Lyndon LaRouche has died at the age of 96. Readers of a certain age will remember Mr. LaRouche’s many strange and quixotic presidential runs. If I recall correctly, he made his headquarters in Leesburg, here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
In other news, Williams College is now offering workshops to help faculty members “process their whiteness”.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Dora, Insubria, Reader from Chicago, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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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.
California Governor Newsom Aborts Unborn Green New Deal, Cancels SF-to-LA High Speed Rail Project
[…] Anyone with half a brain would know that high speed rail projects have been complete debacles in the U.S. so far. The poster child for failure was the Los Angeles to San Francisco high speed rail projects. Starting several years ago we have chronicled the cost overruns and bureaucratic failures:
- California’s bond dreams become High Speed fiscal nightmare (2012)
- Sacramento Judge Rules that California’s Bullet Train is a Turkey (2013)
- California High Speed Rail: Dead or just near death? (2014)
- California Voters Want More Water and Less Bullet Train (2016)
- California’s Bullet Train may have received final, fatal fiscal hit
- (2017)
- California bullet train blasts budget, now set at $77.3 billion (2018)
So it comes as no surprise that California finally is declaring the Bullet Train dead, Gov. Newsom ending high-speed rail project between SF, LA:
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Tuesday he’s abandoning a plan to build a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, a project with an estimated cost that has ballooned to $77 billion.
“Let’s be real,” Newsom said in his first State of the State address. “The current project, as planned, would cost too much and respectfully take too long. There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency.”
The idea long championed by Newsom’s predecessor, Jerry Brown, is years behind schedule. The latest estimate for completion is 2033.
Newsom, though, said he wants to finish construction that’s already underway on a segment of the high-speed train through California’s Central Valley, arguing it will revitalize the economically depressed region. He’s also replacing Brown’s head of the state board that oversees the project and pledged more accountability for contractors that run over on costs.
There will still be some rail projects, but you won’t be able to get by high speed rail between the major cities in California. The 800-mile project is reduced to 120 miles of track already under construction between Merced and Bakersfield.
How are you going to have a Green New Deal centered around high speed rail that will eliminate the need for airplanes when liberals can’t even build high speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco?
[See the video at URL]
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
Former Air Force Office Charged With Espionage, Accused of Helping Iran
Washington — The Department of Justice charged former U.S. Air Force special agent and counterintelligence specialist Monica Witt with espionage, accusing her of defecting to Iran in 2013 and revealing highly-classified U.S. intelligence to the government in Tehran.
In a grand jury indictment unsealed Wednesday, prosecutors said Witt, 39, provided the Iranian government information about a classified Defense Department program and helped Tehran’s intelligence services target her former colleagues in the U.S. intelligence community. According to authorities, Witt collaborated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite military unit charged with exerting Tehran’s influence around the world.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Investigation Finds Covington Students Did Not Instigate Confrontation
Covington, Ky., Feb 13, 2019 / 03:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).— An independent investigation into the interaction last month between Covington high school students and a Native American man has exonerated the students, the Diocese of Covington has announced.
In a Feb. 11 message to Covington Catholic High School parents, posted on the diocesan website, Bishop Roger Foys said a third-party inquiry had determined that “our students did not instigate the incident that occurred at the Lincoln Memorial.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Is Global Warming Theory Scientific?
A fundamental principle of science is that a theory, to have any significance, must be falsifiable. Science proceeds by proposing a hypothesis, and figuring out what the hypothesis implies. Scientists then make real-world observations to determine whether the theory’s implications do, in fact, obtain. They look for implications that are specific to the theory, so that, for example, it doesn’t work to say: If this theory is valid, the sky will be blue. Voila! Any theory can be consistent with countless facts, but if it implies a prediction that is falsified by observation, the theory is wrong. Period.
Also: a model is not evidence. A model is a theory. Whether the model is correct or not depends on its consistency with observation.
