Category Archives: Fail!

Turkey ignored direct warnings of ISIS attack on Mosul – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

As Turkish leaders scramble to find a way out of the crisis, details of the security lapses that led to the storming of the consulate are beginning to emerge. Unless the hostages are released unharmed, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan could face a political crisis of a scale that might yet torpedo his candidacy for the August presidential race.

What we know

On June 6, the governor of Mosul, Atheel al-Nujaifi, put in an emergency call to Kareem Sinjari, the interior minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq saying that ISIS was about to take over the city. Sinjari swiftly spread the word, a full five days before the attack occurred. It is unthinkable that the Turks were not aware of the danger. Yet they apparently did not feel threatened enough to evacuate the consulate. Indeed, as recently as June 10, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu declared that there was no threat to Turkey’s Consul General Ozturk Yilmaz and his staff. Davutoglu has since changed his tune, now saying that the security environment to travel by land to Erbil, the Iraqi Kurdish capital, had rendered evacuation impossible. Never mind that it’s just a 40-minute drive from Mosul. In the worst-case scenario, Turkey could have used helicopters to evacuate the personnel. Turkey has around 2.000 troops stationed on the Iraqi side of the Turkish-Iraqi border, nominally there to chase Kurdistan Workers Party fighters if need be, and they have helicopters.

via Turkey ignored direct warnings of ISIS attack on Mosul – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

Missouri Firm Recalls Ribeye and Carcass Products That May Contain Specified Risk Materials

SRMs are tissues that may contain the infective agent in cattle infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), as well as materials that are closely associated with these potentially infective tissues. Therefore, FSIS prohibits SRMs from use as human food to minimize potential human exposure to the BSE agent.

via Missouri Firm Recalls Ribeye and Carcass Products That May Contain Specified Risk Materials.

ISIS bids for global jihad leadership with Mosul attack – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

 

Before taking Iraq’s second largest city this week, ISIS had already seized most of Anbar province in Iraq and Raqqa province in Syria. There, it enforces a Taliban-style extreme version of Islam. Mosul represents a much bigger price, an ancient city with great symbolic value. ISIS is effectively creating a stronghold across the Syrian desert in the heart of the Arab world, erasing the borders set a century ago by the British and French after the fall of the Ottomans.

Baghdadi, like Zarqawi, has bigger ambitions. Last month, the Saudis foiled a major ISIS plot to carry out attacks in the kingdom, arresting dozens. ISIS has recruited thousands of foreign fighters to fight in Syria, and some are reportedly being trained to go home to fight in their native lands. ISIS probably trained the French Muslim who attacked the Jewish Museum in Brussels and killed four in May.

Taking Mosul could expose ISIS to counterattack by the larger US-equipped Iraqi army backed by Iran. It may provoke the Kurds, too. It’s a gamble. For Baghdadi, it is an audacious move to outshine his mentor.

via ISIS bids for global jihad leadership with Mosul attack – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

47 years of occupation: Every photo tells a story | +972 Magazine

47 years of occupation: Every photo tells a story

Marking 47 years of the Israeli occupation since 1967, we asked Activestills photographers to choose one photograph from their archive and write about it.

via 47 years of occupation: Every photo tells a story | +972 Magazine.

Texas GOP endorses harmful ex-gay conversion therapy

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that a party which is opposed to science and so in favor of legislating (so-called) morality is promoting ex-gay conversion therapy, also known as “reparative therapy.” This weekend, 7,000 delegates at the Texas GOP Convention at the Forth Worth Convention Center ratified a platform which recognized the “legitimacy and value of counseling which offers reparative therapy and treatment to patients who are seeking escape from the homosexual lifestyle.”

via Texas GOP endorses harmful ex-gay conversion therapy.

Jerks Photo of the Day: Michigan GOP pretends to read fashion mags, claims they understand women

What do you do when you’re accused of fighting a “War on Women” because you, for instance, force them to purchase abortion insurance in case they get raped? If you’re the Michigan GOP, you turn it into a hilarious joke.

Republican Congressmen Peter Pettalia, Roger Victory, and Ben Glardon totally shattered the idea that they’re anti-woman by posing for a photo while reading Glamour and Harper’s Bazaar.  Michigan Public Radio Network reporter Jake Neher tweeted the photo along with this zinger which Pettalia uttered ”a couple of times” because it is that funny: “Don’t say we don’t understand women.”

In response, four women members of Michigan’s Democratic House delegation, tweeted their own photo of themselves reading proposed bills, with the caption “Real Women read bills not fashion mags.”

via Photo of the Day: Michigan GOP pretends to read fashion mags, claims they understand women.

Koch Brothers’ $25 Million Gift to UNCF Sparks Controversy | News | PND

Who does this guy think he is kidding – it is just about the money and if the Koch Brothers can claim they are not prejudiced while supporting the destruction of voting rights – that’s OK with him?

UNCF president Michael Lomax told Insider Higher Ed that the organization does not  factor the politics of potential donors into its gift-acceptance decisions. “UNCF has one principle that we hold on to — and it’s one that I looked at throughout this process, and that I’ve held firm to,” he said. “[T]hat is that we believe and have believed for seventy years that our cause should be supported by all Americans, and therefore we urge all Americans to support UNCF.”

via Koch Brothers’ $25 Million Gift to UNCF Sparks Controversy | News | PND.

{The next bubble to impoverish US warming up!} Wall Street Sets Its Sights on Renters | Inter Press Service

Right as housing prices bottomed out around January 2012, large institutional investors began buying distressed properties in regions hit hard by the foreclosure crisis; they’ve purchased at least 200,000 to date.

In only a year, private equity giant Blackstone Group went from owning no single-family rental properties (SFRs) to being the U.S.’ single largest landlord.

Now, several companies, including Blackstone, are packaging their SFRs into bonds similar to the mortgage backed securities that fueled the financial crisis.

Like those securities, SFR bonds are backed by homes; but this time rental payments, rather than mortgage payments, pay the interest. Securitisation frees up money, allowing big buyers to purchase more properties with less capital by increasing their leverage – and risk.

via Wall Street Sets Its Sights on Renters | Inter Press Service.

“Because I can and want to! Nah, naw, nah, na! Despite U.N. ruling, Japan says it will resume whaling – UPI.com

Despite a whaling ban imposed months earlier by the International Court of Justice, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said Japan plans to resume its whale hunt in the Antarctic.

“I want to aim for the resumption of commercial whaling by conducting whaling research.”

The ICJ ruled on March 31 that Japan’s annual whale hunt — conducted under the auspices of a scientific research program — did not conform to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling, and ordered Japan to stop the program.

It is unclear how Japan intends to bypass the ban.

via Despite U.N. ruling, Japan says it will resume whaling – UPI.com.

Humans of New York

Humans of New York.

“I’ve been working my whole life to make the word ‘organic’ mean something. I lobbied for 20 years. I was hopeful when the National Organic Program was instituted in 2000. I saw an early version of the bill, two months before it was passed, and I’m telling you— it was awesome. But they gutted it. By the time they got done with it, 142 synthetics were lawfully permitted in the growing of ‘organic’ food.”