[Guardian] Adan Lara Vega said he was told the $5,500 he was being charged to be smuggled into the United States would include an air-conditioned truck ride.
Instead, the 27-year-old Mexican laborer climbed with his friends into a pitch-black, metal tractor-trailer compartment that lacked ventilation ‐ a deadly oven that would claim 10 lives.
"After an hour I heard crying ‐ people crying and asking for water. I, too, was sweating and people were despairing," Lara Vega told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview Monday from his bed in a San Antonio hospital. "That’s when I lost consciousness."
By the time he regained it Sunday, he was in the hospital.
He told the AP that it all started when he climbed aboard the tractor-trailer in the border city of Laredo, Texas, with six friends from the state of Aguascalientes after the group waited nearly two weeks in a safe house.
#4
$5,500 is a lot of money for someone from Central America.
What the media censors out, is how much this is an organised criminal activity, where those who get to the USA, or Europe for that matter, end up indebted to criminal gangs, and thus forced into criminality.
As I have said before, the solution is a combination of harsh penalties to anyone who hires an illegal, and temporary work permits which employers pay in the region of a few thousand dollars per annum for.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/25/2017 9:33 Comments ||
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#8
The question which no one has asked yet is how that truck got through the Border patrols secondary check point outside Laredo (normally 60 miles inside the border)? Down here in McAllen we have a secondary check (choke) point in Falfurrias loaded with a menagerie of sensors and cell phone jammers. The Border Patrol should have images and intercepts linking the human traffickers to the shipment.
Posted by: Joe of the Jungle ||
07/25/2017 9:56 Comments ||
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#9
Ones and twos through and around the secondary check-point, with the rendezvous area beyond?
[Hot Air] In the wake of O.J. Simpson’s parole last week, CBS News has a story today titled "Who killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman?" Curiously, the story doesn’t attempt to answer that question. Instead, the entire premise of the story is that the investigation into the murders is officially still open in Los Angeles:
CBS News correspondent Jericka Duncan reports the case is still an open investigation for the Los Angeles Police Department.
A reported 13.5 million people tuned into Simpson’s parole hearing last week. That’s far fewer than the estimated 150 million people who watched his 1995 acquittal.
Still, it shows the O.J. obsession lives on, as well as the debate over who killed Nicole Brown and Goldman.
Does that mean this is really still a debate? One law professor tells CBS that the ’open designation, "may simply mean that because O.J. was acquitted, and they’ve never found another murderer, there’s no reason to shut it down." In other words, if it means anything it’s probably only that there are no other good suspects. And yet, CBS closes the piece by suggesting that the passage of time could make it hard to find the real killer:
#5
Does the civil suit verdict have a claim on future earnings this many years later? I would love to see this POS impoverished and forced to live a meager lifestyle while suffering the opinion of folks around him once he can't be a cash cow to them!
#7
Ignoring for a moment the racially motivated injustice, it's worth noting that Nicole Simpson was a horrible human being who not only broke up OJ's first marriage, but cheated on him with both men and women.
Posted by: regular joe ||
07/25/2017 14:37 Comments ||
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#8
RJ, if we start killing horrible human beings - where will it end?
[WVMETRONEWS] CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A home security camera captured the shocking incident Sunday morning of a woman set on fire in a Charleston neighborhood.
"We have shootings and things of that nature, but this level of depravity is just shocking to the conscience," said Charleston Police Chief of Detectives Lt. Steve Cooper.
Police haven’t released the video, but Cooper added it’s difficult to watch as the suspect walks up on the porch, douses the sleeping victim with gasoline, and lights her on fire.
"She was doused in accelerant and lit on fire by the suspect," said Cooper. "She runs off the porch, tearing her clothes off and trying to put the fire out. She’s just completely engulfed in flames."
The woman, identified as Rachelle Jarrett, 44, of Charleston was asleep on the porch of the abandoned home on Randolph Street on Charleston’s west side. The suspect is unknown to police, but they have been able to get a good image of him from the security footage and hope it will lead to his identity and eventual arrest.
