The Chicago South Side Spring Offensive has begun.
[Chicago Tribune] he son of a Harvey police officer was killed and three other people were wounded when gunfire erupted at a strip club in the south suburb early Wednesday, police said.
The officer's son was shot in the parking lot of the Boogie Nights Club after a fight started inside the club and spilled outside around 2:10 a.m., Harvey Police Chief Greg Thomas said in a statement.
The victim, 25, was pronounced on the scene. Thomas said his name would be released later.
Three other people, including two security guards working there, were shot inside the club in the 14700 block of South Wood Street, Thomas said.
The three were taken to Metro South and Ingalls Memorial hospitals, Thomas said.
No one was reported in custody.
This is a developing story. Check back for details.
[American Thinker] Seventy-three years ago, in his now classic essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell examined the deceitful nature of political speech in his day. He offered some superb examples of words that mask their actual meaning and of rhetorical devices intended to fool the reader. "In our time," he wrote, "political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." The imprecision, pretentiousness, and staleness are deliberate, intended to conceal what the writer does not want to admit. His examples, most of them from leftists like Harold Laski, were bad enough, but even Orwell could not have foreseen the nonsense coming from progressives this election season ‐ and it's still early in the game.
Take defenses of the "Green New Deal." Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who popularized the idea (which has been around for a decade or more), doesn't seem to have any comprehension of its cost, or the cost of anything else. When asked about how she would pay for it, her initial response was "tax the rich." The truth is that there aren't that many rich, and under her 70% and up federal tax plan, there soon wouldn't be any. Now she seems to believe that one can simply print money to pay for it all. This radical extension of Modern Monetary Theory would bankrupt the country and render our currency worthless.
Kamala Harris, another master of Orwellian speech, insists that "we have to be practical, but..." The problem is that she never defines what is meant by "practical." It is one of those words (like Obama's "smart" policies, which were invariably dumb) meant to end a conversation rather than open it to reasonable debate. Who can object to "being practical," but is it practical to spend an estimated $3.26 trillion per year on the Medicare for All plan Harris has endorsed? Harris refuses to discuss cost, insisting as she does that health care is a basic right and that destroying private insurance is the best way to deliver it.
Then there is Cory Booker, a speaker who often reverts to the rhetorical device known as "the big stick." When asked about paying for the Green New Deal, Booker responded by raising his voice and barking that "we can have it both ways." By this he implies that there would be no crippling cost to eliminating carbon fuels. Sen. Booker did not explain just how this would work, as if vigorously asserting that having it both ways were the same as doing so. But what is really meant by "having it both ways"?
#1
Reading Gerald F. Seib’s 12 March article, Echoes of 1972 Election Reverberate Today, We are reminded of George McGovern’s comment on his loss. He was a guest on Johnny Carson’s show, and Carson asked him what happened. McGovern replied, “We threw open the doors of the Democratic Party, and the American People walked out.”
Hopefully, the growing radicalism of the Democrat Party will provoke a similar exodus in 2020.
#2
They always slide past the question: "After you steal all of the Rich People's Money™ where will the next cash infusion come from? Solid gold unicorn droppings?"
[AEON] As the world’s ranks swell, population shifts have emerged as a major global challenge with potentially catastrophic implications. Endless debates over immigration rights have failed to produce the faintest hint of an acceptable solution. So perhaps an alternative approach would be to factor in an underlying basic law of chemistry. At the risk of gross oversimplification, what if we saw the flow of populations as the human equivalent of osmosis? No penalty if you stop reading here.
In high-school chemistry we learned that, in a container of water divided into two halves by a semipermeable membrane, uneven concentrations of salt resulted in movement of water from the more dilute side to the side of greater concentration. The greater the discrepancy in solute concentration, be it a salt molecule or a complex plasma protein, the greater the force to equalise the concentrations.
Now imagine the world as a giant vat subdivided into a number of smaller containers (nations) separated from each other by semipermeable membranes (borders). Instead of salt, provide each container with differing amounts of food, shelter and essential services. In this scenario, population flow from nation to nation will be a direct function of the degree of difference of goods, opportunities and hope.
This shift of populations isn’t just an ethical or metaphysical dilemma to be resolved at the level of ’us’ versus ’them’. It isn’t about the right to own land and enforce borders, or the relative worth of individuals versus groups. Instead, the pressures driving immigration should be seen as natural and unavoidable ‐ like chemical reactions; from that perspective, a reduction in the gradients would be the only possible long-term solution.
Sadly, most policymakers focus on how to best perpetuate the imbalance. The most popular and immediate reaction is to increase the impermeability of the membranes separating countries. But beefed-up border security or the erection of theoretically insurmountable walls does not take into account the enormous power of desperation. As the British-Somali poet Warsan Shire has written: ’No one leaves home unless/home is the mouth of a shark.’
About the author: Robert A Burton is a neurologist, author and the former associate director of the department of neurosciences at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center at Mount Zion. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, and Nautilus, among others. His latest book is A Skeptic's Guide to the Mind: What Neuroscience Can and Cannot Tell Us About Ourselves (2013).
[The Week] Have you ever been startled by someone suddenly talking to you when you thought you were alone? Even when they apologize for surprising you, your heart goes on pounding in your chest. You are very aware of this sensation. But what kind of experience is it, and what can it tell us about relations between the heart and the brain?
When considering the senses, we tend to think of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. However, these are classified as exteroceptive senses, that is, they tell us something about the outside world. In contrast, interoception is a sense that informs us about our internal bodily sensations, such as the pounding of our heart, the flutter of butterflies in our stomach, or feelings of hunger.
The brain represents, integrates, and prioritizes interoceptive information from the internal body. These are communicated through a set of distinct neural and humoral (i.e., blood-borne) pathways. This sensing of internal states of the body is part of the interplay between body and brain: It maintains homeostasis, the physiological stability necessary for survival; it provides key motivational drivers such as hunger and thirst; it explicitly represents bodily sensations, such as bladder distension. But that is not all, and herein lies the beauty of interoception: Our feelings, thoughts, and perceptions are also influenced by the dynamic interaction between body and brain.
The shaping of emotional experience through the body's internal physiology has long been recognized. The American philosopher William James argued in 1892 that the mental aspects of emotion, the "feeling states," are a product of physiology. He reversed our intuitive causality, arguing that the physiological changes themselves give rise to the emotional state: Our heart does not pound because we are afraid; fear arises from our pounding heart. Contemporary experiments demonstrate the neural and mental representation of internal bodily sensations as integral for the experience of emotions; those individuals with heightened interoception tend to experience emotions with greater intensity. The anterior insula is a key brain area, processing both emotions and internal visceral signals, supporting the idea that this area is key in processing internal bodily sensations as a means to inform emotional experience. Individuals with enhanced interoception also have greater activation of the insula during interoceptive processing and enhanced grey-matter density of this area.
[The Week] Democrats running for president in 2020 have already endorsed a long list of ambitious, controversial policies: The Green New Deal, Medicare-for-all, free college, the breakup of tech companies, and more. But one proposal belongs in a different category because it would seek to address the gravest injustice in American history. I'm talking about reparations for African-American descendants of slaves.
The idea of compensating Americans whose ancestors were brought to the New World by force and held in bondage for as long as 250 years has been debated numerous times in American history. The most recent case for reparations came in 2014 in the form of a powerful, deeply reported essay in The Atlantic by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Democratic presidential hopefuls aiming to stand out from the crowd have begun championing the cause. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and former Obama administration official Julian Castro, are already on board. The fact that David Brooks, a moderately conservative New York Times columnist who has taken recent swipes at both the Green New Deal and Medicare-for-all, has now endorsed the policy as well is a sign of just how mainstream it has become.
The moral case for reparations may be strong, but the political and cultural consequences of enacting the policy are likely to be extremely high. Far from serving as a moment of moral reckoning and healing for the country, as its advocates contend, it would inspire a severe backlash that would inflame tensions on both sides of the color line ‐ and set the stage for future calls from other groups for acts of public restitution for past injustices. It's a recipe for greatly intensified civic anger and resentment.
#1
Tennessee Tuxedo is a life-long racist who, had his skin been paler, would have been at home as a Klansman. No one alive today has been held as a slave under the laws of the United States. No one alive today has legally owned slaves under the laws of the United States. No one is around who is owed reparations and no one is around who owes them.
Yeah, Jim Crow laws were shit. Prevailing wage and union-only laws were as well. So what? Until the "Great Society" and "War on Poverty", blacks were improving their lot the same way all Americans do: generation by generation.
FFS, it's not like mainstream America hides the secret to success -- no illegal drugs, wait for marriage, get as educated as you can stand, and work hard. The attitude that you're owed ANYTHING because of what you THINK you ancestors went through is ludicrous -- because the rest of us came from the serfs, peasants, religious outcasts, and unwanted from the rest of the world. Our ancestors came here, dealt with ostracism and bigotry, and made our way into the mainstream.
So buck up, stop feeling sorry for yourselves, get rid of the pot, stop taking on thugs as role models, stay in school, keep your legs together, and join the party.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/13/2019 8:16
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#2
brought to the New World by force and held in bondage for as long as 250 years
Damn, bottle that stuff and sell it as the fountain of youth elixer. 250 years? That's gotta be worth a bloody fortune.
#4
Let the donks keep their platform just the way it is. That way we know they'll lose in 2020.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/13/2019 10:54
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#5
Maybe all this reparations talk is a massive PR effort to promote all the ancestry DNA products out there. I bet you could find massive injustices to your ancestors no matter what color your skin.
