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John McCain dies at 81
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 6: Politix
13 21:31 Jeasing Jeaque5937 [1]
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
4 die in Fla mass shooting
A gunman is among the 'multiple fatalities' after a mass shooting broke out at an online gaming tournament in Florida that was partially captured on a horrifying livestream.

Local media are reporting that four people are dead and 11 have been injured in the shooting at the Jacksonville Landing complex in Jacksonville on Sunday afternoon.

The Jax Sheriff's Office confirmed there were multiple fatalities and injuries and said one suspect was dead at the scene. It is unclear if there are any other suspects.

The shooting broke out during the Madden NFL online gaming tournament, which was being hosted at the Chicago Pizza restaurant.

Witnesses have said the shooter was a player who had just lost in the tournament. One witness told CNN he saw the gunman shoot multiple people before killing himself.
Posted by: badanov || 08/26/2018 15:52 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Pro tip: If you are winning more than half your FPS games, you're doing it wrong.
Posted by: badanov || 08/26/2018 16:05 Comments || Top||

#2  I was doing LAN party gaming pre-decent internet. Took over most of the house. Star-craft, unreal, quake, Counter-strike.

Was one of the first on ADSL in the UK and we had a NT server running NAT for the USB internet connection, and we owned (until the opposition caught up)!

Fun times.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 08/26/2018 16:28 Comments || Top||

#3  I blame Madden NFL for virtual head trauma!
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 08/26/2018 20:07 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Book of The Week: Bob Greene's 'Once Upon a Town'
[Harper Publishing - 2002] From the flap: In search of "the best America there ever was." bestselling author and award-winning journalist Bob Greene finds it in a small Nebraska town few people pass through today - a town where Greene discovers the echoes of the most touching love story imaginable: a love story between a country and it's sons.

During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte, Nebraska on troop trains en route to their destinations in Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town, wanting to offer the servicemen warmth and support, transformed its modest railway depot into the North Platte Canteen.

Every day of the year, every day of the war, the Canteen- staffed and funded entirely by local volunteers - was open from A.M. until the last troop train of the day pulled away after midnight. Astonishingly, this remote plains community of only 12,000 people provided welcoming words, friendship, and baskets of food and treats to more than six million GIs by the time the war ended.

In this poignant and heartwarming eyewitness history, based on interviews with North Platte residents and the soldiers who once passed through, Bob Greene tells a classic, lost-in-the-mists-of-time American story of a grateful honoring its brave and dedicated sons.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/26/2018 05:52 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It looks interesting — thank you, Besoeker. Kindle sample downloaded for further perusal.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/26/2018 6:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Something good about 'America' needed just now. Been around for a while. A quick, 2-3 hour front porch read.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/26/2018 6:52 Comments || Top||

#3  I've read it and it is a wonderful story that brought tears a couple of times. We also suspecy my FIL may have stopped there on 2 "government business" trips to Angel Island from his farm in Wisconsin.
Posted by: Capsu78 || 08/26/2018 10:44 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Congo-Kinshasa: Ebola Outbreak Spreads to Eastern 'No-Go' Zone Surrounded By Rebels
[All Africa] Rebel violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
...formerly the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, Zaire, and who knows what else, not to be confused with the Brazzaville Congo aka Republic of Congo, which is much smaller and much more (for Africa) stable. DRC gave the world Patrice Lumumba and Joseph Mobutu, followed by years of tedious civil war. Its principle industry seems to be the production of corpses. With a population of about 74 million it has lots of raw material...
(DRC) is escalating inside the vast country's Ebola-hit North Kivu province, putting millions at risk, the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
refugee agency warned on Friday.

"Thousands of civilians have fled their burned-out villages, bringing reports of brutal attacks," Andrej Mahecic, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told the regular press briefing in Geneva Friday, following reports that a case of Ebola infection and one suspected case have been found in one town in the area, Oicha, which is surrounded by gangs.

Forced displacement in this part of the country remains massive. It is estimated that more than a million people are displaced in North Kivu. This is the highest concentration of internally displaced people (IDPs) in the DRC. An estimated half a million people have been forced from their homes this year alone.