"The night before, he checked into the Union Mission homeless shelter," Cooper said. "We have video surveillance of him there from the night before. He left the homeless shelter and within just a short period of time, he was down on Randolph Street setting this woman on fire."
The suspect used a false name when he checked into the shelter. The victim is at death's door at the burn unit of Cabell-Huntington Hospital.
The incident happened around 6 a.m. Sunday morning. The suspect is also believed to have tried to set a second fire in the neighborhood in a similar manner, but was chased away by property owners. He’s being actively sought by police today.
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07/25/2017 00:00 ||
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[CHICAGO.SUNTIMES] Six men were killed and at least 35 other people were maimed in shootings across reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... between Friday night and Monday morning.
The most recent deaths were the latest of 364 people fatally shot in the city this year, according to data maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times. In all, more than 2,075 people have been shot since the start of the year.
The weekend’s latest fatal shooting happened about 9 p.m. Sunday in the South Side Back of the Yards neighborhood. Damijwan Bonds, 18, suffered gunshot wounds to both legs in the 5400 block of South Damen, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He showed up at Holy Cross Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He's dead, Jim! at 9:59 p.m. Bonds lived about three blocks away from the shooting. The circumstances of the incident weren’t immediately known as Area Central detectives conducted a homicide investigation.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/25/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
Someone at the Burg pointed out this site and it has become a go-to site for Chicago mayhem. Chicago scorecard.
[NYPOST] An angry pregnant wife has attacked her cheating husband’s mistress by allegedly forcing red-hot chili peppers into her vagina. And she held still for that?
Vietnamese media reports Ly Chanel, 23, had noticed her husband had begun disappearing for hours on end. Umm... "Chanel" isn't Vietnamese. Was the husband French or something? Or maybe it's an alias?
They’d only been married seven months. And she was already bearing his first child. Quick worker, huh?
Earlier this week, she followed Chien Keo, 24, to what turned out to be a motel rendezvous in the Thai Nguyen province in Vietnam. Chien's name sounds Chinese. Thai Nguyen province is just north of Hanoi.
Three-months pregnant Ly interrupted the pair and stuffed chilies into the mistress’s vagina while her three female friends held her down on a motel bed. Musta really caught her by surprise if there were only three of them.
The pictures of the incident have shocked internet readers across Asia. Dear Lordy, they took pictures?
And their malevolent message backfired. Furious followers wanted to know why she punished the mistress so severely but ignored her wayward husband. They accused Ly of being cruel. Couldn't fit chilis in there?
Ly responded before shutting down her Facebook page: “How can he care for us if he cheats with another girl? A woman who destroys the family? Women can forgive easily but they can never forget. Jealousy is painful. She will know this.” I'll bet she'll think about it every time she sits down.
“There are people who hate me now, but life is like that, you cannot please everyone.”
Posted by: Fred ||
07/25/2017 00:00 ||
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[NYPOST] A Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, teen livestreamed a deadly car crash on Instagram and then filmed her mortally maimed sister in the aftermath.
Obdulia Sanchez, 18, was filming herself Friday while allegedly driving under the influence on a California highway with two 14-year-old girls in the back seat, according to KSFN-TV.
The camera suddenly shakes frantically as the girls scream. When the film begins again, a bloody scene unfolds.
"Jacqueline, please wake up," Obdulia says while trying to shake 14-year-old Jacqueline Sanchez.
"I f--king killed my sister, OK? I know I’m going to jail for life. I understand that. I don’t f--king care, though. I’m sorry, baby. I’m gonna hold it down."
The California Highway Patrol said Obdulia was under the influence when the car rolled over into a barbed-wire fence before coming to rest in a field.
Jacqueline was sitting in the back of the car without a seat belt and was killed when she was ejected from the vehicle.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Historynet] In the history of the U.S. Navy only seven men have earned all of the "Big Three" valor awards: Medal of Honor, Navy Cross and Silver Star Medal. Six were World War II officers, including one aviator and four submarine commanders. The seventh was enlisted sailor James Elliott "Willy" Williams in Vietnam.
