[WASHINGTONPOST] CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. -- Police here say they have found no evidence to support claims in a Rolling Stone article that a University of Virginia student was gang raped at a campus fraternity in September 2012, noting that months of investigation led detectives to discredit several claims about the alleged assault. One of these days we're going to reach a point where nobody believes any claims of this type, legitimate or not. That will probably be ascribed to sexism.
Police Chief Timothy J. Longo on Monday afternoon said the police department had multiple meetings with "Jackie" -- the woman who claimed she was gang raped at a fraternity party -- and that she declined to speak about the alleged incident or provide any information about it. Numerous lines of inquiry yielded evidence that the fraternity did not have a party the night of the alleged attack, and police were unable to find anyone matching the description of the alleged attacker. Then we'll head toward the point where we'll have copycats of non-existent crimes.
"We're not able to conclude to any substantive degree that an incident occurred at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house or any other fraternity house, for that matter," Longo said at a news conference. "That doesn't mean something terrible didn't happen to Jackie ... we're just not able to gather sufficient facts to determine what that is." Then we'll start making up our own morality as we go along...
The announcement came after a five-month investigation spurred by allegations of a brutal fraternity house gang-rape described in a 9,000-word magazine account that went viral online in November. The Rolling Stone report unraveled under scrutiny, as the accuser's version of events was publicly challenged by her friends, members of the fraternity and sexual assault advocates on campus. After Washington Post reports revealed flaws in the account, Rolling Stone's editors backed away from it. Oh. Wait.
Longo's statement was the first official discrediting of the account, but he said he would keep the investigation open in case witnesses wanted to come forward with anything that might lead police to any information about an attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2015 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Another "Hands up" lefty meme goes up in smoke.
#2
Now this is one tort lawyer commercial I'd like to see "Have you or your friends been falsely accused by college administrators and faculty of rape...." There's gold in those endowment funds and trusts I tell you, gold!
#3
"No proof that nothing happened..." Sort of a double negative, kinda...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/24/2015 8:44 Comments ||
Top||
#4
The fact that it's false doesn't mean that it's not true.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/24/2015 8:56 Comments ||
Top||
#5
P2K, Glenn Reynolds has been suggesting for months that falsely accused students should sue, especially if they've been convicted in one of the kangaroo courts the colleges have. He recommends suing the the college president personally, as well as the college.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/24/2015 9:08 Comments ||
Top||
#6
These sham courts are almost like Sharia Law at univerities--a parallel system of laws on campuses. These sham courts ought to be dissolved and deemed illegal because they don't insure due process. They are "political correctness" courts more than anything.
2015 is off to a slow start for tornadoes in the United States. Through March 17, only 28 tornadoes have occurred anywhere in the country, with the majority of these (23) coming in a two-day event on January 3-4 over the Southeast.
The number since January 5 is even more noteworthy, with a preliminary total of only five tornadoes reported. Of these five, two occurred in Washington State on January 18, one occurred in Florida on January 23, another occurred in Florida on February 5, and one occurred in California on February 23. No tornado reports have been received thus far in the month of March.
Dr. Greg Forbes of the Weather Channel reports that this is only the second time March has gone tornado-less through the 16th since 1950, with the only other occurrence being in 1969. I am reasonably confident that this number won't change much in the next seven days (see below). For reference, the average tornado counts by month are 35 in January, 29 in February, and 80 in March.
And it's not just the tornadoes that have been quiet: It's all severe weather. Except for snow. Scanning the rest of the article, I think this is due to the repeated arctic cold fronts that snowed in Boston and the northeast. I'm sure the root of all this change - officially - is still man-made global climate change, but the point is - it's not all bad!
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/24/2015 13:40 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Yeah, every time I look at the map of the world I am astonished that ANYONE could think that global warming will be on balance negative. Look at the enormous swaths of Canada, Siberia, Sweden, Finland, Alaska. All are basically empty deserts, simply because they are too cold.
Look at Canada as an example. It has considerably more land area than the United States -- but just has 1/10th it's population. And almost all of them live within 50 miles of the US-Canadian border. If it warms up a bit, we'll have another land rush as big as the one when they discovered America 500 years ago.
