Love the plane. Hate the price tag.
An F-22 Raptor crashed Friday morning during a routine training flight near Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The F-22, assigned to the 325 Fighter Wing, crashed at approximately 9:15 a.m. Eastern time. The pilot was able to eject safely and is being evaluated by the 96th Medical Group at the base, she said. The crash occurred roughly 12 miles northeast of Eglin on the test and training range; no injuries have been reported.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/16/2020 11:29 ||
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Winchester made 828,059, followed by Underwood Elliott-Fisher at 545,616, Saginaw Steering Gear 517,212, IBM at 346,500, Standard Products at 247,000, Rock-Ola (yes, the juke box maker), with 228,500, Quality Hardware at 359,666, National Postal Meter at 413,017 and Irwin-Pedersen made a few thousand but had trouble.May 14, 2015
[ExpressInform] A businessman accidentally left his camera on while taking a shower during a Zoom conference call with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro.
The embarrassing slip-up happened during a virtual meeting organised by Paulo Skaf, the president of the Federation of Industries of the State of Sao Paulo.
A screen grab of the call shows a shirtless man — reportedly one of the federation’s advisers — next to 24 other stone-faced officials.
A businessman accidentally left his camera on while taking a shower (bottom right) during a Zoom conference call with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro.
[AlphaNewsMN] The University of Minnesota (UMN) says it developed the predictive models used to justify Governor Tim Walz’s economic shutdowns in one weekend, enlisting the help of students.
[LI] Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo extended the state’s stay-at-home order until June 18, which means more economic fallout.
A day later, over 3,000 people in Queens lined up at a food pantry starting at 5 a.m.
St. Bartholomew Catholic Church in Queens can only do so much for the community since the priests cannot have people in the church.
The priests feel frustrated and want to do more for the community. So they started a food pantry with the help of Catholic Charities. People began to line up at 5 a.m.
And who, pray tell, do you world leaders intend should pay for this largess? From a different direction, one must wonder how this was handled in the past — the last time such a thing happened being one of the influenzas, or perhaps the Spanish flu pamdemic of 1918ff.
[AnNahar] World leaders past and present insisted on Thursday that any eventual COVID-19 vaccines and treatments should be made available to everyone, free of charge.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Pak Prime Minister Imran Khan ...aka The Great Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality disorders... were among more than 140 signatories of a letter saying any vaccine should not be patented while the science should be shared between nations.
The World Health Assembly, the policy-setting body of the UN's World Health Organization, holds its annual general meeting next week.
The letter comes amid fury in La Belle France after pharmaceutical giant Sanofi said it would reserve first shipments of any COVID-19 vaccine for the United States.
The French multinational's chief executive Paul Hudson said the United States would get first dibs because its government was helping to fund the vaccine research. His comments drew outrage Thursday from officials and health experts.
The letter ahead of the WHA said it was not the time to leave the task of resolving the pandemic to market forces or let the interests of wealthy companies and governments come before the need to save lives.
More than 12,000 donors have signed up to various community programs donating blood plasma since April 4, donor organizers told the New York Times
Thousands of Americans who have recovered from coronavirus are donating their blood to plasma clinics so it can be used to treat others
Orthodox Jews from New York are 'punching way above their weight' when it comes to donating, one medic said
Several grassroots initiatives have sprung up in local New York communities, with the word spreading via synagogues and community newsletters
Experts and leaders say the drive comes from the community's traditional close-knit approach and the importance the religion places on human life
Borough Park, Williamsburg and Crown Heights in Brooklyn are all home to large Hasidic communities and they have all recorded high virus infection rates
It is no secret that Iran has been hit hard by the coronavirus. Official government figures show that around 100,000 people were infected by the virus and around 6,500 have died. But a report by the research arm of Iran’s parliament said the number of cases could be eight to 10 times higher, making it among the hardest hit countries in the world. The report said the number of deaths could be 80 percent higher than officials numbers from the Health Ministry, about 11,700.
The Iranian government is currently reporting a decline in the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths in many areas, even though local authorities are expanding cemeteries in places like Tehran where the municipal council said it had to add 10,000 new graves to its largest cemetery, Behesht e-Zahra.
Two more migrants quarantined on Lesbos test positive for COVID-19
[AlAhram] Two asylum seekers recently arrived on Greece's Lesbos island, the site of the country's biggest migrant camp, have tested positive for the coronavirus, migration ministry sources said on Friday. The cases, doubling the island's COVID-19 infection tally on to four, were among 70 arrivals there so far during May.
