[BBC] A Taiwanese hiker known for posting bikini clad photos from mountain summits has died after falling into a ravine during a solo trek.
Gigi Wu managed to contact emergency services but bad weather delayed rescue operations, local media reports say. The 36-year-old is thought to have died of hypothermia.
She was a popular figure on social media and messages on her Facebook pages pay tribute to her as an inspirational hiker.
Ms Wu was alone on a multi-day tour in Yushan National Park, home to Taiwan's highest peaks which reach almost 4,000 metres (13,000 ft), the reports say.
While she was famous for posting pictures of herself in bikinis from summits, she was an experienced hiker, appearing to use proper equipment and precautions during her expeditions.
[St. Louis Post Dispatch] You can’t buy them with food stamps, and Medicaid doesn’t cover them, but tampons and pads are a necessity for women’s health, advocates say.
Starting in April, the new St. Louis Alliance for Period Supplies plans to distribute free menstrual products to women who need them.
A recent survey of 183 low-income women showed that nearly two-thirds can’t always afford pads or tampons, according to St. Louis University. The women reported substituting diapers, rags or paper towels during their periods. Some said they had resorted to stealing pads or collecting them from local emergency rooms.
"Women are resourceful, and they make do, but making do for your whole cycle the entire month affects your sense of self and your dignity," said Anne Sebert Kuhlmann, an associate professor of behavioral science and health education at SLU who led the study published in the February issue of the medical journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.
#3
Imagine having your every need met, from cradle to grave. Imagine never having to think or worry or never having to try and fail.
In that instance you should become aware that you have been reduced to an animal, you are no more free than the slave in the Roman Empire.
I wonder how many of them have such a thought in their whole existence? They certainly should have plenty of free time to ponder it.
[Washington Examiner] Fox News anchor Bret Baier and his family survived a "major" car crash Monday morning in Montana.
Baier said the vehicle he, his wife and their two sons were in flipped over while they were driving to an airport on icy roads. The family had been in Montana skiing.
"Thanks to a man driving by named Zach who stopped and helped, we were able to climb out of the flipped car. And thanks to the first responders and Montana Highway Patrol ‐ we made it to the hospital quickly," Baier said in a statement, according to Mediaite.
The family is "banged up, but alive," said Baier, who hosts Fox News' "Special Report."
Baier advised everyone to wear their seat belts and take nothing for granted.
"Every day is a blessing ‐ and family is everything. It’s always good to remind yourself of that ‐ before something does it for you," he wrote in a tweet Monday night.
[ABC-5] KIDRON, Ohio ‐ Two people have died Monday morning in a small plane crash in Kidron, located in Wayne County, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Authorities said the crash happened at 11145 Hackett Road in Kidron.
There were two people on-board when the plane clipped power lines shortly after departure from Kidron Monday morning, according to the FAA. The flight left a local airfield and was headed to the Akron-Canton Airport when it crashed.
Initial reports indicate that the plane had engine issues, which are believed to be a possible cause of the crash, Ohio State Highway Patrol officials said.
Investigators said the two people who died were identified as the pilot and co-pilot.
Federal records show the plane is registered to Priority Air Charter LLC. The company is based across the street from the crash site. No one answered the phone at the company's office and the door was locked Monday afternoon.
FAA records show the DC3 was built in 1942, but has been certified "airworthy" by the FAA in July, 2018.
A post on Priority Air Charter's Facebook page dated 2016 shows a picture of the plane and says it just returned to Ohio after spending 18 months with the Humanitarian Aid organization Samaritan's Purse in East Africa. It also says the plane was available for sale.
#1
....I'm pretty sure this bird spent a few days at Columbia (SC) Regional Airport a few years ago. Got an N number, looked it up, and it was listed as belonging to Samaritan's Purse.
Mike
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01/22/2019 5:12 Comments ||
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[NYPOST] An overweight passenger aboard a Taiwanese airliner forced flight attendants to remove his pants so he could use the toilet — then wipe his butt as he moaned in pleasure, according to reports.
A flight attendant for EVA Air — which only employs female cabin crew — described the crappy duty the paunchy perv subjected her and two of her colleagues to aboard the LA-to-Taipei flight on Saturday, according to Focus Taiwan.
The sicko, who was confined to a wheelchair, told the flight attendants that he needed assistance to use the lavatory about two hours into the flight.