#3
GUam + Earth has been been simultan hit by Reality/Background-distorting Geomagnetic Storms, Solar Eclipse, Spring Equinox, + a Typhoon "Bavi" which split into parts ala Nostradamus' CHIEN = "Twin-Double Swords/Sword of Heaven whom is also the Sword of Hell".
Solid Metal, Glass, Wood, + Big Concrete Buildings, etc. were all grossly distorted or "bent" by the GeoMagnetic Storms, which is why I'm glad NASA sent up several Satellites to study or monitor the Gravity or EM Fields between the Earth + Sun.
GAVE ME D **** NGED BAD HEADACHES WHICH TRUTH BE TOLD I'M STILL RECOVERING FROM.
For a map, click here. You can enlarge the map, if you open it separately.
By Chris Covert
Ranturg.com
A Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) officer was killed in a shootout Sunday with smugglers near the western Donetsk city of Volnovakha, according to Russian and English language news reports.
According to a news account which appeared in novorusvesti.ru, a three truck convoy was stopped by SBU operators as it attempted to bypass a Ukrainian SBU checkpoint. A vehicle with the markings for the "Dnepr-1" battalion appeared at the scene as the trucks were stopped, and that is when the shooting began.
The officer, identified as Victor Manzika, died on the way to receiving medical attention.
A total of four men were detained at the scene along with PK machine guns, grenade launchers and grenades.
A report from ukrainiancrisis.net said the trucks were filled with illegal alcohol and tobacco and were bound for the breakaway republic of Donetsk, presumably behind battle lines.
According to the report, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said a total of 11 unidentified individuals had been detained in connection with the incident, eight of them from the Dnepropetrovsk region.
One of the detained was identified as member of Ukrainian parliament Andrew Denisenko, who has ties with the "Right Sector" political movement and with Dnepropetrovsk governor Igor Kolomoisky. Denisenko also operates a Dnepropetrovsk regional headquarters for "Right Sector".
A number of police battalions now operating and fighting against the Donbas rebels are funded by a number of Ukrainian oligarchs including Kolomoisky. "Dnepr-1" is funded by Kolomoisky.
Kolomoisky has been in conflict with Ukrainian president Piotr Poroshenko, which was ratcheted up Friday when a number of gunmen armed with submachine guns appeared at the offices of the Ukrainian petroleum enterprise Ukrtransnafta to protest a decision to remove Aleksandr Lazorko as chief executive officer.
Another problem for both Poroshenko and Kolomoisky has been a requirement under the February 12th Minsk Ceasefire, colloquially known as Minsk II to disarm all illegal armed formations, originally taken to mean the Donbas rebel units, now to include formations such as Kolomoisky's Right Sector battalions.
Right Sector political movement has gained a reputation as one of the most vicious political groups, armed or not, against Russian speaking Ukrainians. Russian media has charged that the Odessa massacre last May was done by Right Sector militants.
That reputation has been so acute that Russian speaking guerrillas in southeastern Ukraine have gone out of their way to kill Right Sector militants, armed or not.
According to the ukrainiancrisis.net report, Avakov said he would make a request to the Verkhovna Rada to end parliamentary prosecutorial immunity for Denisenko.
Volnovakha was the town near which a directional mine detonated against a civilian passenger bus, killing 13 on January 13th. The Ukrainians said the bus was hit by rebel artillery, while rebels said the bus was hit by a Ukrainian directional mine.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com. You can read past articles about the 2014 war in southeastern Ukraina by clicking here.
For a map, click here. You can enlarge the map, if you open it separately.
Ukrainian soldiers who killed an eight year old girl in a traffic accident March 16th could be imprisoned for ten years, according to Russian language news accounts.
The incident took place on the afternoon of March 16th in Konstantinovka in northern Donetsk oblast, when four soldiers aboard a Ukrainian MTLB armored personnel carrier lost control of the vehicle and crashed it into a family standing on a sidewalk. The accident took place on Prospekt Lomonosova near a local hospital.
Three victims were hospitalized: Polina, 8, the deceased, an unidentified aunt and an unidentified cousin. A baby in a nearby stroller was unharmed in the incident.
A news account which appeared in the online edition of novorusvesti.ru quoted the Ukrainian Army chief military prosecutor Anatoliy Matios as saying the crew of the armored vehicle were drunk. The crew, as well as the unidentified unit commander, who was not directly involved in the incident, will be charged April 1st.
