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Today: 59 articles and 148 comments as of 15:35.
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Car bomb and all-night hotel siege kill 26 in Somalia's Kismayo
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
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5 23:25 Dron66046 [1] 
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5 12:30 Abu Uluque [] 
4 14:40 SteveS [1] 
3 10:00 Warthog [1] 
Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 6: Politix
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-Land of the Free
Hot Tip: If You Throw Molotovs, The Police Will Probably Shoot You
[Hot Air] Apparently, this isn’t the type of story the media likes to talk about very much. A guy showed up at an ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington yesterday, armed with a rifle and a duffle bag full of Molotov cocktails and other improvised "incendiary devices." Needless to say, he wasn’t there to help with their lawn care. After the literal fireworks began, police showed up on the scene. How the encounter precisely played out isn’t clear yet, but the Molotov man wound up at room temperature. Fortunately, none of the responding officers were injured. (Daily Beast)
That would be Willem Van Spronsen, 69, longtime violent Antifa activist, who was committing suicide by cop.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2019 07:45 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ICE should be prepared to defend their own facilities.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 07/15/2019 10:06 Comments || Top||

#2 
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/15/2019 10:52 Comments || Top||

#3  about that ratkill we were discussing a few days ago......
Posted by: Vespasian Spavique4524 || 07/15/2019 11:14 Comments || Top||

#4  Ice facilities should be on the border.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 07/15/2019 11:41 Comments || Top||

#5  Sorry, grom. That was leftie has been Ed Asner trying to act like a tough guy and to heck with tear gas. If they come with rifles and Molotov cocktails or if they try to lower the American flag and raise the Mexican flag this would be more appropriate:

Posted by: Abu Uluque || 07/15/2019 12:30 Comments || Top||


Economy
Shoplifting harms store owners, state Retailers bear burden of ‘no-prosecute' policy
[Boston Herald] Thanks to this week’s green light from The Boston Planning & Development Agency, Plan: Dudley Square is moving ahead on its development track.

And of the four sites set for building projects: 75-81 Dudley St., 2147 Washington St., 135 Dudley St. and 40-50 Washington St., at least one 75-81 Dudley, lists retail establishments among the components of its mixed use development.

Plan: Dudley is hardly the only planning/construction venture fueling our city’s growth spurt ‐ The Hub on Causeway, 1000 Boylston, Back Bay Station/Tower and The Fenway Center will join the other gleaming towers in Boston’s skyline. These enterprises are also designed with "mixed use" in mind ‐ retail operations eager for customers and a chance to grow their Hub market.

One question: How do you attract ‐ and keep ‐ retailers when the county’s district attorney has declared shoplifting off-limits for prosecution?

It’s a point that’s top of mind with the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, which recently lambasted Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins’ hands-off policy on prosecuting shoplifters, and in a story reported by the Herald’s Lisa Kashinsky, said Rollins’ move made it "open season on our retail stores."

The notion that because shoplifting is a non-violent crime, it’s low-level and therefore unimportant clearly has little empathy for the store owner with razor-thin profit margins, trying to make a living while his or her inventory walks out the door.

How bad can it be? Massachusetts businesses lose an estimated $1 billion annually in stolen merchandise, Retailers Association General Counsel Ryan Kearney told Kashinsky. And those five-finger discounts leave the state roughly $62.5 million short in sales tax revenue.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2019 08:21 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Retailers bear burden of 'No prosecute' Policy.

Only until they can accurately calculate the costs of shrinkage, then make up the prices. Just another 'hidden tax' the honest consumer must pay. It's only fair.

Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2019 8:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Have the shops considered the proven track record of mafia legbreakers? Nothing adds that personal touch like Hired Goons. I'm quite sure shoplifting won't be a problem after the first few 'examples' turn up. Floating in a pool of cement.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 07/15/2019 13:36 Comments || Top||

#3  These people are not shoplifters. They are just people making an undocumented withdrawal from inventory.

Of course, if you don't prosecute shoplifters, they will become more and more bold. Eventually, people will just start walking out with the merchandise. I mean, why pay when you can just take it, and no one can do anything?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 07/15/2019 16:41 Comments || Top||

#4  There is also a limit on how much retailers can pass along as their costs. If it gets to high, then a black or grey market appears to replace the retail stores. Then when the gimme's try to rob a black market location you'll see disappearances.
Posted by: Snavimble Bucket1794 || 07/15/2019 20:28 Comments || Top||

#5  I don't understand. How does a county DA declare a constitutional directive/provision 'off-limits' ? 'Petty larceny' I believe it's called. Are lawyers going to face action for taking up cases against shoplifters ? If the cop catches a thief in the act, how does the DA disallow normal prosecution ? Can somebody walking out with goods not be detained by the store and handed to cops ? How does it work ?