#6
What it comes down to is, they want the massive redistribution, but no way are they going to finish up by saying, "OK, that squares it, we will never bring it up again." Only a moron would think otherwise...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/13/2019 15:24
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[Hot Air] When we first learned back in January that peace talks with the Taliban were underway, I expressed a number of concerns. The Taliban are murderous, repressive thugs who can’t be trusted for much of anything. But at the same time, I was forced to admit that we were running out of options unless we are willing to concede that we’re going to be in Afghanistan forever, propping up a government that controls a decreasing amount of territory every year.
The peace talks may be continuing, but the Taliban is proving once again that they speak out of two sides of their faces. The Boston Globe reports this week that even as the peace talks are underway, the former rulers of Afghanistan are out there ambushing the government’s military forces. This week they wiped out an entire company.
Taliban fighters killed or captured an entire Afghan National Army company of more than 50 soldiers Monday, Afghan officials said, the latest in a series of major attacks by the militant group even as it pursues a peace deal with the United States.
The attack, in which the Taliban were reported to have killed 16 soldiers and taken 40 prisoners, took place in northwestern Badghis province, close to the country’s western border with Turkmenistan. It came as Taliban negotiators entered a third week of talks with US diplomats in the Persian Gulf kingdom of Qatar.
In the assault, a large force of Taliban insurgents surrounded a base in the Bala Murghab district. After four hours of fighting, the militants captured or killed all of the soldiers in their base, as well as others at two outposts nearby, according to Abdul Aziz Beg, head of the Badghis provincial council.
At this point, the city of Bala Murghab and the surrounding Badghis province in northwestern Afghanistan is essentially lost. Much like many of the other rural provinces, the Taliban have almost completely retaken control and both government forces and American troops can only travel out there in force with any safety. The residents of those regions are effectively back under Taliban rule.
This represents yet another reason that we’re not going to get away with any sort of Nixonian "peace with honor" situation by simply declaring victory and going home. The first victories came when we initially broke the Taliban’s hold on the nation during the first months and years after our arrival and oversaw their (mostly) free and fair elections. The real victory came when OBL was finally shot in the head and dumped unceremoniously into the ocean. (And that didn’t even happen in Afghanistan.)
#3
Jazz Shaw obviously hasn't read very much history. Peace talks are typically accompanied by ferocious offensives. The point is to pressure the other side to make concessions, and to maximize one's gains before the final ceasefire, after which everyone's supposed to stop armed activity in observance of the final treaty. If our guys are not holding the Taliban's face to a lit stove turned up to maximum, somebody at the White House is not doing his job. And as it turns out, I believe our guys are in fact bombing the heck out of the Taliban. But short of a Chinese style strategy of depopulating enemy sanctuaries via removal, starvation or massacre (the first two of which were features of the the winning of the West), it's hard to see a quick resolution to the war.
You can't just kill the Taliban - you have to kill all the able-bodied men related to the Taliban who could quickly become (or are secretly) Taliban. In wartime, there is no room for beyond a reasonable doubt, even for a country with the biggest economy in the world. Given domestic sensibilities, the way we're forced to fight this war is very different from the Taliban's and that is why we cannot win it. If we fought it like the Taliban, they would already be defeated. Of course, millions of Taliban and suspected Taliban supporters would be lying in mass graves.
There are reasons for our qualms. Rules that are used against foreigners might be used against our own in the event of another civil war. At the same time, they tie our hands in fighting another nation's civil war. While I think it's worthwhile holding to our rules of engagement for big picture domestic reasons, they mean that we need to be realistic about cutting our losses when our local allies in foreign civil wars can't cut the mustard. Our Afghan allies have had huge amounts of aid pumped into their economy. 20 years is long enough.
#4
Given domestic sensibilities, the way we're forced to fight this war is very different from the Taliban's and that is why we cannot win it.
I should say we cannot win it at a cost acceptable to us - $40b a year for as long as the eye can see. On the other hand, it may make sense to extend a annual stipend of several billion dollars a year to the current Afghan regime. The guy supported by the Soviets actually kept it together right up to the point that they cut off his funding. That stipend will (1) give him and other big men in the regime a fighting chance and (2) force them to strip down their decision-making in a direction that favors winning the war, thereby staying alive.
#5
Er the great game is played by getting tribes to fight each other and covertly supporting one side to cleanse the area of troublesome tribes. But the important corollary is to never let one tribe get bigger than the others!
[PM] A Google executive admitted during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday that Google tracks users' phones ‐ even when their location history is turned off.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) questioned Google Senior Privacy Counsel Will DeVries about the company's tracking policies during a hearing examining online consumer privacy. Some of DeVries' answers will likely disturb consumers who thought there was a way to avoid being tracked by Google through their phones.
In his prepared remarks, DeVries told lawmakers that "the processing of personal information is necessary to simply operate the service the user requested." He asserted that "requiring" individuals to control every aspect of data processing "can create a burdensome and complex experience that diverts attention from the most important controls without corresponding benefits," and therefore a "specific consent or toggle" should not be required for every use of data.
"I'm concerned about the implicit bargain that consumers are being asked to ratify by which they supposedly get free services but actually have enormous amounts of personal data extracted from them without knowing exactly what's going on," Hawley said. He asked DeVries about his claims in his prepared remarks that Google provides "free" services and that the company "clearly explains" how personal data is used. "Is that really true?"
DeVries explained that it's "complicated" -- a word that he used several times as he tried to evade Hawley's questions about why Google tracks its users' locations.
An Associated Press report in August 2018 found that "many Google services on Android devices and iPhones store your location data even if you’ve used a privacy setting that says it will prevent Google from doing so."'
[Breitbart] A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences claims that white people contribute more to pollution than black and Latino people, but the latter suffer from it more than the white polluters.
"The air that Americans breathe isn’t equal," USA Today says in its report on the study.
"Blacks and Hispanics disproportionately breathe air that’s been polluted by non-Hispanic whites, according to a study," USA Today says. "This new research quantifies for the first time the racial gap between who causes air pollution ‐ and who breathes it."
#4
Keeping clean is expensive. The rich have more choice of where to live. The poor have fewer choices, and often that means living in areas downstream or downwind from pollution. The poor do not have the front money to buy property, therefore are usually renters. If you rent, and it's not yours, you don't take as good care of it. When you're discouraged, you tend to let things go to pot around you. It can become a way of life. This has everything to do with human nature and economics, and zero to do with race. Sometimes poverty has to do with other people's choices (factory closings and blockbusting, for example). Sometimes poverty is a function of fecklessness (I can see an example in my very white family). Urban poor tend to be black. Rural poor tend to be white. The issue is poverty, not race.
#5
Back in the 70s, Uncle Sam was the largest slumlord in America, as any base housing could attest to. That was even in an environment in which you were expected to turn it back over they way you found it. See - PCS inspections.
When the base reductions hit in the 80s, the idea and practice of turning over the housing to local government for low income housing was nicked because the habitats failed to meet local building standards.
#6
I live in former military housing. Some of it is privately owned. 20% is county owned. I've had some good neighbors and bad ones in both types of housing.
There are in fact wealthy people who are perfectly willing to dump their crud any old where. We have a bunch of polluted wells in farm country, from careless handling of manure from industrial-scale operations. This is a character issue, not a racial one.
Enough ranting for one day.
#7
Since blacks and latinos appaprently have no agency or free will, we should probably take away their right to vote or to have autonomy in any area of life.
We should also place them all in areas where they can do as little harm as possible to themselves and others.
We could call these areas ghe--, er barr, er "safe spaces".
#8
they tend too leave their safe spaces and head towards places like Buckhead, Alpharetta < Johns CReek, East cobb county ga. around Atlanta. I'm sure every major city is the same. ButI'm a white male so I guess that's my fault too.
Posted by: chris ||
03/13/2019 14:09
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#9
Give me a cabin up in Blue Ridge, 5 acres and a steel gate.
[IsraelTimes] Army says dozens of Paleostinians threw rocks at soldiers in Salfit during reported raids to take security camera footage.
A Paleostinian man died after being shot by Israeli forces during festivities Tuesday in the West Bank, medics and the Paleostinian Authority health ministry said.
The army said dozens of Paleostinians rioted in the village of Salfit and threw rocks at Israeli troops, who responded with riot dispersal means. An army spokesperson said "there was no known use of live fire."
The Red Islamic Thingy emergency medical services said they evacuated a man maimed during the festivities. The health ministry pronounced his death and named him as Mohammed Shaheen, 23. According to the official Paleostinian news outlet Wafa, he had been hit in the chest with a bullet.
The festivities erupted as Israeli soldiers raided the village to take footage from surveillance cameras, according to Wafa.
The fighting followed a series of other violent incidents in the West Bank and East Jerusalem on Tuesday.
In Hebron, soldiers rubbed out a Paleostinian man who the Israel Defense Forces said tried to stab them.
"IDF soldiers spotted the terrorist armed with a knife as he ran toward them. The soldiers pushed the terrorist back as he tried to run into a nearby civilian building. The soldiers shot the terrorist, thwarting the attack, and he was killed," the army said.
Later on Tuesday, Israeli police shuttered the Temple Mount holy site after a Molotov cocktail was thrown at officers, further adding to recent tensions at the flashpoint holy site. Israeli authorities said the site would reopen on Wednesday.
[IsraelTimes] Israeli soldiers rubbed out a Paleostinian man as he tried to stab them in the West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday, the military said.
No servicemen were maimed in the incident, the Israel Defense Forces said.
"IDF soldiers spotted the terrorist armed with a knife as he ran toward them. The soldiers pushed the terrorist back as he tried to run into a nearby civilian building. The soldiers shot the terrorist, thwarting the attack, and he was killed," the military said.
The suspect was identified by Paleostinian officials as Yasser Fuzi Shuweiki.
