“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Saturday, February 25, 2017
62 Year Old Sniper Killed over 170 ISIS Fighters
ISIS: Meet the veteran 62-year-old sniper who has killed 173 Islamic State terrorists in Iraq
Abu Tahseen, who has practiced his deadly art in five wars, is a member of the Hashd Al-Shaabi, a Shia militia fighting the terror group
A 62-year-old sniper claims he has taken out 173 ISIS terror thugs in Iraq in less than a year.
Abu Tahseen, who has practiced his deadly art in five wars, is a member of the Hashd Al-Shaabi, a Shia militia fighting the terror group.
He says has shot nearly the Islamic State fighters since May 2015.
In this incredible footage, the elderly killer is seen talking to his spotter as he gazes down the scope of a huge sniper rifle at two of his enemies from a high vantage point.
Suddenly the weapon recoils as he pulls the trigger. He continues to gaze through the scope for several seconds.
Tahseen is currently stationed at Makhoul Mountains in North Baiji.
He previously fought in the Yom Kippur war, Iran-Iraq war, Invasion of Kuwait, the Gulf War and today fights against ISIS.
The veteran marksman has fought in five wars(Photo: Iraq Popular Mobilization Units Media - English)
In the video he also talks about the power of his rifle and how he is calm when he guns down his enemy.
Donald Trump moves from fake news to fake conclusions.
“The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo,” he tweeted.
White House says Trump won't attend annual 'White House Correspondent's Dinner', probably a good thing.
The dinner itself is an annual celebratory event for social, media, and entertainment elites (and wannabe elites) to eat an expensive dinner while celebrating how great they are.
The dinner is said to be a 'charity event' to provide scholarships for future journalists. In truth, millions are spent on an event that actually raises between $100K and $150K for the scholarships. If charity was the real focus, donations from the participants could provide many times what is raised by this narcissistic indulgence.
1. The Oscars 2. "The View" 3. SNL 4. WH Correspondents dinner 5. Homeland 6. Morning Joe 7. Adele 8. Michael Moore 9. Real-Time-With-Bill-Maher 10. A speech by Maxine Waters
I would respectfully like to add all the kareoke that seems to be the norm in most of today's music that seems to reside mostly in the pop and country music of today. What do these singers really sound like? Can they really sing? I mean like: Martin? Sting? Morrison? Haggard? No. They fill the void with techno and chorus to drown out their very average voices. It sounds like elevator music. It's really uninspiring.
TWO DAYS After Governor Declares CT Sanctuary State – Illegal Alien Murders Mother and Kidnaps 6 Yr-Old Girl
On Wednesday Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy issued a memo to his state’s authorities, telling them to ignore federal law regarding illegal immigrants.
Malloy declared Connecticut a sanctuary state.
On Friday a previously deported illegal alien murdered his girlfriend and kidnapped her six year-old daughter.
Oscar Obedio Hernandez, an illegal alien from El Salvador, was arrested on Friday night.
I believe that was the Gov that had been on Tucker and was saying how well things were going...though it may have been a Mayor now I think on it a little more....
That 'NO' witch that Tucker had on the other night, Sunsara Taylor, is a card carrying firebrand of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.
I've got to laugh. We've all seen all this horse shit before.
Again, for your enjoyment -
February 25, 2017 No more 'Nazi,' please By Richard F. Miniter
As many of us are all too aware, a young female member of the Revolutionary Communist Party named Sunsara Taylor faced off with Tucker Carlson the other night over the question of whether or not the president of the United States is a Nazi, a Fascist, and an advocate of nuclear war, a bad hairpiece, liar, and a misogynist, but principally a Nazi.
An actual Nazi.
VIDEO
Tucker, the epitome of sangfroid, suggested that if Trump's administration were really a Nazi one, she and her friends would be wearing striped pajamas behind barbed wire instead of saying whatever they want to on national TV. But I don't believe she heard him. She certainly didn't respond. All her neurons were too busy firing downrange.
Two points.
First – her name? I've never heard of it before. Were Sunsara's parents Commies themselves and going for the Sanskrit word Saṃsāra, which means the cycle of death and rebirth (but which also may mean "Revolution"), only to have some hospital clerk's typo leave her Christian name spelled the same as the Chinese hair straightening corporation? It's amusing to think so. But I wouldn't dare ask, because I'd probably get stomped into a mud puddle on the way home by masked and raging left-wing Berkeley blackshirts determined to enforce the same love and tolerance they showed Milo.
Because the lefties don't have much of a sense of humor left. Not after November 8, anyway.
But my second point is an important question. Why do this?
The Sunsaras of this world are one-act shows. Angry one-act shows. Boring one-act shows. PETA fanatics fuming about fur, global warming zealots about ocean rise, or those fundamentally insane amateur health nuts who keep thundering on and on about the benefits of kale.
