[NY Post] Followup to our story from the other day
The death of a Texas airport worker who was sucked into a jet engine Friday night has been ruled a suicide, officials said Monday.
The worker, identified Monday as 27-year-old David Renner, died of blunt and sharp force injuries at San Antonio International Airport, KEN 5 reported, citing the ruling from the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The medical examiner’s office said staff "saw signs that pointed to suicide," according to WOAI.
Emergency crews discovered the horrific scene after responding to reports of a ground worker who was "ingested" into the engine of the Delta plane that had just landed from Los Angeles.
An investigation was initially launched by the National Transportation Safety Board, but was halted Monday after the medical examiner’s determination.
"The NTSB will not be opening an investigation into this event. There were no operational safety issues with either the airplane or the airport," an agency spokesperson said, according to KEN 5.
Both Delta and the company that hired Renner, Unifi Aviation, previously expressed condolences over the sudden death.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/27/2023 09:05 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11133 views]
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#1
Seems like a really unpleasant way to 'suicide'.
"no operational safety issues"
"NTSB will not be opening an investigation"
Convenient.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/27/2023 9:17 Comments ||
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#2
If vehicles crash it is immediately "Operator Failure" ...how covenient.
#7
/\ Yeah, that engine almost certainly will be pulled and shipped off for depot maintenance. Somebody has got a real fun job when they do the tear down.
[Breitbart] The command, which produces the Army’s Special Forces, posted the flag — known as the intersex-inclusive Pride Progress flag — on its Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts, along with this message:
USASOC recognizes June as Pride month, celebrating all LGBTQ+ members in our formations. Throughout American history, LGBTQ+ members have not only fought for the right to serve openly, but have also fought in every major war and conflict. Despite the challenges LGBTQ Army Soldiers and Civilians faced, their commitment to service has made our military stronger and the Nation safer.
USASOC recognizes June as Pride month, celebrating all LGBTQ+ members in our formations. Throughout American history, LGBTQ+ members have not only fought for the right to serve openly, but have also fought in every major war and conflict. pic.twitter.com/MhwAXyIUD5
#1
Back in the early 90's when Clinton pushed for Women in Special Forces and integration of females into other lesser Combat roles.
At Ft. Bragg we had a SFOD "Pink Team" that had more male physical characteristics, than typical females. But they actually did a good job during Panama.
A pair, did however, get booted for getting know each other too deeply while deployed.
#2
/\ Para three. A faux tryst with an evil twist and a betrayal, as you may recall. The wife had second thoughts about the divorce and filed a complaint with the front office instead. The bait could have easily been an olympic gymnast.
#3
To my understanding, Seals used to go out to bars and beat up civilians for team building. Maybe this new team building will save some poor drunk slobs from getting the doodoo knocked out of them.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/27/2023 6:51 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Re #3 - a popular pastime in the early 80’s was to encircle the dance floor of a Seattle punk rock club then “slam dance” to the center. Deniable yet refreshing
#7
FT. Bragg, in the 90's it was Rick's Lounge area in Fayetteville. A lot of Ranger / SF hand 2 hand tune up on Fri / Sat nights. Given the number of want a be muggers looking to roll a drunk GI.
[FoxNews] More overseas bases could begin banning retirees
Military retirees living in Turkey were told they will lose access to U.S. bases in the country this fall – cutting them off from vital services and access to American products.
#1
When I visited my son when he was stationed in England, I could not buy things at the exchange or commissary, due to the status of forces agreement.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
06/27/2023 0:08 Comments ||
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#2
Landstuhl US Army Hospital, in Landstuhl, Germany, near Ramstein Air Base would NOT treat US military retirees or their dependents in 2006-2012. I doubt the policy has changed. Always gave me a twinge of patriotism to read about Non-US personnel from the Stans, DoS, or OGA being flown to Landstuhl for treatment. US Military retiree contractors were provided emergency medical and dental care in Iraq and the Stans.