The suspect, armed with a knife, entered the contentious Beit HaShalom building in Hebron, near the Kiryat Arba settlement. A resident of the building, one of the few Jewish-owned structures inside the overwhelmingly Paleostinian city, saw and called Israeli security forces to the scene, according to reports from the scene. A video filmed at the scene showed the attacker lying on the ground in the entrance hall of the building with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the chest. The knife was seen on the ground several feet away from him.
Later on Tuesday, Israeli troops tossed in the slammer You have the right to remain silent... a Paleostinian woman who approached them outside Beit HaShalom after she was found in possession of a knife.
"A Paleostinian woman walked up to the military post in Hebron near the attempted stabbing attack this afternoon. She aroused the suspicion of IDF troops at the location. After a search of her body, the soldiers found a knife in her possession," the army said.
"The suspect was arrested and handed over to security forces for questioning."
On Monday night, unidentified button menshot up an Israeli vehicle in the northern West Bank.There were no casualties in the attack near the settlement of Rehelim, south of Nablus, but damage was caused to the vehicle. IDF soldiers were searching the area for the perpetrators.
Last week two Israeli soldiers were maimed, one of them seriously, in what the army said was a car-ramming attack northwest of Ramallah. Troops fired on the three occupants of the vehicle, killing two and wounding the third. Paleostinian residents of a nearby village denied it was a deliberate attack and said it was an accident. The Israeli military said the three young Paleostinian men had earlier thrown Molotov cocktails at a nearby highway.
[IsraelTimes] Site closed Tuesday after firekaboom damaged a police post near the shrine compound.
Jerusalem Police chief Doron Yadid ordered the Temple Mount compound reopened to Moslem worshipers on Wednesday morning after the holy site was shuttered Tuesday following a firekaboom on a police post.
Police said one officer was treated for mild smoke inhalation after the firekaboom on the post situated on the edge of the sensitive holy site, while 10 suspects were incarcerated Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! Police said two minors are "linked" to the attack and will be brought to the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday to extend their remand.
The closure sparked riots in the compound, the holiest site in Judaism and home to Islam’s third-holiest shrine. It led the Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®, terror group to call on Paleostinians to protest in a mass march to the al-Aqsa Mosque to "defy the ’Israeli’ occupation’s decision to close it and impose the will of the worshipers to enter and exit the mosque when they want."
Tuesday’s incident came amid already high tensions at the Temple Mount, and drew widespread condemnation from Moslem officials and an expression of "concern" from the UN.
Police were deployed around the Old City and East Jerusalem amid fears of a violent backlash, but there were no reports of disturbances.
Paleostinian officials claimed Tuesday the Israel Police had staged the firekaboom. Bassem Abu Labda, an official from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf which administers the site at the behest of the Jordanian monarchy, told The Times of Israel that mosque authorities "did not see any Molotov cocktail thrown at the police. We are against all acts of violence and we condemn Israel’s actions in the al-Aqsa Mosque today. Israel must reopen the mosque immediately."
Earlier, Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... denounced the closure as a "dangerous Israeli escalation" and warned of "serious repercussions."
The firekaboom came as tensions over the holy site have ratcheted up in recent weeks over a long-sealed area on the compound near the Gate of Mercy. Moslem worshipers have repeatedly threatened to enter the Gate of Mercy site, which was closed by court order in 2003 over allegations that the group overseeing it was tied to Hamas.
The longstanding closure of the site has ignited tensions between Paleostinian worshipers and Israeli police in recent weeks. Worshipers have forced the area open and entered on several occasions. High-level Israeli and Jordanian officials have been holding talks in the hope of defusing the situation. Last week, Israeli officials traveled to Jordan for meetings, and Jordanian officials have also visited Jerusalem according to Israeli reports.
The area inside the Gate of Mercy was sealed off by Israeli authorities in 2003, and it has been kept closed to stop illegal construction work there by the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf. The actual Gate of Mercy, which is a fortified gateway in the retaining wall surrounding the Temple Mount, has been bricked up for nearly 500 years. Israeli officials believe the work carried out by the Waqf, which refused to allow any Israeli observers, led to the destruction of antiquities from periods of Jewish presence in the area.
Last month, the Waqf reopened the site and Paleostinian worshipers began to use it as a mosque, despite Israeli attempts to keep the area sealed.
[IsraelTimes] Police say they have found several containers containing flammable materials, as well as fireworks and Molotov cocktails during searches on the Temple Mount after Paleostinians hurled a Molotov cocktail at Israel Police.
Ten Paleostinians have been jugged Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! since.
[NBC] A former New Jersey priest who had been "credibly accused" of sexually abusing minors was found dead in his Nevada home, and police are treating it as a public service homicide.
The body of John Capparelli was found Saturday morning by police conducting a welfare check at his home in Henderson, about 15 miles south of Las Vegas.
The Clark County Coroner's Office said Capparelli, 70, died from a single gunshot wound to the neck. His body was found in the kitchen, a spokesperson said.
Police said they did not have a suspect at this time.
Capparelli's name appeared on a list in February with 187 other clergy the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark said had been "credibly accused" of abusing minors.
[OILPRICE.com] Oil prices jumped to two-week highs on Tuesday morning, rising on the back of severe outages in Venezuela and the ongoing production cuts from OPEC+.
A devastating electricity blackout swept over Venezuela late last week, crippling daily life for much of the country. PDVSA’s oil exports have been severely disrupted, and while data is scarce, output may have plunged by half to about 500,000 bpd, according to Energy Aspects. "Operations halted at main facilities, reducing output of main synthetic grades and blended Merey to almost zero," Energy Aspects wrote in a note.
"There’s a vicious circle," the International Energy Agency’s head Fatih Birol told Bloomberg on the sidelines of the IHS CERAWeek Conference in Houston. "Since the oil isn’t exported, there’s not revenue, since there’s not revenue you cannot invest in infrastructure."
The big question is how long the outage will last. The U.S. State Department announced the withdrawal of its remaining embassy personnel in Caracas. That could reduce the potential for conflict, since any incursion on American personnel could be used as a pretext for an escalation, possibly even military intervention. However, the withdrawal cuts both ways. Removing American diplomats could get them out of harm’s way, clearing the way for bolder action. Worryingly, U.S. Secretary of State justified the withdrawal by saying that keeping them in Venezuela had become a "constraint" on U.S. policy.
The outages have global implications. Oil prices surged at the start of the week, with WTI jumping above $57 per barrel, and Brent above $67 per barrel.
#2
Invest in infrastructure my foot. They drove out the competent, experienced people and hired loyalists, hacks, and everybody's hard corps unemployable brother in law. Apparently unbeknownst to the chattering class there is more to exploration, production, transmission and refining than what comes on tv.
#3
Cesare, historically they understood this, and required thier own people to be hired but did not interfere with corporations employing duplicate foreigners (either on site or overseas) to do the actual work, which the national employees would submit for implementation. Inefficient, but it did work. The collapse of the past few years destroyed that system at an accelerating rate.
CINCINNATI (AP) ‐ A divided federal appeals court Tuesday upheld an Ohio anti-abortion law that blocks public money for Planned Parenthood.
The full 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower federal court ruling. The Ohio law targeted funding that Planned Parenthood receives through the state’s health department. That money is mostly from the federal government and supports education and prevention programs.
The law bars such funds from entities that perform or promote abortions.
Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote the opinion for an 11-6 majority, saying the judges rejected the contention by two Planned Parenthood affiliates that the Ohio law imposes an unconstitutional condition on public funding.
"The affiliates are correct that the Ohio law imposes a condition on the continued receipt of state funds. But that condition does not violate the Constitution because the affiliates do not have a due process right to perform abortions," Sutton wrote.
Sutton wrote for the majority that while Planned Parenthood contends that the Ohio law will unconstitutionally deprive women of the right to access abortion services without undue burden, that conclusion is premature and speculative because Planned Parenthood has stated it will continue to provide abortion services.
Judge Helene White wrote the dissenting opinion, saying such laws allow targeting of abortion providers who are "merely a proxy for the woman and her constitutional rights" and are trying to make them "cry uncle." She said using the majority’s reasoning, "the government can do almost anything it wants to penalize abortion providers so long as they resist the coercion and continue to perform abortions."
[AnNahar] On the eve of the donor Brussels conference on Syria, Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah ...Party of God, a Leb militia inspired, founded, funded and directed by Iran. Hizbullah refers to itself as The Resistance and purports to defend Leb against Israel, with whom it has started and lost one disastrous war to date, though it did claim victory... sock puppet... reiterated that the Syrian refugees must return to their homeland noting a need for coordination with the Syrian government to achieve that end, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Tuesday.
Moreover, a political source said the file is taking a negative turn, "the outside world has its own perception regarding the file and apparently does not care about the return, but only cares that this burden is kept away from them," he told the daily on condition of anonymity.
In Leb, political parties are sharply divided over the return issue and the means to be adopted.
In light of the aggravating burden, "the Lebanese side must prove seriousness in addressing the file rather than complying with regional or international considerations that impede this return," the source told the daily.
The international community has its own considerations in addressing the return file, but Leb is bearing the greatest burden of more than two million displaced people which requires a quick and effective measure.
The sources said that the Vatican has already issued a warning message to Leb that the international community has no desire to return the displaced to Syria.
Foreign delegates who visited Leb and the reports from major countries all confirm that the file won’t be addressed anytime soon, said the source.
The above raises concern of attempted resettlement of displaced Syrians in their places of refuge, something that was considered by some officials of major powers.
"Shall this turns out to be serious, it means bringing Leb into a very dangerous zone that threatens its future and its entity," concluded the source.
Leb hosts an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees that impact its already ailing economy and infrastructure.