The death of the child sparked riots the following night. A total of 14 unidentified individuals were detained in connection with the unrest and another 16 are being sought by authorities.
The incident caused the president of the breakaway republic of Donetsk, Aleksandr Zakharchenko to say he forces will receive orders not to take prisoners of any soldiers of the unit, even those not involved in the incident.
According to the news report, accidents involving drunken Ukrainian soldiers are widespread in southeastern Ukraine. The problem with the Ukrainians was especially bad in Artemovsk just after the fall of Debaltsevo, which has proved to be a major defeat for the Ukrainians and a Pyrric victory for the Donbas rebels.
Artemovsk is just eight kilometers northeast of Konstantinovka, and was headquarters for Ukrainian forces in the Debaltsevo salient before rebels surrounded and the liquidated the resulting pocket.
Chris Covert writes about foreign military issues for Rantburg.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com. Click here for a list of stories in the The 2014 War in Ukraina category.
[Iran Press TV] Ukrainian military authorities have blamed pro-Russia forces for injuring seven people by firing rockets at Kiev-held positions in defiance of the latest truce accord in the east of the country.
Kiev's army front man Andriy Lysenko announced on Monday that six government soldiers and a civilian were maimed in fighting over the last 24 hours, renewing fears of escalating tensions in the conflict-ridden region since last month's ceasefire agreement between the warring sides.
The Ukrainian interior ministry asserted that a civilian had suffered a shrapnel wound in the government-held town of Dzerzhynsk, following the alleged mortar attack late Sunday. Dzerzhynsk is west of Gorlovka, which is held by rebels, and has been an issue since early January. According to rebel media, Ukrainians have resumed shelling Gorlovka, which the Ukrainians have been shelling since early January. The ceasefire mandates artillery launchers of less the 100mm which the 82mm mortar is one.
Lysenko cautioned that "the situation remained unstable" along the entire conflict line, where Kiev alleges that pro-Russia forces have used mortars, grenades and heavy weapons against the terms of the ceasefire.
The ceasefire, dubbed Minsk II, requires government forces and pro-Russia militias to pull back heavy weapons from the conflict zones. But both sides have repeatedly issued counter claims blaming violation of the deal by the other party.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2015 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Though the existence and even whereabouts of the alleged "cyber army" are no secret, recent media reports appear to have revealed some details of how one of the tools of Russian propaganda operates on an everyday basis.
Typical troll accounts, Moy Rayon noted, were operated by people posing as "housewives" and "disappointed US citizens".
Bloggers produce hundreds of comments on top news websites and manage multiple accounts on Twitter, LiveJournal and other social media platforms.
"[During one 12-hour shift] I had to write 126 comments under the posts written by people inside the building. And about 25 comments on pages of real people - in order to attract somebody's attention. And I had to write 10 blog posts," a former employee, Anton, told Radio Liberty.
One recent technical task, former employee Lena told Radio Liberty, was devoted to the murder of prominent Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov.
"It was mandatory to convey the message to the people that Nemtsov's murder was a provocation ahead of the [opposition] march and that he was killed by his own associates," she said.
"As a result, hundreds and thousands of comments, where this idea is served up under different dressings, emerge under every news article of leading media," she added.
Prominent journalist and Russia expert Peter Pomerantsev, however, believes Russia's efforts are aimed at confusing the audience, rather than convincing it. "What Russia is trying to go for is kind of a reverse censorship, They cannot censor the information, but can trash it with conspiracy theories and rumours", he argues. We've had a few here. Not any of our "regular" posters, but look for a burst of new anon posters trying to alter the signal on Russian items and you'll see it from time to time.
[Hurriyet Daily News] Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has warned German Chancellor Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany. She was educated in East Germany when is was still run by commies, but in 1989 got involved with the growing democracy movement when the Berlin Wall fell. Merkel is sometimes referred to by Germans as Mom... in a letter that Athens will not be able to service its debt without financial help from the EU, the Greek government revealed on March 23.
Greek government front man Gabriel Sakellaridis confirmed a report in the Financial Times which said that Tsipras had written to Merkel.