Retirees were also prohibited from shopping at the PX/BX at Ramstein, Kaiserslautern, and elsewhere. ID's were examined at checkout by yes, German national employees with typical German efficiency. If you presented a US Gov't Common Access Card (CAC) Card, the contact expiration date was checked with the same rigid efficiency.
Foto is of the Berlin Airlift 1947-1948 to. A total of nearly 300,000 flights were made to Tempelhof and elsewhere.
Re: Exchange - It's all about the host nation, SOFA, and....taxes. All kinds of stories of US contractor dad married to foreign wife and sending kids to local schools. Ordinarily resident I think was a buzz phrase that usually got them in tax hot water. Then there's our lovely US government which taxes anything that walks.
I can understand Landstuhl being quite the busy place during the AFG mess, but to deny treatment to US military retirees was/is an absolute disgrace.
I thought there was an [honor] system in place where if retirees bought something at the PX that they filed some form to pay any VAT on any purchases.
Well, the days of the Cold War are but a distant memory. I wish we wouldn't even be having this issue had the US and NATO downsized after the demise of the Warsaw Pact.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/27/2023 7:46 Comments ||
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#5
The key words here are "Status of Forces Agreement" which is literally a treaty. Retirees are in the same situation as any other citizen living in a foreign country with or without any allied military presence.
Weren't retirees promised healthcare for life?
Since the 1980s, enlistment and reenlistment documents specify that only the things listed in the contract are guaranteed.
#6
I don't have a problem with retirees making a conscious decision to reside in a foreign country and being subject to that nation's laws, including the SOFA. Excuses about lack of a "Box R" through the APO don't arouse much sympathy and claims of being unable to receive medication and mailing absentee ballots push the b.s. or whine meter. Bottom line is that they decided to live where they live, no matter the reason.
But if a US military installation, especially a health facility, denies a retiree basic service, then that's just a shame.
#7
P.S. - Thanks, P2k on the contract info. We've come a long way with the volunteer army. But a deal's a deal (unless you have a student loan or a bank needs to be bailed out, but I digress).
#10
I wonder how many retirees are living in Mexico? Generally speaking their pharmaceuticals (produced by quality companies in Mexico) are much cheaper than stateside. Booze certainly is cheaper. What more do you need?
#11
The background issue here is 4th dimensional thinking.
Not just "this seems like a nice place".
Try "this seems like a nice place, now".
(Works right here in the US, too.)
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/27/2023 9:31 Comments ||
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#14
If we had a SOFA with Mexico, would it solve the problem of illegals getting money, phones, medical care, schools, and welfare here? Seems like the same idea?
[FoxNews] A California district administrator, who said he wanted to bring voices opposing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives "to the slaughterhouse," was sued by a faculty member – along with the entire district – for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights.
The Institute for Free Speech filed a lawsuit against district administrators on behalf of Bakersfield College professor Daymon Johnson, who said he was being targeted for investigation after being outspoken about his political beliefs, the College Fix reported Wednesday.
The Bakersfield College is a public institution operated by the Kern Community College District.
The lawsuit said the investigation began after plaintiff Johnson responded to a post from a faculty member – Andrew Bond – which called America a "f---ing piece of s--- nation."
"Maybe Trump’s comment about s---hole countries was a statement of projection because honestly, the US is a f---ing piece of s--- nation. Go ahead and quote me, conservatives," Bond said, according to the lawsuit.
Johnson called Bond an "SJW" – social justice warrior – a slang term used by right-wingers to describe far-left individuals they believe are easily made upset or "triggered" when confronted with facts they don't like and alternative viewpoints.
"Do you agree with this radical SJW from BC’s English Department? Thoughts?" Johnson said. "Maybe [Bond] should move to China, and post this about… the Chinese Communist Party and see how much mileage it gets him."
Bond subsequently filed an administrative complaint with the college against Johnson for "harassment and bullying," according to the lawsuit.