The Brussels Conference on Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region is set on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday aimed to raise financial aid for the 11.7 million Syrians in need of humanitarian assistance.
Leb will present a plan, it presented two years ago, to reduce its burden of around 1.5 million Syrian refugees.
[IsraelTimes] Doha’s Gazoo Strip Reconstruction Committee says projects include work on future headquarters, a mosque in central Gazoo and a fuel storage facility.
Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... ’s Gazoo Strip Reconstruction Committee announced on Monday that its chairman, Mohammed al-Emadi, has signed contracts for three new projects in the coastal enclave valued at $1.7 million.
Emadi, who serves as Qatar’s de facto ambassador to Gazoo, was in Jerusalem and the Strip on Sunday and Monday, meeting international diplomats and leaders in the Hamas, a regional Iranian catspaw, terror group.
The Qatari body said in a statement that the three projects were the construction of a fuel storage facility, a mosque in a central Gazoo village and a part of its future headquarters in the territory.
In the past eight years, Qatar has delivered hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Gazoo for infrastructure, health, electricity and other projects.
In recent months, Qatar, under agreements approved by Israel, has sent tens of millions of dollars to the Strip for fuel, grants to needy Paleostinians and to pay the salaries of Hamas-appointed civil servants.
A major part of the understandings entails Israel allowing goods and funds into Gazoo in exchange for Hamas authorities maintaining relative calm in the border region between the Jewish state and the Strip.
[Jerusalem Post] dissident Republican group calling itself the "IRA" claimed responsibility on Tuesday for letter bombs sent to buildings in London and the University of Glasgow last week.
"The claim was allegedly made on behalf of the 'IRA'," British police said.
The group used a recognized codeword, police said.
Police blew up a parcel sent to the University of Glasgow on March 6, and said it was linked to three devices sent to major transport hubs in London the day before.
[Victory Girls] Face it. Now before it’s too late. Of the three great monotheistic religions‐Judaism, Christianity, Islam‐Islam alone is Evil. The Swords of Allah are poised to behead the West through cultural tyranny, unchecked immigration and massive breeding. Islam’s Devotees worship a death cult of Moloch which murders their own children in the pursuit of power. Teaching them to be Jihadis, racist supremacists, and pedophiles.
Islam breeds the Orcs and Uruk Hai of Tolkien Legend. Female Genital Mutilation. Honor killings. Beheadings of wives, even here in the USA. The stoning of women and captives. Their cultural and moral practices are both deviant and despicably evil.
Yet the limp, supine Catamites of the West, wring their hands and search for ways to appease their new Overlords. Believing in nothing but their own sick lust for power, the Left in every country leap to make common cause with Islam in a quest to rule. Let me tell you something‐you on the Left‐when Allah is strong enough, when there enough Moslems in our cities, in our schools, in our civic life‐they will devour you.
Pelosi, Hoyer, Schumer, Blow, Corn, McConnell, The New YorkerRump Swabs and rest of you Quislings‐you will be wiped from history like the statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. No one will remember your names. Behold!
[AnNahar] Violence in northwestern Syria has killed dozens over the past three weeks and displaced tens of thousands, raising concerns a truce reached six months ago between The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... and Russia is in danger.
The violence in Idlib comes as the world is focused on eastern Syria, where U.S.-backed Kurdish-led fighters are on the verge of defeating the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group in the last area they control.
Idlib has been in the hands of opposition forces for years, even as Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... 's military retook other rebel enclaves, one after the other.
The province is now home to some 3 million people, many of them displaced from other former opposition territory. Earlier this year, al-Qaeda-linked Death Eaters took over the province, squeezing out most other factions after festivities with Turkey-backed opposition fighters.
[AlAhram] The United States is expanding its program to send asylum seekers back to Mexico to wait out their U.S. court proceedings and so far has returned 240 people since starting the program in January, U.S. officials told news hounds on Tuesday.
The officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the policy, which was rolled out at the San Ysidro port of entry in San Diego earlier this year, has been expanded to the Calexico port, which is also in Southern Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In addition, migrants colonists who attempt to cross illegally and then ask for asylum in the U.S. border patrol's San Diego sector will now also be subject to return to Mexico, the officials said.
One official said border authorities had only started turning back people who crossed between ports this past week. He said that "a very low number" of people who crossed illegally have been returned so far, while the vast majority of those who were sent back presented themselves at legal ports of entry to claim asylum.
The policy is the latest effort by the Trump administration to try to curb a sharp increase in the number of Central American families that are arriving at the border and claiming asylum. Administration officials say even though many of the asylum claims are ultimately denied, applicants end up living in the United States for years while their court cases are processed.
But immigration advocates say that returning vulnerable migrants colonists to dangerous border cities is illegal and violates U.S. obligations under international treaties. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups sued in federal court to halt the program.
President Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... , whose administration has worked to limit both legal and illegal immigration, said in an interview with the website Breitbart published on Tuesday that Mexican narco mobs should be considered terrorist organizations. He highlighted the danger of Mexican cities close to the U.S. border and said Mexico is "considered one of the most unsafe countries in the world."
U.S. officials have previously argued that their policy of making asylum seekers wait in Mexico does not put them at any greater risk, and refer to the return policy as the "Migrant Protection Protocols."
DHS officials said the U.S. government is working closely with Mexican authorities to clear the expansion plans. "We're not going to open a location if the Mexicans aren't ready and able to process and provide the humanitarian protections that they agreed to," one official said.
But some Mexican officials have warned that the country's border cities would struggle to look after asylum seekers for long periods of time.
DHS said the return policy does not apply to Mexican citizens, unaccompanied minors or people with serious medical conditions or disabilities but families with children are being returned.
#1
One simple rule change is all that is needed: Applicants must submit their applications at the US embassy in their country of origin. If apprehended in the US without following this procedure, they are permanently ineligible to apply to immigrate to the US. If apprehended in the US after filing an application, they are permanently ineligible to immigrate to the US.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/13/2019 9:29
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#2
Back during the Eisenhower administration, Ike had a problem with the left over Immigration weasels letting illegals across the border. Ike reassigned the weasels to the far North and sent the illegals to a port on the Yucatan Peninsula. At the time the it was a long haul back to the border and the natives of the Yucatan didn't like Mexicans to start with. Things settled down within a year.
[AlAhram] Hardline Iranian holy man Ebrahim Raisi was elected on Tuesday as deputy chief of the Assembly of Experts, an influential holy manal body which chooses the Supreme Leader, the Islamic Theocratic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
He got the job less than a week after he was appointed head of the judiciary - making the protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a key player in Iran's politics.
[Victory Girls] About 50 people have had arrest warrants issued, been arrested, are negotiating their arrest or are being pursued in connection with a college cheating scandal code named "Operation Varsity Blues". Parents paying to get their mouth breathing, drooling spawn into schools the little idiots are not qualified to attend. If you missed the press conference today, it was absolutely jaw dropping. Not shocking or surprising just jaw dropping.
Here from ABC New York is a short video recap:
While the rest of us honorable schmucks were paying for college board prep tests (my son wouldn’t go) or at least begging our little cherubs to get a good night’s sleep prior to the test (nope to that one, too), these elitists, who are so much better than we are, schemed with a weasel named William Singer to phony up the test scores for the college boards, create phony elite athlete profiles and get their kids into college as athletes or just plain bribe college officials. And, then as if these elitists didn’t disdain us enough, they claimed the costs as charitable contributions on their tax returns. You cannot make this excrement up.
Actress Lori Loughlin (Aunt Becky on Full House) and her husband, Target fashion designer, Mossimo Gianulli are two of the parents caught in the web of lies. From Deadline Hollywood:
#2
And, then as if these elitists didn’t disdain us enough, they claimed the costs as charitable contributions on their tax returns.
I'm wondering if that's what started the Fed / AG investigation. If the ratio of charitable contributions to your taxable income on the Federal tax return (1040) exceeds 4.2%, the IRS can and will audit your tax return. If that turns out to be the case then, yeah, they got too greedy all right.
“In or about November 2017, the Hillsborough Parents filed personal tax returns that falsely reported total gifts to charity in 2016 of $1,061,890 — a sum that included the purported contribution” to Singer’s fake foundation.
#7
I wish these investigative resources would be applied to things that mattered. Have the local police do this instead. This is easy stuff and only for political face saving.
#8
We can discuss mission and resources, but I don't think Local Detective shuts down University of Your State on suspicion Celebrity's Child is not as bright as test indicates.
And if raj is on it, this looks to be initially a federal tax evasion. I also wonder about interstate commerce; say paying for test cheating in CA for services (schooling) in MA.
#9
The Wizard of Oz: Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the Earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain. Back where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have. But they have one thing you haven't got: a diploma.
#10
swksvolFF - there's no doubt in my mind this is tax evasion. Just like what happened to Wesley Snipes, give them 1 year in jail for every tax return they cooked.
#12
I don't want any of the Hollyweird or Wall Street people caught up in this to ever lecture me again about my taxes being too low, or my concern for the poor being so inadequate that only gummint enforced redistribution can solve the problem.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/13/2019 15:30
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#13
All the discussion so far is about the bribe providers. What about the bribe recipients? The schools that were involved need to be sanctioned. The admissions officers involved need a "career death penalty" for their involvement in this.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/13/2019 15:33
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[BBC] Theresa May's EU withdrawal deal has been rejected by MPs by an overwhelming majority for a second time, with just 17 days to go to Brexit.
MPs voted down the prime minister's deal by 149 - a smaller margin than when they rejected it in January.
Mrs May said MPs will now get a vote on whether the UK should leave the EU without a deal and, if that fails, on whether Brexit should be delayed.
