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ISIL withdrawing fighters from southern Syria to concentrate on Raqqa
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Venezuela is out of food, out of medicine, and running out of gas
[HotAir] Ed wrote last week about the shortage of bread in Venezuela which led the country's Vice President to announce spot checks on bakeries designed to ensure they weren't doing anything illegal with their flour. If that sounds like a bad joke it is, but it's also true. Bakers in Venezuela were even arrested for making brownies instead of price controlled loaves of bread.
Always the end result of socialism
It's not just food that the country is running out of these days. The Associated Press reports President Maduro is now turning to the United Nations for help with medical supplies:

"I've asked for support from the U.N. to help treat economic and social injuries that have hit our people caused by the economic war and the sharp fall in petroleum prices," Maduro said in a televised appearance Friday...

Maduro's socialist administration prides itself on being a provider of humanitarian aid to poor nations around the world. Even as he called Friday for the U.N.'s assistance, his aides were hosting a business forum called "Venezuelan Powerhouse" and the military was dispatching two cargo planes of emergency supplies, including some medicine, for victims in Peru of that nation's worst flooding in two decades.

But even more embarrassing for the socialist state is the fact that the country with the largest proven oil reserves in the world is now running out of gasoline. From Bloomberg:

"Yesterday, I went to three filling stations and I couldn't fill my tank," Freddy Bautista, a 26-year-old student, said in an interview while waiting outside of a gas station in the Las Mercedes area of eastern Caracas on Thursday. "I've been waiting 30 minutes here, and it seems like I'll be able to fill up today."

As the company's crumbling refineries fail to meet domestic demand, imports have become a financial burden because the country buys fuel abroad at market prices only to sell it for pennies per gallon at home. PDVSA, as the state-run producer is known, has been reducing the money-losing imports as it prepares for $2 billion in bond payments due next month, said Jose Brito, an opposition lawmaker on the National Assembly's oil commission.

Brito tells Bloomberg News, "It's unbelievable that this is happening in an oil producing country." Meanwhile, the Organization of American States is calling on Maduro's government to hold elections and to free political prisoners including Leopoldo Lopez. Lopez is an opposition political leader who was imprisoned on charges of inciting violence against the government. Last year the opposition party tried to get a referendum on President Maduro on the ballot but the effort was abruptly canceled by Maduro's cronies.
No... it isn't unbelievable that an oil producing country doesn't have gas. Ya gotta refine the stuff first and refineries are something that Venezuela doesn't have many of.

Their oil is a heavy type that requires extra refinering to make into gas. It isn't the Light Sweet Crude that the ME and the north sea produce that is a snap to make into gas and other oil based products. Ironically, most of the refineries that can process heavy crude are located in the US. Venezuela has to ship the oil to the US for it to be made into gasoline and then shipped back.

Little more complicated other than "Most proven Oil EVAH!!!" statements ignorant journalists spout.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/25/2017 09:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  WELCOME! You have just entered another socialist paradise! Ad nauseum. Redux.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 03/25/2017 9:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Effective governance appears to have eluded them yet again. I sense something of a Latin American trend, but hasn't it already been written about.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/25/2017 9:48 Comments || Top||

#3  even more embarrassing for the socialist state

Since when are socialists, leftists, progressives, what ever you want to call them, capable of being embarrassed by anything at all?
Posted by: AlanC || 03/25/2017 10:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Of course they're capable of being embarrassed, AC: that's why they kill so many people - to preserve face.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/25/2017 13:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Hmmm, impoverished indigenous population, vast amounts of natural resources... I got it, COLONIALISM! Where are the Belgians when you need them?

King Leopold jokes aside, we seen this movie before; Chile being one recent example. Here is the script:
1) Man of the People (MotP) rises up to overthrow previous oppressive regime
2) MotP f**cks up the economy big-time. Hardships, shortages of stuff, riots ensue
3) Army kicks MotP's ass, installs "right-wing" govt. Economy recovers
4) Wash, rinse, repeat

To misquote Borges, only the time, place and a few proper names have changed.
Posted by: SteveS || 03/25/2017 13:06 Comments || Top||

#6  HOVENSA, once nearly the sole employer on St. Croix, closed a few years ago processed this heavy crude. The Venezuelan economy was reduced to illegal gold mining & cocaine smuggling with recent seizures setting records. Hand-picked by Chavez, Maduro used to head up the military transport end of official state smuggling so he has no real leadership skills. Iran used to have regular flights so he does have international contacts, but maybe sanctions on banks have dried up funds? Many Venezuelans are pouring into Houston so no one of any means remains....cocaine has once again reached the early 90's levels, surpassing meth and heroin once again. Sec. Tillerson has a lot on his plate with another failed state imploding .
Posted by: Whavish Thusoling5684 || 03/25/2017 14:54 Comments || Top||


NOAA study shows as US drilling surged, methane emissions didn't
[NOAA.gov] A new NOAA study shows that methane emissions from the United States did not grow significantly from 2000 to 2013 and are not likely to have been an important driver of the increase in atmospheric methane levels observed worldwide after 2007, as other studies have suggested.
The other studies were racist gassist.
The paper, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres on March 24, provides additional insight into a question that has puzzled scientists for the past decade: What has been causing the increase in global methane levels since 2007?
Sorry. It was the bean burrito.
To examine whether U.S. oil and gas development could be playing a role, NOAA scientist Lori Bruhwiler and an international team of scientists analyzed methane levels in air samples collected by NOAA aircraft around the U.S. They did not find evidence of large increases in methane emissions.

"Our results show that U.S. methane emissions have likely grown at a very slow rate," said Bruhwiler, the lead author of the paper. "Other scientists have proposed that large increases from the U.S. are a significant contributor to the global increase, and we just couldn’t find evidence of this from our measurements."
Goddamn Vegans
Methane levels on the rise

Globally, methane levels in the atmosphere grew from the 1980s, when measurements began, to about 1999. Methane levels flattened between 1999 and 2007, and then resumed their growth at a time that coincided with an historic surge in U.S. oil and gas development activity. Several published studies have sought to draw a link between the increased the U.S. oil and gas activity and increases in global methane levels.

The question of whether U.S. fossil-fuel-sector methane emissions are on the rise is important because of the potential that new extraction technologies used here could be exported to exploit unconventional oil and gas reserves around the world.

Natural gas, which is composed primarily of methane, is regarded by some as a transition fuel between coal and renewable energy sources because natural gas, when burned, produces about half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.

A potent greenhouse gas

Methane is also the second largest human-caused contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide. Though not as abundant as CO2 in Earth's atmosphere, methane is much more potent - with 28 times the warming influence of CO2 over 100 years. Because of its global warming potential, methane leakage must be limited for there to be a climate benefit in switching from coal to natural gas.

Other recent studies – including two based on the analysis of satellite estimates of atmospheric methane -- have suggested that U.S. methane emissions rose by up to 30 percent from 2002-2014. Bruhwiler and her team of researchers performed a thorough analysis of the satellite data used in the previous studies and could not identify evidence of a large increase in emissions from that data. Bruhwiler's analysis of data from aircraft sampling across the U.S. also showed no trend of large growth in emissions.

NOAA scientists have contributed to several other recent studies that point to a biological, rather than fossil fuel, source for increasing global methane levels. A paper published last year found that the growth in atmospheric methane was likely due to large increases in emissions from microbial sources such as wetlands, livestock, waste and rice agriculture, especially in the tropics.
Seriously though, methane is a gas we do have to watch as it is a very good greenhouse gas. Unlike CO2...
Fortunately, it is fairly easy to keep emissions under control and doesn't cost a lot to do so.
And no... farting cows aren't a major source. Pig farms, however are.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/25/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Methane levels flattened between 1999 and 2007, and then resumed their growth at a time that coincided with an historic surge in U.S. oil and gas development activity.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/25/2017 3:32 Comments || Top||

#2  farting cows aren't a major source. Pig farms, however are.

Now I understand the love affair between the left and Islam.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/25/2017 3:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Methane levels flattened between 1999 and 2007, and then resumed their growth at a time that coincided with an historic surge in U.S. oil and gas development activity.

The flattening coincided with G Bush's global program to reduce methane emissions, and rose when Obama cancelled the program.

But then Bush understood the science.

Classic fake news, as they can not identify the real reason. And the fact the USA has had 8 years of a scientifically illiterate president.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/25/2017 3:40 Comments || Top||

#4  USA has had 8 years of a scientifically illiterate president

He's literate in other things?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/25/2017 3:54 Comments || Top||

#5  A new NOAA study shows that methane emissions from the United States did not grow significantly from 2000 to 2013

Consistent with the USDA cattle inventory cycle monitoring
Posted by: al aSha-med || 03/25/2017 5:19 Comments || Top||

#6  He's literate in other things?
Posted by: Seeking cure for ignorance || 03/25/2017 6:53 Comments || Top||

#7  I blame Beano.
Posted by: ed in texas || 03/25/2017 15:22 Comments || Top||


Religious TV station in Senegal accidentally airs porn
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] An Islamic television station in Senegal
... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
says it has filed a formal complaint against unknown saboteur "X’’ for taking over the network and airing pornography instead of its regularly scheduled religious programming.

Viewers tuning into Touba TV on Monday afternoon got a shock when hardcore pornography was aired from 1:10 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Touba TV on Wednesday called the broadcasting blunder a "criminal act" and said the formal complaint will make it possible to identify the "authors who have an unknown agenda."

The broadcaster said its viewers were offended, and it condemned the attempt as a "satanic move" to sabotage the values it advocates.

The privately run station usually broadcasts religious programs advocating Islamic values and teachings, including sermons and prayers.
Posted by: Fred || 03/25/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "And he went into her"?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/25/2017 3:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Boys in the control room were naughty.
Posted by: al aSha-med || 03/25/2017 11:15 Comments || Top||

#3  Maybe it was just a religous progam on pediphelia
Posted by: Cheaderhead || 03/25/2017 14:17 Comments || Top||


Economy
Gummy bears to be produced by Haribo in the US for the first time
  • [Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] Haribo will open its first plant in the United States it was announced on Thursday

  • The factory will be in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, and set to open in 2020

  • The 500,000 square foot facility will cost $242m and create 400 new jobs

  • Governor Scott Walker's office said the project is expected to start next year
Posted by: Fred || 03/25/2017 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good news for my area. Notice they did not decide on locating three or four miles to the south in "The Land of Linclon". I did hear a rumor about Illinios though. They're coming out with special license plates that say "Ex Govenor Made"
Posted by: Cheaderhead || 03/25/2017 13:50 Comments || Top||


Government
FBI Director Comey visits White House via service entrance
[The Hill] FBI Director James Comey was at the White House on Friday, days after he confirmed his bureau is investigating ties between associates of President Trump and Russia.

The White House said Comey visited to attend a "routine interagency meeting," but did not say with whom he met.

No meeting with Comey was listed on the president's public schedule. Comey was spotted leaving the White House less than an hour later after television cameras showed him entering the West Wing.
Hopefully the visit was for the purpose of tendering his resignation.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/25/2017 02:11 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Don made him an offer Comey can't refuse?.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/25/2017 3:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Offered him a silver coin, or a bullet.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/25/2017 9:01 Comments || Top||

#3  Things have been a bit tense of late. POTUS, Bannen, Conway and Spicer all enjoy a bit of humour now and then. Perhaps it was some sort of comedic performance.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/25/2017 9:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Is Comey a goner?
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/25/2017 17:58 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Rachel Dolezal struggles after parents expose her as white expropriator
[MSN] SPOKANE, Wash. -- A woman who was once a black civil rights leader in Washington state, then lost her job after her parents exposed her as white struggles to make a living these days.

Rachel Dolezal said she has been unable to find steady work in the nearly two years since her background became public in media reports, and she is uncertain about her future.

"I was presented as a con and a fraud and a liar," Dolezal told The Associated Press this week. "I think some of the treatment was pretty cruel."

Now 40, she still identifies as black, despite being "Caucasian biologically," she said. And she still has the darkened complexion and frizzy hair that allowed her for years to pass as a light-skinned black person.

"People didn't seem able to consider that maybe both were true," she said. "OK, I was born to white parents, but maybe I had an authentic black identity."

Dolezal had blond hair and freckles while growing up near Troy, Montana, with religious parents. She said she began to change her perspective as a teenager, after her parents adopted four black children. Dolezal decided to become publicly black years later, after a divorce.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/25/2017 01:34 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gloat, gloat.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/25/2017 3:24 Comments || Top||

#2  It Appears now that every crazy on the left will have their moments of fame via the MSM.
Posted by: Jeasing Creque5352 || 03/25/2017 4:40 Comments || Top||

#3  She is now claiming that her parents beat and molested her as a child
Posted by: BernardZ || 03/25/2017 5:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Switching to another category of victimhood?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/25/2017 5:37 Comments || Top||

#5  Next up! Identifying as an Latino, Illegal Alien, Muslim.

Sorry lady. Its because you actually are a con, and a fraud, and a liar.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/25/2017 8:33 Comments || Top||

#6  Notoriety and face recognition should amount to something. She could audition for a USAA multi-cult advert, (former USMC 'blended family' husband & wife vets playing football with the kiddies, yes, wife is the QB) Unfortunately, true to her adopted culture, she has no husband. I guess that only leaves a home security alarm teevee advert. They only use melanin challenged actors. How can we keep it real ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/25/2017 8:51 Comments || Top||

#7 
Related: The story of Rachel Dolezal gets even more bizarre

From both these stories, it's clear this woman has more than a few screws loose.
Posted by: Dave D. || 03/25/2017 9:19 Comments || Top||

#8  "I was presented as a con and a fraud and a liar," Dolezal told The Associated Press this week. "I think some of the treatment was pretty cruel."

facts are cruel
Posted by: Frank G || 03/25/2017 9:23 Comments || Top||

#9  BWAHAHAHAHA!!!
(wipes tears)
This is what happens when you drink from the bottle marked "Don't drink me". Lotsa crazies and crazy stuff out there.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 03/25/2017 9:58 Comments || Top||

#10  Seems that if she really feels persecuted or whatever she could go back to looking white, chasing her last name (either back to maiden name or take her husband's last name or whatever) and NOBODY would have any idea who she is.

Instead we get the last ditch effort at fame and con. Sell a book that is basically aimed at her fellow liberals. It'll be interesting to see how well it does.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 03/25/2017 11:34 Comments || Top||

#11  It took me all of 2 minutes but I believe I've found a position in her area that would take full advantage of Ms. Dolezal's deception skills.

Job Description
Job Title: Chaperone for Underage Tobacco Purchaser (Spokane, Washington) 
City: Spokane / State: Washington                                                   

Position Summary
The FDA Center for Tobacco Products requires the assistance of minors age 16 – 17 to attempt the purchase of tobacco products from local tobacco retailers. Chaperones will accompany and work with Underage Purchasers to carry out this program. The goal of the program is to ensure tobacco retailers are complying with Federal laws and regulations that prevent them from selling tobacco products to minors
Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/25/2017 12:24 Comments || Top||

#12  There is something actually that I don't understand. If a person can decide they are of different sex - a matter of definite biology, why can't a person decide their race - a very fuzzy concept anyway.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/25/2017 12:53 Comments || Top||

#13  So her parents adopted four black kids, and she decided she was black, too?

Attention-seeking. I'd feel sorry for her, but she's done this for so long as a putative adult.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 03/25/2017 12:56 Comments || Top||

#14  I'm a Martian.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 03/25/2017 15:11 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
24[untagged]
9Islamic State
4Govt of Iran
3Hezbollah
2Moslem Colonists
2Boko Haram (ISIS)
2Ahrar al-Sham (Salafists)
2Arab Spring
1Govt of Syria
1Houthis
1Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (IS)
1Pirates
1Salafists
1Sublime Porte
1Taliban
1al-Nusra
1al-Qaeda
1al-Qaeda in North Africa
1al-Shabaab (AQ)
1Commies
1Govt of Pakistain Proxies
1Govt of Saudi Arabia

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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.
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Two weeks of WOT
Sat 2017-03-25
  ISIL withdrawing fighters from southern Syria to concentrate on Raqqa
Fri 2017-03-24
  Helmand’s Sangin district has reportedly fallen to Taliban
Thu 2017-03-23
  It's worse: Jewish Israeli-American, 19, arrested in Ashkelon for phoning in dozens of JCC bomb threats
Wed 2017-03-22
  Jihadi car and knife attack: Parliament in lockdown
Tue 2017-03-21
  U.S. Bans Laptops, Tablets from Cabins on Flights from Middle East
Mon 2017-03-20
  Syrian regulars gain control of regions near Palmyra
Sun 2017-03-19
  Four wanted Maute militants nabbed in Lanao
Sat 2017-03-18
  Man shot dead at Paris Orly airport this morning after taking soldier's gun: official
Fri 2017-03-17
  Four Killed as Bangladesh Police Storm Islamist Hideout
Thu 2017-03-16
  Kommander Abdullah, 10 others die in airstrike in Paktika
Wed 2017-03-15
  Dozens killed in suicide bombing at Damascus "Palace of Justice" courthouse
Tue 2017-03-14
  Suspected ISIS gas attack hits Iraqi forces in west Mosul
Mon 2017-03-13
  Kenyan police nab 6 terror suspects in coastal town
Sun 2017-03-12
  Double suicide attack kills 40 in Damascus
Sat 2017-03-11
  Syrian force a ‘few weeks’ from Raqqa, U.S. Marines deployed

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