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Star of David

Jewish apocalyptic nonsense: Rabbi says Messiah will appear on Purim, just in time for Israeli elections

Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz
Breaking Israel News
Tue, 22 Jan 2019 19:10 UTC
sky israeli jet
© Breaking Israel News
"Indeed, my God does nothing Without having revealed His purpose To His servants the Neviim." Amos 3:7 (The Israel Bible™)

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, one of the most prominent rabbis of this generation, made a shocking statement, claiming that the Messiah will precede the upcoming Israeli elections. Several rabbis noted that the writing is on the wall and the signs that the process leading up to the Messiah has already begun...for those who have the eyes to see it.

Rabbi Yekutiel Fish, an expert in Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism) gave a lesson this week in which he discussed how the Messiah was imminent. Rabbi Fish cited Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, one of the most prominent Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) rabbis of this generation, who began foretelling the arrival of the Messiah just a few years ago.

"It is written that in the days leading up to the Messiah, tzaddikim (righteous men) will begin to announce his arrival but some people, those who have not prepared for His arrival, will laugh at the righteous and the learned," Rabbi Fish said, warning that it is forbidden to mock the righteous.


Comment: "Righteous men will announce something ridiculous. People will laugh at the ridiculous things." Naturally, when the laughter inevitably comes, this is proof that the prophecy must be true.

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Biohazard

Best of the Web: Parents of woman killed by 'poison used on Skripal' blame... UK govt, British media, but not Russia

Steven Morris and Caroline Bannock
The Guardian
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 18:05 UTC
dawn sturgess
© Adrian Sherratt/The GuardianDawn Sturgess died after being poisoned with nerve agent following the Sergei Skripal incident
The parents of the woman who died in the Wiltshire novichok poisonings have broken their silence to express their anger and hurt at losing their daughter in an extraordinary international incident and say they believe there could be more of the nerve agent yet to be found.

Speaking as the first anniversary of the poisonings nears, Stan and Caroline Sturgess also revealed their concerns that the UK authorities chose to settle the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, exposing residents to risk.

The couple told the Guardian they still had many unanswered questions and called for more clarity from the British government about the poisonings. They also spoke passionately about their sense of injustice that Dawn, a mother of three from a very respectable family, was unfairly portrayed as a homeless drug user.
Stan and Caroline Sturgess
© Adrian Sherratt/The GuardianStan and Caroline Sturgess
The Sturgesses have complicated feelings toward Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, who collapsed after being poisoned with novichok in Salisbury and are now in hiding. "I don't know where Skripal is and I don't know what I'd do if I met him. He's still got his daughter," said Stan, a retired bricklayer.

Caroline said: "It's sad they ended up in a coma but they weren't the true victims. He [Skripal] took risks - he must have known there was a chance people were still after him."
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Footprints

Brazilian Vogue editor resigns over slavery-evoking birthday photos

Anna Jean Kaiser
The Guardian
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 17:18 UTC
Donata Meirelles
© Fernanda Calfat/Getty ImagesDonata Meirelles
The fashion director of the Brazilian edition of Vogue has resigned after photos from her 50th birthday party drew criticism for evoking colonial depictions of slavery.

Images from the party showed Donata Meirelles, who is white, sitting on a throne-like seat flanked by four black women dressed in white at the celebration in Bahia, the Brazilian state with the largest black population.

Critics compared the women's clothes to the white uniforms worn by house slaves, and pointed out the chair's similarity to a cadeira de sinhá, an ornate chair for slave masters.

"The black women were used as objects to create an exotic scene," said Stephanie Ribeiro, the author of the #BlackGirlMagic column in the Brazilian edition of Marie Claire. "It's reminiscent of colonialism and romanticizes those times. She was recreating the image where whites are superior and blacks are dehumanized."
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Airplane

Russia's Platov International Airport listed among the world's best


RT
Sat, 16 Feb 2019 15:45 UTC
Platov International Airport
© Facebook / Platov International AirportPlatov International Airport
One of the newest Russian airports, Platov International Airport in the city of Rostov-on-Don, has received the highest mark from the UK-based ranking organization Skytrax, becoming the first five-star Russian airport.

