This news feed is made up of items collected over the past four days, since our server problem caused the shutdown on Saturday. Not everything that came in is here, but most of it is.
Obama’s “Peace in Our Time” deal with Iran is eclipsing the news about an immense feat of scientific, technological, and astrogational prowess: the close encounter of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft with the erstwhile planet Pluto. After ten years in flight, the probe is sending close-up views of the chilly dwarf planet.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to Bill Keezer, C. Cantoni, Dean, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, LP, MC, NG, RL, RRN, Srdja Trifkovic, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.
Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.
EU Needs Eurozone Budget and Parliament, Says Hollande
Europe should “go further towards an economic government of the eurozone,” French president Francois Hollande said Tuesday in his traditional Bastille Day TV interview. He said a eurozone budget was needed as well as “more parliamentary involvement”. “I wish for a eurozone parliament,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Even the Players Are Losing Faith in Their Own Shenanigans
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, the old saw goes. This one, alas, is a mélange of several old shit sandwiches bound in a liaison of subterfuge and seasoned with political absurdities. Having been fooled in this bistro before, citizen-patrons leave the table resigned to yet another bout of food poisoning as the music of universal upchuck rings across the European Union from Helsinki to Lisbon
What is on display more brightly and clearly than ever, though, is the utter fakery of international banking. The players have lost faith in their own shenanigans. They simply go through the motions now awaiting the political fallout, which is to say the revolt of the people who can still do arithmetic. So, now Greece can supposedly expect another $90bn-equivalent in new loans on top of the $350bn-equivalent already racked up. That’s rich. The loan repayment schedule must look like a map of Middle Earth.
Most perplexing — especially for those on summer hiatus in which time seems to be suspended — is the fact that the rescue package will take weeks, perhaps months, to gin up while Greece is right now so utterly paralyzed in bankruptcy that no goods can move, no bills can be paid, and the economy cannot deliver the necessities of daily life. The old refrain, “your check is in the mail” may not be so reassuring to folks who haven’t eaten for three days. Personally, I would expect the gasoline bombs to be flying around Syntagma Square before the middle of the week.
Has anyone noticed the eerie paucity of news emanating from the other hard-luck nations of the EU, namely Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Ireland? The money hole that these deadbeats are in makes Greece look like a dimple in the sand. What, I wonder, is the message to them from the Greek negotiation melodrama? (Lend more money to real estate developers to build more houses and condos that will never be sold? That’ll work!) No, the entire EU debt fiasco harks back to the original meaning of “ring around the rosie” — a theme song of the Black Death. The eventual implosion of the European Union, and the banking system hugging its face vampire squid style, will be the financial equivalent of the Black Death. Kingdoms will fall and social systems will be turned upside down.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Greece Debt Crisis: Eurozone Summit Strikes Deal
Eurozone leaders have agreed to offer Greece a third bailout, after marathon talks in Brussels.
Amid one of the worst crises in the EU’s history, the head of the European Commission said the risk of Greece leaving the eurozone had been averted.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said that after a “tough battle”, Greece had secured a “growth package” and debt restructuring.
Greece will now have to pass reforms demanded by the eurozone by Wednesday.
An EU statement spoke of up to €86bn (£61bn) of financing for Greece over three years.
“There will not be a ‘Grexit’,” said European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, referring to the widespread fear that if there had been no deal, Greece could have crashed out of the euro.
“In this compromise, there are no winners and no losers,” he said. “I don’t think the Greek people have been humiliated, nor that the other Europeans have lost face. It is a typical European arrangement.”
Mr Tsipras also said he had the “belief and the hope that… the possibility of ‘Grexit’ is in the past”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
by Srdja Trifkovic
The bohemian Left in Europe is as untrustworthy as the GOP “Right” in America when it comes to taking a tough, principled stand. As I have repeatedly predicted that it would do (here and here), the government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has caved in to EU creditors.
The package he accepted after a marathon negotiating session in Brussels on Monday morning is actually more stringent, and less likely to take Greece out of her nosedive recession, than the one that was on offer when he won the general election six months ago — an election which he won pledging resistance to the German-led demands for more austerity. The referendum eight days ago, at which a resounding majority of Greeks said “no” to the IMF-ECB-EU conditions for a bailout, now appears to have been a cynical exercise in demagoguery.
Tsipras has totally capitulated on his earlier “red lines,” including value-added tax discounts for Greek islands in danger of depopulation and a drastic increase in the state pension age. “We are confronted with crucial decisions,” he said feebly. “We got a mandate to bring a better deal than the ultimatum that the Eurogroup gave us, but certainly not given a mandate [sic!] to take Greece out of the eurozone.” According to a London-based financial analyst, the proposals suggested by Tsipras were confusing “yet what we have seen is a giant step closer towards the creditors prior proposal which was subsequently rejected, ironically by Tsipras.”…
| — Hat tip: Srdja Trifkovic | [Return to headlines] |
Greece: Strikes to Disrupt Public Transport in Athens
There will be no service on the Athens metro before 9 a.m. on Wednesday as workers walk off the job to protest a new raft of austerity measures that are to be put before a vote in the evening.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Greek PM Tsipras Scrambles to Push Through Economic Reforms
Members of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ government have been holding talks before putting a raft of economic reforms to parliament. Lawmakers need to approve the measures for Greece to receive a third bailout.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Public Debt Hits New Record
The amount of public debt racked up by the eurozone’s third largest economy reached a new record of €2.2 trillion in May, up by €23.4 billion in a month, the Bank of Italy said on Tuesday
The hike was attributed to increased Treasury liquidity, the fall in the euro and bond market conditions, the bank said. Italy’s public debt rose 3.9 percent in the first five months of the year.
The country’s debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 133.1 percent — the second largest in the eurozone after Greece — and is up from 130 percent in 2013 and 120 percent in 2010.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italy’s Sovereign Debt Hits Record High
Italy’s public debt has hit a new record, at a time where the eurozone is struggling through the Greek debt crisis. Italy is the currency union’s third largest economy and the most indebted country after Greece.
Italian public debt has risen upwards of 2.2 trillion euros in May, new data showed Tuesday — a new record for the southern European country that is the eurozone’s second-most indebted after Greece.
The new numbers from the Central Bank of Italy come at a time when the Greek debt crisis is dominating headlines and observers view ballooning public debt within the currency union with worry.
Italy’s debt is now at 132 percent of GDP, compared to Greece’s 175 percent. Both countries find themselves far from the 60 percent debt-to-GDP ratio target set by the European Commission.
The consequences of an Italian debt crisis would however be more dire — it’s the third largest economy in the eurozone.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Country With the EU’s Worst Youth Unemployment Problem is Not Greece
As the graphic from Statista shows, Spain has the worst youth unemployment problem at 49.9 per cent.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Troika Says Greek Proposal Not Enough to Meet Targets, Serves as “Basis for Negotiations”
Early on Saturday morning, the Tsipras government passed the Greek bailout proposal which it told the Greek people to reject — which they did — less than a week earlier. The grotesque farce continued until the very end when 15 Syriza lawmakers who voted yes said they nonetheless are against the reform package and expressed their opposition to the government’s proposal in a joint statement issued immediately after the vote in parliament.
Seemingly unclear how this “democracy” thing works in the country that supposedly invented it only to spawn its biggest mutant yet, the “dissenters” added that they voted for the proposal in order not to give an excuse for the undermining of Alexis Tsipras government. What they really meant is what the angry people finally crack down on yet another government, they hope to have a get out of jail card. Literally.
Other were far more vocal in their condemnation of the capitulation: Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, Deputy Labour Minister Dimitris Stratoulis as well as the speaker of parliament, Zoe Constantopoulou, all called “Present”, in effect abstaining from the vote and withholding their support from the government. “The government is being totally blackmailed to acquiesce to something which does not reflect what it represents,” Constantopoulou said.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘Unusually Tough’ Greece Talks Ahead: Schäuble
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday that talks to unlock a third financial aid package for Greece would be “unusually difficult”, with little room for manoeuvre around strict European rules.
Schäuble and other eurozone finance ministers met in the Belgian capital for the first time following Monday’s breakthrough deal to keep Greece in the single currency.
Merkel’s right-hand man was not in a conciliatory mood at a press conference after the talks, saying that he had “only conditional confidence” that a third bailout programme would resolve Greece’s financial woes.
“It’s about winning back, recreating a minimum of confidence” in the Greek government, Schäuble said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
#RememberMississippi: Rick Perry and His Dodgy Campaign Staff
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry seems to have largely escaped the scrutiny recently directed toward Scott Walker for hiring establishment operative Brad Dayspring who aggressively lied about the Tea Party during the hotly contested Mississippi primary last year.
While Scott Walker, who this author has long suspected of as having establishment sympathies, has been appropriately getting heat for hiring a pro-Cochran thug, Rick Perry should also be called out for his “ terrible hires,” including Henry Barbour (who previously worked for Perry), and should be “ censured” and is “ quite possibly the most despised campaign consultant in the entire conservative movement,” “ McCain flunkie” Steve Schmidt (who believes that Sarah Palin “ is filled with anger, has a divisive message” ) and Austin Barbour (who also worked on Mitt Romney’ s presidential campaign) as senior adviser to three of Perry’ s super PACs.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A Brief History of Pluto Viewing: From Its Discovery to New Horizons Flyby
Pluto has captured people’s imagination for nearly a century.
The frigid world at the solar system’s outer reaches that was discovered in 1930 remains mysterious to this day: because Pluto is relatively small and so far away, telescopes on and near Earth haven’t been able to take its measure.
But that is changing, and rapidly. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is already getting good looks at Pluto, and will return history’s first up-close photos of the dwarf planet during a July 14 flyby.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Apparent Explosion Injures Woman on Rhode Island Beach: CBS News
A woman was injured on Saturday in an apparent explosion at a beach in Narragansett, Rhode Island, CBS News reported emergency officials as saying.
Police and fire officials said a preliminary investigation indicated the explosion came from underneath the sand, it said.
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
Atlanta NAACP Chapter Calls for Removal of Massive Confederate Sculpture in Public Park
A sculpture in Georgia larger than a football field — depicting Civil War luminaries Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson — has become the latest target in the push to purge the South of signs of the Confederacy.
The Atlanta chapter of the NAACP called Monday for the elimination of all symbols of the Confederacy from Stone Mountain Park, whose marquee attraction is the 90-foot-high, 190-foot-wide sculpture carved deep into the mountain.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Boeing Just Patented a Jet Engine Powered by Lasers and Nuclear Explosions
Last week, the US Patent and Trademark Office approved an application from Boeing’s Robert Budica, James Herzberg, and Frank Chandler for a laser- and nuclear-driven airplane engine.
With airplane makers constantly on the lookout for new and more efficient ways to power their products, this laser engine is the latest idea cooked up by the engineers at Boeing.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Citizen Groups Prepared to Monitor Jade Helm
With Jade Helm 15 is less than a week away, hundreds of citizens are prepared to conduct “Counter Jade Helm,” a surveillance operation of military activity during the secretive government exercise spanning the Southwest.
Now that the military has announced it will not allow the media to cover the massive exercise, Counter Jade Helm and citizen reports will be the only information available…
Beginning on July 15 when Jade Helm begins, Johnston will coordinate three groups of volunteers to monitor the SEALs, Green Berets and Air Force Special Ops in Bastrop, Big Spring and Junction.
“If a team member sees two Humvees full of soldiers driving through town, they’re going to follow them,” Johnston said. “And they’re going to radio back their ultimate location.”
Pete Lanteri, a former Marine living in Arizona, founded the Counter Jade Helm Facebook page. The group has six thousand members and has set-up a web page where reports will be posted.
“Counter Jade Helm, aka CJH, is a training exercise for the people. In response to the military’s multi-state training, called Jade Helm 2015, citizens will participate in an unofficial fashion to practice counter-insurgency, organizational and intelligence gathering and reporting skills,” the page explains.
“The objective is not to stop or countermand the military’s training, but to practice our own skills. Anyone can participate. Groups within each state that will play host to the military are being established to streamline the process. Individuals not wishing to be affiliated with a group can also submit information to this website for analysis and publishing.”
Lanteri said a number of the volunteers are former Army intelligence officers.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Clinton Gives Strong Endorsement of Iran Deal
By Lauren French
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a vigorous endorsement of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran during a meeting Tuesday morning with House Democrats, multiple lawmakers said.
“She was very supportive of it and put it in context,” Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said. “It is very important that people understand that this just didn’t happen, there was a long history here.”
