#4
Interesting how the 90s power companies had a leader and soul for lack of a better word:
Steve Jobs and Woz
Bill Gates and Allen
McNeally and Bill Joy
All eventually lost their soul and became different than when they started.
Then the next generation Facebook, twitter, etc and company seemed to be just one guy with no soul to hold them back.
[JOURNALDUCAMEROUN] Figures reportedly leaked from the electoral commission in Cameroon suggest that incumbent President Paul Biya is strongly poised for a landslide poll victory.The provisional results of the October 7 presidential election, attributed to the commission but not officially verified by it, have been widely circulated on social media over the weekend, giving veteran leader Biya 71.28 percent of the votes. Biya who leads the ruling Democratic Rally of Cameroonian People (CPDM) has been in power since 1982.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
[Al Ahram] Sixty people were killed after a fire broke out on Friday on an oil pipeline in the southeast of Nigeria, a front man for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said on Monday, up from the tally of 16 dead given by officials three days earlier.
The state oil company on Friday said pumping on the System 2E pipeline network had been halted.
"We will resume the pumping of products very soon," NNPC front man Ndu Ughamadu told Rooters on Monday. "We had put out the fire. We are now pumping water in the pipeline to detect other possible areas of leakages."
The System 2E pipeline is a key network that supplies imported gasoline and output from the Port Harcourt refineries to much of the southeast and north of the country. The two refining plants at Port Harcourt operate far below their 210,000 barrels per day capacity.
In an emailed statement, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said it had been prevented from pumping fuel to the southeastern Enugu Depot "which has remained underutilised despite its recent rehabilitation by the NNPC".
Many oil spills in the southern oil production heartland of Africa's biggest crude producer are caused by theft and pipeline sabotage. The methods used to steal the oil often result in accidents that cause fires.
The state oil company , which on Friday gave a corpse count of 16, said the fire had been caused by pipeline vandals who breached the pipeline in Ososioma near the southeastern city of Aba.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Nigeria falls! Slowly, I turned.
Step by step. Inch by inch.
And then I *IGNITED*!
This weekend the Sunday Times formally apologised for a series of articles it published over 5 years, naming public officials as being corrupt (or even murderers in some cases).
The stories covered included:
*Officials accused of arranging illegal renditions of Zimbabwean exiles back to Zimbabwe, where they were killed or tortured
*A death squad consisting of senior investigators, who murdered suspects in their care
*Senior tax officials running a black ops unit that included brothels
Turns out, the dozens of people named in these stories were themselves investigating corrupt activities tied to the then-president Jacob Zuma and his business cronies, the Gupta family.
These articles directly resulted in many decent people losing their jobs and careers. And helped ensure billions of dollars in actual corruption was covered up.
The editor of the Sunday Times at the time was Ray Hartley, a super 'woke' white lefty. Ray was warned repeatedly by other journalists, and shown proof that the publication was being fed false information. The stories continued anyway.
The journalists involved were celebrated at the time, won awards and prize money. Several resigned this week and have to return their awards and prize money. Some of their colleagues are suggesting publicly that the tainted journalists took bribes to keep the stories flowing.
To sum up, dozens of professionals had their lives destroyed for trying to do the right thing, and had their reputations ruined in public by these articles.
The Sunday Times has apologised and announced that it will return all awards and prize money received for now discredited reports on the Cato Manor "death squad", the SARS "rogue unit" and Zimbabwean extraditions.
"I believe it is only just and fitting for us to humbly reconsider our decision to accept such prestigious awards," the newspaper's editor, Bongani Siqoko, said in a piece published on Sunday.
"Accepting such accolades will be a negation of a higher journalistic idea.
"It will be for this reason that we will be returning all the awards and the prize money."
Siqoko said that the newspaper had spent time reflecting on the reports in question, which had been published in 2011.
"There was clearly a parallel political project aimed at undermining our democratic values and destroying state institutions and removing individuals who were seen as obstacles to this project," he said.
