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Airplane

Vaping Air China co-pilot fired after causing plane to plummet 19,600 feet


RT
Sat, 14 Jul 2018 14:19 UTC
Air China
© Regis Duvignau/ Reuters
Investigators have revealed that passengers on an Air China flight endured a gut wrenching 19,600 feet plummet because the plane's co-pilot needed to get his tobacco fix.

Oxygen masks fell from the cabin ceiling as flight CA106 from Hong Kong to Dalian suffered the sharp loss of altitude on Tuesday. The plane started its unplanned descent about 30 minutes after taking off, and data from flight tracking website FlightAware shows it fell 4,200 (14,100 feet) in four and a half minutes.

Passengers were told the aircraft was in emergency descent due to cabin decompression. Once the plane reached an altitude of 3,000 meters (10,000 feet), it steadied and soon began to gain altitude again. Despite the terrifying incident the flight was able to complete its journey and landed safely in Dalian.
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USA

Concerned neighbors report child trafficking, find out black site is run by government contractors

Rachel Blevins
The Free Thought Project
Sat, 14 Jul 2018 15:37 UTC
immigrant kids
When concerned neighbors called police because they believed dozens of children were being trafficked in their neighborhood, they learned that the children were actually being held in a black site prison operated by defense contractors.

A vacant office building with dark windows in a quiet neighborhood has become a subject of controversy after residents began documenting the dozens of children who were transported to the building in white vans, and then never seen again.

The building is not licensed to hold children or to act as a shelter, and it is owned by MVM Inc., a defense contractor that once provided guards for CIA facilities in Iraq and has made nearly $250 million transporting immigrant children since 2014, according to a report from Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.

The company's website specifically claims that "the current services MVM provides consist of transporting undocumented families and unaccompanied children to Department of Health and Human Services designated facilities - we have not and currently do not operate shelters or any other type of housing for minors."
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War Whore

Georgia police officers caught on bodycam 'flipping coin to decide arrest'


RT
Sat, 14 Jul 2018 13:57 UTC
Cops
Two Georgia police officers have been suspended after shocking bodycam footage apparently showed the pair deciding whether to arrest a woman suspected of dangerous driving based on a coin toss.

Officers Courtney Brown and Kristee Wilson from Roswell Police Department in Georgia stopped driver Sarah Webb on suspicion of excessive speeding in wet conditions in April this year. When the pair pulled Webb over, the woman explained that she was late for work and pleaded with Brown to give her a speeding fine rather than arrest her on the much more serious charge of dangerous driving.

Bodycam footage then shows Brown returning to her police cruiser to consult with her partner. Wilson, who is heard off-camera saying "'a' for heads and 'r' for tails," then opens a coin-toss app on her phone. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the coin flip came up 'r' for release but the officers arrested the woman. Wilson is heard saying '23', the code for arrest.

Comment: More on Officers Courtney Brown and Kristee Wilson and the arrest of Sarah Ashley Webb:



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Info

Skin in the Game: How a dictatorship of the small minority - or the most intolerant - wins

Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Medium
Mon, 15 Aug 2016 00:00 UTC
Tower of Babel

Tower of Babel
(Chapter from Skin in the Game)

How Europe will eat Halal - Why you don't have to smoke in the smoking section - Your food choices on the fall of the Saudi king - How to prevent a friend from working too hard -Omar Sharif 's conversion - How to make a market collapse

The best example I know that gives insights into the functioning of a complex system is with the following situation. It suffices for an intransigent minority - a certain type of intransigent minorities - to reach a minutely small level, say three or four percent of the total population, for the entire population to have to submit to their preferences. Further, an optical illusion comes with the dominance of the minority: a naive observer would be under the impression that the choices and preferences are those of the majority. If it seems absurd, it is because our scientific intuitions aren't calibrated for that (fughedabout scientific and academic intuitions and snap judgments; they don't work and your standard intellectualization fails with complex systems, though not your grandmothers' wisdom).

The main idea behind complex systems is that the ensemble behaves in way not predicted by the components. The interactions matter more than the nature of the units. Studying individual ants will never (one can safely say never for most such situations), never give us an idea on how the ant colony operates. For that, one needs to understand an ant colony as an ant colony, no less, no more, not a collection of ants. This is called an "emergent" property of the whole, by which parts and whole differ because what matters is the interactions between such parts. And interactions can obey very simple rules. The rule we discuss in this chapter is the minority rule.

Comment: For more on Taleb's ideas on asymmetrical influence, listen in: The Truth Perspective: Postmodern Trump Derangement Syndrome and Skin in the Game

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Fire

Northern Ireland: Sinn Fein activists targeted in violent attacks


RT
Sat, 14 Jul 2018 15:25 UTC
belfast police
© Cathal McNaughton/Reuters
A week of rioting and violence across Northern Ireland culminated in explosive devices being thrown at the Belfast homes of prominent Sinn Fein activists, including the party's former leader Gerry Adams.

The home of the republican Bobby Storey, who previously served as the party's chairman in Northern Ireland, was also targeted.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) confirmed on Friday night that they were dealing with "two incidents at two separate addresses in West Belfast."

A further search of both locations saw remnants of "industrial, firework-type devices" seized by police, and "a parked car was damaged at one of the houses", according to a PSNI statement.

Sinn Fein's Policing and Justice Spokesman Gerry Kelly condemned the "reprehensible and cowardly attacks."
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Brick Wall

Clutch your pearls! Firm used in Maryland election systems has a Russian investor!

Brian Witte
Yahoo!
Sat, 14 Jul 2018 00:01 UTC
Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller House Speaker Michael Busch
© AP Photo/Brian Witte
Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller, left, and House Speaker Michael Busch discuss an FBI briefing they received about Russian links to a company that maintains part of the state election board's voter registration platform during a news conference in Annapolis, Md. on Friday, July 13, 2018.
A vendor that provides key services for Maryland elections has been acquired by a parent company with links to a Russian oligarch, state officials said Friday after a briefing a day earlier from the FBI.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch made the announcement at a news conference in the Maryland State House, a gathering that included staff members of Gov. Larry Hogan.

"The FBI conveyed to us that there is no criminal activity that they've seen," Busch said. "They believe that the system that we have has not been breached."

Comment: Talk about hysterical! A guy who invested in a company that provides services for elections is a Russian! This is a serious threat to democracy! It's hard to know if the people freaking out are in on the fact that the Russia hysteria is a complete distraction or if they've become so embroiled in the hype that they actually believe this is an issue.

See also:

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Airplane

33 hospitalized after Ryanair flight plummets mid-air & makes emergency landing in Frankfurt, Germany


RT
Sat, 14 Jul 2018 10:04 UTC
Airplane
© Ralph Orlowski / Reuters
A Ryanair aircraft on the tarmac of Frankfurt Hahn airport, June 6, 2016.
Dozens of passengers were taken to hospitals after a Croatia-bound Ryanair flight had suddenly made an emergency descent, plummeting from 11,000m before finally landing in Frankfurt.

A Ryanair flight bound for Croatian resort town of Zadar had made an emergency landing at Frankfurt-Hahn airport after rapidly descending from 36,000ft (11,000m), German media reported citing police.

33 passengers were taken to the hospital after they "complained about headache and earache and suffered from nausea,"Spiegel magazine quoted a spokesman for the Federal Police early on Saturday. The authorities believe there might have been a drop in pressure on board the Ryanair Boeing 737, which carried 189 passengers.

At Frankfurt airport, paramedics took care of the passengers, with city authorities dispatching ambulances to ferry the injured to nearby hospitals. Uninjured passengers spent the night at the airport. "A replacement aircraft will probably fly people to their destination on Saturday," the police spokesman said.
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Attention

India's child-rape problem: 15 yo girl repeatedly raped by classmates and teachers at her school over six months

George Martin
Daily Mail
Thu, 12 Jul 2018 18:55 UTC
India rape march

School girls hold placards during a silent protest rally against the recent rape cases of two teenage girls in Jharkhand on May 8 this year.
A 15-year-old girl has claimed she was repeatedly raped by her classmates and teachers in a shocking case in northern India.