This is so elementary that it shouldn’t need to be explained. But apparently, America’s public schools are not teaching the scientific method. Otherwise, how to explain the Green New Deal?
The alarmists’ predictions of rapidly rising global temperatures have repeatedly failed to come true, which is why the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) dramatically scaled back its predictions of future temperature increases a few years ago.[…]
| — Hat tip: Dora | [Return to headlines] |
Judge Sides With Gun Owners’ Groups, Overrules Cincinnati’s Ban on Bump Stocks
CINCINNATI — Hamilton County Judge Robert Ruehlman sided Monday with gun owners’ groups that sought to overturn a city of Cincinnati ordinance banning bump stocks, a type of gun attachment that can allow a semi-automatic firearm to be fired at nearly the rate of a fully automatic weapon.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Lyndon LaRouche, Cult Figure Who Ran for President 8 Times, Dies at 96
Lyndon LaRouche, the quixotic, apocalyptic leader of a cultlike political organization who ran for president eight times, once from a prison cell, died on Tuesday. He was 96.
His death was announced on the website of his organization, La Rouche/Pac. The statement did not specify a cause or say where he died.
Defining what Mr. LaRouche stood for was no easy task. He began his political career on the far left and ended it on the far right. He said he admired Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan and loathed Hitler, the composer Richard Wagner and other anti-Semites, though he himself made anti-Semitic statements.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Mars Rover Opportunity is Dead After Record-Breaking 15 Years on Red Planet
NASA declared its Opportunity Mars rover dead today (Feb. 13), more than eight months after the solar-powered robot went silent during a raging dust storm on the Red Planet — and a day after the final calls to wake Oppy up went unanswered.
“I declare the Opportunity mission as complete, and with it the Mars Exploration Rover mission complete,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said today during an event at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Student Outrage After Police Protect University of Chicago From Armed Robbery Suspects
UPDATED
‘Disarm the pigs, ‘abolish the police’
On Monday, Chicago police apprehended several suspects involved in an armed robbery who had fled from officers onto the University of Chicago’s campus.
The crisis, which prompted an alert from the university urging the campus community to shelter in place, also prompted some students to go into hysterics on social media.
They weren’t worried about the dangers of gun violence—no, they were furious at police.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
U. Memphis Keeps Confucius Institute, Despite Chinese Propaganda Warnings
Despite warnings from Tennessee Republican state Rep. Martin Daniel, as well as ominous deterrents from the U.S. government, the University of Memphis will not be close its Confucius Institute
Tennessee Republican state Rep. Jim Coley, who is known as an ardent defender of the institute and U.S.-China relations, confirmed the decision to keep the controversial institute, according to the Daily Memphian. This choice comes after nearby University of Tennessee-Knoxville stated it would be closing its own Confucius Institute.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Austria Bans Symbols of Muslim Brotherhood, PKK, Turkish Grey Wolves
The Austrian Interior Ministry has banned several extremist symbols including those from Turkish ultra-nationalists, Kurdish terrorists, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In total 13 flags and symbols fall under the new ban including the neo-fascist Grey Wolves from Turkey, the terrorist Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), and the Muslim Brotherhood which originates in Egypt, Kronen Zeitung reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Clarify TAV Cost/Benefit Analysis, EU Asks Italy
New govt pact need to stop project says farm minister
(ANSA) — Brussels, February 13 — The European Commission on Wednesday asked Italy for clarification on the cost/benefit analysis which has said Rome will lose seven-eight billion euros on the Turin-Lyon TAV high-speed rail line.
“We are still analysing (the report),” said the spokesman of Transport Commissioner Violeta Bulc, “and we will ask for some clarification from Italian authorities”.
The spokesman recalled that there is no deadline on stopping EU funds for the project, but “certainly the more time passes and delays accumulate, the more the risks increase”.
For this reason, he stressed, “we hope to have a productive meeting with the Italian authorities”.
