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Special Forces arrest Taliban fighter disguised in women’s dress
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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4 15:19 Regular joe [2] 
8 22:35 Lex [1] 
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Page 6: Politix
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
The Cars Thieves Are Most Likely to Target
[InsideHook] The next time you think about buying a car, instead of only looking at Consumer Reports (or Elon Musk’s tweets), there is another important resource to consider: the Highway Loss Data Institute’s list of vehicles most likely to be stolen.

The branch of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety just released the most recent version of the list, looking into how likely cars from 2016-2018 model years are to be swiped in the United States, and it doesn’t look good for Dodge owners packing horsepower under the hood.

You can find the list below, but first let’s go over a few caveats. This list details theft rates, not overall theft numbers. If HLDI listed total thefts, the top 10 would obviously include more popular cars. Also the "whole-vehicle" theft data differs from standard theft data because it doesn’t include stolen parts or items stolen from inside vehicles. We’re just talking about whole vehicles.

Here are the top findings:

Possibly unrelated but interesting: Sun Sentinel - Autopilot failed to keep Tesla from sliding under semitruck at 68 mph, lawsuit claims
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 03:14 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  No one wants the Prius (except the greenie, granola crunching, weed-smoking soy drinkers)?
Posted by: JohnQC || 08/04/2019 10:50 Comments || Top||


CBS Baltimore: By Golly, Our Murder Rate Actually IS Higher Than Guatemala, Honduras And El Salvador
[HOT AIR] The ongoing social media battle between President Trump and Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland has drawn in all sorts of supporters on both sides and provided more than a few amusing moments. One of the most recent spun off from a claim that the President made about Baltimore (Cummings’ home town) having a higher murder rate than some of the most dangerous places in the western hemisphere. It actually came from the White House account, not Trump’s personal one.

As usual, this had heads exploding among democrats who rushed to defend Cummings and claim that the President was "lying" again. Unfortunately for them, at least a few media outlets did their homework and went to fact check the numbers. CBS in Baltimore did the required digging and was forced to concede the unpleasant truth. The President was right. (Emphasis added)
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 02:38 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Make the election focus on Baltimore and Guatemala (and Venezuela while you're at it). Game over.
Posted by: Lex || 08/04/2019 5:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Make all federal judges read the stats and then have the Executive demand of the judiciary the rational why applicants get 'asylum'.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/04/2019 7:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Urban tribal law enforcement sans traditional uniforms and badges. Some perspective please.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 7:59 Comments || Top||

#4  The "new arrivals" are willing to take their chances for a shot at getting on the gummint taxpayers' teat
Posted by: M. Murcek || 08/04/2019 7:59 Comments || Top||

#5  The immigrants can't claim asylum. The immigrants will have to stay in their home country. It's safer.
Posted by: JohnQC || 08/04/2019 10:47 Comments || Top||

#6  Welcome to your local warlord.
Posted by: Dale || 08/04/2019 11:23 Comments || Top||

#7  But INASH.
Posted by: gorb || 08/04/2019 12:17 Comments || Top||

#8  Right on, brother.
INASH.
INASH.
Again: INASH.
Posted by: Lex || 08/04/2019 22:35 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Cliff Collapses In California Killing 3. Guess What Gets Blamed?
[Pirate's Cove] Now, California is a place of massive tectonic activity. Many massive faults, lots of smaller ones. The Pacific plate is diving under California. This is what creates those hills and mountains. And, you get erosion of those hills and mountains. A place of alternative dry and wet, and, in this case, right near the ocean. You know this. It’s called science. Geology. Etc.

Those are just a few of the unhinged responses, and, sure, you can say that these are just a few cranks, but, this is what the Cult of Climastrology is teaching. "No matter what happens, blame it on man-caused climate change."
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 03:26 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  My first guess was Trump. But since he caused global climate change, I get partial credit.
Posted by: Bobby || 08/04/2019 6:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Assault weapons?
Posted by: M. Murcek || 08/04/2019 7:43 Comments || Top||

#3  I blame Darwin
Posted by: DarthVader || 08/04/2019 8:52 Comments || Top||

#4  Gravity and loss of cohesion, but, of course, that's Booosh's Trump's fault
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2019 9:18 Comments || Top||

#5  Ala Hank Johnson: all those immigrants coming in are putting too much extra weight on the Earth's crust there...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 08/04/2019 9:50 Comments || Top||

#6  They have had signs saying cliffs unstable on the San Diego beaches since the 60s. I believe the cliffs are sandstone and sandstone is soft.
Posted by: ruprecht || 08/04/2019 20:00 Comments || Top||

