[Daily Caller] A recently released surveillance video of a gas station attack last month didn’t just show two teenagers beating up three people and an 11-year-old girl ‐ it also caught a bystander looking at the altercation, taking a sip of the drink he was holding in his hand, then calmly walking back to his car.
The gas station attack, which took place at a Circle K in Silver Springs, Florida on September 22, was caught almost in its entirety on surveillance video released by the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.
Find the person with the highest IQ in this video.
#1
I'll go with sippy cup guy. Has a passenger in his 'car', and judging by his auto and presentation is likely not a pugilist, and likely not sober. He does manage to un-ass himself without driving over a bunch of people.
The mug-shots with the 1/4" of spackle and face bumps tell me they are likely connoisseurs of the meth, and that all tells me that the eleven year old shouldn't be out at that time of night.
Didn't look like a robbery to me, looked like some girl beef.
And BTW, was that 11 year old girl riding in the back of a pick up truck? Dunno about Florida but that's illegal in California so I'd charge the driver of the truck with child abuse as well.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/03/2018 13:58 Comments ||
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#4
Out here, I think that translates to 'carpool'. When I was a kid, bunch of us rode home from a ball game 90 miles in the back of a pickup and nobody thought anything of it.
#5
I think the 11 year old is in the cab and another (unmentioned) adult woman is in the bed of the truck. The one in the cab is the only one those face is pixelated.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
10/03/2018 7:50 Comments ||
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#5
Need to get one of those Japanese dry-wall installation robots up on the space station pronto. Teach it to install whatever they use for space station walls.
Since I didn't get around to this until 12:30 this morning and it's a long column short on specifics, I believe a general fisking is required to dismiss this as the shit that it is. Away we go!
[NYT] - President Trump participated in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the fortune he received from his parents, an investigation by The New York Times has found. First off, a 'dubious tax scheme' is not an instance of fraud. I have mentioned this many, many times in previous posts - you either comply with the tax law, or you don't comply with the tax law. The use of 'dubious tax scheme' is designed to convey the impression that what Trump did is illegal. It is not; to be expanded on throughout the article. Worth mentioning that the periods discussed are well past the general three-year statute of limitations.
Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.
But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records,
Golly. How did they get those, and what will President Trump do about the unethical behaviour of the party of the second part?
reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day. Note the technique of inflating actual past-value dollars to arrive at larger current dollars; this is done quite a few times in the article.
Much of this money came to Mr. Trump because he helped his parents dodge taxes. He and his siblings set up a sham corporation to disguise millions of dollars in gifts from their parents, records and interviews show.
When he was a toddler? Clever lad!
Records indicate that Mr. Trump helped his father take improper tax deductions worth millions more. He also helped formulate a strategy to undervalue his parents’ real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars on tax returns, sharply reducing the tax bill when those properties were transferred to him and his siblings. A synonym for 'dodge' is 'avoid'. Again, there is nothing wrong with avoiding taxes - this is what I do for a living when I prepare tax returns for my clients. Conveniently not mentioned as well - how many audits did Trump's father endure?
These maneuvers met with little resistance from the Internal Revenue Service, The Times found. I have also mentioned, albeit on a less frequent basis, that the IRS loves auditing rich individuals and that IRS audit teams practically live at the headquarters of large companies like IBM, GE, Microsoft, Caterpillar, etc., not to mention state and local audit groups. I am beyond certain that Trump has been audited multiple time by multiple tax jurisdictions over his lifetime. This is the ultimate test about Trump's compliance with the tax laws, and the only ones that matter. The misleading phrase 'met with little resistance' can be translated to 'Trump passed these tests with minor compliance errors'.
The president’s parents, Fred and Mary Trump, transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate then imposed on gifts and inheritances.
The Trumps paid a total of $52.2 million, or about 5 percent, tax records show. See the above discussion about 'dodge taxes' and 'tax avoidance'; this is more of the same.
Mr. Harder sought to distance Mr. Trump from the tax strategies used by his family, saying the president had delegated those tasks to relatives and tax professionals. "President Trump had virtually no involvement whatsoever with these matters," he said. "The affairs were handled by other Trump family members who were not experts themselves and therefore relied entirely upon the aforementioned licensed professionals to ensure full compliance with the law." How many of you hire a tax preparer for your Federal & state tax returns every year? I bet it's at least half of you, yet the tone of this article clearly expects Trump to do his own taxes, which is absurd. I've seen a few partnership tax returns run $14,000 in tax prep. fees, and that business operation is nowhere as complex as Trump's businesses are, or the aforementioned Dow / S & P 500 companies.
