[IsraelTimes] Omani leader succumbs to illness after nearly 50 years in power, leaving no heir; hosted Netanyahu for dramatic 2018 visit to Muscat and helped broker 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2020 00:00 ||
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Seahawks climbing out of Seattle - no snow *yet* in Green Bay, but this @HawaiianAir jet will be coated in it by tomorrow. (We need pics!) #SEAvsGB#Seahawks
#1
I used to think about how people take weather radar and satellite pictures for granted. But now? Flight progress info, real time network activity diagrams. It boggles the mind. "Alexa, show me space junk in our path..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/11/2020 6:08 Comments ||
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[ToloNews] A primary court in Afghanistan is expected to release Zaman Ahmadi, a man who was handed a 20-year prison sentence in 2012 for blasphemy ...the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence to a deity, or sacred objects, or toward something considered sacred or inviolable. Some religions consider it to be a crime. In Pakistain you can commit blasphemy by looking cross-eyed at a Koran... On December 3 last year, the Supreme Court of Afghanistan reversed a 20-year jail sentence for Ahmadi, but their decision must be reviewed by the primary court.
A primary court in Kabul in 2012 had sentenced Ahmadi to 20 years’ imprisonment for blasphemy.
On Friday, Ahmadi spoke to a TOLOnews’ correspondent from Kabul jail and said that he expects to be released on bail, possibly next week.
Ahmadi expressed hope that a new court will serve justice on his case.
Ahmadi’s defending lawyers also said they hope that Ahmadi is released on bail sometimes next week.
Ahmadi has spent seven years in jail so far.
"Now that a comeback by the Taliban ...the Pashtun equivalent of men... into power is felt again, everyone is realizing that I was innocent; I was defending social values," Ahmadi told TOLOnews.
"I thank the Supreme Court for reversing a false verdict against me, I hope that the primary court serves justice," said Ahmadi.
"This time we will only focus on securing the acquittal of my client," said Ali Madad Hakimi, Ahmadi’s defending lawyer.
The Attorney General’s Office meanwhile said that the Supreme Court of Afghanistan will take the final decision about the release of Ahmadi.
"The original decision will be reversed, the courts in Afghanistan will issue their decision on the case, and whatever is decided by the courts of Afghanistan, the Attorney General will comply with," said Jamshid Rasuli, front man for the Attorney General of Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) has also said they will pursue Ahmadi’s case.
Ahmadi was arrested in west of Kabul in 2012 after he wrote an article about the factors that led to the destruction of a Buddha statue in the central province of Bamiyan ...a place in Afghanistan that used to have some historically interesting statues of the Buddha carved into a mountainside. Then the holy men showed up and now all they have is some big holes...
[ToloNews] Figures by the Ministry of Public Health reveal that Afghanistan has more than 2.5 million illicit drug users, and at least 500,000 of them are addicts.
An official at the ministry said the capacity of rehabilitation centers countrywide has increased to over 40,000 patients, from 2,000 five years ago.
The official said that in order to overcome the problem, there is a need to curb drug trafficking.
"These 2.5 million are in 34 provinces of Afghanistan, mostly in villages rather than urban areas," he said, adding: "Widespread precautionary measures are required to curb drug addiction."
He suggested that job opportunities and facilities for entertainment and sports should be provided for youth to keep them away from drugs.
Kabul has many areas where drug addicts are often seen. One of these drug addicts, Ali Reza, 28, said they have "easy access" to drugs in the city and that he became an addict when he was 13.
"I want to be treated. I want to rejoin the society," he said.
"I have not visited any rehabilitation center because people say that these centers are not providing good services," said Nawroz, a drug addict.
The presence of drug addicts in some Kabul streets has created problems for residents.
"People’s belongings are stolen. People have complaints. They are tired of them (presence of drug addicts)," said Mohammad Hussain, a Kabul resident.
"There is a need for proper action by the government against narcos," said Rajab Ali, a Kabul resident.
Afghanistan has been among the world's top illicit drug-producing countries.