Are they really good TV?
I don't know about anybody else, but the longer some program wags a finger in my face, the more I'm inclined to are to switch to American Pickers or The Weather Channel's latest tornado footage.
And boy, was Sunsara wagging her finger. She's a committed atheist and a can kicking herself down the road with the likes of Bill Ayers, Howard Zinn, Cynthia McKinney, and Lynne Stewart. Here she just wouldn't shut up about Trump being Hitler.
Tasteless. Beyond the fact that George Orwell told us never to employ previously used metaphors, the Nazis distinguished themselves by herding screaming little boys and girls into gas chambers – and so labeling anybody this side of Pol Pot a National Socialist only trivializes that horror. Worse, it trivializes the memory of those children – and their similarly murdered parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
Something we shouldn't ever allow.
Which means that no TV host should ever permit a guest to call someone a Nazi.
MUST WATCH VIDEO OF COMMIE NO BITCH AND TUCKER....
Tucker, the epitome of sangfroid, suggested that if Trump's administration were really a Nazi one, she and her friends would be wearing striped pajamas behind barbed wire instead of saying whatever they want to on national TV.
Tucker hasn't met Quirk, the coolest cucumber of them all....
Jeff Ross, comedian and roast master on some of the Comedy Channel roasts, when asked if he would like to be roast master at the dinner said he love it.
When asked if he would be rough on Trump, he said well maybe a little, but he wouldn't want to get Trump mad as he's still holding out hope that he will appointed 'Secretary of Offense'.
Alcohol comes in a dizzying array of forms (Credit: Alex Segre/Alamy) Origins Alcohol
Our ancestors were drinking alcohol before they were human It is possible to trace the evolution of boozing back to the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees By Richa Malhotra 23 February 2017
Between 2005 and 2007, the suburbs of Los Angeles, California, saw several avian casualties. The victims were 90-odd cedar waxwings and the cause of their death was drunk flying. The tipsy birds had accidentally rammed into windows, walls, and fencing – and died of trauma.
Before they met their tragic end, the birds had been feasting on the bright red berries of the Brazilian Peppertree. A post-mortem report on some of the birds revealed that their mouths, food pouches, and stomachs were full of whole berries and seeds. The birds had become so intoxicated by gorging on the naturally-fermenting berries that alcohol content in the liver of one reached 1,000 parts per million.
Overall, fruits make up about 84% of the waxwings' diet – but during the colder months, that is pretty much all they eat. Since fresh, ripe fruit is in short supply, especially during late winter and early spring, the birds occasionally encounter – and readily devour – over-ripe berries, and then end up drunk. Birds are not the only animals to come across fermented produce out in the wild. Mammals, in particular, often feed on fruit, nectar and sap – all of which are rich in sugars that can ferment and be potentially intoxicating. If animals consuming forest produce can get inebriated, does that mean our ancient forest-dwelling ancestors felt the effects of alcohol too? Has alcohol been a continuous presence throughout our evolution?
A cedar waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) (Credit: Marie Read/naturepl.com)
In 2000, Robert Dudley of the University of California in Berkeley proposed the idea of a deep historical link between fruit-eating animals and alcohol intake. With his curiously-titled "Drunken Monkey Hypothesis", Dudley suggested that our early ancestors were introduced to alcohol in fermenting fruit, and that this might underlie our current taste for it....
Geert Wilders forced to suspend campaign appearances under death threats
POSTED AT 1:01 PM ON FEBRUARY 25, 2017 BY JAZZ SHAW
Some disturbing news out of the Netherlands this week. The campaign of upstart politician and Member of Parliament Geert Wilders has suspended all public appearances and rallies in a move which is expected to last through the election next month. Wilders has been a constant target of threats throughout his career but now things have gotten extremely serious. A plot was uncovered which could have placed him in extreme peril, hence this move to stay out of the public eye for a while. (NewsTalk.com)
Geert Wilders, the leader of the Netherland’s rising populist anti-migrant right, has suspended public campaigning ahead of March 15th’s election.
Local media reports that a series of leaks from his police security team to a “Dutch-Moroccan criminal gang” have been discovered, resulting in a series of arrests.
Mr Wilders has repeatedly called Morrocan migrants “scum” – his far-right campaign has also promised to close all Dutch mosques.
One of the arrested police was of Moroccan origin.
While we have experienced similar threats of violence (or, sadly, the reality of it) here in the United States, this is truly disturbing. Geert Wilders has obviously angered many people in the immigrant community, particularly among the Moroccans, so they were on the lookout for potential attacks. But the ongoing plot which was uncovered involved his own security detail. It is alleged that one member of his team (who is of Moroccan heritage himself) had been feeding information about the candidate’s schedule and travel plans to elements of a criminal gang.