The Times’s findings raise new questions about Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his income tax returns, breaking with decades of practice by past presidents. According to tax experts, it is unlikely that Mr. Trump would be vulnerable to criminal prosecution for helping his parents evade taxes, because the acts happened too long ago and are past the statute of limitations. There is no time limit, however, on civil fines for tax fraud. Again, as backed up by the 'tax experts' - 'evade’ is a synonym for 'avoid’ and is perfectly legal, and also contradicts earlier assertions in the article that Trump did something illegal.
While the records do not include the president’s personal tax returns and reveal little about his recent business dealings at home and abroad, dozens of corporate, partnership and trust tax returns offer the first public accounting of the income he received for decades from various family enterprises. Let's also note the one key tax return type being left out - gift tax returns. I will skip over the next ten or so paragraphs that is nothing more than class warfare and envy and begrudgingly admit (again) that tax avoidance is legal. Some paragraphs above, the article states that the actual gift tax bill is less then what they conclude could have resulted in a much larger tax bill. Something may have been left on the cutting room floor, or maybe they're just throwing numbers around - I'll go with the latter.
The manipulation of values to evade taxes was central to one of the most important financial events in Donald Trump’s life. In an episode never before revealed, Mr. Trump and his siblings gained ownership of most of their father’s empire on Nov. 22, 1997, a year and a half before Fred Trump’s death. Critical to the complex transaction was the value put on the real estate. The lower its value, the lower the gift taxes. The Trumps dodged hundreds of millions in gift taxes by submitting tax returns that grossly undervalued the properties, claiming they were worth just $41.4 million. How would you know that if you've never looked at any of the gift tax returns? Do you have records of the fair market values on his properties and compare them with the stated value(s) on any of the returns in question? Of the tax return types mentioned, this one (gift tax) is omitted. Again, how did this get past the prying eyes of Federal and NY state tax auditors? Curious, isn't it?
By now I'm getting bored with this repetitive article - let's cut to the fun stuff, the one 'instance' of fraud where the article promised you, dear reader, multiple 'instances of fraud':
The most overt fraud was All County Building Supply & Maintenance, a company formed by the Trump family in 1992. All County’s ostensible purpose was to be the purchasing agent for Fred Trump’s buildings, buying everything from boilers to cleaning supplies. It did no such thing, records and interviews show. Instead All County siphoned millions of dollars from Fred Trump’s empire by simply marking up purchases already made by his employees. Those millions, effectively untaxed gifts, then flowed to All County’s owners ‐ Donald Trump, his siblings and a cousin. Fred Trump then used the padded All County receipts to justify bigger rent increases for thousands of tenants. In a word, this is horseshit. Name me a company that doesn't mark up its prices in one way or the other. This is done in part to cover operating costs such as employee salaries, rent on storage and other buildings, transportation costs and other costs. That paragraph is pure assertion couched in the language of class warfare and criminal insinuation- 'siphoned off', 'effectively untaxed gifts', and the like. Also note that the NYT does not assert that any tax filings with respect to this company are 'fraudulent' or whatever - because this company involved the sale of tangible personal property, you can bet that NY Dept. of Taxation & Finance audit staff were crawling over this company doing sales & use tax audits.
All in all, an extremely underwhelming column where the two principals, Fred Trump and Donald Trump, are President of the United States and deceased, neatly packaged so as to avoid a libel suit by not mentioning other Trump family members multiple times or in a libelous manner. Better luck next time, New York Times.
Anyway, the WH responded to the NYT article and said:
“Fred Trump has been gone for nearly twenty years and it’s sad to witness this misleading attack against the Trump family by the failing New York Times,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement, referring to Trump’s late father — a powerful New York real estate developer and housing magnate.
“Many decades ago the IRS reviewed and signed off on these transactions,” Sanders said. “The New York Times’ and other media outlets’ credibility with the American people is at an all time low because they are consumed with attacking the president and his family 24/7 instead of reporting the news.”
#6
I'm not an expert on U.S. tax law but "dubious tax scheme" is for public consumption only. In (tax) law there is "legal" and "illegal" only.
No company will ever pay one cent more than it has to.
Btw inheritance taxes shouldn't exist. This is wealth you earned and has been taxed already. It's state robbery.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/03/2018 13:11 Comments ||
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#7
So the FBI or dems, one in the same now days, leaked this to the press. The Senate Dems will call for an FBI investigation and we start the charade all over...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/03/2018 13:41 Comments ||
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#8
Well done Raj, tw and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I particularly like the part about the failing New York Times. Trump's lawyer has threatened legal action against the old rag. I remember CBS reporting about this article last night as if it was the Gospel. Can they be sued as well?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/03/2018 14:14 Comments ||
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#9
Good job Raj. Very useful. I wonder who sicked the NYTs on this story? Anything to do with Mueller?