But he insisted that the letter should not be seen as a "threat".
"This is not a threat, it is reality," Sakellaridis told Mega TV, adding that Tsipras had sent a similar letter to French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist... and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker.
"The letter said nothing less and nothing more than what we have said since last week ... that liquidity is tight and that political initiatives must be taken," the front man said.
The FT said it has a copy of a letter dated March 15 in which Tsipras "warns that his government will be forced to choose between paying off loans, owed primarily to the International Monetary Fund, or continue social spending."
"With this letter, I am urging you not to allow a small cash flow issue, and a certain 'institutional inertia', to not turn into a large problem for Greece and for Europe," Tsipras wrote.
Sakellaridis said the letter prompted a mini-summit between Tsipras, Merkel, Hollande and Juncker with European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi and European Council chief Donald Tusk last week.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2015 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"Give me the money to pay you back for that loan I still owe you"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/24/2015 7:21 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Both GREECE + RUSSIA are seemingly competing for leadership of Eastern Orthdox Christianity = Eastern Europe whilst at the same time both countries are repor mucho or excessively dep deep Deep DEEP D-E-E-P IN THE RED.
To paraph the late great WARD BOND from JOHN WAYNE'S CLASSIC "THE SEARCHERS = "D *** NG IT, DEEP, DEEP - SPELLED D-I-I-P/D-Y-E-P - DEEP"!
With the U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter still in limbo over reliability problems, Russian President Vladimir Putin's administration on Monday said it would begin regular production of its newest fighter jet, the T-50, next year.
According to state-run media, the Russian military will begin mass-producing the advanced fighter jet in several versions, and will also begin making models that will be available for export.
"We have plans to deliver the first series of fifth-generation fighter jets next year," said Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov, after visiting a plant owned by Sukhoi, the Russian defense contractor responsible for the new plane, which is also known as the PAK-FA.
The "fifth generation" of fighter jets to which Borisov refers is a category of the very newest military aircraft in the world. To date, the only true fifth generation fighter in operation is the U.S. F-22, a wildly expensive and not terribly reliable plane that Congress agreed to stop funding in 2009. The last F-22 was built in 2011, giving the U.S. Air Force an inventory of 187.
One of the reasons Congress and the Pentagon agreed to eliminate the F-22 was that the F-35 was in the pipeline. The joint strike fighter was supposed to be cheaper to produce and operationally superior to the F-22. To date, it has been neither.
The F-35 has consumed some $400 billion in resources, about $170 billion more than was originally projected, and the prototypes that have been produced have failed to meet the necessary performance standards. A scathing report from the Department of Defense's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation cited a laundry list of flaws and shortcomings, from vulnerability to engine fires to computer malfunctions.
Experts estimate that the F-35 remains years away from deployment in a combat situation, despite assurances to the contrary from the Pentagon.
At the moment, that isn't a major security issue. The F-22, for all its problems, is currently without real competition in the battle for the skies. However, if the Russian T-50 is true to its specification, that could change in the not-too-distant future.
The T-50 is significantly faster than the F-22, and has a huge advantage in terms of range -- 5,500 kilometers compared to the F-22's 3,400. The T-50's detection systems allow it to spot incoming threats at a distance of up to 400 kilometers, compared to the F-22's 210 km.
Most experts believe that the F-35 would be the dominant plane, should it ever come on line in the form its supporters have promised. But a continuous delay in production leaves Russia with the most dominant fighter jet on the planet.
There are some caveats, of course. It is unclear how many planes Russia could realistically expect to produce, given Putin's push to increase investment in the Russian military. Whether or not Russia's reported success in trials is wholly accurate is also in dispute. In 2013, the Indian Air Force was given the opportunity to test a prototype, and came away unimpressed, saying that the T-50 hadn't lived up to the hype. But a lot can happen in two years.
#1
T-50 sounds like description of Wonder Weapons that were going to save the Reich. All specification, none of the reality. Physics has a nasty way of dealing with things like "double the range at twice the speed" and jet engines.
Don't expect a gold mine of emails on Hillary's private account. Why not? Because she doesn't know how to type. That's right. She writes everything out in longhand. Really. Anyone who has spent time in meetings with her knows about her endless yellow pads.
Except for her thumbing a Blackberry...