A new government pact would be needed to ditch the controversial TAV Turin-Lyon high-speed rail link, Agriculture and Tourism Minister Gian Marco Centinaio said Wednesday during a visit to Moscow. The transport and infrastructure ministry on Tuesday published a new analysis of the project, which said it would have a negative cost-benefit balance of around seven to eight billion euros. The government had said the analysis would have a bearing on whether it decides to press ahead with the project or not. The 5-Star Movement (M5S) of Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli and Deputy Premier Luigi Di Maio, the M5S leader, has long been opposed to the project due to its cost and environmental impact. But League leader and fellow Deputy Premier Salvini has said the TAV should go ahead and had mooted the idea of holding a referendum on it if the cost-benefit analysis was negative.
“Stopping the TAV is not written in the contract of government,” said Centinaio, a League member.
“And given that often, when I open my mouth, I have an M5S or a League MP raising the flag of the contract of government, today it’s my turn to raise that flag.
“I abide by that contract and otherwise, if it is not longer suitable… you get around table and you reason and write that the TAV is not indispensable”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Following Budget Defeat, Spanish PM Will Announce Date for General Election
Executive sources said the Socialist Party leader will unveil the date after the Cabinet meeting on Friday
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will on Friday announce a date for a new general election, said sources in the executive.
The announcement will take place after the Cabinet meeting. Government sources have suggested April 28 as a possible date, although this will not be confirmed before Friday.
The decision to call a national election comes after Congress on Wednesday rejected the Socialist Party (PSOE) government’s spending plan for 2019. The next general election was due to be held in 2020…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Closes Islamist-Linked Muslim Kindergarten
Officials in the city of Mainz withdrew the license of the only Muslim kindergarten amid allegations that the facility in the state Rhineland-Palatinate was promoting Salafism.
The president of the state’s youth office, Detlef Placzek, said the promotion of Salafist materials meant that the nursery no longer adhered to the German constitution.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: More Than One Killer Says Dismembered Girl’s Mother
After hearing in Macerata
(ANSA) — Macerata, February 13 — The mother of Pamela Mastropietro, an 18-year-old killed and dismembered in January 2018, said Wednesday after a hearing that a fast-track trial is good so long as “all the truth comes out”.
“Because it was not only him,” the woman, Alessandra Verni, said in reference to Innocent Oseghale, a 30-year-old Nigerian drug pusher accused of murdering Mastropietro in Macerata.
Oseghale admitted to chopping up the 18-year-old Roman woman’s body but not to her homicide.
Mastropietro’s dismembered body was found in two suitcases outside Pollenza near Macerata.
Oseghale is accused of rape, homicide and trying to hide a body and contempt for a human corpse. Verni went on to say that “we have witness statements”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: FS OKs Alitalia Talks With Delta, EasyJet
Govt will be part of new airline
(ANSA) — Rome, February 13 — Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) rail group said Wednesday that “in light of the confirmations of interest from Delta Airlines and EasyJet to be industrial partners of FS in the Alitalia operation, the FS board met today and decided to start negotiations with the two companies in order to proceed in the definition of the main elements of the plan for the new Alitalia”.
The premier’s office said Wednesday the government is willing to “take part in the constitution of the New Alitalia, via the economy ministry, on the condition that the business plan is sustainable and in compliance with European norms.” It said a summit had just ended at the premier’s office with Premier Giuseppe Conte, Deputy Premier and Industry and Labour Minister Luigi Di Maio and Economy Minister Giovanni Tria.
Delta Airlines and EasyJet are in “advanced” talks over the rescue of troubled Italian airline Alitalia, Bloomberg reported Wednesday citing sources close to the dossier.
The prospective partners have said they are interested in a restructured Alitalia.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Msgr Scarano Gets 3 Yrs on Appeal, Also Corruption
Ex-Vatican financial official was cleared of graft at 1st trial
(ANSA) — Rome, February 13 — Msgr Nunzio Scarano, a former Vatican financial official who tried to fly 20 million euros back to Italy from Switzerland, was convicted of defamation and corruption on appeal Wednesday and given a three-year sentence. At the first instance trial, three years ago, Scarano was not convicted of corruption and got a two-year sentence only.
