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Thu, 04 Nov 2021
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Former congressman Anthony Weiner designated a level one sex offender by judge

Weiner
Weiner was convicted of sending lewd texts to an underage teen.

Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner was designated a level one sex offender Friday by a judge in the Bronx, where Weiner is living in a halfway house following a stint in federal prison.

Level one is the lowest level designation.

Weiner was convicted in 2017 of sending lewd texts to an underage teen in North Carolina.

Comment: See also: Pervert Anthony Weiner released from prison, will remain under house arrest until May


Snakes in Suits

'Sugar daddy' website owner charged with debauchery in Belgium

sugar daddy
The chief executive of a pan-European "sugar daddy" dating site that targeted students with adverts outside Belgian universities last summer has appeared in court charged with debauchery.

Norwegian Sigurd Vedal, 47, whose website Rich Meet Beautiful claimed to offer a "Fifty Shades of Grey" experience to young women, is being prosecuted following a complaint by the Université Libre de Bruxelles.

Trucks bearing large posters promoting the website, described as a "sugar daddy and sugar baby dating site", appeared on the outskirts of campuses in Brussels last year. The advertisement invited students to "improve your style of life [by getting] a sugar daddy".

After success in Scandinavia, the Norwegian company behind the website said it aimed to recruit 300,000 Belgian registrations by the end of 2018, but it was forced to end its marketing campaign after an outcry. Similar sites have emerged in the UK targeting female students. The US-based SeekingArrangement.com was found in 2015 to be offering premium membership to users with a university email address.

Cloud Precipitation

A different kind of leak: UK House of Commons canceled as water pours into press gallery

House of commons uk
© Reuters / handout
British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the House of Commons in London
The Brexit storm clouds appear to have opened over British Lawmakers, as the house of commons had to be canceled for the day, due to water pouring into the chamber through the ceiling.

Commons deputy speaker Lindsay Hoyle halted proceedings on Thursday afternoon to allow the leak to be looked at. Around 25 minutes later the deputy speaker returned to the House to adjourn the sitting for the rest of the day.

Comment: For those looking for symbolism, notice it was in the press gallery's gathering room that was the source of the water. The press has been instrumental in whipping up division over Brexit.


Megaphone

Large migrant protest brings Athens' main train station to a standstill

Railway company TrainOSE
© Proto Thema/William Faithfull
Railway company TrainOSE has halted services at the station
Athens' Larisis Station has been brought to a standstill with all services in and out suspended due to a sit-down protest by a group of migrants seeking passage to the Greek border.

Railway services operator TrainOSE has also temporarily halted the issuing of tickets while Friday's protest is ongoing. A police riot squad has been deployed to the scene and are monitoring the situation. Some protesters have reportedly begun walking along the tracks towards Thessaloniki.

The roughly 100 to 150 migrants and refugees are demanding to be transported to Diavata in northern Greece, near the Greek border, with a view to reopening a migration route towards northern Europe that opened in 2016.


Rocket

This mosquito stings like hell: Watch Russian sailors hone SUPERSONIC missile-firing skills

P-270 Moskit
© Sputnik / Ildus Gilyazutdinov
P-270 Moskit test-fire
The crews of two guided missile corvettes of the Russian Black Sea Fleet tested their skills during a test-fire of their primary weapon, the supersonic anti-ship missile P-270 Moskit.

The Tarantul-III-class corvette Ivanovets and her sister ship R-60 took part in a naval exercise, which included a successful missile attack on a target some 55km away, according to a report by Zvezda TV, the official news channel of the Russian Defense Ministry.

The 500-ton, 56 meter-long ships are part of the legacy corvette fleet that remains in service in three of the four Russian fleets.


The P-270 Moskit ("mosquito" in Russian) ramjet supersonic missile is the primary armament of the model, meant to destroy enemy warships up to 90km away. The projectile flies close to the surface to avoid early radar detection and relies on its high speed and rapid maneuvers during the final phase to beat the target's anti-missile defenses.

A Tarantul-class corvette carries four such missiles, each of which has 150kg of explosives in its warhead - enough to sink a 20,000 ton ship on a good hit. During exercises a dummy is commonly used, so that the accuracy of the attack can be assessed.

Briefcase

US judge: Flint residents may sue former state governor Rick Snyder over water crisis

Snyder
© Flickr/DonkeyHotey
Former Michigan governor Rick Snyder
US District Court Judge Judith Levy released a 128-page opinion on Monday reversing a previous decision to protect former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder from the consolidated class action lawsuits filed over the state's 2014 to 2016 water crisis.

In light of new evidence brought against Snyder, Levy released an opinion effectively allowing residents of Flint, Michigan, to include Snyder in a class action lawsuit against a number of former state and local officials as well as private water supply consultants. Last August, Levy took Snyder out of the lawsuit.

According to Michael Pitt, an attorney for the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit,
"[Snyder] was receiving significant information that the contamination was causing harm to people, notwithstanding that he basically ignored it, and, according to the judge, actually engaged in a cover up by indicating that the water was safe when he had ample reason to say the opposite."
In her recent statement, Levy emphasized that Snyder was knowingly unsympathetic to the health and safety of Flint residents.

Comment: See also:


Airplane

Milan's Malpensa Airport temporarily shut down by drone sighting

Malpensa Airport
© ANSA
Malpensa Airport, Milan, Italy
Milan's Malpensa Airport was temporarily closed by a drone flying near a terminal, forcing four planes to be redirected to nearby airports.

The airport operator SEA said Monday that the airport was closed for about a half hour after the drone was sighted around midday. Three flights landed at Milan's Linate airport and a fourth in Turin.

Malpensa underwent a similar closure last month when a drone was spotted from the control tower several kilometers (at least two miles) away. Police were investigating both incidents.

Comment: Drones have apparently become a regular hazard at international airports. But what sort of "drone activity" closes an airport for three days? In this first video watch the upper right corner starting at the 0:38 mark:


And these stranded passengers were pretty sure they weren't seeing a drone either:





Arrow Down

Years of 'progressive' proselytizing is finally taking a toll on leftist media ratings

fact media belief
After the Christchurch massacre, the legacy media were quick to label anyone who harbored ideas of limiting mass immigration as "far right," "white supremacists," and "enablers." However, when the leader at one of the targeted mosques in New Zealand, Ahmed Bhamji, claimed that the murderer was in league with Mossad and local "Zionist businesses," it went largely unreported.

Had such a statement been made by someone wearing a MAGA hat, it would have been frontpage news. Similarly, when someone who identifies with the right does something terrible, it is regurgitated and remembered for years, whereas Islamic terrorist attacks are routinely ignored.

When Justice Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault that allegedly occurred nearly 40 years ago, the media was filled with stories about how all women should be believed. When Joe Biden is accused by Bernie supporters and other leftists for having touched them inappropriately, the same media sympathetically reports him as being merely "tactile."

Comment:


Eye 2

Former Arizona Rep. David Stringer on child sex trafficking: 'I don't like to demonize it'

David Stringer

David Stringer
Former Arizona Rep. David Stringer made disturbing comments about child sex trafficking and his interactions with children within the past few years, two Prescott women told ethics investigators.

Those statements are included in new records the state House of Representatives released Wednesday from its ethics investigation into complaints against Stringer, who resigned last week over accusations that he raped children in the 1980s.

Among the new records are notes about a conversation Stringer had with an activist during a 2018 Republican Women of Prescott meeting, where he disputed that child sex trafficking is a problem.

According to investigators' notes of the exchange, Stringer and Merissa Hamilton, an activist who works to protect child victims of trafficking, were seated next to each other watching a speech from a Border Patrol agent at the event.

Video

Reconfiguration of food production: The fight for life versus Monsanto/Bayer agriculture

Vandana Shiva
This week Monsanto/Bayer AG was ordered by a California federal court to pay $80 million to Edwin Hardeman after a jury found its weed killer, Roundup, caused his cancer. The case is just one of thousands of lawsuits filed against the company over plaintiffs' use of the glyphosate-based herbicide. In 2015, the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans. The Food and Drug Administration has concluded the herbicide is not likely carcinogenic to humans. In August 2018, a jury in California state court awarded a school's groundskeeper, Dewayne Johnson, nearly $289 million in damages. The verdict was later reduced to $78 million and is on appeal. In this conversation with Chris Hedges, environmental activist and author, Vandana Shiva, talks about Monsanto/Bayer AG and other big AG players' interests in India and her fight to protect life forms, seed varieties and farmers.