Shocking surveillance video shows a black man repeatedly punching an Asian man pushing a stroller in a random, unprovoked attack in San Francisco. Sidney Hammond was arrested. He was recently released after getting arrested for burglary. #StopAsianHatepic.twitter.com/2F2qFBLNJX
[SFGATE] Police arrested a man who they said is suspected of stabbing two Asian American women without warning Tuesday afternoon in the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... 's Mid-Market neighborhood.
Officers sent to the scene shortly before 5 p.m. found the maimed women, who were taken to a hospital. There was no immediate word on the condition of the women, who were 65 and 85.
Witnesses told KPIX-TV that a man clutching a knife was walking down Market Street when he approached a bus stop, stabbed the women and then walked away.
A 54-year-old San Francisco man was arrested on suspicion of committing the attack several hours later, police told the station.
Police didn't immediately indicate whether the women were specifically targeted or whether the attack might be a hate crime.
[Garden & Gun] "In the river flowing right through town, in our people and in our community spirit: There’s just something special about Wetumpka," says Jenny Stubbs. When talking about the small central Alabama town, Stubbs touts it like it’s her job. And it is: She is the executive director of Main Street Wetumpka, a downtown redevelopment organization. But this passion goes beyond the professional for the eighth-generation native, and when HGTV’s new show Home Town Takeover premieres on May 2, she’s betting others are going to fall for Wetumpka, too.
[NR] Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser on Wednesday defended her decision to prohibit standing and dancing at weddings after her order, which she says aims to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, was the subject of much backlash from residents and media.
Asked by CNN, "What good is a wedding without dancing?" Bowser replied, "I think there’s a lot of good to a wedding, like people starting off their lives together and doing it in a safe way and not doing it in a way that puts themselves or their guests in danger."
#6
Seems like you could point out "no dancing" was a common thing in bible belt states and they'd go the other so fast they'd break an ankle.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/06/2021 8:20 Comments ||
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#7
In 2021, carjacking in DC skyrocketed, reaching more than four times the level of the previous year. Following an tragic attack in which a Pakistani Uber driver named Mohammad Anwar was killed as the result of a brazen carjacking, Bowser released a tweet explaining that carjackings were a crime of opportunity, giving the impression that Anwar was responsible for his own death.[94] Bowser later deleted the tweet, claiming that it was scheduled to go out before the death, but did not apologize or immediately offer any condolences to Anwar's family or condemnation of his killers, who are black, sparking backlash and accusations of racial bias.Wikipedia
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Tunisia’s most powerful labor union rejects reported reforms proposed by the government as part of efforts to secure foreign financing, one of its most bigwigs told Rooters on Wednesday.
A government delegation is in Washington for talks with the International Monetary Fund on a possible $4 billion loan and reforms to eliminate subsidies and reduce the massive public sector wage bill.
On Tuesday, Rooters reported a government document laying out proposals such as encouraging voluntary redundancy on 25 percent pay, early retirement packages and offering staff part time work at 50 percent of full pay.
While the government has not yet formally commented on the details, union acceptance of any reforms is seen as important to its chances of securing the money it says it needs to finance both its debt repayments and this year’s fiscal deficit.
The UGTT has more than a million members and has proven able to mobilize significant opposition to previous governments through strikes, sit ins and pressure on political parties.
"These are unilateral measures that we did not discuss with the government and we were surprised when we read about the details," UGTT deputy secretary general Sami Tahri said.
Last month, the government and UGTT said they had struck a deal on economic reforms that would allow Tunisia to start negotiations with the IMF for a loan program, but they did not reveal its contents and said details remained to be agreed.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/06/2021 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11126 views]
Top|| File under: Arab Spring
[WRAL] Releigh, NC. — Restaurants might be open and allowed to serve more customers, but it doesn't mean they are back to normal.
Heyday Brewing in north Raleigh opened up about eight weeks ago. General Manager Harrison Lassiter says they are trying out a new method to pay staff.
Employees here don’t get tips, instead, they make more than double the state’s minimum wage.
"A lot of excitement over the place, the community that we have here has been really excited," Lassiter said.
One of the first things you’ll notice when you walk in is a sign that reads, "a 15% living wage service fee will be included on every check."
"This allows us to create a little bit more equity between the different positions in the restaurant," Lassiter said.
Lassiter says employees make $15 an hour — more than double the state's minimum wage, which is $7.25 per hour.
"We were upfront when they signed up with us," he explained. "It’s a different model. A lot of restaurants in this industry, especially in Raleigh, are playing around with different models and I think everyone is trying to figure out what’s best for them right now. So far, I think our employees have been completely open to it and enjoying it."
Lassiter says they have been transparent with customers as well. He believes this method is a much better option than raising food and beverage prices.
He says the 15% is strictly used for labor.
"I think it’s very important to us that we are upfront about it and everyone knows exactly what we’re trying to do," Lassiter said.
#1
When you see the size of your tab, tipping will be far from your mind.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/06/2021 8:02 Comments ||
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#2
so they are just automatically adding the tip, just another way of acting like they are so high and mighty while doing nothing different. I bet the servers still expect a tip too.
