Replica Watches, Replica cartier watches for sale

Barbara Lee turned out to be 100% right about the wrongful wars launched on Afghanistan and Iraq and she is certainly right again — to try and stop an even more catastrophic and illegal preemptive war on Iran!

Give Diplomacy a Chance with Iran

From: The Honorable Barbara Lee

Bill: H.R. 4173

Date: 4/17/2012

Dear Colleague,

Last weekend, the United States joined with the five permanent Members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany in diplomatic talks with Iran over Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
I invite you to read the analysis below from the Friend’s Committee on National Legislation, and to become a cosponsor of my bill, H.R. 4173, which supports robust efforts to seek a diplomatic resolution in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.
To become a co-sponsor, or if you have any questions, contact Teddy Miller in my office.

Thank you,
Barbara Lee
Member of Congress

In the last month, “No War on Iran” groups in Minnesota have personally visited the district offices of Congresspersons Betty McCollum, John Kline, Keith Ellison, Tim Walz and Chip Cravaack, as well as Senator Al Franken’s office. We have collected signatures in support of Barbara Lee’s bill and have delivered the message (in the form of postcards and petitions) that constituents naturally and overwhelmingly favor diplomacy over preemptive war on Iran.

(This “No War on Iran” group delivered “Diplomacy Not War” postcards to Senator Franken’s District Office on Feb 24, 2012.) Unfortunately, despite 25 different peace groups imploring Senator Klobuchar not to sign the Graham-Lieberman-Casey “Anti-Containment” Senate Resolution (S.R. 380) that basically curtails diplomatic efforts and makes war the only option, Klobuchar went ahead and signed the pro-war resolution in the first week of April. Despite the continual actions of John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham (nicknamed the “three war-crazed amigos”) attempting to undercut Obama’s foreign policy and institute their own, she signed onto their pro-war resolution. 70 senators have signed S.R. 380 thus far and as Kate Gould of the Friends Committee on National Legislation explains in her excellent analysis below, the Senate was poised to even further undercut the recent promising talks with Iran (under last section “Will Congress Kill Talks?”). What A Difference A Day of Iran Talks Makes

By Kate Gould on 04/16/2012 @ 02:40 PM

After ten hours of talks with Iran, opportunities for a diplomatic resolution of the standoff over Iran ’s nuclear program have dramatically improved, and Congress gears up to vote on yet another attempt to kill diplomacy before the next round of talks.

After the first talks in more than a year, the parties have agreed to meet again on May 23 for an additional round of talks. Considering the high stakes involved, hitting the ’snooze’ button on the proverbial ‘alarm clock of confrontation’, as journalist Tony Karon put it, is a real achievement.

Agreeing to more talks signals a commitment from all parties at the table to hold off on war — at least for now.

10 Hours of Talks: the Highlights

The most notable accomplishment of the talks were that negotiators agreed to adopt a framework for ensuring Iran’s nuclear program is solely used for peaceful purposes which is endorsed by virtually every diplomat, arms control expert, government official, citizen activist, or anyone else who is serious in preventing a nuclear-armed Iran and a catastrophic war: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Agreeing to the NPT framework is a win-win-win-win-win-win-win decision for all seven parties involved. Iran ‘wins’ because under the NPT, Iran , as a signatory, has the right to a civilian nuclear program under strict international safeguards. This agreement demonstrates that the P5+1 (The U.S., U.K. , France , China , Russia , and Germany ) acknowledges that Iran will continue to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes. This decision is a flat out rejection of the demand, that many in Congress have made, for Iran to surrender its entire nuclear program.

The P5+1 parties ‘wins’ because the NPT also requires that Iran fully cooperates with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog. The NPT also provides a more detailed framework called the “Additional Protocols”, which would ensure even more intrusive inspections and other guarantees against any attempt by Iran to weaponize nuclear material.

Unfortunately, the talks were immediately denounced by Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, who has pushed for a more aggressive policy toward Iran, which directly contradicts a wide swath of the Israeli military and intelligence establishment, and the Israeli population at large. In a clearly symbolic move, Senator Joe Lieberman (CT), the principal architect of legislation pressing the administration to abandon diplomacy and push toward war, stood next to Netanyahu while he blasted the talks.