In 1947, Williams, a 16-year-old from Fort Mill, South Carolina, enlisted in the Navy with a fraudulent birth certificate. His first 19 years in the Navy included service aboard the destroyer USS Douglas H. Fox during the Korean War and tours on a variety of naval vessels from 1953 to 1965.
In May 1966 Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class Williams was assigned to River Squadron 5 in South Vietnam to command Patrol Boat, River 105. The approximately 30-foot fiberglass boat usually carried a four-man crew who patrolled inland waterways to prevent the Viet Cong from using them to transport troops and supplies.
On July 1 Williams led a patrol that came under fire from a Viet Cong sampan. His deft maneuvers and accurate fire killed five VC and resulted in capture of the enemy boat, earning Williams a Bronze Star Medal with a "V" for valor. Twenty-two days later the capture of another sampan brought Williams a second Bronze Star for valor. Less than a month later, he received a Silver Star and his first Purple Heart.
The Word of Faith Fellowship used its two church branches in Brazil to siphon a steady flow of young laborers who came on tourist and student visas to its 35-acre compound in rural Spindale, North Carolina. The Brazilians often spoke little English when they arrived and many had their passports seized. "We're made to get up early, make the kids' breakfast, cook, do their beds, pick up their laundry," said Rebeca Melo, a former Word of Faith Fellowship member. AP
When Andre Oliveira answered the call to leave his Word of Faith Fellowship congregation in Brazil to move to the mother church in North Carolina at the age of 18, his passport and money were confiscated by church leaders ‐ for safekeeping, he said he was told.
Trapped in a foreign land, he said he was forced to work 15 hours a day, usually for no pay, first cleaning warehouses for the evangelical church and later working at businesses owned by the sect's senior ministers. Any violation of the rules risked the wrath of church leaders, he said, ranging from beatings to shaming from the pulpit.
An Associated Press investigation has found that Word of Faith Fellowship used its two church branches in Brazil to siphon a steady flow of young laborers who came on tourist and student visas to its 35-acre compound in rural Spindale. The Brazilians often spoke little English when they arrived and many had their passports seized.
"They kept us as slaves," Oliveira told the AP. "How can you do that to people ‐ claim you love them and then beat them in the name of God?"
Under U.S. law, visitors on tourist visas are prohibited from performing work for which people normally would be compensated. Those on student visas are allowed some work, under circumstances that were not met at Word of Faith Fellowship, the AP found.
In 2014, three former congregants told an assistant U.S. attorney that the Brazilians were being forced to work without pay, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by the AP.
Jill Rose, now the U.S. attorney in Charlotte, promised she would "take a fresh look at it," according to the recording. But the former members said she never responded when they repeatedly tried to contact her in the months after the meeting.
[INDYSTAR] Forget pajamas and cartoons. For Halle Pino, Ida Kay and Blair St. Clair, Saturday morning meant story time for a room of young kids — and dress-up story time at that.
The occasion? Drag Queen Storytime at the Indianapolis Central Library. The trio read tales with superhero themes to the kids who sprawled out on the floor, in the seats and on parents' laps in Clowes Auditorium.
On the program were "Ten Rules of Being a Superhero," "Princess Super Kitty," "My Mom Has X-ray Vision" and crafts that included mask-making and coloring. The trio took turns reading the books, sprinkling color commentary throughout that appealed to the few dozen kids and adults.
To keep up engagement, the trio asked questions, including "What did you learn about being a superhero?" and, in reference to superheroes' need to snack, "Do you like cookies?"
The latter seemed to be the most popular topic among the youngest audience members.
The mission of Drag Queen Storytime is to promote literacy, diversity and artistic expression, said Stephen Lane, a library activity guide who plans programs for kids. "I want kids to experience just the fun of being around drag queens, the creativity, their style, their expression of their individuality," Lane said. I've been around drag queens twice in my life. When I was just a young fellow, studying Vietnamese, I went to a club in San Francisco call Finocchio's. You either know or can find out what the name means in Italian. I had some fairly trendy friends at the time -- this was in 1966. At that age I wanted to be fairly trendy too. I'm afraid the entertainers made my skin crawl. A little later (1982) I went a hee-hee-larious joint in Spain. I think it was call Tio Pepe's or something like that. He made my skin crawl too. I guess they didn't get to me young enough.
