[Iran Press TV] The number of homicides in the US city of reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... climbed dramatically in January to 51, the highest monthly toll in at least 16 years.
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement on Monday that there were 22 more homicides in the first month of this year than in January 2015.
The number of shooting incidents also more than doubled to 242 during the same period.
Police said that the "unacceptable" rise in homicides was largely driven by gang-related violence.
The rise in bloodshed comes as the police department is struggling to win back public trust after the court-ordered release of a video showing a white police officer fatally shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel faced mounting calls for resignation during near daily protests in the wake of the release of the video late last year.
Chicago, the third largest city in the US, routinely records more homicides than any other American city.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
Planned Parenthood can't possibly be held responsible for high concentration target communities like Chicago. Some population reductions must be accomplished at the local and neighborhood levels.
[Dhaka Tribune] A newborn baby has allegedly been thrown out from the fourth floor of an apartment building in the capital's Bailey Road area.
Surprisingly, the boy survived the incident and is undergoing treatment at Ad-din Hospital, said SI Aminul Islam of Ramna cop shoppe.
He said: "Being informed, we rushed to the spot and rescued the newborn boy from the roof of an adjacent tin-shade shop. After a few hours of hectic effort, the police identified the boy's mother, Beauty Akhter, 17, who threw him out of the fourth floor of the building.
"Beauty, who worked as a domestic help at the flat, is being treated at Dhaka Medical College Hospital under police custody."
When contacted, the Manager of Ad-din Hospital, Abu Syeed Mollah, told the Dhaka Tribune: "The boy's condition is stable but he is suffering some injuries and also a fracture on his leg."
Locals said they heard a big sound around 11:30am Monday and found the newborn boy crying on the roof of a tin-shade shop, and called the police immediately.
Beauty's employer Firoza Begum told the Dhaka Tribune: "She was working at my house since she was a child. She left the job last year and went to her village home in Sirajganj district. She returned a few months ago and we appointed her again.
"We did not know that she was pregnant. Even we failed to notice it as her body never showed any sign of pregnancy."
During primary investigation, Beauty admitted that she threw her baby out from the flat, said the SI. "Further investigation is underway."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
[Daily Excelsior] The police foiled robbery attempt in Gramin Bank branch at Palma near Rajouri and nabbed one member of the gang last night. I thought Gramin was a microbank? What do you get away with when you rob a microbank? A coupla bucks?
Official sources said that acting swiftly on the basis of an information that some people were trying to break the shutters of the Bank branch at Palma on the outskirts of Rajouri on Kotranka road, the police party led by SHO Rajouri Chaman Gorkha rushed to the spot along with police men and organised a trap.
It was at around 12.30 midnight that two masked men were busy in breaking shutters of the bank while two others were keeping an eye on the movement of the people. The police party parked its vehicle at some distance away from the spot and kept making advances taking cover. The cops nabbed one of the robbers while three others managed to escape.
The placed in durance vile Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! robber has been identified as Waqar Ahmed, son of Mohd Shabir, resident of Kot Dharra in Rajouri. The police claimed to have identified the other members of the gang. It said that police parties have been sent to different locations to trap the other robbers.
With the prompt action by police, the robbery in the bank was averted. The arrested accused has confessed the involvement of the gang in several theft cases in Kotranka and Rajouri area in the recent past. Further investigation was in progress.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Approximately 300 people including scientists, engineers and other experts, about half with doctorate degrees, have petitioned U.S. House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, to carefully investigate suspiciously overheated climate temperature book-cooking by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Signers included 25 climate or atmospheric scientists, 23 geologists, 51 engineers, 74 physicists, and 12 economists.
One was a Nobel laureate physicist, two were Apollo astronauts . . . and another was me.
Referring to a 2015 NOAA study purporting to having eliminated a nearly two-decade-long "hiatus" of flat global temperatures, the signatories asked Smith's committee to ensure that federal agencies observe scientific Data Quality Act (DQA) guidelines established by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.
The DQA requires agencies, including NOAA, to "ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, including statistical information."
NOAA's adjustments to previous ocean temperatures between 1998 and 2012 made recent global temperature changes appear more than twice warmer than the original records showed.
This was accomplished by throwing out global-coverage satellite-sensed sea surface measurements taken since the late 1970s -- the best data available -- and upwardly adjusting spotty and unreliable hit-and-miss temperature readings taken from ocean-going vessels which present well-recognized problems.
Big errors are introduced because readings taken from the cooling-water intake-tubes of various ships record measure temperatures at different ocean depths. Varying amounts of conduction from different vessel infrastructures and daily sun conditions skew temperatures as well.
