MOSSAD CHILD SEX RING?

Jeffrey Epstein likes boys?

"Maximilia Cordero, who stepped forward ... with a lawsuit claiming she'd engaged in 'bizarre and unnatural sex acts' with Epstein while in her teens, was born Maximillian Cordero in 1983, records show." NY Post

"Jeffrey Epstein was once presented with three 12-year-olds from France as a birthday gift...

"He brought over a 14-year-old from the Balkans whom he called his 'Yugoslavian sex slave.'" (Sex Trafficking - The Daily Beast )

'Mossad spy' Robert Maxwell (Ján Ludvík Hoch) and his daughter Ghislaine.

Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of Robert Maxwell, is a close friend of Jeffrey Epstein who was jailed for involvement with 'child prostitutes'. Ghislaine Maxwell is 'just like her Daddy' - Mail Online.

Former Mossad officer Ari Ben-Menashe reported that in 1986 Robert Maxwell tipped off the Israeli Embassy in London that Mordechai Vanunu had given information about Israel's nuclear capability to the Sunday Times.

Jeffrey Epstein. Photo by Patrick McMullan. (Website for this image)

Jeffrey Epstein is a member of the the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.

He supports the Friends of Israel Defense Forces.

He has donated money to the Palm Beach Police Department. (Jeffrey Epstein - Wikipedia)

Virginia Roberts, friend of Epstein and Prince Andrew.

Does Mossad run pedophile rings?

Virginia Roberts worked for Jeffrey Epstein.

She has stated that when she was aged 15 "She was 'given' to men ranging in age from their 40s to their 60s.

"They included a well-known businessman, a world-renowned scientist, a respected liberal politician and foreign head of state."

On 27th February 2011, in the Mail on Sunday, we read about

Prince Andrew and the teen girl his sex offender friend Jeffrey Epstein flew to Britain to meet him.

From this we learn:

1. Jeffrey Epstein was jailed, for 18 months, for soliciting underage prostitutes.

He escaped a 20-year sex trafficking sentence.

Around 20 February 2011, photographs appeared which showed Prince Andrew with Jeffrey Epstein.

Virginia Roberts, who was at the centre of the Epstein case, has revealed to The Mail on Sunday that, while employed by Epstein, she was flown across the world to be introduced to Prince Andrew.

2. Andrew is friends with Epstein and with Epstein’s confidante Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of (Mossad agent) Robert Maxwell.

Epstein's friends have included Woody Allen, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump.

3. Virginia Roberts was 15 years old when she got to know Epstein in 1998.

She alleges that her duties included being "sexually exploited by Epstein's adult male peers including royalty".

4. Virginia Roberts, who now lives in Australia, was born in Sacramento, California, in 1983.

She was sexually molested by 'a man close to her family'.

Aged 11, she was sent to live with an aunt.

Three years later, she started a new life with her father, in Palm Beach, Florida.

Her father was maintenance manager at Donald Trump’s country club, Mar-a-Lago.

5. Aged 15, she met Ghislaine Maxwell, who arranged for her to work as Epstein’s masseuse.

Her father drove her to Epstein's Palm Beach mansion.

Epstein also owns a nine-storey home in New York, a 7,500-acre ranch in New Mexico and an atoll in the US Virgin Islands.

Virginia worked for Epstein for four years.

For three of those years, she was under Florida's age of consent.

6. "Basically, I was training to be a prostitute for him and his friends who shared his interest in young girls," she says.

"The way it usually worked was I’d be sent to meet a man on the private island Jeffrey owned in the Caribbean, or at his ranch in New Mexico, which was really isolated...