At the members-only meeting in the Capitol, Clinton also addressed domestic issues such as college affordability and wage equality, members in the meeting said. Members gave Clinton an enthusiastic reception as she entered the room.
| — Hat tip: RL | [Return to headlines] |
Destination Pluto: Countdown to the Historic New Horizons Fly-by
We’re nearly there. This is the latest view of Pluto and Charon from NASA’s New Horizons probe, taken from about 6 million kilometres away on Wednesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Donald Trump Talks: Gun Control, Assault Weapons, Gun Free Zones & Self Defense
AmmoLand: The deceptive term “Assault Weapons” has proven to be a buzz word among the anti-gun media. Back in 2000 in your book “The America We Deserve” you wrote “The Republicans walk the NRA line and refuse to even limited restrictions. I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I also support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.” Since that time the AR15 rifle, what the media calls an “assault weapons”, has become America’s most popular firearm with millions and millions of them owned by good people.
Do you still stand by this quote or has your thinking evolved over the 15 years since you wrote that line?
Donald Trump:
“I certainly stand by my opposition to Gun Control when it comes to taking guns from law-abiding citizens. You mention that the media describes the AR-15 as an “assault rifle,” which is one example of the many distortions they use to sell their agenda. However, the AR-15 does not fall under this category. Gun-banners are unfortunately preoccupied with the AR-15, magazine capacity, grips, and other aesthetics, precisely because of its popularity.”
“To the Left every gun is an assault weapon.”
“Gun control does not reduce crime. It has consistently failed to stop violence. Americans are entitled to protect their families, their property and themselves. In fact, in right-to-carry states the violent crime rate is 24% lower than the rest of the United States and the murder rate is 28% lower. This should not be up for debate.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
End of Aspartame? Study Links Diet Soda to Major Problems
It’s nothing new to report that aspartame is an artificial sweetener everyone should aim to avoid. In the past, it has been proven to contribute to a list of ailments, including Diabetes, neurological concerns, weight gain, brain fog, and more.
But in a study (published in 2014) which took place over 10 years and involved 60,000 women, it was determined that women who drink two or more diet drinks a day have much higher cardiovascular disease rates and are more likely to die from the disease.
In the largest study of its kind, The University of Iowa concluded the following:
[C]ompared to women who never or only rarely consume diet drinks, those who consume two or more a day are 30 percent more likely to have a cardiovascular event [heart attack or stroke] and 50 percent more likely to die from related disease.
This is one of the largest studies on this topic, and our findings are consistent with some previous data, especially those linking diet drinks to the metabolic syndrome, says Dr. Ankur Vyas the lead investigator of the study.
The association persisted even after researchers adjusted the data to account for demographic characteristics and other cardiovascular risk factors, including body mass index, smoking, hormone therapy use, physical activity, energy intake, salt intake, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and sugar-sweetened beverage intake.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Father Suspect in Disappearance of 6-Month-Old California Baby
The father of a 6-month-old California baby is considered to be a person of interest in her disappearance, becoming the subject of a manhunt after he stole a gun and fled, authorities said Saturday.
Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said Matthew Graham, 23, skipped a meeting with his probation officer and stole a semi-automatic pistol from his mother after learning new information about the investigation.
Bosenko said deputies had spoken to Graham’s mother and the baby’s mother about a pacifier found in a sparsely populated Ono on Friday.
The Record Searchlight reports that Graham called after the meeting with police about a missing gun, cellphone and cash.
“Matthew has violated his probation. He is a felon in possession of a gun and should be considered armed and dangerous,” Bosenko said.
Graham reported his daughter’s disappearance from his Happy Valley home in the early-morning hours of July 2 telling authorities she was last seen in her crib. He became a person of interest after giving inconsistent information to investigators.
Graham was jailed on an unrelated probation violation stemming from driving under the influence and a forgery conviction, but was released this week after pleading guilty.
A judge ruled that he didn’t have to wear a monitoring bracelet after settling the case.
“The court made a bad decision in ordering Graham’s GPS to be removed and now the public is in danger,” Bosenko said.
| — Hat tip: Dean | [Return to headlines] |
For Liberty, American Democracy Needs Truth
Truth, law and freedom are the trifecta of our American democracy. Without faithful adherence to the first two principles the last one cannot truly exist.
In today’s Orwellian political climate in America it is suddenly risqué for politicians to speak plain truths. This is the direct consequence of the litany of bold-faced lies spoken by the current occupant of the White House and she—the truth-challenged Democrat contender (say 6 out of 10 cited by interviewer Anna Keilar regarding a recent CNN poll)—who would replace him. Undoubtedly, it is a sad commentary on the current state of our democracy that it takes an off-the-grid brash billionaire—who doesn’t need the money, fame or power—to articulate what the average citizen in this country is feeling, experiencing and speaking in non-politically correct whispers.
Indeed, any healthy functioning democracy depends both on truth-telling and honest dealing by political leaders with their fellow citizens. In large part, that has not taken place since Mr. Obama assumed the presidency. Indeed, when the president blatantly disregards his oath of office, abdicates his primary responsibility to ‘enforce the law’ (as written rather than as he wants it to be by executive fiat), ignores the tenets of the Constitution and lies to the American people abetted by a corrupt MSM, Lady Liberty must hang her heavy head in despair.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Government Wipes Recent Vaccine Injury Data From Website
Many are not aware that in the US there is a federally operated vaccine injury compensation program (VICP) that Congress created under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. The US Court of Federal Claims in Washington DC handles contested vaccine injury and death cases in what has become known as “vaccine court”.
The VICP is a “no-fault” alternative to the traditional civil court lawsuit and was established in 1986 after a string of high-profile lawsuits had slammed vaccine manufacturers.
At the time, parents were suing vaccine manufacturers after their children were brain injured or died following federally recommended and state mandated DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus vaccine). There were several DPT injury lawsuits against the vaccine makers in the 1970’s and early 1980’s that resulted in multimillion dollar jury verdicts.
At that point the vaccine manufacturers threatened to stop producing DPT, MMR, and oral polio (the only childhood vaccines at the time) if the civil litigation continued. Rather than raising safety standards and compelling vaccine manufacturers to ensure they are producing the least toxic vaccines — Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, and shielded the vaccine makers from most civil liability related to their products.1
The American Public — Not the Vaccine Makers — Pay the Costs of Compensation
The federal VICP compensates vaccine victims not from a fund paid into by vaccine manufacturers, but through a federal trust fund that collects a 75-cent surcharge on every vaccine given (the combination MMR vaccine, for example, has a $2.25 fee tacked on to it because that shot contains three vaccines). So not only are drug companies making big profits from selling mandated vaccines to government and vaccine producers, they are also held legally blameless for both vaccine injuries and deaths and don’t have to pay a cent to those injured by their vaccines.
The VICP contains a Vaccine Injury Table that lists vaccine side effects that are known to be caused by vaccines. In order to win uncontested federal compensation for a vaccine injury, a person must prove he or she developed certain clinical symptoms and medical conditions on the Table within a certain time frame of receiving a certain vaccine, and that there is no more biologically plausible explanation for the vaccine-related injury or death.
If a clinical symptom and medical condition is not on the Vaccine Injury Table — or developed outside of the accepted timeframe, the vaccine injury claim is contested by the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and the US Department of Justice and is adjudicated in the US Court of Federal Claims (“vaccine court”). In Vaccine Court, the vaccine injured plaintiff must prove, usually via medical records and statements from a medical expert, that the vaccine could have caused the injury.
NPR detailed the story of Lisa Smith, a woman who was healthy until she received a flu shot and, a few days later, realized she couldn’t walk and had developed severe pain in her legs.2
Lisa had developed Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS), an autoimmune disease of the nervous system. GBS is in the process of being added to the official Vaccine Injury Table. She only learned of the VICP after a friend told her about it. She filed a VICP claim and was awarded a settlement of an undisclosed amount.
Many People Are Not Aware of Vaccine Court
In 2014, there were 542 vaccine injury compensation claims filed in the VICP. Of the claims, 365 were compensated for a total of $202 million, with settlements ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.3
What you’ll notice is that very few of these claims are publicized or disclosed to the public in any way. It is obvious that the government does not want to publicize the existence of the VICP because the more Americans learn that there are vaccine injuries and deaths — those that have been vetted and compensated in a court of law — the more they may start to question the safety and of vaccines.
There is a government VICP website, which is run by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).
It maintains vaccine injury claim statistics that have historically been updated monthly — until the government mysteriously removed more than a years worth of data earlier this year…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
HAARP to be ‘Transferred to Civilian Control’; Will Still Receive Pentagon Funding
The High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, also known as HAARP is to be transferred from military operation to “civillian control”, as the site is handed over to the University of Alaska, which will continue to use the mysterious facility for experiments.
“The Air Force Research Lab has control of the HAARP facility until Aug. 11,” Marmian Grimes, a university of spokesperson, wrote in an email to The Intercept.
“After that, the university will have access to the site under the terms of an agreement between [University of Alaska Fairbanks] and the Air Force. That agreement allows access for two years, which will provide the university and the Air Force time to negotiate an agreement regarding the transfer of the land.”
HAARP was officially constructed with the stated goal of studying the ionosphere. It is made up of a huge array of radio transmitters and antennas, which generate radio waves to heat up portions of the ionosphere, the region of Earth’s upper atmosphere, from about 60 km (37 mi) to 1,000 km (620 mi) altitude, which is ionized by solar radiation.
The heat accelerates electrons, creating conditions for military scientists to conduct experiments.
The facility has long been the subject of intense scrutiny among those who believe the Pentagon constructed and used it to conduct research into everything from weather and natural phenomenon manipulation weapons to more esoteric studies, such as electronic and psychotronic mind control.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hello, Pluto! NASA Spacecraft Makes Historic Dwarf Planet Flyby
The first age of solar system exploration is in the books.
NASA’s New Horizons probe flew by Pluto this morning (July 14), capturing history’s first up-close looks at the far-flung world — if all went according to plan. (Mission team members won’t declare success until they hear from New Horizons tonight.) Closest approach came at 7:49 a.m. EDT (1149 GMT), when the spacecraft whizzed within 7,800 miles (12,500 kilometers) of Pluto’s frigid surface. To celebrate, NASA unveiled the latest photo of Pluto, showing a reddish world with a stunning heart-shaped feature on its face.
After today’s close encounter, all nine of the solar system’s traditionally recognized planets have now been visited by a robotic spacecraft — a massive undertaking begun in 1962 when NASA’s Mariner 2 probe zoomed past Venus. More than 1,200 scientists, NASA guests and dignitaries — including 200 reporters — watched the flyby live at New Horizons’ mission control center at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md. They chanted a countdown to the closest approach, then cheered and waved American flags as the big moment occurred.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Leaked Documents Show FBI, DEA, & Army Can Control Your Computer
Leaked emails from an Italian-based hacking company reveal that government agencies engage in surveillance more invasive than previously thought, spending millions of dollars on spyware and malware software to accomplish their questionable goals. Tellingly, their use of the product places them squarely in the same category as other repressive regimes around the world.
After hackers ironically hacked Hacking Team, a Milan-based company that sells strictly to governments, hundreds of gigabytes of emails and financial records were leaked. The emails show that the FBI, DEA, and U.S. Army all purchased software that enables them to view suspects’ photos, emails, listen to and record their conversations, and activate the cameras on their computers, among other things.
While this may seem like old news, the most controversial revelation was the government’s purchases of “Remote Control Systems.” The FBI, DEA, and U.S. Army, courtesy of Hacking Team, possess the capability to take control of a suspect’s computer screen. The technology is so invasive that even the DEA, known for its violative surveillance policies, had reservations about purchasing it.
According to documents obtained by The Intercept, an internal request to purchase RCS was denied by DEA management in 2011 because it was “too controversial.” By 2012, however, the DEA had resolved its concerns, likely spending a similar amount to the $773,226.64 (plus thousands in maintenance fees) the FBI invested in its own set of software.
Hacking Team was so committed to business with these American agencies that it concocted codenames to refer to them. As The Intercept summarizes,
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NAACP Wants Stone Mountain Confederate Generals Sand-Blasted Off, Mount Rushmore Next?
The Atlanta chapter of the NAACP has called for the iconic and intricate Stone Mountain carvings which feature confederate generals to be sand-blasted off and wiped from the pages of history.
In the name of political correctness, NAACP’s Richard Rose told WSB-TV that symbols of the Confederacy should be removed from all state-owned buildings, parks and lands in the area, including a carving which depicts Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis. The carving, which is the largest bas relief sculpture in the world and is bigger than a football field and Mount Rushmore, was started in 1923 and not fully completed until 1972.
“The figures were completed with the detail of a fine painting. Eyebrows, fingers, buckles and even strands of hair were fine-carved with a small thermo-jet torch,” according to the official Stone Mountain website.
But that means little when up against the purge of all symbols of the Confederacy in the aftermath of the Charleston shootings, a hysterical knee-jerk backlash that has led some to call for renaming “racist” American cities like Washington DC in an effort to bury America’s past and replace it with a sanitized imitation.
