Humans originally existed as members of small bands of nomadic hunters/gatherers. They lived on deer in the mountains during the summer and would go to the coast and live on fish and lobster in the winter.
The two most important events in all of history were the invention of beer and the invention of the wheel. The wheel was invented to get man to the beer. These were the foundation of modern civilization and together were the catalyst for the splitting of humanity into two distinct subgroups:
1. Liberals; and
2. Conservatives.
Once beer was discovered, it required grain and that was the beginning of agriculture. Neither the glass bottle nor aluminum can were invented yet, so while our early humans were sitting around waiting for them to be invented, they just stayed close to the brewery. That's how villages were formed.
Some men spent their days tracking and killing animals to B-B-Q at night while they were drinking beer. This was the beginning of what is known as the Conservative movement.
Other men who were weaker and less skilled at hunting learned to live off the conservatives by showing up for the nightly B-B-Q's and doing the sewing, fetching, and hair dressing. This was the beginning of the Liberal movement.
Some of these liberal men eventually evolved into women. The rest became known as girliemen.
Some noteworthy liberal achievements include the domestication of cats, the invention of group therapy, group hugs, and the concept of Democratic voting to decide how to divide the meat and beer that conservatives provided.
Over the years conservatives came to be symbolized by the largest, most powerful land animal on earth, the elephant. Liberals are symbolized by the jackass.
Modern liberals like imported beer (with lime added), but most prefer white wine or imported bottled water. They eat raw fish but like their beef well done. Sushi, tofu, and French food are standard liberal fare.
Another interesting evolutionary side note: most of their women have higher testosterone levels than their men. Most social workers, personal injury attorneys, journalists, dreamers in Hollywood and group therapists are liberals. Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because it wasn't fair to make the pitcher also bat.
Conservatives drink domestic beer. They eat red meat and still provide for their women. Conservatives are big-game hunters, rodeo cowboys, lumberjacks, construction workers, firemen, medical doctors, police officers, corporate executives, athletes, Marines, and generally anyone who works productively. Conservatives who own companies hire other conservatives who want to work for a living.
Liberals produce little or nothing. They like to govern the producers and decide what to do with the production. Liberals believe Europeans are more enlightened than Americans. That is why most of the liberals remained in Europe when conservatives were coming to America. They crept in after the Wild West was tamed and created a business of trying to get more for nothing.
Here ends today's lesson in world history: It should be noted that a Liberal may have a momentary urge to angrily respond to the above before forwarding it. A Conservative will simply laugh and be so convinced of the absolute truth of this history that it will be forwarded immediately to other true believers and to more liberals just to piss them off.
[Jerusalem Post] Several arms of the military currently residing at the headquarters in Tel Aviv and in the country’s center have already started to relocate south. Perhaps I could officer a name for the new facility.
The first stages of bidding to build the largest new IDF base for Military Intelligence ‐ as part of the broader program of moving the army’s major operations from the country's Center to the South - have started, the Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday.
Several arms of the military currently residing at the headquarters in Tel Aviv and in the country's center have already started to move, to free up space for building residential units to address the country's housing supply shortage.
But the new 2,500-dunam, 350,000 meters of built-up space for around 15,000 soldiers, constituting 80 percent of the military’s intelligence arm, will be the largest.
Military Intelligence includes the famed Unit 8200 and cyber divisions.
Further stages of the bidding are to kick in starting in early 2017, with a winning bidder selected by the end of the year and construction to commence immediately after. The deal will also include a 25-year deal to continue to operate aspects of the base long after it is expected to be filled in 2022.
The IDF’s training arm has mostly made the move already to its new base in the South, and the communications and technology arm is also due to make the move with over 30,000 soldiers expected to eventually serve there.
A ministry statement said that the new base will operate on a more environmentally friendly basis.
The moves includes plans to build housing for officers, many of whom are expected to relocate to the South.
"This is the largest project in the national effort to move the IDF to the South," said Brig. Gen. (res.) Nati Efrati, head of the Defense Ministry’s division for the move south. "Its success will require the commitment of the government’s ministries to provide the needed national infrastructure in order to ensure that the move will take place as planned."
[Breitbart] Donald Trump held a private meeting with the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council President, Chris Crane, at his office in Trump Tower on Monday morning.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, Crane discussed the details of his intimate meeting with the GOP nominee--revealing that the biggest takeaway from their exchange was Trump’s unwavering support for law enforcement. "It was extremely clear that this guy is on law enforcement’s side," said Crane, who represents approximately 7,000 ICE officers and staff responsible for enforcing America’s immigration laws.
"[Trump] made no bones about it--he wants the rule of law followed in our country, and he wants to make America safe," Crane added. "He made clear he’s on the side of law and order, and is on the side of the American public."
"This is not the person that you frequently see on TV," Crane said. "[Trump] was very welcoming, very sincere. He really wanted to hear from boots on the ground, officers out in the field about what’s happening."
Crane seemed struck by what Crane described as Trump’s "genuine concern" for the nation’s ICE officers, as well as Trump’s command of U.S. immigration policy. "There’s no two ways about it--he was definitely more informed on the issues than a lot of members of Congress that I’ve met with in my lifetime," Crane said.
#4
I would think that Trump is more astute in security than the Hildabeest. That would not be difficult. I sure hope that it's true.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/17/2016 15:47
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#5
Trump’s "genuine concern", is obvious. Media attacks are having no impact. Look at his history. In some ways he reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt.I foresee great things ahead for America.
[Manhattan Institute] The Question: How should the next president address wealth inequality?
Changes to the tax code certainly could reduce inequality, but the real question is whether we should try to reduce it. There is little evidence that we should.
Are American levels of inequality harmful? Some analysts claim that they hurt middle-class incomes or increase poverty. But child poverty is at an all-time low, and middle-class incomes are also at historic highs. Across developed countries, those with higher inequality have slightly higher middle-class incomes and less poverty.
Others argue -- based on mobility measures constructed to look worse when inequality rises -- that higher inequality causes lower economic mobility or leads to political inequality. In fact, research claiming that the rich get their way in Congress over other voters has been debunked; in truth, across most issues, rich, middle-class and poor Americans have similar policy preferences. And in the United States, mobility has remained flat while inequality has risen over the past generation. Areas of the United States with more income concentration at the top have no worse mobility than areas with low inequality. The same is trueacross countries -- the best research indicates that low-inequality Sweden is no more mobile than the United States.
Still others, such as Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, claim that higher inequality saps economic growth. The research on this question is all over the map, but studies by experts including Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez indicate that countries with higher inequality growth tend to have higher economic growth too. Paul Krugman, another Nobel Prize-winning economist...
[Wash Times] The Black Lives Matter movement blindsided its Jewish supporters with the recent unveiling of its social and political policy agenda, a far-left manifesto that strays well beyond police brutality and accuses Israel of "genocide" and "apartheid."
"The U.S. justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people," said the platform’s "Invest-Divest" policy brief.
Through foreign aid to Israel, which the platform describes as an "apartheid state," Americans are made "complicit in the abuses committed by the Israeli government," the brief says.
The strong anti-Israel language stunned liberal Jews, many of whom have expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement’s protests against shootings by police of unarmed black men.
"It is a real tragedy that Black Lives Matter -- which has done so much good in raising awareness of police abuses -- has now moved away from its central mission and has declared war against the nation state of the Jewish people," said Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan M. Dershowitz in a Friday column in The Boston Globe.
#1
Admitting they were surprised is advertising they're really, really stupid.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/17/2016 5:43
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#2
"It is a real tragedy that Black Lives Matter -- which has done so much good in raising awareness of police abuses..."
what BLM has done has been to make it more difficult to do police work in places that need it -- nothing good about that -- nothing --nothing---nothing.
Posted by: lord garth ||
08/17/2016 7:13
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#3
Perhaps Alan Dershowitz thinks OJ's fate is a tragedy as well. A modern day Pharisee hiding in a mental utopia. At least he is consistent. Pay him no mind, other than as an illustrative example.
#4
"It is a real tragedy that Black Lives Matter -- which has done so much good in raising awareness of police abuses -- has now moved away from its central mission and has declared war against the nation state of the Jewish people," said Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan M. Dershowitz
Whatever questionable "good" BLM has done is far outweighed by the bad, and it's sad that Dershowitz doesn't recognize this.
In the end, BLM will do what its enablers and sponsors in the Democratic Party, along with George Soros, intended it to do: set back race relations in the US by a century, and drastically accelerate the descent of America's black enclaves into "unspeakable hellhole" status.
Dershowitz is occasionally on the mark in his assessment of things, but he's capable of astounding stupidity at times. This is one of those times.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
08/17/2016 8:15
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#5
BLM is cut from the same cloth as the New Black Panthers and the KKK.
They shouldn't have been surprised if they were paying attention.
#6
So you (Jewish supporters) attended a Kwanzaa festival and you thought they'd [BLM] love you. I did notice a Chicago Palestinian Film Festival you might also be interested in. Kumbaya delusional lefties.
#7
Nation of Islam (Calypso Louie) or National Action Network (Sharpton *spit*) or "Hymietown" (Jessuh), anyone? As if Black hatred of dupe Joooos is anything new?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2016 10:18
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#8
Some in the BLM movement are a part of the "Real Jews are Black" movement. They think the white Jews are imposters. The radicals in the movement can vary their beliefs from the Nation of Islam to the Black Jews to outright anarchists. This Professor emeritus Dershowitz seems remarkably uninformed jackazz or is just an arrogant jackazz...or both.
#11
They should we all be ashamed, but that would require self awareness and a moral compass. Both consciously rejected by the group and supporters mentioned in the article.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/17/2016 13:04
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#12
Somewhat like other voting blocks that vote 97% democrat (.0125 margin of error).
--Besoeker (@10)
Oikophobia. An acquaintance...
(ex-friend when he discovered Prophet Obama, declared himself a Socialist and decided if I didn't vote the Big-0 then I had to be racist)
...who was also Armenian-descended, Atheist and Jewish, told me that the Bush Administration was run by "Theocons and Neocons!" He couldn't explain what a Neocon was, but he knew that they were evil. One unifying thread that ran through his worldview seemed to be that local people were bad and somehow the far away national govermnent (also NGOs and QUANGOs) were good -- unless they were Republicans.
Do y'all really expect Hillary Clinton to do as well as Barack Obama did?
Professor Emeritus Dershowitz lives in an atmosphere even more rarified than when he was actively teaching, into which reality is rarely allowed to intrude.
#16
BLM has the same enablers and operatives as OWS, and you can read Horowitz's book to see where /those/ guys came from. Hint: it's the US Communist party and its allies. 'Black' is just the core around which to cluster all the other victim groups.
#17
Not sure if I can have a proper high tea with someone who types y'all
I don't do high tea, Shipman, which is really only a light supper with things like baked beans on toast. I serve afternoon tea with several baked things, and something stronger on the sideboard for those who prefer it. The y'all I picked up from Southern friends. It's useful as a clear plural, forestalling the dreadfully dull argument that the Northern version, you guys, only includes the masculine members of the group. Not that I've encountered that here, but habits will habituate. ;-)
[Right Scoop] Shortly after Hillary Clinton left the Obama administration, the State Department quietly took steps to purchase real estate in Nigeria from a firm whose parent company is owned by a major donor to the Clinton Foundation, records obtained by Fox News show.
On March 20, 2013, William P. Franklin, an "international realty specialist" at the State Department, emailed Mary E. Davis, an American diplomat stationed in Africa, instructing her to "put on Post letterhead" an "expression of interest" by the department in purchasing property at Eko Atlantic, a massive real estate development off the coast of Lagos.
Franklin further instructed that the signed letter was to be "delivered to Ronald Chagoury." The draft letter, also obtained by Fox News, was undated and addressed to Chagoury care of his firm South Energyx Nigeria Limited, a subsidiary of the larger Chagoury Group that is spearheading the Eko Atlantic real estate venture. The State Department letter sought, among other things, to confirm that the department could proceed with "acquisition of the real property...[at] the asking price of $1,250 per square meter."
Overtures to real estate developers from State Department officials scouting locations for embassies, consulates and other diplomatic facilities would ordinarily not arouse interest. But in this case, the budding transaction ‐ never completed, the department now says ‐ raised eyebrows because Ronald Chagoury is the brother and business partner, in the Chagoury Group, of Gilbert Chagoury, a Lebanese-born businessman whom federal records show has donated between $1 and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.
No, we’re not surprised, so don’t ask, BUT, it’s one thing to have just opinions about her corruption, and finding real evidence. And this, is real evidence...
From Instapundit: As somebody said on Twitter, the difference between Hillary and normal people is that when she gets an email from a rich Nigerian proposing a deal, it’s actually from a rich Nigerian, proposing a deal.
#2
I read it and didn't believe it. So I read it again.
I think I understand the words but I can't be sure what they mean in this context.
Bill Clinton went to a swamplawyer's party in Lagos,
1) believed the pitch they were going to drain it,
2) went home and told Hilarity
3) went BACK, saw some different dry land, told Hilarity.
4) Then SHE(SoS) told the US to buy some of the swamp.
[Wash Times] Serbian protesters greeted Vice President Joseph R. Biden Tuesday with derisive chants of "Vote for Trump!"
Hundreds of demonstrators in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, chanted for the U.S. Republican presidential nominee upon Mr. Biden’s arrival, Reuters reported.
The demonstrators were Serbian ultranationalists protesting Mr. Biden’s one-day stop in Belgrade before his visit to Kosovo. They also wore shirts displaying an image of Mr. Trump.