“I felt that as a flight attendant, removing a passenger’s underwear was beyond the scope of my responsibilities,” the flight attendant told a news conference, where she was accompanied by reps from the Taoyuan Flight Attendants Union.
“I told him we couldn’t help him, but he started yelling. He told me to go in there immediately and threatened to relieve himself on the floor,” she said, according to the Daily Mail.
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01/22/2019 00:00 ||
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[Asharq Al-Awsat] Climate change and deforestation
...or possibly not climate change — deforestation on its own suffices for understory trees and bushes...
are putting more than half the world’s wild coffee species at risk of extinction, with 60% of 124 known species on the edge of extinction, scientists warned on Wednesday.
Research published by experts at Britain’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew found that current conservation measures for wild coffee species are not enough to protect their long-term future.
More than 100 types of coffee trees grow naturally in forests, including two used for the coffee we drink.
Scientists say the figure is "worrying", as wild coffee is critical for sustaining the global coffee crop.
About one in five of the world's plants is threatened with extinction, and the 60% figure is an "extremely high" one.
Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at Kew, who co-led the work, said that among coffee species threatened with extinction are some that could be used to breed and develop the coffees of the future, including some that have resistance to disease and that can withstand worsening climatic conditions.
He said targeted action is urgently needed in specific tropical countries, particularly in Africa and particularly in forested areas which are being hit hard by climate change.
“As temperatures increase and rainfall decreases - the suitable area for growing ... diminishes,” Davis said.
He noted the findings were not just important for coffee drinkers. “There are many countries which depend on coffee for the ... bulk of their export earnings. It’s estimated there are 100 million people producing coffee in farms around the world.”
The study found that 75 wild coffee species are considered threatened with extinction, 35 are not threatened and too little is known about the remaining 14 to make any judgment.
Furthermore, it was found that 28% of wild coffee species grow outside protected areas and only about half are preserved in seed banks.
China's glamour wearing off and US fracking and shale looking tasty?
[ASHARQ AL-AWSAT] New US-Sudanese talks have started in Khartoum to expand oil investment projects with the largest number of American companies.
A delegation from the US embassy in Khartoum, headed by its commercial attaché and including representatives of the Baker Hughes company, met with CEO of Sudan National Petroleum Company (SUDAPET) Atif Mustafa Abbashar.
SUDAPET is one of the arms of the Sudanese Ministry of Oil and Gas, which is responsible for agreements and transactions with international companies that seek to invest in the oil sector in Sudan.
The two parties agreed to resume the activities of Baker Hughes in the country and assign the company and the commercial attaché to market and promote investment opportunities in the exploration, extraction and oil sectors in Sudan.
Sudan relies on Baker Hughes to attract high-tech US investments, an informed source in the Ministry of Oil, Gas and Minerals told Asharq Al-Awsat.
Baker Hughes will implement the industrial gas city project, which is on Sudan’s international tender to invest 15 oil fields in the country, said the source.
The project is based on US shale oil technology for natural gas extraction.
The company’s contract provides for cooperation with SUDAPET and implementation of gas and associated gas projects, as well as cooperation in spare parts for drilling wells, drilling fluids and refinery services.
Since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Oil has been receiving offers from international oil companies to invest in 15 oil fields, which Sudan has put out to investment through a global tender in March 2017 and then reintroduced them in October 2018.
It also offered a number of fields for global investments at the end of May, most notably the Industrial Gas City, which the country is looking forward to capitalize on gas-related industries through bloc 8 located in the southeastern Sinnar state.
Other opportunities for oil investment in Sudan include increasing the storage capacity of the Khartoum refinery, which currently operates at 90,000 barrels per day, and covering 80 percent of the country’s oil consumption.
The Sudanese investment projects also include the extension of pipelines from the production and storage areas to the rest of the country and the extraction of oil and gas in a number of sites that need high technology and huge investments.
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01/22/2019 00:00 ||
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[PULSE.NG] The Zimbabwe High Court ruled Monday that government had no powers to order a shutdown of the internet which was imposed as protests swept across the country last week.
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[PULSE.NG] The latest escalation in the power struggle between Maduro and the new president of the assembly, Juan Guaido, came on the same day as a brief military uprising in Caracas and amid opposition calls for mass protests on Wednesday.