“Those guys need to go. They can be sand-blasted off, or somebody could carefully remove a slab of that and auction it off to the highest bidder,” Rose said.
The decision on whether the Stone Mountain carvings will be literally sand-blasted from history will be in the hands of the Georgia Legislature.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
NASA’s Three-Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic Encounter
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft is at Pluto.
After a decade-long journey through our solar system, New Horizons made its closest approach to Pluto Tuesday, about 7,750 miles above the surface — roughly the same distance from New York to Mumbai, India — making it the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far from Earth.
“I’m delighted at this latest accomplishment by NASA, another first that demonstrates once again how the United States leads the world in space,” said John Holdren, assistant to the President for Science and Technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “New Horizons is the latest in a long line of scientific accomplishments at NASA, including multiple missions orbiting and exploring the surface of Mars in advance of human visits still to come; the remarkable Kepler mission to identify Earth-like planets around stars other than our own; and the DSCOVR satellite that soon will be beaming back images of the whole Earth in near real-time from a vantage point a million miles away. As New Horizons completes its flyby of Pluto and continues deeper into the Kuiper Belt, NASA’s multifaceted journey of discovery continues.”
“The exploration of Pluto and its moons by New Horizons represents the capstone event to 50 years of planetary exploration by NASA and the United States,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Once again we have achieved a historic first. The United States is the first nation to reach Pluto, and with this mission has completed the initial survey of our solar system, a remarkable accomplishment that no other nation can match.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Horizons: NASA Spacecraft Speeds Past Pluto
Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft has made the first visit to Pluto, speeding past at 14km per second.
Earlier, the space agency released the most detailed picture yet as it hurtled towards the dwarf planet on Tuesday.
New Horizons’ flyby of 2,370km-wide Pluto is a key moment in the history of space exploration.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
New Horizons Spacecraft Makes Historic Pluto Flyby
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its historic flyby of Pluto early Tuesday after travelling 3 billion miles on its epic journey — which lasted more than 9 years — to the dwarf planet. New Horizons made its closest flyby at 7:49 a.m. ET, passing within 7,750 miles of Pluto’s surface, roughly the distance between New York and Mumbai.
Scientists, however, won’t be absolutely certain of the mission’s success until around 9 p.m. ET Tuesday night, when it “phones home.” It will be October 2016 before all the data from the New Horizons mission is transmitted back to Earth.
New Horizons is the first-ever space mission to explore a world so far away from Earth, according to NASA.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
One Million Miles to Go; Pluto is More Intriguing Than Ever
As NASA’s unmanned New Horizons spacecraft speeds closer to a historic July 14 Pluto flyby, it’s continuing to multi-task, producing images of an icy world that’s growing more fascinating and complex every day.
On July 11, 2015, New Horizons captured this image, which suggests some new features that are of keen interest to the Geology, Geophysics and Imaging (GGI) team now assembled at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland. For the first time on Pluto, this view reveals linear features that may be cliffs, as well as a circular feature that could be an impact crater. Just starting to rotate into view on the left side of the image is the bright heart-shaped feature that will be seen in more detail during New Horizons’ closest approach.
The New Horizons spacecraft is now approaching a milestone — only one million miles to Pluto — which will occur at 11:23 p.m. EDT tonight, Sunday, July 12. It’s approaching Pluto after a more than nine-year, three-billion mile journey. At 7:49 AM EDT on Tuesday, July 14 the unmanned spacecraft will zip past Pluto at 30,800 miles per hour (49,600 kilometers per hour), with a suite of seven science instruments busily gathering data. The mission will complete the initial reconnaissance of the solar system with the first-ever look at the icy dwarf planet.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Oracle ‘Breach Notice’ Bullies Enterprise Clients Into Cloud Service, Consultant Claims
A consultant has claimed that The Oracle Corporation has this year adopted new and aggressive techniques to drive its enterprise clients into adding unwanted cloud options to existing contracts in order to avoid being driven completely out of the Oracle infrastructure.
Speaking to Business Insider, the unnamed consultant described the tactic, known as a ‘breach notice’ as a ‘nuclear option’ — and claims it is one which Oracle has only begun to emphasise in its business proceedings this year.
Oracle software is licensed on a per-user basis, with actual usage of added services a separate metric. Changing the contracted configuration of a company’s Oracle license, for instance by adding new services or additional users, will trigger an ‘audit’ of the contract — the point of vulnerability during which, it is claimed, Oracle coerces users into engaging with its commercial cloud offerings or else risk being told to stop using all Oracle software within thirty days.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Pluto is Larger Than Thought, Has Ice Cap, NASA Probe Reveals
With less than 24 hours to go before NASA’s New Horizons probe makes its close flyby of Pluto, scientists are already learning more about the dwarf planet than ever before, including the fact that it is bigger than previously thought.
New Horizons’ latest views of Pluto have shown the dwarf planet to be 1,473 miles (2,370 kilometers) across, making it the largest body in the icy Kuiper Belt at the edge of the solar system. The observations also confirmed the presence of a polar ice cap on Pluto, and measured three of the dwarf planet’s moons.
“Pluto is not disappointing,” said principal investigator Alan Stern, of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, during a NASA briefing here today (July 13).
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pluto Flyby May Reveal Secrets of Saturn’s Moon Titan
The data NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft collects during its historic flyby of Pluto today (July 14) may reveal insights into not only the dwarf planet, but also Saturn’s huge moon Titan, scientists say.
With its nitrogen and methane atmosphere, Pluto bears a strong resemblance to Titan — one of the most potentially habitable bodies in the solar system — or at least how Titan may have been in the past.
“New Horizons will help us confirm our photochemical understanding (of) Pluto. Since the photochemistry is similar to Titan, it will help us understand the processes there, too,” said Michael Wong, a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who worked with Yuk Yung, also of Caltech, and Randy Gladstone, of the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, to study the possibilities of a frozen Titan.
The frozen moon wouldn’t make a perfect replica of Pluto, however; the dwarf planet’s atmosphere is orders of magnitude thinner than Titan’s.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pluto, Large and in Living Colour
NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft beams back its best picture yet of the dwarf planet.
New Horizons’ seven instruments are exploring the geology, atmosphere and other characteristics of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon. It will also peek at Pluto’s four other known moons: Nix, Hydra, Kerberos, and Styx.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Political Correctness Gone Crazy
I’ve wondered for the longest time why Americans remain silent to the massive “fundamental transformation” of our country by a minority of well-organized progressives who use any means necessary to attain their communistic ends, including the phony notion of “white privilege” in the most tolerant nation on the planet.
While history is being altered, rewritten in the revisionist view of Saul Alinksy’s activists on the payroll of the current regime, various communist non-profits, and by low information voters who think that a Hershey’s candy bar is more valuable than a $150 pure silver bar and by the non-stop race-baiters, the U.S. A. has become the laughing stock of the rest of the world. Instead of respect, we get derision and mockery on Al Jazeera by our own millennials who work for various anti-American think-tanks and lobbying firms.
The military is being cut down more and more, “we can’t afford to pay them,” we are following into the footsteps of European countries that are powerless to defend themselves in the case of an attack. Who is going to take America’s place with its brave soldiers who came to the rescue and liberated Europe from the Nazi oppressors? Where is the American backbone I have heard so much about?
The fact that Memphis officials have voted to disinter the grave of a Confederate general and his wife, in an illogical attempt to purge every shred of our past and of our history, is mind-boggling. When are the hungry racists going to stop? Their ancestors are long gone. America is in a different place now.
What will it take to stop this disruptive PC juvenile insanity? Our country is teetering over the abyss of an out of control government spending and unpayable national debt and we are mesmerized by narcissistic media types and the Donut-Licking-Gate?
I got my answer recently. Donald Trump had the temerity to speak the truth by giving accurate statistics and facts about a certain segment of illegal aliens who represent a majority of criminals in our prison system, who invade our borders to commit crimes, to export their illegal drugs and criminal gangs, and to rape and murder innocents who happen to be in the way.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Poll: Donald Trump Just ‘Vaulted’ To the Top of the GOP Field
Real-estate magnate Donald Trump got one of his best results yet Tuesday in a new poll of the 2016 presidential race.
The Suffolk University/USA Today survey showed Trump getting 17% of the Republican vote, placing him ahead of Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s 14%.
David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University political research center, attributed Trump’s rise to the ongoing controversy over his harsh rhetoric against illegal immigration.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
President Donald Trump: A Man for All Americans
Trump promised to build a wall across the Mexican-U.S. border and enforce our immigration laws. Every intelligent American nodded his or her head in agreement. But the pundits lashed out with name-calling and other vacuous charges. The fact remains: our country houses 12 to 30 million illegal alien migrants that wreak havoc on our schools, language, welfare, hospitals, inner cities and worse, they undercut our wages and steal jobs from our poorest Americans. They force us into two languages, which means we fracture our national English language into linguistic chaos — -resulting in two different and opposing Americas.
The tired same old candidates espouse endless legal immigration. Endless legal immigration overwhelms our entire country from cities turning into ghettoes and infrastructure that cannot keep up with exponential growth.
“Most Western elites continue urging the wealthy West not to stem the migrant tide [that adds 80 million net gain annually to the planet], but to absorb our global brothers and sisters until their horrid ordeal has been endured and shared by all—ten billion humans packed onto an ecologically devastated planet.” Dr. Otis Graham, Unguarded Gates
Roosevelt said something about that problem too, “THE ONE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN WAY OF BRINGING THIS NATION TO RUIN, OR PREVENTING ALL POSSIBLITY OF ITS CONTINUING TO BE A NATION AT ALL, WOULD BE TO PERMIT IT TO BECOME A TANGLE OF SQUABBLING NATIONALITIES.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Son of Boston Police Captain Allegedly Involved in Terror Plot
DEVELOPING: The son of a Boston police captain was an ISIS supporter who planned to set off an improvised explosive device and was arrested after illegally purchasing four firearms on July 4, according to a Justice Department press release and MyFoxBoston.
Authorities say 23-year-old Alexander Ciccolo, who also went by the name Ali Al Amriki and posted about martyrdom on Facebook, spoke about setting off an explosive device “in places where large numbers of people congregate, such as college cafeterias.” He was seen purchasing a pressure cooker similar to the kind used by the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing.
Ciccolo’s father reported his son to the FBI after noticing suspicious behavior, according to MyFoxBoston.
Authorities say 23-year-old Alexander Ciccolo illegally purchased four guns and planned a terror attack. (Department of Justice)
“According to a close acquaintance, the defendant had a long history of mental illness and in the last 18 months had become obsessed with Islam,” the Justice Department’s detention memo stated.
Ciccolo first planned to attack members of the military and law enforcement personnel, according to conversations he had with a confidential informant, as related in DOJ documents…
| — Hat tip: NG | [Return to headlines] |
Tense Wait for New Horizons to Phone Home After Pluto Fly-by
We made it. After a decade of travel, NASA’s New Horizon’s spacecraft brushed past Pluto today, recording data that will unveil the enigmatic world before our eyes. If all goes well, we should get an all-clear signal from the probe later today.
At 7:49 local time (EDT), or 12:49 BST, a jubilant crowd at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, counted down from 10 before erupting in cheers. The spacecraft passed by Pluto within 70 kilometres of where it was aimed — an interplanetary hole in one.
That still-far-off image (see above) has a resolution of about 4 kilometres per pixel, about 1000 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope can see.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Real Reason to Avoid MSG: Industry Secret Ingredient for Food Addiction
You likely already know that the food ingredient monosodium glutamate (MSG) isn’t good for you. You may even know some of the popular reasons why. But did you know that MSG is primarily used by the food industry to keep us addicted to ‘big taste, little nutrition’ food? It’s an industry secret. Read on to find out why MSG makes you eat more fast food while fattening up the food industry’s bottom line.
Aside from high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, and ingredients made with chemicals called ‘flavor packets,’ MSG is at the top of the list of food additives to avoid.
Monosodium Glutamate, or MSG, is a trigger substance that food makers are very aware of. It was put in food to cause pavlovian response, creating a trigger for you to eat more and never feel satiated. The FDA calls MSG ‘generally recognized as safe,’ though the ingredient has been found to cause skin rashes, itching, hives, vomiting, asthma, heart irregularities, seizures, chest pain, nausea, weakness, and especially headaches and migraines, among other health issues.
A study published in the Journal of Headache Pain reveals how just a single dose of monosodium glutamate caused headaches in healthy subjects that were tested. This study conducted its research using double blind, placebo-controls and found that MSG intake caused spontaneous pain, jaw aches, high blood pressure, and other unwanted side effects including nausea, fatigue, stomach ache, tight-jaw (TMJ), dizziness, and chest pressure. So exactly how is this considered GRAS by the FDA?
