WWIII on the way? USA takes out Iranian General

USA takes out Iranian General Qasem Soleimani.

Quote:

Iran's most powerful military commander, General Qasem Soleimani, has been killed by a US air strike in Iraq. The 62-year old spearheaded Iranian military operations in the Middle East as head of Iran's elite Quds Force. He was killed at Baghdad airport, alongside local Iran-backed militias, early on Friday in a strike ordered by US President Donald Trump. Gen Soleimani's killing marks a major escalation in tensions between Washington and Tehran. Under his leadership, Iran had bolstered Hezbollah in Lebanon and other pro-Iranian militant groups, expanded Iran's military presence in Iraq and Syria and orchestrated Syria's offensive against rebel groups in the country's long civil war. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said "severe revenge awaits the criminals" behind the attack. He also announced three days of national mourning.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-50979463

This is under 'general politics' as it has repercussions worldwide IMV. Oil prices have already risen 4% and US citizens urged to get out ASAP.

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Usurper Doanld Trump wags the Iranian Dog, excludes Democrats from planning

The US has assassinated a major Iranian leader overnight as a "target of opportunity" in an action that, according to CNN, was planned with only Republican members of Congress. Representatives of the Senate and the Minority Leader in the House (McCarthy) were seen leaving the secured area of Mar-A-Lago prior to announcement of the attack.

Key observations:

• this assassination conveniently drives news about the unredacted emails regarding Trump's personal involvement in the Ukraine Scandal
• Trump is treating the Speaker of the "People's House" as if she was not a legitimate part of the government process AGAIN

There is no depth to which this treasonous pig "president" will not sink.

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Crab boat goes down in AK. 5 lost

I know this isn't something many people will note. It's not different from small plane crashes where similar numbers of people are lost.

But when I lived in Seattle my next-door neighbor's father died in a similar situation. They were hauling a barge, the boat sank quickly, only one crew member survived. He was on deck with another man that helped him get into the survival suit that saved his life. No one else on the boat lived.

Whenever boats are lost in the dangerous seas around Alaska, I get a painful reminder of when her husband came over to tell us they'd gotten a call telling them her dad was lost at sea.

They don't usually find the bodies.

CNN: Coast Guard suspends search for 5 missing crew members after Alaskan crab boat sinks

Without a survival suit, the icy water usually kills one within minutes. A survival suit might increase that to ~1-20 hours depending on the suit. But you have to get into it and when the boat goes down fast, most crew members can't get into one fast enough.

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Mysterious lights over Colorado, Nebraska cause consternation

Well, the source of the lights as such isn't mysterious; everybody who has seen and reported them agrees they are drones. They have been spotted over the past couple of weeks in a few counties in rural extreme northeastern Colorado, and most recently into Nebraska as well.

The mystery is, whose drones?

They seem to appear fairly consistently between 7 and 10 PM, in groups of eight to ten, and are not your typical toy quadcopter; reportedly they have wingspans of up to six feet. Interestingly, according to the linked news report, the drones also feature navigation lighting - something which, so far as I am aware, the FAA does not require on recreational drones (though of course I could be wrong).

The size of the drones, to me, precludes some kind of airshow or aerial demonstration practice (light-show drones tend to by tiny and fly in much larger swarms besides); but the size and the lighting also, to me, makes it unlikely to be some private individual or amateur group, making me lean toward some kind of commercial or industrial testing or application.

To me, the situation is troubling. Obviously you have the issue of the ubiquitous yokels, who view "drones" as invariably evil and intrusive and want to solve the intrusion with their favored tool-of-first-resort for defendin' thur proppity (i.e., guns); since these drones are rather large and feature navigation lighting like real airplanes do, the possibility of a dangerous or deadly mistake is self-evident.

Additionally - and equally troubling, in my opinion - is the mention in the news report that police are unable to find out who the drones belong to; nobody has come forward in response to the incidents making national news, and the drones fly too fast for anyone who spots them from the ground to be able to successfully track them to their landing site.

It has been mentioned that none of the reported sightings so far has seemed to indicate any illegal behavior by the drone operators, and it might be easy to simply say "then there's no need for police to know who they are"; but I disagree with that. The fact that no laws appear to have been violated yet is purely happenstance; in the case that laws are observed being violated, the police should be able to find out who the responsible parties are without too much trouble. The drones are being operated in public, in full view of the public, so there are no "right to privacy" considerations to counterbalance the public's right-to-know.

The Denver Post reports that the FAA has proposed a rule requiring most drones to emit a radio signal that can be received by law enforcement agencies and checked against the licensed operator database to identify a drone's owner. In other words, a sort of a transponder. To me, this sounds like a reasonable and intelligent rule.

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Tumblegeddon in Eastern Washington

Trapped Cars Faced New Holiday Travel Menace: #tumblegeddon

Quote:

NPR: An enormous number of tumbleweeds blew onto a road in eastern Washington state on New Year's Eve, piling up into a mountain of tangled branches that blocked traffic and even buried some cars, trapping travelers inside. "In the 20 years that I have worked here, I have never seen it as bad as this," says Washington State Patrol trooper Chris Thorson. "I've never seen six to eight cars, including a semi-truck, actually stopped and trapped on a highway because of tumbleweeds."

I saw an episode of Outer Limits where a lot of things were alive including tumbleweeds.

Another interesting bit of trivia, around the Hanford nuclear site in eastern WA, they have found radioactive tumbleweeds.

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Modern Whodunit Authors?

Are there any fans of "whodunit" murder mysteries here?

Can you recommend some good authors?

Let me explain. I'm looking for books in the mold of some of Agatha Christie's best works. There is a clear list of suspects, because everyone is on a boat, or plane, or whatever. The puzzle pieces are slowly revealed. Your job is to pay attention and figure out who the murderer is as time goes by.

I'm surprised how difficult it is to identify such books. I've done some googling, and some of the books that I've come up with (including some that, sadly, I have purchased) were stories that involved a murder, but they were really about engaging plots and things that happened during the investigation. For example, I purchased "The Lying Game", after seeing it recommended. Well, technically, it is a book about someone trying to find out who killed someone....in the case of "The Lying Game" it was in fact the dead person trying to find out her own murderer. However, it wasn't a whodunit it all. Indeed, the end of the book came, and the murderer hadn't even been revealed.

No, I want a classic style.

One of my motivations here is to actually adapt it into a game. Some friends of mine get together on New Year's Eve to play "How to Host a Murder" or one of many variations on it, i.e. the dinner party murder mystery games where each player plays a suspect and reveals clues as the dinner goes on. I've always thought it would be cool to write one myself, but I thought it might be easier to adapt someone else's work. Agatha Christie is too well known, but perhaps some lesser known author?

So, ideally, 6-8 suspects. One murderer. A lot of the "How to Host a Murder" series, including the one we played last night, seem to all end with "Everyong tried to kill him, but this particular person succeeded." That makes for lousy stories and disappointing reveals, where the clues really could have fit almost anyone because they were all trying to kill him. I figure something that actually was published as a novel probably wouldn't have more than one or two would be murderers.

I wouldn't mind if, of the eight suspects, a few were eliminated rapidly. That could be eliminated from consideration, or actually eliminated, as in "And Then There Were None". The players could still continue on, and I can adapt. I just need a little nudge in the right direction.

So, has anyone read some good novels lately that fit the bill?

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Was Cyprus right to convict British woman of lying about rape?

Happy New Year 2020, All!

What do people think about the 19-year-old Brit who was convicted in Cyprus recently for lying when she retracted her claim she had been gang raped by twelve Israeli youths? Police found the DNA of four of them inside her. The youths claimed she only 'cried rape' when she discovered she was being filmed having sex with one of them. The woman, on the other hand, claims she was pressurised to retract her claims after eight hours of interview by the Cypriot police.

Now her mother is demanding everybody should boycott Cyprus, as being 'unsafe'. It appears to have a much higher than average record of complaints about sexual attack than other EU countries.

Convicted sex offender, ex-DJ Jonathan King is quoted as saying she deserves the conviction. But perhaps he feels that way about his accusers.

Quote:

The UK is "seriously concerned about the fair trial guarantees" in the case of a British woman convicted of lying about being gang-raped by 12 Israelis in Cyprus, the government said. A Foreign Office spokesman said the case in Ayia Napa was "deeply distressing" and it will raise the issue with Cypriot authorities. The teenager was found guilty on a charge of causing public mischief.

I am guessing that after the UK government stuck its oar in, Cyprus will not be giving the woman concerned a custodial sentence when she comes up for it.

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