"I met famous friends of his such as Al Gore and Heidi Klum and Naomi Campbell."

~~~

aangirfan: YOUNG GIRLS AND TOP PEOPLE

aangirfan: EQUAL OPPORTUNITY; TOPLESS; GAY; TOYBOY

aangirfan: THE GUANTANAMO OF CHILD SLAVERY AND CHILD PROSTITUTION

aangirfan: Mossad, Haider, Dutroux, Fortuyn, Prince Bernhard

aangirfan: Lockerbie links to Franklin, Dutroux, Mossad, McKee

aangirfan: CHILD SEX

ARAB MEDIA LIES ON LOCKERBIE?

William Casey was Director of the CIA from 1981-87. Hours before he was due to testify before Congress about Iran-Contra, he was rushed off to hospital where he died. Casey would have known about heroin being smuggled on PanAm flights. Website for this image



The Arab media, like the Western media, is largely controlled by the CIA and its friends.



Al Hayat appears to be spreading lies about Lockerbie.



It links Lockerbie suspect Abu Nidal to Gaddafi.



Al Hayat is an Arab newspaper owned by Saudi prince Khalid bin Sultan. (Official website in English)



Al Hayat has a bureau in Jerusalem. (Al-Hayat - Wikipedia)



Khalid bin Sultan attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the US Army's Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. He also graduated from the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.



Abu Nidal was reportedly an agent of the USA and Israel.



(Was Lockerbie suspect working for US? - Scotsman.com News ) (The Truth Seeker - Abu Nidal - Mossad terrorist) (Abu Nidal, notorious Palestinian mercenary, 'was a US spy')(aangirfan: Abu Nidal reportedly worked for the CIA and MOSSAD)



Allegedly, Abu Nidal had a Jewish father and was educated in Israel. (Website)

Atef Abu Bakr was second-in-command to Abu Nidal.



Atef Abu Bakr has given a 'confession' to Al Hayat.

It looks scripted by the CIA.

American victims of the Lockerbie Bombing



According to Atef Abu Bakr:



1. The lockerbie Bombing was the result of a partnership between the Abu Nidal group and Gaddafi's secret service.



2. The Lockerbie bombs were built by the Abu Nidal Organisation in the south of Mount Lebanon.



The bombs were smuggled into Libya via Brazzaville, the Congolese capital.



"Two of the group were met by members of Libyan intelligence and under the cover of the son of leader Patrice Lumumba."



The bombs were then taken from Tripoli to Malta.



Bakr said: "I want to emphasise that the shipment came from Malta."



3. The head of Libyan intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, was involved in the plot.



Megrahi, who worked for Senussi and may have played a minor part, promised the night before his extradition to keep silent about Gaddafi's involvement.



He recently "threatened to expose the whole process unless the Libyan authorities made efforts to secure his release, which is what has happened".



Lockerbie



The UK's Sunday Express, owned by a Jewish pornographer, has an account of the Al Hayat story: FINAL PROOF GADDAFI ORDERED LOCKERBIE AND KILLED BOMBERS



What really happened?



aangirfan: LOCKERBIE IS ABOUT HEROIN



aangirfan: Lockerbie Evidence



aangirfan: LOCKERBIE; BELL'S DIARY; 'BRIBERY'; ALEX SALMOND



aangirfan: LOCKERBIE AND THE FINANCING OF 9 11



The Lockerbie Case: Abu Nidal chief jumps on the bandwagon



William H Webster, CIA boss in 1988, at the time of the Lockerbie Bombing

AMR MOUSSA AND ASHRAF MARWAN

Amr Moussa

Ashraf Marwan was Sadat's chief of staff.

In 2002, the London-based Israeli historian Ahron Bregman alleged that Marwan was Israel's "master spy" in Cairo.

Reportedly, Marwan may have been a double agent. (Urban Dictionary: Ashraf Marwan)

The book "The Angel: Ashraf Marwan, the Mossad and the Surprise of the Yom Kippur War," (2010) by Uri Bar Yosef, a political scientist at the University of Haifa, claims Marwan was not a double agent and was, in fact, only spying for Israel.

Marwan's son is married to Hania Moussa, daughter of Amr Moussa.

Amr Moussa hopes to become President of Egypt.

~~

THE WRECKING OF NORTH AFRICA

SAS enters Libya (Mail on Sunday).

Libya, once one of the poorest countries in the world, now has the highest Human Development Index score in Africa. (Wikipedia.)

It is well ahead of certain countries in Europe, thanks to Gaddafi.

On 26 February 2011, at the UK's Independent, Peter Popham had an article entitled "Tribalism is key to the Libya's future". (Thanks to Blackwatch for the link)

Popham makes the following points:

1. Gaddafi came to power as a force for modernisation.

2. He "turned the desert green ... and raised the literacy rate from 17% to 80%.

3. He called for an end to tribalism.

Tribalisms influence has weakened, "as more modern ties of schooling and urban neighbourhoods gained in importance."

According to former British ambassador Sir Richard Dalton: "Tribal origins have no existence in Libyan institutions or in public affairs."


Tripoli by gordontour

BUT, Gaddafi opposed the New World Order, and so his country has to be wrecked.

On 27th February 2011 we read that the UK's notorious SAS are in Libya.

"The Special Forces soldiers landed in two C130 Hercules military transport aircraft on a landing strip ... south of the eastern port of Benghazi...

"A senior source confirmed that an advance party of SAS men had been in Libya for several days...

"The SAS party had sneaked into Libya in plain clothes on commercial flights...

The UK's HMS Cumberland "is due to return to Benghazi".

Another Royal Navy ship, the destroyer HMS York, "has also been deployed on standby".


