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15 Niger troops killed in ambush, subsequent blast
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 3: Non-WoT
2 14:50 NN2N1 [4] 
3 18:32 JohnQC [3] 
6 19:15 Besoeker [2] 
1 12:40 Skidmark [] 
4 18:17 magpie [3] 
1 18:14 magpie [] 
9 22:29 Zhang Fei [4] 
15 20:11 trailing wife [4] 
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2 08:52 Skidmark [] 
1 01:38 Chris [1] 
4 08:57 M. Murcek [4] 
3 10:35 ed in texas [3] 
1 09:51 Bobby [4] 
2 08:14 Procopius2k [5] 
1 09:04 Skidmark [2] 
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Page 1: WoT Operations
1 12:22 Mike Kozlowski [1]
9 20:53 Tyranysaurus Jones4656 [8]
6 20:06 Lord Garth [3]
1 01:26 Chris [4]
4 23:48 SteveS [5]
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2 19:56 trailing wife [2]
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Page 2: WoT Background
1 17:08 Slease Phailet8995 [6]
9 18:46 Rob Crawford [3]
0 [4]
3 16:17 Slease Phailet8995 [2]
4 19:37 Xyz [3]
1 11:50 Gerthudion Whomoper3485 [2]
4 18:10 Procopius2k [4]
3 22:39 Bangkok Billy [3]
3 21:32 Marilyn Bumble4397 [6]
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1 01:35 Chris [2]
1 22:21 Dron66046 [2]
4 06:15 Besoeker [7]
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1 11:55 Gerthudion Whomoper3485 [8]
1 05:41 Dron66046 [5]
9 23:36 Skidmark [6]
Page 4: Opinion
2 11:43 Dron66046 [1]
4 13:24 Cesare [4]
3 20:59 SteveS [4]
5 19:16 SteveS [10]
3 11:28 JohnQC [3]
12 10:46 Marilyn Bumble4397 [11]
1 02:03 Besoeker [4]
7 11:48 Dron66046 [3]
2 06:07 Besoeker [2]
Page 6: Politix
1 14:10 JohnQC []
11 16:43 Chris [3]
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4 15:33 magpie [4]
2 10:39 ed in texas [7]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Customers hold down man suspected of sexual battery
[FOX5ATLANTA] A man is charged with sexual battery after police say he groped women in a grocery store. When other shoppers at the Ingles in Cartersville heard what was happening, they stepped in and made sure the man wasn't going anywhere until police arrived.

Josh Collins was in the grocery store with his daughter.

"Heard a huge commotion and I hear a woman say 'You can't grab me like that," said Collins.

Collins said he then heard other women saying a stranger was touching them.

"I heard two other women say, 'He just grabbed us inappropriately.' I said, ‘Who?’ and they pointed to him as he was going out the doors," said Collins.

Collins said the man seemed to be in a hurry. Collins told him to wait for police and blocked his path.

"He hit my arms down and once he hit me I grabbed his arms and put them behind him and tried to get him to the ground," said Collins.

Mike Gravley was in the parking lot. just putting his cart away when he heard one of the victims talking to an employee.

She's hollering "He's touching girls in there!"

Gravley looked over and saw two men scuffling on the ground. He put two and two together and went to help. The man was putting up a fight.

"He struggled the whole time. When we heard the sirens, he heard them and he stepped it up," said Gravley.

"He had the keys in his hand, and he kept cutting me and trying to stab at me," said Collins.

"I grabbed his arm and got the keys out of his hand," said Gravley.

Two teenagers jumped in to help hold the man down. When police showed up they arrested Shelton Dewayne Markham of Floyd County. He's charged with sexual battery and aggravated assault.

Police say one of the people Markham inappropriately touched was a young teen who was at the store with her mother.

"I had a 15-year-old daughter who was one aisle over and it could have happened to her," said Collins.

The men say a number of people have thanked them for stepping in. They say they didn't do it for praise, they did it because it was the right thing to do.

"The girls were really upset. I was glad the young girl got to see there are good people out there, who knows what this is going to do to her," said Gravley.
Gentlemen all, except the squished toucher, demonstrating once again why gentlemen are so important to the world.
Posted by: Fred || 08/02/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
To Josh Collins, Mike Gravley and the 2 unnamed teenagers (yes Teens). You stepped in and did something.

Instead acting as a FB/Boob-tube reporter with a smart phone to video it.

