I have, for many years, passed by houses with signs that say “Drive like your kids lived here.” I want to make bumper stickers that say “Teach your kids to play as if everyone drove like you.”
Today, more than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes—a higher number than ever recorded, as people flee war, political upheaval, extreme poverty, natural disasters, and the impacts of climate change. Since 2014, nearly 2 million migrants have crossed into Europe by sea, typically landing in Italy or Greece. They hail from dozens of countries, but most are from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Nigeria—countries struggling with war, political repression, climate change, and endemic poverty.
Their passage to supposed safety, which takes them across Libya and the Sinai, as well as the Mediterranean, has become increasingly perilous. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, nearly 150,000 people crossed the Mediterranean in 2017.
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In response to the migrant crisis, European countries have sent strong messages that newcomers are no longer welcome; they’ve built fences to stop refugees from crossing their borders and elected far-right politicians with staunchly anti-immigrant messages. Meanwhile, most asylum cases are stalled in overburdened court systems, with slim prospects for any near-term resolution, which leaves many migrants stuck in the wicked limbo of a squalid, under-resourced refugee camp or austere detention facility. Today, European authorities have stiffened their resistance not only to new arrivals, but to the hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers who arrived years before and remain in an eerie liminal zone: forbidden to live or work freely in Europe and unwilling, or often unable, to go home.
Because of the high risks of crossing and the low odds of being permitted to stay, more and more would-be asylum-seekers are now forgoing Europe, choosing instead to chance the journey through the Americas ... It’s impossible to know how many migrants from outside the Americas begin the journey and do not make it to the United States, or how many make it to the country and slip through undetected. But the number of “irregular migrants”—they’re called extra-continentales in Tapachula—apprehended on the U.S. side of the border with Mexico has tripled since 2010.
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All Europe has done is redirect the flow of vulnerable humanity, fostering the development of a global superhighway to move people over this great distance. The doors will not hold, and neither will the fences. You can build a wall, but it will not work. Desperate people find a way.
The problems of sub-Saharan Africa (as well as Pakistan and other troubled countries) are physically too large for the West to remedy: The sheer numbers of people in distress soon will exceed the total population of the industrial world.
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President Trump's reported comments about certain countries as sources of prospective immigrants may sound callous. He simply is ahead of the curve. The hour is already late to put a merit-based immigration system in place with effective enforcement against illegal immigration. Mexico solved its economic and social crisis of the late 1970s and early 1980s by exporting the poorest fifth of its population to the United States. With no prejudice to the Mexicans who chose to migrate, it is understandable why Americans feel put on. But that is tiny compared to what is headed towards us ten, twenty, or thirty years from now.
The mass of human misery headed towards the industrial countries simply is too great for us to bear. It is hard to see how humanitarian catastrophes of biblical proportions can be avoided. The responsibility of an American president is to make sure that they don't happen to us.
The six-engine, 385-foot-wide aircraft, nicknamed Roc, is the world’s largest airplane as measured by wingspan. It’s designed to carry up rockets for high-altitude launches in midflight.
Stratolaunch has said orbital launches could begin in the 2019-2020 time frame if the test program goes well.
Last weekend’s tests built on an initial round of low-speed runway tests in December, and were aimed at evaluating updates made to the plane’s steering and primary braking systems, Vulcan spokeswoman Alex Moji said in an email.
“We are excited to report all objectives of this test were achieved – the aircraft reached a runway speed of 40 knots (46 mph),” she said. “The data collected will be used to evaluate and update our flight simulator for crew training.”
Mr. Juan Carlos Fernandez had been issued a court-ordered restraining order forbidding him from contacting his former wife. Fernandez continued to harass and stalk her. On November 13, 2016, Fernandez went to his former wife's family residence. His ex-wife's father went outside to talk to Fernandez. The boyfriend of his ex-wife arrived, confronted Fernandez, and the two began to fight. Fernandez walked back to his car and retrieved a handgun. Fernandez chased the boyfriend and threatened to shoot him. The boyfriend ran from the scene and Fernandez grabbed his ex-wife by the hair. Her father attempted to pull Fernandez off of her. Femandez shot the father in the head. Fernandez then shot his ex-wife's grandfather and mother, injuring her grandfather and killing her mother. The bullet, which killed her mother, also struck his ex-wife in the chest. Fernandez grabbed his ex-wife by the hair again and dragged her to his vehicle attempting to shove her into his vehicle. Fernandez placed his ex-wife in a headlock, put the gun to her head, and pulled the trigger. The ex-wife heard the gun click, but it did not fire. Officer R. Bainbridge arrived on scene and saw Fernandez standing in the street, holding his ex-wife by the head with Fernandez's handgun pressed up against her temple. Bainbridge ordered Fernandez to drop his weapon and get on the ground multiple times. Fernandez responded by threatening to shoot Bainbridge and Fernandez's ex-wife. Fearing Fernandez was going to shoot the ex-wife, or Bainbridge and his partner, Bainbridge fired one shotgun round to Fernandez's head, killing him instantly.
