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I graduated from Bir Zeit on the Hudson [Columbia University] a little too early to remember Barry Soetoro a/k/a Barack Hussein Obama. But isn't it more than a little curious that not a single one of the 25 members of the Columbia College Class of 1983 - allegedly Obama's class - who lives in Israel remembers him? What are Obama's classmates in Israel up to? Quite a few, like him, went straight to law school after finishing their undergraduate degrees. One is a doctor, several are engineers, and a few hold top jobs in finance. There's an architect in the...

The U.S. Geological Survey says a strong but deep earthquake has shaken western Colombia. The agency says the quake struck at 9:16 a.m. (1606 GMT) Saturday and had a magnitude of 7.0. it was located about 7 miles (11 kilometers) from Pasto. There are no immediate reports of damage.

Two days ago marked the 10th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, in which 7 astronauts lost their lives during reentry as the rest of us watched horror-struck from the ground. The following day, newspapers the world over were announcing the tragic news, all of them using the same photo taken, not by a prolific AP photographer, but a cardiologist and his 6.3MP Canon D60.At the time, Dr. Scott Lieberman had to order the camera special from Canada (as he couldn’t find one in the US), paying the hefty sum of $2,200. In an interesting article on Poynter, Lieberman...

NASA has revealed that the Columbia crew were not told that the shuttle had been damaged and they might not survive re-entry. The seven astronauts who died will be remembered at a public memorial service on the 10th anniversary of the disaster this Friday at Florida's Kennedy Space Center. The shuttle was headed home from a 16-day science mission when it broke apart over Texas on February 1, 2003, because of damage to its left wing. Ten years ago, experts at NASA's mission control faced the terrible decision over whether to let the astronauts know that they may die on...

What would you tell seven astronauts if you knew their space shuttle was crippled on orbit? It was a question that faced NASA's Mission Control considered after initial suspicions that something might be wrong with the shuttle Columbia as it was making its doomed reentry in 2003. Wayne Hale, who later became space shuttle program manager, struggled with this question after the deaths of the Columbia crew 10 years ago. Recently he wrote about the debate in his blog, recalling a meeting to discuss the dilemma: "After one of the MMTs (Mission Management Team) when possible damage to the orbiter...

Ten years ago Friday, the space shuttle Columbia was destroyed and its seven astronauts killed during the final minutes of its flight. NASA will mark the 10th anniversary of the accident at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, and take part in an observance at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, where three of the astronauts are buried. Other commemorations Friday include events at a 2-year-old Columbia museum in Hemphill, Texas, where shuttle debris fell. PBS is also airing a new documentary about Ilan Ramon, the Israeli astronaut on Columbia. The wife of the shuttle's commander, Evelyn Husband Thompson, said she has seen...

Shortly after Hugo Chávez won his first election as Venezuelan president in December 1998, a lawyer from the western state of Barinas, which was then governed by Chávez's father, delivered a prescient warning to Newsweek magazine: "Venezuelans are dreaming of a savior, but Chávez is a dictator. People don't know what they are getting."  More than 14 years later, a cancer-stricken Chávez is reportedly near death, but his autocratic legacy is very much alive. Venezuela long ago ceased to be a real democracy: The ruling regime effectively controls the Supreme Court (which in 2004 was expanded and packed with Chávez allies), the National Assembly...

Time to connect the dots, again. Treehouse Research – Going Deep. While attending Occidental University, 1979 – 81′, young Barack Obama meets a former Jimmy Carter administration official Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski is a key CIA asset and expert on Russia. He later becomes a mentor, and then much later a foreign policy advisor to President Elect Obama. Obama is friends with three Pakistani college roommates, muslims, Mohammed Hasan Chandio, Wahid Hamid, and Indian Vinai Thummalapally. In the summer of 1981 Obama travelled with his friends to Pakistan. Brezinski was deeply involved in the U.S. aspects to support Osama Bin Laden...

Maryam Zohny erases message following advocacy group’s letter of complaint JTA — A photo and text calling an Israeli soldier a “terrorist” and “killer” were removed from the Facebook page of a Columbia University program director. Maryam Zohny, program director of the university’s Center for Palestine Studies, removed the post from her personal Facebook wall after the Anti-Defamation League sent a letter to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger expressing concern about the post. The post that Zohny shared on Dec. 13 read: “Israeli terrorist ‘Nofar Mizrahi’/Killer of the Martyr Muhamad Salayme/Wanted by the Resistance.” The post, which has been circulating...

