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Moscow anti-doping lab's database was tampered with from the US, independent Russian experts say after WADA finds no interference


RT
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 15:56 UTC
doping tests
© Sputnik / Valeriy Melnikov
The database of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory was tampered with during at least a six-month period by its former head, Grigory Rodchenkov, and his collages, who fled to the US, the Russian experts said.

Inconsistencies discovered in the laboratory information management system (LIMS) may see all Russian athletes, including clean ones, competing as neutrals during the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and other major sporting events for the next four years. Russia could also be banned from hosting international competitions during that time.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) will decide on the fate of Russian sports on December 9. The agency claims it found no traces of interference with the LIMS after November 2015 when Rodchenkov escaped from Russia and became WADA's main informant in the case against the country.

But independent Russian experts reject WADA's conclusions, saying their probe established numerous instances of changes and modifications made to the Moscow laboratory's files. Their 12-page report prepared in late November was obtained by Tass news agency.

Comment: Although fabricating 'evidence' is nothing new for Western powers pushing the anti-Russia narrative, still pretty damning if true. See also:

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Handcuffs

11 alleged members of Gambino crime family arrested in mob bust

Tom Hays
AP
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 14:21 UTC
Handcuffs
Eleven alleged members of the Gambino organized crime family were locked up Thursday on federal charges including threatening people who owed them money, telling one in a conversation captured by wiretap to pay $100,000 or else lose his teeth.

Court papers cite other recordings giving a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the internal fallout from the slaying of a Gambino leader, Franesco "Franky Boy" Cali, earlier this year outside his Staten Island home.

Federal authorities said the racketeering case against the legendary crime family once run by notorious mob boss John Gotti shows loansharking, obstruction of justice, bribery and other crimes are still business as usual.

Some defendants have already gone "to prison, were released and allegedly went right back to breaking the law," said William Sweeney, head of the FBI's New York office.
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Arrow Down

Social rot: 20 yr-old woman with 4 exclusive lovers to have a baby 'raised' by all

Sarah Finley
Daily Mail
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 21:05 UTC
Polyamorous

Tory (center) with all four of her partners, Marc (top left), Travis (bottom left), Christopher (top right) and Ethan (bottom right)
  • Tory Ojeda, 20, from Jacksonville, Florida, lives with three of her four partners
  • Met Marc, 18, at school and started relationship with Travis, 23, two months later
  • Also found love with their long-term friends Ethan, 22, and Christopher, 22
  • Tory and Chris found out that they were pregnant in May, while she got engaged to Travis in July
A polyamorous woman has fallen pregnant by one of her four partners after they went away together - but says they will raise the baby as a 'family'.

Tory Ojeda, 20, from Jacksonville, Florida, met one of her partners Marc, 18, in high school and then started a relationship with Travis, 23, two months later.

Their love story began three years ago and she has since announced her engagement to Travis in July.

She also found love with their long-term mutual friends Ethan, 22, and Christopher, 22. While seven months ago, Tory and Chris found out that they were pregnant with a baby girl.

Comment: This is why we can't have nice things.

If any reader has missed it, do check out the recent SOTT Focus: Why Sexual Morality May be Far More Important Than You Ever Thought

The article covers how cultures flourish when having strong sexual morals and collapses when such moral structures are dismantled. With the above story and many others like it, we have a pretty clear picture where we are at.

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Dollars

Why capitalism works - and how it can improve

David Brooks
New York Times
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 20:10 UTC
new york stock exchange
© Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
The New York Stock Exchange is reflected on a window in New York.

Comment: Jonathan Haidt calls the following the piece "the best short analysis of capitalism" he has seen.



I was a socialist in college. I read magazines like The Nation and old issues of The New Masses. I dreamed of being the next Clifford Odets, a lefty playwright who was always trying to raise proletarian class consciousness. If you go on YouTube and search "David Brooks Milton Friedman," you can see a 22-year-old socialist me debating the great economist. I'm the one with the bushy hair and the giant 1980s glasses that were apparently on loan from the Palomar lunar observatory.

