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Today: 62 articles and 216 comments as of 10:39.
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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Opinion        Politix   
Merry Christmas - Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht, Peter Alexander
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 3: Non-WoT
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6 19:33 Bright Pebbles [1] 
3 22:33 Nguard [1] 
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15 19:44 Spanky Whuter1088 [1] 
1 10:34 Lex [] 
3 10:59 crazyhorse [] 
12 15:04 Lex [2] 
2 16:34 Bman [1] 
15 21:15 Mullah Richard [1] 
6 18:19 gorb [] 
9 13:34 Herb McCoy [] 
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Hildabeast Didn't Kill Epstein. It Was the Juice! (not OJ)
[Medium] Epstein ‘admitted to me’ he was a spy: ex-business partner of sex criminal claims Prince Andrew is protecting Ghislaine Maxwell, stonewalling prosecutors’ investigation over blackmail fears.

Steven Hoffenberg was arrested by FBI agents in Arkansas in 1996, after regulators accused him of defrauding investors. The former business partner of Jeffrey Epstein in Towers Financial spent 18 years in jail for the largest Ponzi schemes in history prior to Bernie Madoff’s crimes. But the notorious sex criminal got away scot-free. Why? In a series of new and exclusives conversations, Hoffenberg reveals the real reason he evaded justice in one of America’s largest Ponzi schemes—he was an international spy.

That’s the explosive claim of former Epstein colleague and friend, Steven Hoffenberg, who confirms that Epstein was indeed a top-level agent for the Israeli Mossad, as first confirmed in the best-selling book Epstein: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Posted by: Mercutio || 12/24/2019 07:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mossad has a long history of dealing with unsavory types in order to advance its interests. They pretty much have to, Israel is so hemmed in. Blackmailers are pretty tame, honestly.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 12/24/2019 7:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Jim Jones ?
Posted by: Beldar Omort9785 || 12/24/2019 8:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Herb would know about unsavory types.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/24/2019 8:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Spying is not a game for gentlemen, who do not open one another’s mail.

Anyone on the monied side who accepted one of Mr. Epstein’s invitations had to know it was a potential blackmail situation. Whether or not the man actually was a spy, as his former business partner claims he said — no possibility either of them was lying, right? — remains to be seen.
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/24/2019 9:54 Comments || Top||

#5  He was obviously into blackmail.
Let's see what / who was recorded by his dozens of creepy spy cameras.
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 9:58 Comments || Top||

#6  Democrats like jail confessions that either slime their opponents or exonerate their idols. The guy who claimed to be Quayle's pot dealer has since been living a protected and easy life -- and is even tied to the Ukrainian attacks on Trump.

This is no different. Criminal blames Israel, exoneration Clinton and all the other lefties who made Epstein rich and famous.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 12/24/2019 10:28 Comments || Top||

#7  So if the rumors are true and Epstein did work for Mossad - was that OK?

Children raped so that Israel could have a tactical advantage?

Let's be honest, that's precisely what we're talking about here. Mossad has done deals with terrorists of all kinds in the past in order to gain an advantage. Epstein's honey-trap blackmail operation is tame in comparison.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 12/24/2019 13:57 Comments || Top||

#8  Good thing Herb doesn't know about the trade in Palestinian organs.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/24/2019 14:19 Comments || Top||

#9  Another logical fallacy? Do I have to get out the Pyramid of Debate again? Sheesh, learn how to argue. If you had an actual argument you'd use it.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 12/24/2019 14:34 Comments || Top||

#10  Max, if you take out that Pyramid of Debate again I'll have to place you under the Cone of Silence
Posted by: Chief || 12/24/2019 14:40 Comments || Top||

#11  Some jailbird saying Epstein was Mossad is like Maxine Waters claiming that Trump is KGB.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 12/24/2019 14:50 Comments || Top||

#12  But Herb would like to believe it because..Jooos
Posted by: Frank G || 12/24/2019 15:05 Comments || Top||

#13  I would not be surprised if he was working for Israel; I would be surprised if he was only working for Israel. And he didn’t kill himself.
Posted by: Glenmore || 12/24/2019 16:38 Comments || Top||

#14  I would e very surprised if Ghislaine was NOT working for Israel. Her late father (Robert Maxwell) did.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 12/24/2019 19:42 Comments || Top||

#15  When someone writes: "top agent" for Mossad it is clear they do not know what they are talking about.
Posted by: Spanky Whuter1088 || 12/24/2019 19:44 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Spanish TV reporter quits on air after winning lottery – but only wins small prize
[NY Post] A jubilant Spanish TV reporter informed her colleagues on the air that she would not be back at work the next day as she celebrated a lottery win ‐ but was left red-faced when she found out it was just a fraction of the jackpot.
"Karma train - Ma'am, this is your stop"
Natalia Escudero, who works for public broadcaster RTVE, started screaming on camera when the result in the 4 million euro ‐ $4.4 million ‐ Christmas lottery was announced, according to the BBC.