She said Tory MPs will get a free vote on a no-deal Brexit.
That means they can vote with their conscience rather than following the orders of party managers - an unusual move for a vote on a major policy, with Labour saying it showed she had "given up any pretence of leading the country".
The PM had made a last minute plea to MPs to back her deal after she had secured legal assurances on the Irish backstop from the EU.
But although she managed to convince about 40 Tory MPs to change their mind, it was not nearly enough to overturn the historic 230 vote defeat she suffered in January, throwing her Brexit strategy into fresh disarray.
#2
In the end it seems Moscow was more accepting in letting go of E.Germany, Poland, Hungary, et al than Brussels. Tell me again why we are continuing to spend our fortune and our lives* 'defending' the place?
* training and off duty accidents still take lives.
[Daily Caller] Republican Georgia Rep. Doug Collins released the private testimony of former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, but it’s former Attorney General Loretta Lynch who may feel the sting.
According to Page’s testimony, which was made public on Tuesday, the FBI considered charging former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with gross negligence under 18 U.S. Code § 793 for her alleged handling of classified information.
“We had multiple conversations with the Justice Department about bringing a gross negligence charge,” Page told Republican Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe. “And that’s, as I said, the advice that we got from the Department was that they did not think — that it was constitutionally vague and not sustainable.”
Ratcliffe responded, “When you say advice you got from the Department, you’re making it sound like it was the Department that told you: ‘You’re not going to charge gross negligence because we’re the prosecutors and we’re telling you we’re not going to.'”
“That’s correct,” Page answered.
But if Page were telling the truth, and the FBI did recommend possible charges against Clinton, then Lynch may not have been telling the truth when she said that she would “accept their recommendations.”
"The just revealed FBI Agent Lisa Page transcripts make the Obama Justice Department look exactly like it was, a broken and corrupt machine. Hopefully, justice will finally be served. Much more to come!"
Does he mean that Lynch will be prosecuted, or Hillary?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/13/2019 12:20
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#5
I'd feel better if Trump didn't tweet, and we saw some action instead.
These days, it feels like a tweet from him is a guarantee that there won't be any action.
Kind of like how his rallies now always seem to precede a fold on his part.
#8
Lynch should be allowed to sell as many underlings out as possible. And then send her to jail anyway, along with the others. Lots of teachable moments for future DOJ employees that way...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/13/2019 16:20
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#9
Loretta Lynch is a Democrat, Black, Female, and did I say Democrat? Unless you have some sort of extra-special Kryptonite handy she will walk out of this unharmed ... more the pity that.
#10
Remember: Lynch was being discussed as a SCOTUS fav when the Beast won. Dodged a triple disaster, I think. Slam her into the ground so far, her piano legs won't support her
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/13/2019 20:03
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BLUF:
[American Thinker] Oddly enough, Skripal's poisoning was triggered not by the actions of the Trump administration, but by the indictment put forward by Mueller's team against 13 Russians from the "troll factory" on February 16, 2018.
On this day, the Kremlin realized that the noose is being tightened, and, from the Kremlin's point of view, it does not matter at all whether the Trump team or the Mueller team did it. Under no circumstances would Moscow have allowed the GRU to be called a true source of the "Russian dossier" on Trump. The Kremlin urgently needed to send world public opinion to a false direction.
The Kremlin considered the nonexistent Steele-Miller-Skripal link as a convenient and timely combination of circumstances, an opportunity that it could not pass up. Putin's regime had to prove that it was not Russian intelligence services who composed the "Russian dossier." The Kremlin needed to send the investigation on the wrong track ‐ ostensibly, this Skripal was the very "source close to the Kremlin" of Christopher Steele. Moreover, supposedly, this is precisely why the buyers of the "Russian dossier" decided to eliminate Skripal.
In other words, the Skripal poisoning was a cover-up operation of the Kremlin, the purpose of which was to send the "ObamaGate" investigation in a false direction.
For the Kremlin, killing Skripal looked like a pretty attractive move that would explain much, if not all, to the court of public opinion. It would explain the fact that the "author of the dossier" sufficiently "knew Russian material" and the fact that the linguistic analysis of the "dossier" showed that the text was written grammatically correctly and formatted according to MI6 reporting standards but that the author is not a native English speaker.
#2
I've always suspected Nellie Ohr was the author. The Russian piece, a convenient cover for action. They 'the Russians' were being blamed for everything else.
[USA Today] Dick's Sporting Goods announced Tuesday it will remove firearms from 125 of its stores, according to news reports. The move follows the company's ban on assault-style weapons last year in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
CEO Ed Stack said Tuesday that Dick's will pull hunting gear from 125 stores starting in around August in response to its slumping sales in those stores, Bloomberg reported, a move that may spread to more stores next year.
Dick's last year announced it would ban sales of assault-style weapons after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting and revelations that its shooter, Nikolas Cruz, had purchased a gun from a Dick's store. The company also halted sales of high-capacity magazines and guns to anyone under 21 years old.
Hunting products started vanishing from 10 Dick's stores last fall as the retailer swapped those items for products such as kayaks and baseball gear. Stack said the stores saw higher sales, margins and foot traffic than when they had guns, according to Bloomberg.
Halting assault-style weapon sales put a dent in overall sales for Dick's, the company noted last fall, a dip furthered by a weaker gun market. On Tuesday, the Pittsburgh-area company said net income for the quarter fell to $102.6 million from $116 million in the year-earlier period, per MarketWatch.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/13/2019 1:14
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#4
It would be interesting if they had the stats of guns sold by Dicks that actually were involved in a crime by the person who legally bought the gun from Dicks. I suspect it would be really low if greater than one.
#6
And track equipment celebrates the slaughter of Persians.
Kayaks huh. They do know that 2018 was the deadliest year on record for drowning in the Great Lakes, drowning is in the top 5 causes of death for children, and water sports in general are racist.
[Rudaw] Iraqi and Iranian leaders on Monday signed a number of agreements in a range of fields, including oil and transportation. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is in Baghdad on a three-day visit to shore up ties while the United States continues to pressure Iraq to distance itself from its neighbour.
The deals were inked after talks on Monday covering oil, trade, health, transportation ‐ establishing a railway between Iraq’s port city of Basra and the Shalamja border crossing, building industrial cities along their shared border, and easing visas for business and investment.
"We know the difficulties the Islamic Theocratic Republic is going through, and Iran knows the difficulties Iraq is experiencing. We are cooperating and thoroughly understanding these situations and how we can help each other," said Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi in a joint presser with Rouhani on Monday evening.
The two countries will do their best to bolster security and establish peace, Abdul-Mahdi added.
They signed a total of 22 agreements on Monday, according to IRNA.
Iran, currently bowed under the weight of US sanctions, wants to bolster trade with Iraq and increase its current trade volume from $12 billion to $20 billion. However, a good lie finds more believers than a bad truth... without banking sectors connected to each other, that is difficult.
"In terms of banking matters, which is one of the important issues between the two countries, we emphasized the quicker execution of the agreements that were done between the two central banks, as well as the commercial banks that can bank with each other and we have agreed to take the required steps," said Rouhani in the joint presser.
The two central banks signed a deal in February to facilitate Iranian exporters using Iraqi banks.
This could get Iraq into trouble, warned Fazil Nabi, a former undersecretary in Iraq’s Ministry of Finance. The US carefully watches banking transactions and could sanction Iraq for banking transactions with Iran, he explained.
The US is also pushing Iraq to wean itself off of Iranian imports of electricity and gas, something Iraq says it can’t do. Baghdad has already inked deals with Tehran to keep buying Iranian electricity.
Rouhani said they have "very good relations" when it comes to energy and can expand even further.
"Iran exports the required electricity to Iraq as well as gas and we have announced that we are eager to export more electricity. We can extend these agreements. In regards to oil matters, we are able to provide required facilities towards agreements between the two countries," he said.
They are ready to offer their "power" and "services" in rebuilding Iraq and they wish to develop security ties in countering terrorism, Rouhani added.
Brian Hook, US special representative for Iran and senior policy adviser to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, questioned Rouhani’s visit and Iran’s intentions in Iraq
"President Rouhani coming to Iraq is not in the interest of the Iraqi people," Hook told Iraq’s al-Hurra TV.
"I think what Iran would ultimately like to see happen is Iraq turn into a province of Iran so that they can create a military highway across the northern Middle East that the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps can use to ferry missiles and weapons," Hook asserted.
Washington gave Baghdad a waiver from sanctions to give it time to find an alternative electricity source. That waiver is about to expire and the US has not issued an extension.
Abdul-Mahdi has given directions to finalize a deal with the American company General Electric to help Iraq develop, rebuild, and bolster its electricity grid.
But Iraq says it would need years to wean itself off its dependence on Iranian electricity imports. This dependency will be evident when the summer heat returns. Electricity shortages were one of the factors that sparked deadly protests last summer.
[ToloNews] The US Secretary Mike Pompeo met Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale on Monday and affirmed that the United States stands with the people and government of India in the fight against terrorism, the US Department of State said in a statement on Monday.
"Secretary Pompeo and Foreign Secretary Gokhale discussed the importance of bringing those responsible for the attack to justice and the urgency of Pakistain taking meaningful action against terrorist groups operating on its soil," the statement said. "They noted the strength of our partnership and discussed ways to further enhance cooperation, including on counterterrorism."
They also discussed the two countries’ complementary visions for the Indo-Pacific, US-India defense cooperation, and the growing US-India economic partnership, including joint efforts to expand bilateral trade in a balanced and reciprocal manner, the statement said.
This comes as tensions between India and Pakistain escalated after Indian fighter jets bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed’s biggest training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistain on February 26.