Thank you for your efforts.
You have taken a piece of deviant trash off our streets and out of our public places.


NOTE TO NEIGHBORS
Keep an eye out for him. It looks as if he Bonded out.
His Booking details.

SUMMARY:
Another Yankee that moved South and did not understand Southern small town culture.

Where we still "actively" help police and assist in trash handling and removal.
Posted by: NN2N1 || 08/02/2021 7:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Was that you Hunter? Oh, sorry, it sounded so much like you I had to ask.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/02/2021 8:14 Comments || Top||


18 people shot, 2 fatally during bloody night in NYC
[NYPOST] Eighteen people were shot overnight in New York City overnight, including a mass shooting in Queens and two men who were rubbed out in Brooklyn in separate incidents early Sunday morning.

In Canarsie, a man was blasted just before 4:30 a.m. with multiple bullets in his torso by two button men, who expeditiously departed at a goodly pace, while sitting in his car outside a Dunkin Donuts at 1547 Ralph Ave, according to police sources. Medics rushed the maimed 32-year-old to Brookdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
He's dead, Jim!
about an hour later, police sources said.

Shortly after, a man was shot in the chest in Crown Heights, police sources said. A shooter fired at a 26-year-old man Utica Avenue and Sterling Place, where the victim was hit in the chest at 4:49 a.m., the sources said. The man was taken to Kings County hospital and is fighting for his life, cop sources said.


Posted by: Fred || 08/02/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:



-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Packed Lollapalooza wraps up with massive crowds in Chicago amid fears the four-day concert could become a COVID super-spreader event
Posted by: Skidmark || 08/02/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's been said elsewhere of gerbil worming advocates flying around in corporate jets: "I'll believe there's a crisis when they start acting like there's a crisis." Same needs to be said about big crowds and COVID. White people on motorcycles - superspreaders. BLM / anteefa rioters - not superspreaders. People going to church - superspreaders. Huge crowds at mega concerts with hip-hop (whatever they are, I don't see entertainers as the right word) - not superspreaders. Trump rallies - superspreaders. Any leftist gathering - not superspreaders. Need I cite any more examples?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 08/02/2021 8:03 Comments || Top||



Tourists evacuated as fires rage in Turkey, Italian resort destroyed
[NYPOST] Panicked tourists in the Aegean resort of Bodrum in The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund...
rushed to the seashore to wait for rescue boats Saturday after being told to evacuate some hotels as wildfires raged nearby.Videos posted online by local media showed towering flames in the hills above the town’s hotels and huge waves of smoke billowing out to the sea as vacationers fled with their suitcases in tow.

The blaze was one of at least 10 wildfires raging out of control across Turkey.

The corpse count from the blazes rose to six Saturday. Two firefighting personnel died while trying to control the inferno near the coastal Mediterranean town of Manavgat, about 50 miles southeast from the popular tourist city of Antalya, Rooters reported.

Turks were also mourning Sahin Akdemir, a 25-year-old volunteer who died bringing water to firefighters.



Posted by: Fred || 08/02/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wildfires are also threatening the Sicilian town of Catania,
Posted by: Bobby || 08/02/2021 9:51 Comments || Top||


-Land of the Free
Leaked audio from Texas border facility reveals alleged sexual misconduct
[THEPOSTMILLENNIAL] A federal government shelter for migrant children in Fort Bliss, Texas, is allegedly the scene of sexual misconduct between staff and the unaccompanied minors housed there near the United States-Mexico border.

This is the same location where concerns have also been raised about a probable COVID-19 outbreak among the children. Two whistleblowers have accused the Biden administration, the same old faces in slightly different places, the same old ideas, the same old graft
...knaves, footpads, and adjusters employed by the Biden Crime Family. They leave a trail of havoc everywhere they turn their attention, be it the nation's borders, the Keystone XL Pipeline, or epidemics, sometimes on purpose, most times through sheer arrogant ineptitude. They learnt this stuff in college, you know...
's Department of Health and Human Services of directing them to downplay the severity of a mass outbreak of COVID-19 amongst migrant children at the Fort Bliss Emergency Intake Site in Texas this year.

New audio has been obtained from a training session with staffers inside Fort Bliss in May where the presenter responds to a question about "kids having sex with each other" and "possible sexual assaults."

"We have already caught staff with minors inappropriately. Is that OK with you guys?" asks the presenter, an unnamed federal contractor.