Clutching a winning ticket in the lottery known as El Gordo (The Fat One), she announced she was "not coming to work tomorrow!"

"Natalia doesn’t work tomorrow!" she added as she jumped for joy.

But the top prize can be shared among winners and her take was the equivalent of about $5,550, no chump change ‐ but a lump of coal compared to what she thought she was about to pocket.

A sheepish Escudero later apologized on Twitter, saying she regretted her actions, which gave the impression she was quitting her job.

"The last few months have been difficult for me for personal reasons, and for the first time the goddess fortune had smiled at me with a pinch," Escudero wrote.

"It is sad that Natalia Escudero is today [known as] the manipulative and lying journalist from RTVE," she said, adding that she was being honest about taking time off because "I am going on holiday."
Posted by: Frank G || 12/24/2019 10:30 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You'd think with her last name she'd have more sense when it comes to counting escudos
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 10:48 Comments || Top||


Film review: In Austria's Alps, 'A Hidden Life' Of World War II Resistance
[NPR] Three years ago, a small film crew drove into the Austrian Alps in search of a remote valley. It would serve as one of the settings for Terrence Malick's vision of paradise.

"We'd taken a big, big risk when we decided to go," says the film's producer Grant Hill. "We had next to no funds. [We] felt, for some reason, we'd work that out as we went along ‐ which, I wouldn't advise doing it again that way, but it worked. And this combination of the mountain background, the faces on the people, the weather really did ‐ I mean, it was otherworldly."

The film came to be called A Hidden Life. It's based on the letters of an Austrian farmer who refused to fight for the Nazis ‐ and was executed for his resistance.

It's the latest film from acclaimed director Terrence Malick. He's known for epic movies like The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life. Like those films, Malick's latest is about grand themes like love, faith and war.

A Hidden Life opens in the dark with nature sounds. The screen then comes to life: mountain valleys, waterfalls, rivers flowing, clouds rolling.

Actor Valerie Pachner is from Austria. She's one of the stars of the film.

"There is this incredibly beautiful landscape," Pachner says. "But on the other hand there's also a certain darkness to it. And I always feel like ‐ you know, there is these beautiful mountains, but then you have those very dark forests. And then when you think about the second World War, I feel like there's always sort of both, in nature. And that's what I feel Terry [Malick] really captured so well."

Terence Malick made the film with cinematographer Joerg Widmer.

Official trailer at this link.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/24/2019 01:21 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Should be very interesting - Malick makes beautiful and weird movies, and he translated Heidegger in college. Wonder what he'll make out of the lands east of Eagle's Nest.
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 1:34 Comments || Top||

#2  The thin red line has to be in the top 10 of sucky war films.
Posted by: Bman || 12/24/2019 16:34 Comments || Top||


Britain
It's all ancient Greek to Boris!
[Twitter]

Posted by: 3dc || 12/24/2019 1:30:16 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Your move, Labour.

Koran recitation? Or, maybe, Protocols of the Elders of Zion in original Russian?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/24/2019 14:18 Comments || Top||

#2  A rap version of Hickory Dickory Dock?
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 15:10 Comments || Top||

#3  As the result of a misspent youth I can assure you that BoJo is fact reciting the opening lines of the Iliad starting with:

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε,

("Sing, goddess, of the rage/wrath/anger/reallypissedoffedness of Peleus' son Achilles...")