Since March 1, all migrants who reach Lesbos have been quarantined away from the island's camps. Those include the overcrowded Moria facility, hosting more than 17,500 asylum seekers by the latest official count on May 13 and frequently criticised by aid groups for poor living conditions. There have been no documented coronavirus cases there, however.
A wise politician notices the direction the parade is going, making sure to position himself in the front of the column .
The Finger Lakes, Southern Tier, Mohawk Valley, the North Country, and Central NY are ready to begin Phase 1 of reopening tomorrow.
The others can be UN-PAUSED the moment they hit their benchmarks.
Dutch Dog Infected with Coronavirus
[AnNahar] Dutch authorities on Friday reported the country's first coronavirus case in a dog and infections in three cats, but said chances of contamination through pets were minimal.
The eight-year-old bulldog belonged to a COVID-19 patient and appeared to have been infected by its owner, Dutch Agriculture Minister Carola Schouten said. The dog was put down at the end of April.
The three cats were found at a mink farm where the mink were found to have coronavirus in April.
Some of the same scientists who identified Novichok, the nerve agent used in the Salisbury poisoning, have been helping to analyse Covid-19 and finding ways to protect NHS staff.
The BBC's Defence Correspondent Jonathan Beale has been given exclusive access to the site.
#14
This is why we're so tired of being subjected to ridiculously inconsistent, wildly inaccurate guesstimates of how many deaths were actually caused by COVID: because the people doing the counting are over-counting, and applying attribution logic that was not applied in previous years to any other infectious disease.
The last word belongs to retired NHS pathologist Dr. John Lee, who below explains why the Johns Hopkins data is unreliable, if not actually garbage:
Dr. John Lee
The Spectator (UK version)
29 March 2020
Unfortunately nuance tends to be lost in the numbers quoted from the database being used to track Covid-19: the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. It has compiled a huge database, with Covid-19 data from all over the world, updated daily – and its figures are used, world over, to track the virus. This data is not standardised and so probably not comparable, yet this important caveat is seldom expressed by the (many) graphs we see. It risks exaggerating the quality of data that we have.
The distinction between dying ‘with’ Covid-19 and dying ‘due to’ Covid-19 is not just splitting hairs.
Consider some examples: an 87-year-old woman with dementia in a nursing home; a 79-year-old man with metastatic bladder cancer; a 29-year-old man with leukaemia treated with chemotherapy; a 46-year-old woman with motor neurone disease for 2 years.
All develop chest infections and die. All test positive for Covid-19. Yet all were vulnerable to death by chest infection from any infective cause (including the flu). Covid-19 might have been the final straw, but it has not caused their deaths.
Consider two more cases: a 75-year-old man with mild heart failure and bronchitis; a 35-year-old woman who was previously fit and well with no known medical conditions. Both contract a chest infection and die, and both test positive for Covid-19.
In the first case it is not entirely clear what weight to place on the pre-existing conditions versus the viral infection – to make this judgement would require an expert clinician to examine the case notes. The final case would reasonably be attributed to death caused by Covid-19, assuming it was true that there were no underlying conditions....
[Jpost] Taiwan's health minister rejected on Friday China's main condition for the island to be able to take part in the World Health Organization (WHO) - that it accepts it is part of China - ahead of a key meeting of the body during a pandemic.
Non-WHO member Taiwan has lobbied to take part as an observer in next week's World Heath Assembly (WHA), drawing strong objections from Beijing, which considers Taiwan to be one of its provinces.
Taiwan says the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic has made it more urgent than ever that it be allowed proper access to the WHO.
China says Taiwan can only participate under the "one China" principle, in which it accepts it is a part of China.
China's Foreign Ministry said on Thursday that Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party refused to do this, and so the political foundation for Taiwan's WHO participation had "ceased to exist."
Speaking at a news conference in Taipei to press home Taiwan's desire to take part, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said there was no way Taiwan would do this.
"I have no way to accept something which does not exist," Chen said, adding that Taiwan would not give up efforts to attend the health assembly, even though it has not received an invitation.
The issue has taken on broader diplomatic significance thanks to the strong support from the United States and Japan in particular for Taiwan to attend the WHA, to China's anger.
China says it has the right to represent Taiwan on the international stage. Taiwan says that only its democratically elected government can speak for the island's 23 million people.
"We can represent our own people," Taiwan Deputy Foreign Minister Kelly Hsieh told the same news conference in Taipei. "We hope the WHO can set aside political considerations, and be neutral and professional."