Scarano, former accountant of the Holy See’s asset-management agency APSA, wound up in jail in June 2013 on charges of corruption. The cases of his two alleged accomplices, former intelligence officer Giovanni Maria Zito and broker Giovanni Carenzio, were put into separate proceedings. Zito, having leased a plane to go to Switzerland, did not reportedly succeed in the mission to bring the money back to Italy. Scarano was accused of defamation for falsely accusing Zito of stealing a 200,000-euro cheque Scarano gave him as part of the alleged corruption.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Govt Won’t Collapse: Will Last Five Years — Di Maio
M5S leader says other govts will imitate his executive
(ANSA) — Rome, February 13 — Deputy Premier and Labour and Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio said Wednesday that there is no danger of the 5-Star Movement-League coalition government collapsing. The alliance is reportedly under stress after the League spearheaded the centre right to victory in regional elections in Abruzzo on Sunday, while the M5S, which ran alone, came a disappointing third. “Our members voted for the contract of government and I gave my word to the Italian people that we would go all the way,” M5S leader Di Maio said on the movement’s blog. “This government will last five years and it will inspire other European governments.
The 5-Star Movement (M5S) is not finished, Di Maio said Wednesday denying media comment to that effect after its vote in Abruzzo regional elections was halved. “Every time that the M5S gets a lower result in local elections than what it got in the general election there are those who speak of nothing but its imminent end,” he said.
“All you have to do is look at the data. At June’s municipal elections in 2017 we got an average of 7.8% and then 33% in the general election (last March 4).
“In June 2018 we got an average of 12% at the municipals. So they should put their minds at rest because it’s not so”.
Di Maio added that the M5S was the “only bulwark against Berlusconi”.
This prompted his government partner, League leader Matteo Salvini, to say that the government was “strong and stable and does not need any bulwarks against anyone”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Pope Francis Discusses Artificial Intelligence With Microsoft President
Pope Francis met with Microsoft President Brad Smith in the Vatican Wednesday and discussed the topic of “artificial intelligence at the service of the common good,” according to a Vatican statement.
During the private audience between the pope and Mr. Smith, in which the President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia participated, the leaders also discussed “activities aimed at bridging the digital divide that still persists at the global level,” the Vatican added.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden Police: Gangs See Fatal Shootings as Status Symbol
A report from the Swedish Crime Prevention Council (Brå) says that fatal shootings have become a status symbol for gang members but have also led to a climate of fear among criminals.
The insights into Swedish criminal culture come from a series of interviews done by Brå with 21 individuals said to be involved with both the gang scene as well as incidents involving firearms, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
They’ll Change Jobs After 26/5 -Salvini on Verhofstadt
‘Bumpkins and boors’ insulted Italy says deputy PM
(ANSA) — Rome, February 13 — European Parliament Liberal caucus leader Guy Verhofstadt will be out of a job after the May 26 European elections, Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini said Wednesday, a day after Verhofstadt called Premier Giuseppe Conte a “puppet” in the hands of Salvini and his fellow deputy premier, Luigi Di Maio.
“After May 26 all these gentlemen will change jobs,” said Salvini referring to Verhofstadt and other EP members who criticised the Italian government.
Salvini went on: “in the Strasbourg assembly bumpkins and boors insulted a country, a far cry from Liberals”.
On Tuesday Salvini said Verhofstadt’s jibe was “disgraceful”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Carney Drops Project Fear, Says Brexit Could be Test of ‘New Global Order’
Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney has apparently abandoned the doomsday prophesies of the UK leaving the EU, saying that Brexit could “broaden the benefits of openness” and enhance “democratic accountability.”