The best version of socialism is defined by Michael Walzer's phrase, "what touches all should be decided by all." The great economic enterprises should be owned by all of us in common. Decisions should be based on what benefits all, not the maximization of profit.

That's not what "democratic socialists" like Bernie Sanders are talking about, but I get why some of their socialist concerns are popular. Why do we have to live with such poverty and inequality? Why can't we put people over profits? What is the best life in the most just society? Socialism is the most compelling secular religion of all time. It gives you an egalitarian ideal to sacrifice and live for.

My socialist sympathies didn't survive long once I became a journalist. I quickly noticed that the government officials I was covering were not capable of planning the society they hoped to create. It wasn't because they were bad or stupid. The world is just too complicated.

I came to realize that capitalism is really good at doing the one thing socialism is really bad at: creating a learning process to help people figure stuff out. If you want to run a rental car company, capitalism has a whole bevy of market and price signals and feedback loops that tell you what kind of cars people want to rent, where to put your locations, how many cars to order. It has a competitive profit-driven process to motivate you to learn and innovate, every single day.

Socialist planned economies — the common ownership of the means of production — interfere with price and other market signals in a million ways. They suppress or eliminate profit motives that drive people to learn and improve.
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Arrow Down

Shale's debt-fueled drilling boom is ending

Nick Cunningham
oilprice.com
Wed, 04 Dec 2019 05:00 UTC
Frack rig
© Unknown
Fracking rig in Appalachia
The financial struggles of the U.S. shale industry are becoming increasingly hard to ignore, but drillers in Appalachia are in particularly bad shape.

The Permian has recently seen job losses, and for the first time since 2016, the hottest shale basin in the world has seen job growth lag the broader Texas economy. The industry is cutting back amid heightened financial scrutiny from investors, as debt-fueled drilling has become increasingly hard to justify.

But E&P companies focused almost exclusively on gas, such as those in the Marcellus and Utica shales, are in even worse shape. An IEEFA analysis found that seven of the largest producers in Appalachia burned through about a half billion dollars in the third quarter.
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No Entry

Cheeky conman erects fake Russia-Finland border, tricks illegal migrants into paying him to cross it


RT
Wed, 04 Dec 2019 14:52 UTC
Barrier and a warning sign
© Global Look Press / Arco Images GmbH / Damschen, D.
A barrier and a warning sign are pictured somewhere at the legit Finnish-Russian border.
An industrious conman made a hefty sum of money from four illegal migrants for a walk in the forest, making them believe they were crossing the Russian border. The group, however, was later nabbed by legit Russian border guards.

Details of the bizarre affair were revealed to the media by the Border Service of the Federal Security Service on Tuesday. The incident occurred last week when the border guards apprehended a group of four illegal migrants from South Asia and their guide, also said to not be a Russian citizen.
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Heart - Black

Israeli bulldozers kill man as they demolish homes of 50 Palestinians in West Bank


TheNewArab
Thu, 28 Nov 2019 20:24 UTC
Israeli demolish Palestinian homes
© Getty
Israeli forces demolished the Palestinian homes early this morning
A Palestinian man was killed on Thursday after his car was hit by an Israeli military bulldozer as it demolished Palestinian homes in the town of Beit Kahil in the southern West Bank.

They belonged to four Palestinians who had been detained by Israel and accused of killing a 19-year-old former Israeli soldier in the Gush Etzion area of Israeli settlements in the West Bank in August. The PalTimes news organization shared images of the destroyed homes on their Twitter account.

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Network

Student Egor Zhukov given 3-year suspended sentence for spreading extremism online over Moscow protests


RT
Fri, 06 Dec 2019 15:56 UTC
Blogger
© REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov
A university student and YouTube blogger will spend three years on probation after a Moscow court sentenced him for inciting "extremism" during the unauthorized opposition protests that rocked the Russian capital this summer.

Egor Zhukov has been found guilty of "publicly calling for extremism on the internet," the judge stated, as quoted Russian news agencies. He will also be barred from using "communication networks" for two years, the verdict says.

Ahead of the Friday hearing, prosecutors asked the court to sentence Zhukov, a popular YouTuber and political science student, to four years in prison.

He was released on the spot and was met by a cheering crowd of supporters waiting for the verdict outside the courthouse.
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Ambulance

Sailor kills 2, wounds 1 before taking own life at Hawaii's Pearl Harbor base

Mark Katkov
NPR
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 18:31 UTC
us navy
© Global Look Press / US Navy
A U.S. Navy sailor shot and killed two civilian employees of the Defense Department and wounded a third before killing himself at Hawaii's Pearl Harbor military installation.

Rear Adm. Robert Chadwick, commander of Navy Region Hawaii, said the shooting occurred near Dry Dock 2 in the Naval shipyard at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Chadwick said the male shooter "has tentatively been identified as an active-duty sailor assigned to USS Columbia," a nuclear-powered Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine.

Chadwick said the names of the shooter and his victims would not be released until next of kin had been notified. He said the wounded civilian is in stable condition at a local hospital.

A motive for the shootings has not been identified, and it is not known whether the victims were random or known to the shooter.

Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam is home to nine Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, a guided missile cruiser and 15 attack submarines, plus the U.S. Air Force Pacific Command.

Comment: Coinciding with the shooting was a visit to the base by Indian Air Chief Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria for the Pacific Air Force Chiefs Conference.
Bhadauria, who has led the Indian Air Force (IAF) since September, appears to be unhurt, Indian media reported citing a military spokesperson.

The IAF chief was at the Pearl Harbor airbase while the shooting took place at the naval base. The two facilities aren't adjacent to each other.


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Dollar

George Zimmerman files $100M lawsuit against Trayvon Martin's family and Florida prosecutors

Christina Carrega
ABC News
Thu, 05 Dec 2019 18:03 UTC
george zimmerman
© Pool/Getty Images
George Zimmerman waits for his defense counsel to arrive in Seminole circuit court, on the 11th day of his murder trial in the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin, June 24, 2013 in Sanford, Fla.George Zimmerman waits for his defense counsel to arrive in Seminole circuit court, on the 11th day of his murder trial in the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin, June 24, 2013 in Sanford, Fla.
George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Florida, neighborhood watch volunteer who was acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012, and his lawyer have filed a $100 million lawsuit against prosecutors, Martin's family, their attorney and a book publisher over allegations that one of the trial's key witnesses was "an imposter."

Zimmerman's civil attorney Larry Klayman filed the multi-million lawsuit in Polk County Circuit Court in Florida.

Klayman alleges in the 36-page lawsuit, where Zimmerman is the sole plaintiff, that Martin's parents Sybrina Ford and Tracy Martin as well as their attorney Ben Crump falsely inserted Rachel Jeantel into the case after the Sanford Police Department closed the investigation in March 2012 as "self-defense."

The lawsuit claims then 18-year-old Jeantel was "an imposter and fake witness" and the catalyst to get Zimmerman arrested and charged with the murder of Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman was cleared of all charges after the weeks-long televised trial.

"Defendants, each and every one of them, as individuals and through their employment and agencies, have worked in concert to deprive Zimmerman of his constitutional and other related legal rights," according to the lawsuit.

Trayvon Martin was walking back to his father's house on Feb. 26, 2012, after purchasing Skittles and a beverage from a nearby 7-Eleven. The now 36-year-old Zimmerman, who is half white and Hispanic, testified at the murder trial that he was suspicious of 17-year-old Martin, who was walking in the Twin Lakes community wearing a hoodie and talking on a cellphone. Trayvon Martin was unarmed.

Jeantel testified during the June 2013 trial that she was on the phone with Trayvon Martin and he "complained" that "a man looked creepy" was watching him.
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