That’s about as bad as it gets. When the situation reaches the point where the very people charged with keeping you alive turn out to be in league with the criminals who are trying to kill you, public appearances are simply no longer an option. I suppose a revamped security detail could get Wilders back on the road in the next couple of weeks but does he really need to at this point? He’s already leading in the polls according to every source and, much like Donald Trump, tends to use social media and free coverage from the press corps to take his message to the voters directly. Having been out on the trail for all this time and with only a few weeks to go, how much more bang for the buck would he really get from a few more rallies?
There’s also the possibility that the exposure of this plot could backfire spectacularly on Wilders’ opponents. This will simply draw even more media attention to his campaign while simultaneously painting him in a sympathetic light. Even more to the point, Wilders has based much of his campaign on controlling the criminal threat posed by Moroccan gangs. The arrest of Moroccan gang members coordinating a planned attack on a Member of Parliament only goes to reinforce his campaign message in stark fashion.
Before closing, I will direct your attention to some additional reading from Bloomberg. It’s an interesting media spin on the Wilders campaign which attempts to paint him as a European version of Donald Trump. It’s definitely a negative piece and I believe it mentions Trump more times than it does Geert Wilders, but it’s fun to see how some in the press corps are reacting to what is looking more and more like an inevitable Wilders victory next month.
The former chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, John Podesta, has joined The Washington Post as a contributing columnist, the paper announced on Thursday.
Podesta, who also served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a counselor to President Barack Obama, has recently written two op-eds for the Post.
The first, published in December, was about the the FBI's investigation into Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee. The second, published last week, was about President Donald Trump's penchant for dismissing all criticism of himself as "fake news."
Islamic State has been cranking out car bombs on an industrial scale for the battle of Mosul Video Meanwhile, Islamic State’s takeover of Mosul in mid-2014, when the group commandeered billions of dollars’ worth of U.S.-supplied military hardware, meant it had in its possession thousands of armored vehicles it could use for bombs as well.
Islamic State has even created SVBIED battalions, such as the Abu Laith Ansari Battalion (named after the group’s Mosul governor).
She was truly beautiful, and now she is truly dead....
Migrant Arrested for Stabbing Female ‘Refugee Helper’ to Death By Pamela Geller - on February 25, 2017
Add Soopika to the growing list of young beautiful women sacrificed to the left-wing destruction of the West in concert with the Islamic hijrah.
PICTURES
Young girls sacrificed to the invaders. MIGRANT ARRESTED FOR STABBING FEMALE ‘REFUGEE HELPER’ TO DEATH by Chris Tomlinson, Breitbart, 16 Feb 20171267
A 27-year-old Nigerian migrant has been arrested in Switzerland after murdering a 22-year-old asylum home worker in Germany and then fleeing the country.
The Nigerian was arrested Tuesday at a train station in the Swiss city of Bern after a Europe-wide arrest warrant was issued for him after he fled Ahaus where the murder occurred. Chief prosecutor Martin Botzenhardt said, “Only yesterday, the prosecutor’s office ordered the European-wide call for arrest on the basis of the existing national arrest warrant. Today’s arrest of the suspect in Switzerland is a quick success,” Swiss paper Blick reports.
“The prosecutor’s office in Münster has initiated the formal extradition request,” said Botzenhardt. “The murder commission will not question the suspect until after his arrival in Germany.”
According to police, the 27-year-old savagely stabbed his victim, identified as Soopika P., repeatedly in the head, neck and upper body. The young woman was left with no chance of survival.
German tabloid Bild reports Soopika was well known in Ahaus and was popular. One of her friends told the paper, “Many knew her, she was a really nice girl. Because her own family comes from India and she has very good English, she has been involved in refugee aid.”
The motive for the crime was likely sexual desire as authorities noted the asylum seeker had repeatedly tried to get in contact with Soopika. The attraction was not mutual according to one of the victim’s friends who said she had no interest in a relationship as she had just broken up with her boyfriend.
The case of Soopika’s murder is just the latest of a number of murders of women who have worked with asylum seekers. The most famous case in Germany was that of Maria Ledenburger who was raped and killed by a 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker on her way home. Like Soopika, Ladenburger also volunteered her time helping asylum seekers.
A similar murder also occurred in Sweden last year when a Somali migrant stabbed asylum centre worker Alexandra Mezher to death in a home for underage migrants. The asylum seeker turned out not to be underage after police investigated his background leading many to question the methods used by the Swedish government to determine the actual age of migrants.