Also, I found this , which explains the 'why'.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 07/15/2019 23:25 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Field experiment uses fake emails to measure gender and racial bias among startup investors, [finds bias against white males].
[PHYS.org] During his six years teaching a course on financing for startups, Ilya A. Strebulaev heard a common concern from students: Silicon Valley investors discriminate against women and people of color.

A finance professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business, Strebulaev had encountered plenty of anecdotes to support this assumption. Often-cited statistics also seemed to suggest gender bias: For every dollar invested in startups with female founders in 2017, male-founded companies got $35. And fewer than 10 percent of U.S. venture capitalists are women.

Yet no field-based research had proven that startup investors favored white men. So Strebulaev set out to test the conventional wisdom in the real world.

Along with Will Gornall, his former student and a finance professor at the University of British Columbia, Strebulaev sent 80,000 emails pitching fake startups to 28,000 venture capitalists and angel investors, signed with names indicating gender and ethnicity. The results of the field experiment were unexpected: Entrepreneurs with female and Asian-sounding names received a higher rate of interested replies than their presumed male or white counterparts.
80,000 emails - so he's a spammer
"We were surprised to find bias in favor of female and Asian entrepreneurs at this initial stage of the investment pipeline," Strebulaev says. "That doesn't mean there's no discrimination against them overall—we know the pipeline is leaky, but we don't know where."
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 07/15/2019 08:23 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A progress report for progressives.
Posted by: Bobby || 07/15/2019 8:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Surely they are all bigoted, racist, and evil.

[sarc off]
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2019 8:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Hold on there, perfesser... your test of bias is based on - what, willingness to hear a blind pitch? Is this a joke?

Has it occurred to the researchers that maybe junior VC's get brownie points for going through the motions of hearing BS pitches from minority entrepreneurs?

Is this what passes for a rigorously empirical social science experiment these days?
Posted by: Lex || 07/15/2019 10:23 Comments || Top||

#4 

This just proves that most people are gullible.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 07/15/2019 11:37 Comments || Top||

#5  I worked in venture capital before retiring. Lex is correct. Unsolicited proposals with no connection to know referrers go in the trash, or are routed to the most junior team members. Who are free to virtue signal since since nothing ever comes of such referrals.

This 'study' is meaningless, and a Stanford prof should know that.
Posted by: Nero || 07/15/2019 11:57 Comments || Top||

#6  Is this what passes for a rigorously empirical social science experiment these days?


And has this ever been different? social science is and has always been oxymoronic.
Posted by: AlanC || 07/15/2019 15:05 Comments || Top||

#7  Anti social pseudoscience.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 07/15/2019 16:16 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Mark Levin: Airport Bookstores Refuse to Carry My Book 'Unfreedom of the Press'
[PJ] Popular conservative radio talker Mark Levin is furious. Despite the success of his new book Unfreedom of the Press, airport bookstores refuse to sell it. This while they are carrying Jim Acosta's failed book, The Enemy of the People.

"See the book display this morning at Reagan National Airport (below)," Levin writes in a Facebook post with a photo attached. "For some reason, airport bookstores throughout the country refuse to carry UNFREEDOM OF THE PRESS, which has been a best seller for nearly two months and has sold hundreds of thousands of copies!"

Levin doesn't exaggerate the success of his latest book. He announced on May 30 that it had debuted "#1 on the New York Times bestseller list." It has now been on the list for seven weeks on a row. It currently claims a third position in the "Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction" category, which makes it very likely that it'll be on the list for the rest of the summer (if not longer).

Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2019 07:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Big city airports are little more than a federal government entitlement appendages. When was the last time you watched Fox News on a departure gate overhead? There is a method to the madness.

A shunned Jewish truth teller and author, who knew ?

Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2019 7:59 Comments || Top||

#2  How many actually buy paper books at the airport nowadays, instead of preemptively loading up their preferred electronic device before leaving home?
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/15/2019 11:28 Comments || Top||

#3  How many read books?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 07/15/2019 11:32 Comments || Top||

#4  eye jus luk ata piktuhs
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 07/15/2019 11:46 Comments || Top||


Shocking New Study Suggests Disagreeing With Gay, Trans People Not Same As Hating Them
[Babylon Bee] U.S.‐A shocking new study published Monday by The Barna Group seemed to suggest that disagreeing with gay or transgender people on lifestyle and/or social issues is not the same thing as hating them, causing an uproar on the internet and college campuses across the nation.

The study followed thousands of self-identified Christians who support traditional marriage and gender definitions, and found that while they disagree with the current cultural narrative on gender and sex, the majority of them do not harbor hatred for gay and transgender people, with most treating them just like they treat most other people in their daily lives.