"We admit that our stories may have been used for this purpose," Siqoko added.
We 'allowed ourselves to be manipulated'
Siqoko said that while the purpose of investigating the stories was always to find out the truth, "something went wrong in the process of gathering the information and reporting".
"What is clear is that we committed mistakes and allowed ourselves to be manipulated by those with ulterior motives."
He said that the paper had not been aware of these political machinations – "but we should have joined the dots. We should have paused and asked more questions".
He said that the paper felt it had "failed SA" in this regard and thus was "deeply" regretful.
Nevertheless, he said that the paper also should not have ignored the stories either. "There was, and is, a middle path that we should have taken."
"We should have reported on these incidents but with caution and care, aware of the hidden hand… at play".
In terms of the reports about a Cato Manor policing unit, Siqoko said that the labelling of it as a 'death squad' was unqualified.
'Rogue elements'
Siqoko also said the articles created an "impression" that then-head of the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal, Johan Booysen, was "directly and personally responsible" for the killings.
Siqoko said that Booysen had told the newspaper he did not have any direct involvement in the unit – and "we have no reason not to accept his version".
On Sunday, the newspaper also published a piece by Booysen in which he outlined how, at the time, he had become aware that "rogue elements within crime intelligence" were meeting with investigative journalists from the Sunday Times.
Booysen said that he had contacted then-editor Ray Hartley and demanded to be given a chance to give his side.
During a meeting, he then explained that many of the allegations were untrue and directed the journalists to channels where further verification could be obtained.
However, the published article presented only the version provided by the other side and made it clear that no further fact checking had been done.
'Investigations were compromised'
Booysen pointed out how even certain photographs accompanying the story were from unrelated incidents.
He said as some of the newspaper's investigative journalists continued to be used by various forces, "the fallout from these invented stories was that dedicated officials within the Hawks and SARS were ostracised, suspended and worked out of the system".
"High level investigations were compromised as detectives and SARS officials were arrested on bogus charges."
Ultimately, said Booysen, "the aftermath of these articles cannot be measured in monetary terms".
"The Hawks and SARS became dysfunctional and lives were ruined."
Yet, Booysen also extended gratitude to Siqoko, "who has shown great courage and leadership to address wrongs that happened under his predecessor's watch".
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
10/16/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
Direct translation
[REGNUM] The increase in excise taxes on fuel in Russia since the beginning of 2019 can lead to a sharp increase in gasoline prices. This is stated in the conclusion of the Accounts Chamber on the draft federal budget for 2019 and the planned period 2020-2021, reports Kommersant on October 15.
According to the publication, the document notes that from July 1, excise taxes on gasoline allowed only slightly lower retail prices: in July - by 0.2%, in August - by 0.3%. According to the Accounts Chamber, this was “not enough to compensate for the outpacing price increases accumulated since the beginning of the year.”
As REGNUM news agency reported , from January 1, 2019 in Russia, excise taxes on motor gasoline will rise by 3.7 thousand rubles - to 12,374 rubles per ton, excise taxes on diesel fuel will be increased by 2.7 thousand rubles - to 8541 rubles per ton.
[PULSE.NG] Australia's indigenous affairs minister and several of his colleagues faced calls to resign Monday, after they backed a failed parliamentary motion tabled by a controversial senator that declared: "It is okay to be white."
Several government ministers -- including those for trade, communications and indigenous affairs minister Nigel Scullion -- backed a resolution drafted by populist firebrand ...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments... senator Pauline Hanson which railed against what it described as "the deplorable rise of anti-white racism".
Luke Pearson, the founder of influential anti-racism group, IndigenousX, echoed a string of calls for Scullion to resign after the vote.
"The minister for Indigenous Affairs, voting in support of what is widely known to be a white supremacist slogan, 'It's okay to be white', makes his position as minister entirely untenable. He needs to resign," Pearson wrote.
Scullion, a white senator for the Northern Territory, has held the Indigenous Affairs portfolio since 2013.
During parliamentary debate Hanson defended trying to codify what opponents see as race baiting.
"Such a simple sentence should go without saying," Hanson told the chamber, before her motion was defeated 31 votes to 28. "But I suspect many members in this place would struggle to say it."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
So...it's not okay to be white?
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
10/16/2018 6:37 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I think it's too late for me to do anything about it.
[Al Ahram] Sears, the venerable US chain that once dominated the retail sector but had been in decline since the advent of the Amazon era, filed for bankruptcy Monday.
With a history that stretches back to 1886, the company was a pioneer of departmental stores that catered to everyone and went on to build a vast empire that stretched across North America.
But it has closed hundreds of stores in recent years amid a retail shakeout caused in part by the rise of Amazon and other e-commerce players.
"The Company and certain of its subsidiaries have filed voluntary petitions for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York," a statement by Sears Holdings Corporation said.
The company had been in deep debt and reportedly could not afford a $134 million repayment that had been due on Monday.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
One word. China.
Posted by: Neville Dark Lord of the Wee Folk7365 ||
10/16/2018 0:28 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Another word. Amazon. Amazon took over the catalog sales market because for years its sales, unlike Sears, were not subject to sales taxes, and a 9% margin was a huge competitive edge.
One only had to look how IBM handled the explosion of PCs vs mainframes for the corporate model of how not to effectively dealing with significant change. No institution is immune. Just look what tablets and smartphones have done to MicroBorg 'one size fits all' Windows. Heck, if it wasn't for the bailout for Detroit, we'd probably only have Ford as an American car manufacturer. Suits.
#7
Sears always charged B+ prices for C+ merchandise.
This.
Posted by: regular joe ||
10/16/2018 10:16 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Sears always charged B+ prices for C+ merchandise.
I was gonna say something about high prices and shoddy merchandise, shoddy merchandise from China no less. But, really, that was the suits who thought they could get away with it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/16/2018 10:35 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Sears was the Amazon of its day during the start of the industrial revolution. Its catalogs and ability to get cheap factory goods to rural areas put a lot of mom and pop shops out of business. It brought the city's industrial revolution to the farm.
Fast forward 120 years and now the internet and Amazon does the same to them.
#10
But Darth, shopping malls are the wave of the FUTURE! you don't need to mess with that Sears has everything BS and can concentrate on all those high profit items.
Personally my giving up on Sears happened back in the 80's Iwas having trouble getting my car started and was pretty sure I just needed a new battery. Hey I'm just a short hop away from Sears so I pull into the auto shop to get a new battery. No problem we will test it for free. So right before closing they tell me my alternator is bad and they don't fix them. So I take it to a shop the next day and they say all I need is a new battery.
When I first started working at Amazon and a roll of chicken wire came down the line, all I could think of is all the Sears catalog sales execs that must be spinning intheir graves. BTW recently I had to check in Kenmore vacum cleaners so somebody has already bought the Kenmore name.
#11
Sears failed to keep up. I think they thought they were too established to fail. They stopped their big catalog in 1993, determined to wring more money from their physical stores. Their big catalog, which had been a fascinating window beyond immediate surroundings for many, rural and urban, disappeared.
This was right around when Mosaic and later Netscape Navigator became available. Prior to that most things internet were labs and government islands. Sears did not take advantage of the internet; 'the world only needs one computer' kind of mindset.
Taiwan was more in-play than the PRC. All things have their day. Sears has passed its sell-by date.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
10/16/2018 12:19 Comments ||
Top||
#12
walked into a Sears store last Sunday and all the goods had banners and such about One Year Warranty. When I got home, asked Mama Ret if she had any idea who would be honoring those warranties, as I did not have a clue. Neither did She.
And I really like my Craftsman hand tools; power ones, not so much.