#7  Point Loma and other formations, which are ALL sedimentary ocean deposits of sandstone, some cemented with paralic deposits, subject to "calving" as with a glacier. Surface clefts/faces are adversely affected by landscape watering above

Why yes, I have been deposed before, why do you ask?
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2019 20:26 Comments || Top||

#8  I thought they were going to blame the NRA.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 08/04/2019 21:32 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Nigeria has no answer after 10 years of Boko Haram
[ARABNEWS] It is 10 years since Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
transformed from radical Islamist sect to terrorist insurgency group, coinciding with the rise of its current leader, Abubakar Shekau
...the lunatic leader of Boko Haram who has been reported dead at least eleven times, pledged his body and soul to ISIS, told his fighters to hang it up once or twice, and been fired by the Caliph and refused to step down...
. He succeeded Mohammed Yusuf (Abu Yusuf al-Barnawi), a preacher fiercely critical of Nigeria’s wealth inequality and corruption despite the country’s return to democracy in 1999, which many believed would quickly remedy these ills.

In the first decade, the group set about fulfilling its name ‐ decrying Western education and its influences while propagating radical Islamist messages. Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language spoken in parts of northern Nigeria. The group fed on societal frustrations, poverty, illiteracy and widening inequality. Within a few years, Boko Haram became popular and increasingly antagonistic to non-Moslems and the Nigerian state. It became apparent that its escalating confrontations with state security forces were a threat to a young federal republic.

The group was banned in 2009, leading to widespread rioting and festivities with security forces that left more than 300 people dead. Its leader and dozens of its members also perished at the hands of Nigeria law enforcement, the same sort of blood and violence that has become a part of Boko Haram’s creed. Over 10 years, it has killed more than 35,000 people, injured thousands and displaced at least 2 million in an asymmetric "holy war" against the Nigerian state.

Just last week, a Boko Haram attack on a funeral procession in northeastern Nigeria claimed more than 60 lives. A few days earlier, a group of men on cycle of violences opened fire on mourners returning from a burial, killing nearly two dozen, in an attack also linked to the group. A Boko Haram timeline features increasingly frequent massacres, shootouts, suicide kabooms, kidnappings and even prison breaks.

Before the notorious Chibok kidnappings that attracted worldwide attention, Boko Haram attacks were few and far between, but since 2015 they have been a weekly, if not a daily, occurrence. Some victims may be part of the state security apparatus, the regional joint task force or local militias and vigilante groups, but the bulk of deaths and injuries affect innocent civilians. The Chibok tragedy has left a pervasive sense of despair across Nigeria because citizens are finding it difficult to trust that the federal government can protect the citizenry and eradicate Boko Haram.

Years of counter-insurgency operations by the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) between Nigeria, Chad, Niger, and Cameroon
...a long, narrow country that fills the space between Nigeria and Chad on the northeast, CAR to the southeast. Prior to incursions by Boko Haram nothing ever happened there...
, with support from 300 US advisers, have neither eradicated Boko Haram nor slowed its operations. There is no shortage of manpower given the involvement of local militias and a private military company, but the group remains active and appears to show no signs of waning.

At the heart of these failures are reports of low morale among poorly equipped task force troops as well as porous Sahel-West Africa borders and rampant corruption, which allow Boko Haram to stock up on weaponry sourced from ISIS strongholds in Libya. Other factors, such as poor coordination, the lack of coherent strategies and failure to attain agreed objectives, have made success elusive for anti-Boko Haram operations.

Posted by: Fred || 08/04/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Boko Haram (ISIS)

#1  somalia has no answer to al shabaab

afghanistan/pakistan no answer to the Taliban

etc.
Posted by: lord garth || 08/04/2019 3:01 Comments || Top||

#2  Scorched earth, no survivors. Whole villages.
Posted by: Fat Bob Javish1936 || 08/04/2019 3:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Sri Lanka

Solved one problem. Now has a second because they won't face the hard facts and do the same again.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/04/2019 7:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Only "ten years" of tribal turmoil was it? How about 60 to 80 thousand ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 7:50 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
HT Clarice Feldman
[Newstatesman] The strategies of Hong Kong protesters, honed through weekly clashes with police, offer a masterclass to activists worldwide.

