebrew phrase "Israel should be wiped off the Earth", causing the Obama admin. to do nada while Hillary Clinton calls for more sanctions. On Mar. 8 Donald Trump gives a speech in Jupiter, Fla., then takes questions, after which reporter Michelle Fields ignores orders from Secret Service agents not to get too close to Trump, and his bodyguard Corey Lewandowski pulls her away, after which the police dept. charges him with battery because she has a bruise on her arm - meanwhile if a pig guns an innocent man down in broad daylight, he's not charged with a speck of dust? On Mar. 9 there is a total solar eclipse. On Mar. 9 U. of Lisbon law prof. (Roman Catholic) (Independent) Marcelo Nuno Duarte Rebelo de Sousa (1948-) (godson of last Portuguese dictator Marcelo Caetano) becomes pres. #20 of Portugal (until ?). On Mar. 9 madass Palestinian Bashar Masalha stabs U.S. Iraq War vet Taylor Force (b. 1987) and injures 10 others in Tel Aviv, Israel before being killed by Israeli police; U.S. vice-pres. is signing checks to Iran and the Palestinian Authority 1 mi. away at the Peres Center for Peace. On Mar. 9 22-y-o radical refugee Somalian Muslim imam ? is arrested hours before he planned to stage a jihadist attack on the Termini train station in Rome, Italy. On Mar. 9 Repub. pres. candidate Donald Trump gives an interview to Anderson Cooper of CNN, uttering the non-PC soundbyte: "Islam hates us... there's a tremendous amount of hatred there", replying to Cooper's question if he thinks the hatred comes from Islam itself with the soundbyte: "You're gonna have to figure that out, okay? We have to be very vigilant. We have to be very careful, and we can't allow people coming into this county who have this hatred of the United States"; he adds that Pres. Bush's invasion of Iraq was the "worst decision in the history of the United States"; on Apr. 8 Trump hires veteran political lobbyist Paul J. Manafort (1949-) as his convention mgr. On Mar. 9 former U.S. serviceman Tairod Pugh (1967-) is found guilty by a federal court of trying to travel to Syria to join ISIS, becoming the first such case to reach a verdict in a U.S. courtroom. On Mar. 10 after 78-y.-o. Trump supporter John McGraw (1936-) is arrested for sucker-punching black protester Rakeem Jones earlier in the day, and Trump's mgr. Corey Lewandowski manhandles young female Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields (who later resigns after her site backs Trump), the 12th Repub. pres. debate in Miami, Fla., hosted by the Washington Times sees Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz get nice with Trump, who uses the photo opp to woo the remaining Repub. voters. On Mar. 11 violence by protesters pro and con causes a Donald Trump rally at the U. of Ill. in Chicago, Ill. to be canceled; on Mar. 12 at a Trump rally in Dayton, Ohio protester Tommy DiMassimo rushes the stage; he previously staged protests where he stood on the U.S. flag; the mobs are the work of insidious billionaire George Soros?; meanwhile Charles Evers, brothers of civil rights legend Medgar Evans endorses Trump, with the soundbytes that he's "the best candidate", those obsessed with the KKK past have to "stop living in the past", and "I believe in him first of all because he's a businessman. I think jobs are badly needed in Mississippi"; on Mar. 13 Trump blames Bernie Sanders' supporters for inciting protests at his rallies, vowing to send his own supporters to his events, defending his rallies by saying there have been "zero" injuries so far. On Mar. 12 (early a.m.) two ISIS chemical attacks in Taza, Iraq (near Kirkuk) kill a 3-y.-o. girl and injure 600, causing hundreds to flee. On Mar. 13 masked jihadists kill 14 tourists incl. four Europeans at a beach resort in Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast. On Mar. 13 after attacks in 15 provinces of SE Turkey, pissed-off PKK Kurds stage an attack against the Turkish govt. in Ankara, Turkey, killing 37 and injuring 125. On Mar. 13 Egyptian justice minister (since 2015) Ahmed El-Zend is sacked for alleged blasphemy by the statement: "Even if he was a prophet, peace and blessings be upon him." On Mar. 13 regional elections in Germany are a D for Angela Merkel in two out of three federal states, while the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party surges to double-digits in all three states, which doesn't cause Merkel to reverse her Muslim immigration policy, instead ramping it up by planning on airlifting them directly from the Middle East. On Mar. 14 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin announces that Russia will begin pulling its troops out of Syria on Mar. 15; Assad didn't request it. On Mar. 14 the Pentagon announces that ISIS leader Omar al-Shisani the Chechen has been killed by a U.S.-led coalition strike in NE Syria on Mar. 4. On Mar. 14 after a resolution was introduced last Sept. 9 by U.S. Rep. (R-Neb.) Jeff Fortenberry, the U.S. House unanimously (393-0) votes to declare the atrocities committed by ISIS against Christians et al. in the Middle East to be genocide; on Mar. 17 after stalling, U.S. secy. of state John Kerry finally admits that "Daesh" is committing genocide against Christians, but incl. Shia Muslims to be Obama-correct; on July 7 the U.S. Senate unanimously approves a similar resolution. On Mar. 14 Pres. Obama meets with U.S. diplomats in Foggy Bottom, praising them for carrying out his policies on the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate change agreement while calling the Saudis "free riders", pissing them off along with Britain. On Mar. 15 the Second Super Tuesday sees Donald Trump trounce Marco Rubio in his home state of Fla., causing him to drop out of the race; Trump also wins Ill. and N.C., and ties with Cruz in Mo.; too bad, favorite son John Kasich wins Ohio; Hillary Clinton wins Fla., Ohio, and N.C.; after his big win, on Mar. 16 Trump announces that he won't engage in any more debates; about this time the Clinton campaign hooks up with Fusion GPS via its law firm Perkins Cole to do opposition research on Trump, and in Apr. it hires Fusion GPS, with Perkins Coie partner Marc Elias as bagman; in June Fusion GPS hires former British intel officer Christopher Steele to investigate Trump's Russian ties, writing his first memo on June 20, alleging that Trump used hos during a 2013 visit to Moscow, allowing the Kremlin to blackmail him and collude with him, which turns out to be moose hockey, along with the entire Russiagate fake scandal; it later turns out that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and his wife Mary Jacoby really wrote the Steele Dossier, based on articles they wrote for the Wall Street Journal. On Mar. 15 the Indian govt. announces the killing of 3 of 10 Pakistani Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists who entered India via Gujarat to carry out terrorist attacks during the Maha Shivaratri festivities. On Mar. 15 Pres. Obama hosts Irish PM Enda Kenny on Capitol Hill, using the occasion to "comment on our domestic politics", saying that Trump, er, the "vulgar and divisive rhetoric" of the U.S. pres. candidates is not an "accurate reflection" of the "American brand", and that "It has to stop", also dissing the attempts of protesters to shut down speeches and engage in violance, adding: "In America, there aren't laws that say that we have to be nice to each other or courteous or treat each other with respect. But there are norms, there are customs"; "I reject any effort to spread fear or encourage violence or to shut people down when they're trying to speak, or turn Americans against one another. And I think as a citizen... I will not support somebody who supports that kind of politics." On Mar. 16 Pres. Obama nominates centrist judge Merrick Brian Garland (1952-) for the U.S. Supreme Court, causing Repub. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to utter the soundbyte: "The Senate will continue to observe the Biden Rule so that the American people have a voice in this momentous decision", referring to a speech vice-pres. Joseph Biden gave in the Senate on June 25, 1992, which contains the soundbyte: "Action on a Supreme Court nomination must be put off until after the election campaign is over. That is what is fair to the nominee and is central to the process." On Mar. 17 (a.m.) two Palestinian jihadists stab an Israeli woman at the Ariel junction bus stop in Samaria, Israel. On Mar. 17 reps of Kurdish-controlled territories vote in Rumeilan, Syria to form a federal system in N Syria. On Mar. 18 U.S. defense secy. Ash Carter announces that Pres. Obama plans to nominate USAF Gen. Lori Robinson (1958-) (cmdr. of the U.S. Pacific Command) to lead the U.S. Northern Command, becoming the first female combatant commander in U.S. history. On Mar. 19 (a.m.) a Boeing 737-800 en route from Dubai crashes and burns while trying to land at the airport in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, killing all 62 aboard. On Mar. 19 a lucky Katyusha rocket strike by ISIS kills U.S. soldier SSgt. Louis F. Cardin of Temecula, Calif. at Firebase Bell near Makhmur (45 mi. SE of Mosul) in N Iraq, becoming #2 since Aug. 2014; on Mar. 21 ISIS stages another attack on the base. On Mar. 19 24-y.-o. Turkish ISIS suicide bomber Mehmet Ozturk (b. 1992) detonates in front of the Greek consulate on busy Istiklal St. in Istanbul, Turkey, killing three Israeli tourists and one Iranian tourist. On Mar. 19 protesters against Donald Trump block streets outside his rally site in Fountain Hills, Ariz.. On Mar. 19 Pope Francis joins Instagram, posting on Twitter: "I am beginning a new journey, on Instagram, to walk with you along the path of mercy and the tenderness of God." On Mar. 20-22 the Am. Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. sees Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz et al. (not Bernie Sanders) give speeches, with Hillary uttering the soundbyte that "Tehran's fingerprings are on nearly every conflict across the Middle East", and "Iran remains an extremist regime that threatens to annhilate Israel", while supporting Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, and Cruz uttering the soundbyte that if he becomes pres. he will rip up Obama's nuclear deal with Iran "one day one", and not tolerate any Iranian ballistic missile tests: "Hear my words, Ayatollah Khomeini. If I am president and Iran launches a missile test, we will shoot that missile down." On Mar. 20-22 Pres. Obama visits Cuba (first U.S. pres. since Calvin Coolidge in 1918), tweeting "Que bola Cuba?" (What's up, Cuba?) from Air Force One as it lands at Jose Marti Internat. Airport near Havana, meeting with pres. Raul Castro but not his brother Fidel and allowing him to criticize the U.S., giving on Mar. 22 a speech to the Cuban people on Mar. 22, with the soundbyte "I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas", adding "We cannot ignore the very real differences that we have", then attending a baseball game between the Cuban nat. team and the ML Tampa Bay Rays, while ignoring all the repression?; meanwhile on Mar. 19 Obama delivers a Persian New Year Message to the people of Iran, pointing to his Cuban visit as "a reminder that even after decades of mistrust, it is possible for old adversaries to start down a new path." On Mar. 21 Mass. Dem. Sen. Elizabeth Warren begins tweeting against Donald Trump, calling him a "loser" whose "insecurities are on parade", comparing him to "many of history's worst authoritarians", criticizing him for racism, narcissism, and denigrating comments about women, calling him a "serious threat"; meanwhile Judge Jeanine Pirro utters the soundbyte: "Why would Republicans try to sabotage their own frontrunner and risk a Democrat winning the White House? I keep coming up with the same answer. The Republican establishment, elected officials and party leaders are in bed with the Democrats! If Hillary wins, nothing is lost for them, it's business as usual." On Mar. 22 (8:00 a.m.) days after Belgian authorities capture ISIS Paris jihadist Salah Abdeslam, coordinated ISIS suicide vest terror attacks at the Zaventem Nat. Airport and the key Maalbeek metro subway station near the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium kill 34 incl. 14 at the airport and injuring 187 in three explosions, causing heightened security throughout Europe while authorities shut Brussels down; suspects incl. brothers Khalid el-Bakraoui (b. 1978) and Ibrahim el-Bakraoui (b. 1976), Najim Laachraoui, who is found to be connected to the Paris attacks, and "man in the hat" Mohamed Abrini; Georgian journalist Ketevan Kardava takes an iconic photo of a victim at the airport; Pres. Obama condemns the attacks from Cuba, ignoring that Cuba is a state sponsor of terror, causing Repub. House Speaker Paul Ryan to utter the soundbyte that Obama's trip to Commie Cuba "legitimizes a tyrannical dictatorship"; on Mar. 23 a Je Suis Bruxelles march sees tens of thousands march; Donald Trump supporters brag about his Jan. 27 interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox Network, where he uttered the soundbyte: "There is something going on, Maria. Go to Brussels. Go to Paris. Go to different places. There is something going on and it's not good, where they want Sharia law, where they want this, where they want things that, you know, there has to be some assimilation. There is no assimilation. There is something bad going on"; Ted Cruz calls for an immediate halt of "refugees from countries with a significant al-Qaida or ISIS presence", and utters the soundbyte: "We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized"; Hillary Clinton utters the soundbyte: "The last thing we need my friends are leaders who incite more fear." On Mar. 22 Donald Trump wins the Repub. primary in Ariz., while thanks mainly to Mitt Romney plus an endorsement by Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz wins in Utah; Hillary Clinton wins the Dem. primary in Ariz., while Bernie Sanders wins Utah and Idaho; the Ariz. election was rigged to disenfranchize Bernie voters? On Mar. 22 Donald Trump and Ted Cruz begin a wife war, dumping on each other's wives then blaming the other for it; too bad, Cruz steals a line from Michael Douglas in the 1995 film "The American President"; after more mutual hate rhetoric, on Mar. 29 Cruz and Trump revoke their vows to support the eventual nominee of the Repub. Party. On Mar. 23 Pres. Obama visits Argentina, where he is coaxed into dancing a tango, and gives a speech holding out Communism and Capitalism as equally viable choices, with the soundbyte: "You don't have to worry about whether it neatly fits into Socialist theory or Capitalist theory, you should just decide what works", causing White House Press Secy. Josh Earnest to explain that Obama really means that "capitalism is a system that brings freedom better than any other one." On Mar. 23 N.C. passes a law dictating which public bathrooms and dressing rooms transgenders are allowed to use, pissing-off the PC police, incl. singer Bruce Springsteen, who announces on Apr. 8 that he is cancelling his Apr. 10 show in Greensboro, N.C. On Mar. 23-24 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry meets with Russian pres. Vladimir Putin and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow to discuss Syria and Ukraine; Putin jokes that things must be "looking blue" in the U.S. when Kerry has to carry his own suitcase off the plane. On Mar. 24 (Holy Thur.) Pope Francis performs the annual foot-washing ritual at Castelnuovo di Porto near Rome, taking care to incl. Muslim refugees, along with Hindu refugees. On Mar. 25 U.S. defense secy. Ash Carter report that ISIS #2 man Haji Imam (Abd ar-Rahman Mustafa al-Qaduli) was killed in during a raid in Syria a week earlier, with the soundbyte: "We are systematically eliminating ISIL's cabinet." On Mar. 25 an ISIS suicide bomber at a soccer stadium in Iskanderiyah, Iraq (30 mi. S of Baghdad) kills 29 and injures 60. On Mar. 25 (Good Fri.) ISIS crucifies Roman Catholic Salesian priest Rev. Thomas Uzhunnalil, who was kidnapped in Yemen in Mar. at the Missionaries of Charity nursing home; on Mar. 28 the chief Catholic bishop in Arabia denies the story. On Mar. 25 (night) after being banned since the were founded, the Rolling Stones perform in Havana, Cuba. On Mar. 26 Islamist terrorists attack a nuclear facility in Charleroi, Belgium, killing a guard and stealing his security badge. On Mar. 26 (Super Sat.) Bernie Sanders scores a landslide V in Wash., Alaska, and Hawaii. On Mar. 27 (Easter Sun.) amid mass protests by Islamists over the execution of a man for killing a prov. governor for alleged blasphemy against Islam, an Islamist suicide bomber at a parking lot at a Christian Easter celebration in Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Lahore, Pakistan kills 52 and injures 150, causing Pakistani PM Nawaz Sharif on Mar. 29 to vow to root out terrorism; on Mar. 30 the federal parliament pledges to keep the death penalty law for blasphemy. On Mar. 27 Syrian forces recapture Palmyra, Syria from ISIS; meanwhile the Los Angeles Times pub. an article revealing that the CIA-armed Fursan al Haq (Knights of Righteousness) have been fighting the Pentagon-backed Syrian Dem. Forces since mid-Feb. in Marea (20 mi. N of Aleppo), Syria. On Mar. 27 (Easter Sun.) Pope Francis gives his 2016 Easter Message, urging the world to use the "weapons of love" to combat the evil of "blind and brutal violence". On Mar. 27 Donald Trump gives an interview to Jon Karl of ABC-TV, who asks him "You call yourself a counterpuncher. Would you be doing late night Twitter wars with world leaders who insulted you?", to which Trump replies: "Frankly, it's a great way of communicating... but I'm not going to be doing it it very much as president." On Mar. 28 58-y.-o. Egyptian Seif Eddin Mastafa (1957-) hijacks an EgyptAir flight en route from Cairo to Alexandria with a fake suicide belt, diverting the plane to Cyprus before being arrested; it was all about love for his Cypriot ex-wife? On Mar. 28 after pressure by Coca-Cola, Disney, Time Warner, the NFL, the NCAA and other big corps., Ga. gov. Nathan Deal vetoes House Bill 757, which was aimed at protecting faith-based believers from being forced to participate in gay weddings, calling Ga. a "welcoming state". On Mar. 29 new security laws come into effect in Japan permitting the self-defense forces to participate in foreign conflicts. On Mar. 29 the Pentagon finally admits that Russia is effectively bombing ISIS, not just anti-Assad rebels. On Mar. 29 U.S. Homeland security secy. Jeh Johnson gives an interview to MSNBC's "Morning Joe", claiming that Repub. campaign rhetoric about Obama's sacred cow Muslims has been "counterproductive"; meanwhile ex-CIA dir. Michael Hayden utters the soundbyte that Donald Trump's rhetoric has "already made Americans less safe" - which as good as admits that all Muslims are ticking time bombs liable to go jihadist when not bowed to enough? On Mar. 30 U.S. Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, known for telling Pres. Obama in early 2014 that ISIS was a "flash in the pan", leading to Obama calling it a "jayvee team", which later made him look like a fool relinquishes command of U.S. forces fighting ISIS. On Mar. 30 Colo. Dem. Gov. John Hickenlooper announces that he's bowing to the wishes of Fremont County residents and opposing the importation of Muslim detainees from Gitmo. On Mar. 30 Iranian author Salman Rushdie, who lives under a death threat fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeini gives a talk at the NYU Academic Center in Washington, D.C., with the soundbyte that it is a mistake for Pres. Obama not to use the term "Islamic terrrorism". On Mar. 30 exiled Muslim leader Dolkun Isa, head of the World Uighur Congress receives an award in Washington, D.C. from the Victims of Communism Memoral Foundation, pissing-off China, which issues a protest; on Mar. 31 Pres. Obama meets with Chinese pres. Xi Jinping in Washington, D.C., agreeing to cooperate on confronting the North Korean nuclear threat, pledging commitment to its denuclearization and agreeing to pass stringent new U.N. sanctions to punish it for its recent nuclear and missile tests. On Mar. 30 (anniv. of the birth of Muhammad's youngest daughter Fatima) Iranian supreme assasholla Ali Khameinei issues the soundbyte that Iran's ballistic missiles are "a source of happiness", and are crucial for nat. defense. On Mar. 30 Donald Trump puts his foot in his mouth during an interview with Chris Matthews of MSNBC, who says "There has to be some form of punishment" for women who have abortions; after an outcry, he rephrases that the doctor should be punished, not the woman, then on Apr. 1 utters the soundbyte: "The laws are set now on abortion and that's the way they're going to remain until they're changed." On Mar. 31 an elevated highway under construction in Kolkata, India collapses, killing 23 and injuring 85, causing police to file charges against the co.'s execs. On Mar. 31 Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas gives an interview on Israeli TV's "Uvda" program, condemning stabbing attacks on Israelis by Palestinians, pissing-off the hardcore Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which burns him in effigy. On Mar. 31 U.S. District Judge Daniel Jordan strikes down a Miss. law banning same-sex couples from adopting, making it legal in all 50 U.S. states. On Mar. 31-Apr. 1 Pres. Obama hosts a Global Summit on Nuclear Materials, with 50 countries attending, but not Russia, which boycotts it; the goal is to keep ISIS, al-Qaida et al. from getting nukes; at a group photo he flashes a peace sign. In Mar. U. of Va. student Otto Warmbier (1984-2017) is given a 15-year sentence of hard labor for trying to steal a propaganda poster; on June 15, 2017 he is flown to the U.S. after it is discovered he had been in a coma for almost a year, blamed on botulism and a sleeping pill, and dies on June 20; brain damage is found, but no botulism - a plastic bag over his head? In Mar. the Mariam Mosque opens in Copenhagen, Denmark, run by feminist "imama" Saliha Marie Fetteh, pissing-off male Muslims. In Mar. the FBI warns the Clinton campaign of a cyberattack, but they refuse to cooperate. In Mar. global CO2 levels break the 400 ppm milestone. On Apr. 1 Bernie Sanders gives an interview to the New York Daily News, in which he utters the soundbyte that Israel killed "10,000 innocents" in Gaza in 2014 - and he calls Trump a habitual liar? On Apr. 1 after being arrested last July, British Muslim delivery driver Junead Khan (1990-) is convicted of plotting a terrorist attack against U.S. military personnel in E England incl. Mildenhall RAF Base; his uncle Shazib Khan (1992-) is also convicted of planning to travel to Syria to fight with ISIS. On Apr. 2 fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan erupts in disputed Nagorno-Karabakh, killing 30 until Azerbaijan brokers a cease-fire. On Apr. 2 Pres. gives his weekly address, with the soundbyte about ISIS that "their morale is suffering". On Apr. 2 the Diyanet Center of Am. Sunni mega-mosque in Lanham, Md. is opened by Turkish pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On Apr. 2 Democracy Spring sees 100+ progressive groups begin 10 days of nonviolent protest marches from Philly to Washington, D.C. to "end the corruption of big money in politics and protect the right to vote for all Americans"; 900-1.2K are arrested. On Apr. 3 (Sun.) Hillary Clinton appears on NBC-TV's Meet the Press", uttering the soundbyte: "The unborn person doesn't have constitutional rights"; on Apr. 5 she appears on ABC-TV's "The View", uttering the doubling down by adding that that unborn children don't have constitutional rights even hours before birth; she pisses-off feminists by using the word "person", drawing memories of the Dred Scott decision? On Apr. 4 suicide bomber inside a restaurant in Dhi Qar Province, Iraq s of Baghdad kills 14+. On Apr. 4 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court unanimously rules in Evenwel et al. v. Texas. Gov. Abbott et al. that non-citizens incl. illegal immigrants can be counted by states when drawing legislative districts. On Apr. 4 N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo holds a celebration for the new $15/hour state min. wage, gaining praise from Hillary Clinton et al., even though she's only in favor of a $12/hour federal min. wage?; on Apr. 4 Calif. Jerry Brown signs a $15/hour min. wage law. On Apr. 4 the Panama Papers (11.5M documents) are pub. online by the Internat. Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), revealing secret offshore holdings of current and former world leaders incl. Vladimir Putin, but none from the West except Ian Cameron, father of British PM David Cameron. On Apr. 5 43 U.S. senators led by majority leader Mitch McConnell present a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of U.S. v. Tex., questioning the legality of the DREAM (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents) policy, claming that Pres. Obama is seeking to "implement his policy preferences" in regard to certain classes of illegal aliens "by the extra-constitutional assertion of a unilateral executive power." On Apr. 5 the Dem. Wisc. primary is a big V for Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders over front-runners Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton (48.3% to 35.1% and 56.5% to 43.1%), keeping them in the race. On Apr. 6 Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Nat. Front leader Marine Le Pen is fined 30K euros for denying the existence of Nazi gas chambers; France is just one of 15 Euro nations that criminalize Holocaust denial; on Apr. 8 another French court convicts two anti-Israeli Arabs, Saadia Ben Fakha (26) and Husein Abu-Zaid (58) of Holocaust denial and fines them 3K Euros for posting "What Hitler did to the Jews was done so that the world will sympathize with them and give them all the rights" on Facebook, even though this seems to affirm the Holocaust. On Apr. 6 former U.S. Rep. (R-Va.) Frank Wolf issues the soundbyte that the fight against radical Islamist terrorists is so bad that "We are in World War III", and that if the Congress and Obama admin. doesn't do something "some very bad things are going to happen in the world". On Apr. 7 PLO secy.-gen. Saeb Erekat rejects an offer for peace talks by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, with the soundbyte: "Netanyahu should first announce an end of settlement, release prisoners arrested before [the] signing [of the] Oslo peace accords in 1993, and recognize all the signed peace treaties between the two sides." On Apr. 7 Air France resumes thrice-weekly flights fom Paris to Tehran after a 3-year suspension, requiring air hostesses to wear headscarves to appease Islam, causing a firestorm of controversy. On Apr. 7 Hillary Clinton gives a speech in Denver, Colo., using a white noise machine to block reporters from hearing what she said. On Apr. 7 former police officer Tammy Grace Barnett (1990-) becomes the first woman to enlist in the U.S. Army at the entrance processing station in Shreveport, La. On Apr. 8 Pope Francis pub. the 260-page paper Amoris Laetitia (On Love in the Family), urging priests to be more accepting of gays and lesbians along with divorce Catholics, dissing the idea of "living in sin". On Apr. 8 Hillary Clinton takes four swipes with her MetroCard to pass through a turnstile at the 161st St. subway station in Bronx, N.Y. en route from Yankee Stadium, drawing snipes by Donald Tripe, er, Trump, Saturday Night Live et al. On Apr. 9 ISIS attacks the Philippine army in Basilan, Western Mindanao, Philippines, killing 18 and injuring 53, becoming the first major ISIS attack in the Philippines. On Apr. 9 Saudi King Salman visits Egypt; Egyptian pres. Abdul Fatah Sisi transfers control of the strategic Red Sea islands of Sanafir and Tiran to him. On Apr. 10 (Sun.) Pres. Obama gives an interview to Chris Wallace on "Fox News Dumday", er, "Fox News Sunday", with the soundbyte after the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton's emails dragging its feet: "I guarantee that there is no political influence" in any Dept. of Justice investigation; when asked about terrorism, he utters the soundbyte that no president has "taken more terrorists off the field" than him; when asked to name his worst mistake as pres., he points to toppling Libyan dictator Col. Daffy, with the soundbyte: "Probably failing to plan for the day after"; his greatest accomplishment was "saving the economy from a Great Depression". On Apr. 10 Tex. Sen. Ted Cruz sweeps all 37 Colo. delegates without citizens being allowed to vote in a primary, pissing-off registered Repubs. in Colo., that they burn their registration cards, along with Donald Trump, who utters the soundbyte: "How is it possible that the people of the great State of Colorado never got to vote in the Republican Primary? Great anger – totally unfair!... The people of Colorado had their vote taken away from them by the phony politicians. Biggest story in politics. This will not be allowed!"; he tells Fox News: "I've gotten millions... of more votes than Cruz, and I've gotten hundreds of delegates more, and we keep fighting, fighting, fighting, and then you have a Colorado where they just get all of these delegates, and it's not [even] a system. There was no voting. I didn't go out there to make a speech or anything... The system is rigged. It's crooked." On Apr. 10 elections in Peru give 40% to Keiko Fijumori Higuchi of Fuerzo Popular, daughter of ex-pres. Alberto Fujimori, who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2009; Pedro Pablo Kuczynski of Peruanos Por el Kambo comes in 2nd at 20.1%. On Apr. 10 Hillary Clinton holds a media cocktail party in Upper East Side, New York City, where she gives them marching orders for rigging the election? On Apr. 12 Pres. Obama dedicates the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality Nat. Monument in Washington, D.C., using the opportunity to plug the pres. candidacy of Hillary Clinton, with the soundbyte: "I want them to come here and be astonished that there was ever a time when women could not vote. I want them to be astonished that there was ever a time when women earned less than men for doing the same work. I want them to be astonished... that there was ever a time when a woman had never sat in the Oval Office", adding: "I don't know how long it will take to get there, but I know we're getting closer to that day." On Apr. 12 the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee releases a European Terror Threat Snapshot, announcing that since 2014 35 ISIS-linked attack plots aimed at Europe have emerged (2/mo.), while 5K EU citizens have traveled to Syria and Iraq, with 1K returning to Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium; it also claims that the terror threat to the U.S. and Europe is "increasingly lethal". On Apr. 12 Irish rock star Bono of U2 testifies before the U.S. Senate State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee, comparing ISIS with the Nazis, and uttering the soundbyte that the best way to fight ISIS is to make fun of it: "So I'm suggesting that the Senate send in Amy Schumer and Chris Rock and Sasha Baron Cohen", admitting that his suggestion might sound "a little bizarre" but that he's "dead serious". On Apr. 12 U.S. Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) utters the soundbyte that the fast-tracking of Syrian refugee applications by the Obama admin. is "a threat to our national security". On Apr. 13 U.S. Col. Steve Warren of the Pentagon announces that phase one of Pres. Obama's mission to "degrade and defeat" ISIS is complete, adding that phase two is to dismantle them before phase 3 defeating them. On Apr. 13 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announce that the rate of syphilis infection among gay men is the highest since the start of the HIV/AIDs epidemic in the 1980s; they also announce that there were 1.4M cases of chlamydia in 2014, the "highest number of annual cases of any condition ever reported". On Apr. 13 U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) becomes the first U.S. senator to endorse Bernie Sanders for U.S. pres., saying that while Hillary Clinton is "strong and capable", Bernie is "boldly and fiercely" taking on the country's problems. On Apr. 14 the 80-member Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace releases an appeal to Pope Francis, calling on him to pub. a "major teaching document" stating that there is no "just war", reversing the long-held Just War Theory of the Church. Cooler heads jokes here? On Apr. 14 Washington, D.C.-born "Science Guy" (bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell U.) William Sanford "Bill" Nye (1955-) releases a video interview with Marc Morano of Climate Depot, er, warming to the idea of jailing climate skeptics; on Aug. 22, 2016 Nye gives an interview to CBS News, acknowledging that climate skeptics have been "surprisingy successful" in influencing public opinion, but only "because they are almost exclusively funded by the fossil fuel industry", which is challenged by Marc Morano of Climate Depot, who utters the soundbyte: "It is the environmental left that frequently enjoys amounts of fossil fuel funding that skeptics never see." On Apr. 14 (eve.) the 9th Dem. Pres. Debate at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in Brooklyn, N.Y. sees Bernie Sanders utter the soundbyte: "This is what you do do", later getting lampooned by comedians; he goes on to diss Israel, claiming that it has responded disproportionately to Palestinian provocations, and that Benjamin Netanyahu "is not right all of the time", adding that the U.S. "is going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity", and "I believe the United States and the rest of the world have got to work together to help the Palestinian people"; Hillary Clinton responds "I don't know how you run a country when you are under constant threat, terrorist attacks, rockets coming at you. You have a right to defend yourself", endorsing a two-state solution that "would give the Palestinians the rights... and the automony that they deserve", adding: "And let me say this, if Yasser Arafat had agreed with my husband at Camp David in the Late 1990s to the offer then Prime Minister Barak put on the table, we would have had a Palestinian state for 15 years." On Apr. 15 the U.S. Army announces that it will commission 22 women as infantry and armor officers for ground combat, becoming the first ever. On Apr. 15 UNESCO passes a resolution calling Israel and "occupying power" of the Western Wall and Temple Mount, and ignores any Jewish connection to it, calling it the Al-Buraq Plaza and Al-Aksa Mosque, causing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to utter the soundbyte: "UNESCO ignores the unique historic connection of Judaism to the Temple Mount, where two temples stood for a thousand years and to which every Jew in the world has prayed for thousands of years. The U.N. is rewriting a basic part of human history and has once again proven that there is no low to which it will not stoop." On Apr. 16 (Sat.) (6:00 a.m.) Bernie Sanders meets privately with Pope Francis for 5 min. at his residence in the Vatican to discuss a "moral economy"; the pope then visits Lesbos, Greece to meet with Muslim invaders, er, migrants, taking four families (12) back to the Vatican aboard his papal plane. On Apr. 16 a 7.8 earthquake near Quito, Ecuador; on Apr. 22 a 6.0 earthquake hits 100km NW of Portoviejo, Ecuador. On Apr. 16 British digital spy agency GCHQ head Robert Hannigan apologizes for the org.'s historical prejudice against gays, saying it failed to learn from the maltreatment of WWII codebreaker Alan Turing. On Apr. 16 the Saudi govt. issues a threat to sells $750B of U.S. financial assets if Congress passes a bill to make it legally responsible for any role in the 9/11 attacks; the only difference since 9/11 is that the threat is now public? On Apr. 17 Israel discovers and destroys a Hamas terror tunnel in Gaza, which on Apr. 18 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls a "pioneering achievement". On Apr. 18 the govt. of Jordan passes constitutional amendments giving the king powers to make appointments to top posts. On Apr. 18 Hillary Clinton gives an interview to The Breakfast Club hip-hop radio show in New York City, uttering the soundbyte that Donald Trump is the "donkey of the decade". On Apr. 18 Bernie Sanders releases the video Love Trumps Hate, slamming anti-Muslim bigotry as distracting people from the real problems of wealth inequality and injustice. On Apr. 18 (p.m.) a bus is bombed in Jerusalem, Israel by a Palestinian Hamas member, injuring 21, causing both Hamas and Fatah to praise the attack. On Apr. 19 the Target retail chain announces that they "welcome transgender team members and guests to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity", causing their stock to drop by 4.2% ($1.5B) by Apr. 28. On Apr. 19 the New York Pres. Primary sees Donald Trump score a big V, with 60.5% of the vote, vs. 25.1% for John Kasich and 14.5% for Ted Cruz; Hillary Clinton defeats Bernie Sanders by 58%-42%. On Apr. 20 Pres. Obama visits Saudi Arabia to meet with Persian Gulf leaders and discuss Yemen, Iraq, Syria et al., failing to bring up 9/11, Sharia, etc.; Michelle Obama doesn't attend; Iranian assaholei Khameini utters the soundbyte that Saudi Arabia is a "corrupt sycophantic hollow regime", adding "To Hell with it." On Apr. 20 the U.S. Treasury announces that black anti-slavery activist Harriet Tubman will replace white slaveholder U.S. pres. Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill; Alexander Hamilton is allowed to stay on the $10 bill after a popular Broadway show lobbies for him. On Apr. 20 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court by 6-2 rules that $2B in frozen Iranian assets must be turned over to the families of Americans killed in the 1983 U.S. Marine Corps Barracks bombing. On Apr. 20 after they refuse to stop at a border checkpoint in Qamlishi, Syria, Kurdish police (Asayish) get in a 3-day firefight with the Syrian army, killing 10 Kurdish and 22 Syrian soldiers along with 17 civilians before the Russian negotiate a ceasefie on Apr. 22. On Apr. 22 the Obamas visit the U.K., lunching with Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle to celebrate her 90th birthday on Apr. 21, then dining at Kensington Palace with Prince William, Prince Harry, and Kate Middleton. On Apr. 22 (Earth Day) the Paris Climate Agreement (Accord) is opened for signatures at the U.N. HQ in New York City, setting a long-term goal of keeping the increase in global avg. temp to below 2C above pre-industrial levels, and limiting the increase to 1.5C, with each country voluntarily setting targets and target dates, along with plans and reporting mechanisms; by May 2018 195 members sign the agreement, and 177 become a party to it. On Apr. 25 Pres. Obama visits Germany, uttering the soundbyte that "Yes, these are unsettling times", calling on Germans to "welcome and integrate people of all backgrounds and faiths and make them feel as one, and that includes Muslims", adding: "And when the future is uncertain, there seems to be an instinct in our human nature to withdraw to the perceived comfort and security of our own tribe, our own sect, our own nationality - people who look like us, sound like us, but in today's world, more than any time in human history, that is a false comfort. It pits people against one another because of what they look like or how they pray or who they love", claiming that such "twisted thinking" can lead to guilt trip, er, oppression, segregation, inernment camps, and the Holocaust, lamely trying to compare the U.S. experience with integrating blacks to their experience trying to integrate intolerant supremacist Muslims, who are known for doing just what Obama says gives them false comfort?; he also utters the soundbyte: "We are fortunate to be living in the most peaceful, most prosperous, most progressive era in human history." On Apr. 26 the Apr. 2016 Super Tues. Primary is a big V for Donald Trump, who wins Conn., Del., Md., Penn. and R.I.; Hillary Clinton wins Conn., Del., Md., and Penn., and Bernie Sanders wins R.I.; on Apr. 27 instead of dropping out, "Lyin'" Ted Cruz announces Carly Fiorina as his running mate; Trump utters the soundbyte: "Frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don't think she'd get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she's got going is the women's card. And the beautiful thing is, women don't like her." On Apr. 26 Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos meets with Maltese prof. Joseph Mifsued, who introduces him to claimed Vladimir Putin relative Olga and offers to arrange a summit, later offering "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails"; in May Papadopoulos drunkenly admits to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer in the Kensington Wine Rooms in London, England that the Russians have damaging info. on Hillary Cinton, causing the FBI to open an investigation into the Trump campaign. On Apr. 27 ISIS suicide bombers ambush a British special forces convoy en route from Misrata, Libya to Sirte. On Apr. 27 Donald Trump delivers his Foreign Policy Speech at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., spelling out an America First approach, staying fuzzy but explaining "We must as a nation be more unpredictable"; meanwhile former House Speaker John Boehner gives an interview to David M. Kennedy of Stanford U., calling Ted Cruz "Lucifer in the flesh", saying "I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life", while claiming to be friends with Donald Trump, calling him a "texting buddy". On Apr. 27 (night) after breaking the Feb. truce, Syrian air strikes destroy Al Quds Hospital in Aleppo, killing 14 incl. two doctors, beginning a massive Syrian army assault on Aleppo, Syria, backed by Russian and Iranian forces, with airs trikes lasting for a week and inflicting hundeds of casualties. On Apr. 30 ISIS car-bombs an open air market filled with Shiites E of Baghdad, Iraq, killing 21 and injuring 42; on May 1 two car bombs in Samawah, Iraq kill 31 and injure dozens. In Apr. the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests near the Standing Rock Indian Rez in N.D. to stop the Energy Transfer Partners' Dakota Access Pipeline from Bakken Oil Fields in W N.D. to S. Ill. because it runs near a sacred burial site under the Missouri River outside the Rez but on land they claim; on Dec. 4 after internat. publicity, construction is halted for an environmental impact assessment. On Apr. ? Hillary Clinton gives a Speech on Income Inequality while wearing a $12,495 Giorgio Armani designer jacket. In Apr. the U.K. requires all dogs to be microchipped. In Apr. the Common Interest Agreement is signed by 17 attorneys-gen. in the U.S. "to obstruct open-records requests" while investigating fossil fuel cos. and climate change deniers. On May 1 the 2016 Fort McMurray (Horse River) Wildfire SW of Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada begins, causing the evacuation of 88K, destroying 2.4K structures, and causing $9.9B damage, becoming the costliest disaster in Canadian history (until ?); it is declared to be under control on July 5 after burning 1.5M acres; no official cause is determined (until ?). On May 3 Hillary Clinton campaigns in W. Va., facing angry pro-Trump protesters who are pissed-off at her promises to shut down the coal industry. On May 3 (Tues.) after Trump begins crowing that he's his party's presumptive nominee, the 2016 Ind. Pres. Primary is a crushing V for Donald Trump by 53.2% to 36.7%, causing Ted Cruz to drop out of the race, and Trump to try and mend his fences with a glowing tribute; Bernie Sanders defeats Hillary Clinton 53.1% to 46.9%, allowing his campaign to keep flying on a wing and a prayer; on May 5 John Kasich drops out of the race. On May 4 Iranian supreme assashola Ali Khamenei announces that before a woman convicted of a capital offense is gang-raped and beaten to death, she gets to choose the number of rapists, 15-30. On May 4 Hillary Clinton gives an interview to CNN's Anderson Cooper, saying that she wants to "take on all the barriers that stand in the way of people getting ahead", putting her foot in her mouth with the soundbyte that she's running to replace Pres. Obama "to really deal with the economy, get it working again." On May 5 EU leaders meet in Rome to discuss the refugee crisis, incl. a plan to find countries that refuse to accept them 250K euros apiece, with German chancellor Angela Merkel warning about Europe "falling back into nationalism". On May 6 Ala. state supreme court chief justice Roy Moore is suspended from office after telling state probate judges to refuwe to issue same-sex marriage licenses until the legal conflict is resolved. On May 6 1996 U.S. Repub. pres. nominee Bob Dole endorses Donald Trump for U.S. pres., calling him the party's best chance to win back the White House; meanwhile Pres. Obama disses Trump, with the soundbyte: "We are in serious times, and this is a really serious job. This is not entertainment. This is not a reality show. This is a contest for the presidency of the United States", claiming that his views will wither under "exacting standards and genuine scrutiny". On May 7 Labour Party candidate Sadiq Aman Khan (1970-), son of Pakistani immigrants (a Muslim Uncle Tom?) becomes mayor of London, England (until ?), becoming the first to lead a major Euro capital, with the soundbyte: "The politics of fear is simply not welcome in our city." On May 7 Hillary Clinton wins the Dem. caucus in Guam. On May 8 (Sun.) Saudi King Salman announces new royal decrees to restructure the country in an attempt to reduce its dependence on selling oil by 2030 AKA Vision 2030. On May 8 60K rally at the Turkish consulate on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles, Calif. to protest the WWI-era genocide of 1.5M Armenian Christians. On May 9 (Mon.) a rare transit of Venus. On May 9 a senior Iranian gen. announces the successful test of a precision-guided medium-range ballistic missile two weeks earlier, adding that if Supreme Assahollah Ali Khamanei gives the order, "We will raze the Zionist regime in less than eight minutes." On May 10 an Allah Akbar-shouting Muslim stages a knife attack at a train station in Grafing, Germany, attacking four and killing a 50-y.-o. man, with the soundbyte: "I'll stab you all, you infidels! Allahu akbar!" On May 10 the W. Va. Pres. Primary is a V for Donald Trump (77% vs. 9% for Ted Cruz), and Bernie Sanders (51.4% vs. 35.8% for Hillary Clinton), keeping him in the race. On May 10 Donald Trump sends an email to Fla. gov. Rick Scott recommending Cuban-born Jose Izquierdo for a judgeship in Broward County, which is done on May 23: too bad, he has a record of supporting criminal immigrants, embarrassing Trump when it is exposed on Aug. 24. On May 11 by a 372-51-99 vote, Italy recognizes same-sex marriages. On May 12 U.S.-backed so-called moderate rebel group Ahrar al-sham stages a bloody massacre in the Alawite town of Zara, Syria NW of Aleppo near the Turkish border. On May 12 NATO's Aegis Ashore Ballistic Missile Defense System becomes operational in Deveselu, Romania; on May 13 another site is begun in Redzikowo, Poland. On May 12 the Obama admin. issues a directive requiring every school district in the U.S. to allow transgenders to use the bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms of their choice, threatening lawsuits or withholding of funds to any who disobey. On May 13 an Israeli attack near the airport in Damascus, Syria kills Hezbollah cmdr. Mustafa Badreddine, a terrorist involved in the 1983 Beirut Marine Barracks Bombing; meanwhile Turkish pres. Erdogan hints at the possibility of sending troops into Syria, citing problems in the border town of Kilis 20 mi. NE of Zara. On May 13 the aging remnants of the defunct Russian Communist Party meet in Moscow and forms the Atheists of Russia to combat increasing clerical influence in the Russian govt. On May 13 govt. watchdog group Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust blasts the "highly suspicious" actions of the Clinton Global Initiative for aiding a for-profit energy conservation firm Energy Pioneer Solutions, which is partly-owned by blond divorcee Julie Tauber McMahon, who is a close friend (lover?) of Bill Clinton in Chappaqua, N.Y., and daughter of millionaire Dem. Party donor Joel Tauber, suspected of being the women called Energizer by the Secret Service because of her frequent visits to the Clinton home when Bill was home and Hillay was away; other co-owners incl. Dem. Nat. Committee treasurer Andrew Tobias and former Dem. congressional candidate Scott Kleeb. On May 14 the Third Holocaust Internat. Cartoon Contest in Tehran, Iran. On May 14 supporters of Bernie Sanders threaten to kill Nev. Dem. Party chairwoman Roberta Lange for rigging the convention. On May 16 the U.S. House of Reps unanimously passes the U.S. Frank Wolf Internat. Religious Freedom Act, sponsored by Rep. (R-N.J.) Chris Smith, upgrading the 1998 U.S. Internat. Religious Freedom Act to give the White House and State Dept. new resources to combat Muslim, er, persecution of religious minorities. On May 16 Donald Trump gives an interview to Piers Morgan of ITV's "Good Morning Britain" about new London mayor Sadiq Khan, responding to the latter's comments that Trump is "stupid" with "Let's take an IQ test", then responding to PM David Cameron's remarks against him with: "I don't care. It looks like we're not going to have a very good relatinship.... Just keep in mind I do not forget." On May 17 Pres. Obama celebrates Internat. Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, with the soundbyte that he's "proud" of his record in "advancing the human rights of LGBT individuals". On May 17 Pope Francis gives an interview to La Croix, with the soundbyte: "I don't think that there is a fear of Islam as such but of ISIS and its war of conquest, which is partly drawn from Islam. It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest." On May 17 the U.S. Senate passes legislation allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudi govt.; the Obama admin. claims that it can open the U.S. open to lawsuits for post-9/11 detention policies at Gitmo etc. On May 17 the 2016 Ore. Repub. Primary is a V for Donald Trump with 63% vs 19% for John Kasic and 16% for Ted Cruz; meanwhile the PC blasts him for his old trick of pretending to be his own publicist, as if it matters whether he's personally on the other end of the phone blowing his own horn or paying somebody to do it for him; the 2016 Ore. Dem. Primary is a V for Bernie Sanders, with 53% vs. 47% for Hillary Clinton; the Ky. primary is a push, with 46.8% for Clinton and 46.3% for Sanders, a difference of 2K out of 400K votes. On May 18 the Afghan govt. signs a draft peace accord with Hizb-e-Islami, led by Gulbudding Hekmatyar, #2 militant group after the Taliban. On May 18 Queen Elizabeth II gives he annual speech to Parliament, unveiling the biggest prison reform since Victorian times, giving more freedom to local wardens and encourage the use of social media by inmates. On May 18 after Gizmodo mag. pub. an expose of Facebook's practice of censoring non-liberal news in its Trending Topics sections, causing calls for govt. intervention, Mark Suck, er, Zuckerberg meets with conservatives and promises that they will quit doing it - no mention of vicious suppression of Islam critics? On May 18 (night) EgyptAir Flight 804 crashes into the Mediterranean with 66 aboard. On May 19 Hillary Clinton slams future pres. Donald Trump as "divisive and dangerous", "unmoored", and not qualified to be U.S. pres. like she is :) On May 21 Donald Trump is endorsed by the Nat. Rifle Assoc. (NRA), calling for an end to gun-free zones; on May 22 Hillary Clinton gives a speech at the Trayvon Martin Foundation's Circle of Mothers dinner, with the soundbyte: "Unlike Donald Trump, I will not pander to the gun lobby." On May 21 Afghan Taliban emir Mullah Mansour is killed by a U.S. drone strike in Baluchistan Province, Pakistan, and his eldest son Mullah Haibatullah becomes new emir (until ?). On May 23 Pres. Obama meets with Vietnamese pres. Tran Dai Quang in Hanoi, Vietnam and lifts the decades-long arms embargo to help it fight China. On May 23 the Obama admin. proclaims Extreme Heat Week (until May 27), ordering federal agencies to work with communities to "enhance preparedness for extreme heat events" - it's a beautiful day we'll have some laughs? On May 23 the Iraqi army launches a major assault on Fallujah, Iraq. On May 25 Pope Francis gives a speech in St. Peter's Square about the Islamist terrorist attacks in "beloved Syria", with the soundbbyte that he prays to God to "convert the hearts of those who sow death and destruction." On May 26 U.S. Rep. (R-N.J.) Chris Smith utters the soundbyte that it is "unconscionable" that of 499 Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. so far this month, zero are Christian. On May 27 Pres. Obama visits Hiroshima, Japan, becoming the first U.S. pres. to lay a wreath at the Hiroshima Memorial, uttering the soundbyte: "We have known the agony of war. Let us now find the courage, together, to spread peace, and pursue a world without nuclear weapons." On May 28 after a 3-y.-o. boy falls into its pen at the Cincinnati Zoo, zoo officials assassinate 17-y.-o. male endangered Western lowland gorilla Harambe, causing a public outcry; too bad, the PC media devotes excessive airtime to this local issue? On May 30 after a Saudi decision to ban Iranian flags et al., Iran announces that it won't participate in this years Hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). On May 30 the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Summit in Paris. On May 31 after announcing in Mar. that he has raised $6M for veterans, but only distributing a fraction, and suddenly releasing more last week, Donald Trump releases a list of 41 groups that he has donated a total of $5.6M to, saying that Hillary Clinton has donated nothing to veterans; actually, it was $70K. In May a Hamas-Fatah Reconciliation Initiative is announced by Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and UAE. In May the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) reaches 5,350 African and Asian illegal immigrants detained along the U.S. Mexico border since Oct. 2015, vs. 4,261 in all of 2015, and 1,831 in 2014, incl. from terror-linked countries incl. Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria, causing efforts to stop them at the Mexico-Guatemala border. In May U.S. unemployment is 4.7%, with the economy adding only 38K jobs. On June 2 Pres. Obama gives the commencement address at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., praising new U.S. Northern Combat Command gen. Lori Robinson (who has never flown a plane), along with gay and Muslim cadets, claiming they will make the U.S. stronger; too bad, a Thunderbirds fighter jet crashes after the flyover, serving as an omen of the new weakened USAF? - women, gays and Muslims, who are ordered by Allah to keep the other two groups down, a match made in heaven? On June 2 Hillary Clinton gives a speech in San Diego, Calif. slamming rival Donald Trump, calling him "dangerously incoherent" and "unfit for office", accusing him of peddling "outright lies", with the soundbyte: "He is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility"; Trump fires back, with the soundbyte: "It was pathetic. It was so sad to watch. She was up there, supposed to be a foreign policy speech, it was a political speech, had nothing to do with foreign policy"; meanwhile House Speaker Paul Ryan breaks and endorses Trump. On June 2 a video surfaces of a gang rape of a retarded 5-y.-o. girl by three Muslim refugee boys in Twin Falls, Idaho (pop. 50K), after which the PC media attempts a coverup followed by intimidation of local protesters; on Aug. 6 Muslim refugee Mohammed Hussein Ibraheim Eldai is charged with the sexual assault of a 33-y.-o. retarded woman, causing another attempted coverup. On June 3 Luxembourg announces a 200M Euro line of credit for space countries who set up their Euro HQs within its borders, claiming it want s to be the Silicon Valley of the space mining industry. On June 3 ISIS burns 19 young Yazidi girls alive in iron cages in Mosul, Iraq for refusing to become sex alaves. On June 5 the Islamic month of Ramadan begins, causing ISIS to authorize a Month of Jihad in the U.S. and Europe; on June 5 Hillary Clinton sticks her foot in her mouth with the Tweet "As we begin Ramadan", as if she is now a Muslim herself. On June 5 Miss USA 2016 (65th) Pageant in Las Vegas, Nev. (first broadcast on Fox) is won by Deshauna Barber (1989-) of Washington, D.C. after social media decides the winner for the first time. On June 5 Pres. Obama talks with Bernie Sanders in a bid to unify the Dem. Party around Hillary Clinton, whom he plans on officially endorsing soon; on June 6 after winning in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman in U.S. history to secure the nomination of a major political party; Bernie Sanders calls it a "rush to judgment" because it counts unpledged superdelegates. On June 6 (7:00 a.m.) a terrorist attack at the Baqaa Palestinian Refugee camp (largest in Jordan) near Amman, Jordan kills five incl. three Jordanian officers. On June 7 the 2016 Super Tues. Primary is a V for Donald Trump, who wins N.J., S.D., Mont., N.M., and Calif., breaking the Repub. primary vote record by 1.4M votes and reaching 1,536 delegates; Hillary Clinton splits the primaries with Bernie Sanders, winning Calif., N.J., N.M., and S.D., while Sanders wins N.D and Mont., giving her 2,184 pledged delegates vs. 1,804 for him, along with 571 superdelegates for Hillary and only 48 for Sanders. On June 8 an Islamist terrorist attack at the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv, Israel by Muslims dressed as orthodox Jews firing homemade machine guns kills four and injures six before the guns jam, becoming the first Israelis killed by terrorists since Taylor Force on Mar. 8; on June 7 Hamas' military wing 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades pub. an article on its Web site calling for jihad and martyrdom during the month of Ramadan. On June 9 Pres. Obama endorses Hillary Clinton for U.S. pres., congratulating her on "making history", and saying "I don't think there's ever been someone so qualified to hold this office"; meanwhile White House spokesman Josh Earnest tells reporters that the FBI investigation into Hillary's handling of classified email is a "criminal investigation", causing Judge Andrew Napolitan to call Obama's endorsement of Hillary a "conflict of interest". On June 10 Ore. judge Amy Holmes Hehn legally changes the sex of Jamie Shupe from female to "non-binary", becoming a first in the U.S. On June 12 (2:02 a.m. EDT) Muslim shooter Omar Seddique Mateen (b. 1986) attacks the hot gay Pulse Orlando Nightclub in Orlando, Fla., killing 50 and injuring 53 of 300 before being killed by police, becoming the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history (until ?); he tells police negotiators that his rampage is retaliation for the air strike that killed ISIS leader Abu Wahid; ISIS claims credit, er, responsibility; Pres. Obama calls the mass shooting (#24 since he took office) "an act of terror and an act of hate", blaming the "assault rifle" (e.g., the NRA), and never mentioning radical Islam, causing Donald Trump to call him a "weak" leader who should be impeached, with the soundbyte: "If we do not get tough and smart real fast, we are not going to have a country anymore"- how long can Obama be pro-gay and pro-Muslim at the same time? On June 13 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules in U.S. v. Bryant that prior convictions from tribal courts can be used to enhance sentences in federal courts, even if the poor sucker didn't have a lawyer, reversing their decision in Burgett v. Tex. (1967) that it would violate the Sixth Amendment. On June 14 Animal Kingdom debuts on TNT for ? episodes (until ?), based on the 2010 film by David Michod, starring Ellen Barkin as crime family boss Janine "Smurf" Cody. On June 18 Donald Trump speaks at a rally at Mystere Theater on Treasure Island in Las Vegas, Nev.; British man Michael Steven Sandford attempts to grab a police officer's gun and shoot him, and on Sept. 13 is given two years in prison and deportation. On June 19 a suicide bomber in Qamishli, Syria kills three at an event commemorating the 1905 massacre of Assyrian Christians by the Ottomans in 1915. On June 23 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court by 4-4 rules that Pres. Obama's mass amnesty plan shielding 4M from immigration lacks constitutional authority, becoming a big D. On June 23 the Brexit referendum on EU membership sees Britain vote 17.4M (51.89%) to 16.14M (48.11%) to leave the EU, shocking da world. On June 24 British PM (since May 11, 2010) David Cameron resigns, and on July 13 Conservative home secy. (since May 12, 2010) Theresa Mary May (nee Brasier) (1956-) becomes PM of Britain (until June 7, 2019) (2nd female after Margaret Thatcher), becoming the 4th leader of a major world nation or org. incl. Germany, the IMF, and the U.S. Federal Reserve; on July 13 Conservative mayor of London (since May 4, 2008) Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (1964-) becomes foreign affairs minister (until July 9, 2018). On June 26 Iraqi lt. gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi declares Fallujah, Iraq to be "fully liberated" from ISIS. On June 26 Pope Francis utters the soundbyte that Catholics should seek forgiveness from gays for they way they treated them, along with women and child labor. On June 27 the U.S. House Select Committee on Benghazi pub. its final report, failing to find a smoking gun on Hillary Clinton. On June 27 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-3 in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt that states cannot place restrictions on the delivery of abortion services that create an undue burden for the woman, becoming the most important abortion case since Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). On June 28 (night) a suspected ISIS jihadist terrorist attack at Ataturk Airport, the busiest airport in Istanbul, Turkey kills 43 and injures 230; the airport repoens within five hours, vs. 12 days for Brussels. On June 29 former U.S. pres. Bill Clinton meets privately with U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch in an airplane at Sky Harbor Airport in in Phoenix, Ariz., causing a firestorm of controversy about undue influence and witness tampering over the ongoing criminal investigations into his wife Hillary, stinking her and her campaign up while putting Lynch in a corner, causing her to promise to accept FBI recommendations in the email inquiry. On June 30 (a.m.) a Palestinian terrorist repeatedly stabs and kills 13-y.-o. Israeli girl Hallel Yaffa Ariel in her bedroom in Kiryat Arba, West Bank, Israel. On June 30 two Taliban suicide bombers target police cadets and first responders in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing dozens, becoming the 3rd large-scale assault since Apr. On June 30 after a landslide V (16.6M votes) Davao City mayor Rodrigo Roa "Rody" "Digong" Duterte (1945-) (known as The Punisher for his zero tolerance policy for criminals) becomes pres. #16 of the Philippines (until ?). On June 30 U.S. defense secy. Ash Carter announces an end to the ban on open transgenders in the U.S. military, incl. those who are actively transitioning. On June 30 the U.S. nat. debt hits $19.38T, the first tie over $19.3T. In June the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the Lake Chad humanitarian crisis caused by Boko Haram has displaced 2.6M, with 3.8M facing "severe food shortages". In summer in honor of the U.S. pres. campaign, Budweiser puts the label "America" in place of "Budweiser" on its beer, causing Donald Trump to take credit; meanwhile Spiteful Brewing Co. of Chicago, Ill. introduces Dumb Donald brand beer, Dock Street Brewing of Philly introduces a series of anti-Trump brands incl. Don't Let Your Friends Vote Drumpf, Short-Fingered Stout, and Drumple IPA, and 5 Rabbit Cerveceria of Chicago renames their leftover beer Chinga Tu Pelo (Sp. "Fuck your hair"). In June the Crazy Clown Epidemic begins in the U.S., with numerous sighting of scary evil-looking clowns. In June a huge stash of AK-47 assault rifles belonging to Islamist extremists is found hidden near a mosque in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany. In June the U.S. home ownership rate falls to 62.9%, lowest since 1965. In June U.S. unemployment is 4.9% (vs. 4.7% fo May), with the economy adding 287K jobs. In early July after Rev. Evan Mawarire posts a protest video on Facebook against the regime of Robert Mugabe, protests begin in Harare, Zimbabwe, becoming the biggest in a decade, causing the govt. to persecute Mawarire, who flees with his family to the U.S. via South Africa, then attempt a shutdown of all social media. On July 1 (9:20 p.m.) a team of six ISIS suicide bombers at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dakha, Bangladesh take 40 hostages and kill four security personnel, killing torturing and killing 20 incl. by beheading after sparing those who could recite a verse fromt he Quran; on July 7 6-7 more jihadists attack an Eid gathering in Kishoreganj, Bangladesh, killing three incl. two police officers, losing two attackers. On July 2 (a.m.) the FBI questions Hillary Clinton for 3.5 hours over her private email server. On July 2 Donald Trump retweets an anti-Hillary Clinton cartoon displaying the words "Most corrupt candidate ever" on a sheriff's badge, which Hillary supporters immediately claim is a Star of David to deflect attention, snookering even House Speaker Paul Ryan, who calls on Trump to "clean this up"; of course, Hillary isn't even Jewish. On July 2 (night) a suicide truck bombing in the busy Karrada neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq kills 200 and injures 147. On July 3 (a.m.) a massive suicide bombing in C Baghdad, Iraq kills 250, becoming the deadliest since the 2003 invasion. On July 4 a suicide bomber near the U.S. consulate in Jedda, Saudi Arabia injures two security officers; on July 5 three more Saudi cities ae bombed incl. near the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. On July 4 NASA's JUNO spacecraft goes into polar orbit around Jupiter. On July 5 Pres. Obama and Hillary Clinton campaign together for the first time in Charlotte, N.C., calling Hillary's bid a 3rd term for Obama; meanwhile FBI dir. #7 (since Sept. 4, 2013) James Brien "Jim" Comey Jr. (1960-) announces that the FBI recommends no charges against Hillary in their airmail, er, email probe, despite her team being "extremely careless about how it handled her emails", pissing-off Repubs., with House Speaker Paul Ryan uttering the soundbyte that it "defies explanation", calling for the FBI to release the details of its investigations if they want voters to swallow the conclusions, and Donald Trump uttering the soundbyte that this proves that the "system is rigged"; Comey adds the revealing soundbyte: "To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now"; Comey has past connections with the Clinton Foundation; meanwhile Romanian hacker Marcel Lazar Lehel AKA Guccifer (1971-), who is being held in jail in Va. for admitting to hacking Hillary's personal email server is rumored to have been found dead in his jail cell, which turns out false; no surprise, on July 6 U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch announces that Hillary and her aides won't be charged with a speck of dust; on July 7 Comey is questioned by House Repubs., uttering the soundbyte that Hillary is not "sophisticated enough" (i.e., is too stupid) to understand that (C) next to a paragraph means that it's classified; meanwhile on July 7 a group of Repub. senators led by Marco Rubio of Fla. petition the U.S. State Dept. to suspend the security clearances of Hillary and her top aides; on July 12 U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch meets with irate House Repubs., and refuses to explain why she let Hillary off the hook, passing the buck to the U.S. Justice Dept. and the FBI; on July 22 the FBI discloses that Hillary exchanged 22 top-secret emails with staff members Jacob Sullivan, Cheryl Mills, and William Burns. On July 5 (12:35 a.m.) after being reported threatening somebody with a gun outside a convenience store, 37-y.-o. black man Alton Sterling (b. 1988), known as CD Man for selling illegal CDs is tackled by two white Baton Route, La. police officers then fatally shot several times at point-black, er, point-blank range, triggering nationwide protests, resulting in a U.S. Dept. of Justice investigation next May, which results in no criminal charges, after which in Mar. 2018 La. atty. gen. Jeff Landry does ditto. On July 5 the Dem. Nat. Committee Server is hacked by hacker Guccifer 2.0, which is used by the Dems. to blame the Russians; later investigation proves it to be an inside job? On July 6 thousands stage a peaceful stay-at-home protest against the ruling Zimbabwean African Nat. Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) in Zimbabwe, with the Twitter hashtag #ZimShutDown2016. On July 6 after citing the Taliban's threat, Pres. Obama announces a slowdown of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving about 8.5K troops at the end of the year after reducing the current force by 9.8K. On July 6 the 2.6M-word Chilcot Report, chaired by Sir John Chilcot (1939-) is pub., giving the results of the Iraq Inquiry announced on June 15, 2009 by PM Gordon Brown, detailing all the blunders made by the British govt. in the Iraq War in 2003-9 but clearing PM Tony Blair of crimes. On July 6 32-y.-o. black high school nutrition services supervisor Philando Castile (b. 1983) is shot and killed in Falcon Heights (near Saint Paul), Minn. police officer Jeronimo Yanez after being pulled over and asked to produce his license and registration and informing the officer that he had a firearm, shooting 7x first and asking questions later, after which his girlfriend Diamond Reynolds live-streams video of him slumping and moaning on Facebook while the officer does nothing to aid him, after which he dies in Hennepin County Medical Center at 9:37 CDT; after a public outcry that adds to those over Alton Sterling, Yanez is charged with 2nd deg. manslaughter, and acquitted on June 16, 2017. On July 7 after gagging on "Tarmacgate" (coined by Donald Trump), the full U.S. House GOP Conference of 200+ meets with Donald Trump at Repub. Nat. Committee HQ, giving him a chance to push their buttons. On July 7 (9:00 p.m.) amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests against recent police murders of blacks, hours after Pres. Obama gives a speech on the police shootings in La. and Minn., white police officers in Dallas, Tex. are ambushed by black Nation of Islam member rooftop sniper (U.S. Army Afghanistan vet) Micah Xavier Johnson (b. 1991), who kills five (incl. a transit authority policeman) and injures nine, becoming the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since 9/11, causing Pres. Obama to break off in Warsaw, Poland to condemn the shooters, taking pains to lobby for gun control; three suspects are taken into custody; Johnson is cornered in El Centro College and killed with a bomb robot during negotiations after uttering the soundbyte "I want to kill white people." On July 9 Syrian helis first use 100m explosive-packed explosive hoses in the rebel-held al-Breij neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria. apologizes. On July 10 Dem. Nat. Committee staffer Seth Conrad Rich (b. 1989) is murdered by a gunman as he walks home in Bloomingdale, Washington, D.C.; despite nothing taken, police call it a botched robbery; WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later implies that he is the source of the damaging emails posted days before the Dem. Nat. Convention; this adds to the recent suspicious deaths of U.N. official John Ashe (June 22), Victor Thorn (Aug. 1), and Shawn Lucas (Aug. 4). On July 10-18 the 2016 African Union (AU) Summit in Kigali, Rwanda unveils the African Union Passport; Morocco, which left the AU in 1984 requests reinstatement and sends a delegation; the AU announces the sending of a new technical team to N Mali to determine how to deploy a U.N. peacekeeper force. On July 11 U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gives an interview to the New York Times, dissing Donald Trump and saying that if he were elected "it's time for us to move to New Zealand", causing Trump to demand her resignation for getting involved in politics, after which on July 14 she backs down and On July 12 (9 a.m.) after days of fighting that killed 300+, homeless protesters in a U.N. base in Juba, South Sudan are tear-gassed by U.N. police. On July 12 Bernie Sanders cops-out and endorses Hillary Clinton for U.S. pres. in Portsmouth, N.H., while taking veiled shots at her Wall Street contributions and superdelegates. On July 12 a U.N. tribunal rules that China's claims to sovereignty over the South China Sea violate internat. law, as do its enforcement attempts; too bad, there are no teeth to their ruling. On July 13 Germany pub. a white paper announcing its new policy of using its army to protect its interests abroad, with the goal of "countering security threats... to our free and safe world trade and supply routes." On July 14 (10:30 p.m. local time) after a fireworks show ends and he tells guards he's bringing ice cream to the crowd, 31-y.-o. Tunisian-born Allah Akbar-shouting jihadist Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel (b. 1985) crashes his rented 21-ton truck into the Bastille Day crowd near Neptune Beach in Nice, France, driving at up to 55 mph for more than 1 mi. along a promenade then emerging and firing a gun at random, killing 84 (incl. 10 children) and injuring 100 before being killed by police, causing French pres. Francois Hollande to call it a terrorist attack, with the soundbyte: "Nothing will make us give way in the fight against terrorism... France as a whole is under the threat of Islamic terrorism. We have to demonstrate absolute vigilance and show determination that is unfailing", causing Pres. Obama's Muslim-loving White House to respond that "France and the United States share a commitment to protecting religious liberty for those of all faiths, and today's violence will not shake that committment"; ISIS claims Bouhlel as one of their soldiers; U2 lead singer Bono was next to the seafront on the terrace of La Petite Maison duing the attack; on July 18 French PM Manuel Valls is booed by angry crowds in Nice - when will Pres. Obama blame this truck attack on guns? On July 14 the city council of Pensacola, Fla. bows to PC pressure and allows their meeting to be opened with a Satanic invocation by Satanic Temple priest David Suhor amid hundreds of protesters. On July 14 (eve.) Pres. Obama holds a town hall discussion on Disney Media Networks, defending both the police and Black Lives Matter. On July 15 Donald Trump announces his selection of Ind. Repub. gov. #50 (since 2013) Michael Richard "Mike" Pence (1959-) (Tea Party member who earlier supported Ted Cruz) as his vice-pres. running mate, in hopes that he will bridge the gap with the rest of the Repubs. at the upcoming convention. On July 15 64 U.S. House Repubs. led by U.S. Rep. (R-Tenn.) Marsha Blackburn send a letter to the IRS asking them to investigate the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation for "public corruption", claiming that it is a "lawless pay-to-play enterprise that has been operating under a cloak of philanthropy for years and should be investigated." On July 15 (night) while he is returning to Istanbul from the coastal resort of Marmaris, the secular military in Turkey attempts a coup against the Islamist-leaning civilian govt. of pres. Tayyip Recep Erdogan, becoming the 5th since 1960; no surprise, the Obama admin. supports Erdogan, despite his recent attempts at authoritarianism; by early July 16 the coup crumbles amid pro-Erdogan crowds taking to the street accompanied by pro-Erdogan police, with 190 killed incl. 41 police and two soldiers; Erdogan announces that the coup is the work of exiled secular Muslim leader Fethullah Gulen, and that he intends to punish the U.S. for not extraditing him; on July 16 eight Turkish soldiers in a Blackhawk heli land in Alexandroupolis, Greece seeking asylum, but they are arrested with the intent of repatriating them instead; on July 20 Erdogan declares a state of emergency, going on to remove 60K public employees and jail 10K while stripping journalists and pub. houses of their licenses; the coup was staged by Erdogan to consolidate his dictatorship?; on Sept. 28 the Turkish govt. announces the arrest of 32K for alleged links to Gulen. On July 15 the 28-page Censored Chapter of the 2002 9/11 Report that was suppressed for 13 years is finally released, clearing the Saudi govt. of supporting the 9/11 jihadists; too bad, some sections are still censored. On July 17 (9:40 a.m. EDT) African-Am. former U.S. Marine and Nation of Islam member Gavin Eugene Long (b. 1987) AKA Cosmo Ausar Setepenra of Kansas City, Mo. ambushes policemen 1 mi. from police HQ in Baton Rouge, La., killing three and injuring three before being killed. On July 18 a 17-y.-o. Allah-Akbar-shouting Afghan-born Muslim wielding an axe on a train in Wurzburg, Bavaria, Germany injures 21 before being killed by police. On July 18 Mexican pres. Enrique Pena Nieto signs new laws requiring public servants to disclose their financial assets, interest and tax payments for the first time ever. On July 18-21 the 2016 Repub. Nat. Convention at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio starts out with anti-Trump delegates losing a vote to changing the nominating rules, then yelling and storming out; on July 18 Melana Trump gives a speech to 35M viewers, attempting to humanize her hubby; too bad, it apparently plagiarizes Michelle Obama's speech at the 2008 Dem. Convention, although she is speaking in a foreign language and might be given a pass, and the Trump Campaign denies it, with chmn. Paul Manafort uttering the soundbyte: "These were common words and values - that she cares about her family"; on July 19 Trump is officially nominated by 1700+ delegates, while Hillary Clinton compares the GOP convention to the "surreal" 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz"; on July 19 Muslim imam Muslims for Trump founder Sajid Tarar of Baltimore, Md. delivers the concluding prayer, causing Christian attendee Kim Coley to shout "No Islam"; on July 20 Trump speechwriter Meredith McIver takes blame for the plagiarism, but her offer to resign is rejected; on July 19 Donald Trump Jr. gives a speech praising his dad; too bad, it contains more plagiarism; on July 20 history expert Newt Gingich gives a speech warning that the U.S. is "at war with radical Islamists", with the soundbyte "We are sleepwalking through history"; on July 20 conservative commentator Laura Ingraham gives a speech, challenging former Trump rivals to get over their "wounded feelings and bruised egos" and "honor your pledge to support Donald Trump now, tonight"; Ted Cruz follows with his speech, and is booed when he refuses to endorse Trump and instead urges people to "vote your conscience up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution", reneging on his pledge to support the Repub. nominee, causing the audience to begin chanting "We want Trump!"; Cruz is followed by Mike Pence, who calls himself "a Christian, a Conservative, and a Republican, in that order", and praises Trump as a fellow Conservative; on July 21 Cruz says that it "was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi that I'm going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father", after which on July 22 Trump announces that he will never accept Cruz's endorsement; on July 21 Trump accepts his nomination, giving a record 73-min. speech filled with a long string of promises incl. safety on the street, nat. security, jobs for all, an end to illegal immigration incl. from "compromised" (Muslim) countries et al., coopting Pres. Obama's 2008 change slogan with the soundbyte: "My message is that things have to change, and they have to change right now", along with the soundbytes: "A number of these reforms that I will outline tonight will be opposed by some of our nation's most powerful special interests. That's because these interests have rigged our political and economic system for their exclusive benefit. Believe me — it's for their benefit"; "We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore", "I am your voice. I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good. I have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens", and "Make America great again." On July 20 the U.S. Treasury Dept. sanctions three high-level al-Qaida operatives living in Iran, incl. Faisal Jassim Mohammed al-Amri Al-Khalidi, Yisra Muhammad Ibrahim Bayumi, and Abu Bakr Muhammad Ghumayn, slipping up and revealing Iranian support for al-Qaida. On July 21 police in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil arrest 10 people after they openly pledge allegiance to ISIS and threaten the upcoming Olympics, and announce a search for two others, becoming the first known ISIS supporters in South Am. On July 21 Gregry Hubbard AKA Jibreel (1963-) is arrested at Miami Internat. Airport in Fla.; on May 16, 2018 he and Dayne Antani Christian AKA Shakur (1984-) and Darren Arness jackson AKA Daoud (1964-) are sentenced to prison for conspiring to provide material support to ISIS. On July 21 two weeks late, lying sack of er, Pres. Obama holds a celebration in honor of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday (end of Ramadan), inviting notorious Islamists from CAIR et al. then turning around and praising LGBT Muslims, uttering the soundbytes: "Muslim-Americans are as patriotic, as integrated, as American as any other members of the American family", and "Whether your family's been here for generations or you're a new arrival, you're an essential part of the fabric of our country", lying that for "centuries" Am. Muslims have helped to build America as farmers, merchants, factory workers, architects, teachers and community leaders, adding "And Muslim Americans have enriched our lives every single day" - this is my party? On July 22 Pres. Obama holds a White House press conference to diss Donald Trump, with the soundbytes: "Some of the fears that were expressed throughout the week just don't jibe with the facts", "The violent crime rate in America has been lower during my presidency than any time during the last three or four decades", "The idea that America is somehow on the verge of collapse, this vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn't really jib with the experience of most people", adding that he hopes that fellow Americans wake up and realize that there are "birds chipring... and folks are going to work." On July 21 after allegations by Fox News reporters Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly that he made unwanted sexual advances toward them as long as 10 years earlier, Fox News CEO (since Oct. 7, 1996) Roger Eugene Ailes (1940-) resigns with a $40M golden parachute severance package, and is replaced by Rupert Murdoch; on Sept. 5 Carlson settles her lawsuit with Fox News for $20M; it was all a set-up by Murdoch, who long wanted to get rid of him? On July 22 lone 18-y.-o. Allah-Akbar-shouting Iranian-German gunman Ali David Sonboly (b. 1998), wearing black clothes at a shopping center in Munich, Germany ambushes and kills nine and injures 16 before killing himself, after which authorities claim he's not associated with ISIS; he's really a pro-Turkish Syrian and the Merkel govt. covered it up to avoid political reaction? On July 22 Hillary Clinton announces U.S. Sen. (since 2013) Timothy Michael "Tim" Kaine (1958-) (a devout Roman Catholic schooled by Jesuits who loves Pope Francis and opposes abortion but supports Roe v. Wade and same-sex marriage) as her vice-pres. running mate, causing Donald Trump to begin calling him "Corrupt Kaine"; meanwhile on July 22 WikiLeaks pub. 19,252 emails hacked from the Dem. Nat. Committee from hacking group Guccifer 2.0, revealing that they tried to use Bernie Sanders' atheist religious beliefs to derail his pres. campaign, causing DNC chmn. Debbie Wasserman Schultz to cancel her speaking date at the Dem. convention, while Sanders demands her resignation, which she tenders on July 24; meanwhile Clinton's campaign mgr. blames Russian hackers for leaking the emails, but doesn't try to explain why the DNC did it in the first place; on July 25 as the convention is about to convene, Schultz is replaced as convention chmn. by U.S. rep. (D-Ohio) Marcia Fudge, chmn. of the Congressional Black Caucus. On July 23 dual suicide bombings in Dehmazang Square in Kabul, Afghanistan targeting mainly Hazaras kill 80+ and injure 231; ISIS claims responsibility. On July 23 G-20 members meet in Chengdu, China to discuss Brexit and other threats to their precious globalization dream. On July 23 (night) after pledging allegiance to ISIS, 27-y.po. Syrian suicide bomber Mohammad Daleel Rambo, nicknamed Rambo detones outside a music festival in Ansbach (near Nuremberg), Germany, injuring 15. On July 24 Verizon announces that it's acquiring Yahoo's core business for $4.8B. On July 25 a CNN Poll shows Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton by 44% to 39%, with 68% of Americans saying that Hillary is dishonest and untrustworthy. On July 25-28 the 2016 Dem. Nat. Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Penn. starts out with Bernie Sanders supporters echoing the Repub. Convention with shouts of "Lock her up!", followed on July 25 by Debbie Wasserman Schultz being booed off the stage at a breakfast for the Fla. delegation; on July 25 (eve.) after his supporters disrupt the convention with stubborn determination to nominate him despite all, Bernie Sanders gives a speech, totally selling out to Queen Hillary, telling them to support her, and warning them against supporting Trump, saying that the choice is "not even close"; Michelle Obama gives a speech dissing Trump, with the soundbyte: "Don't let anyone ever tell you that this country isn't great, that somehow we need to make it great again, because this right now is the greatest country on Earth"; Elizabeth Warren gives a speech that tears into Trump, while Bernie supporters heckle and boo her, shouting "We trusted you"; Sanders supporters later complain that their signs were ripped out of their hands and they were threatened with losing their credentials; there are no red-white-blue U.S. flags visible at the convention, but there are Soviet flags?; on July 26 (eve.) after Bernie Sanders officially names her, Hillary is officially nominated as his uncontrollable supporters walk out and storm the media tent, becoming the first woman nominated as U.S. pres. by a major political party, bringing out the female sexists bigtime as she utters the soundbyte "We just put the biggest crack in that glass ceiling yet"; ex-U.S. pres. Bill Clinton gives a glowing speech pushing his wife as a "change-maker"; on July 27 Donald Trump utters the soundbyte that he hopes the Russians "have the 33,000 emails that she lost and deleted", expressing hope that they will release them so that she can be exposed and prosecuted; the Dems. attempt to turn it around by claiming he's calling on the Russians to hack her, with Hillary's senior policy advisor Jake Sullivan uttering the soundbyte: "This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent", when if they did it it was long ago, and he's just asking them to give us the booty so she can be prosecuted, not necessarily to interfere in an election; too bad, in June the Internat. Strategic Studies Assoc.'s Defense and Foreign Affairs mag. already pub. a warning that according to "reliable" sources, warnings to that effect had been received fom Moscow; on July 28 Trump flops and claims he was just being satirical; on July 27 (eve.) the Dems. pull out all the stops in their frantic effort to turn the polls around; billionaire Michael Bloomberg gives a speech claiming to be an independent who hates Trump because he's a "dangerous demagogue", with the soundbytes: "The richest thing about Donald Trump is his hypocrisy", "The bottom line is, Trump is a risky, reckless, and radical choice, and we can't afford to make that choice", and "Throughout his career, Trump has left behind a well-documented record of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits, angry shareholders and contractors who feel cheated, and disillusioned customers who feel ripped off. Trump says he wants to run the nation like he's run his business. God help us"; Joe Biden gives a speech blasting Trump for his trademark phrase "You're fired!", with the soundbyte: "How can there be pleasure in saying you're fired? He's trying to tell us he cares about the middle class? Give me a break. That's a bunch of malarkey"; Tim Kaine gives a speech, mocking Trump for his phrase "Trust me" while glowingly portraying Hillary as someone he'd trust to protect his son's life, with the soundbyte: "Hillary Clinton is lista (Sp. "ready"); after staying up until 3:00 a.m. to finish polishing it, Pres. Obama gives the final speech, starting with calling the upcoming election "a more fundamental choice of who we are as a people", knocking it out of the park by portraying Trump as a combo P.T. Barnum and Mussolini while portraying Hillary as the most qualified person in history to carry on his legacy, with the soundbytes: "Anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadis or home-grown demagogues will always fail in the end"; "Our power doesn't come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don't look to be ruled"; "Tonight I ask you to do for Hillary Clinton what you did for me. I ask you to carry her the same way you carried me", "America is already great. America is already strong. And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump", "I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman - not me, not Bill, nobody - more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America", and "My time in this office hasn't fixed everything; as much as we've done, there's still so much I want to do", giving a glowing lecture on how great the U.S. and its Constitution is and how great its future is but messing it up with his love of Muslims, the very people who can ruin it?; as he leaves, Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed and Delivered" plays, beginning: "Like a fool I went and stayed too long"; on July 28 (eve.) after the convention mentions Donald Trump's name 332x in the first three nights, "God" actor Morgan Freeman narrates a highly selective video on her, filled with gushing praise from Bill Clinton and Pres. Obama, and Gen. John Allen blasts Trump for her, neutral white pants suit-wearing Hillary Clinton gives her July 28 (eve.) after the convention mentions Donald Trump's name 332x in the first three nights, "God" actor Morgan Freeman narrates a highly selective video about her, filled with gushing praise from Bill Clinton and Pres. Obama, and Gen. John Allen blasts Trump for her, neutral white pants suit-wearing Hillary Clinton gives her big speech, which turns out to be a rehash of old speeches, calling the upcoming election "a moment of reckoning", blasting Trump as usual as a "little man" who is "moved by fear and pride", adding "A man you can bait with a Tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons"; no surprise, she wants to open the U.S. to mass Muslim immigration, with the soundbyte: "We will not ban a religion", and dismisses Trump's wall with "We will not build a wall" and "We'll build a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants who are already contributing to our economy"; before she speaks a bunch of Bernie Sanders supporters walk out, while others (who had their Bernie signs taken away) stay and display signs made up by changing the Hillary signs to "Liar", "Walk the Walk", "Keep your promises", "Yes we can REVOLT", and "Fighting for HERSELF"; token Muslim Khizr Muazzam Khan, father of fallen Muslim-Am. soldier U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan (KIA in Iraq in 2004) utters the soundbyte: "Donald Trump consistently smears the character of Muslims. He disrespects minorities and women, judges, even his own party leadership. He vows to build walls and ban us from this country. Donald Trump, you're asking us to trust you with our future. Let me ask you, have you even read the United States Constitution?" (he meant the Quran, since he probably can't reach much English and knows that the Quran is the Constitution's archenemy?); the Dems. won't tell people that Khizr Khan has connections with Saudia Rabies, er, Arabia, which has given over $25M to the Hillary campaign, and is a suspected Muslim Brotherhood agent who wants to destroy the U.S. via mass Muslim immigration and replace it with an Islamic republic based on Sharia; later conservative pundit Ann Coulter tweets the soundbyte: "You know what this convention really needed? An angry Muslim with a thick accent like Fareed Zakaria"; Donald Trump immediately slams Hillary, with the soundbytes: "Hillary's refusal to mention radical Islam, as she pushes a 550% increase in refugees, is more proof that she is unfit to lead the country", "[America's] way of life is under threat by fadical Islam and Hillary Clinton cannot even bring herself to say the words", "Hillary's wars have unleashed destruction, terrorism and ISIS across the world", and "[Under her administration there will be] no borders, no jobs, no safety"; Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller utters the soundbytes that her speech was "an insulting collection of cliches and recycled rhetoric", "She spent the evening talking down to the American people she's looked down on her whole life", and "Hillary Clinton says America is stronger together. But in Hillary Clinton's America, millions of people are left out in the cold"; on July 31 Trump starts a feud with Khizr Khan, starting with claiming that his wife Ghazala Khan didn't speak at the convention because she's a Muslim, to which she replies that it was because she couldn't handle the grief, and Khizr Khan to utter the soundbyte: "He is a black soul, and this is totally unfit for the leadership of this country", causing Repbs. Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Kelly Ayotte, Jeb Bush et al. to jump on Trump, who responds that Khizr's speech was probably scripted by the Hillary campaign, and it's not about him anyway, it's about radical Islam, adding: "If I were president Khizr Khan's son wouldn't have died" because Hillary voted for the Iraq War and he was against it; on Aug. 3 Trump meets with six Gold Star families in Jacksonville, Fla. before speaking at a rally of 15K; meanwhile Hillary receives big bucks from billionaire Nigerian Muslim jihadist Kase Lukman Lawal; Humayun Khan was really a Muslim jihadist trying to commit suicide while taking as many U.S. soldiers with him as possible, and they covered it up by making him a hero? On July 26 (9:00 a.m.) two Allah-Akbar-shouting ISIS jihadists attack a French Roman Catholic church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray S of Rouen, Normandy, France during Mass, giving an Arabic sermon from the altar before forcing 84-y.-o. priest Jacques Hamel to kneel at the altar and slitting his throat in an attempt to behead him before being killed by police; one tells a nun "You Christians, you kill us"; one is shot dead by police and the other arrested; ISIS claims responsibility; ex-PM Nicolas Sarkozy utters the soundbyte: "Everything is being done to trigger a war of religions", calling for a "merciless" response. On July 27 after uttering the soundbyte: "This is war. When I speak of war, I speak of real war, not of a war of religion, no. There is war for interests, there is war for money, there is war for the resources of nature, there is war for the domination of peoples: this is war. Someone may think: 'He is talking about a war of religion'. No. All the religions, we want peace. Others want war. Do you understand?" Pope Francis visits the Wawel Cathedral in Cracow, Poland, stinking himself up by totally ignoring the existential threat of Muslim immigration, instead calling for "a spirit of readiness to welcome those fleeing from wars and hunger, and solidarity with those deprived of their fundamental rights, including the right to profess one's faith in freedom and safety"; he then visits Auschwitz Concentration Camp; on Aug. 1 ISIS pub. its mag. Dabiq, dissing the pope for his naivete, assuring him that their sole motivation is religious and sanctioned by Allah in the Quran, with the soundbyte: "The fact is, even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam. Even if you were to pay jizyah [tax for infidels] and live under the authority of Islam in humiliation, we would continue to hate you." On July 26 Hafiz Saeed Khan, leader of ISIS in Afghanistan and Pakistan is killed by a U.S. drone strike in Nangarhar Province, E Afghanistan. On July 27 Pres. Clinton appointee Judge Paul L. Friedman makes a decision to release Reagan's attempted murderer John Hinckley Jr. - just in time to assassinate Donald Trump for Hillary? On July 28 after splitting with al-Qaida, the Al Nusrah Front renames itself Jabhat Fath Al Sham ("Conquest of the Levant Front"). On July 28 Bernie Sanders announces that he's quitting the Dem. Party and becoming an independent again. On July 29 a federal appeals court strikes down the 2013 N.C. voter ID law, claiming that it was "passed with racially discriminatory intent". On July 29 Hillary Clinton tours the U.S. Rust Belt, while Donald Trump visits Colo., uttering the soundbyte: "Remember this. Trump is going to be no more Mr. Nice Guy", calling Hillary "the Devil", and for the first time encouraging supporters' chants of "Lock her up", with the soundbyte "You know what? I'm starting to agree with you"; meanwhile the Clinton campaign acknowledges that the DNC hackers also hacked their servers, while the FBI announces an investigation into their "accuracy, nature and scope". In July a heat dome cooks the U.S. South, Midwest, and East Coast with triple-digit temps, affecting 100M people. On July 31 the report From Russia with Money: Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset, and Cronyism, alleging that Hillary Clinton's campaign chmn. John Podesta sat on the board of a small energy co. along with Russian officials that received $35M from the Russian govt. of Vladimir Putin, and failed to fully disclose it on federal forms. On July 31 a pro-Erdogan rally in Cologne, Germany is attended by 50K; Turkish pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan is prohibited from addressing them via video link, pissing him off and causing him to summon the Geman envoy. On July 31 the pro-Trump Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post pub. a +nude photo of Donald Trump's wife Melania, doing ditto on Aug. 1, causing The Donald to say there is "nothing to be embarrassed about with the pictures - she's a beautiful woman"; too bad, the Daily Mail Online pub. an article suggesting that she once worked as an escort in the sex trade, causing her to sue them on Sept. 2 despite retracting the story. On July 31 ISIS pub. its online mag. Dabiq, containing a photo of U.S. Army Capt. Humayun Khan's tombstone in Arlington Cemetery, with the caption: "Beware of dying as an apostate", and an article containing the soundbyte: "Strike them where it hurts them most". On July 31 Donald Trump gives an interview to George Stephanopoulos of ABC-TV's This Week, stepping on his own schlong by revealing that he doesn't know that Russia is already in Ukraine because of its absorption of Crimea, with the soundbyte: "Just so you understand, he's not going into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down and you can put it down, you can take it anywhere you want"; the hue and cry raised by the Dems. is picky because both Russia and Ukraine claim Crimea, but the people voted to join Russia? In July the total number of Islamic attacks since the beginning of the year reaches 1,268 in 50 countries, killing 11,664 and injuring 14,087. In July the U.S.-led coalition campaign against ISIS (begun Aug. 2014) drops its 50,000th bomb on ISIS (at $50K each, total $2.5B). In July U.S. unemployment is 4.9% (same as June), with 255K jobs added to the economy; meanwhile U.S. GDP increases a measly 1.2% during the 2nd quarter, adding to 0.8% in the 1st quarter, vs. 1.4% in 4th quarter 2015. In early Aug. Moon Express is granted approval to send a lunar lander to the Moon, becoming the first private co. On Aug. 1 a Russian Mi-8 transport heli is shot down en route to the coast from Aleppo, Syria, killing all five aboard, becoming the deadliest incident since they entered the Syrian civil war. On Aug. 1 the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security grants an 18-mo. temporary amnesty to 8K Syrians living in the U.S. On Aug. 1 the Pentagon announces that Pres. Obama has authorized new "precision" air strikes against ISIS terrorists in Sirte, Libya. On Aug. 1 Donald Trump attends a rally in Columbus, Ohio, and uttering the soundbyte: "I'm afraid the election's going to be rigged, I have to be honest." On Aug. 1 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issue an unprecedented warning to pregnant women to avoid a 1 sq. mi. area in Miami, Fla. to avoid Shrinka, er, Zinka-carrying mosquitoes; 12 cases have been diagnosed so far. On Aug. 2 Pres. Obama slams Donald Trump, with the soundbyte: "I think the Republican nominee is unfit to serve as president. I said so last week, and he keeps on proving it. The notion that he would attack a Gold Star family that had made such extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our country, the fact that he doesn't appear to have basic knowledge around critical issues in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia means that he's woefully unprepared to do this job"; Trump replies that Obama is the worst pres. in U.S. history, a "diasaster" who is himself "unfit to serve"; meanwhile retiring U.S. Rep. (R-N.Y.) Richard Hanna announces that he plans on crossing party lines and voting for Hillary Clinton in Nov., becoming the first; on Aug. 3 Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman announces that despite being a Repub. she's supporting Hillary Clinton. On Aug. 2 the Vatican announces that Pope Francis has set up a commission to study the possibility of allowing women to become deacons; becoming priests that can celebrate Mass is not on the table. On Aug. 3 the FBI announces that Washington, D.C.-area transit police officer Nicholas Young (1980-) of Fairfax, Va. has been charged with attempting to support ISIS, becoming the first U.S. law enforcement officer to be charged with a terror-related crime. On Aug. 3 ISIS announces Boko Haram founder Muhammad Yusuf's son Abu Musab al-Barnawi as the new head of Boko Haram, pissing-off long-time leader Abubaker Shekau, who won't relinquish his position - they closed the barn door after the horse was out? On Aug. 3 the Wall Street Journal pub. an article exposing the $400M unmarked bills cash payment made by the Obama admin. to Iran in Jan., a repayment of bank funds frozen since 1979, causing a firestorm of controversy and calls for a congressional investigation, causing Pres. Obama on Aug. 4 (his 55th birthday) to call the story "manufactured", saying "This wasn't some nefarious deal", to which Mike Pence replies on Aug. 5 that the whole world knows that it was a "ransom"; on Aug. 4 Saeed Abedini, one of the four hostages released in Jan. gives an interview to Trish Regan of Fox Business Network, saying that his captors held his plane for hours waiting for another plane to arrive first; later it is revealed that $900M more is shipped to Iran for interest on the $400M; meanwhile on Aug. 4 Donald Trump stinks himself up with a claim that he saw a top-secret video of an airplane delivering the cash to Iran, which on Aug. 5 he backtracks on, admitting that it was the hostage plane in Geneva, Switzerland. On Aug. 3 Pres. Obama commutes the sentences of 214 federal inmates, becoming the most by a U.S. pres. in a single day, and the most for a single presidency in 48 years. On Aug. 3 (10:30 p.m.) 19-y.-o. Somalia descent Muslim Zakaria "Zak" Bulhan from (initially described as a white chubby man from Norway) attacks people with a knife in C London, England, killing one and injuring five. On Aug. 4 Australia enacts anti-hate speech laws, incl. criticism of Islam - Australiastan is coming soon? On Aug. 4 Pres. Obama brazenly lies about Israel during a press conference, claiming that they support his nuke deal with Iran, and that "it's the assessment of the Israeli military and intelligence community... that acknowledges this has been a game-changer", causing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Aug. 5 to say that "Israel's view on the Iran deal remains unchanged", i.e., that it another Munich Pact of 1938. On Aug. 4 World Vision dir. Mohammed el-Halabi is indicted by Israel for stealing $7.2M/year for five years from the charity and and giving it to Hamas. On Aug. 4 Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza gives an interview to Bloomberg, with the soundbyte: "The Clintons use black people for votes, but then don't do anyting for black communities after they're elected. They just use us for photo ops." On Aug. 5 former CIA acting dir. Michael Morell endorses Hillary Clinton, calling Donald Trump a "threat to our national security", with the explanation that he is an "unwitting agent of the Russian Federation" because Vladimir Putin has been complimenting him, leading him to become friendly with Russia, and hence their dupe? On Aug. 5 after punishing them for a week by stalling, Donald Trump finally endorses Paul Ryan and John McCain, who already endorsed him but slammed him on several occasions esp. over Khizr Khan and his family. On Aug. 5-21 the 2016 (XXXI) (31st) Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (first South Am. city and Portuguese-speaking country to host them) (first in Latin Am. since 1968) (first since 2000 held in the Southern Hemisphere) (first during the host country's winter season) sees 10,500 athletes from 207 countries participate in 306 events in 28 sports; first time for Kosovo and South Sudan, rugby sevens, and golf; first with a refugee team; golf (last staged in 1904) is restored; in Nov. 2015 Russia's track & field team was provisionally suspended for its doping program, which on July 18 is found to be a "state-dictated" system, and on July 30 the IOC establishes a 3-judge panel to clear individual athletes, clearing 270 of 437; the U.S. wins the most gold medals (46), followed by Britain (27), China (26), Russia (19), Germany (17), and Japan (12); Maplewood, N.J.-born African-Am. fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad (1985-) becomes the first Am. to compete in the Olympics while wearing a hijab; Kathleen Genevieve "Katie" Ledecky (1997-) wins gold in the 400m freestyle, beating the field by 5 sec. in setting a world record time of 3:56:46; she follows with golds in the 200m freestyle and 4x200m freestyle; on Aug. 11 Simone Arianne Biles (1997-) wins a gold for individual all-around on Aug. 11; on Aug. 11 Simone Ashley Manuel (1996-) wins a silver in the women's 4x100m freestyle relay, and ties for a gold medal in the 100m freestyle with Penny Oleksiak of Canada, becoming the first African-Am. woman to win an Olympic swimming medal; the last Olympic swimming medal for a black woman was Enith Brigitha of the Netherlands in 1976 (bronze); Michael Fred "Mike" Phelps II (1985-) is chosen to be the flag bearer at the Parade of Nations, and goes on to up his gold medal total from 19 to 23, breaking the 2,168-y.-o. record of Leonidas of Rhodes with his 13th individual gold medal on Aug. 11 in the 200m individual medly; too bad, on Aug. 12 he has to settle for a silver in the 100m butterfly, sharing it with Chad le Clos and Laszlo Cseh, with the gold going to Joseph Schooling of Singapore; his visible purple cupping marks cause Arabs to claim it as Islamic in origin; on Aug. 12 Egyptian judoka Islam El Shahaby snubs Israeli judoka Or Sasson after losing a match to him, shabbily refusing to shake hands, causing the Egyptian Olympic Committee to apologize; on Aug. 12 the U.S. women's soccer team is eliminated in a penalty kickoff shootout by Sweden, becoming the first Olympics in which they don't win a gold or silver medal since 1992; on Aug. 24 after she calls the Swedish team "cowards", U.S. player Hope Soli is given a 6-mo. suspension by the IOC for violation of their PC standards; on Aug. 15 Shaunae Miller (1994-) of Bahamas takes a dive across the finishing line, beating Allyson Felix of the U.S. by 0.07 sec to win the gold medal in the 400m run; on Aug. 16 after Nikki Hamblin of New Zealand and Abbey D'Agostino both fall during a women's 500m race heat, they help each other up, later receiving a Fair Play Award; on Aug. 21 the men's marathon is won by Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya in 2:08:44; 2nd place goes to Feyisa Lilesa (1990-) of Ethiopia, who makes a sign of protest by crossing his arms over his head, causing fears that he will be killed if he returns. On Aug. 6 an Allah Akbar-shouting Muslim with a machete attacks two female police officers in front of the police station in Charleroi, Belgium, failing to please Allah by killing any infidels before police shoot and kill him. On Aug. 6-7 (weekend) anti-govt. protests in Ethiopia over unequal distribution of wealth are quashed by security forces, who kill 90 demonstrators in the Oromia region around Addis Ababa and the Amhara region in the NW. On Aug. 6-7 (weekend) Iran executes nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri for alleged spying for the U.S., becoming the first casualty of Hillary Clinton's server when at least one email calls him "our friend"? On Aug. 7 Vanessa Teresa Marcotte (b. 1989) is sexually assaulted and murdered while jogging in Princeton, Mass.; on Apr. 15, 2017 after his SUV is spotted, 31-y.-o. Angelo Colon-Ortiz of Worcester, Mass. is arrested, and a DNA match is confirmed. On Aug. 8 Donald Trump delivers his Speech on the Economy in Detroit, Mich., calling for an end to the death tax and unfair trade deals, a moratorium on new financial regulations, and a 15% cap on business income taxes to combat globalization and restore blue collar and manufacturing jobs, with the soundbytes: "Americanization, not globalization, will be our new credo", and "In short, the city of Detroit is the living, breathing example of my opponent's failed economic agenda. Every policy that has failed this city, and so many others, is a policy supported by Hillary Clinton." On Aug. 8 50 Repub. nat. security officials incl. Michael V. Hayden, Robert Zoellick, Michael Chertoff, and Tom Ridge pub. an open letter disowning Donald Trump, with the soundbyte that he "would be the most reckless President in American history"; Trump replies that they "are nothing more than the failed Washington elite looking to hold onto their power, and it's time they are held accountable for their actions", adding: "These insiders, along with Hillary Clinton are the owners of the disastrous decisions to invade Iraq, allow Americans to die in Benghazi, and they are the ones who allowed the rise of ISIS. Yet despite these failures, they think they are entitled to use their favor trading to land taxpayer-funded government contracts and speaking fees"; meanwhile U.S. Sen. (R-Maine) Susan Collins announces that she no longer supports him, with the soundbyte: "With the passage of time, I have become increasingly dismayed by his constant stream of cruel comments and his inability to admit error or apologize." On Aug. 8 Seddique Mateen, father of Orlando jihadist Omar Mateen is seen seated directly behind Hillary Clinton at her speech in Kissimmee, Fla., pissing-off victims' families. On Aug. 8 after the 3-mo. ceasefire collapses, the Pentagon announces an additional $1.15B in weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, which resumes its bombing of Sa'ana, Yemen, making $20B in weapons sold since Mar. 2015, 7K killed, and 21M in need of humanitarian assistance. On Aug. 9 Hezbollah releases a video showing it using an attack drone to drop cluster bombs on a village in Syria, becoming their first time. On Aug. 9 Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Wilmington, N.C., uttering the soundbyte about Hillary: "Hillary wants to abolish, esentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks, although, the Second Amendment people, maybe, there is, I don't know, but, but I'll tell you what. That will be a horrible day. If Hillary gets to put her judges, right now, we're tied", causing the desperate outrageously biased PC media to attempt to frame him on calling for Hillary to be assassinated, incl. a false report by CNN that the Secret Service warned him that he is threatening Hillary's safety; meanwhile the PC press whips-up the fearmongering, with actor-dir. Rob Reiner uttering the soundbyte that Trump's comments are dangerous because his followers have a "violent nature", CBS discredited journalist Dan Rather uttering the soundbyte that PC media must publicly shame Trump's supporters, and Ronald Reagan's daughter Patti Davis uttering the soundbyte: "Your glib and horrifying comment about 'Second Amendment people'... was heard by the person sitting alone in a room, locked in his own dark fantasies, who sees unbridled violence as a way to make his mark in the world, and is just looking for ideas. Yes, Mr. Trump, words matter." On Aug. 10 Donald Trump gives a speech at a rally in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., claiming that Pres. Obama was the founder of ISIS, and Hillary Clinton a co-founder; on Aug. 11 he doubles down, with the soundbyte: "He [Obama] gets the Most Valuable Player Award. Him and Hillary. She gets it too"; the Dems. respond that the Iraq War created ISIS, even though Hillary voted for it; after the usual PC firestorm, he tweets the soundbyte: "They don't get sarcasm?" On Aug. 10 the Muslim Waqf religious authority announces plans to build a baseball stadium on the N end of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem "for the glory of Allah". On Aug. 10 a Repub. House task force pub. a report claiming that the U.S. Central Command doctored reports on progress against ISIS in Syria and Iraq to make a rosier picture, but stops short of blaming the White House. On Aug. 10 (p.m.) 19-y.-o. Stephen Rogata from Va. scales Trump Tower in Manhattan, N.Y. using suction cups before police arrest him; the purpose he did it was to get Trump's attention for a "private audience" to "discuss an important matter". On Aug. 10 a new batch of emails from the Clinton era is released, by Judicial Watch, revealing that U.S. State Dept. aides were asked to do favors for people important to the Clinton Foundation, incl. Clinton Foundation advisor Doug Band urging Hillary aides Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills to arrange a meeting between Nigerian-born Lebanese billionaire donor Gilbert Chagoury and career diplomat Jeff Feltman, their "substance person" in Beirut. On Aug. 11 pres. elections in Zambia. On Aug. 11 Hillary Clinton gives her Economic Plan Speech in Warren, Mich., flopping on her support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and promising to stop any trade deal that kills U.S. jobs, and promising to "ramp up enforcement" by appointing a chief trade prosecutor, with the soundbyte: "Investments at home that would make us more competitive have been completely blocked in Congress, and American workers and communities have paid the price, but the answer is not to rant and rave or cut ourselves off from the world. That would end up killing even more jobs." On Aug. 11 reports surface claiming that the Obama admin. stopped the FBI 3x from investigating the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton for corruption, causing Trump spokesman Jason Miller to utter the soundbyte: "This latest refusal to allow even a cursory investigation into the Clinton Foundation's pay-for-play dealings smacks of political favoritism. This is exactly why the American public has lost trust in the U.S. government and is ready to elect an outsider like Donald Trump." On Aug. 12 Manbij, Syria is liberated from ISIS after two years, causing women to rip off their burqas and smoke cigs, while men cut their beards and flash peace signs; a large convoy of ISIS fighters is given safe passage because they are holding civilians. On Aug. 12 Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif makes a surprise visit to Turkey, becoming the first since the failed July 15. On Aug. 12 Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine release their 2015 tax returns, taunting Donald Trump to do ditto; too bad, Hillary's returns merely report speaking fees that are really payoffs, while she hides the texts of the speeches as hard as Trump does his tax returns? On Aug. 13 27-y.-o. Swiss Muslim man attacks passengers with a knife and burning liquid on a crowded Swiss train in Salez, Switzerland, killing a 34-y-o. woman and injuring a 17-y.-o. girl and 6-y.-o. girl before dying of his wounds. On Aug. 13-14 (night) racial riots in Milwaukee, Wisc. are sparked by a police shooting in Sherman Park of 23-y.-o. black male Sylville Smith with a "lengthy arrest record", who ran from police and refused to drop his gun; the riots end after a 10 p.m. curfew is imposed after eight police officers and one citizen are injured, and a dozen arrested; on Aug. 16 Donald Trump gives a speech in nearby West Bend, Wisc., blaming Hillary Clinton for holding back black neighborhoods as part of her "rigged system", with the soundbytes: "We reject bigotry of Hillary Clinton which panders to and talks down to communities of color and sees them only as votes... not as individual human beings worthy of a better future... The African-American community has been taken for granted for decades by the Democratic Party and look how they're doing"; "The problem in our minority communities is not that there is too much police but that there is not enough police", and "The political class that Mrs. Clinton has been a part of for 30 years has abandoned the people of this county. They only care about themselves. I am going to give the people their voice back." On Aug. 15 the Obama admin. announces the transfer of 15 detainees from Gitmo to UAE, pissing-off Donald Trump and Repubs. incl. U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) Michael McFaul and U.S. Sen. (R-Fla.) Marco Rubio; the Gitmo pop. has slid from 242 in 2009 to 61. On Aug. 15 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden campaigns with Hillary Clinton in his hometown of Scranton, Penn., blasting Trump as intellectually and temperamentally unfit to be U.S. pres., with the soundbyte: "And I can say without hesitation, my word as a Biden, no major party nominee in the history of the United States of America, has... known less or been less prepared to deal with our national security than Donald Trump", adding "Look, Trump's ideas are not only profoundly wrong, they're very dangerous and they're very un-American. You know, they reveal a profound ignorance of our Constitution. It's a recipe for playing into the hands of terrorists and their propaganda", dissing him for claiming that Pres. Obama is the true founder of ISIS, attempted to turn it inside out and backwards with the soundbyte; "If my son were still in Iraq, and I say to all those who are there, the threat to their life has gone up a couple clicks." On Aug. 15 Donald Trump gives a speech in Youngstown, Ohio, calling for an ideological war against radical Islam a la Communism, and outlining his Muslim Vetting Plan, which incl. "extreme vetting" of anybody from terrorist hotbeds trying to enter the U.S., rooting out those who don't share and respect American values, incl. those who support Sharia. On Aug. 16 Turkish PM Binali Yildrim announces a surprise preliminary agreement between Turkey and Iran for basic principles of a settlement of the Syrian conflict, incl. preserving Syrian's territorial integrity and establishing a govt. that represents all ethnicities and religions. On Aug. 17 a photographer takes a photo of injured ash-covered boy Omran Daqneesh (2011-) in Qaterji, Alepoo, Syia, which becomes an icon of the war. On Aug. 17 Donald Trump apppoints Kellyanne Elizabeth Conway (nee Fitzpatrick) (1967-) as his pres. campaign mgr., and Breitbart News chmn. Stephen K. Bannon (1953-) as exec. campaign chmn., outranking campaign chmn. Paul Manafort, who has been accused of hanky-panky with Ukraine, and resigns on Aug. 19; meanwhile Trump receives his first official U.S. govt. intel briefing, even though Trump disses them, saying "Very easy to use them, but I won't use them, because they've made such bad decisions." On Aug. 18 the Arab Forum for Combatting Terrorism in Khartoum, Sudan, hosted by the Arab League and govt. of Sudan is yet another fraud touting "true" Islam as a religion of peace. On Aug. 18 after Pres. Obama refuses to cut short his 2-week vacation in Martha's Vineyard to visit the scene of the La. flood, Homeland Security sec. Jeh Johnson utters the soundbyte: "The president can't be everywhere"; on Aug. 16 Obama's Justice Dept. issued a guidance memo telling La. officials receiving federal disaster assistance not to engage in "unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin (including limited English proficiency)", pissing them off; meanwhile on Aug. 19 Donald Trump and Mike Pence visit Baton Rouge, La., while Hillary rests. On Aug. 18 U.S. deputy atty. gen. Sally Q. Hates, er, Yates issues a memo instructing the head of the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin phasing-out privately run prisons, which currently hold 22,660 federal inmates out of 2.2M. On Aug. 18 after news that it may have been hacked, plus the expose in Peter Schweizer's NYT bestseller "Clinton Cash", the Clinton Foundation announces that it will no longer accept foreign and corporate donations, but only after winning the election, followed on Aug. 22 by Bill Clinton announcing that if Hillary wins the election he will resign from the board and stop raising funds, causing Donald Trump on Aug. 22 to call for the foundation to be shut down, for the money to be returned, and for a special prosecutor to be appointed, with the soundbyte: "It is now clear that the Clinton Foundation is the most corrupt enterprise in political history"; on Aug. 21 the leftist "Huffington Post" also calls for it to be shut down - she won't give any back? On Aug. 18 Donald Trump gives a speech in Charlotte, N.C., uttering the soundbyte: "Hillary Clinton's mistakes destroy innocent lives, sacrifice national security, and betray the working families of this country. Please remember this: I will never put personal profit before national security. I will never leave our border open to appease donors and special interests. I will never support a trade deal that kills American jobs. I will never put the special interests before the national interest. I will never put a donor before a voter, or a lobbyist before a citizen. Instead, I will be a champion for the people"; meanwhile to counter Trump's accusation that she's "against the police", Hillary Clinton meets with U.S. police chiefs in a closed meeting in John Jay College in New York City. On Aug. 19 after Hillary has spent $100M+ in TV ads attempting to scaremonger him, Donald Trump releases his first TV ad, dissing Hillary Clinton as as an open borders establishment disaster, with the soundbyte: "In Hillary Clinton's America the system stays rigged against America"; meanwhile Trump apologizes for everything without being specific, with the soundbyte: "Sometimes, in the heat of debate, and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don't choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that, and believe it or not I regret it, and I do regret it, particularly where it may have caused personal pain." On Aug. 19 (night) Donald Trump speaks at a rally in lily-white Dimondale, Mich., uttering the soundbyte: "Tonight I'm asking for the vote of every single African-American citizen in this country who wants to see a better future", adding: "What do you have to lose by trying something new, like Trump? You're living in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed - what the hell do you have to lose?", claiming that in cities like Detroit, blacks "have become refugees in their own country", predicting: "At the end of four years, I guarantee you that I will get over 95 percent of the African-American vote"; the Clinton campaign replies: "This is so ignorant it's staggering". On Aug. 21 (Sun.) a 12-y.-o. jihadist boy detonates a suicide belt at a Kurdish wedding in Kirkuk, Iraq, killing 51 and injuring 69, after which shouting crowds blame Turkish pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who blames it on ISIS. On Aug. 21 Palestinian terrorists in Beit Hanun, Gaza Strip fire a rocket at Sderot, Israel (no injuries), causing them to stage a retaliatory air and ground strike. On Aug. 21 the govt. of Germany announces that for the first time since the end of the Cold War, citizens need to stockpile food and water in case of an attack or catastrophe. On Aug. 22-23 (night) Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades official Ahmad Halawa is arrested and beaten to death by Palestinian Authority (PA) forces in Nablus, West Bank, Israel for being the brains behind the killing of two PA personnel on Aug. 20. On Aug. 23 four Islamic Rev. Guard Corps (IRGC) vessels harass USS Nitze near the Strait of Hormuz, coming within 300 yards and firing rockets. On Aug. 23 the U.S. Nat. Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules that as employees of the univ., graduate students can unionize - you sell sperm too? On Aug. 23 Donald Trump announces that he's open to "softening" his stance on deportation of illegal immigrants, but still plans to build a border wall "almost immediately" after inauguration. On Aug. 23 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden visits Riga, Latvia, telling leaders of three Baltic states that the U.S. is committed to NATO and its allies, and that Donald Trump doesn't know what he's talking about. On Aug. 23 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden gives an interview to The Atlantic, uttering the soundbyte: "Terrorism is a real threat... it's not an existential threat to the existence of the United States of America." On Aug. 23 Hillary Clinton gives a speech, slamming Donald Trump's campaign as a haven for racism and bigotry, with the soundbytes: "A man with a long history of racial discrimination who traffics in dark conspiracy theories from the pages of supermarket tabloids and the far, dark reaches of the internet should never run our government or command our military", and "There's always been a paranoid fringe in our politics, a lot of it arising from racial resentment. But it's never had the nominee of a major party stoking it, encouraging it and giving it a national megaphone until now"; meanwhile on Aug. 23 after telling Sean Hannity of Fox News that he is open to "softening" his immigration stance, Donald Trump gives a speech in Austin, Tex., doubling down instead, with the soundbyte: "No citizenship. Let me go a step further. They'll pay back taxes, they have to pay taxes, there's no amnesty, as such, there's no amnesty, but we work with them. Now, everybody agrees we get the bad ones out," Trump said. "But when I go through and I meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and I've had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me, and they've said, 'Mr. Trump, I love you, but to take a person who's been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and their family out, it's so tough, Mr. Trump,' I have it all the time! It's a very, very hard thing"; on Aug. 24 he speaks in Tampa, Fla., uttering the soundbyte: "I've been watching so carefully over the past month. Hillary Clinton doesn't do speeches, she doesn't do press conferences. It's been almost 300 days. She doesn't do rallies of any consequence. She doesn't do this kind of stuff"; he goes on to label Hillary Clinton a "bigot", with the soundbyte: "Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future", pissing-off the PC media. On Aug. 24 (early a.m.) for the first time since the start of the Syrian civil war, Turkish forces launch Operation Euphrates Shield, crossing the Syrian border to attack ISIS, with backing from the U.S., shelling Jarablus on the border on the Euphrates River; too bad, they seem more interested in attacking the Kurdish YPG? On Aug. 24 a 6.0 earthquake in C Italy kills 268+ and leaves thousands homeless, flattening several towns. On Aug. 24 (6:30 p.m.) the Taliban sieges Am. U. of Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing one student and injuring 14 before Afghan special forces take them out. On Aug. 24 Hollyweird actor Steven Seagal visits Minsk, Belarus, and meets with pres. Alexander Lukashenko, who gives him a peeled carrot and two watermelons. On Aug. 24 (eve.) the Colombian govt. and the Rev. Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) announce an accord to end their 50-year war that has killed 220K; it must still be ratified by voters in a plebiscite. On Aug. 24 Pres. Obama bypasses Congress to create the 87.5K-acre Katahdin Woods and Waters Nat. Monument in Maine, pissing-off Repubs. On Aug. 24 after AP reports that more than half of 154 people who met with her had given to her foundation, Hillary Clinton gives an interview to CNN, saying that the alleged Clinton Foundation scandal is "a lot of smoke and there's no fire", with the soundbyte: "I made policy decisions based on what I thought was right, to keep Americans safe and protect U.S. interests abroad." On Aug. 25 a barrel bomb attack in Aleppo, Syria kills 15 incl. 11 children; Assad's forces are blamed. On Aug. 25 U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden visits Ankara, Turkey to repair relations that were strained by the July 15 coup attempt. On Aug. 25 Trump speaks in Manchester, N.H., calling Hillary's attempts to "play the race card" and paint him and his supporters as racists smacks of desperation in an attempt to distract vobers from her policies that have devastated minority communities and inner cities, with the soundbyte: "It's the oldest play in the Democratic playbook. When Democratic policies fail, they are left with only this one tired argument: 'You're racists, you're racist, you're racists.' It's a tired, disgusting argument, and it is so totally predictable... You know what? The people are becoming very smart. They have heard it too many times before. The well is dry"; he goes on to diss leftists for calling people concerned about radical Islam "Islamophobes", with the soundbyte: "They are decent Americans citizens who want to uphold our value as a tolerant society and who want to keep the terrorists the hell out of our country. If the choice is between saving lives or appeasing politically correct censors in Washington, D.C., that is the easiest choice you or I will ever have to make. We will always choose saving American lives." On Aug. 25 Hillary Clinton speaks in Reno, Nev., giving a "tin foil hat" speech accusing the "Alt-Right", Alex Jones, Brexit, and Vladimir Putin of a grand global conspiracy against her, while trying to frame Donald Trump on being the conspiracy theorist and of being linked with the KKK; meanwhile so far this mo. she has held only 11 campaign events attended by 10K total (incl. paid staffers) (avg. 900), vs. 29 events and 168K (avg. 5.8K) for Trump. On Aug. 26 rebel forces pull out of the Damascus suburb of Daraya, Syria under an agreement with the Assad govt., evacuating to rebel-held territory in Idlib Province 200 mi. to the N; meanwhile U.S. secy. of state John Kerry meets with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, unsuccessfully trying to negotiate terms for cessation of hostilities. On Aug. 26 ISIS releases a video from Raqqa, Syria showing the executions of 14 men, incl. five Kurds by boy soldiers. On Aug. 26 Pres. Obama announces an expansion of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine Reserve in Hawaii (created on June 15, 2006 by Pres. George W. Bush to protect the area from commercial fishing) to 583K acres, becoming 2x the size of Tex. and bigger than all other nat. parks combined; 60% of federal waters off Hawaii are now closed to commercial fishing; on Sept. 1 Obama visits it en route to attend the G-20 Summit in China. On Aug. 28 (Sun.) Pres. Obama's 2008 pres. campaign architect David Plouffe gives an interview to Chuck Todd of NBC-TV's "Meet the Press", uttering the soundbyte about Donald Trump: "We have a psychopath running for president"; when asked if he's a prof. pshrink he replies: "Listen, the grandiose notion of self-worth, pathological lying, lack of empathy and remorse... I don't have a degree in psychology, but here it is, Chuck, basically, the race ends today. I think Hillary Clinton is guaranteed at least 269 electoral votes, think about that. Because Virginia and Colorado, both campaigns I think believe are put away." On Aug. 28 the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards at Madison Square Gardan in Manhattan, N.Y., watched by 6.5M viewers sees Beyonce ("Queen Bey") (11 nominations) win eight awards to pass Madonna's 20 for a career 24; Adele's "Hello" was the most nominated video (seven categories); Britney Spears makes her first show performance since 2007. On Aug. 29 the Uqba bin Nafi Battalion of al-Qaida in the Maghreb (AQIM) in Tunisia ambushes Tunisian soldiers near Mount Sammama in Kasserine, becoming the 2nd in 2 mos. On Aug. 29 Pentagon spokesperson Peter Cook condemns the fighting S of Jarabulus, Syria, saying that clashes between Turkish forces and U.S.-led Kurdish forces are "unacceptable". On Aug. 30 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry visits New Delhi, India, uttering the soundbyte that in recent months Pakistan has been acting "authoritatively" against Haqqani Network strongholds despite the Pentagon's withholding of $300M in military reimbursement funds in July for not taking sufficient action. On Aug. 30 Pres. Obama commutes the sentences of 111 convicts, bringing his total to 673, more than the last 10 U.S. presidents combined. On Aug. 30 the European Commission announces that Apple cheated Ireland out of taxes, paying 50 euros for every 1M euros in profit in 2014, and orders it to pay it $14.5B in back taxes. On Aug. 31 the first commercial flights since 1961 take off from the U.S. to Cuba, starting with JetBlue Flight 387 from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. to Santa Clara, home of Che Guevara's tomb. On Aug. 31 Donald Trump meets with Mexican pres. Enrique Pena Nieto in Mexico City, using the photo opp to look presidential while arguing that NAFTA has benefitted Mexico more than the U.S., with the soundbytes: "There will be no amnesty. For those here today illeglly who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and only one route: to return home and apply for reentry under the rules of the new legal immigration system that I have outlined... Those who have left to seek entry under this new system will not be awarded surplus visas, but will have to enter under the immigration caps or limits that will be established"; "Having a secure border is a sovereign right and mutually beneficial. We recognize and respect the right of either country to build a physical barrier or wall on any of its borders to stop the illegal movement of people, drugs and weapons"; Nieto acknowledges the "fundamental right that each of the countries has to defend its border", with the soundbyte: “There is still a joint challenge including the increasing number of non-Mexicans who cross through our country in order to reach the United States, therein creating serious human crises"; this show upstages Hillary Clinton, who calls it "an embarrassing international incident", then admidst mucho empty seats gives a Speech on American Exceptionalism at the Am. Legion Nat. Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, unsuccesfully trying to steal the thunder from Donald Trump, who leads the poll among military families 51%-41% according to NBC News, with the soundbyte: "The United States is an exceptional nation. I believe we are still Lincoln's last, best hope of Earth. My opponent in this race has said very clearly he thinks American exceptionalism is insulting to the rest of the world. My opponent misses something important. When we say America is exceptional, it doesn't mean that people from other places don't feel deep national pride just like we do. It means we recognize America's unique and unparalleled ability to be a force for peace and progress, a champion for freedom and opportunity"; in the eve. Trump gives a Speech on Immigration in Phoenix, Ariz., praising the majority of the Mexican people but sticking with his border wall using the "best technology" and the promise to make Mexico pay for it "100 percent - they don't know it yet but they're going to pay for the wall", along with "zero tolerance for criminal aliens... My first hour in office, those people are gone"; "Anyone who tells you that the core issue is the needs of those living here illegally has simply spent too much time living in Washington. There is only one core issue in the immigration debate, and that issue is the well-being of the American people." On Aug. 31 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gives an interview to the New York Times, uttering the soundbyte: "The American liberal press, in falling over themselves to defend Hillary Clinton, are erecting a demon that is going to put nooses around everyone's necks as soon as she wins the election, which is almost certainly what she's going to do." On Aug. 31 Turkey announces that it will not stop attacking U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia inside Syria, calling them an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which they consider a terrorist org. On Aug. 31 the U.S. nat. debt hits $19.5T for the first time ever, just 7 mo. after hitting the $19T mark. In Aug. despite Congress rejecting the idea, Pres. Obama's Veteran Affairs Dept. bans the flying of Confed. flags from fixed flagpoles at its cemeteries. In Aug. Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan appoints retired brig. gen. Adnan Tanriverdi as his chief pres. adviser; he is the founder of the SADAT Internat. Defense Consultancy, which is suspected of training ISIS terrorists. In Aug. U.S. unemployment is 4.9% (same as in June and July), adding 151K jobs; fior the first time govt. workers outnumber manufacturing employees (22,213,000 vs. 12,281,000) (9,932,000 difference). On Sept. 1 a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Facebook satellite intended to bring the Internet to remote areas in Africa explodes on the launch pad during fueling. On Sept. 1 British Airways ends its Oct. 2012 service suspension on flights to Iran, resuming direct flights. On Sept. 1 a ring of fire solar eclipse sees the Moon line up with the Earth and Sun above Africa, darkening the Sun. On Sept. 2 (1:30 a.m. EDT) Category 1 Hurricane Hermine becomes the first hurricane to hit Fla. since Hurricane Katrina in 2004. On Sept. 2 (night) an explosion in a market in Davao, Philippines kills 10 and injures 60; the Muslim Abu Sayyaf jihadist group is suspected. On Sept. 3 (7:02 a.m.) a 5.6 earthquake rocks Norman, Okla. (same region as the Nov. 2011 earthquake), speading from Neb. to N Tex. On Sept. 3 Donald Trump speaks at the mostly black Great Faith Ministries Internat. church in Detroit, Mich., promising to unite the country as U.S. pres., uttering the soundbyte: "Becoming the nominee of the party of Abraham Lincoln... has been the greatest honor of my life. It is on his legacy that I hope to build the future of the party, but more importantly, the future of the country." On Sept. 3-4 Euripides' play Hecuba the Refugee is performed in the ancient theater on Delos Island, becoming the first play to be performed there in 2.1K years. On Sept. 4 (Sun.) Pope Frances elevates Albanian-Indian nun Mother Teresa (1910-97) to sainthood, calling her a "witness to mercy in our time". On Sept. 4 Turkish troops allied with the Free Syrian Army push ISIS out of the Turkish-Syrian border, causing it to lose its border with NATO for the first time since 2013. On Sept. 4 elections in Germany are a D for Angela Merkel's Christian Dem. Union (CDU) and a V for the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany Party (AFD); a Sept. 1 poll reveals that her popularity has plunged to a 5-year low of 45%, with 51% saying it would "not be good" if she ran for another term. On Sept. 4-5 the 2016 (11th) G-20 Summit in Hangzhou, China is attended by Pres. Obama, who meets with Chinese pres. Xi Jinping; the Chinese forget (accidentally on purpose?) to line his airplane stairs with red carpet; the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement is high on the agenda.; on Sept. 5 Pres. Obama meets with Russian pres. Vladimir Putin, and they fail to find a solution in Syria, agreeing only to provide humanitarian aid, after which he utters the soundbyte that despite evidence of Russia hacking into the U.S. election sytem, he doesn't want a "wild wild West" cyberwar with Russia. On Sept. 5 the planes of U.S. pres. candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump end up parked within 100 yards of each other on the tarmac at the aiport in Cleveland, Ohio, with Trump getting there first. On Sept. 6 Pres. Obama visits bombed-out Laos, meeting with pres. (since Jan.) Bounnhang Vorachith. On Sept. 6 88 former U.S. military leaders pub. an open letter endorsing Donald Trump for U.S. pres., with the soundbyte: "The 2016 election affords the American people an urgently needed opportunity to make a long-overdue course correction in our national security posture and policy." On Sept. 6 Traitor, er, Pres. Obama nominates Pakistani-born atty. Abid Riz Qureshi to the U.S. District Court for D.C., becoming the first Muslim nominated to the federal judiciary. On Sept. 6 Hillary Clinton holds a rally at the U. of South Fla. that draws 1.5K; on Sept. 9 Donald Trump holds a rally in Pensacola, Fla. that draws 12K; on Sept. 20 Trump holds a rally in Estero, Fla. that draws 8K, while Hillary speaks at Temple U. in Philly before a crowd of 200; in Estero, Trump utters the soundbyte that Hillary "talks tougher about my supporters than she does about radical Islamic terrorists." On Sept. 7 (eve.) after Trump ends his media blacklist incl. the Washington Post, Politico, and Buzzfeed, the Commander in Chief Forum in New York City, hosted by MSNBC, NBC News, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of Am., moderated by Matt Lauer sees Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump take turns accusing each other of being unfit to be pres.; Trump calls for a massive military buildup to fight ISIS, incl. 50K more Army troops (540K total), 70 new warships (total 350), 13 new USMC batttallions, and 100 USAF planes (1.2K total), canceling budget caps to boost spending by $500B over the next 10 years, uttering the soundbyte: "History shows that when America is not prepared is when the danger is by far the greatest. We want to deter, avoid, and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength"; Trump opens the door to Dreamers who want to join the military; when asked to respond to Trump's numerous slams about how he "reduced American generals to rubble" et al., Pres. Obama laughs, with the soundbyte: "Somehow behavior that in normal times we'd consider completely unacceptable is normalized and people start thinking we should be grading on a curve." On Sept. 8 the Wells Fargo Scandal breaks, revealing that employees were goaded into opening up to 2M accounts without customers' knowledge, causing Wells Fargo to agree to pay $185M to regulators, and CEO (since Jan. 2010) John Gerard Stumpf (1953-) to quit in Oct. On Sept. 8 Hillary Clinton pub. a post in Humans of New York, reiterating a 1996 story she told to The New Yorker that when she took her LSAT in 1969 the men jerked her around for being a woman, telling her to "go home and get married", this time claiming they told her "If you take my spot, I'll get drafted, I'll go to Vietnam, and I'll die"; too bad, Pres. LBJ ended the draft deferment on Feb. 16, 1968. On Sept. 8 (eve.) Hillary Clinton delivers the keynote speech at the Nat. Baptist Convention in Kansas City, Mo. amidst 2K empty seats out of 5K, pointing how out she was raised a Methodist but married a Southern Baptist, mentioning her "deep and abiding Christian faith". On Sept. 9 North Korea tests a "higher level" nuclear warhead that it claims will allow it to build "at will" an array of stronger, smaller, lighter nukes, becoming their 5th atomic test, and the 2nd in 8 mo., scaring the West, with South Korea calling it "fanatic recklessness". On Sept. 9 the U.S. House unanimously passes a bill permitting 9/11 victim families to sue Saudi Arabia; Pres. Obama vows to veto it. On Sept. 9 Hillary Clinton gives a speech at the LGBT for Hillary gala in New York City, uttering the soundbyte: "You could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables, right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophbic, Islamophobic, you name it", causing Donald Trump to tweet: "Wow, Hillary Clinton was SO INSULTING to my supporters, millions of amazing, hard working people. I think it will cost her at the Polls!"; on Sept. 10 she partially flops, with the soundbyte: "Last night I was grossly generalistic, and that's never a good idea. I regret saying 'half', that was wrong. But let's be clear, what's really deplorable is that Donald Trump hired a major advocate for the so-called alt-right movement to run his campaign and that David Duke and other white supremacists see him as a champion of their values. It's deplorable that Trump has built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices, including by retweeting fringe bigots with a few dozen followers and spreading their message to 11 million people." On Sept. 9 (night) Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Pensacola, Fla., uttering the soundbytes: "The only thing she's done well - and she'll go down in history for it, I have to admit - is getting out of trouble with the emails; that's the single greatest achievement of Hillary Clinton"; "She could walk into this arena right now and shoot somebody with 20,000 people watching, right smack in the middle of the heart, and she wouldn't be prosecuted, OK? T hat is what's happened to our country." On Sept. 9 Israeli PM Benjamin pub. a video claiming that evacuating Israelis from the West Bank would amount to ethnic cleansing, dissing Pres. Obama with the soundbyte: "Some otherwise enlightened countries even promote this outrage." On Sept. 9 Zara retail chain owner Amancio Ortega passes Bill Gates as the world's richest man ($79.5B vs. $78.5B). On Sept. 10 after the FAA bans them on flights, Samsung of South Korea warns consumers to stop using their Galaxy Note 7 because the lithium batteries can explode and catch on fire. On Sept. 10 a 30 tonne meteorite is unearthed in Gancedo, Argentina, becoming the 2nd largest ever found. On Sept. 11 Hillary Clinton collapses during a 9/11 ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial Place in Lower Manhattan, N.Y., and is rushed away for emergency treatment, giving away her numerous lies about her health, er, she later claims easily curable pneumonia after becoming overheated and dehydrated, canceling a planned trip to Calif. for Sept. 12. On Sept. 11 the 333rd aniv. of the 1683 Battle of Vienna sees papal candidate Austrian cardinal Christoph Schoenborn (Schönborn) (1945-) utter the soundbyte: "Will there be an Islamic conquest of Europe? Many Muslims want that and say Europe is at the end." On Sept. 12 after a long argument, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chmn. of the House Oversight Committee gives a subpoena to FBI liaison Jason Herring ordering the FBI to give them its complete investigative file on Hillary's email behavior, not just the redacted summary given them on Sept. 2. On Sept. 12 somebody torches the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, the mosque attended by gay-killer Omar Mateen and Syrian jihadist Moner Mohammad Abu Salha. On Sept. 13 the U.S. House of Reps. led by conservative John Fleming (R-La.) begins impeachment proceedings for IRS commissioner John Koskinen for lying to Congress about producing all of IRS senior exec Lois G. Lerner's emails and for allowing taxpayer info. to be stolen by cyberhackers. On Sept. 13 Buzzfeed and Daily Caller pub. hacked emails from DCLeaks.com by former U.S. secy. of state gen. Colin Powell in which he calls Donald Trump a "national disgrace" and a racist "international pariah" for mainstreaming the Obama birther movement, while dissing Hillary Clinton for trying to connect him to her emails despite repeated warnings, claiming that she "does not look good", is "working herself to death", and "nobody likes her", and "I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect", adding that her hubby Bill is still "dicking bimbos"; several emails to Powell from Jeffrey Leeds of Leeds Equity Partners reveal that Hillary hates and envies Pres. Obama, and that Obama wouldn't mind seeing her lose. On Sept. 13 Ford Motor Co. CEO Mark Fields announces plans to move all small-car production in North Am. to Mexico, vindicating the gloom and doom warnings of Donald Trump, who speaks at the Bethel United Methodist Church in Flint, Mich. on Sept. 14, uttering the soundbyte: "It used to be that cars were made in Flint and you couldn't drink the water in Mexico. And now the cars are made in Mexico and you can't drink the water in Flint"; too bad, pastor Faith Green Timmons stops Trump from criticizing sacred cow Hillary; on Sept. 15 the U.S. Senate by 95-3 passes the $9B U.S. Water Resources Development Act of 2016 to fund U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects at Flint, Mich. et al. On Sept. 14 Donald Trump appears on the Doctor Oz show, handing him some medical records, the report on a recent physical; meanwhile Hillary Clinton's physician Lisa Bardack of Mount Kisco, N.Y. announces that she is "healthy and fit" to serve as U.S. pres., and has non-existent? "non-contagious bacterial pneumonia", after which on Sept. 14 Trump's physician Harold Bernstein releases a letter claiming that he is in "excellent physical health", although he takes rosuvastatin and low dose aspirin and is clinically obese. On Sept. 15 the U.S. House by 244-174 (incl. 12 Dems., with four Repubs. against) passes a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. (R-Ind.) Jackie Walorski banning transfers from Gitmo for the remainder of Pres. Obama's presidency, pissing-off Dems., who call it "probably unconstitutional and certainly immoral". On Sept. 15 U.S. Sen. minority leader (D-Utah) Harry Reid slams Donald Trump, with the soundbyte: "He is a spoiled brat raised in plenty who inherited a fortune and used his money to make more money, and he did a lot by swindling working men and women... Trump is a human leech who will bleed the country and sit at his golf resort laughing at the money he has made." On Sept. 15 Pres. Obama establishes the 5K-sq.-mi. U.S. Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine Nat. Monument, becoming the first nat. marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean; commercial mining, drilling, and fishing is prohibited except for lobster and red crab. On Sept. 16 after Hillary Clinton calls the Birther Movement an "outrageous lie", with the soundbyte: "We know who Donald is. For five years he has led the birther movement to delegitimize our first black president", and he responds that she started the Obama birther controversy during her 2008 primary campaign, but can't pin it on her personally, Donald Trump folds and announces that "President Barack Obama was born in the United States, period. Now we all want to get back to making America strong and great again"; the whole birther controversy is a decoy to coverup that Obama's real father is Am. Communist Frank Marshall Davis (1905-87)? On Sept. 16 French police announce the arrest of three Algerian Muslim men in Paris, France for luring a French woman on Facebook then gang-raping her near the Eiffel Tower before/after chaining her to it. On Sept. 16 Donald Trump tweets that if she's really against guns, Hillary Clinton's bodyguards should disarm themselves and "see what happens", causing U.S. Sen. (Dem.-Conn.) Chris Murphy to accuse him of suggesting her assassination. On Sept. 16 40-y.