A San Francisco man suspected of having one too many drinks is accused of posing as a Transportation Security Administration agent and groped two unsuspecting women, both foreigners, into a private booth for security pat downs.
Authorities said the man was a ticketed passenger who went through the security checkpoint and was seen drinking at an airport lounge for a few hours Tuesday.
The man, who was wearing khaki pants and a blue polo, may have swiped plastic blue gloves to look the part
Posted by: Hans Aliover4321 ||
07/18/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] A great white shark that washed up on an Australian beach this week had a sea lion stuck in its throat which likely caused its death, fisheries officials said Thursday. Didn't do the sea lion any good, either, did it?
The four-meter (13-foot) white pointer was filmed thrashing around just off Coronation Beach, 430 kilometers (270 miles) north of Perth, and was later found on the sand.
The Western Australia Department of Fisheries said it had no visible signs of injury or disease, but had a large sea lion lodged in its throat.
"This could explain why the shark was exhibiting such unusual behavior in shallow waters off Coronation Beach," said research scientist Rory McAuley in a statement. "It is possible that the shark was trying to dislodge the blockage.
"Such a large object may have damaged the shark's internal organs or impeded water flow into his gills, contributing to his death," he added. "Alternatively, the shark may have accidentally become stranded in his attempts to get rid of the obstruction."
Brad Tapper filmed the shark as it struggled in shallow waters and posted the clip on YouTube.
Tapper, who had been at the beach with his children, said a dog walker first noticed the shark when his pet refused to go in the water.
"When we spotted it, it was about 50 meters off the shore. We thought it was a diver or something," he told the West Australian newspaper. "It was kind of surreal, you're watching it and you don't realize how rare it is at the time until you get home and have a look at the footage."
After it beached itself, some onlookers attempted to drag the shark out to sea using a tow rope, but the animal returned to shore soon after.
"We went to look at it and got within three or four meters of it but it started kicking and thrashing around again so we thought it was time to leave," Tapper said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/18/2014 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] Egypt's Foreign Minister Sameh Shokri says he is deeply angered by comments made by an Egyptian private TV anchor which insulted the Moroccan people.
In a discussion with editors of Egyptian newspapers on Thursday, Shokri said that the relationship between Egypt and the Morocco have been excellent since 3 July, 2013.
The foreign minister's comments came in an apparent reference to an offensive diatribe launched on Wednesday by a daytime anchor Amany El-Khayat of the privately owned satellite ONTV against Morocco after Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, leader khaled Meshaal appealed to the kingdom for support against the current deadly Israeli assault on Gazoo.
El-Khayat, a staunch opponent of Islamist movements including Hamas, claimed that Morocco's King Mohammed VIbrokered a power-sharing deal with Islamist leaders during the outbreak of the Arab revolts in early 2011 — a time when many Islamists were pushing for top positions across the Arab world.
She then added that Morocco's economy was based on prostitution and — as proof — asked the audience to Google the ranking of Morocco in terms of AIDS prevalence.
"Any insult to the Moroccan people is entirely unacceptable," Shokri said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/18/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
This was the bargain. This bubble is the gift from the Fed to Wall Street in exchange for their support in 2012.
The "stimulus" was a bribe to public employees to stay on the reservation and reliably vote for Democrats. In a similar way, QE was a bribe to Wall Street to keep them reliable Democrat donors.
In 2012 the Wall Street biggies donated five times more to Obama than to Romney. QE and this bubble are the payback.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/18/2014 7:30 Comments ||
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#2
Could be at some level 'no mo uro' but it could also be a result of literally nowhere else to put one's money. Certainly no return on bank CD's or savings accounts.
#3
That's okay, the big money guys have noticed there's still some property out there that they haven't managed to stealacquire leverage. They'll soon get the peons in place.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/18/2014 8:18 Comments ||
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#4
The run up in the stock market has not benefited Main Street to any great extent. The hedge fund operators, high rollers and Democratic Party are the ones who have benefited. The myth has been created and used as propaganda, that the greedy Pubs have Wall Street locked up. I have a brother-in-law who worked on Wall Street before retirement. One time he said, that I'd be surprised how many Wall Streeters were Democrats and big contributors to the Democratic Party. He was right.
#4
It was the turbulence caused by the storms that would have caused a divert. I saw this last night on CNN(Amazingly). Showed the flight corridors, and that because of the threat of the storm turbulence they took a more northern route. The corridors are well-known, and the altitude of 33,000ft is cruising altitude. Just poorly trained crews high from success against Ukrainian military planes.
And yes, there was storms. CNN was showing them and it was intersecting 3 of the 4 corridors. Ironically they should have gone over Crimea, but with a storm the size of Crimea in the way they went around.
Posted by: Charles ||
07/18/2014 20:55 Comments ||
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#5
Thank you Charles. Takes care of a couple of conspiracy theories. Now we have to get the weather-modification theorists to provide proof.