For almost two months, a wave of anti-government protests have rocked Hong Kong. Initially sparked by a government proposal to introduce a law that would allow the extradition of criminal suspects to stand trial in mainland Chinese courts, the protests have morphed into a broader pro-democracy movement, demanding greater government accountability and universal suffrage. Protests have largely been driven by young activists, who have developed and adapted their strategies during weekly protests and clashes with police, offering a masterclass in protest for activists worldwide. Here are some of their key tactics....
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2019 09:27 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Commies

#1  Really interesting article on the protesters’ methods of countering the ChiCom forces. Almost a neural network. My concern is that the activities will escalate until the authorities will do a serious crackdown o the movement with lethal force. They will achieve a Pyrrhic victory. Repercussions can be serious to the Chicoms, but I think a lethal outcome is inevitable.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 08/04/2019 10:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Yupp. Either it'll be Tienanmen once again, or China will suck balls in front of those watching in Asia.
Posted by: Dron66046 || 08/04/2019 10:58 Comments || Top||


Economy
Manhattan Institute - Private Health Insurance Saves Americans Money
[Manhattan Institute]

The Narrative

"The insurance companies last year alone sucked $23 billion in profits out of the health care system."[1]
‐ Elizabeth Warren

"[P]rivate insurance companies in this country spend between 12 and 18 percent on administration costs.... We can save approximately $500 billion a year just in administration costs."[2]
‐ Bernie Sanders

"It is inhumane to make people go through a system where they cannot literally receive the benefit of what medical science can offer because some insurance company has decided it doesn’t meet their bottom line in terms of their profit motivation."[3]
‐ Kamala Harris

Reality

Health insurance is expensive because spending on hospital and physician services is high. Insurers are unpopular because they bear the main responsibility for controlling this spending‐but their doing so saves consumers money and focuses resources toward better care. A comparison of plan options under Medicare can quantify the value added by private insurance management. Private plans reduce costs by about 10%, allowing them to provide over $1,000 in extra health-care coverage to each Medicare enrollee every year.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 02:58 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Amazing what free markets and competition can do. Someone copy the chamber of communism and the bidness roundtable on that memo...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 08/04/2019 7:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Regulations are often there to decrease competition especially from new entrants.
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 08/04/2019 8:21 Comments || Top||

#3  If they would repeal McCarran Ferguson, insurance companies could compete across state lines and with a larger pool premiums would go down

Insurance companies now have to be set up by state with the corresponding smaller pools
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 08/04/2019 14:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Insurance companies have to negotiate care networks market by market. Being able to operate over state lines does not matter.

The only exception is Medicare, which pays 20 cents on the dollar, and private insurers and their clients and customers pay the rest.

Posted by: Regular joe || 08/04/2019 15:19 Comments || Top||


Business groups warn new Trump China tariffs threat hurts ability to plan
[Washington Examiner] President Trump’s threat to put tariffs on $300 billion worth of Chinese goods has hurt businesses' ability to plan, trade groups say, even though the tariffs are at least four weeks away and trade talks are ongoing.

Businesses need to make decisions regarding purchases and sales months in advance and to have stable supply chains. The threat of tariffs disrupts their ability to do that.
Here's a tip. Forget your cheap Chinese labor, imported junk. Come up with a new plan.
Diversify your sources: Viet Nam, Laos, etc., offer cheap labor as well
"We’re coming up on the holiday season for retailers and we’re well into the manufacturing cycle for that time and we have to deal with all of this uncertainty," Sage Chandler, vice president of international trade for the Consumer Technology Association, told the Washington Examiner. "They don’t know if they can get things to customers in time or if they have to figure in price increases and then be noncompetitive with others from outside the U.S."

September and October are the busiest months for the retail industry, noted Jonathan Gold, vice president of supply chain and customs policy at the National Retail Federation. "Retail is trying to figure out what is next and what steps they can take to mitigate things ⁠‐ if at all. For example, the president’s Sept. 1 date to start the tariffs: Does that meet when goods enter the U.S., or when they leave their port?"
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 01:56 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  National Retail Federation (NRF) Board of Directors.

Sam's Club, Macys, COSCO, Tractor Supply, Saks, Target, Brooks Bros.....We're all going to fok'n DIE !!!
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 2:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe we could find a way to grow our economy by producing things that make life better - like, I dunno, cures for diseases, healthier foods, a better culture, for starters - as opposed to cheap shiny Chinese-made crap?

Just a thought.
Posted by: Lex || 08/04/2019 5:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Only thing they are planning for is moar cheap labor brought across the border illegally, employed illegally all at taxpayer expense.
Posted by: M. Murcek || 08/04/2019 7:02 Comments || Top||

#4  Only thing they are planning for is moar cheap labor brought across the border illegally, employed illegally all at taxpayer expense.

Gone well beyond the "planning" stages I'm afraid.

