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An 'unflattering' picture of Beyoncé performing at the Super Bowl's halftime show has transformed into a fully-fledged meme; one to rival McKayla Maroney's now-iconic 'Not Impressed' scowl. After Beyoncé's publicist, Yvette Noel-Schure, emailed Buzzfeed earlier this week to ask that the site 'respectfully change' several images of her client to 'some better photos' from the halftime show, her attempt backfired in epic proportions. Buzzfeed published the email, and in the Internet phenomenon known as the Streisand Effect, one image in particular circulated so virulently it became an instant meme.

The Obama administration warned on Friday that across-the-board spending cuts set to take effect in March may result in furloughing every U.S. meat and poultry inspector for two weeks, causing the meat industry to shut down. By law, meatpackers and processors are not allowed to ship beef, pork, lamb and poultry meat without the Agriculture Department's inspection seal. The prospect of mass furloughs of meat and food inspectors was part of a broader White House warning about the effects of the potential spending cuts on everyday life. Meatpackers said a shut-down would devastate consumers as well as their industry. Read...

Q: With Obama about to visit the country, should Israel agree to attend new negotiation sessions with the Palestinian Authority? A: No. Nothing positive can come out of it. For twenty years Israel has been attending “talks” with the Palestinians and these have achieved absolutely nothing other than Israeli capitulation. In each round of talks Israel has given away more and more assets and made an ever-growing number of concessions, getting nothing in return. Q: Why give up hope that the Palestinians will agree to some sort of deal? A: Because they have yet to comply with a single punctuation...

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In Philadelphia, about half of all students in ninth grade will graduate from high school. The dropout rate is especially high among black and Hispanic boys. President Obama’s answer to this problem is typical of the left: compulsion. Make dropping out illegal. In other words, force boys who are learning nothing to remain where they are learning nothing, to help make sure that nobody else learns anything, either. If they drop out anyway, turn them into criminals to be rounded up. All this would cost a great deal of money, which Philadelphia does not have. And even if you could...

NEW DELHI: "The incident, which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation and the collective conscience of society will only be satisfied if the capital punishment is awarded to the offender," the Supreme Court had said while upholding the death sentence of Afzal Guru. Holding Afzal guilty of the conspiracy culminating in the attack on Parliament House, the apex court in its August 4, 2005 judgment added: "The conspirator, even though he may not have indulged in the actual criminal operations to execute the conspiracy, becomes liable for the punishment prescribed under Section 302 of the IPC (Indian...

"I need people to understand this," said Ream Um, a retired mathematics teacher who worked for the St. Paul school district for 23 years. The 71-year-old academic -- who in 1975 destroyed his eyeglasses and dentures to disguise his scholarly appearance from Cambodia's communist Khmer Rouge regime -- pointed to a sign displaying, in bold red letters, the words "Life, Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness." "The lesson is this: We have to make ourselves smart. Go to school, learn math ... but also this. This is important." Beside him, Hoeun Hach -- a soft-spoken Oakdale man with an easy smile --...

Victor Davis Hanson’s essay, The New Age of Falsity, vividly describes the new requirement of the modern age. It is the requirement to lie. The requirement is imposed by the circumstance that many institutions are already built on falsehoods. In order to keep things ticking even honest newcomers must resort to the “maintenance lie” which can be defined as the affirmation of legacy falsehoods to prevent an institutional meltdown. This is without taking into account what can be called the “capital investment lies”, which are entirely new fibs uttered for the purpose of usurping new powers. Hanson convincingly argues that...

On the web-only "Overtime" segment of HBO's "Real Time" with host Bill Maher, guest Tina Brown, editor in chief of Newsweek/Daily Beast, said if President Obama were former President George W. Bush he would have been impeached by now.

LANSDOWNE, Va. — Former President Bill Clinton came to the House Democratic retreat here armed with a warning: The Republicans won’t make it as easy for Democrats to win in 2014. “I think that we should assume going forward that the people who disagree with us, honestly in our approach, will not make it quite as easy to draw the contrast on the things they do and say [as] they did last time,” Clinton told House Democrats in a wide-ranging and largely informal talk that lasted nearly 45 minutes. Clinton noted he held 133 campaign events for Democrats in 2012,...