Austria also saw a migrant murder a woman who was trying to help him last year. An American working as an au pair in Vienna was strangled to death by a Gambian migrant in her apartment after letting him stay there to avoid deportation. He was also captured in Switzerland after fleeing the country.
France’s deradicalization centers seen as a “total fiasco”
FEBRUARY 25, 2017 12:14 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER
Deradicalization programs, upon which the West has placed so much hope, have long been an obvious failure. Such programs are based on the premise that the true teachings of Islam are peaceful, and so all that needs to be done is show the jihadis how they’re misunderstanding the Qur’an and overlooking its teachings of peace, and all will be well. But since the Qur’an and Sunnah are full of commands to make war against and subjugate unbelievers, the idea that jihadis can be “deradicalized” by reference to them is just a myth told to Infidel authorities to lull them into complacency.
Well, let’s see. De-radicalization programs have been implemented elsewhere, notably in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Let’s look at how they fared. From the Jihad Watch archives:
11 ex-Gitmo prisoners flee the Saudi “rehabilitation program” and join up with terrorist groups
Jaw-dropper: 25 former Gitmo detainees “return to militancy” despite Saudi rehab program!
Graduate from Saudi jihadi rehab program killed in Syrian jihad: “killed a large number of Christians before his acceptance by God”
Flight 253 jihadist wasn’t cured by Saudi anti-jihad art therapy
Former Guantanamo detainee now top al-Qaeda ideologue — “He was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2006 where he was placed in a national rehabilitation project.”
Indonesian government admits that its jihadist rehab program is a failure
“France’s deradicalization centers seen as a ‘total fiasco,’” by James McAuley, Washington Post, February 24, 2017:
PARIS — A bipartisan report in the French Senate minced no words in describing this country’s efforts to “deradicalize” former and future terrorists.
The French government’s attempt — including the controversial opening of a deradicalization center in the middle of the countryside — was a “total fiasco,” in the words of Philippe Bas, a senator from the center-right Republicans party.
Among the most damning elements in the report was a firm condemnation of the planned network of 12 deradicalization centers, perhaps the most widely publicized — and criticized — element of the government’s push to combat homegrown extremism.
A wave of terrorist violence — perpetrated mostly by French or European Union passport holders — has claimed the lives of 230 people in France since January 2015, and the Socialist administration of François Hollande has struggled to improvise a solution to the problem.
The deradicalization centers — officially called Centers for Prevention, Integration and Citizenship — were meant to impose rigorous routines on those they housed, as well as to subject them to intense courses in French history and philosophy. As Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said while serving as interior minister last fall at the opening of the first center: “We can only fight against terrorism by respecting the principles of the Republic.”
But five months later, only one of 12 planned centers has opened, and that one — in an 18th-century chateau deep in the scenic Loire Valley — is empty.
“This failure fully illustrates the lack of evaluation of the mechanisms set up by the state in the area of taking responsibility for radicalization and the lack of a comprehensive prevention strategy,” Catherine Troendlé, a senator from the Republicans who signed the report, said in a statement.
The report concluded that the programs had been designed hastily without proper due diligence.
“Despite their goodwill, several associations, seeking public funding in times of fiscal shortage, turned to the deradicalization sector without any real experience,” said Esther Benbassa, a senator from the left-wing Europe Ecology party, another of the report’s authors. This, she added, created an unfortunate “business of deradicalization.”
The French security establishment had long criticized the government’s deradicalization effort as too little too late, a knee-jerk reaction designed to put an increasingly anxious electorate at ease.
“It’s impossible to deradicalize individuals,” Jean-Charles Brisard, a French intelligence expert and director of the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, said in an interview.
How many Americans did he kill?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+62-year-old+sniper
ReplyDeleteDowntown Deaths to Come
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/JCPenney-s-store-closures-could-push-hundreds-of-10958027.php
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ReplyDeleteDonald Trump moves from fake news to fake conclusions.
“The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo,” he tweeted.
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Google banned the video.
ReplyDeleteTrump banned his going to the WH Correspondents dinner.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteWhite House says Trump won't attend annual 'White House Correspondent's Dinner', probably a good thing.
The dinner itself is an annual celebratory event for social, media, and entertainment elites (and wannabe elites) to eat an expensive dinner while celebrating how great they are.
The dinner is said to be a 'charity event' to provide scholarships for future journalists. In truth, millions are spent on an event that actually raises between $100K and $150K for the scholarships. If charity was the real focus, donations from the participants could provide many times what is raised by this narcissistic indulgence.
.
.
Deletes/b ...event for social, media, political and entertainment elites...
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Bunch of hacks.
DeleteAwesome move on Trump's part.
ReplyDeleteI've decided not to go either. I have some hand guns to clean.
DeleteHe's just ch8cken
DeleteI always found watching them uncomfortable.