While critics argue that the talks haven’t produced an instantaneous solution, it’s rather astonishing to see how ten hours of talks dramatically diminished the drumbeat for war. It’s all the more impressive when considering that in real terms, as the Guardian reported, the ten hours of Saturday’s talks boiled down to a lot less than five hours, because the negotiations were conducted in English, requiring Farsi translation for the Iranian negotiator.

Those ten hours also included an awkward lunch break, that illustrated just how much work ahead there is to build trust between the parties. According to one diplomat’s account of the buffet lunch at Istanbul ’s conference center, the P5+1 team sat on one end of the room, and Iran ’s negotiating team sat at another. As if the two teams represented opposite genders at a middle school dance, there was reportedly, “no contact at all”.

Yet, with all these complications, progress the parties were still able to agree on a common framework for the talks Microsoft Windows 7 Key, and to commit to further negotiations. While hawks have long insisted that anything less than an immediate solution spells failure, U.S. national security experts agree that for diplomacy to be effective, it must be sustained.

In fact, the very reason why diplomacy hasn’t yielded more results is because there has never been sustained U.S.-Iran diplomacy since the countries severed diplomatic relations in 1980. Ambassador Thomas Pickering Windows 7 Activation Key, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Israel , and a host of other countries recently pointed out to Congress that U.S.-Iran diplomacy has been merely a series of ‘one-night stands’: “Past talks have suffered….because they have been a series of one-night stands, meetings that took place over one day, where one side or the other, either Iran or the United States , had a proposal, and the other side rejected it. They went away and then spent another six to eight months negotiating a resumption.”

Will Congress Kill Talks?

Hardliners on all sides–in Iran , the United States , and in other countries–have sabotaged promising opportunities for diplomacy before. This time, the Senate was on the verge of passing a far-reaching Iran sanctions package that could well have undermined the talks last weekend–if it wasn’t blocked by Senator Rand Paul (KY).

As early as this week, Congress is expected to vote on this sanctions bill, along with dangerous resolutions that would lower the threshold for war with Iran , and endorse ultimatums that would make diplomacy all but impossible.

With another round of talks scheduled in a month, there is great potential, but also great risk of Congress sabotaging the talks. It’s a crucial time for advocates of a diplomatic resolution to the U.S.-Iran crisis mobilize, and build the political space necessary for the United States and Iran to reject impossible demands that would kill the talks, and to keep talking.

Here in Minnesota, we have postcards and petitions for anyone interested in signing or participating in further efforts to take this message to Representatives Colin Peterson, Eric Paulsen and Michele Bachmann. We have thanked Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison as being among the 21 House reps who have signed Barbara Lee’s Resolution for diplomacy not war. (Coincidentally on April 9, 2012, Congresswoman McCollum received a letter calling out wasteful Pentagon spending from women state legislators in Minnesota.)

We have also requested Senator Franken to hold a town hall or panel discussion on these issues and we understand his office is considering doing so. By the way, Sen. Franken has thankfully not signed the Graham-Lieberman-Casey Senate Resolution 380.

Despite Klobuchar’s having aligned herself with the Lieberman-Graham-McCain pro-war side Office Visio Key, we still need to deliver the petition signatures that have already been collected for her. (Perhaps the delivery will be combined with a protest outside her office?) More public protest and citizen input might make Amy Klobuchar feel more constrained from promoting war and from thus exhibiting her “unshakable bond” with the pro-war Likud faction that currently governs Israel. The hypocrisy of her stump speeches and campaign positions regarding child safety issues is jaw dropping considering her callousness to the deaths of thousands of Iraqi, Afghan and now potentially Iranian children but it is also reminiscent of Madeleine Albright’s response that US sanctions on Iraq (in the late 90’s) that took the lives of an estimated half million children “was worth it.”

Anyone in Minnesota interested in participating or helping with the “No War on Iran” efforts, can contact me through my old campaign e-mail Coleen@coleenrowley.com.

More good analysis of the current situation can be found in these recent articles: “A Chance for Peace With Iran Will the Israel lobby scuttle it?” by Justin Raimondo and “Is Peace Getting in the Way of Our War Plans?” by David Swanson.

Vidal Sassoon, the pioneering hairdresser credited with freeing women from the bouffant hairstyles of the 1950s Setting Tattoo Machine, has died in Los Angeles at the age of 84.

