That takes some doing, to shock the sophisticated French.
[THEGUARDIAN] It is a saga of money, fame and destitute women ferried to luxury locations for sex with powerful men, against a backdrop of economic deprivation and social misery. France has been shaken this week by harrowing testimony from a trial in Lille that not only put in the dock Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund chief and one-time French presidential hopeful, but also examined a much wider, depressing picture of poverty, women submitted to sex acts against their will and alleged pimps who referred to them as “livestock”. At this point you're probably asking yourself: "What do his sexual depredations have to do with the way he did his job?" To which my reply is: "He wasn't arrested for the way he did his job." Even once the women had been reduced to the status of "livestock," if somebody rents you his cow you have an obligation to return it in as good condition as you got it. To complete the train of thought, the fact that he's able to regard other human being as "livestock" should really tell you what he thinks about all human beings who aren't him and (perhaps!) aren't in his personal circle. The way we think guides our decision-making.
In court, Strauss-Kahn, 65, the one-time hero of the French left, Does the French left still acknowledge that he was once their standard-bearer, or have they now rearranged historical records such that they never knew him?
flatly denied the accusation he aided and abetted the prostitution of seven women – a charge of “aggravated pimping” that carries a 10-year prison sentence. He said he never knew or suspected there were any prostitutes among the many women brought to him by regional French businessmen friends for group sex, at what he termed “festive afternoons” in Europe and the US while he was head of the IMF. Ah, yes. A string of many women are brought to you at the old chateau, among which you can pick and choose like a sultan, and you never, no never, not once, suspect they might be hookers. And you're supposed to be smart enough to run the world bank, telling entire nations where to spend their remaining money.
But after three days of distressing testimony at a court in Lille – during which two prostitutes said Strauss-Kahn had subjected them to a sex act they did not want, and he self-assuredly explained his appetite for group sex and how his sexual style was “rougher than the average man” – France began considering the wider implications of the vast trial known as the “Carlton Affair”, after the luxury hotel in Lille in which Strauss-Kahn has never set foot, but which was at the centre of the first investigation... There's more. It's just as grimy.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2015 12:10 ||
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#1
Was he on a plane with Clinton to the Caribbean, too?
[NEWSBUSTERS.ORG] NPR’s All Things Considered was surprisingly honest on Wednesday night about Jon Stewart’s departure from The Daily Show. Stewart was credited for “influencing the way a generation of young people, especially liberals, view the news and politics.” Correspondent Don Gonyea admitted the president of the College Democrats “sees Jon Stewart as being on her side” and cited research that shows Stewart’s audience is overwhelmingly liberal. Why do we pay for "National Public Radio?" Shouldn't we expect it to be at least kinda fair and balanced?
Compare and contrast: The Myth of Jon Stewart’s ‘Millennial’ Following
BLUF: 780,000 or 1.5% of millennials watch the Daily Show regularly. So much for influencing the way a generation views news and politics. But don't tell NPR, et al. If they knew, they might feel a need to do something about it.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
Where are those youngsters on the left going to get their news (sarc)?
[LUCIANNE] NBC investigating Brian Williams´ claims that he witnessed fall of Berlin Wall and met Pope John Paul II ...watched the moon landing arrive, the Bataan Death March, and the Rape of Nanking. Met Winston Churchill, Lenin, Stalin, Einstein, Elvis, and Sammy Davis, Sr. Canadian Free Press has an interesting article entitled 'Strange Timing.'
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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#8
"Of the action I saw, to be honest,
That time on the chopper was hottest.
Despite huge balls of brass,
I caught flak in my ass --
I'd show you if I weren't so modest!"
#9
Ms. Magdalene, I know this is a trying time for you, I understand you knew the deceased. But could we just for a moment talk about the seven demons the deceased is alleged to have quote Cast Out unquote.
[DAILYCALLER] Yale anti-fossil fuel campaigners have indefinitely postponed a protest that was set for this weekend due to “unfavorable weather conditions and other logistical issues.”