Supreme Court president Juan Jose Mendoza read a statement to the press declaring that the legislature "does not have a legitimate board of directors."
He charged that it was "usurping its authority, and therefore all its decisions are void."
Hours earlier, the government said it jugged Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! a group of mutinous soldiers who attacked a National Guard command center in Caracas.
The soldiers had managed to post a video on social media announcing their repudiation of Maduro's regime and calling on the public to take to the streets in support.
Guaido, on being sworn in as the assembly president earlier in the month, called on the military and the public to support a transitional government to restore democracy after declaring Maduro's presidency illegitimate.
Last week, the assembly formally declared Maduro a "usurper" and promised members of the military and civilian officials who break with his regime amnesty.
Maduro, a socialist, was sworn in to a second six year term January 10 amid criticism from his domestic opponents and international bodies such as the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , Organization of American States and the United States.
Maduro's critics charge the May election he won was fraudulent.
The Supreme Court stripped the legislature of all its powers in 2017, soon after Maduro lost control of the National Assembly following parliamentary elections.
Although the opposition-controlled assembly continues to sit and make decisions, those are all annulled by the loyalist-dominated Supreme Court.
Guaido has announced a mass people's protest for Wednesday and admits that he needs both the public and military on his side to unseat Maduro.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/22/2019 00:00 ||
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[PULSE.NG] Colombia's ELN rebels demanded government guarantees Monday that their peace delegation could return to the country from Cuba within 15 days due to the failure of talks, after a bombing killed 20 people in Bogota.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/22/2019 00:00 ||
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[ELUNIVERSAL] The vice president of the Human Rights Committee of Parliamentarians, Deputy Delsa Solórzano, demanded Monday "respect" for the officials of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) detained after expressing that they did not know Nicolás Maduro as president of the Republic.
Through a message posted on her Twitter account, the parliamentarian called for "respect for life and due process, guarantees established in our Constitution" for detained officials.
In the early hours of this Monday, an irregular situation was presented in the Command of the Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) of Cotiza.
One of the rebel officials, identified as the sergeant major of tecera Valdren Figueroa, said that "they asked us to defend the Constitution and here we are with the troops."
After this pronouncement, statements were generated in Cotiza that were later dispersed with tear gas by members of the Special Actions Forces (FAES) and General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (Dgcim).
At least 14 GNB troops were tossed in the clink Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! for this act after "stealing weapons from the detachment of Urban Security" in Petare and -according to statements by the president of the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), Diosdado Cabello-, "attempt to attack the peace through violent maneuvers aimed at generating anxiety in the Venezuelan people. "
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01/22/2019 00:00 ||
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[ELUNIVERSAL] The president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, rejected on Monday the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice to annul the acts of the current board of directors, which he considered a "legal aberration, politically absurd."
Juan Guaidó called on the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) to follow the Magna Carta. "Military family there are those who want to persecute, those who want to continue intimidating, what we saw today is that there is an echo on constitutional respect."
Finally, he invited Venezuelans to the March that will take place this coming Wednesday in "attachment" to articles 233, 333 and 350 of the Constitution of the Republic with the "backing" of the international community.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[PRESSTV] Russia has rejected a US demand for Moscow to destroy a new cruise missile system, a weapon Washington alleges is in violation of the landmark Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday it was unacceptable for Washington to demand Moscow destroy its SSC-8/9M729 cruise missile, denying the missile system is in breach of INF.
INF was a Cold-War era treaty signed in 1987 that eliminated all nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges of 1,000‐5,500 km (620‐3,420 mi).
Ryabkov also said Russia has proposed putting on a demonstration of the missile for the United States, the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.
"We are ready to show unprecedented transparency on the 9M729 missile, which alarms the Americans so much. We offered them a presentation and a briefing on the missile, which absolutely does not follow from the content of the treaty itself," he said.
"But at the same time, we insist that the Americans take practical steps to alleviate our concerns on the Aegis Ashore systems, deployed in Romania, whose deployment is also scheduled in Poland soon."
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[PRESSTV] The British government and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... have imposed sanctions against bigwigs from Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency, over the agency’s suspected poisoning attack on a former Russian spy in southern England last year.
Reports said the UK-EU action announced on Monday targeted Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, the two men introduced by British authorities as members of the GRU who traveled to the southern English town of Salisbury to poison Sergei Skripal.