Writing in the well-known science blog "Watts Up With That," CATO's Center for the Study of Science Director Patrick Michaels, Assistant Director Paul Knappenberger, and Distinguished Senior Fellow-MIT Professor Emeritus of Meteorology Richard Lindzen agree that the lax standard of NOAA's study should prompt questions by members of the scientific community.
They note: "As has been acknowledged by numerous scientists, the engine intake data are clearly contaminated by heat conduction from the structure, and as such, never intended for scientific use."
In addition to tweaking recent temperature readings to be higher, NOAA's revisions to earlier original data have consistently made past temps cooler.
As climate expert Bob Tisdale and meteorologist Anthony Watts observe on the same WUWT blog site, "To manufacture warming during the hiatus, NOAA adjusted the pre-hiatus data downward" to show even more recent warming.
Incidentally, NOAA's "corrections" to suggest warming between a huge 1998 El NiĂąo and another big one last year contradict data provided by other wider-coverage and higher quality measurements.
A large integrated network of Argo ocean buoys operated by the British Oceanographic Data Center in combination with satellite-enhanced data reveal no statistical warming.
And even if all those adjustments were right, the warming trend would still be significantly lower than was projected by the collection of climate models cited in the most recent U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
In light of the massive El NiĂąo there should be no surprise that 2015 showed elevated temperatures -- about a quarter of a degree Fahrenheit higher than the previous year.
This is similar to what happened with the El NiĂąo in 1998. Also don't be surprised to see it soon followed by a La NiĂąa cooling. Although not well understood, there is no evidence linking these naturally-occurring reversals of Pacific trade winds and deep-ocean currents to any man-made influences.
Michaels, Knappenberger, Lindzen, along with most of us, recognize that global temperatures have been warming in fits-and-starts since the "little ice age" ended in the mid-1800s.
They urge us to keep in mind: "It is important to recognize that the central issue of human-caused climate change is not a question of whether it is warming or not, but rather a question of how much. And to this relevant question, the answer has been, and remains, that the warming is taking place at a much slower rate than is being projected."
House Science Committee Chairman Smith has expressed a commitment to look into concerns that the real purpose of NOAA's report was to push President Obama's political agenda.
He is not alone in noting that the non-peer-reviewed study appeared to be rushed for release conveniently in advance of U.N. Climate Change Conference held in Paris last December.
As reported by the Daily Caller News Foundation, Smith said: "It is this committee's oversight role to ensure that federal science agencies are transparent and accountable to the taxpayers who fund their research." He added: "Americans are tired of research conducted behind closed doors where they only see cherry-picked conclusions, not the facts."
Referring to the pleading submitted by the 300 petitioners, he responded that "This letter shows that hundreds of respected scientists and experts agree that NOAA's efforts to alter historical temperature data deserve serious scrutiny."
After all, isn't serious scrutiny a prerequisite for all trusted science? It's OK if it's junk science.
#3
Raj, you're a piker. Start at 80% cut and work down from there.
I've been a Software geek for 35 years including as a systems auditor investigating the validity of models. It is a given that the easiest way to get the results you want is to cook the data.
#4
How about this? If they want to present a model saying there's *this* amount of warming, fine. If their module proves accurate in five years, they will be listened to. If it's not, they get burned at the stake. Oh and you must all present ALL data like real scientists. No hiding anything or it's the stake.
The military is by nature a conservative community. Given the cost in lives inherent in betting on the wrong new trend, this should hardly be surprising. Sometimes, that traditionalist streak gets in the way of progress, as was the case with radical ideas like the aircraft carrier. Sometimes, the skepticism is justified. Defense News looks at the $3+ billion per ship DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class, which is likely to serve as a design template for future cruiser classes (CG-X, 19 ships from 2011) and possibly even a frigate class (FFG-X, featured in CBO reports but no firm plans), asking: "Is New U.S. Destroyer Unstable? external link" Are the critics prisoners of their preconceptions re: what ships are "supposed" to look like, or sounding an early alarm before a very expensive ship and its crew are lost to Mother Nature rather than enemy fire? Defense News:
"Nothing like the Zumwalt has ever been built. The 14,500-ton ship's flat, inward-sloping sides and superstructure rise in pyramidal fashion in a form called tumblehome. Its long, angular "wave-piercing" bow lacks the rising, flared profile of most ships, and is intended to slice through waves as much as ride over them..."
"At least eight current and former officers, naval engineers and architects and naval analysts interviewed for this article expressed concerns about the ship's stability. Ken Brower, a civilian naval architect with decades of naval experience was even more blunt: "It will capsize in a following sea at the wrong speed if a wave at an appropriate wavelength hits it at an appropriate angle"... "
"...Brower explained: "The trouble is that as a ship pitches and heaves at sea, if you have tumblehome instead of flare, you have no righting energy to make the ship come back up. On the DDG 1000, with the waves coming at you from behind, when a ship pitches down, it can lose transverse stability as the stern comes out of the water -- and basically roll over."
