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Airplane

Best of the Web: FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with 'severe intellectual' and 'psychiatric' disabilities: What could go wrong?


Comment: Christ, this is as bad as Idiocracy...


FAA federal aviation administration
© FAA
The Federal Aviation Administration is actively recruiting workers who suffer "severe intellectual" disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency's website.

"Targeted disabilities are those disabilities that the Federal government, as a matter of policy, has identified for special emphasis in recruitment and hiring," the FAA's website states. "They include hearing, vision, missing extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism."

The initiative is part of the FAA's "Diversity and Inclusion" hiring plan, which claims "diversity is integral to achieving FAA's mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel across our nation and beyond."

The FAA's website shows the agency's guidelines on diversity hiring were last updated on March 23, 2022.

Comment: Well, this development might make one think twice about getting on an air plane. Perhaps that's the point? Only those with enough private resources to hire competent employees will be able to travel.

The deliberate downgrading of competency requirements is affecting more than just the airline industry. The rot is becoming ubiquitous, all in the name of rainbows-and-unicorns 'inclusion':


Sheriff

Best of the Web: Washington clashes with Texas over US-Mexico border

Texas National Guard soldiers install razor wire
© John Moore/Getty ImagesTexas National Guard soldiers install razor wire lie along the Rio Grande on January 10, 2024 in Eagle Pass, Texas.
The state has blamed the federal government for allowing illegal migrants enter the country.

The administration of US president Joe Biden appealed to the country's Supreme Court on Friday, after Texas blocked federal Border Patrol officers from accessing Shelby Park, a city property along the Rio Grande river on the frontier with Mexico. Texas officials have accused the federal government of failing to stop "mass illegal crossings."

The US Border Patrol had previously cut through razor wire erected by the state to block migrants, which a federal appeals court banned in a December ruling.

The Department of Homeland Security amended its emergency application to the Supreme Court on Friday with photos and maps of the area, claiming that Texas has "effectively prevented Border Patrol from monitoring the border" and that this prevented federal agents from determining whether any migrants might require emergency aid while trying to cross - the only exemption from the ban allowed by the court.

Comment: See also:


Yoda

Best of the Web: Craig Murray: Observations on Israel's defense in the International Court of Justice

International Court of Justice
© ICJThe International Court of Justice
[...]

As with the South African case, according to court procedure the Israeli case was introduced by their "agent", permanently accredited to the court, Tal Becker of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He opened with the standard formula "it is an honour to appear before you again on behalf of the state of Israel", managing to imply purely through phrasing and tone of voice that the honour lay in representing Israel, not in appearing before the judges.

Becker opened by going straight to the Holocaust, saying that nobody knew more than Israel why the Genocide Convention existed. 6 million Jewish people had been killed. The Convention was not to be used to cover the normal brutality of war.

The South African case aimed at the delegitimisation of the state of Israel. On 7 October Hamas had committed massacre, mutilation, rape and abduction. 1,200 had been killed and 5,500 maimed. He related several hideous individual atrocity stories and played a recording he stated to be a Hamas fighter boasting on WhatsApp to his parents about committing mass murder, rape and mutilation.

Comment: Mr Murray also detailed the immense efforts he went to in order to report on these proceedings:
There was a very good feel at the end of the South African presentation on day one. Everyone felt it had gone extremely well, and left very little room for the court to wriggle away from provisional measures. We left the public gallery, and I went with [Jeremy] Corbyn and [Jean Luc] Mèlenchon to meet the South African delegation. This caused some concern to the security officials, who told us that members of the public had to leave immediately and not meet delegates or speak to the media, who were grouped outside the court but still within the precincts.

jermey corbyn
Jean Luc Mèlenchon and Jeremy Corbyn
This was fairly impractical as the media very much wanted to speak with Corbyn and Melenchon. There was a lot of flapping of arms and waving. All my friends of the queue had left, while I stayed sticking close to Jeremy, partly because I didn't like to leave him unsupported, but mostly because his wife Laura was somewhere looking after my phone. The ICJ staff seemed scared to tell off Corbyn and Melenchon, so kept getting pretty shirty with me as a proxy, saying we must leave.

