If you're not in the U.S., what's up in your part of the world? Showing 1,901-1,950 of 3,276

[Papaphilly]

The several shots were aimed at the reporter or was the reporter at an incident?

[Ian]

The shots were directed at the group of reporters, who all took cover apart from whoever tried to help Shireen

[Papaphilly]

Do not get me wrong, I am not considering any excuse. I just do not know lots about this particular killing. I am not a fan of killing any reporter.

[Ian]

I never thought you were "wrong"; they were legitimate questions.

[Nik]

The official resume:
https://www.state.gov/on-the-killing-...
There is no doubt at all that Shireen's death was unintentional whoever shot, she just happened to be in crossfires. She worked in the region for 18 years, if anyone wanted her dead surely there was no reason to send an army unit for that purpose...

[[deleted user]]

The cat with 9 lives is onto his 11th life as the Chancellor, Health Secretary and an assortment of junior ministers all resign:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politic...

I’ve learnt by now not to make any premature forecasts about Boris. Let’s see what happens.

[Nik]

Long live, Boris!

[Ian]

One of the things about politicians is the important ones at the time (like Ministers) think they are irreplaceable, and those on the way up are only too pleased to replace them. We shall see what we shall see.

[Ian]

Nik wrote: "The official resume:
https://www.state.gov/on-the-killing-...
There is no doubt at all that Shireen's death was unintentional whoever shot, she just happened to be in crossfires. ..."

I don't think anyone thinks an army unit was dispatched to kill her. But that does not mean that whoever fired the shot was not totally irresponsible.

And I still can't get over the State Dept. effectively saying they can draw conclusioons of intent from the bullet. That is ridiculous.

[J.]

Meanwhile:

Man's Body Cut from 'Bulging' Stomach of 13ft Crocodile Days after Attack
https://www.newsweek.com/giant-crocod...

[Papaphilly]

Ian wrote: "Nik wrote: And I still can't get over the State Dept. effectively saying they can draw conclusions of intent from the bullet. That is ridiculous. ..."

Not necessarily. It can be all about angle of penetration. It could be a ricochet or hitting her after missing someone else. The fact the bullet is too damaged to determine the individual weapon itself is a statement. Assuming the U.S. has no dog in the fight and is trying to find the truth, the statement may be very true for the reasons I just stated and others. While I cannot dismiss the idea of a whitewash, the fact the bullet was turned over to the U.S. says something about trust. I am not saying it was a responsible shooting. The statement is about crossfire. That tells me there was firefight and she may be collateral damage.

[J.]

The US State Dept article does not make any conclusions based upon the recovered bullet. It specifically states that the bullet was too damaged to draw any conclusions.

The article states that the State Dept came to its conclusion based upon analysis of the previous investigations.

[Ian]

My comment was about drawing conclusions about the intent of the shooter from the bullet, the comment about it coming from Ned Price at the State Department, at least as reported here.

The statement here said the bullet was damaged. It did not say how, but the CNN article I linked above said there was a line of sight between the soldiers and the journalists. According to the journalists there was no firefight. They were standing around preparing for their job, and they took cover from the direction of the Israelis. If there was a firefight, the protection they took would leave them exposed to the other direction. The Israelis have not made any statement to the effect there was another target vaguely in that direction, but of course they probably would not make statements anyway. A ricochet off concrete or something similar should leave evidence on the bullet, such as ingrained dust residue, but there was no suggestion that was there.

[J.]

Odds are that the bullet recovered was FMJ ball. Due to me being a cheapskate, I have used mil surplus FMJ ball on many hunts. Everytime in which I recovered a bullet from a carcass the jacket was peeled off into frags and the core was massively distorted.

[[deleted user]]

Boris is resigning. Bye, bye, Boris.

Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova told reporters Mr Johnson had been 'hit by a boomerang launched by himself'.

Sums it up perfectly. If you impose communist lockdowns, transfer wealth from the electorate to big business via green subsidies, and spend your defence budget on arming a foreign power, you have nobody but yourself to blame.

