#6
But once guns are illegal EVERYWHERE the problem will be solved - criminals won't be able to get them! (How many places are meth, crack and heroin not illegal?)
#7
Saw a show on TV about what a shithole San Fran has turned into on account of the Meth and opioids. The money quote was something like, "I came here to live in San Francisco. All these people came here to die."
[RT] A man has died after his head got horrifically trapped in an electric chair at the Vue cinema in Birmingham. It is understood the man’s head was crushed as he attempted to rescue his phone from the ground. "My phone!... Argh! My head!... Aaaiiieee! I am undone!"
The cinemagoer got trapped on March 9 after an electric footrest clamped down on his head. The victim was sitting in the cinema’s "luxury" Gold Class seats. "Two tickets, please."
"You want the good seats?"
"We'll pass. Economy class is good."
After his partner and staff at the cinema struggled to release him he was eventually freed and taken to hospital. Vue Cinema confirmed on Tuesday that the man passed away last Friday. Birmingham City Council has begun a health and safety investigation. "Health and safety inspector!"
"Whaddya lookin' for?"
"Skull crushers! Don't go showin' me no cheap seats!"
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2018 00:00 ||
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[All Africa] President Mnangagwa has pardoned thousands of prisoners across the country in bid to decongest prisons and improve the living conditions of those who remain.
Zim-bob-we Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) deputy commissioner general (administration) Dr Alford Mashango Dube announced the amnesty at a presser in Harare today.
"His Excellency the President has in terms of section 112(1)(a), (c) and (d) of the Constitution of Zim-bob-we granted amnesty to prisoners as outlined in the following categories;
"Category A - remission of sentence for all convicted female prisoners where a full remission of the remaining period of imprisonment is hereby granted to all female prisoners, regardless of the offence committed, save for those sentenced to life imprisonment.
"Category B - remission of sentence of all juveniles - where full remission of the remaining period of imprisonment is hereby granted to all juvenile prisoners under the age of eighteen years serving terms of imprisonment irrespective of the offences they committed," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
"I need those cells for my enemies. Do you want to be my enemy?"
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/22/2018 0:45 Comments ||
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#2
I think as far as he can be, he is on the correct path. They know what he can do. And they also know he has greater support.
A far cry from Saint Pinochet, but he did swear on he Bible and to GOD, he would try his best (And a statue of Mao Se too!)
[Dhaka Tribune] The court of Sirajganj Additional District and Sessions Judge Rafiqul Islam refused the appeal for bail by the accused former BCL District Vice-President Riyad Hossain on Wednesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2018 00:00 ||
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[PRESSTV] Peru’s president faced growing calls to resign on Wednesday after secret video recordings ensnared him in vote-buying allegations on the eve of an impeachment vote, deepening a political crisis in one of Latin America’s most stable economies.
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who spent most of the morning in an emergency Cabinet meeting, was due to deliver a message to the nation later on Wednesday.
As of Tuesday night he was not planning to resign and still had hopes of surviving a vote in the opposition-ruled Congress on Thursday that would force him immediately from office, according to a government source who asked not to be named.
But it was unclear where the center-right president, who has been in office for 20 months, would garner support. Even ruling party politicians, including those who until a day before had been Kuczynski’s staunchest defenders, said they would vote to oust him if he does not step down.
Peruvian police put officers across the nation of about 30 million people on maximum alert, according to an Interior Ministry document seen by Rooters.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2018 00:00 ||
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[PRESSTV] Russia says Britannia may have been behind the poisoning of a former double agent and his daughter, deepening the diplomatic crisis between London and Moscow.
London is hiding facts and could destroy key evidence in the nerve agent attack, Vladimir Yermakov, head of the Russian foreign ministry's non-proliferation department, said Wednesday at a presser in Moscow.
Speaking at a remarkable briefing given for all foreign ambassadors in Russia, Ermakov said that "either the British authorities are unable to protect from a terrorist attack on its territory or staged the attack themselves."
The British and the US ambassadors refused to attend the meeting and sent lower-level diplomats, instead.
On March 7, British authorities announced that Sergei Skripal, 66, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, had been hospitalized after being found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center in Salisbury.
British police attributed the critical illness of the two to a nerve agent developed by the former Soviet Union, and the British premier accused Moscow of being responsible.
Last week, UK Prime Minister Theresa May ordered the expulsion of Russian diplomats, claiming that it was "highly likely" that Russian government was involved in Skripal's poisoning.