Reports indicate that poppy cultivation and drug trafficking provides a big income source for the Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... , mainly in the southern and northern parts of the country.
#1
As the Grateful Dead sang: "Chicago, New York and Detroit and it's all on the same street." Pikers. America's urban playgrounds have way more druggies.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/11/2020 5:37 Comments ||
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Tunisia's deeply fragmented parliament rejects a proposed new government in a confidence vote, meaning a complex coalition-building process will need to start again, with urgent economic reforms at stake.https://t.co/oS46OVIb92pic.twitter.com/1IR2P7aTYr
[AlAhram] An American warship was "aggressively approached" by a Russian Navy ship in the North Arabian Sea, the U.S. Navy said Friday.
Navy Cmdr. Josh Frey, front man for U.S. 5th Fleet, said that the USS Farragut was conducting routine operations Thursday and sounded five short blasts to warn the Russian ship of a possible collision. He said the USS Farragut, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, asked the Russian ship to change course and the ship initially refused but ultimately moved away.
Even though the Russian ship moved away, Frey said the delay in shifting course "increased the risk of collision."
[Detroit Free Press] General Motors worker Adarrey "Ace" Humphrey was blindsided Sunday. That's when his life changed.
Humphrey, 27, has been a part-time temporary worker at GM's Flint Assembly for the last three years. Sunday morning, he and about 250 of his co-workers crowded into UAW Local 598's union hall. Most thought they were there for a routine meeting.
But when the local's president stepped to the mic, the room listened in awed silence.
"He said, 'As of tomorrow, you guys are full-time seniority employees of GM,' " said Humphrey. "There was a gasp in the room for a few seconds. Some of us thought he misspoke. Then, we had to say, 'No, we heard him right!' It was amazing."
On Monday, GM made about 930 temporary workers permanent full-time employees at 30 of its 52 UAW-represented facilities in the United States. There are more to come in the months ahead, it said.
Union documents show that at Flint, where GM builds its heavy-duty pickups, 255 temps became permanent. At Lansing Delta Township, where GM builds its midsize SUVS, it hired 103 temps. At GM's smaller plants such as Bedford Casting Operations in Indiana, 17 temps are now permanent.
Well. it is real money to those workers. In the larger scheme of the fixed game that is the US financial system, it is what Nancy Pelosi called "crumbs..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/11/2020 5:45 Comments ||
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#6
More union members. Don't worry, the leadership will still bite the hand that feeds it.
[PJMEDIA] In an effort to restore curricular and administrative sanity to university education, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his Fidesz Party have passed legislation to abolish Gender Studies as an area of official study. Hungary’s Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen has stated that such programs "ha[ve] no business in universities" as they represent "an ideology, not a science," with a market profile "close to zero." Similarly, Orban’s Chief of staff Gergely Gulyas said, "The Hungarian government is of the clear view that people are born either men or women. They lead their lives the way they think best [and] the Hungarian state does not wish to spend public funds on education in this area."
According to reports, Fidesz front man Istvan Hollik, echoing Semjen, brought in the economic argument, pointing to the obvious fact that "You don’t have to be an expert to see there’s not much demand in the labour market for gender studies." But the core of the issue goes deeper. "It is also no secret that our goal is to make Hungary a truly Christian-democratic country, which defends its normality and life and values...And now there’s this situation with gender studies, which is not a science but an ideology and one which is closely linked to liberal ideology, and I don’t think it fits in here."
Of course, such efforts to abolish clearly non-academic programs from the university will be considered an authoritarian and anti-democratic putsch by such bastions of liberal/left propaganda as the Harvard Journal of Law & Gender. The policy is naturally opposed by the Hungary-based Soros-funded CEU (Central Europe ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... an University), which sees the move as an "attempt at censoring academic curricula." The University, after all, is sacred ground. By these lights the German universities of the 1930s were well within their mandate to espouse and promote the doctrines of Nazi ideology, adopted in the name of progress, justice, and freedom from oppression.