#3
When you fall asleep on the couch, is that considered a 'blackout', too?
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
10/03/2018 7:49 Comments ||
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#4
Of course three or drinks a day is binge drinking. Plus you are an alcoholic. Time to switch to reefer. Then you're bjust practicing an "alternative lfe style"
#5
I have never suffered a blackout. I do know of a guy who left his van somewhere and couldn't remember where he left it. He reported it stolen so the police would find it for him. Two weeks later they did. I know of a woman who was an alcoholic and suffered blackouts who, after a drinking binge and a blackout, said she woke up going down the road in an 18 wheeler and she had not clue where she was going or how she got there. So, it happens.
I have heard that true alcoholics don't suffer hangovers but I don't know for certain.
#6
You see it all the time before Congressional Committees... Remember Lois Lerner "Taking the fifth" (*hic*! Barkeep pass me another!) in testimony? Was that a 'fifth' of rotgut or Chardonnay?
[Breitbart] Prosecutors in Las Vegas dropped all charges against four California dentists when video evidence did not back up a woman’s claim that the men raped her.
Authorities initially charged Ali Badkoobehi, Poria Edalat, Saman Edalat, and Sina Edalat with rape after a woman claimed the four men forced themselves upon her in a room at the Wynn hotel in July, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
The accuser told police that the men held her down in a chair and took turns raping her and that she could not resist because she was too drunk. The men were arrested early in August, booked, but then released as the case moved forward.
Now, the entire case has been dismissed after prosecutors dropped the charges based on video evidence that did not align with the claims of the purported victim, the paper reported.
“After review of the facts of the case, it was clear that the allegations were completely fabricated,” lawyers for the accused men said in a statement released to the media. “The evidence confirmed the men’s innocence, and the state has cleared them of all charges.”
The Case of the Persian Escapists:
They taped an anonymous traitress.
She's willing. A grilling.
Consensual drilling.
"She raped us! We're chaste as a Papist!"
#6
Starting to think women should only be allowed to drink at home alone.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/03/2018 8:13 Comments ||
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#7
#4 Grom Jr reaching the age of going to parties - should I suggest to him to film every party he's present at and keep the videos?
Perhaps, he should also get the paperwork out of the way too before considering any consensual sex; vet the young lady for the following on a contractual basis with witnesses:
1. What is your age?
2. Having you been drinking?
3. If the answer to #2 is "Yes," then how many drinks have you had.
4. Are you of sound mind?
5. Have you ever been under the care of a psychiatrist? For what?
6. Have you ever been the subject of a lawsuit? If so, provide the details please.
7. Have you ever had a polygraph? If so please explain the circumstances.
8. To you have any STDs?
9. Have you ever participated in group sex?
10. Are you under the influence of drugs? If yes, which drugs.
11. Are you a Democrat?
12. Do you belong to any groups such as ANTIFA or have you participated in any groups supported by George Soros?
G(r), after this vetting, Grom(JR) will not have to worry about anything other than finding a date.
#8
That's for having actual sex, JQC - you do believe that Kavanaugh ever actually met the bitch?
p.s. In Israel we don't need the 12 questions: one "Do you believe that peace with Arabs is possible?" tells you all you need to know - it's a package deal. Of course, on the other hand, lefty chicks are easy.
#11
g(r)om - re #7 - if the answer to question #3 is "more than zero" - find another girl/woman. A woman can claim later - sometimes much later - that she was too intoxicated to resist, or even have the sense to say no.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/03/2018 20:24 Comments ||
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[DAWN] The Indonesian government on Tuesday said the corpse count from a devastating quake-tsunami on the island of Sulawesi had risen to 1,234 people, up from the previous count of 844.
"As of 1pm (local time) there are 1,234 dead," said Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, the national disaster agency front man.
The magnitude 7.5 earthquake and the tsunami it generated struck Palu and nearby areas on central Sulawesi island.
Nugroho said 799 people are severely injured. He said the communities of Sigi and Balaroa have not been counted yet, meaning the toll is likely to rise.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2018 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] A Saudi woman has lost a judicial battle to marry the man of her choice as a court deemed him "religiously" unfit because he plays a musical instrument, a Saudi newspaper reported on Tuesday.
The ultra-conservative kingdom requires women to seek permission from male "guardians" ‐ their fathers, husbands or other male relatives ‐ to travel, get married and other tasks.