Laura Cameron, then three months pregnant, tripped and fell in a parking lot and landed in the emergency room last May — her blood pressure was low and she was scared and in pain. She was flat on her back and plugged into a saline drip when a hospital employee approached her gurney to discuss how she would pay her hospital bill.
Though both Cameron, 28, and her husband, Keith, have insurance, the bill would likely come to about $830, the representative said. If that sounded unmanageable, she offered, they could take out a loan through a bank that had a partnership with the hospital.
The hospital employee was “fairly forceful,” said Cameron, who lives in Fayetteville, Ark. “She certainly made it clear she preferred we pay then, or we take this deal with the bank.”
Hospitals are increasingly offering “patient-financing” strategies, cooperating with financial institutions to offer on-the-spot loans to make sure patients pay their bills.
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But the loans can be a band-aid solution, leading vulnerable patients to sign up to pay far more than they should, said Kathleen Engel, a research professor of law at Boston-based Suffolk University and an expert in consumer credit and mortgage finance.
“The hospital potentially is charging the patient the full, what I would call ‘whack rate’ for their care,” she said. “They try to collect the debt.”
Since many of these loans come without credit checks or affordability tests, the odds are higher that a loan could be financially unwise, experts warn.
FOSTA would undermine Section 230, the law protecting online platforms from some types of liability for their users’ speech. As we’ve explained before, the modern Internet is only possible thanks to a strong Section 230. Without Section 230, most of the online platforms we use would never have been formed—the risk of liability for their users’ actions would have simply been too high.
Section 230 strikes an important balance for when online platforms can be held liable for their users’ speech. Contrary to FOSTA supporters’ claims, Section 230 does nothing to protect platforms that break federal criminal law. In particular, if an Internet company knowingly engages in the advertising of sex trafficking, the U.S. Department of Justice can and should prosecute it. Additionally, Internet companies are not immune from civil liability for user-generated content if plaintiffs can show that a company had a direct hand in creating the illegal content.
The new version of FOSTA would destroy that careful balance, opening platforms to increased criminal and civil liability at both the federal and state levels. This includes a new federal sex trafficking crime targeted at web platforms (in addition to 18 U.S.C. § 1591)—but which would not require a platform to have knowledge that people are using it for sex trafficking purposes. This also includes exceptions to Section 230 for state law criminal prosecutions against online platforms, as well as civil claims under federal law and civil enforcement of federal law by state attorneys general.
Perhaps most disturbingly, the new version of FOSTA would make the changes to Section 230 apply retroactively: a platform could be prosecuted for failing to comply with the law before it was even passed.
Meatball lovers unite. The humble meatball is being transformed for one day only — on March 9, for National Meatball Day. (Who knew?!)
The $100 meatball will be available at Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse at 447 Lexington Ave. Created by executive chef Juan Tourn, it’s made with Wagyu beef, truffle Caciocavallo cheese, foie gras, winter truffles — and topped with a creamy shallot and champagne sauce.
I'll go so far as to say that there is no dishonour in turning in your badge after the Academy if you realize that you can't walk into an on-going gunfight and shoot the critter pulling the trigger in the face until he changes shape or catches fire -- as long as you do it before the actual bullets start going "bang".
If you come to me -- or your boss -- on a quiet afternoon and say, "I've thought about it, and I don't think I can do the needful to save kids" then all honour to you, and I wish you peace and happiness in another profession.
But if you wait until the bangs and the stinks and the screams are in progress to decide that you just can't do it ... you, sir, are a useless oath-breaking bucket of squid chum, who is parasitising a position, a uniform, and a salary that could be held by someone who can do the needful.
And -- quite frankly -- if you wear a badge, and you hide behind a car while children under your protection are getting killed, you should have the common [deleted] decency to take your sidearm, find a quiet country road somewhere, and Do The Proper Thing.
Broward County schools intentionally created polices from 2010 through 2016 that culminated in the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland. We know this with great specificity because five years ago we warned Broward County Florida school board members this could happen.