"Trump is the alternative to globalization," Vojislav Seselj, head of Serbia’s ultra-nationalist Radical Party, told Reuters when asked about supporting Mr. Trump. "He will destroy old centers of power in the United States and he is a supporter of Russia."
At a campaign rally for Hillary Clinton on Monday in Pennsylvania, Mr. Biden said he was visiting several countries in Europe this week to reassure NATO members who are worried that Mr. Trump might not support the alliance if elected president.
In Belgrade, Mr. Biden offered sympathy for Serbians who died during NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999.
"I'd like to express my condolences to the families of those whose lives were lost in the wars of the 1990s, including those killed as a consequence of the NATO air strikes," he said alongside Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic.
#1
The chants for Trump go a bit deeper than the current U.S. election. The Serbs will forever remain bitter over the betrayal, by then President Bill Clinton and his support for the Islamist in the Bosnian war.
#3
Chuckle, chuckle, that was good for a laugh this a.m. Thanks Besoeker. Does the heart and soul good to laugh. Clinton's were protective of the Islamists. We were thanked with 911.
Demonstrations, violent crime, infrastructure failures and poverty are set to greet spectators this weekend in an event that some economists say could mean upward of $15 billion in losses for Brazil.
Brazilians are tangled in a state of political turmoil and economic uncertainty that was not as apparent in 2009, when the decision was made to hold the games in Rio. The Olympic Games will cost Brazil $20 billion and return only $4 billion to $4.5 billion — a steep price to pay for propaganda to show how nice a country is that is plagued with infrastructure problems and endemic poverty. Awarding the games to developing countries like Brazil as a relatively new phenomenon.
The International Olympic Committee sells the games to countries on the promise that it will help them, but evidence suggests that long-term benefits are not forthcoming.
About 9 percent Brazil’s roughly 200 million people lived on less than $3.10 per day in 2013, according to the World Bank. The decision to host the games in Rio was made in 2009, during what appeared to be an upswing for the Brazilian economy, but that the outlook has now become considerably cloudier.
This year Brazil’s Senate impeached Dilma Rousseff — the country’s first female president, who helped deliver the games to Rio — over accusations that she faked accounts in order to portray a more optimistic economic outlook during her re-election bid in 2014.
Living in the greater Chicago area, I'm more thankful than ever today that Champ and Moochelle punted the US bid to put the 2016 Games here...
[Daily Caller] An Egyptian-born Italian member of the European Parliament has declared mosques are terror factories and should be eliminated.
Magdi Allam, a convert from Islam to Christianity, said the idea of moderate Islam is a complete myth, Express reports.
"If the Muslim governments warn that mosques are ’dens of terrorism’, we can not behave more Islamic than the Islamists, granting blindly the mosques to the Islamic militants," Allam said, pointing to the example of Tunisia shutting down 80 mosques following a devastating Islamic State attack in Sousse, which left 45 tourists dead.
For Allam, deporting terrorists isn’t an adequate solution to the problem of Islamic terror, because mosques will just produce replacements. Moreover, sponsoring mosques for the purpose of using moderate Islam to crowd out radical Islam is delusional, because, "there is only one Islam because there is only one Koran and one Muhammad."
#2
The FBI will be looking into that as soon as they can. Oh wait a minute they don't do that anymore. PC and the Obean administration has prevented them from doing that. The FBI is too busy purging and cleansing training manuals of anything that might sound critical of IslamoFacisim.
#4
For more than a quarter-century the Mosque/Islamic Center complex in Milan has served as the center of radical operations in southern Europe. it served as the main Al Qaeda recruiting center in Europe both during the war in the Balkans and after. In one case, during the war in Bosnia a jihadist stream (e.g., the Egyptian Gamaat al-Islamiya) used the Milan Islamic Center as its base of operations. Osama bin Laden himself urged the Egyptian exile and GIA member Sheikh Anwar Shaaban, then the Imam of the Islamic Cultural Institute of Milan, to serve as spiritual advisor to arriving jihadists. With support of European Muslim Brotherhood elements the Milan center moved hundreds of jihadists between Western Europe and Bosnia and vice versa. From that time forward it has served as an Islamist nexus in Europe.
[Daily Caller] A contingent of United Nations peacekeepers and the U.S. embassy failed to respond to multiple calls for help from a group of aid workers under attack in South Sudan, according to an Associated Press report published Monday.
The assault on the Terrain hotel complex was perpetrated by South Sudanese government troops July 11. Soldiers singled out U.S. citizens before gang-raping several women, beating aid workers and executing a local journalist, while forcing others to watch.
"All of us were contacting whoever we could contact. The U.N., the U.S. embassy, contacting the specific battalions in the U.N., contacting specific departments," said one woman who was raped by as many as 15 men.
Records collected by the AP show that the U.N. Joint Operations Center in the South Sudanese capital of Juba was contacted about the attack at 3:37 p.m., just minutes after it began. Several other reports followed, but a quick reaction force was not mobilized by the U.N. Department of Safety and Security until 4:33 p.m. That team would never arrive. The timeline went blank for an hour and a half, ending with the words "DSS would not send a team" at 6:52 p.m.
#1
after Benghazi, what did they expect from this regime?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2016 8:34
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#2
I'm sympathetic, but aren't there other spots in the world that need aid workers, missionaries and do-gooders that are a bit, um, safer than SOUTH-FRIGGING SUDAN?
I mean, Haiti has decent people who need help. Ditto Guatemala. The Solomon Islands. There's no shortage of shit holes in the world today. If the people of South Sudan don't appreciate you maybe it's time to go elsewhere.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/17/2016 11:00
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#3
If they want to help people in a war-torn hell-hole, why not Chicago?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/17/2016 11:48
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#4
Yes, I'd be perfectly willing to let the Sudanese or South Sudanese or whoever they are figure it out for themselves in the future.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/17/2016 11:48
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#5
The harsh reality is that the US Embassy cannot do squat in situations like this. Most US citizens have a VERY poor understanding of what an Embassy can or can't do. We don't have a QRF ready to launch in case of emergency. I've actually had a person asks if the Embassy helicopter can go out and search for their missing family member - in Bangkok.
Posted by: Bangkok Billy ||
08/17/2016 12:23
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#6
Ambassador Airways is really pretty light in aircraft count, seat miles and service hubs.
#7
The sad fact is that the tribal Nuer, Dinka and Equatorians have never, and will never, live in peace. The emerging South Sudan should have been divided in thirds. One third to the Bahr al-Ghazal Dinka, one-third the Nuer of the White Nile, and a third the equatorian ethnics who do manage to live together in peace.
#8
The sad fact is that the tribal Nuer, Dinka and Equatorians have never, and will never, live in peace.
It's my impression that separately none of them would be able to stand up against reconquest by the North African Sudanese, Glairong Sforza7574, who will then return to their jihadi raiding. So what is to be done?
#9
The sad fact is that the tribal Nuer, Dinka and Equatorians have never, and will never, live in peace.
One day we'll get past all of this pointless navel-gazing and realize that "colonization" isn't always a bad thing, particularly when those being colonized are their own worst enemy.
#1
Paris at war again? Oh you say a different enemy and a different time than the Nazi era. I say, not so different. Many of the Muslims were allied with Hitler. It's a supremacy thing. Much of today's problem is self-inflicted.
#2
If the U.S. is not careful, we will also experience similar self-inflicted problems. Hillary is wanting to open our doors to something like 65,000 Syrians/year.
[IsraelTimes] Four Paleostinian men were jugged ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... Tuesday morning in the southern Eshkol region minutes after crossing from the Gazoo Strip into Israel, according to Hebrew media reports.
IDF troops reportedly apprehended the men shortly after they crossed into Israeli territory. They were said to be carrying wire-cutters used to cut through the border fence.
The Eshkol region lies between the southern Israeli cities of Ashkelon and Beersheba and contains the majority of Israel’s land border with the Gazoo Strip.
The border fence contains a bevy of sensors and cameras to support the large number of soldiers who regularly patrol the area. Infiltrators are typically caught within hours, if not sooner.
[IsraelTimes] Newly unsealed court documents show 38-year-old Adnan Fazeli was killed in January 2015 in festivities with Lebanese army
Investigators say an Iranian Moslem man who came to Maine as a refugee in 2009
...clearly we've had trouble properly vetting people from that part of the world for the entirety of Mr. Obama's presidency, though why we accepted a refugee from Iran is a separate puzzlement...
was fighting for the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group when he was killed last year in Leb.
The Portland Press Herald reports that details about 38-year-old Adnan Fazeli were in newly unsealed court documents filed in federal court in Portland.
The newspaper reports Fazeli, who was most recently a Freeport resident, became radicalized while living in Maine.
Fazeli came under FBI investigation for his connection to Islamic State shortly after leaving his job at a Portland auto dealer and flying to The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... in August 2013. He never came back.
Fazeli died in battle in January 2015 as a member of an Islamic State force of about 150. The group was turned away by the Lebanese army.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/17/2016
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[12 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
[IsraelTimes] Iran increasingly targeting those with foreign citizenship, ties in wake of nuclear deal with world powers
Kidnapping: it's what caliphates do.
"Effendi, we're running short of cash."
"What?? What happened to all those Euros we got from the U.S.?"
"Well Effendi, expenses run large, particularly with Hezbollah..."
"Stop already! I know about expenses. Hmmm, we got any foreigners handy?"
Iran has detained an Iranian with citizenship in another country over allegations the person had links to British intelligence services, a prosecutor said Tuesday, the latest dual national tossed in the clink ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... in the country.
The circumstances surrounding this most-recent detention were unclear, but they come as hard-liners in Iran’s security forces increasingly target those with foreign ties in the wake of the country’s nuclear deal with world powers.
Speaking to journalists, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi described the individual arrested as being "active in the economic field, related to Iran," the official IRNA news agency reported. Dolatabadi didn’t elaborate, saying only that the arrest took place last week. He also did not identify the individual’s second nationality.
Iran does not recognize dual nationalities, meaning those detained cannot receive consular assistance. In previous cases involving dual nationals, like the detention of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, officials initially announced indictments had been handed down without providing specifics. Later, news organizations with close ties to security services offered details of the charges.
Those detained typically face trial in Iran’s Revolutionary Court, a closed-door tribunal which handles cases involving alleged attempts to overthrow the government. Rezaian was convicted but later released in January as part of a prisoner swap between Iran and the US.
It’s unclear why Iran is increasingly detaining dual nationals, but analysts and others have suggested hard-liners want concessions from the West in exchange for releasing them.
Those recently detained in Iran include:
• Homa Hoodfar, an Iranian-Canadian woman who is a retired professor at Montreal’s Concordia University;
...she is actually an Iranian-Irish-Canadian, holding passports for all three countries, not that Iran cares.
• Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American businessman who has advocated for closer ties between the two countries and whose father is also held in Tehran;
• Baquer Namazi, a former Iranian and UN official in his 80s who is the father of Siamak;
• Robin Shahini, an Iranian-American detained while visiting family who previously had made online comments criticizing Iran’s human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... record;
• Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a British-Iranian woman held in Iran for months over accusations she planned the "soft toppling" of the government while visiting relatives with her young daughter; and
• Nizar Zakka, a US permanent resident from Leb who has done work for the American government .
Still missing is former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished in Iran in 2007 while on an unauthorized CIA mission.
[IsraelTimes] PA medical officials say Mohammed Abu Hashash, 17, dies of wounds sustained in riot against soldiers during operation to uncover weapons near Hebron
A Paleostinian teenager maimed during festivities with Israeli troops in the southern West Bank on Tuesday died of his wounds, according to Paleostinian medical officials.
"Mohammed Abu Hashash, 17, died after he was shot in the chest during festivities with [Israeli forces] in the Fawwar camp," the Paleostinian health ministry said in a statement.
Earlier Paleostinian medical officials said some 35 Paleostinians were maimed in the festivities in the al-Fawar refugee camp, as the IDF carried out an overnight operation to uncover weapons and ammunition.
The Paleostinian Red Islamic Thingy said live fire struck about 10 people after rioters threw large rocks at Israeli troops. It says the 25 others were struck by rubber bullets.
The IDF said its forces were on an overnight operation "to uncover weaponry" in the camp, when "dozens of Paleostinians hurled IEDs (improvised bombs), blocks and rocks" at them.
The troops "responded with riot dispersal means and fired 0.22 caliber bullets toward main instigators," an IDF spokeswoman said, adding that the troops had found "two improvised handguns, other weapons and ammunition."
The military said it fired toward the riot’s main instigators to try to prevent escalation. The festivities continued until around noon, an AFP photographer reported.
The army closed off the Fawar camp for 26 days last month after a gunman belonging to a Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, terror cell fired on a car carrying an Israeli family on a nearby West Bank road, causing the vehicle to crash. The driver, Rabbi Miki Mark from Otniel, was killed and his wife and two children were maimed in the attack.
[DeutscheWelle] Members of Germany's government have accused Turkey's regime of supporting militant groups in the Middle East, public media report. ARD cited a classified document sent from the Interior Ministry to the Left party.
Citing a classified document from the Interior Ministry to representatives of the Left party on Tuesday the German public broadcaster ARD reported, that members of the government consider Turkey's regime a supporter of militant groups in the Middle East.
German officials appear to have publicly acknowledged, if in a classified document, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's weapons support for militants fighting the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, which Turkish journalists have reported in the past. "Especially since the year 2011 as a result of its incrementally Islamized internal and foreign policy, Turkey has become a central platform for action for Islamist groups in the Middle East," the German officials said, according to ARD.