Fossil Free Yale, a group pushing the university to divest itself from fossil fuels, told the Yale Daily News that frigid, snowy weather set for this weekend will mean their global warming protest will have to be postponed.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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[CA.NEWS.YAHOO] Following a series of record-setting snowfalls, New England on Friday got a new metric for how severe its winter has been: The town of Alton, New Hampshire called off its annual ice carnival due to a forecast calling for more snow and brutal cold.
"It'll be zero degrees and blowing snow, and that's not a good time for everybody," said Roger Sample, who owns a construction business in the town on the shores of New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee and serves as the carnival's chairman.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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Leftists love to divide and conquer. When I was with Amnesty International (27 years ago) discussions at meetings were always about how to "move" an issue to the left, such as the death penalty, usually by splitting basic objections by classes of instances in which objections to the death penalty were less firm.
Now Michael Bloomberg, who brought you magazine limits in Colorado and Connecticut, wants to limit firearms to minorities based on government statistics, if that group has been naughty with guns. The idea was probably popular with his audience at the Aspen Institute, but the implications are that as government divides and mixes ethnic and other group statistics, the main targets eventually will be armed patriots.
David Codrea pointed out that Bloomberg, being Jewish, was also part of a minority group, two if you count being fabulously wealthy, and would be subject to those rules.
But the implications are stark. Disarm the black folks. Or Mexicans. Or Jews.
I understand, Eric, but your fascist allies at the state level had a helluva grand time tearing fundamental rights from their resident serfs, and you oversaw the Department of Justice while that was going on. So you all got that going for you.
Loads.
Rantburg's summary for arms and ammunition:
Prices for rifle ammunition were steady, while prices for pistol ammunition were mostly lower.
Prices for used rifles were mostly higher while prices for used pistols were mixed.
Pistol Ammunition
.45 Caliber, 230 grain, From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (4Q, 2014)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Blok Tactical, Kinetic Range, Reloaded, .27 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Tulammo, steel cased, .28 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2014))
.40 Caliber Smith & Wesson, 180 grain, From Last Week: -.04 Each After Unchanged (8 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Blok tactical, Kinetic Range, FMJ, reloads, .20 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: Freedom Munitions, store brand, reloads, .23 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
9mm Parabellum, 115 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (9 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: LAX Ammunition, Tulammo, Steel Cased, FMJ, .20 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: The American Marksman, Reloads, FMJ, .18 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2014))
.357 Magnum, 158 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3 Weeks)
Cheapest, 50 rounds: Cheaper Than Dirt!, Armscor, FMJ, .35 per round
Cheapest Bulk: 1,000 Rounds: SG Ammo, store brand, Bulk, FMJ, .34 per round (From Last Week: -.02 Each After Unchanged (3 Weeks))
Rifle Ammunition
.223 Caliber/5.56mm 55 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (4Q, 2014)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Goose Island Sales, Tulammo, steel cased, FMJ, .23 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: SG Ammo, Wolf WPA, steel cased, .21 per round (From Last Week: -.01 Each After Unchanged (8 Weeks))
.308 NATO 145 grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3Q, 2014)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Cheaper Than Dirt, Silver Bear, steel cased, .41 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 500 rounds: SG Ammo, Silver Bear, steel cased, .45 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (3Q, 2014))
7.62x39 AK 123 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged (3Q, 2014)
Cheapest, 20 rounds: Today's Ammo, Wolf WPA, steel case, .22 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 1,000 rounds: Ammunition To Go, Wolf Polyformance, steel case, .23 per round (From Last Week: +.01 Each After Unchanged (4Q, 2014))
.22 LR 40 Grain, From Last Week: Unchanged