The event shows kids that it's OK to be different — it's what makes you special, Pino said. Why's it mandatory to be different? You can be different if you're remarkably ugly or if you have a hare lip or you're deaf or blind. Having a club foot or being a dwarf makes you different. Being a drooling idiot or a lightning calculator or genius -- you're different. I can't see that being different, even unique, is either a good thing or a bad thing. It's my opinion that dressing up like a girl if you're male or a guy if you're a girl is a pretty cheap (and reversible) path to being different, and by this time with nothing unique about it.
"When we put on drag, that is a superhero costume because it is an extension of our existing personality," Pino said. "It allows us to do something greater than ourselves by being faces in the community and by being voices in the community." Put on a Superman costume and leap over a tall building in a single bound. Lemme know how that works out for you.
Saturday's event was the second of its kind at the library, Lane said, and he would like to organize more in the future. He worked with the Indy Bag Ladies, an HIV and AIDS fundraising organization, and Open for Service, an organization that supports businesses promoting diversity, to program the first Drag Queen Storytime to coincide with the Circle City IN Pride festival in June. I suppose there's still a good supply of little kids to corrupt.
Lane saw a news story about Drag Queen Story Hour — which takes place San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York — posted to a friend's Facebook page and thought a similar event would be a good fit for Indianapolis.
June's event drew about 100 people, activity guide Shelby Phelps said. For Stephanie Galbreath, Drag Queen Storytime offered something that captured her daughters Sariah, 4, and September, 1.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/25/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
I've done a a few story times with SilkyGurl, a real dawg and a real girl. Sadly she can't read very well, but does enjoy working the crowd, especially at the school fair food court.
#2
Put on a Superman costume and leap over a tall building in a single bound. Lemme know how that works out for you.
Put on costume. Get a running start! Jump on trampoline! "Smack!" "Ow!"
(A couple weeks later, on release from hospital.)
"Sir, here's my final report on my leaping effort, I'm sorry to say it was a failure." "I have to go wash my blood and skin off the side of the building!"
CPRC has just issued our newest annual report on the number of concealed handgun permits in the US. A copy of the report is available for download here. Some updated numbers are shown at the bottom of this post. Past reports can be viewed here. Part of the executive summary is shown here:
During President Obama’s administration, the number of concealed handgun permits soared to over 16.36 million ‐ a 256% increase since 2007. Unlike surveys that may be affected by people’s unwillingness to answer some personal questions, concealed handgun permit data is the only really "hard data" that we have on gun ownership across the United States. Among the findings of our report:
Last year, the number of permit holders grew by a record 1.83 million. This is more than the previous record increase of 1.73 million, set just the year before. Each of the last four years that we have been recording this data has set a new record. Despite expectations that permits were primarily driven by fears of Democratic presidencies, the growth in permits has continued at a similar pace after the November 2016 election.
6.53% of American adults have permits. Outside the restrictive states of California and New York, about 8% of the adult population has a permit.
This sounds like an organized crime hit.
Article corrected to indicate that Edmond Sahakyan was wounded,
not killed.
Two men are dead and four others were wounded in a shooting in the Ukrainian city of Dneipropetrovsk, according to Russian language news accounts.
Russkaya Vesna reported that among the dead was an unidentified Ukrainian army officer who was formerly posted to the Ukrainian theater of operations in Donetsk/Lugansk area. One of the wounded, identified as Edmond Sahakyan, also had served with the Ukrainian Army in southeastern Ukraine.
The shooting took place after two groups of men began arguing at the Hookah House cafe on Ulytsa Gargarin. Apparently it was then that two cars, one of them described as white in color, were driven to the scene. Armed men stepped out with AK-74 rifles and started firing.
