Hey Bert, look at this !
[Examiner] The FBI has issued an alert about email scams targeting people and businesses that have been reported in all 50 states and 79 countries, with a majority of stolen funds going to banks in China.
The agency distinguishes between schemes that target business, or business email compromise scams, and those targeting individuals, or charitable Foundations, or email account compromise scams. Frauds perpetrated against businesses accounted for $1.2 billion in losses worldwide between October 2013 and August 2015, according to the FBI and international law enforcement. The FBI reported that fraud against individuals in the U.S. accounted for $700,000 in the second quarter of 2015.
In its Thursday release, the FBI said scammers had developed a new method for fraudulently extracting money from businesses. The scammers have been calling companies purporting to be attorneys or representatives of law firms handling time-sensitive political campaigns matters for the company and pressuring them "to act quickly or secretly" in wiring funds over. The contact can be made via phone or email using secret, non-gov't servers.
This is the latest tactic in the development of business email fraud. The FBI issued an alert in January warning of the activity, which is based on gaining access to a single person's email account and finding a contact in that account who will respond favorably to a request to wire money. If the hackers access a vendor account, the FBI explained, they may use the account to ask a business to wire funds for a legitimate invoice payment to an alternate, fraudulent account. If they hack a company executive, they may email another employee within the company who is responsible for processing payments asking that employee to send money to a given bank account. You mean, they could hack a sitting Secretary of State and then email Dianne Feinstein or the President? I hope we've had someone in McLean on the look-out for such activities.
[WUSA9 News] BETHESDA, Md.- A former Navy SEAL lost his life while riding his bicycle in Bethesda Friday.
The crash that killed Timothy Aloysius Holden, 64, of Bethesda remains under investigation, say Montgomery County police officials. They say that Holden was pedaling east in the 6000 block of Massachusetts Avenue at approximately 6:15 a.m. Friday when a Chevrolet Malibu struck Holden. The cyclist was wearing his helmet when he was hit. Holden died at the scene.
He was a retired Navy Captain and Navy SEAL who survived the Persian Gulf War. He leaves behind a wife, five daughters and three grandchildren.
Investigators do not know why the Malibu hit the Holden at this time. Police are not sure if the cyclist was in the bike lane, but they do say both the car and cyclist were going eastbound when Holden was struck and killed. The driver stayed on the scene. The driver of the Chevy Malibu has been identified as Ricardo Kennard Freeman, 22, of Edgewood, Md. He has not been charged. The investigation will determine if charges will be filed.
#1
Ban cars now. They cause deaths of innocent people and the government supplies public transport so nobody needs a car other than the police and people rich enough or important enough to hire a professional driver to drive a car for them.
#2
Only allow elites to own cars. And only their professional chauffeurs can drive.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
08/29/2015 16:47 Comments ||
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#3
Robots! That's the answer - self-driving robot cars. Sure, there will still be accidents, but if they kill less than a million people a year, we'll be ahead of the game.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Photos showing a 14-year-old boy getting married to his 10-year-old partner in Iran have gone viral on social media. They've got the little girl made up to look like a regular little hussy.
A thirty year old hussy, perfectly fitting that society's idea that nine year olds are sexually mature adults suitable for marriage to a certain middle aged prophet and all who would live as he did. Lucky for her the boy looks to be a immature for fourteen.
The couple, who are under the legal marriage age in Iran, reportedly got married on Aug. 14, after having obtained permission from authorities.
The boy wore a grey suit while his bride was in a traditional white wedding dress. The pair were seen with their families in some of the pictures.
In the Islamic Theocratic Republic, girls can marry as young as 13 provided they have the permission of their father. Boys can marry from the age of 15.
Despite being legally dubious, as many as 42,000 children aged between 10 and 14 married in 2010, according to Iranian news website Tabnak.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2015 00:00 ||
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My first thought was that this was just another skirmish in the second American civil war, and that hasn't changed. Of course, those with the biggest megaphones want to impose universal background checks, which would have done nothing to stop the shooter from obtaining the gun and then using it. A federal official said the man had emotional problems, which a UBC regimen would not have detected in any case. As it is, even if the man had emotional problems, he had no contact with a mental health Mandarin, and who is to say he had an emotional problem to begin with? Just because you can pound the lectern in front of a buncha sympathetic stenographers who will quote every single word that comes out of your commie mouth, doesn't make every word you say the Gospel truth.
Leaving aside all of the usual fingering of the guy as an Obamanaut leftist, personally I think he was a f*cking asshole, and that is the most objective standard.