You know the rest. Channeling the patriarchy bigly.
Posted by: Matt || 12/24/2019 15:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Labour:

Arise ye prisoners of starvation
Arise ye wrethed of the earth..
Posted by: lord garth || 12/24/2019 18:00 Comments || Top||

#5  *happy sigh* A long time ago I could recite the first page or so of the Iliad in English, which is not at all the same. How much less clever and educated his listeners must have felt — on what clearly was one of the intellectual shows the BBC is so proud of.
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/24/2019 19:00 Comments || Top||

#6  Have to admit I'm not in the slightest bit impressed with this, he's supposed to be getting on with getting brexit done.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 12/24/2019 19:33 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
How KFC became a Christmas tradition in Japan
h/t Instapundit
[CNN] - Almost every year since she was a child, Hokkaido resident Naomi has looked forward to her family's traditional Christmas meal: a KFC "party barrel" brimming with salad, cake and lots of fried chicken.

"In Japan, it is customary to eat chicken at Christmas," says the 30-something Japanese woman.

"Every year, I order the party barrel and enjoy it with my family. I like the delicious chicken and the cute picture plate that comes with it as a bonus."

Naomi, who asked only to be identified by her first name, and her family are far from the only Japanese residents who enjoy KFC for Christmas dinner.

Every year since the mid-1980s, life-size Colonel Sanders statues -- dressed as Santa during the holiday -- have welcomed droves of locals and tourists alike across the country.

According to figures released by the American fast-food chain, KFC Japan pulled in 6.9 billion yen (roughly US$63 million) from December 20 to 25 in 2018, with lines out the door starting on December 23.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/24/2019 14:51 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Good Colonel does look rather inscrutable avec ses yeux mongols.

A stronger resemblance to Trotsky than Oddjob, though
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 15:14 Comments || Top||

#2  The Colonel, venerable because of his age, inscrutable because he keeps the secret of the eleven herbs and spices to himself.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 12/24/2019 15:35 Comments || Top||

#3  ... and deserving of great Merit for his brand equity and free cash flow
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 15:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Walked into a drug store in Brazil and thought I was back in the US. Every thing was US brands down there.
Posted by: Goober Tingle7365 || 12/24/2019 19:02 Comments || Top||


Down Under
New Zealand Gun Buyback Was An ‘Unmitigated Failure’
[DailyCaller] Many New Zealand gun owners have refused to participate in a mandatory buyback program of military-style semi-automatic weapons implemented after the Christchurch massacre in March.

Despite a penalty of up to five years in prison, up to two-thirds of firearms banned by the legislation were not turned in before the Friday deadline by New Zealand gun owners, the Washington Post reported.

While 47,000 semi-automatic rifles have been collected, according to police statistics, a government commissioned study determined that the small nation likely contains between 56,000 and 170,000 now banned weapons, according to 1 News.

New Zealand’s largest gun rights advocacy group, the Licensed Firearms Owners Council, remarked that the buyback program has been an "unmitigated failure."

Police Minister Stuart Nash blamed the government’s inability to enforce its buyback scheme on a lack of gun registration. "The problem is we just don’t know exactly how many guns are out in the community, this is why we need a register, to enable Police to better track firearms," he said, according to 1 News.
Posted by: trailing wife || 12/24/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You don't say.
Posted by: Crusader || 12/24/2019 1:34 Comments || Top||

#2  = the triumph of Hope over Experience
Posted by: Dr. J || 12/24/2019 1:36 Comments || Top||

#3  That last paragraph is the winner: Registration = Confiscation
Posted by: Frank G || 12/24/2019 7:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Gomer Pyle would be appropriate here, Suprise, Suprise, Suprise.

That Police Minister would be right at home in any of the fascist gov'ts of the '30s and '40s.
Posted by: AlanC || 12/24/2019 8:12 Comments || Top||

#5  That should be the take away from any gun control push for registration.

Registration = Confiscation
Posted by: DarthVader || 12/24/2019 8:38 Comments || Top||

#6  Wonder if any old Charltons showed up?
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 12/24/2019 9:44 Comments || Top||

#7  A failure it is. It will be unmitigated when another shooting occurs that might have been stopped had the law abiding only had access to their weapons.
Posted by: Warthog || 12/24/2019 9:52 Comments || Top||

#8  Police Minister Stuart Nash blamed the government’s inability to enforce its buyback scheme on a lack of gun registration.

When they say register to be grandfathered, you know they are bullshitting you.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 12/24/2019 13:09 Comments || Top||

#9  Next: Iraq-style house to house searches for weapons. Plenty of ex-Army mercs for hire who know how to do it.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 12/24/2019 13:34 Comments || Top||


Economy
More than 9,300 stores are closing in 2019 as the retail apocalypse drags on ‐ here's the full list
[Business Insider] The staggering rate of store closures that rocked the retail industry over the past couple of years continued in 2019, with retailers setting a new record for store closings over the last 12 months.