Tunisians by patduncan10

On 26 February 2011, three people were killed in clashes in Tunisia's capital: (ministry)

Now that Tunisia has been wrecked, thousands are fleeing. (Chaos, militant Islam and thousands fleeing Tunisia.)

According to the Mail on Sunday:

On 20 February 2011 demonstrations continued in Tunisia.

"I see one father with his son, aged five.

"As the police fire warning bullets into the blue sky, I ask him if he is afraid for his child.

"He unzips the boy’s jacket to expose his chest.

"‘My son is ready to take a bullet to the heart for freedom,’ he says.

"The child’s face crumples..."


Booming Tripoli by TAR3K

"I meet 36-year-old Muhammed.

"He also dreams of getting rich, but not in Tunisia.

"He is unemployed and does not care about the revolution...

"'A few days ago, I heard from a friend of a boat going from Zarzis to Italy.

"I paid $1,800...

"What about the revolution? I ask him.

"'I don’t care about revolution. My dream is Italy,' he says"

The Italian government says 300,000 may try to reach Europe...

Tunisia ... was renowned for being the most liberal of Muslim countries.

"There are troubling signs ... A Polish priest had his throat slit in a suburb of Tunis...

"The Vatican news agency said he was beheaded."


Afghanistan

The Pentagon plan may be to make North Africa just like Afghanistan.

"The gangsters, both foreign and Afghan, are the ones now in control of Afghanistan," says General Ali Shah Paktiawol, the former head of Kabul’s Criminal Investigation Department. (How to make a killing in Kabul.)



By TAR3K

World cheers as the CIA plunges Libya into chaos, part 2.

World cheers as the CIA plunges Libya into chaos

~~

FASCISM COMES TO EGYPT, TUNISIA...

Afghanistan, by Steve McCurry 2006

Tunisia has now become a Fascist state?

On 26 February 2011, author John R Bradley reports on the Arabian nightmare (The Spectator)

Among the points made:

Tunisia used to be tolerant.

1. Kairouan in Tunisia, Islam's fourth holiest city, has long had legal and regulated brothels.

In the Moslem Ottoman-Turkish empire, prostitution was legal and regulated.

2. In Tunisia, tourists have always been able to drink alcohol.

3. In Tunisia, Christians used to be pretty safe.


Tunisia by elmina

Since the Jasmine Revolution of January 2011 everything has changed.

1. The Jasmine Revolution has led to attacks on the brothels in Tunisia's cities.

"Hundreds of Islamists raided Abdallah Guech Street armed with Molotov cocktails and knives, torching the brothels, yelling insults at the prostitutes and declaring that Tunisia was now an Islamist state."

Tunisia's brothels are to be permanently closed.

2. Throughout Tunisia there have been demonstrations against the sale of alcohol.

3. Suspected Islamists have slit the throat of a Catholic priest.

What about Egypt?

1. Egypt is now run by a military junta.

2. The Muslim Brotherhood is "the only political group of any note".

Tunisia by Rene Collin

What was Tunisia really like under Ben Ali?

"Tunisia was the most secular and progressive country the Islamic world has ever known.

"The regime was the least brutal in the region, its people the wealthiest and best educated.

"The poverty level was just 4  per cent when the revolution broke out, which is among the lowest in the world.

"Eighty per cent of the population belonged to the middle class.

"And the education system - allocated more funding than the army - ranked 17th globally in terms of quality.

Tunisia by ZX-6R Christophe Faugere

How Islamic is Egypt?

1. Egypt had a history of tolerant and liberal Islam.

But, a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center found that a majority of Egyptians support stoning as a punishment for adultery, hand amputation for theft, and death for those who convert from Islam to another religion.

2. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi is the spiritual guide to the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood.

He has a weekly television show on Al Jazeera.

Recently he delivered a political sermon to a five million-strong crowd in Tahrir Square.

3. Alexandria was once famous for 'its secular, carefree atmosphere'.

Now, all Muslim women in the city are veiled.

Violence between local Christians and Muslims is commonplace.

Most bars have stopped serving alcohol.

What about Morocco?

The fundamentalist Party for Justice and Development (PJD) increases its number of seats at each election.

John R. Bradley is the author of Inside Egypt: The Land Of The Pharaohs On The Brink Of A Revolution (2008) and Behind The Veil of Vice: The Business And Culture of Sex In The Middle East (2010).


Memphis, Egypt by bsargentina

On 24 February 2011, at the Christian Science Monitor, we read that ordinary Egyptians wish their revolution had never happened

According to the Christian Science Monitor:

1. In recent weeks, Umm Karim, a mother of four, has only been able to afford one meal per day.

"Her teenage sons both lost their jobs when the factory they worked in burned down in Egypt's revolution."

2. "Some Egyptians are beginning to wish that their own revolution had never happened."

3. "Shaban doesn't know how he is going to find money to feed his children dinner.

"Since the revolution started, he has not had a job."

Shaban wasn't involved in Egypt's protests.

4. In Shaban's town of al-Maraziq, building projects are halted and business ventures have been disrupted.