Cheapest, 50 rounds (5 Box Limit): Ammomen, Remington Thunderbolt, RNL, .08 per round
Cheapest Bulk, 325 rounds: Ammomen, Remington Thunderbolt, .10 per round (From Last Week: Unchanged (2 Weeks))
Guns for Private Sale
Rifles
.223/5.56mm (AR Pattern Semiautomatic) Average Price: $560 Last Week Avg: $515 (+) ($600 (15 Weeks), $515)
California (222, 226): Palmetto State Armory: $550 ($650 (5 Weeks), $425 (7 Weeks))
Texas (260, 271): DPMS: $600 ($675 (4 Weeks), $450 (15 Weeks))
Pennsylvania (145, 149): Palmetto State Armory (Pink): $500 ($600 (18 Weeks), $490 (8 Weeks))
Virginia (217, 220): Rock River Arms: $700 ($700, $500 (2 Weeks))
Florida (319, 322): Bear Creek Arsenal: $450 ($599 (10 Weeks), $450 (16 Weeks))
[TIME] At least on some things, South African President Jacob Zuma knows how to deliver. His much-anticipated State of the Nation Address on Thursday night in Cape Town promised a spectacle. The nation got a circus that kept South Africans glued to their TV screens for several hours with scenes of heckling parliamentarians, fistfights on the parliament floor, an opposition party walkout and Zuma's inappropriate chuckles. There was even a note of spy-craft intrigue: cellphone signals were mysteriously blocked for 20 minutes, preventing journalists from tweeting and filing stories and photos from the venue. Any usage of the word chimpout to describe these events is absolutely verbode.
The actual content of Zuma's speech -- uninspiring and lacking in content by most assessments -- will be forgotten long before the full impact of a precariously divided government is felt on the country and Zuma's political future. "It was hard to believe that South Africa is a functional democracy," lamented an editorial in the local Times newspaper. "For a solid hour last night South Africa resembled a messy, dysfunctional state being held together by the security forces."
Shortly after taking the podium, Zuma was interrupted by a member of the rabble-rousing Economic Freedom Fighters EFF party demanding to know when he would pay back government funds inappropriately used to upgrade his personal residence. Another cheekily asked how the estimated $21 million would be repaid ‐ via cash, electronic transfer, or debit card? Three times they were ruled out of order, part of a carefully choreographed campaign to shame the President.
When EFF leader Julius Malema, a one-time Zuma acolyte turned opponent, insisted that he had the right to be heard, the speaker of the house called in the security forces to evict all 25 members of the party.
Television screens went momentarily dark. Photographs taken during what cable operators termed a feed interruption show the red jumpsuit-clad EFF members struggling with the guards, some using their trademark red hardhats to bash their way out of security cordons.
By the time the television broadcast resumed, not a single member of the EFF, which makes up a very loud six percent of parliament, remained in the room. A few minutes later all 89 members of the official opposition Democratic Alliance walked out in disgust, leaving just the 249 members of Zuma's African National Congress, and a handful of independents, behind.
The room thus cleared of naysayers, Zuma returned to the podium an hour after the scheduled start with a triumphant chuckle.
He was met with a burst of applause from his African National Congress party faithful, but the content was not worth the accolades. Considering that South Africa is wracked by a power crisis that leaves many parts of the country in the dark for several hours every day, a crumbling economy (the Rand hit a 13-year low the evening before the speech), rising civil unrest, and the highest youth unemployment rate in Africa, Zuma's speech was disappointingly lacking in urgency and concrete solutions.
He did promise a $2 billion bailout of the cash-strapped Eskom power utility, but failed to say where, exactly, the money would come from. He also laid out a nine point plan to "ignite growth and create jobs" that echoed earlier economic strategies that have yet to bear fruit. And he pledged that foreigners would no longer be able to own land in South Africa. It was a sop to rural loyalists, perhaps, but a threat to the foreign investment that is a large part of the country's economic lifeblood. Shower Head Zuma's full SONA speech.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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#1
In 'fight cage' news closer to home: Rangel Challenges Netanyahu: ‘If You Have A Problem With’ Obama ‘Meet Me At AIPAC’
#5
"It was hard to believe that South Africa is a functional democracy," lamented an editorial in the local Times newspaper. "For a solid hour last night South Africa resembled a messy, dysfunctional state being held together by the security forces." "Monty, I'll take door number two."