The report said the six victims were armed with pistols, but that the guns were not loaded. The shooters with the rifles got their shots off before the other five could load their weapons magazines and return fire.
Witnesses at the scene said in total 10 shots were fired. One of the rifles, an AK-74 underfolder rifle was left at the scene by one of the shooters.
China and India, two nuclear-armed powers with a combined population of 2.7 billion, have been in an "eyeball-to-eyeball" military stand-off over territory in Bhutan, a kingdom in a remote area of the Himalayas, since mid-June. The flare-up, one of the most serious since China won a border war in 1962, comes as the two rising powers jostle for regional influence. The current dispute is near a three-way junction between Bhutan, China's Tibet and India's Sikkim. Much more at link
Moved to P.3: Non-WoT because it's one of those other situations, not related to the excitements of 9/11.
--tw at 7:45 p.m. EDT
Posted by: Seeking cure for ignorance ||
07/25/2017 12:40 ||
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Could get ugly really quick.
Hope cooler heads prevail.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/25/2017 17:00 Comments ||
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[WSJ] BEIJING--China has been bolstering defenses along its 880-mile frontier with North Korea and realigning forces in surrounding regions to prepare for a potential crisis across their border, including the possibility of a U.S. military strike.
A review of official military and government websites and interviews with experts who have studied the preparations show that Beijing has implemented many of the changes in recent months after initiating them last year.
They coincide with repeated warnings by U.S. President Donald Trump that he is weighing military action to halt North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, while exerting pressure on China to do more to rein in Pyongyang.
Recent Chinese measures include establishing a new border defense brigade, 24-hour video surveillance of the mountainous frontier backed by aerial drones, and bunkers to protect against nuclear and chemical blasts, according to the websites.
#2
A quick estimate from the internet shows that the Chinese Communist Party during its rather short history has already killed far more innocent Chinese than the current entire population of North Korea amounts to. You take it from there.
#3
#1 Wonder what Russia is doing on their border?
Posted by: Skidmark 2017-07-25 00:39
Pretty much the usual:
1: Assuring Vlad that everything is under control and that they have a contingency plan.
2: Not doing anything to actually implement the plan.
3: Panic and overreact when refugees suddenly do show up.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/25/2017 4:34 Comments ||
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[Daily Caller] America’s colleges and universities have finally stopped their practice of annually gouging students with price increases for tuition, fees and room and board -- to the accumulated tune of a growth rate of 400 percent in the last three decades.
Labor Department statistics collected by The Wall Street Journal show that aggregate tuition increases in 2017 rose 1.9 percent in 2017. This figure accords with the overall rate of U.S. inflation.
From 1990 to 2016, college tuition costs had increased at an average rate of 6 percent annually, which was more than twice the overall inflation rate for the same period.
This year’s steep decline in college cost increases has many causes.
One cause of the decline is the decision by Congress to stop raising the maximum amount of federally-subsidized student loans which college students can borrow to finance their educations. Congress has not increased this maximum amount since 2008, the Journal notes.
[BBC] The new US special representative for Ukraine says Washington is actively reviewing whether to send weapons to help those fighting against Russian-backed rebels.
Kurt Volker told the BBC that arming Ukrainian government forces could change Moscow's approach.
He said he did not think the move would be provocative.
Last week, the US State Department urged both sides to observe the fragile ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.
"Defensive weapons, ones that would allow Ukraine to defend itself, and to take out tanks for example, would actually to help" to stop Russia threatening Ukraine, Mr Volker said in a BBC interview.
"I'm not again predicting where we go on this, that's a matter for further discussion and decision, but I think that argument that it would be provocative to Russia or emboldening of Ukraine is just getting it backwards," he added.
He said success in establishing peace in eastern Ukraine would require what he called a new strategic dialogue with Russia.
Hmmmmmmmm.
A House IT aide working for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), the former Democratic National Committee chairwoman, was arrested Tuesday on bank fraud charges while trying to leave the country.
Fox News reported that Imran Awan was arrested at Dulles International Airport. Awan, an IT staffer who has worked for many House Democrats and is currently employed by Wasserman Schultz, was allegedly at the center of a scheme that involved double-charging the House for IT equipment, and may also have exposed House information online, according to Fox.
