[AnNahar] A 23-year-old woman armed with a handgun was placed in durance vile Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!
outside the White House late Thursday, U.S. Secret Service officials said.
In a statement released Friday, the Secret Service identified the woman as April Lenhart of Mount Morris, Michigan.
"Lenhart was participating in a demonstration along the north fence line of the White House complex when Secret Service personnel monitoring the demonstration observed a holstered handgun on Lenhart's front hip," said the agency, which is tasked with protecting the president, visiting dignitaries and top U.S. officials.
Lenhart was enjugged Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit! and charged with possession of an unregistered firearm, possession of unregistered ammunition and carrying a pistol without a license, the Secret Service said.
Her arrest came just one day after Secret Service officers arrested a 41-year-old man at the White House who had a rifle and ammunition in a car parked nearby.
U.S. media said the man on Wednesday approached a Secret Service officer at 15th Street entrance of the White House, saying someone told him to go to the White House.
A search of his car, parked about a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) from the White House, yielded a hunting rifle and ammunition, news reports said.
The Secret Service has beefed up its operations after a string of security lapses, including one involving an armed intruder who scaled the White House fence and managed to get well within the presidential mansion.
Secret Service director Julia Pierson was forced to resign last month in the aftermath of the breaches.
Especially for Fred, as he heals from an unexpected adventure with his shop equipment.
[AnNahar] Spain's eccentric Duchess of Alba, one of the nation's richest women who has more titles than any other aristocrat on earth, died on Thursday at the age of 88, a front man for her family said.
Maria del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart passed away at her Duenas Palace in the southern city of Seville on Thursday morning, a family front man told AFP.
She had been moved to her home on Tuesday night after being hospitalized with pneumonia. The socialite is survived by her husband, who is 24 years her junior.
Known for her frizzy hair and colorful dress sense,
...a tactful description...
Maria del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart owned swathes of real estate, palaces, great houses and treasures including paintings by Great Masters from Goya to Velazquez.
Her premier title was Duchess of Alba de Tormes but she had more than 40 others due to a series of complicated marriages by her ancestors, which made her the noble with the most officially recognized titles in the world according to Guinness World Records.
[Ynet] The corpse count in the Ebola epidemic has risen to 5,459 out of 15,351 cases identified in eight countries by the end of Nov. 18, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.
The figures showed an increase of 39 recorded deaths and 106 new cases since those issued on Wednesday.
"Transmission remains intense in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone," the WHO said, referring to the three hardest-hit West African countries that account for all but 15 of the deaths.
All six known Ebola cases in Mali have now died and 327 contacts exposed to the virus are being monitored in the capital Bamako, it said.
Not a lot of gun news out there at the moment. Serial prevaricator Jonathan Gruber seems to be the item of the week, but even then we find he regards gun ownership as a public health issue. And it is, as long as fascists continue trying to further restrict the purchase and ownership of firearms.
From Western Rifle Shooters Association comes an after action report on a civilian sniper competition. Pretty entertaining reading as it does show deficits of those who think all they need is an AR and an attitude. Reality can intrude in a nasty way. Or so they say.
#1
“By the way you have now permanently prevented yourself from winning a high elected office in the United States despite your charisma,”
Gruber has the charisma of a dead fish. Indeed, there is no danger of him winning any office--even that of dog catcher.
I'd like to shake the hand of whoever found all the old videos of him telling his audiences that lying was necessary to prop up horribly bad legislation in order to pass it. Moreover, he disparaged the voters by saying they were too dumb to sort out the lying. As I recall, it was the Democratic legislators who passed this bad legislation. The majority of Americans did not want it now or when Hildebeast was trying to pass it when her husband was President.
Rich Weinstein is not a reporter. He does not have a blog. Until this week, the fortysomething's five-year old Twitter account had a follower count in the low double digits.
“I’m an investment adviser,” Weinstein tells me from his home near Philadelphia. “I’m a nobody. I’m the guy who lives in his mom’s basement wearing a tinfoil hat.” (He's joking about the mom and the tinfoil.)