Time for some proper Conservative leadership...on both sides of the Atlantic.

[Ian]

I think the biggest factor was that Boris ignored his senior politician's advice. The question is, is there enough common thought, apart from being against Boris' antics, to lead to a clear winner amongst the rest? Who will emerge and lead?

[[deleted user]]

I mentioned back in Jan that I'd had a £20 wager on Steve Baker at 33/1. Well, looks like he's throwing his hat in the ring. We'll see.

[[deleted user]]

If you don't know him, Steve Baker is a slightly less charismatic version of Ron DeSantis.

[J.]

I'm still rooting for Larry.

[J.]

Beau wrote: "Boris is resigning. Bye, bye, Boris.

Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova told reporters Mr Johnson had been 'hit by a boomerang launched by himself'.

Sums it up perfectly. If you i..."

Did the pigeon see it coming?

Homing Pigeon Accidentally Travels from England to Alabama and Ends Up at Animal Shelter
https://people.com/pets/homing-pigeon...

[Ian]

Exactly how do they know it was "accidentally"? Said pigeon may have decided he wanted to go to Alabama, and because airlines are cancelling numerous flights, pigeon decided to DIY.

[J.]

Ian wrote: "Exactly how do they know it was "accidentally"? Said pigeon may have decided he wanted to go to Alabama, and because airlines are cancelling numerous flights, pigeon decided to DIY."

"Northern England? Frak that! I'm heading for the Gulf Coast."

[Ian]

Exactly.

[J.]

Dutch police shoot at tractor during night of farm protests
https://abcnews.go.com/International/...

Let me get this straight. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is going to cause food shortages and famine, so the Dutch are shutting down farmers?

WTF?

[Ian]

Did I mention somewhere there is no shortage of stupidity in this world?

[[deleted user]]

J. wrote: ""Northern England? Frak that! I'm heading for the Gulf Coast."

Lol. I saw that story. Incredible. He doesn't look too happy at the prospect of being reunited with his owner up North :)

[[deleted user]]

J. wrote: "Dutch police shoot at tractor during night of farm protests
https://abcnews.go.com/International/...

Let me get this straight. The Rus..."

Yes, they've been protesting against carbon cutting government policies, which they fear will put them out of business, so the police fired at them.

There's some strange goings on in the world right now...

As Barbara said a while back, there have been a number of fires and other unfortunate goings on at various US food plants, disrupting production. It's happening in other areas of the world too.

Sri Lanka is in a state of turmoil due to food and fuel shortages. I haven't looked into it in detail but gather that, once again, green policies (this time surrounding organic farming) are at the heart of the food shortage problem.

From what I hear, there's similar trouble brewing in Macedonia too.

It's almost as if there's a concerted global effort to cause societal collapse. Who on earth would want to do that? Unless, of course, they sought to gain from...building back better?

Zero covid. Zero carbon. Prolong war in Ukraine. 'Progressive' ideology. Same people. Same destructive goals under the gaslighting premise of doing good deeds. They need stopping before they cause irreversible damage to the people of the world.

[Nik]

The pigeon could've at least taken a few letters as a small extra load..

[Ian]

Re Sri Lanka, I haven't looked into this with any depth either, but I gather it is basically because they have run out of money, or their currency has inflated out of control. They can't afford pharmaceuticals, so their health system is in trouble, they can't afford oil, so their farming is in trouble, and they can't buy food. It is a mess.

[J.]

Report: Ex-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dies after campaign shooting
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...

[J.]

Back in 2016 Mr. Mark "Count Dankula" Meechum decided to play a prank on his then girlfriend.
https://youtu.be/Xa5CNf7pMAM

The saga has now resolved. This is a history and update from Dankula himself.
https://youtu.be/89nzxZpNb4E

If you live in the UK and you don't like the joke; fair enough. But ask yourself, what will THEY think of your jokes?

[Scout]

J. wrote: "Report: Ex-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dies after campaign shooting
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w..."

Very sad. I liked that guy.

[Ian]

Scout wrote: "J. wrote: "Report: Ex-Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dies after campaign shooting
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w..."