German security officials also said Erdogan had an "ideological affinity" with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, ARD reported. Suppressed under Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship, the movement went on to produce Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi.
Despite the "affinity," Erdogan has been publicly at odds with the Muslim Brotherhood in the past though he has since also criticized current Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, who overthrew Morsi in a 2013 coup. Neither the United States nor the EU considers the Muslim Brotherhood a terror organization.
The German officials also said Erdogan supported Hamas, the democratically elected governing party in the Gaza Strip. Turkey's president has said as much in the past, having told the US news host Charlie Rose, that "I don't see Hamas as a terror organization." Though the United States and EU do list Hamas as a prohibited group, nations such as Norway, Switzerland and Brazil do not.
"It is a resistance movement trying to protect its country under occupation," Erdogan added in the 2011 interview, referring to the Israeli state, with which Turkey also enjoys diplomatic ties.
Posted by: Elmerert Hupens2660 ||
08/17/2016
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#1
The real game changer is Merkel's loss of any plausible deniability re her dealings with and support of Erdogan.
This leak might be an act of conscientious rebellion of mid level government bureaucrats who don't agree with Merkel's sudden move to the extreme left.
#5
Turkey is demanding an explanation today, Germany responding with soothing noises about Turkey being key in the fight against ISIS, according to Al Ahram.
#6
German security officials also said Erdogan had an "ideological affinity" with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, ARD reported. Suppressed under Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship, the movement went on to produce Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi.
Which either explains why the Turkish ambassador met with Mr. Stephens in Benghazi, or why the initial attackers shouted "Morsi (Mursi) sent us."
An army spokesman has admitted that Saiq Special forces had today paid a “heavy price” as they advanced further in Gwarsha. At least ten men, including an unnamed senior commander were killed and some 35 injured in the fighting.
Most of the dead and wounded, he said, were victims of Improvised Explosive Devices and mines. However a social media site connected to the Benghazi Revolutionaries’ Shoura Council carried footage showing what it said was a rocket exploding beside four soldiers who were advancing in single file. Given that the camera was already focused on the scene before the explosion, it seems possible that the men were caught by the remote detonation of an IED.
The most intense fighting happened near the unfinished European hospital.
Despite apparently being surrounded in Gwarsha and Ganfouda, the IS and Ansar Al-Sharia terrorists and their allies in the BRSC still seem to have the weapons, ammunition and explosives to resist the army with deadly effect.
In the course of the day were was a number of air strikes and assaults by at least one assault by a helicopter gunship. This morning, clouds of smoke billowed over a target in Gwarsha.
KARACHI: Police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested four members of a banned outfit wanted for masterminding the suicide bombing in Attock last August, which claimed the lives of former Punjab home minister Col (r) Shuja Khanzada and 19 others.
According to local media reports, the four alleged terrorists were arrested by the Special Investigation Unit of Sindh Police in Gulshan-e-Iqbal area of the metropolis. The detained include Syed Kashif Ali, Syed Alam, Azhar Hussain and Abdul Adeel.
Special Investigation Unit SSP Farooq Awan told reporters the alleged terrorists used to adorn police uniforms when carrying out their criminal activities in Karachi.
He said the accused were also planning to kidnap a prominent personality when they were apprehended and had also masterminded the attack that killed former Punjab home minister Shuja Khanzadaa dn 19 others.
Outlining their modus operandi, Awan said, the criminals would monitor advertisements on websites and select their victims by identifying their details from the internet.
The SIU raiding team also recovered two light machine guns and one AK-47 assault rifle from the alleged terrorists.
SSP Awan further told journalists that Kashif Ali had formed the militant outfit Jundullah in 2007 and Abu Sufyan alias Muawiya was the leader of that group. He added that Jundullah was involved in multiple terrorist activities.
In the first six months of this year, foreign central banks sold a net $192 billion of U.S. Treasury bonds, more than double the pace in the same period last year, when they sold $83 billion.
China, Japan, France, Brazil and Colombia led the pack of countries dumping U.S. debt.
It's the largest selloff of U.S. debt since at least 1978, according to Treasury Department data.
"Net selling of U.S. notes and bonds year to date thru June is historic," says Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at the Lindsey Group, an investing firm in Virginia.
U.S. Treasurys are considered one of the safest assets in the world. A lot of countries keep their cash holdings in U.S. government bonds.
Many countries have been selling their holdings of U.S. Treasuries so they can get cash to help prop up their currencies if they're losing value. The selloff is a sign of pockets of weakness in the global economy. Low oil prices, China's economic slowdown and currencies losing value are all weighing down global growth, which the IMF described as "fragile" earlier in the year.
Despite all the selling by these countries, private demand for the bonds has sky rocketed. Demand is so high that the U.S. can afford to pay historically low interest rates. The 10-year U.S. Treasury hit a record low of 1.34% earlier this year, before bouncing back to about 1.58%, currently.
So it's okay, unless the furriners are on to something...
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/17/2016
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#2
Come right up and place your beats on the next American Civil War. We gotcha urban coasties and the people who actually make vital stuff like food and energy.
#3
Stocks and bonds are earning little for the individual investor despite stocks being at a record high. Institutional investors may be making money but the individual investor is not. It is especially hard on the older, retired investor depending on return on investments to live on. I blame Washington and Wall Street greed.
#4
BTW, stocks were at a record high just prior to the stock market collapse and the onset of the Great Depression. I don't know what kind of earnings they at the time [just before the Depression]--a little before my time but not by too much. Could be a Civil War but it would be more than likely the people in "fly-over land" pitted against the elites in Washington and their minions such as the MSM, Wall Street, globalists, etc.
#6
So it's okay, unless the furriners are on to something...
What they are "on to" is a need for cash to prop up their own flagging economies. Selling their bonds early means they need what they can get now as opposed to more later. Sounds like a problem for them, not the issuer of the bonds...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/17/2016 9:56
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#7
The 3rd world buffoons are buying discounted US debt. They haven't yet tried to redeem any of it.
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi has said there are some errors in the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, aka nuclear deal) from the opposite side.
“The legal procedures in the JCPOA are adopted according to the discernment of the JCPOA Implementation Monitoring Council. We are pursuing the entire errors within the Joint Committee,” Araqchi said, ICANA news agency reported Aug. 16.
The JCPOA Implementation Monitoring Council is a body of Iranian officials tasked with inspecting the implementation of the deal, while the Joint Committee is a body of representatives from Iran and the group 5+1 (the US, the UK, France, Russia, China, and Germany).
“Many of the errors have been erased. In the field of insurance, for example, almost all problems are solved as well as some problems in banking and finance,” the deputy foreign minister stated.
Tehran has been criticizing the West for dragging its feet in fulfilling its part of the nuclear deal, saying the country has not received the promised sanctions relief.
The accord, which took effect in January, ended decades of economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program. However, months into the JCPOA’s implementation, Iran complains that the promised economic benefits have yet to materialize and that it still does not have access to global financial markets.
Many international banks still shy away from financing trade deals and processing transactions for fear of the US penalties.
Tehran has warned it can restore all those aspects of its nuclear program that it has agreed to limit under the deal with the six world powers if the agreement is violated by those countries.
Iran, however, is not bound by reciprocity...
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The Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) are preparing to retake control of the lost Dahana-e-Ghori district in northern Baghlan province.
Local security officials are saying the operations will be launchd in Dahana-e-Ghori and Baghlan-e-Markazi districts in the near future.
Provincial police spokesman Ahmad Jawed Basharat said the provincial security forces and additional forces have arrived in the area and are preparing to launch a major offensive to retake the lost areas.
He said sporadic clashes continue in parts of Baghlan-e-Markazi district and Afghan forces are preparing to launch a major clearance operation.
The Taliban militants took control of Dahana-e-Ghori district late on Friday night, days after launching a coordinated attack on security forces check posts.
The Afghan forces cleared the district from the Taliban presence by launching a major operation around three months ago.
The Taliban insurgents also suffered heavy casualties during the clashes in Dahana-e-Ghori and Dand-e-Shahabuddin areas of northern Baghlan province earlier this year.
The operations in Baghlan were launched amid concerns that the militants of the Taliban group are preparing the spring offensive by creating sanctuaries in this province.
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Interior Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Monday said several suspects had been arrested in connection to the Quetta massacre; a deadly suicide bomb attack which had claimed 72 lives.
The interior minister told lawmakers here in the National Assembly that security forces had obtained several fingerprints from the crime scene. However, he added, they belonged to a victim and not the terrorist himself.
Nisar told the lower house that the pictures obtained from the crime scene had not been fruitful in identifying the attacker. He added that no progress could be made regarding DNA test of the suspected suicide bomber.
The interior minister said that the committee which was set up following the August 8 attack was an administrative committee, adding that 13 more committees like this were working on different matters.
Addressing the Mathew Barrett issue, Nisar said that an investigation was being carried out regarding how the American had been issued a visa in 24 hours. Mathew had obtained the visa on account of negligence of the visa officer, he added.
The interior minister further stated that police had arrested Barrett for roaming in a prohibited area. He added that the FIR registered against the American did not mention anything related to espionage.
Talking about the National Action Plan committee, Nisar said that it would ensure implementation on the plan and revealed that it had been decided to convene a meeting of the chief ministers in the next couple of days.
ISIS kills own troops in unusual strategy shift Someone musta mentioned that own goals are a good way to win wars
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – A source in Nineveh province informed that ISIS executed some of its own leaders, including commander of the Uzbek battalion Abu Katada in Mosul.
“The leaders were executed by their counterparts from the outfit as they escaped from battlefields in Mosul without fighting against the security forces. Because the leaders ran away, ISIS suffered heavy loss- both material and of loss of their men,” the source said, sharing details with Iraqi News.
Adding further he said, “Several ISIS members panicked after their strongholds to the south, north and east of Mosul were attacked by the security forces and due to this some leaders ran away showing their back to the battlefields.”
The Taliban militants have executed at least six people on charges of supporting the Afghan government in western Farah province of Afghanistan.
Local security officials said Tuesday the men were executed in Bakwa district on Monday, days after they were kidnapped by the militants.
According to the preliminary reports, at least five of the victims were members of the security institution while the 6th victim was an ordinary civilian.
Provincial police chief Mohammad Ghaus Maliar said they are aware of the reports regarding th execution of six peole by the Taliban militants in Bakwa district.
However the anti-government armed militant groups including the Taliban insurgents have not commented regarding the report so far.
According to reports, the main highway from where the victims were abducted has sharply deteriorated during the recent months where theTalian insurgents are often kidnapping people on charges of working for the government.
The Taliban insurgents have also started taking hostages in other parts of the country including the northern Kunduz province where around 200 passengers were abducted by the Taliban nearly three months ago.
The passengers were abducted as they were travelling on the main highway in Kunduz but majority of them were released after they were interrogated while some others were kept as hostage and many more were executed.
Posted by: badanov ||
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Interim Administration Ahmed Madobe gave an olive branch to Kenyan Defense forces in his region to lead offensive against Al Shabaab.
Jubbaland leader is in Nairobi, to meet with Kenyan government officials on the new military strategy to push Al Shabaab militants out of middle and Lower Jubba regions.
I guess negotiations with ANISOM, the Spaniards, and the Rooshins didn't work out...
Reliable Sources at the meeting in Nairobi, told Radio Shabelle that Madobe and Kenyan government have agreed to end their differences over the military operations in Jubbaland.
Early reports suggest that Jubbaland leader Ahmed Madobe shifted the leading command of the anti-al shabaab war to Ethiopian troops of AMISOM contingent.
Jubbaland state president has been a close ally to Kenya for nearly 10 years in the fight against Al Shabaab in Lower and Middle Jubba regions of Southern Somalia.
A dispute between both sides have emerged after Jubbaland leader has asked Ethiopian government to help his administration in the liberation of his territory from Al Shabaab.
Ends against the middle, eh...
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—The Peshmerga, with the assistance of coalition airstrikes, repulsed multiple attacks from Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Khazir and Daquq Tuesday evening.
“Tonight, Tuesday, ISIS militants on the Khurmatu frontline in the Daquq area attacked Peshmerga but their attack was stopped by the Peshmerga,” Abdullah Bor, Peshmerga commander on the Khurmatu frontline, told Rudaw.
“ISIS militants between Smaqa and Talbusal in Daquq attacked two Peshmerga outposts where the Soran 116 brigade is based, but their attacks were repelled,” he added.
Also on Tuesday evening, Peshmerga on the Khazir frontline repulsed a three-pronged attack by ISIS.
Sirwan Barzani, in charge of the Peshmerga forces on the Gwer-Makhmur frontline, confirmed to Rudaw, “On Tuesday evening, ISIS militants attacked the Peshmerga in Khazir on three sides. But their attacks were stopped by the Peshmerga.”
“In Qaryatagh village, ISIS militants carried out the attack using suicide bombers and vehicles. Two of their vehicles were destroyed,” he said.
“Also between Ibrahim Khalil and Kanas villages, ISIS bombed the Peshmerga but the coalition launched airstrikes on ISIS, which are still ongoing.”
The Peshmerga gained 150 square kilometres of ground on the Khazir and Gwer-Makhmour frontlines over the weekend in a major offensive that killed at least 130 ISIS militants.
Posted by: badanov ||
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The Saudi-led coalition battling rebels in Yemen accused the militants on Tuesday of using peace negotiations to rearm, after an escalation of fighting following the talks' suspension.