In 2012 and 2013 while doing research into the Trayvon Martin shooting we discovered an alarming set of school policies being enacted in Miami-Dade and Broward County Florida. The policies were called “diversionary programs” and were essentially about stopping High School students from being arrested. Law enforcement was instructed to avoid arrests and defer criminal conduct to school administrators.
Students who engaged in violence, drug sales, robberies, burglaries, theft and other various crimes were intentionally kept out of the criminal justice system. County administrators and School Superintendents told local and county law enforcement officers to stop arresting students.
Unfortunately, the school board mandated policies came into conflict with law and order. The problem of the conflicted policy -vs- legality worsened over time as the police excused much more than misdemeanor crimes. Over time this culminated in police officers falsifying documents, hiding criminal activity, lying on official police reports and even hiding stolen merchandise police retrieved from high school students.
[An adult entertainment Web site] introduced its new interactive vibrator, dubbed the “RubGrub,” in a press release issued on Thursday morning, describing the sex toy as “an interactive vibrator that has the ability to order Domino’s pizza immediately following an orgasm.”
According to the press release, the RubGrub will be outfitted with a button “affixed to the end” of the device, which can be pre-programmed with the user’s payment and delivery information, meaning he/she would merely need to push the button to summon a cheese pizza.
“While initially launching with the ability to order pizza, the adult entertainment company has plans to add additional restaurant chains, including those serving Mexican and Chinese food,” reads the press release, adding the devices will be available sometime in the coming months for $19.95 a pop.
Additional toppings extra.
The centerpiece of a New Yorker story on Karen McDougal, who says she had an affair with Donald Trump, is scribbled notes kept by the former Playboy playmate.
These notes, obtained by journalist Ronan Farrow, are presented as her personal reflections on the relationship –“later memorialized in an eight-page, handwritten document provided to the New Yorker.”
Readers could easily get the impression, as many journalists have, that McDougal wrote these notes during what she describes as a consensual relationship that began in 2006. But that is not the case.
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The McDougal passages were written on a notebook marketed by fashion designer Izak Zenou, whose name appears at the bottom of one of the pages. He got into the business of creating office supplies in 2016, and the notebook was not available for sale on Amazon until March 2016.
The timing is significant.
Farrow writes that “the interactions that McDougal outlines in the document share striking similarities with the stories of other women who claim to have had sexual relationships with Trump, or who have accused him of propositioning them for sex or sexually harassing them.”
But in writing the notes in 2016 or 2017, the onetime Playmate of the Year did not foreshadow, by a decade, similar accusations by other women.
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Farrow writes that he obtained the document from John Crawford, a friend of McDougal, and “she expressed surprise” that he had it but confirmed that the notes were in her handwriting.
Yet later in the piece, it became apparent that they are more than just friends.
Crawford told Farrow “that selling McDougal’s story was his idea, and that he first raised it when she was living with him, in 2016.” As they watched the presidential candidate on television, Crawford said he told McDougal that her past relationship with Trump “could be worth something about now.”
In an interview with CNN, Farrow called McDougal’s notes “written testimony” and said they exist because “in the course of selling the story, a friend of hers who coaxed her into selling it said sit down and write every detail.”
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The reality is that at least a decade had passed before Karen McDougal wrote those notes, after her friend and roommate urged her to peddle her story for money.
Frittering away your life savings on a red sports car is so last century. Instead, today’s man who is grappling with the limitations of his mortality spends $90 million on a rocket to launch a $100,000 electric car, helmed by a robot by the name of “Starman,” into space.
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These men ... are not only heavily invested in who can get their rocket into space first, but in colonizing Mars. The desire to colonize — to have unquestioned, unchallenged and automatic access to something, to any type of body, and to use it at will — is a patriarchal one. Indeed, there is no ethical consideration among these billionaires about whether this should be done; rather, the conversation is when it will be done. Because, in the eyes of these intrepid explorers, this is the only way to save humanity.
It is the same instinctual and cultural force that teaches men that everything — and everyone — in their line of vision is theirs for the taking. You know, just like walking up to a woman and grabbing her by the pussy.
It’s there, so just grab it because you can.
The desire to colonize — to have unquestioned, unchallenged and automatic access to something — is a patriarchal one.
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... the impulse to colonize — to colonize lands, to colonize peoples, and, now that we may soon be technologically capable of doing so, colonizing space — has its origins in gendered power structures. Entitlement to power, control, domination and ownership. The presumed right to use and abuse something and then walk away to conquer and colonize something new.