Awan and his family have reportedly worked for House Democrats for years. He declared bankruptcy in 2012, but has made millions of dollars on the House payroll over at least a decade of work for various members, according to a Politico report.
In March, a group of House Democrats fired Awan and one other staffer over their alleged involvement in the scheme and the looming criminal investigation. However, Fox News reported Tuesday that Wasserman Schultz still has Awan on her staff's payroll despite him being barred from accessing the House's computer system since February.
At the time, Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) both defended Awan.
"As of right now, I don't see a smoking gun," Meeks told Politico in March. "I have seen no evidence that they were doing anything that was nefarious."
"He needs to have a hearing. Due process is very simple. You don't fire someone until you talk to them," Fudge added
A spokesman for Wasserman Schultz's office told Politico in March that Awan worked for the staff in an "advisory" role "providing advice on technology issues."
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/25/2017 18:31 ||
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ZeroHedge has more, including the 30 Donks that had Awans on their taxpayer-funded payrolls
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/25/2017 18:53 Comments ||
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#2
Southwest Asians have been in US tech for a long time.
#4
arrested Tuesday on bank fraud charges? When are they going to roll up Debbie? As an aside, Little Miss Debbie and the DNC are being sued by Bernie supporters for something in excess of $5mil in civil court for fraud. See Jampac. BTW, the process server for this suit ended up dead.
h/t Instapundit
Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta says state lawmakers should work to eliminate unnecessary state licenses.
Speaking Friday to state lawmakers gathered in Denver for the annual American Legislative Exchange Council's conference, Acosta called for repealing licensing laws that exist solely to block competition or create a privileged class within the workforce. While only one job out of 20 required a government-issued permission slip in the 1950s, today about a quarter of all jobs in America are subject to licensing. Acosta said that's "part of a nationwide trend where we regulate, and regulate, and regulate" at the expense of individual workers and the economy as a whole.
#1
Electricians, Plumbers, Carpenters, and the like.
If one can pass the written tests and maybe a practical test, that should do it. Four years of next to impossible to get apprenticeship should be eliminated as it's an old hold over union rule that's no longer needed.
We have a serious shortage of skilled trade people because they cannot get an apprenticeship, but is otherwise fully qualified to do the job. We have inspectors to make sure the job is done right.
#2
Seeking, all three trades you mention have installation procedures and serious safety protocols that one does not learn overnight, in 90 days or even in 3 years. The 'mechanics' of a specific type of install might be readily learned, but learning the wide variety of construction types, applicable codes and how to actually do things without injuring or killing yourself (or someone else) take a bit longer.
Technology changes, too. When apprenticeships were shorter, technology overtook the existing training and today's longer educational periods were warranted.
Today's electrician has to know about photovoltaics, communications systems (including fiber optic), HVAC and Building Automation control networks, working with voltages up through 35kV and even how to work with 'Knob & Tube' wiring in old buildings (which is still a legal system, by the way - you just can't install 'new').
Today's plumber has to know about boilers, pumps, heat-reclaim systems, civil utilities, gas piping, various hydronic heating schemes, along with rural septic systems and your kitchen faucet.
Today's Carpenter (unless 'rough-only') has to know about all the various structural requirements and building/roof insulation systems. The ones that do the finish 'Trim' work have to be not only accurate, but also innovative in making what the customer wants actually fit into the available space.
Inspectors for the above trades, and most try to be diligent, are usually in a time crunch to get on to the next site so may not look at everything on a granular level. They have to trust that the tradesperson is performing quality work. By the professional installer having the trade license, a level of confidence in the finished product can be assumed by the inspector. They're not there to tell you how to correct your errors, that's not their job. They'll just make you rip it out and start again. Since they did find one problem, they'll be really critical for the rest of the installation.
And they'll be back again and again until it's all done correctly. You won't get your occupancy certificate and the 're-inspection' fees can get pretty steep.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/25/2017 17:43 Comments ||
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#3
Dang, it's late in the day and I'll like to respond to this.