On Tom Trento’s radio show today, former FBI agent, John Guandolo, who wrote the first Muslim Brotherhood training manual for the FBI, outs John Brennan, Obama’s nominee for CIA Director, as having converted to Islam while working in Saudi Arabia. (Embedded video: Fast forward to 11 minute mark and watch til the 52 min mark)

With the announcement this week of its massive $5 billion lawsuit against ratings agency Standard & Poor's, the Federal Government took a bold step to squelch any remaining independence of thought or action in the financial services industry. Given the circumstances and timing of the suit, can there be any doubt that S&P is paying the price for the August 2011 removal of its AAA rating on U.S. Treasury debt? In retaliation for the unpardonable sin of questioning the U.S. Treasury's credit worthiness, the Obama Administration is sending a loud and clear message to Wall Street: mess with the bull...

There is much to commend, and there are some things to question, about Rand Paul’s big foreign policy speech yesterday at Heritage Foundation. The overall idea of using George Kennan-like “containment” for Iran or for jihadist Islam in general is, well, problematic , although there are plenty of elements of his speech that are at least somewhat sensible. It is a good thing to have discussion of such issues, and there is much value in having people make a thoughtful case against over-eagerness for military intervention. Those of us who tend a little more towards interventionism (”tend” being the key...

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) defended his relationship with Florida doctor and political donor Salomon Melgen in an interview with Univision on Friday, saying he didn’t do anything on his friend’s behalf that he doesn’t regularly do for others. Melgen, a close friend of Menendez’s, reportedly overbilled the U.S. government by almost $9 million in Medicare payments, inviting a federal audit. Menendez acknowledged contacting officials to complain that the Medicare billing rules were unclear, but the senator denied that his close ties to Melgen had anything to do with him raising the issue. “The fact that someone is a donor does...

My dear friends with the Nemo Blizzard dropping about 2 to 3 feet at my house I was thinking again today about the wonders of... snow. Yes snow! Something one either hates or loves but whether you despise it or enjoy it, snow in it's self is an absolute wonder of Almighty God's ETERNAL creative genius (Job 38:22-23, Psalm 104:24, Prov. 3:19). As I was thinking of snow... the Bible verse from Isaiah 1:18 came to mind. "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;...

President Barack Obama was nowhere to be found the long and fatal night of September 11, 2012 when Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were assassinated in an attack on the U.S. Mission Outpost in Benghazi, Libya.  Finally, five months after the terrorist assault, the American people and the families of those brave slain Americans find out that even though live video was being streamed back to Washington, even though requests for backup had been sent, the President left it to others to deal with the issue. "He (Obama) knew generally what was deployed out there but as to...

The U.S. Postal Service's decision to eliminate Saturday delivery could disproportionally hurt minority groups, according to Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee. "You're talking about just this reduction … from six days to five days will cut anywhere from 25,000 to 30,000 employees. And with regard to Asian, African-Americans, and Hispanics, they comprise about 40 percent of the Postal Service employees," Cummings told Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC Friday night. "So it's logical to believe if they were to lose that 30,000 jobs, easily 40 percent of them would be African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans." Cummings...

Last week Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped down from her lofty position amidst a sycophantic outpouring of hot air as journalists and fellow politicians abandoned their roles and assumed positions as Hillary courtiers, duly attending to the bidding of their lord and mistress. This would include, but was not limited to singing praiseful odes to her ladyship, ignoring her errors, helping to cover up her mistakes, and attempting to damage the reputations of any person who refused to play along with the charade. At the center of the love-fest was the former Secretary herself, appearing before a Senate panel...

President Obama warned in his weekly address that the sequester would deal a "huge blow to middle-class families and our economy as a whole" and urged Congress to strike a compromise deal to avert the $85 billion in automatic cuts. "There’s certainly no reason that middle-class families and small businesses should suffer just because Washington couldn’t come together and eliminate a few special-interest tax loopholes, or government programs that just don’t work," Obama said. "At a time when economists and business leaders from across the spectrum have said that our economy is poised for progress, we shouldn’t allow self-inflicted wounds...

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.