Taiwan attended the WHA as an observer from 2009-2016 when Taipei-Beijing relations were warmer.
But China blocked further participation after the election of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who China views as a separatist, an accusation she rejects.
The WHO says it has no mandate to invite Taiwan to the WHA and that only member states can decide.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/16/2020 6:31 Comments ||
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#2
So, call me when its near Yellowstone. Need to restock my mask supplies (that will be needed when I'm on the roof shoveling ash off to prevent its collapse).
This may not seem important to the average Rantburger, but we're talking about the biggest site in the (Western) internet possibly having a backdoor vulnerability.
#2
On top of the impact on existing businesses, you wonder how many people will refrain from starting new businesses because of the increased risk. And this is before the tort lawyers have really gotten started.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/16/2020 15:04 Comments ||
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#3
This is a good time for Chinese interests to be buying up US meat packing companies and Hollywood studios. Or do they already have enough?
From a week ago, but still of interest. Posted in response to the discussion in this thread yesterday.
[Money.USNews] Amid the carnage of the U.S. employment report for April was one bright spot: superstores led by Walmart Inc , the world's largest retailer, added more than 90,000 jobs.
Overall, roughly 20.5 million people lost their jobs in April, the U.S. Labor Department said on Friday, a wipeout of jobs at a rate not seen since the 1930s. The unemployment rate jumped to 14.7%, although some economists estimate the true level is closer to 20% due to misclassifications of workers.
Almost across the board, sector after sector reported precipitous drops in overall employment in April, even though some major players within industries - from online sales to grocery shopping and pharmacies - have seen surges in demand in response to the novel coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... pandemic and "stay-at-home" orders.
Warehouse clubs, superstores and supercenters, which usually sell both groceries and other general merchandise including clothing and appliances, saw such an uptick in demand that an additional 93,400 workers were hired last month. That was a record for that sector and nearly double the next highest increase in November 2007 as the economy was about to enter the 2007-2009 Great Recession.
The biggest names in that category are Walmart and Costco, the two largest retailers in the world. Both operate membership-only warehouse clubs, which allow customers to buy in bulk at discounted prices, and have benefited as panicked shoppers stockpiled essentials amid the shutdown of large parts of the U.S. economy in mid-March.
Walmart said last month it had hired an additional 150,000 new staff across its stores and fulfillment and distribution centers since March, 85% of whom were in temporary or part-time roles. The company said it plans to hire 50,000 more.
It has had more than 1 million applicants for the roles, the company said.
Costco Wholesale Corp had reported a nearly 12% rise in net sales for March, including a 48% jump in online sales, although it reported this week that U.S. same-store sales declined 3.3% in April as an even higher increase in online orders failed to offset fewer people at its stores.
An additional 1,800 couriers and messengers were also hired in April, Friday's data showed, and the U.S. postal service added 500 jobs.
Delivery services have been in demand to cope with a surge in online shopping, a combination of consumers trying to limit outings that could expose them to the coronavirus and all but essential stores having been closed until recently in many states.
Both FedEx Corp and UPS have ramped up hiring. Instacart, which provides home delivery of groceries, said two weeks ago it had hired 300,000 people as personal shoppers and plans to hire 250,000 more.
Amazon.com Inc said it had hired 175,000 people in the past two months in its fulfillment and delivery network and estimated a 28% rise in revenue to $81 billion this quarter. It uses the U.S. postal service for some of its deliveries.
It’s not good when compared to the 20.5 who lost their jobs, but a million hired in the last month alone is better than nothing.
#1
Of course the big box stores are still hiring. Small businesses have been shuttered. The little guy, the common or "Forgotten" man has been labeled as 'non-essential.' You can argue if that was the intended goal, but the evidence speaks for itself.
Our Chinese lending masters and manufacturing overlords surely must be pleased. Yes, we are friends again.
BTW, Senators Richard Burr, R-N.C., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif, and Kelly Loeffler R-GA, may recuse themselves from this discussion.
#2
Dunno where I saw it (please Gawd, don't let it be The Bee), but Walmart is going to have a labeling scheme that shows how much of a product is American-made.
It makes sense. Walmart is in the business of selling things people want to buy. In the past, that was cheap Chinese junk. Going forward, Chinese stuff is going to be a lot less popular.
#3
Seemed to be business as usual at Wally World during the Chinavirus hoax. Gas prices going back up now, traffic seems normal. St. Fauci's throw the election game seems likely to be a loser.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/16/2020 9:48 Comments ||
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#4
Dunno where I saw it (please Gawd, don't let it be The Bee), but Walmart is going to have a labeling scheme that shows how much of a product is American-made.