ReplyDelete.
DeleteYou feel uncomfortable with the WHCA dinner?
Have you seen any of the Comedy Channel Roasts lately. Completely raw and cruel worse they are just not funny.
My wife had a program on the other night showing some of the old Dean Martin Roasts
Night and Day.
.
WE live in a time of course tastelessness and vulgarity; missing are the pleasures of an intelligent turn of a phrase and clever humor. Who needs it?
DeleteMoments of self torture and masochism:
Delete1. The Oscars
2. "The View"
3. SNL
4. WH Correspondents dinner
5. Homeland
6. Morning Joe
7. Adele
8. Michael Moore
9. Real-Time-With-Bill-Maher
10. A speech by Maxine Waters
Excerpts of Maxine are occasionally entertaining.
DeleteGood list.
Delete"The View" is the worst of the bunch in 'my view'.
Doug's right about Maxine. Once in a while she's worth a good laugh.
I would respectfully like to add all the kareoke that seems to be the norm in most of today's music that seems to reside mostly in the pop and country music of today. What do these singers really sound like? Can they really sing? I mean like: Martin? Sting? Morrison? Haggard? No. They fill the void with techno and chorus to drown out their very average voices. It sounds like elevator music. It's really uninspiring.
DeleteTWO DAYS After Governor Declares CT Sanctuary State – Illegal Alien Murders Mother and Kidnaps 6 Yr-Old Girl
ReplyDeleteOn Wednesday Connecticut Governor Daniel Malloy issued a memo to his state’s authorities, telling them to ignore federal law regarding illegal immigrants.
Malloy declared Connecticut a sanctuary state.
On Friday a previously deported illegal alien murdered his girlfriend and kidnapped her six year-old daughter.
Oscar Obedio Hernandez, an illegal alien from El Salvador, was arrested on Friday night.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/02/two-days-governor-declares-ct-sanctuary-state-illegal-alien-murders-mother-kidnaps-6-yr-old-girl/
I believe that was the Gov that had been on Tucker and was saying how well things were going...though it may have been a Mayor now I think on it a little more....
DeleteAnyway the timing was as bad as it could get....
That 'NO' witch that Tucker had on the other night, Sunsara Taylor, is a card carrying firebrand of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.
DeleteI've got to laugh. We've all seen all this horse shit before.
Again, for your enjoyment -
February 25, 2017
No more 'Nazi,' please
By Richard F. Miniter
As many of us are all too aware, a young female member of the Revolutionary Communist Party named Sunsara Taylor faced off with Tucker Carlson the other night over the question of whether or not the president of the United States is a Nazi, a Fascist, and an advocate of nuclear war, a bad hairpiece, liar, and a misogynist, but principally a Nazi.
An actual Nazi.
VIDEO
Tucker, the epitome of sangfroid, suggested that if Trump's administration were really a Nazi one, she and her friends would be wearing striped pajamas behind barbed wire instead of saying whatever they want to on national TV. But I don't believe she heard him. She certainly didn't respond. All her neurons were too busy firing downrange.
Two points.
First – her name? I've never heard of it before. Were Sunsara's parents Commies themselves and going for the Sanskrit word Saṃsāra, which means the cycle of death and rebirth (but which also may mean "Revolution"), only to have some hospital clerk's typo leave her Christian name spelled the same as the Chinese hair straightening corporation? It's amusing to think so. But I wouldn't dare ask, because I'd probably get stomped into a mud puddle on the way home by masked and raging left-wing Berkeley blackshirts determined to enforce the same love and tolerance they showed Milo.
Because the lefties don't have much of a sense of humor left. Not after November 8, anyway.
But my second point is an important question. Why do this?
The Sunsaras of this world are one-act shows. Angry one-act shows. Boring one-act shows. PETA fanatics fuming about fur, global warming zealots about ocean rise, or those fundamentally insane amateur health nuts who keep thundering on and on about the benefits of kale.
Are they really good TV?
I don't know about anybody else, but the longer some program wags a finger in my face, the more I'm inclined to are to switch to American Pickers or The Weather Channel's latest tornado footage.
And boy, was Sunsara wagging her finger. She's a committed atheist and a can kicking herself down the road with the likes of Bill Ayers, Howard Zinn, Cynthia McKinney, and Lynne Stewart. Here she just wouldn't shut up about Trump being Hitler.
Tasteless. Beyond the fact that George Orwell told us never to employ previously used metaphors, the Nazis distinguished themselves by herding screaming little boys and girls into gas chambers – and so labeling anybody this side of Pol Pot a National Socialist only trivializes that horror. Worse, it trivializes the memory of those children – and their similarly murdered parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles.
Something we shouldn't ever allow.