Retailers announced plans to close more than 9,300 stores in 2019, smashing the previous record of roughly 8,000 store closures in 2017, according to an analysis by Business Insider.

Here's a list of all the stores closing this year:
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/24/2019 01:16 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We all love low prices but Amazon's predatory pricing model is a perversion of capitalism. Bezos is abusing his market power. He's not a capitalist; he's a thug.

Bad for the nation, bad for communities, bad for workers. Time to start enforcing the competition laws.
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 1:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Nope, Amazon takes advantage of the fact that the government tries to maximise rents.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 12/24/2019 5:32 Comments || Top||

#3  ^Explain, please?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/24/2019 5:39 Comments || Top||

#4  100 years ago the Amazon for most Americans was Sears; if not for the ~10% price advantage for Amazon’s first 10 years (not subject to sales tax) Sears might still be the ‘Amazon’ instead of about out of business.
Posted by: Shomoth Unamble8505 || 12/24/2019 9:23 Comments || Top||

#5  We all love low prices but Amazon's predatory pricing model is a perversion of capitalism.

Do you drive to a "big box" grocer instead of walking to a neighborhood "Mom & Pop" grocer?
It is the exact same thing. In our area Safeway™ was careful to match the prices of the small neighborhood stores and was happy at making the extra money off its customers. Then in the late 80's a national chain showed up and offered the customers a lower price alternative -- the smaller stores started closing and the only ones that survived were the "24/7 convenience stores with gasoline pumps". I watched this from the sidelines both as a customer and as an employee in a dairy plant that sold to everyone.
Posted by: magpie || 12/24/2019 9:59 Comments || Top||

#6  #4 As Shomoth pointed out, Bezos the rentier received a state subsidy that his competitors never got.

Every one of our wannabe oligarchs in tech has exploited government giveaways, government protection, government efforts to suspend the rules and tilt the playing field in their favor.

"Net neutrality."
Taxes for thee; none for me.
"We're not a media company, we're a platform!"
A 2-sided marketplace with one company running all sides of it -- with zero transparency or scrutiny.
"Competition law? Not for us: we're national champions!"

Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 10:28 Comments || Top||

#7  What of the Kindle™ (Semi-)Monopoly? I am more concerned with that than the things they ship by mail.

Pause a second and consider what happens if one actor gets to decide what will be read because they are effectively the only seller? What if Amazon decides that your book is Hate Speech™, or perhaps it says something unkind about Bezos, and decides it can't be sold. More and more books are only sold electronically and Amazon is getting a lion's share of that market.
Posted by: magpie || 12/24/2019 10:55 Comments || Top||

#8  Dollar General opening 900 some stores.
Posted by: Dale || 12/24/2019 11:41 Comments || Top||

#9  I'm starting to order more stiuff for other than Amazon now. NewEgg is pretty good for tech stuff. Dropping Amazon Prime as well. Their delivery is hit-or-miss. Order something and its hit or miss if it gets to *your* door or someone else's.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/24/2019 12:09 Comments || Top||

#10  Anyone have any good alternatives?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/24/2019 12:10 Comments || Top||

#11  When Amazon is the only place where you can buy stuff they'll raise their prices. You can bet on that. After WaPo did that Convington kids thing, I don't shop Amazon anymore at all.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 12/24/2019 13:14 Comments || Top||

#12  Too bad. Sears was the original mail order biggy. Had the catalogue and infrastructure. The suits decided they didn't want to play IT. Would have been a great fit. Stupid management pure and simple.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 12/24/2019 15:07 Comments || Top||

#13  Provo - they couldn’t compete; they had physical presence in each state and had to add sales tax, which Amazon did not until recently. That’s close to a 10% price advantage in a world that seldom had a 10% sales margin.
Posted by: Glenmore || 12/24/2019 16:44 Comments || Top||

#14  Sorry for family reasons had xmas a day earlier.

High Rents are the largest cost of any retail business.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 12/24/2019 19:39 Comments || Top||

#15  B&H for electronics. Great customer service.