These concerns have existed for a decade, but the US Navy continues to express confidence in the stealth-enhancing design based on their modeling and testing to date. A 1/20 scale, 30-foot scale model has been taken it up through Sea States 8-9 [hurricane-force seas and winds], based on the standard US Navy requirement for stability in ships is a 100-knot wind and using a model of 1969's Category 5 Hurricane Camille. A 150-foot, 1/4 scale steel hull has also been built and tested for stability, and the arm's-length US Naval Technical Authority has determined the Zumwalt's design to be safe.
All ships may face dangerous conditions at sea, and all ships have conditions in which certain actions can be troublesome of even dangerous. Ships larger than the Zumwalt Class have gone to the bottom in freshwater lakes, let alone the open ocean. They key issue is that no ship with the same set of design features has ever put to sea... and those that were similar didn't do well.
A number of French and Russian battleships used tumblehome designs, and their poorer sea-keeping abilities were a matter of record. The tumblehome design's repute was not enhanced when several Russian battleships sank after being damaged by gunfire in the 1905 Battle of Tsushima. In fairness, one must note that the Russian ships suffered from "having their 'T' crossed" by Japanese maneuver; to which must be added unhealthy crews, poor quality shells, poor training and tactics, and a high rate of casualties among the force's commanders. Regardless, the tumblehome hull form was dropped by French designers after World War 1.
Unsurprisingly, concerns also persist about the Zumwalt Class ships' ability to take damage. The sharply reduced crew size of just 182 promises operational cost savings and instant response, but automated damage control mechanisms coordinated by software remain an unproven option. In exchange for its advantages, it may offer less adaptability than human crews are capable of, as well as a potential point of failure in the automated systems themselves or their software.
In the end, the "unproven" label remains the core issue facing the DDG-1000 design, on multiple levels. It is new, and unlike more conventional hull forms it has not encountered tens of thousands of sea states and combat injuries to provide a deep baseline for prediction and modeling. Testing is underway with the best will and equipment available -- but no testing program can truly duplicate the vast legacy of experience built up during the last century with conventional hull forms.
Ship design has come a very long way since 1905, and an era of aircraft and missiles creates different imperatives for performance and survivability. The US Navy argues that a new approach is needed because existing designs are too limited, and sees a new design that would be difficult to copy and give its ships the edge in combat. Critics argue that inaugurating a completely new hull form, on such an expensive ship, creates real risks of untested events or combinations that could lead to the catastrophic loss of a major fleet asset. Not to mention the end of a hugely expensive program, long after vast sums have been expended.
Who's right? The answer could easily be either party, or neither party -- or even both parties. Until the Zumwalt Class' hull form is truly tested with a baseline of at sea experience and with experience of severe damage, we won't really know.
Meanwhile, decisions must still be made, in an arena that's all about assessments of risk and advantage.
#1
I find it difficult to believe that testing at NSWC Carderock wouldn't have found this problem if it existed.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/02/2016 12:24 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I also believe that the specific scenario specified could be recreated in the wave tank. The architects better have ....
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/02/2016 12:32 Comments ||
Top||
#3
The ability of the ship to take a hit and damage control is always a question with the automation and one that won't be fully answered until the missiles start flying. Even then technology can leapfrog the original design.
Take for instance the British Battleships that were made in the 1920s. They didn't armor the decks and they were only made of wood as only a plunging shot would penetrate there and it saved weight and allowed the ships to be faster.
In WW2 this proved disastrous with the advent of the airplane and several British battleships were sent to the bottom of the sea by Japanese dive bombers.
#6
I am concerned about the ability to adequately address damage control; with a very small crew (automation is your friend) there is not a lot of redundancy for DC parties, fire fighting, shoring for flooding, etc.
The Forrestal's fire took out about 200 people and that left a big hole in DC party manning, but the Zoomie crew is even smaller.... Not optimistic if TSHTF.
10 ... 9 ... 8 ...
The largest destroyer ever built for the U.S. Navy headed out to sea for the first time Monday, departing from shipbuilder Bath Iron Works and carefully navigating the winding Kennebec River before reaching the open ocean where the ship will undergo sea trials.
More than 200 shipbuilders, sailors and residents gathered to watch as the futuristic 600-foot, 15,000-ton USS Zumwalt glided past Fort Popham, accompanied by tugboats.
Kelley Campana, a Bath Iron Works employee, said she had goose bumps and tears in her eyes.
"This is pretty exciting. It's a great day to be a shipbuilder and to be an American," she said. "It's the first in its class. There's never been anything like it. It looks like the future."
Larry Harris, a retired Raytheon employee who worked on the ship, watched it depart from Bath.