When this very inexpensive, concentrated form of salt is added to your food, it makes you crave sugar, and also interferes with an important set of hormones that control satiation. That means when you eat MSG, your body doesn’t remember how to tell you it’s full, so you just keep eating. Since the ‘salty’ taste makes you crave the taste of ‘sweet,’ you are likely to go back for cookies once you’ve had some nachos covered in processed cheese, or a burger full of MSG.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
These 5 Governors Just Vowed to Defy Obama’s New Executive Order
Last week, President Barack Obama and his associates at the Environmental Protection Agency announced sweeping new climate change regulations that would end July Fourth celebrations as we know them and cost taxpayers billions annually in an attempt to reduce carbon emissions from electric power planets to unfeasible levels.
But five state governors warned that they planned to outright ignore Obama’s overzealous climate change rules.
They include Mary Fallin of Oklahoma, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mike Pence of Indiana, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
Part of the reason the governors felt brave enough to go directly up against Obama was because, according to The Newnan (Ga.) Times-Herald, the Supreme Court ruled against the EPA in Michigan v. EPA last month.
“EPA strayed well beyond the bounds of reasonable interpretation in concluding that cost is not a factor relevant to the appropriateness of regulating power plants,” Justice Scalia wrote.
He added that the “EPA must consider cost — including cost of compliance — before deciding whether regulation is appropriate and necessary.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Army Switching to Hollow Point Ammunition
Sources tell TTAG that the United States Army is switching from ball to hollow-point ammunition for its next generation handgun. The Army dropped the bombshell yesterday at the Modular Handgun System Industry Day in Picatinny, New Jersey. The event was held as part of the Army’s procurement process to replace the Beretta M9 handgun and the ammunition used for the gun. After making the announcement, an Army lawyer mounted the stage to mount a defense for the switch hollow-points
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
U.S. Has Yet to Notify 21.5 Million Data Breach Victims: Officials
Two months after discovering that sensitive personal information on 21.5 million Americans was compromised in a hack of government databanks, none of those affected has been officially notified, government officials said on Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Violent Crime is Surging in Major U.S. Cities and the Economy is Not Even Crashing Yet
And some of the crimes that are being committed out there absolutely defy explanation. For instance, just the other day someone walked up to a 30-year-old white woman as she was strolling with her boyfriend and fired a shotgun into the back of her head for apparently no good reason whatsoever…
Sunday night in Los Angeles as a 30 year-old white woman walked with her boyfriend near Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, a mysterious black man walked up behind the couple and without saying a word fired a shotgun blast to the back of the woman’s head, according to police.
The killer was seen carrying the shotgun as he ran to a car and drove away.
The search for the killer continues.
But it isn’ t just murder rates that are surging. Sex crime rates are also on the rise all over America. The following is an excerpt from a recent New York Post article entitled “ Sex crimes are soaring in NYC” …
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
We all remember the rallying cry of patriots during our War for Independence; “No taxation without representation!” For a very long time now, only the wealthiest, most influential Americans have been truly represented in Congress. The rest of us, like the revolutionary era colonists, are taxed without representation.
Each national poll taken in recent years, that measures the approval rate of Congress, has shown Americans to be completely fed up with their representatives. They are invariably in the single digits in approval rate at this point. And yet, in the last election, 96 percent of congressional incumbents were re-elected. How do we explain such a mind-boggling dichotomy? Are American voters really that stupid, so willing to return to office the elected officials that they tell pollsters they overwhelmingly disapprove of? Or are the votes simply not being counted? As I covered extensively in my book Hidden History, we have strong reasons to doubt that the electoral system is honest, and that the vote totals actually reflect the will of the people.
I am aware that the standard response to the near impossibility of an incumbent being defeated for re-election is: “Most people hate congress, but like their own representative,” or that the incumbent has a huge advantage in raising money. Neither of these excuses makes sense. Who likes their own representative? What has your congressperson done for you? Michael Grimm was re-elected to Congress in 2014 despite a twenty count criminal indictment pending against him. Alcee Hastings was impeached while serving as a judge in Florida, but has been serving in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1993. Recently, Hastings, unashamed of his own criminal past, boldly declared that Congress deserved yet another pay raise. Do these kinds of always re-elected representatives, and many others like them, sound likable in any sense of the word?
As for an advantage in raising campaign funds, this is undoubtedly true, as is the unlimited franking privileges, which permit incumbents to flood their constituents with glossy mailings boasting about their wonderful achievements. But unless the voter is sound asleep, he or she must realize that there are no real wonderful achievements to boast about. How is the amount of money an incumbent spends stopping a voter from pulling the lever of his opponent? You might have a good case here if the incumbents were sending each potential voter a substantial amount of money, in effect buying their vote. But that obviously doesn’t happen, so other explanations will have to be devised. Incredibly, often incumbents run unopposed. So in those cases, the voter literally has no choice. The fact that a “None of the Above” campaign has garnered support tells you all you need to know about the quality of our candidates.
[…]
In 1988, a typical election year, the turnover rate for Congress was less than that of the Soviet Union’s Politburo. That is something every American ought to be utterly ashamed of.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Before Donald Trump ran for president, few people had heard of the Stolen Lives Quilt made in remembrance of Americans killed by illegal aliens. But on Friday, July 10, families of the victims appeared with Trump to talk about the illegal alien crime wave in America and to criticize the news media for not reporting accurately and completely about what is happening in America.
The entire news conference has now been posted online, providing information about the problem that has been denied to this American people for many years.
Operating under the banner statement, “All crimes committed by illegal aliens were preventable,” the National Campaign to Remember Victims Killed by Illegal Aliens notes that “every state is a ‘border state,’“ because the illegals have penetrated the United States as a whole. They argue that “Pro-amnesty special interests have spent millions on spreading the lie that the legalization of undocumented aliens is somehow good for America and American families.”
Those special interests include the Big Media corporations and those who work for them.
Trump’s remarks about criminal aliens leaving Mexico for the U.S. were made out by the media to be extreme and controversial until, a few days later, an illegal alien from Mexico was arrested for the shooting death of 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle on a San Francisco pier.
All of a sudden, because the murder was so shocking that it had to be covered, the American people could see for themselves that Trump was right.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Woman Allegedly Attacked by Group Near U of C Campus With Kids in Car
Police say two people were arrested and charged, but Susan Pedersen says several dozen people were involved in the attack that left her two children covered in broken glass. They were in the back seat of the vehicle, which was left dented with the rear glass shattered.
“I’m very scared, very anxious, nervous. Just fearful,” she said.
Broken glass littered the pavement at 60th and King Drive across from Washington Park, where the attack took place around 9 p.m. Thursday night. Pedersen says she had just dropped off a friend at the University of Chicago when she stopped at a red light and found her car surrounded by several dozen young people.
“They were walking around both sides of the vehicle — in the front, in the back — and as they were walking across, they were hitting my car, using racial slurs and telling me that I didn’t belong in their neighborhood because I was white,” Pedersen said.
The group, all African-American, she says, kicked the vehicle and shook it violently. Her children were screaming from the back of the vehicle.
Pedersen said one person was on a bicycle, which the group used it as a battering ram to shatter the back window. The broken glass left cuts on her 3-year-old son, Benjamin.
Pedersen said a police car, which happened to be nearby, arrived and the group scattered…
| — Hat tip: Bill Keezer | [Return to headlines] |
Man Found Guilty in Via Rail Plot Motivated by Drug Addiction, Court Hears
TORONTO — A psychologist has described a man convicted of terrorism in a plot to derail a passenger train as a desperate drug addict who conned people to get high but wouldn’t even kill a spider.
Dr. Jess Ghannam told a Toronto court on Monday that Raed Jaser did not have consistent radical Islamic ideology, but adopted a persona as a pious Muslim to trick members of that community.
Ghannam concluded that Jaser had no intention to hurt anyone and he was motivated by his drug addiction and by wanting to take care of his family.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
1/3 Italian Farm Businesses Run by Women, Expo Hears
Coldiretti farmers’ group releases data as part of Expo We-Women
(ANSA) — Milan, July 10 — Women run nearly one-third of the 700,000 agricultural businesses in Italy, said Coldiretti farmers’ group on Wednesday at an Expo conference on women in agriculture.
In the first quarter of 2015, nearly half, or 49.3%, of the 215,329 women-run agricultural businesses in Italy were in the south, where family-run businesses are the most prevalent.
“In their business activity, women farmers in Italy have shown the ability to combine challenge with the market, respect for the environment, protection for quality of life, and attention to social responsibility, together with promotion of local products,” said Lorella Ansaloni, director of Donne Impresa, the women’s business arm of Coldiretti.
Ansaloni said the role of associations such as the women’s business movement within Coldiretti have been “fundamental” in helping women in the industry through support for legislation on retirement, family rights, maternity leave, equal rights and women-owned businesses.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
British Muslims Must Challenge Mosques Who Refuse to Condemn ISIS Attacks
The Business Secretary, the most senior elected Muslim in the UK, warned that ‘non-violent extremists’ were making it easier for terrorists to recruit British children to their cause.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Police are hunting a group of gunmen believed to be on the run near Paris after they held a group of workers hostage during an attempted robbery this morning.
After successfully rescuing 18 staff members who were trapped inside the building, police have turned their attention to tracking down the armed robbers.
The gunmen — one of whom was thought to be a Primark employee — were still on the loose this afternoon.
Although it was originally thought they were hidden inside the Qwartz mall in Villeneuve-la-Garenne, just north of Paris, it’s now believed they have escaped…
| — Hat tip: LP | [Return to headlines] |
Genetically Modified, Glow-in-the-Dark Lamb ‘Accidentally’ Winds Up in French Food Supply
How exactly did the GMO lamb escape this supposedly world-class facility? INRA’s internal investigation suggests foul play on the part of a disgruntled employee who allegedly was trying to get back at a colleague with whom he or she had a dispute. How this actually harmed the employee in question is anyone’s guess, and this explanation seems to be a bit of a stretch.
Nevertheless, this incident serves to illustrate that GMOs simply can’t be contained, no matter what level of “biosecurity” is involved or what promises are issued. We’ve seen this on multiple occasions, including with the domestic release of illegal GMO wheat — which isn’t even commercially available — as well as the escape of GM “AquaBounty” salmon in Panama.
“If some people are allowed to choose to grow, sell and consume GM foods, soon nobody will be able to choose food, or a biosphere, free of GM,” warns sustainability expert Roger Levett. “It’s a one way choice, like the introduction of rabbits or cane toads to Australia; once it’s made, it can’t be reversed.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
‘ Leaders of the Church of England declared yesterday(Mon) that fighting climate change is a holy duty.
They called for a new generation of vicars to be trained in ‘ecotheology’ as well as the Bible and ‘eco-justice’ alongside Christian ethics.
Churchgoers are to be encouraged to skip lunch on the first day of every month in a fast against climate change after the General Synod, the CofE’s parliament, adopted a wholesale programme of green activism.’
[Comment: And they wonder why their attendance is falling.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Registry of Motor Vehicles May Come Under Transport Ministry
Public admin reform bill amendment to merge two entities
(ANSA) — Rome, July 7 — An amendment filed Tuesday to the government’s public administration reform bill would transfer the registry of motor vehicles to the transport and infrastructure ministry. The registry is currently run by the Italian Automobile Club (ACI), a private agency.
The transport ministry already runs the department of motor vehicles, so the amendment would join the two entities and generate a single data bank for car licensing and registration.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt Will Reassign All Provincial Staff Says Madia
Criteria to be discussed with unions next week
(ANSA) — Rome, July 8 — Civil Service and Simplification Minister Marianna Madia told the Lower House Wednesday the government will reassign all staff made redundant after provinces are scrapped. “This process will obviously be easier in regions that have approved laws taking on formerly provincial functions,” she said. “But we will proceed in all regions”. The criteria for reassigning employees to new jobs “are contained in a decree as mandated by the 2015 budget,” Madia said. “We will submit that decree to unions next week”.
The minister said last year that priority would be given to public employees with adult family members requiring care, children, or seniority. Civil servants earlier this year protested the plan to reassign “54,000 provincial employees” across Italy, according to a statement from the civil servant divisions of labor unions CGIL, CISL, and UIL.
Madia said at the time she is willing to talk to unions reps.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy Next-to-Last for Online Access to Government
Only Chile worse, while Scandinavian countries top list
(ANSA) — Paris, July 6 — Italy came in second-to-last in a ranking of OECD countries’ usage of the Internet to interact with public authorities, according to the report “Government at a Glance” released by the Paris-based group on Monday.
According to the study, in 2014 only 20% of private individuals in Italy went online for government information or forms, and just 11% used the Internet for sending in completed government forms, just slightly higher than Chile, at 7.3% and 8.9% respectively.
The numbers changed significantly when looking at businesses, however, with a full 77.7% of Italian businesses reporting having used the Internet for requesting government information or forms in 2014, and 58% sending in completed forms online.