"If you catch them [engaging in sexual acts], especially if it's a staff member, you separate that minor from that person immediately," the contractor says, making no mention of flagging supervisors to report the incident.

According to NBC News, "At its peak this spring, the temporary facility at Fort Bliss held nearly 5,000 migrant children, as the Department of Health and Human Services scrambled to take in children who were overcrowding Border Patrol stations. At the time of the training session, the facility held about 3,000 minors."

The training session continues with the presenter saying: "I know there have been a lot of complaints from minors about staff members waking them up in the morning. We've got some staff members that are picking up and shaking the bed to wake up the minor. Or they're bouncing them on the bed. They think they're being playful, but that constitutes child abuse. I want you guys to know that."

There has also been controversy about the revelation that many of the children being held at the facility were lacking basic clothing such as "underwear socks and shoes." Arthur Pearlstein, the same whistleblower who made the facility's problems with COVID-19 public, also said: "There were so many of them that complained that they had no underwear or one pair with nothing to change into. I began to ask some of the management officials, 'Well, can't a federal employee that has a purchase card just go to Walmart or Costco?'"

Pearlstein said that he was told no, that they would just have to wait.

Reason in late May reported that both staff-on-minor "inappropriate" contact as well as teenaged minors in physical contact occurred at the Texas border facility.

Posted by: Fred || 08/02/2021 00:35 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:


Los Angeles criminalizes being homeless in the city
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

Los Angeles, Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,’s largest city, has over 66,000 unhoused people as of the last citywide count, a 12.7 percent increase over the previous year. After implementing the new rule, those thousands of homeless people will now face citations, fines, or misdemeanor charges for being homeless, The Independent reported.

The Los Angeles City Council approved the legislation against the homeless people by 13-2 earlier this week.

"That’s what it comes down to for me ... where can people go, where can people sleep when they do not have an alternative," council member Mike Bonin said in the meeting where they approved the ordinance.

Bonin, who himself was homeless, was angry that the city only has shelter capacity to house about 39 percent of its unhoused population any given night.
Posted by: Fred || 08/02/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Time to fill up those hotels again.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 08/02/2021 0:15 Comments || Top||

#2 
The Bird Feeder Analogy In Practice.

Just like the analogy, the LA Bird Feeder, with a 21% illegal and growing 83,0000+ HOBO population maybe moving in the right direction?

Posted by: NN2N1 || 08/02/2021 7:21 Comments || Top||

#3  Another gift of the judiciary striking down old vagrancy laws. The first steps on our road to decivilization.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/02/2021 8:13 Comments || Top||

#4  The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

- Anatole France
Posted by: M. Murcek || 08/02/2021 8:57 Comments || Top||


Britain
Perfidious Albion's 'ethical vegans' may get a Jab Pass
[Summit] After the revelation that half a million vegans in the UK could be prevented from having to take mandatory workplace vaccinations due to their beliefs being protected by employment law, actor Laurence Fox publicly announced that he now identifies as "trans vegan."

"So-called ethical veganism was ruled to be a protected characteristic at a tribunal last year, meaning employers would risk legal action if they order staff to be vaccinated," reports the Daily Telegraph.

Workers with other religious beliefs could also cite their status as a protected category in order to avoid employers forcing compulsory jabs.

"Some ethical vegans may disagree with vaccinations on the basis that they will inevitably have been tested on animals. Ethical veganism has previously been found by an [employment tribunal] to amount to a belief, capable of being protected," said a spokesman for the Lewis Silkin law firm.

Although COVID-19 vaccines don’t contain anything derived from animals, they were tested on animals.

Jeanette Rowley, a rights advocate at the Vegan Society, said she had received around 100 messages from concerned vegans who say "they’re very affected, psychologically, to have to confront this dilemma."
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/02/2021 07:05 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Are the 'Vegans' volunteering to be guinea pigs instead? Then pound sand
Posted by: magpie || 08/02/2021 18:14 Comments || Top||


Amid record NHS backlog, UK sees a surge in patients self-funding
Posted by: Bubba Lover of the Faeries8843 || 08/02/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  never would have thought it!
Posted by: Chris || 08/02/2021 1:38 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Senate Committee Unanimously Approves Resolution Supporting Cuba Protesters
[Daily Wire] The Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved a resolution supporting anti-regime protesters in Cuba.