Mr Carney made the comments during a speech at a Financial Times event on Tuesday, where he set out a positive vision of global free trade and e-commerce with the wider world that could benefit small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the UK.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Downing Street Insists No-Deal Remains a Brexit Option, Despite Claims
The government was on damage control duty Wednesday after a senior civil servant was overheard speaking loudly in a Brussels bar saying Brexit could be delayed, the latest in a series of government figures to do so.
The Prime Minister told Parliament Wednesday that members should not take “what someone said to someone else as overheard by someone else, in a bar” as gospel after her chief advisor on Europe Oliver ‘Olly’ Robbins was heard by a British journalist talking about the future of Brexit in a hotel bar in Brussels.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Pub Bore Bureaucrat Olly Robbins: Accept May’s Deal or We’ll Delay Brexit
The clearest indication yet that the government is planning to once again break its own word to the British people and delay Brexit beyond the official March 29th date has come with the apparently overheard speech of top Brexit bureaucrat Olly Robbins, where he loudly discussed the options for Brexit in a hotel bar.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Rise of Extreme Knife Violence Sees Hospitals Forced to Adopt ‘Military Practice’
The rise of extreme knife violence, including machete attacks and torture, has seen hospitals forced to take on “military practice” in order to deal with the level of severe injuries now inflicted on UK streets.
Trauma units across the country have had to send staff to be trained in warzone-type emergency medicine techniques as A&E departments are faced with patients suffering life-threatening knife wounds with increasing frequency, according to a 2019 report.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Two Men Left With Facial Injuries After Acid Attack Near London Train Station
Two men have been left with facial injuries after a “corrosive substance” was thrown during a brawl near London’s Kings Cross station.
Police were call to reports of a fight between two groups of men on Argyle Square near the train station at 1:30pm Tuesday, reports the Evening Standard.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Watch: After Tommy Robinson Undercover Video, Call to Boycott BBC ‘Stealth Tax’
Citizen journalist and street organiser Tommy Robinson has released another undercover recording of top BBC journalist John Sweeney, this time revealing a boozy champagne lunch paid for by the corporation, and which cost more than a single household’s whole annual licence fee spend.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Verhofstadt on a Roll, Calls Italian President ‘Puppet’ of Populists
Guy Verhofstadt has called Italy’s President Giuseppe Conte a “puppet” of the populist deputy prime ministers and said the country was suffering from “political degeneration.”
The remarks came during a heated exchange in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday after President Conte, an independent, gave a speech where he said that the EU had “lost contact” with Europe’s people and demanded Brussels come to a permanent solution to the migrant crisis, according to Politico.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
When Will the World’s Largest Sunni Religious Institution Disavow Colonization?
In Cairo, Egypt, in October, at an international symposium entitled, “Islam and the West: Diversity and Integration,” Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb — the current Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University, the world’s largest Sunni religious institution — pointed to Andalusia (Muslim-ruled Spain) as a model for the peaceful coexistence between Islam, Christianity and Judaism. It was a peculiar choice: Andalusia is not an example of cooperation; it is an example of the Arab colonization of Europe.
Those who occupied Andalusia were the Umayyad branch of the Quraysh tribe (the tribe of the Prophet Muhammad) from the Arabian Peninsula. They initiated the invasion; the Ottoman Turks followed to conquer European lands, including Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Montenegro, Croatia, Kosovo, Hungary, Albania, Georgia and the Balkans. They nearly occupied Paris and Vienna, as well.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New ‘Mysterious’ Frog Species Discovered in India’s Western Ghats
Indian researchers have discovered a new species of frog — in a roadside puddle.
Sonali Garg, a PhD student at Delhi University, and her supervisor SD Biju found the new species in the Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot in southern India.
The species belongs to a new Indian frog group or genus which the scientists have named Mysticellus.
The name is derived from Latin and means mysterious and diminutive.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
New Species of Spider Discovered With Unusual Social Skills
A researcher at Royal Holloway, University of London, has discovered a new species of spider in Indonesia.