"They were deceiving people by this negotiation, to re-organize their force, re-supplying their forces and getting back to fighting. They don't have any political agenda," Brigadier General Ahmed Assiri, the coalition's spokesman, told AFP.
He said the coalition, which launched strikes against the Shiite Houthi rebels in March last year, would do "whatever it takes" to restore security in Yemen.
Coalition warplanes resumed major strikes around the rebel-held capital Sanaa last week following the collapse of the talks in Kuwait after three fruitless months of negotiations.
The coalition says the suspension of the talks followed increased ceasefire violations by the rebels, who are allied to forces loyal to deposed Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Assiri said the rebels had violated the ceasefire -- which was in conjunction with the UN-brokered talks -- "since day one", Assiri said.
As a result, the coalition was forced to provide "reactive" air support to Yemeni troops while the talks continued, he said.
Now that heavier bombardments have resumed, the coalition aims to support Yemen's government to regain control of the country as well as to protect Saudi borders, Assiri said.
Days before the suspension of peace talks on August 6, 12 Saudi soldiers were killed in border clashes during the most serious fighting in months along the frontier. Last week, the coalition said it intercepted two ballistic missiles fired at southern Saudi Arabia.
Intensified rebel shelling also killed two civilians on the Saudi side of the border, after months of relative calm.
Questioned over what has been accomplished by almost 18 months of fighting, Assiri said the rebels are weaker than they were in March last year when coalition operations began.
But the "smuggling (of) weapons to Yemen does not stop," he said, despite a coalition blockade of the territory. Riyadh accuses its regional rival Tehran of supporting the Houthis.
Asked how long the coalition can sustain the operation, Assiri said that the operation was "for national security, for (the) stability of the region". "It takes whatever it takes," he said.
Public executions and surveillance have reached new levels of terror in North Korea this year, sources from the repressive country say. One source on Monday said North Korean authorities killed around 60 people in public executions so far this year, twice as many as in previous years since leader Fat Boy Kim Jong-un came to power.
As international sanctions began to bite, the regime is increasingly resorting to forced mobilizations of people for public projects and extortion. The public executions serve to keep growing discontent in check.
Something about having an anti-aircraft gun pointed at your head will do that to you...
The families of defectors and brokers who helped North Koreans escape are being summarily executed.
According to sources, state security agency arrested dozens of family members of defectors and brokers in February and executed them on charges of espionage, while around a dozen brokers China were arrested and put in front of a firing squad in Hyesan, Ryanggang Province in April.
Also in Hyesan, many were killed by firing squad on charges of watching South Korean TV series and movies. In July, around a dozen drug users were executed in Wonsan, Kangwon Province and Unsan, North Pyongan Province.
A group of security agents have been organized by the Workers Party to crack down on people who have left their registered addresses without permission. The group was created in 2014 at the order of the corpulent leader Kim Jong-un and is mainly in charge of arresting illegitimate travelers and press-ganging them into grueling construction projects.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/17/2016
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#1
One source on Monday said North Korean authorities killed around 60 people in public executions so far this year
Fat Boy is such a piker. Tis year alone, the pols in Chicago are on track to have almost 100 times that many killed and way more injured for life.
(IraqiNews.com) Mosul – Kurdistan Democratic Party official confirmed on Tuesday that the ISIS ‘Minister of Media’ was killed during a military operation carried out by Peshmerga forces for liberating villages east of Mosul.
Media official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Saeed Mamouzini said, “ISIS has transferred about 165 bodies of its members to the city of Mosul and among the dead was also the body of Abu Ahmed al-Shami, ISIS ‘Minister of Media’.”
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – Media officials with the Ministry of Defense announced that the Anti-Terrorism Forces liberated four villages in Qayyarah, situated to the south of Mosul, and raised the Iraqi flag.
The officials, in a statement received by Iraqi News, said, “This morning, Anti-Terrorism Forces liberated al-Hawish, al-Jawa’na, al-Jubla and al-Ghazeya villages in Qayyarah from ISIS control and raised the Iraqi flag over the buildings there.”
“Anti-Terrorism Forces have inflicted heavy losses on ISIS- both in terms of men and material. Security sources have gradually cordoned off the areas in and around al-Jad’a village near Qayyarah center as they prepare to invade further deeper to the city,” the statement added.
(IraqiNews.com) Mosul – International coalition aviation’s air crafts on Tuesday launched an airstrike on an ISIS site in Mosul, killing a number of militants.
Nineveh Police officer Colonel Ahmed al-Jubouri said, “Coalition aircraft stepped up overflights over Mosul to confuse the ranks of the organization and cut off supplies that are expected to be sent to the frontier for continuing fighting at the outskirts of the city.”
Al-Jubouri added, “Coalition jets bombed a building used by ISIS members north of Mosul, killing six of them.”
(IraqiNews.com) Nineveh – A security source in Nineveh province informed that 25 ISIS members, including suicide bombers, were killed while they launched an attack on the security forces on the outskirts of Sinjar district.
Sharing details about the incident with Iraqi News the source said, “This morning Peshmerga forces repulsed an ISIS offensive near the cement factory on the outskirts of Sinjar, northwest of Mosul. In the repulsive attack, 25 ISIS members including two suicide bombers were killed.”
“Peshmerga forces destroyed a number of ISIS vehicles and mechanisms in the attack,” the source added.
Posted by: badanov ||
08/17/2016
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[PoliticalIslam] Islam is based on Koran and Sunna. Since the Sunna is found in the Sira and the Hadith, this means that three books contain all the doctrine of Islam--the Trilogy. If it is in the Trilogy (Koran, Sira, Hadith), then it is Islam. If something is not in the Trilogy, then it is not Islam. All of the Islamic doctrine is found in the Trilogy. Now, we have the complete information with no missing pieces.
We have established our first criteria of knowledge. All authoritative statements about Islam must include a reference to the Trilogy to be authenticated. It does not matter what a scholar, imam, media guru, or anyone else says, if what they say cannot be supported by the doctrine in the Trilogy, then it is not Islam. If it is supported by the Trilogy, then it is Islam.
[AlAhram] A Turkish court has ordered the temporary closure of a newspaper accusing it of links with Kurdish militants and spreading terrorist propaganda, state media said on Tuesday. The court in Istanbul accused the pro-Kurdish Ozgur Gundem of "acting as the de facto news outlet" for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), state-run news agency Anadolu said. A Turkish official confirmed the court order.
The PKK -- considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States -- has waged a separatist insurgency in the southeast since 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed since it first took up arms.
The official, who did not wish to be named, said the decision had no relation to the state of emergency declared after last month's failed coup in Turkey.
Launched in 1992, leftist daily Ozgur Gundem has been the subject of court closures and raids in the past and its journalists have been arrested. It was closed from 1994 until April 2011 when it started publishing again. The paper has featured the writings of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned since 1999.
[AlAhram] Turkish police on Tuesday raided dozens of companies in Istanbul in search of 120 suspects wanted after last month's botched coup attempt, state media reported. Police carried out simultaneous raids on 44 businesses including a holding firm in the Uskudar and Umraniye districts on the Asian side of Istanbul, the Anadolu news agency reported.
The companies targeted have not been named so far. It is not clear how many suspects have been detained in the raids.
Turkish authorities have undertaken a relentless crackdown on alleged Gulen supporters in the wake of the coup, detaining over 35,000 people. Almost 11,600 have since been released.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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[AnNahar] Morocco on Tuesday placed in durance vile Book 'im, Mahmoud! four men allegedly linked to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... jihadist group and planning attacks in the kingdom's economic capital Casablanca, the interior ministry said.
It said authorities had dismantled "a terrorist cell of four forces of Evil who were active between Casablanca and Mograne," a rural area some 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of political capital Rabat.
Initial findings in the investigation pointed to the men having "pledged allegiance" to IS and preparing to attack "vital sites in Casablanca", it said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
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[IsraelTimes] Nine Paleostinians held for allegedly planning suicide kabooms, ambushes, under orders from Shiite terror group’s handlers in Leb and Gazoo
Ynet has what they call a hierarchy map here, which may help -- though it is in Hebrew. All the Qalqilya residents are in the righthand cell, the other guys are in the left.
Israel’s security services broke up two terror cells, which had been created by the Hezbollah terrorist organization, arresting nine suspected members over the past few months, officials revealed Tuesday.
Hezbollah operatives from the group’s Unit 133 -- its foreign operations unit -- working out of Leb and the Gazoo Strip recruited members in the West Bank, Gazoo Strip and within Israel through social media sites, notably Facebook, the Shin Bet security service said.
Armed forces conducted counter-terrorism operations in Khyber Agency, killing five militants and destroying 15 hideouts in the process, Waqt News reported Tuesday.
According to defence sources, the anti-terrorist offensives were carried out in Tirah valley of Khyber Agency. Sources said several militants were killed and key hideouts were destroyed in the process.
Army says Zarb-e-Azb military offensive is in its final phase. The operation was launched following the June 8 attack on Jinnah International Airport on in Karachi.
A few days ago, Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif in a security meeting at General Headquarters said that lack of implementation on National Action Plan was affecting Zarb-e-Azb’s progress.
A high-level security meeting on Monday, chaired by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, decided to introduce 29 new civil armed forces in order to ensure effective border management.
The meeting also gave Adviser on National Security Lt-Gen (retired) Naseer Khan Janjua the additional charge of heading a task force on NAP in order to ensure the action plan’s effective implementation.
[Gateway Pundit] Respect! Jamaican gold medal sprinter Usain Bolt interrupted a post-race interview on Sunday with a Mexican reporter to listen to the US National Anthem. He just passed my 'Extreme Vetting' and visa muster. He can visit and stay at our house any time he likes. I'll share him with you...
#4
Wouldn't be surprised if some NFL or NBA scouts have their eyes on him. If he could catch a football he'd make a heckuva wide receiver. If he can't catch a football he'd make a heckuva safety or cornerback.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/17/2016 12:02
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#5
Hey mon, you know? Don't be trying to pattern your runs on me.
(IraqiNews.com) Baghdad – A source in the Ministry of Interior informed that today morning unidentified gunmen hurled a grenade at an al-Sahwa militia checkpoint at Bawi village in Mada’in distrct, southern Baghdad, killing two Sahwa members and injuring two others.
Sharing details the source further informed, “Security forces rushed to the area and carried the wounded to a nearby hospital and the dead bodies to the forensic department.”
[AlAhram] Egypt's State Security prosecution referred on Tuesday 116 people accused of Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (IS) affiliation to military prosecutors, reported Al-Ahram Arabic website.
State Security Sherlocks accused the defendants of forming and running a terrorist group, attempted murder, possession of weapons, being in contact with IS and possessing written materials promoting violence against the state.
Egypt has been battling an Islamist insurgency waged by IS-affiliate Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis in North Sinai over the past few years. While violence has mainly been focused in northern Sinai, several attacks targeting security forces have taken place in the capital.
Egypt's 2014 constitution gives military tribunals jurisdiction over crimes committed against army facilities and personnel, an article that has caused controversy, with opponents insisting that civilians should not be subject to military trials.
Last year, Egypt executed six men found guilty by a military court of planning terrorist operations, shooting at security forces, attacking military facilities and naval ships and being members of Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis.
The IS-affiliate has grabbed credit for dozens of attacks against army and police forces in Egypt over the past several years.
[AlAhram] A breakaway Taliban faction in Afghanistan has appointed a new leader for the group, the nephew of the faction's longtime leader who was killed in fighting with rivals last year.
The development reflects the complex layers of the insurgency in Afghanistan, where though dominant, the Taliban are not the only bully boy group waging war.
At a gathering Monday in southern Zabul province, Mullah Emdadullah Mansoor was named leader of the faction known as Mahaaz-e-Dadullah. The meeting was attended by tribal and religious leaders, as well as the group's local commanders.
News Agency that Dare Not be Named video of the gathering shows Mansoor accepting the leadership position among a crowd of gunnies, mostly young guards. He is the nephew of Mullah Mansoor Dadullah who was killed in Khak-e-Afghan district of Zabul last year, fighting with rival Taliban.
"I accept the leadership of these men, based on the decision of the holy mans," said Mansoor, promising to "fight foreign forces" and exact Dire Revenge for the group's slain leader.
Before Mullah Mansoor Dadullah was killed in Zabul, the founder of the group, Mullah Dadullah, was also killed in an ambush, possibly by one of his bodyguards in southern Helmand ...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan... province. He was also an uncle of the newly named leader.
At the Monday gathering, several gunnies in white-colored clothing with black balaclavas who call themselves jacket wallahs said they were ready to carry out attacks against the rival Taliban as well as foreign forces in the country.
"I announce that I will take ... Dire Revenge from Mullah Haibatullah's group," said Mansoor. And of his rivals, he said "it is time for them to pay the price."
Mansoor was referring to the current head of the rival Taliban, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada ...Deputy to Taliban supremo Mullah Akhtar Mansour... , a religious hard boy who replaced Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in May.
The Mahaaz-e-Dadullah group, known for its fighting skills and suicide kabooms, virtually disappeared from the Afghan killing fields after the death of Mansoor's uncles. Their re-emergence could create a headache for the Taliban as the faction is present in various parts of the Taliban heartland in the south.
"Now we are back on track with our mission" said Mullah Nematullah Samim, Mansoor's deputy.
Another would-be suicide bomber, Qari Misbah, said at Monday's gathering that he has been "waiting for my turn for a long time ago and now it's the time for me, I can give my body and soul."
Samim denied that Mahaaz-e-Dadullah has been uniting forces in Zabul with Afghanistan's branch of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group, which emerged last year, mainly in the country's east, close the border with Pakistain.