Newegg stuff many times comes from other vendors.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 12/24/2019 21:15 Comments || Top||


Europe
Brussels chaos: Spain follows Poland in shock threat to quit EU 'No more humiliation!'
[Express] There is mounting pressure in Spain for right-wing parties to back a Brexit-style departure from the EU, following widespread fury across the country at a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Spain has joined Poland in becoming the second country this week to claim it could ditch the EU, amid growing fury at the power that Brussels holds over member-states. Spain’s third biggest party Vox is under huge pressure to back the Spanish version of the Brexit referendum, following growing fury at an ECJ ruling this week. Vox’s own party president lambasted the EU, claiming when the ECJ overruled Spanish courts, it had humiliated the country and its sovereignty.

On Thursday, the EU's top court ruled a jailed Catalan separatist leader should have parliamentary immunity.

Oriol Junqueras was one of nine pro-independence leaders jailed in Spain after an illegal independence referendum.

However, in May he was elected to the European Parliament as an MEP.

The ruling rejected Madrid's arguments that Mr Junqueras did not qualify as an MEP because he had not sworn an oath to the Spanish constitution.
The EU doesn't care about your little constitutions. They are so 20th century. Kneel, vassal.
A furious reaction among Spaniards even led 'Spaxit' - the Spanish exit of the European Union - to become trending on Twitter.

Vox President Santiago Abascal criticised the judges in Luxembourg who ruled that Mr Junqueras, who was sentenced to 13 years for sedition, should be freed.

He immediately tweeted that Spain "should not have to comply" with the ECJ ruling.

He went on to claim that Spain should hit back at "this interference," before adding that Vox "is not going to accept more humiliations".

Mr Abascal later tweeted: "Spain (as other countries do) should not abide by any judgement of those who attack our sovereignty and security."

Vox’s Twitter used the hashtag #EspañaLoPrimero, or Spain First.

Vox, which took 52 seats in Congress at the last election, is the third biggest party in Spain and has seen its support surge in the past year.

The party calls for the repatriation of powers from Brussels to national governments but has not publicly backed 'Spaxit' yet.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the far-right party is coming under pressure from its grassroots to campaign for a referendum to leave the EU.
The EU is a German centric continental force that pushes its will upon the lesser countries through the use of (in this case political, legal and economic) force.

Didn't we see this movie last century?
Smaller countries would do well to leave the EU.

France oriented, German funded, surely.
Posted by: DarthVader || 12/24/2019 09:24 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Classic implosion of a Pyramid Scheme when the suckers start to wise up.

The FR-BEL-GER core of the EU offered funding "incentives" (AKA "bribes") to new members to expand the EU. Then cut off their cash flow to sucker in new members (see "Pyramid Scheme"). The German Bankers refused to pay any more money and with BREXIT the London Bankers aren't going to pay.
Posted by: magpie || 12/24/2019 9:37 Comments || Top||

#2  "Spaxit" sounds like a spastic pronouncing spastic.

Maybe try coining another phrase? Reconquista, perhaps?
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 9:56 Comments || Top||

#3  Hispanxit? Okay, maybe not.
Posted by: Percy Jimble7958 || 12/24/2019 10:01 Comments || Top||

#4  "Adios"?
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 10:07 Comments || Top||

#5  Toothpaste >>>> tube...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 12/24/2019 10:23 Comments || Top||

#6  Mutti is going to be hard-pressed to find a little Dutch Boy to stick his finger in EU's Dike (and yes I did forgo the obvious pun).
Posted by: Mercutio || 12/24/2019 13:00 Comments || Top||

#7  Scotland's going to secede from the UK and join the EU! Take that, you fascist scum!

Catalonia, don't you dare go anywhere! You're welded to Spain and rebellion is treason!

Pick one.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 12/24/2019 13:28 Comments || Top||

#8  amid growing fury at the power that Brussels holds over member-states.