It was quite strange. The situation was very friendly; there was no tension. There were about sixty delegates and about the same number of journalists, who were all supposed to be there. Then there were Corbyn, Melenchon and me, who were apparently supposed to have left, but whose presence made no actual difference to events. People being in slightly the wrong place entirely peacefully after proceedings had finished, seemed to me an unnecessary source of anger. But a succession of female officials arrived, getting increasingly cross.
Amaar Hijazi Palestine Deputy Foreign Minister
© TRT World/YouTubeAmaar Hijazi, Palestine's Deputy Foreign Minister
At this stage the South African delegation returned to their allocated office inside the building to finalise the formal press statement. We went with them. I was chatting to Amaar Hijazi, Palestine's Deputy Foreign Minister, who I know a bit. One of the ICJ ladies came in with a clipboard, asked for silence, and then asked the assembled group in the manner of a public proclamation:

"is this a legal meeting or a political meeting?"

Nobody seemed inclined to answer. So I replied "That's rather a philosophical question. I am not sure if you can make that simple binary distinction". Rather more usefully, Varsha assured her it was a legal meeting, and the official said "good, political meetings off the premises", waving her clipboard for no apparent reason. After a bit of a conflab we went out again.

I was enjoying Melenchon enormously; he seemed to have unlimited stores of bonhomie and was unstoppably voluble with everyone. Whether the security guards wanted a lecture on workers' cooperatives I am not sure, but they certainly got one.

We wandered back out the front door again and back into interviews. Two ladies came up to me looking very stern and said I must leave. Jeremy was giving an interview to Israeli TV and Melenchon had bustled back into the building.

One of the ladies said to me, "I am asking you to leave and you are refusing to do what I say".

I replied, "Oh no, certainly not. Of course I am doing what you say. Just very slowly".

By now I had three enormous security officers with me, as I tried to keep an eye on Jeremy as he drifted through the milling journalists, while I kept running in to people I knew. I have to say the security people were very friendly, and seemed unsure why they were shadowing me too. Shortly a fourth turned up, a mountain of a man with a bald head and beard, who said "here you are, we've been looking for you everywhere", which seemed strange. Possibly they couldn't see me surrounded by their massive bouncers.

Laura had somehow got in, and gave me back my phone. Jeremy was slowly heading for the gates, but he is incapable of being impolite and not having a friendly word with anybody who addresses him, whoever they are. Once we were outside the gates he showed no sign of stopping with the much larger crowd outside, so I said my farewells and headed back to the hotel. My toes had gone very painful again and I was keen for another warm bath.

After the bath I went down to look for some food. I felt exhausted and drained. It was not just the cold night standing in the queue with no sleep, it was the immediately preceding 40 hour, four economy-flight journey from Bali, with virtually no sleep either, to get here. I hadn't been in a bed, I calculated, for 85 hours.

I was also feeling a bit unappreciated. I had in fact played a role in this happening at all. Copies of my initial articles on invoking the Genocide Convention had been physically in front of South African cabinet ministers when they took the initial decision on 8 December to ask their excellent legal services to prepare a case. It was not me that arranged that and I cannot break confidence by telling you how it came about. I didn't expect any acknowledgement, but it seemed an unfair twist of fate that had me standing all night in the cold trying to get in.

I was, dear reader, simply wallowing in exhaustion and self-pity, and in a kind of ridiculous teenage sulk. My tired brain was fogged and I was seriously worried about finding the energy to write up day one, which I had to do immediately. I wasn't sure that my body was physically capable of another night of no sleep and standing in the freezing cold. I was fed up with being in exile over this laughable terrorism investigation, and I was missing my children.

I made up my mind - I could not do another night. I would have to explain to readers that I had done what I could. A great feeling of relief came over me, and I decided to go to bed.

That very second, out of the lift walked the eminent British lawyer Tayab Ali, with a short, unassuming bearded Arab gentleman.

"Hello Craig, how's it going", he asked, but they were evidently in a hurry, going somewhere: "This is Ghassan".

We shook hands briefly and then the realisation struck me.

"Are you the surgeon?"

Ghassan looked diffident, slightly abashed.

"The surgeon from Gaza?".

"Yes, I am Ghassan Abu Sitta."

"I am honoured, sir. Greatly honoured".

He looked slightly embarrassed, and they dashed off to their meeting.
Ghassan Abu SItta
Dr. Ghassan Abu SItta in Gaza
I felt even more embarrassed. I had just met the man who had stayed operating in Shifa hospital while Israel bombs and missiles struck it and Israeli snipers fired through the windows. He had continued to operate with no electricity, with no bandages, with no antiseptic, with no anaesthetic. He had worked 20 hours a day, amputating the limbs of children or trying to piece them back together. He stayed and stayed and stayed through weeks under fire. He did this for love: he is a top British plastic surgeon and could have been in the UK making millions.