At the same briefing, Dr. Peter Salama, WHO Deputy Director-General of Emergency Preparedness and Response, said that the discovery of Ebola infection in the hard-to-reach part of eastern DRC could mark a "pivotal" point in the response to the deadly disease.

"It really was the problem we were anticipating and the problem ... we were dreading. Our teams have responded this week. They've had to reach Oicha with armed escorts... Once they reach Oicha, they are able to move within Oicha town more freely, because the town itself is a yellow zone from a security perspective," he explained.

Posted by: Fred || 08/26/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...Now, surround that area with a solid wall of armed men, and then let Darwin do his work.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 08/26/2018 10:19 Comments || Top||


Shipping companies abandon vessels without restraint in Nigeria
[DW] There is growing concern over the frequency at which unseaworthy and unserviceable ships are being dumped in Nigeria's territorial waters.

Shipwrecks have been a problem at Alpha Beach for years, with the ownership of the abandoned vessels hard to establish. Public outcry over coastal erosion caused by the abandoned ships prompted the Lagos State government to clear the shipwrecks from the beach but the problem keeps re-emerging.

The remains of the vessels are no longer there but the environmental damage they caused persists.

"We always cite the example of Alpha Beach. It no longer exists,” said Philip Jakpor of Environmental Rights Action.

"Some years ago, there were dozens of ships abandoned there and, before you knew it, the waters continue to come inland and ate up all the coconut trees on the banks. Today, those coconut trees are not there. Today, the houses that were close to the sea are no longer there,” Jakpor told DW.

LEGAL BUREAUCRACY

The owners of unserviceable ships are believed to find it more convenient to dump them in Nigeria rather than properly dispose them off. Master mariner, Captain Ezekiel Ishola, says legal bureaucracy sometimes prevents authorities from clearing the wrecks.

"If they don't declare them as wrecks nobody can touch those ships. Yes, because they have owners,” Ishola told DW.

"So, if the Nigerian Port Authority or Customs want to handle these vessels now, they must give notice that are going to take care of these ships since they have become a danger to navigation – otherwise the ship owner can come and sue,” he told DW.

Prosecutions for abandoned vessels never occur and responsibility for removing the wrecks usually falls to the government. The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency has warned the local and international shipping community of sanctions in the event of an abandon vessel in Nigeria's territory.

Posted by: Fred || 08/26/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:


Congo rejects ex-warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba's presidential bid
[DW] Congo's election commission has excluded opposition leader Jean-Pierre Bemba and three former prime ministers from the list of approved candidates for December's presidential election.

Bemba, a former warlord, returned to the capital, Kinshasa, earlier this month to submit his candidacy for president after a decade in prison in The Hague for war crimes. He had been seen as one of the front-runners in the race to succeed incumbent Joseph Kabila.

The commission said that a separate International Criminal Court conviction for witness tampering was the reason Bemba was left off the list.

Bemba was acquitted earlier this year on appeal at the International Criminal Court of war crimes and crimes against humanity for murder, rape and pillage committed by fighters he sent to Central African Republic in 2002.

His witness tampering conviction however, still stands.

The election commission's decision was condemned by opposition parties and can be appealed before the final list is published in September.

"Once again the current regime is showing its determination to suppress the electoral process," they said in a joint statement before the commission published the list on Friday.
Posted by: Fred || 08/26/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats


Caribbean-Latin America
Peru brings into force new entry restrictions to limit the flow of Venezuelans fleeing their country's economic crisis.
[Al Jazeera]
Posted by: Fred || 08/26/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under: Commies


Home Front: Politix
BIll Clinton's Supreme Court Picks were CONFIRMED While He Was Under Investigation
[Daily Caller] Following former Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s plea deal and the conviction of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, many Democrat lawmakers and Trump critics have called for a delay in the confirmation of Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh. What they’ve forgotten, it seems, is that both justices nominated by former President Bill Clinton were confirmed while he was under investigation.

SOME LAWMAKERS CLAIMED THAT HEARINGS SHOULD BE POSTPONED.

SOME SAID THAT, IN LIGHT OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS, THEY WOULD NOT EVEN MEET WITH KAVANAUGH.