As a result, the complaint said Johnson has been investigated and fears that he will be fired.
"Professor Johnson refrains from expressing himself on political matters for fear of being subjected to further investigations and termination," the suit said. "The First Amendment, however, guarantees Professor Johnson’s right to express himself, and it forbids the state from mandating that he subscribe to or promote any official ideology."
The lawsuit said that the university recently fired professor Matthew Garrett, who had been outspoken about antiracist initiatives from the district.
The vice president of Kern, John S. Corkins, who was named in the lawsuit, used heated language against faculty who opposed the district's diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
"They’re in that five percent that we have to continue to cull," he said. "Got them in my livestock operation and that’s why we put a rope on some of them and take them to the slaughterhouse. That’s a fact of life with human nature and so forth, I don’t know how to say it any clearer."
The lawsuit said, "The five percent that Defendant John Corkins referred to are faculty of Bakersfield College. They must be slaughtered, so to speak, for transgressions including… the failure to censor their colleagues’ Facebook posts, all in opposition to the school’s official ideology."
"Plaintiff Daymon Johnson has special reason to be concerned about his future as a Bakersfield College professor should he continue to express his views," the lawsuit said. "Indeed, Bakersfield College has already subjected Professor Johnson to a lengthy and intrusive investigation merely for criticizing and questioning a colleague’s views.
"The First Amendment… forbids the state from mandating that he subscribe to or promote any official ideology," the suit said.
It went on to demand the court's grant injunctive relief to Professor Johnson in order to secure "his First Amendment rights against being 'culled' like a disruptive animal for disagreeing with Defendants’ political views."
Vice President Corkins later apologized for his remarks about slaughterhouses at a public meeting.
"I apologize to anyone who felt threatened or was offended. My intent was to emphasize that the individuals who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting have my full support," he said in a statement.
The university did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
[Mail] Crowds of shoppers camped out overnight for the public opening of the world's largest convenience store - a Buc-ee's travel center in Tennessee.
The store, located in Sevierville, is the first business to open at Exit 407: Gateway to Adventure - a 200-acre development owned and operated by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
The new site spans 74,000 square feet, boasts 120 gas pumps, a 250-foot car wash and has 400 full-time employees.
Fans reportedly began lining the streets on Sunday evening ahead of the opening at 6AM on Monday morning.
Local traffic officials previously warned that any new Buc-ee's stores tend to attract a 'miles-long line of cars.'
#2
When in Sevierville, visit Smokey Mountain Knifeworks and Bud's Guns. Oh, yeah, and Gatlinburg, too...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/27/2023 6:51 Comments ||
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#3
Much smaller store on I-75 West of Fairmount, GA. A three-ring Walmart with gas pumps and expensive bbq. Drive defensively both entering and exiting.
Driven past it dozens of times. With luck, I'll drive past it dozens more.
#4
...Last February, I stopped by the newly opened Buc-ee's on I-95 in SC (at 0630, no less) just to see what all the fuss was about.
It is indeed a cross between a WalMart and the mother of all truck stops, but this HAS to be said: the food was good, if a touch pricey...and that place was so clean you could about eat off the floors.
[AlAhram] Angry voters where Germany's far-right AfD party won its first district election over the weekend say they were out to punish the political establishment in Europe's top economy.
Speaking to AFP in the ex-communist town of Sonneberg, residents said government officials had long failed to take their mounting concerns over inflation and immigration seriously.
Ingo Schreurs, 58, said he hoped the AfD's new district administrator Robert Sesselmann would "give voice to the worries and fears and outrage of a lot of citizens".
Blaming Berlin for "destructive economic policies", Schreurs said a highly controversial energy policy reform, for example, had left locals "afraid that we won't be able to heat our homes this winter".
- 'WATERSHED MOMENT' -
Holger Mueller, 49, said he "no longer saw any Germans" when he drove at night through Sonneberg, nestled on a hillside and famous for more than a century throughout Germany for its toy industry. He hopes the AfD will "stop the flow of foreigners".