Scandinavian countries ranked at the top of the OECD survey, all above 75%, with Norway leading the way at 81% of individuals using the Internet to interact with public authorities.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: ‘Limit to Injustice’: M. Berlusconi on Low Damages Awarded
‘CIR and De Benedetti tried but failed this time’
(ANSA) — Milan, July 10 — In commenting on a decision Friday giving Carlo De Benedetti’s CIR company a much lower amount than it had asked for in a lawsuit against Fininvest, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s daughter Marina said that “even to injustice there is a limit”. “De Benedetti and CIR,” the head of the family’s holding company added, “used to as they are to balancing their finances to the detriment of Fininvest, tried to do so once more. But this time it didn’t work.” The Milan court ordered Fininvest to pay CIR 246,000 euros in a second Lodo Mondadori case, instead of an additional 32 million euros plus some 60 million for interest accrued and legal expenses as had been requested. She called the request “absurd”, noting that CIR had “claimed that their image, reputation and honor had been severely damaged, going so far as to complain of serious psychological and emotional stress and discomfort”. She added that “we should never have had to pay a single euro”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Street Vendors Barred From Rome’s Historic Center
250 police involved in crackdown, minor protests
(ANSA) — Rome, July 10 — Local police on Friday began cracking down on unauthorized street vendors in the historic center of the Italian capital after a much-awaited ordinance went into effect at midnight.
Some 250 police were involved in the operation, prohibiting street vendors from stopping in the historic center and requiring them to move to other areas. The sites affected include the Colosseum, the Imperial Forum, Piazza di Spagna, Piazza Venezia and Circus Maximus. About 20 street vendors reportedly gathered near the Bocca della Verità (Mouth of Truth) to protest being barred from the Colosseum area.
Rome mayor Ignazio Marino and councillors Maurizio Pucci and Marta Leonori made an on-site inspection at the Imperial Forum, where they spoke to the press and some tourists. Marino said he would encourage Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi to come and see the difference.
The mayor added that the impetus had come during the election campaign and after US president Barack Obama’s visit, during which the street had been closed to traffic. “In 1877 this archaeological area was called the most important on the planet, and it must be managed and valorized accordingly by state and local authorities,” he added.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: 16,000 Gave Tax Portion to Political Parties Last Year
Of 41 mn tax payers
(ANSA) — Rome, July 10 — Only 16,518 of 41 million taxpayers last year gave an optional 0.2% portion of their taxes to political parties, the Treasury said Friday. The Democratic Party was top with 199,000 of the 325,000-euro total, followed by the Northern League with 28,000 and Forza Italia with 24,000.
The option of contributing to political parties was introduced last year as a way of helping them get money after State funding was abolished.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Gabrielli ‘Saves’ Marino From Mafia Dissolution
But council will stay under observation
(ANSA) — Rome, July 10 — Rome Prefect Franco Gabrielli has saved Mayor Ignazio Marino from seeing his city council dissolved for mafia infiltration for the moment but has stopped short of saying the council is squeaky clean.
In a statement saying he was recommending Interior Minister Angelino Alfano should not dissolve the Rome council because of the ‘Capital Mafia’ case, Gabrielli’s wording appeared far from definitive.
“The elements gathered on Mafia infiltration have a significant and concrete character,” he said, but they do not point in an “unequivocal way”.
Therefore, far from letting the Rome council off the hook, the prefect said the Capital Mafia probe, as found by investigators, had shown major infiltration of council contracts by a crime cartel headed by former rightist terrorist and gangster Massimo Carminati and leftwing cooperative chief Salvatore Buzzi.
This penetration of work on Roma camps and migrants — which the ringleaders said were more profitable than drugs — did not “point” straight at Marino, however, he said.
Gabrielli said that, compared with the previous centre-right administration of rightwing mayor Gianni Alemanno, who had placed several former rightists in municipal companies, there had been a “discontinuity”.
But while Marino voiced relief at the left-off — although Gabrielli said the council, would continue to be monitored — the council’s secretary-general, Liborio Iudicello, who had worked closely with Alemanno, felt compelled to resign.
Marino has repeatedly said much of the wrongdoing emerged because of his reports to police and vowed to stay on in power until 20123, winning re-election in 2018.
The mayor, whom polls say is one of the least popular mayors in Roman history, was heckled Thursday when he went to a Rome metro stop where a five-year-old boy had fallen to his death in an unattended lift shaft.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Formigoni Denies Wrongdoing at Maugeri Trial
‘Legitimacy of actions uncontestable’ says ex- Lombardy governor
(ANSA) — Milan, July 8 — Former Lombardy Governor Roberto Formigoni on Wednesday denied wrongdoing in a trial into suspected conspiracy and corruption linked to the Pavia-based Maugeri health-care foundation. “The legitimacy of my actions is uncontestable,” he said. Formigoni said foreign holidays and other services he received from alleged ringleader businessman Pierangelo Dacco’, a friend of Formigoni’s, were “just gifts” and not bribes.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Squinzi Says Will Put Unions’ ‘Backs to the Wall’
Unions stand only for pensions, protected groups- Confindustria
(ANSA) — Milan, July 8 — Giorgio Squinzi, the head of industrial employers’ confederation Confindustria, said Wednesday that he intends to confront Italy’s trade unions, arguing they are hampering change. “In the next few days I’ll have a meeting with the national union heads and I’ll put their backs to the wall,” Squinzi said. “We can’t go on like this.
Today Italy’s unions are made up of pensioners and protected groups”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Saipem South Stream Pipeline Contract Terminated
Cancellation due to ‘disagreements’ Gazprom subsidiary says
(ANSA) — Milan, July 9 — Italian oil-services provider Saipem said Thursday it had received notification of the termination of its contract for the offshore section of Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline project. The contract with South Stream Transport, a wholly owned subsidiary of Russian oil company Gazprom, was terminated in the absence of a contractual breach under a standard contractual clause, Saipem said in a statement.
The company confirmed that the pipelaying vessel Castoro 6 was in the process of mooring in Russian waters to start pipelaying activities.
The contract was cancelled due to the “impossibility of reaching an agreement on the many work and commerce-related issues concerning the project,” South Stream Transport said in a statement.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Large Hadron Collider Discovers New Pentaquark Particle
Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have announced the discovery of a new particle called the pentaquark.
It was first predicted to exist in the 1960s but, much like the Higgs boson particle before it, the pentaquark eluded science for decades until its detection at the LHC.
The discovery, which amounts to a new form of matter, was made by the Hadron Collider’s LHCb experiment.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Muslim Preacher Who ‘Despised Britain, Worked for Government Watchdog’
Abdullah al-Andalusi, pictured, taught ISIS was ‘no different to Western Armies’ yet he worked for Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary which regulates 44 forces in England, it is claimed.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Norway: Breivik Car Bomb on Show in Pop-Up Museum
The remnants of the car bomb used by Norwegian killer Anders Behring Breivik to blow up the main government tower in central Oslo are going on display in a temporary exhibition.
The information centre on the July 22 attacks will exhibit the engine block, tyres, and parts of the bodywork from the hired Volkswagen Crafter van the killer parked under the government tower block in central Oslo.
It will also display the fake ID and police insignia the killer made for himself, and the equipment bag he took to the island of Utøya.
Norway’s minister of Local Government Jan Tore Sanner said it was important to set up a “centre of learning” so that Norwegians both young and old can understand what happened.
“Knowledge is our most important weapon in the fight against violence, hatred and extremism,” he told Norway’s Aftenposten newspaper. “That’s why we want to show exactly what happened and omit no part of the story.”
Breivik’s bomb, made of fertiliser and fuel oil, killed eight people and injured at least 209 people.
A further 69 people were killed and 110 injured when he opened fire at a Labour party youth camp on the island of Utøya.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Norwegian Jihadi Fighter Jailed for Eight Years
A 24-year-old Norwegian man accused of fighting for Islamist groups in Syria was given an eight-year jail term on Monday on charges of abetting a terrorist organisation, local media reported.
Ishaq Ahmed fought for the Islamic State group before joining the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, prosecutors said.
An Oslo court found Ahmed “must be deemed to have had major involvement” in their activities and that there were no mitigating circumstances, NTB news agency said.
Prosectors said he left the southeastern town of Fredrikstad in 2013 to head for Syria.
In early 2014, after suffering a bullet wound, he crossed the Syrian border into Turkey, where he contacted the Norwegian embassy to seek help to get back home.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Racism ‘Dramatically’ Up in 2014 — COE
Anti-Semitic insults, attacks more than double says ECRI
(ANSA) — Strasbourg, July 9 — Anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and racial hatred “rose dramatically” in Europe during the course of 2014, according to the annual report from the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), a monitoring body of the Council of Europe (CoE).
“Insults and attacks against Jewish people and places,” ECRI said, “have greatly increased and have more than doubled in some countries” because of Middle East events.
There are “growing anti-Semitic tendencies in Muslim communities, in particular among young people,” ECRI said.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Romania’s PM in Corruption and Money Laundering Charges
Romania’s prime minister Victor Ponta is facing charges of corruption, forgery, money laundering, tax evasion, and conflict of interest.
Prosecutors from the DNA, Romania’s anti-corruption agency, on Monday (13 July) “temporarily seized assets” belonging to the leftist leader following a five week investigation.
A DNA statement said “prosecutors ordered a stepping-up of the penal action against the defendant Ponta, a lawyer at the time of the deeds”.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish Jihadi: “Go There With a Bomb”
One month of Islam in Sweden: June 2015
by Ingrid Carlqvist
“Muslims in Sweden will become more and more degraded … so instead of putting on a T-shirt and going to the most hated place for Allah just to stand there and do dawah (missionize), you should go there with a bomb instead. … Now is the time to show who the earth belongs to!!! … Save yourself from narr (hellfire) by killing a kafir.” — Mikael Skråmo, Swedish convert to Islam.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
BUSINESS INSIDER: What was your immediate reaction to Cameron’s proposals?
Bruce Schneier: My immediate reaction was disbelief, followed by confusion and despair. When I first read about Cameron’s remarks, I was convinced he had no idea what he was really proposing. The idea is so preposterous that it was hard to imagine it being seriously suggested. But while Cameron might not understand what he’s saying, surely he has advisers that do. Maybe he didn’t listen to them. Maybe they aren’t capable of telling him that what he’s saying doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand UK politics sufficiently well to know what was going on in the background. I don’t know anything about Cameron’s tech background. But the only possibly explanation is that he didn’t realize the full extent of what he was saying.
Then I wondered why he would even wish for such a thing? Does he realize that this is the sort of thing that only authoritarian governments do? Again, my knowledge of the UK is limited, but I assume they are a free country that champions liberty.
— From the Business Insider article: David Cameron’s Proposed Encryption Ban Would ‘Destroy the Internet’ I’ve discussed UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s idiotic, futile and extremely dangerous scheme to ban encryption previously here at Liberty Blitzkrieg. Most recently, in the post, Britain’s “War on Terror” Insanity Continues — David Cameron Declares War on Encryption, in which I explained how Cameron immediately seized upon the terrorist attacks in France to propose more fascist nonsense:
When it comes to the “war on terror,” the United Kingdom embraces a unique form of paranoia and hatred for civil liberties that leaves pretty much all other Western nations in the dust. Although it isn’t the country in which I reside, the extraordinarily close diplomatic ties between the U.S. and the UK results in my paying particular attention to what transpires over in Albion.
Unsurprisingly, the recent attacks Charlie Hebdo attacks across the English Channel were more than sufficient to get UK Prime Minister David Cameron hot and bothered enough to immediately call for more power for the government, and less civil liberties for the citizenry. In his latest twisted authoritarian fantasy, Mr. Cameron has decided to declare war on encryption. In other words, a war on private communications between citizens.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Eating Disorders at Ramadan: One Teenager’s Experience
It is coming to the end of Ramadan, when Muslims fast between sunrise and sunset for a month.
The 18-hour fasts are not easy and for some the month can be a difficult challenge, especially for people with eating disorders.
Amina Clayton, who is 19 and lives in Birmingham, is recovering from an eating disorder after having symptoms of both anorexia and bulimia.
She was diagnosed at the age of 16 when she was “hardly eating anything and became very obsessed with exercise”.
Now Ramadan can bring back painful memories.
“The hardest thing about Ramadan is that it’s all centred around food,” she says.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Man Arrested After Charging iPhone on London Overground Train
Artist Robin Lee was arrested on suspicion of ‘abstracting electricity’ after plugging his phone in to charge it when travelling from Hackney to Camden.
A man has accused British Transport police of being “overzealous” and “ridiculous” after he was arrested for charging his iPhone using a socket on a London Overground train.
Robin Lee, a 45-year-old artist based in Islington, was handcuffed and taken to a British Transport Police station on Caledonian Road after his arrest for “abstracting electricity”.
