[Daily Beast] ARLINGTON, Va. -- Stephanie Czech Rader’s friends and family gathered Wednesday morning at the Old Post Chapel, next to Arlington National Cemetery, to pay her one last honor.
Shortly after guests began to arrive, a horse-drawn carriage accompanied by 8 soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Regiment carried Rader’s casket, draped with the U.S. flag, to section 11 of the cemetery for her internment. There are around 30 funerals every day at Arlington. Few receive an honorary flyover, as Rader’s did, along with a military band, a firing party, and a bugler.
But in addition to those full military burial honors, Rader was bestowed with an award 70 years in the making--the Legion of Merit, among the military’s highest recognitions for bravery and exceptional service.
Rader worked as an intelligence operative for the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the CIA, in post-WWII Poland. She was only one of two Polish speaking OSS officers in the country and was routinely sent on undercover missions to track Russian troop movements and transport sensitive documents.
Rader’s superior officers had nominated for her for the award in 1946. But the military bureaucracy of the time apparently didn’t think her service merited distinction.
Today, the powers that be say otherwise. There was "no legitimate reason why this commendation was denied, other than the pervasive gender discrimination which existed in the early days of the American intelligence community right after World War II," Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, Rader’s home state, said last month in announcing that the Army had decided to grant the award. Warner intervened on Rader’s behalf after her friends mounted a campaign to get her the award, even if it came seven decades late.
The Legion of Merit was formally presented at Rader’s funeral.
"Stephanie chose the life of a warrior," said U.S. Army Capt. Azande Sasa, the presiding chaplain at the ceremony. "She has earned her place among those honored here."
Rader never asked to be recognized, and it took her many years to tell the story of her wartime service. As she recounted in an interview a few years ago, while working undercover Rader evaded Soviet agents while on a mission to transport sensitive documents. Had she been captured, she likely would have been arrested and never heard from again, Rader explained.
Ultimately, the military gave Rader a lesser award. "It was downgraded without any explanation," Charles Pinck, president of the OSS Society, told The Daily Beast. "They nominated her, but I don’t think there was anybody to fight on her behalf at the time."
Only recently did Rader’s friends and neighbors take up her case anew. Rader died in January, at age 100, but was aware of their efforts on her behalf.
Rader’s friends said they were overjoyed that their years-long effort culminated in a grand celebration of her life at the nation’s most prestigious burial ground.
Another reason it took so long to get there, said a close friend, Michael Golden, was that Rader could not describe exactly what she had done during her service because it had been a secret. OSS personnel records weren’t declassified until 2008.
IIRC, it was powerful Femme member of Congress whom still argued during mid-war that God made women akin to angels, hence women had no place being in the Armed Forces or in service near combat zones.
AND SHE ARGUED HER BELIEF LOUDLY-N-PUBLICLY.
RIGHT OR WRONG, TOO MANY CONTEMPORARY POLITICOS LACK HER GUTS.
[Wash Times] SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) - Thomas E. Schaefer, a retired Air Force colonel who was the ranking military officer among the 52 Americans held hostage in Iran for 444 days before being released in 1981, has died in Arizona. He was 85.
David Schaefer said Friday that his father died of congestive heart failure Tuesday at a hospice in Scottsdale.
Schaefer was a military attache at the U.S. embassy in Tehran when militants seized the compound on Nov. 4, 1979, and 66 people were taken hostage.
From the first day of the takeover, Schaefer was singled out for special attention. As the ranking U.S. military officer in the embassy, he was accused of running a "nest of spies."
His captors paraded him blindfolded in front of television cameras and threatened repeatedly to put him on trial and execute him.
He spent 150 days in solitary confinement and began his captivity enduring 14 days of relentless interrogation in a freezing prison cell with damp floors and only a thin blanket for warmth.
Muhammad Ali, the silver-tongued boxer and civil rights champion who famously proclaimed himself "The Greatest" and then spent a lifetime living up to the billing, is dead.