According to a press release from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the resolution condemns "the Cuban government’s violent response to the thousands of Cuban citizens who have taken to the streets to peacefully call for respect for basic human rights and the end of the dictatorship in Cuba."

The resolution will next move to the Senate floor for approval.
Posted by: Bobby || 08/02/2021 13:04 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Just wait until the actual demoncrats communists get to vote on it.
Posted by: DarthVader || 08/02/2021 13:09 Comments || Top||

#2 
Noted: "Committee"
Knew the Senate had too many Socialcrats to have been a full Senate vote.
Posted by: NN2N1 || 08/02/2021 14:50 Comments || Top||


Red Dawn: Chinese Paramilitary Reportedly Training Elite Cuban Forces
[Western Journal] Spooked by the protests that rocked Cuba in July, the island’s communist regime called out an elite security force of the country’s Ministry of the Interior with training from one of China’s most ruthless tools of repression

ADN Cuba, a Cuban opposition media website, reported in a Google translation on Saturday that, over the past six years the Special National Brigade, known by its Spanish acronym BEN, has been receiving special training from members of the Chinese People’s Armed Police Force, a paramilitary force that specializes in riot control and fighting terrorism. The training is conducted in Cuba.

BEN troops, according to the article, are instructed in areas such as "sniper preparation and intervention tactics" among other methods of suppressing the population.

ADN notes that China is "an expert in silencing their citizens and cutting off any sign of political opposition or public disagreement that calls into question the alleged totalitarian support for the Communist Party."

Members of BEN, which was established in 1980, are known as the "Black Berets," according to ADN. Their purpose is to handle an assortment of special situations, according to ADN, and are often "mobilized to frighten and repress dissidents, opponents and independent activists."
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/02/2021 00:45 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Infiltration of enemy lines by small groups of no more than a million soldiers?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/02/2021 2:26 Comments || Top||

#2  methods of suppressing the population

Truncheons and boots work better on impoverished Uighurs and monks.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 08/02/2021 3:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Truncheons and boots work better on impoverished Uighurs and monks.

Shaolin monks too?😊
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/02/2021 3:24 Comments || Top||

#4  Chinese are so strong and smart.
Posted by: Wren || 08/02/2021 4:15 Comments || Top||

#5 
Shaolin monks too?😊

On the slopes of the Songshan
they trained some fine Han.
They all went one by one,
at least those who liked fun,
to the studios minting Yuans.
But some escaped on boats,
to go live with the Ip Mans.

Posted by: Dron66046 || 08/02/2021 5:30 Comments || Top||

#6  ADN notes that China is "an expert in silencing their citizens and cutting off any sign of political opposition or public disagreement that calls into question the alleged totalitarian support for the Communist Party."

I didn't know that Cuba needed help with this.
Posted by: European Conservative || 08/02/2021 6:18 Comments || Top||

#7  /\ I didn't know that Cuba needed help with this.

I doubt the Cuban's did either. The leasing agreement however, was simply too lucrative. Perhaps a Caribbean Uighur homeland is in the works.

Posted by: Besoeker || 08/02/2021 6:28 Comments || Top||


#9  /\ Laura Ludwig die gesaßmuskulatur, so schon.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/02/2021 9:19 Comments || Top||

#10  There are elite Cuban forces? Cuba has enough of its own problems.
Posted by: JohnQC || 08/02/2021 12:10 Comments || Top||

#11  Possibly to control those 'problems', JQC.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 08/02/2021 13:25 Comments || Top||

#12  There are elite Cuban forces?

Who else to oppress the non-elite Cuban forces?
Posted by: Slease Phailet8995 || 08/02/2021 16:55 Comments || Top||

#13  In tyrannies, the "elite" forces are the ones with the most members related to the tyrants. They also tend to be the best fed and armed.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 08/02/2021 17:57 Comments || Top||

#14  NOT so sure training is their mission. The demonstrations were so huge I think Cuba requested the presence of the Chinese Military.
Posted by: Blackbeard Barnsmell6454 || 08/02/2021 18:31 Comments || Top||

#15  Is China hoping for a pincer? That unit spotted training on the southwest Canadian coast and the unit now in Cuba?
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/02/2021 20:11 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Belarusian sprinter 'won't return home' after speaking out against coaches at Olympics
[NYPOST] A Belarusian Olympic sprinter plans to seek asylum in Germany or Austria on Monday after her country’s Olympic committee attempted to send her home for complaining about her coaches.

Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, 24, had been scheduled to compete in the women’s 200 meter race on Monday — before coaches came to her room Sunday and told her to pack.

"I will not return to Belarus," Tsimanouskaya told Rooters in a message via Telegram, after seeking protection from Japanese police.

"I think I am safe. I am with the police," she told a Rooters photographer who observed her standing with local officers at Haneda Airport.

The Belarusian Olympic Committee said in a statement that coaches pulled Tsimanouskaya from the Games due to her "emotional, psychological state."

Tsimanouskaya complained she was entered in the 4×400 m relay after some members of the team were found to be ineligible to compete at the Olympics because they had not undergone a sufficient amount of doping tests.

"Some of our girls did not fly here to compete in the 4×400 m relay because they didn’t have enough doping tests," Tsimanouskaya told Rooters from the airport.

"And the coach added me to the relay without my knowledge. I spoke about this publicly. The head coach came over to me and said there had been an order from above to remove me."

Posted by: Fred || 08/02/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  One of the perks of being good at something is someone somewhere will always value you.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 08/02/2021 0:32 Comments || Top||


#3  Now all she has to do is not have her airplane forced down by Belarus MiGs or BUK'ed from the sky.
It has happened.
Posted by: ed in texas || 08/02/2021 10:35 Comments || Top||


Four soldiers killed in Donetsk artillery shelling
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[REGNUM] As a result of shelling by Ukrainian militants on July 30, four servicemen of the Donetsk People's Republic were killed. This was announced today, August 1, by the military department of the DPR.

Ukrainian armed formations opened fire in the area of ​​the settlement of Petrovskoe in the DPR. One soldier of the republic was wounded. An ambulance was sent after him, which also came under fire. As a result, four DPR servicemen were killed.

As REGNUM previously reported , the Ukrainian side continues to disregard the ceasefire in Donbass, despite the fact that from July 27, 2020, additional measures to control the ceasefire have been in force, agreed by the contact group, which includes a representative from Kiev.
Posted by: badanov || 08/02/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Four dead in chemical plant explosion in Rostov region
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
KAMENSK-SHAKHTINSKY, ROSTOV REGION [REGNUM] In the Rostov region, four of the seven victims of the explosion at the Kamensky plant died. Officially, the death toll has not been confirmed.

The next day after the accident, one of the employees who was in the premises of one of the workshops died. On the third day, three more people died.

All seven victims, two women and five men, were hospitalized with severe burns. They are in the central city hospital of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky.
Posted by: badanov || 08/02/2021 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


China-Japan-Koreas
Contagion in the Chinese credit market?
[Twitter]
Follow this tweet thread all the way down. Contagion appears to be hitting the Chinese Banks and Markets. A 2008 for China is one possibility.

Posted by: 3dc || 08/02/2021 01:40 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Pundits been punding collapse of Chinese economy for the last 20 years.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/02/2021 2:27 Comments || Top||

#2 
A deeper WHAT-IF alternative. ?

1st of all, How does a Capitalist monetary model and related issues apply to a Communist controlled sudo-Capitalist "allowed" operation and economy?

WHAT IF The CCP just said Screw It?
The CCP Leadership decides to Shutdown, kick-out or confiscate the assets of any business in the Country?

I read somewhere that CCP requires that it own 51% of any company setting up shop in CCP and already controls them. So what is to keep the CCP from rounding up all the Chinese CEO's in China and declare them Enemies of the Communist State, imprison anyone and confiscate their assets? Then line them up and shoot them. (like it did in 1946-50's)

The CCP, ranks #2 in total U.S. debt owned by foreign countries. Japan being #1. If the CCP could tank the US Bond Market it could collaspe Japan.

A CCP Bond / Capitalist Purge dump then would have a worldwide effects on many other national economies and businesses, annuities and etc. that are built on normally predictable interest/income revenues. (eg. The Fanny-Mae/Freddie-Mac collapse)


What is to keep the CCP from just going back to being a 100% Chairman Mao CCP 3.0 Communist Dictatorship ran country? Remember WE (the World) have rebuilt and modernized the CCP economy, infrastructure and likely have 100% financed its continued operations for at least another 5 to 7 years.