Sassoon’s trademark wash-and-wear styles revolutionised the industry, and saw the rich and famous come flocking to his salons.

He went on to create a business empire with his hair products which sold throughout the world.

A Los Angeles police spokesman said it appeared the 84-year-old died of natural causes.

The British stylist’s scissors spelled the end of the 1950s-era beehive and the bouffant – untouchable hairstyles that owed their existence to lacquer and hair pins.

Instead, he invented the simpler bob style and cut the hair of some of the era’s figures including actress Mia Farrow and designer Mary Quant.

Sassoon was dubbed a pioneer for coming up with so-called wash and wear looks Tattoo Of Guns, liberating many women from weekly salon trips to have their hair done.

But as much as he was a genius in the salon, Sassoon was a whiz in business.

He began marketing his name, styles and cutting techniques in a worldwide line of beauty salons, hair-cutting schools and related lines of hair products.

Still, Sassoon never felt the profession that he put at the forefront of modern fashion got the respect it was owed.

“Hairdressing in general hasn’t been given the kudos it deserves,” he said in 2010.

“It’s not recognised by enough people as a worthy craft.

“If you get hold of a head of hair on somebody you’ve never seen before, cut beautiful shapes, cut beautiful architectural angles and she walks out looking so different – I think that’s masterful.”

Anti-fascist campaigner

Born in London on January 17, 1928, the son of a poor Turkish-Jewish carpet salesman, Sassoon spent eight of his early years in an orphanage after his father abandoned his family.

He quit school at 14 and his stepfather agreed to finance his apprenticeship as a hairdresser.

“It was my mother’s idea,” he once said of his entry into hairstyling.

“Her feeling was that I didn’t have the intelligence to pick a trade myself.”

After World War II Sassoon joined the 43 Group, a Jewish association which confronted followers of former British fascist leader Oswald Mosely on the streets of London.

In 1948, after the partition of Palestine, Sassoon spent a year working on a kibbutz and fighting with the Israeli army.

He credited that year with giving him the direction and discipline needed to jump into a full-time career in hairdressing.

In 1950 he won his first hairdressing competition, and four years later, at age 26, opened his first shop in fashionable Bond Street in London’s West End.

The stylist maintained his British roots despite maintaining a residence in the United States.

He was a die-hard fan of the Chelsea football team and in 2009 was honoured by the Queen by being named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Apart from his hairdressing interests, Sassoon was a lifelong fighter against anti-Semitism, and set up the Vidal Sassoon Foundation to help the needy in educational pursuits both in Israel and abroad.

Perfectionist ‘empire’

Sydney hairdresser Troy Tanner was an apprentice at Sassoon’s Bond Street salon in London in the 1960s.

He remembers it as “the most exciting period of my life”.

“I think that all the rest of us who trained with him would say the same thing,” he told The World Today.

“He was our mentor, he was a genius and I think the world has lost an incredible person.”

Mr Tanner remembers his former boss as a “perfectionist”.

“If you were fortunate enough to be employed by him after you paid to learn your apprenticeship, I think you were in heaven, but he didn’t suffer fools. He knew exactly what he wanted and you had to toe that line.

“Everybody was petrified when they knew that Vidal was coming from Grosvenor House to Bond Street to work for those three or four days Dragonfly Tattoo Machine, or then go to Sloane Street. It was like mayhem created to see that everything was right when he arrived.

“It was the greatest, the greatest empire I think in that field that the world has ever seen. I know it sounds a bit over the top but I would call him a prophet of hair. I think he was the greatest technician. I will be in a very sad state for a long time now because I did think the absolute world of Vidal Sassoon.”

storify
ABC/wires

Toby Melville/WPA Pool/Getty Images Bandage dresses sale

ABC News’ Reena Ninan reports:

The Secret Service has removed several officers amid allegations of misconduct involving prostitution. An American official who is not authorized to speak about the incident tells ABC News the officers were not agents tasked with guarding President Obama.

The incident may have only involved one or two individuals, the American official said.  It’s likely an entire unit was pulled while an investigation is underway. The officers were sent home and a new unit was brought in to replace them.

In a statement released by the Secret Service Friday night Spokesman Ed Donovan, a Special Agent said, “The Secret Service takes all allegations of misconduct seriously. This entire matter has been turned over to our Office of Professional Responsibility Cheap Bandage dresses, which serves as the agency’s internal affairs component.”