"We don't want to be weak or depend on others," he said.
[Daily News] John McLaughlin, the stalwart political commentator who created television’s "McLaughlin Group," died Tuesday at his home in Virginia. He was 89.
His death came less than two days after he missed the first episode of his show in 34 years.
"As a former Jesuit priest, teacher, pundit and news host, John touched many lives," the show’s producers wrote on Facebook.
"For 34 years, "The McLaughlin Group" informed millions of Americans. Now he has said bye bye for the last time, to rejoin his beloved dog, Oliver, in heaven. He will always be remembered."
#5
'One of the early talking heads telling us what to think...'
Sorry, 'impartially consolidating many selected streams of information and opinion through inspired pseudolectuals so that we could make informed decisions about the world's events'...no, that's not right either...
[NYTIMES] One of Britannia’s best-known Islamist activists has been found guilty of inviting support for the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... and could face a prison term of up to 10 years, officials announced on Tuesday.
The activist, Anjem Choudary ...Self-proclaimed holy man who used to work for Omar Mohammed Bakdri as spokesman for al-Muhajiroun. Anjem is a loathesome little attention prostitute who is to be heard cheering for the home team anytime anybody with a turban manages to slaughter a group of unarmed infidels. Anjem was born in the UK in 1967 and is, as you would expect, of Pakistaini descent. The Ghost of Dante is of the opinion that when he goes to hell his knees will be broken once a month... , 49, and an associate, Mohammed Mizanur Rahman, 33, were convicted of using online lectures and messages to encourage support for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIS, which is banned in Britannia.
In social media posts, the two men pledged allegiance to the caliphate declared by the head of the Islamic State, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us... , and said that Moslems had a duty to obey and support him.
The men were tossed in the slammer Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! in 2014 and were tried at the Old Bailey in London, the central criminal court. The jury delivered its verdict on July 28, but it was not announced until Tuesday for legal reasons. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 6.
Mr. Choudary is the former head of Al-Muhajiroun ...formerly Omar Bakri Muhammad's spin off group from Hizb ut-Tahrir in Britain, where the detestable lunatic Anjem Chaudry got his start. More recently the name adopted by al-Qaeda in East Africa for operations in Kenya and Tanzania. It is subordinate to al-Shabaab but will probably be strong enough to fly on its own, given an uninterrupted flow of petrodollars, should the Shaboobs collapse.... , an organization that is now banned. The group was founded by Omar Bakri Muhammad, who was expelled from Britannia in 2005 and went to Leb. Mr. Choudary later led another organization, Islam4UK, which has also been banned.
He has long been infamous in Britannia for praising the men who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001; for refusing to condemn the London bombings of 2005; and for saying he wanted to convert Buckingham Palace into a mosque and fly the Islamic flag over 10 Downing Street.
Mr. Choudary served two years in jail for encouraging people to kill British and American troops in Afghanistan. One of the men who hacked a British soldier, Lee Rigby, to death in 2013 had attended protests organized by Mr. Choudary.
Dean Haydon, the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counterterrorism Command, said in a statement, "These men have stayed just within the law for many years, but there is no one within the counterterrorism world that has any doubts of the influence that they have had, the hate they have spread and the people that they have encouraged to join terrorist organizations."
[BBC] For 20 years Anjem Choudary stood on street corners, in shopping precincts, outside mosques, embassies and police stations and used his megaphone to drive a wedge between Muslims and the rest of Britain. Now he has been convicted of inviting others to support the Islamic State militant group.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/17/2016
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#1
Hope he doesn't go to Belmarsh to spread the word, if ya know what I mean...
Iran has handed down a three-year prison sentence to prominent reformist journalist Isa Saharkhiz.
A court found Saharkhiz guilty of "insulting Iranian officials" and "propaganda against the regime" on August 9. Speaking to Iranian Students' News Agency, Saharkhiz's lawyer, Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabatei, said after months of waiting, his client had been issued a verdict — although not for all of the charges against him.
Revolutionary Guards arrested Saharkhiz on November 2, 2015, and arrested fellow journalists Ehsan Mazandarani, Afarin Chitsaz, and Saman Safarzaei and the brother of a journalist, Davoud Asadi, a day later. The guards accused them of being part of an “infiltration network.” In April, all three were given long prison sentences, but Saharkhiz was tried separately. Chitsaz was released in July pending appeal, but Mazandarani and Safarzaei remain incarcerated, and Mazandarani has suffered a heart attack since being jailed.
Saharkhiz has also suffered poor health since being detained, partially due to repeated hunger strikes, one lasting 48 days. He has also been held in solitary confinement for long periods.
Speaking to Journalism is Not a Crime in November 2014, Saharkhiz’s son Mehdi said: “My father wasn’t doing anything. He was posting on Facebook, maybe talking in different groups, and writing articles for different websites. He was just putting his opinion out there, which according to the Iranian constitution is his right to do. This arrest is completely illegal; it doesn’t have any basis. There is absolutely no evidence presented as what these charges are based on."
Saharkhiz previously spent four years in prison in the aftermath of the 2009 presidential election.
Judges have not reached a verdict for other charges leveled against Saharkhiz.
Posted by: Pappy ||
08/17/2016
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F*cking killjoys
LAHORE: The judicial magistrates at different courts on Monday handed down six-day imprisonment to 87 youngsters each arrested for doing a wheelie during the Independence Day celebrations.
The magistrates convicted the offenders holding summary trials and also ordered police to confiscate their motorcycles.
The Punjab prosecutor general had instructed police investigating officers and all deputy prosecutors to ensure convictions in the cases registered under Motor Vehicle Ordinance against the motorcyclists for doing a wheelie.
#1
In FLA, the first ticket for wheelies is $2K, the second is jail time and loss of bike. Thanks to the idiots at the other Daytona bike week.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
08/17/2016 11:12
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#2
I've seen guys do this on Interstate 5 in San Diego. Not cool. If you do it on a closed track where you're the only one who can get hurt, OK. But if you do it in traffic where you could cause an accident in which other motorists get hurt you deserve a fine and/or jail time.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
08/17/2016 12:19
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#3
That's why I have skid plates on the F-150, PBUH
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/17/2016 22:38
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#4
If you can't do wheelies on Independence Day, what's the point of even having a country?
[AnNahar] The U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group is tracking 100-200 jihadists after they used human shields to flee a key city in Syria, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
IS fighters had controlled Manbij in northern Syria since early 2014, and the city had become a vital waypoint for the group as they funneled imported muscle from the Turkish border to other parts of their self-declared caliphate.
But as it became clear that U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) would re-capture the city last week, some 100-200 jihadists fled in cars and trucks, Baghdad-based coalition front man Colonel Chris Garver told news hounds in a video call.
Unlike in Fallujah in Iraq, where local and coalition forces destroyed about 175 IS vehicles as they fled that city, the SDF outside Manbij did not open fire on outgoing cars.
"Civilians were observed in the convoy intermingled with fighters in every vehicle," Garver said.
"We have repeatedly mentioned the care that our partnered forces were taking to avoid civilian casualties and collateral damage, so the partnered forces on the ground did not engage the convoy."
He said the coalition was tracking those IS fighters but declined to elaborate, saying only that they went north and split up. Parts of the Syrian border with The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... are still controlled by IS.
"We're keeping track of them. I don't want to talk too much about that. It's an ongoing operation," Garver said.
Garver said those in the vehicles were likely a mix of IS fighters, civilian hostages and people traveling willingly with the jihadists, such as family members.
"We had to treat them all as noncombatants. We didn't shoot. We kept watching," he told news hounds.
Hundreds of the civilians from the convoy were released on Saturday and others escaped.
He also noted that IS forces had apparently repeatedly tried to put civilians in harm's way during the SDF operation to free Manbij.
"They kept throwing civilians to basically walk into the line of fire, trying to get them shot, to use that potentially as propaganda, we think," he said.
The jihadists, who have suffered a string of losses in Syria and Iraq, have often staged mass abductions when they come under pressure to relinquish territory they hold.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/17/2016
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#1
Makes sense. This way, when they're allowed into the US, the Feds can say they were vetted.
[IsraelTimes] Mourad Hamyd, 20, is brother-in-law of one of the Kouachi brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack last January, killing 12
A French citizen with family ties to the jihadists who attacked the Charlie Hebdo ...A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe... satirical newspaper in Gay Paree last year will be extradited to La Belle France to face terror charges, a Bulgarian court ruled Tuesday. Sofia City Court’s ruling is final and the transfer of Hamyd to La Belle France should happen within a week, the court said.
Mourad Hamyd, 20, whose sister was married to Charlie Hebdo gunman Cherif Kouachi, was barred from entering The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... late last month -- allegedly after trying to join the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... in Syria -- and handed over to Bulgaria’s border authorities.
La Belle France requested Hamyd’s extradition on July 29, accusing him of "conspiring to prepare of acts of terrorism." If he is found guilty of the terror charges by a French court, he could face up to 10 years in prison.
[AnNahar] Two migrants were wounded in a shooting after a row in a migrant camp in the northern French port of Dunkirk, several sources said Tuesday. A 30-year-old Iraqi migrant received a gunshot wound in the groin area and a 25-year-old man whose nationality was unknown was wounded in the side in the incident in the Grande-Synthe camp on Monday, a police source said. Both men required hospital treatment but neither had life-threatening injuries.
"A police investigation is under way to establish the precise circumstances of this row and who fired the gun," a spokesman for the local authorities said.
The shooting followed an incident in which two migrants suffered minor knife wounds in the camp on Sunday.
The Grande-Synthe camp was built by the Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) charity and the local authorities in accordance with international humanitarian norms and currently holds nearly 800 people.
Charities and migrants' associations say pressure is building at the nearby "Jungle" camp in Calais, after what they say is an influx into the camp in the summer months. Some groups believe 9,000 people are now crammed into the Jungle, which is a largely makeshift camp although 1,750 residents are housed in more permanent accommodation created from shipping containers. Local authorities are due to carry out a new head count this month but for now are sticking to the figure of around 4,500 from a survey in mid-June.
French authorities have made repeated efforts to shut down the Jungle.
Thousands of migrants and refugees gather in Calais and other ports on France's northern coast, hoping to smuggle themselves aboard lorries that are crossing the Channel to Britain either through the Eurotunnel or on board ferries.
[AnNahar] German police Tuesday arrested a man believed to have supplied a gun and bullets used by a teenage gunman to kill nine people in a rampage at a Munich shopping center, prosecutors said.
Police had began tracking the 31-year-old German suspect while investigating two cases of illegal arms transactions that were unrelated to the Munich gunman, David Ali Sonboly. Sonboly killed himself after his murderous spree on July 22 with the pistol he had bought on the internet.
After establishing the suspect's transaction procedure through the internet and encrypted emails, investigators set up a fake deal for the purchase of a machine gun, pistol and ammunition.
During the process, the unnamed "suspected weapons dealer" said that he had supplied the Glock 17 pistol and ammunition to the Munich assault gunman, prosecutors said in a statement.
"The 31-year-old man was arrested as he was handing over a shotgun" in the set up, police said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
08/17/2016
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SRINAGAR: At least four people have been killed in troubled India-held Kashmir, and around 15 others injured on Tuesday as hundreds clashed with government troops during anti-India protests, police said.
A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that government troops fired live ammunition and used pellet guns to control the stone throwing and slogan chanting crowds in Aripanthan village, west of Srinagar.
Three of the injured are in critical condition, police said.
Locals and officials say government forces stopped hundreds of villagers from chanting slogans against Indian rule in Aripanthan village and clashes erupted as troops fired tear gas and shotgun pellets to quell the protests.
As the clashes intensified, troops fired live bullets at the protesters.
News of killings brought thousands of others from neighbouring villages into the streets chanting "Go India, go back" and "We want freedom."
The Himalayan region has been extremely tense for almost six weeks since government troops shot and killed militant commander Burhan Wani.
Tuesday's killings take the death toll in the recent weeks of protests to over 50, including two policemen. Thousands more have been injured.
More than 68,000 people have been killed since militants began fighting Indian forces in 1989 and in a subsequent Indian military crackdown.
[Vox.com] Twenty years ago, I headed to Sweden for a sabbatical year to study the country’s attitudes toward hunting. As a responsible hunter, I brought my own guns — an old 12-gauge shotgun and a Remington .30-06 — because I didn’t want to miss a shot or wound an animal using unfamiliar, borrowed firearms.
As a sociologist I thought that bringing my own firearms would give me some firsthand experience with European gun laws. That happened sooner than I expected.
My employer, the Swedish Hunters Association, had filled out all the paperwork (including paying the tax), so there was no problem getting my guns into the country. But I couldn’t take them to my apartment, as I would have in the United States.
Instead, like all guns in Sweden, they had to be stored in a locked safe, so colleagues took them directly to the wildlife research lab that has a walk-in vault to store firearms. For ease of access of governmental goonz
I began to think more about the responsibilities of gun owners rather than gun owners' rights. This guy's an idiot if he owns two long guns and has never thought about his own obligations.
Before I could hunt, there was the trip to the rifle range where my shooting scores were registered. While this is not required by law, I was told that landowners would not let me hunt moose, nor would a hunting team accept me, unless I showed I could hit a target — not just a paper target but a full-size plywood moose at 100 yards, standing and moving.
Much of what happened when I went hunting in Sweden was strange to me — hunting birds in the mountains with unloaded shotguns for example, stopping the moose hunt after a couple of hours to sit around a campfire roasting hot dogs, and then butchering a trophy moose without taking even one picture. (Here's my report on the differences in Swedish and American hunting.) Unloaded guns are not much good to anyone if you're hunting.