Which means that no TV host should ever permit a guest to call someone a Nazi.
Please.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/02/no_more_nazi_please.html
MUST WATCH VIDEO OF COMMIE NO BITCH AND TUCKER....
Tucker, the epitome of sangfroid, suggested that if Trump's administration were really a Nazi one, she and her friends would be wearing striped pajamas behind barbed wire instead of saying whatever they want to on national TV.
Tucker hasn't met Quirk, the coolest cucumber of them all....
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ReplyDeleteJeff Ross, comedian and roast master on some of the Comedy Channel roasts, when asked if he would like to be roast master at the dinner said he love it.
When asked if he would be rough on Trump, he said well maybe a little, but he wouldn't want to get Trump mad as he's still holding out hope that he will appointed 'Secretary of Offense'.
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Alcohol comes in a dizzying array of forms (Credit: Alex Segre/Alamy)
ReplyDeleteOrigins Alcohol
Our ancestors were drinking alcohol before they were human
It is possible to trace the evolution of boozing back to the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees
By Richa Malhotra
23 February 2017
Between 2005 and 2007, the suburbs of Los Angeles, California, saw several avian casualties. The victims were 90-odd cedar waxwings and the cause of their death was drunk flying. The tipsy birds had accidentally rammed into windows, walls, and fencing – and died of trauma.
Before they met their tragic end, the birds had been feasting on the bright red berries of the Brazilian Peppertree. A post-mortem report on some of the birds revealed that their mouths, food pouches, and stomachs were full of whole berries and seeds. The birds had become so intoxicated by gorging on the naturally-fermenting berries that alcohol content in the liver of one reached 1,000 parts per million.
Overall, fruits make up about 84% of the waxwings' diet – but during the colder months, that is pretty much all they eat. Since fresh, ripe fruit is in short supply, especially during late winter and early spring, the birds occasionally encounter – and readily devour – over-ripe berries, and then end up drunk.
Birds are not the only animals to come across fermented produce out in the wild. Mammals, in particular, often feed on fruit, nectar and sap – all of which are rich in sugars that can ferment and be potentially intoxicating.
If animals consuming forest produce can get inebriated, does that mean our ancient forest-dwelling ancestors felt the effects of alcohol too? Has alcohol been a continuous presence throughout our evolution?
A cedar waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) (Credit: Marie Read/naturepl.com)
In 2000, Robert Dudley of the University of California in Berkeley proposed the idea of a deep historical link between fruit-eating animals and alcohol intake. With his curiously-titled "Drunken Monkey Hypothesis", Dudley suggested that our early ancestors were introduced to alcohol in fermenting fruit, and that this might underlie our current taste for it....
http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170222-our-ancestors-were-drinking-alcohol-before-they-were-human
My wonderful Swedish aunt loved Cedar Waxwings.
Geese often get soused on fermented grains from the fields in late autumn.
Their "V" flight pattern gets twisted, and they wheel and somersault....fun to watch.
Geert is going to win -
ReplyDeleteGeert Wilders forced to suspend campaign appearances under death threats
POSTED AT 1:01 PM ON FEBRUARY 25, 2017 BY JAZZ SHAW
Some disturbing news out of the Netherlands this week. The campaign of upstart politician and Member of Parliament Geert Wilders has suspended all public appearances and rallies in a move which is expected to last through the election next month. Wilders has been a constant target of threats throughout his career but now things have gotten extremely serious. A plot was uncovered which could have placed him in extreme peril, hence this move to stay out of the public eye for a while. (NewsTalk.com)
Geert Wilders, the leader of the Netherland’s rising populist anti-migrant right, has suspended public campaigning ahead of March 15th’s election.
Local media reports that a series of leaks from his police security team to a “Dutch-Moroccan criminal gang” have been discovered, resulting in a series of arrests.
Mr Wilders has repeatedly called Morrocan migrants “scum” – his far-right campaign has also promised to close all Dutch mosques.
One of the arrested police was of Moroccan origin.
While we have experienced similar threats of violence (or, sadly, the reality of it) here in the United States, this is truly disturbing. Geert Wilders has obviously angered many people in the immigrant community, particularly among the Moroccans, so they were on the lookout for potential attacks. But the ongoing plot which was uncovered involved his own security detail. It is alleged that one member of his team (who is of Moroccan heritage himself) had been feeding information about the candidate’s schedule and travel plans to elements of a criminal gang.
That’s about as bad as it gets. When the situation reaches the point where the very people charged with keeping you alive turn out to be in league with the criminals who are trying to kill you, public appearances are simply no longer an option. I suppose a revamped security detail could get Wilders back on the road in the next couple of weeks but does he really need to at this point? He’s already leading in the polls according to every source and, much like Donald Trump, tends to use social media and free coverage from the press corps to take his message to the voters directly. Having been out on the trail for all this time and with only a few weeks to go, how much more bang for the buck would he really get from a few more rallies?