Lee was then arrested on a second offence of “unacceptable behaviour” after “becoming aggressive” when objecting to his prior arrest.
A police spokesman said a “decision on further action would be made in due course”.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
A mother claimed today that a security guard allegedly ordered her to stop feeding her daughter in Primark — before tearing the child off her breast, saying: ‘If you want your baby back, follow me’.
Mother-of-four Caroline Starmer, 28, maintains that she was feeding nine-month-old Paige behind a mannequin in the clothing retailer’s store in Leicester when the worker forced her to stop.
The unnamed man allegedly ordered her to leave, but when Mrs Starmer — who also had Paige’s twin sister Freya with her in a pushchair — refused, he forcibly tore the screaming child off her breast.
But Primark cast doubt on her claims today, saying the incident was not captured on CCTV — and it can ‘see no evidence that she was approached by anyone’ during the time in question yesterday.
Mrs Starmer said she chased after the man — described as a 5ft 10in Asian — as he strode off with Paige, and wrestled her out of his arms before leaving the store and reporting the incident to police.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: White Dee and How the Left Lost the War on Welfare
For decades no one dared question the billions of pounds taxpayers pay to support workless families. But that all changed when White Dee came along and unwittingly lifted the lid on the benefits culture.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Brave Leo Honored With Monument in Serbian Town
Dog saved last year 10-year-old girl, paying with life
(ANSA-AP) — BELGRADE — Normally, Leo would run away at the sight of a bigger dog. The small dachshund liked most to cuddle with his owners or ride in the back seat of the family car. But, one day Leo showed that true bravery knows no limits.
When a raging bull-mastiff cross-breed last year attacked a 10-year-old girl, Leo fearlessly jumped to her rescue, barking and biting at the dog way above his size and strength. Leo paid with his life, but the citizens of this northern Serbian town have not forgotten.
Two weeks ago, a life-size bronze statue of Leo was put up next to a children’s playground in Pancevo’s city park, honoring the dog and teaching kids about animal friendship and sacrifice.
An alert-looking Leo, his head raised above his stretched paws, now rests proudly on a white base surrounded by flowers.
Nikolina Vucetic, the girl Leo defended, often comes by.
“I am so glad Leo has a monument, he turned out to be a real hero,” Vucetic told The Associated Press. “He helped me.” The initiative to honor Leo was pushed through by an animal rights group after it gained widespread citizens’ support through social networks and local media. The “Pets” group says Leo’s is the first dog monument in Serbia, which has huge problems with stray dogs and notoriously low standards in animal welfare and protection.
“The idea was to raise awareness about how important animals are to us and how they are always there for us when we need them,” activist Ivan Kurajov explained.
Vucetic, now a skinny 12-year-old, recalled returning home from a friend’s house when the neighbor’s guard dog came down the street, jumped at her from behind and grabbed her arm. The dog nailed the girl to the ground, pulling her left and right with his jaws.
“I screamed and Leo rushed out barked and ran around, biting him on the leg,” Vucetic said, showing the scars from the attack. “When the dog let go of me, he looked around and then stormed at Leo.” Leo didn’t stand a chance. Despite efforts by veterinarians, his injuries were too severe and Leo died two days later.
Owner Biljana Ilic said Leo was a “funny, happy dog,” who liked most to jump straight into the lap of whoever came into the house, happily licking the guest. “That dog was just too big and Leo was so small,” the 23-year-old added, her eyes filling with tears. The family has a new dachshund named Djole, a gift from local breeders touched by Leo’s heroism.
In the Pancevo park, children have been flocking around Leo’s monument, patting the dog’s head and his big ears. Some have taken pictures next to Leo, laid flowers or left dog treats by the statue.
The inscription on the monument reads: “To all the small heroes with big hearts.”
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Croatia: Dinamo Bosses Under Investigation for Bribery
The Mamic brothers arrested for tax fraud
(ANSA) — ZAGREB — Two powerful ‘barons’ of the Croatian football, the controversial president of the Zagreb-based Dinamo soccer club, Zdravko Mamic, and his brother Zoran, coach of the Croatian team, are in custody since last night, being under investigation for corruption and tax fraud. The Croatian Serious Fraud Office (USKOK), special unit of the judiciary, announced that, according to initial investigations, Zdravko Mamic is supposed to have hidden, in many illegal ways, about 15 million euros belonging to Dinamo, and to have escaped taxes amounting to another 1.5 million euros. According to press reports, in 2008 the Mamic brothers are supposed to have earned huge sums in commission payments from the sale of Croatian football players to foreign clubs. Local media mentioned, moreover, Luka Modri’s sale to Tottenham, 21 million euros without paying taxes. Among the suspects are also Damir Vrbanovi, Dinamo former executive manager and now executive director of the Croatian Football Federation (HNS), and a Treasury employee that is supposed to have helped them escape taxes in exchange for bribes. Zdravko Mamic, known for being bad-tempered, quite vulgar, and ‘very nationalist’, has denied all charges, crying at the trial as being fake, commanded by politics and by the prime minister himself, who — he declared — aimed “at deleting me from the Croatian football”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Vetoes Srebrenica ‘Genocide’ Resolution
Most SC members vote in favour
(ANSA) — Rome, July 8 — Russia on Wednesday vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution describing the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb troops as “genocide”.
Four other members of the council abstained while the remainder voted in favour.
The killing was the worst massacre in Europe since World War Two.
The motion had angered Serbia, which rejects the term ‘genocide’. It had been drafted to mark the 20th anniversary of the atrocity, which came amid the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia into independent states.
During the Bosnian War, which saw Serbia-backed Bosnian Serb forces fighting the Muslim-led Bosnian government, thousands seeking shelter at what was supposed to be a UN refuge were slaughtered.
The resolution said that “acceptance of the tragic events at Srebrenica as genocide is a prerequisite for reconciliation”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia’s Prime Minister Attacked in Srebrenica (Video)
POTOCARI — Serbia’s prime minister Aleksandar Vucic has been chased out of a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre by a huge crowd throwing stones and bottles.
Vucic attended the commemoration service on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of crime in Srebrenica at the Potocari Memorial Center on Saturday.
The prime minister previously visited a photo exhibition dubbed Srebrenica-Potocari 1995-2015 at the Memorial Hall and signed the book of condolences in the presence of a large number of media…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Egypt: Catholic Church Spokesman: Consulate Car Bomb a Warning to Italy
A violent explosion has severely damaged the building of the Italian diplomatic mission in Cairo. The offices were closed and a passer-by was the only victim. Fr. Rafic Greiche tells AsiaNews: “The terrorist attack did not intend to kill, but to send a message to the west and Italy, and show the weakness of the Egyptian government.”
Cairo (AsiaNews) — A powerful explosion hit and seriously damaged the Italian consulate in Cairo, Egypt this morning. The bomb was placed in a car parked near the building, one of the oldest in the area.
The blast occurred at 5:22 and being Saturday the offices of the diplomatic mission were closed. Fr. Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Egyptian Catholic Church commented to AsiaNews this points to the probability that “the goal was not to kill many people, but to send a message to the West and to Italy: terrorism is coming”.
In fact, the car bomb only killed one person, a passerby. Four other people were injured, but none seriously. None of the injured included the civilian employees of the Italian diplomatic mission.
So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, the Egyptian priest believes it is “a terrorist attack: it couldn’t be anything else. In addition, the authors of the act wanted to show that the Egyptian government is weak and is not able to protect foreigners in its territory, not even embassies and consulates”.
A month ago Hisham Barakat, a prosecutor, was killed by a car bomb in the capital. In the same month, another blast hit a police station, killing three people. The Egyptian security forces have been battling Islamist militants for some time, but the clashes were largely confined to the area of the Sinai.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Moroccans Convicted for Drinking Juice During Ramadan
Rabat: Four youths arrested in Morocco for drinking fruit juice in public during the daylight hours of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan received suspended four-month jail terms Tuesday, a rights group said.
“This verdict is courageous even though we would have liked them to be cleared,” Omar Arbib, of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, told AFP.
He was referring to the leniency of the sentence: under Moroccan law, the offence can carry a penalty of up to six months behind bars.
A fifth young person, under the age of 18, is due before a juvenile court on the same charge Friday.
Throughout Ramadan, which ends this week, believers are supposed to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking and having sex from dawn until sunset.
The five were arrested July 6 in Marrakesh, one of the kingdom’s main tourist destinations.
He said other juice sellers there had alerted the police.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
The Proof Terror Gang Drove Tunisian Gunman to Massacre Beach
CCTV footage shows killer arriving in van minutes before he shot 30 Brits
This is the chilling moment Islamic State terrorists dropped gunman Seifeddine Rezgui off in a quiet side street, minutes before he murdered 30 British tourists in Tunisia.
The Mail on Sunday can reveal dramatic CCTV footage captured the 23-year-old fanatic arriving in a white van — 300 yards from the scene of the horrific massacre in Sousse.
A camera at a holiday rental apartment filmed Rezgui arriving as a passenger in the Peugeot Partner van at 11.12am on June 26.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Hundreds Protest Temple Mount Discrimination: We’re Human Beings
Hundreds attended a demonstration protesting anti-Jewish discrimination on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem Tuesday afternoon.
Despite being Judaism’s holiest site, Jews are forbidden from praying on the Temple Mount due to Muslim pressure and threats of violence, and religious Jews who wish to visit are subjected to a long list of restrictions. Those suspected of breaking the conditions can face arrest or even a ban from the holy site.
Among those in attendance was leading Temple Mount rights activist Rabbi Yehuda Glick, who is still recovering from an attempt on his life by an Islamist terrorist late last year which saw him shot four times at point-blank range.
Speaking to Arutz Sheva, Glick decried what he called anti-Jewish “apartheid” on the Temple Mount.
Glick said the issue was simply one of human rights. “We are human beings,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Suspects Arrested Over Church Arson
Several suspects were arrested overnight Saturday/Sunday in the investigation of an arson attack against the a church in the Galilee last month, in a joint operation between the Israel Security Agency (ISA or Shin Bet) and the Israel Police.
An “undercover and professional investigation began as soon as the church fire was discovered” and ended “this evening, with the arrests of those involved,” the Israel Police announced Sunday morning.
The Nazareth Magistrate’s Court will determine the length of the suspects’ detention on Sunday afternoon…
| — Hat tip: MC | [Return to headlines] |
43 British Women and Girls in Syria, Say Police
UK counter-terrorism chiefs say 43 UK women and girls are believed to have travelled to Syria in the past year.
The Metropolitan Police figures are the first official count of British women thought to be in the warzone.
Security officials believe up to 700 people have gone to Syria to become involved in jihadist groups and about half have returned.
Women who travel to Syria for jihadist reasons cannot get involved directly in fighting. They are regularly married off to fighters.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Clinton, Who Called Obama’s Rogue Nation Diplomacy ‘Naive’ In 2007, Backs Iran Deal
Hillary Clinton endorsed the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday as “an important step in putting a lid on Iran’s nuclear program,” in statements that marked a sharp departure from the 2008 presidential campaign when she blasted Barack Obama’s stance on dealing with rogue powers like Tehran as “irresponsible” and “naïve.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran Nuclear Deal: US Conservatives Condemn Agreement
US conservatives have lined up to condemn the deal reached between major world powers and Iran.
The agreement limits Iranian nuclear activity in return for the lifting of crippling international economic sanctions.
The US Congress has 60 days in which to consider the deal, though President Barack Obama has said he will veto any attempt to block it.
Negotiations between Iran and six world powers — the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany — began in 2006.
The so-called P5+1 want Iran to scale back its sensitive nuclear activities to ensure that it cannot build a nuclear weapon. Iran, which wants international sanctions lifted, has always insisted that its nuclear work is peaceful.
People took to the streets of the Iranian capital to celebrate the deal.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Iran, World Powers Agree to Nuclear Deal
Iran and the United States and its negotiating partners finally reached agreement Tuesday on a deal that would curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief — setting up a looming showdown between President Obama and Congress, where lawmakers could take issue with several provisions, including one giving Iran leverage over inspections.
Speaking from the White House, Obama claimed the deal meets “every single one of the bottom lines” from a tentative agreement struck earlier this year.
“Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off,” Obama said, claiming it provides for extensive inspections. “This deal is not built on trust. It is built on verification.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Execution Video Shows Prisoners in Mass Graves Before Being Machine Gunned
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: Islamic State fanatics have released one of their most sickening videos yet — new footage of of last year’s notorious Speicher massacre in Tikrit, Iraq.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Blow up a Booby-Trapped Baby in Explosives Training Exercise
[WARNING: Disturbing Content.]
An orphaned baby was reportedly strapped to a booby trap device and blown up as part of a sickening ISIS training camp exercise on improvised devices.