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/14/2015 10:34 Comments ||
Top||
#6
He did promise a $2 billion bailout of the cash-strapped Eskom power utility, but failed to say where, exactly, the money would come from.
I have an idea, but the Russian purse is a bit empty these days.
#7
He did promise a $2 billion bailout of the cash-strapped Eskom power utility, but failed to say where, exactly, the money would come from.
It's a very large Detroit with mountains. Crime skyrocketed. The 'white privileged' began leaving, then the electricity began going out, the water became fouled with fecal matter.....
[BBC] An ex-air force general has been tossed in the slammer Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! and more than 10 other people implicated in a plot to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, officials say.
Only 11? How many barracks did the general recruit at -- one?
The group planned to attack the presidential palace and other buildings, Mr Maduro said. Congress head Diosdado Cabello said soldiers, opposition politicians and a businessman were involved.
The alleged coup attempt came a year after major street protests.
Announcing what he said was the thwarting of the latest attempt to overthrow him, Mr Maduro said: "We have foiled a coup attempt against democracy and the stability of our homeland,"
Mr Cabello said in a television broadcast that 11 soldiers were implicated, including a retired general.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2015 00:00 ||
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[Wash Free Bacon] A Russian intelligence-gathering ship is again plying the waters off the southern United States in operations aimed at spying on U.S. ballistic missile submarines based in the area, defense officials said. The intelligence collection ship, Viktor Leonov, has been closely watched by U.S. Navy ships and aircraft for the past several days near Jacksonville, Fla., close to the Naval Submarine Base at Kings Bay, Ga. The ship also conducted operations there in April.
#4
In the mid 80s, my dad and I went out on a fishing boat from Port Canaveral. On the way out we passed a sub, surfaced enough for the deck to be exposed but no identifying marks. Outside the harbor was a Russian "fishing trawler".
That was also the second time I saw Navy jets, apparently sent out to say hello to the Russians.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
02/14/2015 9:50 Comments ||
Top||
#5
It's good to have visitors watching, hopefully they have one down range as well, to well and truly grove and shall I say it -- dig our stuff.
[Independent Tribune] Members of the German border police sit in a van as they check a security camera while monitoring a stretch of the Serbian border with Hungary in the village of Hajdukovo, some 180 kilometers north of Belgrade, Serbia, Friday, Feb. 13, 2015. Some 20 German police officers, equipped with vehicles with thermal vision cameras, joined Serbian security forces on Serbia's border with Hungary on Friday to try to halt a torrent of migrants that has alarmed many European Union countries.
It was all very well when a wave of Italians moved to Germany and France to open simply marvelous little restaurants and ice cream shops, but those Poles work harder than our own people, and the Romanian gypsies are even worse than Granny's stories of Travellors.
#1
LOL Gypsies!
My great great grandmother is a gypsy now, she Hoff as an injun and stumbled around Indian for a generation or two. However, LOL no. DAD! Look at the damn photograph!
:)
[AnNahar] Secular Turks opposed to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ... Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him... on Friday boycotted schools and erupted into the streets to demand a secular education and denounce a claimed creeping Islamisation of the schools system.
The protests were led by Turkey's largest religious minority the Alevis, who adhere to an offshoot of Shia Islam, as well as leading education union Egitim Sen.
It was not immediately clear how many pupils had failed to attend schools due to the boycott but Turkish media reports said it was followed in cities including Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Edirne, and Antalya.
Television pictures showed that police had used water cannon to roughly disperse a protest in the Aegean city of Izmir. Fifty-six people were jugged Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! , according to NTV television.
Police used tear gas to disperse scores of protestors demonstrating in Ankara, an AFP photographer reported. There were also protests in Istanbul.
"I am not sending my child to school today to denounce the rampant Islamism in public education," Ahmet, an Alevi Ankara resident working in the civil service, told AFP, asking not to give his surname.
Secular Turks and Alevis in particular have been angered by the compulsory religion lessons used in schools under a system that has been amended by the ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Alevis are upset that the compulsory classes prioritize Sunni Islam, the dominant religion of Turkey which is practised by almost all the current ruling elite.
"Children can learn religion at home. It is unjust to impose it on them at school," said Ahmet.
Alevis have traditionally been champions of secularity in Turkey, believing it to be the best way to protect their own rights in the majority Sunni Moslem country.
Thousands of Alevis had rallied last weekend in Istanbul in a mass rally demanding more rights for their community.
Alevis are by far Turkey's largest religious minority, estimated to form between 10-20 percent of the population, but are not recognized by the state as an official group.
Only Jewish or Christian children in Turkey -- the two minorities recognized in Turkey -- can be excused from the religious education classes.
Many activists have been angered by the interventions of the AKP in the Turkish education system, which they allege have undermined the country's secular system founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
The government lifted a ban on female students wearing the Islamic headscarf in high schools and has encouraged the opening of Imam Hatip schools which mix religious education with a modern curriculum.
#2
Life would have been a lot simpler, with fewer opportunities for this sort of thing, if we just recognized foreign drivers' licenses, perhaps along with the international driver's license. We recognize Canadian licenses and registration. But life would be simpler if Mexican (and other countries' citizens) were monitored by a few consulates. Even before the EU,Europeans used to traipse back and forth across the continent without the kind of restrictions we've been trying unsuccessfully to impose on Mexicans.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/14/2015 1:58 Comments ||
Top||
In the concluding chapter, Hanson declares that Californians (and, thus, Americans) have essentially four choices in dealing with immigration. First we could "continue de facto open-borders" but insist upon assimilation. Second we could vastly reduce immigration and assume that assimilation will take care of itself. Third—Hanson’s choice—we could combine greatly reduced immigration (both legal and illegal) with vigorous patriotic assimilation.
The fourth path¾our present policy—would lead to "a true Mexifornia," an "apartheid state" that "even the universal solvent of popular culture could not unite." California would then combine the "worst attributes of both nations," an "American individualism shorn of both Anglo-Saxon-inspired allegiance to the letter of the law and traditional Mexican familial and religious bedrock values."
In this case, Hanson tells us, poverty becomes endemic; schools erode; crime soars; taxes increase; budget deficits explode; legal or illegal status becomes "irrelevant" for college tuition, driver’s licenses, welfare, and "perhaps soon even voting privileges." The assimilated upper and upper-middle classes of all races practice a "self-interested apartheid" while professing "selfless liberality." A new argot of Spanglish, the "dumbing-down of both languages," emerges among a large, unassimilated, constantly growing Latino underclass that dwarfs both the upper class and an assimilated and intermarried middle and working class.
Victor Davis Hanson, The Coming of Mexifornia
Hudson Institute, Thursday, August 21, 2003
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.
[THEGUARDIAN] It is a saga of money, fame and destitute women ferried to luxury locations for sex with powerful men, against a backdrop of economic deprivation and social misery. France has been shaken this week by harrowing testimony from a trial in Lille that not only put in the dock Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former International Monetary Fund chief and one-time French presidential hopeful, but also examined a much wider, depressing picture of poverty, women submitted to sex acts against their will and alleged pimps who referred to them as “livestock”.
[DAILYCALLER] Yale anti-fossil fuel campaigners have indefinitely postponed a protest that was set for this weekend due to “unfavorable weather conditions and other logistical issues.”
[TIME] At least on some things, South African President Jacob Zuma knows how to deliver. His much-anticipated State of the Nation Address on Thursday night in Cape Town promised a spectacle. The nation got a circus that kept South Africans glued to their TV screens for several hours with scenes of heckling parliamentarians, fistfights on the parliament floor, an opposition party walkout and Zuma's inappropriate chuckles. There was even a note of spy-craft intrigue: cellphone signals were mysteriously blocked for 20 minutes, preventing journalists from tweeting and filing stories and photos from the venue. 