Yes this is a very remote scenario.
But who knows what the CCP World Economy 10 year plan is?
Posted by: NN2N1 || 08/02/2021 6:32 Comments || Top||

#3  The great thing about central planning is this old saw - "Plan's just a list of things ain't gonna happen..."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 08/02/2021 6:43 Comments || Top||

#4  1st of all, How does a Capitalist monetary model and related issues apply to a Communist controlled sudo-Capitalist "allowed" operation and economy?


It's no longer a communist country, if it ever was. The sloganeering is just for public consumption. All "communism" is and has ever been was an excuse to elevate the winners of the civil war to the aristocracy, rewarding key supporters and handing out tiny amounts of free stuff to the populace. In China, if you don't work and you don't have any savings (or friends and family) to tide you over, you starve. That's the very definition of a market economy. The reason they don't repudiate communism is pretty much the same reason the pagan/atheist pope in Vatican City can't repudiate Catholicism altogether - it's the foundation of their power.

Xi Jinping is basically another Chinese emperor. His courtiers are the old aristocracy with new names. All this stuff about "fascism" is old wine in new bottles. Napoleon discovered that calling himself Emperor was bad for public relations, such that Beethoven changed the name for a symphony originally composed in the Little Corporal's honor. So in dictatorships that removed their de jure monarchs, the new kings call themselves "president", "general secretary" or some anodyne title that does not convey the reality of autocracy that "king" or "emperor" does. Hitler was basically a super-intrusive and -ruthless Kaiser, but Fuhrer sounded less overbearing.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/02/2021 17:19 Comments || Top||

#5  ^ Absolutely, irrefutably true.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 08/02/2021 18:51 Comments || Top||

#6  /\ Most informative. Thank you very much Zhang Fei.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/02/2021 19:14 Comments || Top||

#7  Crony capitalism, at best, domestically, from all I’ve read. Predatory mercantilism abroad, and with international investors at home. A totalitarianism over all of it
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/02/2021 21:30 Comments || Top||

#8  Crony capitalism, at best, domestically, from all I’ve read. Predatory mercantilism abroad, and with international investors at home.

That's basically markets in the era of de jure monarchs. Royal charters (aka monopolies) for favored courtiers and a trade policy relentlessly focused on achieving a positive balance of payments. Re sticking it to foreign investors, China has actually been pretty good relative to the other BRICS economies. Unfortunately, thanks to Xi's overweening tendencies, that may be about to change. China may revert to mean (no pun intended). The problem is that it wasn't priced for the BRICS mean - it was priced higher, way higher.

Speaking of overweening tendencies, here's a missive from a prior regime's ruler (the House of Aisin-Gioro) to a neighbor:

(The Qianlong Emperor is) the lord of all under heaven who watches over everything inside and outside the empire and who rewards good and punishes evil.


In the late 18th century, King George III sent a trade mission to China because England was having a problem – all of their hard currency (silver and gold) was ending up in China because the English public had a taste for tea and for porcelain cups to serve it in and China was the main producer of both. The goal of the trade mission was to convince the Chinese that the English produced lots of high tech stuff like clocks and steam engines that the Chinese could buy instead of demanding payment only in silver. In response, Emperor Qian Long sent the trade mission home empty handed except for a really snooty letter that said, in effect, “We have no use for any of your shitty little toys. Anything we need we can produce on our own. Go away.” Here's the (somewhat overbearing) text of what he actually said:

You, O King, from afar have yearned after the blessings of our civilization, and in your eagerness to come into touch with our converting influence have sent an Embassy across the sea bearing a memorial [memorandum]. I have already taken note of your respectful spirit of submission, have treated your mission with extreme favor and loaded it with gifts, besides issuing a mandate to you, O King, and honoring you at the bestowal of valuable presents. Thus has my indulgence been manifested.

...

Tremblingly obey and show no negligence!


In case you were wondering, this was Mad King George he was addressing. As China becomes a bigger cheese on the world stage, this is the kind of diplomacy to which we can look forward.

OTOH, look on the bright side - this dysfunctional regime held the nation back from 1949 to 1979, before central economic planning was phased out in all but name. That's 30 years of respite for its immediate neighbors and, indeed, all under heaven. Chiang would have brought the empire back faster. Who knows what foreign adventures he might have embarked on?
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/02/2021 22:27 Comments || Top||

#9  The rest of the missive that includes the phrase "tremblingly obey" can be found here
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/02/2021 22:29 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Australians Who Post Anti-Lockdown Content Online Could Face $11,000 Fines
[Summit] Australians who merely post anti-lockdown information online could face fines of up to $11,000 under a draconian new piece of legislation.