There’s also the possibility that the exposure of this plot could backfire spectacularly on Wilders’ opponents. This will simply draw even more media attention to his campaign while simultaneously painting him in a sympathetic light. Even more to the point, Wilders has based much of his campaign on controlling the criminal threat posed by Moroccan gangs. The arrest of Moroccan gang members coordinating a planned attack on a Member of Parliament only goes to reinforce his campaign message in stark fashion.
Before closing, I will direct your attention to some additional reading from Bloomberg. It’s an interesting media spin on the Wilders campaign which attempts to paint him as a European version of Donald Trump. It’s definitely a negative piece and I believe it mentions Trump more times than it does Geert Wilders, but it’s fun to see how some in the press corps are reacting to what is looking more and more like an inevitable Wilders victory next month.
http://hotair.com/archives/2017/02/25/geert-wilders-forced-to-suspend-campaign-appearances-under-death-threats/
The Donald, a johnny come lately, is a Geert clone, not the other way around.
Go Geert !
There are some in The Netherlands from The Religion of Peace who plot to kill a political opponent.
DeleteAnother contradiction that I hope Quirk will one day explain to me.
Tyrus - (Brodus Clay) - on GG Show defining "Snowflake":
ReplyDeleteBack in college that was our term for white girls who wouldn't date us
;)
Tyrus/Brodus Clay/George Murdoch
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brodus_Clay
Good fellow, Tyrus.
FREE PRESS
ReplyDeleteThe former chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, John Podesta, has joined The Washington Post as a contributing columnist, the paper announced on Thursday.
Podesta, who also served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and a counselor to President Barack Obama, has recently written two op-eds for the Post.
The first, published in December, was about the the FBI's investigation into Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee. The second, published last week, was about President Donald Trump's penchant for dismissing all criticism of himself as "fake news."
The press is unbiased.
ReplyDeleteTrump is a paranoid liar.
Ash, Quirk, and George (War Room) Stephanopoulos tell me so.
I can't stand Stephano, a sneaky lying bought and paid for little turd if there ever was once.
DeleteAre the other two his brothers ?
DeleteNever heard of Ash Stephanopoulos.
Never heard of Quirk Stephanopoulos (what an odd name), either.
Islamic State has been cranking out car bombs on an industrial scale for the battle of Mosul
ReplyDeleteVideo
Meanwhile, Islamic State’s takeover of Mosul in mid-2014, when the group commandeered billions of dollars’ worth of U.S.-supplied military hardware, meant it had in its possession thousands of armored vehicles it could use for bombs as well.
Islamic State has even created SVBIED battalions, such as the Abu Laith Ansari Battalion (named after the group’s Mosul governor).
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-iraq-car-bombs-2017-story.html
They need a fleet of self driving cars.
DeleteThey got drone bombs now.
Which don't seem to work very well.
The Airport has fallen, but the resistance is now 'stiffening', from the last report I read.
She was truly beautiful, and now she is truly dead....
ReplyDeleteMigrant Arrested for Stabbing Female ‘Refugee Helper’ to Death
By Pamela Geller - on February 25, 2017
Add Soopika to the growing list of young beautiful women sacrificed to the left-wing destruction of the West in concert with the Islamic hijrah.
PICTURES
Young girls sacrificed to the invaders.
MIGRANT ARRESTED FOR STABBING FEMALE ‘REFUGEE HELPER’ TO DEATH
by Chris Tomlinson, Breitbart, 16 Feb 20171267
A 27-year-old Nigerian migrant has been arrested in Switzerland after murdering a 22-year-old asylum home worker in Germany and then fleeing the country.
The Nigerian was arrested Tuesday at a train station in the Swiss city of Bern after a Europe-wide arrest warrant was issued for him after he fled Ahaus where the murder occurred. Chief prosecutor Martin Botzenhardt said, “Only yesterday, the prosecutor’s office ordered the European-wide call for arrest on the basis of the existing national arrest warrant. Today’s arrest of the suspect in Switzerland is a quick success,” Swiss paper Blick reports.
“The prosecutor’s office in Münster has initiated the formal extradition request,” said Botzenhardt. “The murder commission will not question the suspect until after his arrival in Germany.”
According to police, the 27-year-old savagely stabbed his victim, identified as Soopika P., repeatedly in the head, neck and upper body. The young woman was left with no chance of survival.
German tabloid Bild reports Soopika was well known in Ahaus and was popular. One of her friends told the paper, “Many knew her, she was a really nice girl. Because her own family comes from India and she has very good English, she has been involved in refugee aid.”