I felt deeply ashamed. This man had endured so much, and done so much, and seen so much suffering. Here was I giving up over sore toes and lack of sleep, and over wanting to be important. I had an epiphany; I realised I can be a dreadful egoist, and I hated myself for it. Nothing stopped hurting, but I had a new surge of adrenaline and decided to get on with it. Perhaps nothing I did would help prevent genocide, but we all have to do that which is within our power to try.

I accept you may wish to scoff, but for me that encounter with Mr Abu Sitta revealed an important element of greatness - the ability to inspire others to do more that they believed they could, to transmit will. Even without actually saying anything.

I did, however, retain the sense to know that I had to prepare, so I got a taxi to a camping shop. There I bought the warmest sleeping bag I could afford, a reflective groundsheet, thermal socks and a flask.

I then took a taxi back, went straight to my room and started to write. The first three paragraphs flowed very easily. Then suddenly I was opening my very groggy eyes with my head on the keyboard, not sideways but leaning on my forehead. I had been asleep like that for three hours.

After that it was like wading through treacle. The phrases still rushed into my head as always, but there was a strange disconnect to my fingers and what they typed, which often was a phrase that sounded a bit like the one I was trying to get down. I recall typing "to assist them" as "his big cyst hen". It was slow going.

At 11pm I went to see if there was a queue yet for the public gallery the next day. Nobody was there. I was worried that after the arguments at the gate the previous morning, with many people disappointed, the queue would start to form much earlier for Day 2. I decided to just publish what I had written so far, with an explanatory first paragraph, and check the queue regularly. The cold walk woke me up. It was notably warmer than the previous night - plus 2 rather than minus 5 - but the ground was all wet with a heavy dew and there was a lot more wind chill.

I checked again at 1.30am, still nobody had come. But at 3am there were eight people in the queue. I rushed back to the hotel, picked up my sleeping bag and groundsheet and published the now almost finished Day 1 article. I joined the queue as number 9 of the 14 who would be let in. I met a wonderful Dutch lady who had joined the queue with the intention of giving me her place if I arrived too late. I am ashamed to say I forget her name.

I was disappointed that not one of my new friends from the previous night's queue was there again. I felt we had bonded through a pretty tough experience and a mutual cause. Almost all had said they intended to do both nights, and I presume the cold and exhaustion just got to people. This second night was much more jolly, I think because it was not quite so cold.

The reflective groundsheet was a big success, dry and surprisingly effective at stopping the cold seeping up. The mummy sleeping bag proved more of a problem. I am not as slender as I used to be, and with several layers of clothing and my ski jacket all on, it was a very tight fit. I got the zip up pretty well, but I couldn't do the last bit that would bring the cowl over my head, not least because by that stage the bag had immobilised my arms.

Thankfully several wonderful young ladies came to help and zipped me up tight. This involved a lot of laughing. We could have invented a whole new genre of internet porn, in which fully clothed old men get zipped into bags. Although it probably already exists. I am not going to google for it, given the frequency with which the security services seize or steal my electronic devices. It might be misunderstood.

craig murray sleeping bag ICJ
Journalist Craig Murry camping out in front of the International Court of Justice
So at 3.30am I lay down my head, and did in fact sleep until about 5.30am. It was not comfortable, but it was not cold. I then wandered off to find a bush for a pee. When I returned, three women had taken over my groundsheet and were using my sleeping bag as a blanket. They joked that they had occupied my sleeping bag. I said I perfectly understood - surely their ancestors had a sleeping bag there 3,000 years ago. It was not brilliant repartee, but this kind of thing kept us going. The 14 of us who made the public gallery took group pictures.

Craig Murry obsevers International court of justice israel
Journalist Craig Murray and others who obtained seats in the public gallery of the International Court of Justice.
There were some changes from the day before. We are to be allowed pens. But in view of "people wandering around" the day before, they said huffily, we were to be escorted in via a back door and leave the same way, and strictly forbidden from talking or interacting with anybody not in our group. So we entered the tiny public gallery. It has only two rows, and I now discovered that if you sit in the second row you cannot see anything. From the hall you can't even tell there is a second row to the gallery. Once again, I marveled at the lack of attention to the dreadful design of the courtroom.
gallery international court of justice
View of the public gallery in the International Court of Justice
Luckily for me, a young man who apparently should not have been there was ejected from a front row seat, and finally I got to watch the Israeli presentation.

(continue above)



Yoda

Best of the Web: Craig Murray: Observations on the first day of proceedings of the International Court of Justice

international court of justice hall
The International Court of Justice chambers
[...]