The alleged incident was first reported by the Associated Press who received an anonymous tip. They initially reported that as many as 12 members of the service may have been involved.

While prostitution is legal in certain parts of Colombia the Secret Service said it takes allegations of any soliciting seriously.

The alleged misconduct happened before President Obama arrived in Colombia on Friday afternoon for the Summit of the Americas. Secret Service said that the security surrounding the president was never compromised.

SHOWS: This Week World News

The 10 gunmen who terrorized Mumbai last week used Google Earth to plot their attacks, according to statements made by the sole captured terrorist. The attackers targeted public areas whose locations were already available on printed maps, but can a government ask Google to exclude images of more sensitive areas from Google Earth?

It can try. Google doesn’t automatically exclude photos of locations that might represent a security risk, such as nuclear facilities or the homes of political VIPs. But it has fielded requests to do so in the past—as in 2007, for example, when British troops discovered that insurgents in Basra had been printing out detailed Google Earth images of U.K. military bases. In response, Google replaced its satellite shots of Basra with an earlier set of photos DKNY Clothes sale, taken before the war began. A Google spokeswoman told the Explainer that this is the only image alteration the company has made due to a governmental request. (She denied reports that Google had agreed to distort images of certain Indian locations in 2007 but acknowledges that the company did have conversations with government officials.)

Advertisement

Sometimes, what may look like an alteration is actually the result of a lackluster data set. Google Earth—which also provides the “satellite view” images for Google Maps—gets all its imagesfrom third-party sources—primarily commercial satellite image providers like DigitalGlobe and GeoEye, but also local municipalities and governmental agencies. (A copyright line with source information can be seen at the bottom of any Google Earth image. The latest version of Google Earth also offers time stamps when available.) Google says its goal is to have the sharpest, most up-to-date photos possible, but it has to work with what its providers can offer—currently Cheap Karen Millen Dresses, Google Earth has high-resolution images of just 30 percent of the earth’s land surface. So a blurry image—or a blurry square in a large, composite image—might simply mean that Google doesn’t yet have a clearer shot of the area in question.

Some locations seen on Google Earth, however Buy Chloe Dresses, do appear to have been altered: See, for example, the Naval Observatory in Washington Cheap Bandage dresses, D.C. Chanel Dresses sale, home of the vice president, where everything within the road encircling the Observatory is blurrier than everything surrounding it. Or Soesterberg Air Base and Huis Ten Bosch Palace in the Netherlands, which are represented by choppy pixels. Such instances occur because governments can, in certain cases, exert control over Google’s third-party image providers. Most of the very high-resolution images on Google Earth are actually aerial photos, not satellite photos; that means they’ve been taken from within a nation’s airspace and are therefore subject to that nation’s rules and regulations. For example, when the Geological Survey wanted to fly over Washington, D.C., to take photos in 2005, it had to promise the Secret Service that it would delete or edit anything that might “jeopardize national security.”

Google says that it takes a variety of factors into consideration when it decides which images to use on Google Earth—sometimes it will choose an older, low-res photo rather than a newer, doctored one; in other cases, the usefulness of a high-resolution image outweighs the fact that it has a blurry spot.

Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer.

Explainer thanks Stefan Geens of Ogle Earth Replica Christian Audigier Clothing, Kate Hurowitz of Google, and Frank Taylor of Google Earth Blog.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim at his home after his acquittal in January.

Photo by Kamarul Akhir/AFP/Getty Images.

Anwar Ibrahim is running late, snarled up somewhere in the rolling carnage of Mumbai’s traffic. But as I sit and wait it still seems remarkable that he is here at all. Only two days before, Malaysia’s opposition leader seemed likely to end up in prison for the second time. He had been on trial in Kuala Lumpur for the past 11 months on charges of sodomising a male aide, in a case that both split his homeland and dented its image abroad. Yet on January 9 the Malaysian High Court found in his favour, and so on the evening of his acquittal Anwar, 64, flew to India to speak at a conference about democracy in Asia, organised by Rajmohan Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi.

I am waiting for Anwar in a darkened booth inside Peshawri, a Moghul-themed restaurant at the back of a fancy hotel on the edge of city’s airport. A sign outside says diners will “relish the cuisine from the finest Indian restaurant in the world”, while inside the low ceilings, rough wood furniture and carpets on the walls are meant to bring to mind imperial India’s north-west frontier. The effect is undone only slightly by the towering white atrium outside, complete with palm trees and Islamic style windows.