Ali died Friday at a Phoenix-area hospital, where he had spent the past few days being treated for respiratory complications, a family spokesman confirmed to NBC News. He was 74.
"After a 32-year battle with Parkinson's disease, Muhammad Ali has passed away at the age of 74. The three-time World Heavyweight Champion boxer died this evening," Bob Gunnell, a family spokesman, told NBC News.
Ali had suffered for three decades from Parkinson's Disease, a progressive neurological condition that slowly robbed him of both his legendary verbal grace and his physical dexterity. A funeral service is planned in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.
Even as his health declined, Ali did not shy from politics or controversy, releasing a statement in December criticizing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. "We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda," he said.
#1
And we as non-muslims have to stand up to those who use their personal charisma to advance islam.
The greatest. And yet, it's a shame
Clay claimed that detestable name.
To battle -- the brashest! --
As slave to a fascist
"Religion?" A waste of his fame.
#3
Both definitely work, Zenobia F, though the second's repeated f mirroring the clever repeated sounds in the previous lines in addition to the usual rhyme scheme is nonetheless a little harder to say aloud. It is at this point, when going back and forth between two possiblities as the polishing progresses that I declare a thing done. ;-)
#4
Ali was the Lowest. Draft dodger, claiming he would not go to war against non-whites in Nam while his promoters charged a fortune so others could watch him pound black fighters in the tarp.
A white, christian cop introduced him to boxing after his bike was stolen at the age of 12 but he refused to fight communism that sent 50,000 Muslims on the run.
He worshipped himself and labeled himself the greatest and lived in a temporary generational paradise of freedom paid for by the blood of Patriots of his generation.
You want to change your name to Barack Hussein Mohammed Ali?
Yesterday you entered the real hell of the real Mohammed you hypocrit.
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
06/04/2016 16:19 Comments ||
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#5
Ali was the Lowest. etc.
"A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life, " said he.
#6
Recently criticising Trump for calling for a reduction in immigration of Islamists indicates American bashing Mohammed did not change at all.
Posted by: Unelet Protector of the Sith2424 ||
06/04/2016 17:53 Comments ||
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#7
Here is Ali’s full statement from last December:
"I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world. True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion.
“We as Muslims have to stand up to those who use Islam to advance their own personal agenda. They have alienated many from learning about Islam. True Muslims know or should know that it goes against our religion to try and force Islam on anybody.
“Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people's views on what Islam really is."
[An Nahar] Paris' world-famous Louvre and Orsay museums shut on Friday to retrieve priceless artworks from their basements, as the swollen River Seine neared its highest level in three decades.
At least 14 people have been killed in floods that have wrought havoc in Europe after days of torrential rain, trapping people in their homes and forcing rescuers to row lifeboats down streets turned into rivers.
Parisians were urged to stay away from the Seine, which has burst its banks in places and rose more than six meters (19ft 8ins) above its normal level on Friday.
Authorities said the river could swell to "perhaps 6.5 meters (21 feet) in a worst-case scenario," comfortably beating the level reached during floods in 1982.
Floods across Europe, heat wave in the Middle East... here's hoping those with an interest in such things will be too busy to heed ISIS' call for turning Ramadan into a month of jihad.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/04/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Fine catch, badanov. But I'm afraid that if Champ ever learns about Midway he'll apologize to the IJN for our racist attack on their fishing vessels.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/04/2016 12:00 Comments ||
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#2
That was gorgeous.
Note the side stack, made life unhappy in many compartments.
I'd love to see the team that do this work on CV-6.
#3
RUSSIA wants to make sure that any China-Japan conflict over East China Sea strategic access + Taiwan stays south of Sakhalin + the Kurils.