A mechanic in al-Maraziq says that business has declined.

He now pays more for paints and spare parts.

His 11-year-old nephew now misses going to school.

5. Umm Karim says: "I wish the revolution never happened."

Five tourist hotels have been attacked in Cairo.

According to the manager, 'about 1,000 young guys' attacked Cairo's Europa Hotel on 15 February 2011.

WND reported that the Egyptian Islamist terrorist organization Jamaat al Islamiya (Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya) , 'founded by the Muslim Brotherhood', and 'armed by Hamas', is re-establishing itself.

In 1996, Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya reportedly carried out a shooting rampage at the Europa Hotel in Cairo, killing 18 Greek tourists.

In 1997, it reportedly carried out the Luxor massacre, killing 58 foreign tourists. (Muslim group.)

On 19 February 2011, the Financial Times reported that these February 2011 hotel attacks raise Islamist fears‎

"Over the past three weeks", a series of attacks have "targeted the Gandool, the Ramses, the Europa, the Arizona and the Andalous."

The manager of the Europa Hotel suggested that his hotel was smashed up by Islamists.

A policeman standing near the Gandool said the attackers were 'the ones with the beards'.

Two people died in the firebombing of the Ramses.


By kexi

Some people suspect that the CIA and Mossad are involved with the 'Islamists'

The Head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad Ayman al Zawahiri, fought for the CIA in Bosnia. (aangirfan: Zawahiri)

His brother Zaiman al-Zawahiri fought for the CIA in Kosovo.

Ayman al Zawahiri was involved in the Luxor massacre.

According to January 2000 U.S. Congressional testimony, Ayman al-Zawahiri was granted U.S. residence by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

One of the centers of operation for al-Zawahiri was London.

President Mubarak, after the Luxor massacre, stated: "There are people who carried out crimes and who were sentenced [in Egypt] and live on British soil." (aangirfan: Zawahiri)

aangirfan: CAIRO BOMB; CIA & MOSSAD TRYING TO TOPPLE MUBARAK?

Jamaat al-Islamiyya - Council on Foreign Relations

EXPECT MORE POVERTY & CLASHES OF CIVILISATION IN EGYPT AND INDONESIA?

Paul Wolfowitz, US ambassador to Indonesia 1986-89.

Some of the media have been predicting that Egypt will be like Indonesia.

Both have links to terrorism.

Where did the idea of al Qaeda come from?

Back in the 1950s, the CIA and its friends began using Moslem militias to do their dirty work in Indonesia.

In 2003, Australian academic Dr Damien Kingsbury wrote about the Indonesian special forces regiment called Kopassus, which has friendly links to Mossad and the Pentagon.

"Kopassus... set up the Islamic organisation Komando Jihad that hijacked the plane in 1981 and which has since emerged as Jemaah Islamiah." (We must not get back in bed with Kopassus - theage.com.au)

Former Indonesian President Wahid was saying in 2005: "There is not a single Islamic group ... that is not controlled by (Indonesian) intelligence."

'Demcocracy' in Indonesia is a bit of a fiddle.

On 16 February 2011, the New York Times suggests that Indonesia's political landscape offers a path for Egypt

What happened in Indonesia after the CIA's 1998 coup against Suharto?

"At the end of 1999, the UNICEF Jakarta office stated that ... Indonesia will sustain a lost generation; a weak and feeble-minded generation resulting from malnutrition, lack of education, and unhealthiness." (Indonesia's foreign debt: imprisoning the people of ... )

How long before we get more clashes of civilisation in Indonesia?

The New York Times (a path for Egypt) reports on the 2010 national congress of Indonesia's Prosperous Justice Party, which is linked to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.

The congress was held at the Ritz Carlton's ballroom in Jakarta.

Among the keynote speakers was Cameron Hume, then the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, who praised the party, known as the PKS.

According to the New York Times: "Following the 1998 overthrow of the dictator Suharto, Indonesia looked a lot like Egypt now."

Indonesia's Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) wants the Koran to form the basis of law.

The PKS in 2009 got less than 8% of the vote but got four seats in the cabinet of President Yudhoyono, a US trained general.

The PKS was a key force behind Indonesia's 2008 anti-pornography law.

C. Holland Taylor, the Jakarta-based chairman of LibForAll Foundation, which promotes moderate Islam worldwide, says the PKS has been a key factor in the rise of a more austere, intolerant form of Islam in Indonesia.

After two separate attacks in February 2011 by Muslim mobs, in which people were killed and churches torched, a number of PKS leaders said the attackers had been 'provoked' by acts of blasphemy.

aangirfan: FASCIST MOSLEMS BRING SHAME TO INDONESIA
aangirfan: AFTER THE PEOPLE POWER REVOLT
aangirfan: Aceh's Mad Islamists; the CIA.
aangirfan: The Muslim Brotherhood and the CIA in Indonesia; the ...

Bawful After Dark: February 28, 2011

Free taco-like item excitement?
No time to waste, straight to the bawful!

Worst of the Weekend in Pictures:

"My entire team hates me! Inconceivable!"

"Hmm... What should I do... I better call my bookie and put $5k more on this horse in the 5th..."

Marc Gasol always makes my day 83% better

Hey! Your name's not Joe! And it's not even Larry! I'm so confused!!