Being in this new setting that was much like and yet so different from Wisconsin got me thinking about hunting in new ways. I began to think more about the responsibilities of gun owners rather than gun owners' rights. I also learned that it was possible to maintain a lively hunting culture along with mandatory gun registration and required safe storage. Sure, it is possible to be a happy serf, and that is what government counts on.
As we face a firearm crisis in America today, it’s time for hunters to stop hiding behind the Second Amendment and claim the moral high ground as our nation’s responsible gun owners. The only crisis we have in America is statists trying to strip Americans of the Gawd given right to keep and bear arms. The moral high ground is to keep your weapons functioning and loaded at all times with as much ammunition as you can buy. That is responsible gun ownership.
The nation demands some action, and we, more than 13 million gun owners who hunt, are in a unique position to lead the way. Firearm registration as part of our normal licensing process could both strengthen our hunting tradition and at the same time help break the national logjam of inaction. Hunters are traditionally the weakest of gun owners, with the weakest understand of their rights under the US Constitution, so statists appeal to them first. That is why I think much of this garbage is aimed at them.
In Sweden, only responsible people can have guns.
Except for those who own guns illegally, of course. It's exactly the same in America, which is why the idea of jihadis with arsenals of illegally acquired guns and bombs has everyone on edge.
Here’s how the Swedish system works: Only responsible people are trusted with firearms. Sweden licenses guns in much the same way we license cars and drivers. You can have up to six guns but can get more with special permission. Very nice. Hat in hand, "Please sir, can I have more?" That's a serf, not a free man. Maybe that works well in Sweden, but it is an abomination in a free society.
To apply for a firearm permit you must first take a year-long hunter training program and pass a written and shooting test. You can also apply for a gun permit if you’ve been a member of an established shooting club for six months. What do you expect to learn in a hunting class for a solid year? This inquiring mind wants to know.
In addition to undergoing training, Sweden’s gun owners must store their firearms safely. Guns must be locked away in a vault, not stored beneath your car seat or in the nightstand where your kids can find them. Or where you can find them should Akmed decide he wants the missus or your children for himself.
Responsibility in Sweden goes further yet: Convicted of a felony? No guns for you. Beat your wife? No guns. Under a restraining order? No guns. Drive drunk? No guns. Yes, many of those classes find a way to break the law and obtain some sort of protection. They find a way because gun laws are unjust, and felon or not, they will find a way to protect themselves. I got twenny bucks that says an awful lot of Swedes own guns the government says they can't have.
(The gun law does not spell out specific actions that cause a citizen to be "unfit" to have a gun permit. It does say that the police must have a "reasonable cause" to suspend a permit, and these kinds of things might signal that a gun owner is "unfit.")
Even so, being responsible is not such a tough job. Sweden denies permits to only about 1,000 people a year (out of 600,000 permit holders), and they can appeal their rejection to the courts. Black robed mandarins whose sole job is to protect the provenance of their paychecks, and for Swedish serfs to abide by unjust laws. A responsible gun owner would know it's time to give up guns. The state is not the sole arbiter of that.
I learned that it was possible to maintain a lively hunting culture along with mandatory gun registration and required safe storage.
And despite these restrictions, Sweden has a strong hunting culture. The heavily forested country is about the size of California but with one-fourth the people. Its moose population per acre is the world’s largest, and moose hunting is front-page news. The king himself hunts moose, and small towns shut down for the season opener much like Wisconsin towns do for the state's deer season. Betcha the king has no problem getting his hands on an AR.
Sweden has nearly 300,000 hunters, which means it has a readily armed population should it need defense. And make no mistake: Guns are part of Sweden’s culture, history, and national defense — even though it has enjoyed more than 200 years of peace. Once the Mooslim Brotherhood finds out where all the guns are kept, your defense plans will be flushed down the toilet along with ethnic Swedish blood. But I bet the king will have his firearms close at hand, won't he?
Many of my Swedish colleagues served in the military and are proficient with firearms. They can practice at shooting ranges all over Stockholm. When hiking in a city park, it’s common to hear the measured shots of target practice nearby. Bully for Swedish vets, who should be ashamed they have no changed the oppression that restricts access to firearms.
And yet gun violence is low in Sweden. The country ranks 10th out of 178 countries in the world for per capita gun ownership but in 2014 had only 21 homicides by firearms. In contrast, the US is first in per capita ownership and had more than 8,000 gun homicides in 2014. Controlling for population, US firearms homicides are 700 percent higher than Sweden’s. Cue the harmonica music as this statist talks about the old times back in Wisconsin:
My favorite place in the world is an old cabin in Wisconsin’s Northwoods, where Heberlein relatives and friends have gathered every year for the past seven decades to hunt ruffed grouse and white-tailed deer. My fondest, proudest, and happiest memories of friendship, accomplishment, and even despair have occurred in the presence of firearms in that camp.
America's gun problem, explained
But in my hunting camp, gun rights don’t exist — just gun responsibilities. Wally and Norman know that. Wally was walking down the nearby White City logging road with Dick at his side when his .30-30 lever-action rifle fired unexpectedly. If Dick had been walking ahead of him, Dick would have been the one who didn’t show up at camp that next year instead of Wally, whose carelessness cost him his camp privileges.
Norman, meanwhile, is one of the world’s nicest guys, but he doesn’t hunt with us anymore either. Twice his gun went off accidentally.
I doubt most Americans understand how its hunters focus on gun responsibilities. Novice hunters are taught how to handle guns: Assume every gun is always loaded — even if you’re sure it’s not. Never point a gun at anything you would not shoot. The ground and sky are the exceptions, but not a house, a barn, or the neighbor’s cat. If you find yourself looking into someone’s gun muzzle, you’re always right to call out the hazardous infraction.
In our public rhetoric we may talk about the right to bear arms, but in our hunting life we focus on our safe gun-handling responsibilities to our fellow hunters. We don’t tolerate irresponsible hunters in the field, so why support the alleged rights of gun owners who make mass murders too common in America? Quite a leap to blame gun owners who do not toe your line that ordinary gun owners are responsible for shootings they do not commit.
How American hunters can claim the moral high ground for gun owners
It’s time to show the world that we hunters are the responsible gun owners in America. We can’t wait for Congress to pass new gun control legislation — it seems bound by money and lobbyists to never act. We hunters should use our own institutions, which we fund with license fees, to maintain safe and responsible gun ownership.
We don’t have to wait for the nation to act. We can work state by state to incorporate hunting firearm registration as part of our normal licensing process. Today when you buy a hunting license, you must meet a number of requirements like being a state resident, being a certain age, and in most states providing evidence of hunter safety training.
For each animal, the type of weapon that is legal is already specified in the rules. It would be a simple step in the licensing process to require hunters to specify the serial number of all firearms they are using for hunting. Registering the weapon would make it legal for hunting. Gun registration. This guy wants hunters to be the first in line to get their guns taken away from them when the time comes.
This registration won’t make hunting any safer — hunting will be just as safe whether the gun is registered or not. But it will signal to the vast majority of Americans who support responsible gun ownership that we hunters are willing to make a visible step as responsible gun owners. * Golf clap *
Wildlife commissions set hunting rules in most states, so it’s in their authority to require that any firearms used for hunting in that state be registered with the agency. It’s as simple as listing the make, model, and serial number of the firearms you will use for hunting when you buy your license. It is actually not in their authority to do that, and every "responsible" member of every Wildlife department will shudder at the lawsuits coming their way should such a rule even be proposed. An act in presumption of others' rights is an act that has no force of law. You can't write new rules and you can get legislatures to pass it.
Hunters don’t need expensive, time-consuming background checks — we are already trained. This proposal would apply only to firearms used for hunting. You wouldn’t need to register the AK, AR, handgun, or MSR (modern sporting rifle) you keep in the closet for home defense; our wildlife agencies makes rules only for guns used in the hunt, not all guns. Non-hunting firearms should also be under control, but let’s start first by registering the millions of firearms used for hunting. F*cking crazy
We hunters have our own police — conservation wardens — who number 5,000 strong nationally. We even pay their wages through our hunting fees to make sure we obey the rules. When wardens check a hunter in the field, they determine if the firearm is the right caliber as determined by the hunting regulations. For waterfowl, the magazine is checked to make sure it can only shoot three shells rather than the five for which it was designed. The shells the hunters are carrying are checked to make sure they are nontoxic. More rules and more regulations for hunters. Who is not down for that?
It would be a simple matter for the warden to check the serial number on the gun and compare those printed out on the back of the hunter’s license or to query an electronic data base. If you’re caught hunting with an unregistered gun, then you’re hunting illegally and are subject to fines and lost hunting privileges. It is as simple as that.
Of course this idea faces obstacles, including the biggest one of all: hunters’ unwillingness to change. Anything. We love hunting so much that its traditions and practices create strong emotional ties that we defend instinctively and passionately. If you doubt it, just ask any wildlife manager how stubbornly hunters resist even minor changes to rules and quotas.
Many will say self-registration won’t save lives. They’re right ... and wrong. Hunter involvement in mass shootings is so unusual that no one is keeping the statistics. Hunters very rarely inflict such evil on innocent lives.
But that’s not the point. Self-registration of our hunting weapons would distinguish us from other gun owners, not in words but in deeds. We would be taking the first step toward universal gun registration by registering our hunting firearms. Non-hunting gun owners who want to prove that they are responsible might want to join the hunting registration system. By distinguishing hunters from other gun owners, I think he means ridiculing hunters from other gun owners as placid, craven serfs.
Registration could lead gradually to requiring safe storage by locking all hunting guns in gun vaults. That would prevent tragedies in our own homes, which does mean saving lives. Ask the hunter who has lost a child to an accident or horseplay with an unsecured rifle or handgun. That is on the gun owner for failing to teach responsible gun handling. That is not on everyone else. As a gun owner I am only responsible for what I do, not for that others do. But in the statists' minds, like fascists, everyone can be punished for the acts of a few.
Of course, we can expect to hear this mantra: "If they know who owns guns, they can come and take them away." But "they" already know. Computerized lists of licensed hunters are in government offices in all 50 states, and many of those lists are public information. One must assume they figured out that licensed hunters have guns. As the FBI has said in sworn Congressional testimony, Form 4473s (the document putative gun owners fill out for gun purchases) are not definitive indicators of gun ownership. What make this individual think that hunting license holders are an even better indicator?
Won’t self-registration of guns reduce hunter numbers? I’ve spent much of my career studying hunter population dynamics, and I’m concerned about declines in hunting. But I don’t think the dropout group will be large. This is part of what statists do to grind down individual rights slowly and by degree. "Not a big dropout." I bet its a big one if you are forced to drop out.
Many hunters claim they’ll quit hunting when license fees go up, and, yes, license numbers often dip the first year, but most return the next. Hunting matters that much to us. And, yes, some might keep their hunting firearms secret and give up hunting instead. Personally, I’m willing to see them go. I want to hunt with men and women who responsibly register their hunting firearms. And with those gun registration lists, how long do you think it will be before groups of individuals who have been denied firearms will find you and deal with you?
Why do this? The answer is obvious, isn’t it? How many more mass shootings must we watch with helpless impotence while asking, "What I can do?" To protect what we love — our hunting life — we must differentiate ourselves from other gun owners. That'll do it, for sure.
By choosing to register our guns with our wildlife agencies, we would follow a long history of putting restrictions on ourselves for the greater good: bag limits, season lengths, blaze orange clothing, and so on. We will be recognized as the responsible registered gun owners. And unwittingly the author has noted something which is missing when the rest of us are being lectured about firearms. Consent of the Governed. How many gun laws have been passed in presumption of individual rights, that have been passed without even the slightest consideration for the notion of Consent of the Governed? That those most affected by those laws should have an irreversible veto on those laws? How many times have gun laws been passed which have been passed to attack, under the color of law and authority, the political enemies of statists? How can those laws be enforced if they were passed in the first place without Consent of the Governed? How can the law be considered to be equitable, fair and just for all if they were passed to strip one class of individual from their Gawd given rights?
Sweden shows it’s possible to have a serious hunting culture with firearms restrictions. With rights comes responsibility. Let’s show the way. Who will be the courageous, visionary sportsmen and women who establish the first hunter registration system in Vermont, or New York, or in my home state of Wisconsin, and take a step forward to sensible gun use in America? Not me. Bye, Felicia. Thomas Heberlein is professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Madison and was a guest professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fish, and Environmental Studies at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. He divides his time between Sweden and Wisconsin. He is working on a book called Falling in Love With Sweden: One Mistake at a Time.
#7
One more time - while I fully understand where you're coming from, I don't think you need to jump down a mod's throat because he didn't spell God in the precise manner you prefer. I'd rather save my energy for things I find more useful, like abusing Amnesty International pollsters in Copley Square and discarding my cigarette butts (still lit, natch) in their backpacks (which was done to two different pollsters on the same encounter - quite a feat if I do say so myself).
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#9
Hey Green commenter, it's a God given right. You are more ignorant than the author of this pathetic article.
Your mods have deleted me before...
Some religions choose not to spell out the word Gawd because they believe to do so is a show of disrespect to Gawd. That is why I spell out Gawd in that manner, the same way yet another ignorant writer, Rudyard Kipling, did it.
#10
Twenty years ago, I headed to Sweden for a sabbatical year to study the country’s attitudes toward hunting.