Under the proposal, which is being pushed by the opposition in in New South Wales, protest organizers would be fined a whopping $20,000 and people who attend would be fined $5,500.

However, the law would punish "people sharing information on social media about illegal rallies and inciting others to illegally attend" even more harshly, hitting them with $11,000 fines.

The onerous fines are intended to neutralize a protest movement that has grown in recent weeks over New South Wales imposing yet another brutal lockdown on its citizens, which is now being enforced by military occupation of Sydney.

Shadow Police Minister Walt Secord said the massive fines were needed to "throw the book at these idiots who spread misinformation and lies along with the Delta variant."

Police Commissioner Mick Fuller warned of "online chatter" about a possible second protest this Saturday, using rhetoric that is usually reserved for terrorists planning a deadly attack.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/02/2021 07:14 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm sure Biden Administration officials are taking notice.
Posted by: Glenmore || 08/02/2021 10:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Yeah... that will sit well with a population already marching.
Posted by: DarthVader || 08/02/2021 13:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Note well, they took away their guns first.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/02/2021 13:41 Comments || Top||

#4  /\ "Ned Kelly, Ned Kelly to the Courtesy Desk please..."
Posted by: magpie || 08/02/2021 18:17 Comments || Top||


Government Corruption
Taxpayers expecting refunds receive confusing IRS letter requesting money
[Detroit Free Press] Imagine going to the mailbox and spotting a letter from the IRS that says you owe around $1,000 or more by the end of the month when you know darn well that you're due a tax refund.

It's a special kind of tax season torture.

For many taxpayers, erroneous notices and confusing letters from the Internal Revenue Service are proving to be as unsettling as waiting for months on end for a tax refund.

I'm hearing about taxpayers who filed in February and early March after losing their jobs during the economic fallout from the pandemic in 2020. Early in the tax season, they would have owed taxes because all of their jobless benefits would count as taxable income at that time.

The taxpayers filed before a key change in the tax rules but waited to pay — as was allowed until this season's May 17 deadline.

And along came the American Rescue Plan, which was signed into law on March 11. The rules changed in their favor. Suddenly, they no longer owed money but they were now going to get a tax refund. And no, they didn't send in a check by May 17.

No matter, the IRS sent them automated notices anyway in early July to collect the number that appeared on the original tax return.

It's one wacky journey that once again illustrates how taxpayers can expect all sorts of odd twists and turns along the way as the 2020 tax season drags into summer.

What's stranger still: One taxpayer in Ohio reported getting the collection notice one week in July and then, shocker, actually receiving the unemployment-related refund that he was owed the very next week.

Talk about making your head — and likely your stomach — spin.

Nearly 4 million taxpayers were set to get unemployment-related refunds in mid-July, according to the latest news from the IRS. These are taxpayers who overpaid their taxes on unemployment compensation received last year, again before the tax rules changed.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/02/2021 08:45 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Anyone besides me experiencing this? Accountant filed electronically on 21 April. Small refund expected. Received IRS CP11 letter on July 26, 2021 telling me I owe money. Something to do with "A change in return due to Recovery Rebate Credit" no further info provided. Per accountant, I've tried to contact the IRS telephonically on 4 different occasions. No luck to date. Not a large sum of money, but it's my money.

Same accountant for last 18 years. Never an issue or audit.

Ideas? Recommendations?
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/02/2021 8:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Similar letter. Our accountant wrote them a nice letter and told us not to worry - the IRS is in chaos.

Twenty years ago, I got a nice letter from the IRS saying I owed all my taxes, plus interest, in two weeks - or die. I wrote them a nice letter pointing out the completed tax return, with attached W-2 forms, indicated they had all the tax money, and my refund amount. In a couple of weeks, I got a letter that said ignore the first letter. The refund was quite late, however...
Posted by: Bobby || 08/02/2021 9:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Must have subcontracted out to the outfit that did the Covid testing in 2020.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/02/2021 10:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Beso & Bobby - agreed; the IRS is in chaos right now. I don't have time to go into detail, but wait a few months on those letters. I bet they'll disappear with time.
Posted by: Raj || 08/02/2021 10:38 Comments || Top||

#5  I thought it funny when they said they ran out of printer ink.
Re refunds my son is still waiting for his he submitted last April.
Posted by: crazyhorse || 08/02/2021 11:21 Comments || Top||

#6  Thanks to all the above for your comments and insights.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/02/2021 19:15 Comments || Top||


Federal Government Issued $783.5M in Stimulus Checks for Prisoners
[LI] When the history of the COVID-19 pandemic is written, there will be much criticism and condescension heaped upon public health professionals.