Border security, appears to be a lost art. Perhaps some former Stasi or Deutsche Volkspolizei experts could be brought in to teach us proper wall maintenance and security.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 7:42 Comments || Top||

#5  Ah, another Chamber of Commerce propaganda piece. You know at least slave owners had to pay out of their own pockets to feed, cloth, and shelter their slaves. They weren't subsidized by the tax payers to support their cheap labor with housing, food stamps, and free medical.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/04/2019 8:05 Comments || Top||

#6  Border walls, see the Israelis.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 08/04/2019 8:06 Comments || Top||

#7  Border walls, see the Israelis.

A serious approach, very serious. Unfortunately no one is in Washington is serious. Obviously others schemes are at play here.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 8:08 Comments || Top||

#8  Include that cost of uncertainty in your calculations on whether to purchase from China or lees authoritarian producers...
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 08/04/2019 8:17 Comments || Top||

#9  China tariffs threat hurts ability to plan

Kinda the point, Skippy.
Posted by: DarthVader || 08/04/2019 8:48 Comments || Top||

#10  While there's no questioning its importance, a society/civilization/nation is more than its economy.

But I'm not being a good little Troo Conservative for saying so.
Posted by: charger || 08/04/2019 12:12 Comments || Top||

#11  Good.
Posted by: Woodrow || 08/04/2019 13:28 Comments || Top||

#12  The economy has more than one timescale...

The globalist sees themselves as over-maximising profits and rent-seeking in one country then grazing elsewhere...
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 08/04/2019 13:28 Comments || Top||

#13  I still remember something my boss said way back in 1973: "Planning is very difficult, especially for the future."
Posted by: Tom || 08/04/2019 13:36 Comments || Top||

#14 

Posted by: Dron66046 || 08/04/2019 14:13 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Nobody hijacked Israel. It’s just not what its pioneers thought they’d created
[IsraelTimes] It’s not European. And it doesn’t divide into right and left, religious and secular. Matti Friedman, author of a new book about Mizrahi spies, on why Israel baffles and infuriates.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/04/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ashkenazi and Sephardi constantly intermarry.

Russian and Ethiopians are also marrying Ashkenazi and Sephardi.

So ethnically it is a melting pot.

Religiously, there are some very tight groups of different flavors of Haradi or Hasidiim but those are a minority.

Ride a bus from Bnai Brak to Jerusalem some time. All kinds of people. And in Jerusalem, the people pushing their way onto the light rail may be Hasidiim or IDF in uniform, or secular or Arabs.
Posted by: lord garth || 08/04/2019 1:01 Comments || Top||

#2  Pioneers probably didn't predict decade after decade of Palestinian irrational hate. That sort of thing will change a nation.
Posted by: ruprecht || 08/04/2019 2:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Pioneers probably didn't predict decade after decade of Palestinian irrational hate. That sort of thing will change a nation.

When multi-generational hate is harnessed by leftest politicians, all bets are off.
Posted by: Besoeker || 08/04/2019 2:11 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
28[untagged]
6Taliban
4Commies
4Govt of Pakistan
3Sublime Porte
2Govt of Saudi Arabia
2Islamic State
2Human Trafficking
1TTP
1Arab Spring
1Boko Haram (ISIS)
1Govt of Iran
1Govt of Pakistain Proxies
1Govt of Syria
1Moslem Colonists
1Narcos

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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.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2019-08-04
  Special Forces arrest Taliban fighter disguised in women’s dress
Sat 2019-08-03
  6000 protest at Gaza border, rioters hurl explosive devices toward IDF troops
Fri 2019-08-02
  TTP warns against playing music, women going out alone in Miramshah
Thu 2019-08-01
  Iran slashes four zeroes from rial currency over inflation
Wed 2019-07-31
  Breaking : Hamza Bin Laden Dead.
Tue 2019-07-30
  Accused 9/11 mastermind open to role in victims' lawsuit if not executed
Mon 2019-07-29
   British warship arrives in Gulf to escort UK-flagged vessels
Sun 2019-07-28
  15 killed in Islamist militant attack in Burkina Faso
Sat 2019-07-27
  U.N. says air strikes by Syria, allies killed more than 100 civilians
Fri 2019-07-26
  Libya Militia Arrests al-Qaida Leaders
Thu 2019-07-25
  Shabaab tries to assassinate US diplomat
Wed 2019-07-24
  Libya government forces say repel Haftar attack on Tripoli
Tue 2019-07-23
  Iraq arrests Islamic State cell, including Baghdadi aide, in Nineveh
Mon 2019-07-22
  Iran claims to catch 17 CIA spies, sentences some to death
Sun 2019-07-21
  Kurdistan: Killer of senior Turkish diplomat arrested

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