He's also behind a series of scoops that could convince the Supreme Court to dismantle part of the Affordable Care Act. Weinstein has absorbed hours upon hours of interviews with Jonathan Gruber, an MIT professor who advised the Massachusetts legislature when it created “Romneycare” and the Congress when it created “Obamacare.”
“It’s terrifying that the guy in his mom’s basement is finding his stuff, and nobody else is,” he says. “I really do find this disturbing.”
[AnNahar] At least nine people were killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material... 's volatile east where Ugandan rebels have recently staged bloody attacks, a top official said Friday.
"Nine bodies have been sent to the morgue. The bodies were found deep inside the forest," Julien Paluku, the governor of the restive Nord-Kivu province, told AFP.
"We are carrying out searches to see if there are any other bodies" in the forest, located in the north of the province between the towns of Beni and Mbau, he said.
The victims were killed on Thursday.
According to the Civil Society of Nord-Kivu, an NGO based in Beni, the deaths were part of new "carnage" perpetrated by Ugandan rebels. It put the toll at 50, citing a survivor but this information could not be independently verified.
Rebels from Uganda's ADF (Allied Democratic Forces)have been active in the mountainous border region between the two countries since 1995 after being driven out of Uganda by President Yoweri Museveni.
They have been blamed for atrocities, pillaging villages and forcing locals to fight for them, while funding themselves from the lucrative smuggling of wood.
In January, the Congolese army and the United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... began an offensive against the ADF, the last major group active in the region.
However, alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk... the rebels have bounced back since the brutal death in August of Congolese army chief General Jean-Lucien Bahuma.
The National Immigration Institute in Mexico (INAMI) has started a pilot program in which foreigners that enter Mexican territory for more than seven days or they will be involved in paid work, they will have to pay 306 pesos, or about 28 US dollars.
#1
IIRC professional athletes and speakers who 'work' in NYC for a day or two are taxed by the local government for that portion of income that is generated by their labors.
#8
Don't know how this is different that currently in play; I have been going to Mexico for over 2 years on periodic business-related trips, and if I want a 7 day work visa they are free, but for a 6 month one, it costs about $24.00
Please note that these are work related, not touristas
Russia launched the Kosmos 2499 rocket mission back in May as part of what seemed like just another mission to further develop its constellations of 'Rodnik' communications satellites. Usually three satellites are released during these missions, but this one had a fourth object.
The U.S. thought that this strange radar return was just debris, but not so much anymore. According to the BBC, Russia told the UN that the piece of debris in question was actually a fourth satellite, which in itself is nothing too odd, as the US launches classified payloads all the time. Additionally, Russia has been all about surprises lately, so it was seen as just another question thrown on top of a pile of questions. But then satellite observers saw the craft changing its orbit in ways that are far from normal for even spy satellites that usually do anything they can to conserve their finite fuel.
On November 9th, this small satellite's odd maneuvers came to a head when it actually approached a piece of the rocket that sent it into space nearly six months earlier, maneuvering within just meters of it.
#1
Satellite disabling technology makes a lot of sense. Almost all military communication - command and control technology, is satellite dependent. Whoever can take out an enemy's satellites would have the advantage in endgame big conflicts. I think back to President Regan's Star Wars program. We don't hear a lot nowadays but I do wonder whether or not those initiatives were pursued.
#3
Be interesting to know which birds were on the tour, and what two sats chat about when they visit.
At first I was thinking, a refueling, then I thought about a sticky upgraded comms package which hadn't yet been compromised.
Now I'm more in the mood of add-on terminal guidance for kinetic mass targeting.
[AnNahar] China is building a massive island in the South China Sea that could host an airfield in an area where Beijing is locked in bitter territorial disputes with neighboring states, a U.S. military front man said Friday.
The vast land reclamation project on the Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands is one of several pursued by China but the first that could accommodate an airstrip, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Poole said.
"It appears that's what they're working toward," Poole told AFP.
There is also a harbor on the east side of the reef that appears large enough for tankers and naval warships, he added.