Posted by: Chris ||
05/06/2021 8:47 Comments ||
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#3
I used to eat at a restaurant where I got clued that tips added to tabs paid with a credit card were being skimmed by the management, cheating the servers. I've tipped cash only ever since, separate from my bill.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/06/2021 9:16 Comments ||
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#4
That 15% 'tip' will represent a sizeable pay cut to my servers (with a couple of notable exceptions.)
#5
Why do I get the vibe this is not supported by actual number crunching, or even a gut instinct honed by years of successful business management?
I guess, from a management position though, you no longer have to hear the shitty loudmouth hiding in the break room complain about the hustler who cares about the customer gets better tips.
Of course that flies in the face of the Gods of the Market Place, "Nothing so discourages and chases off the good employee like management tolerating the behavior of a bad employee."
#EU defense ministers will discuss a proposal to create a 5,000-strong joint #military force capable of deploying rapidly to crisis zones, says a senior EU official. https://t.co/1SHFaCu0J0
#2
The European Rapid Reaction Force has been under discussion for at least 20 years. I think we can assume it just ain't happening.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/06/2021 12:31 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The European Rapid Reaction Force has been under discussion for at least 20 years.
Patience, grasshopper! This is the EU. Just a few more meetings, a position paper, a conference, and more meetings. Now go away, while I do my expense report.
#6
5000 warm bodies? 60% of them will be support, another 20% officers that are looking for a promotion and not getting one. The there's HQ cadre that will never deploy further the parking lot outside their office.
That leaves a couple of companys of folks that probably don't speak a common language. Are you sure the Pentagon didn't come up with this?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/06/2021 20:42 Comments ||
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[JPost] - The US State Department said on Wednesday it had approved the departure of non-emergency US government employees from India because of a surge in COVID-19 cases. Something tells me we haven't seen the last of masks and lockdowns
#1
There are new strains evolving every darn week as the stoic population tries to absorb this cosmic hiccup in its cyclical chakra of birth and death.
#3
There are new strains evolving every darn week as the stoic population tries to absorb this cosmic hiccup in its cyclical chakra of birth and death.
Me, I have trouble believing a new variant that's both more lethal & more infective, evolving naturally. Of course, I also have trouble believing in a virus jumping from bats to humans.
#4
/\ Yes. me as well. Add to that the difficulty I had believing Saddam had no interest in WMD. Perhaps it was the dead Marsh Arabs, or my one-time visits to Al Qaim, Samarra, Akashat, and Salman Pak.
#5
This implies that we have emergency workers in India.
Who gets that cr@ptastic job?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/06/2021 20:34 Comments ||
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#6
I also have trouble believing in a virus jumping from bats to humans.
It is a thing. Zoonosis. More common with chickens, ducks and pigs, but humans, especially including the Chinese, live in closer contact with them. Bats are a suspected reservoir of Ebola, but whether we share the virus or it occasionally jumps is unknown.
So it's a thing. But whether this thing is that thing is a whole 'nother thing.
1) Could have happened naturally.
2) Could have escaped from the virus lab 'studying' bat viruses. Oopsie!
3) Could have been deliberate. That has some implications, eh?
Me, I like #2 - a lab accident or bit of carelessness.
While the Chinese have behaved perfidiously, I don't know if we can take that as a sign of guilt or simply the fact that they are perfidious.
[OneIndia] China is now reinforcing its military positions and rotating troops along the Line of Actual Control. This means that China is showing no intent of de-escalation along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh where it is locked in a stand-off with India for over a year now.
While many would have hoped that the harsh winter would lead to a de-escalation, the Chinese are not converting temporary structures, helipads and surface to air missile positions it had set up last year into permanent positions.
Officials say that China continues to maintain a big force in the friction point areas. The Rutog country area which is only 100 kilometres away has witnessed plenty of activity in the past couple of days. India's worry is that the People's Liberation Army can move forces must faster to the LAC due to better road connectivity.
The last time that talks were held at the military level between the two countries was in April. The Chinese side did not agree to pull back troops at patrolling posts 15, 17 and 17A in the Hot Springs-Gogra-Kongka La areas.
A statement from India said that both sides agreed to resolve issues. "It was highlighted that completion of disengagement in other areas would pave the way for two sides to consider deescalation forces and ensure full restoration of peace and tranquility and enable progress in bilateral relations," the statement read.
"The two sides agreed on the need to resolve the outstanding issues in an expeditious manner in accordance with the existing agreements and protocols," a statement by the Defence Ministry read.
Sources tell OneIndia that the next round of talks would take place after consulting with the politicianship. The talks did not go as planned and several unresolved issues remain. However, nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... it is important to keep talking and find solutions at the earliest, the source also said.
In March, India said that it expects China to work with it through the existing bi-lateral consultation mechanisms between their diplomats and military commanders to ensure early completion of the disengagement process in the remaining areas in easter Ladakh to allow both sides to consider de-escalation of forces.