So her emails will most likely turn out to be very short and quick. She wouldn't spend a lot of time pecking out long letters. No way. That's why the Benghazi Committee needs to also look very closely at the emails on private accounts that Hillary's closest aides, Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, maintained. Anything more than a few lines were most likely written by someone else on her behalf. There's a reason why Hillary set up and used private emails with them for official business: all the important emails were likely written by her staff. Without access to them, we won't know what was going on.
The Clintons never used the White House computer for their own work. Hillary even wrote (or copied) her book manuscripts in long hand. Although ghost writer Barbara Fineman was paid $120,000 for writing It Takes A Village, she proudly waved hundreds of hand-written pages on yellow legal pads to pretend she wrote it all herself. She never acknowledged Fineman's work.
Bill can't type either. When I wrote his 1995 State of the Union Speech, I typed it on an IBM Selectric that the White House dug up from the basement. He told me that he didn't want me to put it in the official computer system, because then his staff would see it.
So, he carefully copied every word in his distinctive left hand penmanship. I still have a copy of it. Then he pretended that he had written it himself.
The Clintons have figured out every which way to avoid disclosure of what they want to keep private. So don't expect a smoking gun in Hillary's emails.
Look, instead, to Huma, Cheryl, Jake Sullivan, and Philippe Reines -- if they still exist. Is Morris referring to correspondence.... or the underlings themselves ?
#2
Can't type? She can't be president either if she is a felon. She couldn't handle the SOS job either. Or the first lady job. She's pretty good at laundering.
[DAWN] Indian police said Monday they have enjugged Please don't kill me! six people after Hindu fundamentalists were shown vandalising a cathedral in central India, the latest attack on Christian establishments in the Hindu-majority country.
CCTV footage showed a group of men smashing plant pots, breaking down doors and shattering windows in the grounds of the cathedral in Madhya Pradesh state late Friday.
The right-wing Hindu Dharma Sena group had accused the church of converting around 200 people from local tribal groups to Christianity, although it denies causing any damage to church property.
"We arrested six men last night in connection with the vandalism. We are trying to identify more people... there may be more arrests," HC Mishra, a senior state police official, told AFP by telephone.
Religious conversions are highly controversial in India, a secular country where religious freedom is considered a fundamental right.
Critics say Hindu hardline groups have become emboldened since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won power in India last year.
The latest attack comes at a time of heightened sensitivity over religious freedom in India, where churches and a Christian school have been attacked in recent months.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2015 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[8 views]
Top|| File under:
[Hurriyet Daily News] The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... 's top religious affairs body has said surrogate motherhood was religiously unacceptable, as it contained elements of adultery.
The Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) announced on March 20 in vitro fertilization between unmarried individuals was not religiously acceptable, as it offended humane feelings and contained elements of adultery.
In an answer to a question on whether or not in vitro fertilization was licit to have babies, Diyanet's Religious High Council's platform, established to answer questions regarding Islam and the Islamic way of living, said as long as the sperm and the ovum to be fertilized belong to a married couple and the fertilized ovum is placed inside the ovum's beholder's womb, and "not inside a stranger's womb," then the in vitro fertilization method of bearing a child was religiously acceptable.
"An in vitro fertilization process that starts and finalizes between individuals who are not de facto married is religiously not acceptable as it offends humane feelings and contains elements of adultery," read a part of the statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/24/2015 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Wurx fur mi. Anything that decreases some populations...
Posted by: Anice Nim ||
03/24/2015 16:05 Comments ||
Top||
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.
[WASHINGTONPOST] CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. -- Police here say they have found no evidence to support claims in a Rolling Stone article that a University of Virginia student was gang raped at a campus fraternity in September 2012, noting that months of investigation led detectives to discredit several claims about the alleged assault.
Though the existence and even whereabouts of the alleged "cyber army" are no secret, recent media reports appear to have revealed some details of how one of the tools of Russian propaganda operates on an everyday basis.
[Hurriyet Daily News] Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has warned German Chancellor 
With the U.S. F-35 Joint Strike Fighter still in limbo over reliability problems, Russian President Vladimir Putin's administration on Monday said it would begin regular production of its newest fighter jet, the T-50, next year.
[Hurriyet Daily News] 