Man, even the Wizards Generals' mascot sucks. Depressing.

"It's okay, Manu. We don't have Portland's training staff. Tony Parker's career isn't over!"

Nationally Televised Games:
Celtics at Jazz, NBA TV, 9pm: You know, even after the trade action, the Celtics are still old. However, on the bright side, they aren't as old and lame as this website. (Seriously, go look at this trainwreck. It's the closest thing I've seen to a Geocities page in awhile. Mind-blowing stuff, people.)

All the Other Games:
Suns at Nyets, 7pm: So the Nyets get Deron Williams to pick apart the Suns defense, and I just read a game preview that referred to the Suns as "surging." Fffffuuuuuuuuu...

Bulls at Wizards Generals, 7pm: Mike Bibby just gave up $6.2 million to not play for Washington. Giving away $6,200,000 to NOT play for a team. I don't even have a joke here. Just crippling depression.

Hawks at Nuggets, 9pm: An OT loss against the Frail Blazers was the first sign of a post-Melo/Billups trade letdown. But I don't know if that will resurface again tonight. I mean, really, the Dirty Birds in their longest road trip of the year? That's not very scary. Friggin' Ghost Ship is scarier than that... Okay, maybe I took that a bit too far. But you get my point.

Clippers at Kings, 10pm: Ah, the eternal battle to see which California club can be more screwed up... Current upper-hand: Clippers.

The Basketbawful Powerless Rankings

1. The Cleveland Cadavers: After snapping their all-time league-worst 26-game losing streak against (of course) the Clippers, the Cadavers have managed to beat both the Lakers and the new-look Knicks. But if The Zombie Survival Guide taught me anything, it's this: Rising from the grave to feed on the living is not the same as returning to life. Especially when you trade for Baron Davis.

2. The Washington Wizards Generals: This was a tough decision. The Nyets and Craptors were pretty deserving of the two spot. But, of the three teams vying for "Second Worst Team in the League" status, the Generals have the worst record (15-43), worst Margin of Victory (-6.9) and, most importantly, the worst road record (1-28). All this despite having number one overall draft pick John Wall.

3. The New Jersey Nyets: I wanted to put the Craptors here. I really did. After all, Toronto is 1.5 games back in the win column. Or is that 1.5 games ahead in the loss column? Semantics aside, the Nyets won (lost?) out due to a slightly worse MOV, a similaly slightly worse MOV, and the fact that they are 0-9 in a division that includes...the Craptors. So far the addition of All-Star point guard Deron Williams has done Jack and Shit. And Jack left town.

4. The Toronto Craptors: The Generals still have Wall. And the Nyets have at least a season and a half of Williams. The Craptors have Andrea Bargnani through 2014-15. And, presumably, prayers for a quick and merciful death.

5. The Minnesota Timberwolves: Kevin Love now has four 30-point/20-rebound games this season. According to ESPN Stats and Information, that ties Shaq and Charles Barkley for the second-most in a single season in the last 25 years. Shaq also had five 30-20 games in 1999-00. K-Love also ranks fourth in Player Efficiency Rating, meaning he's the fourth-best player in the league, right? And yet...the Timberwolves are 14-46 and have a Margin of Victory of -6.0. Something's wrong here.

6. The Sacramento Kings: The Anaheim Kings? Hell, at this point, the Maloof brothers would ship the Kings pretty much anywhere that would make them a quick buck. Here's my radical answer to the problem: The [Insert City Name] Kings! That's right. The Maloofs could offer five-game, 10-game, 15-game and 20-game plans. Any city could host and "own" the Kings for a limited time. Think about it. The Kokomo Kings. The Louisville Kings. The...what?

7. The Detroit Pistons: Let me get this straight: A bunch of overrated, overpaid and/or over-the-hill players staged a walkout on coach John Kuester? Well, then, the coach must be the problem. In possibly related news, at the trade deadline, opposing teams treated Detroit's various contracts like baby poo covered in hazardous toxins and wrapped in terrorists.

8. The Los Angeles Clippers: After a brief "surge," the Clippers have lost 10 of their last 12 games. Despite the ongoing and unquestioned awesomeness of Blake Griffin -- even if his car dunk was contrived and lame -- the Clippers are 22-37 and coached by Vinny Del Negro. In other words: They are who we thought they were. Still. On the bright side, they shipped Baron Davis, his fat contract, and his even fatter ass, to Cleveland. So they have that going for them. Which is nice.

9. The Golden State Warriors: Let's see: They score a lot of points. They give up a lot of points. They lose a lot of games. And we're absolutely, positively sure Don Nelson retired?

10. The Charlotte Bobcats: In case you needed any more evidence that not everything crapped out of Michael Jordan's ass is delicious candy...

11. The Milwaukee Bucks: Remember how much fun it was the Fear the Deer last season? Now the only people who fear them are season ticket holders. Milwaukee ranks dead last in PPG, FGP, eFG% and Offensive Rating. Offensively speaking, they're a D-League team playing with a rock instead of a basketball and dead fish instead of hands. Reminder: Their offseason plan revolved around adding Corey Maggette and Drew Gooden. Think about that. Just think about it.

