[American Thinker] Western governments have put themselves in mortal danger.
They are actively doing things that are destroying their countries: (1) replacing their native citizens with unassimilable foreigners; (2) centralizing government power in unelected and unaccountable bureaucracies; (3) censoring and criminalizing public dissent; (4) offshoring industrial and manufacturing jobs; (5) exacerbating energy costs and general inflation by demonizing hydrocarbons and pushing "global warming" delusions; (6) increasing taxes, government spending, and public welfare in unsustainable ways; (7) demolishing their nations’ historical identities, traditions, beliefs, and common cultures; (8) providing foreigners with "free" homes, food, and educations, while accusing native citizens of being "racists," "xenophobes," and "white supremacists"; (9) discouraging healthy marriages and stable families; and (10) indoctrinating the youngest generations to believe that war, "climate change," overpopulation, and economic collapse will prevent them from ever having happy, hopeful, purposeful futures.
Those are just ten ways that Western governments are hurting their citizens. There are many more. But a reasonable person should be able to read the above paragraph and understand that nations cannot survive under such a destructive barrage of harmful policies.
Western governments are waging wars against their own nations. The progress of these wars may look a little different in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Australia, Canada, and the United States, but what happens in one country soon enough spreads to all the rest. It is as if Western leaders got together many years ago and agreed that their countries would drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid and take long dirt naps.
Perhaps they formed this suicide pact during an "elite" gathering of the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, or the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Perhaps they chanted, "Build back better," in unison while voting to euthanize the West.
Adversarial political parties ostensibly compete for control of Western governments, but, in reality, the party system is kabuki theater wherein the same special interests own the politicians on both sides of the aisle. Until so-called "populist" parties emerged in the West, voters were given merely the illusion of choice.
Aaj ke Python Day 5 tutorial mein hum FOR LOOP ke practice questions solve karenge aur Python programming ki problem-solving skills improve karenge.
Agar aapne Python For Loop ka concept seekh liya hai, lekin questions solve karne mein difficulty hoti hai, toh ye practice session aapke liye hai!
Is video ka main focus Python coding practice, logical thinking aur loops ka practical application samajhna hai.
📚 TOPICS COVERED IN PYTHON DAY 5
✅ Python For Loop Practice Questions
✅ Applying For Loops in Programming
✅ Understanding Question Logic
✅ Step-by-Step Problem Solving
✅ Writing Python Code Using Loops
✅ Understanding Iterations
✅ Using range() in For Loops
✅ Improving Coding Logic
✅ Developing Problem-Solving Skills
#3
If you can loop in one programming language, you can easily learn how to do it in just about any other programming language. Understanding the Hindi instructions might be a bit more challenging. Better to hire American programmers than to outsource the work to India.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/21/2026 13:04 Comments ||
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#4
As seen online:
Old: See Europe before you die
New: See Europe before it dies
#5
WWI, WW2, Cold War. Enough of our resources and military personnel. Let it fall if it doesn't have the will to resist. Far too many Vichy and Quislings in power.
[FoxNews] Former detective says Wichita police need to explain why the driver was released from Stryker Sports Complex
"Law enforcement certainly needed to do a better job as to describing why these charges haven't been filed," says Jamie Copenhaver.
Copenhaver, a former sheriff's detective in Florida who worked with an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, is curious as to why law enforcement has been tight-lipped about the lack of charges in the horrific Kansas soccer field crash.
A mother walked away with no charges after investigators say she drove onto the active field at Stryker Sports Complex where children and families were present — killing two and injuring several others.
It happened on Saturday; Cole Adrian, 6, and Nicholas Schafer, 35, who were both from McPherson, were killed. The woman behind the wheel was released after being interviewed by investigators that day.
Wichita Police said she was released "pending the results of toxicology testing and a mechanical examination of the vehicle."
Police said in a statement Tuesday that they have interviewed nearly 50 witnesses, with more interviews ongoing.
"Investigators are also inspecting the truck, analyzing available vehicle data and continuing investigative work at Stryker Sports Complex," police said. "They are working closely with the Regional Forensic Science Center and awaiting official, peer-reviewed toxicology results."
The driver remained at the scene and has been cooperative, they said.
"Based on the information available Sunday morning, and after consultation with the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office, investigators did not have probable cause to arrest the driver. She was released, and the investigation remains ongoing. Her release does not represent a final determination about whether criminal charges are appropriate."