"It's as cool as can be. It's nice to see it underway," he said. "Hopefully, it will perform as advertised."
Bath Iron Works will be testing the ship's performance and making tweaks this winter. The goal is to deliver it to the Navy sometime next year.
"We are absolutely fired up to see Zumwalt get underway. For the crew and all those involved in designing, building, and readying this fantastic ship, this is a huge milestone," the ship's skipper, Navy Capt. James Kirk, said before the ship departed.
The ship has electric propulsion, new radar and sonar, powerful missiles and guns, and a stealthy design to reduce its radar signature. Advanced automation will allow the warship to operate with a much smaller crew size than current destroyers.
All of that innovation has led to construction delays and a growing price tag. The Zumwalt, the first of three ships in the class, will cost at least $4.4 billion.
The ship looks like nothing ever built at Bath Iron Works.
The inverse bow juts forward to slice through the waves. Sharp angles deflect enemy radar signals. Radar and antennas are hidden in a composite deckhouse.
The builder sea trials will answer any questions of seaworthiness for a ship that utilizes a type of hull associated with pre-dreadnought battleships from a century ago.
Critics say the "tumblehome" hull's sloping shape makes it less stable than conventional hulls, but it contributes to the ship's stealth and the Navy is confident in the design.
Eric Wertheim, author and editor of the U.S. Naval Institute's "Guide to Combat Fleets of the World," said there's no question the integration of so many new systems from the electric drive to the tumblehome hull carries some level of risk.
Operational concerns, growing costs and fleet makeup led the Navy to truncate the 32-ship program to three ships, he said. With only three ships, the class of destroyers could become something of a technology demonstration project, he said.
#10
Shipman, I agree that the Seawolf-class is an excellent sub. But it is so expensive that we can't afford more than 3. The same applies to the Zumwalt-class.
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/02/2016 15:58 Comments ||
Top||
#11
the civil war ship Monitor had an even smaller radar profile although the angles are more Merrimac
Posted by: lord garth ||
02/02/2016 16:46 Comments ||
Top||
#12
The Monitor was a littoral combat ship (LCS).
:-)
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/02/2016 21:02 Comments ||
Top||
#13
And the Monitor sank while being towed.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
02/02/2016 21:20 Comments ||
Top||
America's most expensive weapons system ever just hit another snag. Unexpectedly. Again.
The F-35 Lighting II, Lockheed Martin's fifth-generation fighter jet, is expected to miss a crucial deadline for successfully deploying its sixth and final software release -- referred to as Block 3F. Maybe we could just go straight to Block 4F?
Block 3F is part of the 8 million lines of sophisticated software code that underpin the F-35. What could possibly go wrong?
In short, if the code fails, the F-35 fails. Not entirely. They make great hanger doorstops.
The latest setback for the F-35 stems from a 48-paged December 11 report from Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon's top weapons tester.
According to Gilmore, the stealth fighter jet won't be ready by its July 2017 deadline. And even if it does, I wouldn't want to be the first to fly it into battle.
As first reported by Aviation Week, the DoD report states that "... the rate of deficiency correction has not kept pace with the discovery rate" meaning, there are more problems quickly arising from the F-35 program than solutions.
"Examples of well-known significant problems include the immaturity of the Autonomic Logistics Information System (aka the IT backbone of the F-35), Block 3F avionics instability, and several reliability and maintainability problems with the aircraft and engine." Have the Israelis work on it.
One recommendation Gilmore gives for the F-35's latest woes is to triple the weapons delivery accuracy (WDA) tests, which are currently executed once a month. I read something about the F-35 being used as a "standoff ground support" platform. Combined with the need for tripling the weapons delivery accuracy, I think I may have spotted another problem that will unexpectedly show itself in the next few months years.
Adding more tests to the troubled warplane will likely add to the cost overruns and schedule delays, however, Gilmore warns that decreasing testing in order to meet deadlines will put "readiness for operational testing and employment in combat at significant risk." Otherwise I'm sure the testing would be adequate and guarantee the plane's readiness for combat. For sure. Yep. That's the ticket. It's the testing schedule's fault.
According to the DoD report, the Block 3F software testing began in March 2015, 11 months later than the planned date.
The now nearly $400 billion weapons program was developed in 2001 to replace the US military's legacy F-15, F-16 and F-18 aircraft. Until the F-35 is fully operational, I don't know if we should be labeling them as "legacy" yet.
Lockheed Martin's "jack-of-all-trades" F-35's were developed to dogfight, provide close-air support, execute long-range bombing attacks, take-off and land on aircraft carriers -- all the while utilizing the most advanced stealth capabilities. Maybe we could use it as a troop transport and refueling tanker, too.
Adding to the complexity, Lockheed Martin agreed to design and manufacture three variant F-35's for a particular sister service branch.