The Indian strike on the JeM camp was carried out 12 days after the terror outfit grabbed credit for the Pulwama terror attack on a CRPF convoy in Kashmire, killing 40 soldiers.
[KhaamaPress] A clash broke out between Afghan armed forces and Death Eaters of the Red Unit of Taliban ...Arabic for students... in northern Baghlan province leaving at least 12 dead or maimed.
The 209th Shaheen Corps in a statement said the clash took place at around 10:10 am todayin Tapa Qarghan area of Dand-e-Ghori district, leaving at least 4 Talibs dead and 4 others maimed.
The statement further added that two soldiers of Public Order Forces of the military also bit the dust in the clash and two others sustained injuries.
According to 209th Shaheen Corps, the clash broke out after Talibs attacked on security outposts of Public Order Forces.
An 822mm rocket launcher and some weapons were also confiscated following the clash, the 209th Shaheen Corps said, adding that the dead bodies of two Death Eaters were also left in the area.
This comes as the security situation in some remote areas of Baghlan province has tanked during the recent years.
[KhaamaPress] Three key group members of Taliban ...Arabic for students... have been tossed in the clink Drop the gat, Rocky, or you're a dead 'un! during an operation of the Afghan Intelligence operatives in northern Baghlan province.
The National Directorate of Security ...the Afghan national intel agency... (NDS) said Monday that the network was busted during an operation of NDS Special Forces.
The statement further added that the detained individuals are Bahadur son of Abdul Ghias who was a member of the intelligence network of the group in Baghlan province, Ramiz son of Mohiuddin who had infiltrated in police ranks and was working as a recruitment officer in Baghlan police commandment, and Hedyatulalh son of Syed Rahim who was working as a driver and was involved in destructive activities, collection of information regarding the military and security institutions.
The anti-government armed krazed killer groups including Taliban have not commented regarding the report so far.
[ToloNews] The fifth round of the talks between the US and Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... negotiators in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... ended after 16 days on Tuesday with agreement in draft between the two sides on some key issues under debate.
Hours after the news broke on Qatar talks, US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said in a tweet that he wrapped up a marathon round of talks with Taliban in Doha.
Khalilzad said peace requires agreement on four issues: counterterrorism assurances, troop withdrawal, intra-Afghan dialogue, and a comprehensive ceasefire.
"In January talks, we "agreed in principle" on these four elements. We’re now "agreed in draft" on the first two," he said in a tweet.
He said the conditions for peace have improved and that it is clear all sides want to end the war. "Despite ups and downs, we kept things on track and made real strides," he said.
Khalilzad said when the agreement in draft about a withdrawal timeline and effective counterterrorism measures is finalized, the Taliban and other Afghans, including the government, will begin intra-Afghan negotiations on a political settlement and comprehensive ceasefire.
"My next step is discussions in Washington and consultations with other partners. We will meet again soon, and there is no final agreement until everything is agreed," Khalilzad concluded.
Meanwhile, ...back at the railroad tracks, Little Nell tried to kick her bound feet and scream post the snotty handkerchief Scarface Al had stuff into her mouth... Taliban said in a statement that the United States and Taliban had deep discussions on two issues agreed in January.
The group said no deal has been signed by the negotiating teams and that they will come together after consulting their leaderships about the current developments.
A couple of US bases are expected to remain in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, ...back at the railroad tracks, Little Nell tried to kick her bound feet and scream post the snotty handkerchief Scarface Al had stuff into her mouth... a meeting between a number of Afghan politicians and the Taliban, which was expected to be held in the next two weeks, has been delayed.
Kirkuk (IraqiNews.com) ‐ Two Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... holy warriors were killed Tuesday in an Arclight airstrike by the U.S.-led international coalition warplanes in the Iraqi province of Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... a security source was quoted as saying.
"Jet fighters of the U.S.-led international coalition targeted a gathering of Islamic State faceless myrmidons near al-Rashad district, in southern Kirkuk," the source told Watan News Agency.
"The airstrike left two IS holy warriors dead," the source said, adding that other IS faceless myrmidons expeditiously departed at a goodly pace following the air raid.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/13/2019
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#1
Somehow 2 low level evils for an airstrike doesn't seem very cost effective.
Three minute video with English subtitles at the link.
[Rudaw] Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the US-led coalition are keeping up the pressure on the last ISIS holdouts in Baghouz, eastern Syria ‐ a tent camp just half a kilometre square.
Coalition jets pound ISIS positions from the side and the SDF are attacking them on three sides from the ground.
"Our forces have liberated this region. This is the place where civilians were staying. Our fighters went to check the area, which is 50 metres from here. There are some festivities behind us. Overall the distance between us and ISIS is less than 100 metres," Mustafa Bali, the head of SDF’s media office, explained as he escorted Rudaw to an area of the tent camp their forces now control.
ISIS snipers closely watch the routes leading to the camp. Smoke rises above the ragged tents and the steady crack of gunfire fills the air.
An estimated 2,500 people ‐ gunnies and their families ‐ remain in the camp, though setting a firm number is difficult since ISIS is using a network of tunnels and trenches dug on the shores of the Euphrates River.
"There are ISIS fighters in that house. They are hiding in the tunnels," said an SDF fighter, using an Arabic acronym for ISIS.
"It’s a street war now," said another SDF fighter. "ISIS fighters are some metres away from us. One of the imported muscle came close. I told him to surrender and he would live. But he didn’t surrender. I shot him, but missed."
ISIS released a new video on Tuesday in which they appeared defeated. Footage of the beleaguered tent camp is markedly different from the triumphant clips the jihadists published when they controlled swathes of territory across Iraq and Syria.
"Why are we being bombarded by airplanes? Why do all the heathen countries of the world gather to fight us? What is our sin? What is our crime?... It was that we wanted to implement Allah’s sharia [law]," a turban identified as Abou Abdulaadhim is seen saying.
He declared that even if they are "wiped out" it will be a "victory" because he will soon be in "paradise."
In the video, a mini bus with a mounted megaphone is seen driving through the camp as a turban urges people to ask forgiveness from God.
The SDF are trying to open a safe exit route so that any civilians who want to leave can do so.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Tuesday 38 Islamic State fighters had been confirmed killed in a U.S.-backed offensive against the jihadists' final enclave in eastern Syria, after the area was pounded by ferocious bombardment overnight.
Three SDF fighters had been killed and 10 wounded, Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, said in a post on Twitter.
Between 1,500 and 2,000 people left Islamic State's last enclave in eastern Syria and surrendered on Tuesday, a spokesman for the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said.
Those surrendering included both Islamic State fighters and their family members, said Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF's media office.
An audio recording purportedly from the Islamic State group is calling on supporters across the world to stage attacks in defense of die-hard militants besieged by U.S.-backed forces in their last foothold in a village in eastern Syria.
The brief, minute-and-a half recording, released by IS supporters on social media and reported by the SITE Intelligence Group late on Monday says men, women and children in the village of Baghouz are being subjected to a "holocaust."
In the audio, an unidentified IS militant calls on Muslim "brothers, in Europe and in the whole world" to "rise against the Crusaders and ... take revenge for your religion."
The recording's authenticity couldn't be independently verified. It comes as U.S.-backed Syrian fighters are making what's likely the final push to take IS-held Baghouz.
Kurdish-led forces said Tuesday more people were surrendering from the Islamic State group's last scrap of territory in Syria, after overnight air raids and shelling ravaged jihadist outposts.
Airstrikes and shelling have pummeled Baghouz for two nights in a row, killing scores of fighters and prompting hundreds of jihadists and their relatives to surrender.
"There was fierce fighting," Ali Cheir, an SDF unit commander, told AFP from a rudimentary outpost inside the village.
"The objective of our advance is to terrorize IS fighters so they surrender, and for the civilians to come out," said the 27-year-old fighter.
The frontline was quiet Tuesday morning, hours after the airstrikes and rocket attacks on Monday night engulfed the last IS pocket in flames.
The commander said the SDF had slowed its offensive after daybreak to allow for jihadists and their relatives to turn themselves in.
"There are people handing themselves over now and we have completely halted fire so that they can surrender," he said.
Another SDF official who asked not to be named said that his force and the coalition only target IS positions at night.
Coalition warplanes pounded the jihadist redoubt with 20 airstrikes, destroying armored vehicles and arms caches, SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali said.
He said U.S.-backed forces clashed with jihadists on several fronts, killing nearly 40 IS fighters.
Beyond Baghouz, IS retains a presence in eastern Syria's vast Badia desert and sleeper cells in the northeast.
"[The] number of Daesh (IS) members [who have] surrendered to us since yesterday evening has risen to 3,000," Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) spokesman Mustefa Bali said Tuesday.
Kurdish-led units are reportedly preparing a final assault on the last "Islamic State" holdout.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/13/2019
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#5
"Why are we being bombarded by airplanes? Why do all the heathen countries of the world gather to fight us? What is our sin? What is our crime?... It was that we wanted to implement Allah’s sharia [law]," a turban identified as Abou Abdulaadhim is seen saying.
Maybe we just don't like assholes?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/13/2019 9:38
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#6
All that head-chopping, slavery and mass executions kind of get folks 'wee-wee'd up' too, Frank.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/13/2019 10:49
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Anbar (IraqiNews.com) ‐ Iraqi security forces seized on Tuesday an arms depot of Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... terrorist group in al-Qa’im district in the western province of Anbar.
"A huge cache of home-made explosives charge and mortar shells were found inside the depot," Almaalomah news website quoted the Iraqi Military Intelligence Directorate as saying in a press statement.
"All the explosive charges were detonated at the scene by specialized troops," the statement read, adding that the ammunition was left by IS Death Eaters after their defeat at the hands of the Iraqi army in 2017.