The motive for the crime was likely sexual desire as authorities noted the asylum seeker had repeatedly tried to get in contact with Soopika. The attraction was not mutual according to one of the victim’s friends who said she had no interest in a relationship as she had just broken up with her boyfriend.
The case of Soopika’s murder is just the latest of a number of murders of women who have worked with asylum seekers. The most famous case in Germany was that of Maria Ledenburger who was raped and killed by a 17-year-old Afghan asylum seeker on her way home. Like Soopika, Ladenburger also volunteered her time helping asylum seekers.
A similar murder also occurred in Sweden last year when a Somali migrant stabbed asylum centre worker Alexandra Mezher to death in a home for underage migrants. The asylum seeker turned out not to be underage after police investigated his background leading many to question the methods used by the Swedish government to determine the actual age of migrants.
Austria also saw a migrant murder a woman who was trying to help him last year. An American working as an au pair in Vienna was strangled to death by a Gambian migrant in her apartment after letting him stay there to avoid deportation. He was also captured in Switzerland after fleeing the country.
http://pamelageller.com/2017/02/migrant-arrested-stabbing-female-refugee-helper-death.html/
France’s deradicalization centers seen as a “total fiasco”
DeleteFEBRUARY 25, 2017 12:14 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER
Deradicalization programs, upon which the West has placed so much hope, have long been an obvious failure. Such programs are based on the premise that the true teachings of Islam are peaceful, and so all that needs to be done is show the jihadis how they’re misunderstanding the Qur’an and overlooking its teachings of peace, and all will be well. But since the Qur’an and Sunnah are full of commands to make war against and subjugate unbelievers, the idea that jihadis can be “deradicalized” by reference to them is just a myth told to Infidel authorities to lull them into complacency.
Well, let’s see. De-radicalization programs have been implemented elsewhere, notably in Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. Let’s look at how they fared. From the Jihad Watch archives:
11 ex-Gitmo prisoners flee the Saudi “rehabilitation program” and join up with terrorist groups
Jaw-dropper: 25 former Gitmo detainees “return to militancy” despite Saudi rehab program!
Graduate from Saudi jihadi rehab program killed in Syrian jihad: “killed a large number of Christians before his acceptance by God”
Flight 253 jihadist wasn’t cured by Saudi anti-jihad art therapy
Former Guantanamo detainee now top al-Qaeda ideologue — “He was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2006 where he was placed in a national rehabilitation project.”
Indonesian government admits that its jihadist rehab program is a failure
“France’s deradicalization centers seen as a ‘total fiasco,’” by James McAuley, Washington Post, February 24, 2017:
PARIS — A bipartisan report in the French Senate minced no words in describing this country’s efforts to “deradicalize” former and future terrorists.
The French government’s attempt — including the controversial opening of a deradicalization center in the middle of the countryside — was a “total fiasco,” in the words of Philippe Bas, a senator from the center-right Republicans party.
Among the most damning elements in the report was a firm condemnation of the planned network of 12 deradicalization centers, perhaps the most widely publicized — and criticized — element of the government’s push to combat homegrown extremism.
DeleteA wave of terrorist violence — perpetrated mostly by French or European Union passport holders — has claimed the lives of 230 people in France since January 2015, and the Socialist administration of François Hollande has struggled to improvise a solution to the problem.
The deradicalization centers — officially called Centers for Prevention, Integration and Citizenship — were meant to impose rigorous routines on those they housed, as well as to subject them to intense courses in French history and philosophy. As Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said while serving as interior minister last fall at the opening of the first center: “We can only fight against terrorism by respecting the principles of the Republic.”
But five months later, only one of 12 planned centers has opened, and that one — in an 18th-century chateau deep in the scenic Loire Valley — is empty.
“This failure fully illustrates the lack of evaluation of the mechanisms set up by the state in the area of taking responsibility for radicalization and the lack of a comprehensive prevention strategy,” Catherine Troendlé, a senator from the Republicans who signed the report, said in a statement.
The report concluded that the programs had been designed hastily without proper due diligence.
“Despite their goodwill, several associations, seeking public funding in times of fiscal shortage, turned to the deradicalization sector without any real experience,” said Esther Benbassa, a senator from the left-wing Europe Ecology party, another of the report’s authors. This, she added, created an unfortunate “business of deradicalization.”
The French security establishment had long criticized the government’s deradicalization effort as too little too late, a knee-jerk reaction designed to put an increasingly anxious electorate at ease.
“It’s impossible to deradicalize individuals,” Jean-Charles Brisard, a French intelligence expert and director of the Paris-based Center for the Analysis of Terrorism, said in an interview.
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2017/02/frances-deradicalization-centers-seen-as-a-total-fiasco