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The raping and pillaging of the Earth, and the environmental chaos that doing so has unleashed, are integral to the process of colonization. And the connection of the treatment of Mother Earth to women is more than symbolic: Study after study has shown that climate change globally affects women more than men ... While men compete over whose rocket is the biggest, women are fighting to stay alive against assaults on their personhood — and their planet.
Just last week, Congress was calling on Tide to change the design of the Pods so teenagers would stop eating them. This week, teenagers should determine gun policy.
What if the finance industry — credit card companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express; credit card processors like First Data; and banks like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo — were to effectively set new rules for the sales of guns in America?
Collectively, they have more leverage over the gun industry than any lawmaker. And it wouldn’t be hard for them to take a stand.
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For example, Visa, which published a 71-page paper in 2016 espousing its “corporate responsibility,” could easily change its terms of service to say that it won’t do business with retailers that sell assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and bump stocks, which make semiautomatic rifles fire faster ... If Mastercard were to do the same, assault weapons would be eliminated from virtually every firearms store in America because otherwise the sellers would be cut off from the credit card system.
There is precedent for credit card issuers to ban the purchase of completely legal products. Just this month, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America banned the use of their cards to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
To be clear: Those three banks won’t let you use your credit card to buy Bitcoin, but they will happily let you use it to buy an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle — the same kind of gun used in mass shootings in Parkland; Newtown, Conn.; San Bernardino, Calif.; Las Vegas; and Sutherland Springs, Tex.
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Is all of this a pipe dream? Maybe, but I spent the last 72 hours calling and emailing a handful of chief executives to discuss these ideas. None wanted to speak on the record, because it’s a hot-button topic. But all applauded the idea and some said they had already been thinking about it. A few, I discovered later, called their peers to begin a conversation.
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None of this is a panacea. But it’s a start. It takes leadership and courage — exactly what these executives say they have. If they don’t want to back up their words with actions, the next time there’s a school shooting that prompts a conversation about gun companies, it should also include the financial complex that supports them.
Most Americans are now aware that we live in an essentially surreal political environment. A concerted team of political reactionaries guides the national conversation from crisis to crisis, all the while demanding further expansions of federal government power and the repudiation of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. A special group of professional complainants has taken over. Let's call it IndigNation. Its members' sense of "outrage" at every perceived slight and misinterpretation drives them into ever greater commitments to their increasingly autonomous IndigNation.
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At present, IndigNation has as its propaganda focus the deaths of 17 teachers and students in Broward County, Florida. Their deaths can mean only one thing: more gun control. IndigNation has had it. Its members are fed up, and they will not take it anymore! Rallies will commence, and the media cameras will be turned on, and the minders of social media will allow the narratives to coalesce around the grand theme of gun control. The killer, Cruz, wore a "Make America Great Again" cap while he practiced with his firearm. ABC News falsely reported that he was a member of a white nationalist group. It all fits together for a mob mentality against the injustice of the crime.
IndigNation does not blame the government. Only political figures seeking to limit the government are a threat and worthy of demise and removal.
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There is no reasonable limit to their rage. What is wrong in their minds goes beyond reason. Pure emotion must be unleashed, and what better rhetorical vehicle than "the children"? They were so innocent, and the Enemy is so guilty. This is the terminology that escalates and spirals. "Thoughts and prayers" are a conspiracy against the innocent. No one should say such things! People who say Jesus speaks to them are mentally ill.
1. Sov... err... Russians built a bridge over the Euphrates which was the designated 'deconfliction line'. Why? Reasons. 'Commite of Nations' or something.
2. 'Hybrid' force of mixed Russian contractors including multiple non-ethnic Russians (Serbs, Kossack, other non Slavics) as well as local Syrian Army 'commandos' attacked across temporary bridge. The 'Russian' side were 'Blackwater' equivalent mercenaries from a company generally called 'Wagner' which is the nom de plume of the boss. (Like if you called Blackwater 'Prince'.)
3. Unit was partially mechanized, battalion strength. (One thing everyone agrees upon is 'about 600-700 personnel.') Had some towed artillery as well as 't-55 and T-72 MBT as well as armored personnel carriers.' (Type unknown.) Full on 'we're taking that position and you're not stopping us' full court press.
4. Unit crossed bridge, arty deployed.
5. Arty opened fire while most of unit was still in approach column formation. (Normal) One portion moved to flanking positions.
5A. Minute the arty opened fire **** GOT REAL REAL QUICK.
6. Reapers took out artillery and most of armor with Hellfire. From the few videos, pretty much before they knew what hit them. There had to be quite a few Reaper drones up or they were feeding guidance to Hellfire from Apaches (see below.)