In some parts of the kingdom, a man who plays a musical instrument is considered of inferior status and having a bad reputation.
Two years ago the suitor, a teacher, asked for the hand of the woman, a 38-year-old bank manager from the ultra-conservative region of Qassim, north of the capital Riyadh, Okaz newspaper said.
But her family objected, saying he was not "religiously compatible" with her because he played the oud, the oriental lute which is popular across the Arab world.
The woman, who was not named, took her case to the courts.
A lower court weighed in on the side of the family, saying the marriage could not go through.
"Because the suitor plays a musical instrument he is unsuitable for the woman from a religious point of view," the court said, according to Okaz.
An appeals court ratified the verdict, making it final, the newspaper added.
The woman told Okaz she will seek intervention from the country's "highest authorities" ‐ a reference to the royal court.
The bank manager, who holds a masters degree and is responsible for more than 300 employees, said she was determined to marry her suitor, describing him as "very pious and with a good reputation".
Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... , a major US ally, has introduced a string of reforms over the past year aimed at improving the kingdom's image, including ending a longstanding ban on women driving.
But it continues to face criticism over the male guardianship system which allows men to exercise arbitrary authority to make decisions on behalf of their female relatives.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2018 00:00 ||
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An interesting claim, though it seems, in my ignorance, to be a bit unlikely.
[IsraelTimes] A top South Korean official tells politicians that North Korea is estimated to have up to 60 nuclear weapons, in Seoul’s first public comment about the size of the North’s secrecy-clouded weapons arsenal.
Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon told parliament Monday the estimates on the size of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal range from 20 bombs to as many as 60. He was responding to a question by a politician, saying the information came from the intelligence authorities. The National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s main spy agency, couldn’t immediately comment.
Cho may have unintentionally revealed the information. His ministry said Tuesday Cho’s comments didn’t mean that South Korea would accept North Korea as a nuclear state, suggesting Seoul’s diplomatic efforts to rid the North of its nuclear program would continue.
The South Korean assessment on the North’s arsenal is not much different from various outside civilian estimates largely based on the amount of nuclear materials that North is believed to have produced.
[DAWN] The administrative judge of antiterrorism courts on Monday sent a suspect to prison in a case pertaining to the murder of a 10-year-old girl during a police encounter with suspected robbers.
Amal Umer, who was travelling along with her parents in their car, died after she was hit by a bullet fired by a policeman in the Defence area on the night of Aug 13 during an alleged shootout with the suspected street criminals.
After the end of his five-day physical remand, the investigating officer (IO) again produced the suspect, Khalid, before the court and the judge sent him to prison on judicial remand till Oct 5 with direction to the IO to attend the court along with the investigation report at the next hearing.
Police claimed to have placed in durance vile I ain't sayin' nuttin' widdout me mout'piece! Khalid on Sept 24 in some other cases. During questioning, the suspect disclosed his involvement in the girl’s murder and also robbing of her parents and others, they added.
Earlier, a DIG had conceded that the victim was fatally shot in the firing by police constable Babar Shahzad during a shootout with suspected robbers, but the policeman was not named as an accused in the case.
The main case was lodged under Sections 397 (robbery or dacoity with attempt to cause death or grievous hurt) and 34 of PPC read with Section 7 of ATA on the complaint of victim’s father at Defence cop shoppe.
The second case was lodged on the complaint of constable Babar Shahzad under Sections 324 (attempt to commit murder), 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) and 34 of PPC.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2018 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] Separate teams have been constituted to arrest the suspect who raped a police official in the capital.
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Syed Mohammad Amin Bukhari told Dawn that he was personally supervising the investigations and two separate teams have been constituted in this regard. The teams are headed by superintendents of police from the rural zone and the Crime Investigation Agency.
SSP Bukhari said the teams are trying to find suspects in the case, and some individuals, including the victim’s husband, have been interrogated.
Police said the official, a constable with the Anti-Terrorism Squad, was attacked on her way home from a cop shoppe on Saturday night.
They said she was living with her parents in Khanna Dak and worked in the second shift. She was usually picked up from a bus stop on the Expressway by her father.
On Saturday, the official finished work at round 9:45pm and left for home armed and in uniform. She waited for her father at the bus stop, and when he did not show up she began walking home. She was attacked by someone from behind and overpowered, police said.
