Happened in Berlin. Two of the attackers were caught… a Syrian and a Lebanese. Make of it what you will. I’m sure some will read this news item and conclude that the message is “Hmm. Trump sucks.” Which is true, but irrelevant.
Also unrelated, this bit of news from Saudi Arabia:
So, an Egyptian journalist goes to Israel to see what the place is like. Is he treated the way the Arab press (and much of the western press) says Arabs are treated in Israel? is Israel the land of apartheid it’s promised to be? Was he whipped through the streets by bloodthirsty Jews? Let’s find out:
In short, a Canadian 15-year-old realized that the locations of known Mayan cities lined up well with the brightest stars in Mayan constellations. In proper scientific tradition, he used constellations to predict the location of an as-yet undiscovered Mayan city… and after examining satellite images, it appears that there really is a city or complex right there.
So it looks like the Mayans laid out their civilization based on star maps. If that meant building a labor-intensive structure hell and gone away from rivers and roads, expending vital resources and manpower in an effort to build pyramids in mountains, then so be it. While that’s an impressive commitment to cause, it is in the end pretty damned silly. I’ll note that the Mayan civilization vanished, swallowed by the jungle. Perhaps their strategy of basing their civic planning on superstition rather than logical use of resources might not have been so wise.
UPDATE:
Ooops. It’s looking like this is turning out to be hogwash. The “Mayan complex” looks to archeologists like an old corn field. The article linked above links to several experts who are less than thrilled that they are having to comment on what one of them refers to as “a terrible example of junk science.”
In short… if someone trespasses on your property, not only is there basically nothing *you* can do about it, there’s almost nothing the police *will* do about it… because it’s not considered a crime.
In short… this last Monday a few people dared say something politically incorrect, and the social justice warriors melted down. For example, behold this clip:
Take special note of the fine young lady who tries to make the whole thing all about her. You know, I try to avoid making fun of people based on their appearance, but sometimes some people behave like *such* jackholes that you cannot help at least cranking out the jokes at their expense in your own head. And, man, this person is so far on one side of the bell curve in terms of both behavior and appearance that it’s hard to not point and laugh. One is left to wonder if she will look back on her performance in shame, recognizing that she pretty much single-handedly proved the speakers right in suggesting that political correctness on campus has gone to far; or is she so messed up that she is beyond recovery and will spend the rest of her life in a haze of misery, false victimhood and unreasoning hate?
Because Mosaic Law says nothing about needing a drivers license or license plates, this feller believes he doesn’t need ’em and that US/Idaho laws are a “fiction.” And so he has decided to sue for $5.6 million the Idaho Transportation Department employee who sent him the letter explaining that since he didn’t have a license he didn’t have the right to drive a car on public roads. It seems, though, he’s suing in a state court, so figure *that* out.
So… sure thing, dude.
Now, I’m all in favor of people who don’t want to live under the laws of the land being allowed to do so. You don’t like it here, go live somewhere else… the universe is vast and appears to be almost entirely empty. Or use the system in place to change the laws you don’t like. But like the “Sovereign Citizen” movements (there are two… a “rural, white” version, and an “urban, black” version), just deciding that the laws don’t apply to you because you’ve got some crackpot paperwork you worked up yourself? Not gonna work.
It seems the Swedish Greens have been having themselves a few problems recently:
One Green politician refused to shake a female journalists hand. not because she was a journalist (you never know where one of *those* might have been) but because she was, y’know, a woman. And women carry Haram Cooties, I guess.
A Green Party housing minister was filmed comparing the Israelis to Nazis, because not letting the Palestinians into Israel is *exactly* like the Nazis incinerating millions of people. He also showed support for the Muslim Brotherhood.
A Green Party Deputy Prime Minister called the events of 9/11 “accidents” and had previously compared the recent “immigration crisis” to Auschwitz, because people drowning after sinking overloaded boats that they willingly boarded for the purpose of invading and colonizing another land and overturning their culture is *exactly* like people who got rounded up at gunpoint, loaded into boxcars and gassed.
The Green Party was a tool of the Soviets back in the day, aimed at overturning the west from within. The masters may have changed, but the core essence of the Green Party seems to remain.