I want to know when online shopping sites let it be known where an item was made. I never see that information now, at Walmart or anywhere else and I wanna know. Until then I am reluctant to order items online unless it's an item I've previously purchased so I know where it was made.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/16/2020 11:23 Comments ||
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#5
Amazon has long identified where listed items are made.
[AlJazeera] More than 600 poor Pakistani girls and women were sold as brides to Chinese men over a period of nearly two years, according to investigations by authorities in the South Asian nation of 200 million people. This is a long article with frequent references to the news organization that we dare not name. Here are the first few paragraphs:
A list of 629 girls and women, obtained by the news outlet that we dare not name, was compiled by Pakistani investigators determined to break up trafficking networks exploiting the country's poor and vulnerable.
The list gives the most concrete figure yet for the number of women caught up in the trafficking schemes since 2018.
But since the time it was put together in June, the investigators' aggressive drive against the networks has largely ground to a halt.
Officials with knowledge of the investigations say this is because of pressure from government officials fearful of hurting Pakistan's lucrative ties to Beijing.
The biggest case against traffickers has fallen apart. In October, a court in Faisalabad acquitted 31 Chinese nationals charged in connection with trafficking.
Several of the women who had initially been interviewed by police refused to testify because they were either threatened or bribed into silence, according to a court official and a police investigator familiar with the case.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/16/2020 00:00 ||
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#1
I have a hard time believing Chinese men rich enough to purchase brides would tolerate typical Paki hygiene.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/16/2020 18:33 Comments ||
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Sadly, this is the kind of well-meaning nonsense we have come to expect from this pope, who so often reminds faithful Catholics that the Church is its membership, and not an extension of whichever man happens to sit upon the throne of St. Peter at any particular moment.
[FoxNews] Pope Francis is being accused of "blasphemy" and "sacrilege" by some Catholics for participating in an interfaith prayer Thursday with Muslims, Jews and Christians, calling on God to end the coronavirus pandemic.
The Abu Dhabi-based multifaith Higher Committee on Human Fraternity formed after the pope's historic visit in 2019 to the Arabian peninsula. Its nine members came up with the idea to pray, fast and perform charitable works.
Aware of the potential controversy, the pontiff addressed the matter during his Friday morning Mass at the Vatican.
"Maybe there will be someone who will say, 'This is religious relativism and it cannot be done," Francis said. "But how can we not pray to the father of us all? Each one prays as they know how, as they are able to. We are not praying one against the other, one tradition against another ... (but) as brothers."
The multifaith prayer upset many among the faithful.
[Jpost] The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said on Thursday it began a study to evaluate the combination of antibiotic azithromycin and malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which was previously touted by US President Donald Trump ...the Nailer of NAFTA... as a "game changer," for the treatment of COVID-19.
The mid-stage study, for which Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd will be donating medicines, will assess whether the combination can prevent hospitalization and death from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus (aka COVID19 or Chinese Plague) ...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men... .The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, is sponsoring the trial, which is being conducted by the NIAID-funded AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG).
"Although there is anecdotal evidence that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin may benefit people with COVID-19, we need solid data from a large randomized, controlled clinical trial to determine whether this experimental treatment is safe and can improve clinical outcomes," NIAID Director Anthony Fauci said on Thursday.
The announcement comes after the US Department of Health and Human Services had last month replaced Rick Bright as director of a key U.S. agency charged with developing drugs and vaccines for COVID-19.
Bright had said he was ousted as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, because he resisted efforts to push hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat COVID-19 as their effectiveness had not been demonstrated.
The NIH's latest study will enroll about 2,000 adults at clinical sites across the country, with many of those expected to be 60 years of age or older or have a comorbidity associated with developing serious complications from COVID-19, such as a cardiovascular disease or diabetes.
The politicization of hydroxychloroquine has been one of the most frustrating aspects of Trump Derangement Syndrome during this pandemic. Early studies in France and clinical outcomes from multiple treating physicians using a combination therapy that included the drug provided hope to combat the virus. However, it made President Trump hopeful, so it had to be obliterated.
The reaction to hydroxychloroquine was very perplexing. The NIH studied drug’s older cousin chloroquine following the SARS epidemic. In 2005 the NIH noted chloroquine had both prophylactic effects for prevention and anti-viral effects in cell cultures:
Conclusion
Chloroquine is effective in preventing the spread of SARS CoV in cell culture. Favorable inhibition of virus spread was observed when the cells were either treated with chloroquine prior to or after SARS CoV infection. In addition, the indirect immunofluorescence assay described herein represents a simple and rapid method for screening SARS-CoV antiviral compounds.