— Columbia University has a “director of the center for gender and sexuality law” by the name of Katherine Franke who is considered an authority on sexual matters by The New York Times. Her position seems to be that recent scandals in the news are not really scandalous, except in terms of being sensationalized and overblown by the media. She told the paper that Kevin Clash and David Petraeus were victims of a “sex panic” when they resigned from their respective positions. The Times story written by Elizabeth Jensen and Brian Stelter is noteworthy for the claim that Clash, the...

I know it would wound Romney to make a big deal out of college records at this point because it would stigmatize him as a "birther," but I can't help but reflect upon when the media made a big deal about Bush's college transcripts a few elections ago. The hypocrisy is astounding. We have so much more to learn from Obama's records than we did from Bush's. With Bush the questions basically were "Was he a drunken frat boy who barely squeaked by?" "Did Daddy pull strings to get you into school?" "Will his grades help us prove he was/is...

Barack Obama was a guest at the 1991 wedding of ABC senior foreign correspondent and vice presidential debate moderator Martha Raddatz, The Daily Caller has learned. Obama and groom Julius Genachowski, whom Obama would later tap to head the Federal Communications Commission, were Harvard Law School classmates at the time and members of the Harvard Law Review. After TheDC made preliminary inquiries Monday to confirm Obama’s attendance at the wedding, ABC leaked a pre-emptive statement to liberal-leaning news outlets including Politico and The Daily Beast Tuesday, revealing what may have been internal network pressure felt just days before Raddatz was...

More lies, deceit and cover-up from the most secretive president in US history. Legitimate media actually believes Obama might sign a release ........ what are they smoking? Obama’s Columbia Records Editorial of The New York Sun | October 10, 2012 It looks like President Obama will go to the polls for the last time with the voters still in the dark in respect of his years at Columbia University. The question mark over that period of his life has always rankled us. The New York Times in 2007 assigned one of its finest reporters, in Janny Scott, to scour the...

"The Dozen Most Overrated Black People": Can you imagine if I (or any other columnist) actually wrote an article with this title and subject? ....So what to make of Columbia University Associate Professor Marc Lamont Hill's article.....entitled "The 15 Most Overrated White People"..... ......This cannot remain acceptable in America -- by which I do not mean that Hill should not be heard, but rather than he should not be heard without the challenges he so richly deserves. The media and Columbia University do the nation a disservice by giving this transparently racist pseudo-intellectual an uncontested platform from which to further...

The mayor, police chief and media have figured out what is behind a wave of black-mob violence in Columbia, S.C: White kids drink too much. And race has nothing to do with the assailants. But a growing number of residents are wondering why public officials are focusing their attention on arresting potential victims. They say city officials are ignoring the black mobs that are “loitering,” threatening, beating, shooting and robbing people by the dozens in this popular entertainment district called Five Points near the University of South Carolina. And it has never been worse. The latest attacks came a few...

As a freshman at Columbia University in 1970, future Attorney General Eric Holder participated in a five-day occupation of an abandoned Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) headquarters with a group of black students later described by the university’s Black Students’ Organization as “armed,” The Daily Caller has learned. Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler has not responded to questions from The Daily Caller about whether Holder himself was armed — and if so, with what sort of weapon. Holder was then among the leaders of the Student Afro-American Society (SAAS), which demanded that the former ROTC office be renamed...

Great video. It appears that Obama's best friend and roommate, Sohale Siddiqi was more than a friend. Perhaps this explains the wedding ring he wore for years before he married Michelle.

Transparency: A former classmate has added a tantalizing question to the mysteries surrounding Barack Obama's college years. Perhaps the GOP nominee, whose tax records are demanded, should call the president's bluff. Not many students whose grades supposedly were good enough to get into Harvard Law School can say that 400 of their classmates taken randomly don't remember a single thing about him or his even being there. But Barack Obama, Columbia University class of '83, can. Student Obama spent two years at Columbia after transferring there from Occidental College in Los Angeles. And for all the impression he made on...

President Barack Obama’s love of secrecy has, by this point, become a favorite rhetorical cudgel for the President’s opponents. And perhaps no set of documents is more coveted due to its total unavailability than the President’s college records. These documents have sparked all sorts of conspiracy theories.To be fair, Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, didn’t release his college records either. Those only became public after a leak from inside Yale University, not due to any consent on the part of the former President. All the same, Obama’s time at Columbia is filled with gaps, such as the question of...

Video --- Obama classmate calls for unsealing of records at Columbia.