Orban’s surgical strike against the CEU is better understood as a reasonable effort to limit Soros’ totalitarian meddling in the education and conduct of an independent democratic nation. Orban realizes that what he calls the "Soros Plan" entails "transforming Europe and moving it towards a post-Christian and post-national era." The CEU has now relocated its Budapest campus to Vienna where it can persist unmolested in its aim to undermine Western civilization.
#2
My country of birth is the only European country with the distinction to:
Have armed conflict with the Soviets
Stopped Muslim colonization
Stopped gender obfuscation.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
01/11/2020 10:51 Comments ||
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#3
I admire Orban, and Hungary generally, for putting their nation and security above the EUSSR. F*&k Soros!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/11/2020 11:40 Comments ||
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#4
And Austria will welcome the CEU and their divisive agenda ?
[DAWN] The Supreme Court on Friday set aside the extended three-year sentence against former additional district and sessions judge Raja Khurram Ali Khan and his wife Maheen Zafar ‐ for torturing a minor girl employed as domestic help in Islamabad ‐ maintaining the one year sentence handed down by the Islamabad High Court in April 2018.
Nine months ago, in May 2019, the apex court had reserved its judgement on appeals filed by the judge and his wife.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice Mushir Alam had taken up appeals filed by Khan and his wife, who had first been sentenced to a year in jail in April 2018 for keeping the then 10-year-old Taiba in wrongful confinement, burning her hand over a missing broom, beating her with a ladle, detaining her in a storeroom, and threatening her of "dire consequences".
In June 2018, when both convicts appealed against the sentence, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) had increased their jail time from one year to three years, with a Rs500,000 fine.
In the verdict announced today, the apex court set aside the three year sentence and maintained the earlier one year jail term for the convicts.
The written judgement announced in an open court today, authored by Justice Ijaz ul Ahsan, Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Yayha Afridi, presented a similar judgement on both the convicts' appeals. The court said that the conviction and initial sentence awarded to the convicts will be maintained.
"While maintaining her conviction under Section 328-A PPC, the sentence enhanced from one year simple imprisonment to that of three years by the Division Bench of the High Court in its judgement dated 11.06.2018 is set aside," the judgement stated, while reffering to Zafar's case.
#1
...In the words of one Mr. K. West, "I'ma gonna stop you right there."
One can make an argument over the -22 versus -23 choice; both aircraft were superb and it came down to highly technical arguments on stealthiness as to which aircraft was better.
But the -32 versus the -35...folks, as bad as the -35 had it (the airframe is literally getting better every day, and isn't far from being the ship we've always been told it was), the -32 was a disaster waiting to happen.
First, the airframe was going to get an entirely new wing...which meant a redesign on the entire airplane, though Boeing insisted that wasn't the case.
Second, Boeing itself has been having problems for decades - their misbegotten 'merger' with McDonnell Douglas ended up with McAir effectively taking over with one of the most thoroughly dysfunctional corporate environments in recent history...which is saying something. Keep in mind that the engineering and corporate screwups that brought us the 737 MAX would have been the same people trying to get the -32 into production...enough said.
Finally, and possibly most important - that Gawdawful air intake up front was causing quiet terror among Boeing engineers, because despite years of testing and design there were indications it was ruining whatever LO characteristics the airplane had. It could have probably been managed - not fixed - at hideous cost.
Summary: The F-35 may be a problem child, but we dodged a bullet with the -32.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/11/2020 10:16 Comments ||
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#2
Mike K quoting Kanye? Priceless :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/11/2020 11:30 Comments ||
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#3
Other than being a truly ugly looking plane... I was impressed by the giant "FOD gulper" design of the F-32, kinda like the A-7, and wondered how it would operate on any airfield that hadn't been vacuumed and wet mopped before every takeoff/landing...?
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.
[ToloNews] A primary court in Afghanistan is expected to release Zaman Ahmadi, a man who was handed a 20-year prison sentence in 2012 for 
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
[Detroit Free Press] General Motors worker Adarrey "Ace" Humphrey was blindsided Sunday. That's when his life changed.
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum....jpg)
[Whatfinger]