12. The Utah Jazz: Larry Miller is dead. Jerry Sloan is retired. Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams have been replaced with Al Jefferson and Devin Harris. And Andrei Kirilenko is on the books for nearly $18 million this season. Let's just say that, if we found a compound full of dead Jazz fans and empty Kool-Aid cups, I wouldn't be completely surprised.

13. The Indiana Pacers: Much as it pains me to admit this, Indy's near-miss on O.J. Mayo typifies Larry Bird's tenure as the team's President of Basketall Mismanagement. That Danny Granger and The Misfits might actually make the playoffs is a decent argument that the balance of power hasn't totally shifted eastward.

14. The Atlanta Hawks: Can anybody give me one good reason why the Hawks are anything other than a first round playoff exit waiting to happen? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

15. The Denver Nuggets: The post-'Melo trade adrenaline is going to wear off. And when it does...

16. The Houston Rockets: This is the perfect place for the Rockets. They keep hovering around .500. They seem to exist only to be a pain in the ass to better teams and a scourge to lesser ones. And that mad statistical genius, Daryl Morey, just traded for Hasheem Thabeet. If there was a trophy for scrappy overachievement, the Rockets would win it, hands down. As it is...

17. The Memphis Grizzlies: Don't buy into them. Don't do it. I'm warning you. Put it this way: How much faith do you feel comfortable putting into a team built on the foundation of Zach Randolph?


18. The Phoenix Suns. Look out. They're surging.

19. The Philadelphia 76ers: Philly managed to sneak back over .500 while nobody was looking (or caring). And, sneaky as you please, the Sixers have won 13 of their past 17 games. And, going further back, they're 27-16 since their 3-13 start. All that said: Look at their roster. Look at it closely. They're not scaring anybody worth scaring.

20. The New York Knicks: Their win over the Heat does not cancel out their loss to the Cadavers. It just doesn't. I mean, would a plate full of crawling insects taste better just because somebody dumped a juicy steak on it?

21. The Portland Frail Blazers: I really have no idea how they're doing it.

22. The New Orleans Hornets: Two words: Fools' Gold.

23. The Oklahoma City Thunder: We know they can score, but the Thunder have been pretty average on defense this season (currently 16th in Defensive Rating). They're hoping Kendrick Perkins can change that. Uh oh! Perk is out two-to-three weeks because of a sprained left knee. But the good news is that the injury wasn't to his surgically-repaired right knee or his surgically repaired left shoulder. Here's another Perkins factoid: He has a higher career turnover percentage (23.0) than Kwame "Stone Hands" Brown (16.8). And Kendrick's career PER (12.9) is barely higher than Kwame's (12.6). Just some thoughts to chew on.

24. The Orlando Magic: When they were counting on significant contributions from Rashard Lewis and Vince Carter, that seemed insane, right? Now they're counting on significant contributions from Gilbert Arenas and Hedo Turkoglu. Can we honestly say things have improved in Orlando?

25. The Dallas Mavericks: They seem so good. So really, really good. Clicking on offense. Clicking on defense. It makes you wonder: How are they going to flame out in the playoffs this year? Because we all know it's going to happen, we just don't know how. Yet.

26. The Los Angeles Lakers: I can hear the bleating of Lakers fans now: "But, but, but we've won four in a row coming out of the All-Star break! Including road games versus the Frail Blazers and Thunder!" Shut the hell up, Lakers fans. It's been exactly 12 days since you lost to the Cadavers.

27. The Boston Celtics: I bet people will stop mocking Danny Ainge when the Thunder buy out Kendrick Perkins and he re-signs with the Celtics for the league minimum. The Boston's gonna sign Troy Murphy, who averaged 14.3 PPG and 11.8 RPG while shooting 45 percent on threes as recently as 2008-09. Then Rasheed Wallace is gonna come back, and rumor has it he's spent the last three months completing the p90x training program. Yeah! Yeah!!

28. The Miami Heat: I know, I know. They keep kicking the absolute living shit out of bad teams, and that's supposed to be the best indicator of future (read that: playoff) success. But they're 1-7 against the league's other elite teams. And despite having two of the best three players on the planet -- both in their prime and playing like MVPs -- they've recently collapsed in crunch time against the Celtics, Bulls and Knicks. The stat geeks keep telling us this won't be a problem in the postseason, so I'm sure everything will be fine.

29. The Chicago Bulls: Their recent wins over the Spurs and Heat are somewhat mitigated by a huge defensive fail in Toronto and the fact that Keith Bogans, against all reason, is still their starting shooting guard.

30. The San Antonio Spurs: Why does it feel like they're still sort of under the radar?

Bonus Bawful: I'm going to post Chris's weekend lacktion report in the comments.

Memoir Monday... Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo

The cover photo captured my heart, of an innocent child, happy and smiling even though the world around her is hard to understand sometimes. In a Day of Honey: A Memoir of Food, Love and War, author Annia Ciezadlo tries to make sense of it all for us as she opens up a window into a world usually hidden to outsiders.

