What Bibi Wants, Bibi Gets
April 12th, 2019Via: Pat Buchanan:
While a U.S. war with Iran may be what Bibi wants, it is not what America wants or needs.
On Monday, President Donald Trump designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, the first time the United States has designated part of another nation’s government as such a threat.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist group.
With 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 2,000 in Syria, often in proximity to Iranian units, this inches America closer to war.
Why did we do it? What benefit did the U.S. derive?
How do we now negotiate with the IRGC on missile tests?
Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu took credit for Trump’s decision, tweeting, “Once again you are keeping the world safe from Iran aggression and terrorism. … Thank you for accepting another important request of mine.”
Previous “requests” to which Trump acceded include moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, declaring Jerusalem Israel’s eternal capital, closing the Palestinian consulate and cutting off aid, and U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, as sovereign Israeli territory.
What Bibi wants, Bibi gets.
One hopes his future requests will not include a demand that we cease dithering and deliver the same “shock and awe” to Iran that George W. Bush delivered to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
DA Knew Jeffrey Epstein Was a Dangerous Pedophile When Arguing for Leniency
April 12th, 2019Via: New York Post:
The Manhattan DA’s office had graphic and detailed evidence of pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s depravity when a prosecutor inexplicably argued for leniency during his 2011 sex offender registry hearing, The Post has learned.
In advance of the hearing, then-deputy chief of Sex Crimes, Jennifer Gaffney, had been given a confidential state assessment that deemed Epstein to be highly dangerous and likely to keep preying on young girls, the DA’s office admitted in its own appellate brief eight months after the hearing.
The brief has been sealed since 2011, but The Post obtained it Thursday after suing to get it unsealed.
It describes a state assessment’s findings that Epstein should be monitored in New York as a level three offender — reserved for the most dangerous.
…
Manhattan prosecutors were aware the state board had assigned Epstein a risk assessment of 130, a number that is “solidly above the 110 qualifying number for level three,” with “absolutely no basis for downward departure,” the brief notes.
Nevertheless, Gaffney argued that he should be labeled a level one offender, the least restrictive, which would keep him off the online database.
Assange and the Unforgivable Sin of Disemboweling Official Narratives
April 12th, 2019Via: Of Two Minds:
There is really only one unforgivable sin in the political realm, and that’s destroying the official narrative by revealing the facts of the matter. This is why whistleblowers who make public the secret machinery of the elaborately artful lies underpinning all official narratives are hounded to the ends of the Earth.
A Researcher Needed Three Hours to Identify Me From My DNA
April 12th, 2019
Via: Bloomberg:
Using just my DNA, a genealogist was able to identify me in three and a half hours.
It wasn’t hard. I’d previously sent a DNA sample to the genetic testing company 23andMe Inc. and then uploaded my data anonymously to a genealogy website. Researcher Michelle Trostler was able to access my data from that site and spent an afternoon looking for connections that would help her put a name to my data. The task was so easy that in the meantime she rewatched a season of Game of Thrones.
Trump Considering Putting Migrants in Sanctuary Cities
April 12th, 2019And the border remains open.
Via: The Hill:
President Trump said Friday his administration is “giving strong considerations” to a controversial plan that would release migrants into so-called sanctuary cities, even though officials said the idea was never seriously considered.
In a pair of tweets, Trump accused Democrats of being “unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws” and suggested they should feel the consequences of what he has called the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Millions of Chinese Youth ‘Volunteers’ to be Sent to Villages in Echo of Maoist Policy
April 12th, 2019“Persuaded to volunteer…”
Good one.
Perhaps one could have demerits removed from one’s social credit score for ‘volunteering’ to do this.
Via: Guardian:
China is planning to send millions of youth “volunteers” back to villages, raising fears of a return to the methods of Chairman Mao’s brutal Cultural Revolution of 50 years ago.
The Communist Youth League (CYL) has promised to despatch more than 10 million students to “rural zones” by 2022 in order to “increase their skills, spread civilisation and promote science and technology”, according to a Communist party document.
The aim is to bring to the rural areas the talents of those who would otherwise be attracted to life in the big cities, according to a CYL document quoted in the state-run Global Times daily on Thursday.
“We need young people to use science and technology to help the countryside innovate its traditional development models,” Zhang Linbin, deputy head of a township in central Hunan Province, told the Global Times.
Students will be called upon to live in the countryside during their summer holidays, although the CYL did not say how young people would be persuaded to volunteer.
Reaction Engines Testing Successfully Proves Precooler Capability at Supersonic Heat Conditions
April 11th, 2019Via: Reaction Engines:
A key element of the revolutionary SABRE™ air-breathing rocket engine successfully passes the first phase of high-temperature testing. Precooler technology will enable a wide variety of high-speed flight and advanced propulsion systems.
Reaction Engines’ precooler heat exchanger successfully achieved all test objectives in the first phase of high-temperature testing designed to directly replicate supersonic flight conditions and future tests are planned at even higher temperatures. The precooler is a key element of Reaction Engines’ revolutionary SABRE engine and is a potential enabling technology for advanced propulsion systems and other commercial applications.
Toxic Air Kills 100,000 Americans Per Year, Costs Economy Billions
April 11th, 2019Via: ZeroHedge:
Air pollution is poisoning Americans: A new study links air pollution spewed from industrial factories, motor vehicles, and farmlands to approximately 107,000 premature deaths each year.
The report, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the economic toll of air pollution costs taxpayers $866 billion per year.
Austria Considering Requiring User Identities for Online Platforms
April 11th, 2019Via: The Local:
Austria said Wednesday it was considering a law to make it mandatory for big internet platforms to register their users and deprive those behind hate posts of anonymity.
“Unfortunately there have been an increasing number of clear violations, denigrations and humiliations online in the past under the cover of anonymity.
That’s why we need a framework for more responsibility online,” Chancellor Sebastian Kurz wrote on Twitter.
The new law would take effect in 2020 and would make it mandatory for platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to register their users, said Gernot Bluemel, minister in charge of EU affairs, art, culture and media.
U.S. Prisoners Have Lost a Combined 20,000 Years of Life to False Convictions
April 11th, 2019Via: Reason:
In 2018 alone, wrongly convicted prisoners lost more than 1,600 years of life behind bars.
That’s a new record, according to the annual report from The National Registry of Exonerations, which tracks all exonerations from 1989 onward. In 2018, 151 people were freed from serving sentences for crimes they did not commit. They had served 1,639 years altogether, an average of about 11 years per person.
Another record set last year is also worth our attention: More of these exonerations are happening in cases where misconduct by officials played a role. The report documents official misconduct in at least 107 exonerations last year. Official misconduct played a role in 80 percent of the 54 homicide cases in 2018 in which the person convicted was subsequently exonerated.