Wid Presumptive PH Prsident Duterte supposedly in favor of breaking up the Philippines iff necessary for peace, IMO Beijing sees Duterte as another Bammer, i.e. another Anti-PH PH Politician that cold serve China's agenda by allowing PLA access to PH bases, thus isolating Taiwan in favor of the PLA.
The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index, tracking rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, fell on Thursday as demand across all vessel segments fell.
The overall index, which factors in rates for capesize, panamax, supramax and handysize shipping vessels, was down six points, or 0.98 percent, at 606 points.
The capesize index lost seven points, or 0.81 percent, at 854 points.
Average daily earnings for capesizes, which typically transport 150,000-tonne cargoes such as iron ore and coal, were down $103 to $6,438.
The panamax index was down eight points, or 1.41 percent, at 560 points.
Average daily earnings for panamaxes, which usually carry coal or grain cargoes of about 60,000 to 70,000 tonnes, decreased $67 to $4,476.
Among smaller vessels, the supramax index fell three points to 575 points, while the handysize index fell one point to 354 points.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nithin Prasad in Bengaluru)
Freight rates for large capesize dry cargo ships on key Asian routes are likely to hold around current levels or nudge slightly higher next week on buoyant cargo volumes, likely supported by a raft of off-market charters, ship brokers said.
“The market is plodding along – it’s been a quiet week. It’s not going to change massively,” a Singapore-based capesize ship broker said on Thursday.
That came as capesize charter rates from Western Australia to China inched up this week, while freight rates from Brazil to China climbed to their highest since May 17, chartering data on the Reuters Eikon terminal showed.
“Charterers are slowly picking off ships. There is a lot of hidden tonnage and a lot of deals are being done under the table,” the broker said.
Average earnings for a 175,000 deadweight tonne (dwt) capesize ship are currently around $5,400 per day for a voyage from Western Australia to China and $9,000 per day from Brazil to China, according to data from shipping services firm Clarkson.
That compares with a 2016 average of $2,900 per day on the Australia-China route and $7,000 for Brazil-China.
Operating costs for a capesize vessel are around $7,200 per day, according to accountancy firm Moore Stephens.
“Freight rates have found support and keep firm, mainly due to a healthy volume of cargoes out of west coast Australia,” Norwegian ship broker Fearnley said on Wednesday.
“It is a slightly more positive atmosphere out there and the expectations are carefully optimistic.”
With charter rates barely covering operating costs, dry cargo shipowners need to adopt tough measures to achieve profitability by the end of the decade, ship owners’ lobby group BIMCO said on Tuesday.
“We need to demolish an enormous number of ships and refrain from building new ships. The medicine is not going to be easy to take,” said BIMCO President Philippe Louis-Dreyfus.
Dry cargo bulk carriers totalling 20.2 million dwt have been scrapped this year, up 56 percent on an annualised basis from 30.6 million dwt in 2015, Clarkson data showed.
Freight rates for Brazil-China rose to $8.46 per tonne on Wednesday, from $7.84 last week.
Capesize charter rates for Western Australia-China climbed to $4.31 per tonne on Wednesday, against $4.05 the same day last week.
Charter rates for smaller panamax vessels for a north Pacific round-trip voyage fell to $4,378 per day on Wednesday from $4,700 a week earlier on reduced cargo volumes.
Freight rates in the Far East for smaller supramax vessels were around $5,500 per day this week, Fearnley added.
The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index climbed to 612 on Wednesday from 605 last week.
Shipments to China from eastern Australia’s Port Waratah Coal Services terminals jumped to a 16-month high of 1.6 million mt in May, up 21.2% month on month from 1.32 million mt in April, said the Newcastle coal terminals operator in a performance report, Wednesday.
China’s offtake from the PWCS terminals last month was the highest since January 2015 when 2.16 million mt of coal was shipped, according to PWCS data.
Traders said that Chinese buyers were attracted to Newcastle thermal coal over the past month as its price was lower than comparative calorific value domestic thermal coal in China.