"We know that this case has captured the attention of people all over the country, and many of those people have strong opinions about the incident even though they do not have direct knowledge of what occurred," Chief Joe Sullivan said. "We recognize that the decision the law and constitution required us to make on Sunday morning may not be popular. We swear an oath to support the laws of the State of Kansas and the Constitution of the United States and no one in the Wichita Police Department takes that oath for granted."
The driver had a valid driver’s license and no outstanding arrest warrants, police said.
They dispelled rumors circulating online, noting that the driver is not in the country illegally, has no documented criminal history, and no association with the Wichita Police Department, the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office or any other law enforcement agency.
Andrew Ford, a spokesperson for the Wichita Police Department, told TMZ that the driver was interviewed for several hours after the crash. He said she answered questions about what happened, according to the outlet.
Ford told TMZ that police are investigating all possibilities about why this happened, including whether speeding, mechanical failure, or drugs or alcohol played a factor.
Wichita police could not immediately be reached for comment.
#1
There's no reason in the world why she shouldn't have been at least taken to the station for questioning. There's deaths involved.
Unless she's in witness protection.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
10/21/2026 13:03 Comments ||
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#2
Other people are handcuffed and detained for much less.
[Townhall] The Trump administration is moving to end the shipment of Patriot missile batteries to Ukraine as the relationship between the two nations continues to deteriorate following Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to continue striking Russian energy infrastructure without American approval.
The Washington Post has reported that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is refusing to sign off on the transfer of the military equipment. This comes as the U.S. has considered terminating intelligence sharing with the Ukrainians, and as Starlink speeds have been throttled in the state.
Just days ago, CNN reported that the Ukrainians had spent their stockpile of interceptor missiles. Now, Zelensky has taken to social media to beg President Donald Trump and his administration for more despite publicly bashing his leadership in recent weeks.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Mikhail Kucherov
[Regnum] On October 20, 1916, at the height of World War I, Russia lost one of its most modern and well-equipped ships. And it wasn't lost in combat. The flagship of the Black Sea Fleet, the battleship Empress Mariya, anchored in the Sevastopol roadstead, was literally torn apart by multiple explosions in a matter of minutes—and sank. The cause of the disaster remains a mystery to this day. There are only theories of varying credibility.
The sinking of the Empress Maria was a familiar memory for several Soviet generations—unlike many other heroic or tragic episodes of the "imperialist war." Thanks go to Anatoly Rybakov, author of "The Dagger," an adventure story for young adults published in 1948. In the story, pioneers of the 1920s come into possession of a mysterious dagger belonging to an officer of a sunken Tsarist battleship.
And while the secret of the dagger and the code hidden in its sheath is revealed in the finale, the actual explosion of the Empress Maria remains a mystery to the reader:
"It's a dark story," Polevoy said. "It didn't explode on a mine, or a torpedo, but on its own. The powder magazine in the first turret exploded first, and there were three thousand pounds of gunpowder in there. And then it all started... An hour later, the ship was underwater. Less than half the crew survived, and even those were burned and crippled."
In fact, out of 1,220 officers and sailors, 225 were killed (which, incidentally, makes this one of the Black Sea Fleet's heaviest non-combat losses during the war). But in other respects, the former sailor, and later commissar during the Civil War, Polevoy, was right. The flagship exploded from within, due to the detonation of gunpowder.
Both immediately following the disaster and still "on the surface," the theory of sabotage—most likely German—seems obvious. The Kaiser's navy did indeed take advantage of the disaster to turn the tide in its favor.
But Alexander Kolchak, who commanded the Black Sea Fleet in 1916 and was counting heavily on the battleship in planning the landing operation in Constantinople (which was thwarted by the revolution), flatly refused to see the German trace.
THE EMPRESS VERSUS THE KAISER AND SULTAN
Since 1911, Russia, learning from the defeats of the Russo-Japanese War, has been rearming its fleet.
Large battleships were built - dreadnoughts ("fearless"), named after the English ship of the same name.
These giants were maneuverable, reached speeds of up to 21 knots, and carried at least ten armor-piercing 305-millimeter guns.
Russia laid down eight dreadnoughts. Four of these joined the Baltic Fleet before the First World War. The second four were built at the Nikolaev shipyards to strengthen the Black Sea Fleet. Each ship cost the treasury 27–28 million gold rubles (approximately 15 billion rubles in today's money).
But the war began before the dreadnoughts entered service.
On October 29, 1914, two German ships flying the Turkish flag—the battleship Goeben and the cruiser Breslau—attacked Sevastopol, Odessa, Feodosia, and Novorossiysk, tying down the Russian flotilla. Their power and speed allowed them to control military and trade traffic.