The sadistic act is thought to have taken place near ash-Sharqat in the northern Iraqi province of Salahuddin, where ISIS still holds considerable territory.
Using a remote control detonator, the baby was destroyed by the explosives to show the trainee terrorists how to assemble improvised explosive devices.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS’s Female Gestapo Wreaking Terror on Their Own Sex
One teacher told of her horrifying capture in the Syrian city of Raqqa by the ruthless all-women police unit, the Al-Khansa brigade, created to enforce IS rules.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Israel Says Iran Deal is ‘Historic Mistake’
Now that an Iran deal has been reached, all eyes are on Israel which has long warned against any type of agreement and reserves the right to take pre-emptive military action. Daniella Cheslow reports from Jerusalem.
Turkey’s top court overrules Erdogan’s closure of rival schools
Thousands of private prep schools won’t have to shut their doors following a constitutional court ruling. The schools are thought to be a major source of funding for a political rival to President Erdogan.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Italian Govt Funds Women-Led Businesses in Middle East
Bonino presents 1-mn-euro project at Expo with UNIDO
(ANSA) — Milan, July 6 — The Italian government has financed a program for one million euros to promote women-led businesses in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, presented at Expo on Monday by former Minister of Foreign Affairs Emma Bonino and the United Nations Development Organization (UNIDO).
The project, called “Promoting Women’s Empowerment,” will benefit women in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia.
“The energy and ideas of these women already exist. Women for Expo highlights and gives visibility to what’s already there,” said Bonino, honorary president of Women for Expo, which focuses on women’s culture within the subjects of food and sustainability.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Mujahideen Valley: How a Chechen From Georgia Became a Feared Leader of ISIS
“CHRIST IS RISEN, Christ is risen!” says Temur Batirashvili, father of one of the most notorious leaders of the Islamic State.
Temur welcomes me into his modest house with the phrase that is a common greeting among Eastern Orthodox Christians. Then he takes a drink from a glass of homemade Georgian wine.
“Truly, He is risen,” he continues. “Truly …”
Temur Batirashvili is a Christian, like his ancestors. He has three sons, all of whom converted to Islam, against their father’s wishes. Temur blames himself; when the children grew up he was rarely at home, traveling for work all over Russia. He had to support his family. The children’s mother, an ethnic Chechen Muslim whose family immigrated to Georgia hundreds of years ago, raised the couple’s sons mostly on her own.
“I never thought that my son …” Temur starts, then grows silent and takes a drag from a cigarette. He chains smokes one after another.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Obama’s Republican Opponents Criticize Iran Nuclear Deal
US President Barack Obama has appealed to members of both Houses of Congress to support the Iran nuclear deal. However, some lawmakers say they fear too many concessions may have been made to Tehran.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Officials: Iran Nuclear Deal Fuels Middle East Arms Race, Boosts Russia’s Influence
The newly announced Iran nuclear deal and the negotiations leading up to it already are fueling an all-but-declared nuclear arms race in the Middle East, according to current and former government officials who say the situation also creates an opening for Russia to exert more influence in the region.
“We have given Iran the path it has been seeking for almost 35 years. The other states in the region are not going to sit idly by, which is why in effect the nuclear arms race is already underway,” former U.N. Ambassador and Fox News contributor John Bolton said, adding that Iran and other nations have used civilian nuclear energy programs as cover for covert enrichment programs.
But in the last six months, Russia has struck three significant nuclear deals with long-time U.S. Middle East allies, effectively capitalizing on regional distrust of Iran.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Arabia Warns Iran Against Abusing Funds From Nuclear Deal to Incite Regional Turmoil
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia’s state news agency says the kingdom has warned Iran against abusing funds that will follow from the landmark nuclear deal to incite turmoil in the region.
The Saudi Press Agency says Tehran must use the resources in the service of the Iranian people, “rather than using them to cause turmoil in the region.”
The statement cited an unnamed Saudi official as per the kingdom’s regulations. It came after Iran concluded a deal earlier Tuesday in Vienna with six world powers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Swedish ISIS Fighter Killed in Iraq Raid
A man from Sweden understood to have had a key role within Isis (also known as the Islamic State) has been killed in Iraq, according to reports in the Swedish media.
The Isis fighter, believed to have been called Abu Othman, died after a bombing on an Isis propaganda centre in Anbar Province in Iraq last Friday, Sweden’s Svenska Dagbladet newspaper reported on Tuesday.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Turkey’s Top Court Overrules Erdogan’s Closure of Rival Schools
Late on Monday, Turkey’s Constitutional Court struck down a law that aimed to close a series of tutoring schools linked to Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric based in the US. Gulen is the head of the Hizmet movement, and considered to be a political enemy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan and Gulen were once political allies, but turned against each other in 2013 when Erdogan accused Gulen of inventing corruption allegations in order to de-throne Erdogan and his party.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
What Iran’s Nuclear Deal Means for the Global Crude Oil Market
The nuclear accord reached in Vienna on Tuesday could eventually reshape global oil markets. After almost two years of talks, the holder of the world’s fourth-biggest crude reserves will benefit from an easing of international sanctions on exports in return for curbs on its nuclear program.
How Much More Oil Can Iran Produce?
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh says the country can increase exports by 500,000 barrels a day as soon as sanctions are lifted, then an additional 500,000 a day in the following six months. Iran produced an average of 2.8 million barrels a day this year.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says adding 500,000 barrels a day will take about a year because Iran must first demonstrate its compliance with the terms of the nuclear accord and revive aging wells. Further expansion will need foreign investment, BNP Paribas SA says. The country also has 30 million barrels stored on tankers that it could ship more quickly, according to Bank of America Corp.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Yemen Death Toll Rises While Hadi Loyalists Recapture Aden Airport
As the Yemeni civilian death toll reaches 1,600, loyalists of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi have retaken Aden airport. The World Health Organization (WHO) has delivered 46.4 tons of aid to the port city.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
ISIS Movement in Russia Raises US Concern
ISIS strongholds in Iraq and Syria are the focus of much scrutiny, but there are new concerns the terror network is looking to use other radical movements closer to Europe as a way to expand their reach.
Fox News National Security Analyst KT McFarland spoke to foreign policy experts retired Air Force Col. Cederic Leighton and the Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano about the terror network’s influence.
Leighton says there are already indications ISIS is linking up with Russian extremists. “They are riding a wave of popularity — wherever they get traction, that’s where they are going to have a franchise operation … and they are doing a great job of it in the Caucasus at the moment.”
Russia has dealt with terror attacks linked to Russia’s Caucasus region, where extremism runs high.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Russia Protests Demolition of Soviet War Memorials in Poland
‘War on monuments’ escalates between Moscow and Warsaw
(ANSA-AP) — MOSCOW — Russia has protested plans to demolish a Soviet war memorial in Poland and accused the Warsaw government of escalating its “war on monuments.” The Russian Foreign Ministry said at least 10 war memorials have been desecrated or demolished in Poland during the past year.
Friday’s protest concerns a memorial in the town of Pieniezno dedicated to Soviet Gen. Ivan Chernyakhovsky, who was fatally wounded at the site in February 1945.
Soviet war memorials have fallen into disrepair and been regularly vandalized in Poland, where the Soviet role in World War II is viewed with ambiguity or outright hostility. In Russia, the official narrative is that the Red Army liberated Poland from Nazi occupation.
Russia says the demolition of war monuments in Poland violates a 1994 agreement between the two countries.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
More Than 20 Killed in Hindu Festival Stampede in India
More than 20 people have been killed after a stampede at a religious festival in India. Dozens of others were injured in the incident, which occurred in the south of the country.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Chinese Police Shoot Dead ‘Terrorist’ Uighurs
Officers in Shenyang have killed three Uighur men who they say were Islamist militants. Activists have said that Uighurs are merely being discriminated against by a “hostile” government.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Philippine Teen Recovers in Sudan After Life-Saving Surgery
A dressing covers the scar where surgeons cut open Reynaldo Nilo’s chest for life-saving heart surgery, but the Philippine teenager feels stronger than he has for years after his operation in Sudan.
The 17-year-old arrived in Khartoum last month after his sister saw a television report about a hospital run by an Italian medical charity that offers free treatment.
Sitting in his spotless hospital room, his voice still hoarse after his five-hour surgery on June 16, Reynaldo said he was on the mend…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
NZ Drivers Fill Up on ‘Brewtroluem’ A Beer-Based Biofuel
New Zealand drivers can now fill up their cars with a biofuel made from beer by-products. Brewtroleum is, its makers say, cleaner than normal petrol or diesel.
Created by Gull fuel and DB Export brewers, Brewtroleum is made from ethanol which has been extracted from yeast left over from local beer brewing and normal fuel.
It is the first commercial fuel in the world to be made using brewing by-products and creates up to eight per cent less carbon dioxide than regular fuel, according to Gull.
The new biofuel has been available from filling stations on New Zealand’s North Island since Monday and if the initial 300,000 litres prove popular, Gull might find itself brewing up more on a regular basis.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
South Africa: “Family’s Goat Head Agony!”
Six-year-old Mzwandile believed to have been decapitated for muthi
Daily Sun (July 14 2015) — WHEN the little boy’s killers stole his head, it created a terrible problem for the family.
Their tradition said they couldn’t bury an incomplete body.
SO AFTER CONSULTING ELDERS THEY BURIED THE HEADLESS CHILD — WITH A GOAT’S HEAD!
Family, friends and politicians bade farewell on Sunday to Lwambeni Primary School grade 1 pupil Mzwandile Mkhize (6), from Zwelibomvu at KwaNdengezi, west of Durban.
Mzwandile’s grieving dad, Mduduzi Mkhize (44), explained the family’s agony that led to them consulting elders. Finally,the family decided with elders to use a goat’s head after losing all hope of finding Mzwandile’s head.
“We believe that a person buried with body parts missing doesn’t find rest. “We wanted to get the funeral over with so we could find closure,” said Mduduzi. It broke the hearts of his six remaining children that they couldn’t see their little brother in his coffin. “I couldn’t let them see him in that state. I decided people would see only his photo on the coffin.”…
| — Hat tip: RRN | [Return to headlines] |
DEA Warned Mexico of Plots to Free Drug Lord ‘El Chapo’ In March 2014, Documents Show
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) first warned Mexican authorities 16 months ago that plots to break drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman out of prison were afoot, documents revealed Monday.
The documents obtained by the Associated Press, show that drug agents first got information in March 2014 that various Guzman family members and drug-world associates were considering “potential operations to free Guzman.” A U.S. official briefed on the investigation told the AP that the Mexican authorities were alerted about the plots. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose details.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Drug Lord Who Worked With DEA Escapes Prison
Guzman, who is considered “the world’s most powerful drug trafficker” by the US government and who is on the Forbes list of billionaires, worked closely with the Drug Enforcement Administration to eliminate his competitors.
Following the 2009 arrest Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the son of a Sinaloa leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, it was discovered members of the notorious cartel met with DEA officials at least 50 times since 2000…
According to the late investigator and author Mike Ruppert, “the point is that with 250 billion dollars a year in illegal drug money moved, laundered through the American economy, that money benefits Wall Street. That’s the point of having the prohibitive drug trade, which the CIA effectively manages for the benefit of Wall Street.”
“So the purpose of the Agency being involved in the drug trade has been to generate illegal cash, fluid liquid capital, which gives those who can get their hands on it an unfair advantage in the marketplace…. The drug money is always going through Wall Street. Wall Street smells money and doesn’t care where the money comes from; they’ll go for the drug money.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
How Videos of Supermarket Raids Show What Life is Like in Venezuela
Every week at least one video showing people looting either a supermarket or a lorry full of food is shared online by Venezuelans. Some of them get thousands views of and some just a few hundred, but they are highlighting food shortages in the country.
With a collapsing currency and the highest inflation rate in the world, shortages of basic products have become the norm in Venezuela over the last few years. The situation reached crisis point earlier this year when thousands posted pictures online of empty shelves — and now it seems to be getting even worse.
Videos like the one shown in the still image above are being shared on Whatsapp, YouTube or Facebook. Some of them are picked up by media opposed to the Venezuelan government or sent directly to anti-government sites. “Definitely, there has been an increase in these kind of videos,” one of the people behind the anti-government website Dolar Today told BBC Trending. “Every week, we get between five and 10.”
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Offers the Masses the Opium of Marxism
To my Catholic friends, while I am loathe to criticize that which they hold dear, there comes a time when silence is the wrong answer. When Pope Francis first surfaced, I thought he had the potential to be a great Pope. But with the potential of greatness, also comes the opportunity of infamy. Pope Francis is a Marxist and embodies many, many principles that I stand against, not only as a Constitutional Conservative, but as a Christian. This last week just solidified my uneasiness concerning this Pope.