Getting five stars from Skytrax is considered the most prestigious international award for airports and airlines. After a recent audit of the terminal, the organization added Platov Airport to a list that includes only nine other airports from different countries.

Skytrax specialists visited the airport in January as regular passengers to see with their own eyes the work of the airport staff, how long the check-in queues are, and how the visitors are treated. They went through passport control and security checks, as well as visiting facilities inside the terminal.
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Attention

Russia: Several floors collapse at St. Petersburg University, 85 people rescued


RT
Sat, 16 Feb 2019 17:06 UTC
St. Petersburg collapse
© AP Photo/Dmitri LovetskyRussian Emergency employees work at the scene of the collapse building of the Saint Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics.
A university building has partially collapsed in the city of St. Petersburg, forcing frightened students and lecturers to flee through thick plumes of dust while some filmed the scene. More than 85 people were safely evacuated.

The incident occurred at the Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics University on Saturday afternoon, while lectures were in progress. Local administration told media that as many as 21 people may have been trapped under the rubble.

The emergency services later confirmed that 86 people were safely evacuated from the building and no bodies have been found during rescue. The university rector, Vladimir Vasylyev, said that no people remained trapped under the rubble.
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Laptop

Flashback Social media is turning us into thoughtless political extremists

Robert Montenegro
Big Think
Mon, 13 Jul 2015 00:01 UTC
republican democrat
Big Think Managing Editor Jason Gots recently penned a keen piece on political radicals on Facebook that got me thinking about the ways social media has altered our political rhetoric. At the risk of sounding too much like I'm sucking up to the boss, much of Jason's piece articulated the exact trepidations I feel about my own social media pals:
"There's this disconnect between your Facebook voice (always out for blood) and your in-person voice on those rare occasions when we meet (warm, funny, kind). I'm not saying this is a good thing - the not-talking-explicitly. I just don't like ugly arguments and ad hominem attacks, which I fear (with good reason) is what would happen if I responded to your Facebook posts, which, honestly, have gotten on my nerves to the point where I've hidden them from my News Feed."
Fulfilling the title of his blog - "Overthinking Everything" - Jason delves deeply into the topic. He rallies against the frustrating elements of extremism while questioning how the Facebook radicals of the world would behave should they ever achieve the power they seek. It's an interesting take that's really worth a read. What's that? There's something brown on my nose? I don't know what you're talking about.

Comment: This piece is from back in 2015, and the divide has only grown since its writing. At this point, one has to wonder how social media actually serves us as its users. It seems social media does little more than simply increase echo-chambers, polarize views, censor dissenting voices
and suck up personal data to be sold to advertisers. So why are we all on these platforms again?

See also:

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Heart - Black

No-knock warrant leading to deaths of Houston couple was based on invented heroin purchase by non-existent confidential informant

Jacob Sullum
reason
Thu, 14 Feb 2019 21:30 UTC
Dennis Tuttle, Rhogena Nicholas-Tuttle
The no-knock search warrant for the drug raid that killed a middle-aged couple in their Houston home on January 28 seems to have been based on a "controlled buy" that never happened by a confidential informant who does not exist. According to a February 8 search warrant affidavit obtained by KPRC, the NBC station in Houston, investigators looking into the raid at 7815 Harding Street, the home of Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas, have been unable to identify the C.I. who supposedly bought heroin from Tuttle the day before.

Sgt. Richard Bass submitted the February 8 affidavit in support of a warrant to search a cellphone used by Steven Bryant, a narcotics officer who participated in the raid and who was suspended last week because of unanswered questions about the warrant for it, which was obtained by Gerald Goines, another narcotics officer. Bass says Bryant talked to Goines, who was shot during the raid and remains hospitalized, and relayed the name of the C.I., who denied making the purchase described in Goines' affidavit.

Bryant went back to Goines and got the name of another C.I., who also denied participating in the controlled buy. Investigators eventually talked to all of the informants known to work with Goines, and "all denied making a buy for Goines from the Harding Street residence, and ever purchasing narcotics from Tuttle or Nicholas."