Sesselmann, a lawyer and regional politician, on Sunday captured 52.8 percent of the vote in a closely watched run-off election.
He beat his conservative rival Juergen Koepper, who had won the endorsement of all the mainstream parties in a bid to block an AfD victory.
The news the AfD would be running its first district council, albeit in a small constituency of just 57,000, struck like a bombshell. Public broadcaster ARD called it a "watershed moment" while the top-selling newspaper Bild called it a "vote in anger" and the leftist daily Tageszeitung expressed "shock" at the outcome. The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, compared the victory to a "dam break" that "democratic political forces in this country must not simply accept".
Far from just a one-off coup in a remote, thinly populated district, the AfD's triumph came after weeks of surging poll numbers at the national level. An INSA institute survey Monday by Bild showed the extreme right party with more than 20.5 percent, ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's ruling Social Democrats with 19.5 percent, its coalition partners the Greens (13.5 percent) and the pro-business FDP (6.5 percent).
Only the centre-right Christian Democrats had a better showing, at 26.5 percent.
The AfD is polling even better in the former communist East German states of Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony, which will see regional elections next year where the party is hoping to score even bigger breakthroughs.
- 'JUST THE BEGINNING' -
The AfD was founded in 2013 as an anti-euro outfit before morphing into an anti-Islam, anti-immigration party, harnessing a backlash against then chancellor Angela Merkel ...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslem colonists... 's welcoming stance toward refugees.
It stunned the political establishment when it took around 13 percent of votes in the 2017 general elections, catapulting nearly 100 politicians into the German parliament.
The AfD slid to around 10 percent in the 2021 federal election.
In Germany, where coalition governments are the norm, mainstream parties have always ruled out forming an alliance with the AfD.
But news magazine Der Spiegel called the party's win in Sonneberg "the result of a collective failure" of the political class, pointing to persistent squabbling in Scholz's coalition and the conservative opposition "pouring oil on the fire with populist rhetoric".
#1
Holger Mueller, 49, said he "no longer saw any Germans" when he drove at night through Sonneberg
Considering your birthrate is so far below replacement numbers you will all be extinct in 200 years, ya might want to get the young people banging in heterosexual, unprotected sex and not have abortions.
More on this story from yesterday. The left having so blatantly failed at governing across the world, voters are increasingly willing to see if the right is more sensible.
[IsraelTimes] New Democracy campaigns on platform to secure economic growth, political stability; 42 seats shared by small parties, including one endorsed by jailed leader of Nazi-inspired party.
Greece’s center-right leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis is to be sworn in as prime minister on Monday, hours after easily winning a second term with a record-high margin over the left-wing opposition in an election that also ushered new far-right parties into parliament.
With 99.67% of the vote counted, Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party had 40.55% of the vote — more than twice the main opposition Syriza’s 17.84%. It was the largest margin of victory in half a century, and slightly expanded ND’s 20-percentage-point lead in the previous election five weeks before.
Held under a new electoral law that boosts the first party, Sunday’s vote gives ND a comfortable majority of 158 seats in the 300-member Parliament, with Syriza getting 48. Center-left PASOK elected 32 politicians and the Stalinist-rooted Communist Party 20.
The remaining 42 seats will be shared between three far-right parties — and one representing the far-left.
To the dismay of centrists, Sunday’s strong swing to the right was also accompanied by the return of the far right into parliament.
One of them, Spartiates (Spartans), is endorsed by the jugged ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... former front man of the neo-Nazi ...adherents of a philosophy that was seen even at the time as pure evil, which makes them either consciously and purely evil, or attention-seeking ratbags. Pick one, or both.... party Golden Dawn and will make an entrance in parliament after crossing the three percent threshold.
Tsipras said the strongest showing of Greek hard-right parties in decades was a "visible" threat to democracy.