Because of how the drug works, especially in combination with zinc, Dr. Anthony Fauci’s inability to articulate the clinical case for exploring it was quite odd. His own agency had investigated chloroquine in a dozen ways following the SARS outbreak. It makes logical sense if chloroquine could inhibit viruses in vitro that its lower-risk cousin would have a similar effect. The science was always on the president’s side for use of the three-drug combination in the early course of illness. Fauci’s inability to articulate it was maddening and, in my own opinion, quite suspicious.
In the press release for the NIH’s new hydroxychloroquine study, Dr. Fauci offers a rationale for the new trial:
“We urgently need a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19. Repurposing existing drugs is an attractive option because these medications have undergone extensive testing, allowing them to move quickly into clinical trials and accelerating their potential approval for COVID-19 treatment,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “Although there is anecdotal evidence that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin may benefit people with COVID-19, we need solid data from a large randomized, controlled clinical trial to determine whether this experimental treatment is safe and can improve clinical outcomes.”
I agree wholeheartedly. With a background and education in health care, I would be loath to take a drug that is not at least 10 years old and preferably a generic. By then all side effects are known, the class action suits have started, and you know it doesn’t have a black box warning. I’d prefer this cocktail to the new drug Remdesivir any day of the week based on age and previous usage.
However, every clinician who has shared his or her success in treating patients early emphasized the role of zinc. Hydroxychloroquine holds the door to the cell open so zinc can run inside and stop the virus from making photocopies of itself. They work together to stop the viral load from increasing so the patient’s own immune system has a better shot. The NIH trial does not include the mineral. This requires some explanation given what the NIH already knows.
#4
Criticizing models? Now you are just being childish.
/irony /sarc
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/16/2020 21:50 Comments ||
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#5
could figure a way for costs to go up while the institution is basically closed.
Professors are salaried, not paid for actual classroom hours worked — not to mention that they are still teaching, and having to spend twice as much time to rework everything for on-line classes instead of in-classroom. And they own their buildings, so the maintenance overhead continues whether or not classes are in session.
[NYTimes] An innovative coronavirus testing program in the Seattle area — promoted by the billionaire Bill Gates and local public health officials as a way of conducting wider surveillance on the invisible spread of the virus — has been ordered by the federal government to stop its work pending additional reviews.
The program involved sending home test kits to both healthy and sick people in the hope of conducting the kind of widespread monitoring that could help communities safely reopen from lockdowns. Researchers and public health authorities already had tested thousands of samples, finding dozens of previously undetected cases.
Researchers studying the spread of Covid-19 have some answers.
But the program, a partnership between research groups and the Seattle and King County public health department that had been operating under authorization from the state, was notified this week that it now needs approval directly from the federal government. Officials with the Food and Drug Administration told the partnership to cease its testing and reporting until the agency grants further approval.
[NYPost] A Colorado convict accused of murdering a 21-year-old woman last Saturday in Denver had been released from prison early due to the coronavirus, according to local media.
Cornelius Haney, 40, was nabbed over the weekend for the fatal shooting of Heather Perry in an alleyway, NBC’s 9News-Denver reported. A motive for the slaying wasn’t disclosed by police.
The Colorado Department of Corrections sprung Haney from prison April 15 — four months before his scheduled release — due to the pandemic, a spokesman told the TV station.
The felon, whose criminal history stretches back more than a decade, was serving a seven-year sentence for robbery when he was freed in accordance with a state executive order designed to reduce the prison population during the public health crisis.
The order allowed some inmates to leave prison and enter what it called “special needs parole,” according to 9News-Denver.
“When looking at special needs parole criteria, the Department of Corrections’ medical staff reviews offenders for risk factors related to COVID as documented by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC),” the spokesman told the station.
“The clinical team reviews the inmate’s medical records to individually confirm the existence of conditions and their severity. The Department also reviews information related to their crime of incarceration and behavior inside the facility. Once the medical and parole team has made a recommendation, the packet is forwarded to the Parole Board for review.”
States across the country — including New York — have issued similar orders to thin prison populations, which are especially vulnerable to coronavirus outbreaks.
#2
Tell me again why we believe in human sacrifice?
We warehouse hundreds of thousands of individuals that had they been any other species would have been put down as a threat to society. But aren't we virtuous (but not to those we sacrifice for our egos).
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.