Russia subsequently ordered the expulsion of 23 British diplomats in retaliation.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#2
Maybe the UK but I can't recall the UK having a history of using chemicals in such attacks. One might check with Steele. But then again this comes from the Iranian press, a current ally of Russia in Syria.
[RT] State Duma representatives have rejected a proposal to legally equate five years of cohabitation with registered marriage, citing technical problems with the draft legislation as the reason for the rejection.
"The proposed characteristics of the de-facto marriage relations are vague and it is not clear from the text of the draft who should decide on the moment when such relations start and how they will do it," reads an assessment of the bill, released by a lower house committee.
The representatives also stated that the bill lacked a satisfactory description of a cohabitation agreement, which would legislate for property co-owned by the couple and its division in the case of separation.
The legislation, proposing to give partners the same rights as spouses after five years of cohabitation (or two years if the couple has a child) was submitted to the State Duma in January by an MP of center-left party Fair Russia. The sponsor claimed that Russian citizens see no difference between registered and unregistered unions, but ‐ from a legal standpoint ‐ cohabitation is not recognized.
The main implications concern the division of property in the case of separation or death of a partner, with one of the partners entitled to half of any jointly accrued assets.
From its introduction, the proposal caused heated objections from conservative politicians. They said that couples should be encouraged to make their relationships official and that marriage is a voluntary step, which any couple could undertake if they wished to do so.
Senator Elena Mizulina (who is a member of the parliamentary majority party United Russia) even called the initiative "unpatriotic," and blasted it as a subversive attack on the institution of marriage.
A poll conducted by the state-run public opinion research center VTSIOM showed that 38 percent of Russians supported legislative moves to provide for equality of cohabitation and marriage, while 50 percent of respondents opposed the move.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2018 00:00 ||
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[PRESSTV] In its first comment on a fast paced rapprochement on the Korean Peninsula, Pyongyang has dismissed speculation that tough sanctions brought North Korea to the negotiating table with the US and the South, stressing that the North is now driving a "peace offensive."
In a commentary published late Tuesday, North Korea’s state-run KNCA news agency highlighted the "dramatic atmosphere for reconciliation" with Seoul and "a sign of change" with Washington, without referring to its summits with the two sides, which are being planned.
It said Pyongyang’s overtures came from a position of strength, not from weakness.
"The dialog peace offensive of the DPRK is an expression of self-confidence as it has acquired everything it desires," the commentary said, using the acronym for the country’s official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The piece, however, rejected suggestions that the harsh sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its military program had forced the North to contemplate joining negotiations, slamming hawks in Washington and Seoul for alleging that the North had an ulterior motive.
"Such rubbish as ’result of sanctions and pressure’...spread by hostile forces is just as meaningless as a dog barking at the moon," it said, urging "prudence" for all parties involved.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
It said Pyongyang’s overtures came from a position of strength, not from weakness.
[ATimes] Military drills shortened
Details of this year’s drills were announced in Washington late on Monday evening, and on Tuesday in Seoul, agencies in both capitals reported. Although the two allies said they would be “similar in scale” to last year’s war games, they will be shorter in duration.
Frenzied diplomatic game
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho held three days of high-level meetings in Sweden last week. “The foreign ministers discussed opportunities and challenges for continued diplomatic efforts to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict as well as bilateral relations,” the Swedish Foreign Ministry said after talks wrapped up, according to Reuters. Stockholm has been tight-lipped on the content of the meetings, but Sweden, which maintains a large embassy in Pyongyang, has traditionally acted as a proxy for US diplomatic interests in North Korea.
Meanwhile, CNN reports that Sweden is helping to negotiate the release of three US citizens currently being held in North Korean prisons.
So-called “1.5 Track” meetings – an unusual channel in which American academics, Korea watchers and retired diplomats meet with serving North Korean diplomats behind closed doors – will take place in Finland this week. Leading the North Korean delegation is North Korea’s point man for US affairs, Choe Kang-il, and South Korean officials will also be present at the meeting, AP reported.
US National Security Adviser H R McMaster met his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in San Francisco for talks over the weekend on denuclearization, South Korea announced said in a statement. Topics discussed included both the inter-Korean and North Korea-US summits.
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-Hwa has a particularly full dance card. Following a lightning trip to the United States from March 15-17, when she met officials from Congress, the State Department and media, she has gone to Brussels for European Union ministerial meetings to discuss cooperation on the North Korean nuclear issue. She also met the NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg and the EU Council.
#1
The shortest possible war game.
"Press the Red, repeat Red, button."
"Red button is pressed, General!"
WHOOSH!
BOOM!
"Men, this concludes the war games. Well done. The rest is up to the diplomats."
[PRESSTV] Kosovo's opposition has fired teargas during a parliament session to disrupt a vote on a border agreement with Montenegro.
Lawmakers of the opposition party Vetevendosje, which translates as the Self-Determination Movement party, used teargas canisters in the hall where the vote on the 2015 demarcation deal was due to start on Wednesday. Deputies had to be evacuated from the Assembly building.
The European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... conditioned Kosovo’s possible accession to the European visa-free travel zone known as Schengen on accepting a border demarcation agreement with Montenegro and improved ties with Serbia, the country which has yet to recognize Kosovo, a former territory, as an independent state.
Montenegro recognizes Kosovo’s 2008 independence and accepts the demarcation agreement. However, you can observe a lot just by watching... opposition parties in Kosovo have rejected the 2015 deal, saying its ratification would result in Kosovo losing territory. International experts have dismissed the notion.
The opposition party has used teargas and similar tactics in the 120-seat parliament to prevent the ratification of the agreement in the past three years.
Opposition politician Albulena Haxhiu said on Wednesday they were determined to stop the parliament passing the agreement.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#2
They are still "benefitting" from Billy Jeff and the EU's "help..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/22/2018 1:29 Comments ||
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#3
Hmm.. Teargas, Parliament, teargas, Congress...as someone once said "no man's life, property or sanity is safe when the Legislature is in session.." or should have, at any rate.
[RT] Germany's Bayer won EU antitrust approval on Wednesday for its multi-billion-dollar purchase of Monsanto. The mega-merger is expected to reshape the agrochemicals industry. The deal will create a giant company with control of more than a quarter of the world’s seed and pesticides market.
The European Commission said Bayer had addressed its concerns with an offer to sell a swathe of assets to boost rival BASF. Bayer pledged to sell certain seed and herbicide assets for €5.9 billion ($7.2 billion) to BASF and to give it a license to its digital farming data
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2018 00:00 ||
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Eurines despise GMOs, but they see a bigger company to fine with the merger.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/22/2018 0:13 Comments ||
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If Monsanto's involved, expect lots & lots of tinfoil hat talk any minute now.
[FOX News] Nothing on the web yet. This from Chris Wallace at Fox news. McMaster to Bolton hand-off to be conducted 9 April. McMaster sez he's dropping his Army retirement papers. Looks like no 4th star.
CBC News link located.
#15
Didnt the leave the rubble bouncing lot end up with ISIS?
That's not rubble. Rubble would be killing Saddam's army by attacking it head-on instead of bypassing it to get to Baghdad quickly. Our problem is that we left his army intact. When Germany surrendered, 5m German soldiers lay dead. That's 7% of its pre-war population. That is what war weariness looks like. Syrians are war weary after losing perhaps 400K military dead out of 20m people. That's 2% of the population. I suspect if we had simply killed Saddam's army in battle, the occupation would have been a lot more peaceful.
[DCWhispers] Don’t laugh. There’s mounting evidence to suggest the near-entirety of the Robert Mueller investigation is actually a perfectly executed Russian government chaos operation that would never have been possible without the help of current leaders in Congress and multiple members of the former Obama administration.
Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz hints at that very thing in an excellent column out today via The Hill:
President Trump is right in saying that a special counsel should never have been appointed to investigate the so-called Russian connection. There was no evidence of any crime committed by the Trump administration. But there was plenty of evidence that Russian operatives had tried to interfere with the 2016 presidential election, and perhaps other elections, in the hope of destabilizing democracy. Yet, appointing a special counsel to look for crimes, behind the closed doors of a grand jury, was precisely the wrong way to address this ongoing challenge to our democracy.
The right way would have been (and still is) to appoint a nonpartisan investigative commission, such as the one appointed following the terrorist attacks of 9/11, to conduct a broad and open investigation of the Russian involvement in our elections. This is what other democracies, such as Great Britain and Israel, do in response to systemic problems. The virtue of such a commission is precisely the nonpartisan credibility of its objective experts, who have no political stake in the outcome.
...In this case, the appointment of a special counsel has done more harm than good. It has politicized our justice system beyond repair. The FBI deputy director has been fired for leaking and lying. His testimony appears to be in conflict with that of the former FBI director as to whether the leaks were authorized. Messages by high-ranking FBI agents suggest strong bias against Trump. A tweet by the former CIA director reveals equally strong negative views of the president. Perhaps these revelations prove nothing more than that law enforcement and national security officials are human and hold political views like everyone else.
...The public has lost faith in the leadership of the Justice Department and the FBI. They don’t trust congressional investigative committees. They don’t know whom to believe when they hear conflicting accounts. There are leaks galore followed by denials of leaks. It’s a total mess. And what do we have to show for it? Just a handful of low-level indictments based largely on alleged crimes that are either unrelated or only marginally related to Russia’s attempt to influence our presidential election in 2016.
‐‐‐‐‐
Note the emphasis Mr. Dershowitz places on how Americans have lost faith in its institutions. And how divided we have become. Are these not the very things the Russians would want? The fake "Trump Dossier" was first peddled by Russian operatives and gobbled up by anti-Trump forces within the Obama government, the Hillary Clinton campaign, the GOP Establishment, and various media outlets. It gave birth to what would become the Meuller investigation ‐ a thing created by, supported by, and now protected by, all of the those responsible for the false Trump Dossier.
And that makes all of them knowing or unknowing operatives within Russia’s anti-American chaos operation ‐ including Robert Mueller.
President Trump has said Russia is "laughing its ass off" over the damage they initiated against the United States by all of the phony Trump/Russia nonsense.
#4
"the appointment of a special counsel has done more harm than good. It has politicized our justice system beyond repair."
I submit that it REVEALED how politicized the DoJ and FBI have become. The obsession here in the face of no evidence compared to the utter indifference towards the Clintons' crimes...
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/22/2018 18:54 Comments ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] Maldivian authorities have charged former strongman Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and several senior judges with "terrorism" for attempting to topple President Abdulla Yameen, the government said Wednesday.
Eighty-year-old Gayoom and ten others, including the sacked chief justice Abdulla Saeed, were charged under state of emergency laws imposed in the paradise tourist island last month.
Yameen declared the draconian laws in February in a bid to prevent himself from being impeached by the national parliament after he lost his majority following a Supreme Court ruling.
The Prosecutor General’s office said Wednesday that Gayoom, who ruled the country for 30 straight years until 2008, had been charged with attempting an "act of terrorism and obstruction of justice."
Gayoom’s politician son Faris Maumoon and son-in-law were also charged, along with another judge.
The 11 are accused of trying to topple Yameen who came to power following a controversial election run-off in November 2013 when he narrowly defeated former president Mohammed Nasheed.
Yameen declared the emergency on February 5, curtailing the powers of the judiciary and the legislature, after the country’s Supreme Court ruled to quash criminal convictions against high profile opposition politicians.
The ruling would have allowed Nasheed, who lives in exile in London, to return to the archipelago and challenge Yameen for the presidency.
Yameen refused to carry out the court order and instead incarcerated Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! the chief justice and another Supreme Court judge.
The remaining judges revoked the earlier decision to release the MPs while Yameen also stripped parliament of its power to impeach him.
He has resisted international calls to end the state of emergency, release all political prisoners and restore the rule of law.
The crackdown has dented the nation’s image as a popular tourist destination.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/22/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Shouldn't muzz anything and a word with "gay" in it in the same sentence cause the 12th imam to drown in his well?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/22/2018 0:17 Comments ||
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#1
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, which has more than 200,000 subscribers on its YouTube channel, said the new policy “provides cause for concern.”
In a statement on its website, NSSF said that move is “especially worrisome,” because it has the “potential for blocking educational content that serves an instructional and skill-building purpose.”
YouTube has announced that it now will be implementing restrictions on certain videos that feature firearms and accessories, sparking backlash from Second Amendment advocates.
#5
Live Leak takes all kinds of videos. I suspect gun videos would be welcome there. Although anyone thinking about getting paid for content will have to look elsewhere.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[RT] A man has died after his head got horrifically trapped in an electric chair at the Vue cinema in Birmingham. It is understood the man’s head was crushed as he attempted to rescue his phone from the ground.
[RT] State Duma representatives have rejected a proposal to legally equate five years of cohabitation with registered marriage, citing technical problems with the draft legislation as the reason for the rejection.
North Korea