From Inside the Jacket... In the fall of 2003, Annia Ciezadlo spent her honeymoon in Baghdad. Over the next six years, while living in Baghdad and Beirut, she broke bread with Shiites and Sunnis, warlords and refugees, matriarchs and mullahs. Day of Honey is her memoir of love, conglict and the hunger for food and friendship - a communion that feeds the soul as much as the body in times of war. As an American journalist married to a Lebanese man, she had an insider's view of these turbulent years, and she takes us inside the everyday life of two cities at war.

Living and reporting from occupied Baghdad, Ciezadlo longs for normal married life. She finds it in Beirut, her husband's hometown, a city slowly recovering from years of civil war. But as the young couple settles into their new home, and begins to discover the pleasures of food and family, the bloodshe they escaped in Iraq spreads to Lebanon and reawakens the terrible specter of sectarian violence. In lucid, fiercely intelligent prose, Ciezadlo uses food and rituals of eating to illuminate a vibrant Middle East that most Americans never see.

A luminous portrait of life in the Middle East, Day of Honey weaves history, cuisine and firsthand reporting into a fearless, intimate exploration of everyday survival.

I am so looking forward to reading this book! Just from sampling the writing, I know I'm in for a treat as Ciezadlo gives us a different view of war - from the everyday lives of the people she lived with and got to know, sharing their rituals and foods with us! (Yes, there are these wonderful recipes in the back of the book- actually pages and pages of them!) Sharing with us how they deal with the chaos around them while living as normal a life as possible.

I want to thank Free Press and Simon & Schuster for sending along a review copy! Look for my review next month. If you'd like to read this right now, Day of Honey by Annia Ciezadlo is available from your favorite bookstore! *P.S. This Book is Kindle Ready!

The Sunday Salon... Signs of Spring: Birds AND Great "Bird" Books with Buzz!

It's another wonderful Sunday! Even though we received another gift of snow last night in Connecticut, it wasn't enough to have to dig out the snow shovel again. As I look at the extended forecast for the area, it looks like we'll be alternating between rain and snow for the better part of March. BUT Spring will come, as it always does! Yesterday afternoon, though, I heard a familiar sound - the sound of the song birds that nest in one of our windows. I wonder if the brief warm weather we had during the week didn't fool them into coming out and enjoying themselves. But that is a sure sign of spring - the return of the birds! My favorite visitors are the Hummingbirds. I'll have to wait a few months for them to show up, because they usually start coming in late April, but all this "Spring" talk has gotten birds on my mind, so today our Sunday Salon is about books with Birds in the Title! Don't let the titles fool you though - these books aren't really about our feathered friends!

The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen... When a bird flies into a window in Spring Green, Wisconsin, sisters Milly and Twiss get a visit. Twiss listens to the birds’ heartbeats, assessing what she can fix and what she can’t, while Milly listens to the heartaches of the people who’ve brought them. The two sisters have spent their lives nursing people and birds back to health. But back in the summer of 1947, they knew nothing about trying to mend what had been accidentally broken. Milly was known as a great beauty with emerald eyes and Twiss was a brazen wild child who never wore a dress or did what she was told. That was the summer their golf pro father got into an accident that cost him both his swing and his charm, and their mother, the daughter of a wealthy jeweler, finally admitted their hardscrabble lives wouldn’t change. It was the summer their priest, Father Rice, announced that God didn’t exist and ran off to Mexico, and a boy named Asa finally caught Milly’s eye. And, most unforgettably, it was the summer their cousin Bett came down from a town called Deadwater and changed the course of their lives forever.

I love stories with sisters - their interpay, their differences, and ultimately the bond between them. Add the era & place that Rebecca Rasmussen puts sisters Milly and Twiss in and I'm sure to enjoy it. The prepublication buzz on this book has been great for this novel! Just reading the excerpt on the authors website made me want more, but we'll all have to wait until it's released on April 12th, 2011! *P.S. This Book will be Kindle Ready! *P.S.S. I also love that cover!

The B

i

rd House by Kelly Simmon... About Kelly's book from TLC Book Tours:

Every family h

as its secrets. But when you are suddenly the matriarch, tending the dark fires of memory, and your own mind is fading, who do you dare to share them with? Your dia

ry, or your eight-year-old granddaughter?

Interweaving diaries penned forty years apart, Kelly Simmons’s captivating second novel, The Bird House, blends the fierce voice of Ann Biddle, a woman struggling to bond with her only grandchild, Ellie, while railing against the ravages of early dementia, with her point-of-view as a young wife and mother. We witness the secrets of Ann’s family and her grand-daughter and daughter-in-law’s through every len