[ToloNews] Nisar Ahmad Ahmadi, a local journalist in Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... , was maimed in an embedded IED blast in Kart-e-Lagan area in Lashkargah city on Tuesday morning, the provincial governor’s media office said in a statement.
Ahmadi was on the way to his office when the IED embedded to his car detonated.
The statement said Ahmadi in a stable condition and is under treatment at a hospital in Lashkargah city.
Ahmadi is working for Sabawoon TV channel in Helmand.
No group has grabbed credit for the attack.
This comes as Afghanistan has ranked among deadliest countries for journalists.
The Afghan government has always committed to supporting journalists and freedom of the press. However, Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... reports show that journalists are still facing different kinds of threats.
Government’s statistics show that there are 96 TV channels, 65 radio stations and 911 print media in Kabul, as well as 107 TV channels, 284 radio stations, and 416 print media in other provinces. He says there are 1,879 active media outlets in Afghanistan which are called as one of the main achievements of the country in the past 18 years.
[KhaamaPress] The UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan on Monday briefed the UN Security Council on situation and recent developments in Afghanistan.
During his speech to UN Security Council, Yamamoto informed regarding significant developments in the areas of peace and elections in the past three months, noting the ongoing talks between U.S. and Taliban ...Arabic for students... in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... and the intra-Afghan dialogue in Moscow.
Emphasizing on Afghan-led and Afghan-owned grinding of the peace processor with the central role of Afghan government, Yamamoto said "Inclusiveness, coherence, and representativeness in negotiations are critical for success. We understand that the Government is consulting widely to forge the negotiating structure, including a negotiating team, which enables such inclusiveness with coherence. Establishment of such a negotiating team is critical to moving the process of peace further. Yesterday a presidential decree was issued for the holding of a Peace Consultative Jirga, a traditional assembly of leaders, in late April. We hope, that this will help create a national consensus on peace through an inclusive process."
He also emphasized on joint and concentrated efforts on international community and regional players in support of Afghan-led and owned grinding of the peace processor and added that "The United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... welcomes various efforts and initiatives undertaken by countries concerned, but stress the need for all those constructive efforts to be in concert and aligned in support of Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace efforts as agreed in Geneva last November. In this context, we understand that the Government of Afghanistan has proposed to hold the third meeting of the Kabul Process on Peace."
The Secretary General’s Special Representative also emphasized that the legitimate and profound concerns of Afghan citizens should be considered in grinding of the peace processor, including concerns existing regarding the compromises on the gains made over the past 18 years,
"The United Nations shares many of these concerns, particularly regarding the fate of women’s rights, freedom of expression including media rights, and space for civil society to function effectively, all of which must be protected under a peace agreement," he added.
In regards to presidential elections, Yamamoto said "The holding of the presidential election on schedule, however, will be very challenging. The widespread irregularities during last October’s parliamentary elections undermined confidence in the electoral management bodies."
"With less than five months remaining until electionday, the technical and political challenges are daunting," he said, adding that "The new commissioners will need to take urgent decisions on the implementation of the amended Election Law which provides for reforms, including the use of biometric technology and a change in the electoral system."
In other parts of his speech, Yamamoto expressed concerns regarding growing civilian casualties and drugs production, adding that "This year is likely to bring both numerous challenges and unprecedented opportunities. Addressing the challenges, and taking advantage of the opportunities, will require the concerted efforts of the international community, with Afghanistan in the lead."
[ToloNews] Reports indicate that hard boyz attacks have dramatically increased in different parts of the country as the new fighting season arrives. However, Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... the Afghan security agencies said the offensive operations by security forces have also increased against hard boys.
Recently, Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... attacked an Afghan military base in Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... which left almost 25 Afghan forces dead. The incident was followed by other deadly attacks in Samangan and Badghis provinces during the last two weeks.
On Monday, at least 20 Afghan security force members were killed in a Taliban attack in Badghis, in the west of Afghanistan.
A front man for the Ministry of Interior, meanwhile, said dozens of hard boyz have been killed in the past 72 hours as the Afghan forces have doubled the number of their offensive operations.
"Afghan forces have recently increased their offensive operations (against hard boys) in joint cooperation with the Afghan Army and the Air Force," Nustrat Rahimi, a front man for Ministry of Interior.
This comes just days after the US Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad wrapped up his 16-day talks with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... , on Tuesday.
"If Qatar talks don’t reach to a conclusion, war is a must but in different tactics. It is possible that the Afghan government loses the ability to directly defend its trenches or provinces of Afghanistan," said Muqaddam Amin, a military expert.
Reports indicate that dozens of Afghan security force members were taken hostage by the Taliban in Badghis and Samangan provinces.
"Bala Murghab district was on the verge of collapse and still it remains in the same position. Government has control only over the district headquarters," said Safia Aimaq, an MP from Badghis.
"Taliban threats are still high on Kunduz-Sher Khan Bandar highway and also towards Charkha Ab and city suburbs," said Safiullah Amiri, Deputy Head of Kunduz Provincial Council.
Sources meanwhile claimed the scale of Taliban’s attacks have increased several times higher than the Afghan cops.
"We still have not taken the stage from the enemy. The enemy is controlling the war and the war is a guerilla war. The enemy can pose harms wherever it wants," said Attiqullah Amarkhel, a military expert in Kabul.
After assuming office in January, Acting Minister of Defense Assadullah Khalid pledged to hit the enemies in their trenches. He also said that Afghan forces will be on the offensive afterwards.
...also in our archives as Ali B. and once as Ali Basar...
of Duhok province in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq confessed in a German court on Tuesday of killing 14-year-old Susanna Maria Feldman
...previously in our archives as Susanna F., Susanna Feldmann, and Susanna Feldman...
last May.
"I don’t know how it could’ve happened," Germany's daily Allgemeine Zeitung quoted Bashar as telling a jury via a translator in Wiesbaden.
Bashar faced charges of murder, insidious acts after the fact, and rape. He denied the rape charge in the court. German prosecutor Achim Thoma has said the cause of death was strangulation.
"Everything just went black," added Bashar, age 22.
The prosecutor argued that Bashar acted alone in the crimes and denied he had had any assistance when he buried Feldman's body in a hole.
Bashar's family previously denied being complicit in his alleged crimes.
The trial in southwestern Germany city drew a large crowd. The German newspaper reported the court chambers have 56 seats; 44 journalists were accredited, and around 40 people had to be refused entry.
AFP previously reported he arrived in Germany in 2015 with his parents and five siblings. The agency added his asylum request was rejected in December 2016, but he obtained temporary residency pending his appeal.
German police began investigating after Feldman’s mother reported her daughter missing from her home in Wiesbaden on May 23, 2018. Her body was found at a nearby railroad track.
Bashar fled Germany back to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region, where he was working in his home city of Zakho.
Although Iraq and Germany do not have a formal extradition treaty, the 20-year-old was put on a Frankfurt-bound Lufthansa flight at Erbil International Airport in June.
Sentencing was not announced. Germany does not have capital punishment. The Kurdistan Region officially has the death penalty , but it is rarely implemented.
"I do not want to see this monster in a German prison, but rather forcefully deported! The family of Susanna continues to have much fortitude," tweeted "Jan" in German.
Immigration and asylum have become highly politicized issues in Germany over the past two years.
In Germany, asylum seeking peaked at 890,000 in 2015. It dropped to 280,000 in 2016, and 186,644 in 2017 ‐ due in part to a deal between the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... for the latter to provide shelter to refugees in exchange for billions of euros.
There’s a rather startling photo at the link labelled “Copies reporting on alledged acts of violence by migrants are fixed on a 'line of horror' in front of the courthouse in Wiesbaden, Germany on March 12, 2019.” Deutsche Welle adds:
In his confession, Ali B. insisted that he and Susanna F. had consensual sex before she was killed.
Do we believe a man who is about to be tried for previously raping a pre-teen girl?
Prosecutors allege that the man forced the girl to have sex with him and then killed her after she threatened to go to the police. Afterward, according to prosecutors, he and an unknown accomplice buried her body before he allegedly used her phone to text her mother that she was in Paris.
When her remains were found two weeks later, Ali B. and his family had left Germany for Iraq.
He also faces a separate trial from March 19 where he has been charged with twice raping an 11-year-old girl.
#1
"Line of horror" seen back in January on VT's YT channel (which is gone last I checked, but the vid's out there under the above title (or tone-deaf "train of horror"), not that I've gotten around to watching it yet), and Gates (w. transcript).
[KhaamaPress] Following the conclusion of an for the relocation of one thousand refugees from Greek Camps, around 100 refugees are due to relocated to Portugal in the first phase of the resettlement program, it has been reported.
The Migration Minister of Greece Dimitris Vitsas announced Friday that 100 refugees would be relocated in the first phase of the program, to include individuals with a right to asylum.
In a statement posted in his official Facebook page, Vitsas announced that the first 100 refugees to be transferred in the "pilot phase" will be mainly families and other vulnerable persons "granted and/or seeking international protection who are currently in camps."
The initial agreement for the resettlement of 1000 refugees to Portugal concluded in October between Greek officials and Portuguese interior minister Eduardo Cabrita.
The draft agreement was then referred to European Commission for arranging funds for the program which subsequently was approved, according to Vitsas.
According to agreement, the asylum seekers would be interviewed by Portuguese authorities after submitting their application for asylum in Greece.
[The Hill] The Trump administration will reportedly shutter all 21 international offices operated by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in a move intended to consolidate services from the Department of Homeland Security.
The Washington Post reported that the decision was announced by USCIS Director L. Francis Cissna in an email to agency staffers on Tuesday, which stated that the services provided by the 21 offices would be consolidated into U.S. embassies and stateside offices.