Just figuring that out now, Einstein?
Posted by: Raj || 12/24/2019 14:47 Comments || Top||

#9  #6 Mutti is going to be hard-pressed to find a little Dutch Boy to stick his finger in EU's Dike

eee-uuuu!
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 14:52 Comments || Top||


Study Finds Almost 40 Percent of People in Eight European Nations Would Like to Live "in a World Where Chemical Substances Don't Exist"
The Volokh Conspiracy via Instapundit
A recent study published in Nature Chemistry finds that 39 percent of respondents in eight European countries say they "agree" with the statement that "I would like to live in a world where chemical substances don't exist." Another 39 percent say the "slightly agree" or "slightly disagree" with this statement. Similarly, 40% say "they do everything I can to avoid contact with chemical substances in my daily life."
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/24/2019 04:01 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  just like the word "organic" has been hijacked by the sciency types.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 12/24/2019 5:31 Comments || Top||

#2  I bet 100% of the 40% drink soda or energy drinks and don't consider them chemicals. They think of that lime-green toxic sludge that creates zombies in the movies when they think chemical substances.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/24/2019 9:31 Comments || Top||

#3  As they hold their plastic water bottles....
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 12/24/2019 9:39 Comments || Top||

#4  Taking Organic Chemistry in school killed the word "organic" for me.

My favorite enviro-weenie quote: "The man* who invented radiation should be shot!"

*presumably some dead white guy. Sorry, no link.
Posted by: SteveS || 12/24/2019 10:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Curieser and curieser...
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 10:15 Comments || Top||

#6  "No salt for YOU!"
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/24/2019 12:02 Comments || Top||

#7  Soap is a chemical compound (Basically lye and fat.) I seriously would not want to live without soap in all its forms.
Posted by: Seeking Cure For Ignorance || 12/24/2019 12:18 Comments || Top||

#8  I see what you did there, Lex. :-)
Posted by: gorb || 12/24/2019 12:53 Comments || Top||

#9  For that matter, water is "a chemical substance". Speaking broadly, all matter would qualify. Next they'll go after "radiation", unless I already missed that. There goes the sun, do do do doo.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 12/24/2019 13:16 Comments || Top||

#10  "I would like to live in a world where chemical substances don't exist."

What the hell does that even mean? And stay in Europe!
Posted by: Raj || 12/24/2019 14:52 Comments || Top||

#11  These maroons' brains are either deficient in H2O or jamming on C17H21NO4
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 15:01 Comments || Top||

#12  Math = racist
Chemistry = fascist
History = morality plays
Law = child's game

It's all so confusing.

Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 15:04 Comments || Top||


Great White North
School division apologizes after Christmas concert deemed 'anti-oil'
[CBC] 'No political agenda,' board of trustees chair says after parents raise concerns about Thursday concert.

A Saskatchewan school division has apologized after parents raised concerns a Christmas concert last week had an anti-oil agenda.

On Thursday, the Oxbow Prairie Horizons School's annual concert featured a show titled: "Santa Goes Green."

This didn't sit will with some audience members, as Oxbow is a community where a good number of workers are in the mining and resource industries. In fact, the town's logo prominently contains a pumpjack.

Mike Gunderman, whose daughter was in the show, took to Facebook to express his concerns about the play, saying the concert was a "kick in the groin" to anyone working in the struggling oil industry. The post has since been shared more than 650 times.

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"It wasn't even a Christmas concert at Christmas time," he said. "It was blatantly just an anti-oil protest."

Gunderman, who works in the oil and gas industry, said the community is a huge resource-based and agricultural town, and many in the area are employed as a direct, or indirect, result of the oil industry.
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/24/2019 06:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I saw Oxbow and thought Bee.
Wow. Life imitates novel .
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 10:34 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Somber MSNBC Panel Hits Panic Button Over the McConnell-Trump Judicial Confirmation Record
[LI] There was a lot of phony media reporting this week about how Democrats were supposedly treating their impeachment of President Trump as a "somber" moment in American history.

But one place where there actually were somber faces was on Monday’s "MSNBC Live" show, where co-hosts Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle were busy hitting the panic button over the amount of Trump-nominated judges Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has successfully confirmed.

In speaking with liberal attorney and legal analyst Danielle McLaughlin during a segment on how Trump was "moving federal courts to the right," Velshi asked McLaughlin if it was normal to have 98 vacancies in the federal judiciary. Here’s a partial transcript of their back and forth, via Newsbusters:
McLaughlin declared that, "No, this goes back to the historic actions of Mitch McConnell and others during the Obama presidency."

Despite Democrats holding the Senate for six of Obama’s eight years, she added, with a noticeable emphasis on personal pronouns, "I think we had the Senate for about 14 months, a majority in the Senate, we actually got rid of the filibuster, which has come back to bite us, the idea that you used to have a super-majority to approve a federal judge or an appellate court judge, but now its only a simple majority and of course that’s what Republicans have."