I have written of my faith in the International Court of Justice, in its history of impartial judgment and in its system of election by the UN General Assembly. The ICJ has rather unfairly been tarnished by the reputation of its much younger sister the International Criminal Court. The ICC is rightly derided as a Western tool, but that really is not true of the ICJ. On Palestine alone, it has ruled that the Israeli "wall" in the West Bank is illegal and that Israel has no right of self-defence in the territory of which it is the occupying power. It ruled that the UK must decolonise the Chagos Islands, a cause close to my own heart.

There was every reason for those of us opposing the genocide to have travelled hopefully to the Hague.

In addition to the normal fifteen judges of the court, each of the parties to the dispute - South Africa and Israel - had exercised their right to nominate an additional judge. After the judges filed in to the court, proceedings started with these two judges taking an oath of impartiality, which gave us the first Israeli lie of the case before it had even started.

Star of David

Best of the Web: The pro-Israel Right's "Israel exception" - From free speech to "America first" - is finally dragged into the light

tucker carlson netanyahu ben shapiro
© GlenGreenwald/Locals(From l. to r): Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro
Tucker Carlson's new scathing denunciation of Ben Shapiro and allies on Israel reveals long-hidden rifts.

The Trump-era American Right has carried within it largely hidden but quite massive internal conflicts that have finally exploded into public view. It was long past time for these unsustainable - and glaringly self-negating - doctrinal inconsistencies to be fully aired and confronted.

Exactly that is finally happening in the wake of the Biden administration's steadfast, unlimited financing and arming of Israel's war in Gaza, including Biden's request for an additional $14 billion for Israel's war, on top of the billions Israel automatically gets each year from the U.S. While Biden officials periodically leak statements of "concern" about the number of civilians Israel is killing in Gaza, largely to assuage their increasingly angry voting base, they have steadfastly refused to even consider the use of American leverage and aid to put any limits on Israeli actions.

Biden, as top Israeli officials acknowledge, has spent his entire career as one of Israel's most devoted and steadfast supporters. His reverent speeches defending Israel over the decades make Bill Kristol sound restrained by comparison. Over many decades, Biden is the largest recipient of donations from the pro-Israel lobby, and for good reason. Few have been as steadfastly supportive of that foreign country. And ever since the October 7 attack on Israel, Biden has gone to extreme lengths to protect and support Israel, even bypassing the requirement of Congressional approval to secretly send Israel all the weapons it requests and is now using to obliterate civilian life in Gaza.

Pistol

Best of the Web: How Israeli forces trapped and killed ravers at the Nova Festival

victims
New evidence points to Israeli security forces, not Hamas, for causing the most fatalities at the music festival - civilian deaths that were then utilized to justify Tel Aviv's Gaza genocide.

Israeli officials allege that Hamas carried out a pre-mediated and carefully executed massacre of 364 Israeli civilians at the Nova music festival near Gaza on 7 October as part of the Palestinian resistance's Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. They claim that Hamas and other Palestinians had hours to murder Israeli partygoers before the army reached the scene.

However, new details have emerged showing that Israel's Border Police was deployed at the Nova site before Hamas stumbled on the festival, causing the eruption of a major battle.

While some ravers were indeed killed by the Palestinian resistance - whether by intent or in the chaos of battle - the evidence now suggests that the majority of civilian deaths were likely inflicted by Israeli forces themselves.

This was due to the overwhelming firepower employed by occupation forces - including from Apache attack helicopters - and because Tel Aviv issued the controversial Hannibal Directive to prevent Hamas from taking Israeli party-goers as captives.

Comment: Hannibal Directive, Israel on mark: four minutes and counting...


Bizarro Earth

Best of the Web: Toddlers gang-raped in Texas mall bathroom, co-worker of mother arrested


Comment: Scumbags.


Arthur Hector Fernandez
Arthur Hector Fernandez, 29, is accused of leading a gang of pedophiles who filmed themselves raping two toddlers in a Texas mall bathroom
Two toddlers were gang-raped in a shopping center bathroom while their mothers believed their alleged pedophile co-worker was looking after them.

Arthur Hector Fernandez, 29, a shop worker at the Galleria mall in Houston, is accused of being the ringleader of at least seven men who abused the infants.

He then allegedly posted four videos he filmed of the horrific abuse of the two-year-old boys on evil corners of the dark web for fellow pedophiles.

Comment: Hell is fast becoming empty: A news report:




Cardboard Box

Best of the Web: US government debt biggest threat to global economy - Russian NGO

The burden is unsustainable and could destabilize the financial system, Roscongress has warned
USCap
© Chansak JoeUS Capitol, Washington DC
US government debt and Washington's budget deficit present the biggest threats to the global economy this year, Russian government agency Roscongress has warned.