But sharing in the derision will be the politicians and fiscal bureaucrats who shuttered businesses across the country and doled out "stimulus checks" to replace income.

Additional ire will be directed to those who decided the prison population needed to receive tax dollars are part of the response to the pandemic.
The federal government doled out $783.5 million for incarcerated individuals as part of the American Rescue Plan, Fox News has learned.

In response to a public records request from conservative group American Crossroads, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) revealed that the money flowed to 560,000 individuals who were incarcerated for the full tax year 2020.

Passed in March, the American Rescue Plan granted $1,400 in stimulus money to people making less than $75,000 per year.

"Earlier this year, every single Senate Democrat voted to give stimulus checks to violent criminals in prison," Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said in a statement to Fox News.

"Sending cash to murderers and rapists in prison has nothing to do with solving the pandemic or improving the economy. Now, the same people who sent hundreds of millions of dollars as gifts to these inmates want to spend trillions more in an even bigger and more partisan bill."

The Republican senators warned that this development would not go over well Americans of all political persuasions. Still, the Democrats persisted.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/02/2021 08:12 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



Science & Technology
99.999% of fully vaccinated Americans have not had a deadly Covid-19 breakthrough case, CDC data shows
Posted by: JohnQC || 08/02/2021 11:15 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yeah....right.
Posted by: crazyhorse || 08/02/2021 14:02 Comments || Top||

#2 

Strange, not the numbers shared several times previously.

Then I noticed the caveat "FULLY" Vaccinated Americans.

So did some digging to see what is the adverse rejection rate for the initial shot (1/2), which would have precluded the 2nd FULLY vaccination shot.

While the "reported" adverse rejection numbers are well under 3 in 10K. We have had several CDC major retractions regarding CDC/WHO data within Few Weeks of publication.

BTW: Here is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) Link VAERS 2021 Data

Interesting to note: Its not PUBLIC Info
"Message: You must select VAERS ID in Group Results By list when requesting any of the Optional Measures."

So I will be doing some White Hat digging.

Posted by: NN2N1 || 08/02/2021 15:22 Comments || Top||

#3  NN2N1--Thanx for the info and link.
Posted by: JohnQC || 08/02/2021 18:32 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
33[untagged]
5Commies
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1Houthis
1Islamic State
1ISWAP
1Muslim Brotherhood
1Palestinian Authority
1[untagged]
1Antifa/BLM
1Arab Spring
1Govt of Iran Proxies
1Govt of Pakistain Proxies
1Govt of Pakistan

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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2021-08-02
  15 Niger troops killed in ambush, subsequent blast
Sun 2021-08-01
  Bus with soccer players blown up in Somalia as key election starts
Sat 2021-07-31
  Tanker managed by Israeli firm attacked off Oman, killing two
Fri 2021-07-30
  Secret files show Iranian plans to sink ships using cyberattacks
Thu 2021-07-29
  3 Tunisian parties, including Ennahda, face legal probe
over foreign funding
Wed 2021-07-28
  Libya militia leader Mohammed al-Kani diagnosed with rigor mortis
Tue 2021-07-27
  'Death to the dictator!': Anti-government protests reach Tehran
Mon 2021-07-26
  Tunisian army deployed in the capital
Sun 2021-07-25
  US military targets Al-shabaab again in Somalia
Ilhan Omar bitches about it
Sat 2021-07-24
  Nigeria jails 10 pirates over ship hijacking
Fri 2021-07-23
  Taliban claim control of some 90% of Afghanistan's border areas
Thu 2021-07-22
  Nigeria: 100 kidnapped villagers released by bandits
Wed 2021-07-21
  30 Civilians Killed And More Than 50 Others Wounded In Sadr City Explosion
Tue 2021-07-20
  Ghani Visits Herat to Review Security Situation
Mon 2021-07-19
  ‘967 Taliban Killed in 4 Days’ as Clashes Continue: ANDSF


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