The suspect took her to a wooded area, where she was physically assaulted and lost consciousness. Police said that when she regained consciousness she had been raped and abandoned in the wooded area.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/03/2018 00:00 ||
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[Hot Air] Study: Hundreds Of People Have Died Taking Selfies
Some of these deaths have been relatively high profile. In Canada—while we don’t know if it was for a selfie—three social media influencers were killed this year after falling into a river and being swept over a waterfall. In May of this year, a man in India was mauled to death by a bear while trying to get a selfie. There have been several stories of people falling just after they’ve taken the selfie leaving only the ghostly photo of them seconds before their demise. The study makes it clear that this isn’t a small problem and there are almost certainly more people out there who died taking selfies than the 259 they reported.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” reads part of the study. “Many cases are not reported.”
In regards to those 259, the researchers broke down the geography of the deaths and found that the “highest number of incidents and selfie-deaths” were in “India followed by Russia, the United States, and Pakistan.” The average age of those getting killed was unsurprisingly pretty young at 22.94 years. According to the data, the chance of you reaching death by selfie drops off significantly (again, unsurprisingly) by the time someone hits 30. Just over three-quarters of those killed taking selfies were men (also, unsurprisingly).
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/03/2018 19:26 Comments ||
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#8
Frank, you can tell she's the slut in the group - you can see her arm.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
10/03/2018 20:19 Comments ||
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#9
Nekkidest arm ever, maybe. I can't do the Mexican deadpan thing. Too babbly. But once, waiting for the train... trash bag across the way suddenly twitches and tumbles off the pile. Couple more twitches, half roll. Me and Tio Juan at the other end of the bench exchange glances and await further developments. More twitching... and all becomes clear. "Rats," he informs me, like he's telling me something I don't know. "Con cuatro piernas!" Got a smile.
A Japanese robot that can pick up and drill in a drywall all by itself could provide a glimpse into the future of construction.
The smart robot, HRP-5P, uses object detection and motion planning to perform its construction tasks – albeit very slowly.
It can use small hooks to grab the board, carry it across the room and then drill it in the desired spot.
Robotics are common in manufacturing sites, such as auto plants, but those machines are stationery and carrying out the same task over and over, often in sterile and enclosed environments.
Robots used in construction sites have to move around.
Although much of what they may do is repetitive, they still have to respond to uneven floors and zigzagging routes, depending on a building's design.
Shimizu says it is developing its own artificial intelligence systems, using robots made by Kuka Robotics of Germany.
If they work successfully, the robots could help reduce safety risks and long hours for construction workers.
Using robots makes sense in urban construction, where buildings are high-rise and the same work is repeated on each floor.
Tokyo-based developers from Japan's Advanced Industrial Science and Technology Institute (AIST) say the robot could replace workers assembling ships and aircraft who are often carrying out dangerous work.
They want to use HRP-5P as a development platform for collaboration between industry and academia.
The robot is 182cm (5"10) tall, weighs 101kg (15.9 stone) and can lift things that are 'rug-sized', according to its developers.
#1
I don't see this happening, not for a long while. I was on a construction site back in college, and I saw this French-Canadian guy do a 20' by 20' room, maybe bigger, in under an hour, including the ceiling, and it wasn't exactly a box-like straight cut room either. I'd know because my job was to lug the 1/2" thick 4' x 8''s up a flight of stairs to feed it to him. This guy beat the crap out of me that day, yelling at me the whole time because I was too slow for his liking. I don't know what the French phrase for 'fucking college kid' is but he was probably yelling it at me every three minutes.
#2
The first and easiest step to automate the construction industry would be to build a "fucking college kid" robot to hump drywall, shingles, bricks, mud, and pilot a wheelbarrow.
Try lugging the doubles of dry wall, 2 sheets that come taped together, and getting them to the top floor of a Beacon Hill brownstone. One guy on each landing and you shoot (lift) them up to the next highest guy.
Those were the days, I thought they'd never end. 8^(
#11
I don't know if it is a replacement for humans but it might be nice to have the thing working all night putting up drywall so the teams could come in the morning and do the edges and fine stuff and start painting.
h/t Instapundit
Editor’s note: For the past year scholars James Lindsay, Helen Pluckrose, and Peter Boghossian have sent fake papers to various academic journals which they describe as specialising in activism or "grievance studies." Their stated mission has been to expose how easy it is to get "absurdities and morally fashionable political ideas published as legitimate academic research."
To date, their project has been successful: seven papers have passed through peer review and have been published, including a 3000 word excerpt of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, rewritten in the language of Intersectionality theory and published in the Gender Studies journal Affilia. I myself seen the rot spreading from the "illiberal" arts to my discipline of evolutionary biology.
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.
North Korea
A Japanese robot that can pick up and drill in a drywall all by itself could provide a glimpse into the future of construction.