Anwar’s political promise can divide even his admirers. Some are convinced he is what he at first appears to be: a liberal reformer; a talented technocrat who steered his nation through the worst of the 1997 Asian financial crisis; a genuine intellectual, who has spent time at Oxford Buy Marc Jacobs Dresses, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins universities; and perhaps even a man capable of bringing the spirit of the Arab Spring to one of Asia’s largest majority Muslim nations.

Advertisement

Yet, while the record is impressive, doubts remain about whether the man can deliver. Critics point to his early days as an Islamic student radical, or his lengthy spell in the 1990s at the heart of Malaysia’s ruling elite, when he rose to become deputy prime minister to the autocratic Mahathir Mohamad before ultimately breaking with the regime and in 1998 ending up in jail on a separate set of improbable corruption and sodomy charges. Others point to the fractious Malaysian opposition he leads, or grumble that he talks a good game in the west but flirts with Islamists at home.

Anwar turns up roughly half an hour late—just about acceptable by Mumbai standards, but he apologises politely Cheap DKNY Clothing, nonetheless. He has delicate features and is stylishly dressed in an open-necked white shirt and black corduroy jacket Cheap DKNY Clothing, with carefully brushed hair and a neatly trimmed beard. Before his arrival I had checked his Twitter feed (he has 120,000 followers) and at the top of his stream found a picture he had posted of himself engulfed in cameras following the verdict Herve Leger gown sale, with a comment saying the image looked “like Hollywood.” I ask him about it, and the events of the past 48 hours.

He seems genuinely surprised to have won. “There was an early breakfast with the family; my children, my son-in-law, daughter-in-law, all were there,” he tells me. “And I said, ‘We pray for the best, we say there is hope Replica Bandage dresses,’ but then, realistically … ” He trails off. “I got my medicine, my toiletries ready,” he adds quietly.

As we pause the menus arrive, on large leaf-shaped slabs of wood. The food is cooked in clay ovens, inspired by cuisine from the region around the city of Peshawar, now in Pakistan. In practice this means the choices are heavy on barbecued meats. Anwar picks a peshwari kebab of lamb marinaded in yoghurt and garlic. I decide on tandoori aloo, a roasted potato concoction with raisins and cashews.

We also take a portion of the dal bukhara on the waiter’s recommendation—the menu describes it as a “harmonious blend” of lentils, tomato, ginger and garlic, and it is cooked overnight—while Anwar picks a mango lassi and some pudina paratha.

“The pudina leaf is supposed to be healthy,” he says approvingly, although I’m disappointed to discover later that pudina turns out be nothing more interesting than mint. The choices over, I mull a point of etiquette that has been bothering me for much of the day. When exactly ought one bring up sodomy over lunch? It seems inelegant to dive right in, but then perhaps better to get it over and done with, leaving the pudding for lighter matters.

Thankfully, Anwar spares my indecision and launches straight into the topic, as part of a flurry of details on the trial itself. He talks rapidly about the flaws of the case, the complicity of the government, and a medical report he says showed no “clinical evidence of penetration” on the aide he is alleged to have assaulted. Despite the seriousness of the topic, I am struck by how relaxed he seems. He speaks in an endearingly conspiratorial manner Chanel Dresses sale, leaning in to make his points before pulling back and often cracking a wry joke, before giggling a little to himself.

The recent trial also showed this theatrical side, as he tells me of attempts to win over the judge with quotes from Hamlet (“let us once again assail your ears, that are so fortified against our story”), along with references to Nelson Mandela and the 1963-1964 Rivonia trial of much of the African National Congress’ leadership. The Bard turns out to be an Anwar speciality—in 2006 he presented a paper to the World Shakespeare Congress, while a copy of the Complete Works kept him company in jail.

He credits public pressure from allies in America and Turkey for his release, although Britain’s role gets a less positive reception: “David Cameron was completely muted,” he says, crossly. He mentions other friends, including Al Gore and Paul Wolfowitz, whom he first met back in the 1980s and with whom he says he still talks. He speaks of them with such affection he doesn’t seem to be name-dropping; a neat trick.

SINGLE PAGE Page: 1 | 2