Igor Olegovich Kostyukov, the GRU chief, and his deputy, Vladimir Stepanovich Alexseyev, were also blacklisted over their role in the attack which British officials claim was carried out using a Soviet-era military-grade nerve agent called Novichok.
Russia has consistently denied any involvement in the attack which left Skripal and his daughter Yulia in need of special medical treatment.
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THREAD: Today @AbeShinzo is coming to Moscow seeking solution to a territorial dispute with Russia over Kurili islands. But expect no miracles. Putin is unlikely to move an inch, and the main reason why he's playing with Abe is desire to wreck US-Japan alliance. Here is why 👇1/ pic.twitter.com/UWWSXWBwkx
#3
Abe understands the Russia would like nothing more than to divide up Japan's territory with China. Hence, it's unlikely that Abe will do much more than offer Putin cash for the Kuriles.
#6
Getting the Japanese to turn a "blind eye" to technological transfers would be a big plus for Putin's ambitions. Russia still has that glaring problem of Quality Control on their attempts to build cutting edge military equipment...
[Jpost] One of 20 undeclared ballistic missile operating bases in North Korea serves as a missile headquarters, according to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published on Monday.
"The Sino-ri missile operating base and the Nodong missiles deployed at this location fit into North Korea's presumed nuclear military strategy by providing an operational-level nuclear or conventional first strike capability," said the report co-authored by analyst Victor Cha.
The discovery of an undeclared missile headquarters comes three days after U.S. President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... said he "looks forward" to another summit to discuss denuclearization with North Korean leader Kim Pudge Jong-un ...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished... in late February.
Kim vowed to work toward denuclearization at his first summit with Trump in June, but there has since been little concrete progress.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CSIS, which last reported on the 20 missile bases in November, said the Sino-ri base has never been declared by North Korea and as a result "does not appear to be the subject of denuclearization negotiations."
The report said that missile operating bases would presumably be subject to declaration, verification, and dismantlement in any nuclear deal.
"The North Koreans are not going to negotiate over things they don't disclose," said Cha.
"It looks like they're playing a game. They're still going to have all this operational capability," even if they destroy their disclosed nuclear sites.
Located 132 miles (212 km) north of the demilitarized zone, the Sino-ri complex is a seven-square-mile (18-square-km) base that plays a key role in developing ballistic missiles capable of reaching South Korea, Japan, and even the U.S. territory of Guam in the Western Pacific, the report said.
It houses a regiment-sized unit equipped with Nodong-1 medium-range ballistic missiles, the report added.
Satellite images of the base from Dec. 27, 2018 show an entrance to an underground bunker, reinforced shelters and a headquarters, the report said.
In South Korea, the Sino-ri facility has long been known as one of the bases housing the Nodong, also called the Rodong, a medium-range missile based on Soviet-era Scud technology that the North began deploying in the mid-1990s.
"It is a facility we've been monitoring with interest, in cooperation with the United States," Kim Joon-rak, a front man for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a news briefing on Tuesday.
[Asia Times] Number of babies born falls by 2 million, despite relaxed population controls.
A seismic demographic shift that Chinese officials have warned is a “national crisis” came closer to fruition last year, with China’s birth rate falling to its lowest point since the People’s Republic of China was formed in 1949.
According to China’s National Bureau of Statistics, the birth rate in 2018 was just shy of 11 per thousand, down from 12.43 per thousand the year prior. Two million fewer babies were born in 2018 than in 2017.
This decline, which follows trends seen in other East Asian countries after decades of urbanization and development, comes despite efforts to encourage couples to have more children, including the relaxation in 2016 of population controls.
Last July, a top political advisory body warned that China’s labor supply will fall by 100 million every 15 years after 2020, urging the government to enact more incentives for having children.
Many couples who would like to have more than one child, surveys have found, say that they are not able to afford related expenses.
[Asia Times] Two mega canal systems have been proposed to connect two major rivers; the projects would dwarf Three Gorges Dam in terms of size and effort required.
China is considering digging two mega canal systems to link the Yangtze River, which runs through central and eastern China, to the Pearl River in southern Guangdong and Guangxi provinces.
Xinhua reports that the Ministry of Transportation is now studying the feasibility of the project, which would include one canal from Hunan to Guangxi and another connecting Jiangxi and Guangdong.