Ve..."

It's awful. The idiot who shot him apparently thought Abe was a member of some cult, which he wasn't. The evil power of fake news on social media at work?

[Nik]

They need to build more country clubs and swimming pools in Sri Lanka:
https://news.sky.com/video/sri-lanka-...

[Ian]

I am sure that will provide the rank and file with far more pharmaceuticals.

[J.]

Nik wrote: "They need to build more country clubs and swimming pools in Sri Lanka:
https://news.sky.com/video/sri-lanka-..."

Prepare.

“Every society is three meals away from chaos”
- Lenin

[Ian]

It appears the Sri Lankan President and PM are resigning.

Meanwhile, it appears we have a political Schrödinger cat. Boris has resigned, but he is still PM. In terms of quantum mechanics, he needs to be observed.

[Ezra]

As with the cat, we don't know if he is dead or alive until we look.

[Scout]

:-)

[Papaphilly]

I wonder if Boris is actually providing a service by giving some breathing room until they can sort out the replacement. It is counter intuitive to think he may be doing good.

[Ian]

About as far away as you can get from my part of the world, but this is interesting. Apparently the UK government has passed laws/regulations/something about climate change, and according to the Journal "Nature" a UK court has declared these illegal! The reason - parliament has given no indication HOW it intends to do it. Now that is an interesting situation. The Court has given parliament until March next year to remedy this omission

[J.]

Prime Ministers seem to be a threatened species these days.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigns after his government implodes
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/21/111267...

[J.]

Tiger Drags Man Into Jungle, Rescuers Only Find Hands
https://www.newsweek.com/tiger-drags-...

[Ian]

In NZ we have just had a sequence of significant storms, with some tourists who came for the winter views and skiing have extended stays in some places, with roads washed out or flooded. All flights out of Wellington were cancelled due to 130 k winds all yesterday, and ferry crossings of the Strait were cancelled due to 11 meter waves. There was a "little river" running down the road where I live. The road is too steep (second gear is the maximum you would drive) for depth, though.

[Ian]

Added to the storms and rain (still raining) we have:

1. The Greens (part of the coalition in government) have fired their leader. (It only takes 25% of votes to do this.) So far, the only one standing for re-election is, er, the old leader. The reason for the disgruntlement? The leader was not objectionable enough. He was doing deals to get some of their policy enacted.

2. According to our news SARS-CoV-2 definitely came out of the Wuhan market. Not only that, it came out twice before it was properly detected.

3. Leader of opposition posted on social media how he was visiting flood areas. Trouble was, this was old footage and actually he was sunning himself in Hawaii at the time, which happened to coincide with further floods.

[Nik]

So much - for representative democracy, what do we need them for? Time to replace intermediaries with direct democracy

[Ian]

In which case we are ruled by the donkey vote, and to some extent by the protest vote, as when we float referenda, you either get half a dozen options, or you get a majority for "no". You get people wanting to cut taxes but with no explanation of what will be cut, except the cut will apply to "them". It would be a vote for the privileged, and currently, the most uninformed due to the expected glut of fake news.

[Nik]

I don't see that happening in Switzerland and it's somewhat patronizing to suspect your compatriots of being donkeys or lesser than yourself. Don't see how any parliamentary is any better than any lay(wo)man representing him/herself

[Ian]

I said "donkey vote",. not that they were donkeys. The donkey vote is the uninformed vote. The fact of the matter is that the average person has no real knowledge of how to run a government department.

Switzerland does have a system of direct referenda, but it also has 7 federal councillors, 26 cantonal governments, and 2,172 communal councils. Because Switzerland has been a harbour for questionable money, its economy doesn't work in the same way the NZ economy does. They did not need quantitative easing! So the ordinary lay person in Switzerland can force a referendum on anything, but the ordinary lay person does not run the country. Switzerland works for Switzerland, but I doubt it would work anywhere else

[Nik]

I rarely feel represented therefore would prefer not to delegate representation to anyone but myself and I have more faith in lay than in political elite. May work, may - not. If not tried, we won’t know