"Fascists will enter parliament... this constitutes a completely toxic environment," senior Syriza leader Costas Zachariadis told Skai TV.
Voter turnout was just under 53%, compared to just over 61% in the May vote.
Mitsotakis, 55, campaigned on a platform of securing economic growth and political stability as Greece gradually recovers from a nearly decade-long financial crisis.
Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou is set to formally hand him the mandate to form a government on Monday, after which he will be sworn in and announce his new Cabinet.
His main rival, 48-year-old Alexis Tsipras, served as prime minister from 2015 to 2019 during some of the most turbulent years of Greece’s financial crisis. Despite Syriza’s dismal performance, Tsipras has shown no inclination to resign, and there have been no open calls from within his party for him to do so. After Sunday’s result, Tsipras said Syriza would move on to focus on next year’s European parliamentary elections.
Mitsotakis, a Harvard graduate, comes from one of Greece’s most prominent political families. His late father, Constantine Mitsotakis, served as prime minister in the 1990s, his sister served as foreign minister and his nephew is the current mayor of Athens. The younger Mitsotakis has vowed to rebrand Greece as a pro-business and fiscally responsible eurozone member.
The strategy, so far, has worked. New Democracy won in all but one of the country’s 59 electoral regions, capturing traditional Socialist and leftwing strongholds, some for the first time.
Despite scandals that hit the Mitsotakis government late in its term, including revelations of wiretapping targeting senior politicians and journalists and a deadly Feb. 28 train crash that exposed poor safety measures in public transportation, voters appeared happy to return to power a prime minister who delivered economic growth and lowered unemployment.
[NYPOST] Goldman Sachs has begun axing managing directors across the globe as the Wall Street giant looks to cut costs amid a profitability crunch, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
About 125 managing directors, including some in investment banking, are going to be fired as part of a round of layoffs that’s set to affect 250 employees at every level, a spokeswoman told The Post.
While the spokeswoman declined to comment any further, sources — who asked to remain anonymous since the matter isn’t public — told Bloomberg that managing directors have already begun to receive pink slips.
The latest reduction in headcount comes as deal values have fallen more than 40% to $1.2 trillion this year.
Goldman Sachs ranked as the No. 2 adviser globally, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The last time the bank didn’t place first at the year’s halfway point was in 2018, the data showed.
Wall Street financial firms regularly expand and contract following the rise and fall of the markets. It’s a known risk for those who take jobs there, and is equally regularly followed by staffing movement in the opposite direction as regional and local firms pick up top notch staff on the cheap.
- Pro-America Patriot rally ongoing - Feds show up dressed as "Nazis" - Patriots force Feds out of rally - Unmask the Feds, who PANIC - The "Nazis" cry, tremble in fear - Cops rush to save Feds
Anyone else recognize the matching Khaki Fed slacks?
Well would ya look at that! #ProudBoys are STILL the ONLY organized group to actually stand against and remove fascists! Rose City Nationalists (Inbred Nazis) decided to come and try to stand with the Proud Boys counter protesting #OregonCityPride. Watch What Happens! Video... pic.twitter.com/3dJtDD9p54
— Robert R. Zerfing - The Common Sense Conservative (@RobertRZerfing) June 25, 2023
#2
Rose City Nationalists? Sounds like minor league baseball but they don't brawl nearly as good.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
06/27/2023 8:07 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The only Rose City in the Rantburg archives is Rose City Antifa, founded in 2007 in Portland, Oregon. But according to their website the Rose City Nationalists appeared a year ago.
#4
^ A little after PF showed up. Given history of RCA, one thinks they should have squared off by now but it appears that these 2 groups have not heard of each other. Odd.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
06/27/2023 12:40 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Feds gotta keep up the bad rep and create charges for the Proud boys. They have a mandate to increase domestic white nationalist terrorism.
[Dawn] Two former chief ministers of India-held Kashmir ...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there.... have demanded an investigation into an alleged incident of Indian soldiers forcing Moslem worshippers in a mosque in the valley’s Pulwama area to chant Hindu slogans, the Indian media has reported.