But what no one seemed to recall was that when former President Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg to fill the seat left vacant by Justice Byron White in 1993, Clinton was under criminal investigation. Her confirmation was nearly unanimous ‐ 96-3 ‐ just 42 days later.

A year later in 1994, Clinton was under subpoena when Justice Harry Blackmun retired. In spite of that, he nominated Justice Stephen Breyer ‐ who was confirmed with a vote of 87-9 and no significant delays.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/26/2018 07:12 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "...That's different because shut up."

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 08/26/2018 7:35 Comments || Top||

#2  There's that double standard thing for the party of the KKK. Good for me but not for thee.
Posted by: JohnQC || 08/26/2018 8:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Perhaps this will be an early indicator of how serious the soft coup really is.
Posted by: Iblis || 08/26/2018 12:37 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Senior PPP activist in Thar was killed ‘for honour’
[DAWN] MITHI: The prime suspect in the murder case of a Pakistain Peoples Party activist who was nabbed
Book 'im, Mahmoud!
in a raid on a village near Dhoro Naro with the help of CCTV camera footage has confessed to have committed the crime "in the name of honour".

Seeta Ram, who was produced by police before news hounds at a presser here on Friday, said that he had rubbed out Chandar Sharma, information secretary of PPP Tharparkar chapter and personal secretary to PPP MNA Dr Mahesh Kumar Malani, because he had been maintaining "extramarital relations" with his wife for many months.

"I intended to kill my wife, who works as a lady health worker, and her mother as well after having killed Sharma but I could not bring myself to shed further blood," he said.

He said that he was certainly not happy about murdering a fellow human being but the man made him feel so lowly and miserable due to the alleged affair that he could not continue living like that. He would always threaten to implicate him in false cases if he objected to their "illicit relations", he said.

Tharparkar SSP Imran Quraishi said the suspect had confessed to have committed the crime for ’honour’. He said the suspect’s three-day police remand had been obtained for further investigation.

Sharma’s murder last Friday had sparked widespread protests in several areas of the province while most of the towns in the desert district observed shutdown for three days.

PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had demanded early arrest of the killer.

Dr Anil Kumar, younger brother of Sharma, had on July 21 registered an FIR against Seeta Ram under Section 302 of Pakistain Penal Code at Mithi cop shoppe but he failed to elaborate the motive behind the murder.

Posted by: Fred || 08/26/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Lawyer attempts self immolation after failing to secure prosecutor job
[DAWN] A lawyer in Lahore attempted to set himself on fire on Saturday after he was refused a district prosecutor's job even though, he claimed, he was "qualified for the post on merit".

Mohammad Bilal, who hails from Multan
Home of the Multan Sultans...
, poured petrol on himself outside the Lahore registry of the Supreme Court, but was stopped and taken into custody by police personnel before he could light the fire.

The lawyer was then quickly bundled into a police van and taken to the old Anarkali Police Station.

Bilal, who had turned up outside the top court with a letter addressed to Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, claimed that he was not recommended for the position of district prosecutor even though he had cleared the examination through the Punjab
1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....

Public Service Commission and the following interview as well.

"I have been going from pillar to post to get justice," he said.

"I urge the chief justice to grant me justice," the disturbed young man had pleaded.

Posted by: Fred || 08/26/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I was hoping it'd be an American lawyer.

Actually, I was hoping it'd be a bunch of them.
Posted by: charger || 08/26/2018 11:54 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Biometrics scanner catches impostor at U.S. airport on just third day of use
[Yahoo] A biometric facial comparison system flagged a traveler using a fake passport — less than three days after the system was installed. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained a traveler earlier this week after the facial recognition system brought up an ID that didn’t match the man’s passport at the Washington Dulles International Airport.

On Wednesday, the 26-year-old male was detained during the CBP’s primary inspections after arriving on a flight from Sao Paulo, Brazil. The new biometric system, which is in early testing in 14 international U.S. airports, matched the man’s face to an identity different from the passport he presented. During further examination, CBP officers found the actual ID from the Republic of Congo in his shoe.
Posted by: Skidmark || 08/26/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  found the actual ID from the Republic of Congo in his shoe.