In a new paper, published in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, Dr. Lena Grinsted, an early career research fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway, together with American and Indonesian collaborators describe the new spider species and name it Chikunia bilde.
The species is closely related to another spider called Chikunia nigra, and unlike most spiders that are typically aggressive and cannibalistic, the two Chikunia species like to live in harmony together in large colonies.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Guaidò Hails Italy Venezuela Motion
Statement for elections ‘recognises our struggle’
(ANSA) — Rome, February 13 — Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidò on Wednesday hailed the Italian parliament’s motion Tuesday calling for fresh elections there as soon as possible, saying it “recognises our struggle”.
He said “Italy joins the countries that recognise our struggle. We appreciate the statement of the Italian parliament in favour of reaching free elections in Venezuela.
“The course we have proposed passes through the cessation of usurpation and the government of transition”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
West Conn Biologist Names New Species After Wife
DANBURY — Some husbands show their love with a bouquet of roses, but Tom Philbrick showed his with a plant.
But this was not just any plant. It was a brand new species he discovered and named after his wife, Paula.
Philbrick, a biology professor at Western Connecticut State University, knew the moment he and his research partner, Claudia Bove, saw the big fleshy leaves of the riverweed in Brazil that they had something new. They named it “Rhyncholacis paulana” in honor of Philbrick’s wife as a testament to her support.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
70 Percent of School District’s Newest Students Are Immigrants, Legal Status Unknown
Seven of 10 new students in a Baltimore-Washington area school district are immigrants, their legal status unknown and their second language English, according to a series of new media reports about the impact of surging immigration on local communities.
A recent Baltimore Sun report said that of the 5,000 new students jamming Baltimore County schools in the past five years, 3,500 are “recent immigrants or children whose family speak another language.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Australia: Afghan Migrant Raped Student for Hours While “Barking Like a Dog”
An Afghan migrant has been convicted of raping a young girl in Melbourne, Australia, in a nightmare attack that lasted for six hours, according to reports.
Mokhtari Alimadad, 42, lured his victim, a college student from Lithuania, to a motel room in 2016 using a bogus job posting on the Gumtree website, the Daily Mail reports.
When she arrived for an interview, he attempted to ply her with alcohol and drugs before asking her for sex, which she refused.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
An Afghan asylum seeker barked like a dog and punched invisible people while raping a foreign university student he lured to a Melbourne hotel through a bogus online job ad.
| — Hat tip: SS | [Return to headlines] |
France: Migrant Trio Arrested for Attack on Paris Transgender Prostitutes
Three young illegal migrants were arrested in Paris on Sunday evening after they allegedly beat and robbed several transgender prostitutes in the Bois de Boulogne park.
The three men, said to all be in their 20s, claimed to all be from Egypt, though lacked any identification papers, and told police that they were homeless, living on the streets of the French capital, Le Parisien reports.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Number of Foreign-Born Prison Inmates at Record High
The proportion of foreign-born inmates in German prisons is now at a record high, according to a new survey of the justice ministries in Germany’s 16 federal states. In Berlin and Hamburg, for example, more than 50% of inmates are now from abroad, according to the report, which also revealed a spike in the number of Islamists in the German prison system.
The data, compiled by the newspaper Rheinische Post, shows that the surge of foreign-born inmates began in 2015, when Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed into Germany more than a million mostly unvetted migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Sea Watch Should Stay in Catania — Netherlands to Italy
Probe ongoing into compliance with norms
(ANSA) — Rome, February 13 — The Netherlands asked Italy Wednesday to keep the Sea Watch NGO migrant rescue ship in the port of Catania where it has been since offloading 47 migrants after a standoff with the EU on January 31.
The request came after an inspection on board the German NGO-run, Dutch-flagged ship on February 11-12.