The Bolivian President, Evo Morales (who Trevor Loudon and I have long contended is a Marxist), presented the Pontiff with a crucifix depicting Jesus nailed to a hammer and sickle, which the Pope returned after a brief examination. What is under contention is what the Pope said when presented with the gift. His comments were pretty much drowned out by a flurry of camera clicks. While some have claimed he expressed irritation, muttering the words “eso no está bien” (“this is not right”), Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the Pope more likely said “no sabía eso” (“I didn’t know that”) in bemusement at the origins of the present. Which would make sense as NewsBusters and the Wall Street Journal noted, President Morales also “draped a medallion over [the pope’ s] neck that bore the hammer and sickle.”
Communism has murdered well over one hundred million people in the last century alone. Many, many of those were Christians. As Ann Barnhardt put it, “ Our Blessed Lord and Savior shown crucified on a hammer and sickle is, by all metrics, worse than Our Lord shown crucified on a swastika.” This constitutes blasphemy for me — Pope or not.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
10 Horribly Violent Crimes That Were Committed by Illegal Immigrants
[WARNING: ** Disturbing Content. **]
Yes, illegal immigrants are responsible for lots of crime in this country. In recent years, nearly 1000 illegal immigrants have been convicted of committing sex crimes against children in the state of Texas alone. And as you will read about below, illegal immigrants have a murder rate that is 3 to 10 times higher than the general population. So anyone that suggests that illegal immigrants don’ t commit more crime than the rest of us is simply lying to you. Unfortunately, even though we could prevent thousands upon thousands of violent crimes by securing our borders, the Obama administration refuses to do so and it has become very politically incorrect to even talk about this. Every single day, American citizens are being murdered and raped by people that should not be in this country and yet nobody is supposed to address this issue. No wonder our nation is in the process of self-destructing. The following are 10 horribly violent crimes that were committed by illegal immigrants…
#1 An illegal immigrant that had been deported five times recently gunned down a young woman that was taking a walk with her father on a pier in San Francisco…
Kate Steinle was walking on a busy pier in San Francisco with her father when there was a single popping sound in the air.
She fell to the ground, struck by a bullet, the victim of what police say appears to be a random killing.
The man accused of firing the deadly shot — 45-year-old Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez — is an undocumented immigrant, a repeat felon who has been deported five times to Mexico, according to immigration officials.
#2 An illegal immigrant has just been arrested for abducting a 13-year-old Florida girl and repeatedly raping her…
On Thursday, Michigan police arrested a Mexican illegal alien, 23-year-old Aurelio Hernandez-Gomez, after finding him with a 13-year-old Florida girl who had last been seen two days before her ordeal.
Cops acted on a tip that led them to a Hartford home where Hernandez-Gomez hid the girl while assaulting her…
According to Democrats (and some Republicans), we should not be too concerned about crimes such as these because the general population commits crimes at about the same rate.
But when they tell you that, they are flat out lying to you. The following numbers come from a recent American Thinker article…
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Activists Protest Hungary’s Anti-Immigrant Fence Being Built on Serbian Border
BUDAPEST, Hungary — Protesters called on the Hungarian government to abandon construction of an anti-immigrant fence of the border with Serbia and provide more support to refugees seeking asylum in the European Union.
About 800 people took part in Tuesday’s protest, some breaking through a makeshift barrier set up outside parliament as a symbol of their opposition to the 4-meter (13-foot) high fence which the government starting building this week.
Activist Amy Rodgers from MigSzol, an organization which assists migrants and refugees, asked the Hungarian government to open more refugee camps and on the EU to create legal ways for refugees to reach Europe.
Around 80,000 migrants and refugees have reached Hungary so far in this year. Most request asylum but leave for richer EU countries before their claims are settled.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Calais ‘Secure Zone’ To Keep Migrants Away From UK-Bound Lorries
Britain’s interior minister has told parliament that a new secure zone is being set up in the French port of Calais to protect UK-bound lorries from migrants trying to reach Britain illegally.
It will have space for 230 vehicles — or the equivalent of moving a two-and-half mile (four kilometre) queue, Home Secretary Theresa May said in a statement to the House of Commons.
“This should transform protection for lorries and their drivers, removing them from the open road, where they can become targets for migrants attempting to board their vehicles,” May said in the House of Commons.
May said the Calais authorities had caught more than 8,000 migrants trying to reach the UK illegally in the past three weeks alone.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Facing Record Migrant Flows, Hungary Tightens Asylum System
The plan is sharply criticized by the U.N.’s refugee agency
(ANSA-AP) — BUDAPEST — Hungary’s parliament has approved amendments tightening the country’s asylum system, a response to the record number of migrants and refugees reaching the country over the past year.
The plan, sharply criticized by the U.N.’s refugee agency, was approved Monday by lawmakers from the governing Fidesz party, its Christian Democrat allies and the far-right Jobbik party.
The new rules will allow authorities to cancel asylum requests if the petitioners leave their designated residence for more than 48 hours without authorization, and will prolong the detention of asylum seekers.
Lawmakers also approved a proposal facilitating the government’s plan of building a 4-meter (13-foot) -high fence on the border with Serbia to stem the flow of migrants and refugees.
Nearly 72,000 migrants have reached Hungary so far this year.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary Begins Constructing Wall Along Serbia Border
Hungary Monday started building a wall along the Serbian border to curb what the government says is an unprecedented flow of undocumented people coming into the country. “Illegal immigration has become a severe problem and its control a prominent task,” said a statement by the interior and defence ministries.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
In 2014, 21,000 Migrants Along the ‘Balkan Route’
Amnesty harshly criticized Prime Minister Orban’s rhetoric
(ANSA) — TRIESTE — According to data collected by Amnesty International (AI), between June 1 and June 22, 2015, about 61,256 migrants, asylum seekers and refugees arrived in Italy, 61,474 in Greece. Among the about 21,000 migrants who have opted for the Balkan route in 2014, more than 50% came from Syria, while most of the remaining migrants came from Afghanistan, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Tunisia.
Since last March, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Hungarian Foreign Minister — AI underlined — have revived the anti-immigrant rhetoric, threatening even to establish rules that would allow the immediate detention and refoulement of migrants and, moreover, encouraging to build a fence along the border with Serbia to stop the flow of migrants.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
The secure zone will be able to accommodate 230 vehicles — the equivalent of a two-and-a-half mile queue — the Home Secretary Theresa May announced this afternoon.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Record Numbers Enter Germany Illegally
As numbers of refugees entering Germany reach record highs, police have warned that they are struggling to cope with the growing demands on their time and resources.
Speaking in Berlin on Monday, Bundespolizei (federal police) chief Dieter Romann said officials have seized over 63,000 people who entered the country illegally so far this year — with around 3,000 cases recorded last weekend alone.
The total for this year so far has already eclipsed last year’s sum of 57,000, which had previously been the highest level since German reunification in 1990.
The increase is in part down to a growing influx of asylum seekers. So far this year around 179,000 refugees have applied for asylum in Germany — more than double the figure for the first half of last year.
The most numerous are those from Syria, Eritrea and Afghanistan, although Balkan states such as Kosovo, Serbia and Albania are also contributing to growing refugee numbers.
As numbers rise, people-smuggling also appears to be on the increase — with around 1,500 smugglers arrested so far this year, compared with a total of around 2,100 last year.
Romann warned that the Austrian border with Bavaria is a particular hotspot, with police headquarters in Munich recording dramatic increases in case numbers.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Growing Number of Asylum Seekers Suspected of War Crimes
Sweden is identifying an increasing number of asylum seekers who are suspected of war crimes or crimes against humanity, Swedish Radio News reports.
41 cases have been reported since the beginning of this year, compared to 20 in all of 2014.
“We have become better at asking, catching those stories and it’s about asking the right follow-up questions so we can confirm suspicions better,” says Magnus Bengtsson, asylum expert at the Swedish Migration Agency.
When the agency suspects that an asylum seeker has committed war or terror crimes, it refers the case to the Swedish Security Service Säpo for advice.
Most of the 41 cases reported this year are described by the migration agency as suspected terrorists or war criminals.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
Trump Threatens “North American Union” Scheme
As Rush Limbaugh notes, Donald Trump has indeed made illegal immigration into an issue of national debate. The liberal media and now, apparently, the chairman of the Republican Party, have objected to Trump’s comments about criminal aliens. In fact, what Trump has done is jeopardize a plan that goes way beyond mere amnesty for illegals, and which has been on the drawing board for more than a decade. Simply put, the plan is to submerge the sovereignty of the United States of America and politically integrate the U.S., Canada, and Mexico into a trilateral entity called the North American Union.
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) calls it a “North American Community,” as if the corrupt culture and government of Mexico can be made to mesh with democratic systems in the U.S. and Canada. It means open borders and more criminal aliens in the U.S.
Accuracy in Media attended a conference on the topic of North American economic and political integration in 2007 which included proposals for a North American Court of Justice (with the authority to overrule a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court), a North American Trade Tribunal, and a Charter of Fundamental Human Rights for North America, also dubbed the North American Social Charter.
The major media won’t report on this because major Republicans and Democrats are in on it. Much of the scheme was hatched under the Republican administration of George W. Bush, but it is now being carried forward by President Obama.
It turns out that Trump has only scratched the surface of a scandal that threatens American sovereignty and would make it easier for millions more Mexicans to come into the U.S. completely legally.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
West Europeans Want End to Open Borders
French and other Europeans want to ditch Schengen Agreement, ending free movement of people across borders as the migrant crisis grows, a new poll shows
A majority of western Europeans are in favour of ending the free movement of people across borders as the migration crisis escalates, according to a new poll.
The IFOP poll, conducted in several European countries and published in the newspaper Le Figaro, shows 67 per cent of the French would like to reinstate border controls.
They want to scrap the Schengen Agreement, which allows people to travel without passports in 26 European countries, including 22 EU member-states as well as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
Britain has opted out of the agreement and still controls its borders, but 63 per cent of Britons would like to see border checks reinstated in Europe.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
1990s—Reimaging Public Education to Restructure Society
The National Education Association promoted training to eliminate sexual orientation stereotyping. Tailoring tactics to public schools, gay groups self-identified as “victims.” At a time when schools fell desperately short in academics, the NEA called for a Lesbian and Gay History Month (October) and gay-friendly lessons—e.g., Children of the Rainbow curriculum. No longer Dick and Jane, first graders read Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy’s Roommate.
Targeting “questioning” youth, the United Way granted four thousand dollars for public school placement of gay-themed Alyson Publications—King and King, for one. On Valentines’ Day, four self-identified avengers for “lesbian survival and visibility” handed out explicit pink leaflets to elementary-aged students, and the Sexual Minority Advocacy Council promoted Alyson books for ages five and up in the Seattle School District.
While abstinence programs were ridiculed as archaic, teens had easy access to the blatantly gay WA Blade magazine, not to mention school-based health care clinics ever sensitive to lifestyle-specific concerns. Though only 2.8% of men and 1.4% of women were gay, junior- and senior- high schools offered pro-gay Project 10-type counseling programs. The ten stands for Kinsey’s falsification that gays represented ten percent of the population. So effective was the reimaging campaign in public schools that a Zogby poll reported that two-thirds of America’s high school seniors favored legalization of gay marriage. Clearly, the dialectic had worked.
For the Days of Diversity, Santa Rosa high schools attended a weeklong, extra-curricular program. Fortified by hoopla promising gay-gene research, fourteen sessions urged students to embrace homosexual civil rights. Featuring workshops for twelve-year-olds (and above) on “Sex Options,” “Eroticizing Safer Sex,” and the “Wonderful World of Latex,” the New York Department of Education likewise sponsored a youth conference funded by the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. Displaying rainbow flags, Disney recognized public support of Gay Days and Gay Pride Month (June), marked by gay-themed rings, pins, wristbands, flags, and banners. No more Barbi and Ken; Adam and Steve took center stage.
Dr. Judith Reisman, Ph.D., reported that instructors at New York University assigned “nude body” workshops in which students were instructed to fondle same-sex peers and, for extra credit, to visit a homosexual bar. Compliments of Hot, Sexy, and Safer, Inc., sizzling college classes incorporated “safe sex” instruction. Touting “respect” for diversity (tolerance), liberal hecklers rudely disrupted conservatives Ralph Reed (at NW University) and Pat Buchanan (at Syracuse University), denigrating conservative guest speakers as homophobic, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, and racist. Touted tolerance was, at its best, selective.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Social Engineering: This is How America Dies
While we sleep,fragmentation of America is quietly underway. While Americans direct their anger and attention with meaningless flags and transgender celebrities, a globalized U.S. government continues to designate taxpaying citizens and their values as the enemy.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Video: The Push to Make Husbands and Wives Illegal
Alex Jones breaks down the war on the very fabric of society as the globalists push to take control of language.
[Comment: Abolish the word, abolish the idea. Social engineering in action.]
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |