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Marijuana

Best of the Web: Trump impeachment: A tragedy for the U.S. - and democracy

Michael Goodwin
New York Post
Thu, 31 Oct 2019 16:11 UTC
pelosi
Another day, another ­giant step on the road to ruin. Either Nancy Pelosi has lost her mind or she really wants to dig America's grave.

The vote to formalize the impeachment jihad is a great day for Trump haters and a tragedy for democracy and common sense. Coming a year before an election and without a compelling claim that the president committed anything remotely resembling "high crimes and misdemeanors," the action is an abuse of power for purely partisan purposes.

The timing is also exquisite. Voting on Halloween, and on the same day when Democratic Rep. Katie Hill took to the House floor to declare herself a victim of a double standard after she was caught engaging in threesomes with her husband and a campaign aide, the picture of a party seized by shamelessness is complete.

This was the Dems' Crazy Day — and like Hill, they don't have the decency to be embarrassed. Some are even rallying around her. Throuple cheers for Katie!
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Snowflake Cold

Best of the Web: Record low temps across much of U.S. threaten to wreck the rest of harvest season

Michael Snyder
End Of The American Dream
Thu, 31 Oct 2019 13:57 UTC
snow
It isn't supposed to be this cold in October. The official start of winter is still almost two months away, and yet the weather in much of the western half of the country right now resembles what we might expect in mid-January. All-time record lows for the month of October are being set in city after city, and this extremely cold air is going to push into the Midwest by the end of the week. Temperatures in the heartland will be up to 50 degrees below normal, and unfortunately about half of all corn still has not been harvested.

Due to unprecedented rainfall and extreme flooding early in the year, many farmers faced extraordinary delays in getting their crops planted, and so they were hoping that good weather at the end of the season would provide time for the crops to fully mature and be harvested. Unfortunately, a nightmare scenario has materialized instead. A couple of monster snow storms have already roared through the Midwest, and now record low temperatures threaten to absolutely wreck the rest of the harvest season.
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Attention

Best of the Web: Tulsi Gabbard: US government 'is hiding the truth' on 9/11 terror attacks

Jeff Poor
Breitbart
Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:01 UTC
Tulsi Gabbard
Tulsi Gabbard
Thursday on Fox News Channel's "Tucker Carlson Tonight," Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, reacted to the difficulties Chris Ganci and Brett Eagleson, two relatives of victims of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks were having in their quest to obtain more information about Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9/11.

Gabbard accused the federal government of undermining efforts of achieving more transparency, which she said was being done at the behest of Saudi Arabia.

Comment: From Tulsi's Twitter:



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Cloud Lightning

Best of the Web: Whoa! Lightning strike leaves 15-FOOT HOLE at gas station in Fort Worth, Texas


Strange Sounds
Wed, 30 Oct 2019 18:08 UTC

Comment: Until this happened in Texas yesterday, this wasn't known to have been physically possible...


lightning hole
A powerful lightning strike left a huge hole in a Fort Worth parking lot just after 6 a.m. on Shadydell Drive and Boat Club Road on October 30, 2019.

The parking lot, shared by a Chevron gas station and a strip center now has a 15 feet wide and 3 feet deep hole. I have never heard of such events. Pretty powerful lightning, isn't it?
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Card - VISA

Best of the Web: 'Blade Runner' was set in November 2019: Instead of seeing it as a warning, we used it as an instruction manual


RT
Fri, 01 Nov 2019 21:45 UTC
blade runner
© Global Look / filmstills
The real world has caught up to the dystopian sci-fi classic Blade Runner, set in November 2019. While robots aren't quite passing for humans, they're silently taking over human jobs and roles.

The real Los Angeles of November 2019 bears more than a passing resemblance to the chilling future depicted in 'Blade Runner', where ultra-realistic androids prowl the streets pretending to be human and corporations have taken on most of the functions of government. While the US doesn't have flying cars - yet - many of the other technologies seen in the 1982 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep have become reality.


Comment: On whether or not we're beset on all sides by robots passing for humans... perhaps not literally, but functionally?


Comment: Then there are the bouts of incessant rain, which most places experience regularly now. Then there's the depravity-as-mass-consumerism. Then there's the police state. All the elements of Blade Runner have come to pass, right on schedule...

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MIB

Best of the Web: Manufactured terror: MI5 lifted surveillance of London Bridge terrorist weeks before attack

Haroon Siddique
The Guardian
Fri, 01 Nov 2019 20:17 UTC

Comment: And they wonder why most people don't believe them anymore...


attack at London Bridge
© Getty Images / Anadolu Agency / Isabel InfantesPolice officers cordoned off London Bridge following last night terror attack at London Bridge
The suspension of priority MI5 investigations into the ringleader of the London Bridge attacks before the atrocity is a matter of "legitimate public concern", the chief coroner for England and Wales has said.

In his Prevention of Future Deaths report, published on Friday, Mark Lucraft QC also suggested that further measures should be introduced to reduce the risk of rental vehicles being used in terrorist attacks.

Eight people were killed when three terrorists led by Khuram Butt, 27, drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and then began stabbing people in a 10-minute rampage on 3 June 2017.

MI5 had been been investigating Butt since 2015 over concerns he wanted to stage an attack. But the investigation was suspended twice, in 2016 and again from 21 March to 4 May 2017, weeks before the attacks.

Comment: That's pretty much as good an admission you'll get from a Western government that 'Islamist terrorists' are directed by state security forces.

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Pirates

Best of the Web: Russian Foreign Ministry: US is smuggling $30mn of crude monthly from occupied Syrian oil fields, violating its OWN sanctions


RT
Fri, 01 Nov 2019 19:29 UTC

Comment: The silver lining to this outright plunder is that it further exposes the real motivation of Western govts in the ME and elsewhere.


us oil smuggling syra
© AFP / Delil SouleimanA Syrian man walks on as US armoured vehicles patrol the northeastern town of Qahtaniyah at the border with Turkey, on October 31, 2019.
A supposed champion of the rule of law, the US is violating its own anti-Syrian sanctions by smuggling crude from oil fields it seized from Damascus, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has said.

Each month the US smuggles crude worth $30 million out of Syria, according to Zakharova. The fuel comes from fields in the northeastern part of the country, where the US maintains a military presence after pulling its troops back from the Syrian-Turkish border.

"A nation that repeats ad nauseam that it sticks to democratic values and rule of law in international relations, is pumping oil... under a pretense of fighting ISIL," the official said, using an outdated name for terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL).

Comment: Pentagon chief Esper has doubled down on the U.S.' intent to steal Syrian oil:
Secretary of Defence Mark Esper has confirmed that the US plans to continue controlling Syria's oil fields, and to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists or "other actors".
"The mission is, as I've spoken to and I've conveyed it to the commander, and that is, we will secure oil fields to deny their access to ISIS* and other actors in the region, and to ensure that the [Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces] has continued access, because those resources are - are important, and so that the SDF -can do its mission, what it needs to do in the region," Esper said, speaking to reporters on Thursday after meeting with Australian Minister for Defence Linda Reynolds.
[...] US efforts to seize control of Syria's oil fields have been criticised by Syria and its allies. Last week, the Russian military presented intelligence materials on a $30 million a month oil smuggling scheme used by the Pentagon and the CIA which Moscow described as nothing short of "international state banditry". According to Russian intelligence, the illegal US-supervised extraction of Syrian oil was being carried out by "leading American corporations" and private military contractors, with US special forces and air power used for protection.

Oil revenues could serve as a much-needed support for rebuilding the war-torn country. Last year, Damascus estimated that rebuilding the country could require up to $400 billion in spending, and take over a decade to complete. The US and its European allies have refused to commit funding toward the reconstruction effort, even as hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees have returned home in recent years amid the lull in fighting.

This week, the United Nations called for Syria relief, with a Syrian government representative warning that the future of the Syrian peace process may be threatened by the continued illegal presence of foreign forces on Syrian territory, "the spoliation of the resources of our country and the continuing imposition of unilateral economic sanctions".
In other words, the U.S. intends to hamstring any effort made to rebuild Syria or, failing that, hopes to push the brunt of the cost onto Russia and Iran: A video posted to Twitter allegedly shows a U.S. convoy leaving a Syrian oil field:





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MIB

Best of the Web: 'Thank God for the deep state': Once rejected as conspiracy theory, MSM and CIA are now embracing reality of secret govt

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Fri, 01 Nov 2019 16:51 UTC
Deep State
In just a few short months, the US political establishment has gone from denying the existence of the 'Deep State' and calling it a conspiracy theory, to praising it as the bulwark of the Republic against President Donald Trump.