"Shocked to hear about army troops from 50 RR (Rashtriya Rifles) storming into a mosque at Pulwama and forcing Moslems inside to chant ’Jai Shree Ram’. Such a move when [Home Minister] Amit Shah is here and that too ahead of yatra (a Hindu pilgrimage) is simply an act of provocation," said former CM Mehbooba Mufti in reaction to the reports.
She requested Indian Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai, who recently took command of India’s Chinar Corps in the area, to "immediately set up a probe" into the reported incident.
Similarly, former CM Omar Abdullah termed the reports "deeply distressing".
"It’s bad enough they entered but then forcing people to chant slogans like ’Jai Shree Ram’ as reported by the locals there, is unacceptable," he said, referring to a Hindu religious slogan.
He expressed hope that Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh would issue instructions for the reports to be investigated in a "timely and transparent manner".
THE INCIDENT
According to Indian news website The Wire, the residents of Zadoora — a village in occupied Kashmir’s Pulwama area — said the alleged incident took place on June 24 around 1:30am when soldiers of Rashtriya Rifles, a counter-insurgency force, arrived at the village, reportedly along with an unidentified officer.
"While the officer was sitting on the bonnet of one of the vehicles, the soldiers asked me to come out," Mohammad Altaf Bhat, a Zadoora local and chairman of the Zadoora Civil Society group, told The Wire.
"I thought that they were looking for some suspects in the village," he said, adding that the soldiers told him that a new team was being posted in the area and it was conducting a mock drill in the village to teach recruits how to carry out counter-insurgency operations.
"I told them that the operation could have been carried out during the day also and it was wrong to disturb villagers in the middle of the night," the report quoted Bhat as saying, who said the villagers were kept awake till dawn.
Then around dawn, Bhat told The Wire, Indian army soldiers followed the muezzin (one who makes call for prayers). "In the middle of the azaan (call to prayer), the soldiers forced him to chant ’Jai Shree Ram’ slogans," he alleged.
According to the report, area residents alleged that Indian army soldiers detained at least 10 villagers during their exercise and five of them were beaten up, including Bhat’s son.
"They (soldiers) forced the detained youngsters to chant ’Jai Shree Ram’ slogans in chorus behind him also," Bhat further claimed.
Moreover, The Wire quoted local sources as alleging that the army also vandalised the Jamia Masjid Zadoora.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again... Indian news website Scroll.in reported that a similar incident reportedly took place in at least one other mosque in the area.
The Wire quoted a senior army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, as saying that the incident had "come into their notice".
"We are ascertaining the facts. Once we have clarity about what has happened, we will share the details," the report quoted the officer as saying.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Kinnison began his slow infiltration of the sewer system... The Telegraph quoted Bhat as saying that high-ranking army officials had apologised to the villagers on Sunday, adding that the officials had said that an army major involved in the incident was also removed.
"We are satisfied with the army’s action but we don’t want a repeat of such incidents," he said.
From a week ago, following the wedding of Jordan’s crown prince to a pretty, rich co-ed from Saudi Arabia, the country the royal family used to rule before the House of Saud stole it from them.
[AnNahar] Visitors to Jordan this month noticed a new addition to the royal portraits over highways and hospitals. The 28-year-old Crown Prince Hussein and his glamorous Saudi bride, Rajwa Alseif, now beam down at motorists stuck in Amman traffic.
Their royal wedding represented the pinnacle of the monarchy's efforts to establish Hussein as the face of Jordan's next generation — a future king who can modernize the country, slash the red tape and set loose the talents of its bulging young population. Of nearly 10 million people in Jordan, almost two-thirds are under 30.
But in the dilapidated streets of the poorer districts in the capital, Amman, and in the dusty villages of the countryside, there is little hope for change. Almost half of all young Jordanians are jobless. Those with means dream of lives abroad. Many grumble but few speak out — the government is quick to quash hints of dissent.
