Asia Times Online,  Jan 16/2015:
Saudi reset with Iran unavoidable, as Saudi Prince Turki renames IS “Fahesh” (obscene)….

The terrorist strike last week on the Saudi border post facing the Iraqi province of Anbar — known to be the Islamic State’s first assault on the kingdom — could be the proverbial straw on the camel’s back, forcing Riyadh into a profound rethink of its regional strategies imbued with the rivalries involving Iran…
Tehran has effectively countered the Saudi plots in Syria and Iraq and at the moment would seem to have the upper hand. The last-ditch Saudi attempt to hurt the Iranian economy by forcing a steep decline in oil prices is not only not having the desired effect but, as President Hassan Rouhani explicitly warned yesterday, Riyadh may end up shooting at its own feet (as well as the Kuwaiti brother’s).

However, it is the attack on the Saudi post by the IS (killing two border guards and their commanding officer) that becomes a defining moment. The fact that the IS attackers included three Saudi nationals must be a rude awakening. To be sure, the blowback has begun. The Saudis hope to erect a ‘great wall’ and insulate themselves from the IS barbarians next door but that is sheer bravado.
(more…)

Remarkable bravery considering the backlash Recep Erdogan is likely to retaliate with.
(Via PJ Media) A newspaper in Turkey whose roots stretch to the founding of the modern republic will truly live the words “je suis Charlie” on Wednesday when it publishes the new Charlie Hebdo issue in Turkish despite threats.
Cumhuriyet (The Republic), founded in 1924 at the encouragement of Mustafa Kemal, tweeted that it will continue to “defend the freedom of expression” and will dedicate four of its pages to the French satirical paper’s content. They’ll also reportedly double their normal press run to 100,000 copies.
Besides French, the only other language of Charlie Hebdo in print will be Italian. English, Spanish, and Arabic versions will be available in online formats.
Threats have reportedly been pouring into the newspaper in the 99 percent Muslim country, and some overtly posted on Twitter. Ankara Mayor Melih Gökçek, a member of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), stoked the flames by tweeting in all caps that the paper was about to commit a “serious provocation” and asking followers to spread the word. He also accused the newspaper of working with some foreign power and declared it a “game of the enemies of Islam.” (more…)

(London)…Speaking to the NewsHour current affairs programme just hours after the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, Mayor Aboutaleb became angered by the failure of some Muslims to adapt to their new homes, as he himself had done.

Unbelievable. Gladiator training while wearing onesies !!

INDIANA – An Indiana couple was arrested after police found videos of a one-year-old placing a real gun in her mouth, authorities said.
When police in Evansville, Indiana, arrested Michael Barnes last Thursday in connection with an armed robbery, they say they searched his phone and were shocked to find two videos of a toddler putting a gun in her mouth and holding the gun up as if to shoot someone else.
In the videos, a man and a woman can be heard prompting the child, who, in one video is dressed in only a brown onesie, to say “bang” and “shoot.” (more…)

DeAndre Joshua (Ferguson, Missouri), Jessica Chambers (Courtland, Mississippi) now another in North Memphis area of Millington, TN.  Pattern?

MILLINGTON, Tenn. (FOX13) – Shelby County Sheriff’s deputies are investigating a body that was found in a burning pickup truck Thursday afternoon on Mudville Road in Millington.
A sheriff spokesman said a witness saw a pick-up on fire just after 4 p.m. in the 7800 block of Mudville Road.

When deputies and first responders arrived they found a body inside the pickup truck, which was found down in a ditch.
It is unclear if the body is male or female.  The body was found in the passenger side of the pickup truck, SCSO spokesman Chip Washington said. They are considering this as suspicious. (more…)

(Via Red Alert) Following the model set at several law schools, students at Oberlin College are pleading for leniency during final exams and the final grading period this fall semester in light of the grand jury decisions in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases and the shooting of Tamir Rice.
A petition has been circling around the school community President Marvin Krislov to suspend the standard grading system because students of color, especially black students, are at risk of failing.
“I would really like to see the normal grading system suspended for this semester and replaced with a no-fail mercy period. Administrators should require professors to exercise complete flexibility in what students are saying they can produce academically. Require that every professor listen to what their students are saying and if that means rather than writing a paper students instead meet with their professor to simply discuss in groups their paper topics or if tests are taken collectively with professors there are ways to make sure we are learning what we are supposed to be learning in ways that are not so taxing in times like this,” the petition reads. (more…)

A little something about American culture, nostalgia, and a bit of humor . . . .

Glenn Reynolds – Americans have been living through an enormously sensationalized college rape hoax, but as the evidence accumulates it’s becoming clear that the entire thing was just a bunch of media hype and political opportunism.
No, I’m not talking about the Rolling Stone‘s lurid and now-exploded fraternity gang-rape story. Whatever the truth behind that story, it’s now clear that basically nothing that Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely told us happened, actually happened. But the hoax is much bigger than one overwrought and perhaps entirely fictional tale of campus goings-on.
For months we’ve been told that there’s a burgeoning “epidemic” of rape on college campuses, that the system for dealing with campus rape is “broken” and that we need new federal legislation (of course!) to deal with this disaster. Before the Rolling Stone story imploded, Sens. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., were citing the Virginia gang rape as evidence of the problem, but now that the story has been exposed as bogus, they’re telling us that, regardless of that isolated incident, there’s still a huge campus rape problem that needs to be addressed as soon as possible. (more…)

2014 Modern Media Disclaimer: The story you are about to read is true; all events happened as described in mainstream media; however, the races have been removed to protect the narrative….

Portland, Ore. — A suspect in a shooting that wounded three students outside an alternative high school was arrested early Saturday in what appears to be a gang-related attack, Portland police said.

Witnesses told authorities there may have been a dispute Friday outside Rosemary Anderson High School just before the shooting occurred at a street corner. The victims are students or in affiliated job training programs.
The assailant and two other people fled, and the injured trio went to the school for help, police said. A 16-year-old girl was critically wounded, and a 17-year-old boy and 20-year-old man were hospitalized in fair condition. Another girl was grazed by a bullet. (more…)