"I believe by doing so, we will better leverage our funds to address backlogs in the United States while also leveraging existing Department of State resources at post," Cissna wrote, according to the Post.
"Change can be difficult and can cause consternation. I want to assure you we will work to make this as smooth a transition as possible for each of our USCIS staff while also ensuring that those utilizing our services may continue to do so and our agency operations continue undisrupted," he added.
A senior official at the Department of Homeland Security told the Post that the move was being implemented as a cost-cutting measure that would shift the offices' responsibilities to existing agency staffers. About 70 staffers in the offices would be reassigned as part of the decision, according to the Post.
[MAIL] A hyper-efficient and super-light one-piston engine smaller than a backpack could render modern hybrids obsolete.
Shaul Yaakoby, 53, is the engineer from Tel Aviv, Israel, that developed the engine and claims it is capable of churning out enough horsepower to run a small hatchback for 750 miles (1,200 km) without refuelling.
The engine, manufactured by firm Aquarius Engine, is made of a only a dozen moving components.
MailOnline has obtained data from the firm which reveals the car engine to be 10 per cent more efficient than the average vehicle.
It is now undergoing field tests and the company expects its generator it to be commercially available by the end of 2020 and in cars by 2022.
Mr Yaakoby said its simplicity enables the lightweight design to be so efficient.
'What makes the Aquarius Engine so revolutionary is its simple design, we took the traditional combustion engine that hasn't really been changed in 150-years and we stripped it down to the bare necessities,' he said.
'This means a 10kg [22lbs] engine made up of 20 parts that is more efficient than a 200kg [220lbs] engine made of 200 parts.
'For over a century cars have been carrying around a ton of dead weight that has costed us power and efficiency.
#2
'For over a century cars have been carrying around a ton of dead weight that has costed us power and efficiency.
Heeeyy! Is he tawkin' about me?
Posted by: Almost Anonymous5839 ||
03/13/2019 1:21
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#3
Building a lightweight engine by using exotic heat resistant materials has long been possible, but the cost of the materials made the engine much more expensive that the old cast iron water cooled engines. This article doesn't say how they are solving the cooling problem ?
#5
"You can't have airbags or glass, seats, or a spare tire, and the driver must weigh less than 45 lbs. Also, no headwinds"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/13/2019 6:59
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#6
Mazda started using heat resistant ceramic materials for their rotary engines for racing because of heat buildup in rotary engines because of all of the friction and low combustion rate.
Since the micro-engine is such a small, light design it is like an RC model airplane engine.
Light means thin walls and air cooling fins can be close enough to the source of the heat to obviate a water cooling jacket.
Aircraft reciprocating engines from Continental and Lycoming get by with oil cooling because of plenty of air cooling in flight.
These a/c engines have to run at low RPM because of prop drag and are designed for low compression for safety reasons.
Cylinder head temperature is use to lean engine for fuel efficiency up to max CHT allowed to prevent cylinder head damage.
So I am guessing the micro-engine might be able to get by with oil cooling versus water at low output.
But oil cooling would require an oil pump and that would probably require more than 20 parts.
From YouTube link I can see an air fan blowing air across the combustion chamber.
And because the single combustion chamber is split into two sides the effective combustion rate is halved, doubling the amount of time to cool.
#7
They've been making jet turbines the size of a pickle jar and smaller for a long time. Some of them are almost beer can size. They're nominally for models and experiments, and cost quite a bit.
A Swiss pilot mounted two of them on set of folding wings, and flew in front of reporters for a half an hour. He has since flown the English Channel with his rig.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/13/2019 8:05
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#8
All I can think of is a Fiat 500 with a massive Ram-Air Scoop.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/13/2019 10:55
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#9
Sounds like a slightly smaller version of my old VW air-cooled engine. They made some rad dune buggies out of those things.
#3
Croatian (right) Italian (left) - https://imgur.com/Rza4VcB
hat tip reddit this am.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
03/13/2019 9:56
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#4
I always was intrigued at how the Roman Legion could subdivide into small squads and recombine... there was that battle that midway they stripped the rear maniples and reformed them to the threatened flank as a new "pseudo-Legion". Like a Lego™ block army they could assume almost any shape.
HEJERE, Ethiopia (AP) ‐ The Latest on Ethiopian Airlines crash (all times local):
4:40 a.m.
The United Arab Emirates, a key international travel hub, has barred the Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 from its airspace following the crash of a similar jetliner in Ethiopia.
The Emirates’ General Civil Aviation administration made the announcement late Tuesday night.
It cited the similarities between Sunday’s Ethiopian Airlines flight and another by Indonesia’s Lion Air last year for its decision.
The budget carrier FlyDubai, owned by the Dubai government, uses the aircraft as a workhorse of its fleet.
FlyDubai said in a statement "is adjusting its schedule to minimise disruption to passengers."
[Rudaw] An international aid organization estimated that tens of thousands of Iraqis being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will be sent back to their home country within "weeks or months."
"Among the people who reached al-Hol camp you have a significant number of people who are of Iraqi origin. Figures are not official but probably we are talking about 20,000 people, including women and kiddies," Fabrizio Carboni, the International Committee of the Red Thingy (ICRC) regional director for the Middle East, told Rooters in Geneva on Monday.
The SDF has repeatedly warned that the camp is over capacity. Last month, the SDF handed over 150 alleged ISIS members to the Iraqi Army.
"The Iraqi government has expressed its will to bring those people back, but it’s obviously a challenging situation. Those people are considered as a security threat, so it means that they will have to go through a screening process," Carboni added.
The US-led international coalition partnered ground forces also announced this week that Iraqi Kurdish ISIS captives would be extradited to the Kurdistan Region. Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi, neither his ministers of defense or interior confirmed the agreement.
Carboni told Rooters that no official date has been set for the transfer from the camp that holds at least 55,000 people.
"But according to our understanding, it’s a matter of weeks or months," he said.
Most of the captives to be repatriated to Iraq are civilians, according to ICRC.
The distinction between ISIS fighters and non-fighters, and those fleeing al-Baghouz and other places has concerned analysts as release deals are negotiated. They argue that ISIS leader Abu Bakir al-Baghdadi, himself, was not a fighter.
"We are aware it is a difficult issue especially in Europe ...also known as Moslem Lebensraum... but we believe that on humanitarian grounds, even if you look at this through a security angle, the solution goes through a return of those children and mothers," Carboni added.
The SDF renewed its ground operation with the support of the coalition to clear ISIS remnants from their "final," shrinking 500 square-meter bastion east of the Euphrates near the border with Iraq.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/13/2019
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[KhaamaPress] The Afghan Military in the North has announced that the National Defense and Security Forces have launched Walid-40 operations in northern Balkh province.
The 209th Shaheen Corps in a statement said at least six Talibs were killed or maimed during the first day of operations.
The statement further added that the operations have been launched to suppress bandidosholy warriors and eliminate existing threats.
According to Shaheen Corps, the Afghan Special Forces and Air Forces have also taken part in the newly-launched Walid-40 operations.
At least three Talibs were killed and three others were maimed during the first day of operations in Baba Qushqar area of Chematal district, the 209th Shaheen Corps said, addign that several fighting postions of Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... have fallen into the hands of armed forces so far.
The anti-government armed bandidosholy warriors including Taliban have not commented regarding the operations so far.
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.
[American Thinker] Seventy-three years ago, in his now classic essay "Politics and the English Language," George Orwell examined the deceitful nature of political speech in his day. He offered some superb examples of words that mask their actual meaning and of rhetorical devices intended to fool the reader. "In our time," he wrote, "political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." The imprecision, pretentiousness, and staleness are deliberate, intended to conceal what the writer does not want to admit. His examples, most of them from leftists like Harold Laski, were bad enough, but even Orwell could not have foreseen the nonsense coming from progressives this election season ‐ and it's still early in the game.
[AEON] As the world’s ranks swell, population shifts have emerged as a major global challenge with potentially catastrophic implications. Endless debates over immigration rights have failed to produce the faintest hint of an acceptable solution. So perhaps an alternative approach would be to factor in an underlying basic law of chemistry. At the risk of gross oversimplification, what if we saw the flow of populations as the human equivalent of osmosis?
[The Week] Have you ever been startled by someone suddenly talking to you when you thought you were alone? Even when they apologize for surprising you, your heart goes on pounding in your chest. You are very aware of this sensation. But what kind of experience is it, and what can it tell us about relations between the heart and the brain?
[Hot Air] When we first learned back in January that peace talks with the Taliban were underway, I expressed a number of concerns. The Taliban are murderous, repressive thugs who can’t be trusted for much of anything. But at the same time, I was forced to admit that we were running out of options unless we are willing to concede that we’re going to be in Afghanistan forever, propping up a government that controls a decreasing amount of territory every year.
[PM] A Google executive admitted during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday that Google tracks users' phones ‐ even when their location history is turned off.
[NBC] A former New Jersey priest who had been "credibly accused" of sexually abusing minors was found dead in his Nevada home, and police are treating it as a 
CINCINNATI (AP) ‐ A divided federal appeals court Tuesday upheld an Ohio anti-abortion law that blocks public money for Planned Parenthood.
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
[Jerusalem Post] dissident Republican group calling itself the "IRA" claimed responsibility on Tuesday for letter bombs sent to buildings in London and the University of Glasgow last week. 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
[USA Today] Dick's Sporting Goods announced Tuesday it will remove firearms from 125 of its stores, according to news reports. The move follows the company's ban on assault-style weapons last year in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
[Rudaw] An international aid organization estimated that tens of thousands of Iraqis being held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will be sent back to their home country within "weeks or months."
...also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