The story of economic pressure and political repression is common across the Middle East. Like in Egypt, Iraq and Tunisia, Jordan's once-bloated public sector has left the state with little to spend on health and education. Efforts to slow public hiring and cut subsidies have eroded the social contract that kept citizens compliant. Many blame corrupt officials — and, increasingly, the palace — for their misery.
"The base of support is fraying," said Tariq Tell, a Jordanian professor of political science at the American University of Beirut. "Hussein has a difficult task on his hands."
While June's royal wedding generated momentary excitement in Jordan, its luxurious setting and VIP guests also highlighted the vast gulf between the prince's life of privilege and the daily struggles of most Jordanians of his age.
Here are some of the young faces of Jordan, a country central to the future of the Middle East.
#2
Remember why there was a Black September movement? The urban mob, mostly Palestinian or other Arab nationality immigrant origins, were sympathizers of the PLO. The King and his Bedouin allies crushed them before they turned Jordan into another Lebanon...
Still, Jordan has few resources that don't require a lot of hard effort to make profitable and a lot of young urban males. In Sir Richard Burton's , not the actor but the 19th century British officer and explorer, book Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah(1855) ( link to downloadable .pdfs of his extensive works!) he gives some interesting insights on the culture both Arab and Muslim pilgrims he encountered. Basically, they despised workers as inferior to warriors -- barely better than chattel slaves. Not that Sir Burton seemed an arabophobe (he saves most of his bile for 'Hindoo Indians'), he actually seems more than friendly to the Sufi version of Islam.
How do you get anywhere if you don't want to work because it is demeaning?
[AnNahar] Some 2 million Moslem pilgrims officially began the annual Hajj pilgrimage on Monday, making their way out of Mecca after circling Islam's holiest site, the Kaaba, and converging on a vast tent camp in the nearby desert for a day and night of prayer.
One of the largest religious gatherings in the world has returned to full capacity this year for the first time since the onset of the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic three years ago.
The pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all Moslems are required to make the five-day Hajj at least once in their lives if they are physically and financially able to do it.
For pilgrims, it is a deeply moving spiritual experience that absolves sins, brings them closer to God and unites the world's more than 1.8 billion Moslems. Some spend years saving up money and waiting for a permit to embark on the journey.
Maintaining the holy sites and hosting the annual Hajj is a major source of pride and legitimacy for the Saudi royal family,
...not to mention lots and lots of money...
which captured Mecca in the 1920s. The pilgrimage has occasionally been marred by tragedy, as in 2015, when over 2,400 people died in a stampede and crush of pilgrims.
As the outbreak of the coronavirus led to worldwide lockdowns in 2020, Saudi authorities limited the Hajj to a few thousand citizens and local residents. The year before, some 2.5 million Moslems had taken part.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
06/27/2023 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Saudi Arabia
Posted by: Super Hose ||
06/27/2023 15:31 Comments ||
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#5
No alien is an alien! Also...
We demand that when Aliens land,
If they don't look like Ra and his band
They be branded far right
White-adjacent on sight
And be given the back of our hand!
Full disclosure: always loved one ol' Sonny.
Posted by: Bill Spawn of the Huns1784 ||
06/27/2023 23:59 Comments ||
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[SelfRelianceCentral] This is way more fascinating than you’d imagine! Check out this cannon mouse trap known as the 1862 Mouse Killer that he sets up in the barn.
It’s also a cool lesson in Civil War rifles, black powder and bullets.
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.
[FoxNews] A California district administrator, who said he wanted to bring voices opposing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives "to the slaughterhouse," was sued by a faculty member – along with the entire district – for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights. 
...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as 
...adherents of a philosophy that was seen even at the time as pure evil, which makes them either consciously and purely evil, or attention-seeking ratbags. Pick one, or both....
[NYPOST] .jpg "Kashmir")
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it 
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