The request was made to the Italian Coast Guard “pending the conclusion of Dutch authorities’ further investigation into the compliance of the ship with norms in force, with reference to the suitability to transport a high number of people for long periods of time”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
‘Andi Mack’ Marks First Disney Channel Character to Say ‘I’m Gay’
A character for a primetime children’s series on the Disney Channel uttered the words “I’m gay,” marking a first in the network’s history.
The hit series Andi Mack, a coming-of-age show chronicling the lives of tweens, is the top-rated series on American television in its time period among all children ages 6-14. The median age of Andi Mack viewers is 10 years old.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Williams College Offers Workshops So Faculty Can ‘Process Their Whiteness’
Williams College in Massachusetts is hosting free workshops for faculty and staff designed to help them “process their whiteness.”
The “Processing Whiteness” workshops, which begin next week, will furnish “opportunities to analyze and understand white identity, white privilege and racism in a supportive environment that focuses on the experiences of the participants,” the school’s website states.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Here is one case widely popular in “eastern europe”. Norwegian Barnevernet – the child protection service that is known for stealing children from their parents for stuff like kisses and minor slaps and sometimes not even that, just received a major blow: Poland gave an asylum to a Norwegian mother with her child – to escape from Barnevernet!
https://www.idnes.cz/zpravy/zahranicni/polsko-norka-barnevernet-azyl-dcera.A190214_002754_zahranicni_remy
I was in Poland a month ago.
I had a strong feeling that this is a country where things are getting better, not worse.
The level isn’t quite at a Western level *yet*, but the direction of travel is, unlike in Western Europe, where it’s on the way down. They’ll cross paths in about 5-10 years at most.
Poland is one of the places to be at this point, in my opinion.
Good for Poland. There needs to be sanctuary from such madness. Even _our_ Child Protective Services too often remove children who are in no danger whatsoever, but also often ignore horrific abuse of children who end up dying, being killed, because CPS ignored what was obviously going on.
“In other news, Williams College is now offering workshops to help faculty members “process their whiteness””. Thank goodness these types are more likely to opt out of the gene pool.
Does “Processing Whiteness” involve stem cell treatments for melanin deficiency that adds coloring agents to the skin pigment?
I know of a few people who could use such a therapy.
When I see the term ‘processing’ I always think of Jews receiving tatoos and placed in cattle cars for further ‘processing’.
The hatred of the liberals must be fought before it reaches to darker depths.
“Austria Bans Symbols of Muslim Brotherhood, PKK, Turkish Grey Wolves” great news! The ban of islam altogether will hopefully follow soon!
Lyndon LaRouche…. , rings a bell….is (was) this the guy behind the ” International Caucus Of Labour Comitees”? Main targets were Rockefeller and the english Queen? My God, 45 years ago I purchased their paper in the streets of San Francisco out of curiosity. Then it was the war war on drugs, right?Shortly after this, I got aware of the fact that there is such a thing as ” diversion agents” serving to decoy serious concern into the wrong direction. Nowadays Mr.Soros and ilk.
However it was good to do that little piece of time travel.
“However it was good to do that little piece of time travel.”
At least I can’t confuse you with Herb Caen.
thanks for this enlightenment, he was the generation of my father.
Mostly female social workers, buttressed by female family court judges, specialize in taking children from their families, across the West, and dumping them into oft-suspect “foster” care. Of course, they push for adoptions by gays and promoting the elimination of the husband from the state-supported broken “family”. The best interests of the child has….disappeared.
The next stage in the USA is removing Second Amendment rights promptly with confiscation of weapons until the “matter” is settled in a few years or…never.