The situation changed in 1915, when the battleships Empress Mariya and Ekaterina Velikaya arrived in Sevastopol after completing sea trials. They outperformed the German ships in firepower, with 12 heavy guns each instead of 10.
On January 8, 1916, the Goeben was seriously damaged by the Catherine the Great and was forced to "heal its wounds" in the Bosphorus.
Four months later, a Russian landing force captured the Turkish port of Trebizond. Fire from both Russian battleships finally suppressed the resistance on the shore, forcing the Turks to flee into mountains. By October 1916, each of the new Russian ships had completed 24 combat missions.
Then Vice-Admiral Kolchak included the Maria, the Ekaterina, and the recently commissioned battleship Alexander III in the plan for the Constantinople landing.
THE FATAL MORNING
On October 20, 1916, at 6:20 a.m., sailors on the Empress Maria heard a strange hissing sound coming from the bow. Smoke began billowing from hatches and ventilators. The crew began pouring water from buckets, but this did not help: a few minutes later, a powerful explosion occurred, followed by approximately 15 more waves of varying sizes.
During the disaster, the multi-ton turrets of the 305-mm guns were torn from their moorings by the capsized battleship and sank separately from the ship.
Less than an hour later, the battleship's bow fell off, and the ship began to list on its starboard side. The gigantic, capsizing ship was ripping off its multi-ton 305-millimeter gun turrets. Recovering them later significantly complicated the divers' task.
The flagship was doomed. The commander, Captain First Rank Ivan Kuznetsov, gave the order: " Open the Kingstons! Crew, save yourselves! Sink the ship!"
The Goeben and Breslau gained room to maneuver and, freely passing through the Black Sea straits, again blockaded Russian ports.
COMMANDANT VORONOV'S MISTAKE
The first thing that the investigative commission sent from Petrograd and interviewed the surviving crew members revealed was that the hatches leading to the powder magazines were open.
This meant that anyone on board had the opportunity to go below and start a fire. The question immediately arose: was this an accident (like a spark from a cigarette, in which case it would be considered criminal negligence) or was it intentional, and therefore an act of terrorism.
The matter was complicated by the fact that the circle of suspects included not only sailors and officers.
On board the ship that day were workers and engineers from the Nikolaev shipbuilding plant, which was the norm during the period between cruises.
Witness testimony revealed the following: the fire started in one of the powder magazines, but spread to all the others so quickly that it was impossible to extinguish. The molten metal quickly ignited the wooden deck, causing almost the entire ship to blaze within minutes.
One witness, Captain Second Rank Anatoly Gorodysky, claimed that the ignition was triggered by a charge from one of the 305mm guns. According to the captain, his subordinate, Senior Gunner Voronov, while in the main turret's powder magazine, inadvertently dropped the charge at his feet, causing the fatal initial explosion.
Voronov's body was never found. The sailor was considered missing.
Kolchak, then a vice admiral, insisted that the cause of the tragedy was a combination of technical flaws and criminal negligence.
Indeed, the ship's hasty delivery resulted in technical flaws: for example, the ventilation system for the artillery storage facilities was insufficiently designed. This explains the reason the hatches were left open—they were ventilated to ensure proper storage conditions for the explosives.
WAS THERE CHARLES?
The theory of German intelligence involvement arose (and still holds water) because, at the same time as the Empress Maria, British and Italian ships were blown up in the roadstead. It was proven that German saboteurs were behind the explosions.
In the 1990s, the journal "Morskoy Sbornik " published articles by FSB officer and intelligence historian Alexander Zdanovich and Alexander Cherepkov, a researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Drawing on archival data, the researchers presented a theory involving interference by foreign intelligence.
In his extensive study, Zdanovich cites reports from Russian agents in Paris: in 1915, they reported to Petrograd about German intelligence plans to blow up Russian factories servicing the navy. A police agent, Charles, recruited by the Germans, was mentioned as being to sabotage the Empress Maria.
In 1916, the investigation into the explosion on the Black Sea Fleet's flagship was never completed. The investigative commission never reached a decision, concluding that "it was impossible to reach a precise and conclusive conclusion."
Work to raise the wreckage of the battleship, sunken in shallow water, began as early as 1916. The plan was for divers to seal the ship's compartments with compressed air, causing the battleship to float. Even the Japanese, former enemies (and later allies in World War I), were prepared to assist, intending to send their own divers. But the plan never came to fruition, and in November 1917, after a severe storm, the ship floated on its own, and then, in the spring of 1918, rose entirely above water.
The Civil War was raging, and the only thing that could be determined was that the ship sank due to an internal explosion, not a torpedo strike. In 1927, the Empress Maria was cut up for scrap.
In their article, Zdanovich and Cherepkov mention the testimony given to the OGPU in 1932 by the arrested engineer Viktor Eduardovich Verman, the head of the German intelligence network uncovered in Nikolaev in the 1930s.
According to interrogation records, Verman confessed: he was recruited by the Germans in 1908 and engaged in sabotage, disruption of supplies, and intelligence gathering, and eight years later, he plotted to sabotage a battleship. However, it is unclear from the testimony whether his group succeeded in carrying out their plan.
After the Revolution and the Civil War, the incident was long forgotten. The circumstances of the arrest of Verman's group only became known in modern times, and this archival data provided no definitive answer.
This uncertainty has given rise to numerous new conspiracy theories in the post-Soviet era—in particular, the idea that not only German but also British intelligence was involved in the sabotage. But in these versions, pure fiction prevails over any scraps of fact. The sinking of the Empress Maria remains a "dark story."
President Donald Trump said early Wednesday morning that large data centers should generate their own electricity and provide financial benefits to the communities where they are built.
“New and large, in some cases gigantic, Data Centers are mandated by me to make their own electricity,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
He said facilities should sell or return excess power to local communities or the electric grid, potentially lowering electricity prices.
Trump also urged technology companies to offer residents a “dividend” to build support for data center projects, which have faced opposition over their substantial power and water demands.
“MAKE DEALS, and get them built!!! GREAT FOR THE U.S.A.,” Trump wrote.
The president said the administration’s policy is intended to prevent consumers from absorbing the cost of powering the AI industry.
The comments follow similar proposals from Anthropic and Elon Musk to distribute some of the financial gains from artificial intelligence to the public.
WHAT TO KNOW
President Donald Trump issued a new White House call for data centers to make their own power, pay community "dividends," as polls show midterm voters leaning toward Democrats on AI regulatory actions.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei defended his safety protocols and hailed his restricting AI sales to Chinese state-controlled companies, calling it a costly but necessary decision.
Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed proposed government ownership of roughly half the AI industry, prompting Republican rival Mike Rogers to warn against a “big government” agenda.
The New York Times/Siena poll found likely voters trust Democrats over Republicans on artificial intelligence, 48% to 37%, as the midterms approach.
[Mises] The Treasury Department released its monthly statement on Friday and has now confirmed what we all suspected: the US federal government, under the Trump Administration, will finish the 2026 fiscal year with an annual fiscal deficit of about $2 trillion.
This is part of the reason why there is no money for a Social Security COLA increase. Until this is fixed there will be no money for a Social Security COLA increase. Write to your Congressperson and Senators.
To be precise, the federal deficit for the 2026 fiscal year, which ended on September 30, is $1.99 trillion. That’s the third largest deficit ever recorded. From fiscal year 2025 to 2026, the deficit grew by 12 percent and that’s the largest growth rate since 2023. Last year, the federal deficit was $1.84 trillion, which was slightly smaller than the 2024 deficit of $1.95 trillion.
Even when adjusted for CPI inflation, however, 2026’s deficit remains the third largest ever, even including the Second World War, when the deficit in 2026 dollars reached an eye-watering $1 trillion.That was considered an off-the-charts deficit at the time. Today, World-War-Two style spending looks quaint compared to Covid-era spending and the past two years of Trump deficits.
Moreover, 2026 is the 25th annual deficit in a row, with the last federal surplus having been recorded during the 2001 fiscal year (measured in nominal dollars.) The US federal government now appears locked in to perennial mega-deficits exceeded only by the runaway spending of the Covid lockdowns when the federal government embarked on an unprecedented effort to spend out trillions of dollars to essentially pay Americans to stay home and not revolt as businesses closed and jobs evaporated.
Since then, federal deficits never even returned to the pre-Covid "normal." Trump-administration spending during his first term was unprecedented for peace time spending outside of a major recession. This helped pave the way for the out-of-control spending that came during the Covid years. The $4 trillion deficit of 2020, of course, occurred entirely during the Trump administration, with Joe Biden taking over four months into the 2021 fiscal year.
Tax receipts have been largely stable, and the Trump administration has repeatedly bragged about raising import taxes on Americans. Studies have shown—including this study from the New York Fed—that Americans pay the lopsided majority of the tariff revenue collected by the administration. Therefore, the rising deficits are being largely driven by continued increases in federal spending. As the new treasury report makes clear. most of this spending comes from entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Yet, a new major factor under this administration has been rising obligations to pay debt service. The Treasury report shows that interest on the national debt—which now exceed $40 trillion—totals about $1.3 trillion for 2026. That’s up from 2025’s total interest outlay of $1.2 trillion. Interest on the debt is quickly moving toward becoming the second or third largest expense category, behind Social Security and health care....
Not that inflation weighs on the conscience of Donald Trump. Indeed, in recent weeks, Trump has even suggested outright devaluation of the dollar as a means of inflating away the national debt. In a Time magazine interview published October 1, Trump said, "Certain levels of inflation will also pay off that debt very rapidly. Very rapidly." Trump then went on the say that the Fed is allowing interest rates to move too high—which is another way of saying that the Fed isn’t using enough monetary inflation to push interest rates downward.
Needless to say, the massive federal debt, and the continual piling on of trillions of dollars every year, is not going to end in any sort of fiscally sound reform. What is most likely to happen is the federal government will do what Trump has suggested—and what bankrupt Latin American regimes have often done: the US government will inflate away the real value of the debt and continually rely on monetary inflation as the method of managing multi-trillion-dollar annual deficits.
As the Republicans have made very clear in recent years, there is no interest in fiscal reform, even among the allegedly "fiscally conservative" politicians.
President Trump tried immediately after he was sworn into office in 2017. The politicians made it very clear they were not interested, so he turned to working on what was possible, and made choices about not spending within the executive branch where it was legally possible. This time round he set DOGE to reduce spending due to waste and fraud, which he also controls, and is making serious headway though it still isn’t enough to offset Congressional profligacy.
#1
A simple picture is worth a 100 words? The real problem is, BOTH political political parties in Congress, just write more loop holes for their biggest donors lifestyles. Plus funnel $$$$$ in directions that increase the US Deficit, while raking in $$$$ and/or employment opportunities for themselves or family.
The U.S. government has collected $5.40 trillion in taxes for fiscal year 2025-Oct 1st to Sept 30th 2026.
So the Wage/salary earners paid 52.66% of all collected Federal revenues or about 3.66% more than the previous year.
Which means Corporate America again paid LESS than the US wage/salary earners.
Now add State States, County Taxes, Metro, food, fuel/energy Medical, property and other taxes.
The average US wage earner is forking out around 50+% of total earned income.
So aren't we already working more than half our paychecks to pay for all the levels of Government, their waste, and taxes?
[Federalist] The 2.25-mile SkyLink project broke ground in 2019, with a promised opening date of 2023, at a budgeted construction cost of $1.9 billion. Today, the project might start serving passengers in 2027, and construction costs are expected to top $3 billion.
A transportation project in Los Angeles may start to serve passengers next year, or it may collapse into financial chaos, abandonment, and a desperate search for someone to start running the thing after lenders bail out and it all falls apart. But first, the courts will have to work through the allegation that an engineer spied on a legal strategy session, and the builders will have to figure out why electrical arc flashes are charring the tracks.
It’s not the state’s infamously late high-speed rail project, but all of the same themes are there. Democrat-run California is the place where delivery never has any relationship to the promise, the cost estimate never comes close to suggesting the actual cost, the scheduled completion date is an open joke, and the failures and misunderstandings descend into allegations so bizarre they seem like a series of Mad Libs answers.
With the summer Olympics bringing crowds to Los Angeles in 2028, the City of Los Angeles decided to reduce traffic congestion at its famously nightmarish airport, LAX, by at-long-last linking the terminals and off-site rental car facilities with an automated train. The 2.25-mile SkyLink project was approved in 2018 and broke ground in 2019, with a promised opening date of 2023, at a budgeted construction cost of $1.9 billion. A larger dollar figure cited in that approval, totaling just under $5 billion, was supposed to be the cost of construction plus the cost of operating the system, covering the first thirty years of the project.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/21/2026 13:48 Comments ||
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#5
With the summer Olympics bringing crowds to Los Angeles in 2028, the City of Los Angeles decided to reduce traffic congestion at its famously nightmarish airport, LAX, by at-long-last linking the terminals and off-site rental car facilities with an automated train.
Some of the worst traffic you can ever see is on Interstate 405 as it passes LAX.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/21/2026 13:52 Comments ||
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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.
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.
[Mises] The Treasury Department released its monthly statement on Friday and has now confirmed what we all suspected: the US federal government, under the Trump Administration, will finish the 2026 fiscal year with an annual fiscal deficit of about $2 trillion. 