The Air Force has the agile F-35A, the F-35B can take-off and land without a runway, ideal for the amphibious Marine Corps, and the F-35C is meant to serve on the Navy's aircraft carriers.
The Marine Corps was the first sister service branch to declare an initial squadron of F-35's ready for combat. Ah, they have been "declared" ready. Maybe "deemed" would be more accurate.
In July 2015, Gen. Joseph Dunford, the commandant of the Marine Corps, declared initial operational capability (IOC) for 10 F-35B fighter jets. The enemy is shaking in their boots.
The Air Force is expected to declare IOC for its F-35As later this year and the Navy plans to announce IOC for the F-35Cs in 2018. Maybe "Initial Order Placeholder" would be a better term. Where the programming is replaced by cables and levers.
Even so, America's most expensive warplane's turbulent march to combat readiness is far from over.
#2
Finding defects faster than they can be corrected; Death spiral. My advice would be to stop adding features (i.e. cut scope) and get what you have working. Didn't these guys/gals put in any automated testing (and I don't mean just unit tests)?
F-35:
> No range
> Not maneuverable enough to survive a dog fight
> Not survivable enough (and too expensive) for close air support
> Inferior in energy maneuverability to a Block 40 F-16
> No AIM140D long range AAM till Block 4
As gorb said, "What could possibly go wrong?"
Posted by: Sven the pelter ||
02/02/2016 11:48 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Dunno. I remember my step-father telling me how the B-25s he flew were flying coffins. I suspect the F-35 is just upholding a long-standing tradition... and don't get me started on my uncle's feelings about the Sherman tank....
#6
They had to extend the life of F-18's. A plane that works.
They should have gone back to the F-22 many years ago when we saw this idiot machines price tag. Our Allies and Ourselves cannot afford this political piece of sh!t.
The software is just as vulnerable as it was 8 years ago when the RSA was hacked.
#8
Newc, estimated price tag for 75 new F-22 is 17 billion pentagon dollars. A great plane that is from what little I know a maintence nightmare. Still, if we could sell them to Japan, Australia, the Zionist entity and Canada it might be do-able. Perhaps Mike K. Could point me in the correct direction.
[Dhaka Tribune] PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) indicated thon the lam numbers of 15-year-old students struggle to master basic numeracy skills in UNICEF-supported countries. In the majority of these countries, more than half of the students -- that's about 1.3 billion students -- fail to reach the minimum level of performance in mathematics.
Because of its inescapable practical applications, math is taught in every level of our education system, starting from elementary schools to university levels. And whether you are an amateur or an expert in math, everyone needs assistance in solving math problems from time to time. So, in the absence of a helpful source of assistance (a teacher or a friend), we can ask the ubiquitous Internet to help us, or we can use the guide books found in the book stores. We can also use a new math-solving application, called MalMath.
Launched on May 5, 2015, MalMath is an android application that can solve math problems with step by step solutions and provide graphic analysis. The app is quite simple to use: just type in a math problem, press the "solve" or "click" button. And, MalMath will present the solution, including the following helpful features.
Step by step description
This is the main feature of MalMath. For each problem that is solved, the steps of the solution are provided for the user. However, there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... knowing that some users can't understand faster than others, Malmath provides additional sub-steps. Even the sub-steps may contain other steps, until the most detailed explanation that a user may need.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Should worry about math education in the first world, not the third one.
[Dhaka Tribune] An Indian lawyer has filed a case against Hindu god Lord Ram over the alleged mistreatment of his wife Sita. Back in the Vedic era. Let it rest, fergawdsake.
Lord Ram's brother, Laxman, has also been accused of helping Lord Ram in "renouncing" Sita. Laxman's always had a shifty look about him when he's appeared to me in dreams.
Lawyer Thakur Chandan Kumar Singh claimed that Lord Ram banished his wife Sita to live in exile in a forest, citing the move as "hypocritical" and "cruel". He's a god, for gosh sakes!
Singh said that there was no valid reason for Sita's banishment and that she was later found innocent of the charges that forced her into exile. She's a goddess. What's it matter if she has to live in the forest? She's also an avatar of Lakshmi, Goddess of Luck. Every time she opened her bag groceries were trying to fall in.
According to a number of Indian news outlets, Singh said: "The devi (goddess) was exiled for no fault of hers. How can a man become so cruel to his wife that he sends her off to live in a forest?" How can a man be so dumb that he tries to sue a god?
The case, which a Bihar court agreed to hear, sparked nationwide discussion on Monday, the morning of the hearing. Ram's name was trending on Twitter as thousands of Indians took to social media to defend the god, criticising the lawyer for "offending" Hindus. Lord Rama should strike him and reduce him to a cinder. Or turn him into a toad and stomp him.
Singh has said that his intention was not to hurt anyone's religious beliefs, however, he believed the crime committed by Lord Ram was a "non-cognisable offence", which meant that the police would be unable to make an arrest without a warrant issued by a court order. Go ahead, dumbass. Get the warrant.
In his complaint, Singh said: "Lord Rama did not think for a single moment how a woman could live alone amid wild animals, including reptiles and mammals, in the forest." He probably thought a goddess could get by pretty well, especially the Goddess of Luck..
According to the Hindu text Rayamana [sic. They mean the Ramayana], Lord Ram was banished to the forest for 14 years, during which his wife Sita and brother Laxman accompanied him. Upon their return to the Kingdom of Ayodhya, rumours began to spread about Sita's purity following the news of her pregnancy. Lord Ram reluctantly gives into public opinion to banish his wife to the forest.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
OK Bubba, how you gonna serve papers on/ receive any judgement arrived at?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
02/02/2016 8:29 Comments ||
Top||
[TX Tribune] Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, pressed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday to explain why the agency plans to reduce its aerial surveillance on the Texas-Mexico border.
In a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, the lawmakers said the cut to a requested 3,850 hours of aerial detection and monitoring in 2016 amounts to 50 percent less coverage than recent years.
"Given the recent surge of migrants from Central America and Cuba along the southern border, we believe DHS should request more surveillance and security resources, not fewer," Abbott and Cuellar wrote in a letter.
The pair also reminded Johnson that in September, Abbott's office asked the DHS for more aerial resources and U.S. Border Patrol agents but that the request was never acknowledged.
A DHS spokesperson said the agency would respond "directly" to the governor and the congressman.
#1
1) Because the bad Republicans wouldn't give us more money.
2) Because it doesn't need as much monitoring anymore, since the immigrants are all now obeying the law.
#2
Well, you see, it all has to do with Chicago. Gotta keep the narcotics flowing into that city as well as places like Baltimore and Washington DC. That way the junkies that don't OD will shoot each other in drug dealing turf wars. Gotta keep the natives busy so the new immigrants can take their jobs. Besides, it's quite lucrative.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
02/02/2016 12:07 Comments ||
Top||
#4
As Feds Plan to Cut Border Monitoring, Texas Officials Ask Why
"...Well, two reasons: first, because when we monitor, we keep getting data we really don't want to get. Second, because f#@k you, Red border states."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/02/2016 17:40 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Among other reasons, under OWG NAU Immigration focii will switch from the Tex-Mex border to Mexico's borders wid the Lower Americas.
MEXICO + MEXICO CITY WILL HAVE THE BALL, NOT ANY LONGER TEXAS OR WASHINGTON.
OTOH the OWG Globies have not answered the questionne' as to where or what [neutral] city will be the Tr-Nation Capital of the new future NAU, by + for same.
* OWG-NWO + GLOBALISM = CO-SUPERPOWER-TO-CO-SUPERPOWER "PARITY" WID THE US [albeit likely "rough" parity], NOT "INFERIORITY" TO THE US.
BY EXTENSION, SAFE TO SAY DITTO AS PER OWG- GLOBAL-FEDERAL-UNION-TO-OWG-GLOBAL-FEDERAL-UNION
IRREGARDLESS OR REGION OR TRANS-REGION, CONTINENT OR TRANS-CONTINENTS???
The Globies can't have any of the above iff the Sole Global Superpower US is still a or t-h-e Sole Global Superpower in the World, now can they???
D *** NG IT, SOMEONE HAS TO SURRENDER LIKE FRANCE, AND IT CAN'T BE THE FRENCH [or Hard Boyz + Global Caliphate?] - HHMMM, HHHMMM, WHOM CAN IT BE!?
Cliven Bundy and supporters of Bunkerville, N.V. have formally notified Harney County Sheriff Ward, Oregon governor Kate Brown and President of the United States of America Barack Obama that they are taking possession of the Harney County Resource Center effective February 1, 2016.
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
02/02/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
... via Certified Letter to each of the above politicians.
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
02/02/2016 0:22 Comments ||
Top||
[ALMANAR.LB] Defense lawyers for fallen Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo ... Former President-for-Life of Ivory Coast from 2000 to 2011. Laurent lost to Alassane Ouattara in 2010 but his representtive tore up the results on the teevee and he refused to vacate the presidential palace. French troops assisted the Oattara forces in extricating him from his Fuhrerbunker... Monday accused his bitter rival President Alassane Ouattara ...the current president-for-life of Ivory Coast. He actually beat his predecessor in an election before having to eject him from the presidential palazzo.... of seizing power by force aided by former colonial ruler La Belle France after disputed 2010 elections.
In an opening statement on the third day of Gbagbo's landmark trial on charges of crimes against humanity, defense lawyer Emmanuel Altit sought to unmask what he called a deliberate "smear campaign" against his client.
"Ouattara and his supporters wanted to seize power by force and the battle of Abidjan was, simply put, the very implementation of this strategy," defense lawyer Emmanuel Altit told the International Criminal Court ... where Milosevich died of old age before being convicted ... (ICC).
Gbagbo and his co-accused Charles Ble Goude, a firebrand ...firebrands are noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments... militia leader, have denied four charges of crimes against humanity after 3,000 people were killed after the Ivory Coast vote.
Their highly-anticipated trial opened on Thursday at the court based in The Hague and is set to last three to four years.
Gbagbo declared himself the winner in late 2010, but the major powers including La Belle France, the United States as well as the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... backed Ouattara, who had snatched a narrow victory.
It led to a bitter standoff, with Gbagbo holed up in the fortified presidential palace and Abidjan -- the country's main city and commercial capital -- turned into a war zone.
"La Belle France did not want peace to be negotiated," Altit said.
Then French president Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd President of the French Republic. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... "had shown unwavering support for his friend Ouattara," another defense lawyer told the court.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Defense secretary lays out his vision for the next decade's killer capabilities in 2017 budget preview.
Smarter smart bombs, mini railguns, and swarming robot boats to watch man-made islands are a few of the key technology areas that Defense Secretary Ashton Carter sees as vital to U.S. military superiority in the next decade. In a preview of the Pentagon's upcoming 2017 budget request, Carter said military research and development spending would rise to $71.4 billion from last year's $71.3 billion request.) Carter also listed areas where the Defense Department was already seeing "returns" on R&D spending through the Strategic Capabilities Office, or SCO.
"I'd like to tell you about a few projects SCO has been working on that we're funding in the budget," he said. "Some you may have heard of, and some we're talking about here for the very first time" he said.
Sending Swarmboats to Watch Manmade Islands
Robotic autonomy is critical to the Pentagon's ambitions to be in more places at less cost. Carter today highlighted "swarming, autonomous vehicles in all sorts of ways, and in multiple domains.
Many military technologists such as Center for a New American Security senior fellow Paul Scharre and New America's Peter Singer see robotic teaming, or swarming, as a game-changing capability on the battlefield. The military has been researching swarmbots large and small, for years.
Swarming robots aren't just in the air but also on the water. In 2014, on Virginia's James River, the Office of Naval Research staged a key demonstration of the Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing, or CARACaS, system in which 13 self-driving boats conducted highly coordinated maneuvers.
Carter alluded to the demonstration in his Tuesday speech: "And for the water, they've developed self-driving boats, which can network together to do all sorts of missions, from fleet defense to close-in surveillance -- including around an island, real or artificial, without putting our sailors at risk," a clear (if indirect) reference to China's man-made islands in the Pacific.
Smaller Railguns
The high cost of advanced ballistics is driving the military toward cheaper alternatives like direct energy and electromagnetic railgun that hurl shells at hypersonic speeds. The Navy is planning an at-sea demonstration of a BAE designed railgun that can hurl 44-pound shells.
But Carter wants to shrink railgun technology until it can fit into "the five-inch guns at the front of every Navy destroyer, and also the hundreds of Army Paladin self-propelled howitzers. This way, instead of spending more money on more expensive interceptors, we can turn past offense into future defense -- defeating incoming missile raids at much lower cost per round, and thereby imposing higher costs on the attacker," he said.
He noted a January demonstration that equipped a Paladin with railgun capabilities.
Smarter Smart Bombs
Helping bombs find their targets without relying on outside communications (or worse, dumb luck) could decrease errant strikes and save lives. Carter highlighted advanced navigation projects that would use "the same kinds of micro-cameras and sensors that are littered throughout our smartphones today, and putting them on our Small Diameter Bombs to augment their targeting capabilities. This will eventually be a modular kit that will work with many other payloads -- enabling off-network targeting through commercial components that are small enough to hold in your hand."
DARPA's program in micro-technology for positioning, navigation and timing exemplifies this long-standing,growing research effort.
Arsenal Planes
And where will these smarter smart bombs descend from?
Carter said the Pentagon is working to turn "one of our oldest aircraft platforms" -- understood to be the B-52 bomber -- into "a flying launch pad for all sorts of different conventional payloads. In practice, the arsenal plane will function as a very large airborne magazine, networked to 5th-generation aircraft that act as forward sensor and targeting nodes -- essentially combining different systems already in our inventory to create wholly new capabilities."
Here's what that might look like in a real-world mission. Next-generation stealth fighter jets like the F-22 and the F-35 would take the lead in a strike, slipping through and disabling enemy radar and electromagnetic weapons. The arsenal planes would follow to finish the job.