At the 10th round of the senior commanders meeting, India is learnt to have insisted on a faster disengagement process in areas such as Hot Springs, Gogra and Depsang to defuse tension in the region.
[JPost] - Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike said on Thursday that the number of new COVID-19 cases among younger people are on the rise and called on residents to further curtail their movements.
Mutant strains of the virus are becoming dominant, Darwin called this "evolution"
and fears are growing that the current surge could exceed the third wave that crested in January, Koike said at a meeting of health experts.
Tokyo plans to ask the central government on Thursday to extend the current state of emergency, local media reported, citing unnamed officials.
PPS: Checking worldofmeters, Laos is having a lot of cases, but still has no deaths. Also, Cambodia's had a lot of cases and about a hundred deaths in the last month. Their first death was in the end of March.
But we still can't talk about how they skipped an entire year of the epidemic, because Emmanuel Orangestein Bad.
Title link (not embedded video) is a link to a 3rd party video cam. It had better landing and takeoff video than SpaceX's feed.
For this test ship (SN-15) the StarShip upper stage has a 9 m (30 ft) diameter is 50 m (160 ft) tall, capable of being a fully reusable spacecraft with a dry mass of 120 t (120 long tons; 130 short tons) or less and powered by 3 launch raptors. (The final version will have 3 vacuum raptors and 3 or 4 launch raptors. 3 or 4 launch raptor is still a debate among SpaceX viewers.) Payload should be 100 metric tons or better.
[AnNahar] Fifty-nine containers of highly dangerous substances were cleared Wednesday from the disaster-hit Beirut port, nine months after the earth-shattering kaboom of hundreds of tons of poorly stored ammonium nitrate at the facility caused a deadly and unprecedented peacetime catastrophe in Leb ...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... "Following a strenuous follow-up by caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab for more than eight months, fifty-nine containers of highly dangerous substances found at Beirut port and other places after the Aug. 4 blast disaster were exported today," the Premiership said in a statement.
"German firm Combi Lift worked on sealing these containers in a safe manner over the past months, in line with the contract signed with the company to remove this danger from Lebanon," the statement added.
Germany's ambassador to Lebanon, Andreas Kindl, said the ship carrying the material has left and will arrive in the German town of Wilhelmshaven in about 10 days.
"It will take weeks to destroy the chemicals that have been in the Port of Beirut for decades," Kindl tweeted.
The last of the 59 containers was lifted onto the ship on Friday.
Heiko Felderhoff, CEO of Combi Lift, said they would be disposed of in Germany.
Elias Assouad, the head of the Lebanese-German Business Council, said the project had cleared the port of "all toxic, cancerous, flammable and highly reactive chemicals that have been stored here for decades."
The German firm had been expected "to deal with only 49 containers of hazardous material," he said.
But they ended up "handling more than 75, of which 59 will be shipped."
He said 15 others would be "disposed of within safe and environmentally sound procedures in situ," without providing more details.
A chemical expert managing the operation told AFP after finishing the job in February that Beirut only avoided a second chemical inferno by chance.
Michael Wentler said he had "never seen a situation like this before" in his life, describing festering chemical mixtures so corrosive they burned gaping holes right through massive shipping containers.
Hydrochloric acid, a corrosive and toxic substance, made up 60 percent of the chemicals Combi Lift came across, he said.
The decision to remove the material followed the Aug. 4 blast at Beirut's port that was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history.
Nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate -- a highly kaboom used in fertilizers -- had been improperly stored in the port for years. The catastrophic blast killed 211 people and injured more than 6,000, devastating nearby neighborhoods.
In November, Lebanon signed a deal with Germany's Combi Lift to treat and ship abroad the containers consisting of flammable chemicals. The deal is worth $3.6 million, toward which port authorities in Lebanon paid $2 million while the German government is covering the rest.
Since the August blast and a massive fire at the port weeks later, authorities have been concerned about dangerous material still at the facility. A month after the blast, the Lebanese Army said military experts were called in for an inspection and found 4.35 tons of ammonium nitrate that were removed and destroyed.
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.
[BBC] Two US students have been found guilty of murdering a police officer in Italy following a year-long trial.
[Garden & Gun] "In the river flowing right through town, in our people and in our community spirit: There’s just something special about Wetumpka," says Jenny Stubbs. When talking about the small central Alabama town, Stubbs touts it like it’s her job. And it is: She is the executive director of Main Street Wetumpka, a downtown redevelopment organization. But this passion goes beyond the professional for the eighth-generation native, and when HGTV’s new show Home Town Takeover premieres on May 2, she’s betting others are going to fall for Wetumpka, too.
[NR] Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser on Wednesday defended her decision to prohibit standing and dancing at weddings after her order, which she says aims to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, was the subject of much backlash from residents and media.
You didn't invent that art form! All forms of cultural appropriation must be ended. 
[OneIndia] China is now reinforcing its military positions and rotating troops along the Line of Actual Control. This means that China is showing no intent of de-escalation along the Line of Actual Control in eastern Ladakh where it is locked in a stand-off with India for over a year now.
...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