Again, referring to the video, it seems to me if the shooter had shown up with a machete, he could have killed the reporter and her camera man with very little effort. Both of the intended victims paid so little attention to their surroundings, the shooter had an unusually easy time killing them. Military and cops call it "situational awareness"; I call it paying attention. A lot of that about, with people who go around now with their noses buried in a phone.
Even a few days after the attempted attack by a jihadi aboard a French passenger train, authorities are being stingy with information about the rifle used. The sequence of events is somewhat shrouded in mystery (AKA the usual reportage by paid media), but it appears the shooter got one shot off, then the gun jammed. I know, right? An AK jamming? The hell you say!
The main target for the author's unhappiness is those men and women who show up, basically anywhere, wearing tactical gear and carrying ARs, awarding themselves ranks and titles they haven't earned, whether from their current activities or from prior service, but which exist within their own private organization. One of the targets is a fella that was recently arrested in Arizona for plotting with a federal snitch to kill cartel bad guys. It turns out he was one of several patriots who were patrolling in the desert border area, because the federal government wouldn't. In other words, he was trying to help; to fill a gap in the national security that the government had not only been shirking but was actively trying to destroy. The whole scenario for which he and a number of others were arrested was a hoax perpetrated by government agents, yet the entire case will be brought before a black robed federal Mandarin judge who will impose sentence for a crime that could never take place.
In the missive the author states that his ilk defend liberty, but he also states that he never had more personal liberty than when he was in military service.
Leaving aside for the moment trading on your own experience and training at the expense of American taxpayers who expect soldiers in the American military to understand their own place in the hierarchy of the military, who wouldn't want a group of men who want to help, but who are too old to do so, yet who deliver invective for something that may make them better fighters and better citizens? Why in the world would anyone try to convince anyone else that military life, uniforms, equipment and orders means personal liberty?
Loads.
Rantburg's summary for arms and ammunition:
Prices for pistol ammunition and for rifle ammunition were mostly steady.
Prices for used pistols were higher across the board, while prices for used rifles were mixed.
New Lows:
None
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2015)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Ventura Munitions, Wolf Polyformance, FMJ, steel cased, .27 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Homeland Munitions, Store brand, FMJ, Reloads, .25 per round (From Last week: -.02 Each After Unchanged (4 Weeks))
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (7 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Freedom Munitions, Store Brand, RNFP, New Brass, .23 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Ammo Mart, Store Brand, FMJ, Reloads, .21 per round (From Last Week: -.02 After Unchanged (10 Weeks))
9mm Parabellum, 115 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Bud's Gun Shop, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel Cased, .17 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Homeland Munitions, Store Brand, FMJ, Reloads, .16 per round (From Last Week: -.01 each After Unchanged (4 Weeks))
.357 Magnum, 158 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2Q, 2015)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel cased, .28 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 rounds: Surplus Ammo, Tulammo, FMJ, Steel cased, .27 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (8 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Munire USA, Tulammo, steel cased, FMJ, .24 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Cheaper Than Dirt!, Wolf Polyformance, steel cased, .22 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4 Weeks))
.308 NATO 150 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (8 weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Tulammo, steel cased, FMJ, .40 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Cheaper Than Dirt!, Tulammo, Steel Cased, FMJ, .37 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (5 Weeks))
7.62x39 AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Ammunition Depot, Wolf WPA, steel case, FMJ, .23 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: SG Ammo, Wolf WPA, steel case, .23 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (1Q 2015))
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: -.05 Each (!!)
Cheapest, 20 rounds (10 Box Limit): Natchez Shooters Supplies, Federal Automatch, RNL .10 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 325 rounds (2 Box Limit): Natchez Shooters Supplies, Federal Automatch, RNL, .06 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks))
[FOXNEWS] A rancher is taking the Environmental Protection Agency to federal court, asking a judge to stop the agency from fining him more than $16 million because he built a small pond on his property.
Andy Johnson of Fort Bridger, Wyoming says he made sure to get the proper permits from his state government before building the pond. After all, this is America in the 21st century, and nothing done on your own property -- certainly when it involves the use of water -- is beyond government concern.
Johnson is facing millions in fines from the federal government after the EPA determined his small pond -- technically a "stock pond" to provide better access to water for animals on his ranch -- is somehow violating the federal Clean Water Act.
"We went through all the hoops that the state of Wyoming required, and I'm proud of what we built," Johnson said. "The EPA ignored all that."
In a compliance order, the EPA told Johnson he had to return his property -- under federal oversight -- to conditions before the stock pond was built. When he refused to comply, the EPA tagged Johnson with a fines of $37,000 per day.