But I'll try for that tomorrow. I'll save this article.
[The Hill] President Trump and his advisers are floating possible replacements for Attorney General Jeff Sessions -- and the list includes Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), The Washington Post reports.
Cruz and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) are reportedly among the candidates Trump’s team is considering to replace Sessions, though Giuliani said earlier in the day that he's not being considered.
Trump has repeatedly said that he is disappointed by Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the probe into ties between the Trump administration and Russia, saying in an interview last week that he would have never hired Sessions if he knew he would recuse himself.
Trump also slammed Sessions in a tweet Monday morning, asking why our "beleaguered A.G." wasn’t investigating ties between Hillary Clinton and Russia.
Giuliani denied reports that he was up for Sessions’s spot earlier Monday and defended the attorney general’s decision to pull himself from the probe, saying it was "the right decision."
Trump associates are viewing a possible Sessions ousting as a step toward firing special counsel Robert Mueller, according to the Post. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller to his post and has said he would not fire him, but a new attorney general would have the power to do so.
Trump left the option open to fire Mueller in an interview with The New York Times last week.
Cruz and Trump sparred often on the campaign trail when both were seeking the GOP nomination for president.
#1
Given the way Trump whales away at his subordinates, I'm seriously doubtful that Cruz (or anyone able) will step up. It's one thing for Trump to smack his enemies around. It's another for him to do so to his direct reports. He's not an absolute dictator. He can't make them serve on pain of death.
The Apprentice is a TV show where nobodies are recruited with a chance to become big shots. The people in line for cabinet positions are already big shots. Trump can't humiliate his people and expect men of substance to step up. He needs to zip his trap about his guys, and focus his wrath on the Democrats.
#4
They need to save Cruz for a Supreme Court vacancy that has to be coming. Would other Senators vote for him? How many do you think would like to get him out of the Senate?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/25/2017 18:55 Comments ||
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[Al Jazeera] The Maldivian army has locked down the country's parliament after the opposition vowed to move ahead with a vote against a key ally of President Abdulla Yameen.
Politicians defied the ban on Monday, fighting off riot police and scaling metre-high walls to enter the parliament compound.
The opposition was hoping to hold a vote to impeach Speaker Abdulla Maseeh, whom they accuse of ignoring allegations of corruption and rights abuses, before the lockdown came into effect.
They had secured enough support from government defectors to begin impeachment proceedings earlier this month.
But the ruling party dismissed the motion after Yameen announced that four of the defectors had lost their parliamentary seats.
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[Al Jazeera] China has demanded that India pull back its troops from a contested region high in the Himalayas, warning New Delhi not "to push your luck" amid a festering border dispute.
According to Indian officials, about 300 soldiers from either side face each other about 150 metres apart on the Doklam plateau, an area also claimed by India's ally Bhutan.
The standoff began in June when Chinese troops started building a road onto the plateau towards India's border.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The Chinese may soon be facing Indian troops armed with Israeli weapons including some area denial missiles.
[DAWN] The Government of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... has uncovered eight 'ghost' schools employing 15 'ghost' teachers in Tehsil Zehri of Khuzdar district, DawnNews reported on Monday.
The provincial government has initiated a crackdown against ghost schools and teachers in Balochistan after media reports highlighted the issue.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sanaullah Zehri had ordered the probe after reports that there were over 1,500 ghost schools and teachers across the province. "I have started action against ghost schools in my own district", Zehri said in a statement.
Khuzdar Deputy Commissioner Sohailur Rahman visited the area on Monday and visited the ghost schools. The school premises had been turned into stores and livestock could be seen tethered inside the buildings.
The salaries being paid out to the teachers, as well as the funds allocated to the schools, will be stopped, the deputy commissioner said.
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07/25/2017 00:00 ||
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One of my mother's first employers tried something vaguely similar to this during the first year of Social Security. He had about 8 women working for him waiting on tables at his restaurant. When Social Security numbers were issued, he got one number for the whole group, yet made 8 sets of deductions from their pay. Mother learned about this from her next employer.