[An Nahar] Outgoing Maldives President Abdulla Yameen says disappearing ink and specially treated ballot papers were to blame for his heavy election defeat last month.
The strongman leader of the honeymoon island nation had been expected to romp home in the September 23 poll, with opposition leaders placed in durance vile Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! or exiled, and warnings that he would try to fix the vote.
But in a surprise turn of events, a little-known united opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohammed Solih, was declared the winner, sparking celebrations across the tropical holiday destination.
Yameen initially said he accepted defeat, and was ready to step down when his term ends on November 17. But last week he launched a Supreme Court challenge, seeking to annul the result.
At a hearing on Sunday which resumed Monday, Yameen's lawyer Mohammed Saleem accused the printer of coating ballot papers with an unnamed substance to make votes marked in Yameen's box vanish.
Saleem said a "special pen with disappearing ink" had been given to people who were going to vote for his client, a news hound at the hearing said.
A lawyer for the Elections Commission, which Yameen accused of colluding with the printer to ensure his defeat, on Sunday denied any wrongdoing, including using any special ink.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
[DAWN] KARACHI: The Frere police on Sunday registered a murder case against a detained CTD policeman and a mobile shop owner for ’lynching’ a 50-year-old labourer at the Cantonment Railway Station in the early hours of Saturday morning over a ’mobile phone theft’ allegation, said City SSP Dr Samiullah Soomro, who is also in-charge SSP-South.
The victim’s family also levelled allegations of ’criminal negligence’ against two coppers of the Frere cop shoppe, who allegedly instead of taking critically injured labourer Ghulam Sarwar to the hospital took him to the cop shoppe where they allegedly demanded a bribe from the family for releasing him, added the senior officer.
The police have registered an FIR (166/2018) under Sections 302 (premeditated murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistain Penal Code on the complaint of the victim’s wife, Mumtaz Bibi, against detained CTD policeman Uzair Khan and shopkeeper Rana Muhammad Aslam.
According to contents of the FIR, Mumtaz Bibi received a call from her husband’s mobile phone at 4.30am on Saturday to bring a cellphone, which her husband had mistakenly taken home from a public mobile phone charging facility at the Cantonment Station.
Later she received another call to come to the Frere cop shoppe. She came to the cop shoppe and handed over the phone to the police and asked the police to let her meet her husband, but the police asked her to come later.
The complainant said that she learnt that her husband had gone to the Cantonment Station at 3am on Saturday where shopkeeper Rana Mohammed Aslam and CTD constable Uzair and others caught hold of him and subjected him to beating for ’stealing’ the mobile phone.
They handed over her husband to the police in an injured condition, who succumbed to his wounds.
Apart from registering the murder case against the said suspects, the complainant demanded action against the two coppers of the Frere cop shoppe, Sameer and Ahmed, who allegedly demanded Rs50,000 as a bribe for releasing her husband and ’misbehaved’ with her.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
bring a cellphone, which her husband had mistakenly taken home from a public mobile phone charging facility at the Cantonment Station
Hang em high!
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/16/2018 7:17 Comments ||
Top||
[DAWN] After former military dictator retired Gen Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... ─ who has been out of the country since March 2016 ─ declined to record his statement in a treason case via video link, a special court on Monday ordered the formation of a judicial commission that will go abroad to record his statement in accordance with Section 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The former president's lawyer told a special court bench comprising Justice Yawar Ali, Justice Tahira Safdar and Justice Nazar Akbar seized with a high treason case initiated against Musharraf for suspending the Constitution on Nov 3, 2007 ─ an offence for which he was indicted on March 31, 2014 ─ that his client was was unable to record his statement via video link since he is indisposed.
Justice Ali asked the lawyer whether Musharraf had been diagnosed with cancer, to which the counsel responded that the former military ruler had been diagnosed with heart problems.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] Lahore High Court on Monday issued a notice to 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.... home secretary to appear before the bench tomorrow [Tuesday] for the hearing on the appeal regarding public hanging of Imran Ali.