... McLaughlin accused Republicans of taking, "some gleeful pleasure in messing up the system and messing with the system and stopping a president [Obama] from really exercising the power that is given to him, fundamentally by the Constitution."

After Velshi interjected to voice his agreement, McLaughlin concluded the segment by falsely accusing Republicans of not doing their constitutional duty in 2016 and that they are therefore hypocrites: "Advice and consent is obviously a power that the Senate has, but they did not even exercise it. I think for all their talk about standing by the Constitution and being the party of law and order, in fact they have been historically obstructionist ‐ as it relates to President Obama especially. They did not do what the Constitution wanted them to do."

The looks on the faces of Velshi, Ruhle, and McLaughlin as they discussed McConnell’s track record pretty much said it all. Watch this exchange below:
Posted by: Besoeker || 12/24/2019 00:27 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yet another ignorant partisan buffoon.
(Yawn.)

Who watches this garbage?
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 0:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Who watches this garbage? The same misguided half-thinking (if that) people we all live and work with who watch the local "news" that hasn't 10 seconds of actual *news* in it. The same people (some of them Republicans or Libertarians) who watch "entertainers" whose political leanings are full-on socialist/communist/totalitarian. As as society, we are nearly fully asleep as the rights and freedoms that allow life to be worth living are fleeting and threatened by those who imagine themselves to be our betters.
Posted by: Crusader || 12/24/2019 1:27 Comments || Top||

#3  You're touching on a deeper problem for which there's no real good answer, alas: many Americans simply don't understand or embrace the concepts enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

I was called for jury duty recently along with ~100 other people and during the juror vetting it became clear that about 1/3 of those interviewed could not grasp the concept of the presumption of innocence and the 5th Amendment. Maybe 1/5 of the potential jurors revealed themselves to be either incurably biased or completely clueless about how criminal trials work in our system.

It used to be the case that where our educational system fell short, our top media organizations and their leading writers would step in and fill the gaps in the public's knowledge.

All gone.

Now that we have barking mad Twitter-idiots spouting partisan one-liners all day, who will educate the public about their Constitutional rights?
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 2:18 Comments || Top||

#4  This is wholly dishonest; none of them believe in the Constitution. It was written by whites, therefore it cannot govern blacks. Shove that in their faces next time they try this crap.
Posted by: Herb McCoy || 12/24/2019 8:01 Comments || Top||

#5  Somehow I remember McDonnell and others saying to remove the filibuster would be a mistake and the Democrats went ahead and did it anyway certain of their perpetual majority. The lady in the video only gives a second to that mistake but this is all of their making. Suck it Donks.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/24/2019 9:35 Comments || Top||

#6  Just realized their liberal privilege is being stripped away?
Posted by: gorb || 12/24/2019 18:19 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Japan proposes dumping ONE MILLION tonnes of radioactive water from Fukushima nuclear disaster into the sea
I seen this movie
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/24/2019 12:28 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So? How radioactive is it? If the Japanese who live on a seafood diet are cool with it I don't see why an English newspaper should be so hysteri... Oh! ♫ Clickbait ♫
Posted by: magpie || 12/24/2019 17:29 Comments || Top||

#2  There are 352 quintillion gallons of water in the world's oceans. That's an estimate of course. But that gives you an idea of how *little* that radioactive water will hurt anything.
Posted by: Secret Master || 12/24/2019 22:31 Comments || Top||

#3  We all know what happens next...
Posted by: Nguard || 12/24/2019 22:33 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
The Revolution Comes for JK. Rowling.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/24/2019 09:08 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Pro-LGBT JK Rowling not backing down after offending trans activists
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/24/2019 9:10 Comments || Top||

#2  I know a few millennials who think Rowling walks on water. They are also brainwashed to all the latest liberal nonsense. It'll be interesting to get their opinions after the holidays.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/24/2019 9:25 Comments || Top||

#3  No tears here. This person is a crap writer who can't form a decent sentence and who created a bunch of cardboard characters held together by the cheapest and stupidest of plot devices. Magic is for idiots who can't think of an intelligent way to tell a story.

Peter Rabbit and Bugs Bunny, or Pooh and Tigger, have more life to them, are more three-dimensional and interesting, than this hack's main character.