7. F-15E Eagles came in for clean-up and to check for anti-air defenses.
8. Warthogs showed up just to go BRRRRRRT!
9. AC-130 Spectre started ****ing up their day for the hell of it.
10. To add insult to injury, B-52s which, you know, just HAPPENED to be in the area, just minding our own business, just passing by from Diego Garcia which is a few thousand miles away, on our way to... somewhere... nothing to see here... decided to prove they could drop their entire load as precision guided weapons and just more or less DID A JDAM ARCLIGHT ON THEIR ***. At that point, more or less because CENTCOM said 'Why not? ARCLIGHT is always pretty to watch...'
11. The whole thing being so over it was ridiculous, AH-64 Apaches basically did 'hostile Bomb Damage Assessment' and complained there were no targets left.
12. Oh, and then the Kurds, to just really **** with these guys, released water from a dam upstream and broke their bridge. So they had to ford back with their wounded.
13. Nobody knows how many dead and wounded. Russians are saying 'only 8 Russian citizens' but that doesn't quite cover the whole of who may have been involved. One repeated number is 200 dead (remember, mixed Syrians, Russians and other ethnics) as well as pretty much the rest of the force wounded. (Not to mention pretty thoroughly demoralized.) One Kurd wounded. Probably fell off a stool laughing to tell truth.
According to local media, the fuel used by the German Tornado fleet appears to have been mixed with ‘too much bio-diesel’.
According to news site Frankfurter Allgemeine, this was noticed during a routine check last Monday:
“The tolerance values are minimally exceeded,” said Colonel Kristof Conrath of the Tactical Air Force Squadron 51. “It’s not that the aircraft would fall from the sky. For safety reasons, all tanks of the aircraft must be flushed.”
It is understood that this breakdown is particularly annoying for the Luftwaffe, as training of new Tornado pilots is already three months behind.
Now that the gun control advocates have had their fifteen minutes of fame, let’s start focusing on the real issues impacting the rise in school shootings since that infamous day in Columbine in 1999. Issue number one that no one in the mainstream media or government wants to acknowledge: fatherlessness. Specifically, the impact of fatherlessness on the boys who grew up to become school shooters.
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As Terry Brennan, co-founder of Leading Women for Shared Parenting, notes:
- 72 percent of adolescent murderers grew up without fathers; the same for 60 percent of all rapists.
- 70 percent of juveniles in state institutions grew up in single- or no-parent situations.
- The number of single-parent households is a good predictor of violent crime in a community, while poverty rate is not.
Yet, despite the growing number of experts, pundits and commentators drawing attention to the impact of fatherlessness on school and community safety, the post-attack discussion inevitably reverts back to gun control. Instead of spending so much as fifteen minutes on fatherlessness we are forced to endure the same salacious headlines, the same provocative tweets, the same tired old memes about the evils of guns as if somehow a cold piece of metal convinced yet another boy to become a mass-murderer. We ignore the lack of adequate mental health services, the failure of law enforcement to effectively intercede, and the sickening impact fatherlessness has on each one of these tragic cases. Why? Because it is easier to ban a hunk of metal than it is to right systemic cultural wrongs.
Regular use of cleaning sprays has an impact on lung health comparable with smoking a pack of cigarettes every day, according to a new study.
The research followed more than 6,000 people over a 20 year period and found women in particular suffered significant health problems after long-term use of these products.
Lung function decline in women working as cleaners or regularly using cleaning products at home was comparable to smoking 20 cigarettes a day over 10 to 20 years.
The scientists who carried out the study advised that such products should be avoided and can normally be replaced with simple microfibre cloths and water.
. . .
The study did not find any harmful effects comparable to those seen in women in the men they studied.
However, the scientists noted their work did have some limitations, and the number of men exposed to cleaning products on the scale of women in the study was small.
The Air Force has set aside $2.4 billion in the five-year future years defense program to start buying a new fleet of light attack aircraft ... The service announced earlier this month it was scrapping the planned combat demonstration in favor of a second experiment with two of the four original participants. That experiment, which will take place this summer at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., will be focused on integrating sensors onto the aircraft.
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Exactly how many aircraft the service intends to buy, though, is still not clear.
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Air Combat Command boss Gen. Mike Holmes told reporters at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber conference in September the service was looking at using the light attack experiment as a model for new experiments, noting the possibility of a “light” intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft ... the service is “experimenting in a lot of different ways” with ISR in an effort to satisfy the “insatiable demand” for “persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.” That could include adding certain sensors onto whichever light attack platform the service chooses.