A two-member bench, comprising Justice Sardar Shamim Ahmed and Justice Shehbaz Rizvi, was hearing the petition of Amin Ansari ‐ father of seven-year-old Zainab who was raped and murdered in Kasur ‐ for the public hanging of his daughter's killer.
"The convict is a serial killer and will be hanged day after tomorrow [Wednesday]," said Advocate Ishtiaq Chaudhry in court.
The bench issued a notice to the Punjab home secretary to appear in court tomorrow.
In a writ petition filed on Saturday, Ansari submitted that all appeals of the convict had been dismissed by available legal forums ‐ the high court, Supreme Court and president of Pakistain. He said the trial court had also issued death warrants of the convict for Oct 17.
He had stated that Section 22 of the Anti-Terrorism Act 1997 empowered the government to hang a convict publicly, complaining that the government was not complying with the law available on the subject.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Shocked by the case of Prophet Mohammad’s slippers missing from Pakistain’s iconic royal mosque for 16 years and angered by inability of country’s law enforcement agencies to recover them, Chief Justice of Pakistain’s Supreme Court has formed a Joint Interrogation Team (JIT) to probe into the case.
"Chief Justice of Supreme Court has formed a JIT comprising of officials from Pakistain’s Inter-Services Intelligence ...the Pak military intelligence agency that controls the military -- heads of ISI typically get promoted into the Chief of Army Staff position. It serves as a general command center for favored turban groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, tries to influence the politix of neighboring countries, and carries out a (usually) low-level war against India in Kashmir... (ISI), Military Intelligence and senior police officials to probe missing slippers of Prophet Mohammad (PTUI!)," a press statement issued from Supreme Court stated on Sunday.
"We can’t even protect Prophet Muhammad’s slippers. What a shame," Chief Justice Saqib Nisar remarked on Sunday. A pair of slippers, believed to have been used by Prophet Mohammad (PTUI!), had gone missing from Pakistain’s Badshahi Mosque (royal mosque) on July 30, 2002.
Apparently, thieves picked up the sacred relic from a glass case inside the Pakistain’s Badshahi Mosque, which was built in 1673 during the Moghul period, where it had been on display. Dozens of pilgrims and visitors used to visit the site every day.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/16/2018 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I have never seen anyone worship the rule of man so fervently
Posted by: Andy Thusoth3807 ||
10/16/2018 5:09 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Apparently, thieves picked up the sacred relic from a glass case inside the Pakistain’s Badshahi Mosque, which was built in 1673 during the Moghul period...
#11
Oh, what to the Musulmen's nose
Is as sweet as the smell from those toes?
Lo, the odor of socks
As they worship those rocks
Is refreshing as attar of rose!
#13
How did Pakistan get them in the first place? Mohamad never made it that far east and Pakistan was never the hub of the Caliphate that I'm aware of. Did some Moguls move them east or something? Or are these just Mohammed Era slippers masquerading as the real thing.
#1
...No, what it comes down to is this: if the program runs smoothly and comes in under budget, no one makes any money.
True story: when my dad worked for NASA in the early 90s, he was part of a team tasked to develop a Mach 3+ air intake for an experimental craft. Doing a little research, Dad discovered that a lot of the work (and therefore much time saved) had already been done by North American Aircraft and NASA as part of the XB-70 Valkyrie program. Dad brought this presumably joyous news to his superiors, whereupon he was told to sit down, shut up, and forget he'd ever seen the stuff. Nobody makes any money if they build upon existing research - better we do it again.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
10/16/2018 11:41 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.
Pervez 
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Shocked by the case of Prophet Mohammad’s slippers missing from Pakistain’s iconic royal mosque for 16 years and angered by inability of country’s law enforcement agencies to recover them, Chief Justice of Pakistain’s Supreme Court has formed a Joint Interrogation Team (JIT) to probe into the case.