Thineng Angailet7166: The presence of the now-confirmed storm would motivate the crew to take diversion around the turbulence contained within.
Pax don't like to be thrown against the lap belts (or worse); unfortunately, they got something far worse.
[An Nahar] Russia on Thursday dismissed as absurd Kiev's claims that it had shot down a Ukrainian warplane over its territory, a move that led to a fresh spike in tensions between the two ex-Soviet states.
"This is absurd, just like all previous accusations against the Russian defense ministry by Kiev authorities," an unidentified high-ranking representative of the defense ministry told the Interfax news agency.
For his part, Russia's U.N. envoy flat-out rejected the claim that a Russian jet had shot down the Ukrainian warplane.
"We didn't do it," Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told news hounds at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council said on Twitter that a military plane from the Russian air force carried out a rocket strike on a Ukrainian airforce SU-25 over Ukraine on Wednesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/18/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
I mean, everybody knows those Malaysian Boeings fall apart, and sometimes wander off by themselves...
(BTW, that was sarcasm. Secret Service vendors take note.)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/18/2014 7:50 Comments ||
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#2
Ambassador Vitaly Churkin's statement is certainly reassuring. I mean, if you can't believe a Russian Ambassador, who can you believe? And the so-called 'black boxes'...where were they sent again ?
Crickets from Washington, DoD and the IC, no signatures warnings, no Federal crash investigation team statements, no Boeing statements.....or have I missed something? Appears we're following Vlad's standing orders to stay out of it. Nicely done POTUS, very fok'n nicely done.
#3
I tell you that we wouldn't shoot down a civilian airliner--nyet, no way. (Don't worry Vlademir, the world has a short memory and has forgotten the Korean airliner we shot down when Carter was president. We don't have to worry; they again have another feckless president.)
#4
The was an incident (Korean Air Lines Flight 902) under Carter. Flight 700 was shot down under Reagan. The Soviets seem to have a penchant for such things. Reagan cut short his vacation and had a hard-hitting speech directed at the evil empire (Ruskies). A few years later, the USSR collapsed. Such things are not brought about from a position of weakness.
[Al Ahram] A social media site attributed to a top Ukrainian rebel commander said the snuffies had shot down an army transporter at the location where a Malaysia Airlines plane crashed Thursday near the Russian border.
The comments by the top military commander of the self-proclaimed "Donetsk People's Republic" suggest the separatists had shot down the Malaysia Airlines plane by mistake, believing it was a large Ukrainian army transport plane.
"We just downed an An-26 near Torez. It is down near the Progress mine," said the VK page attributed to Igor Strelkov, which is frequently quoted by Ukrainian media.
The rebels shot down another An-26 in rebel-held eastern Ukraine on June 14, killing 49 government servicemen.
"We had warned (the Ukrainian armed forces) not to fly in 'our sky'," Strelkov says in the post.
"And here is a video confirming that a 'bird fell'," said the post.
The website then provides a link that is identical to that published by Ukrainian media in reports about the Malaysia Airlines jet.
The video shows locals referring to the Progress coal mine mentioned by Strelkov
Posted by: Fred ||
07/18/2014 00:00 ||
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[Al Ahram] Ukrainian authorities on Thursday declared the east of the country a no-fly zone after a Malaysian airliner carrying 295 people crashed in the volatile region, European flight safety body Eurocontrol said.
European and US airlines rerouted their flights as Kiev said the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down in a "terrorist" attack and a US official said intelligence analysts "strongly believe" it was downed by a surface-to-air missile.
"Since the crash, the Ukrainian authorities have informed Eurocontrol of the closure of routes from the ground to unlimited (altitude) in Eastern Ukraine," a statement said.
"All flight plans that are filed using these routes are now being rejected by Eurocontrol. The routes will remain closed until further notice," it added.
According to Eurocontrol's information, the doomed plane was flying at a level known as "330", or approximately 10,000 metres or 33,000 feet, when it disappeared from radar screens.
The route itself had been closed to level "320" but was cleared for those flying at the Malaysian plane's altitude.
In Gay Paree, a statement by junior transport minister Frederic Cuvillier said French carriers should "avoid Ukraine's air space as long as the reasons behind this catastrophe are not known".
The Boeing 777 dropped off the radar at around 1415 GMT and crashed in a border region held by pro-Russian separatists.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko pointedly called the disaster a "terrorist act", and major airlines quickly announced plans to route planes away from the area.
Air La Belle France said it decided "to no longer fly over eastern Ukraine as soon as it heard of the event," and Alitalia had done the same.
A spokeswoman for German flag carrier Lufthansa told AFP it also chose to immediately make a "wide detour" around the region because "our passenger's safety is our top priority."
Lufthansa's subsidiary Swiss took similar action, and reported that "one flight between Bangkok and Zurich was affected, the flight was rerouted."
In London, a British Department for Transport front man confirmed that "flights already airborne are being routed around the area by air traffic control in the region."
US carrier Delta was one of the first non-European carriers to say it too was steering clear "out of an abundance of caution."
"The thoughts and prayers of the entire Delta Air Lines family are with the passengers and crew, and their loved ones, involved in the Malaysia Airlines incident," a statement added.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/18/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Evidently the pilot thought a thousand feet, more or less, would make all the difference. Turns out the Russian SA type involved has an altitude capability a good 80% higher (18km). (No more of that U2 BS)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/18/2014 7:55 Comments ||
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#2
This Malaysian company is going to sue their pants off. Well, we know who's going to provide the cash.
[Al Ahram] The UN Security Council plans to hold an emergency meeting on the situation in Ukraine on Friday, diplomats said, after a Malaysian airliner was brought down over eastern Ukraine, killing all 295 people aboard.
Diplomats initially said the meeting would be held at 3 p.m. (1900 GMT) Friday, but later said it could be arranged for Friday morning. UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman was expected to brief the council, diplomats said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/18/2014 00:00 ||
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Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down by a group of Russian-backed Cossack separatists some 80 kilometers northwest of Donetsk, according to recordings of intercepted phone calls between Russian military intelligence officers and members of terrorist groups, released by Ukraine's security agency (SBU).
One phone call apparently was made 20 minutes after the plane crash, by Igor Bezler, who the SBU calls a Russian military intelligence officer and leading commander of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. He reports to a person identified as a colonel in the main intelligence department of the general headquarters of the armed forces of the Russian Federation regarding the plane, which is about to be examined by the militants.
The second intercepted conversation released was apparently between militants nicknamed "Major" and "Greek" upon inspection of the crash site. "Major" says, "It's 100 percent a passenger (civilian) aircraft," as he admitted to seeing no weapons on site. "Absolutely nothing. Civilian items, medicinal stuff, towels, toilet paper."
In the third part of conversation a Cossack commander, talking to an unidentified militant, cynically suggests that the airplane could have been carrying spies because, otherwise, it would have no business in that area.
#1
Where's the NSA on this one?
Or are they too busy monitoring US citizens' daily activities and "subversive" media like Drudge Report to have recorded any of the comms from this area?
#2
Not NSA initially, but NRO would be primary for this at the start. You can bet there is IMINT, and IR data from various assets that was sent up the chain FLASH priority. Same goes with any SIGNIT/ELINT/COMINT data like this. Problem is its all classified as to sources and methods, so nobody will talk publicly about it. Someone somewhere in the IC has a solid picture of this and the aftermath, as well as data mining prior information to establish pre-incident continuity and context.
The problem isn't the data, nor the reporting. Its the political will to act decisively upon the data. That's simply not in place with the narcissistic cowardly asshole Chicago thug we have as CINC, nor with his political lackeys in the DOD flag rank officers, nor with the anti-American surrendercrats in the State department.
#1
Special prosecutors are a standard gimmick of the Dems on Republican Presidents.
The Dems had a special prosecutor for Donovan the Secretary of Labor and they had one for the Iran Contra tin hat scandal and of course the famous "leak" of a CIA operative who was about as undercover as Kate Upton on SI.
Of course now, the shoe is on the other foot...and do we really have enough people qualified to be special prosecutors with all of these scandals?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
07/18/2014 1:11 Comments ||
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#2
Not really surprising given how corrupt the DOJ is.
#3
“It is very, very rare to use a special prosecutor,” Deputy Attorney General James Cole told a House Oversight subcommittee, adding that he and Attorney General Eric Holder determined the IRS case “didn’t meet any sort of standard to warrant a special prosecutor.”
Had the IRS been conducting public executions, it would not have "met" Holder's standard to warrant assignment of a special prosecutor, [unless of course, those executed were 'his people]. Elect a Chicago, Harold Washington south side Dem machine communist as POTUS and this is what you get. Who knew ?
#4
DOJ response is similar to the Russian response to the Russian shoot down of the Malaysian airline in the Ukraine. Aparatchik doublespeak is the same wherever they are found.
#5
Those who are denying so vehemently the need for a special prosecutor are all Democratic elected officials or Democrat appointed officials. Yeah sure, they have no skin in the game. Right.
#6
Compare/contrast to Special Counsel (prosecutor + grand jury) for the Plame affair and the perjury/obstruction charges against Scooter Libby. DOJ had no problem going after a GOP person that was marginally involved, and using all kinds of prosecutorial process abuse to do so, up to and including massive withholding of information (e.g. Armitage was the leak, but was forbidden by Fitzgerald the prosecutor to go public or talk with the libby defense team)
This whole administration is rife with corruption. Holder should be hanged for it.