Fifth-generation fighter and older craft have difficulty communicating, which some have highlighted as a critical oversight in planning. Carter today acknowledged that fixing the problem is going to be key to keeping older aircraft relevant.
#1
Anyone notice that when a real ground pounding war kicked off after 2001, the sudden shift in monies from Buck Rogers gold plated crap to actual stuff used by hundreds of thousands of Snuffies on the ground that had been previously ignored for at least two decades?
[DAWN] Six Arab hunters of houbara bustard with 11 falcons were held by wildlife staffers in Thatta district early on Sunday morning for lack of hunting permits but were released later and sent back to Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... as they had not yet started hunting the bird, it is learnt here.
Sources said the hunters from Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates... were guests of a local host associated with the wildlife department in Sujawal and had political connections.
They arrived in the area on Saturday and after having enjoyed overnight hospitality the Qatari hunters with the 11 falcons and local host camped near the Keenjhar lake. But before they could venture to hunt the bird they were stopped by the wildlife staffers.
The sources said that local police who were also helping the hunters and their host issued threats to the wildlife staffers to scare them away but they refused to let them break the law and informed high-ups about the situation.
Hyderabad deputy wildlife conservator Ghulam Mohammad Gadani told Dawn that when the wildlife staffers saw the police providing protection to the hunters instead of helping them, they called him (Mr Gadani) and he immediately contacted the Thatta police chief, who ordered the police to assist the wildlife staffers.
The official said the Qatari hunters ---- who were travelling in three land cruiser jeeps and two double cabin trucks ---- did have permits for the falcons but they did not possess permit to hunt houbara bustards. They were therefore asked to leave the area accompanied by wildlife staffers.
He said the hunters' hosts were warned not to be part of such activity in future, else stern action would be taken against them. A report about the incident would be sent to the wildlife conservator on Monday, said Mr Gadani.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[YAHOO] Pope Francis told gossip-loving priests and nuns to bite their tongues on Monday, and warned those breaking their vow of obedience to fall into line sharpish.
"If you get an urge to say something against a brother or a sister, to drop a gossip bomb, bite your tongue! Hard!" the pontiff said in an improvised speech to members of the clergy marking the end of the Year of Consecrated Life.
The Argentine warned against those abusing their religious vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, describing "anarchy" as the "daughter of the devil".
And he bemoaned a drop in the number of people signing up for a religious life, but warned against taking just anyone.
"Why is the womb of consecrated live becoming so sterile?" he asked.
"Some congregations experiment with 'artificial insemination'. What do they do? They welcome... 'Yes come, come, come'. And then there are problems," he said.
"No. We must be serious about who we take. We must clearly distinguish if it is a real vocation, and help it to grow."
The Roman Catholic Church is still smarting from the holy manal sex abuse scandal, which hurt the institution globally and saw many believers, particularly in the West, turn their back on the centuries-old institution.
The number of priests and nuns in industrialised countries is in sharp decline, though the Church still counts 693,000 nuns around the world and 55,000 priests.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/02/2016 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The semi-dyslexic in moi first read the headline as:
Pope warns gossiping priests. Nuns to bite your tongue.
The U.S. Army is close to selecting a new style of weapon designed to stop an imminent threat of terrorists using drones to fly bombs into military and government facilities.
The Army's Rapid Equipping Force has teamed up with several Army commands such as the Asymmetric Warfare Group and the Fires Center of Excellence to find a weapon that can detect, classify and disrupt a weaponized drone from reaching its target.
The small, fast-moving drones were difficult to hit but also very durable. Detecting their location before they got too close to their intended target also proved very challenging, the source said.
The Army then invited companies to Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, in September to participate in demonstrations of technology designed to detect, classify and potentially defeat drones, Sliwa said. Army officials tried to develop unique vignettes of how a free-thinking enemy might use drones against U.S. forces on the battlefield, he said.
Sliwa would not talk about any specific system since it is too early in the evaluation.
But DroneDefender, a system made by Battelle, proved very effective, the Army source said.
"It's available now, and it's is effective," he said.
The DroneDefender, a shoulder-fired weapon that looks like something out of a bad science-fiction movie, uses radio waves to cut the link between the drone and its controller, the source said.
Maybe the army could provide some to the marines on our CVs; Skeet shooting!
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.
[Iran Press TV] The number of homicides in the US city of 
Approximately 300 people including scientists, engineers and other experts, about half with doctorate degrees, have petitioned U.S. House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, to carefully investigate suspiciously overheated climate temperature book-cooking by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 
America's most expensive weapons system ever just hit another snag. 
International Criminal Court
Defense secretary lays out his vision for the next decade's killer capabilities in 2017 budget preview.
The U.S. Army is close to selecting a new style of weapon designed to stop an imminent threat of terrorists using drones to fly bombs into military and government facilities.