The unnamed victim, from eastern Bihar, said she had been routinely raped by 19 people, three teachers and 16 students, over the course of six months - police revealed Thursday.

Anuj Kumar, sub-inspector of the Ekma police station in eastern Bihar state told CNN the girl was initially raped by three or four boys in the first incident.

Comment: India has got a serious freaking rape problem and it's disgusting. And the fact that there were 40,000 rapes reported in India in 2016 and the victims were children in 40 percent of those cases, is truly stomach turning. It remains to be seen if the death penalty will have any deterrent effect, but the fact that such a strong penalty would even be needed points to something seriously, seriously wrong.

See also:

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Bomb

Update: 128 killed, 150 injured in suicide attack at Pakistan election rally


RT
Fri, 13 Jul 2018 18:21 UTC
A Pakistani yougman injured in a bomb blast is transported at a hospital in Bannu
© AFP
A Pakistani yougman injured in a bomb blast is transported at a hospital in Bannu on Friday; July 13, 2018
Some 70 people have died and more than 30 have been injured after a suicide bombing at an election rally near Quetta, Pakistan. Hours earlier a bomb went off at another election rally in the country's northwest, killing four.

More than 1,000 people were attending the rally when it was targeted, according to local police. Friday's bombing is the deadliest in Pakistan since two bomb blasts ripped apart a marketplace in Parachinar last June, killing almost 100 people.

The blast killed Siraj Raisani, who was running for a seat with the newly-formed Balochistan Awami Party. Raisani died while on the way to a nearby hospital, according to the provincial home minister.

Comment: Update 14/07/2018:
Pakistan: Death Toll From Mastung Suicide Bomb Climbs To 128

Nawabzada Siraj Raisani, a political candidate for the Balochistan Awami Party, was also killed in the latest attack in the run-up to Pakistan's July 25 general elections.

At least 128 people were killed by a suicide bomber at a political rally in Pakistan's Mastung district on Friday, including candidate Nawabzada Siraj Raisani, provincial Health Minister Faiz Kakar told DawnNewsTV.

The attack, which also injured a further 150 people, 12 of them critically, is the deadliest bombing in Pakistan since 2014, according to the BBC. No group has yet claimed responsibility.

Victims were transferred to the Civil Hospital Quetta, Bolan Medical Complex and Combined Military Hospital Quetta, according to Kakar.

Witnesses said the attacker targeted a meeting organized by Siraj Raisani, a Balochistan Awami Party (BAP) candidate for the PB-35 Matsung district.

"Mr. Siraj Raisani succumbed to his wounds while he was being transferred to Quetta," said provincial Home Minister Agha Umar Bungalzai.

This is the latest in a string of attacks on political candidates in the lead up to the country's July 25 general elections.

Earlier on Friday, a bomb explosion targeted a convoy carrying former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani in Pakistan's Bannu district. Four people were killed and 32 more were injured. Durrani survived the attack.

Two people were injured in another bomb blast detonated near the BAP's election office in Khuzdar late Thursday.

On Wednesday night, a bomb exploded in Peshawar killing 21 people, including Barrister Haroon Bilour, leader of the Awami National Party (ANP). Local police said the attack, which used approximately eight kilograms of TNT, was claimed by the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Another 75 people were injured.

Despite the latest attack, ANP officials said the party would not back down from contesting the upcoming general elections. Bilour was a candidate for the provincial assembly seat.


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Pistol

New York mafia man miraculously survives point-blank range assassination attempt, shooter on the loose


RT
Sat, 14 Jul 2018 04:20 UTC
Shooting
© Citywide 911 / YouTube
An associate of a New York City crime family has narrowly escaped death after being chased and shot several times by a would-be assassin on the streets of the Bronx, video footage released by police has revealed.

Salvatore 'Sally Daz' Zottola, a partner in crime of the Bonanno family, which has ruled the streets of New York for over a century, was targeted by an unknown shooter at about 6.30am on Wednesday morning. The newly-released video of the incident shows a red Nissan pulling up next to Zottola's car.
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