Dismantling the pond within the 30-day window the EPA originally gave him was "physically impossible," Johnson said.
That was in 2012. Today, Johnson owes the federal government more than $16 million, and the amount is growing as he tries to fight back. In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court on Thursday, lawyers representing Johnson argue the EPA overstepped its authority by fining the rancher.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
The stock pond violates the Clean Water Act? Just which subsection, exactly? And why? If a cop writes you a ticket, he cites the chapter and verse of the law you violated. Does the EPA?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/29/2015 15:25 Comments ||
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#2
Time for states to pass laws stating that when the EPA gets slapped down for these enormously stupid fines, they owe whoever they tried to shaft that same amount of money. Paid for from the EPA and all top tier EPA officials
[Business Insider] Smith & Wesson's investors are celebrating Friday.
Shares of the gunmaker are up more than 10% following the release of the company's better-than-expected quarterly earnings report.
"Our first-quarter results exceeded our expectations for sales and net income in both our firearms and accessories divisions," CEO James Debney said. "Higher revenue in our firearms division was driven by strong orders for our M&P 15 Sport rifles, our Thompson/Center Venture bolt-action rifles and our M&P Shield polymer pistols."
All of this comes as the outrage over lax US gun control seems to be intensifying.
In certain quarters, yes. Elswhere the concern is that gun control is entirely too controlling.
S&W says business boomed after Obama became president. The irony of the gun-control debate is that sales spike when it seems tighter gun-control policy is coming.
"[W]e experienced strong consumer demand for our firearm products following a new administration taking office in Washington, D.C., in 2009," said the management of gunmaker Smith & Wesson.
That's when President Barack Obama moved into the White House.
[IsraelTimes] Fifteen percent of West Bank settlers are American citizens. According to an Oxford University professor, approximately 60,000 American Jews live in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Haaretz reported Thursday.
I don't know that it's important, but I thought it interesting.
"This provides hard evidence that this constituency is strikingly over-represented, both within the settler population itself and within the total population of Jewish American immigrants in Israel," Sara Yael Hirschhorn, the author of the forthcoming book "City on a Hilltop: Jewish-American Settlers in the Occupied Territories Since 1967," said during a presentation at Jerusalem's Limmud conference, Haaretz reported. The book will be published by Harvard University Press next year.
Approximately 60,000 US Jews, out of the 170,000 in Israel, live in West Bank, study shows
An estimated 170,000 American immigrants and their children live in Israel, according to Haaretz.
Hirschhorn said her findings contradict much of the conventional wisdom about American Israelis who immigrated in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly that they came to Israel for lack of any other options, that they were very Orthodox and that they had supported right-wing causes in America.
Hirschhorn said her research reveals that most American Jewish settlers came when they "were young, single, highly-educated -- something like 10 percent of American settlers in the occupied territories hold PhDs, they're upwardly mobile, they're traditional but not necessarily Orthodox in their religious practice, and most importantly, they were politically active in the leftist socialist movements in the US in the 1960s and 70s and voted for the Democratic Party prior to their immigration to Israel."
She said her 10 years of research reveal a portrait that "is one of young, idealistic, intelligent and seasoned liberal Americans who were Zionist activists, and who were eager to apply their values and experiences to the Israeli settler movement."
According to Haaretz, Hirschhorn said at Limmud that she reached the following conclusion about this group of immigrants: "They're not only compelled by some biblical imperative to live in the Holy Land of Israel and hasten the coming of the messiah, but also deeply inspired by an American vision of pioneering and building new suburbanized utopian communities in the occupied territories. They draw on their American background and mobilize the language they were comfortable with, discourses about human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... and civil liberties that justify the kind of work that they're doing."
Many American settlers "use the values and language of the left to justify projects on the right," she added.
They'll bite through your aileron wires. They'll insert toasting forks in your tyres. That is the tale of the Gremlins.
Imagine a pilot in an expensive fighter jet flying over contested airspace somewhere in the Pacific. A series of blips of appears on the radar: drones staging a coordinated assault. But they're far out to sea for attack drones -- too far, it seems, to make it back to any safe landing spot. How did they get out here?
Six decades after it unveiled the U-2 Dragon Lady, Lockheed Martin Corp. is pitching a replacement spy plane called the UQ-2 or RQ-X. The world's largest defense contractor recently discussed the idea with reporters at its Skunk Works advanced projects facility in Palmdale, California, which birthed not only the U-2, but also the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft, F-117 Nighthawk stealth attack plane and the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jet.
The so-called UQ-2 or RQ-X, as the design is known within the company, would still carry many of the same sensors as the U-2, utilize the same F118 engine and fly at 70,000 feet, but it would feature a new low-observable body and have more endurance, according to an article by James Drew, a reporter for Flight Global.
"Think of a low-observable U-2," says Scott Winstead, Lockheed's U-2 strategic development manager, told the publication. "It's pretty much where the U-2 is today, but add a low-observable body and more endurance."
The hardest part for the company may not be developing the technology, but convincing Air Force officials and lawmakers of the need for it. The Air Force plans to retire its fleet of more than 30 U-2s in fiscal 2019, a move that's estimated to save some $2 billion over a decade. In its place, it plans to fly the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone made by Northrop Grumman Corp.
Lockheed has already successfully convinced U.S. officials to delay the planned retirement of the U-2 -- a plane that has already outlasted the SR-71, another once meant to replace it.
Indeed, military leaders have praised the unmatched performance of the Dragon Ladies even while trying to retire them. Last year, for example, top Air Force officials acknowledged that the proposed drone replacement for the U-2 was still years away -- and only then with key sensors and cameras cannibalized from the aircraft.
When asked why the Air Force couldn't get new cameras for the Global Hawk Block 30 drones, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Larry Spencer said, "it would be cost prohibitive," according to an article by my colleague Richard Sisk. Spencer didn't give cost estimates, but said the solution was to "unbolt the sensor on the U-2 and bolt it onto the Block 30."
A month later, Army Gen. Curtis "Mike" Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. Forces-Korea, told lawmakers that the U-2 gives better early warning of a potential attack from North Korea than the Global Hawk Block 30 unmanned aerial vehicle. "In my particular case, the U-2 provides a unique capability that the Global Hawk presently does not provide," he said, according to another article by Sisk.
Yet even if Lockheed is able to convince military officials of the need for a new high-altitude, long-endurance airplane, it would have to do the same with lawmakers who can't agree on a way to roll back automatic spending caps that threaten the defense budget.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
08/29/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
F-35 programme and overruns likely consumed much of the developmental budget, but no one mentions it.
[RUDAW.NET] An alleged local gang leader was killed in the ethnically Kurdish city of Bokan, Iran, on Thursday, city officials said.
Hasan Banayi, a suspected criminal kingpin, was rubbed out by two assailants on a cycle of violence who fled after the drive-by shooting, according to witnesses who spoke to Rudaw.
Local officials asked the public for any information that could lead to the arrest of the two attackers who were still at-large.
"We know that the assailants fired with a handgun from close range and on a cycle of violence, but we have no direct motives or suspects yet," Ayub Adinpour , Bokan deputy mayor, told the press.
The murder sparked a massive discussions on social media networks with many commentators expressing delight at the liquidation.
Hasan Banayi has been described by the local people as a "troublemaker," "a mafia boss," and even "a collaborator" with the Iranian intelligence services.
People who spoke to Rudaw said Banayi was a wealthy "businessman" who was dealing with both legal and illegal items.
"He made a fortune from his many businesses, both real estate and drugs, and with the help of a network of people he worked with," said one witness who did not wish to be named.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/29/2015 00:00 ||
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Superheroes are often fodder for lunchbox covers, but one school considers the do-gooders nothing more than "violent characters."
Recently, a young girl purportedly received a letter stating that her Wonder Woman lunchbox violated a code in which the school asks that children not bring violent images into the building in any way. "We have defined 'violent characters' as those who solve problems using violence," the letter reads. "Superheroes certainly fall into that category."
While the upcoming Batman v. Superman might show some characters' more hostile tendencies, the lunch box in question simply featured a smiling profile of Wonder Woman and a solo action shot with her lasso -- a picture that seems to best symbolize the character's strength and confidence. The letter sparked outrage on the internet, with even Wonder Woman actress Lynda Carter retweeting a story about the lunchbox.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
08/29/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
"We have defined 'violent characters' as those who solve problems using violence,"
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.
[WUSA9 News] BETHESDA, Md.- A former Navy SEAL lost his life while riding his bicycle in Bethesda Friday.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Photos showing a 14-year-old boy getting married to his 10-year-old partner in Iran have gone viral on social media.
They'll bite through your aileron wires. They'll insert toasting forks in your tyres. That is the tale of the Gremlins. 
[RUDAW.NET] An alleged local gang leader was killed in the ethnically Kurdish city of Bokan, Iran, on Thursday, city officials said.