"Our startling research strongly suggests that just because a person disagrees with people who are homosexual or transsexual, and even questions the principles, assumptions, and logic behind their worldviews, for religious or other reasons, this does not necessarily mean that they despise them to the inner core of their being," a Barna representative told reporters. "While there are exceptions, our study indicates that it is not always appropriate to automatically correlate conservative social stances on sex and gender to bigoted homophobia and transphobia."
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2019 05:02 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Babylon Bee speaks the truth.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 07/15/2019 7:27 Comments || Top||

#2  I'll bet a real study on homosexuals will show that 90% of them are unable to hold positions of responsibility for long, have substance abuse issues and die lonely and possibly insane.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 07/15/2019 11:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Higher than the general population, very likely. All things s3xual are fraught. But not anything like 90%, Dron64066, as our own ryuge could testify if he and his partner were not otherwise engaged mourning the death of his father not long ago.
Posted by: trailing wife || 07/15/2019 12:18 Comments || Top||

#4  our own ryuge could testify if he and his partner were not otherwise engaged mourning the death of his father not long ago.

Sorry to hear that. Condolences.
Posted by: SteveS || 07/15/2019 14:40 Comments || Top||


Government
Travesty in Arizona: Disabled Vet Loses His Home over $236 in Unpaid Taxes
[American Thinker] In 1991, Air Force veteran Jim Boerner suffered "spinal and brain injuries" during a training exercise at Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi. Until recently, he had been the proud owner of a mobile home in a Mesa, Arizona mobile home community. He "loves his neighbors" there and "brings flowers to widowed neighbors on Christmas, Easter, and Mother's Day," Rebekah L. Sanders of the Arizona Republic writes.

He had purchased the home, his "nest egg," as he refers to it, for a sum somewhere just north of $30K, according to the article.

Now, at age 49, he is on the verge of being evicted by the new owner of that mobile home, which was seized by the government for Boerner's having been delinquent on his taxes ‐ to the tune of an unpaid amount of $236. The home's buyer, named Lester Payne, purchased the home at auction for the trifling sum of $4,400.

Calling this purchase a "steal" may be more literal than our more colloquial use of the term.

We should be clear. This is not the legal confiscation of a bank-owned item, like a car or a home, due to a breach of contract for required payments. This was a government deciding that, due to $236 of unpaid taxes, it had the right to confiscate a ~$30K home owned outright by an individual, then selling it to the highest bidder and pocketing the proceeds (which were roughly 15% of the initial purchase price).

This, in any other circumstances, would rightfully be declared the theft of this man's property. A "steal," indeed.
Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2019 04:49 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This was a government deciding that, due to $236 of unpaid taxes, it had the right to confiscate a ~$30K home owned outright by an individual, then selling it to the highest bidder and pocketing the proceeds (which were roughly 15% of the initial purchase price).

You can't pay the taxes gov't rent, someone else will. Private property ownership is an illusion.

Posted by: Besoeker || 07/15/2019 4:53 Comments || Top||

#2  ^ what he said.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 07/15/2019 8:22 Comments || Top||

#3  1. Start a Go-Fund me site for Jim
2. Take the first $5K and have the neighbors "encourage" the new owner to sell it back. "We don't think you'll be happy here". Yes I'll award a profit for his trouble.
3. Set up an account to forward pay his taxes for the next 10 years.
4. Make sure this travesty is publicized appropriately in the local media and by Veteran's groups. Tag line - "The Gov't is turning veterans into the homeless"
Posted by: Warthog || 07/15/2019 10:00 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2019-07-15
  Car bomb and all-night hotel siege kill 26 in Somalia's Kismayo
Sun 2019-07-14
  African Migrants Turned Church Into Base to Deal Heroin
Sat 2019-07-13
  Kismayo attack: 26 dead as gunmen storm Somali hotel
Fri 2019-07-12
  Labor Sec. Alex Acosta Resigns Amid Pall of Jeffrey Epstein Investigation
Thu 2019-07-11
  Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps boats tried, failed to seize British oil tanker in Persian Gulf
Wed 2019-07-10
  Egyptian Court Convicts Al-Azhar Professor, Others For Spying For Iran
Tue 2019-07-09
  Hafiz Multan, Taliban’s deputy Red Unit commander killed in Kandahar
Mon 2019-07-08
  Bouteflika’s ex-party chief detained in Algeria corruption probe
Sun 2019-07-07
  Radioactive material worth $72m seized from car in Turkey
Sat 2019-07-06
  Deal between protest leaders and Sudan’s ruling generals
Fri 2019-07-05
  Second ‘son of Hamas’ leaves terror group, exposing corruption, Turkish spy ring
Thu 2019-07-04
  Wishing all Rantburgers a happy and safe Independence Day!
Wed 2019-07-03
  Airstrike hits migrant detention center in Libya, 40 killed
Tue 2019-07-02
  Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher found not guilty on murder and attempted murder charges
Mon 2019-07-01
  Seven Sudanese protesters killed, 181 wounded in Sunday demonstrations

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