It speaks volumes about the stupidity of Woke tranny nonsense that even a no-talent like this hack can see through it and call BS.
Posted by: Lex || 12/24/2019 9:47 Comments || Top||

#4  a bunch of cardboard characters held together by the cheapest and stupidest of plot devices

DNC nominees?
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/24/2019 11:58 Comments || Top||


San Fransisco is losing the battle despite spending 94 mil to clean it up
Chicks on the Right via Instapundit
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, "San Francisco spent $94 million ‐ or about $257,534 a day this year ‐ trying to keep the city clean." Despite this amount of money, they are losing this battle.

A tourism study conducted in SF showed that 33% of the 1,282 tourists questioned said that it was the conditions of the streets and the amount of homelessness to be the biggest problem with visiting the city.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say well, DUH!

No one wants to come to visit a city where people are defecating in the grocery aisles. The growing homeless problem is nothing new. We have sat back and watched SF create its failing social experiment over the past 10 years.
Instapundit's comment: Of course, in San Francisco, the left hand doesn’t know what the far left hand is doing
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 12/24/2019 04:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Over images of news reports of homeless in San Francisco and other places:
"This is what my opponent stands for, nation wide poop on the sidewalk and needles everywhere. We need to help the homeless get off the streets and get the help they deserve, not encourage more. I may not be a smooth talker but I get things done and I've gotten more people employed than any President in history. Vote Trump!"
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/24/2019 9:29 Comments || Top||

#2  But just play fast an loose with the recycling / composting directives and BOOM! Fines out the, uh, backside...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 12/24/2019 10:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Was there for the US Open in 2012...poop-needles everywhere...
Posted by: crazyhorse || 12/24/2019 10:59 Comments || Top||


‘Widow's Tax' axed (military spouses payout no longer taxed)
[MilitaryFamilies] As President Trump signed the National Defense Authorization Act Friday night, a 40-year battle to repeal the military "widow’s tax" came to an end.

Surviving families joined forces with advocates and lawmakers to pass nonpartisan legislation, with Congress putting actions in front of words and dollars in the hands of those who paid the ultimate price. The "widow’s tax" was a longstanding policy oversight that affected over 65,000 military survivors. When a service member dies while on active duty or from a military-related illness their families may be eligible for both the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) & Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC). Because of concurrent receipt laws (provisions to avoid double-dipping in government benefits), for every dollar paid out via the DIC, one dollar was deducted or "offset" from the SBP insurance payment. This offset cost families roughly $11,000 annually. Not only have these families lived through the nightmare of losing a spouse or loved one, they have had to fight to stay afloat both emotionally and financially.
Posted by: DarthVader || 12/24/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fantastic...now for reparations.
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/24/2019 12:11 Comments || Top||

#2  More background: Bid to end military ‘widows tax’ stalled despite congressional promises
Posted by: Skidmark || 12/24/2019 12:12 Comments || Top||



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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2019-12-24
  Merry Christmas - Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht, Peter Alexander
Mon 2019-12-23
  Islamic State just issued this statement that claims the Battle of revenge is on
Sun 2019-12-22
  France kills 33 militants in Mali raid: president
Sat 2019-12-21
  Berlin police Foiled ISIS Terror Attack at Christmas Market
Fri 2019-12-20
  Government of National Accord in Libya have officially requested that Turkey intervenes militarily in the civil war
Thu 2019-12-19
  ISIS captures new ground in eastern Syria after launching powerful attack against Syrian Army forces
Wed 2019-12-18
  Assailants attack several protest camps in north and south Lebanon
Tue 2019-12-17
  Backer of Iraq anti-government protests killed in Baghdad
Mon 2019-12-16
  Iran claims the whole Persian Gulf. Both sides!
Sun 2019-12-15
  Attempt to assassinate the son of the political spokesman of Muqtada al-Sadr
Sat 2019-12-14
  Haftar-led Libyan Army claims new advance near Tripoli
Fri 2019-12-13
  Triumphant Boris hails landslide win gives him ‘power to get Brexit done’
Thu 2019-12-12
  AMAL, Hizbullah Supporters Try to Storm Riad al-Solh, Repelled by Tear Gas
Wed 2019-12-11
  Iraqi protesters defiantly turn out in the capital Baghdad
Tue 2019-12-10
  Jersey City shooting - possibly 6 dead at JC Kosher grocery

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