I’m really gonna have to look into new Hungarian family prosperity measures little deeper. They are causing all kind of uproar in country formally known as Sweden. Just when one thinks nothing can surprise him, there comes Scandinavian capital of imbecility with a new trick in the bag.Or it’s the old one? Just call everybody who you don’t agree a Nazi. My only question at this point is why the hell would Hungary still have any connections with mentioned above. Return of diplomatic staff and severing all ties should be one of the first things in my opinion.
https://voiceofeurope.com/2019/02/swedens-minister-compared-hungarys-new-family-assistance-measures-to-nazism/
Regarding global warming; Yes the planet is getting warmer and has been for about the past 12,000 years. Before that, around 10,000 to 12,000 B.C. the planet was an ice box with ice sheets and glaciers, that were a mile high if you were standing on the ground at the edge of them. Those ice sheets lasted for 100,000 years or more, then it got warmer for complicated scientific reasons relating to the Milankovitch cycles, the Magma cycles below the crust, and the salinity and temperature of the oceans and the atmospheric temperature. There were very few humans around when it started to get warmer, and we only started pouring greenhouse gases into the air less than 200 years ago. Man is not in charge of any of this, but as we can see he wants to capitalize on his perceived dominance of the planet. In other words, it’s scam.
“How are you going to have a Green New Deal centered around high speed rail that will eliminate the need for airplanes when liberals can’t even build high speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco?
This is very unfair. Idiotic as California politics may be, it is the HSR (High Speed Rail) project analysts that need to experience extended sessions of regular and intensive parking lot therapy.
The SF-LA corridor is one of the most congested in the entire world. As an example, passenger jet flights are required to have clearance-to-land before takeoff. Seemingly, that would make the route ideal for HSR.
Not so. The two major northern HSR termini, San Francisco and state capitol Sacramento, are spread nearly 100 miles (160 km) apart with an intervening mountain range and major body of inland water (SF bay) with no economically (i.e., well-populated) advantageous place between the two for bifurcating the main line.
NOTE: — According to the Amtrak locomotive engineer (train captain) that I talked with personally about this, HSR usually is aligned with preexisting right-of-ways. In the case of California, that would be the state’s (relaxed speed limit) north-south artery, Interstate 5.
HSR economy-of-scale benefits from already built, limited-access infrastructure (interchanges, overpasses, physical barriers, ramps, etc.). However, relatively straight-line I5 arrows neither towards SF nor Sacramento. Instead, it neatly splits the middle using the least expensive land and avoiding most noise restrictions.
This dilemma allowed Sackamenna’s pork barrel artistes to boondoggle the project by, essentially, creating a railroad to nowhere between Los Angeles and Sacramento (rarely traveled, except by politicians). —
While the main line does finally bifurcate (in the hinterland between Madera and Merced), it spends most of its time paralleling state highway 99 some 50 miles due east of I5. State 99 is NOT limited-access and will require massive refits to eliminate all crossing grades (mandatory for HSR).
Furthermore, if property developers follow the status quo, they will build “out” (sprawl) instead of “up” (higher density multi-unit dwellings). This will see HSR-proximate residential housing tracts spreadeagled over some of America’s finest agricultural land, BAR NONE.
It is this not-really-a-comedy of errors and highly fatted pork that makes the entire gold-plated money pit into such a farce. Whichever consulting project managers forecast this fiasco’s budget deserve to face criminal charges for fraud. A fact reflected in the line’s insane cost increases.
The in-progress Central Valley track block is up by 35 percent to $10.6 billion. That segment is currently under construction. Overall cost of the project has ballooned from the original $25 billion to nearly $67 billion (or more) making it the most expensive public-works project ever planned by a single U.S. state.
The tunnels alone will be one of the lengthiest networks in the world and will traverse the North American and Pacific plates assuring that progress for the boring machines will be halved.
Sadly, major cities without HSR will become like towns without an airport. And, sure enough, just as that Amtrak engineer predicted, the project is now mired down in property rights acquisition, infrastructure revamps and a host of other problems that the central contractor should have learned from mismanaging Boston’s Big Dig.
Sigh.
“Processing whiteness”? The liberal Fascists get funnier by the day. May one suggest washing powder Biological Omo- “washes whiter than white”?.. Progressives and LGBT “Omos” please note!