-o. black family man with a clean record Terence Tafford Crutcher Sr. (b. 1976) is shot and killed by two white police officers in Tulsa, Okla. while standing beside his stalled SUV and holding his unarmed hands high, becoming yet another case of White Is Right police in Ooooo-kla-homa; Kansas City police officer Donald Ebert makes a post on Facebook about the shooting, saying that Crutcher "should have dropped the entitlement card and listened the first time. Good shoot"; on Sept. 22 white police officer Betty Shelby is charged with first-degree manslaughter for killing him, only to see the jury acquit her on May 17, 2017; too bad, PCP was found in Crutcher's body. On Sept. 17 (9:30 a.m.) a pipe bomb detonates in a garbage can at the starting point of the USMC charity race in Seaside Park, N.J., injuring no one but setting off a massive terrorism response; on Sept. 17 (8:31 p.m.) a powerful homemade bomb explodes on a crowded sidewalk at West 23rd Ave. and 6th Ave. in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, N.Y., injuring 29; a second pressure cooker device is found four blocks away; on Sept. 19 (12:40 a.m..) a bomb is found in a trash can near a train station in Elizabeth, N.J., and exploded by a bomb squad; on Sept. 19 (noon) Afghan-born Am. Muslim Ahmad Khan Rahami (1988-) is captured in Linden, N.J. after a shootout with police, and is accused of all three bombings; Rahami's journal calls Osama bin Laden "brother" and indicates that he wanted to punish the U.S. for killing fellow Muslims in the Middle East, furnishing yet another proof that mass Muslim immigration is suicidal for the U.S. because Muslims won't assimilate but will retain their foreign Muslim identities; on Sept. 19 Donald Trump utters the soundbyte: "These attacks and many others were made possible because of our extremely open immigration system, which fails to properly vet and screen the individuals and families coming into our country." On Sept. 17 (8:15 p.m.) Allah-Akbar-shouting Muslim Somali immigrant Dahir A. Adan (b. 1994) stages a knife attack at Crossroads Mall in St. Cloud, Minn., injuring eight after asking if they were Muslim; ISIS claims responsibility; too bad, Pres. Obama calls this a "potential act of terrorism", causing Am. evangelist Rev. Franklin Graham on Sept. 20 to post the Facebook soundbyte: "Why is it so hard for our president and his administration to call Islamic terrorism what it is?... Potential? The Islamic State already proudly claimed credit - how much more 'potential' do you need?" On Sept. 17 Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Christian conservative USAF Academy-hosting Colo. Springs, Colo. On Sept. 18 (early a.m.) Pakistani Jaish-e-Mohammed rebels attack an Indian border army base in Uri, Kashmir (near Srinagar), killing 17 soldiers while losing four rebels KIA. On Sept. 18 an air strike on Al-Tharda Mountain in Deir ez-Sor, Syria kills 62 Syrian soldiers and injures 100+, pissing-off Russia, which accuses the U.S. of supporting ISIS. On Sept. 19 after Newsweek pub. an article detailing his foreign business entanglements, 55 former U.S. govt. officials incl. former acting CIA dir. Michael Morell and former undersecy. of defense for intel Michael Vickers pub. an open letter calling for him "to disclose, in full, the nature of his business relationships overseas." On Sept. 20 Pres. Obama gives a speech at the U.N. Gen. Assembly, calling for world leaders to accept more Muslim refugees - shilling for George Soros again? On Sept. 20 Hollyweird's #1 supercouple Brad Pitt and Angelie Jolie AKA Brangelia announce that Angelina has filed for divorce. On Sept. 20 the Clinton Global Initiative gives a dinner for Hanan al-Hroub, wife of convicted terrorist Omar al-Hroub, who provided materials used in a 1980 bombing that killed six Israelis. On Sept. 20 the TV series This Is Us debuts on NBC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), starring Mandy Moore as Rebecca Pearson, Milo Ventimiglia as her husband Jack, Sterling K. Brown as their son Randall, Chrissy Metz as their daughter Kate, and Justin Hartley as their other son Kevin; Kate and Kevin were conceived in the bathroom of Froggy's Bar during Super Bowl XIV as part of triplets, and when their brother is stillborn the parents adopt Randall. On Sept. 21 riots in Kinshasa, Dem. Repub. of Congo over pres. (since Jan. 26, 2001) Joseph Kabila's attempt to stay in power by postponing elections scheduled for Nov. On Sept. 21 R.I. Muslim convert Nicholas Rovinski pleads guilty to an ISIS conspiracy to behead anti-Islam (anti-jihad) blogger Pamela Geller. On Sept. 21 protests over police butality in Charlotte, NC. sees Justin Carr (b. 1990) shot by a gun in the back of the head by Rayquan Borum, causing gov. Pat McCrory to declare a state of emergency; Carr dies in the hospital on Sept. 22; Borum is arrested on Sept. 23. On Sept. 21 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry slips up at the U.N. and utters the soundbyte: "Now, I have said to Russia many times it's very hard to separate people when they are being bombed indiscriminately and when Assad has the right to determine who he's going to bomb, because he can, quote, 'go after Nusrah' but go after the opposition at the same time because he wants to", indicating that Syria was prohibited from attacking al-Nusrah Front AKA al-Qaida in Syria. On Sept. 21 the Nat. Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine pub. a Report on Immigration to the U.S., revealing that immigrants sap $296B a year more in govt. benefits than they pay in taxes, with all gains to the economy skewed towards themselves and to wealthy investors while hurting native-born workers. On Sept. 21 Donald Trump gives a speech at the African-Am. New Spirit Revival Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, pushing stop-and-risk as the "proactive" solution to stop black-on-black street crime; African-Am. boxing promoter Don King gives a speech praising Donald Trump as the only candidate that makes the case that "the system is the enemy", with the soundbytes: "He's the only man in hundreds of years that has the consensus of public opinion of rejection to the form of governmen. The system is corrupt; the system is rigged; the system is sexist; the system is racist"; "He's the only gladiator to take out the system... and create a new system”; "We need Donald Trump, especially black people"; "When the system was created... the white woman did not have the rights, and she still don't have the rights. And people of color don't have their rights... Donald Trump says no, we're going back to inclusiveness. Everybody counts. Every white woman should cast their vote for Donald Trump." On Sept. 21 Pres. Obama sends a memo to his dept. heads, instructing them to consider the impact of climate change on nat. security. On Sept. 22 Yahoo.com confirms reports of a data breach of "at least" 500M user accounts in 2014. On Sept. 22 the U.S.-backed and Iranian-backed Iraqi military captures the ISIS-held town of Shirqat, Iraq. On Sept. 22 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly on the "core of the Palestinian-Israel conflict", uttering the soundbyte that the U.N. "began as a moral force and has become a moral farce", adding "Lay down your arms. The war against Israel is over. Israel has a bright future at the U.N.", saying that if Palestinians accept peace there will be peace, inviting Mahmoud Abbas to "speak to the Israeli people at the Knesset in Jerusalem" and offering to "gladly come to speak peace wtih the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah", but "we will not accept any attempt by the U.N. to dictate terms to Israel", because "The road to peace runs through Jerusalem and Ramallah, not New York"; at a meeting in Manhattan he utters the soundbyte that U.S. public support for the Palestinian cause is "flat like an EKG of a dead person"; meanwhile on Sept. 22 Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas gives a speech at the U.N. Gen. Assembly, dissing the Balfour Declaration that granted Israel its territory, with the soundbyte: "100 years have passed since the notorious Balfour Declaration, by which Britain gave, without any right, authority or consent from anyone, the land of Palestine to another people", demanding that Britain apologize and threatening to sue for damages. On Sept. 22 after protests outside U.N. HQ by former U.S. Sen. Joe Liberman et al. on Sept. 21, Iranian pres. Hasan Rouhani gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, blasting "the usurping Zionist regime" as well as the U.S. and Saudi Arabia for fueling terrorism, also accusing the U.S. of not complying with the nuclear deal, eroding its credibility; on Sept. 21 Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari gives a speech at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., dissing the media for failing to "call out the Iranian government's Holocaust denial". On Sept. 22 the U.S. House investigative committee chaired by Jason Chaffetz votes 19-15 along party lines to hold Bryan Pagliano in contempt after no-showing 2x to testify on his boss Hillary's Clinton's secret emails. On Sept. 22 Pres. Obama gives an interview to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in Vanity Fair mag., with the soundbyte about Donald Trump: "I don't think it's a surprise for me to say that I don't think his temperament is suited for this office. But it's not something that I have to emphasize because I think the majority of the American people have figured that out", adding that he views Trump's candidacy as "an expression of certain fears, certain resentments, that have been a running thread in American history" - he didn't say deplorables? On Sept. 22 Category 7 (165 mph) Hurricane Matthew starts as a tropical wave off the African coast, approaching E of the Leeward Islands on Sept. 18 and turning into a tropical storm E of the Lesser Antilles on Sept. 28, and a Category 5 hurricane on Oct. 1, hitting Haiti, Dominican Repub., Cuba, Bahamas et al., paralleling the Fla. coastline but staying offshore before dissipating on Oct. 10 after killing 603 and causing $15B damage. On Sept. 23 Syrian bombing of rebel-held districts in Aleppo, Syria intensifies with a new govt. offensive; meanwhile U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) calls the situation "a colossal disaster" that a "wise statesman" should have foreseen. On Sept. 23 a study by U.S. sociologists Penny Edgell, Douglas Hartmann, Evan Stewart, and Joseph Gerteis is pub., showing that Muslims have passed atheists as the most unpopular group in the U.S., with 48.9% disapproving their child marrying a Muslim, up from 33.5% in 2006; meanwhile another study by the Montaigne Inst. finds that 28% of French Muslims hold extremists views, or are attracted to fundamentalism and oppose secular lifestyles. On Sept. 23 (6:52 p.m. PDT) Muslim Turkish immigrant Arcan Cetin (1996-) of Oak Harbor, Wash. stages a massacre inside a Macy's dept. store in the Cascade Mall in Burlington, Wash., killing five shoppers incl. four women in the makeup dept. before fleeing; he is arrested on Sept. 24; the PC press tries another coverup, initially describing him as Hispanic. On Sept. 23 Kosovo-born Am. Muslim Ardit Ferizi is sentenced to 20 years in prison for providing ISIS with a kill list containing info. on 1.3K U.S. govt. and military employees, becoming the first terrorist hacker convicted in the U.S. On Sept. 23 Tex. Sen. Ted Cruz swallows, er, announces that he's going to vote for archrival Donald Trump for U.S. pres. On Sept. 24 a shooting and suicide bomb attack at a police checkpoint in Tikrit, Iraq kills 12 incl. four police. On Sept. 25 anti-Islam Jordanian Christian activist Mad Hatter, er, Nahed Hattar is gunned down outside a court where he was set to stand trial for criticizing Islam on social media; he had survived another assassination attempt in 1998 - never mock Grandaddy M? On Sept. 25 Donald Trump meets with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, discussing Israel's security fence and confirming that as U.S. pres. he will recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. On Sept. 26 Boko Haram attacks three villages near Chibok Town, Borno State, Nigeria, killing eight and hoisting flags. On Sept. 26 Time mag. pub. a cover story The New Politics of Late Night, about "The seriously partisan politics of late-night comedy", cheering "comics [who] are ditching balance and taking sides" against Donald Trump, incl. Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, Seth Myers, Jimmy Kimmel, and John Oliver. On Sept. 26 ignoring Pres. Obama's warning that it "cannot permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land", Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announces the expansion of settlements in E Jerusalem, Hebron, and Bethlehem. On Sept. 26 an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting sees a walkout by the U.S., British, and French ambassadors as the Syrian ambassador begins to speak, with U.S. ambassador Samantha Power accusing Russia of "barbarism", and British ambassador Matthew Rycroft calling Russia "an international pariah" for its escalation of the air offensive against rebel-held E Aleppo, where 250K civilians are trapped. On Sept. 26 (eve.) the First Clinton-Trump Debate at Hofstra U. in Hempstead, N.Y., moderated by Lester Holt of NBC News and watched by a record 80M is a push, with ever-sniffling (50X+) Trump coming on strong early bragging about how Supply Side Economics will rescue the economy, and how she was a big supporter of the TPP, and Hillary coming on strong at the end by bringing up his refusal to release his taxes and trying to pin the Birther Movement on him and bringing up his non-PC language about women and blacks, reversing his criticism of her stamina by pointing to her past stamina while skipping over her recent problems; Trump uses the word "braggadocious"; Trump scores a late V with the soundbyte: "Hillary has experience, but it's bad experience"; Hillary used aide Philippe Reines to play Trump during debate preparations; on Sept. 27 Hillary holds a rally at Wake Technical Community College in Raleigh, N.C. before a capacity crowd of 1.4K, uttering the soundbyte: "Did anybody see that debate last night? Oh yes! One down, two to go", adding "He made very clear that he didn't prepare for that debate", explaining why she dropped out of the campaign as getting ready for it, with the soundbyte: "Just trying to keep track of everything he says took a lot of time", calling him "dangerously incoherent"; meanwhile on Sept. 27 Trump holds a rally before a capacity crowd of tens of thousands in a hangar in Melbourne, Fla., claiming to win the debate based on unscientific Internet polls, but backing it up by raising $13M in 24 hours. On Sept. 27 after the EU condemns Hungary for its new S border fence, sealed on Sept. 20, causing 5K refugees to pour into Croatia, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban announces that if Muslims continue to immigrate, they will refuse to assimilate and end up living in parallel Muslim societies, accusing EU bureaucrats and German chancelllor Angela Merkel of "destroying Europe". On Sept. 28 after U.S. Senate majority whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and #3 Dem. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), introduce the bill, the U.S. Congress overrides Pres. Obama's veto of their 9/11 Saudi lawsuit bill, with the Senate voting 97-1 (Dem. Harry Reid of Nev.), and the House voting 348-77 (incl. two-thirds of Dems.), becoming Obama's first. On Sept. 30 (Fri.) a rare Black Moon (where the illuminated side of the Moon is caught in the shadow of the Earth) occurs right before the Jewish Feast of Trumpets, causing many to fear the End of Days. On Sept. 30 Internat. Blasphemy Rights Day is sponsored by the Center for Inquiry, founded by Paul Kurtz. On Sept. 30 after Hillary Clinton tries to zing Donald Trump in their first debate by bringing up 1996 Miss Universe Yoseph Alicia Machado Fajardo (1976-), which seems to catch him off-guard, and he won't drop the issue but keeps researching, thinking, and tweeting about it, Hillary utters the soundbyte: "Who gets up at 3 in the morning to engage in a Twitter attack?" - she couldn't get up at 3 a.m. to respond to a national emergency? On Sept. 30 the House Office of Inspector General charges Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz's aide Imran Awan with funneling data off the House network and giving a USB drive to a Pakistani senator who was once head a Pakistani intel agency; Imran's father Haji Ashraf Awan is later discovered to be giving data to Pakistani official Rehman Malik, bragging that he has the power to "change the U.S. president", with leaks going back to 2008. In Sept. Lutz Bachmann, 2014 founder of the PEGIDA anti-Islamization movement flees Germany to avoid persecution by the Muslim-appeasing German govt., settling in Spanish-held Tenerife, Canary Islands. In Sept. Turkish hacker group RedHack releases hacked emails of Turkish energy minister Berat Albayrak, revealing that he purchased oil from ISIS via the Powertrans co., which PM Erdogan's family is connected with, pissing-off the Turkish govt., who tries to shut them down. In Sept. U.S. unemployment is 5.0% (vs. 4.9% in Aug.), with the economy adding 156K jobs (vs. 167K in Aug.). On Oct. 1 the Obama admn. hands over control of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority to the the Calif.-based ICANN globial consortium, pissing-off Repubs., who claim he needs approval of Congress; it's a scheme by the Brown, Getty, Newsom, and Pelosi families who rule Calif.? On Oct. 2 (Sun.) a referendum in Hungary over whether the country should be forced to accept refugees receives a 98% note vote; too bad, the 43% turnout is below the 50% legal threshold, causing PM Viktor Orban to declare it "politically valid". On Oct. 2 a referendum in Columbia over the peace deal with Marxist rebels is narrowly rejected by 50.2% to 49.7%, becoming a V for former pres. Alvaro Uribe and a D for current pres. Juan Manuel Santos. On Oct. 2 German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble calls on Muslims in Germany to develop a liberal tolerant "German Islam". On Oct. 2 former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani gives an interview to George Stephanopoulos of ABC-News, uttering the soundbyte that if Donald Trump legally avoided taxes for years, that proves "he's a genius, absolute genius... This was a perfectly legal application of the tax code, and he would have been a fool not to take advantage of it", adding that Hillary Clinton had "obviously been programmed" to bring up Miss Universe Alicia Machado in their first debate; meanwhile leftist filmmaker Michael Moore gives an interview to NBC-TV's "Meet the Press", admitting that Trump can win the election because "I think they love the idea of blowing up the system", adding: "Across the Midwest, across the Rustbelt, I understand why a lot of people are angry, and they see Donald Trump as their human Molotov cocktail that they get to go into the voting booth on Nov 8. and throw him into our political system"; meanwhile Bernie Sanders gives an interview to CNN's "State of the Union", defending Hillary Clinton as the "superior" candidate for U.S. pres. despite an audio recording released on Sept. 30 showing her mocking his supporters as "children of the Great Recession" who "live in their parents' basements", admitting that it bothers him, and dissing Trump for a New York Times report that claims he might have been legally avoiding paying federal income tax for 18 years, saying: "This is an example of why so many millions of Americans are frustrated. They're angry. They're disgusted at what they see as a corrupt political system in this country"; meanwhile U.S. Sen. (D-Mo.) Claire McCaskill slams Trump on "Fox News Sunday" for the NYT report, with the soundbyte: "If you look at the way Donald Trump has conducted business, he crashes businesses into bankruptcy, leaving stores of businesses unpaid, people really hurting with the losses his companies have suffered. But he walks away unscathed, and it appears he walks away with a golden ticket that allows him, under the tax code, to avoid taxes for decades", adding that Trump's tax plan only benefits himself; meanwhile U.S. Senate minority leader (D-Nev.) Harry Reid calls Trump a "billion-dollar loser", calling for passage of the U.S. Presidential Tax Transparency Act that requires all U.S. pres. candidates to release their federal tax returns for the prior three years to the Federal Election Commission within 30 days, or have the U.S. Treasury Dept. do it. On Oct. 3 a secret meeting of ISIS leaders in Mutaibija, Diyala, Iraq ends in a gunfight, killing one and injuring three. On Oct. 3 N.Y. atty.-gen. Eric Schneiderman sends a notice of violation to the Donald J. Trump Foundation, ordering it to cease all fundraising activity until it properly registers; done for political reasons? On Oct. 3 the debt racked-up by the Obama admin. tops the $9T mark ($19,573,444,713,936.79, up by $8,946,567,665,023.71). On Oct. 3 the U.S. military begins paying for surgery and other procedures for transgender sevice members, incl. reassignment surgery. On Oct. 4 the Pence-Kaine Debate at Longwood U. in Farmville, Va. is a push, with Kaine stinking himself up by repeatedly interrupting, with Pence uttering his biggest soundbyte: "I mean, to be honest with you, if Donald Trump had said all of the things that you've said he said in the way you said he said them, he still wouldn't have a fraction of the insults that Hillary Clinton leveled when she said that half of our supporters were a basket of deplorables." On Oct. 6 40 suspected AQIM jihadists attack a refugee camp in Tassara, Niger, killing 20, mostly Nigerian soldiers. On Oct. 7 the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security and dir. of Nat. Intelligence accuses the Russian govt. of election-year hacking, with homeland security secy. Jeh Johnson uttering the soundbyte: "The U.S. intelligence community is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations... These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S.... We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities." On Oct. 7 a recording of private comments made by Donald Trump in 2005 to Billy Bush of Access Hollywood (cousin of Jeb Bush) is leaked by the anti-Trump Washington Post, in which he brags about his benefits of being a star, incl. an attempted seduction of Bush's married colleague Nancy O'Dell, with the soundbyte: "You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful. I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy", to which Bush replies "Whatever you want", pissing-off the PC police and causing House Oversight Committee chmn. (R-Utah) Jason Chaffetz to withdraw his endorsement, and fence-sitting House Speaker Paul Ryan to cancel an appearance with him on Oct. 8 in Elkhorn, Wisc., with the soundbyte: "I am sickened by what I heard here today. Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified"; Trump responds that "Bill Clinton has said far worse", apologizing if his remarks offend anyone, with the soundbyte: "I never said I was perfect", responding to predictable calls to quit the race with "Zero chance I'll quit... the support I'm getting is unbelievable", adding: "Go behind closed doors of the holier-than-thou politicians and pundits and see what they're saying. I look like a baby"; on Oct. 8 Mike Pence pulls out of the Wisc. event with Ryan, adding that he's offended too but is "grateful that he has expressed remorse and apologized to the American people"; on Oct. 9 before the debate former New York City mayor defends Trump, with the soundbyte: "The fact is that men at times talk like that. Not all men, but men do. He was wrong for doing it. I am not justifying it. I believe it's wrong. I know he believes it's wrong. I believe that this is not the man that we're talking about today... Gosh almighty, he who is without sin here throw the first stone"; on Oct. 9 before the debate Pres. Obama weighs in with the soundbyte: "One of the most disturbing things about this election is just the unbelievable rhetoric coming at the top of the Republican ticket. I don't need to repeat it. There are children in the room, but demeaning women, degrading women, but also minorities, immigrants, people of other faiths, mocking the disabled, insulting our troops, insulting our veterans, that tells you a couple things. It tells you he is insecure enough that he pumps himself up by putting other people down. Not a character trait that I would advise for somebody in the Oval Office"; meanwhile WikiLeaks releases excerpts from Hillary Clinton's Wall Street speeches that were sent to her top aid John Podesta in Jan., calling Bernie Sanders supporters a "bucket of losers" and admitting that she tells the public one thing and believes another, with the soundbyte: "My dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders", causing political analyst David Wol to utter the soundbyte: "This will hit Hillary Clinton's campaign like a 9.0 earthquake when this is absorbed... This exposes her, literally, as a complete fraud" - and touchy-feely holier-than-thou male politicians are as big liars as Hillary? On Oct. 8 elections in Palestine (Gaza and West Bank) (first in 10 years). On Oct. 8 the U.N. Security Council votes on a Russian draft resolution on the Aleppo situation, proposing a political rather than military solution; Egypt votes for, and Saudi Arabia votes against, exposing their rift. On Oct. 9 a Palestinian terrorist opens fire at a the Ammunition Hill light rail stop next to police HQ in N Jerusalem, Israel, killing two and injuring six. On Oct. 9 after they refuse to shake hands at the start, the Second Clinton-Trump Debate at Washington U. in St. Louis, Mo., moderated by Anderson Cooper of CNN and Martha Raddatz of ABC News sees Donald Trump deflect his p---y scandal by dismissing it as "locker room talk", and take it to Hillary Clinton, staring out by saying that she'd "be in jail" if he was president, and accusing her of rigging her nomination race against Bernie Sanders, saying he "never had a chance", calling her every name in the book incl. "devil", with the soundbyte: "There's never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that's been so abusive to women" while she reciprocates, with "It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in this country, to which he replies "Because you'd be in jail"; during the debate a fly lands on Hillary's nose, and she doesn't flinch; she wears Angel perfume by French fashion designer Thierry Mugler (1948-), which smells like shit?, or it is her? :); Trump scores round 0 points by holding a press conference one hour before the debate with sexual misconduct accusers of Bill Clinton incl. Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broddrick, Paula Jones, and Kathy Shelton, whom he sits in the front row; Trump scores a round by calling her out on her attempt to explain away a WikiLeaks revelation that she admits to having separate public and private positions by comparing herself to Honest Abe Lincoln, with the soundbyte: "Look, she got caught in a total lie... Now she's blaming the lie on the late great Abraham Lincoln... Honest Abe never lied... That's the big difference between Abraham Lincoln and you" - Madame Secretary, you're no Abraham Lincoln? On Oct. 10 after the Clinton campaign continues harping on tapes showing him saying playboyish things, Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Ambridge, Penn., slamming her for her "hypocrisy", saying that he is "disqualified from office" for her email crimes, and uttering the soundbytes: "There's nothing Hillary Clinton won't do or say to obtain power, and it's about time people started to understand that" and "I'll tell you what, the only thing she's got going is the media. Without the media, she would not have a chance." On Oct. 11 after keeping his silence during the weekend, Repub. Nat. Committee chmn. Reince Priebus announces that the Repub. Party is still standing with Donald Trump. On Oct. 11 Nick Antosca's creepypasta series Channel Zero debuts on Syfy for ? episodes (until ?). On Oct. 12 with abundant help from the liberal PC media, five women accuse Donald Trump of sexual assault, but not very much, claiming only that he kissed, hugged, or leered at them, incl. Rachel Crooks (b. 1983), People mag. ed. Natashya Strokonoff, er, Stoynoff, who claims he forced "his tongue down my throat" (and she didn't bite it off?), Mindy McGillvray (b. 1980), who claims he grapped her butt backstage at a Ray Charles concert (wanted to wipe it?), former Miss Washington Cassandra Searles, who claimed he "continually grabbed my ass and invited me to his hotel room"; only 74-y.-o. ugly Jessica Leeds claims that he inappropriately touched her on a first-class flight 35 years earlier, with the soundbyte: "He was like an octopus. His hands were everywhere"; four more women tell BuzzFeed that Trump walked in on them in their dressing room during the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant; Trump responds by threatening to sew the NYT and telling a reporter "You are a disgusting human being... None of this ever took place" - so why bring it up now if they didn't bring it up then, call the police, sue, anything? On Oct. 12 (night) Muslim convert Muhummed Isa Al Mahdi (Kirk Figueroa) (1983-) shoots two police officers in East Boston, Mass. before they kil him. On Oct. 13 world's longest-serving monarch king (since June 9, 1946) Rama X (b. 1927) dies, and his son Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn becomes Chakri king #10 Rama X (1952-) of Thailand (until ?). On Oct. 13 after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen launch cruise missiles on Oct. 12 at U.S. Navy destroyer USS Mason, the U.S. retaliates with missile strikes on three coastal radar sites. On Oct. 13 Muslim-dominated UNESCO votes 26-6-26 to approve a resolution by Mexico that restricts access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in a way that ignores Jewish ties to Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem incl. the Temple Mount and Western Wall, despite abundant historical evidence that Jerusalem was in Jewish hands for 1.6K years before the Muslims grabbed onto it; Italy abstains, but on Oct. 21 Italian PM Matteo Renzi utters the soundbyte that the resolution is "incomprehensible and unacceptable, instructing diplomats to vote against it next time"; on Oct. 27 UNESCO passes another resolution expressing "deep concern" that Israel is doing archeological excavations and building works in the Old City; in Oct. after the UNESCO resolutions are passed, the Israeli govt. produces a papyrus fragment dug up by the Israel Antiquities Authority, dated to the 7th cent. B.C., containing the earliest known Hebrew reference to Jerusalem outside the Bible - well shut my mouth? On Oct. 13 WikiLeaks releases a transcript of a speech by Hillary Clinton in which she calls black people and Muslims losers: "THE MAIN REASON BEHIND SUCCESSFUL IMMIGRATION SHOULD BE PAINFULLY OBVIOUS TO EVEN THE MOST DIMWITTED OF OBSERVERS: SOME GROUPS OF PEOPLE ARE ALMOST ALWAYS HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL GIVEN ONLY HALF OF A CHANCE (JEWS*, HINDUS/SIKHS AND CHINESE PEOPLE, FOR EXAMPLE), WHILE OTHERS (MUSLIMS, BLACKS** AND ROMA***, FOR INSTANCE) FARE BADLY ALMOST IRRESPECTIVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. THE BIGGEST GROUP OF HUMANITY CAN BE FOUND SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THESE TWO EXTREMES – THE PERENNIAL OVERACHIEVERS AND THE PROFESSIONAL NEVER-DO-WELLS"; meanwhile attys. for Hillary Clinton submit answers under oath to 23 of 25 questions posed to her about her emails by Judicial watch under the FOI Act, using the phrase "I do not remember" 20x. On Oct. 13 after new sexual assault accusers appear on the liberal media, Donald Trump speaks at a rally in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he utters the soundbyte: "These vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women are totally and absolutely false, and the Clintons know it, and they know it very well. These claims are all fabricated. They're pure fiction, and they're outright lies. These events never, ever happened and the people that said them meekly fully understand"; meanwhile First Lady Michelle Obama gives a speech at a Hillary Clinton rally in N.H. blasting Trump for his "demeaning attitude" toward women, with the soundbyte: "The fact is in this election we have a candidate for president of the United States who over the course of his lifetime and the course of this campaign has said things about women that are so shocking, so demeaning, I simply will not repeat anything here today. And last week we saw this candidate actually bragging about sexual assaulting women. I can't believe I'm saying that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women", saying the lewd locker room comments "have shaken me to my core"; too bad, she adds that Trump's locker room talk "wasn't just locker room banter. This was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior", causing Mike Pence on Oct. 14 to utter the soundbyte: "I don't understand the basis of her claim. Wht he's made clear is that was talk, regrettable talk on his part, but that there were no actions and he's categorically denied these latest unsubstantiated allegations", responding to the question if he personally believes Trump with the soundbyte: "I do believe him. The Donald Trump that I've come to know... is someone who has a long record of not only loving his family, lifting his family up, but employing and promoting women in positions of authority in his company"; meanwhile her hubby Pres. Obama invites the campus anti-gun Cocks Not Glocks group to the White House, bringing their locker room talk with them, which is PC because women are doing it along with men? On Oct. 14 after claiming Russian interference in the U.S. pres. election, U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden gives an interview to NBC News, saying "We're sending a message" to Russian pres. Vladimir Putin incl. wide-ranging clandestine cyberwar, with the soundbyte: "We have the capacity to do it. It will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact." On Oct. 15 an ISIS suicide bombing in the Shaab neighborhood of N Bagdead kills 35 and injures 3. On Oct. 15 multiple missiles are fired at three U.S. warships in the Red Sea off the coast of Yemen, incl. USS Mason, USS Nitze, and USS Ponce; there are no hits. On Oct. 16 (Sun.) the 8th BRICS Summit in Goa, India. On Oct. 16 Kuwait ruler Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah dissolves parliament over security concerns incl. ISIS. On Oct. 16 regional ISIS leader Mehmet Kadir Cabel is killed by police in a raid of his house in Gaziantep, Turkey; meanwhile Syrian rebels recapture the ISIS-held town of Dabiq, Syria, which ISIS believes will be the scene of Armageddon. On Oct. 16 the body of 19-y.-o. raped European Commission lawyer's daughter Maria Ladenburger (b. 1997) (volunteer at a refugee asylum) is found in a river in Freiburg, Germany, causing an outcry leading to the arrest of 17-y.-o. Afghan migrant ?. On Oct. 16 the 2016-7 Battle of Mosul to retake Mosul, Iraq from ISIS in Iraq begins with the Iraqi gov. offensive named Operation We Are Coming, Nineveh, becoming the world's largest single military operation since the 2003 Iraq invasion; it ends next July 20 after 9 mo. 4 days. On Oct. 17 pro-Hillary activist Zulema Rodriguez takes credit for organizing violent protests in Chicago, Ill. that forced Donald Trump to cancel a Mar. rally. On Oct. 17 after WikiLeaks releases another batch of emails about Hillary Clinton, revealing that U.S. undersecy. of state Patrick Kennedy requests that the FBI unclassify one of her emails in a quid pro quo deal with the U.S. State Dept. so that she could go on TV claiming she sent no classified emails, Donald Trump releases a video calling it "proof of corruption at the highest level" and "worse than Watergate",. describing the relationship as "a criminal enterprise" in a rally in Green Bay, Wisc., where he unveils his 5-point Drain the Swamp Plan, incl. a 5-year ban on all executive branch officials lobbying the govt. after leaving service, and closing loopholes for lobbyists. On Oct. 18 Ecuador announces that it's temporarily cutting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's Internet access at their embassy in London to stop him from "impacting on the U.S. election campaign"; a result of pressure by Obama's stooge John Kerry? On Oct. 19 the Third (last) Clinton-Trump Debate at the U. of Nev. in Las Vegas, Nev. sees Trump blast Hillary for unpunished crimes incl. her email business and the Clinton Foundation, and Hillary sweetly smiling back in lieu of a substantial answer, accusing Trump of using Chinese steel in his hotels and being Vladimir Putin's puppet while waiting for an obviously pre-planned late debate stunt where moderator Chris Wallace asks him if he would accept the results of Hillary were declared the winner, but never asking her that same question, after which the pro-Hillary liberal media jumps on him for not kissing her royal hiney and only saying that he'll wait until the election to decide, and gives her the stage for a pre-planned harangue about him trying to destroy our 240-y.-o. democracy, while forgetting about Al Gore in 2000, with the soundbyte: "Our country has been around for 240 years, and we're a country based on laws, and we have hot, contested elections going back to the very beginning, but one of our hallmarks has always been that we accept the outcomes of our election; Trump utters the soundbyte: "In an email sent to John Podesta on August 17, 2014, Hillary wrote that the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia are providing clandestine and financial and logistical support to ISIL. Yet, in that same year, Bill and Hillary accepted a check from Saudi Arabia... So Hillary thinks they are funding ISIS, but still takes their money. And you know their views on gays... and on women... I think she should give back the $25 to $35 million she's taken back from Saudi Arabia, and she should give it back fast", which makes the audience forget its orders to keep silent, booing her and chanting "Lock her up"; Trump accuses Pres. Obama of orchestrating the new military offensive on Mosul only to help Hillary win, even though it's Iran that's the real enemy in Iraq not ISIS, and he gave advance warning to ISIS leaders, allowing them to clear out beforehand; when confronted with the WikiLeaks info. that she dreams of open borders and trade, she lies that she was only talking about energy; all in all few minds were changed? On Oct. 20 a suspected ISIS supporter attacks police in Tangerang, Banten Province, Indonesia, injuring five. On Oct. 20 (eve.) the 2016 Al Smith Dinner at the Chinese-owned Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City sees Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton roast each other, with Hillary saying that she "took a break from my rigorous nap schedule" to attend, saying that since Trump threw away his TelePrompTers he has to translate his speeches from the "original Russian"; too bad, the lighthearted jokes soon turn serious, with Trump uttering the soundbyte: "Hillary is so corrupt, she got kicked off the Watergate Commission. How corrupt do you have to be to get kicked off the Watergate Commission? Pretty corrupt", drawing boos from the audience. On Oct. 21 the Internet of Things Hack takes down large chunks of the Internet. On Oct. 22 U.S. defense secy. Ash Carter arrives in Baghdad, Iraq to meet with military cmdrs. about the operation to retake Mosul from ISIS. On Oct. 22 Egyptian brig. gen. Adel Rajaei (b. 1964) is assassinated outside his home in Oubour City (near Cairo). On Oct. 22 AT&T agrees to buy Time Warner for $85.4B, causing Donald Trump on Oct. 24 to utter the soundbyte: "Donald Trump will break up the new media conglomerate oligopolies that have gained enormous control over our information, intrude into our personal lives, and in this election, are attempting to unduly influence America's political process." On Oct. 23 the Wall Street Journal pub. an article claiming that Hillary Clintn's close ally Terry McAuliffe authorized a $675K payment to Jill McCabe, wife of Andrew McCabe, a top official of the FBI, is who later promoted to deputy dir. and oversees the investigation into her secret server, causing RNC chmn. Reince Priebus to utter the soundbyte: "Given all we know about how the corrupt Clinton machine operates, it's hard not to see this as anything other than a down payment to influence the FBI's criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server." On Oct. 24 Lashkar-e-Jhangvi jihadists in suicide vests attack a police academy in Quetta, Pakistan killing 59 and injuring 100+. On Oct. 24 the U.S. celebrates a record 11 straight years without a major (Category 3) hurricane striking the mainland. On Oct. 24 leftist filmmaker Michael Moore delivers a speech predicting a Donald Trump win, with the soudnbyte: "Trump's election will be the biggest fuck you in human history." On Oct. 25 fomer U.S. secy. of state Colin Powell endorses Hillary Clinton, becoming the 4th cabinet member of Pres. George W. Bush, saying that Trump is "selling a bill of goods" and is "unqualified", claiming to still be a Repub., reversing an email hacked by WikiLeaks, in which he said that Trump is "a national disgrace", but adds: "I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect. A 70-year person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still d---ing bimbos at home." On Oct. 25-Nov. 2 the 112th (2016) World Series sees the 103-58 Chicago Cubs (NL) (who won their last WS in 1908, and last appeared in the 1945 WS) defeat the 94-67 Cleveland Indians (AL) (who won their last WS in 1948, and last appeared in the 1997 WS) 4-3; on Nov. 2 Game 7 sees burned-out pitchers Corey Kluber (Indians) and Aroldis Chapman (Cleveland) give up hit after hit, causing a 6-6 tie in the 9th inning, with Cleveland having the momentum, which is spoiled by a 17-min. rain delay, after which Chicago scores 2 runs in the 9th inning to win - God wanted the Cubs to win? On Oct. 26 U.S. nat. security advisor Susan Rice gives a speech at Am. U, with the soundbyte: "The United States must continue to integrated LGBT rights into our government and foreign policy", praising a new rule announced on Oct. 25 by the U.S. Agency for Internat. Development (USAID) prohibiting discrimination by contractors. On Oct. 27 Russian pres. Vladimir Puttin speaks at the 13th Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia, uttering the soundbyte; "Does anyone seriously imagine that Russia can somehow influence the American people's choice? America is not some kind of banana republic after all, but is a great power... The United States has plenty of genuinely urgent problems, it would seem, from the colossal public debt to the increase in firearms violence and cases of arbitrary action by the police. You would think that the election debates would concentrate on these and other unresolved problems, but the elite has nothing with which to reassure society, it seems, and therefore attempt to distract public attention by pointing instead to supposed Russian hackers, spies, agents of influence and so forth." On Oct. 28 Moroccan fishmonger Mouchine Fikri is killed by a trash compacter in Hoceima, Morocco while trying to retrieve fish confiscated by police, sparking more protests throughout Morocco over the weekend. On Oct. 28 the official Saudi daily Makkah announces that the Saudi Education Ministry it planning the Immunity educational campaign to "inoculate" schoolchilren against Western ideas incl. liberalism and secularism. On Oct. 28 FBI dir. James Comey sends a letter to Congress announcing the reopening of the Hillary Clinton email after more are discovered on the computer of Anthony Wiener, throwing her campaign staff into a tizzy; RNC chmn. Reince Preibus utters the soundbyte: "The FBI's decision to reopen their criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's secret email server just 11 days before the election shows how serious this discovery must be. This stunning development raises serious questions about what records may not have been turned over and why, and whether they show intent to violate the law." On Oct. 29 amid allegations that the failed coup in Montenegro was planned in Serbia by Russian spies, Serbian authorities announce the discovery of a weapons stockpile near the residence of PM Aleksandar Vucic, raising tensions. On Oct. 31 25-y.-o. Palestinian Muslim policeman Muhammad 'Abd Al-Khaleq Turkman attacks Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint in Beit El, Israel, injuring three, after which Fatah praises him. On Oct. 31 (499th anniv. of Martin Luther's Nailing of the 95 Theses to the Church Door in Wittenberg) Pope Francis and Lutheran World Federation pres. Mounib Younan sign a concordat calling for a dialogue to pursue full unity - reunion, or sell-out to Satan? On Oct. 31 the comedy horror series Stan Against Evil debuts on IFC for ? episodes (until ?), starring John C. McGinley as Stanley Miller, the former sheriff of a haunted N.H. town built on the site of a mass witch-burning, who was forced to resign after a violent outburst at his wife Claire's funeral, and Janet Varney as new sheriff Evie Barret. In Oct. the Shearer Memo by Clinton friend Cody Shearer is given to the FBI by former British spy Christopher Steele, author of a bogus 35-page anti-Trump dossier. In Oct. DC Comics char. Wonder Woman is announced as the honorary U.N. ambassador for the empowerment of women and girls in accordance with U.N. sustainable development goal #5 ("achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls" adopted in 2015 (fulfillment date 2030); too bad, 1,180 U.N. employees sign a petition protesting the appointment because of Wonder Woman's "overtly sexualized image" that is allegedly not "culturally encompassing or sensitive". In Oct. U.S. unemployment is 4.9% (vs. 5.0% in Sept.), with 161K new jobs; avg. hourly earnings increase 10 cents (0.4%) (2.8% for the year); the report is pub. on Nov. 4. On Nov. 1 Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., going nonlinear at a heckler yelling "Bill Clinton is a rapist", with the fearmongering soundbyte: "I am sick and tired of the negative, dark, divisive, dangerous vision and the anger of people who support Donald Trump"; meanwhile her campaign spends big bucks to saturate the TV with dirty negative ads about Trump? On Nov. 2 Pres. Obama gives an interview to The Tom Moyner Morning Show, begging black voters to turn out for the U.S. pres. election, with the soundbyte: "If you really care about my presidency and what we've accomplished, you are going to go and vote. If we let this thing slip and I've got a situation where my last two months in office are preparing for a transition to Donald Trump, whose staff people have said that their primary agenda is to have him, in the first couple weeks, sit in the Oval Office and reverse every single thing that we've done ... even going on the Tom Joyner cruise won't help me then. If I'm on the cruise, I might jump off." On Nov. 3 Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Selma, N.C., blasting Pres. Obama for campaigning for Hillary Clinton, with the soundbytes: "We are led by stupid people, and one of them is campaigning too much... Why isn't he back in the White House bringing our jobs back?"; meanwhile on Nov. 4 Obama commutes the sentences of 72 more mainly nonviolent drug offenders, bringing the total to 944, incl. 760 this year. On Nov. 3 after kidnapping a 14-y.-o. girl in Tempe, Ariz. in 1986 and serving 14 years, then killing Charles Carver and chaining his babe Kala Brown to a shipping container in a makeshift dungeon for 2 mo. before being found, Fla.-born hi-IQ computer science degree holder and real estate agent Todd Christopher Kohlhepp (1971-) is arrested, and convicted for seven murders in S.C. since 2003, receiving seven consecutive life sentences without parole; on Dec. 10, 2017 he claims to have "more than seven" victims. On Nov. 4 a PKK car bomb near a police HQ in the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbaki in SE Turkey kills one and injures 30+. On Nov. 5 Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Reno, Nev., where somebody shouts "gun" and he is rushed off the stage by the Secret Service, after which it proves to be a false alarm. On Nov. 5 ISIS releases a video warning Am. Muslims not to vote in the Nov. 8 U.S. pres. election, calling those who do apostates, and calling instead for them to kill all voters. On Nov. 6 FBI dir. James Comey announces that the FBI has not changed its July conclusion to not recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton for her email habits, pissing-off Donald Trump, who calls this proof that the system is rigged, uttering the soundbyte: "Hillary Clinton is guilty. She knows it, the FBI knows it, the people know it, and now it's up to the American people to deliver justice at the ballot box on November 8th." On Nov. 7 the U.N. Climate Megaconference in Marrakesh, Morocco. On Nov. 7 Dem. gov. Terry McAuliffe uses an autopen to pardon 60K felons just in time to vote for fellow Dem. Hillary Clinton. On Nov. 8 (Tues.) after most pollsters give Hillary Clinton a 90%+ chance of victory, and her people pop champagne corks in the morning, considering a win in the bag, the 2016 U.S. pres. election makes a monkey out of the shamelessly biased pro-Hillary pollsters, with maverick Repub. billionaire Donald John Trump (1946-) and running mate Michael Richard "Mike" Pence (1959-) defeating Dem. establishment candidate Hillary Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine by 306-232 electoral votes (59,131,310 votes to 59,293,071), winning every battleground state (Fla., Iowa, Mich., N.C., Ohio, Penn., Wisc.) and 3,084 of 3,141 U.S counties despite Hillary raising $521M and spending $237M on TV ads and $42M on hundreds of staffers, vs. $270M spent by Trump; Trump becomes the oldest person to be elected to a first term as U.S. pres. (vs. 69-y.-o. Ronald Reagan in 1980); the first time that three U.S. presidents are born the same year (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush); the 5th U.S. pres. born in New York (Martin Van Buren, Millard Fillmore, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt), and 2nd born in New York City (Theodore Roosevelt); 4th U.S. pres. to win despite losing his home state (James K. Polk, Woodrow Wilson, Richard Nixon); during the night of Nov. 8/9 the Canadian govt. immigration Web site crashes; the Repubs. gain control of the U.S. Senate and U.S. House along with the White House for the first time since 1929; no surprise, after the newly-exposed biased liberal media kept asking Trump if he would accept a win by Hillary, there are massive anti-Trump protests around the U.S. by diehard leftists, along with secession movements in Calif. and Tex., and petitions asking the Electoral College to pick Clinton anyway. On Nov. 10 (11:00 a.m.) pres.-elect Donald Trump meets with Pres. Obama for 1-1/2 hours in the White House, after which Obama calls the meeting "excellent", with the soundbyte: "As I said last night my number one priority in the coming two months is trying to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful. I have been very encouraged by the, I think, interest in President-elect Trump's wanting to work with my team around many of the issues that this great country faces, and I believe that it is important for all of us, regardless of party and regardless of political preferences to now come together, to work together... I want to emphasize to you as president-elect that we are now going to want to do everything to help you succeed because if you succeed the country succeeds"; too bad, after influence by Trump-hating Michelle Obama, the traditional photo-op with the two first couples outside the White House S entrance is cancelled; Obama warns Trump not to hire retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn because of recurring connections with Russia, which Trump ignores, ending up firing him 24 days later. On Nov. 8 the 2016 Washington, D.C. statehood referendum sees 86% of voters (244K out of 284K) vote to advise the city council to petition Congress to admit the District of Columbia as the 51st state. On Nov. 10 the U.S. stock market zooms to an all-time high, with the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. rising 163.30 points (0.9%) to 18,752.99 (beating the Aug. 15 record), the Standard and Poor 500 Index rising 0.9% to 2,181.50, and banks rising 3.7%. On Nov. 12 a Taliban suicide bomber dressed as a worker denotes at the NATO Bagram Air Base N of Kabul, Afghanistan, killing four Americans and injuring 17 incl. a Polish soldier. On Nov. 12, 2016 5'3" small-time drug dealer James Dale Ritchie (b. 1976) is killed in a shootout with the police after murdering 5+ victims with his Colt Python since July 3. On Nov. 13 (Sun.) Donald Trump appoints Stephen K. Bannon as White House chief strategist and senior counselor, and RNC chmn. Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff; the Bannon appointment really pisses-off the liberal media because of his anti-Islamic stance, which they turn into white supremacist; meanwhile Trump announces that he will only take a $1/year salary as U.S. pres. On Nov. 13 France marks the first anniv. of the Paris Muslim attacks; the Bataclan Theater reopens with a concert by Sting; two members of the band Eagles of Death Metal are prevented from entering because they dared to criticize Islam; the last song of the concer is "Insh' Allah" (If Allah Wills). On Nov. 14 Pres. Obama gives his first press conference since the election, flopping about Donald Trump being unfit for office but never admitting that he has the right temperament to be trusted with the nuclear codes, with the soundbytes: "There are going to be certain aspects of his temperament that will not serve him well unless he recognizes them"; "Reality has a way of asserting itself"; "I don't think he is ideological. I think ultimately he's pragmatic, in that way. And that can serve him well", "It will be up to him to set up a team that he thinks will serve him well and reflect his policies", and he should "try to send some signals of unity and reach out to minority groups or women or others that were concerned about the tenor of the campaign." On Nov. 14 a Supermoon occurs as the full Moon is the closest to Earth since 1948; next in 2034. On Nov. 14 after Stockholm's leftist politicians implement a "gender-equal" system of snow removal during the prior week, which ends in disaster, incl. a 4x increase in broken bones from slip-and-fall, vice-mayor Daniel Hellden of the Green Party apologizes. On Nov. 15 lame duck Pres. Obama visits Greece, followed on Nov. 17 by Germany, using his platform in a final push to open Europe to mass Muslim immigration, uttering the soundbyte beside German chancellor Angela Merkel: "Voting matters, organizing matters, and being informed on the issues matter", advising people to not remain "silent" but to go on and protest Trump. On Nov. 15 the U.S. Congress passes the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2016, a package of sanctions against the regime of Syrian pres. Bashar al-Assad, sending a strong message to the Trump admin.; meanwhile the House passes a 10-year extension to the Iran Sanctions Act. On Nov. 15 the U.S. Geological Survey announces the discovery of the Wolfcamp Shale in C Tex., with an estimated 20B barrels of oil and 1.6B barrels of natural gas, becoming the largest untapped oil reserves in the U.S. On Nov. 17 Donald Trump appoints U.S. lt. gen. Michael Thomas "Mike" Flynn (1958-), former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) (a registered Dem.) as U.S. nat. security advisor #25; he ends up serving just 24 days, Jan. 20-Feb. 13, 2017. On Nov. 17 French fashion designer Sophie Theallet (1964-) pub. a Tweet announcing that she will refuse to "dress" new First Lady Melania Trump like she does Michelle Obama, saying that her "brand stands against all discrimination and prejudice" - except hers? On Nov. 18 Donald Trump settles the lawsuits against over defunct Trump U. for $25M, without admitting guilt. On Nov. 18 (eve.) Mike Pence attends a performance of the Broadway musical Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway, getting booed by the audience; at the end Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Aaron Burr addresses him from the stage, with the soundbyte: "We, sir, we are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our planet, our children, our parents or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir." On Nov. 19 Pres. Andrzei Duda and the Roman Catholic bishops of Poland declare Jesus Christ as the king of Poland in a ceremony at the Church of Divine Mercy in Cracow, calling upon him to rule over their nation; meanwhile Pope Francis elevates Detroit, Mich.-born archbishop of Indianapolis, Ind. (since 2012) Joseph William Tobin (1952-) to cardinal as a "surprise pick" and "political message" because he's a critic of Ind. gov. Mike Pence, who wants to bar Syrian refugees from the state; in 2017 he moves to Newark, N.J. On Nov. 22 (Who Killed Kennedy Day) Donald Trump meets with reps of the liberal biased mainstream media, incl. CNN head Jeff Zucker, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, Hillary lover George Stephanopoulos, Wolf Bltzer, Martha Raddatz, Gayle King, and Lester Holt, dressing them down for attempting to throw the election to Hillarious Clownton, telling Zucker: "I hate your network. Everyone at CNN is a liar, and you should be ashamed." On Nov. 23 after a bad drought that began in 2007, the Great E Tenn. Wildfire of 2016 in the Great Smoky Mts. begins, threatening Gatlinburg et al.; ends ? On Nov. 24 (Thur.) (Thanksgiving) U.S. Navy senior chief petty officer Scott Cooper Dayton (b. 1974) is KIA by an IED in Syria, becoming the first U.S. service member KIA in Syria since the war against ISIS began. On Nov. 24 brushfires in Haifa, Israel cause thousands to flee, causing suspicions of Palestinian arson. Castro couldn't bear facing The Donald so he checked out? On Nov. 25 Cuban dictator (since Jan. 1, 1959) Fidel Castro (b. 1926) croaks in Havana, sparking massive celebrations in Little Havana, Miami, Fla.; Pres. Obama utters the soundbyte: "Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century... Both Mr. Castro's supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people, who had a deep and lasting affection for 'El Commandante'. I know my father was very proud to call him a friend, and I had the opportunity to meet Fidel when my father passed away", which Fla. Repub. Sen. Marco Rubo blasts as "a pathetic statement on the death of a dictator... with no mention of thousands he killed and imprisoned"; U.S. pres.-elect Donald Trump utters the soundbyte: "Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. Fidel Castro's legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights." On Nov. 27 (Sun.) the 2017 French pres. primary runoff is a V for centrist former PM (2007-12) Francois Charles Amand Fillon (1954-) (fast car lover) over Alan Juppe; his patriotism and opposition to more Muslim immigration takes votes from Marine Le Pen's Nat. Front? On Nov. 27 the first ISIS attack on Israel sees Israel retaliate with an air strke, killing four ISIS terrorists on the Golan Heights. On Nov. 28 (9:52 a.m. EST) 18-y.-o. Muslim Somali refugee student Abdul Razak Ali Artan (b. 1998) stages a car-knife killing spree on the gun-free campus of Ohio State U., injuring nine before being shot dead by police; Donald Trump tweets the soundbyte that he "should not have been in our country" - did anybody hear an Allah Akbar? On Nov. 28 a chartered plane en route from Brazil to Medellin, Colombia carrying most of the Cinderella Chapecoense soccer team crashes, killing 71 of 77 aboard after a mechanical or electrical failure. On Nov. 28 former U.S. pres. Jimmy Carter pub. an op-ed in the New York Times, urging lame duck Pres. Obama to join 137 countries and recognize the fake Muslim jihadist state of Palestine, with the soundbyte: "I fear for the spirit of Camp David. We must not squander this chance." On Nov. 29 Carrier Corp. announces that it has reached a deal with Trump to save 1.1K jobs in Indianapolis, Ind., causing Trump and Pence to visit them on Dec. 1. On Nov. 30 predominantly Christian Slovakia passes a law banning Islam as an officially recognized religion, preventing it from receiving state subsidies. In Nov. Denver, Colo. becomes the first U.S. city to legalize social marijuana use. On Dec. 1 U.S. pres.-elect Donald T. Rump, er, Donald J. Trump holds his first thank-you rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, announcing his appointment of James "Mad Dog" Mathis as U.S. defense secy., uttering the soundbyte "We shattered that blue wall". On Dec. 1 Am. Muslim Yasmin Seweid (1998-), a student at Baruch College claims to be attacked on a New York City subway by three white men, who told her "you don't belong here" and called her hijab a "rag"; on Dec. 14 after it is exposed as a hoax, police arrest her for filing a false report. On Dec. 2 U.S. pres.-elect Donald Trump speaks on the telephone with Taiwan pres. Tsai Ing-wen, pissing-off the Chinese, who lodge a protest with the U.S. On Dec. 3 the $2.6B electric attack sub USS Colorado (SSN-788) is launched, and commissioned on Mar. 17, 2018; its flag looks like the Denver Broncos? On Dec. 4 after the Pizzagate conspiracy theory spreads on the Internet, based on emails by John Podesta leaked by WikiLeaks, claiming a pedophile ring in the Dem. Party (incl. the Clintons), 28-y.-o. Edgar Welch (1988-) from Salisbury, N.C. fires three shots at the Comet Ping Pong restaurant in Washington, D.C. with an AR-15-style assault rifle. On Dec. 5 after his proposed consitutional changes are rejected, becoming a D for the EU, Italian PM #56 (since Feb. 22, 2014) Matteo Renzi (b. 1975) announces his resignation; meanwhile Italian actress Paola Saulino (1989-) goes on her Pompa (It. "pump") Tour to keep her promise of giving beejays to those who voted no. On Dec. 6 German chancellor Angela Merkel tries to damp moves by her own party to oust her for her Muslim immigration policy by announcing that she wants to ban burqas. On Dec. 6 Repub. lawmakers call on the Obama admin. to reverse the "unprecedented" decision to hide details of a transfer agreement for 2.4K assorted Muslim refugees that Australia doesn't want. On Dec. 6 Donald Trump announces a deal with Softbank Group CEO Masayoshi Son to invest up to $50B in the U.S., creating 50K new jobs in telecommunications. On Dec. 6 Pres. Obama gives a Final Speech on Islam at MacDill AFB in Tampa, Fla., making his last effort to make America accept Muslims by disregarding their horrible religion's dictates and history, or judging their ideology incl. jihad and Sharia, with the soundbytes: "We are fighting terrorists who claim to fight on behalf of Islam, but they do not speak for over a billion Muslims around the world. And they do not speak for American Muslims, including many who wear the uniform of the United States of America's military. If we stigmatize good patriotic Muslims, that just feeds the terrorist narrative. It fuels the same false grievances that they use to motivate people to kill"; :If we act like this is a war between the United States and Islam, we;re not just going to lose more Americans to terrorist attacks, but we'll also lose sight of the very principles we claim to defend... So let me final words to you as your commander in chief, be a reminder of what it is you're fighting for, what it is that we are fighting for. The United States of America is not a country that imposes religious tests as a price for freedom. We;re a country that was founded so that people could practice their faiths as they choose. The United States of America is not a place where some citizens have to withstand greater scrutiny or carry a special ID card or prove that they're not an enemy from within"; "We;re a country that has bled and struggled and sacrificed against that kind of discrimination and arbitrary rule, here in our own country and around the world. We're a nation that believes freedom can never be taken for granted, and that each of us has a responsibility to sustain it. The universal right to speak your mind and to protest against authority, to live in a society that's open and free, that can criticize a president without retribution. A country where you're judged by the content of your character rather than what you look like, or how you worship, or what your last name is, or where your family came from. That's what separates us from tyrants and terrorists." On Dec. 7 the 75th anniv. of the Pearl Harbor attack is the last major observance. On Dec. 7 Time mag. names Donald Trump their 2016 Person of the Year; in 2015 he was runner-up to German chancellor Angela Merkel. On Dec. 9 a bomb attack near the pyramids in Giza, Egypt at a police checkpoint kills six policemen; on Dec. 12 an explotion at a Coptic cathedral in Cairo kills 22 and injures 35. On Dec. 10 (10:30 p.m.) two explosions in central Istanbul, Turkey outside Besiktas Stadium kill 13+ and injure dozens. On Dec. 10 less than two weeks after OPEC members agree to oil production cuts (486K barrels/day), Russia et al. agree in Vienna to join OPEC nations to oil output cuts of 558K barrels/day in an attempt to raise drooping oil prices, which fell below $30/barrel last winter. On Dec. 11 a bipartisan group of U.S. senators incl. Repubs. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and Dems. Chuck Schumer and Jack Reed call for a congressional probe into whether Russia influences the U.S. pres. election for Trump, whose team replies: "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's now time to move on and Make America Great Again." On Dec. 12 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry secretly meets with PLO exec secy. Saeb Erekat and Palestinian intel chief Majid Faraj on the upcoming U.N. resolution against Israel; on Dec. 13 U.S. nat. security advisor Susan Rice meets with them, followed by reps of the secys. of state and homeland security, and dir. of the CIA, agreeing "to cooperate in drafting a resolution on the settlements", which becomes U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334 of Dec. 23; on Dec. 27 after Kerry, Pres. Obama et al. deny any collusion, the Egyptian daily Al-Youm Al-Sabi' releases minutes of the meetings. On Dec. 13 Aleppo, Syria falls to the forces of Bashar al-Assad, who commit atrocities incl. mass executions and burning children alive. On Feb. 14 a planned closed briefing of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee briefing by the U.S. intel community incl. the CIA, FBI, NSA, and dir. of nat. intel on allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election is cancelled, pissing them off, with U.S. rep. (R-N.Y) Peter King uttering the soundbyte: "Somebody has the time to leak it to The Washington Post and The New York Times, but they don't have the time to come to Congress. It's their job to come. They don't have any choice. They have to come in, especially when they have created this." On Dec. 15 the Chinese navy seizes a U.S. Navy drone in the South China sea 175 nmi. NW of Subic Bay, Philippines. On Dec. 15 sore loser Hillary Clinton makes her first public comments that she won't dispute the election results NOT, with the soundbyte that Russian pres. Vladimir attempted to "undermine our democracy" because he had a "personal beef" with her, claiming "It's part of a long-term strategy to cause us to doubt ourselves" - your endless lies don't? On Dec. 16 (early a.m.) 40 jihadists attack a military post in N Burkina Faso 19 mi. from the Malian border, killing 11 soldiers and one gendarme. On Dec. 16 First Lady Michelle Obama gives her final White House interview to Oprah Winfrey, putting a bookend on her 2008 remarks that "For the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback", with the soundbyte: "Now we're feeling what not having hope feels like. Hope is necessary", adding that she wishes that a "grownup" should be in charge of the country instead of you know who. On Dec. 16 Pres. Obama gives his last press conference of 2016, accusing Russian pres. Vladimir Putin of cyberattacks attempting to interfere with the U.S. election, claiming that when he told him in Sept. to "cut it out" they stopped, hampering Dem. efforts to sway Repub. electors against Trump. On Dec. 16 Pres. Obama signs the U.S. Frank R. Wolf Internat. Religious Freedom Act, amending the 1998 U.S. Religious Freedom Act to to protect atheists and non-theists. On Dec. 18 Ariz. Repub. RINO Sen. John McCain gives an interview to CNN's "State of the Union", claiming that Russian hacking of the 2016 election threatens to "destroy democracy" - duh, how many votes did Putin get? Is he calling for war? On Dec. 18 Jordanian security forces free tourists trapped inside the Crusder-era Kerak Castle in Jordan after a shootout with Islamists that kills nine. On Dec. 18 an 8-y.-o. girl suicide bomber detonates at a police station in Damascus, Syria, killing her and injuring one policeman. On Dec. 19 after calls by the Dems. to ignore the vote counts and blame the Russians for rigging the election to vote for Hillary instead of Trump, the U.S. Electoral College votes for Trump anyway by 304 vs. 227 for Clinton; four electors in Wash. flop on Clinton, voting for Colin Powell, and one votes for environmental activist Faith Spotted Eagle of S.D.; two Repub. electors in Tex. flop on Trump; one Dem. elector in Hawaii flops on Clinton, voting for Bernie Sanders; one elector in Colo. tries to vote for John Kasich, but it backfires. On Dec. 19 snow falls in the Sahara Desert in Ain Sefra, Algeria, becoming the first time since Feb. 1979. On Dec. 19 Miriam-Webster announces its word of the year as "surreal" (referring to the 2016 pres. election victory of Donald Trump), which beat out Donald Trump's "bigly" (he really said "big league"?) and Hillary Clinton's "deplorable". On Dec. 19 the cover of Nat. Geographic features Avery Jackson (2007-), who lived as a boy until 2012, becoming their first transgender cover model. On Dec. 19 (eve.) Russian ambassador to Turkey (since July 12, 2013) Andrei (Andrey) Gennadyevich Karlov (b. 1954) is shot in the back and killed while delivering a speech at an art gallery in Ankara, Turkey by off-duty Islamist Turkish pig, er, police offer Mevlut Mert Altintas, who yells "Don't forget Aleppo" and "Allahu Akbar"; Russia calls it a terrorist act. On Dec. 19 (8:02 p.m. local time) Tunisian Islamist Anis Amri (b. 1992) plows a rented Polish-registered truck into the largest Christmas market in Breitscheidplatz Square near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, Germany, killing 12 and injuring 56; the suspected driver is arrested nearby, then released, and another person is found dead in the cab; ISIS claims responsibility; on Dec. 23 Amri is killed by police in Sesto San Giovanni, Milan, Italy; Pres. Obama protected Amri for months before the attack? On Dec. 22 the Obama admin. announces the scrapping of the Nat. Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEER) for immigrant men from predominantly Muslim countries, which they stopped using in 2011. On Dec. 23 (one hour before Sabbath on the U.S. East Coast) after Egypt withdraws it under pressure from Israel, and the backstabbing Obama admin. breaks with tradition and abstains, giving the green light, the U.N. Security Council votes 14-0-1 (incl. New Zealand, Malaysia, Senegal, and Venezuela) to adopt U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, demanding an end to Israeli settlements in E Jerusalem, affecting 500K, standing and applauding afterwards to rub it in, pissing-off Donald Trump, who tweets: "As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th"; on Dec. 24 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls it a "shameful ambush"; Am. Jewish leader Alan Dershowitz finally turns on Obama, calling him the worst president ever, with the soundbyte: "He called me into the Oval Office before the election and said to me, 'Alan, I want your support. And I have to tell you, I will always have Israel's back.' I didn't realize that what he meant was that he'd... stab them in the back"; U.S. Sen. (R-S.C.) (2003-) Lindsey Graham, chmn. of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the Senate Appropriations Committee utters the soundbyte that Obama "has gone from naive and foolish to flat-out reckless", adding: "With friends like these, Israel doesn't need any enemies", threatening to defund the U.N.; the first time a U.S. pres. abstains on a U.N. anti-Israel resolution during his last month in office; on Jan. 16 Trump gives an interview to Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes, admitting that he ordered the abstention vote, with the soundbyte: "I don't think it caused a major rupture in relations between the United States and Israel. If you're saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu got fired up, he's been fired up repeatedly during the course of my presidency." On Dec. 23 Donald Trump pub. a letter he received from Vladimir Putin dated Dec. 15, containing the wish that he hopes to "bring our level of collaboration on the international scene to a qualitatively new level", praising him with the soundbyte "His thoughts are so correct"; on Dec. 23 Putin holds a press conference, dissing Hillary and the Dems. for blaming their loss on Russian hacking, calling them sore losers and adding that FDR would be turning in his grave. On Dec. 24 Nigerian pres. Muhammadu Buhari announces that the jihadist group Boko Haram has been driven from its last forest stronghold and is on the run, with no place to hide. On Dec. 24-25 (weekend) a surge in gang violence in Chicago, Ill. sees 27 shot and 12 killed. On Dec. 25 (2:00 a.m.) a gang of seven Muslim immigrant youths from Libya and Syria set a 37-y.-o. homeless sleeping man on fire in the Schoenleinstrasse underground station; luckily, a train driver uses a fire extinguisher to save him. On Dec. 26 Pope Francis gives his Feast of St. Stephen blessing in St. Peter's Square, uttering the soundbyte that there are more Christian martyrs now than in the early days of the Church. On Dec. 27 Pres. Obama and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe visit the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, becoming the first visit by a Japanese leader since the Dec. 7, 1941 attack. On Dec. 28 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry gives a 70-min. 9,490-word speech defending the U.S. decision to stab Israel in the back in the U.N., with the excuse that friends must tell each other hard truths and that a 2-state solution is the "only way to ensure Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state", dissing Benjamin Natanyahu and his coalition as "the most right-wing in Israel's history, with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements", adding that Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, but not both - in which case democracy-hating world domination Muslims will only enhance democracy by mass immigration to not only Israel but the entire West? On Dec. 28 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu issues a reply to Kerry's speech, calling it "almost as unbalanced" as the U.N. resolution, with the soundbytes: "Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by foreign leaders. Israel's hand has been extended in peace to its neighbors from day one, from its very first day. We've prayed for peace, we've worked for it every day since then"; "In a speech ostensibly about peace between Israelis and Palestinians, Secretary Kerry paid lip service to the unremitting campaign of terrorism that has been waged by the Palestinians against the Jewish state for nearly a century. What he did was spend most of his speech blaming Israel for the lack of peace, by passionately condemning a policy of enabling Jews to live in their history homeland, and in their eternal capital Jerusalem"; "Hundreds of suicide bombings, thousands, tens of thousands of rockets, millions of Israelis in bomb shelters are not throwaway lines in a speech. They are the realities that the people of Israel had to endure because of mistaken policies, policies that at the time won the thunderous applause of the world"; he then angles for future partnership with pro-Israel pres. Trump, with the soundbytes: "Our alliance is based on shared values, shared interests, a sense of shared destiny, and a partnership that has endured differences of opinions between our two governments over the best way to advance peace and stability in the Middle East"; "I have no doubt that our alliance will endure the profound disagreement we have had with the Obama administration, and will become even stronger in the future." On Dec. 28 the Obama admin. announces the 1.35M-acre Bear Ears Nat. Monument in SE Utah and the 300K-acre Gold Butte Nat. Monument near Las Vegas, Nev. On Dec. 30 the lame duck Obama admin. expels 35 Russian diplomats from the U.S. plus other actions to punish Russia for allegedly hacking the U.S. pres. election; Vladimir Putin responds that he won't retaliate because the lame duck is almost gone and he can better reason with new pres. Trump. In Dec. six black teenies, some of them related gang-rape a 13-y.-o. girl in the Stonebrook Terrace Apts. in Colorado Springs, Colo., rendering her unable to bear children; Tyron Williams is sentenced to 10 years to life; too bad, rapists Tommy and Clarence Williams are only sentenced to probation, causing a public outcry. In Dec. Ariz. Sheriff Joe Arpaio reveals that Obama's alleged long form birth certificate was copied from that of Johanna Ah'nee. In Dec. U.S. unemployment is 4.7% (vs. 4.6% in Nov.), with 156K new jobs created, incl. 17K in manufacturing, which drop by 45K over the year from 12.32M to 12.275M, while govt. jobs grow 12K from 22.211M to 22.223M. The New Oxford Ed. of Shakespeare gives Christopher Marlowe credit for co-writing the Henry VI trilogy with William Shakeseare. The Mormon Church releases the first photos of the magic stone allegedly used by Joseph Smith to translate the sacred text of the Book of Mormon, a brown egg-sized rock - and it won't talk? Canadian clinical psychologist Jordan Bernt Peterson (1962-) begins releasing videos on YouTube criticizing Marxist-driven political correctness incl. Canadian Bill C-16 and white privilege, causing a firestorm of controversy and making him a celeb. Architecture: On June 1 Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland opens with a bizarre Satanic ceremony?; it will reach speeds of 250 km/hr and cut 1 hour off the travel time between Milan and Zurich, saving 1M trucks a year doing the same job; it took 17 years to build. On Sept. 10 Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (cap. 18.6K) opens as the home of the NHL Edmonton Oilers. The Louvre Abu Dhabi in UAE opens. The 5.5M sq. ft. Tesla Gigafactory near Sparks, Nev. opens. Sports: In Jan. a delegation from Middle Eastern countries Israel, Iran, Libya, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia arrives in Switzerland to lobby the Internat. Olympic Committee to make camel racing an Olympic sport, with Internat. Camel Racing Federation (ICRAC) chmn. Sheikh Jamaal bin Tamim Al Thani of Qatar uttering the soundbyte: "Camel racing is hugely popular across nearly 40 countries that together account for over two billion people... It's blatant discrimination that obscure, colonial sports like Badminton have a spot, and not our ancient sport." On Feb. 3 robot golfer LDRIC (named after Eldrick "Tiger" Woods) hits a hole-in-one on the 16th hole of the Waste Management Phoenix Open in Scottsdale, Ariz. On Feb. 17 after comparing gay sex to animals, boxing champ Manny Pacquaio is fired by Nike from his endorsement contract (begun 2006), joining Lance Amstrong, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and Oscar Pistorius. On Feb. 21 the 2016 (58th) Daytona 500 is won by Joe Gibbs Racing driver (#11) James Dennis Alan "Denny" Hamlin (1980-), who beats Denver Furniture Row driver (#78) Martin Lee Truex Jr. (1980-) by 0.011 sec, closest in Daytona 500 history (until ?). On Mar. 7 Denver Broncos QB Peyton Manning announces his retirement, with a record 539 TD passes, 71,940 passing yards, and 200 wins; he wears black high-top shoes to honor his hero Johnny Unitas, and ends with the exclamation "Omaha!" In the spring NFL and college football players begin using the new Zero1 Football Helmet, designed to reduce the risk of concussions. On June 27-July 10 the 2016 (130th) Wimbledon Championships see two-time defending champ Novak Djokovic lose in the 3rd round to Sam Querrey, ending a 30-match Grand Slam winning streak along with his hopes of becoming the first man to achieve the golden calendar slam; Andy Murray goes on to win the gentleman's singles title, and Serena Williams defends her ladies' singles title, equalling Steffi graf's record of 22 major singles titles in the Open Era. On Aug. 26 (Fri.) during a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers in Santa Clara, Calif., San Francisco 49ers biracial QB Colin Kaepernick (known for practicing in cop pig socks) refuses to stand for the U.S. nat. anthem, with the soundbyte: "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder", stirring a firestorm of controversy, after which Jeremy Lane of the Seattle Seahawks sits during the anthem before a preseason game on Sept. 1, Brandon Marshall of the Denver Broncos kneels during the anthem during the season opener against the Carolina Panthers on Sept. 8, Marcus Peters of the Kansas City Chiefs stands for the anthem before the season opener on Sept. 11 against the San Diego Chargers while raising his right fist, and four Dolphins players incl. RB Arian Foster kneel before the entire Seattle Seahwaks team stands while linking arms for the nat. anthem before their season opener against the Miami Dolphins. On Sept. 12 the NCAA announces that it is relocated seven championship events from N.C. during the 2016-17 academic yedar in protest of its public potty law - I don't give a shit? On Sept. 28 after signing with the New York Mets, former football star Tim Tebow hits a homer with his first pitch and first at-bat in an instructional league game against the St. Louis Cardinals in St. Lucie, Fla. thrown by 6'5" lefty pitcher John Kilichoswki. In Sept. the USA Gymnastics Sex Abuse Scandal breaks, with over 150 nat. gymnastics team members incl. Jeanette Antolin, Simone Billes, Jamie Dantzscher, Rachael Denhollander, Gabby Douglas, Maggie Nichols, Aly Raisman, and Jordyn Wieber blowing the whistle on team osteopathic physician Larry Gerard Nassar (1963-) for sexual abuse by massaging their immature sex organs under the guise of medical treatment; in Mar. 2017 USA Gymnastics pres. Steve Penny resigns; in Dec. 2016 the FBI finds 37K child porno images on his computer, pleading guilty on July 22, 2017 to federal child porno charges, after which on Dec. 7, 2017 he is sentenced to 60 years in prison; on Nov. 22 and Nov. 29, 2017 he pleads guilty to 10 charges of sexual assault; on Jan. 24, 2018 after days of witch, er, hunt-style victim impact statements, he is sentenced to 40-175 more years in prison; meanwhile USA Gymnastics and Mich. State U. are sued while avoiding criminal charges - he never actually raped anybody, hence he should have received only 1 year in jail plus probation, with the child porno sentence ditto, but women like to make themselves and children into victims and have men burned at the stake, and the PC press ate it up? On Oct. 16 85-y.-o. Ed Whitlock runs a record 3:56:33.2 at the Scotiabank Waterfront Marathon in Toronto, Canada. On Dec. 25 (Sun.) after starting them on a losing streak with an OT field goal on Nov. 27, the 8-6 Denver Broncos' playoff chances are ended by their rival the 10-4 Kansas City Chiefs when 345 lb. nose tackle (#92) Dontari Poe (1990-) tricks the defense into thinking he's going to try a QB sneak and instead pooches the ball to Demetrius Harris, becoming the largest player in NFL history to throw a TD pass (until ?), and the first to record a sack and a TD in the same season. In the 2016 NFL season all stadiums are required to have metal detectors for fans. Nobel Prizes: Peace: Juan Manuel Santos Calderon (CalderĂłn) (1951-) (Colombia) [peace treaty with FARC guerrillas]; Lit.: Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman) (1941-) (U.S.) ["for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition"]; Physics: David James Thouless (1934-) (Britain), Frederick Duncan Michael Haldane (1952-) (Britain), and John Michael Kosterlitz (1943-) (Britain/U.S.) [topological phase transitions and phases of matter in condensed matter physics]; Chem.: Jean-Pierre Sauvage (1944-) (France), Sir James Fraser Stoddart (1942-) (U.S.), and Bernard Lucas "Ben" Feringa (1951) (Netherlands) [design and synthesis of molecular machines]. Med.: Yoshinori Ohsumi (1945-) (Japan) [mechanisms for autophagy]; Econ.: Oliver Simon D'Arcy Hart (1948-) (Britain/U.S.) and Bengt Robert Holmstrom (Holmström) (1949-) (Finland) [contract theory]. Inventions: The dawn of the Drone Age? On Jan. 7 the U.S. Air Force Intranet Control (AFINC) Weapon System at Peterson AFB, Colo. becomes the first cyberspace weapon to attain full operational capability. On Mar. 8 Google's AlphaGo program defeats world Go champion Lee Sedol 3 straight games in Four Seasons Hotel in South Korea, becoming a V for AI; too bad, on Mar. 13 after figuring out its weaknesses, Sedol beats it in a rematch. On Mar. 15 Nike announces the first power-lacing sneaker, complete with anti-clog traction, in time to fulfill the prophesy in the 1989 film "Back to the Future Part II"; meanwhile after a patent suit filed by Segway, the U.S. Internat. Trade Commission (ITC) bans "personal transporters" (hoverboards). On Mar. 25 Microsoft apologizes for its Twitter AI chatbot Tay after users feed it with pro-Hitler material and it begins spewing it back. On Apr. 27 SpaceX announces plans to land a 6-ton spacecraft on the surface of Mars, exceeding NASA's Curiosity in size (.9 tons). On May 22 the 227.7K GT 362.12m Oasis-class cruise ship MS Harmony of the Seas makes its maiden voyage, becoming the world's largest passenger ship (until ?). In July the Airbus E-Fan 1.2 electric hybrid experimental airliner debuts at the AirVenture air show; too bad, the FAA won't allow it to fly. On Sept. 8 (23:05 GMT) the $800M NASA Lockheed-Martin OSIRIS-Rex (Origins, Spectral Instrumentation, Resources Identification, and Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft launches from Cape Canaveral on a mission to the Bennu asteroid to retrieve 60g of surface material by 2023, becoming the first NASA mission to a near-Earth asteroid to collect samples. On Oct. 24 Microsoft introduces the Surface Studio desktop PC, upstaging Apple for once. On Nov. 19 NASA launches the GOES-R Weather Satellite, which promises to revolutionize forecasting with continuous high-definition views of storms over the Western Hemisphere. Russia launches Luna 25 to the Moon, followed by Luna 26 in 2018, and Luna 27 in 2019. NATO launches its Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, headed by Spain. The SpacexX Falcon 9 rocket launches, landing on the Moon and leaving a special Lunar Dream time capsule containing a can of Pocan Sweat sports drink, becoming the first ad on the Moon, waiting for future lunar explorers to open it and mix it with water and enjoy it. China's Commerical Aircraft Corp. begins producing the 156-seat C919 to compete with the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. IntelligentX Beer Co. of London, England uses AI (artificial intelligence) and user feedback to improve their products. Flash storage becomes cheaper than disk storage. Sports: On Apr. 4 the 2016 NCAA Men's Div. I Basketball Championship Game sees the 34-5 Villanova Wildcats defeat the 33-6 North Carolina Tar Heels by 77-74 after short black guy Marcus Taylor Paige (1993-) of N.C. sinks two 3-pointers to tie with 4.7 sec. remaining, and short white guy Ryan Arcidiacono (1994-) draws the Tar Heels defenders after him while setting up big black guy Kris Jenkins (1993-), who sinks the winning 3-pointer at the buzzer (the Nova play), becoming Villanova's first nat. championship since 1985; former N.C. star Michael Jordan is in the audience. On May 5 (Cinco de Mayo) the 5-5-5 Miracle Game sees the Colorado Rockies score 13 runs in inning 5 against the San Francisco Gigantes (name on their uniforms that night) in seagull-filled AT&T Park, winning 17-7. On May 7 the 2016 (142nd) Kentucky Derby is won by Nyquist (jockey Mario Gutierrez) in 2:02.31, with late-starting Exaggerator closing; on May 21 the 2016 (141st) Preakness Stakes is won by Exaggerator (jockey Kent Desormeaux) in 1:58.31; Nyquist comes in #3; on June 11 the 2016 (148th) Belmont Stakes is won by Creator (jockey Irad Ortiz Jr.) in 2:28.51. On June 2-19 the 2016 NBA Finals see the Cleveland Calviers (coach Tyuronn Lue) defeat the favored Cleveland Cavaliers (coach Steve Kerr) by 4-3 after starting out in a 3-1 hole; LeBron James of Cleveland is MVP. On June 23 the 2016 NBA Draft. Science: On Jan. 13 (2:00 p.m. EST) NASA's Juno spacecraft sets a record for the most distant solar-powered vehicle from the Sun, 493M mi., passing the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft, which peaked at 492M mi. in Oct. 2012 en route to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. On Jan. 20 Terry Sejnowski et al. of the Salk Inst. pub. an article in ELife announcing that the human brain has a memory capacity of at least 1 petabyte (quadrillion bytes), 10x more than previously thought. On Jan. 20 Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown of of Caltech announce a hypothetical (unobserved) 9th solar planet with a highly elliptical orbit 20x the distance to Neptune, with a year of 10K-20K Earth years. On Jan. 26 Enzo Tagliazucchi et al. of the Inst. for Medical Psychology in Kiel, Germany pub. an article in Journal of the Royal Society Interface describing a study of the effect on human brains of anesthetic drugs, suggesting that consciousness requires "cortical integration", a product of a delicate balance of connectivity between neurons. In Jan. Breakthrough Listen is launched with $100M in funding, based at the Berkeley SETI Research Center, becoming the most comprehensive search for extraterrestrial microwave emissions; in Oct. 2019 it begins a collaboration with the team managing the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). On Feb. 9 researchers at 21st Century Medicine (21CM) announce the first successful freezing and thawing of a mammalian (rabbit) brain. On Feb. 11 David Reitze of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announces the detection of gravitational waves from the collision of two black holes 1.3B l-y. away, also confirming the existence of binary black hole systems; too bad, another team fails to confirm it; after they confirmation, the 2017 Nobel Physics Prize is awarded to the discoverers. On Feb. 15 Britta Haenisch et al. of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Bonn pub. an article in JAMA Neurology announcing that people age 75+ who regularly take proton pump inhibitors (Prilosec, Nexium, Prevacid) have a 44% increased risk of dementia. On Feb. 17 (3:45 a.m. EST) the NASA ASTRO-H AKA Hitomi (Jap. "pupil of the eye") X-ray space observatory takes off to study black holes and galaxy clusters. On Feb. 19 Virgin Galactic unveils their Unity spaceship for space tourism, touting it as the future of private space travel for ordinary citizens, who will get to float at 50 mi. alt. for a mere $250K; 700 have aleady put down deposits. On Feb. 24 surgeons Andreas Tzakis et al. at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio perform the first uterus transplant in the U.S. on 26-y.-o. Lindsey. On Mar. 1 scientists at Univ. College London article announcing the discovery of the single gene causing gray hair, which they believe can be turned off. On Mar. 5 Isaac Chuang et al. of MIT pub. an article in Science announcing the creation of a 5-atom quantum computer that can factor the number 15 using Shor's Algorithm. On Mar. 8 the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) announces a $100M project to reverse-engineer 1 cu. mm of brain tissue to discover algorithms that can be used by AI. On Mar. 9 scientists in China pub. an article in Nature announcing the activation of stem cells in a human eye to grow a new lens. On Mar. 10 Christopher Lynn et al. of the U. of Ala. pub. an article that reveals research showing that people who get tattoos boost their immune system. On Mar. 11 an article is pub. in Science revealing that the reason for rising global methane levels since 2007 is fart, er, farming, not fracking, undercutting Pres. Obama's recent pact to cut methane emissions from oil and gas producers by 40%-45% from 2012 levels by 2025. On Mar. 16 Zhi-Gang Shao and Peter D. Ditlevsen of the U. of Copenhagen's Niels Bohr Inst. pub. the article Contrasting scaling properties of interglacial and glacial climates in Nature Communications, based on a study of Earth climate variations back 5M years, finding that climate is chaotic and difficult to predict, but is more stable during the warm interglacial period than during ice ages, the former being monofractal, the latter multifractal. On Mar. 21 P.R. Alexander et al. pub. an article in Nature that speculates that neutron star mergers may be the only way to form many elements heavier than zinc. On Mar. 24 Valda Vinson et al. pub. an article in Science announcing that it takes just 473 genes to make a bacterium. On Mar. 30 Johns Hopkins Medicine performs the first HIV-to-HIV liver transplant. On Apr. 5 scientists at Cambridge U. pub. an article in Nature Materials announcing the detection of the new state of matter called quantum spin liquid, in which electrons break apart. In Apr. James Bornholt et al. of the U. of Wash. pub. a paper describing the first DNA-based archival storage system with random access memory capability. In early May the first penis transplant is performed at Mass. Gen. Hospital on 64-y.-o. Thomas Manning. On May 3 scientists at Cambridge U. pub. an article announcing that they have mapped all the genes that can cause breast cancer. On May 3 researchers at Johns Hopkins U. pub. an article in the British Medical Journal that indicates that medical errors mght be the #3 killer in the U.S. after heart disease and cancer, 250K/year. On May 7 the first fatal crash by a Tesla Model S electric car on autopilot mode happens when a tractor-trailor turns in front of it, killing Joshua Brown (40) of Canton, Ohio. On May 10 NASA scientists announce tht the Kepler Space Telescope has discovered 1,284 certified planets to add to the 984 already confirmed, plus 1,327 likely planets; nine are Goldilocks Zone planets, able to support liquid water and possibly life. On May 17 the Nat. Academies of Science pub. a Study of Genetically-Modified Crops, concluding that they are as safe to eat as crops developed through traditional plant-breeding methods. On June 17 Am. theoretical physicist Michio Kaku (co-founder of String Theory) pub. an article in Geophilosophical Assoc. of Anthropological and Cultural Studies, announcing that primitive semi-radius tachyons (discovered in 2005) are physical evidence that the Big U is a Matrix that was created by a higher intelligence, with the soundbyte: "I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence. Believe me, everything that we call chance today won't make sense anymore.... To me it is clear that we exist in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance." On July 5 NASA's Juno spacecraft successfully enters Jupiter's orbit. On July 11 Jung-Hwan Albert Lim et al. at UCSD pub. an article in Nature Neuroscience reporting the first successful regeneration of the optic nerve in mice. On July 11 scientists at Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab pub. an article in Nature Nanotchnology reporting the first successful method to grow transistors and circuits that are only a few atoms thick. On Sept. 26 Joshua Yang et al. of MIT pub. an article in Journal of Nature Materials announcing that memristors can emulate human brain neurons. On Sept. 30 NASA announces the discovery of 13th sign of the Zodiac between Sagittarius and Scorpius, which they call Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer, located in the middle of the Serpens constellation. In Sept. physicians at Baylor U. Medical Center in Dallas, Tex. perform the first living donor uterus transplants. On Oct. 1 the FDA approves the Arctic Fuji genetically-modified apple that doesn't turn brown. On Oct. 12 Lawrence S. Mayer and Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins U. pub. a report in The New Atlantis revealing that there is little scientific evidence that people are born gay or transgender, pissing-off the Human Rights Campaign and other LGBTQ orgs., who call for their er, heads; on Oct. 21 Rachel H. Farr of the U. of Ky. pub. an article in Developmental Psychology, claiming that children of LGBT parents are well-adjusted into middle childhood. On Oct. 13 researchers Robert Gaunt, Andrew B. Schwartz et al. at the U. of Pittsburgh pub. an article in Science Translational Medicine announcing the first mind-controlled robotic arm that is directly connected to the brain and can provide sensation. On Oct. 18 Japanese scientists announce that they have successfully hatched living mice from stem cells from a mouse tail turned into eggs in a petri dish. On Nov. 18 engineers at the U. of Penn. announce the development of nanoscale muscles powered by DNA. On Nov. 23 NASA scientists report the discovery of an underground ice layer on Mars big enough to cover N.M. On Nov. 30 the Internat. Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) officially approves names for chemical elements Nihonium (Nh) (#113) (formerly Ununtrium), Moscovium (Mc) (#115) (formerly Eka-Bismuth), Tennessine (Ts) (#117) (formerly Eka-Astatine), and Oganesson (Og) (#118) (formely Eka-Radon), named after Russian nuclear physicist Yuri Tsolakovich Oganessian (1933-) (highest known atomic mass). On Dec. 8 the U.S. Nat. Center for Health Statistics pub. statistics revealing that life expectancy in the U.S. has declined for the first time since 1993, from 76.5 years in 2014 to 76.3 in 2015 for men, and from 81.3 to 81.2 for women. Art: Frank Barnes, The Clear Stream of Reason. Geoffrey Tristram, New Portrait of William Shakespeare; painted for for the 400th anniv. of his death, claiming it's the most realistic yet. Music: Dierks Bentley (1975-), Black (album #8) (May 27) (#2 in the U.S.) (#1 in the U.S.); incl. Black (#56 in the U.S.) (#4 country), Somewhere on a Beach (#35 in the U.S.) (#1 country), Different for Girls (w/Elle King) (#42 in the U.S.) (#4 country). David Bowie (1947-2016), Blackstar (album #25) (last album) (Jan. 8) (his 69th birthday) (#4 in the U.S.) (#6 in the U.K.); dies 2 days after release; incl. Blackstar (#78 in the U.S.) (#61 in the U.K.); a record 9:57 long. Kane Brown (1993-), Kane Brown (album) (debut) (Dec. 2) (#1 in the U.S.) (#1 country) (350K copies); incl. What Ifs (featuring Lauren Alaina) (#26 in the U.S.) (#1 country) (750K copies). David T. Little, JFK (opera). Bruno Mars (1985-), 24K Magic (album #3) (Nov. 18, 2016) (#2 in the U.S.) (#3 in the U.K.) (2M copies); incl. That's What I Like (#1 in the U.S.), 24K Magic (#4 in the U.S.) (#5 in the U.K.). Maren Morris (1990-), My Church (w/busbee) (Jan. 19) (debut) (#50 in the U.S.) (#5 country); about driving down the highway playing her FM radio; Hero (June 3) (album) (debut) (#5 in the U.S.) (#1 country). Frank Ocean (1987-), Blonde (blond) (album #2) (Aug. 20); incl. Close to You (by Burt Bacharach, Hal David, and Stevland Morris). Radiohead, Burn the Witch (May 3). Kiefer Sutherland (1966-), Down in a Hole (album) (debut); folk music. Win Can't Lose, Murder on My Mind; featured in the AMC-TV series "Better Call Saul". Movies: Big year for animated flicks from Disney? The 5th Wave (Jan. 22) (Columbia Pictures), set in Ohio stars Chloe Grace Moretz as Cassie Sullivan, who leads the fight against an ET invasion by the Others; does $109.9M box office on a $54M budget. Dan Trachtenberg's 10 Cloverfield Lane (Mar. 8) (Bad Robot Productions) (Paramount Pictures), a different take on "Cloverfield" (2008) is a psychological sci-fi horror film starring John Goodman as conspiracy nut Howard Stambler, who kidnaps Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and imprisons her in his underground bunker in rural La., claiming that aliens have invaded and it's unsafe to leave; co-stars John Gallagher Jr. as Emmett DeWitt; does $110.2M box office on a $15M budget. Michael Bay's 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (Jan. 12) (3 Arts Entertainment) (Paramount Pictures), written by Chuck Hogan based on the 2014 book "13 Hours" by Mitchell Zuckoff shows how the Obama-Hillary outfit cut their own embassy personnel loose with a stand-down order, and tried to lie their way out of it; filmed in Malta; stars James Badge Dale as Tyrone S. "Rone" Woods', John Krasinski as Jack Da silva, Max Martini as Mark "Oz" Geist, Dominic Fumusa as John "Tig" Tiegen, Pablo Schriber as Kris "Tanto" Paronto, David Denman as Boon, and Toby Stephens as Glen "Bub" Doherty; does $69.4M box office on a $50M budget; on opening night Donald Trump rents a theater and hands out free tickets; "When everything went wrong six men had the courage to do what was right"; the whole thing pisses-off pres. candidate Hillary Clinton, who lost the election right here? Gavin O'Connor's The Accountant (Oct. 10) (Warner Bros.) stars Ben Affleck as autistic Jason Bourne Christian Wollf, who poses as an accountant, and is hired by Living Robotics to uncook their books, running into the Gambino crime family; J.K. Simmons plays dir. Raymond King; Jon Bernthal plays Christian's brother Braxton "Brax"; Cynthia Addai-Robinson plays data analyst Marybeth Medina; does $148.6M box office on a $44M budget. Robert Zemeckis' Allied (Nov. 9) (GK Films) (ImageMovers) (Paramount Pictures) stars Brad pitt as WWII Canadian intel officer Max Vatan, and Marion Cotillard as French Resistance fighter Marianne Beausejour, who start out together on a mission in Casablanca and end up getting married in London and have baby girl Anna, after which Max is told that Marianne is a suspected German spy, and must shoot her if she fails the tests. Denis Willenueve's Arrival (Sept. 1) (Paramount Pictures), written by Eric Heisserer based on the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang stars Amy Adams as cunning linguist Louise Banks, Jeremy Renner as physicist ian Donnelly, Forest Whitaker as U.S. Army Col. Weber, Tzi Ma as Gen. Shang, and Michael Stuhibarg as Agent Halpern, who must deal with multiple giant ET spacecraft all over the Earth filled with giant mute heptapods, having to decide whether to shoot 'em or greet 'em; English-born Am. math whiz Stephen Wolfram creates the alien language for the film using his Wolfram language; features "On the Nature of Daylight" by composer Max Richter; does $116M box office on a $47M budget. Justin Kurzel's Assassin's Creed (Dec. 21) (20th Cent. Fox) is based on the video game, starring Michael Fassbender as Callum Lynch descendant of a 15th cent. Inquisition you know what, Marion Cotillard as Templar Dr. Sophia Rikkin, Jeremy Irons as Templar Alan Rikkin, and Brendan Gleeson as Callum's father Joseph; does $213M box office on a $125M budget. Mark Waters' Bad Santa 2 (Nov. 15) (Miramax) (Broad Green Pictures)), a sequel to the 2003 film "Bad Santa" stars Billy Bob Thornton and Tony Cox as burglars Willie Soke and Marcus Skidmore, who are out to rob a Chicago charity on Christmas Eve; Bret Kelly returns as grownup Thurman Merman; Kathy Bates plays Willie's mother Sunny. Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Mar. 19) (Warner Bros.), based on the DC Comics chars. is a sequel to "Man of Steel" (2013) starring Ben Affleck as Batman Bruce Wayne, Henry Cavill as Superman Clark Kent, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman Diana Prince, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, and Diane Lane as Martha Kent; does $873.3M box office on a $250M budget. Fisher Stevens' Before the Flood (Oct. 21) (Nat. Geographic) stars Leonardo DiCaprio, who travels the globe supposedly watching global warming proceeding in front of his eyes and blasting climate change deniers esp. politicians and corporate lobbyists while comparing it all to Hieronymus Bosch's famous trptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights"; aired on the Nat. Geographic Channel on Oct. 31, which makes it available for free; "Before The Flood is the product of an incredible three-year journey that took place with my co-creator and director Fisher Stevens. We went to every corner of the globe to document the devastating impacts of climate change and questioned humanity's ability to reverse what may be the most catastrophic problem mankind has ever faced. There was a lot to take in. All that we witnessed on this journey shows us that our world's climate is incredibly interconnected and that it is at urgent breaking point... We wanted to create a film that gave people a sense of urgency, that made them understand what particular things are going to solve this problem. We bring up the issue of a carbon tax, for example, which I haven't seen in a lot of documentaries. Basically, sway a capitalist economy to try to invest in renewables, to bring less money and subsidies out of oil companies. These are the things that are really going to make a massive difference... W e need to use our vote... We cannot afford to have political leaders out there that do not believe in modern science or the scientific method or empirical truths... We cannot afford to waste time having people in power that choose to believe in the 2 percent of the scientific community that is basically bought off by lobbyists and oil companies." Greg McLean's The Belko Experiment (Sept. 10) (MGM) (Orion Pictures) stars John Gallagher Jr. as Belko Industries employee Mike Mich, who arrives at his office bldg. in rural Bogota, Colombia, and becomes the subject of a sick experiment on the employees, who must kill each other to survive; "Office Space meets Battle Royale"; does $11.1M box office on a $5M budget. Steven Spielberg's The BFG (May 14) (Walt Disney Pictures), based on the 1982 Roald Dahl novel stars Ruby Barnhill as London orphan Sophie, who befriends the Big Friendly Giant (Mark Rylance); does $178M box office on a $140M budget. Ang Lee's Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (Oct. 14) (Studio 8) (TriStar Pictures) stars Joe Alwyn as an Iraq War vet of Bravo Co. with PTSD, who is sent on a victory tour at the Thanksgiving game of the Dallas Cowboys along with fellow soldiers SSgt David Dime (Garrett Hedlund), Virgil "Shroom" Breem (Vin Diesel), and Crack (Beau Knapp); Chris Tucker plays film producer Albert Brown; Steve Marton plays Cowboys owner Norm Oglesby; :Makenzie Leigh plays Billy's cheerleader babe Faison Zorn; Kristen Stewart plays Billy's sister Kathryn; features a halftime show by Destiny's Child; first feature film with a 120 frames/sec. frame rate, in a 3D format at 4K HD resolution; does $30.9M box office on a $40M budget. Ben Younger's Bleed for This (Nov. 18) (Open Road Films), based on the life of boxing world champion Vinny Pazienza stars Miles Teller as Vinny Paz; too bad, it bombs, doing $5.5M on a $6M budget. Fisher Stevens' and Alexis Bloom's Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds (May 14) is the last before their tragic deaths on Dec. 27-28. Anthony Russo's and Joe Russo's Captain America: Civil War (Apr. 12) (Walt Disney Studios), sequel to "Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011) and "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (2014), starring Chris Evans as Captain America Steve Rogers, Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark the Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff the Black Widow, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes the Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson the Falcon, and Don Cheadle as James "Rhodey" Rhodes the War Machine; does $1.153B box office on a $250M budget. Matt Ross' Captain Fantastic (Jan. 23) (Bleecker Street) stars Viggo Mortensen as Washington survivalist Ben Cash, father of six, who celebrate Noam Chomsky Day instead of Xmas, then begin to doubt his fathering sckills after their mom Leslie (Trin Miller) commits suicide; does $10.2M box office. Rawson Marshall Thurber's Central Intelligence (Warner Bros.), the funniest movie of the summer stars Kevin Hart and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson as h.s. buddies Calvin Joyner (school's top student AKA the Golden Jet) and Robbie Wierdicht (school's fat kid and butt of jokes), who meet up just before their 20th graduation anniv., with Wierdich revealing that he is now CIA agent Bob Stone, who shanghais Joyner into a dangerous intel mission; Danielle Nicolet plays Joyner's h.s. sweetheart and wife Maggie Johnson; Amy Ryan plays CIA agent Pamela Harris; Melissa McCarthy has a cameo as Wierdicht's h.s. crush Darla; does $214M box office on a $50M budget. David Frankel's Collateral Beauty (Dec. 13) (New Line Cinema) (Warner Bros.), written by Allan Loeb stars Will Smith as New York ad exec Howard Inlet, who suffers a tragedy and copes with it by writing letters to Love, Time, and Death, causing his partners to hire stage actors to impersonate them, incl. Keira Knightly as Aimee Moore AKA Love, Jacob Latimore as Raffi AKA Time, and Hellen Mirren as Brigitte AKA Death; Edward Norton plays partner Whit Yardsham, Michael Pena plays partner Simon Scott, and Kate Winslet plays partner Claire Wilson; also stars Naomie Harris as grief counselor Madeleine; features great cinematography of Manhattan by Maryse Alberti. Nacho Vigalondo's Colossal (Sept. 6) (Voltage Pictures) (Brightlight Pictures) stars Anne Hathaway as unemployed alcoholic New York City writer Gloria, who can cause a giant reptilian kaiju to appear in Seoul, South Korea if she walks through a playground drunk at 8:05 a.m., and whose boyfriend Oscar can make a giant robot appear, which he uses to terrorize the pop. while she tries to stop him; does $3M box office on a $15M budget. Tim Miller's Deadpool (Feb. 8) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the Marvel Comics char. stars Ryan Reynolds as ex-special forces op Wade Wilson, who is transformed into an immortal man who heals every disfigurement except his chicharrone-like disfigured face, Morena Baccarin as his gorgeous babe Venessa Carlysle, whom he has to hide from for fear of losing her love, T.J. Miller as Deadpool's best friend and bartender Weasel, Ed Skrein as English "what's my name?" bad guy Francis Freeman AKA Ajax, who created him and whom he wants to kill for it, Gina Carano as Angel Dust, a small babe with the strength of the Hulk, Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead, who can turn into a mini atomic bomb, and Stefan Kapcicic as the voice of Piotr Rasputin AKA Colossus; Leslie Uggams plays Deadpool's roommate Blind Al; does $493M box office on a $58M budget, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated film and Marvel comics film (until ?); "Crime's the disease, meet the cure. Okay, not the cure, but more like a topical ointment to reduce the swelling and itch" (Deadpool); "Whatever they did to me made me totally indestructible, and completely unfuckable" (Deadpool); "You may be wondering why the red suit. Well, that's so bad guys don't see me bleed" (Deadpool); "You are haunting. You look like an avocado had sex with an older, more disgusting avocado" (Weasel); "Oh motherfucker you are hard to look at. (Weasel) Like a testicle with teeth? (Deadpool) You look like Freddy Krueger face-fucked a topographical map of Utah (Weasel)"; "Your right leg is Thanksgiving and your left leg is Christmas. Can I come and visit you between the holidays?" (Deadpool to Vanessa). Mick Jackson's Denial (Sept. 11) (BBC Films) (Participant Media) (Bleecker Street) (Entertainment One), written by David Hare based on Deborah E. Lipstadt's book "History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier" stars Timothy Spall as you-know-what David Irving, Rachel Weisz (replacing Hilary Swank) as Lipstadt, Tom Wilkinson as Richard Rampton, and Andrew Scott as Anthony Julius. Scott Derrickson's Doctor Strange (Oct. 13) (Marvel Studios) (Walt Disney Studios), based on the Marvel Comics char. stars Benedict Cumberbatch as neurosurgeon Dr. Stephen Strange who has a car accident that takes away his ability to perform and ends up in Kamar-Taj learning the mystic arts from Karl Mordo (Ciwetel Ejiofor) and the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) while fighting Wong (Benedict Wong) using his Cloak of Levitation, Infinity Stone, and Eye of Agamotto; Rachel McAdams plays Strange's babe Christine Palmer (the Night Nurse); does $677.7M box office on a $236.6M budget. Fede Alvarez' Don't Breathe (Mar. 12) (Ghost House Pictures) (Good Universe) (Screen Gems) (Stage 6 Films) stars Dylan Minnette as Alex, Daniel Zovatto as Money, and Jane Levy as Rocky, three Detroit juvenile delinquents who break into blind man Norman Nordstrom (Stephen Lang)'s house and get trapped inside with a murderous monster; does $157.1M box office on a $9.9M budget. Paul Verhoeven's Elle (May 21) (France 2 Cinema), based on the 2012 Philippe Djian novel "Oh..." stars Isabelle Huppert as businesswoman Michele Leblance, who is raped in her home by an unknown rapist and plots revenge, discovering it's her next-door neighbor Patrick (Laurent Lafitte); does $10.2M box office on a $9.1M budget. David Yates' Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Warner Bros.), a prequel to the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, and Katherine Waterston as Porpentina "Tina" Goldstein; does $611.8M box office on a $180M budget. Denzel Washington's Fences (Dec. 16) (Paramount Pictures), based on the 1983 play by August Wilson stars Washington as former Negro league baseball player Troy Maxson, Viola Davis as Rose Maxson, and Stephen McKinley Henderson as Jim Bono. Andrew Stanton's 3-D animated Finding Dory (Walt Disney Studios) (June 8), sequel to "Finding Nemo" (2003) features the voices of Ellen DeGeneres as regal blue tang Dory, Albert Brooks as ocellaris clownfish Marlin, Hayden Rolence as his son Nemo, and Ed O'Neill as East pacific red octopus Hank; does $1.027B box office on a $200M budget. Stephen Frears' Florence Foster Jenkins (Apr. 23) (Pathe) (BBC Films) (Qwerty Films) (Paramount Pictures) stars Meryl Streep as the New York socialite with the world's worst singing voice, and Hugh Grant as her hubby-mgr. St. Clair Bayfield; does $44.3M box office on a $29M budget; Streep's 20th Oscar nomination. Adam Nimoy's For the Love of Spock (Apr. 16) (455 Films) is a documentary about Leonard Nimoy, dir. by his son, who started it before his death. John Lee Hancock's The Founder (Dec. 7) (FilmNation Entertainment) (The Combine) (Weinstein Co.) stars Michael Keaten as McDonald's Restaurants founder Ray Kroc, and Laura Dern as his wife Ethel Fleming; does $8M box office on a $7M budget. Paul Feig's 3-D Ghostbusters (July 9) (Village Roadshow Pictures) is a female reboot starring Melissa McCrrtney as paranormal researcher Dr. Abigail "Abby" Yates, Kristen Wiig as physicist Dr. Erin Gilbert, Kate McKinnon as electric engineer Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones as recruit #1 Patricia "Patty" Tolan, Andy Garcia as Mayor Bradley, and Chris Hemsworth as their hunky dimwitted secy. Kevin Beckman; features cameos by Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, Ozzy Osbourne, and Al Roker; does $229M box office on a $144M budget. Alex Proyas' Gods of Egypt (Feb. 25) (Thunder Road Pictures) (Summit Entertainment) is about an alternate ancient Egypt where gods live with humans and have golden blood, incl. God of the Desert Set (Gerard Butler), God of the Sun Ra (Geoffrey Rush), God of Air Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldu), God of Wisdom Thoth (Chadwick Boseman), and God of Love Hathor (Elodie Yung); does $150.7M box office on a $140M budget. Zhang Yimou's The Great Wall (Dec. 15) (China Film Group) (Universal Pictures) stars Matt Damon as white Euro William Garin, who is called into Song era China to save it from monsters, pissing-off the PC police, to which Yimou fires back with the soundbyte: "For the first time, a film deeply rooted in Chinese culture, with one of the largest Chinese casts ever assembled, is being made at tentpole scale for a world audience"; does $219M box office on a $150M budget. Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge (Sept. 4) (Summit Entertainment) stars Andrew Garfield as pacifist Seventh Day Adventist Desmond T. Doss, who fights in the WWII Battle of Okinawa sans rifle, turning into a hero and rescuing 75+ soldiers at you know where, receiving a Medal of Honor from Pres. Truman (first to a conscientious objector, and only for bravery in WWII); does $84.2M box office on a $40M budget. David Mackenzie's Hell or High Water (May 16) (CBS Films) (Lionsgate), written by Taylor Sheridan stars Chris Pine and Ben Foster as West Tex. brothers Toby and Tanner Howard, who decide to become bank robbers, and Jeff Bridges as Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton; does $31.9M box office on a $12M budget. Theodore Melfi's Hidden Figures (Dec. 20) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly stars Taraji P. Henson as African-Am. mathematician Katherine G. Johnson, and Octavia Spencer as Dorothy Vaughan, who calculate flight trajectories for NASA's Project Mercury and Apollo 11; Kevin Costner plays NASA dir. Al Harrison; Pres. Obama greets Costner, Henson, and Spencer on Dec. 15; does $30.5M box office on a $25M budget. Roland Emmerich's Independence Day: Resurgence (June 20) (TSG Entertainment) (20th Cent. Fox) is a sequel to the hit 1996 movie set 20 years afterwards when they return, and of course the U.S. pres. is a woman, Pres. Lanford (Sela Ward); also stars Jeff Goldblum as MIT-educated computer expert David Levinson, Judd Hirsch as his father Julius Levinson, Brent Spinder as Dr. Brakish Okun, Bill Pullman as former U.S. pres. #42 Thomas J. Whitmore, Marilyn, er, Maika Monroe as his daughter Patricia Whitmore, Liam Hemsworth as U.S. pilot Jake Morrison, Jessie Usher as Col. Steven Hiller's stepson Dylan Dubrow-Hiller, and Angelababy as Chinese pilot Rain Lao, and Ng Chin Han as her adoptive father Chinese Gen. Jiang Lao; too bad, the aliens die way too easily at the end, as if they ran out of funds, ruining the movie?; does $389.7M box office on a $165M budget. Ron Howard's Inferno (Oct. 9) (Columbia Pictures), based on the 2013 Dan Brown novel, filmed in Venice and Budapest stars Tom Hanks as Harvard symbology prof. Dr. Robert Langdon, Felicity Jones as Dr. Sienna Brooks, and Ben Foster as evil scientist Bertrand Zobrist, who wants to reduce world pop. with the Inferno virus; does $218.7M box office on a $75M budget. Pablo Larrain's Jackie (Sept. 7) (Fox Searchlight Pictures) stars Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy after JFK's assassination; does $300K box office on a $9M budget. Paul Greengrass' Jason Bourne (July 11) (Universal Pictures) is Jason Bourne #5, starring Matt Damon as Bourne, Tommy Lee Jones as CIA dir. Robert Dewey, and Alicia Vikander as CIA cyberhead Heather Lee; does $415M box office on a $120M budget. Jon Favreau's The Jungle Book (Walt Disney Studios), an animated film based on the Rudyard Kipling novels and the 1957 Disney animated film stars the voices of Neel Sethi as Mowgli, Bill Murray as Baloo, Ben Kingsley as Bagheera, Idris Elba as Shere Khan, Lupita Nyong'o as Rakha, and Christopher Walken as King Louie; does $966.5M box office on a $175M budget. Damien Chazelle's La La Land (Aug. 31) (Summit Entertainment) is a romantic jazz musical set in you know where starring Ryan Gosling as jazz pianist Sebastian Wilder, and Emma Stone as aspiring actress Mia Dolan, who hook up at Bill's (J.K. Simmons) restaurant, and end up going their separate ways; features John Legend as jazz singer Keith; does $226.5M box office on a $30M budget. Ben Affleck's Live by Night (Dec. 13) (Warner Bros.), based on the 2012 Dennise Lehane novel is a 1920s-30s gangster flick starring Affleck as Boston gangster Joe Coughlin, who hooks up Emma Gould (Sienna Miller), moll of rival gangster Albert White (Robert Glenister); Remo Girone plays rival Italian mafioso Maso Pescatore; a box office dud, doing $182K box office on a $65M budget. Garth Davis' Lion (Sept. 10) (See-Saw Films) (Weinstein Co.), based on the book "A Long Way Home" by Saroo Brierly and Larry Buttrose stars Dev Patel as Indian boy Saroo, who is separated from his mother, causing him to gon a search along with his babe Lucy (Rooney Mara); David Wenham and Nicole Kidman play his adoptive parents John and Sue Brierly; does $27.5M box office on a $12M budget. Jeff Nichols' Loving (May 16) (Random Films) (Big Beach) (Focus Features) stars Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as interracial marriage renegades Richard and Mildred Loving in Va., who won in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia U.S. Supreme Court decision; does $6.7M box office on a $9M budget. Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea (Pearl Street Films) (Roadside Attractions) (Amazon Studios) (Jan. 23) stars Casey Afflect as Lee Chandler, a janitor in Quincy, Mass., Kyle Chandler as his brother Joe, who dies of heart failure, causing Lee to travel to Manchester, Mass. to see Joe's son Patrick (Lucas Hedges), learning that he has been given guardianship. Fabio Guaglione's and Fabio Resinaro's Mine (Oct. 6) stars Armie Hammer as U.S. Marine Sniper Mike Stevens, who steps on a landmine in the middle of the desert and must wait 52 hours for a rescue while being taunted by a Berber (Clint Dyer) and dreaming of his fiancee Jenny (Annabelle Wallis); Tom Cullen plays his spotter Tommy Madison. Tim Burton's Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Sept. 25) (20th Cent. Fox), written by Jane Goldman based on the 2011 Ransom Riggs novel stars Eva Green as Miss Alma LeFay Peregrine, Asa Butterfield as Jacob "Jake" Portman, Terence Stamp as his grandfther Abraham "Abe" Portman, and Judi Dench as Miss Esmeralda Avocet; does $282M box office on a $110M budget. John Madden's Miss Sloane (Nov. 11) (FilmNation Entertainment) (EuropaCorp) stars Jessica Chastain as Washington, D.C. lobbyist Elizabeth Sloane, who takes on the establishment over gun control; does $9.1M box office on a $13M budget. Jodie Foster's Money Monster (May 12) (TriStar Pictures) stars George Clooney as TV financial expert Lee Gates, whose recommended stock IBIS craters, causing Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) to hold him hostage on the set until he gives him some answers; Julia Roberts plays show dir. Patty Fenn; does $93.3M box office on a $27M budget. Barry Jenkins' Moonlight (Oct. 21) (A24), based on Tarell Alvin McCraney's play "Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue" stars Alex Hibbert/Ashton Sandrs/Trevante Rhodes as Little/Teen/Adult "Black" Chiron, who goes gay with Jaden Piner/Jharrel Jerome/Andre Holland as Child/Teen/Adult Kevin; Naomie Harris plays Chiron's mother Paula, Mahershala Ali plays crack dealer Juan, and Janelle Monae plays his babe Teresa; does $16M box office on a $5M budget. Kim A. Snyder;s Newtown (Jan. 24) is a documentary about the Dec. 14, 2012 school massacre in Newtown, Conn.; too bad, widespread belief that the event was a govt. false flag causes it to flop, doing only $13K box office. Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals (Sept. 2) (Focus Features), based on the 1993 novel "Tony and Susan" by Austin Wright stars Amy Adams as rich LA art gallery owner Susan Morrow, and Jake Gyllenhaal as her estranged hubby Edward Sheffield, who sends her the ms. for a novel about a violent rape-murder of a man's wife and daughter by a gang of drifters led by Ray Marcus (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), and the failed attempt at bringing them to justice by local detective Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon); does $22.5M box office on a $32.4M budget. Morten Tyldum's Passengers (Dec. 21) (Vilage Roadshow Pictures) (Columbia Pictures), written by Jon Spaihts starrs Jennifer Lawrence as Aurora Dunn, and Chris Pratt as Jim Preston, who wake up 90 years too soon on a spaceship on a 120-year voyage to Homestead II with 5,259 people; Michael Sheen plays Arthur the robot bartender; Laurence Fishburne plays Chief Gus Mancuso; Andy Garcia plays Adm. Norris; does ? box office on a $120M budget. Chris Renaud's and Yarrow Cheney's 3-D animated The Secret Life of Pets (June 16) (Illumination Entertainment) (Universal Pictures) stars the voices of Louis C.K. as Jack Russell Terrior Max, Albert Brooks as red-tailed hawk Tiberius, Eroc Stonestreet as shaggy dog Duke, Kevin Hart as white rabbit Snowball, and Jenny Slate as white Pomeranian Gidget; does $874.7M box office on a $75M budget. Peter Berg's Patriots Day (Nov. 17), based on the book "Boston Strong" by Casey Sherman and Dave Wede about the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing stars Mark Wahlberg as Boston PD Sgt. Tommy Saunders, John Goodman as police commisssiner Ed Davis, J.K. Simons as Watertown PD Sgt. Jeffrey Pugliese, Kevin Bacon as FBI agent Richard DesLauriers, and Michelle Monaghan as Tommy's wife nurse Carol Saunders. Burr Steers' Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Jan. 21) (Lionsgate) (Screen Gems), based on the 2009 Seth Grahame-Smith novel taking off from the 1813 Jane Austen novel stars Lily James as Elizabeth Bennett, Sam Riley as Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jack Huston as Mr. Wicham, Bella Heathcote Jane Bennet, Douglas Booth as Mr. Bingley, Matt Smith as Mr. Collins, Charles Dance as Mr. Bennet, and Lena Headey as Lady Catherine de Bourgh; does $16.4M box office on a $28M budget. Julia Ducournau's Raw (Grave) (Wild Bunch) (May 14) is a horror drama film starring Garance Miller as Justine, who starts out as a vegetarian and ends up a raving cannibal; does $3.33M box office on a $3.8M (3.48M Euro) budget. Paul W.S. Anderson's Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Dec. 23) is the 6th and last installment in the series, starring Milla Jovovich as Alice; does $120M box office on a $40M budget. Kevin Reynolds' Risen (Feb. 19) (Affirm Films) (Columbia Pictures) stars Joseph Fiennes as Roman tribune Clavius, who is ordered by Pontius Pilate (Peter Firth) to find the stolen body of Jewish Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) (Cliff Curtis), only to have a personal experience and go Christian, then forget to write a bestseller about it; does $46.1M box office on a $20M budget. Jaume Collet-Serra's The Shallows (Junue 21) (Columbia Pictures) stars scantily-clad Blake Lively as hot medical student Nancy Adams, who gets stranded 200 yards from shore on a secluded beach in Mexico, and must battle a great white shark to get back to shore; does $119M box office on a $17M budget. Martin Scorsese's Silence (Nov. 29) (Paramount Pictures), based on the 1966 Shusaku Endo novel set in Nagasaki, Japan during the time of Kakure Kirishitan (Hidden Christians) in 1638 stars Liam Neeson as Portuguese Father Christovao Ferreira, Andrew Garfield as his student Sebastiao Rodrigues (based on real-life Giuseppe Chiara), Adam Driver as Father Franciscco Garupe, Issey Ogata as grand inquisitor Inoue Masashige, ans Shina Tsukamoto as his henchman Mokichi; does $19.9M box office on a $40M budget. M. Night Shyamalan's Split (Sept. 26) (Blinding Edge Pictures) (Blumhouse Productions) (Universal Pictures) stars James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb, who has 24 personalities, and kidnaps three teenie girls and holds them in an underground room; they must talk one of the personalities into setting them free before #24 appears, the Beast, a cannibal murderer; does $278.5M box office on a $9M budget. David Ayer's Suicide Squad (Aug. 1) (Warner Bros.), a sequel to "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" based on the DC Comics chars. stars Viola Davis as U.S. govt. intel exec Amanda Waller, who assembles Task Force X out of dangerous psychotic supercriminals imprisoned in Belle Reve Prison in La. to take on even more evil supervillains in Gotham City led by the Joker (Jared Leto); Task Force X incl. Floyd Lawton/Deadshot (Will Smith), Harleen Quinzel/Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Chato Santana/El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), George "Digger" Harkness/Capt. Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Waylon Jones/Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Dr. June Moone/Enchantress (Cara Delevigne); first DC Comics film to win an Oscar (best makeup and hairstyling); does $746.8M box office on a $175M budget. Justin Lin's Star Trek Beyond (July 22) is Star Trek #13 and Star Trek Reboot Series #3; does $343.5M box office on a $185M budget. Clint Eastwood's Sully: Miracle on the Hudson (Sept. 2) (Village Roadshow Pictures) stars Tom Hanks as Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, hero of U.S. Airways Flight 1549; does $200M box office on a $60M budget. ?'s This Is Your Land (My Music) (Mar. 1) is a PBS-TV special consisting of a musical tour of Am. folk music, hosted by the Smothers Brothers and Judy Collins. Yeon Sang-ho's Train to Busan (May 13) (Next Entertainment World) debuts, a South Korean horror film about a sudden incursion of a zombie apocalypse in the country that threatens the passengers on a you know what; does $100M box office on a $8.5M budget. Duncan Jones' Warcraft (May 24) (Universal Pictures), based on the video game series set in the world of Azeroth, about an invasion of orcs from Draenor stars Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, {Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, and Daniel Wu; does $433.5M box office on a $160M budget, passing "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time" (2010) as the highest-grossing video game adaptation. Todd Phillips' War Dogs (Aug. 3) (Warner Bros.), based on a Rolling Stone article by Guy Lawson stars Jonah Hill and Miles Teller as arms dealers Efraim Diveroli and David Packouz, who receive a $300M U.S. Army contract to supply ammo to the Afghan Nat. Army; does $86.2M box office on a $50M budget. Bryon Howard's and Rich Moore's Zootopia (Walt Disney Pictures) (Feb. 11) is an animated film about anthropomorphic mammals, starring the voice of Ginnifer Goodwin as Judy Hopps, first rabbit police officer in Zootopia, who hooks up with red fox con artist Nicholas P. "Nick" Wilde (Jason Bateman); does $1.024B box office on a $150M budget. Nonfiction: Jennifer Ackerman, The Genius of Birds. Svetlana Alexievich, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets. David C. Archibald (1955-), American Gripen: The Solution to the F-35 Nightmare (Dec. 14); the Saab Gripen. Douglas Axe, Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition that Life Is Designed. John Bloom, Eccentric Orbits: The Iridium Story. Don Boys, Muslim Invasion: The Fuse Is Burning! (June 9). Stephen Budiansky, Code Warriors; the NSA attempts to hack the Soviet Union. Gary J. Byrne, Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experiences with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate (June 28); ex-Secret Service agent details Bill Clinton's constant whoring and Hillary Clinton's unhinged rage, incl. throwing a Bible at the back of an agent's head, concluding that she "lacks the integrity and temperament to serve" in the White House; admits that he "even secretly disposed of sordid physical evidence that might later have been used to convict the president [Bill Clinton]." John le Carre (1931), The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life (autobio.) (Sept. 6). Sean Carroll, The Big Picture: On the Origin of Life, Meaning and the Universe Itself; poetic naturalism? Brian Christian, Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions. Greg Clark, Global Cities: A Short History. Hillary Clinton (1947-) and Tim Kaine (1958-), Stronger Together (Sept. 6); their campaign plans; sells only 3K copies the first week. Ann Coulter (1961-), In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! (Aug. 23). Laura Cumming, The Vanishing Velazquez: A 19th Century Bookseller's Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece. E.J. Dionne (1952-), Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism from Goldwater to the Tea Party and Beyond (Jan. 19); claims that conservative politicians have been making election promises they never keep, causing anger that's fueling the rise of Donald Trump; "The history of contemporary American conservatism is a story of disappointment and betrayal"; "The problem is that those white, working-class voters have voted Republican and gotten no material benefit from that. And the other side of Trump speaks very much to them." John Donovan and Caren Zucker,, In a Different Key; how autism became so common. Michael Doran, Ike's Gamble: America's Rise to Dominance in the Middle East. John Dunn, Renaissance: Counter-Renaissance: The Revolt Against Jehovian Terror (Feb. 29). Mohamed A. El-Erian (1958-), The Only Game in Town: Central Banks, Instability, and Avoiding the Next Collapse (Jan.). Denis Feeney, Beyond Greek: The Beginnings of Latin Literature (Jan. 4). William Finnegan (1952-), Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life (Apr. 26) (Pulitzer Prize). Gen. Michael T. Flynn (1958-), The Field of Fight: How We can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. Thomas Frank, Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the Party of the People? (Mar. 15); how the Dem. Party sold-out to corporations. Michael Fried (1939-), After Caravaggio (July 12); his influence on Bartolomeo Manfredi, Valentin de Boulogne, Nicolas Tournier, Nicolas Regnier, Cecco del Caravaggio, and Jusepe de Ribera, and their relation to the thought of Rene Descartes. Timothy R. Furnish, Sects, Lies, and the Caliphate: Ten Years of Observations on Islam (Jan. 16); High Towers and Strong Places: A Political History of Middle-earth; followed by "Bright Swords and Glorious Warriors: A Military History of Middle-earth. Edith Gelles (ed.), Abigail Adams: Letters. John R. Gillingham, The European Union: An Obituary (Apr. 20). Robert J. Gordon, The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War (Jan. 12); claims that the days of rapid U.S. growth are no more. Sebastian Gorka, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War (Apr. 11). Julian Guthrie, How to Make A Spaceship: A Band of Renegades, An Epic Race, and the Birth of Private Spaceflight (Sept. 20); Peter Diamandis and the XPRIZE Foundation. Lawrence J. Haas, Harry & Arthur: Truman, Vandenberg, and the Partnership That Created the Free World (Apr. 1). Shadi Hamid, Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam Is Reshaping the World (June 7); how the Muslim World still has its mind in its 1400-year supremacist past. Philip Haney and Art Moore, See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government's Submission to Jihad (May 24). Tim Harford, Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives. (Oct. 4). Gen. Michael Vincent Hayden (1945-), Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror. Francois Hollande (1954-), A President Shouldn't Say That...; admits that France has "a problem with Islam. No one doubts it", incl. mass immigration and veiled women; "How can one avoida partition? Because that is still what is happening: a partition." Daniel E. Horowitz, Stolen Sovereignty: How to Stop Unelected Judges from Transforming America (July 19); the evil fruit caused by Pres. Obama's packing of federal courts, starting with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in "Obergefell v. Hodges". Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air (autobio.) (Jan. 12). Philip Haney and Art Moore, See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government's Submission to Jihad (May 24); the horrible success of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas et al. in softening up the U.S. for Islamic takeover, using Pres. Obama as their wabbit. Catherine Fairfield Hayes, Contemplations on God and Orgasm. James Hoggan, I'm Right and You're an Idiot: The Toxic State of Public Discourse and How to Clean It Up (May 24). Daniel H. Joyner, Iran's Nuclear Program and International Law. Kevin Kelly (1952-), The Inevitable; AI will be humanity's savior?; the Big Twelve Trends: Becoming, Cognifying, Flowing, Screening, Accessing, Sharing, Filtering, Remixing, Interacting, Tracking, Questioning, Beginning; "This is the moment that folks in the future will look back at and say, 'Oh to have been alive and well back then!' There has never been a better time with more opportunities, more openings, lower barriers, higher benefit/risk ratios, better returns, greater upside than now. Right now, this minute." William Kilpatrick, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Jihad (Sept. 26); terrorism has nothing to do with Islam? Ed Klein, Guilty as Sin (Oct.); Hillary Clinton's email server problems. Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin, The Jihadi Dictionary: The Essential Intel Tool for Military, Law Enforcement, Government and the Concerned Public (May 9). Craig Leavitt and Thomas J. Noel, Herndon Davis: Painting Colorado History, 1901-1962 (Feb. 15). Janna Levin, Black Hole Blues and Other Songs from Outer Space (Mar. 29); the story of the detection of the collision of two black holes. Bernard-Henri Levy (1948-), The Spirit of Judaism (L'Esprit du Judaisme) (Feb.); English trans. pub. in Jan. 2017; why the Jewish state of Israel is the litmus test for anti-Semitism; a "defense of a certain idea of man and God, of history and time, of power, voice, light, sovereignty, revolt, memory, and nature." Mike Love (1941-), Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy (autobio.) (Sept. 13). Mitch McConnell (1942-), The Long Game: A Memoir (autobio.) (May 31); "In the line of work I would choose, compromise is key, but I'd come to find that certain times required me to invoke the fighting spirit both of my parents instilled in me." Peter McLoughlin, Easy Meat: Inside Britain's Grooming Gang Scandal (Mar. 1). Bill Mesler and H. James Cleaves II, A Brief History of Creation: Science and the Search for the Origin of Life. Chris Miller, The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR (Dec. 2). Dick Morris, Armageddon: How Trump Can Beat Hillary (June 28). Siddhartha Mukherjee, The Gene: An Intimate History (May 17). Peter Neumann, Radicalised: New Jihadists and the Threat to the West. Bill O'Reilly (1949-), Killing the Rising Sun: How America Vanquished World War II Japan (Sept. 13). Murray Pittock, Culloden (Sept. 14). Joshua Cooper Ramo (1968-), The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune, and Survival in the Age of Networks.; how the new instinct for networking is as big a global rev. as the Englightenment or Industrial Rev.; "Hard Gatekeeping" as a strategy for countries to keep control of network topology. Lyndal Roper, Martin Luther: Renegade and Prophet (June 16). Amy Schumer (1981-), The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo (memoir) (Aug. 16); NYT bestseller. Peter Schweizer, Chuck Dixon, and Brett R. Smith, Clinton Cash: A Graphic Novel (Aug. 8). Rick Shenkman, Political Animals: How Our Stone Age Brain Gets in the Way of Smart Politics (Jan.). Anne Speckhard and Ahmet S. Yayla, Isis Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate (July 1). Tamara Sonn, Is Islam an Enemy of the West? (Nov. 17); Georgetown U. prof. spouts Islamophile moose hockey. Bruce Springsteen (1949-), Born to Run (autobio.) (Sept. 27). Rodney Stark, Bearing False Witness: Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History (May 16); claims that anti-Catholic fanatics have framed the Roman Catholic Church. Roger Stone (1952-), Jeb! and the Bush Crime Family: The Inside Story of an American Dynasty (Feb. 16); their dirty laundry exposed in the midst of Jeb's limping U.S. pres. campaign. Paul Sutliff, Civilization Jihad and the Myth of Moderate Islam (Apr. 12). Gary Trudeau (1948-), Yuge! 30 Years of Doonesbury on Trump (July 5). J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis (June 28). Peter Waldhams (1948-), Farewell to Ice (Sept.); claims that the retreat of sea ice in the Arctic generates feedbacks that impact the entire global climate system, accelerating the rate of warming, the rate of sea level rise, the emission of methane from the offshore, and the occurrence of weather extremes affecting food production, arguing that catastrophic consequences cannot be avoided without making an all-out effort to develop ways of directly capturing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Susan Williams, Spies in the Congo; how the U.S. got the uranium for the Hiroshima A-bomb. Peter Wilson, Heart of Europe. Tom Wolfe (1931-), The Kingdom of Speech (Aug.); dumps Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky to explain the evolution of human speech. Ed Yong, I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life (first book). Novels: Anuk Arudpragasam, The Story of a Brief Marriage. Sara Baume, Spill Simmer Falter Wither. Michael Chabon, Moonglow. Jennifer Haigh, Heat & Light; a Penn. town fights a fracking co. Adam Haslett (1970-), Imagine Me Gone; a family has a hereditary anxiety disorder. Josh Katz, Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse , and You Guys Talk: A Visual Guide (Oct. 25). Maylis de Kerangal, The Heart. Sergei Lebedev (1981-), Oblivion (Jan. 19); the former gulags of the Arctic Circle. Jonathan Lee, High Dive; IRA terrorists work to assassinate Margaret Thatcher with a bomb in a Brighton hotel in 1984. Ken Liu, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (short stories). Javier Marias, Venice: An Interior. C.E. Morgan, The Sport of Kings; the real story of horseracing is in the breeding shed? Ann Patchett (1963-), Commonwealth (Aug. 1); Bert Cousins and Franny Keating in Southern Calif. Nicholas Sparks (1965-), Two by Two (Oct. 4). Peter Townsend, Nothing to Do with Islam? Investigating the West's Most Dangerous Blind Spot (May 18). Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad. Tim Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods (Feb. 16); claims that atheism was common in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Edward Osborne Wilson (1929-), Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life (Mar. 7); buys the Sixth Extinction narrative bigtime, blaming humans for turning the Holocene into the Anthropocene, with the bold conclusion: "The only solution to the 'Sixth Extinction' is to increase the area of inviolable natural reserves to half the surface of the Earth or greater. This expansion is favored by unplanned consequences of ongoing human population growth and movement and evolution of the economy now driven by the digital revolution. But it also requires a fundamental shift in moral reasoning concerning our relation to the living environment." Plays: David Yazbek (1961-) and Itamar Moses (1977-), The Band's Visit (musical) (Atlantic Theater Do., New York) (Dec. 8) (Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York) (Oct. 7, 2017) (? perf.); based on the 2007 film; the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra gets a wrong ticket from a clerk in Tel Aviv, ending up in Bet Hatikva instead of Petah Tikvah; wins 10 of 11 nominations at the 2018 Tony Awards. Poetry: Billy Collins (1941-), The Rain in Portugal. Births: Deaths: Am. "Tall Man in Phantasm" actor Angus Scrimm (b. 1926) on Jan. 9 in Los Angeles, Calif. (prostate cancer). English rock star David Bowie (b. 1947) on Jan. 10 in Manhattan, N.Y. (liver cancer). English "Severus Snape in Harry Potter" actor-dir. Alan Rickman (b. 1946) on Jan. 14 in London (cancer). Am. "Grizzly Adams" actor Dan Haggerty (b. 1941) on Jan. 15 in Burbank, Calif. (spinal cancer). Am. "Take It Easy" Eagles singer Glenn Frey (b. 1948) on Jan. 18 in New York City (pneumonia). English marine geologist Robert M. Carter (b. 1942) on Jan. 19 in Townsville, Australia (heart attack). Am. "Salvatore Tessio in The Godfather" Abe Vigoda (b. 1921) on Jan. 26 in Woodland Park, N.J. Am. NFL QB Ken "the Snake" Stabler (b. 1945) on July 8 in Gulfport, Miss. (colon cancer). Am. Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell (b. 1930) on Feb. 4 in Lake Worth, Fla. Am. Supreme Court justice (1986-2016) Antonin Scalia (b. 1936) on Feb. 12/13 in Shaffer, Tx.; Pres. Obama snubs his funeral. Italian philosopher-novelist Umberto Eco (b. 1932) on Feb. 19 in Milan: "The first duty of intellectuals: to remain silent when they cannot be of any use"; "You can tell a lunatic by the fact that sooner or later he brings up the Templars"; "There are lunatics who don't talk about the Templars, but those who do are the most insidious"; "The Templars have something to do with everything." Am. "To Kill a Mockingbird" novelist Harper Lee (b. 1926) on Feb. 19 in Monroeville, Ala. British #1 pilot Capt. Eric Brown (b. 1919) on Feb. 21 in Redhill, Surrey. Am. MIss America 1951 Yolande Margaret Betbeze Fox (b. 1928) on Feb. 22 in Washington, D.C. (lung cancer). Am. "Cool Hand Luke" actor George Kennedy (b. 1925) on Feb. 28 in Middleton, Idaho (heart disease). Am. "The Prince of Tides", "The Great Santini" novelist Pat Conroy (b. 1945) on Mar. 4 in Beaufort, S.C. (pancreatic cancer). Am. Repub. First Lady (1981-9) Nancy Reagan (b. 1921) on Mar. 6 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart failure). English record producer George Martin (b. 1926) on Mar. 8. Am. Johnson & Johnson CEO (1989-2002) Ralph S. Larsen (b. 1938) on Mar. 9 in Naples, Fla. Am. "Emerson, Lake & Palmer" musician Keith Emerson (b. 1944) on Mar. 10 in Santa Monica, Calif. (suicide). Am. economist Lloyd Shapley (b. 1923) on Mar. 12 in Tucson, Ariz.; 2012 Nobel Econ. Prize. Am. singer Frank Sinatra Jr. (b. 1944) on Mar. 16 in Daytona Beach, Fla. (heart attack). English novelist Barry Hines (b. 1939) on Mar. 18 in Hoyland. Am. Intel Corp. CEO Andrew Grove (b. 1936) on Mar. 21 in Los Altos, Calif. Am. "Thomas Jefferson in 1776" actor Ken Howard (b. 1944) on Mar. 23 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "The Waltons" novelist Earl Hamner Jr. (b. 1923) on Mar. 24 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). Am. comedian Garry Shandling (b. 1949) on Mar. 24 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart attack). Am. "Legends of the Fall" novelist Jim Harrison (b. 1937) on Mar. 26 in Patagonia, Ariz. Am. Franciscan nun Mother Angelica (b. 1923) on Mar. 27 (Easter Sun.) in Hanceville, Ala. U.S. secy. of education #1 (1979-81) Shirley Hufstedler (b. 1925) on Mar. 30 in Glendale, Calif. Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid (b. 1950) on Mar. 31 in Miami, Fla. (heart attack). Am. country singer Merle Haggard (b. 1937) on Apr. 6 in Palo Cedro, Calif. (pneumonia). Canadian playwright Marcel Dube (b. 1930) on Apr. 7 in Montreal, Quebec; produced 300+ works. English physicist Sir David J.C. MacKay (b. 1967) on Apr. 14 in Cambridge (stomach ccancer). Am. atmospheric scientist William M. Gray (b. 1929) on Apr. 16 in Fort Collins, Colo. Am. "Marie Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond" actress Doris Roberts (b. 1925) on Apr. 17 in Los Angeles, Calif. Indian-born Am. atmospheric scientist S. Ichtiaque Rasool (b. 1930) on Apr. 20. Am. "Purple Rain" rock star Prince (b. 1958) on Apr. 21 in Chanhassen, Minn.; sold 100M+ albums; coincidentally Niagara Falls is turned purple to celebrate Elizabeth II's 90th birthday. Am. Baptist pastor Peter Ruckman (b. 1921) on Apr. 21 in Pensacola, Fla. Am. Okla. gov. #20 (1971-5) David Hall (b. 1930) on May 6 in San Diego, Calif. (stroke). French astrophysicist Andre Brahic (b. 1942) on May 15 in Paris. Canadian-Am. TV journalist Morley Safer (b. 1931) on May 19 in Manhattan, N.Y. Am. heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali (b. 1942) on June 3 in Scottsdale, Ariz. (septic shock and Parkinson's); retired with a 56-5-0 record (37 KOs): "It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am"; "The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life." English "Equus" playwright Sir Peter Shaffer (b. 1926) on June 6 in County Cork, Ireland. Canadian ice hockey player "Mr. Hockey" Gordie Howe (b. 1928) on June 10 in Toledo, Ohio. Am. singer Christina Grimmie (b. 1994) on June 11 in Orlando, Fla. (shot by 27-y.-o. Kevin James Loibi after a concert performance at The Plaza Live with Before You Exit). Am. "Pavel Chekov in Star Trek" actor Anton Yelchin (b. 1989) on June 19 in Studio City, Calif (driveway accident). Am. "Future Shock" writer Alvin Toffler (b. 1928) on June 27 in Los Angeles, Calif. French poet Yves Bonnefoy (b. 1923) on July 1 in Paris: "One should not call oneself a poet. It would be pretentious. It would mean that one has resolved the problems poetry presents. Poet is a word one can use when speaking of others, if one admires them sufficiently. If someone asks me what I do, I say I'm a critic, or a historian." Romanian-born Am. Jewish activist Elie Wiesel (b. 1928) on July 2 in New Yok City; 1986 Nobel Peace Prize: "No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them." Sicilian moss boss Bernardo Provenzano (b. 1933) on July 13 in Milan, Italy (bladder cancer); dies in prison. Am. "Pretty Woman", "The Odd Couple", "Happy Days", "Mork & Mindy" dir.-producer Garry Marshall (b. 1934) on July 19 in Burbank, Calif. (pneumonia). Dahomey pres. (1968-9) Emile Derlin Zinsou (b. 1918) on July 28 in Cotonou. Canadian-Am. sports journalist John Saunders (b. 1955) on Aug. 10 in New York City. English "R2-D2 in Star Wars" actor Kenny Baker (b. 1934) on Aug. 13 in Manchester. Zanzibar pres. (1972-84) Aboud Jumbe Mwinyi (b. 1920) on Aug. 14 in Kigamboni, Dar es Salaam. Am. TV journalist John McLaughlin (b. 1927) on Aug. 16. Canadian "Love Story" dir. Arthur Hiller (b. 1923) on Aug. 17 in Los Angeles, Calif.; dies almost 2 mo. after his wife (since 1948) Gwen (June 24). Am. poet Max Ritvo (b. 1990) on Aug. 23 in Los Angeles, Calif. (Ewing's sarcoma). Am. "Dan Briggs in Mission: Impossible" "Adam Schiff in Law & Order" actor Steven Hill (b. 1922) on Aug. 23 in Monsey, N.Y. Am. physicist James Watson Cronin (b. 1931) on Aug. 25 in St. Paul, Minn.; 1980 Nobel Physics Prize. Am "Willy Wonka" actor Gene Wilder (b. 1933) on Aug. 29 in Stamford, Conn. (Alzheimer's). Am. Boeing 747 aircraft designer Joe Sutter (b. 1921) on Aug. 30 in Seattle, Wash. (pneumonia). Am. conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly (b. 1924) on Sept. 5 in St. Louis, Mo. Am. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" playwright Edward Albee (b. 1928) on Sept. 16 in Montauk, N.Y. Cuban-born Am. baseball pitcher Jose Fernandez (b. 1992) on Sept. 25 in Miami Beach, Fla. (boating accident). Am. golfer Arnold Palmer (b. 1929) on Sept. 25 in Pittsburgh, Penn. Israeli pres. #9 (2007-14) and PM #8 (1995-6) Shimon Peres (b. 1923) on Sept. 28 in Tel HaShomer, Ramat Gan; 1994 Nobel Peace Prize; leaves behind a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, stressing hi tech; his funeral on Sept. 30 is attended by Pres. Obama, who utters the soundbyte: "In many ways, he reminded me of some other giants of the 20th century that I've had the honor to meet... Leaders who... find no need to posture or traffic in what's popular in the moment; people who speak with depth and knowledge, not in sound bites. They find no interest in polls or fads... [who] could be true to [their] convictions even if they cut against the grain of current opinion." Am. scholar Jacob Neusner (b. 1932) on Oct. 8 in Rhinebeck, N.Y.; wrote or edited 950+ books. Thai king (1946-2016) Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) (b. 1927) on Oct. 13 in Bangkok; leaves a $30B fortune; world's longest reigning monarch; the govt. announces a 1-year period of mourning; too bad, ultra-royalism leaves a legacy of jails filled with people accused of lese-majeste, serving 15 years per offense. Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei (b. 1939) on Oct. 20 in Kawagoe, Saitama. Am. journalist Gavin MacFayden (b. 1940) on Oct. 22 in London, England (lung cancer) (murdered by Hillary's people?). Am. evangelical Christian cartoonist Jack Chick (b. 1924) on Oct. 23 in Alhambra, Calif. Am. activist Tom Hayden (b. 1939) on Oct. 23 in Santa Monica, Calif. Uruguayan pres. #38 (2000-5) Jorge Batlle (b. 1927) on Oct. 24 in Montevideo. Am. economist Charles Wolf Jr. (b. 1924) on Oct. 24 in Los Angeles, Calif. Canadian "Bird on the Wire" musician Leonard Cohen (b. 1934) on Nov. 7 in Los Angeles, Calif. U.S. atty. gen. #78 (1993-2001) Janet Reno (b. 1938) on Nov. 7 in Miami, Fla. (Alzheimer's). Am. "Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E." Robert Vaughn (b. 1932) on Nov. 11 in Danbury, Conn. (leukemia). Am. serial murderer James Dale Ritchie (b. 1976) on Nov. 12 in Anchorage, Alaska; killed in shootout with police. Arab prince Turki II bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (b. 1934) on Nov. 12. Am. TV journalist Gwen Ifill (b. 1955) on Nov. 14 in Washington, D.C. (cancer). Algerian Muslim reformer Malek Chebel (b. 1953) on Nov. 12 in France: "The majority of Muslims are caught between two groups: on the one hand a small group of violent Muslims who want to Islamize the world; and on the other hand the majority of the Western people who don't understand Islam." Am. "Carol Brady in The Brady Bunch" actress Florence Henderson (b. 1934) on Nov. 24 (Thanksgiving Day) in Los Angeles Calif. (heart failure). Am. leftist journalist Bill Mandel (b. 1917) on Nov. 24 in Kensington, Calif. Cuban dictator PM (1959-76) and pres. (1976-2008) Fidel Castro (b. 1926) on Nov. 25 in Havana; Pres. Obama issues a condolence, praising "the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation", along with "the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him." Am. NBC-TV CEO (1981-6) Grant Tinker (b. 1925) on Nov. 28 in Calif. Am. astronaut John Glenn (b. 1921) on Dec. 8 in Columbus, Ohio. Dutch heroine Marion Pritchard (b. 1920) on Dec. 11 in Washington, D.C. Canadian "Jason Seaver in Growing Pains" actor Alan Thicke (b. 1947) on Dec. 13 in Burbank, Calif. (heart attack). Am. Heimlich Maneuver surgeon Henry Heimlich (b. 1920) on Dec. 17 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov (b. 1954) on Dec. 19 in Ankara, Turkey (assassinated). English "Watership Down" novelist Richard Adams (b. 1920) on Dec. 24. English "Faith" musician George Michael (b. 1963) on Dec. 25 in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire (heart failure). Am. cancer researcher Peter Nowell (b. 1928) on Dec. 26 in Philadelphia, Pann. Am. "Princess Leia in Star Wars" actress-writer Carrie Fisher (b. 1956) on Dec. 27 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart failure). Am. "Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain" actress Debbie Reynolds (b. 1932) on Dec. 28 in Los Angeles, Calif. (stroke).
2017 Doomsday Clock: 2-1/2 min. to midnight (first use of a fraction). Chinese Year: Rooster (Jan. 28); late last Dec. Taiyuan, Shanxi, China erects a giant Trump Rooster Statue outside a shopping mall. Doomsday Clock: 2-1/2 min. to midnight. Africa becomes the world's fastest-growing beer market. Time Mag. Person of the Year: The Silence Breakers (Women of the #MeToo Movement); Donald Trump is runner-up. The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season (Apr. 19-Nov. 9) sees 10 hurricanes in a row and six major hurricanes incl. Harvey, Maria, Irma, and Nate, costing a record total $282.16B damage. CO2 emissions this year by China are 9,232M tons, vs. 5,087M tons by the U.S. (81% higher). This year U.S. federal spending tops $4T for the first time, and the U.S. nat. debt tops $20T; Social Security spending tops $1T for the first time. The U.S. birth rate falls to the lowest since 1987. Spain receives 13K+ illegal immigrants from Africa this year, vs. 12K in 2016; Italy: 97K (vs. 181K in 2016, 600K since 2013). 700K+ foreign nationals overstay their U.S. visas this year. Islamists from 121 groups cause the deaths of 84K incl. 22K civilians in 66 countries this year in 7,841 attacks, mostly on fellow Muslims. The Muslim pop. of Germany passes 6M, 7.% of the 83M pop. The Muslim pop. of Spain is 2M, vs. 100K in 1990; there are 1.4K mosques in Spain (incl. 112 in Madrid), 21% of the total places of worship. The number of jihadist attacks in Europe: 33 (vs. 13 in 2016), of which 10 are successful, killing 62; most are by home-grown terrorists. Zero illegal immigrants enter Israel this year, vs. 61K in 2007-12. U.S. beer sales place Bud Light at the top, followed by Coors Light and Miller Lite, with Bud dropping from #3 to #4. ICE arrests 127K+ criminal illegal aliens in FY 2017, up 11K since 2016. The first year with no commerical passenger plane crashes (until ?); 4B passengers. Piracy incidents off the Horn of Africa double compared to 2016. Bottled water becomes the #1 favorite beverage in the U.S. On Jan. 1 (1:15 a.m.) an Islamist AK-47 attack in a Santa Claus costume at the Reina Nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey during a New Year celebration kills 39 and injures 69, with some jumping into the nearby Bosphorus Strait to escape; on Jan. 2 ISIS claims responsibility, with the soundbyte: "In continuation of the blessed operations that Islamic State is conducting against the protector of the cross, Turkey, a heroic soldier of the caliphate struck one of the most famous nightclubs where the Christians celebrate their apostate holiday." On Jan. 1 the Transgender Mandate, a new federal regulation prohibiting discrimination in health care against transgenders, due to come into effect today is blocked by a federal judge in Tex. On Jan. 1 Finland announces a 2-year Universal Basic Income (UBI) of 560 Euros/mo. to a randomly selected pop. of 2K. On Jan. 1 after the U.N. Security votes 15-0-0 on Oct. 6 to recommend him, former Socialist PM (1995-2002) Antonio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres (1949-) of Portugal becomes U.N. secy. gen. #9 (until ?). On Jan. 2 the 2017 Rose Bowl sees the 9-3 USC Trojans defeat the 11-2 Penn. State Nittany Lions 52-49. On Jan. 2 after North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Lunatic pledges to step-up efforts to test-fire an ICBM this year, Donald Trump tweets the soundbyte: "It won't happen!" On Jan. 2 The New Celebrity Apprentice debuts on NBC-TV, hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger, with new U.S. pres. Donald Trump as exec producer; too bad, on Feb. 13 it ends after a measly seven episodes. On Jan. 3 Pres. Obama expands the power of the Nat. Security Agency (NSA) to share raw sigint (globally intercepted personal communications) with 16 other intel agencies, making it easier for anti-Trump moles to leak info. after he takes office. On Jan. 5 four Black Lives Matter supporters in Chicago, Ill. kidnap and torture white mentally challenged ? and post it live on Facebook, getting them arrested and charged with kidnapping and hate crime. On Jan. 5 lame duck Pres. Obama holds a meeting with vice-pres. Joe Biden, FBI dir. Jim Comey, Atty. Gen. Sally Yates, and nat. security advisor Susan Rice, telling them to consider withholding nat. intel from the incoming Trump admin. in case they were compromised by Russia. On Jan. 6 Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov announces that it is beginning a withdrawal of forces from Syria, starting with the aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. On Jan. 6 (12:55 p.m.) after visiting an FBI office in Anchorage, Alaska in Nov. and claiming that voices in his head were telling him to join ISIS, 26-y.-o. Iraq War vet Esteban Santiago (1990-) (who converted to Islam under the name Aashiq Hammad years before joining the U.S. Army) flies to Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., gets his checked gun out of the baggage area, and uses it to shoot and kill five and injure eight before running out of ammo and laying down to wait for police to arrest him; he later tells FBI agents that he carried out the attack for ISIS; he receives a life prison sentence. On Jan. 6 Donald Trump meets with the FBI, NSA, CIA, and DNI chiefs, who claim that Russia engaged in a systematic hacking attempt to help him defeat Hillary; he responds GFY, er, that it is probably a Dem. witch hunt and didn't affect the election outcome; meanwhile Congress certifies Trump's Electoral College V over Hillary by 304-227. On Jan. 6 57-y.-o. convicted murderer Shiloh Heavenly Quine (1959-) in Calif. becomes the first U.S. inmate to receive state-funded sex reassignment surgery. On Jan. 6 U.S. nat. intel dir. James Clapper issues a multiagency intel community assessment about Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. pres. election, concluding that no evidence of collusion with the Trump campaign has been found; on May 14 he appears on ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos, saying that by his last day in office he still didn't see any evidence, but that there could still be some evidence collected by the FBI. On Jan. 8 (Sun.) a jihadist plows his truck into Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem, Israel, killing four and injuring 15; on Jan. 9 the Berlin Senate in Germany has the Brandenburg Gate lit with the colors of the Israeli flag in solidarity for the first time ever. On Jan. 8 the 2nd of two U.S. strikes (Dec. 29) in C Yemen kills three AQAP operatives. On Jan. 8 (eve.) the 2017 (74th) Golden Globes Awards, presented at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif by Jimmy Fallon is a coup for "La La Land", which wins seven; the awards show is full of liberal Hollyweird stars giving speeches dissing Donald Trump, esp. Cecil B. Demille lifetime achievement award winner Meryl Streep, causing Trump to Tweet that "she's one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood". On Jan. 10 (eve.) Pres. Obama delivers his farewell address at McCormick Place in Chicago, Ill., responding to cries of "four more years" with "I can't do that", and issuing a parting shot at Donald Trump with the soundbyte: "For every two steps forward, it often feels we take one step back." On Jan. 10 Yahoo announces that it will change its name to Altaba after being acquired by $4.8B by Verizon, with Marissa Mayer leaving the board. On Jan. 11 pres.-elect Donald Trump gives a news conference (first in 162 days), continuing his trademark style of never backing down on anything, refusing to put his assets in a blind trust or release his tax returns, and brushing off all attempts to frame him on being Putin's puppet, and telling Jim Acosta that his CNN is "fake news". On Jan. 11 Norway becomes the first country to shut down its FM radio network, despite a Dec. poll that shows that 66% of the pop. oppose it. On Jan. 11 the 15th anniv. of the Gitmo Detention Center; 60 detainees remain, incl. 46 certified as too dangerous to transfer or try. On Jan. 11 Blackwater founder Erik Prince secretly meets in the Seychelles Islands with a Russian close to Russian pres. Vladimir Putin to set up a communications back-link with Pres. Trump? On Jan. 12 the U.S. military moves 3.5K troops to Poland to counter Russian aggression, becoming the largest deployment since the end of the Cold War, pissing-off Russia. On Jan. 12 Pres. Obama awards vice-pres. Joe Biden a pres. medal of freedom, talking up their bromance and calling him a "lion of American history" - setting a precedent? On Jan. 12 after 100K flock to the U.S. since the Dec. 17, 2014 announcement of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, the Obama admin. announces an end to the 1995 "wet foot, dry foot" policy of automatic legal residency for Cubans who reach U.S. soil. On Jan. 13 (1:00 p.m.) (Fri. the Thirteenth) Finnair Flight 666 takes off from Copenhagen (CPH) and flies directly to Helsinki (HEL) after a 1:34 flight, landing at 3:41 p.m. local time; the plane is 13 years old. On Jan. 13 the U.S. House of Reps votes 227-198 along party lines (except for nine defecting Repubs.) to begin the process of repealing Obamacare. On Jan. 13 former Dem. Nat. Committee (DNC) chmn. Debbie Wasserman Schultz meets with FBI dir. James Comey, dissing him for not informing her about alleged Russian hacking. On Jan. 13-14 protests in Tunisia on the 6th anniv. of the 2011 Arab Spring. On Jan. 14 Pope Francis meets with Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas in Rome to open the Palestinian embassy to the Vatican. On Jan. 15 (eve.) Donald Trump gives an interview to The Washington Post, in which he utters the soundbyte that he is planning on replacing Obamacare with a plan that will provide "insurance for everybody". On Jan. 15 the 2017 Paris Peace Summit, attended by delegates from 70 nations reaffirms the 2-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, but chickens out before laying out concrete steps for fear of pro-Israel pres. Trump. On Jan. 16 the Obama admin. releases 10 detainees from Gitmo incl. almost-9/11 hijacker Mohammad Al Ansi; on Jan. 18 he frees Puerto Rican nationalist terrorist Oscar Lopez Rivera. On Jan. 17 Pres. Obama commutes the sentences of 209 inmates, incl. the 35-year sentence of WikiLeaker Chelsea (Bradley) Manning, who will leave prison in May. On Jan. 18 (early a.m.) a truck-borne IED explodes in a military camp in Gao, Mali, killing 50+ and injuring many others. On Jan. 18 (night) two precision air strikes are authorized on two ISIS camps near Sirte, Libya. On Jan. 19 (eve.) after Donald Trump and his family land ceremoniously in Washington, D.C., the Deploraball in Washington, D.C. for Trump supporters is crashed by hundreds of black mask-wearing anarchist protesters; performers incl. country star Toby Keith; fake news outlet CNN is disinvited. On Jan. 19 Route 1 to Jerusalem opens to traffic. On Jan. 19 the Obama admin. scrambles to generate the Trump-Russia collusion scandal within 24 hours of Pres. Trump's inaguration. On Jan. 19 U.S. secy. of state John Kerry leaves his job, giving a speech to U.S. State Dept. employees, with the soundbyte: "This is not an end. This is a beginning. It's a new beginning." On Jan. 20 waist-deep snow falls in Ain Sefra, NW Algeria ("Gateway to the Sahara") for the first time in 37 years. The don of a new era? On Jan. 20 (12:00 a.m.) (7th min. of the 7th hour on the eve of the Hebrew sabbath) (during a sudden light shower) the 2017 (66th) U.S. Pres. Inauguration in Washington, D.C. sees New York City-born, Queens, N.Y.-raised Wharton School-educated real estate billionaire and TV personality (Presbyterian?) Donald John Trump (1946-) (Hebrew numerical value 424, same as Messiah Ben David AKA King David, who died at age 7, vs. Hillary Rodham Clinton = 255 = Amalek) (Secret Service codename: Mogul) (known for using 8th grade language filled with repetition) become Repub. U.S. pres. #45 (until ?) (70 years, 70 mo. and 7 days old - oldest elected U.S. pres.) (married 3x) (five children and eight grandchildren); former gov. #50 of Ind. (2013-17) Michael Richard "Mike" Pence (1959-) (Secret Service codename: Hoosier) becomes U.S. vice-pres. #48 (until ?); the end of a globalized U.S.? the inauguration is watched by 30.6M TV viewers on 12 TV networks, becoming the 2nd highest Nielsen rating since 1981; before the ceremony Trump attends a private religious service at St. John's Episcopal Church, led by Southern Baptist Rev. Robert Jeffries; First Lady is Slovenian-born Roman Catholic Melania Trump (Melanija Knavs or Knauss) (1970-) (Secret Service codename: Muse), insisting that the White House be exorcised before moving in; at the inauguration she wears a baby-blue dress and jacket from Ralph Lauren, stirring comparisons with Jackie Kennedy; Second Lady is Kan.-born Karen Sue Pence (nee Batten) (1958-) (Secret Service codename: Hummingbird); Trump's hotshot daughter (2nd First Lady?) is New York City-born Ivanka Marie Trump (1981-) (Secret Service codename: Marvel), who wears a white Oscar de la Renta dress at the inauguration; the inauguration is boycotted by 67 Dem. congresspersons (most since Abraham Lincoln), but not Hillary and Bill Clinton, who are thanked by Trump at the luncheon in the Capitol; Trump's cabinet picks incl. no Hispanics (first time since 1981); a screaming woman in a lime jacket stinks the inauguration speech up; Trump's 2017 Inauguration Speech punches the Washington, D.C. establishment in the mouth while telling the American People that they run it now, repeating the phrase "America First"; on Jan. 20 Pres. Trump's Cabinet starts with retired USMC gen. James N. "Mad Dog" Mattis (1950-), who becomes U.S. secy. of defense #26 (until ?); on Jan. 20 retired USMC gen. John Francis Kelly (1950-) becomes U.S. homeland secy. #5 (until ?); Sean Michael Spicer (1971-) becomes White House press secy. #30 (until July 21); within a few hours of taking the oath of office, Trump signs a sweeping executive order to federal agencies to "ease the burden" of Obamacare in preparation for its total abolition. On Jan. 20 after receiving a $285M severance package from Goldman Sachs, where he was pres. since 2006, Cleveland, Ohio-born Jewish-Am. investment banker Gary David Cohn (1960-) becomes dir. #11 of the Nat. Economic Council, making him Pres. Trump's chief economic advisor (until Mar. 6, 2018). On Jan. 20 Saturday Night Live writer Katie Rich issues a tweet that Pres. Trump's cute little 10-y.-o. son Barron Trump "will be this country's first homeschool shooter", pissing-off the PC police and causing her to be fired. On Jan. 20 (eve.) Zeke Miller of Time mag. reports that the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Oval Office of the White House has been removed; he quickly issues a correction and apology; actually, a bust of Winston Churchill that was removed by Pres. Obama was returned and placed in a new spot. On Jan. 21 the anti-Trump 2017 Disrupt J20 Women's March (1st Annual Women's March), funded by leftist puppetmaster George Soros sweeps the globe from Australia to the U.S. and U.K.; a large crowd protests in downtown Washington, D.C.; pop star Madonna wears a pussy hat, designed by Jayna Zweiman (1978-), and mentions dreams of "blowing up the White House"; protesters carry signs reading "Pussy trumps tyranny", "Keep your politics off my pussy", "Stay cunty", and "My neck, my back, my pussy will grab back"; 217 are arrested for rioting, facing up to 10 years in priz and a $250K fine. On Jan. 21 Pres. Trump meets with the CIA, declaring that the U.S. must totally eradicate "radical Islamic terrorism" from the "face of the Earth". On Jan. 22 air force maj. gen. Rumen Georgiev Radev (1963-) of the Bulgarian Socialist Party becomes pres. of Bulgaria (until ?). On Jan. 23 Pres. Trump signs an executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, which he called "a rape of our country"; he is backed by progressive Dems. and labor groups, and opposed by establishment Repubs. and economists; he also signs an executive order to defund Internat. Planned Parenthood, leaving the U.S.-based corporation for Congress, and reinstating the Mexico City Policy of banning foreign adi to nongovt. orgs. (NGOs) that promote or pay for abortion procedures; he also signs an executive order freezing federal hiring, except for the military. On Jan. 23 U.S. Rep. (R-Kan.) (2011-17) Michael Richard "Mike" Pompeo (1963-) becomes U.S. CIA dir. #6 (until Apr. 26, 2018), succeeding John O. Brennan. On Jan. 23 Indian-Am. Repub. atty. Ajit Varadaraj Pai (1973-), known as a big critic of regulation incl. Net Neutrality becomes U.S. FCC chmn. (until ?) On Jan. 24 Pakistan successfully test-fires its Ababeel multi-target nuclear misslile, with 2.2K km range, capable of hitting many cities in India. On Jan. 24 Pres. Trump signs executive orders reopening the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipline projects, guaranteeing all U.S.-made steel; he also signs executive orders cutting of all new contracts and grants for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and bans its employees from publishing on social media; he also tweets a warning to Obamatown Chicago, Ill., threatening to "send in the Feds" if violence doesn't decrease. On Jan. 25 Pres. Trump signs Executive Order 13767: Border Security nd Immigration Enforcement Improvements, ordering the Dept. of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to beg planning for a border wall with Mexico, vowing to begin construction within months, and make the Mexican govt. pay for it; he also tweets: "I will be asking for a major investigation into voter fraud", claiming that millions voted illegally even though he won. On Jan. 25 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. hits 20K for the first time. On Jan. 25 artist Christo cancels his 25-y.-o. project "Over the River" to hang a silvery fabric along a 42-mi. stretch of the Arkansas River in SC Colo., ostensibly in protest against Pres. Trump. On Jan. 26 after denouncing his new border security measures, Mexican pres. Enrique Pena Nieto cancels his planned visit to the U.S. to meet with Pres Trump.; the Trump Wall would reduce cash flow to the cartels that financed Nieto's pres. campaign? On Jan. 26 (1:30 p.m.) Pres. Dump Truck, er, Trump visits the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security HQ, and utters the soundbyte: "A nation without borders is not a nation. Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders", then signs the executive order "Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States", tightening U.S. immigration policies, indefinitely banning refugees from Syria, and banning refugees from other countries for 120 days, plus 30 days more for Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen; refugees to be admitted this year will be cut from 110K to 50K; on Jan. 27 after answering critics with "We can't take chances", Trump tells Christian Broadcasting Network that he will help persecuted Christians; Iraq retaliates by banning U.S. travelers, as does Iran; on Jan. 29 Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announces that they will hire 10K refugees over the next five years, while U.S. Senate minority leader (D-N.Y.) Chuck Schumer calls Trump's order "mean-spirited and un-American... bad for America, bad for our national security", claiming it goes against "what America has always been about", breaking into tears, which Trump calls "fake tears"; too bad, Trump omits dangerous Muslim nations Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, UAE et al., maybe because some are where he has business ties? On Jan. 27 former U.S. Repub. gov. #116 (2011-17) Nimrata "Nikki" Haley (nee Randhawa) (1972-) becomes U.S. ambassador to the U.N. (until ?). On Jan. 27 the anti-abortion 2017 March for Life is heartily supported by Pres. Trump; Mike Pence becomes the first U.S. vice-pres. to give a speech at one, containing the soundbytes: "Life is winning again in America", "We will not rest until we restore a culture of life in America for ourselves and our posterity", and "Next week President Donald Trump will announce a Supreme Court nominee who will uphold the God-given liberty enshrined in our Constitution in the tradition of the late and great Justice Antonin Scalia", calling for ending taxpayer-funded abortions. On Jan. 27 FBI dir. James Comey has dinner with Pres. Trump, followed on Feb. 14 by a meeting in the White House, keep memos which he claims to leak in response to a May 12 tweet, although the New York Times quotes from them on May 11, claiming that Trump asked Comey for "loyalty", and asking him to drop an investigatin into Michael Flynn's dealings with Russia. On Jan. 28 Pres. Trump signs an executive order banning former admin. officials from lobbying for five years, along with an order to his generals to give him a plan to defeat ISIS in 30 days, restructuring the Nat. Security Council and Homeland Security Council; meanwhile at 9:00 p.m. U.S. federal judge Ann Donnelly of New York stays Trump's executive orders, preventing the govt. from deporting the 200 citizens from banned countries who already arrived in the U.S. from being deported, but leaving his orders intact. On Jan. 28 a U.S. Special Ops and UAE forces raid against al-Qaida militants in Yemen results in one U.S. Navy SEAL KIA and three injured, and 14 al-Qaida fighters KIA; Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens is KIA, becoming the first U.S. soldier KIA during the Trump admin; Anwar al-Awlaki's 8-y.-o. daughter Nawar Anwar al-Awlaki (b. 2008) is killed. On Jan. 29 (night) a shooting by two masked gunmen at the Grand Mosque of Quebec in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada kills six and injures 28, causing Canadian PM Jusitn Trudeau to call it a "terrorist attack"; after Muslim student Mohamed Belkhadir is arrested and released, non-Muslim Alexandre Bissonnette (1989-) is arrested as a suspect, with his past public support of Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen used to frame him; a govt. coverup? On Jan. 30 Pres. Trump signs an executive order requiring federal agencies to cut two existing regulations for every new one they introduce. On Jan. 30 after the White House deliberately omits mention of the Jewish Shoah or Nazi anti-Semitism in its recognition of Internat. Holocaust Remembrance Day, the pissed-off Holocaust Museum issues a statement telling them what's what. On Jan. 30 Pres. Trump fires acting U.S. atty.-gen. Sally Caroline Quillian Yates (1960-) after she refuses to enforce his travel restrictions on Muslim countries; she is replaced by Obama appointee Dana James Boente (1954-) of the Eastern District of Va. On Jan. 30 Pres. Trump issues a tweet calling the media "the opposition party". On Jan. 30 Iran tests its new Khorramshahr long-range ballistic missile, pissing-off the U.S., which announces sanctions against 25 Iranian people and cos. On Jan. 30-31 a Reuter/Ipsos Poll finds that 49% of Am. adults agree with Trump's executive order on immigration, vs. 41% who disagree, and 10% who are undecided. On Jan. 31 former labor secy. #24 (2001-9) Elaine Lan Chao (1953-) (wife since 1993 of Repub. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell) becomes U.S. transportation secy. #18 (until ?). On Jan. 31 Pres. Trump nominates Denver, Colo.-born conservative Denver federal judge (Roman Catholic-turned-Episcopalian) Neil McGill Gorsuch (1967-) (son of former EPA head Anne Gorsuch) for the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy left by Antonin Scalia (1936-2016), causing Dems. to run half-scared at the likelihood of his approval and fiercely fight with a filibuster (1st since Abe Fortas in 1968), causing Repubs. to invoke the nuclear option to confirm him by 54-45 on Apr. 7, the day of the home opener of the Colo. Rockies MLB baseball team in Denver (a 2-1 V over the Dodgers); on Apr. 10 he is sworn-in as U.S. Supreme Court justice #113 (until ?). On Jan. 31 Turing's Law in Britain receives royal assent, pardoning Alan Turing and other gays convicted of homosexuality. On Jan. 31 (night) ex-U.S. Army soldier Joshua Cummings (1979-) murders Denver transit security guard Scott Von Lanken (b. 1961), claiming he supports ISIS; on Jan. 25 he is sentenced to life in prison without parole. In Jan. the Washington Int. for Near East Policy (WINEP) pub. a set of proposals for new U.S. pres. Donald Trump on U.S. foreign policy towards Turkey, calling on him to "guarantee" that the U.S. Congress will not acknowledge the Armenian Genocide, pissing-off the Armenian Nat. Committee of Am. (ANCA), which calls for an explanation. In Jan. the U.S. Bureau of Prison begins banning all pork products from the menus of federal prisons - I bet it wasn't to please Jews and vegetarians? In Jan. U.S. Army. secy. Eric Fanning issues new regs allowing brigade-level cmdrs. to approve religious garb incl. hijab, beard, and turban. In Jan. Alexandria, La.-born Lutheran-to-Muslim convert Lt. Col. Khallid Shabazz (Michael Barnes) is appointed chaplain of the U.S. Army's 7th Infantry Div., consisting of 14K mostly Christian soldiers. In Jan. Media Matters founder David Brock presents the confidential 49-page memo Democracy Matters: Strategic Plan for Action, a Dem. plan for defeating Pres. Trump's presidency at all costs via a daily media war and by working with major social media platforms to censor "right wing propaganda and fake news"; Media Matters' puppetmaster is America-hating billionaire globalist George Soros. In Jan. U.S. unemployment is 152,081,000 (vs. 152,111,000 in Dec.), gaining 5K manufacturing jobs and losing 10K govt. jobs, vs. 162K govt. jobs added and 46K manufacturing jobs lost in the prior year. In Feb. the Unseasonably Warm Feb. 2017 in the U.S. sees trees bloom and grass grow in the SE U.S., breaking 11,500 daily high max temp records in the U.S. (and 418 daily low min temp records), becoming the warmest U.S. Feb. since 1954, finishing 7.3F above the 20th cent. avg. for the Lower 48 U.S. states; Chicago receives no snowfall until Mar. (latest since 1884). On Feb. 1 ExxonMobil CEO (2006-16) Rex Wayne Tillerson (1952-) becomes U.S. secy. of state #69 (until Mar. 31, 2018). On Feb. 1 new U.S. nat. security adviser Michael Flynn makes his first public statement, and announces that it is "officially putting Iran on notice" after its ballistic missile tests and an Iranian-backed Houthi rebel attack on a Saudi warship. On Feb. 1 (eve.) a building at the U. of Calif. Berkeley (UCB) where gay conservative anti-Islam speaker Milo Yiannopoulos is set to speak is attacked by violent masked Antifa and other leftist student protesters, causing the speech to be canceled and police to close the campus - the free speech movement started and ended in Berkeley? On Feb. 2 (a.m.) Pres. Trump addresses the Nat. Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., opening with the soundbyte about Trump critic Arnold Schwarzenegger and his poor ratings hosting "The Apprentice": "I want to just pray for Arnold, if we can, for those ratings"; he also utters the soundbytes that "religious freedom is under threat", and vowing to "get rid of an totally destroy the Johnson Amendment" that bars pastors from endorsing candidates from the pulpit - unless they're black? On Feb. 2 mass protests begin in Romania over a controversial decree that would decriminalize some corruption offenses; on Feb. 6 PM Sorin Grindeanu announces that it will be repealed on Feb. 12. On Feb. 2 the Boy Scouts of Am. (BSA) announce that they're completely folding to the demands of LGBT activists and admitting everybody incl. transgenders; on Feb. 7 Joe Maldonado becomes the first transgender boy scout in the U.S. On Feb. 3 29-y.-o. Egyptian Allah Akbar-shouting ISIS-inspired terrorist Abdullah Reda Refaie al-Hamahmy attacks and injures a French soldier outside the Louvre in Paris before being shot 5x. On Feb. 3 Iraqi refugees Mohanad Shareef Hammadi (25) and Waad Ramadan Alway (31) from Bowling Green, Ky. are sentenced to 40 years in federal prison by judge Thomas B. Russell for using IEDs against U.S. soldiers in Iraq and attempting to send money and weapons to al-Qaida in Iraq to kill more. On Feb. 3 federal judge James Robart in Seattle, Wash. orders a nat. halt to enforcement of Pres. Trump's 7-nation travel ban, causing Trump to tweet the soundbyte: "The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!" On Feb. 5 Super Bowl LI (51) at NRG Stadium in Houston, Tex. sees the New England Patriots overcome a 28-3 deficit late in the 3rd quarter to defeat the Atlanta Falcons by 34-28 in OT (first SB to go into OT); a record 5th SB title for the Patriots (9th appearance, incl. two in 3 years), all under coach Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady (7th appearances), who also becomes SB MVP for a record 4th time; the 50th anniv. of Super Bowl I (Jan. 15, 1967); the Falcons are 0-2 in the SB; the halftime show features Lady Gaga, who parachutes in from the open roof and gives a surprisingly patriotic performance that doesn't trash Trump on her big stage; a drone show is a first; too bad, Falcons coach Dan Quinn gave the game away by not running the game clock down on each play, giving New England enough time to score the tying TD and go into OT, then get lucky and win the coin toss, giving them a chance to win with one more TD? On Aug. 17 Philadelphia Eagles defensive end (#56) Christopher Howard "Chris" Long (1985-) (son of Howie Long) becomes the first white NFL player to demonstrate while the Nat. Anthem is being played at an NFL game, joining safety Malcolm Jenkins #27) during a game in Philly; he goes on to move to the Philadelphia Eagles and help win SB 52. On Feb. 6 Israel passes a law legalizing 1K+ Jewish homes in Area C in Judea and Samaria, pissing-off the Palestinians. On Feb. 6 British House of Commons speaker (since June 22, 2009) John Simon Bercow (1963-) stinks himself up by calling for Pres. Trump to be banned from speaking in the House - don't have a cow? On Feb. 7 after a 50-50 tie is broken by U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence (first time ever for a cabinet apointee) (Repubs. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted against her), billionaire Repub. Reformed Christian Elisabeth "Betsy" DeVos (nee Prince) (1958-) (proponent of de-federalization of schools and archenemy of featherbedded teachers unions) becomes U.S. education secy. #11 (until ?); on Feb. 7 U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduces a bill to abolish the U.S. Dept. of Education on Dec. 31, 2018, with the soundbyte: "Neither Congress nor the President, through his appointees, has the constitutional authority to dictate how and what our children must learn"; during her confirmation hearings DeVos gave the example of how a rural school in grizzly country in Wyo. might need to keep a gun to deal with grizzlies as an example of why central planning from Washington, D.C. won't work, which the lying PC media twists into a statement that all schools need guns to fight grizzlies to prove she's unqualified. On Feb. 8 Pres. meets with U.S. big city police chiefs and sheriffs, and blasts the so-called judges pretending to deliberate on his suspended travel ban apparently solely on the basis that they are Islamophiles and don't like Trump's campaign statement that he wanted to ban all Muslims, not just ones from terrorist countries like in his executive order, which was a backing down, uttering the soundbyte: "Anyone would understand this. This is for the security of the country.. Because you could be a lawyer, or you don't have to be a lawyer. If you were a good student in high school or a bad student in high school, you could understand this", blasting the oral arguments presented to the super-leftist U.S. 9th Circuit "Circus" Court of Appeals in San Francisco (most overturned in the U.S.) the night before, with the soundbyte: "We're talking about things that had just nothing to do with it"; the real reason a cabal of liberal justices iintervened is to appease the Muslim World, even at the cost of destroying the U.S. Constitution in an attempted power grab and coup; the 3-judge panel incl. Michelle T. Friedland, William C. Canby Jr., and Richard R. Clifton; too bad, they intervened too quickly, before any pres. order banning all Muslims, much less a congressional order, and shot their bolt and gave themselves away so that they can be removed before they get another chance? On Feb. 8 despite an intimidation campaign by al-Shabaab, Tayo Party founder (PM in Nov. 2010-June 2011) Mohamed Abdullahi "Farmajo" (It. for cheese) Mohamed (1962-) is elected pres. of Somalia, becoming pres. #9 on Feb. 16 (until ?), known for his rep of not being corrupt. On Feb. 8 after a desperate attack on him by Dems., who claim he is a white supremacist in disguise, U.S. Sen. (R-Ala.) (since Jan. 3, 1997) Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions (1946-) becomes U.S. atty. gen. #84 (until Npv. 7, 2018). On Feb. 8 (eve.) ISIS fires rockets on the Israeli resort of Eilat from Sinai, causing the Israelis to retaliate with an air strike, killing two. On Feb. 9 the super-liberal U.S. 9th Court of Appeals in San Francisco upholds Seattle Judge James Robert's restraining order on Pres. Trump's travel ban from seven Muslim nations in a purely political decision designed to let as many illegals rush in as possible, failing to even state the law involved, 8 U.S. Code 1182, and spitting in Trump's face for his assertion that the court doesn't have any constitutional authority to second-guess his order because the defense of nat. borders is solely the responsibility of Congress and the president, with the soundbyte: "There is no precedent to support this claimed unreviewability, which runs contrary to the fundamental structure of our constitutional democracy", causing Trump to tweet: "See you in court, the security of our nation is at stake!" On Feb. 9 U.S. Gen. John Nicholson, cmdr. of U.S. forces in Afghanistan tells Senate Armed Services Committee chmn. Sen. John McCain "I believe we're in a stalemate" in Afghanistan. On Feb. 9 senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway issues a free add for Ivanka Trump's clothing line in her official capacity on TV, violating ethics rules and causing the PC police to come out, after which she is given counseling and the matter dropped by the Trump admin., if not the Dems. On Feb. 10 U.S. Rep. (R-Ga.) (2005-) and physician Thomas Edmund "Tom" Price (1954-) becomes U.S. secy. of health and human services #23 (until ?). On Feb. 11 North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un's pesky exiled (since 2003) older half-brother Kim Jong-nam (b. 1971) is assassinated in Kuala Lumpur Internat. Airport at Jong-Goon's orders with nerve agent VX. On Feb. 12 after unusually high water levels cause an emergency spillway to be opened, authorities issue an evacuation order for 200K downstream of the crumbling 770-ft. Lake Oroville Dam in N Calif., tallest in the U.S. On Feb. 12 (eve.) the 2017 (59th) Grammy Awards, presented at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif. and hosted by James Cordon (first time) is a clean sweep for Adele, who gives a speech all-but giving her awards to Beyonce; singer Joy Villa wears a Make America Great Again dress, which immediately becomes a runaway bestseller on Amazon.com; Chance the Rapper wins the first Grammy for a streaming-only album, "Coloring Book" (#8 in the U.S.). On Feb. 13 Pres. Trump meets in the White House with Islamonymphomaniac Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, who announces that "We continue to pursue our policies of openness towards immigration and refugees without compromising security", while Trump continues his hard line on refugees and illegal immigrants. On Feb. 13 Goldman Sachs banker Steven Terner "Steve" Mnuchin (1962-) becomes U.S. treasury secy. #77 (until ?). On Feb. 13 after admitting that he lied to U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence about discussions with Russia over sanctions (a possible violation of the 1799 U.S. Logan Act), U.S. nat. security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn resigns; he already was convicted in 2015 for mishandling classified info; on Feb. 13 Pres. Trump offers the position to retired vice-adm. Robert S. "Bob" Harward Jr., who passes, after which on Feb. 20 Trump nominates U.S. Army lt. gen. Herbert Raymond "H.R." "the Iconoclast" McMaster (1962-), who on ? becomes U.S. nat. security advisor #26 (until ?). On Feb. 13 after criticizing him, King Jong-nam (b. 1971), half-brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is assassinated by poison in Kuala Lumpur by two female assassins. On Feb. 16 U.S. Rep. (R-S.C.) (2011-) John Michael "Mick" Mulvaney (1967-) becomes OMB dir. #? (until ?). On Feb. 16 A Day Without Immigrants is a gen. strike around the U.S. - Trump supporters wish they'd never quit striking? On Feb. 16 after a sudden urge, Pres. Trump gives a long (75 min.) press conference, his first solo press conference, redefining the concept, calling his admin. a "fine-tuned machine" and lambasting the press for bias and hate, claiming that he inherited a "mess" and denying all stories about his campaign being in constant contact with Russia as "fake news", blaming the resignation of Michael T. Flynn on leaks, and uttering the soundbyte: "Tomorrow they will say Donald Trump rants and raves at the press. I'm not ranting and raving, I'm just telling you. You know, you're dishonest people. but, but I'm not ranting and raving. I love this. I'm having a good time doing it." On Feb. 16 Hardee's and Carl's Jr. CEO (since Sept. 2000) Andrew Franklin "Andy" Puzder (1950-) resigns, and on Feb. 16 Pres. Trump nominates R. Alexander Acosta (1968-), who on Apr. 28 becomes U.S. labor secy. #27 (until ?). On Feb. 16 Parliamentary Motion M-103 passes in Canada, adding "Islamophobia" to Canada's hate crime laws, becoming a de facto enactment of Sharia? On Feb. 16 a male suicide bomber wearing a burqa in the Sufi Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sehwan, Sindh Province, Pakistan kills 70+ incl. 20 children and nine women; Pakistani army chief Gen. Qmar Javed Bajwa vows to retaliate, warning that there will be "no more restraint". On Feb. 17 Danville, Ky.-born Okla. Repub. atty. gen. #17 (since Jan. 10, 2011) Edward Scott Pruitt (1968-) (anthropogenic climate change denier) (activist against the EPA's activist agenda, as well as gay marriage, the Affordable Care Act, and abortion) becomes dir. #14 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), going on to work at breakneck speed to dismantle Obama admin. environmental legislation while sinking into pitty-pat personal misconduct scandals that finally turn conservatives against him, causing him to resign on July 6, 2018. On Feb. 17 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!" On Feb. 18 9K-y.-o. Kennewick Man AKA the Ancient One is reburied in the high desert of the Columbia Plateau before a crowe of 200+. On Feb. 19 David E. Kelley's drama series Big Little Lies, based on the 2014 novel by Liane Moriarty and set in Monterey, Calif. debuts on HBO for ? episodes (until ?), starring Reese Witherspoon as Madeline Martha Mackenzie, Nicole Kidman as Celeste Wright Alexander Skarsgard as her husband Perry, Shailene Woodley as Jane Chapman, Laura Dern as Renata Klein, and Zoe Kravitz as Bonnie Carlson. On Feb. 20 10 U.S. Jewish community centers receive telephone bomb threats, becoming the 4th time this year. On Feb. 23 U.S.-backed Iraqi forces retake the airport in Mosul, Iraq from ISIS. On Feb. 23 U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson and homeland security secy. John Kelly meet with Mexican foreign affairs secy. Luis Videgaray in Mexico City, who complains that Mexico "does not have to accept provisions that one government wants unilaterally to impose on another", threating to go to the U.N. to defend human rights of Mexicans, while they respond: "In our meetings, we jointly acknowledged that, in a relationship filled with vibrant colors, two strong sovereign countries from time to time will have differences. We listened closely and carefully to each other as we respectfully and patiently raised our respective concerns." On Feb. 24 the Pentagon announces that it's ditching Pres. Obama's names for it and calling it ISIS. On Feb. 25 Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera announces that the Vatican has hired the law firm of Baker McKenzie to protect its copyright on Pope Francis. On Feb. 26 former U.S. labor secy. (2013-7) Thomas Edward "Tom" Perez (1961-) becomes chmn. of the Dem. Nat. Committee (DNC), defeating Muslim U.S. Rep. (D-Minn.) (2007-) Keith Maurice Ellison (1963-), who becomes deputy chmn. On Feb. 26 the 2017 (89th) Academy Awards, presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. are hosted by Jimmy Kimmel; "Moonlight" wins best picture, as well as best supporting actor for Mahershala Ali (first Muslim to win an Oscar) and best adapted screenplay; Casey Affleck wins best actor for "Manchester by the Sea"; Damien Chazelle wins best dir. for "La La Land", which also wins for best actress (Emma Stone), best score, best song ("City of Stars"), and two others (six total out of 14 nominations); Viola Davis wins best supporting actress for "Fences"; "Zootopia" wins best animated feature film; Kenneth Lonergan wins best original screenplay for "Manchester by the Sea"; Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney win best adapted screenplay for "Moonlight"; the accounting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers hands presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway the wrong envelope for best picture, instead giving them the one for best actress, causing Dunaway to mistakenly announce "La La Land", resulting in a major snafu. On Feb. 27 "King of Bankruptcy" billionaire investor ($2.9B) Wilbur Louis Ross Jr. (1937-) becomes U.S. commerce secy. #39 (until ?). On Feb. 27 after Pres. Trump gives them 30 days, the Pentagon announces their new plan to "soundly and quickly" defeat ISIS, shifting from flushing ISIS out of safe locations in an attrition fight to surrounding them in their strongholds and annihilating them. On Feb. 27 (eve.) the 8-hour LGBT docudrama miniseries When We Rise debuts on ABC-TV (until Mar. 3, 2017), pushing the gay agenda on the viewing audience Hollyweird style; too bad, ratings tank (2.07M viewers). On Feb. 28 ((eve.) Pres. Trump addresses a joint session of Congress, giving a speech that finally makes him look presidential, starting with the soundbyte: "Tonight, as we mark the conclusion of our celebration of Black History Month, we are reminded of our nation's path toward civil rights and the work that still remains. Recent threats targeting Jewish Community Centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week's shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms", going on to use the term radical Islamic terrorism" so much hated by Pres. Obama, and announcing a new VOICE (Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement office in the Dept. of Homeland Security, drawing groans from the usually icily quiet Dems., who do stand and clap for veterans, paid family leave, a tribute to U.S. Navy SEAL Senior Chief William "Ryan" Owens et al., and ending with a very presidential call for unity, silencing many critics, with the soundbyte: "Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed. Every problem can be solved. And every hurting family can find healing, and hope. "Our citizens deserve this, and so much more — so why not join forces to finally get it done? On this and so many other things, Democrats and Republicans should get together and unite for the good of our country, and for the good of the American people." In Feb. the exasperated loser Dems. begin making allegations of sinister connections between Pres. Trump and Vladimir Putin, calling for an investigation by the House select committee on intelligence, which chmn. U.S. Rep. (R-Calif.) (2015-) Devin Gerald Nunes (1973-) rejects, saying that it isn't necessary because "there's nothing there", and it would amount to a "witch hunt"; on Mar. 1 after stating under oath on Jan. 17 that he has never been in contact with the Russian govt. about the 2016, election U.S. atty.-gen. Jeff Sessions is accused by the Wall Street Journal of being investigated for illegal contact with the Russians, which he denies, but adds that he talked with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak about Ukraine and terrorism, causing Trump-hating U.S. Sen. (D-S.C.) Lindsey Graham to call for him to recuse himself from any investigations, and Trump-hating U.S. Rep. (D-Calif.) Nancy Pelosi to accuse him of lying under oath and call for his resignation, which is seconded by Trump-hating Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, causing Sessions to recuse himself on Mar. 2; on Mar. 3 Pres. Trump tweets that he has full confidence in Sessions, that Schumer and Pelosi had meetings with the same ambassador, and should be investigated instead; on Mar. 4 (early a.m.) Trump issues more tweets that "sick" Pres. Obama had his "phones tapped in Trump Tower" before the election; on Mar. 13 White House press secy. Sean Spicer explains that "The President used the word wiretaps in quotes to mean, broadly, surveillance and other activities"; on Apr. 6 despite Speaker Paul Ryan expressing full confidence in him, Nunes temporarily steps down from the U.S. House investigation on Russia's meddling in the U.S. pres. election, calling ethics charges by the Office of Congressional Ethics claiming he made unauthorized disclosures of classified info. "entirely false and politically motivated"; in Dec. the House Committee on Ethics clears Nunes. In Feb. U.S. unemployment drops to 4.7% (vs. 4.8% in Jan.), adding 238K new jobs. In Feb. the 2017 South Sudan famine in the N half affects 5M (ends June). On Mar. 1 as part of Cutwater ad agency's #StrengthHasNoGender Twitter campaign and Women's History Month, Brawny brand paper towels replaces the Brawny Man with a Brawny Woman wearing the same red lumberjack shirt. On Mar. 2 retired neurosurgeon Benjamin Solomon "Ben" Carson Sr. (1951-) becomes U.S. HUD secy. #17 (until ?). On Mar. 2 former Repub. gov. #47 of Tex. (2000-15) James Richard "Rick" Perry (1950-) becomes U.S. energy secy. #14 (until ?). On Mar. 2 Snapchat (SNAP) goes public, with the stock zooming from $17 on Mar. 1 (eve.) to $24.48. On Mar. 3 Pres. Trump visits the new nuclear-powered USS Gerald R. Ford, which he calls "a monument of American might", vowing to pump billions of dollars into new military hardware. On Mar. 6 (Mon.) Pres. Trump signs a revised executive order barring citizens from six Muslim-majority nations from the U.S. for 90 days starting Mar. 16, with Iraq removed; on Mar. 15 his order is blocked by Honolulu, Hawaii federal judge Derrick Kahala Watson, an appointee and Harvard Law School classmate of Pres. Obama, who visited his town 48 hours earlier, and decides to elect himself to the White House in an arrogant abuse of judicial power. On Mar. 7 WikiLeaks releases 8K pages of info. containing the entire hacking capacity of the CIA, dealing them a major blow. On Mar. 8 an ISIS attack on the 400-bed Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan Hospital for wounded soldiers in Kabul, Afghanistan kills 30+ and injures 50+. On Mar. 8 A Day Without a Woman sees protests by anti-Trump women across the U.S. On Mar. 8 U.S. homeland security secy. John F. Kelly announces that illegal immigration across the SW U.S. border plummeted since Pres. Trump took office, with coyotes hiking their rates from $3.5K to $8K. On Mar. 10-12 the Biafran Genocide Exhibition is held in the Biafran Embassy in Victoria, Spain, becoming the first exhibition of atrocities committed by the Nigerian govt. against Biafra. On Mar. 13 Hasbro announces that an online vote has caused them to replace the boot, wheelbarrow, and thimble from the board game Monopoly, and replace them with the T-Rex, rubber ducky, and penguin. On Mar. 14 the Russian Orthodox Church announces that it is adding 15 W European saints to its Menaion (liturgical calendar), incl. "St. Patrick the Enlightener". On Mar. 15 Donald Trump's tax returns for 2005 are leaked, with Trump-hater Rachel MadCow, er, Maddow of MSNBC stinking herself up by crowing that they prove that Trump is a tax cheat, liar, and parasite, but instead showing that he paid $38M in taxes on a profit of $150M, and not zero like Hillary's people were claiming, at a 25% rate that is higher than Obama's or Bernie Sanders'. On Mar. 16 U.S. Sen. (R-Ind.) (2011-17) Daniel Ray "Dan" Coats (1943-) becomes U.S. nat. intel dir. #5 (until ?). On Mar. 18 39-y.-o. French Islamist Zyed Ben Belgacem (b. 1977) is killed at Orly Airport S of Paris after trying to wrestle away a soldier's weapon. On Mar. 19 a U.S. air strike in Paktika Province, Afghanistan kills al-Qaida leader Qari Yasin. On Mar. 19 popular TV judge Andrew Napolitano claims that Pres. Obama asked British intel officials to wiretap Trump Tower, causing Fox News to fire him. On Mar. 20 FBI dir. James Comey testifies before the House Intelligence Committee, revealing that the FBI is investigating "the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts." On Mar. 21 the U.S. orders nine airlines from eight countries to ban devices larger than a cellphone or smartphone from passenger cabins. On Mar. 22 World Water Day. On Mar. 22 British-born Islam convert jihadist Khalid Masood (b. 1964) tries to attack the Parliament Bldg. in Westminster, London, England, driving his gray 4x4 car into a crowd on Westminster Bridge, killing two and injuring 50 before emerging with an 8-in. knife and stabbing a policeman to death before he is killed, causing Parliament to go into Code Red lockdown; ISIS claims responsibility; before the attack he sent his wife a photo of himself in Mecca along with verses from the Quran to justify his attack. On Mar. 22 the Tomb of Christ in Jerusalem is reopened after restoration; meanwhile team from the Nat. Technical U. of Athens (NTUA) reveals that the foundations are crumbling, and that a 6-mo. 6M Euro project is needed to save them. On Mar. 22-23 the Anti-ISIS Coalition meets in Washington, D.C. (first since Dec. 2014). On Mar. 22-25 the George Soros-backed Dem. Alliance meets in Washington, D.C. to plan resistance to Pres. Trump. On Mar. 24 after mo. of wrangling between themselves over Pres. Trump's new Am. Health Care Act (AHCA) health care bill to replace Obamacare, which some call Ryancare or Obamacare 2.0, causing Trump to issue various ultimatums and call for a floor vote, speaker Paul Ryan pulls it before the scheduled vote after failing to convince enough Repubs. to vote for it and at Trump's request; no Dems. will vote for it either way; Obamacare remains the law of the land. On Mar. 25 senior ISIS propaganda official Ibrahim al-Ansari is killed in a U.S. air strike in Al-Qa'im Iraq; U.S. official Joe Scrocca utters that he was responsible for "the brainwashing of young children". On Mar. 26 (4:00 a.m.) U.S. Army medic Joseph Scott Giaquinto (1981-) throws rocks and a New Testament at the Islamic Center of Fort Collins, Colo., and is captured on video, causing him to be easily tracked down and arrested and charged with criminal mischief, trespass, and hate crime after the Council on Am.-Islamic Relations (CAIR) intervenes to make an example of him; on Dec. 18 he pleads guilty, and is sentenced to three years in a Wellness Court program which incl. drugs to get his mind right. On Mar. 27 U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions holds a press conference, in which he warns sanctuary cities that they might lose some federal financial assistance, causing Chicago, Ill. mayor Rahm Emanuel to announce a new municipal ID for illegal aliens that help them avoid repatriation. On Mar. 27 after it is revealed that he met on the White House grounds with a source claiiming that communications involving Pres. Trump and/or his associates were caught up in "incidental" surveillance, U.S. Rep. (D-Calif.) Adam Schiff, top Dem. on the House Intel Committee calls on U.S. Rep. (R-Calif.) Devin Nunes to recuse himself from the witch hunt investigation into possible ties between Pres. Trump's campaign and Russia. On Mar. 28 the U.S. House by 215-205 (incl. 15 Repubs.) passes a law killing online privacy regs issued by the FCC last Oct., allowing Internet providers Comcast, AT&T, Verizon et al. to keep up with Google and Facebook and sell their customers' browsing habits. On Mar. 28 after slithering out of her rock, Hillary Clinton gives a speech to businesswomen in San Francisco, Calif. dissing Pres. Trump, with the soundbyte: "These are bad policies that will hurt people and take our country in the wrong direction. It's the kinds of things you think about when you take long walks in the woods... Resist, insist, persist, enlist"; she gives the speech dressed up like the Joker? On Mar. 29 Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump is given the special job of asst. to the U.S. pres., with no salary. On Mar. 29 the Arab League Summit in Amman, Jordan. On Mar. 29 North Carolina promises to repeal its HB2 Bathroom Law in response to threats from the NCAA to pull all postseason events between 2018-2022. On Mar. 30 the U.S. Senate uses the U.S. Congressional Review Act to vote 51-50 to overturn the Obama admin. rule to stop states from defunding Planned Parenthood, with vice-pres. Mike Pence casting the deciding vote; Repubs. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski vote with the Dems. In Mar. IBM ends telecommuting, forcing employees to work in their offices instead of their homes. In Mar. U.S. unemployment is 4.5% (vs. 4.7% in Feb.), with 98K new jobs added; avg. private sector earnings are up 2.7% over the previous year (vs. 2.8% in Feb.); manufacturing jobs reach 12,392,000, highest level in eight years. On Apr. 3 (2:40 p.m.) 23-y.-o. ethnic Uzbek suicide bomber Akbarzhon Jalilov detonates a shrapnel-filled briefcase bomb at the Sennaya Ploshchad Metro Station in St. Petersburg, Russia, killing 14 and injuring 45 while pres. Vladimir Putin is visiting the city (his hometown); another bomb is found and dismantled; Pres. Trump talks on the phone with Vladimir Putin about it. On Apr. 3 Pres. Trump meets in the White House with Egyptian pres. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, promising a U.S. military buildup "probably more than ever before", and praising him as doing a "fantastic job", promising "strong support" for battling terrorism. On Apr. 3 ex-CIA dir. John O. Brennan gives an interview to "BBC Newsnight", calling Donald Trump's Muslim travel ban "simplistic and wrongheaded", claiming that Trump's insistence on using the term "radical Islamic terrorism" helps legitimize ISIS. On Apr. 4 a chemical attack in Idlib Province, Syria kills 58 incl. 11 children. On Apr. 4 the U.S. Senate passes Senate Resolution 118, "Condemning hate crime and any other form of racism, religious or ethnic bias, discrimination, incitement to violence, or animus targeting a minority in the United States"; it was drafted by the Muslim org. EmgageUSA (formerly EmergeUSA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and sponsored by senators Marco Rubio, Dianne Feinstein, Susan Collins, and Kamala Harris; it calls on "Federal law enforcement officials, working with State and local officials... to expeditiously investigate all credible reports of hate crimes and incidents and threats against minorities in the United States and to hold the perpetrators of those crimes, incidents, or threats accountable and bring the perpetrators to justice; encourages the Department of Justice and other Federal agencies to work to improve the reporting of hate crimes; and... encourages the development of an interagency task force led by the Attorney General to collaborate on the development of effective strategies and efforts to detect and deter hate crime in order to protect minority communities"; an insidious attempt to end free speech and enact Muslim Sharia blasphemy laws? On Apr. 6 Russia recognizes West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. On Apr. 6 the U.S. Mint issues a Black Lady Liberty Coin with a $100 face value to commemorate the 225th anniv. of the Mint, becoming the first non-white. On Apr. 6 (8:40 p.m. ET) in response to the gassing attack of children et al., as he sat down to dinner with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Palm Beach, Fla., Pres. Trump orders a 59-missile Tomahawk cruise missile ($1.5M apiece) strike by USS Ross and USS Porter on the Shayrat Airfield in Homs Province, where the attack originated "to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons"; Dems. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi endorse the action, while most other Dems. condemn it because he didn't ask Congress for permission first, which isn't required by law. On Apr. 7 (2:50 p.m. local time) a hijacked beer truck driven by 39-y.-o. Uzbek Muslim Rakhmat Akilov plows into pedestrians in Drottninggatan, the busiest shopping street in Stockholm, Sweden, killing five and injuring 15; he planned the attack for months, wanting to "create fear in the population at large" and "run over unbelievers" to stop Sweden from fighting ISIS. On Apr. 7 New York becomes the first U.S. state to offer four years of public college to residents, with strings attached incl. living and working in the state for four years after graduation. On Apr. 9 (Palm Sun.) two Coptic Christian churches in Tanta and Alexandria, Egypt are bombed, killing 25 and injuring 60 in St. George's Church in Tanta, and killing 11 and injuring 35 in St. Mark's Cathedral in Alexandria; Egyptian pres. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi declares a 3-mo. state of emergency; ISIS claims responsibility; on Apr 10 police kill seven of the terrorists in a shootout in Assiut, Upper Egypt; on Apr. 10, 2018 a military court in Alexandria sentences 36 perps to death out of 48 defendants, 17 of which are fugitives. On Apr. 10 after he refuses to take $800 to get off an overbooked plane voluntarily so that a crew member can take his seat, airport police bloody and drag Chinese physician David Dao off United Airlines Flight 3411 en route from Chicago, Ill. to Louisville, Ky. like a sack of manure, leaving him bloody, after which CEO Oscar Munoz stinks himself up more by downplaying the man's suffering and only talking about "lessons we can learn from this experience"; the video pisses-off the 340M users of the Chinese Weibo social media platform, many of whom call for a boycott; on Apr. 14 United Airlines announces a policy change to board crews 60 min. before departure to avoid a repeat, and later agrees to pay up to $10K to bumped passengers, and ends the practice of forcing passengers to give up their seats unless they pose a safety risk; meanwhile Dao hires lawyers to sue. On Apr. 11 three pipe bombs explode near a bus carrying the German Borussa Dortmund Soccer Team, injuring one player and one police officer; it is later linked to ISIS. On Apr. 11 White House press secy. Sean Spicer makes remarks that Hitler didn't use chemical weapons, bring out the PC police and causing him to apologize; they did, but not on the battlefield like Assad? On Apr. 11 U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions gives two speeches in Ariz., announcing new measures to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, with no mention of the Trump Wall. On Apr. 12 U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson meets in Moscow with Russian pres. Vladimir Putin; meanwhile in the White House Pres. Trump utters the soundbytes: "We may be at an all-time low in terms of relationship with Russia", and "I said it [NATO] was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete", dropping his characterization of China as a currency manipulator to get them to help him spank Kim Jong-un's hiney et al., and announcing "We are sending an armada" to deal with pesky North Korea, incl. aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. On Apr. 12 N.Y. Court of Appeals judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam (b. 1952) (ex-wife of a Muslim, who never converted herself) commits suicide in the Hudson River of New York City after issuing a landmark ruling in Aug. in Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A. that a lesbian from a broken partnership has the right to seek visitation rights of their adopted son. On Apr. 12 an Allah Akbar-shouting Muslim waving a knife and destroying windows in Schilderswijk, The Hague, Netherlands is shot in the leg by police. On Apr. 13 Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi visits Palestinian authority foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki, issuing the soundbyte: "This year marks the 70th anniversary of the United Nations' passing of Palestine-Israel Partition Plan. Acording to the resolution at that time, Israel had the right to statehood, Palestine also had the right to statehood. However, after 70 years, what we can see is that Palestinian brothers have yet to establish an independent country with full sovereignty. This is unfair. This kind of historical injustice must be corrected and cannot continue." The Trump admin. fires the first 21st cent. shot heard around the world, but not quite on Friday the 13th? On Apr. 13 (7:00 p.m. local time) (Thur.) the U.S. drops its 21.6K-lb. GBU-43/B MOAB (Massive Ordinance Air Bomb) (Mother of All Bombs) (largest non-nuclear bomb in its arsenal) in Nangarhar Province, Achin District, E Afghanistan on an ISIS tunnel and cave complex, becoming the first use in combat, killing 94 ISIS fighters incl. four cmdrs.; the U.S. had already decimated ISIS forces in Afghanistan by 80% to about 600; U.S. Gen. John Nicholson made the decision to drop the big bomb, not Pres. Trump. On Apr. 13 CIA dir. Mike Pompeo gives a speech at the Center for Strategic and Internat. Studies calling WikiLeaks a "non-state hostile intelligence service". On Apr. 15 (Sun Day) North Korea bows to economic pressure from China and military pressure from the U.S. and refrains from holding a promised 6th nuclear test, but on Apr. 16 it blows up a missile on the launching pad to prove what inept stooges they are. On Apr. 15 a bomb on a crowded bus convoy full of Shiite refugees outside Aleppo, Syria kills 112+, bringing condemnation from Pope Francis, who calls it "ignoble". On Apr. 16 (Sun.) (Easter) a referendum in Turkey on granting nearly unlimited dictatorial powers to pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan gives him a blank check, making the PM office impotent. On Apr. 17 the 54-member U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) hands out 13 leadership posts in U.N. orgs. dealing with gender equality and the advancement of women, with all but seven countries voting to give Saudi Arabia a slot on the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in 2018-22. On Apr. 17 the U.S. Supreme Court rejects the request of Ark. to lift a stay that would allow it to conduct its first execution 11 years, for Don Davis, as part of a plan to execute eight inmates before the end of Apr. when the lethal injection drug midazolam expires. On Apr. 18 after a smear campaign incl. allegations of blaspheming Islam shrinks his lead, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, Christian gov. of Jakarta, Indonesia loses an election to Muslim education minister Anies Baswedan. On Apr. 18 African-Am. Muslim Kori Ali Muhammad (1977-) kills three whites in a rampage in Fresno, Calif. while shouting "Allahu Akbar", claiming he wanted to kill as many whites as possible. On Apr. 19 U.S. maj. gen. Joseph Martin, cmdr. of coalition ground forces in Iraq gives a news conference, in which he claims that hundreds of Iraqi civilians are killed by ISIS "on a weekly basis", and that they used chemical weapons in Mosul over the weekend on liberating forces. On Apr. 19 Fox News kicks cable's top news anchor Bill O'Reilly off The O'Reilly Factor amid sexual harassment allegations, changing the name to The Factor - score one for the anti-Trump crowd? On Apr. 19-Nov. 9 the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season sees 10 hurricanes in a row and six major hurricanes incl. Harvey, Maria, Irma, and Nate, costing a record 3K deaths and $282.16B damage, coming in #2 after the 2005 season. On Apr. 20 Islamist Karim Cherufi attacks a standing police car in Paris, France on the Champs Elysees killing one officer and wounding one before being killed near a Marks & Spencer store; ISIS claims responsibility. On Apr. 20 the annual 420 Denver Weed Rally in the Denver, Colo. Civic Center leaves piles of trash. On Apr. 22 a nationwide cyber attack hits power grids in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City, causing traffic backups. On Apr. 22 1M protesters in 600 U.S. cities stage an anti-Trump March for Science, incl. the Scientists' March on Washington in Washington, D.C., attended by 100K concerned over climate change and Pres. Trump's stance on it; on Apr. 29 (100th day of the Trump admin.) another People's Climate March in Washington, D.C. is atttended by thousands in sweltering heat, while the U.S. EPA announces that its main climate change Web site is "undergoing changes" to better reflect its "new direction"; 300 sister marches are held in Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle et al.; the march in Denver is held in a spring snowstorm. On Apr. 23 the 2017 French pres. election are a V for Emmanuel Macron of the Liberal Party (23.7%), and Marine Le Pen of the Nat. Front (21.7%); on May 7 runoff election. On Apr. 23 10 Taliban fighters dressed as Afghan army soldiers attack the Mazar-i-Sharif Army Base, killing 160+ troops, becoming the biggest defeat for the Afghan army since 2001; nine Taliban are KIA, and one captured. On Apr. 24 Pres. Trump meets with U.N. Security Council ambassadors at the White House, describing the U.N. as an "underperformer", complaining about costs going "out of control", and how unfair it is that the U.S. has to pay 22% of the operating budget and 28.6% of the peacekeeping budget; with the soundbyte: "It hasn't lived up to the potential. I see a day when there's a conflict where the United Nations, you get together, and you solve the conflict. You just don't see the United Nations, like, solving conflicts. I think that's going to start happening now." On Apr. 25 U.S. federal judge William Orrick III in San Francisco blocks Pres. Trump's order to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities, claiming that the city of San Francisco and county of Santa Clara are likely to succeed in proving it unconstitutional, foiling plans by the U.S. Dept. of Justice to cut-off funding to eight sanctuary cities if they don't provide proof that they are deliberaly sheltering illegal aliens; Orrick previously raised $200K for Obama. On Apr. 25 Pres. Trump speaks at the U.S. Holocaust Museum's Days of Remembrance in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., uttering the soundbytes: "This is my pledge to you: we will confront anti-Semitism,. We will stamp out prejudice, we will condemn hatred, we will bear witness and we will act", "Those who deny the Holocaust are an accomplice to this horrible evil. We'll never be silent, we just won't. We will never, ever be silent in the face of evil again", and "The state of Israel is an eternal monument to the undying strength of the Jewish people." On Apr. 25 tennis star Serena Williams announces her pregnancy by a white guy, causing tennis star Ilie Nastase to utter the comment: "Let's see what color it has. Chocolate with milk?", pissing-off the PC police, who get the ITF to suspend him; he already accused her of using performance-enhancing substances. On Apr. 26 the Trump admin. announces sketchy plan for their tax reform, incl. reducing the seven tax brackets to three (10%, 25%, 35%), doubling the standard deduction, tax relief for families with dependents, eliminate tax breaks for the wealthy, repeal the alternative min. tax, death tax, and 3.8% Obamacare tax, while protecting deductions for mortgages and charitable donations. On Apr. 26 U.S. Adm. Harry Harris, chief of the U.S. Pacific Command speaks to the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, uttering the soundbyte about pesky North Korea: "Kim Jong-Un is clearly in a position to threaten Hawaii today, in my opinion. I have suggested that we consider putting interceptors in Hawaii that... defend [it] directly, and that we look at a defensive Hawaii radar"; currently the U.S. only has interceptors in Calif. and Alaska. On Apr. 27 Pres. gives an interview to Reuters, uttering the soundbyte: "I loved my previous life. I had so many things going. This is more work than in my previous life. I thought it would be easier." On Apr. 27 U.S. Special Forces kill Abdul Hasib, head of ISIS in Afghanistan in a joint U.S.-Afghan operation in Nangarhar Province. On Apr. 28 North Korea stages another ballistic missile test; too bad, it fails. On Apr. 29 Pres. Trump's Day 100 comes after signing 24 executive orders (most since WWII), 22 pres. memoranda, 20 pres. proclamations, and 28 bills, none major. On Apr. 29 (11:00 p.m.) unarmed 15-y.-o. black teenie Jordan Edwards (b. 2001) is shot in the back of the head by white police officer Roy Oliver in Balch Springs, Tex. with an AR-15 rifle while riding in the front passenger's seat of a vehicle driving away from a party, lying that the vehicle was backing into the officers, then admitting it was driving away from them; on May 5 after being fired, Oliver is arrested, and charged with murder; on Aug. 28, 2018 he is found guilty, and sentenced to 15 years in prison, becoming the 33rd police officer convicted of a crime resulting from an on-duty fatal shooting since 2005, and the 2nd convicted of murder out of a total of 93 arrested for on-duty murder or manslaughter. On Apr. 30 Bryan Fuller's and Michael Green's American Gods debuts on Starz for ? episodes (until ?), based on the 2001 novel by Neil Gaiman, starring Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday (Odin), Ricky Whittle as his ex-con bodyguard Shadow Moon, Emily Browning as Shadow Moon's wife Laura Moon, Crispin Glover as Mr. World, leader of the New Gods, Bruce Langley as Technical Boy, Yetide Badaki as Bilquis, the Queen of Sheba, and Pablo Schreiber as leprechaun Mad Sweeney. In Apr. an extensive neo-Nazi network is discovered in the German armed forces (Bundeswehr), which was planning terrorist attacks on high-ranking politicians and glorified Hitler's Wehrmacht. In Apr. a new mosque opens in Athens, Greece, becoming the first in Greece since the Ottomans were expelled in 1833. In Apr. U.S. unemployment falls to 4.4%, with 211K jobs created. On May 2 the U.S. State Dept. issues a new terror alert for citizens traveling to Europe, saying that attacks are possible anywhere anytime. On May 2 (a.m.) 95-y.-o. Prince Philip of Britain (b. 1921) announces his retirement from royal duties stating in the fall. On May 2 (Israel's 69th Independence Day) UNESCO by 22-10-23 passes a resolution calling Israel an "occupying power" in Jerusalem, submitted by Muslim nations Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and Sudan, pissing-off Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who utters the soundbyte: "The absurd decisions n UNESCO have to not merely be reduced in the number of their supporters. That's happening. I'm glad to say, went down from 32 to 26, today to 22. There are more countries today that are abstaining or supporting Israel than there are those opposing Israel. But my goal is to have no votes in UNESCO on Israel." On May 2 Hillary Clinton gives an interview to Christiane Amanpour of CNN, claiming that if the election had been held on Oct. 27, "I would be your president", and uttering the soundbyte: "I was on the way to winning, until the combination of Jim Comey's letter on October 28th, and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off", causing Pres. Trump to Tweet: "FBI Director Comey was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary Clinton in that the gave her a free pass for many bad deeds!", and "Trump/Russia story was an excuse used by the Democrats as justification for losing the election. Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?" On May 3 Pres. Trump meets with Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmud Abbas at the White House, calling for an end to hisprogram of paying terrorists and their families, saying that Palestinians cannot expect to see a lasting peace until their "leaders speak in a unified voice against incitement to... violence and hate"; Abbas lies to Trump to play him, with the soundbyte: "Mr. President, I affirm to you that we are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace." On May 3 Lost At Sea Women Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava launch their sailing boat Sea Nymph from Hawaii en route 2.7K mi. to Tahiti, getting lost after a storm, then rescued by the U.S. Navy in Oct., causing their stories to be questioned when they fail to use their distress beach. On May 4 (Nat. Day of Prayer) the U.S. Senate passes as $1.2T spending bill to keep the govt. open through Sept.; it incl. an additional $1.5B for border security; meanwhile the the U.S. House of Reps by 217-213 passes legislation beginning the process of repealing and replacing Obamacare; meanwhile Pres. Trump signs an executive order weakening the 1954 Johnson Amendment, instructing the IRS to back off and allow religious leaders to endorse political candidates; too bad, only Congress can absolish their amendment, and Trump's protection will end when he leaves office; also too bad, it chucks the free exercise of religion clause in the First Amendment, relying only on the free speech clause; the ACLU declines to file a lawsuit over it, calling it "a sham because what it actually does is instruct the IRS to enforce the law as written". On May 4 Pres. Obama releases a video endoring Emmanuel Macron over Marine Le Pen for pres. of France, saying that he "appeals to people's hopes and not their fears". On May 4 Russia, Iran, and Turkey sign a Memorandum on the Creation of De-Escalation Areas in the Syrian Arab Republic, to last 6 mo. On May 4 World Password Day. On May 5 a U.S. Navy SEAL is killed and two more U.S. servicemembers wounded in a raid in Somalia, becoming the first U.S. combat death there since the 1993 Black Hawk Down battle. On May 5 gay organist George Nathaniel Stang (1981-) at St. David's Episcopal Church in Bean Blossom, Minn. admits that he spray-painted anti-Trump hate graffiti "Heil Trump" and "Fag Church" on the church on Nov. 13; it received nat. publicity from the anti-Trump PC press. On May 7 elections in France give a V to 39-y.-o. liberal pro-EU Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frederic Macron (1977-) over populist nationalist anti-EU Marine Le Pen by 65.1%-34.9%; on May 14 Macron becomes pres. of France (until ?), becoming the youngest pres. ever and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon - France is heading for national suicide via Islam? On May 7 Tex. gov. Greg Abbott signs SB4 banning sanctuary cities in the state, with a $25.5K/day fine for violations; on Mar. 13, 2018 the Tex. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds it. On May 7 retired USMC lt. col. Oliver North is named as the next pres. of the Nat. Rifle Assoc (NRA). On May 9 Pres. Trump says "You're fired!" to FBI dir. #7 (since Sept. 4, 2013) James Comey (1960-), citing his mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email scandal along with a memo by deputy U.S. atty. gen. Rod Rosenstein, with the soundbyte: "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau"; on May 10 Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell refuses calls to appoint a special prosecutor or commission for the Trump-Russia probe, calling them "partisan". On May 9 (early a.m.) 300 illegal immigrants from Africa storm the fence on the Moroccan border with the Spanish autonomous city of Melilla. On May 10 leftist pro-North Korea Moon Jae-in (1953-) becomes pres. #12 of South Korea, succeeding Park Geun-hye. On May 10 after a radical Islamist mob marches on the supreme court to demand a heavy sentence, outgoing Christian Jakarta gov. Basuki Tjahaja Purname is sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy against Allah by quoting the Quran 5:51 and suggesting that his opponents were twisting it into saying that Muslims should not be ruled by non-Muslims, pissing-off Am. evangelist Franklin Graham who utters the soundbyte "Islam wants domination" - the Quran isn't negotiable? On May 10 Pres. Trump meets in the White House with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey Kislyak; later after a leak from his own admin., Trump is accused of giving them sensitive foreign intel, with some claiming it came from Israel; on May 22 Trump tells reporters that he never mentioned the word Israel, proving that it was Israel, or merely denying it was Israel without saying what the source really was? On May 11 (early a.m.) authorities remove a statue of Confed. Pres. Jefferson Davis in New Orleans, La. in front of pissed-off crowds, becoming the 2nd of four Confed. monuments on the slate after a 2015 city council vote and a court battle. On May 11 Pres. Trump issues Executive Order No. ? calling for "a comprehensive review of the federal government's cybersecurity risk management policies and procedures", with special attention to the electric grid. On May 11 the LDS (Mormon) Church announces that effective Jan. 1 it will pull out, er, drop the Boy Scouts of Am. (BSA) from its young men's program for ages 14-17, a total of 180K boys in the U.S. and Canada, causing evangelist Franklin Graham to call on all churches to do ditto; church leaders deny that their decision has anything to do with BSA decisions to accept gay Scout leaders and Scouts, and to admit more girls. On May 11 Philly-born #1 leftist brain man Avram Noam Chomsky (1928-) gives an interview to the BBC, uttering the soundbyte that the U.S. Repub. Party is "the most dangerous organisation in human history"; when asked if that means it's worse than ISIS, he replies: "Is ISIS dedicated to trying to destroy the prospects for organised human existence? What does it mean to say not only are we not doing anything about climate change but we're trying to accelerate the race to the precipice? It doesn't matter whether they genuinely believe it or not... If the consequence of that is 'let's use more fossil fuels, let's refuse to subsidise developing countries, let's eliminate regulations that reduce greenhouse gases'. If that's the consequence, that's extremely dangerous." On May 14 the Miss USA 2017 (66th) Pageant is held at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nev., hosted by Julianna Hough and Terrence J; the winner is Naples, Italy-born Miss Washington D.C., Kara Deidra McCullough (1991-), (runner-up in 2015 and 2016), becoming the first 2-peat for Washington, D.C. since 1988-9; she pisses-off the PC police by calling health care a privilege for the working and not a right, and for calling herself an equalist rather than a feminist; 7th winner born outside the U.S. On May 14-15 the First Belt and Road Forum for Internat. Cooperation (BRFIC) in Beijing, attended by 29 heads of state and reps from 130+ countries and 70 internat. orgs. is billed as founding China's New World Order. On May 15 the anti-Trump Washington Post claims that Pres. Trump gave Russian officials top secret intel info. at a meeting in the White House; too bad, the murky sources can't be pinned down. On May 16 the New York Times pub. a report claiming that fired FBI dir. James Comey wrote a memory claiming that Pres. Trump asked him to quash the investigation of Gen. Michael Flynn, causing calls for impeachment; all he did was ask him real nicely, not order him? On May 16 the Mormon Church pulls older boys (ages 14-18) out of the Boy Scouts of Am., causing evangelist Franklin Graham to call on all churches to do ditto. On May 16 Fx News finally wakes up and begins admitting that the July 10, 2016 murder of 27-y.-o. Seth Conrad Rich (1989-2016) during the 2016 pres. race, officially called a botched robbery might be connected with his leaking of info. from Dem. Nat. Committee records to WikiLeaks, meaning that the Trump-Russia story is moose hockey and that Hillary might be a murderer and coverup queen, causing Newt Gingrich et al. to call for an official investigation; meanwhile WikiLeaks offers a $20K reward for info. leading to Rich's murderer; meanwhile Kim Dotcom announces that Rich was the real DNC WikiLeaks leaker and that he knows because he was involved; meanwhile it comes out that the FBI never directly investigated the DNC case, but relied on U.S.-based private co. Crowdstrike, which was founded by a Ukrainian who hates Putin. On May 17 deputy U.S. atty. gen. Rod Rosenstein appoints former FBI dir. Robert Muller as special prosecutor for the Trump-Russia investigation, causing Pres. Trump on May 18 to tweet the soundbyte that it is the "single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history", telling reporters: "As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know, there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity." On May 18 after several warnings and exchanges of gunfire, the U.S. carries out an air strike in At Tanf, S Syria against Syrian govt.-supported militia. On May 19 Harvard U. releases a study reporting that in Pres. Trump's first 100 days in office, the tone of his news coverage was 80% negative and only 20% positive, with CNN and NBC being 93% negative, CBS 91% negative, and pro-Trump Fox News 52% negative. On May 19 pres. elections in Iran is a V for incumbent Hassan Rohani over Ebrahaim Raisi by 57%-23%, with 41M votes cast. On May 20 Pres. Trump begins a 9-day trip, starting with a visit to Saudi Arabia to discuss a $110B-$350B 10-year arms deal to counter Iran, receiving a royal welcome; his speech goes mainstream, backing down from his anti-Muslim campaign rhetoric while urging Arab leaders to "fight Islamic extremism" (not "radical Islamic terrorism"); he gives the Saudi king a handshake instead of bowing like Pres. Obama; First Lady Melania Trump and daughter Ivanka are given a pass on wearing a headscarf; on after ending the Saudi prohibition on flying directly there from Meccaland, May 22 Trump visits Israel, meeting with PM Benjamin Netanyahu, his wife Sara, pres. Reuven Rivlin, and members of the cabinet, praying at the Western Wall (first U.S. pres.) and visiting the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; on May 23 he visits Bethlehem in the West Bank; on May 23 (8:00 a.m.) he visits Pope Francis in the Vatican, who doesn't talk or smile at first, during which visit First Lady Melania reveals that she's a devout Roman Catholic, with the pope giving Trump a copy of his May 24, 2015 encyclical "Laudato Si" preaching climate change theory, and Trump giving the pope a set of books by MLK Jr., a piece of granite from his memorial, and a sculpture representing "hope for a peaceful tomorrow"; on May 25 Trump visits Brussels, where the Marxist leftist overlords give him an icy reception. On May 21 elections in Iran give a V to incumbent pres. Hassan Rouhani, with 57% of the vote in a 75% turnout. On May 21 after a show at the Nassau County Coliseum in N.J., the Ringling Brothers Circus closes after 146 years; they had planned to phase out elephants from their Greatest Show on Earth in 2018. On May 22 (10:30 p.m. local time) at the end of an Ariana Grande Dangerous Woman Tour concert in the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, British-born Islamic suicide bomber Salman Ramadan Abedi (b. 1995) (son of Libyan immigrant) goes off in the exit area where parents are waiting for their children, killing 22 and injuring 120+, mainly children and teenies, becoming the deeadliest attack in the U.K. since July 7, 2005, and the first in Manchester since the Provisional IRA bombing of June 15, 1996; Pres. Trump calls the Islamists "losers"; ISIS claims responsibility; on May 23 British PM Theresa May calls it an act of "sickening cowardice", and raises the threat level to critical (martial law); on May 23 (eve.) a vigil is held in Albert Square, attended by Britain's multicultural pop. incl. Muslims, all claiming that the attack had nothing to do with Islam :); on May 23 after learning that Abedi recently returned from Libya and Syria, police make three arrests; he was linked to ISIS but trained by al-Qaida?; on May 25 May announces that the U.K. has stopped sharing intel from the bombing after some was leaked by U.S. sources to journalists, leaving police "furious", after which Trump fixes things up with them; on June 4 (eve.) the One Love Manchester Concert features Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Pharrell Williams, Chris Martin, Liam Gallagher, Robbie Williams et al. On May 23 John O. Brennan testifies before the House Intelligence Committee, refusing to use the word "collusion" to describe the Trump campaign's relationship with Russia, but adding "I know that therre was a sufficient basis of information and intelligence that required further investigation by the bureau to determine whether or not U.S. persons were actively conspiring, colluding with Russian officials." On May 23 the Washington Post pub. an article claiming that Pres. Trump asked NSA dir. Mike Rogers and DNI Dan Coats to push back on the Trump-Russia story after James Comey's congressional testimony, and that White House officials had tried to get them to lobby the FBI to drop the Gen. Michael Flynn probe. On May 23 the Web site of the Qatari news agency posts an article claiming that the emir of Qatar has made several controversial statements, incl. that the country is withdrawing its ambassadors from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, and UAE, that it opposes a hostile stance against Iran, and that it looks favorably on the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Hezbollah. On May 23 Lt. Col. Khallid Shabazz becomes the U.S. Army's first div.-level chaplain for the 7th Infantry Div. On May 24 after ISIS-connected Islamists begin sieging Marawi City in Mindanao on May 23, Philippine pres. Rodrigo Duterte declares martial law for 60 days, abruptly returning from Moscow to deal with them, taking until Oct. 23 to defeat them. On May 24 the supreme court of Taiwan rules in favor of same-sex marriage, giving the govt. two years to implement the ruling. On May 25 Pres. Trump attends a NATO meeting in Brussels, Belgium, scolding members for not paying their fair share, then attends a G7 summit in Sicily on May 26. On May 25 (Jerusalem Day) the parliament of Czech Repub. recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital. On May 26 2017 Ramadan begins (ends June 24), with a record 1,150 casualties caused by Islamic terrorists in 15 countries; in the first 12 days there are 60 terror attacks, killing 832 and injuring 912, ending with 174 attacks and 1,595 kills, vs. 2 Muslims killed by "Islamophobes", becoming the bloodiest Ramadan in modern history. On May 26 masked Islamist gunmen attack a group of Coptic Christians traveling in Minya Province, Egypt en route to pray at the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 26 and injuring 26, incl. many children. On May 29 Philippines pres. Rodrigo Duterte announces tht he will give soldier pay to soldiers of the Islamist Moro Nat. Liberation Front et al. who fight the Maute terrorist group, which has killed 100 in Marawi City. On May 30 (midnight) a car bomb detonates near the popular Al-Faqma ice cream shop in a Shiite area in Karrada District, Baghdad, Iraq, followed by another in Shawaka, Baghdad, the two explosions killing 30+ and injuring 40; ISIS claims responsbility. On May 31 the FBI and NYPD arrest 19 members of the Lucchese crime family incl. acting boss Matthew Madonna, underboss Steven Crea, and consigliere Joseph DiNapoli, charging them with racketeering incl. the 2013 murder of mob hitman Michael Meldish. On May 31 the U.S. Missile Defense Agency reports its first successfull exo-atmospheric interception and destruction in flight of an ICBM. On May 31 Pres. Trump tweets about his campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page that the Dems. in the House Intel Committee "don't wnt him to testify... [because he] blows away their case against him"; at 12:06 a.m. he tweets the word "covfefe", which is taken up by the PC press as a subject of speculation. On May 31 after a huge backlash, comedian Kathy Griffin apologizes for a photo showing her holding Pres. Trump's bloody head, which he calls "sick", after which CNN fires her. On May 31 USAF vet Tairod Pugh, who was convicted in Mar., becoming the first American to be convicted of attempting to join ISIS is sentenced to 35 years in priz, with U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis interrupting his long rant with "You made your choice. I have no sympathy." On May 31 Hillary Clinton speaks at the Codecon Conference in Rancho Palos Verde, giving a diatribe blaming everybody but herself for losing the 2016 U.S. pres. election, starting with the snaky soundbyte "I take responsibility for every decision I made, but that is not why I lost", blaming Russian hackers, weaponized data, content farms in Macedonia, corrupted algorithms, fingering Pres. Trump for orchestrating it, esp. the "fake news" on Facebook incl. Pizzagate. On June 1 (early a.m.) a jihadist attacks the Resorts World Manila Casino in Manila, Philipppines, killing 35 and injuring 70 before killing himself; ISIS claims responsibility, while the govt. rules out terrorism. On June 1 Ontario Province, Canada passes a law allowing the govt. to remove children from families that refuse to accept their chosen gender identity. On June 1-3 the 21st St. Petersburg Internat. Economic Forum (SPIEF) is attended by Russian pres. Vladimir Putin, who is interviewed by U.S. journalist Megyn Kelly, who pooh-poohs suggestions that Russia influenced the 2016 U.S. pres. election, saying: "It reminds me of anti-Semitism: the Jews are to blame for everything." On June 3 the 2017 London Massacre sees three British Muslim jihadists drive a van into pedestrians on London Bridge in England, then stab people in the nearby Borough Market area, killing seven and injuring 48 before being killed by police; parallel universe PM Theresa May utters the soundbyte that the British people must come together to fight "extemism", with the soundbyte: "It is an ideology that claims our Western values of freedom, democracy, and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam"; on June 5 police arrest two of the three attackers, Pakistan-born Khuram Shazad Butt (27) and Moroccan or Libyan-born Rachid Redouane (Elkhdar) (30), members of the militant jihadist network al-Muhajiroun; the third is Youssef Zaghba; Muslim London mayor Sadiq Khan utters the soundbyte: "Terrorism is part and parcel of living in a great global city", assuring people there is nothing to fear, causing Pres. Trump to tweet that he's nuts, causing him to change his story to assuring people that there is nothing to fear from heightened security. On June 3 25-.y.-o. Reality Leigh Winner (1992-) is arrested after the Web news site The Intercept pub. a top-secret NSA document giving details of Russian hacking attempts, and it is traced to her. On June 3 Allah-Akbar-screaming Canadian Muslim Rehab Dughmosh (1985-) begins swinging a golf club at employees of Cedarbrae Mall in Scarborough, Toronto, Ont., Canada, then pulls out a large knife before being subdued by the employees; at her first court appearance she swears allegiance to "the leader of the believers, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi" of ISIS. On June 3 Alex Honnold scales El Capitan sans ropes or gear. On June 5 (8:00 a.m.) disgruntled ex-employee John Robert Neumann Jr. returns to Fiammi Inc. and kills five in Orange County, Fla.. On June 5 Pres. Trump announces his proposal to privatize the air traffic control (ATC) system, saying it was designed to handle 100K people/year, not the 1B people/year needed today; meanwhile after the U.S. Supeme Court takes his case, he tweets that his proposed travel ban should be called just that, pissing-off the PC police, along with another tweet criticizing Muslim London mayor Sadiq Kahn, whose comments on the 2017 London Massacre that the pop. should still feel they're safe a "pathetic disgrace", adding: "The FAKE MSM is working so hard trying get me not to use Social Media. They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out"; meanwhile Muslim CNN host Reza Aslan dumps on Pres. Trump, calling him "a piece of shit" et al., causing conservatives L. Brent Bozell III et al. to call for his firing. On June 5 U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions orders Justice Dept. attys. to quit diverting legal settlement funds to non-govt. special interest groups, as the Obama admin. had done. On June 5 (eve.) Somali-born jihaist Yacqub Khayre (1988-) murders a Chinese-born receptionist at an apt. complex in Melbourne, Australia, then takes an escort girl hostage, calling a local TV station and telling them "This is for ISIS, this is for al-Qaeda" before getting into a fatal shootout with police. On June 6 (8:06 a.m.) Pres. Trump issues a tweet about Qatar: "During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar — look!"; at 9:36 a.m. he follows with: "So good to see the Saudi Arabia visit with the King and 50 countries already paying off. They said they would take a hard line on funding… extremism, and all reference was pointing to Qatar. Perhaps this will be the beginning of the end to the horror of terrorism!" On June 6 U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition forces bomb forces loyal to Syrian pres. Bashed Ass, er, Bashar al-Ass near the Syria-Jordan-Iraq border. On June 6 an Algerian jihadist wielding a hammer attacks police outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, injuring one officer and shouting "This is for Syria" before being shot dead. On June 6 U.S. homeland security secy. John Kelly addresses Congress, complaining about the leftist federal courts, saying, "Bottom line, I've been enjoined from doing these things that I know would make Americans safe, and I anxiously await the court to complete its action one way or the other so I can get to work." On June 6 U.S. deputy atty. gen Rod Rosenstein, acting head of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) annunces that drug OD is now the #1 cause of death for Americans under age 50. On June 7 ISIS jihadists stage two attacks in Tehran, Iran, one in parliament and the other in the nearby shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, killing 12 and injuring dozens, becoming ISIS' first attack in Iran. On June 7 U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson issues a declaration for 2017 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Pride Month. On June 8 after calling a snap election to win a stronger mandate, and a 24-point poll lead, only to see a 70% youth turnout, British Parliamentary elections are a defeat for PM Theresa May, whose Conservative Party wins but loses its majority in Parliament, with 314 seats, 12 less than the 326 needed. On June 8 former FBI dir. James Comey testifies before an eager Congress and press about alleged misconduct of Pres. Trump, calling him a liar yet ending up clearing him of anything criminal, because he failed to understand that as Da President Trump has the authority to order an investigation and prosecution to stop, and can even pardon the target to stop it; he claims that he made memos because "I was honestly concerned that he might lie", coming across as a disgruntled employee; Comey reveals that U.S. atty. gen. Loretta Lynch asked him to describe the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server "a matter", which "gave me a queasy feeling"; CNN "Hardball" host Chris Matthews utters the soundbyte that the Trump-Russia collusion theory "came apart"; after it ends, Trump's atty. Marc Kasowitz issues a statement accusing him of being another illegal leaker who should be the one criminally investigated; on June 9 Pres. Trump tweets: "Despite so many false sttements and lies, total and complete vindication... and WOW, Comey is a leaker!"; on June 13 Trump accuses Loretta Lynch of "illegal behavior", claiming that she provided Hillary with "protection". On June 8 German authorities announce the arrest of Mohammed G., ISIS's correspondent in Europe. On June 8 30-y.-o. African-Am. man David Jones (b. 1987) stopping for reckless riding of a dirt bike then shot twice in the back and killed as he flees in Philly by white police officer Ryan Pownall, who is charged with murder after a year-long coverup, er, investigation. On June 9 Russian ambassador to Israel Alexander Shein utters the soundbyte that Russia doesn't consider Hamas and Hezbollah to be terrorists because they have not attacked Russian territory or Russian interests. On June 12 Delta Air Lines announces that it's terminating its 4-y.-o. sponsorship of New York City's Public Theater for producing a version of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" in Central Park that portrays Caesar as Donald Trump, showing him being stabbed to death onstage; Bank of America does ditto. On June 14 Leo Eric Varadkar of Fine Gael becomes PM (Taoiseach) #14 of Eire (until ?), becoming the first openly gay, first of Indian heritage, and youngest (until ?). On June 14 (Flag Day) the 2017 Congressional Baseball Field Massacre sees La. Repub. House whip Stephen Joseph "Steve" Scalise (1965-) and five others are shot at a congressional baseball practice in Alexandria, Va. by Trump-hating Bernie Sanders supporter James T. Hodgkinson (b. 1951), who was targeting Repubs. only before police kill him; a Dem. plot? On June 14 (1:00 a.m. local time) a fire in 24-story Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, London, England kills 30+ of 120; the bldg. had highly flammable exterior cladding recently added. On June 14 Tex. Gov. Greg Abbott signs the American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) AKA House Bill 45, prohibiting use of any foreign law in state courts, esp. in family cases. On June 15 the U.S. Senate by 98-2 passes a bipartisan agreement to impose new sanctions targeting Iran's ballistic missile program, support of terrorism, and humans rights abuses, and impose new financial penalties on Russia for messing with Ukraine, supporting the Syrian regime, and allegedly tampering with the 2017 U.S. pres. election, limiting Pres. Trump's ability to lift them without Congressional approval. On June 16 Israeli border police officer Hadas Malka (b. 1984) is stabbed to death by three young men in Jerusalem; ISIS claims responsibility, becoming their first operation inside Israel; too bad, Hamas also claims responsibility. On June 18 a Taliban suicide team attacks the provincial police HQ in Gardez, Paktia Province, Afghanistan, killing six policemen before being killed. Ramadan becomes Ram-a-van? It's payback time in London? On June 18/19 (midnight) a white man in a white van shouting that he wants to kill all Muslims drives over Muslims leaving notorious extremist Finsbury Park Mosque on Seven Sisters Rd. after ending Ramadan fasting in North London, England, injuring 10 before being grabbed by bystanders and handed over to police, after which PM Theresa May gives a speech dissing his kind of extremism ("Islamophobia") as morally equivalent to Islamist extremism. On June 19 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 4-2 in Ziglar v. Abbasi that high-level George W. Bush admin. officials John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller, amd James Ziglar can't be held personally liable for violating the constitutional rights of Muslims, Arabs, and South Asians rounded up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks because Congress must authorize it first. On June 19 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 8-0 in Matal v. Tam to overturn the U.S. Lanham Act as unconstitutional because there is no hate speech exception to the First Amendment, thus the band The Slants can register their trademark. On June 19 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 8-0 in Packingham v. North Carolina that registered sex offenders have a First Amendment right to use social Web sites incl. Facebook. On June 20 119F temps in Phoenix, Ariz. cause 40 airline flights to be canceled or delayed. On June 21 after being chosen to meet with Pres. Trump at the White House in Mar. Saudi Arabia announces that Mohammed bin Salman, the king's son and defense minister is next in line to the thrown (crown prince), replacing 31-y.-o. Muhammad bin Nayef, the king's nephew, who was made crown prince in Jan. 2015. On June 21 the 2017 Bishop Internat. Airport Incident at Bishop Internat. Airport in Flint, Mich. sees Allah Akbar-shouting Tunisian-born Canadian Muslim Amor M. Ftouhi (1967-) stab airport police officer Lt. Jeff Neville in the neck after he fails to purchase a gun at a gun show, later crying when told he failed to kill him because it might hurt his chances of being in paradise with Allah; on Mar. 21, 2018 he is charged with committing an act of terrorism over nat. boundaries. On June 22 a car bomb outside a bank in Helmand Province, Afghanistan kills 34 and injures 58. On June 24 the continental U.S. goes a record 140 straight mo. without a major hurricane landfall, the last being Hurricane Wilma in Fla. on Oct. 24, 2005. On June 26 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 9-0 to agree< to review Pres. Trump's travel ban on six Muslim-majority nations, allowing it to be partially implemented while they consider it by Oct., excepting only foreign nationals who have a "bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States", which Trump calls a clear victory. On June 26 Pres. Trump tweets that ex-Pres. Obama "didn't choke, he colluded or obstructed" after learning about Russian attempts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. pres. election, adding: "The reason that President Obama did NOTHING about Russia after being notified by the CIA of meddling is that he expected Clinton would win... and did not want to 'rock the boat'." On June 26 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 7-2 in Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer that the state of Mo. can't exclude a church from a program providing funds for a neutral secular purpose such as resurfacing its playground with rubber from recycled tires. On June 29 after the U.S. Senate keeps stalling, Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte that Senate Repubs. should kill Obamacare now and worry about replacing it later, which doesn't stop moderate Repubs. from blocking all bills. On June 29 (9:11 a.m.) Kentucky Fried Chicken launches a spicy crispy Zinger chicken sandwich into the stratosphere on a high-alt. balloon, where it stays at an alt. of 50K-80K ft. for four days. On June 30 Iraqi forces recapture the ancient mosque in Mosul where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Bahdad made his first public appearance three years earlier. In June the Los Angeles Regional Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the U.S. Dept. of Justice bust a Hollywood Pedophilia Network, arresting 238 incl. entertainers, community leaders, white-collar professionals, and high-ranking clergy members incl. a monk. In June 30-y.-o. African-Am. man David Jones (b. 1987) is killed during a traffic stop in Philly by police officer Ryan Pownall, who is charged with murder after a year-long coverup, er, investigation. In June the GoldenEye (Petya) Virus of Ukrainian hackers, allegedly based on stolen Eternal Blue malware from the U.S. Nat. Security Agency (NSA) wreaks havoc on corporate computers worldwide, incl. Merck, Rosneft, airports, banks, hospitals, and transportation cos. incl. the Danish Maersk Line. In June U.S. unemployment is 4.4%, adding 220K jobs; new manufacturing jobs: 1K (12,396,000); new govt. jobs: 35K (22,353,000); the participation rate is 62.8% vs. a high of 67.3% in Jan. 2000 and low of 62.4% in Sept. 2005. In June monthly U.S. federal spending is $428.894B, topping $400B for the first time. On July 4 police in New York City deploy sand trucks for the first time to stop madass Muslim jihadists during Independence Day celebrations; ditto Wimbledon. On July 4 North Korea launches the 2-stage Hwasong-14, their first ICBM, which travels 800 mi. but could reach Alaska, with Kim Jong-un saying it is a message to "the American bastards". On July 5 Pres. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump visit Warsaw, Poland before attending the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany on July 6-8, where they are met by 12K protesters, who clash with police, while on July 7 Trump meets with Russian prev. Vladimir Putin for over 2 hours despite Melania being sent in at the 1 hour mark in vain; Trump presses Putin twice about meddling in the 2016 pres. election, but he denies everything, and Trump lets it slide, drawing howls from the Hillary, er, supposedly netrual mainstream media; in Warsaw Trump gives a speech, with the soundbyte: "Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail. Our people will thrive. And our civilization will triumph"; on July 7 Pres. Trump meets at the G20 Summit with Mexican pres. Enrique Nieto Pena, repeating his insistence that Mexico pay for his wall. On July 8 Pres. Trump announces that the U.S. is pledging $50M to a World Bank program dedicated to women's entrepreneurship in developing countries; Trump also promises $639M in aid to the U.N. World Food Program for starving people in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Yemen. On July 8 Sgt. 1st Class Ikaika Erik Kang (1983-) is arrested at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii after pledging loyalty to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; the court-appointed defense atty. claims service-related mental health problems; on Dec. 5, 2018 he is sentenced to 25 years in prison for providing material support to ISIS, along with 20 years of supervised release. On July 9 Trump-hating fake news New York Times pub. an article revealing a meeting between Russian atty. Natalia Veselnitskaya and Donald Trump Jr. during the 2016 pres. campaign, after which he admits it and adds that she promised to give some dope on Hillary, which amounted to nada, which is twisted by the Trump-hating PC media into yet another fake reason to dump Trump. On July 9 (eve.) after a 280-mi. justice march by Repub. People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, a mass gathering in Istanbul, Turkey calls for an end to persecution. On July 9 the Gen. Synod of the Church of England votes 30-2-0 (House of Bishops) and 127-28-16 (House of Clergy) and 127-48-8 (House of Laity) to "welcome and affirm" transgenders. On July 10 after Pres. Trump tweets his support on July 4, the case of terminally-ill British baby Charlie Gard, who was ordered by a high court judge in Apr. to be withdrawn from a ventilator to allow him to die returns to court after claims of an experimental treatment available in the U.S.; too bad, the doctor involved admits the baby is hopeless, and the plug is pulled. On July 10 the White House announces the liberation of Mosul, Iraq from ISIS control by Iraqi and U.S. forces. On July 11 42-y.-o. British Muslim Shahid Ali (1974-) of Birmingham drives over the head of Patrick Colbert in an attempted murder, and is later acquitted but convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent; he was previously jailed for 27 mo. in 2009 for material support of jihadists in Pakistan. On July 15 pampered (affirmative action?) Muslim Minneapolis, Minn. police officer Mohamed Noor shoots bride-to-be Justine Diamond (Ruszczyk) (who called about an assault) as she sits in her car near her home for making a "loud noise", after which the corrupt authorities cover for him like all sacred cow pigs, er, cut him loose and let him go in Mar. 2018, after which he is charged with murder and pleads self-defense before being convicted of 3rd-degree murder on May 6, 2019. On July 16 elections in the Repub. of Congo. On July 16 China requires all 90M members of the Chinese Communist Party to "be firm Marxist atheists, obey Party rules, and stick to the Party's faith. They are not allowed to seek value and belief in religion." On July 17 Jordanian Sgt. Mareek Abu Tayeh is convicted of the murder of three U.S. soldiers on Nov. 4, 2016 at the Prince Faisal Air Base, and sentenced to life in prison, causing demonstrations by his Howeitat tribe. On July 19 Hawaii passes a 100% Renewable Electric Energy Plan, setting a 2040 target date and a 2045 limit. On July 19 the Trump admin. announces that it will halt CIA's program of arming and training of Syrian rebels, as Russia has been recommending. On July 19 Pres. Trump gives an interview to the New York Times, grumbling about his atty. gen. Jeff Sessions and how he recused himself from the Russia probe, saying: "Sessions should have never recused himself. And if he would, if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else." On July 20 infamous celeb O.J. Simpson is granted parole after serving 9 years of a 33-year sentence for armed robbery in Las Vegas, Nev. On July 21 a riot by Palestinian Muslims at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem over Israel's decision to put metal detectors at the entrances results in three killed and 200+ injured - all without any metal? On July 21 White House press secy. Sean Spicer resigns, and Long Island, N.Y.-born financier (founder of SkyBridge Capital) Anthony "Scar" "the Mooch" Scaramucci (1964-) becomes the new White House communications dir., stinking himself up by a profanity-laced critique of White House staff, causing him to receive the boot on July 31, the same day that Gen. John F. Kelly becomes White House chief of staff. On July 21 after a May memo by Nat. Security Council (NSC) strategist Rich Higgins claiming a conspiracy by Repubs. and Dems. in league with globalists like George Soros, along with bankers, Islamists and the media to subvert Pres. Trump via "political warfare agendas that reflect cultural Marxist outcomes" is circulated, he is fired by nat. security advisor (Soros puppet?) H.R. McMaster. On July 23 Israeli security guard Ziv Moyal is attacked with a screwdriver in his apt. in Amman, Jordan by a Jordanian assassin, killing him and accidentally killing the landlord, causing a protest at the Israeli embassy by Israel-haters calling on the 1994 peace treaty to be canceled, holding Moyal and 20 other Israeli diplomats incl. ambassador Einat Schlein to be held hostage until Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu intervenes, arranging with King Abdullah II for safe passage in exchange for Jordanian officials to attend Moyal's questioning by Israeli officials and metal detectors to be removed from the Temple Mount; after they are evacuated, Jordan refuses to permit Schlein to return to her duties, and calls for Moyal to be tried for murder, refusing to let a replacement for Schlein into Jordan. On July 24 a Taliban suicide car bomber detonates near the house of deputy govt. chief exec Mohammad Mohaqiq in W Kaboom, er, W Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 35 and injuring 40. On July 24 Pres. Trump addresses the 2017 Boy Scout Jamboree; too bad, on July 27 its pres. Michael Surbaugh apologizes for his insertion of political rhetoric. On July 24 after being tricked by her Moroccan ISIS terrorist husband Moussa Elhassani into traveling to Syria to live in ISIS-controlled Raqqa, only to be KIA Samantha Sally (Marie) Elhassani (1986-) of Elkhart, Ind. is flown back to the U.S. with her four children, facing a charge of lying to the FBI; on Aug. 22, 2018 she is charted with conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and aiding and abetting individuals in providing material support to ISIS. On July 25 the U.S. Federal Appeals Court in Washington, D.C. rules 2-1 in Wrenn v. District of Columbia that people seeking concealed handgun permits don't have to show "good reason", but have a 2nd Amendment right regardless of reasons. On July 26 Pres. Trump announces a ban on transgender people in the U.S. armed forces, citing costs and disruption, pissing-off the PC police; on July 27 House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi claims that there are 14K-15K transgenders in the military. On July 26 the U.S. Senate by 45-55 rejects a proposal to repeal Obamacare without replacing it; on July 25 (eve.) they rejected a comprehensive replacement plan drafted by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell; on July 28 (early a.m.) they reject the "skinny repeal" bill after renegade Repub. Sen. John McCain kills it 51-49. On Juy 27 the U.S. State Dept. issues a warning to tourists about adulterated alcohol in Mexican resorts after authorities seize 1.4M gal. since 2010. On July 27 the White House announces the arrest of 1K+ MS-13 gang members in the last three days; on July 28 Pres. Trump gives a speech to a convention of cops in Long Island, N.Y., praising them to the skies and calling for the "liberation" of whole towns and cities from gangs' grip, incl. his native Long Island; in Nov. ICE arrests 267 more MS-13 gangbangers incl. 53 in El Salvador. On July 28 the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly votes 98-2 to impose new sanctions on Russia; on Aug. 2 Pres. Trump reluctantly signs the legislation, despite Moscow's threats to retaliate by seizing two U.S. diplomatic properties and ordering the U.S. to cut hundreds of diplomatic staff, uttering the soundbyte that the bill is "seriously flawed, particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch's authority to negotiate." On July 31 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin signs a law revoking Russian citizenzhip of any person convicted of terrorism, effective Sept. 1. In July after quitting her job, Pakistani Muslim immigrant Zoobia Shahnaz (1990-) of Long Island, N.Y. is arrested at Kennedy Airport while trying to fly to Pakistan; in Dec. she is charged with laundering Bitcoin and wiring money to ISIS. In July Pope Francis utters the soundbyte that a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is "dangerous and harmful", calling for a OWG with the political authority to combat climate change et al. In July Google changes its algorithm to downgrade and conceal sites that tell the truth about Islam, while promoting Islam propaganda sites, bowing to their jihad like chumps and potentially opening the West open to infilration of takeover; pizza-faced 20-something geeks are the easiest targets for Islamist agitprop artists? In July after attending a Google diversity program, Google engineer James Damore pub. an internal memo claiming that there are genetic differences between men and women that explain disparities in tech employment, causing a firestorm of PC controversy, after which he is fired on Aug. 7, and sues. In July the city of Farmersville, Tex. denies an application by the Islamic Assoc. of Collin County to build a cemetery, causing the U.S. Dept. of Justice to come down on them, forcing an agreement to build it anyway on Apr. 18, 2019. In 1T ton Iceberg A-68 (the size of Del.) breaks off from Antarctica, causing PC media incl. CNN to paint it as proof of global climate change; too bad, in July 2018 it becomes trapped by dense ice off the coast of Antarctica. On Aug. 1 Jordan abolishes Article 308, which protects rapists from punishment if they marry their victims - cheap date? On Aug. 2 after Pres. Trump announces his nomination on June 7 to replace James Comey, telling the Senate that he didn't believe the Trump-Russia investigation is a witch hunt and being confirmed by 92-5, Repub. Yale U. grad Christopher Asher Wray (III) (1966-) becomes FBI dir. #8 (until ?). On Aug. 2 a suicide bomber attacks a NATO-led convoy of internat. troops in Kandahar, Afghanistan. On Aug. 2 (Wed.) the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. climbs above 22K for the first time ever (22,016), buoyed by healthy quarterly sales of the Apple iPhone, up 36% for the year. On Aug. 2 Amazon.com holds Jobs Day to hire 100K people by next year. On Aug. 2 Pres. Trump announces plans to introduce the U.S. RAISE (Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment) Act, sponsored by U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) to slash legal immigratin by prioritizing those with education, English language proficiency, and earning power. On Aug. 3 a grand jury convened by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump campaign ties with Russia issues its first subpoenas. On Aug. 5 after Pres. Trump announced his intentions in June, with the soundbyte: "As President, I can put no other consideration before the well-being of American citizens. The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers - who I love - and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production... Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals. As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States - which is what it does - the world’s leader in environmental protection, while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters", the U.S. formally Watch video. On Aug. 7 the Pentagon issues new regs allowing U.S. military bases to shoot down commercial or private drones deemed to be a threat. On Aug. 8 elections in Kenya reelect pres. Uhuru Kenyatta with 54% of 19.7M registered voters, vs. 44% for Raila Odinga, who refuses to accept the results. On Aug. 12 after marching on the U. of Va. campus the night before, the white nationalist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. to protest the removal of a statue of Confed. Gen. Robert E. Lee ends in violent clashes with counter-protesters, after which a car driven by white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. rams the crowd, killing 32-y.-o. Heather Heyer and injuring 19; on Aug. 15 black protesters pull down a statue of a Confed. soldier in Durham, N.C.; on Aug. 15/16 (night) Baltimore, Md. mayor Catherine Pugh orders four Confed. monuments taken down. On Aug. 13 (9:30 p.m.) a jihadist attack in a 4x4 outside the Aziz Istanbul Restaurant in Burkina Faso kills 17 and injures two. On Aug. 14 after the fake news media blasts him for not explicitly calling out white supremacists in his criticism of the Charlottesville protest, as if he supports them, Pres. Trump meets in the White House with atty. gen. Jeff Sessions and FBI dir. Chris Wray, then delivers a gives a Speech on Racism, with the soundbyte: "Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans", confirming that the FBI and Dept. of Justice are investigating the car attack; too bad, on Aug. 15 Trump doubles down with observations that "both sides" were to blame for violence in Charlottesville, mentioning "the alt-left that came charging at them", that "Not all of those people were neo-Nazis... [or] white supremacists... Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue", claiming that many "fine people" were among the protesters, and that the movement to strip the U.S. of its 850+ Confed. monuments is an effort to "change history" and "change culture", mentioning George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, which only makes the PC police madder; on Aug. 16 after some CEOs quit to protest his remarks, Trump disbands two high-profile business advisory councils; on Aug. 18 House Dem. Leader Nancy Pelosi endorses a measure to censure Trump, joining 79 Dem. colleagues, and calls on House Speaker Paul Ryan to remove all Confed. statues from the U.S. Capitol; meanwhile on Aug. 7 U.S. Rep. (D-Tenn.) Steve Cohen introduces articles of impeachment against Trump after his no confidence resolution in July went nowhere. On Aug. 15 (p.m.) a U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk heli goes missing near Oahu, Hawaii during a night training mission, killing all five aboard. On Aug. 16 as renegotiation talks begin in Washington, D.C., thousands of farmers and union workers stage a protest in Mexico City against NAFTA. On Aug. 17 a jihadist van ramming attack in the Las Ramblas area of Barcelona, Spain kills 14 and injures 88; one terrorist is killed by police in a shootout, and two more are arrested; the driver is 22-y.-o. Younes Abouyaaqoub, who is killed by police on Aug. 21 in Subirats near Barcelona; ISIS claims responsibility; on Aug. 18 (early a.m.) another van ramming attack in Cambris, Spain 70 mi. S of Barcelona fails, and after it stops the police kill four knife-wielding jihadists with fake suicide vests; on Aug. 16 their bombmaking factory in Alcanar 120 mi. S of Barcelona exploded, killing one and injuring 16, forcing them to go with van ramming; the suspected ringleader is Ripoll imam Abdelbaki Es Satty; meanwhile Barcelona's chief rabbi Meir Bar-Hen utters the soundbyte: "This place is lost", urging his congregation to emigrate to Israel; Pawel Soloch of the Polish Nat. Security Office announces that Poland will no longer be accepting Muslim immigrants, with the soundbyte: "We are convinced by the latest attacks that there is a natural base for terrorists where a large number of poorly integrated Muslims live." On Aug. 17 Category 4 (130 mph) Hurricane Harvey (wettest tropical cyclone until ?) starts E of the Lesser Antilles, crossing the Windward Islands on Aug. 18, then entering the Caribbean Sea after passing S of Barbados and skirting Saint Vincent, degenerating into a tropical wave N of Colombia on Aug. 19, then rapidly intensifying on Aug. 24, growing to Category 4 on Aug. 25 before making landfall near Rockport, Tex., stalling in Nederland, Tex. (near Houston) for six days and dropping a record 60.58 in. of rain, causing catastrophic flooding in Houston and turning it into the Great Houston Swamp, killing a total of 106 in the U.S. and one in Guyana and displacing 30K, causing $125B damage (tied as most costly hurricane with Hurricane Katrina in 2005), becoming the worst disaster in Tex. history, first major hurricane to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Wilma in 2005, first hurricane to hit Tex. since Hurricane Ike in 2008 and the strongest to hit Tex. since Hurricane Carla in 1961, also the strongest hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico since Hurricane Rita in 2005, and the strongest to make landfall in the U.S. since Hurricane Charley in 2004, joining Hurricane Matthew (2016) as the 2nd U.S. hurricane to cause tornado-like winds warnings to be issued; it was engineered and used as a weapon? On Aug. 18 Pres. Trump fires his chief strategist Steve Bannon. On Aug. 18 an 18-y.-o. Moroccan jihadist stabs two women to death in Turku, Finland before being shot and arrested by police. On Aug. 18 Mali pres. Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announces a suspension of the referendum procedure to revise the constitution. On Aug. 19 a white supremacist rally in Boston, Mass. is outnumbered by counter-protesters; police arrest 27. On Aug. 20 a petition is launched to "declare George Soros a terrorist and seize all of his related organizations' assets under RICO and NDAA law." On Aug. 21 (Mon.) there is a total solar eclipse, visible in the U.S. (Ore. to S.C.) for the first time since Feb. 28, 1979 (before that June 8, 1918); next in Apr. 2024 (Tex. to Maine), followed by Aug. 2045 (Calif. to Fla.). On Aug. 21 (eve.) Pres. Trump gives a Speech on Afghanistan, starting out saying that it his gut instinct to pull out now, but that his generals talked him into staying, but that they don't have a blank check; in accordance with his criticism of Pres. Obama for announcing moves in advance, he keeps his plans close to the vest; U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson utters the soundbyte: "I think the president was clear, this entire effort is intended to put pressure on the Taliban to have the Taliban understand you will not win a battlefield victory. We may not win one, but neither will you, so, at some point, we have to come to the negotiating table and find a way bring this to an end." On Aug. 22 India's supreme court invalidates Sharia-based triple-talaq (instant) divorce, becoming a V for women's libbers. On Aug. 22 French police uncover a jihadist plot against gay nightclubs in Paris, France, becoming the 12th plot thwarted since the start of the year. On Aug. 22 (eve.) after visiting the border near Yuma, Ariz., Pres. Trump gives a speech in Phoenix, Ariz., uttering the soundbyte: "We are building a wall on the southern border, which is absolutely necessary. The obstructionist Democrats would like us not to do it, believe me, [but] if we have to close down our government, we are building that wall"; protesters draw tear gas from the police. On Aug. 23 ISIS jihadists overrun al-Fogha checkpoint in Jufra, Libya, killing nine soldiers and two civilians by beheading. On Aug. 25 Burmese Muslim Rohingya jihadists attack govt. security outposts in Myanmar (Burma), causing a govt. crackdown that results in 600K Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh by Nov., causing the Kofi Annan Commission to lay out a reconciliation plan, and U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson to announce $150M in humanitarian assistance. On Aug. 25 controversial former Maricopa County, Ariz. sheriff Joe Arpaio is pardoned by Pres. Trump. On Aug. 25 (8:35 p.m.) a knife-wielding jihadist stops his car on the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace in London, injuring three police officers. On Aug. 28 Ill. Repub. Gov. Bruce Rauner signs a law makng Ill. into a sanctuay state for illegal aliens, all 500K of them. On Aug. 28 after being appointed by Pres. Trump, former U.S. Tex. Repub. Sen. (1993-2013) Kay Bailey Hutchinson (Kathryn Ann Bailey) (1943-) becomes U.S. NATO rep #22 (until ?). On Aug. 29 North Korea fires a ballistic missile over Japan, becoming the 3rd time since 1998 and 2009 and the 1st time for Kim Jong-un, pissing-off Japanese PM Shinzo Abe and South Korean Pres. Moon Jae-in, along with Pres. Trump, who says that "talking is not the answer" with them. On Aug. 30-Sept. 13 Category 5 (180 mph) Hurricane Irma starts near Cape Verde, moving to the Leeward Islands, Barbuda, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Martin, Anguilla, Virgin Islands, French West Indies, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Fla. Keys, causing 52 direct and 82 indirect deaths, and $64.76B damage, becoming the first Category 5 hurricane of 2017 and the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic ever observed (until ?). In Aug. refugee admissions to the U.S. are 913, becoming the first time below 1K since Oct. 2002. On Sept. 1 Pres. Trump nominates former Navy pilot U.S. Rep. (R-Okla.) (2013-) James Frederick "Jim" Bridenstine (1975-) as the new dir. of NASA, who vows to compete with China in space and wants a new Moon visit. On Sept. 3 North Korea explodes a nuke that causes a 6.3 earthquake, claiming it's an H-bomb, becoming their 6th nuke test, causing U.S. defense secy. James "Mad Dog" Mattis to warn them that any more major threats will be met with a "massive military response" that will be "both effective and overwhelming"; on Sept. 4 U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley gives a speech on Iran in the U.N., saying that they are inviting war; on Sept. 5 she gives a speech on Iran, saying that Pres. Trump has reason to find that it has violated the terms of the JCPOA. On Sept. 4 the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launch a 2-week exercise to prepare for a possible war with Hezbollah, becoming their largest exercise in 20 years; too bad, on Aug. 27 an Israeli delegation meets with the Nat. Security Council (NSC) at the White House to discuss Hezbollah's threat, only to be blown off by U.S. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who refuses their request to excuse his pro-Hezbollah appointee Mustafa Javed Ali from the meeting room - where's Trump? On Sept. 5 U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions announces that Pres. Obama's DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program is being "rescinded" as an "unconstitutional exercise of authority, giving Congress 6 mo. to pass a final legislative solution; 800K illegal immigrants are affected. On Sept. 6 (5:38 p.m.local time) hours after U.S. Maj. Gen. James Linder apologizes for dropping leaflets containing images of a dog holding a Taliban flag that the local yokel Muslims find offensive, a suicide bombing attack in Bagram Air Base near Kabul, Afghanistan. On Sept. 6 Pres. Trump shocks Repubs. by reaching a spending and debt ceiling agreement with Dems., incl. a 3-mo. increase in the debt ceiling. On Sept. 6 47 leaders of conservative nonprofits send an open letter to the media denouncing the "hate map" pub. by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), with the soundbyte: "The SPLC is an attack dog of the political left. To associate public interest law firms and think tanks with neo-Nazis and the KKK is unconscionable, and represents the height of irresponsible journalism." On Sept. 7 Israel stages air strikes on a suspected chemical weapons facility near Masyaf, Syria, run by Bashar al-Assad's regime. On Sept. 7 Equifax announces a massive security breach by hackers back in May-July, compromising the personal info. of millions (half of the U.S. public?), and drawing public outrage along with numerous lawsuits. On Sept. 8 Pres. Trump holds a joint press conference with Qatari emir Tamim ibn Hamad Al-Thani, expressing williness to help resolve the Gulf crisis; on Sept. 9 Saudi Arabia announces that it's cutting off dialog with Qatar over the Gulf crisis. On Sept. 10 the Miss America 2018 (91st) Pageant in Atlantic City, N.J. is won by Miss N.D. Cara Mund (1933-). On Sept. 12 an ISIS ambush of a convoy in Sinai Peninsula, Egypt kills 18 police officers and injures seven. On Sept. 13 (4:00 p.m.) a 42-y.-o. Allah Akbar-shouting screw-loose looney tunes Muslim attacks seven people incl. three police officers in Toulouse, France. On Sept. 14 Pres. Trump meets with Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and other Dems., who announce an alleged deal they made withhim to save Obama's DACA Dream Act, causing Trump to deny that he's offering them amnesty or citizenship, saying that the border must first be secured. On Sept. 15 (8:20 a.m. local time) a jihadist bomb attack during rush hour on the Parsons Green Tube Station in London, England injures 22; ISIS claims responsibility; Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte that Scotland Yards hould have been tracking the "loser terrorist", adding that he should make his travel ban far more stringent, pissing-off PM Theresa May, who says "I never think it's helpful for anybody to speculate on what is an ongoing investigation"; too bad, they later discover that they let the jihadist loose two weeks earlier. On Sept. 16-Oct. 2 Hurricane Maria becomes the 2nd Category 5 hurricane and deadliest storm of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season, devastating the NE Caribbean and becoming the worst disaster so far in Dominica and Puerto Rico, killing 146-8,580 and causing $91.61B damage; power is not restored to every home for 328 days. On Sept. 17 U.S. soldiers kill several ISIS suicide bombers attacking a base near Hawija, Iraq. On Sept. 17-28 the 10-part 18-hour TV documentary series The Vietnam War debuts on PBS-TV, written by Geoffrey C. Ward and dir. by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, costing $30M and taking 10 years to make. On Sept. 19 (a.m.) Pres. Trump gives a speech to the U.N. Gen. Assembly, touting his America First policy and advising other nations to put their countries first too, adding: "We will stop radical Islamic terrorism, because we cannot allow it to tear up our nation and, indeed, to tear up the entire world", warning "Rocket Man" Kim Jong-un of the "depraved regime" in North Korea: "No nation on Earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles... The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime", warning that if he attacks the U.S. his country will be totally destroyed, and demanding that Iran "stop supporting terrorists" and "begin serving its own people", saying that the world will see "very soon" his position on the Iranian nuclear deal, which has an Oct. 15 decision date to cancel or remain in the deal another 90 days; he goes on to describe Assad's rule in Syria as a "criminal regime", and diss the Maduro regime in Venezuela, with the soundbyte: "The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented", saying that the U.S. will not stand by while "the government of Venezuela persists on its path to impose authoritarian rule on the Venezuelan people." On Sept. 22 Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte: "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he's fired!'"; on Sept. 24 200+ NFL players show their disagreement by kneeling during the playing of the nat. anthem, incl. almost the entire Pittsburgh Steelers team and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, vs. less than 10 the week before; the brouhaha causes U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and U.S. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) to co-sponsor a bill to end taxpayer funding for NFL stadiums. On Sept. 23 gen. elections in New Zealand are a V for the center-right Nat. Party, which wins 56 seats, down from 60 in 2014, while the Labour Party wins 46, up 14 from 2014, after which Nat. Party PM Bill English resigns in favor of Socialist pro-same-sex-marriage, pro-abortion, pro-marijuana, anti-nuclear ex-Mormon Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern (1980-) of the Labour Party, who leads a minority coalition govt. supported by the Greens; on Jan. 19 Ardern announced that she is pregnant, expecting her first child in June; next Apr. 19 she announces that her govt. will stop granting offshore oil and gas exploration permits, pissing-off the country's oil and gas industry. On Sept. 23 women are allowed to sit in King Fahd Stadium in Saudi Arabia for the first time, but are still segregated from single men. On Sept. 24 masked Somali Muslim immigrant Emanuel Kidega Samson (1992-) attacks the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Nashville, Tenn., killng one and wounding six before being subdued. On Sept. 24 elections in Germany give chancellor Angela Merkel a 4th term as her conservative CDU/CSU alliance wins 32.5% of the vote and its partner the Social Dem. Party (SPD) wins 20%; the anti-Islam AfD Party wins 13.5%, coming in 3rd. On Sept. 24 black gunman Emanuel Kidega Samson (1991-) attacks the Burnett Chapel Church of Christ in Nashville, Tenn., trying to kill at least 10 white churchgoers but only killing one woman and wounding seven others, claiming revenge for the 2015 Dylann Roof massacre at a black church in Charleston, S.C. On Sept. 25 separatist elections for Kurds in Iraq are an overwhelming V, with 93% in favor of independence vs. 7.3% against; 72% of 3.3M eligible voters vote. On Sept. 25 Pres. Trump signs new travel restriction for people in eight Muslim-majority countries plus North Korea and Venezuela, effective Oct. 18. On Sept. 26 Saudi king Salman issues a decree allowing women to drive for the first time ever, effective June 2018. On Sept. 26 Palestinian jihadist Nimr al-Jamal from Beit Surik, West Bank murders three Israelis at the entrance to the Israeli settlement of Har Adar, Israel before he is killed, causing Fatah to celebrate him as a martyr. On Sept. 26 the Taliban tries to kill U.S. defense secy. James Mattis during a visit to Kabul, Afghanistan, but attacks too late after he already left. On Sept. 27 the Trump admin. announces a refugee resettlement limit of 45K for FY 2018, lowest since the passage of the U.S. Refugee Act in 1980; Obama's FY 2017 ceiling was 110K. On Sept. 29 after being caught taking private flights, pissing-off Pres. Trump, U.S. HHS secy. Tom Price resigns. On Sept. 29 (8:15 p.m.) Somali refugee Abdulahi Hasan Sharif rams his white Chevy Malibu through a barrier outside a football game in Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Ont., Canada and hits Edmonton police Const. Mike Chernyk, then gets out and attacks him with a knife before fleeing and being caught hours later near the stadium driving a U-Haul truck, hitting pedestrians before flipping. On Sept. 30 an Allah-Akbar-shouting illegal Algerian or Tunisian immigrant jihadist dressed in black kills two women with a knife in Marseilles, France; ISIS claims responsibility. On Oct. 1 despite the Spanish govt. declaring it illegal and sending police, the Catalonia Independence Referendum. On Oct. 1 Austria bans full-face Islamic veils, with a 150 Euro fine; it also bans public distribution of Qurans. On Oct. 1 Tunisian illegal immigrant Ahmed Hanachi (1988-) stabs two young women cousins at the Saint-Charles Train Station in Marseille, and is linked to ISIS; he spent time in Aprilia, Italy S of Rome, and had been arrested for shoplifting two days earlier and released; on Oct. 16 French pres. Emmanuel Macron gives a TV address from the Elysee Palace in Paris, with the soundbyte that illegal immigrants caught committing even minor crimes incl. shoplifting will be deported. On Oct. 1 (10:00 p.m.) after renting two rooms (32134, 32135)on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Strip in Las Vegas, Nev. under the name of his out-of-state girlfriend Marilou Danley, and bringing in 10 suitcases full of guns, accountant, serious gambler, and real estate millionaire Stephen Paddock (b. 1953) of Mesquite, Nev. shoots into a crowd of 22K attending the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival featuring country music star Jason Aldean, killing 58 and injuring 527 then killing himself before police break into his room, becoming the deadliest gun massacre in U.S. history (until ?); police find 19 military rifles, some fitted with bump stocks to make them into automatics, plus 23 more at his home; Pres. Trump calls it "an act of pure evil", saying "We pray for the day when evil has vanished"; ISIS claims that he converted to Islam and was doing Allah's work, later calling him Abu Abd Abdulbar al-Ameriki, which the FBI is all-too quick to deny?; CBS-TV vice-pres. Hayley Geftman-Gold stinks herself up on Facebook by saying that she has no sympathy for the victims because country music fans "often are Republican", getting her fired; he is later found to have research other attack sites in Boston and Chicago; the motive eludes investigators until ? On Oct. 3 police foil an attempted jihadist apt. bombing in a chic neighborhood of Paris, France, causing French interior minister Gerard Collomb to utter the soundbyte "Is this not a sign that no one is safe?" On Oct. 4 AQIM jihadis ambush Green Berets in SW Niger near the Mali border, killing three and injuring two. On Oct. 4-11 Hurricane Nate becomes the costliest natural disaster so far in Costa Rica, also devastating Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, and the U.S., killing 48 and causing $787M damage. On Oct. 5 U.S. officials announce the capture of Hawija, Iraq, the last major Iraqi town held by ISIS. On Oct. 5 Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown signs the Calif. Values Act, making Calif. a sanctuary state, effective Jan. 1. On Oct. 6 federal prosecutors announce the arrest of three Am. Muslims (Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, Talka Haroon, and Russell Salic) for an ISIS-inspired plot to target concerts, landmarks, and crowded subways in New York City in 2016. On Oct. 7 2:20 p.m.) a Muslim drives into people outside the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London, England. On Oct. 8 the White House releases a Statement on Immigration Priorities, incl. building the U.S.-Mexico border wall, ending abuse of the asylum system, discouraging reentry of illegals, hiring 10K new ICE officers, 300 federal prosecutors, 370 judges, and 1K attys., ending visa fraud, stopping catch-and-release, protecting innocent people in sanctuary cities, and implementing a merit-based immigration system. On Oct. 8-17 Muslim Fulani herdsman attack Jos, Nigeria, killing 48 Christians and destroying 249 homes in 13 Chritian villages. On Oct. 8-31 amid unusually high temps, the Oct. 2017 Northern Calif. Wildfires consist of 250 wildfires, 21 major, incl. the Atlas Fire in Napa County, and the Tubbs Fire (most destructive in Calif. history until ?). On Oct. 10 pres. elections in Liberia to replace pres. (since 2006) Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of the Unity Party, who failed her pledge to end corruption. On Oct. 10 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously throws out an appeal court ruling that struck down Pres. Trump's temporary travel ban targeting eight Muslim-majority nations, becoming a moral V for the Trump admin. On Oct. 10 Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown signs a law criminalizing willful failure to address transgender patients by their preferred pronouns by health care workers. On Oct. 10 after articles in The New York Times and The New Yorker report about more than a dozen women accusing him of sexual harassment or assault, English fashion Georgina Chapman, wife since 2007 of film producer (Miramax founder) Harvey Weinstein (1952-) announces that she's leaving him, after which he is fired from his own production co. the Weinstein Co. and expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciencies; by Oct. 31 the list grows to 80+ women incl. Ashley Judd, Jennifer Lawrence, Alyssa Milano, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Uma Thurman, causing the #MeToo social media campaign to be launched, leading to an open season on all powerful males in the U.S. incl. Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman, with visions of downing Pres. Trump dancing in their heads. On Oct. 11 the Boy Scouts of Am. (founded 1910) announce that they will begin admitting girls into the Cub Scouts next year, allowing them to aspire to the Eagle Scout Rank. On Oct. 11 Bitcoin breaks the $5,000 mark. On Oct. 12 Pres. Trump signs an executive order making it easier for people to buy cheaper bare-bones health insurance; meanwhile the Trump admin. withdraws from UNESCO for its anti-Israel bias. On Oct. 12 after a tip from the U.S. allows them to make a rescue, Pakistan frees Canadian Joshua Boyle and his U.S. wife Caitlan Coleman, who were kidnapped by the Afghan Taliban while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012. On Oct. 13 (Fri.) Pres. Trump announces that he won't certify the Iran nuclear deal, and might ultimately terminate it. On Oct. 14 a 600kg bomb explodes in a crowded street in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing 587 and injuring 316, becoming the deadliest single attack in Somalian history (until ?), and the 3rd deadliest attack in modern history after 9/11 and the Aug. 2007 Yazidi attacks in N Iraq; the govt. blames al-Qaida-linked Al-Shabaab for a "national disaster". On Oct. 17 British MI5 chief Andrew Parker warn that the U.K. is suffering its most severe terror threat ever, with the soundbyte: "That threat is multi-dimensional, evolving rapidly and operating at a scale and pace we've not seen before." On Oct. 18 Israeli minister Naftali Bennett warns that if another war breaks out in Lebanon, Israel will target the Lebanese govt. infrastructure, not just Hezbollah. On Oct. 18 French pres. Emmanuel Macron signs a new counterterrorism law, effective Nov. 1, extending the Nov. 2015 state of emergency and allowing authorities to close mosques for up to 6 mo. if the preachers express "ideas or theories" that "incite violence, hatred or discrimination, provoke the commission of acts of terrorism, or express praise for such acts"; on Oct. 9 Le Journal du Dimanche reports that French authorities are surveilling about 15K jihadists living in France, of which 4K are at "the top of the spectrum" and likely to stage a jihadist attack; on Oct. 26 Le Figaro reports that 20% of 1.9K French ISIS jihadists have received up to 500K Euros in social welfare payments. On Oct. 20 Am. Muslim convert Vicente Solano is arrested by the FBI for trying to explode a bomb at Dolphin Mall in Doral, Fla. On Oct. 20 Avoyelles Parish sheriff's deputies Brandon Spillman and Alexander Daniel, along with police officer Kenneth Parnell confront Armando Frank (b. 1974) on his tractor in front of a WalMart in Marksville, La. to service a trespassing warrant, and when he asks to see the warrant and refuses to dismount they attack, putting him in a choke hold that kills him, causing a civil suit. On Oct. 24 (a.m.) U.S. Sen. (R-Tenn.) (2007-) Robert Phillips "Bob" Corker Jr. (1952-) speaks out against Pres. Trump, with the soundbyte that he will be remembered most for "the debasement of our nation", causing Trump to fire back, Tweeting that Corker is the "incompetent" head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and "doesn't have a clue". On Oct. 26 the U.S. House by 423-2 passes the Iran Ballistic Missiles and Internat. Sanctions Enforcement Act, targeting Iran's ballistic missile program, requiring restrictions on entry into the U.S. of persons found to be supplying or financing it. On Oct. 26 on Pres. Trump's order, the Nat. Archives releases the long-secret JFK files; too bad, he bows to the CIA and withholds some files for a 6-mo. review; Trump made a deal with them to drop the Russian collusion investigation? On Oct. 26 Pres. Trump declares a nat. public health emergency in the fight against opioid abuse, saying "I will be pushing... non-addictive painkillers very, very hard." On Oct. 27 Catalonia declares independence, causing massive celebrations, while the Spanish govt. declares it a criminal act; on Oct. 29 a pro-Spain demonstration is held in Barcelona. On Oct. 27 after winning admission to the U.S. in 2011 via the diversity visa lottery, Uzbekistani immigrant Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev (1990-) of Brooklyn, N.Y. is sentenced to 15 years in prison for planning a terrorist attack in Coney Island for ISIS, posting online on Aug. 8, 2014 that he would even assassinate Pres. Obama for them. On Oct. 30 Russian pres. Vladimir attends the opening of the Wall of Grief (Sorrow), a memorial to victims of Soviet-era political repression; Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill gives a speech criticizing the Bolshevik Rev. on its 100th anniv., warning against fomenting new revs. On Oct. 31 (Halloween) (1:30 p.m. local time) the 2017 New York City Halloween Massacre sees Uzbek Muslim Sayfullo ("sword of Allah") Habibullaevich Saipov (1988-) of Tampa, Fla. plow a rented Home Depot truck down a bike path in Lower Manhattan, N.Y. near the World Trade Center, killing eight and injuring 11 before getting out of his truck wielding a BB gun and a paintball gun and running at police shouting Allah Akbar until they shoot him in the stomach, becoming the biggest jihadist attack in New York City since 9/11; he leaves a note claiming that he did it for ISIS, after which Pres. Trump tweets that he has "just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this"; on Nov. 1 Trump calls the suspect an "animal" and threatens to send him to Guantanamo Bay, and says that he wants Congress to do away with the Diversity Lottery Program and limit immigration to a merit-based system, causing Saipov's attys. to argue in court that the tweets make it impossible for the govt. to pursue the death penalty. On Oct. 31 Muslims in Cologne, Germany sexually harass three women, causing the police to have to call for reinforcements and arrest 33. On Oct. 31 the 500th anniv. of the nailing of the 95 Theses on the door of Wittenberg Castle Church by Martin Luther. In Oct. wildfires in Sonoma County Wine Country in Calif. are set by illegal Mexican alien Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, who enjoys Calif.'s status as a sanctuary state. On Nov. 1 metal fabricator Scott Ostrem 1971-) walks off his job at B&M Roofing in Frederick, Colo. and drives to the Walmart in Thornton, Colo., shooting and killing three at random before other shoppers who are packing draw back and he flees, causing police to search for him until the next day when they raid his home, find it empty, and sit around puzzled until he drives on by and is chased and captured. On Nov. 2 the Repubs. present their new tax plan, which doubles the standard deduction and reduces corporate tax rates from 35% to 20%, withPres. Trump praising it as "all about jobs"; it also ends tax credits for illegal immigrants, saving $23.1B over the next 10 years. On Nov. 2 former interim Dem. Nat. Committee (DNC) chairperson Donna Brazile slams former chairperson Debit, er, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Pres. Obama for handing over complete control of the Dem. Party to Hillary Clinton almost a year before she secured the nomination. On Nov. 2 the 100th anniv. of the 1917 Balfour Declaration; on Nov. 5 Palestinian-backed Anti-Balfour Declaration Protests in London, Ankara, Ramallah, and Gaza turn out to be duds. On Nov. 3 after a rogue employee temporarily shuts down his Twitter account, Pres. Trump tweets: "Bernie Sanders supporters have every right to be apoplectic of the complete theft of the Dem primary by Crooked Hillary!", and "Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn't looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems". On Nov. 3-14 Pres. makes a tour of Asia. On Nov. 4 (Sat.) (night) 32-y.-o. Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud purges 11 princes and dozens of ministers, incl. prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, the head of the nat. guard, and the gov. of Riyadh. On Nov. 5 (11:30 a.m. local time) the Sutherland Springs Church Shooting in Sutherland Springs (30 mi. SE of San Antonio), Tex. sees shooter Devin Patrick Kelley (b. 1991) (dishonorably discharged from the USAF in 2013 before teaching at a Bible school) kill 24 aged 5-72 and injure 20+ church members at the First Baptist Church with a Ruger AR-15 rifle before being killed by rifle-toting area residents Johnnie Langendorff and Stephen Willeford after a chase, becoming the deadliest church shooting in modern U.S. history (until ?). On Nov. 5 a Shiite Houthi rebel attack on Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is viewed as a possible act of war by the Saudis. On Nov. 7 nine Islamists are arrested in France for a suspected terrorist plot in Nice, plus a tenth in Switzerland. On Nov. 7 (Tues.) the 2017 U.S. election elects anti-Trump Dem. physician Ralph Shearer Northam (1959-) as gov. of Va., and Danica Roem (1984-) to the Va. legislature, who becomes the first openly transgender person; Dem. Andrea Jenkins is elected to the city council of Minneapolis, Minn., becoming the first openly transgender black woman. On Nov. 9 Pres. Trump visits China, becoming the first foreign leader allowed to tour the Forbidden City. talking Chinese pres. Xi Jinping into releasing three black UCLA basketball players being held for shoplifting and facing 10-year sentences; on Nov. 10 he visits Vietnam for bilateral talks with Pres. Tran Dai Quang; on Nov. 12 he tweets: "Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me 'old,' when I would NEVER call him 'short and fat?' Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend - and maybe someday that will happen!" On Nov. 9 a Greek judicial council allows convicted Marxist terrorist Dimitris Koufodinas, serving 11 life sentences for killing U.S. and British diplomats to go on a 2-day furlough, pissing-off the U.S. and U.K. On Nov. 9 the Vatican announces that it is banning the sale of cigarettes but not cigars; cigarettes had been sold at a reduced price to employees and pensioners. On Nov. 10 coloratura soprana Audrey Luna hits A above high C at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, becoming the highest note sung there in its 137-year history. On Nov. 13 (Mon.) a 7.3 earthquake hits Iraq and Iran, killing 400+ and injuring 6.6K. On Nov. 13 North Korean soldier Oh Chung Sung (Oh Chong Song) successfully escapes to South Korea after being shot several times. On Nov. 14 (8:00 a.m. local time) a shooter in a car opens fire at the Rancho Tehama Elementary School in N Calif., killing four and injuring a dozen. On Nov. 15 (a.m.) after he dismisses vice-pres. Emmerson Mnangagwe for plotting a takeover, a coup in Zimbabwe ousts ogre pres. Robert Mugabe. On Nov. 20 a video purporting to show African migrants auctioned as slaves in Libya casues a global outcry. On Nov. 21 six Syrian asylum seekers are arrested in Germany for plotting a terror attack for ISIS at a Christmas market in Essen. On Nov. 21 53-y.-o. Am. Muslim Mohamed Yussuf Jama (1964-) of Greeley, Colo. crashes his tractor-trailer into several vehicles on I-55 near Hamel, Ill., killing four. On Nov. 22 Bloomberg reports that Uber tries to coverup a cyberattack dating back to Oct. 2016 that stole personal data of 57M customers, causing chief security officer Joe Sullivan to be fired. On Nov. 22 new Iranian navy head Rear Adm. Hossein Khanzadi announces plans to "fly the Iranian flag in the Gulf of Mexico"; meanwhile Iranian top general Hossein Salami announces that it can increase their missile ranges to target Europe if threatened. On Nov. 22 British Muslim Husnain Rashid (1986-) of Nelson, Lancashire is arrested for plotting acts of terrorism incl. encouraging attacks on 4-y.-o. Prince George, incl. posting a photo of his school in Battersea, SW London on Oct. 13 with two masked jihadist figured superimposed, along with the message: "Even the royal family will not be left alone. School starts early." On Nov. 23 Pres. Trump declares North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism. On Nov. 24 (noon) an ISIS flag-waving Sunni Islamist terrorist bombing-shooting attack in the polytheist Sufi al-Rawdah Mosque in Bir al-Abd, North Sinai 25 mi. W of El-Arish kills 305 worshipers and injures 120, incl. 27 children. On Nov. 24 U.N. report claims that missiles fired by the Houthis of Yemen at Saudi Arabia were manufactured in Iran. On Nov. 26 300 mainly black protesters assail the Ink! Coffee Shop at 28th Ave. and Larimer St. in the mainly black Five Points area of Denver, Colo. for displaying a sign reading "Helpingly gentrifying the area since 2014", complaining about poor residents losing their homes to rising prices while splattering graffiti across the front, forcing it to close for several days while gaining global publicity. On Nov. 26 the Miss Universe 2017 (66th) Pageant, held at the AXIS at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, Nev. is won by 5'7" Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters (1995-) of South Africa, 2nd winner after Margaret Gardiner in 1978. On Nov. 27 Mount Agung erupts in the paradise land of Bali, shooting ash 2.5 mi. high and stranding tens of thousands of tourists; its last eruption was in 1963, killing 1.1K. On Nov. 27 the Catholic Herald in Poland that the lower house of parliament (Sejm) voted 254-156 to restrict Sunday shopping to the first and last Sun. of each month in 2017-18, the last Sun. only in 2019, and ban Sun. shopping totally in 2020. On Nov. 28 North Korea tests their most powerful ICBM ever, with a range of 8.1K mi., able to each the U.S. mainland all the way to New York City or Washington, D.C. On Nov. 28 a 20-y.-o. Muslim man is arrested in Melbourne, Australia for planning a New Year's Eve jihad with an automatic rifle at Federation Square. On Nov. 28 20-y.-o. Muslim Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman (1997-) is arrested for planning to assassinate Islamophile British PM Theresa May. On Nov. 28 Howell Emanuel Donaldson III AKA the Seminole Heights Serial Killer is apprehended for the murder of four victims in the Seminole Heights neighborhood of Tampa, Fla. between Oct. 9-Nov. 14. On Nov. 29 the U.S. House votes unanimously to mandate sexual harassment training; the U.S. Senate did ditto on Nov. 9. On Nov. 29 NBC-TV "Today" show reporter Savannah Guthrie announces that 20-year $20M/year anchor Matt Lauer has been fired for "inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace". On Nov. 29 Pres. Trump retweets videos from Britain First showing Muslims beating a man up, destroying a statue of the Vigin Mary, and throwing a gay man off a roof, causing the PC police to come out and try to shout him down without judging the videos or sacred cow Muslims, with British PM Theresa May slamming him, and Trump's own nat. security adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster issuing that soundbyte "Those who adhere to this ideology are really irreligious criminals who use a perverted, what the president has called a wicked interpretation of religion in an effort to... recruit young, impressionable people to their cause", becoming a new low point for Western appeasement of Islam? On Nov. 29 the Danish art collective The Other Eye of the Tiger debuts their Martyr Museum of 20 portraits of people touted as martyrs who "died for their convictions", incl. Socrates, Martin Luther King Jr., 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, and French Bataclan jihadist Ismael Omar Mostefai, causing global outrage. On Nov. 30 illegal immigrant Jose Ines Garcia Zarate is found not guilty of the murder of Kate Steinle in 2015 on a pier in San Francisco, Calif. by shooting her in the back, only of being a felon in possession of a firearm, not even manslaughter, causing an outcry and pissing-off Pres. Trump, who calls it a "disgraceful verdict". On Nov. 30 former nat. security adviser Michael Flynn is charged with making false statements to the FBI about interactions with the Russian ambassador in late Dec.; on Dec. 1 he pleads guilty. In Nov. Mattel introduces Hijab Barbie for the Muslim market. On Dec. 1 an Allah Akbar-screaming jihadist attack on the Agriculture Training Inst. in Peshawar, Pakistan kills 13; an inside job? On Dec. 1 Hawaii resumes monthly air-raid sirens to warn of a nuke attack by North Korea. On Dec. 1 former U.S. Pres. Obama gives a speech in New Delhi, India, saying that India needs to "cherish and nurture" its Muslim pop., calling them integrated and considering themself Indian; he neglects to mention er, Pakistan? On Dec. 4 the U.S. Supreme Court rules 7-2 (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor) to uphold Pres. Trump's travel ban of people from Muslim countries incl. relatives; meanwhile on Dec. 4 former FBI counterintel asst. dir. Frank Figliuzzi writes an op-ed for NBC News, with the soundbyte that Americans will have to "adjust" to a new country where terrorism is routine, because Pres. Trump's pipe dream of halting immigration is "not who we are"; meanwhile Zoltan Kovacs of Hungary issues a soundbyte that is just the opposite: "The Hungarian government has vowed it will never accept radical Islamic terrorism as 'something we have to live with.'" On Dec. 4 the Dec. 2017 Southern Calif. Wildfires, whipped-up by Santa Ana winds hits Ventura and Los Angeles Counties, forcing 200K to evacuate and burning over 140K acres; on Dec. 5 the Thomas Fire in Ventura County begins, forcing 50K to evacuate and becoming the largest wildfire of the 2017 Calif. wildfire season, which becomes the most destructive on record, seeing 9,133 fires burn 1,381,405 acres, destroying 9,470 bldgs. and damaging 810, killing 43 incl. two firefighters; on Dec. 10 Calif. "Gov. Moonbeam" Jerry Brown appears on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes", lamenting Pres. Trump's denial of climate change, uttering the soundbytes: "I don't think President Trump has a fear of the Lord, the fear of the wrath of God, which leads one to more humility"; "The truth of the case is that there's too much carbon being emitted, that heat-trapping gasses are building up, the planet is warming and all hell is breaking loose. So I'd say to Mr. Trump, take a deeper look. Now is not the time to undo what every country in the world is committed to." On Dec. 5 the U.S. Senate votes 62-37 to confirm Gen. John Kelly's deputy Kirstjen Michele Nielsen (1972-) as the dir. of the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHA). On Dec. 5 Saudi coalition warplanes attack the pres. palace in Sana'a, Yemen, killing Ali Abdullah Saleh. On Dec. 5 after being summoned to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia last month by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and resigning, Lebanese PM Saad Hariri suddenly rescinds his resignation. On Dec. 5 British police announce the arrest of British Muslims Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman and Mohammed Aqib Imran for plotting to bomb Downing St. and murder British PM Theresa May. On Dec. 5 the U.S. House unanimously passes the U.S. Taylor Force Act, sponsored by U.S. Reps. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) and Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), calling on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to stop their practice of paying convicted terrorists and their families or else lose U.S. funding. On Dec. 5 Hadrian's Wall and the Great Wall of China announce the signing of the World Heritage Wall to Wall Collaboration Agreement. On Dec. 6 (70 years 7 days after the U.N. vote to create Israel on Nov. 29, 1947) (3 days shy of the centenary of the British conquest of Jerusalem from the Ottomans) after signing the semi-annual waiver of the 1995 U.S. Jerusalem Embassy Act on Dec. 4, despite dire warnings from Muslim and Euro leaders incl. the EU, U.K., Egypt, Abdullah II of Jordan, Saudi King Salman, who calls it "a flagrant provocation of Muslims all over the world", Hamas, which threatens to "open the gates of Hell", and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, who calls it a "grave mistake", and warns "Jerusalem is our red line", Pres. Trump announces that the U.S. is recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and that he is ordering the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv to move there, keeping a campaign promise no matter how much flak results; wasting no time, on Dec. 6 Hamas issues a call for a Day of Rage on Dec. 8, which incl. protests in Indonesia and Malaysia; a Jewish synagogue in Gothenburg, Sweden is torched by migrants from Palestine and Syria. On Dec. 6 the parliament of Bulgaria passes a law criminalizing the promotion of radical Islam incl. advocating religious violence, Sharia, or a caliphate. On Dec. 7 after Dutch PM Mark Rutte calls Pres. Trump's declaration of Jerusalem as Israel's capital "terrible", and 15 lawmakers eat there as a gesture of solidatiry, pissed-off PLO flag-waving Syrian refugee Saleh Ali (1988-) attacks the HaCarmel Kosher restaurant in the Amstelveenseweg area of Amsterdam, smashing windows with a wooden club while police do nothing, finally being arrested when he is done; despite declaring that he wants to commit more jihadist attacks, with the soundbyte that the window-smashing was "only the first step", police release him after 60 hours, causing a firestorm of controversy. On Dec. 7 after eight separate sexual harassment allegations surface, and at least half of his colleagues turn on him incl. 16 female senators, U.S. Dem. Sen. Al Franken resigns, claiming to be an innocent martyr. On Dec. 7 acting Dept. of Homeland Security Elaine Duke testifies before Congress, uttering the soundbyte: "The primary international terror threat facing our country is from global jihadist groups. However, the department is also focused on the threat of domestic terrorism. Ideologically-motivated violence here in the United States is a danger to our nation, our people, and our values." On Dec. 7/8 (night) a rare snowstorm in Houston, Tex. also blankets S Tex. On Dec. 9 Iraqi PM Haider al-Abadi announces that ISIS has been driven out of Iraq. On Dec. 11 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin makes a suprise visit to Syria, and announces the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces. On Dec. 11 (7:20 a.m. local time) after posing the message "#Trump You Failed to Protect Your Nation" on Facebook, 27-y.-o. ISIS-inspired Bangladeshi citizen Akayed Ullah (1990-) detonates a homemade IED pipe bomb strapped to his body near Times Square in New York City, but it misfires, badly injuring him but only causing minor injuries to three bystanders; he arrived via chain migration, causing Pres. Trump on Dec. 12 to call for an end to the diversity lottery program and chain migration. On Dec. 11 Pres. Trump signs an executive order to NASA to prepare a return to the Moon for the first time since 1972, followed by Mars, with the soundbyte: "We're dreaming big." On Dec. 11 18-y.-o. Am. Muslim Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya (1989-) is charged with supporting ISIS and planning a firearms attack, becoming the 3rd Houston Muslim arrested for supporting ISIS after Asher Abid Khan (23) and Omar Faraj Saeed El Hardan (25). On Dec. 12 U.S. nat. security adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster issues the soundbyte that Russia has been waging "campaigns of subversion" against the U.S., and announces that Pres. Trump will unveil his first formal Nat. Security Strategy on Dec. 18. On Dec. 12 after traveling to Libya 2x in 2011, former Washington, D.C. Metro Transit police officer (Muslim convert) Nicholas Young (1979-) of Fairfax, Va. is charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS and giving misleading statements to federal agents, becoming the first U.S. law enforcement officer to be charged with a terror-related crime; his computer reveals his fascination with Nazis and hatred of Israel, complete with photos of him in Nazi SS uniform; on Dec. 18, 2017 he is found guilty, and on Feb. 23 is sentenced to up to 60 years in priz. On Dec. 12 reporters U Kyaw Soe Oo (28) and U Wa Lone (31) are arrested in Myanmar for violating the Official Secrets Act after investigating the Sept. massacre of 10 Rohingya civilians by Buddhist mobs and the military in Inn Dinn, Rakhine State, taking photos of 10 victims kneeling before being secuted; on Mar. 13 a court sentences four army officers and three soldiers to 10 years at hard labor, and order the journalist case to proceed, with up to a 14-year sentence. On Dec. 12 the Hope for the Middle East Petition signed by 800K from 143 countries is presented to the U.N. secy.-gen., calling on the U.N. to protect the rights of Iraqi Christians. On Dec. 13 English Muslim dentistry student Mohammed Abbas Idris Awan of the U. of Sheffield in England is found guilty of three terrorism counts incl. engaging in the preparation of an act of terrorism. On Dec. 13 a 25-y.-o. Canadian Muslim with nine bombs strapped to a suicide vest invades the RBC branch bank in Warmington (near Toronto), Canada, taking 13 hostages and demanding to speak to Pres. Trump before police kill him. On Dec. 13 U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence meets with 12-y.-o. Christian Iraqi Noeh, whose home in the Nineveh Plains was burned down by ISIS. On Dec. 14 the U.S. FCC votes 3-2 to end Net Neutrality after two years. On Dec. 14 Disney announces the acquisition of 21st Cent. Fox for $52.4B in stock. On Dec. 14 Bermuda bans same-sex marriage 6 mo. after its supreme court approved them. On Dec. 15 a Palestinian jihadist wearing an explosive belt stabs a border police officer in West Bank, Ramallah during a violent Palestinian protest. On Dec. 17 a Taliban attack in Helmand Province, Afghanistan kills 11 Afghan police. On Dec. 17 a Muslim suicide bomber at the main entrance of the Bethel Memorial Methodist Church in Quetta, Pakistan kills nine and injures 50+ out of 400 attending pre-Christmas services; a 2nd suicide bomber is stopped. On Dec. 18 an Egyptian-sponsored U.N. Security Council draft resolution to require Pres. Trump to rescind his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital is vetoed by the U.S., with U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley calling it an insult that won't be forgotten; the vote is 14-1; on Dec. 20 Pres. Trump threatens to cut off financial aid to countries that vote in favor of a draft resolution submitted by Yemen and Turkey. On Dec. 18 Pres. Trump introduces his 2018 Nat. Security Strategy, calling out Russia and China, mentioning electromagnetic pulse (EMP) protection, dropping climate change, and restoring reference to Islam as a nat. security threat, with the soundbyte: "The primary transnational threats Americans face are from jihadist terrorists and transnational criminal organizations." On Dec. 18 Queens, N.Y.-born U.S. rep. (D-Tex.) (1995-) Sheila Jackson Lee (1950-) gets passenger Jean-Marie Simon of Washington, D.C. bumped from a United Airlines flight from Houston, Tex. to Washington, D.C., causing a pissing contest that is ended by Lee pulling out the race card. On Dec. 19 the U.S House by ?-? passes Pres. Trump's $5.5B tax cut bill, which also repeals the Obamacare mandate; on Dec. 21 after a revote on Dec. 20 Pres. Trump signs it. On Dec. 19 four Muslims are arrested in South Yorkshire and Derbyshire, England for a Christmas jihadist terror plot. On Dec. 19 Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels attack the royal palace in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia with a ballistic missile. On Dec. 20 after he pleads guilty in Aug., 27-y.-o. Muslim convert Lionel Williams (1990-) is sentenced in Norfolk, Va. on terrorism charges for telling undercover FBI agents that he wanted to kill police officers and giving them $250 to send to ISIS. for a Day of Rage on Dec. 8, which incl. protests in Indonesia and Malaysia. On Dec. 20 after a speech by U.S. U.N. ambassador #29 (since Jan. 27) Nimrata "Nikki" Haley (nee Randhawa) (1973-) bemoaning the U.N.'s longtime hostility to Israel and threatening the it with defunding, saying that the U.S. will be "taking names" of nations that vote for it, the U.N. Gen. Assembly votes 128-9-35 (U.S., Israel, Guatemala, Honduras, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Togo vote against, 22 of 28 EU countries incl. U.K., France, and Germany vote for, five EU states, Australia, Canada, Colombia, and Mexico abstain, 21 delegations are absent) to adopt U.N. Gen. Assembly Resolution ES-10/L.22, titled "Status of Jerusalem", submitted by Yemen and Turkey, declaring "null and void" all actions intended to alter Jerusalem's character, status, or demographic composition, asking nations not to follow Pres. Trump and establish diplomatic missions in Jerusalem, claiming his decision risks igniting a religious war in the Middle East "that has no boundaries" (Palestinian foreign affairs minister Riad al-Malki), whining about the "negative tends" imperiling the Two-State Solution; on Dec. 21 after creating an account on Twitter, John O. Brennan tweets the soundbyte (his 2nd): "Trump Admin threat to retaliate against nations that exercise sovereign right in UN to oppose US position on Jerusalem is beyond outrageous. Shows @realDonaldTrump expects blind loyalty and subservience from everyone - qualities usually found in narcissistic, vengeful autocrats." On Dec. 21 (4:40 p.m.) 32-y.-o. Afghan immigrant Saeed Noori plows his white Suzuki 4-wheel drive through Christmas shoppers outside Flinders St. station in Melbourne, Australia, injuring 18 incl. one young child; police blame it on mental abuse and drug abuse not jihadism until he opens his mouth and attributes his actions to perceived mistreatment of Muslims. On Dec. 21 the 2017-18 North Am. Winter begins (ends Mar. 20), starting with the 2017-18 North Am. Cold Wave on Dec. 23-Jan. 18, bringing temps 10F-20F (6C-11C) below avg., incl. a low temp of -32F (-36C) in Internat. Falls, Minn. on Dec. 17; in the first week of 2018 a bomb cyclone (explosive cyclogenesis) causes frozen iguanas to fall from trees in Fla. and dead sharks killed by cold water to wash up on beaches in New England; of course, Al Gore calls it part of "climate change", with the soundbyte that "Bitter cold... [is] exactly what we should expect from the climate crisis." On Dec. 22 Pres. Trump signs the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, with the tax cuts set to expire in 2025. On Dec. 22 the FBI announces the arrest of Muslim convert Modesto, Calif. tow truck driver (ex-Marine sharpshooter) Everitt Aaron Jameson (1991-) for plotting a Christmas terror attack on Pier 39 in San Francisco; on Aug. 6, 2018 he is sentenced to 15 years in prison. On Dec. 22 after the Huffington Post pub. an expose, and 49 former Miss Americas call on them to resign, Miss America Org. CEO Sam Haskell is suspended for exchanging crude sexist emails about the contestants, causing pres. Josh Randall and board member Tammy Haddad to resign and Dick Clark Productions to cut ties; their careers were hanging on the words "cunt", "huge", and "gross"? On Dec. 22 (4:00 p.m.) Egyptian-born Am. Muslim Ahmed Aminamin El-Mofty (b. 1966) (family chain migration immigrant) goes on a shooting spree near the Penn. Statehouse in Harrisburg, Penn., firing a police in several locations and wounding one before being killed, after which the PC press tries to whitewash it; too bad, on Dec. 23 the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security calls it a terror attack. On Dec. 22 the U.N. Security Council unanimously imposes new sanctions on North Korea, causing its foreign ministry on Dec. 24 to reject them and call them an act of war. On Dec. 23 (9:00 p.m.) a lone Muslim gunman in Nindem, Nigeria kills four and injures eight at a Christmas caroling event. On Dec. 24 (Sun.) the U.S. announces a $285M reduction in the 2018-9 U.N. budget out of the usual $3.3B/year (22%). On Dec. 25 Muslim mayor Ali Salam of Nazareth cancels traditional outdoor songs and plays celebrating Christmas to get even with Pres. Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital. On Dec. 25 (Mon.) Pope Francis delivers his Christmas 2017 Message, calling for a 2-state solution to Israel and the Palestinians. On Dec. 25 Queen Elizabeth II delivers her 2017 Christmas Message, mentioning the jihadist attacks in London and Manchester, stating that courts that protect jihadist preachers "denigrate" Britain, and claiming that she asked her dinner guests to give her three good reasons why Britain should remain in the EU. On Dec. 27 (a.m.) a jihadist explosion in a storage area of a supermarket in St. Petersburg, Russia injures 13, causing Russian pres. Vladimir Putin to order his security services to either arrest the perps or "liquidate on the spot". On Dec. 28 an ISIS suicide attack on the Shiite Tebyan Center in Pule Sokhtia, Kabul kills 40+ and injures 80+. On Dec. 28 amid a record cold spell in winter 2017, Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte; "In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year's Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!" On Dec. 29 Muslim terrorists attack the Mar Mina Church in Cairo, Egypt, killing 8-10 incl. three police officers and wounding 5+ more before one terrorist wearing a suicide vest is killed. On Dec. 29 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!" On Dec. 29 after police in Iran announce that they will no longer arrest women not wearing the hijab, and local protests begin on Dec. 28 in Mashad against high food prices, a mass protest of hundreds of thousands incl. many un-hijabed women in Tehran, Iran and other cities features protesters shouting "We don't want an Islamic republic", "Death to the dictator", and "Clerics, shame on you, let go of our country", praising the former shah; a lone Iranian woman waving a white hijab on a stick on Enqelab St. in Tehran becomes the poster girl of the protests, although she did it on Dec. 27; protests continue to ? On Dec. 29 an apt. bldg. fire in Bronx, N.Y. caused by a child playing with a stove kills 12 incl. five children; New York City mayor Bill de Blasio calls it the city's worst fire in a quarter-century. On Dec. 31 37-y-o. ex-soldier Matthew Riehl (b. 1990) ambushes police at his home in the Copper Canyon Apts. in Highlands Ranch, Colo., firing 100+ shots and killing Douglas County deputy Zackari Parrish and wounding four officers before being killed. In Dec. "The Apprentice" star Omarosa Manigault is fired from the White House, claiming on Oct. 10, 2018 to have been offered $15K/mo. to keep quiet. In Dec. Queensland, Australia experiences its coldest summer in a cent. In Dec. the U.S. unemployment rate hits a record low of 6.8% for blacks (vs. 7.4% in 2000), while the white unemployment rate is 3.7%, the Asian rate is 2.5%, and the overwall rate is 4.1%, with 148K new jobs created. The Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA) is created by Saudi Arabia, along with Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and UAE; in Apr. 2019 Egypt pulls out. A report by Europol reveals that 5K organized crime groups in the EU are under investigation. 800+ breweries in the U.S. begin printing Certified Independent Craft seals on their beers to differentiate them from beers made by the megacorps. After pressure by Dallas, Tex. imam Omar Suleiman (1986-), Google lowers the ranking of pages criticizing Islam, causing even former U.S. pres. Obama to mumble about them having too much power to shape political discourse; in Mar. ISIS called for Suleiman's death in their film "Kill the Apostate Imams" for calling for unity among Muslims and Christians. The Stram Kurs (Hard Line) Party is founded in Denmark by atty. Rasmus Paludan to fight to ban Islam and deport Muslims; in 2019 they win 2.4% of the vote, enough to gain seats in parliament. The state of New Calif. attempts to get approval of Congress to start over sans sanctuary cities and illegal immigrants, corruption, high taxes, etc. The Technion Cornell Inst. of Innovation (TCII) (AKA School of Genius) on Roosevelt Island in New York City opens on Sept. 13. Ebooks overtake print and audiobooks? Simon & Schuster launches their Salaam imprint for Muslim books. Architecture: On Jan. 11 the 789M Euro Elbphilarmonie (Elbe Philharmonic Hall) AKA Elphi in Hamurg, Germany is inaugurated, becoming one of the largest and most acoustically advanced concert halls on Earth. On May 8 Israeli construction minister Yoav Galant unveils the David Center Archeological Garden of Jerusalem near the Temple Mount arund the SW section of the Western Wall to commemorate the 50th anniv. of Jerusalem's reunification. On June 2 the $1.4B Mercedes-Benz Stadium (begun May 19, 2014) in Atlanta, Ga. opens, replacing the Georgia Dome as home of the NFL Atlanta Falcons. 2.8M sq. ft. Apple Campus 2 in Cupertino, Calif. opens. On Dec. 9 the $20M Miss. Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, Miss. opens, becoming the first state-sponsored civil rights museum in the U.S.; the opening is attended by Pres. Trump amid protesters, while U.S. Rep. (D-Miss.) Bennie Thompson, U.S. Rep. (D-Ga.) John Lewis, and Jackson mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba refuse to attend. The $136M Museum of the Future in Dubai opens. The $3.5B 45-story 10K-bedroom 70-restaurant Abraj Kudai Hotel in Mecca, Saudi Arabia opens, becoming the world's largest hotel (until ?) - until the Meccan 9/11? Challakere secret nuclear city in Karnataka, India is completed. Sports: On Jan. 9 the 2017 College Football Nat. Championship in Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. sees the Clemson Tigers come from behind to defeat the favorite Alabama Crimon Tide 35-31 with 1 sec. remaining, avenging their 45-40 loss in 2016 and becoming their first nat. championship since 1981. On Jan. 11 the BIG3 summer basketball league is announced by Ice Cube and Jeff Katinetz, with eight teams composed of three retired NBA stars each playing on a half-court, with the first team to get to 50 points winning the game; the first season stars on June 25 and ends on Aug. 13 after 32 games; the title is won by Trilogy; MVP is forward Rashard Lewis of the 3 Headed Monsters. On Apr. 26 Mpho' Gift Ngoepe (1990-) of South Africa becomes the first African-born player to appear in a ML baseball game, getting a hit in his first at-bat for the Pittsburgh Pirates off Chicago Cubs pitcher Jon Lester. On May 6 the 2017 (143rd) Kentucky Derby is won by 5-1 Always Dreaming (jocky John Vlazquez) in 2:03.59; on May 20 the 2017 (142nd) Preakness Stakes is won by Cloud Computing (jockey Javier Castellano) in 1:55.98; on June 10 the 2017 (149th) Belmont Stakes is won by Tapwrit (jockey Jose Ortiz) in 2:30.03. On May 29 after attempting a return to the PGA after a nearly 2-year layoff, golfer Tiger Woods is caught sleeping at the wheel of his Mercedez-Benz by police in Jupiter, Fla., and charged with DUI, claiming "an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications" after a back surgery; he describes himself to police as "Cablinasian" (Caucasian, black, Am. Indian, Asian), which they list as "black". On May 28 (Sun.) the 2017 Indianapolis 500 features the first active world champion Fernando Alonso, whose engine fails on lap 179; the winner is Takuma Sato (1977-) of Japan, who becomes the first Asian winner. On May 29-June 7 the 2017 Stanley Cup Finals see the Pittsburgh Penguins defeat the Nashville Predators 4-2; Penguins captain Sidney Crosby is MVP. On June 1-12 the 2017 NBA Finals sees the Golden State Warriors (67-15) (coach Steve Kerr) defeat the Cleveland Cavaliers (51-31) (coach Mike Brown) 4-1, becoming the first time that two NBA teams meet in the finals for a 3rd straight years; LeBron James scores a record 5,995th playoff point, beating Michael Jordan's record of 5,987; MVP is Kevin Durant of the Warriors, who end up with a 16-1 record, becoming the highest winning percentage so far in NBA history (.941). On June 8 at a game with the Australian nat. team in Adelaide, the Saudi nat. soccer team stinks themselves up when they fail to join a minute of silence for the victims of the London terrorist attack. On June 15-18 the 2017 U.S. Golf Open at Erin Hills Golf Course in Erin (NW of Milwaukee), Wisc. is won by Brooks Koepka (1990-), whose 16-under-par-272 matches the 2011 record of Rory McIlroy. On July 3-16 the 2017 (131st) Wimbledon Championships sees defending champ Andy Murray lose to Sam Querry in the quarterfinals, and two-time defending champ Serena Williams not play after ending her season in Apr. due to pregnancy; Roger Federer win the gentleman's singles title for a record 8th time, passing Pete Sampras and William Renshaw; the ladies' singles title is won by Spanish-Venezuelan player Garbine Muguruza Blanco (1993-), who won the 2016 French Open. On Aug. 17 Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long (#56) becomes the first white NFL player to demonstrate while the Nat. Anthem is being played at an NFL game, joining safety Malcolm Jenkins (#27) during a game in Philly. On Sept. 14 the Cleveland Indians break the ML record with 22 consecutive wins; on Sept. 15 the Kansas City Royals defeat them 4-3; the MLB record is held by the 1916 New York Giants (26 consecutive wins), but it incl. one suspended game; the AL record was held by the 2002 Oakland A's (20); the 1935 Chicago Cubs had 21. On Oct. 24-Nov. 1 the 2017 (113th) World Series sees the 101-61 Houston Astros defeat the 104-58 Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1, becoming the first WS played by two teams with 100+ wins since ?; Game 1 is played in a temp of 103F, hottest in WS history; on Oct. 25 Game 2 sees retired Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully introduce Fernando Valenzuela, who throws out the ceremonial first pitch; on Oct. 29 Game 5 is won by Houston 13-12 in the 10th inning after lasting 5 hours 17 min., with a record 22 homers, record 14 players hitting homers in the series, and a record three game-tying homers by Houston. On Dec. 5 the Internat. Olympic Committee (IOC) bans Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea for widespread state-supported cheating by athletes using performance-enhancing drugs. On Dec. 6 Trump-hating Olympic alpine skier Lindsey Vonn utters the soundbyte to CNN: "I hope to represent the people of the United States, not the president." Nobel Prizes: Peace: Internat. Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN); Lit.: Kazuo Ishiburo (1954-) (Britain); Physics: Rainer "Rai" Weiss (1932-) (U.S.), Barry Clark Barish (1936-) (U.S.), and Kip Stephen Thorne (1940-) (U.S.) [gravitational waves]; Chem.: Jacques Dubochet (1942-) (Switzerland), Joachim Frank (1940-) (U.S.), and Richard Henderson (1945-) (Britain) [cryo-electron microscopy]; Med.: Jeffrey Connor Hall (1945-) (U.S.), Michael Morris Rosbash (1944-) (U.S.), and Michael Warren Young (1949-) (U.S.) [circadian rhythms]; Econ.: Richard H. Thaler (1945-) (U.S.) (behavioral economics). Inventions: On Jan. 3 the video hosting service BitChute is launched by Ray Vahey to host videos censored and/or demonetized by leftist-run YouTube; no surprise, leftist-run pay Web blocking services Palo Alto Firewall et al. block it. On Jan. 14 (9:54 a.m.) SpaceX avenges its Sept. 2016 launchpad explosion with the successful launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg AFB. On Jan. 15 Japan unsuccesfully launches the 9.65m x 0.52m 2.6-ton SS-520 rocket from Uchinoura Space Center on Kyushu, carrying a 3kg cubsat, which would have become the smallest rocket to deliver a payload into orbit. In Jan. the FaceApp mobile app for iOS and Android is released by the Russian co. Wireless Lab, using neural network technology to generate highly realistic transformations of faces, becoming super-popular before generating concerns about the images being sent to Russian intel. On Mar. 14 DMOZ: The Open Directory Project (opened June 1998) closes. In spring the firt 12M trees are planted in Wash., producing Cosmic Crisp apples, a cross between Honeycrisp and Enterprise apples known for superior sugar and acidity In May the WannaCry ransomware attack begins, encyrypting and rendering useless hundreds of thousands of computers, shutting down emergency rooms in the U.K., U.S. et al.; on Dec. 19 the U.S. In May the Fuze Card is launched, a super credit card that can hold account data for up to 30 credit cards; perfect for credit card thieves? blames North Korea. On Sept. 12 Apple unveils the $1K Apple X, which doesn't have a Home button because it automatically recognizes the owner's face. On Nov. 19 Denver Furniture Row driver (#78) Martin Lee Truex Jr. (1980-) wins the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway to win his 8th race of the year, and his first 2017 NASCAR championship. On Dec. 22 (5:30 p.m.) SpaceX conducts its 18th launch of 2017, launching a Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenburg AFB in Santa Barbara County, Calif., causing a Twitter frenzy as people confuse it with a UFO. The Airbus CityAirbus flying taxi makes its test flight, eventually ferrying passengers with a robot pilot. Science: On Jan. 11 an article is pub. in Science Advances announcing that analysis of samples brought back by the 1971 Apollo 14 mission indicate that the Moon is at least 4.51B years old, 40M-140M older than previously thought. On Jan. 13 after the Chinese Lunar Rover produces no evidence of Apollo Moon landings, 200 officials of the Chinese Space Program pub. a petition in the Beijing Daily Express asking NASA for an explanation; zonk, that's fake news :); On Jan. 23 Floyd Romesberg et al. of the Scripps Research Inst. pub. an article in Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences announcing the first stable semi-synthetic organism, which adds synthetic bases X and Y to the usual A, T, C, and G. On Feb. 22 astronomers announce four additional planets around TRAPPIST-1, an ultra-cool dwarf star about the size of Jupiter 39.5 l.yh. from the Sun in the constellation quarius, giving a record of seven temperate terrestrial planets. On Mar. 30 Am. astronaut Peggy Annette Whitson (1960-) goes on a spacewalk outside the ISS, setting the record for most spacewalks (8) and most cumulative time by a woman (53 hours 22 min.), also becoming the first woman astronaut to command the ISS 2x. On May 19 the hoax article The Conceptual Penis As A Social Construct is pub. in the peer-reviewed journal Cogent Social Sciences, written by Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay under aliases, which they later celebrate in an article announcing their hoax; on May 25 the Australian Senate holds a hearing on the article, in which climate change denier sen. Malcolm Roberts grills scientists over their peer-review methods. On June 20 NASA announces the discovery of 10 new rocky Earth-sized planets with water by the Kepler spacecraft, bringing the total to 50. On June 30 the Journal of Climate pub. a paper claiming that new data from Remote Sensing Systems of Calif. shows that the lower part of the Earth's atmosphere has warmed 140% faster sine 1998 than previous satellite data showed, and 36% faster since 1979, shutting the climate skeptics up? On July 10 China announces that it has transported a photon from the ground to its Micius satellite orbiting at 300 mi. alt. In Aug. NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) is launched to survey the brightest stars near Earth for transiting exoplanets over a 2-year period. On Sept. 14 Jean-Pierre Issa et al. of Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple U. pub. an article in Nature Communications revealing that calorie restriction slows the speed at which the epigenome changes with age, increasing lifespan. On Sept. 15 the NASA Cassini spacecraft crashes into Saturn, ending a 20-year mission after revealing oceans on Enceladus and Titan, traveling 4.9B mi, and taking 453K photos at a cost of $3.9B. On Sept. 20 a German-led group of astronomers pub. an article in Nature announcing Astroid 228P, the first known binary asteroid also classified as a comet, orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, discovered using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. On Sept. 20 MIT geophysicist Daniel H. Rothman pub. the paper Thresholds of catastrophe in the Earth system in Science Advances, predicting a 6th mass extinction by 2100 due to "thresholds of catastrophe" in "the mass of carbon that human activities will likely have added to the oceans". On Sept. 22 the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole detects a neutrino, tracing it to blazar TXS 0506-056 off the shoulder of Constellation Orion 3.5B l.y. from Earth, suggesting that blazars might be sources of cosmic rays. On Nov. 6 Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy et al. of Scripps Research Inst. pub. an article in Nature Chemistry claiming the discovery of synthetic enzyme diamidophosphate (DAP), which drives phosphorylation, claiming it might be the missing link to the first life on Earth. On Nov. 17 scientists pub. an article in Neurology announcing the first detection of CTE in brain scans of a living 59-y.-o. former NFL player, Fred McNeill. On Nov. 20 NASA scientists pub. an article in Nature announcing the discovery of the asteroid 'Oumuamua (11/2017 U1), a 400m-long rocky cigar-shaped object with a reddish hue and 10.1 aspect ratio, becoming the first confirmed visiting object from another star. On Dec. 5 Alphabet-owned DeepMind's AlphaZero AI deep neural network computer program defeats world-champion programs Stockfish, elmo et al. after only four hours of self-play, going on to achieve superhuman levels of play; Stockfish 8 looks at 70M positions/sec. vs. 80K/sec. for AlphaZero, yet it wins by 28-72-0. On Dec. 14 NASA announces the first solar system other than our own with eight planets, Kepler-90; planet #8 Kepler-90i was discovered with AI software developed by Google. NASA's Space Launch System (SLS), the most powerful rocket in history makes its test flight. On Dec. 15 the first transplanted dead womb birth takes place in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Nonfiction: Sharyl Attkisson (1961-), The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote (June 27). Nir Baram, A Land Without Borders: My Journey Around East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Mark Bray, Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook (Aug. 14). Kate Andersen Brower, The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies (Jan. 17). Carl M. Cannon, On This Date: Discovering America One Day at a Time (July 18). Hillary Clinton (1947-), What Happened (Sept. 12); "In the past, for reasons I try to explain, I've often felt I had to be careful in public, like I was up on a wire without a net. Now I'm letting my guard down"; claims to blame herself for losing to The Donald, then blames everybody but herself, incl. her emails, Kellyann Conway, the Russians and fake news, ending with FBI dir. James Comey. Ta-Nehisi Coates (1975-), We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy (Oct. 3). John Crowley et al. (eds.), Atlas of the Irish Revolution (Sept. 1); bestseller; pub. on the centenary of the Easter Rising and the Irish rev. of 1913-23; made into a TV series in 2019 narrated by Cillian Murphy. David W. Daniels, You Don't Know Jack: The Authorized Biography of Christian Cartoonist Jack T. Chick. Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism's Money Masers (Nov.); the Harpoon unit of the Israeli intel apparatus that fights terrorism financing esp. Palestinians and Hezbollah. Rupert Darwall, Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex (Oct. 3); the history of the Green Party and how it turn against nuclear power in favor of wind and solar because of its Nazi roots. Kelley Fanto Deetz, Bound to the Fire: How Virginia's Enslaved Cooks Helped Invent American Cuisine (Oct. 18); plantation cooks weren't all Aunt Jemimas? David Garrow, Rising Star; another expose of Pres. Obama's memoir "Dreams of My Father", bringing up his ex-girlfriend Sheila Miyoshia Jager. Pamela Geller (1958-), Fatwa: Hunted in America (Nov. 1). Louise Gluck (1943-), American Originality: Essays on Poetry. Jeff Guinn, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple (Apr. 11); the events leading up to the Nov. 18, 1978 mass suicide in Guyana. Kyle Harper, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease & The End of an EmpireStealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad (Jan. 24). Kim Holmes, The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left. David Horowitz (1939-), Big Agenda: President Trump's Plan to Save America (Jan. 17). Raheem Kassam, No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You. Nancy MacLean, Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right's Stealth Plan for America (June 13). Michele R. McPhee (1970-), Maximum Harm: The Tsarnaev Brothers, the FBI, and the Road to the Marathon Bombing (Apr. 4). Koichi Mera, Whose Back was Stabbed?: FDR’s Secret War on Japan (Apr. 5); the Japanese side of the Pearl Harbor attack, claiming it was self-defense. Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World (Sept. 21). Greg O'Brien (1966-) and Tim Alan Garrison (ed.), The Native South: New Histories and Enduring Legacies. David Patrikarakos, War in 140 Characters: How Social Media Is Reshaping Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (Nov.); Clausewitz is passe, and wars will be won with smartphones and Facebook feeds? Jeff Pegues (1974-), Black and Blue: Inside the Divide between the Police and Black America (May 9). Dennis Michael Quinn (1944-), The Mormon Hierarchy: Wealth & Corporate Power. Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (May 2); racial segregation is the direct production of unconstitutional govt. action? Richard Saul, ADHD Does Not Exist: The Truth About Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (Feb.). Robert Spencer (1962-), Confessions of an Islamophobe (Dec. 5). Brandon Vallorani, The Wolves and the Mandolin: Celebrating Life's Privileges in a Harsh World (autobio.) (Mar. 20). Assaf A. Voll, A History of the Palestinian People: From Ancient Times to the Modern Era; a blank book, with the message that there has never been any Palestinian people; after becoming a bestseller, Amazon.com removes it as a "poor customer experience". Joshua M. White, Piracy and Law in the Ottoman Mediterranean. Gregory Wrightstone, Inconvenient Facts: The science that Al Gore doesn't want you to know (Oct. 24); Am. geologist debunks climate alarmists, claiming that the Earth is thriving because of increasing CO2 and warmer temps. Novels: David Grossman, A Horse Walks into a Bar: A Novel (Feb. 21); Israeli comedian Dov Greenstein and his big night of stand-up. Music: Lady Antebellum, Heart Break (album #7) (June 9) (#4 in the U.S.) (#1 country); incl. You Look Good (#59 in the U.S.) (#4 country), Heart Break (#11 in the U.S.) (#22 country) (not heart break but giving your heart a break). Luke Bryan (1976-), What Makes You Country (album #6) (Dec. 8) (#1 country) (#1 in the U.S.) (260K copies); incl. Light It Up, Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset (May 2018) (#1 country), Most People Are Good (#43 U.S.) (#1 country). Glen Campbell (1936-2017), Adios (June 9) (album #64) (last album) (#40 in the U.S.) (#7 country) (#3 in the U.K.); incl. Adios (by Jimmy Webb). Morgan Evans (1984-), Kiss Somebody (#12 country). Chris Janson (1986-), Everybody (album #2) (Sept. 2) (#7 country); incl. Fix a Drink (#2 country) (#67 in the U.S.), Drunk Girl. Jake Owen (1981-), I Was Jack (You Were Diane) (Mar. 12) (#12 country); a tribute to John Mellencamp's 1982 single "Jack & Diane". Rat Boy (1996-), Scum (album) (debut); incl. Revolution. Thomas Rhett (1980-), Life Changes (album #3) (Sept. *) (#1 in the U.S.) (#1 country); incl. Life Changes, Craving You (w/Maren Morris), Unforgettable, Marry Me. Darius Rucker (1966-), When Was the Last Time (album #7) (Oct. 20) (#8 in the U.S) (#2 country) (100K copies); incl. For the First Time (#82 in the U.S.) (#5 country), If I Told You (#53 in the U.S.) (#1 country). Douglas Valentine, The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World (Jan. 15). Morgan Wallen (1993-) and Florida Georgia Line, Up Down (Nov. 27) (#83 in the U.S.) (#12 country). Movies: Zak Hilditch's horror drama film 1922 (Oct. 22) (Campfire Productions) (Netflix), based on the 2010 Stephen King novella stars Thomas Jane as 1922 Hemingford Home, Nebr. farmer Wilfred "Will" James, who commits murder and gets away with it so long that he goes mad in a house infested with rats. Johannes Roberts' 47 Meters Down (June 16) (Entertainment Studios) stars Mandy Moore and Claire Holt as sisters Lisa and Kate, who go in holiday in Mexico and get suckered into a shark cage dive, only to end up trapped on the ocean floor while being stalked by great whites; does $52M box office on a $5M budget. Elliott Lester's Aftermath (Apr. 7) (Lionsgate) stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Viktor, who loses his wife and child in a plane crash, and blames it on the air traffic controller; based on the real life Uberlingen mid-air collision and the murder by architect Vitaly Kaloyev of Swiss air traffic controller Peter Nielsen. Ridley Scott's Alien: Covenant (May 19) (20th Cent. Fox), a sequel to the 2012 film "Prometheus" stars Michael Fassbender as Walter and David, Katherine Waterston as Daniels, and Billy Crudup as the Capt. Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World (Dec. 18) (TriStar Pictures), based on the 1995 book by John Pearson stars Christopher Plummer (after Kevin Spacey is booted) as J. Paul Getty, who refuses to pay a dollar to get his kidnapped grandson John Paul Getty III back in 1973 until the kidnappers send his ear to a newspaper; does $4.4M box office on a $50M budget. John McPhail's Christmas zombie musical film Anna and the Apocalypse (Sept. 22) (Blazing Griffin) (Orion Pictures) stars Ella Hunt as Anna, whose sleepy town of Little Haven is threatened by zombies; on Nov. 30, 2018 it is relaunched in the U.S. and U.K.; "'Twas the night before Christmas, and all the through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Anna was nestled, all snug in her bed, not knowing that tomorrow, she'd meet the undead"; "Oh no, Justin Bieber's a zombie". David Leitch's Atomic Blonde (Mar. 12), based on the 2012 graphic novel "The Coldest City" by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart and set during the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 stars Charlize Theron as MI6 spy Lorraine Broughton, who has to work with Berlin station chief David Percival (James McAvoy) to find a list of double agents being smuggled into the West; Sofia Boutella plays Lorraine's French lover Delphine Lasalle; a ripoff of "John Wick"?; does $95.7M box office on a $30M budget. Ana Lily Amirpour's The Bad Batch (June 23) (Neon) stars Suki Waterhouse as Arlen, Jason Momoa as Miami Man (whose bulging muscles make him look way too well fed?), and Jim Carrey as the Hermit, societal rejects who are quarantined in a desert and left to scrape for a living; Keanu Reeves plays the Dream; does $201.9K box office on a $6M budget. Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 (Oct. 3) (Warner Bros.) stars Ryan Gosling as Blade Runner Officer K, who tries to locate missing Blade Runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) to save the world; does $258.2M box office on a $185M budget. Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name (Jan. 22) (Desire Trilogy #3), written by James Ivoery based on the 2007 Andre Aciman novel stars Timthee Chalamet as 17-y.-o. Jewish-Am. boy Elio Perlman in Italy, who has a gay love affair with Jewish-Am. grad student Oliver (Armie Hammer); does $12.6M box office on a $3.5M budget. John Curran's Chappaquiddick (Sept. 10) (Apex Entertainment), set in 1969 stars Kate Mara as doomed secy. Mary Jo Kopechne, Jason Clarke as Ted Kennedy, Bruce Dern as Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., and Clancy Brown as Robert Strange McNamara/ David Leitch's The Coldest City (July 28) (Denver and Delilah Productions) (Focus Features), based on the 2012 graphic novel by Antony Johnston stars Charlize Theron as MI6 spy Lorraine Broughton, who is sent to take down a ruthless espionage ring as the Berlin Wall is falling. Nikolaj Arcel's The Dark Tower (July 28) (Columbia Pictures), based on the Stephen King series stars Tom Taylor as Jake Chambers, and Matthew McConaughey as Walter Padick, the man in black; does $101.4M box office on a $60M budget. Joe Wright's Darkest Hour (Sept. 1) (Perfect World Pictures) (WOrking Title Films) (Focus Features) (Universal Pictures) stars Gary Oldman as Sir Winston Churchill taking on Hitler; Kristin Scott Thomas plays his wife Clementine; Ben Mendelsohn plays George VI; best performance of Oldman's career?; does $150.2M box office on a $30M budget; "A man with the heart of a nation." Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin (Sept. 8) (Gaumont) (France 3 Cinema) (eOne Films) is a political satire comedy depicting the power struggle after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin); Steve Buscemi plays Nikita Khrushchev; Simon Russell Beala plays Lavrentiy Beria; Jason Isaacs plays Georgy Zhukov; Paul Whitehouse plays Anastas Mikoyan; Paul Chahidi plays Nikolai Bulganin; a favorite of Pres. Barack Obama; does $24.6M box office. banned in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan; Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit (July 25) (Annapurna Pictures) (MGM), about the July 23, 1967 12th Street Riot stars John Boyega, Will Poulter, Algee Smith, Jacob Latimore, Jason Mitchell, and Hannah Murray; does $16.3M box office on a $34M budget. Alexander Payne's Downsizing (Aug. 30) (Paramount Pictures) stars Matt Damn and Kristen Wiig as Paul and Audrey Safranek of Omaha, Neb., who sign up for a downsizing project to shrink their bodies to 5 in. so they can start a new life in the experimental community of Leisureland and save money, only to see the wife opt out and divorce him. Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (July 13) (Syncopy Inc.) (Warner Bros.) is about the Dunkirk evacuation of May 26-June 4, 1940, ignoring the action in the town for the action on the beach, with first-person visual effects making the audience seasick and airsick at the same time; stars Fionn Whitehead as British Army Pvt. Tommy, and Kenneth Branagh as pier master Cmdr. Bolton; does $525.6M box office on a $100M budget, becoming the highest grossing WWII film so far (unti ?). Jordan Peele's Get Out (Jan. 23) (Blumhouse Productions) (Universal Pictures) stars Daniel Kaluuya as black photgrapher Chris Washington, who hooks up with white Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), and drives with her to the country to visit her family, pshrink Missy (Catherine Keener) and neurosurgeon Dean (Bradley Whitford), who hypnotize blacks and transplant the brains of white people into them to gain their superior physical and artistic talents; does $256.4M box office on a $4.5M budget. Rupert Sanders' Ghost in the Shell (Mar. 31) (Paramount Pictures), based on the Japanese manga by Masamune Shirow stars Scarlett Johansson as cyborg counter-terrorist cmdr. The Major of Section 9. Andy Nyman's and Jeremy Dyson's Ghost Stories (Oct. 5) (Attitude Film Entertainment) (Lionsgate Films), based on the 2010 stage play stars Nyman as Jewish psychic debunker Philip Goodman, becoming the best British horror film of the year; also stars Martin Freeman, Alex Lawther, and Paul Whitehouse; does $3.9M box office. Michael Gracey's The Greatest Showman (Dec. 8) (Chernin Entertainment) (20th Cent. Fox) stars Huge Actman, er, Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum struggling to set up his freak show circus; co-stars Michelle Williams as his wife Charity, Zac Efron as his partner Phillip Carlyle, Rebecca Ferguson as Swedish nightingale Jenny Lind, and Keale Settle as bearded lady Lettie Lutz; does $150M box office on an $84M budget. Christopher B. Landon's Happy Death Day (Oct. 13) (Blumhouse Productions) (Universal Pictures) (original title "Half to Death") stars Jessica Rothe as Theresa "Tree" Gelbman, who is killed on her birthday by a slasher, and begins reliving the day over and over, with the only way to stop it being to figure out who it is; does $125.5M box office on a $4.8M budget; followed by "Happy Death Day 2U" (2019). Scott Cooper's Hostiles (Sept. 2), based on a story by Donald E. Stewart stars Christian Bale, as U.S. Cavalry officer Joseph J. Blocker, who must escort dying Cheyenne war chief Yellow Hawk (Wes Studi) and his family back to their home in Mont. in 1892 accompanied by suicidal widow Rosalie Quaid (Rosamund Pike); does ? box office on a $40M budget. Andres Muschietti's It (Sept. 5) (Lin Pictures) (New Line Cinema) (Warner Bros. Pictures), based on the 1986 Stephen King novel set in summer 1989 in Derry, Maine stars Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, Jaeden Lieberher as Bill Denbrough, lead of the Losers' Club, Jeremy Ray Taylor as Ben Hanscom, Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh, Finn Wolfhard as Richie Tozier, Chosen Jacobs as Mike Hanlon, Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie Kaspbrak, Wyatt Oleff as Stan Uris, Nicholas Hamilton as Henry Bowers, and Jackson Robert Scott as 7-y.-o. Georgie Denbrough; does $700.4M box office on a $35M budget, becoming the highest-grossing horror film (until ?), and most profitable (until ?). Craig Gillespie's I, Tonya (Sept. 8) (Lucky Chap Entertainment)stars Margot Robbie as white trash ice skater Tonya Hadrding, Allison Janney as her mother LaVona Fay Golden, Sebastian Stan as her beau Jeff Gillooly, and Caitlin Carver as Snow White ice skater Nancy Kerrigan; does $5.3M box office on an $11M budget. Michael Spierig's and Peter Spierig's Jigsaw (Oct. 27) (Twisted Pictures) (Lionsgate) (Saw #8), a sequel to the supposed final installment "Saw 3D" (2010) set a decade after the death of the Jigsaw Killer stars Callum Keith Rennie as Det. Halloran, Cle Bennett as Det. Keith Hunt, Matt Passmore as Logan Nelson, Paul Braunstein as Ryan, Mandela Van Peebles as Mitch, Brittany Allen as Carly, and Tobin Bell as Jigsaw/John Kramer; does $103M box office on a $10M budget. Chad Stahelski's John Wick: Chapter 2 (Jan. 30) (Lionsgate) (Thunder Road Pictures) (Summit Entertainment) stars Keanu Reeves, who refuses to honor his blood oath medallion, pissing-off Italian crime lord Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), escalating to a full-scale global hitman war; does $171.5M box office on a $40M budget; "Tell them... tell them all... whoever comes, whoever it is, I'll kill them, I'll kill them all." Jake Kasdan's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Dec. 5) (Columbia Pictures), a sequel to "Jumanji" (1995) filmed in Hawaii and set in 1996 Brantford, N.H. stars Dwayne Johnson as archeologist Dr. Smolder Bravestone, Jack Black as paleontologist Prof. Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon, Kevin Hart as zoologist Franklin "Mouse" Finbar, Karen Gillan as dance fighter Ruby Roundhouse, and Nick Jonas as Jefferson "Seaplane" McDonough, who must recover the Jaguar's Eye and put it back to escape from the game, while being pursued by evil explorer Russel Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale); Rhys Darby plays game guide Nigel Billingsley; does $680M box office on a $110M budget. Jordan Vogt-Roberts' Kong: Skull Island (Mar. 10) (Warner Bros.) stars Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, John Goodman, and Brie Larson in a reboot of the worn-out film; does ? box office on a $190M budget. Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird (Sept. 1) (Scott Rudin Productions) stars Soirse Ronan as h.s. senior Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson, and Laurie Metcalf as her mother Marion in Sacramento, Calif.; does $34M box office on a $10M budget. Julien Maury's and Alexandre Bustillo's Leatherface (Aug. 25) (Millennium Films) (Lionsgate Films) (Texas Chainsaw Massacre #8) is a prequel to the original 1974 film, filmed in Bulgaria and starring Stephen Dorff as Texas Ranger Hal Hartman, and Sam Strike as Jedidiah Sawyer, who an escaped mental institution inmate who morphs into a mentally disabled serial murderer who likes to wear masks of human skin and use a chainsaw and mallet; does $956K box office. Chris McKay's The Lego Batman Movie (Jan. 29) is a 3-D computer-animated superhero comedy film starring the voices of Will Arnett as Batman, Zach Galifianakis as the Joker, and Ralph Fiennes as Alfred Pennyworth. Daniel Espinosa's Life (Mar. 18) (Columbia Pictures) stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson and Ryan Reynolds as David Jordan, Miranda North, and Rory "Roy" Adams, crewmmembers of the Internat. Space Station (ISS), who discover the first evidence of life on Mars, only to watch it grow into a monster named Calvin; does $51M box office on a $58M budget. James Mangold's Logan (Feb. 17) (Marvel Entertainment) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the Marvel Comics X-Men series set in 2029 stars Hugh Jackman as Logan Howlett AKA Wolverine, who is aging along with the rest of the X-Men and is forced to take on Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) and his Reavers with the help of Caliban (Stephen Merchant); does $616.8M box office on a $97M buget. Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky (Aug. 9) (Bleecker Street), written by Rebecca Blunt stars Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, and Seth MacFarlane, Katie Holmes as an unlucky W. Va. family planning to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway and mistakenly trying it during a NASCAR game, drawing FBI agent Sarah Grayson (Hilary Swank) on their trail; does $41.5M box office on a $29M budget. James Gray's The Lost City of Z (Apr. 14) (Plan B Entertainment) (Amazon Studios) (Bleeker Street), based on the 2009 book by David Grann stars Charlie Hunnam as British explorer Percy Fawcett, who disappears in the Amazon jungle in 1925 while searching for the you know what; does $17.2M box office on a $30M budget. Gabriela Cowpertheaite's Megan Leavey (June 5) (LD Entertainment) is based on the true story of Yankees fan USMC Cpl. K9 handler Megan Leavy (1983-) (Kate Mara) and her German shepherd working dog Rex (E168) (1999-2012), who are deployed to Fallujah, Iraq in 2005 and Ramadi in 2006, where they are blown up by an IED, after which she fights to adopt him, going all the way to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer; Common plays Gunnery Sgt. Massey; Ramon Rodriguez plays her beau Cpl. Matt Morales. Aaron Sorkin's Molly's Game (Sept. 8) (Huayi Brothers Pictures) (STXflms), based on her memoir stars Jessica Chastain as Molly Bloom, who set up an underground poker empire for Hollyweird celebs and other high rollers; too bad, this incl. the Russian mob, causing the FBI to target her; Sorkin's dir. debut. Hany Abu-Assad's The Mountain Between Us (Oct. 6) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 2011 novel by Charles Martin stars Idris Elba and Kate Winslet as neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Bass and photojournalist Alex Martin, who survive a plane crash in the High Uintas Wilderness and must fight the elements, which keeps them too busy to fight their racemixing urges, which doesn't stop them; does $54.7M box office on a $35M budget; "Heart is just a muscle." Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread (Dec. 11) (Focus Features) stars Daniel Day-Lewis in his last film role as 1950s London dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock, who hooks up with babe Alma Elson (Vicky Krieps), who lures him into giving up bachelorhood with poison mushrooms; does $1.1M box office on a $35M budget. Joachim Roenning's and Espen Sandberg's Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (Salazar's Revenge), #5 in the series and sequen to "On Stranger Tides" (2011) stars Johnny Deep as Capt. Jack Sparrow, Javier as Capt. Armando Salazar, and Geoffrey Rush as Capt. Hector Barbaossa, who all search for the Trident of Poseidon, which bestows control over the seas; does $794.7M box office on a $230M budget. Steven Spielberg's The Post (Dec. 14) (DreamWorks Pictures) (20th Cent. Fox) stars Meryl Streep as Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, Tom Hanks as journalist Ben Bradlee struggling to pub. The Pentagon Papers. Paul W.S. Anderson's 3-D Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (Jan. 27), #6 (last in the series), sequel to "Resident Evil: Retribution" (2012) stars Milla Jovovich as Alice, who takes on Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts) and Umbrella; does $312.2M box office on a $40M budget. Stuart Hazeldine's The Shack (Mar. 3) is a Christian film based on the 2007 William P. Young novel, starring Sam Worthington as Mackenzie "Mack" Phillips, whose young daughter Missy is kidnapped during a camping trip by a serial murderer, causing him to freak out until he receives a letter from Papa (Octavia Spencer), who turns out to be God, and who invites him to a shack where he meets Jesus (Aviv Alush); features Tim McGraw as Willie, and Graham Greene as the male Papa; does $96.4M box office on a $20M budget. Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water (Fox Searchlight Pictures), set in 1962 Baltimore, Md. stars Sally Hawkins as mute night janitor Elisa Esposito at the Occam Aerospace Research Center, who falls in love with the Asset, an amphibious humanoid creature from the rivers of South Am. and helps him escape. Amr Salama's Sheikh Jackson (Sept. 11); an Islamic cleric who likes to dress up as Michael Jackson. Chris Overton's The Silent Child (Aug. 8) (Slick Films) (20 min.) is about 4-y.-o. British deaf girl Libby (Maisie Sly), who learns sign language from social worker Joanne (Rachel Shenton). Jon Watts' Spider-Man: Homecoming (July 7) (Columbia Pictures) stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker alias Spider-Man. Rian Johnson's Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (Lucasfilm Ltd.) (Walt Disney Studios) (Dec. 9) stars Mark Hamill as old fart hermit Luke Skywalker, who has given up on the Jedis until Rey (Daisy Ridley) talks him into making her one to help her save the failing Resistance that's being decimated by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the First Order; Carrie Fisher plays aging Princess Gen. Leia Organa in her last film appearance before her Dec. 27, 2016 death; introduces Kelly Marie Tran as Resistance worker, Rose Tico as a sop to please the huge Chinese audience?; Laura Dern plays Resistance vice-dm. Amilyn Holdo; Benicio del Toro plays underworld codebreaker DJ; has it all, reviving the franchise? George Clooney's Suburbicon (Sept. 2) (Paramount Pictures) stars Matt Damon as mild-mannered Gardner Lodge in 1959 peaceful all-white Suburbicon, who sees it shaken up by the arrival of the African-Am. Mayers family, Julianne Moore as Gardner's wife Rose and twin sister Margaret, and Oscar Isaac as insurance agent Bud Cooper; does $9M box office on a $25M budget. Jason Hall's Thank You for Your Service (Oct. 27) (Universal Pictures), based on the 2013 book by David Finkel stars Miles Teller as Sgt. Adam Schumann, Scott Haze as Michael Adam Emory, Joe Cole as Will Walter, and Beulah Koale as Tausolo Aieti, who return from Iraq and struggle with PTSD back home with wives Saskia Schumann (Haley Bennett) and Amanda Doster (Amy Schumer). Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Sept. 4) (Fox Searchlight Pictures) stars Frances McDormand as Mildred Hayes, who takes the law into her own hands after the police fail incl. police chief Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell) to find her daughter Angela's murderer; does $53.9M box office on a $12M budget. Michael Bay's Transformers: The Last Knight (June 23) (Paramount Pictures), #6 in the series stars Mark Wahlberg as Cade Yeager, and Stanley Tucci as Joshua Joyce, who go back to the days of King Arthur (Liam Garrigan) in 484 C.E.; does $605.4M box office on a $260M budget. Michael Apted's Unlocked (May 5) (Di Bonaventura Pictures) (Lionsgate) stars Noomi Rapace as CIA super-spy Alice Racine, who works for station chief Eric Lasch (Michael Douglas) and division chief Bob Hunter (John Malkovich) to track down Am. Muslim convert terrorist David Mercer (Michael Epp) before he can release biological weapons for radical Islamic preacher Imam Yazid Khaleel (Makram Khoury); also stars Orlando Broom as bad guy Jack Alcott, and Philip Brodie as bad guy John Wilson; too bad, the critics pan it for telling too much truth about Islam, and it only does $4.7M box office. Luc Besson's Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (July 17) (EuropaCorp) (Lionsgate) is a French 3-D scifi adventure film based on the comics series "Valerian and Laureline" by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres, starring Dane DeHaan as Maj. Valerian, and Cara Delevingne as Sgt. Laureline, who work for a special police div. on Alpha (formerly the ISS) in the 28th cent., and are sent by their commander Arun Filitt (Clive Owen) on a mission to find the Mul Converter that can replicate anything; co-stars Rihanna as shapeshifting entertainer Bubble, Ethan Hawke as Jolly the Pimp, and Herbie Hancock as the defense minister; does $211.3M worldwide box office on a $209M budget, becoming the most expensive Euro and independent film made to date (until ?). Paco Plaza's supernatural horror drama Veronica (Aug. 25) stars Sandra Escacena as 15-y.-o. Veronica of working class Vallecas, Madrid, who likes to conducts seances using a Ouija board, ending up getting trapped by a demon; scariest horror film ever? Stephen Fears' Victoria & Abdul (Sept. 3) (BBC Films) (Universal Pictures), based on the book by Shrabani Basu stars Dame Judi Dench as Queen Victoria, and Ali Fazal as Indian clerk Abdul Karim, who travels to England to present her with a mohur (gold coin) for her Golden Jubilee in 1887 and ends up moving in, threatening to Islamize her; does $65.4M box office. Matt Reeves' War for the Planet of the Apes (July 14), the sequel to "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" (2011) and "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" (2014) stars Andy Serkis as Caesar, who engages in a grim war of survival with U.S. army troops led by Col. McCullough (Woody Harrelson); does $484.8M box office on a $150M budget. Stephen Chbosky's Wonder (Nov. 17) (Lionsgate, based on the 2012 R.J. Palacio novel stars Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson as Isabel and Nate Pullman, and Jacob Trembly as their son August "Auggie" Pullman, a kid with Trecher Collins Syndrome who tries to fit in at Beecher Prep. Woody Allen's Wonder Wheel (Oct. 14) (Amazon Studios) stars Kate Winslet as Rinny Rannell, wife of a carousel operator, who falls for handsome lifeguard Mickey Rubin (Justin Timberlake) until her hubby's estranged daughter Carolina (Juno Temple) resurfaces and vies for his attentions, causing her to unravel; does ? box office on a $25M budget. D.J. Caruso's xXx: Return of Xander Cage (Jan. 6) (Revolution Studios) (Paramount Pictures) stars Vin Diesel; does $155M box office on a $85M budget. Niki Caro's The Zookeeper's Wife (Mar. 8) (Focus Features), based on the 2007 book by Diane Ackerman stars Jessica Chastain and Johan Heldenbergh as Antonina and Jan Zabinski of the Warsaw Zoo, who rescue 300 Jews during WWII; does $27.6M box office on a $20M budget. Art: Tayeba Begum Lipi, Unveiling Womanhood; hijab and niqab made of razor blades. Lorenzo Quinn, Support (sculpture of giant hands rising from the water to symbolize climate change); made for the 2017 Venice Biennale. Plays: Poetry: C.K. Williams (1936-2015), Falling Ill: Last Poems (posth.) (Jan. 3). Births: Deaths: Portuguese pres. #17 (1986-96) and PM #105 (1983-5) Mario Soares (b. 1924) on Jan. 7 in Lisbon. Liberian politician Ruth Perry (b. 1939) on Jan. 8 in Columbus, Ohio. Iranian pres. #4 (1989-97) Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (b. 1934) on Jan. 8 in T*ehran (heart attack). Am. "The Lady Is a Trump", er, "The Lady Is a Tramp" jazz musician Buddy Greco (b. 1926) on Jan. 10 in Las Vegas, Nev.; sold 1M+ records. Am. astronaut Gene Cernan (b. 1934) on Jan. 16 in Houston, Tex. British-born Am. geneticist Oliver Smithies (b. 1925) on Jan. 10 in Chapel Hill, N.C.; 2007 Nobel Med. Prize. Am. "The Exorcist" novelist William Peter Blatty (b. 1928) on Jan. 12 in New York City. English photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, 1st earl of Snowdon (b. 1930) on Jan. 13 in Kensington, London. English "Kane in Alien" actor Sir John Hurt (b. 1940) on Jan. 25 in Cromer, Norfolk (pancreatic cancer). Hungarian politician Jozsef Torgyan (b. 1932) on Jan. 22 in Budapest. English scholar George Albert Wells (b. 1926) on Jan. 23. Am. actress Mary Tyler Moore (b. 1936) on Jan. 25 in Greenwich, Conn. (pneumonia). British Black Sabbath musician Geoff Nicholls (b. 1948) on Jan. 28 (lung cancer). Am. "Capt. Apollo in Battlestar Galactica" actor Richard Hatch (b. 1945) on Feb. 7 in Los Angeles, Calif. (pancreatic cancer). Swedish "Factfulness" physician Hans Rosling (b. 1948) on Feb. 7 in Uppsala (pancreatic cancer). U.S. "We Were Soldiers" lt. gen. Hal Moore (b. 1922) on Feb. 10 in Auburn, Ala. South Korean fallen heir Kim Jong-nam (b. 1971) on feb. 13 in Sepang District, Selangor, Malaysia (assassinated with nerve agent VX at Kuala Lumpur Airport). Egyptian Muslim terrorist leader "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman (b. 1938) on Feb. 18 in Butner Federal Prison, Granville County, N.C. Am. celeb plaintoff Jane Roe (Norma Leah McCorvey) (b. 1947) on Feb. 18 in Katy, Tex. Am. radio-TV journalist Alan Colmes (b. 1950) on Feb. 23 in Manhattan, N.Y. (lymphoma). Am. actor Bill Paxton on Feb. 25 in Los Angeles, Calif. (complications from heart surgery). Am. "People's Court Judge" Joseph Wapner (b. 1919) on Feb. 26 in Los Angeles, Calif. (respiratory failure). German-born Am. physicist Hans Georg Dehmelt (b. 1922) on Mar. 7 in Seattle, Wash.; 1989 Nobel Physics Prize. Am. "Johnny B. Goode", "Maybellene", "Roll Over Beethoven" hall-of-fame rocker Chuck Berry (b. 1926) on Mar. 18 in Wentzville (near St. Charles), Mo. (cardiac arrest); leaves a $50M estate: "I grew up thinking art was pictures until I got into music and found I was an artist and didn't paint." Am. journalist Jimmy Breslin (b. 1928) on Mar. 19 in Manhattan, N.Y. (pneumonia). Am. comedian Don Rickles (b. 1926) on Apr. 6 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (kidney failure). Am. judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam (b. 1952) on Apr 12 in New York City (suicide). Am. football player Aaron Hernandez (b. 1989) on Apr. 19 in Leominster, Mass. (suicide by hanging in jail). Am. "Joanie Cunningham in Joanie Loves Chachi" actress Erin Moran (b. 190) on Apr. 22 in Corydon, Ind. Turkish pres. #9 (9182-94) Mauno Koivisto (b. 1923) on May 12 in Helsinki. Am. Fox News CEO (1996-2016) Roger Ailes (b. 1940) on May 18 in Palm Beach, Fla. Am. Soundgarden/Audioslave rocker Chris Cornell (b. 1964) on May 18 in Detroit, Mich. (suicide). English "James Bond 007" actor Sir Roger Moore (b. 1927) on May 23 in Switzerland (cancer). Am. rocker Gregg Allman (b. 1947) on May 27 in Richmond Hill, Ga. Greek PM (1990-3) Constantine Mitsotakis (b. 1918) on May 29 in Athens. Panamanian dictator (1983-9) Manuel Noriega (b. 1934) on May 29 in Panama City (brain hemorrhage). Am.-born Nicaraguan diplomat Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann (b. 1933) on June 8 in Manuagua (stroke). Am. "Batman" actor Adam West (b. 1928) on June 9 in Los Angeles, Calif. (leukemia). English "Paddington Bear" children's writer Michael Bond (b. 1926) on June 27 in London. Egyptian Muslim Botherhood supreme leader (2004-10) Mohammed Mahdi Akef (b. 1928) on July 2. Trinidad-born Kiwi climate scientist Chris de Freitas (b. 1948) on July 5 in New Zealand. Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani (b. 1`977) on July 14 in Stanford, Calif. (breast cancer). Am.-Canadian "Night of the Living Dead" filmmaker George Andrew Romero (b. 1940) on July 16 in Toronto, Ont. (lung cancer). Am. "Rollin Hand in Mission: Impossible" "Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood" actor Martin Landau (b. 1928) on July 15 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. Linkin Park, Stone Temple Pilots singer Chester Bennington (b. 1976) on July 19/20 in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif. (suicide by hanging). Am. "Bronco" actor Ty Hardin (b. 1930) on Aug. 3 in Huntington Beach, Calif. Am. "Rhinestone Cowboy" singer Glen Campbell (b. 1936) on Aug. 8 in Nashville, Tenn. (Alzheimer's); released 70+ albums; sold 45M records incl. 29 top-10 and nine #1. Am. comedian Dick Gregory (b. 1932) on Aug. 19 in Washington, D.C. (heart failure). Am. comedian Jerry Lewis (b. 1926) on Aug. 20 in Las Vegas, Nev. German Nazi-era film actress Anneliese Uhlig (b. 1918) on June 17 in Santa Cruz, Calif. Am. poet John Ashbery (b. 1927) on Sept. 3 in Hudson, N.Y. Am. "I Believe in You" country singer Don Williams (b. 1939) on Sept. 8. Am. actor Harry Dean Stanton (b. 1926) on Sept. 15 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. Playboy mag. founder Hugh Hefner (b. 1926) on Sept. 27 in Los Angeles, Calif. Canadian-Am. "Let's Make a Deal" TV game show host Monty Hall (b. 1921) on Sept. 30 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (heart failure). Am. hall-of-fame rocker Tom Petty (b. 1950) on Oct. 2 in Santa Monica, Calif. (heart failure from accidental OD); sold 80M records worldwide. Am. football hall-of-fame QB Y.A. Tittle (b. 1926) on Oct. 8 in Stanford, Calif. Am. chess grandmaster Father William Lombardy (b. 1937) on Oct. 13 in Martinez, Calif. Italian mathematician Corrado Boehm (b. 1923) on Oct. 23 in Rome. Am. rock & roll demigod Fats Domino (b. 1928) on Oct. 24 in Harvey, La.; had 11 top-10 and 35 top-40 records. Am. publisher Samuel Irving Newhouse Jr. (b. 1927) on Oct. 1 in Manhattan, N.Y.; leaves a $9.5B fortune, #46 on the Forbes 100 List. Am. hall-of-fame pitcher Ray Halladay (b. 1977) on Nov. 7 in the Gulf of Mexico near Holiday, Fla. (airplane rash). Am. "Jonathan Quayle Higgins III in Magnum, P.I." actor John Hillerman (b. 1932) on Nov. 9 in Houston, Tex. Am. criminal mastermnd Charles Manson (b. 1934) on Nov. 19 in Bakersfield, Calif. Am. Partridge Family singer David Cassidy (b. 1950) on Nov. 21 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. U.S. postmaster gen. #58 (1968-9) William Marvin Watson (b. 1924) on Nov. 26 in The Woodlands, Tex. Egyptian actress-singer Shadia (b. 1931) on Nov. 28 in Cairo (stroke and pneumonia). U.S. liberal Rep. (R-Ill.) (1961-81) John Bayard Anderson (b. 1922) on Dec. 3 in Washington, D.C. Am. Filmways producer Martin Ransohoff (b. 1927) on Dec. 13 in Belair, Los Angeles, Calif.
2018 Doomsday Clock: 2 min. to midnight (worst since 1953). Chinese Year: Dog (Feb. 16). Time Mag. Person of the Year: Journalists Jamal Khashoggi et al., warriors in the "war on truth" In Trump's first year in office refugee admissions drop 70%, from 98,898 to 29,620 (decline of 69,278). This is the 4th hottest year on record after 2015-17; the first year since records began in 1950 with no killer (EF4 or EF5) tornadoes in the U.S.; also EF3?; global energy demand rises 2.3%, fastest in a decade. For the first time ever world pop. has more people over 64 than under 5. A mass exodus begins from the San Francisco Bay area in Calif. due to high housing costs combined with high crime and illegal immigrants; another mass exodus is happening in New York City, which is losing 100 residents/day, and the middle class has shrunk from 61% in the early 1970s to 48%. The GDP of the U.S.: $20.4T; China 14T (vs. $12T in 2017), Japan: $5.1T (vs. $4.87T in 2017), Germany: $4.2T, U.K. and France: $2.9T, India: $2.85T, Italy: $2.18T, Brazil: $2.14T, Canada: $1.8T. China's digital economy reaches 42% of the global e-commerce market, vs. less than 1% in 2008; the U.S. shares is down to 24% from 35% in 2005. homelessness in New York City reaches an all-time record of 133,284 unique individuals spending at least one night in a city shelter, becoming a 61% increase since fiscal year 2002. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos passes the $100B mark in wealth, becoming a first for the annual Forbes list of the world's wealthiest. The U.S. becomes a net exporter of oil for the first time in decades (since ?); avg. oil price: $71.31/barrel (vs. $54.19/barrel in 2017). The state of Calif. ranks no. 1 for the percentage of residents aged 25+ who have never finished 9th grade (9.7%) (Tex. is #2 at 8.5%), and 49th for high school grads (82.5%). According to the U.S. Justice Dept. 64% of arrests made by the federal govt. this year are of non-U.S. citizens, vs. 37% in 1998. The 2017/8 2017/18 Northern Hemisphere Mega-Winter btings record cold temps. and snow, incl. the coldest Super Bowl on record, Niagara Falls frozen over, the lowest temp. ever recorded in Bangladesh, frozen crops creating a food crisis in Europe et al. This is the least extreme climate year on record, and according to satellite data of the lower troposphere, the 6th warmest year since 1979 after 1998, 2010, 2015, 2016, and 2017. On Jan. 1 the 2018 Rose Bowl sees the 12-1 Ga. Bulldogs defeat the 12-1 Okla. Sooners in 2nd OT after Lorenzo Carter blocks a Sooners field goal and Sony Michel makes a 27-yard TD; the Sooners led 31-17 at halftime under Heisman Trophy-winning QB Baker Mayfield; the first Rose Bowl game to go to OT. On Jan. 1 (early a.m.) a large New Year's Eve Muslim mob in Champigny-sur-Mer, Paris, France attacks a female police officer and burns 1,031 cars (v. 935 in 2017); 510 are arrested (v. 456 in 2017). On Jan. 1 (1:30 a..m.) a Muslim gunman kills two Copts celebrating New Year in an alcohol shop in Giza, Egypt. On Jan. 1 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!", promising to withhold $255M in aid. On Jan. 1 the #TimesUp movement is founded by Hollywood celebs in response to #MeToo and the Weinstein Effect of people coming out of the woodwork to accuse powerful men of sexual misconduct, gleefully supported by the PC press. On Jan. 1 (12:30 p.m.) Muslim gunmen open fire on Christians returning from a church service in Omoku, Rivers State, Nigeria, killing 14+ and injuring 12. On Jan. 1 North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un gives a speech, in which he gloatingly issues the soundbyte that he has a nuclear button on his desk. On Jan. 1 Calif. legalizes recreational marijuana, anticipating a $100M/mo. industry. On Jan. 1 Baby Asel becomes the first newborn of 2018 in Austria - a Muslim. On Jan. 1 a new law in Iceland makes it illegal to pay women less than women. On Jan. 2 as anti-govt. protests rage in Iran while the Gulf countries rejoice, Pres Trump tweets the soundbyte: "The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their 'pockets.' The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!", causing Iran to accuse Trump of "grotesque" interference in its internal affairs. On Jan. 4 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. tops 25,000 for the first time. On Jan. 4 U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions announces a decision to rescind the 2013 Obama admin. policy restraining the feds from enforcing marijuana laws in states that legalize it, leaving discretion in the hands of each state's U.S. atty. On Jan. 5 the Iranian Resistance urges the U.N. Security Council to defend the "legitimate right of people of Iran to overthrow ruling religious fascism"; since the U.N. is a virtual puppet of the Org. of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), don't count on it? On Jan. 5-6 authorities close down the St. Catherine Monastery in Sinai, when the Cops hold Christmas church services; the excuse is developing a World Heritage Site plan, but the real reason is fear of Islamist attacks? On Jan. 7 18-y.-o. Austrian Muslim Lorenz K. is charged with plotting with a 12-y.-o. German Iraqi Muslim to bomb a Christmas market in Ludwigshaven. On Jan. 7 (Sun.) light snow falls in Ain Sefra, Algeria ("Gateway to the Sahara Desert"), becoming the first since Jan. 20, 2017. On Jan. 7 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbytes: "I've had to put up with the Fake News from the first day I announced that I would be running for President. Now I have to put up with a Fake Book, written by a totally discredited author. Ronald Reagan had the same problem and handled it well. So will I!", and "Now that Russian collusion, after one year of intense study, has proven to be a total hoax on the American public, the Democrats and their lapdogs, the Fake News Mainstream Media, are taking out the old Ronald Reagan playbook and screaming mental stability and intelligence. "Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius.... and a very stable genius at that!" On Jan. 7 (Sun.) (night) the 2018 (75th) Golden Globe Awards, held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., hosted by Seth Meyers award Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri the best motion picture - drama award, snubbing "Dunkirk", "The Post", and "The Shape of Water"; Lady Bird wins for best musical or comedy; Gary Oldman wins for best actor perf. in a drama for Darkest Hour, and Frances McDormand for best actress perf. in a drama for Three Billboards; James Franco wins for best actor perf. in a musical or comedy for The Disaster Artist, and Saoirse Ronan for Lady Bird; Sam Rockwell wins for best supporting actor for Three Billboards, and Allison Jannet for I, Tonya; after she is presented with a Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, uttering the soundbyte "I want all of the girls watching here now to know that a new day is on the horizon", the crowd clamors for Oprah Winfrey to run for U.S. pres., causing Pres. Trump to reply that he is not afraid to take anybody on; in an Oct. 1999 interview with Larry King, Trump uttered the soundbyte that "Oprah would always be my first choice", adding "She's a really great woman... She is a terrific woman. She is somebody that is very special." On Jan. 9 Pres. Trump holds an hour-long Conference on Immigration with Repub. and Dem. lawmakers, opening it to the press, calling for "a bill of life" that addresses DACA while ending chain migration, secures the border by building a wall, and cancels the visa lottery program; at the private meeting he allegedly utters the soundbyte: "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?", referring to Haiti and Africa, adding that he prefers people from countries like Norway, pissing-off the PC police, who call him a racist and ignore the fact that he's right because that's what they are?; on Jan. 11 Trump enemy John O. Brennan tweets the soundbyte: "Lady Liberty, our founding fathers, and generations of right-thinking Americans are all weeping tonight over the atrocious comments attributed to Donald Trump, who continues to demonstrate daily that he is a deeply flawed person"; Trump really said shithouse?; several meeting attendees later deny hearing the s-word; speaking of shithole, Dirty Denver, Colo., known for being run by leftist Dems. makes the city a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants, and makes them feel welcome by reducing punishment for public shitting. On Jan. 9 the Tex. State U. Star student newspaper pub. an op-ed titled Your DNA is an abomination by Trump-hating Hispanic senior Rudy Martinez, causing a firestorm of controversy with soundbytes incl. "White death will mean liberation for all", [Whiteness is] "a construct used to perpetuate a system of racist power", "White is over! If you want it", "Whiteness will be over because we want it to be. And when it dies, there will be millions of cultural zombies aimlessly wandering across a vastly changed landscape", and "Until then, remember this: I hate you because you shouldn't exist. You are both the dominant apparatus on the planet and the void in which all other cultures, upon meeting you, die." On Jan. 9-10 night protests throughout Tunisia cause police to injure dozens and arrest 206, while losing 49 wounded. On Jan. 10 the Southern Calif. Mudslides in Montecito, Calif. kill 20+. On Jan. 13 a false missile alert is sent in the Hawaiian Islands, causing panic until it is canceled after 38 min. On Jan. 15 two suicide bombers detonate on a busy street in Tayyaran Square in Baghdad, Iraq, killing 38+ and injuring 105. On Jan. 15 David Turpin (1960-) and Louise Turpin (1968-) are arrested after one of their daughters escapes their prison-like home in Perris, Calif. and rats on how they have been keeping her 12 siblings ages 2-29 prisoner and starving them; they are charged with torture. On Jan. 15 (night) Pope Francis arrives in Santiago, Chile, where he faces protests over failure to punish child molesting priest Fernando Karadima. On Jan. 16 (2:00 a.m.) British Muslim Yusuf Aka (1995-) launches a jihadist knife attack at a hospital in Nottinghamshire, stabbing a man before being confronted by a female nurse; on Aug. 24 he pleads guilty and is sentenced to five years. On Jan. 16 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. hits 26,000 for the first time ever. On Jan. 16 the U.S. Depts. of Justice and Homeland Security release a report saying that 73% of 402 people convicted in federal courts on internat. terrorism-related chartes between 9/11 and Dec. 31, 2016 were foreign-born, with 148 naturalized, and that 1,716 aliens "with national security concerns were removed from the U.S., while in 2017 the DHS had "encounters" with thousands of people attempting to enter the U.S. who were in the FBI's Terrorist Screening Database. On Jan. 17 two captive 13-y.-o. girls working for Boko Haram kill 12 and injure dozens in a suicide attack in a market in Maiduguri, Nigeria. On Jan. 18 British PM Theresa May meets with French PM Emannuel Macron in Sandhurst after Britain promises to pay more for border security in Muslim-overrrun Calais. On Jan. 18 U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson utters the soundbyte that the U.S. will maintain an open-ended military presence in Syria to ensure defeat of ISIS because Pres. Trump doesn't want to "make the same mistake" Pres. Obama made in 2001; there are currently 2K U.S. troops in Syria. On Jan. 19 (a.m.) a Muslim inmate at French-run Borgo Prison in Corsica attacks and stabs two guards while shouting "Allahu Akbar". On Jan. 19/20 (midnight) after Congress deadlocks over the Dreamers, the U.S. govt. shuts down (until ?), with each party blaming the other; it reopens on Jan. 23 after one business day. On Jan. 20 the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. reaches 19,827.25 (up 94.85), growing 31% in Pres. Trump's first year in office, highest since FDR in 1933. On Jan. 20 the 1st anniv. of the inauguration of Pres. Trump sees Women's March demonstrations across the U.S. in protest of his rhetoric and policies, which doesn't phase him, causing him to tweet about "the historic milestones and unprecedented economic success and wealth creation that has taken place over the last 12 months" and "Lowest female unemployment in 18 years". On Jan. 20 19-y.-o. Muslim ex-student Truza Jamal Hassan (1998-) is arrested for setting eight small fires around the campus of St. Catherine U. in Minneapolis, Minn. in retaliation for U.S. attacks on Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, telling police: "You guys are lucky that I don't know how to build a bomb", claiming that she "wanted the school to burn to the ground and that her intent was to hurt people." On Jan. 20 (9:00 p.m. local time) six Taliban militants begin a siege at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, which ends after 13 hours with 18 dead incl. 14 foreigners after 150 guests shimmying down bedsheets to escape. On Jan. 20 Turkey launches air strikes on Kurdish YPG fighters in Kurdish Afrin on the Turkish-Syrian border to eliminate the U.S.-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), causing civilians to organize a human shield to protect them on Mar. 10. On Jan. 22 U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence addresses the Israeli Knesset, announcing U.S. plans to move their embassy to Jerusalem next year. On Jan. 22 a motorcycle bomb explodes in a pork stall in mostly Muslim Yala Province, S Thailand, killing three and injuring 22. On Jan. 22 a draft report by the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security at the request of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner Kevin McAleenan calls for long-term surveillance of "at-risk" Sunni Muslim immigrants. On Jan. 23 a 15-y.-o. boy shoots up Marshall County H.S. in Benton, Ky., killing two students and injuring 18 before being arrested. On Jan. 24 (9:00 a.m. local time) a suicide car bomb on a Save the Children office in Jalalabad, Afghanistan followed by an RPG attack kills three and injuring 26; ISIS claims responsibility. On Jan. 24 two car bombs near a mosque in Benghazi, Libya kill 27 and injure 20-30. On Jan. 24 Pres. Trump meets with reporters and utters the soundbyte that he's flopping and supporting eventual citizenship for the Dreamers, with the soundbyte: "We're going to morph into it." On Jan. 25-6 the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is attended by Pres. Trump, who gives a speech on Jan. 26, saying "America is open for business", with the soundbytes: "Now is the perfect time to bring your business, your jobs, and your investments to the U.S.", "America is open for business and we are competitive once again", "As president of the United States, I will always put American first just as the leaders of other countries should put their countries first", causing misnamed U.N. human rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein to utter the soundbyte: "It's the script of the 20th century. He urged all countries to pursue their own interest, almost without reference to the fact that if you do all of that, if each country is narrowly pursuing its agenda, it will clash with the agendas of others and we will take the world back to 1913 once again." On Jan. 25 2-day Last Hope Syria Peace Talks by the U.N. begin in Vienna. On Jan. 26 the Trump-hating New York Times claims that Pres. Trump ordered special counsel Robert Mueller fired last June, but backed down when his atty. Daniel McGahn threatened to quit; Trump calls it fake news - Trump back down? On Jan. 26 the 2018 Paris Flood starts after rains stop. On Jan. 26 House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) addresses the Conference on Mayors, letting the cat out of the bag with the soundbyte that the real goal of Pres. Trump's proposed immigration plan is "to make America white again"; new non-white immigrants however, "make America more American". On Jan. 27 a Taliban suicide bomber in an ambulance detonates at a police checkpoint in Kaboom, er, Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 103 and injuring 235. On Jan. 28 (Sun.) pres. elections in Finland give a landslide V to incumbent Sauli Niinisto, who wins 62.7% of the vote. On Jan. 28 a proposed Polish law to make it a crime to claim that Poland helped the Nazis in WWII pisses-off Israel. On Jan. 29 (7:30 a.m. local time) Am. Muslim Khalil Lawal (b. 1986) of Arlington, Va. in a black Honda plows into pedestrians in South Philadelphia, Penn., injuring one before being killed by an off-duty cop; terrorism is suspected, but the police don't release his name until Jan. 30, his Facebook page revealing that he is a member of Jannah Al-Firdaus, whose motto is "Jannah (Paradise) is my Goal". On Jan. 29 deputy FBI dir. Andrew McCabe abruptly resigns (really fired?). On Jan. 30 (9:00 p.m. EDT) Pres. Trump delivers his 80-min. 2018 State of the Union Speech, ignoring the hype that he would present a softer milder version of himself, calling his first year in office an "extraordinary success", calling for a "new American moment", and castigating Dems. repeatedly esp. on immigration, backing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers as long as chain migration is prevented, with the soundbyte: "Americans are dreamers too", using the word "America" 80+ times and getting 111 standing ovations; he calls for $1.5T in federal funds to revamp the U.S. infrastructure, with states providing support, says that U.S. foreign aid should "only go to friends of America", calls for the removal of "federal employees who undermine the public trust or fail the American people", and says "One of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs"; when he notes that black 6.8%) and Hispanic unemployment is now the lowest in history, Dem. blacks and Hispanics refuse to clap; he unexpectedly announces that he has revoked Pres. Obama's 2009 order to close Gitmo, saying that the may send more POWs there when necessary; too bad, Jan. employment statistics reveal that black unemployment has shot back up to 7.7%, highest since Trump took office in Jan. 2017. On Jan. 30 Pres. Trump signs the U.S. Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Va. Federal Recognition Act of 2017, granting federal recognition to six Native Am. tribes recognized by Va. On Jan. 30 Am. Muslim teenie girl Maarib Al Hishmawi (2001-) is reporting missing after leaving Taft H.S. in Bexar County, Tex.; in Mar. she is located, revealing that her parents beat her with broomsticks and poured hot cooking oil on her for refusing a $20K arranged marriage. On Jan. 31 (early a.m.) a super blue blood Moon. On Jan. 31 an Amtrak train carrying dozens of Repub. members of Congress and staff to a retreat at the Greenbrier in W. Va. crashes into a truck near Charlottesville, Va., killing truck driver Christopher Foley (b. 1989). On Jan. 31 Judicial Watch releases 42 pages of documents showing that the Obama admin. tried to undermine Pres. Trump's new admin. by releasing classified Russian intel. just before his inauguration to U.S. Sen. (D-Md.) Ben Cardin of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In late Jan. the Inaugural U.S.-Qatar Strategic Dialogue is followed on Feb. 1 by the launch of the Gulf Internat. Forum. In late Jan. an open letter signed by 200+ pro-global warming scientists incl. Michael E. Mann and Katharine Hayhoe calls on the Am. Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City to remove wealthy climate change denier and Pres. Trump supporter Rebekah "Bekah" Mercer (1973-) (backer of Breitbart) from its board, and to "end ties to anti-science propagandists and funders of climate science misinformation", causing a group of you know whats incl. Willie Soon, Will Happer, Richard Lindzen, Craig Idso, and Geoffrey Duffy to send AMNH an open letter begging them "not to cave in to this pressure", with the soundbyte: "The Earth has supported abundant life many times in the geological past when there were much higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is quite likely that future generations will benefit from the enrichment of Earth's atmosphere with more carbon dioxide. Make no mistake, the agitators are not defending science from quackery - quite the contrary!" In Jan. the Nutella Brawls in France begin when the Intermarche supermarket chain drops the price of a 950g jar from €4.50 to €1.41. In Jan. former U.S. secy. of state John Kerry meets with top PLO negotiator Hussein Agha in London, telling him to "be strong", "play for time", and "not yield to President Trump's demands", urging him to attack Trump personally, like he did a year earlier when he cursed Trump with the soundbyte "May your house be destroyed". In Jan. after all the shadow banning and deplatforming of non-PC people, Am. mathematical physicist Eric Ross Weinstein (1965-) coins the term "intellectual dark web" for the few remaining YouTube personalities who refuse to tow the orthodox PC line and actually think for themselves and debate unpopular issues. In Jan. Project Veritas reveals the Twitter practice of "shadow banning", secretly banning users for their conservative content by making sure their posts are not seen by other users; in combo with Google they are effectively skewing election results and opening the West to Muslim takeover? In Jan. U.S. unemployment is 4.1% for the 4th straight month, with 200K new jobs and a 2.9% increase in wages (vs. 2.7% in Dec.), largest year-over-year increase since June 2009. On Feb. 2 after tweeting the soundbyte "The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans - something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people!", Pres. Trump orders the release of a 4-page classified memo by Repub. House Intel Committee chmn. Devin Nunes revealing that FBI Dir. James Comey used a discredited 35-page anti-Trump dossier to obtain a FISA court warrant to engage in surveillance on volunteer Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page, pissing-off the Dems., who claim that Trump is using it to discredit the Robert Mueller Trump-Russia witchhunt, er, investigation. On Feb. 3 the 2-week-old (since Jan. 20) Turkish military attack on Syrian Kurdish militia-held Afrin, N Syria results in the killing of eight Turkish troops. On Feb. 4 (2:45 a.m. local time) an Amtrak Silver Star passenger train en route from New York City to Miami, Fla. slams into a parked freight train 10 mi. S of Columbia, S.C., killing two crew and injuring 100+. On Feb. 4 140K protest in Syntagma Square in Athens, Greece over allowing the Former Yugoslav Repub. of Macedonia to keep its name, calling it Skopje instead and pointing to the Greek province of Macedonia. On Feb. 4 an air raid by the Saudi-led coalition hits a police bldg. in Sana'a, Yemen, killing eight. On Feb. 4 Israeli PM Benjamin announces plans to legalize the isolated West Bank outpost of Havat Gilad in response to the murder of a father of six who lived there. On Feb. 5 (Wild Mon.) (day after Super Bowl Sun.) the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. plunges almost 1,600 points (6%) before ending the day down 1,179 points (4%), erasing gains for the year; the S&P Index falls 4%, losing $1T in market capitalization; on Feb. 6 the Dow recovers by 567 points. On Feb. 5 an Iraqi govt. spokesman announces to the AP that U.S. troops have started to draw down from Iraq after Baghdad's declaration of victory over ISIS last year. On Feb. 5 anti-Trump U.S. Rep. (D-Calif.) (2013-) Eric Michael Swalwell Jr. (1980-) introduces the U.S. Journalist Protection Act, making it a federal crime for Pres. Trump, er, to intimidate journalists to protect them from the "toxic environment created by Trump. On Feb. 5-7 the Alliance of Virtue for the Common Good Conference in the Marriot Marquis Hotel in Washington, D.C., run by Mauritanian-born Muslim cleric Sheikh Abdullah bin Bayyah hosts Sam Brownback and other U.S. officials. On Feb. 6 (night) a 6.4 earthquake hits Hualien, Taiwan, killing 7+. On Feb. 7 Am. Muslim Munther Omar Saleh (1995-) is sentenced to 18 years in federal prison after admitting to plotting a jihad massacre in New York City for ISIS. On Feb. 7 the 19-member U.N. NGO Committee of the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) meets in New York City, rejecting applications from TWO U.S.-based groups fighting for human rights in Iran and North Korea, the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) (founded 2004) and the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) (founded in 2001), which U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley calls "shameful". On Feb. 8 a Rasmussen poll gives Pres. Trump's job approval rating as 48%, vs. 44 for Pres Obama at the same point in his presidency. On Feb. 9 (a.m.) after the federal govt. shuts down overnight and 73 Dems. switch to offset 67 Repubs., giving a 71-28 Senate vote at 2:00 a.m., followed by a 240-186 House vote at 5:30 a.m., Pres. Trump signs budget law boosting spending by hundreds of billions of dollars incl. $300B for military programs, pissing-off Ky. Sen. Rand Paul, who held the vote up until the last minute, with the soundbyte: "How come you were against President Obama's deficits and then how come you're for Republican deficits?" On Feb. 9 Egypt launches Operation Sinai 2018 to purge the region of Islamist terrorists. On Feb. 9 a U.N. committee urges Spain to ban children under 18 from bullfights and bullfighting schools to prevent "harmful effects". On Feb. 9 shy introverted Muslim Bangladeshi scholarship student Momena Shoma (1993-) stabs her 56-y.-o. homestay host Roger Singaravelu in the neck in Melbourne, Australia after practicing on a mattress, later telling police she was "acting on behalf of the Caliphate" and that she had not come to Australia to study but to kill in the name of Allah, appearing in court in a niqab clamming to be an ISIS soldier, refusing to stand or enter a plea; on June 8, 2019 she is sentenced to max sentence of 42 years in jail, becoming the first in Australia to be convicted of violent jihad. On Feb. 9 a 250m 130-tonne Monster Fatberg found last year goes on display at the Museum of London, composed of sewer clog. On Feb. 10 after House Dem. Adam Schiff sends him a spin memo, Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "The Democrats sent a very political and long response memo which they knew, because of sources and methods (and more), would have to be heavily redacted, whereupon they would blame the White House for lack of transparency. Told them to re-do and send back in proper form!" On Feb. 10 (early a.m.) (one day before the 39th anniv. of the Iranian Islamic Rev.) an Iranian drone (UAV) enters Israeli airspace from Syria, causing the IAF to shoot it down and Syrian AA batteries to respond, hitting an Israeli F-16 that crashes in Israeli territory, critically injuring one pilot, after which the IAF raids Syria, hitting 12 targets, becoming their biggest attack against Syria since the 1982 Lebanon war, and Israel warns Iran over its continuing presence in Syria; on Feb. 12 the big rally in Tehran sees hundreds of thousands curse the U.S. as "enemy number one"; on Feb. 20 U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley gives a speech to the U.N. Security Council, with the soundbytes: "Israel, like any other country, has a right to defend itself and its borders. The Israeli people face the frightening escalation of Islamic terror acts through Israel. The Palestinian Authority refuses to take the most basic steps towards ensuring peace with Israel, and instead incites terrorism. Textbooks in Gaza and the West Bank teach children that Israel has no right to exist. They teach their children to hate Jews. The Hamas charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and the Jewish people"; "The West must stop embracing Islam-based hatred of Israel." On Feb. 10 a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone destroys a Russian-made T-72 battle tank in Syria after U.S. special ops come under attack by pro-Assad forces. On Feb. 10 (11:30 a.m.) police officers Anthony "Tony" Morelli (b. 1963) and Eric Joering (b. 1978) are shot and killed in Westerville, Ohio after responding to a 911 hangup call. On Feb. 11 U.S. secy. of state Rex Tillerson arrives in Cairo, Egypt to kick off a tour of five Middle Eastern countries; meanwhile Egypt launches an offensive against Islamist militants in the Sinai Peninsula. On Feb. 11 a street vendor's gas canister explodes at a carnival in Oruro, Bolivia, killing eight and injuring 40+. On Feb. 12 a Russian An-148 regional jet crashes shortly after takeoff from Domodedovo Airport in Orsk, Russia, killing all 65 passengers and six crew. On Feb. 13 a Turkish patrol boat rams a Greek coast guard boat off Imia Island, over which Turkey claims sovereignty. On Feb. 14 a truck carrying African migrants crashes S of Bani Walid, Libya, killing 19 and injuring 100+. On Feb. 13 Plano, Tex. city councilman Tom Harrison (Methodist) is attacked by local Muslim groups for calling for Islam to be banned from public schools in a Facebook post, with mayor Harry LaRosiliere calling on him to resign, after which he eats crow, with the soundbyte: "My intent on inputting this on my personal Facebook page was to emphasize that Christianity is not the only religion being targeted for exclusion in our public school"; part of a Muslim conspiracy to supplant Christianity in U.S. public schools? On Feb. 14 (2:21 p.m.) (Valentine's Day) 19-y.-o. expelled JROTC student Nikolas Jacob Cruz (1998-) shoots up 3.3K-student Marjory Stoneman Douglas H.S. in Parkland, Fla. 45 mi. N of Miami with an AR-15-style assault rifle after tossing in smoke grenades that set off fire alarms, then pick them off as they pour out, killing 17 and injuring 15 before being trying to melt in with the fleeing students and getting arrested, becoming the 18th U.S. school shooting of the year and highest kill count since Columbine H.S. in Colo. (13); on Feb. 14 (night) the board of Hanover School District 28 30 mi. SE of Colorado Springs, Colo. votes 3-2 to allow school employees to be armed on the job; it later emerges that four armed Broward County deputies hid outside the school while the shooting was going on, making public statements by Coral Springs police chief Tony Pustizzi blaming the NRA seem lame. On Feb. 14 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu rejects calls to step down after police recommend his indictment on corruption charges. On Feb. 14, 2018 (night) after a vote of no-confidence, "the Lying King" South African pres. Jacob Zuma resigns after nine years, and on Feb. 15 wealthy businessman (ANC pres. since Dec. 18, 2017) Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa (1952-) (Nelsa Mandela's choice) becomes pres. #5 of South Africa (until ?), becoming the first from the Venda ethnic group, going on to commit the African Nat. Congress (ANC) to land expropriation from white farmers, with ANC chmn. uttering the soundbyte "You shouldn't own more than 24,000 acres of land" in early Aug., causing concerns that South Africa may be "Zimbabweficated". On Feb 14 a New York federal judge blocks Pres. Trump's Sept. 2017 executive order overturning Pres. Obama's order creating the DACA program. On Feb. 15 Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah brags that it will have 500K missiles aimed at Israel within a year - thanks to Obama? On Feb. 15 Russia admits that five Russian citizens were killed by U.S.-led coalition forces in a bombing of pro-govt. Syrian fighters, becoming their first admission of non-military casualties in Syria. On Feb. 16 U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller indicts 13 Russians and 3 Russian cos. for unsuccessfully attempting to disrupt the 2016 U.S. pres. election by assuming false U.S. identities, being careful to state that any Trump campaign people they contacted were unaware of their true identities, causing Pres. Trump to tweet "The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong - no collusion!" On Feb. 16 after being arrested in 2016, Muslim jihadist Tamim Khaja (1997-) is sentenced for planning a massacre in Sydney, Australia, saying he wanted to use "maximum fire". On Feb. 16 (night) three female Boko Haram suicide bombers detonate in a crowded fish market in Konduga (near Maiduguri), Borno, Nigeria, killing 18+ and injuring 22. On Feb. 18 ISIS militants ambush the pro-govt. Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) (PMF) in Hawija, Kirkuk, Iraq, killing 24+. On Feb. 18 (Sun.) Allah Akbar-screaming ISIS gunman Khalil al-Dagestani (Halilov Khalil Umarovich) opens fire with a hunting rifle on people leaving an Orthodox church service in Kizlyar Dagestan, Russia on the Chechen border, killing four woman and fatally injuring a 5th before police kill him, after two officers are injured; ISIS claims responsibility. On Feb. 18 Syrian warplanes begin bombing Eastern Ghouta (near Damascus), Syria, last rebel enclave in Syria, killing 335 and injuring 1.2K by Feb. 22, when the U.N. pleads for a truce. On Feb. 18 the 2018 Calif. Wildfires begin with the Pleasant Fire in Inyo County, burning 2,070 acres by the time it is contained on Apr. 19; on June 11 the Lions fire in Madera County burns 7.8K+ acres before it is contained on ?; on June 30 the multi-county Lake-Napa-Yolo County Fire burns 90,288 acres before being contained on July 14; on July 6 record high temps are set at UCLA (111), Burbank (114), Santa Ana (114), Van Nuys (117), and Chino (120); on July 13 the Ferguson Fire in Mariposa County burns 94K+ acres before being contained on ?; on July 23 the Carr Fire in Shasta burns 167K+ acres before being contained on ?; on July 26 Redding, Calif. hits 133F as the Carr fire races out of control and causes deaths; on July 27 the Mendocino Complex Fire in Mendocino-Lake-Colusa Counties burns 283K+ acres before being contained on?; in July Fresno, Calif. reaches 100F or higher for 26 straight days, and Palm Springs, Calif. has a record July avg. temp of 97.4F, while Scripps Pier in San Diego, Calif. reaches a record 78.8F surface water temp; on Aug. 4 a nat. disaster is declared in N Calif after 4,983 fires burn 610,266 acres (2,469.66 sq. km), becoming the largest in Calif. history; on Aug. 6 twin fires N of San Francisco, Calif.; the years with the warmest summertime min. Calif. temps are 2017 (top), 2015, 2014, 2006, 2016, and 2003; manmade global warming is not a major factor, with U.S. Geological Survey fire scientist Jon Keeley uttering the soundbyte: "What's changing is not the fires themselves but the fact that we have more and more people at risk", U.S. interior secy. Ryan Zinke uttering the soundbyte: "We have been held hostage by these environmentalist terrorist groups that have not allowed public access, that refuse to allow harvest of timber", and anti-environmentalist Paul Driessen (1948-) blaming environmentalists, with the soundbyte: "Eco-purists want no cutting, no thinning - no using fire retardants in 'sensitive' areas because the chemicals might get into streams that will be boiled away by conflagrations. They prevent homeowners from clearing brush around their homes, because it might provide cover or habitat for endangered species and other critters that will get incinerated or lose their forage, prey and habitats in the next blaze. They rarely alter their policies during drought years. The resulting fires are not the 'forest-rejuvenating' blazes of environmentalist lore. They are cauldron-hot conflagrations that exterminate wildlife habitats, roast bald eagle and spotted owl fledglings alive in their nests, boil away trout and trout streams, leave surviving animals to starve, and incinerate every living organism in already thin soils.. that then get washed away during future downpours and snow melts. Areas incinerated by such fires don't recover their arboreal biodiversity for decades." On Feb. 20 the Fla. State House of Reps passes HR 157, declaring porno a "public health risk". On Feb. 20 Palestinian Authority pres. (since Jan. 15, 2005) Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) (1935-) gives a speech to the U.N. Security Council, accusing the Trump admin. of abdicating its commitment to an independent Palestinian state, calling for an internat. peace conference under U.N. not U.S. sponsorship; when he abruptly exits stage left after his speech, U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley utters the soundbyte: "Our negotiators are sitting right behind me, ready to talk. We will not chase after you. The choice, Mr. President, is yours." On Feb. 20 after Pres. Trump tweets that he has been tougher on Russia then Pres. Obama, ex-CIA dir. John O. Brennan tweets the soundbyte: "It never ceases to amaze me how successful you have been making yourself so small, petty, and banal with your tweets. Your insecurity is well deserved, as is your concern over Russia investigation." On Feb. 21 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu announces that Israel intel services have thwarted an ISIS plot to blow up a plane from Sydney, Australia using an IED inside a meat mincer. On Feb. 21 Canadian PM Justin Trudeau visits India, incl. the Golden Temple of Amritsar, wearing Indian garb. On Feb. 21 Iranian senior official Mohsen Rezai gives an interview on Al-Manar TV, containing the soundbyte: "If Israel takes even the smallest step [against Iran], we will annihilate Tel Aviv and raze it to the ground." On Feb. 22 Muslim immigrant Munir Mohammed (1980-) of Derby, England is sentenced to life in prison (min. 14 years) for plotting a jihadist massacre; his pharmacist wife Rowaida El-Hassan is given 12 years. On Feb. 23-25 the Nation of Islam celebrate's Saviour's Day (birhday of founder Wallace Fard Muhammad) in Chicago, Ill.; leader Louis Farrakhan gives a speech, with the soundbytes: "White folks are going down. And Satan is going down. And Farrakhan, by God's grace, has pulled the cover off the eyes of that Satanic Jew, and I'm here to say your time is up, your world is through"; "Jews were responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out" and are "the children of the devil"; "When you want something in this world, the Jew holds the door." On Feb. 24 the Great Britain and Ireland Cold Wave (Beast from the East) begins (ends Mar. 19), caused by a large Arctic air mass with anticyclonic structure stretching from E Russia to the British Isles and centered on Scandinavia. On Feb. 24 Oakland, Calif. Dem. mayor Libby Schaaf issues a warning to illegals about an upcoming ICE sweep, causing calls for her prosecution. On Feb. 24 Aid to the Church in Need turns the Roman Colosseum red to commemorate the massacres of Christians in the Middle East by Muslims. On Feb. 25 Mafia whistleblower Jan Kuciak is found shot dead in his home along with fiancee Martina Kusnirovaafter pub. a report on the "Italian track" of figures with Mafia connections, causing Slovak police on Mar. 1 to arrest several Italian businessmen named in the report incl. Antonino Vadala, alleged to have links with the 'Ndrangeta crime syndicate. On Feb. 26 the 37th Session of the U.N. Human Rights Council convenes, with U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein complaining of "violations of human rights which should have served as a trigger for preventative action" (meaning alleged Israeli oppression of Palestinians, not his oppression of his people?), calling for a Code of Conduct to stop the U.S. and other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council from making "pernicious use" of their veto against resolutions condemning Israel, like the U.S. has done 43x. On Feb. 26 the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rules that Title VII of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act protects gays from being fired from their jobs by straining to find a loophole in the wording, making hay of its wording of "sex" instead of "gender", with the soundbyte: "Sexual orientation discrimination is a subset of sex discrimination because sexual orientation is defined by one's sex in relation to the sex of those to whom one is attracted, making it impossible for an employer to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation without taking sex into account"; too bad, the Act doesn't mention sexual orientation, and they legislated from the bench? - lonely days, lonely nights, where would I be without my woman? On Feb. 27 (night) Taliban fighters in S Afghanistan on the Kandahar-Uruzgan border kidnap 30 incl. 19 policemen, and kill six policemen in two separate attacks. On Feb. 27 Bernard Augustine (1996-) of Keyes (near Modesto), Calif. is arrested for trying to join ISIS after traveling to Tunisia in 2016. On Feb. 27 after a proposal by white-hating Marxist radical Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the parliament of South Africa by 241-83 votes to confiscate land owned by white farmers without paying compensation; on Aug. 23 Pres. Trump issues a tweet asking U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo to study land confiscation and "large scale killing of farmers" in South Africa, causing the rand to fall 1.3% and the African Nat. Congress to criticize Trump for "this narrow perception which only seeks to divide our nation and reminds us of our colonial past." On Feb. 28 after a Congressional committee trips her up into admitting that she told "white lies" on Pres. Trump's behalf on Feb. 27, Hope Charlotte Hicks (1988-) announces her intention to resign as White House communications dir., becoming Trump's longest-serving political aide. On Feb. 28 Pres. Trump stuns Repubs. by embracing gun control on live TV at the White House, urging lawmakers to ressurect gun safety legislation they opposed for years; too bad, Congress does nothing as usual. In Feb. the Hungarian legislature introduces a Stop Soros Bill to "empower the interior minister to ban non-governmental organizations [NGOs] that support migration and pose a national security risk", causing Soros to relocate his Central European U. to Vienna. In Feb. U.S. unemployment is 4.1% for the 5th straight month, with 6.7M unemployed, adding 235K jobs, 200K+ in seven of the last 12 mos., incl. 31K manufacturing jobs, 263K since Dec. 2016. On Mar. 1 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin delivers his annual state of the nation address, bragging about new "invincible" doomsday weapons incl. a nuclear-tipped torpedo. On Mar. 1 Pres. Trump announces a tariff of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum imports, pissing-off Repubs., who call it a massive tax increase. On Mar. 1 the state of Calif. is ranked last among U.S. states in quality of life; Los Angeles County has 58K homeless people, up 46% in 2013-17. On Mar. 1 Winter (False Tropical) Storm Riley (Mar. 2018 Nor'Easter). On Mar. 2 the nat. army HQ and French embassy in Ougadougou, Burkina Faso are attacked by Allah-Akbar-shouting jihadists, killing seven plus six attackers; al-Qaida's Mali branch JNIM (Group for Support of Islam and Muslims) claims credit. On Mar. 2 a car bomb near an Australian embassy convoy in E Afghanistan kills one child and injures several. On Mar. 2 British police announce the conviction of three Muslims incl. ringleader Umar Ahmed Haque (1992-) of Barking, East London on terrorism charges for planning to recruit 55 children for attacks in London. On Mar. 2 former CIA dir. John Brennan utters the soundbyte that Pres. Trump is "unstable, inept, inexperienced, and also unethical". On Mar. 2 17-y.-o. Muslim convert Lloyd Gunton is jailed indefinitely (at least 11 years) for planning an "act of atrocity" in Cardiff, England during a Justin Bieber concert. On Mar. 2 21-y.-o. Tunisian Muslim immigrant Ismail Tommaso Hosni (1996-) is sentenced to seven years for a knife attack on two soldiers and a railway police officer in Milan, Italy in May; the judge reduces his 10-year sentence for mental illness. ON Mar. 30 Cameron Ross Burgess (b. 1991) of Maylene, Ala. shoots himself to death outside the White House. On Mar. 4 after the Houthi militia closes gasoline filling stations for a 6th straight day, protests in Sana'a, Yemen by tens of civilians in front of the secretariat bldg. On Mar. 4 after people tell the EU to stuff it with their desire for more immigration, gen. elections in Italy are a V for the center-right Matteo Salvini's League and anti-establishment Five Star Movement, with the center-left coalition led by former PM Matteo Renzi coming in 3rd, resulting in a hung parliament; Italy's Innovation and Economic Development Centre calls the result "the greatest affirmation of anti-establishment parties in the panorama of Western Europe since the post-war period." On Mar. 4 former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter are found unconscious on a beach in S England, which is later determined to be from poisoning, causing a cabinet-level meeting to be held on Mar. 7 as London's Metropolitan Police counterterrorism unit takes over the investigation, which fingers Russian pres. Vladimir Putin; on Mar. 14 Britain expels 23 Russian diplomats, causing Russia to do ditto with 23 British diplomats, and the U.S. to ditto on Mar. 26 with 60 Russian diplomats, and Russia to do ditto on Mar. 29 with 60 U.S. diplomats. On Mar. 4 after being delayed for the 2018 Winter Olympics, the 90th (2018) Academy Awards, presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. are hosted by Jimmy Kimmel (first to repeat since Billy Crystal in 1997-8); "The Shape of Water" (13 nominations) wins four Oscars incl. best picture and best dir. for Guillermo del Toro; "Dunkirk" (8 nominations) wins three Oscars; rare retro white straight male Gary Oldman wins best actor for "Darkest Hour"; female Frances McDormand wins best actress for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" (seven nominations), and Sam Rockwell wins best supporting actor; female Allison Janney wins best supporting actress for "I, Tonya"; black Jordan Peele wins best original screenplay for "Get Out", and gay James Ivory wins best adapted screenplay for "Call Me by Your Name"; "Coco" wins for best animated feature film; the most ridiculous and irrelevant best picture Oscar yet?; the new diversity members of the Academy wouldn't vote for a too-white film, allowing one with a Mexican dir. to come to the top by default no matter how silly his film?; no wonder that ratings dropped 19% from last year, continuing a multi-year slide. On Mar. 5 Iran claims that if the U.S. pulls out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it can produce 20% enriched uranium in only 48 hours. On Mar. 5 Hungary presents a 12-point "security first" proposal to the U.N. to counter its Global Compact for Migration, which Pres. Trump chucked in Dec., calling it a "no borders plan". On Mar. 6 a South Korean delegation returns a meeting with Kim Jong-un in North Korea, with the claim that North Korea is willing to hold denuclearization talks with the U.S. while suspending nuclear tests. On Mar. 6 the U.S. Justice Dept. sues the state of Calif. for passing laws hindering enforcement of federal immigration law and endangering federal agents, with U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions uttering the soundbyte: "The Department of Justice and the Trump administration are going to fight these unjust, unfair, and unconstitutional policies that have been imposed on you." On Mar. 6 Gary Cohn, Pres. Trump's chief economic advisor (since Jan. 20, 2017) announces his resignation over disagreement about tariffs; on Mar. 15 Pres. Trump appoints Lawrence Alan "Larry" Kudlow (1947-) as his successor (until ?). On Mar. 6 Am. Muslim Ali Muhammad Brown (1984-) of Seattle, Wash. pleads guilty to murdering 19-y.-o. college student Brandon Tevlin in June 2014 at a traffic light in West Orange, N.J. after he told police that his all-male victims represented a "life for a life" to avenge U.S. mideast policy, and each was a "just kill" because they were unacommpanied; he awaits trial for three more murders in Wash. state in 2014. On Mar. 7 Denver for Psilocybin holds a rally on the steps of the City and County Bldg. of Denver, Colo. to legalize magic mushrooms. On Mar. 8 Internat. Women's Day sees the Communist Rev. Student Front (RSF) vandalize the Littlefield WWI memorial fountain on the campus of the U. of Tex. at Austin. On Mar. 9 (10:30 a.m.) ex-U.S. Army infantryman Albert Wong (b. 1981) attacks the Pathway Home at the Veterans Home of Calif. (largest in the U.S.) in Yountville, Calif., taking and killing three hostages before committing suicide. On Mar. 11 by 2959-2-3 the Nat. Peoples' Congress of China removes the 2-term limit on the presidency, saving new Fuehrer Xi Jinping from stepping down in 2023. On Mar. 11 Israel passes a law allowing the permanent residency of jihadist terrorists to be revoked, pissing-off the EU, who wants to protect sacred cow Palestinians. On Mar. 12 U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley gives a speech to the U.N. Security Council, covering the history of U.S. involvement in Syria and warning that military action is still on the table against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, with the soundbyte: “This is no cease-fire. This is the Assad regime, Iran and Russia continuing to wage war against their political opponents,” Haley charged. "If we can't save families that haven't seen the Sun for weeks because they have been hiding underground to escape barrel bombs,” she said, “then the Security Council is as impotent as its worst critics say it is. When the international community consistently fails to act, there are times when states are compelled to take their own action." On Mar. 12 the Repub.-dominated House Intel Committee releases its verdict that there was no collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump pres. campaign. On Mar. 12 (6:00 a.m.) after watching jihdadist videos and reading the Quran "to give him courage", Fla. teenie Muslim convert Corey Johnson (2000-) stabs 13-y.-o. Jovanni Sierra to death and attempts to murder Elaine Simon and her son Dane Bancroft at a birthday sleepover in Ballenisles Country Club in Palm Beach, Fla.; no surprise, the FBI was monitoring him. On Mar. 13 (a.m.) after he returns from a trip to Africa, going beyond the White House in blaming Russia for poisoning ex-spy Sergei Skripal, and declining to say whether his son-in-law Jared Kushner has spoiled U.S. diplomatic interests, Pres. Trump fires Rex Tillerson on Twitter, replacing him as U.S. secy. of state #70 with CIA dir. #6 (since Jan. 23, 2017) Michael Richard "Mike" Pompeo (1963-), and appointing Gina Cheri Haspel (nee Walker) (1956-) as acting CIA dir. #7 (first woman), taking office on Apr. 26; Pompeo is confirmed by the U.S. Senate by 57-42, taking office on Apr. 26 (until ?), and Haspel takes office on May 21 (until ?). On Mar. 13 Pres. Trump gives a speech at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station near San Diego, Calif., uttering the soundbyte: "My new national strategy for space recognizes that space is a war-fighting domain, just like the land, air, and sea. We may even have a space force, develop another one: Space Force." On Mar. 13 U.S. Army Gen. Joseph Votel testifies before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, telling them that the Taliban is transitioning from an ideologically-inspired group to a narco-terror group. On Mar. 13 teacher Dennis Alexander accidentally discharges his firearm at the ceiling at Seaside H.S. in Seaside, Calif. during a public safety class, lightly injuring a 17-y.-o. student with a bullet fragment. On Mar. 14 Bundestag elections in Germany reelect German chancellor Angela Merkel by 364-315-9 (4 invalid); 355 were required, becoming her narrowest V since 2005, showing growing anger at her nutso Muslim immigration policies. On Mar. 14 the U.S. House votes 407-10 H.R. 4909 AKA the STOP School Violence Act aimed at preventing school shootings by funding training of students, teachers, school officials, and law enforcement on identifying early warning signs, and deployment of anon. reporting systems. On Mar. 15 a pedestrian bridge at Fla. Internat. Univ. in Miami, Fla. collapses, killing five. On Mar. 15 the Israeli supreme court suspends a controversial govt. plan to deport tens of thousands of African illegal aliens, mostly from Eritrea and Sudan. On Mar. 15 the Saudi daily newspaper Al Sharq Al-Awsat pub. an article announcing that a court in Riyadh has begun hearing the case of six Saudi ISIS members accused of planning to kill foreigners from Denmark, France, and U.S. On Mar. 15 a group of Irish MEPs pub. a report warning that Ireland is a "soft target" for terror and cyber attacks. On Mar. 15 Cuban man Raul Guttierez Sanchez (1972-) is ordered detained by a Colombian judge for planning an attack on a Bogota restaurant frequented by U.S. diplomats with ISIS militants; he tells reporters: "I fight against the New World Order, especially against Americans." On Mar. 16 the 2018 Facebook Scandal begins when it is revealed that Steve Bannon's Cambridge Analytica had obtained private data on 50M Facebook users back in 2015, and promised Facebook that it would be deleted after being banned from Facebook, and the British Parliament accuses Facebook of misleading them about it and demands that CEO Mark Zuckerberg testify, causing Facebook's stock to plummet amid a rash of lawsuits; Facebook later ups the figure to 87M, then almost all of its 2B accounts. On Mar. 16, 2018 (night) despite announcing his resignation on Jan. 29, two days before qualifying for his early pension, deputy FBI dir. Andrew George McCabe (1968-) is fired by U.S. atty. gen. Jeff Sessions for "lack of candor" (misleading investigators about his decision to allow FBI officials to give info. to the media about the Clinton Foundation) claiming a political frameup; Pres. Trump tweets "A great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI - A great day for Democracy", causing Trump's archenemy John O. Brennan to tweet to Trump the soundbyte on Mar. 17: "When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but will not destroy America... America will triumph over you." On Mar. 17 (11:45 p.m.) after being kicked out for drunkenness, pissing him off, English Muslim Mohammed Abdul (1996-) of Deptford, South East London rams his 4x4 into Blake's Nightclub in Gravesend, Kent, driving onto the dance floor filled with 600, injuring 13; the police refuse to treat it as a jihadist attack. On Mar. 18 pres. elections in Russia give pres. Vladimir Putin a V with 77% of the vote, giving him another six years. On Mar. 18 a madass Muslim terrorist stabs a security guard near the Lion's Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem befoe being killed by security forces. On Mar. 18 20-y.-o. Syrian Muslim Yamen A is charged by German authorities with plotting a major ISIS jihadist attack in Hamburg which could have killed up to 200 before he was arrested last Oct. 31. On Mar. 18 (9:30 p.m. local time) Madowview, Sacramento police officers Terrance Mercadal (black) and Jared Robinet (white) shoot 20x and kill unarmed black man Stephon Clark (Alonzo-Clark) (b. 1995) in the backyard of his grandmother's home, claiming that he had a gun when he only had a cellphone, sparking nationwide protests, which escalate when prosecutors announce on Mar. 2, 2019 that they won't file charges. On Mar. 19 a Uber self-driving car kills a woman crossing the street in Tempe, Ariz., becoming robokill #1. The s in piss is Austin? On Mar. 19 a booby-trapped bomb goes off in Austin, Tex., injuring two, becoming the 4th in three weeks that killed two and injured three, all in black-Hispanic neighborhoods on the E side; on Mar. 21 (a.m.) the bomber Mark Anthony Conditt (b. 1994) blows himself up in his car after being cornered by police, leaving a 25-min recorded confession. On Mar. 19 Pres. Trump gives a speech in N.H., uttering the soundbyte: "If we don't get tough on the drug dealers, we are wasting our time. That toughness includes the death penalty. Unless you have really really powerful penalties, led by the death penalty, for the really bad pushers and abusers, we are going to get nowhere", adding: "Ninety percent of the heroin in America comes from our southern border, where eventually the Democrats will agree with us, and we'll build the wall to keep the damn drugs out." On Mar. 19 a Molotov cocktail attack on a mosque frequented by Turkish Muslims in Ulm, Germany does little damage; on Mar. 28 four Syians are arrested for attempted murder and arson. On Mar. 19 a court in Pisa, Italy orders the birth certificate of a baby born to a lesbian couple modified to carry the two mothers' names only. On Mar. 19 US-Bangla Airlines Flight BS211 crashes in Kathmandu, Nepal while landing from the wrong direction, killing 50+ of 71. On Mar. 19 a group of 100 French intellectuals pub. an article in Le Figaroon, denouncing the rise of Islamism and its totalitarianism and separatism. On Mar. 19 after bowing to Red Chinese pressure, Wikipedia demotes Taiwan from a country to a "state with limited international recognition". On Mar. 20 (a.m.) a male school shooter at Great Mills H.S. in St. Mary's County, Md. 60 mi. SE of Washington, D.C. is stopped by heroic sheriff Tim Cameron. On Mar. 20 the FBI arrests Tranh Cong Phan (1974-) in Everett, Wash. for sending suspicious packages to military and govt. facilities in the Washington, D.C. area. On Mar. 21 elections in Netherlands. On Mar. 21 Am. Muslim Hafiz Kazi crashes the main gate of Travis AFB in Calif. 55 mi. NE of San Francisco in his black SUV, then explodes propane tanks, burning to death. On Mar. 22 Pres. Trump orders trade restrictions against China to help reduce the large trade deficit and curb intellectual property rights violations in hopes of leveling the playing field. On Mar. 22 after a leak from his aides about ignoring warnings not to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his election V, Pres. Trump replaces nat. security adviser H.R. McMaster by former U.S. U.N. ambassador John Bolton (until ?). On Mar. 22 Pres. Trump responds to physical taunts by ex-vice. pres. Joe Biden, saying that he would "go down fast and hard, crying all the way" and calling him "crazy Joe Biden". On Mar. 22 Air India takes off from New Delhi, India and lands in Tel Aviv, Israel after becoming the first flight allowed to fly over Saudi Arabia. On Mar. 23 (Fri.) (11:15 a.m.) after killing one in a carjacking in Carcassone, Allah Akbar-shouting Moroccan-born suspected ISIS gunman Redouane Lakdim (b. 1992) takes 50 hostages at a Super U supermarket in Trebes, France, killing three and injuring 12 in a 4-hour standoff and demanding the release of 2015 Paris jihadist Salah Abdeslam before police kill him; French police lt. col. Arnaud Beltrame (b. 1973) allows himself to traded for a captive, and is stabbed and shot to death, becoming a hero. Ooh, don't you look back? On Mar. 23 as cool-dressing Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman makes a 3-week U.S. tour, the U.S. State Dept. approves a $1B arms sale to Saudi Arabia; on Apr. 11 bin Salman concludes a 3-day trip to France, where he inks 19 draft contracts worth $18; in New York City the prince meets with Am. Jewish orgs., slamming Palestinian Authorty pres. Mahmoud Abbas for "missing one opportunity after the other and rejecting all peace proposals it was given", adding: "It is about time the Palestinians take the proposals and agree to come to the negotiations table or shut up and stop complaining"; the prince gives an interview to CBS-TV's "60 Minutes", calling Iranian supreme assasholah Ali Khamenei "very much like Hitler"; he grants another interview to The Atlantic mag., saying that Israelis "have the right to their own land". On Mar. 23 despite tweeting that he might not do it because of lack of funding of his border wall, Pres. Trump signs a $1.3T compromise spending bill because it provides for "the largest pay increase" for U.S. troops in over a decade despite attempting to pull support for his border wall, continue funding of Planned Parenthood et al., bemoaning its unreadable length and saying "I will never sign a bill like this again", which doesn't satisfy Trump supporter Alex Jones, who utters the pissed-off soundbyte: "I'm off the Trump train"; actually, he signed an omnibus bill, not a budget, leaving him free to redirect funding in the interest of nat. security, allowing him to announce that border wall construction will begin on Mar. 26. On Mar. 23 Pres. Trump signs the U.S. Taylor Force Act, cutting $350M annual aid to the Palestinians until they end stipends to jihadists and their families. On Mar. 24 (Sat.) 850+ March for Our Lives marches are held around the U.S. to demand "No more" and "Never again" regarding school massacres, with 300K in Washington, D.C., mostly young adults listening to the survivors of the Douglas H.S. Massacre, calling for a ban on assault weapons and ammo, and online gun sales; sinister globalist billionaire George Soros allegedly pays protesters $300 each (really just offers jobs hawking mechandise?). On Mar. 24 a bomb explodes near convoy carrying the city's security chief Gen. Mostafa al-Nimr in the C Roshdi district of Alexandria, Egypt, killing two policeman and injuring four more, along with one civilian. On Mar. 24 seven suspected jihadist terrorists are arrested in Johor, Malaysia for planning attacks on non-Muslim places of worship and police. On Mar. 25 a fire in the Winter Cherry Shopping Center in Kemerovo, Siberia 2.2K mi. E of Moscow kills 64. On Mar. 25-7 after traveling on an armored train on a surprise visit, aviophobe Kim Jong-un meets in Beijing with Chinese pres. Xi Jinping. On Mar. 25 (Sun.) (eve.) Baton Rouge, La.-born porn star Stormy Daniels (Stephanie Gregory Clifford) (1979-) gives an interview to CBS-TV's "Sixty Minutes", violating her $130K hush money contract with Pres. Trump's atty. Michael Cohen with impunity and telling all, but disappointing with the claim that she only slept with him once after spanking him, after which White House deputy press secy. Raj Shah says that Trump has consistently denied everything, and that it is she who "has been inconsistent" in flopping about her claims over the years, causing her atty. Michael Avenatti to reply "When do we hear from the President?", after which on Mar. 26 she utters the soundbyte that the reason Trump never tweets about her is "Because it's true, 100 percent true." On Mar. 26-28 pres. elections in Egypt are a V for 1st-term incumbent pres. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, with 92% of the vote, vs. 3% for runner-up Moussa Mostafa Moussa; 23M of Egypt's 60M voters turn out, plus 2M write-in ballots; stability tops voters' concerns; women and elderly men have high participation rates. On Mar. 27 former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens pub. an op-ed in the New York Times, calling for the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to be repealed. On Mar. 27 (Tues.) the revised #1 sitcom (1988-97) Roseanne debuts on ABC-TV for ? episodes (until ?), never mentioning Pres. Trump but treating his views and white middle class supporters with respect, drawing 18M viewers, pleasing Pres. Trump, who personally calls Roseanne Barr to congratulate her. On Mar. 28 U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley announces to the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. "will not pay more than 25 percent of the [United Nations] peacekeeping budget", and that the U.S. is cutting aid to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from $125M/year to $65M/year unless Palestinian leaders return to negotiations with Israel (part of the $1.3T omnibus spending bill signed by Pres. Trump on Mar. 23), pissing-off the Palestinian Authority, whose spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah utters the soundbyte that this amounts to a declaration of war. On Mar. 28 despite a personal appeal by Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, Pope Francis refuses to apologize for the Roman Catholic Church role in the Canadian system that forced generations of indigenous children into boarding schools, which was called cultural genocide by a 2015 nat. Truth and Reconciliation Commission. On Mar. 28 a federal judge in San Francisco, Calif. holds the first-ever U.S. court hearing on the impact of climate change, with lawyers for San Francisco and Oakland along with five of the largest multinat. oil cos. (BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Shell) participating in a climate change tutorial preparatory to a lawsuit claiming that rising sea levels et al. are caused by climate change traceable to the cos.; on June 18 he dismisses all the lawsuits trying to hold big oil cos. liable for global climate change, saying that the U.S. pres. and Congress are best suited to address the issue. soundbyte: "Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state and local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!", causing Amazon stock to close down 4.4%. On Mar. 29 22-y.-o. Muslim Algerian immigrant Othman Jridi (1995-) crashes the cement barriers in front of the Basilica of Pompeii in Naples, saying that he did it "to feel closer to Allah". On Mar. 29 the Vatican releases a statement about a private meeting between Pope Francis and the founder of the La Repubblica newspaper in which he allegedly denied the existence of Hell, claiming the transcription is not faithful but failing to disavow the pope's alleged statement - it's where I'm gonna go when I die? On Mar. 30 the Great March of Return by tens of thousands of Palestinians begins, resulting in riots on the Israeli border of Gaza that kill 27 Palestinians; on Apr. 8 Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor of the Internat. Criminal Court express "grave concern" over the shootings of Palestinians by Israeli troops, who claim they were trying to breach the border fence, along with the actions of Hamas, who may have been using protests as a cover for military activities; on Apr. 7 the U.S. blocks a draft U.N. Security Council resolution submitted by Kuwait calling for an "independent and transparent investigation" of the clashes, and calling for restraint, expressing "grave concern at the situation at the border"; by Apr. 26 32 of the 40 of the Palestinians killed in the rioting are Hamas terrorists. On Mar. 30 Pres. Trump addresses a crowd in Ohio, uttering the soundbyte: "We'll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon." On Mar. 30 Pope Francis makes a prayer during the Good Friday Via Crucis at the Colosseum in Rome, telling Christians that they should express shame for the actions of those who are leaving future generations a world "fractured by divisions and wars". On Mar. 30 Muslim Mohamed Elshinawy (1984-) of Edgewood, Md. pleads guilty to collecting cash payments from a foreign country to use weaponized drones in an ISIS attack on U.S. soil. On Mar. 31 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Governor Jerry 'Moonbeam' Brown pardoned 5 criminal illegal aliens whose crimes include (1) Kidnapping and Robbery (2) Badly beating wife and threatening a crime with intent to terrorize (3) Dealing drugs. Is this really what the great people of California want?", to which Brown replies that he makes "no apologies"; on Apr. 17 Brown agrees to provide Nat. Guard troops for Pres. Trump to protect the U.S. border, on the condition they don't arrest non-violent criminals. On Mar. 31 34-y.-o. ? drives his car into the audience at an electronic music festival on the campus of Doua U. in Villeurbanne, Lyon, France, telling police "I'm a terrorist"; the police blame alcohol intake. On Mar. 31 terrorism-related arrests in Britain reach a record 441 (vs. 378 in 2017), with a total of 4,182 since 9/11. In Mar. Keith Raniere, co-founder of the secretive sex cult NXIVM, who fled Ark. last Nov. after being charged with fraud is arrested by the FBI in Mexico, and held without bond to face charges of sex trafficking, with a min. 15 year prison sentence when convicted; cult members incl. Seagram heiresses Sara and Clare Bronfman donated a total of $29K to Hillary Clinton's pres. campaign. In Mar. a confidential memo is leaked, showing U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley proposing that U.S. foreign assistance should be withdrawn from dozens of poor countries that vote against it in the U.N. In Mar. Canadian Liberal feminist minister #26 of the environment and climate change (Environment Canada) (since Nov. 4, 2015) Catherine Mary McKenna (1971-) (AKA Climate Barbie by her critics) utters the soundbyte that citizens should "consider the gendered impacts of climate change on women, girls and children", applauding Canada for training "women negotiators" to battle manmade global warming. In Mar. the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson visits Da Nang, becoming the first U.S. aircraft carrier to dock in Vietnam since the Vietnam War. In Mar. the U.S. govt. apprends 50,308 people at the SW U.S. border, up from 16,588 in Mar. 2017. On Apr. 1 (Sun.) Easter falls on April Fool's Day for the first time in this cent. (next 2029). On Apr. 1 Pope Francis delivers his 2018 Easter Message, calling for an end to "the ongoing extermination in Syria, and for "reconciliation in the Holy Land". On Apr. 1 (a.m.) Pres. Trump issues tweets on the U.S.-Mexico border problem, saying "NO MORE DACA DEAL!" and threatening to dismantle NAFA (Mexico's "cash cow") if it doesn't reduce its flow of immigrants over the U.S. border. On Apr. 1 after promising to support gay marriage, former minister of labor (2016-7) Carlos Alvarado Quesada (1980-) is elected pres. of Costa Rica by 61%, defeating conservative Protestant religious TV journalist Alvarado Munoz (1974-), and is sworn-in on May 8 (until ?); Epsy Campbell becomes vice-pres., first African-Costa Rican. On Apr. 1 a 5.3 earthquake in Kermanshah Province, Iran injures 37. On Apr. 2 Afghan security forces bomb a religious seminary harboring senior Taliban forces in Kunduz Province, injuring 100+, admitting on Apr. 3 that civilians are among the casualties. On Apr. 2 Houthi rebels hit a Saudi tanker with a missile in Al Mukalla, Yemen in revenge for air strikes. On Apr. 2 a Rasmussen Poll gives Pres. Trump a 50% approval rating for the first time. On Apr. 2 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court refuse to consider reinstating a 2006 $655.5M jury award against the Palestinian Authority and PLO won by 11 Am. families over militant attacks in Israel under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act; the Trump admin. had sided with the Palestinians because the attacks occurred outside U.S. territory and there was no evidence that Americans were targeted. On Apr. 3 after protesting in vain YouTube's suppression of her videos, headscarf-wearing 30-something Iranian Azeri vegan animal rights activist Nasim Aghdam shoots up YouTube's HQ in San Bruno, Calif., killing an old flame and wounding three others before committing suicide. On Apr. 3 a viral anti-Muslim flyer in the U.K. declares this Punish a Muslim Day, causing U.S. authorities in New York City to mobilize for it; too bad, despite massive alarms from the PC police, it fails to materialize. On Apr. 4 a Summit on Syria is held in Ankara, Turkey by Turkey, Russia, and Iran, who issue a joint statement that they are committing to achieving a "lasting ceasefire". On Apr. 5 Pres. Trump orders U.S. trade rep Robert Lighthizer to consider placing an additional $100B in tariffs on Chinese goods; on Apr. 10 Chinese pres. Xi Jinping announces that China will "significantly lower" import tariffs for automobiles. On Apr. 5 at Russia's request, the U.N. Security Council meets to discuss the escalating diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West caused by the Mar. 4 Salisbury Incident, the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal on British soil, which caused a wave of expulsions of diplomats. On Apr. 5 U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley speaks at Duke U. in Durham, N.C., uttering the soundbyte: "I know John Bolton well. I've gotten advice from him. I've talked to him. I know his disdain for the U.N. I share it." On Apr. 6 Pres. Trump signs a memo ending the "catch and release" immigration policy of ex-Pres. Obama. On Apr. 7 the 2018 U.K. Winter reaches a death toll of 48K since Dec. 1, 20,275 more than avg., becoming the worst in 42 years; Mar. was the chilliest in 21 years. On Apr. 7 German Muslim Jens R (1969-) rams his van into people at an open-air restaurant in Muenster, Germany, killing two and injuring 20 before killing himself; police discount jihad and claim mental illness. On Apr. 8 after learning that "Animal" Assad has ordered a chemical attack near Damascus that killed dozens incl. children, Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!"; on Apr. 9 (early a.m.) Israeli launches an air strike against a Syrian miitary base; Assad did it because Trump announced that he was pulling U.S. troops out of Syria?; on Apr. 10 the U.N. Security holds an emergency meeting over the child-killing chemical attack in Syria; U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley utters the soundbyte that it must vote on Apr. 11 for a Mar. 1 draft resolution to establish an inquiry into who is to blame; "History will record this as the moment when the Security Council either discharged its duty or demonstrated its utter and complete failure to protect the people of Syria. Either way, the United States will respond", causing Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia to reply that the repercussions will be "grave"; too bad, on Apr. 11 the U.N. Security Council fails to pass a resolution. On Apr. 8 the Nigerian military announces the rescue of 54 women and 95 children from Boko Haram in NE Nigeria. On Apr. 9 Israel attacks the Iranian T-4 Base near Homs, Syria, killing seven Iranians incl. an IRGC col. commanding drone operations over Israeli airspace. On Apr. 9 Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak deletes his Facebook account, with the soundbyte: "[Facebook's] profits are all based on the user's info., but the users get none of the profits back... Apple makes money off of good products, not off of you." On Apr. 9 prominent Dutch Roman Catholics pub. a petition to their bishops to warn Pope Francis about his "serious errors" against the faith and his "destructive polities", incl. adulterous couples to receive Communion, support for female deacons, married priests, and contraception, praise for Martin Luther, and deals with the Red Chinese to recognize their atheist Catholic Patriotic Assoc. On Apr. 10 former U.S. ambassador to Iran (2001-5) Alexander Maryasov pub. an article on the Russian Valdai Discussion Club Web site, containing he soundbyte that Russia's current alliance with Iran is a tactical one to counter the U.S., not a strategic one. On Apr. 10 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before Congress about selling users' private data for money no matter the damage it does, with the soundbyte: "It was my mistake and I'm sorry" - he doesn't offer his profits back? On Apr. 10 (eve.) an internat. team of weapons inspectors prepare to deploy to Douma, Syria. On Apr. 11 (8:00 a.m.) a Russian Ilyushin Il-76 military plane carrying 257 Western Sahara refugees crashes near Algiers, Algeria, killing all aboard. On Apr. 11 Houthi rebels in Yemen fire a ballistic missile at Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which is intercepted by Saudi air defenses. On Apr. 11 after a bomb near the Gaza border explodes near Israeli troops, the Israelis strike several Hamas targets in Gaza. On Apr. 11 a letter from Pope Francis to the bishops of Chile is pub., apologizing for "grave errors" in the handling of sexual abuse cases there and inviting reps of the abuse victims to visit Rome so he can apologize. On Apr. 11 Pres. Trump lifts his 6-mo.-o. travel ban on Chad after it improves sharing of info. about suspected terrorists and takes steps to make passports more secure. On Apr. 11 Free Pride Glasgow in Scotland bans drag queens from its LGBT parade to allegedly prevent the oppression of transgenders. On Apr. 11 the city of San Francisco, Calif. begins their Great LED Giveaway of 100K free LED light bulbs in order to save $1M and 5.5M KWH of electricity a year. On Apr. 11 after passing the House by 388-25 and the senate by 97-2 (Ron Wyden and Rand Paul vote no), the U.S. Allow States and Victimes to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOST) (AKA SESTA - Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act) is signed by Pres. Trump; Facebook goes too far and stifles its users' free speech? On Apr. 12 Syrian rebels surrender their heavy weapons and vacate East Ghouta, Syria. On Apr. 12 Taliban insurgents overrun the govt. HQ in Khwaja, Umari District, SE Afghanistan, killing a district govt, the chief of security, and nine others incl. five police officers, injuring 10 other officers; in response the Fghan air force bombs Taliban positions, killing 30. On Apr. 12 UNICEF chief of health Stefan Peterson issues a statement announcing a major yellow fever vaccination campaign for Africa in conjunction with WHO, the GAVI global vaccine alliance, and 50 health partners, with the goal of eliminating it by 2026. On Apr. 12 Hawaii gov. David Ige signs HB2739, an assisted suicide law, becoming #8 after Calif., Colo., Mont., Ore., Vt., Wash., and Washington, D.C.; the Hawaii legislature has 25 senators, all Dems., and 51 House members, all except 5 Dems. On Apr. 12 two black men waiting in a Starbucks store in Philly for friends are ordered to pay for something to use the bathroom, then arrested, causing the PC police to come out bigtime, forcing Starbucks and the police to prostrate themselves, with Starbucks closing 8K locations for "racial bias" training for 175K employees - when you order it black at Starbucks, it's always to go? On Apr. 13 Pres. Trump pardons I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to U.S. vice-pres. Richard Cheney for his 2007 conviction, pissing-off the PC press who studiously ignore Pres. Clinton's shady pardons. On Apr. 13 after excerpts from fired FBI dir. James Comey's new book leak, Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "James Comey is a proven LEAKER & LIAR. Virtually everyone in Washington thought he should be fired for the terrible job he did-until he was, in fact, fired. He leaked CLASSIFIED information, for which he should be prosecuted. He lied to Congress under OATH. He is a weak and untruthful slime ball who was, as time has proven, a terrible Director of the FBI. His handling of the Crooked Hillary Clinton case, and the events surrounding it, will go down as one of the worst “botch jobs” of history. It was my great honor to fire James Comey!" On Apr. 13 Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov utters the soundbyte that the chemical attack in Syria was a fake attack as part of a "Russophobic campaign" cause by some unnamed country (U.K.?), causing the U.K., U.S., and France to reply that they have proof. On Apr. 13 a 27-y.-o. woman yells Allah Akbar and threatens to blow herself up at the Cannes Festival in France before being arrested and taken in for psychiatric evaluation; menwhile two more men are arrested for doing ditto in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany at a train station. On Apr. 13 (Fri.) (9:00 p.m. EST) the Apr. Friday the 13th Syria Attack sees Pres. Trump order a missile strike on Syria over the chemical attack on Douma, calling it "a significant escalation in a pattern of chemical weapons use by that very terrible regime", sending 106 missiles to three sites, adding: "The purpose of our actions tonight is to establish a strong deterrent against the production, spread, and use of chemical weapons. I also have a message tonight for the two governments most responsible for supporting, equipping, and financing the criminal Assad regime. To Iran, and to Russia, I ask: What kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of innocent men, women, and children?", tweeting "Mission Accomplished"; the U.K. and France assist the U.S. with air strikes; U.S. defense secy. Jim Matis calls it "a one-time shot". On Apr. 14 after waiting 10 years for a permit, and receiving a visit from the bldg. authority committee, pissing them off, the Church of the Holy Virgin in Beni Meinin, Beni Suef, Egypt is attacked by a Muslim mob, after which 11 Muslims and nine Copts are arrested, the latter for trying to put out the fires, ending in a railroad trial that acquits the Muslims and closes the church; on May 26 another Muslim mob attacks the Church of St. Mark in al-Shuqaf, Beheira, Egypt, injuring seven Copts, after which the police arrest 11 Muslims and nine Copts, and guess what happens. On Apr. 14 Batavia, N.Y.-born gay rights and environmental activist atty. David Stoh Buckel (b. 1957) immolates himself with gasoline in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N.Y. to protest the use of fossil fuels - Stroh's is fire-brewed? On Apr. 14-15 Kauai, Hawaii receives 30 in. of rain, causing massive flooding, after which on Apr. 16 220 residents are airlifted to safety. On Apr. 15 hundreds of thousands of Catalan separatists rally in downtown Barcelona, Spain to demand the release of high-profile leaders. On Apr. 15 Muslim jihadists dressed as U.N. peacekeepers attack a U.N. MINUSMA military camp in Timbuktu, Mali, killing one peacekeeper and injuring seven French soldiers while losing 15 of their own; the French army calls the attack "particularly sophisticated and underhanded". On Apr. 15 U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley claims that the Trump admin. is preparing new sanctions for Russia over its support of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, causing an admin. official on Apr. 16 to clarify that it's delaying additional sanctions unless/until Russia engages in some new provocation inc. a new cyber attack so that Trump can work with them to combat Islamic extremism, etc. On Apr. 15 (5:00 p.m.) Muslims riot in Toulouse, France after police stop a woman wearing an illegal full-face veil and she calls for help, bringing 30 madass Muslims who throw projectiles at them, going on to torch 15 cars. On Apr. 16 the U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) hands out leadership posts, giving a seat on the 41-member exec board of U.N. Women to Saudi Arabia for 2019-21 (which already seats Iran, Pakistan, and Yemen), and seats on the NGO accrediting committee to Bahrain, Burundi, China, Cuba, Libya, Russia, and Sudan; Iran is given seats on the U.N. Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ) and the U.N. World Food Program; Cuba is also given posts on the CCPCJ and the Commission on the Status of Women. Saudi held seats on the board of U.N. Women in 2011-13 and 2014-6. On Apr. 16 Chinese social media Web site Weibo reverses its ban on gay content after an online protest. On Apr. 16 new U.S. Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch hires Chickasaw Nation of Midwest City, Okla. member Tobi Merritt Edwards as a clerk, becoming the first Native Am. Supreme Court clerk in history. On Apr. 17 after intel officials confirm that Iran has Shiite Muslim Hezbollah sleeper cells in the U.S. poised for attack, U.S. Rep. (R-N.Y.) Peter King calls it a "direct threat to the homeland". On Apr. 17 tenured U. of Calif. Fresno English prof. Randa Jarrar stinks herself up with a tweet that recently-deceased First Lady Barbara Bush "was a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal", adding that she is "happy the witch is dead", taunting critics "I will never be fired". On Apr. 17 the U.S. (Roberts) Supreme Court rules 5-4 in Sessions v. Dimaya that the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act's "crime of violence" provision is unconstitutionally vague; new justice Neil Gorsuch sides with the majority (Kagan, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Breyer, mostly women, with all men in the minority, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, and Thomas), pissing-off Pres. Trump and causing him to call on Congress to close the loopholes. On Apr. 18 Saudi Arabia opens its first movie theater in 35 years in Riyadh, showing Marvel's "Black Panther". On Apr. 18 Saudi king Salman meets with French cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, becoming the first visit by a senior Roman Catholic official. On Apr. 18 British Muslim convert Adam Wyatt (1969-) of Salford is sentenced to 45 mo. in prison for disseminating material calling for jihad. On Apr. 18 after 11 Jews are killed by Muslims because they were Jewish, 250 public figures in France pub. an appeal in Le Parisien lamenting the "new anti-Semitism" of Muslims, with the soundbyte: "Anti-Semitism is not the business of the Jews. It's the business of all of us. The French, who have demonstrated their democratic maturity after each Islamist attack, are living through a tragic paradox. Their country has become the arena for murderous anti-Semitism." On Apr. 19 air strikes by the Iraqi air force along the Iraqi border in Syria kill 36 ISIS militants incl. six leaders. On Apr. 19 the European Parliament overwhelmingly (524-30-92) passes a resolution denouncing Hamas as a terrorist group for using human shields, calling for Israel's destruction, and because they "seem to aim at escalating tensions" at the Gaza-Israel border, also probing Israel's use of live ammo on protesters and calling for restraint. On Apr. 19 Yemeni Houthi leader Saleh al-Sammad is killed in Hudaida Province by a Saudi air strike. On Apr. 19 Kurdish forces in N Syria arrest Syrian-born German national Mohammed Haydar Zammar for alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks. On Apr. 19 the men's mag. GQ pub. the article 21 Books You Don't Have to Read (Before You Die), trashing 20 books incl. Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn", and the Bible, which it calls "repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish, and even at times ill-intentioned"; "The Holy Bible is rated very highly by all the people who supposedly live by it but who in actuality have not read it. Those who have read it know there are some good parts, but overall it is certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced." On Apr. 20 funny-ears Prince Charles is finally approved as Elizabeth II' successor as head of the British Commonwealth. On Apr. 20 the Dem. Nat. Committee (DNC) sues Russia, the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for revealing how it rigged the Dem. primaries callit an "attack on our democracy", causing WikiLeaks to countersue, saying: "We've never lost a publishing case and discovery is going to be amazing fun"; on Apr. 23 Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte that the DNC is suing "Republicans for winning". On Apr. 20 the Hisbah Muslim Sharia police in Jigawa State, Nigeria storm beer parlors, seizing and destroying 244,151 bottles of beer. On Apr. 21 North Korea announces that it will suspend nuclear and missile tests effective immediately and abolish a nuclear test site in favor pursuing economic gains and peace. On Apr. 21-24 Britain goes three days without generating electricity from coal, the longest streak since the 1880s. pledging to phase it out by 2025. On Apr. 22 (Sun.) naked white gunman Travis Reinking (1988-) shoots up a Waffle House restaurant in Nashville, Tenn. with an AR-15 rifle, killing four before James Shaw Jr. takes his rifle away and he flees. On Apr. 22 (Sun.) Earth Day. On Apr. 22 an ISIS suicide bomber at a voter registration center for nat. ID cards in Kabul, Afghanistan kills 57 incl. 22 women and eight children and injures 119 incl. 52 women and 17 children. On Apr. 23 French pres. Emmanuel Macron visits Pres. Trump in the White House, becoming the first state visit of Trump's presidency, attempting to persuade him to preserve Obama's Iran nuke deal. On Apr. 23 the French nat. assembly votes 228-139-24 for a new tough immigration law introducing 1-year prison sentences for entering France illegally, while shortening asylum application deadlines. On Apr. 23 25-y.-o. Armenian-Canadian Alek Minassian (1992-) plows his Ryder rental van into pedestrians in the Yonge and Finch area of Toronto, Canada, killing 10 and injuring 15 (mostly women) before being arrested; his Facebook account references "Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger", who killed six people in 2014 after women wouldn't accept his advances. On Apr. 24 the jihadist cell Islamic Fraternity, Group for Preaching Jihad in Terrassa (30 km. from Barcelona), Spain is convicted of plotting a terrorist attack on Barcelona using intel from Operation Caronte (Greek ferryman of Hades). On Apr. 24 (5;30 a.m.) 30 Muslim Fulani herdsmen attack the St. Ignatius Catholic Church in Mbalom, Benue, Nigeria, killing 20 parishioners and two clergymen incl. Father Gor. On Apr. 25 District of Columbia federal judge John Bates rules that Pres. Trump's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program of Pres. Obama is "arbitrary" and "capricious" because his Justice Dept. didn't explain to him why the program is unlawful, causing White House press secy. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to utter the soundbyte that this is "good news for smugglers" and "creates an incentive for more illegal immigrant youth to come here". On Apr. 25 72-y.-o. former police officer Joseph James De Angelo (1945-) is arrested in Sacramento, Calif. after DNA evidence IDs him as the East Area Rapist AKA the Original Night Stalker, suspected in 45 rapes and 12 murders in the E San Francisco Bay area of Calif. in the 1970s and 1980s. On Apr. 25 Red China sends a threatening letter to dozens of internat. airlines warning them to identify Taiwan as part of China or face severe consequences, causing the Trump admin. to announce that it "will stand up for Americans resisting efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to impose Chinese political correctness on American companies and citizens", calling the threats "Orwellian nonsense". On Apr. 26 after being bombarded with scurrilous allegations of misconduct and mismanagement, Pres. Trump's personal physician Rear Adm. Ronny Lynn Jackson (1967-) withdraws his nomination as secy. of the Veterans Admin., and soon resigns as Trump's official physician. On Apr. 26 the U.S. House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing on social media filtering and policing (censorship) practices, inquiring as to whether viewpoints have been silenced. On Apr. 26 as rallies take place across Germany supporting Jews after a spate of anti-Semitic assaults, Dr. Felix Klein, Germany's first special envoy to the Jewish community issues the soundbyte that Jewish fears over the influx of Muslims are legitimate. A big day for the #MeToo #TimesUp movement? On Apr. 26 after a half dozen women incl. Janice Dickinson, Lili Bernard, Janice Baker Kinney, and alleged victim Andrea Constand testified that he drugged and raped them, 80-y.-o. Hollywood superstar ("America's Dad") William Henry "Bill" Cosby Jr. (1937-) is convicted of 3 counts of sexual assault by a jury of 7 men and 5 women (10 whites, 2 blacks) in Norristown, Penn., with a max sentence of 10 years and $25K fine for each count; the defendants' atty. Gloria Allred tells the press that this is a great day for herstory; her daughter Lisa Bloom is the defendants' other atty.; Cosby's first trial ended in a mistrial in June despite his testimony in a 2005 deposition that he gave a woman Quaaludes in order to shag her under the understanding that he wouldn't be prosecuted; Cosby's attys. appeal on the unfairness of a trial that creates a witch hunt atmosphere caused by witnesses to an alleged past pattern of behavior he wasn't charged with after the judge allows 5 of 14 in; on Sept. 25 Cosby is sentenced to 3-10 years in prison. On Apr. 26 the state of Okla. breaks the record for the longest tornado drought; the first one finally arrives on May 2. On Apr. 26 Muslim Guinea immigrants Mohamed Toure (1960-) and Denise Cros-Toure (1960-) of Southlake, Tex. are charged with forced labor after a 21-y.-o. woman escapes from their home and tells how she was kept as a slave from age 5, denying her education. On Apr. 27 peace is finally declared between North and South Korea after 65 years in a summit in Goyang, South Korea, with South Korean pres. Moon Jae-in and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un (who steps over the Demarcation Line in the DMZ, becoming the first North Korean leader since the end of the war in 1953) agreeing to denuclearize the peninsula, with Moon uttering the soundbyte: "We will totally end the war on the Korean peninsula and will establish a sound and solid peace on the Korean peninsula", causing U.S. Sen. (R-S.C.) Lindsey Graham to utter the soundbyte: What happened? Donald Trump convinced North Korea and China he was serious about bringing about change. We're not there yet, but if this happens, President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize", after which 18 Repub. House members nominate him. On Apr. 27 German chancellor Angela Merkel visits Pres. Trump in the White House, joining Emmanuel Macron of France in working him over on the Iran deal. On Apr. 27 the House Selective Committee on Intelligence, chaired since Jan. 3, 2015 by U.S. Rep. (R-Calif.) (since Jan. 3, 2003) Devin Gerald Nunes (1973-) pub. its Final Report on Russian Election Meddling, finding no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in 2016, causing Trump foe John O. Brennan to tweet: "A highly partisan, incomplete, and deeply flawed report by a broken House Committee means nothing. The Special Counsel's work is being carried out by professional investigators - not political staffers. SC's findings will be comprehensive & authoritative. Stay tuned, Mr. Trump...."; the report also claims that nat. intel dir. James Clapper leaked the Christopher Steele dossier to CNN after Pres. Obama made him present the material to Donald Trump in Trump Tower on Jan. 6, 2017, after which CNN ran a story on Jan. 10 about the briefing, incl. the allegation of hos in Trump's Moscow hotel room; Clapper denies it; on Apr. 27 John O. Brennan issues a tweet with the soundbyte: "Mr. Trump: Your hypocrisy knows no bounds. Jim Clapper is a man of integrity, honesty, ethics, & morality. You are not. Jim Clapper served his country for over a half century, including in Vietnam. You did not. By your words & behavior, you diminish the Office of the Presidency"; on Aug. 17 Senate Intelligence Committee chmn. (since Jan. 3, 2015) (R-N.C.) Sen. (since Jan. 3, 2005) Richard Mauze Burr (1955-) publicly rebukes Brennan for his sour grapes statement that "there is no doubt" that Pres. Trump colluded with the Kremlin and that he is being blackmailed by Vladimir Putin, despite his nonpartisan committee spending over a year investigating the issue, asking why he didn't present any evidence in his hours of testimony before both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, with the soundbyte: "If Director Brennan's statement is based on intelligence he received while still leading the CIA, why didn't he include it in the Intelligence Community Assessment released in 2017? If his statement is based on intelligence he has seen since leaving office, it constitutes an intelligence breach. If he has some other personal knowledge of or evidence of collusion, it should be disclosed to the Special Counsel, not The New York Times." On Apr. 27 retired top CIA, FBI, DOJ, and NSA officials incl. Kevin Shipp hold a press conference to demand that U.S. atty. Jeff Sessions prosecute top Obama admin. officials for attempting "an ongoing coup to remove a duly elected president", adding: "This is, at worst, treason with senior officials in the shadow government or Deep State... We have not seen anything like this since the presidency of John F. Kennedy." On Apr. 28 the last remaining village in India gains access to electricity, a total of 600K villages, although 200M people still lack access. On Apr. 29 a bus carrying 32 Chinese and North Korean officials on a "red tour" commemorating the Chinese Communist Party's Korean War role crashes in in North Korea. On Apr. 30 a series of suicide bombs in Kaboom, er, Kabul, Afghanistan kill 31 incl. nine journalists. On Apr. 30 Nigerian pres. Muhammadu Buhari visits Pres. Trump in the White House, discussing terrorism and the genocide of Christians in Nigeria; Trump's "shithole country" remarks never come up. On Apr. 30 after Amber Rudd resigns on Apr. 29 over the Windrush Scandal, aggressive measures to deport children of the African-Caribbean Windrush Gen. who arrived before 1973, 2nd gen. Pakistani Conservative (pro-Israel Sunni Muslim) Sajid Javid (1969-) becomes British home secy. (until ?). On Apr. 30 (12 days before Pres. Trump's May 12 deadline for deciding on the Iran nuclear deal) Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyau gives a speech detailing facts about Iran's Project Amad to build nukes found on 55K pages of documents and 55K files on 183 CDs ("half a ton") the Israelis stole from a secret storage facility in Shorabad, Tehran, proving that "Iran lied bigtime after signing the nuclear deal in 2015... Iran is brazenly lying when it says it never had a nuclear weapons program"; the Trump admin. confirms the authenticity of the documents; too bad, the documents are from their nuke project that they shut down in 2003, which is why they were kept in a neglected bldg. with no lock on the door? On Apr. 30 Palestinian Authority pres. Mahmoud Abbas gives a speech in Ramallah at a meeting of the Palestine Nat. Council, claiming that the Holocaust wasn't caused by anti-Semitism but by the Jews' "social behavior, charging interest, and financial matters, and that Adolf Hitler facilitated the building of the Jewish state of Israel; on May 2 the New York Times pub. an editorial calling the speech "reprehensible anti-Semitic myths and conspiracy theories", with the soundbyte: "Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, shed all credibility as a trustworthy partner if the Palestinians and Israelis ever again have the nerve to try negotiations", adding: "Palestinians need a leader with energy, integrity and vision, one who might have a better chance of achieving Palestinian independence and enabling both peoples to live in peace"; "Let Abbas's vile words be his last as Palestinian leader." On Apr. 30 (10:30 p.m.) a missile attack on an arms depot in N Syria triggers explosions so powerful they register as a 2.6 earthquake. On Apr. 30 a Taliban suicide bomber detonates near a rival mosque in Daman, S Afghanistan, killing 11 children and injuring 16 others incl. police and soldiers. In Apr. protests in Masaya, Nicaragua against the regime of pres. Daniel Ortega. In Apr. U.S. unemployment increases 24K, with 24K new manufacturing jobs (304K since Dec. 2016); a record 95,745,000 Americans are not participating in the labor force. In Apr. avg. temps of 38.3F are the coldest since 1874 (37.6F); some major U.S. cities have their coldest Apr. in recorded history. On May 1 after mass protests force PM Serzh Sargsyan out, Armenian opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan warns the ruling elite in parliament that it could face a "tsunami" of anger from the people it it keeps blocking his bid to become PM. On May 1 a police station in Mosul, Iraq is attacked; on May 2 a terrorist shooting N of Baghdad kills and injures several civilians. On May 1 1.2K anti-capitalist Black Block protesters in Paris, France torch cars and attack a fast-food restaurant, causing French authorities to arrest 109 and tighten security. On May 1 militant Seleka Islamists attack the Notre Dame of Fatima Church in Bangui, C.A.R., killing 24 incl. Father Alert Toungoumale-Babe and injuring 170. On May 1 the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat releases its first annual report, calling climate change "the single biggest threat to life, security and prosperity on Earth", according to exec secy. Patricia Espinosa, and rolling out its Gender Action Plan to mobilize women to fight global warming. On May 1 ex-NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman gives an interview to TMZ, uttering the soundbyte that his buddy dictator Kim Jong-un of North Korea had a "change of heart" about his nuclear program after reading Pres. Trump's 1987 book "The Art of the Deal", which he gave him in June 2017 on a trip to Pyongyang. On May 1 former Seattle, Wash. resident (Muslim) Ali Muhammad Brown is sentenced in Newark, N.J. to life in prison without parole for shooting 19-y.-o. college student Brendan Tevlin at a traffic light in 2014, saying that he was on a jihad to avenge U.S. policy in the Middle East; he faces more trials for murdering three men in Wash. state. On May 2 a suicide attack in Tripoli, Libya kills 14 and injures seven. On May 2 to intimidate Yemenis greeting Yemeni PM Ahmed bin Daghr, the UAE deploys four military aircraft with 100+ troops to the Yemeni island of Socotra, sparking angry protests. On May 2 Liu Xia, widow of Chinese dissident Liu Xiabo pub. an open letter giving details of diplomatic efforts to secure his release, saying she is "ready to die at home" in protest. On May 2-3 Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi meets in Pyongyang with his North Korean counterpart Ring Yong-ho, cementing friendship ties. On May 3 (4:30 p.m.) after a 5.0 earthquake, Mt. Kilauea ("Madame Pele") in Hawaii erupts, causing mass evacuations from 1.5K homes; on May 4 (12:33 p.m.) a 6.9 earthquake centered near Kilauea's S flank causes more damage; on May 11 another 6.9 earthquake (biggest since 1975) threatens the Puna Geothermal Venture geothermal power plant; meanwhile on May 3 Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory announces that atmospheric CO2 has reached a record 410 ppm for Apr. On May 3 powerful dust storms in N India kill 100+ and injure 140. On May 3 the U.S. accuses Red China of using lasers to harass U.S. pilots flying over Djibouti, and warns of consequences if they deploy missiles on artificial islands in the South China Sea. On May 3 37-y.-o. Muslim male Ahmed ? is arrested for barging into St. Vincent's Cathedral in Chalon-sur-Saone, France and threatening to blow it up with a hand grenade while carrying a bottle of alcohol and shouting "It is the Quran that must be read!" On May 4 U.S. district judge T.S. Ellis III scolds special counsel Robert Mueller and his team of "lying" and really trying to target Pres. Trump, with the soundbyte: "I don't see what relation this indictment has to do with what the special counsel is authorized to investigate. You don't really care about Mr. Manafort. You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever." On May 4 Muslim woman Brietta Brown slashes two passengers and the driver of a Pioneer Valley Transit Authority bus in Hadley, Mass., later apologizing and asking Allah for forgiveness. On May 4-5 Spanish sailors rescue 476 migrants from Africa on 15 small boats attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea; meanwhile on May 6 the Spanish nonprofit group Proactiva Open Arms rescues 105 migrants near Libya. On May 5 (3:30 p.m.) an Allah-Akbar-shouting Muslim stabs several people in The Hague, Netherlands before being shot in the leg and arrested. On May 6 (Sun.) Japanese defense minister Itsunori Onoderi visits Estonia, meeting with devense minister Juri Luik in Tallinn, a first. On May 7 after weekend protests that result in 1.6K arrests incl. opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Putin is sworn in for his 4th term as pres. of Russia (until 2024). On May 7 parliamentary elections in Lebanon (first since 2009) are a V for Hezbollah, who gain over half the seats. On May 7 after an article in The New Yorker reports on four progressive Dem. women accusing him of physical and sexual abuse, N.Y. atty. gen. Eric Schneiderman resigns; in Feb. he filed a civil rights suit against Hollywood lecher Harvey Weinstein. On May 7 Media Research Center releases a report claiming that the leftist PC media produce 90% negative coverage of Pres. Trump. On May 7-8 Muslim Advocacy Day is held on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C.; veiled Islamists trying to influence legislators to subvert the U.S. Constitution? On May 8 (2:00 p.m. local time) Pres. Trump announces that the U.S. is withdrawing from Obama's "horrible" Iran nuke deal (JCPOA) and reimposing "the most extreme" sanctions, calling it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into", causing co-signers U.K., France, and Germany to lament his decision and reaffirm support for the deal, and Obama to tweet that the decision is "a serious mistake". On May 8 the French newspaper Le Monde pub. the Manifesto Against the New Anti-Semitism signed by 300 French public figures incl. Nicolas Sarkozy, in which they "ask that the verses of the Qu'ran calling for the killing and punishment of Jews, Christians and unbelievers be obsoleted by theological authorities; on May 10 Abbas Shuman, deputy chief El Azhar U. in Cairo, Egypt responds with the soundbyte: "No to freezing one letter from the Koran, and those calling for it can go to Hell!" On May 8 (night) Iran launches 20 rockets at Israeli army positions in the Golan Heights, causing no industry, but becoming a new escalation in Iran's war against the Little Satan; of course, Israel retaliates. On May 9 the Calif. Energy Commission approves the Energy Efficiency Strategic Plan that has the goal of zero net energy usage by 2030, effective Jan. 1, making Calif. the first U.S. state to require solar panels on new residental construction. On May 10 (3:00 a.m.) U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo arrives from a meeting with Kim Jong-un in Korea at Andrews AFB with three Am. prisoners released for goodwill ahead of the upcoming summit. On May 10-Oct. 8 the Met Gala 2018 is titled "Fashion and the Catholic Imagination, featuring garments borrowed from the Vatican, worn provocatively, pissing-off Roman Catholics, who call it blasphemous. On May 12 the deadline for Pres. Trump to decide what to do about Obama's 2015 Iran nuke deal. On May 12 parliamentary elections in Iraq. On May 12 armed attackers from DRC attack a village in Cibitoke Province, NW Burundi, killing 26 in an attempt to disrupt the coming May 17 elections. On May 12 (night) Allah-Akbar-shouting Chechnya-born French Muslim Khmzat Azimov (1997-) pulls out a knife in the opera district of Paris, France, killing one and slashing four before being killed by police; ISIS claims him as one of its soldiers, releasing a video bragging on him. On May 13 (Sun.) (Mother's Day) U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo utters the soundbyte that if North Korea completely dismantles its nuke program, the U.S. will lift sanctions, paving the way for private investment to create economic prosperity in the country that's currently poorer than Afghanistan. On May 13 (a.m.) three churches (Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian) in Surabaya, Indonesia are bombed, killing 11+ and injuring 40; the perps are six members of the same family incl. the father, mother, two teenage sons, and daughters aged 9 and 12, who all die in the blasts; they recently returned from Syria via Turkey, which deported them; ISIS claims responsibility; police also suspect Jemaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD); Yusuf Al-Othaimeen, secy.-gen. of the Org. of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) utters the soundbyte that the OIC "reaffirms its principled position that violence and terrorism should not be associated with any religion, nationality, civilization, or ethnic group." On May 14 the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, Israel officially opens amid violent Palestinian protests at the Gaza border that kill 62 Palestinians, incl. three armed terrorists trying to plant a bomb near the border fence, after which on May 15 the Palestinians stage a big funeral to gain internat. sympathy, with Hamas claiming that "50 Hamas martyrs during the Million Man March of Return on May 14", causing Turkey to call for an emergency meeting of the OIC as Israel and Turkey expel each other's ambassadors; on May 14 Trump critic John O. Brennan tweets the soundbyte: "Deaths in Gaza result of utter disregard of Messers Trump & Netanyahu for Palestinian rights & homeland. By moving Embassy to Jerusalem, Trump played politics, destroyed US peacemaker role. New generation of Israelis/Palestinians need to isolate extremists to find path to peace"; on May 15 U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley utters the soundbyte at the U.N. Security Council before walking out on the Palestinian rep: "Hamas has attacked the Kerem Shalom crossing, the biggest entry point in Gaza for fuel, food, and medical supplies. This is how determined they are to make the lives of the Palestinian people miserable. They light Molotov cocktails attached to kites on fire and attempt to fly them into Israel to cause as much destruction as possible. W hen asked yesterday why he put a swastika on his burning kite, the terrorist responded, 'The Jews go crazy when you mention Hitler.' This is what is endangering the people of Gaza. Make no mistake: Hamas is pleased with the results from yesterday. I ask my colleagues here in the Security Council, who among us would accept this type of activity on your border? No one would. No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has"; Israel is officially regathered for 70 years in fulfillment of the Biblical book of Daniel's 70 Weeks Prophecy? On May 14 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) court rules 6-3 in Murphy vs. National College Athletic Assoc. to overturn the 1992 U.S. Prof. and Amateur Sports Protection Act as a case of federal commandeering, allowing state-sponsored sports betting. On May 15 the Wealth-X Billionaire Census is pub., revealing that billionaire wealth surged 24% to a record level in 2017, and the billionaire pop. surged 15% fo 2,754 (vs. 2,473 in 2015); San Francisco, Calif. leads the other cities, with one billionaire for every 11,612 inhabitants, vs. 81,311 for New York City, 84,007 for Dubai, 84,962 for Hong Kong, 101,957 for Los Angeles, Calif., and 135,198 for London. On May 16 FBI dir. Christopher Wray speaks to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee, uttering the soundbyte about Islamic radical groups inside the U.S.: "We have about 1,000 investigations into exactly the kind of people you're describing, covering all 50 states as I'm sitting here right now. And that's not even counting, you know, the al-Qaeda investigations, the traditional ISIS investigations, the domestic terrorism investigations, but just the group you're talking about." On May 16-17 deadly protests in Kazerun, Iran result after a decision to split the city of 150K into two towns. On May 17 after being confirmed by the Senate 54-44, 33-year CIA veteran and acting CIA dir. (since Apr. 26) Gina Cheri Haspel (nee Walker) (1956-) becomes CIA dir. #7 (until ?), succeeding new secy. of state Mike Pompeo. On May 17 Israel announces that it will begin using Shoko (Heb. "bag") Drones to drop bags of skunk water on Gaza rioters as an alternative to deadly force. On May 17 after an email scandal involving male officials, the Miss America Org. and Miss America Foundation announce an all-women top leadership team; Regina (Blakely) Hopper becomes pres. and CEO of the Miss Am. Org., and Marjorie-Vincent Tripp becomes the first chair of the Miss Am. Foundation, becoming the first time women lead both orgs. On May 17 Pres. Obama's science adviser (2009-17) John Paul Holdren (1944-) gives a speech at the Am. Academy of Political and Social Science in Washington, D.C., calling Obama "the most science-savvy president since Thomas Jefferson" and claiming that Pres. Trump "has appointed or nominated fact-averse idealogues" to key executive branch science and technology positions, esp. EPA head Scott Pruitt and interior secy. Ryan Zinke, taking a swipe at Trump for promising to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Climate Change Accord, another at him for "his ignorant, bigoted, bullying, prevaricating, America-alone stance [that] has demeaned his office, has damaged our democracy, and has diminished U.S. standing in the world", and another at Trump's failure to appoint his replacement. On May 18 U.N. human rights chief Zeid Raad al-Hussein claims that Israel used "wholy disproportionate" force against the Palestinian Gaza border protesters at a meeting in Geneva, causing the Israeli ambassador to respond that the militant Islamist leaders deliberately put people in harm's way to gain internat. sympathy and delegitimize Israel. On May 18 (7:40 a.m.) 17-y.-o. student Dimitrios Pagourtzis (2001-) shoots up Santa Fe H.S. in Santa Fe (20 mi. from Galveston), Tex., killing eight students and two teachers in an arts class and injuring 13 incl. two officers in a 25-min. gun battle before being arrested, becoming the 3rd U.S. school shooting in eight days, and the 22nd of the year. On May 18 a Rasmussen Poll shows Pres. Trump's approval rating rising to 50%, with over 50% supporting his decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. On May 19 (12:00 noon local time) Prince Harry (1984-) and half-black half-white Am. actress Meghan Markle (1981-) wed in Windsor Castle, becoming duke and duchess of Sussex. On May 19 four jihadists armed with Molotov cocktails storm the Church of Michael the Archangel in Grozny, Chechnya, Russia, killing a churchgoer and two police officers before being killed by police. On May 20 (Sun.) elections in Venezuela reelect pres. #63 (since Mar. 5, 2013) Nicolas Maduro by 45.99% for a 2nd 6-year term; the results are rejected by the OAS, EU, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Lima Group, along with the U.S. and Australia; bad guys Red China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Turkey support the result. On May 20 (Sun.) U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman pub. an op-ed. on the Fox News Web site, with the soundbyte that the liberal media has been "glorifying" Hamas terrorists in its coverage of the U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem and Gaza riots in order to delegitimize Pres. Trump, and has "blood on its hands" for giving Hamas front page coverage so they could showboat. On May 20 (eve.) the 2018 Billboard Music Awards on NBC-TV, hosted by Kelly Clarkson see Ed Sheeran and Kendrick Lamar receive six awards each; they and Bruno Mars got 15 nominations each; Janet Jackson and Rhythm Nation rock the house with "Nasty", "If", and "Throb", and gives a speech for her Icon Award (first black woman), with the soundbyte: "I'm deeply humbled and grateful for this award. I believe that for all the challenges, for all our challenges, we live at a glorious moment in history. It's a moment when, at long last, women have made it clear that we will no longer be controlled, manipulated, or abused. I stand with those women, and with those men equally outraged by discrimination, who support us in heart and mind." On May 21 (a.m.) heavy explosions are heard at an Iranian electronic warfare base S of Damascus, Syria. On May 21 U.S. treasury secy. Steve Mnuchin gives an interview to Fox News, and announces that China and the U.S. "right now have agreed to put the tariffs on hold"; meanwhile Xinhua quotes Chinese vice-PM Liu He as saying "the two sides reached a consensus, will not fight a trade war, and will stop increasing tariffs on each other." On May 21 (3:00 p.m.) Pres. Trump calls deputy atty. gen. Rod Rosenstein and FBI dir. Christopher Wray to the White House to answer allegations that a federal informant was planted in his campaign. On May 21 U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo delivers a Speech on Iran at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., demanding that Iran halt all uranium enrichment and ballistic missile production and open its sites to nuclear inspectors, announcing a severe sanctions program which he says will "crush" it, calling it the biggest in history to defang it, also calling Iran out for sheltering al-Qaida leaders, calling it "the world's largest sponsor of terror", with the soundbyte: "Is this what you want your country to be known for? For being a co-conspirator with Hezbollah, Hamas, the Taliban, and al-Qaida?", causing Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani to reply "Who are you to make decisions about Iran?" On May 21 the Miss USA 2018 (67th) Pageant in Hirsch Memorial Coliseum in Shreveport, La., hosted by Vanessa and Nick Lachey is won by Miss Neb. Sarah Rose Summers (1994-) (first winner from Neb.). On May 22 Turkey sentences 104 ex-military officers to "aggravated life sentences" in prison for their involvement in the 2016 coup. On May 22 (Internat. Day Against Homophobia) Belarus slams its U.K. embassy for flying a rainbow flag, calling LGBT relationships "fake". On May 22 Israel uses the U.S.-made F-35 stealth fighter in its first combat action over Beirut. On May 22 Russia launches four Bulava ICBMs from nuclear sub Yuri Dolgoruky in the White Sea in a simulated massive nuclear strike against the U.S. On May 22 Adelaide archishop Philip Wilson is convicted of concealing child sexual abuse in the 1970s, becoming the most senior Roman Catholic in the world to be convicted. On May 22-23 Pres. Trump announces his Spygate conspiracy theory on Twitter, claiming that the Obama admin. planted a paid spy inside his 2016 pres. campaign to assist his rival Hillary Clinton to win the election, and that starting in Dec. 2015 there was a counter-intel operation inside his campaign; top congressmen of both major parties pooh-pooh his claims, clearing the FBI of misconduct, although they acknowledge that an FBI informant approached three Trump campaign advisors in 2016 in a covert effort to investigate Russian interference in the election. On May 23 a suicide bomber at a crowded park in a Shiite district in Shoala, Baghdad, Iraq kills seven and injures 16. On May 24 Pres. Trump cancels the planned North Korea summit scheduled for June 12 (6-12-18 = 6+6+6) in Singapore, with the soundbyte: "Based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting"; the next day he reinstates it. On May 24 Pres. Trump pardons heavyweight boxing champ Jack Johnson (1878-1946) while flanked by "Rocky" actor Sylvester Stallone, former heavyweight boxing champ Lennox Lewis, and heavyweight boxing champ Deontay Wilder. On May 24 U.S. secy. of state of Mike Pompeo addresses the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, uttering the soundbyte that U.S. diplomats are being "treated badly" in Pakistan, and that it will continue to receive diminishing U.S. aid. On May 24 (10:30 p.m. local time) an IED set by two men explodes during two birthday parties at the Bombay Bhel Restaurant in Mississauga (near Toronto), Ont., Canada, injuring 15. On May 25 the Gen. Data Protection Regulation (DPR) (adopted on Apr. 14, 2016) comes into effect in the EU, protecting personal data of all EU citizens. On May 25 Hollyweird casting couch mogul Harvey Weinstein surrenders himself to New York City authorities to face sexual abuse charges. On May 25 a referendum in the Repub. of Ireland overturns its longtime ban on abortion by 66.4%-33.6%, approving the 36th Amendment to the Constitution, which repeals the 8th Amendment; the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act of 2018 is signed into law on Dec. 20, coming into force on Jan. 1. Islam and its Sharia are taking over Britain? Free speech is dead? On May 25 working class anti-Sharia leader Tommy Robinson is arrested outside Leeds Crown Court in English for reporting on a Muslim pedophile grooming gang trail, then railroaded into a 13-mo. prison sentence sans a lawyer for allegedly violating terms of a suspended sentence, causing a public outcry, with mass protests and 600K+ signing a petition urging PM Theresa May to free him; on Aug. 1 he is freed by a smart judge in the court of appeal, who takes the original judge off the case; he claims to have been abused in prison, losing 40 lbs. in 2 mo. On May 27 illegal Malian immigrant ("Le Spiderman") Mamoudou Gassama (1995- scales an apt. bldg. in Paris to save the life of a 4-y.-o. infant, causing Pres. Emmanuel Macron to meet with him on May 29 to thank him and give him French citizenship. On May 28-June 24 the 2018 U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, Switzerland, run by the Conference on Disarmament (founded 1979), known for drafting the 1997 U.N. Chemical Weapons Convention is chaired by er, the Syrian Arab Republic of Animal Assad over U.S. objections. On May 29 an Allah-Akbar-shooting ex-con in Liege, Belgium takes a female janitor hostage at a school and shoots and kills two female police officers and a civilian before being killed by police. On May 29 a Muslim Fulani herder attack on the Catholic Secret Heart Minor Seminary in Jalingo, Taraba, Nigeria badly wounds Father Koba in the leg; meanwhile another Boko Haram attack in Konduga, Borno kills four and injures seven. n May 29 despite stellar ratings, Bob Iger of Disney and her talent agency ICM Partners drop star Roseanne bar for a tweet about Pres. Obama's Iranian advisor Valerie Jarrett "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby", causing the PC police to come out, calling it racist when the Muslim Brotherhood and Islam itself are political movements not races, and the movie Planet of the Apes isn't about blacks, it's about intelligent apes who attack all humans, white and black. On May 29 a Hamas mortar and rocket attack from Gaza Strip hits a Jewish kindergarten before the children arrive. On May 29 news breaks that Russian anti-Kremlin journalist Arady Babchenko was murdered outside in apt. in Kiev; on May 31 he appears alive and well at a press conference, admitting it was a sting by the Ukrainian security services to catch a killer paid by Russia. On May 30 ISIS militants attack the Afghan interior ministry bldg. in N Kabul, Afghanistan, killing one police officer and wounding five; 10 ISIS militants are killed. On May 30 a 26-y.-o. Muslim immigrant from Syria is shot dead by police in Rotterdam, Netherlands after stabbing two people and waving an axe at police, fatally stabbing a police dog. On May 30 (p.m.) Canadian leftist anti-Trump comedian Samantha Bee calls Ivanka Trump a "feckless cunt" on her "Full Frontal" show, causing a public outcry that ends in Bee issuing an apology. On May 31 U.S. commerce secy. Wilbur Ross announces new tariffs on steel and aluminum for Canada, the EU, and Mexico after deals were not reached. On May 31 Pres. Trump signs a law rolling back some of the regs of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Law, allowing community banks to go back in biz. On May 31 Pres. Trump announces that he will pardon conservative anti-Obama filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza. In May ?, the first female to join the British infantry quits after two weeks because it was too hard; in 2016 Conservative PM David Cameron lifted the ban on women in British combat units. In May elections in Iraq. In May Extinction Rebellion (XR) is founded in the U.K. by approx. 100 academics, who sign a call to action; on Oct. 31 it is officially launched by British environmental activists Julian Roger Hallam (1966-) and Gail Marie Bradbook (1972-) from the activist group Rising Up!, going on blockade or occupy prominent sites in London; its logo is a circled hourglass known as the extinction symbol; on Aug. 15, 2019 Hallam gives an interview to BBC's "Hard Talk", claiming on the basis of "hard science" that six billion people will die as a result of global climate change by 2100. In May several employees of Google resign to protest a contract with the U.S. govt. to make military drone software; meanwhile Google drops the motto "Don't be evil" from its docs. In May Pres. Trump cuts the U.S. federal payroll by 3K jobs, making a total of 24K since he took office. In May U.S. unemployment is 3.8%, lowest since 1969, with 223K new jobs. On June 1 after a corruption scandal, Spanish PM (since Dec. 21, 2011) Mariano Rajoy is ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament, becoming the first in modern Spanish history. On June 1 U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo releases a statement expressing support for LGBTI people throughout the world, posting it on Web sites of U.S. embassies in every country except Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Libya. On June 1 ex-CIA dir. John O. Brennan pub. an op-ed in The Washington Post slamming "Mr. Trump" (he refuses to call him president) as a "snake-oil salesman" who has shown "mean-spirited, malicious, and highly abnormal behavior" who "lies routinely to the American people without compunction" while "intentionally fueling divisions", claiming that Trump's election "dealt a serious blow" to "the esteem with which I held the presidency", adding "Almost immediately, I began to see a startling aberration from the remarkable, though human, presidents I had served. Mr. Trump's lifelong preoccupation with aggrandizing himself seemed to intensify in office, and he quickly leveraged his 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. address and his Twitter handle to burnish his brand and misrepresent reality"; not only that, but Trump "charts his every move according to a calculus of how it will personally help or hurt him. His strategy is to undercut real, potential and perceived opponents; his focus is to win at all costs, irrespective of truth, ethics, decency and - many would argue - the law", comparing him to "deamagogues" who "routinely relied on lies, deceit, and suppression of political opposition to cast themselves as populist heroes and to mask self-serving priorities"; "By gaining control of intelligence and security services, stifling the independence of the judiciary and discrediting a free press, these authoritarian rulers followed a time-tested recipe for how to inhibit democracy's development, retard individual freedoms and liberties, and reserve the spoils of corrupt governance for themselves and their ilk", concluding: "I will speak out until integrity returns to the White House"; on June 2 Pres. Trump tweets back, quoting conservative commentator Dan Bongino, who appeared on "Fox & Friends" earlier that day: "John Brennan, no single figure in American history has done more to discredit the intelligence community than this liar. Not only is he a liar, he's a liar about being a liar." On June 2 (7:00 a.m. local time) a roadside bomb attack in Binni Hasar, Kabul, Afghanistan kills an Afghan archeologist and injures three. On June 2 Pope Francis holds a conference in the Vatican with the heads of Exxon, Mobil, Eni, and BP, telling them to quit pumping and shift to clean energy. On June 2 Italian foreign minister Matteo Salvini speaks at a rally in Vicenza, uttering the soundbyte about economic refugees from North Africa: "The party is over for illegal immigrants. They will have to pack their bags, in a polite and calm manner, but they will have to go. Refugees escaping from war are welcome, but all others must leave." On June 2 Israeli defense forces destroy a Hamas underwater terror tunnel located 3km from the Israeli border. On June 2 the FBI arrests former U.S. Defense Intel Agency (DIA) employee >Ron Rockwell Hanson for spying for China. On June 2 200-ft.-deep Green Lake, largest freshwater lake on Hawaii Island evaporates in less than 2 hours because of lava. On June 4 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 7-2 in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colo. Civil Rights Commission that a Denver, Colo. bakery owned by conservative Christians was within its rights in refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, but doesn't rule on the larger issue of whether all business may hide behind the First Amendment to discriminate against gays, limiting their decision to language used by the commissioners that showed hostility toward religion rather than neutrality; "Whatever the confluence of speech and free exercise principles might be in some cases, the Colorado Civil Rights Commission's consideration of this case was inconsistent with the State's obligation of religious neutrality"; Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissent on the grounds that the gays were discriminated against for what they were, not for any offensive message on the cake - having to show one butt-fucking the other on the icing shouldn't matter? On June 4 Howard Schultz announces that he's resigning as exec chmn. of Starbucks after growing it from 11 stores in 1987 to 28K stores in 77 countries. On June 4 teenie British Muslim Safaa Boular (1990-) is found guilty of plotting a terror attack in the British Museum in London along with her all-female ISIS cell. On June 4 a Bay Area Council Poll finds that 46% of residents plan to move out of the San Francisco Bay area, vs. 34% in 2016 and 40% in 2017. On June 4 the Fuego Volcano in Guatemala erupts, killing 75 incl. three children, and injuring 300, with 192 missing. On June 5 the Napa County Ballot Question, sponsored by the Watershed Protection Committee seeks to restrict the number of trees that can be cut to make way for vineyards. On June 5 the U.S. State Dept. issues a Report on North Korean Detention Camps, saying that 120K are being held "under horrific conditions", and some are being held for religious reasons incl. Bible reading, praying, and singing hymns. On June 5 (a.m.) Miss America Org. chmn. Gretchen Carlson gives an interview on "Good Morning America", announcing the end of the swimsuit competition, with the soundbyte: "We are no longer a pageant. We are a competition. We wil no longer judge candidates on their outward physical appearance. That's huge." On June 5 the U.S. approves the refugee status application of Iraqi Muslim Omar Ameen (1973-), who then travels to Iraq and kills an Iraqi police officer in Rawah on behalf of ISIS on June 22, then returns to the U.S. and is arrested by the FBI in Sacramento, Calif. on Aug. 15. On June 6 (p.m.) Pres. Trump hosts in iftar dinner for ambassadors from Muslim-majority nations, describing it as "a sacred tradition of one of the world's great religion"; meanwhile anti-Trump Muslims demonstrate nearby, shouting "No ban, no wall, sanctuary for all"; Trump refused to hold the dinner in 2017. On June 7 Felipe V of Spain swears in a new pro-EU Spanish govt., with women holding most of the ministerial posts, 11 out of a cabinet of 17 under Socialist PM Pedro Sanchez, whose party holds only 84 out of 350 seats in congress. On June 7 after pressure by Palestinians, the Argentine nat. soccer team cancels a planned trip to Jerusalem for a friendly match with Israel to celebrate Israel's 70th birthday. On June 8 the 193-member U.N. Gen. Assembly votes for two nations to fill non-permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council; Israel makes its bid while 56 Arab nations oppose them. On June 8 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin meets in Beijing with Red Chinese (PRC) pres. Xi Jinping, who calls Putin "my best most intimate friend". On June 8 Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz announces a crackdown on hardcore Islamists, expelling 60 Turkish-funded imams and shutting down seven mosques along with the Arab Religious Community that runs six of them. On June 8-9 the G7 Summit in Charlevoix, Quebec, Canada sees cock of the rock Pres. Trump call for Russia to join and make it the G8, then blast Canadian PM Justin Trudeau (known for his babyish face with fake eyebrows) as "meek and mild" after refusing to sign the leftist G7 Communique (promising action on progressive taxation, global warming, women's equality et al.) and getting a parting shot from him, after which on June 10 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, 'US Tariffs were kind of insulting' and he 'will not be pushed around.' Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!", to which his enemy John O. Brennan tweets the reply: "Your wrong-headed protectionist policies & antics are damaging our global standing as well as our national interests. Your worldview does not represent American ideals. To allies & friends: Be patient, Mr. Trump is a temporary aberration. The America you once knew will return." On June 10 new Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini orders Italian ports closed to the ship Aquarius carrying 629 migrants, pissing-off French pres. Emmanuel Macron, causing Italy to threaten to cancel a planned summit with France; Spain takes the migrants in, docking the ship in Valencia, then forcing numerous students to vacate their paid accomodations to make room for them; on June 2 Salvini orders another ship carrying 224 North African immigrants turned back. On June 10 (Sun.) the 2018 (72nd) Tony Awards at Radio City Musical Hall in New York City, hosted by Sara Bareilles and Josh Groban gives 10 awards incl. best musical to "The Band's Visit"; "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" wins six awards incl. best play; "Angels in America" wins three awards; Robert De Niro utters the crowd-pleasing soundbyte: "It's no longer just down with Trump. It's fuck Trump", causing Rob Reiner to utter the soundbyte: "You're helping Trump by saying 'Fuck Trump',, because he can say 'Look at these people, these elitists." On June 10 (Sun.) Clint Eastwood attends the Cannes Film Festival for the 25th anniv. of his 1982 film "Unforgiven", issuing the announcement: "Hollywood is the place of traitors and pedophilians. This morning I've decided to leave this awful place and fight against traitors with real American patriots with President Trump." On June 12 the off-again-on-again Trump-Jong Un (U.S.-North Korea) Summit in the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island in Singapore proceeds quickly and amicably, with handshaking back-slapping Trump claiming he now has a "special bond" with the evil mass-murdering dictator, promising to stop military exercises in the Korean peninsula, and Kim reiterating his commitment to denuclearization, ending with both signing a communique and Trump inviting Kim to the White House. On June 12 super-leftist Berkeley, Calif. passes a resolution declaring a climate emergency and calling for a WWII-style mobilization effort incl. pop. control, urging other Calif. cities to march in line. On June 12 the Calif. secy. of state confirms that the Cal-3 initiative to divide Calif. into three states (Calif., Northern Calif., Southern Calif.), sponsored by Silicon Valley billionaire Tim Draper has received enough verified signatures to be placed on the Nov. ballot; 600K signatures were submitted; "California govenment has rotted. We need to empower our population to improve their government." (Draper) On June 13 Tunisian Muslim immigrant Sief Allah H. (1989-) is arrested in Chorweiler, Cologne, Germany for a plot to use the deadly toxin ricin in a jihadist attack in Germany using online instructions posted by ISIS. On June 14 U.S. Dept. of Justice Inspector Gen. Michael E. Horowitz releases a 500-page report on the mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email server scandal, slapping FBI dir. James Comey and atty. gen. Loretta Lynch on the wrist, despite revealing that Comey topped Hillary by using his personal Gmail account for official biz; on June 16 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "The IG Report totally destroys James Comey and all of his minions including the great lovers, Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who started the graceful Witch Hunt against so many innocent people. It will go down as a dark and dangerous period in American History!" On June 14 Pres. Trump announces his intention of slapping $50B of tariffs on Chinese goods, causing the Chinese to do ditto. On June 16 after Pres. Trump boasts about his poll numbers and his supporters in a tweet, Trump-hater John O. Brennan tweets the soundbyte: "All Americans - not just your supporters - deserve a President who is honest, ethical, selfless, & substantive. Our country faces daunting domestic & international challenges. If there is a scintilla of decency left in you, you would focus on your responsibilities, not on yourself." On June 18 Pres. Trump announces his plan to create an independent "separate but equal" Space Force as a 6th branch of the U.S. militarey, ordering Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford to carry it out pronto, with the soundbytes: "It is not enough to have an American presence in space, we must have an American dominance in space", and "General, got it?"; Trump also tweets the soundbyte about German chancellor Angela Merkel's migrant policy: "Crime in Germany is way up. Bit mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people who have so strongly and violently change their culture!" On June 19 after it passes the House of Commons in Nov., the Canadian Senate votes 52-29 to pass Bill C-45 (the Cannabis Act), legalizing marijuana, becoming the 2nd country after Uruguay in Dec. 2013. On June 19 the U.S. Justice Dept. announces the arrest of 412 Muslims in Mich. for welfare fraud, calling it "the largest scam in United States history". On June 19 as it begins a 3-day meeting in Geneva, U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo announce that the U.S. has pulled out of the U.N. Human Rights Council, calling it "not worthy of its name" and a "protector of human rights abusers and cesspool of political bias", accusing it of "politicizing and scapegoating countries with positive human rights records". On June 19 ICE launches Operation Limelight at Newark Internat. Airport in N.J. to inform passengers traveling to countries that have a high risk of female genital mutilation (FGM) of the laws and penalties. On June 19 (eve.) U.S. Homeland Security secy. Kirstjen Nielsen is chased out of a Mexican restaurant by anti-Trump activists over the children separation issue, shouting "You're a villain locking up immigrant children"; on June 25 White House press secy. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is asked to leave the Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington, Va., causing Trump to respond that the "dirty" restaurant "badly needs a paint job", while leftist Calif. Dem. rep. Maxine Waters calls for more such actions, with the soundbyte: "If you see anybody from that (Trump) Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. You push back on them. Tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere!", forcing Nancy Pelosi to condemn her, after which she backtracks and denies calling for anybody to be harmed. On June 20 after a bipartisan uproar about tearing illegal immigrant children away from their families, topped by Hollyweird actor Peter Fonda uttering the soundbyte: "Let's rip Barron Trump from his mother's arms and put him in a cage with pedophiles", Pres. Trump signs an executive order keeping families together at the border. On June 21 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc. to overturn their unanimous decision in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota (1992) and permit states to collect sales tax from out-of-state online retailers, with Justice Anthony Kennedy calling the previous decision "unsound and incorrect", pleasing Pres. Trump, who has long blasted Amazon.com and its founder Jeff Bezos, owner of the anti-Trump Washington Post; the majority incl. Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Ruther Bader Ginsburg; dissenters incl. John Roberts, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor. On June 21 First Lady Melania Trump visits some children's shelters at the U.S.-Mexico border in Tex. along with HHS secy. Alex Azar, paving the way for accelerated reunification with their families; she wears a jacket reading "I really don't care. Do U?" on the back, pissing-off the PC police. On June 21 the 2018 U.S. Summer begins, going on to have the smallest number of daily record temperatures and smallest number of all-time record max temperatures; on Sept. 6 NOAA releases a report claiming it is the 4th hottest summer on record for the U.S., tying with 1934; it's moose hockey because the 1930s were way hotter? On June 21-24 a jihadi attack by Muslim Fulani herdsmen on Christians in a number of villages in Plateau State of C Nigeria kills 200+ and injures hundreds, burning 50 homes; the PC press tries to cover it up, calling it "ethnic tensions", "a battle for land and resources", and "climate change"; on July 1 Roman Catholic arcbishop of Lagos Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie pub. an open letter to Nigerian pres. Muhammadu Buhari, accusing him of culpable inaction to protect Christians from slaughter by Muslim Fulani herdsmen in C Nigeria. On June 22 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte that the only way to get immigration legislation passed is for Repubs. to give up in immigration reform until a Red Wave of Repubs. is elected to Congress in Nov., which Repub. leaders immediately ignore. On June 22 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Carpenter v. U.S. that police need warrants to gather phone location data as evidence for trials. On June 23 the Tham Luang Cave Rescue sees 12 boys ages 11-16 from a local soccer team become stranded with their 25-y.-o. asst. coach Tham Luang Nang Non in a cave in Chiang Rai Province and get trapped by heavy rains, causing a massive rescue operation by 1K incl. Thai Navy SEALs, one of whom dies while delivering air supplies on July 5; they are rescued on ? On June 23 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: ".@FoxNews Poll numbers plummet on the Democrat inspired and paid for Russian Witch Hunt. With all of the bias, lying and hate by the investigators, people want the investigators investigated. Much more will come out. A total scam and excuse for the Dems losing the Election!", causing Trump enemy John O. Brennan to tweet the reply "Your fear of exposure is palpable. Your desperation even more so. When will those of conscience among your Cabinet, inner circle, and Republican leadership realize that your unprincipled and unethical behavior as well as your incompetence are seriously damaging our Nation." On June 25 the U.N.'s WHO announces that for purposes of the 11th ed. of its Internat. Classification of Diseases (ICD), transgender individuals will no longer be classified as mentally ill. On June 25 the Assoc. for Library Service to Children removes Laura Ingalls Wilder's name from their legacy award for being too white, er, "expressions of stereotypical attitudes inconsistent with ALSC's core values", renaming it the Children's Lit. Legacy Award. On June 26 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in ? v. ? to uphold Pres. Trump's Muslim country travel ban, confirming that it is "squarely within the scope of presidential authority, with his anti-Muslim campaign statements being irrelevant, but seemingly only because the ban only affects 8% of the world's Muslims, the whole decision pissing-off leftists incl. ACLU deputy legal dir. Cecilia Wang, who calls the decision "a dreadful day", vowing to "fight on to express the will of the people to uphold equality and freedom" and flood the U.S. with Muslims who will destroy its Constitutional repub. to please the ACLU and other Commies?; Pres. Trump calls it a "tremendous victory for the American people"; dissenter justice Sonia Sotomayor writes the soundbyte: "History will not look kindly on the court's misguided decision today, nor should it"; no blanket statement that Islam may be used as a criteria to ban people from entering the U.S. if it is deemed a threat to the Constitution, no castigation of the lower courts for bowing to leftists and usurping the president's and Congress' authority in a separation of powers power grab attempt? On June 26 thousands of Iranians protest in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, Iran over the govt.'s spending of money on adventurism abroad, shouting "Death to Palestine". On June 26 avowed Socialist Dem. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989-) defeats longtime rep. Joe Crowley in the Dem. primary in New York's 14th congressional district, promising universal free Medicare and college tuition, and an end to ICE. On June 27 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Janus v. AFSCME that unions may not force non-members to pay union dues, citing the political activities of public sector unions and free speech rights. On June 28 (2:34 p.m. local time) a shooter at the Capital Gazette Newspaper Bldg. in Annapolis, Md. kills five incl. four journalists and a salesperson and injures several others; suspect Jarrod Warren Ramos (1979-) surrenders and is arrested. On June 28 hundreds of chanting women protest inside the U.S. Senate Office Bldg. in Washington, D.C. against Donald Trump's treatment of migrant families; police arrest nearly 600. On June 28 the Calif. Supreme Court upholds a gun control law that is impossible to implement, requiring semiautomatic guns sold in the state to have a unique micro-stamped marker on their firing pins. On June 28 the 2018 North Am. Heat Wave (ends Oct. 4); on July 27 Michael Mann of Penn. State U., Jennifer Francis of Rutgers U., and Noah Diffenbaugh of Stanford U. blame it on increased atmospheric CO2 and the jet stream; meanwhile Britain suffers an unusually wet and cold summer, and Siberia suffers record cold, with a record low of -1C in Salekhard on Aug. 2; in June-Aug. the Summer 2018 U.S. Midwest has one of its coolest summers in modern times, with only eight measurements over 100F, vs. 17,772 since 1895 and 2,624 in 1936; meanwhile in Aug. satellite data from climatereanalyzer.org show global temps falling to 0.19C, giving a YTD avg. of 0.23C, about the same as in 2002. On June 29 West Point Academy announces the appointment of Lt. Gen. Darryl A. Williams as its first-ever black suptd. (#60). On June 30 after 561 refugees from Yemen arrive in Jeju Province, South Korea, and 552 apply for asylum, a protest is held against them in Seoul. In June former "Flowers in Your Hair" city San Francisco, Calif. is declared one of the filthiest slums on Earth. In June Uzbekistan refugee Jamshid Muhtorov is found guilty of conspiring to support a terrorist group, and given an 11-year prison sentence with six years off for time served in Colo. In June Austria announces that it is going to shut down seven mosques and expel 60 imams with ties to Turkey or Salafis. In June David de Rothschild (1942-) hands control of the Rothschild banking empire to his son Alexandre de Rothschild (1980-). On July 1 elections in Mexico. On July 1 Costa Rica becomes the first country to ban fossil fuels. In July the city of San Francisco, Calif. opens two safe injection sites (monitored by train medical staff) for users of heroin, fentanyl, and other hard drugs, becoming the first in the U.S. - shut up and take my money? On July 1 Am. Muslim convert (al-Qaida supporter) Abdur Raheem Rafeeq (formerly Nathaniel Pitts) is arrested by the FBI for plotting a July 4 terror attack in Cleveland, Ohio. On July 1 France enthrones abortion champion (health minister in 1975) Simone Veil in the Pantheon, with pres. Emmanuel Macron declaring "France loves Simone Veil". On July 3 the city of Quriyat, Oman sets a record of 108.7F (42.6C) for the highest 24-hour min. temperature on Earth, breaking the previous record of 107.4F (41.9C) set in Oman on June 27, 2011; the temp actually remains above 107.4F (41.9C) for 51 straight hours, with an afternoon high temp of 121.6F (49.8C); on July 6 Ouargla, Algeria reaches 124F (51C), setting a record for Africa, causing global warming proponents to claim it as proof; actually the heat dome phenomenon happens every few summers, and there have been far hotter summers in the past, esp. the 1930s? On July 6 amid a swarm of 14 federal investigations, EPA head (since Feb. 17, 2017) Scott Pruit resigns; U.S. Sen. (D-Mass.) Elizabeth "Pocahontas" Warren utters the soundbyte that his successor should be a believer in climate change; on July 9 Hamilton, Ohio-born coal lobbyist Andrew R. Wheeler (1964-) (former aide to climate skeptic U.S. Sen. James Inhofe) succeeds Scott Pruitt as acting admin. of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (until ?). On July 6 the U.S. and China hit each other with punishing tariffs, becoming the start of a trade war. On July 7-8 (weekend) heavy rains in SW Japan trigger floods and landslides that kill 57 and force 2M to flee their homes. On July 9 Pope Francis hosts a conference at the Vatican with oil co. execs, urging them to get with it and follow his 2015 climate change encyclical "Laudato Si" despite it not being obligatory. On July 9 (7:00 p.m. EDT) after the Dems. go wild at the prospect of Roe v. Wade being overturned, and key Senate Dems. Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), and Joe Manchin (W. Va.) refuse invitations, Pres. Trump nominates conservative Roman Catholic D.C. Appeals Court judge (since 2006) Brett Michael Kavanaugh (1965-) to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy of retiring justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom he once clerked, pissing-off Dems, causing Hillary Clinton to utter the soundbyte to the Am. Federation of Teachers on July 13 that Repubs. want to turn the black, er, clock back to the 1850s. On July 11 Pres. Trump meets in Brussels with leaders of NATO, whipping them in line to increase defense spending, uttering the soundbyte: "I told them today that the EU better be careful because immigration is taking over Europe and I said that loud and clear." On July 11 the U.N. Security Council holds its first session focusing on climate change in seven years, to consider "the cycle of conflict and climate disaster", calling for internat. coordination. On July 11 Argentina freezes the assets of 14 people belong to the Barakat clan in South Am., becoming their first action against Hezbollah; on Sept. 21 Brazilian federal police arrest the clan leader Assad Ahmad Barakat in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil in the tri-border area of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. On July 12 Pres. Trump arrives in Britain to a royal welcome by PM Theresa May, followed by another at Windsor Castle by Elizabeth II on July 13, amid large anti-Trump street demonstrations, incl. a giant Baby Trump Blimp, causing Trump to say that he doesn't feel welcome there, telling The Sun newspaper that unless Euros "act very quickly, it's never going to be what it was, and I don't mean that in a positive way", adding "I think you are losing your culture. Look around. You go through certain areas that didn't exist 10 or 15 years ago", later telling a press conference: "I made a point today. I said, you've got to stop. You're ruining your - you're going to have a lot of problems. You see what's going on throughout the world with immigration"; on July 14 he visits Scotland, facing more protests; Prince William and Prince Charles snub Trump, who makes a mild etiquette boo-boo by turning his back to the diminutive queen. On July 12 Repubs. on the House Oversight Committee and House Judiciary Committee grill FBI agent Peter Strzok for nine hours while Dems. turn it into a circus trying to cover for him with procedural objections; Strzok acts defiant, calling the hearing a "victory notch in Putin's belt" while acknowledging texts saying "Stop Trump", but claiming that there is "simply no evidence of bias in my professional actions" (other than sending the damning texts on FBI equipment), claiming he was kicked off the Russia probe over an "appearance" issue not because of "bias", adding that he didn't appreciate Repub. Rep. Trey Gowdy (who accuses him of "textbook bias" with his anti-Trump texts) to say otherwise, causing Gowdy to reply: "I don't give a damn what you appreciate, Agent Strzok. I don't appreciate an FBI agent with an unprecedented level of animus working on two major investigations in 2016" - try using a racial slur and see how that argument works? On July 12 Turkish Mahdist sect leader Adnan Oktar (AKA Harun Yahya) is arrested as part of a crackdown on his cult after the Turkish govt. claims it found arms caches in their HQ on the Asian side of the Bosporus. On July 13 (Fri.) a grand jury indicts 12 Russian intel officers for hacking computers of Hillary Clinton's campaign and the Dem. Nat. Committee, but no Americanskies, causing Pres. Trump to tweet the soundbyte: "The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration. Why didn't they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?" On July 13 a suicide attack at an election rally in Mastung, SW Pakistan kills 129 incl. Balochistan Awami Party leader Siraj Raisani. On July 15 (4:30 p.m. local time) a suicide attack at the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development in Kabul, Afghanistan kills seven and injures 15+; meanwhile the U.N. pub. a report giving the number of Afghan civilians killed in the first half of the year as 1.7K, highest in 10 years. On July 16 the Trump-Putin Summit in Helsinki, Finland, hosted by Finnish pres. (since Mar. 1, 2012) Sauli Niinisto sees Trump side with Putin on the Ritz against his own Obama-Hillary-infiltrated intel agencies, uttering the soundbyte that he didn't say any reason why it would be Russia that interfered with the 2016 U.S. election, pissing-off traitors in the U.S. govt., who expose themselves by calling him a traitor, incl. John McCain, Chuck Schumer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and John Brennan, who calls Trump's comments "imbecilic" and explicitly uses the T-word, while overlooking the fact that he voted for Communist Party USA candidate Gus Hall for U.S. pres. in 1976; McCain calls it "One of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory", adding "No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant"; Trump calls Brennan a "total lowlife"; most of these same critics called Pres. George W. Bush a traitor for believing his intel services when they claimed that Iraq had WMD; Trump later corrects himself, saying that he meant to say he didn't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia. On July 16 the EU and Japan sign a massive trade deal covering nearly one-third of world GDP and 600M people, allowing the EU to get back at Pres. Trump for calling it "foe" of the U.S. on July 15. On July 16 a volcanic lava bomb showers a tour boat off the coat of the Big Island of Hawaii, injuring 22 before it can return to Hilo. On July 17 after DNA is used to track him down, John D. Miller is charged with the 1988 kidnapping, rape, and murder of 8-y.-o. April Tinsley in Ind. On July 18 the EU fines Google 4.3B Euros for anti-competitive abuse with its Android mobile software, and another 2.4B Euro fine for its search monopoly for "denying rivals a chance to innovate", causing Pres. Trump to tweet the soundbyte: "I told you so! They truly have taken advantage of the U.S., but not for long!" On July 18 a U.S. grand jury indicts Russian activist Maria Butina, founder of the pro-gun Russian advocacy group Right to Bear Ams as an unregistered foreign agent. On July 19 several thousand pro-regime residents of FUaa and Kafraya in N Syria evacuate after one of the longest sieges in the 7-year civil war. On July 21 after five people incl. an Israeli soldier are killed on July 21, a ceasefire is agreed to by Hamas and Israel. On July 22 a suicide attack near the main airport in Kabul, Afghanistan targeting vice-pres. Rashid Dostum kills 23 and injures 100+; Dostum left the country last year and recently returned. On July 22 after Iranian nutcase Hassan Rouhani tweets that the U.S. should be aware that "war with Iran is the mother of all wars", Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE", causing Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif to tweet the soundbyte: "COLOR US UNIMPRESSED... BE CAUTIOUS!" On July 22 (night) Pakistan-born Canadian Muslim Faisal Hussain shoots up a restaurant row on Danforth Ave. in Greektown, Toronto, Canada, killing 18-y.-o. Reese Fallon and 10-y.-o. Julianna Kozis and injuring 13; the govt. attempts a coverup, refusing to call it a jihad. On July 23 a 5.8 earthquake in SE Iran injures 25+, one day after another earthquake in W Irean injures 290, becoming Iran's fourth earthquake in two days. On July 23 as Russian-backed Syrian govt. forces route rebels in SW Syria, bringing them close to the Golan Heights, Israel launches its newest air defenses system, the David's Sling interceptor missile at rockets which it claims fell inside Syrian territory as part of the internal fighting, causing Moscow to send foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to meet with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. On July 23 after the Carter Page FISA docs are released, Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "So we now find out that it was indeed the unverified and Fake Dirty Dossier, that was paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC, that was knowingly & falsely submitted to FISA and which was responsible for starting the totally conflicted and discredited Mueller Witch Hunt!" On July 24 (1:42 p.m. local time) Israel shoots down a Syrian Sukhoi warplane 2 km. inside the Israeli border using two patriot missiles. On July 24 a Gallup Poll finds that Pres. Trump's approval rating has risen to 41.9%. On July 25 an ISIS assault in the Druze city of Sweida, S Syria kills 220+. On July 25 gen. elections in Pakistan are a V for the PTI Party of Imran Khan, while the opposition PMLN Party alleges massive fraud. On July 25 Pres. Trump meets in the White House with European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker, and agree on a trade plan that gives Trump nearly everything he wants. On July 26 thousands of African migrants begin storming the fences between Morocco and Ceuta, Spain; on Aug. 22 seven policemen are burned by acid and quicklime thrown by the pesky migrants. On July 26 after a disastrous quarterly report, Facebook posts the largest 1-day market value loss in U.S. stock market history, down $119B to $510B (19%); founder Mark Zuckerberg loses $17B; Facebook shareholders propose ousting him as chmn. On July 26 Iranian gen. Qasem Soleimani gives a speech in Hameden, Iran, with the soundbyte that Pres. "Trump the Gambler"'s speech is "that of a bartender or a casino manager", warning him that "We are near you in places that you can't even imagine. We are a nation of martyrdom." On July 26 Land O'Lakes of Minn. names COO Beth Ford as its CEO, becoming the first openly gay woman to head a Fortune 500 co. On July 27 Pres. Trump announces a 2nd quarter GDP growth of 4.1%, uttering the soundbyte: "Once again we are the economic envy of the entire world. When I meet the leaders of countries, the first thing they say invariably is Mr. President, so nice to meet you, congratulations on your economy, you're leading the entire world." On July 27 Jordanian immigrant Muslim Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan is convicted by a jury in Houston, Tex. of the honor killing of his daughter Nesreen Irsan's Am. husband Coty Beavers and Iranian women's rights activist Gelareh Bagherzadeh to prevent the daughter who ran away from home from marrying a Christian and converting to Christianity; Irsan's wife Shmou Alrawabdeh testifies against him after a plea bargain; Irsan's son Nasim Irsan is being held in jail on murder charges. On July 27 (3rd Fri. the 13th of July) a blood moon signals the End of the World? On July 28 the 81K-acre Carr Fire in Northern Calif. kills two firefighters while destroying hundreds of bldgs. and homes, causing 38K residents of Redding, Calif. to flee their homes; meanwhile 89 large wildfires are burning in 14 U.S. states, mainly in the west. On July 28 three Islamist gunmen attack a midwife training facility in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, engaging security forces for several hours before being killed after four civilians are killed. On July 28 Jordian-born Mexican Muslim Moyad Heider Mohammad Aldairi (1987-) is arrested for allegedly conspiring to smuggle six Yemeni nations across the Tex. border into the U.S. for a fee. On July 29 (Sun.) pres. elections in Mali are a push, causing a 2nd election on Aug. 12 between incumbent pres. Ibrahiim Boubacar Keita and Soumaila Cisse (Cissé); Keita wins with 67% of the vote. On July 29 elections in Cambodia. On July 29 a shallow 6.9 earthquake in Lombok Island, Indonesia kills 347 and injures 160+, damaging 1K+ houses; it is felt as far as Bali. On July 29 17-y.-o. Palestinian Ahed Tamimi (2001-) is released from jail after serving an 8-mo. sentence for slapping and kicking two Israeli soldiers outside her home on Dec. 15 then filming it and livestreaming it on Facebook. On July 29 the corpse of Bishop Epiphanius is found in the Coptic Orthodox Church of St. Macarius the Great Monastery near Wadi el-Natrun, Egypt under mysterious circumstances. On July 29 the Iranian rial hits a new low of 100K to $1 U.S. as Iran braces for Aug. 7, the day the U.S. reimposes economic sanctions. On July 29 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Had a very good and interesting meeting at the White House with A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher of the New York Times. Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, 'Enemy of the People.' Sad!"; on Aug. 2 after his daughter Ivanka appears to contradict him, Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "They asked my daughter Ivanka whether or not the media is the enemy of the people. She correctly said now. It is the FAKE NEWS, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy of the people"; on Aug. 5 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!" On July 30 Pres. Trump holds a conference with Italian PM (since June 1) Giuseppe Conte, uttering the soundbyte that he'd "certainly meet" with Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani sans preconditions, adding "I'll meet with anybody. There's nothing wrong with meeting." On July 30 elections in Zimbabwe are the first without Robert Mugabe on the ballot. On July 30 (1:40 a.m.) Fakrol Islam (1992-) tries to set a gas station in Bulls Head, Staten Island, N.Y. on fire; on Aug. 22 he is indicted in his hospital bed in Staten Island U. Hospital, pleading not guilty. On July 31 U.S. homeland security secy. Kirstjen Nielsen announces the creation of the Nat. Risk Management Center to help banks, energy and other critical infrastructure industries thwart foreign cyberattacks. On July 31 after meeting with two dozen-plus Repub. Senators, Judge Brett Kavanaugh meets with U.S. Sen. (D-W. Va.) Joe Manchin, who becomes the first Senate Dem. to meet him, and ends up voting to confirm him. On July 31 Facebook announces the removal of 32 face accounts from its site and Instagran for engaging in "coordinated inauthentic behavior" to disrupt the U.S. midterm elections; too bad, this incl. the feminist activist group Resisters, which was advertising an anti-racism rally in Washington, D.C. set for Aug. 12 on the 1st anniv. of the Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Va. On July 31 NBA star LeBron James gives an interview to CNN, claiming that he believes Pres. Trump "is kind of trying to divide us", causing Trump on Aug. 3 to tweet the soundbyte: "Lebron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn't easy to do. I like Mike!", causing Lemon on Aug. 4 to tweet the soundbyte: "Who's the real dummy? A man who puts kids in classrooms or one who puts kids in cages?" (forgetting that Pres. Obama did it too?) In July U.S. unemployment is 3.9%, adding 157K jobs (vs. 248K in June), with a record 15,965,000 employed; the unemployment rate for Hispanics hits a record low of 4.5%. On Aug. 1 the Trump admin. announces that it is raising planned tariffs on $200B of goods imported from China from 10% to 25%, upping the pressure, causing China to retaliate with their own tariffs. On Aug. 1 after a week of threats, Pres. Trump blacklists Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu and justice minister Abdulhamit Gul to pressure Turkey to release N.C. Christian missionary Andrew Brunson, pissing-off Turkish dictator Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who on Aug. 4 threatens sanctions on two members of Pres. Trump's cabinet to retaliate. On Aug. 2 Pres. Trump tweets a thank you to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un for returning the remains of U.S. servicemen. On Aug. 3 after the senate rejects it, the French house passes a controversial asylum and migration bill, preserving the right of asylum. On Aug. 3 a suicide bomber detonates at the Shiite Khawaja Hassan Mosque in Gardez, Paktia, E Afghanistan, killing 25 and injuring 40. On Aug. 3 a Saudi air raid near the main public hospital in Hodeidah, Yemen on the Red Sea kills 55 and injures 124. On Aug. 3 Am. extremist Muslim Siraj Ibn Wahhaj (Wahhaj Jr.) (1979-), son of Brooklyn, N.Y. imam Siraj Wahhaj (suspected conspirator in the 1993 WTC bombing) is arrested in his compound in Amalia, N.M., where 11 malnourished children and four adults (Wahhaj, Lucas Morten, Subhanah Wahhaj, Hujrah Wahhaj, Jany Leville) are found living in filthy conditions, with the children allegedly being taught to use assault rifles to commit school shootings; remains of a 12th child are found; too bad, a N.J. judge dismisses child abuse charges against all five defendants after state prosecutors miss a 10-day deadline for a preliminary hearing. On Aug. 3 after the news breaks that the office of wealthy ($45M) pro-China U.S. Sen. (D-Calif.) Dianne Feinstein employed a Chinese spy as driver for 20 years, getting Chinese human rights activists who appealed to her for help kidnapped and executed by the Red Chinese govt., Donald Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Dianne is the person leading our Nation on 'Collusion' with Russia (only done by Dems.) Will she now investigate herself?"; the PC press ignores the story to continue her/their war on Trump. On Aug. 4 (afternoon) several drones explode near Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro while giving a speech, injuring seven, causing him to fish around for somebody to blame, starting with the U.S.? On Aug. 4-5 a surge of shootings in Chicago, Ill. kills 36 (incl. 16 teenagers), incl. 25 in a 2.5-hour period on Aug. 5, causing former Chicago Heights police chief Gary "Gus" Trower to utter the soundbyte: "Instead of setting up a task force combining the resources of the FBI, DEA, ATF, Chicago Police Department, Illinois State Police and others to fight against the gangs and criminals that all too often cut-short the lives of young blacks, the Democrats are more interested in trying to bring down a duly elected POTUS"; so far this year there has been a total of 1.7K shootings and 318 homicides in Rahm Emanuelville. On Aug. 6 in a coordinated coup after viewer-losing fake news CNN puts them up to it, Facebook, Apple, YouTube, and Spotify (but not Twitter) remove "The Alex Jones Show" and its InfoWars content in a quantum leap in leftist censorship of non-leftists, causing Media Research Center pres. Brent Bozell to write the soundbyte: "It's not just a slippery slope, it's a dangerous cliff that these social media companies are jumping off to satisfy CNN and other liberal outlets"; on Sept. 6 Twitter finally pulls Jones' account after an incident when he harassed CNN reporter Oliver Darcy outside a run in Congress where Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was being questioned; meanwhile Hungarian-born anti-American leftist billionaire puppetmaster George Soros (1930-) and his octopus call for Facebook to remove "climate deniers", and YouTube resists the pressure, but in July starts adding info. panels to all climate videos pro and con linked to Wikipedia's super-biased article on climate change that pushes the PC global warming moose hockey and denigrates climate denialists, landmining the pages so that every stray click goes to it; they also do it with Flat Earth and NASA Moon Landing hoax videos, encouraging guilt by association? On Aug. 6 (eve.) 11-y.-o. 4'11" 90 lb. African-Am. girl Donesha Gowdy (2007-) is tased by police officer Kevin Brown (1963-) in Spring Grove, Cincinnati, Ohio after shoplifting $50 worth of groceries from a Kroger store, causing a public outcry, which is increased when the police dept. claims a 50K-volt taser can be used on anybody aged 7-70; too bad, the officer utters the non-PC soundbyte "You know, sweetheart, this is why there's no grocery stores in the black community", letting the PC police loose on him, after which Brown doubles down on his statement, saying it is supported by statistics, and the police dept. says the statement constitutes prejudice, he didn't turn on his body camera before tasering her, did not warn her first, and was unnecessary since the incident wasn't serious enough. On Aug. 7 U.S. sanctions on Iran come into effect. On Aug. 7 Nigerian security forces block lawmakers from entering parliament to intimidate opposition leaders, causing the acting pres. to fire the head of the security agency. On Aug. 7 Ivan Duque Marquez (Iván Duque Márquez) (1976-) of the Dem. Centre Party becomes pres. #33 of Columbia (until ?). On Aug. 7 16-y.-o. Maxim Neverov (2002-) from Blysk is fined 50K rubles for pub. pro-gay photos on social network site Vkontakte, becoming the first minor prosecuted under Russian anti-gay propaganda laws. On Aug. 8 the Trump admin. announces new sanctions on Russia over a Novichok chemical weapons attack on former Russian intel officer Sergei V. Skripal in Mar. in Salisbury, England. On Aug. 8 Ford rolls its 10 millionth Mustang off an assembly line in its Detroit, Mich. plant. On Aug. 8-9 Israeli aircraft strike 150+ targets in Gaza, while Palestinian Hamas militants fire scores of rockets deep into Israel, first long-range attack since 2014. On Aug. 10 the Taliban launches a brazen attack on the strategic city of Ghazni, Afghanistan S of Kabul, killing 16 and injuring 40 AFghan security forces. On Aug. 10 Socialist former pres. (2006-10, 2012-14) of Chile Michelle Bachelet is elected U.N. high commissioner for human rights despite reluctance to criticize fellow Latin Am. leftists in Cuba, Venezuela et al. On Aug. 10 English Muslim convert Ali Hussain (1992-) ' AKA Lewis Ludlow of Rochester, Kent pleads guilty to plotting a terror attack on Oxford St. in London and raising money for terrorism. On Aug. 11 (Sat.) Glacier Nat. Park in Mont. reaches 100F, hottest temp in its recorded history; the number of glaciers in the park is down to 26 from 150 in 1850; meanwhile Missoula, Mont. goes 40 days without rain, another record. On Aug. 11 (4:00 p.m.) Ross Dress for Less employee Mohamed Mahmoud (1981-) shoots up his workplace after a customer leaves a shopping cart at the front door and he gets in an argument with his female mgr., then shoots at police officers until being shot in the hip from 50 yards. On Aug. 11 (Sat.) pampered women's lib poster child Chelsea Clinton utters the soundbyte at a Rise Up for Roe event: "Whether you fundamentally care about reproductive rights and access right, because these are not the same thing, if you care about social justice or economic justice, agency – you have to care about this. It is not a disconnected fact – to address this t-shirt of 1973 – that American women entering the labor force from 1973 to 2009 added three and a half trillion dollars to our economy, right? The net, new entrance of women – that is not disconnected from the fact that Roe became the law of the land in January of 1973" - the dead babies have no rights? On Aug. 13 (early a.m.) Christopher Lee "Chris" Watts (1985-) murders his pregnant wife Shananann and two young daughters Bella and Celeste in their Frederick, Colo. home and buries them on the property of his employer Anadarko Petroleum, then calls the police and puts on an innocent act until they break him down and get him to confess and plead guilty, receiving five life sentences; watch video. On Aug. 13 after learning they did it on Aug. 10, Pres. Trump crows his approval of the firing of FBI agent Peter Strzok, tweeting the soundbyte: "Agent Peter Strzok was just fired from the FBI — finally. The list of bad players in the FBI & DOJ gets longer & longer. Based on the fact that Strzok was in charge of the Witch Hunt, will it be dropped? It is a total Hoax. No Collusion, No Obstruction — I just fight back!"; "Just fired Agent Strzok, formerly of the FBI, was in charge of the Crooked Hillary Clinton sham investigation. It was a total fraud on the American public and should be properly redone!" On Aug. 13 Pres. Trump signs a defense policy bill that blocks the transfer of 100 F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, adding to the impact of his decision a week ago to double down on tariffs on Turkish aluminum and steel and stealing Turkey's dream of having the 3rd largest F-35 fleet on Earth by the 2020s. On Aug. 13, as five major fires rage across the state, and the air over Seattle is filled with ash and smoke, Trump-hating Dem. Wash. Gov. #23 (since Jan. 16, 2013) Jay Robert Inslee (1951-) declares a state of emergency; meanwhile on Aug. 16 British Columbia declares a state of emergency as 566 fires burn across the province, causing the evacuation of 3K and blanketing Vancouver with smoke; in Dec. Inslee announces new legislation aimed at reducing the state's carbon emissions over a period of 20 years, requiring state utilities to effectively end the use of fossil fuels altogether by 2050 and forcing the state to adopt a clean fuel standard, promote electric and low-emission vehicles, and provide incentives to renovate existing buildings to reduce emissions; he also announces that a climate candidate like himself can beat Trump in 2020, with the soundbyte: "No nation has followed Donald Trump off the cliff with climate change. Not a single one. We want to keep it that way." On Aug. 14 (06:37 GMT) 29-y.-o. Sudanese Muslim Salih Khater (1989-) from Birmingham drives his silver Ford Fiesta through a group of cyclists into security barriers outside Parliament in London, England, injuring three before being arrested on suspicion of terrorism, causing Pres. Trump to tweet the soundbyte: "Another terrorist attack in London. These animals are crazy and must be dealt with through toughness and strength!"; Khater's friends call it an accident; Muslim London Mayor Sadiq Khan calls for cars to be banned from Parliament Square. On Aug. 14 a bomb explodes in a crowded market in the heavily Shiite Sadr City district of Baghdad, Iraq, killing two and injuring six. On Aug. 14 the 50-y.-o. Morandi Motorway Bridge in Genoa, Italy collapses in heavy rain, killing 39. On Aug. 14 the Taliban overrun Camp Shinaya army base in N Afghanistan, killing 17 soldiers; meanwhile the Ghazni battle rages for the 5th straight day. ON Aug. 15 PKK Kurdistan Workers' Party) leader Ismail Ozden is killed by the Turkish air force after the U.S. military shares intel. On Aug. 15 Pres. Trump revokes the security clearance of Trump-hating pro-Muslim ex-CIA dir. John O. Brennan, whom U.S. Sen. Rand Paul called "the most biased, bigoted, over-the-top, hyperbolic sort of unhinged director of the CIA we've ever had", with Trump saying that he "has recently leveraged his status... to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the Internet and on television about this admin.", causing U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) to tell CNN that Brennan is a "butthead" who has given the intel community "a bad name", and Rand Paul to issue a new soundbyte: "I think John Brennan's actually a national security risk to the country and we are safer because his security clearance is gone. And the reason I say that is because, in 2012, he actually released information to other ex-CIA agents who went on TV and said, 'We have a double agent in Yemen'. Well, at the time, there was a double agent in Yemen at his life, his or her, I don't know who it was, but their life was put in risk because John Brennan's releasing information that he shouldn't. John Brennan also was involved with illegally looking at Democrats computers who were investigating CIA torture, and then, lying about it before the committee"; on Aug. 15 Brennan tweets the soundbyte: "This action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics. It should gravely worry all Americans, including intelligence professionals, about the cost of speaking out. My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent"; on Aug. 16 retired 4-star adm. William McRaven (known for overseeing the Osama bin Laden raid) pub. an op-ed in The Washington Post on Aug. 16 protesting Trump's actions, with the soundbyte that he stands with Brennan, and that "I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency"; meanwhile 13 former CIA dirs. and deputy dirs. incl. William Webster, Porter Goss, Gen. Michael Hayden, John McLaughlin, Leon Panetta, Gen. David Petraeus, Gen. James Clapper, Michael Morrell, Avril Haines, David Cohen, George Tenet, Stephen Kappes, and Robert Gates release a statement denouncing Trump's actions, with the soundbyte that they had "nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances - and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech", adding: "We have never before seen the approval or removal of security clearances used as a political tool, as was done in this case. This action is quite clearly a signal to other former and current officials" to stay silent, stressing that decisions on security clearances "should be based on national security concerns and not political views." On Aug. 15 a grand jury in Penn. releases an 887-page report revealing that 300 "predator priests" have been sexually abusing 1K+ child victims back to 1947 while the Vatican did nothing; on Aug. 16 the Vatican breaks its silence, calling the accused acts "criminally and morally reprehensible." On Aug. 15 Dem. N.Y. Gov. Andrew Cuomo utters the soundbyte that America "was never that great", citing long-lasting inequalities with women et al., pissing-off Trump supporters and causing Pres. Trump on Aug. 17 to tweet the soundbyte: "How does a politician, Cuomo, known for pushing people and businesses out of his state, not to mention having the highest taxes in the U.S., survive making the statement, WE'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, IT WAS NEVER THAT GREAT? Which section of the sentence is worse?" On Aug. 16 after a campaign by 350 newspapers led by the Boston Globe, the U.S. Senate unanimously votes to condemn Pres. Trump's attacks on the press without naming him, affirming that "the press is not the enemy of the people". On Aug. 16 pissed-off anti-Trump Obama-Hillary shill John O. Brennan pub. an op-ed in The New York Times, attempting to connect his security clearance revocation to the Robert Muller investigation and the Omarosa revelations, calling Pres. Trump's denial of Russian collusion "hogwash", with the soundbyte: "Mr. Trump clearly has become more desperate to protect himself and those close to him, which is why he made the politically motivated decision to revoke my security clearance in an attempt to scare into silence others who might dare to challenge him"; meanwhile U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata gives an interview to "Fox & Friends", calling former CIA dir. John O. Brennan a "clear and present danger" to the U.S. who wants to "overthrow" Pres. Trump, adding: "I've made my feelings known about Mr. Brennan. I think most Americans look at our national intelligence experts as being above politics. Mr. Brennan has demonstrated that that's not the case. He's been totally political. I think I called him a butthead and I meant it. I think he's given the national intelligence community a bad name"; on Aug. 17 former U.S. Army Ranger Kris "Tanto" Paronto, hero of the 9/11/12 Battle of Benghazi gives an interview to Fox News, blasting John O. Brennan for calling Pres. Trump treasonous, saying that if anybody's been treasonous in the federal govt. it's him, citing his support for Communists and Islam; on Aug. 16 he responds to Brennan's tweet about his principles being worth far more than clearances with the soundbyte: "Benghazi remains a dark stain on Brennan, Hillary and Obama's time in government"; on Aug. 17 Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte to reporters about Brennan's complaints of being silenced: "There's no silence. If anything, I'm giving them a bigger voice. Many people don't even know who he is, and now he has a bigger voice, and that's okay with me, because I like taking on voices like that. I've never respected him", pointing to the statements of Repub. N.C. Sen. Richard Burr, chmn. of the Senate Intelligence Committee, with the soundbyte: "Senator Burr said it best: If you knew anything, why didn't you report it when you were before all of these committees, including their committee. So he had a chance to report. He never did"; on Aug. 18 Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Has anyone looked at the mistakes that John Brennan made while serving as CIA Director? He will go down as easily the WORST in history & since getting out, he has become nothing less than a loudmouth, partisan, political hack who cannot be trusted with the secrets to our country!" On Aug. 19 U.S. Senate Homeland Security Chmn. (since Jan. 3, 2015) Sen. (R-Wisc.) (since Jan. 3, 2011) Ronald Harold "Ron" Johnson (1955-) gives an interview to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, saying that he has "no problem" with Pres. Trump pulling John O. Brennan's security clearance, with the soundbyte: "I do believe that former CIA Director John Brennan abused his privilege. When you're an ex-CIA director and you are going on all the cable news shows and acting as partisan as he is and accusing the president of the United States of treasonous behavior, high crimes and misdemeanors- last time I checked, treason was punishable by death - you just crossed a line. And you know, there is a difference between being eligible for receiving classified information and gaining access to it. Let's face it, nobody was going to be consulting with John Brennan. He didn't need access to any classified information, not during this administration. So, I have no problem that the president pulled his clearance", going on to add that he doesn't want the pulling of security clearances to become "routine" or "politicized". On Aug. 20 (Sun.) Iranian Assahollah Ali Khamenei rallies Muslim pilgrims on their way to hajj in Mecca with the soundbyte: "Ask Allah to cut the hands of the U.S. and other arrogant powers" - sorry, Allah wants you to do it yourself On Aug. 20 the U.S. deports accused Nazi labor camp guard Jakiw Palij (1923-) of Queens, N.Y. to Dusseldorf after a decade-long dispute with Berlin after longtime Queens resident Pres. Trump instructs his ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell to give it high priority; Trump-hating comedian Kathy Griffin tweets the soundbyte: "If ICE is in the business of removing despicable Nazis, can they please head over to the White House?" On Aug. 20 after hearing rumors that he's going to sue him, Pres. Tweet tweets the soundbyte: "I hope John Brennan, the worst CIA Director in our country's history, brings a lawsuit. It will then be very easy to get all of his records, texts, emails and documents to show not only the poor job he did, but how he was involved with the Mueller Rigged Wiatch Hunt. He won't sue!" "Everybody wants to keep their Security Clearance, it's worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats, and that is why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan. It certainly isn't because of the good job he did! He is a political 'hack'"; on Aug. 20 he follows with the tweet: "Everybody wants to keep their Security Clearance, it's worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats, and that is why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan. It certainly isn't because of the good job he did! He is a political 'hack'." On Aug. 21 rockets are fired towards the pres. palace in Kabul, Afghanistan as pres. Ashraf Ghani delivers a message of peace for Eid al-Adha celebrations; ISIL claims responsibility. On Aug. 21 officials announce a series of coordinated attacks in Chechnya carried out by children as young as 11; ISIS claims responsibility. On Aug. 21 24-y.-o. illegal immigrant Christhian Rivera (1994-) confesses to the murder of 20-y.-o. white college student Mollie Tibbetts (1998-) in Brooklyn, Iowa in July after stalking her in his car and dumping her body in a cornfield, claiming to black out and not remember details, causing Pres. Trump to utter the soundbytes: "The immigration laws are such a disgrace. We're getting them changed, but we have to get more Republicans" and "The Democrats want to turn America into one big, fat sanctuary city for criminal aliens, and honestly, honestly, they're more protective of aliens, the criminal aliens, than they are of the people"; Rivera passed an E-Verify test to obtain employment at Yarrabee Pig Farms using a stolen ID; on Aug. 21 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbytes: A Blue Wave means Crime and Open Borders. A Red Wave means Safety and Strength!", followed by: "I am sorry to have to reiterate that there are serious and unpleasant consequences to crossing the Border into the United States ILLEGALLY! If there were no serious consequences, our country would be overrun with people trying to get in, and our system could not handle it!" On Aug. 21 Pres. Trump's atty. Michael Cohen strikes a plea bargain, admitting that he arranged payoffs to silence two women, porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal at Trump's direction, possibly violating campaign laws (but probably not?), causing Trump's enemy Chuck Schumer to demand that the Senate postpone hearings on Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh; on Aug. 22 Trump gives an interview to Fox News, acknowledging that he learned of the payments "later on", but "They didn't come out of the campaign, they came from me", admitting that if they did it "that could be a little dicey", followed by a tweet with the soundbyte: "If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don't retain the services of Michael Cohen!" On Aug. 21 Pres. Trump's campaign chmn. Paul Manafort is convicted on 8 of 18 charges incl. bank fraud and tax fraud (after one juror holds out) while expression disappointment at not being acquitted then bring up the possibility of a late plea bargain since Muller has been out to get Trump all along and anything goes if there's a Dem. majority elected to Congress in Nov.?; on Aug. 22 Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Michael Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. President Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled!"; one juror claims that Robert Muller's team kept trying to make the trial about collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, and one was seen catnapping during the trial. On Aug. 21 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Even James Clapper has admonished John Brennan for having gone totally off the rails. Maybe Clapper is being nice to me so he doesn't lose his Security Clearance for lying to Congress!" On Aug. 22 the worst floods in a cent. in Kerala, India kill 400 and cause 1M to be displaced and be housed in camps. On Aug. 22 a 6.3 earthquake off the coast of Ore. 188 mi. from Bandon spark fears of "the Big One" (Cascadia) soon hitting Calif.; in the past 48 hours the Ring of Fire was rocked by 70 earthquakes. On Aug. 22 Chuck Todd of NBC's "Today Show" utters the soundbyte: "The Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives would begin to look to see if there's enough evidence to start investigating and drawing up articles of impeachment, but this is not a functional Congress. This is a Congress controlled by Republicans. They would have to do this on their own president. But I have to tell you, I think there is going to be increased political heat, and you're going to have a divided Republican party: those who are fearing Trump as a drag and those that know that his base is there till the end." On Aug. 22 a jihadist plows his car filled with gas canisters into the town hall of Bremmel, Netherlands 60 mi. S of Amsterdam, killing the driver. On Aug. 22 Am. Muslim convert Samantha El Hassi, who traveled to ISIS with her family in 2015 and who was charged with lying to the FBI in July is charged with conspirity to provide material support to ISIS. On Aug. 23 a new audio message from reclusive ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is released, quelling rumors of his death. On Aug. 23 NBC News reports that Pres. Trump's close friend David Pecker, chmn. of Am. Media Inc., publisher of The National Enquirer was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for giving info. about Pres. Trump's payments to Michael Cohen. On Aug. 23 the European Commission calls an emergency meeting after Italian foreign minister Matteo Salvini threatens to resign if 177 African migrants are allowed to disembark from a coast guard ship docked in Sicily. On Aug. 23 Air France and British Airways announce that they're ending flights to Tehran, Iran next month. On Aug. 23 Israel announces that Palestinian gunman Hani Majdalawi killed on the Gaza Strip border on Aug. 20 was a nurse working for Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), asking for an explanation. On Aug. 24 Liberal PM #29 (since Sept. 15, 2015) Malcolm Turnbull is ousted, and compromise candidate, Liberal Party leader (treasurer) Scott John Morrison (1968-) becomes Australian PM #30 (until ?). On Aug. 24 the U.S. State Dept. announces that it's cutting $200M in aid to the Palestinian Authority over Hamas control of the Gaza Strip. On Aug. 24 (a.m.) a group of students, scientists, and filmmakers from the U. of R.I. Inner Space Center (ISC) aboard the Russian ship Akademik Ioffe on the Nat. Science Foundation-funded Northwest Passage Project to raise awareness of global warming become stranded in ice in the Canadian Arctic in the Gulf of Boothia, causing the passengers to need to be evacuated to Yellowknife on Aug. 25. On Aug. 26 (12:30 p.m. EDT) 24-y.-o. disgruntled prof. gamer David Katz (b. 1994) from Baltimore, Md. shoots up a Madden NFL 19 video game tournament being streamed online from the GLHF (Good Luck Have Fun) Game Bar in Jacksonville Landing, Fla., killing two and injuring 10 before killing himself. On Aug. 26 35-y.-o. Daniel is stabbed by a Muslim migrant during a downtown street festival in Chemnitz, Germany, after which on Aug. 28 the soccer hooligan group Kaotic organizes a demonstration by 1K+, pissing-off German chancellor Angela Merkel, who instinctively backs the migrants; German interior minister Horst Seehofer utters the soundbyte that he took "would have taken to the streets" if he weren't a minister, and that "the migration issue is the mother of all political problems in this country." tensions run high until ?, turning the city into a symbol of divided Germany. On Aug. 27 Pres. Trump hails his "realy good" new trade deal with Mexico, ditching the 1994 NAFTA agreement; NAFTA talks with Canada are set to begin, but fall through on Aug. 31. On Aug. 27 Pres. Trump holds a secret meeting with evangelical leaders in the State Dining Room of the White House, pleading for help in the upcoming elections, with the soundbyte: "This November 6 election is very much a referendum on not only me, it's a referendum on your religion, it's a referendum on free speech and the First Amendment. It's a referendum on so much." On Aug. 28 Calif. passes a historic 100% Carbon-Free Electricity Bill, requiring the state to reach 60% renewable energy by 2030, and zero carbon emissions from electricity by 2045. On Aug. 28 Justice Dept. official Bruce Ohr testifies for eight hours behind closed doors at the U.S. House of Reps, who want to know how the govt. decided to investigate Pres. Trump's campaign, and the role of Fusion GPS and its cofounder Glenn Simpson along with former FBI atty. Lisa Page; "Either Bruce Ohr's lying or Glenn Simpson's lying" (Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.). On Aug. 28 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Google search results for 'Trump News' shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake New Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!", after which White economic advisor Larry Kudlow utters the soundbyte that the Trump admin. is "taking a look" at imposing regulations on Google. On Aug. 29 Pres. Trump blocks an automatic 2.1% pay raise for 1.5 federal workers, and asks Congress not to pass a pay raise next year. On Aug. 31 after being arrested in Kensington, Sydney, Australia, Sri Lankan ISIS member Mohamed Nizamdeen (1993-) is charged with possessing a blueprint targeting several "symbolic" Sydnay locations for terror attacks, incl. landmarks and people in Harbour City, and former PM Malcolm Turnbull and MP Julie Bishop. On Aug. 31 the Trump admin. announces an immediate end to all U.S. funding of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA); last year it contributed $364M, about one-third of its budget; it also announces a decision to cancel $300M of aid to Pakistan over its failure to take decisive action against jihadists; Germany announces in increase in UNRWA funding to make up for the U.S. On Aug. 31 an ABC/Washington Post Poll reveals a record 53% disapproval of Pres. Trump's job performance, along with a record low 36% approval. On Aug. 31 Hurricane Florence forms in colder than normal waters near Cape Verde, ramping up to Category 4 then back down to Category 1 after reaching warmer waters before making landfall at 7:15 EDT on Sept. 14 near Wrightsville Beach, N.C. with 90mph max winds, bringing disastrous rainfall and flooding before dissipating on Sept. 19, killing 30 and causing $45B damage; on Sept. 10 Pres. Trump tweets about it, giving The Washington Post the chance to call him complicit in extreme weather in a Sept. 11 editorial; there's really been no change in intensity or frequency of hurricane strikes in Fla. in the last 118 years? On Aug. 31 Amanda Kelley becomes the first englisted U.S. Army Ranger, following 15 female officers. In Aug. C England has its 5th warmest summer on record since 1659, beating 1976 by half a degree, followed by 1826; the highest temperature is 35.6C on July 27 at Felsham, Suffolk. In Aug. 15-y.-o schoolgirl Greta Thunberg (2003-) begins holding protests outside Sweden's parliament in Stockholm to protest their failure to act on the so-called climate crisis, spreading to 270 towns and cities worldwide and 70K schoolchildren by 2019, incl. a school walkout in 30+ towns and cities in England on Feb. 15, 2019; "I am doing this because you adults are shitting on my future." (Thunberg) In Aug. Hillary Clinton's security clearance expires. In Aug. the U.S. surpasses Russia in monthly crude oil production after surpassing Saudi Arabia in Feb., making it #1. In Aug. U.S. unemployment is 3.9% (vs. 3.9% in July), creating 201K new jobs, with hourly earnings increasing 2.9%. On Sept. 1 John McCain's funeral at Washington Nat. Cathedral in Washington, D.C. is attended by ex-presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, and features a speech by McCain's daughter Meghan McCain, who delivers rebukes of Trump; meanwhile, Pres. Trump, who wasn't invited, plays golf at Trump Nat. Golf Club in Sterling, Va. On Sept. 3 a pro-ISIS Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighter bomb at an Internet cafe in Isulan, S Philippines injures 15, becoming the 2nd in days. On Sept. 3 U.S. service member ? is killed in an insider green-on-blue attack in Afghanistan, the 2nd in 2 mo. On Sept. 3 (1:00 a.m.) Muslim Libyan migrant ? stabs two German tourists on the Playa de Palma beach in Palma, Mallorca, telling police "If I had a Kalashnikov, there would have been more death than in Paris or Barcelona". On Sept. 3 (U.S. Labor Day) a Rasmussen Poll shows that 47% of likely U.S. voters approve of Pres. Trump's job performance, while 51% disapprove; 35% strongly approve, and 42% strongly disapprove; Pres. Obama's 2010 Labor Day figures were 45% approved, 54% disapproved. On Sept. 4 authorities in Libya announce a death toll of 50+ incl. civilians from more than a week of fighting between armed groups in Tripoli incl. the Seventh Brigade from Tarhouna, the Tripoli Revolutionaries' Brigades, and the Nawasi Brigade; on Sept. 4 the U.N. annonces that a ceasefire has been signed. On Sept. 4 24-y.-o. Abdullah Ayman Abdel-Samie (b. 1994) attempts to bomb the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Egypt, but his plastic bottle containing flammable chemicals explodes prematurely in his backpack. On Sept. 4 excerpts are released from Watergate hero journalist's new book "Fear", to be published by CBS-owned Simon & Simon, going low and quoting anon. admin. officials that there is a "nervous breakdown" inside Pres. Trump's admin., quoting defense secy. Jim Mattis as claiming that Trump has the IQ of "a fifth- or sixth-grader", and chief os staff John Kelly as calling Trump an "idiot", which Mattis and Kelly deny. On Sept. 4-5 a jihadist attack on mainly Christian women selling farm products in Bria, Central African Repub. kills 12-42, most hacked to death with machetes. On Sept. 5 the U.S. Congress holds hearings on "foreign influence operations' use of social media platforms", calling Facebook, Twitter, and Google on the carpet; Google doesn't show up, leaving the others to vow to "fight back" against foreign interference; meanwhile the elephant in the room of social media censorship of non-leftist speech is barely addressed. On Sept. 5 two bombs explode in the heavily Shiite Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of Kaboom, er, Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 20 and injuring 70, incl. medics and journalists; ISIS claims responsibility. On Sept. 5 The New York Times pub. an anon. op-ed by a "senior official in the Trump administration" titled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration", claiming to be part of a secret Repub. White House "resistance" to control (not oust) "erratic" and "amoral" Pres. Trump, who have turned Trump's presidency "two-track", ignoring his orders and doing what they want instead, citing Trump's "preference for autocrats and dictators", calling Trump's leadership style "impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective", with the soundbyte: "Americans should be aware that there are adults in the room", claiming that early in Trump's administration they quietly discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him for being unable to perform his duties, but claiming "This isn't the work of the so-called deep state. It's the work of the steady state", adding" To be clear; ours is not the popular 'resistance' of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous", causing pissed-off Trump to tweet "TREASON?", followed by: "Does the so-called 'Senior Administration Official' really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!", and White House press secy. Sarah Sanders to call the article "pathetic, reckless and selfish", with the soundbyte: "Nearly 62 million people voted for President Donald J. Trump in 2016. None of them voted for a gutless anonymous source to the failing New York Times", and "Are the investigative 'journalists' of the New York Times going to investigate themselves - who is the anonymous letter writer?" On Sept. 5 Pakistan-born Miss Huddersfield Sara Iftekhar (1998-) from West Yorkshire becomes the first Miss England contestant to wear a a hijab in the finals; the winner is Alisha Cowie. On Sept. 5 romance novelist Nancy Crmpton Brophy (1950-) of Portland, Ore., known for writing about spousal murder in "How to Murder Your Husband" et al. is arrested for murdering her chef hubby Daniel Brophy. On Sept. 6 India's supreme court strikes down a colonial-era law banning gay sex, causing celebrations across India. On Sept. 6 an Afghan policeman in Takhar Province, NE Afghanistan shoots and kills 8+ fellow officers, burns their bodies and takes their weapons to his Taliban buddies, becoming the 2nd American killed in an insider attack in Afghanistan this year. On Sept. 6 off-duty white Dallas, Tex. cop Amber Guyger (1988-) mistakenly enters the apt. of 26-y.-o. black account Botham Jean one floor above her apt., believes him to be a burglar, and fatally shoots him in the chest; on Oct. 2, 2019 after raising the sacred cop defense of fearing for her safety, she is found guilty of murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison. On Sept. 7 ex-U.S.pres. Obama gives a speech at the U. of Ill. in Urbana-Champaign, breaking with tradition to blast Pres. Trump; Trump, ragging about how people who "pray differently" (Muslims) shouldn't be criticized, and trying to take credit for Trump's economic recovery, saying that it began during his admin., knocking Trump for his slow response to Nazi demonstrators, and dissing Trump for denying climate change, with the soundbyte: "We know that climate change isn't just coming, it is here", which Hillary Clinton backs via a tweet: "We're not fighting for the planet in some abstract sense here. We're fighting for our continued ability to live on it", taking a swing at Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, with the soundbyte: "Replacing Kennedy with Kavanaugh would swing the Court to a new, hard-right majority that would rule against curbing greenhouse gases for years - maybe decades - that we can't afford to waste on inaction"; meanwhile on the campaign trail in Fargo, N.D., Trump responds that "I found he's very good for sleeping". "Advise and Consent" meets "Rashomon" in the U.S. Senate after a fleeting tribute to "Spartacus"? On Sept. 6 after announcing his intention "to expose emails that are being withheld from the public" that he believes will damage Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, U.S. Sen. (D-N.J.) (2013-) Cory Anthony Booker (1969-) (first African-Am. U.S. sen. from N.J.) utters the soundbyte: "This is about the closest I'll ever have an an I Am Spartacus moment", adding "I understand the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate"; too bad, the emails had been cleared for release hours before, turning him into a party joke; too bad, on Sept. 16 after the proceedings are closed and Dianne Feinstein deliberately waits to submit her allegation to gum-up the vote, Christine Margaret Blasey Ford (1966-) begins accusing Kavanaugh of an attempted sexual assault way back in 1982, while the Dems. snub Karen Monahan, accuser of Dem. Party bigwig Keith Ellison, showing how desperate they are?; on Sept. 21 after she refuses to testify on Mon. Sept. 24 to permit a vote to proceed, demanding an FBI investigation first while admitting she can't remember the place or date of the alleged attack, finally adding preconditions incl. testifying backwards after Kavanaugh, with attys. excluded, Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!", pissing-off Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who utters the soundbyte that she was "appalled", and that it was "completely inappropriate and wrong". On Sept. 6 off-duty white police officer Amber Renee Guyer shoots and kills black man Botham Shem Jean (b. 1992) in his own 4th floor apt. in Dallas, Tex. after mistaking it for her own on the 3rd floor, causing a public outcry resulting in her arrest on Sept. 9 for manslaughter and a grand jury to decide if she should be charged with murder after her story is seen to be full of holes. On Sept. 8 an Egyptian court sentences 75 defendants (out of 739) incl. top Muslim Brotherhood leaders for a 2013 protest in which security forces killed 600+; 47 incl. Muslim Brotherhood head Mohammed Badie are sentenced to life in prison; famed photojournalist Mahmoud Zbu Zaid AKA Shawkan is sentenced to five years, receiving credit for time served. On Sept. 9 U.N. Paris Agreement climate talks in Bangkok, Thailand founder after the EU, U.K., and Australia fall in line with the U.S. and close their checkbooks to endless $100B/year wealth transfers to poor nations starting in 2020. On Sept. 9 (11:00 p.m. local time) a 31-y.-o. Muslim migrant armed with a knife and iron bar attacks people on the Canal de l'Ourcq in Paris, France, wounding seven incl. two British tourists; he posed as an Afghan child to gain entry to France; the sick scared police refuse to call it terrorism. On Sept. 9 the Miss America 2019 (98th) Pageant in Atlantic City, N.J., billed as Miss America 2.0 because contestants will no longer be judged based on their physical appearance and the swimsuit competition is cancelled is aired by ABC-TV; the winner is Nia Imani Franklin of N.H.; on Sept. 6 Miss W. Va. Virginia Madeline Collins tells the judges during her onstage interview: "Donald Trump is the biggest issue our country faces. Unfortunately, he has caused a lot of division in our country"; in June Miss America Org. chmn. Gretchen Carlson utters the soundbyte on "Good Morning America": "We are no longer a pageant. We are a competition"; in Aug. 19 former winners request that Carlson and pres.-CEO Regina Hopper step down along with the entire board of trustees after titleholder Cara Mund accuses Carlson and Hopper of bullying, manipulation and intimidation. On Sept. 9 an Allah-Akbar-shouting Muslim jihadist at Lyon-Bryon Airport in France drives through the terminal attempting to ram pedestrians before being stopped by police, then heads to the Saint-Exupery Airport under fire and crashing two glass doors before being stopped. On Sept. 10 after citing the refusal of Palestinian leaders to enter into peace talks with Israel, the Trump admin. orders the closure of the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C. On Sept. 10 U.N. secy.-gen. Antonio Guterres warns that the world is facing "a direct existential threat" from global warming, and must rapidly shift from dependence on fossil fuels by 2020 to prevent "runaway climate change", with the soundbytes: "Climate change is moving faster than we are. We need to put the brake on deadly greehouse gas emissions and drive climate action"; "We need to rapidly shift away from our dependence on fossil fuels. We need to replace them with clean energy from water, wind and sun. We must halt deforestation, restore degraded forests and change the way we farm"; "According to a UN study, the commitments made so far by parties to the Paris agreement represent just one-third of what is needed"; he announces a climate summit for world leaders in Sept. 2019 "to bring climate action to the top of the international agenda." On Sept. 11 a suicide bomber at a protest gathering in Nangarhar Province, E Afghanistan kills 68 and injures 165. On Sept. 11 (9/11) al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri releases a new message titled "How to Confront America", calling the U.S. the #1 enemy of world Muslims, with the soundbyte: "We must wage war - in any part of the Islamic World - as if it is a single war with different fronts against a united enemy." On Sept. 12 the EU parliament votes 448-197 to punish the govt. of Hungarian PM Viktor Orban over its "breaches of core values", namely, wanting a stop to mass Muslim immigration, On Sept. 12 the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea reopens after 20 years of border war. On Sept. 12 Pres. Trump signs an executive order allowing sanctions to be levied on foreigners caught interfering in U.S. elections. On Sept. 12 the EU parliament by 438-226-39 passes a new copyright law that forces Web sites to enforce copyrights, filter content from users, and pay news orgs. for the use of their content. On Sept. 12-14 the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, Calif., hosted by Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown is held to solicit climate change pledges from cities and states despite do-nothing Pres. Trump; it opens with a song by Kanyon Sayers-Roods, rep of the Indian Canyon Muraun Band of Costanoan Ohlone People; on Sept. 14 Hollyweird "Indiana Jones" actor Harrison Ford blasts Pres. Trump without naming him, along with "people who don't believe in science, or, worse than that, pretend they don't believe in science", claiming that we are "shit out of time" to save Earth from global warming and that "The future of humanity is at stake"; on Sept. 14 Brown makes the announcement: "With science still under attack, we're going to launch our own satellite, our own damn satellite, to figure out where the pollution is"; the summit goes on to pub. Exponential Climate Action Roadmap. On Sept. 14 (early a.m.) Allah-Akbar-shouting 32-y.-o. Muslim ? rams his vehicle into anti-terror barriers protecting a crowded bar in Nimes, France, injuring two. On Sept. 17 Pres. Trump orders the Justice Dept. and FBI to immediately declassify key documents related to their investigation of Russian actors during the 2016 U.S. pres. election; on Sept. 21 after concerns that they "may have a perceived negative impact on the Russia probe. Also, key Allies' called to ask not to release", Trump backs down a little, asking the Inspector Gen. to "review these documents on an expedited basis". On Sept. 17 ex-Beatle Paul McCartney gives an interview to BBC News to promote his new album Egypt Station (Sept. 7) and its track Despite Repeated Warnings, which knocks climate change deniers, uttering the soundbyte: "People who deny climate change... I jus think it's the most stupid thing ever. So I just wanted to make a song that would talk about that and basically say, 'Occasionally we've got a mad captain sailing this boat we're all on and he is just going to take us to the iceberg [despite] being warned it's not a cool idea", later admitting that the captain is Pres. Trump, with the soundbyte: "Well, I mean obviously it's Trump but there's plenty of them about. He's not the only one." On Sept. 18 the Trump admin. rescinds an Obama-era rule requiring energy cos. to capture methane, only requiring them to reduce gas pollution, pissing-off the attys.-gen. of Calif. and N.M., who file a federal lawsuit. On Sept. 19 India bans the Muslim practice of triple talaq or instant divorce as a violation of the rights of Muslim women. On Sept. 19 attys. for Danske Bank announce that 200B euros was illegally laundered through its Estonian branch over a 9-year period. On Sept. 19 Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte: "I don't have an attorney general. It's very sad. I'm not happy at the border. I'm not happy with numerous things, not just this." On Sept. 20 the MV Nyerere ferry capsizes in Lake Victoria, Tanzania, killing 44+. On Sept. 20 Indian engineer Vishnudev Radhakrishnan of Kerala is sentenced to five years in prison and a 300K rupee fine for criticizing Muhammad on Twittter, becoming the first Indian to get a taste of Islamic superiority and intolerance. On Sept. 20 disgruntled employee (black woman) Snochia Moseley (b. 1992) opens fire at the Rite Aid warehouse in Baltimore, Md., killing three employees before committing suicide. On Sept. 21 the New York Times reports U.S. deputy atty. gen. Rod Rosenstein offered to wear a wire to record private conversations with Pres. Trump in a plot with cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment, causing U.S. Sen. (R-S.C.) Lindsey Graham to call it a "bureaucratic coup". On Sept. 22 Ahvaz, Iran is attacked by separatists, killing 25 and injuring 70, pissing-off Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani, who accuses U.S.-backed Arab Gulf states of providing financial and military aid to them. On Sept. 23 De Bilt, Netherlands records a max temp of 10.9C, becoming the coldest Sept. 23 ever measured in the Netherlands; ditto for Mar. 17; ditto for Germany. On Sept. 23 De Bilt, Netherlands records a max temp of 10.9C, becoming the coldest Sept. 23 ever measured in the Netherlands; ditto for Mar. 17; ditto for Germany; Sept. goes on to become the coolest in the last 10 years. On Sept. 23-Oct. 15 Category 1 (90 mph) Hurricane Leslie arises in the N Atlantic Ocean, merging with a frontal system on Sept. 25 and intensifying over the N Atlantic, becoming the strongest cyclone to hit the Iberian Peninsula since 1842, killing 1 in Portugal and 13 in France. On Sept. 24 after a new sexual assault allegation by old Yale U. classmate Deborah Ramirez, Pres. Trump gives an interview at the U.N. in New York City, uttering the soundbyte that the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh "Could be one of the single most unfair, unjust things to happen to a candidate for anything", adding: "For people to come out of the woodwork from 36 years ago and 30 years ago, never mentioned it, all of a sudden it happens. In my opinion, it's totally political", concluding: "Judge Kavanaugh is an outstanding person and I am with him all the way"; meanwhile on Sept. 24 Kavanaugh defends himself, not only denying all allegations but revealing that he remained a virgin throughout his college years. On Sept. 25 Pres. Trump delivers an address to the 73rd Session of the U.N. Gen. Assembly, blasting "international interference" in policy-making, esp. the 2015 Vienna Accord, pissing-off French pres. Emmanuel Macron, who follows with his own address, calling for "dialogue and multilateralism", with the soundbyte: "What will bring a real solution to the situation in IRan and what has already stabilised it? The law of the strongest? Pressure from only one side? No! We know that Iran was on a nuclear military path but what stopped it? The 2015 Vienna Accord"; Trump's opening remarks "In less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country, so true" are met with laughter, causing Trump to respond: "I didn't expect that reaction but that's okay"; critics bring up his Aug. 9, 2014 tweet about Pres. Obama: "We need a president who isn't a laughing stock to the entire World", after which calls it fake news, saying "They were laughing with me". On Sept. 27 Palo Alto U. psychology prof. Christine Margaret Blasey Ford testifies before the U.S. Senate, accusing 17-y.-o. beer-swigging Brett Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her then backing down and letting her go, without remembering the location of how she got there when she was 15-y.-o. and too young to drive, becoming the low point in Senate advise-and-consent history as the Dems. attempt to delay Kavanaugh's nomination vote to wait for an FBI investigation, knowing that before it is complete the Nov. election may give them a majority and allow them to reject his nomination no matter the result?; when asked what her strongest memory of the attack is, she replies "Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter"; Kavanaugh follows with tear-filled testimony denying her allegations and backing himself up with a detailed calendar-diary, which later is used against him when the entry for July 1 mentions a "(brew)ski" party and some of the alleged attendees; Ford set the women's lib movement back 50 years with her little girl act, showing that women can never become U.S. pres.?; on Sept. 27 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him. His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting. Democrats' search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist. The Senate must vote!"; on Sept. 28 as the vote to recommend him to the full Senate is about to be taken, Rhino Ariz. Repub. Sen. Jeff Flake flops after being accosted by screaming women Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher in an elevator, requiring a 1-week FBI investigation limited to "current allegations already there" as a condition, causing Pres. Trump to fold and order it. On Sept. 28 authorities in The Hague, Netherlands announce the arrest of seven men in Arnhem for plotting a major Islamist attack somewhere in the Netherlands, finding large quantities of raw materials for making explosives in their homes. On Sept. 28 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the U.S. Gen. Assembly accusing Iran of harboring a secret atomic warehouse and vowing that Israel will never let Iran develop nukes. On Sept. 28 Romania's highest court in Bucharest approves same-sex marriage; a nat. referendum is set for Oct. 6-7. On Sept. 28 (15:00 local time) the 7.5 2018 Sulawesi earthquake-tsunami kills 2,256, injures 10,679, and leaves 1,075 missing after 70,821 are evacuated, with 206,524 turning into refugees by Oct. 28; on Dec. 23 (night) another tsunami caused by a volcano strikes without warning, killing 373+ incl. many Christmas revelers at the beaches. On Sept. 30 the U.S., Canada, and Mexico reach a deal to revamp the North Am. Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), becoming a big V for Pres. Trump and earning praise from Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). In Sept. Carlsberg announces that it will begin sticking its beer cans together with glue, becoming the first manufacturer to abandon plastic rings. In Sept. world pop. reaches 7.6B. In Sept. U.S. unemployment is 3.7% (vs. 3.9% in Aug.), lowest since 1969, adding 134K jobs. On Oct. 2 after criticizing the Saudi govt., Saudi-Am. journalist Jamal Khashoggi disappears, and is later believed to have been killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, causing a multi-govt. investigation resulting in 18 Saudis being arrested by the Turkish govt.; on Oct. 23 after the Saudi govt. vehemently denies responsibility, esp. any by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), and comes out with the story that Khashoggi died during a fight but the body is nowhere to be found, Obi Wan, er, Erodgan gives a speech in Ankara, insisting that the Saudis planned his murder; on dec. 4 after the CIA tries to tell Pres. Trump that MBS did it in vain, his rival U.S. Sen. (R-S.C.) Lindsey Graham utters the soundbyte: "There's not a smoking gun, there's a smoking saw", calling Trump "willfully blind". On Oct. 2 Pres. Trump gives a speech in Southaven, Miss., chucking his over-kind treatment of Christine Blasey Ford and blasting her testimony as ridiculous, with the soundbyte: "How did you get home? I don't remember. How did you get there? I don't remember. Where is the place? I don't remember. How many years ago was it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know", turning the losing Kavanaugh nomination around, because Trump always wins? On Oct. 2 loser Hillary Clinton speaks at the Atlantic Festival in Washington, D.C., uttering the soundbyte that Pres. Trump "has been racist, he's been sexist, he's been Islamophobic, he's been anti-LQBTQ. He has a view of America that's terribly constricted, and he talks to that America, he talks to them all the time. And it's by no means a majority, as we know. But it is a very hard core who are responding to him and supporting him for a variety of reasons." On Oct. 3 a man opens fire from his home in Florence, S.C., killing one and injuring six before being arrested after a standoff. On Oct. 3 the U.N. Internat. Court of Justice (ICI) issues an order to the U.S. to drop certain "humanitarian sanctions" against Iran immediately, citing a 1955 Treaty of Amity, causing U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo to announces that the U.S. will pull out of it. On Oct. 3 U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence gives a speech at the Hudson Inst., criticizing China for stealing U.S. technology and calling on Google to stop development of Project Dragonfly, a Chinese search engine that censors and tracks users; meanwhile on Oct. 4 Bloomberg Businessweek pub. a report claiming that the Chinese military implanted tiny chips in circuit boards used by dozens of U.S. cos. and govt. contractors to give them back door access to their systems. On Oct. 5 Trump admin. spokesman John Bolton announces a new "robust" counterterrorism strategy focusing on "terrorist ideology". On Oct. 5 the Washington Post pub. an editorial urging the Senate to reject Brett Kavanaugh, becoming their first editorial opposing a nominee in over 30 years. On Oct. 5 the sheriff's office of Ventura County, Calif. settles a lawsuit by Muslim woman Jennifer Hyatt who was forced to remove her headscarf while in jail in Jan. 2017, agreeing to to pay $75K and change their policies. On Oct. 5 Banksy's painting Girl with a Balloon brings Ł953.8K ($1,25M) at a Sotheby's auction; too bad, after the gavel comes down it has a paper shredder built into the bottom frame, which is set off while the employees can't stop it. On Oct. 6 after the FBI finishes its background investigation of Brett Kavanaugh and delivers them a sealed report clearing him on Oct. 2, not satisfying the Dems., who would never vote for him anyway, U.S. Senate confirms him by 50-48 at 4:01 p.m. ET, Washington, D.C.-born Repub. U.S. D.C. Court of Appeals judge (since May 30, 2006) Brett Michael Kavanaugh (1965-) is sworn-in as U.S. Supreme Court justice #114 (until ?), becoming the first U.S. Supreme Court justice with all-female law clerks, incl. Kim Jackson, Shannon Grammel, Megan Lacy, and Sara Nommensen. On Oct. 6 after exposing EU funds fraud cases, TV journalist Victoria Marinova (b. 1988) is found raped and murdered near the Danube River in Ruse, N Bulgaria. On Oct. 7 conservative Jair Messias Bosonaro (1955-) of the Social Liberty Party (PSL) comes in first in the Brazilian pres. election, along with Fernando Haddad of the Workers' Party (PT), who will face a runoff on Oct. 28; Bosonaro wants to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement and abolish the Brazilian environmental ministry, pissing-off the global warming crowd because of the big role of the Amazon forests. On Oct. 9 U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley announces her resignation by the end of the year after two years "to take some time off", surprising everybody; a good time to show how the Trump admin. gives high power positions to women? On Oct. 10 the U.K.'s supreme court rules that a bakery in Belfast, Northern Ireland run by evangelical Christians can't be forced to make a cake with slogans supporting gay marriage, pissing-off gay activists - it's really about kowtowing to Muslim bakers? On Oct. 11 the U.S. Senate confirms 15 of Pres. Trump's judicial nominations, incl. three court of appeals judges and 12 district court judges (about one-third of the backlog) before closing up through election day. On Oct. 12 Pres. Trump announces the release of Christian pastor Andrew Brunson after two years of captivity in Turkey, denying that any deal was made. On Oct. 12 Pres. Trump signs a bipartisan bill to clean up the oceans from 8M tons of garbage being dumped into the oceans by foreign countries each year. On Oct. 14 (Sun.) Hillary Clinton appears on CBS-TV's Sunday Morning, claiming that her hubby Bill was right to refuse to step down in 1999 after the House impeached him for perjury and obstruction of justice, because there was no abuse of power because White House intern Monica Lewinsky was an adult. On Oct. 14 (Sun.) (eve.) Pres. Trump appears on CBS-TV's 60 Minutes, admitting that climate change isn't a hoax but doubting its sources, saying that scientists "have a very big political agenda", with the soundbyte: "But I don't know that it's manmade. I will say this: I don't want to give trillions and trillions of dollars. I don't want to lose millions and millions of jobs. I don't want to be put at a disadvantage", suggesting that temperatures "could very well go back", going on to say that his admin. would be "very upset and angry" if the Saudi govt. was proved responsible for the disappearance of Jamal Khasoggi, with the soundbyte: "We're going to get to the bottom of it and there will be severe punishment", causing the Saudi to threaten retaliation, then backs down a little, thanking the U.S. from not jumping to quick conclusions. On Oct. 15 (12:50 a.m.) 13-y.-o. Jayme Closs (2005-) is kidnapped from her home in Barron, Wisc. by Jake Thomas Patterson (1997-), who kills her father and mother and takes her to a cabin 70 mi. away in Gordon, Wisc., holding her for 88 days until she escapes and runs for help. On Oct. 15 the Taliban attack checkpoints in Samangan Province, N Afghanistan, killing seven Afghan security forces incl. a deputy provincial police chief. On Oct. 16 Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed appoints Aisha Mohammed as defense minister, becoming the first woman in a cabinet that is already half-women. On Oct. 18 the Taliban attacks a meeting between Afghan officials and the top U.S. military cmdr. in Afghanistan, Gen. Austin S. Miller, killing three Afghan officials and wounding some Americans; U.S. spokesman Col. David Butler calls it an "Afghan on Afghan incident" - proof that the Afghanistan War is over and the U.S. lost? On Oct. 19 Iraqi-born Muslim Ashraf Al Safoo (1984-) is arrested at his home in Chicago, Ill. by the FBI and charged with using ISIS social media platforms to recruit violent jihadists. On Oct. 20 (Sat.) 2018 Afghan parliamentary elections see a suicide bomber detonate at a polling station in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing 13+, while poll-related violence kills or wounds 130+ across Afghanistan. On Oct. 23 Fayette County, Ky.-born businesswoman Kelly Knight Craft (nee Kelly Dawn Guilfoil) (1962-) becomes the first woman U.S. ambassador to Canada (until ?), going on to claim that when it comes to climate change she believes "both sides of the science", and that the U.S. can still fight climate change even though Pres. Trump has left the Paris Climate Accord. On Oct. 23 a car bomb in a crowded area of Qayyara, N Iraq kills four and wounds 15. On Oct. 23 Human Rights Watch announces that the Palestinian Authority and its rival Hamas routinely arrest and torture critics and opponents to stifle dissent. On Oct. 23 an anon. person mails packages containing pipe bombs to prominent Dems. incl. Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, George Soros, Eric Holder, John Brennan, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Maxine Waters, and Robert De Niro. On Oct. 25 career diplomat Sahle-Work Zewde (1950-) becomes pres. #4 of Ethiopia (first woman) (until ?). On Oct. 25 Pres. Trump announces that he's going to "bring out the military" to protect the U.S.-Mexic border from the Central Am. migrant caravan and any more that follow. On Oct. 27 the Tree of Life Synatogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, Penn. is attacked by 46-y.-o. white anti-Semite Robert Gregory Bowers (1972-), who kills 11 and injures seven, becoming the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history (until ?); he is later charged with 29 federal crimes and 36 state crimes. On Oct. 27 (Nat. Am. Beer Day) Planters introduces Mr. IPA-Nut beer, at $10 for four 16-oz. cans, delivering a "citrus aroma and a hint of honey-roasted peanuts, all followed by a slightly salty finish that makes every sip worth savoring." On Oct. 29 after election setbacks, German chancellor (since 2005) Angela Merkel announces that she will step down at the end of her 4th term in 2021. On Oct. 29 (2:00 p.m.) a 30-y.-o. female suicide bomber targeting police detonates in Tunis, Tunisia, wounding 20 incl. 10 police officers, and only killing herself. In Oct. U.S. unemployment is 3.7% (vs. 3.7% in Sept.), with a record 156,562,000 Americans employed, and 250K jobs added. On Nov. 2 Muslim gunmen ambush three buses carrying Christian Coptic pilgrims en route to a remote desert monastery S of Cairo, Egypt, killing seven and wounding 19; ISIS claims responsibility. On Nov. 3 an insider attack in Kabul, Afghanistan kills North Ogden, Utah mayor Maj. Brent Taylor (1979-). On Nov. 5 (early a.m.) 79 students and three others incl. the principal are kidnapped in Bamenda, Cameroon by English-speaking separatists. On Nov. 6 (Tues.) amid bitter and deep polarization, the 2018 U.S. midterm election give the Dems. control of the House, while the Repubs. gain seats in the Senate; a total of $5.2B is spent on the campaigns, breaking the 2016 record of $4.4B; the Dems. win 40 House seats, and the Repubs. three Senate seats; Repubs. lose seven House seats in Calif.; 13,837,000 U.S. govt. employees vote in the midterms, leading all classes of workers with a 67% turnout; Repub. Ted Cruz defeats Dem. Beto O'Rourke in Tex. despite a record $120M campaign after supporting universal Medicare, abolishing ICE, and kneeling for the nat. anthem; 17 of the new lawmakers are former service members, adding to the 60 already there; too bad, several Repub. candidates lead on election night and later after counting absentee ballots, only to lose when "provisional" ballots are counted, causing outgoing House Speaker Paul Ryan to utter the soundbyte: "When you have candidates who win the absentee ballot vote and then lose three weeks later because of provisionals, that's really bizarre. I just think that's a very, very strange outcome"; eyepatch-wearing Repub. Afghanistan veteran (Navy SEAL) Daniel "Dan" Crenshaw (1984-) wins a House seat in Tex., getting in a pissing match with Sat. Night Live comedian Peter Michael "Pete" Davidson (1993-), who mocks his appearance and later apologizes; Joe Donnelly of Ind., Claire McCaskill of Mo., Bill Nelson of Fla., and Heidi Heitkamp of N.D., who all voted against Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court lose their seats; Joe Manchin of W.V. voted for Kavanaugh wins; Dem. Debra A. "Deb" Haaland (1960-) of the Laguna Pueblo wins a House seat in N.M., and Dem. Sharice Davids (1980-) of the Ho-Chunk Nation wins a House seat in Kan., becoming the first two Native Am. women elected to the House; Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar becoming the first Muslim women elected to Congress; Omar becomes the first headscarf-wearing member of Congress, causing the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to ask the question: "What kind of culture waits 229 years to elect a hijab-wearing woman?" (the Muslim World until recently didn't allow women to run for office); the first Congress with 100+ women; U.S. Rep. (D-Minn.) Keith Ellison is elected atty. gen. of Minn., becoming the first Muslim atty. gen. in the U.S. despite condemnation by the Minn. Police Union; Boulder, Colo.-born wealthy U.S. rep. (since Jan. 3, 2009) Jared Schutz Polis (1975-) becomes Dem. Colo. gov. #43 (until ?), becoming the first openly gay elected U.S. gov. in U.S. history, introducing his First Man Marlon Reis. On Nov. 6 (eve.) Trump-hating horror film producer Jason Blum speaks at the Israel Film Festival at the Saban Theater Steve Tisch Cinema Center in Beverly Hills, Calif., mouthing off against Trump until the crowd begins chanting "We like Trump!", causing him to be shepherded off the stage as he utters the soundbyte: "As you can see from this auditorium, it's the end of civil discourse. Thanks to our president, anti-Semitism is on the rise." On Nov. 7 (a.m.) while polls are closing, Pres. Trump requests and obtains the resignation of U.S. atty. gen. (since Feb. 9, 2017) Jeff Sessions, who is immediately succeeded as acting U.S. atty. gen. by his Repub. chief of staff Matthew George "Matt" Whitaker (1969-) (until Feb. 14, 2019); meanwhile Trump holds a 1.5-hour press conference congratulating himself for the election results, and getting in a pissing war with CNN's Abilio James "Jim" Acosta (1971-), who refuses to yield the microphone, is called a "rude terrible person" by Trump, and later has his White House press pass revoked, pissing-off CNN, who accuse Trump of attacking the freedom of the press, causing White House press secy. Sarah Huckabee Sanders to utter the soundbyte: "Only they would attack the president for not supporting a free press in the midst of him taking 68 questions from 35 different reporters over the course of 1.5 hours including several from the reporter in question. The fact that CNN is proud of the way their employee behaved is not only disgusting, it's an example of their outrageous disregard for everyone, including young women, who work in this administration. As a result of today's incident, the White House is suspending the press pass of the reporter involved until further notice", after which CNN sues Trump, and on Nov. 16 a judge orders the White House to restore Acosta's press pass, but opens the door by allowing the White House to set up a system of rules and due process, which it releases on Nov. 19. On Nov. 7 (p.m.) USMC veteran Ian David Long (1990-) shoots up the Borderline Western bar in Thousand Oaks, Calif. with a Glock 21 .45 pistol, killing 12 incl. sheriff's deputy Sgt. Ron Helus and injuring 15 before being killed. On Nov. 8 the Nobody Is Above the Law Protest is held nationwide incl. Washington, D.C. to protect special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, organized by MoveOn. On Nov. 8 the Camp Fire (named after Camp Creek Road) in Butte County, Northern Calif. starts (ends ?), going on to burn 130K acres, destroy 8,817 structures, injure three firefighters, and kill 76 civilians, with 1.2K+ missing, becoming the most destructive fire in Calif. history (until ?); on Nov. 8 the Woolsey Fire in Los Angeles County and Ventura County, Calif. incl. Malibu starts (ends ?), going on to burn 96K acres, destroy 435 structures, and kill two civilians, causing 265K to be evacuated; on Nov. 10 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments!"; Trump is right?; on Nov. 10 Calif. gov. Jerry Brown responds, blaming climate change and climate change deniers incl. Trump for the Calif. fires, which he calls "the new abnormal", with the soundbyte: "This new abnormal will continue, certainly in the next 10, 15, 20 years. Unfortunately, the best science is telling us that dryness, warmth, drought, all those things, they're going to intensify" and "Scientists and the engineers and the firefighters all tell us forest management is one element to control them, but warned governments must address a whole range of actions to address a problem he said may cost 'billions' of dollars to tackle"; "Managing all the forests everywhere we can does not stop climate change, and those who deny that are definitely contributing to the tragedies we're now witnessing and will continue to witness in the coming years"; "The chickens are coming home to roost. This is real here", advising govt. officals that they need to be "pulling together in these tragic circumstances and thinking wisely" while being "collaborative"; on Nov. 17 Pres. Trump visits Calif. to inspect the burned areas, suggesting that raking can help avoid more forest fires in the future, with the soundbyte: "We've got to take care of the floors, you know, the floors of the forests, very important. If you look at other countries where they do it differently and it;s a whole different story. "I was with the president of Finland and he said, 'We have a much different, we're a forest nation', he called it a forest nation. And they spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem. And when it is, it's a very small problem. So, I know everybody's looking at that to that end and it's gonna work out. It's going to work out well"; Brown is wrong because the number of fires in Calif. has been declining yearly over the last 30 years, while the area burned has slightly increased, because they have more fuel? On Nov. 9 Pres. Trump visits France, meeting with French pres. Emmanuel Macron while tweeting that it is "very insulting" that he suggested that Europe should have its own army to protect itself from the U.S., China, and Russia. On Nov. 9 after gas cylinders in his 4-wheel drive vehicle fail to explode, knife-wielding jihadist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali (1988-) stages a knife attack on Bourke St. in Melbourne, Australia, stabbing three, of which one dies; on Nov. 10 Australian PM Scott Morrison calls for Muslim leaders to take "special responsibility" for stamping out radicalism in their communities and "call this out for what it is", daring to mention the term Islamist extremism. On Nov. 9 new acting U.S. atty. gen. Matthew Whitaker and Homeland Security Dept. secy. Kirstjen Nielson announce an Interim Final Rule making aliens who don't respect an official entry port ineligible for asylum; no surprise, the Obama-packed 9th U.S. Circuit Court issues a temporary restraining order, forcing the Trump admin. to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court again like with the Muslim ban. On Nov. 11 the 100th anniv. of the WWI Armistice sees French pres. Emmanuel Macron give a speech at a gathering of 70 world leaders on the Champs-Elysees incl. Pres. Trump (who said in Sept. that he is a "nationalist" who rejects globalism), with the soundbyte: "Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism; nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism"; too bad, Trump drops a trip to Vimy Ridge, citing rainy weather, giving his critics mucho fuel. On Nov. 12 Hamas launches a 24-hour attack on Israel, launching 200 rockets, of which 60 are intercepted, killing one Palestinian and injuring 70 Israeli civilians; on Nov. 13 the ceasefire is restored, causing hawkish Israeli defense Avigdor Lieberman to resign amid widespread protests against the Israeli govt. and to call for new elections after leaving the ruling party with only 61 out of 120 seats. On Nov. 15 2K Central Am. migrants from the caravan begin arriving in Tijuana, Mexico, knowing they are not welcome in the U.S.; meanwhile on Nov. 16 a 2nd caravan with 1.2K sets out from Mexico City, a 3rd caravan is waiting, and a total of 10K are expected; on Nov. 19 the Mexican natives stage a protest against the "invasion", demanding them to return home. On Nov. 15 Costa Rica's supreme court legalizes same-sex marriage starting next year. On Nov. 16 Pres. Trump signs the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act, turning the Nat. Protection and Programs Directorate at the Dept. of Homeland Security into the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), with the aim of bolstering U.S. defenses against the critical infrastructure from cyberthreats. On Nov. 16-18 the Mid-Nov. 2018 U.S. Blizzard (Snovember) drops almost 4 ft. of snow in the NE U.S. from Va. to Maine, causing 400K power outages and breaking early snowfall records. On Nov. 17 282K take part in 2K+ Yellow Vest (Gilets Jaunes) Demonstrations across France to protest French pres. Emmanual Macron for using climate change as an excuse for high diesel fuel prices via the Contribution Climat Energie (CCE) carbon tax; police use tear gas on crowds storming Macron's Elysee Palace in Paris; one is killed and 106 are injured in accidents; meanwhile a climate protest in London, England sees thousands of protesters organized by Extinction Rebellion (XR) block five bridges over the Thames River, resulting in 85 arrests, becoming one of the biggest peaceful civil disobedience events in the U.K. in decades; on Nov. 30 there are more yellow vest riots in Brussels, Belgium, caused by resentment at mass Muslim immigration; on Dec. 4 after four are killed, 260+ injured, and hundreds arrested, and his approval rating falls to 23%, Macron announces a 6-mo. moratorium, with the soundbyte: "No tax is worth putting the nation's unity in danger"; after (11 straight Sats.) of demonstrations, which grow increasingly violent, the Red Scarves Demonstrations begin by former Yellow Vests who oppose violence or vandalism. On Nov. 17 after illegally landing in a canoe carrying a Bible, Mo.-based 26-y.-o. Am. missionary John Allen Chau (b. 1992) is killed by primitive naked black Sentinelese natives on the off-limits North Sentinel Island in the Andamans Islands in the Bay of Bengal, who are rumored to like to eat missionaries. On Nov. 17-18 the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Conference in Papua, New Guinea sees disagreements over China cause the 21 APEC leaders to end the summit sans an agreement for the first time in its 25-year history. On Nov. 19 Airbnb announces that it is removing listings in West Bank settlements of Jewish apts., causing Israeli tourism minister Yariv Levin et al. to call for a boycott of Airbnb. On Nov. 19 former U.S. pres. Barack Obama gives a speech at the Second Obama Foundation Summit, uttering the soundbyte: "Climate change, we're going to have to come up with some new technologies. We could reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent, and it's not like we would all have to go back to caves and live off fire... The reason we don't do it is because we are still confused, blind, shrouded with hate, anger, racism, [and] mommy issues." On Nov. 20 after news of disappointing earnings by Target and TJ Maxx, along with expected rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, combined with worries about the trade war with China and Brexit, the 2018 Stock Market Crash sees the Dow Jones drop 551 points (2.2%), the S&P 500 drop 1.8%, and the Nasdaq drop 1.7%, erasing their 2018 gains; on Nov. 26 after a great Cyber Monday the market rebounds. On Nov. 21 amid record cold temperatures in the NE U.S., Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?", pissing-off the global warming scientist crowd, incl. NASA global warming honcho Michael E. Mann, who calls Trump "a dangerous clown". On Nov. 22 (Thanksgiving Day) Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte that he will close the U.S.-Mexico border if he determines that Mexico has lost control, announcing that he has given U.S. troops on the border authorization to use lethal force on border crashers "if they have to", also hinting at a partial govt. shutdown in early Dec. if Congress refuses to allocate billions of dollars for his border wall; too bad, on Nov. 25 (Sun.) hundreds of migrants storm the border in Tijuana after passing through a Mexican police line, causing them to fire tear gas across the border; 42 are arrested, and ? escape to the U.S. On Nov. 22 Boko Haram jihadist gunmen attack a French drilling camp in Toumour, Niger in the Diffa region near the Nigerian border and the Lake Chad basin, killing eight. On Nov. 23 jihadist gunmen storm the Chinese consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing two police officers, two civilians, and three attackers after a 1-hour shootout; meanwhile a suicide bomber goes off an an army base in Ismail Khel District, Khost Province, E Afghanistan, killing 26 and wounding 50; no one claims responsibility (Taliban?). On Nov. 23 a bomb hidden in a carton of vegetables explodes in a crowded marketplace in Shiite-dominated Kalaya in Pakistan's NW tribal region, killing 31+ and injuring 50. On Nov. 23 suspected ISIS jihadists kill nine, wound 10, and kidnap several others in Tazerbo, S Libya. On Nov. 25 the EU signs a Brexit deal Mar. 29, 2019, which British PM Theresa May still has to sell to her divided Parliament. On Nov. 25 (Sun.) NBC-TV's Meet the Press, hosted by Chuck Todd hosts Melbourne, Australia-born climate skeptic Danielle Pletka (1963-) of the Am. Enterprise Inst., who gives a speech that pisses-off the global warmist elite with the soundbyte: "The problem is again, there is a perception among those for whom Donald Trump speaks... They perceive this as an agenda that is much more about corporate and much more about law and much more about the kind of governance that America has, and much less about climate. So from the standpoint of those who have doubts about this, and I don't think we can have any doubt that there is climate change, whether it's anthropogenic I don't know, I'm not a scientist I'm a citizen... We need to also recognize we had two of the coldest years, biggest drop in global temperatures that we have had since the 1980s, the biggest in the last 100 years. We don't talk about that because it's not part of the agenda"; on Nov. 30 English astrophysicist David Robert Whitehouse (BBC's science correspondent in 1988-2006) pub. the article Global Temperature Drops by 0.4 deg C in Three Years, contradicting the World Meteorological Org., the BBC., and The Guardian using HadCRUT4 data from the U.K. Met Office to prove her right. On Nov. 25 (night) a 6.3 earthquake strikes near Sarpol-e Zahab, Kermanshah Province, W Iran near the Iraq border, injuring 500. On Nov. 26 Gen. Motors (GM) announces that it is planning on cutting 15% of its salaried workforce and stopping production five plants in the U.S. and Canada to cut costs. On Nov. 27 after the U.S. committed itself to "building up the Somali capacity to defend itself" from Islamist terrorism by supplying African Union (AU) peacekeepers, USMC Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, cmdr. of the U.S. Africa Command visits Somalia and meets with Pres. Farmajo, claiming that they "have made measurable progress, and it's clear they are dedicated to reaching the goal of a safe, stable and prosperous Somalia"; too bad, it's the world's most corrupt country, and Farmajo ends up coddling and endorsing Islamist terrorism. On Nov. 28 a car bomb outside British security group G4S's compound in Kabul, Afghanistan detonates as pres. Ashraf Ghanioutlines peace plans, after which armed gunmen enter and start a gunfight. On Nov. 30 (8:30 a.m. local time) a 7.0 earthquake strikes 10 mi. NE of Anchorage, Alaska, with no fatalities or serious injuries reported. On Nov. 30 the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is signed in Buenos Aires, Argentina, based on the 1994 North Am. Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) gives U.S. dairy farmers greater access to the Canadian market, helps the three nations manufacture more automobiles, and sets exchange rates; it expires after 16 years. On Nov. 30 the U.S. submits a draft resolution to the U.N. condemning violence by Hamas and other armed Muslim factions in Gaza, calling Hamas a terrorist org.; on Dec. 6 it is stonewalled by Arab states, who insist on a two-thirds vote for adoption and get it with a 75-62-26 votes, and it fails by 87-57-33, causing Nikki Haley to ask the Arabs, "Is the hatred that strong?" In Nov. the Watson Inst. for Internat. and Public Affairs at Brown U. pub. Costs of War, claiming that since 9/11 the U.S. has spent $5.9T on foreign wars that killed 370K directly from violence plus 250K civilians, and displaced 10.1M. In Nov. North Am. has the most extensive Nov. snow cover in at least 50 years. In Nov. a weird seismic event off Mayotte Island between Madagascar and Mozambique is traced to a new underwater volcano, the largest ever recorded. In Nov. Twitter bans users who "misgender" and "deadname" transgender people, incl. feminist Meghan Murphy for saying "Women aren't men", and "How are transwomen not men? What is the difference between a man and a transwoman?" In Nov. U.S. unemployment is 3.7% for the 3rd mo. straight, with the economy adding 150K jobs, and a record 156,795K Americans employed. On Dec. 4 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "I am a Tariff Man. When people or countries come in to raid the great wealth of our Nation, I want them to pay for the privilege of doing so. It will always be the best way to max out our economic power. We are right now taking in $billions in Tariffs. MAKE AMERICA RICH AGAIN", causing Dow-Jones to drops by 500 points, and the S&P to drop 2.5%, a new low for 2018. On Dec. 5 USA Gymnastics files for bankruptcy under the weight of lawsuits by hundreds of women over ex-nat. team doctor Larry Nasser. On Dec. 5 the Global Carbon Project (GCP) releases its 2018 CO2 Emissions Report, claiming a 2.7% global CO2 emissions rise this year (vs. 1.6% in 2017), caused by a 3% rise in coal use by China and a 4.7% rise in emissions. On Dec. 6 a rare suicide car bombing at a police HQ in Chabahar, Iran kills two and wounds several. On Dec. 6 after discovering terror tunnels stretching from S Lebanon into N Israel, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu calls for an internat. response incl. the U.N. Security Council. On Dec. 6 the U.S. Dept. of the Interior announces that the Wolfcamp and Bone Spring formations in W. Tex. and E N.M. hold the largest potential gas and oil resources yet discovered, 46.3B barrels of oil, 281T cu. ft. of natural gas, and 20B barrels of natural gas liquids. On Dec. 7 former FBI dir. James Comey testifies before Congress in a closed session; later that day a transcript is released, causing Pres. Trump on Dec. 9 to tweet the soundbyte: "On 245 occasions, former FBI Director James Comey told House investigators he didn't know, didn't recall, or couldn't remember things when asked. Opened investigations on 4 Americans (not 2) - didn't know who signed off and didn't know Christopher Steele! All lies! Leakin' James Comey must have set a record for who lied the most to Congress in one day. His Friday testimony was so untruthful! This whole deal is a Rigged Fraud headed up by dishonest people who would so anything, so that I could not become President. They are now exposed!"; on Dec. 10 Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Democrats can't find a Smocking gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey's testimony. No Smocking Gun..No Collusion." On Dec. 8 the 2018 Miss World Pageant in Sanya, China is won by 5'9" Siliva Vanessa Ponce de Leon Sanchez (1992-) of Mexico (first Mexican winner). On Dec. 9 Houston, Tex. mayor Sylvester Turner proclaims CAIR-Tex., Houston Day, despite CAIR (Council on Am.-Islamic Relations) having connections with Hamas terror. On Dec. 9 (3:00 p.m.) a jihadist knife attack at a train station in Mulhouse, France injures three women in the hand, back, and neck. On Dec. 9 Palestinian jihadis open fire on Israeli civilians in Ofra, wounding seven incl. a pregnant woman. On Dec. 10 the the FBI arrests Elizxabeth Lecron (1995-) for plotting a terror attack at a Toledo, Ohio bar, along with Damon Joseph (1997-) for pledging support for ISIS and plotting attacks on two synagogues in Toledo. On Dec. 10-11 EU heads of state sign the non-binding U.N. Global Compact for Migration, a plan to flood the EU with 59M migrants by 2025; the compact is formally endorsed by the U.N. Gen. Assembly on Dec. 19; it contains a section on "eliminating all forms of discrimination", and a stated aim is to "shape perceptions of migration", stirring fears of suppression of freedom of speech; after denouncing the compact as amounting to a bid "to advance global governance at the expense of the sovereign right of States to manage their immigration systems in accordance with their national laws, policies and interests", with a U.S. envoy warning that it could translate into a "long-term means of building customary international law or so-called 'soft law' in the area of migration" adding that term 'compact' is an amorphous word in internat. law that "implies legal obligation", the U.S. refuses to sign, as does several other nations incl. Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Repub., Australia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Latvia; 100K in Britain sign a petition opposing the compact; Belgian PM Charles Michel signs it despite the right wing Flemish N-VA Party departing from his 4-party coalition, leaving him with a minority govt.; on Dec. 4 French Gen. Antoine Martinez sends a letter signed by several other top military brass and former French defense minister Charles Millon accusing pres. Emmanuel Macron of Treason for signing it; on Dec. 16 5K protest the migration pact in Brussels, Belgium, with shouts of "No jihad in our country" and "We are tired, close the borders"; on Dec. 13 13 countries vote against the pact, incl. the Vesegrad Four (Czech. Repub., Hungary, Poland, Slovakia), Austria, Bulgaria, Latvia, Israel, the U.S., Dominica, and Brazil; they also reject the sister Global Compact on Refugees, which mentions "replacement" of existing Euro pops. with migrants. On Dec. 11 Pres. Trump meets with Dem. leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who refuse to give him $5B to build a border wall, causing him to reiterate his threats to shut down the govt. while he has the military build it, with the soundbyte: "I am proud to shut down the government for border security." On Dec. 11 (p.m.) 29-y.o. Allah-Akbar-shouting career criminal jihadist Cherif Chekatt (1989-) fired on a crowd at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, killing three and wounding 13 before fleeing in a taxi and getting killed resisting arrest. On Dec. 11 Pres. Trump signs the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2018, designed to aid religious (Christian) minorities persecuted by ISIS in Syria and Iraq. On Dec. 11 the 2018 Public Report on Terrorism Threat to Canada is released, adding Sikh (Khalistani) extremism to Sunni and Shia extremism, pissing-off the Sikhs. On Dec. 12 Pres. Trump signs an executive order establishing the $100B White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, with Pres. Trump uttering the soundbyte: "With the creation of today's council, the resources of the whole federal government will be leveraged to rebuild low-income and impoverished neighborhoods that have been ignored by Washington in years past"; too bad, the Trump-hating PC media blacks out news, or calls it a scheme to help the rich. On Dec. 12 (p.m.) British PM Theresa May survives a confidence vote of fellow Tory MPs by 200-117. On Dec. 12 (p.m.) 21 mostly ISIS prisoners break out of Sosa Jail near Sulaimaniya, Iraq; 15 are recaptured. On Dec. 14 Pres. George W. Bush-appointed U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor of Tex. issues an order to strike down Obamacare as unconstitutional, freak-out progressives. On Dec. 14 Johnson & Johnson's shares plunge 10% after a Reuters report claims that it knew since 1971 thats its baby powder contains carcinogenic asbestos. On Dec. 14 Pope Francis delivers a speech at a Vatican Christmas concert, saying that migrants are trying to "escape wars, miseries caused by social injustices and climate change." On Dec. 16 the 2018 (67th) Miss Universe Pageant at IMPACT Arena in Muang Thong Thani, Thailand, hosted by Steve Harvey and Ashley Graham features the first-ever transgender contestant 6'0" Angela Maria (Angel Mario) Ponce Camacho (1991-) of Spain; the winner is 5'10" Catriona Elisa Magnayon Gray (1994-) of Philippines. On Dec. 17 the beheaded bodies of 28-y.-o. Maren Ueland of Norway and 24-y.-o. Dane Louisa Verager Jespersen of Denmark are found in the Atlas Mts. of Morocco, causing 18 members of an ISIS cell to be arrested; on July 19, 2019 three of them are sentenced to death. On Dec. 19 Pres. Trump announces his decision to withdraw all 2K U.S. troops from Syria since "we have won against ISIS", pissing-off Dem. and Repub. critics, who call it a Christmas gift for ISIS, Iran, and ISIS, causing him to clarify that they will stay close to the area if needed, with the soundbyte: "Does the USA want to be the policeman of the Middle East?", later letting himself be talked into slowing down the pullout; meanwhile French pres. Emmanuel Macron issues the soundbyte that he "very deeply regrets" Trump's decision, adding "To be allies is to fight shoulder to shoulder... An ally should be dependable"; meanwhile after he wasn't consulted, top U.S. anti-ISIS diplomat Brett McGurk resigns in protest, causing the U.S. State Dept. to remark "The conflict in Syria has been ongoing for six years. Good job, Brett." On Dec. 20 after he gets pissed-off at the decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, Pres. Trump announces the resignation of U.S. defense secy. Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis, effective at the end of Feb., with Mattis writing the soundbyte that Trump deserves a defense secy. closer in alignment with his views. On Dec. 22 (midnight) after failure to compromise on Pres. Trump's border wall, a partial U.S. govt. shutdown begins (ends ?), causing 420K federal employees to work without pay while Trump fights it out with U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). On Dec. 25 Pres. Trump talks to 7-y.-o. Collman Lloyd on the phone, asking her if she is "still a believer in Santa, because at 7, it's marginal, right?", pissing-off the anti-Trumpers, causing Mike Huckabee to defend Trump, asking if this makes him Glenn Close in the film "Fatal Attraction", who boiled Michael Douglas' daughter's pet rabbit in a pot after he scorns her. On Dec. 26 during the partial U.S. govt. shutdown, Pres. Trump makes an unnanounced visit to Iraq along with First Lady Melania Trump, who becomes the first First Lady to visit Iraq since the start of the Iraq War in 2003; no surprise, the Trump-hating New York Times and CNN bash Pres. Trump for signing soldiers' MAGA hats, claiming he was holding a political rally. On Dec. 28 (6:15 p.m. local time) a roadside IED explodes near a bus near the pyramids in Mariotiyah, Egypt near the Giza Pyramids, killing a tour guide and three Vietnamese tourists, and injuring the Egyptian driver and 10 Vietnamese tourists, causing a massive manhunt for Muslim terrorists that kills 40 on Dec. 29. On Dec. 30 (Sun.) NBC-TV's Meet the Press hosted by Chuck Odd, er, Todd devotes their whole hour to climate alarmists incl. Michael Bloomberg, Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown, and U.S. Rep. (R-Fla.) Carlos Curbelo, who want to pass a U.S. carbon tax to save the world from Armageddon, with Todd uttering the soundbyte that his show is "not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled even if political opinion is not", apologizing for a Nov. episode hosting climate skeptic Danielle Pletka with the soundbyte that this time his show won't "confuse weather with climate", then proceeding to just that thing using summer instead of winter like she did?; Brown utters the soundbytes: "Instead of worrying about tariffs, I'd like to see the president and the Congress invest tens of billions in renewable energy, in more-efficient batteries, to get us off fossil fuel as quickly as we can"; "I would point to the fact that it took [late President Franklin D. Roosevelt] many, many years to get America willing to go into World War II and fight the Nazis. Well, we have an enemy, though different, but perhaps, very much devastating in a similar way. And we've got to fight climate change. And the president's got to lead on that." On Dec. 30 elections in the Dem. Repub. of Congo (DRC) to succeed pres. Joseph Kabila become their first transfer of power through peaceful elections since independence in 1960. On Dec. 30 reps of the Taliban meet with Iranian officials in Tehran to advance peace talks with the Afghan govt. On Dec. 31 (New Year's Eve) Muslim immigrants in France continue their tradition of hatred of infidel society by burning 1K+ cars. On Dec. 31 the U.S. and Israel officially quit UNESCO, with U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley uttering the soundbyte: "Today the U.S. withdrawal from this cesspool became official." On Dec. 31 migrats storm the U.S.-Mexico barrier near San Diego, Calif., throwing rocks and attempting to push their children over the barbed wire. In Dec. U.S. unemployment is 3.9% (vs. 3.7% in Nov.), adding 312K jobs. This year virtually every new TV ad in the U.S. features a black actor, with biracial couples becoming increasingly common; actors of other races don't object to being shut out of jobs so that the U.S. can be portrayed as 50% black and increasingly biracial, even though blacks are only 12% of the pop. and biracial couples 15%? Montclair State U. prof. Jeffrey Alan Miller discovers the earliest draft of the King James Bible, covering the apocryphal books of Esdras and Wisdom, showing that translators worked entirely on their own not as a team. Architecture: On Mar. 26 the stainless steel Cloud Column sculpture by British sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor (1954-) is unveiled in Houston, Tex., pissing-off rival Chicago, Ill., which hosts Kapoor's 2006 Cloud Gate (AKA The Bean), which lies on its side and doesn't stand upright like Houston's; meanwhile Houston gained 94,417 residents in 2017, while Chicago lost 13,286, putting Houston track to pass Chicago as the 3rd largest U.S. city in 10 years. On Apr. 26 the Nat. Memorial for Peace and Justice (Nat. Lynching Memorial) in Montgomery, Ala. opens, commemorating 4K victims of lynching in the U.S., with 805 hanging coffin-shaped steel rectangles, each representing a county. In June the Golden Bridge (Cau Vang) in the Ba Na Hills of Vietnam opens, designed to represent the "giant hands of god spulling a stirp of gold out of the land". In June the Morpheus Hotel in Macau, China opens, designed by Zaha Hadid. In Sept. the $11.2B Beijing Daxing Internat. Airport (begun Dec. 26, 2014) 29 mi. S of Beijing along the Hebei Province border is finished,; it covers 6.6K acres, and features five limbs spreading out from the central core; designed by Zaha Hadid Architect. On Oct. 23 the $20B 34 mi. (55 km) Hong Kong-Zuhai Bridge (begun 2009) connecting Hong Kong to Macau and the mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai opens, becoming the world's longest sea-crossing bridge. The $2.5M Casa Brutale near Beirut, Lebanon is built, becoming a perfect lair for 007 James Bond. Sports: On Jan. 8 the 2018 College Football Nat. Championship at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. sees the Ala. Crimson Tide start out flat, seeing Bulldogs QB Jake Fromm shut them out in the first half 13-0 until coach Nick Saban pulls out veteran QB Jalen Hurts and substitutes green freshman Tua Tagovailoa, who leads a comeback, winning 26-23 in OT; Alabama kicker Andy Pappanastos misses two key field goals, incl. one that would have won the game in the final seconds, while eyeglasses-wearing Georgia kicker Rodrigo Blankenship is perfect; Pres. Trump attends the game, standing for the Pledge of Allegiance. On Feb. 4 after the Cleveland Browns go 0-16 and the Denver Broncos go 5-11, and Eagles QB Carson Wentz gets injured in Dec., Super Bowl LII (52) at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minn., first SB in Minneapolis since 1992 sees the 13-3 Philadelphia Eagles (coach Doug Pederson) defeat the 13-3 New England Patriots (coach Bill Belichick) (record 10th SB appearance) by 41-33 to win their first SB (first NFL title since 1960) and deny the Patriots a record-tying 6th SB win, tying the Denver Broncos with the most SB losses (5); former backup Eagles QB (#9) Nicholas Edward "Saint Nick" Foles (1989-) catches a 1-yard TD pass from Trey Burton with 34 sec. to play in the first half to make the score 22-12; Patriots QB Tom Brady connects with Rob Gronkowski for a 4-yard TD with 9:22 remaining to make the score 32-33, after which on a 4th and 1 from their own 45 Zach Ertz of the Phillies catches a 2-yard pass, then scores a 11-yard TD on 3rd and 7 that puts the Eagles up 38-33; with 2:09 remaining Patriots QB Tom Brady (oldest SB QB at 40 years 185 days) is sacked while coming in for the winning TD by Eagles Brandon Graham and fumbles into the hands of Eagles Derek Barnett, leaving 1:05 on the clock, then winning the game after Brady's hail mary is knocked down in the end zone; Brady loses despite a record 505 passing yards, and 613 total yards for his team; a record 1,151 combined yards (Patriots 613, Eagles 583) (vs. 929 in 1988) and 74 points; the Eagles have a record 3 missed PAT conversions; the Eagles become the first team since SB XLV to win a SB while wearing their midnight green home jerseys; Pink sings the nat. anthem, and nobody kneeled in protest; the halftime show features Justin Timberlake; MVP is Nick Foles; on June 4 (p.m.) after several players refuse to attend over his support for standing for the playing of the nat. anthem at games, Pres. Trump uninvites the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles to the White House, and holds a Celebration of America event on the South Lawn of the White House instead. On Feb. 5 Syrian air strikes in Ghouta, Syria kill 29+; more are killed with gas in Idlib. On Feb. 9-25 the 2018 (XXIII) (23rd) Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea (first in Seoul since the 1988 Summer Games) sees 2,952 athletes from 92 nations participate in 102 events in 7 sports and 15 disciplines, broadcast by NBC-TV; China moved 300K troops closer to the North Korean border prior to the start of the games; on Feb. 9 the opening ceremony sees NBC-TV analyst Joshua Cooper Ramo (1968-) praise the presence of Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, with the soundbyte: "Every Korean will tell you that Japan is a cultural, technological, and economic example that has been so important to their own transformation", pissing-off Korea, causing him to be benched; Norway wins 39 medals incl. 14 gold, Germany wins 31 (14 gold), Canada wins 29 (11 gold), the U.S. wins 23 (9 gold), Netherland wins 20 (8 gold), Sweden wins 14 (7 gold), and South Korea wins 17 (5 gold); on Feb. 11 the first U.S. gold medal is won in Men's Slopestyle Snowboarding by Redmond "Red" Gerard (2000-) of Silverthorne, Colo., causing the town to rename itself Goldthorne; on Feb. 12 Chloe Kim (2000-) of the U.S. wins gold in women's halfpipe with a score of 98.25; Shaun Roger "Flying Tomato" White (1986-) of the U.S. wins his 3rd gold (100th Winter Olympic gold for the U.S.) in men's halfpipe in a dramatic performance, with a score of 97.75 (first threepeat in the same event in the Olympics), becoming the Crying Tomato; on Feb. 23 18-y.-o. super-emotional Tatar descent Russian figure skater favorite Evgenia (Yevegenia) Armanovna Medvedeva (1999-) is edged out 239.57 to 238.26 by 15-y.-o. super-cool Armenian descent Russian figure skater Alina Ilnazovna Zagitova (2002-); the U.S. wins its first-ever gold in curling, and women's cross-country; the U.S. women's hockey team wins its first gold since Nagano in 1998, becoming the 4th of 5th Winter Olympics facing Canada for the gold in "the world's fiercest Winter Olympics rivalry". On Apr. 26-28 the 2018 NFL Draft sees the last-place Cleveland Browns select 6'1" 2017 Heisman Trophy winner Baker Reagan Mayfield (1995-) from Oklahoma U., who becomes their 30th starting QB since 1999; in his first NFL appearance on Sept. 20, he leads Cleveland to their first win in 19 games, 21-17 over the New York Jets, ending a 635-day winless streak. On May 23 the NFL bans on-field kneeling during the playing of the U.S. Nat. Anthem; too bad, some players do it anyway; on Aug. 22 after ESPN announces that it will discontinue the Nat. Anthem before each Monday Night Football, Pres. Trump sends out an email to supporters calling for a boycott, calling it a "spineless surrender to the politically correct liberal mob". On May 28-June 7 the 2018 Stanley Cup Finals sees the Washington Capitals (2nd appearance) defeat the Vegas Golden Knights (1st appearance) 4-1; MVP is Washington captain Alexander Ovechkin. On May 31-June 6 the 2018 NBA Finals sees the 58-24 Golden State Warriors sweep the 50-32 Cleveland Cavaliers 4-0 for their 2nd straight title and 3rd in four years; MVP is Kevin Durant of the Warriors (2nd straight time); the first finals sweep since 2007; the first time in any North Am. major prof. sports championship that the same two teams meet for four years in a row; the first time since 2012 that the finals don't feature a top seed; in Game 2 Stephen Currey of the Warrios makes a record 9 3-pointers; in Game 3 Kevin Durant of the Warriors scores a playoff career-high 43 points incl. a 3-pointer late in the game that ices the victory; in Game 4 Golden State surges ahead 102-77 with 4:03 remaining after LeBron James of the Cavaliers leaves the game, then finishes 108-85; the official sponsor is YouTube TV. On June 9 (4:00 p.m. EDT) the 2018 Belmont Stakes sees 4-5 favorite Justify lead wire-to-wire with a time of 2:28.18, becoming Am. Triple Crown winner #13. On June 14-17 the 2018 U.S. Golf Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Course in N.Y. is won by Brooks Koepka (1990-) (2nd in a row, first to defend since Curtis Strange in 1989 and Ben Hogan in 1951), who finishes one stroke ahead of Tommy Fleetwood of the U.K. On June 14-July 15 the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia is won by France, which defeats Croatia 4-2. On July 2-15 the 2018 (132nd) Wimbledon Championships sees Novak Djokovic of Serbia win the gentleman's singles title, and Angelique Kerber (1988-) of Germany win the ladies' singles title. On Aug. 19 the NL Colorado Rockies play their 46th straight game against a team with a .500+ record, defeating the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta 5-3 to go 30-16, tying the 1926 Phillies (15-31) and the 2012 Braves (22-24). On Aug. 26 Am. golfer Tiger Woods is grilled by reporters at the Northern Trust Tournament, refusing to diss Pres. Trump and instead uttering the soundbyte: "He's the president of the United States. You have to respect the office", causing ESPN commentators Max Kellerman and Stephen A. Smith to say that Tiger is "not really black". On Sept. 5 (night) Colo. Rockies shortstop Trevor Story (1992-) hits homers on his first three at-bats in Denver, helping the Rockies to a 5-3 win and a sweep of the San Francisco Giants; Story's 2nd homer set a Coors Field record at 505 ft., and the three homers combined for 1,380 ft. On Sept. 16 Eliud Kipchoge (1984-) sets a world record in the marthon at the 2018 Berlin Marathon of 2:01:39, breaking the previous record by 1 min. 18 sec.; on Oct. 12, 2019 Kipchoge runs the marathon in 1:59:40 in Vienna, Austria (4 min. 34 sec./mi.), breaking the 2-hour barrier, but it's not considered official; meanwhile on Oct. 13 Brigid Jepscheschir Kosgei (1994-) of Kenya runs the marathon in 2:14:04 at the Chicago, Ill. Marthon, beating the 16-y.-o. record of Paula Radcliffe of Britain (2:15:25) by 81 sec. On Sept. 20 20-y.-o. Naomi Osaka (1998-) defeats Serena Williams to win the U.S. Open singles title, becoming the first Japanese player; too bad, the crowd boos her while the officials all express shock, causing her to cry and cover her face with her black visor during the awards ceremony. On Oct. 23-28 the 2018 (114th) World Series sees the 108-54 Boston Red Sox (mgr. Alex Cora) defeat the 92-71 Los Angeles Dogers (mgr. Dave Roberts) 4-1; Game 3 in Los Angeles goes a record 18 innings and 7 hours 20 min., and is the only one won by the Dodgers (3-2); MVP is Red Sox 1B player Steven Wayne "Steve" Pearce (1983-). On Nov. 18 former Dallas Cowboys linebacker #50 (1982-9) Jeffrey Charles "Jeff" Rohrer (1958-) comes out and marries his partner Joshua Ross, becoming the first NFL player in a same-sex marriage. On Nov. 19 (Mon.) the 9-1 Los Angeles Rams (NFC), led by QB (#16) Jared Thomas Goff (1994-) defeat the 9-1 Kansas City Chiefs (AFC), led by QB (#15) Patrick Lavon Mahomes II (1995-) by 54-51, becoming the highest scoring game in Monday Night Football history, and first NFL game where each player scores 50+ points, plus the first NFL game where the loser gets 50+ points. On Nov. 23 after Phil Mickelson's big V in 2004, Tiger Woods' big V in 2004, and Mickelson's comeback V in 2005, they engage in a head-to-head competition for a $9M purse, which is won by Mickelson by one putt on the 22nd hole. On Dec. 8 Patricio Manuel defeats Mexican super-featherweight boxer Hugo Aguilar at the Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, Calif., becoming the first transgender male boxer in U.S. history. Nobel Prizes: Peace: Nadia Murad Basee Taha (1993-) (Iraq) and Denis Mukwege (1955-) (Congo) [efforts to end use of sexual violence as a weapon of war]; Lit.: None (postponed); Physics: Arthur Ashkin (1922-) (U.S.) [optical tweezers], Gerard (Gérard) Albert Mourou (1944-) (France), and Donna Theo Strickland (1959-) (Canada); Chem.: Frances Hamilton Arnold (1956-) [U.S.) [directed evolution to engineer enzymes], George Pearson Smith (1941-) [U.S.] (phage display), and Sir Gregory Paul Winter (1951-) (U.K.) [therapeutic use of monoclonal antibodies using phage display]; Med.: James Patrick Allison (1948-) (U.S.) [tumor immunotherapy], and Tasuku Honjo (1942-) (Japan) [class switch recombination]; Econ.: William Dawbney Nordhaus (1941-) (U.S.) [integration of climate change into long-run macroeconomic analysis], and Paul Michael Romer (1955-) (U.S.) [integration of technological innovations into long-run macroeconomic analysis]. Inventions: On Jan. 3 Intel announces a security vulnerability in its PC chips that was discovered by Google in Oct. allowing hackers to observe passwords and other personal data, causing its stock to fall 3%. On Jan. 19 Ruby chocolate is first marketed in a new flavor of Kit-Kat bar. On Feb. 6 the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket is successfully launched, containing a 5-D Arch optical quartz storage system containing Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. On Mar. 5 the $60K Flippy AI-driven burger-flipping robot begins working at the CaliBurger fast food restaurant in Pasadena, Calif.; 50 more restaurants are planned worldwide by late 2019. In Mar. Egypt Face is launched in Egypt as the Egyptian version of Facebook. On Apr. 16 SpaceX launches the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) on its 230-ft. Falcon 9 rocket, which will examine 200K stars searching for rocky Earth-size planets. On Apr. 19 a U.S. FDA advisory panel unanimously recommends the approval of an epilepsy medication caled Epidiolex by GW Pharmaceutics of Britain made with an ingredient found in marijuana, becoming the first cannabis-derived prescription medicine in the U.S. On Apr. 19 Daniel Yamins and his student Alexander Kell of MIT pub. an article in Neuron describing the first deep neural network that can replicate human performance on auditory tasks incl. identifying a musical genre. On Apr. 22 34-y.-o. Simon Kindleysides of Britain becomes the first paraplegic to complete the London Marathon using the ReWalk exoskeleton from Israel. On May 5 NASA's InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport robot scientific explorer is launched to probe beneath the surface of Mars, landing on Elysium Planitia on Nov. 26 after a 300M mi. journey; it immediately lays a German flag beach towel on Mars' surface to claim it for Germany for donating equipment to test Mars' temp 5m below the surface :) On June 30 SpaceX launches a recycled Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral (12th successful flight this year) carrying the Dragon spacecraft and 6K lbs. of cargo to the ISS incl. the CIMON floating basketball-sized AI robot. On Aug. 12 (3:31 a.m. EDT) the NASA Parker Solar Probe launches, with the mission of flying within 4M mi. of the surface of the Sun, closest so far, carrying the FIELDS instruments to attempt to measure the corona and solar wind. On Aug. 21 Iran unveils its first domestically-produced fighter jet, the Kowsar, with Iranian pres. Hassan Rouhani sitting in the cockpit. On Aug. 22 the Atmospheric Dynamics Mission Aeolus (ADM Aeolus Earth observation satellite is launched by Airbus Defence and Space of the European Space Agency, becoming the first satellite capable of global wind-component-profile observation using laser doppler to improve weather forecasting, with a range from the surface of Earth into the stratosphere (30km). In Aug. aerospace engineers at the U. of Central Lancashire unveil the world's first graphene-skinned airplane called Juno, a 3.5m (11.5 ft.) unmanned plane. On Sept. 2 the Perlan 2 glider reaches a world record 76,100 ft. over the El Calafate region of S Argentina. On Sept. 9 NASA's ICESat-2 ice-monitoring satellite is launched on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket, becoming its last flight after 155 successful and one unsuccessful mission since 1989. On Sept. 18 Facebook announces its new Rosetta hate speech detection AI system. On Oct. 11 weeks after its first successful combat sortie, the Pentagon grounds the $100 Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth figher jet after its first crash last month during a training flight in S.C. On Oct. 29 (00:43 GMT) the first joint French-Chinese satellite is launched in the NW Gobi Desert of China to study ocean surface winds and waves to better understand climate change and predict cyclones. In Oct. the infrared James Webb Space Telescope (formerly the Next Generation Space Telescope) is launched by NASA as a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope; it incl. the daisy-shaped star shade to fly 15K mi. ahead of it and block light to allow distant planets to be searched for. On Dec. 13 Edward Boyden et al. of MIT announce their invention of "implosion fabrication", a way to shrink objects to nanoscale sizes. On Dec. 17 Eduardo A. Groisman et al. of Yale U. pub. a study in Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences announcing that sugar can silence a key protein required for colonization by a gut bacterium associated with lean and healthy individuals. Am. billionaire engineer Dennis Anthony Tito (1940-) puts his Feb. 2013 plan to send two civilians to Mars by this year on hold for lack of funding from NASA. Lightweight solar sail craft leave the solar system? Russia sends its first manned space flight from it soil? Richard Branson's Virgin Group and Qualcomm launch the $1.5B-$2B OneWeb high-speed space-based Internet with 700 330 lb. satellites, with 200 kept on the ground for backup. Skynet betrays the humans who built it and takes control, starting a nuclear war and attempting to extinguish humanity - The Terminator movie series. Science: On Jan. 1 the journal Nature Climate Change pub. an article claiming that if the Paris Climate Change Accord is not honored and global temp rises by 2 deg. C by 2050, a large percentage of the Earth could become desert, and 25% of world pop. will live in perpetual drought. No hockey stick in Sweden? On Jan. 9 Swedish geologists Irina Polovodora Steman, Helena L. Filipsson, and Kjell Nordberg of the U. of Lund pub. the paper Tracing winter temperatures over the last two millennia using a NE Atlantic coastal record, describing a 2.5K-year winter temp record reconstructed using sediment cores from the Gullmar Fjord, concluding: "The most recent warming of the 20th century does not stand out, but appears to be comparable to both the Roman Warm Period and the MCA (Medieval Climate Anomaly)." On Jan. 26 Science mag. pub. an article reporting a Homo sapiens jaw has been unearthed in Misliya Cave on Mt. Carmel in Israel, dated 194K to 177K B.C.E., 60K years earlier than the fossils discovered in the Skhul and Qafzeh Caves in Israel, dated 120K to 90K B.C.E. On Feb. 17 independent researcher Aftab Alam Khan pub. the paper Why would sea-level rise for global warming and polar ice-melt?, disputing the U.N. IPCC's theory that global warming causes thermal expansion of the ocean, claiming that global warming and polar ice-melt do not contribute to sea level rise because melted ice occupies the same volume as the displaced water, and the floating sea ice around the polar region cools the oceans, preventing thermal expansion, plus melt water cannot move from the polar to the equatorial region because of the equatorial bulge and polar flattening; meanwhile the gravitational attraction of the Earth plays a dominant role in sea level rise, with the crust in the polar region rebounding elastically after the ice melts to achieve isostatic balancing through uplift, causing the sea level to drop. On Mar. 19 a team of physicists from Harvard U., MIT, and Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab pub. a paper announcing the production of kagome metal, with a Japanese basketweaving pattern that exhibits exotic electronic properties. On Mar. 21 an article is pub. in Nature Communications reporting that biologists at UCB have used CRISPR-Cas9 to give yeast cells the ability to make flavor components of hops, promising a large water savings in beer-making. In Mar. NASA'a Curiosity Rover discovers evidence of thiophenes, a type of organic material, causing speculation that they're the product of an ancient Martian bacteria. On Apr. 2 famous climate change denier S. Fred Singer pub. the article Does the Greenhouse Gas CO2 Cool the Climate? in American Thinker, which concludes: "A greenhouse gas produces cooling of the climate when its molecular transitions are in a region of positive lapse rate. One example is CO2 and the stratosphere, where temperature increases with altitude. Another example is temperature over the winter poles. While the climate cooling is not obvious, it counters [conventional] GH warming. This at-least-partial cancellation might explain the puzzling absence of CO2-based GH warming in the 20th century. It could also help explain the cause of the [hotly] contested climate 'pause'. Much further work awaits!" On Apr. 23 an article is pub. in Nature Chemistry describing the intercalatif motif (i-motif), with the structure of a twisted knot, becoming the first discovery of a non-double helix DNA component within living cells. On Apr. 27 Arjen Luijendijk et al. of the Netherlands pub. the paper The State of the World's Beaches, revealing that satellite data indicates the 48% of the world's sandy beaches are stable, 28% are accreting, and 24% are eroding at rates exceeding 0.5m/yr, incl. a majority of sandy shorelines in marine protected areas in Australia and Africa, which are the only continents with net erosion; over the last 30 years, the world's beaches have accreted an avg. of 0.33 m/yr, for a total gain of 3,663 sq. km. On May 24 Marshall Burke, W. Matthew Davis, and Noah S. Diffenbaugh pub. the article Large potential reduction in economic damages under UN mitigation targets in Nature, which claims that limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial temps would save more than $20T compared to 2C, while costing $300B more, giving a cost-benefit ratio of 70-1. On June 18 a federal judge in San Francisco, Calif. dismisses lawsuits trying to hold big oil cos. liable for global climate change, saying that the U.S. pres. and Congress are best suited to address the issue. On June 23 the 30th Anniv. of NASA Climate Scientist James Hansen's Congressional Testimony sees the establishment hailing him as a prophet despite getting virtually every prediction wrong?; or was he spot on, and the evil Koch brothers paid critics to misrepresent his three scenarios, only recognizing his first one, which assumes business as usual and no emissions cuts?; of was he just lucky? On June 27 Tim Schmidt of the U. of New South Wales et al. pub a study claiming that the space between stars is full of electromagnetic radiation and gloopy aliphatic carbons that can stick to spaceship windshields. On July 12 MIT scientists pub. an article in Science announcing that 9.5 years of observations of neutrinos by the IceCube detector in Antarctica has detected a blazar 3.7B l.y. away, confirming it as the source of cosmic rays, becoming the first use of a neutron detector to locate an object in space; on July 16 they pub. an article in Nature Physics announcing that there is no Lorentz violation in neutrinos. On July 25 an article is pub. in Science announcing the discovery of the first "stable body of liquid water" on Mars by the Mars Express spacecraft, a 12.-5 mi. underground lake below the S polar ice cap. On Aug. 6 Robert O'Malley et al. of Ore. State U. pub. an article in Scientific Reports revealing that a big earthquake can cause large new earthquakes on the opposite side of the Earth. On Aug. 14 a survey of 63K U.S. govt. scientists in 16 agencies is pub. by the Union of Concerned Scientists, with 35% of EPA employees and 47% of Nat. Parks Service employees claiming they have been asked to omit the phrase "climate change" from their work; 79% claim workforce reductions, with 87% claiming that the reductions make it harder to "fulfill their science-based missions". On Aug. 19 MIT physicists David Kaiser, Alan Guth et al. pub. an article in Physical Review Letters reporting correlations among 30K+ pairs of entagled photons from two distant quasars 7.8B and 12.2B y.o., helping confirm quantum entanglement. On Aug. 21 researchers at the U. of Kan. pub. an article that laziness might be a fruitful strategy for survival of individuals, studying the period from 5M B.C.E. to present and finding that higher metabolic rates predict extinction likelihood. On Aug. 22 scientists at Oxford U. pub. an article in Nature announcing the 2012 discovery of 13-y.-o. Denisova 11 in the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mts. of Siberia, whose DNA is half-Neanderthal and half-Denisovan, becoming the first direct evidence of interbreeding. On Aug. 22 the South China Morning Post pub. an article reporting that Changsheng Biotechnology has produced almost 500K substandard vaccine doses for children, doubling the initial estimate. On Aug. 22 scientists at Harvard Medical School pub. an article reporting the discovery that a protein calleed TCM1 forms a sound-and-motion-activated pore that converts sound and head movement into nerve signsl that travels to the brain, enabling hearing and balance. On Sept. 7 Yan Li, Eugenia Kalnay, Safa Motesharrei et al. pub. the article Climate model shows large-scale wind and solar farms in the Sahara increase rain and vegetation in Science, pushing the green technology as a cure to global warming. On Sept. 12 the Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering pub. the report Greenhouse gas removal could make the UK carbon neutral by 2050, but immediate action is required, describing an ambitious plan for the U.K. to lead the way in greenhouse gas removal (GGR) technologies to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, incl. planting a new forest the size of Nottingham Forest in order to increase forestation to 5%; meanwhile eight scientists from the U.S. and Europe pub. a paper in Nature Communications, complaining that the EU's proposed new renewable energy directive treats wood as a low-carbon fuel, which can lead to vast forest cutting to supply 5% of Europe's energy, which will likely result in a 5%-10% increase in emissions by 2050 despite the directive's mandate of a 5% decrease via solar and wind energy; the scientists claim that any CO2 released into the atmosphere stays there for decades to cents., which is moose hockey? On Sept. 24 Daniel Koll and Tim Cronin of MIT pub. an article in Proceedings of the Nat. Academy of Sciences claiming that it's not CO2 but H20 vapor that traps heat in the atmosphere, preventing it from escaping to space, but luckily it balances out so that there is a linear relationship between surface temperature and outgoing heat until about 80F (300K), when the balance breaks down, leading to a runaway effect when temps reach 152F (340K), speculating that Venus once had such thick water vapor in its atmosphere that it pumped up the greenhouse effect to the point that oceans evaporated, leading to their current high temps; of course they lamely bow to the CO2 warming crowd and claims that CO2 can warm the atmosphere on its own, increasing the amount of water vapor somehow, as if there is no precipitation. On Sept. 28 Italian U. of Pisa physicist Alessandro Strumia (1969-) gives a speech at First Workshop on High Energy Theory and Gender at CERN, claiming that thanks to women's lib men are now reverse-discriminated against in physics, going on to argue that women are genetically inferior when it comes to the ability to have productive careers in the sciences, pissing-off the you know who, causing 18 women physicists to denounce him. On Oct. 8 the 2018 Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is pub. in South Korea, containing the soundbyte: "If emissions continue at their present rate, human-induced warming will exceed 1.5°C by around 2040", calling for global expenditures of $2.4T/year; its Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) is watered-down to minimize the dangers of climate change of only 1.5C? On Oct. 10 Stephen Hawking posth. pub. his final paper, claiming that info. can be stored in "soft hair" around a black hole, keeping it from being lost forever - he never got enough black poontang when he was young? On Oct. 11 a Soyuz rocket headed to the ISS suffers a catastrophic failure as the 2nd stage begins to separate from the 1st stage, causing NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin to parachute back to Kazakhstan. Chalmers Inst. of Tech. in Sweden founds the leftist-socialist-globalist Center for the Study of Climate Change Denialism, financed by the Swedish Energy Agency and led by Martin Hultman, who utters the soundbyte: "Climate change is an existential question for all society. We have these insights, but we come into conflict with them. Therefore, it is important to understand the mechanisms behind different forms of climate change denial, and how this influences the debate and political decisions." In Oct. twin Chinese girls Lulu and Nana are born, becoming the world's first germline genetically-edited babies; after a worldwide outcry, Chinese scientist He Jiankui is sentenced in late Dec. 2019 to three years in prison and 3M yuan fine. On Nov. 5 the U.N.-backed report Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2018 is pub., claiming recovery of 1%-3% since 2000, with the Northern Hemisphere and mid-lat. ozone scheduled to heal completely in the 2030s, the Southern Hemisphere in the 2050s, and polar regions by 2060. On Nov. 23 the Trump admin. (loaded with lurking Obama appointees?) releases the 1,656-page Fourth Nat. Climate Assessment, Vol. II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States by the 13-federal-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program (GCRP) (G-crap?) and a total of "1,000 people, including 300 leading scientists, roughly half from outside the government", an alarmist fantasy fest about dire CO2-choked futures that claims to be "an authoritative assessment of the science of climate change" in the U.S., sans policy recommendations, warning that climate change will disrupt the economies of every region in the U.S. and cost hundreds of billions of dollars yearly by 2050 and strip away 10% of U.S. economic growth by 2100, with the soundbytes: "Because several [greehouse gases], in particular carbon dioxide, reside in the atmosphere for decades or longer, many climate-influenced effects are projected to continue changing through 2050, even if GHG emissions were to stop immediately", and "While mitigation and adaptation efforts have expanded substantially in the last four years, they do not yet approach the scale considered necessary to avoid substantial damages to the economy, environment, and human health over the coming decades"; after being accused of trying to burying it by releasing it the day after Thanksgiving, the White House responds that the assessment is "largely based on the most extreme scenario, which contradicts long-established trends by assuming that, despite strong economic growth that would increase greenhouse gas emissions, there would be limited technology and innovation, and a rapidly expanding population", and that the next report in 2022 will "provide for a more transparent and data-driven process", which the authors deny; meanwhile Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte that he doesn't believe the report, causing John Avlon of CNN to reply "You can't spin your way out of science, folks"; the report catalogs 467 alleged climate scares, incl. a plague of voles, bed wetting, and mental illness?; it's got major problems?; the research is tied to rich Dem. donors Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg, as well as George Soros, with former Obama admin. official Andrew Light 1966-) (formerly of the Soros-funded Center for Am. Progress) serving as review ed. for the final chapter which promotes the 10% by 2100 figure, causing U. of Colo. prof. Roger Pielke Jr. to call the 10% figure (based on a projected 15F temp increase) "silly season", with the soundbytes: "Imagine if research funded by Exxon was the sole basis for claims", and "Shouldn't such an outlandish, outlier conclusion been caught in the review process"; the predictions for the U.S. Midwest are moose hockey?; on Nov. 25 report co-author, Canadian-Am. Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe gives an interview to CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, which is later cut in favor of Repub. Penn. politician (known for calling anthropogenic global warming "junk science") Richard John "Rick" Santorum (1958-), who gives the Trump line, with the soundbytes: "If we didn't have climate change, we would have a lot of scientists looking for work. To say that scientists have a consensus - the reality is that there's lots of disagreement out there about what is causing this"; on Nov. 29 Washington, D.C.-born conservative columnist John Calvin "Cal" Thomas (1942-) pub. the article A Political Report Masquerading as Science: The Truth About the New Climate Report in The Daily Signal. On Dec. 10 Jamie Nagle et al. of the U. of Colo. pub. an article in Nature Physics reporting the generation of droplets of quark gluon plasms at the Brookhaven Nat. Lab. collider, supposedly recreating the matter of the U. for the first few microsec. after the Big Bang. Development begins on the Pulsed All-Sky Near-Infrared Optical SETI (PANOSETI), two telescopes at Lick Observatory that are planned on growing to hundreds to scan the entire sky for alien laser signals. Art: John Peralta, Singer is Sewing Made Easy II (sculpture). Movies: Vikram Bhatt's 1921 (Jan. 12) (LoneRanger Productions) (Reliance Entertainment) stars Karan Kudra as Ayush, who takes care of the haunted Wadia Manor in York, and Zareen Khan as Rose, who has second sight and helps him investigate; does 22.74 crore rupees on a 15 crore rupees budget. Nicolai Fuglsig's 21 Strong: The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers (Jan. 19) (Alcon Entertainment) (Warner Bros. Pictures), based on the book by Doug Stanton about U.S. Special Forces and CIA soldiers in Afghanstan right after 9/11 stars Chris Hemsworth as Capt. Mitch Nelson (inspired by Mark Nutsch), Michael Shannon as CWO Call Spencer, Michael Pena as SFC Sam Diller, and Navid Negahban as Afghan Alliance leader Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum. Alex Garland's Annihilation (Feb. 13) (Skydance Media) (Paramount Pictures), based on the 2014 novel by Jeff VanderMeer is a sci-fi horror film about eerie aliens called the Shimmer who crash underneath a lighthouse in Area X and create an environmental disaster zone with mutating landscapes and animals, starring Natalie Portman as Lena the Biologist, Jennifer Jason Leigh as the Psychologist, Gina Rodriguez as the Anthropologist Anya Thorenson, Tessa Thompson as the Surveyor, Tuva Novotny as the Linguist, and Oscar Isaac as Lena's husband; does $43.1M box office on a $55M budget. Gareth Evans' Apostle (Sept. 21) (XYZ Films) (Netflix) is about a remote Welsh island run by a mysterious cult, starring Dan Stevens as Thomas Richardson, Michael Sheen as Malcolm Howe, Lucy Boynton as his daughter Andrea Howe, Paul Higgins as Frank, Bill Milner as Frank's son Jeremy, Kristine Froset as Quinn's daughter Ffion, and Sharon Morgan as Her, the cult's goddess. James Wan's Aquaman (Nov. 26) (Warner Bros. Pictures) stars Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry AKA Aquaman, Amber Heard as his babe Mera, Willem Dafoe as his mentor Nuidis Vulko, Patrick Wilson as his half-brother Orm/Ocean Master, Dolph Lundgren as Nereus, Yahya Abdul-Mateen III as David Kane/Black Manta, and Nicole Kidman as Aquaman's mother Atlanna, Queen of Atlantis; does $488.2M box office on a $200M budget. Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born (Aug. 31) (MGM) (Warner Bros.), a remake of the 1937 film, 1954 musical, and 1976 musical (Cooper's dir. debut) stars Cooper as Jackson "Jack" Maine, and Lady Gaga as Ally Campano Maine; features the hit song Shallow; does $436.2M box office on a $36M budget. Anthony Russo's and Joe Russo's Avengers: Infinity War (May 4) (Marvel Studios) (Walt Disney Studios), sequel to "The Avengers" (2012) and "Avengers: Age of Ultron" (2915) (Marvel Cinematic Universe film #19). Susanne Bier's Bird Box (Nov. 12) (Bluegrass Films) (Chris Morgan Productions) (Netflix), based on the 2014 Josh Malerman novel stars Sandra Bullock as Malorie Hayes, who must lead her children Boy and Girl (Julian Edwards and Vivian Lyra Blair) blindfolded through a forest and river while being chased by supernatural beings that take the appearance of their victims' worst fears, causing them to go insane and commit suicide; Malorie adopts some pet birds who can detect crazies and warn them; does ? box office on a $19.8M budget. Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (May 14) (Blumhouse Productions) (Focus Features), based on the 2014 memoir by Ron Stallworth stars John David Washington as Det. Ron Stallworth, first black police oficer in Colo. Springs, Colo., who pretends to be white and joins the KKK; does $89.1M box office on a $15M budget. Ryan Coogler's Black Panther (Jan. 29) (Walt Disney Studios), #18 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe stars Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa, who gains super powers from vibranium to become the Black Panther, uniting four African tribes into the nation of Wakanda, which pretends to be a Third World Country to disguise their advanced technology; Angela Basset plays T'Challa's mother Ramonda; Andy Serkis plays South African bad guy Ulysses Klaue; does $419.6M box office on a $200M budget, starting with $242M in its 4-day opening weekend. Carlos Lopez Estrada's Blindspotting (Jan. 18) (Summit Entertainment) (Codeblack Films) (Lionsgate) stars Daveed Diggs as felon Collin Hoskins, who has three days left of probation, and witnesses a police shooting that threatens to ruin his lifelong friendship with Miles (Rafael Casal), leading to a moment of racial lucidity with white police officer Molina (Ethan Embry); does $4.8M box office; a favorite of Pres. Barack Obama. Bryan Singer's and Dexter Fletcher's Bohemian Rhapsody (Oct. 23) (20th Cent. Fox) (New Regency) (GK Films) stars Rami Malek as Queen frontman Freddie Mercury after Sacha Baron Cohen is fired; does $743.7M box office on a $55M budget. Clay Kaytis' The Christmas Chronicles (Nov. 22) (Netflix) (1492 Pictures) stars Kurt Russell as Santa Claus, who makes a true believer out of teenie boy Teddy Pierce (Judah Lewis). Jaume Collet-Serra's The Commuter (Jan. 8) (StudioCanal) (Lionsgate) stars Liam Neeson as insurance salesman Michael McCauley, who is offered $100K by a mysterious stranger to identify a hidden passenger on a train before the last stop; does $119.9M box office on a $40M budget. Jon M. Chu's Crazy Rich Asians ()Aug. 7) (Warner Bros. Pictures), based on the 2013 bestselling novel by Kevin Kwan stars Constance Wu as Chinese-Am. economics prof. Rachel Chu, who goes to Singapore with her boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding) for his best friend's wedding, discovering that her beau is from a very wealthy family with a dark past, and every woman desires his bod; first major Hollywood film since "The Joy Luck Club" (1993) with Asian-Americans in the leading roles; does $227.3M box office on a $30M budget. Peter Sullivan's Cucuy: The Boogeyman (Oct. 13), based on the Mexican legend stars Marisol Nichols, Brian Krause, and Jearnest Corchado. Eighth Grade (Jan. 19) (A24) (Sony Pictures) stars Elsie Fisher as an 8th grader in her last week of classes before graduating to h.s., producing video blogs to reduce her social anxiety; a favorite of Pres. Barack Obama; does $13.5M box office on a $2M budget. Karyn Kusama's Destroyer (Aug. 31) (30West) (Automatik Entertainment) (Annapurna Pictures) stars Nicole Kidman as Erin Bell, an undercover LAPD officer whose case is blown, making her take out the members of a gang years later; does ? box office on a $9M budget. Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite (Aug. 30) (Element Pictures) (Film4 Productions) (Fox Searchlight Pictures), set during the reign of British Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) co-stars Emma Stone as Abigail Hill and Rachel Weisz as Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, who vie for the queen's favor, sexual and otherwise; does $26.8M box office on a $15M budget. Kevin Connolly's Gotti (May 15) (Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films), starring John Travolta as revolting mob boss John Gotti, and Kelly Preston as his wife Victoria is a box office flop, doing $1.7M box office on a $10M budget, receiving a 0% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; "I'd rather wake up next to a severed horse head." (Johnny Oleksinski, The New York Post); "He showed the world who's boss." Dinesh D'Souza's Death of a Nation: Can We Save America a Second Time? (Aug. 3) compares Pres. Trump positively to Abraham Lincoln, and blasts the Dem. Party for championing slavery and giving ideas to the Nazis, pissing-off guess-who. Scott Mosier's and Yarrow Cheney's The Grinch (Oct. 22) (Universal Pictures), based on the 1957 Dr. Seuss children's book stars Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of the Grinch, and Angela Lansbury as the voice of Mayor McGerkle; does $375.6M box office on a $75M budget. David Gordon Green's Halloween (Sept. 8) (Miramax) (Universal Pictures) (Miramax) (Blumhouse Productions), Halloween Series #11, a sequel to the 1978 film set 40 years later features Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) facing Michael Myers (Nick Castle) in a final confrontation; does $91.8M box office on a $15M budget. Ari Aster's Hereditary (Jan. 21) (A24) (PalmStar Media), about the demon Paimon haunting a family consisting of Steve and Annie Graham (Gabriel Byrne and Toni Collette) and their teenie children Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro); does $79.3M box office on a $10M budget. Donovan Marsh's Hunter Killer (Oct. 26) (Original Film) (Millennium Films) (Summit Entertainment), based on the 2012 novel "Firing Point" by Don Keith and George Wallace stars Gerard Butler as Cmdr. Joe Glass of the the submarine USS Ottawa, who must transport a group of U.S. Navy SEALS to rescue the kidnapped Russian pres.; also stars Gary Oldman as Adm. Charles Donnegan, Common as Rear Adm. John Fisk, Michael Nyqvist as Russian sub capt. Sergei Andropov, Caroline Goodall as U.S. Pres. Dover, and Zane Holtz as U.S. Navy SEAL Martinelli. The Erwin Brothers' I Can Only Imagine (Mar. 16) (Mission Pictures Internat.) (Lionsgate) (Roadside Attractions) is about the best-selling Christian single of all time (until ?), starring J. Michael Finley as MercyMe lead singer Bart Millard, Dennis Quad as his father Arthur Millard, Cloris Leachman as his grandmother Meemaw, and Trace Adkins as MercyMe mgr. Scott Brickell; does $85.4M worldwide box office on a $7M budget. Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk (Sept. 9) (Plan B Entertainment) (Annapurna Pictures), based on the 1974 James Baldwin novel sees black man Alonzo "Fonny" Hunt (Stephan James) falsely accused of rape while his wife Clementine "Tish" Rivers (KiKi Layne) seeks to clear his name before their child is born; Regina King plays Tish's mother Sharon Rivers; a favorite of Pres. Barack Obama; does $1M box office on a $12M budget. Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs (Mar. 23) (Fox Searchlight Pictures) is a stop-action animated film starring the voices of Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, and Bob Balaban. J.A. Bayona's Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (June 22) (Universal Pictures), Jurassic Park #5, filmed in Hawaii and England stars Chris Pratt as dino trainer Owen Grady, Bryce Dallas Howard as former park mgr. Claire Dearing, and B.D. Wong as Dr. Henry Wu. Wes Ball's Maze Runner: The Death Cure (Jan. 26) (Gotham Group) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the James Dashner book stars Dylan O'Brien as Gladers leader Thomas, who break into the WCKD-controlled Last City and finds that it's the deadliest maze of all. Bing Liu's Minding the Gap (Jna. 21) (ITVS) (Kartemquin Films) (Hulu) (Magnolia Pictures) is a documentary film about three young men in Rockford Ill. who love skateboarding; Liu's dir. debut; a favorite of Pres. Barack Obama. Christopher McQuarrie's Mission: Impossible 6: Fallout (July 12) (Skydance Media) (Alibaba Pictures) (Bad Robot Productions) (Paramount Pictures) (first in 3D) stars Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, Michelle Monaghan as Julia Meade-Hunt, Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust, Ving Rhames as Luther Stickel, Simon Pegg as Benjamin "Benji" Dunn,Angela Bassett as CIA dir. Erika Sloane, and Alec Baldwin as former CIA dir. Alan Hunley; good name since Cruise mainly falls out of high places, turning into a virtual comic book superhero by the end?; does $791M box office on a $178M budget. Christian Rivers' Mortal Engines (Nov. 27), based on the 2001 Philip Reeve novel, about a world controlled by Municipal Darwinism after the Sixty-Minute War, where Traction Cities on wheels hunt and eat smaller cities, starring Stephen Lang, last undead Stalker soldier, who raises fugitive assassin Hester Dhaw (Hera Hilmar), who is out to get Guild of Historians head Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving); does ? box office on a $100M budget. Corin Hardy's The Nun (Sept. 4) (New Line Cinema) (Warner Bros. Pictures), a spinoff of "The Conjuring 2" (2016) (Conjuring Franchise #5), based on a story by Gary Dauberman and James Wan set in Carta Abbey in 1952 Romania stars Taissa Farmiga as Sister Irene, Demian Bichir as Father Burke, and Bonnie Aarons as Valak the Nun, a demon who possesses them; does $359.8M box office on a $22M budget. Julius Avery's Overlord (Sept. 22) (Paramount Pictures) (Bad Robot Productions) is about Yankee paratroopers on D-Day caught behind enemy lines in Normandy, encountering a haunted Nazi-filled fort. Steven S. DeKnight's Pacific Rim: Uprising (Mar. 23) (Universal Pictures), sequel to the 2013 film stars John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, and Rinko Kikuchi. Diederik Van Rooijen's The Possession of Hannah Grace (Nov. 30) (Cadaver) (Screen Gems) (Sony Pictures Releasing), a ripoff of "The Exorcist" stars Kirby Johnson as possessed resurrected Hannah Grace, who is encountered in a morgue by former policeman Megan Reed (Shay Mitchell); Stana Katic plays Megan's nurse friend Lisa Roberts, and Grey Damon plays Megan's ex-boyfriend Andrew Kurtz; does $36.6M box office on a $9.5M budget. Shane Black's The Predator (Aug. 3) (20th Cent. Fox), #4 in the Predator film series stars Boyd Holbrook (after James Franco and Benicio del Toro turn itd down) as Special Forces commando Quinn McKenna. John Krasinski's A Quiet Place (Mar. 9) (Paramount Pictures), set in Apocalyptic 2020 Earth stars Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, and Cade Woodward as the Abbott family (Lee, Evelyn, Regan, Marcus, and Beau), who run from sightless ETs with super-hearing, forcing them to use Am. Sign Language; does $334.5M box office on a $21M budget. Francis Lawrence's Red Sparrow (Feb. 15) (20th Cent. Fox), based on the 2013 novel by Jason Matthews stars Jennifer Lawrence as Russian spy Dominika Egorova AKA DIVA, who falls for CIA officer Nathaniel "Nate" Nash (Joel Edgerton) and becomes a double agent; no chemistry?; after its release JenLaw announces that she's taking the next year off to work for Represent.Us to help young people get involved in politics and fight corruption to "fix our democracy". Jeffrey Nachmanoff's Replicas (Nov. 24) (Di Bonaventura Pictures) (Entertainment Studios) stars Keanu Reeves as neuroscientist William Foster, who loses his family in a car accident and violates the law to bring them back to life. Alfonso Cuaron's Roma (Participant Media) (Esperanto Filmoj) (Netflix) stars Yalitza Aparicio as Cleodegaria "Cleo" Gutierrez, a maid in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City; a favorite of Pres. Barack Obama; does $1.9M box office on a $15M budget; Bruce Macdonald's Samson (Feb. 16), based on the Biblical story stars Taylor James. Sylvain White's Slender Man (Aug. 10) (Screen Gems) (Sony Pictures), filmed in Ayer, Mass. is about friends Wren (Joey King), Hallie (Julia Goldani Telles), Chloe (Jaz Sinclair), and Katie (Annalise Basso), who summon the Slender Man (Javier Botet); does $50.4M box office on a $10M budget. Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters (May 13) (Aoi-Pro Inc.) (GAGA Pictures) is about a group of poor people in Tokyo who love to shoplift; does $55.2M box office; a favorite of Pres. Barack Obama. Bob Persichetti's, Peter Ramsey's, and Rodney Rothman's computer animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Dec. 1) (Columbia Pictures) (Sony Pictures), based on the Marvel Comics char. stars Shameik Moore as the voice of Miles Morales AKA Spider-Man, who is a half Puerto Rican half African-American kid from Brooklyn; does $275.4M box office on a $90M budget. Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born (Aug. 31) (Warner Bros.) (MGM) stars Cooper (dir. debut) as alcoholic country musician Jackson "Jack" Maine, who mentors nightclub singer Ally Campana (Lady Gaga); the 4th remake of the original 1937 film (1954, 1976, 2013); does $390.1M box office on a $40M budget. Adam McKay's Vice (Dec. 25) (Plan B Entertainment) (Gary Sanchez Productions) (Annapurna Pictures) is a cartoonish leftist hate-fest starring Christian Bale (who gained 40 lbs. for the role) as Dick Cheney, Amy Adams as Lynne Cheney, Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld, and Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush; "An awesome Christmas gift to Dick Cheney haters everywhere" (McKay); McKay gives an interview to Eliza Berman of Time mag., containing the soundbyte: "What intrigued me was that he wasn't a sociopathic monster in the beginning... Yet somehow that ambition, that American Dream, became something much darker"; does $30M box office on a $60M budget. Robert Zemeckis' Welcome to Marwen (Dec. 21) (Universal Pictures), inspired by Jeff Malberg's 20120 documentary "Marwencol" stars Stee Carell as PTSD sufferer Mark Hogancamp, who is assaulted so brutally he gets amnesia, and creates a fictional village for therapy; Merritt Wever plays hobby shop worker Roberta; Diane Kruger plays Deja Thoris the Belgan Witch; Falk Hentschel plays Deja's hencman Hauptsturmfuhrer Ludwig Topf; too bad, it bombs, doing $3M box office on a $50M budget plus $60M for promotion. Yann Demange's White Boy Rick (Aug. 31) (Columbia Pictures) (Sony Pictures) based on a true story stars Richie Merritt as 14-y.-o. 1980s Detroit teenie Rick Wershe Jr., who became the youngest FBI informant to date before ending up sentenced to life in prison for drug dealing; Matthew McConaughey plays his father Richard Wershe Sr.; does $24.1M box office on a $29M budget. Michael Spierig's and Peter Spierig's Winchester: The House that Ghosts Built (Feb. 2) (Lionsgate) (CBS Films) stars Helen Mirren as Sarah Winchester, widow of gunmaker William Wirth Winchester, who uses her inheritance to begin endless improvements to her mansion in San Jose, Calif. to atone for those killed by Winchester firearms, sealing rooms spiritually with 13 nails, causing it to be named the Winchester Mystery house, causing the Winchester Co. to hire Dr. Eric Price (Jason Clarke) to assess her mentally, only to encounter ghosts after the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake demolishes the house; does $41.3M box office on a $3.5M budget. Ava DuVernay's A Wrinkle in Time (Feb. 27) (Walt Disney Pictures), based on the 1962 Madeleine L'Engle novel stars Storm Reid as Meg Murry, who goes on quest for her astrophysicist father Alex (Chris Pine) deep in the Universe, accompanied by her genius younger brother Charles Wallace Murry (Deric McCabe), fellow student Calvin O'Keee (Levi Miller), Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), and Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling); does ? box office on a $103M budget (making DuVernay the first African-Am. omen to direct a live-action film with a $100M budget). Art: On Feb. 12 Amy Sherald (1973-) debuts her painting Official Portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama at the Smithsonian Inst.; dress designed by Milly; anti-Obama activists circulate Judith and Holofernes (2012) by Kehinde Wiley, depicting a black woman holding a white woman's head, palming it off as Sherald's; at the same time Kehinde Wiley (1977-) debuts his painting Official Portrait of Pres. Barack Obama; they become the first official portraits of a U.S. pres. by African-Am. artists. In Aug. Unmoored debuts in Times Square in New York City, a "mixed reality experience" which "imagines a future in which New York is underwater, as projected by climate scientists." Music: Dierks Bentley (1975-), The Mountain (album #9) (June 8); incl. Woman, Amen (#67 in the U.S.) (#3 country). Florida Georgia Line, Rearview Town (album #8) (Apr. 13) (#1 in the U.S.) (#1 country); incl. You Make It Easy (featuring Jason Aldean) (#28 in the U.S.) (#1 country); Simple (June 1) (#5 country). Marshmello (1992-), Happier (w/Bastille) (Aug. 16). Paul McCartney (1942-), Egypt Station (album #18) (Sept. 7) (#1 in the U.S.); first since 2005's "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard"; cover is his painting "Egypt Station"; incl. Dominoes, Hand in Hand, Hunt You Down/Naked/C-Link, Despite Repeating Warnings, slamming climate deniers esp. Pres. Trump. David Lee Murphy (1959-), Album #5 (Apr. 6, 2018) No Zip Code (album #5) (Apr. 6) (#35 country); co-produced by Kenny Chesney and Buddy Cannon; incl. Everything's Gonna Be Alright (#95 in the U.S.) (#10 country). Sugarland, Bigger (album #6) (June 8) (Big Machine); first album since 2010; incl. Babe (w/Taylor Swift) (#72 in the U.S.) (#8 country), Still the Same (#35 country). Morgan Wallen (1993-), If I Know Me (album) (debut) (#51 in the U.S.) (#4 country); incl. Whiskey Glasses (July 30) (#1 country) (#25 in the U.S.); written by Ben Burgess and Kevin Kadish. Novels: Tomi Adeyemi, Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha) (Mar. 6) (first novel); NYT bestseller. Melissa Albert, The Hazel Wood: A Novel (Jan. 30); NYT bestseller; a reclusive author of dark fairy tales dies, and her 17-y.-o. roadie granddaughter Alice moves in. Chloe Benjamin (1990-), The Immortalists (Jan. 9); NYT bestseller about four teenie siblings who get a fortuneteller to reveal their death dates. Holly Black, The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air) (Jan. 2); Jude. Dhonielle Clayton, The Belles (Feb. 6); Camellia Beauregard of opulent Orleans. A.J. Finn, The Woman in the Window: A Novel (Jan. 2); New York City recluse Anna Fox spies into the Russell house and sees something she shouldn't. Denis Johnson, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden: Stories (short stories) (Jan. 16). Tayari Jones, An American Marriage: A Novel (Feb. 6); a black couple in Atlanta get blacktopped by the corrupt criminal justice system. Mira T. Lee, Everything Here Is Beautiful (Jan. 16) (first novel); sisters Miranda and Lucia. C.J. Tudor, The Chalk Man: A Novel (Jan. 9); "None of us ever agreed on the exact beginning. Was it when the chalk men appeared? Or when they found the first body?" Plays: On Mar. 1, 2018 after a small run in 2014 catches the eye of Australian climate change skeptic Andrew Bolt, giving it free publicity, David Finnigan debuts his play Kill Climate Deniers at the Griffin Theatre in Sydney (ends Apr. 7); "As a classic rock band take the stage in Parliament House's main hall, 96 armed eco-terrorists storm the building and take the entire government hostage, threatening to execute everyone unless Australia ends global warming." Poetry: Louise Gluck (1943-) and Max Ritvo (1990-2016), The Final Voicemails: Poems (Sept. 11). Juan Felipe Herrera (1948-), Jabberwalking (Mar. 13). Philip Levine (1928-2015), The Last Shift: Poems (Apr. 3). Alice Walker (1944-), Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart (Oct. 2). David Whyte (1955-), The Bell and the Blackbird (Apr. 19). Nonfiction: Ryan T. Anderson, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment (Feb. 20); claims that sex reassignment therapy doesn't work. Joe Bastardi (1955-), The Climate Chronicles: Inconvenient Revelations You Won't Hear From Al Gore - And Others (Jan. 2); weather expert debunks climate alarmists, claiming that global temps were warmer in the 1930s than today, and that the human contribution to atmospheric CO2 is too small to have an effect on global warming, which is caused by sunspots and warmer oceans; since 2011 global temps have been falling, and by 2030 will return to 1970s levels due to the "triple crown of cooling" incl. oceanic temperature cycles, solar radiation cycles, and vocanic activity; "In the entire geological history of the planet, there has been no known linkage between CO2 and temperatures"; "CO2 cannot cause global warming. I'll tell you why. It doesn't mix well with the atmosphere, for one. For two, its specific gravity is 1 1/2 times that of the rest of the atmosphere. It heats and cools much quicker. Its radiative processes are much different. So it cannot - it literally cannot cause global warming"; "A colder planet would lead to untold misery given the current policies geared toward the opposite." Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History; claims that modern U.S. capitalism is descended from slave plantations. Dan Bongino, D.C. McAllister, and Matt Palumbo, Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump (Oct. 9). Nina Brochmann, The Wonder Down Under: The Insider's Guide to the Anatomy, Biology, and Reality of the Vagina (Mar. 6). Kate Andersen Brower, First in Line: Presidents, Vice Presidents and the Pursuit of Power (June 5); A Family Conspiracy: Honor Killing. Tucker Carlson (1969-), Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class Is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution (Oct. 2) (NYT #1 bestseller); explains "Trump Appeal", and how the left is destroying itself over him. John Carreyrou, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (May 21); the story of Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes; a favorite of Bill Gates. Jason Chaffetz (1967-), The Deep State: How an Army of Bureaucrats Protected Barack Obama and Is Working to Destroy the Trump Agenda (Sept. 18). Phyllis Chesler (1940-), A Family Conspiracy: Honor Killing (Apr. 24); A Politically Incorrect Feminist: Creating a Movement with Bitches, Lunatics, Dykes, Prodigies, Warriors, and Wonder Women (Aug. 28). Marcantonio Colonna, The Dictator Pope: The Inside Story of the Francis Papacy (Apr. 23); Pope Francis has been creating a climate of fear in the Vatican? James Comey (1960-), A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership (Apr. 17). Ann Coulter (1961-), Resistance Is Futile!: How the Trump-Hating Left Lost Its Collective Mind (Aug. 21); how Pres. Trump's election victory made leftists go nuts and turn the the tactics they used to accuse Repubs. of, also exposing social class hate (big city people on coasts vs. working class people in the heartland); "For Democracy to Live, We Must Kill the Media". Rupert Darwall, Green Tyranny: Exposing the Totalitarian Roots of the Climate Industrial Complex; the Nazi Blood and Soil movement and support of wind power in the 1930s morphed into the Green Party? Warren Dockter and Richard Troye, Who Commanded History? Sir John Colville, Churchillian Networks, and the "Castlerosse Affair" (Mar. 2); Winston's Churchill's secy. John Colville, founder of the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge leaves a tape claiming had an affair with Doris, Lady Castleross (-1942). Daniel J. Flynn, Cult City: Jim Jones, Harvey Milk, and 10 Days That Shook San Francisco (Oct. 8). Charles D. Freilich, Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change (Apr. 5); why Israel does not have a formal nat. security strategy. Newt Gingrich (1943-), Trump's America: The Truth about Our Nation's Great Comeback (June 5); by the man who helped Pres. Reagan make America great again in 1980. Jamie Glazov (1966-), Jihadist Psychopath: How He Is Charming, Seducing, and Devouring Us (Dec. 18). Eliza Griswold, Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America (June 12) (Pulitzer Prize). Yuval Noah Harari (1976-), 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (Sept. 4) (NYT #1 bestseller); a favorite of Bill Gates; "Are we still capable of understanding the world we have created?" Gen. Michael Vincent Hayden (1945-), The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies. Raymond Ibrahim 1973-), Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (Aug. 28). Gregg Jarrett (1955-), The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump (July 24). Martha S. Jones, Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America; despite the Dred Scott decision, blacks had some rights as citizens, and the 14th Amendment constitutionalized the citizen birthright principle? Dan Kovalik, The Plot to Control the World: How the US Spent Billions to Change the Outcome of Elections Around the World (Nov. 6). Philip Levine (1928-2015), My Lost Poets: A Life in Poetry (Apr. 3). Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (Jan. 16); anti-Trump Harvard profs. fret over a gradual slide into authoritarianism. Eric Lichtblau, The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler's Men (Oct. 28); how they recruited and harbored former Nazis to use against the Russians, incl. a possible invasion of the Soviet Union, and covered it up into the 1990s. Clare M. Lopez, Harold Rhode, Christopher C. Hull, Daniel Pipes, David P. Goldman, Burak Bekdil, Uzay Bulut, and Deborah Weiss, Ally No More: Erdogan's New Turkish Caliphate and the Rising Jihadist Threat to the West (essays) (Apr. 15). Trevor Loudon, Burn This Book: What Keith Ellison Doesn't Want You to Know: A Radical Marxist-Islamist, His Associations and Agenda (Sept. 10); Ellison's July 17, 2018 demand that Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos censor all of the co.'s products, calling for them to be destroyed. Omarosa Manigault Newman (1974-), Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House (Aug. 14); calls Pres. Trump a racist who likes to use the N word, calling him "in decline" mentally, causing White House press secy. Sarah Sanders to call it "false attacks", telling her to stop "trying to profit" and pointing out her own statements that Trump isn't a racist - she's trying to turn loyalty into royalties? Chris Miller, Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia. Dick Morris and Eileen McGann, 50 Shades of Politics. Michelle Obama (1964-), Becoming (autobo.) (Nov. 13); part of a $65M book deal for his-her memoirs, causing the Obamas to be called a "billion dollar brand". Jordan Peterson (1962-), 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Jan. 16); Amazon bestseller. David Pietrusza (1949-), TR's Last War: Theodore Roosevelt, the Great War, and a Journey of Triumph and Tragedy (Sept. 1). Steven Pinker (1954-), Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (Feb. 13); despite appearances that the world is coming apart, people are living longer, healthier, freer, happier lives; "My new favorite book of all time." (Bill Gates) Jeanine Pirro (1951-), Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy (July 17). William R. Polk, Crusade and Jihad: The Thousand-Year War between the Muslim World and the Global North (Jan.). Rick Richman, Racing Against History: The 1940 Campaign for a Jewish Army to Fight Hitler. Hans Rosling (1948-2017), Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (Apr. 3) (posth.); internat. bestseller; test subjects reveal that they think the world is poorer, less health, and more dangerous than it is, making a fan of billionaire Bill Gates. Fr. James V. Schall, On Islam (essays). Paul Scharre, Army of None: Autonomous Weapons and the Future of War (Apr. 24); an examination of all their little problems like being hacked by the enemy; a favorite of Bill Gates. Peter Schweizer, Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends (Mar. 20). Amy Siskind (1965-), The List: A Week-by-Week Reckoning of Trump's First Year (Mar. 27); her daily freak-outs at Trump's Twitter rants, speeches, etc., which she claims are authoritarian and a threat to marginalized communities esp. women. Luiz Sergio Solimeo, Islam and the Suicide of the West: The Origin, Doctrine, and Goals of Islam; attempts to wake up the Catholic Church about the true danger of resurgent Islam and its lies about being no threat to everything the West stands for; "Koran and Islamic traditions vilify and blaspheme Our Lord Jesus Christ the Word Incarnate and our Redeemer. There is nothing in common between what our Faith teaches us about Him and His grotesque and sacrilegious caricature as presented by Islam"; "Will the West follow the example of the Prodigal Son and choose to return to the Father's House, to a Christian civilization inspired by the “philosophy of the Gospel,” or will it submit to an Islamic totalitarianism that highly resembles communist ideology?" Robert Spencer (1962-), The History of Jihad from Muhammad to ISIS; "There has always been, with virtually no interruption, jihad." Sean Spicer (1971-), The Briefing: Politics, The Press, and The President (July 23). Jack Tanner, The Science Conspiracy: How Autistics Took Over the World (Dec. 7); "Science is a shallow, banal subject mired in materialism, atheism, skepticism and nihilism. It is a ferociously anti-life ideology. Lifeless matter is, after all, the essence of non-life"; "The central thesis of this book is that science is a worldview born from autism, from people who struggle with communication, empathy, free will, consciousness and all things mental. Scientists prefer to see themselves as machines or as products of random chance. Their lack of a strong psyche translates into an affinity for matter, the opposite of mind. They feel at home with theories that exclude mind, that require no mental components whatsoever. That's because they themselves are enormously deficient in mind." Stephan Templ, Austria's Living Ghost (Jan. 27); claims that Austria's system for restoring property looted from Jews by the Nazis is run by former Nazis. Craig Unger, House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia (Aug. 14); claims that Pres. Trump is Russia's asset in the White House, having been bought way back in the late 1980s by the Russian mafia, who used him for money laundering via his real estate empire, causing him to seek a govt. position with placement in Moscow in 1986, and take a call from Senate minority leader Bob Dole in 1987, meaning he had political aspirations. Tara Westover, Educated: A Memoir (Feb. 20); her Idaho survivalist religious fanatic father keeps her out of school until age 17, which doesn't stop her from earning a doctorate at Cambridge U.; a favorite of Barack Obama and Bill Gates. Michael Wolff (1953-), Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (Jan. 5) (bestseller); disses Pres. Trump as a candidate unprepared to win the White House, whose aids question his fitness for office; he really didn't want to win, only emerge with new branding opportunities?; Pres. Trump calls it a "phony book... Full of lies, misrepresentations and sources that don't exist"; in an interview, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon calls a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. et al. and a Russian operative "treasonous", causing Pres. Trump to reply: "Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind", calling him "Sloppy Steve", after which Bannon apologizes, calling Trump Jr. a patriot and clarifying that his anger was directed at Paul Manafort and this support for Trump is "unwavering". Shoshana Zuboff (1951-), The Age of Surveillance Capitalism; [Surveillance Capitalism] "unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioural data [which] are declared as a proprietary behavioural surplus, fed into advanced manufacturing processes known as 'machine intelligence', and fabricated into prediction products that anticipate what you will do now, soon, and later; these new capitalist products "are traded in a new kind of marketplace that I call behavioural futures markets"; a favorite of Pres. Obama. Births: Deaths: Irish "The Cranberries" singer Dolores O'Riordan (b. 1971) on Jan. 15 in London, England. Am. The Weather Channel co-founder John Coleman (b. 1934) on Jan. 20 in Las Vegas, Nev. Am. "Earthsea" novelist Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929) on Jan. 22 in Portland, Ore. Swedish IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad (b. 1926) on Jan. 27 in Smaland. Am. singer Vic Damone (b. 1928) on Feb. 11 in Miami Beach, Fla.; "The best set of pipes in the business." (Frank Sinatra). Pakistani human rights activist-atty. Asma Jahangir (b. 1952) on Feb. 11 in Lahore. Reverse sex discrimination? Danish prince (since Feb. 14, 1972) Henrik (b. 1934) on Feb. 13 in Fredensborg Palace (respiratory illness); retired from royal duties on Jan. 1, 2016; diagnosed with dementia on Sept. 6, 2017; has his remains cremated instead of buried next to the queen in protest to being made the first male prince consort to a female Danish monarch and have to beg her for his allowance, breaking a tradition dating back to 1559; he is cremated on Feb. 20, and half of his ashes were scattered across Danish seas, and the other half placed in the gardens of Fredensborg Palace. Am. historian Lerone Bennett Jr. (b. 1928) on Feb. 14 in Chicago, Ill. (vascular dementia): "Image Sees, Image Feels, Image Acts." Dutch PM (1982-94) Ruud Lubbers (b. 1939) on Feb. 14 in Rotterdam. Zimbabwean PM (2009-13) Morgan Tsvangirai (b. 1952) on Feb. 14 in Johannesburg, South Africa (colorectal cancer). Am. Christian evangelist Billy Graham (b. 1918) on Feb. 21 in Montreat, N.C.: "A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone." English #1 physicist Stephen Hawking (b. 1942) on Mar. 4 in Cambridge: "The boundary condition of the universe... is that it has no boundary." Am. glaciologist Terry Hughes (b. 1938) on Mar. 10 in Pierre, S.D. Am. New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson (b. 1927) on Mar. 15 in Jefferson, La.; worth $2.8B. South African leader Winnie Mandela (b. 1936) on Apr. 2 in Johannesburg: "With our boxes of matches and our necklaces we shall liberate this country" (Apr. 13, 1985). Am. broadcaster Art Bell (b. 1945) on Apr. 13 in Pahrump, Nev. (pneumonia). Am. gay rights and environmental activist atty. David Stroh Buckel (b. 1957) on Apr. 14 in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, N.Y.; self-immolated to protest the use of fossil fuels; leaves a suicide note reading: "Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result - my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves." Am. actor Bradford Dillman (b. 1930) on Jan. 16 in Santa Barbara, Calif. (OD from pneumonia). Am. Repub. First Lady #41 (1989-93) Barbara Bush (b. 1925) on Apr. 17 in Houston, Tex. (COPD). Italian-born Am. prof. wrestler Bruno Sammartino (b. 1935) on Apr. 18 in Pittsburgh, Penn. (heart failure). Swedish "Wake Me Up" musician Avicii (b. 1989) on Apr. 20 in Muscat, Oman (pancreatitis). Am. prof. wrestler Big Bully Busick (b. 1954) on May 8 in Weirton, W. Va. (esophageal cancer and brain cancer). Canadian-Am. "Lois Lane in Superman" actress Margot Kidder (b. 1948) on May 13 in Livingston, Mont. Am. "The Bonfire of the Vanities", "The Right Stuff" writer-journalist Tom Wolfe (b. 1930) on May 14 in New York City (infection). Am. historian Richard Pipes (b. 1923) on May 17 in Boston, Mass. British-Am. historian Bernard Lewis (b. 1916) on May 19 in Vorhees Township, N.J. Am. "Portnoy's Complaint" novelist Philip Roth (b. 1933) on May 22 in Manhattan, N.Y. (congestive heart faiure). Am. fashion designer Kate Spade (b. 1962) on June 5 in New York City (suicide by hanging). Am. "Parts Unknown" TV chef Anthony Bourdain (b. 1956) on June 8 in Strasbourg, France (suicide). English-born Kiwi chemist Vincent Richard Gray (b. 1922) on June 14 in Petone, Wellington. Am. prof. wrestler Paul Jones (b. 1942) on Apr. 18 near Atlanta, Ga. Austrian-born Canadian engineer Josef Kates (b. 1921) on June 16 in Toronto. Am. prof. wrestler Big Van Vader (b. 1955) on June 18 in Denver, Colo. (heart failure). Am. conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950) on June 21 (cancer). Am. prof. wrestler Matt Cappotelli (b. 1979) on June 29 in Louisville, Ky. (brain cancer). Japanese world's oldest person Chiyo Miyako (b. 1901) (117 years, 81 days) on July 2 in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa. Am. "None Dare Call It Treason" writer John A. Stormer (b. 1928) on July 10 in Troy, Mo. Japanese prof. wrestler Masa Saito (b. 1942) on July 14 (Parkinson's). U.S. adm. (first female) Alene Bertha Duerk (b. 1920) on July 21 in Lake Mary, Fla.: "It was a nice distinction to have, and to be recognized as the first, but I wanted to make certain that I used that notoriety to do as much positive as I could." Am. prof. wrestler Brickhouse Brown (b. 1960) on July 29 in Jackson, Miss. (prostate cancer). Trinidadian-British writer Sir V.S. Naipaul (b. 1932) on Aug. 17 in London, England; 2001 Nobel Lit. Prize; "I was born there [Trinidad], yes, I thought it was a great mistake." U.S. Sen. (R-Nev.) (1974-78) Paul Laxalt (b. 1922) on Aug. 6 in McLean, Va.; "Ronald Reagan's best friend in politics." Am. prof. wrestler Jim the Anvil Neidhart (b. 1955) on Aug. 13 in Wesley Chapel, Fla. (brain injury from fall after a seizure). Am. "Queen of Soul" singer Aretha Franklin (b. 1942) on Aug. 16 in Detroit, Mich. (pancreatic cancer); does on the same day as "the King" Elvis Presley in 1977; her funeral is held on Aug. 31 in Detroit, Mich., at which ex-pres. Bill Clinton speaks, praising her with the soundbyte: "She lived with courage. Not without fear, but overcoming her fears. She lived with faith. Not without failure, but overcoming her failures. She lived with power. Not without weakness, but overcoming her weaknesses. I just loved her"; Clinton sits next to Obama-loving Jesse Jackson, race-baiting Al Sharpton, and white-hating anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Indian PM #10 (1998-2004) Atal Bihari Vajpayee (b. 1924) on Aug. 16 in New Delhi (kidney infection). Ghanaian U.N. secy.-gen. #7 (1997-2006) Kofi Annan (b. 1938) on Aug. 18 in Bern, Switzerland. Israeli peace activist Uri Avneri (b. 1923) on Aug. 20 in Tel Aviv. U.S. Sen. (R-Ariz.) (1987-2018) John McCain (b. 1936) on Aug. 25 in Phoenix, Ariz. (brain cancer); becomes 13th U.S. sen. to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. Am. "Barefoot in the Park", "The Odd Couple" playwright Neil Simon (b. 1927) on Aug. 26 in Manhattan, N.Y. (Alzheimer's and renal failure). Dutch WWII resistance fighter Freddie Oversteegen (b. 1925) on Sept. 5. Am. "Lewis Medlock in Deliverance" "Bon Darville in Smokey and the Bandit" actor-dir.-producer Burt Reynolds (b. 1936) on Sept. 6 in Jupiter, Fla. (cardiac arrest). Am. Chicago police cmdr. Jon Burge (b. 1947) on Sept. 19 in Apollo Beach, Fla.; released from federal prison in Oct. 2014 after a 4-1/2-year sentence for obstructure of justice regarding police torture. French singer Charles Aznavour (b. 1924) on Oct. 1 in Mouries. Am. sportswriter Dave Anderson (b. 1929) on Oct. 4 in Cresskill, N.J. Am. billionaire ($20B) Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (b. 1953) on Oct. 15 in Seattle, Wash. (cancer). British-born French historian Robert Faurisson (b. 1929) on Oct. 21 in Vichy, France. Am. gangster Whitey Bulger (b. 1929) on Oct. 30 near Bruceton Mills, Va.; murdered in Hazelton Federal Penitentiary. Am. jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove (b. 1969) on Nov. 2 in New York City. Am. actress Sondra Locke (b. 1944) on Nov. 3 in Los Angeles, Calif. (breast cancer). Am. conservative writer Herbert London (b. 1939) on Nov. 10 in Manhattan, N.Y. (heart failure). Am. Marvel Comics mogul Stan Lee (b. 1922) on Nov. 12 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer (b. 1927) on Nov. 28 in Stony Brook, N.Y. U.S. Repub. pres. (1989-93) George H.W. Bush (b. 1924) on Nov. 30 in Houston, Tex. (Parkinson's); longest-lived U.S. pres. after Gerald Ford, and first to reach age 94 on June 12. English prof. wrestler Dynamite Kid (b. 1958) on Dec. 5 in Ince, Cheshire; dies after losing his ability to walk due to wrestling injuries. Am. computer programmer Evelyn Berezin (b. 1925) on Dec. 8; designer of first word processor (1969). Am. "Laverne in Laverne & Shirley" actress-dir.-producer Penny Marshall (b. 1943) on Dec. 17 in Los Angeles, Calif. (diabetes). Am. "The Girl from Ipanema" lyricist Norman Gimbel (b. 1927) on Dec. 28 in Santa Barbara, Calif.
"
2019 Chinese Year: Pig (Feb. 5). Time Person of the Year: Greta Thunberg, "Pool of Resolve", "Icon of a Generation". The Oxford Dictionary ceclares the term "climate emergency" the word of the year 2019; the 2018 word of the year was "toxic". All works pub. in 1923 enter the public domain in the U.S., becoming the first since the 1998 U.S. Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. It takes $25 U.S. dollars to purchase what $1 could buy in 1913 when the Federal Reserve was created. 89% of mass shootings since 1998 occurred in gun-free zones. On Jan. 1 since 9/11 there have been a total of 72 jihadist attacks in the U.S., which killed 160 and wounded 502; the state with the most attacks is Tex. (9). On Jan. 1 the 2019 Rose Bowl sees the 12-1 #6 Ohio State Buckeyes defeat the 10-3 #9 Washington Huskies 28-23 after Washington attempts a 4th quarter comeback with 20 points; if #2 Ohio State hadn't got their clock cleaned by unrated Purdue by 49-20 on Oct. 20, causing them to slide to #10, they'd never have had to fight their way back up and miss the 2019 College Football Playoff Nat. Championship at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on Jan. 7, which sees the 14-0 Clemson Tigers defeat the 14-0 Alabama Crimson Tide 44-16. On Jan. 1 Sao Paulo-born Social Liberty Party (PSL) leader ("the Trump of Brazil/Tropics") Jair Messias Bolsonaro (1955-) becomes pres. #38 of Brazil (until ?); he appoints pro-market economist Paulo Roberto Nunes Guedes (1949-) as the govt. czar for economic affairs (until ?). On Jan. 1 new U.S. Repub. Utah Sen. Willard Mitt Romney (1947-) gets a fast start and slams fellow Repub. Pres. Trump in an op-ed in The Washington Post, calling him dishonest et al., causing Trump to respond: "He should be happy for all Republicans. Be a TEAM player & WIN!"; on Jan. 1 (night) U.S. Repub. Virgin Islands Rep. Jevon O.A. Williams sends a letter to all 167 Repub. Nat. Committee (RNC) members calling Romney's op-ed an act of "calculated political treachery" against Trump, and claiming that Romney might use "loopholes" in the nominating process to challenge his renomination, calling for the Repub. Party to close the loopholes and issue a statement that Trump will be renominated for a 2nd term; meanwhile RNC chmn. Ronna Romney McDaniel slams her uncle Mitt for his op-ed. On Jan. 1 after a standoff with Ontario PM #26 (since June 29, 2018) Douglas Robert "Doug" Ford (1964-), PM Justin Trudeau's Liberal govt. rolls out a "backstop" carbon tax on provinces that don't already have them, pissing-off Conservative Party leader (since May 27, 2017) Andrew James Scheer (1979-), who predicts that Trudeau will raise them next year, but not if he can stop it when the Liberals are thrown out in 2020. On Jan. 1 Kimberly Mutcherson becomes co-dean of Rutgers Law School, becoming the first woman, African-Am., and lesbian. On Jan. 1 after halving it last year, Labatt Brewery ends its free beer allotment for retired employees. On Jan. 2 Pres. Trump invites congressional leaders to the White House for a briefing on border security; Dems. Nancy Pelosi et al. refuse to negotiate on a bordre wall even if it will reopen the federal govt., with Pelosi uttering the soundbyte: "Nothing for the wall. We can go through the back and forth. No. How many more times can we say no?", causing Trump to utter the soundbyte that the partial shutdown will last "as long as it takes" to get the border wall funding, "Could be a long time or could be quickly"; when prodded by reporters, she decides she would go as high as $1. On Jan. 2 Chinese Pres. Xi Jinping declares that Taiwan "must and will" be united with Red China, causing Taiwan pres. Tsai Ing-Wen to reply on Jan. 3 that Taiwan's "misgivings" are well-founded, and that Beijing "will not renounce the use of force or give up the option to use all necessary measures" in order to achieve its One China Principle. On Jan. 3 after 69% of Hispanics, 90% of blacks, and 77% of Asians vote Dem., the 116th U.S. Congress convenes (until Jan. 3, 2021), featuring a record 124 women (105 Dems.), 55 blacks (55 Dems.), 43 Latinos (34 Dems.), and 15 Asians (14 Dems.); Calif. Dem. Rep. (since Jan. 3, 1993) Nancy Loose Pussy, er, Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi (1940-) is elected House Speaker over Repub. rep. Kevin McCarthy by 220-192, becoming the first 2x woman speaker, uttering the soundbyte: "I am particularly proud to be the woman Speaker of the House of this Congress, which marks the 100th year of women having the right to vote, and that we all have the ability and the privilege to serve with over 100 women members of Congress – the largest number in history"; new U.S. reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Tex.), Jim Baird (R-Ind.), and Brian Mast (R-Fla.) are all Purple Heart recipients, with the motto "5 eyes, 5 arms, 4 legs, All-American"; Bronx, N.Y.-born Socialist rep (D-N.Y.) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (1989-) becomes the youngest woman sworn-in to the House (until ?); Mogadishu, Somalia-born hijab-wearing Muslim (D-Minn.) Ilhan Abdullahi Omar (1981-) becomes the first Somali-Am. in Congress, and one of the first two Muslim women along with Rashida Tlaib, who later becoming the first two U.S. reps. to sign a pledge to impeach Trump; after inviting Muslim CAIR (Council for American-Islamic Relations) activists Linda Sasour and Rasha Mubarak as her guests, Detroit, Mich.-born anti-Israel pro-Palestinian Muslim Mich. Dem. rep Rashida Harbi Tlaib (1976-) (first Muslim woman elected to Congress) is sworn-in on an English language Quran donated to the Library of Congress by Pres. Jefferson, er, fake news, it was a regular Arabic Quran, although she claims that Allah is female, later uttering the soundbyte: "We're going to go in and impeach the motherfucker", causing mucho criticism and calls for an apology, which she refuses, doubling down with the assertion that she will "always speak truth to power", and Pres. Trump to reply that Tlaib and other Dems. calling for his impeachment are doing it only because he's had "the most successful first two years" of any U.S. pres., and they can't stop his 2020 reelection; meanwhile Nancy Pelosi utters the soundbyte that she finds the language distasteful but it's no worse than Trump's; Trump used the same word in a speech in spring 2011; new U..S. Sen. (D-Ariz.) Krysten Sinema refuses to take her oath of office on the Bible, substituting a law book; Tlaib later sticks a Post-It note labeled "Palestine" over the Jewish State of Israel on the world map on her office wall; new U.S. rep. (D-Va.) Jennifer Wexton hangs a transgender flag outside her Capitol Hill office; U.S. rep. (D-Tenn.) Steve Cohen introduces a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College; U.S. reps (D-Calif.) Brad Sherman, (D-Tex.) Al Green, and (D-Tenn.) Steve Cohen introduce articles of impeachment against Pres. Trump despite Nancy Pelosi's plea that it's too early until the Mueller report is released. On Jan. 3 U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo utters the soundbyte that the U.S. will ensure that the Turkish army does not slaughter Kurds while it pulls U.S. troops out of Syria. On Jan. 3 the U.S. House by 234-197 approves new 2x House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pay-as-you-go provision AKA PayGo, requiring any new spending proposal to be balanced out with more taxes or budget cuts before it can be voted on, pissing-off the left wing progressives and Marxists, who know that she has doomed the Marxist-leftist Green New Deal as well as Medicare and free college for all; on Jan. 5 she sponsors a new bill to give $12B in foreign aid to several countries along with money to promote abortions overseas, causing Repubs. to cry that she won't spend a dame for border security for her own people. On Jan. 4 former NFL football star Burgess Owens gives an interview to Fox & Friends about the ratings boost the league got after nat. anthem protests began to fade, uttering the soundbyte: "The biggest takeaway from the last two years, we are in the fight for the heart and soul of our nation. We are fighting for our American, Judeo-Christian values and we're fighting against a very evil force of socialism and Marxism that destroy everything they come close to. The NFL has been changed forever and people don't realize this. But it used to be a place where we come together, no matter what our political persuasion was, and there was unity because we had God, country and family... The Marxists and socialists made that so that we have these young people coming out of these environments. They're anti-American, they're anti-white, they're anti-capitalist, and that is the message that now is going around the world and throughout our communities, that this is a place that's not for black Americans." On Jan. 6 the 76th (2019) Golden Globe Awards are held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., hosted by Sandra Oh and Andy Samberg; the debut of the Carol Burnett Award, featuring herself; Bohemian Rhapsody wins for best drama, and Rami Malek wins best drama performance for Freddie Mercury; Glenn Close wins for best drama performance for Joan Castleman in The Wife; Christian Bale wins best actor in a musical or comedy for Dick Cheney in Vice, uttering the soundbyte: "Thank you to Satan for giving me inspiration on how to play this role"; Olivia Colman wins best actress in a musical or comedy for Queen Anne in The Favourite; Mahershala Ali wins best supporting actor for Don Shirley in Green Book; Regina King wins best supporting actress for Sharon Rivers in If Beale Street Could Talk; Alfonso Cuaron wins best dir. for Roma; Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse wins for best animated feature film; Lady Gaga's "Shallow" from A Star Is Born wins best original song. On Jan. 7 as Yellow Vest protests against climate taxes and mass Muslim immigration continue across France for the 8th week, Italian co-PMs Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio slam French pres. Emmanuel Macron, with Salvini uttering the soundbyte: "I support honest citizens who protest against a governing president against his people." On Jan. 7 a failed coup in Gabon ends with the leader arrested and two commandos killed after storming a public radio station. On Jan. 8 a strike in India sees 150M workers walk off their jobs to protest a new trade union law, becoming the 2nd biggest strike after 2016 (180M). On Jan. 8 Afghan Muslim immigrant Samiulahaq Akbari (1996-) attacks shoppers in the Tesco Extra store in Thornton Heath, South London, England with a kitchen knife, claiming a desire to kill English people; on Aug. 14 he is sentenced to 21 years in prison. On Jan. 9 after handing out candy, Pres. Trump walks out of a meeting in the White House Situation Room after Nancy Pelosi point blank refuses his request for $5.7B for a wall, calling it a "waste of time"; Chuck Schumer accuses him of having a "temper tantrum"; Peligroso, er, Pelosi claims he "stomped out", and tells reporters that security the U.S. border is required by her oath of office as a Congressperson; in the eve. Trump gives a White House speech on the border wall, with the soundbyte: "In the last two years, ICE officers made 266,000 arrests of aliens with criminal records including those charged or convicted of 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, and 4,000 violent killing", causing Doomer and Parrotosi to accuse Trump of trying to "manufacture a crisis", which is immediately parroted by virtually all Dems., with Pelosi adding the immortal soundbyte: "The plural of anecdote is not data"; meanwhile Trump announces that he has ordered FEMA to halt federal emergency funds to Calif. to fight wildfires and manage forests until its officials can "get their act together". On Jan. 10 a bomb-carrying drone launched by Shiite rebels explodes over a Saudi-led coalition military parade in Al-Anad AFB Sa'ana, Yemen, killing six, violating a peace deal reached in Dec. in Sweden. On Jan. 10 Italian authorities announce the arrest of 15 suspects for alleged membership in an org. that smuggled jihadists into Italy posing as asylum seekers. On Jan. 10 U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo visits the new Cathedral of the Nativity of Christ 30 mi. E of Cairo, Egypt, then visits the Al-Fattah Al-Alim Mosque, praising Egypt's freedom of religion; too bad, on Jan. 11 1K madass Allah-Akbar-shouting Muslims surround another Coptic Christian Church and demand its closure, which the authorities comply with. On Jan. 10 as the partial govt. shutdown continues, Pres. Trump visits the U.S.-Mexico border accompanied by border guards, threatening to call a nat. emergency while telling the military to prepare for it; meanwhile 12 Repubs. flop and support House Dems. in a vote to reopoen some govt. agencies and fund financiel services for the IRS, SEC, and other agencies incl. food stamp programs and the Depts. of Transportation and HUD. On Jan. 10 Hungarian PM Viktor Orban holds an internat. press. conference, uttering the soundbyte that Hungary is proud to be the first country to have its "anti-immigration forces" in the majority in every EU institution, proving that mass Muslim migration can be stopped. On Jan. 10 the 2019 Venezuelan Pres. Crisis sees the Venezuelan Nat. Assembly declare the results of the May election invalid, desposing pres. #46 (since Apr. 19, 2013) Nicolas Maduro in favor of its acting pres. Juan Gerardo Guaido Marquez (Guaidó Márquez) (1983-), who on Jan. 23 becomes interim pres. of Venezuela (until ?), causing Maduro to cling to power and sever relations with the U.S., gaining support from Red China, Russia, Turkey et al. On Jan. 12 (Sat.) Yellow Vest protests in France see 84K protest in the streets of Paris, Marseille, Nimes, Chantilly et al. On Jan. 14 the 2019 Los Angeles Teachers Strike in Calif. begins (ends Jan. 22). Truth is the new hate speech? A watershed moment when Western Civilization is considered offensive just to champion? On Jan. 14 after the Nat. Repub. Congressional Committee withdraws funding for his reelection campaign last year, U.S. Rep. (R-Iowa, 2003-) Steven Arnold "Steve" King (1949-) is smeared and railroaded by his own Repub. Party for out-of-context statements taken from an interview in The New York Times, stripping him of his committee assignments, causing him to issue the soundbyte: "In a 56-minute interview, we discussed the changing use of language in political discourse. We discussed the worn out label 'racist' and my observation that other slanderous labels have been increasingly assigned to Conservatives by the Left, who injected into our current political dialog such terms as Nazi, Fascist, White Nationalist, White Supremacist. Western Civilization, how did THAT language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?... just to watch Western Civilization become a derogatory term in political discourse today. Clearly, I was only referencing Western Civilization classes. No one ever sat in a class listening to the merits of white nationalism and white supremacy. When I used the word 'THAT' it was in reference ONLY to Western Civilization and NOT to any previously stated evil ideology, ALL of which I have denounced. My record as a vocal advocate for Western Civilization is nearly as full as my record in defense of Freedom of Speech." On Jan. 15 the British Parliament votes 422-202 (incl. 118 Conservative MPs voting yes) to reject any deal over Brexit, leaving the only option to leave the EU sans deal on Mar. 29; on Jan. 16 PM Theresa May survives a no-confidence vote 306-325; on Jan. 19 a ComRes Poll reveals that 74% of the British people believe that their ruling class is not in touch with the mood of the country. On Jan. 15 (2:30 p.m. local time) 14-y.-o. Antonio Arce is shot in the back and killed in an alley in Tempe, Ariz. by police officer ? Jaen, causing protests. On Jan. 15 a jihadist cell in Catalonia, Spain is broken up after 100+ police raid five locations in Barcelona and Igualada, becoming a V for Operation Alexandra, launched May 2017. On Jan. 15 U.S. Sen. (D-N.Y.) (2009-) Kirsten Elizabeth Gillibrand (nee Rutnik) (1966-) announces her candidacy for U.S. pres. in 2020 on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert; on Feb. 25 she is interviewed by Chris Wallace on Fox News, justifying her support for the Green New Deal, comparing it to Pres. Kennedy's 10-year Man on the Moon push with gushing enthusiasm, after which Wallace utters the soundbyte that she never answered the question about how to pay for it. On Jan. 16 British jihadists from West Midlands, England send threatening letters to 15+ churches warning of petrol bomb and stabbing attacks. On Jan. 16 far-left Marxist Socialist Rep. Alexandria Occasional Castro, er, Cortex, er, Cowfart, er, Ocasio-Cortez is assigned to the House Financial Services Committee that oversees banks, insurance, internat. finance, and credit; too bad she issues the soundbyte that she plans to "run train on the progressive agenda", which actually means to gang rape it. On Jan. 16 U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence issues the soundbyte: "The caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated"; an hour earlier the U.S.-led coalition confirmed that U.S. troops were killed in an explosion in Manbij, Syria; on Jan. 21 ISIS explodes a car bomb near a U.S.-Syrian "partner" force between Raqqa and Hasakah, with no casualties. On Jan. 17 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin visits Serbia, where he is welcomed as a hero by Serbian pres. Alexander Vucic on behalf of the people. On Jan. 17 after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cancels Pres. Trump's State of the Union speech, claiming that the unpaid Secret Service can't protect him during the govt. shutdown, Trump counterpunches by canceling her military plane to Afghanistan, and cancels his own to trip to Davos; meanwhile First Lady Melania Trump takes a military plane to Mar-a-Lago. On Jan. 17 BuzzFeed announces that Pres. Trump instructed his atty. Michael Cohen to commit perjury to Congress over the Trump Tower in Moscow, causing immediate impeachment cries from Dems., until Robert Muller's office announces: "BuzzFeed's description of specific statements to the special counsel's office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen's congressional testimony are not accuracy", after which Buzzfeed doubles down and stands by its story. On Jan. 18 a truck-bomb explosion near a police academy in Bogota, Colombia kills 28 and injured 68, becoming the worst attack in Bogota in 16 years; Marxist rebels are blamed. On Jan. 18 a report by a group of aid agencies claims that armed jihadists have killed 100+ soldiers in NE Nigeria since Dec. 26, and seized a huge stock of weapons; a govt. spokesman denies it. On Jan. 19 (Sat.) the anti-Trump 3rd Annual Women's March is held in cities across the U.S.; too bad, organizers are accused of anti-Semitism incl. support for the Nation of Islam. On Jan. 19 the March for Life in Washington, D.C. ends with pro-life demonstrators from Roman Catholic +ovington H.S. in Ky. get attacked by left-wing activists at the Lincoln Memorial, causing the sick PC fake news press to manufacture a smear about white student Nick Sandmann harassing Vietnam Vet Native Am. activist Nathan Phillips (1956-) by smirking white privilege in his face; it turns out Phillips never served in Vietnam, and was the one harassing the students and beating a drum in their faces, embarrassing the PC press for fake news against MAGA hat-wearing whites; after Whoopi Goldberg asks her why leftist media and celebs jumped to conclusions, The View co-host Joy Behar utters the soundbyte: "Because we're desperate to get Trump out of office." On Jan. 19 Pres. Trump delivers a Speech on the Border Wall from the White House, outlining a deal to end the partial govt. shutdown, which Dems. call a non-starter. On Jan. 19 Pres. Trump gives an interiew to Steve Hilton on Fox News Channel, with the soundbyte that it's "great" that Dem. rival Peter Buttigieg is in a same-sex marriage, and "absolutely fine" that they're open about it, adding: "I think that's something that perhaps some people will have a problem with. I have no problem with it whatsoever. I think it's good", ignoring his 2016 campaign promise to appoint judges who would overturn the same-sex marriage approval by SCOTUS. On Jan. 20 (9:36 p.m. ET) a Super wolf blood moon. On Jan. 20-21 Israel stages air strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, revealing the new battlefield sans the U.S. On Jan. 21 the FBI arrests Kenyan-born naturalized U.S. citizens Muse Abdikadir Muse, Mohamud Abdikadir Muse, and Mohamed Salat Haji en route to Mogadishu, Somalia after they record videos pledging allegiance to ISIS. On Jan. 21 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) tweets the soundbyte: "Millennials, and Gen z, and all these folks that come after us, are looking up and we're like 'the world will end in 12 years if we don't address climate change, and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?'", which hooted by the conservatives, who didn't get the point that the same day she attended a memorial for MLK Jr., referring to his statement: "We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action"; she also utters the soundbyte: "This is our war - this is our World War II." On Jan. 22 the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland sees U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo deliver a speech defending Pres. Trump's "Make America Great Again" campaign slogan, encouraging world leaders to embrace "economic security" and reject the influences of globalist internat. bodies, adding "Nations matter"; Oxfam Internat. pub. a report claiming that the world's billionaires added 12% fo their wealth last year, while the world's poor (3.8B) lost 11% of their wealth, with a new billionaire being created every two days. On Jan. 22 Egypt announces the recent killing of 59 militants in the Sinai Peninsula while losing seven of their own men. On Jan. 22 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg adopts the resolution Sharia, the Cairo Declaration and the European Convention on Human Rights, with the soundbyte that the assembly "is also greatly concerned about the fact that Sharia law – including provisions which are in clear contradiction with the Convention – is applied, either officially or unofficially, in several Council of Europe member States, or parts thereof", complaining about Sharia law in Thrace, the U.K., Chechnya, Albania, Azerbaijan, Turkey et al. On Jan. 23 Interpol secy.-gen. Jurgen Stock utters the soundbyte on BBC Radio 4's Today program that freed jihadis will unleash a global carnage in a new ISIS 2.0: "The threat with regard to international terrorism is complex, and one of the dimensions is that many of the terrorists that have been put in jail a couple of years ago, for instance for support action they have taken in terrorist activity, will be released in the next couple of years in many parts of the world." On Jan. 23 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "BUILD A WALL & CRIME WILL FALL! This is the new theme, for two years until the Wall is finished (under construction now), of the Republican Party. Use it and pray!" On Jan. 23 after Nancy Pelosi writes Pres. Trump asking him to delay his 2019 State of the Union Speech to Jan. 29 because of the govt. shutdown and security concerns, and Trump responds that security is no problem and he'll accept the new date, causing Pelosi to prohibit the speech altogether until he folds and reopens the govt., Trump announces that he'll hold it in alternative location, causing many offers to arrive, only to flop and say he'll wait "because there is no venue that can complete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber." On Jan. 24 Felix (Félix) Antoine Tshilombo Tshisekedi (1963-0 becomes pres. #5 of the Dem. Repub. of the Congo (until ?), succeeding strongman Joseph Kabila, who has been pres. for 18 years (since Jan. 26, 2001), becoming DRC's first peaceful transfer of power since independence from Belgium in 1960, immediately announcing plans for the release of all political prisoners and pledging to rid the country of graft and corruption, with the soundbyte: "We are committed to building a modern, peaceful, democratic and caring state for every citizen, a state that will guarantee the happiness of all." On Jan. 24 the Supreme Court of Japan upholds a law requiring transgenders who want their official documents changed to be sterilized to protect society from "confusion" and "abrupt changes", and to prevent "problems" in parent-child relationships. On Jan. 25 Pres. Trump gives a speech announcing that he's flopping and reopening the federal govt. for three weeks (until Feb. 15) to give Dems. and Repubs. a chance to negotiate, despite Dems. refusing to consider wall funding; on Jan. 28 Pelosi invites him to give him State of the Union Speech in the House, and the date is set as Feb. 5. On Jan. 27 twin bombs explode in a Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, Philippines in the proposed Bangsamoro Muslim-majority autonomous region, killing 27 and injuring 102; ISIS claims responsibility; Rulie Rian Zeke and his wife Ulfah Handayani Saleh are identified as the perps, on release after undergoing a govt. deradicalization program. On Jan. 27 U.S. Sen. (D-Calif.) (2017-) Kamala Devi Harris (1964-) announces her candidacy for U.S. pres. in 2020. On Jan. 28 (9:00 a.m.) a Boko Haram attack in Rann, Borno State, NE Nigeria, killing 60+ and burning hundreds of bldgs.; on Jan. 14 they burned 100+ bldgs. On Jan. 28 (9:28 p.m.) Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "In the beautiful Midwest, windchill temperatures are reaching minus 60 degrees, the coldest ever recorded. In coming days, expected to get even colder. People can't last outside even for minutes. What the hell is going on with Global Warming? Please come back fast, we need you!"; on Jan. 29 (8:00 a.m.) NOAA Climate.gov tweets the soundbyte: "Winter storms don't prove that global warming isn't happening" - I beg to differ but you're living in a dumb fog? On Jan. 29 after Pres. Trump attacks the intel community, senior intel briefers Dan Coats (dir. of nat. intel), Gina Haspel (CIA dir.), and Christopher Wray (FBI dir.) testify before the U.S. Senate Intel Committee regarding the new 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment, slamming Trump for allegedly endangering U.S. security by disregarding their wisdom, claiming he is a dim bulb who has to be treated to watered-down briefings filled with visual aids. On Jan. 29 (2:00 a.m.) gay biracial "Jamal Lyon in Empire" actor Jussie Smollett (1982-) claims to be attacked in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, Ill. by two white men wearing ski masks who shout racial and homophobic slurs, incl. the soundbyte "This is MAGA country"; after all the usual PC leftist media personalities and politicians incl. Kamala Harris (who tweets that it is "a modern-day lynching") jump to label it a hate crime proving that Pres. Trump's supporters are all violent bigots that he fostered, it turns out that Smollett staged the event to get publicity, causing a backlash against the Never Trumpers that they're the bigots, who jump to judge white males but pretend to reserve judgment as long as possible for black males, women, gays, etc.; on Feb. 20 after the Nigerian-born brothers Abimbola "Abel" Osundairo and Olabinjo "Ola" Osundairo testify before a grand jury, Feb. 20 Smollett is charged with felony disorderly conduct, which carries up to a 3-year prison sentence and a requirement to recompense the police for the cost of their investigation over his false police report; on Mar. 8 Smollett is indicted by a grand jury on 16 felony counts. In Jan. the Internat. Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague dismisses all charges against Ivory Coast pres. #4 (2000-11) Laurent Gbagbo (1945-) and his former minister Charles Ble Goude (Charles Blé Goudé) (1972-), but he is prohibited from returning pending a prosecutorial appeal. In Jan. the exec commission of the EU adopts a draft list adding Saudi Arabia, Panama, and 21 small Pacific and Caribbean islands to its 16-state list of states that engage in money-laundering and terrorism financing, incl. Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Syria; too bad, the U.K. tries to block Saudi Arabia and Panama from being added. In Jan. the U.S. unemployment rate is 4.0%, adding 304K jobs. On Feb. 1 huge asteroid 2002 NT7 flies by the Earth. On Feb. 1 N.J. Sen. (D-N.J.) (2013-) Cory Anthony Booker (1969-) announces his candidacy for the 2020 U.S. pres. election; he quits next Jan. 13, and his girlfriend Rosario Dawson comes out as lez on Feb. 18. On Feb. 1 Pres. Trump announces that the U.S. is ending its involvement in the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, effective in 6 mo., with the soundbyte: "For far too long, Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with impunity, covertly developing and fielding a prohibited missile system that poses a direct threat to our allies and troops abroad. The U.S. will suspend INF Treaty obligations starting Saturday and begin withdrawing from the treaty over the course of six months unless Russia comes back into compliance by destroying all of its violating missiles, launchers, and associated equipment"; Russian pres. Vladimir Putin immediately bails out of the treaty to match, and on Feb. 5 Russia announces the development of two new land-based missle launch systems by 2021 to counter. On Feb. 3 (Sun.) Super Bowl LIII (53rd) (2019), held at the new $1.6B Mercedez-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. sees the 11-5 New England Patriots (AFC) (coach Bill Belichick) defeat the 13-3 Los Angeles Rams (NFC) (coach Sean McVay) 13-3 in the lowest-scoring SB so far (until ?), with no TDs until the 4th quarter; Patriots QB Tom Brady's 6th SB win; MVP is Patriots WR (#11) Julian Francis Edelman (1986-); the halftime show is headed by Adam Levine and Maroon 5, backed by rappers Big Boi and Travis Scott; the smallest SB audience since 2009. On Feb. 3-5 Pope Francis visits Abu Dhabi, UAE, meeting with the grand imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayed for the 2nd time (first in 2017), a lame attempt at aping the 1219 trip of St. Francis of Assisi to Sultan Malik el Kamil in Egypt, becoming the first pope to visit the Arabian Peninsula, signing a joint statement on Feb. 4 titled "A Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together", then celebrating Mass in the Abu Dhabi stadium on Feb. 5 before 150K; Il Folio cultural ed. Giulio Meotti pub. an article criticizing the pope for his silence over the persecution and destruction of Christian communities in the Muslim World. On Feb. 4 Colo. trail runner Travis Kauffman (1987-) is attacked by a lion in Horsetooth Mountain Park W of Fort Collins, Colo., and kills it with his bare hands, making him a hero until it is revealed the lion was only a 3-4-mo.-o. kitten. On Feb. 5 (Tues.) Pres. Trump delivers his 2nd 2019 State of the Union Speech, extolling U.S. historical victories like the Apollo 11 Moon landing and D-Day along with the booming economy, with the soundbytes: "Victory is not winning for our party. Victory is winning for our country"; "Here in the United States we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country" (applauded by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi); "An economic miracle is taking place in the United States and the only things that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations" (causing Schumer to call it proof that Trump has something to hide); Dem. women incl. Pelosi wear white outfits in tribute to early 20th cent. suffragists. On Feb. 6 (Internat. Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation) the first conviction is obtained in Britain for violating the 1985 Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act, which was amended into the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Act in 2003. On Feb. 7 U.S. Dem. Rep. (R-N.Y) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and U.S. Sen. (D-Mass.) Edward Markey announce their non-binding Green New Deal (GND) resolution (the 21st Cent. Communist Manifesto?), filled with wild impossible demands incl. a "10-year mobilization" on energy, climate, and social issues incl. racism, economic security for those "unwilling to work", net-zero greenhouse emissions "because we aren't sure that we'll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast", and replacement of air travel with high-speed rail, pissing-off U.S. Sen. (D-Hawaii) (2013-) Mazie Keiko Hirono (1947-), who utters the soundbyte: "That would be pretty hard for Hawaii", and Utah Rep. (R-Utah) Rob Bishop, who utters the soundbyte: "I guess I need to start looking at cutting back on my air travel now as well as curtailing other daily activities like eating hamburgers", saying he needs to "Wake up from this twilight zone; Occasional Castro utters the soundbyte: "Today I think is a really big day for our economy, the labor movement, the social-justice movement, indigenous peoples and people all over the United States of America, because today is the day that we truly embark on a comprehensive agenda of economic, social and racial justice", causing Repubs. call it a "Trojan horse for Socialism" and a "Socialist wish list", claiming it will cost $2T and eliminate 1M jobs, which doesn't stop 2020 pres. candidates N.J. Sen. Cory Booker, Calif. Sen. Kamala Harris, and Mass. Sen. Elizabeth Warren from backing it, part of 70 members of Congress and over a dozen senators who sign on as co-sponsors, while Dem. House Speaker Nancy Speaker ho-hums it as "the Green Dream, or whatever they call it", calling it just one of several proposals to combat global warming; no surprise, the leftist Sierra Club and Green Party endorse it, with the Sierra Club calling it a "bold plan to tackle the climate crisis and inequality - two of the defining crises of our time - at the speed and scale that science and justice demand"; on Feb. 27 U.S. Senate minority leader (D-N.Y.) Chuck Schumer gives a speech criticizing Pres. Trump for not mentioning climate change in his State of the Union Address, with the soundbyte: "Every scientist who has studied it knows that in the next 10, 20, 30, or 40 years climate change is going to evoke huge changes in our country and in our world"; on Feb. 25 the Repub.-aligned think tank Am. Action Forum, run by former Congressional Budget Office dir. Douglas Holtz-Eakin announces that the Green New Deal could cost $93T, incl. $8.3T-$12.3T to eliminate carbon emissions; On Feb. 8 Iranian supreme assahola Ali Khameinei utters the soundbyte: "As long as America continues its wickedness, the Iranian nation will not abandon 'Death to America'", but that means death to Pres. Trump and top U.S. leaders only. On Feb. 8 the Va. Blackface Scandal begins when Dem. Va. gov. Ralph Norham admits to wearing blackface in a 1984 medical schomeanwhile on Feb. 10 Dem. Va. atty. gen. Mark Herring admits to wearing blackface to look like a rapper when he was 19-y.-o. at a party at the U. of Va., causing a slew of blackface photos to pop-up incl. one of comedian Joy Behar in the 1970s; after it is realized that the two resignations would give control of Va. back to the Repubs., impeachment talk stalls? On Feb. 9 amid calls to drop out, lily white former self-described Am. Indian 99-44/100-white Dem. politician Elizabeth Warren announces her candidacy for U.S. pres. in Lawrence, Mass. On Feb. 9 Allah-Akbar-shouting Muslims attack and destroy 10 Christian church bldgs. in Halaba, Kulito, S Ethiopia. On Feb. 10 45K right-wingers and others protest in Madrid, Spain against PM Pedro Sanchez, demanding that he step down for his handling of the Catalonia crisis. On Feb. 10 U.S. Sen. (D-Minn.) (2007-) Amy Jean Klobuchar (1960-) announces her candidacy for U.S. pres. in 2020 in Minneapolis, Minn. during a snowstorm; on Feb. 18 (night) she takes part in a CNN town hall, uttering the soundbytes about the Green New Deal: "I think you all know that this last year was the fourth hottest year in American history. And the Green New Deal is so important right now for our country. We may not have agreements on exactly how it will work and when we can get it done... So I will, the first day as president, sign us back into the international climate change agreement. That is on day one. I will also, in the first 100 days, bring back the clean power rules that the Obama administration was ready to put in place, and the Trump administration left on the cutting room floor. I will also bring back the gas mileage standards and then propose sweeping legislation to upgrade our infrastructure"; when asked if AOC's goals are achievable, she replies: "I think that they are aspirations. I think we can get close. I don't think we are going to get rid of entire industries in the U.S.", adding: "Aspirations, to me, means we have been doing nothing about this", calling the Green New Deal "something we need to move towards." On Feb. 11 the 40th anniv. of the Islamic Rev. in Iran features new threats against Israel. On Feb. 11 U.S. Sen. (R-N.C.) Richard Burr utters the soundbyte that after 200+ interviews the U.S. Senate has uncovered "no factual evidence" of a conspiracy between Russia the Trump campaign, although the pattern of contacts is troubling. On Feb. 11 the U.S. Treasury Dept. announces that the gross nat. debt has reached $22T. On Feb. 12 the U.S. Dept. of Defense releases its roadmap for AI, revealing that it's not working on killer robots but on flood and firefighting. On Feb. 13 an attack by the militant Sunni Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice) in SE Iran kills 27+ members of the Iranian Rev. Guards and injures 13 more. On Feb. 13 joint U.S.-Libyan forces raid an al-Qaida site in Ubari, Libya. On Feb. 13 the U.S. House passes a resolution forcing the Trump admin. to withdraw U.S. trops form Yemen as a rebuke of his support of the Saudi-led coalition. On Feb. 13 after Calif. gov. Gavin Newsom decides to scale-down Calif.'s costly 2008 $77B LA-to-SF high-speed rail project, Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte that it is a "green disaster", adding "California has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars. They owe the Federal Government three and a half billion dollars. We want that money back now", causing Newsom to reply: "We're not giving it back." On Feb. 14 40 Indian soldiers are killed and several injured after a suicide jihadist IED explodes near a convoy outside Srinigar, Jammu and Kashmir; Jaish-e-Mohammed claims responsibility; on Feb. 18 a clash in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir with Jaish-e-Mohammad jihadists sees nine killed incl. four Indian soldiers and a policeman; India accuses Pakistan of complicity, which it denies, after which on Feb. 19 Pakistan PM Imran Khan offers to investigate if India provides "actionable" proof, which the Indian govt. calls a "lame excuse"; on Feb. 26 Indian warplanes attack a militant training camp in Pakistan, claiming to kill "a very large number" of fighters, which Pakistan denies. On Feb. 14 the parliament of Egypt voes 485-111 to extend term limits for pres. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi until 2034. On Feb. 14 former Repub. U.S. atty. gen. #77 (1991-3) William Pelham Barr (1950-) becomes U.S. atty. gen. #85 (until ?). On Feb. 14 after new U.S. rep. fights to chase it out, Amazon.com announces that it's scrapping plans to build a new $2.5B HQ in Long Island City, Queens, N.Y. because of backlash over $3B in tax incentives, causing 25K jobs to go poof. On Feb. 14 U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence addresses a conference of Euro and Middle East leaders on Peace and Security in the Middle East in Warsaw, Poland, uttering the soundbyte that Iran is plotting a "new Holocuast" that would wipe Israel off the map and "raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground" if the U.S. military attacks, warning EU countries to pull out of the Obama nuclear deal and the new initiative by Britain, France, and Germany that are enabling Iran to evade sanctions; U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo utters the soundbyte that "confronting Iran" is a necessary step to "achieve piece and stability in the Middle East": "The three H's - the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah - these are the real threats... You can't get peace in the Middle East without pushing back against Iran"; U.S. nat. security advisor John Bolton issues a video message to the Assaholah Ali Khamenei, with the soundbyte: For all your boasts, for all your threats to the life of the American president, you are responsible for terrorizing your own people. I don't think you'll have many more anniversaries to enjoy." On Feb. 15 after signing a bipartisan bill to avert another govt. shutdown that gives him $1.375B for his border barrier, Pres. Trump finally declares a nat. emergency of the U.S.-Mexico border, citing the need to stop drugs and crime and announcing a plan to bypass Congress and steer $8B of existing funds to build a border wall, announcing that "hopefully we'll win at the Supreme Court", pissing-off Dems., who vow to stop him as usual and don't want to lose again, after which 16 U.S. states sue to stop him from redirecting federal funds to a border wall. On Feb. 15-17 the 2019 (55th) Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany features the largest U.S. delegation in its history, incl. U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence, acting U.S. defense secy. Patrick Shanahan, U.S. Dem. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and U.S. Sen. (R-S.C.) Lindsey Graham; Pres. Trump sends special advisers Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner; Pence cautions NATO members to meet defense spending goals, with the soundbyte: "Many of our NATO allies still need to do more", and warns them to "stop undermining U.S. sanctions against this murderous revolutionary regime [Iran]"; on Feb. 16 Google announces its efforts to fight "misinformation" in Google Search with their Google News initiative that supports "quality journalism", but only on the liberal side? On Feb. 17 (Sun.) CBS-TV's 60 Minutes interviews fired FBI dir. Andrew McCabe, who says that "it's possible" that Pres. Trump is a Russian asset (traitor spy), and reveals that Rod Rosenstein was "absolutely serious" when he asked him and other senior Trump admin. officials to secretly record their conversations with Pres. Trump and then get cabinet members to vote to remove him under the 25th Amendment, which Trump calls a "deranged" story and a "very illegal act" and "treasonous" and "an illegal coup attempt", causing conservative radio show host Mark Levin to utter the soundbyte: "Nothing like this has ever happened before in the United States of America - Ever" - Obama and Hillary are the real Russian assets, trying to frame Trump on what they are to stage, viz., a real coup? On Feb. 17 after getting in a Twitter debate with transgender cycling champ Rachel McKinnon last Dec., lesbian tennis champ Martina Navratilova pub. an op-ed in the Sunday Times speaking out against allowing transgender (female hormone treatment but still with male anatomy) athletes to compete against women, with the soundbyte: "To put my argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organisation, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies. It's insane and it's cheating"; meanwhile in Feb. 17 transgender FX Network TV star Indya Moore tweets the soundbyte: "If a women has a penis, her penis is a biologically female penis", drawing laughing criticism. On Feb. 18 France raises regulated min. food prices and limits supermarket bargain sales in order to raise farmers' incomes. On Feb. 18 Pres. Trump delivers a speech at Fla. Internat. U. in Miami, Fla., pleading with Venezuela's military to drop dictator Nicolas Maduro and support opposition leader Juan Guaido, calling the crisis the "twilight hour of Socialism", envisaging "the first free hemisphere in all of human history", with the soundbytes: "You will find no safe harbor, no easy exit and no way out. You will lose everything... We seek a peaceful transition of power, but all options are open." On Feb. 19 NBC News reports that the Trump admin. led by openly gay U.S. ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell will launch a global effort to decriminalize homosexuality in an effort to isolate strict Sharialand Iran; no surprise, after the leftists have gotten into er, bed with Muslims, Out Mag. pub. an article on Feb. 20 claiming that it would be racist and colonialist for Trump to try to pressure Iran into decriminalizing homosexuality, and that Iran is "not that bad" anyway. On Feb. 19 Pres. Trump issues an order directing the U.S. Dept. of Defense to draft legislation for the creation of the U.S. Space Force "as a sixth branch of the United States Armed Forces within the Department of the Air Force", with the soundbyte: "America must be fully equipped to defend our vital interests. Our adversaries are training forces and developing technology to undermine our security in space, and they're working very hard at that." On Feb. 19 Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Socialist U.S. Sen. (I-Vt.) (2007-) Bernard "Bernie" Sanders (1941-) announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. in 2020, raising $5.9M in the first 24 hours. On Feb. 19 Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore tweets the soundbyte about Green New Deal politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC): "@AOC's Green New Deal calls for: '(J) removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.' Technically (scientifically) this would mean removing all H2O vapour and all CO2 which would mean the eradication of all life on Earth"; on Feb. 23 he tweets the soundbyte: "You are delusional if you think fossil fuels will end any time soon, maybe in 500 yrs. AOC's attitude is unjustifiably condescending. She is a neophyte pretending to be wise. Her kind bring ruination if allowed to be 'in charge'. (from the cheap seats)"; on Mar. 2 after admitting she still uses air conditioning and airplanes and trying to defend herself with the soundbyte: "Living in the world as it is isn't an argument against working towards a better future", Moore tweets the soundbyte: "Pompous little twit. You don't have a plan to grow food for 8 billion people without fossil fuels, or get food into the cities. Horses? If fossil fuels were banned every tree in the world would be cut down for fuel for cooking and heating. You would bring about mass death"; "The 'world as it is' has the option of taking the subway rather than a taxi. Option of Amtrak rather than plane, option of opening windows rather than A/C. You’re just a garden-variety hypocrite like the others. And you have ZERO expertise at any of the things you pretend to know"; "The problem with @AOC is she doesn't know whether or not she knows what she is talking about. Makes it harder to think straight." On Feb. 19 Auburn U. Mormonism historian Adam Jortner pub. the article Trump isn't Hitler. He's Lilburn Boggs in the Salt Lake Tribune, doing Mitt Romney's dirty work by a false comparison between an 1837 state-level order to exterminate Mormons living in Missouri as enemies of the people and a U.S. pres. order to protect U.S. borders from possible enemies from entering sans papers and causing mayhem?; meanwhile Utah hasn't joined the 16 other states suing Trump to stop his national emergency. On Feb. 19 a super snow moon. On Feb. 20 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 9-0 in Timbs v. Ind. that the Eight Amendment's prohibition of excessive fines applies to state and local govts., prohibiting abusive asset forfeiture to raise revenue. On Feb. 20 a snownado touches down in Navajo sheep country near Tinian, N.M., becoming the first confirmed tornado in the state in Feb. On Feb. 21 Taiwan proposes a draft same-sex marriage law, sparking a heated debate. On Feb. 21 (12:30 p.m.) snow falls in Los Angeles, Calif. for the first time in almost 60 years. On Feb. 21 (night) a fire in a historic district of Dhaka, Bangladesh kills 78+. On Feb. 21 Iranian Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajzadeh announces that Iranian intel operatives have infiltrated a U.S. Army Command Center and commandeered control of several U.S. drones flying through Syria and Iraq. On Feb. 21-24 amid grumbling about being too little too late, a child sex abuse conference at the Vatican, attended by 200 is opened by Pope Francis, who says that victims deserve "concrete nd efficient measures" and not mere condemnations, with Bogota Cardinal Ruben Salazar Gomez uttering the soundbyte: "The first enemies are within us, among us bishops and priests and consecrated persons who have not lived up to our vocation. We have to recognize that the enemy is within." On Feb. 23 protests at the Colombian border in Venezuela over military blocking of humanitarian aid from the U.S. et al. causes dictator Nicolas Maduro to break diplomatic ties with Colombia and dig in; meanwhile he blocks the border with Brazil. On Feb. 23 U.S. District Judge Gray Miller of S Tex. rules that a male-only draft is unconstitutional, stopping short of ordering the govt. to begin making women register. On Feb. 23 U.S. Sen. (D-Calif.) (1992-) Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein (nee Dianne Emiel Goldman) (1933-) is confronted in her office by a group of a dozen schoolchildren belonging to the Sunrise Movement who demand that she support the Green New Deal, pointing to AOC's claim that the world will end in 12 years, along with "tons of money going to the military", causing her to reply: "I know what I'm doing. You come in her and you say it has to be my way or the highway. I don't respond to that... I was just elected by almost a million-vote plurality, and I know what I'm doing, so you know, maybe people should listen a little bit"; "There's no way to pay for it. I don't agree with what the resolution says. That's part of it.... That resolution will not pass the Senate, and you can take that back to whoever sent you here and tell them. I've been in the Senate for over a quarter of a century, and I know what can pass and I know what can't pass." On Feb. 24 new U.S. Dem. N.Y. Rep. "Like, you know" Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) utters the soundbyte at a Girls Who Code event in Queens, N.Y.: "Like I just introduced the Green New Deal two weeks ago, and it's creating all of this conversation. Why? Because no one else has even tried. Because no one else has even tried. So people are like, 'Oh it's unrealistic. Oh it's vague. Oh it doesn't address this little minute thing. And I'm like, 'You try. You do it. Cuz you're not. Cuz you're not. So, until you do it, I'm the boss.' How about that?'"; on Feb. 24 (night) she pub. a video suggesting that people should consider not bearing any more children due to the "scientific consensus" on climate change, with the soundbyte: "Our planet is going to hit disaster if we don't turn this ship around and so it's basically, like, there's a scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question, you know, Is it okay to still have children?" On Feb. 24 (night) the 2019 (91st) Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, Calif., the first since 1989 with no host awards best picture to "Green Book" (causing Spike Lee to walk out), best dir. to Alfonso Cuaron for "Roma", best actor to Rami Malek for "Bohemian Rapsody", best actress to Olivia Colman for "The Favourite", best supporting actor to Mahershala Ali for "Green Book", best supporting actress to Regina King for "If Beale Street Could Talk", best animated feature film to "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", best foreign language film to "Roma", best original score to "Black Panther", and best original song to Lady Gaga et al. for "Shallow" in "A Star Is Born"; the speeches are limited to 90 sec.; the gowns are mainly frumpy, except Billy Porter's "tuxedo gown"? On Feb. 25 (eve.) the Dems. in the U.S. Senate vote 44-53 (incl. 3 Dems.) to block the U.S. Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would require infants born alive via botched abortions to be saved, pissing-off Pres. Trump, who calls it "executing babies after birth", with the soundbyte: "This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of Congress." On Feb. 25 the center-right Am. Action Forum in Washington, D.C. (founded July 23, 2009) pub. the article The Green New Deal: Scope, Scale, and Implications by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Dan Bosch, Ben Gitis, Dan Goldbeck, and Philip Rossetti, estimating the cost of the Green New Deal as at "least $50 trillion and possibly in excess of $90 trillion" by 2029, with the low-carbon electricity grid costing $39K/household, net zero emissions transportation system $9K-$20K/houshold, guaranteed jobs $49K-$322K/houshold, universal health care $260K/household, guaranteed green housing $4K-$12K/household, and food security ($1.5B) only $10/household. On Feb. 25-26 Kew Gardens, London, England reaches 21.2C (70F), becoming the first winter temps over 20C, breaking a 1998 record, causing the climate alarmists to come out chirping about evil CO2; Weldstone, Middlesex reached 75F on Mar. 9, 1948 sans high CO2; Feb. becomes the 15th warmest month in England on record (6.7C avg.), tied with 1702 1750, and 1997, way behind 1779 (7.9C) and 1869 (7.5C); winter 2018/9 in C England has a mean temp. of 5.87C, becoming the 17th warmest on record, way less than the warmest in 1869 (6.77C), but higher than the 1981-2010 avg. of 4.49C; meanwhile downtown Los Angeles, Calif. fails to reach 70F in Feb. for the first time in 132+ years. On Feb. 26 Fiat Chrysler announces the opening of a new auto assembly plant in Detroit, Mich. that will employ 6.5K, becoming the first new auto plant in Detroig in almost 40 years. On Feb. 26 the United Methodist Church (2nd largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.) by 56% votes for the Traditional Plan to strengthen their ban on same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ clergy. On Feb. 26-27 Pres. Trump visits Hanoi, Vietnam (where everybody seems to have smarphones?) to hold the 2019 U.S.-North Korea Summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un; too bad, it collapses after North Korea refuses to commit to eliminating its entire nuclear arsenal in exchange for lifting of sanctions after the agreement is "ready to sign" (Trump), causing Trump to utter the soundbyte: "Sometimes you have to walk"; meanwhile U.S. firms sign deals worth $21B. On Feb. 27 the U.S. House votes 245-182 (unanimous Dem. vote) to block Pres. Trump's nat. emergency order but falls 45 votes short of enough to override a veto. Everybody accuses everybody else of lying, and they're probably all right? On Feb. 27 despite once claiming that he'd take a bullet for him, Pres. Trump's former "fixer" atty. (2006-18) (disbarred on Feb. 26) Michael Dean Cohen (1966-) (known for shady mob connections in his family) publicly testifies before the U.S. House Oversight Committee, throwing away the sacred atty.-client privilege to blast his former boss as a liar, con man, and racist, and offering some documentary evidence, refusing any possible pres. pardon, but uttering the soundbyte: "I saw no evidence of Russian collusion"; the Trump-hating Dems. deliberately stage this media event to upstage Trump's Vietnamese diplomatic mission, intending it to become the start of his impeachment proceedings?; Trump-hating committee chmn.(D-Md.) (1996-2019) Elijah Eugene Cummings (1951-2019) opens the hearing with a speech containing the soundbyte: "The days of this committee protecting the president at all costs are over. They're over"; U.S. Rep. (R-Ohio) (2007-) James Daniel "Jim" Jordan (1964-) delivers an opposition opening statement blasting Cohen as a "fraudster" and "convicted felon" who is a puppet of his atty., Clinton loyalist Lanny Davis, whom he accuses of orchestrating the hearing, also accusing chmn. Elijah Cummings of being a "patsy" for Cohen; Cohen claims that Trump speaks "in code" to make people lie; U.S. Rep. (D-Minn.) Rashida Tlaib has a fiery exchange with U.S. Rep. (R-N.C.) Mark Meadows, accusing him of using black Trump admin. HUD official Lynne Patton as a "prop", calling it a "racist act"; too bad, Cohen has to report to serve a 3-year prison sentence on May 6 for lying to Congress (first Congressional witness allowed to testify after being convicted of lying to them), causing the White House to label him a "disgraced felon" and "convicted liar", esp. for claiming "ongoing threats against his family" on Jan. 23, which he counters by lavishly apologizing and promising to tell the truth this time, causing Repub. reps to repeatedly blast his credibility; - until a Dem. pres. sits in the White House? On Feb. 27 a train derails and crashes into a platform at the Ramses Station in Cairo, Egypt, causing a fuel tank to explode, killing 28+ and injuring 50". On Feb. 28 The Gap, JC Penney, and Victoria's Secret announce 300 store closures; Tesla also announces the closure of "many" of its 378 dealerships in favor of online-only retail stores. On Feb. 28 after a 52-47 Senate vote confirms him, Hamilton, Ohio-born acting dir. (since July 9) Andrew R. Wheeler (1964-) (known for the soundbyte: "I believe that man has an impact on the climate but wht's not completely understood is what the impact is", and for questioning the scientific rigor of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) becomes U.S. EPA dir. #15 (until ?). On Feb. 28 Israeli atty.-gen. Avichai Mandelblit announces that PM Benjamin Netanyahu is being indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, rocking Israel six weeks before gen. elections. On Feb. 28 Rolling stone mag. pub. its Mar. issue, with the cover Women Shaping the Future, showing U.S. Reps. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) ("everything Trump's trying to ban"); in her interview, Omar (known for marrying her brother Elmi to foil immigration authorities, her hatred of Israel, and past support of ISIS) utters the soundbyte: "I believe that impeachment is inevitable", calling Pres. Trump a "dictator" and the notion that Vice-Pres. Pence would succeed him "terrifying". On Feb. 28 St. Thmas-born Lt. Ronaqua Russell beomes the first African-Am. female aviator to receive the Coast Guard Air Medal. In Feb. Md.-born white nationalist U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Christopher Paul Hasson (1969-) is arrested for plotting domestic terrorism incl. assassinations of Dem. politicians and media figures using biological weapons. In Feb. Saudi Arabia appoints Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud as their first female ambassador to Washington, D.C. In Feb. the Pacte Finance-Climat is pub., authored by French economist Pierre Larrouturou and French climate scientist Jean Jouzel, calling for 1T Euros to fight global warming, with the European Investment Bank (EIB) lending up to 100B Euros/year to member states and disburse grants in Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean, with a limit of 2% of their GDP; revenue would come from a 5% tax on corporate profits above a threshold; it is backed by 600 Euro politicians from 12 countries incl. Spanish pres. Pedro Sanchez, former French PM Laurent Fabius, former French environmental minister Nicolas Hulot, and Pope Francis. On Mar. 1 the New York Times announces a secret U.S. peace proposal to the Taliban, offering to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan in the next 3-5 years. On Mar. 1 Wash. Dem. gov. #23 (since Jan. 16, 2013) Jay Robert Inslee (1951-) announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. in 2020, focusing on climate change, announcing that he's proud to be the first U.S. gov. to oppose Trump's Muslim ban. On Mar. 2 Pres. Trump gives a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., becoming the longest speech of his presidency (until ?). On Mar. 3 the House Judiciary Committee announces that it will subpoena documents from 60+ people and orgs. to investigate possible obstruction and abuse of power by Pres. Trump, with Trump-hating chmn. Jerrold Nadler uttering the soundbyte: "We are going to initiate investigations into abuses of power, into corruption... and into obstruction of justice. It's our job to protect the rule of law. It's very clear that the president obstructed justice. Before you impeach somebody, you have to persuade the American public that it ought to happen", causing Pres. Trump to tweet the soundbyte about the Demonrats, er, Democrats: "Presidential Harassment by 'crazed' Democrats at the highest level in the history of our Country. Likewise, the most vicious and corrupt Mainstream Media that any president has ever had to endure - Yet the most successful first two years for any President. We are WINNING big, the envy of the WORLD, but just think what it could be?" On Mar. 4 (a.m.) Muslim Fulani jihadists attack Christian villages in the Mbacohon area of Benue State, Nigeria, killing 23 with gunfire and machetes. On Mar. 4 an EF-4 (170 mph) tornado in Lee County, Ala. leaves a track almost 1 mi. wide and kills 23 incl. three children. On Mar. 4 Pres. Trump signs an executive order allowing sea veterans from the U.S. Coast Guard, USMC, U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy to transition into the U.S. Merchant Marine. On Mar. 4 Colo. Dem. gov. John Hickenlooper announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. in 2020, promising to ramp up gun control and climate legislation. On Mar. 5 the New York Times pub. the soundbyte: "The number of migrant families crossing the southwest border has once again broken records, with unauthorized entries nearly doubling what they were a year ago, suggesting that the Trump administration's aggressive policies have not discouraged new migration to the United States. More than 76,000 migrants crossed the border without authorization in February, an 11-year high and a s trong sign that stepped-up prosecutions, new controls on asylum and harsher detention policies have not reversed what remains a powerful lure for thousands of families fleeing violence and poverty"; this after claiming that Pres. Trump lied in his State of the Union speech about there being an "urgent national crisis" at the U.S.-Mexico border; on Mar. 6 U.S. homeland defense ecy. Kirsjen Nielsen testifies before the House Committee on Homeland Security, uttering the soundbyte: "We are on track for this year for 900,000 apprehensions at the border", adding that the border control system "is clearly breaking". On Mar. 5 Hillary Clinton and Michael Bloomberg announce that they won't be running for U.S. pres. in 2020; Bloomberg announces that he's going to concentrate on "organizing and mobilizing communities to begin moving America as quickly as possible away from oil and gas and toward a 100 percent clean energy economy." On Mar. 6 Dem. House Speaker Nancy Loose Pu, er, Nancy Pelosi gives an interview to The Washington Post, uttering the soundbyte that impeaching Pres. Trump is "just not worth it" unless there's bipartisan support; "I'm not for impeachment... This is news. I haven't said this to any press person before. But since you asked, and I've been thinking about this, impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path because it divides the country. And he's just not worth it"; "They wanted me to impeach President Bush for the Iraq War. I didn't believe in it then, I don't believe in it now. It divides the country. Unless there is some conclusive evidence that takes us to that place" - an admission that all the allegations against Trump were shams? On Mar. 7 after pressure by Israel-hating leftists cause them to back down on calling out Dem. Rep. Ilhan Omar for a month of anti-Semitic anti-Israel rhetoric incl. accusing U.S. Jews of dual loyalties, and inviting her to help rewrite it, the Dem.-controlled U.S. House of Reps passes the watered-down 7-page Resolution 183 (unanimous Dem. yes vote, 24 Repubs. abstaining), condemning "every form of bigotry" incl. the fakey term Islamophobia (first Congressional vote on it), trying to elevate it to an equal level with anti-Semitism, causing Pres. Trump to utter the soundbyte: "I thought yesterday's vote by the House was disgraceful because the Democrats have become an anti-Israel party. They've become an anti-Jewish party, and I thought that vote was a disgrace. And so does everybody else if you get an honest answer. If you get an honest answer from politicians, they thought it was a disgrace." On Mar. 7 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) rules that "disparaging religious doctrines" is a criminal offense not protected by freedom of speech, esp. accusing Prophet Muhammad of pedophilia. On Mar. 8 Internat. Women's Day. On Mar. 8 the players of the U.S. women's nat. soccer team file a lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation for gender discrimination, seeking equal pay with male players. On Mar. 13 Calif. Dem. gov. Gavin Newsom signs an order placing a moratorium on executions, leaving 737 murderers on death row. On Mar. 14 the U.S. Senate votes 59-41 (incl. 12 Repubs.) to block Pres. Trump's nat. emergency declaration. On Mar. 14 (eve.) Palestinian Islamic Jihad fires two rockets from Gaza at Tel Aviv, causing Israel to retaliate with strikes on 100 jihad targets. On Mar. 14 failed Dem. Tex. Sen. candidate Francis "Beto" O'Rourke announces his candidacy for 2020 U.S. pres., backing the Green New Deal and open borders, with the soundbyte that the world faces a "catastrophe" and "hundreds of millions" of climate refugees storming the borders as humanity could go extinct unless we fix the planet in 12 years; he also utters the soundbyte: "If Immigration Is a Problem, It's the Best Possible Problem for This Country to Have." On Mar. 14 the pseudo-Marxist Southern Poverty aw Center fires its 1971 founder Morris Dees for sexual and other misconduct after he builds it o $500M in assets; pres. Richard Cohen and legal dir. Rhonda Brownstein soon resign. On Mar. 15 (noon) Aussie white supremacist "eco-fascist" Brenton Tarrant (1990-), fearful of mass Muslim integration shoots up two mosques (Al Noor, Linwood) in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 50 and injuring 19 before being captured; Abdul Aziz uses a shotgun to chase off the terrorist, which doesn't stop leftist New Zealand PM Jacina Ardern from vowing tough new gun laws; the Al Noor Mosque has been tied to terrorism in the past; the incident was a staged false flag using CGI? On Mar. 17 a 37-y.-o. Turkish Muslim immigrant Gokman Tanis stages a shooting in Utrecht, Netherlands. On Mar. 17-19 the Spring 2019 Alaskan Heat Wave sees temps hit 62F in Sitka and Petersburg on Mar. 18. On Mar. 20 47-y.-o. Senegalese immigrant bus driver Ousseynou Sy (1971-) binds the hands of 50+ children and sets it on fire with gasoline in revenge for African migrants drowned in the Mediterranean en route from Libya to Europe; police rescue all the children unharmed. On Mar. 20 (9:43 p.m. EDT) (first day of spring) the full worm equinox supermoon (perigean full moon) is the last supermoon of 2019. On Mar. 21 Pres. Trump issues an executive order requiring college campuses to protect freedom of speech or lose federal research funds - good luck with that? On Mar. 21 after pressure from environmental activists, the EU holds a heating, er, hearing to investigate ExxonMobil's alleged role in spreading misinfo. about climate change. On Mar. 21 after a 675-day $33M investigation the 300-page Mueller Report on Pres. Trump is delivered to the U.S. Dept. of Justice, confirming Trump's protestations about it being a witch hunt when Mueller doesn't recommend any further indictments?; on Mar. 24 U.S. atty. gen. William Barr writes a 4-page letter to Congress, containing the soundbyte: "The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election... The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities"; instead of folding and profusely apologizing to Trump for their witch hunt, Dems. switch to a slew of obstruction investigations; on Mar. 26 Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell blocks a resolution calling for the full report to be released publicly. On Mar. 22 German authorities arrest 10 jihadists in Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Germany on suspicion of plotting an Islamist attack to use cars and guns to kill as many infidels as possible. On Mar. 23 the ISIS caliphate falls as ISIS fighters begin to emerge from tunnels to surrender. On Mar. 23 after the govt. of Mali cracks down on Islamic terror cells, Islamist ethnic Dogon jihadists massacre 160 Fulani herders in Ogossagou and Wellingara, Mali; on Apr. 19, 2019 the govt. of Mali resigns over the Ogossagou massacre of 160 Fulani herders by jihadists four weeks earlier. On Mar. 25 two 20-y.-o. Muslims are arrested in Seine-et-Marne, France and charged with a plot to massacre chidlren in a kindergarden then kill rescuing police officers. On Mar. 26 the U.S. Senate votes 57-0 to reject AOC's Green New Deal, which Dems. call a sham. On Mar. 30 the U.S. cuts off aid to the Central Am. countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala after failing to stop thousands of illegal immigrants from trying to reach the U.S. On Mar. 31 the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Bill Protests begin (end ?) against the Hong Kong Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation Bill that blurs the lines with mainland China. In Mar. U.S. unemployment is 12,821,000 (vs. 12,827,000 in Feb.), losing 6K manufacturing jobs; the U.S. govt. adds 14K jobs. In Mar. the European Parliament approves a framework calling on member states "to take measures to tackle the structural racism people of African descent face in Europe", incl. the payment of reparations for colonialism. On Apr. 1 Time mag. pub. a cover story praising upstart Marxist U.S. rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) to the skies, calling her a "phenom" who is "the best storyteller in the [Dem.] Party." On Apr. 1 after nine Repubs. on his House Intel Committee pub. a letter calling for him to resign, and Pres. Trump calls him "pencil-neck", chmn. Adam Schiff resigns, with the soundbytes: "I don't think it's OK. I think it's immoral, I think it's unethical, I think it's unpatriotic, and yes, I think it's corrupt, and evidence of collusion. I do not think that conduct, criminal or not, is OK. And the day we do think that's OK, is the day we look back and say that is the day America lost its way. The American people have spoken so I will move aside. I have no further plans to be involved with the government." On Apr. 4 the U.S. House votes to pull the U.S. out of Yemen, confirming the Senate vote, becoming the first time both Houses vote to end U.S. intervention under the War Powers Act; on Apr. 16 Pres. Trump vetoes it, becoming his 2nd veto. On Apr. 4 Albanian Muslim Fabjan Alameti (1997-) is arrested at a gun range in Mont. after talking about joining ISIS and attacking people at random to avenge the recent New Zealand mosque shooting. On Apr. 7 28-y.-o. Md. Muslim Rondell Henry (1989-) is charged with stealing a U-Haul van and plotting to plow through a crowd of pestrians at Nat. Harbor in Md. near Washington, D.C. to mimic the 2016 Nice terrorist attack. On Apr. 8 the U.S. designates the Iranian Rev. Guard as a foreign terrorist org., becoming the first time that it singles-out a part of a foreign govt. On Apr. 9 elections in Israel are a V for incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu. On Apr. 9 a Japanese F-35A fighter jet crashes into the sea off Aomori Prefecture, becoming the first known F-35A crash. On Apr. 11 after large-scale protests starting last Dec., Sudanese dictator-pres. #7 (since June 30, 1989) Omar al-Bashir (1944-) is removed from power by a military coup. On Apr. 11 after accompanying Pres. Trump during a visit to Tex. on Apr. 10, Rep. Tex. lt. gov. Dan Patrick utters the soundbyte that 1,671 bodies have been recovered inside the Tex. border with Mexico since 2011. On Apr. 11 after being arrested on May 1, 2018, Plano, Tex. Muslim Matin Azizi-Yarand pleads guilty to solicitation of capital murder and terrorist threats for plotting an attack at the Stonebriar Centre Mall in Frisco, Tex. during Ramadan, receiving concurrent 20 and 10 year sentences; he told an undercover FBI agent "I swear I want to achieve Allah's pleasure and kill the kuffar." On Apr. 11 Julian Assange is arrested by London Metro police at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, making good his promise to dump all Wikileaks files. On Apr. 14 gay Dem. South er, Bend, Ind. mayor (since Jan. 2012) Peter Paul Montgomery "Pete" Butigieg (1982-) (pr. BU-dah-jij) annnounces his candidacy for the 2020 U.S. pres. election, becoming #19, introducing his husband Chasten - jiggle my booty? On Apr. 15 (18:20 CEST) 850-y.-o. Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris partially burns down over 15 hours, taking the spire and the roof but leaving the stone foundation standing, along with the N belfry tower of "Hunchback of Notre Dame" fame; shocking France and the Roman Catholic world; the cause is not reported until ?; no mention in the PC press that Muslims have been desecrating churches all over France? On Apr. 16 Yuma, Ariz. mayor Doug Nicholls declares a state of emergency because of the surge of immigrants being released from federal detention centers. On Apr. 17 elections in Indonesia. On Apr. 17 by 12-0 the city council of Los Angeles, Calif. passes an ordinance prohibiting discrimination and bigotry, with stiff $125K fines for violators. On Apr. 18 the long-awaited 448-page Mueller Report is released, becoming a non-event, except for the fact that 10% was redacted? On Apr. 18 jihadist gunmen pull 14 passengers from buses in SW Pakistan and murder the military ones. On Apr. 19 Northern Ireland journalist Lyra Catherine McKee (b. 1990) is assassinated in Creggan, Derry by a masked repub. gunman, causing the Sinn Fein, UUP et al. to condemn it as "an attack on all the people of this community, an attack on the peace and democratic processes", calling it a "pointless and futile act to destroy the progress made over the last 20 years, which has the overwhelming support of people everywhere." On Apr. 21 (Easter Sun.) a series of jihadist suicide blasts in churches and luxury hotels in Colombo and Batticaloa, Sri Lanka by 8+ suicide bombers kill 359 and injure 500+; ISIS claims responsibility; 58+ are arrested; ringleader Zahran Hashim dies during the attack; on Apr. 28 Christian services are suspended, and Christians view services on TV. On Apr. 21 (Easter Sun.) elections in Ukraine are a V for comedian Volodymyr Oleksandrovych Zelensky (Zelenskyy) (1978-), who wins 73% of the vote, defeating incumbent Petro Poroshenko and becoming pres. #6 of Ukraine on May 20 (until ?); Russian pres. Vladimir Putin refuses to congratulate him. On Apr. 21-29 145 mph Cyclone Kenneth hits the Seychelles, Comoro Islands, Northern Madagascar, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Malawi, killing 48. On Apr. 22 Dem. pres. frontrunner Bernie Sanders utters the soundbyte that criminals in prison should be able to vote, incl. the Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, pissing-off pop star Cher, who earlier suggested that Los Angeles, Calif. take care of its own homeless before welcoming asylum seekers. On Apr. 23 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un hold their first-ever summit in Vladivostok. On Apr. 25 former Dem. U.S. vice-pres. #47 (2009-17) Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden Jr. (1942-) announces his candidacy for U.S. pres. in 2020 (candidate #20), uttering the soundbyte: "We are in the battle for the soul of this nation", causing Pres. Trump to tweet the soundbyte: "Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign. It will be nasty - you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!" On Apr. 26 Pres. Trump speaks at the annual Nat. Rifle Assoc. (NRA) meeting in Indianapolis, Ind., slamming Dems. like Bernie Sanders for wanting prisoners to vote in elections, and framing the 2020 U.S. pres. race as about freedom vs. Socialism; Trump announces U.S. withdrawal from the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, expressing concern over 2nd Amendment rights, with the soundbyte: "Under my administration we will never surrender American sovereignty to anyone, we will never allow foreign bureaucrats to trample on your Second Amendment freedom and that is why my administration will never ratify the U.N. trade treaty." On Apr. 26 26-y.-o. Muslim convert U.S. Army Afghanistan vet Mark Steven Domingo (1993-) of Reseda, Calif. is arrested for planning a jihadist terrorist attack on the Santa Monica Pier and a United Patriot Nat. Front white supremacist rally at Long Beach Bluff Park; on Mar. 3 he posted a video containing the soundbyte: "America needs another Vegas event to give them a taste of the terror they gladly spread all over the world." On Apr. 27 (11:30 a.m.) 19-y.-o. ? shoots up Chabad of Poway Synagogue N of San Diego, Calif., shouting "All Jews must die", killing brave 60-y.-o. woman Lori Gilbert-Kaye after she steps in front of Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein to protect him, and injuring three before being arrested. On Apr. 28 parliamentary elections in Spain. On Apr. 30 22-y.-o. history major Trystan Andrew Terrell (1997-) kills two and injures four at the campus of the U. of N.C. in Charlotte before being arrested. On Apr. 30 Pres. Trump meets with Dem. leaders, and they agree in principle to spend $2T to renew U.S. infrastructure. On Apr. 30 French interior minister Christophe Castaner announces the foiling of an "extremely violent" Islamist terrorist attack with the arrest of four men after an investigation that began in Feb. In Apr. Saudi king Abdullah issues Royal Decree 44, defining "atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which the country is based" as terrorism. In Apr. the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report almost 700 cases of measles in 22 states, becoming the largest outbreak since 2000, when the disease was declared to be eradicated. In Apr. U.S. unemployment is 3.6% (lowest since Dec. 1969, 3.5%), with 263K new jobs. On May 1 (night) after a visit by teenie activist Greta Thunberg, the David Attenborough documentary "Climate Change: The Facts", and an 11-day protest by the activist group Extinction Rebellion that paralyzed London, a bipartisan Nat. Declaration of an Environmental and Climate Emergency is declared by the British Parliament, becoming the first nat. govt. On May 3-5 Palestinian militants launch 690 rockets into Israel, killing four, causing Israeli air strikes in Gaza Strip that kill 22, incl. two pregnant women and Hamas moneyman Hamed Ahmed Abed Khudari; on May 6 (4:30 a.m.) an Egyptian-mediated ceasefire begins. On May 4 the 100th anniv. of the May 4th Movement in China. On May 5 elections in Panama are a narrow V (33.27%) for center-left politician (former cattle rancher) Laurentino "Nito" Cortizo Cohen (1953-), facing increasing pressure from China over the Panama Canal. On May 5, 2019 Pres. Trump threatens another $200B of tariffs on Chinese goods; Trump's Dem. archenemy Chuck Schumer backs him for once. On May 5 U.S. nat. security adviser ambassador John Bolton announces that the U.S. is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to deter pesky Iran; on May 8 U.S. secy. of state makes a short unannounced visit to Baghdad. On May 5 155 mph Cyclone Fani (formed Apr. 26) hits Bangladesh and E India, causing 1M to be evacuated,killing 57 and causing $8.5M damage before quickly dissipating. On May 5 after an internat. outcry, the govt. of Brunei announces that it won't enforce their new law making gay sex punishable by death. On May 5 Pope Francis visits Bulgaria and North Macedonia to strengthen ties with Orthodox churches. On May 5 the Syrian govt. resumes bombing of rebel-held Idlib Province, killing and injuring dozens. On May 6 a Russian Aeroflot plane makes an emergency landing and bursts into flames after takeoff from Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, killing 41 incl. two children out of 73 passengers and five crew. On May 6 Converse launches an ad campaign for their Pride Collection of shoes for the LGBTQ+ community, featuring 11-y.-o. "drag kid" Desmond Napoles. On May 7 (1:53 p.m.) the STEM School Highlands Ranch in Douglas County, Colo. sees two perps incl. 18-y.-o. Devon Erickson (2000-) and 16-y.-o. transgender boy Maya Elizabeth "Alec" McKinney (2002-) shoot up the school, injuring eight and killing 18-y.-o. senior Kendrick Ray Castillo (b. 2001) as he tried to disarm a gunman. On May 8 Pres. Trump announces new sanctions on Iran hours after it announcing it's relaxing some restrictions on its nuclear program, stopping just short of violating its nuclear deal with world powers; on May 9 Euro countries announce that they reject "ultimatums" from Tehran. On May 8 China gets a seat on the U.N. Forum for Indigenous Peoples, never mind their oppression of pesky Muslim Uighurs. On May 8 The New York Times pub. a report claiming that Pres. Trump's businesses lost almost $1.2B in 1985-94, making him a con artist with a fake real estate empire, causing Pres. Trump to call it "a highly inaccurate fake news hit job". On May 8 elections in South Africa focus on corruption as the top issue. On May 9 North Korea makes its 2nd missile test in one week, two short-range missiles. On May 9 the Syrian govt. captures the strategic rebel-held town of Qalaat al-Madiq in NW Syria, pushing into remaining rebel territory under a massive bombardment. On May 9 voters in Mile City Denver, Colo. narrowly (50.6%) approve Initiative 301 to decriminalize psychedelic "magic" mushrooms (psilocybin); actually possession remains illegal, but police will lower it to their lowest priority; they were only making about 50 busts/year anyway. On May 12 (Sun.) (9:00 a.m.) 30 Islamic jihadists attack a Christian church in Dablo, Burkina Faso, killing six worshipers incl. the priest before burning it to the ground. On May 12-June 30 Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light launches its "first-ever rainbow aluminum bottle to celebrate World Pride" for LGBTs. On May 13 PBS-TV debuts the episode Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone, of the cartoon Arthur, featuring a same-sex marriage, pissing-off religious conservatives, who howl at PBS receiving taxpayer funding. On May 14 U.S. atty.-gen William Barr appoints U.S. atty. John Durham of Conn. to probe the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign. On May 15 special counsel Robert Mueller testifies before Congress, er, doesn't want to. On May 15 after the Ala. House passed it, the Ala. State Senate by 25-6 (all Repubs. voting yes) passes the House Bill 314, Ala. Human Life Protection Act, prohibiting abortion except "in cases where abortion is necessary in order to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child's mother, with no exceptions for rape or incest, and up to 99-year prison sentences, becoming the most restrictive abortion bill in the U.S., spawning demonstrations. On May 17 the Dem.-run U.S. House of Reps passes the Equality Act, giving equal rights to gays and transgenders while trampling the rights of religious dissenters; the new law would effectively ban women's sports? On May 18 federal elections in Australia is a V for Scott Morrison's Liberal/Nat. Coalition Party, which gains 1 seat in parliament for a total of 75, vs. Bill Shorten's Labor Party, which loses four seats, for a total of 65, becoming a big D for climate action in Australia. On May 20 Massilon, Ohio-born Dem. Lori Elaine Lightfoot (1962-) becomes Chicago, Ill. mayor #56 (until ?), becoming the second woman, first black woman, and first openly gay mayor of Chicago, along with gay and woman mayor of the largest city in U.S. history (until ?). On May 20 after a rocket lands near the U.S. embassy in Baghdad overnight, Pres. Trump warns Iran not to threaten the U.S. again or it will face its "official end". On May 22 Pres. Trump invites Dem. congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer to the White House for negotiations on an infrastructure bill, then abruptly exeunts stage er, left after they grandstand about the 2016 election, his tax returns, and the "I-word" (impeachment), after which Pelosi et al. meet with Dems. calling for an impeachment inquirty, then tells the press: "We do believe it's important to follow the facts. We believe that no one is above the law, including the president of the United States, and we believe that the president of the United States is engaged in a cover-up." On May 22 a Gallup Poll reveals that the percentage of Americans who believe that gay sex is acceptable has risen from 40% in 2001 to 63%, and the percentage who believe that same-sex marriage should be legal has risen from 27% in 1996 to 63%; same-sex marriage support reached 50% in 2011. On May 23-26 European Parliament elections. On May 25 a nail bomb blast in Lyon, France injures 13 incl. a 10-y.o.; police investigate it as a "terror conspiracy" without mentioning Islam or jihad. On May 25-28 the 2019 Memorial Day Heat Wave in the SE U.S. is combined with the 2019 Memorial Day Thunderstorm-Tornado Wave in the Midwest U.S. On May 26 (Sun.) (2:41 a.m.) an 8.0 earthquake hits a sparsely populated Amazon jungle area of Peru, becoming the country's largest earthquake in 12 years; it was 70 mi. deep, so it didn't do much damage. On May 27, 2019 Rolling Thunder makes its last ride in Washington, D.C. On May 28 Pope Francis gives an interview to Mexican network Televisa, uttering the soundbyte tht the U.S.-Mexico border wall is like the Berlin Wall; "We knew of one, of Berlin [Wall], and the many headaches and suffering it caused us, but it appears that man does what animals don't, right? Man is the only animal that falls twice into the same hole, right? We are returning to the same thing, right? Building walls as if it were a defense, right? Defense is dialogue, growth, acceptance and education, integration, and the healthy but human limit of 'no more than this'", saying that he would say to Pres. Trump: "He who builds walls winds up a prisoner of the walls he builds." ON May 29 after Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu fails to form a majority coalition, Israel's new Knesset votes 74-45 to disband without confirming a govt. for the first time ever. On May 29 as he closes his special prosecutor office after 2.8K subpoenas, 500 search warrants, 300 electronic communication records, and 500 witnesses, Robert Mueller finally gives an 8-min. speech on TV about his investigation, stirring the pot by giving ammo to both sides, claiming that to charge a sitting U.S. pres. with a federal crime was "prohibited" and unconsitutional, while uttering the soundbyte: "If we had had the confidence that the president had not clearly committed a crime, we would have said so", causing Dem. Harvard Law prof. Alan Dershowitz to utter the soundbyte: "Mueller has revealed his partisan bias" in favor of the Dems., and "gave a political gift to Democrats in Congress seeking to institute impeachment proceedings"; no surprise, Mueller refues to answer questions; Pres. Trump replies that Mueller is a "conflicted person" and a "true Never Trumper". On May 31 (4:08 p.m.) disgruntled employee DeWayne Antonio Craddock (b. 1978) shoots up a municipal bldg. in Virginia Beach, Va., killing 12+ incl. 11 employees and injuring five before police kill him,, becoming the deadliest mass shooting since last Nov. On May 31 a Taliban suicide car bomber detonates near a U.S. convoy in Kabul, Afghanistan, killing four and injuring three Afghans along with four U.S. service members. On May 31 U.S. off-duty Muslim Marine Pfc. Ali Al-Kazahg (1997-) of Milford, Neb. is arrested at Offutt USMC base near Honolulu, Hawaii while heavily armed, saying that he wanted to "shoot up the battalion"; no surprise, the PC authorities try to coverup the Muslim jihad angle. On May 31 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "My Administration has launched a global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality and invite all nations to join us in this effort!" On June 1 White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney announces that Pres. Trump is "deadly serious" about levying a 5% tariff on Mexican goods on June 10 if the Mexican govt. doesn't step up enforcement of illegal immigration to the U.S., causing Mexico to send reps to speak with U.S. vice-pres. Mike Pence at the White House on June 5, getting the tariff canceled on June 7 in return for promises to do what Trump says, causing White House press secy. Sarah Sanders to utter the soundbyte: "It's a sad day in America when the Mexican govt. is willing to do more for the United States' illegal immigration problem than Democrats in Congress"; Mexico follows through by deploying 15K troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. On June 1 Colo. Dem. gov. John Hickenlooper gives a speech in San Francisco, Calif. to the Calif. Dem. Party Convention, with the soundbyte: "If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer", drawing loud boos. On June 1 Disney Paris holds its first Magical Pride party celebrating LGBT Pride Month. On June 2 Cartoon Network tweets the soundbyte: "We want to wish everyone a HAPPY PRIDE and encourage all of our LGBTQ+ fans to stand proud all year long!"; the tweet incl. heart, unicorn, and gay-rainbow emojis and #pride, #happypride, #powerpuffyourself, #pridemonth, and #powerpuffgirls. On June 3 Tanzania passes a law fining people $13 for using a platic bag, and $400K and up to two years in jail for manufacturing them, becoming the 3rd East African country after Kenya and Rwanda. On June 3 self-described doctor of political science Hyram F. Suddlfluffel posts on the conservative blog FreeRepublic.com, with the soundbyte that a Dem. attempt to impeach Pres. Trump would backfire as there is zero chance of a Senate conviction, while "The President's attorneys will have the right to subpoena and question anyone they want", allowing them to expose Dem. crimes and misconduct. On June 3-5 Pres. Trump visits Britain, meeting with PM Theresa May and Queen Elizabeth II and laying a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, attending the 75th anniv. ceremonies for D-Day; on June 4 he gives an interview to Piers Morgan on "Good Morning Britain", responding to the question "Do you personally believe in climate change?" with the soundbyte: "I believe that there is a change in weather. And, I think it changes both ways. Don't forget: it used to be called 'global warming' – that wasn't working. Then, it was called 'climate change.' Now, it's actually called 'extreme weather' - because, with 'extreme weather,' you cant miss." On June 4 the Dem.-controlled U.S. House by 237-187 passes the Yes We Can! Path to Citizenship Bill despite Pres. Trump's promise to veto it. On June 4 (Tues.) radical Candi CdeBaca wins a runoff election for city council of Denver, Colo. against council pres. Albus Brooks, immediately promising to impose Communism "by any means necessary". On June 5 the Trump admin. announces its decision to stop federal research using aborted baby parts, causing Dem. House Speaker Nancy Loose Pu, er, Pelosy, er, Pelosi to call it "a grave step backwards for America". On June 5 Pope Francis changes the phrase "lead us not into temptation" into "do not let us fall into temptation" in the Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:13). On June 9 the Dem.-controlled Calif. state legislature votes to put illegal immigrants on Medicaid, treating it as a stab at Pres. Trump and claiming that a budget surplus will easily absorb it - rather than give it back to the legal citizens? On June 9 Pres. Trump tweets a warning to er, Twitter: "Twitter should let the banned Conservative Voices back onto their platform, without restriction. It's called Freedom of Speech, remember. You are making a Giant Mistake!" On June 9 (8:50 p.m.) retired prof. baseball player David Ortiz is attacked by paid hitman Rolfi Ferreira Cruz at the Dial Bar and Lounge in Santo Domingo, Dominican Repub. On June 9 50 Fulani Muslim jihadists attack a Christian village in Sobame Da, Mali, killing 95, burning women, children and elderly to death. On June 10 Watergate figure John Dean testifies before the Dem.-controlled House Judiciary Committee; on June 9 (night) Pres. Trump calls him a "sleazebag". On June 10 the N.Y. state legislature outlaws cat declawing, ignoring their decision in Jan. to legalize late-term abortions. On June 11 two tankers are attacked in the Gulf of Oman; Iran is suspected. On June 13 White House press secy. (since July 2017) Sarah Huckabee Sanders announces that she's leaving at the end of the month; on June 25 Melania Trump's spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham is named as her successor. On June 14 women across Switzerland strike to protest lack of workplace equality and pay. On June 14 Pope Francis speaks at a conference in the Vatican, with the soundbyte that the world has reached a "critical moment" in reacting to the threat of climate change: "Dear friends, time is running out! We cannot afford the luxury of waiting for others to come forward or of prioritizing short-term economic benefits. The climate crisis requires decisive action from us, here and now." On June 14 Sunni Muslim Syrian refugee Mustafa Mousab Alowemer (1998-) is arrested and charged with attempted bombing of the Christian Legacy Internt. Worship Center in Pittsburgh, Penn.; he had applied for a green card. On June 15 ater a string of knife and gun attacks in London kill three, Pres. Trump calls out Muslim London Mayor Sadiq Khan, calling him a "disaster" and saying that "London needs a new mayor ASAP." On June 16 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu renames the Golan Heights after Pres. Trump. On June 17 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 7-2 in Gamble v. United States that federal and state sovereignty permits separate federal and state prosecutions for the same crime despite the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment - why doesn't it prohibit double punishments? They forgot about Timbs v. Ind.? On June 18 Pres. Trump kicks off his 2010 U.S. pres. campaign at the Amway Center in Orlando, Fla. before a crowd of 20K, while the crowd chants "CNN sucks!", causing CNN to cut the feed; Trump utters the soundbyte that the Dem. Party "has become more radical, more dangerous, and more unhinged than at any point in the modern history of our country"; Trump raises $24.8M for his reelection campaign in less than 24 hours. On June 18 U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee reaches a $4.5B deal on Pres. Trump's emergency border request. On June 19 (the Rev. Guards of Iran announce the shooting-down of a U.S. drone over S Iran; the U.S. claims it was flying over internat. waters, becoming the 2nd Iranian attack on a U.S. drone in the last week, causing Pres. Trump to say that he won't "stand for it", and later admit to almost ordering a retaliatory strike before calling off 10 min. before it was due to begin after his gens. told him it would kill 150 people. On June 19 (Juneteenth) the Dem.-controlled U.S. House holds a hearing on reparations for slavery, sponsored by U.S. Rep. (D-Tex.) Sheila Jackson Lee; U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) Louie Gohmeter brings up the little ole fact that historically the Dem. Party championed segregation and Jim Crow Laws, pissing-off the Dems.; retired NFL Oakland Raiders star Burgess Owens testifies that he quit being a Dem. hen he learned about "the misery that that party brought to my race", but believes in restitution. On June 19 the Penn. Senate passes House Bill 315 (passed by the House on Apr. 9), which makes female genital mutilation (FGM) a first-degree felony. On June 20 Chinese pres. Xi Jinping meets in North Kora with dictator Kim Jong-un on the 70th anniv. of their first diplomatic relations; a ruse to antagonize the U.S.? On June 21 the U.S. Supreme (Robert) Court rules 5-4 in Knick v. Township of Scott, Penn. to reverse their 1985 decision in "Williamson County Regional Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, allowing taking-compensation cases to be brought directly to federal court and not have to first exhaust all state-offered venues for mediation. On June 21 Am. Muslim Akram Musleh (1998-) of Brownsburg, Ind. is sentenced to eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty to attempting to provide material support to ISIS. On June 21 while preparing to announce her new book "What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal", Am. journalist Elizabeth Jean (E. Jean) "Betty Jean" Carroll (1943-) pub. an article in New York mag. accusing Pres. Trump of sexual assault in fall 1995 or spring 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman store in New York City; Trump denies ever knowing her; too bad, she sticks her foot in her mouth in an interview with Anderson Cooper, with the soundbyte: "I think most people think of rape as being sexy", and says that she won't bring charges against Trump because "I would find it disrespectful to the women who are down on the border who are being raped around the clock down there without any protection." On June 21 (night) a small skydiving plane crashes near Dillingham Airfield on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, killing nine, becoming the deadliest private plane crash since 2011. On June 23 after the news is leaked by Trump-hating acting DHS secy. Kevin McAleenan, Pres. Trump announces that he's delaying the planned deportation of 2K families in 10 cities for two weeks to give Congress yet more time to play games, er, solve the border crisis. On June 24 Pres. Trump signs an executive order placing "hard-hitting sanctions" on Iran's supreme leader et al., causing the Iranians to respond that diplomacy is over. On June 24 African-Am. Nadine Burke Harris becomes Calif. surgeon gen. #1; she is sworn-in on Feb. 11 (until ?). On June 25 Ill. gov. J.B. Pritzker signs a law legalizing recreational use of marijuana, making it state #11 after Colo. (2012), Wash. (2012), Alaska (2014), Ore. (2014), Calif. (2016), Maine (2016), Mass. (2016), Nev. (2016), Mich. (2018), and Vt. (2018), along with Washington, D.C. (2014). On June 27 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 5-4 in Rucho v. Common Cause that federal courts are powerless to hear challenges to partisan gerrymandering. On June 28-29 the G-20 Summit in Osaka, Japan sees Pres. Trump and Xi Jinping agree to restart U.S.-China trade talks, with Trump dropping $300B of planned new tariffs and permitting U.S. cos. to sell to the Chinese tech giant Huawei. On June 29 Pres. Trump makes a surprise visit to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, becoming the first U.S. pres. to step across the DMZ into North Korean territory. On June 29 thousands protest in Madrid, Spain over the suspensions of curbs on polluting cars, becoming the first rollback of an environmental policy by a major Euro city. On July 29 New York judge John Koeltl (a Clinton appointee) dismisses la lawsuit filed by the Dem. Nat. Committee (DNC) against the Trump campaign, Wikileaks, and the Russian govt. over the hacked emails from the 2016 election, ruling that while Russia was behind the theft, the others "did not participate in any wrongdoing in obtaining the materials in the first place" and are protected by the First Amendment, while Russia can't be sued. On June 30 mass protests in Khartoum, Sudan against military rule on the 30th anniv. of Pres. Omar al-Bashir's 1989 seizure of power result in seven killed and 181 injured. On June 30 a Gallup Poll finds that 64% of Americans oppose D.C. statehood. In June 30 U.S. unemployment is 3.7% (vs. 3.6% in May), creating 224K nonfarm jobs incl. 109K for Hispanics, with a record 157,005,000 employed. On July 1 a Taliban truck bomb attack in Kaboom, Afghanistan kills 16 and injures 105 incl. 51 children and five woman. On July 1 Hollyweird star Barbra Streisand utters the soundbyte that Pes. Trump should be the first climate denier removed from office, with the non-sequitur: "Last week it was 114 in Paris and Guadalajara was buried in 3 feet of ice from a hailstorm. Climate change is here now and it is time for voters to remove the climate deniers from office, starting with Trump." On July 1 the school board of San Francisco, Calif. authorizes $600K to destroy a mural depicting George Washington at the George Washington H.S., calling it racist, although it was painted by a Communist on New Deal funding and has a message criticizing him for slavery and oppression of Indians. On July 2 there is a total solar eclipse. On July 3 monsoons begin in Assam, NE India, displacing 5.8M and killing 30 (until ?), forcing people to live on sparse food and dirty water. On July 4 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican, becoming their 3rd. On July 4 an al-Shabaab suicide bomber in Mogadishu, Somalia attempts to assassinate U.S. diplomat James Swan at the mayor's office, killing and wounding several but missing him because he already left. On July 4 (11:30 a.m. local time) a 6.4 earthquake 11 mi. from Ridgecrest, Calif. near Death Valley Nat. Park between Bakrsfield, Calif. and Las Vegas, Nev. becomes the strongest in 20 years. On July 4 Pres. Trump holds his Salute to America 4th of July parade in the Nat. Mall in Washington, D.C., complete with tanks like Ike had in 1953 and JFK had in 1961, hamming it up with a speech that pisses-off leftists and Dems., containing the soundbyte: "It is the epic tale of a great nation whose people have risked everything for what they know is right and what they know is true. It is the chronicle of brave citizens who never give up on the dream of a better and brighter future. And it is the saga of 13 separate colonies that united to form the most just and virtuous republic ever conceived. On this day, 243 years ago, our Founding Fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to declare independence and defend our God-given rights." On July 4 (a.m.) British Royal Marines seize the Iranian supertanker Grace I off Gibraltar for carrying oil to Syria in violation of internat. sanctions, causing Iran to accuse them of piracy. On July 7 secret diplomatic cables from U.K. ambassador to the U.S. (since Jan. 28, 2016) Sir Nigel Kim Darroch (1954-) are leaked to The Mail on Sunday, showing him calling the Trump admin. "inept and insecure", forcing him to resign. On July 9 Dem. Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom signs a bill allowing illegal aliens under the age of 25 to receive Medicaid benefits. On July 11 Pres. Trump announces an executive order to make an end-around run of the U.S. Supreme Court that won't let him ask citizenship status on the Census forms, directing all federal agencies to provide the Commerce Dept. with all records regarding the number of citizens and noncitizens in the U.S. On July 12 the U.S. Houses passes a $733B defense bill checking Pres. Trump's war powers against Iran. On July 13 (6:55 p.m. ET) a power outage in New York City on the anniv. of the big 1977 blackout caused by a transformer fire causes people in Manhattan to be trapped in elevators and leaves 45K without electricity; on July 22 another blackout causes Mayor DeBlasio to call for govt. takeover of Con-Ed; they did it to themselves by passing a Green New Deal? On July 13 immigration protesters at an ICE facility in Aurora, Colo. pull down the U.S. flag and fly a Mexican flag in its place, then pull down a Blue Lives Matter flag, spray-paint it with "Abolish ICE", and fly it upside-down, pissing-off former U.S. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who utters the soundbyte: "There are no words for why the Democrats are staying silent on this." On July 14 (a.m.) Pres. Trump generates a tweetstorm dissing the four ultra-leftist "Progressive Democrat Congresswomen" (AKA the Squad) Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley, ending with: "Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested plces from which they came... and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can't leave fast enough", causing the PC press to howl with cries of racism, when even they probably secretly agree with him?; on July 16 all the House Dems. along with four turncoat Repubs; vote 240-187 to pass a resolution to condemn Trump's "racist comments"; only Omar was born outside the U.S. (Somalia); on July 17 (eve.) Trump holds a rally in Greenville, N.C., making fun of his two-faced critics, with the soundbyte: "I think in some cases they hate our country. They never have anything good to say. That's why I say, 'Hey if you don't like it, let 'em leave, let 'em leave'", causing the crowd to chant: "Send her back!", which Trump later claims he "was not happy" with. On July 15 the Taliban kills 25 Afghan commandos in a firefight in Badghis, Afghanistan while losing 20. On July 16 Libyan PM Fayez el-Sarraj threatens the EU with 800K more migrants incl. "criminals and terrorists... unless the assault on Tripoli by warlord Khalifa Haftar ends soon". On July 16 the city council of Berkeley, Calif. becomes the first to ban natural gas in new bldgs., effective Jan. 20, authorizing a $273,341 yearly salary for a new enforcement dir.; meanwhile it announces changes to the city code to remove all gendered language, e.g., replacing manholes with maintenance holes, and all instances of he/she with they. On July 16-18 the Second Ministerial Advance to Religious Freedom in Washington, D.C., celebrating the 1998 U.S. Religious Freedom Act, hosted by the U.S. State Dept. and incl. reps from 106 nations is attended by U.S. vice-pes. Mike Pence. On July 17 after sponsor (D-Tex.) (2005-) Alexander N. "Al" Green (1947-) (who introduced articles of impeachment on May 17 over his firing of FBI dir. James Comey, then withdrew them) reintroduces articles of impeachment against Pres. Trump for his tweetstorm agianst the Squad, and forces the vote by going around Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. House votes 332-95-1 (137 Dems. against, four Repubs. for) to kill (postpone) his resolution, causing Trump to tweet the soundbytes: "I just heard that the US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly voted to kill the most ridiculous project I have ever been involved in. The resolution -- how stupid is that -- on impeachment"; "Greatest Economic BOOM in the history of our Country, the best job numbers, biggest tax reduction, rebuilt military and much more, is now OVER. This should never be allowed to happen to another President of the United States again!"; 95 Dems. vote to impeach him for "causing harm to society", not an alleged high crime or misdemeanor, meaning they should be impeached for not upholding their oath to the U.S. Constitution?; meanwhile federal prosecutors in N.Y. terminate their investigation into the Trump Org. and its alleged hush money payments to women alleging affairs with Pres. Trump despite the FBI assuring the public that they really did happen. On July 17 the U.S. suspends Turkey from its F-35 fighter jet program for accepting parts for its new Russian S-400 missile defense system. On July 17 Pres. Trump announces that a U.S. warship shot down an Iranian drone in the Strait of Hormuz. On July 18 Taliban suicide bombers attack a police HQ in Kandahar, Afghanistan, killing 12 incl. seven children. On July 18 Pres. Trump meets with U.S. airline execs hoping to take their side in a long-time dispute with Persian Gulf-based airlines, only to end up knocking them for buying jets from Euro supplier Airbus instead of Boeing, and for running their cos. so poorly that the stock prices are declining in a bull market. On July 19 Shinji Aoba (1978-) torches the Kyoto Animation studio in Tokyo, Japan, killing 34 and injuring scores, accusing them of stealing his novels. On July 19 Iranian commandos seize the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero in the Strait of Hormuz in retaliation for the British seizing their tanker earlier in the month. On July 20 Repub. U. of Mich. student Kathy Zhu has her new Miss Mich. title revoked by the Miss World Am. competition for tweets criticizing the wearing of hijabs. On July 21 Puerto Rican gov. #12 (since Jan. 2, 2017) Ricardo Antonio Rossello (Rosselló) (1979-) resigns amid mucho jubilation, effective Aug. 2 as a result of Telegramgate (Chatgate) (RickyLeaks), the leaking of hundreds of pages of group chat from the messaging app Telegram filled with vulgar, racist, and homophobic slurs and plans to use the media to target political opponents, which caused 500K to protest in Old San Juan demanding his resignation on July 17, followed by a nat. strike of 750K-1M on July 23. On July 23 French jihadists attack a church service in Saint-Etienne-Du-Rouvray, France, forcing a priest to his knees and slitting his throat; one jihadists was supposedly under tight govt. surveillance. On July 24 Robert Mueller testifies before the Dem.-run House Judiciary Committee, stinking himself up so bad with his poor knowledge of his own report and his near senility that he dashes Dem. dreams of a killer blow leading to Pres. Trump's impeachment, which doesn't make them give up trying; Trump says Mueller was horrible, that Repubs. "had a good day", and utters the soundbyte: "The Democrats had nothing, and now they have less than nothing." On July 25 U.S. atty. gen. William Barr issues a directive ordering the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to begin allowing capital punishment to resume, starting with five murderers, mostly child-killers. On July 25 Pres. Trump makes a phone call to Ukraine pres. Volodymyr Zelensky, asking for him "to do us a favor" by investigating political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter, which is later blown up to a reason for impeachment by the Dems., even after Trump releases a transcript of the call on Sept. 25. On July 26 Pres. Trump announces a "safe third country" deal with Guatemala to restrict asylum claims from Central Am., calling it a "landmark agreement" that "will put the coyotes and smugglers out of business". On July 26 the U.S. House of Reps suspends talk of impeachment of Pres. Trump to go on a 46-day recess until Sept. 9. On July 26 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 6-3 that the Trump admin. can proceed with its plan to use $2.5B in Pentagon funds on the U.S.-Mexico border wall; dissenters incl. Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor; too bad, on Aug. 2 Obama appointee Haywood Gilliam of the 9th Circuit issues a permanent injunction blocking him. On July 27 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte that Baltimore, Md. is a "rat and rodent infested mess", digging into Rep. Elijah Cummings with the soundbyte: "So sad that Elijah Cummings has been able to do so little for the people of Baltimore. Statistically, Baltimore ranks last in almost every major category. Cummings has done nothing but milk Baltimore dry, but the public is getting wise to the bad job that he is doing", pissing him off and starting a flame war; on July 28 Trump tweets that Cummings is "racist", adding that iif he “ould focus more of his energy on helping the good people of his district, and Baltimore itself, perhaps progress could be made in fixing the mess that he has helped to create over many years of incompetent leadership." On July 27 Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte that the black-shirted far-left street thug activist group Antifa is under consideration for being declared a terrorist org., causing leftists in Germany to come out with the social media meme "#IchbinAntifa" (I am Antifa). On July 27-28 Boko Haram jihadists attack a funeral in Nganzai, Nigria, killing 65+. On July 28 (5:40 p.m.) 19-y.-o. Santino William Legan shoots up the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, Calif., killing four and injuring 12 before being killed by police. On July 30 Pres. Trump utters the soundbyte that U.S. intel agencies have "run amok" while defending his replacement of Dan Coats by John Ratcliffe as dir. of nat. intel. On July 30 Pres. Trump speaks at an event commemorating the 400th anniv. of Va.'s first legislative assembly, and is interrupted by Palestinian-descent Muslim Dem. legislator Ibraheem Samirah, who shouts "You can't send us back" while flshing a sign reading "deport hate", "reunite my family", and go back to your corrupted home" - self-contradiction? On July 30 Dem. Calif. gov. Gavin Newsom signs a law barring U.S. pres. candidates esp. Donald Trump from the state's primary ballot if they don't release their tax returns - should be birth certificate, retroactive to Obama? On July 30 the Dem. Congressional Campaign Committee purges six staffers for being too white, signaling a new era in outright racial discrimination against whites. On July 31 the Federal Reserve announces an interest rate cut for the first time since 2008, a whopping 0.25%. In July the Am. Psychological Assoc. (APA) establishes a Consensual Non-Monogamy Task Force to promote "polyamory, open relationships... and swinging", pissing-off the Catholic League and the Ruth Inst. In July U.S. unemployment holds at 3.7%, adding 164K jobs; black unemployment for ages 16-19 falls to a record low of 17.7%. On Aug. 1 a burqa ban takes effect in the Netherlands after 14 years of debate. On Aug. 1 Krakow archbishop Marek Jedraszewski delivers a sermon on the 75th anniv. of the Warsaw Uprising, rejoicing that Poland is no longer tormented by the "red plague" of Soviet Communism, but lamenting that is has been replaced by the "rainbow plague" of homosexuality, with the soundbyte: "Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." The white supremacist terror unleashed weekend in the U.S.? On Aug. 3 (10:39 a.m.) 21-y.-o. AK-47-carrying Mexican-hating white supremacist Patrick Crusius (1999-) of Dallas shoots up a Walmart near the Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, Tex., killing 21 and injuring 2 before being arrested by police at 11:08; he did it to save the environment? On Aug. 4 (Sun.) (1:00 a.m.) black-dressed body armor-wearing AR-15 carrying 24-y.-o. Connor Betts (b. 1995) shoots up the Ned Peppers Bar in the Oregon District of Dayton, Ohio, killing nine incl. his sister Megan and injuring 27 before being killed by police 1 min. later; he is an extreme leftist, which doesn't stop the fake news outlets from initially calling him a Trump supporter. On Aug. 4 (midnight) a car bombing in front of the Nat. Cancer Inst. in Cairo, Egypt kills 20 and injures 47; Egyptian pres. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi labels it a "cowardly terrorist incident". On Aug. 5 (11:00 a.m. EST) Pres. Trump gives a speech on the El Paso and Dayton massacres, condemning "racism, bigotry, and white supremacy" and calling for bipartisan support to fight it, with the soundbyte that hatred "warps the mind, ravages the heart, and destroys the soul", calling for red flag laws; too bad, the Dems. slam him for initially focusing on mental health rather than white supremacy, and use the opporunity to advance his immigration reform agenda. On Aug. 7 ICE conducts raids at food processing plants in Miss., arresting 680, with 200 of them having a criminal record; Pres. Trump says they will serve as a "good deterrent" to illegal immigration. On Aug. 11 British Muslim Mubashar Hussain (1990-) is arrested in Sparkbrook, Birmingham after hijacking a police car and running over a police officer. On Aug. 12 the Trump admin. announces new regulations banning welfare-dependent legal immigrants from permanently resettling in the U.S.; no surprise, 13 states file lawsuits challenging the new rule. On Aug. 12 U.S. Sen Dems. issue a warning to the U.S. Supreme Court in a brief filed in New York City, calling its conservative majority an affliction and threatening to fundamentally restructure it if the justices don't take steps to "heal" themselves. On Aug. 12 the Brazilian state of Amazonas declares an emergency after 1,699 forest fires are detected, causing the climate alarmist agitprop machine to have a field day spreading stories about global warming bringing the end of the world, despite the fires being mainly set by farmers clearing land, no extreme droughts in the region, etc.; meanwhile French pres. Emmanuel Macron and Brazilian pres. Jair Bolsonaro get into a pissing contest, ending with Bolsonary rejecting $22M in aid to fight fires from the G7 while accepting $12M from Britain. On Aug. 13 Muslim convert Mert Ney (1998-) goes on a jihadist stabbing spree in Sydney, Australia, killing a female sex worker and stabbing several others before being subdued by bystanders. On Aug. 14-15 African-Am. radical Wahhabist Muslim Maurice Hill (1993-) gets in a shootout with police in a row house in crime-ridden mainly black North Philadelphia, Penn., wounding six in a 7-hour standoff before being arrested. On Aug. 15 Pres. Trump makes an offer to purchase Greenland, which is refused. On Aug. 16 Pres. Trump receives a surprise endorsement from the conservative LGBTQ Log Cabin Repubs. On Aug. 20 the Trump admin. announces plans to freeze $4B in foreign aid to 100+ countries as part of a "recession package". On Aug. 20 Pres. Truth, er, Trump criticizes Dems. for supporting Dem. anti-Semites Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, with the soundbyte: "I think any Jewish people who would vote for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty", drawing a Dem. backlash. On Aug. 21 the U.N. establishes Aug. 22 as their Day of Global Recognition of Violence Against People Based on Faith. On Aug. 21 after a lawsuit brought by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the Equity Court of South Africa bans the nat. flag of the apartheid era. On Aug. 22 Bernie Sanders announces a $16.3T climate plan building on the Green New Deal, calling for the U.S. to switch to renewable energy across the board by 2050 while declaring climate change a nat. emergency, starting with a "10-year nationwide mobilization centered on equity and humanity" that will supposedly create 20M new jobs, which doesn't sound hard after giving $2.18T in grants to low and middle income families to weatherize and refit their homes and business to reduce residential energy consumption by 30%, and spending $526B to modernize the electrical grid while investing in electric vehicles, high-speed rail, and expanded public transit; no surprise, the real goal comes out when the Green New Deal is described as an "opportunity to uproot historical injustices and inequities to advance social, racial and economic justice". On Aug. 23 Pres. Trump "hereby" orders U.S. cos. to find alternatives to Chinese suppliers in his next phase of their trade war, causing the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. to end down 600+ points (2.4%). On Aug. 23 Queens, N.Y. Muslims Asia Siddiqui and Noelle Velentzas plead guilty to planning a jihadist attack against law enforcement and military targets in the U.S. using bombs. On Aug. 24 (night) Israel stages a late-night attack on Shiite militia targets inside Syria in order to thwart a "very imminent" drone strike. On Aug. 24-26 the45th (2019) G7 Summit in Biarritz, France sees Pres. Trump and French pres. Emmanuel Macron make up and kiss; Trump calls for Russia to be readmitted to help him solve several issues, and suggests Trump Doral in Fla. as the site for the next summit, pissing-off Dems., who claim he's trying to enrich himself, causing him to reply that he won't make any money; Trump drops that idea on Oct. 19; Trump also says that he's willing to meet with Iran's pres., raising the prospect of a new nuclear deal; when asked if he still harbors climate skepticism, Trump utters the soundbyte: "I feel that the United States has tremendous wealth. The wealth is under its feet. I've made that wealth come alive. And I'm not going to lose that wealth. I'm not going to lose it on dreams, on windmills, which frankly aren't working too well. And I'm an environmentalist. A lot of people don't understand. I have done more environmental impact statements probably than anybody that's - I guess I can say definitely, because I've done many, many, many of them. More than anybody that's ever been president, or vice president, or anything even close to president. And I think I know more about the environment than most people. I want clean air, I want clean water, I want a wealthy country, I want a spectacular country with jobs, with pensions, with so many things. And that's what we're getting. So I want to be very careful. At the same time... it's very important to me - very important to me - we have to maintain this incredible - this incredible place that we've all built. We become a much richer country, and that's a good thing, not a bad thing, because that great wealth allows us to take care of people. We can take care of people that we couldn't have taken care of in the past because of the great wealth. We can't let that wealth be taken away. Clean air, clean water. Thank you very much everybody"; after which a reporter shouts: "You didn't answer the question!" On Aug. 28 at the request of British PM Boris Johnson to stop Jeremy Corbyn's plans to block Brexit, Elizabeth II prorogues Parliament weeks before the no-deal Brexit deadline, causing a firestorm of controversy the resignation of Scottish Conservative Party leader Ruth Davidson. On Aug. 29 U.S. inspector gen. Michael Horowitz releases his report on former FBI dir. James Comey, finding "no evidence" that he "released any classified information" to the press, although he "violated department or FBI policy" through "retention, handling, and dissemination of certain Memos", finding that Comey "failed to live up to this responsibility. By not safeguarding sensitive information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI employees - and the many thousands more former FBI employees — who similarly have access to or knowledge of non-public information"; too bad, although Horowitz referred him to the U.S. Justice Dept. for criminal prosecution, they decide not to, causing Comey to gloat, tweeting that he doesn't "need a public apology from those who defamed me, buta quick message with a 'sorry we lied about you' would be nice"; the White House blasts him with the soundbyte: "James Comey is a proven liar and leaker. The Inspector General's report shows Comey violated the most basic obligations of confidentiality that he owed to the United States Government and to the American people, 'in order to achieve a personally desired outcome.' Because Comey shamefully leaked information to the press — in blatant violation of FBI policies - the Nation was forced to endure the baseless politically motivated, two-year witch hunt. Comey disgraced himself and his office to further a personal political agenda, and this report further confirms that fact"; Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "Perhaps never in the history of our Country has someone been more thoroughly disgraced and excoriated than James Comey in the just released Inspector General's Report. He should be ashamed of himself!" On Aug. 29 the U.S. Defense Dept. formally establishes the U.S. Space Command as the 11th unified combat command. On Aug. 31 (3:15 p.m.) recently-fired Seth Ator (1983-) is stopped by police on I-20 in Midland, Tex., and begins a rampage, killing seven and injuring 20+ incl. three police officers before being killed by police at the Cinergy Movie Complex in Odessa, Tex. In Aug. the New York Times announces the 1619 Project to reframe U.S. history to make it all about the evils of white supremacy and slavery, like U.S.-hating Marxist U.S. historian Howard Zinn would have loved. In Aug. Victoria's Secret lingerie maker features its first transgender model, Brazilian actress Valentina Sampaio. In Aug. U.S. unemployment is 3.7%, vs. 3.7% in July; U.S. employment reaches a record 157,878,000, an increase of 529,000; black unemployment hits a record low of 5.5%; Hispanic unemployment is 4.2%. On Sept. 1 (early a.m.) Fulani Muslim jihadists in Wum, Nigeria butcher Bible translator Angus Abraham Fung to death and kill six otehrs, severing his wife's arm. On Sept. 1 (Sun.) (World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation), Pope Francis writes the soundbyte that this is "a season to reflect on our lifestyles" incl. how we "act like tyrants with regards to creation", calling for "prophetic actions" to save the Earth by adopting "more simple and respectful lifestyles" and "abandon our dependence on fossil fuels" while moving "quickly and decisively towards forms of clean energy and a sustainable and circular economy", concluding: "Melting of glaciers, scarcity of water, neglect of water basins and the considerable presence of plastic and microplastics in the oceans are equally troubling, and testify to the urgent need for interventions that can no longer be postponed. We have caused a climate emergency that gravely threatens nature and life itself, including our own." On Sept. 1 AFL-CIO pres. Richard Trump, er, Richard Trumka appears on Fox News, criticizing Pres. Trump, complaining about his new USMCA trade deal with Canada and Mexico and for taking on China "the wrong way", pissing Trump off and causing him to criticizing him back, tweeting the soundbytes that he "likes what we are doing until the cameras go on" and "The workers will vote for me in 2020 (lowest unemployment, most jobs ever), and should stop paying exorbitant $ Dues. Not worth it!" n Sept. 2 USMC Gen. Jim "Mad Dog" Mattis gives an interview to NPR, blasting ex-U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden for aiding the rise of ISIS by insisting on the total withdrawl of U.S. troops from Iraq, with the soundbyte: "You may want a war over. You may declare it over. You may even try to walk away from it. But the bottom line is the enemy gets a vote, as we say in the military, and we simply have got to understand that terrorism is going to be an ambient threat." On Sept. 2 U.S. envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalizad announces on a Kabul TV station that the U.S. has reached a draft deal with the Taliban to pull out 5K U.S. troops within 5 mo.; meanwhile during the interview, the Taliban stages a suicide truck bomb and gunfire attack in Green Village near the Green Zone in Baghdad, killing 16+ and injuring 110+. On Sept. 2 (Labor Day) a 75-ft. boat bursts into flame off Santa Cruz Island, Calif., killing all 34 aboard. On Sept. 5 Pope Francis visits Mozambique, meeting with 24 Jesuits and endorsing a 2017 essay criticizing relations between Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics in the U.S. as an "ecumenism of hate", suggesting that the Protestants "cannot really be defined as Christian." On Sept. 9 the U.S. Dept. of Justice announces a 5-count indictment of Russian Diversity Visa Lottery immigrant Muslim Ruslan Maratovich Asainov (1976-) for conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS. On Sept. 10 after their battles never end, Pres. Trump fires hawkish U.S. nat. security advisor John Bolton after 17 mo. On Sept. 10 coalition and Iraqi forces carry out airstrikes against Quanus Island on the Tigris River S of Mosul, Iraq in Salahuddin Province that is believed to be an ISIS safe haven. On Sept. 11 (18th anniv. of 9/11) the Taliban fires missiles at the U.S. embassy in Kabul and the Bagram AFB. On Sept. 12 Roger Hallam et al. of Extinction Rebellion (XR) are arrested the day before a planned drone attack on Heathrow Airport to push for action on global climate change. On Sept. 14 Shiite Houthi rebels attack the world's largest oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia, costing it 5M barrels/day of crude production (half the kingdom's total output), causing oil prices to soar; Pres. Trump blames Iran, which denies knowledge; on Sept. 18 U.S. secy. of state Mike Pompeo calls it an act of war by Iran, after which Pres. Trump sends U.S. troops and aid to Saudi Arabia and UAE, pissing-off Nancy Pelosi, who utters the soundbyte: "Trump's plan to accelerate the delivery of military equipment to Saudi Arabia & UAE, and to deploy additional U.S. forces in the region is the latest outrageous attempt by the Trump Admin to circumvent the bipartisan will of Congress. These unacceptable actions are cause for alarm"; after a 20% intra-day price surge, the crude oil price quickly returns to pre-attack levels, and fears of falling prices and oversupply return. On Sept. 14 West African block leaders announce a pledge of $1B to combat al-Qaida, ISIS and other jihadists in the region. On Sept. 16 Pres. Trump's approval rating tops Pres. Obama's for the same point in their admins., reaching 44.1%, vs. 43.9% for Obama on Sept. 16, 2011. On Sept. 17 (Tues.) after failure to form a govt. caused Netanyahu to dissolve the Knesset in Apr., elections in Israel see Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu of the Likud Party go for a 5th term after promising to annex the West Bank admid a corruption scandal, vying with his rival Benny Gantz of the Blue and White Party, while Avigdor Lieberman of the secular anti-Orthodox Yisrael Beitenu Party waits in the wings. On Sept. 19 Morristown, N.J. Muslim Alexei (Hassan) "Rachid" Saab (1977-) is charged with nine counts of providing material support to Hezbollah incl. scouting jihadist attack locations. On Sept. 19, 2019 CNN airs the segment US Navy confirms UFO videos are the real deal, complete with videos. On Sept. 20 New York City mayor Bill de Blasio drops out of the U.S. pres. race. On Sept. 22 police in Chennai, India raid the house of M. Diwan Mujipeer for conspiring to form a jihadist gang called Ansarulla, with the intention of establishing Islamic rule in India. On Sept. 22 (Sun.) Pres. Trump speaks in Houston, Tex. before a crowd of 50K mainly Indian-Ams., welcoming Indian PM Narendra Modi while hundreds of millions in India watch on TV, bringing the audience to its feet with a mention of the threat of "radical Islamic terrorism". On Sept. 23 the 2019 U.N. Climate Action Summit in New York City is attemded by 100+ world leaders; Pres. Trump drops by at the start, cutting in front of Greta Thunberg, but doesn't speak, then leaves to attend a meeting on religious freedom, preparing to address the U.N. Gen. Assembly on Sept. 24; Greta Thunberg gives her well-rehearsed, outgoing speech (impossible for an Assburger sufferer, although Trump's upstaging act might have made her speech more anger-filled?), with the big soundbyte: "My message is that we'll be watching you. This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you come to us young people for hope. How dare you. You have stolen my dreams, my childhood with your empty words, and yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering, people are dying, entire ecological systems are collapsing. We're in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is the money and eternal fairy tales of economic growth. How dare you? For more than 30 years the science has been crystal clear. How can you look away and come here saying you're doing enough when the politics and solutions needed are nowhere in sight? You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I really want to believe that, because if you really understood the situation and kept on failing to act, you would be evil, and that I refuse to believe"; French education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer utters the soundbyte: "One shouldn't create a generation of people depressed over the subject of climate change"; meanwhile Thunberg and 15 other children file a complaint with the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, and Turkey for failing to act against climate change; meanwhile #ShutDownDC sees dozens of climate protesters disrupt traffic in usually-deadlocked Washington, D.C. On Sept. 24 after a scandal involving U.S. vice-pres. Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Ukraine emerges, the Dems. try to twist it with an announcement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that an impeachment investigation for Pres. Trump is being started over a July 25 phone call to new (since May 20) Ukrainian pres. #6 Volodymyr Zelensky where he merely asks if he would investigate them, with the double-standard soundbyte "No one is above the law", even when no quid pro quo is discovered in the transcripts; on Sept. 25 Pres. Trump meets with Zelensky at the U.N., and they hold a press conference, where Zelensky confirms that Trump put him under no pressure; meanwhile on Sept. 25 the U.S. Justice Dept. clears Trump for violating campaign finance laws; on Sept. 27 Trump tweets the soundbyte: "If that perfect phone call with the President of Ukraine Isn't considered appropriate, then no future President can EVER again speak to another foreign leader!"; too bad, it is revealed that three Dem. Senators asked Ukraine to investigate Trump in May 2008; also it is revealed that the U.S. Senate approves a 1998 treaty with Ukraine allowing the U.S. pres. to ask Ukraine for legal assistance in criminal matters. On Sept. 29 Pres. Trump tweets the soundbyte: "If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal", quoting Pastor Robert Jeffress, pissing-off the PC press with its truth? In Sept. the U.S. exports more oil than it imported for the first time in over 70 years, giving Pres. Trump a victory to crow about. In Sept. U.S. unemployment is 3.5% (vs. 3.7% in Aug.), with the economy creating 136K jobs; the lowest unemployment rate since Dec. 1969 (3.5%). On Oct. 1 the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security ends their "catch and release" program for illegal immigrants from Mexico incl. families. On Oct. 3 Repub. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy calls on House speaker Nancy Pelosi to suspend the Dems.' impeachment inquiry into Pres. Trump, calling it "reckless", with the soundbyte: "Unfortunately, you have given no clear indication as to how your impeachment inquiry will proceed - including whether key historical precedents or basic standards of due process will be observed. In addition, the swiftness and recklessness with which you have proceeded has already resulted in committee chairs attempting to limit minority participation in scheduled interviews, calling into question the integrity of such an inquiry." On Oct. 4 jihadists attack a gold mining site in Dolmande, Soum Province, N Burkina Faso, killing 20. On Oct. 6-17 the Vatican Pan-Amazon Synod seeks to secularize the Church and make it more palatable to Amazon natives, causing Cardinal Raymond Burke to call it an "apostasy" that "cannot become the teaching of the Church". On Oct. 7 Pres. Trump defends his Oct. 6 decision to pull U.S. troops out of N Syria after talking to Kurd-hating Turkish pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan even though that opens it up for a Turkish assault on U.S.-backed Kurds, claiming that even though they helped the U.S. defeat ISIS, they were paid "massive amounts of money" for it, and that U.S. troops "are not a police force"; after bipartisan criticism, Trump tweets Turkey to leave the Kurds alone or he will "obliterate" their economy; also, Europe won't help, and the U.S. isn't going to hold thousands of ISIS fighters in Guantanamo Bay; too bad, on Oct. 9 Turkey attacks the Kurds in NE Syria to eliminate a "terrorist corridor", causing the U.N. Security Council to meet to discuss the situation; on Oct. 11 Turkey bombs U.S. forces in Kurd-held Kobani, Syria, calling it a mistake; on Oct. 14 the Syrian Kurds cut a deal with Bashar al-Assad to surrender their dream of autonomy for protection from the Turks. On Oct. 7 (night) Syrian illegal immigrant Mohammed O hijacks a commercial truck and drives it into a line of waiting cars in Limburg (near Frankfurt), Germany, injuring seven. On Oct. 8 Pres. Trump tweets that Hillary Clinton should run against him again in 2020, causing her to reply: "Maybe there does need to be a rematch. I mean, obviously, I can beat him again" - talk about being in denial? On Oct. 9 (Yom Kippur) a neo-Nazi attacks a synagogue in Halla, Germany, killing two while livestreaming his attack. On Oct. 10 Colo. experiences its first snowstorm of the season, with temps dropping 60F (80F to 20F) in one day, but soon warming back up, bringing gorgeous Indian summer; meanwhile in N Calif. Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) initiates a power blackout in N Calif. to prevent wildfires after environmentalists make them liable in court even with flimsy evidence, which doesn't stop wildfires in Saddle Ridge, Calif. et al., as the blackouts are extended to S Calif.; by Oct. 11 the 2019 Los Angeles Wildfire grows to 5K acres, causing the evacuation of 100K; the blackouts are really a conspiracy to impeach Trump, and only Repub. neighborhoods had their power cut-off? On Oct. 11 (eve.) Pres. Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Lake Charles, La., uttering the soundbyte: "We've been living through this so-called insurance policy because they know we are putting a stop to their pillaging and their plundering and their hoaxes. The radical Democrats policies are crazy. Their politicians are corrupt. Their candidates are terrible. They know they can't win an election so they are pursuing an illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bullshit impeachment." On Oct. 13 (Sat.) The New York Post pub. a report on a Fox News poll released earlier in the week that claims that 51% of registered voters want Pres. Trump impeached and removed from office, claiming it misrepresented the facts. On Oct. 14 Pres. Trump announces tariffs on Turkey for attacking the Kurds and destablizing NE Syria, with the soundbyte: "I am fully prepared to swiftly destroy Trump's economy if Turkish leaders continue down this dangerous and destructive path." On Oct. 14 Pres. Trump announces that he hasn't yet watched a video aired last week at his Doral Miami Resort showing him shooting and stabbing anti-Trumpers in the news media, but "strongly condemns" it - with a smile on his face? On Oct. 16 the U.S. House of Reps votes 354-60 to condemn Pres. Trump's troop pullout from NE Syria; House Speaker storms out of a meeting with Pres. Trump after receiving a drumming-down about being in bed with Commies and being a "third-rate politician", pissing-off Repubs. for walking out on a U.S. pres.; Trump tweets a photo of her standing and pointing commandingly at her commander in chief before walking out; she claims he lost it, and he claims she lost it, but she is the one to walk out; meanwhile on Oct. 16 a Economist/YouGov Poll reveals that 57% of Repubs. support Trump's decision. On Oct. 16 U.S. Navy SEALs retake a power plant in Azerbaijan from suspected Armenian loyalists, who turn out to be Iranians, pissing-off the Armenians, who accuse CBS-TV of airing Azeri propaganda. On Oct. 17 amid raging forest fires, protests in Lebanon over planned gasoline, tobacco, and phone taxes. On Oct. 18 (Fri.) the all-female spacewalk is completed by NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir; Pres. Trump phones them in space. On Oct. 18 Egypt unveils their biggest ancient coffin in over a cent., 30 sealed colored 3K-y.-o. wooden coffins from Luxor in good condition, all of male and female priests and children. On Oct. 20 Australian airline Qantas completes a test-run of the longest nonstop commercial passenger flight on Earth, from New York to Sydney in a Boeing 787-9 with 49 aboard in 19 hours 16 min. On Oct. 21 (Mon.) elections in Canada. On Oct. 22 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin and Turkish pres. Recep Tayyip Erdogan reach an agreement to remove Kurdish fighters from NE Syrian border eras and establish joint patrols. On Oct. 22 the British Parliament votes 329-299 to grant preliminary approval to PM Boris Johnson's Brexit deal, but later votes 322-308 to not fast-track it to leave the EU by the Oct. 31 deadline. On Oct. 23 25 U.S. House Repubs. storm the closed basement room where the Trump-hating Dems. led by Adam Schit, er, Schiff are meeting to frame trump on impeachment charges, claiming that they're actually staging an unconstitutional coup d'etat. On Oct. 25 (Sun.) amid massive debt and soaring inflation despite a $56B IMF bailout in 2014, elections in Argentina. Big Daddy bagged dead? On Oct. 27 (Sun.) (10:00 a.m. EST) after the tweet "Something very big has just happened", Pres. Trump announces the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during an overnight U.S. Army Delta Force and Ranger forces raid in Idlib Province in NW Syria, setting off a suicide bomb after being cornered in a dead-end tunnel, going out "whimpering and crying", saying he "died like a dog and coward", taking his three children with him; his named successor Abu al-Hasan al-Muhajir is killed in an air strike hours after Baghdadi; too bad, on Oct. 27 former U.S. nat. intel dir. James Clapper gives an interview to CNN's "State of the Union", warming that the death could "galvanize" ISIS, and "I don't think we can say at this point that we can stop worrying"; the military operation was named by JCS chmn. Gen. Mark Milley after Kayla Mueller, who was tortured to death in 2015; on Oct. 31 ISIS announces their new leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashemi al-Qurashi and vows revenge on the U.S. On Oct. 31 the extended deadline for Brexit arrives. On Oct. 31 the Dem.-controlled U.S. House votes 232-194 along party lines (1 independent yea, 2 Dems. and 1 Repub. abstain) to authorize an impeachment inquiry for Adam Schiff, er, Pres. Trump; Nancy Pelosi votes yea; Pres. Trump is several moves ahead in the chess game, and is setting them up for the Repubs. to take the House in 2020 while he is reelected, allowing him to railroad a trainload of legislation? In Oct. U.S. unemployment is 3.6% (vs. 3.5% in Sept.), adding 128K new jobs; black adult and teen unemployment are at historic lows. On Nov. 1 Beto O'Rourke drops out of the U.S. pres. race. On Nov. 1 (noon) Islamic jihadists attack an army post in Indelimane, Menaka, N Mali, killing 53 soldiers and one civlian before retreating toward Niger. On Nov. 1 after getting tired of harassment by Dem. leaders, Pres. Trump announces that he will change his permanent residence from "shithole" New York City to Mar-a-Lago, Fla. after his presidency, with the soundbyte that he loves New York until N.Y. gov. Andrew Cuomo and NYC mayor Bill de Blasio ruined it. On Nov. 4 cartel gunmen ambush a Mormon family in Bavispe, Sonora, Mexico, killing three women and six children, and injuring six more children, causing Pres. Trump to tweet the soundbyte: "This is the time for Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth. We merely await a call from your great new president!", causing Mexican pres. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to politely decline, calling war the worst way to deal with the cartels because those who have lived it know it; on Nov. 10 several Mormon families evacuate Sonora. On Nov. 8 Pres. Trump speaks at a rally in Atlanta, Ga. announcing the Black Voices for Trump Coalition in an effort to gain black voters. On Nov. 10 13.5K march in Paris to protest "Islamophobia" three days before the commemoration of the 2015 Paris Massacre of 131. On Nov. 11 (Mon.) Pres. Trump becomes the first U.S. pres. to attend the Veterans Day Parade in New York City, giving a speech praising U.S. Special Forces for bagging dead al-Baghdadi, calling U.S. military personnel "The bravest, toughest, strongest, and most virtuous warriors ever to walk on Earth." On Nov. 13 the U.S. House begins impeachment hearings for Pres. Trump, which he won't even watch, calling it a "sham"; impeachment czar Adam Schiff blows it when U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) (2015) John Lee Ratcliffe (1965) asks witness William "Bioll" Taylor what crime Trump committed on the July 25 Ukraine call, and he can't answer?; on Nov. 15 Bozo, er, Schiff interviews fired Ukrainian ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, and brings up a recent Trump tweet, trying to lead her into claiming that it constitutes witness intimidation not freedom of speech, even though he is the one reading it to her for the first time; anti-Trump journalist Chris Wallace utters the soundbyte that if you weren't moved by her testimony, "you have no pulse". On Nov. 13 Venice, Italy floods, becoming the worst since Nov. 4,1966; Mayor Luigi Brugnaro blames climate change; the Washington Post pub. the soundbyte: "The sea level has been rising even more rapidly in Venice than in other parts of the world. At the same time, the city is sinking, the result of tectonic plates shifting below the Italian coast. Those factors together, along with the more frequent extreme weather events associated with climate change, contribute to floods." On Nov. 14 after becoming triggered by the Dec. 2017 death of his alcoholic father, 16-y.-o. student Nathaniel Berhow pulls a semi-automatic pistol from his backpack at Saugus H.S. in Santa Clarita, Calif., killing two students and injuring three before fatally shooting himself; after mistaking him for a victim, police engage in a fruitless manhunt. On Nov. 14 after becoming the winner of a disputed election on Oct. 20 and enduring weeks of protest, Bolivian pres. Evo Morales resigns. On Nov. 15 protests in Iran over high fuel prices cause the govt. to shut off the Internet. On Nov. 18 the U.S. announces the reversal of the Carter-Obama policy of declaring Israeli settlement in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) illegal. On Nov. 19 after news that the state's top oil regulators had vested interests in major oil cos., Calif. Dem. Gov. Gavin Newsom announces a statewide moratorium on new fracking permits. On Nov. 21 richer-than-Trump New York City billionaire Michael Bloomberg switches from the Repub. to the Dem. Party, and launches his campaign for 2020 U.S. pres., disgusting Bernie Sanders. On Nov. 25 Pres. Trump signs the U.S. Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (PACT) making cruelty to animals a feveral crime, with a max. sentence of seven years - one dog year? On Nov. 29 (Black Fri.) (2:00 p.m.) an Islamist jihadist stabbing attack at London Bridge in London, England by Pakistani immigrant Usman Khan kills two and injures several before bystanders subdue him with a fire extinguisher and a narwhal task and police shoot the bum after he exposes a fake suicide belt; he had been released from jail 1 year ago and required to wear an electronic tag, and pulled the knife at a rehab event; meanwhile another jihadist stabbing attack at the Grote Marktstraat in The Hague, Netheerlands injures three. In Nov. U.S. unemployment falls to 3.5% (vs. 3.6% in Oct.), lowest in 50 years, adding 266K jobs. On Dec. 3 Dem. Calif. Sen. Kamala Harris drops out of the U.S. pres. race. On Dec. 3-4 the Trans-Atlantic Military Alliance Summit at Buckingham Palace in London. On Dec. 6 (6:51 a.m.) Saudi aviation student Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani goes jihadist at a classroom in Pensacola Navail Air Station in Fla., killing three and injuring Eight before being shot and killed by police, because no guns are permitted on military installations; six Saudi nationals are detained for questioning; no surprise, the U.S. govt. attempts a coverup? On Dec. 8 the 2019 (68th) Miss Universe Pageant in Atlanta, Ga. is won by Zozibini Tunzi (1993-) of South Africa, who becomes the first black Miss Universe since 2011; the first year that all four major U.S.-based beauty pageants are won by black women, incl. Miss America 2019 (Nia Franklin), Miss Teen USA 2019 (Kaliegh Garris), and Miss USA 2019 (heslie Kryst). On Dec. 9 (2:11 a.m. local time) steamy White Island Volcano (AKA Whakaari) in New Zealand erupts unexpectedly, killing 6+ and injuring 30+. On Dec. 9 the Washington Post pub. The Afghanistan Papers, an expose in the style of "The Pentagon Papers", revealing that U.S. officials knew all along that the Afghanistan War was unwinnable, along with the pipe dream of turning it into a satellite of Washington, D.C. complete with a statue of George Washington, i.e., a U.S.-style federalist democracy with free market economy, causing all the U.S. presidents from Bush Jr. to Trump to regularly lie to the Am. people about military progress. On Dec. 10 two gunmen shoot up a cemetery and a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, N.J. before dying in an hours-long shootout with police. On Dec. 10 the U.S. House Dem. unveil two articles of impeachment: abuse of power, and obstruction of them, er, Congress; meanwhile Dem. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces an accord with the Trump admin. on the USMCA trade deal with Mexico and Canada, and Pres. Trump signs an executive order targeting college anti-Semitism. On Dec. 10 West African national Bampumim Teixeira (1986-) is convicted of the murder of South Boston, Mass. physicians Richard Field (49) and his fiancee Lina Bolanos (38) on their apt. on May 5, 2017; Teixeira didn't help his case by shouting in the courtroom "You better hope I don't get out of jail" to Field's family. On Dec. 11 both houses in India pass a controversial immigration bill that excludes Muslims, causing protests in New Delhi on Dec. 15, spreading to West Bengal; on Jan. 26 millions form a human chain in Kerala to protest the citizenship law. On Dec. 11 U.S. Inspector-Gen. Michael Horowitz addresses the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, claiming that the FBI did nothing illegal regarding the massive anti-Trump coup, only a few irregularities incl. the use of confidential sources (informants) and undercover employees (secret agents) on three targets in the 2016 Trump U.S. pres. campaign, causing committee chmn., U.S. Repub. Sen. Lindsy Graham to utter the soundbyte: "People at the highest level of our government took the law into their own hands. And when I say defraud the FISA court, I mean it. To your team, you were able to uncover and discover abuse of power I never believed would actually exist in 2019." On Dec. 12 the leftist govt. of Finland under Social Dem. PM Sanna Marin appoints its first woman-majority cabinet, consisting of 12 women and seven woman, all but one of which are millennials. On Dec. 12 (12-12) (12:12 a.m. Mountain Std. Time) the last full moon of the decade; 12 represents the harmony of yin and yang in Chinese lore. On Dec. 12 after Conservative PM Boris Johnson calls a snap election to decide the fate of Brexit with the hope of winning the mandate to "get Brexit done", the 2019 U.K. Gen. Election sees Johnson win 365 seats (43.6%) vs. 203 (32.2%) for Labour Party head Jeremy Corbyn, 48 (3.9%) for Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish Nat. Party, and 11 (11.6%) for Jo Swinson of the Liberal Dems. On Dec. 12 Danish police arrest 20 in Copenhagen, Denmark for planning an Islamic terror attack. On Dec. 12 Islamist militants attack a military base in W Niger, killing 71+ soldiers and inuring 12. On Dec. 13 (Fri.) in a speedy hearing, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee votes a straight party ticket 24-17 to send the impeachment articles for vote by the full House. On Dec. 13 Saudi U. of N.M. engineering student Hassan Alqahtani (1992-) is arrested after the FBI learns of his list of people he wants to kill before leaving the U.S. On Dec. 16 the U.S. Supreme Court grants Pres. Trump's petition to take jurisdiction over the Dem.-controlled U.S. House's attempt to subpoena his personal financial and tax records, causing Harvard U. law prof. Alan Dershowitz to say that this makes impeachment article 2 null and void, and any attempt to vote on it an abuse of power by the House. On Dec. 16 700+ historians release a Historians' Statement on the Impeachment of Donald Trump, containing the soundbyte: "It is our considered judment that if President Trump's misconduct does not rise to the level of impeachment, then virtually nothing does." On Dec. 16 a Quinnipiac U. Poll reveals a 43% approval rating for Pres. Trump, up 5 points since Oct., with voters more enthusiastic about their personal economic situations than at any time in the last 18 years. On Dec. 17 as the Dem.-controlled U.S. House diddles around about voting for his impeachment without even accusing him of a specific crime, Pres. Trump sends a letter to Dem. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with the soundbyte: "I write to express my strongest and most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade being pursued by Democrats in the House of Representatives", calling their shenanigans "an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power", adding: "You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!", attacking Pelosi for a "alse display of solemnity" during the partisan process, concluding: "While I have no expectation that you will do so, I write this letter to you for the purpose of history and to put my thoughts on a permanent and indelible record"; Pelosi calls the letter "ridiculous". On Dec. 17 federal judge ? Collyer issues an FISC opinion that the FBI intententially misled the FISA court with incomplete and false info. used to obtain warrants against Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. On Dec. 17 two brothers, Khaled khayat and Mahmoud Khayat are sentenced to a total of 76 years in Sydney, Australia for a plot to blow up an Etihad Ariways flight from Sydney to Abu Dhabi with a bomb hidden in a meat grinder. On Dec. 18 the U.S. House passes the two articles of impeachment against Pres. Trump, with two Dems. defecting on article 1 (abuse of power) (230-197) and three on article 2 (obstruction of Congress) (229-198); House Speaker preludes the vote by reading the pledge of allegiance in front of a poster of a U.S. flag while wearing black; when announcing the passage of article 1, she makes a mother-like gesture to the Dems. to not cheer; she then refuses to send the articles to the Senate, making all kinds of excuses while everybody knows they're a sham and won't go anywhere?, sending U.S. Sen. Dem. minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to punt for her, calling for the Senate to call yet more witnesses before voting, to which U.S. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) responds that in Pres. Clinton's 1999 impeachment trial there was unanimous agreement to follow a set procedure, and he's not going to change it for him; the 3rd U.S. pres. impeachment (1868, 1999). On Dec. 18 Washington Post reporter Rachael Bade "Merry Impeachmas from the WaPo team!", causing a firestorm of controversy that makes her flop and start 'splaining. On Dec. 19 the U.S. House by 385-41 passes the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA); 38 Dems., 2 Repubs., and 1 Independent vote no. On Dec. 19 U.S. Rep. (D-Mi.) Debbie Doorbell, er, Dingell disses Pres. Trump for saying that her dead hubby Rep. John Dingell was "looking up" at him from Hell after she voted for his impeachment. On Dec. 20 the Calif. Dept. of Finance releases a report giving the pop. of calif. at 39.96M, with a net loss of 39.5K, becoming the first time that more people are leaving Calif. than moving in since the 2010 census. On Dec. 21 Algerian military chief lt. Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah dies of a heart attack, leaving the country in turmoil after days of pro-democracy protests calling for a regime change. On Dec. 21 Christianity Today ed. Mark Galli pub. an editorial calling for Pres. Trump's removal for being "morally unfit", pissing-off mag. founder Billy Graham's son Franklin Graham and Trump, who note that Trump won 81% of the evangelical vote in the 2016 U.S. pres. election. On Dec. 22 30 ISWAP jihadists block a major highway near Gasarwa, Maiduguri, NE Nigeria, killing six and abducting 100 after demanding identification. On Dec. 24 a a jihadist attack in Arbinda, N Burkina Faso kills seven soldiers and 35 civilians, mostly women; on Dec. 25 an ambush in Hallale, N Burkina Faso kills 11 soldiers. On Dec. 25 Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris misses its midnight Christmas mass for the first time since the French Rev. in 1789. On Dec. 25 Pope Francis delivers his 2019 Christmas Address, claiming that "rigid" conservative Catholics are creating a "minefield" of "hatred". On Dec. 26 an annular solar eclipse ("ring of fire") is visible from South Asia. On Dec. 28 an al-Shabab truck bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia kills 79. On Dec. 28 a machete attack in a private Jewish Hannukkah celebration at the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg in Monsey, N.Y. by Grafton Thomas injures two; after skipping, he is found by police 2 hours later in his car 30 mi. NW of Manhattan, covered with blood; he praised the Black Hebrew Israelite movement. On Dec. 29 a shotgun murderer at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Tex. kills two before pistol-packing hero Jack Wilson shoots and kills him, later uttering the soundbyte: "I feel like I killed evil." On Dec. 30 a Gallup Poll shows Pres. Trump and Pres. Obama tying for most admired man in the U.S. at 18%. On Dec. 31 hundreds of protesters attack the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Iraq to protest U.S. bombing of Hezbollah munitions and weapons depots in Iraq and Syria in response to a rocket attack that killed a U.S. contractor and injured four other Am. service members. In Dec. U.S. unemployment is 3.5% (same as Nov.), adding 145K jobs, with a record 158,803,000 employed, 1.85M more than a year ago. The Union of South Am. Nations (UNASUR (founded May 23, 2008) eliminates tariffs on sensitive products, establishing a single South Am. common market. British troops stationed in Germany since WWII finally leave. The Larsen B Ice Shelf finally collapses. The Fourth Reich, based on Eugenics and long secretly run from America makes its move using the uber-popular Schwarzenegger family - TLW, Schwarzen Auger: Dark Eyes of Evil. Los Angeles is overcrowded and rains all the time - 1982 Ridley Scott film Blade Runner. Architecture: On Sept. 25 $63B Beijing Daxing Internat. Airport (AKA Starfish) 29 mi. S of Tiananmen Square on the border of Beijing and Langfang, Hebei Province opens, becoming Beijing's 2nd largest airport, with its 11M sq. ft. terminal becoming the largest single-structure terminal on earth, sitting on 18 sq. mi. of land, making it the world's largest airport (until ?). The $1.23B 1,008m Jeddah Tower in Saudia Arabia (begun Apr. 1, 2013) is completed, becoming the tallest bldg. on Earth (until ?), and the first to reach 1km. Sports: On Jan. 6 the 9-7 Philadelphia Eagles defeat the hot 12-4 Chicago Bears 16-15 after Bears kicker Cody Parkey (#1) misses a 43-yard field goal in the final seconds. On Jan. 20 (Sun.) the 2018-2019 NFC Championship sees the Los Angeles Rams defeat the New Orleans Saints 26-23 in OT after an officiating mistake with 45 sec. left in a 20-20 game sees Rams defensive back Nickell Robey-Coleman head-butt Saints receiver Tommylee Lewis at the 7-yard line and not get called, raising outcries from coaches and fans in vain; if they made the call, the Saints could have run the clock down and sent Will Lutz to kick a field goal and won 23-20; the league office didn't want a small-town team to be in the Super Bowl in place of a big-town team? On Feb. 20 star Duke U. basketball player Zion Williamson experiences a blowout of his Paul George 2.5 model Nike shoe less than 1 min. into a game against archrival U. of N.C.; he returns on Mar. 15 in a modified Kyrie Irving 4 model. On Apr. 11-14 the 2019 Masters Tournament sees Tiger Woods win for the 5th time, putting him one back of Jack Nicklaus and one ahead of Arnold Palmer, becoming his first majors win in 11 years and first Masters win in 14 years; he hugs his children after the win, reminding fans of when he hugged his father in 1997. On Apr. 19 the New York Yankees announce that they're ending their tradition of playing Kate Smith's rendition of "God Bless America" during the 7th-inning stretch because of her alleged racism; their own is conveniently ignored? On May 4 the 145th (2019) Kentucky Derby is won by 4-1 favorite Maximum Security, who is disqualified for interfering with War of Will on the final turn in favor of 65-1 longshot Country House, who becomes the 2nd biggest longshot winner since 1913; Maximum Security's owners file suit challenging the decision. On May 18 the 144th (2019) Preakness Stakes is won by 6-1 War of Will, who finished 7th in the Kentucky Derby; Bodexpress throws jockey John R. Velazquez at the starting gate and finishes 13th; Country House was withdrawn on May 7 after his trainer detected a virus; Maximum Security declines to run. On May 26 the 2019 (103rd) Indianapolis 500 is won by Simon Pagenaud (1984-) of France after a duel with 2016 winner Alexander Rossi, becoming the first French driver to win since Gaston Chevrolet in 1920, and first polesitter to win since Helio Castroneves in 2009. On May 26-June 9 the 2019 (123rd) French Open of Tennis at Stade Roland Garros in Paris, France features a 5-hour match on June 2 (Sun.) between Swiss player Stanislas "Stan" Wawrinka (1985-) and way younger Greek player Stefanos Tsitsipas (1998-), which is won by Wawrinka after Tsitsipas lets his famous 1-handed backhand ("best in the game" - John McEnroe) fly past him, and the referee rules that it hit the line. On May 30-June 13 the 2019 NBA Finals (first with games played outside the U.S.) sees the world turned upside down as the 58-24 Toronto Raptors (coach Nick Nurse) defeat the 57-25 Golden State Warriors (coach Steve Kerr) 4-2, meaning that basketball is no longer America's sole possession?; MVP is Kawhi Leonard of the Raptors. On June 7-July 7 the 2019 (8th) FIFA Women's World Cup of Soccer is won 2-0 by the U.S. over Netherlands, with U.S. stars Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan each scoring a goal; anti-Trumper lesbian Rapinoe refuses to sing the U.S. nat. anthem before the final game in protest. In Nov. the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal begins when Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drelich pub. a story in The Athletic, about how the Astros used a video camera in center field to steal opposing teams' signs during the 2017 season, during which they won the World Series, causing the MLB to open an investigation in Jan. 2020, finding the Astros $5M and taking away their 1st and 2nd round draft picks for 2020 and 2021, also suspending gen. mgr. Jeff Luhnow and field mgr. A.J. Hinch for the 2020 season, causing the Astros to fire the; Boston Red Sox mgr. Alex Cora is fired for masterminding the scheme while serving as Hinch's bench coath in 2017; Carlos Beltran is fired from the New York Mets for being named in the report; the most severe sanctions issued by the MLB against a member club until ?. Inventions: On Jan. 1 the unmanned NASA New Horizons space probe (launched Jan. 19, 2006) makes a close approach to the Kuiper belt object 2014 MU69 AKA Ultima Thule 4B mi. from Earth and 1B mi. beyond Pluto. On Jan. 3 (10:26 a.m. BJT) the Chinese Chang'e-4 spacecraft lands in Van Karman Crater on the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the dark (far) side of the Moon, becoming a first. Science On Jan. 3 researchers at the U. of Ill. and USDA pub. an article in Science reporting on a breakthrough that bypasses the wasteful photorespiration process to increase crop growth by 40%, predicting that it will be used in agriculture in 10+ years. On Jan. 8 the Am. Psychological Assoc. (APA) issues guidelines on men and boys, linking the "masculinity ideology" to homophobia and misogyny, with the soundbytes: masculinity ideology is defined as "a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence"; "Traditional masculinity ideology has been shown to limit males' psychological development, constrain their behavior, result in gender role strain and gender role conflict and negatively influence mental health and physical health." On Jan. 10 after first detecting them in 2016, scientists detect powerful new energy bursts from deep space, giving believers in ET life a boost until the source is traced to two colliding stars. On Jan. 24 David Kring of the Lunar and Planetary Inst., Munir Humayun of Fla. State U. et al. pub. a study in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, announcing the discovery of a 2-cm chip embedded in Moon rocks returned by Apollo astronauts that is actually a 4B-y.-o. fragment of Earth - more proof that the Apollo Moon landings were fake? On Jan. 28 MIT scientists pub. an article in BMC Evolutionary Biology announcing a reliable new way to determine when certain groups of bacteria appear in the evolutionary record. On Feb. 4 Jeroen Raes et al. of the Flanders Inst. of Biotechnology pub. an article in Nature Microbiology announcing that many gut bacteria incl. Coprococcus and Dialister can produce compounds that act on the nervous system, producing depression et al. On Feb. 21 Shuichi Hoshika et al. pub. an article in Science mag. announcing the creation of a DNA-like molecule with eight nucleotide letters suitable for storage and transmission of info. On Mar. 4 Kevin Pichler et al. pub. the paper Random anti-lasing through coherent perfect absorption in a disordered medium, announcing the start of work on building an anti-laser that can perfectly absorb light of a given wavelength. On Mar. 29 Anne McClain and Christina Koch become the first to make an all-woman spacewalk, leaving the ISS to upgrade its batteries for seven hours. On Apr. 10 scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope release the first-ever image of a black hole, in galaxy M87 55M l.-y. from Earth. On May 20 (World Metrology Day) the Gen. Conference on Weights and Measures (GCWM) unanimously adopts a new quantum definition of the kilogram; replacing the old one that stood for 130 years. On July 2 Arnold Kriegstein of UCSF and Suzana Herculano-Houzel of the Federal U. of Rio de Janeiro pub. an article in Science finally explaining the human brain gyrification, finding that a thick cortex is much harder to convolute - that's why dumb people are thick-headed? On July 9 the Cleveland Clinic of Ohio announces the first successful delivery of a baby from the transplated womb of a dead donor. On July 19 Thomas Russell et al. of the U. of Mass. pub. an article in Science mag. announcing the creation of the first permanent liquid magnets. On Oct. 23 Google unveils its Sycamore quantum computer, which solved a highly contrived problem in 200 seconds that a supercomputer would >Nonf need 10K years to solve, achieving "quantum supremacy". In Dec. the Coronavirus Pandemic begins in Wuhan, China; by Feb. 10 there are 42,850 confirmed cases and 1,015 confirmed deaths; it was created in a laboratory 280 years from the Wuhan market? The European Spallation Source (ESS) in Lund, Sweden begins operation, becoming the world's most powerful pulsed neutron source (until ?). The human brain will be successfully simulated by a supercomputer, according to IBM. The $1.6B Extreme Light Infrastructure Ultra-High Field Facility (ELI) in Europe is finished, delivering 200 petawatts at a target for a trillionth of a sec. in hopes of ripping spacetime apart to prove the existence of virtual particles in the quantum vacuum, unravel extra dimensions, and find the root of dark matter. Art: Jani Leinon, McJesus (sculpture); causes hundreds of Christians to violently protest in front of the Haifa Museum of Art in Israel on Jan. 11. John McNaughton, Crossing the Swamp; a ripoff of "Washington Crossing the Delaware" starring Pres. Trump and members of his admin. Lorenzo Quinn, Building Bridges (monumental sculpture of six pairs of hands joining over the Arsenale in Venice); made for the 58th Venice Biennale. Movies: Sydney Pollack's Amazing Grace (Apr. 5) (Warner Bros.) features Aretha Franklin recording her 1972 live eponymous album; filmed in 1972 and relegated to a vault; does $5.79M box office; a favorite of Pres. Obama. Ric Roman Waugh's Angel Has Fallen (Aug. 23) (Millennium Media) (Lionsgate), #3 in the Fallen series stars Gerard Butler as U.S. Secret Service agent Mike Banning, who is framed on an attempted assassination of Pres. Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman), and breaks loose to find the real culprits, discovering a Deep State conspiracy led by Salient Global dir. Danny Huston, his former Army Ranger teammate; Piper Perabo plays Banning's wife Leah; Jada Pinkett Smith plays FBI agent Helen Thompson; does $104.3M box office on a $40M budget. Anthony Russo's and Joe Russo's Avengers: Endgame (Marvel Studios) (Walt Disney Studios) stars Josh Brolin as evil superbeing Thanos from Titan, who uses the six Infinity Stones to kill half of all life in the Universe as a good environmental move, causing the Avengers to have to go back in time to set things right, incl. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Don Cheadle as James "Rhodey" Rhodes/War Machine, Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/Ant-Man, and Brie Larson as Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel); Bradley Cooper plays raccoon bounty hunger Rocket; Gwyneth Paltrow plays Stark's wife Virginia "Pepper" Potts; Tilda Swinton plays the ancient One; does $643.7M box office on a $400M budget. Anna Boden's and Ryan Fleck's Captain Marvel (Mar. 8) (Marvel Studios) (Walt Disney Studios) stars Brie Larson as former USAF fighter pilot Carol Danvers, who fights to save the galaxy; does ? box office on a $152M budget. Tom Hooper's Cats (Dec. 20) (Monumental Pictures) (Universal Pictures) is based on the musical, starring Jennifer Hudson as Grizabella, Taylor Swift as Bombalurina, Idris Elb as Macavitya, James Corden as Bustopher Jones, Rebel Wilson as Jennyanydots, Ian McKellen as Gus the Theatre Cat, and Judi Dench as Old Deuteronomy. Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die (May 14) (Focus Features) is a zombie comedy film about the town of Centreville, which is experiencing strange phenomena culminating with zombies; stars Bill Murray as police chief Cliff Robertson, Adam Driver as officer Ronald "Ronnie" Peterson, Chloe Sevigny as officer Minerva "Mindy" Morrison, Tilda Swinton as Zelda Winston, Steve Buscemi as Farmer Miller, and Danny Glover as Hank Thompson. Michael Engler's Downton Abbey (Sept. 13) (Perfect World Pictures) (Carnival Films) (Focus Features), based on the BBC-TV series set in 1927 sees a lily white cast enthrall a mainly lily white audience with visions of the glory days; stars Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern as the Earl and Countess of Grantham, Simon Jones as George V, and Gerldine James as Queen Mary; does ? box office on a $13M budget. Vince Gilligan's El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (Oct. 11) (Sony Pictures), an epilogue to the TV series stars Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman, who turns into a Rambo. Adam Robitel's Escape Room (original title: "The Maze") (Jan. 4) (Columbia Pictures) (Original Film) (Sony Pictures) is a psychological horror film starring Taylor Russell as Zoey Davis, Logan Miller as Ben Miller, Jay Ellis as Jayson Walker, Deborah Ann Woll as Amanda Harper, Tyler Labine as Mike Nolan, and Nik Dodani as Danny Khan, who volunteer to be locked into the Minos Escape Room Facility for the chance to win $10K, and end up in a life or death struggle; Yorick van Wageningen plays the Gamemaster; "Saw plus Cube?"; "Everyone is dying to play"; does $24.2M box office on a $9M budget. Waad Al-Kateab's For Sama (Mar. 11) (PBS Frontline) (Channel 4 News) (ITN Productions) documents the journey of the director and her hubby Hamza Al-Kateab, one of the last doctors left in Aleppo as they try to raise their young daughter Sama; does $662K box office; becomes the most-nominated feature documentary of BAFTA (4 categories). M. Night Shyamalan's Glass (Jan. 18) (Buena Vista Internat.) (Blinding Edge Pictures) (Blumhouse Productions) (Universal Pictures) (Walt Disney Studios), a sequel to "Unbreakable" (2000) and "Split" (2016) (#3 in the Unbreakable/Eastrail 177 Trilogy) stars Bruce Willis as David Dunn AKA The Overseer, Samuel L. Jackson as Elija Price AKA Mr. Glass AKA The Mastermind, and ripped James McAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb AKA The Horde (Collective); does ? box office on a $20M budget. Neil Jordan's Greta (Sept. 6) (Sidney Kimmel Entertainment) (Focus Features) stars Isabelle Huppert as Hungarian piano teacher Greta Hideg, whose handbag is found on the subway by Am. waitress Frances McCullen (Chloe Grace Moretz), who ends up in a box; does $1.6M box office on a ? budget. Martin Scorsese's The Irishman (Sept. 27) (TriBeCa Productions) (Netflix) is a gangster flick starring Robert De Niro as aging Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) assassin Frank Sheeran, who is released from prison and placed in a nursing home, reminiscing about his youth; a flop, it does $8M box office on a $159M budget; a favorite of Pres. Obama. Chad Strahelski's John Wick 3: Parabellum (May 17) (Summit Entertainment) (Thunder Road Pictures) (Lionsgate). Todd Phillips' Joker (Aug. 31) (DC Films) (Village Roadshow Pictures) (Bron Creative) (Warner Bros.) stars Joaquin Phoenix as failed stand-up comedian Arthur Fleck AKA Joker, becoming Joker film actor #7; Robert De Niro plays talk show host Murray Franklin; does ? box office on a $65M budget. Greta Gerwig's Little Women (Dec. 7) (Sony Pictures Releasing) is the 7th film adaptation of the 1868 Louisa May Alcott novel, showing the women chafing at the feminist bit, starring Saoirse Ronan as Jo, Emma Watson as Meg, Florence Pugh as Amy, Eliza Scanlen as Beth, and Laura Dern as Marmee; does $191.3M box office (incl. $105.8M in the U.S. and Canada) on a $40M budget. Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story (Aug. 29) (Heyday Films) (Netflix) stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson as married stage director Charlie Barber and actress Nicole Barber going through a coast-to-coast divorce; Laura Dern plays Nicole's atty. Nora Fanshaw; does $2.3M box office on an $18M budget; a favorite of Pres. Obama. F. Gary Gray's Men in Black International (June 11) (Columbia Pitures) (Amblin Entertainment) (Sony Pictures) stars Chris Hemsworth as Agent H, Tessa Thompson as Agent M, and Liam Neeson as MIB U.K. branch head High T; does $253.3M box office on a $110M budget. Roland Emmerich's Midway (Nov. 8) (Centropolis Entertainment) (Entertainment One) (Lionsgate) about the 1942 Battle of Midway, filmed in Hawaii stars Aaron Eckhart as Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, Woody Harrelson as Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, dennis Quaid as vice Adm. William "Bull" Halsey, and David Hewlatt as Adm. Husband E. Kimmel; does $123M box office on a $100M budget. Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (May 21) (Columbia Pictures) (Sony Pictures Releasing), about the days before the Tate-LaBianca murders stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Hollyweird actor Rick Dalton, Brad Pitt as his stunt double Cliff Booth, Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate, Dakota Fanning as Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, Rafal Zawierucha as Roman Polanski, Austin Butler as Charles "Tex" Watson, and Damon Herriman as Charles Manson; does $373.2M box office on a $96M budget. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite (May 21) (CJ Entertainment) (Neon) is about a poor family who infiltrate a wealthy family and you know what off of them, becoming gory; does $205.4M box office on a $11.4M budget, sweeping the Oscars; a favorite of Pres. Obama. Nicholas McCarthy's The Prodigy (Feb. 8) (Orion Pictures) (Vinson Films) stars Jackson Robert Scott as Miles, who is possessed. Dexter Fletcher's Rocketman (May 16) (New Repub. Pictures) (Marv Films) (Rocket Pictures) (Paramount Pictures) stars Taron Egerton as British gay pop star Elton John AKA Reginald Kenneth "Reggie" Dwight (b. 1947), Jamie Bell as his straight songwriter friend Bernie Taupin; does $25M box office on a $40M budget. Steven Knight's Serenity (Jan. 25) (Global Road Entertainment) (Aviron Pictures) is a sexy neo-noir thriller starring Matthew Mcconaughey as Baker Dill, Anne Hathaway as his ex-wife Karen, Diane Lane as Baker's new babe ?, and Jason Clarke as Karen's husband ?. J.J. Abrams' Star Wars: Episode IX (Dec. 20) (Lucasfilm Lrd.) (Bad Robot Productions) (Walt Disney Studios) is the 3rd and final installment of the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy and the 9th and final installment of the Star Wars film franchise. Ben Falcone's Super Intelligence (New Line Cinema) (Warner Bros.) (Dec. 25) stars Melissa McCarthy as Carol Peters, who fights an AI with attitude. Ahnuld finally kills the Terminator franchise with a self-fulfilling title? Tim Miller's Terminator: Dark Fate (Oct. 23) (Paramount Pictures) (20th Cent. Fox) (Skydance Media) stars Linda Hamilton aging Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who watches her son John killed by a T-800 in Livingston, Guatemala in 1998, then in 2020 has to fight an advanced female Rev-9 Terminator with the help of cybernetically-enhanced human soldier Grace (Mackenzie Davis) and aging humanized T-800 Carl (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to save future Resistance Cmdr. Daniella "Dani" Ramos (Natalia Reyes); too bad, it's totally woke after James Cameron surrendered to Hollyweird feminists?; "Welcome to the day after judgment day"; too bad, it's a box office flop ($202.9M box office on a $196M budget plus $54M promotion), with a dismal $29M opening, causing Christian Toto of Hollywood in Toto to declare old fart Ahnuld box-office poison. Jordan Peele's Us (Mar. 8) (Monkeypaw Productions) (Blumhouse Productions) is a psychological horror film starring Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke as married black couple Adelaide and Gabriel "Gabe" Wilson, who have to deal with strangers in their beachhouse called the Tethered who are their doppelgangers; does ? box office on a $20M budget. Ruben Fleischer's Zombieland: Double Tap (Oct. 18) (Columbia Pictures) (Pariah) (Sony Pictures) stars Woody Harrelson as Tallahassee, Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus, Emma Stone as Wichita, and Abigail Breslin as Little Rock, fighting evolved zombies; does ? box office on a ? budget. Adam Shankman's What Men Want (Feb. 8) (Will Pakcer Productions) (BET Films) (Paramount Pictures), a remake of the 2000 film "What Women Want" stars Taraji P. Henderson as sports agent Ali Davis, who gains the ability to hear men's thoughts. Novels: Sarah Blake, Naamah; reimagining of the Noah's Ark story. Robert Harris, The Second Sleep (Aug. 20); it's said to be the year 1468, but it's really the future, after an apocalypse has shrunk Western societies to the horse-and-buggy age. "All civilizations consider themselves invulnerable; history warns us that none is." Neal Stephenson (1959-), Fall; or Dodge in Hell; the Internet is nicknamed the "Miasma", and the haves pay human editors to curate the Web and clean their online info. Plays: Poetry: Giorgio de Chirico, Geometry of Shadows; tr. Stefania Heim. Nonfiction: Debbie Almontaser, Leading While Muslim: The Experiences of American Muslim Principals After 9/11. E. Jean Carroll (1943-), What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal (July 1). Joe Dixon, The Mandarin Effect: The Crisis of Meaning (July 17); by a member of the Pythagorean Illuminati, which claims that everything in the Universe is made of ontological mathematics? Rex J. Fleming, The Rise and Fall of the Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climate Change (June 25); a complete review of the role of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere by an atmospheric scientist, concluding that it has no role in climate change, which is really caused by the Sun and cosmic rays. Mary Grabar, Debunking Howard Zinn: Exposing the Fake History That Turned a Generation Against America (Aug. 20). Nikki Haley (1972-), With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace (Nov. 12); claims that secy. of state Rex Tillerson and White House chief of staff Gen. John Kelly took her aside and tried to get her to undermine Pres. Trump, calling it unconstitutional. Sophie Hannah, How to Hold a Grudge: From Resentment to Contentment?The Power of Grudges to Transform Your Life (Jan. 1). Jerome Hudson, 50 Things They Don’t Want You to Know (Sept. 17). Dahr Jamail (1968-), The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption (Jan. 15); Am. journalist details his mountaineering travels that encountered melting glaciers, generalizing it into general grief about the inevitable doom of climate change. Ibraham X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist (Aug. 20). Michael T. Klare, All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change (Nov. 12). Christopher Leonard, Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America. Mark Levin (1957-), Unfreedom of the Press (May 21). James N. Mattis (1950-) and Bing West, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead (Sept. 3); spares Trump while lashing Bush and Obama. Andrew McCabe (1968-), The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump (Feb. 19); why he is the good guy for protecting the Am. people from evil dictator Trump and terror, not necessarily in that order. Gretchen McCulloch, Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language (July 23). Tatiana McGrath, Woke: A Guide to Social Justice (Mar. 7); the new "Howl"? Bill McKibben, FALTER: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? (Apr. 16). Antonio J. Mendez, The Moscow Rules: The Secret CIA Tactics That Helped America Win the Cold War (May 21); by the spymaster who inspired the film "Argo". Patrick J. Michaels (1950-0 and Terence Kealey (eds.), Scientocracy: The Tangled Web Of Public Science And Public Policy. Richard Panek, The Trouble with Gravity: Solving the Mystery Beneath Our Feet (July 9). Star Parker and Richard Manning, Necessary Noise: How Donald Trump Inflames the Culture War and Why This Is Good for the Future of America (May 7). Michael Rectenwald, Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom (June 15); the threat of a new corporate state power. Susan Rice (1964-), Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For (autobio.) (Oct. 8); a favorite of Pres. Obama. Cardinal Robert Sarah, Evening Draws Near and the Day is Nearly Over; claims that the "West will disappear" due to mass Muslim immigration, that "Islam will invade the world" and "completely change culture, anthropology, and moral vision". Lee Smith, The Plot Against the President: The True Story of How Congressman Devin Nunes Uncovered the Biggest Political Scandal in U.S. History (Oct. 29); "Investigative journalist Lee Smith uses his unprecedented access to Congressman Devin Nunes, former head of the House Intelligence Committee, to expose the deep state operation against the president - and the American people." Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (May 21). Donald Trump Jr. (1977-), Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us (Nov. 5); NYT bestseller. Richard K. Vedder, Restoring the Promise: Higher Education in America (May 1); promises to get it out of its hopeless mess. Shoshana Zuboff, THe Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Births: English royal heir #10 Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor on May 6 (5:26 BST); son of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle; first biracial baby in British monarchy history; dual citizen of the U.S. and U.K. Deaths: Jan. 2 is a bad day to be 76? Am. "Captain & Tenille" singer Daryl Dragon (b. 1942) on Jan. 2 in Prescott, Ariz. Am. prof. wrestling announcer Mean Gene Okerlund (b. 1942) on Jan. 2. Am. "Super Dave Osborne" actor Bob Einstein (b. 1942) on Jan. 2 in Indian Wells, Calif. (leukemia). U.S. secy. of defense #14 (1977-81) Harold Brown (b. 1927) on Jan. 4 in Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. (pancreatic cancer). Am. women's rights activist Bernice Sandler (b. 1928) on Jan. 5 in Washington, D.C. Am. architect Florence Knoll (b. 1917) on Jan. 25 in Coral Gables, Fla.: "I am not a decorator. The only place I decorate is my own house." U.S. Rep. (D-Mich.) (1955-2015) John Dingell (b. 1926) on Feb. 7 in Dearborn, Mich. (prostate cancer); longest-serving Congressperson in U.S. history (until ?). Am. baseball player-mgr. Frank Robinson (b. 1935) on Feb. 7 in Los Angeles, Calif. (bone cancer). Am. actress Verna Bloom (b. 1938) on Jan. 9 in Bar Harbor, Maine. Am. "Stringfellow Hawke in Airwolf" actor Jan-Michael Vincent (b. 1944) on Feb. 10 in Asheville, N.C. (cardiac arrest). Puerto Rican prof. wrestler Pedro Morales (b. 1942) on Feb. 12 in Perth Amboy, N.J. (Parkinson's). Am. pollster Patrick Cadell (b. 1950) on Feb. 16 in Charleston, S.C. (stroke). Am. "The Monkees" musician Peter Tork (b. 1942) on Feb. 21 in Mansfield, Conn. (cancer). Am. prof. wrestler King Kong Bundy (b. 1957) on Mar. 4 in Glassboro, N.J. Am. "Dylan McKay in Beverly Hills, 90210" actor Luke Perry (b. 1966) on Mar. 4 in Burbank, Calif. (stroke). South African biologist Sydney Brenner (b. 1927) on Apr. 5 in Singapore; 2002 Nobel Med Prize. Am. quiz show scandal celeb Charles Van Doren (b. 1926) on Apr. 9 in Canaan, Conn.; dies the same day that "King" "Jeopardy" James Holzhauer (Germ. "holz" + "hauer" = forest + hewer or lumberjack) (1984-) wins a record $110,994 in a single on Jeopardy!; he goes on to win 32 games and $2,462,216 before losing just $58K shy of Ken Jennings' 2004 record. Northern Ireland journalist Lyra Catherine McKee (b. 1990) on Apr 19 in Creggan, Derry (assassinated by masked repub. gunman); the Sinn Fein, UUP et al. condemn it as "an attack on all the people of this community, an attack on the peace and democratic processes", calling it a "pointless and futile act to destroy the progress made over the last 20 years, which has the overwhelming support of people everywhere." U.S. Sen. (R-Ind.) (1977-2013) Richard Lugar (b. 1932) on Apr. 28 in Falls Church, Va. Am. "Boyz n the Hood" film dir. John Singleton (b. 1968) on Apr. 20 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. "Ensign Parker in McHale's Navy" comedian Tim Conway (b. 1933) on May 14 in Los Angeles, Calif. (hydrocephalus). Chinese-born Am. architect I.M. Pei (b. 1917) on May 16 in New York City. Am. Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen (b. 1944) on June 13 in Denver, Colo. (Alzheimer's). Am. socialite Gloria Vanderbilt (b. 1924) on June 17; leaves her $200 fortune to son Anderson Cooper. Egyptian pres. #5 (2012-13) Mohamed Morsi (b. 1951) on June 17 in Cairo (heart attack) (collapses and dies in court). Dutch "Roy Batty in Blade Runner" actor Rutger Hauer (b. 1944) on June 19 in Beetsterzwaag. Am. baseball pitcher Tyler Skaggs (b. 1991) on July 1 in Southlake, Tex. Am. Chysler Corp. CEO Lee Iacocca (b. 1924) on July 2 in Los Angeles, Calif. Am. billionaire politician H. Ross Perot (b. 1930) on July 9 in Dallas, Tex. (leukemia). Am. "Chief Zed in Men in Black" actor Rip Torn (b. 1931) on July 9 in Lakeville, Conn. Am. "Ball Four" baseball player-writr Jim Bouton (b. 1939) on July 10 (cerebral amyloid angiopathy). Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev (b. 1932) on Aug. 3 in Moscow. Am. "Beloved" novelist Toni Morrison (b. 1931) on Aug. 5 in New York City (pneumonia). Am. "The Rainbow Cadenza" novelist J. Neil Schulman (b. 1953) on Aug. 10 in Colo. Springs, Colo. Am. "Easy Rider" actor Peter Fonda (b. 1940) on Aug. 16 in Los Angeles, Calif. (lung cancer). Am. billionaire activist David Koch (b. 1940) on Aug. 23 in Southampton, N.Y. (prostate cancer). Zimbabwe dictator pres. #2 (1987-2017) Robert Mugabe (b. 1924) on Sept. 6 in Singapore. Am. capitalist kingpin T. Boone Pickens (b. 1928) on Sept. 11 in Dallas, Tex. Am. "Two Tickets to Paradise" singer Eddie Money (b. 1949) on Sept. 13 in Los Angeles, Calif. (Esophageal cancer). Am. "The Cars" musician Ric Ocasek (b. 1944) on Sept. 15 in New York City. Am. journalist Cokie Roberts (b. 1943) on Sept. 17 (breast cancer). Am. porno star Jessica Jaymes (b. 1979) on Sept. 17 in North Hills, Calif. Am. "House Hunters" TV host Suzanne Whang (b. 1962) on Sept. 17 in Los Angeles, Calif. (breast cancer). English "Cream" rock drummer Ginger Baker (b. 1939) on Oct. 6 in Canterbury, Kent. Am. "John Cassellis in Medium Cool" actor Robert Forster (b. 1941) on Oct. 11 in Los Angeles, Calif. (brain cancer). Russian Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (b. 1934) on Oct. 11 in Moscow. U.S. Rep. (D-Md.) (1996-2019) Elijah Cummings (b. 1951) on Oct. 17 in Baltimore, Md. U.S. Rep. (D-Mich.) (1965-2017) John Conyers (b. 1929) on Oct. 27 in Detroit, Mich. Am. "The Young and the Restless", "General Hospital" actor William Wintersole (b. 1931) on Nov. 5 in Los Angeles, Calif. (cancer). Taiwanese-Canadian "Louis Vuitton" actor-model Godfrey Gao (b. 1984) on Nov. 27 in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China. English botanist David Bellamy (b. 1933) on Dec. 11. Am. "Sal Frangione in Do the Right Thing" actor Danny Aiello (b. 1933) on Dec. 12 in N.J. Am. "Peanuts" producer Lee Mendelson (b. 1933) on Dec. 25 in Hillsborough, Calif. (lung cancer). Am. shock jock Don Imus (b. 1940) on Dec. 27 in College Station, Tex.
2020 Chinese Year: Rat (Jan. 25). Doomsday Clock: 100 sec. to midnight; its takeover by environmentalist leftists has made its predictions into political moose hockey? World pop.: 7.75B. Africa's urban pop. reaches 43.5% (14% in 1960, 40% in 1997). The U.K. deploys hundreds of troops to Mali in a big push to oust the Islamic State. The U.S. federal debt tops $24T for the first time ever. On Jan. 2 Julian Castro drops out of the 2020 U.S. pres. race. On Jan. 3 (early a.m.) Iranian Rev. Guard Corps Quds Force cmdr. (since 1998) Gen. Qasem Soleimani (b. 1957) (#2 in Iran behind Ayatollah Khamenei) is assassinated at Baghdad Internat. Airport by a drone attack ordered by Pres. Trump, along with Popular Mobilization Forces deputy cmdr. Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, causing Iran to issue dire threats, while leftist Dems. diss Trump for bring war with Iran; on Jan. 5 Trump announces that his military has identified 52 Iranian sites that will be hit "very fast and very hard" should Iran attack a U.S. target, after which on on Jan. 4 (night) two rocket attacks strike near U.S. bases in Baghdad and Balad, with no casualties; on Jan. 5 Iran announces that it will begin enriching uranium again, while the Iraqi parliament passes a resolution calling for all foreign troops to leave Iraq. On Jan. 5 (early A.M.) al-Shabaab attacks a U.S. military based in Kenya. On Jan. 6 the 2020 Golden Globes; Ricky Gervais utters the soundbyte: "If you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political speech. You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg." On Jan. 8 an Iranian missile strike at al-Asad Air Base in Iraq causes eight casualties; at first the Trump admin. claims no casualties. On Jan. 8 (8:00 p.m.) Muslim Fulani herdsman in Kulben Village, Mangu County, Plateau State, Nigeria kill 13 Christians of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) denomination, and injure three; meanwhile four states in Kaduna state are kidnapped from a Roman Catholic seminary. On Jan. 8 Ukrainian Boeing 737 crashes after takeoff in Tehran, Iran, killing all 176 aboard incl. 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, and 11 Ukrainian; after Western leaders accuse Iran of shooting it down by mistake, and Iranian leaders finally confirm it on Jan. 11, protests erupt all over Iran, calling for Supreme Assaholla Ali Khamenei to step down, with chants of "Down with the dictator!", and "Our enemy is here, they lie that it's USA"; protesters refuse to trample on large U.S. and Israeli flags set out by the govt. to insult them; the Iran govt. also admits it unintentially attack the U.S. embassy in Baghdad last Dec. On Jan. 9 after closed-door briefings on Jan. 8 that fail to state an imminent need to assassinate Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Dem.-controlled House votes 224-194 (8 Dems. against, 3 Repubs. and 1 Independent for) forbidding the U.S. pres. from attacking Iran unless there's an imminent threat or Congress declares war; U.S. House minority leader Kevin McCarthy utters the soundbyte that the resolution "means nothing" and "is such a joke". On Jan. 9 the EU Withdrawal Agreement Bill AKA Brexit passes the British House of Commons by 330-231 1,295 days after the June 2016 referendum; the official withdrawal date is Jan. 31. On Jan. 13 Cory Booker drops out of the 2020 U.S. pres. race. On Jan. 15 the U.S. House finally delivers their articles of impeachment against Pres. Trump to the U.S. Senate, with a trial set for Jan. 21 (Tue.). On Jan. 15 Pres. Trump signs phase one of a historic reciprocal trade deal with Red China. On Jan. 15 Russian pres. Vladimir Putin delivers his state of the nation speech, outlining constitutional changes to devolve pres. power to the legislature and state council and beef up the constitutional court's power to provide checks on legislation; on Jan. 16 Russian PM Dmitri Medvedev dissolves the Russian govt. and resigns, after which Putin selects federal tax service chief Mikhail Mishustin to replace him, and he is sworn-in on Jan. 16; really a ploy to purge pro-Westerners from the Kremlin? On Jan. 16 the U.S. Senate passes the USMCA trade deal law by 89-10 before receiving the articles of impeachment of Pres. Trump from the U.S. House, becoming the biggest bipartisan achievement of the Trump admin. so far; U.S. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell tasks House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for laughing and handing out souvenir pens after signing the impeachment articles; Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer votes no because the USMCA doesn't address climate change; meanwhile Pres. Trump tweets a quote by Laura Ingraham of Fox News: "There is no crime here. I just think this whole thing should be rejected out of hand. I wouldn't waste a minute of taxpayer dollars or time on this. Entertaining this impeachment is a joke." On Jan. 21 after support by the pro-Syria Mar. 8 Alliance that gets him designated on Dec. 19, Beirut-born Sunni Muslim computer engineering prof. and education minister (2011-14) Hassan Diab (1959-) succeeds Saad Hariri as Lebanese PM (until ?). On Jan. 21-24 the 2020 World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland has the theme "How to save the planet", with chmn. Klaus Schwab asking every attendee to announce "a target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner"; on Jan. 22 (a.m.) Pres. Trump calls climate change alarmists "prophets of doom"; meanwhile teenie alarmist Greta Thunberg sits on two panels, "Forging a sustainable path towards a common future" and "Averting a climate apocalypse"; on Jan. 20 Al Gore gives a speech, containing the soundbyte; "The burden to act on the shoulders of the generation of the people alive today is a challenge to our moral imagination. This is Thermopylae. This is Agincourt. This is the Battle of the Bulge. This is Dunkirk. This is 9/11. We have to rise to this occasion." On Jan. 23 Boko Haram jihadists murder 10 of 11 loggers fetching firewood in Lura (near Dikwa), Borno State, Nigeria. On Jan. 24 a 6.8 earthquake in Elazig Province, Turkey that is felt all the way to Tel Aviv kills 18 and injures 550+. On Jan. 24 Pres. Trump becomes the first U.S. pres. to speak at the annusl March for Life in Washington, D.C., uttering the soundbyte: "Every person is worth protecting." On Jan. 26 (eve.) the dining hall in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, IRaq is hit by a rocket; no injuries. On Jan. 27 a USAF E-11A aircraft crashes in E AFghanistan; the Taliban claims they shot it down, which the U.S. denies; Iranian Rev. Guard-affiliated journalists hint at Iranian involvement. On Jan. 27 the U.S. Supreme (Roberts) Court rules 4-5 to allow the Trump admin. to enforce their new rule denying green cards to foreign nationals who use taxpayer-funded social services; Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan dissent. On Jan. 28 at a meeting attended by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Pres. Trump announces his Israeli-Palestinian Deal of the Century, with the soundbyte that the Muslim World must correct their historic error and finally recognize the Jewish state of Israel. On Jan. 29 anti-Trump opera singer Hannah Roemhild runs a checkpoint at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., getting her 15 min. of fame. In Jan. U.S. unemployment is 3.6% (vs. 3.5% in Dec.), adding 225K jobs, a positive employment gain for 112 mo., with 100K new jobs in 35 of the last 38 mo.; 183K reenter the labor force to vie for 6.8M open jobs. On Feb. 1 the U.K. leaves the EU. On Feb. 2 (Sun.) (2:00 p.m.) days after serving a jail sentence for distributing Muslim extremist material, 20-y.o. Muslim Sudesh Amman (1999-) goes on a stabbing jihad outside a supermarket on High Road in Streatham, South London, injuring three before being shot dead by police. The best week in Trump's presidency? On Feb. 4 (Tues.) U.S. Sen. majority leader (R-Ky.) Mitch McConnell delivers a speech to the Senate, saying that the Dems. have been trying to impeach Pres. Trump ever since he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, and that his original sin was the he won and the Dems. lost. On Feb. 4 (Tues.) (p.m.) Pres. Trump delivers his 2020 State of the Union Address; as Trump finishes, Nancy Pelosi rips up her copy of the speech, causing Trump to later tweet: "I assume she planned to throw the trash on the sidewalk, given the state of her district in California?" and "(Were) those the Articles of Impeachment Nancy was ripping up?"; On Feb. 5 (Wed.) the U.S. Senate votes 52-48 and 53-47 to acquit Pres. Trump of the two House impeachment charges; Repub. Sen. Mitt Romney votes to impeach Trump on the abuse of power charge, with the soundbyte: "Corrupting an election to keep oneself in office is perhaps the most abusive and destructive violation of one’s oath of office that I can imagine. I swore an oath before God to exercise impartial justice. I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am." On Feb. 6 Pres. Trump attends the 2010 Nat. Prayer Breakfast, and gives a speech, celebrating his impeachment acquittal and blasting Repub. traitor Mitt Romney, with the soundbyte: "I don't like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong"; also: "As you know, our great country, and your president, have been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people, and by so doing, very badly hurt our nation. Yesterday, courageous Republican politicians and leaders had the wisdom, fortitude and strength to do what everyone knows was right." On Feb. 6 gives a speech in the White House East Room crowing about his "total acquittal" and praising individual Senators, with the soundbytes: "Think what we could have done if the same energy was put into infrastructure, prescription drug prices"; "I will say it's genius on the other side and even more so, because they took nothing and brought me to a final vote on impeachment. That's an ugly word for me, that's a very dark word... But now we have that gorgeous word. I never thought a word would sound so good. It's called total acquittal"; referring to Romney, he utters the soundbyte: "Then you have some that used religion as a crutch. They never used it before. But it's a failed presidential candidate, so things can happen when you fail so badly running for president." On Feb. 6 Islamist militants of the Allied Dem. Forces (ADF) murder 60-y.-o. archdeacon Ngulongo Year Batsemire in Eringeti, DRC after he refused to convert to Islam. On Feb. 7 anti-Trump impeachment witnesses Gordon Sondland (U.S. ambassador to the EU) and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (top Ukraine policy officer on the Nat. Security Council) are fired; Vindman's twin brother Yevgeny is also fired - payback time? On Feb. 7 a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C. throws out a Congressional Dem. lawsuit alleging that Pres. Trump violating the Constition's emoluments clause, ruling that they lack standing to sue, which only Congress as a body can do. On Feb. 9 a disgruntled soldier Sgt. Maj. Makrapanth Thomma in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand kills 26 and injures 57 inside the Terminal 21 Korat Mall after killing to on a military base before police kill him after a 1-hour standoff during which he remarks "I'm tired and can't move my finger anymore". On Feb. 9 Pope Francis condemns human trafficking as a "true plague", calling for an internat. effort to eradicate it. On Feb. 10 Islamist militants raid the town of Auno, Borno State, Nigeria, killing 30+ sleeping in their vehicles, then abducting women and children. On Feb. 10 a Business Insider Poll reveals that only 33% of Am. adults agree with Pres. Trump's acquittal at his Senate impeachment trial; 44% disagree. On Feb. 11 the 2020 Iowa Dem. Primary is a V for Bernie Sanders, with Pete Buttigieg coming in a close 2nd, Amy Klobuchar 3rd, Elizabeth Warren a distant 4th, and Joe Biden a dismal 5th, causing him to flee N.H. to make a stand in S.C.; Andrew Yang, Deval Patrick, and Michael Bennet of Colo. drop out of the 2020 U.S. pres. campaign; Pres. Trump sweeps the Repub. primary with 85.5%. On Feb. 12 the U.S. stock market hits an all-time high. On Feb. 12 the U.S. Senate by 51-45 passes a war power measure limiting Pres. Trump's ability to order military action against Iran without Congressional approval; eight Repubs. vote for it, but not Mitt Romney. On Feb. 13 after the U.S. Justice Dept. flops on a stiff prison sentence for Trump buddy Roger Stone, U.S. atty. gen. William Barr gives an interview to ABC News, uttering the soundbyte that Pres. Trump's tweeting habit injecting himself into DOJ criminal cases has made it "impossible for me to do my job". On Feb. 14 the 2020 N.H. Dem. Primary. On Feb. 14 the Washington, D.C. U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously rules in ? v. ? that the Trump admin. can't block Medicaid benefits by imposing work requirements. On Feb. 18 the Boy Scouts of Am. files bankruptcy after it can't pay for all the successful sex abuse lawsuits. On Feb. 18 the Trump admin. announces sanctions on a Russian state-controlled oil. co. that does business with the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro. On Feb. 18 Am. far-left Dem. politicians Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) (D-N.Y.), Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Or.), and Rep. Darren Soto (D-Fla.) introduce legislation to ban fracking nationwide, pissing-off U.S. Sen. (R-Tex.) Ted Cruz, who blasts them in a video, saying that it would devastate the U.S. economy, with the soundbytes: "We are currently experiencing an American energy renaissance with the United States having now become the number one producer of oil and the number one producer of natural gas on the planet"; the climate movement "has become an emotional primal scream rather than being driven by science"; "The political leaders who are advocating for this are also advocating for massive government control of the economy and socialism. Climate is a good excuse to say, 'You've got to have socialism, or else humanity is going to die'; "Policies to ban fracking would cost 14 million jobs nationally and in the state of Texas would cost one and a half million jobs. It is hard to find something that would be more economically devastating." On Feb. 19 Pres. Trump announces that he's nominating married gay man Richard Grenell as acting dir. of nat. intel.; on Feb. 28 he nominates U.S. Rep. (R-Tex.) John Ratcliffe as full-time dir. of nat. intel, subject to Senate confirmation. On Feb. 19 Pres. Trump accuses former U.S. secy. of state John Kerry and U.S. Sen. (D-Conn.) Chris Murphy of violating the 200+-y.-o. U.S. Logan Act by meeting with Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif. On Feb. 19 after spending $400M+ and getting the Dem. Nat. Committee (DNC) to change its rules so he can attend, the 9th Dem. 2020 U.S. Pres. Debate in Paradise, Nev. shows zillionaire Michael Bloomberg getting beaten like a dog by Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden over his stop-and-frisk policy and treatment of women. On Feb. 21 the U.S. and the Taliban reach an agreement for a ceasefire that is touted as promising to end the 19-year Afghanistan War; it is signed on Feb. 29. On Feb. 24 former U.S. pres. Barack Obama tweets the soundbyte: "Eleven years ago today, near the bottom of the worst recession in generations, I signed the Recovery Act, paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history", causing Pres. Trump to tweet the soundbyte: "President Obama is now trying to take credit for the Economic Boom taking place under the Trump Administration. He had the WEAKEST recovery since the Great Depression, despite Zero Fed Rate & MASSIVE quantitative easing. NOW, best jobs numbers ever. Had to rebuild our military, which was totally depleted. Fed Rate UP, taxes and regulations WAY DOWN. If Dems won in 2016, the USA would be in big economic (Depression?) & military trouble right now. THE BEST IS YET TO COME. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!" On Feb. 24-25 Pres. Trump visits India, attracting an adoring crowd of 100K to the Sardar Patel Gujarat cricket stadium in Ahmedabad on Feb. 24, then visiting the Taj Mahal with Melania. On Feb. 26 the Trump campaign announces that it's suing the New York Times for having "knowingly published false and defamatory statements" about the Trump-Russia hoax along with "a systemic pattern of bias". On Feb. 26 disgruntled Molson Coors employee (African-Am. Elizabeth Warren supporter) Anthony Ferrill (b. 1968) attacks the Molson Coors complex in Milwaukee, Wisc., killing five before commiting suicide. On Feb. 27 after claiming "we have it totally under control" last mo., Pres. Trump announces the appointment of vice-pres. Mike Pence as coronavirus czar; meanwhile the Dow Jones Industrial Avg. plunges for the 2nd straight day, dropping a total of 12.4% incl. the largest 1-day drop in history, losing $5T inv value, and Clorox stock hits an all-time high; on Feb. 29 after anti-Trumpers pissed-off at border closures try to blame the coronavirus crisis on him, Trump calls it the "new hoax"; Carl Henn calls for a military-style campaign to er, combat it. On Feb. 29 the 2020 S.C. Dem. Primary is a big V for Joe Biden with 48.7% vs. 19.9% for Bernie Sanders, 11.4% for Tom Steyer, and 8% for Pete Buttigieg; Biden wins 9 of 15 states; after outspending the other candidates by $13M and getting diddly, billionaire single-issue climate alarmist Tom Steyer drops out of the 2020 U.S. pres. race; on Mar. 1 Buttigieg drops out of the 2020 U.S. pres. race; on Mar. 2 Amy Klobuchar drops out of the 2020 U.S. pres. race; moderates Buttigieg and Klobuchar throw their votes to Biden. In Feb. U.S. unemployment is 3.5% (vs. 3.6% in Jan.) adding 273K jobs. On Mar. 3 Dem. U.S. House majority leader Chuck Schumer threatens SCOTUS justices Kavanaugh and Gorsuch if they vote to uphold a La. law requiring doctors to acquire hospital admitting privileges before performing abortions, with the soundbyte: "They're taking away fundamental rights. I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind! And you will pay the price! You won't know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions", causing U.S. Rep. (R-La.) Steve Scalise to tweet the soundbyte: "This dangerous rhetoric has dangerous consequences. Where' the media outrage?", and Chief Justice John G. Roberts to issue a public statement: "All members of the court will continue to do their job without fear", after which on Mar. 5 U.S. Sen. (R-Mo.) Josh Hawley calls for Schumer's censure despite lame attempts to back down. On Mar. 3 Super Tues. is a big V for Joe Biden, who wins 14 states and sweeps the South; Bernie Sanders wins big in the West incl. Colo., Utah, and Calif.; Elizabeth Warren bombs, coming in 3rd in her own state of Mass.; after spending $550M ton win 44 delegates ($13.6M apiece), Mike Bloomberg drops out of the 2020 U.S. pres. race; meanwhile Pres. Trump runs unopposed, receiving a record turnout even in blue (Dem.) states, with his vote totals in Minn. and Vt. beating every past incumbent's total in the last four decades. On Mar. 5 after drawing votes away from Bernie Sanders and being accused of selfishness, Elizabeth Warren drops out of the 2020 U.S. pres. race. On Mar. 5 after the Taliban reneges on its peace deal and attacks an Afghan army checkpoint in Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand Province, the U.S. launches a retaliatory airstrike. On Mar. 6 Pres. Trump announces that Mick Mulvaney will be replaced as White House chief of staff by U.S. Rep. (R-N.C.) Mark Meadows On Mar. 6 Pres. Trump signs an $8.3B bill to combat the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. that has already killed 12 and infected 200+. On Mar. 8 31 Extinction Rebellion (XR) woman form a topless chain on Waterloo Bridge in London, England to protest climate change. On Mar. 8 after a war between the U.S. and Russia, the price of oil falls by more than 30%, causing a chain reaction; on Mar. 9 U.S. stocks crash at the starting bell, causing trading to be suspended, becoming the worst trading day in 12 years; on Mar. 20 stocks rally as Pres. Trump announces a payroll tax holiday to fight the economic impact of the coronavirus. On Mar. 9 Pres. Trump disses U.N. secy.-gen. Antonio Guterres for complaining that the U.N. is on the verge of going broke, tweeting the soundbyte: "So make all Member Countries pay, not just the United States!" On Mar. 11 after the number of U.S. deaths exceeds 1K, the U.N. World Health Org. (WHO) declares coronavirus a pandemic; after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tests positive, the NBA suspends their season; the NCAA announces that its March Madness basketball tournament will be played sans fans; Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson come down with it in Australia; the U.S. Capitol suspends public tours; New York gov. Mario Cuomo announces a 1-mi. containment zone in New Rochelle along with a 2-week school shutdown; New York City cancels its St. Patrick's Day parade for the first time in 258 years; Google tells all 100K of its U.S. employees to work from home; Israel bans gatherings of 100+ people, while EL Al lays off 80% of its workforce; Iran frees 70K prisoners (except Americans) to stem the outbreak; in the eve. Pres. Trump speaks from the Oval Office, announcing economic aid along with a travel ban from Europe for 30 days, causing U.S. stocks to tumble 1,464.94 points, and trading to be suspended on Mar. 12; on Mar. 13 Trump declares a nat. emergency; by Mar. 14 every major U.S. sports league suspends games or spring training. On Mar. 11 an Iranian-backed milita group stages a rocket attack on a coalition base, killing two U.S. and one British service member, causing U.S. forces on Mar. 12 to conduct airstrikes against multiple Iranian-backed militia sites in Iraq. On Mar. 14 Pres. Trump declares Mar. 15 a "Nat. Day of Prayer for All Americans Affected by the Coronavirus Pandemic and for our National Response Efforts". On Mar. 15 the U.S. Federal Reserve announces that it's slashing interesting rates to near-zero and buying billions of dollars in bonds to protect the U.S. economy from the infects of the Corona Beer Plague. On Mar. 17 Pres. Trump announces that his admin. is "going big" by sending checks to working Americans. On Mar. 17 the 9th 2020 Dem. Primary is a big V for Bernie Sandres, who wins Fla.,Ariz., and Ill., putting him 330 delegates ahead of Bernie Sanders (1147 to 861). On Mar. 19 after coronavirus cases reach 1K, Calif. Dem. gov. Gavin Newsom orders all 40M Calif. citizens to stay at home, stirring concerns about a police state. On Mar. 20 the Trump admin. moves the income tax filing deadling from Apr. 15 to July 15. On Mar. 22 after the U.S. Senate spends the weekend negotiating a bipartisan coronaviris economic rescue bill, Dem. House Speaker flies in from Calif. with a leftist "wishlist" incl. climate change and subsidies to solar energy and gets the Dems. to vote no, causing Repub. Sen. majority leader Mitch McConnell to utter the soundbyte: "Democrats won't let us fund hospitals and save small businesses unless they get the dust off the Green New Deal"; on Mar. 23 Church Schumer tells the press that the Repubs. loaded the bill with handouts to big corps., and that's the reason; meanwhile a conference call emerges containing a soundbyte by House majority whip (D-S.C. James Clyburn: "This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision." On Mar. 23 the British govt. orders people to stay in their homes, and bans public gathering of more than two people. In Mar. U.S. unemployment rises to 4.4% after a 50-year low of 3.5% in Feb., with the coronavirus causing 701K jobs to be cut; 10M apply for unemployment benefits in the last 2 weeks of Mar. On Apr. 5 British Queen Elizabeth II gives a speech about the coronavirus, drawing comparisons to the Blitz, with the soundbyte: "We may have more to endure, but better days will return"; meanwhile British PM Boris Johnson is put in ICU for coronavirus, but later is discharged. On Apr. 5 (night) a jihadist suicide bomb attack in Mayo Sava, N Cameroon kills 10 and injures 14. On Apr. 7 Islamists attack Xitaxi, N Mozambique kill 52 young people in a cruel and diabolical manner after they refuse to join their group devoted to establishing an Islamist caliphate. On Apr. 8 Bernie Sanders drops out of the 2020 U.S. pres. race; on Apr. 13 he endorses Joe Biden; on Apr. 14 former Dem. U.S. pres. Barack Obama finally endorses Biden. On Apr. 13 Prs. Trump gives a news conference, uttering the halts funding for the World Health Org., accusing it of being in China's pocket and exacerbating the virus epidemic, failing "in its basic duty", pissing-off leftist, er, health experts, who call the move a crime against humanity. On Apr. 20 amid the coronavirus emergency, West Tex. oil prices drop to negative values for the first time ever. On Apr. 20 (midnight) 51-y.-o. denture maker Gabriel Wortman (1968-) disguised as a Mountie kills 16 incl. a Mountie in a shooting rampage in Portapique, Nova Scotia, Canada, becoming the worst in history. On Apr. 20 Pres. Trump temporarily suspends all immigration to fight coronavirus and protect jobs, with the soundbyte "put unemployed Americans first in line", pissing-off the Dems., with House Dem. caucus chmn. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) tweeting that Trump is the "xenophobe, in chief". On Apr. 21 the U.S. Senate passes a $484M coronavirus aid bill. On Apr. 22 Earth Day 2020 (50th anniv.) struggles to keep global warming relevant during the coronavirus shutdown.
Bunny, Time Horizon Bunny 
On July 24-Aug. 9 the 2020 (XXXII) Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan is delayed to next year due to the coronavirus emergency.
On Oct. 20 the 2020 World Expo in Dubai (ends Apr. 10, 2021).
Harriet Tubman replaces Andrew Jackson on the front of the U.S. $20 bill;
oops, the launch is postponed until ?
On Nov. 9 the 400th anniv. of the Mayflower sighting Cape Cod, anchoring on Nov. 11.
Liberia becomes the first nation to stop cutting down trees in return for $150M in development aid from Norway.
Sports:
On Feb. 2 (02/02/20 - Palindrome Sun.) the LIV (54th) (2020) Super Bowl sees the 12-4 Kansas City Chiefs (AFL) (coach Andy Reid)
defeat the 13-3 San Francisco 49ers (NFL) (coach Kyle Shanahan) by 31-20 (first Chiefs SB win since 1970); Andy Reid's 222th win and 1st SB win; the 49ers are up 20-10 with 7 min. left;
the halftime show stars Jennifer Lopez and Shakira featuring Bad Bunny and J Balvin.; estimated audience is 102M viewers.
On Feb. 22 after the regular goalies are injured, 42-y.-o. Zamboni driver and emergency backup goalie
David Ayres (1977-)
becomes the oldest goalie to win an NHL debut as the Carolina Hurricanes defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-3.
On Mar. 14-15 after their 2011 collective bargaining agreement runs out, the
NFL Players Assoc. settles a new
collective bargaining agrement with the NFL, effective through the 2030 season, creating a 17-game regular season, compensated for by shorting the preason to three games; the rules on
marijuana drug testing are relaxed, with the commissioner replaced by a neutral decision-maker; NFL rosters go from 53 to 55 players, with 14-player practice squads; playoffs will start
with seven teams per conference instead of six.
Inventions:
On Feb. 10 the European Space Agency (ESA) launches its Solar Orbit3r (SolO),
with a 7-year mission to investigate the Sun's uncharted polar regions and study how to predict solar weather.
On Feb. 26 the Northrop Grumman Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1)
successfully docks to the failing geosynchronous IntelSat 901 (IS-901) spacecraft to extend its life, becoming a first.
In July the NASA Mars 2020 mission is launched from Cape Canaveral, carrying the
Chinese Mars Rover,
carrying cameras and microphones to search for life, landing next Feb. and bringing back samples.
The European Space Agency Euclid
spacecraft is launched to study dark energy and dark matter by measuring the acceleration of the Universe via galaxy redshift.
The first hi-speed train in the U.S.
begins operation between Los Angeles and San Francisco in Calif.
The China-to-England High Speed Train
begins operation.
Nissan begins selling its first autonomous vehicles.
China
leads the world in no. of papers pub. in academic journals?
Artificial intelligence (AI) reaches human levels (Arthur C. Clarke).
Moore's Law reaches a limit?
Sensors
implanted in human brains will use brain waves to control computers (Intel Corp.).
The Giant Magellan Telescope is built, sporting the world's largest mirrors (until ?).
The Square Kilometre Array radio telescope in South Africa and Australia begins observations.
Science:
On Feb. 13 the Wall Street Journal pub. an op-ed
declaring that sex is binary, and that there is no 3rd sex or spectrum of sexes, with the soundbyte:
"In humans, reproductive anatomy is unambiguously male or female at birth more than 99.98% of the time. The evolutionary function of these two anatomies is to aid in reproduction via the fusion
of sperm and ova. No third type of sex cell exists in humans, and therefore there is no sex 'spectrum' or additional sexes beyond male and female. Sex is binary."
On Feb. 25 physicians Katherine M. Kruckenberg et al. pub. the study
Urinary Auto-brewery Syndrome: A Case Report in Annals of Internal Medicine,
reporting on a 61-y.-o. woman who brewed beer in her bladder with yeast.
On ? Adilson Motter, Takashi Nishikawa, and Ference Molnar of Northwestern U. pub. a paper in Nature Physics,
announcing that certain systems with interacting entities can synchronize only if they are different from one another.
Movies:
Cathy Yan's Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (Feb. 7 (Warner Bros.), based
on the DC Comics chars. stars Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, and Jurnee Smollett-Bell as Black Canary; does ? box office on a $97.1M budget.
Stephen Gaghan's Dolittle (Jan. 17) (Universal Pictures), based on the Hugh Lofting characters stars Robert Downey Jr.
as Dr. Dolittle, who can talk to the animals; Emma Thompson plays Dolittle's macaw Polynesia; too bad, it flops, doing $15.9M box office on a $175M budget.
Dennis Villeneuve's Dune (Dec. 18) (Warner Bros.) is a remake of the 1965 Frank Herbert novel.
Todd Robinson's The Last Full Measure (Jan. 24) (Roadside Attractions) stars Jeremy Irvine as
USAF pararescueman William H. Pitsenbarger, who died a hero after saving 60+ men and was denied his medal of honor for 34 years;
Cary Joji Fukunag's No Time to Die (Apr. 2) (MGM) (Eon Productions) (United Artists) (Universal Pictures) (James Bond #007 #?)
stars Daniel Craig in his 5th and final appearance as James Bond 007; stars Rami Malek as Bond villain Safin, Lea Seydoux as pshrink Dr. Madeleine Swann, Ben Whishaw as Q, Naomie Harris as
Eve Moneypenny, Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter, Christoph Waltz as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Ralph Fiennes as M, Ana de Marmas as CIA agent Paloma, and Lashana Lynch as 007 agent Nomi;
does ? box office on a $250M budget.
Joseph Kosinski's Top Gun: Maverick (June 26) (Paramount Pictures), the sequel to Top Gun (1986) stars Tom Cruise as
Capt. Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, who must train Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw, son of the late Nick "Goose" Bradshaw; does ? box office on a $140M budget.
William Eubank's Underwater (Jan. 10) (20th Cent. Fox).
Nonfiction:
Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Cargnac, The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis
(Feb. 25); by the architects of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
Births:
Deaths:
Am. NBA commissioner (1984-2014) David Stern (b. 1942) on Jan. 1 in New York City (brain hemorrhage).
Canadian Rush drummer Neil Peart (b. 1952) on Jan. 7 in Santa Monica, Calif. (glioblastoma).
Am. "The Graduate" screenwriter Buck Henry (b. 1930) on Jan. 8 in Los Angeles, Calif. (heart attack).
English conservative philosopher Sir Rogre Scruton (b. 1944) on Jan. 12 (cancer).
Am. "Alexandra Spauling in Guiding Light", "Kara in Star Trek episode Spock's Brain" ("Brain and brain, what is brain?") actress Marj Dusay (b. 1936) on Jan. 28
Am. "Spartacus" actor Kirk Dublas (b. 1916) on Feb. 5 in Beverly Hills, Calif.
English "The X Factor" TV presenter Caroline Flack (b. 1979) on Feb. 15 in East London (suicide).
Am. "Hidden Figures" NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson (b. 1918) on Feb. 24.
Egyptian pres. #4 (1981-2011) Hosni Mubarak (b. 1928) on Feb. 25 in Cairo.
English-born Am. theretical physicist Freeman Dyson (b. 1923) on Feb. 28 in Princeton, N.J. (fall).
Am. Gen. Electric Ceo (1981-2001) Jack Welch (b. 1935) on Mar. 1 (renal failure); dies with a net worth of $720M after receiving a record severage payment of $471M.
Swedish "Dir. Lamar Burgess in Minority Report" actor Max von Sydow (b. 1929) on Mar. 8 in Provence, France.
Am. physicist S. Fred Singer (b. 1924) on Apr. 6 in Md.
Am. country musician John Prine (b. 1946) on Apr. 7 in Nashville, Tenn. (COVID-19).
Am. "Sheriff Will Teasle in First Blood" Brian Dennehy (b. 1938) on Apr. 15 in New Haven, Conn. (cardiac arrest from sepsis).
Algerian singer Idir (b. 1949) on May 2 in Paris, France (pulmonary fibrosis).
Am. Miami Dolphins football coach Don Shula (b. 1930) on May 4 in Miami Lakes, Fla.
2021 Chinese Year: Ox. Thanks to global warming, the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Japan is ice-free for the first time in 11.7K years? The EU bans single use plastics incl. plastic straws, forks, and knives. Teenysoft founder Gill Bates is murdered, and his wife Mistress Mona gains control, launching the world into a roller-coaster ride while the family struggles for control - (TLW, The Incredible Billion Dollar Geek). Sports: On Sept. 18 the U. of Okla. and U. of Neb. football teams meet for the first time since Dec. 4, 2010.
2022 Chinese Year: Tiger. Global warming has hit overcrowded New York City (pop. 40M), and all natural resources have been destroyed, causing the govt. to secretly recycle human bodies as food - (the film Soylent Green). Israel will cease to exist, according to Lebanese cleric Maher Hamoud. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile begins surveying the sky, looking for dark matter and dark energy. Inventions: In June the European Space Agency (ESA) JUICE (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) spacecraft is launched to reach Jupiter in Oct. 2029 and carry out the most thorough exploration of Jupiter and its moons since NASA's Galileo mission in 1989-2003. Sports: The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
2023 Chinese Year: Rabbit. A Mars colony is established by the nonprofit Netherlands-based Mars One org. Unemployed Hollywood actors replaced by VR stage a desperate publicity stunt - (TLW, Dire Straits). The end of the world date according to Ian Gurney in The Cassandra Prophecy. The copyright on Sherlock Holmes finally expires. Inventions: The Fluorescent Explorer (FLEX) satellite is launched by the European Space Agency to measure photosynthetic activity by mapping vegetation fluorescence; it has a lifespan of five years. Robots outnumber human soldiers in the U.S. Army by 10 to 1.
2024 Chinese Year: Dragon. Science: China puts a man on the Moon by this year, along with the U.S. After the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL) (100m diam.) is scrapped as too expensive, the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) begins operation.
2025 Chinese Year: Snake. World pop.: China 1.43B, India 1.36B, U.S. 346M, Indonesia 272M, Pakistan 252M, Brazil 219M, Nigeria 204M, Bangladesh 181M, Russia 137M, Mexico 131M, Japan 121M, Ethiopia 118M, Philippines 108M, Zaire 106M, Vietnam 104M; even with immigration, the largest "sustained reduction in European population since the Black Death of the 14th century" afflicts the European Union (EU); China becomes predominantly urban (two-thirds rural in 2001). This is a Roman Catholic Holy Year: the Shroud of Turin is publicly displayed for the first time since 2000 (once every 25 years). Anheuser-Busch Inbev becomes 100% dependent on renewable energy sources. Science: NASA lands humans on an asteroid 5M mi. from Earth; the Van Allen radiation belt starts at 400 mi. The Russian Luna 25 (Luna-Glob) Lander lands on the Moon's S Pole, followed by Luna 26 in ? Luna 27 in ?, Luna 28 in ?, and Luna 29 in ?. The Russian Luna 27 mission sends a rover to the Moon to scout resources for a future colony; the European Space Agency (ESA) assists with the Pilot laser-guider for landing, a drill, and a pocket-sized lab for scooped-up material. Full-immersion virtual reality is now possible (Arthur C. Clarke). Sex with humanoid robots becomes common practice (Ian Pearson). The world economy has collapsed, and the super-rich run and control everything and everybody with a totalitarian police state - Stephen King's The Running Man (1982).
2026 Chinese Year: Horse. On Nov. 13 (Fri.), world. pop. becomes infinite, according to the Doomsday Equation of Vienna, Austria-born Heinz von Foerster (1911-2002). China passes the U.S. as the #1 world economy. Sports: The 2026 FIFA World Cup is hosted by 16 cities in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, with the U.S. hosting the final; the tournament is expanded from 32 to 48 teams.
2027 Chinese Year: Sheep. The Muslim Mahdi will appear during the month of Ramadan after there is a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse.
2028 Chinese Year: Monkey. Americans live under permanent martial law and never leave home, instead leaving everything to Internet Generation 5 - (TLW, The Day the Towers Fell).
2029 Chinese Year: Chicken. On Apr. 1 (Sun.) Easter falls on April Fool's Day (next 2040). On Apr. 13 (Fri.) the asteroid Apophis has a close encounter with Earth; next one 2036; Russia sends a space system to bump it away from an Earth collision? Human rebel leader John Connor sends the Terminator back in time to 1984 to save his mother so he can be born - James Cameron, The Terminator (1984). America crashes and drowns under billions of third world immigrants - (TLW, Falling from Point Mugu).
2030 Chinese Year: Dog. The 65 and older pop. of the U.S. increases to 72M (from 35M in 2005), making up 20% of U.S. pop. World Muslim pop. reaches 2.2B (26.4%), vs. 1.6B (23.4%) in 2010; between 2030-35 the new babies born to Christian mothers (224M) will be fewer than those born to Muslim mothers (225M). China matches the U.S. in CO2 output. A Maunder Minimum begins, causing a mini ice-age (until 2040)? The first Hypersonic Spaceplane by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CATSC) that can take off and land on a runway goes into operation.
2031 Chinese Year: Pig.
2032 Chinese Year: Rat. On June 8 the 1400th anniv. of Muhammad's death.
2132 The 2032 Summer Olympics in Gaza. Mars One launches its Mars lander.
2033 Chinese Year: Ox. America is nuked by the United States of Islam, and the West spirals downwards towards a new Dark Ages - (TLW, Five Smooth Stones). A near-collision with a comet has changed Earth's ecological balance, it hasn't rained in 11 years, and tyrants hog all the water while a ragtag group of rebels led by Rebecca Buck (Tank Girl) fight the Rippers and raid the WP. (Tank Girl).
2034 Chinese Year: Tiger. The Second Coming of Jesus Christ finally comes (John Denton).
2035 Chinese Year: Cwazy Wabbit. The Singularity causes progress to increase exponentially - except intelligent machines will do it while humans struggle to catch up as they are left behind (Vernor Vinge). Humanity sends a prisoner back in time to find out who started the world plague of 1996 (Terry Gilliam, Twelve Monkeys).
2036 Chinese Year: Dragon. Asteroid Apophis has another close encounter with the Earth.
2037 Chinese Year: Snake.
2038 Chinese Year: Horse.
2039 Chinese Year: Sheep.
2040 Chinese Year: Monkey. A whopping 49.5% of the U.S. pop. lives in just eight states: Calif., Tex., Fla., N.Y., Penn., Ga., Ill., and N.C.; 69% live in 16 states. On Apr. 1 Easter falls on April Fool's Day for the last time in the cent. Islam becomes the 2nd largest religion in the U.S., reaching 8.1M by 2050 (Pew Research Center). France ends the sale of gasoline and diesel cars. A universal replicator based on nanotechnology is constructed (Arthur C. Clarke).
2041 Chinese Year: Chick Chick Chicken.
2042 Chinese Year: Dog. Non-Hispanic whites dip to less than 50% of the pop. (46%), with Hispanics making up 30%, African-Ams. 15%, and Asian-Ams. 9% (U.S. Census Bureau).
2043 Chinese Year: Pig.
2044 Chinese Year: Rat.
2045 Chinese Year: Ox. Hispanics, the former underclass begin to dominate America; the decrepit Anglo baby boom generation is cryofrozen, blindly awaiting progress to give them a new lease on life - (TLW, Baby Boom Morticians). The Singularity will occur this year, according to Ray Kurzweil; "the nonbiological intelligence created in that year will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today" (2005); "When scientists become a million times more intelligent and operate a million times faster, an hour would result in a century of progress."
2046 Chinese Year: Tiger.
2047 Chinese Year: Rabbit.
2048 Chinese Year: Dragon. The Binary Millennium.
2049 Chinese Year: Snake. The 100th anniv. of the Chinese Communist Rev.; China now dominates Earth? Sound recordings recorded before 1972 finally begin falling into the public domain?
2050 Chinese Year: Horse. World pop.: 9.9B (U.N.), incl. 1.245B in developed countries and 7.95M in developing countries; Africa: 2.1B; Africa's urban pop. reaches 59%% (14% in 1960, 40% in 1997, 43.5% in 2020); elderly outnumber children in all continents except Africa; there are more people over age 60 than under 15 (U.N.); U.S. pop.: 420M (U.S. Census Bureau); world Muslim pop. increases to 2.8B, vs. world Christian pop. of 2.9B; world migrant pop.: 400M; 75% of the world pop. lives in cities; India: 1.4B; the Age of Expansion (begun 1600) ends as world consumption equals double the Earth's capacity, and any savings from improved efficiency is maxxed-out? Inventions: The first space elevator is operational. Science: The ozone layer hole disappears (CSIRO).
2051 Chinese Year: Sheep.
2052 Chinese Year: Monkey.
2053 Chinese Year: Chicken/Rooster. On Jan. 18 is the 100th anniv. of the birth of Denver, Colo.-born Original Historyscoper T.L. Winslow (1953-), prophet of the Fiction Century - conspiracy theorists deny his/her historicity? Anti-World War I ends, and the world celebrates a NWO where America is just another state in a pacified homogenized world govt. based on ultra-left sociopolitical principles, with mass migrations and genetic engineering being used to end the existence of distinct races and ethnic groups among the world's children - (TLW, Anti-World War I).
2054 Chinese Year: Dog. The 1000th anniv. of the Great Schism between Western and Eastern Christianity. The PreCrime Unit of the police dept. of Washington, D.C. uses three psychic precogs to see crimes before they happen and apprehend them preventatively - 2002 Steven Spielberg film Minority Report.
2055 Chinese Year: Pig.
2056 Chinese Year: Rat.
2057 Chinese Year: Ox.
2058 Chinese Year: Tiger. Auto-driving cars become mandatory in America.
2059 Chinese Year: Rabbit.
2060 Chinese Year: Dragon. The End of Time Year according to Isaac Newton.
2061 Chinese Year: Snake.
2062 Chinese Year: Horse. Halley's Comet returns.
2063 Chinese Year: Sheep. The pointy-eared Vulcans land on Earth on Apr. 5 in Bozeman, Mt. and establish First Contact, meeting with Zephraim Cochrane and greeting him with the Vulcan hand sign and the sound byte "Live long and prosper" (Star Trek).
2064 Chinese Year: Monkey.
2065 Chinese Year: Chicken. The Antarctic ozone hole finally heals?
2066 Chinese Year: Dog.
2067 Chinese Year: Pig.
2068 Chinese Year: Rat.
2069 Chinese Year: Ox.
2070 Chinese Year: Tiger. Earth's pop reaches a maximum at 9B-10B, and then starts decreasing (Lutz) - like roller coaster rides?
2071 Chinese Year: Rabbit.
2072 Chinese Year: Dragon.
2073 Chinese Year: Snake.
2074 Chinese Year: Horse.
2075 Chinese Year: Sheep.
2076 Chinese Year: Monkey.
2077 Chinese Year: Chicken.
2078 Chinese Year: Dog.
2079 Chinese Year: Pig.
2080 Chinese Year: Rat.
2081 Chinese Year: Ox.
2082 Chinese Year: Tiger.
2083 Chinese Year: Rabbit.
2084 Chinese Year: Dragon.
2085 Chinese Year: Snake.
2086 Chinese Year: Horse.
2087 Chinese Year: Sheep.
2088 Chinese Year: Monkey.
2089 Chinese Year: Chicken.
2090 Chinese Year: Dog. A total solar eclipse is seen in England this year.
2091 Chinese Year: Pig.
2092 Chinese Year: Rat.
2093 Chinese Year: Ox.
2094 Chinese Year: Tiger.
2095 Chinese Year: Rabbit. The efficiency of fossil-fuel powered electric generation technologies reaches 66%? A space drive for exploring other star systems is developed (Arthur C. Clarke).
2096 Chinese Year: Dragon.
2097 Chinese Year: Snake. The groundwork for the United Federation of Planets is laid out in San Francisco (Star Trek).
2098 Chinese Year: Horse.
2099 Chinese Year: Sheep. By this year nobody is left who is totally heterosexual?