Its not and never has been about hunting. It's about protection against a tyrannical government. They just had thrown out a King and his 'regulars'. They were once Englishmen themselves and remember the warning of Cromwell, let alone their readings of the classics of Roman history.
I hunt and target shoot. I would defend myself with a gun should the need arise.
But the primary reason for citizens to own guns is to take out uppity public sector types when they become dangerous to private citizens, should no other peaceful means of doing so exist.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
08/17/2016 7:36
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#12
Thanks P2k. That is and always has been the main point.
#13
We don't have a gun problem, we have a crime problem, a left-wing gun-grabber problem, and a problem with left-wingers not wanting to uphold the Constitution.
#15
Some religions choose not to spell out the word Gawd because they believe to do so is a show of disrespect to Gawd. That is why I spell out Gawd in that manner, the same way yet another ignorant writer, Rudyard Kipling, did it.
Sincerely, the Green Commenter
Ahh yes, Kipling. Many would call him an atheist. Explains everything.
This is not a Christian website, jvalentour. We have no test of faith. Some of us are various flavours of Christian, some are Jewish, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist, even Muslim, just as some of us have melanin levels considerably higher than "white". Get over it or take yourself elsewhere.
#16
Tell this officious pansy that hunting hasn't a god damn thing to do with our second amendment rights. "Arms" is a very different concept from "Guns".
[IsraelTimes] First missions from Iranian airfields target weapons and fuel depots, command posts, Moscow says
Russian warplanes on Tuesday flew out from an Iranian air base to conduct strikes against jihadist groups in war-torn Syria, the defense ministry in Moscow said.
The raids are the first Russia has reported carrying out from a base in Iran since the Kremlin launched its Syrian bombing campaign in support of long-time ally Bashir al-Assad last September.
"On August 16 Tu-22M3 long-range bombers and Su-34 frontline bombers, flying with a full bomb load from the Hamedan air base (Islamic Theocratic Republic of Iran), conducted a group air strike against targets of the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... and Jabhat al-Nusra ...formally Jabhat an-Nusrah li-Ahli sh-Sham (Support Front for the People of the Levant), also known as al-Qaeda in the Levant. They aim to establish a pan-Arab caliphate. Not the same one as the Islamic State, though .. ... terrorist groups in the provinces of Aleppo, Deir Ezzor and Idlib," the ministry said in a statement.
The strikes resulted in the destruction of "five large warehouses with weapons, ammunition and fuel" and jihadist training camps near Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, the village of Saraqeb in the Idlib region and Al-Bab, an IS-held town in Aleppo province, the statement said.
The bombing also targeted three command centers near the village of Jafra and Deir Ezzor, killing "a large number of fighters," Moscow said.
Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu claimed separately in comments aired Monday that Russia and the United States are also close to joining forces around Syria’s ravaged second city of Aleppo, where Russian planes and regime forces are battling rebels for control. Fighting for the city has intensified after regime troops seized control of the last supply route into rebel-held areas in mid-July.
Russian authorities notified the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria shortly before launching a bombing mission from Iran, a U.S. military official said Tuesday.
The coalition has since last year operated a "memorandum of understanding" with Russia, whereby the two military forces notify each other of flights during their separate bombing campaigns to avoid accidents in the skies over Syria.
"The Russians did notify the coalition as per the memorandum of understanding for safety of flight," U.S. military spokesman Colonel Chris Garver said. "They informed us they were coming through and we ensured safety of flight as those bombers passed through the area and toward their target and then when they passed out again. They did not impact coalition operations in either Iraq or Syria during the time."
Seven civilians were killed by projectiles fired by Yemen's Houthi group on the southern Saudi city of Najaran on Tuesday, Saudi state television reported, in one of the deadliest cross-border attacks on the kingdom, Reuters reported.
Ekhbariyah television reported that the Houthis had targeted a crowd at an industrial area in Najran, "resulting in seven martyrs".
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(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – Federal Police Command informed that the Federal Police forces killed a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt and also destroyed an ISIS tunnel in eastern Ramadi.
The Command, in a statement, said, “This morning, Federal Police forces killed a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt and also destroyed an ISIS tunnel of 200 meters long at Khalidiya Island in eastern Ramadi.”
It is worthy to be mentioned here that a majority of the cities in Anbar were controlled by ISIS until the security forces launched extensive liberation battles and managed to regain control of Ramadi City, Heet district, Rutba and Karma Fallujah district after putting up a fierce fight against the ISIS.”
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – At least seven Iraqi border guards were killed and 17 others injured in an ISIS attack at western Anbar on Tuesday, informed an army officer.
Informing about the attack, Colonel Waleed al-Dulaimi said, “ISIS militants attacked a headquarters of Iraqi border guards situated on the road linking Ratba city with the borders of Trebil crossing with Jordan.
“A number of ISIS members were also killed in the attack,” added Dulaimi.
It may be mentioned here that after ISIS captured Mosul and several other areas in mid 2014, Iraq has been suffering from a drastic security vacuum.
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – A source in Anbar Operations Command informed that four members of the border guards Commando Regiment were wounded in a suicide car bombing, which was shortly followed by an armed attack. The attack took place west of Ramadi.
Sharing details the source said, “A booby-trapped vehicle driven by a suicide bomber exploded this morning. The blast was made targeting the Command Regiment of Border Guards forces in al-Saqqar area west of Ramadi, and was followed by an armed attack launched by ISIS members, aresulting in the wounding of four members of the regiment members.”
“Security forces responded to the attack using light and medium weapons and killed tens of ISIS members while the other members managed to escape to the desert,” the source added.
(IraqiNews.com) Anbar – Jazeera and Badiya Operations Command announced that three ISIS members were killed and a cache of weapons was destroyed in an airstrike carried out by the international coalition aviation, which was targeted on an ISIS gathering near Ramadi.
Commander of Jazeera and Badiya Operations Major General Qassim al-Mohamadi in a press statement, said, “International coalition aviation today bombed an ISIS gathering in Hayy al-Bakr, Heet Island some 70 km west of Ramadi, killing three ISIS members and destroying a cache of weapons and rockets.”
“Security forces from Jazeera Operations along with the Engineering Brigade and the 7th Brigade conducted a search operation and seized four plastic containers containing explosive substances and 17 IEDs,” Mohamadi further said, adding, “The security forces also cleaned 10 buildings in Juba of military remnants.”
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E! is reportedly snipping Caitlyn Jenner's reality show "I Am Cait" from its television lineup.
According to a statement from network executives, the decision to cancel the reality show about Jenner's life as a man who identifies as a woman was mutual.
"Caitlyn and E! have mutually decided not to move forward with another season at this time," the statement reads. "She [sic] will always remain a part of the E! family, and we look forward to continue following her [sic] journey as she [sic] appears on 'Keeping Up with the Kardashians.'"
The decision may have had something to do with the show's poor ratings, which had been dismal from the start. Despite an avalanche of positive media coverage surrounding the show's debut, the viewers just weren’t all that interested in watching a show about a man pretending to be a woman.
The African Union forces (AMISOM) in Somalia are reportedly fired mortar rounds on residential areas near the southern port city of Marka on Tuesday.
Residents said AU forces stationed at Ayub camp have bombed villages located on the outskirts of Marka, causing human casualties and property damages. The thud of the mortar bombing could be heard distances away from the area, with reports that AMISOM troops have indiscriminately fired mortars on civilian areas.
Al Shabaab is believed to have hideouts in the areas near the seaside town. The militants have in the past took over the city from SNA and AMISOM forces.
Check the pic at the link: as a kid I had plastic soldiers that were more life-like than these two. And note the blue "U.N." mortar bombs...
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#1
Chicom/russian 82mm.
Ammo is most likely painted blue to contrast with red soil predominating in that part of the world, so as to make finding/disposing of duds easier.
[Ynet] Airstrikes launched by the United States have hit an Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group vehicle and four bully boy positions in Libya, raising the number of U.S. Arclight airstrikes against the bully boy group to 48 since Washington launched its anti-IS campaign in Libya on Aug. 1.
In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Africa Command says it conducted the strikes in the coastal city of Sirte "at the request of, and in coordination with," Libya's United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... -backed government.
The US says the bombing campaign is critical to protecting US national security interests, by denying IS a safe haven in Libya.
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George Soros's Open Society Institute viewed the 2015 Baltimore unrest following the death of Freddie Gray as opening a "unique opportunity" to create "accountability" for the Baltimore police while aiding activists in reforming the city, according to hacked documents reviewed by Breitbart Jerusalem.
The documents further confirm that the Open Society last year approved $650,000 to "invest in technical assistance and support for the groups at the core of the burgeoning #BlackLivesMatter movement."
The information was contained in a detailed 69-page Open Society report on the agenda of an Open Society U.S. Programs board meeting held in New York October 1 to October 2, 2015. Well, somebody had to pick up airfare, hotels, meals and incidentals for their trips to the White House.
SWABI: One SHO was killed and three police personnel were injured in an exchange of fire, with criminals near Machli Chok Zaidan today.
Sources said that on a tip off, police conducted raid on the hideout of proclaimed offenders in Machli Chok. An exchange of fire took place between the police raiding party and the criminals resulting into martyrdom of SHO Zaida police station Asghar Khan. ASI Muhammad Naeem, Constable Zulfikar and Murtaza were injured.
Injured were rushed to Bacha Khan Medical complex.
Meanwhile, a heavy contingent of police conducted a search operation and apprehended eight suspected persons while further investigation is underway.
Now General, we need you to say something nice about the troops
The Army Chief of Staff Qadam Shah Shahim, who is in Helmand, said Tuesday insurgents are trying to take control of the province with the help of regional intelligence agencies and a number of international smugglers but that security forces will not let them succeed.
He said that Helmand has witnessed heavy clashes between security forces and the Taliban in the past few weeks but that the Afghan soldiers are moving forward in their battle.
"The enemies of Afghan people, international terrorists, drug smugglers and the region's intelligence agencies have joined hands to carry out terrorist activities in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, we have witnessed large-scale attacks by the enemies of Afghanistan in Helmand over the past two weeks," he said.
"The Afghan defense and security forces have serious measures on hand to ensure the safety of Afghans all over the country, particularly in Helmand. We will soon change Helmand's situation to normal," he vowed.
Meanwhile, Helmand governor Hayatullah Hayat said that nearly 36 Taliban fighters were killed in Helmand in recent battles.
"They [insurgents] are here to commit crimes [against the people]. I assure you that we will take revenge for our martyrs," the governor said.
Shoulda taken the 3:21 bus to Albuquerque
BEIRUT: Daesh claimed a suicide bombing on a bus in Syria near the Atmeh border crossing with Turkey late on Sunday that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said killed at least 32 people.
The bus was carrying fighters from foreign-backed rebel factions, local rebel sources said.
Daesh terrorists claimed responsibility for the attack in an online statement on Sunday, saying the blast killed 50 fighters from the Failaq Al-Sham and the Nour Al-Din Al-Zinki Movement groups.
The statement said the rebels were from US-backed groups who were traveling to fight Daesh in northern Aleppo province.
Pictures circulating on social media showed the burnt-out remains of a bus and medics treating wounded people.
Turkey’s CNN Turk television reported that the explosion occurred at the entrance to the Atmeh refugee camp in Syria, near the frontier crossing, citing local sources.
The Observatory said it had received reports that two Turkish soldiers had been killed in the attack. Turkish officials were not immediately available for comment.
Syria’s Idlib province, where Atmeh is located, is a bastion of the Turkey-backed opposition to Bashar Assad’s rule. A multi-sided civil war has raged in Syria for more than five years.
Meanwhile, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in comments aired Monday that Moscow is close to joining forces with the United States around Aleppo.
“Step by step we are getting closer to the situation in which — and I’m only speaking about Aleppo here — we will be able to begin battling together so that there is peace on this territory,” Shoigu told Rossiya 24 television.
In the interview conducted on Saturday but shown only Monday, Shoigu said Moscow is in close negotiations regarding the city, where Russian planes and regime forces are battling rebels for control.
Shoigu said Moscow and Washington are still deeply at odds over the situation in Aleppo, accusing rebels of holding civilians hostage and waging brutal suicide bombings.
“In the eastern part of Aleppo, people are hostages,” he said, accusing the rebels of planting bombs along escape routes established by Russia and of staging executions.
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A car bomb killed six people including four police officers and a child outside a police station in southeastern Turkey on Monday, according to senior government officials who blamed the attack on Kurdish militants, Reuters reported.
Twenty-one people, some of the police officers, were wounded in the bombing on a busy road between the city of Diyarbakir, the region's largest, and the district of Bismil, Deputy Prime Ministers Numan Kurtulmus said.
The blast blew out the police station's windows and left the building's twisted metal frame exposed through the concrete and its roof partially collapsed, footage on CNN Turk television showed. There was also a crater in the ground outside.
The dead included a civilian adult and a child of one of the police officers killed.
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ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON -- In coming days, five test pilots here will begin conducting night trials with a new software load for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter helmet that they believe will spell the end to a troubling issue.
Adjustments that decrease the contrast of the Generation III helmet-mounted display should allow pilots of the F-35C to land on aircraft carriers without having their view obscured by the display's ambient light, said Tom Briggs, acting chief test engineer for the Navy.
The service tried out a different fix on its last round of carrier tests aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower in 2015, but test pilots ultimately concluded they hadn't completely solved the issue.
"You could describe it as looking through a dirty window," Briggs said. "It's not so bad on a really bright night. On a dark night it skewers outside light references for pilots. A pilot cannot pick up the lights on the carrier as well as he'd like to, he doesn't necessarily pick up non-lighted signals on the ship as he's taxiing around, he has a harder time picking out aircraft that are flying around."