So. Another rabid, lone wolf Amishman...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 08/26/2018 6:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Another rabid, lone wolf

Would someone for the Republic of Congo be a jihadi concern? I had assumed not, but am willing to b corrected.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/26/2018 7:12 Comments || Top||

#3  a 26-year-old man traveling from Brazil with a French passport

Upon a secondary check, he was found to be from the Republic of Congo and impersonating the man whose picture was in his passport.

Easy enough to flipflop identities between flight legs. French to RC, RC to Brazil, French to US.

So consider him a Jihadi French migrant couriering thru RC with a wash in Brazil.

The interesting twist is him carrying an alternative RC identity. One might have a set of new papers FedEx'ed to his destination, but this one was dumb or needed RC identification in BZ for an expedient pickup.
Posted by: Skidmark || 08/26/2018 13:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Note:
Ebola spreads to Democratic Republic of Congo conflict zone in scenario health officials have been "dreading"

We may have a carrier that needed special handling in route before he became symptomatic.
Posted by: Skidmark || 08/26/2018 13:25 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Kennesaw State Cuts 4 of 5 Cheerleaders Who Took a Knee During Anthem Last Year
[Breitbart] Kennesaw State University has cut four of the five cheerleaders who took a knee during the playing of the national anthem last year, according to reports.

The school newspaper, the Sentinel, noted that four of the five kneelers did not make the cut for the 2018 football season. KSU’s athletic department reported that 91 women tried out for the 52 spots on the various cheer squads, up from 61 applicants last year. The department also noted that three other members of last year’s teams also did not make the cut for this year.

"Similar to all KSU sports teams, multi-year spots on rosters are not guaranteed, and all student-athletes must earn their position on a team," a letter from the KSU athletic department stated according to the school’s paper.

The five cheerleaders made national news last year when they joined in with the NFL’s protests against the country during the playing of the national anthem. Their protests earned them the nickname "The Kennesaw Five."
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/26/2018 05:23 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I hope this fine Georgia school survives the legal onslaught that will surely follow.

Government consolidated (socialized) school districts manned by unionized bureaucrats, and massive fleets of expensive Blud Birds really are the solution.

[sarc off]
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/26/2018 5:32 Comments || Top||

#2  My son is on their rugby team, it’s amazing how this school has grown over the past 20 years
Posted by: Beavis || 08/26/2018 7:41 Comments || Top||




Who's in the News
26[untagged]
8Islamic State
4Govt of Pakistan
3al-Shabaab (AQ)
2Moslem Colonists
1Hamas
1Hezbollah
1Houthis
1Muslim Brotherhood
1Palestinian Authority
1Sublime Porte
1Taliban
1Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
1al-Nusra
1Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (IS)
1Commies
1Govt of Iran

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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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2018-08-26
  John McCain dies at 81
Sat 2018-08-25
  Syrian Army launches powerful assault in northern Hama
Fri 2018-08-24
  Arab coalition thwarts Houthi boat bomb targeting commercial ships off Yemen
Thu 2018-08-23
  Syrian Army cuts all supply lines to ISIL’s last stronghold in southern Syria
Wed 2018-08-22
  ‘IS militants’ launch attacks in Chechnya; five killed
Tue 2018-08-21
  U.S. Rejects Turkey's Offer to Release Ransom Pastor, Report Says
Mon 2018-08-20
  ‘Allahu Akbar!': Knife-Man Shot Dead After Attacking Spanish Police
Sun 2018-08-19
  Yemeni army inflicts heavy casualties on Houthi militants in Taiz
Sat 2018-08-18
  HTS executes 6 people accused of being ISIS members in Idlib
Fri 2018-08-17
  American Couple Dies Tragically While Biking Through ISIS Territory Trying to Prove Evil Does Not Exist
Thu 2018-08-16
  ISIS Killer Caught in Sacramento
Wed 2018-08-15
  101st Airborne, US Special Forces Called Into Ghazni Battle
Tue 2018-08-14
  Islamic State member sentenced to death over killing security personnel in Nineveh
Mon 2018-08-13
  The FBI Finally Makes Peter Strzok Redundant
Sun 2018-08-12
  Antifa to Protest ‘Alt-Right’ in D.C.: Abolish ICE, No Borders, Close Prisons

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