The two canals, with their respective feeder lines along tributaries of the Yangtze and Pearl Rivers, are part of a new national plan on channel and port construction.
The Yangtze and the Pearl River are China’s longest and third longest rivers respectively. Their estuaries and deltas are home to China’s two major industrial powerhouses and mega-cities.
The new canal project comes hot on the heels of the South-North Water Transfer Project. This is a decade-long infrastructure plan to channel 45 billion cubic meters of fresh water annually from the Yangtze to Beijing and other northern cities through three giant canal systems.
The eastern route utilizes the course of the Beijing–Hangzhou Grand Canal, while the central route starts from the upper reaches of the Han River, a tributary of the Yangtze, to Beijing and Tianjin, and the western route stretches from the alpine Qinghai to Shaanxi, Shanxi and Inner Mongolia.
[AsiaTimes] US and North Korea agree to a second summit in late February in a bid to revive their stalled but crucial denuclearization talks
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have agreed to a second summit meeting, to be held in late February, a move that aims to rekindle what many see as an initially hopeful but now stalled dialogue process on Korean Peninsula denuclearization.
The White House announcement came after a 90-minute meeting in the Oval Office between Trump and Kim Yong-chol, a former North Korean intelligence chief who serves as Kim’s top nuclear negotiator, according to news reports.
A date and the location for the meeting was not announced, suggesting that the two sides were still seeking concessions from one another or were still negotiating the summit’s site. Vietnam, Thailand and Hawaii have all been mentioned as potential places for the meeting.
Blade Headquarters - The Spyderco Genzow HatchetHawk was designed by Martin Genzow, who put his extensive axe, hatchet, and tomahawk knowledge into this model. It offers a modern interpretation of the utility tomahawk with a versatile design. The multi-functional head was drop forged from 5160 tool steel for unstoppable strength and durability. It utilizes the best attributes of the classic Francisca axe with a bearded head and a hammer poll for added utility. Item comes complete with a thick leather sheath for belt or over the shoulder carry.
[Mail] A Chinese investigation says the scientist behind the birth of two babies whose genes had been edited in hopes of making them resistant to the AIDS virus acted on his own 'for personal fame and profit' and will be punished for violating regulations.
Confirming the births, the official Xinhua News Agency said Monday that investigators in the southern province of Guangdong determined Dr He Jiankui organised and handled funding for the experiment without outside assistance in violation of national guidelines. The university He worked for said he had been fired.
The scientist sparked global controversy in November when he announced in a YouTube video that he had successfully used a gene-editing technology known as CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the embryonic genes of twin girls born that month.
One of the mothers gave birth to twins nicknamed 'Lulu' and 'Nana', the investigators said. Another woman is still carrying a gene-edited fetus. The Xinhua report said all three would remain under observation.
h/t Gates of Vienna
[InfoWars] ...As liberal figures and publications backtrack their accusations in light of additional video showing the full picture, more information is coming to light about Phillips and his history of "drumming up" racial division.
In 2015, Phillips accused a group of Eastern Michigan University students of racism after confronting them for wearing Native American garb for a theme party.
...Additionally, the media is reporting that Phillips served as a Vietnam veteran, but the validity of those reports remain in question given Phillip’s claim that he was a "Recon Ranger" is a nonexistent operational force.
...In further evidence that Phillips supports the left’s agenda, he also protested the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock reservation in 2018.
#1
I'm sure we'll get this all resolved with a check of his DD Form 214.
About the same time we get to see John Kerry's personnel file which he promised to release back in 2004.
Now, it the positions were switched, you'd bet the appropriate form would be 'leaked', but that's only the Left's modus operandi. The Right hasn't figured out that they're at war yet and are in deep denial.
#4
True story. I was an air assault otter in the 'Nam. So no shit, there I was, searching for charlie chaplin; a very quiet foe. Some say his hat was black, but I'm here to tell 'ya...it was red, red as a MAGA. The horror I imagine, the horror....
#8
Instapundit reported WaPo modified their article to now read “Earlier versions of this story incorrectly said that Native American activist Nathan Phillips fought in the Vietnam War. Phillips served in the U.S. Marines from 1972 to 1976 but was never deployed to Vietnam.”
Government document about how to execute a federal RIF.