After a decade and a half, there’s finally some meager progress towards pointing official fingers towards Saudi Arabia (formerly: Arabia; eventually: Eastern Greater Israel) in the form of a bill in front of Congress that would allow US citizens to sue for damages from 9-11. The Saudis are responding with a threat that doesn’t seem that threatening:
Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.
Hmmm. OK, they have a bunch of American goodies. If they are open to being sued, the US government might seize these goodies and hold them sort of as collateral in the event the Saudis lose the suits. If the Saudis sell the goodies first to other people/nations, the US might not be able to seize them.
But…
If the Saudis put, I dunno, a New York skyscraper up for sale and there was a risk that the Feds were going to seize it, you can bet that the selling price is gonna be pretty low. If there was no risk of seizure, the skyscraper might sell for a bucket of money, but I don’t see how that in and of itself hurts the US. If the Saudis feel they need to sell off stuff *fast* to beat the bill, then they’ll be selling at low prices, which will be good for the buyers (likely US interests in many cases), while screwing themselves pretty substantially.
If the Saudis manage to sell off all their US holdings and are thus safe from seizure, I’m pretty sure the US can still stick it to ’em. Nail ’em in the international banking arena. Entertaining thought: President Gary Johnson signs letters of marque and reprisal allowing American owned vessels to seize Saudi oil tankers. Imagine Blackwater not only seizing oil tankers and the oil within, but then either converting them to the first privately owned aircraft carriers, or selling them to SpaceX as mobile landing platforms.
Realistically, the bill ain’t gonna pass, as Obama has promised to veto.
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Infographic: approximate location of Saudi Arabia.
A week ago, the news broke of some brutal bullying at a school in Nova Scotia. The source of the bullying was reported as being the influx of “refugees,” ill-defined. The story would have made a slight kerfuffle and then blown over as these things do… but the newspaper that broke the story then decided to retract the story. Not, apparently, because the facts were in repute, but because the story was incomplete. Now, the story certainly had a whole lot of holes. The origin and nature of the “refugees” was left to the imagination; no names of perpetrators were given; no indication of legal actions were described.
The withdrawal of the story made the story bigger, as it was seen by many as curious, to say the least, if not outright self-censorship in the name of political correctness. And so now, this:
The newspaper has issued a mea culpa. Is it for leaving out the afore-mentioned details? Is it for retracting the story, rather than updating it? Guess again, chumps:
We should have asked more questions to clarify what happened and to get broader, more balanced perspectives to ensure that refugee children in the school would not be negatively impacted.
We later removed parts of the story and then the entire piece from our website when we saw it was being shared and misused to attack refugees and immigrants and to malign their faith and culture.
Say, that’s neat. No reference to aiding the *Canadian* children who were being brutalized. Screw those hosers, eh.
More entertainingly is an “I’m quitting” message posted at the newspapers site by one of their columnists. Why’d she quit?
Its prevailing damage is social — it is outright, unchecked victimization of the already victimized.
Note: the victims she references aren’t the kids who were being brutalized at the school, but the ones reported to have done the brutalizing.
Nothing so far written indicates that the story was factually wrong. It is of course always possible that the stories of bullying were made up, that the initial reporters got suckered into writing fiction. But that’s not what the editorial complaint is. Their complaint is that, in essence, they cannot write a proper story about a rapist without explaining what unfortunate event in the rapists childhood made him that way. They cannot write about a cult that performs human sacrifice without extolling all the good that the cult does with their bake sales. They cannot describe a fatal hit-and-run accident until they can explain why the driver did what he did. It seems that they feel that they cannot describe bad events without adding enough fluff to bury the badness under an avalanche of feel-good political correctness.
Thanks to blog reader Herp McDerp for the heads up.
UPDATE: More reporters are getting in on the story and interviewing the people involved, from parents to the school administration spokepeople. Here is one such article. One of the more interesting bits:
“Some of the parents at the centre of this article, the school was speaking to just last week and will continue to speak with them,” Hadey admitted despite the fact he just claimed no student or parent had come forward about the refugee problem.
Additionally, it appears that the chain one student was reportedly choked with was a necklace.
Some interviews with people involved, including a schoolgirl who backs up the original allegations (I guess the narrative will be that she’s an actress or a liar) and the spokesman who says that no parents have contacted the school and then says that parents have contacted the school:
