Violence-Plagued McDonald's Agrees to Step Up Security

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/McDonalds-Violence-Fights-Caught-on-Tape-YouTube-Security-Police-Greenwich-Village-145132015.html

A McDonald's in Greenwich Village is hiring off-duty NYPD officers to guard the restaurant after midnight, after complaints that the fast-food restaurant is plagued by trouble late at night.

The restaurant will hire a paid detail and make the area safer, according to Brad Hoylman, chair of the local community board.

Hoylman says he's been pushing for greater security at the 24-hour fast-food joint since October, when an employee beat a woman with a metal rod after she and her friend jumped the counter, allegedly to attack him.

That incident was also caught on video and rapidly went viral. Charges filed against the employee were later dropped.

Then, another brutal brawl erupted outside the restaurant on St. Patrick's Day. Video of that was also posted on YouTube.

PHOTOS AND VIDEOS

PHOTOS
Weird News Photos

PHOTOS
Famous Mug Shots

More Photos and Videos

"It just attracts the worst behavior and people who have been having a good time, sometimes too good a time, they often end up here," Hoylman said of the restaurant.

The high-profile fights have given the McDonald's a reputation as a place for trouble. Council Speaker Christine Quinn urged her constituents to boycott the restaurant until it improved security.

A follow-up meeting is scheduled to discuss other safety suggestions after the off-duty officers are put into place.

Other ideas proposed include giving the NYPD remote access to the security cameras and cutting off the seating area in the early morning hours.

Security forces enter Kalandiya, drive back protesters

Security forces entered Kalandiya Friday afternoon in an attempt to drive back protesters using tear gas, sound grenades, sound weapons, foul-smelling water and rubber-coated bullets. Protesters were throwing stones, burning tires and throwing Molotov cocktails toward the Kalandiya checkpoint and security forces.

Peggy Noonan: This Obama character seems increasingly dishonest and devious to me

Remember “Obama-cons”? Or was it “Obamicans”? You know who I mean — the libertarians and center-rightists who found Obama’s “first-class temperament” so first class in 2008 that they convinced themselves he’d be a problem-solving pragmatist when it came to things like entitlement reform and avoiding crippling deficits. Three and a half years later, here we are.

Lots of buyer’s remorse op-eds coming from that group this year. The big question: Will David Brooks write one too or will those famously well-creased pants of O’s retain just enough edge to keep him in the fold? Can’t wait for his last column in October. It’ll be epic.

What is happening is that the president is coming across more and more as a trimmer, as an operator who’s not operating in good faith. This is hardening positions and leading to increased political bitterness. And it’s his fault, too. As an increase in polarization is a bad thing, it’s a big fault…

Now this week the Supreme Court arguments on ObamaCare, which have made that law look so hollow, so careless, that it amounts to a characterological indictment of the administration. The constitutional law professor from the University of Chicago didn’t notice the centerpiece of his agenda was not constitutional? How did that happen?

Maybe a stinging decision is coming, maybe not, but in a purely political sense this is how it looks: We were in crisis in 2009—we still are—and instead of doing something strong and pertinent about our economic woes, the president wasted history’s time. He wasted time that was precious—the debt clock is still ticking!—by following an imaginary bunny that disappeared down a rabbit hole…

If you jumped into a time machine to the day after the election, in November, 2012, and saw a headline saying “Obama Loses,” do you imagine that would be followed by widespread sadness, pain and a rending of garments? You do not. Even his own supporters will not be that sad. It’s hard to imagine people running around in 2014 saying, “If only Obama were president!” Including Mr. Obama, who is said by all who know him to be deeply competitive, but who doesn’t seem to like his job that much. As a former president he’d be quiet, detached, aloof. He’d make speeches and write a memoir laced with a certain high-toned bitterness. It was the Republicans’ fault. They didn’t want to work with him.

Follow the link up top for thoughts on him being “devious.” She’s right about his supporters not being sad if he loses too. If you doubt her, watch the withering satirical vid below that HuffPo put out this morning on the glory of “hope.” Here’s the proof, I guess, that he’s a middle-ground centrist after all: There’s no concern in the clip that we’re headed for a fiscal cliff but plenty of angst that he hasn’t gotten Congress to tackle issues that are politically toxic to them (closing Gitmo) or to avoid being influenced by the special interests on which their campaign treasuries depend (financial reform). His fans bought the fantasy that he’d change everything by the sheer force of his charisma and now they’re mad at him for proving that they’re chumps. Everyone wanted to see the economy improve, but beyond that our side wanted one big thing from him — a serious effort at balancing the budget — and the left wanted pretty much everything else. What we got was a dead Bin Laden, which is great but isn’t going to win him an election.

Go read BuzzFeed’s report tonight on how Democrats, without much of anything else to run on until they’ve got real momentum on shrinking unemployment, are alreadyrolling out their “fear” messaging on Romney. If the economy stalls again, that’s all they’ll have left.

Concerns grow over children using tablet computers

Electronic tablets like the iPad are a revolutionary educational tool and are becoming part of childhood, but should be watched carefully so that overuse doesn't lead to learning or behavioral problems, experts say.

"It's a topic that really emerged in the last two years. You can't pull it from their hands," Warren Buckleitner, editor of Children's Technology Review, said this week at a New York panel titled "Baby Brains and Video Games."

According to a late 2011 survey of 2,200 parents and children in Britain and the United States, 15 percent of kids between three and eight had used their parents' iPad. Nine percent had their own iPad, while 20 percent had their own iPod.

The same study, by the marketing agency Kids Industries, found 77 percent of parents believed that using tablets was beneficial for their children and the same number thought the gadgets helped develop creativity.

Amid warnings from some researchers that tablets can cause developmental difficulties and problems including autism or attention deficit disorder, experts at the forum recommended not rushing to judgment.

"Technology maybe fosters some things and dampens others,"Rosemarie Truglio, from the children's TV producers Sesame Workshop, said. "It's definitely about balance."

Lisa Guernsey, director of the Early Education Initiative at the New American Foundation, said that critics blaming devices like the iPad for child developmental problems should differentiate "between a cause and an association."

Still, Guernsey, author of "Screen Time: How Electronic Media -- From Baby Videos to Educational Software -- Affects Your Young Child," urged parents to establish limits on use of electronic devices.

"Can they focus on a conversation, not look a screen for 30 minutes?" she asked.

Truglio noted that "researchers have proven they need adult-child interaction," in addition to the electronic helper. "Interactive doesn't mean educational," she said.

Annie Murphy Paul, author of "How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives," said there's no need to panic.

"Your brain is changing all the time, each time you learn something new," she said.

But Paul said she strictly controls her own offspring's access to such devices and remains concerned "about the value" for small children.

For Buckleitner, it's all a question of balance. Don't let the iPad become an electronic babysitter. But it can be "a shelf of toys. It could be a lot things," she said. "Trust your gut."

John Bolton is also advising Romney

After having criticized Mitt Romney for having former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden advising him, I feel it is only fair to point out that former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton is also advising the likely Republican presidential nominee. And unlike Hayden, Bolton is a brilliant strategic thinker, organizational leader and innovator, and friend of Israel.

In an article in Newsmax published this week, Bolton laid out the threat a nuclear armed Iran poses to the Middle East and the US and presented the argument for military strikes against Iran' nuclear facilities. He summarized Obama's policies towards Iran noting that Obama has no intention of attacking Iran's nuclear facilities and opposes an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities more than he opposes a nuclear armed Iran.

Bolton then called for the US -- through the Congress -- to support an Israeli military strike. The most important thing the US can do in this regard is ensure that the US will resupply Israel with the military platforms it will need to defend itself against the likely Iranian decision to use its Hezbollah and Hamas proxies to attack Israel to retaliate against an IDF strike on Iran's nuclear installations.

Bolton doesn't cover any new ground in his article. But what he does do is show that Newt Gingrich was talking sense when he said that if he is elected president he will appoint Bolton to serve as his Secretary of State.

Despite Gingrich's enthusiastic endorsement, Bolton came out in support of Romney. He argued that Romney is the most conservative candidate that has the potential to defeat Obama. Since he announced his support, Bolton has reportedly been advising Romney. So after attacking Romney advisor Michael Hayden yesterday for his apparent support for Obama's Iran policy, it is only fair to salute him for having Bolton on his team.

I think it would be extremely helpful if for Romney's supporters to pressure him to commit to appointing Bolton as his Secretary of State in the event he wins the Republican nomination and defeats Obama in November. If Romney were to do that, I would say that every right thinking person should go to bat for him. Right now a Romney vs. Obama race is a choice between an acceptable option and an unacceptable one. If he announced that Bolton will be his Secretary of State, Romney would immediately transform the content into a race between an amazing option and an unacceptable one.

Posted on March 29, 2012 at 3:47 PM

© 2012 Caroline Glick

US thwarting Israeli strike on Iran

The United States is leaking information to the media in order to avert an Israeli strike in Iran:The US Administration recently shifted into high gear in its efforts to avert an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities by the end of the year. The flood of reports in the American media in recent weeks attests not only to the genuine US fear that Israel intends to realize its threats; moreover, it indicates that the Obama Administration has decided to take its gloves off.

Indeed, in recent weeks the Administration shifted from persuasion efforts vis-à-vis decision-makers and Israel’s public opinion to a practical, targeted assassination of potential Israeli operations in Iran. This “surgical strike” is undertaken via reports in the American and British media, but the campaign’s aims are fully operational: To make it more difficult for Israeli decision-makers to order the IDF to carry out a strike, and what’s even graver, to erode the IDF’s capacity to launch such strike with minimal casualties.

we’re now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan.

Senior Obama administration’s officials leak Israeli- Azerbaijan info. to foreign policy magazine: One of the U.S. sources tells FPM, “We’re watching what Iran does closely, but we’re now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan. And we’re not happy about it.”

Posted on March 29, 2012 at 3:08 PM EST

In 2009, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. embassy in Baku, Donald Lu, sent a cable to the State Department’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom titled “Azerbaijan’s discreet symbiosis with Israel.” The memo, later released by WikiLeaks, quotes Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev as describing his country’s relationship with the Jewish state as an iceberg: “nine-tenths of it is below the surface.”

Why does it matter? Because Azerbaijan is strategically located on Iran’s northern border and, according to several high-level sources I’ve spoken with inside the U.S. government, Obama administration officials now believe that the “submerged” aspect of the Israeli-Azerbaijani alliance — the security cooperation between the two countries — is heightening the risks of an Israeli strike on Iran.