[Ask.FewWeek] When an agency conducts a significant job reduction, it must use formal reduction in force procedures published by the Office of Personnel Management. These rules create four standards for determining which employees are released, and which are retained, either in their current positions or in another position:
tenure of employment (such as type of appointment);
veterans preference;
Continued on Page 49
#1
The most difficult part of my 'career', as it is, was to get work in the Dreaded Private Sector after I was laid off at the Mass. Department of Revenue after four years as an auditor. I almost feel bad for the saps who'll hopefully be getting these notices soon.
#2
I almost feel bad for the saps who'll hopefully be getting these notices soon. Yes!
Does the government make use of large simulation models where they play the "What if" policy game? That is, if so many Federal employees are RIFed, what does it do to the economy, revenues and expenditures, the debt and the Federal budget?
#3
I think it’s important for people to understand the difference between essential and nonessential personnel. Essential versus nonessential is only language used for government shut downs. Essential personnel that stay on the job are essentially those that do safety related duties. Nonessential people may still perform important duties, but they are sent home to make the money for safety related functions last longer. Scientists, engineers, attorneys, and in fact a whole host of Professional and STEM employees comprise a good chunk of these “non-essential” people. The agency will eventually grind to a halt without them, much like an army can fight for a while but eventually must surrender when supply lines have been cut.
I would also point out that a RIF would preserve the oldest and most deeply institutionalized feds of all, while clearing out the younger, more motivated people that you probably don’t want to lose. A RIF plan could be useful for eliminating positions or functions altogether that the government shouldn’t really be performing, but I don’t know if they’re smart enough to do that.
Take me for instance, I am a currently furloughed GS-13 Civil Engineer and a COR of multi million dollar constitution projects. My projects are suspended, the contractors on Stop Work Order, materials sitting in the rain. Delay claims racking up day by day, planned facilities half built. I am non-essential for the purposes of a Shutdown, I am not non-essential if you want to let any kind of government construction contract. You would spend all your money and have no useable product or service to show for it. Contract workers would not be paid properly, materials would be no compliant, stolen or overbilled. Seismic and fire life safety codes would be disregarded, etc, etc, etc. And that’s just the stuff I catch regularly and with decent contractors, imagine what I go through with the bad contractors, I’m still working on the civil and criminal investigation if the Inspector General from two years ago with one of the bad ones.
Point is, essential and nonessential don’t mean crap, it’s another con to keep the govt open for a few more days while Congress screws around. And RIFs don’t mean squat the way they do them. You could clean out tens of thousands of pointless jobs from the DC agency “headquarters” buildings and regional offices, a significant number of those people are sitting at a desk doing nothing, and haven’t done anything for YEARS in many cases.
Not all government is bad, there are still some patriots and hard working, smart people making things happen. But there are entire buildings full of otherwise unemployable do nothings that have become a welfare program.
Once again, I have no confidence that OPM can excise the rot and keep the productive elements.
#5
COR stands for contracting officers representative. It’s usually an engineer that administers the contract and all of its day to day aspects. This is done because the contracting officer is often far away in an office building not in the field. The contracting officers representative manages all day to day administration of the contract with a few important exceptions like terminations, contract modifications, or stop work orders. It’s a difficult and time-consuming certification to obtain, first you need to be an engineer with construction experience and then you need several years performance on the job then you can do the training certification at level one and finally progressed to level two where you can supervise complex construction projects.
There may indeed be a RIF, however I take comport and pride in the fact that I am not part of the “government waste” part of the equation.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Washington Examiner] Fox News anchor Bret Baier and his family survived a "major" car crash Monday morning in Montana.
[ABC-5] KIDRON, Ohio ‐ Two people have died Monday morning in a small plane crash in Kidron, located in Wayne County, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
[NYPOST] An overweight passenger aboard a Taiwanese airliner forced flight attendants to remove his pants so he could use the toilet — then wipe his butt as he moaned in pleasure, according to reports.
[PULSE.NG] The Zimbabwe High Court ruled Monday that government had no powers to order a shutdown of the internet which was imposed as protests swept across the country last week.
[ELUNIVERSAL] The president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, rejected on Monday the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice to annul the acts of the current board of directors, which he considered a "legal aberration, politically absurd."
North Korea
[Mail] A Chinese investigation says the scientist behind the birth of two babies whose genes had been edited in hopes of making them resistant to the AIDS virus acted on his own 'for personal fame and profit' and will be punished for violating regulations.