"Thank God for the 'Deep State,'" declared former CIA director John E. McLaughlin at an event this week, describing the diplomats and intelligence officers testifying before the congressional impeachment inquiry as "people who are doing their duty or responding to a higher call."

Lavishing praise on the 'whistleblower' intelligence officer whose complaint about Trump's phone call launched the impeachment probe, McLaughlin said the intelligence community is "institutionally committed to objectivity and telling the truth."


Comment: In other words, McLaughlin is a liar with no commitment to objectivity or truth. Either that, or he's just a complete idiot - and he doesn't seem to be stupid.


One would think this might be a bit rich, coming from the former deputy director of the CIA at the time of the infamous 'Iraqi WMDs' fiasco - and acting director for a time in 2004 - but McLaughlin's comments were met with applause by the crowd at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government.

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Fireball 4

Best of the Web: Halloween surprise! Asteroid narrowly missed Earth yesterday - Discovered as it flew by - Closest on record

Eric Mack
CNET
Thu, 31 Oct 2019 17:14 UTC

Comment: Week after week, 'newly-discovered' asteroid after 'newly-discovered' asteroid, closer and closer...


Asteroid approaching Earth C0PPEV1
According to data from these early observations, the asteroid came closer to the surface of our planet (without actually colliding with our atmosphere) than any other close approach in NASA's database of known near-Earth objects.
Even space rocks are supplying jump scares on Halloween, just like your favorite horror flick.

A near-Earth asteroid currently identified as C0PPEV1 was spotted in the early morning hours Thursday by the Catalina Sky Survey, based in Arizona, and shortly thereafter by New Mexico's Magdalena Ridge Observatory and Arizona's Mt. Lemmon Steward Observatory.


Comment: Just to be clear (because the author isn't): it was only FIRST DISCOVERED at this point.


According to data from these early observations, the asteroid came closer to the surface of our planet (without actually colliding with our atmosphere) than any other close approach in NASA's database of known near-Earth objects.

Simulations show the asteroid passing above southern Africa within 3,852 miles (6,200 km) at the moment of closest approach, around 7:45 a.m. PT. To get an idea of how close this is, consider that many telecommunications satellites orbit at an altitude of 22,236 miles (35,786 km).

Comment: No, we were NOT getting pinged like this before.

In just the last couple of decades, there has been a steady increase in:
  • the number of 'new moons' acquired by the solar system's planets
  • impacts on bodies such as our Moon and Jupiter
  • meteor fireball events in our atmosphere
  • the number of asteroids/comets circulating the inner solar system
That is NOT all just 'thanks to better detection'. Standards are slipping in every other field, so there's no reason to suppose they're excelling in the other direction in just this one field...

These 'newly discovered' space rocks are buzzing by at an alarming frequency: A perfect occasion to read or re-read Witches, Comets and Planetary Cataclysms

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Better Earth

Best of the Web: Trump loses more than just battle over Nordstream 2

Tom Luongo
TomLuongo.me
Wed, 30 Oct 2019 12:00 UTC
nord stream
For the past three years the U.S. has fought the construction of the Nordstream 2 pipeline from Russia to Germany every inch of the way.

The battle came down to the last few miles, literally, as Denmark has been withholding the final environmental permit on Nordstream 2 for months.

The U.S., especially under Trump, have committed themselves to a 'whole of government approach' to stop the 55 bcm natural gas pipeline from making landfall in Germany.

I've literally documented every twist and turn of Nordstream 2 over the past few years here (check the archives), at Seeking Alpha and my former Newsletter at Newsmax.

Never once did I think this day wouldn't come where the U.S. would eventually shut the pipeline down. The reason is simple. Europe, and specifically Germany, need the gas and there is no compelling reason for Germany to cave in the end if it wants to survive the 21st century a first world economy.

Comment: See also:

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