Prices for Newcastle 5,500 kcal/kg NAR thermal coal, the preferred product for Chinese buyers, averaged $43.80/mt FOB in May and a similar level in April.
In comparison, domestic coal prices in China were currently at around $50/mt FOB North China ports basis 5,500 kcal/kg NAR, said traders.
But Chinese demand for Newcastle coal was still lagging last year’s levels with 5.2 million mt shipped to China through the PWCS terminals over the January-May 2016 period.
This is compared with 6.8 million mt in the corresponding 2015 year-to-date period, according to port data.
Japan Volume Marginally Lower
Japan took delivery of 4.38 million mt of PWCS coal exports in May, down marginally from 4.44 million mt in April, said PWCS.
Over January-May, Japan received a total 21.5 million mt of coal from PWCS terminals, up from 20.7 million mt in the year-ago period.
South Korean buyers received 930,000 mt of Newcastle coal in May, up 10.7% month on month from 840,000 mt in April.
South Korea has taken delivery of 5.9 million mt of PWCS coal over January-May, down 1 million mt from 6.9 million mt in the year-ago period.
Taiwan received 1.22 million mt of coal from PWCS terminals last month, up from 1.1 million mt in April.
India received only 34,000 mt of PWCS coal last month, down substantially from 134,000 mt in April.
For the year to date, India has taken delivery of 586,000 mt of coal from the PWCS terminals, double the 276,000 mt it lifted in the January-May 2015 period, said the PWCS report.
About 7.97 million mt of PWCS’ May exports was thermal coal, equivalent to 85% of its May shipments, and 1.4 million mt or 15% of last month’s tonnage was coking coal, giving total exports of 9.38 million mt.
Newcastle port has another coal terminal operated under the Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group banner that does not publish regular information on its shipping data.
The NCIG terminal has a capacity of 66 million mt/year and is operated by five coal producers including BHP Billiton, Peabody Energy and Whitehaven Coal.
[DAWN] Police announced on Friday that all five suspects in the brutal killing of a 19-year-old school teacher who was tortured, doused with gasoline and set on fire earlier this week for refusing to marry a man twice her age are now in jug.
Before she died, Maria Bibi had given a statement to police, saying five attackers had stormed her house in the town of Upper Dewal on Monday, dragged her to an open area and kicked her as though she were a "football".
She was brought to a Islamabad hospital at death's door and later died. The attackers fled after the assault. Bibi's family has maintained that she was killed for rejecting a marriage proposal from a man who owned a school and wanted her to marry his son.
Police official Waheed Ahmed said on Friday that three more suspects in the case were placed in durance vile Book 'im, Mahmoud! early in the morning, following the two arrests made the day before.
He identified the prime suspect in the case as Shaukat, the owner of the school who is nearly 60 years old and whose son, a man about 40 years old and already married, was the intended groom.
"The unfortunate woman Maria Bibi in her statement insisted that Shaukat and four other men dragged her from the door of her home and tortured and burned her. We have arrested all the five men," Ahmed said.
Bibi's father Sadaqat Hussain Abbas praised the police for the arrests and asked the government in an emotional plea on Friday to execute the men in his family's presence in the same way they had killed Bibi.
Demands like this are common but Pak law doesn't allow for such punishment.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[GEO.TV] At least four people were killed and five others injured when workers of two political parties clashed in Mardan on Friday, Geo News reported.
Faisala Shahzad, District Police Officer (DPO) Mardan, said exchange of fire ensued after an altercation between activists of two political parties in Hoti area of Mardan district.
The injured were taken to a local hospital for treatment from where three of them were moved to Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. at death's door.
One of those killed were identified as Mehmand Khan, a worker of the Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... . Name of the other party was not immediately known.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/04/2016 00:00 ||
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[GEO.TV] Former federal minister and Pakistain People's Party (PPP) leader Hamid Saeed Kazmi has been sentenced to 12-years imprisonment in the Hajj corruption case.