The $34 trillion owed by Washington is mathematically impossible to pay off, Roscongress has claimed in a report it published on Wednesday. The agency based its estimate on the current ratio between the size of the debt, the rate at which it is growing, and budget revenues.

"The excessive debt was accumulated at low rates but needs to be refinanced at high rates that limit economic activity and reduce cash flow. In the medium term, the servicing of US debt will cost $1 trillion a year," reads the report, titled 'Key Events - 2024. Geoeconomics. Forecasts. Major risks'.

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: US & UK launch strikes on Yemen, Houthis warn Red Sea blockade will expand to include ships of any country that attacks - UPDATES

yemen houthi
The Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in November. Joint US and British forces shot down 18 drones and three missiles launched by the Houthis late Tuesday, in what was described as their biggest attack so far in solidarity with Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza
The US and the UK are ready to carry out airstrikes against the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as early as tonight - after both countries warned there could be consequences if ships are continually targeted in the Red Sea.

Joint US and British forces shot down 18 drones and three missiles launched by the Houthis late Tuesday, in what was described as their biggest attack so far in solidarity with Palestinians in Hamas-ruled Gaza.

Antony Blinken warned of 'consequences' if the Houthi do not stop attacking ships in the Red Sea, and called on Iran to end their support for the rebels.

Comment: UPDATE: Friday 12th January @ 00:40 GMT

Air Space Forces Magazine reports:
American and British aircraft and warships launched cruise missiles and airstrikes against multiple targets in Houthi-controlled Yemen on Jan. 11, in response to continuing attacks on commercial shipping, a U.S. official said.

"Tonight, a multinational force, including the US military conducted strikes in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen. We will have more details to share soon share soon," a defense official added.

The strikes were aimed at more than a dozen targets.
Footage of the strikes:




Alleged footage of Yemen responding:


President Biden was, unsurprisingly, unavailable to make a live statement, choosing to issue a press release instead, and US commentators have taken to the mainstream media to voice their concern:



See also: Iran warns it could cut off Mediterranean Sea as France, Spain and Italy pull out of Red Sea Op - Israeli vessel hit off India's coast


A few thoughts on the US and UK's plans to imminently bomb Yemen in retaliation for Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, which the Houthis have struck to pressure Israel to cease its slaughter in Gaza.

First of all, the UN resolution that condemns the Houthis does not authorize the use of force, though it acknowledges the right of self-defense for the countries whose vessels have been attacked.

Secondly, if the objective is to stop Houthi attacks without escalating matters toward a full war, then bombing them has proven quite inefficient in the past. Just ask the the Saudis.

Moreover, bombing them very likely will escalate matters, which means that not only will the attacks not be stopped, but the broader war that Biden seeks to prevent will likely become a reality.

Indeed, if the objective is to stop them, a ceasefire in Gaza is far more likely to succeed. The Houthis have declared that they will stop if Israel stops, and during the 6 days there was a ceasefire (in November), there was only one attack in the Red Sea that can be attributed to the Houthis.

A ceasefire would also pacify tensions in Iraq/Syria vis-a-vis the US, not to mention win the release of the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

The question then is why the US and the UK are so adamant about rejecting the policy that is most likely to succeed and instead pursuing the policy that is the most likely to escalate matters even further?

This shows, once more, that for every day that there is no ceasefire in Gaza, we will move closer and closer to the war spreading and the US once again fighting a war of choice in the Middle East.//


'The press room in The Hague watches a video shown to the judges by a South African team in the adjacent courtroom, in which Israeli soldiers dance and sing for the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.'








Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Ecuador 'at war' with drug gangs, says president as violence continues

soldiers
© Agencia Press South/Getty ImagesSoldiers on guard in Quito as the violence has left the city streets almost deserted.
Daniel Noboa designates nearly two dozen gangs as terrorist groups after wave of violence across country...

Ecuador's president, Daniel Noboa, said on Wednesday that his country was "at war" with drug gangs who are holding more than 130 prison staff hostage and who briefly captured a TV station live on air, in a wave of violence that has left city streets deserted.

At least 10 people have been killed, including police officers, in the attacks.

In images that went around the world, gunmen stormed a TV station during a live broadcast on Tuesday before being captured by police special forces.

Videos posted on social media showed a gruesome series of other attacks including car bombs, the murder of police officers in the street, the apparent lynching of prison guards and attempted takeovers of hospitals and a university in Guayaquil. The Ecuadorian police confirmed two officers had been killed.

Comment: See also: