Sunday Post

Καλά Χριστούγεννα, С Рождеством Христовым and Різдвом Христовим to all y’all.

 

A Palestinian truck driver ran his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers, killing four of them:

A Palestinian rammed his truck into a group of Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem on Sunday, killing four soldiers and wounding 17 others in one of the deadliest attacks of a more than yearlong campaign of violence.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the driver was a supporter of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and suggested the attack was inspired by similar assaults in Europe, without providing any evidence. Palestinians with no known links to IS have carried out vehicular assaults in the past.

“We know the identity of the attacker. According to all the signs, he was a supporter of the Islamic State,” Netanyahu said in a statement delivered at the attack site. “We know that there is a sequence of terror attacks. There definitely could be a connection between them, from France to Berlin and now Jerusalem.”

 
Israel has experimented with all manner of barriers and methods of keeping out terrorists. Whenever acts of terrorism like this happen, it usually ends with something becoming rubble.

Good.


Also:

A couple of months ago, Czech President Milos Zeman made an unusual request: He urged citizens to arm themselves against a possible "super-Holocaust" carried out by Muslim terrorists.

Never mind that there are fewer than 4,000 Muslims in this country of 10 million people — gun purchases spiked. One shop owner in East Bohemia, a region in the northern center of the Czech Republic, told a local paper that people were scared of a "wave of Islamists."

Now the country's interior ministry is pushing a constitutional change that would let citizens use guns against terrorists. Proponents say this could save lives if an attack occurs and police are delayed or unable to make their way to the scene. To become law, Parliament must approve the proposal; they'll vote in the coming months.

These colours don't run but instead aim for centre mass.

The man who shot eleven people at an airport in Florida (killing five of them) has been charged:
 

Esteban Santiago, 26, told investigators that he planned the attack, buying a one-way ticket to the Fort Lauderdale airport, a federal complaint said. Authorities don't know why he chose his target and have not ruled out terrorism.

Santiago was charged with an act of violence at an international airport resulting in death — which carries a maximum punishment of execution — and weapons charges.

"Today's charges represent the gravity of the situation and reflect the commitment of federal, state and local law enforcement personnel to continually protect the community and prosecute those who target our residents and visitors," U.S Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said.

Authorities said during a news conference that they had interviewed roughly 175 people, including a lengthy interrogation with the co-operative suspect, a former National Guard soldier from Alaska. Flights had resumed at the Fort Lauderdale airport after the bloodshed, though the terminal where the shooting happened remained closed.

Santiago spoke to investigators for several hours after he opened fire with a Walther 9mm semi-automatic handgun that he appears to have legally checked on a flight from Alaska. He had two magazines with him and emptied both of them, firing about 15 rounds, before he was arrested, the complaint said.

Iranian former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is dead at age eighty-two.




Several attacks in Baghdad have killed twenty-three people:

A wave of attacks in and around Baghdad on Sunday killed at least 23 people, the latest in a series of assaults blamed on the Islamic State group.

A suicide car bomb ripped through a wholesale market in the sprawling Shiite neighbourhood of Sadr City, killing at least seven people and wounding 15, said Brig. Gen. Saad Maan, the Interior Ministry spokesman. He said a member of the security forces spotted the bomber and opened fire but was unable to prevent the attack.

A policeman and two medical officials gave a higher toll, saying 16 people were killed in the attack and another 47 wounded.

At a hospital where victims of the attack had been taken, a body exploded inside a morgue refrigerator. The medics said it appeared to have been a second attacker who was killed by shrapnel from the first explosion.

IS claimed the attack, saying it was targeting Shiites. The Sunni extremist group views Iraq's Shiite majority as apostates deserving of death.

Elsewhere in the city, a suicide bomber killed nine shoppers and wounded 16 others at a fruit and vegetable market in a mainly Shiite neighbourhood . Three additional bombings in and around the capital killed seven people and wounded 24 others.

Quite frankly, I don't blame Trump for wanting to start with a clean slate and certainly without those loyal to their former boss:

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has issued a blanket mandate requiring politically appointed ambassadors installed by President Barack Obama to leave their posts by Inauguration Day, the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand said on Friday.

"I will be departing on January 20th," Ambassador Mark Gilbert said in a Twitter message to Reuters.

The mandate was issued "without exceptions" through an order sent in a State Department cable on Dec. 23, Gilbert said.

He was confirming a report in the New York Times, which quoted diplomatic sources as saying previous U.S. administrations, from both major political parties, have traditionally granted extensions to allow a few ambassadors, particularly those with school-age children, to remain in place for weeks or months.

Why keep anyone on whose former employer truly believes that his foreign policy was a success?




Both conservatives and liberals under-estimate what Putin is and what he is capable of.

Liberals did not have a problem ignoring Obama's "transmission" or laughing at then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney's assertion that Russia posed a threat. The love affair was over when Russia became a convenient excuse for Hillary Clinton's failure to win the presidency.

Conservatives believe that by the pure virtue of his not being either Obama or Trudeau that Putin is a world-class statesman who shares values that most Americans or Canadians have, ignoring the fate of journalists and bloggers who have opposed him, the power of censorship in Russia, how restrictive Russian gun laws are and how external conflicts mask the true economic situation Russia faces.

Trump should trust Putin as he would with adders fanged:

President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that "only 'stupid' people or fools" would dismiss closer ties with Russia, and he seemed unswayed after his classified briefing on an intelligence report that accused Moscow of meddling on his behalf in the election that catapulted him to power.

"Having a good relationship with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing," Trump said in a series of tweets.

He added, "We have enough problems without yet another one," and said Russians would respect "us far more" under his administration than they do with Barack Obama in the White House.

(Sidebar: the latter might be true as Obama is useless but Putin respects only himself. If Trump is immovable, so will Putin be.)

Put everyone out of their misery and end this guy already:

Roof has largely remained quiet in court and not questioned any witnesses, although his writings have offered jurors and the public a window into who he is. Earlier in the day, a judge unsealed a filing in which Roof alleged it was “not fair” for prosecutors to present such extensive testimony about the effect of his church shooting on victims’ family members. He argued — because he was not presenting any evidence — that it would virtually ensure a death sentence.

It might have something to do with the fact that this racist moron killed members of someone's family.

Twit.




But... but... global warming!

The main tower of the Grand Etang turbine, owned and operated by Nova Scotia Power, snapped in two after being pounded by strong southeast winds, better known by their Acadian name of “les suêtes”, that regularly hammer the Cheticamp area with gusts of up to 200 km/h.

And now, the student who submitted this ad for Adidas found a new audience for it when it was rejected:

(Merci beaucoup)