Hamid Saeed Kazmi was an influential minister in the government of the Pakistain People's Party that was in power from 2008-2013. He was charged with hiring a substandard building to house Pak pilgrims to Mecca in 2009, charging exorbitant rents from the travellers and receiving kickbacks.
A special court also convicted two other former officials of the religious affairs ministry and tossed in the calaboose Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw! them for 12 and 30 years, respectively.
The verdict was announced today by Special Judge Central Islamabad Malik Nazir Ahmad during the proceedings of the Hajj corruption case today at a court in Islamabad.
Former DG Hajj Rao Shakeel was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment by the court. Former Additional Secretary to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, Aftab Ahmed was also handed a 12-year imprisonment sentence.
Deputy Director FIA Waseem Ahmad Ranjha and lawyer Chaudhry Azhar represented the FIA during the proceedings of the case.
The suspects were accused of being involved in financial embezzlement and corruption with regard to the 2010 Hajj arrangements.
All three suspects were jugged Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! within the court's limits by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). Rao Shakeel said that he was not satisfied with the court's judgment and had full faith in the Almighty. All three convicts have the right to appeal the order at the Islamabad High Court.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/04/2016 00:00 ||
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BLUF: [Telegraph] Pioneering the ball lift in the UK, along with the London Bridge Plastic Surgery and Aesthetic Clinic, is the Bella Vou Pantiles Clinic which, of all places, is in Tunbridge Wells (a town clearly not, if you’ll excuse the pun, as uptight as reputation would have it). There, cosmetic plastic surgeon Amir Nakhdjevani performs 'scrotal uplifts' for around £2,800 a pop.
"It’s actually a very simple procedure, albeit a delicate one that very few cosmetic surgeons have experience of," says Bella Vou’s clinical director, Roger Bigwood. "Mr. Nakhdjevani is one of very few surgeons that offers this procedure in the UK."
It's not the first time the eyes of cosmetic surgeons and the beauty world have turned towards a man's scrotum. After George Clooney joked in an interview that he had had his balls 'ironed' ("It's the newest thing in Hollywood, ball ironing," he told Esquire in 2008) a Santa Monica spa actually created a treatment called the Male Laser Lift which smoothens out wrinkles and corrects uneven pigmentation. That, however, was a non-invasive procedure rather than a surgical one - think more a facial for your fellas.
#3
A woman found out that her dog ( a Schnauzer) could hardly hear, so she took it to the veterinarian.
The vet found that the problem was hair in the dog's ears. He cleaned both ears, and the dog could then hear fine. The vet then proceeded to tell the lady that, if she wanted to keep this from recurring, she should go to the drugstore and get some "Nair" hair remover and rub it in the dog's ears once a month.
The lady went to the drugstore and bought some "Nair" hair remover. At the register, the pharmacist told her, "If you're going to use this under your arms, don't use deodorant for a few days."
The lady said, "I'm not using it under my arms."
The pharmacist said, "If you're using it on your legs, don't shave for a couple of days."
The lady replied, "I'm not using it on my legs either. If you must know, I'm using it on my Schnauzer."
The pharmacist says, "Well stay off your bicycle for about a week."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/04/2016 8:19 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Daily Beast] ARLINGTON, Va. -- Stephanie Czech Rader’s friends and family gathered Wednesday morning at the Old Post Chapel, next to Arlington National Cemetery, to pay her one last honor.
[An Nahar] Paris' world-famous Louvre and Orsay museums shut on Friday to retrieve priceless artworks from their basements, as the swollen River Seine neared its highest level in three decades.
[DAWN] Police announced on Friday that all five suspects in the brutal killing of a 19-year-old school teacher who was tortured, doused with gasoline and set on fire earlier this week for refusing to marry a man twice her age are now 
[GEO.TV] At least four people were killed and five others injured when workers of two political parties clashed in Mardan on Friday, Geo News reported.