#8
What is really going to piss everyone off is that Obama will pardon everyone involved on his way out the door. Check mate.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/18/2014 11:47 Comments ||
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#9
Do they have to be indicted charged or convicted before they are pardoned? Or can we wait until we have a new POTUS and then indicte arrest them all?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/18/2014 12:57 Comments ||
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#10
Good question. We should have seen this coming when old Joe the plumber was investigated. This goes back to day one with Obama.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/18/2014 13:00 Comments ||
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#11
Oh I'm sure Eric Holder will charge them just before so that Obama can pardon them.
Personally I think after an election is completed, and the President is not the winner - he should lose the power to pardon.
#1
Pure operations issues. This is the only aircraft that can induce settling with power with an unrecoverable outcome. Put a fully loaded aircraft on approach, 30 feet from touching down they are called to slide left to avoid and obstacle. The pilot slides the aircraft left, the left side rotor dips into wing tip vortices IE settling with power. The split second the rotor loses lift, the right side is acting like a lever as it is producing continuous power and the aircraft flips. This was the initial issue with the Marines crashing when they were new. Now they have to stay on a straight approach until landed. They have also placed some electronic countermeasures to help. But in combat its a trick to manage without killing everyone. You also cant fast rope out of it, the engine exhaust cooks the rope!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/18/2014 0:29 Comments ||
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#2
The author forgets it isn't designed to completely replace the helicopter. For what it does, i.e. get a larger load farther inland faster and can land in most small clearings the V-22 works extremely well. There will always be a need for the helos, like to fastrope out of and to hover. But that was never what the V-22 was meant to do.
For its mission, it performs extremely well. Better to have 4 V-22s drop a company in rather than using 6-12 helos (depending on type).
#4
The problem with it 'not replacing helicopters' is that's how the project was sold, as in "the Sea Knights are falling apart, we gotta have something new".
I hate to tell them, but what they're likely to end up with is SeaHawks, at this point.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/18/2014 7:58 Comments ||
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#5
I PCS'd to the Beltway in 1988 and met a retired USMC aviator who had been working the V-22 project as a contractor for a few years at that time. It would be very interesting to see a tally of the R&D dollars spend on this airframe from initial concept to 'roll-out' and fielding. I suspect some very interesting questions might arise from such a discussion.
#8
One thing the V22 does well is going deep. It was sold as a penetrating aircraft. With that it can. The V-22 has a smaller cargo compartment than the CH-47. The Navy should have gone to the 47 as their primary, not the V-22.
Tilt rotor still has many engineering evolutions before it will be a viable platform. It uses too much gas, the transition from flight to hover is still a mess, forward flight under 50kts is still a mess, settling with power is still broke, as is the flight control problems.
The 46's needed to go, the Navy gambled with a futuristic aircraft and now it is going to suffer with it. Good luck.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/18/2014 13:08 Comments ||
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#9
The current inventory of 46s needed to go as they were all used up, but the 46 was and still is the perfect size for naval ops, especially vertreps, the 60 cannot do it and is more maintenance intensive. the 47s are too big for the gator navy. the V 22 was Bell, then Boeing's answer to the navy's '' what is as fast and sexy as the air force only in a rotary wing size? "question.
With all the multi-tasking the Boeing propaganda shows this bird doing, you might think they are confusing it with the one size fits all Lawn Dart.....
#12
Pan, agree about the Super Pumas, but I do not think they have the cross wind hover envelope the 46s and 47s have. The Kaman K-Max is an ideal vert rep bird, but if you have to fill more than one role, it won't work.
SteveS: please don't say that too loud around Boeing-ville; weirder things have happened. Saw a model of a C-130 flying boat, from Lockheed's own studios. was supposed to be an insertion vehicle for SF.
#13
KMax is a great vert rep aircraft. We looked at it for our vert rep program. It wont blade fold, so it wont fit in the hold of the supply ship. And then it cant do SAR or med evac. We used the Puma 223. Great old bird. The new Super Puma is going to the North Atlantic for oil work and SAR work. It will fly in some pretty harsh weather. It also has the most state of the art flight control systems. I have never been a big fan of Eurocopter, but they hit a home run with this one. It can radar lock to the deck of a ship in gale force winds and follow it as it maneuvers through the storm. It keeps the aircraft into the wind and the bucket over the deck. I took off in it and flew a few miles away and then activated the AFS and it flew me back to my take off point and terminated at a 6 foot hover. It is as expensive as the S76, big bucks.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/18/2014 21:53 Comments ||
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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.
A San Francisco man suspected of having one too many drinks is accused of posing as a Transportation Security Administration agent and groped two unsuspecting women, both foreigners, into a private booth for security pat downs.
[An Nahar] A great white shark that washed up on an Australian beach this week had a sea lion stuck in its throat which likely caused its death, fisheries officials said Thursday.
