h/t Donald Sensing
An Army laboratory has figured out how to make ready-to-eat pizza that lasts for three years, and perhaps most surprisingly, it actually tastes good.
"It's a fully assembled and baked piece of pizza in one package," said Lauren Oleksyk, a food technologist at the US Army's Natick Soldier Research, Development, and Engineering Center, a lab that helps create the military's meals-ready-to-eat (MRE) rations.
A Wisconsin man convicted on Monday for his 10th Operating a Vehicle While Intoxicated charge (OWI) blamed his high BAC on beer-battered fish, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
John Przybyla, 76, was arrested in October 2014, after a deputy noticed his truck cross the center line of a state highway. He must have been intoxicated. He couldn't even spell his name correctly!
The deputy said Przbyla's breath smelled like alcohol and administered a field sobriety test that the suspect failed, according to local news station WISC.
Przybyla denied drinking alcohol, but said he had eaten beer-battered fish earlier in the evening. He made the same statements in court on Monday.
If true, there would have to be a lot of beer in that batter.
Police said Przybyla's blood-alcohol level was .062, according to the Associated Press.
That's below the state's normal legal limit of .08, but the legal limit for Wisconsin residents with three or more drunken driving convictions is only .02 percent.
As novel as the beer-battered fish defense may be, jurors did not fall for it hook, line or sinker.
Przybyla was found guilty of operating while intoxicated, 10th offense; operating with a prohibited alcohol concentration; and operating while revoked, according to WILX.com.
No sentencing date has been set, but Przybyla could face up to 12.5 years in prison.
The father of two men who were among the occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and are now in jail, was himself arrested in Portland, Ore., Wednesday night.
Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher prominent in protests to end federal control of western lands, is being held in the Multnomah County Detention Center. His sons Ammon and Ryan were arrested Jan. 27 and are there as well.
Bundy had said earlier this week that he intended to travel to Oregon to support the four men still occupying a government building on the refuge.
On Wednesday at the refuge in southern Oregon, the FBI moved to further restrict the movement of the four militants and is actively negotiating with them, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.
The FBI said on Twitter that around 4:30 p.m. PT, one of the occupiers rode an ATV past established barriers on the refuge grounds, and sped away when authorities approached. The FBI says after the incident agents placed barricades around the occupiers' location.
#7
Under Champ there has been an Executive Order defining two new criminal acts invoked when the lame-stream media turns its befuddled gaze to some overt act of seeming modest rebellion to expansive government overreach:
1. Felony Annoyance of the Imperial narrative
2. Felony media attention grabbing
Look for both to be charged against Bundy with appropriate coverstory.
The FBI on Wednesday evening moved in on the last four occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, the Oregonian newspaper reported.
The four armed, anti-government protesters had been indicted last week with 12 others on charges of conspiring to impede federal officers during an armed standoff at the compound.
The takeover at Malheur started on Jan. 2 when their leader, Ammon Bundy, and followers, seized buildings at the refuge in a protest against federal control over millions of acres public land in the West.
#2
Why did the FBI move in now after all this time? And at night? Something is fishy.
I listened to the live stream a bit and the FBI was really being aggressive on the ground and only seemed to back off after they realized it was being broadcast. Stupid and arrogant ground commander or just tyrants on high?
Either way the people that stayed should have realized that there were only two ways out of this once you thumb your nose at the powers that be while armed. Death in a shootout or jail. By staying you chose your fate.
My personal opinion is, while sympathize with the ranchers and agree the government fucked them over, this was the wrong tactic at the wrong time at the wrong place.
#3
They should have converted to muslim. O would have protected his brothers. Immigrants also would have worked. Only seem to have little or no patience with Americans and especially males. OH, black would have helped. Cameras saved their lives.
#4
Comment seen recently about the death of Robert Finicum...
"We now know that at the initial stop Robert Finicum was being told to get out of the vehicle and as he looked out of the window of his vehicle he was shot at. He then told the others in the vehicle that they were out to kill them. So he took off hoping to make it to the Sheriff of the county, but encountered a road block. The road block was on a sharp curve and he went into the snow embankment to avoid hitting the road block and a spike strip. He exited the vehicle with his hands in the air. He was not reaching for a gun in a pocket, he was shot and his hand went down to the wound as a pain reflex and they continued to shoot him. Each and every person involved in the assassination of Robert Finicum, both federal and local WILL BE CHARGED WITH MURDER."
[AnNahar] Tunisia has made nearly half a billion dollars from the sale of assets confiscated from ousted president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his allies, a minister said Wednesday.
In the months following Ben Ali's flight to Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... after the January 2011 revolution that ended his rule, the cash-strapped country seized hundreds of businesses, properties, luxury cars and jewelery belonging to him, his family and his allies.
"Since 2011, we made around 1.5 billion dinars (of which) around 1 billion ($500 million, 442 million euros) went into the state's coffers," Finance Minister Slim Chaker said.
"The other 500 million dirhams went to paying off debts," he said.
Revenues from the sales have boosted the national budget and allowed the state to borrow less, he added, but the process is slow.
Only some assets have been sold off so far, including at an auction at the end of 2012.
Obstacles to selling the remaining assets include organizing paperwork, expert assessments and calls for tenders, the minister said.
"There were lots of cars we didn't have the keys for, and that are still registered in the names of their previous owners," he said.
Nepotism and state corruption plagued Ben Ali's rule and triggered his fall at the start of the Arab Spring uprisings.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/11/2016 00:00:00 ||
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The Amir of Qatar, His Highness Shaikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, appointed new foreign and labour ministers on Wednesday in a reshuffle of heavyweight cabinet positions, state media announced.
Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al Thani, a member of the royal family, replaced Khalid Al Attiyah as foreign minister, according to the Amir's order published on the official Qatar News Agency. Attiyah, whose father was the founder of Qatar's armed forces, was appointed the Minister of State for Defence. The Amir himself holds the post of defence minister.
Attiyah had been the Gulf state's foreign minister since 2013 and was recently heavily involved in international negotiations on the Syrian war. He had worked within that department since 2011.
Shaikh Mohammed is a senior official who was previously in charge of international cooperation in the foreign ministry.
In total, seven changes to the cabinet were announced on QNA as several ministries, including the labour, were merged. One post which remained the same was that of the prime minister, held by Shaikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa Al Thani since 2013.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/11/2016 00:00 ||
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I don't know much about economics, and I don't know who Kyle Bass is, but this doesn't look good.
Texan hedge fund manager J. Kyle Bass, the founder of Dallas-based Hayman Capital, sent out a big letter to investors explaining why he thinks China has a problem much larger than the 2008 subprime crisis.
China has been burning through cash of late as it manages the devaluation of its currency, and there is a big debate over exactly how much money it has to burn.
Bass notes that many folks look at the foreign-exchange (FX) reserves of $3.2 trillion and think that China will be just fine.
It's really not enough, though, based on Bass' calculations. According to Bass, the country is out of money today. In other words, China no longer has enough liquid reserves.
The letter said, with Bass' emphasis:
Responses we receive when discussing the FX reserve levels of China are filled with reverence: 'No country in the world has ever achieved $4 trillion in FX reserves by running such enormous trade surpluses with the rest of the world.' While true, this analysis fails to frame the proper context of the larger situation. When a host country has a large industrial base, enormous money supply (M2), and large import/export business, there is a certain amount of liquid reserves that are required to run the day-to-day operations of the country (think working capital). Over the years, the IMF has fine-tuned the formula used to calculate this 'reserve-adequacy' metric. It can be best calculated as follows:
Minimum FX Reserves =
10% of Exports + 30% of Short-term FX Debt + 10% of M2 + 15% of Other Liabilities
For China the equation is as follows:
10% * $2.2T + 30% * $680B + 10% * (RMB 139.3T / 6.6) + 15% * $1.0T
= $2.7 trillion of required minimum reserves
Hayman Capital estimates that China's FX reserves right now are in a range of $2.1 trillion to $2.2 trillion if you take commitments to various bodies like China's sovereign wealth fund (CIC) into account.
According to Bass, China's reserves are "already below a critical level of minimum reserve adequacy."
"In other words, China is CURRENTLY out of the required level of reserves needed to safely operate its financial system," Bass wrote. "The view that China has years of reserves to burn through is misinformed. China's back is completely up against the wall today, which is one of the primary reasons why the government is hypersensitive to any comments regarding its reserve levels or a hard landing."
Bass is among a handful of hedge fund managers betting against China's currency, the yuan. Much of Hayman Capital's fund right now is devoted to the yuan short.
#1
China is on vacation this week. Their stock markets are closed. I think when they open Monday there's gonna be a big drop to catch up to the rest of the world's markets that have tanked this week.
#2
Despite all the external similarities to Western economic systems (which in their own right are little more than a house of cards reliant on no catastrophic swings in demand or supply of consumer funding) this is a Communist political system run by oligarch who are also plutocrats. Do we really think traditional economic rules apply, instead of just outright lies, intimidation, and Weimar style printing?
#6
Bad loans at the banks are the main problem. China will have to devalue the Yuan, but that will make paying back USD denominated loans almost impossible.
I can see a China banking crisis bringing down banks across the world. It could get very ugly.
An Israeli politician and ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu caused a stir in the country's parliament on Wednesday when she said that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people because there is no letter "P" in the Arabic language. That's a stufid reason.
Speaking in an Israeli parliament (Knesset) debate on the two-state solution, Anat Berko, a member of Netanyahu's Likud party, said that the word "Palestine" was not a real word and was borrowed from the Romans who named the area of the Middle East Palestina.
"I want to go back to history, what is our place here, about Jerusalem, about Palestine, when like we said, Arabic doesn't even have 'P', so this loan-word also merits scrutiny," she said.
"But there is a Palestinian Authority next to us; we don't deny it," she added.
The word "Palestine" is pronounced "Falastin" in Arabic, the same as in Hebrew. She made her point by saying: "There is no puh sound!"
Berko's comments were met with ridicule from fellow lawmakers, specifically those from the left-wing Meretz party and the Arab Joint List.
"What? Did everyone hear this? Are you an idiot?" Meretz politician Tamar Zandberg shouted out, according to Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz. Joint List politician Osama Sa'adi left the debate in protest at Berko's comments.
She responded to Zandberg: "These are the facts. I'll send it to you, everything's alright." Berko is a professor of criminology with an expertise in extremism. She was selected by Netanyahu to run as a candidate in the 2015 general election, entering the Israeli parliament after Netanyahu's Likud party secured victory to lead a minority coalition.
While the absence of the letter "P" in the Arabic alphabet is used by some in Israeli society to delegitimize Palestinian aspirations for their own state, it is not viewed as a serious point in the debate over Palestinian and Israeli territory by the Israeli media. And if that doesn't work, maybe there should be a DNA workup on the "Palestinians."
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.
As excuses go, this one is pretty fishy.
An Israeli politician and ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu caused a stir in the country's parliament on Wednesday when she said that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people because there is no letter "P" in the Arabic language.