[DAWN] Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... police on Monday recovered a maiden, allegedly employed as a house maid, from television anchor Gharida Farooqi's home in Lahore on the orders of a sessions court.
The girl's father, Mohammad Munir, had moved the court for the recovery of his daughter, alleging that the girl was being held captive against her and her family's will.
Before the recovery was made, sound recordings of three phone calls -- allegedly between Farooqi and a woman named Shazia -- had circulated widely on social media.
In the recorded exchange, Shazia accused Farooqi of torturing the girl and refusing her an opportunity to meet with her parents. Both allegations were denied strongly by the woman presumed to be Farooqi, who asked for proof of her wrongdoing.
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[BGR] NASA’s Mars rover Opportunity continues to perform some amazing feats despite being long overdue for its expected retirement. The rover, having ventured to a somewhat mysterious site that researchers call Perseverance Valley, has been doing its best to help its handlers decipher exactly how the valley formed. Now, to help show both NASA scientists and the rest of the world a better view of what the landscape looks like, the rover shot a series of panoramic photos that, when stitched together, give you a better feeling of what it would look like to be standing on the Martian landscape yourself.
Looking like just as much of a barren wasteland as it truly is, the planet appears completely lifeless and brutal, but that doesn’t mean it’s not still a lot of fun to look at. With two massive crests, a windswept plain littered with rocks and boulders, and the planet’s signature orangish hue, it’s a glorious reminder of just how different Mars is from Earth, despite being so close.
h/t Istapundit
[CampusRform] Bret Weinstein, the Evergreen State College professor who was driven from campus by a mob of students earlier this year, is preparing to file a $3.8 million claim against the public institution.
The claim accuses Evergreen State of "fostering a racially hostile work and retaliatory environment" by encouraging the student protests that forced Weinstein to flee campus for his own safety.
The students were upset with Weinstein for objecting to a "Day of Absence" event that called for white students and faculty to leave campus for a day of diversity programming.
h/t Instapundit
A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down Washington, DC's latest attempt to limit residents' right to carry guns in public.
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit held in a 2‐1 decision that public carrying of firearms is a "core" Second Amendment right, and that the District's regulations amounted to a "total ban" on exercising that right. The ruling breaks with several federal appeals courts that upheld similar regulations in other states.
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.
[Guardian] Adan Lara Vega said he was told the $5,500 he was being charged to be smuggled into the United States would include an air-conditioned truck ride.
[Hot Air] In the wake of O.J. Simpson’s parole last week, CBS News has a story today titled "Who killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman?" Curiously, the story doesn’t attempt to answer that question. Instead, the entire premise of the story is that the investigation into the murders is officially still open in Los Angeles:
[WVMETRONEWS] CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- A home security camera captured the shocking incident Sunday morning of a woman set on fire in a Charleston neighborhood.
[CHICAGO.SUNTIMES] Six men were killed and at least 35 other people were 
[NYPOST] An angry pregnant wife has attacked her cheating husband’s mistress by allegedly forcing red-hot chili peppers into her vagina.
[NYPOST] A 
[INDYSTAR] Forget pajamas and cartoons. For Halle Pino, Ida Kay and Blair St. Clair, Saturday morning meant story time for a room of young kids — and dress-up story time at that.
China and India, two nuclear-armed powers with a combined population of 2.7 billion, have been in an "eyeball-to-eyeball" military stand-off over territory in Bhutan, a kingdom in a remote area of the Himalayas, since mid-June. The flare-up, one of the most serious since China won a border war in 1962, comes as the two rising powers jostle for regional influence. The current dispute is near a three-way junction between Bhutan, China's Tibet and India's Sikkim.
[Daily Caller] America’s colleges and universities have finally stopped their practice of annually gouging students with price increases for tuition, fees and room and board -- to the accumulated tune of a growth rate of 400 percent in the last three decades.
[Al Jazeera] The Maldivian army has locked down the country's parliament after the opposition vowed to move ahead with a vote against a key ally of President Abdulla Yameen.