s— from the clarity of the rearview mirror to the haze of Alzheimer’s. And we see her grappling through the ‘60’s with sleep deprivation, breast cancer, her own mother’s death, a passionate affair, and a tragedy that leaves her stunned until, four decades later, her whip-smart granddaughter unwittingly sheds a burst of light on the family’s shadowy history.

A subtly tense, darkly psychological tug of war between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, present and past, The Bird House is a moving treatise on family, love, and memories—both lost and found.

This book looks to have it all! A strong female lead character, great story with a layer of family secrets that we are promised to have revealed, and great writing. I read the first chapter of this and was hooke

d. It's gotten great reviews too! This book was recently released (Feb. 1st) and isKindle Ready! It's also on my wish list!

Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres... Set on the eve of World War I, Birds Without Wings tells the story of Eskibahçe, a charming and vibrant ethnically mixed town in present-day Turkey, and how it is irrevocably changed by the ravages of nationalism, war, and religious fervor. Before the war, Eskibahçe is filled with a wild assortment of characters, Christian and Muslim, Turkish and Armenian, the mad and the sane, the rich and the poor, living side by side in remarkable harmony. There is Ali the Snowbringer, who lives with his family and his donkey inside a hollowed-out tree; Iskander the Potter, who supplies the town with proverbial wisdom along with his pots; Karatavuk—Iskander’s son—and Mehmetçik, whose deep friendship reaches across religious barriers; Father Kristoforos and Abdulhamid Hodja, priest and imam, who hail each other playfully as “infidels”; Rustem Bey, the landlord and protector of the town, who finds happiness with a Circassian mistress after his wife is nearly stoned to death for adultery. There are lunatics as well—a crazy Sufi known as “the Dog,” who lives in a tomb and terrifies everyone with his smile, and a man known as “the Blasphemer,” who flies into cursing fits at the sight of any holy man. There is Philothei, a girl of such disquieting beauty that she must be veiled, and her besotted lover, Ibrahim the Goatherd, who will be driven mad by the horrors of war. And there is Mustafa Kemal, whose military daring will lead him to many stunning victories against the invading Western European forces and to a reshaping of the whole region. What happens to these characters—and their beloved town—because of the war is the great tragedy that Birds Without Wings describes with such unforgettable vividness.

Louis de Bernieres is also the author of the well known book (and film), Corelli's Mandolin. He is known to create wonderful in depth characters, which it seems he's accomplished here. But for us historical fiction fans, this book looks to be a wonderful treat as we are immersed in a small town during WWI, and can experience through de Bernieres writing how war impacts the humble people far away from the front lines. This is a nice fat book (576 pages) and has gotten great reviews. It's an oldie (published in 2005) but one you may not be familiar with. This has been on my TBR list for a while, and I think would make a great book club selection because of all the vivid characters and their circumstances.

Weekly Recap... This past week we celebrated my 2nd Blogiversary! Last Sunday Salon I celebrated my Blogiversary and my Sunday Salon posts with a giveaway! On Sunday's I usually highlight some great Books with Buzz, and last Sunday's Salon was all about those books from the past year I highlighted! There's still time to enter the Sunday Salon Blogiversary Giveaway! Follow the link to last Sunday's Salon to get all the details! I also celebrated my Blogiversary with a giveaway highlighting the last years Monday Memoir posts! I found so many wonderful memoirs coming into my hands that I started highlighting them on mondays, with the meme, Monday Memoirs. So, as part of my Blogiversary I'm giving away a copy of any of those Monday Memoir books I highlighted! That giveaway ends midnight Feb. 28th, so if you haven't entered yet, follow the link Monday Memoir Giveaway and get all the details!

There also was a great giveaway courtesy of author Michelle Moran for a signed copy of her newest release, Madame Tussaud, that ended last week! Congrats to Cheryl (CherylS22) who won not only the signed copy of Madame Tussaud, but also a pair of "let them eat cake" earrings! Earlier in the month Michelle stopped by for a guest post on the real Madame Tussaud, if you missed follow this link: Madame Tussaud: The Woman.

I also reviewed Laura Lippman's newest Tess Monaghan novel, The Girl in the Green Raincoat. It really is a novella that was previously serialized on The New York Times Magazine section, and finally published all together last month by Harper Collins. It's a great murder mystery that stands fine on its own, but if you're a Tess Monaghan fan you'll be in for a treat!

AND, friday's First Lines highlighted The Twin's Daughter by Lauren Baratz-Logsted. The first lines were a tease, but a friend of the author handed me a copy to read, so I'll be opening up the pages for a better taste. Look for a review next month.

How was your week? What books have you got on your nightstand? Share what great books you're reading right here, because I'd love to hear about them! And Bird Books? Do you know any great books with Birds in the title?

Happy Reading... Suzanne