At $400,000 apiece, the F-35's helmet is as high-tech as the aircraft itself, with display features that let pilots "see" through the plane's skin and receive constantly updated information on the visor. The "green glow" problem with this visor display obscuring the field beyond it in dark conditions was first reported in 2012.
Briggs said two pilots had reported good results in an initial test with the new helmet update and officials were hopeful they have found the right solution. It's especially crucial that this round of fixes works because the Navy is beginning to conduct carrier qualifications for operational pilots as well as test pilots on the F-35C, and they won't be able to complete night qualifications until the problem is resolved.
Capt. James Christie, commanding officer of Strike Fighter Squadron-101, which had 12 pilot-instructors complete daytime carrier qualifications on the F-35C this week, said he hoped software updates would be approved and close to being retrofitted to all F-35 helmets by the end of the year.
Christie said the decreased contrast setting is likely to help all pilots who operate in especially dark environments, without aid from the 'cultural light' of nearby cities. But on carriers out in the middle of the ocean, it was crucial.
"I think we just kind of stomped our feet and said, "we need to have this to be safe around the ship,'" he said.
Briggs said nighttime helmet tests were expected to kick off Aug. 20, during the darkest phase of the moon.
"So we're going to go out on a really dark night and we're going to do our final evaluation on the green glow," he said. "And we think that that problem is solved."
The third and final round of carrier tests for the F-35C will continue until Aug. 23. The aircraft, which will be used by both the Navy and the Marine Corps for carrier operations, is expected to reach initial operational capability near the end of 2018.
#6
Perhaps the basic airframe of the F-35 is a good airplane, capable of doing everything they claim it can do.
Unfortunately the techies have loaded a good airframe up with a bunch of goobledegook software and avionics features that pilots don't need and only the REMFs want. Last I checked, the major hold up on the F-35 was that goshawful logistics software that monitored every nut bolt and screw on the poor beast and gave a running spit out of things to fix and parts to order...methinks the logistics package is the big boondoggle here.
The essence of a good weapons system is to keep it simple and easy to repair...how many MIT PhDs in computer science are going to be needed to do first echelon diagnostics on the software?
Local officials in Farah said the Taliban publicly executed five soldiers and one civilian in the province on Monday afternoon.
Zafar 207 Corps said in a statement that the victims included three army soldiers, two police force members and a civilian who were executed by Taliban in Juma Bazaar area in Bakwa district.
The victims were taken hostage by Taliban when they were on their way to their offices a few weeks ago.
That's fuel-air explosives for those of you in Eurostan
Syrian and Russian warplanes have repeatedly used incendiary weapons in “disgraceful” attacks on civilians in northern Syria, Human Rights Watch charged Tuesday.
The rights group said it had documented the use of incendiary weapons at least 18 times since June that had resulted in more than a dozen injuries.
There was “compelling evidence” that Russia was supporting Syrian government planes in those attacks, the New York-based watchdog said.
“The Syrian government and Russia should immediately stop attacking civilian areas with incendiary weapons,” said HRW arms director Steve Goose.
“The disgraceful incendiary weapon attacks in Syria show an abject failure to adhere to international law restricting incendiary weapons,” he said.
When dropped from aircraft, incendiary weapons leave distinctive trails of explosives in the sky and trigger small, intense fires upon contact.
They were used widely during the Vietnam war and are banned by the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.
HRW documented attacks with such weapons since early June, including two cases on August 7 that hit opposition-controlled parts of the cities of Aleppo and Idlib.
“I could clearly see the flames bursting,” said Idlib resident Mohammad Taj Al-Din Othman, who supplied HRW with photos of the attack.
“Within 10 minutes, there were more strikes. The fire was unbelievable, it turned night into day.”
A civil defence volunteer told HRW: “The fire took over everything, houses, cars, oil tanks, and even grass.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said it too had documented the use of thermite — a type of incendiary substance — by Russian planes in Idlib, Aleppo and Deir Ezzor provinces, and Raqa.
And earlier this month, activists in Daraya, a besieged rebel-held town near Damascus, accused the regime of using banned chemical agent napalm against residents there.
All sides of Syria’s complex war have exchanged accusations of attacks against civilians and use of unconventional weapons including chlorine and mustard gas.
HRW said the use of incendiary weapons in Syria had “increased significantly” since Russia began its air war in support of Damascus on September 30, 2015.
In a letter to HRW in November, Russia acknowledged that “improper use” of incendiary weapons had resulted in “significant humanitarian damage” in Syria.
Since 2012, HRW has documented the use of four different incendiary weapons in Syria, all manufactured by the former Soviet Union.
More than 290,000 people have been killed and millions forced to flee their homes since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011.
[ARA News] HASAKAH – Clashes erupted Tuesday between the Kurds and the Syrian regime forces in the northeastern city of Hasakah. It’s unclear how many were killed in the clashes.
Clashes broke out between the Kurdish security police [Asayish] and the pro-regime National Defence Forces in the city centre of Hasakah, near the Hasakah market, after regime forces attacked Kurdish positions on Tuesday afternoon.
Hundreds of civilians fled the market after violence resumed in the city center. Reportedly, several civilians were injured.
“PYD [Kurdish Democratic Union Party] has thus far been trying to bypass the Syrian regime by fostering relations with Russia at the expense of the Syrian state,” Ceng Sagnic, a researcher with the Tel Aviv-based Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, told ARA News.
“As such, escalated tensions between PYD and Syrian regime forces are not any surprise,” he said.
Moreover, analysts suggest the Syrian government rejects any form of federalism in northern Syria, and is not happy with the plans of the Kurdish-led local administration to move towards federalism in northern Syria and Rojava–announced in March this year.
There have been serious rifts between the two sides over the last few months. In late April, heavy clashes took pace between the regime and the Kurdish security forces.
In late July, there were also clashes between a pro-regime militia and the Kurds.
Furthermore, Kurdish officials blamed the regime for facilitating an ISIS attack in the city of Qamishli on 27 July that killed over 50 civilians.
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The Independent National Yemeni Commission of Inquiry into alleged human rights violations recorded more than 9,817 alleged violations in various regions of Yemen from March up until now. According to the Commission, the violations included 3,054 cases of civilians being killed, amongst them 129 children and 102 women. In addition to this, 3,906 people were wounded as a result of armed conflict during the period from March 2015 until the 30th of July 2016. The Commission is monitoring and investigating 450 cases of extrajudicial killings and 387 cases relating to the recruitment of child soldiers.
The Commission explained that it is also investigating 358 cases of arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances during the period of war (2015 to 2016), in addition to 81 cases of planting mines in the various provinces of Yemen. It is also investigating the bombing of 143 homes in a number of provinces.
The head of the Commission Judge Qahir Mustafa Ali expressed his disappointment in UNHCHR and said that the Commission’s relationship with the UNHCHR is limited to letters of public questions posed and does not involve the technical and advisory competence that it was relying on from the UNHCHR. However, he made amends by saying “The relationship with the UNHCHR is good and we continue to communicate with them”.
During the United Nations Human Rights Council’s thirtieth session that was held in Geneva in September 2015, it decided to establish the above mentioned commission and requested that the UN High commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) provide specialist assistance to the investigative committee. The commission said that “The UNHCHR did not provide any kind of specialist and technical support according to the decisions of the UN Human Rights Council and merely sent letters that sometimes included questions that had nothing to do with specialist and technical support. Despite this, the Commission is keen to cooperate with the UNHCHR and provide written responses to those questions according to what the decision to establish the Commission permits, its regulations and the national laws in effect”.
A special forces commander of the Taliban group was arrested during a clash with the Afghan security forces in northern Kunduz province of Afghanistan.
The Ministry of Interior (MoI) said the Taliban commander was identified as Faizullah who was leading the special forces of the Taliban in Kunduz province.
MoI further added that Faizullah was arrested after attacking a security post in Chardara district.
The Taliban militants group has not commented regarding the report so far.
Numerous senior Taliban commanders have been killed or detained by the Afghan forces since the group announced its spring offensive earlier in April this year.
The shadow district governor of the group for Imam Sahib was killed during an operation in this province last week.
“Yesterday evening, Afghan National Security Forces launched a joint clearance operation to clear armed Taliban from Now Abad village of Emam Sahib District of northern Kunduz province,” Moi said on August 10th.
The Taliban militants intensified attacks in Kunduz after announcing its spring offensive with an aim to capture some of the key districts but the attacks were repulsed by the Afghan forces.
The militants of the group also kidnapped several passengers from the main highway of Kunduz province late in May and in mid-June this year.
[ARA News] ALEPPO – Clashes continued on Tuesday between the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and rebel groups in Aleppo, after Syrian rebels threatened the Kurds in the city.
“There is a constant and indiscriminate bombardment by the opposition radical groups to target the largest possible number of Kurdish civilians and others in Sheikh Maqsoud who fled from war-torn city of Aleppo,” YPG official Salah Jamil told ARA News.
Syrian opposition rebels have accused the YPG of helping Syrian regime to take control of positions in Aleppo. But the YPG rejected it, and have accused the rebels of indiscriminately bombing residential areas.
“The joint attacks launched by the terrorists of Sultan Murad brigade, Ahrar al-Sham, the 16th Brigade, the Conquest Brigade, Fastaqim Kama Umirt group, the 13th Brigade, the Northern Division and the Nour ad-Din Zanki Brigades on the Kurdish neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in the city of Aleppo are still ongoing,” the YPG said in a statement.
“Islamist rebel groups have launched on 12, 13 August different attacks on the neighborhood, however the attacks were responded by our forces which engaged with them in clashes lead to kill 4 rebel fighters and destroying vehicle,” the YPG leadership added.
Syrian rebels threatened the Kurds last week after breaking the regime siege on eastern Aleppo.
Major Yasser Abd al-Rahim, Commander of the rebel group of Fatah Halab Operations Chamber in Aleppo, threatened the YPG last week, and vowed they will ‘not find a place to bury their dead in Aleppo’. The YPG condemned the statement.
Writers are such whores.
[FreeBeacon] A Washington Post writer who recently claimed that a $400 million cash payment to Iran was “American diplomacy at its finest” failed to disclose that he has been on the payroll of an organization that emerged as a chief architect of the White House’s self-described campaign to build a pro-Iran “echo chamber,” according to information obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Allen S. Weiner, a Stanford law professor and contributor to the Post’s opinions section,
The professor plays public intellectual?
He was looking to be WaPo's resident Paul Krugman...
co-authored a piece arguing in favor of the Obama administration’s decision to pay Iran $400 million in hard currency in what many described as a “ransom payment” for the release of several U.S. hostages.
Weiner and the Post failed to disclose that the writer has long been on the payroll of the Ploughshares Fund, an organization recently exposed as a key cog in a White House-orchestrated campaign to build what it called a pro-Iran “echo chamber.”
Ah. The good professor is one of those public-private partnerships, all in his dear little self.
Ploughshares provided millions of dollars to writers and experts who publicly pushed for last summer’s nuclear deal with Iran. Senior White House officials subsequently cited the group as its top pro-Iran ally.
The Post’s failure to disclose Weiner’s ties has raised questions about its commitment to journalistic ethics and is reminiscent of a recent scandal concerning National Public Radio, which was forced to run a series of corrections due to its own failure to disclose monetary ties to Ploughshares.
“This is becoming a pattern with the Washington Post,” said one senior foreign policy observer who works with a range of newspapers on Iran coverage. “In the last few weeks their journalists have quoted people who get Ploughshares money and their op-ed page has run opinions by people who get Ploughshares money—and none of it was disclosed.” More at the link
#1
WaPo writer has a conflict of interest. Not a surprising revelation. What's a Weiner doing supporting Iran? Is he part of the hate America, hate Israel crowd?
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 Caller] An Egyptian-born Italian member of the European Parliament has declared mosques are terror factories and should be eliminated.
[DeutscheWelle] Members of Germany's government have accused Turkey's regime of supporting militant groups in the Middle East, public media report. ARD cited a classified document sent from the Interior Ministry to the Left party. 
In the first six months of this year, foreign central banks sold a net $192 billion of U.S. Treasury bonds, more than double the pace in the same period last year, when they sold $83 billion.
...Self-proclaimed holy man who used to work for Omar Mohammed Bakdri as spokesman for al-Muhajiroun. Anjem is a loathesome little attention prostitute who is to be heard cheering for the home team anytime anybody with a turban manages to slaughter a group of unarmed infidels. Anjem was born in the UK in 1967 and is, as you would expect, of Pakistaini descent. The Ghost of Dante is of the opinion that when he goes to hell his knees will be broken once a month...
A lefty French satirical magazine, home of what may well be the majority if the active testicles left in Europe...
E! is reportedly snipping Caitlyn Jenner's reality show "I Am Cait" from its television lineup.
George Soros's Open Society Institute viewed the 2015 Baltimore unrest following the death of Freddie Gray as opening a "unique opportunity" to create "accountability" for the Baltimore police while aiding activists in reforming the city, according to hacked documents reviewed by Breitbart Jerusalem.
A car bomb killed six people including four police officers and a child outside a police station in southeastern Turkey on Monday, according to senior government officials who blamed the attack on Kurdish militants, Reuters reported.
ABOARD THE USS GEORGE WASHINGTON -- In coming days, five test pilots here will begin conducting night trials with a new software load for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter helmet that they believe will spell the end to a troubling issue.