If that transaction did not actually happen, it would explain why police found no heroin at the house, where the C.I. supposedly had seen many bags of it. The only drugs found in the search were small amounts of cocaine and marijuana, consistent with personal use. Nor did police find the 9mm semi-automatic handgun that Goines said the C.I. also mentioned. Bass notes another inconsistency: While Goines' affidavit says Bryant saw the brown powder purchased by the C.I. and recognized it as black-tar heroin, Bryant told Bass he did not see the heroin until he was asked to retrieve it from Goines' car so it could be tested.

Comment: 'They did not deal drugs': Neighbors of slain couple who shot 4 cops refute official story

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Attention

Aurora, Illinois shooting: Suspect and 5 others dead, 5 wounded

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 16:01 UTC
aurora shooting scene
Update2: Five people are dead, and five officers were shot.


Update: At least one person is dead, while the four police officers wher were shot are in stable condition.


Comment: More details on the shooter:
Police have confirmed that five civilians, all employees of the plant, were killed after the gunman, identified as 45-year-old Gary Martin, went on a shooting rampage inside the facility.

Five officers who responded to the active shooter incident were injured, including two who were airlifted to hospital.

Martin was apprehended by police but later died.

City spokesman Clayton Muhammad reported earlier that the shooter was "neutralized."

The suspect has a criminal record, having been arrested in 1994 for an aggravated assault in Mississippi. According to witnesses, Martin had been an employee at the steel facility for over 15 years.

Police are now combing through his telephone records and searching his house in a bid to establish the motive.

With no official word on the shooter's motive, there have been reports that Martin was laid off from his job at the assembly line a fortnight ago, which allegedly caused him major distress.


One witness who escaped the building told local news that he recognized the shooter as a coworker.

He was reportedly firing indiscriminately inside the building, the employee told ABC7.

Witnesses told Rivera the alleged gunman showed up for work like "any other day" on Friday.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker tweeted that he is monitoring the situation, while calling on the locals to follow police guidelines.


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Pistol

Kentucky gets closer to passing law permitting concealed carry guns without a permit

Meghan Keneally
ABC News
Fri, 15 Feb 2019 15:42 UTC
gun selection
© John Locher/AP, FILE
A bill proposing that adults don't need a permit to carry a concealed firearm is one step closer to passing in Kentucky.

If it passes in the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives, Kentucky will become the third state to pass such a law in recent weeks.

SB 150, which allows for anyone 21 or older who is allowed to legally possess a firearm to carry them concealed without a special permit, passed the Kentucky Senate on Thursday with a vote of 28 to nine.

Kentucky is already an open carry state, which the Giffords Law Center, a gun violence prevention advocacy group, notes means the state has no laws prohibiting the open carrying of firearms. If passed, SB 150 would make it easier for people to conceal firearms within the state.

State Sen. Damon Thayer, a Republican who voted for the measure, spoke to that distinction during the debate on Thursday.

"All we're saying is: Wearing a coat around over top of your legally carried firearm doesn't make you a felon," Thayer said, according to local station WLWT.
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Dollars

City of Anaheim charging mother $3K to obtain records relating to her son's death at the hands of police

Lisa Fernandez
Fox 11
Mon, 11 Feb 2019 15:31 UTC
Theresa Smith and her son Ceasar Cruz
© Theresa SmithTheresa Smith and her son Ceasar Cruz, who was killed by Anaheim police in 2009.
Theresa Smith has been trying to unseal all the records into her son's death for the last decade. And last month, the city of Anaheim, Calif. said that would finally be possible -- as long as she put down a deposit of $3,000.

"Are they crazy?" Smith asked. "We had to scrape by just to pay for a funeral. I certainly can't come up with that kind of money."

Smith requested this information through a Public Records Act seeking certain police files that are now public under a new law, SB 1421, that took effect on Jan. 1. The type of files are limited and they include: If an officer was found by superiors to have lied or had an inappropriate sexual relationship on the job, or if officers used force where a person was killed or suffered great bodily injury.

As many jurisdictions in California, including Contra County County and Southern California, are seeking to block the release of these files arguing that anything created before this date should be kept private, others, such as Anaheim, are complying with the new law, but they want to make sure that it's not at the taxpayer's expense.
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