In the past three months, China has used dredgers to construct an island about 3,000 yards (meters) long and 200-300 meters wide on the reef, which was previously under water, according to a report Friday by IHS Jane's Defense.
Did they file an environmental impact statement? Where's Greenpeace on this?
The results of the dredging are captured in satellite pictures obtained by IHS Jane's that cover a period between August 8 and November 14.
"The land reclamation at Fiery Cross is the fourth such project undertaken by China in the Spratly Islands in the last 12-18 months and by far the largest in scope," the report said.
Before the latest dredging work, the Chinese navy had used a concrete platform and no artificial island had been created. China already has built islands at Johnson South Reef, Cuateron Reef, and Gaven Reefs, it said.
Beijing claims nearly all of the resource-rich South China Sea, while Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam have asserted their own claims by building structures on reefs or occupying islands.
The other Southeast Asian countries already had airfields in the area and China's latest efforts could put it in a stronger position as Beijing pursues its claims.
"Given its massive military advantage over the other claimants in terms of quantity and quality of materiel, this facility appears purpose-built to coerce other claimants into relinquishing their claims and possessions, or at least provide China with a much stronger negotiating position if talks over the dispute were ever held," IHS Jane's wrote.
The United States has urged China and other states to settle the territorial disputes peacefully and without coercion while urging Beijing to support a regional, multilateral maritime "code of conduct" to defuse confrontations at sea. But Beijing has tended to prefer bilateral talks with its smaller neighbors, which are heavily dependent on Chinese trade.
Trouble in paradise? This bodes ill for Erdogan's base of support. Come to think of it, Iran also has a major drug problem among its younger generation...
[AnNahar] Turkey is launching an "all-out war" against the use of bonzai, a synthetic drug which has become a serious social problem in the country, the health minister said Friday.
Bonzai, which has become a craze in some parts of low income Turkish society, has come under the spotlight recently after a spate of deaths of young men caused by the abuse of the drug.
The health ministry unveiled an "emergency plan" that includes forming a "social media team" to monitor the online sales of the bonzai, Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu told Milliyet daily on Friday.
Muezzinoglu said that more than 230 people bit the dust due to drugs in Turkey last year, most under the age of 25.
"We won't wait for the deaths to increase day by day. We won't show any more tolerance. Each death is a tragedy for us. We should save our youth from this evil with an all-out war."
The majority of the deaths were caused by bonzai, known as "the poor's man's heroin" because of its low cost. The drug can be bought online for just 2-3 Turkish liras (approximately $1).
Under the measures, which will come into affect in 2015 in 11 "high-risk" provinces, including Turkey's largest city Istanbul, anti-narcotics officials will regularly launch raids on internet cafes, schools and even homes.
To do so, they will seek help from parents, teachers, doctors, school bus drivers and local officials, Muezzinoglu added.
Students and soldiers will be educated about the dangers of the drug, which is highly addictive and has been spreading around Turkey at an alarming rate since 2009.
Sophisticated X-ray machines that look like tomography scanners will be set up on each border gate as well as airports. Abandoned buildings occupied by drug addicts will be demolished.
In some countries the bonzai is sold under the name "phenazepam", a pharmaceutical drug developed for the treatment of several neurological diseases.
Bonzai is an entirely chemical substance that can cause a rapid increase in blood pressure and heart rate and hunger pangs, thirst, loss of memory, temporary blindness and temporary paralysis.
The most common cause of death linked with the abuse of bonzai is heart attack. The drug takes its name from the Japanese bonsai miniature tree, which is spelt bonzai in Turkish.
#1
At this rate it might not matter that Afghanistan is having a record poppy harvest.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
11/22/2014 8:03 Comments ||
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#2
an entirely chemical substance that can cause a rapid increase in blood pressure and heart rate and hunger pangs, thirst, loss of memory, temporary blindness and temporary paralysis.
Pacificorp — an energy company owned by Warren Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway — is suing Obama’s Interior Department.
The surprising reason: Interior is going to follow the Freedom of Information Act and disclose to an Associated Press reporter how many birds are killed by Pacificorp’s wind farms. Pacificorp is suing to block the disclosure. …
Wind farms definitely kill birds. If the AP finds that it kills a lot of birds — and particularly endangered species of birds — that could diminish the industry’s valuable image as an earth-friendly source of energy.
#2
Hmm. This article contradicts all the other articles I've read on the subject. The other articles say there's no MAD because this plane is fuel inefficient when flying searches at low altitude, unlike the P3. Instead it will rely on long range sonobuoys dropped from a normal cruising altitude.
#5
Suspect that the MAD is much smaller than that of the P3C's, and probably also retractable. Have not read a lot about the bird, very low key. And it is NOT a converted 737; it is a new build version of the 37. Same as the 737-900 is a 'conversion' of a 737-300.
[MotherJones] Rapid-DNA technology makes it easier than ever to grab and store your genetic profile. G-men, cops, and Homeland Security can't wait to see it everywhere.
And even then it will not be fully operational and may not surpass the Nimitz class carriers its supposed to replace...
[DailyCaller] The aircraft carrier stands at only 80 percent complete, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Costs risen 20 percent since 2006 and the launch has been delayed. It was supposed to be cleared for a September 2015 date, but now has been pushed back to March 2016. Not only will the Navy carrier be incomplete at launch date, but completing construction will cost nearly a billion dollars. Some of the most important features of the carrier intended to separate it from older models will remain dormant, for instance the improved satellite communication will have to wait. Defects will be present, too, until almost a billion dollars more is spent to correct the errors.
"After an investment of at least $12.9 billion, CVN 78 may not achieve improved operational performance over the Nimitz class of aircraft carriers as promised for some time to come," GAO confirmed.
In terms of practical deployment, the carrier’s limited expansion ability is also a matter of criticism. The GAO pointed out that additional berths cannot be installed if more personnel come on board, a possibility that is looking increasingly likely. Severe operational tradeoffs will have to be made, in that case. Design flaw?
#1
Keep in mind that the Ford is as much prototype as ship of the line. There's a LOT of new tech embodied in her, and to a certain extent its to be expected. The John F. Kennedy will be far more settled, and Enterprise will be the first true 'production' ship.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
11/22/2014 11:10 Comments ||
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#2
Hopefully they figure out the berthing issues - because an undercrewed ship is a dangerous ship - and in war a dead one.
The Trondheim research unit has been trying to grow plants in space since 2006. Under the Damn
Norwegian research team's guidance, plant growing experiments were carried out at the International Space Station (ISS). The research focused on the flowering weed, Lefse
thaliana. (Well, it's a start, I guess.)
#1
This is actually a follow-on for the halted "Lutefisk in Space" program, that was cancelled after complaints from the UN committee on space weapons.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
11/22/2014 8:00 Comments ||
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#5
See, all you had to do is talk about some IT guys getting canned over not making mandated backups, and it's "look what fell behind the filing cabinet".
Posted by: ed in texas ||
11/22/2014 8:07 Comments ||
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#6
Oh, and, plenty of time for O to issue a blanket pardon before he leaves office.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
11/22/2014 8:09 Comments ||
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#7
I hope this story leads to a happy ending for the country at large, but for the perps not so much.
#9
The emails were mostly Nigerian widows looking for partners to park their late husbands' money for a fee.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/22/2014 13:16 Comments ||
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#10
LOL. I was on the receiving end of endless Nigerian 411 letters at one time. Finally, I wrote back and said: Get &%#@!*. Get a job instead of scamming people you lazy bastids. I got an email back that told me to : "Get &%#@!*." Good chuckle out of it.
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.
The National Immigration Institute in Mexico (INAMI) has started a pilot program in which foreigners that enter Mexican territory for more than seven days or they will be involved in paid work, they will have to pay 306 pesos, or about 28 US dollars.
Russia launched the Kosmos 2499 rocket mission back in May as part of what seemed like just another mission to further develop its constellations of 'Rodnik' communications satellites. Usually three satellites are released during these missions, but this one had a fourth object.
Pacificorp — an energy company owned by Warren Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway — is suing Obama’s Interior Department.
